LECTURE ON HAMLET
Prologue | Act I | Act II | Act III | Act IV | Act V
The following material is based upon an audio lecture available on the web page for English 154. Although this text material is not identical to the audio lecture, it is essentially the same information. You should have read the play before you begin this lecture. The text referred to is the Folger Library paperback edition of the play, a book you should have open as you read this material.
The Play’s Reputation
No other work of literature, except the Bible, has occasioned so much passionate examination. Almost from the time the play was first performed people have sought some kind of explanation for the intriguing tragedy of the Prince of Denmark. It has been performed in most of the world’s languages, and countries other than England feel a particular affinity for its puzzling hero. Actors, both men and women, generally consider the role of Hamlet as the capstone of their professional careers. It is especially fodder for the literary scholar. About one hundred years ago, H.H. Furness, one of the many scholarly editors of the plays, observed that there were over 400 separate works on Hamlet in his library. He urged his readers not to write another essay on the play and declared, “I am convinced that were I told that my closest friend was lying at the point of death, and that his life could be saved by permitting him to divulge his theory of Hamlet, I would instantly say, ‘Let him die! Let him die! Let him die!’” The only difference from Furness’ time and ours is that now there are over 400 separate works on Hamlet that appear every year! I had a friend who once called me excitedly to say that he had just gotten an article published in which he came up with a new theory for the meaning of a single line from the play. However, I was unable to see the article in print since it had appeared in an obscure literary journal published in India. There was a bitter court battle some years ago between two people over who owned an idea about what motivated Hamlet’s behavior, based on a tenuous connection with the university he attended, Wittenberg. We will try not to let the reputation of the play or its hero overwhelm us. The basic message of this lecture is that while we can clarify much about the play, we can never fully explain it.
The Date
Like so much else about Hamlet, the date is shrouded in mystery. Most scholars believe the play was written around 1600-01. A theatrical operator, Francis Meres, made a list of some of Shakespeare’s plays in 1598 and doesn’t mention Hamlet. The first registered printed version of the play came out in 1603, so we assume that the play was written in the time span 1598 -- 1603. In those days no one thought to keep records of when plays first appeared on stage or how long it took to write them. There are several internal references in the play, which I’ll explain in the lectures, that seem to point to some actual historical events supporting a date of about 1601.
Place of the Play in Shakespeare’s Career
By 1601 Shakespeare and his company, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, had been playing at the Globe Theater for about four years. He had started a series of romantic comedies – Much Ado about Nothing, As You Like It and Twelfth Night – which feature elaborate plots and disguises. He had just finished his series of four interrelated history plays – Richard II, Henry IV Parts 1 & 2 and Henry V – which feature complex central characters who are unusually introspective. These qualities will be found in Hamlet. Shakespeare had just written his tragedy – Julius Caesar – the first in about five years since his early effort with Romeo and Juliet. Julius Caesar featured a protagonist who is torn by the moral implications of his actions in carrying out a political assassination, the same central dilemma that faces Hamlet. In the following years Shakespeare would continue writing a series of tragedies, the most remarkable achievement of any single person in the history of world literature – Othello, King Lear, Macbeth and Antony & Cleopatra.
At a personal level Shakespeare continued to split his time between his family in Stratford and his career in London, where he not only wrote the plays and continued to act but also served as one of the principal partners in the business of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men. Back in Stratford, Shakespeare had suffered family tragedies: his only son, Hamnet, died in 1596. (The boy’s curious name came from a neighbor of the Shakespeare family, Hamnet Sadler, who was his godfather.) Then in 1601 Shakespeare lost his father, John. These possible coincidences have intrigued scholars over the years who have sought to connect Shakespeare’s personal life with the events in his plays. That is always a risky business because we cannot know for sure what, if anything, links the life on the stage with the life of the playwright, but it has not stopped the speculations, some of which I will share with you in the lecture.
English society as a whole was in a very tense period. Queen Elizabeth had been on the throne for over 40 years, and it was clear to everyone that she would die without an heir to her throne. Almost every time before in English history when there was no clear succession to power, the result had been bloody civil war, and thoughtful English citizens were worried. Their anxiety was increased by the attempts to overthrow Elizabeth violently by people who favored one religious/political cause or another. There had been the plot by Mary, Queen of Scots, to replace her cousin and return England to Catholicism. There had been an alleged plot to poison Elizabeth by her own doctor supposedly for money from a foreign power. Finally, a thwarted favorite of the queen’s, the Earl of Essex, tried an armed revolt, which failed miserably and resulted in Essex’s death and the jailing of Shakespeare’s patron, the Earl of Southampton. It is no a surprise to find the themes of political plots and assassinations featured in Hamlet and Julius Caesar. In addition, Hamlet has a fascinating examination of the Danish method of succession, where the noblemen at court elected the next king from among all those of the royal family who were eligible. Shakespeare’s audience was obviously interested in some alternatives ways out of the dilemma they faced as the aged queen neared death.
The Problem of the Texts
You will discover that the play is filled with puzzling disconnections and inconsistencies, places where Hamlet seems determined to do one thing and does another. Here is just one small but obvious example of the kind of muddle we find throughout the play. In Act IV, scene 4, Hamlet, on his way to England, encounters an army led by Fortinbras, a Norwegian prince. At line 26 Hamlet announces the size of the army to be 2,000 men. And yet, just 37 lines further on, Hamlet tells us that the army is 20,000 men. Some of the puzzles are much more central to the action. When Hamlet last sees Ophelia, his supposed girl friend, alive, he treats her with disdain, knowing that she has betrayed him to the king. And yet, when he comes upon her funeral near the end of the play, he loudly proclaims that he loves her far more than her brother is capable of. This is strange because it soon becomes apparent that his actions have driven her to kill herself and yet he never offers any expression of regret or remorse.
Compounding the problem of the internal inconsistencies is the fact that we have three separate and distinct texts of this one play. No other work of Shakespeare’s has such uncertainty about what it actually is. The play was first printed in 1603 in a small edition called a quarto, so named because the volume was a quarter the size of a full-sized book, called a folio. This First Quarto is quite interesting. It is only about half the length of the other versions of the play, and is missing many of the most famous passages. The sequence of the events of the story has been altered in some cases. In addition some of the characters have different names: “Polonius” is called “Corambis,” for example. Many scholars believe that the play was so popular when it first appeared on stage that unscrupulous printers sought to get their hands on the text by bribing an actor to show his script of the play, which would only reveal his lines. They probably augmented this by hiring people to go to performances and try and write down everything they heard. From this the printers published a pirated edition as the First Quarto, the so-called “Bad Quarto.”
The next year, 1604, another much more complete version of the play was published which announced that this version had been augmented and was closer to the original play which had been frequently performed. This version, called the Second Quarto, the “Good Quarto,” has the names and most of the text we now assume is the play as Shakespeare meant it to be performed. The play continued to be published in more editions in Shakespeare’s lifetime, an indication of its popularity. All of these were based on the text of the Second Quarto.
Then in 1623, six years after Shakespeare’s death, two of his partners published the first collected works of his plays, called the First Folio because of the size of the book. We assume this version of the text was that which Shakespeare’s acting company used for performances, showing the changes which had been made over the years as the play was performed. This version, however, has about 80 lines that are not found in the Second Quarto and over 200 lines missing that were in the Second Quarto. No one can explain why this discrepancy occurred, but that has not stopped scholars from coming up with ingenious theories. Most modern editions attempt to “conflate” the Second Quarto and the Folio version, that is to wed them, creating the longest text of all the plays. But it is an uneasy marriage because it is undoubtedly not the text as Shakespeare conceived it. But which is the “true” text? Is it the Second Quarto, which was edited and published during Shakespeare’s lifetime? Or is it the Folio version, which may contain the changes which Shakespeare authorized, or may just show us the alterations that Shakespeare’s fellow actors made in his text as they continued to perform the play which they owned? The Folger text you are using shows you which lines come from the Second Quarto and which from the Folio. Sometimes you will discover the audio recording of the text will not coincide with the printed text we are using. Welcome to the wonderful world of textual uncertainty!
Sources of the Story of Hamlet
The story of Hamlet was originally recorded by a writer in about 1200 named Saxo Grammaticus who was collecting legends of the Norsemen. He told the story of the son of a Norse ruler who had been murdered by his brother. The son, whose name was “Amblet,” meaning “stupid,” avenged his father’s death by pretending to be slow-witted while he plotted his actions. Eventually he brutally murdered one of the usurper’s spies and fed his body to the pigs. Then he barred the doors of the wooden castle and set it on fire, burning all his enemies to death, including his mother. This account was picked up by a Frenchman named Belleforest who wrote his version of the story, changing Amblet into a proper Renaissance gentleman, Hamlet, who was troubled by the actions of personal revenge which he was called upon to carry out. Belleforest’s story was translated into English in 1570 and from there was transformed for the stage.
It is this transformation into drama which raised another mystery in the saga of Hamlet. Beginning about 10 years before Shakespeare’s version appeared, there are many references among Shakespeare’s contemporaries to a play titled Hamlet which is clearly not the play we have. To heighten the mystery, this earlier Hamlet has disappeared. (That is not unusual, because the text of plays back in the days of Elizabethan drama were seldom saved unless the play proved particularly popular; there are hundreds of plays from that time which we know only by title, the text having disappeared.) Scholars refer to this early version as the Ur-Hamlet. (“Ur” is a term from archeology and indicates an artifact that existed before that present object being studied.) From the few tantalizing clues about the text of the Ur-Hamlet, scholars have speculated about what it might have been like. Was it a version that Shakespeare himself wrote before he composed his more mature play, or did he, as he did with so many of his other works, borrow another writer’s work, improve on it and create his own masterpiece? It seems likely that the immediate source of the Hamlet we have is this mysterious earlier work.
Hamlet and the Revenge Tragedy Tradition
As a drama Hamlet is an example of one of the most popular forms of tragedy ever conceived – the revenge tragedy. In this kind of work a good and decent person suffers a terrible loss when a loved one is brutally killed. The hero learns the true nature of the murder often through supernatural forces or in some other unexpected way. It then falls to him to revenge the crime, in the most ingenious and bloody way possible. The hero often hides his intentions by pretending to be stupid or crazy so that his victims will not suspect his plot. Eventually everyone connected with the original crime is killed, often along with the hero of the revenge tragedy, who dies happily having fulfilled his commitment to revenge.
You have seen this drama countless times in contemporary films and television shows. The hero has his wife raped and murdered and spends the rest of the film hunting down sexual predators in Central Park. Or the CIA official has a team of agents ambushed by Colombian drug lords and learns of their fate from a GPS device. He then uses his espionage skills to locate the survivors and run the chief drug lord through a buzz saw. Or an escaped POW goes back to Laos to find and kill all the Vietnamese sadists who run the POW camp and free his friend. These plots all have a lot in common with the original revenge tragedies:
1.) The hero is not responsible for the violence which his loved one suffers.
2.) The villains are without redeeming qualities, being usually foreigners or crazed killers, so that we feel no regret when they are killed.
3.) The hero learns the truth about what happened to his loved one in some unusual or accidental manner.
4.) The hero hides his true intentions from his targeted victims.
5.) Once the hero begins the plan for revenge, any and all excesses of violence are allowed. (The audience, in effect, is given a pass on guilt feelings for the rough justice meted out to the offenders.)
6.) Someone connected with the good guys, if not the hero himself, dies in the final phase of the revenge.
The revenge tragedy can be found back at the very beginning of drama, in many of the plays of ancient Greece. Later the format shows up in the theater of the ancient Romans, particularly in the tragedies of Seneca, which were studied by Elizabethan schoolboys to help them learn Latin. So it was no surprise that the revenge tragedy appears in the plays that were first written for the English stage. Just as Shakespeare was beginning his career in London the most popular drama was a revenge tragedy called The Spanish Tragedy by Thomas Kyd. It has all the elements listed above.
Not surprisingly the first tragedy Shakespeare tried his hand at was a revenge tragedy set in ancient Rome and called Titus Andronicus. The hero is a military leader in Rome’s war against the Goths. Through a fluke Tamara, Queen of the Goths, becomes the wife of the corrupt emperor of Rome. She sets out to be revenged on Titus, arranging for the murder of several of his sons and then urging her loutish sons to rape Titus’ only daughter, Lavinia. After the boys finish with her, they cut out her tongue and cut off her hands so she will be unable to identify them. Titus is devastated by the loss of his children and goes insane, wandering the streets of Rome and pleading for justice. Lavinia, however, is able to hold a stick between her stumps and write the names of her attackers in the dust. Titus vows revenge. Tamara and her sons do not suspect Titus’ hidden agenda, and he is able to seize the boys, drain their blood and prepare their flesh in a meat pie. He then invites the queen and emperor as his guests for a banquet and serves Tamara the bodies of her own children before killing her and the emperor, taking Lavinia’s life because of the loss of her honor and then killing himself – wholesome family entertainment! As you can see the drama has all the elements of the revenge tragedy listed above.
And so too does Hamlet. It has all the requisites of a classic revenge tragedy – except the hero is very different from all the other monomaniacal killing machines found in similar plays. Whether the hero is Shakespeare’s Titus or Sylvester Stallone’s Rambo or Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator, the classic revenge hero is single-minded in his determination and only ponders whether to use the pickaxe or the flame thrower to take out the bad guys. By contrast, Hamlet is introspective and concerned about the consequences of all his actions. The impulse to revenge is a primitive urge, one that overwhelms any moral consideration for the conventional mindless murderers of the potboiler dramas. Hamlet, on the other hand, seems engaged in an ongoing philosophical examination of the meaning of life. At times he despairs that he will never be able to take action.
The villains in the classic revenge drama have absolutely no moral shadings – they are pure evil from Tamara’s rapist offspring to the Columbian drug lords. By contrast, Hamlet’s nemesis, Claudius, is deeply troubled by what he has done and seeks redemption for his sin. The villains in a play like Titus Andronicus can be slaughtered without a second thought; when Hamlet finally does act, those actions have consequences for those he loves, whether it is his mother who is poisoned because of him or his girlfriend who kills herself after he murders her father. Some times Hamlet is deeply troubled by his actions and sometimes he does not seem fazed. It is the very inconsistency of the central character that gives this play its sense of mystery which has fascinated audiences and readers for over 400 years.
Here are just a few of the inconsistencies, ambiguities and mysteries that Hamlet poses for the reader. I will explore these questions in the course of the lecture:
Hamlet has been a favorite role of actors since Shakespeare’s partner, Richard Burbage, played the part originally. In the 18th Century David Garrick, the foremost actor of his day, was famous for his Hamlet, emphasizing the prince’s grief. John Phillip Kemble, in tune with the Romantic era of the early 19th Century, developed the emphasis on Hamlet’s inner turmoil and nobility of mind. Another famous 19th Century actor, Edmund Kean, projected Hamlet’s inconsistencies, his sudden and inexplicable changes in mood and purpose. The American actor Edwin Booth played the part with a kind of paralysis of the will and outrage at his own actions in killing Claudius. Another late 19th Century act, John Irving, played Hamlet as a man in the midst of a nervous breakdown. Finally, in the early decades of the 20th Century, the famous actor John Gielgud brought a Freudian touch to the role, emphasizing Hamlet’s unnatural obsession with his mother’s sexuality. What we see is how the perception of the role changed from one generation to another, as each actor built on what had been done before.
In the 20th Century Hamlet began to appear on the screen. There are over 50 different film versions of the play, including very powerful performances in Russian, Japanese and German. The first popular version of the play aimed at a mass audience was Laurence Olivier’s in 1948. He picked up Gielgud’s Freudian Hamlet concept, with the “melancholy Dane” lusting after his mother. This film won the Oscar for the Best Film of 1948. The next version of the play in 1969 starred Nicole Williamson, who showed us a balding, middle-aged Hamlet who spoke with a kind of working-class accent. The sequence of the scenes in this version had been altered significantly, and Ophelia was played by Marianne Faithful, Mick Jagger’s girlfriend. In 1980 the classical actor Derek Jacobi played a high-strung Hamlet for the BBC series Shakespeare on Television. Jacobi didn’t just play-act crazy at times, he really was crazy! In 1990 the Italian director Franco Zeffirelli cast Mel Gibson as a kind of action-figure Hamlet with Glenn Close as his mother; this was a version with lots of neat visual effects and almost none of the scenes left intact. The great classical actor Kenneth Branagh, who has done a number of Shakespearean films, played Hamlet in the only uncut version of the play ever done on screen. This is the version I will be commenting on in the lecture. Finally, in 2000 Ethan Hawke starred in a contemporary Hamlet set on Wall Street with the prince played as disaffected teenager who demonstrates his introspection by videotaping everything about his life; Bill Murray plays Polonius.
Now, in Hamlet’s immortal words, “The play’s the thing.” Let’s start our journey.
We are introduced to Elsinore and the Danish court by several ordinary soldiers who have been assigned sentry duty in the middle of the night. Two of them, Marcellus and Barnardo, have sought the advice of a student, Horatio, home from the university. The two soldiers have witnessed a strange ghost-like figure the two previous nights, and they have been reluctant to tell anyone else about it. They hope that as a scholar Horatio will verify what they have seen and tell them what they should do about it. It is unusual that in a play bearing his name, Hamlet does not appear in the opening scene. Why do you think Shakespeare chooses to begin his play in this fashion? Act I, Scene 1, lines 1 – 80.
SCENE I. Elsinore. A platform before the castle.
[FRANCISCO at his post. Enter BARNARDO]
BARNARDO: Who's there?
FRANCISCO: Nay, answer me. Stand, and unfold yourself
[disclose yourself].
BARNARDO: Long live the king!
FRANCISCO: Barnardo?
BARNARDO: He.
FRANCISCO: You come most carefully upon your hour.
BARNARDO: 'Tis now struck twelve. Get thee to bed, Francisco.
FRANCISCO: For this relief much thanks. 'Tis bitter cold,
And
I am sick at heart.
BARNARDO: Have you had quiet guard?
FRANCISCO: Not a mouse stirring.
BARNARDO: Well, good night.
If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,
The
rivals of my watch [my fellow sentries], bid them make haste.
[Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS]
FRANCISCO: I
think I hear them. Stand, ho! Who's there?
HORATIO: Friends to this ground.
MARCELLUS: And liegemen to the Dane [king of Denmark].
FRANCISCO: Give you good night.
MARCELLUS: O, farewell, honest soldier. Who hath relieved
you?
FRANCISCO: Barnardo has my place. Give you good night. [Exit
Francisco]
MARCELLUS: Holla, Barnardo!
BARNARDO: Say, what, is Horatio there?
HORATIO: A piece of him.
BARNARDO: Welcome,
Horatio. -- Welcome, good Marcellus.
MARCELLUS: What, has this thing appeared again tonight?
BARNARDO: I have seen nothing.
MARCELLUS: Horatio says 'tis but our fantasy
And will not let belief take hold of him
Touching this dreaded sight, twice seen of
us [by us]:
Therefore
I have entreated him along
With us to watch the minutes of this night;
That if again this apparition come,
He may approve our eyes [confirm our
account] and speak to it.
HORATIO: Tush, tush, 'twill not appear.
BARNARDO: Sit down awhile,
And let us once again assail your ears,
That are so fortified against our story
What we have two nights seen.
HORATIO: Well,
sit we down,
And let us hear Barnardo speak of this.
BARNARDO: Last night of all,
When
yond same star that's westward from the pole [North Star]
Had made his [its] course to illume
that part of heaven
Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself,
The bell then beating one --
[Enter GHOST]
MARCELLUS: Peace, break thee off! Look where it comes again!
BARNARDO: In the same figure like the king that's dead.
MARCELLUS: Thou art a scholar. Speak to it, Horatio.
BARNARDO: Looks it not like the King? Mark it, Horatio.
HORATIO: Most like. It harrows [torments] me with
fear and wonder.
BARNARDO: It would be spoke to.
MARCELLUS: Question it, Horatio.
HORATIO: What art thou that usurp'st this time of night,
Together with that fair and warlike form
In which the majesty of buried Denmark
Did sometimes [formerly] march? By
heaven, I charge thee speak!
MARCELLUS: It is offended.
BARNARDO: See, it stalks away!
HORATIO: Stay! Speak! speak! I charge thee, speak!
[Exit GHOST]
MARCELLUS: 'Tis gone, and will not answer.
BERNARDO: How now, Horatio, you tremble and look pale.
Is not this something more than fantasy?
What
think you on't?
HORATIO: Before my God, I might not this believe
Without the sensible [tangible] and true
avouch [testimony]
Of mine own eyes.
MARCELLUS: Is it not like the king?
HORATIO: As thou art to thyself.
Such was the very armor he had on
When
he the ambitious Norway [King of Norway, Fortinbras Senior]
combated.
So frowned he once when, in an angry parle
[meeting],
He smote the sledded Polacks [Polish
soldiers in sleds] on the ice.
'Tis strange.
MARCELLUS: Thus twice before, and jump [exactly] at
this dead hour,
With martial stalk hath he gone by our
watch.
HORATIO: In what particular thought to work I know not,
But in the gross and scope of my opinion
[I’m not sure, but generally
I think],
This bodes some strange eruption [trouble]
to our state.
Shakespeare wants to establish a mood of tension and suspense from the very beginning, a sense of impending violence. Notice how much he conveys in just the first 21 lines of this scene. We have two ordinary soldiers on sentry duty meeting, Francisco and Barnardo. Obviously they are not important in the army hierarchy; otherwise they wouldn’t be on guard duty in the middle of the night. They are guarding against some kind of external threat and encounter each other with suspension, each demanding that the other reveal himself and give the password – “Long live the king.” Barnardo has come to relieve Francisco and has arrived at midnight “most carefully,” that is right on time. (One of the things Shakespeare often did in his plays was to accelerate the sense of time for dramatic purposes. By line 46 in this scene we will be told it’s one o’clock and by line 181 it will be daybreak.)
Barnardo asks at line 10 if Francisco has had a quiet guard and is told that not even the mice were stirring. What’s interesting here is that Barnardo will soon tell us that he and his friend Marcellus have seen a ghost on the previous two nights. But he obviously has not told anyone else, like Francisco, about it. Poor Francisco is cold and “sick at heart,” that is, depressed. He just wants to get out of there. But Barnardo doesn’t want to be left alone and he asks that if Francisco sees his companions, Marcellus and Horatio, he will tell them to hurry. (Why is Barnardo anxious for company?) As he is leaving Francisco hears someone approaching and demands that they stop and identify themselves. Horatio, it turns out, is not a soldier and probably doesn’t know the password, so he just says they’re “Friends to this ground,” that is to Denmark; Marcellus adds that they are “liegemen to the Dane,” that is, sworn supporters of the King of Denmark. Now we know that Francisco really wants to leave, because he says good-night (“Give you good night”) at line 18 before he has even found out who they are and then again says good-night at line 21 as he rushes out. He doesn’t stick around to chit chat.
This kind of detailed analysis of the text of a Shakespearean play, looking at the nuances of meaning and the implications of what is said and what isn’t, can be done on almost any piece of text. It’s called the subtext, what is below the surface. It is what scholars and actors customarily do -- the scholar to try and figure out what the play is saying, the actor to try and make sense of his part, even if it is just a sentry who appears on the stage for only 21 lines and says just 53 words. His challenge is to convey a sense of what his character is living at that moment. We normally won’t be going into this much detail about the subtext, but it’s always there. By the way, Shakespeare would sometimes use this kind of exchange, two characters speaking in short lines and asking frequent questions, almost like a cross-examination, to convey a sense of tension in a scene.
In the rest of this section the focus moves from the sentries to Horatio, who will become an important character in the rest of the play. First we learn at line 49 that he is a scholar, a fellow student with Hamlet at the University of Wittenberg in Germany. He probably doesn’t want to be out in the freezing cold in the middle of the night with these two guys. When asked if he’s present at line 23, he replies, “A piece of him,” as if the conditions have reduced him to just a fragment of his former self. Throughout the play he is a skeptic, questioning conventional belief and helping Hamlet figure out the truth of his situation. In this sequence we see him at line 35 express doubt about the story of the Ghost we are about to hear -- “’twill not appear” – and call it a “fantasy” at line 28 and a “thing” at line 26. That’s what will help make the impact of the Ghost all the greater when it does appear, because it will convince Horatio, and us, of its reality. The reason the soldiers have sought out Horatio to accompany them is because he is a scholar and will verify what they have seen and will know how to converse with a supernatural being. (The conventional wisdom was that university students would often dabble in the occult arts in an effort to learn more from evil spirits, just as Doctor Faustus did in the play by Shakespeare’s contemporary, Christopher Marlowe.)
The Ghost arrives on cue at line 45, just as it had previously, when the bell strikes one and one particular star in the heavens had moved into the same position relative to the North Star (“the pole”). The common wisdom about ghosts, which almost everyone in Shakespeare’s audience believed firmly in, was that they would not speak to humans until they were spoken to. However, that was a risky thing, because ghosts could be spirits sent from Satan to trap mortals into losing their souls. Hence, both soldiers call on the really smart guy, Horatio, to speak to it. At line 54 Horatio begins to question the spirit, asking what it is that “usurp’st …. That fair and warlike form/ In which the majesty of Denmark/ Did sometimes march?” Horatio talks to the Ghost as if it could be an imposter, something that is pretending to be the former king. The word “usurp’st” is especially problematic because it will turn out the dead king was usurped and murdered by his brother. Claudius is the imposter, not the Ghost. Finally, Horatio says at line 57, “I charge thee,” that is “I order you,” probably something that would upset a ghost that had been King, not someone used to being ordered around. No wonder the Ghost goes away after a few lines.
Notice that the Ghost is described as wearing armor, and we are told about a couple of his military triumphs at lines 71 – 75. This suggests that Hamlet, Senior, was a real man of action, a ruler who was also a military powerhouse. When we get to know Hamlet, Junior, we will realize the Ghost’s son may not have inherited his father’s talents.
The appearance of the Ghost really convinces Horatio, and we’re told he “trembles and looks pale.” (Whenever Shakespeare wants his audience to pay attention to a physical look or gesture, he will call attention to it with language. Remember, there was an audience of about 3,000 people watching this play on Shakespeare’s original stage; you couldn’t depend on the effectiveness of the actors conveying the message without some verbal help.) Horatio recognizes the King’s armor from his single combat with Fortinbras Senior many years before and a battle with Polish soldiers in sleds on the ice. The armor seems to be significant to the Ghost’s message to the living, whatever that is. So Horatio makes an assumption at line 80 and decides the Ghost has returned from the grave in military garb to signal some looming crisis for the country, “strange eruption” at line 80.
Act I, Scene 1, lines 81 – 190
In this next sequence, to what historical event does Horatio connect the appearance of the Ghost? Why? What are the four reasons ghosts returned to the land of the living, according to Horatio? What connection is established between the Ghost and Prince Hamlet? What frightens the Ghost away? Act I, Scene 1, lines 81 – 190
MARCELLUS: Good
now, sit down, and tell me, he that knows [if you know],
Why this same strict and most observant
watch
So nightly toils [wearies] the subject
of the land [citizens],
And why such daily cast of brazen cannon,
And foreign mart [trade] for
implements of war;
Why such impress [conscription] of
shipwrights, whose sore task
Does not divide the Sunday from the week
[with no time off].
What might be toward [about to
happen], that this sweaty haste
Doth make the night joint-laborer [co-worker]
with the day.
Who is't that can inform me?
HORATIO: That
can I.
At least, the whisper goes so. Our last
king,
Whose image even but now appeared to us,
Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,
Thereto pricked on by a most emulate
pride [desiring to rival the King
of Denmark],
Dared to the combat; in which our valiant
Hamlet
For so this side of our known world esteemed
him
Did slay this Fortinbras, who by a sealed
compact,
Well ratified by law and heraldry
[rules governing chivalry],
Did forfeit, with his life, all those his
lands
Which he stood seized of [possessed],
to the conqueror:
Against the which, a moiety competent
[equal portion]
Was gaged [pledged] by our king;
which had returned
To the inheritance of Fortinbras,
Had he been vanquisher; as, by the same comart
[bargain]
And carriage of the article designed
[terms of the agreement],
His fell to Hamlet. Now, sir, young
Fortinbras,
Of unimproved [uncontrolled] mettle
hot and full,
Hath in the skirts [outskirts] of
Norway here and there
Sharked up [gathered
indiscriminately] a list of lawless resolutes [a gang
of outlaws]
For food and diet [personal profit,
ironically] to some enterprise
That hath a stomach [sense of
adventure]in't; which is no other
(As it doth well appear unto our state)
But to recover of us, by strong hand
And terms compulsatory, those foresaid
lands
So by his father lost. And this, I take it,
Is the main motive of our preparations,
The source of this our watch, and the chief
head [reason]
Of this post-haste and rummage
[hurried commotion]in the land.
BARNARDO: I think it be no other but e'en so.
Well may it sort [It is appropriate]
that this portentous figure
Comes armed through our watch so like the
king
That was and is the question of these wars.
HORATIO: A mote it is to trouble the mind's eye.
