Paul Adrian Fried / HAMLET'S BIBLE

An idea central to the Protestant Reformation was salvation by “faith alone,” not works [1]. This may help to understand why Marjorie Garber says the drinking game of Claudius approaches blasphemy [2]. Claudius’s drinking game is a celebration of works: Can the king drink the whole flagon without stopping? Fire the cannon! Best king? Claudius! To his health! Long live Claudius! Fire the cannon! The works of Claudius result in “earthly thunder” that the heavens “re-speak” [3] (echo). This is deeply ironic: the work of Claudius by which he obtained the throne was a work of poisoning, fratricide, regicide, usurpation, and lying to cover it up. Celebrate, fire the cannon: He got away with it? When Hamlet tries to conspire – to force his “works” to achieve revenge for his father’s death – he makes mistakes, and innocent people (like Polonius) are killed (3.4). Only late in the play does he articulate his new faith: “There's a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will” ...

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...