A Christian Pattern In Shakespeare’s Tragedies

By George F. Held

The compositional pattern documented in this book consists of two elements. The first is taken from Romeo and Juliet and is relatively simple. It consists of a situation in which both Romeo and Juliet find themselves: each survives the death of the other. The protagonists of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies are put into this same situation: each survives the death of the woman he loves most. The second element is taken from Richard III and is more complex: it involves the motives of the protagonist. Each of the protagonists, like Richard, has two sets of motives, primary and secondary. The primary motives are unformulated to the his con¬scious mind, less clear, unavowed, but also more profound, more character¬istic, more general, more real, more important. The secondary motives are his ostensible motives; they are clear, partic¬ular, consciously known, openly professed, but ultimately more superficial, less charac¬teristic, less real or even unreal, less important.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jul 14, 2014
• ISBN: 9781312355026

Book preview

A Christian Pattern In Shakespeare’s Tragedies

A Christian Pattern In Shakespeare’s Tragedies

By

George F. Held

A Christian Pattern In Shakespeare’s Tragedies

Second Edition

Copyright © 2013 George F. Held

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-312-35502-6

Preface

This is an expanded version of my book: The Good That Lives After Them: A Pattern in Shakespeare’s Tragedies (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag C. Winter, 1995). The final two chapters, those on Othello, are not found in the earlier version. They, parts of this preface, the first footnote of Chapter 1, and the Addenda to Chapter 2 are additions to the earlier work. The reasons for the change in the title are explained in Addendum 2 at the end of Chapter 2.

The Good That Lives After Them is the second of two interconnected volumes. In the first: Aristotle’s Teleological Theory of Tragedy and Epic, (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag C. Winter, 1995) I propose and defend a teleological interpreta­tion of Aristotle’s theory of tragedy. I argue that the key adjectives in Aristotle’s definitions of tragedy and comedy, spoudaios (serious or good) and geloios (ludicrous or comic), are there and frequently elsewhere in Aristotle teleologi­cal terms. Aristotle in these definitions means to distinguish between tragedy and comedy, epic and satire, in terms of that philosophical concept which lies at the heart of his whole philosophy, teleology. Tragedy and epic imitate actions which are well directed at the end proper to man’s nature, happiness (or, to put it more generally, at good ends); comedy and satire imitate actions of the opposite sort. This is not the only distinction which he draws between these genres, but it is the major one. It follows from this conception of tragedy that dramatic charac­ters (and real people) are tragic not only in proportion to the pathos which they suffer but also to the spoudē (zeal for good ends) which they manifest in the actions which lead to their suffering and death. I demonstrate in the first volume how this view of tragedy and epic is borne out by the example of The Gilga­mesh Epic, the Iliad and Sophocles’ Antigone. Here I present interpretations of Shake­speare’s Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, and Othello which will demonstrate that these plays also fit this conception of the nature of tragedy.

The chapter on Hamlet is a slightly expanded version of my article, Hamlet’s Other Purpose, Anglia 106 (1988): 315-37. The discussion of the murder of Polonius is somewhat fuller than before; there are a few more notes, and some of the notes have been expanded. That article and hence also the chapter herein on Hamlet derive from a chapter in my dissertation, Aristotle’s Teleological Theory of Tragedy (Univ. of California, Berkeley, 1981). The essay herein on King Lear, Macbeth and Richard III did not form part of my dissertation, although an essay on the first two of these plays was part of my dissertation as originally conceived and planned. Time constraints prevented the inclusion of such an essay in the completed version. My basic ideas about these plays, however, were formed back then. Their expression has engendered some new ideas, especially my theory that there is a pattern encompassing all these plays.

I wish to thank my dissertation directors, Donald J. Mastronarde and Mark Griffith, for allowing me to write about Shakespeare in a dissertation in Classics. This book is the belated fruit of their generosity and open-mindedness. I wish also to thank my wife, Donna Kuizenga, for her support and encouragement during the years in which this book was written.

