Hamlet (legend)
Encyclopedia
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
tragedy, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
Hamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
.
The chief authority for the legend of Hamlet is Saxo Grammaticus
Saxo Grammaticus
Saxo Grammaticus also known as Saxo cognomine Longus was a Danish historian, thought to have been a secular clerk or secretary to Absalon, Archbishop of Lund, foremost advisor to Valdemar I of Denmark. He is the author of the first full history of Denmark.- Life :The Jutland Chronicle gives...
, who devotes to it parts of the third and fourth books of his Gesta Danorum
Gesta Danorum
Gesta Danorum is a patriotic work of Danish history, by the 12th century author Saxo Grammaticus . It is the most ambitious literary undertaking of medieval Denmark and is an essential source for the nation's early history...
, completed at the beginning of the 13th century. There are no means of determining whether Saxo derived his information in this case from oral or written sources.
Saxo's version
According to Saxo, Hamlet's history is briefly as follows. Gervendill, governor of JutlandJutland
Jutland , historically also called Cimbria, is the name of the peninsula that juts out in Northern Europe toward the rest of Scandinavia, forming the mainland part of Denmark. It has the North Sea to its west, Kattegat and Skagerrak to its north, the Baltic Sea to its east, and the Danish–German...
, was succeeded by his sons Horvendill and Feng
Feng (Claudius)
Feng was a legendary Jutish chieftain and the prototype for William Shakespeare's King Claudius. He appears in Chronicon Lethrense and in Saxo Grammaticus' Gesta Danorum ....
. Horvendill, on his return from a Viking
Viking
The term Viking is customarily used to refer to the Norse explorers, warriors, merchants, and pirates who raided, traded, explored and settled in wide areas of Europe, Asia and the North Atlantic islands from the late 8th to the mid-11th century.These Norsemen used their famed longships to...
expedition in which he had slain Koll, king of Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
, married Gerutha, daughter of Rørik Slyngebond, king of Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
; she bore him a son, Amleth. But Feng, out of jealousy, murdered Horvendill, and persuaded Gerutha to become his wife, on the plea that he had committed the crime for no other reason than to avenge her of a husband by whom she had been hated. Amleth, afraid of sharing his father's fate, pretended to be an imbecile, but the suspicion of Feng put him to various tests which are related in detail. Among other things they sought to entangle him with a young girl, his foster-sister, but his cunning saved him. When, however, Amleth slew the eavesdropper hidden (like Polonius
Polonius
Polonius is a character in William Shakespeare's Hamlet. He is King Claudius's chief counsellor, and the father of Ophelia and Laertes. Polonius connives with Claudius to spy on Hamlet...
in Shakespeare's play), in his mother's room, and destroyed all trace of the deed, Feng was assured that the young man's madness was feigned. Accordingly he dispatched him to Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
in company with two attendants, who bore a letter enjoining the king of the country to put him to death. Amleth surmised the purport of their instructions, and secretly altered the message on their wooden tablets to the effect that the king should put the attendants to death and give Amleth his daughter in marriage.
After marrying the princess, Amleth returned at the end of a year to Denmark. Of the wealth he had accumulated he took with him only certain hollow sticks filled with gold. He arrived in time for a funeral feast, held to celebrate his supposed death. During the feast he plied the courtiers with wine, and executed his vengeance during their drunken sleep by fastening down over them the woolen hangings of the hall with pegs he had sharpened during his feigned madness, and then setting fire to the palace. Feng he slew with his own sword. After a long harangue to the people he was proclaimed king. Returning to Britain for his wife he found that his father-in-law and Feng had been pledged each to avenge the other's death. The English king, unwilling personally to carry out his pledge, sent Amleth as proxy wooer for the hand of a terrible Scottish queen Hermuthruda, who had put all former wooers to death but fell in love with Amleth. On his return to Britain his first wife, whose love proved stronger than her resentment, told him of her father's intended revenge. In the battle which followed Amleth won the day by setting up the dead men of the day before with stakes, and thus terrifying the enemy. He then returned with his two wives to Jutland, where he had to encounter the enmity of Wiglek, Rorik's successor. He was slain in a battle against Wiglek, and Hermuthruda, although she had promised to die with him, married the victor. Saxo states that Amleth was buried on a plain or "heath" in Jutland, famous for his name and burial place. In 1933 a stone was raised in Amleth's memory on a burial mound near the tiny Jutlandic village of Ammelhede, which according to local tradition means "Amleth's heath" and is the site of the historical Hamlet's grave. However the burial mound itself is from the bronze age, erected 1700 years before the time that Hamlet was supposed to have lived according to Saxo.
