[1] G. Sergi, _The Mediterranean Race. A Study of the Origin of
European Peoples_ (London, 1901); _idem. Africa, Antropologia della
stirpe camitica_ (Turin, 1897).
[2] Only works of higher linguistic standing are quoted here; many
vocabularies and imperfect attempts of travellers cannot be
enumerated.
HAMLET, the hero of Shakespeare's tragedy, a striking figure in
Scandinavian romance.
The chief authority for the legend of Hamlet is Saxo Grammaticus, who
devotes to it parts of the third and fourth books of his _Historia
Danica_, written at the beginning of the 13th century. It is supposed
that the story of Hamlet, Amleth or Amlothi,[1] was contained in the lost
Skjoldunga saga, but we have no means of determining whether Saxo
derived his information in this case from oral or written sources. The
close parallels between the tale of Hamlet and the English romances of
Havelok, Horn and Bevis of Hampton make it not unlikely that Hamlet is
of British rather than of Scandinavian origin. His name does in fact
occur in the Irish _Annals of the Four Masters_ (ed. O'Donovan, 1851) in
a stanza attributed to the Irish Queen Gormflaith, who laments the death
of her husband, Niall Glundubh, at the hands of Amhlaithe in 919 at the
battle of Ath-Cliath. The slayer of Niall Glundubh is by other
authorities stated to have been Sihtric. Now Sihtric was the father of
that Olaf or Anlaf Cuaran who was the prototype of the English Havelok,
but nowhere else does he receive the nickname of Amhlaithe. If Amhlaithe
may really be identified with Sihtric, who first went to Dublin in 888,
the relations between the tales of Havelok and Hamlet are readily
explicable, since nothing was more likely than that the exploits of
father and son should be confounded (see Havelok). But, whoever the
historic Hamlet may have been, it is quite certain that much was added
that was extraneous to Scandinavian tradition. Later in the 10th century
there is evidence of the existence of an Icelandic saga of Amlothi or
Amleth in a passage from the poet Snaebjorn in the second part of the
prose _Edda_.[2] According to Saxo,[3] Hamlet's history is briefly as
follows. In the days of Rorik, king of Denmark, Gervendill was governor
of Jutland, and was succeeded by his sons Horvendill and Feng.
Horvendill, on his return from a Viking expedition in which he had slain
Koll, king of Norway, married Gerutha, Rorik's daughter, who 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 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,
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
despatched him to England 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 woollen 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 England 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 England 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
engaged to die with him, married the victor.
The other Scandinavian versions of the tale are: the _Hrolfssaga
Kraka_,[4] where the brothers Helgi and Hroar take the place of the
hero; the tale of Harald and Halfdan, as related in the 7th book of Saxo
Grammaticus; the modern Icelandic _Ambales Saga_,[5] a romantic tale the
earliest MS. of which dates from the 17th century; and the folk-tale of
Brjam[6] 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. In the _Ambales 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, recognizing the similarity between the
northern Hamlet legend and the classical tale of Lucius Junius Brutus as
told by Livy, by Valerius Maximus, and by Dionysius of Halicarnassus
(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.
Dr. O. L. Jiriczek[7] first pointed out the striking similarities
existing 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. The comparison was carried farther by R.
Zenker (_Boeve Amlethus_, pp. 207-268, Berlin and Leipzig, 1904), who
even concluded that the northern saga rested on an earlier version of
Firdausi's story, in which indeed nearly all the individual elements of
the various northern versions are to be found. Further resemblances
exist in the _Ambales Saga_ with the tales of Bellerophon, of Heracles,
and of Servius Tullius. That Oriental tales through Byzantine 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_,[8] 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 Thrytho, the
terrible bride of Offa I., who figures in _Beowulf_, and by Brunhilda in
the _Nibelungenlied_.
The story of Hamlet was known to the Elizabethans in Francois de
Belleforest's _Histoires tragiques_ (1559), and found its supreme
expression in Shakespeare's tragedy. That as early as 1587 or 1589
Hamlet had appeared on the English stage is shown by Nash's preface to
Greene's _Menaphon_: "He will afford you whole Hamlets, I should say,
handfulls of tragical speeches." The Shakespearian Hamlet owes, however,
little 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. For a discussion of Shakespeare's play and its
immediate sources see SHAKESPEARE.
See an appendix to Elton's trans. of Saxo Grammaticus; I. Gollancz,
_Hamlet in Iceland_ (London, 1898); H. L. Ward, _Catalogue of
Romances_, under "Havelok," vol. i. pp. 423 seq.; _English Historical
Review_, x. (1895); F. Detter, "Die Hamletsage," _Zeitschr. f. deut.
Alter._ vol. 36 (Berlin, 1892); O. L. Jiriczek, "Die Amlethsage auf
Island," in _Germanistische Abhandlungen_, vol. xii. (Breslau), and
"Hamlet in Iran," in _Zeitschr. des Vereins fur Volkskunde_, x.
(Berlin, 1900); A. Olrik, _Kilderne til Sakses Oldhistorie_
(Copenhagen, 2 vols., 1892-1894).