HAMLET HAUNTED BY CUCKOLDED JOSEPH: Seventh Commandment, No Adultery (series)

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HAMLET HAUNTED BY CUCKOLDED JOSEPH: Seventh Commandment (series)

Many scholars note a visual echo of the Annunciation in Hamlet 3.1, when Polonius asks Ophelia to “read on this book”: He wants her to appear as “devotion’s visage / And pious action” like Mary as illustrated in prayer books and paintings, reading from a book of psalms when Angel Gabriel appears [1]. 

Where there is Annunciation (Luke 1:26–38), her betrothed Joseph soon follows, planning to quietly divorce her after learning she is pregnant, assuming she has violated their betrothal (Matt 1:18–25). 

Does the cuckolded Joseph tradition help explain Hamlet’s cruelty to Ophelia? 

Chris Hassel, Jr. [2] claims that Hamlet is harsh with Ophelia in this scene (“get thee to a nunnery!”) in the tradition of old English guild plays [3]: Upon learning that she is pregnant, Joseph becomes angry and jealous, assuming he’s been cuckolded [4], that Mary had an affair [5]. To Hassel, the stage tradition of Joseph’s emotional outbursts informs Hamlet’s outbursts at Ophelia, and should color our understanding of the prince’s madness.

Hamlet made “almost all the holy vows of heaven” to Ophelia (1.3.123), probably a betrothal, which she may have accepted secretly before her father and brother intervened. When she gives back his letters in obedience to her father, this would be almost unheard of: Usually a prince’s betrothal would be accepted [6]. 

If she secretly accepted Hamlet’s vows, returning his letters in 3.1 may make Hamlet feel justified in feeling she is being, or will be, unfaithful [7]. 

Hamlet may have proposed to Ophelia personally, not through her father, to make the betrothal based on mutual love and not a father’s choice.

Polonius soon regrets misjudging Hamlet. 

Ophelia is torn between her love for Hamlet, and her duty to her father (“honor your father and mother,” Fifth Commandment). 

Ophelia is not literally adulterous (Seventh Commandment), but Hamlet, like Joseph in the guild play tradition, feels and acts as if she has been, or will be [8].



Also find this post on Instagram with a slide-show and images from paintings and Hamlet productions: https://www.instagram.com/p/Dfm3wPIkcYT/?xtok=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==&srtk=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

INDEX to this series on Hamlet and the Ten Commandments:

MASTER INDEX to find each of the many series on this blog, each with its own index:
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2025/01/master-index-to-quickly-find-index-for.html

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

[1] These scholars include Lyons, Hassel, Goodland, and Espinoza: 
See Lyons, Bridget Gellert, "The Iconography of Ophelia," page 61: "The woman with a book was reminiscent of countless representations of the Virgin, who was most commonly shown reading when the Angel of the Annunciation came to visit her." ELH , Spring, 1977, Vol. 44, No. 1, pp. 60-74 https://www.jstor.org/stable/2872526 
See Hassel, R. Chris, Jr. "Painted Women: Annunciation Motifs in Hamlet." Comparative Drama 32, no. 1 (1998): 47-84. https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/cdr.1998.0011.
See Goodland, Katharine, Female Mourning and Tragedy in Medieval and Renaissance English Drama, (Aldershot, UK / Burlington, VT, USA, Ashgate Publishing, 2006). 
See also Ruben Espinoza, Masculinity and Marian Efficacy in Shakespeare's England (Farnham, UK: Ashgate Publishing, 2011).

[2] “I have just argued that the art, the theology, and the drama of the Annunciation [→page 356] informs Shakespeare's representation of Hamlet's misogyny as well as his tormented sense of moral responsibility and moral confusion.” 
Hassel also argues that this same theme influenced Shakespeare's jealousy theme in Othello.
https://www.connotations.de/article/chris-hassel-jr-shakespeares-removed-mysteries/

[3] See “Joseph's troubles about Mary” - a tradition in the guild plays:
(Play) https://pls.artsci.utoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/York13.html
"According to medieval secular stereotypes, Joseph’s reluctant marriage to a much younger virgin would have been destined to encounter trouble."  
https://abitmoredetail.wordpress.com/2004/04/27/academic-an-overlooked-christian-masculinity-the-portrayal-of-joseph-in-the-york-mystery-plays/

[4] In this scenario, to Joseph, God seems to have violated his own Seventh Commandment against adultery – but who is Joseph to argue with the Most High God? 

