to climb out of the darkness in the eighth century b.c., Pytho had a new name, Delphi, and the nature of the shrine had changed. It served Apollo rather than the earth goddess.
Greek myths were devised to explain the change.
Those myths told that when the Titaness Latona (Leto) was about to give birth to children by Jupiter, the jealous Juno made her life miserable in a variety of ways. She sent a dragon or giant snake, named Python, to pursue her, for instance. Eventually Latona bore twin children, Apollo and Diana. Apollo made his way back to Pytho, where the Python made its home, and killed it. Apollo then took over the shrine itself and gave it its new name (though the priestess remained the Pythia).
For centuries Delphi remained the most important and sacred of all the Greek oracles. It was beautified by gifts made to it by all the Greek cities and many foreign rulers. It served as a treasury in which people and cities kept their money for safekeeping, since no one would dare pollute the sacred shrine by theft.
On the other hand, there is also a place called Delos, a tiny island no larger than Manhattan's Central Park, located in the Aegean Sea about a hundred miles southeast of Athens.
It too is involved with the tale of Latona and her unborn children. Juno, who was persecuting Latona in every way possible, had forbidden any port of the earth on which the sun shone to receive her. Tiny Delos, however, was a floating island which Jupiter covered with waves so that the sun did not shine on it. There Apollo and Diana were born. Thereafter, Delos was fixed to the sea floor and never moved again.
As a result, Delos was as sacred to Apollo as Delphi was, and it was easy to confuse the two. Thus, one could imagine the oracle at Delphi to be located on the island of Delos, and speak of the combination as the "island of Delphos." Greene does this in Pandosto and Shakespeare carelessly follows him.
... Dame Partlet. ..
In prison, Hermione is delivered of her child and it turns out to be a beautiful little girl. Paulina, the wife of the courtier Antigonus, is a bold woman with a sharp tongue. Passionately loyal to Hermione and uncaring for the consequences, she offers to take the child to Leontes in the hope that the sight of the babyish innocence might soften him.
With the child, Paulina forces her way into Leontes' presence. He won't look at the child and cries out impatiently to Antigonus:
Give her the bastard,
Thou dotard, thou art woman-tired, unroosted
By thy Dame Partlet here.
- Act II, scene iii, lines 72-74
This refers to an extremely popular medieval cycle of animal stories, in which human failings are placed in animal guise, a device that dates back to Aesop in the Western tradition. The cycle is known as a whole as "Reynard the Fox," for the fox is the rascal hero (much like Br'er Rabbit in the Uncle Remus stories).
The tales reached their final form about 1100 and grew so popular that some of the names of the animals entered the common language. Even more familiar than "Reynard" for fox is "Bruin" for bear, for instance.
"Dame Partlet" is the hen and Leontes is saying in angry, insulting tones that Paulina is an old biddy who has henpecked her foolish husband into giving up the roost; that is, the dominating position in the house.
Antigonus can scarcely deny it at that. When Leontes tells him he should be hanged for not quieting his wife, Antigonus says, resignedly:
Hang all the husbands
That cannot do that feat, you'll leave yourself
Hardly one subject.
- Act II, scene iii, lines 108-10
"... of high treason..."
Leontes' madness continues in full course. He orders Antigonus to carry off the baby girl to some desert spot and leave it there to die.
The King then gets news that Cleomenes and Dion, the ambassadors to the Delphos, are returning, and he hastens to prepare a formal trial for the Queen. She is brought out of prison to face her indictment. The officer of the court reads it out:
"Hermione, Queen to the worthy Leontes,
King of Sicilia, thou art here accused and arraigned
of high treason, in committing adultery with
Polixenes, King of Bohemia, and conspiring with
Camillo to take away the life of our sovereign lord the
King, thy royal husband. ..
- Act III, scene ii, lines 12-17
There must have seemed a strange familiarity in this scene to Englishmen, for scarcely three quarters of a