Page 197
William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale, 1623
Hermione is the Queen of Sicily. Her husband Leontes convinces himself, against every witness and without a shred of proof, that she has been unfaithful with his oldest friend.
She is pregnant. She gives birth in prison before he puts her on trial in front of the entire court.
She defends herself plainly and well. It does not save her.
She collapses and is reported dead. She is not dead.
Her closest friend, a woman named Paulina, hides her. The newborn daughter is abandoned on a distant shore.
Sixteen years pass.
The daughter is found and brought home. Only then does Paulina act.
She takes Leontes to a chapel to see what she calls a statue of his dead wife. The statue is Hermione, standing on a pedestal in her own aged body.
Paulina tells the room to awake their faith. The statue moves.
This is the final scene.
LEONTES. Her natural posture!
Chide me, dear stone, that I may say indeed
Thou art Hermione; or rather, thou art she
In thy not chiding, for she was as tender
As infancy and grace. But yet, Paulina,
Hermione was not so much wrinkled, nothing
So aged as this seems.
PAULINA. So much the more our carver's excellence;
Which lets go by some sixteen years and makes her
As she lived now.
[...]
PAULINA. It is required
You do awake your faith. Then all stand still;
On: those that think it is unlawful business
I am about, let them depart.
[...]
Music, awake her; strike!
'Tis time; descend; be stone no more; approach;
Strike all that look upon with marvel. Come,
I'll fill your grave up: stir, nay, come away,
Bequeath to death your numbness, for from him
Dear life redeems you. 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. Nay, present your hand:
When she was young you woo'd her; now in age
Is she become the suitor?
[HERMIONE comes down]
[...]
LEONTES. O, she's warm!
If this be magic, let it be an art
Lawful as eating.
Look where he put that.
He says she was not so much wrinkled, nothing so aged as this seems. He is standing before what he believes is a stone carving of the wife he destroyed, and what he sees is the aging.
Four hundred and three years ago a man wrote that detail and did not flinch. She does not come back young.
She comes back with the face of someone who has been alive the whole time. Because she has been.
Paulina does not apologize for the wrinkles. She says the carver let sixteen years go by and carved her as she lived now.
Do not skim that. As she lived now, not as she was.
She aged without him, without anyone's permission, and the play does not blink.
I need you to hear what happens next. Paulina tells every person in that room to stand still and awake their faith.
Not hope. Faith.
Then she speaks to Hermione: 'Tis time; descend; be stone no more.
And Hermione moves. She comes down from the pedestal by herself.
Nobody carries her. She walks.
He touches her hand. O, she's warm.
I have had that line in my notebook for twenty years. He is not grateful, not relieved; he is stunned that a woman he thought was stone is warm under his hand.
Then he says: if this be magic, let it be an art lawful as eating. He wants a woman returning after sixteen years, wrinkled and older and alive, to be something the world can hold without flinching.
Lawful as eating. Not a miracle, not an exception to time, just a woman who walked down when she was ready.
She was never gone. She was standing still, and she chose when.
You have been carrying something for longer than you said you would. The carrying has changed your face.
It was always going to. She is warm.
Underneath it I wrote
I am still warm.
Today. Copy this by hand: be stone no more. Then write one line underneath to whatever in you has been standing still. It does not have to be good. It has to be yours.
What I wrote that year
In October of the year I could not write, I copied one line from Keats into the margin of the notebook. A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: Underneath I wrote: "I do not believe this today." That was the whole entry for weeks. By December I had gone back to that page and crossed out the not. I did not write anything else underneath. The crossing-out was enough.
