Claudius I, Incestuous and Poisoned (Part 9, Claudius series)
During “The Mousetrap,” while the court views the playlet about a poisoned king, Hamlet says the poisoner is “nephew to the king” [3]. Instead of merely catching his uncle’s conscience, Hamlet makes a veiled threat upon the life of Claudius. [4].
INCEST, ANTI-TRANSCENDENCE, CANNIBALISM:
In Shakespeare, incest has more than literal meanings: Monarchs who marry too close a familial relation may fear they must defend their throne from outsiders (so foreigners and strangers may not be welcome, contrary to biblical mandate). Fear and self-concern become more important than more healthy and transcendent concerns.
Incest also took on great importance as the reason Henry VIII gave for seeking a divorce from his first wife [5].
In Pericles, Shakespeare will later pair cannibalism (traditionally and metaphorically) with incest [6].
Cannibalism is implied when Hamlet describes Young Fortinbras: he alludes to Deut 28:54-57 [7], which describes a “delicate and tender” man and woman who fail to follow Mosaic law, pamper themselves, neglect spouse and children, and who, if the city was under siege, would eat their own children.
POISON:
In Hamlet, poison in the ear is a metaphor for lies [8], but also probably a reference to the suspected death by poison of Ferdinando Stanley, Lord Strange, patron of The Lord Strange’s Men, in which Shakespeare and a number of his company of players had been active [9].
None of the references to poison in Hamlet were present in the Danish source tale of Amleth.
Changing the name of Hamlet’s uncle from “Feng” in the Danish source to “Claudius,” the Roman Emperor poisoned by his niece/wife, makes sense for its associations with incestuous marriage, and opened up new possibilities for the theme of poison in Hamlet.
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] Claudius' 4th wife was his niece, Julia Agrippina, or Agrippina the Younger.
[2] Agrippina allegedly poisoned her husband Claudius (perhaps with mushrooms, which might be considered visually a sort of inversion of the poison chalice in Hamlet) so that her son, Nero, could be emperor. In Hamlet, it is not the niece but the nephew who poisons Claudius in the end, with the poison that Claudius had intended for the prince.
[3] Hamlet 3.2.268.
[4] In Shakespeare’s play, poison causes the death of King Hamlet, Gertrude, Laertes, Hamlet, and Claudius himself, but in the Danish Saxo Grammaticus Amleth tale, one of the main sources for Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the only poison mentioned is as an analogy, when Prince Amleth arrives in Britain but refuses to eat a royal feast:
“Now, when Amleth's companions asked him why he had refrained from the feast of yestereve, as if it were poison, he answered that the bread was flecked with blood and tainted; that there was a tang of iron in the liquor; while the meats of the feast reeked of the stench of a human carcass, and were infected by a kind of smack of the odor of the charnel.”
- From The First Nine Books of the Danish History of Saxo Grammaticus, translated by Oliver Elton (London: David Nutt, 1894), books 3-4, pp. 106-130.
https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/amleth.html
(Note that, in Shakespeare's play, Hamlet never arrives in England, but changes mode of transport mid-sea like Jonah and returns to Denmark, so there is no parallel scene.)
[5] After the death of his brother Arthur who was heir to the English throne, Henry VIII married his brother’s widow, Catherine of Aragon, with special dispensation from the pope. They were married from 1509-1533. Henry took various mistresses, including Mary Boleyn and later her sister Anne Boleyn. Catherine and Henry had three sons, but two were stillborn and a third died within weeks, so Henry came to believe God was punishing him for having married his brother’s wife. He asked the pope for an annulment, but in part because the Holy Roman Emperor was Catherine’s nephew, it was not likely to come. Henry broke from Rome and was declared the head of England’s church, so he obtained the divorce he wanted. In Shakespeare’s time this whole story was referred to as "the King's Great Matter." Almost any inclusion of incest as a theme in drama would be viewed in part as related.
[6] “ I am no viper, yet I feed
On mother’s flesh which did me breed.
I sought a husband, in which labor
I found that kindness in a father.”
- from the riddle in Pericles 1.1.66-69.
Anthony J. Lewis comments: “Identifying incest in particular as a kind of devouring is, in fact, at least as old as the Pericles (Apollonius) story itself, and is used, in one form or another, in every extant version of the tale.”
Lewis, Anthony J. “‘I Feed on Mother's Flesh’: Incest and Eating in Pericles.” Essays in Literature 15, no. 2 (fall 1988): 147-63.
[7] Deut 28:54-57 (Bishop’s bible):
54 So that it shall greeue the man (that is tender and exceeding delicate among you) to loke on his brother, and vpon his wyfe that lieth in his bosome, and on the remnaunt of his chyldren which he hath yet left
55 For feare of geuyng vnto any of them of the fleshe of his chyldren, whom he shall eate: because he hath nothyng left hym in that straitnesse and siege, wherwith thine enemie shall besiege thee in all thy cities
56 Yea, and the woman that is so tender and delicate, that she dare not aduenture to set the sole of her foote vpon the grounde, for softnesse and tendernesse, shalbe greeued to loke on her husbande that lieth in her bosome, & on her sonne, and on her daughter
57 And on her afterbyrth that is come out from betweene her feete, and her chyldren whiche she shall beare: For when all thinges lacke, she shall eate them secretly, duryng the siege & straitnesse wherewith thyne enemies shall besiege thee in thy cities
[8] GHOST: “’Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard,
A serpent stung me. So the whole ear of Denmark
Is by a forgèd process of my death
Rankly abused.” - 1.5.42-45.
[9] “By the end of the first act, the word "strange" has been used six times, and only in association with the ghost who claims to have been poisoned. Strange indeed, given that Lord Strange was widely thought to have died of poisoning.” See previous post,
Welcome Lazarus & Lord Strange's Men (Lazarus in Hamlet, Part 8) - April 06, 2021
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2021/04/welcome-lazarus-lord-stranges-men-for.html
IMAGE:
Gemma Claudia, circa 49 AD.
Left, front: Emperor Claudius I of Rome, and behind him, his niece and fourth wife, Julia Agrippina, also known as Agrippina the Younger (because her mother had the same name).
Right: The parents of Julia Agrippina (also the brother and sister-in-law of Claudius):
Right front: Germanicus (brother of Claudius) and his wife, Agrippina the Elder.
Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.
Photo by Gryffindor.
Used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/55/Kunsthistorisches_Museum_Vienna_June_2006_033.jpg
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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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