Paul Adrian Fried / HAMLET'S BIBLE

If we think the main reason that Shakespeare named Hamlet’s uncle “Claudius” was because it was the English Renaissance – so things associated with ancient Rome were fashionable – we might miss the main point [1].  To have Claudius be a murderous, usurping, incestuous, unrepentant sinner, and to have Hamlet mention Nero [2], reveals a great deal about religious-political assumptions of Shakespeare’s time. Claudius is in fact like the Rome of Protestant polemics: MURDEROUS, POISONING, CONSPIRING, UNREPENTANT: Catholic Rome was viewed as corrupt and unrepentantly sinful, resisting reform. Rome excommunicated Elizabeth I (1570, 1588) [3]; English Catholics made numerous efforts to assassinate her [4]. Reformers associated the Mass with poison [5]; scholars call the poison cup of Claudius a “black Mass” [6]. INCESTUOUS: Rome had approved the “incestuous marriage” of Henry VIII to his brother’s widow, and if Elizabeth had accepted the marriage proposal of her brother-in-law Philip II of...

PRECEDENTS FOR HAMLET PLOT ELEMENTS—AND A VILLAIN NAMED CLAUDIUS— IN ARTHURIAN LEGENDS: One of the villains in the Arthurian legends is named Claudas, a variant of Claudius, the main villain in Shakespeare’s Hamlet . But in fact, the Arthurian legends contain many of the essential plot elements of Hamlet . Instead of “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten,” we could say, many of the things Shakespeare and Saxo Grammaticus needed to know to write Hamlet , they could have learned from the Arthurian legends: - The ghost of a parent [1] and warrior [2]; - a prince (or king) who relates to soldiers and close friends as equals [3]; - questions of marital infidelity [4] and of broken marriage promises [5]; - knightly codes of honor and violence that conflict at times with courtesy and Christian values [6] - suicidal, love-forsaken women [7]; - the living body or dead corpse of a heartbroken woman, floating in a river or stream [8]; - contrast between characters who interpret ...

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...

Today, “poison cup” can be a way to describe having been given a task that may be one’s undoing [1]. But what was the history of “poison cup” in Shakespeare’s time? These are words found in Shakespeare's Macbeth (1.7), but a plot idea used earlier in his Hamlet. "Poisoned cup" is related to "Trojan horse": looks like a gift, but will bring doom. A poisoned cup brought death for Socrates (state-ordered suicide). Scottish reformer John Knox (1514-1572) said that one (Catholic) Mass is worse than a cup of poison in Protestant-Catholic transubstantiation debates, the phrase an example of anti-Catholic polemics [2]. In fact, it's even older: In a legend told by St. Isidore (c. 560 – 636), St. John (of Patmos) the Apostle had an encounter with a poisoned cup of wine, and (miraculously?) survived, perhaps warned of poison by a serpent. In Greek mythology and Hebrew scripture: The rod of Asclepius, associated with healing, features a snake, and Asclepius' daught...

Ophelia and Hamlet influence Gertrude's final choices; they live in her: If we have followed Gertrude’s progress closely (allowing her to be at least as intelligent as the men in the play), we might note: She may have been deceived to marry Claudius, and done so as much for the safety of Denmark facing a threat from Norway [1], as for lust (contrary to what her son and the Ghost say [2]). She understands her son’s “Mousetrap” and its implications: Claudius poisoned his brother and wooed his brother’s wife [3]. Hamlet’s scolding in her closet has “cleft [her] heart in twain” [4]. She feels guilty facing Ophelia after her father’s death and her reported madness [5]. She reports Ophelia’s death not as suicide, but as an accident caused by crown-envy: the breaking of a sliver of willow envious for a crown [6], hinting at Claudius as the ultimate cause [7]. She probably suspects that Claudius poisoned the cup when dropping in a pearl and asking Hamlet to drink [8]. But she can’t know fo...

In Hamlet 5.2, Gertrude suspects poison, [1] but doesn't know for certain — a dangerous mystery: she avoids openly accusing Claudius. This scene is a variation of King Aegeus, saving son Theseus from a poison cup from stepmother, Medea — with some genders switched and stakes raised.[2] Gertrude will test the wine by drinking it, without saying that is her reason for doing so. In this she sets a better, simpler mousetrap for Claudius: If it is poison, he could stop her and confess. If not, maybe “mad” Hamlet was mistaken about Claudius? Hamlet’s “Mousetrap” foreshadows (and sheds light on) Gertrude’s. She cannot pluck the mystery’s heart without drinking from the cup to test it, and to test Claudius. By drinking, in effect, Gertrude tells Claudius: If you would poison my son, you must go through me first. In her closet, Hamlet had told her that he would later beg a blessing of her [3]. Testing the wine for poison is the blessing she offers her son, without his having to ask. This ...

Why might Gertrude suspect a poison cup in Hamlet 5.2? 1. In 3.2, she saw The Mousetrap, arranged by her son, showing a man poisoning a king, then wooing his victim’s widow. The analogy implies that Claudius poisoned King Hamlet to usurp the throne and marry Gertrude. Gertrude tells Hamlet in her closet that the play “much offended” [1] Claudius, meaning they understood perfectly what Hamlet implied that Claudius had done. 2. Hamlet makes this more clear in his mother’s closet, and Gertrude says, O Hamlet, speak no more! Thou turn’st my eyes into my very soul, And there I see such black and grainèd spots As will not leave their tinct.[2] Gertrude knows she is caught up in the sins of her envious, murderous, usurping husband. 3. Just before she speaks to Ophelia in 4.5, Gertrude says, “To my sick soul (as sin’s true nature is), Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss. So full of artless jealousy is guilt, It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.[3] Gertrude fears to spill the secret...

[In an earlier post , I mentioned four contrasting interpretations of Gertrude, the third being a suicidal Gertrude as portrayed by Lia Williams in a 2018 BBC production with Andrew Scott as Hamlet, dir. Icke. This post considers that third reading of Gertrude.] Some consider Gertrude drinking the poison cup in Hamlet 5.2 as an act of suicide. But for it to be suicide, Gertrude at least needs to suspect that the cup has been poisoned: If she is ignorant of poison and unsuspicious, it cannot be suicide; a reaction of surprise would then make sense. If she merely suspects and is testing the cup for poison intended for her son, an act of risk and selflessness, it is not strictly suicide.[1] For suicide as sole intention, she must not merely suspect, but know for certain that the cup has been, poisoned. The texts of the play do not support certainty for Gertrude that the cup has been poisoned: Claudius and Laertes conspired about the poison apart from her; she had no way of knowing. But a...

There are as many interpretations of Gertrude as there are readers, spectators, and actors. My next four posts will explore just four readings of Gertrude, especially regarding motivations for drinking from what she may or may not know is the poison cup intended for her son. Whether Ophelia and Hamlet influence Gertrude or not can only be determined by scrutinizing what really happens with Gertrude. A brief summary of just four of many possibilities (I prefer # 4): 1. Gertrude as Protestant allegory for a corrupt Catholic Church. Gertrude drinks because she is a slave to her animal passions as mother, as incestuous adulterer, and as slave to drink. For an example of this reading, see Linda Kay Hoff, Hamlet's Choice: A Reformation Allegory. 2. A surprised Gertrude as queen of wishful thinking [1]: Gertrude sees “The Mousetrap” (with its mention of poison) and hears Hamlet accuse Claudius of murder, but thinks Hamlet is mad; she doesn’t tell Claudius of Hamlet’s accusations to protec...