Hamlet is cited from the Arden edition, ed. Harold Jenkins (London: Methuen, 1982). Other works of Shakespeare are cited from The Riverside Shakespeare, ed. G. Blakemore Evans (Boston: Houghton, 1974). The titles of Shakespeare’s works are abbreviated as in Shakespeare Quarterly.

1: A Pattern in Shakespeare’s Tragedies

The evil that men do lives after them,

The good is oft interred with their bones;

So let it be with Caesar.

And with Hamlet, Lear and Macbeth.[1] Critics seem often to have been guided by such a sentiment. Analysis has tended to concentrate on the evil that these characters do rather than the good. I do not doubt that they all do some evil and that at least one of them, Macbeth, does much more evil than good, but it seems to me that the ends and motives of all three are fundamen­tally good and that only for this reason do they seem to us as tragic as they do. Of course, whether a character is tragic or not, how tragic he is, and whether an end or motive is good or not, are all matters of opinion. In my subsequent discussion of Hamlet, King Lear and Macbeth I will assume that the protagonists of these plays are all quite tragic but will not attempt to prove that they are nor that their motives are good. But I will attribute certain motives to these protagonists and will argue that their motives are what I say they are. The reader who accepts my argu­ments about the nature of their motives and agrees with my opinion that these motives are fundamentally good will see that these three plays confirm the validity of Aristotle’s theory of tragedy, as I interpret it, rather than stand as monumental exceptions to it.

I hope, however, not merely to demonstrate that these three plays confirm the validity of Aristotle’s theory as I interpret it, but also to document a theory of my own about the composition of these plays. Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth of course, along with Othello, form a special group. Not only were they written in the same short span of years and are generally considered to be Shake­speare’s four greatest tragedies, but they seem to possess a peculiar dramatic and poetic power found nowhere else in the Shakespear­ean corpus. My theory applies in full to only the first three of these plays, and it is only they which I will discuss in detail, but it applies also in part to the fourth play, Othello (and to some extent to a fifth, Antony and Cleopatra; I will discuss the relation of Antony and Cleopatra to this theory in Chapter 4). In presenting my theory I will use two terms which, for the sake of clarity, I will now define. By catastro­phe I mean specifically the death of the protagonist—or protagonists, if there is more than one. Romeo and Juliet and Antony and Cleopatra are the only Shakespearean plays to which I make reference in which there is in my opinion more than one protagonist. By climax I mean of course the end of the play, but more specifi­cally that part of its end in which the catastrophe takes place. The climax may encompass more or less than the final scene: in Hamlet it consists of only a part of the final scene (V.ii.225ff.); this is also the case with King Lear (V.iii.258ff.); in Macbeth the climax consists of the final two scenes together and of the interval between them, for Macbeth dies off stage during that interval.

My theory is that there exists in Hamlet, King Lear and Macbeth a compositional pattern which is a product of the combi­nation of two elements; one of these elements is found also in Othello. These elements are derived from two of Shakespeare’s earlier tragedies, Romeo and Juliet and Richard III. The element taken from each of the earlier tragedies is closely associated with and at least partly responsi­ble for the chief excellence of the play from which it is taken. The element taken from Romeo and Juliet is relatively simple and appears in all four of the later tragedies; it consists of a situation which in Romeo and Juliet occurs at the climax of the play and in the later plays either at or shortly before the climax. All but one of the protagonists of the later plays react to this situation in a manner similar to that in which Romeo and Juliet react to it. That one, Macbeth, reacts to it in a remarkably dissimilar manner. But the reactions of all, without exception, greatly enhance the tragic quality of their subsequent deaths. The element taken from Richard III is much more complex: it consists of a compositional pattern, involving both the action of the play and the psychology of the protagonist. This element recurs in only three of the later tragedies, the three which I will discuss in detail.

For never was a story of more woe

Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.

