Act 5.1
The Sicilian court is clouded over by Leontes' penitence, and troubled with the question of succession. Paulina fights off suggestions that Leontes should marry again, confronting him yet again with the spectre of his fault. Florizel's arrival is announced, and the beauty of his companion, which rouses Paulina to defend the memory of peerless Hermione. When the couple appears, Leontes is struck with amazement, and with Florizel's resemblance to his father. He is painfully reminded yet again of the wrong he did to Polixenes, and of the children he lost, but Florizel's claims to be an ambassador for reconciliation makes them as "welcome ... / As is the spring to the earth" (5.1.151). Things become more complicated when news comes of Polixenes' arrival, in hot pursuit, having picked up Camillo and the two rustics on his way. It it soon discovered that the couple are not married after all. Florizel begs Leontes to try and sway Polixenes in favour of the match, but his new view of the situation changes Leontes' view of Perdita, clearly not a Libyian princess after all. Paulina has to rebuke him - "Your eye hath too much youth in't" (5.1.224) - calling him back to the memory of Hermione. Unnecessarily: "I thought of her / Even as these looks I made" Leontes replies, and tells Florizel he will try and help.
Act 5.2
The stage has been set for the discovery of Perdita's true identity but, astonishingly, the audience does not anticipate it. The scene opens onto the middle of a conversation, as does the very first scene of the play, with Autolycus eager to hear what a gentleman of the court has to tell about the opening of the bundle. The first gentleman saw the bundle opened and the amazed reactions of Leontes and Camillo, thinks he heard the Shepherd say that he found Perdita. Then he was ordered out: the full extent of the "news" is progressively discovered as two more gentleman arrive, so that what begins as the rumour of a significant event is gradually fleshed out into the full story. What comes first, however, is an extreme shock of amazement and disbelief that could greet either a great disaster or its opposite:
"there was speech in their dumbness, language in their very gesture; they looked as if they had heard of a world ransomed, or one destroyed: a notable passion of wonder appeared in them; but the wisest beholder, that knew no more than seeing, could not say if th'importance were joy or sorrow; but in the extremity of the one it needs be." (5.2.13-20)
The narrative is one of extremity, not only the extremity of what was discovered - impossible to believe, like an old tale - but also the extremity of the characters' reactions to it: the meeting of the two kings is an encounter "that lames report to follow it, and undoes description to do it" (5.2.58-9). Paulina, caught between sorrow at the tale of Antigonus' death and joy at Perdita's finding, is appreciated as theatre:
"The dignity of this act was worth the audience of kings and princes; for by such was it acted." (5.2.79- 80)
Perdita hearing of her mother's death was such a powerful picture of grief that "if all the world could have seen't, the woe would have been universal" (5.2.91).
The audience might feel deprived at having missed such a powerful scene, and frustrated that it should be relayed in such an artificial way, especially one that calls attention to its own limitations. The theme of the replacement of nature by art is itself raised inside the scene: the assembled company has gone to see a statue of Hermione, "a piece" by Julio Romano, an Italian master "who had he himself eternity and could put breath into his work, would beguile Nature of her custom, so perfectly is he her ape" (5.2.97- 9) Unsurprisingly, the gentlemen decide to waste no more time, in case they miss some new marvel, "some new grace", and they leave the audience behind with Autolycus.
Autolycus realises the full effect of his intervention. He had even told Florizel about the Shepherd's fardel, on the boat, but the prince had been to preoccupied with sea-sickness and Perdita to realise its full implications, and in any case, his past behaviour bars him from claiming any credit for the happy ending or the ennoblement of the Shepherd and his son, who now arrive on the scene. The tables are turned on their earlier encounter at the end of 4.4: this time the two rustics can put a word in for him at the court. The Clown promises to say, or rather swear, that Autolycus is brave and sober, even if it is false. "Not swear it, now that I am a gentleman? Let boors and franklins say it, I'll swear it - How if it be false, son? If it be ne'er so false, a true gentleman may swear it in the behalf of his friend..."(5.2.159-161)
The situation is a wry and comical reflection upon the question of (verbal) authority: if only gentlemen can swear it is because they have the authority to do so, but the plot has made a topsy-turvy of the idea that nobility is the result of an obvious and "natural" superiority. Nevertheless, despite its humour, this is minor diversion set off by the final scene of the play - a highly dramatic and artificial reinstatement of nature.
Act 5.3
The three gentlemen's account of the discovery of Perdita was almost completely unconcerned with stage presence, and can be read without losing much of its effect. The final scene, however, has to be seen on the stage. The company have seen the other statues in Paulina's poor house, and she thanks them for the honour of their visit. Above all, however, they have come to see the statue of Hermione. Paulina prepares them,
"to see the life as lively mock'd as ever
Still sleep mock'd death" (5.3.19-20)
She draws the curtain, they are silent. Leontes admires the lifelike posture, calls upon the stone to rebuke him, as Hermione should, but reflects that it is even more like Hermione not to. Perhaps drawing closer, he remarks on the wrinkles of the statue. Pauline explains this as the sculptor's attention to detail, even carving the effects of sixteen years. Leontes still looks on and is ashamed at his own fault, his refusal to listen to Hermione that made him "more stone than it".
"O royal piece!
There's magic in thy majesty, which has
My evils conjur'd to remembrance, and
From thy admiring daughter took the spirits,
Standing like stone with thee." (5.3.38-42)
But Perdita moves to kiss the statue's hand, and has to be prevented by Paulina because ostensibly, the paint is wet. Meanwhile Leontes has clearly become himself immobilised by sorrow, because Camillo and Polixenes try to coax him out of it, Polixenes rather inappropriately calling himself "him that was the cause of this". Paulina moves to cover something that gives him so much pain, but Leontes stops her, and then seems to perceive a breath, perhaps a slight movement of the eye. Paulina threatens to draw the curtain again, to curtail this madness, but when Leontes will not let her, she hints she can do even more. Leontes' restraint is fraying, he wants to kiss the statue - "wet paint" says Paulina, and threatens once more to close the curtain, but her audience is hooked. Her next step is to exact a promise that she will not be accused of any wickedness, or magic; in return she will make the statue move and take Leontes by the hand. Leontes replies:
"What you can make her do,
I am content to look on: what to speak,
I am content to hear; for 'tis as easy
To make her speak as move" (5.3.91-93)
This echoes the rhythm and sense of Florizel's "What you do / Still betters what is done" (4.4.135ff), and it too is envelopped in ceremony, as Paulina prepares them: "It is requir'd / You do awake your faith" (5.3.95). They stand still. Music strikes up and Hermione begins to move. Perhaps Leontes starts, for Paulina tells him not to move away - "for then / You kill her double" - and to give her his hand, this time, in a repetition and reversal of their betrothal (see 1.2.101-4).
"Oh, she's warm!
If this be magic, let it be an art
As lawful as eating" (5.3.109-111)
Hermione embraces Leontes - at no point does she talk to him, and all that is left is wonder, except to suggest that Paulina marry Camillo, for she feels left out of the general happiness, her husband being dead. The false "magic" is complete, and Hermione's deception successful just as Shakespeare's has been. The play ends with Paulina leading them all away, to tell their story together at more leisure.