Paul Adrian Fried / HAMLET'S BIBLE

Among the Ten Commandments posted prominently at the front of every church in Shakespeare’s England, the Fourth Commandment was to “KEEP HOLY THE SABBATH DAY." There is one mention of the sabbath in Hamlet :  MARCELLUS: Good now, sit down, and tell me, he that knows, Why this same strict and most observant watch So nightly toils the subject of the land, And why such daily cast of brazen cannon And foreign mart for implements of war, Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task Does not divide the Sunday from the week. What might be toward that this sweaty haste Doth make the night joint laborer with the day? Normally days were for work, while nights and the Sabbath were for rest; but preparations for war with Norway, stemming from an old feud based on pride, have not only affected the monarchy and soldiers, but have disrupted the entire social fabric. While Claudius orders cannons to be fired as he plays his drinking game, normal boundaries for work, rest, and worship have b...

The First Commandment, "THOU SHALT HAVE NO OTHER GODS BUT ME,” doesn’t mention pride, but Christian tradition considered it to be like playing god, the worst of the seven deadly sins from which the others proceed [1].  By apocryphal tradition it was the sin of Satan and the fallen angels, who in their pride believed they were equal to God or might usurp God’s throne [2].  KING HAMLET & OLD FORTINBRAS: Horatio in 1.1 notes pride: […] our last king, [...] Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway, Thereto pricked on by a most emulate *pride,* Dared to the combat… (1.1.92-96)  King Hamlet was “Dared to the combat”; instead of humbly urging peace instead of violence, “pricked on by… emulate pride,” he accepted the challenge and killed the Norwegian king, both of them gambling their lives and sons’ inheritance – and the future of their countries – on pride.  No “sealed compact,” “law” or “heraldry” (1.1.98-101) can excuse this sin of pride, and it may be among t...

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...