(Part 13) Does Fortinbras Benefit from Gratitude or Regret (or is he more a cipher for James VI & I)? Labors of Gratitude and Regret in Hamlet
This is the latest installment in a multi-part series examining how characters interact in Hamlet, offering opportunities, gifts, planting seeds for future inspiration, or for changes of heart & mind. It follows ideas from Lewis Hyde (“The Labor of Gratitude,” a chapter in his book, The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property). For more notes on the series and an index of previous posts in this series, see the end of this post.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[Rufus Sewell as Fortinbras in Hamlet, directed by Kenneth Branagh (1996]
Does Fortinbras Benefit from Gratitude or Regret (or is he more a cipher for James VI & I)?
(part 13, Labors of Gratitude & Regret in Hamlet)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Postscript: Also see my post from a year and two months later than this one, regarding Fortinbras as a remarkable Jephthah figure, if one pays attention to the details of the biblical Jephthah tale:
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2021/02/fortinbras-jephthah-james-stealthy.html
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fortinbras, Prince of Norway, is one of the more forgettable characters in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, not least because his small part and the handful of brief references to him are often cut from modern productions. He is the son of the Norwegian king who was killed by King Hamlet on the day Prince Hamlet was born, so we are told he is a foil for Hamlet. While Fortinbras seems a man of action, Hamlet is much more contemplative. But we already have a foil like this in Laertes, so many directors find him quite expendable.
References to Fortinbras are ambiguous in a number of ways: Do people in Denmark who speak of him in the play really understand Young Fortinbras, his point of view on his father’s death, and what he wants of Denmark? When Claudius dispatches messengers to Norway to express concern about the actions of Fortinbras that seem to threaten Denmark, these messengers report back that Fortinbras was apprehended and scolded by his uncle, who occupies Norway’s throne as Uncle Claudius occupies Denmark’s. But after Fortinbras repents of his mistaken judgments and actions, the uncle gives him an increased allowance in order to raise an army against Poland, a curious detail, as if the uncle in Norway sees potential in Fortinbras, even by his mistakes, that should be put to use. Yet Fortinbras requests safe passage across Denmark, the very nation he had recently threatened. What wise leader in their right mind would trust that Fortinbras has indeed had a change of heart and no longer has designs on Denmark?
To me, if we are speaking only of the fictional character of Fortinbras and not any historical figures to which he may refer, this is all very suspicious. Norway may be deceiving Denmark with this report, just as Claudius has deceived Denmark with the false story of how King Hamlet was bitten by a snake while napping in his garden. Yet many critics trust the reports from Norway and claim this as evidence that Claudius is indeed an effective king, perhaps even more effective than the older brother he killed. I don’t believe it.
I’d like to consider Fortinbras independent of the historical context of the play first. In doing so, in keeping with my work on biblical allusions and plot echoes, and also my recent series on Labors of Gratitude and Regret, I’d like to consider especially whether Fortinbras benefits from gratitude or regret: In other words, does he receive and appreciate gifts, or regret mistakes, and make a change in himself?
Then I’d like to consider Shakespeare’s play itself as a possible gift to King James VI & I in its original historical context, a gift that may have inspired or acknowledged gratitude and regret.
Gratitude and regret are key features of Biblical Christianity: Those who are given the gift of faith and Christian baptism are called to “die to self” and “die to sin” and “put on Christ,” and be made new, striving to be more like Jesus. In fact, since we don’t create ourselves and are not responsible for the circumstances of our own conception, existence itself comes to us like a gift, and if we are grateful for our own existence, we feel gratitude and perhaps strive to be generous with others as the universe has been generous with us.
Gratitude for the gifts of our existence and of faith are first steps. But we all make mistakes, and when we do so, regret follows a similar pattern to gratitude. Lewis Hyde describes “The Labor of Gratitude” as a process where one receives a gift, feels grateful and indebted, and labors to become like the gift or the giver. Hyde was not writing of religion or Christianity, but of the effects of gifts and gratitude. With regret, one recognizes one’s mistakes and the damage one has caused, and one feels sorrow and a kind of indebtedness, a desire to make up for the harm. If one labors to repair the harm, this is similar to the labor of gratitude. Elizabethan Christianity emphasized contrition for sins and the importance of repentance and reconciliation (as demonstrated in the prayer scene, where Claudius is unsuccessful in repenting, but at least understands what is at stake).
So if Fortinbras benefits from labors of gratitude or regret, we might observe that the Christianity of Shakespeare’s time was the main way that people learned the values of gratitude for gifts and regret for mistakes; Biblical stories communicated these ideas and values, so if they are embodied in Fortinbras and in other aspects of the play as a whole, this can indirectly be attributed to the Christian heritage of Shakespeare’s England.
I don’t observe these things because of any hidden agenda to evangelize: It matters not to me if one is an atheist, a Buddhist, a Hindu, a Muslim, a Christian, a Jew, or possessing any other religious or non-religious beliefs or life-philosophies. The dynamics of gratitude for gifts and regret for mistakes still works the same.
LAWLESS RESOLUTES?
We first hear mention of young Fortinbras in 1.1, when Marcellus asks why Denmark seems to be preparing for war, and Horatio explains the back-story:
MARCELLUS
Good now, sit down, and tell me, he that knows,
Why this same strict and most observant watch
So nightly toils the subject of the land,
And why such daily cast of brazen cannon,
And foreign mart for implements of war;
Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task
Does not divide the Sunday from the week;
What might be toward, that this sweaty haste
Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day:
Who is't that can inform me?
HORATIO
That can I;
At least, the whisper goes so. Our last king,
Whose image even but now appear'd to us,
Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,
Thereto prick'd on by a most emulate pride,
Dared to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet--
For so this side of our known world esteem'd him--
Did slay this Fortinbras; who by a seal'd compact,
Well ratified by law and heraldry,
Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands
Which he stood seized of, to the conqueror:
Against the which, a moiety competent
Was gaged by our king; which had return'd
To the inheritance of Fortinbras,
Had he been vanquisher; as, by the same covenant,
And carriage of the article design'd,
His fell to Hamlet. Now, sir, young Fortinbras,
Of unimproved mettle hot and full,
Hath in the skirts of Norway here and there
Shark'd up a list of lawless resolutes,
For food and diet, to some enterprise
That hath a stomach in't; which is no other--
As it doth well appear unto our state--
But to recover of us, by strong hand
And terms compulsatory, those foresaid lands
So by his father lost: and this, I take it,
Is the main motive of our preparations,
The source of this our watch and the chief head
Of this post-haste and romage in the land.
