Fortinbras, Jephthah, James: Stealthy, Allusive Triangulation (a Jephthah Postscript)
One of the most astonishing revelations for me during my limited recent research on the Jephthah allusion was how many correlations there were between many aspects of the Jephthah plot, and the character of Fortinbras. There is no literal sacrifice of a daughter, but hints of other kinds of sacrifice.
Other scholarship on the Jephthah allusion in the play tends to focus on Polonius, the object of Hamlet's Jephthah remarks, or on unholy vows and the consequences to Ophelia. Some considers the hasty or unholy vows of other characters such as Hamlet or Laertes.
But Shakespeare scholars have also noticed correlations, not only between Prince Hamlet and James VI and I of Scotland and England, but also between Fortinbras and James.
So if Fortinbras points at least in part toward James, and also to Jephthah, was Shakespeare in a sense predicting that James was an ambitious Jephthah-type, the kind one could imagine sacrificing one of his children on the altar of his ambition? This seems an interesting possibility worth consideration.
detail, Jephthah, in "Jephthae's Daughter," 1640s, painting by Pieter van Lint (1609-1690), Hermitage Museum, public domain, via Wikicommons;
James I of England, attributed to John de Critz, public domain, via Wikipedia.]
WHAT THE FORTINBRAS-JAMES-JEPHTHAH CLUSTER REVEALS
ABOUT SHAKESPEARE'S ALLUSIVE PRACTICE:
Those who have followed my blog in the past may know that I have written about how Shakespeare's allusive practice includes not only obvious allusions that quote directly from scripture (or nearly), but also explicit naming of Biblical characters such as Jephthah, and also more subtle practices in which plot points from scripture tales align with moments that unfold in the play.
Shakespeare seems to have a habit of using an explicit allusion at one point in the play, when the allusion might find more subtle or implicit resonance with other characters or aspects of the plot.
Many Hamlet scholars are familiar with claims that the character of Corambis (in Q1) and Polonius (in Q2) may have been based at least in part on William Cecil, Lord Burghley, who had been Elizabeth's Lord Treasurer. William Cecil had died in 1598, years before the first quarto of Hamlet was published, so we might speculate that it may have been much safer for the prince to be explicit in calling Polonius a Jephthah, than to have Hamlet be too harsh in Biblical allusions associated with Fortinbras, if Fortinbras the prince from the north who ascends the throne is at least in part a kind of stand-in for James. One would not wish to get on the wrong side of the new king, so it makes sense that if there are a number of parallels between Fortinbras and Jephthah as well as Fortinbras and James, subtlety might be both more effective and more safe.
The Jephthah allusion Hamlet makes is in some ways similar to the Lazarus allusion made by the ghost: In both cases, the name of a biblical figure is mentioned explicitly, but then in other parts of the play, themes and plot echoes repeat in more subtle ways. This is unlike one of Shakespeare's other allusive practices, as in the Jonah echoes in Hamlet's sea-voyage, or the Emmaus echoes in the graveyard scene of Hamlet and in the courtroom scene of The Merchant of Venice, where the Biblical tales are not explicitly identified, and yet key plot elements and themes from the biblical tales are present in other forms.
JEPHTHAH-FORTINBRAS-JAMES PARALLELS
In previous blog posts (here and here), I had noted how details we learn about Fortinbras line up with aspects of the Jephthah tale in Judges 11:
1. Fortinbras is cut off from his father's inheritance, like Jephthah kicked out of his father Gilead's home by his half-siblings.
2. He gathers up a band of idle men and ruffians or thieves to attack Denmark, like Jephthah, who took up with a similar group of men after being kicked out of Gilead's home.
3. Jephthah is given an opportunity to become leader of the Gileadites if he deals with the problem of Ammonite aggression, but attempts diplomacy first in messages sent to the Ammonites; Fortinbras is similarly ambitious for leadership, but attempts diplomacy to settle his land dispute with Norway, pestering Claudius with letters.