This couplet provides not only a neat closure to Romeo and Juliet but also an accurate assessment of it. Its chief excellence is the tragic quality of its catastrophe. In regard at least to this one criterion, Romeo and Juliet not only surpasses all of Shakespeare’s other early tragedies but can rival any tragedy.[2] What makes its catastrophe so tragic of course is not simply the fact that the young lovers die nor that each dies by his own hand, but rather the signif­i­cance which pertains to their deaths: that the death of each is an act of love for the other. That their deaths have this significance, moreover, is due not just to the acts of will by which each chooses to die for the other, but also to the particular situation in which each finds himself when he makes this act of will. It is this situa­tion which induces each to will his own death. The essence of the situation is this: each survives the death (or supposed death) of the other. Their reactions to this situation are the same: each grieves for the other, and then out of grief takes his own life and thus proves by his sacrificial death his love for the other. It is no mere coincidence that at or shortly before the climax of each of Shake­speare’s four greatest tragedies the protagonist is put into virtually this same situation: each survives the death of the person he loves most—or more precisely: each of the male protagonists in these plays survives the death of the woman he loves most. Hamlet survives the death of Ophelia; Lear the death of Cordelia; Macbeth the death of Lady Macbeth; and Othello the death of Desdemona. Hamlet has survived also the death of his father and therefore finds himself in an analogous situation right from the start of the play; Ophelia’s death provides us a second chance to observe his reaction to it. How these protagonists react to this situation is as important to their plays as how Romeo and Juliet react to it is to theirs. Each play focuses closely on the manner of the protagonist’s grief. In each case the manner of his grief is an index to the quality of his love for the deceased; and in each case his behavior on this occasion contributes greatly to the tragic quality of his own subse­quent death.

The case of Othello is of course most analogous to those of Romeo and Juliet, for only he among the protagonists of the four later tragedies overtly commits suicide. Unlike Romeo and Juliet, however, he has other motives for killing himself besides a desire to express his love for his beloved. He wishes to die also in order to punish himself (V.ii.352-56) and to abandon his ruined life (V.ii.289-90). The existence of these other motives might obscure the role of his death as an expression of his love for Desdemona—if Shakespeare did not have Othello emphasize his love for her in his last speech of length: Then must you speak / Of one that lov’d not wisely but too well (V.ii.343-44) and if Shakespeare did not specifically model Othello’s death on those of Romeo and Juliet. Each of these three characters not only commits suicide for the sake of his/her beloved but dies while or shortly after kissing his/her beloved. Each, before kissing the beloved, expresses an intention to do so, using the word kiss at least once (Romeo kisses Juliet twice, each time following this same routine). Each, while dying, falls on or by the beloved and in death lies on or next to the be­loved. Othello’s last words recall those of Romeo: I kiss’d thee ere I kill’d thee. No way but this, / Killing myself, to die upon a kiss (Oth. V.ii.358-59); Thus with a kiss I die (Rom. V.iii.120). Othello stabs himself as does Juliet and then dies as expeditiously as she.

The case of Macbeth is of course least analogous to those of Romeo and Juliet: he grieves not at all over the death of his be­loved. His reaction to her death however, for reasons which I explain below, adds enormously to the tragic quality of his own subsequent death. This most perverse of tragedies therefore paral­lels the others, if somewhat perversely, in regard to the nature of its catastrophe.

It is of course characteristic of Elizabethan tragedy that deaths accumulate at the end of the play and especially that the protagonist or protagonists die at the end of the play. In regard to Shake­speare’s greatest and most tragic tragedies, however, we can be more precise: it is characteristic of these tragedies not only that the protagonist or protagonists die at the end, but also that the death of each be preceded shortly by the death of the person he loves most (this person’s death occurs within the last one-fifth of the play,[3] and not from natural causes), that he make an extravagant display on stage of grief or lack of grief over the death of this person, and that in either case his reaction to this person’s death greatly enhance the tragic quality of his own subsequent death. (Grief which leads to the death of the be­reaved, as is the case with Romeo, Juliet, Othello and Lear, or to an offer to die for the deceased, as is the case with Hamlet, is by definition extravagant.) The protago­nist’s reaction to this person’s death is as integral and important to these tragedies as is his own subsequent death. This formula can be refined further; I will refine it further in Chapter 4 (its refinement will allow me to point out some significant differences be­tween Antony and Cleopatra and these other plays; these differenc­es are the reason why I have largely excluded Antony and Cleopa­tra from the above discussion).

