PARALLEL PASSAGES BETWEEN SHAKSPEARE AND THE BIBLE.
An English minister, Rev. T. R. Eaton, has written a work entitled Shakspeare and the Bible, for the purpose of showing how much Shakspeare was indebted to the Bible for many of his illustrations, rhythms, and even modes of feeling. The author affirms that, in storing his mind, the immortal bard went first to the word, and then to the works, of God. In shaping the truths derived from these sources, he obeyed the instinct implanted by Him who had formed him Shakspeare. Hence his power of inspiring us with sublime affection for that which is properly good, and of chilling us with horror by his fearful delineations of evil. Shakspeare perpetually reminds us of the Bible, not by direct quotations, indirect allusion, borrowed idioms, or palpable imitation of phrase or style, but by an elevation of thought and simplicity of diction which are not to be found elsewhere. A passage, for instance, rises in our thoughts, unaccompanied by a clear recollection of its origin. Our first impression is that it must belong either to the Bible or Shakspeare. No other author excites the same feeling in an equal degree. In Shakspeare’s plays religion is a vital and active principle, sustaining the good, tormenting the wicked, and influencing the hearts and lives of all.
Although the writer carries his leading idea too far, by straining passages to multiply the instances in which Shakspeare has imitated scriptural sentences in thought and construction, and by leading his readers to infer that it was from the Bible Shakspeare drew not only his best thoughts, but in fact his whole power of inspiring us with affection for good and horror for evil, it is certainly true that some hundreds of Biblical allusions, however brief and simple, show Shakspeare’s conversance with the Bible, his fondness for it, and the almost unconscious recurrence of it in his mind. The following examples of his parallelisms will be found interesting:—
Othello.—Rude am I in my speech.—i. 3.
But though I be rude in speech.—2 Cor. xi. 6.
Witches.—Show his eyes and grieve his heart.—Macbeth, iv. 1.
Consume thine eyes and grieve thine heart.—1 Sam. ii. 33.
Macbeth.—Lighted fools the way to dusty death.—v. 5.
Thou hast brought me into the dust of death.—Ps. xxii. 15.
Dusty death alludes to the sentence pronounced against Adam:—
Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.—Gen. iii. 19.
Macbeth.—Life’s but a walking shadow.—v. 5.
Man walketh in a vain show.—Ps. xxxix. 6.
Prince of Morocco.—Mislike me not for my complexion,
The shadow’d livery of the burnished sun.—Merch. Ven. ii. 1.
Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me.—Sol. Song, i. 6.
Othello.—I took by the throat, the circumcised dog, and smote him.—v. 2.
I smote him, I caught him by his beard and smote him, and slew him.—1 Sam. xvii. 35.
Macbeth.—Let this pernicious hour stand aye accursed in the calendar.—iv. 1.
Opened Job his mouth and cursed his day; let it not be joined unto the days of the year, let it not come into the number of the months.—Job iii. 1, 6.
Hamlet.—What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculties! In form and moving, how express and admirable! In action, how like an angel! In apprehension, how like a God! The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals!—ii. 2.
What is man, that thou art mindful of him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands.—Ps. viii. 4, 5, 6.
Macbeth.—We will die with harness on our back.—v. 5.
Nicanor lay dead in his harness.—2 Maccabees xv. 28.
Banquo.—Woe to the land that’s governed by a child.
Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child.—Eccles. x. 16.
Banquo.—In the great hand of God I stand.—Macbeth, ii. 3.
Thy right hand hath holden me up.—Ps. xviii. 35.
Man the image of his Maker.—Henry VIII., iii. 2.—Gen. I. 27.
Blessed are the peacemakers.—2 Henry VI., ii. 1.—Matt. V. 29.
And when he falls he falls like Lucifer.—Henry VIII., iii. 2.
How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!—Isaiah xiv. 12.
No, Bolingbroke, if ever I were traitor,
My name be blotted from the book of life.—Richard II., i. 3.
Whose names were not written in the book of life.—Rev. xx., xxi.
Swear by thy gracious self.—Romeo and Juliet, ii. 2.
He could swear by no greater, he sware by himself.—Heb. vi. 13.
My stay, my guide, and lantern to my feet.—2 Henry VI., ii. 3.
Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.—Ps. cxix. 105.
Who can call him his friend that dips in the same dish?—Timon of Athens, iii. 2.
He that dippeth his hand with me in the dish, the same shall betray me.—Matt. xxvi. 23.
You shall see him a palm in Athens again, and flourish with the highest.—Timon of Athens, v. 1.
The righteous shall flourish like the palm-tree.—Ps. xcii. 12.
It is written, they appear to men like angels of light.—Com. of Errors, iv. 3
Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.—2 Cor. xi. 14.
And lose my way
Among the thorns and dangers of this world.—King John, iv. 3.
Thorns and snares are in the way of the froward.—Prov. xxii. 5.
When we first put this dangerous stone a rolling,
’Twould fall upon ourselves.—Henry VIII., v. 2.
He that rolleth a stone, it will return upon him.—Prov. xxvi. 27.
The speech of Ulysses, in “Troilus and Cressida,” i. 3, is almost a paraphrase of St. Luke xxi. 25, 26:—
But when the planets
In evil mixture to disorder wander,
What plagues, and what portents! What mutiny!
What raging of the sea! Shaking of earth!
Commotion in the winds! frights, changes, horrors,
Divert and crack, rend and deracinate
The unity and married calm of states
Quite from their fixture.
And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth; for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.
Hermia and Lear both use an expression derived from the same source:—
Hermia.—An adder did it; for with doubler tongue
Than thine, thou serpent, never adder stung.—Mid. N. Dream, iii. 2.
Lear.—Struck me with her tongue,
Most serpent-like, upon the very heart.—ii. 4.
They have sharpened their tongues like a serpent; adders’ poison is under their lips.—Ps. cxl. 3.
Lear.—All the stored vengeances of heaven fall on her ingrateful top.—ii. 4.
As for the head of those that compass me about, let the mischief of their own lips cover them.—Ps. cxl. 9.
Fool to King Lear.—We’ll set thee to school to an ant, to teach thee there’s no laboring in the winter.—ii. 4.
The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer.—Prov. xxx. 25. See also Prov. vi. 6.