Hamlet, Chaucer's Appius Claudius, and the Corrupt Judge of Luke 18 (Part 6, Claudius Series)

HAMLET, CHAUCER'S APPIUS CLAUDIUS, AND THE CORRUPT JUDGE OF LUKE 18
(PART 6)

In a previous post [1], I explored how Chaucer’s story, “The Physician’s Tale” may have been a key factor among many literary and historical reasons for Shakespeare renaming Hamlet’s uncle Feng as “Claudius” [2].

Chaucer’s tale has two villains named Claudius, and a female object of exploitation who escapes dishonor by means like suicide (or father- required sacrifice, similar to Iphigenia, or the Jephthah theme in Hamlet [3]).

The Chaucer story suggests a gospel connection. In “The Physician’s Tale,” the main villain, Appius Claudius, is no average villain: He is a corrupt judge.

Why does this matter? An allusion to a tale of a corrupt judge would make many Bible-literate Elizabethans [4] think of Luke 18:1-8, where Jesus tells of a widow who is wronged, and for whom justice is delayed by a corrupt judge [5].
(Elizabethans were required to attend church once a week, and if they attended morning prayer, would have heard Luke 18:1-8 three times a year, on March 6, July 6, and November 2.)
- Hamlet involves a widow (Queen Gertrude), and her corrupt husband Claudius [6] who secretly murdered his brother, Gertrude’s first husband.

In the Luke tale, Jesus says that the widow was persistent, and if she eventually obtained justice even from a corrupt judge, how much more will God eventually deliver justice and avenge wrongs for those who are persistent in prayer. (Or maybe Luke 18:1-10 is ironic? [7])
- In Hamlet 1.2.60-62, Polonius’ reference to “laborsome petition” of his son Laertes may allude to this and compare his son’s laborsome petition to that of the widow in the gospel parable.
- In Hamlet, a corrupt Claudius tells Gertrude not to drink from a secretly poisoned cup, but she persists and drinks, perhaps testing the cup for poison to help her son [8].
- The widow Gertrude’s persistence forces Claudius either to confess to stop her, or to let her drink and lose her as his unethically obtained bride.

In this way, Gertrude begins to avenge his wrongdoing even before Hamlet finishes the job [9].

A Chaucer allusion in Hamlet to a corrupt judge named “Claudius” opens up intertextual possibilities for a connection also to the widow and corrupt judge of Luke 18.
 

INDEX on “Claudius” in Hamlet instead of “Feng”  (Nov 19, 2024-)
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2024/11/index-why-claudius-not-feng-whats-in.html

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] As mentioned earlier in the series, I’m indebted to Riccardo Cocchi for noticing the possible connection between Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Chaucer’s “The Physician’s Tale” with its characters of Appius Claudius and his “churl” (yet another) Claudius.
See previous post in this series,
Claudius, Hamlet, and Chaucer's Physician's Tale  (Part 4, Claudius series):
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2025/02/claudius-hamlet-and-chaucers-physicians.html

[2] In summary, for Shakespeare to rename as “Claudius” the uncle who had been named “Feng” in the source, or to retain the changed name from an earlier play, the hypothetical “Ur-Hamlet,” might have a number of possible presidents:
- The meaning of the word “Claudius” is “lame” which relates nicely to Hamlet calling Claudius a “satyr”;
- A villainous “Claudas” in Arthurian legends -
- Claudius II, an emperor of Rome, was alleged (by the hagiographies of The Golden Legend) to have ordered the execution of the martyr, St. Valentine (d. 269 AD), which relates very nicely to Hamlet 4.5, where Ophelia sings in the presence of Claudius, and sometimes in dialogue with him, a popular folk ballad about St. Valentine’s day, and about an unfaithful valentine who did not keep his promise to marry the female narrator of the song, as Hamlet failed to keep his vow to Ophelia.
- To be explored in a future post:
Claudius I, an earlier emperor, allegedly feigned not madness but stupidity to avoid being killed;
he married in a manner Elizabethans would have considered “incetuous” by marrying a niece, who later poisoned him;
and like Claudius demanding tribute of England, Claudius II was the second Roman emperor to invade England.

[3] For the Jephthah story in the Bible, see The Book of Judges, 11-12. For the allusion in Hamlet, see
2.2.427-444.
- See also a similar tale of a father sacrificing a daughter from Euripides, the tale of the sacrifice of Iphigenia, daughter of Agamemnon, who believed that in order to appease the goddess Artemis (whom he had angered) so that she might give him fair winds to go off to fight the Trojan war, he had to sacrifice his daughter. This is part of the back-story to the Iliad, and explains in part why his wife has an affair in his absence, and why she and her lover kill him after his return, leading to more troubles when their son Orestes kills his mother to avenge his father’s death.
- On evidence suggesting (contrary to widespread assumption) that Shakespeare may have been familiar with Euripides, see Carla Suthren, SHAKESPEARE AND THE RENAISSANCE RECEPTION OF EURIPIDES, Ph.D dissertation, University of York, May 2018: https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/21450/1/Shakespeare%20and%20the%20Renaissance%20Reception%20of%20Euripides.pdf

[4] Elizabethans were required to attend church once a week, and if they attended morning prayer, would have heard Luke 18:1-8 three times a year, on March 6, July 6, and November 2, according to the schedule in the Elizabethan Book of Common Prayer.  Even if they missed church those days, reading the Bible, and published religious sermons, was very popular.  
Consider that the publisher-bookseller Nicholas Ling, one of the publishers of the 1603 First Quarto edition of Hamlet, profited more from publishing the sermons of “silver-tongued” preacher Henry Smith than his did from publishing Hamlet. (See Terri Bourus, Young Shakespeare’s Young Hamlet, Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, page 20.  

