A Winter's Tale, Act 5, Scene 1, Lines 1-131

Earlier this week, on a sweltering afternoon by the fan, Paul and I read the opening of act 5 of A Winter's Tale. It had been weeks, possibly months, since we'd last managed to sit down with the play. Act 4 had been an endless rustic farce/secret identity hi-jink; so I, at least, was relieved that act 5 was instantly reimmersing me in Leontes' single-minded selfishness. Paul was in some kind of mood, however, and his read-aloud style was less than inspiring. For reasons best known to himself, he decided to emote all the courtiers' lines in the same high nasal drone, as if they were poorly acted robot characters. This left me to act out Leontes and Paulina.

Which was not a bad fate. For that Paulina is something else. She will not let the king off the hook for his familial misdeeds. She insists on kicking him when he's down, rubbing salt in his wounds, nailing his tattered scalp to the fence. Leontes wails,

She I kill'd? I did so, but thou strik'st me

Sorely, to say I did. It is as bitter

Upon thy tongue as in my thought. Now, good, now,

Say so but seldom.

But she won't "say so but seldom," though Cleomines, the king's courtier, remarks:

You might have spoken a thousand things that would

Have done the time more benefit, and grac'd

Your kindness better.

But is kindness always better than bitterness? Once again, Shakespeare starts confusing my sympathies. Leontes can't be pitiable, can he? He willfully destroyed his marriage and lost his children. Paulina, by his agency, lost her husband and her friend. Does that make her acerbity right? Or is cruelty still cruelty, no matter who wields it?

William "No Easy Answers" Shakespeare is at work again. It's interesting how young I feel when I read his plays, how innocent of life. Everything is so complicated. The shades of motivation are so subtle, yet the actions are so decisive. Life is a terror of remorse and display.

Outside my kitchen window, a crow is screeching. Inside my kitchen, yesterday's mouse (curse his bones) is still insouciantly ignoring the trap. No matter how hot it is today, I'll have to bake bread. Suddenly, all of this sounds Shakespearean, though none of it is . . . though, perhaps, everything is.