Paul Adrian Fried / HAMLET'S BIBLE

KING LEAR begins like a folktale: There was a king who had three daughters. He wished to retire and divide his kingdom among them, so he asked which loved him best. Two daughters, dishonest and greedy, flattered him, while the third refused, so he banished her. The divided kingdom descended into violence, while the king, expecting still to be treated as such, is shuffled back and forth, finally homeless. The story’s themes resonate with any age. Audiences will see in the play reflections of their own time: reckless aging leaders in a bleak world brightened occasionally by the compassion of the oppressed. What were some of the divisions in Shakespeare’s time that may have inspired the play, and resonated most with its first audiences? FLATTERY OF FAVORITES: Leaders are always tempted to surround themselves with those who say what they want, instead of need, to hear. England was no different. James was known to have charming, flattering favorites rewarded with wealth and status but w...

The ending of King Lear has inspired some modern critics to claim it is a godless play, without hope. The ending scene (5.3) - in which Lear howls and holds the corpse of the one daughter who loved him best - is filled with grief. Actors and directors (who perhaps have only been kings and queens of wishful thinking [1] and never literally monarchs) must draw upon general feelings of deep grief to enact their roles. Feelings are one thing. But how shall we express them? Cultures and art shape expectations, showing how we might act in such circumstances.  Profound grief may make some catatonic, or suicidal, causing self-harm, or seeking revenge. But was there a stage tradition in Shakespeare’s time for the grief of a parent at losing a beloved child? A young Shakespeare may have witnessed some of the last performances of medieval passion plays, as well as perhaps medieval mystery, miracle, and morality plays, increasingly prohibited under Elizabeth I. [2] In a 2005 book, Katharine...

When Lear speaks with Cordelia in 5.3 of being "God's spies" [1], this draws on a common trope, which activates a kind of cognitive framing. The trope is present in the tale to which Ophelia alludes in Hamlet 4.5: “the owl was a baker’s daughter,” a tale about Jesus or a fairy in disguise as a beggar at the baker’s door.  It is also present when Henry V (in 4.1) moves disguised among his troops on the eve of the Battle of Agincourt, and when Hamlet in 5.1 does not at first reveal to the gravedigger that he is the “mad” prince [2]: Sermons urged that monarchs should be obeyed like God’s representatives on earth, but king and prince purposefully conceal their identities, like spies. The trope was in medieval tales: King Arthur goes among his people disguised [3], as he does centuries later in Mark Twain's novel, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889). Shakespeare was fond of Ovid’s Metamorphoses in which the gods Zeus and Hermes, disguised like spi...

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 astonie...

Many have commented on how the image at the end of the play, of King Lear holding the corpse of his daughter Cordelia, resembles the Pieta, in which the Virgin Mary holds the corpse of Jesus. Modernist critics often dismiss any religious implication [1] [2]. Jesus was allegedly in the tomb for three days, but if Cordelia doesn't revive by the end of the last scene, then to them, there is no resurrection (literal or figurative) and to them, God (literal or figurative) does not exist. Some view the reverse-gender pieta simply as an allusion to the traditional Christian Pieta, and perhaps as pointing to a life after death in some metaphysical realm. But what of the gender reversal, with father holding daughter? Is this significant, even radical? If we view it in a near-vacuum, then it may seem to carry possibly radical implications, where the human father Lear is no sinless virgin, but a sinner purged of his pride in the crucible of profound suffering, holding the daughter of God, n...

Shakespeare scholars often note the changes from the First Quarto of King Lear (1607), to the Folio version (1623), especially the dying Lear, holding the corpse of Cordelia in his arms, hoping for a sign that she is still breathing, and in the Folio, attention to her lips: “Do you see this? Looke on her? Looke her lips, Looke there, looke there.” Many in the last four centuries (including Benson, 2009 [1], and de Grazia, 2021 [2], both of whom cite many others) have pondered whether this hints at a resurrection theme, or delusion. Perhaps there was a topical-historical-political reason for adding the comment about Cordelia’s lips: Had any daughter of King James died around this time? In fact, three of James’ four daughters had died before 1610: Princess Margaret Stuart (24 December 1598 - March 1600) had died before the play was written; Princess Mary Stuart (8 April 1605 - 16 September 1607) died at about the age of two and a half years. Sophia Stuart (22 June 1606 – 23 June 1606) ...