In the most high and palmy [triumphant]
state of Rome,
A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,
The graves stood tenantless and the sheeted
[wrapped in their shrouds]
dead
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets;
As stars with trains of fire and dews of
blood,
Disasters [evil omens] in the sun;
and the moist star [moon]
Upon whose influence Neptune's empire
[the sea] stands
Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse:
And even the like precurse [omens] of
fierce events,
As harbingers preceding still [always]
the fates
And prologue to the omen [ominous
event] coming on,
Have heaven and earth together demonstrated
Unto our climatures [geographic
regions] and countrymen.
But soft, behold! Lo, where it comes again! [Re-enter
Ghost]
I'll cross [intercept] it, though it
blast me -- Stay, illusion!
[He
spreads his arms]
If thou hast any sound, or use of voice,
Speak to me:
If there be any good thing to be done
That may to thee do ease and grace to me,
Speak to me:
If thou art privy to thy country's fate,
Which, happily [fortunately],
foreknowing may avoid,
O,
speak!
Or if thou hast uphoarded in thy life
Extorted treasure in the womb of earth,
For which, they say, you spirits oft walk
in death,
Speak of it. [Cock
crows]
Stay,
and speak! Stop it, Marcellus.
MARCELLUS: Shall I strike at it with my partisan
[weapon]?
HORATIO: Do, if it will not stand.
BARNARDO: 'Tis here!
HORATIO: 'Tis here!
MARCELLUS: 'Tis gone! [Exit
Ghost]
We do it wrong, being so majestical,
To offer it the show of violence;
For it is, as the air, invulnerable,
And our vain blows malicious mockery.
BARNARDO: It was about to speak, when the cock crew.
HORATIO: And then it started like a guilty thing
Upon a fearful summons. I have heard,
The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,
Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding
throat
Awake the god of day, and, at his warning,
Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,
The extravagant and erring [improper
and errant] spirit hies
To his confine, and of the truth herein
This present object made probation
[demonstrated].
MARCELLUS: It faded on the crowing of the cock.
Some say that ever 'gainst [just
before] that season comes
Wherein our Savior's birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long;
And then, they say, no spirit dares stir
abroad,
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike
[cast an evil influence],
No fairy takes [puts a spell on],
nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallowed and so gracious is the time.
HORATIO: So have I heard and do in part believe it.
But, look, the morn, in russet mantle clad
Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward
hill.
Break we our watch up, and by my advice,
Let us impart what we have seen tonight
Unto young Hamlet; for, upon my life,
This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him.
Do you consent we shall acquaint him with
it,
As needful in our loves, fitting our duty?
MARCELLUS: Let's do't, I pray, and I this morning know
Where we shall find him most convenient. [They
exit]
I had characterized Marcellus and Barnardo as ordinary soldiers. We now see further evidence of how far down the chain of command they are. Their country is about to go to war, and they have no idea. Back at the beginning of this scene I said that Shakespeare was creating a sense of tension, a feeling that something bad was going to happen. It turns out there is more trouble in Denmark than the appearance of the dead king. The country is under threat of invasion by an army from Norway led by a prince about Hamlet’s age, Fortinbras. Marcellus has to get Horatio to explain the significance of all the evidence of preparation for war: people are working day and night; the authorities are buying arms and having cannons manufactured; ship builders have been drafted and are working seven days a week.
Horatio’s lengthy explanation at lines 91 –119 gives us the background of the pivotal event in the relations between Norway and Denmark. At some point in the past (it turns out it was 30 years before, the day young Hamlet was born) King Hamlet fought King Fortinbras in single combat with the stakes being part of each one’s country. Hamlet killed Fortinbras and took control of his territory. Now young Fortinbras has raised an army in Norway and is planning to attack Denmark to revenge his father’s death and get his land back. The language Horatio uses to describe these events, especially at lines 95 – 107, is filled with legal terminology: “sealed compact” (a legal agreement verified by the monarch’s special ring pressed into a seal of wax); “ratified by law and heraldry” (a legally binding contract under the law of the country and the rules of chivalry which governed such combat between royal opponents); “forfeit” (a legal term often found in deeds and legal judgments); “moiety component” (a pledge of equal value put up as part of the agreement); “comart” (a bill of sale as for a piece of property); “carriage of the article designed” a legal phrase meaning the intent of the elements in an agreement. A lot of these legal technicalities Shakespeare probably picked up in his frequent business dealings over property. We’ll see other such examples in Act V, scene 1 at lines 100 – 115.
Young Fortinbras will cross paths with young Hamlet twice in the play, but they never meet. Shakespeare wants us to see the similarities between the two of them, both the same age, each eager to avenge his father’s death but two very different kinds of men. Horatio tells us how Fortinbras has raised an army of men like himself, willing to risk everything for adventure. The language he uses to describe Fortinbras at lines 107 –112 is informative: “unimproved mettle” means “untested spirit” but with a kind of pun on metal used for coins which has not yet been shown to be real rather than counterfeit. He is said to have gathered his army like a predatory shark, finding his soldiers in the “skirts” of Norway, an old-fashioned word meaning in the hinterlands. (The original meaning still remains in our word “outskirts.”) These “lawless resolutes,” men like Fortinbras who are willing to dare conventional authority, are connected with “sharked up” by the words “food and diet” and “stomach,” as if the war they plan is similar to the attack of the Great White in Jaws.
At line 122 Barnardo first makes the connection that seems obvious to them: the Ghost has come to warn his country of the impending attack by Fortinbras. Being a long-time graduate student, Horatio is quick to find the appropriate historical parallel. He lectures the sentries on the same phenomenon that occurred just before Julius Caesar was assassinated. The graves were empty and the dead walked the streets; stars seemed to fall and left a dew of blood on the land; the sun and moon suffered unusual eclipses. These “prologues to the omen coming on” were tangible evidence of the connection between the human world (the microcosm) and the larger universe (the macrocosm). Shakespeare’s plays often draw this connection with heavenly events serving as harbingers for some disaster at the human level.
At line 138 the Ghost returns and Horatio in a foolhardy move seeks to stop and question him. He does this by “crossing” the Ghost, that is physically confronting him but also, perhaps, standing with his arms held out to his sides to make a cross as a religious symbol to protect himself from evil. Horatio asks the Ghost four questions.
1.) Can you speak?
2.) Is there anything that we can do to bring you peace? (Perhaps there was something amiss in the burial ceremony or some loose end that needs attention.)
3.) Do you know something about your country’s fate that you can warns us about?
4.) Did you hide some treasure somewhere that you’re trying to protect?
Now everybody in the audience, acquainted with ghost lore, knew the next question Horatio should ask, “Have you returned to this world to point out your murderer?” But before he can ask that, the rooster crows, signaling the dawn. Under the work rules for ghosts, they have to return to the world of the dead when it’s day time. Even though this ghost was the victim and not the perpetrator of a crime, he is considered “a guilty thing.” So the question about who was responsible for his death goes unasked. The men try and physically restrain the Ghost with their long “partisans,” a combination of spear and battle axe, but they are unable to control a spirit. (On Shakespeare’s stage the disappearance was probably accomplished by the actor dropping through a trapdoor on the stage and covering his action with stage smoke.) Immediately afterwards they regret their show of force which they call “malicious mockery.”
Horatio has now had the experience of a lifetime, a real supernatural phenomenon up close and personal. And yet he still retains some skepticism. At line 171 he admits that the presence of the Ghost has “made probation,” that is tended to prove true, but at line 180 he says he only partially believes that the rooster crows continuously at Christmas time in order to protect humanity from the dangers of the supernatural world. (If you or I had seen a ghost we would be prepared to believe anything!) It is interesting to note those supernatural dangers which Barnardo enumerates at lines 176 – 178 because they tell us something about the beliefs of ordinary Elizabethans when this play was written: “planets strike” refers to the belief that certain heavenly bodies were capable of exerting a evil influence, like Mars causing nations to go to war; “fairy takes” refers to the idea that fairies could infect the unwary humans, including stealing newborn babies and replacing them with inferior children called “changelings.”; “witch hath power to charm” refers to witches casting an evil spell on a person.
Horatio signals the arrival of dawn in what has got to be the shortest night ever, about ten minutes in stage time from midnight to sunrise. The imagery at line 181 is especially poetic: “the morn in russet mantle clad/ Walks o’er the dew of yon high eastward hill.” This image is characteristic of a lot of Shakespeare’s figurative language: he personifies the morning as if it were a woman walking over the hillside in a brown-colored cloak. Finally Horatio guesses that the Ghost, if he is indeed the dead king, might speak to his son, Hamlet. A small point here, but one that may be important later: it is not Horatio who knows where Hamlet is at that time but rather Marcellus. It suggests that Hamlet and Horatio may not be especially close, as we’ll see in the next scene.
Shakespeare has opened the play without the appearance of Hamlet because he wants to independently establish the existence of the Ghost for us in the audience. Later Hamlet will worry that the Ghost may be a spirit sent by the Devil to tempt him or a spirit that he himself has created “out of his weakness and melancholy.” But we in the audience already know the Ghost is the real deal because we have seen it with our own eyes.
Act I, Scene 1 for Branagh’s Hamlet
Much of this film uses for its backdrop Blenheim Castle, one of England’s most majestic homes. The film itself sets the play in a kind of indistinct period in the past. The costumes seem vaguely 19th Century, but the sentries are armed with medieval weapons. Modern directors will often use this approach to suggest a generalized past with exotic touches, like the military uniforms and a locomotive in this film. We catch the feeling of impending danger when the statue out in front of the castle suddenly begins to move at the same instant that Barnardo jumps Francisco. The tension is palpable with this physical violence. You may recognize the older actor with the American accent who plays Marcellus as Jack Lemmon whom you probably saw in the film Grumpy Old Men. Branagh cast famous American film stars in small roles in several of his Shakespearean films. It is a calculated appeal to attract an American audience for what would otherwise be an English art film.
In this scene Branagh clearly establishes that the Ghost is the statue of King Hamlet that stands outside the castle. This allows the director to do several things. First, the Ghost is huge and towers over the men, making him even more frightening. Secondly, it reinforces the idea of Hamlet Senior’s military identity. Thirdly, it creates an interesting psychological tension as we get to know Hamlet better and realize that his image of his father is very much like an idealized statue, larger than life but not very lovable. Branagh does something in this scene that helps an audience absorb the verbal message of the text more easily. When Horatio delivers the rather complicated description of the preparation for battle, we see the actual “casting of the brazen cannon” so we get the message. Again, when he is describing Fortinbras, Branagh shows us an angry Fortinbras ripping down a map, establishing that character’s identity before he shows up in the play.
In the final shots o f the scene Horatio takes a nip from his flask, obviously in need of some fortification after he confronts the Ghost the second time. And the Ghost returns to his pedestal with “Hamlet” chiseled neatly on the base.
Act I, Scene 2, Lines 1 --132
We are introduced to Hamlet indirectly in this scene by watching Claudius, the man he will seek to kill for the rest of the play, in action as a ruler. It is an impressive display of political skill by one who clearly enjoys power and uses it to effectively govern a country. By contrast Hamlet will at first appear as an ill-mannered, moody adolescent. As you encounter Claudius see if you can see the different political challenges he faces. There are at least ten different things he is trying to accomplish in the first 132 lines of the scene. Act I, Scene 2, Lines 1 –132:
SCENE II. A room of state in
the castle.
[Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, HAMLET, POLONIUS, LAERTES,
VOLTIMAND, CORNELIUS, Lords, and Attendants]
KING:Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death
The memory be green, and that it us befitted
To bear our hearts in grief, and our whole kingdom
To be contracted in one brow of woe,
Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature
That we with wisest sorrow think on him,
Together with remembrance of ourselves.
Therefore our sometime sister[his former
sister-in-law], now our queen,
Th’ imperial jointress [a woman who co-owns] to
this warlike state,
Have we (as 'twere with a defeated joy,
With an auspicious
and a dropping eye [one eye smiling, one weeping],
With mirth in funeral and with dirge [funeral
music]in marriage,
In equal scale weighing delight and dole
[sorrow])
Taken to wife. Nor have we herein barred
Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone
With this affair along. For all, our thanks.
Now follows that you know. Young Fortinbras,
Holding a weak supposal [low estimation] of our
worth
Or thinking by our late dear brother's death
Our state to be disjoint and out of frame,
Colleagued [accompanied] with the dream of his advantage
[superiority],
He hath not failed to pester us with message,
Importing the surrender of those lands
Lost by his father, with all bonds of law,
To our most valiant brother -- so much for him.
Now for ourself and for this time of meeting.
Thus much the business is: we have here writ
To Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras,
Who, impotent [powerless] and bed-rid, scarcely
hears
Of this his nephew's purpose, to suppress
His further gait [course of action] herein, in
that the levies,
The lists and full proportions, are all made
Out of his subject [the troop and supplies all
come from his subjects]; and we here
dispatch
You, good Cornelius, and you, Voltemand,
For bearers of this greeting to old Norway,
Giving to you no further personal power
To business [negotiate] with the king more than
the scope
Of these delated [detailed, written] articles
allow. [Gives them paper]
Farewell, and let your haste commend your duty
[Let you swift departure take the place
of our ceremonious leave-taking].
CORNELIUS & VOLTIMAND: In that and all things will we
show our duty.
KING: We doubt it nothing: heartily farewell.
[Exit
VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS]
And now, Laertes, what's the news with you?
You told us of some suit. What is't, Laertes?
You cannot speak of reason to the Dane,
And lose your voice [waste your words]. What
wouldst thou beg, Laertes,
That shall not be my offer, not thy asking?
The head is not more native [connected] to the
heart,
The hand more instrumental to the mouth,
Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father.
What wouldst thou have, Laertes?
LAERTES: My dread
lord,
Your leave and favor to return to France,
From whence though willingly I came to Denmark
To show my duty in your coronation,
Yet now I must confess that duty done,
My thoughts and wishes bend again toward France
And bow them to your gracious leave [permission]
and pardon.
KING: Have you your father's leave? What says Polonius?
POLONIUS: He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave
By laborsome petition [finally convinced me to
allow him to leave], and at last
Upon his will I sealed my hard consent [I
reluctantly agreed].
I do beseech you, give him leave to go.
KING: Take thy fair hour, Laertes. Time be thine,
And thy best graces spend it at thy will [a courtly
permission to leave]. --
But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son, --
HAMLET: [Aside] A little more than kin [As far
as I’m concerned, you’re too closely related to
me] and less than kind [You’re nothing like me].
KING: How is it that the clouds still hang on you?
HAMLET: Not so, my lord; I am too much i' the sun
[pun on son/sun].
QUEEN: Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted color [black for
mourning] off,
And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.
Do not for ever with thy vailed lids [downcast
eyes]
Seek for thy noble father in the dust:
Thou know'st 'tis common [human condition]; all
that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.
HAMLET: Ay, madam, it is common [ in the sense of
vulgar].
QUEEN: If it be,
Why seems it so particular [special] with thee?
HAMLET: “Seems” madam? Nay it is; I know not “seems.”
'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
Nor customary suits of solemn black,
Nor windy suspiration of forced breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected 'havior of the visage,
Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief,
That can denote me truly [reveal what I really
feel]. These indeed “seem,”
For they are actions that a man might play:
But I have that within which passeth show,
These but the trappings and the suits of woe.
KING: '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. But to persever
In obstinate condolement [grief that refuses
comfort] is a course
Of impious stubbornness; 'tis unmanly grief.
It shows a will most incorrect to heaven [in
violation of God’s law],
A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,
An understanding simple and unschooled.
For what we know must be and is as common
As any the most vulgar thing to sense [familiar
objection we see],
Why should we in our peevish opposition
Take it to heart? Fie! 'tis a fault to heaven,
A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,
To reason most absurd, whose common theme
Is death of fathers, and who still [always] hath
cried,
From the first corse [corpse] till he that died
to-day,
“This must be so.” We pray you, throw to earth
This unprevailing [futile] woe, and think of us
As of a father: for let the world take note,
You are the most immediate [next in line to
succeed] to our throne;
And with no less nobility of love
Than that which dearest father bears his son,
Do I impart toward you [give to]. For your
intent
In going back to school in Wittenberg,
It is most retrograde [contrary] to our desire:
And we beseech you, bend you to remain
Here, in the cheer and comfort of our eye,
Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.
QUEEN: Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet:
I pray thee, stay with us. Go not to Wittenberg.
HAMLET: I shall in all my best obey you, madam.
KING: Why, 'tis a loving and a fair reply:
Be as ourself in Denmark -- Madam, come;
This gentle and unforced accord of Hamlet
Sits smiling to my heart, in grace whereof,
No jocund health [merry toast] that Denmark
drinks today,
But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell
[count out],
And the king's rouse [deep drinking] the heavens
all bruit [report] again,
Re-speaking earthly thunder. Come away. [Exit
all but HAMLET]
Politics Is a Contact Sport
So what is the political subtext with Claudius in this section? He has just recently become King, and he now faces one of his most difficult duties: to declare an end to the period of public mourning for the old king. He can’t be seen to be too quick about this move because it would suggest that he is not properly respectful of his older brother’s memory. We faced a similar political dilemma in this country when Lyndon Johnson had to end the period of national mourning over John Kennedy’s death; he astutely coupled the move with the passage of the first civil rights act. To accomplish this feat of respectfully moving on, Claudius acknowledges that everyone is still grief-stricken, picturing the entire kingdom at line 4 as “one brow of woe,” but then saying that the country needs “remembrance of ourselves.” In other words, we who are still living have to take care of business. By the way, throughout this section Claudius speaks in the first person plural, the royal “we,” which is what monarchs did when they were speaking officially as themselves but also as the embodiment of the country.
Claudius also has to justify his hasty marriage to his former sister-in-law. The marriage is doubly controversial because it is viewed by some (primarily Hamlet) as a kind of incest and because it happened so soon after the old king died. So Claudius tries to put a spin on the acknowledgement of this move. At line 8 he admits that she used to be his sister-in-law, and now she is his wife, but he makes it sound as if the marriage was a political burden he has reluctantly shouldered. It is a union that solidifies the kingdom at a time of threat, but it certainly doesn’t give him any personal pleasure. He calls her, at line 9, “imperial jointress to this warlike state.” That hardly sounds very romantic, does it? He then drives the point home by using a succession of five oxymorons, self-contradictory phrases, emphasizing how this marriage was bittersweet. The first of these oxymorons is at line 10: “defeated joy.” What are the other four? Could you accuse this man of marrying to satisfy his sexual desires? I don’t think so. And to cement this point he makes clear that he has consulted the members of his court who have all approved the move. Who could possibly complain?
The third political goal of Claudius in this scene is to try and counter the external threat from Fortinbras. We already know from I, 1, lines 82 - 90 that Denmark is arming as quickly as it can, but Claudius is not going to rely on just one means of resistance. With the kind of boundless self-confidence that leaders have to exhibit, he explains his plan to pressure the King of Norway, Fortinbras’ uncle, to force him to stop Fortinbras’ planned invasion. If diplomacy works, great! If it doesn’t, he still has his augmented armed forces to fall back on. It’s a smart move for a ruler to have more than one course of action. Notice how at line 25 Claudius is supremely self-confident when he dismisses the threat of Fortinbras: “So much for him.” Watch to see what Claudius does at that moment in performance.
How is Claudius going to carry out this diplomatic effort in a time when kings had to rely on other people to carry out the negotiations? When information traveled no faster than a sailing ship? The fourth objective he has in this section is to dispatch a diplomatic mission of two members of his court. He probably sends two so that each will keep an eye on the other, a trick Stalin used to do when he would dispatch two political commissars to do the same task. But Claudius doesn’t just rely on this device. He has set forth exactly what his diplomats are allowed to negotiate in “delated articles,” a detailed letter of instructions. Thomas Jefferson once sent a diplomatic mission to negotiate with Napoleon for American traders to do business in French-owned New Orleans. Months later they returned, saying, “Boy, did we get a bargain!” In order to get into the New Orleans market they had bought the entire Louisiana Purchase, much of the continent, not exactly what Jefferson had in mind. It was approved by the narrowest of margins in the Congress and taught American presidents that they needed to set limits on what their diplomats could negotiate.
The fifth objective Claudius has going here is the most daunting: to reach out and bring his stepson Hamlet under some kind of control. Hamlet is moody and clearly at odds with Claudius’ attempt to change the focus from the dead king to the impending war; he represents a potential threat that Claudius tries to neutralize. As with the threat from Fortinbras, Claudius is going to use a multi-pronged attack. First he tries a carrot, indirectly. He wants to show Hamlet that he can be reasonable if Hamlet will cooperate. He does this by suddenly focusing on Laertes, the son of his chief advisor and a young man about Hamlet’s age. Normally a monarch would not ask one of his subjects if he could do him a favor, but in the speech at lines 42 – 51, how many times does the king ask Laertes what he can do for him? In the BBC version of this play starring Derek Jacobi, the reason Claudius has to ask so often is that Laertes has no idea what the king is talking about. He can’t think of a single favor Claudius can do for him, but determined to play the game he finally comes up with this lame request for permission to return to France. Normally the comings and goings of the children of the king’s underlings would not be of any concern to him. Can you see Hillary Clinton interrupting the Cabinet meeting to ask President Obama if Chelsea Clinton can spend the summer in France? No, the purpose of this whole exercise is not for Laertes but to coax Hamlet into playing nice, like Laertes does. Notice the key phrases to show the pouting prince how amenable his new stepdad can be: “You cannot speak of reason to the Dane,/ And lose your voice [waste your words]. What wouldst thou beg, Laertes,/ That shall not be my offer, not thy asking?” If he can be this magnanimous to a nobody like Laertes, think how good he would be to his own stepson?
Laertes understands how to play the game. He makes it seem as if his entire future hangs in the balance of the King’s decision. At line 54 he says the politically correct thing: he doesn’t mention that he, like all the upper class people associated with the court, hurried back when the old king died so they are seen attending the funeral. No, Laertes says he came back from France for Claudius’ coronation. It’s as if old King Hamlet never existed. This kid is going far in the cut-throat world of royal politics.
Claudius now uses this gambit with Laertes to address a sixth objective, which is to flatter the people who serve him, the ones who had “granted” him permission to marry Gertrude. The chief one who is susceptible to flattery is Polonius. So even though he is the monarch and has absolute power over all his subjects, he goes through this little political charade at lines 48 – 50 and again at line 59 of deferring to Polonius. It costs him nothing and it keeps the old man in line by making him seem special in the eyes of the court.
Now Claudius makes the riskiest move of all. At line 66 he uses the “S” word – “son” --, apparently for the first time. It is always tricky to know when the right time is for the step parent to change the relationship from “your mom’s friend” to “your new dad.” Of more importance to Claudius is his seventh objective. If he can get Hamlet to play along it will solve his problem of controlling a potential rival. (Always in the back of his mind Claudius has this nagging fear: “If I got rid of the old King to seize the throne, what’s to stop somebody else from doing the same thing to me?” Well, if he’s throwing the football around with his kid out in the backyard, he may have neutralized one threat.)
The eighth objective is related to changing his relationship with Hamlet. Claudius wants Hamlet to get on board with his program on this grief thing. When you see the play in performance, Hamlet will stick out like a sore thumb. Claudius is the new king, and he can’t afford to have a non-conformist gumming up the works of a smooth-running court. Hamlet’s moping around in his black suit is bringing everybody down with his negative attitude and sarcasm. After Claudius asks Hamlet “How is it that the clouds still hang on you?” he turns the effort to get the kid to lighten up over to Gertrude. We can imagine in the privacy of their bedroom the King warning his wife that Hamlet is going to have to have an attitude adjustment. It may have been Gertrude who suggested the “son” gambit to her husband, but we can see here at line 69 that didn’t go well.
The ninth objective becomes necessary when Hamlet responds to his mother in a really snotty way and indirectly challenges the King. Claudius cannot allow that challenge to go unanswered; he has to show the court that he is intellectually capable of dealing with a rebellious punk. Here is the challenge and the response. When Gertrude tries to tell her son that his father’s death was just part of the process of life that we must all go through, she says at line 74, “Thou know’st ‘tis common.” It happens to everybody eventually. Hamlet, thinking of his mother jumping into bed with his uncle before his father’s corpse was hardly cold, answers, “Aye, madam, it is common,” but he means it in the sense that her actions were vulgar, the kind of thing you might see on the Jerry Springer Show. Poor clueless Gertrude doesn’t catch the insult and asks since he acknowledges that it is “common,” why is he making such a big deal out of his grief. Hamlet’s passionate outburst at lines 79 – 89 plays on the difference between what “seems” or appears and what is really inside us. At line 87 he challenges the little charade Claudius played out in the opening lines of this scene: “For they are actions that a man might play,” in the sense of play act. Hamlet’s grief encompasses not just his father’s death but his mother’s disrespect for his father’s memory. It is deep and personal.
Claudius’ long speech at lines 90 –121 is a brilliant piece of argumentation.
On the surface it is an attempt to persuade Hamlet not to feel the way he
does. It is really aimed at the whole court to show everyone that their King
can do clever puns, rhetorical flourishes and philosophical debate just as well
as this perpetual graduate student. Claudius’ list of reasons why Hamlet
shouldn’t feel that way begins at line 96 and ends at line 110. Altogether,
Shakespeare has the King bring up 11 separate arguments, some of them just
quick little zingers, others more fully extended points. How many of the 11
can you identify? A couple of my favorites are “An understanding simple
and unschooled (line 101).” That’s a great insult to use on somebody who’s been
away at the university for years. “’Tis unmanly grief (line 98)” is a good one
to use on a guy. Also a good one for Hamlet, who is making such a big deal
about mourning his dead father, is at line 106: “A fault against the dead.”
(What would your father say if he saw you acting this way?) Notice at line 102
Claudius picks up on Hamlet’s snotty answer to his mother when he says, “For
what we know must be and is as common/ As any the most vulgar
thing to sense….” And he touches it again at line 107 “whose common theme.”
This catalogue of reasons why Hamlet should cheer up and quit being so
passive/aggressive now brings us to Claudius’ final and most important
objective.
The tenth objective Claudius has in this section is to keep Hamlet at the palace where he can keep an eye on him. The worst thing you could do with a potential political rival is to let him wander around free, particularly at a foreign university. A few months after Hamlet’s return to Wittenberg, can you imagine the posters up all over the place urging people to support the “Danish Liberation Army?” First Claudius asks him nicely at lines 110 – 116; he again uses the “S” word and offers the kid a new father and then the ultimate carrot at line 113: “You are the most immediate to our throne.” We will find out that the Danes had a different way to select the next monarch – all the nobles got together and elected one from all the members of the royal family. Claudius here in effect is urging all those who supported him to cast their votes for Hamlet when the time comes to select a new King. Finally the King ends his long oration by asking as nicely as he can that Hamlet “remain/ Here in the cheer and comfort of our eye,/ Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.” Gosh darn, you have got to stay in Elsinore because you just cheer me up watching you sulk around the house in your black leotards and your crappy attitude. Yeah, right. He asks Hamlet to leave school, finally, and become a “courtier,” a member of the court like Polonius or Laertes, a “yes” man to tell the King what he wants to hear. (Of course, the irony is not lost on Hamlet that he has to stay home while Laertes gets to go off to France.) Claudius calls him “cousin” because that was a generic term used to denote anyone who was related to you except your immediate family; here he uses it as a substitute for “nephew.” And finally he ends with the “S” word one last time, making his offer of paternal care clear for all to hear and begging Hamlet not to leave Elsinore
All that Matters Is Winning
So how does Hamlet react to all this political gamesmanship? We know he really dislikes Claudius. At line 67, “A little more than kin and less than kind,” we see his reaction when Claudius uses the “S” word for the first time: he is disgusted that Claudius is, in effect, too much related to him, being both his uncle and his stepfather and is too much unlike him in his attitude and values, “less than kind.” We see that he turns the offer of becoming Claudius’ official son into a pun of not so subtle rejection at line 69:
“I am too much in the sun.” We saw the way he treated his mother’s concern and his condemnation of Claudius’ apparent phony show of emotion. Now at line 1119 – 121 the absolute monarch, who could easily order Hamlet not to leave, pleads with him, as a favor, not to go back to school. Hamlet says nothing. Maybe a few seconds of uncomfortable silence follows as the court watches the sullen prince defy a royal request. Finally Hamlet’s mom speaks up and repeats the request, and at line 124 Hamlet finally answers: “I shall in all my best obey you, madam.” Now at one level, Hamlet is getting with the program and agreeing to stay at the palace where he will closely monitored; at another level this is a direct insult to the King, whose request he ignores while he agrees to obey his mother. You can get a better sense of the rejection if you read Hamlet’s line at 124 aloud, putting a heavy emphasis on “you.”
Claudius doesn’t care at all about Hamlet’s insult or his immature display of rude adolescent behavior. All that is important to him is that he gets his way. Hamlet’s attitude is immaterial. So he quickly announces that it is a “loving and a fair reply,” and he departs with everyone and heads off for his favorite activity to unwind after a hard day of political wheeling and dealing. Claudius gets off on imitating the gods by ordering all the cannons in the palace to be shot each time he takes a drink. It makes his ordinary action of gulping his wine the focus of attention for all his subjects within earshot, satisfying his ego. It also pleases him to imitate the actions of the gods by making his binge sound like the thunder of the gods. This is a very illuminating insight into Claudius’ character. It may also explain why the Danish royal treasury is broke at a time of war – the king has spent most of the budget for national defense on gunpowder for his drinking sprees.
