INDEX: Emmaus in Hamlet's Graveyard (and a Venice Courtroom)
At some point in my work on Hamlet, I realized that the first part of the graveyard scene resembles the gospel tale of the appearance of Jesus as a stranger to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus: In the graveyard scene, instead of two disciples, it's two Danes, and instead of being on the road to Emmaus, they're on the road to Elsinore. Instead of recognizing a supernatural being in the breaking of bread (one of the actions at the Last Supper), they recognize the skull of Yorick (fool of "infinite jest" -a sort of god of fools) in the clown/gravedigger's tale of poured wine (a flagon of Rhenish wine Yorick poured on the gravedigger's head). Something similar occurs in the courtroom scene of The Merchant of Venice, where Portia is the disguised stranger later to be recognized, not in the breaking of bread, but in the breaking of ring-vows, when rings that two men had promised never to part with until death are given away. The Jonah echo in Hamlet's sea...