Hamlet-Claudius, Romulus-Remus, Cain-Abel
What Berry doesn’t emphasize, but makes clear:
1. Saxo did not fashion his prince as a mirror image of his murderous uncle, although Amleth does resemble aspects of Claudius I. No similarity between prince and uncle is emphasized by Saxo.
2. By naming the uncle “Claudius,” Shakespeare invites audiences to view the prince and uncle in a radically revised relationship. Instead of a simple opposition between hero and villain, by changing the uncle’s name from “Feng” to “Claudius,” Shakespeare creates a new mirror effect between the two that was not present in Saxo’s older source tale.
By pointing to Claudius I, Shakespeare points to Rome, which has an origin story involving a twin, Romulus, who kills his brother Remus [4]. Romulus may seem proud to have done so, warning outsiders that if he killed his own brother for transgressing his wall, how much more might he do to them?
This is in stark contrast to the Cain and Abel tale [5], a founding tale of the Judeo-Christian tradition, which Shakespeare alludes to repeatedly in Hamlet. In the tale of Cain and Abel, killing a brother is a sin and source of shame, not pride and threat.
Shakespeare brings closer to the surface the contrasts between the origin tales that characterize Hamlet’s dilemma:
To choose the path of Romulus-Remus, or Cain and Abel?
To be or not? [6]
To take up arms against a sea of troubles [7]
and kill a brother, or not?
To view such killing with pride, or shame?
Who would not pause? [8]
King Hamlet was “pricked on by emulate pride” [9] to fight Fortinbras.
Much of Denmark viewed King Hamlet’s killing of Old Fortinbras with pride, and as a threat to other nations.
Should Prince Hamlet choose such a path?
INDEX for series on the uncle’s name as “Claudius” in Shakespeare's Hamlet instead of “Feng” in the Danish source from 1200 AD:
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] Hamlet and Claudius I as nearly mirror images (Part 10, Claudius series) - March 11, 2025:
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2025/03/hamlet-and-claudius-i-as-nearly-mirror.html
[2] Berry, E. G. “‘Hamlet’ and Suetonius.” Phoenix 2, no. 3 (1948): 73–81.
https://doi.org/10.2307/1086430
[3] Berry lists 17 similarities between Claudius I in Suetonius, and Shakespeare’s Prince Hamlet, (Ibid, pp. 74-76), which he says are too many combined to be coincidence, and also similarities noted by Israel Gollancz in 1926 between Brutus in Livy and Prince Hamlet and to some extent in the Saxo Grammaticus source (ibid, pp. 73-74), suggesting Saxo may have been influenced by Roman sources.
[4] In the Roman origin tale, the twins Romulus and Remus are to be killed, like the male sons of Hebrew slaves in the Exodus tale of Moses, but spared by a she-wolf who suckles them, and then by a shepherd, as in the Oedipus tale. In Henry VI, Part III (1.4), Richard Plantagenet (Duke of Gloucester) calls Queen Margaret “She-wolf of France,” perhaps a reference not only to her ambition but also to the ambitious and warlike Roman Empire founded by twins suckled by a she-wolf.
[5] Genesis 4:1–18.
[6] Hamlet, 3.1.64.
[7] 3.1.67.
[8] 3.1.76.
IMAGES:
LEFT: Belgium - Brussels - Grand-Place - Maison de la Louve - Romulus, Rémus
Photo by EmDee, used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/59/Belgique_-_Bruxelles_-_Maison_de_la_Louve_-_05.jpg
RIGHT: Pier Francesco Mola (1612–1666),
Cain Slaying Abel, ca. 1650–52.
Metropolitan Museum of Art.
This file was donated to Wikimedia Commons as part of a project by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
https://images.metmuseum.org/CRDImages/ep/original/DP-19625-001.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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