Act I, Scene 2, Lines 133 – 164
This next sequence is the first of Hamlet’s soliloquies in the play. A soliloquy is a speech a character shares only with the audience. The assumption is that the character is speaking the truth about his situation, regardless of what he may have said earlier. So in this speech what does Hamlet reveal about the nature of his feeling, the reason for those feelings and what he intends to do about them? Who is the person he seems to blame most for this situation? At what point in the speech does he seem suicidal? Why?
HAMLET: O,
that this too, too sullied [defiled] flesh would melt
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fixed
His canon [church law] 'gainst self-slaughter! O
God, God,
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on 't, ah fie! 'Tis an unweeded garden
That grows to seed. Things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely. That it should come to this:
But two months dead -- nay, not so much, not two:
So excellent a king, that was to this [in
comparison to Claudius],
Hyperion to a satyr [the sun god to a beast]; so
loving to my mother
That he might not beteem [would not allow] the
winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him,
As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on. And yet, within a month
(Let me not think on 't; frailty, thy name is woman!)
A little month, or ere [before] those shoes were
old
With which she followed my poor father's body,
Like Niobe, all tears:--why she, even she
(O, God, a beast, that wants discourse of reason
[lacks the ability to reason]
Would have mourned longer!), married with my uncle,
My father's brother, but no more like my father
Than I to Hercules [an ancient Greek hero of
your strength]. Within a month,
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her galled eyes
[reddening of her teary eyes],
She married. O, most wicked speed, to post
[hasten]
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
It is not, nor it cannot come to good.
But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue.
Talk about Depressing!
This soliloquy provides an explanation of Hamlet’s bad behavior earlier in this scene – his snotty answer to his mother, his sarcasm to his uncle. We see that the young man is profoundly upset, mostly by what his mother has done. This is one of the ongoing themes of the play – Hamlet’s anger and even obsession over his mother’s sexuality. Look at the negative things he says about her: “frailty, thy name is woman”; “a beast, that wants discourse of reason /Would have mourned longer”; “Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears/ Had left the flushing in her galled eyes”; “O, most wicked speed, to post /With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!” These angry pronouncements show us the extent of his rage, coupled with the unflattering comparison of how Gertrude’s former husband treated her and the way she repaid his memory, plus the sarcastic comparison to Niobe, the figure from Greek mythology who wept so much from genuine grief that the gods turned her into a spring. About his uncle, Hamlet says only that he is more like a satyr (half-goat/half-man) than a god and is nothing like his father. Notice that it is not only what his mother has done in marrying his uncle; it is the deception of her emotional response to his father’s death.
Hamlet’s overwhelming grief for his father and disgust with his mother affect the way he views the world. At line 139 it is “an unweeded garden/ That grows to seed. Things rank and gross in nature/ Possess it merely.” We have all had the experience of having a neglected garden full of weeds that eventually blossom and produce seeds for even more weeds after the next rain. He describes it as “rank,” a word which is used several times in the play. It conveys the sense of something overgrown and negative, while at the same time it has a connotation of sexual excess; female animals that are in heat are said to be “rank.” This powerful image of futility reveals the extent of Hamlet’s despair, and we can see how it might lead him to contemplate suicide. The first line of the soliloquy, taken from Quarto 2, reads “sullied flesh” as if the sin and disgust with his mother had tainted or “sullied” his own flesh, flesh that he wishes would evaporate into a mist, that is, cease to exist. The word in the Folio text is even more suggestive of suicide:” O. that this too, too solid flesh would melt.” The next lines make this suggestion of suicide even clearer: “Or that the Everlasting had not fixed/ His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter.” Even before he learns of the Ghost of his father, Hamlet is predisposed to think about killing himself.
Another way we can see tangible evidence of the turmoil in Hamlet’s mind is the way he constructs his sentences. Look at any sentence in Claudius long speech at lines 90 – 121. It may be long and involved, but it flows in a natural sequence. Now look at the long sentence which Hamlet utters at lines 149 –157. The basic structure of the sentence is “she married with my uncle,” but Shakespeare shows us how Hamlet is unable to convey this relatively simple statement without a number of interruptions, repetitions and false starts, as if the mental agony he suffers was reflected in the twisted syntax of his language:
Adverbial phrase And
yet, within a month
Interruption(Let me not think on 't;
Interruption within interruption frailty, thy name is woman!) Repetition A little month,
Interruption or
ere [before] those shoes were old
With which she followed my poor father's body,
Interruption within interruption Like Niobe, all
tears:
Subject of sentence why she,
Repetition
even she
Interruption (O, God, a beast, that wants discourse of reason/
Would have mourned longer!),
Predicate of sentence married with my
uncle,
Modifying phrase My father's brother, Negative
comparison but no more like my father/ Than I to Hercules.
Hamlet accuses his mother of committing incest in marrying her former brother-in-law. It was a point of contention in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that was debated by legal scholars and religious authorities. King Henry VIII had sought a divorce from his first wife on the grounds that she had been previously married to his brother; it was a controversy that eventually split England from the Catholic Church. But in this play the only two people who ever say anything about it are Hamlet and his father. That is bad enough, but Hamlet asserts that his mother was in a rush – “to post with such dexterity to incestuous sheets.” The fastest means of communications in Shakespeare’s day was the post horse, the official message service used by the king; this is the basis for our modern word “postage” and “post office.”
Finally the last line of the soliloquy reveals Hamlet’s sense of isolation. He has no one with whom he can share his sense of frustration. Because his uncle so thoroughly dominates the court at Elsinore, Hamlet cannot turn to or trust anyone. This desperation may explain a lot about what happens in the final sequence of this scene between Hamlet and Horatio.
Act I, Scene 2, lines 165 – 280
In the last section notice the relationship between Horatio and Hamlet. Do we get any hint about what may have been their relationship in the past? What is it that Horatio says that may have encouraged Hamlet to trust him? Notice what Hamlet assumes the appearance of the Ghost might mean? Why does Hamlet question Horatio, Marcellus and Barnardo so closely about the appearance of the Ghost? Act I, Scene 2, lines 165--280
[Enter
HORATIO, MARCELLUS, and BERNARDO]
HORATIO: Hail to your lordship!
HAMLET: I am glad to see you well.
Horatio -- or I do forget myself!
HORATIO: The same, my lord, and your poor servant ever.
HAMLET: Sir, my good friend. I'll change that name with
you [I’ll call you my friend rather
than my servant].
And what make you from [why are you not in] Wittenberg, Horatio?
Marcellus?
MARCELLUS: My good lord.
HAMLET: I am very glad to see you. [to Barnardo] Good even, sir.
And what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg?
HORATIO: A truant disposition, good my lord.
HAMLET: I would not hear your enemy say so,
Nor shall you do mine ear that violence
To make it truster of your own report
Against yourself. I know you are no truant.
But what is your affair in Elsinore?
We'll teach you to drink deep ere you depart.
HORATIO: My lord, I came to see your father's funeral.
HAMLET: I pray thee, do not mock me, fellow student.
I think it was to see my mother's wedding.
HORATIO: Indeed, my lord, it followed hard upon [soon afterwards].
HAMLET: Thrift, thrift, Horatio. The funeral baked meats
Did coldly furnish forth [as leftovers] the marriage
tables.
Would I had met my dearest [bitterest] foe in heaven
Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio!
My father -- methinks I see my father.
HORATIO: Where, my lord?
HAMLET: In my mind's eye, Horatio.
HORATIO: I saw him once. He was a goodly [excellent] king.
HAMLET: He was a man, take him for all in all,
I shall not look upon his like again.
HORATIO: My lord, I think I saw him yesternight.
HAMLET: Saw who?
HORATIO: My lord, the king your father.
HAMLET: The king my
father!
HORATIO: Season your admiration [contol your astonishment] for
awhile
With an attent ear [listen carefully], till I may deliver
Upon the witness of these gentlemen,
This marvel to you.
HAMLET: For God's love, let me hear.
HORATIO: Two nights together had these gentlemen,
Marcellus and Bernardo, on their watch,
In the dead vast and middle of the night,
Been thus encountered: a figure like your father,
Armed at point exactly, cap-a-pie [armed at every part, head
to toe]
Appears before them and with solemn march
Goes slow and stately by them. Thrice he walked
By their oppressed and fear-surprised [terrified] eyes
Within his truncheon's [commander’s baton] length, whilst
they, distilled
Almost to jelly with the act of fear [effects of fear],
Stand dumb and speak not to him. This to me
In dreadful secrecy impart they did;
And I with them the third night kept the watch,
Where, as they had delivered, both in time,
Form of the thing (each word made true and good),
The apparition comes. I knew your father;
These hands are not more like.
HAMLET: But where was this?
MARCELLUS: My lord, upon the platform where we watch.
HAMLET: Did you not speak to it?
HORATIO: My lord, I did;
But answer made it none. Yet once methought
It lifted up its head and did address
Itself to motion, like as it would speak;
But even then the morning cock crew loud,
And at the sound it shrunk in haste away,
And vanished from our sight.
HAMLET: 'Tis very strange.
HORATIO: As I do live, my honored lord, 'tis true.
And we did think it writ down in our duty
To let you know of it.
HAMLET: Indeed, indeed, sirs, but this troubles me.
Hold you the watch tonight?
ALL: We do, my lord.
HAMLET: Armed, say you?
ALL: Armed, my lord.
HAMLET: From top to
toe?
ALL: My lord, from head to foot.
HAMLET: Then saw you not his face?
HORATIO: O, yes, my lord, he wore his beaver [facemask of a
helmet] up.
HAMLET: What, looked he frowningly?
HORATIO: A countenance more in sorrow than in anger.
HAMLET: Pale or red?
HORATIO: Nay, very pale.
HAMLET: And fixed his eyes upon you?
HORATIO: Most constantly.
HAMLET: I would I had been there.
HORATIO: It would have much amazed you.
HAMLET: Very like, very like. Stayed it long?
HORATIO: While one with moderate haste might tell a hundred.
MARCELLUS/ BERNARDO: Longer, longer.
HORATIO: Not when I saw 't.
HAMLET: His beard was grizzled [gray] -- no?
HORATIO: It was, as I have seen it in his life,
A sable silvered.
HAMLET: I will watch tonight.
Perchance 'twill walk again.
HORATIO: I warrant it will.
HAMLET: If it assume my noble father's person,
I'll speak to it, though hell itself should gape
And bid me hold my peace. I pray you all,
If you have hitherto concealed this sight,
Let it be tenable [withheld] in your silence still;
And whatsoever else shall hap tonight,
Give it an understanding, but no tongue.
I will requite your loves. So fare you well.
Upon the platform, ‘twixt eleven and twelve,
I’ll visit you.
ALL: Our duty to your honor.
HAMLET: Your loves, as mine to you. Farewell.
[Exit all but HAMLET]
My father’s spirit – in arms! All is not well.
I doubt [suspect] some foul play. Would the night were come!
Till then sit still, my soul. Foul deeds will rise,
Though all the earth o’erwhelm them, to men’s eyes.
[Exit HAMLET]
A Friend in Need
To understand the dynamics of the relationship between Hamlet and Horatio in this scene, we need to keep in mind the last thing Hamlet said in his previous soliloquy: “But break my heart for I must hold my tongue.” The thing Hamlet needs most at this juncture is a friend whom he can trust, and on cue in comes someone that he knew back in Wittenberg, someone who may not be tainted by Claudius’ political control. It doesn’t really matter how well Hamlet knew Horatio back at the university. In fact I argue that they were probably not close friends; they would have been socially far apart. When Horatio greets him at line 165, it is not as if they were good buddies; “Hail to your lordship.” (Remember, at the end of the first scene it was Marcellus, not Horatio, who knew where Hamlet was that morning, so they obviously haven’t been hanging out.) In acknowledging this greeting Hamlet does not at first seem to recognize Horatio: “I am glad to see you well” – almost an automatic answer. It is only then that he recognizes this guy that he knows from another world: “Horatio – or I do forget myself!” Here is someone he might be able to trust, to share his powerful emotions with, and he just remembered his name!
After perfunctorily greeting Marcellus and Barnardo, Hamlet presses Horatio about why he is there, rejecting his friend’s polite description of having a “truant disposition,” or saying “I decided to take some time off from school.” (Horatio obviously wants to avoid bringing up an unpleasant memory about Hamlet’s father’s death.) Hamlet asks again at line 181, “But what’s your affair in Elsinore?” He then utters one of several sarcastic remarks in this scene, designed to test his possible friend’s feelings about the situation: “We’ll teach you to drink deep ere you depart.” Now remember that Claudius had just left to go “drink deep,” and in a few scenes Hamlet will tell us that he loathes the Danish custom of getting drunk every night. Sarcasm is a device people use when they feel relatively powerless; it’s a way of saying one thing and meaning something very different with the possibility of denying your implied meaning if you get in trouble. Picking up on the hint that Hamlet is not happy to be in Elsinore, Horatio tells him the real reason for his visit: “My lord, I came to see your father’s funeral” at line 183. This is the sign that Horatio may be a kindred spirit. You remember that Laertes gave the politically correct answer back at line 55 that he had returned to Denmark for Claudius’ coronation. Hamlet now finds at least one person at Elsinore who hasn’t forgotten the departed King.
Based upon that answer Hamlet now asks the second question to test his friend’s political feelings: “I prithee, do not mock me, fellow student./ I think it was to see my mother’s wedding.” Notice that Hamlet plays off Horatio’s answer at line 183 by paralleling his “father’s funeral” with his “mother’s wedding.” There is an implied condemnation in this construction which seems to equate the two. And now Horatio passes the test again at line 186: “Indeed, my lord, it followed hard upon.” Horatio is the only other person we have met who has commented on the fact that Gertrude got married very quickly after she lost her first husband. Hamlet at line 187 utters his second sarcastic zinger, this one more obviously aimed at his mother’s disrespect for his father’s memory: “Thrift, thrift, Horatio. The funeral baked meats/ Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.” In other words Gertrude committed this incredibly vulgar and insensitive desecration just to save money on the wedding costs by using the leftovers from the funeral. Now, Hamlet feels comfortable enough to drop the sarcasm and share with Horatio what he really thinks: “Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven/ Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio!” It has taken 25 lines since Horatio first entered for Hamlet to finally reveal his feelings; it is a measure of how Hamlet feels isolated and mistrustful.
At line 191 Hamlet, obviously remembering his beloved father, says, “methinks I see my father.” In many productions Horatio, Marcellus and Barnardo jump and look around for the Ghost. Horatio is obviously nervous about telling Hamlet why they are there. After all, how do you break the news to someone that you just saw his father’s ghost? So Horatio says, “I saw him once. He was a goodly king.” (Here’s another hint that Horatio and Hamlet have not been moving in the same social circles before this; Horatio has only seen the former king “once.”) When Hamlet answers at line 195, “He was a man, take him for all in all,/ I shall not look upon his like again,” he seem to be acknowledging that his father was just a mortal human and that he is gone for good. Horatio now has his opening to drop the bombshell. “My lord, I think I saw him yesternight.”
Law and Order: Elsinore
Much to Hamlet’s amazement Horatio explains what has happened. Notice that in this lengthy explanation Horatio is very careful not to exaggerate. At line 254 when Hamlet asks how long it stayed, Horatio specifies, “While one with moderate hast might tell [count] a hundred.” For Marcellus and Barnardo it seemed like an eternity, but you have the rock-steady Horatio insisting on an accurate time. (I sometimes imagine Horatio conversing with the Ghost while he takes his own pulse to try and keep an accurate sense of the time.) The other thing to notice in the exchange between lines 206 – 261 is Hamlet’s reaction. How many times in this sequence does Hamlet ask a question? What seems to be the purpose of these questions? We saw this same use of frequent short questions to convey tension back in the opening lines of the play. The more intense Hamlet becomes, the more grounded are Horatio’s answers. Now some of these questions are the ones you would expect from someone who just had a bombshell dropped on him: “Where was this?” “Did you not speak to it?” Others seemed almost intended to test the veracity of the witnesses; after ascertaining that the Ghost was wearing armor from top to toe, Hamlet, at line 244, seems to pounce on the possibility they have mistaken what they saw: “Then saw you not his face?” Some of Hamlet’s questions seem more like a cross-examination. Another example is the question about the color of the Ghost’s beard.
At line 261 Hamlet determines that he will join the others on the watch that night where he will speak to the Ghost, even though “hell itself should gape/ And bid me hold my peace.” As I pointed out in the first scene mortals had dealings with ghosts at peril of their souls. Having made this decision Hamlet asks the three men to continue to keep what they have seen secret, and at line 272 he seems to offer some kind of royal reward – “I will requite your loves.” As they leave they offer him their “duty to your Honor,” as servants, but he insists at line 276, “Your loves, as mine to you,” as friends. Now in the final four lines of the scene, Hamlet puts a very different interpretation on the appearance of the Ghost: “My father’s spirit – in arms! All is not well.” Hamlet, like Horatio, sees the fact that the Ghost was wearing armor (“in arms”) is significant and suggests that something is amiss. But where Horatio thought it meant the country was in danger, Hamlet immediately jumps to the conclusion that there has been “some foul play.” He wishes the night would come quickly and ends by declaring that the appearance of the Ghost is proof that “Foul deeds will rise,/ Though all the earth o’erwhelm them, to men’s eyes.” The truth must come out, and we can see that Hamlet is predisposed to find a crime has been committed and somebody must be held responsible.
Act I, Scene 2 of Branagh’s Hamlet
As I said earlier Claudius’ first political task is to call an end to the period of national morning. The visual effect of the opening shots of this scene could not make that point any more clearly. The court is crowded, everyone in bright, colorful costumes. The music is martial and in keeping with the pomp of the moment. The Queen appears to be in her wedding dress, as if the ceremony had just taken place. In contrast to visual tone of the moment, Claudius’ solemn opening lines about his “late dear brother’s death” seem almost the play-acting of a skill performer, which is exactly what a good politician is. Then he turns his attention to the letter from Fortinbras demanding the return of the lands. Note Claudius’ actions when he declares “So much for him!” Why is that also a piece of performance in political theater? Who is it intended to impress? Notice how Branagh, the director, uses cuts to “Old Norway” and “Fortinbras” to make Claudius’ strategy more clear Notice how Laertes makes his pitch to get the king’s permission to return to France, making it seem the most important in the world. He too is skilled in the art of political theater where you go through the motions of delivering a message to the onlookers. And notice how the King makes a big deal out of checking with Polonius, flattering the old man in front of the court. It too is pure theater.
We don’t see Hamlet in the opening minutes of this scene, and the camera finally finds him, dressed all in black and hiding back behind the happy members of the court. When he approaches Claudius after he has been called, notice that he sits insolently on the throne that the King had occupied. Members of the court look on with disfavor, realizing it is a direct insult. At this point the director does something very interesting: he takes what had been in the text a very public scene that everyone in the throne room could see and hear and he turns it into a very private conversation among just Hamlet, his mother and the King. She pleads with him to “cast thy nighted color off” and he answers, “’Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother….” but with a barely suppressed rage and almost palpable sense of sorrow. When Claudius tries to reason with him, Hamlet refuses to look at the King for most of his speech. At the end of his long counter-argument, Claudius suddenly speaks out for all the court to hear, “For let the world take note, you are the most immediate to our throne,” making the private once again public. This is followed by applause from everyone, signaling that Claudius has the support of the court and revealing that Hamlet will find no allies in the palace. Branagh visually shows us the truth of his statement at line164, “But break my heart, for I must hold my tongue.”
Claudius makes his pitch for Hamlet not to return to Wittenberg, and Hamlet has his moment where he ignores the King and says he will obey his mother. The King quickly whisks the Queen away, signaling the beginning of the celebration with the pre-arranged dropping of confetti. The moment that Hamlet is covered with a snowfall of paper is incongruous and heightens his sense of frustration with his situation. In that flurry Ophelia tries to comfort him, only to be intercepted by her brother and steered out of the room. During his soliloquy – “O, that this too sullied flesh” – Hamlet walks away from the throne but keeps looking back, as if he could still see his mother and is disgusted by her behavior
When Horatio, Marcellus and Barnardo enter the room, notice how Hamlet greets them at first, until he suddenly remembers Horatio. What do you think this shot suggests about Hamlet’s previous relationship with Horatio in this production? As Hamlet tells Horatio he will learn how to “drink deep ere you depart,” notice the not-so-subtle sarcasm in his voice. That prepares us for the sarcasm when Hamlet says Horatio came to see the Queen’s marriage, the point where he tests his friend to see how he feels about what has happened. Hamlet’s whole demeanor changes when he hears about the Ghost. What do you think is going through his mind?
When Hamlet seeks to question
the men, he hurries them out of the public throne room and into a small private
chamber, a kind of library. This room will be used several times as a retreat
for the Prince where he will deliver soliloquies as if this were a refuge from
the tensions and suspicions of the rest of the palace. Now as the news of the
Ghost’s appearance sinks in, Branagh will use dramatic music to reinforce the
dramatic change in Hamlet’s state of mind. When his friends start to leave the
room the same way they entered, he redirects them to a secret bookcase entrance
to a passageway, a reminder that the palace is filled with secret entrances and
vantage points; you always have the feeling you are being spied upon. After his
friends leave and Hamlet tells us he suspects some foul play, he takes a book
from the shelf. What are the illustrations in that book and what is their
significance?
Act I, Scene 3, Lines 1 – 56
In this next sequence our attention shifts to the family of Polonius as Laertes, preparing to leave for France, warns his sister, Ophelia, about believing Hamlet’s protestations of love. What seems to be Laertes’ primary concern about his sister? What is her rejoinder to his concern? What do you see as their relationship? Act I, Scene 3, Lines 1 – 56:
[A
room in Polonius' house. Enter LAERTES and OPHELIA]
LAERTES: My necessaries are embarked. Farewell.
And, sister, as the winds give benefit
And convoy is assistant [ships are available],
do not sleep,
But let me hear from you.
OPHELIA: Do you doubt that?
LAERTES: For Hamlet and the trifling of his favor,
Hold it a fashion [fad] and a toy in blood
[flirtation],
A violet in the youth of primy nature [in its
early age],
Forward [eager], not permanent, sweet, not
lasting,
The perfume and suppliance of a minute [that
which makes a moment sweet and
pleasurable].
No
more.
OPHELIA: No more but so?
LAERTES: Think it no more;
For nature, crescent [growing], does not grow
alone
In thews and bulk [muscle and mass], but, as
this temple [human body] waxes
[grows],
The inward service of the mind and soul
Grows wide withal [at the same time]. Perhaps he
loves you now,
And now no soil nor cautel [dishonor nor
deceit] doth besmirch
The virtue of his will; but you must fear,
His greatness [high rank] weighed, his will is
not his own,
(For he himself is subject to his birth.)
He may not, as unvalued persons do,
Carve [choose] for himself; for on his choice
depends
The safety and health of this whole state.
And therefore must his choice be circumscribed
Unto the voice and yielding of that body [the
Danish state]
Whereof he is the head. Then if he says he loves you,
It fits your wisdom so far to believe it
As he in his particular act and place
May give his saying deed [put his words into
action], which is no further
Than the main voice of Denmark goes withal.
Then weigh what loss your honor may sustain,
If with too credent [gullible] ear you list
[listen to] his songs,
Or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure open
To his unmastered importunity [lose your virginity
to his uncontrollable pleading].
Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister,
And keep you in the rear of your affection,
Out of the shot and danger of desire [stay behind
the battle lines for your chastity, out
of danger from our own desires].
The chariest [most careful] maid is prodigal
[sinful] enough,
If she unmask her beauty to the moon
[under romantic circumstances].
Virtue itself 'scapes not calumnious strokes
[slanderous blows].
The canker galls the infants of the spring [the
cankerworm destroys the first buds of
spring]
Too oft before their buttons [buds] be
disclosed,
And, in the morn and liquid dew of youth
Contagious blastments [threatening blights] are
most imminent.
Be wary then; best safety lies in fear.
Youth to itself rebels, though none else near [youth
can destroy itself without a
tempter].
OPHELIA: I shall the effect of this good lesson keep,
As watchman to my heart. But, good my brother,
Do not, as some ungracious [ungodly] pastors do,
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven;
Whiles, like a puff'd and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads [show
me how to live a virtuous life
while you yourself lead a self-indulgent existence]
And recks not his own rede [and doesn’t follow
his own advice].
LAERTES: O, fear me not.
Our view of Hamlet is suddenly complicated when we learn he is romantically interested in Ophelia. He had not mentioned any thing about his affections for her in the revealing soliloquy in the preceding scene, but then he had other concerns on his mind. However, we do recall the end of his speech at I, 2, line 164: “But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.” Whatever his feelings for this girl, apparently he does not feel he can trust her.
Laertes and Ophelia seem to have a very close relationship. His concern for her emotional safety and her reputation seems genuine, and he urges her to write often. She, at line 50, appreciates his advice to her, vowing to keep it “as watchman to my heart.” In the crisis that faces the Polonius family both brother and sister remind us how deeply they feel for each other.
Laertes’ concern for his sister is very real. In the world of courtly gentlemen and ladies, the most valuable possession of both men and women was a spotless reputation. Women were judged by their chastity; it was one of the reasons why the rules of social intercourse, with chaperones and guardians, were so strict. Laertes, however, is not sure about Ophelia’s ability to resist Hamlet’s temptations. He tries to convince her that as a royal prince, he cannot choose a marriage partner for himself. He must marry whoever will serve the larger political interests of the Danish state, perhaps the daughter of a neighboring king. So while he promises Ophelia eternal love and even marriage, she must be wary. He will try to sleep with her, and as a woman, she is morally weak and may give in to his “unmastered importunity (l. 36)”. In the sequence at lines 38 – 48 we see something about Laertes’ way of looking at the world. In a series of general statements about the relations between men and women, we see Laertes echoing his father’s rather cynical view of love and youth, articulated in the second half of this scene. Laertes, at lines 38 –39, compares romance to a battlefield where the smart person stays out of the danger of desire. Next he asserts that no matter how careful a girl is, under the proper circumstances she will “unmask her beauty to the moon,” that is, get naked. Thirdly, he compares the idea of love to a cankerworm that destroys the first buds of the spring, leading to a general blight. The only course is to be afraid of love, because youth will fall even without anyone around to tempt it. These very clever-sounding short remarks, generalizations about how all kids will behave, are called aphorisms. Polonius is full of them, but they are appropriate for an old man his age, not for a young 20-something like Laertes.
Ophelia calls her brother out on his warnings to her at line 51:
Do not, as some ungracious
[ungodly] pastors do,
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven;
Whiles, like a puffed and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads [show me how to
live a virtuous life while you
yourself lead a self-indulgent existence]
And recks not his own rede [and doesn’t follow his own
advice].
We all remember the disgraced televangelists and the “family values”
politicians caught with their pants down. They are not a new phenomenon.
Ophelia is smart enough to know that Laertes’ running back to France probably has as much to do with his libido as it does with his education, regardless of what
he warns her about.
Act I, Scene 3, Lines 56 – 94
This next sequence is the famous advice that Laertes gives his son about how he should comport himself living on his own in a strange country. Down through the centuries people have pointed to these words of wisdom as the best that the older generation can give the younger. Shakespeare based the passage on several very similar pieces that were popular in his time. What is important about them is not the ideas in themselves but rather what the reveal about the man who utters them and how they gibe with his actions in the rest of the play. Act I, Scene 3, Lines 56 – 94.
LAERTES: I
stay too long. But here my father comes. {Enter POLONIUS]
A double blessing is a double grace [getting
your father’s blessing a second
time is an additional favor from heaven],
Occasion smiles [opportunity grants me] upon a
second leave.
POLONIUS: Yet here, Laertes? Aboard, aboard, for shame!
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
And you are stayed for. There, my blessing with thee.
And these few precepts in thy memory
See thou character [inscribe]. Give thy thoughts
no tongue,
Nor any unproportioned thought [unpremeditated
idea] his act.
Be thou familiar [friendly], but by no means vulgar
[indiscriminate],
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried
[tested],
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel,
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatched, unfledged courage [new,
untested youngster]. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,
Bear 't that th’ opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.
Take each man's censure [opinion], but reserve
thy judgment.
Costly thy habit [clothing] as thy purse can
buy,
But not expressed in fancy (rich not gaudy),
For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous chief in that [Frenchmen
of the best classes display their
refinement by their clothes].
Neither a borrower nor a lender be,
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry [money
management].
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell. My blessing season this in thee.
LAERTES: Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord.
POLONIUS: The time invests you. Go, your servants tend
[wait].
LAERTES: Farewell, Ophelia, and remember well
What I have said to you.
OPHELIA: 'Tis in my memory locked,
And you yourself shall keep the key of it.
