Hermione

Hermione is the beautiful and virtuous Queen of Sicily in William Shakespeare’s romantic comedy, The Winter’s Tale, published in 1623. As is so often the case with beautiful and virtuous Shakespearean ladies, they happen to be married to insanely jealous husbands – no exception here with King Leontes. With no evidence to go on, Leontes accuses Hermione of adultery, a ridiculous charge which she calmly and rightly denies. Leontes has Hermione thrown into jail, where she gives birth to a daughter. When told of her son Mamillius’ death, however, Hermione dies of a broken heart. Oops – King Leontes now sees the light and spends the next sixteen years repenting his ways. With all odds against it, this play manages a happy ending, with just a teeny stretch of the imagination – that a statue erected to honor Hermione comes to life. Whatever it takes – King and Queen are reunited and long-lost daughter is restored. Only loser appears to be Mamillius.

In Greek mythology, Hermione is the only child of Menelaus, the Spartan king, and Helen of Troy and she is grand-daughter to Leda (of Zeus/Swan fame). This is some pretty heavy DNA to live up to, and our Hermione doesn’t quite make the grade. There is some dispute among the ancient story-tellers as to who was promised to whom and who married whom and when and why – suffice it to say that Hermione married Pyrrhus because her father promised her to him during the Trojan War. However, she had been promised by her grandfather to Orestes, her cousin, before the war. Somehow or other, she marries both of them, tries to murder Pyrrhus’ concubine, Andromache, has one son, Tisamenus, by Orestes, and fades from memory. Which is no mean trick, with a resume like that!

Hermione is the spirited young girl of the famous and beloved Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowland, making her debut in the first novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, published in 1997. Hermione is a scholarly little girl, a fellow student at Hogwarts with Harry and Ron, to whom efficiency and dependability are second nature. Well, she’s also a rather insufferable little know-it-all who goes about memorizing textbooks and outshining her classmates. We all know what’s beneath such a veneer – right – insecurity. Hermione has it in spades, but her heartfelt love for her friends, Harry and Ron, and her own inherent goodness, further her developing character and endear her to us over the years. Young English actress Emma Watson plays her to a tee in the movie series.