Jephthah/Polonius Series: "Pay Attention. Be Astonished. Tell About It." Index, Summaries, & Links
For now, I have come to the end of my research and series of blog posts on Jephthah and Polonius. It has turned out to be very much like the poet Mary Oliver's "Instructions for living a life":
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
This is far better than the vague and limited advice one hears more often: "Write what you know"; better to go on a quest to find out even more, and to be astonished in the process.
Since at least last October I have been thinking and researching more methodically than I had in the past about Hamlet's Jephthah allusion in reference to Polonius. In paying attention, I’ve often been astonished to find that the Jephthah allusion in Hamlet is much richer than many footnotes and other sources sometimes suggest (in my admittedly limited research).
So here is an index to my Jephthah/Polonius posts since last October, with links to those posts, and with some brief comments about the things I found that most astonished me in each. I hope my blog readers find this helpful.
In recommended/logical order of reading (non-chronological):
1. October 6, 2020: Power-Broker Polonius, Ungenerous Jephthah
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2020/10/powerbroker-polonius-ungenerous-jephthah.html
- This was first written as part of a series on Isaac Asimov's chapter on Hamlet in his two-volume work on Shakespeare, but then it later became also the first part in a series on Jephthah.
WHAT ASTONISHED ME:
Asimov invites his readers to consider how Claudius says in 1.2 that he is very grateful and indebted to Polonius, willing to grant the request of his son Laertes even before he hears it. Asimov believes this may be Shakespeare's way of encouraging his playgoers and readers to imagine a bit of the backstory for Polonius:
- Perhaps Polonius was very helpful in convincing the Danish court to elect Claudius as the new king (instead of waiting for Hamlet to return from university for his father's funeral).
- Perhaps Polonius also helped to convince Gertrude of the seriousness of the threat of Norway's impending invasion, and what a great service she would be doing to her country by marrying Claudius. (Maybe Gertrude didn't need as much convincing as the court).
- To Asimov, this also suggests why Hamlet hates Polonius so much (in addition to the fact that he demanded that Ophelia stop seeing Hamlet): If Polonius helped negotiate the marriage of Gertrude to Claudius, and to negotiate with the court their support in the election of Claudius as king, then Polonius may have played a key role in denying Hamlet the throne and making sure it went to Claudius instead.
2. December 8, 2020: William Cecil: Top Among 12 Polonius Satire/Inspiration Candidates
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2020/12/william-cecil-top-among-12-polonius.html
I had only heard of one historical figure on whom the character of Polonius (named Corambis in the First Quarto) may have been based. I never knew there were also many other candidates put forward.
- William Cecil, Lord Burghley, the chief advisor to Elizabeth I seems to be the top candidate.
- In Marjorie Garber's book, Shakespeare After All, she mentions Cecil and a certain Polish ambassador, both of whom I mention in this blog post. They seem to be the top two candidates, but we should remember that Shakespeare's character is fiction and in the end, doesn't depend on any one historical figure.
3. November 24, 2020: Is Hamlet's Jephthah remark in part about Cecil & the Bond of Association?
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2020/11/hamlet-jephthah-cecil-bond-assn.html
- One of the main reasons William Cecil may be a top candidate for a historical figure on whom Polonius was based is that Cecil was the main author of the Bond of Association, which members of the Elizabethan court and nobility were pressured to sign. In signing it, they were vowing to avenge the murder of Elizabeth if she were assassinated.
WHAT ASTONISHES ME:
There is a kind of tension or hypocrisy, for the leaders of a government that calls itself "Christian," and whose monarch is the head of its church, to expect people to violate their baptismal vows in seeking revenge: The Hebrew and Christian scriptures both say, "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord," and Jesus taught people to love their enemies and pray for those who persecute them. Many characters in the play make vows and violate them. Jephthah made a vow to God, to kill and offer as a burnt offering the first thing that crossed his threshold on his return from battle, if only God would help him achieve victory. Hamlet calls Polonius a Jephthah, indicating that his vows of loyalty to his monarch might put the life and well-being of his daughter in jeopardy.