LAERTES: Farewell. [Exit
LAERTES]
Often in modern productions when Laertes says the lines at 57 – 59 about how
lucky he is the get a second blessing from his father, he and Ophelia smirk and
make it clear they find the old man tedious and they know he is about to dump a
lot of unsolicited advice on them. And the old man is tedious. At line
60 he chides Laertes for being late getting aboard the ship. In the days of
sailing ships, you had to leave when the tide and wind were favorable, not when
you wanted to. Having told his son that he needs to get out, Polonious takes
25 lines to give him even more advice. Identify the nine pieces of advice
Polonius gives Laertes. Regardless of how modern productions may try to
play with Polonius’ fatherly advice and suggest his kids have heard these
pearls of wisdom too many times already, there is no evidence in the text that
Laertes and Ophelia don’t love their father, despite the way he treats them at
times.
The advice in itself is fine. We probably should be careful about saying too much in certain circumstances. If we have good friends we should “grapple them” to us with “hoops of steel.” For better or worse, “clothes oft proclaim the man,” and we shouldn’t lend money to our friends. Finally we could a lot worse than to heed the last piece of Polonius’ advice: “to thine own self be true,/ And it must follow, as the night the day,/ Thou canst not then be false to any man.” The problem is that despite the fine words, Polonius will violate this injunction about being true to himself and will force his daughter to violate it. Ultimately it will lead to his death and that of Ophelia.
Act I, Scene 3, Lines 95 – 145
In this final sequence, how does
Polonius violate his own advice to his children about being true to
themselves? On what does Polonius seem to base his understanding about love?
What seems to be his primary concern about his daughter dating Hamlet? Act
I, Scene 3, Lines 95 -- 145
POLONIUS: What is 't, Ophelia, be hath said to you?
OPHELIA: So please you, something touching the Lord Hamlet.
POLONIUS: Marry [indeed], well bethought.
'Tis told me, he hath very oft of late
Given private time to you, and you yourself
Have of your audience been most free and bounteous.
If it be so (as so 'tis put on me [told to me]
And that in way of caution), I must tell you
You do not understand yourself so clearly
As it behooves my daughter and your honor.
What is between you? Give me up the truth.
OPHELIA: He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders
Of his affection to me [offers to me of his
affections].
POLONIUS: Affection, pooh! You speak like a green girl
Unsifted in [naïve about] such perilous
circumstance.
Do you believe his “tenders,” as you call them?
OPHELIA: I do not know, my lord, what I should think.
POLONIUS: Marry, I'll teach you. Think yourself a baby,
That you have ta'en these tenders [should be
legal tender] for true pay,
Which are not sterling [real coins of silver]. Tender
yourself more dearly [hold yourself
at a higher rate],
Or--not to crack the wind of the poor phrase
[not to over-exert the phrase like a
horse run too fast until it’s winded]
Running it thus--you'll tender me a fool [make
me look like a fool, or deliver
an illegitimate child].
OPHELIA: My lord, he hath importuned me with love
In honorable fashion --
POLONIUS: Ay, fashion you may call it; go to, go to!
OPHELIA: And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord,
With almost all the holy vows of heaven.
POLONIUS: Ay, springes [snares] to catch woodcocks
[stupid birds]. I do know,
When the blood burns, how prodigal [generously] the
soul
Lends the tongue vows. These blazes, daughter,
Giving more light than heat, extinct in both,
Even in their promise, as it is a-making [fires in
which the light and heat die out almost
as soon as they start]
You must not take for fire. From this time
Be somewhat scanter of your maiden presence.
Set your entreatments [negotiations] at a higher
rate [worth more]
Than a command to parley [simply a demand to
meet]. For Lord Hamlet,
Believe so much in him, that he is young
And with a larger tether [longer leash] may he
walk
Than may be given you. In few [brief], Ophelia,
Do not believe his vows, for they are brokers
[bawds],
Not of that dye [sober color] which their investments
[holy robes] show,
But mere implorators [urgers] of unholy suits
[sinful acts],
Breathing [speaking] like sanctified and pious
bawds,
The better to beguile. This is for all:
I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth
Have you so slander [misuse] any moment leisure,
As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet.
Look to' t, I charge you. Come your ways.
OPHELIA: I shall obey, my lord.
Polonius has no sooner given his son the profound injunction to be “true to yourself” than he turns around and forces Ophelia to violate the principle. She has assured her brother that she will keep his advice to her locked in her memory, “And you yourself shall keep the key of it,” that is, it’s just between the two of us. Her father demands to know what is between the two of them. When she answers that it is something concerning Hamlet, trying to honor her promise to her brother, to keep some of her own integrity intact and to obey her father, Polonius tells her that he has been spying on her at line 99: “'Tis told me, he hath very oft of late/ Given private time to you, and you yourself/ Have of your audience been most free and bounteous.” Having brushed aside her attempts to be true to herself, the old man demands that she tell him everything. Ophelia now tells her father that Hamlet has made “many tenders [offers] of his affection.” Look at how Polonius puts his daughter down at line 110: “Affection, pooh! You speak like a green girl/ Unsifted in [naïve about] such perilous circumstance.” He dismisses her emotional state, chastises her for being “green” or unsophisticated and reminds her that falling in love is extremely dangerous. Again at line 121 he is dismissive of her emotional integrity, “Go to, go to,” or “You’ve got to be kidding.” Polonius drives home his point by doing a series of serious puns on the word “tender”: the word goes from meaning “offers” to “payment” (line 115) to “value” (line 116) to “present me with” (line 118). Polonius is the kind of speaker who gets on a verbal tangent and runs it into the ground, or as he would say, “cracks the wind of a poor phrase.”
In discussing his daughter’s love life, he presents a cynical portrait of sexual pursuit and gamesmanship in which all displays of affection are a calculated power contest. At line 130 he makes love sound like a business decision, at 131 he shifts the metaphor to love as a military conquest. Most devastating at 124 love is no more than a trap for catching stupid birds, a pursuit he tells us he did often with great success when he was younger. What is at stake is his daughter getting pregnant and delivering an illegitimate baby (“a fool”) which would make him look bad. He orders her not to waste any more time with Hamlet. It is the tragedy of Ophelia that she is not true to herself or the love she obviously feels for Hamlet. She dutifully acquiesces in her own destruction at line 145, telling her father she will obey. Ask yourself why she makes this choice.
Act I, Scene 3 of Branagh’s Hamlet
This is always a problematic scene in production. The character of Polonius is clearly a pompous fool, so often directors have Ophelia and Laertes mock him behind his back to show us that they are in on the joke. But his death will devastate both children and end up costing them their lives. Branagh has a couple of hints of Laertes and Ophelia’s exasperation with their father, but for the most part they seem genuinely affectionate toward him. As Laertes and Ophelia walk through the snow-covered grounds of the palace, what seems to be their relationship? (In the Nicole Williamson Hamlet they were overly close, suggesting a rather creepy incestuous relationship.) Can you tell by their expressions and gestures if they have had this conversation before? Notice how worked up Laertes (played by Michael Maloney) becomes as he tries to convince Ophelia not to give in to Hamlet’s entreaties. Then suddenly we see Hamlet himself, talking with some fencers and glancing up at the two. Why does Branagh choose to include that shot, which is certainly not suggested in the text? Finally, how does Ophelia (Kate Winslet) play her response to her brother at “Do not, as some ungracious pastors do….”? Is she serious?
What is the reaction of the brother and sister when Polonius (Richard Briers) comes in to bestow his “second blessing”? Notice now that Branagh switches the setting from outside to a small intimate chapel Why the change? Watch Laertes’ expression as his father bestows his advice. What does Polonius do to make the moment of “to thy own self be true” memorable?
Once Laertes leaves, by what incongruous action does Polonius establish a sense of secrecy as he begins to grill his daughter? What does he do to compel Ophelia to “give me up the truth”? How does Ophelia react to his interrogation? What does this suggest about their relationship? By using cut-away scenes of love-making, Branagh now establishes quite clearly what the relationship is between Hamlet and Ophelia, something that is usually left ambiguous in other productions. Why do you think he makes this choice? In addition to the added scenes, Branagh also introduces the romantic theme music that he associates with Hamlet’s intimate moments throughout the rest of the play. Listen for it. Finally, as a tearful Ophelia agrees to obey her father’s injunction, what visual scene does Branagh use and why?
Act I, Scene 4
In the next scene Hamlet confronts the Ghost. Why is the discharge of the cannons at line 8 so disturbing? What is the point of Hamlet’s long speech at lines 15 – 41? What is Hamlet’s initial reaction when he sees the Ghost for the first time? Horatio and Marcellus were sure the Ghost would speak to Hamlet, but now they are both reluctant to let him go talk with the Ghost privately. Why the apparent change of heart? What do their fears tell us about the perception of Hamlet? What does Marcellus’s line, “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” refer to? Act I, Scene 4
SCENE
IV. The platform.
[Enter HAMLET, HORATIO, and MARCELLUS ]
HAMLET: The air bites shrewdly [intensely]; it is
very cold.
HORATIO: It is a nipping and an eager [sharp] air.
HAMLET: What hour now?
HORATIO: I think it lacks of twelve.
MARCELLUS: No, it is struck.
HORATIO: Indeed? I heard it not. Then it draws near the
season
Wherein the spirit held his wont [was accustomed
to] walk.
[A flourish of trumpets, and ordnance shot off,
within]
What does this mean, my lord?
HAMLET: The king doth wake tonight and takes his rouse
[stays up all night drinking]
Keeps wassail [carouses] and the swaggering
upspring reels[ drunken dancing];
And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish [German
wine] down,
The kettledrum and trumpet thus bray out
The triumph of his pledge [his success in
emptying a cup in one gulp].
HORATIO: Is it a custom?
HAMLET: Ay, marry, is 't,
But, to my mind, though I am native here
And to the manner born [ destined by birth to
accept the custom], it is a custom
More honored in the breach than the observance.
This
heavy-headed revel east and west
Makes us traduced and taxed [censured] of other
nations:
They clepe [call] us drunkards, and with swinish
phrase
Soil our addition [honorable titles]. And indeed
it takes
From our achievements, though performed at height,
The pith and marrow [essence] of our attribute
[reputation].
So [in the same way] oft it chances in
particular men,
That for some vicious mole of nature [inbred
flaw] in them,
As, in their birth (wherein they are not guilty,
Since nature cannot choose his origin),
By the o'ergrowth of some complexion [too much
of one of the four
“humours,” the chemicals thought to control behavior.]
(Oft breaking down the pales and forts [fortifications]
of reason),
Or by some habit that too much o'erleavens
[radically alters]
The form of plausive[pleasing] manners -- that
these men,
Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect,
Being nature's livery [something by which one is
marked by nature] or fortune's
star [something determined by luck],
His virtues else [the other virtues of these
men], be they as pure as grace,
As infinite as man may undergo,
Shall in the general censure take corruption
From that particular fault. The dram of evil
Doth all the noble substance of a doubt
To his own scandal [The smallest amount of evil in
a man corrupts the whole person,
even his best parts.] [Enter Ghost]
HORATIO: Look, my
lord, it comes!
HAMLET: Angels and ministers of grace, defend us!
Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damned,
Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,
Be thy intents wicked or charitable,
Thou com’st in such a questionable [problematic]
shape
That I will speak to thee. I'll call thee “Hamlet,”
“King,” ”father,” “Royal Dane.” O, answer me!
Let me not burst in ignorance, but tell
Why thy canonized [buried according to church
law] bones, hearsed in death,
Have burst their cerements; why the sepulchre,
Wherein we saw thee quietly interred,
Hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws,
To cast thee up again. What may this mean,
That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel,
Revisits thus the glimpses of the moon,
Making night hideous, and we fools of nature
So horridly to shake our disposition
With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls [we
weak human beings to struggle with
thoughts beyond our capacity to understand]?
Say, why is this? Wherefore? What should we do?
[Ghost
beckons HAMLET]
HORATIO: It beckons you to go away with it,
As if it some impartment [something to tell you]
did desire
To you alone.
MARCELLUS: Look, with what courteous action
It waves you to a more removed ground:
But do not go with it.
HORATIO: No, by no means.
HAMLET: It will not speak. Then I will follow it.
HORATIO: Do not, my lord.
HAMLET: Why, what should be the
fear?
I do not set my life in a pin's fee [price of a
pin].
And for my soul, what can it do to that,
Being a thing immortal as itself?
It waves me forth again. I'll follow it.
HORATIO: What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord,
Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff
That beetles o'er his base into the sea,
And there assume some other horrible form,
Which might deprive your sovereignty of
reason [overwhelm your rational control]
And draw you into madness? Think of it.
The very place puts toys of desperation
[desperate impulses]
Without more motive, into every brain
That looks so many fathoms to the sea
And hears it roar beneath.
HAMLET: It waves me still. -- Go on, I'll follow thee.
MARCELLUS: You shall not go, my lord. [They
restrain HAMLET]
HAMLET: Hold off
your hands.
HORATIO: Be ruled. You shall not go.
HAMLET: My fate
cries out,
And makes each petty artery in this body
As hardy as the Nemean lion's nerve [the sinews
of the lion slain by Hercules]
Still am I called. Unhand me, gentlemen.
By heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that lets [hinders]
me!
I say, away! -- Go on; I'll follow thee. [Exeunt
Ghost and HAMLET]
HORATIO: He waxes desperate with imagination.
MARCELLUS: Let's follow. 'Tis not fit thus to obey him.
HORATIO: Have after. To what issue [outcome] will
this come?
MARCELLUS: Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
HORATIO: Heaven will direct it.
MARCELLUS: Nay, let's follow him. [Exit]
We can imagine the tension as Hamlet, Horatio and Marcellus wait for the appearance of the Ghost. Just as we saw back in the first scene, Shakespeare reinforces this sense of anxiety by having the characters speak in short lines as they quibble about the time. With that nervous anticipation almost palpable, they are startled by the sudden loud discharge of cannons. Horatio can’t understand what this could be about, one more suggestion that he is not very familiar with the Danish court. When Hamlet describes what the King is doing, he is very sarcastic in phrases like “swagg’ring upspring reels” and “bray out.” We remember back to Act I, Scene 2 at line 181 when Hamlet promised that Denmark would teach Horatio to “drink deep ere you depart.” As the opening lines of Hamlet’s long speech at 15 – 41 make clear, he is disgusted by the heavy drinking associated with his country.
Hamlet’s long speech here is characteristic of how he likes to philosophize. He begins with a specific example, the Danish custom of drinking too much. He points out the consequences, the bad reputation the Danes have because of it, the fact that it takes away from their other achievements. At line 26 he then generalizes from this concrete example to very broad statement about the human condition, that we are often ruined by one small flaw, something over which we may have no control. The lines from 26 – 41 are among the most difficult in all of Shakespeare’s plays to fully comprehend. Nevertheless, the general sense is clear. It is a paraphrase of the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle’s definition of the “tragic flaw,” the single human failing that leads to human tragedy. Why should Shakespeare have his hero think of this just before the appearance of the Ghost?
On cue the Ghost appears. Look at Hamlet’s reactions at lines 43 – 62. His first response is to call out for heavenly protection as the vision frightens him: “Angels and ministers of grace, defend us!” He then asks what kind of a spirit it is, good or evil. In how many different ways does he ask this? His third response is to identify it as someone he knows. How many different titles does he give the Ghost? Why does he select these titles? His fourth response is to ask why the Ghost has left the grave; notice how Hamlet emphasizes the finality of the burial of his father’s body: the elaborate grave has “oped its ponderous and marble jaws.” Once again Hamlet waxes philosophical, asking why the Ghost has reappeared thereby raising “thoughts beyond the reaches of our soul.” The Ghost has shaken Hamlet’s ability to understand and rationally to explain. Finally he asks what the Ghost wants them to do. And finally the Ghost communicates, bidding Hamlet to follow him for a private conversation.
Now something very strange happens. Back in the first scene, Horatio was sure the Ghost would speak to Hamlet. In the second scene Hamlet announced that he would speak to the Ghost “though Hell would bid me hold my peace.” When the Ghost finally appears ready to communicate, both Marcellus and Horatio strenuously object and physically try to stop Hamlet from following the Ghost. Look at their reasons for this change of heart at lines 77 – 86. They are afraid the Ghost will make Hamlet crazy and tempt him to kill himself. Now throughout the play, from the first soliloquy to his final scene, Hamlet seems to wrestle with the twin demons of madness and suicide. Did his two friends pick up on this tendency in the prince? Is that why they are so concerned about him? Hamlet breaks free from their restraint, threatening them if they try to stop him.
After he runs off after the Ghost, Horatio and Marcellus debate whether they should follow and thereby disobey a direct command from the Prince. As they decide to do so, Marcellus utters one of the many famous lines from this play, “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.” You can see from the context that this line is in response to Horatio’s previous question: “To what issue will this come?” “What’s the outcome of this encounter?” So it is in this context that we get Marcellus’ ambiguous line. He might mean there is something bad that lies behind the Ghost’s appearance. He may mean that the outcome will lead to someone’s death (or in this case, eight deaths!) He may mean the Ghost himself suggests a rotten corpse. Take your pick.
Act I, Scene 4 in Branagh’s film
Right at the beginning of this scene the film creates a small moment for Horatio when Marcellus, the soldier, corrects the scholar, Horatio, about the time. An embarrassed Horatio confesses to Hamlet that he had not heard the clock strike twelve. The sound of the cannon startles the men, and now Branagh does what he has done previously: he shows us the action which the text describes. In this case we watch a staggering Claudius rush down a hallway, supported by a giddy Gertrude, drinking his rouses from shot glasses, until the two stumble into the bedroom and fall into a clumsy embrace on the bed, leaving Polonius to discreetly shut the door. This visualization helps us understand the obvious disgust with which Hamlet has described the event.
Hamlet is very earnest as he lectures the other two men on the evils of Danish drunkenness and then the nature of the tragic flaw. They move through candle-lit hallways and finally out on the snow-covered palace grounds throughout this sequence, adding motion to the text and preparing us for the confrontation with the Ghost at the gate. Remember the last time we saw the Ghost it was near the gates of the palace. Once again it looms and towers over the men, gesturing to them. Both men try to physically and verbally keep Hamlet from leaving as they warn him of madness and suicide. He finally breaks away and pulls his sword to make good on his threat to “make a ghost of him that lets me.”
Hamlet chases after the Ghost into a kind of nightmare landscape of snow, trees and strange eruptions, suggesting the fires of Hell. Branagh has moved the text at lines 43 – 62 to the end of the scene and used it as a voice-over, as if we were listening to Hamlet’s thoughts at this point as he follows the Ghost. It is a very effective way of showing us his fear as he interacts with the supernatural. It is one of the few places in the film where Branagh has altered the sequence of the text in any way.
Act I, Scene 5, Lines 1 – 98
SCENE
V. Another part of the platform.[Enter
GHOST and [HAMLET]
HAMLET: Where wilt thou lead me? Speak. I'll go no further.
GHOST: Mark me [Pay attention to me].
HAMLET: I will.
GHOST: My hour is almost come,
When I to sulph’rous and tormenting flames
Must render up myself.
HAMLET: Alas, poor ghost!
GHOST: Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing
[listen closely]
To what I shall unfold.
HAMLET: Speak; I am bound [ready, but also obligated]
to hear.
GHOST: So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear.
HAMLET: What?
GHOST: I am thy father's spirit,
Doomed for a certain term to walk the night,
And for [during] the day confined to fast in
fires,
Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
Are burnt and purged away. But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison house,
I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
Would harrow [plow] up thy soul, freeze thy
young blood,
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres
[orbits],
Thy knotted and combined locks to part
And each particular hair to stand an end [on
end],
Like quills upon the fretful porpentine
[threatened porcupine].
But this eternal blazon [description of
eternity] must not be
To ears of flesh and blood. List, list, O, list!
If thou didst ever thy dear father love--
HAMLET: O God!
GHOST: Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.
HAMLET: Murder?
Ghost: Murder most foul, as in the best it is;
But this most foul, strange and unnatural.
HAMLET: Haste me to know 't, that I, with wings as swift
As meditation or the thoughts of love,
May sweep to my revenge.
GHOST: I find thee apt;
And duller [thick-witted] shouldst thou be than
the fat weed
That roots itself in ease on Lethe wharf [bank
of the river of forgetfulness],
Wouldst thou not [if you did not stir] stir in
this. Now, Hamlet, hear.
'Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard
[garden]
A serpent stung me. So the whole ear of Denmark
Is by a forged process [lie] of my death
Rankly abused [deceived]. But know, thou noble
youth,
The serpent that did sting thy father's life
Now wears his crown.
HAMLET: O my prophetic soul! My uncle!
GHOST: Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast,
With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts --
O wicked wit and gifts, that have the power
So to seduce!--won to his shameful lust
The will of my most seeming-virtuous queen.
O Hamlet, what a falling-off was there!
From me, whose love was of that dignity
That it went hand in hand even with the vow
I made to her in marriage, and to decline
Upon [lowering herself to] a wretch whose natural
gifts were poor
To those of mine.
But virtue, as it never will be moved,
Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven,
So lust, though to a radiant angel linked,
Will sate itself in a celestial bed
And prey on garbage.
But, soft [what a minutes], methinks I scent the
morning air.
Brief let me be. Sleeping within my orchard,
My custom always of the afternoon,
Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole,
With juice of cursed hebona [fictional poison] in
a vial,
And in the porches of my ears did pour
The leperous distilment [causing a state like
leprosy], whose effect
Holds such an enmity with blood of man
That swift as quicksilver it courses through
The natural gates and alleys of the body,
And with a sudden vigor doth posset [clot]
And curd, like eager [acid] droppings into milk,
The thin and wholesome blood. So did it mine.
And a most instant tetter bark'd about
[immediately scabs and sores covered
my body like the bark of a tree]
Most lazar-like [like leprosy] with vile and
loathsome crust
All my smooth body.
Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother's hand
Of life, of crown, of queen, at once dispatched
[dispossessed],
Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,
Unhouseled, disappointed, unaneled [without
final rites or forgiveness],
No reckoning made, but sent to my account
With all my imperfections on my head.
O, horrible! O, horrible, most horrible!
If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not.
Let not the royal bed of Denmark be
A couch for luxury [lechery] and damned incest.
But, howsoever thou pursuest this act,
Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive
Against thy mother aught. Leave her to heaven
And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge
To prick and sting her. Fare thee well at once.
The glow-worm shows the matin [morning] to be
near,
And 'gins to pale his uneffectual fire.
Adieu, adieu, adieu. Remember me. [Exit
GHOST]
The Ghost’s Message
After a build-up of suspense for four scenes, we finally get to hear the Ghost speak. What he doesn’t say is almost as important as what he does say. His first words, “Mark me,” mean “listen to me,” but with the added force of “pay attention.” It hardly seems necessary to tell your son to focus on what you have to say when you have returned from the dead, but it will not be the only time in the play the Ghost seems to question his son’s ability concentrate on his message. In his response at line 11, “I am bound to hear,” Hamlet suggests a dual message: he is destined to hear the message, but he is also obligated to act on the information.
The Ghost at line 5 gives Hamlet a tantalizing hint at what life is like beyond the grave: “My hour is almost come,/ When I to sulph’rous and tormenting flames/ Must render up myself.” He is condemned to suffer the pains of Hell in a kind of half-state of damnation called Purgatory. We have all the familiar landscape of Hell, the flames, the smell of sulphur, the sense of torment beyond the ability of humans to imagine (lines 20 – 26). We learn the Ghost has to serve a prescribed sentence in this anteroom of the underworld because of sins committed in his lifetime. He has the opportunity to purge away his sins. Purgatory was a theological construct of the Catholic Church, a place where it was possible for the living to help shorten the sentence of suffering on their loved ones by prayers, good works and donations. The Protestants and the Church of England had rejected this belief as too closely identified with the old faith of Rome, but here is Shakespeare bringing it back as a dramatic device in his most famous drama. Scholars have found this a provocative element of the play and one which suggests that Shakespeare had more than a passing interest in Catholicism. Later in the famous “To be or not to be” soliloquy Hamlet will refer to death as “the country from whose undiscovered bourn [border]/ No traveler returns.” Well, the appearance of the Ghost and his scary description of the afterlife certainly provide some hints about “the undiscovered country.”
The Ghost now reveals that he was murdered, a murder both “foul and unnatural.” It was doubly bad because it was the murder of a king by his subject and a fratricide. Notice at lines 30 and 32 Shakespeare delays the revelation of the murderer with Hamlet’s interruptions; it isn’t until line 46 that the Ghost finally reveals the identity of his killer. Shakespeare has milked as much suspense as he could out of the situation. Notice Hamlet’s reaction at lines 35 – 37: “Haste me to know 't, that I, with wings as swift/ As meditation or the thoughts of love,/ May sweep to my revenge.” Given the fact that Hamlet will mull, procrastinate, philosophize and postpone for the next four acts before he gets around to “sweeping” to his revenge, the comparison is fairly ironic. (By the way, to “sweep” was a technical term used to describe how a falcon dives on its prey, at that time probably the fastest motion by a living being known.)
The Ghost is pleased that his son agrees to extract revenge on his killer, suggesting at line 39 – 41 that he if he wasn’t stirred to action, he would be “duller than the fat weed/ That roots itself in ease on Lethe’s wharf.” The suggestion with this unusual image is that the only reason a son would not rush to avenge his father’s death would be that he was slow-witted and kept forgetting to do it. The Ghost doesn’t seem to consider the other option: that his son would be too aware and keep over-thinking the event.
CSI: Elsinore
The Ghost now describes in graphic detail how he was murdered and at the same time the official story given out about his death was a lie. “The whole ear of Denmark” was “rankly abused” at line 45. There is a parallel here between the way Claudius murdered his brother, by pouring the poison into his ear, and how the truth was hidden, by deceiving the ear of the country. Furthermore, the action of telling such a monstrous lie is called “abuse,” which was a word often used to describe casting an evil spell on someone; it is additionally called “rankly,” a word I told you that occurs frequently in this play and has the connotation of sexual promiscuity. Certainly poisoning his brother was an expression of Claudius’ sexual desires in a fundamental sense. No wonder the Ghost equates his murderer with the phony snake that got blamed for his death at line 46.
Hamlet’s reaction to the news at line 48 is very revealing: “O my prophetic soul! My uncle!” It has been apparent from the very beginning that Hamlet had no love for his uncle. Now the news about how his father really died seems to confirm all his hatred and suspicion. Yet in a couple of scenes Hamlet, in an astounding display of self-awareness, will realize that his own feelings may have colored his perceptions and will seek independent validation of the Ghost’s assertion.
Beginning at line 49 the Ghost gives us a long, detailed description of his murder and what led up to it. Like his son the Ghost reserves much of his anger for his wife with whose sexual behavior he is especially obsessed. In the opening line he makes clear the nature of the relationship between Claudius and Gertrude when he calls his brother an “incestuous” and “adulterate beast.” The marriage of the two former in-laws accounts for the charge of incest. The fact that the two were involved in an affair (adultery) before Hamlet Senior’s death is indicated by the word “adulterate.” The Ghost blames the “witchcraft of his wits and traitorous gifts” for his success in seducing Gertrude, which connects back to “abuse,” that word used to describe witches’ spells. Look at all the words of condemnation the Ghost uses in the section line 49 – 64: Gertrude’s virtue was “seeming”; her actions “a falling-off”; her “will” often meant a person’s sexual appetite. He ends this section by giving us a powerful image of the difference between “virtue,” which resists all temptation and “lust” which satisfies itself in a proper, heavenly or “celestial bed” and then goes out hunting (“preying”) for more sex, even if it is with “garbage.”
The actual poisoning is exotic. People in that time had turned poisoning into a fine art, and they studied all the different ways poison could be ingested besides orally. In the play of one of Shakespeare’s contemporaries a woman was poisoned by her rival who put a deadly poison on the picture of her husband which she used to kiss every night during his absence. A member of Queen Elizabeth’s court was charged with trying to murder her by putting poison on her saddle (probably too much information about Good Queen Bess). Claudius administered the poison through the King’s ear. It is an especially alien-sounding concoction – “henbona” – but after 400 years of research no one has yet been able to identify this particular poison; about the best they have been able to come up with is a toxic weed with the prosaic name “hensbane.” Whatever the poison, it has an instant effect on the body, creating a condition like leprosy. (In Shakespeare’s time lepers would have been a fairly common sight on the streets.) In describing the effect of hebona on the body, the Ghost compares it in appearance to the bark of a tree, a particularly effective image.
The Old Faith
Even more terrible than the murder itself is the condition of the old king’s soul when he died. He did not die in a state of grace, according to the Catholic Church, with his sins forgiven; the Ghost uses the technical terms from the old faith at line 84: “Unhouseled, disappointed, unaneled [without final rites or forgiveness].” Here again we get a tantalizing hint that Shakespeare has more than a passing acquaintance with Catholicism. The scholar Stephen Greenblatt in his recent work Will in the World argues that Shakespeare was seeking some kind of consolation in the rituals and concepts like Purgatory from the old faith because of his own grief for his recently deceased father and son.
At line 89 the Ghost gives his son his specific charge: “Let not the royal bed of Denmark be/ A couch for luxury [lechery] and damned incest.” Notice that he does not say, “Kill the son-of-a-bitch who poisoned me and messed up my complexion in the process,” nor does he say, “Save the kingdom from this usurping villain.” What he says in effect is “Kill your uncle to stop him from committing incestuous lechery (‘luxury’) in the royal bed.” This will not be the only time in this lecture that I point out the obvious: both father and son are obsessed with Gertrude’s sexual habits.
