to be read aloud, and these were the words: 'Hermione is innocent,
Polixenes blameless,-Camillo a true subject, Leontes a jealous tyrant,
and the king shall live without an heir if that which is lost be not
found.' The king would give no credit to the words of the oracle: he
said it was a falsehood invented by the queen's friends, and he desired
the judge to proceed in the trial of the queen; but while Leontes was
speaking, a man entered and told him that the prince Mamillius,
hearing his mother was to be tried for her life, struck with grief and
shame, had suddenly died.

Hermione, upon hearing of the death of this dear affectionate child,
who had lost his life in sorrowing for her misfortune, fainted; and
Leontes, pierced to the heart by the news, began to feel pity for his
unhappy queen, and he ordered Paulina, and the ladies who were her
attendants, to take her away, and use means for her recovery. Paulina
soon returned, and told the king that Hermione was dead.

When Leontes heard that the queen was dead, he repented of his
cruelty to her; and now that he thought his ill-usage had broken
Hermione's heart, he believed her innocent; and now he thought the
words of the oracle were true, as he knew 'if that which was lost was
not found,' which he concluded was his young daughter, he should be
without an heir, the young prince Mamillius being dead; and he would
give his kingdom now to recover his lost daughter: and Leontes gave
himself up to remorse, and passed many years in mournful thoughts
and repentant grief.

The ship in which Antigonus carried the infant princess out to sea was
driven by a storm upon the coast of Bohemia, the very kingdom of the
good king Polixenes. Here Antigonus landed, and here he left the little