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Nine changes of the wat’ry star hath been
The shepherd’s note since we have left our throne
Without a burden. (1.2.1–3)
The play’s second scene opens with these lines from Polixenes, who is announcing his departure from Sicilia after a nine-month stay. He says that he’s been away from home for too long, leaving his throne empty and Bohemia vulnerable to potential threats. As often happens in Shakespeare, apparently harmless lines at the beginning of the play often turn out to have prophetic importance. In this case, Polixenes’s seemingly benign concern about having left “our throne / Without a burden” may be read as subtly foreshadowing the death of Leontes’s firstborn. When Mamillius dies in the third act, his baby sister has already been sent away, effectively leaving Leontes without a future heir. Thus, Polixenes’s worry about too much time away entails a suggestion of impending tragedy. Significantly, the nine months of his stay also conveniently line up with the period of Hermione’s pregnancy, which helps spur Leontes’s jealousy.
I, that please some, try all—both joy and terror
Of good and bad, that makes and unfolds error—
Now take upon me, in the name of Time,
To use my wings. Impute it not a crime
To me or my swift passage that I slide
O’er sixteen years, and leave the growth untried
Of that wide gap, since it is in my power
To o’erthrow law and in one self-born hour
To plant and o’erwhelm custom. Let me pass
The same I am ere ancient’st order was
Or what is now received. (4.1.1–11)
Act 4 opens with these lines, spoken by an actor embodying the abstract concept of time. The appearance of Time as a character clearly signals the thematic importance of time. And interestingly, Time begins with an open admission that his presence is at once pleasing and trying; he is both a “joy” and a “terror,” all at once “good and bad.” In saying this, Time reflects generally on the way that time’s passage can bring both ruin and healing, depending on the context. However, there’s also something cheeky going on when Time announces that “it is in my power / To o’erthrow law . . . and o’erwhelm custom.” Here, Shakespeare is speaking directly to those neoclassical critics of his own time who affirmed that all tragedies should adhere to the classical unities. One such unity pertained to the unity of time, whereby a play’s action must take place within a 24-hour span. However, Shakespeare breaks this apparent law, which he implies is, in fact, merely a custom. By having Time appear onstage to set the clock forward sixteen years, Shakespeare takes pleasure in inviting his critics’ curses.
Good Paulina,
Lead us from hence, where we may leisurely
Each one demand and answer to his part
Performed in this wide gap of time since first
We were dissevered. Hastily lead away. (5.3.188–92)
With these lines, Leontes brings The Winter’s Tale to a close. By this point in the play, all the tensions have been resolved. A broken friendship has been renewed, a lost daughter has safely returned, and an apparently dead wife has been miraculously resurrected. The only tragedies that remain unaddressed are the deaths of Leontes’s son, Mamillius, and Paulina’s husband, Antigonus. The king can’t redeem his son’s death, but he ends the play by betrothing Paulina to the loyal lord Camillo. When Paulina declares herself ready to disappear and devote the rest of her life to mourning her late husband, Leontes offers her the blessing of a happier future. This act marks a symbolic stitch in time meant to help heal the past. The king ends by implying that this is just the beginning of the work needed to bridge “this wide gap of time” that has separated these characters from one another for so long.
