century before, not one but two English queens had stood accused of a very similar charge. These were two of the six wives of Henry VIII (who had died in 1547, seventeen years before Shakespeare's birth). One was Anne Boleyn, Henry's second wife, tried for adultery in 1536, and the other was Catherine Howard, his fifth wife, tried for adultery in 1542. Both were convicted and beheaded, the former at the age of twenty-nine and the latter at the age of about twenty-two.
The Emperor of Russia...
Again Hermione defends herself with dignity and sincerity, carrying conviction to all but the insane Leontes. While she waits for the word of the oracle, she says:
The Emperor of Russia was my father.
Oh that he were alive, and here beholding
His daughter's trial!
- Act III, scene ii, lines 117-19
Russia was not, of course, in existence in the time when Sicily was under Greek domination. The Russian people first swam into the light of history in the ninth century when Viking adventurers from Sweden took over the rule of the land and established a loose congeries of principalities under the vague overlordship of Kiev. This "Kievan Russia" was destroyed in 1240 by the Mongol invasion.
A century before Shakespeare's birth, however, Russia was beginning to emerge from the Mongol night. In 1462 Ivan III ("the Great") became Grand Prince of Muscovy. He managed to annex the lands of Novgorod, a northern city, which controlled the sparsely settled lands up to the Arctic Ocean. This first gave Muscovy a broad realm, larger in terms of area than that of any other nation in Europe. With that, Muscovy became Russia.
In 1472 Ivan married the heir to the recently defunct Byzantine Empire and laid claim to the title of Emperor.
His successors, Basil III and Ivan IV ("the Terrible"), continued the policy of expansion. Ivan IV, who reigned from 1533 to 1584 (through Shakespeare's youth, in other words), defeated the remnant of the Mongols and extended the Russian realm to the Caspian Sea.
Not only did Ivan the Terrible's victories put Russia "on the map," but during his reign England gained personal knowledge of the land. In 1553 an English trade mission under Richard Chancellor reached Ivan's court, so that Shakespeare's reference to "The Emperor of Russia" was rather topical.
"Hermione is chaste ..."
Cleomenes and Dion now bring in the sealed message from Delphos. It is opened and read. It states:
"Hermione is chaste, Polixenes blameless,
Camillo a true sub ject, Leontes a jealous tyrant,
his innocent babe truly begot ten, and the
King shall live without an heir,
if that which is lost be not found"
- Act III, scene ii, lines 130-33
This is clear, straightforward, and dramatic-and lacks all resemblance to the kind of oracles actually handed out by the real Delphi. In fiction, oracles may interpret present and foretell future with faultless vision; in actual fact, they can do nothing of the sort.
The real oracle at Delphi was extremely practiced at giving out ambiguous statements that could be interpreted as correct no matter what the eventuality. The most famous example of this (though by no means the only one) took place in 546 b.c. when Croesus of Lydia, in western Asia Minor, was considering a preventive attack on the growing Persian kingdom to the east of the Halys River, Lydia's boundary.
Croesus consulted the oracle at Delphi, of which he was one of the most munificent patrons. He was told: "When Croesus passes over the river Halys, he will overthrow the strength of an empire."
Croesus attacked at once, and realized too late that the oracle was carefully phrased so as to remain true whether he won or lost. He lost and it was his own realm that was overthrown. It is for reasons such as this that "Delphic" and "oracular" have come to mean "evasive," "ambiguous," "double-meaning."
Apollo, pardon
And still Leontes does not give in. Like Pharaoh in the Bible, his heart hardens with each new thrust and he dismisses the statement of the oracle as falsehood.
But at this very moment a servant rushes in to say that Leontes' young son, Mamilius, ill since his mother was arrested, has died. At the news, Hermione faints and Paulina declares she is dying.
The King is stricken. The death of his son at the instant of his blasphemy against Apollo punishes that blasphemy and demonstrates the truth of the oracle ("the King shall live without an heir") simultaneously.
As suddenly as the disease of jealousy had seized upon him, it leaves him. In one moment, he is sane again, and cries out in