Some might claim that King Hamlet and Old Fortinbras were brave heroes who spared many lives of their soldiers by agreeing to fight in single combat rather than go to war in general. That may be true. But Horatio makes such a careful argument about the legitimacy of King Hamlet’s victory, one can’t help but wonder if (to paraphrase Gertrude) he doesn’t perhaps protest too much, and perhaps this is all to cover for Norway having a very different view of what happened in the fight between the kings, and whether it was actually as legitimate and “Well ratified by law and heraldry” as Horatio claims.
But if we take Horatio’s grasp of the gossip at his word, it would seem that our first image of Fortinbras is that he is a renegade, a prince gone rogue: He doesn’t seem to be merely a prince who has volunteered to help in Norway’s military recruitment efforts, but perhaps one who is acting outside the boundaries of his uncle’s authority so that he might raise a force to attack Denmark. In modern terminology, we might compare him to a terrorist if we believe Horatio’s account.
PESTER US WITH MESSAGE?
In the next scene (1.2), Claudius conveys a slightly different view of Fortinbras after speaking awkwardly of his marriage to Gertrude:
Now follows, that you know, young Fortinbras,
Holding a weak supposal of our worth,
Or thinking by our late dear brother's death
Our state to be disjoint and out of frame,
Colleagued with the dream of his advantage,
He hath not fail'd to pester us with message,
Importing the surrender of those lands
Lost by his father, with all bonds of law,
To our most valiant brother. So much for him.
Now for ourself and for this time of meeting:
Thus much the business is: we have here writ
To Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras,--
Who, impotent and bed-rid, scarcely hears
Of this his nephew's purpose,--to suppress
His further gait herein; in that the levies,
The lists and full proportions, are all made
Out of his subject: and we here dispatch
You, good Cornelius, and you, Voltimand,
For bearers of this greeting to old Norway;
Giving to you no further personal power
To business with the king, more than the scope
Of these delated articles allow.
Farewell, and let your haste commend your duty.
What interests me about this passage is that instead of focusing on a renegade prince raising an army of his own without the approval of his uncle, we find Claudius explaining that young Fortinbras seems to have been engaged in some effort of diplomacy, sending messages or letters asking for the return of Norway’s lost lands:
He hath not fail'd to pester us with message,
Importing the surrender of those lands
Lost by his father, with all bonds of law,
To our most valiant brother.
This gives us a very different image of a Fortinbras who would rather use diplomacy than force to achieve his ends. In the Kenneth Branagh-directed Hamlet, when Claudius says, “So much for him,” he tears up a message from Fortinbras.
Claudius also reveals (at least in Denmark’s view) that Fortinbras’ uncle is “impotent and bed-rid” and has therefore not heard of what his nephew has been up to. These are new pieces of information we didn’t hear in Horatio’s version of the story. So Claudius writes to Norway to suppress Fortinbras’ efforts, and sends messengers to deliver this letter, with very strict instructions that they are to do nothing more than deliver the message (as if engaging in diplomacy might lead to the messengers hearing more of Fortinbras’ view of things than Claudius would like for his messengers to hear, perhaps?).
BUSINESS WELL-ENDED? REALLY?
We next hear of Fortinbras and Norway in 2.2 when the messengers return:
KING CLAUDIUS
Welcome, my good friends!
Say, Voltimand, what from our brother Norway?
VOLTIMAND
Most fair return of greetings and desires.
Upon our first, he sent out to suppress
His nephew's levies; which to him appear'd
To be a preparation 'gainst the Polack;
But, better look'd into, he truly found
It was against your highness: whereat grieved,
That so his sickness, age and impotence
Was falsely borne in hand, sends out arrests
On Fortinbras; which he, in brief, obeys;
Receives rebuke from Norway, and in fine
Makes vow before his uncle never more
To give the assay of arms against your majesty.
Whereon old Norway, overcome with joy,
Gives him three thousand crowns in annual fee,
And his commission to employ those soldiers,
So levied as before, against the Polack:
With an entreaty, herein further shown,
[Giving a paper]
That it might please you to give quiet pass
Through your dominions for this enterprise,
On such regards of safety and allowance
As therein are set down.
KING CLAUDIUS
It likes us well;
And at our more consider'd time well read,
Answer, and think upon this business.
Meantime we thank you for your well-took labour:
Go to your rest; at night we'll feast together:
Most welcome home!
[Exeunt VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS]
LORD POLONIUS
This business is well ended.
Polonius may think the business with Fortinbras is well ended, but perhaps that’s wishful thinking on his part. Allowing Fortinbras safe passage across Denmark for the stated purpose of a war on Poland would seem a foolish thing to do. Note that it is not a repentant Fortinbras that humbly asks permission to cross Denmark on the way to Poland, but rather, the uncle who requests this of Denmark: Did the uncle know of his nephew's plans all along, and now is sending the nephew and troops through Denmark, supposedly with a request for safe passage, because perhaps the uncle favors a sneak attack against Denmark to recover those lands? Denmark claims the lands were won legally, according to law and honor, but Norway might not agree; after a group takes land from another, they usually come up with a story to justify it. That doesn't mean the story is true.
After all, Claudius has a story: This his brother was bitten by a snake when he was napping in his garden. But this is not true: Claudius admits in prayer that he killed his brother. How do we know that perhaps Norway isnt being just as devious? Stranger things have happened.
There are other interpretations of the messenger's story that might be skeptical and equally valid, I think. But then again, perhaps taking the story at face value is in fact one valid possibility?
GRATITUDE AND REGRET FOR FORTINBRAS?
If in fact we can trust the messengers at their word regarding Fortinbras’ change of heart, how might we say the dynamics of gratitude and regret might be at work in him?
It would seem to begin with regret: The uncle receives the message from Denmark, alerting him to his nephew’s irresponsible behavior; Fortinbras is arrested, scolded by his uncle, and comes to regret what he has done. Perhaps grateful for his uncle’s correction and for the general position of privilege he enjoys, Fortinbras promises never to do it again. The uncle, grateful to find that the nephew has repented thoroughly of his mistakes, but also grateful for his nephew’s resourcefulness and military interests, rewards Fortinbras with money and approval to go make war against Poland (which may, in fact, turn out to be too worthless a target, we later learn). An obedient and respectful Fortinbras is grateful for the approval and support from his uncle for new military enterprises, and he goes out a slightly changed man, corrected, improved by his uncle’s guidance.
A CHANGED, MORE HUMBLE, LESS AMBITIOUS FORTINBRAS?
In 4.4 we encounter Fortinbras for the first time, first-hand, humbly requesting passage through Denmark’s lands instead of proudly asserting a claim for the return of lands previously lost by his father’s death. Fortinbras and Hamlet almost meet, but Fortinbras exits the stage just before Hamlet enters on his way to the ship that will take him to England:
SCENE IV. A plain in Denmark.