Chronicon Lethrense and Annales lundenses
The even earlier source Chronicon LethrenseChronicon Lethrense
Chronicon Lethrense is a small Danish medieval work from the 12th century, written in Latin.-Themes:...
(and the included Annales Lundenses) tells that the Danish king Rorik Slengeborre put Orwendel and Feng
Feng (Claudius)
Feng was a legendary Jutish chieftain and the prototype for William Shakespeare's King Claudius. He appears in Chronicon Lethrense and in Saxo Grammaticus' Gesta Danorum ....
as his rulers in Jutland
Jutland
Jutland , historically also called Cimbria, is the name of the peninsula that juts out in Northern Europe toward the rest of Scandinavia, forming the mainland part of Denmark. It has the North Sea to its west, Kattegat and Skagerrak to its north, the Baltic Sea to its east, and the Danish–German...
, and gave his daughter to Orwendel as a reward for his good services. Orwendel and the daughter had the son Amblothe. The jealous Feng killed Orwendel and took his wife. Amblothe understood that his life was in danger and tried to survive by playing insane. Feng sent Amblothe to the king of Britain with two servants carrying a message that the British king should kill Amblothe. While the servants slept, Amblothe carved off the (probably runic) message and wrote that the servants should be killed and himself married to the king's daughter. The British king did what the message said. Exactly one year later, Feng drank to Amblothe's memory, but Amblothe appeared and killed him. He then burnt Feng's men to death in a tent and became the ruler of Jutland. Then he went back to Britain to kill the British king who wanted to avenge Feng's death, and married the queen of Scotland. Amblothe went back to Jutland and was killed in battle upon arrival.
Prose Edda
In the SkáldskaparmálSkáldskaparmál
The second part of Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda the Skáldskaparmál or "language of poetry" is effectively a dialogue between the Norse god of the sea, Ægir and Bragi, the god of poetry, in which both Norse mythology and discourse on the nature of poetry are intertwined...
section of the Prose Edda
Prose Edda
The Prose Edda, also known as the Younger Edda, Snorri's Edda or simply Edda, is an Icelandic collection of four sections interspersed with excerpts from earlier skaldic and Eddic poetry containing tales from Nordic mythology...
, Snorri Sturluson
Snorri Sturluson
Snorri Sturluson was an Icelandic historian, poet, and politician. He was twice elected lawspeaker at the Icelandic parliament, the Althing...
quotes a poem by the skald
Skald
The skald was a member of a group of poets, whose courtly poetry is associated with the courts of Scandinavian and Icelandic leaders during the Viking Age, who composed and performed renditions of aspects of what we now characterise as Old Norse poetry .The most prevalent metre of skaldic poetry is...
Snæbjörn, which could be considerably older than the version found in Gesta Danorum and Chronicon lethrense. The mysterious lines are quoted in Skáldskaparmál as an example of Amlóði's churn as a kenning
Kenning
A kenning is a type of literary trope, specifically circumlocution, in the form of a compound that employs figurative language in place of a more concrete single-word noun. Kennings are strongly associated with Old Norse and later Icelandic and Anglo-Saxon poetry...
for the sea:
|
Grottasöngr Grottasöngr or the Song of Grótti is an Old Norse poem, sometimes counted among the poems of the Poetic Edda as it appears in manuscripts that are later than the Codex Regius... 's Island-Flour-Bin Germanic monarchy Germanic kingship refers to the customs and practices surrounding kings among the pagan Germanic tribes of the Migration period and the kingdoms of the Early Middle Ages .... Germanic monarchy Germanic kingship refers to the customs and practices surrounding kings among the pagan Germanic tribes of the Migration period and the kingdoms of the Early Middle Ages .... now cuts with ship's beak |
Prose translation:
It is said, sang Snæbjörn, that far out, off yonder headland, the Nine Maids of the Island Mill violently stir the host-cruel skerry-quern — they who in ages past ground Amlóði's meal. The good chieftain furrows the hull's lair with his ship's beaked prow. Here the sea is called Amloði's Mill.