Having made that point
abundantly clear, the Ghost immediately adds, “But, howsoever thou pursuest
this act,/ Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive/ Against thy mother
aught.” The Ghost has spent the 40 lines “tainting” Hamlet and the audience’s
minds against Gertrude, but now he says simply, “Leave her to heaven/ And to
those thorns that in her bosom lodge/ To prick and sting her.” This passage
suggests that Gertrude will suffer from a guilty conscience and will eventually
pay for her sins after death. This injunction leaves Hamlet in a tricky
position – how is he supposed to feel about and deal with his mother? And the
Ghost has not told him or us probably the most important piece of information:
What, if any, was Gertrude’s involvement in or knowledge of her husband’s murder?
The Ghost runs out of time at this point with the arrival of the dawn. (Just as
was the case in Act I, Scene 1, the time from midnight to sunrise just flew
past; according to my calculations it has only lasted about 165 lines.) This
time the morning has been announced by the fact the glowworms have grown pale
because of the coming light. The Ghost’s departing words will become fixed in
Hamlet’s mind as a reminder of his solemn duty: “Adieu, adieu, adieu. Remember me.” We might well wonder why the Ghost
felt it necessary to warn his only son not to forget him. Certainly there will
be occasions in the next four acts when the Ghost might well conclude that
Hamlet had indeed forgotten him.
Act I, Scene 5, Lines 99 – 212
In this next sequence try and assess the state of Hamlet’s mind after the Ghost leaves and before his friends arrive. What accounts for his strange behavior toward Horatio and Marcellus when they do find him? Why won’t he give them any details about what the Ghost told him? What is it that Hamlet wants his friends to swear to? What does he mean by putting on “an antic disposition?” What is the significance of the final couplet in this scene? Act I, Scene 1, Lines 99 – 212
HAMLET: O all
you host of heaven! O earth! What else?
And shall I couple hell? O, fie! Hold, hold, my heart,
And you, my sinews, grow not instant old,
But bear me stiffly up. Remember thee?
Ay, thou poor ghost, whiles memory holds a seat
[as long as I am able to remember
anything]
In this distracted globe [points to his head]. Remember
thee?
Yea, from the table [erasable tablet] of my
memory
I'll wipe away all trivial fond records [foolish
jottings],
All saws of books [quotations copied from books],
all forms, all pressures past
[all written impressions of things and events],
That youth and observation copied there,
And thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain,
Unmixed with baser matter. Yes, by heaven!
O most pernicious woman!
O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!
My tables -- meet [appropriate] it is I set it down
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain.
At least I'm sure it may be so in Denmark. [Writing]
So, uncle, there you are. Now to my word.
It is “adieu, adieu! remember me.”
I have sworn 't.
MARCELLUS/ HORATIO: [Offstage] My lord, my lord!
MARCELLUS: [Offstage] Lord Hamlet!
HORATIO: [Offstage] Heavens secure him!
HAMLET: So be it.
HORATIO: [Offstage]
Illo, ho, ho, my lord!
HAMLET: Hillo, ho, ho, boy! Come, bird, come! [Hamlet
mocks Marcellus’ calling as if he were
a falconer recalling a bird]
[Enter
HORATIO and MARCELLUS]
MARCELLUS: How is't, my noble lord?
HORATIO: What news,
my lord?
HAMLET: O, wonderful!
HORATIO: Good my lord, tell it.
HAMLET: No, you'll reveal it.
HORATIO: Not I, my lord, by heaven.
MARCELLUS: Nor I, my lord.
HAMLET: How say you, then? Would heart of man once think it?
But you'll be secret?
HORATIO/ MARCELLUS: Ay, by heaven, my lord.
HAMLET: There's never a villain dwelling in all Denmark
But he's an arrant [complete] knave.
HORATIO: There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave
To tell us this.
HAMLET: Why, right; you are in the right.
And so, without more circumstance [ceremony] at
all,
I hold it fit that we shake hands and part,
You, as your business and desire shall point you
(For every man has business and desire,
Such as it is), and for mine own poor part,
Look you, I'll go pray.
HORATIO: These are but wild and whirling words, my lord.
HAMLET: I'm sorry they offend you, heartily;
Yes, faith, heartily.
HORATIO: There's no offense, my lord.
HAMLET: Yes, by Saint Patrick, but there is, Horatio,
And much offense, too. Touching this vision here,
It is an honest ghost -- that let me tell you.
For your desire to know what is between us,
O'ermaster 't as you may. And now, good friends,
As you are friends, scholars and soldiers,
Give me one poor request.
HORATIO: What is 't, my lord? We will.
HAMLET: Never make known what you have seen tonight.
HORATIO/ MARCELLUS: My lord, we will not.
HAMLET: Nay, but swear 't.
HORATIO: In faith, my lord, not I.
MARCELLUS: Nor I, my lord, in faith.
HAMLET: Upon my sword [with the hilt forms a cross to
swear upon].
MARCELLUS: We have sworn, my lord,
already.
HAMLET: Indeed, upon my sword, indeed.
GHOST: [Beneath] Swear.
HAMLET: Ha, ha, boy, sayst thou so? Art thou there, truepenny
[honest fellow]?
Come on, you hear this fellow in the cellarage.
Consent to swear.
HORATIO: Propose the oath, my lord.
HAMLET: Never to speak of this that you have seen,
Swear by my sword.
GHOST: [Beneath] Swear.
HAMLET: Hic et ubique [here and everywhere]? Then
we'll shift our ground.
Come hither, gentlemen,
And lay your hands again upon my sword.
Swear by my sword.
Never to speak of this that you have heard,
GHOST: [Beneath] Swear.
HAMLET: Well said, old mole. Canst work i' th’ earth so fast?
A worthy pioneer [army engineer]! Once more remove
[move again] good friends.
HORATIO: O day and night, but this is wondrous strange.
HAMLET: And therefore as a stranger [because it is a stranger]
give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy [course of study]. But
come.
Here, as before, never, so help you mercy,
How strange or odd soe'er I bear myself
(As I perchance hereafter shall think meet [see fit]
To put an antic disposition on [act bizarrely])
That you, at such times seeing me, never shall,
With arms encumbered thus, or this headshake [arms folded
and with a knowing nod of your head],
Or by pronouncing of some doubtful [ambiguous] phrase,
As “Well, well, we know,” or “We could, an if [if] we
would,”
Or “If we list [pleased] to speak,” or “There be, an if they
might,”
Or such ambiguous giving out [expression], to note
[indicate]
That you know aught of me -- this do swear,
So grace and mercy at your most need help you.
GHOST: [Beneath] Swear. [They swear]
HAMLET: Rest, rest, perturbed spirit. -- So, gentlemen,
With all my love I do commend me to you,
And what so poor a man as Hamlet is
May do, t’ express his love and friending to you,
God willing, shall not lack. Let us go in together [we won’t
stand on royal protocol],
And still your fingers on your lips, I pray.
The time is out of joint. O cursed spite,
That ever I was born to set it right!
Nay, come, let's go together. [Exit]
A State of Shock
In his 21-line soliloquy at the beginning of this sequence Hamlet tells us how traumatic the experience with the Ghost has been for him and at the same time reveals to us some important aspects of his character. Remember that I had said earlier that Shakespeare did not rely solely on the ability of his actors to convey their psychological state to an audience of 3,000 spectators. If it was important for us to know, he would reinforce the acting with a verbal message. So it is in the first four lines beginning at line 99 that we know Hamlet is close to a physical and psychological collapse as a result of his ghostly encounter. He calls upon all the forces (“hosts’) of earth, heaven and hell to help him remain standing. He returns to that last line of the Ghost, “remember me,” and repeats it twice to emphasize its impact on his mind. At line 103 he vows to remember the Ghost as long as he has a memory in “this distracted globe.” Hamlet is referring to his own brain here and telling us he is unhinged. At the same time “globe” could refer to the entire world; because of his own psychological state Hamlet perceives everything as disturbed. A third suggestion of “Globe” is, of course, the actual theater in which the play was performed. Shakespeare’s plays often contain references to the specific people and places in London at that time.
To emphasize the point about dedicating himself to remembering the Ghost, Hamlet now, in effect, hits the delete button on his own memory. Young men studying to be courtly gentlemen were encouraged to make notes on how others talked, wrote and behaved, to help model themselves upon the best examples of courtship. These “records” were sometimes kept temporarily on wax tablets (or “tables”) that could be easily wiped clean for reuse. Hamlet now dismisses all the information he has accumulated over the years as “trivial” and “fond” (foolish), even the pieces of wisdom (“saws”) he has copied from books. Now the only thing he will remember is the Ghost’s injunction. Given that Hamlet is a long-time scholar and student, a man for whom his books are his most important possessions, it is appropriate that he should, at line 110, speak of the Ghost’s “commandment” living within “the book and volume of my brain.” Hamlet’s choice of images often reveals his values and feelings. This intellectualization of revenge is carried on at line 114 where Hamlet will literally write down that Claudius is a villain. What more significant way is there for a perpetual student to make a declaration than in writing? But how unlike the typical revenge tragedy action hero which I described in the introduction of this lecture! Can you see Rambo or the Terminator stopping to write down a psychological insight before getting out the flame thrower?
Remember that just 20 lines before the Ghost had warned Hamlet not to taint his mind “against thy mother aught” (or at all). Yet what is the first thing he says at line 112 – “O most pernicious woman”? So much for leaving her to heaven! Poor Gertrude’s sexual bad behavior continues to dominate Hamlet’s mind. And at line 113 what really rankles Hamlet about Claudius seems to be less that he murdered his father and more about the fact that he’s a phony, a “smiling, damned villain.” And just as Hamlet had earlier condemned the Danish vice of overdrinking, here he seems to equate deception with the Danish character. I guess grief takes different forms, but Hamlet’s reactions tell us a lot about what’s on his mind. At line 116 he finishes writing down the fact that Claudius is a villain and announces “So, uncle, there you are,” as if the act of the writing had established the reality and fixed his commitment to revenge. He repeats the Ghost’s last words, “Adieu, adieu, remember me,” and tells us he has sworn it after the ritual of wiping his memory clean and writing it down.
The World Comes In
The first 120 lines of this scene have been among the most intense and private in all of the plays. Hamlet has literally forgotten about that outside world. Now that world intrudes in the form of Horatio and Marcellus who come looking for him. Everything has changed for Hamlet, including his relationships with those around him, but his friends don’t know that. They have only Hamlet’s external behavior to go on, and what that strongly suggests is that he’s crazy. Hamlet realizes that what he must do is to commit an act of political assassination against the ruling monarch of a state under threat of external attack. Claudius is heavily protected; in Act IV we hear him call for his “Switzers,” special mercenary security men from Switzerland, the same kind of force that still guards the Pope. (The Swiss were hired for this kind of job by the royalty of Europe for centuries because they less likely to turn against their employers for any kind of political or religious qualms.) Should Hamlet succeed in killing Claudius, his chances of survival would be meager. Furthermore, given what he has learned, he must distrust everyone, even his supposed friend, Horatio, or his alleged girlfriend, Ophelia. And if he does kill the King, those closest to him will be in danger simply by their association with him.
At line 122 a concerned Marcellus hopes that heaven will secure Hamlet, to which Hamlet says, “So be it.” Perhaps he is agreeing that he will be protected by God. Maybe what Hamlet means is that he now has to face the outside world as a changed man. Or it may be that at this point he decides on how he will encounter the world – by “putting on an antic disposition,” that is playing as if he were crazy. Marcellus and Horatio have been calling to Hamlet from offstage, using the term “illo, ho, ho,” in effect shouting “hello” so he will respond. At line 125 he finally does, answering, “Hillo, ho, ho, boy! Come, bird, come!” as if he were a falconer and they were hunting birds he was calling to return to him. Remember that they last time they saw him he was running off after the Ghost in mortal danger. You can see why this response is inappropriate under normal circumstances. But often when people have just received a shock, their responses are not what we would expect. Hamlet is in a state of shock, perhaps a kind of temporary insanity. We know that Hamlet and his friends are extremely tense: we see that from line 120 – 140 they speak in clipped, short lines with a number of questions such as we saw when the Ghost first appeared in Act I, Scene 1 and again when Hamlet learned of the Ghost in scene 2. This is one of the ways Shakespeare used to convey nervous tension
Horatio and Marcellus are anxious to find out what Hamlet learned from the Ghost, but we can see Hamlet’s reluctance to trust them from the outset. Think about his situation. What would a student home from school and a common foot soldier be able to do to help him kill the King? On the other hand he has to mistrust everyone, although he eventually tells Horatio what the Ghost told him and enlists his aid in the plan. We can envision Hamlet wrestling in his own mind as the two urge him to tell and he repeatedly expresses doubt about their secrecy. At last at line 137 he reveals the great truth the Ghost returned to tell him: “There's never a villain dwelling in all Denmark/ But he's an arrant knave.” Sometimes in production Hamlet pauses at the end of the first line here, as if he were still trying figure out how much he can say. Instead of finishing his thought with something like “But he’s not equal to the one who rules,” Hamlet gives us a nonsense statement of the obvious.
Move On, There’s Nothing to See Here
Horatio is disappointed and confused, but Hamlet is anxious to end the conversation and says they must have other things to do. For his part he intends to go and pray, which might suggest he is upset about something. Horatio states what is apparent: “These are but wild and whirling words.” Hamlet is talking crazy, and he apologizes if they have given his friend offense. When Horatio assures him he took no offense, Hamlet finally lets slip what is really on his mind:
Yes, by
Saint Patrick, but there is, Horatio,
And much offense, too. Touching this vision here,
It is an honest ghost -- that let me tell you.
For your desire to know what is between us,
O'ermaster 't as you may.
We can imagine Hamlet suddenly speaking with powerful feeling that there is much offense; he just can’t say what it is. Perhaps he swears by Saint Patrick because he is associated with driving the snakes, representing evil, out of Ireland. Without revealing any more, Hamlet strongly asserts the authenticity and honesty of the Ghost; in two scenes he will question that assertion himself. Finally he empathizes with his friends’ desire to know more and asks them to control their curiosity.
Cross Your Heart and Hope to Die
Now Hamlet changes his mind about leaving and instead asks his friends to swear an oath that they will not reveal what they have seen. Despite their assurances that they won’t, Hamlet insists that they take a solemn oath upon the cross formed by his sword’s blade and hilt. Three times they attempt to swear only to be interrupted by the Ghost urging them to “swear” in an eerie voice from beneath the floor. The three men move from one part of the stage to another to escape this ghostly warning. The voice comes, of course, from the actor playing the Ghost who had gone under the raised stage. (According to one tradition from the 17th Century it was Shakespeare himself who played the part of the Ghost.) This little sequence tells us a couple of things about Shakespeare’s stage. First, his audience loved “special effects”; the sound of a disembodied voice coming from the floor was a real crowd pleaser. Secondly, despite the audience of 3,000 people, the spectators were still close enough to the stage to be able to distinguish that the voice was coming from under different parts of the floor. Now we assume that Horatio and Marcellus hear the Ghost’s voice along with Hamlet, but in some productions they don’t give any indication that they do. Their reactions are based on watching Hamlet respond to a voice they don’t hear, and Hamlet’s reactions are pretty odd. At line 170 Hamlet refers to the Ghost as “truepenny” and “this fellow in the cellarage.” In psychological terms this is an “inappropriate affect”: if you encounter a ghostly phenomenon, you’re not supposed to greet him, “like dude!” or joke about how he got locked in the cellar. Of course, Hamlet’s still in a state of shock from his earlier encounter, and often those in such a state have reactions that outsiders don’t understand. There’s nothing more that can scare Hamlet. His jocular response may just be the way he copes with the situation. The next time the Ghost cries out at line 176, Hamlet greets the interruption with a Latin phrase meaning “here and everywhere,” as if he were saying, “Boy, you do get around!” The third time at 182, Hamlet’s response is even more bizarre: “Well said, old mole. Canst work i' th’ earth so fast? / A worthy pioneer [army engineer]! Once more remove [move again] good friends.” The Ghost is moving so quickly, he must be Super Mole! Then Hamlet compares him to a “pioneer,” a term used for the early army engineers who specialized in tunneling under fortifications. We’ll see another reference to the “pioneer” in Act III, Scene 4.
So it is that after the third ghostly injunction Horatio is moved to observe, “Day and night, but this is wondrous strange.” It is “wondrous strange” if Horatio has heard the voice of the Ghost. (No one else in the play is able to hear him, not even Gertrude when the spirit comes into her room.) If, however, neither Horatio nor Marcellus hear the Ghost, then Hamlet’s real strange reactions could certainly prompt this response. In any event, Horatio’s outburst leads Hamlet to utter one of those famous lines that have come down to us through the centuries: “And therefore as a stranger [because it is a stranger] give it welcome./ There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,/ Than are dreamt of in your philosophy [course of study].” Hamlet urges his friend who has been skeptical and objective from the beginning of the play to make room in his world view for this remarkable event. Horatio has dedicated his life to study, to attain the heights of knowledge, what in those days was referred to as “philosophy.” (We can still see this equation of the ultimate of knowledge and philosophy in the archaic nomenclature of academia where we worship the Ph. D., the “Doctor of Philosophy.”)
At lines 188 – 202, Hamlet describes in specific terms what he does not want his friends to do, to use indirect references and ambiguous facial expressions to imply that they know Hamlet’s secret. It is here at line 192 that Hamlet mentions that he may “put an antic disposition on.” What this means is that he will deliberately act as if he were crazy. Now we could ask ourselves, especially given his behavior in the last 70 lines, how do we know when Hamlet is pretending to be crazy and when he is really crazy? It is on this conundrum that all the world’s great actors have based their portrayal of the character.
Once the Ghost gives the fourth and final “Swear” at line 203, Hamlet finally addresses him with the appropriate affect. With a real sense of relief, he urges the “perturbed spirit” to rest. He could just as well be talking about himself. The tension of the moment is broken and Hamlet seems to see his friends clearly for the first time and to acknowledge that they too have been through a traumatic experience. At lines 205 – 208 he indirectly promises them some kind of reward and offers them his friendship. Hamlet reinforces this offer by twice telling them that they will all leave the scene “together,” that is at the same time. Royal protocol required normally that everyone had to remain in a place until the royal person left; Hamlet’s insistence on “going together” is as close as he can come to treating them as equals.
The Time Is Out of Joint
Now we come to the most problematic line in the scene: “The time is out of joint. O cursed spite,/ That ever I was born to set it right!” This is clearly Hamlet’s expression of regret that he has to take on the job of straightening up the world morally. We can get a better sense if we see that the comparison here is to a physician setting a broken or dislocated bone which “is out of joint.” Hamlet is saying, in effect, “Why me?” Think for a moment about those other heroes of the revenge tragedies. Would Rambo say, “Why do I have to parachute back into Laos and single-handedly killed a unit of sadistic prison guards?” Would the Terminator object, “It’s time for my 40,000 mile check-up”? Of course not! This is an indication that we are not dealing with a normal simple-minded revenge hero. Shakespeare was astute enough to know that real people often have reactions that defy easy expectations and face their challenges with a complex of conflicting emotions. It may be a hint of why this play has lasted as long as it has. Hamlet always has a surprise for us.
Act I, Scene 5 of Branagh’s Hamlet
This is a scene where Branagh takes full advantage of the technical aspects of film to enhance the text in performance. He continues to use the same setting of the snowy woods with steam and smoke rising from fissures in the earth to suggest the fires of hell. Notice how often Branagh uses extreme close ups throughout this sequence: the Ghost (played by Brian Blessed) fixes Hamlet with his unearthly blue eyes; we look into the Ghost’s mouth as he delivers the truth of his murder; at one point, even before he has heard the details of his murder, we get a close-up of blood pouring from his ear;. Branagh continues to use shots of action to reinforce the text, so that we see the actual murder of Hamlet Sr. in the garden. We also see the progress of Gertrude’s seduction. There is an obvious age difference between Hamlet Sr. and his younger wife (played by Julie Cristie) who is much closer in age to Claudius. We see them as they play at hurling, sliding stones down the hallway of the palace, then the innocent embrace between the queen and her brother-in-law, and finally a close-up of someone unlacing an old-fashioned corset. It is a very efficient way to tell the story.
The murder itself is given to us in a kind of cinematic pantomime with the description from the text as the voice-over. We watch as Claudius walks through the snow in the garden to pour the poison into the king’s ear. Branagh skips the part about hebona causing instant leprosy, but he does show us the anguish of pain on the king’s face and most importantly the intense, wordless look between the murderer and his victim as he dies. We hear the cock crowing as an auditory signal of dawn, and then the Ghost and Hamlet reach out to finally touch as we get “Adieu, adieu, Remember me.”
At this point Branagh reintroduces Hamlet’s music theme, that stately, slightly melancholy melody we last heard when we saw Hamlet and Ophelia in bed. Hamlet addresses his soliloquy to the ground, as if he were still trying to communicate with the Ghost whom he imagines trapped in the bowels of the earth. When he swears his oath of revenge at the end of the soliloquy, he kisses his sword, suggesting both a crucifix and a weapon he will use. Notice that Hamlet here does not physically write something down as the text suggests. Why does Branagh make this choice?
In the scene with Horatio and Marcellus, Hamlet is clearly distracted. He seldom looks at them, keeps moving one way and another, looking out into the snowy woods as if he were searching for the Ghost. The music adds to the melodramatic feeling. Finally at “Much offense too,” he grabs Horatio and angrily emphasizes his point. The Ghost’s injunction to “swear” is complemented with small explosions of earth, snow and steam, and the camera shakes, suggesting an earthquake as the Ghost in the underworld makes his displeasure known. In this production it is very clear that both Horatio and Marcellus hear and see all the visual evidence of the supernatural.
After the two swear, the
camera shaking stops, the fissures in the earth close and the scene becomes
very quiet with “Rest, rest perturbed spirit.” Branagh brings back the Hamlet
theme music as he turns to his friends. His fit is over. His reading of the
lines at “O cursed spite” is filled with a kind of quiet resignation. He is
clearly not overjoyed at the prospect of what he has to do now.
The next scene returns to the Polonius family as we watch how the father honors his advice to his kids to be true to themselves. What exactly does he ask his servant Reynaldo to do when he goes to Paris to deliver some letters and money to Laertes? Why? What are some of the personal qualities of Polonius which make him a laughable character in this scene? Act II, Scene 1, Lines 1 -- 84
[Enter POLONIUS and REYNALDO]
POLONIUS: Give him this money and these notes, Reynaldo.
REYNALDO: I will, my lord.
POLONIUS: You shall do marvelous wisely, good Reynaldo,
Before you visit him, to make inquire
Of [ask about] his behavior.
REYNALDO: My lord, I did intend it.
POLONIUS: Marry, well said, very well said. Look you, sir,
Inquire me [ask on my behalf] first what Danskers
[Danes] are in Paris;
And how, and who, what means [where they get
their money], and where they keep
[reside],
What company, at what expense; and finding
By this encompassment and drift of question
[roundabout way]
That they do know my son, come you more nearer
Than your particular demands will touch it [than
if you had asked specific questions about Laertes].
Take you [assume], as 'twere, some distant
knowledge of him,
As thus: “I know his father and his friends
And, in
part, him. “ Do you mark this, Reynaldo?
REYNALDO: Ay, very well, my lord.
POLONIUS: “And in part him; but” you may say “not well:
But, if' t be he I mean, he's very wild,
Addicted so and so.'” And there put on him [accuse
him]
What forgeries [invented vices] you please --
marry, none so rank [offensive]
As may dishonor him, take heed of that;
But, sir, such wanton [rebellious] wild and
usual slips
As are companions noted and most known
To youth and liberty [as are well-known among young
men].
REYNALDO: As gaming, my lord.
POLONIUS: Ay, or drinking, fencing, swearing,
Quarrelling,
drabbing [dealing with prostitutes] -- you may go so far.
REYNALDO: My lord, that would dishonor him.
POLONIUS: 'Faith, no, as you may season it in the charge
[temper the accusation in
how you state it].
You must not put another scandal on him,
That he is open to incontinency [sexual promiscuous];
That's not my meaning. But breathe his faults so quaintly
[cunningly]
That they may seem the taints of liberty
[youthful indiscretions],
The flash and outbreak of a fiery mind,
A savageness in unreclaimed blood
Of
general assault [adolescent wildness].
REYNALDO: But, my good lord,--
POLONIUS: Wherefore should you do this?
REYNALDO: Ay, my lord, I would know that.
POLONIUS: Marry, sir, here's my drift;
And I believe, it is a fetch of wit [clever
trick].
You, laying these slight sullies on my son,
As 'twere a thing a little soiled i' th working
[slightly guilty of offense],
Mark
you, your party in converse, him you would sound [question],
Having ever seen in the prenominate [previously
mentioned] crimes
The youth you breathe of guilty, be assured
He closes with you in this consequence
[agrees with you as follows]:
“Good sir,” or so, or “friend,” or “gentleman,”
According to the phrase or the addition [verbal
custom]
Of man and country.
REYNALDO: Very good, my lord.
POLONIUS: And then, sir, does he this, he does--what was I
about to say? By the mass, I was about to say
something. Where did I leave?
REYNALDO: At “closes in the consequence,” at “friend or so,”
and “gentleman.’
POLONIUS: At “closes in the consequence,” -- ay, marry --
He closes thus: “I know the gentleman.
I saw him yesterday,” or “t' other day”
(Or then, or then, with such, or such) “and, as you
say,
There was he gaming; there o'ertook in's rouse
[dead drunk],
There falling out at tennis”; or perchance,
“I saw him enter such a house of sale,”
Videlicet [that is to say], a brothel -- or so
forth. See you now
Your
bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth [your lies catch this real fish of
truth];
And thus do we of wisdom and of reach
[wide-ranging comprehension],
With windlasses and with assays of bias [devious
means],
By indirections find directions out.
So by my former lecture and advice,
Shall you [find the truth about] my son. You
have me, have you not?
REYNALDO: My lord, I have.
POLONIUS: God be wi' you. Fare you
well.
REYNALDO: Good my lord!
POLONIUS: Observe his inclination in yourself [for
yourself].
REYNALDO: I shall, my lord.
POLONIUS: And let him ply his music.
REYNALDO: Well, my lord.
POLONIUS: Farewell! [Exit REYNALDO]
Polonius, the Private Eye
Polonius is sending some notes and money to Laertes in Paris by means of his servant. Here he gives Reynaldo detailed instructions on how to gather intelligence on his son while he is there. So much for being “true to yourself!” (Reynaldo is probably the same weasel who reported Ophelia’s meetings with Hamlet to the old man.) Polonius is obsessed with clever ways of getting information on people, so much so that he orders his servant to invent slanderous stories about Laertes, regardless of the consequences, just so he can find out the “truth.” Reynaldo is to pretend that he knows Laertes slightly and then describe him as given to vices: gambling, drinking, fencing, swearing, quarreling. But when Polonius adds “drabbing,” even Reynaldo objects that such a charge would dishonor the boy. Here at line 31 Polonius insists that it won’t be bad, as long as he doesn’t say he uses whores too frequently, that he is “open to incontinency.” In other words, in the hypocritical worldview of Polonius, you can commit all kinds of sin, as long as you don’t overdo it.
Many scholars think the figure of Polonius was based on Sir William Cecil, the ruthless head of Queen Elizabeth’s secret police and a well-known figure at court. Polonius is so proud of his clever ways of ferreting out some small grain of truth, that he completely misses the larger picture. In order to determine if his son is committing any minor sins, he would have his reputation, the most important possession of a gentleman, left in tatters. His motto is at line 73: “By indirection find directions out.” This obsession with using covert means of intelligence-gathering will lead directly to the old man’s death in Act III.
Micromanaging
Another quality of Polonius is his obsessively micromanaging. (If you have ever had the misfortune to have a boss like this, you will recognize the type.) As he is giving Reynaldo instructions, he lays out exactly what he wants the servant to say, to the point of absurdity. Look at the exchange at lines 16 – 19 where the old man gives the exact language he wants used. Now in a way what we get here is a kind of small-time parody of what Claudius had done with the ambassadors to Norway when he gave them “delated articles” back in Act I, Scene 2. This sequence with Polonius just carries that idea to a ridiculous extreme.
Polonius is on in years, and he has the misfortune to forget frequently what he was saying. Look at the exchange at lines 56 – 60. You can tell by the way Reynaldo is careful to remember his exact words that this has happened before. And it is characteristic of Polonius, who is in love with the sound of his own voice, that he cannot finish the point he was trying to make without having the exact word he is trying to remember. Related to this trait, Shakespeare shows us how Polonius delays leave-taking to a comic extreme, as he keeps remembering another point that he just has to make. We saw that with Laertes’ leaving taking at the end of Act I, Scene 3 where his luggage was loaded and the ship was waiting, but Polonius had to take 30 lines to give him “a few precepts.” Here between lines 76 – 82 Polonius keeps calling Reynaldo back for another instruction.
