"The plot of which play by William Shakespeare, whereby the King of Sicilia becomes convinced that his wife and his childhood friend have committed adultery and borne a daughter, was taken from Robert Greene's ""Pandosto"" (1588), but given a happy ending?"
Pandosto Pandosto Pandosto: The Triumph of Time is a prose romance written by the English author Robert Greene, first published in 1588. A later edition of 1607 was re-titled "Dorastus and Fawnia". Popular during the time of William Shakespeare, the work's plot was an inspiration for that of Shakespeare's play "The Winter's Tale". Greene, in turn, may have based the work on "The Clerk's Tale", one of "The Canterbury Tales" of Chaucer. Edward Chaney suggested that Robert Greene when writing "Pandosto" may have had in mind the Earl of Oxford's suspicions about the paternity of his daughter (granddaughter of Lord Burghley)
Pandosto when he returned in 1576 from his continental tour that may have included Sicily. Greene's story contains darker elements that Shakespeare lightened for his comic purposes. In Greene's tale, Pandosto, King of Bohemia, accuses his wife Bellaria of adultery committed with his childhood friend, the King of Sicilia. His pursuit of this unfounded charge leads him to send his infant daughter out to sea to die and causes the death of his son and his wife. His daughter drifts to Sicilia and is saved and raised by a shepherd. Dorastus, the Prince of Sicilia, falls in love with Fawnia, unaware