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The Winter's Tale—one of Shakespeare's final plays—tells the story of two neighboring kings, Leontes of Sicilia and Polixenes of Bohemia. Friends since childhood, their relationship is put under a grave test when a maddened and jealous Leontes publicly accuses his beautiful wife, Hermione, of infidelity. Turbulent chaos engulfs Sicilia as Leontes' miscalculations devastate his family line, but in an unusual move, Shakespeare quickly turns the needle toward redemption with the growls of a bear and the passage of sixteen years, as announced by a personified Time. Whereas the first half of the play portrays the tragic downfall of a man who lets his emotions severely cloud his reasoning, the second half is one of pastoral revelry and natural reverence, set in the lush Bohemian countryside and marked by the purity of amorous youthfulness. In this setting, past sins are allowed to dissolve, the paths to redemption are opened, and fallen lives are given a glorious renewal, all of which leads to one of the most moving set pieces in the entire Shakespearean canon.