The Winter's Tale, Act 1: Delphi: the Temple of Apollo, site of the Oracle which Leontes consults.

The Winter's Tale starts deeply imbeded in classical Greek culture (Sicily was a key part of Magna Graecia or Great Greece: extensive parts of southern Italy colonized by Greek settlers from the 8th c. B.C.). The moral dimensions of its plot are defined by the Delphic Oracle, not Christian terms. The insane jealousy of Leontes is itself comparable to the arbirary actions of the Greek gods who inflict insanity on victims such as Hercules (in the play by Euripides) and Ajax (in Sophocles), sending Iris to impose insane behavior on such victims. Picture and data courtesy of the Yorck Project, under Creative Commons Attribution-Share- Alike License (Wikipedia).