Enter FORTINBRAS, a Captain, and Soldiers, marching
PRINCE FORTINBRAS
Go, captain, from me greet the Danish king;
Tell him that, by his licence, Fortinbras
Craves the conveyance of a promised march
Over his kingdom. You know the rendezvous.
If that his majesty would aught with us,
We shall express our duty in his eye;
And let him know so.
Captain
I will do't, my lord.
PRINCE FORTINBRAS
Go softly on.
[Exeunt FORTINBRAS and Soldiers]
There is no hint here of the old Fortinbras, pestering Claudius with messages demanding the return of the lost lands: Instead, Fortinbras speaks as from a subordinate position: “by his licence,” and a “promised march.” Fortinbras adds, “If that his majesty would aught with us, / We shall express our duty in his eye; / And let him know so.” He ends, telling his messenger to “Go softly on,” implying not that he is sneaking, but that he goes in peace and humbly with his message for Denmark’s king. All of this might seem to add more evidence in favor of a Fortinbras who is reformed in part by regret and gratitude.
A LITTLE PATCH OF GROUND THAT HATH IN IT NO PROFIT BUT THE NAME
Soon in the same scene (4.4) Hamlet encounters a captain and asks about the objective of Fortinbras’ army:
HAMLET
Goes it against the main of Poland, sir,
Or for some frontier?
Captain
Truly to speak, and with no addition,
We go to gain a little patch of ground
That hath in it no profit but the name.
To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it;
Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole
A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee.
HAMLET
Why, then the Polack never will defend it.
Captain
Yes, it is already garrison'd.
This doesn’t reflect especially well on Fortinbras, that he would lead an army against another in a fight over relatively worthless land. Maybe it also shows us that perhaps Fortinbras is, for now, obeying his uncle and even performing relatively meaningless tasks in order to be ready for a time in the future when his ambition is given more freedom to pursue more important goals?
Hamlet doesn’t view it that way: Instead, he figures that if Fortinbras can fight this way for something so relatively meaningless, perhaps Hamlet, too, should be more a man of action, and should consider only “bloody” thoughts as worthwhile, and other thoughts as worthless:
HAMLET
Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats
Will not debate the question of this straw:
This is the imposthume of much wealth and peace,
That inward breaks, and shows no cause without
Why the man dies. I humbly thank you, sir.
Captain
God be wi' you, sir. [Exit]
ROSENCRANTZ
Wilt please you go, my lord?
HAMLET
I'll be with you straight go a little before. [Exeunt all except HAMLET]
How all occasions do inform against me,
And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.
Sure, he that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and god-like reason
To fust in us unused. Now, whether it be
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
Of thinking too precisely on the event,
A thought which, quarter'd, hath but one part wisdom
And ever three parts coward, I do not know
Why yet I live to say 'This thing's to do;'
Sith I have cause and will and strength and means
To do't. Examples gross as earth exhort me:
Witness this army of such mass and charge
Led by a delicate and tender prince,
Whose spirit with divine ambition puff'd
Makes mouths at the invisible event,
Exposing what is mortal and unsure
To all that fortune, death and danger dare,
Even for an egg-shell. Rightly to be great
Is not to stir without great argument,
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
When honour's at the stake. How stand I then,
That have a father kill'd, a mother stain'd,
Excitements of my reason and my blood,
And let all sleep? while, to my shame, I see
The imminent death of twenty thousand men,
That, for a fantasy and trick of fame,
Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot
Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,
Which is not tomb enough and continent
To hide the slain? O, from this time forth,
My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!
I have posted in the past about how, when Hamlet calls Fortinbras “a delicate and tender prince,” this is not a compliment, but an allusion to biblical passages meaning something like “a pampered and spoiled prince.” Hamlet assumes his posture toward the world must be to embrace only bloody thoughts, but he will soon learn, when overpowered by merciful pirates, that there is another way, and that perhaps he needs more than his bloody thoughts.
So by the end of 4.4, Fortinbras is still ambiguous: Is he sincerely reformed, or is he just putting on a good show and waiting for his moment to act? It’s unclear, and Hamlet may be learning the wrong lessons from Fortinbras’ example.
GOSPEL ECHOES AFTER HAMLET’S DEATH
The last time we see Fortinbras is at the very end of the play (5.2). Gertrude, Claudius, Laertes and Hamlet have all died, and Horatio has alluded to the requiem mass and its allusion to the tale of Lazarus and the rich man (Luke 16:19-31), saying,
Now cracks a noble heart. Good night sweet prince:
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!
“Flights of angels sing thee to thy rest” is something like what the requiem mass asks for the deceased, that they fly like Lazarus to the bosom of Abraham at the gates of heaven, and not like the rich man, condemned to hell.
There follows some interesting exchanges between Horatio and Fortinbras:
HORATIO
Why does the drum come hither?
[March within;
Enter FORTINBRAS, the English Ambassadors, and others]
PRINCE FORTINBRAS
Where is this sight?
HORATIO
What is it ye would see?
If aught of woe or wonder, cease your search.
In Horatio’s statement we might hear gospel echoes: In Matthew (11:7) and Luke (7:24), when John the Baptist sends messengers to Jesus to ask if he is the messiah, “the one who is to come.” At the end of Jesus’ reply, Jesus asks them what it is they came to see, responding to the question from John’s messengers with a question of his own. Shakespeare’s Hamlet begins with the question from Bernardo, “Who’s there?” — turned back on him by Francisco, who demands that Bernardo answer his own question first — and now at the end, we have a question from Fortinbras, followed by a question from Horatio that resembles the question of Jesus: “What is it ye would see?”
Here’s the structure in the gospel compared to that in Hamlet:
Matthew 11 (1599 Geneva):
John the Baptist’s messengers:
“Art thou he that should come, or shall we look for another?” (3)
Jesus to the multitude of John:
“What went ye out into the wilderness to see? a reed shaken with the wind? (7)
But what went ye out to see? A man clothed in soft raiment?
Behold they that wear soft clothing, are in kings’ houses.(8)
But what went ye out to see? A Prophet? Yea, I say unto you, and more than a Prophet.(9)
Now compare that to Fortinbras and Horatio:
PRINCE FORTINBRAS (5.2): Where is this sight?
HORATIO: What is it ye would see?
Furthermore, compare Horatio’s next statement to what the angel at the tomb says in Luke 25:5-6:
HORATIO:
If aught of woe or wonder, cease your search. [Cease because Hamlet's is a tale of woe and wonder.]
