Showing posts with label Original Sin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Original Sin. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Original Sin and the Apostasy

Shortly after Hermione was put in prison by Leontes, she gave birth to a girl.  While in this setting we meet Paulina, Antigonus' wife, and she has an exchange with a prison guard about whether the baby should inherited the punishment of Hermione.  Paulina wanted to take the baby to the king in hopes that the site of such innocence will soften his heart; but I find their conversation an interesting plug that believing in original sin is not a natural inclination, but an imposed doctrine:

GAOL:
Madam, if 't please the queen to send the babe,
I know not what I shall incur to pass it,
Having no warrant.

PAUL:
You need not fear it, sir:
This child was prisoner to the womb, and is
By law and process of great nature thence
Freed and enfranchised; not a party to
The anger of the King, nor guilty of,
If any be, the trespass of the queen

GAOL:
I do believe it.  

It seems like Shakespeare would have agreed on at least that point.  AND he also wrote for Paulina:  "It is an heretic that makes the fire, not she which burns in 't," which applies to many martyrs in the apostacy.