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All Site ContentHamletAct 4Scene 5
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"life-rendering pelican"
Simile
Act 4,
Scene 5
Lines 144-152a

An explanation of the pelican metaphor in Act 4, Scene 5 of myShakespeare’s Hamlet.

Claudius

Will you know them, then?

Laertes

To his good friends, thus wide I'll ope my arms,
And, like the kind life-rend'ring pelican,
Repast them with my blood.    

Claudius 

                                                  Why, now you speak 
Like a good child and a true gentleman.
That I am guiltless of your father's death,
And am most sensible in grief for it,
It shall as level to your judgment pierce,
As day does to your eye.

In this simile, Laertes’ welcoming his father’s friends is like a mother pelican which, according to legend, would wound herself with her beak and feed her blood to her young—an act that could bring a dead chick back to life.