Paul Adrian Fried / HAMLET'S BIBLE

In Hamlet, the ghost tells the prince that his brother Claudius poisoned him by pouring a vial of "cursèd hebona" (1.5.69) in his ear.[1] Yet the ghost first presents the poisoned ear as a metaphor for how Claudius lied about the cause of his brother's death: So the whole ear of Denmark Is by a forgèd process of my death Rankly abused. (1.5.43-45) It is possible that Prince Hamlet has had his own ear poisoned by what the ghost tells him: The ghost may be a demon in disguise, or a sinner in purgatory, not yet purged of his sinful and distorting assumptions, goals, and ways of viewing his own life.[2] In general, this idea of death by ear would have had other resonances for Elizabethan audiences: By the time Shakespeare's play was first published in the first quarto (1603) and expanded in the second of 1604, Mary, Queen of Scots had already been executed in 1587, the focus of alleged plots to overthrow Elizabeth and replace her on the English throne. Mary's first hu...

As it appears in Hamlet, the poisoned cup is not the same as some examples mentioned in my last post: Although these can shed light, Claudius and Laertes use deception, concealing their poisons. This is an important key. This is not the case with Socrates, nor with Sophonisba (suicides). Deception is an element involved in the gift of the Trojan Horse and the attempted poisoning of Merlin, St. John, and Theseus. For John Knox, Catholic Eucharist was also (in his mind) a kind of deception as well as a poison [1]. For some reformers, Catholic Eucharist was also a kind of deception as well as a poison [1]. The poisoned cup of Claudius can be viewed as a profound violation of the hospitality it appears to embody. As such, the deception of a seeming gift or gesture of hospitality is itself poisonous. This is important in light of the recurring theme of hospitality that runs through Hamlet: - Sometimes hospitality is neglected, as in the Lazarus-Rich Man allusion (by the Ghost) [2], or pot...

Deaths in Hamlet are shrouded in lies, including Ophelia’s. The play offers a king murdered by his brother, but the murderer’s lie claims it was by snake bite [1], and an Ophelia who died from the accident of a broken branch [2], but the “churlish priest” insists that she died by suicide.[3] The ghost says, "… the whole ear of Denmark Is by a forged process of my death Rankly abus’d Upon my secure hour thy uncle … … … in the porches of my ears did pour The leperous distilment Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother’s hand Of life, of crown, of queen at once dispatch’d (1.5.36–8, 61–4, 74–5) So the king was killed by Claudius with intent, but the truth was obscured by his murderer’s lies of accidental death. Ophelia drowned by accident, but the truth was obscured by claims that she died by intent, suicide. A reversed echo? One could say (paraphrasing), "… the whole ear of Denmark Is by a forged process of (Ophelia'sdeath Rankly abus’d..." I tend to believe Gertrude’s stor...

[My blog posts usually explore some aspect of Shakespeare’s text of Hamlet. This week I hold up the play as a mirror to our times: Claudius used “juice of cursed hebona in a vial” to kill his brother, a kind of chemical- or bio-weapon. But he lied: government propaganda claimed his brother was bitten by a snake, blaming nature for the killing. In our own time, Chinese officials claim COVID-19 was brought to China intentionally by the US military during war games there in October, 2019, after a bioweapons lab in the US failed an inspection and was closed that August. The US (US-friendly media) claim the virus came from a bat and a market where wild meat was sold (as if from a snake in nature’s garden). Nature creates many deadly viruses. But many countries, including the US, have a history of taking germs from nature and developing them as bioweapons. (A recent book notes that Lyme Disease may have accidentally escaped from a bioweapons lab at Plum Island on the US east coast th...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This is a continuation of a four-part series of blog posts, “Who am I to interpret  Hamlet ?” June 16, 2019:  To be or not? (Part 1: English Studies & Teaching) June 23:  How Literally Did Shakespeare Take the Bible? (Part 2: Religious Studies & Assumptions) July 30:  Reading  Hamlet  through personal & national traumas (Part 3: Lies & PTSD) August 6:  Hamlet , PTSD & Entitlement (Part 4) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Hamlet is a play about lies. Claudius kills his brother by poison but lies to all of Denmark, claiming his brother died because he was bitten by a snake while napping in his garden. Gertrude seems to have been deceived by Claudius’ lies. It is also a play about sexual transgressions: The marriage of Claudius to his dead brother's widow is considered incestuous by the play, as it would have been considered in Shakespeare's England, not only in light of how people int...