What are Herods to Hamlet?
What's Herod 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 of...