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Shakespeare uses the ghost not just to plant the seeds of suspicion in Hamlet's mind but just as importantly to bring before the eyes of the audience as well as Hamlet the consequences of violating the Almighty's canons. The ghost seems to have returned from the dead with two gristly tales, the one of his murder and the other of his horrible torments in the flames of purgatory: |
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I am thy father's spirit, The ghost reveals only what he must not reveal, what "must not be / To ears of flesh and blood." He represents only the unrepresentable. Yet even before we hear of the |
"Doomed for a certain term to fast in fires" |
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The leperous distilment, whose effect |
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we are asked to imagine those pains whose very thought will "freeze" Hamlet's "young blood" as his uncle's "leperous distilment" did "posset / And curd" his father's. |
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Thus, the Ghost arrives both with a dread "commandment"—avenge my murder—but also with a grim reminder of the costs of obeying it: unless he is absolved or justified by faith, Hamlet's immortal soul will suffer the pains of damnation, either for a fixed term in purgatory (whose pains are indistinguishable from the pains of hell) or forever. |
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The ghost comes to make the pains of Purgatory as real to Shakespeare's audience as his own murder. But Purgatory was itself a questionable belief. Dismissed and reviled by the new, Calvinist faith, it loomed large in the old religion, Catholicism, whose faithful had been well informed of its pains not to harrow and terrify them but to chasten them to avoid its horrors by reforming their lives. "It is ," the Art or Craft to Live Well and Die Well averred in 1505. The only difference between the pains of purgatory and those of hell was that those of hell were eternal. Souls who entered purgatory were redeemed and would, after a time, ascend to heaven. |
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"No traveler |
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The Chief Pastor of the Calvinist Church of Zürich, which was, after Geneva, the most important redoubt of the new reformed church and home to Zwingli and Bulllinger, Ludwig (Lewes) Lavater (1527-1586), wrote an influential treatise, first published in Latin in 1569 as De spectris, lemuribus et magnis atque insolitis fragoribus, variisque praesagitionibus, quae plerunque obitum hominum, magnas clades, mutationesque imperiorum praecedunt, liber unus, to prove that ghosts were "not the souls of dead men, as some men have thought, but either good or evill Angels, or else some secrete and hid operations of God." It was quickly translated into English. |
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The Papists' doctrine touching the souls of dead men, and the appearing of them. |
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The papists in former times have publicly both taught and written that those spirits which men sometime see and hear be either good or bad angels, or else the souls of those which either live in everlasting bliss, or in purgatory, or in the place of damned persons; and that divers of them are those souls that crave aid and deliverance of men. . . . |
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Of this place, to wit, purgatory, popish writers teach marvelous things. Some of them say that purgatory is also under the earth as hell is. Some say that hell and purgatory are both one place, albeit the pains be divers according to the deserts of souls. . . . Some of them say that the pain of purgatory is all one with the punishment of hell, and that they differ only in this, that the one hath an end, the other no end: and that it is far more easy to endure all the pains of this world which all men since Adam's time have sustained, even unto the day of the last judgment, than to bear one day's space the least of those two punishments. . . . |
"The one hath |
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Hereunto they add that the spirits, as well of the good as the ill, do come and are sent unto men living, from hell; and that by the common law of justice, all men at the day of judgment shall come to their trial from hell; and that none before that time can come from thence. Farther they teach that by God's license and dispensation, certain, yea before the day of judgment, are permitted to come out of hell. and that not forever, but only for a season, for the instructing and terrifying of the living. |
"To come out of hell for the instructing of the living" |
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But as concerning the time and place when and where spirits do proffer themselves to be seen, they say no certain rule can be given, for this standeth wholly in God's pleasure, who if he list to deliver any, suffereth him to make his appearance forthwith even in such places as he may be well heard in. And that spirits do not always appear under a visible shape, but sometimes invisibly, insomuch that sometimes nothing else is heard of them but sneezing, spitting, sighing, and clapping of hands, etc. |
"We should not give credit" |
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. . . This [use of prayer] done, we should, as they teach, fall to questioning with them, and say: "Thou spirit, we beseech thee by Christ Jesus, tell us what thou art, and if there be any amongst us to whom thou wouldst gladly make answer, name him, or by some sign declare so much. " After this, the question is to be moved, each man there present being recited, whether he would answer unto this or that man. And if at the name of any he speak, or make a noise, all other demands remaining should be made unto him, as these and such like: What man's soul he is? For what cause he is come, and what he doth desire? Whether he require any aid by prayers and suffrages? Whether by massing or alms-giving he may be released? |
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. . . Moreover, popish writers teach us to discern good spirits from evil by four means. First, they say that if he be a good spirit, he will at the beginning somewhat terrify men, but again soon revive and comfort them. . . . Their second note is to descry them by their outward and visible shape. For if they appear under the form of a lion, bear, dog, toad, serpent, cat, or black ghost, it may easily be gathered that it is an evil spirit. And that, on the other side, good spirits do appear under the shape of a dove, a man, a lamb, or in the brightness and clear light of the sun. |
