Shakespeare’s Sweet Poison

by David P. Gontar (February 2014)

“I am a soldier and now bound to France.”   — Queen Eleanor

CLAUDIUS

He, being remiss,
Most generous, and free from all contriving,
Will not peruse the foils; so that with ease,
Or with a little shuffling, you may choose
A sword unbated [=unblunted, see, Bate, 1985, n. 119), and in a pass of practice,
Requite him of your father.
(IV, vii, 107-112)

There is nothing of poison in this scheme.

Laertes immediately responds that he has already bought a potent poison to use on Hamlet. That is, poisoning Hamlet is proposed not by Claudius but by Laertes.

LAERTES

Claudius is the only man in Shakespeare who uses poison for violent ends.” (Kaye, 24)

Ms. Kaye adds:

your venomed stuck,
Our purpose may hold there.
(IV, vii, 128-134)  

What these passages show us is that the factual claim made by Ms. Kaye is false. Claudius is not the only male poisoner in Shakespeare. He is not the only male poisoner in Hamlet. What is she trying to accomplish with this misleading information?

Could there be others?

SUFFOLK

FIRST MURDERER

SECOND MURDERER

O that it were to do! What have we done?
Didst ever hear a man so penitent?

FIRST MURDERER

Here comes my lord.

SUFFOLK

Now, sirs, have you dispatched this thing?

FIRST MURDERER

SUFFOLK

KING HENRY

How fares my lord? Speak, Beaufort, to thy sovereign.

CARDINAL BEAUFORT

KING HENRY

Ah, what a sign it is of evil life
Where death's approach is seen so terrible.

WARWICK

Beaufort, it is thy sovereign speaks to thee.

CARDINAL BEAUFORT

Bring me unto my trial when you will.
Died he not in his bed? Where should he die?
Can I make men live whe'er they will or no?
O, torture me no more — I will confess.
Alive again? Then show me where he is.
I'll give a thousand pounds to look upon him.
He hath no eyes! The dust hath blinded them.
Comb down his hair — look, look: it stands upright,
Like lime twigs set to catch my wingèd soul.
Give me some drink, and bid the apothecary
Bring the strong poison I bought of him.

KING HENRY

O Thou eternal mover of the heavens,
Look with a gentle eye upon this wretch.
O, beat away the busy meddling fiend
That lays strong siege unto this wretch's soul,
And from his bosom purge this black despair.

WARWICK

See how the pangs of death do make him grin.

SALISBURY

KING HENRY

Cardinal Beaufort dies

He dies and makes no sign. O, God, forgive him.

WARWICK

So bad a death argues a monstrous life.
(III, iii, 1-30)

That means there are at least three male poisoners in Shakespeare, not one.

Listen.

KEEPER (to groom)

Fellow, give place. Here is no longer stay.

RICHARD (to groom)

GROOM

What my tongue dares not, that my heart shall say.

KEEPER

RICHARD

Taste of it first, as thou art wont to do.

KEEPER

RICHARD (striking the Keeper)

The devil take Henry of Lancaster and thee!
Patience is stale, and I am weary of it.
(V, v, 95-104)

These results are then duly reported to Bolingbroke, now minding his royal business on the throne as King Henry IV. His reaction is instructive.

EXTON

Great King, within this coffin I present
Thy buried fear. Herein all breathless lies
The mightiest of thy greatest enemies,
Richard of Bordeaux, by me hither brought.

KING HENRY

Exton, I thank thee not, for thou hast wrought
A deed of slander with thy fatal hand
Upon my head and all this famous land.

EXTON

From your own mouth, my lord, did I this deed.

KING HENRY

Lords, I protest my soul is full of woe
That blood should sprinkle me to make me grow.
Come mourn with me for what I do lament,
And put on sullen black incontinent.
I'll make a voyage to the Holy Land
To wash this blood from off my guilty hand.
(V, vi, 30-50)

King Henry VI. Unlike the situation in King Richard III, in which King Edward IV sought to reverse the order of execution of his brother Clarence (killed in the Tower by Richard), only to discover that his commutation of sentence had not been heeded, (II, i, 86-95), here hand-wringing Bolingbroke never rescinds the order to assassinate Richard. Hence his load of guilt. He is a de facto poisoner.