4. December 22, 2020: Jephthah, Cecil, & Three Instruments in Hamlet
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2020/12/jephthah-cecil-three-instruments-in.html
- The full original title of the Bond of association was this:
"The Instrument of an Association for the Preservation of Her Majesty’s Royal Person."
When I learned its full name, I searched the text of Shakespeare's Hamlet (through an advanced word search at OpenSourceShakespeare).
WHAT ASTONISHED ME:
The word "instrument" is used only three times, and each time, it's in an interesting context:
a. Claudius uses the word "instrument" in reference to the helpfulness of Polonius. If Polonius is viewed as a person like William Cecil, then it makes sense to associate Polonius with the word.
b. Hamlet uses a recorder to demonstrate to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern that he is not willing to be their "instrument" in their efforts to spy on him for the king. Some in the Elizabethan aristocracy may have objected to being asked to sign the bond, or refused to be used in that way, as Hamlet seems to refuse.
c. Laertes confesses that the king is to blame, and that the instrument of Hamlet's impending death is in Hamlet's hand: Laertes' poisoned rapier. Laertes is full of regret for having been involved in a revenge plot, which is what the Bond sought to involve many people in.
- These three occurrences of the word, the only ones in the whole play, might be viewed as offering critical commentary on the Bond.
5. December 29, 2020: J.G. McManaway: Ophelia & Jephtha's Daughter
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2020/12/jg-mcmanaway-ophelia-jephthas-daughter.html
McManaway's brief article emphasizes connections between Jephthah's daughter bewailing her virginity, and mad Ophelia singing bawdy songs. This is a wonderful connection neglected by those who reduce the Jephthah reference to being merely about ambitious men making unholy vows with adverse effects upon daughters.
6. December 15, 2020: Jephthah-Figures in Hamlet: Ambitious, Desperate, Traumatized Outsiders?
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2020/12/jephthah-polonius-cecil-ambitious.html
Three things:
a. How closely Young Fortinbras fits a list of elements from early and late in the Jephthah tale: He is cut off from his father's inheritance, like Jephthah; he is a fighter who recruits a band of misfits to fight with him, like Jephthah; he attempts diplomacy first to settle his land dispute, like Jephthah; and he becomes the new leader in the end, like Jephthah.
b. Reflecting on how Jephthah was pushed out of his father's house by his half-siblings forced me to consider how that original trauma of marginalization became an important element that played out later in the story. It is another kind of revenge tale, but instead of taking revenge upon his half-siblings, he kills his own daughter, like scripture claiming that the sins of the fathers are passed down to multiple generations. I also realized, somewhat belatedly, that the marginalization of Jephthah bears some similarities to the marginalization of the beggar Lazarus outside the rich man's door.
c. I considered how, if the name Polonius was meant to point to Poland and Denmark's former enemies there, then perhaps Polonius is meant to seem marginalized by his former country, or an ambitious turncoat. What did Polonius do, to go from being Polish, to being a key advisor to the throne of Denmark? This is an intriguing question, adding to the plays many ambiguities.
7. January 5, 2021: What Art Might Remind Us About Jephthah, Polonius, & Ophelia
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2021/01/what-art-might-remind-us-about-jephthah.html
While Hamlet scholars and footnotes often focus on Jephthah's ambition and unholy vows, it's hard to portray these in a painting. Instead, paintings and tapestries usually focus on the contrast between his daughter's and her friends, often bearing musical instruments to celebrate Jephthah's safe and victorious return, on the one hand, and on the other, Jephthah rending his garment in anguish and regret, recognizing that if he is to fulfill his vow, he must sacrifice his daughter.