"Discern good spirits from evil" |
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We must also consider whether the voice which we hear be sweet, lowly, sober, and sorrowful, or otherwise terrible and full of reproach, for so they term it. |
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Thirdly, we must note whether the spirit teach ought that doth vary from the doctrine of the apostles, and other doctors approved by the church's censure; or whether he utter anything that doth dissent from the faith, good manners, and ceremonies of the church, according to the cannonical rites or decrees of councils, and against the laws of the holy Church of Rome. |
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Fourthly, we must take diligent heed whether in his words, deeds, and gestures, he do show forth any humility, acknowledging or confessing of his sins and punishments, or whether we hear of him any groaning, weeping, complaint, boasting, threatening, slander or blasphemy. For as the beggar doth rehearse his own misery, so likewise do good spirits that desire any help or deliverance. . . . |
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Testimonies out of the word of God that neither the souls of the faithful nor of infidels do walk upon the earth after they are once parted from their bodies. |
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Now, that, I will make it plain and evident unto you by these reasons following. First, certain it is that such as depart hence either cite in faith or in unbelief. Touching those that go hence in a right belief, their souls are by and by in possession of life everlasting; and they that depart in unbelief do straightway become partakers of eternal damnation. The souls do not vanish away and die with the body, as the Epicures' opinion is, neither yet be in every place, as some do imagine. . . . |
"Straightway become partakers of eternal damnation" |
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What those things are which men see and hear: and first, that good angels do sometimes appear. |
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But thou wilt say, I do not yet clearly and plainly understand what manner of things those are whereof . . . historiographers, holy fathers, and others make mention: as that holy apostles, bishops, martyrs, confessors, virgins, and many other which died long ago, appeared unto certain men lying at the point of death, gave them warning, answered unto certain questions, commanded them to do this or that thing. . . . You will say, "I hear and understand very well that these things are not men's souls, which continually remain in their appointed places. I pray you, then, what are they?" To conclude in few words: If it be not a vain persuasion proceeding through weakness of the senses, through fear, or some such like cause, or if it be not deceit of men, or some natural thing . . . it is either a good or evil angel, or some other forewarning sent by God. . . . |
"Not men's souls, either a good or evil angel" |
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That sometimes, yea and for the most part, evil angels do appear. |
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Contrariwise, evil angels are hurtful and enemies unto men; they follow them everywhere, to the end they may withdraw them from true worshipping of God, and from faith in his only son, Jesus Christ, unto sundry other things. These appear in divers shapes: for if the devil, as Paul doth witness, transformed himself into an angel of light, no less may he take the shape of a prophet, an apostle, evangelist, bishop, and martyr, and appear in their likeness; or so bewitch us, that we verily suppose we hear or see them in very deed. He taketh on him to tell of he is this or that soul, that he may be delivered by this or that means, that by these means he may purchase credit and authority unto those things which have no ground of scripture. |
"Evil angels |
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Despite the Protestant Lavater's insistence, informed Catholic belief held that the souls of the dead men did sometimes return and appear to the living: not the damned and the blessed, who never left heaven or hell, but the souls of those consigned to Purgatory, who might be sent back, not through their own power but by God, to undertake some specific purpose. Even the Catholics held, as Lavater points out, that demons could inhabit that shapes of the dead and that the living had to "take diligent heed" to "discern good spirits from evil." |
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Rejecting Purgatory, Protestants, on the other hand, believed that ghosts could not be the souls of the dead. The skeptic Reginald Scot, who was perhaps the only Elizabethan who did not believe in ghosts, mocked those who rejected Purgatory but still thought "souls and spirits may come out of heaven or hell and assume bodies." In Cyril Tourneur's Atheist's Tragedy, registered for publication in 1611, it's a hypocritical Puritan chaplain with the wonderful name of Languebeau ("Fine Tongue") Snuffe who quite mistakenly claims: "Tush, tush, their walking spirits are mere imaginary fables. There's no such thing in rerum natura" (4.3.274-5). "The souls neither of the faithful nor of infidels do wander any longer on the earth when they be once severed from the bodies," Lavater asserted, because the saved "are by and by in possession of life everlasting; and they that depart in unbelief"—that is, the damned—"do straightway become partakers of eternal damnation." Only the devil made spirits walk in the shape of the dead. Even the Old Testament figure of Saul, according to Lavater, was not raised from the dead by God but counterfeited by a "devilish spirit." |
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It is a notable history which we read in the second Book of Samuel concerning Saul, who, at what time the Philistines warred upon him, and that he was in very great danger of them, he came to a woman who was a witch, and desired her to raise Samuel from death, that he might know his counsel touching the success of the wars. She raised him up one, whom Saul took to be Samuel in deed, who also told him what event should come of the wars.