OBERON

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite overcanopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine.
There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,
Lulled in these flowers with dances and delight;
And there the snake throws her enamelled skin,
Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in;
And with the juice of this I'll streak her eyes,
And make her full of hateful fantasies.
Take thou some of it, and seek through this grove.
A sweet Athenian lady is in love
With a disdainful youth. Annoint his eyes;
But do it when the next thing he espies
May be the lady. Thou shalt know the man
By the Athenian garments he has on.
Effect it with some care, that he may prove
More fond on her than she upon her love;
And look thou meet me ere the first cock crow.
(II, i, 248-267)

FRIAR LAURENCE

There is some soul of goodness in things evil,
Would men observingly distill it out —
For our bad neighbor makes us early stirrers,
Which is both healthful and good husbandry.
Besides, they are our outward consciences,
And preachers to us all, admonishing
That we should dress us fairly for our end.
Thus we may gather honey from the weed,
And make a moral of the devil himself.
(IV, i, 4-12)

Another example of the same insight can be found in As You Like It, when Duke Senior praises his harsh outdoor environment:

Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile,
Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
More free from peril than the envious court?
Here feel we not the penalty of Adam,
The seasons' difference, as the icy fang
And churlish chiding of the winter's wind,
Which when it bites and blows upon my body
Even til I shrink with cold, I smile, and say
'This is no flattery. These are counsellors
That feelingly persuade me what I am'.
Sweet are the uses of adversity
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;
And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.
(II, i, 1-17)

Take thou this vial, being then in bed,
And this distilling liquor drink thou off,
When presently through all thy veins shall run
A cold and drowsy humor; for no pulse
Shall keep his native progress, but surcease.
No warmth, no breath shall testify thou livest.
The roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade
To wanny ashes, thy eyes' windows fall
Like death when he shuts up the day of life.
Each part, deprived of supple government
Shall, stiff and stark and cold, appear like death;
And in this borrowed likeness of shrunk death
Thou shalt continue two-and-forty hours,
And then awake as from a pleasant sleep.
(IV, i, 93-106)

But this is worshipful society,
And fits the mounting spirit like myself;
For he is but a bastard to the time
That doth not smack of observation;
And so am I — whether I smack or no,
And not alone in habit and device,
Exterior form, outward accoutrement,
But from the inward motion — to deliver
Sweet, sweet, sweet poison for the age's tooth;
Which, though I will not practise to deceive,
Yet to avoid deceit I mean to learn;
For it shall strew the footsteps of my rising.
(King John, II, i, 205-216)

Jacques in As You Like It sings the same tune, but in a minor key.

I must have liberty
Withal, as large a charter as the wind,
To blow on whom I please, for so fools have;
And they that are most gallèd with my folly, 
They most must laugh. And why, sir, must they so?
The way is plain as way to parish church:
He that a fool doth very wisely hit
Doth very foolishly, although he smart,
Seem aught but senseless of the bob. If not,
The wise man's folly is anatomized
Even by the squandering glances of the fool.
Invest me in my motley. Give me leave
To speak my mind, and I will through and through
Cleanse the foul body of th'infected world,
If they will patiently receive my medicine.
(II, vii, 47-61)

CONCLUSION

For this I shall have time enough to mourn.
In poison there is physic; and these news,
Having been well, that would have made me sick,
Being sick, have in some measure made me well;
And, as the wretch whose fever-weakened joints,
Like strengthless hinges, buckle under life,
Impatient of his fit, breaks like a fire
Out of his keeper's arms, even so my limbs,
Weakened with grief, being now enraged with grief,
Are thrice themselves.
(King Henry IV, Part Two, I, i, 136-145)

_____________________

WORKS CITED

Plato: The Collected Dialogues, Edith Hamilton, Huntington Cairns, eds., Princeton University Press, Bollingen Series LXXI, 1989.

To comment on this essay, please click here.

here.

here.