Antigone to give her outcast relative a proper burial, against the King's orders, the Shepherd too, fears a sacrilegious burial. Martz comments on the worries of the Shepherd: "the old shepherd's fear is that he will have ‘no priest' to ‘shovel in dust' on his corpse. Fear of lying unburied was a deep aspect of Greek religious feeling, as Antigone demonstrates."(135.)Another important, but subtle character in the play is Autolycus. He not only brings comic relief to the stage, but also divine intervention. He assists Perdita and Florizell during the festival with disguises. Similarly to Athena and other Grecian deities, Autolycus is more cunning and omniscient than he appears. Martz argues the true character of Autolycus: "he knows all, he overhears all, and thus he helps the prince by being true, as he says, to his own prinicples of knavery."(134.)Finally, a vital aspect of Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale is the statue of Hermione in the final act of the play. With this final step, Leontes is redeemed in a sense for his grief and suffering; the tragedy is over, order is restored and the play is brought to an end. Martz draws a parallel between The Winter's Tale and the Orestillian Trilogy: "Orestes, in the third play of that trilogy, is lying at the foot of the great stature of Athene in Athens. Then the goddess herself enters, a living presence, to redeem Orestes from his hereditary curse. Should we add this reminiscence to the other allusions to Greek tragedy and myth that have long been felt in the statue-scene of The Winter's Tale..."(131.)The tragedies of Homer, Sophocles and Aeschylus draw important parallels to William Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale. Although many parallels are subtle, they can be observed through careful examination of both the texts and historical data. ...
