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Jealousy and judgement, or rather misjudgement, seem to be major themes in Shakespeare’s plays, in which most judgements are assumed by no logical basis or intellectual wit.  King Leontes, unlike Othello, comes to his conclusion by his own means, without any outside verification of truth or logical explanation for his jealousy.  However, there are many similarities, based on their situation, between him and Othello.  Both men transform, emotionally, into beast like figures whose actions ultimately end their lineage.  Although Perdita remains alive, and is able to carry on King Leontes’s bloodline, his name will die with her marriage to Florizel.  Othello and King Leontes also adapt a diction that transforms their language into something that resembles the baseness of humanity by the presentation of bestial images and rape that signify the personal anxieties of each men.  However, King Leontes’s transformation is different in that his jealousy and language seem to adjust abruptly and without warning.  In act one, scene 2, lines 180-208, of The Winter’s Tale, one can see King Leontes’s complete alteration into a desperate man who eventually kills his wife and son.  Through an analysis of these lines, it is easy to see the desperation and hate King Leontes develops towards his wife and Polixenes by the treatment of nature and property as a means to talk about sex and betrayal.
       From the onset of this scene, Hermione maintains her womanly virtue by inviting King Leontes to accompany her and Polixenes on their walk.  Despite this proof of fidelity, King Leontes wishes to disprove her devotion to him by witnessing her interaction with Polixenes from afar.  King Leontes asserts that he will find his wife as long as she remains “beneath the sky” (1.2.180-1).  Although he tells her that “[she]’ll be found,” meaning that he will physically locate her, King Leontes puns on the word find, thus meaning that he will uncover her infidelity.  Through this pun, we can see King Leontes’s desire, if not his need, to find Hermione involved with Polixenes as a means to prove their sinful relationship.  Situations of forcing fact are not novel in Shakespeare’s works.  In Twelfth Night, Malvolio does a very similar thing when he tries to uncover his name from a jumbled array of sporadic letters.  King Leontes intends to find proof for his wife’s infidelity, but instead merely defames her.  Lines 180-1 depict Leontes misjudgement as well as his irrational predisposition to pass judgement onto his wife and friend.  It is only until Hermione and Polixenes begin their walk, however, that King Leontes witness anything resembling proof of infidelity:
              How she holds up the neb, the bill to him,
And arms her with the boldness of a wife
To her allowing husband!
       1.2.184-6
King Leontes verbalizes what he perceives is Hermione raising her head, as if to receive a kiss, in a manner resembling that of a husband and wife.  Although King Leontes does not know that his wife has sustained loyalty to him, the audience is well aware of the king’s traducement of the situation, thus his premature judgement.  Here we can see Shakespeare’s attention to the themes of observation and situational misperception.  These themes are two-fold as they mimic society by the way the audience is witnesses King Leontes witnessing what he believes to be proof of his wife’s infidelity.  After witnessing this spectacle (another recurring theme in Shakespeare’s works), King Leontes is convinced he is cuckolded by his wife and now has “o’er head and ears a forked one (horn)” (1.2.187).  
       The next few lines, 188-190, are interesting in their treatment of the implications of play, and its many meanings.  When Hermione and Polixenes have left King Leontes’s sights, he witnesses his son playing and commands him, as if apostrophizing, “Go play, boy…Thy mother plays (also)” (1.2.188).  Here it is obvious that play implies not only childlike activity, but also sexual courting and promiscuity.  Therefore, the idea of infidelity, in this situation, is a serious idea, as it is described through the association Mamillius’s trifles.  It would appear that King Leontes is not only upset that he believes his wife unfaithful, but also that she would participate in such a puerile activity.  The pun on play continues with King Leontes’s declaration that “[he]/ Play[s] too” (1.2.188-9).  The editor’s footnote, and definition notation in the margin indicates that in this context, play means literally to play a role: here, the king‘s role is to play the cuckold.  However, there seems to be another role that the king is supposed to play.  The continuation of line 189 indicates that the king’s role is “so disgraced a part, whose issue/ Will hiss [him] to [his] grave.”  Playing a cuckold could not render such an effect as death.  Cuckolds are too humiliated and cowardly to leave their wives, thus they do not act against the situation of cuckolding; however, King Leontes takes an active position.  His position is that of judge and executioner.  The only other entity, besides a king, that has absolute power such as judgement and execution is God.  Since King Leontes is already a king, and does not assert his powers through his position, he must play the role of God.  Through King Leontes’s new role as God, it is easy to see how the verb to play becomes a pun on the noun play and therefore extends to the theme and manipulation of theatricality.  