[5] Shakespeare may be using Polonius to allude to this story from Luke 18 in these lines:

POLONIUS: Hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave
By laborsome petition, and at last
Upon his will I sealed my hard consent.
(1.2.60-62)

Luke 18:1-8 (Geneval trans.):
1 And he spake also a parable unto them, to this end, that they ought always to pray, and not to wax faint,
2 Saying, there was a judge in a certain city, which feared not God, neither reverenced man.
3 And there was a widow in that city, which came unto him, saying, Do me justice against mine adversary.
4 And he would not of a long time: but afterward he said with himself, Though I fear not God, nor reverence man,
5 Yet because this widow troubleth me, I will do her right, lest at the last she come and make me weary.
6 And the Lord said, Hear what the unrighteous judge saith.
7 Now shall not God avenge his elect, which cry day and night unto him, yea, though he suffer long for them?
8 I tell you he will avenge them quickly: but when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?

[6] On face value, some might quickly dismiss the idea of similarity between the corruption of an unjust judge and that of Claudius, new king of Denmark. But both are figures of authority, government officials whose job is to rule either in the courtroom, or in Denmark, with justice.

[7] Luke 18:1-10 may seem counter-intuitive, that God is compared to an unjust judge!
But this may be ironic, implying the reverse, that humans are often unjust, and God is like the widow who patiently persists in seeking the repentance of the unjust.
- Elsewhere in Luke’s gospel Jesus also compares God to a widow with a lost coin (Luke 15:8-10).
- For Luke 18:1-10, Ruth Duck explores in a hymn text the possibility that God is the widow:
 
“Like a Pleading Widow”:

Like a pleading widow,
God, you press for right,
Crying out for justice,
Calling day and night.
Screened in flashing image,
Begging on the street,
God, you never leave us.
Every day we meet.

Like a hound of heaven
You pursue us all.
Tireless in your seeking,
Ceaseless in your call.
Though we draw a circle
Meant to keep you out,
You, in love, encompass
Wayward fear and doubt.

“Oh, how long, my people,
Will you run away?
When will you do justice?
Will you still delay?”
God, we hear you speaking;
Help us turn around,
So that when you call us,
Justice may be found.

(Fair use: See Circles of Care: Hymns and Songs, Pilgrim’s Press, 2009.)  
https://i0.wp.com/pastordawn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/like-a-pleading-widow.jpg?resize=584%2C482&ssl=1

[8] Hamlet 5.2.315-319:
QUEEN GERTRUDE:
The Queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet.
[She lifts the cup.]
HAMLET: Good madam.
CLAUDIUS: Gertrude, do not drink.
GERTRUDE: I will, my lord; I pray you pardon me. [She drinks.]
CLAUDIUS [aside] It is the poisoned cup. It is too late.

[9] In 5.2: In a traditional performance, Hamlet may scratch or run Claudius through with his rapier, although Claudius says he is but hurt; then also perhaps in tradition since the Restoration and the reopening of theaters after a long gap, Hamlet forces Claudius to finish the poison cup.
In the 2009 David Tennant - Patrick Stewart film interpretation, Claudius cries out for help, and people rush to his aid and restrain Hamlet, so Hamlet hands him the cup and says,
“Here, thou incestuous, murd’rous, damnèd Dane,
Drink off this potion. Is thy union here?”
- allowing Claudius to take his own life, like an “antique Roman” as Horatio would soon put it.
This kind of interpretation was given careful consideration in 1988:
See Morgan, David C.H. “‘When mercy seasons justice’: How and (Why) Hamlet Does Not Kill Claudius.” Hamlet Studies 10.1-10.2 (1988): 47-78.
http://triggs.djvu.org/global-language.com/ENFOLDED/index.php?page=texts.php?sects=studies


IMAGES:
LEFT: The Unjust Judge and the Importunate Widow (The Parables of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ) [Luke 18:1-8]
Artist/designer: After Sir John Everett Millais (British, Southampton 1829–1896 London)
Engraver: Engraved and printed by Dalziel Brothers (British, active 1839–93)
Date: 1864. Public domain via
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/382280

CENTER: Притча о праведном и неправедном судье. Роспись западной стены Грановитой палаты.
[English: The Parable of the Righteous (Widow) and the Unrighteous Judge. Painting on the western wall of the Faceted Chamber.]
Location: The Palace of the Facets (Russian: Грановитая палата, romanized: Granovitaya palata) in the Moscow Kremlin, Russia.
Date: between 1881 and 1882
Author: Братья Белоусовы (Палех) [Belousov brothers (Palekh)]
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Parable_of_the_Unjust_Judge_%28Granovitaya_palata,_1881-2%29_4.jpg

RIGHT: Parable of the Unfair Judge (1628)
Artist: Pieter de Grebber
Haarlem circa 1600 – 1652 - Netherlandish
Image under copyright of the Museum of Fine Arts, fair use via
https://www.mfab.hu/artworks/10275/


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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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