ARTICLE IV. THE THEOLOGY OF HAMLET.1 For a drama is And just as the THOUGH Shakespeare was not a professed theologian, though he never studied in the schools, and probably never reduced his views to any consistent system, yet he has a theology. There can be no genuine drama without a theology. a living section cut out of human history. life of man needs a providence, so does this ideal representation taken from his life. A drama without a providence, would be like a landscape without an over-arching sky of blue; would be no drama at all. This is especially true of tragedy. For the true idea of the the tragic presupposes a moral desert or ill desert in the various characters of the play, which it is the office of the denouement, the catastrophe to meet. In short, a tragedy, rightly constructed, is an epitome of human life with the moral consequences of that life. To be lugubrious and bloody is not to be tragical. But, so to construct the Acts of a drama, and to interweave its Scenes, as to make the conclusion the legitimate moral outgrowth of its progress, so that the conclusion is justified by what has gone before, satisfies our moral sense; this is the true idea of the tragical. And, of course, to such a conception of the tragical, nothing can be more needful than an overruling providence. The dramatist, also, must not only have his theology, in accordance with which he shapes the general outlines of his work, arranges what is retributive in his work, acting the part of a providence in it; he must give a theology to the characters whom this retribution is to overtake. They must have a consciousness of right and wrong; they must be aware of the creeping over them and their lives, of that eclipse of punishment, which they have provoked. They, too, must be prepared to justify the ways of God toward themselves. Now, it is proposed to examine a single tragedy of the greatest of all dramatists, with reference to its theology. The play of Hamlet becomes a possibility only by belief in the supernatural. It is a purported communication from the world 1 The references in this article are to the "Globe edition" of Shakespeare; a very elegant and convenient edition, just published by Roberts Brothers, Boston. of spirits, that lies at the basis of all its complications, its plots and counterplots. It assumes, then, the immortality of the soul. Hamlet's father, having been "Cut off e'en in the blossoms of his sin, Unhouseled, disappointed, unaneled; No reckoning made, but sent to his account, With all his imperfections on his head," Act 1., sc. v., l. 76–79. his unpurged spirit finds no rest in the eternal world. Here we encounter the Papistic doctrine of purgatory. This soul having passed from the confines of earth without the Romish sacraments, is, according to his own account, "Doomed for a certain time to walk the night, Are burnt and purged away." Act I., sc. v., l. 10–13. The funeral rites denied the gentle Ophelia, for which Laertes gives vent to that spirited execration and prophesy, "I tell thee, churlish priest, A ministering angel shall my sister be, When thou liest howling," Act v., sc. I, 1. 262-264. as well as the country and age of the story, prove that the particular phase of Christianity disclosed here, is that of the Romish church. A belief in ghostly apparitions, as above intimated, springs from the doctrine of the soul's immortality, a doctrine which Hamlet directly affirms in the lines: "And for my soul, what can it do to that, Being a thing immortal as itself?" Act I. sc. Iv., 1. 66–67. Though itself a superstition, it yet implies a fundamental truth. And it is interesting to note the well-settled philosophy of the watch, who in that "witching hour" of night are awaiting the reappearance of the spirit that usurps "That fair and warlike form In which the majesty of buried Denmark Did sometimes march." Act 1, sc. 1., 1. 47-49. Horatio thus enumerates the probable causes of its unrest: "If there be any good thing to be done, That may to thee do ease, and grace to me, If thou art privy to thy country's fate, Or, if thou hast uphoarded in thy life Extorted treasure in the womb of earth, For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death, Horatio thinks it especially probable that some great political convulsion is at hand; as when "In the most high and palmy state of Rome, A little ere the mightiest Julius fell, The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead Act I., sc. I., 1. 112-116. These mysterious visitors have a limited time in which to absent themselves from the abodes of the dead. 66 When The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air, To his confine." Act I., sc. 1., l. 150–155. The existence of God, though not many times directly recognized in this play, is everywhere implied. A belief in this doctrine seems to surround the characters like an atmosphere. In his first soliloquy Hamlet speaks of him as "The Everlasting"; and twice exclaims his name in his agony to find relief from the wretchedness which his father's sudden death and his mother's untimely marriage have occasioned him. So, too, in the oaths and imprecations which he employs. When Horatio has begun the account of his encounter with his father's spirit, Hamlet entreats "For God's love, let me hear!" Act I., sc. II., 1. 195. And Horatio and Polonius, with slight variation, both employ this form of solemn affirmation, "before my God." "Before my God, I could not this believe Of mine own eyes." Act I., sc. L., 1. 56–57. "'Fore God, my lord, well spoken, with good accent and good discretion." Act II., sc. II., 1. 489. For a man to take God's name in vain is evidence that he be lieves in his existence. Even in the horrid curses which fall from human lips, where men imprecate the woes of the lost to rest upon each other's heads, their very language implies God's being and attributes. Profanity is the prayer of the ungodly ; a prayer of cursing instead of blessing. Ophelia, too, when, fantastically dressed in straws and flowers, she has sung that plaintive strain to her father's memory, "And will he not come again ?" closes it with the line, "God ha' mercy on his soul," and adds, "And of all Christian souls, I pray God. God be wi' you." Act IV., sc. v., l. 190–200. While Laertes, in his double anguish, lifts up his heart to heaven, as looking at the lovely ruin before him, he inquires, "Do you see this, O God?" Act IV., sc. v.. 1. 201. implying here a belief in his omniscience, his love, his justice. In his first soliloquy, also, Hamlet recognizes God's authority as his creator. He draws back from the horrible idea of terminating his life with his own hand, because of "His canon 'gainst self-slaughter." Act I., sc. II., l. 132. Here, too, as we may note in passing, is an acknowledgment of the inspiration of the Scriptures. For, Hamlet's reference must be to the commandment, "Thou shalt not kill." Polonius, also, that very model of a courtier, whose conceit of himself and his diplomatic arts betrays him into the sacrifice of his life, thus at one breath, asseverates his loyalty to his to his earthly and to his heavenly King: "Assure you, my good liege, I hold my duty, as I hold my soul, Both to my God, and to my gracious king." Act II., sc. II., 1. 44-46. The doctrine of fore-ordination is expressly implied in what Hamlet says after he has really slain this same Polonius: "For this same lord, I do repent: but heaven hath pleas'd it so; Act II., sc. v., 1. 172-175. as well as in that oft-quoted passage, "There's a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough hew them how we will:" Act V., sc. II., l. 10–11, as, also, in what he says about meeting Laertes: "If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all: since no man has aught of what he leaves, what is't to leave betimes." Act v., sc. II., 1. 231–235. So, too, when Hamlet is accounting for his escape from the snare set for his life by his uncle, the same doctrine is recognized. Horatio inquires how the forged commission was scaled, and Hamlet answers: "Why, even in that was heaven ordinant; I had my father's signet in my purse." Act v., sc. II., l. 48, 49. An overruling providence is taught in such passages as these, when Hamlet's uncle upbraids him for persevering in his grief for his father's loss: "To persever In obstinate condolement is a course Of impious stubbornness; 'tis unmanly grief; It shows a will most incorrect to heaven, A heart unfortified, a mind impatient : Fie! 'tis a fault to heaven." Act I., sc. II., 1. 92-95 and 101. The hereditary transmission of evil, physical and moral, Hamlet notices in his discourse respecting Danish revels: though he denies personal accountability for this taint. "So, oft it chances in particular men, That for some vicious mole of nature in them, As infinite as man may undergo), Shall in the general censure, take corruption From that particular fault." Act 1., sc. Iv., 1. 23–36. This hereditary transmission of evil that insures human sinful |
