Harold Bloom’s Hamlet
I have not taken the whole of Harold Bloom’s consideration of Hamlet for my observations. Instead, I have centered my work upon words in Bloom’s description of Hamlet, which matched words in the play. Then I traced the same words, to their occurrence in the Douay Rheims Bible, an English Bible written in exile, by priests of the Church. The manner in which I have handled the particular words of Shakespeare and Bloom, match the method I use in Hamlet, where I tie Hamlet to the season of Advent, the first half of Virgil’s Aeneid, the two tables of the Catechism of the Council of Trent, as well as other works.
Shakespeare’s works are parables in the manner Christ described in Matthew 13:13-14: “Therefore do I speak to them in parables: because seeing they see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.
And the prophecy of Isaias is fulfilled in them, who saith: By hearing you shall hear, and shall not understand: and seeing you shall see, and shall not perceive.”
No clearer description of Master Shakespeare’s work can be given in the four hundred years which have passed. Harold Bloom came quite close, when he said Shakespeare had invented the human. What Harold Bloom failed to begin to comprehend, is the human had been in the world, since the Incarnation, but men like Harold Bloom, had purposefully kept themselves from noticing.
To be in the world, and be blind was man’s only option until the birth of Christ. This is why the Lord is always perceived by the blind. Men who see the physical, do not perceive other men, but their accoutrements. The blind, being separated from the physical world, actually listen. They are not taken in by beauty, position, physical strength. Words, determine everything. The Pharisees could not perceive what a blind man could. How is that possible?
Even Shakespeare could not imagine the depth of ignorance, which would keep his work hidden. Shakespeare expected his work would reach a future generation, but just not twenty generations. The time has passed. No one can any longer decipher Shakespeare by listening. We hear too many words, to listen as the groundlings did. Reading, is the only passage from Shakespeare’s beliefs to our time. I hope I have made at least some of his parables, clearer than they have been.
Harold Bloom Hamlet, first and last, was with King David and the Jesus of Mark, as a charismatic of charismatics. One could add the Joseph of the Yahwist and who Else? P 384
It is very interesting Harold Bloom, who posits Shakespeare did not honor any God, Catholic or Protestant, in his commentary on Hamlet, on the second page, posits Hamlet as being like David. For Shakespeare took numerous lines from the Catechism of the Council of Trent, which referred to David, in creating the character of Hamlet. David’s sins, of murdering the husband of his lover, Bethsabee, and killing others through his henchman, Joab, are of a kind, of the murders Hamlet carried out in Hamlet.
CCT 378
But when one is deeply impressed with the conviction that God is the strong, he will exclaim with the great David: Whither shall I go from thy spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy face?…. The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?
Ham 3.1, 64-68
Hamlet To be or not to be, that is the question: whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them.
The first example I give in Hamlet in Elsinore, Luther in Eisleben, is from page 378 of the Catechism of the Council of Trent. David there was torn between facing up to the crimes he had committed and attempting to evade them, or to accept his undeniable guilt and accept the Lord’s punishment. Hamlet feared both the wrath of God, and other men, who had murdered his father. Claudius had taken Hal’s place. Claudius had all the letters of Saul, the then illegitimate king of Israel, Saul. As Saul sought to kill the legitimate heir to his throne, David, so Claudius wished to murder the rightful heir, chosen by God, Hamlet. Hamlet found Claudius on his knees begging forgiveness of God. Hamlet, in his role as a priest, heard Claudius’s confession, and understanding the depth of Claudius’s sorrow, forgave Claudius his crimes. Even the Pope cannot forgive his own sins, but must have a priest hear his confession. Hamlet had intended to kill Claudius, but would not, after he had heard his confession and forgiven him his sins. Death after confession would earn Claudius quick passage to heaven.
Harold Bloom Claudius yearningly says of heaven, in which he neither believes nor disbelieves, Claudius the shuffler is hardly Hamlet’s mighty opposite. P 386
Claudius believed in Heaven. He also believed in literature and art. Shakespeare believed Julius II, was poisoned, which would match with Leo X, being a Borgia. From his demeanor before and while in office, it is hard to picture Leo X, having the capability to poison a Pope. It is possible however, Leo’s relatives had a hand in the death of Julius II, Christ’s representative and hero on earth.
Bernardo Last night of all, when yond same star that’s westward from the pole had made his course to illume that part of heaven where now it burns, Marcellus and myself, the bell then beating one,– (Enter Ghost)
Genesis 1:14:16: And God said: Let there be lights made in the firmament of heaven, to divide the day and the night, and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years:
To shine in the firmament of heaven, and to give light upon the earth. And it was done.
And God made two great lights: a greater light to rule the day: and a lesser light to rule the night: and the stars.
