“Of my own accord I will go, but first I’ll do my errand,” she said haughtily. Then, kneeling before the King, she placed the child at his feet. “The good Queen—for she is good—hath brought you forth a daughter,” she said. “Here it is; she commends it to your blessing.”
But her appeal was useless. With uncontrolled fury Leontes bade her be gone, and to take the child with her. Paulina cared nothing for his wild torrent of abuse, but unflinchingly expressed her opinion that he was acting in a most senseless manner, and said that his cruel usage of the Queen would make him scandalous to the world.
The outspoken lady was at last hustled away, but she left the child behind her, bidding the King look to it. Paulina’s husband, Antigonus, had taken up the infant in pity, and now Leontes turned on him with fury, accusing him of having set on his wife, and ordering him to take away the child and kill it.
“She commends it to your blessing.”
Antigonus respectfully denied that he had set on his wife, and the other lords confirmed what he said, and further besought on their knees that Leontes would relent from his horrible purpose. Softening a little, Leontes grudgingly consented that the child might live, but he forthwith commanded Antigonus, on his allegiance, to carry it away to some remote and desert place quite out of his dominions, and there leave it, without more mercy, to its own protection and the favour of the climate. Chance might nurse it, or end it.
Antigonus, though sore at heart, did as he had sworn to the King he would do, and carried away the child. That night, as he was in the ship that conveyed them away from the domain of Sicilia, there came to him a dream. The spirit of Hermione stood before him, clad in pure white robes, her eyes flashing fire. When their fury was spent, she spoke thus:
“Good Antigonus, since Fate, against thy better disposition, had made thy person for the thrower-out of my poor babe, according to thine oath, there are places remote enough in Bohemia; there weep, and leave it crying. And because the babe is counted lost for ever, prithee call it Perdita. For this ungentle business, put on thee by my lord, thou never more shalt see thy wife Paulina.”
And so, wailing, the vision melted into the air.