• Winter's Tales, Shakespear

• Introduction
• Short Summary
• Detailed Summary
• Summary Act I-Scene-I
• Summary Act I, Scene II
• Summary Act II, Scene I
• Summary Act II, Scene II
• Summary Act II, Scene III
• Summary Act III, Scene I&II
• Summary Act III, Scene III
• Summary Act IV, Scene I-III
• Summary Act IV, Scene IV
• Summary Act V, Scene I
• Summary Act V, Scene II
• Characters in "Winter's Tales"
• Leontes, King of Sicilia
• Hermione, Queen of Sicilia
• Perdita: the shepherdess
• Character of Camillo
• Polixenes: King of Bohemia
• Florizel, Prince of Bohemia
• Character of Paulina
• Winter's Tales Themes and Topics
• Top 10 Quotes from Winter's Tales
• Best Quotes from Winter's Tales

Act II, Scene III-Detailed Summary of Winter's Tales: "Winter's Tales" by William Shakespeare

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Scene III

The king is in his room in deep dejection over the supposed disloyalty of his queen and the fleeing of Polixenes with Camillo. Paulina enters the room of the king despite the guards' stopping her. She tells the king of the new born child and pleads innocence for the queen but Leontes is not willing to listen. He orders Antigonus to burn the child:

"My child? away with't! Even thou, that hast
A heart so tender o'er it, take it hence
And see it instantly consumed with fire;".

Antigonus request the king not to kill the child:

"I'll pawn the little blood which I have left
To save the innocent: any thing possible."

But the king pardons the life of his wife and asks him to abandon the child in some remote place:

"thou carry
This female bastard hence and that thou bear it
To some remote and desert place quite out
Of our dominions, and that there thou leave it".

When Antigonus is gone, a servant informs the king of the arrival of the messengers earlier sent to the oracle of Apollo.