Paul Adrian Fried / HAMLET'S BIBLE

FOR THE 9TH DAY OF CHRISTMAS IN SHAKESPEARE’S TIME, the church assembly would hear the next [1] consecutive psalm, Psalm 2, for which the Geneva translation introduction reads: “David …exhorteth kings and rulers, that they would humbly submit themselves under God’s yoke, because it is in vain to resist God. Herein is figured Christ’s kingdom.” - Many of Shakespeare’s plays involve monarchs and rulers who resist, if not God, at least circumstances, ill fortune, and sometimes their own foolishness. Today begins a cycle with Genesis 1, God shaping creation. - Christian doctrine taught that God made creation out of nothing: This may remind us of King Lear, telling Cordelia in 1.1. that the “nothing” of her refusal to play his game is unacceptable, because “"Nothing will come of nothing.” It may also remind us of “Much Ado About Nothing” [2]. Matthew 1 tells of the genealogy of Jesus, Mary’s pregnancy by the Holy Spirit, and Joseph’s dream in which he is told to marry her in spite of...

Ophelia in Hamlet represents a paradox about both the injustice and virtue of nothing, emptiness, poverty: Ophelia is an intelligent young woman [1], lectured, silenced [2], taken for granted [3], told what to do, where to go [4], and whose death is linked to crown-envy [5], a cautious way for Gertrude to blame the envious actions of Claudius for Ophelia’s death. When Hamlet makes bawdy remarks at the playlet, “The Mousetrap,” Ophelia says, “I think nothing” [6]. In Elizabethan slang, women have “nothing” between their legs, while men have a “thing.”[7] “Nothing” is a theme in other Shakespeare plays: - A self-centered Richard II, losing his throne, says, “I must nothing be” [8]. - King Lear wants his favorite daughter Cordelia to be best at expressing her love for her father, but she refuses to play the game. Lear tells her “Nothing can come of nothing” [9]. By the end, Lear will be emptied and learn poverty. Many world religions emphasize the virtue of humility and spiritual povert...

Shakespeare occasionally reminds us of the Elizabethan slang, that men have a “thing” and women a “nothing.” Ophelia’s name begins with an “O,” an emptiness at least potentially waiting to be filled. Questions are analogous to this. Nature abhors a vacuum; many questions seek answers, or are at least open to mysteries, first attempts to name their boundaries. Hamlet is famous for asking, To be or not? But he also resists certain questions, telling Rosencrantz and Guildenstern not to assume they can pluck the heart of his mystery. Bridget Gellert Lyons (1977), R. Chris Hassel, Jr. (1998),  Katharine Goodland (2006), and Ruben Espinosa (2011) are among those who notice in Ophelia early in the nunnery scene an echo of the ubiquitous images of Mary reading a book, perhaps of psalms, when visited by the angel at the Annunciation. In Luke’s gospel, Mary’s first sentence to the angel is a question: ““How shall this be?” But Mary is open to the angel’s mystery: “be it unto me accordi...