# Antigonus — The Winter’s Tale character guide

> Antigonus in The Winter’s Tale by William Shakespeare.

**Role:** supporting

**First appearance:** 0005-act-ii-scene-i

## Snapshot

Paulina's husband, a Sicilian lord caught between obeying his king and believing his wife's furious certainty.

## Who they are

Antigonus is ordered to carry the infant Perdita to a foreign shore and abandon her, a task he performs with dread and a famous stage direction trailing behind him. His marriage to Paulina makes him the play's great domestic irony: a man who fears his wife's tongue yet cannot escape her moral clarity. The letters and tokens he leaves with the child become the evidence that later proves her royal birth.

## Relationships

### [Leontes](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_winter_s_tale_se/characters/leontes)

_professional_

Antigonus is a lord loyal to Leontes, but he is forced to abandon the baby Perdita on Leontes' orders.

## In the story

### [Scene I](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_winter_s_tale_se/chapters/act-ii-scene-i)

Vigorously defends Hermione's honor and warns Leontes against rash justice, even vowing to geld his own daughters if she is false.

### [Scene III](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_winter_s_tale_se/chapters/act-ii-scene-iii)

Forced by Leontes to swear an oath to abandon the infant Perdita in a remote place, despite his reluctance.

### [Scene III](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_winter_s_tale_se/chapters/act-iii-scene-iii)

Antigonus carries out his oath to abandon Perdita, recounts Hermione's ghostly visitation, and is chased and killed by a bear.

### [Scene II](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_winter_s_tale_se/chapters/act-v-scene-ii)

Reported to have been torn to pieces by a bear, his death coinciding with the discovery of Perdita.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_winter_s_tale_se/characters/antigonus
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_winter_s_tale_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_winter_s_tale_se/characters