Paul Adrian Fried / HAMLET'S BIBLE

Years ago, prompted by a student question, I noticed that Hamlet’s westward sea-voyage toward England - and change of mode of transportation mid-sea - was like Jonah’s. I thought others had probably noticed and considered this at length, but never found any. Hannibal Hamlin notes that a popular play, “A Looking Glass for London and England,” featured the prophet Jonah [1] (performed when Shakespeare was with The Lord Strange's Men), and that Elizabeth I named one of her ships Elizabeth Jonas, with a speech that (strangely?) read the Jonah story as a triumph over enemies [2]. Two gospels quote Jesus speaking of the “sign of Jonah” [3]. English citizens were required to attend church, and would have heard these every year of their lives [4]. Many people only know that Jonah was swallowed by a fish. Fewer know that, even after being saved from the fish’s belly, Jonah would rather witness the destruction of Nineveh than see them repent and be saved by God’s mercy. Dennis Taylor notes t...

In 2018, I posted about how the ghost of Jonah haunts the play, Hamlet. I came to this realization a few years earlier while teaching a college literature course: I was talking to the class about Hamlet's westward sea-voyage, and a student asked me to put up on the screen a map showing the relationship between Denmark and England, Hamlet's destination. Then it occurred to me: Hamlet goes west on a ship, like Jonah (another prophetic soul), and changes mode of transportation mid-sea (like Jonah, who is swallowed by a fish, while Hamlet is swallowed by a pirate ship). Below are the main posts related to Jonah and Hamlet, in chronological order, although they leap a bit through time: INDEX OF MAIN POSTS ON JONAH AND HAMLET: 1. THE GHOST OF JONAH HAUNTS SHAKESPEARE’S HAMLET - 23 April, 2018 https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-ghost-of-jonah-haunts-hamlet.html 2. Hamlet's Sea-voyage, Christ in the Tomb, and "the Sign of Jonah" - 16 April, 2022 h...

HOW IS IT POSSIBLE that one allusion or plot echo might be encompassed inside of another? A playwright can begin one thread of a story with an allusion, have the action cut away to a sub-plot with a different allusion, and pick up later on the original story thread. This happens in Hamlet, with plot echoes of Jonah and Emmaus. JONAH [1]: Hamlet’s sea-voyage contains important similarities to the sea-voyage of Jonah.[2] Bits of this allusion or the plot echo begin early in the play, with Hamlet exclaiming to the ghost, “O my prophetic soul!” [3] Later there are repeated references to his upcoming sea-voyage to England. [4] On his sea-voyage, we don’t hear of his having been in the belly of the pirate ship until Horatio reads a letter in which Hamlet mentions pirates [5]. To Claudius, Hamlet writes how he was “set naked on your kingdom.” [6] EMMAUS: Before we hear details that complete the Jonah echo in 5.2, Hamlet and Horatio are two Danes on the road to Elisinore, stopping in a graveya...

In my previous post , I connected the Jonah echo in Hamlet’s sea voyage to Elizabeth I having christened a navy ship “Elizabeth Jonas,” saying how God had saved her from her enemies - although the only enemy of Jonah is Jonah himself, fleeing his divine calling. The records have more echoes of Hamlet : "The 3 day of July, 1559, the Queen's Grace took her barge at Greenwich unto Woolwich to her new ship, and there it was named Elizabeth Jonas, and after her Grace had a goodly banquet, and there was great shooting of guns, and casting of fire about made for pleasure ' (Diary of Henry Machin, Camden Society, p. 203). The ship ' was so named by her Grace in remembrance of her own deliverance from the fury of her enemies, from which in one respect she was no less miraculously preserved than was the prophet Jonas from the belly of the whale' (Egerton MS. 2642, f. 150). This refers, of course, to the Jonas." [1] In Hamlet, there are also references to banqueting...

In the past, I have posted about the sea-voyage of Hamlet as resembling that of the prophet Jonah . [1] But the connection of Hamlet to Jonah also connects Hamlet to Jesus in the tomb, like Jonah in the belly of the fish. Jonah later emerges alive, as Hamlet survives his sea voyage and capture by pirates. Hamlet does not = Jonah or Jesus, but Shakespeare holds the mirror up for us to compare them. Christian tradition holds that after Jesus’ crucifixion, he was placed in a tomb (on Friday), and “descended into hell” to free all the souls of the just. In Matthew 12:39-40, Jesus says, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh a sign, but no sign shall be given unto it, save that sign of the Prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly: so shall the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. People in Shakespeare’s time would have known this passage, not only because there were many avid bible readers in his tim...