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Guilty Creatures Sitting at a Play: A Note on Hamlet, Act II, Scene 2

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Patricia S. Gourlay
Patricia S. Gourlay*
Affiliation:
State University College at Oneonta, N.Y.
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Extract

When Hamlet calls on the player to render a speech from 'Aeneas’ tale to Dido,’ his choice of subject offers some obvious parallels to his own situation. Hecuba, the archetypal grieving queen, is an effective contrast to Gertrude. Pyrrhus’ vengeance for his father's death is a reminder of the duty laid on Hamlet, as well as on Laertes and Fortinbras. Bloody Pyrrhus embodies the savage violence which both attracts and repels Hamlet. The player's speech has a more important function, however: it leads directly to Hamlet's ‘mousetrap’ strategy, the presentation of a play for Claudius. Hecuba's woes and the familiar idea of the guilty spectator at a play were already associated in a passage from Plutarch which probably was in Shakespeare's mind.

Type
Research Article
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , Summer 1971 , pp. 221 - 225
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1971

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References

1 Neither in the Aeneid nor in Marlowe's Dido, Queen of Carthage does revenge appear as an important motif. Aeneas as narrator in each account stresses the pure savagery of Priam's murder. In the Aeneid, Priam reproaches Pyrrhus as unworthy of his father; even Pyrrhus, replying, does not claim the justice of vengeance. In Marlowe's play, though Pyrrhus does dip his father's flag in Priam's blood, Marlowe insists far more on Pyrrhus’ character as a ‘butcher’ at whom even Jove's statue frowns.

2 In Shakespeare and the Classical Tradition (Minneapolis, 1968), pp. 313, 326, John W. Velz cites two nineteenth-century articles also noting this parallel with Plutarch. The connection seems to have been entirely overlooked by later commentators, even those who have been at pains to explain Hecuba's presence in the player's speech.

3 Alexander of Pherae, defeated by Epaminondas in 363 B.C.

4 Plutarch, , The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romanes, tr. North, Thomas (Oxford, 1928), III, 43 Google Scholar

5 Levin, Harry, The Question of Hamlet (New York, 1959), p. 156.Google Scholar

6 An Apology for Poetry or The Defence of Poesy, ed. Shepherd, Geoffrey (Edinburgh, 1965), p. 118 Google Scholar. Sidney's account could not by itself have provided Shakespeare with his material, since he does not say what play Alexander watched, nor does he mention Troy as its subject.

7 Gaunt, D. W. in ‘Hamlet and Hecuba,’ Notes & Queries, 26 (1969), 136–137 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, suggests this Plutarchan version of the story rather than the Lives as Shakespeare's source. He bases his suggestion largely on the relationship between ‘working on iron’ and Hamlet's ‘muddy-mettled rascal.’ Even if we assume mat Shakespeare had some access to the Moralia, the version in the Lives seems closer, with its reference to Alexander's ‘guilt.’ Sidney, however, certainly seems to echo Plutarch's diction in the Moralia. The story is also used to show this moral power of poetry by Muret. See Apology, p. 190, n. 7.

8 In the description of that ‘well-painted piece’ there may also be a reflection of Plutarch. In the Life of Brutus, Portia is described in Brutus’ absence as weeping over a tapestry showing Hector's farewell to Andromache. Sarrazin's observation of this connection is cited in William Shakespeare, Poems, ed. Hyder E. Rollins, New Variorum Edition (Philadelphia, 1938), pp. 232-233, nn. 1429-32.

9 Sidney's imagination again runs at least parallel to Shakespeare's in Astrophel & Stella, Sonnet 45: Then think, my dear, that you in me do read Of lover's ruin some sad tragedy; I am not I; pity the tale of me.

10 These associations with the Trojan War are explored at length in Robert Kimbrough's Shakespeare's Troilus & Cressida and Its Setting (Cambridge, Mass., 1964).

11 Mack, Maynard, ‘The World of Hamlet,’ Yale Review, 41 (1951), 502–523.Google Scholar

12 Peter Ure, ‘Character and Role from Richard III to Hamlet,’ Hamlet (Stratford-on- Avon Studies 5, 1963), p. 22. This essay is typical of many which assume that Hamlet sees the player's speech merely as pretending

13 Op. cit., p. 514.

14 Op. cit., pp. 158-160.