Strange Angels, a Cherub, & Jacob Wresling in Hamlet: Too Many Angels?
There are ten angels in Shakespeare's Hamlet and one cherub, a changeling with an angel in its heart, strangely, strangely.... What does it all mean?
[Cherubs from Raphael's "Triumph of Galatea," detail. Image source: Wikipedia]
Friday of this week is Valentine's day, bringing with it many images of that angelic and mischievous little guy, son of Venus, the goddess of love.
Yes, you guessed it: Cupid is coming. Cupid, often depicted as a crossover between Greek mythology and those baby Christian angels, cherubs. It didn't have to be that way, but that's what we've got.
There are ten angels in Shakespeare's Hamlet (or instances of the word, perhaps many others implied), and one cherub - though an unnamed cupid may have left his mark on Hamlet, as we see from his love-gushing letters, and on Ophelia, whose attention for Hamlet her father Polonius describes as follows:
'Tis told me he hath very oft of late
Have of your audience been most free and bounteous. (1.3.557-9)
She says Hamlet has shown her his love "in honorable fashion" (1.3.577) and made to her "almost all the holy vows of heaven" (1.3.580).
It sounds as if cupid has been at work in these love-birds, though he goes unnamed in the play. And later, because of Claudius' murder of his brother, and the meddling of Polonius, and the appearance of the ghost, things work out tragically, as in Romeo and Juliet.
BUT ABOUT THOSE ANGELS...
[Rosso Fiorentino (Giovanni Battista di Jacopo), Angel Playing a Lute; detail, 1521, Galleria degli Uffizi. Image and original data provided by SCALA, Florence/ART RESOURCE, N.Y.; artres.com; scalarchives.com; (c) 2006, SCALA, Florence/ART RESOURCE, N.Y.]
1. Hamlet (1.4.628) sees the ghost and calls on the assistance of heaven, exclaiming,
"Angels and ministers of grace defend us!"
2. The ghost (1.5.741-2) compares himself to an angel as a bed-mate for his wife, and Claudius to "garbage":
"So lust, though to a radiant angel link'd,
Will sate itself in a celestial bed
And prey on garbage."
3. Hamlet (2.2.1349-55) compares human beings to angels:
"What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable! In action, how like an angel! In apprehension, how like a god; the beauty of the world; the paragon of animals. And yet to me what is this quintessence of dust?"
4. Claudius at prayer calls on the help of angels (3.3.2341-8):
...Help, angels! Make assay.
Bow, stubborn knees; and heart with strings of steel,
Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe!
5. Hamlet speaks to his mother (3.4.2544-6.3) about how, although we can have sinful habits or customs, we can make new habits or customs based on better choices, and in that way, custom or habit becomes more angelic instead of sinful:
Assume a virtue if you have it not.
6-7 See "STR(ANGEL)Y" below.
8. Laertes (5.1.3431-3) tells the “churlish” priest that his sister will be like a ministering ANGEL in heaven (like Lazarus with Abraham), while the priest “liest howling” (like the rich man, looking up from hell), one of six or seven Lazarus references in the play:
I tell thee, churlish priest,
A minist'ring angel shall my sister be
When thou liest howling.
9. See "CH(ANGEL)ING" below.
10. In the end, Horatio makes an allusion to the Lazarus tale: After Hamlet dies (5.2), Horatio says “angels sing thee to thy rest,” referring to the requiem mass, which ended with a prayer based on the Lazarus tale, with angels escorting the dead to Abraham in heaven.
Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince,
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!
(5.2.3848-50)
CH(ANGEL)ING
One of these occurrences of the word "angel" is inside the letters of the word "chANGELing," which Hamlet uses as a metaphor in 5.2 to describe to Horatio the forged letter he switches for the original on the boat to England:
I had my father's signet in my purse,
Which was the model of that Danish seal;
Folded the writ up in the form of th'other,
Subscribed it, gave't th'impression, placed it safely,
The changeling never known. (5.2.3552-6)
The idea of changelings is important to Shakespeare, whose plays include a humorous plot about infants switched at birth. Hamlet includes multiple changeling-related themes, for which I would include characters or allusions to historical figures who chose or discovered that they had a higher parentage, sometimes human, sometimes divine:
—The sentinel Francisco is named after Francis of Assisi, who renounced his abusive earthly father in favor of a heavenly one ...
—and as Hamlet finds better father-figures in Providence, which saved him with the help of Pirates, and in the memory of Yorick, an emotional surrogate father-figure.
