Paul Adrian Fried / HAMLET'S BIBLE

Austin Tichenor offers a good, brief article on Shakespeare's repurposing of sources , available at the Folger Shakespeare Library website. He writes: "Charlotte Artese, author of Shakespeare and the Folktale, explained on the Folger’s Shakespeare Unlimitedpodcast that Shakespeare frequently refers to things that have little meaning to us now but would have been familiar to his audience then. Among her many examples, Artese cites Ophelia’s odd-seeming non-sequitur “They say the owl is a baker’s daughter” from her mad scene in Hamlet as referring to a folktale in which Jesus turns a baker’s daughter into an owl for giving him a meager portion of bread..." And as I've argued before, the tale of the baker's daughter changed to an owl might best be considered as a repurposing/transformation of the gospel tale about the rich man and the beggar Lazarus - which is referred to by the ghost regarding his "lazar-like" skin after poisoning - and also referred to...

"Poor" occurs 16 times in Titus Andronicus (1593): - Titus speaks of "the poor remains": only four of his 25 "valiant sons" survived battle with the Goths (1.1). - He speaks of himself and his daughter Lavina as "poor creatures," and of his "poor right hand" (3.2) after he was deceived to have the left cut off to ransom two sons. [Cover page from the 1594 Quarto of [Titus Andronicus] The most lamentable Romaine tragedie of Titus Andronicus As it was plaide by the right honourable the Earle of Darbie, Earle of Pembrooke, and Earle of Sussex their seruants. Image via Wikipedia and the Folger Shakespeare Library . Public Domain.] "Beg" occurs 10 times, including Lavina in 2.3 begging Tamora to kill her: Her beloved Bassianus had been slain; she'd rather be killed than raped by Tamora's sons. They rape her, cut out her tongue, and cut off her hands in hope that she can't identify her attackers. But later she d...