Elaborating the Obvious
Finally Polonius fancies himself a real intellectual with a keen mind and an observant eye. We see here that he is just a long-winded boor. What he thinks is his great intellect is just his tendency to elaborate the obvious to the point of absurdity. Look at the exchange at lines 45 – 55 for a prime example of the kind of mind-numbing exposition which will cause Gertrude in the next scene to throw up her hands at Polonius and demand, “More matter with less art.”
Act II, Scene 1, Lines 85 – 133
In this next sequence Ophelia comes to tell her father about a disturbing visit she just had from Hamlet. What evidence do she and Polonius cite to suggest the prince is mad because of unrequited love? Based upon what we know about Hamlet’s recent experiences, what interpretations might we make for his behavior?
[Enter
OPHELIA]
POLONIUS: How now, Ophelia! what's the matter?
OPHELIA: O, my lord, my lord, I have been so affrighted!
POLONIUS: With what, i' the name of God?
OPHELIA: My lord, as I was sewing in my closet
[private chamber],
Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbraced
[jacket all unbuttoned],
No hat upon his head, his stockings fouled
[dirty],
Ungarter'd, and down-gyved to his ankle [his
stocking not held up by garters
but rather down around his ankles like chains on a prisoner]
Pale as his shirt; his knees knocking each other;
And with a look so piteous in purport
As if he had been loosed out of hell
To speak of horrors -- he comes before me.
POLONIUS: Mad for thy love?
OPHELIA: My lord, I do not know,
But truly, I do fear it.
POLONIUS: What said he?
OPHELIA: He took me by the wrist and held me hard.
Then goes he to the length of all his arm,
And, with his other hand thus
o'er his brow,
He falls to such perusal of my face
As he would draw it. Long stayed he so.
At last, a little shaking of mine arm,
And thrice his head thus waving up and down,
He raised a sigh so piteous and profound
As it did seem to shatter all his bulk
And end his being. That done, he lets me go,
And, with his head over his shoulder turned,
He seemed to find his way without his eyes,
For out o' doors he went without their helps
And to the last bended their light on me.
POLONIUS: Come, go with me. I will go seek the King.
This is the very ecstasy [madness] of love,
Whose violent property fordoes [dangerous symptoms destroy] itself
And leads the will to desperate undertakings
As oft as any passion under heaven
That does afflict our natures. I am sorry.
What, have you given him any hard words of late?
OPHELIA: No, my good lord, but as you did command,
I did repel his letters and denied
His access to me.
POLONIUS: That hath made him mad.
I am sorry that with better heed and judgment
I had not coted [observed] him. I feared he did but trifle
And meant to wreck thee. But beshrew my jealousy [damn my
suspicions]!
By heaven, it is as proper to our age [characteristic of the
elderly]
To cast beyond ourselves in our opinions [to go too far in suspecting]
As it is common for the younger sort
To lack discretion [good judgment]. Come, go we to the king:
This must be known; which, being kept close [hidden], might move
More grief to hide than hate to utter love [cause more trouble being
covered up than it would if revealed]. [Exit]
Ophelia Gets a Shock
Reynaldo no sooner leaves than Ophelia comes in with disturbing news. Lord Hamlet has approached her in an inappropriate manner and frightened her. What makes Hamlet’s appearance inappropriate is not what he says, because he says nothing, but what he does and what he wears. First, he has entered her private sitting room, her “closet,” unannounced, uninvited and unescorted – serious violations of protocol among courtly men and women where chaperones were always to be present when young, unmarried women were visited. Next his apparel is not appropriate for a courtly gentleman: His jacket (“doublet”) is unbuttoned, he has no hat, his stocking are dirty and down around his ankles. In the circumspect world of the court, any of these fashion blunders would be evidence that the person is off-kilter. Finally, his actions with Ophelia, staring at her, holding her by the arm, shaking his head three times and sighing loudly – all of these were violations of the courtly code of behavior and indications of great emotional stress. No wonder Ophelia and Polonius conclude Hamlet is “mad for thy love.” Polonius at line 124 – 130 blames himself for having suspected Hamlet was just trifling with his daughter’s affections. He blames his overly suspicious nature which he attributes to his advanced age. His demand that Ophelia refuse all contact with Hamlet, he believes, has set off this “ecstasy” or madness. He immediately decides that he and Ophelia must go to the King and reveal this development. As he says at line 131-132, it is more dangerous to let the abortive affair be discovered by someone else than to reveal it themselves. I will explain in the next scene what the political consequences are for the Polonius family and why they act so quickly.
Playing Doctor Phil with Hamlet
What are we to make of Hamlet’s strange behavior with Ophelia? It seems to me there are three possible explanations:
1.) He is still crazy from seeing the Ghost: In the preceding scene Hamlet had been distracted by his encounter with the Ghost and what he had sworn to undertake. Hamlet comes to Ophelia’s room the next day still suffering from shock and temporary insanity. She mistakes his actions for madness caused by her rejection of him. (Remember, she had just rejected his letters and refused to see him at her father’s insistence.)
2.) He deliberately misleads her with his “antic disposition” to use her in his cover-up: If Hamlet is going to fool the Court into thinking he is just mentally unbalanced and is not thinking about attacking Claudius, he needs to spread the false story of his lunacy. Who better to tell everybody than the Court snoop, Polonius? And who better to feed the story to the old man than his daughter who has already shown that she is under his thumb by rejecting Hamlet’s letters? Hamlet’s appearance in her closet is a cynical piece of play-acting to set her off.
3.) He is trying to protect her by breaking up with her before the assassination and the fallout from it: Hamlet was completely alone after he speaks to the Ghost. He does not know who he can trust, and despite his tender feelings for Ophelia, he knows he cannot trust her since she has given evidence of having told her father about their possible affair. Why else would she reject his letters? Furthermore, he knows that if he proceeds with the assassination of the King, the odds are that he will be killed and those close to him will suffer under suspicion. To protect her from the consequences of his actions and to prepare her for the inevitably tragic end to their love, he breaks it off with her in this melodramatic fashion.
Which of these three possible explanations seem to work best for you? Are there any other possible explanations for his behavior described in this scene?
Act II, Scene 1 of Branagh’s Hamlet
Branagh cleverly establishes the depth of Polonius’ hypocrisy in this scene by having the old man just finishing his sexual encounter with a young girl as he talks with Reynaldo about his son’s possible sexual misadventures in Paris.(Reynaldo is played by the noted French actor Gerard Depardieu, not as a servant but as a French gentleman visiting Elsinore.) Polonius is very serious in his speech about discovering intelligence about his son. When he gets to the charge of “drabbing,” he suddenly remembers the girl in the bed and snaps his fingers for her to get out. Reynaldo detains her monetarily before deciding to forgo her. She leaves by way of the secret door in the wall, suggesting she has been there before.
When Ophelia runs in crying, we see Polonius’ concern for his daughter’s well-being for the first time. Rather than showing us Hamlet’s encounter with her, Branagh wisely lets Ophelia (Kate Winslet) replicate the way he held her and stared at her using her father as a stand-in for herself. This action seems to lend even more emotional force to her anguish. Ophelia’s tears and emotional stress suggest she is already on her way to the madness which will seize her in Act IV. Notice her reaction when he father asks if she had “given him any hard words of late?” What is the significance of her reaction? Because she runs weeping to the bed, Polonius’s expression of regret for his own suspicions (lines 123 – 130) is delivered to us as a soliloquy. The scene ends on a rather creepy note as Ophelia is embraced by her father on the same bed Polonius had used with the drab. Why do you think Branagh made that choice?
Act II, Scene 2, Lines 1 – 182
Why have the King and Queen invited Hamlet’s boyhood friends, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, to the palace? What exactly do they want these guys to do for them? Do the two have any moral qualms about their task? How long does it take Polonius to get to the point in his speech about Hamlet’s madness? Why? How do you think Ophelia feels about having her love letter from Hamlet read publicly at court? How do the King and Polonius decide to test if Hamlet’s madness is the result of unrequited love for Ophelia? Act II, Scene 2, Lines 1 – 182.
[Enter
KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN,
and Attendants ]
CLAUDIUS: Welcome, dear Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
Moreover that we much did long to see you,
The need we have to use you did provoke
Our hasty sending. Something have you heard
Of Hamlet's transformation; so call it,
Sith nor [Since neither] the exterior nor the inward
man
Resembles that it was. What it should be,
More than his father's death, that thus hath put him
So much from the understanding of himself
I cannot dream of. I entreat you both
That, being of so young days brought up with him
And sith so neighbored to his youth and havior
[manners],
That you vouchsafe your rest [agree to stay] here in
our court
Some little time. So by your companies
To draw him on to pleasures, and to gather,
So much as from occasion you may glean,
Whether aught, to us unknown, afflicts him thus,
That, opened [revealed], lies within our remedy.
GERTRUDE: Good gentlemen, he hath much talked of you,
And sure I am two men there are not living
To whom he more adheres. If it will please you
To show us so much gentry [courtesy]and good will
As to expend your time with us awhile
For the supply and profit of our hope,
Your visitation shall receive such thanks
As fits a king's remembrance.
ROSENCRANTZ: Both your majesties
Might, by the sovereign power you have of us,
Put your dread pleasures more into command
Than to entreaty.
GUILDENSTERN: But we both obey,
And here give up ourselves, in the full bent [totally]
To lay our service freely at your feet,
To be commanded.
CLAUDIUS: Thanks, Rosencrantz and gentle Guildenstern.
GERTRUDE: Thanks, Guildenstern and gentle Rosencrantz.
And I beseech you instantly to visit
My too much changed son. Go, some of you,
And bring these gentlemen where Hamlet is.
GUILDENSTERN: Heavens make our presence and our practices
Pleasant and helpful to him!
GERTRUDE: Ay, amen! [Exit ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN,
others]
[Enter POLONIUS]
POLONIUS: Th’ ambassadors from Norway, my good lord,
Are joyfully returned.
CLAUDIUS: Thou still hast been the father of good news.
POLONIUS: Have I, my lord? I assure my good liege,
I hold my duty, as I hold my soul,
Both to my God and to my gracious king,
And I do think, or else this brain of mine
Hunts not the trail of policy [catches the scent of
political cunning] so sure
As it hath used to do, that I have found
The very cause of Hamlet's lunacy.
CLAUDIUS: O, speak of that! That do I long to hear.
POLONIUS: Give first admittance to the ambassadors.
My news shall be the fruit [dessert] to that great
feast.
CLAUDIUS: Thyself do grace to them, and bring them in. [Exit
POLONIUS] He tells me, my dear Gertrude, he
hath found
The head and source of all your son's distemper.
GERTRUDE: I doubt it is no other but the main [central
point] --
His father's death, and our o'erhasty marriage.
CLAUDIUS: Well, we shall sift [closely examine] him.
[Re-enter POLONIUS, with VOLTIMAND and
CORNELIUS]
Welcome, my
good friends!
Say, Voltimand, what from our brother Norway?
VOLTIMAND: Most fair return of greetings and desires.
Upon our first [first meeting], he sent out to
suppress
His nephew's levies, which to him appeared
To be a preparation 'gainst the Polack,
But, better looked into, he truly found
It was against your Highness. Whereat grieved,
That so his sickness, age and impotence
Was falsely borne in hand [deceived], sends out
arrests [stops]
On Fortinbras; which he, in brief, obeys,
Receives rebuke from Norway, and, in fine [finally],
Makes vow before his uncle never more
To give the assay of arms against [attack] your
majesty.
Whereon old Norway, overcome with joy,
Gives him three thousand crowns in annual fee
And his commission to employ those soldiers,
So levied as before, against the Polack,
With an entreaty, herein further shown, [Giving a
paper]
That it might please you to give quiet pass
Through your dominions for this enterprise,
On such regards of safety and allowance [with such
conditions for our safety and for the
permission granted]
As therein are set down.
CLAUDIUS: It likes [pleases] us well.
And at our more considered time we’ll read,
Answer, and think upon this business.
Meantime we thank you for your well-took labor.
Go to your rest. At night we'll feast together.
Most welcome home!
[Exeunt VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS]
POLONIUS: This business is well ended.
My liege, and madam, to expostulate [give a speech
about]
What majesty should be, what duty is,
Why day is day, night night, and time is time
Were nothing but to waste night, day and time.
Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit [In wise
sayings a few words contain the central
meaning],
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes
[ornaments],
I will be brief. Your noble son is mad.
“Mad” call I it, for, to define true madness,
What is 't but to be nothing else but mad?
But let that go.
GERTRUDE: More matter, with less art [Get to the
point by cutting out the rhetorical
excess].
POLONIUS: Madam, I swear I use no art at all [this is my
natural voice].
That he is mad, 'tis true; 'tis true 'tis pity,
And pity 'tis 'tis true -- a foolish figure [figure of
speech],
But farewell it, for I will use no art.
Mad let us grant him, then, and now remains
That we find out the cause of this effect,
Or rather say, the cause of this defect,
For this effect defective comes by cause.
Thus it remains, and the remainder thus.
Perpend
[consider carefully].
I have a daughter (have while she is mine)
Who, in her duty and obedience, mark,
Hath given me this. Now gather and surmise. [Reads]
“To the celestial, and my soul's idol, the most
beautified Ophelia” --
That's an ill phrase, a vile phrase; “beautified” is
a vile phrase. But you shall hear. Thus: [Reads]
“In her excellent white bosom, these, etc. [Polonius
says “et cetera” to indicate he is
skipping what follows] --”
GERTRUDE: Came this from Hamlet to her?
POLONIUS: Good madam, stay [wait] awhile. I will be
faithful. [Reads]
“Doubt thou the stars are fire,
Doubt that the sun doth move,
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love.
“O dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers [unskilled
at verse];
I have not art to reckon my groans [count out my
pain], but that
I love thee best, O most best, believe it. Adieu.
“Thine evermore most dear lady, whilst this machine
is to him [while I occupy this body] HAMLET.”
This,
in obedience, hath my daughter shown me,
And more above [besides], hath his solicitings,
As they fell out by time, by means and place,
All given to mine ear.
CLAUDIUS: But how hath she received his love?
POLONIUS: What do you think of me?
CLAUDIUS: As of a man faithful and honorable.
POLONIUS: I would fain prove so. But what might you think,
When I had seen this hot love on the wing--
As I perceived it, I must tell you that,
Before my daughter told me--what might you,
Or my dear majesty your queen here, think,
If I had played the desk or table-book [filed the
information away]
Or given my heart a winking [denied what I knew], mute
and dumb,
Or looked upon this love with idle sight?
What might you think? No, I went round [wholeheartedly]
to work,
And my young mistress thus I did bespeak [address]:
“Lord Hamlet is a prince, out of thy star.
This must not be.” And then I precepts gave her,
That she should lock herself from his resort,
Admit no messengers, receive no tokens;
Which done, she took the fruits of my advice,
And he, repulsed (a short tale to make)
Fell into a sadness, then into a fast,
Thence to a watch, thence into a weakness,
Thence to a lightness, and, by this declension,
Into the madness wherein now he raves
And all we mourn for.
CLAUDIUS: [to the Queen] Do you think 'tis this?
GERTRUDE: It may be, very likely.
POLONIUS: Hath there been such a time (I'd fain know that)
That I have positively said “Tis so,”
When it proved otherwise?
CLAUDIUS: Not that I know.
POLONIUS: [Pointing to his head and shoulder]
CLAUDIUS: How may we try it
further?
POLONIUS: You know, sometimes he walks four hours together
Here in the lobby.
GERTRUDE: So he does indeed.
POLONIUS: At such a time I'll loose [unleash] my daughter
to him:
Be you and I behind an arras [hanging tapestry] then.
Mark the encounter. If he love her not
And be not from his reason fallen thereon,
Let me be no assistant for a state,
But keep a farm and carters [peasants who drive
carts].
CLAUDIUS: We will try it.
GERTRUDE: But, look, where sadly the poor wretch comes reading.
POLONIUS: Away, I do beseech you, both away.
I'll board him presently [confront him immediately].
[Exit KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, Attendants]
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Spies
The King and Queen have invited two old friends of Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, to the palace. In his opening speech the King says they are glad to see the men again, at line 13 inviting them to stay awhile at the court, but at line 3 he makes it clear the real purpose of the invitation is to “use” them. This is just one of several places in this sequence where the choice of language indirectly reveals what is really going on. These two guys will become pawns in the political struggle between Claudius and Hamlet. They will be “used” indeed. The Queen adds her voice as well to the invitation and at line 24 hints at a substantial reward, “As fits a king’s remembrance.”
Claudius is careful not to say that Hamlet is crazy. Notice some of the euphemisms he uses: “transformation” at line 5; “put him/So much from the understanding of himself” at line 9; “afflicts him” at line 17. With a royal prince you need to protect his image, even if he is stark, raving mad.
What Claudius and Gertrude are asking these guys to do is to spy on their good friend and report to them. The King makes it sound very innocent at lines 15 – 18, as if they just want to help him, but the request essentially asks them to break whatever confidence they may have with the Prince. If the parents of your best friend asked you to spy, what would your response be? Rosencrantz and Guildenstern do not hesitate for a second; they jump at a chance to rat out their friend. In the sequence at lines 27 – 34, they make it clear the King and Queen do not need to ask nicely; they can just command. Their ambition is evident throughout the play, no moral qualms for these guys. At line 32 Guildenstern uses an image to describe their commitment – “give up ourselves in the full bent,” that is of a bow – one of a number of references related to hunting in this passage. At line 35 the King thanks the men and then in the next line the Queen repeats the thanks, but suggests, by reversing the order of the names, that the King got their names mixed up. They are interchangeable throughout. At line 40 Guildenstern hopes their “practices” will be helpful to Hamlet, a word that could mean harmless activities but also ploys or tricks. Upon their deaths in Act V, Hamlet will say of them, “They did make love to this employment.”
Polonius’ Big Moment
At line 43 Polonius comes in dying to tell the royals that he has found the cause of Hamlet’s madness. He takes obvious pride in his intelligence-gathering ability to ferret out secrets. At line 50 he refers to it as following “the trail of policy,” another hunting image. But the ambassadors returning from Norway have also arrived, and Polonius does not want to have his news overshadowed, so he acts as a stage manager, having the King hear the ambassadors first so that his revelation will serve as dessert (“fruit”) following the “feast” of their news. Notice what explanations Claudius and Gertrude offer for Hamlet’s strange behavior before they hear Polonius’ theory. At line 8 the King said his father’s death was the cause; at line 60 the Queen agrees and adds “our o’erhasty marriage” as an additional factor. At least she is sensitive to how Hamlet must have felt.
The external threat of Fortinbras’ invasion has been resolved by Claudius diplomatic intervention with the King of Norway. The only significance for us in the passage at lines
62 – 85 is that Shakespeare invents a reason for Fortinbras to be in the neighborhood at the end of the play. (Talk about rewarding bad behavior! After having been discovered plotting a secret invasion of Denmark, Fortinbras is given a big cash payment at line 77 and allowed to use his army to invade Poland.) There are two more examples of Claudius’ skill as a manager of the country. At lines 86 – 87, despite the fact that he got what he wanted from Norway, he refuses to be rushed into approving a deal on the spur of the moment. He will take time to read and reflect on what the King of Norway has written to him before he makes a decision. The other interesting piece of political acumen is at line 61. Claudius may flatter Polonius frequently, as he does here at lines 45 and 56, but when the old man is not present, he makes clear he will use him, in the same way he is using Rosencrantz and Guildenstern – he will “sift” him, that is squeeze out of him all the information he has.
When Polonius starts his explanation of the cause of Hamlet’s madness, we see his long-winded “elaboration of the obvious” in full force. He begins his explanation at line 92 and he doesn’t get around to stating the cause of Hamlet’s condition until line 160, despite the Queen urging him to get to the point several times. Look at the passage from 92 – 99, in which it takes Polonius seven lines just to say he will be brief. (That includes the famous line, “Since brevity is the soul of wit.” Considering the context, this assertion is wonderfully ironic.) There is a great example of elaborating the obvious at lines 99 – 102. What indeed is the definition of madness except to be mad?
More Matter with Less Art
At this point an exasperated Gertrude interrupts with another famous line: “More matter with less art.” Now why does Polonius bristle so at the suggestion that he is using “art,” that is, that he has carefully prepared this speech of his? He swears, “I use no art at all.” An important part of the “code of the courtly gentleman,” the set of rigid laws that governed almost all aspects of life for a member of the upper class, was the idea of “Don’t let them see you sweat.” You had to do everything, from doing the latest court dance to fighting a duel to translating a phrase from the ancient Greek with a kind of studied nonchalance, what the Italians called “sprezzatura.” When Gertrude says, “less art,” she is by implication accusing Polonius of having carefully prepared this long dissertation as a way to impress the court. This is not his natural way of speaking, and he is stung by the accusation. Polonius vows he will be brief, but he just can’t help himself. Look at line 105:
That he is mad, 'tis true; 'tis true 'tis pity,
And pity 'tis 'tis true -- a foolish figure [figure of
speech],
But farewell it, for I will use no art.
Mad let us grant him, then, and now remains
That we find out the cause of this effect,
Or rather say, the cause of this defect,
For this effect defective comes by cause.
Thus it remains, and the remainder thus.
Here in the space of 8 lines he plays on words three different times; “true/pity,” “effect/defect,” and “remain/remainder.” He does so to show his skill at playing with words. But he is no closer to getting to the point of his dissertation.
The Smoking Gun
Polonius now reads aloud a love letter which Hamlet sent to Ophelia. How do you imagine Polonius got his hands on it? Think about how Ophelia must feel knowing that her father is reading this intimate message to the King and Queen. Remember “to thy own self be true”? Often in modern productions directors make the point about Ophelia’s feelings by having Polonius force her to read the letter aloud Most of the letter is a poem about the sincerity of love Hamlet has for her. But when he reads it, Polonius gets only as far as the introduction of the letter where Hamlet addresses “the beautified Ophelia.” Playing the literary critic Polonius has to tell everyone that “beautified” is a “vile phrase.” His comment has nothing to do with message of the letter or point of the conversation; it’s just another way of his establishing his “street cred” as a courtly gentleman. Of course, when he gets to line 121 where Hamlet begins to describe Ophelia’s physical endowments, Polonius skips the graphic details with an “etc.” In the letter after his attempt at poetry, Hamlet equates groaning for his lack of skill in writing metered verse (“these numbers”) with his groans for Ophelia. In signing his letter Hamlet refers to himself as a “machine.” What he seems to means is the idea of his physical body and his mind as a system of interrelated parts. (It’s the first time that “machine” is used in a metaphorical sense in the English language.) I’m not sure how romantic it is.
At line 137 Claudius asks how Ophelia received Hamlet’s love, and Polonius gets very defensive. From line 138 – 151 he emphasizes how opposed he is to any liaison between Ophelia and Hamlet. (At line 142 he even assures the King and Queen that his intelligence network of spies had alerted him to what was going on.) It is interesting that the focus in this passage is entirely on him. That’s understandable because when a royal prince was interested in a girl, the male members of her family were often targeted by other jealous members of the court. However, Polonius does not speculate about or express concern over how his daughter might feel or what emotional risks she might face. At lines 155 – 160 Polonius lists the progressive symptoms of lovesickness, from rejection to madness. Once again its sole point seems to be to allow him to yammer on about something which is quite beside the point. When the King asks his wife if she thinks that might be the problem, Polonius once again bristles at the suggestion he might be wrong at line 164. He is so sure of his explanation that he offers his life at line 167:
Take this from this, if this be otherwise.
If circumstances lead me, I will find
Where truth is hid, though it were hid, indeed,
Within the center [of the earth].
Polonius says that if he’s wrong
the King may chop off his head, the common punishment for high treason. He ends
here with a boast that he can discover the truth no matter if it is hidden in
the center of the earth. (Despite all his boasting about his
intelligence-gathering and spy networks, Polonius has no idea about the murder
or what Hamlet is really up to.) He and the King propose to hide behind an
“arras,” a heavy tapestry hung on the wall, to “try” or test his theory when
Hamlet is present. Polonius says he will “loose my daughter to him.” I have
pointed out that characters speak frequently in metaphors involving hunting
throughout this sequence. Here’s another one: Polonius refers to Ophelia as if
she were a hunting dog on a leash which is released (“loosed”) to reveal where
the game is hiding. If he is wrong about their relationship, he offers to
leave court and go work on a farm or drive a cart, a real comedown for the
leading courtier at Elsinore.
Branagh’s Hamlet, Act II, Scene 2, Lines 1 – 186
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are ushered into the King and Queen’s bedroom where we watch the two royals prepare for the day while dealing with their family crisis. Claudius makes his pitch about reporting back on Hamlet’s problem, and the two can’t wait to serve as spies. We see them tagging along after the King and Queen almost like lapdogs, eager to be of service. Polonius alerts Claudius that he knows the cause of Hamlet’s madness in the same throne room with the black-and-while checkered floors we had seen in Act I, scene 2. Now a group of fencers are practicing there, establishing that fencing is a popular activity at court and preparing us for the final scene in the play. Once again Branagh uses the filmed pantomime to show us the action being described in the voice-over narration when Norway learns of Fortinbras’ intent. We see the reconciliation of Fortinbras and his uncle, as well as Fortinbras’ little smirk when he apparently is forgiven and receives a reward. At one point we see a shot of the palace at Elsinore suggesting that that is the ultimate target of Fortinbras’ ambition.
When Polonius begins his long speech about Hamlet’s madness, he is very intense and smug at the same time. He is obviously enjoying his big moment. Then he calls Ophelia in, a dramatic appearance he has clearly planned, and has her read the letter. Ophelia’s halting reading of just the first couple of lines of the letter are painful, and we can see that Gertrude in particular is appalled at what Polonius is forcing his daughter to do. She gets as far as “her white bosoms” and then runs out; he finishes the poem, but then for the last few lines of the letter, we see Hamlet in real time swearing to Ophelia that he loves her, suggesting this is what she remembers.
Act II, Scene 2, Lines 187 – 391
Back near the end of Act I, Scene 5 Hamlet told Horatio and Marcellus that he might “put an antic disposition on,” that is, to act oddly. Since then Ophelia, Polonius, the King and Queen have all declared that Hamlet is mad. In this long sequence I want you to see how Hamlet behaves when he’s pretending to be crazy, when he is acting crazy out of craftiness and when he is normal. How does Hamlet’s treatment of Polonius differ from his treatment of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern? How does his attitude toward Rosencrantz and Guildenstern change during the course of this sequence and why? Act II, Scene 2, Lines 187 – 39:
[Enter
HAMLET, reading]
POLONIUS: How does my good Lord Hamlet?
HAMLET: Well, God-a-mercy.
POLONIUS: Do you know me, my lord?
HAMLET: Excellent well. You are a fishmonger [Hamlet
is now pretending to be crazy, but “fishmonger”
might be a slang term for a pimp or con man]
POLONIUS: Not I, my lord.
HAMLET: Then I would you were so honest a man.
POLONIUS: Honest, my lord?
HAMLET: Ay, sir. To be honest, as this world goes, is to
be one
man picked out of ten thousand.
POLONIUS: That's very true, my lord.
HAMLET: For if the sun breed maggots in a dead
dog, being a good kissing carrion [sometimes changed to “god kissing carrion”] -- Have you a
daughter?
POLONIUS: I have, my lord.
HAMLET: Let her not walk i' th’ sun [a pun: “sun breeds maggots”
and “son (of the King) gets Ophelia pregnant] Conception
is a
blessing, but, not as your daughter may conceive
[imagine/ comprehend],
friend, look to 't.
POLONIUS: [Aside] How say you by that? Still harping on my
daughter. Yet he knew me not at first; he said I
was a fishmonger. He is far gone. And truly, in my
youth I suffered much extremity for love, very near
this. I'll speak to him again. -- What do you read, my
lord?
HAMLET: Words, words, words.
POLONIUS: What is the matter [subject matter], my lord?
HAMLET: Between who?
POLONIUS: I mean, the matter that you read, my lord.
HAMLET: Slanders, sir; for the satirical rogue says here
that old men have grey beards, that their faces are
wrinkled, their eyes purging [discharging] thick amber and
plum-tree gum and that they have a plentiful lack of
wit [understanding],together with most weak hams
[thighs]; all which, sir,
though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I
hold it not honesty to have it thus set down; for
yourself, sir, should be old as I am, if like a crab,
you could go backward [reverse the course of time].
POLONIUS: [Aside] Though this be madness, yet there is
method in 't. Will you walk out of the air [fresh
air thought to be unhealthy], my lord?
HAMLET: Into my grave?
POLONIUS: Indeed, that is out o' the air. [Aside] How
pregnant [full of
meaning] sometimes his replies are! A happiness [aptness
of expression]
that often madness hits on, which reason and
sanity could not so prosperously be delivered of. I
will leave him, and suddenly contrive the means of
meeting between him and my daughter.-- My lord,
I will take my leave of you.
HAMLET: You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I
will more willingly part withal -- except my life, except
my life, except my life.
POLONIUS: Fare you well, my lord.
HAMLET: [aside] These tedious old fools!
[Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN]
POLONIUS: You
go to seek the Lord Hamlet. There he is.
ROSENCRANTZ: [To POLONIUS] God save you, sir! [Exit
POLONIUS]
GUILDENSTERN: My honored lord!
