The Winter's Tale to him in a dream and bade him name the girl Perdita. He leaves a fardel (a bundle) by the baby containing gold and other trinkets which suggest that the baby is of noble blood. A violent storm suddenly appears, wrecking the ship on which Antigonus arrived. He wishes to take pity on the child, but is chased away in one of Shakespeare's most famous stage directions: "Exit, pursued by a bear." (It is not known whether Shakespeare used a real bear from the London bear-pits, or an actor in bear costume.) Perdita is rescued by a shepherd and his
The Bear (play) basis for operas by Dominick Argento ("The Boor", 1957) and William Walton ("The Bear", 1967). It was also the inspiration for the second act of the 1979 musical "A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine". The Bear (play) The Bear: A Joke in One Act, or The Boor (, 1888), is a one-act comedic play written by Russian author Anton Chekhov. The play was originally dedicated to Nikolai Nikolaevich Solovtsov, Chekhov's boyhood friend and director/actor who first played the character Smirnov. The play takes place in the drawing room of Elena Ivanovna Popova's estate on the seven-month anniversary of