What was Termagant to Hamlet - and to Shakespeare?

When Hamlet mentions “Termagant” in advice to the players, he says it as if “everybody there would know exactly what [he] was talking about” [1]. What did Shakespeare assume his audience would know about Termagant, and why would dropping his name fit this play?

The earliest known mention of Termagant is from “The Song of Roland” (an 11th-century work about a Frankish warrior, Roland (archetype of a Paladin) who fought in AD 778 under Charlemagne [2]. Termagant was a fictional god, assumed to be violent, falsely associated with Muslims by Christians who feared and did not understand their Saracen enemies [3].  The tale of Roland resembles aspects of Hamlet, in that Roland dies a martyr’s death in what seems in the end a suicide mission. Roland had a horn made of an elephant (oliphant) tusk that he was reluctant to blow for fear of being cowardly and dishonorable [4]. 

In Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 1, after cowardly faking death in battle, Falstaff calls Hotspur a "hot termagant Scot" (5.4).

WHY HAVE HAMLET SAY that overacting an apparently violent Termagant “out-Herods Herod”? 

The sweep of the play moves from punishing (and false?) gods [5] toward a merciful one, and from a violent father toward a more affectionate one: 

It begins with a ghost, a violent, warlike father, dressed in armor even in death. But near the end, we’re offered the memory of an affectionate surrogate father, Yorick, “of infinite jest” (5.1.191-2).

After killing Polonius, Hamlet says, 

…heaven hath pleased it so
To punish me with this and this with me,
That I must be their scourge and minister.(3.4.193-6)

Here Hamlet assumed that God punishes him and uses him to punish. But later, to Hamlet, Providence (God) - far from punishing - shows Hamlet mercy by rescuing him with the help of Pirates (“thieves of mercy” 4.6.21), and Hamlet later shows Laertes mercy (5.2). 

So Termagant as a violent god is A LIE THAT SHOULD NOT BE OVERACTED: The play’s ending view of heaven and good (surrogate) fathers contradicts it.  

The usurper Claudius himself does not overact: He can “smile and smile" and still "be a villain” (1.5.115). 

Another way to put it: Overacting Termagant means overacting anti-Islamic crusader propaganda that was outdated even in Chaucer's time, to say nothing of Shakespeare's...

NOTES: All references to Shakespeare plays are to the Folger Shakespeare Library online versions: https://shakespeare.folger.edu

[1] To paraphrase a line from a refrain of the Paul Simon song, “Diamonds on the soles of her shoes”: 
“As if everybody knows what I'm talking about
As if everybody here would know exactly what I was talking about
Talking about diamonds on the soles of her shoes…” 
https://www.paulsimon.com/track/diamonds-on-the-soles-of-her-shoes-7/

[2] Roland was a chivalrous warrior-knight and one of “The Twelve Peers” of Charlemagne’s court, representing perhaps an older set of values, as does King Hamlet, compared to his more Machiavellian brother, Claudius. There is now just one extant manuscript at the University of Oxford in the Bodleian Library, but multiple sources cite many other examples of Termagant, sometimes in an “unholy trinity” of gods attributed to Muslims, and the focus of bad vows. In Shakespeare, after cowardly faking death in battle, Falstaff calls Hotspur a "hot termagant Scot" in Henry IV, Part 1, 5.4. 

[3] See Whaley, D. (1997). Voices from the Past: A Note on Termagant and Herod. In: Batchelor, J., Cain, T., Lamont, C. (eds) Shakespearean Continuities. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-26003-4_2

[4] Chaucer (c. 1343 – 1400) and his Canterbury Tales, make tales like Roland’s the focus of parody, as in the tale “Sir Thopas,” in which a giant Sir Oliphant is forced to swear by Termagant. 

In King Lear, Edgar (as Mad Tom o’Bedlam)) says, “Child Rowland to the dark tower came” (3.4.195), so Shakespeare’s time may have retained a dim memory of “The Song of Roland.”

[5] Hamlet compares his father to classical titans or gods: Hyperion, Mars, Jupiter, and Mercury, all of whom would have been considered false gods by the English Protestant church. 

IMAGE:    
English: Eight stages of The Song of Roland in one picture
Date    15th century
Source    Grandes Chroniques de France, St. Petersburg, Ms. Hermitage. fr. 88: (Niederl. Burgund, Mitte 15. Jh., Exemplar Philipps des Guten), folio. 154v
Author    
Simon Marmion (circa 1425–1489)  
Public Domain via
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_of_Roland#/media/File:Grandes_chroniques_Roland.jpg

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