Herod

MATTHEW 2:1-18 records Herod the Great as the insecure king who, upon hearing of Jesus’ birth, sent the wise men to search for the child, bring back word so that he could “come and worship Him also” (Matthew 2:8).  Herod intended, though, to kill Jesus so as to remove any threat to his own authority.  Prior to Shakespeare’s time, Herod had been portrayed in the literature as a ranting madman, thus the common phrase during Shakespeare’s time to “out-Herod Herod” in describing someone that is out of control or embracing lunacy of some sort.  Hamlet urges the players to use restraint saying, “O! it / offends me to the soul to hear a robustious / periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to / very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings…it out-herods Herod: pray you, avoid it” (III, ii).