Ophelia's Valentine and Claudius (Part 5, Claudius series)
In Shakespeare’s time, it was widely assumed that the martyr St. Valentine (d. 269 AD) was executed under orders from the Roman Emperor Claudius II, an idea not lost on many in his early audiences when Ophelia sings her Valentine song.
They would make the connection:
Claudius II ordered the execution of St. Valentine;
Claudius of Denmark secretly ordered the execution of Ophelia’s Valentine, Hamlet.
CONSIDER:
Some form of “Valentine” occurs 70 times across seven Shakespeare plays [1].
“Saint Valentine” is mentioned only twice: once in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and once in Hamlet.
The only St. Valentine’s Day song is sung by Ophelia (taken from a familiar folk-song of the time) with interjections from Claudius.
The pagan precursor of Valentine’s Day, Lupercal, is mentioned twice in Julius Caesar. It is often claimed that Pope Gelasius I disliked the pagan feast, and in 496 AD, set the feast of the martyr St. Valentine to be on February 14 to replace it [2].
A medieval collection of stories about saints, The Golden Legend, was first translated to English and printed in 1483, popular enough for a ninth edition in 1527 [3]. In The Golden Legend, Pope Gelasius I is mentioned, and Valentine is said to have been executed under orders from the Roman emperor Claudius II.
Ophelia’s Valentine song:
OPHELIA:
Tomorrow is Saint Valentine’s day,
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,
To be your Valentine.
Then up he rose and donned his clothes
And dupped the chamber door,
Let in the maid, that out a maid
Never departed more.
CLAUDIUS: Pretty Ophelia—
OPHELIA:
Indeed, without an oath, I’ll make an end on ’t:
[sings]
By Gis and by Saint Charity,
Alack and fie for shame,
Young men will do ’t, if they come to ’t;
By Cock, they are to blame.
Quoth she “Before you tumbled me,
You promised me to wed.”
He answers:
“So would I ’a done, by yonder sun,
An thou hadst not come to my bed.”
(4.5.51-71)
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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 Shakespeare plays are to the Folger Shakespeare Library online versions: https://shakespeare.folger.edu
[1] The seven plays include these:
Hamlet (“Saint Valentine’s day”; “To be your Valentine”);
Measure for Measure (“Valentinus”);
A Midsummer Night's Dream (“Saint Valentine is past”);
Romeo and Juliet (“Mercutio and his brother Valentine”; “Valentio and his cousin Tybalt”);
Titus Andronicus (“Valentine” mentioned twice)
Twelfth Night (minor character, small speaking role)
Two Gentlemen of Verona (one of the two main characters, associated with the most frequent mentions)
[2] It is said that Chaucer was the major influence in popularizing the Feast of St. Valentine as a day associated with romantic love.
- Pope Gelasius I is mentioned in The Golden Legend in association with St. Valentine and Claudius II. There were in fact as many as three persons named Valentine who may have been associated with martyrdom under Claudius II, and some of the details in legends were likely mingled, which was cause for later skepticism about the historicity of the saint.
- Born in Africa (or perhaps Roman Africa, as a Roman citizen), Gelasius I was “the Church’s third black and 49th pope from 492 to 496”:
National Catholic Reporter, November 2, 2013:
https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/black-saints-victor-melchiades-gelasius#:~:text=Saint%20Gelasius%20the%20First%20was,Church%20teaching%20on%20the%20Eucharist.
[3] Scholars have studied Early Modern annotations from about 80 surviving copies of the English translation of The Golden Legend: See
Ring, Morgan. “Annotating the Golden Legend in Early Modern England.” Renaissance Quarterly 72, no. 3 (2019): 816–62. https://doi.org/10.1017/rqx.2019.254.
Although viewed with more scrutiny during the Protestant Reformation and perhaps suppressed as a Catholic book, it was still familiar, not only among the less educated, but also among Protestant scholars and critics. The English Reformation was not as simple as flipping a light switch, or a monarch and bishops ordering a change: Many more recent historians have noted that Catholic interest and piety, especially in regions far from London, remained strong in England even during suppression of Catholicism under Edward VI (reigning 1547 - 1553) and Elizabeth I (1558 - 1603). Greater scrutiny of hagiographies of saints based on legends was inevitable, but scrutiny and the condemning of Catholic books did not fully extinguish interest in them.
IMAGES:
Left: Medallion, Claudius II Gothicus. AD 268-270.
Via Classical Numismatic Group, under GNU Free Documentation License,
under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license,
via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Claudiusgothicus77000981cng.jpg
Right: Author photo, Minnesota, 2024.
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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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