The Winter's Tale

Characters:

• Leontes
• King of Sicilia
• childhood friend of King Polixenes
• Hermione
• virtuous and beautiful Queen of Sicilia
• falsely accused of infedility by Leontes
• Perdita
• daughter of Leontes and Hermione
• because she is believed to be illegitmate, she is abandoned on the coast of Bohemia and brought up by a shepherd
• falls in love with Prince FLorizel
• Polixenes
• King of Bohemia and Leontes's boyhood friend
• falsely accused of having an affair with Hermione
• Florizel
• Polixenes's only son and heir
• falls in love with Perdita and elopes with her
• Camillo
• honest Sicilian nobleman
• refuses to follow Leontes's order to poison Polixenes
• Paulina
• noblewoman of Sicily
• fiercely defends Hermione's virtue
• Autolycus
• roguish peddler, vagabond and pickpocket
• steals the Clown's purse and pilfers at the Shepherd's sheepshearing
• assists Perdita and Florizel's escape
• Shepherd
• old and honorable sheep-tender
• raises Perdita as his own daughter
• Antigonus
• Paulina's husband, also loyal defender of Hermione
• given the task of abandoning baby Perdita on the Bohemian coast
• Clown
• Shepherd's buffoonish son and Perdita's adopted brother 
• Dion
• Sicilian lord who accompanies Cleomenes to Delphi
• Cleomenes
• lord of Sicilia sent to Delphi to ask the Oracle about Hermione's guilt
• Mamillius
• Son of Leontes and Hemione's
• dies perhaps of grief after his father wrongly imprisons his mother
• Emilia
• one of Hermione's ladies-in-waiting
• Archidamus
• a lord of Bohemia

Plot summary:

• King Leontes begs King Polixenes to extend his visit to Sicilia. Polixenes agrees only after Leontes's pregnant wife, Hermione, pleads him to stay. 
• Leontes becomes jealous and orders Camillo to poison Polixenes. Camillo warns Polixenes and both men flee Sicilia immediately.
• Leontes publicly accuses his wife of infidelity and declares the child illegitimate. He throws her into prison and sends a nobleman to the Oracle at Delphi to confirm his suspicions.
• The queen gives birth to a girl and her loyal friend Paulina brings the baby to the king. However, Leontes just orders Antigonus, Paulina's husband, to take the child and abandon it in some desolate place.
• The nobleman returns with the answer that Hermione and Polixenes are innocent, and that Leontes will have no heir until his lost daughter is found.
• Leontes's son Mamillius dies of a wasting sickness. Hermione falls into a swoon and Paulina reports the queen's death to the heartbroken and repentant Leontes.
• Antigonus abandons the baby on the Bohemian coast after he dreams that Hermione had asked him to name the girl Perdita and leave gold and other tokens on her person. Antigonus is killed by a bear.
• Perdita is raised by a kindly shepherd. Sixteen years later, the son of Polixenes, Prince Florizel, falls in love with Perdita.
• Polixenes and Camillo attend a sheep-shearing in disguise and watch as Florizel and Perdita are betrothed. Polixenes intervenes and orders his son never to see the Shepherd's daughter again. 
• With the aid of Camillo, however, Florizel and Perdita elope to Sicilia using the clothes of a local rogue, Autolycus. They are joined by the Shepherd and his son, a  Clown.
• Leontes greets Florizel in Sicilia and Florizel pretends to be on a diplomatic mission from his father. His cover, however, is blown when Polixenes and Camillo arrive in Sicilia as well. 
• The Shepherd tells everyone of how Perdita was found and Leontes realizes that she is his daughter. 
• The entire company goes to Paulina's house in the country which has a newly-finished statue of Hermione. Leontes becomes distraught at the sight of it, but to everyone's amazement the statue comes to life - it is Hermione, apparently restored to life. 
• At the end of the play, Paulina and Camillo become engaged.