Barnardo watching on the tower, at the hour of one, saw the ghost. The ghost is no figment of the imagination of Hamlet. Several people witnessed the ghost’s arrival and presence, before Hamlet was told. The physical heavens, mix with the ghost from heaven itself. The first mention of heaven made in Genesis, was when God said for light to be created in the heaven. This was to divide the day and the night. The light had purposes the first of which was for signs. The ghost appearing in the castle, was certainly a sign. Hamlet’s father being in heaven, while he is the image of the ghost, and Hamlet in the castle, confirms the Trinity, God the Father, God the Son and the Holy Ghost. Shakespeare could not be much clearer in his intentions.
Hamlet As thou’rt a man, give me the cup: let go; by heaven, I’ll have’t O good Horatio, what a wounded name, things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me!
Revelation 21:9-11: And there came one of the seven angels, who had the vials full off the seven last plagues, and spoke with me, saying: Come, and I will shew thee the bride, the wife of the Lamb.
And he took me up in spirit to a great high mountain: and he shewed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God,
Having the glory of God, and the light thereof was like to a precious stone, as to the jasper stone, even as crystal.
The last heaven in Hamlet was spoken by Hamlet, when he insisted he too drink from the cup of which Gertrude, had tasted. The heaven referred to then, was the heaven, to which Gertrude and Hamlet, wished entrance. Claudius, having sinned mortally again after his confession was damned.
The last heaven in Revelation, the last book of the Bible, speaks of seven angels with vials full of seven plagues, about to be released upon the earth. One of the seven angels about to punish the earth, took John from Patmos, onto a high mountain, and showed John, the city of Jerusalem coming down from Heaven. This is the twenty first chapter of Revelation. In the last chapter, verse 19: “And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from these things that are written in this book.” Even though John had written this at the beginning of the Church, fifteen hundred years later men would choose to discard his prophecy and bring to Christendom, the destruction, which Hamlet learned in Wittenberg.
At the end of chapter twenty one, John speaks of how no liar will be in the new City of Jerusalem. Shakespeare took this as his watch. Every play has characters who do nothing but lie. They always suffer the consequences of their lies.
Harold Bloom Marxist critics confuse their materialism with Sir John’s materiality, and so see the great wit as an opportunist. Falstaff’s investment, unlike Hamlet’s, is in wit for its own sake. Contrast the two in their greatest, Hamlet in the graveyard, Falstaff in the tavern. P 394
Ham That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once. How the knave jowls it to th’ ground, as if twere Cain’s jawbone, that did the first murder. This might be the pate of a politician which this ass now o’er-offices, one that would circumvent God, might it not?
Horatio It might my lord.
Hamlet Or of a courtier, which could say, ‘Good morrow, sweet Lord. How dost thou, sweet Lord? This might be my Lord Such-a-one, that praised my Lord Such a one’s horse when a (meant) to beg it, might it not?
Horatio Ay, my lord.
Hamlet Why, e’en so, and now my Lady Worms, chopless and knocked about the (mazard) with a sexton’s spade. Here’s fine revolution and we had the trick to see’t. Did these bones cost no more the breeding but to play at loggets with ‘em? Mine ache to think on’t.
Marxist critics, being acolytes of Falstaff, have a deeper understanding of the thief than Harold Bloom. They can see, what Harold is blind too, evil. The original Falstaff, OldCastle, who was a heretic, was put down by an ancestor of Henry VIII. Marxists understand much about the material and those who worshipped it, even before themselves.
Hamlet spoke of the tongue in the skull. Hamlet knew full well, whose skull had been found. Hamlet indicated the truth when he responded ‘who composed ‘my sweet Lord,’ knowing full well that is the prayer of St. Bonaventure. The Huguenots burned the body of St. Bonaventure. His relics were a continuing offense to the god they worshipped. St. Bonaventure’s body had been found with the tongue still intact. This indicates why Shakespeare had Hamlet find a skull with the tongue. St. Bonaventure’s skull was all that survived the Huguenot assault.
Harold Bloom Until Act V, Hamlet loves the dead father (or rather, his image) but does not persuade us that he loves (or ever loved) anyone else. The prince has no remorse for his manslaughter of Polonius, or for his vicious badgering of Ophelia into madness and suicide or his gratuitous dispatch of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. P 408
The skull of poor Yorick evokes not grief but disgust and the son’s farewell to his dead mother is the heartless, “Wretched Queen, Adieu.”
