“Hermione is innocent; Polixenes blameless; Camillo a true subject; Leontes a jealous tyrant; the innocent babe is his daughter; and the King shall live without an heir if that which is lost be not found.”
“Now blessed be the great Apollo!” shouted all the lords.
“Praised!” cried Hermione.
“Hast thou read truth?” demanded Leontes.
“Ay, my lord, even so as it is here set down,” said the officer of the court.
“There is no truth at all in the Oracle,” exclaimed Leontes. “The trial shall proceed; this is mere falsehood.”
But at that instant came a terrible shock to the headstrong King. A servant entered with the mournful tidings that the young Prince, the noble boy Mamillius, was dead. The separation from his beloved mother, and dread as to her possible fate, had so wrought on the imagination of the sensitive child that he had died of grief.
On hearing of this new calamity, Hermione’s fortitude gave way, and she fell fainting to the ground.
Leontes’s stubborn spirit began to quail. He saw in this blow the wrath of heaven against his injustice. He admitted that he had too much believed his suspicions; he ordered that the Queen should be carried away, and every remedy tenderly applied to restore her to life.
In his new terror he hastily began to make good resolutions. He would be reconciled with Polixenes; he would woo the Queen again; he would recall Camillo, whom he forthwith proclaimed a man of mercy and truth, for by his piety and humanity he had saved the life of Polixenes when Leontes would have poisoned him.