The Winter’s Tale Characters

Leontes is the King of Sicily. When he wrongfully suspects his pregnant wife, Hermione, is cheating on him with his best friend, King Polixenes, he goes berserk – he plots the murder of his o...

Hermione, Queen of Sicily, is the lovely wife of King Leontes and the doting mother of Mammilius and Perdita. After she’s unfairly accused of cheating on her husband, she’s thrown into...

Mammilius is the precocious young Prince of Sicily and the son of Leontes and Hermione. He’s a cute kid but he’s also a handful, as he spends most of his time horsing around, declaring...

A Cinderella StoryPerdita’s story is the stuff fairy tales are made of. The beautiful daughter of King Leontes and Queen Hermione, Perdita is born in a prison and rejected by her father after...

The son of the Bohemian King Polixenes, Prince Florizel is the oh-so dreamy “Prince Charming” figure who falls in love and proposes to Perdita (who everyone believes is a lowly shepherd...

Polixenes is the King of Bohemia and Leontes’s childhood BFF. After vacationing at the Sicilian palace for nine months, Polixenes is forced to flee to his home in Bohemia because Leontes susp...

“Time” is a figure who appears on stage at the beginning of Act 4 to announce that sixteen years have passed since the last scene. Because Time is an allegorical figure, we talk about h...

Autolycus, whose name means “loan wolf,” is a con artist who roams around the Bohemian countryside taking advantage of any poor sap he happens to come across. This guy will do anything...

Old Antigonus is a Lord at the Sicilian court and Paulina’s husband. Famously, he’s mauled and eaten by a bear right after dumping off baby Perdita in the middle of nowhere.From Wimpy H...

The Old Shepherd is Perdita’s adoptive father. After finding the abandoned baby and a bundle full of gold and documents in the Bohemian “desert,” he’s convinced that sheR...

The Clown is the country bumpkin son of the Old Shepherd. He’s not very bright (he’s easily duped by Autolycus, who picks the Clown’s pockets and later scams him and his father in...

Mopsa is the Clown’s country bumpkin girlfriend. At the sheep-shearing festival, she demands that he buy her some trinkets from the peddler (Autolycus) and gets all worked up when the Clown&#...

Dorcas doesn’t have a major role in the play, but like the rest of the Bohemian festival-goers, she helps to inject Act 4 of the play with a spirited and comical atmosphere. Like Mopsa, Dorca...

Camillo and Male BondingCamillo is a Sicilian Lord. He’s the trusted friend of Leontes until the jealous king asks him to poison Polixenes. Camillo’s much too nice a guy to do such a ho...

Cleomenes and Dion are two Sicilian Lords. Leontes sends them to “Delphos” to consult Apollo’s Oracle about whether or not Hermione is cheating on her husband. We encounter the pa...

The Mariner is the guy who accompanies Antigonus to Bohemia (somebody’s got to sail the ship) where baby Perdita is dumped off. After said dumping, the Mariner drowns as his ship sinks just o...

Emilia is a lady in waiting to Hermione. She accompanies Hermione to prison when Leontes throws the queen in the slammer. Emilia’s big moment in the play occurs when she speaks to Paulina abo...

Archidamus is a Bohemian Lord. He’s the guy who chats it up with Camillo in the play’s first scene, after which, we never hear from him again.