—Ophelia refers to a changeling story when she says, "It was the false steward that stole the master's daughter." This is a tale of a woman who, as an infant, was stolen away by a false steward and raised as his own; later she wants to marry a man supposedly above her social station, yet is told she is unworthy of the match - yet she later finds that her true parentage makes her worthy of the match.
And of course, the Jesus story in the Bible is probably the most famous changeling tale for Christianity: Jesus is apparently the son of a carpenter named Joseph, but actually the prince of heaven. When a false-steward, King Herod the Great, threatens to kill all Jewish boys under a certain age so as to secure his throne, the good-steward Joseph steals the child off into Egypt to keep him safe. It's a fictional tale, of course, to make Jesus look like the new Moses, but it works in similar ways, with an angel (or a prince of heaven) in the chANGELing.
STR(ANGEL)LY
Two of the occurrences of the word "angel" are inside the letters of the word "strANGELy," when the gravedigger-clown-sexton speaks of the madness of the prince. It reads like an Abbot and Costello "Who's on First?" skit (and is a good example of the comedic banter precedents that served as tutors for Abbot and Costello, and Laurel and Hardy):
HAMLET: Ay, marry, why was he sent into England?
CLOWN: Why, because 'a was mad. 'A shall recover his wits there, or if
'a do not, 'tis no great matter there.
HAMLET: Why?
CLOWN: 'Twill not be seen in him there. There the men are as mad as he.
HAMLET: How came he mad?
CLOWN: Very strangely, they say.
HAMLET: How strangely?
CLOWN: Faith, e'en with losing his wits.
HAMLET: Upon what ground?
CLOWN: Why, here in Denmark.
(5.1.3340-3351)
Angels with a sense of humor are among my favorites.
The one instance of the word "cherub" is in the scene where Hamlet has finally revealed where the body of Polonius is hidden
(a theme that seems to parody the plight of the women at Jesus' empty tomb: Where's the body?):
Claudius reminds Hamlet that he is headed for England. Claudius has prepared to send along with Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern a letter asking for England to execute Hamlet, probably a beheading, but Hamlet doesn't know this yet, although he always suspects Claudius is up to no good:
KING: Hamlet, this deed of thine, for thine especial safety--
Which we do tender, as we dearly grieve
For that which thou hast done--must send thee hence
With fiery quickness. Therefore prepare thyself.
The bark is ready, and the wind at help,
Th'associates tend, and everything is bent
For England.
HAMLET: For England!
KING: Ay, Hamlet.
HAMLET: Good.
KING: So is it if thou knew'st our purposes.
HAMLET: I see a cherub that sees them. But come, for England!
(4.3.2701-12)
Hamlet is rightfully suspicious.
In an earlier scene, Hamlet has told his mother about the anticipated sea-voyage to England and displays his suspicions:
There's letters sealed, and my two schoolfellows,
Whom I will trust as I will adders fanged,
They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way
And marshal me to knavery. Let it work,
For 'tis the sport to have the enginer
Hoised with his own petard, and't shall go hard
But I will delve one yard below their mines,
And blow them at the moon.
3.5.2577.1-8
Hamlet is clever and paying attention, so he claims to see an angel that sees the purposes of Claudius. Being clever, suspicious, insightful, or inspired may, in fact, be related to the original meaning of "angels": Before science and psychology, people didn't know why ideas popped into their heads, some good (angelic! a message from the gods!) and some evil or selfish (temptation! The devil made me do it!). A careful reading of biblical texts mentioning wind reveals that people of ancient times may have believed that wind was the breath of God or gods, and that the Hebrew God rode on wings of wind.
[Luca Giordano, called Fa Presto; NAPLES 1634-1705: "JACOB WRESTLING WITH THE ANGEL" (Image source: Sotheby's]
JACOB AND HAMLET WRESTLE WITH ANGELS
Jacob of the Hebrew scriptures wrestles in the night with an angel who dislocates Jacob's hip, but Jacob doesn't let go and demands that the angel give him a blessing. Jacob gets a new name: Israel. (Genesis 32:22-32)
Sometimes it seems the story is about Jacob wrestling with an angel, which is the later title of the story; but other times, it seems he's wrestling with God. This may be due to the way that early Judaism didn't have an idea of angel-messengers, but later, after they had experience of leaders and kings and messengers of kings, they seem to have assumed that God is too busy himself to personally wrestle with everyone who is struggling with transcendent ideas and/or daily stress and conflicts, so like their kings, God probably sends messengers to help with the work.
