Apart from the surreal stage direction '
Exit, pursued by a bear', 'The Winter's Tale' is also the source of a short phrase which formed part of the basis for
Anthony Burgess' '
A Clockwork Orange', spoken by the
Shepherd in
the third act of scene three:
"I would there were no age between sixteen and three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest; for there is nothing in the between but getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting..."
Whether Shakespeare was speaking from personal experience is, of course, lost to time and memory.