Blasphemous Claudius and his Drinking Game (Part 18, Claudius series)

Marjorie Garber of Harvard University thinks the drinking games of Claudius, with cannon fire and “earthly thunder,” are blasphemous, adding yet another sin to his list.

Claudius breaks a number of the Ten Commandments:
Thou shalt not kill (Deuteronomy 5:17, Genesis 4:3-15) [1],
nor covet thy neighbor’s house or wife (etc.) (Exodus 20:17) [2],
nor bear false witness (Exodus 20:16) [3].

But more essentially, Claudius breaks the first commandment, which is to love God and have no other gods (Exodus 20:3-5). Garber notes the blasphemy implied in his drinking game:

No jocund health that Denmark drinks today
But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell,
And the King’s rouse the heaven shall bruit again,
Respeaking earthly thunder.
(1.2.129-132)

Garber writes,
“It even approaches blasphemy, when we hear [...] that every time the King drinks, the cannons will blaze away, and ‘The King’s Rouse the heavens shall bruit again, / respeaking earthly thunder’.... Properly, thunder is heavenly, not earthly, but in this figure the King, not the gods, is the origin, and the skies can only ‘re-speak,’ or echo, what he says and does.” [4]

The blasphemy of his drinking game foreshadows the final scene in which Claudius will poison a chalice of wine to kill Hamlet, but it will kill Gertrude instead. This has been described as a “black mass,” an evil subversion of the chalice used for Eucharistic wine. 

Why would Shakespeare add blasphemy to the list of the sins and vices of Claudius? In part certainly for dramatic purposes, to make the audience feel satisfied when Claudius gets what’s coming to him in the end. But also, in part for religious and political purposes: Because Claudius is associated with Rome by his name and the black mass, as well as by other aspects explored in this series, it may also reflect popular Protestant (and frequently, English Catholic) discontent with Roman Catholic leadership that would wage war on England through its proxy, Spain….


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] Claudius murders his brother, This violates the commandment, “Thou shalt not slay” (Deuteronomy 5:17) in the Geneva translation that Shakespeare quotes most often. It is also the sin of Cain who murders his brother Abel (see Genesis 4:3-15). 

[2] Claudius takes his brother’s throne and wife. See Exodus 20:17:
“Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, neither shalt thou covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maid, nor his ox, nor his ass, neither anything that is thy neighbor’s.” 

[3] Claudius bears false witness when he lies to Gertrude and his subjects about the cause of the death of his brother, and also when he lies to Hamlet about the purpose of his trip to England, to Gertrude about the purpose of his talk with Laertes, and to Laertes about Claudius himself having nothing to do with the death of Laertes’ father. See Exodus 20:16: 
“Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.” 

[4] See Garber, Marjorie, Shakespeare After All, Anchor Books, New York, 2004, page 482.


IMAGES: 
Left: Derek Jacobi as Claudius in 1996 Hamlet, dir. Kenneth Branagh. Fair use via https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/shakespeare/images/3/38/Claudius11.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20150616044242 

Right: From Medieval & Renaissance Warfare Encyclopedia, public domain. 
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/f2/ca/fb/f2cafb486dff07db5012be1f1aa3b15d.jpg


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