[Jacob wrestles with angel: from Gutenberg Bible, 1558, image from WIkipedia]
Hamlet also figuratively wrestles with God, or with an angel, on the ship bound for England, perhaps with a premonition of the danger he faces, before he seeks and finds the letter ordering his death. Hamlet describes it to Horatio this way:
...in my heart there was a kind of fighting
That would not let me sleep. Methought I lay
Worse than the mutines in the bilboes.* (5.2.3503-5)
[* Mutineers in shackles.- Internet Shakespeare, U-Vic]
(Fans of J.R.R. Tolkien may already know this: If a bilbo is a shackle, then perhaps Bilbo Baggins becomes shackled by the ring of power, which his nephew Frodo later has to return to the mountain of fire from whence it came?)
Yet Hamlet gets up, finds the letter, forges a new one that will send Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to their deaths - and he thinks he has saved himself by his own cleverness. But no, the next day, a pirate ship overtakes their boat, he jumps on board "in the grapple," and then the ships separate and he becomes their prisoner. So actually, his saved life is no longer saved, and he's at their mercy. But they spare him. They hand him back his life, like a gift. How about that?
[Shackles image source: Washington Post]
There is yet another angel referenced in Hamlet (perhaps among many more): When Polonius asks Ophelia to read a book when she meets Hamlet to be spied upon, as I have mentioned in other blog posts, and as others have noted, Polonius seems to want Ophelia to appear like an image of the Virgin Mary reading a psalm book, as was very common in medieval and Elizabethan prayer books. The image involved Mary being visited by an angel at the Annunciation. Some think this means Ophelia is in the role of the Virgin Mary, and that places Hamlet in the role of —the angel?
[Leonardo da Vinci, Annunciation (1475–1480), in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence. Instead of Mary holding a book, it is on a stand.]
TOO MANY ANGELS
The play's angels, named and implied, and the distrust Hamlet holds toward Claudius, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, calls to mind for me lines from the lyrics of the Jackson Browne song, "Too Many Angels" [<--click to hear] - which mentions apparitions (Hamlet sees the ghost) and lies (Claudius is perhaps the most famous liar of the play):
There's an angel on a ribbon
Hanging from the armoire door
There's a Cupid with his feet crossed
On the bird cage by the door
There's a baby angel drummer
His eyes are open wide
And two more tiny cherubs
On the mantle side by side
Too many angels
Have seen me crying
Too many angels
Have heard you lying
There are photographs of children
All in their silver frames
On the window sills and tabletops
Lit by candle flames
And upon their angel faces
Life's expectations climb
Where the moment has preserved them
From the ravages of time
Too many angels
Have seen me crying
Too many angels
Have heard you lying
Bring the morning on (Voices sing of day)
I want to step out in the morning sun (Through the flood of tears)
I want this darkness gone (Your sweet face appears)
These apparitions coming one by one
But there's no end in sight
Only the dead of night
And too many angels
Too many angels
Have seen me crying
Too many angels
Have heard you lying
Too many angels
Bring the morning on (Voices sing of day)
I want to step out in the morning sun (Through the flood of tears)
I want to greet the dawn (Cast away these fears)
Forget about the things we could have done
Bring the morning on (Voices sing of day)
I want to watch the children as they run (Through the broken years)
I want this darkness gone (Your sweet face appears)
These apparitions coming one by one
But there's no end in sight
Only the dead of night
And too many angels
"Too Many Angels": lyrics © Jackson Browne/Swallow Turn Music/Night Kitchen Music/Open Window Music, 1993
This whole song seems to be very much a song that Hamlet could sing—about the liars around him, about Ophelia, about the darkness that surrounds him.
Too many angels? Or in the end, just enough?
It's surprising to find so many occurrences of the word "angel" in Hamlet, but perhaps it was not so surprising for Elizabethan audiences still used to the "angels in the architecture" (as the Paul Simon song says), in spite of iconoclasm and the destruction of statues, stained glass, and sacred images in Reformation England of Shakespeare's day.
~~~~~
To FIND so many angels, I'm grateful that there are search engines like the one at OpenSourceShakespeare.org — such things were not around before the internet, so in olden times, back in the day, scholars had to do the difficult work of finding instances of words manually - or assigning the task to their students and graduate assistants.
With great and powerful search engines comes great responsibility, as Spider-Man's uncle once said. (Sort of.)
