Today’s Totally Random Lines
Why, boy, how is it?
Shepherd
The Winter’s Tale Act III, Scene iii, Line 88
Today’s speaker is a shepherd who’s just found a baby that’s been abandoned on the seashore by Antigonus. There’s a ton going on in this fairly brief scene, including the uber-famous stage direction Exit, pursued by a bear. Let’s take a look.
Antigonus has been charged by Leontes to take the baby and
…bear it
To some remote and desert place, quite
out
Of our dominions; and that there thou
leave it,
Without mercy, to its own protection
And favour of the climate.
In other words, abandon the baby somewhere. Leontes is convinced that the child is not his and that his wife cheated on him (wrong, and wrong). So Antigonus has one of Leontes’s ships bring him to the shores of Bohemia where he abandons the baby on the beach (with a bag of gold, of course). Just as he does so, a bear appears and chases him off (hence the stage direction).
Now, an old shepherd appears and finds the babe. Then, in the middle of his amazement the old shepherd’s son shows up quite excited, having,
…seen two such sights, by sea and by land!
Hence the Shepherd’s line above,
Why, boy, how is it?
In other words, what did you see?
So, what did he see? First, he saw the ship that Antigonus came in sink offshore in the storm that suddenly rose up. Secondly, he saw Antigonus get chased and then eaten by the bear. Wow, no wonder the kid is all wound up.
So there’s a lot going on here around this simple, Totally Random Line. A lot. It just goes to show you that sometimes there’s a lot more going on than meets the eye. Or the ear.
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