Hamlet's Palm Sunday Allusion & Cognitive Dissonance: "preaching to stones, Would make them capable."
In Hamlet 3.4, the prince sees the ghost of his father, and tells his mother,
HAMLET:
On him, on him! Look you how pale he glares.
His form and cause conjoined, preaching to stones,
Would make them capable. (3.4.142-4)
This recalls the Palm Sunday reading (Geneva trans.), Luke 19:39-41:
39 Then some of the Pharisees of the company said unto him, Master, rebuke thy disciples.
40 But he answered, and said unto them, I tell you, that if these should hold their peace, the stones would cry.
Stone capable of speech?
In fact, at the end of Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, what seems to be a statue of Hermoine comes to life and is able to speak, which Richard Strier compares to the Pygmalion myth [1].
Strier connects this also to a stone wall in Habakkuk 2:11, which speaks to rebuke the sins of the wicked.
One might also connect it to the writing on the wall in Daniel 5, where in Babylon, at King Belshazzar’s feast, a message was written by a disembodied hand on a wall, and the prophet Daniel interprets it as warning that the kingdom will soon fall.
So there was in fact a long biblical history of stones and stone walls speaking, or being a medium for messages, especially when the living were not up to the task. Shakespeare's culture knew these Bible stories well.
But note the cognitive dissonance this allusion creates in the play:
The apparition that claims to be the ghost of Hamlet's father in purgatory is not the same as Jesus on Palm Sunday...
- So does Shakespeare put these words in Hamlet's mouth to emphasize that Hamlet wrongly idolizes his father?
- Does this also (cleverly, covertly) imply that those who believe in the divine right of kings/queens participate in a kind of idolatry similar to Hamlet who idolizes his father?
- But also perhaps does this imply that there are important matters in Denmark, corruptions about which the people should not be silent?
- And - ? Other possibilities?
This allusion demonstrates that Shakespeare's allusive practice is often not as straightforward as Claudius comparing himself to Cain having murdered his brother Abel....
NOTES:
[1] Strier, Richard. “Finding Pygmalion in the Bible: Classical and Biblical Allusion in The Winter’s Tale.” Chapter. In The Bible on the Shakespearean Stage: Cultures of Interpretation in Reformation England, edited by Thomas Fulton and Kristen Poole, 156–68. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. See especially pages 165-168.
Image: Pietro Lorenzetti (1280–1348), Untitled, known as Christ's entry into Jerusalem. Fresco, Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi. Public domain. Via Wikimedia [ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Assisi-frescoes-entry-into-jerusalem-pietro_lorenzetti.jpg ]
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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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