The next action of the king was to summon Hermione to be tried for having loved Polixenes too well. Already he had had recourse to an oracle; and the answer, sealed up, was brought into court and opened in the presence of the much-injured queen:
"Hermione is innocent; Polixenes blameless; Camillo a true subject; Leontes a jealous tyrant; and the king shall live without an heir, if that which is lost be not found."
Thus it ran; but the angry king said it was all a falsehood, made up by the queen's friends, and he bade them go on with the trial. Yet even as he spoke, a messenger entered to say that the king's son Mamillius had died suddenly, grieving for his mother. Hermione, overcome by such sad tidings, fainted; and then Leontes, feeling some pity for her, bade her ladies remove her, and do all that was possible for her recovery.
Very soon Paulina returned, saying that Hermione, the queen, was also dead. Now Leontes repented of his harshness; now he readily believed she was all that was good and pure; and, beginning to have faith in the words of the oracle which spoke of that which was lost being found, declared he would give up his kingdom could he but recover the lost baby he had sent to perish.
The ship which had conveyed Antigonus with the infant princess away from her father's kingdom, was driven onshore upon the Bohemian territory, over which Polixenes reigned. Leaving the child there, Antigonus started to return to his ship; but a savage bear met and destroyed him, so that Leontes never heard how his commands had been fulfilled.
When poor Hermione had sent her baby in Paulina's care to be shown to her royal father, she had dressed it in its richest robes, and thus it remained when Antigonus left it. Besides, he pinned a paper to its mantle upon which the name Perdita was written.
Happily, a kind-hearted shepherd found the deserted infant, and took it home to his wife, who cherished it as her own. But they concealed the fact from every one; and lest the tale of the jewels upon Perdita's little neck should be noised abroad, he sold some of them, and leaving that part of the country, bought herds of sheep, and became a wealthy shepherd.
Little Perdita grew up as sweet and lovely as her unknown mother; yet she was supposed to be only a shepherd's child.