Paul Adrian Fried / HAMLET'S BIBLE

On Instagram, botanicalshakespeare (whose posts I love) reminds us recently of the change in calendar required by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582, which meant that on what would have been October 5, continental Europe leaped ahead by 10 days, making it, instead, October 15. Shakespeare may have had this in mind (among many other things, like incest, usurpation, murder and corruption) when he decided to have Hamlet say, “The time is out of joint” (1.5) botanicalshakespeare notes: "…or at least it was in 1582 when the pontifical states switched calendars -from Julian to Gregorian (not Gregory I of chanting fame, this is Pope Gregory XIII) - and skipped ahead 10 days… but England decided to keep those extra days for a while 😉 — till 1752!" This might be fodder for some who insist that Shakespeare was Catholic, and who might claim that a Catholic Shakespeare may have supported the "fixing" of an out-of-joint time by making Protestant England Catholic again. But in fact, th

As it appears in Hamlet, the poisoned cup is not the same as some examples mentioned in my last post: Although these can shed light, Claudius and Laertes use deception, concealing their poisons. This is an important key. This is not the case with Socrates, nor with Sophonisba (suicides). Deception is an element involved in the gift of the Trojan Horse and the attempted poisoning of Merlin, St. John, and Theseus. For John Knox, Catholic Eucharist was also (in his mind) a kind of deception as well as a poison [1]. For John Knox, Catholic Eucharist was also (in his mind) a kind of deception as well as a poison [1]. The poisoned cup of Claudius can be viewed as a profound violation of the hospitality it appears to embody. As such, the deception of a seeming gift or gesture of hospitality is itself poisonous. This is important in light of the recurring theme of hospitality that runs through Hamlet: - Sometimes hospitality is neglected, as in the Lazarus-Rich Man allusion (by the Ghost) [2