Part 46: In Gertrude's final choices, Ophelia lives on
If we have followed Gertrude’s progress closely (allowing her to be at least as intelligent as the men in the play), we might note:
She may have been deceived to marry Claudius, and done so as much for the safety of Denmark facing a threat from Norway [1], as for lust (contrary to what her son and the Ghost say [2]).
She understands her son’s “Mousetrap” and its implications: Claudius poisoned his brother and wooed his brother’s wife [3].
Hamlet’s scolding in her closet has “cleft [her] heart in twain” [4].
She feels guilty facing Ophelia after her father’s death and her reported madness [5].
She reports Ophelia’s death not as suicide, but as an accident caused by crown-envy: the breaking of a sliver of willow envious for a crown [6], hinting at Claudius as the ultimate cause [7].
She probably suspects that Claudius poisoned the cup when dropping in a pearl and asking Hamlet to drink [8].
But she can’t know for certain, so she will drink to test it, and like her son, may mousetrap Claudius into confessing.
We are all influenced by others: Gertrude, after seeing Hamlet’s playlet, might think to “mousetrap” Claudius by announcing she is drinking from the cup Claudius intended for her son. He lives in her.
It may be poison; who has recently shown her courage in facing death?
Ophelia. Gertrude’s tale of her death may be a fiction, but whether a death in faith (as she claims) or suicide (as gravediggers and priest suspect), Ophelia seemed to face death fearlessly; that memory lives on in Gertrude.
So she announces that she will drink to toast her son.
Claudius tells her not to drink [9].
She is obligated to obey her husband [10]; nowhere in the play does she disobey him until now.
But he does not confess.
She states that she will drink, disobeying him, but humbly “pray[s]” for his forgiveness.
Consider: Each element is crucial:
1. By announcing she will drink, she demonstrates the honesty that Claudius lacks.
2. By disobeying his order not to drink, she commits a small “sin,” wife disobeying husband,
far less serious than the sins of Claudius.
3. By “praying” that he forgive, she demonstrates a plea for mercy that Claudius should be making, had he confessed his murder of his brother, and his intention to murder his nephew.
By example, she bears witness to the virtues he lacks.
Some may cry:
But if she suspects poison, even preferring to be proven wrong, isn’t is suicide?
Won’t she burn in hell for this?
No: Inasmuch as this may resemble suicide, she has already advocated mercy for Ophelia, so Gertrude deserves the kind of mercy she has already demonstrated for Ophelia: “Forgive us… as we forgive…” [11].
Gertrude follows the example of honesty and courage that Ophelia demonstrated in her madness.
Ophelia and Hamlet live on in Gertrude’s actions [12].
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2024/05/part-46-in-gertrudes-final-choices.html
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NOTES: All references to Hamlet are to the Folger Shakespeare Library online version: https://shakespeare.folger.edu/shakespeares-works/hamlet/entire-play/
[1] See 1.2.5-25.
Also, Gertrude’s marriage to Claudius is a marriage in service of the state, as Laertes describes in 1.3.20-27:
His greatness weighed, his will is not his own,
For he himself is subject to his birth.
He may not, as unvalued persons do,
Carve for himself, for on his choice depends
The safety and the health of this whole state.
And therefore must his choice be circumscribed
Unto the voice and yielding of that body
Whereof he is the head.
This would have reminded early audiences of Catherine of Aragon, who married Arthur Tudor for a treaty with Spain, and after Arthur’s death, gained papal dispensation to marry Arthur’s brother Henry to maintain the treaty.
Gertrude had been convinced that her marriage to Claudius (though biblically condemned in England especially after Henry VIII, and allowed previously only through special permission by the Roman Church) was necessary to present a strong, united image of Denmark to counter a threat from Norway.
For two relevant Bible passages on the “incestuous marriage,” see this post from 30 June, 2022:
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2022/06/the-bible-henry-viii-claudius-and.html
[2] For Hamlet’s feelings on his mother’s hasty remarriage, see his first speech at 1.2.133-164. For the ghost, see 1.5.41-95.
[3] See 2.2.633-634, “The play’s the thing / Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.” See also the mousetrap scene, 3.2, including Hamlet’s advice to Horatio to watch the King as he watches the play (3.2.80-92), and the king’s reaction (3.2.291-316).
[4] 3.4.177.
[5] 4.5.1-25.
[6] 4.5.197-200.
[7] 3.3.40-59.
[8] 5.2.306-308.
[9] 5.2.317.
[10] In the understanding of the age, people took the Bible very literally and seriously, so when a letter attributed to Paul, Ephesians 5:22-33, says wives should submit to their husbands, this was expected even of queens to their husbands. But Bible scholars have long questioned whether Paul was the author of Ephesians, as the book claims, or whether it was attributed to him. Elsewhere Paul is much more egalitarian (about men and women, Jew and Greek, slave and free). See the wikipedia article on Ephesians: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistle_to_the_Ephesians
[11] From “The Lord’s Prayer,” said every Sunday, at most other church services (see the Elizabethan Book of Common Prayer, used in Shakespeare’s lifetime), and in the home: “Forgive us our (sins/debts/trespasses) as we forgive.…” This is related to the passage from Matthew 7:1-2: “Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged, and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured unto you again.” This was a favorite of Shakespeare’s and the basis of his play title, Measure for Measure.
[12] How can Ophelia live on in Gertrude?
- Just as some believe angels literally have wings to get to earth from heaven and back (and not merely ladders, as in the dream story of Jacob's ladder), some believe that the corpse of Jesus was resuscitated at the resurrection; yet in the 20th century Edward Schillebeeckx noted the frequency with which some theologians (often "liberation theologians") used the phrase, “The resurrection was not the resuscitation of a corpse”.
- It is unclear whether the figurative language of the Bible is actually suggesting that angels have ladders, or wings (probably not: that's figurative language for you); or that the corpse of Jesus was resuscitated;
or in the case of Jesus, perhaps suggesting (as at the last supper) that Jesus (as through the bread and wine) was figuratively/spiritually inside of his disciples, and they were members of his body, though they did not recognize it until they were together in an “upper room,” when they recognized Jesus still living in their midst;
and that Jesus was figuratively “in” strangers as on the road to Emmaus, strangers who did for the disciples the kinds of things Jesus had done (and not that Jesus disguised himself or clouded their minds, and then disappeared). //
- So in this way, just as Jesus influenced the disciples and lived on in them as members of his body, and lives on in strangers, Ophelia and her “virtues” (3.1.44) influenced and lived on in Gertrude.
IMAGES:
Gertrude with cup, with Claudius in background; Gertrude played by Penny Downie, and Claudius by Patrick Stewart. Hamlet, 2009, dir. Gregory Doran, via BBC; fair use:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/staticarchive/66dda335bbb1e5cd7de0a470517c0e5a1f5bff4a.jpg
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INDEX OF OPHELIA POSTS:
My 2023 series on Ophelia, and earlier Ophelia posts:
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2023/10/index-of-ophelia-posts-2023-series-and.html
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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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