Welcome Lazarus & Lord Strange's Men (Lazarus in Hamlet, Part 8)
[Dated 1594, oil portrait of Fernando Stanley, Lord Strange, 5th Earl of Derby (1559–16 April 1594), by unknown. Cropped. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.]
Many others may have noticed this, but in spite of my having researched Hamlet for a number of years, I don't recall coming across this (either because I never did, or did but forgot). So I may be arriving late to this party.
THE GHOST IS STRANGE?
After first seeing the apparition, Horatio says to Marcellus and Bernardo,
"'Tis strange" (1.1.80, emphasis mine here and below).
If "strange" had been capitalized as a proper noun, we might think Horatio had identified the ghost as Lord Strange: "'Tis Strange."
Soon thereafter, he says,
"This bodes some strange eruption to our state" (1.1.85).
In the next scene, after Hamlet has been informed by Horatio of the apparition, Hamlet says,
"'Tis very strange" (1.2.414).
Later in 1.5, the ghost tells Hamlet,
"Murder most foul, as in the best it is, / But this most foul, strange, and unnatural"
After Hamlet has spoken with the ghost (who, from underground/understage, commands them all to swear on Hamlet's sword), Horatio says,
"Oh, day and night, but this is wondrous strange" (1.5.861).
Hamlet replies,
"And therefore as a stranger give it welcome" (1.5.862).
By the end of the first act, the word "strange" has been used six times, and only in association with the ghost who claims to have been poisoned. Strange indeed, given that Lord Strange was widely thought to have died of poisoning.
The players in the Lord Chamberlain’s Men included at least five former members of the Lord Strange’s Men: Bryan, Pope, Phillips, Condell, and Heminges.
The family line of Lord Strange (Ferdinando Stanley, Earl of Derby), had been preferred by both Henry VIII and his son Edward VI as successors after Edward. Lord Strange was therefore a possible successor to Elizabeth.
There are a total of 11 occurrences of the word "strange" in the play, including one by Hamlet in his letter to Claudius after his sea-voyage, regarding his "sudden and more strange return" (4.7), and later, an exchange in the graveyard (5.1), where both the gravedigger/clown and Hamlet use the word "strangely" to describe how the prince went mad (although the gravedigger doesn't seem to realize he is speaking to the mad prince himself).
THE POISONED LORD STRANGE
From even before his death, many believed Lord Strange to have been poisoned (as noted in this 2001 article in The Lancet, based in part on an 1876 Lancet article; and as noted in the book, The Assassination of Shakespeare's Patron, by Leo Daugherty). Because Hamlet is a play about a poisoned king, this would seem significant.
What does all of this have to do with the tale of the rich man and the beggar, Lazarus?
Not all rich men are lacking in generosity. Perhaps Lord Strange was like a generous rich man (generous at least in employing an acting company that included Shakespeare). He was both materially rich (rich enough to be a patron of the arts), but also potentially quite rich in power, in that he was descended from Henry VII and in the line of succession outlined by Henry VIII.
If Lord Strange was like a beggar at the gates of power during Elizabeth's reign, he may have been shut out because of anxiety over his religious loyalties, and perhaps poisoned to remove him as a possible successor.
Topical references don't exhaust the literary value and meanings of the play, and in fact, what is topical may become a gateway to themes of much broader and more enduring appeal; the writer may begin with something local and topical, but sense how it resonates with larger and deeper possibilities.
And in a sense, any member of his playing company (The Lord Strange's Men) - and even fans of that playing company - might be happy to refer to themselves as "Strangers": fans of, and artistically indebted to, Lord Strange. (Sort of like "Beliebers," fans of Justin Bieber, but WAY older....)
Welcome the Strangers, for you were once strangers? A new twist on an old Biblical command?
A BEGGAR, A STRANGER, SOME PLAYERS, AND LORD STRANGE WALK INTO A PUB?
There is a cluster of related passages in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, urging readers and listeners to be generous in hospitality toward strangers, beggars, orphans, widows, enemies, and the otherwise marginalized. When members (or former members) of the Lord Strange's Men heard such passages in church commanding listeners to be hospitable toward "strangers," it may have made them smile, or brought bitter-sweet memories of their deceased patron, perhaps murdered by people who were greedy for power. It may have tempted some of them toward thoughts of revenge, although many of the same passages counseled against it.
I will only mention a few examples below, but these are often-repeated themes. The tale in Luke 16 of the rich man and Lazarus can be considered as a kind of illustration of these general teachings, commanding generosity toward strangers and "the least of these."