Other Scandinavian versions
The other Scandinavian versions of the tale are: the Hrólfs saga krakaHrólfs saga kraka
Hrólfs saga kraka, the Saga of King Hrolf kraki, is a late legendary saga on the adventures of Hrólfr Kraki and his clan, the Skjöldungs. The events can be dated to the late 5th century and the 6th century. It is believed to have been written in the period c. 1230 - c. 1450...
, where the brothers Helgi
Halga
Halga, Helgi, Helghe or Helgo was a legendary Danish king living in the early 6th century. His name would in his own language have been *Hailaga ....
(known as Halga in Beowulf
Beowulf
Beowulf , but modern scholars agree in naming it after the hero whose life is its subject." of an Old English heroic epic poem consisting of 3182 alliterative long lines, set in Scandinavia, commonly cited as one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature.It survives in a single...
) and Hroar
Hroðgar
Hroðgar, King Hroþgar, "Hrothgar", Hróarr, Hroar, Roar, Roas or Ro was a legendary Danish king, living in the early 6th century....
(Hroðgar) take the place of the hero; the tale of Harald and Halfdan, as related in the 7th book of Saxo Grammaticus; the modern Icelandic Ambale's Saga, a romantic tale the earliest manuscript of which dates from the 17th century; and the folk-tale of Brjam which was put in writing in 1707. Helgi and Hroar, like Harald and Halfdan, avenge their father's death on their uncle by burning him in his palace. Harald and Halfdan escape after their father's death by being brought up, with dogs' names, in a hollow oak, and subsequently by feigned madness; and in the case of the other brothers there are traces of a similar motive, since the boys are called by dogs' names. The methods of Hamlet's madness, as related by Saxo, seem to point to cynanthropy
Cynanthropy
Cynanthropy is, in medicine, the pathological delusion of real persons that they are dogs and in anthropology and folklore, the supposed magical practice of shape-shifting alternately between canine and human form, or the possession of combined canine and human anatomical features, a form of...
. In the Ambale's Saga, which perhaps is collateral to, rather than derived from, Saxo's version, there are, besides romantic additions, some traits which point to an earlier version of the tale.
Saxo Grammaticus was certainly familiar with the Latin historians, and it is most probable that, recognising the similarity between the northern Hamlet legend and the classical tale of Lucius Junius Brutus
Lucius Junius Brutus
Lucius Junius Brutus was the founder of the Roman Republic and traditionally one of the first consuls in 509 BC. He was claimed as an ancestor of the Roman gens Junia, including Marcus Junius Brutus, the most famous of Caesar's assassins.- Background :...
as told by Livy
Livy
Titus Livius — known as Livy in English — was a Roman historian who wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people. Ab Urbe Condita Libri, "Chapters from the Foundation of the City," covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome well before the traditional foundation in 753 BC...
, by Valerius Maximus
Valerius Maximus
Valerius Maximus was a Latin writer and author of a collection of historical anecdotes. He worked during the reign of Tiberius .-Biography:...
, and by Dionysius of Halicarnassus
Dionysius of Halicarnassus
Dionysius of Halicarnassus was a Greek historian and teacher of rhetoric, who flourished during the reign of Caesar Augustus. His literary style was Attistic — imitating Classical Attic Greek in its prime.-Life:...
(with which he was probably acquainted through a Latin epitome), he deliberately added circumstances from the classical story. The incident of the gold-filled sticks could hardly appear fortuitously in both, and a comparison of the harangues of Amleth (Saxo, Book iv.) and of Brutus (Dionysius, iv. 77) shows marked similarities. In both tales the usurping uncle is ultimately succeeded by the nephew who has escaped notice during his youth by a feigned madness. But the parts played by the personages who in Shakespeare became Ophelia and Polonius, the method of revenge, and the whole narrative of Amleth's adventure in England, have no parallels in the Latin story.
There are also striking similarities between the story of Amleth in Saxo and the other northern versions, and that of Kei Chosro in the Shahnameh (Book of the King) of the Persian poet Firdausi. Further resemblances exist in the Ambale's Saga with the tales of Bellerophon
Bellerophon
Bellerophon or Bellerophontes is a hero of Greek mythology. He was "the greatest hero and slayer of monsters, alongside of Cadmus and Perseus, before the days of Heracles", and his greatest feat was killing the Chimera, a monster that Homer depicted with a lion's head, a goat's body, and a...
