Hamlet's Christmas, Caesar, Taxes, and Contested Divinities
Shakespeare's Hamlet is often cited as his play that most specifically references Christmas:
"that season [...] Wherein our Savior’s birth is celebrated" (1.1.173-4).
Besides Jesus, the play alludes to Caesar three times [1] and twice to “tax” (verb) [2].
This involves two claims to divinity: Jesus as "Son of God," and emperors proclaimed divine after death.
Hamlet also (idolatrously?) likens his father to Hyperion (1.2 and 3.4), and also (3.4) to Jove, Mars, and Mercury, and says a man is "in apprehension... like a god” [3].
These allusions link Hamlet to a familiar Christmas gospel reading, which sets the stage for how a census allegedly [4] displaced Mary and Joseph of Nazareth, required to go to Bethlehem:
“And it came to pass in those days, that there came a decree from Augustus Caesar, that all the world should be taxed.” (Luke 2:1)
The census of Augustus, probably to project tax revenue and empire expansion [5], is like hoarding rich men in the gospels, referenced in Hamlet [6], along with “uphoarded” treasure, associated with ghosts [7].
Bethlehem was “Royal David’s City” [8]: two gospels claim Jesus to be a descendant of King David, also alluded to in Hamlet [9].
Hamlet says Denmark is "taxed of other nations" [10] for their foolish drinking games. Taxation in this figurative sense is international shame; for Israel, it was shame, oppression and (literal) taxation by a foreign nation (Rome), not unlike Denmark collecting "neglected tribute” payment from England [11].
The coins that Jews were forced to use bore the face of Tiberius Caesar [12], the inscription calling him “son of a god,” idolatrous and offensive to Jews.
- Jesus taught his followers to pray, “Our Father” [13], an act of resistance: Jewish law prohibited images [14], but claiming God as “father” implyed equal footing with the emperor whose “Legion” [15] occupied their land.
Claudius says “divinity doth hedge a king” [16], but Shakespeare repeatedly stresses that monarchs are human beings, not gods, and when too full of themselves, they are headed for a fall.
[1] Julius Caesar is mentioned twice, and “Caesar” (not specified, Julius, Augustus, Tiberius, etc.) once:
HORATIO: In the most high and palmy state of Rome,
A little ere the mightiest Julius fell… (1.1.125-6).
POLONIUS I did enact Julius Caesar. I was killed i’ th’
Capitol. Brutus killed me.
HAMLET It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a
calf there. (2.3.109-112)
HAMLET: Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away. (5.1.220-1)
[2] The first mention of taxes is by Hamlet, saying that the drinking games in his country give Denmark a bad name:
HAMLET: ...it is a custom
More honored in the breach than the observance.
This heavy-headed revel east and west
Makes us traduced and TAXED of other nations.” (1.4.17-20)
The second mention of taxes is by Polonius after the king’s scandalous exit before the end of the Mousetrap. Polonius wants Gertrude to correct Hamlet and demand of him more self-restraint, but he uses the language of taxation:
POLONIUS
My lord, he’s going to his mother’s closet. Behind the arras I’ll convey myself / To hear the process. I’ll warrant she’ll TAX him home… (3.3.29-32)
These are images of taxation as forms of shame (from mother or other nations) or oppression and control.
[3] Compared to his idolizing of his father by likening him to four gods, Hamlet's "what a piece of work" speech is more democratizing, potentially applied to all humanity:
<What a piece of work is a man, how noble in
reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving
how express and admirable; in action how like
an angel, in apprehension how LIKE A GOD: the
beauty of the world, the paragon of animals—and
yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?> (2.2.327-332)
[4] The gospel writer may have taken poetic license to speak of a census that displaced people and caused widespread hardship, but this device does make it possible to have a family from Nazareth be required to go to “Royal David’s City” of Bethlehem; the story paints Augustus Caesar as a hoarding rich man, and Jesus’ family and perhaps most of Judea as the beggar Lazarus. Also, we cannot be certain that Jesus was actually of the house of David, or whether this, again, was poetic license on the part of the gospel writer, in order to claim that an infant Jesus (born in a manger and visited by shepherds) was descended from King David, once a shepherd boy.
[5] The Roman method invaded territories, then taxed them to finance the occupying troops and to lower taxes back home in Rome. Cruel and ingenious, but that's colonialism.
Note the repetition of “TAX” in Luke 2:1-5 (four times within the first five verses):
1 And it came to pass in those days, that there came a decree from Augustus Caesar, that all the world should be TAXed.
2 (This first TAXing was made when Quirinius was governor of Syria.)
3 Therefore went all to be TAXed, every man to his own city.
4 And Joseph also went up from Galilee out of a city called Nazareth, into Judea, unto the [d]city of David, which is called Bethlehem (because he was of the house and lineage of David,)
5 To be TAXed with Mary that was given him to wife, which was with child.
[6] The Christian gospel’s reference to a man who builds bigger grain bins to hoard grain - something of which Shakespeare’s family was accused - can be found at Luke 12:16–21.
The gospel story of the rich man (Dives) and Lazarus can be found at Luke 16:19-31.
The ghost thinks the poison that killed him also made his skin “all lazar-like” (1.5.78-80) a reference to the rich man and he beggar Lazarus whose skin sores were licked by dogs:
Ophelia references the tale of the owl that was once a baker’s daughter (4.5.47-8), a folktale retelling of the rich man and the beggar Lazarus
[7] Horatio’s mention of how ghosts may haunt treasure they “uphoarded” while in life can be found at 1.1.148-151:
HORATIO (to ghost): Or if thou hast UPHOARDED in thy life
EXTORTED TREASURE in the womb of earth,
For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death,
Speak of it.