The chief excellence of Richard III is clearly the character of its protagonist. As has often been observed, Richard in this regard is a forerunner of the protagonists of Shakespeare’s greatest trage­dies. What exactly his character shares with theirs however is hard to say. Not knowing what this common trait is, I can hardly ex­plain how Richard comes to possess it, much less how it should be transferred from him to others. There is however an identifiable element in Richard III which undoubtedly contributes greatly to the impression which its protagonist makes upon us and which I will argue is present also in Hamlet, King Lear and Macbeth. I believe that its presence in these plays helps to explain why their protago­nists seem to have so much in common with Richard. Of course, its presence in these plays can hardly help to explain why the protago­nist of Othello should have so much in common with Richard. In my estimation, however, he does not. Richard, in my opinion, is much more a forerunner of Hamlet, Lear and Macbeth than he is of Othello. Othello may be as great a dramatic figure as these others, but he is much more transpar­ent than they. Richard, Hamlet, Lear and Macbeth puzzle us in a way that Othello does not. They pos­sess a complexity which he lacks. This of course is a matter of opinion. The reader can decide for himself about this and about the validity of the cause and effect relationship which I see between the element common to these plays and the trait shared by their protag­onists. Whatever his opinion about either matter, the mere existence of a common element in these plays should be of interest to him.

The common element is the following compositional pattern. In each of these plays the protagonist has two sets of motives, primary and secondary. The primary motives are unformulated to his con­scious mind, less clear, unavowed, but also more profound, more character­istic, more general, more real, more important. The secondary motives are his ostensible motives; they are clear, partic­ular, consciously known, openly professed (if not to others, at least to himself and to us), but ultimately more superficial, less charac­teristic, less real or even unreal, less important. Not every aspect of this description will apply in the case of each of the protagonists, but the description suits the case of each generally. For example, Hamlet’s two sets of motives are best distinguished in terms of their importance to him; they might also be distinguished in terms of particularity and generality, profundity, clarity, etc., but they are not well distinguished in terms of realness: one set is more impor­tant to him than the other but not more real than it. The distinction between real and unreal or real and professed motives, however, applies very well in the case of Lear. The relationship between the two sets of motives will also vary. In the case of Hamlet they compete and conflict with each other; in the case of Macbeth, as also in that of Richard III, they rather complement each other: the primary motives engender the secondary; in the case of Lear, as my preceding remark implies, one set is merely a screen for the other. Each set of motives is revealed in a similar manner in each play: the secondary motives are revealed at or near the start of the play; the primary motives are revealed most clearly, if not exclu­sively, in a speech or set of short speeches shortly before the climax of the play. Lastly, in each case the primary motives are ethically superior to the secondary motives (ethically in the broad and Classical sense: = morally and/or intellectual­ly). It is for this reason that their revelation has the effect of obtaining for the protagonist a greater degree of our sympathy and hence of aug­menting, in our eyes, the tragic quality of his subse­quent death.

This pattern is most obvious in Richard III. In his opening monologue Richard cites one motive for his actions: a desire to prove a villain (I.i.30) and implies also the existence of another: a desire to be king. The second of these is not perfectly clear from that monologue since Richard therein does not indicate what is the ultimate purpose of his plots (32), but their ultimate purpose becomes clear soon enough and would have been clear to Shake­speare’s audience right from the start since they were familiar with Richard’s notorious career. These two motives, a desire to be a villain and a desire to be king, are Richard’s secondary motives.

