The Winter's Tale
Overview
The Winter's Tale is a play by William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

, originally published in the First Folio
First Folio
Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. is the 1623 published collection of William Shakespeare's plays. Modern scholars commonly refer to it as the First Folio....

 of 1623. Although it was grouped among the comedies, some modern editors have relabelled the play as one of Shakespeare's late romances
Shakespeare's late romances
The late romances, often simply called the romances, are a grouping of what many scholars believe to be William Shakespeare's later plays, including Pericles, Prince of Tyre; Cymbeline; The Winter's Tale; and The Tempest. The Two Noble Kinsmen is sometimes included in this grouping...

. Some critics, among them W. W. Lawrence, consider it to be one of Shakespeare's "problem plays
Problem plays (Shakespeare)
In Shakespeare studies, the term problem plays normally refers to three plays that William Shakespeare wrote between the late 1590s and the first years of the seventeenth century: All's Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure and Troilus and Cressida, although some critics would extend the term to...

", because the first three acts are filled with intense psychological drama, while the last two acts are comedic and supply a happy ending
Happy ending
A happy ending is an ending of the plot of a work of fiction in which almost everything turns out for the best for the protagonists, their sidekicks, and almost everyone except the villains....

.

Nevertheless, the play has been intermittently popular, revived in productions in various forms and adaptations by some of the leading theatre practitioners in Shakespearean performance history, beginning after a long interval with David Garrick
David Garrick
David Garrick was an English actor, playwright, theatre manager and producer who influenced nearly all aspects of theatrical practice throughout the 18th century and was a pupil and friend of Dr Samuel Johnson...

 in his adaptation called Florizel and Perdita (first performed in 1754 and published in 1756.
Quotations

Camillo: You pay a great deal too dear for what's given freely.Archidamus: Believe me, I speak as my understanding instructs me, and as mine honesty puts it to utterance.

Scene i

You put me off with limber vows; but I,Though you would seek to unsphere the stars with oaths,Should yet say, Sir, no going. Verily,You shall not go; a lady's verily'sAs potent as a lord's. Will you go yet?Force me to keep you as a prisoner,Not like a guest; so you shall pay your feesWhen you depart, and save your thanks. How say you?My prisoner or my guest? by your dread verily,One of them you shall be.

Hermione, scene ii

We were, fair queen,Two lads that thought there was no more behind,But such a day to-morrow as to-day,And to be boy eternal.

Polixenes, scene ii

What we chang'dWas innocence for innocence; we knew notThe doctrine of ill-doing, nor dream'dThat any did.

Polixenes, scene ii

Of this make no conclusion, lest you sayYour queen and I are devils: yet, go on;The offences we have made you do, we'll answer,If you first sinn'd with us, and that with usYou did continue fault, and that you slipp'd notWith any but with us.

Hermione, scene ii

My last good deed was to entreat his stay;What was my first? it has an elder sister,Or I mistake you: O, would her name were Grace!But once before I spoke to the purpose: when?Nay, let me have't; I long.

Hermione, scene ii

They say we areAlmost as like as eggs.

Leontes, scene ii

You may as wellForbid the sea for to obey the moon,As, or by oath remove, or counsel shakeThe fabric of his folly, whose foundationIs pil'd upon his faith, and will continueThe standing of his body.

Camillo, scene ii

 
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