Angel in Luke 25:
5 Why seek ye him that liveth, among the dead?
It seems that the questioning dialogue between Fortinbras and Horatio echoes that of Jesus to the disciples of John, and also that of the angel to the women at the tomb. It seems Shakespeare would like for his early (bible-reading, church-attending, and bible-familiar) audiences of the play to hear in the death of Hamlet at least a vague echo of the passion and death of Jesus.
RIGHTS OF MEMORY
Fortinbras goes on to show his sense of decorum, that the gruesome sight of all these deaths is more fitting on a battlefield than at court. The English Ambassador reports that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have been executed, and Horatio informs Fortinbras and the others that he has a tale to tell, explaining what has transpired:
PRINCE FORTINBRAS
This quarry cries on havoc. O proud death,
What feast is toward in thine eternal cell,
That thou so many princes at a shot
So bloodily hast struck?
First Ambassador
The sight is dismal;
And our affairs from England come too late:
The ears are senseless that should give us hearing,
To tell him his commandment is fulfill'd,
That Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead:
Where should we have our thanks?
HORATIO
Not from his mouth, [meaning that of Claudius]
Had it the ability of life to thank you:
He never gave commandment for their death.
But since, so jump upon this bloody question,
You from the Polack wars, and you from England,
Are here arrived give order that these bodies
High on a stage be placed to the view;
And let me speak to the yet unknowing world
How these things came about: so shall you hear
Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts,
Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters,
Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause,
And, in this upshot, purposes mistook
Fall'n on the inventors' reads: all this can I
Truly deliver.
PRINCE FORTINBRAS
Let us haste to hear it,
And call the noblest to the audience.
For me, with sorrow I embrace my fortune:
I have some rights of memory in this kingdom,
Which now to claim my vantage doth invite me.
HORATIO
Of that I shall have also cause to speak,
And from his mouth whose voice will draw on more;
But let this same be presently perform'd,
Even while men's minds are wild; lest more mischance
On plots and errors, happen.
PRINCE FORTINBRAS
Let four captains
Bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to the stage;
For he was likely, had he been put on,
To have proved most royally: and, for his passage,
The soldiers' music and the rites of war
Speak loudly for him.
Take up the bodies: such a sight as this
Becomes the field, but here shows much amiss.
Go, bid the soldiers shoot.
When Fortinbras speaks of how with sorrow he embraces his fortune, we would do well to think of Claudius, speaking in 1.2 of his sorrow at his brother’s death, mixed with mirth at his wedding to Gertrude. Is he just another Claudius? Or perhaps Fortinbras has matured and benefited from both regret and gratitude? We might like to hope as much. But it is ambiguous, perhaps leaving us with the sense that the future is whatever we make of it?
OR IS IT ALL TO CATCH THE CONSCIENCE OF JAMES?
Many scholars view Fortinbras as a kind of representation of James VI of Scotland who became King James I of England after Queen Elizabeth I’s death: Like Fortinbras, James was a prince from the north who took the throne of a nation after the end of a royal house. Some, in fact, also view Prince Hamlet as similarly referencing aspects of James’ life, because James, like Hamlet, had a father killed, and a prime suspect in his father’s death was the very man who later married James’ mother.
So in that way, perhaps it matters little whether we can ever pluck the heart of the mystery of Fortinbras, and whether Fortinbras is sincere in his reform by regret and gratitude. Perhaps more importantly, we might view Shakespeare’s play Hamlet as a kind of gift to James, a gift that might prick his conscience and remind him both of his mistakes and of the gifts for which he might be grateful. Like Fortinbras who pesters Claudius with messages seeking the return of land to which Fortinbras feels he has a right, James was involved in a kind of scandal: His ambassadors to Denmark and Germany had spoken there of James’ expectations regarding being Elizabeth’s heir, and this had displeased Elizabeth. [1]
Also in the same year (1598), a man named Valentine Thomas, a suspected Catholic and horse thief, claimed that he had discussed with James a plot to deliver a message to Elizabeth and, when close enough to her, to stab her. Elizabeth seems not to have believed Thomas, but James was upset by the slander and expressed his concern in a variety of letters. [2]
In this way, the play would have reminded a new James I of some of his mistakes. Instead of being scolded by his own uncle, it seems James was scolded by a sort of aunt-figure, Elizabeth.
The play not only reminds James of his mistakes, but also that he received the throne as a free gift expressed as the wishes of the monarch he succeeded, Elizabeth, even as Fortinbras receives the throne in part by the dying voice of Prince Hamlet. As such, the play might be viewed as inviting James to both gratitude and regret; to keep in mind and make up for his past mistakes, to feel deep gratitude for the gift of the throne, and to labor to become worthy of the gift.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Notes:
1 - See page 82, The Correspondence of Elizabeth I and James VI in the context of Anglo-Scottish relations, 1572-1603, Elizabeth Tunstall / https://digital.library.adelaide.edu.au/dspace/bitstream/2440/99099/2/02whole.pdf
2 - Ibid, pages 71-82.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Continued Next Week
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
NOTE ON THIS SERIES OF POSTS:
Hamlet quotes are taken from the Complete Moby(tm) Shakespeare at mit.edu, not for any preference in a particular version or editor, but for simplicity & accessibility.
This is the latest installment in a multi-part series examining how characters interact in Hamlet, offering opportunities, gifts, planting seeds for future inspiration, or for changes of heart & mind. It follows ideas from Lewis Hyde (“The Labor of Gratitude,” a chapter in his book, The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property).
- The more I examine characters in this way, the more I realize how the major characters in Hamlet are dynamic characters who change, becoming better or worse in one way or another. This approach goes against the grain of a great deal of scholarship that seems to reify (or thing-ify) too many characters (as foil, as Oedipal, as Machiavellian, etc.) and view them as more static, rather than as dynamic, fluid, interacting. For an index of previous posts in this series, see below.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Index of other posts in this series:
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2024/09/index-character-arcs-labors-of.html
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
YOU CAN SUPPORT ME on a one-time "tip" basis on Ko-Fi:
https://ko-fi.com/pauladrianfried
IF YOU WOULD PREFER to support me on a REGULAR basis,
you may do so on Ko-Fi, or here on Patreon:
https://patreon.com/PaulAdrianFried
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Disclaimer: If and when I quote or paraphrase bible passages or mention religion in many of my blog posts, I do not intend to promote any religion over another, nor am I attempting to promote religious belief in general; only to explore how the Bible and religion influenced Shakespeare, his plays, and his age.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thanks for reading!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My current project is a book tentatively titled Hamlet’s Bible, about biblical allusions and plot echoes in Hamlet.
Below is a link to a list of some of my top posts (“greatest hits”), including a description of my book project (last item on the list):
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2019/12/top-20-hamlet-bible-posts.html
I post every week, so please visit as often as you like and consider FOLLOWING.
