Editing The Winter's Tale (section)

=== Title of the play ===
A play called "The Winter's Tale" would immediately indicate to contemporary audiences that the work would present an "idle tale", an [[old wives' tale]] not intended to be realistic, and that it would offer the promise of a happy ending. The title may have been inspired by [[George Peele]]'s play ''[[The Old Wives' Tale (play)|The Old Wives' Tale]]'' of 1590, in which a storyteller tells "a merry winter's tale" of a missing daughter.<ref>John Olde (one of the translators of [[The first tome or volume of the Paraphrase of Erasmus vpon the newe testamente|Udall's New Testament]]) in 1556: "olde wiues fables and winter tales". Cited in {{cite book|title=Oxford English Dictionary|edition=2nd|year=1989|chapter=winter, 5a|title-link=Oxford English Dictionary}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Bate|first1=Jonathan|author-link1=Jonathan Bate|last2=Rasmussen|first2=Eric|title=Complete Works|year=2007|publisher=Macmillan|location=London|page=698|isbn=978-0-230-00350-7}}</ref> Early in ''The Winter's Tale'', the royal heir, Mamillius, warns that "a sad tale's best for winter".<ref>Act 2 scene 1</ref> His mother is soon put on trial for treason and adultery{{snd}}and his death is announced seconds after she is shown to have been faithful and Leontes's accusations unfounded.