How Hamlet drew on Metamorphoses
A documented line of influence: William Shakespeare demonstrably engaged Ovid’s work. The commentary below is Gröblé’s, verbatim from each work’s page.
The source
Metamorphoses
Ovid · 8
Ancient RomeThe influenced
Hamlet
William Shakespeare · c. 1600
ShakespeareRelevance
5/10
On Hamlet’s page
- Hamlet reaches for Ovid again and again — Niobe, Hecuba, Hyperion, the forgetful waters of Lethe all surface from the Metamorphoses
- The Player's Speech is built on Golding's Ovid, the ~200 lines on Hecuba's fall (Met. 13)
- Shakespeare had read lots of Ovid in Golding's translation; the Metamorphoses is the single classical text standing behind Hamlet more than any other
On Metamorphoses’s page
- More than any other classical text, the Metamorphoses is Hamlet's myth-bank — Hecuba's grief, Niobe dissolving in tears, Hyperion's beauty
- The Player's Speech reworks Golding's Ovid almost directly (the ~200 lines on Hecuba's tragedy, Met. 13)
- Hecuba is named four times — more than in any Shakespeare play but Troilus — proof of how heavily Ovid sits behind the tragedy