Perdita (The Winter's Tale)

Perdita is one of the heroines of William Shakespeare's play The Winter's Tale. She is the daughter of Leontes, King of Sicily, and his wife Hermione. Perdita was very small when she was thrown into prison, where her father had sent her mother because he wrongly believes she has been unfaithful to him. Paulina takes the baby to Leontes to try to convince him that the baby is his daughter, but he refuses to believe it, even with the striking similarity between the two. Instead, he thinks that she is the result of an affair between Hermione and Polixenes, King of Bohemia. He sends Antigonus to leave the infant Perdita in a remote place; Antigonus leaves her on the seacoast of Bohemia. In a dream, Hermione appears to Antigonus and tells him to name her child Perdita, which means "the lost one" in Latin and, in Italian, "loss". He takes pity on her, but is chased away and eaten by a bear. Luckily, a shepherd living nearby stumbles upon her. He finds Perdita and also takes the box that Paulina had left with Antigonus. It contains jewels and a note and some money, for Paulina knew that if someone found Perdita, they would need an explanation. Perdita is brought back to the shepherd's house and is raised by the shepherd as his own daughter, along with his son.