Religious and Biblical Allusions in Hamlet 1.1
Catholics believed in transubstantiation, that the host was actually the body of Christ, but English Protestants took that language less literally. Catholics believed in purgatory, that imperfect but mostly good souls might be purified before entry into heaven, while Protestants believed that at the moment of death, one's fate was sealed, bound for heaven or hell at the end times.
Furthermore, Catholics believed one could pray with or to saints, asking them to intercede on one's behalf, and that it could be helpful to pray for the souls of the dead. Many monasteries made money collecting donations to have masses said for dead relatives. Protestants believed such collection of money (or "selling indulgences") was corrupt, and did not believe intercessory prayer was necessary or effective.
Readers of Shakespeare have long noted biblical allusions and plot echoes, and a number of authors have written book-length treatments about these. One of the earliest best-selling books of this kind was published not long after Charles Darwin published his major work, "On the Origin of Species" (1859):
Thomas Ray Eaton (1858) *
https://archive.org/details/shakespeareandb00eatogoog/page/n8/mode/2up?q=Hamlet
Charles Wordsworth (1864) *
https://archive.org/details/shakespeareskno00wordgoog/mode/2up?view=theater
William Burgess (1903) *
https://archive.org/details/bibleinshakspear00burg/page/n3/mode/2up?view=theater
Thomas Carter (1905) *
https://archive.org/details/ShakespeareAndHolyScripture/page/n5/mode/2up
Richmond Noble (1935)
Peter Milward (1987)
Naseeb Shaheen (1999).
Hannibal Hamlin (2013)
*A number of these older works are available for free online from such sources as Internet Archive.
Some of these earlier writers (especially Bishop Wordsworth and Thomas Carter) believed Shakespeare was a Christian and was evangelizing by his use of biblical allusions, but more current scholarship notes that Shakespeare's use of allusions often demonstrate apparent contradictions, perhaps not unlike the contested interpretations of scripture in Shakespeare's time. For Shakespeare, the questions raised via biblical allusions (and the dramatic implications) may have been far more important than the answers.
In Act 1, scene 1, Horatio is portrayed as a kind of doubting Thomas who will not believe in the apparition that has appeared unless he sees it with his own eyes. Once he does, like Thomas, he is converted to a kind of belief - though it may not be to belief in ghosts: Horatio is still a skeptic of sorts on the question of whether the apparition is a ghost, or a demon in disguise. And the fact that Horatio is a sort of doubting Thojmas doesn't mean the apparition is the risen Christ: The play is far more ambiguous about the nature of the ghost.
The first two sentinels on stage are named Francisco and Bernardo. C. Elliot Browne wrote in 1876 that the names of the first two characters on stage in Hamlet may allude to assassins in the Pazzi conspiracy, which was as famous in Shakespeare's time as the assassination of Abraham Lincoln is still to our own time. It is easy to see how English Protestants might be attracted to this idea of an allusion to the Pazzi assassins, as the Pazzi conspiracy was a scandal for the Roman Church, and as it included papal involvement and corruption therefore at the highest Roman ecclesiastical levels.
In a 1995 book, Frank Ardolino shows that Thomas Kyd’s play, The Spanish Tragedy — the best-known English revenge tragedy before Hamlet — also contained allusions to the Pazzi conspiracy, so among plays of that period, Hamlet is not alone in that allusion.
But there may be even more basic allusions in the names of the sentinels, Francisco and Bernardo, besides to the names of the Pazzi assassins. Francis of Assisi (1181/82—1226) was the founder of the Franciscan movement, which had a number of monasteries in England before Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries (1536—1541); Henry's first wife had a Franciscan confessor, John Forest, who was burned at the stake (1538) for opposing Henry's divorce.
Bernard of Clairvaux (1090—1153) was a famous reformer of the Cistercian monastic movement, which also had a strong presence in England. Bernard convinced an early king of England (an earlier Henry) to support one of two contenders for the papacy and avoid schism, and later, Henry VIII created schism by breaking from Rome and making himself effectively the pope of England.
Bernard preached in favor of a crusade that failed, while Francis later met with the Sultan of Egypt during a later crusade, and was considered a man of peace. So perhaps the two names foreshadow Hamlet's "To be or not" speech, "Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune [like Francis?], Or [like Bernard's preaching for a crusade?] to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them."