[Angel Spiderman wallpaper by WiryScissors265 - Free on ZEDGE™]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Quotes from Hamlet are taken from InternetShakespeare, Modern Version, edited by David Bevington.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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 subscribing.
[Cherubs from Raphael's "Triumph of Galatea," detail. Image source: Wikipedia]
Friday of this week is Valentine's day, bringing with it many images of that angelic and mischievous little guy, son of Venus, the goddess of love.
Yes, you guessed it: Cupid is coming. Cupid, often depicted as a crossover between Greek mythology and those baby Christian angels, cherubs. It didn't have to be that way, but that's what we've got.
There are ten angels in Shakespeare's Hamlet (or instances of the word, perhaps many others implied), and one cherub - though an unnamed cupid may have left his mark on Hamlet, as we see from his love-gushing letters, and on Ophelia, whose attention for Hamlet her father Polonius describes as follows:
'Tis told me he hath very oft of late
Given private time to you, and you yourself
She says Hamlet has shown her his love "in honorable fashion" (1.3.577) and made to her "almost all the holy vows of heaven" (1.3.580).
It sounds as if cupid has been at work in these love-birds, though he goes unnamed in the play. And later, because of Claudius' murder of his brother, and the meddling of Polonius, and the appearance of the ghost, things work out tragically, as in Romeo and Juliet.
BUT ABOUT THOSE ANGELS...
[Rosso Fiorentino (Giovanni Battista di Jacopo), Angel Playing a Lute; detail, 1521, Galleria degli Uffizi. Image and original data provided by SCALA, Florence/ART RESOURCE, N.Y.; artres.com; scalarchives.com; (c) 2006, SCALA, Florence/ART RESOURCE, N.Y.]
1. Hamlet (1.4.628) sees the ghost and calls on the assistance of heaven, exclaiming,
"Angels and ministers of grace defend us!"
2. The ghost (1.5.741-2) compares himself to an angel as a bed-mate for his wife, and Claudius to "garbage":
"So lust, though to a radiant angel link'd,
Will sate itself in a celestial bed
And prey on garbage."
3. Hamlet (2.2.1349-55) compares human beings to angels:
"What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable! In action, how like an angel! In apprehension, how like a god; the beauty of the world; the paragon of animals. And yet to me what is this quintessence of dust?"
4. Claudius at prayer calls on the help of angels (3.3.2341-8):
...Help, angels! Make assay.
Bow, stubborn knees; and heart with strings of steel,
Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe!
5. Hamlet speaks to his mother (3.4.2544-6.3) about how, although we can have sinful habits or customs, we can make new habits or customs based on better choices, and in that way, custom or habit becomes more angelic instead of sinful:
Assume a virtue if you have it not.
That monster custom, who all sense doth eat,
Of habits devil, is angel yet in this,
That to the use of actions fair and good
He likewise gives a frock or livery
That aptly is put on. Refrain tonight,
And that shall lend a kind of easiness
To the next abstinence; the next more easy:
For use almost can change the stamp of nature,
And either [in] the devil, or throw him out
With wondrous potency.
6-7 See "STR(ANGEL)Y" below.
8. Laertes (5.1.3431-3) tells the “churlish” priest that his sister will be like a ministering ANGEL in heaven (like Lazarus with Abraham), while the priest “liest howling” (like the rich man, looking up from hell), one of six or seven Lazarus references in the play:
I tell thee, churlish priest,
A minist'ring angel shall my sister be
When thou liest howling.
9. See "CH(ANGEL)ING" below.
10. In the end, Horatio makes an allusion to the Lazarus tale: After Hamlet dies (5.2), Horatio says “angels sing thee to thy rest,” referring to the requiem mass, which ended with a prayer based on the Lazarus tale, with angels escorting the dead to Abraham in heaven.
Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince,
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!
(5.2.3848-50)
CH(ANGEL)ING
One of these occurrences of the word "angel" is inside the letters of the word "chANGELing," which Hamlet uses as a metaphor in 5.2 to describe to Horatio the forged letter he switches for the original on the boat to England:
I had my father's signet in my purse,
Which was the model of that Danish seal;
Folded the writ up in the form of th'other,
Subscribed it, gave't th'impression, placed it safely,
The changeling never known. (5.2.3552-6)
The idea of changelings is important to Shakespeare, whose plays include a humorous plot about infants switched at birth. Hamlet includes multiple changeling-related themes, for which I would include characters or allusions to historical figures who chose or discovered that they had a higher parentage, sometimes human, sometimes divine:
—The sentinel Francisco is named after Francis of Assisi, who renounced his abusive earthly father in favor of a heavenly one ...
