THE CLAUDIUS-NERO CROSSROADS IN GERTRUDE'S CLOSET (Part 17, Claudius Series)

Shakespeare’s Hamlet could have unfolded differently from Gertrude’s closet scene onward (3.4): Instead of following the Danish tale, it could have followed Nero’s story [1]. Shakespeare makes the tales overlap, grafting on references to Claudius and Nero; then he rejects that potential plot line and what such historical characters represent.

To be a play based on an old Danish tale, or not?
To be a play based on Rome’s Claudius I, Julia Agrippina, and her son Nero – or not?

(Or in modern productions: To have Hamlet played by Ringo Starr, Nero’s doppelganger – or not? [See collage images….])

In Shakespeare’s time, what were Nero and Agrippina famous for?

- Agrippina poisoned her husband, Claudius I, so that her son Nero could be emperor.

- Nero later arranged for his mother’s death and attended her autopsy.

- In Shakespeare’s 1 Henry VI, Lord Talbot claims that Nero played a lute while Rome burned, and

Shakespeare refers to the Claudius-Agrippina-Nero tale in two other plays [2].
- The historian Tacitus says Nero blamed Christians for the burning of Rome to justify persecution.
- Saints Peter and Paul were executed during Nero’s reign.

So at least, Agrippina represents Machiavellian ambition [3], and Nero represents
a) profound religious intolerance and persecution (as in Shakespeare’s time);
b) fiddling while bad things happen; and
c) matricide.

IF SHAKESPEARE HAD FOLLOWED NERO’S PLOT, Gertrude in her closet with her son could have volunteered to poison Claudius. With Claudius poisoned and dead, Hamlet could take the throne (and could later resent and kill his mother: “Such mothers meddle too much, methinks” [4]).

Shakespeare has them choose otherwise.

SO FOR HAMLET TO MENTION NERO is not merely a rejection of matricide: It also makes clear the kind of story and characters Shakespeare wants to develop.


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] See previous post on three critics/scholars who noted the Claudius-Nero echoes (especially Jenkins):
" Bullough, Jenkins, Asimov on Claudius as changed name of Hamlet's uncle Feng (Part 13, Claudius series) - April 06, 2025:
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2025/04/bullough-jenkins-asimov-on-claudius-as.html

[2]: Lord Talbot says, “and like thee, Nero,
Play on the lute, beholding the towns burn.” (1 Henry VI, 1.4.95-96)

In Part 3, Henry VI compares Margaret to Agrippina:
“By this account then Margaret may win him;
For she's a woman to be pitied much:
Her sighs will make a battery in his breast;
Her tears will pierce into a marble heart;
The tiger will be mild whiles she doth mourn;
And Nero will be tainted with remorse,
To hear and see her plaints, her brinish tears.” (3 Henry VI, 3.1.35-41)

In King Lear, Edgar says,
“Frateretto calls me, and tells me Nero is an angler in the
lake of darkness. Pray, innocent, and beware the foul fiend.” (King Lear, 3.6.6-8)

In 1649, George Daniel, a playwright, wrote: “Let Nero fiddle out Rome's obsequies.”
https://www.britannica.com/story/did-nero-really-fiddle-as-rome-burned

[3] Historians since Shakespeare’s time have achieved much more nuanced understandings of Agrippina and Nero. In Shakespeare’s time, an allusion to Agrippina may have been to her ruthlessness and ambition, that she would poison her husband so that her son could be emperor. But of course the stereotypes are often not the most accurate history. For a more nuanced (and very accessible) treatment of Agrippina, see the following link and scroll down to the sections relating to Agrippina the Younger:
https://lumenancient.weebly.com/key-features.html

[4] Paraphrasing Gertrude: “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” (3.2.254)


IMAGES:
Left: Ringo Star, in a pose in which he looks remarkably similar to this bust of Nero.
Image fair use via ScoopWhoop-dot-com, “The Story of Ringo Starr.”
https://wp.scoopwhoop.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/577d03d37c99882296fe8055_499009779.jpg

Right: Bust of Nero at the Capitoline Museum, Rome, restored in the 17th century.
Photo 19 May 2009, by cjh1452000. Via Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nero#/media/File:Nero_1.JPG

Other images:

Anonymous (Rome): Bust of Agrippina the Younger.
Date: Between 50 and 54 C.E.
National Museum in Warsaw.
Source/Photographer: (BurgererSF)
Used via Creative Commons CC-Zero.
Made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agrippina_the_Younger#/media/File:Rome_Agrippina_Minor.jpg

Nero ordering his mother’s murder,
Château de Versailles (Hercule and Déjanire, Hercule and the centaur) and Musée de Grenoble (Cyrus, Nero)
Author     Noel Coypel, French painter of the 17th century. Public domain via
https://landmarkevents.org/assets/email/2019/07-22-history-highlight/inline-matricide.jpg

Antonio Rizzi (1869-1940): Nero and Agrippina (Nero discovering his mother’s dead body).
19th century.
Collection: Museo Civico Ala Ponzone. Public domain, via
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1f/Nero-and-agrippina-antonio-rizzi.jpg

Arturo Montero y Calvo (1859–1887).
Nero before the corpse of his mother, Agrippina the Younger.
English: The work depicts the moment when Emperor Nero, the last emperor of the Julia-Claudian dynasty, contemplates, along with other figures, the corpse of his mother, Agrippina the Younger, who was murdered by order of her own son in 59 AD.
Date: 1887.
Collection: Museo del Prado.
Current location: (On loan) Museum of Jaén.
Public domain via https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/Ner%C3%B3n_ante_el_cad%C3%A1ver_de_su_madre%2C_Agripina_la_Menor_%28Museo_del_Prado%29.jpg

Nero at his mother’s autopsy,
Roman de la Rose, 15th Century. Public domain.
https://intelligencesquared.com/wp-content/uploads/4-4-1024x576.png

Emperor Nero, after murdering his mother, Agrippini, presides over her autopsy. This illustration, from 1410, is from a collection of stories about famous women by the Italian writer Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375).
Public domain via
https://render.fineartamerica.com/images/rendered/default/print/4/8/break/images-medium/medieval-autopsy-science-source.jpg

Cropped:

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