In a monologue—or, more precisely, a dialogue with himself—shortly before the climax of the play he cites in effect two other motives for his actions: self-hatred and self-destructiveness:

Is there a murtherer here? No. Yes, I am.

Then fly. What, from myself? Great reason why—

Lest I revenge. What, myself upon myself?

Alack, I love myself. Wherefore? For any good

That I myself have done unto myself?

O no! Alas, I rather hate myself

For hateful deeds committed by myself.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I shall despair; there is no creature loves me,

And if I die no soul will pity me.

And wherefore should they, since that I myself

Find in myself no pity to myself? (V.iii.184-204)

These other two motives are Richard’s primary motives; they are more profound, more characteristic, truer, more important, more general and in a sense more real than his secondary motives. His secondary motives however are real enough and important. The revelation of the primary motives does not cause us to discount the secondary motives but rather to understand them better. We know that they derive ultimately from his primary motives. The general description of primary and secondary motives above does not fit the case of Richard in just one respect: though he is unconscious of his primary motives at the start of the play, he becomes conscious of them later and formulates them clearly for us shortly before the play’s climax. The other protagonists are never conscious of their primary motives, never formulate them clearly, never subject themselves to the sort of self-analysis that Richard does. What they say at or shortly before the climax reveals their primary motives but does so only suggestively, allusively, indirectly.

The two elements derived from the earlier plays do not merely coexist in the later ones but combine to form a single whole. The compositional pattern which I hope to document therefore is some­what more complex than that just described, for it includes the element from Romeo and Juliet as an integral part of it. The man­ner in which these elements combine is as follows. In the three plays in which this pattern is found there is of course something which precipitates the speech or speeches in which the protagonist reveals his primary motives. In Richard III this something is a dream: it is in reaction to a dream that Richard engages in his self-dialogue. In the later plays this something is the element borrowed from Romeo and Juliet: in them it is in reaction to the death of his beloved that the protagonist reveals the nature of his primary motives. There is a slight deviation from this pattern in King Lear: what Lear says after the death of Cordelia confirms the nature of his primary motives, but the speeches by him which most clearly reveal his primary motives shortly precede her death. He speaks these speeches, however, in reaction to some­thing closely associated with her death: the defeat of the French forces and the conse­quent capture of Cordelia and himself by the enemy; it is of course their capture which leads directly to Cordelia’s death.

The derivation of these elements from the earlier plays natu­rally cannot be proven. The element from Richard III however is so complex as virtually to preclude the possibility of a merely fortuitous relationship among the plays in which it appears. The element from Romeo and Juliet, on the other hand, is simple enough and perhaps common enough that such a relationship among the plays in which it appears cannot prima facie be excluded (this element in fact is not nearly as common as one might think, as I will show below). In any case, I will not attempt to prove a generative relationship between the earlier plays and the later ones but merely that the elements found in the earlier plays are present also in the later ones. I see a generative relationship between the earlier and the later plays, however, not merely because of the presence of the same elements in both but also because it seems to me only natural that Shakespeare should reuse and adapt in his later tragedies the most successful elements from his earlier ones. The parallels which my analysis will uncover support the thesis that he did.

