What are Herods to Hamlet?
My last post* surveyed occurrences of “Herod” in five Shakespeare plays. The word occurs only twice in Hamlet. (Herod had sons named after him, so Hamlet might say, What are Herods to Hamlet?)**
Like King Hamlet (with an “H”) and his son Prince Hamlet [1], Herod the Great had many sons, some also named Herod. Herod means “heroic.” King Hamlet was considered heroic in battle [2].
Herod the Great had at least three of his sons executed, one for conspiring to poison him [3]. As depicted in Matthew 2:16, he was thought to be mad for seeking to have all boys less than two years old killed, after a visit from Magi who told him of signs in the heavens indicating a new king’s birth.
King Hamlet kills King Fortinbras, a competitor for his lands [4]; Claudius poisoned his brother, King Hamlet, to take the throne [5]. So an allusion to Herod the Great is appropriate.
But Christopher Taylor notes, “The figure of Herod loomed so large in the Christian imagination that oftentimes late medieval narratives collapsed the three biblical characters named Herod — Herod the Great (Matthew 2), Herod Antipas (Acts up to 4. 27), and Herod Agrippa (Acts 12) — into one figure, a singular King Herod.” [6]
So when Hamlet advises the players against overacting and says “It out-Herods Herod” [7] referencing medieval drama, he doesn’t specify which Herod. Just as medieval drama cycles conflated three Herods, Shakespeare may be doing the same.
Herod Antipas also fits: He ordered the beheading of John the Baptist, who criticized his marriage to his brother’s divorced wife (like the “incestuous” marriage of Claudius to Gertrude, his brother’s widow) [8].
Herod Agrippa I also fits: When some people called him a god, he did not correct them. Claudius is blasphemous [9]; and Hamlet compares his father to four classical gods [10]. Acts 12:21-23 has the blasphemous Herod Agrippa punished, struck by an angel and consumed by worms.
And so Hamlet tells Claudius, “A man may fish with the worm that hath eat / of a king and eat of the fish that hath fed of that / worm” (4.3.30-32).
All three Herods fit in Hamlet.
NOTES: All references to Shakespeare plays are to the Folger Shakespeare Library online versions: https://shakespeare.folger.edu
* My last post: Herod in Shakespeare, 3 January, 2025 - https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2026/01/herod-in-shakespeare.html
** The title of this post, "What are Herods to Hamlet," plays off what Hamlet says after listening to the First Player's speech: Witnessing how moved the player was by his own performance, Hamlet asks, "What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, / That he should weep for her? (2.2.586-7)
[1] In the Hamlet source tale from Saxo Grammaticus (1150-1220), the father is Horwendil, and the son is Amleth.
[2] See 1.1.71-74:
HORATIO: Such was the very armor he had on
When he the ambitious Norway combated.
So frowned he once when, in an angry parle,
He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice.
Also see:
HORATIO: .[...] our last king,
Whose image even but now appeared to us,
Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,
Thereto pricked on by a most emulate pride,
Dared to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet
(For so this side of our known world esteemed him)
Did slay this Fortinbras… (1.1.92-98).
Among other gods, Hamlet compares his father to Mars, god of war:
“An eye like Mars’ to threaten and command…” (3.4.67)
[3] According to the historian Flavius Josephus (circa A.D. 37 - 100), Herod Antipater, eldest son of Herod the Great by his first wife Doris, convinced his father to execute his half brothers Alexander and Aristobulus, sons to Herod the Great by his second wife, Mariamne (I) the Hasmonean. Antipater frequently sent negative reports to his father about his brothers, Alexander and Aristobulus, who were later executed for treason, and Herod Antipater was made sole heir. Then it was discovered that Antipater had conspired to poison his father, and Antipater was executed after a trial, on orders from Caesar Augustus. See https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/antipater
[4] Hamlet 1.1.98.
[5] The ghost claims,
“Sleeping within my orchard, [...]
Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole
With juice of cursèd hebona in a vial
And in the porches of my ears did pour
The leprous distilment, whose effect
Holds such an enmity with blood of man
That swift as quicksilver it courses through
The natural gates and alleys of the body, [...].
Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother’s hand
Of life, of crown, of queen at once dispatched,
Cut off, even in the blossoms of my sin,
Unhouseled, disappointed, unaneled,
No reck’ning made, but sent to my account
With all my imperfections on my head.
O horrible, O horrible, most horrible! (1.5.66-87)
[6] By “late medieval” Taylor includes dramatic cycles, or Mystery, Miracle, and Morality plays.
See Taylor, Christopher, “The Once and Future Herod: Vernacular Typology and the Unfolding of Middle English Cycle Drama,” in New Medieval Literature 15 (2014), Eds Laura Ashe, David Lawton, Wendy Sacse, 121-150. https://doi.org/10.1484/J.NML.5.103452
Taylor cites Hussey on the conflation of at least three Herods:
Hussey, S.S. How many Herods in the Middle English drama?. Neophilologus 48, 252–259 (1964). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01515547
[7] Hamlet 3.2.14-15.
[8] Note also the reference to John the Baptist in the player queen's name, "Baptista." John condemned the marriage of Herod Antipas to his brother's divorced wife, so Shakespeare's audiences would describe this as biblically incestuous.
- There are four references in Hamlet to the incestuous marriage of Claudius to Gertrude, three by Hamlet, one by the ghost:
HAMLET: O, most wicked speed, to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets! (1.2.161-2)
GHOST: Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast (1.5.49)
HAMLET: Or in th’ incestuous pleasure of his bed (3.3.95)
HAMLET: Here, thou incestuous, murd’rous, damnèd Dane (5.2.356)
- Incest meant a great deal to people in England of Shakespeare's time because Henry VIII had broken from Rome to divorce his first wife, claiming the marriage was incestuous, which led to persecutions and (later) civil war.
[9] See Hamlet 1.2.129-132: “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.” Marjorie Garber detects at least a hint of blasphemy in the cannons and thunder: See Garber, Marjorie, Shakespeare After All, Anchor Books, New York, 2004, page 482.
See also my previous blog posts on this topic:
Blasphemous Claudius and his Drinking Game (Part 18, Claudius series) - May 19, 2025
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2025/05/blasphemous-claudius-and-his-drinking.html
Blasphemous Claudius revisited (Part 19, Claudius series) - May 27, 2025
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2025/05/blasphemous-claudius-revisited-part-19.html
[10] Hamlet compares his father to Hyperion (in 1.2.144 and 3.4.66), and also to Jove (3.4.66), Mars (3.4.67), and Mercury (3.4.68).
IMAGES:
TOP: Saint John Reproaches Herod and Herodias, Baptistery of Florence (dome mosaic detail), c. 1240–1310. Photo: Courtesy Győző Vörös. Fair use via
https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Fig.-22.jpg
MIDDLE: Coins of Herod Agrippa I, c.37-44 AD, Jewish School. Fair use via https://www.meisterdrucke.us/fine-art-prints/Jewish-School/445300/Coins-of-Herod-Agrippa-I,-c.37-44-AD.html
BOTTOM: Creator:Kerald (Meister des Codex Egberti) / Title (Deutsch): Codex Egberti, Fol 15v, Szene: Bethlehemitischer Kindermord / 10th century / Collection (Deutsch): Stadtbibliothek / Current location: Deutsch: Trier / Source/Photographer The Yorck Project (2002). Used under the GNU Free Documentation License via https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/Kerald_%28Meister_des_Codex_Egberti%29_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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