Hamlet had to have been familiar with GENESIS 4 to respond the way he did, in the first scene of Act V, to the gravedigger’s handling of a skull: “That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once: / how the knave jowls it to the ground, as if it were / Cain’s […]
Dust to Dust
When Rosencrantz and Gildenstern ask Hamlet what he had done with Polonius’ body, Hamlet replies, “Compounded it with dust, whereto ’tis kin” (IV, ii). GENESIS 2 : 7; 3 : 19; JOB 10 : 9; 33 : 6 and ISAIAH 64 : 8 all testify that not only Adam, but all men are composed of dust and clay.
Adam
GENESIS 1-4 introduces the reader of the Bible to Adam, the first human being created, and the creation account tells us that Adam’s primary occupation was to subdue the earth (GENESIS 1 : 28) and to tend and keep the Garden of Eden (GENESIS 2 : 15). The gravediggers in the opening scene of Act V, refer to “Adam’s profession.”
Cain’s Curse
GENESIS 4 offers the story of Cain, who killed his brother Abel out of jealousy and anger. In III, iii King Claudius surely recalls his reading of the Genesis account when he says, “O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven; / It hath the primal eldest curse upon’t, /A brother’s murder.” The “primal […]
Money
GENESIS 19 : 30-38 records that Lot’s daughters, their thinking so corrupted by the immorality of Sodom and Gomorrah, believed that it was incumbent upon them to produce children by their father. Lot was a party to this only under the heavy influence of alcohol (vv. 33, 35). The Pardoner alludes to this passage to demonstrate that wine and drunkenness…