To find the FOLLOW button, go to the home page: https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/
see the = drop-down menu with three lines in the upper left.
From there you can click FOLLOW and see options.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[Rufus Sewell as Fortinbras in Hamlet, directed by Kenneth Branagh (1996]
Does Fortinbras Benefit from Gratitude or Regret (or is he more a cipher for James VI & I)?
(part 13, Labors of Gratitude & Regret in Hamlet)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Postscript: Also see my post from a year and two months later than this one, regarding Fortinbras as a remarkable Jephthah figure, if one pays attention to the details of the biblical Jephthah tale:
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2021/02/fortinbras-jephthah-james-stealthy.html
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fortinbras, Prince of Norway, is one of the more forgettable characters in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, not least because his small part and the handful of brief references to him are often cut from modern productions. He is the son of the Norwegian king who was killed by King Hamlet on the day Prince Hamlet was born, so we are told he is a foil for Hamlet. While Fortinbras seems a man of action, Hamlet is much more contemplative. But we already have a foil like this in Laertes, so many directors find him quite expendable.
References to Fortinbras are ambiguous in a number of ways: Do people in Denmark who speak of him in the play really understand Young Fortinbras, his point of view on his father’s death, and what he wants of Denmark? When Claudius dispatches messengers to Norway to express concern about the actions of Fortinbras that seem to threaten Denmark, these messengers report back that Fortinbras was apprehended and scolded by his uncle, who occupies Norway’s throne as Uncle Claudius occupies Denmark’s. But after Fortinbras repents of his mistaken judgments and actions, the uncle gives him an increased allowance in order to raise an army against Poland, a curious detail, as if the uncle in Norway sees potential in Fortinbras, even by his mistakes, that should be put to use. Yet Fortinbras requests safe passage across Denmark, the very nation he had recently threatened. What wise leader in their right mind would trust that Fortinbras has indeed had a change of heart and no longer has designs on Denmark?
To me, if we are speaking only of the fictional character of Fortinbras and not any historical figures to which he may refer, this is all very suspicious. Norway may be deceiving Denmark with this report, just as Claudius has deceived Denmark with the false story of how King Hamlet was bitten by a snake while napping in his garden. Yet many critics trust the reports from Norway and claim this as evidence that Claudius is indeed an effective king, perhaps even more effective than the older brother he killed. I don’t believe it.
I’d like to consider Fortinbras independent of the historical context of the play first. In doing so, in keeping with my work on biblical allusions and plot echoes, and also my recent series on Labors of Gratitude and Regret, I’d like to consider especially whether Fortinbras benefits from gratitude or regret: In other words, does he receive and appreciate gifts, or regret mistakes, and make a change in himself?
Then I’d like to consider Shakespeare’s play itself as a possible gift to King James VI & I in its original historical context, a gift that may have inspired or acknowledged gratitude and regret.
Gratitude and regret are key features of Biblical Christianity: Those who are given the gift of faith and Christian baptism are called to “die to self” and “die to sin” and “put on Christ,” and be made new, striving to be more like Jesus. In fact, since we don’t create ourselves and are not responsible for the circumstances of our own conception, existence itself comes to us like a gift, and if we are grateful for our own existence, we feel gratitude and perhaps strive to be generous with others as the universe has been generous with us.
Gratitude for the gifts of our existence and of faith are first steps. But we all make mistakes, and when we do so, regret follows a similar pattern to gratitude. Lewis Hyde describes “The Labor of Gratitude” as a process where one receives a gift, feels grateful and indebted, and labors to become like the gift or the giver. Hyde was not writing of religion or Christianity, but of the effects of gifts and gratitude. With regret, one recognizes one’s mistakes and the damage one has caused, and one feels sorrow and a kind of indebtedness, a desire to make up for the harm. If one labors to repair the harm, this is similar to the labor of gratitude. Elizabethan Christianity emphasized contrition for sins and the importance of repentance and reconciliation (as demonstrated in the prayer scene, where Claudius is unsuccessful in repenting, but at least understands what is at stake).
So if Fortinbras benefits from labors of gratitude or regret, we might observe that the Christianity of Shakespeare’s time was the main way that people learned the values of gratitude for gifts and regret for mistakes; Biblical stories communicated these ideas and values, so if they are embodied in Fortinbras and in other aspects of the play as a whole, this can indirectly be attributed to the Christian heritage of Shakespeare’s England.
I don’t observe these things because of any hidden agenda to evangelize: It matters not to me if one is an atheist, a Buddhist, a Hindu, a Muslim, a Christian, a Jew, or possessing any other religious or non-religious beliefs or life-philosophies. The dynamics of gratitude for gifts and regret for mistakes still works the same.
LAWLESS RESOLUTES?
We first hear mention of young Fortinbras in 1.1, when Marcellus asks why Denmark seems to be preparing for war, and Horatio explains the back-story:
MARCELLUS
Good now, sit down, and tell me, he that knows,
Why this same strict and most observant watch
So nightly toils the subject of the land,
And why such daily cast of brazen cannon,
And foreign mart for implements of war;
Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task
Does not divide the Sunday from the week;
What might be toward, that this sweaty haste
Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day:
Who is't that can inform me?
HORATIO
That can I;
At least, the whisper goes so. Our last king,
Whose image even but now appear'd to us,
Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,
Thereto prick'd on by a most emulate pride,
Dared to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet--
For so this side of our known world esteem'd him--
Did slay this Fortinbras; who by a seal'd compact,
Well ratified by law and heraldry,
Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands
Which he stood seized of, to the conqueror:
Against the which, a moiety competent
Was gaged by our king; which had return'd
To the inheritance of Fortinbras,
Had he been vanquisher; as, by the same covenant,
And carriage of the article design'd,
His fell to Hamlet. Now, sir, young Fortinbras,
Of unimproved mettle hot and full,
Hath in the skirts of Norway here and there
Shark'd up a list of lawless resolutes,
For food and diet, to some enterprise
That hath a stomach in't; which is no other--
As it doth well appear unto our state--
But to recover of us, by strong hand
And terms compulsatory, those foresaid lands
So by his father lost: and this, I take it,
Is the main motive of our preparations,
The source of this our watch and the chief head
Of this post-haste and romage in the land.
Some might claim that King Hamlet and Old Fortinbras were brave heroes who spared many lives of their soldiers by agreeing to fight in single combat rather than go to war in general. That may be true. But Horatio makes such a careful argument about the legitimacy of King Hamlet’s victory, one can’t help but wonder if (to paraphrase Gertrude) he doesn’t perhaps protest too much, and perhaps this is all to cover for Norway having a very different view of what happened in the fight between the kings, and whether it was actually as legitimate and “Well ratified by law and heraldry” as Horatio claims.
