Eucharistic Allusions in Hamlet
In Shakespeare’s time as now, the Thursday before Easter commemorated the Last Supper, when Jesus washed the disciples’ feet [1], broke bread with them and shared wine, saying these were his body and blood.
Scholars have noticed allusions in Hamlet to Eucharist and the mass. Here are a few:
1.1.24: After Barnardo asks “is Horatio there?” Horatio replies, "A piece of him." Elizabethan Protestants satirized Catholic Eucharist in similar terms: Which piece of Jesus did you get? [2]
1.5.84: The ghost says he died “Unhous'led,” not having received Eucharist in the Last Rites.
1.5.98: He says “Adieu, adieu, adieu. Remember me.” Jesus at the Last Supper: “Do this in memory of me.”
2.1.56-8 and 3.2.408.: Polonius curses (“by the Mass”). This would have been considered blasphemous.
2.2.555: When Polonius is inclined to be ungenerous with the players, Hamlet replies, “God’s bodykins, man! Much better!” Some claim this is like cursing, "By God's little bodies," perhaps Eucharist, or all who receive it, or "God's dear body" (OED) [3].
3.3.18-24: Rosencrantz compares the body politic to a "massy wheel" with many spokes uniting all to the monarch; an analogy borrowed from Christianity and Eucharist.
4.3.19: Claudius, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are anxious about the missing body, like the three women at the tomb. Christianity historically connects the empty tomb to Eucharist: He is not to be found among the dead (Lk 24:5), but among the living (who follow his teachings & celebrate Eucharist) [4].
4.3.20-35: Hamlet says Polonius is “at supper,” “Not where he eats, but where he is eaten.” This is like Jesus in the Eucharist ("Take and eat; this is my body"), as is the next idea of how “a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar” (with Jesus as the king, and all who partake are spiritually beggars) [5].
5.1.184-7: The gravedigger says Yorick once poured a flagon of Rhenish wine on his head. This echoes Emmaus: The stranger did for the disciples things like Jesus had done (soon recognized in the breaking of bread); the gravedigger-clown does for Hamlet things like Yorick had done; during the tale of poured wine, Hamlet recognizes him as a drinking buddy of Yorick’s (bread and wine as at the Last Supper) [6].
5.2.240-1: Hamlet apologizes to Laertes and asks for pardon. In the English church service, there was general confession before communion. Hamlet’s confession of wrong to Laertes follows this pattern: Confess first, (black) mass later.
5.2.291: Claudius says he will throw a “union” or (later) pearl (5.2.306) into the “chalice” (4.7.183) of wine. A pearl held over the cup recalls the host and chalice in the mass, but in Claudius' hands, this is called a “Black Mass,” secretly meant to poison Hamlet.
NOTES: All references to Hamlet (and other Shakespeare plays) are to the Folger Shakespeare Library online versions: https://shakespeare.folger.edu/shakespeares-works/hamlet/entire-play/
[1] See previous post, “ Hamlet, Footwashing, Maundy Thursday, Hobbits, and Revelation”
- April 12, 2022: https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2022/04/hamlet-footwashing-maundy-thursday.html
[2] Stephen Greenblatt's Hamlet in Purgatory gives examples of Tudor-era Protestant pamphlets about Eucharist and their humorous phrasing of skepticism about Roman Catholic transubstantiation, where bread and wine supposedly become the body and blood of Christ:
"Protestant polemicists had returned throughout the sixteenth century to the moment of creating God's Body; it was for them a way of mocking what they took to be the crude materialism of the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation. Hence they dwelt with gleefulness on the persistence and what we might call the embarassments of matter. If God was actually bread, they tirelessly jested, it meant that God could be eaten by worms, flies, or mice, that the divine body could decay and rot, or that, passing through the intestines, it could be transformed into excrement." (240-241)
~ If priests consecrate hosts at thousands of masses worldwide at the same time, how many tons of Jesus does that make?
~ And which part of Jesus do I get today? Etc.
See previous post, “Horatio: ‘A piece of him’ as Eucharistic controversy pamphlet joke?” - August 14, 2017: https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2017/08/horatio-piece-of-him-eucharistic.html
[3] Little bodies? See: https://shakespeare-navigators.com/hamlet/H22.html
Bodykins-Bodkins: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/2597/bodkins-and-bodkin-same-word-different-context"
Others believe it refers to the nails used in the crucifixion, which would be a Good Friday allusion.
[Consider: Protestants might prefer for "God's bodykins" to refer to daggers or the nails of the crucifixion, to avoid the implications of a possibly Catholic Shakespeare.]
[4] See previous post: https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2022/04/irony-anxiety-in-hamlet-about-missing.html
[5] See again FN 2, above, Greenblat quote on what Protestants viewed as the crude materialism of Eucharist.
[6] See previous post: https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2024/08/index-emmaus-in-hamlets-graveyard-and.html
IMAGE: David Tennant and Patrick Stewart in the Royal Shakespeare Company production of Hamlet directed by Gregory Doran, 2008. Image from RSC, cropped. Fair use.
https://www.rsc.org.uk/hamlet/past-productions/in-focus-gregory-doran-2008
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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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