The season of Advent is the season of waiting for the birth of the Redeemer, Christ. In kind, the season is similar to Lent, the forty days before Christ offered Himself on Golgotha, in recompense for man’s sins. Advent is the time when Hamlet returned to Elsinore. The stars which guided Barnardo, are the same which led the Magi, to Christ. The birth of the Christ child, eight months after the Incarnation of Christ, on March 25, is honored by a time of repentance for man’s sins. Christ is already in the world, brought by the Holy Ghost, and announced by the angel. Christ’s Incarnation and birth, are the opening acts in the Salvation of man’s soul. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern take their words from an Epistle of Advent. The answer to the question, Who does Hamlet love?, is Christ.
Epistle P 107
Wherefore receive one another; as Christ also hath received you, unto the honor of God.
Ham 2.2, 339-44
Rosencrantz To think, my lord, if you delight not in man, what Lenten entertainment the players shall receive from you. We coted them on the way, and hither are they coming to offer you service.
Hamlet He that plays the king shall be welcome – his Majesty shall have tribute on me.
Believers are exhorted in Romans 15: “to be of one mind, and to receive each other, as they have been received into the membership of the Church, by Christ.” Rosencrantz expected Hamlet to give entertainment to the players, as the players came to offer service to Hamlet. This was exactly the entreaty given to believers in Romans.
Hamlet taking with the players the role of a Catholic king, or a Magi, told Rosencrantz and Guildenstern the king, (Our Lord in the manger) would be welcome in Elsinore. This would be the opposite of the murderous intent of Herod and the high priests, when Christ was born in Bethlehem. Hamlet confirms himself as one of the Magi, by the honor he intends for Christ, when he offers before the child, tribute, which all kings, and men, owe to the Lord, the Son of God.
Christ’s Incarnation and birth, are the opening acts in the Salvation of man’s soul. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern take their words from an Epistle of Advent. They deliver their words to Hamlet, from Claudius, as the Pope Leo X, had his words delivered to a reluctant Luther at the council of Worms. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are still loyal to Christ, while Hamlet though loyal at times, is wavering in his love of Christ.
Harold Bloom “Denmark’s a prison,” Hamlet says, yet no one else in all Shakespeare seems potentially so free as the crown prince of Denmark. P 417
Hamlet Denmark’s a prison.
Rosencrantz Then is the world one.
The first mention of prison is in Genesis 39:20-21: And cast Joseph into the prison, where the king’s prisoners were kept, and he was shut up.
But the Lord was with Joseph and having mercy upon him gave him favour in the sight of the chief keeper of the prison.
For Harold Bloom the materialist, the earth is man’s home. But for all other men, before Christ, after Christ until the attacks of Luther and Henry VIII, the earth has always been considered a prison. Our parents were cast out of Paradise, because they betrayed God, and ate of the apple. Earth is the prison to which we, our ancestors and our descendants, have been condemned to. Joseph, the first born of Jacob and Rachel, and his brother, Benjamin, were the only legitimate heirs of Jacob. The other brothers were illegitimate, and therefore hated Joseph and Benjamin. Joseph having been sold into slavery by his brothers, became a favorite of the Pharoah, and was laterbetrayed by a woman who claimed falsely he had attacked her. Thus, being both God and Pharoah’s favorite, did not protect Joseph from being cast into prison. However, God kept his eye upon Joseph.
The last two mentions of prison come from Revelation 2:9-11: I know thy tribulation and thy poverty, but thou art rich: and thou art blasphemed by them that say they are Jews and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan.
Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer. Behold, the evil will cast some of you into prison that you may be tried and you shall have tribulation ten days. Be thou faithful until death: and I will give thee the crown of life.
He, that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches: He that shall overcome, shall not be hurt by the second death.
Just as the legitimate son of Jacob and Rachel was sold into slavery and cast into prison by his illegitimate brothers, so those who follow Christ, will be condemned to prison by those who say they are Jews but are not. The inheritors of the temple’s sacrifice, is the human sacrifice of Christ, on Golgotha and through Golgotha, to the Church’s altars around the world and through time. At the end of the world, some followers of the Lord will be cast into prison, as was Joseph in Egypt. They shall be held ten days, during which they shall be tortured, not protected as was Joseph. If those who suffer are faithful unto death, they shall be received as saints into heaven. The death they shall suffer will be a punishment, but they, unlike those who jail them, will not suffer the second death. They like those who fought in the Crusades will have robes washed in the blood of the Lamb.
The last prison in the Revelation 20:6-8: Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection. In these the second death hath no power; but they shall be priests of God and of Christ; and shall reign with him a thousand years.
And when the thousand years shall be finished, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go forth, and seduce the nations, which are over the four quarters of the earth, Gog, and Magog, and shall gather them together to battle, the number of who is as the sand of the sea.
And they came upon the breadth of the earth, and encompassed the camp of the saints, and the beloved city.
