Paul Adrian Fried / HAMLET'S BIBLE

Some may feel squeamish when Hamlet speaks of how the body of Polonius is at a feast, not where he eats but where he is eaten - by worms (4.3.19-27). Scholars note that this is a Eucharistic analogy [1]. Worms have had interesting meanings since medieval times. The Glossa Ordinaria (1480), or Ordinary Gloss, collected insights from many bible scholars. I have compared Hamlet's sea voyage to that of Jonah; it turns out that in The Ordinary Gloss on the Book of Jonah [2], a worm plays a key role: While Jonah is angry and hoping still to witness the destruction of Nineveh, God makes a gourd plant sprout up to give Jonah shade in the hot sun (a mercy). Later God sends a worm to eat the gourd plant. This frustrates Jonah. Reading figuratively, ancient commenters viewed the gourd plant as Israel, which for a time flourished, but was eclipsed by Christianity converting the Gentiles, a new "chosen people." Jesus in Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34 quotes Psalm 22 from the cross, ...

One last Twelfth Night post before the anniversary of its first 1602 public performance on February 2: In Shakespeare’s time, a young male actor would have played the female Viola, later disguised as male Cesario: Much analysis of the play deals with gender, disguises, social constructs. Some of it considers Elizabeth I, Shakespeare’s monarch, in a role usually reserved for men. The fifth pageant for her coronation portrayed Deborah, a prophetess of Hebrew scriptures who led Israel as judge [1], contrary to Christian assumptions that kept women from female authority roles. Some scholars and historians note that Elizabeth had a reputation for swearing, not so much sexual profanity as religious, like Hamlet’s “swounds” (by Christ’s wounds) or “sblood” (by God’s blood). Elizabeth’s favorite was “by God’s death,” which listeners assumed was for shock value, by a woman in a man’s world, striving to maintain attention and control [2] Like Portia disguised as Balthazar in the courtroom sce...