Bear-Naked Shakespeare

Exit, pursued by a bear

Photo by Hans-Jurgen Mager on Unsplash

“Exit, pursued by a bear.” — The Winter’s Tale, Act III, Scene 3.

Shakespeare wrote plays. That may seem a bit basic to say, but since most of us are introduced to the works in an academic setting, sometimes we lose sight of the context. Yes, the language is beautiful and most of what we know about the characters comes from what they say. But, occasionally, he also gave us insight into those characters by what they did by directing their actions with stage directions. And, perhaps the most famous of those stage directions, is our quote this week: Exit, pursued by a bear.

But, I’m getting ahead of myself. What are stage directions? They’re directions to the actors to perform actions on the stage. No Sweat Shakespeare has an article here if you need more detail than that. Often, these stage directions are simple, i.e. when to come onto or off of the stage. But sometimes they are more colorful, such as the direction for the character of Ariel in The Tempest to enter “like a Harpy” and “clap[] his wings upon the table, and with a quant device the banquet vanishes.” In other instances, the direction is missing altogether, leaving it to the actors and directors to make their own interpretation, such as Isabella’s silence after the Duke proposes in Measure for Measure.

Which brings us back to the bear. Now, it’s generally believed that there was not an *actual* bear brought on stage for this scene. However, at the time the play was written (around 1609-11ish), there was a bear-baiting arena next to the Globe Theatre (it’s a horrific sport that I won’t describe here, but if you’re curious, here’s a link to an article from the History Channel) and King James (the reigning monarch) owned polar bear cubs. So, a live bear was not completely without the realm of possibility… But I’ll let you decide.

Anyway, back to … The Winter’s Tale.¹

The Shake-Scene

While the First Folio categorizes Shakespeare’s plays as either Comedy, Tragedy, or History, scholars now categorize certain plays into a fourth category known as “problem plays,” “pastoral romances,” or “tragi-comedies.” And The Winter’s Tale is one such play because it has elements of comedy and tragedy.

The play begins in Sicilia where the King, Leontes, and his very pregnant wife, Hermione, host his friend the King of Bohemia, Polixenes. Polixenes means to leave to return home the next morning, and the King and his Queen beg him to stay. Unfortunately… Hermione begs a little too intently. And, with the appearance of the green-eyed monster,² the play begins winding towards a tragic ending.

Leontes, convinced that Hermione has been unfaithful with Polixenes, demands his servant murder Polixenes. The servant agrees in fear but ultimately confesses the plot to Polixenes and the two flee back to Bohemia. Leontes, the bastion of good judgment and rationality (sarcasm), takes their flight as confirmation that his Queen has been unfaithful. He also decides that the child Hermione is carrying is fathered by Polixenes. He takes their older son, Mamillius, away from her and causes Hermione to be arrested for adultery.

But, for once in Shakespeare, everyone didn’t assume the accused woman was unfaithful. Instead, the court of Sicilia is suspicious of Leontes’s claims, so he sends delegates to the oracle of Apollo for confirmation. Meanwhile, a gentlewoman, Paulina, attempts to visit Hermione in prison. She learns Hermione has given birth to a daughter, and thinks seeing this daughter will convince Leontes to stop being ridiculous. But despite her impassioned arguments, Leontes will not relent. Instead, he forces Paulina’s husband to take the baby off to be abandoned in the wilderness.³

Which brings us to Act III. Hermione pleads for her own innocence at her trial and the delegates return to say that the oracle of Apollo declared her innocent, but Leontes will not be swayed. He refuses to believe Hermione and Apollo’s oracle. And mere seconds later, a messenger arrives to tell him his son has died. The Queen swoons (and eventually dies⁴). Leontes vows to Apollo to repent, but it is too late. His son and Queen are dead, and his daughter is lost. And thus, in tragedy, we close Act 3.

But soft, what light through yonder window breaks — a comedic heroine? As we close Act 3, the princess is brought to the wilderness of Bohemia and left. And the one who is willing to leave a baby amidst a storm in a foreign wilderness? Well, he “exits, pursued by a bear.” Serves him right, honestly… But unlike her ill-fated companion, the Princess is found by a Shepherd. And the Shepherd’s son tells us the ship that brought the Princess is wrecked (all souls lost) and the man who left her in the forest is killed by the bear. So no soul alive knows the Princess belongs in Sicilia.