At the end, satan will have been imprisoned for one thousand years, but after his imprisonment, he will be released, and go forth to seduce many nations, as Hamlet went forth from Wittenberg, and Iago from Venice to Cyprus. Even the camp of the saints shall be overrun in this battle. In the world, which is itself a prison, there is no refuge from the battle with satan. These are the reasons, why from the time of Abraham, till the end of the world, those who understand see the world as a prison. No one, regardless of being the son of the chosen Jacob, can escape imprisonment.
Harold Bloom Hamlet’s relation to Jesus is enigmatic, Shakespeare as always, evades both faith and doubt. Since the Jesus of the Gospel of Mark, like the Yahweh of the Writer, is a literary character now worshipped as God. ( I speak only pragmatically) we have the riddle that Hamlet can be discussed in some of the ways we might employ to talk about Yahweh, or Socrates, or Jesus. P 419
Hamlet to some of us, offers the hope of a purely secular transcendence, but to others he intimates the spirit’s survival in more traditional modes.
The quote below is from the Pearl by St. Ephraim.
The Pearl is a poem by St. Ephraim, composed when he argued with ten Arians for the Truth of the Faith. The Pearl was meant to poison Hamlet because Truth would be corrupting to heresy. No man could ingest the Pearl in its completeness and remain an enemy of Christ. Shakespeare’s taking the sixth and seventh verse of the Pearl into Hamlet, would signify he accepted the work of St Ephraim as true. Thus, though Shakespeare wished to avoid the axe, his works were filled with the faith. Only one had to know the Truth in order to see it expressed. After seventy years, few remained who could discern Truth from lies. I take one example from the Pearl, in which Hamlet accepts Claudius’s confession of sin, and as a priest, is required to forgive sins which the penitent is truly sorrowful for. Hamlet does forgive Claudius, which is why he refrained from killing Claudius, for then Claudius would ascend to Heaven.
He blamed the righteous, and He held up and lifted up, to view, their delinquencies: He pitied sinners, and restored them without cost: and made low the mountains of their sins: He proved that God is not to be arraigned by men, and as Lord of Truth, that His servants were His shadow; and whatsoever way His will looked, they directed also their own wills; and because Light was in Him, their shadows were enlightened.
Ham 1.5, 112-15
Hamlet O most pernicious woman! O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain! My tables – meet it is I set it down that one may smile and smile and be a villain.
Ham 3.3, 73-75, 89-91
King Help, angels! Make assay. Bow, stubborn knees, and heart with strings of steel be soft as sinews of the newborn babe.
Hamlet And am I then revenged to take him in the purging of his soul, when he is fit and seasoned for his passage?
Ham 2.2,
Hamlet Why , then, ‘tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so: to me it is a prison.
Rosencrantz Why then, your ambition makes it one; ‘tis too narrow for your mind.
Hamlet Were it not that I have bad dreams.
Guildenstern Which dreams, indeed, are ambition, for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.
Hamlet A dream itself is but a shadow.
Rosencrantz Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality that it is but a shadow’s shadow.
Hamlet Then are our beggars bodies, and our monarchs and outstretched heroes the beggars’ shadows. Shall we to th’ court? For, by my fay, I cannot reason.
Hamlet certainly held up the delinquencies of both King Claudius and his own Mother to show them their sins. In the Mousetrap, Hamlet exposed to the King, the murder of his own brother. Then, he opened his mother’s eyes to her crimes. Hamlet also forgave Ophelia her sins, through Extreme Unction. Ophelia described her encounter with Hamlet thus: Long stay’d he so; at last, a little shaking of mine arm and thrice his head thus waving up and down, he raised a sigh so piteous and profound as it did seem to shatter all his bulk and end his being: that done, he lets me go: and, with his head over his shoulder turn’d, he seem’d to find his way without his eyes; for out o’ doors he went without their helps, and, to the last, bended their light on me.” Ophelia was in no condition to remember her sins, as Hamlet told Ophelia he could not forget his.
CCT 312 – Furthermore, all those who have not the use of reason are not fit subjects for this Sacrament; …. The same is true of idiots and insane persons, unless they give indications in their lucid intervals of a disposition to piety, and express a desire to be anointed. … The Sacred Unction is to be applied not to the entire body, but the organs of the sense only.
Extreme unction from the Catechism, was a cure for the soul on the verge of death. Such help for the sinner was rejected by Luther who chose rather for the dying to face God full blown in his sins. The Church in her role as Mother, excluded men who were without reason, except if they had intervals of reason, during which they desired to be saved. If the sickness returned, the anointed could be saved because of their prior anointment. Arms and strength enable the faithful to defeat the adversary who continually attacks him.
When Hamlet took hold of Ophelia by the wrist, and studied her face, which includes with hands the places of anointment, Hamlet was bestowing upon Ophelia the Sacrament of Extreme Unction. The motion Ophelia describes is that of a man deep in prayer, fighting with all his might against the devil. The battle took all the strength within Hamlet and left him shattered, as would personally facing satan.
