Tales From Shakespeare [12]
Camillo was a good man, and he, well knowing that the jealousy of Leontes had not the slightest foundation in truth, instead of poisoning Polixenes, acquainted him with the king his master's orders, and agreed to escape with him out of the Sicilian dominions; and Polixenes, with the assistance of Camillo, arrived safe in his own kingdom of Bohemia, where Camillo lived from that time in the king's court and became the chief friend and favorite of Polixenes.
The flight of Polixenes enraged the jealous Leontes still more; he went to the queen's apartment, where the good lady was sitting with her little son Mamillius, who was just beginning to tell one of his best stories to amuse his mother, when the king entered and, taking the child away, sent Hermione to prison.
Mamillius, though but a very young child, loved his mother tenderly; and when he saw her so dishonored, and found she was taken from him to be put into a prison, he took it deeply to heart and drooped and pined away by slow degrees, losing his appetite and his sleep, till it was thought his grief would kill him.
The king, when he had sent his queen to prison, commanded Cleomenes and Dion, two Sicilian lords, to go to Delphos, there to inquire of the oracle at the temple of Apollo if his queen had been unfaithful to him.
When Hermione had been a short time in prison she was brought to bed of a daughter; and the poor lady received much comfort from the sight of her pretty baby, and she said to it, "My poor little prisoner, I am as innocent as you are."
Hermione had a kind friend in the noble-spirited Paulina, who was the wife of Antigonus, a Sicilian lord; and when the lady Paulina heard her royal mistress was brought to bed she went to the prison where Hermione was confined; and she said to Emilia, a lady who attended upon Hermione, "I pray you, Emilia, tell the good queen, if her Majesty dare trust me with her little babe, I will carry it to the king, its father: we do not know how he may soften at the sight of his innocent child."
"Most worthy madam," replied Emilia, "I will acquaint the queen with your noble offer. She was wishing to-day that she had any friend who would venture to present the child to the king."
"And tell her," said Paulina. "that I will speak boldly to Leontes in her defense."
"May you be forever blessed," said Emilia, "for your kindness to our gracious queen!"
Emilia then went to Hermione, who joyfully gave up her baby to the care of Paulina, for she had feared that no one would dare venture to present the child to its father.
Paulina took the new-born infant and, forcing herself into the king's presence, notwithstanding her husband, fearing the king's anger, endeavored to prevent her, she laid the babe at its father's feet; and Paulina made a noble speech to the king in defense of Hermione, and she reproached him severely for his inhumanity and implored him to have mercy on his innocent wife and child. But Paulina's spirited remonstrances only aggravated Leontes's displeasure, and he ordered her husband Antigonus to take her from his presence.
When Paulina went away she left the little baby at its father's feet, thinking when he was alone with it he would look upon it and have pity on its helpless innocence.
The good Paulina was mistaken, for no sooner was she gone than the merciless father ordered Antigonus, Paulina's husband, to take the child and carry it out to sea and leave it upon some desert shore to perish.
Antigonus, unlike the good Camillo, too well obeyed the orders of Leontes; for he immediately carried the child on shipboard, and put out to sea, intending to leave it on the first desert coast he could find.
So firmly was the king persuaded of the guilt of Hermione that he would not wait for the return of Cleomenes and Dion; whom he had sent to consult the oracle of Apollo at Delphos, but before the queen was recovered from her lying-in, and from the grief for the loss of her precious baby, he had her brought to a public trial before all the lords and nobles of his court. And when all