Paul Adrian Fried / HAMLET'S BIBLE

Love’s Labor’s Lost was Christmas entertainment (1593) for Elizabeth I and her court. It's about a bunch of guys who try to be celibate, and who keep a princess and her attending ladies locked out of their castle. The men fall in love with the women, but the women get the last word. Sort of like popes (some who failed at the celibacy thing) who excommunicated Elizabeth, keeping her out of the “castle” of the Roman Church, but never getting what they desired of her. Many scholars note that the character of King Ferdinand is based on King Henry III of Navarre, who had been raised Protestant, and who Elizabeth I had supported in French wars of religion. He converted to Catholicism (“Paris is worth a mass”) to consolidate his power as the next king of France, disappointing Elizabeth. Of the nine popes during Elizabeth’s reign,* one of them, Gregory XIII (1572-85), had a child out of wedlock (like Armado and Jaquenetta in the play) before his ordination. In their oaths and the...

In Shakespeare's play, Love's Labor's Lost, King Ferdinand of Navarre and his friends confess in the end that they made mistakes, or "sins" in the words of Lord Berowne. They had taken an oath to avoid the company of women, so when the Princess of France and her ladies in waiting show up, one of their sins is a failure of hospitality, forcing the women to camp out in tents outside the castle instead of welcoming them in. Another of their sins is that they quickly break their oath by falling in love with the women. They also make fools of themselves by dressing up as "Muscovites, or Russians" to profess their love, but the women exchange some articles of clothing to fool them (the fools!). The women confess their deception but blame the men, and the men confess their broken oaths and foolish behavior, but blame the women's beauty and heavenly eyes. The men have more to confess.... If it seems a bit like the Catholic sacrament of confession, it sh...

How can good be distilled from evil? How can sin turn to grace?  GOOD FROM EVIL IN HENRY V (1599):  In Shakespeare's Henry V , Act 4, Scene 1 (Folger), King Henry says something that some readers and audience members may find strange: "There is some soul of goodness in things evil, Would men observingly distil it out. We should note that this is not at all the same as arguing that evil means can and should be used to achieve good ends: As they say, the ends do not justify the means; but this statement by Henry is very different. Given that Henry was a kind of prodigal son, it seems Henry himself is living evidence that good can be distilled from evil: Perhaps the time he spent with Falstaff not only corrupted him for a time, but also helped him understand aspects of himself, and a wider range of his subjects, better, and therefore made him a better king. Henry's time as a prodigal son was not chosen as an evil means to achieve a good end: He chose to be prodigal...

Love's Labour's Lost has an earliest recorded performance before Queen Elizabeth as part of the court's Christmas festivities in December, 1597. [Title page from the 1598 first quarto, cropped, via Wikipedia . Public domain.] Elizabeth had been promoted as "Virgin Queen," but was rumored to have had affairs, and many in England were anxious about the fact that she had not married and produced an heir; so it is interesting and significant that the play has a theme of how difficult and impractical chastity can be. It's as if Shakespeare said: Court Christmas play? Virgin queen? Rumored affairs? No heir? How about a comedie about failing at chastity, pregnancy before marriage, falling in love, and reforming bad habits? (Let’s face it: Life is not all about work, even for a monarch! It’s about love. Right?) The play preempts heckling from the court by including a masque, which members of the court heckle; it preempts criticism of its playwright for having ...

INDEX OF POSTS on Love's Labour’s Lost In 2021, I did a series of posts exploring a few religious and historical themes in Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost , with the second post in the series also dipping into the presence of the same theme in Henry V : Begging & Poor (& Chastity & Pregnancy) in Love's Labour's Lost (1594-1597) - October 12, 2021 https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2021/10/begging-poor-chastity-pregnancy-in.html Good & Grace from Evil & Sin in Love's Labor's Lost & Henry V - October 24, 2021 https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2021/10/good-grace-from-evil-sin-in-loves.html Women Priests Assigning Penance in Love's Labor's Lost? - November 02, 2021 https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2021/11/women-priests-assigning-penance-in.html Elizabeth I, Popes, & Ferdinando I de' Medici in Love's Labor's Lost - November 09, 2021 https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2021/11/is-loves-...