4. In the end, Fortinbras gets the throne of Denmark, like Jephthah, who becomes leader of the Israelites of Gilead.
5. While Jephthah sacrifices his own daughter after his victory, Fortinbras is willing to sacrifice many soldiers, the sons of others, over a relatively worthless piece of land, and he does this before he obtains the throne of Denmark. The link is still present between his ambition and his willingness to sacrifice the lives of others, and in that way, it seems the Jephthah tale may include the sacrifice of a daughter, perhaps more fictional and legendary than literal or historical, as a kind if hyperbole or exclamation point: Jephthah was the sort of warrior who would have sacrificed his own daughter to achieve victory and his ambitions, the tale seems to say.
We might note that James resembles Fortinbras in each of these ways:
1.a. The father of James was murdered in a bombing, which parallels how the father of Fortinbras was killed by King Hamlet. This also parallels Jephthah's loss of his father's inheritance when Jephthah is kicked out of his father's house.
1.b. James was further separated from his family, including his mother, when she sought sanctuary in England and was under house arrest.
2. As Stuart M. Kurland notes, drawing in part on the work of Helen Georgia Stafford, James made preparations to arm supporters in Scotland prior to the death of Elizabeth I, which parallels the preparations of Fortinbras and Jephthah.
3. Just as Jephthah and Fortinbras attempt diplomacy first, James attempts diplomacy, seeking the support of the leaders of Europe as well as some elements in England; in the end, his negotiations with Robert Cecil are instrumental in securing his claim to England's throne.
4. In the end, Jephthah and Fortinbras succeed in obtaining the position of leadership they seek, which involves a reversal of previous bad fortunes or losses: Jephthah who had been rejected by his half-siblings and thereby lost access to his share of his father's inheritance becomes the leader of the Gileadites. Fortinbras, whose father had been killed in single combat by the king of Denmark, succeeds Claudius as the Denmark's new king, with the help of Hamlet's dying voice. James, whose mother had been executed under Elizabeth, becomes the next king of England.
5. While Jephthah sacrifices her daughter, and Fortinbras sacrifices many soldiers, the parallels might leave us wondering what James has sacrificed, or will later sacrifice, as he pursues his ambitions.
THE MISSING SACRIFICE
Ambitious people often make sacrifices so that they can realize their goals. They sacrifice time with family, or with friends and neighbors, or time to develop hobbies or other interests. so if we don't get too stuck on the literal level with the Jephthah tale and a father killing his daughter for a burnt offering, we might see that the tale is a parable of an ambitious person. The vow to God to sacrifice whatever crosses the threshold, whatever it takes, is a vow to transcend the limitations of the present in order to obtain the desired transcendent goal. This transcendent goal might not be in harmony with the transcendent God of scripture; it might be a goal of obtaining riches and power that simply transcend one's limited resources and circumstances, for selfish reasons.
There is no literal sacrifice of a daughter in the details the play gives us regarding Fortinbras. But there is sacrifice of soldiers in a worthless cause. If Fortinbras is meant to resemble James, this seems to be a cautionary detail meant perhaps to catch the conscience of a king.
And it is not the only negative aspect of the Danish prince's descriptions of Fortinbras. Hamlet's description of Fortinbras as a "delicate and tender" prince is often mistaken as a compliment, as I've mentioned in a previous blog post: In Deut 28:54-57, we find that, to call someone "delicate and tender" is the equivalent of calling them pampered and spoiled; these are the kind of people who, if someone laid seige to the city, would rather eat their own children than starve (and this implies a kind of Jephthah-sacrifice).
The word "delicate" is in the same tradition used to describe the rich man in Luke 16:19 (Geneva, “The Rich Man and Lazarus”) who is pampered and spoiled while neglecting the beggar Lazarus. The tale of Lazarus and the rich man is another important and recurring theme in Hamlet.
Yet we might note that, just as so many scholars over the years have misinterpreted "delicate and tender" as a compliment Hamlet gives to Fortinbras, it is a subtle reference to Deut 28, easy to misinterpret in this way, and therefore a safer allusion. It would be far more harsh and dangerous for Hamlet to have observed regarding Fortinbras that he must be the kind of man who would eat his own children if his city were under seige.