ROSENCRANTZ: My most dear lord!
HAMLET: My excellent good friends! How dost thou,
Guildenstern? Ah, Rosencrantz! Good lads, how do
you
both?
ROSENCRANTZ: As the indifferent children of the earth
[ordinary mortals].
GUILDENSTERN: Happy, in that we are not overhappy;
On fortune's cap we are not the very button.
HAMLET: Nor the soles of her shoe?
ROSENCRANTZ: Neither, my lord.
HAMLET: Then you live about her waist, or in the
middle
of her favors?
GUILDENSTERN: 'Faith, her privates [intimates, with a
sexual pun] we.
HAMLET: In the secret parts of fortune? O, most true!
She is a strumpet. What's the news?
ROSENCRANTZ: None, my lord, but that the world's
grown honest.
HAMLET: Then is doomsday near. But your news is not
true. Let me question more in particular. What
have you, my good friends, deserved at the hands of
Fortune, that she sends you to prison hither?
GUILDENSTERN: Prison, my lord!
HAMLET: Denmark's a prison.
ROSENCRANTZ: Then is the world one.
HAMLET: A goodly [large] one, in which there are many confines,
wards and dungeons, Denmark being one o' the worst.
ROSENCRANTZ: We think not so, my lord.
HAMLET: Why, then, 'tis none to you, for there is
nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it
so. To me, it is a prison.
ROSENCRANTZ: Why, then, your ambition makes it one.
'Tis too narrow for your mind.
HAMLET: O God, I could be bounded in a nut shell and
count myself a king of infinite space, were it not
that I have bad dreams.
GUILDENSTERN: Which dreams indeed are ambition,
for the very substance of the ambitious is merely
the shadow of a dream.
HAMLET: A dream itself is but a shadow.
ROSENCRANTZ: Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy
and light a quality that it is but a shadow's shadow.
HAMLET: Then are our beggars bodies, and our mon-
archs and outstretched heroes the beggars' sha-
dows. [If that’s true then beggars, who have no ambition, are bodies, and monarches and heroes, who do have ambition, are only shadows of beggars.] Shall we to the court? for, by my fay [faith], I
cannot reason.
ROSENCRANTZ/GUILDENSTERN: We'll wait upon you [serve as
servants].
HAMLET: No such matter. I will not sort [classify] you with the
rest of my servants, for, to speak to you like an
honest man, I am most dreadfully attended. But,
in the beaten way of friendship, what make you at
Elsinore?
ROSENCRANTZ: To visit you, my lord, no other occasion.
HAMLET: Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks;
but I thank you, and sure, dear friends, my thanks are
too dear a halfpenny [not worth a halfpenny] .Were you not
sent for?
Is it your own inclining? Is it a free visitation?
Come, deal justly with me. Come, come; nay, speak.
GUILDENSTERN: What should we say, my lord?
HAMLET: Why, any thing, but to th’ purpose. You were sent
for; and there is a kind of confession in your looks
which your modesties have not craft enough to
color. I know the good king and queen have sent for
you.
ROSENCRANTZ: To what end, my lord?
HAMLET: That you must teach me. But let me conjure you,
by the rights of our fellowship, by the conso-
nancy of our youth [harmony we had as kids], by the obligation of our ever-preserved love, and by what more dear [by whatever is more valuable] a better proposer [speaker] could charge you withal [could urge you to], be even and direct
with me, whether you were sent for or no?
ROSENCRANTZ: [to GUILDENSTERN] What say you?
HAMLET: [Aside] Nay, then, I have an eye of [on] you.--If
you
love me, hold not off.
GUILDENSTERN: My lord, we were sent for.
HAMLET: I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation
prevent your discovery [my saying it first will allow you not
to reveal to me], and your secrecy to the king
and queen moult no feather [you’ll be able to say truthfully
you didn’t say anything] I have of late--but
wherefore I know not--lost all my mirth, forgone all
custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily
with my disposition that this goodly frame, the
earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most
excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave
o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted
[adorned]
with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to
me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors.
What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason,
how infinite in faculty, in form and moving how
express [well-framed] and admirable; in action how like an
angel,
in apprehension [understanding] how like a god: the beauty
of the
world! the paragon of animals -- and yet, to me,
what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not
me, no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling
you seem to say so.
ROSENCRANTZ: My lord, there was no such stuff in my
thoughts.
HAMLET: Why did you laugh then, when I said “man
delights not me”?
ROSENCRANTZ: To think, my lord, if you delight not in
man, what Lenten [meager] entertainment the players shall
receive from you. We coted [passed] them on the way; and
hither are they coming to offer you service.
HAMLET: He that plays the king shall be welcome -- his
majesty shall have tribute of me. The adventurous
knight shall use his foil and target [sword and shield], the lover shall
not sigh gratis [unrequited], the humorous man [eccentric character] shall end his
part in peace; the clown shall make those laugh
whose lungs are tickle o' th’ sere [easy to set off], and the lady
shall say her mind freely, or the blank verse shall
halt [go lamely or
irregularly] for 't. What players are they?
ROSENCRANTZ: Even those you were wont to take such
delight in, the tragedians of the city.
HAMLET: How chances it they travel [tour]? Their residence
[staying in the city],
both in reputation and profit, was better both ways.
ROSENCRANTZ: I think their inhibition [business reversal] comes by
the
means [because] of
the late innovation [possibly Essex Revolt].
HAMLET: Do they hold the same estimation they did
when I was in the city? Are they so followed?
ROSENCRANTZ: No, indeed, are they not.
HAMLET: How comes it? Do they grow rusty?
ROSENCRANTZ: Nay, their endeavor keeps in the wonted
pace. But there is, sir, an aerie [nest] of children, little
eyases [young hawks], that cry out on the top of question [cry out in shrill voices], and are
most tyrannically clapped for 't. These are now the
fashion, and so berattle the common stages [noisily attack
the public playhouses] (so they
call them) that many wearing rapiers are afraid of
goose-quills [adult actors fear satiric attacks by those
writing for the children] and dare scarce
come thither.
HAMLET: What, are they children? Who maintains 'em?
How are they escoted [financially supported]? Will
they pursue the quality no longer than they can sing [follow acting
until their voices change in adolescence]? Will
they not say
afterwards, if they should grow themselves to common
players (as it is most like, if their means are no
better) their writers do them wrong to make them
exclaim against their own succession [future professions]?
ROSENCRANTZ: 'Faith, there has been much to-do on
both sides, and the nation holds it no sin to tar [incite]
them to controversy. There was, for a while, no
money bid for argument, unless the poet and the
player went to cuffs in the question. [no one could make any money unless they
performed plays about this fight between the boy and men actors].
HAMLET: Is' t possible?
GUILDENSTERN: O, there has been much throwing
about of brains.
HAMLET: Do the boys carry it away [win]?
ROSENCRANTZ: Ay, that they do, my lord -- Hercules
and his load too [
the whole thing (Hercules carried the globe on his back)].
HAMLET: It is not very strange; for mine uncle is King
of Denmark, and those that would make mouths [faces] at
him while my father lived, give twenty, forty, fifty, a
hundred ducats apiece for his picture in little [miniature
portrait].
'Sblood, there is something in this more than
natural, if philosophy could find it out. [Flourish of
trumpets offstage]
GUILDENSTERN: There are the players.
HAMLET: Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore.
Your hands, come then. Th’ appurtenance of
welcome [that which belongs to formal greeting] is fashion and ceremony. Let me comply
with you in this garb [in this courteous way], lest my extent [what I show] to the players,
which, I tell you, must show fairly outward, should
more appear like entertainment than yours. You are
welcome. But my uncle-father and aunt-mother are
deceived.
GUILDENSTERN: In what, my dear lord?
HAMLET: I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is
southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw [I am only crazy under
certain circumstances. Most of the time I can tell
the difference between two things that are totally
unalike].
Putting Polonius On
Hamlet pretends to be crazy when he converses with Polonius, answering the old man’s inquiries in a nonsensical way that simultaneously makes fun of him. Polonius senses that Hamlet’s comments have some kind of message, but he does not realize they are mocking him. The only thing that Polonius comprehends from the exchange is that Hamlet seems obsessed with Ophelia. On the other hand Hamlet appears open, friendly and totally sane with his boyhood friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, until he begins to suspect their motives for coming to visit him. Then he adopts a craftiness to disguise his real feelings and to test his friends’ loyalty to him. Near the end of this sequence we get a long digression into the world of theatrical trends and economic challenges.
Beginning at line 187 Hamlet assumes that Polonius is up to no good and treats him with disdain. Polonius assumes Hamlet is mad and asks at line 189 if he recognizes the old man (as if he is so far gone he can no longer tell who he is talking to.) Hamlet’s answer of “a fishmonger” at line 190 is wonderfully ambiguous and characteristic of Hamlet’s feigned madness. First, Polonius hears the answer as just crazy: he is the leading counselor to the King, not some low-born fish seller. But fishmongers in those days had a reputation for being dishonest; they were the used car salesmen of their time, trying to sell week-old fish by claiming they are fresh off the boat. Furthermore, “fishmonger” may have been a slang term for a “pimp.” So when Polonius denies that he has anything to do with fish, Hamlet’s rejoinder at line 192 -- “I would you were so honest a man “ – is doubly damning: “You are not even as honest as a used car salesman.” Hamlet adds at line 195 that to be honest in this world (especially the world of the corrupt Danish court) is to be one man picked out of ten thousand, followed immediately by this apparent explanation at line 197: “For if the sun breed maggots in a dead/ dog, being a good kissing carrion [sometimes changed to ‘god kissing carrion’].“ Now it is possible that Hamlet sees some logical connection between “being picked out of ten thousand” and the folklore in those days that maggots appeared in dead flesh as a result of the action of the sun; however, for us mere mortals there is no connection apparent. The line at 197 is a non-sequitur, a Latin phrase meaning “does not follow logically.” Like much else that is problematic in the text of this play, this particular exchange has set off an academic discussion for the last 400 years trying to figure out what, if anything, Hamlet meant. The explanation I prefer is that Hamlet is playing word-association, that whatever higher power picked out the one honest man from ten thousand suggests “God” who in turn kissed “the dead dog” (rather than the line your edition has,” good-kissing”) and made maggots. “Sun” can obviously be a pun on “son”, and the number one “son” in Denmark is Hamlet. Who has he been kissing and breeding with? By this circuitous route we get Hamlet’s question at line 199: “Have you a daughter?” Now all that Polonius has heard has been nonsense, until this question. The old man is convinced that Hamlet is obsessed with Ophelia and has assured the King that is the basis for Hamlet’s madness. He wants this to be true, so he fastens on this connection. Knowing the old man’s obsession from his earlier rejection by Ophelia, Hamlet plays into Polonius’ scenario, warning him at line 201: “Let her not walk i' th’ sun. Conception is a /blessing, but, not as your daughter may conceive,/friend, look to 't.” Both Laertes and Polonius had warned Ophelia about getting pregnant (“conceiving”) and here her supposed boyfriend adds his caution. But once again, this is one of those ambiguous statements where Hamlet is playing word games. “Conception” can also mean “understanding,” and if Ophelia truly understood how her father was using her, it might be problematic for the old man.
Polonius Deconstructs Nonsense
At line 204 Polonius in an aside, a mini-soliloquy, shares with us what he has understood: 1.) Hamlet is “still harping on my daughter,” so his theory of the cause of Hamlet’s madness is still intact; 2.) but Hamlet is “far gone.” After all he had completely missed Polonius’ identity and called him a fishmonger. Now at line 206 Polonius reveals an important clue to his own mental state: “And truly, in my/ youth I suffered much extremity for love, very near/ this.” In the previous scene Polonius was convinced that Hamlet is only toying with Ophelia’s affection, just trying to “wrack her,” that is, take her virginity, because that is what Polonius did in his youth. Confronted by Hamlet’s strange behavior, each of the principal characters with whom he interacts will project his or her own fear or guilt onto him to explain his madness:
1.) Polonius will see the cause in his own sexual misdeeds in his youth.
2.) Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, eager for advancement from the King, will see Hamlet’s problem in his ambition.
3.) Gertrude, concerned about her own “o’erhasty marriage” and the betrayal of her first husband, will see that as the cause for her son’s madness. (Act III, Scene 4).
4.) Claudius, wracked with guilt for his brother’s murder (Act III, Scene 3), will see in Hamlet’s melancholy something that is a danger to the State.
The next exchange between Hamlet and Polonius (lines 208 – 222) hinges at first on a deliberate misinterpretation of the word “matter.” Polonius uses it in the sense of “subject matter” at line 211 and Hamlet responds at 212 in the sense of “trouble.” One of the ways that Hamlet sometimes signals that he is using his “antic disposition” is that he will repeat a word or phrase three times, as he does here at line 210. The major mockery of Polonius in this section is the description Hamlet gives him of the five symptoms of age. Identify them. We can imagine that Polonius displays all five, especially the fourth one. Then Hamlet, at line 220, reverses places with the old man and tells him he could grow young again, if he could go backwards like a crab. Polonius dimly realizes that Hamlet might have some hidden meaning in all his cryptic put-downs: “Though this be madness, yet there’s method in it.”
People in Shakespeare’s time believed that fresh air was basically unhealthy, so when at line 224 Polonius asks Hamlet if he “walk out of the air,” he is expressing concern for his health. Hamlet’s response, “Into my grave?” echoes that obsession with death that we have seen him mentioned elsewhere in the play; going into his grave would literally be out of the air. Once again Polonius sees in Hamlet’s response a mocking intelligence, but he tells us that it is just a “happiness” of the madman, that is an accident that it makes sense. He now decides to leave and send his daughter in to try and see how Hamlet reacts. When he formally declares that he will take his leave of the Prince, Hamlet responds with another one of those repetitions of three, the signal of the antic disposition:
“You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I/ will more willingly part withal – except my life, except/ my life, except my life.” This not only signals us that he is fooling Polonius, it is another indication of Hamlet’s morbid melancholy. Is he truly depressed, or is he using it as a cover for his revenge plot? We are never full certain, because we had seen his profound depression back before he had spoken to the Ghost. In an aside at line 237, however, Hamlet does reveal to us his real feelings about Polonius: “these tedious old fools.”
R & J Follies
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern now join Hamlet, and he behaves sanely. Look at the contrast in the way he greets them at lines 240 – 257 compared to how he treated Polonius. 1.) He recognizes who they are; no “fishmonger” here. 2.) After their initial formal greeting at lines 240 -241, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern treat Hamlet with great familiarity and he calls them “good friends.” 3.) Like guys since the dawn of time, they quickly banter with each other using risqué humor, in this case a joke about living in the middle or private parts of Fortune. (Since ancient times Fortune has been portrayed as a woman dispensing favors or inflicting harm upon humankind.) Unlike Hamlet’s obscure reference to breeding maggots in a dead dog, however, this is humor which binds the participants, not a disguised insult.
Then at line 257 Hamlet does with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern what he had done with Horatio back in Act I, Scene 2 at line 181 when he asked, “What is your affair in Elsinore?” He asks a loaded question to see if he can trust them: “What have you, my good friends, deserved at the hands of Fortune, that she sends you to prison hither?” It is a probing provocation designed to see how they feel about the situation in which Hamlet finds himself. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern reveal their lack of sympathy at line 266. They disagree about Denmark being a prison: “We think not so, my lord.” (They have probably left their Saab parked at the palace gate with its “Denmark – Love It or Leave It” bumper stick.) At line 268 Hamlet responds with a new kind of antic disposition, what I call the mock profundity. This is where Hamlet utters a statement which sounds very impressive, but its purpose is to disguise his real feelings. What he would like to say is “Of course Denmark is a prison – I am spied upon, held under house arrest and the man who killed my father and whored my mother now sits on the throne.” Instead what he says is “There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.” Of course this is true; our moral perceptions are always colored by our subjective experience of reality. The difference is the intent behind the remark.
Now Rosencrantz and Guildenstern reveal their psychological projections to explain Hamlet’s madness at line 271. “If you think Denmark is a prison, it must be because you are ambitious, just as we are to get into the favor of the King.” Notice how at lines 271 – 284 Hamlet argues this question of ambition to an absurd conclusion. Explain how Hamlet concludes that using Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s logic, beggars are more substantial than monarchs and heroes. While he may suspect his friends of spying on him, at least he does them the courtesy of engaging seriously with what they say, unlike his complete dismissal of Polonius. At line 284 he breaks off the argument about ambition.
When at line 286 the two offer to “wait upon” Hamlet, they are saying they will serve him as temporary servants. Hamlet is at pains to assure them that he will treat them simply as his friends, even though he admits he is “dreadfully attended,” that is, he doesn’t have a lot of people serving him. But now he asks the same question he asked back at line 257, but this time much more directly, “But, in the beaten way of friendship, what make you at Elsinore?” (“Beaten way” refers to a well-traveled path which is clearly marked by much use.) The two deny that they had any motive other than friendship, but Hamlet presses for their real reasons. At line 295 he asks if they “were not sent for?” When he comments on their guilty expressions at line 301, they begin to give their secret away, asking at line 305 why they would have been invited by the King and Queen. “That you must teach me,” Hamlet answers at line 306 and then he “conjures them” to tell him the truth at lines 306 – 310 using the very formal language of the court, as one courtier to another. The two make a further admission at line 312 when they whisper an aside between themselves and Hamlet realizes they are in on a plot with the King: “Nay, then, I have an eye of you,” that is, “I’ll watch you guys.”
Hamlet “Opens Up” to R & G?
After they finally admit they were sent for, Hamlet offers to tell them why the King and Queen sent for them, thereby allowing them with a clear conscience to say they didn’t revealed their part in the plot. Hamlet’s explanation at lines 318 – 332 – “I have of late….” – is one of the most famous speeches in the play. Commentators on the play have held it up as Hamlet’s finest expression of his profound sense of melancholy. These lines were turned into the lyrics of a song in the musical Hair. The only problem is that we don’t know how serious he is in making this statement. At least two important factors suggest that this explanation is more about deception than a statement of principle:
1.) Hamlet has just determined that these two are spies for the King and knows that whatever he tells them will be passed on to Claudius. He had already planted the seed with Polonius that he is suffering from a morbid melancholy and is thinking about suicide, as a way to cover his real intention of revenge. For all its eloquence, this speech may just be another such deception
2.) If this were a statement of Hamlet’s core beliefs, it would probably be in a different form. Hamlet’s other speeches of fundamental belief, such as “To be, or not to be…” are in blank verse. This speech is in prose, the form of language which Hamlet seems to use when he is fooling people or pretending to be crazy.
Whatever the motive for “I have of late…” it is a wonderful speech. He begins by saying that he has for some unknown reason been severely depressed, having lost his “mirth” and “foregone all custom of exercises,” all his usual physical activities. (It is interesting to note that in Act V, Scene 2 he tells Horatio that he has been practicing fencing continually, another hint that this speech may just be a cover story for Claudius.) Because of his melancholy the earth, “this goodly frame” or structure (which Hamlet may also have meant as a reference to the relatively new Globe Theater) seems no better than a “sterile promontory,” a rocky headlands jutting out into eternity. Then he refers to the sky, calling it an “excellent canopy,” “a brave o’erhanging firmament” and “a majestical roof fretted with golden fire,” but whatever its grandeur, it is no better than a “congregation of vapors.” (These descriptive phrases for the sky could also be references to the view at the Globe, which was open to the sky where cumulus clouds catching the afternoon sun were usually visible.) Then he comes to that which depresses him the most – man. He praises humanity in eight different phrases at lines 327 -- 331. What are they? What do these phrases tells us about the place of mankind in the world view of this time? Despite his elevation of the ideal of human achievement, in his melancholy Hamlet calls himself and all men “this quintessence of dust.” (The word “quintessence” is heavily ironic here. It referred to the process of alchemy in which the ordinary essence of things in the world could be refined five times over to create the most pure form of anything; the heavenly bodies were supposedly “quintessence.”) Rosencrantz apparently smiled when Hamlet announced “Man delights not me,” turning the whole speech into a kind of dirty joke, so that Hamlet quickly adds, “nor woman neither though by your smiling you seem to say so.” If Hamlet’s intention was to convey his seriousness in this speech, he has lost the moment.
War of the Theaters
Rosencrantz blames his smile on imaging the spare welcome (“Lenten entertainment,” referring to the restrictions on eating and drinking enforced around Easter) a group of actors will receive who were about to arrive. At the news of their coming Hamlet suddenly perks up. He names six stock characters of the drama in those days, beginning with the actor playing the King, whom Hamlet says he will pay tribute to, unlike his dismissal of Claudius. What are the other five stock characters of the stage drama, and what details do we learn about the way each was performed? In a long sequence at lines 343 – 385 Rosencrantz and Guildenstern tell Hamlet about the fall from fortune of the acting company which has been forced to go on tour. The details the two provide seem to refer to an actual event in the life of Shakespeare’s acting company at that time, the Lord Chamberlin’s Men. Around 1600 a new fashion in the London theater arose, performances of satiric plays done entirely by a group of boy actors. They became so popular that many of the established acting companies had to leave the city temporarily. The plays the boys did often leveled attacks on the playwrights for other companies, such as Shakespeare. This “War of the Theaters” did not last very long, as the boy actors were only a fad, but apparently Shakespeare’s company was one of those which had to go on tour. We know from accounts of that time that the audiences at Shakespeare’s plays came regularly and would have been quite familiar with what had happened; we can imagine the shock of recognition they would have felt to have this piece of their own lives suddenly thrust on the stage in the middle of a drama. This information in itself is fascinating to scholars but has little relevance for us 400 years later, except to make a couple of points: 1.) Hamlet is fascinated by theatre and knowledgeable about drama, so it will come as no surprise that he will attempt to use a play to establish Claudius’ guilt. 2.) There is throughout the play a curious sense that Hamlet is aware that he is playing a part in a drama.
At line 386 Hamlet draws a connection between the travails of the traveling actors and the Danish court. While his father was alive, Claudius was not always treated with respect (people made faces at him), but once he was crowned he became the new fad and members of the court paid to acquire his portrait done in miniature to wear around their necks. (Perhaps even Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have them on.) Hamlet signals to us how profoundly he abhors this kind of fickleness by using a taboo word, “’Sblood,” a shortened form of “God’s Blood” at line 390. In a Shakespearean play the use of one of the sacrilegious oaths always signals an emotional highpoint for the character. Hamlet then apologize to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern ahead of time for the friendly greetings he will bestow upon the actors who have just arrived, assuring the two that he is glad to see them as well. He ends this sequence by giving them and us another example of the kind of mock profundity, one which hints at his real feeling and indirectly warns others that he knows what is going on. “But my uncle-father and aunt-mother are deceived.” Hamlet here mocks the tangle of relationships as a result of Claudius and Gertrude’s unnatural marriage. The man who had been his uncle is now his father and the woman who had been his mother is now also his aunt. “I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.” [I am only crazy under certain circumstances. Most of the time I can tell the difference between two things that are totally unalike]. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have been warned, whether they realize it or not.
Act II, Scene 2, Lines 187 – 403
When Hamlet enters reading on the balcony overlooking the room where the King and Queen are talking with Polonius, he looks down at them with a glance that suggest he knows they are up to no good. Polonius climbs the stairs to “board him,” only to be greeted by Hamlet wearing a skull mask. Why would Branagh make such a choice in this particular scene? Branagh conveys a lot of his emotional message in this passage by his facial features, his gestures and his tone of voice. When Branagh does the repetition of three to signal his “antic disposition,” notice how his voice changes with each element. For example what does his voice convey when he calls Polonius “a fishmonger?” Then when he does the lines about “being a god-kissing carrion,” what is the message of his vocal tone? Hamlet keeps moving from room to room, and finally when Polonius takes his leave, Hamlet has left the palace and is on the snowy palace grounds where he delivers the morbid final line, “Except my life.” Once again what is the message he conveys with his voice?
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern arrive on the scene is an interesting manner – what it is? In his conversation with them at what point does Hamlet’s facial expression let us know he is suspicious of their sudden arrival? When the two press him about his ambition, he hurries back into the palace. What do his facial features and voice convey to you when he presses them to confess if they have been sent for? What seems to be his mood when he begins the speech “I have of late….”? What seems to account for the change in emotions he projects? How does the music reinforce the mood change? Notice to what he gestures when he refers to “This brave, o’erhanging firmament”? When he gets to the line “Man delights not me…” what is the reaction of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern? As the two describe the conflict between the players and the children actors, what is Hamlet’s reaction? How do you account for the change in the tone of the conversation? When Hamlet gets to the line, “I know the difference between a hawk and a handsaw,” to what is he referring in the film?
Act II, Scene 2, Lines 404 – 634
The final passage of this scene covers the arrival of the actors at Elsinore and Hamlet’s enlisting them in a plan to deceive Claudius. What observation does Shakespeare make in this sequence about how drama had changed since he had begun writing plays? Can you draw any connection between Hamlet’s emotional state the last time we saw him and what he seems to be feeling in this scene? Why is Hamlet so angry with himself in the soliloquy at the end of the scene? Realistically, when might he have been able to act upon his plans for revenge prior to this?
[Enter
POLONIUS]
POLONIUS: Well be with you, gentlemen!
HAMLET: Hark you, Guildenstern, and you too -- at
each ear a hearer! That great baby you see there is
not yet out
of his swaddling-clouts.
ROSENCRANTZ: Happily he's the second time come to
them,
for they say an old man is twice a child.
HAMLET: I will prophesy he comes to tell me of the
players -- mark it. -- You say right, sir, a Monday
morning,
'twas then indeed.
POLONIUS: My lord, I have news to tell you.
HAMLET: My lord, I have news to tell you: When Roscius
[famous actor of ancient Rome] was an actor in Rome --
POLONIUS: The actors are come hither, my lord.
HAMLET: Buzz, buzz [rude raspberry sound]!
POLONIUS: Upon mine honor--
HAMLET: Then came each actor on his ass.
POLONIUS: The best actors in the world, either for
tragedy,
comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical,
historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-
comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or
poem unlimited [plays that follow the ancient
unities or those that do not] Seneca
[Roman writer of tragedy] cannot be too heavy, nor
Plautus [Roman writer of comedy] too light. For
the law of writ and the liberty, [plays
strictly regulated and those nonconforming works]
these
are the only men.
HAMLET: O Jephthah [Old Testament figure] judge of Israel, what a treasure
hadst thou!
POLONIUS: What a treasure had he, my lord?
HAMLET: Why,
One fair daughter and no more,
The which he loved passing well. [lines from
popular folk ballad]
POLONIUS: [Aside] Still on my daughter.
HAMLET: Am I not i' th’ right, old Jephthah?
POLONIUS: If you call me “Jephthah,” my lord, I have a
daughter that I love passing well.
HAMLET: Nay, that follows not.
POLONIUS: What follows, then, my lord?
HAMLET: Why,
As by lot [chance], God wot [knows],
and then, you know,
It came to pass, as most like it was --
the first row [stanza] of the pious chanson [religious
ballads] will show you more, for look, where my abridgement
[interruption] comes.
[Enter four or five Players]
You are welcome, masters, welcome, all. -- I am glad
to see thee well. -- Welcome, good friends. -- O, my old
friend! Why thy face is valanced [fringed with a beard] since
I saw thee last. Comest thou to beard me in Denmark? -- What, my young
lady and mistress [said to the boy actor]! By'r lady, your
ladyship is
nearer to heaven [taller] than when I saw you last, by the
altitude of a chopine [height of an actor’s boot]. Pray God,
your voice, like
apiece of uncurrent gold, be not cracked within the
ring [I hope your voice hasn’t cracked like a counterfeit coin].
Masters, you are all welcome. We'll e'en to't [go at it] like
French falconers, fly at any thing we see [undertake
anything]. We'll have a speech straight [now]. Come, give us
a taste of your quality [ability]. Come, a passionate speech.
FIRST PLAYER; What speech, my lord?
HAMLET: I heard thee speak me a speech once, but it was
never acted, or, if it was, not above once; for the
play, I remember, pleased not the million: 'twas
caviary to the general [an exotic taste like caviar to most
people]. But it was (as I received it, and others, whose judgments in such
matters cried in the top of mine [had more
authority than mine]) an excellent play, well digested [ordered] in the
scenes, set down with as much modesty as cunning. I remember, one said
there
were no sallets [spicey bits] in the lines to make the
matter
savory, nor no matter in the phrase that might
indict the author of affectation, but called it an
honest method [straightforward], as wholesome as sweet, and
by very
much more handsome than fine [gaudy]. One speech in it I
chiefly loved. 'Twas Aeneas' tale to Dido, and
thereabout of it especially, where he speaks of
Priam's slaughter. If it live in your memory, begin
at this line -- let me see, let me see:
The rugged Pyrrhus, like the Hyrcanian beast' [tiger]--
it is not so; it begins with Pyrrhus:
The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable arms,
Black as his purpose, did the night resemble
When he lay couched in the ominous horse [Trojan horse],
Hath now this dread and black complexion smeared
With heraldry more dismal. Head to foot
Now is he total gules ], horridly tricked
With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons,
Baked and impasted with the parching streets,
That lend a tyrannous and damned light
To their lord's murder. Roasted in wrath and fire,
And thus o'er-sized [glazed] with coagulate gore,
With eyes like carbuncles [red jewels], the hellish Pyrrhus
Old grandsire Priam seeks.