[5] “Of the three members of the Holy Family, Joseph–foster-father of Jesus, husband of Mary–may have had the most tenuous existence in the minds of medieval Christians. Jesus was, of course, the central figure of the Christian religion; his mother, the Virgin Mary, was identified as a perfectly moral individual and an object of mass veneration. Joseph, in contrast, faced a much more muted and mixed reception, rarely achieving a mass audience comparable to his two more famous relatives and often subjected to popular mockery. In many mystery plays, for instance, Joseph was identified as a weak old man, his character assimilated to that of the stereotypical medieval cuckold, a man “old, jealous, and prone to subjective emotional outbursts” (Flanigan 21). The three plays of the York cycle where Joseph features prominently–the Pewterers and Founders’ Joseph’s Trouble about Mary, the Tilthatchers’ The Nativity, and the Marshals’ The Flight Into Egypt–all demonstrate these character traits to varying degrees.” Ibid
https://abitmoredetail.wordpress.com/2004/04/27/academic-an-overlooked-christian-masculinity-the-portrayal-of-joseph-in-the-york-mystery-plays/

[6] Consider that some wives of Henry VIII had previous betrothals or romantic interests but abandoned these to yield to the will of the king. The extramarital affairs of Henry VIII might lead us 
to sympathize with the suspicion of Laertes and Polonius regarding Hamlet’s motives, but the yielding of each wife to Henry’s proposal might make Ophelia’s refusal seem justifiably offensive to Hamlet in its historical context.

[7] In the nunnery scene, he fears she cannot be both beautiful (“fair”) and honest, so she will be tempted to sin and should get to a “nunnery.” He fears her corruption by sin: he has already spoken 
with his father, apparently in purgatory, and does not wish that fate for her. 

[8] This is not to say he is not misogynist, not to say he doesn’t act badly. During the performance of “The Mousetrap,” he is the bad boy with his sexual innuendoes, and she, innocent, tolerant, even playful, sometimes giving back to him as well as she was given. She may be one of the best things that ever happened to him, and they argue like a married couple, though he is the more muddled and bitter, and she the more patient partner. 

IMAGE(s): Gabriel greets Mary who is reading a book (of psalms?), 
and Joseph makes a mousetrap. 
From Annunciation Triptych (Merode Altarpiece)
Workshop of Robert Campin 
ca. 1427–32
The Met Cloisters in Gallery 19, 
Manhattan, NY, USA. Public domain (USA 100 years or fewer).

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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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Thanks for reading!
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My current project is a book tentatively titled Hamlet’s Bible, about biblical allusions and plot echoes in Hamlet.

Below is a link to a list of some of what I described in 2019 as what were then my top posts (“greatest hits”), including a description of my book project (last item on the list):

https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2019/12/top-20-hamlet-bible-posts.html

I usually post every week.
This blog, “Hamlet’s Bible,” has had more than 250,000 views from 84 countries as of July, 2026. Author Paul Adrian Fried has an MFA in English and Creative Writing with a thesis in Poetry, and a Master’s thesis in Creative Nonfiction. For the B.A. he studied English and Theology (double-major), with a Theology senior paper on Christology. During his studies, he won various awards for his prose and poetry, and met with writers such as Margaret Atwood, Donald Justice, and Lisel Mueller, and Robert Bly; hermeneutics scholar Hans Georg Gadamer; and theologian Rosemary Haughton. After the B.A. and before his graduate studies, he worked as a church choir director and liturgist. He has presented at Shakespeare Association of America, Sixteenth Century Society, Christianity and Literature, and Rocky Mountain Medieval and Renaissance Association.