Harold Bloom What we have called Romanticism was engendered by Hamlet, though it required two centuries before the prince’s self consciousness became universally prevalent, and almost a third century before Nietzsche insisted that Hamlet possessed “true knowledge an insight into the horrible truth,” which is the abyss between mundane reality and the Dionysian rapture of an endlessly ongoing consciousness. P 421
Hamlet O, that this too too solid flesh would melt thaw and resolve itself into a dew! Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter! O God! God! How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable, seem to me all the uses of this world!
Genesis 49:5-7: Simeon and Levi brethren: vessels of iniquity, waging war.
Let not my soul go into their counsel, nor my glory be in their assembly; because in their fury they slew a man, and in their selfwill they undermined a wall.
Cursed be their fury, because it was stubborn: and their wrath because it was cruel: I will divide them in Jacob, and will scatter them in Israel.
2nd Peter 2:9-11: The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly from temptation, but to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be tormented.
And especially them who walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government, audacious, self willed, they fear not to bring in sects, blaspheming.
Whereas angels who are greater in strength and power, bring not against themselves a railing judgment.
Just before Hamlet gave a soliloquy, Queen Gertrude, his mother, prayed that Hamlet would not return to Wittenberg but would stay with her in Elsinore. King Claudius, complimented Hamlet on the quality of his reply. The royal couple, then left. Hamlet by himself, gave the only use of the word self, in the play. In agreeing with the use of self, rather than family, or priesthood, Hamlet spoke of self-slaughter. A man who had been an honored member of Christ’s Church, a priest, bereft of his attachment to Christ, wished to die. Hamlet had already committed suicide of the second death, by aligning himself against his Lord, and with Lucifer. Hamlet suffered hundreds of years before other men from the nihilism, which nurtured Romanticism, and then Atheism. Absent Christ, Hamlet hated Christ’s world. Hamlet felt the loss of Christ, immediately after His absence.
In Genesis 49, Jacob gave an account of his sons, to all of them. Simeon and Levi, Jacob condemned, because the penalty they had exacted for the rape of their sister Dina, was beyond all bounds of justice. The son of Hemor, the Hevite, Sichem, spied Dina, a daughter of Lia, and desired her. Sichem lay with Dina. Sichem went to Hemor to have him arrange Sichem’s marriage to Dina. Jacob considered the proposal. Simeon and Levi, then promised to take the village of Hemor, as members of their family. The only caveat, was the men had to be circumcised. Hemor and Sichem agreed. When the men lay in their pain, Simeon and Levi, killed them all. Jacob, as any man, saw this as beyond retribution. They would be without any family, in Israel.
The last self in the Bible, is in 2nd Peter 2: 9-11. The second chapter of Second Peter, begins: But there were also false prophets among the people even as there shall be among you lying teachers, who shall bring in sects of perdition, and deny the Lord who bought them: bringing upon themselves swift destruction. Swift destruction was prophesized for Hamlet, by himself, for himself, in the second scene. God can deliver the godly from temptation which is too strong for them. God, though, will also ensure the unjust are tormented according to their crimes on the day of judgment. God in second Peter, equates the self willed with those who will bring in blaspheming sects, into the Church. An excellent description of Hamlet.
Lord Polonius Marry, well said; very well said. Look you, sir, inquire me first what Danskers are in Paris; and how, and who, what means, and where they keep, what company, at what expense; and finding by this encompassment and drift of question that they do know my son, come you more nearer than your particular demands will touch it: take you, as ’twere, some distant knowledge of him; as thus, ‘I know his father and his friends, and in part him: ‘ do you mark this, Reynaldo?
Reynaldo Ay, very well, my lord.
Lord Polonius ‘And in part him; but’ you may say ‘not well: but, if’t be he I mean, he’s very wild; addicted so and so:’ and there put on him what forgeries you please; marry, none so rank as may dishonour him; take heed of that; but, sir, such wanton, wild and usual slips as are companions noted and most known to youth and liberty.
Genesis 2: 16-18: And he commanded him, saying: Of every tree of paradise thou shalt eat:
But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat. For in what day soever thou shalt eat of it, thou shalt die the death.
And the Lord God said: It is not good for man to be alone: let us make him a help like to himself.
2nd Peter 2:19-21: Promising them liberty, whereas they themselves are the slaves of corruption. For by whom a man is overcome, of the same also his is a slave.
For if, flying from the pollutions of the world, through the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they be again entangled in them and overcome: their latter state is become unto them worse than the former.
For it had been better for them not to have known the way of justice, than after they have known it, to turn back from that holy commandment which was delivered to them.
