As is often the case with Shakespeare’s plays, the opening moments of WT contain all the ingredients of the plot that follows. The play emerges organically as if from its own opening words, a linguistic seed-pod shedding its spores.
The polite and deferential exchange between the lords Camillo and Archidamus establishes the courtly context of the play’s first half while at the same time containing a series of ironies that anticipate things to come. For example, Archidamus speaks of “great difference between our Bohemia and your Sicilia” (3-4), thus indicating the play’s structural division into two very different worlds. Then, politely demurring as to Bohemia’s ability to return the gracious hospitality offered by Sicilia, Archidamus goes on to insist that Bohemia “will be justified in our loves” (7-8), i.e., will repay the hospitality enjoyed while visiting Sicilia. This, from our later point of view, ironically foreshadows Polixines’ alleged affair with Hermione.
Camillo’s exposition follows, reviewing the longstanding friendship between Polixines and Leontes (18-27). The imminent rift in this friendship is anticipated by a description of their geographic separation, the latter soon to be reestablished as an even greater “vast” than before. Similarly, Camillo’s blessing, “The heavens continue their loves” (27)—and Archidamus’ assertion, “I think there is not in the world either malice or matter to alter it” (29-30)—sadly forebode the opposite. There is also mention of the people’s hope in Mamillius, the prince and heir-apparent, who will not live to receive the crown. Finally, the mention of youth and age, of “old hearts” made “fresh,” of “crutches,” “desire,” and death (33-36), introduces one of the play’s primary themes: the inexorable progress of time and the brevity of life.
The foreshadowing ironies mentioned in my previous post are available only in hindsight after having read the play once before. We might notice similar ironies in the moments prior to Leontes’ suspicions about Hermione. Polixines has been in Bohemia for nine months (1.2.1)—and Hermione will soon give birth. Polixines is worried about “what may chance / Or breed” while he is away (11-12). Note too that Hermione, after first trying to persuade Polixines to extend his visit, suddenly feels it necessary to assure Leontes that she loves him (38-44).
None of this, however, incriminates Hermione and Polixines, does it? Other than a guilty conscience, is there not a reasonable explanation for Hermione suddenly finding it necessary to declare her fidelity to Leontes? Given Leontes’ jealous outburst later in the scene, perhaps she assures him here because she knows he is inclined to be suspicious—not because she ever gives him reason to be suspicious, but rather because he has a jealous disposition.
This raises an important question about one of the play’s central themes. Is it jealousy when there is good reason to be jealous? Othello’s problem, for example, is perhaps not jealousy at all. Why? Because Iago has provided powerful (if false) evidence of Desdemona’s infidelity. Leontes, on the other hand, has no good reason for assuming Hermione has been unfaithful—does he? Examine lines 34-109 (just prior to Leontes’ fit) and identify any potential evidence of an affair between Hermione and Polixines. Provide if you can some other plausible explanation for their behaviour.
Jealousy by definition is an irrational fear, even if provoked by circumstances that, on their own, are innocent, but which from a suspicious perspective combine to become evidence justifying the suspicion. Leontes is a fascinating study in the psychology of male jealousy, its origins, and its effects. It is connected to the larger issue of male sexuality, particularly as regards male anxieties about manhood—the ability to attract and to retain the affections of a female partner.
Before examining more closely Leontes’ jealous psyche, let’s look at a passage early in the scene in which Polixines describes his boyhood relationship with Leontes (69-77). The setting he describes is a pastoral paradise in which he and Leontes were innocent lambs, free of original sin (“the doctrine of ill-doing”). If they had remained in that state, they could never be accused of possessing a sinful nature. Thus Greek pastoral is connected to Christian theology (a common connection in Renaissance literature).
Whatever the nature of the Fall of Man and the advent of original sin as portrayed in the Hebrew Bible—i.e., from a Christian perspective (for there is no such doctrine in Judaism)—it certainly has something to do with human sexuality. For immediately after eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, Adam and Eve become aware and ashamed of their nakedness. Polixenes playfully establishes this connection when he says that the cause of Leontes and himself having “tripped since” (78) is none other than women (78-82). Leontes and Polixines “fell” into sin when they met their wives. This is all very lighthearted, Hermione playing along with some sexual word-play of her own: the men “slipped” into a “fault” (85-88), the latter a pun meaning both misstep and vagina.
Such playful banter suggests the characters’ ease and comfort in discussing sexual matters, even if the humor is based on the ancient charge that women are to blame for the Fall because Eve was deceived first and then deceived Adam into eating the fruit. Perhaps it is this underlying assumption about women’s sexuality being a trap to ensnare men that informs Leontes’ sudden and inexplicable fit of jealousy at lines 110ff.
110-48: Notice, first of all, how rapidly Leontes’ thoughts are moving here. He notices his sudden change in mood (110-13), then begins to characterize Hermione’s and Polixines’ otherwise innocent behaviour as incriminating. For example, their joined hands he calls “paddling palms and pinching fingers” (117). The reference to his “brows” (121) means both his troubled mind (and perhaps a headache!), as well as the animal horns, the conventional sign of the cuckold. Then he suddenly turns to his young son, Mamillius, and asks him whether he is in fact his son (121-22)! Even after reviewing the evidence that Mamillius is his true son and not that of another man (123-24, 131-32), Leontes nevertheless persists in his jealousy.
Indeed, in a most remarkable passage (140-48) he even seems to know that his suspicions are irrational. Like any great Shakespearean character, Leontes has the ability to examine himself, to hear himself think and to comment upon those thoughts. And yet having this insight does not prevent him from indulging the jealousy. (Hamlet, you’ll recall, repeatedly chides himself for hesitating to kill Claudius yet continues to hesitate nonetheless.) Leontes thus stands at an important crossroads here: a moment where he seems to be free to choose whether or not to follow his baser inclinations. And yet what is most disturbing about the passage is the suggestion that that freedom might be an illusion—that even as Leontes is capable of seeing himself as deluded, there is nothing he can do to stop what is unreal from becoming real in his mind. By the end of the passage, we can almost see the cuckold’s horns growing out of his forehead even as he convinces himself that he is one.
Examine the following two passages in detail and offer specific observations about Leontes’ jealousy. (Have fun with this, for the passages are both dark and humorous):187-208 and 286-98.