CORDELIA ABOUT HER FATHER’s BUSINESS (LUKE 2:41-52)

With more foresight, if Shakespeare had wanted to be more accessible for all ages, he might have realized that once Protestants questioned the Catholic idea of Eucharist as “transubstantiation,” religion would be on its way out (especially in some countries), and he might not have included as many as 1,300 biblical references in his plays [1]. 😉

One example is in King Lear 4.4. 
Cordelia, newly returned to England from France, alludes to Luke 2:41-52: 

CORDELIA: O dear *father,*
It is thy *business* that I go about.   
(4.4.26-27) 
(*emphasis* mine)

This alludes to the tale of the boy Jesus, lost in Jerusalem, later found in the temple, conversing with, astonishing, and amazing temple elders. 

Shakespeare also has Hamlet in 3.2 allude to this with his former school friends after The Mousetrap, with his mother amazed and “astonied” [2].

Yes, spelled “astonied” in Shakespeare and in the 1599 Geneva translation: 

47 And all that heard him, were astonied at his understanding and answers.
48 So when they saw him, they were amazed, and his mother said unto him, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, thy father and I have sought thee with very heavy hearts.
49 Then said he unto them, How is it that ye sought me? knew ye not that I must go about my *Father’s* *business*?  (Lk 2:47-49)
 (*emphasis* mine)
 
Like the lost-and-found boy Jesus: 
Cordelia had been exiled, lost, but found again. 
Like the adult Jesus, Cordelia took risks out of great love - and would be killed. 

Thy business? It seems that Shakespeare is setting her up to be a Christ figure, even if we might rather have her inherit his used car business (as she might today). 

Given that the wife of (Protestant) King James was Catholic, and given all the religious debates and religion-based executions, I guess Shakespeare’s time was intensely religious. 

Couldn’t he have abridged some of his plays - to remove religious references for our sake in the 21st century? 😉[3]


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 Shaheen, Naseeb, Biblical References in Shakespeare’s Plays, University of Delaware Press, 1999. 

[2] See my previous series on Hamlet as the boy Jesus in 3.2.: 
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2023/01/index-hamlet-in-32-as-boy-jesus-lost.html

[3] When I re-post to various online forums, people are very generous with comments, but some strongly disagree with any suggestion that Shakespeare included religious or biblical allusions in his plays, assuming he was thoroughly secular, or that the plays should be read only from the point of view of human factors, as if the actors represent humans on stage that come from religion-free cultures, perhaps in spite of all the religious controversy and violence of Shakespeare’s time. While I am not an evangelical or fundamentalist (and while I do not believe in virgin births or literal resurrections as resuscitations of corpses), they may assume that anyone who wants to talk about Shakespeare and religion must be an evangelical of some type who hopes to use Shakespeare to preach about Jesus. I’m not interested in using Shakespeare that way, and I don’t think he was particularly interested in didacticism. But I understand the aversion to that kind of approach. 


IMAGES 
Left: Stained glass window: Jesus teaching the elders in the Temple,
from St. Mary church in Freyburg (Unstrut), Germany. Photo by GFreihalter, public domain via
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Freyburg_(Unstrut)_Stadtkirche_St._Marien_Schriftgelehrte_275.jpg  

Right:  Cordelia Disinherited, 1850, by John Rogers Herbert. Fair use via 
https://www.meisterdrucke.ie/kunstwerke/1260px/John_Rogers_Herbert_-_Cordelia_Disinherited_1850_%28see_51605_for_detail%29_-_%28MeisterDrucke-230281%29.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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