In Greene and in Shakespeare the King wishes the Queen’s death because he is uncomfortable so long as she lives, and he prefers his comfort to aught else, taking it as his conjugal right and royal prerogative.  (See ii. 3, 1 and 204.) The Queen, understanding this, says, “My life stands in the level of your dreams, which I’ll lay down.”  To her she says, “can life be no commodity” when love, “the crown and comfort of her life,” is gone.  So Alkestis (see any translation of Euripides, in Bohn edition, literal prose translation, vol. i. p. 223) says she “was not willing to live bereft” of Admetos, therefore she did not spare herself to die for him, “though possessing the gifts of bloomy youth wherein” she “delighted.”  This point of correspondence may have occurred to Shakespeare and suggested his continuation of Greene’s novel.  Admetos’ image of his wife, that he would have made by the cunning hands of artists, is possibly a prototype of the statue of the Queen in ‘The Winter’s Tale,’ the piece “newly performed by that rare Italian master, Julio Romano.”  Compare also, Herakles’ trial of Admetos with Paulina’s trial of Leontes (v. i); and Herakles’ restoration of the unknown Alkestis to her husband with Paulina’s bringing the statue of the Queen to life.

QUERIES FOR DISCUSSION

Is Shakespeare’s use of a striking incident from the ‘Alkestis’ too close not to have been suggested by it?  Does it show his intention to portray in Hermione a new Alkestis?

III

SHAKESPEARE’S ORIGINALITY IN WORKING OVER HIS MATERIAL

Note Shakespeare’s departures from Greene and their significance.  Do they serve two ends,—­make the play more effective for stage representation, make the characters stronger?  Does he make Leontes more attractive than Greene does in the first part of the play?  Does he make him worse or better than Pandosto in the second part?  What is the sole trace left in Shakespeare of the father’s guilty passion for his daughter?  Garinter, in Greene, dies without any cause.  See Shakespeare’s explanation of this, also his use of the news of Mamillius’ death to strike shame to the king’s heart.  Greene makes the king relent as soon as he hears the oracle.  Contrast Shakespeare’s conduct of the scene at this point.

Notice the difference in his treatment of the character of the cup-bearer.  Does he make it his chief care to enhance the character of the Queen?  Note the new characters introduced,—­Paulina, Antigonus, Autolycus, the clown (in place of the wife in Greene).  Conjecture any reason for his different names.  The introduction of Autolycus makes the play more amusing on the stage, but is his part as well planned as Capnio’s for leading up to the denouement?  Greene lets his mariners off alive after they set Fawnia afloat.  Shakespeare wrecks his, and makes a bear eat Antigonus, to what end?  What does Shakespeare gain by prolonging the life of Hermione?