Isn’t it interesting, for a man who didn’t believe in God, Harold Bloom chose two words to describe Hamlet self and knowledge, which both have Biblical references in 2nd Peter? What are the odds of this? How is it even possible? What Harold Bloom saw, without understanding or even imagining the source, was the comprehension of Shakespeare for the moral world. Shakespeare’s comprehension was not based on the self, but in following Christ, as did Simon and Andrew his brother, Shakespeare spoke not his own self centered words, but the words of Christ, and the Doctors of the Church. As St. Paul said: To the Greeks and the barbarians, to the wise and the unwise, I am a debtor, so master Shakespeare followed the example of St. Paul, teaching his entire life. The words in Shakespeare which are connected to ideas, all relate back to the Greeks, Romans, the Fathers of the Church, and of course, the Bible. The question is which Bible. Shakespeare used the Douay Rheims.
Lord Polonius, inveigled Reynaldo, a friend of his son Laertes, who was going to visit Laertes in Paris, “investigate” Laertes behaviour in Paris. How does one investigate, when one is seeking evil? Polonius did not simply want a report on how Laertes and Reynaldo spent their time, but Polonius wanted Reynaldo to assign evil actions to Laertes, and discover if anyone agreed. Reynaldo, whom Polonius enlisted to act in secret against Laertes, has a name which begins in R, ends in O and has eight letters. It does not fit the usual all but two letters matching of hidden names in Shakespeare. Polonius, did use Reynaldo in the same manner as Iago used Roderigo, to carry out his nefarious schemes. The Catechism of the Council of Trent, deals with Polonius’s crime when on page 457 it says: “The Commandment forbids not only false testimony, but also the detestable vice and practice of detraction, a pestilence, which is the source of innumerable and calamitous evils.” In reference to Polonius on the next page: “But of all sorts of calumnies the worst is that which is directed against Catholic doctrine and its teachers.” As Laertes describes himself when Hamlet is dying, “I am more an antique Roman than a Dane:” When Hamlet told Ophelia to return to her convent, he was advising Ophelia to evade her duties at the Vatican. Laertes going to Paris would mean the Sorbonne, where St. Thomas Aquinas wrote the Summa Theologica. The Sorbonne then still honoring Thomas’s teaching would be a threat to those who wanted to overthrow the Church.
Polonius spoke of forgeries, which meant books written by such heretics as Faust, with whom St. Augustine disputed. Early on, men fabricated Epistles and Gospels, which they claimed were written by the Apostles. Such works were detractions, which heretics have clung to over the centuries. In his instructions to Reynaldo, Polonius spoke of knowledge. Polonius then spoke of his father, and his friends. This is a reference to those heretics who spread lies about Christ, but also about His Father in heaven, as well as the Holy Ghost. Polonius also used the word marry, as a denigration of the honourable Mary, which was the taking of the Lord’s mother’s name in vain, as a curse. This is a crime against the second commandment. Not taking the name of the Lord in vain, would also apply to using His mother’s name in vain or a curse. The fact Polonius would use the name of Mary in vain, meant he no longer honored Christ, as the second Person of the Trinity, the Son of God the Father.
Genesis 2:16-18, contains the first instance in the Bible of both self and knowledge. This is interesting, because in these verses, God demanded Adam and Eve, eat of all the other trees, but not the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Did Harold Bloom understand that self and knowledge were linked together from the beginnings of Creation? To honor the self, before the Trinity, has always been the first sin. A creature who does so, has betrayed his Creator, and himself. God then created Eve from Adam’s rib. They were a couple, meant to conceive a family, and then a civilization in Paradise. However, they betrayed the Father, and themselves, by eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, at the behest of the snake, satan.
The last instance of knowledge comes from 2nd Peter, 2:19-21. In this verse, Shakespeare calls those who have rejected Christ and His Church, as being worse off, than if they had never had any knowledge of Christ in the first place. The last use of knowledge in the Bible, as the first, condemns any knowledge which opposes the rule of Our Lord. Such knowledge, is not actually knowledge, but lies. All truth has to support the Creator of the world. Any knowledge which does not support the Lord, are actually the lies of the snake. Polonius in response to Reynaldo’s hesitation at defaming his friend Laertes, spoke of a time of wanton wild and usual slips, which characterize youth and liberty. To denigrate the Lord is not a part of youth, but a part of succumbing to the wiles of the snake, regardless of the age at which the snake is encountered. Indeed, if a youth encountered a snake, being frightened, he would believe nothing the snake told him, because he would be repulsed by such a creature.