It also expands on what Jesus says in response to a lawyers questions in Luke 10:25-37, What is the greatest law? and Who is my neighbor? (illustrated with the tale of the good Samaritan in verses 30-37). It turns out that the Samaritan in the tale was a stranger and a foreigner, but when he encountered someone in dire need, he acted with more kindness and mercy than a priest and a Levite whom the tale's listeners might have expected to act more neighborly. Takeaway: The stranger/Samaritan is more "neighbor" than the neighbors.
This reading from Luke 10 was read every 13th Sunday after Trinity (which falls this year, 2021, on the 29th of August), every year of Shakespeare's life.
In Luke 10:27 (Geneva trans.), Jesus includes in his answer to the lawyer regarding the greatest law, "Thou shalt love thy Lord God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy thought, and thy neighbor as thyself."
In Matthew 22:37-40, Jesus says the second part (love of neighbor) is like the first (love of God), and that "On these two commandments hangeth the whole Law and the Prophets" (Geneva trans.). Matthew 22:34-46 was the second lesson every 18th Sunday after Trinity Sunday (which falls on 3 October this year). Shakespeare would have heard that lesson every year around that time.
The rich man failed to love Lazarus as himself, and at various moments in Shakespeare's Hamlet, certain characters might be viewed as having failed in the same way. This includes the dead king whose skin turned "Lazarlike" from the poison, as mentioned in a previous post, as well as Polonius in his lack of generosity toward Ophelia and toward the players. The Lazarus-Dives tale seems to work as a mirror for other characters as well, as this series about the Lazarus allusion in Hamlet has been exploring, and will explore.
This cluster of related passages includes the following from the Christian scriptures' Letter to the Hebrews (attributed to Paul but most probably by another author), and the following from Leviticus in the Hebrew scriptures (not an exhaustive list):
From the Letter to the Hebrews, 13:2-4, read as the second lesson at evening prayer on April 11th, August 10th, and December 7th:
2 Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have received Angels into their houses unawares. *
3 Remember them that are in bonds [prison], as though ye were bound with them: and them that are in affliction, as if ye were also afflicted in the body. **
4 Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge. ***
~~~
* When 13:2 mentions that those entertaining strangers have received angels into their houses, many scholars claim that this would include Genesis 18:1-20, read at morning prayer every Trinity Sunday as the first lesson, and also as the first lesson at morning prayer ("matins") every January 11th.
**Those afflicted in the body would include Lazarus and his sores, but some translations have "tortured" instead of "in affliction of body."
*** Note that verse 4 relates to another theme in Hamlet.
~~~
From Leviticus 19:33-34 (Bishop's Bible, the translation read in church in Shakespeare's time), this would have been read as the First Lesson of Evening Prayer on 12 February, every year:
33 If a straunger soiourne with thee in your lande, ye shall not vexe hym
34 But the straunger that dwelleth with you, shalbe as one of your owne nation, and thou shalt loue hym as thy selfe, for ye were straungers in the lande of Egypt: I am the Lorde your God.
In the same vein, I should not fail to cite Matthew 25:31-46, which would have been read from the Bishop's Bible translation as the Second Lesson for Morning Prayer, every January 28th, May 27th, and September 24th. I include it here, with modernized spelling, from the Geneva translation, which Shakespeare favored:
31 And when the Son of man cometh in his glory and all the holy Angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory,
32 And before him shall be gathered all nations, and he shall separate them one from another as a shepherd separateth the sheep from the goats.
33 And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, and the goats on the left.
34 Then shall the king say to them on his right hand, Come ye blessed of my father: take the inheritance of the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
35 For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I thirsted, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in unto you.
36 I was naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
37 Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? or athirst, and gave thee drink?
38 And when saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in unto us? or naked, and clothed thee?
39 Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
40 And the king shall answer, and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it to me.
41 Then shall he say to them on the left hand, Depart from me ye cursed, into everlasting fire, which is prepared for the devil and his angels.
42 For I was an hungered, and ye gave me no meat: I thirsted, and ye gave me no drink:
43 I was a stranger, and ye took me not in unto you: I was naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.
44 Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?
45 Then shall he answer them, and say, Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.
46 And these shall go into everlasting pain, and the righteous into life eternal.
The beggar Lazarus was one of "the least of these," and the rich man did not feed or clothe or help him. This reading sets up the idea of service to the poor as if it is a sacrament whereby people encounter Jesus/God: What you do to the least, you do unto me. (In Shakespeare's lifetime, the sacrament of encountering Jesus was considered to be primarily Sunday communion or Eucharist; English Protestants did not believe in transubstantiation, the "real presence" of Jesus in the Eucharist. For one to refuse communion at Sunday services led to suspicion of recusancy, or in other words, suspicion of being a Roman Catholic, refusing to submit to the Church of England, and possibly being treasonous, willing to obey the Pope before obeying the English monarch.) Catholics and Protestants may have argued over transubstantiation, but they both read Matthew 25:31-46 and had to consider its implications regarding something like a sacrament of service to the "least of these."
