In his list of biblical references in Shakespeare's plays, Thomas
Carter
gives three sources or verbal parallels in the Geneva Bible for Polonius'
words, "A double blessing is a double grace" (Hamlet,
I.iii.54). "The
words 'double grace' and 'double blessing' occur in the Geneva Bible in
very
interesting connections," Carter says, and quotes the Geneva Bible at
Ecclesiasticus 26.15, "A shamefast and faithfull woman is a double grace."
He then gives two additional examples from the Geneva notes, note "c" on
Isaiah 40.2 and note "f" on Isaiah 40.3:
In Isa. xl. 2 a Genevan Note on the verse says—"Sufficient or
double
grace whereas she deserved double punishment;" and again [at Isa.
40.3]—"This was fully accomplished when John the Baptist brought
tidings of Jesus Christe's comming, who was the true deliverer of His
Church
from sinne and Satan;
hence this double blessing of the Forerunner
and
the Messiah announced the sufficient or double grace of the forgiveness of
God."
[1] (Italics
added.)
Carter's claim is important for at least two reasons. First of all, if he
is
correct, then in the note on Isaiah 40.3 we have one of Shakespeare's
clearest references to a Geneva note or gloss. Shakespeare frequently refers
to the text of the Geneva Bible; at times these references plainly indicate
that
he had only the Geneva Bible in mind and no other version. But to
demonstrate that Shakespeare echoes a Geneva note or gloss as clearly as
Carter asserts he does in this instance, is quite another matter. Convincing
evidence that Shakespeare was influenced by the many notes in the margins
of the Geneva Bible is practically nil.
Carter's claim is important for another reason. The average scholar
will
be unable to find the italicized portion of note "f" on Isa. 40.3 in his
Geneva
Bible, and will probably conclude that Carter's reading must be taken from
a
different edition. If it is true that certain editions of the Geneva Bible
contain
that note as Carter presents it, there would be some basis for arguing that
a
certain edition of the Geneva Bible, or one of several editions with that
textual variant, may have been the edition that Shakespeare possessed and
read. To be able to identify an edition of the Geneva Bible that Shakespeare
used would be an important milestone in the study of Shakespeare's use of
the Bible. Shakespeare's biblical references should then be compared not
with any edition of the Geneva Bible, but only with the edition or editions
which
contain this marginal note, and which might contain other textual variants
that are reflected in Shakespeare's plays.
The problem with Carter's claim is that the crucial part of the note
on
Isa. 40.3, the part in italics, does not appear in any edition
of the
Geneva Bible. The expression "double grace" does appear in the Geneva
Bible in the two places that Carter points out, Ecclus. 26.15 and note "c"
of
Isa. 40.2. But only the first part of note "f" on Isa. 40.3 appears as Carter
quotes it. The latter part, which contains both the expressions "double
blessing" and "double grace" that are parallel to Polonius' words, is
nowhere
to be found.
Carter asserts that he used the 1598 edition of the Geneva Bible for
the
Old Testament, and the 1557 edition of the Geneva for the New
(Whittingham's New Testament). Only two editions of the Geneva appeared
in 1598 (STC 2171, 2172), and the note as Carter quotes it
appears
in neither of them.[2] Nor does that
note
appear in any of the spuriously-dated "1599" editions of the Geneva Bible
(STC 2174-2180a). Most of these Geneva
Bibles were actually
published after 1599 on the Continent, most likely in Amsterdam and Dort,
although their title pages declare them to have been published in London in
1599. The only authentic 1599 Geneva is STC 2173, but it,
too,
lacks that note.
Moreover, in an attempt to find the edition of the Geneva Bible that
Shakespeare might have used, I checked every edition of the complete
Geneva Bible and every Geneva Old Testament in the library of the British
and Foreign Bible Society in London. Its collection includes almost all
editions of the Geneva Bible that were ever published from 1560, when the
first edition appeared (STC 2093), till 1644, when the last
17th-century edition of the Geneva Bible was printed (Wing B 2206). Not
one of them contains the portion of the note at Isaiah 40.3 that Carter
claims
Shakespeare refers to in Hamlet.[3]
I have also considered the possibility that Carter might have combined
or
confused two separate glosses in the Geneva Bible in the note in question,
and then failed to cite his source for the second part of the gloss. But a
search for the italicized portion of the note elsewhere in the Geneva Bible
has failed to turn it up. Carter places both portions of that note within the
same quotation marks. Related as both halves are in thought and content,
and connected by "hence," they were clearly intended to be understood as
a
single unit.
Thus, we are not dealing with an edition or editions that have an
important textual variant. Rather, we are confronted with a situation in
which not
a single edition of the Geneva Bible contains that portion of the note at
Isaiah 40.3 on which Polonius' words are supposedly based. It simply does
not seem to exist.