Harold Bloom Had he but time, Hamlet says, he could tell us—what? Death intervenes, but we receive the clue in his next words: “Let it be.” “Let it be,” has become Hamlet’s refrain, an has a quietistic force uncanny in its suggestiveness. P 421
Hamlet I pray you all, if you have hitherto conceal’d this sight, let it be tenable in your silence still; and whatsoever else shall hap to-night, give it an understanding, but no tongue: I will requite your loves.
Genesis 44:9-11: With whomsoever of thy servants shall be found that which thou sleekest, let him die, and we will be the bondmen of my lord.
And he said to them: Let it be according to your sentence: with whomsoever it shall be found, let him be my servant, and you shall be blameless.
Then they speedily took down their sacks to the ground, and every man opened his sack.
Harold Bloom speaks of Jesus having Pharisaic trust, in the rising of the dead. I don’t believe Harold comprehends Christ had no trust in the Pharisees, since they were His declared enemies. Since the Pharisees did not recognize Christ, as the Saviour, the son of David, they no longer worshipped Him. In not worshipping Him, either as a child, or since He had begun preaching, the Pharisees would themselves not rise from the dead, but be eternally doomed to the second death. Yet, the Pharisees had spent much of Christ’s public life attempting to have Him murdered. Death came for Hamlet, as it did for Christ, as the only end of his efforts in the world.
Hamlet began his first call to let it be, by asking all to pray. His words were addressed to the guards on the platform who watched from the wall of the castle. Hamlet insisted those who had seen his father’s ghost, to keep silent, about previous sightings. For what would happen that night, and what Hamlet, himself might see, they were sworn to silence. If the watchmen followed his instructions, he would love them for their obedience. In Egypt, where Joseph had been sold into slavery by the sons of Lia, because they resented his being the legitimate child of Jacob and Rachel, Joseph sold his brothers grain, but returned the purchase price to them, in their sacks. But for, his only true brother, Benjamin, Joseph placed his divining cup, in Benjamin’s sack. The penalty for such a theft would be death. The same penalty Joseph’s illegitimate brothers wished for him. It was Benjamin who had interceded and had Joseph sold as a slave, rather than the brothers murdering Joseph. To enslave his illegitimate brothers would have been just. Joseph, however was merciful. The death which intervened for Hamlet’s thought, was a just punishment for Hamlet’s crimes, against God, and God’s representatives on earth. God would not find Hamlet blameless.
Hamlet You that look pale and tremble at this chance, that are but mutes or audience to this act, had I but time-as this fell sergeant, death, is strict in his arrest-O, I could tell you- but let it be.
John 14:26-28: But the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I shall have said to you.
Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, do I give unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, not let it be afraid.
You have heard that I said to you: I go away, and I come unto you. If you loved me, you would indeed be glad, because I go to the Father: for the Father is greater than I.
At the end, Hamlet, having no time left, wished to tell what had been seen on the tower, and what had transpired in his effort to bring justice for his father, King Hamlet, Julius II. How could Hamlet explain the intervention of a ghost, having upset his perception of his love for his mother, the Church. The damage Hamlet did to his mother, and his new father, could not be undone. But neither could the damage Claudius did to Queen Gertrude, or his attempts to murder Hamlet. All the parties except the good King Hamlet, Julius II, were guilty. At the end, Hamlet agreed to let it be, and have Fortinbras, take possession of the Queen’s damaged body.
The Apostle John was told by Christ, the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, would come after Christ had died for our sins, and would bestow upon the Apostles the understanding which they then lacked, even though they had been with Christ daily for three years. Christ told them: The spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, nor knoweth him: but you shall know him; because he shall abide with you, and shall be in you.” The knowing which the Paraclete would bring, is the direct opposite of the knowing which came from eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In fact, the coming of the Paraclete, as the death of Our Lord on the Cross, is the solution to the crime committed by our parents, Adam and Eve. For they darkened our minds. We lost the knowledge given to us by God. Adam, in the garden named all the animals, because he knew their true natures. Man, outside stumbled to attain even a glimpse of the understanding Adam had of animals. In the same manner, the darkness brought over England, by Henry VIII’s expulsion of Christ from the land, created a vast darkness in the minds of his people, where knowledge of Christ, had resided prior to his apostasy. This self imposed darkness, was the reason the works of Shakespeare were so hard to decipher, for men who had rejected Salvation. Men who wished instead, for themselves and their children, to be returned to the time, before Golgotha.
Harold Bloom August Wilhelm von Schlegel accurately observed in 1809 that “Hamlet has no firm belief either in himself or in anything else” including God and language, I would add. P 423
Marcellus Horatio says ’tis but our fantasy, and will not let belief take hold of him touching this dreaded sight, twice seen of us: therefore I have entreated him along with us to watch the minutes of this night; that if again this apparition come, he may approve our eyes and speak to it.