—and as Hamlet finds better father-figures in Providence, which saved him with the help of Pirates, and in the memory of Yorick, an emotional surrogate father-figure.
—Ophelia refers to a changeling story when she says, "It was the false steward that stole the master's daughter." This is a tale of a woman who, as an infant, was stolen away by a false steward and raised as his own; later she wants to marry a man supposedly above her social station, yet is told she is unworthy of the match - yet she later finds that her true parentage makes her worthy of the match.
And of course, the Jesus story in the Bible is probably the most famous changeling tale for Christianity: Jesus is apparently the son of a carpenter named Joseph, but actually the prince of heaven. When a false-steward, King Herod the Great, threatens to kill all Jewish boys under a certain age so as to secure his throne, the good-steward Joseph steals the child off into Egypt to keep him safe. It's a fictional tale, of course, to make Jesus look like the new Moses, but it works in similar ways, with an angel (or a prince of heaven) in the chANGELing.
STR(ANGEL)LY
Two of the occurrences of the word "angel" are inside the letters of the word "strANGELy," when the gravedigger-clown-sexton speaks of the madness of the prince. It reads like an Abbot and Costello "Who's on First?" skit (and is a good example of the comedic banter precedents that served as tutors for Abbot and Costello, and Laurel and Hardy):
HAMLET: Ay, marry, why was he sent into England?
CLOWN: Why, because 'a was mad. 'A shall recover his wits there, or if
'a do not, 'tis no great matter there.
HAMLET: Why?
CLOWN: 'Twill not be seen in him there. There the men are as mad as he.
HAMLET: How came he mad?
CLOWN: Very strangely, they say.
HAMLET: How strangely?
CLOWN: Faith, e'en with losing his wits.
HAMLET: Upon what ground?
CLOWN: Why, here in Denmark.
(5.1.3340-3351)
Angels with a sense of humor are among my favorites.
The one instance of the word "cherub" is in the scene where Hamlet has finally revealed where the body of Polonius is hidden
(a theme that seems to parody the plight of the women at Jesus' empty tomb: Where's the body?):
Claudius reminds Hamlet that he is headed for England. Claudius has prepared to send along with Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern a letter asking for England to execute Hamlet, probably a beheading, but Hamlet doesn't know this yet, although he always suspects Claudius is up to no good:
KING: Hamlet, this deed of thine, for thine especial safety--
Which we do tender, as we dearly grieve
For that which thou hast done--must send thee hence
With fiery quickness. Therefore prepare thyself.
The bark is ready, and the wind at help,
Th'associates tend, and everything is bent
For England.
HAMLET: For England!
KING: Ay, Hamlet.
HAMLET: Good.
KING: So is it if thou knew'st our purposes.
HAMLET: I see a cherub that sees them. But come, for England!
(4.3.2701-12)
Hamlet is rightfully suspicious.
In an earlier scene, Hamlet has told his mother about the anticipated sea-voyage to England and displays his suspicions:
There's letters sealed, and my two schoolfellows,
Whom I will trust as I will adders fanged,
They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way
And marshal me to knavery. Let it work,
For 'tis the sport to have the enginer
Hoised with his own petard, and't shall go hard
But I will delve one yard below their mines,
And blow them at the moon.
3.5.2577.1-8
Hamlet is clever and paying attention, so he claims to see an angel that sees the purposes of Claudius. Being clever, suspicious, insightful, or inspired may, in fact, be related to the original meaning of "angels": Before science and psychology, people didn't know why ideas popped into their heads, some good (angelic! a message from the gods!) and some evil or selfish (temptation! The devil made me do it!). A careful reading of biblical texts mentioning wind reveals that people of ancient times may have believed that wind was the breath of God or gods, and that the Hebrew God rode on wings of wind.
