Re-reading Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale. We’ve seen romance and jealousy, and now as act I scene 2 continues, thoughts turn to murder.

We’ve seen Leontes of Sicilia enraged with jealousy over the perceived flirtations between his wife Hermoine and Polixenes of Bohemia, and wondered whether those flirtations are real or mistaken. Now it’s time for some classic conspiring. After shooing everyone but the courtier Camillo off the stage, Leontes asks Camillo about what people are saying in the kingdom about Polinexes staying longer. Camillo says it’s because of the queen. (Didn’t all this just happen a minute ago, though?)

Leontes starts to praise Camillo, saying he trusts Camillo with secrets like he would a priest, but then he turns on Camillo with more long speeches accusing Camillo of being blind to Hermonie’s infidelity. Camillo tries defending himself, saying he’s only ever been faithful. They go back and forth like this for a while, until Leontes says if his wife’s liver were as infected as her heart, she might not live an hour.

This seems to put an idea in Leontes’ head, as he next tells Camillo he wishes he has a servant loyal enough to “bespice a cup” to give his enemy a “lasting wink.” Camillo says this crime can be done with a “dram” that can act just as deadly as a poison. None of my books have a footnote for “dram,” but the internet tells me it simply means a drink, most often in reference to whiskey. But Camillo is still unconvinced until Leontes makes one more speech about how certain he is.

Camillo agrees to go along with the plan, so long as Polixenes is the only target, and the queen’s honor will remain intact. Leontes leaves Camillo alone, and Camillo gets an aside about how thinkable a situation this is. He says there are no examples of people who have killed kings and gotten away with it, and he still would not want to do this even if there were. This feels meta, as if Camillo has already read Shakespeare’s previous tragedies. Because ruin (or “breakneck” as he puts it) is his only option, Camillo decides to forego all his previous protestations of loyalty and forsake his king.

I imagine that a proper movie adaptation of The Winter’s Tale would have this part be its own scene, with Leontes and Camillo meeting in some secret, shadowy location for some proper murder-plotting. You could even have Camillo pour a glass of the poison-like dram and push the camera in close as he does, only then for him to toss the glass on the ground or into a nearby fireplace for dramatic effect. If on stage, there’s still a lot to work with. Once of Leontes’ speeches has him describing the nothingness he feels, with the word “nothing” repeated over and over. Another has a long list of things he’s suspected Hermoine and Polixenes doing, which is descriptive and evocative. A clever actor can make the most of these speeches so that Leontes’ behavior is more than just a bunch of angry rants.

The Winter’s Tale is a fantasy play, although the magical elements aren’t as overt as they are in Midsummer Night’s Dream or The Tempest. With that in mind, could Camillo be interpreted as a magical character? As we’ll see, he’s going to move in and out of the story, often changing events and putting characters on different paths. He can’t know the future, because otherwise he’d stop or avoid tragedy to come, but he could be portrayed as having supernatural empathy of what people are feeling and what is occurring outside his physical awareness. Just a thought.

Next: Camillo’s excellent adventure.

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