Other instances of "lazar" in Shakespeare besides Hamlet
Shakespeare uses “lazar” only six times, all before Elizabeth I’s death:
once in 1 Henry IV, written in 1596-7 ("Lazarus," 4.2, discussed last week);
twice in Henry V, written in 1599;
once in Hamlet, written in 1599-1601 (1.5, "lazar-like");
and twice in Troilus and Cressida, 1600-2.
Three evoke Biblical contexts:
the ghost in Hamlet,
Falstaff in 1 Henry IV,
the Archbishop of Canterbury in Henry V.
The other three come are comic insults from Pistol (an ensign serving under Falstaff) and Thersites, (a slave serving Ajax, then Achilles, in Troilus and Cressida).
R: Thersites and Achilles, illustration by H. C. Selous, c.1886, from Cassell's illustrated Shakespeare, v 3, p 20. Edited and annotated by Charles and Mary Cowden Clarke. Image public domain via Commons.Wikimedia.org. Many of the H.C.Selous illustrations of Shakespeare are available here at BabelHathiTrust.org.]
These instances show considerable variety in the uses of "Lazar," from serious to very playful.
HENRY V
Archbishop of Canterbury
Perhaps one of the more interesting occurrences of "lazar" in Shakespeare's works other than Hamlet comes in Henry V (1599), in a statement at the beginning of 1.1 by the Archbishop of Canterbury to the Bishop of Ely, describing a proposal in parliament to strip the churches of various properties they have accumulated when people left lands to the church in their wills, lands transferred upon the death of a patron. The notes by editor James D. Mardock at Internet Shakespeare explain that various scholars see a parallel between these efforts to pass such laws in the 1400s, and Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries (1536-1541). Here are some of the Archbishop's lines (emphasis mine), which closely follow a passage from Holinshed's Chronicles (1577):
It must be thought on. If it pass against us,
We lose the better half of our possession,
For all the temporal lands which men devout
By testament have given to the Church
Would they strip from us, being valued thus:
As much as would maintain, to the king's honor,
Full fifteen earls and fifteen hundred knights,
Six thousand and two hundred good esquires,
And to relief of lazars and weak age
Of indigent faint souls past corporal toil,
A hundred almshouses, right well supplied;
And to the coffers of the king beside,
A thousand pounds by th'year. Thus runs the bill. (1.1)*
[* From Henry V, edited by James D. Mardock, at InternetShakespeare.]
The argument here is that, if lands donated to the church were seized by the government, the monies could be used for many purposes including "relief of lazars and weak age" and "a hundred almshouses, right well supplied." But there is no guarantee that lands taken from the church would in fact be used for those purposes, among the many others listed.
Monks and sisters of various religious orders tended to be the ones who took care of lepers at leper houses, and also supported the poor, so after the dissolution of the monasteries, there had to be other systems put in place to support the sick and the poor. (This is not to claim there were no abuses of funds by convents or monasteries before the dissolution; it is likely that there were. But there were abuses of funds afterward as well. Dissolving the monasteries didn't make it any easier to care for the sick or the poor, and in fact, may have created new challenges.
Soon after this moment in the play, the archbishop describes how King Henry V was not always a lover of the church, but abandoned the wildness of his youth when his father died and he became king, and many other positive changes came over him. They hope, in this scene, that this suddenly wise young king might oppose the bill in parliament that might take away church lands.
Pistol
Perhaps the most complex instance to modern ears comes from Pistol in 2.1 of Henry V. Pistol marries Mistress Quickly, who had been engaged to Corporal Nym; Pistol tells Nym that he should marry (espouse) the prostitute Doll Tearsheet instead (emphasis mine, with notes [in brackets]):
...to the spital [hospital] go,
And from the powdering tub of infamy [used to treat venereal disease]
Fetch forth the lazar kite [leprous and greedy/thieving bird of prey] of Cressid's kind,
Doll Tearsheet she by name, and her espouse [marry her]... (2.1)*
[* From Henry V, edited by James D. Mardock, at InternetShakespeare.]
Cressida was cursed with leprosy for being unfaithful to Troilus, so she was often viewed as being a kind of whore, dishonestly promising love and faithfulness to one, and then betraying that love for another, perhaps for some political, social, or material profit. So in that sense, at least to Pistol (and others of the time), Cressida was not merely fickle and naive, but Machiavellian, selfish and manipulative.
But Pistol is a comic character who conceals his cowardice with swagger and bragging. In this last instance of "lazar," used by Pistol, it is mostly in a string of insults, but tied also to a classical tale in which leprosy is used as a punishment, in apparent stark contrast with the gospel tale of Lazarus the beggar, where it is the rich man who is punished for lacking compassion for Lazarus, rather than the lazar (leper) who is punished.
TROILUS AND CRESSIDA
Thersites:
...if she that lays thee out says thou art a fair corpse,
I'll be sworn -- and sworn upon't -- she never shrouded any
but lazars. (2.3.1235-7)*
Because lazars (lepers) had a skin disease, they were not fair corpses, so this means,
if she who lays out your body after you die says that your corpse is fair,
she can say that if she had only prepared lepers' corpses before yours.
[* Troilus and Cressida from the edition at InternetShakespeare edited by William Godshalk.]
The second occurrence from Thersites comes in 5.1:
Ask me not what I would be if I were not Thersites,
for I care not to be the louse of a lazar.... (5.1.2930-2)
(Interesting and probably significant that, in a play about a woman cursed with leprosy, the foul-mouthed clown Thersites is the only one to use the word, and twice....)
Lice on a leper are obviously very low in Thersites' hierarchy of living things. Thersites is described by Homer as being lame, bow-legged, with tufts of hair on a pointed head. So in his obsession with lazars, it seems he's over-compensating for feelings of inadequacy regarding his body image.
For more on Thersites, see Jeffry R. Wilson's good essay, "Thersites’s Deformity and Bastardy" in a series on Stigma in Shakespeare at the Harvard website:
https://wilson.fas.harvard.edu/stigma-in-shakespeare/thersites%E2%80%99s-deformity-and-bastardy
SIGNIFICANCE OF "LAZAR" AS ELIZABETHAN, NOT JACOBEAN?
We might be tempted to conclude certain things from the fact that all of these occurrences of "lazar" come in plays written before the death of Elizabeth I. For example, we might be tempted to conclude that Elizabeth and many of the rich and powerful in her lifetime were more self-centered and less concerned for the poor, than James and those around him.
I believe this would be a mistaken conclusion to draw from the coincidence of these dates. Many later plays in the Shakespeare canon were written during the reign of James, and of these, many find ways to be critical of rulers who are corrupt, self-centered, or abuse their power.
One might also wonder if, after the failures of the Essex rebellion and The Gunpowder Plot, Shakespeare simply found other metaphors and Biblical allusions for raising questions about corruption in high places? He had explored six possible uses of "lazar" on the lips of five characters in four different plays, so perhaps that was enough?
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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
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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.
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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.
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