Shakespeare’s plays
Date Written
Date Range
(conjectures of the best editors)
(composition / performance)
First Published
Timon of Athens
1606
1598 - ?
1623
Pericles Prince of
Tyre
1607
1598 - 1608
1609
Coriolanus
1608
1598 - ?
1623
Cymbeline
1609
1598 - 1611
1623
A Winter's Tale
1610
1598 - 1611
1623
The Tempest
1611
1610 - 1611
1623
Henry VIII
1613
1612 - 1613
1623
Time, as Chorus
Leontes, King of Sicilia
Mamillius, his son
Hermione, Queen to Leontes
Perdita, daughter to Leontes and
Hermione
Paulina, wife to Antigonus
Emilia, a lady attending on the Queen
Other Ladies, attending on the Queen
Camillo, Sicilian Lord
Antigonus, Sicilian Lord
Cleomenes, Sicilian Lord
Dion, Sicilian Lord
Other Sicilian Lords
Sicilian Gentlemen
Officers of a Court of Judicature
Gaoler
A Mariner
Polixenes, King of Bohemia
Florizel, his son
Archidamus, a Bohemian Lord
An Old Shepherd, reputed father of Perdita
Clown, his son
Servant to the Old Shepherd
Autolycus, a rogue
Mopsa, shepherdess.
Dorcas, shepherdess.
1) POLIXENES su FLORIZEL (1.2, 167-169; T555)
He makes a July's day short as December,
And with his varying childness cures in me
Thoughts that would thick my blood.
2) MAMILLUS alla madre HERMIONE (2.1, 25-26; T583)
A sad tale's best for winter: I have one
Of sprites and goblins.
3) AUTOLYCUS singing (4.3,1-12; T659)
When daffodils begin to peer,
With heigh! the doxy over the dale,
Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year;
For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale.
The white sheet bleaching on the hedge,
With heigh! the sweet birds, O, how they sing!
Doth set my pugging tooth on edge;
For a quart of ale is a dish for a king.
The lark, that tirra-lyra chants,
With heigh! with heigh! the thrush and the jay,
Are summer songs for me and my aunts,
While we lie tumbling in the hay.
2
1) LEONTES a MAMILLUS (1.2,186-189; T557)
2) PAULINA a EMILIA (2.2,29-35; T601)
Go, play, boy, play: thy mother plays, and I
Play too, but so disgraced a part, whose issue
Will hiss me to my grave: contempt and clamour
Will be my knell.
I dare be sworn
These dangerous unsafe lunes i' th’king,
beshrew them!
He must be told on't, and he shall: the office
Becomes a woman best; I'll take't upon me:
If I prove honey-mouth'd let my tongue
blister
And never to my red-look'd anger be
The trumpet any more.
1
2
3) LEONTES (2.3, 39-41; T607)
What noise there, ho?
PAULINA
No noise, my lord; but needful conference
About some gossips for your highness.
3
1) CLOWN a AUTOLYCUS (4.3,39-45; T663)
what will this sister of mine do with rice? But my father
hath made her mistress of the feast, and she lays it
on. She hath made me four and twenty nose-gays for
the shearers, three-man-song-men all, and very good
ones; but they are most of them means and bases; but
one puritan amongst them, and he sings psalms to
horn-pipes.
1
2) FLORIZEL a CAMILLO (4.4,522-525; T709)
Very nobly
Have you deserved: it is my father's music
To speak your deeds, not little of his care
To have them recompensed as thought on.
3) PAULINA alla statua di HERMIONE (5.4,98 segg.; T771)
Music, awake her; strike! (music)
'Tis time; descend; be stone no more; approach;
Strike all that look upon with marvel. […]
You perceive she stirs:
Start not; her actions shall be holy as
You hear my spell is lawful: do not shun her
Until you see her die again; for then
You kill her double.
3