Those eager to see a demonstration of my theory about a compositional pattern in these plays will perhaps be disappointed to learn that I say almost nothing about it in what follows—at least not directly. The reason why direct references to it are so few is very simple: I had already written most of what follows before develop­ing this theory. I did not develop it until undertaking to contrast Mac­beth’s motives with those of Richard III, which I do in the last chapter. The preceding chapters had already been written before I began work on the last one. There will therefore be no mention of a compositional pattern in my discussion of Hamlet; my discussion of it was written long before I developed my theory. I have rewrit­ten much of my discussion of King Lear and Macbeth since devel­oping my theory, but not for the sake of incorporating into it references to that theory. It seemed to me both awkward and unnecessary to do so. How these plays fit my theory is explained near the end of the last chapter. How they fit it, however, should already by then be obvious. The terminology: primary and secondary motives, for example, is used throughout the discus­sion of Hamlet: it is in fact derived from that discussion. In con­trast, this terminology is used very rarely in the discussion of King Lear and Macbeth. Indeed the two terms are used together there only once—in the first paragraph of Chapter 3. Once in Chapter 4 I speak of Mac­beth’s primary motive for regicide, but these words are from my original draft: they may now be taken as a reference to my general theory about a compositional pattern, but were not originally intended to be.[4] I did not originally think of Lear and Macbeth as having two sets of motives because I considered those motives of theirs, which I now see as secondary, to be unreal, either completely or relatively. In other words, because I disputed the reality of one of their two sets of motives, I did not think of them as having two sets of motives. It was not until I considered the case of Richard, both of whose sets of motives are clearly real, that I saw the analogy between his case and Hamlet’s, and then between their cases together and those of Lear and Mac­beth.

I offer this information not for its bio­graphical value but in order to explain the somewhat indirect approach which I have taken to the documentation of my theory in what follows. Neither of the subse­quent essays (the last three chapters [= Chapters 3, 4, & 5 in this edition] constitute one continuous essay) was written or rewritten expressly for the purpose of demon­strating the validity of my general theory. In the whole of my discussion of King Lear and Macbeth there are only a few passing references to it. I found it awkward, and thought it unnecessary, to include more references to it because, before developing this general theory, I had organized my discussion of these plays so as to allow me to document a more particular theory about them: that they are opposites. This more particular theory seems to me as important as the more general one. The more particular theory, moreover, has been for me a stepping-stone to the more general one. I think it can be so also for others.

---

[1] This chapter is reprinted here as it was in the original version of this book, except for the addition of this footnote. In the original version there were no chapters on Othello and few references to it outside of this chapter. Even in this chapter it was given short shrift because I believed then that only the first of the two elements of the compositional pattern which I found in Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth was present in Othello. I now realize that I was wrong about that: the second element of the pattern is present also in it, but with a big twist. I explain the nature of that twist in Chapter 6 below.

[2] Charlton argues that "as a pattern of the idea of tragedy, it [Romeo and Juliet] is a failure. Even Shakespeare appears to have felt that, as an experiment, it had disappointed him. At all events, he abandoned himself for the next few years to history and comedy; and even afterwards, he fought shy of the simple theme of love, and of the love of anybody less than a great political figure, as main matter for his tragedies" (39). In Romeo and Juliet Shakespeare reveals that he did not yet possess a grasp of the foundations of tragedy (39). I cannot follow many of Charlton’s arguments and thoroughly disagree with many of his conclusions for more reasons than I can go into here. I will merely say that as evidence of Shakespeare’s opinion of Romeo and Juliet the interval between its compo­sition and that of his later tragedies seems to me much less significant than the outstanding similarity between it and the best of them. This similarity strongly suggests that he thought his early play quite successful as a pattern of the idea of tragedy and that he was right to think so.

[3] According to Oxford Shakespeare Concordances there are 3907 lines in Hamlet and 3637 in Antony and Cleopatra. Ophelia’s death is announced in line 3156 (= Ham. IV.vii.164), that is, with slightly less than 20% of the play remaining. Antony falls on his sword after line 2944 (= Ant. IV.xiv.102), that is, with slightly less than 20% of the play remaining, and dies at line 3074 (= Ant. IV.xv.62), that is, with slightly less than 16% of the play remaining. I will discuss the relationship of Antony and Cleopatra to our formula in Chapter 4.

[4] I use the phrase primary motive once also in my discussion of King Lear—at the very end of it, where I bring in Creeth’s thesis that King Lear is modelled on The Pride of Life. The phrase there does constitute a reference to my general theory, but this is the one section of my discussion of King Lear which was not in any way part of my original draft. I did not discover Creeth’s book until after having written the first draft and after having developed my general theory.