The second day of Christmas, the 26th of December, in Shakespeare’s time as now, was the Feast of St. Stephen [1], the first Christian martyr, reminding Christendom that this infant allegedly born in Bethlehem was born to die for the salvation of all humankind, and that others would be persecuted and killed in his name. Bible readings for the feast include Acts 7 (first lesson), telling the tale of Stephen’s martyrdom, and Matthew 23, a prophesy and history of the killing of prophets. Of course there were other tales of martyrdom or self-sacrifice available to people in Shakespeare’s time, not found in the Bible [2], including the Greek tale of Alcestis, willing to die in place of her husband. English law did not require people to read or hear Greek, non-biblical tales. It did, however, require church attendance, so the tale of the martyrdom of Stephen was required, a non-optional element of the broad fabric of religious and literary stories and literature that would have informed Sh...

Ophelia in Hamlet represents a paradox about both the injustice and virtue of nothing, emptiness, poverty: Ophelia is an intelligent young woman [1], lectured, silenced [2], taken for granted [3], told what to do, where to go [4], and whose death is linked to crown-envy [5], a cautious way for Gertrude to blame the envious actions of Claudius for Ophelia’s death. When Hamlet makes bawdy remarks at the playlet, “The Mousetrap,” Ophelia says, “I think nothing” [6]. In Elizabethan slang, women have “nothing” between their legs, while men have a “thing.”[7] “Nothing” is a theme in other Shakespeare plays: - A self-centered Richard II, losing his throne, says, “I must nothing be” [8]. - King Lear wants his favorite daughter Cordelia to be best at expressing her love for her father, but she refuses to play the game. Lear tells her “Nothing can come of nothing” [9]. By the end, Lear will be emptied and learn poverty. Many world religions emphasize the virtue of humility and spiritual povert...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ INDEX OF POSTS IN THIS SERIES: https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2023/01/index-hamlet-in-32-as-boy-jesus-lost.html ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This series has considered Hamlet’s allusion to Luke 2:46-52, the tale of the boy Jesus amazing temple elders and his parents.[1] Last week we considered a similar thematic echo in Macbeth , when the son of Lady Macduff amazes and humors his mother with wit and grace while also catching her conscience, like a court fool. But Hamlet and Macbeth are not the only Shakespeare plays that echo or allude to the Luke 2 story: King Lear contains an allusion to this gospel story, spoken by Lear’s exiled daughter, Cordelia.[2] We might recall how in Luke 2, Jesus tells his parents that he went to the temple because he had to be about his (heavenly) “father’s business.” Hamlet also believes he must be about his father’s business, but he is confused, at first striving reluctantly to be about the ghost’...

In 2019, Shakespeare Magazine from the UK published a short piece called, " All Crowns are Hollow: The scheming and backstabbing politicians of today would do well to ponder the fate of Shakespeare’s Kings ." [Image from The Hollow Crown , British TV series, via Wikipedia . Fair use.] The piece includes the observation, "Very few of the kings in Shakespeare ever get to do any actual ‘kinging’. Instead they fight tooth and nail to get to the throne – often committing heinous crimes like murder in the process – and then they die." While the title of this piece points to some usefulness for "scheming and backstabbing politicians of today," we might also consider how Shakespeare's plays reflect the playwright's (and his time's?) attitudes and skepticism about monarchs. Many of Shakespeare's monarchs are shown in a bad light: - Macbeth... - Richard II is a poor king, deposed. - Henry IV: The Biblical King David did not want to kill...

Last week I posted about instances of "beg" and "poor" in 1 Henry VI, in light of references in Hamlet to the prince as begging or poor, and of the Lazarus allusion in that play. I mentioned how, in 4.5, John Talbot begs his father to flee, while he himself will stay behind and fight to his death. This is a touching moment, as is the moment when the father later finds the dead body of the son. And as my blog often focuses upon biblical allusions, I should mention that this scene echoes two essential plot ideas from the Christian story of the gospels: First, it echoes the idea that Jesus is the son who was sent and sacrificed for the salvation of humanity. The son has to die, and is obedient to the father to the end. (In fact, some Biblical scholars and theologians have noted that Pauline theology assumes that the human Jesus only becomes divine through his love/service and obedience to the father, to his death, rather than being divine from birth; Paul's let...