[Luca Giordano, called Fa Presto; NAPLES 1634-1705: "JACOB WRESTLING WITH THE ANGEL" (Image source: Sotheby's]
JACOB AND HAMLET WRESTLE WITH ANGELS
Jacob of the Hebrew scriptures wrestles in the night with an angel who dislocates Jacob's hip, but Jacob doesn't let go and demands that the angel give him a blessing. Jacob gets a new name: Israel. (Genesis 32:22-32)
Sometimes it seems the story is about Jacob wrestling with an angel, which is the later title of the story; but other times, it seems he's wrestling with God. This may be due to the way that early Judaism didn't have an idea of angel-messengers, but later, after they had experience of leaders and kings and messengers of kings, they seem to have assumed that God is too busy himself to personally wrestle with everyone who is struggling with transcendent ideas and/or daily stress and conflicts, so like their kings, God probably sends messengers to help with the work. [Jacob wrestles with angel: from Gutenberg Bible, 1558, image from WIkipedia]
Hamlet also figuratively wrestles with God, or with an angel, on the ship bound for England, perhaps with a premonition of the danger he faces, before he seeks and finds the letter ordering his death. Hamlet describes it to Horatio this way:
...in my heart there was a kind of fighting
That would not let me sleep. Methought I lay
Worse than the mutines in the bilboes.* (5.2.3503-5)
[* Mutineers in shackles.- Internet Shakespeare, U-Vic]
(Fans of J.R.R. Tolkien may already know this: If a bilbo is a shackle, then perhaps Bilbo Baggins becomes shackled by the ring of power, which his nephew Frodo later has to return to the mountain of fire from whence it came?)
Yet Hamlet gets up, finds the letter, forges a new one that will send Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to their deaths - and he thinks he has saved himself by his own cleverness. But no, the next day, a pirate ship overtakes their boat, he jumps on board "in the grapple," and then the ships separate and he becomes their prisoner. So actually, his saved life is no longer saved, and he's at their mercy. But they spare him. They hand him back his life, like a gift. How about that?
[Shackles image source: Washington Post]
[Leonardo da Vinci, Annunciation (1475–1480), in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence. Instead of Mary holding a book, it is on a stand.]
TOO MANY ANGELS
The play's angels, named and implied, and the distrust Hamlet holds toward Claudius, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, calls to mind for me lines from the lyrics of the Jackson Browne song, "Too Many Angels" [<--click to hear] - which mentions apparitions (Hamlet sees the ghost) and lies (Claudius is perhaps the most famous liar of the play):
There's an angel on a ribbon
Hanging from the armoire door
There's a Cupid with his feet crossed
On the bird cage by the door
There's a baby angel drummer
His eyes are open wide
And two more tiny cherubs
On the mantle side by side
Too many angels
Have seen me crying
Too many angels
Have heard you lying
There are photographs of children
All in their silver frames
On the window sills and tabletops
Lit by candle flames
And upon their angel faces
Life's expectations climb
Where the moment has preserved them
From the ravages of time
Too many angels
Have seen me crying
Too many angels
Have heard you lying
Bring the morning on (Voices sing of day)
I want to step out in the morning sun (Through the flood of tears)
I want this darkness gone (Your sweet face appears)
These apparitions coming one by one
But there's no end in sight
Only the dead of night
And too many angels
Too many angels
Have seen me crying
Too many angels
Have heard you lying
Too many angels
Bring the morning on (Voices sing of day)
I want to step out in the morning sun (Through the flood of tears)
I want to greet the dawn (Cast away these fears)
Forget about the things we could have done
Bring the morning on (Voices sing of day)
I want to watch the children as they run (Through the broken years)
I want this darkness gone (Your sweet face appears)
These apparitions coming one by one
But there's no end in sight
Only the dead of night
And too many angels
"Too Many Angels": lyrics © Jackson Browne/Swallow Turn Music/Night Kitchen Music/Open Window Music, 1993
This whole song seems to be very much a song that Hamlet could sing—about the liars around him, about Ophelia, about the darkness that surrounds him.
Too many angels? Or in the end, just enough?
It's surprising to find so many occurrences of the word "angel" in Hamlet, but perhaps it was not so surprising for Elizabethan audiences still used to the "angels in the architecture" (as the Paul Simon song says), in spite of iconoclasm and the destruction of statues, stained glass, and sacred images in Reformation England of Shakespeare's day.
~~~~~
To FIND so many angels, I'm grateful that there are search engines like the one at OpenSourceShakespeare.org — such things were not around before the internet, so in olden times, back in the day, scholars had to do the difficult work of finding instances of words manually - or assigning the task to their students and graduate assistants.
With great and powerful search engines comes great responsibility, as Spider-Man's uncle once said. (Sort of.)
[Angel Spiderman wallpaper by WiryScissors265 - Free on ZEDGE™]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Quotes from Hamlet are taken from InternetShakespeare, Modern Version, edited by David Bevington.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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 subscribing.
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