The Chautauquan, Vol. 03, January 1883: A Monthly Magazine Devoted to the Promotion of True Culture.; Organ of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific CircleChautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
History
The Chautauquan, Vol. 03, January 1883: A Monthly Magazine Devoted to the Promotion of True Culture.; Organ of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
Chautauqua Institution -- Periodicals; Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle -- Periodicals
The kind-hearted Camillo was charmed with the spirit and propriety of
Perdita’s behavior; and perceiving that the young prince was too deeply
in love to give up his mistress at the command of his royal father,
he thought of a way to befriend the lovers, and at the same time to
execute a favorite scheme he had in his mind.
Camillo had long known that Leontes, the king of Sicily, was become a
true penitent; and though Camillo was now the favored friend of King
Polixenes, he could not help wishing once more to see his late royal
master and his native home. He therefore proposed to Florizel and
Perdita that they should accompany him to the Sicilian court, where he
would engage Leontes should protect them, till through his mediation
they could obtain pardon from Polixenes and his consent to their
marriage.
To this proposal they joyfully agreed; and Camillo, who conducted
everything relative to their flight, allowed the old shepherd to go
along with them.
The shepherd took with him the remainder of Perdita’s jewels, her baby
clothes, and the paper which he had found pinned to her mantle.
After a prosperous voyage, Florizel and Perdita, Camillo and the
old shepherd, arrived in safety at the court of Leontes, who still
mourned his dead Hermione and his lost child, received Camillo with
great kindness, and gave a cordial welcome to Prince Florizel. But
Perdita, whom Florizel introduced as his princess, seemed to engross
all Leontes’ attention. Perceiving a resemblance between her and his
dead queen Hermione, his grief broke out afresh, and he said, such a
lovely creature might his own daughter have been, if he had not so
cruelly destroyed her. “And then, too,” said he to Florizel, “I lost
the society and friendship of your brave father, whom I now desire more
than my life once again to look upon.”
When the old shepherd heard how much notice the king had taken of
Perdita, and that he had lost a daughter, who was exposed in infancy,
he fell to comparing the time when he found the little Perdita with the
manner of its exposure, the jewels and other high tokens of its high
birth; from all which it was impossible for him not to conclude that
Perdita and the king’s lost daughter were the same.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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