PLAYING IT SAFE
In this way, if Shakespeare intended Fortinbras to be modeled after aspects of Jephthah and also after James, the reference seems to be a safe one in part because it is subtle and easy to miss, as is the case with Hamlet's reference to Fortinbras as "delicate and tender." If the allusion is easy to miss, or to misinterpret as a positive reference, it's harder for a playwright to get in trouble with a man who may become his future royal patron.
DO YOU PREFER A STRICTLY ETERNAL BARD, OR WITH POLITICS ON THE SIDE?
Stuart M. Kurland's essay, "Hamlet and the Scottish Succession?" (also linked to earlier in this post) does a good job explaining how there is a tendency among some Shakespeare scholars to neglect topical (or political) readings of Shakespeare's plays, in part because some topical readings (such as Lilian Winstanley's 1921 "Hamlet and the Scottish Succession") have proven to be reductionist and flawed.
But both Kurland and also Paulina Kewes consider Hamlet to be not merely a revenge play, but also a succession play. At the end of the reign of Elizabeth I, she did not speak publicly of a successor, and she also made it illegal for the public to engage in speculation. So when a monarch has no heir but forbids discussion of succession, what are a people to do? Creative playwrights could resort to stories of successions in other lands. So while Hamlet seems to be an old story about a succession in Denmark, that tale is being told in England in order to address English anxieties about succession in their own land.
Kewes, interviewed by Andrew McRae (here), does a good job explaining key differences in Q1 and Q2: It turns out that Q1 was published less than a year after the ascension of James to the English throne, so the way that it addresses the ascension of Fortinbras to the Danish throne differs from Q2, which includes revisions to the explanation given for Fortinbras' claim. McRae's interview of Kewes also has a transcript available (find the green button in the lower right, "DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTION"), as well as a list for "FURTHER READING" (which includes Kurland's essay) and a link for lesson plans.
Some will still resist the claim that Hamlet is a succession play, written to address the anxieties of English audiences about the succession of the English throne. Others will resist the idea that the ways in which Hamlet and Fortinbras resemble James might have been quite intentional on the part of the playwright, although it was common knowledge that James VI of Scotland was a contender for the throne, so news and and rumors about him circulated widely.
And yet given the careful treatment of these issues by scholars like Kurland and Kewes, it makes more sense to view Hamlet as a succession play, with aspects of Hamlet and Fortinbras pointing to James, than it does to insist that Shakespeare was a strictly eternal and angelic bard who would not allow the genius of his plays to be sullied by the political or merely topical.
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REFERENCES:
1. Hamlet and the Scottish Succession?
Stuart M. Kurland
Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900
Vol. 34, No. 2, Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama (Spring, 1994), pp. 279-300 (22 pages)
Published By: Rice University
https://doi.org/10.2307/450902
https://www.jstor.org/stable/450902
2. Hamlet and the Jacobean Succession
Paulina Kewes, interviewed by Andrew McRae
Video (with further reading, and links to transcript and lesson plans)
Stewarts-Online.com
http://stuarts-online.com/resources/films/hamlet-and-the-jacobean-succession/
PDF transcript download (here)
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Below is a link to the index of my previouis series of posts on Jephthah and Polonius in Hamlet:
January 31, 2021: Jephthah/Polonius/Hamlet Posts: Summaries/Highlights/Index & Links
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2021/02/jephthah-series-pay-attention-be-astonished-tell.html
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Hamlet quotes: All quotes from Hamlet are taken from the Modern (spelling), Editor's Version at InternetShakespeare via the University of Victoria in Canada. They are often first identified by way of the advanced search feature at OpenSourceShakespeare.org.
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Disclaimer: If and when I quote or paraphrase bible passages in many of my blog posts, I do not intend to promote any religion over any other, nor am I attempting to promote religious belief in general; only to point out how the Bible may have influenced Shakespeare, his plays, and his age.
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Thanks for reading!
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https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2019/12/top-20-hamlet-bible-posts.html
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