- This prompted two questions and an extra insight:
a. As the celebration of Jephthah's daughter is spoiled by her father, what is it that Ophelia celebrates, which her father Polonius spoils? (The love of the prince?)
b. As Jephthah regrets but does not repent of his vow to sacrifice his daughter, what is it that Polonius regrets but does not repent? (Having misjudged Hamlet?)
c. Insight: Viewing so many different visual renderings of moments from the Jephthah story, from many cultures and historical contexts, nudged me toward considering new questions about Christian theology (a Jephthah-like God who sacrifices his son Jesus?) and suspicions about Jephthah: Was Jephthah merely a victim of his own family's marginalizing, and then of his own stubborn pride? Or did he perhaps want to be rid of his daughter, and use the story of a vow to cover his crime and ambition?
8. January 12, 2021: Jephthah & Polonius: What’s prostitution got to do with it?
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2021/01/jephthah-polonius-whats-prostitution.html
- Not only does the Biblical Jephthah tale contain a harlot-mother and shame associated with prostitutes, but Shakespeare's Hamlet does as well. Yorick is referred to by the gravedigger as "whoreson." Hamlet says Claudius "whor'd" his mother, making Hamlet a whoreson. Laertes speaks of how he must avenge his father's death, or else it will proclaim his mother a "harlot" who conceived him by some man other than Polonius. Claudius and Hamlet compare themselves to harlots/whores.
- The Jephthah tale portrays corruptions when things that are better treated as gifts are withheld or treated as payment for services. Shakespeare's Hamlet portrays similar corruptions.
9. January 19, 2021: What’s Jephthah to Hecuba, or She to Him?
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2021/01/whats-jephthah-to-hecuba-or-she-to-him.html
How the Jephthah & Hecuba allusions, in the same scene, had previously always seemed unrelated, but Hecuba in the larger context of women sacrificed in the Trojan War makes them seem much more more related, and in that way, the Hecuba allusion also foreshadows Ophelia's doom.
10. January 26, 2021: Gertrude, Ghost, & Claudius as Jephthahs
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2021/01/gertrude-ghost-as-jephthahs-loss-of-eden.html
WHAT ASTONISHED ME:
a. How long the list is, and how many ambitious characters in the play are willing to sacrifice various things and people to their ambition.
b. How striking it is (again) that Young Fortinbras fits so many aspects of the larger Jephthah tale.
c. How Jephthah is expelled from his father's house like Adam expelled from Eden, both in part due to a woman: In the Jephthah tale, the woman is the Harlot, Jephthah's mother; in the Genesis tale, the woman is Eve, who gave in to the temptations of the serpent.
11. BONUS: On Polonius, Apuleius, & Will Kempe:
December 1, 2020: Polonius, Apuleius, Golden Ass, Arras, & Hidden Lovers
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2020/12/polonius-apuleius-golden-ass-arras.html
WHAT ASTONISHED ME:
I came across an unrelated source that happened to mention Polonius and The Golden Ass of Lucius Apuleius in the same sentence, and this prompted me to realize: Polonius hiding behind the arras in Gertrude's closet resembles not only the tales of hidden lovers in The Golden Ass, but also Falstaff hiding in Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor. With only a little searching, I found that the clown William Kempe played both Falstaff and also Corambis, the character in the First Quarto who was later renamed Polonius. This offered a very different way of viewing
I had never considered that there may have been a connection between Will Kempe as the clown Fallstaff in Merry Wives of Windsor, playing the hidden lover, and Will Kempe as Corambis playing the hidden man in Gertrude's closet - as in many tales of hidden lovers in The Golden Ass. But this sheds new light on Hamlet as drawing on this tradition, with elements not present in the source tales.
12. 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
[This post]
13. POSTSCRIPT: February 9, 2021: Fortinbras, Jephthah, James: Stealthy Allusive Triangulation - https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2021/02/fortinbras-jephthah-james-stealthy.html
WHAT ASTONISHED ME
- That Fortinbras could resemble not only Jephthah in so many ways (as noted in my December 15 post), but also James, an interesting but potentially dangerous triangulation.
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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!
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
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