Although the use of the pun is expertly demonstrated in these few lines as not only a literary technique, but also as an exhibition of wit, one must ask what were Shakespeare’s implications of using it to imply a meaning of such breadth.  We can ascertain that the king uses the pun as a device to deal with the situation at hand.  This could most likely be a demonstration of how society uses wit or the initiation of humor (on some psychological level), in order to deal with situations resembling this magnitude.  It can be argued that through King Leontes’s employment of wit, he is able to maintain what he believes to be a level head by proverbially making light of the situation through language.  
Following his rant on what he believes to be his current position, King Leontes’s language becomes more generic as he speaks about all women:
              …There have been,
              Or I am much deceived, cuckolds ere new,
              And many a man there is, even at this present,
              Now, while I speak this, holds his wife by th’ arm,
              That little thins she has been sluiced in’s absence,
              And his pond fished…
                     1.2.191-6
King Leontes, as a reaction against his wife no less, continues his criticism of infidelity by attributing this trait to all women as if it were a universal maxim.  His treatment of diction, however, attributes images of property as adhering to women.  King Leontes suggests that “his pond” has been “fished,” as well as “gates opened…against their will” (1.2.196-9).  Although there is a double meaning of gate, meaning both female genitalia and the entrance to a property, it is important to examine the property motif brought forth by the imagery.  Through the property motif, the presentation of women as commodity is clear; however, the extent to which commodity is attributed is restricted only by the domination of male influence.  It appears that King Leontes is suggesting that even if a man allowed his wife licentious freedom with other men, she would have no reservations about indulging in sex with whomever she wanted.  This notion of women’s innate sexual deviance further supports the hetero-nominative social structure of 16th and 17th century England.  As discussed previously, King Leontes feels that Hermione, but it is only until line 196 does he speak against his friend.  The king changes from active to passive voice to indicate that something negative has been done to him, taking the focus off his wife, and redirecting it unto Polixenes.  He asserts that a man can trust neither his wife, nor “his next neighbor” (1.2.196).  Even a longtime friend, such as Polixenes is King Leontes, cannot be trusted with another’s property.  
Much like his treatment of women, King Leontes sets a universal maxim for men based on the misperceived action of Polixenes.  King Leontes implicates that he can no longer trust any person out of fear of losing his empire through war or the infection of his lineage: “Know’t,/ It will let in and out the enemy/ With bag and baggage” (1.2.205-6).  The importance of this redirection is it illustrates King Leontes’s transformation into a cynic and the degeneration of his ability to rule his people wisely and fairly: a cynical king can in no way be a benevolent ruler.  However, he does rest full blame on Polixenes or on the maliciousness of men.  According to King Leontes, the main proponent for this downfall is women, thus also the cause of the deterioration of male friendships.  “It” in line 206 that allows enemies access to overthrowing counties is the “belly,” its antecedent, in line 205.  King Leontes’s diction perpetuates his assertion of women’s innate characteristic of infidelity, and extends to blame them for the overthrowing of power by either cutting off the bloodline, or allowing the enemy direct access to the king: both threats act as King Leontes’s central anxieties.
King Leontes’s speech in lines 180-208 illustrates his transformation from a loving husband to a jealous king who not only defames women, but also human kind altogether, through a false syllogism that is only supported by jealousy and misinterpretation.  Shakespeare’s treatment of this transformation reflects social anxieties that deal with notions of power, property, relationships, and the need to maintain power or control over those things.  Nonetheless, although these lines serve as an important proponent for gaining insight to King Leontes’s irrational, emotional, and even misanthropic state, they by no means advocate the king’s actions or decisions.  Furthermore, these lines demonstrate Shakespeare’s ability to use language to its highest potential as well as reflect the social conditions and underlying concerns of his era.
Work Cited
Shakespeare, William. The Winter’s Tale. The Norton Shakespeare: Based on the Oxford Edition. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1997. 2883-952.