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Now touching the examples by them commonly alleged, which do think that the souls of the dead do return again unto the living upon the earth: I will first entreat of Samuel's apparition, of which matter now a days there is great contention and reasoning. And (as I trust) I shall prove by strong arguments, that very Samuel himself did not appear in soul and body, neither that his body was raised up by the sorcerers, which perchance then was rotten and consumed unto dust in the earth, neither that his soul was called up, but rather some devilish spirit....
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Fifthly, if he had been the true Samuel, he would no doubt have exhorted Saul to repentance, and willed him to wait for aid from God. For though the Prophets do often chide and threaten men, yet do they again revive and solace them. Now because this Samuel doth beat no other thing into his head, but that God was displeased with him, and had already forsaken him, we may not believe that he was the true, but a mere counterfeit Samuel.
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"The law of God," Lavater concludes, "has severely by a great threatening forbidden [us] to learn ought of the dead"; He "would not have us to ask counsel" from them. For all scrupulous Christians, Protestant and Catholic alike, consorting with ghosts was necromancy. Like other forms of sorcery, conjuration, or witchcraft, it amounted to trafficking with the devil. "To the most curious sort," the staunchly Calvinist King James wrote in his Daemonologie, the Devil "will oblish [oblige] himself, to enter in a dead body, and there out of to give such answers, of the event of battles, of matters concerning the estate of commonwealths, and such like other great questions" (1.6). It was expressly forbidden by Scripture.
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Let none be found among you that makes his son or his daughter ... go through the fire, or that uses witchcraft, or a regarder of times, or a marker of the flying of souls, or a sorcerer,
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Or a charmer, or that counsels with spirits, or a soothsayer, or that asks counsel at the dead.
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For all that do such things are abomination unto the Lord, and because of these abominations the Lord thy God doth cast them out before thee. "Dearly beloved," John warns in his first Letter, " believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: for many false Prophets are gone out into the world" (I John 4:1).
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Catholics, too, would thus have had their doubts about the ghost of Hamlet's father. "Evil spirits desirous to hurt men both in their goods, bodies, and souls," the orthodox Catholic Pierre La Primaudaye wrote in The French Academie (1594), "use all the means and occasions they can possibly invent and find out, to execute their malice when it pleases God to give them leave." To believe in Purgatory was not to assume that all the returning dead were souls in grace.
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A ghost will naturally, if it is possible, appear to the person whom he has most loved while on earth, since this person will be readiest to fulfill any wish then communicated by the departed. But if It be an evil Spirit, yes, truly he has a thousand subtle fetches and foul tricks, and will again and again deceive.... This evil Spirit goes about seeking whom he may devour, and should he chance to find a man already of a melancholic and Saturnian humor, who on account of some great loss, or haply because he deems his honor tarnished, the demon here has a fine field to his hand, and he will tempt the poor wretch to depths of misery and depression.... Now these Spirits appear in very many forms and shapes. . . .
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Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damned,
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The question of the ghost's true nature hangs over the action. As Hamlet admits,
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The spirit that I have seen
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And he is never sure that the apparition is not "a damned ghost" (3.2.92) even after Claudius calls a halt to Hamlet's staging of "The Murder of Gonzago."
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