, of Heracles
Heracles
Heracles ,born Alcaeus or Alcides , was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, foster son of Amphitryon and great-grandson of Perseus...
, and of Servius Tullius
Servius Tullius
Servius Tullius was the legendary sixth king of ancient Rome, and the second of its Etruscan dynasty. He reigned 578-535 BC. Roman and Greek sources describe his servile origins and later marriage to a daughter of Lucius Tarquinius Priscus, Rome's first Etruscan king, who was assassinated in 579 BC...
. That Oriental tales through Byzantine
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
and Arabian channels did find their way to the west is well known, and there is nothing very surprising in their being attached to a local hero.
The tale of Hamlet's adventures in Britain forms an episode so distinct that it was at one time referred to a separate hero. The traitorous letter, the purport of which is changed by Hermuthruda, occurs in the popular Dit de l'empereur Constant, and in Arabian and Indian tales. Hermuthruda's cruelty to her wooers is common in northern and German mythology, and close parallels are afforded by Þryð
Modþryð
Modthryth, Thryth , and Fremu are reconstructed names for a character who figures as the queen of King Offa in Beowulf.-Naming problem: Modthryth, Thryth or Fremu?:...
, the terrible bride of Offa
Offa of Angel
Offa was the 4th-great-grandfather of Creoda of Mercia, and was reputed to be a great-grandson of Woden, English god of war and poetry and creator of Middle-Earth, the realm of man. Offa was the son of Wermund, and the father of Angeltheow...
, who figures in Beowulf
Beowulf
Beowulf , but modern scholars agree in naming it after the hero whose life is its subject." of an Old English heroic epic poem consisting of 3182 alliterative long lines, set in Scandinavia, commonly cited as one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature.It survives in a single...
, by Brunhilda
Brynhildr
Brynhildr is a shieldmaiden and a valkyrie in Norse mythology, where she appears as a main character in the Völsunga saga and some Eddic poems treating the same events. Under the name Brünnhilde she appears in the Nibelungenlied and therefore also in Richard Wagner's opera cycle Der Ring des...
in the Nibelungenlied
Nibelungenlied
The Nibelungenlied, translated as The Song of the Nibelungs, is an epic poem in Middle High German. The story tells of dragon-slayer Siegfried at the court of the Burgundians, how he was murdered, and of his wife Kriemhild's revenge....
, and by Sigrid the Haughty
Sigrid the Haughty
Sigrid the Haughty, also known as Sigríð Storråda, is a queen appearing in Norse sagas as wife, first of Eric the Victorious of Sweden, then Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark. While given the Nordic ancestry in sagas, she has been hypothesized to be identical to historically attested Polish or Pomeranian...
in the Heimskringla
Heimskringla
Heimskringla is the best known of the Old Norse kings' sagas. It was written in Old Norse in Iceland by the poet and historian Snorri Sturluson ca. 1230...
.
Parallels in Britain and Ireland
Despite the fact that Shakespeare set his story in Denmark, and his actors even visited Kronborg in 1586 and seem to have brought details back used by Shakespeare, some theorists have tried to tie Hamlet primarily to Ireland. More likely, however, some of the additional facts not in the Scandinavian legend may have come from these sources.The argument is that there are close parallels between the tale of Hamlet and the English romances of Havelok, King Horn
King Horn
King Horn is a Middle English chivalric romance dating back to the middle of the thirteenth century. It survives in three manuscripts: MS. Harleian 2253 at the British Museum, London; MS. Laud. Misc 108 at the Bodleian Library, Oxford; and MS. Gg. iv. 27. 2 at the Cambridge University Library. It...
and Bevis of Hampton
Bevis of Hampton
Bevis of Hampton is a legendary English hero and the subject of Anglo-Norman, French, English, Venetian and other medieval metrical romances that bear his name...