Father time appears to tell us sixteen years has passed. And now we are in fair Bohemia, and the trappings of comedy appear. We have the necessary fools (the Princess’s less-than-intellectually-endowed adopted brother and a singing, thieving knave) and not-so-star-crossed young lovers. For, you see, the Princess (Perdita — Italian for “Lost”) and the son of King Polixenes (the guy Leontes falsely accused of being Perdita’s father) are in love. But only we the audience know she is a Princess, and Polixenes refuses to let his son marry a common shepherdess. So, Perdita and the Prince run away together. Ah, back on the sure-footing of Shakespearean comedy… right?

The servant who fled with Polixenes to Bohemia, desiring to go back to Sicilia himself, convinces Perdita and the Prince to flee there. Polixenes learns of this, and follows them (along with the servant, the Shepherd who adopted Perdita, and his son).

So, we enter Act V unsure of whether we’re presented with a comedy or a tragedy (Especially since Shakespeare’s source material for this play is ends in tragedy). The young lovers find a still repenting Leontes who makes oaths to Paulina never to marry again. He sees Perdita and is overcome by her beauty (hopefully because she looks like her mother…) and agrees to intercede to Polixenes on their behalf.⁵

And again time moves forward without us seeing the happy reunion. Instead, we are told that everyone has realized Perdita is the lost Princess (see what Shakespeare did there?) and everyone is reconciled to everyone else. And, in celebration, they are all going to see a statue of the queen that Paulina (remember her?) has sculpted. A sculpture that is an aged version of Hermione so she looks as she would had sixteen years passed. A *very* lifelike … “sculpture.”

And then the sculpture moves. And is alive. Hermione and Leontes are reconciled — Hermione has slightly higher standards than Hero in Much Ado About Nothing— and Hermione blesses her found daughter. Now, did Pauline keep the Queen secret for sixteen years or did a statue come to life? Shakespeare lets us be the judge. And so, unlike comedy or tragedy, the resolution of this play is not in death or marriage (although there are marriages), the resolution is the interior transformation of Leontes. Hence it being a “problem play.”

As I mentioned above and in the footnotes, this is a different ending than the source materials. And while trying to decide what Shakespeare was thinking is generally a lost cause (and probably not an overly relevant one), I do wonder if he’d softened in his old age, opting for redemption over tragedy. He gave King Lear redemption (written around 1605 or 1606) but made him die for it. At the time The Winter’s Tale was written, Shakespeare’s son Hamnet had been dead over fifteen years and his father dead around a decade. Shakespeare was the father of only daughters. And maybe that’s why Leontes was given life after his tragedy.

Or, maybe it’s because this was first performed at the wedding of King James’s daughter. Who knows? Just enjoy the lack of devastating tragedy because we will get to Lear eventually…

Speak the Speech, I Pray You

Bring Shakespeare’s words into your own life by:

• Sending a friend off on a tragic camping trip;

• Chasing your toddler around with a toy;

• And… getting your boyfriend-stealing bestie to LEAVE!

Additional Resources

• Find a copy of the entire play here.

• Read the Globe’s discussion of this stage direction here.

• Comment below your favorite staged or filmed version of the play!

1. I’m changing the titling for the summary section of the Substack, because I recently learned the earliest references to Shakespeare as a playwright is a derisive pamphlet by Robert Greene mocking Shakespeare as believing he is “the only Shakes-scene” in the country.

2. The phrase “green-eyed monster” as meaning jealousy actually comes from Othello. It’s an interesting exercise to compare the jealousies of Othello (tricked by Iago with a stolen handkerchief) or Claudius (tricked by Don John with a faked amorous scene) with Leontes. No one convinces Leontes that Hermione is unfaithful. In fact, everyone tries to convince him she is not. Instead, his jealousy appears to arise in an instant.

3. Interestingly, he first suggests the baby and Paulina be burned. Perhaps a nod to the burning of withes in Scotland (under King James) in the 1590s.

4. Or does she?

5. He does make reference that he might want Perdita as his wife but quickly changes his mind. In the source material for the play, Leontes is not so quick to relent and eventually dies because he’s disgusted by his incestual longings… But that’s why the Shakespeare play endures.