But if we take Horatio’s grasp of the gossip at his word, it would seem that our first image of Fortinbras is that he is a renegade, a prince gone rogue: He doesn’t seem to be merely a prince who has volunteered to help in Norway’s military recruitment efforts, but perhaps one who is acting outside the boundaries of his uncle’s authority so that he might raise a force to attack Denmark. In modern terminology, we might compare him to a terrorist if we believe Horatio’s account.
PESTER US WITH MESSAGE?
In the next scene (1.2), Claudius conveys a slightly different view of Fortinbras after speaking awkwardly of his marriage to Gertrude:
Now follows, that you know, young Fortinbras,
Holding a weak supposal of our worth,
Or thinking by our late dear brother's death
Our state to be disjoint and out of frame,
Colleagued with the dream of his advantage,
He hath not fail'd to pester us with message,
Importing the surrender of those lands
Lost by his father, with all bonds of law,
To our most valiant brother. So much for him.
Now for ourself and for this time of meeting:
Thus much the business is: we have here writ
To Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras,--
Who, impotent and bed-rid, scarcely hears
Of this his nephew's purpose,--to suppress
His further gait herein; in that the levies,
The lists and full proportions, are all made
Out of his subject: and we here dispatch
You, good Cornelius, and you, Voltimand,
For bearers of this greeting to old Norway;
Giving to you no further personal power
To business with the king, more than the scope
Of these delated articles allow.
Farewell, and let your haste commend your duty.
What interests me about this passage is that instead of focusing on a renegade prince raising an army of his own without the approval of his uncle, we find Claudius explaining that young Fortinbras seems to have been engaged in some effort of diplomacy, sending messages or letters asking for the return of Norway’s lost lands:
He hath not fail'd to pester us with message,
Importing the surrender of those lands
Lost by his father, with all bonds of law,
To our most valiant brother.
This gives us a very different image of a Fortinbras who would rather use diplomacy than force to achieve his ends. In the Kenneth Branagh-directed Hamlet, when Claudius says, “So much for him,” he tears up a message from Fortinbras.
Claudius also reveals (at least in Denmark’s view) that Fortinbras’ uncle is “impotent and bed-rid” and has therefore not heard of what his nephew has been up to. These are new pieces of information we didn’t hear in Horatio’s version of the story. So Claudius writes to Norway to suppress Fortinbras’ efforts, and sends messengers to deliver this letter, with very strict instructions that they are to do nothing more than deliver the message (as if engaging in diplomacy might lead to the messengers hearing more of Fortinbras’ view of things than Claudius would like for his messengers to hear, perhaps?).
BUSINESS WELL-ENDED? REALLY?
We next hear of Fortinbras and Norway in 2.2 when the messengers return:
KING CLAUDIUS
Welcome, my good friends!
Say, Voltimand, what from our brother Norway?
VOLTIMAND
Most fair return of greetings and desires.
Upon our first, he sent out to suppress
His nephew's levies; which to him appear'd
To be a preparation 'gainst the Polack;
But, better look'd into, he truly found
It was against your highness: whereat grieved,
That so his sickness, age and impotence
Was falsely borne in hand, sends out arrests
On Fortinbras; which he, in brief, obeys;
Receives rebuke from Norway, and in fine
Makes vow before his uncle never more
To give the assay of arms against your majesty.
Whereon old Norway, overcome with joy,
Gives him three thousand crowns in annual fee,
And his commission to employ those soldiers,
So levied as before, against the Polack:
With an entreaty, herein further shown,
[Giving a paper]
That it might please you to give quiet pass
Through your dominions for this enterprise,
On such regards of safety and allowance
As therein are set down.
KING CLAUDIUS
It likes us well;
And at our more consider'd time well read,
Answer, and think upon this business.
Meantime we thank you for your well-took labour:
Go to your rest; at night we'll feast together:
Most welcome home!
[Exeunt VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS]
LORD POLONIUS
This business is well ended.
Polonius may think the business with Fortinbras is well ended, but perhaps that’s wishful thinking on his part. Allowing Fortinbras safe passage across Denmark for the stated purpose of a war on Poland would seem a foolish thing to do. Note that it is not a repentant Fortinbras that humbly asks permission to cross Denmark on the way to Poland, but rather, the uncle who requests this of Denmark: Did the uncle know of his nephew's plans all along, and now is sending the nephew and troops through Denmark, supposedly with a request for safe passage, because perhaps the uncle favors a sneak attack against Denmark to recover those lands? Denmark claims the lands were won legally, according to law and honor, but Norway might not agree; after a group takes land from another, they usually come up with a story to justify it. That doesn't mean the story is true.
After all, Claudius has a story: This his brother was bitten by a snake when he was napping in his garden. But this is not true: Claudius admits in prayer that he killed his brother. How do we know that perhaps Norway isnt being just as devious? Stranger things have happened.
There are other interpretations of the messenger's story that might be skeptical and equally valid, I think. But then again, perhaps taking the story at face value is in fact one valid possibility?
GRATITUDE AND REGRET FOR FORTINBRAS?
If in fact we can trust the messengers at their word regarding Fortinbras’ change of heart, how might we say the dynamics of gratitude and regret might be at work in him?
It would seem to begin with regret: The uncle receives the message from Denmark, alerting him to his nephew’s irresponsible behavior; Fortinbras is arrested, scolded by his uncle, and comes to regret what he has done. Perhaps grateful for his uncle’s correction and for the general position of privilege he enjoys, Fortinbras promises never to do it again. The uncle, grateful to find that the nephew has repented thoroughly of his mistakes, but also grateful for his nephew’s resourcefulness and military interests, rewards Fortinbras with money and approval to go make war against Poland (which may, in fact, turn out to be too worthless a target, we later learn). An obedient and respectful Fortinbras is grateful for the approval and support from his uncle for new military enterprises, and he goes out a slightly changed man, corrected, improved by his uncle’s guidance.
A CHANGED, MORE HUMBLE, LESS AMBITIOUS FORTINBRAS?
In 4.4 we encounter Fortinbras for the first time, first-hand, humbly requesting passage through Denmark’s lands instead of proudly asserting a claim for the return of lands previously lost by his father’s death. Fortinbras and Hamlet almost meet, but Fortinbras exits the stage just before Hamlet enters on his way to the ship that will take him to England:
SCENE IV. A plain in Denmark.