-- tales from the Middle Ages that followed years of rule by Danes and other Vikings. . Thus a similar name also occurs in the Irish Annals of the Four Masters -- compiled in the 1600s—in a stanza attributed to the Irish Queen Gormflaith, who laments the death of her husband, Niall Glundubh, at the hands of Amhlaide in 919 at the battle of Ath-Cliath. The slayer of Niall Glundubh is by other authorities stated to have been Sigtrygg Caech. Sigtrygg was the father of that Olaf Cuaran
Olaf Cuaran
Amlaíb mac Sitric , commonly called Amlaíb Cuarán, in Old Norse: Óláfr kváran, was a 10th century Norse-Gael who was king of Northumbria and king of Dublin. His byname, cuarán, is usually translated as "sandal"...
(also known as Anlaf) who was the prototype of the English Havelok, but nowhere else does he receive the nickname of Amhlaide. If Amhlaide may really be identified with Sigtrygg, who first went to Dublin in 888, the relations between the tales of Havelok and Hamlet show other ways that stories paralleled each other. But, whoever the historic Hamlet may have been, it is quite certain that much was added that was extraneous to Scandinavian tradition and some details may have made their way into Shakespeare's final play.
Hugh Kenner
Hugh Kenner
William Hugh Kenner , was a Canadian literary scholar, critic and professor.Kenner was born in Peterborough, Ontario on January 7, 1923; his father taught classics...
has attempted to argue that the Hamlet name originated because the first literate people the Danes encountered were the Irish. The Gaelic alphabet, then, as now, contained 18 letters, so even simple sounds required many letters. According to Kenner, Amhl=owl and aoi=ay and bh=v, so Amhlaoibh = Olaf, but it got copied out in Latin as Amlethus and Shakespeare inherited Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Thus Kenner claims that "Amleth" or "Amblett" of Saxo also likely derived from this transliteration from Gaelic to Latin.
The theory is however contradicted by archeological finds in Denmark, where the name Amlet is recorded on runic artifacts dated ca. 700, before Danes made significant incursions into Ireland. Moreover, Vikings not only visited Ireland and England but ruled both before all of these tales were first written. The tale of Havelok, in fact, is called, "Havelok the Dane" -- even indicating its own possible Scandinavian origins.
Belleforest's tragedies
The story of Hamlet was known to the ElizabethansElizabethan era
The Elizabethan era was the epoch in English history of Queen Elizabeth I's reign . Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history...
in François de Belleforest
François de Belleforest
François de Belleforest was a prolific French author, poet and translator of the Renaissance. He was born in a poor family and his father was killed when he was seven...
's Histoires tragiques (1570); an English version, The Hystorie of Hamblet was published in 1608. That as early as 1587 or 1589 Hamlet had appeared on the English stage is shown by Nashe's
Thomas Nashe
Thomas Nashe was an English Elizabethan pamphleteer, playwright, poet and satirist. He was the son of the minister William Nashe and his wife Margaret .-Early life:...
preface to Greene's
Robert Greene (16th century)
Robert Greene was an English author best known for a posthumous pamphlet attributed to him, Greene's Groats-Worth of Wit, widely believed to contain a polemic attack on William Shakespeare. He was born in Norwich and attended Cambridge University, receiving a B.A. in 1580, and an M.A...
Menaphon (see: Ur-Hamlet
Ur-Hamlet
The Ur-Hamlet is the name given to a play mentioned as early as 1589, a decade before most scholars believe Shakespeare composed Hamlet...
). The Shakespearean Hamlet owes, however, but the outline of his story to Saxo. In character he is diametrically opposed to his prototype. Amleth's madness was certainly altogether feigned; he prepared his vengeance a year beforehand, and carried it out deliberately and ruthlessly at every point. His riddling speech has little more than an outward similarity to the words of Hamlet, who resembles him, however, in his disconcerting penetration into his enemies' plans.
External links
- Excerpts from The Sources of Hamlet: With an Essay on the Legend by Israel GollanczIsrael GollanczSir Israel Gollancz was a scholar of early English literature and of Shakespeare. He was Professor of English Language and Literature at King's College, London, from 1903 to 1930....
(New York: Octagon, 1967). - Peter Tunstall's translation of the Chronicon lethrense at The Chronicle of the Kings of Lejre and Northvegr: The Saga of Hrolf Kraki: The Chronicle of the Kings of Lejre.
- Prose Edda Arthur G. Brodeur's translation (1916)
- Saxo Grammaticus' The Danish History, Books I-IX
- Prince Of Denmark 1994 Film by Gabriel Axel with Gabriel Byrne as Fenge.