Chapter 1STRATFORD 1564Here begins the plague...Exit pursued by a bear: antigonus is torn to pieces. a clownish young shepherd witnesses his death on land and many more losses on the sea as a tempest-tossed ship is swallowed by the waves. “A sad tale’s best for winter,” little Prince Mamillius has said, before being struck by death himself. But Shakespeare’s Winter’s Tale veers from tragedy to comedy. Young Shepherd’s breathless description of heavy matters is counterpointed against Old Shepherd’s amazed discovery of new life in the form of the abandoned baby Perdita. “Thou met’st with things dying,” he serenely remarks to his son, “I with things new born.”In Shakespeare’s England, birth and death went cheek by jowl. Each entry in the parish register of Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon- Avon, is encoded with a single letter: C for christened, M for married, and B for buried. A ceaseless procession of birth, copulation, and death: human life stripped to its essentials. Shortly after the entry that reads “1564 ... read full excerpt from: Soul of the Age ebook