Enter FORTINBRAS, a Captain, and Soldiers, marching
PRINCE FORTINBRAS
Go, captain, from me greet the Danish king;
Tell him that, by his licence, Fortinbras
Craves the conveyance of a promised march
Over his kingdom. You know the rendezvous.
If that his majesty would aught with us,
We shall express our duty in his eye;
And let him know so.
Captain
I will do't, my lord.
PRINCE FORTINBRAS
Go softly on.
[Exeunt FORTINBRAS and Soldiers]
There is no hint here of the old Fortinbras, pestering Claudius with messages demanding the return of the lost lands: Instead, Fortinbras speaks as from a subordinate position: “by his licence,” and a “promised march.” Fortinbras adds, “If that his majesty would aught with us, / We shall express our duty in his eye; / And let him know so.” He ends, telling his messenger to “Go softly on,” implying not that he is sneaking, but that he goes in peace and humbly with his message for Denmark’s king. All of this might seem to add more evidence in favor of a Fortinbras who is reformed in part by regret and gratitude.
A LITTLE PATCH OF GROUND THAT HATH IN IT NO PROFIT BUT THE NAME
Soon in the same scene (4.4) Hamlet encounters a captain and asks about the objective of Fortinbras’ army:
HAMLET
Goes it against the main of Poland, sir,
Or for some frontier?
Captain
Truly to speak, and with no addition,
We go to gain a little patch of ground
That hath in it no profit but the name.
To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it;
Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole
A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee.
HAMLET
Why, then the Polack never will defend it.
Captain
Yes, it is already garrison'd.
This doesn’t reflect especially well on Fortinbras, that he would lead an army against another in a fight over relatively worthless land. Maybe it also shows us that perhaps Fortinbras is, for now, obeying his uncle and even performing relatively meaningless tasks in order to be ready for a time in the future when his ambition is given more freedom to pursue more important goals?
Hamlet doesn’t view it that way: Instead, he figures that if Fortinbras can fight this way for something so relatively meaningless, perhaps Hamlet, too, should be more a man of action, and should consider only “bloody” thoughts as worthwhile, and other thoughts as worthless:
HAMLET
Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats
Will not debate the question of this straw:
This is the imposthume of much wealth and peace,
That inward breaks, and shows no cause without
Why the man dies. I humbly thank you, sir.
Captain
God be wi' you, sir. [Exit]
ROSENCRANTZ
Wilt please you go, my lord?
HAMLET
I'll be with you straight go a little before. [Exeunt all except HAMLET]
How all occasions do inform against me,
And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.
Sure, he that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and god-like reason
To fust in us unused. Now, whether it be
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
Of thinking too precisely on the event,
A thought which, quarter'd, hath but one part wisdom
And ever three parts coward, I do not know
Why yet I live to say 'This thing's to do;'
Sith I have cause and will and strength and means
To do't. Examples gross as earth exhort me:
Witness this army of such mass and charge
Led by a delicate and tender prince,
Whose spirit with divine ambition puff'd
Makes mouths at the invisible event,
Exposing what is mortal and unsure
To all that fortune, death and danger dare,
Even for an egg-shell. Rightly to be great
Is not to stir without great argument,
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
When honour's at the stake. How stand I then,
That have a father kill'd, a mother stain'd,
Excitements of my reason and my blood,
And let all sleep? while, to my shame, I see
The imminent death of twenty thousand men,
That, for a fantasy and trick of fame,
Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot
Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,
Which is not tomb enough and continent
To hide the slain? O, from this time forth,
My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!
I have posted in the past about how, when Hamlet calls Fortinbras “a delicate and tender prince,” this is not a compliment, but an allusion to biblical passages meaning something like “a pampered and spoiled prince.” Hamlet assumes his posture toward the world must be to embrace only bloody thoughts, but he will soon learn, when overpowered by merciful pirates, that there is another way, and that perhaps he needs more than his bloody thoughts.
So by the end of 4.4, Fortinbras is still ambiguous: Is he sincerely reformed, or is he just putting on a good show and waiting for his moment to act? It’s unclear, and Hamlet may be learning the wrong lessons from Fortinbras’ example.
GOSPEL ECHOES AFTER HAMLET’S DEATH
The last time we see Fortinbras is at the very end of the play (5.2). Gertrude, Claudius, Laertes and Hamlet have all died, and Horatio has alluded to the requiem mass and its allusion to the tale of Lazarus and the rich man (Luke 16:19-31), saying,
Now cracks a noble heart. Good night sweet prince:
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!
“Flights of angels sing thee to thy rest” is something like what the requiem mass asks for the deceased, that they fly like Lazarus to the bosom of Abraham at the gates of heaven, and not like the rich man, condemned to hell.
There follows some interesting exchanges between Horatio and Fortinbras:
HORATIO
Why does the drum come hither?
[March within;
Enter FORTINBRAS, the English Ambassadors, and others]
PRINCE FORTINBRAS
Where is this sight?
HORATIO
What is it ye would see?
If aught of woe or wonder, cease your search.
In Horatio’s statement we might hear gospel echoes: In Matthew (11:7) and Luke (7:24), when John the Baptist sends messengers to Jesus to ask if he is the messiah, “the one who is to come.” At the end of Jesus’ reply, Jesus asks them what it is they came to see, responding to the question from John’s messengers with a question of his own. Shakespeare’s Hamlet begins with the question from Bernardo, “Who’s there?” — turned back on him by Francisco, who demands that Bernardo answer his own question first — and now at the end, we have a question from Fortinbras, followed by a question from Horatio that resembles the question of Jesus: “What is it ye would see?”
Here’s the structure in the gospel compared to that in Hamlet:
Matthew 11 (1599 Geneva):
John the Baptist’s messengers:
“Art thou he that should come, or shall we look for another?” (3)
Jesus to the multitude of John:
“What went ye out into the wilderness to see? a reed shaken with the wind? (7)
But what went ye out to see? A man clothed in soft raiment?
Behold they that wear soft clothing, are in kings’ houses.(8)
But what went ye out to see? A Prophet? Yea, I say unto you, and more than a Prophet.(9)
Now compare that to Fortinbras and Horatio:
PRINCE FORTINBRAS (5.2): Where is this sight?
HORATIO: What is it ye would see?
Furthermore, compare Horatio’s next statement to what the angel at the tomb says in Luke 25:5-6:
HORATIO:
If aught of woe or wonder, cease your search. [Cease because Hamlet's is a tale of woe and wonder.]
Angel in Luke 25:
5 Why seek ye him that liveth, among the dead?
It seems that the questioning dialogue between Fortinbras and Horatio echoes that of Jesus to the disciples of John, and also that of the angel to the women at the tomb. It seems Shakespeare would like for his early (bible-reading, church-attending, and bible-familiar) audiences of the play to hear in the death of Hamlet at least a vague echo of the passion and death of Jesus.
