Who is the bear? The spirit of Hermoine in Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale

 “Exit, pursued by bear.” 
- The Winter’s Tale (3.3.64).

And by the ghost of Hermione? [1]

This stage direction, sadly, is often quoted as a punchline to a Shakespeare joke. This may totally miss the point. 

In the play, King Leontes is jealous, paranoid to the point of madness. His actions lead to the estrangement of friends, the death of a son and presumably of his queen, Hermione – and the loss of an infant daughter, Perdita [2]. 

Leontes commands Antigonus to kill the infant, but Antigonus begs for mercy. Leontes orders him to abandon the child to the gods (as King Laius did with his infant son Oedipus). 

Antigonus tells the infant of a dream in which Hermione appears as a sorrowful “creature” in white (3.3.23-26). Hermione says that for his part in all of this, he will never see his wife again (39-40). 

He is soon chased and eaten by a bear. 

(Some will protest: Antigonus was merely a servant of his king, a footsoldier following orders in a war for which his king was responsible. But sometimes even footsoldiers, too, are held accountable.)  

The Globe Theater was near a bear garden. Shakespeare knew how mother bears act when their cubs are threatened. A Moroccan Prince in The Merchant of Venice boasts of bravery, that he’d “Pluck the young sucking cubs from the she-bear” (2.1.30). 

Polar bear cubs were given as gifts to King James, kept by Philip Henslow, Shakespeare’s associate [3]. The company owned a bear costume [4]; an actor probably played the bear.  

The hunters who obtained the polar bear cubs may have obtained polar bear skins later used for a polar bear costume [5], so Antigonus dreamed of Hermione dressed in white.

The point is not that the actor who played Hermione also played the bear. Something of Hermione made a deep impression on Antigonus: She is “inside his head.”

Some may laugh: “Deus ex machina! A bear? Cheap trick! We don’t believe it!” 

The poster suggests not a conspiracy (Hermione disguised to exact justice), but more mysteriously, that her spirit as a mother is also embodied in nature and the universe, and haunts Antigonus in his dream. 

“The moral arc of the universe may be long, but it bends toward justice” [6]. And it may appear in dreams – or in the form of a bear.
 
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In memory of Renee Nicole Macklin Good (April 2, 1988 – January 7, 2026), mother, poet, and kind neighbor, shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis, Minnesota. 

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POSTSCRIPT: 

In a Facebook Shakespeare discussion forum, Brent Salish adds, nicely to the point:
"From Antigonus' soliloquy leading to the exit line: "To me comes a creature, sometimes her head on one side, some another." Is that not a description of a snuffling bear? And his last lines, too, are rather suggestive: " I never saw the heavens so dim by day. A savage clamour! Well may I get aboard! This is the chase: I am gone forever." Still, the audience always wants to see the damned bear!" 

#thewinterstale #shakespeare #religion #drama #theatre #theater #literature #history #ICE

NOTES: All references to Shakespeare plays are to the Folger Shakespeare Library online versions: https://shakespeare.folger.edu

[1] RSC Facebook post in anticipation of their production of The Winter’s Tale opening July, 2025: 
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1020759113421818&set=a.372526458245090 

[2] The name of the daughter, “Perdita,” means “lost,” though the more familiar “perdition” means “damned.” 

[3] For more on the bear costume and pet polar bears of the royal family, see 
Emma Poltrack, “Exit, Pursued by a Polar? Bear,” September 19, 2023, 
https://www.folger.edu/blogs/collation/exit-pursued-by-a-polar-bear/

[4] My wife’s paternal grandfather once went hunting for geese in Canada, but after a dangerous encounter, they killed a mother bear, took pity on the cub and brought it home, raising it as a pet, later given to a zoo. If they had skinned the mother bear in those days, they could have brought it home as a rug, not something I advocate, but something that might help explain a polar bear costume, and polar bear cubs, in Shakespeare’s London. 

[5] Martin Luther King, Jr., “echoing the words of 19th century abolitionist and Unitarian minister Theodore Parker”: 
“I do not pretend to understand the moral universe. The arc is a long one. My eye reaches but little ways. I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by experience of sight. I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice.” 
- Clayborne Carson, interviewed by Melissa Block, 
“Theodore Parker And The 'Moral Universe,'” All Things Considered, NPR, 
September 2, 2010, 3:00 PM ET: 
https://www.npr.org/2010/09/02/129609461/theodore-parker-and-the-moral-universe

IMAGE: What appears to be the silhouette of Hermoine, wearing a mother bear costume (an image that demonstrates genius, overcoming the too-frequent attitude that treats "exit pursued by bear" as a joke rather than a profound insight connecting mother Hermoine and the (mother) bear. RSC, fair use, via Facebook: https://tinyurl.com/f82wtrf9 

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Disclaimer: If and when I quote or paraphrase bible passages or mention religion in many of my blog posts, I do not intend to promote any religion over another, nor am I attempting to promote religious belief in general; only to explore how the Bible and religion influenced Shakespeare, his plays, and his age.
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