Leontes: Jealousy That Comes Out of Nowhere
First appears: Act 1, Scene 2
Leontes's jealousy arrives without warning and without cause. His childhood friend Polixenes is visiting Sicilia. Hermione, his pregnant queen, persuades Polixenes to extend his stay at Leontes's request. Leontes watches them talking. Inside thirty lines of Act 1 Scene 2 he is convinced they are having an affair. Nothing in the scene supports this.
He has Hermione arrested and tried for treason and adultery. He sends her newborn daughter to be abandoned on a foreign coast. When his son Mamillius dies of grief during the trial, and Hermione collapses and appears to die, he receives the oracle of Apollo confirming she was innocent. He has destroyed his family.
He spends sixteen years doing penance in silence. The play gives him a restoration at the end (Perdita returned, Hermione apparently alive), but it does not absolve him easily. Paulina has kept his guilt alive for sixteen years on purpose. Whether the final scene is forgiveness or something more conditional is something each production has to decide.
Key Scenes
Famous Quotes
“Is whispering nothing? Is leaning cheek to cheek? Is meeting noses?”
Leontes — Act 1, Scene 2
“Thou art not honest, or if thou inclin'st that way, thou art a coward.”
Leontes — Act 1, Scene 2