The theme of the Drink-Bearer
Using three basic texts (The Saga of the Volsungs, The Odyssey, and the IrishThe Voyage of Mael Duin), but ranging over a variety of other examples, this article tries to define a symbol found in Celtic, Germanic and Classical literature, the symbol of the Drink-Bearer. It begins by considering the Cup presented by woman to the hero (1); it then studies some of the various symbolic contents of this cup and its functions, as well as its iconographic value in myth (2); thereafter it analyzes the vessel as a symbol of death and life (3); the enquiry then concentrates on the figure of the Drink-Bearer herself and on her role as dispenser of political power and status, and tries to reconcile the two basic notions she symbolizes: life and death on the one hand, territorial sovereignty on the other (4).
LIFE, CROWN, AND QUEEN: GERTRUDE AND THE THEME OF SOVEREIGNTY
IN a short preliminary paper' I sought to establish the presence in Hamlet of the traditional symbol of the Cup of Sovereignty. Briefly the argument was this: when Hamlet speaks of the 'dram of evil' that obscures a man's virtues (I. iv. 36-8), he is constructing a metaphor for the cup Claudius drinks out of to celebrate his marriage, and giving this vessel connotations which, on the moral plane, resemble those found in the several poisons used in the play: moral corruption is as inherent in that cup as physical infection is in Lucianus', Laertes', or Claudius' poisons. The significance placed on this cup seems out of all proportion to its apparent function in the play, until we stop looking for a realistic explanation and recall that the cup was a symbol for the transmission of Sovereignty in Celtic tales: when the queen handed a vessel or otherwise offered drink to the hero she was granting him her sexual favours and/or sovereignty over her territory. No reader of Hamlet can fail to notice the analogy with Claudius' cup in I. iv which symbolizes both his sexual union with Gertrude and his accession to the Danish throne. The argument, then, claims a traditional, non-realistic reading for this aspect of the play. The present article seeks to delve further into the mythological status of Gertrude and, beyond this, to explore the role, and the fate, of myth in Hamlet. To forestall misunderstandings it will be expedient to state here that this article does not make any pronouncements on woman, her social status, her 'archetypal' nature, or her numinous qualities. The point is worth some emphasis, if only because the border between fact and fiction is often made to look so elusive nowadays. That 'Goddess' which has caught many a receptive imagination since the 1980s is none of my concern here; my goal is to explore Renaissance changes in the application of a traditional literary metaphor. Nothing is said about 'woman', much is claimed about a literary device.
Shoeless Joe: Fantasy and the Humor of Fellow-Feeling
In his essay on Jean Paul Friedrich Richter, Thomas Carlyle writes of a humor that manifests itself in smile rather than laughter. "Richter is a man of mirth," says Carlyle, whose humor is "capricious . . . quaint . . . [and] heartfelt" (15). The three adjectives represent for Carlyle the essence of what he terms "true humor" because they suggest Richter's enormous respect for humanity. "True humor," he goes on to say, "springs not more from the head than from the heart; it is not contempt, its essence is love; it issues not in laughter, but in still smiles, which lie far deeper" (17). These smiles are not Hobbesian smirks of superiority1 but genuine signs of compassion for, sympathy toward, and empathy with the object of the humor. Carlyle further provides a direct link between humor and both pathos and nobility; the link is the smile of the caring man. For Carlyle, this smile is one of "fellow-feeling":