Paul Adrian Fried / HAMLET'S BIBLE

When Hamlet mentions “Termagant” in advice to the players, he says it as if “everybody there would know exactly what [he] was talking about” [1]. What did Shakespeare assume his audience would know about Termagant, and why would dropping his name fit this play? The earliest known mention of Termagant is from “The Song of Roland” (an 11th-century work about a Frankish warrior, Roland (archetype of a Paladin) who fought in AD 778 under Charlemagne [2]. Termagant was a fictional god, assumed to be violent, falsely associated with Muslims by Christians who feared and did not understand their Saracen enemies [3].  The tale of Roland resembles aspects of Hamlet, in that Roland dies a martyr’s death in what seems in the end a suicide mission. Roland had a horn made of an elephant (oliphant) tusk that he was reluctant to blow for fear of being cowardly and dishonorable [4].  In Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 1, after cowardly faking death in battle, Falstaff calls Hotspur a "hot te...

ALLUSIONS TO ISLAM IN HAMLET:  BACKGROUND: Some Protestants like Luther viewed Islam with concern and envy as a false religion but admiring the unity of the Ottoman Empire compared to Christianity. Luther compared discipline in Islam to Catholic admiration for works (not "faith alone") for salvation. Luther aided in the publication of a German translation of the Qur’an. The Ottoman Empire was a geopolitical threat; Turkish pirates in the Mediterranean had captured Christians, and some of these converted to Islam.  There are three relatively direct references in Hamlet to Islam or its adherents, plus two more indirect references:  A. Hamlet refers to Termagant [1] in 3.2.14, with Termagant as a fictional god, in Christian propaganda, falsely attributed and used to discredit Islam [2].  B. Hamlet’s fortunes may “turn Turk” (3.2.302, may betray him like a Christian converting to Islam); but this may be ironic given Shakespeare’s later play about Othello the Moor, and th...

2025 WAS A VERY GOOD YEAR for the “Hamlet’s Bible” blog… VIEWS FOR THE YEAR came to about 77.6k, averaging about 1.5k views per week. This was a significant increase over the average for the past eight years, which was about 23.5k per year and .45k  per week, out of an eight-year total of 188k views from more than 80 countries since 2018. In 2025, I completed two series begun the previous year: One on Claudius [1], and one on the Twelve Days of Christmas - including Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night [2]. See also MASTER INDEX (for series) [3].  In all of my posts and research, I strive to welcome the strange, and to let my curiosity lead my research to new insights. Among my three favorite posts: New realizations about how references to classical gods and deified Roman Caesars should be reconsidered in conjunction with references to Jesus: All of these involve divinity claims, sometimes in stark contrast with one another. See my post, Hamlet's Christmas, Caesar, Taxes, and Conte...

SOME HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE JONAH ECHO in HAMLET The Jonah echo is perhaps better understood with consideration for the following (not an exhaustive list):  a) The success of A Looking Glass for London and England (c. 1590); see Hannibal Hamlin, Staging prophecy: A Looking Glass for London and the Book of Jonah,"Part III, chapter 10 in Enacting the Bible in Medieval and Early Modern Drama, Eds. Eva Von Contzen and Chanita Goodblatt, Manchester University Press, 2020. b) Elizabeth’s having dedicated one of her naval ships “Elizabeth Jonas” (1559) with a speech that exhibited poor biblical exegesis than propaganda;  "The 3 day of July, 1559, the Queen's Grace took her barge at Greenwich unto Woolwich to her new ship, and there it was named Elizabeth Jonas, and after her Grace had a goodly banquet, and there was great shooting of guns, and casting of fire about made for pleasure ' (Diary of Henry Machin, Camden Society, p. 203). The ship ' was so named by her G...

On the Significance of HAMLET 3.4 and 1-2 KINGS Elijah/Elisha, widow tales Here are some of the possibilities for this allusion’s significance:  - If Gertrude (aware of her sick soul and guilt in 4.5) desires to be blessed, then we must ask: What blessings do Hamlet (or his surrogates) beg of her, or what blessings does she offer, perhaps without even being asked (as mothers are sometimes prone to do)?  - Gertrude is faithful to her promise to keep Hamlet’s secret from Claudius (3.4.219-221).  - She overcomes her own reluctance and greets an apparently mad Ophelia (4.5.21).  - When Ophelia drowns, she portrays it not as suicide, but as a holy death, with Ophelia chanting lauds (4.7.202); Gertrude blames crown-envy for Ophelia’s fall into the brook: Ophelia had been placing “coronet weeds” (4.7.197, small floral crowns) on branches, and the sliver on which she stood was envious (4.7.98 envious about not receiving a crown like others). Gertrude figuratively and careful...

O n the Significance of Hamlet as Boy Jesus in 3.2, Lost and Found in Luke 2 Here are some of the possibilities for this allusion’s significance:  - Hamlet jokes that he is a wonderful son like the boy Jesus, amazing and astonishing elders and parents.  - A proud, blasphemous, “mad” Hamlet dares to compare himself to Jesus, blind to his own faults (like his blind stabbing of Polonius in the closet scene).  - Hamlet feels he “must go about [his] father’s business,” and feels “Prompted to [his]  revenge by heaven and hell” (2.2.613). - There is irony in the fact that the allusion equates Hamlet with the boy Jesus who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, with the Virgin Mary as mother and Joseph as his stepfather; Gertrude (“whored” by Claudius, her second husband) parallels the Virgin Mary, and stepfather Claudius parallels St. Joseph, perhaps an ironic probing of the Protestant questioning the Catholic tradition of the perpetual virginity of Mary. - Hamlet wants very...

A FEW IMPORTANT BOOKS ON SHAKESPEARE, RELIGION, AND THE BIBLE Attempts to catalogue biblical allusions in Shakespeare in the last century and a half , more often than not, have been focused on the words of the Word, seeking mostly names and key phrases and words from the Bible, and sometimes official homilies, in the playwright’s work. Others have mentioned paraphrased references, and still others, what some call plot echoes.  This is especially true of efforts by Charles Wordsworth (1864) Thomas Carter (1905), Richmond Noble (1935) and Naseeb Shaheen (1999). Bishop Wordsworth’s book, Shakespeare's Knowledge and Use of the Bible…, was published only a few years after Darwin published On the Origin of Species (1859) and tried to argue that Shakespeare was evangelizing and catechizing with his use of scripture.  Peter Milward Biblical Influences in Shakespeare's Great Tragedies in 1987, but did not follow it with other play genres. Milward notes that Horatio, presenting himself ...

What does it feel like to be wrong? In Shakespeare's Hamlet, Claudius had conspired with Laertes to poison Hamlet with a rapier and a chalice of wine. Hamlet apologizes for the death of Polonius: “I shot mine arrow over the house and hurt my brother” - an accident, blaming madness [1]. Laertes sees the queen drink deeply from the poison chalice. Laertes knows she will die. Witnessing her, Laertes hesitates. Kill Hamlet, now? He says in an aside:  “yet it is almost against my conscience.” (5.2.324) But he is too committed to the plan, so he goes ahead. What does it feel like to be Laertes in that moment?  In her book, “Being Wrong” (2010), award-winning author Kathryn Schulz notes that being wrong often feels exactly like being right. When Laertes goes ahead with the murderous poisoning plan, when the crucifier follows orders and nails Jesus to the cross, when the Nazi starts up the gas chamber, some people are so committed to a false ideology that they don’t realize (as Lae...