2: Hamlet’s Other Purpose

Hamlet first appears on stage in the second scene; he does not learn of his father’s murder until the fifth. That he is present­ed to us before learning of that murder is a most impor­tant element in the play’s structure, for Shakespeare employs that second scene to bring out that Hamlet, even before learning of his father’s murder and of the need to avenge it, already has another purpose to which he is passionately dedicated. This other purpose remains of primary importance to him throughout the play. His pursuit of it, I will argue, is what impedes his pursuit of the purpose of revenge.

His first speech of length (I.ii.76-86) suggests what is the nature of this other purpose. Hamlet therein asserts that his grief, unlike his mother’s, really is and does not merely seem. But why does he, or why would anyone, place so great a value on real rather than merely apparent grief? The answer is simple and unmistakable: because he considers the quality of one’s grief to be an index to the quality of one’s love. His mother’s grief merely seems and is not true grief, and from this fact he concludes that her love for his father merely seemed and was not true love. His grief and his love, he protests, really are and do not merely seem. His primary purpose throughout the rest of the play, I suggest, is to prove that what he says here is true. Before discussing further the nature of his primary purpose and the means by which he will achieve it, we ought first to consider the additional evidence that Hamlet believes that his mother never really loved his father, and consider also the general and sweeping conclusions which he draws from this fact.

That Hamlet believes his mother’s current relationship with Claudius is one of lust, not love, is implied in his first monologue (for example, Frailty, thy name is woman: I.ii.146), and is brought out explicitly in his remarks to her in her closet. Hamlet there express­es some doubt that a woman of his mother’s age can be afflicted with lust (III.iv.68-70), but in the end seems to conclude that his mother’s actions can be explained on no other basis:

O shame, where is thy blush?

Rebellious hell,

If thou canst mutine in a matron’s bones,

To flaming youth let virtue be as wax

And melt in her own fire; proclaim no shame

When the compulsive ardour gives the charge,

Since frost itself as actively doth burn

And reason panders will. (III.iv.81-88)

His remarks there, furthermore, make clear his belief that his mother’s present relationship with Claudius reflects back on the nature of her earlier relationship with his father:

Such an act

That blurs the grace and blush of modesty,

Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose

From the fair forehead of an innocent love

And sets a blister there, makes marriage vows

As false as dicers’ oaths—O, such a deed

As from the body of contraction plucks

The very soul, and sweet religion makes

A rhapsody of words. (III.iv.40-48)

He seems to assume that if his mother is capable of lust now, she has never been capable of anything but lust, and that the love which he thought to have existed between her and his father was an illusion (cf. Grebanier 195). It is not just his mother, however, whom he accuses of lust. Her frailty is that of her sex, and all women in his eyes are guilty of the same fault as she: I have heard of your paintings well enough. God hath given you one face and you make yourselves another. You jig and amble, and you lisp, you nick-name God’s creatures, and make your wantonness your ignorance. Go to, I’ll no more on’t, it hath made me mad (III.i.144-49).[5] He makes the same assumption about women in general as about his mother: if they are capable of lust, they are incapable of love. It is specifically the idea that women are incapa­ble of love which makes him mad.

It is not only women, however, whose moral fiber he ques­tions. Men, including himself, he considers equally degenerate: Get thee to a nunnery. Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest, but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me. I am very proud, revenge­ful, ambitious, with more offences at my beck than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in. What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves all, believe none of us (III.i.121-30). Therefore, in reaction to his mother’s mar­riage, all women in his eyes are convicted of lust, and all men, with the possible exception of Horatio (cf. III.iii.54-74), of general turpitude. As a result, neither men nor women please him: Man delights not me—nor woman neither (II.ii.309-10). And also as a result, he passes sentence on them. The sentence is as he states it to Ophelia: "I say we will have no mo marriage.