The first scene also references the resurrection of the dead (either in the gospels, or in ancient Rome), the end times, and a cock crowing (like the gospel reference to Peter denying Christ three times). Again, this doesn't mean the ghost now = Peter, but it does suggest the ghost is guilty of some kind of denial or sin, as the ghost later admits to his son, Prince Hamlet, regarding his "foul crimes."
Early in the scene, when Horatio first appears and is asked by the sentinels, is that Horatio there, and when he responds, "A piece of him," we might note that such phrases as "a piece of him" were sometimes used in Protestant screeds criticizing the idea of Catholic transubstantiation, and the apparent impossibility of so many pounds of consecrated hosts throughout the world literally equaling the body of Christ, or at least each host being "a piece of him." The play will contain more references to the Last Supper and Eucharist, such as when Claudius holds a pearl over a "chalice" of wine in 5.2. The wine will be poisoned and intended for Hamlet; Protestant polemics of the time referred to Catholic mass and transubstantiation as spiritually poisonous, and Catholic polemics referred to Protestant liturgy as similarly harmful spiritually.
So in other words, when Horatio replies that "A piece of him" is there, he may have been making a Eucharistic joke that early audiences of the play would have understood, but which is now lost on modern audiences. (Instead anachronistically we may hear an echo of modern films, "Do you want a piece of me?" improvising on the voice of Robert Deniro in Taxi Driver, "You talkin' to me?)
In 1.1, Horatio asks the ghost if he has uphoarded treasure in the earth. This theme of rich people hoarding is found in scripture and also later in the play. In scripture, Jesus discourages the idea of a greedy person hoarding and building bigger grain silos, rather than using the grain to feed hungry people. Jesus speaks of a person who buries their talents in the ground (like the buried treasure of which Horatio speaks) who might at least have earned interest if the talents had been invested.
Later in the play, the ghost claims he is in purgatory for his "foul crimes," and believes the poison made his skin all "lazar-like," a reference to the gospel tale of the rich man who neglected the beggar Lazarus and was later punished for it. Ophelia refers to a similar story when she speaks of how "the owl was a baker's daughter," a kind of folktale retelling of the rich man and Lazarus. These allusions also involve rich people hoarding, as does Hamlet's description of Young Fortinbras as a "delicate and tender prince," which in biblical language would have meant rich, pampered, spoiled (and who, if the city were under siege, would eat their own children, thinking first of themselves).
Horatio tries twice to speak to the ghost after each of its two appearances in the scene, but the ghost will not speak to them. Shakespeare and his audiences were required by law to attend church regularly or face fines and suspicion of Catholic treason, so they would have been very familiar with gospel stories in which the disciples try to speak to or exorcise demons, but some of them do not respond to them, so they go back to Jesus for help because they believe he will have more luck. Shakespeare was familiar with these stories, so now Horatio and the sentinels seek out Prince Hamlet in a way vaguely similar to the disciples seeking out Jesus.
This doesn't mean Hamlet = Jesus (by a long stretch), but the playwright uses audience familiarity with such biblical tales to his advantage for a passing effect.
Hamlet 1.1 also contains one of the few references to Christmas, when Marcellus speaks of "that season ... Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated." Marcellus seems superstitious and perhaps Catholic, but Horatio is at least half-skeptical, perhaps reflecting Puritan attitudes that discouraged observation of Christmas.
These are just a few of the religious and biblical allusions in Hamlet 1.1. As previously mentioned, I do not believe that Shakespeare is proselytizing by using these allusions, but they are present because Shakespeare's culture was so thoroughly influenced by the Bible, and used for some purpose.
Awareness of religious and biblical allusions in the play is not a minority view, but a commonly held one. For an interesting and popular scholarly book related to this topic, Harvard University's Stephen Greenblatt has a book called "Hamlet in Purgatory" with which many of my readers may already be familiar. Among other things, the book considers the long history of belief in purgatory, artistic representations of purgatgory, and how hard it was for many people to adjust to giving up that belief, in times that included Shakespeare's England.
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IMAGES
Left: Cover, Hamlet in Purgatory, by Stephen Greenblatt
Middle: Image of the dead King Hamlet, 1890, by Rolfe, W. J. (William James), 1827-1910. Public domain, via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_%28Hamlet%29#/media/File:Shakespeare's_Tragedy_of_Hamlet,_Prince_of_Denmark_(1890)_(14586366959).jpg
Right: Naseeb Shaheen, author of Biblical References in Shakespeare's Plays, 1999. Image: fair use via https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Gm9KByfTUaQ/hqdefault.jpg
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My 2023 series on Ophelia, and earlier Ophelia posts:
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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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