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Hamlet as a Memento Mori Poem

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Harry Morris
Harry Morris*
Affiliation:
Florida State University Tallahassee
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Abstract

The five-act structure of Hamlet is modeled on the memento mori- timor mortis lyric as it is practiced in the English tradition from 1483 to 1600. Furthermore, the crucial fifth act opens with a set piece in the genre, taking as its point of departure Thomas Lord Vaux's “I Loathe That I Did Love.” But, as in other matters, Shakespeare's wide reading in the genre is evident in the set piece since it incorporates elements not found in Vaux's poem. Recognition of the eschatological concerns that are an inescapable part of the memento mori tradition helps us to see Hamlet's delays as an overwhelming concern for the plight of his soul.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 85 , Issue 5 , October 1970 , pp. 1035 - 1040
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1970

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References

Note 1 in page 1035 H. Morris, “Macbeth, Dante, and the Greatest Evil,” Tennessee Studies in Literature, 12 (1967), 23–38; “No Amount of Prayer Can Possibly Matter,” [on Othello], Sewanee Review, 77 (1969), 8–24.

Note 2 in page 1035 For the Latin text and arguments of attribution, see Thomas Wright, Latin Poems Commonly A ttributed to Waller Mapes (London, 1841), pp. 147–48. Wright cites the Latin poem in seven MSS. R. T. Davies, Medieval English Lyrics (London, 1964), p. 339, lists seven translations for the fifteenth century. Carleton Brown argues that at least one may come from the fourteenth century; he shows further that there are ten MSS for the poem he prints as “Cur Mundus Militat” and contends that therefore it must have circulated widely. Religious Lyrics of the XIVth Century, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1952), p. xii.

Note 3 in page 1035 When the refrain timor mortis conturbat me is employed, the fear is, of course, stated explicitly. C. Brown and R. H. Robbins, The Index of Middle English Verse (New York, 1943), and R. H. Robbins and John L. Cutler, Supplement to the Index of Middle English Verse (Lexington, Ky., 1965), list seven and two poems respectively in which the Latin refrain is present. St. Bernard's poem does not employ the refrain, but fear of death may be presumed implicit in lines such as

Quam breve festum est haec mundi gloria!

ut umbra hominis sunt ejus gaudia,

quae tamen subtrahunt aeterna praemia,

et ducunt hominem ad rura devia. (Wright, p. 148)

Note 4 in page 1035 ignoras penitus utrum eras vixeris:

fac bonum omnibus quamdiu poteris. (Wright, p. 148)

Note 5 in page 1035 Nil tuum dixeris quod potes perdere;

quod mundus tribuit intendit rapere;

superna cogita, cor sit in aethere,

foelix qui poterit mundum contempnere. (Wright, p. 148)

Note 6 in page 1035 O esca vermium! o massa pulveris!

o ros! o vanitas! cur sic extolleris? (Wright, p. 148)

As well as n. 3, above.

Note 7 in page 1035 Die ubi Salamon olim tam nobilis?

vel Samson ubi est dux invincibilis?

vel pulcher Absolon vultu mirabilis?

vel dulcis Jonathas multum amabilis?

Quo Caesar abiit celsus imperio?

vel Dives splendidus totus in prandio?

die ubi Tullius clarus eloquic?

vel Aristoteles summus ingenio? (Wright, pp. 147–48)

Note 8 in page 1035 Dunbar's “Lament for the Makaris,” perhaps responsible

for making memorable the timor mortis refrain, is probably

later than Skelton's poem, since Edward died in 1483 and

several poets mourned by Dunbar were alive as late as 1490.

Note 9 in page 1036 AU reference to Skelton's verse will cite The Poetical Works of John Skelton, ed. Alexander Dyce, 2 vols. (London, 1843).

Note 10 in page 1036 Tottel's Miscellany (1557–1587), ed. Hyder E. Rollins 2 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 1928), i, 166.

Note 11 in page 1036 See n. 7, above.

Note 12 in page 1036 Skelton, familiar with the works of Lydgate, may possibly have added Alexander to the conventional list after reading Lydgate's “As A Mydsomer Rose.” Not a timor mortis or memento mori poem as I have described them, Lydgate's poem borrows heavily from the Saint Bernard version. Lines 65–96 of Lydgate's poem are a loosely rendered and expanded translation of St. Bernard's catalogue, and in them we may find“. . . wher is Alisaunder that conqueryd al.” (John Lydgate: Poems, ed. J. Norton-Smith, [Oxford, 1966J, pp. 22–23)

Note 13 in page 1036 References to Shakespeare will cite the New Cambridge Shakespeare, ed. John Dover Wilson.

Note 14 in page 1037 Tottd's Miscellany, 1,166.

Note 15 in page 1037 The Poems of William Dunbar, ed. W. M. MacKenzie (London, 1932), p. 21.

Note 16 in page 1037 The Poems of Robert Southwell, S.J'., ed. J. H. McDonald and Nancy P. Brown (Oxford, 1967), p. 74. The editors, however, maintain that Southwell is not the author of the poem. See pp. lxxxi-lxxxii.

Note 17 in page 1038 See especially the articles by Fredson Bowers, “Hamlet as Minister and Scourge,” PMLA, 70 (1955), 740–49; and “The Death of Hamlet: A Study in Plot and Character,” Studies in the English Renaissance Drama, ed. J. W. Bennett, O. Cargill, and V. Hall (New York, 1959), pp. 28–42.