Passages such as this one from Matthew 25 are thematically related to countless others. If Jesus is correct in Matthew 22:40, that "On these two commandments hangeth the whole Law and the Prophets" (as was also taught in Shakespeare's lifetime), then not only the Lazarus tale, but also the quotes about kindness to strangers, and all else, goes back to love of God and of neighbor as self. Theologian Karen Armstrong and others have noted that compassion, or love of neighbor as self, seems to be a common theme to most of the world's major religions.
As discussed in a previous blog post, perhaps someone was like the beggar Lazarus to the dead king, who did not respond with kindness or generosity, so the poison turns his skin "Lazarlike."
Passages cited above include not only strangers and "the least of these," but also those "bound," or imprisoned. Hamlet claims to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern that Denmark is a prison; because he has spoken to the ghost and knows that Uncle Claudius killed his father, and because Claudius and Gertrude refused to allow him to return to his studies in Gutenberg, there may be some truth to his feeling of being imprisoned; but Rosencrantz and Guildenstern merely treat him as if he is imagining it, instead of "ministering unto" him. The passage above from Matthew 25 may have shaped Shakespeare's sense of what it meant for Hamlet to feel a prisoner, as well as his sense of the failures of those around him.
RICH MEN, STRANGERS, & BEGGARS, CAUGHT IN A WEB OF TALES
To Shakespeare, who was required by law to attend church, the story of the rich man who neglected the stranger/beggar Lazarus at his gate was not just a witty but obscure allusion to a Biblical tale, an allusion made centuries ago by some English Bible nerd. It was probably almost as normal to him and to others of his culture as water to a fish. If you are a fish, you will likely take the water for granted, and perhaps you know from some kind of deep genetic memory how streams and rivers connect to the ocean.
Shakespeare knew not only this particular Bible tale, but also many others in a web of other tales and passages to which this one was related.
So in his play, if a character is unkind to another character, as if unwelcoming or ungenerous to a stranger or beggar, of course the Lazarus tale applies, to the characters, to the players, to the audience, and even to the memory of their former patron, Lord Strange, who was not literally a neglected beggar, but rather, a murdered claimant to the throne.
In Shakespeare's time, such allusions served
to hold as 'twere
the mirror up to nature, to show virtue her own
feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and
body of the time his form and pressure.
(3.2.1869-72)
If Lazarus-like beggars in a society are neglected and starved, who will tell their stories (5.2.3835)? Who will tell what is rotten (1.4.678) that led to their neglect? It is not enough for Jesus to have tried to do so for his own age: Every age must take up the work.
When their patron, Lord Strange, was thought murdered by poison at the age of 35, who would avenge his death or set right what was out of joint (1.5.885) in English society that led to this tragedy?
It seems that through the play, Hamlet, Shakespeare and his acting company take up these questions, or something like them, without explicitly blaming anyone for the death of their patron. They take it up carefully, imperfectly, groping in the dark, not knowing all the answers, showing people in a story involving characters making mistakes that lead to more deaths, sometimes with good intentions, sometimes with selfish and malevolent designs. They show people who (as often in life) interact and are encouraged, or broken and changed, sometimes made better in the process, sometimes worse.
(For more on this process of interacting and being changed, see the series on "Labors of Gratitude and Regret" in Hamlet, my multi-part series that concluded in December of 2019. There is an index for all the posts in that series at the end of each post.)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
INDEX OF POSTS IN THIS SERIES ON THE RICH MAN AND LAZARUS:
See this link:
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2021/02/index-series-on-rich-man-and-beggar.html
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hamlet quotes: All quotes from Hamlet (in this particular series on The Rich Man and Lazarus in Hamlet) are taken from the Modern (spelling), Editor's Version at InternetShakespeare via the University of Victoria in Canada.
- To find them in the first place, I often use the advanced search feature at OpenSourceShakespeare.org.
Bible quotes from the Geneva translation, widely available to people of Shakespeare's time, are taken from an internet source somewhat close to their original spelling, from studybible.info, and in a modern spelling, from biblegateway.com.
- Quotes from the Bishop's bible, also available in Shakespeare's lifetime and read in church, are taken from studybible.info.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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