Judith 13:6-8: And Judith stood before the bed praying with tears, and the motion of her hips in silence,
Saying: Strengthen me, O Lord God of Israel, and in this hour look on the works of my hands, that as thou hast promised, thou mayst raise up Jerusalem thy city: and that I may bring to pass that which I have purposed, having a belief that it might be done by thee.
And when she had said this, she went to the pillar that was at his bed’s head, and loosed his sword that hung tied upon it.
August von Schlegel’s, observation about Hamlet not believing in himself or anything else, came from von Schlegel’s own belief, about the world. In the Stanford Philosophical Encyclopedia, of von Schlegel it is reported: “The very division he made between the ancient and the modern, as well as his views of Shakespeare, Aristophanes, or the Greeks as a people who were: conscious of no wants, and aspired to no higher perfection than that which they could actually attain by the exercise of their own faculties,; were inevitably influenced by his own time.” Even the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, understands men translate, especially very bright men, translate and read, through their own thoughts, rather than those of the time of the writers they are reading. It is not only wrong, it is incomprehensible, to posit for a writer, views which are not of works of his time or prior.
Harold Bloom took von Schlegel’s observation, because it was comparable to his own. Harold Bloom then added God and language. Henry VIII had revolted against Christ, it is true, but why did Harold Bloom insist Shakespeare had also? There is no proof any hero of Shakespeare had done so. Only by insisting the villains are not villains, while the heroes are lost, can he come to such a conclusion. On the ramparts of the castle in Elsinore, Marcellus said Horatio, who was a strong Roman, said their sighting of the ghost was only fantasy. Were the spirits which walked in Jerusalem after Christ’s blood touched the earth, on Good Friday, a fantasy? No! They actually appeared to many. Angels and demons have comforted and troubled many saints, in the time since. Marcellus is correct in holding Horatio would attempt not to let belief in the saints take hold of him, after his time at Wittenberg. Both Horatio and Marcellus had accompanied Hamlet to Wittenberg, where they had been exposed to new, heretical, beliefs. Though Horatio remained a Roman, he did not accept the appearance of the Holy Ghost, on the ramparts of Elsinore castle, even though Marcellus testified to such. Marcellus remained convinced his eyes were not lying to him, as did the Apostles, when confronted by the denial of doubting Thomas, who had not witnessed the presence of Christ in the upper room.
Judith was called upon by God, to behead Holofernes, the general of the Assyrian army. Judith looked for strength from Our Lord, affirming her striking Holofernes, would be done by God, through her hand. Judith held firmly this belief. Judith’s belief is one of only two beliefs, in the Bible. Just as she held her belief, that she was instructed to kill Holofernes, on orders from God, Himself, so Hamlet took his orders from the ghost, the Holy Ghost, that he should revenge the murder of King Hamlet, Pope Julius II. A man who received his order to avenge a crime against God, the assassination of a Pope, would not lack belief, in either Christ’s Church on earth, or in Christ, Himself. Marcellus knew the Ghost was real. He, like Judith, believed the ghost had a purpose in appearing. But Marcellus did not imagine he was worthy of carrying out the ghost’s instructions. Only Hamlet would be worthy. God, as Marcellus understood, does order the death of enemies of God. All men have always accepted this truth. The enemies of God have to be defeated if God’s people can continue to exist and grow in the world.
Jeremiah 5:22-24: Wiil not you then fear me, saith the Lord: and will you not repent at my presence? I have set the sand a bound for the sea, an everlasting ordinance, which it shall not pass over: and the waves thereof shall toss themselves, and shall not prevail: they shall swell, and shall not pass over it.
But the heart of this people is become hard of belief and provoking, they are revolted and gone away.
And they have not said in their heart: let us fear the Lord our God, who giveth us the early and the latter rain in due season: who preserveth for us the fullness of the yearly harvest.
The second belief in the Bible comes in Jeremiah chapter five. There God demanded repentance from the people of Israel, who had abandoned the Lord. The verse before these three verses is: Hear, O foolish people, and without understanding: who have eyes, and see not: and ears, and hear not.” Is it coincidence Marcellus speaks of eyes and speaking before the condemnation of God, to Israel? Every word of the play, may come from the Bible, which both von Schlegel, and Bloom, insist Shakespeare did not believe. What Henry VIII, was able to do, both for England, and other countries of Europe, was to deny “educated” men, any comprehension of Christ or the Fathers. Such men, could not read a sentence of works before their own time, and perceive any understanding. Shakespeare in Marcellus’s conversation decried the men who had overthrown Christ in England, as being “provoking, and they have revolted and gone away.” They had gone so far away, they could not perceive Whom they had lost. Whether Schlegel, a hundred and fifty years later, or Bloom, four hundred years later, were like the men who read his plays after having had lost their belief, but certainly Shakespeare had not.