of the kingdom has allowed young Fortinbras to underestimate Claudius’ strength and perceive the kingdom as one in disorder. “Now follows that you know young Fortinbras,/Holding a weak supposal of our worth,/Or thinking by our late dear brother’s death/Our state to be disjoint and out of frame,/Colleaguèd with this dream of his advantage,/He hath not failed to pester us with his message,/Importing the surrender of those lands/Lost by his father, with all bands of law,/To our most valiant brother” (1.2.17-25). True to the Jesuit message, excessive grief and concern with material comforts have strengthened the enemy.
Indifference
The Ignatian quality of “indifference” relates to the attitude the Jesuit takes in guarding against being swayed by his attraction to some things and his distraction by others. The Jesuit must remain practically impartial, moved only by desire for his final end in God and perception of the divine will.
Floyd writes: “Dreadful mischance[s] of this kind” are simply miseries “indifferently incident unto mankind,” adversities “unto which their own sect” [Protestant] was “continually subject” as well. In other words, God tests the love of all men to keep the righteous on track in following God’s will. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, upon greeting Hamlet, describe themselves as the “indifferent children of the earth” in a passage that also speaks of the vicissitudes of Fortune (2.2.230). “Happy in that we are not overhappy. On Fortune’s cap we are not the very button,” Guildenstern says. Shakespeare also alludes to the attitude of indifference in Ignatian theology in a passage superficially concerning the training of actors. The passage emphasizes moderate gestures and temperance to give their acting “smoothness.” In an overt reference to the discretio spirituum, Hamlet says, “Let your own discretion be your tutor.” A player responds, “I hope we have reformed [not performed, as we would expect to read] that indifferently.” Southwell alludes to Ignatian indifference in Triumphs as well, postulating that while it is normal to mourn, “not to bear it with moderation is to want understanding.” In other words, passions must be kept in balance. All three authors introduce the notion of indifference into their writings, but only Floyd and Shakespeare use the word “indifference.”
Brotherly Obligation
Floyd writes (To the Reader): “Let the duty of weeping for the Dead, in this late dismall Accident, so rufull to flesh and blood, which from our hartes both common Humanity and private Friendship enforce, give place unto the duty of writing in the behalfe of the living, which at our handes both Christian Charity, and Priestly obligation exact.”
In the last scene of Hamlet, Fortinbras comes upon the carnage of the dead bodies: “This quarry cries on havoc. O proud Death,/What feast is toward in thine eternal cell/That thou so many princes at a shot/So bloodily has struck?” (5.2.364-368). The ambassador responds: “The sight is dismal” (5.2.368). Earlier, the King says in belittling Hamlet’s grief: “’Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,/To give these mourning duties to your father,/But you must know your father lost a father,/That father lost, lost his, and the survivor bound/In filial obligation for some term/To do obsequious sorrow” (1.2.87-93). The monarch, appearing to represent Elizabethan temporal authority in belittling Jesuit grief, calls for “obsequious” sorrow, the opposite of the Jesuit’s directive.
Ignorance, Impiety, and Grace
Floyd writes (To the Reader): Let mourning for corporall Death, which the Holy Ghost confines within the compasse of seaven [seven] dayes, Lucifer mortui septem dies, especially for them whose soules (as we with reason hope) do raigne in glory, be changed into mourning for blind Ignorance and Impiety, which the same Holy Spirit will have commeasured unto the length of their life, Luctus mortui septem dies, to wit, so long as there is hope by teares of instruction to reclayme them.” Here, Floyd says mourning is limited to seven days by God, according to scripture, and he urges against mourning for those in Heaven. Instead, it is more productive to mourn ignorance and impiety, so that God will set a limit on such unproductive actions as well. Floyd says excessive tears and grief—“this weake inclination of Nature”—should yield to “Gods holy will” and to “the motion of heavenly Grace concurring with obedience” so that private sorrow for friends is subordinated to the public defense of the Catholic cause. Defense of the Church is needed in recognition that “ignorant zeale is ready upon the least occasion to disgrace it.” Likewise, Southwell says in Triumphs Over Death, “The Scripture warneth us not to give our hearts to sadness, as men without hope, but rather, to reject it as a thing not beneficial to the dead, yea, prejudicial to ourselves. Ecclesiasticus alloweth but seven days to mourning, judging moderation in plaint to be a sufficient testimony of good-will and a needful office of wisdom.” In considering the “madness” of Hamlet, Southwell calls excessive grief “effeminate” and an “impotent softness” that “fitteth not sober minds.” If those in a state of passion send their thoughts into the “labyrinth” of prolonged mourning, what results is “weakness” that serves “to arm an enemy against ourselves—putting the sword in the rebel’s hand, when we are least able to withstand his treason.”
In failing to limit his grief to seven days, a mourning Laertes calls for salty tears to burn his eyes: Tears seven times salt/Burn out the sense and virtue [power] of mine eye!” (4.5.154-155). Conversely, Hamlet tells Gertrude his outward appearance of mourning—black clothing, sighs, and weeping—may seem like grief, but these outward signs fail to show the inner extent of his grief, to “denote me truly.” True to Floyd’s message, Hamlet urges his audience members to outwardly hide their grief, despite the suffering within. Using the same or similar language as Floyd—“ignorance” and “impiety”—Claudius says mourning runs counter to God’s will, makes one vulnerable, and reveals ignorance (an “understanding unschooled”), weakness, and impiety (“a will most incorrect to heaven”):
But to persever
In obstinate condolement is a course
Of impious stubbornness. ‘Tis unmanly grief.
It shows a will most incorrect to heaven,
A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,
An understanding simple and unschooled (1.2.92-97).
Much as Floyd uses the words “disgrace,” “impiety,” and “ignorance” together in adjacent sentences, Shakespeare in Sonnet 67 includes the words “grace” and “impiety” in back-to-back lines, but he substitutes “infection” (meaning sin) for “ignorance” with the express implication that moral corruption can be caused by ignorance, a theme of Othello. “Ah, wherefore with infection should he live,/And with his presence grace impiety/That sin by him advantage should achieve,/And lace itself with his society?” In the sonnet, the speaker laments the “infection”—essentially the sin of heresy, which can be caused by ignorance, according to the OED—with which the beloved must live, gracing sinners with his presence so as to enable them to take advantage of him.
Floyd in his tract urges his co-religionists to discard
