Paul Adrian Fried / HAMLET'S BIBLE

"Bohemia and English literature? Everybody who sees this title will instantly think if Shakespeare's Winter's Tale and the sea-coast of Bohemia..." - RENÉ WELLEK [1] If Shakespeare critics mention one thing about Bohemia, it's that Shakespeare got the geography wrong: You can't get there by boat. For example, Susan Halstead writes , "This glaring geographical error – attributing a sea-shore to the landlocked territory of Bohemia – has frequently been cited as an instance of Shakespeare’s ignorance of Central European topography..." [2] But what if the thing we read and heard most often was that Bohemia was the land of Jan Hus, who advocated communion under both kinds (bread and wine), something very common today even in Roman Catholic parishes. Yet Jan Hus was burned at the stake for it. What if we heard that the ideas of Jan Hus influenced the "Confesio Bohemica" (Czech Confession), "the first ecumenical confession," and...

Bread and wine. Wine and bread. To-MAY-to, To-MAH-to. [1] Does it matter what we emphasize or begin with? In previous posts, I’ve explored echoes in Hamlet 5.1 of the Emmaus tale from Luke 24:13-35 [2]. [Image: Altar of the Sienese cathedral, reverse, main register with scenes from Christ's passion, scenes: Christ appears to two pilgrim apostles in Emmaus. 1308-1311. Artist: Duccio di Buoninsegna (1255–1319). Collection: Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Siena. Public domain, via Wikipedia .] Between Luke’s version of the tale and Shakespeare’s in Hamlet, we noted a difference of bread and wine: In the original story from Luke, the stranger on the road to Emmaus is not recognized as an appearance of the risen Jesus until they break bread with him. But in Hamlet 5.1 we noted that broken bread is replaced with spilled wine: Hamlet had been holding an unrecognized skull, and asked the gravedigger whose it was. The gravedigger replied, saying it belonged to Yorick, and ...