Florizel little imagined it was his father talking to him, and he replied that the gifts Perdita prized were those contained within his heart; and then he begged the “old man” to be a witness of their marriage.

Still keeping up his disguise, Polixenes asked Florizel if he had no father to bid as a guest to his wedding.  But the young man said there were reasons why he should not speak of the matter to his father.

Polixenes chose this for the moment in which to make himself known; and reproaching his son bitterly for giving his love to a low-born maiden, bade him accompany Camillo back to court.

As the king retired thus angry, Perdita said, “I was not much afraid; for once or twice I was about to speak, to tell him plainly,—­

  “The self-same sun that shines upon his court
  Hides not his visage from our cottage, but
  Looks on alike.”

Then she sorrowfully bade Florizel leave her.

Camillo felt sorry for the two, and thought of a way in which he could stand their friend.  Having known a long time that his former master, Leontes, repented of all his cruelty, he proposed that Florizel and Perdita should accompany him to Sicily to beg the king to win for them the consent of Polixenes to their marriage.

The old shepherd was allowed to be of the party, and he took with him the clothes and jewels which had been found with Perdita, and also the paper on which her name had been written.

On their arrival, Leontes received Camillo with kindness, and welcomed Prince Florizel; but it was Perdita who engrossed all his thoughts.  She seemed to remind him of his fair queen Hermione, and he broke out into bitter self-accusation, saying that he might have had just such another lovely maiden to call him father, but for his own cruelty.

The shepherd, listening to the king’s lamentations, began to compare the time when he had lost the royal infant with the time when Perdita was found, and he came to the conclusion that she and the daughter of Leontes were one and the same person.  When he felt assured of this he told his tale, showed the rich mantle which had been wrapped round the infant, and her remaining jewels; and Leontes knew that his daughter was brought back to him once more.  Joyful as such tidings were, his sorrow at the thought of Hermione, who had not lived to behold her child thus grown into a fair maiden, almost exceeded his happiness, so that he kept exclaiming, “Oh, thy mother! thy mother!”

Paulina now appeared, begging Leontes to go to her house and look at a statue she possessed which greatly resembled Hermione.  Anxious to see anything like his much-lamented wife, the king agreed; and when the curtain was drawn back his sorrow was stirred afresh.  At last he said that the statue gave Hermione a more aged, wrinkled look than when he last beheld her; but Paulina replied, that if so, it was a proof of the sculptor’s art, who represented the queen as she would appear after the sixteen years which had passed.  She would have drawn the curtain again, but Leontes begged her to wait a while, and again he appealed to those about him to say if it was not indeed a marvelous likeness.