RIGHTS OF MEMORY
Fortinbras goes on to show his sense of decorum, that the gruesome sight of all these deaths is more fitting on a battlefield than at court. The English Ambassador reports that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have been executed, and Horatio informs Fortinbras and the others that he has a tale to tell, explaining what has transpired:
PRINCE FORTINBRAS
This quarry cries on havoc. O proud death,
What feast is toward in thine eternal cell,
That thou so many princes at a shot
So bloodily hast struck?
First Ambassador
The sight is dismal;
And our affairs from England come too late:
The ears are senseless that should give us hearing,
To tell him his commandment is fulfill'd,
That Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead:
Where should we have our thanks?
HORATIO
Not from his mouth, [meaning that of Claudius]
Had it the ability of life to thank you:
He never gave commandment for their death.
But since, so jump upon this bloody question,
You from the Polack wars, and you from England,
Are here arrived give order that these bodies
High on a stage be placed to the view;
And let me speak to the yet unknowing world
How these things came about: so shall you hear
Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts,
Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters,
Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause,
And, in this upshot, purposes mistook
Fall'n on the inventors' reads: all this can I
Truly deliver.
PRINCE FORTINBRAS
Let us haste to hear it,
And call the noblest to the audience.
For me, with sorrow I embrace my fortune:
I have some rights of memory in this kingdom,
Which now to claim my vantage doth invite me.
HORATIO
Of that I shall have also cause to speak,
And from his mouth whose voice will draw on more;
But let this same be presently perform'd,
Even while men's minds are wild; lest more mischance
On plots and errors, happen.
PRINCE FORTINBRAS
Let four captains
Bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to the stage;
For he was likely, had he been put on,
To have proved most royally: and, for his passage,
The soldiers' music and the rites of war
Speak loudly for him.
Take up the bodies: such a sight as this
Becomes the field, but here shows much amiss.
Go, bid the soldiers shoot.
When Fortinbras speaks of how with sorrow he embraces his fortune, we would do well to think of Claudius, speaking in 1.2 of his sorrow at his brother’s death, mixed with mirth at his wedding to Gertrude. Is he just another Claudius? Or perhaps Fortinbras has matured and benefited from both regret and gratitude? We might like to hope as much. But it is ambiguous, perhaps leaving us with the sense that the future is whatever we make of it?
OR IS IT ALL TO CATCH THE CONSCIENCE OF JAMES?
Many scholars view Fortinbras as a kind of representation of James VI of Scotland who became King James I of England after Queen Elizabeth I’s death: Like Fortinbras, James was a prince from the north who took the throne of a nation after the end of a royal house. Some, in fact, also view Prince Hamlet as similarly referencing aspects of James’ life, because James, like Hamlet, had a father killed, and a prime suspect in his father’s death was the very man who later married James’ mother.
So in that way, perhaps it matters little whether we can ever pluck the heart of the mystery of Fortinbras, and whether Fortinbras is sincere in his reform by regret and gratitude. Perhaps more importantly, we might view Shakespeare’s play Hamlet as a kind of gift to James, a gift that might prick his conscience and remind him both of his mistakes and of the gifts for which he might be grateful. Like Fortinbras who pesters Claudius with messages seeking the return of land to which Fortinbras feels he has a right, James was involved in a kind of scandal: His ambassadors to Denmark and Germany had spoken there of James’ expectations regarding being Elizabeth’s heir, and this had displeased Elizabeth. [1]
Also in the same year (1598), a man named Valentine Thomas, a suspected Catholic and horse thief, claimed that he had discussed with James a plot to deliver a message to Elizabeth and, when close enough to her, to stab her. Elizabeth seems not to have believed Thomas, but James was upset by the slander and expressed his concern in a variety of letters. [2]
In this way, the play would have reminded a new James I of some of his mistakes. Instead of being scolded by his own uncle, it seems James was scolded by a sort of aunt-figure, Elizabeth.
The play not only reminds James of his mistakes, but also that he received the throne as a free gift expressed as the wishes of the monarch he succeeded, Elizabeth, even as Fortinbras receives the throne in part by the dying voice of Prince Hamlet. As such, the play might be viewed as inviting James to both gratitude and regret; to keep in mind and make up for his past mistakes, to feel deep gratitude for the gift of the throne, and to labor to become worthy of the gift.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Notes:
1 - See page 82, The Correspondence of Elizabeth I and James VI in the context of Anglo-Scottish relations, 1572-1603, Elizabeth Tunstall / https://digital.library.adelaide.edu.au/dspace/bitstream/2440/99099/2/02whole.pdf
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Continued Next Week
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
NOTE ON THIS SERIES OF POSTS:
Hamlet quotes are taken from the Complete Moby(tm) Shakespeare at mit.edu, not for any preference in a particular version or editor, but for simplicity & accessibility.
This is the latest installment in a multi-part series examining how characters interact in Hamlet, offering opportunities, gifts, planting seeds for future inspiration, or for changes of heart & mind. It follows ideas from Lewis Hyde (“The Labor of Gratitude,” a chapter in his book, The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property).
- The more I examine characters in this way, the more I realize how the major characters in Hamlet are dynamic characters who change, becoming better or worse in one way or another. This approach goes against the grain of a great deal of scholarship that seems to reify (or thing-ify) too many characters (as foil, as Oedipal, as Machiavellian, etc.) and view them as more static, rather than as dynamic, fluid, interacting. For an index of previous posts in this series, see below.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Index of other posts in this series:
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2024/09/index-character-arcs-labors-of.html
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
YOU CAN SUPPORT ME on a one-time "tip" basis on Ko-Fi:
https://ko-fi.com/pauladrianfried
IF YOU WOULD PREFER to support me on a REGULAR basis,
you may do so on Ko-Fi, or here on Patreon:
https://patreon.com/PaulAdrianFried
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Disclaimer: If and when I quote or paraphrase bible passages or mention religion in many of my blog posts, I do not intend to promote any religion over another, nor am I attempting to promote religious belief in general; only to explore how the Bible and religion influenced Shakespeare, his plays, and his age.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thanks for reading!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My current project is a book tentatively titled Hamlet’s Bible, about biblical allusions and plot echoes in Hamlet.
Below is a link to a list of some of my top posts (“greatest hits”), including a description of my book project (last item on the list):
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2019/12/top-20-hamlet-bible-posts.html
I post every week, so please visit as often as you like and consider FOLLOWING.
To find the FOLLOW button, go to the home page: https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/
see the = drop-down menu with three lines in the upper left.
From there you can click FOLLOW and see options.
Comments
Post a Comment