[8] “Once in Royal David’s City” is a phrase that begins a Christmas carol written by Cecil Frances Alexander and first published in 1848, traditionally (since 1919) used in Cambridge at King's College Chapel to begin “lessons and carols” service on Christmas eve.
[9] The gospels of Matthew and Luke claim Jesus to be descended from King David. For references to the King David stories in Hamlet, such as David and Hamlet pretending madness, and the prophet Nathan catching the conscience of King David, as Hamlet would later try to catch the conscience of Claudius, see previous post, “Why Hamlet didn't need too-explicit Davidic allusions in 1599-1604” - November 02, 2025: https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2025/11/why-hamlet-didnt-need-too-explicit.html
[10] Hamlet 1.4.17-20.
[11] “...he shall with speed to England
For the demand of our neglected tribute.” (3.1.183-4).
This is the excuse Claudius gives for sending Hamlet to England, but his plan will later include orders for England to execute Hamlet on his arrival there:
CLAUDIUS: And England, if my love thou hold’st at aught
(As my great power thereof may give thee sense,
Since yet thy cicatrice looks raw and red
After the Danish sword, and thy free awe
Pays homage to us), thou mayst not coldly set
Our sovereign process, which imports at full,
By letters congruing to that effect,
The present death of Hamlet. Do it, England,
For like the hectic in my blood he rages,
And thou must cure me. (4.3.67-76).
Claudius plots to kill Hamlet, who might succeed him, as Herod the Great plotted to kill the “innocents,” boys who might grow to be his successor, prophesied by the Magi in Matthew 2:1-18.
[12] Mark 12:13-17, Matthew 22:15-22, and Luke 20:20-26 tell of Jesus being asked if the people must pay tax to Rome. Jesus asks for a coin, and asks whose image and what inscription was there. The image would have been of the reigning Roman emperor, Tiberius, and the inscription naming him as son of god, because his adoptive father was Augustus who had been declared a god after his death; the adoptive father of Augustus, Julius Caesar, had also been declared a god after his death. Such images and inscriptions would have been offensive and considered idolatrous to Jews, and it is in this context of oppression by a Rome whose emperor was called a “son of god” that Christianity arose.
- People in Shakespeare’s age debated the divine right of monarchs (Elizabeth I, James I) as possibly idolatrous, based on the same biblical reasons that would have made the claims on the Roman coins offensive to Jews in Jesus’ time.
- Also relevant is that after Hamlet’s father dies, Hamlet idolizes him and compares him to classical gods…
[13] Matthew 6:9-13, Luke 11:2-4. The Greek texts use the language of “debt” which can be viewed as related to the language of taxation. The prayer claims debts to God are above all, and that debts should be forgiven. If we understand the “Our Father” as a gentle, democratizing or leveling act of political resistance, we might also note a similarly democratic or leveling moment in Richard II (3.4), when the queen in hiding overhears the gardener and his assistant speaking critically of Richard by analogies in the garden, and sharing news about the death of some of the king’s closest confidants. The queen reveals herself curses his work, but the gardener (who may have been played by Shakespeare as actor) responds with pity.)
[14] See Exodus 20:4-6, the second commandment, which speaks of how the iniquities, or sins (or debts) of the fathers can be passed down to the children, but how God shows mercy to those who love and keep his commandments, relevant also to Hamlet inasmuch as various characters like Hamlet and Claudius embody breaking of commandments, and Hamlet shows mercy to Laertes in the end.
The Geneva translation of Shakespeare’s time has this for Exodus 20:4-6:
4 Thou shalt make thee no graven image, neither any similitude of things that are in heaven above, neither that are in the earth beneath, nor that are in the waters under the earth.
5 Thou shalt not bow down to them, neither serve them: for I am the Lord thy God, a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, upon the third generation and upon the fourth of them that hate me:
6 And showing mercy unto thousands to them that love me, and keep my commandments.
This prohibition of images and idolatry is also reflected in the Jewish tradition of omitting the “o” for “G-d”;
[15] The story of the demoniac whose demon is “Legion” is found in Mark 5:1–20, Matthew 8:28–34, and in Luke 8:26–39. The gospels were originally written in Greek, but the word “Legion” is a Latin word that stands out like a sore thumb in the Greek texts, and is the same word as an elite force of the occupying Roman army.
[16] CLAUDIUS: There’s such divinity doth hedge a king
That treason can but peep to what it would,
Acts little of his will. (Hamlet 4.5.138-140).
IMAGES
Left: Denarius (18 AD – 35 AD) of Tiberius (Roman Emperor 14 AD – 37 AD), also referred to as a Tribute Penny.
Obverse: TI[berivs] CAESAR DIVI AVG[vsti] F[ilivs] AVGVSTS (Caesar Augustus Tiberius, son of the Divine Augustus)
Reverse: PONTIF[ex] MAXIM[us] (The greatest bridge-builder) - Livia seated holding inverted spear and olive branch.
Photo by date 21 December 2012 by DrusMAX, used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license via
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Emperor_Tiberius_Denarius_-_Tribute_Penny.jpg
Center: Adoration of the Magi (1423), polyptych,
with Joseph, Mary, and the infant Jesus touching the dead of one of the Magi in this detail/crop.
Gentile da Fabriano (1370–1427). Uffizi Gallery.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adoration_of_the_Magi_(Gentile_da_Fabriano)#/media/File:Gentile_da_Fabriano_-_Adorazione_dei_Magi_-_Google_Art_ProjectFXD.jpg
Right: Bust of Augustus, with civic crown, Glyptothek München.
Photo by Dan Mihai Pitea, 18 April 2022, 16:27:27. Used under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Glyptothek_M%C3%BCnchen_%E2%80%93_18.04.2022_%E2%80%93_Augustus_Bevilacqua_(4).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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