Paul Adrian Fried / HAMLET'S BIBLE

Thomas More was executed on this day in 1535, 490 years ago. Shakespeare depended in large part on More’s account of the reign of Richard III when writing his play by that name, and there is handwriting evidence that Shakespeare collaborated on the play, Sir Thomas More, with at least four others, and especially on a speech promoting hospitality toward foreigners in a hostile context.  Both Thomas More and Prince Hamlet opposed the kings under whose rule they lived, but there are some illuminating key differences: It is said at his execution, More’s last words were, "I die the King's good servant, and God's first." He did not oppose Henry’s marriage to his dead brother’s widow, because the church gave special dispensation for it, but later Henry would claim it was an incestuous and biblically sinful marriage [1]. It is likely that More would have been fine with Henry VIII having his marriage annulled if Rome had approved, but they did not, so when faced with a choice ...

Marjorie Garber of Harvard University thinks the drinking games of Claudius, with cannon fire and “earthly thunder,” are possibly blasphemous, adding yet another sin to his list. Claudius breaks a number of the Ten Commandments: Thou shalt not kill (Deuteronomy 5:17, Genesis 4:3-15) [1], nor covet thy neighbor’s house or wife (etc.) (Exodus 20:17) [2], nor bear false witness (Exodus 20:16) [3]. But more essentially, Claudius breaks the first commandment, which is to love God and have no other gods (Exodus 20:3-5). Garber notes the blasphemy implied in his drinking game: No jocund health that Denmark drinks today But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell, And the King’s rouse the heaven shall bruit again, Respeaking earthly thunder. (1.2.129-132) Garber writes, “It even approaches blasphemy, when we hear [...] that every time the King drinks, the cannons will blaze away, and ‘The King’s Rouse the heavens shall bruit again, / respeaking earthly thunder’.... Properly, thunder is heave...

Last week I posted [1] about a 1948 journal article by E. G. Berry [2], arguing that Shakespeare’s Hamlet resembled Roman Emperor, Claudius I. [3]. Berry argued that these resemblances are stronger in Shakespeare than in the 1200 A.D. source story from Saxo Grammaticus. What Berry doesn’t emphasize, but makes clear: 1. Saxo did not fashion his prince as a mirror image of his murderous uncle, although Amleth does resemble aspects of Claudius I. No similarity between prince and uncle is emphasized by Saxo. 2. By naming the uncle “Claudius,” Shakespeare invites audiences to view the prince and uncle in a radically revised relationship. Instead of a simple opposition between hero and villain, by changing the uncle’s name from “Feng” to “Claudius,” Shakespeare creates a new mirror effect between the two that was not present in Saxo’s older source tale. By pointing to Claudius I, Shakespeare points to Rome, which has an origin story involving a twin, Romulus, who kills his brother Remus [4...

“CLAUDIUS” WAS NOT A NEUTRAL NAME in Shakespeare’s England, nor was the fact that Claudius I of Rome had invaded England with elephants in 43 AD [1]. By the time Shakespeare’s first and second quartos of Hamlet were published (1603-4), two Roman Catholic popes had excommunicated Elizabeth (Pius V, 1570; Sixtus V, 1588) and openly encouraged her assassination. Rome also supported three Spanish Armada’s attempts to invade England during her reign (1588-1597). All of this colored England’s views of Roman history and of native resistance, such as that of Boudica [2], sometimes called “Queen of the Iceni” tribe, who led a rebellion against Roman occupiers slightly less than two decades after the invasion of Claudius. When her husband, King Prasutagus died, Boudica was flogged and her daughters were raped. Killing as many as 80,000, Boudica’s revolt destroyed a settlement of Roman military veterans at Camulodunum (now Colchester), where a large and expensive temple to Claudius I was locate...