So, proceed you.
POLONIUS: 'Fore God, my lord, well spoken, with good
accent and good discretion [judgment].
FIRST PLAYER: Anon he finds him
Striking too short at Greeks. His antique sword,
Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls,
Repugnant [resistant] to command. Unequal matched,
Pyrrhus at Priam drives, in rage strikes wide;
But with the whiff and wind of his fell [cruel] sword
The unnerved father falls. Then senseless Ilium [the fortress
within Troy],
Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming top
Stoops to his base, and with a hideous crash
Takes prisoner Pyrrhus' ear. For, lo! his sword,
Which was declining on the milky head
Of reverend Priam, seemed i' th’ air to stick.
So as a painted tyrant Pyrrhus stood,
And like a neutral to his will and matter [one unable to act
despite his desire and duty]
Did nothing.
But, as we often see, against some storm,
A silence in the heavens, the rack [driven clouds] stand
still,
The bold winds speechless and the orb below
As hush as death, anon the dreadful thunder
Doth rend the region, so, after Pyrrhus' pause,
Aroused vengeance sets him new a-work;
And never did the Cyclops' hammers fall [Titans who made Jove’s
thunderbolts]
On Mars' [Roman god of war] armor forged for proof eterne
[to last till eternity]
With less remorse than Pyrrhus' bleeding sword
Now falls on Priam.
Out, out, thou strumpet, Fortune! All you gods,
In general synod [council] take away her power;
Break all the spokes and fellies [rims] from her wheel
[Fortune’s wheel],
And bowl the round nave [hub] down the hill of heaven,
As low as to the fiends!
POLONIUS: This is too long.
HAMLET: It shall to the barber's, with your beard. –
Prithee, say on. He's for a jig [comic song] or a tale of bawdry, or
he sleeps. Say on; come to Hecuba.
FIRST PLAYER: But who, ah woe, had seen the mobled [muffled] queen--
HAMLET: ”The mobled queen?”
POLONIUS: That's good. “Mobled queen” is good.
FIRST PLAYER: Run barefoot up and down, threatening the flames
With bisson rheum [blinding tears], a clout [cloth] upon
that head
Where late the diadem stood, and for a robe,
About her lank and all o'er-teemed [shrunken and worn out with childbirth]
loins,
A blanket, in the alarm of fear caught up --
Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steeped,
'Gainst Fortune's state would treason have
pronounced. [would have uttered treason against
Fortune’s rule].
But if the gods themselves did see her then
When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport
In mincing with his sword her husband's limbs,
The instant burst of clamor that she made,
Unless things mortal move them not at all,
Would have made milch [wet with tears] the burning eyes of
heaven,
And passion [deep emotion] in the gods.
POLONIUS: Look, whether he has not turned his color and has
tears in 's eyes. Pray you, no more.
HAMLET: 'Tis well. I'll have thee speak out the rest soon.
Good my lord, will you see the players well
bestowed [housed]? Do you hear, let them be well used, for
they are the abstract [summary] and brief chronicles of the
time. After your death you were better have a bad
epitaph than their ill report while you live.
POLONIUS: My lord, I will use them according to their desert.
HAMLET: God's bodykins [God’s little body] man, much better. Use
every man
after [according to] his desert, and who should 'scape
whipping?
Use them after your own honor and dignity. The less
they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty.
Take them in.
POLONIUS: Come, sirs.
HAMLET: Follow him, friends. We'll hear a play to-morrow.
[Exit POLONIUS with all the Players but the First]
Dost thou hear me, old friend? Can you play the
Murder of Gonzago?
FIRST PLAYER: Ay, my lord.
HAMLET: We'll ha 't tomorrow night. You could, for a need,
study a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines, which
I would set down and insert in 't, could you not?
FIRST PLAYER: Ay, my lord.
HAMLET: Very well. Follow that lord -- and look you mock him
not.
[Exit First Player]
My good friends, I'll leave you till night. You are
welcome to Elsinore.
ROSENCRANTZ: Good my lord!
HAMLET: Ay, so, good-bye to you.
[Exit ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN]
Now I am alone.
O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
Is it not monstrous that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit [his inner being
so to his own conception of the role]
That from her working all his visage waned [paled],
Tears in his eyes, distraction in 's aspect [expression],
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
With forms to his conceit [all his outward appearance fitting
his inward thought]? And all for nothing!
For Hecuba!
What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her? What would he do,
Had he the motive and the cue for passion
That I have? He would drown the stage with tears
And cleave the general ear with horrid speech,
Make mad the guilty and appall the free [make guilty
spectators mad and terrify the innocent],
Confound the ignorant, and amaze [astound] indeed
The very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I,
A dull and muddy-mettled [poor-spirited] rascal, peak [mope],
Like John-a-dreams [proverbial day-dreamer], unpregnant
of my cause [unmoved by my own cause]. And
can say nothing -- no, not for a king,
Upon whose property and most dear life
A damned defeat [overthrow] was made. Am I a coward?
Who calls me “villain”? breaks my pate across?
Plucks off my beard, and blows it in my face?
Tweaks me by the nose? gives me the lie i' the throat,
As deep as to the lungs [calls me the worst liar]? Who does me
this?
Ha!
'Swounds [Oath: “God’s wounds”] I should take it! For it
cannot be
But I am pigeon-liver'd and lack gall
To make oppression bitter, or ere this
I should have fatted all the region kites
With this slave's offal [innars]! Bloody, bawdy villain!
Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless [unnatural] villain!
O, vengeance!
Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave [admirable],
That I, the son of a dear father murdered,
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,
Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words,
And fall a-cursing, like a very drab [common prostitute],
A scullion [lowly kitchen servant]! Fie upon ‘t! Foh!
About, my brain! – Hum, I have heard
That guilty creatures sitting at a play
Have by the very cunning of the scene [skill in performance]
Been struck so to the soul that presently [immediately]
They have proclaimed their malefactions.
For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ. I'll have these players
Play something like the murder of my father
Before mine uncle. I'll observe his looks;
I'll tent [surgically probe] him to the quick [to the
bone]. If he but blench [flinch].
I know my course. The spirit that I have seen
May be the devil, and the devil hath power
To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps,
Out of my weakness and my melancholy,
As he is very potent with such spirits [emotional states],
Abuses [deceives] me to damn me. I'll have grounds
More relative [compelling] than this. The play 's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king. [Exit]
Having Fun with Polonius
Hamlet’s relationships with others on the stage shift several times in this long passage. Having just determined that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are in league with the King, Hamlet at line 405 suddenly takes them into his confidence as he puts the antic disposition on again to have fun teasing Polonius who comes to tell him about the arrival of the actors. From his earlier exchange with the old man, Hamlet knows that Polonius is convinced of Hamlet’s obsession with Ophelia and that in his madness Hamlet sometimes says truly profound things by accident. Hamlet does not disappoint Polonius’ illusion. When the old man approaches, Hamlet pretends to be talking about something else at line 411. Then he mentions several things related to the stage, such as the famous actor of ancient Rome, Roscius, suggesting that he somehow magically knew the actors were coming. When Polonius says the actors have come, Hamlet gives him a rude raspberry at line 417 – “buzz, buzz, buzz. (It’s that repetition of three again that signals he is play-acting crazy.) Polonius’ reaction is to take offense: “Upon my honor --.” Hamlet picks up on that word “upon” and makes another rude joke: “Then came each actor on his ass.” It is a kind of adolescent humor that probably gets laughs from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
Polonius at line 420 tries to impress these mocking young men by doing what he does best – cataloguing the obvious. How many categories of plays does he come up with to impress Hamlet? Why is his effort stupid? Polonius also tries to impress Hamlet by mentioning some technical aspects of Elizabethan drama that someone who studied at the university might remember. First, he designates two kinds of plays, those that had no scene breaks (“individable”) like Greek tragedies and those poetic dramas which do not adhere strictly (“unlimited”) to the classical unities of time and place set forth by the Greek philosopher, Aristotle. Then he mentions two of the ancient Roman playwrights most frequently used as models: Seneca for tragedies and Plautus for comedies. Finally, he assures Hamlet that these actors are the best available to perform whether the play conforms to the classical rules of composition (“law of writ”) or was written without regard for those rules (“liberty.”)
Hamlet at line 427 shifts his game-playing with Polonius and brings Ophelia into the mix by pretending that Polonius is a character from the Old Testament, Jephthah, who had a daughter. When he gets Polonius to draw the connection between himself and Jephthah, Hamlet at line 437 denies that is what he meant at all. Rather than explaining the connection, Hamlet uses the arrival of some of the actors to break off the conversation, referring Polonius to a book of religious ballads to figure out what he was talking about.
Hamlet and the Actors
Notice how warmly Hamlet welcomes the actors whom he knows personally, as he had warned Rosencrantz and Guildenstern at line 397 that he would do. To one he comments he has grown a beard since he last saw him; to the boy actor who plays the women’s roles, he notes the teenager has grown taller and hopes his voice has not cracked like a counterfeit coin. He asks them to do a speech for him from a play he describes at lines 458 – 470. Although Hamlet never mentions the name of this mysterious play, he offers quite a bit of information about it. (By the way, the play he references is entirely fictional, despite the efforts of people over the last 400 years to identify it.) He offers a very detailed critical appraisal of the drama, the way it was written, and noting that it was not popular (“pleased not the millions”). Hamlet tells us at line 458 that he had heard the First Player do a speech from this play once, yet he remembers 12 lines of that speech apparently perfectly, after an initial mistake at line 475. In the course of this passage Hamlet shows us that he is quite familiar with the business of theater: the use of special elevated boots, called “chopines,” to make the boy actors taller; the fact that not all plays were necessarily performed; recalling The Murder of Gonzago as a popular revenge tragedy; the practice of adding passages to an existing play for special purposes (line 566). All of these references certainly suggest that Hamlet has more than a passing interest in drama and the theater. In fact Hamlet is the most theatrical of all of the heroes of Shakespeare’s plays. At times it almost seems as if he were aware of himself as a performer in a drama.
Why Hecuba?
Given what we know about Hamlet’s situation, his choice of this particular speech is not surprising. The background of the speech goes back to the most discussed event in ancient literature, the mythic war between the Greeks and the Trojans, which served as the basis for Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, many of the Greek tragedies and Virgil’s The Aeneid. One of the events in the latter work, which traces the mythic beginnings of Rome, is the time Aeneas spent in the court of Queen Dido of Carthage, telling her the story of the fall of Troy, and from that account Hamlet picks the death of King Priam at the hands of Pyrrhus, the son of the slain Greek hero, Achilles, and the grief of Priam’s wife, Queen Hecuba. We can understand why Hamlet is drawn to the death of a king and a revenge murder. What is most interesting is why he includes the dramatic account of the grief of Priam’s widow, Hecuba.
Because the language of the entire play Hamlet poses such a challenge for modern audiences, we do not easily recognize what else Shakespeare is doing with this particular passage. Compared to Hamlet, the speech the First Player delivers is characteristic of an older style of writing drama. Its language is much more formal. For example, this passage from line 508, filled with references to classical mythology, is a classical figure of speech called a Homeric simile, which develop a number of parallels between two different things:
But, as we often
see, against some storm,
A silence in the heavens, the rack [driven clouds] stand
still,
The bold winds speechless and the orb below
As hush as death, anon the dreadful thunder
Doth rend the region, so, after Pyrrhus' pause,
Aroused vengeance sets him new a-work;
And never did the Cyclops' hammers fall [Titan who made Jove’s thunderbolts]
On Mars' [Roman god of war] armor forged for proof eterne
[to last till eternity]
With less remorse than Pyrrhus' bleeding sword
Now falls on Priam.
Shakespeare seldom if ever uses a formal simile like this in his writing; it was a writing device introduced, as the name suggests, by Homer in his long narrative poems. As for the passage’s dramatic impact, it is much more like a story than a piece of dramatic dialogue. Shakespeare creates the illusion of real people speaking ideas and feeling as they are experiencing them; this older form of writing feels much more removed from the reality of the moment. The acting style this kind of writing requires is much more declamatory than realistic, narrating some events in the past in a dramatic voice instead of dramatizing actual events as they are happening to a virtual character. The word choice of the passage is also very old-fashioned, using words like “mobled” for “muffled” and “gules” for “red” which were very archaic in 1601 when this was written.
One of the things Shakespeare
is reminding his audience with this passage is how much drama had changed in
the few short years since he and his contemporaries had revolutionized English
theater.
Polonius, ever eager to be seen as a complete courtier, throws in a gratuitous critical comments throughout the passage, because gentlemen were supposed to knowledgeable about art and literature. He praises Hamlet’s recitation at 491, saying it had “good accent and good discretion,” meaning apparently that Hamlet pronounced the words correctly and showed sound judgment in selecting this passage, utterly meaningless assessments under the circumstances but nevertheless kissing up to the prince. However, at line 523, at a particularly dramatic moment in the rendition of Priam’s death, Polonius interrupts to announce that the passage is too long. He isn’t afraid of offending the First Player, who is the hired help after all, but Hamlet’s comment really stings him – “It shall to the barber’s with your beard,” After Hamlet insults his intelligence – “He’s for a jig or a tale of bawdry or he sleeps” --, he is eager to salvage his reputation as a savvy theatergoer and the very next line the Player speaks – “who had seen the mobled queen” – Polonius does a trick he’s used before, back at line 119 of this scene, which is to take one word out of context and pronounce a critical judgment on it, as if that made him look smart: “That’s good. ‘mobled queen’ is good.”
Why is Hamlet so eager for the Player to “get to Hecuba?” Hamlet asks the First Player for this passage for more than its evocation of the death of a King and the enactment of revenge. The response of Hecuba to the slaughter of her husband is how Hamlet wishes his mother had reacted to the death of her husband, rather than jumping into bed with the man who killed him. The extreme grief of Hecuba, portrayed as being so powerful it would have moved the gods to pity, seems to Hamlet what was called for from Gertrude.
The Power of the Play
The First Player uses an actor’s trick to produce tears as he reaches the crescendo of Hecuba’s grief at lines 538 – 544. (It was said that the great actor Laurence Olivier could weep on cue reading the London phone book aloud.) But this demonstration of staged emotion shocks Polonius, who comments on the tears and begs Hamlet to stop the performance. First, Shakespeare has Polonius mention the tears because the audience for this play could have been as many as 3,000 people; Shakespeare always reinforces nonverbal action with verbal comments so no one in the theater misses it. Second, it is an indication to us that professional drama was still relatively new in that time and had not lost its power to surprise and move people; Polonius is profoundly shaken by such an emotional display. Hamlet then draws the moral lesson of the Player’s performance when he asks Polonius to see the actors “well-bestowed” (given appropriate accommodations) at line 548. He calls them “the abstract [summary] and brief chronicles of the/ time.” The theater was a kind of popular history of that age, the actors and playwrights providing commentary and insight for future generations before the invention of newspapers or other mass media. As Hamlet warns Polonius, “After your death you were better have a bad\ epitaph than their ill report while you live.” To Polonius, they are still just actors, employees, and he sniffs that he will “use them according to their desert” (what they deserve). This snobbish response prompts Hamlet to offer one of those observations that reveal how he feels about the general state of mankind, such as he did earlier in this scene at line 330. He warns Polonius at line 555:
God's bodykins
[God’s little body] man, much better. Use every man
after [according to] his desert, and who should 'scape
whipping?
Use them after your own honor and dignity. The less
they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty.
First, Hamlet emphasizes his
anger at Polonius’ smug response by using that odd oath, “God’s bodykins”;
any phrase that plays on God’s name was considered sacrilegious, and
Shakespeare only used such taboo words for a clear dramatic point.
Secondly, Hamlet makes the point that none of us can afford to adopt a
morally superior attitude; we all deserve to be whipped. It is only in our
acts of kindness that we can demonstrate our worthiness.
As the actors leave with Polonius, Hamlet takes the First Player aside and asks if the company can perform a revenge tragedy called The Murder of Gonzago. This gives us an insight into how plays were performed in Shakespeare’s time. An acting company might have scores of different plays in its repertoire; depending on the desire of their audience, they would have to be ready to put on one of those plays with little notice. Here Hamlet gives them a day to get ready and to insert some additional lines which he will write. Clearly Hamlet already has in mind using this performance to publicly test Claudius’ guilt, although he won’t reveal the plan for another 50 lines.
“O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!”
After Hamlet dismisses Rosencrantz and Guildenstern who have hung around all this time to see if they can figure out what Hamlet is up to, he gives us his second great soliloquy beginning at line 576 – “O what a rogue and peasant slave am I.” This soliloquy offers us a look at the complex way in which Hamlet’s mind works. The speech falls into six parts, each corresponding to a dramatic shift in awareness of himself.
Hamlet is very angry with himself at the beginning of this passage as he analyzes the performance of the First Player in the speech about Hecuba. Like Polonius, he was impressed by the fact the actor wept but also that he apparently forced himself to feel the emotions which he was describing – “force his soul so to his own conceit.” His complexion paled or “wanned”; he looked distracted; his voice was broken with grief, and everything about him fit the portrayal that he was giving. And it was just a fiction, “a dream of passion,” all designed to honor Hecuba, who in reality means nothing to the actor.
In this soliloquy Shakespeare seems to signal the transition to the next section with deliberately short lines, such as “For Hecuba” at line 585. Now Hamlet compares his source for grief to the actor’s and wonders what the Player would have done with that as motivation. He would “drown the stage with tears,” deafen the audience’s ears with “horrid speech,” make guilty people run insane and horrify the innocent (“free”). In contrast to the actor, Hamlet finds himself in performance a complete failure as a revenge hero. At line 594 he sees the cause for his inaction in his spirit (“mettle”) which lacks clarity (“muddied”) and causes him to mope around (“peak”) incapable of action. He sees himself as a day-dreamer (“John-a-dreams”) who has plenty of cause to act but neglects to. He cannot even speak against the murder of his father.
Perhaps, he thinks at line 598, it is because he is a coward. He would refuse to protest indignities done directly to himself. If someone called him a “villain,” that is a low-class criminal, hit him across the head, pulled his beard or rammed his own words down his throat – all intolerable insults to a gentleman – he would do nothing. He emphasizes the self-loathing he feels by using the taboo word “’swounds,” a shortened form of “God’s wounds” at line 603. It must be that he lacks the intestinal fortitude to resist. (Hamlet expresses this idea by suggesting that his liver must be like that of a pigeon, a bird thought of as mild because its liver lacked bile, which the Elizabethans believed was the source of anger in the body.) If he had any guts at all, he would have acted before this and killed his uncle – not just killed him, but cut his body in pieces, much as Pyrrhus did to Priam, and fed his internal organs, his “offal,” to the birds of carrion, the “kites,” that fed on dead bodies. (“Offal” was an especially insulting term because it was normally used to describe the waste products of animals.) Notice the words which Hamlet uses at lines 607 – 608 to curse Claudius: “bawdy” (because of his sexual conduct), “remorseless” (because he killed the King without any second thoughts), “treacherous” (because the murder was an act of high treason), lecherous (again, back to the sexual crime), “kindless,” (meaning unnatural because it was fratricide) and finally “villain” (meaning both an immoral person but also a lower-class scoundrel). Hamlet ends this portion of his self-criticism with the short line “O, vengeance!” which was one of the stock utterances of revenge heroes in more conventional dramas. Some scholars believe that it was a line added to the script by one of Shakespeare’s fellow actors who had played in a lot of ordinary revenge tragedies; it is not found in the Second Quarto, printed during Shakespeare’s lifetime, but was added in the Folio version of the play, which could suggest it had been added by someone other than Shakespeare.
At line 611 Hamlet does a complete reversal from what he had just pronounced in the previous 35 lines of this soliloquy. It is as if he examines his performance as an actor and finds it too melodramatic and overblown. (We’ll see Laertes in Act IV. Scene 5 do similar rant for revenge, but he will lack Hamlet’s sense of self-awareness.) Hamlet compares his verbal raging to the angry outbursts of people who lack power in their conflicts – whores, who must “unpack” their hearts, that is relieve strong feelings, with words alone. He continues his comparison with “drab,” another term for prostitute, and “scullion,” the lowest of the servants who worked in the kitchen. (The Second Quarto has an intriguing alternative to “scullion,” the word “stallion” which was a slang term for a male prostitute.)
At line 617 Hamlet returns to his intellectual training – he comes up with a plan that will involve his knowledge of theater and his skill at deception. He begins by telling us that guilty people seeing a play are sometimes so moved by this enactment of reality they will proclaim their crimes. (A play called A Warning to Fair Women, which Shakespeare’s company had acted the year before, had a widow who confessed to the murder of her husband in the middle of a performance.) As he had already intimated back at line 566, Hamlet plans to stage a reenactment of his father’s murder, augmented with specific details he will add, before his uncle to test him. He will “tent him to the quick,” that is use the play as if it were a probe in an open wound to see if he flinches.
Hamlet even goes back to re-examine his assumptions about Claudius’ guilt. This is something the conventional revenge hero would never do. Perhaps the Ghost was a devil in disguise, working upon his own depression and ardent desire to find his uncle responsible. It is remarkable that Hamlet has the level of self awareness to realize he could be deceived and to want to establish independent verification (“grounds more relative”). Can you see Rambo or Terminator doing this? I don’t think so! He ends the soliloquy with that wonderful rhyming couplet to signal the end of the scene: “The play’s the thing/ Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.” But what is it exactly he’s after here? Is he looking for more proof to justify killing Claudius? Or is he hoping that the King will proclaim his own guilt publicly (“catch the conscience of the King”) so that Hamlet will be relieved from having to act?
Branagh’s Hamlet, Act II, Scene 2, Line 404 – 634
Notice how Hamlet takes Rosencrantz and Guildenstern once more into his confidence when they see Polonius approaching. Branagh clearly establishes different levels of his “antic disposition” here: some people he treats with utter disrespect, others with a kind of modified madness of craftiness. The First Player is Charleton Heston, the star of Ben Hur and a noted ham actor in real life. The young boy who played the women’s parts in the text has been replaced by an actress and a young girl. Why do you think Branagh made that change? As Hamlet recites the speech about “the rugged Pyrrhus,” notice how animated he becomes. Why? During the completion of the Pyrrhus speech by the First Player, Branagh does something with the musical score and visuals. What? (The non-speaking part of Priam is played by the famous stage actor Sir John Gielgud and that of Hecuba by Dame Judi Dench, two icons of the British stage during much of the 20th Century.) When Hamlet sends the actors off with Polonius, notice the old man’s smug expression when he says, “I will use them according to their desert.”
There is a significant change in setting when Hamlet begins his soliloquy. Where have we seen this room before? Even before Hamlet begins his speech, he seems overwhelmed with emotion and breathes heavily. What has set this emotional display off? When Hamlet gets to the line “He would drown the stage with tears,” what exactly does he do? What is the purpose of this prop? What does Branagh do to emphasize Hamlet’s emotional upset with “Zounds, I would take it”? When does Branagh use his musical score in this soliloquy and why? What does he do with the prop in the final lines of the speech?
Act III, Scene 1, Lines 1 – 63
[A
room in the castle, Enter CLAUDIUS, GERTRUDE, POLONIUS, OPHELIA,
ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN]
CLAUDIUS: And can you by no drift of conference
Get from him why he puts on this confusion [acts
in this distracted way],
Grating so harshly all his days of quiet
With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?
ROSENCRANTZ: He does confess he feels himself distracted
[upset],
But from what cause he will by no means speak.
GUILDENSTERN: Nor do we find him forward to be sounded
[eager to be questioned],
But with a crafty madness, keeps aloof
When we would bring him on to some confession
Of his true state.
GERTRUDE: Did he receive you well?
ROSENCRANTZ: Most like a gentleman.
GUILDENSTERN: But with much forcing of his disposition.
ROSENCRANTZ: Niggard of question, but of our demands,
Most free in his reply [reluctant to start a
conversation but willing to answer
our questions].
GERTRUDE: Did you assay [encourage] him to any
pastime?
ROSENCRANTZ: Madam, it so fell out that certain players
We o'er-raught [overtook] on the way. Of these
we told him,
And there did seem in him a kind of joy
To hear of it. They are about the court,
And, as I think, they have already order
This night to play before him.
POLONIUS: 'Tis most true,
And he beseeched me to entreat your majesties
To hear and see the matter.
CLAUDIUS: With all my heart, and it doth much content me
To hear him so inclined.
Good gentlemen, give him a further edge [sharpen
his desire]
And drive his purpose on to these delights.
ROSENCRANTZ: We shall, my lord. [Exit
ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN]
CLAUDIUS: Sweet Gertrude, leave us too,
For we have closely [privately] sent for Hamlet
hither,
That he, as 'twere by accident, may here
Affront [meet face to face] Ophelia.
Her father and myself, lawful espials [spies],
Will so bestow [hide] ourselves that, seeing,
unseen,
We may of their encounter frankly judge,
And gather by him, as he is behaved [reacts],
If 't be the affliction of his love or no
That thus he suffers for.
GERTRUDE: I shall obey you.
And for your part, Ophelia, I do wish
That your good beauties be the happy cause
Of Hamlet's wildness. So shall I hope your virtues
Will bring him to his wonted way again,
To both your honors.
OPHELIA: Madam, I wish it may. [Exit
GERTRUDE]
POLONIUS: Ophelia, walk you here -- Gracious, so please you,
We will bestow ourselves. [To
OPHELIA}
Read on this book,
That show of such an exercise may color
Your loneliness [the act of reading a prayer book
may explain why your are alone]. We
are oft to blame [guilty] in this,
('Tis too much proved) that with devotion's visage
And pious action we do sugar o'er
The devil himself.
CLAUDIUS: [Aside] O, 'tis too true!
How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!
The harlot's cheek, beautied with plastering art,
Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it
Than is my deed to my most painted word. [The
prostitute’s pockmarked cheek is not
uglier compared to the illusion of beauty she creates with
cosmetics than is what I have done in comparison to the lies I have
told about it.]
O heavy burden!
POLONIUS: I hear him coming. Let's withdraw, my lord.
[Exit KING CLAUDIUS and POLONIUS]
The Plot Against Hamlet
Claudius and Gertrude are eager to get a report from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern about what is bothering Hamlet. The two boyhood friends aren’t able to supply much explanation, but their assessment of Hamlet’s state of mind is quite revealing. In the previous scene Polonius had pronounced at line 206 the Hamlet was “far gone” in lunacy. His ramblings were crazy and only made sense, had some “method” in them, by accident; he was essentially mad. However, we know that Hamlet had interacted differently with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern compared to Polonius, and they have reached a different conclusion after their encounter: at line 5 Hamlet knows he is “distracted.” (The truly insane seldom recognize their own condition.) They recognize that his crazy talk is calculated; at line 8 they call it “a crafty madness” designed to keep them from learning too much. At line 11 they declare that he received them “most like a gentleman”: in the Renaissance, if people dressed, spoke and behave in the accepted manner of the gentle class, that was evidence they were sane. (Remember how disturbed Ophelia got about the way Hamlet was dressed when he came into her closet unannounced.) Finally Claudius and Gertrude take hope from the fact Hamlet wants them to see a play; that may mean he is on the road to recovery.
Claudius and Polonius have set in motion another effort to determine the cause of Hamlet’s madness. They will “loose “ Ophelia to him, as if she were a hunting dog being used to discover what he is hiding. (The degrading way in which Polonius talks about his daughter is deliberate; he sees her as simply a tool to be used to prove how smart he is.) Neither the King nor the counselor see any problem with spying on Hamlet; Claudius calls it a “lawful espial.” What is very interesting is that the Queen, unlike Polonius and Laertes, doesn’t seem to see anything wrong with Hamlet marrying Ophelia. That is the thrust of her remarks at lines 41 – 46, with the distinct possibility of marriage suggested in the “honor” Ophelia could gain with her “virtues.” How can we account for these very different reactions to the idea of Hamlet marrying Ophelia?
At lines 50 – 55 Polonius is full of himself as he gives Ophelia a prayer book to pretend to be reading when Hamlet comes in. If she is seen to be praying, this will provide an excuse for her to be by herself. It will also make her appear pious and, in a perverse way, more physically attractive. Polonius chuckles over the fact that he is using something holy to disguise a dishonest purpose: “sugar o’er\ The devil himself.” This rather cynical observation prompts Claudius to admit for the first time his own guilt, saying Polonius’ words have whipped his conscience. He does so by means of a very interesting metaphor at lines 59 – 61: he compares his crime and his subsequent cover-up to the fact that many prostitutes had pock-marked faces (from the ravages of various diseases) which they covered up with heavy cosmetics. What is important here is that Shakespeare wants us to know that the Ghost’s story is true and Claudius really is guilty. But why at this point? Claudius could have made this admission at almost any point in the play. What dramatic purpose is served by doing it here?
Act III, Scene 1, Lines 64 – 96
The following passage is probably the most famous soliloquy of this play, “To be or not to be.” It is a problematic speech, one that has aroused considerable discussion over the last four hundred years. Even in Shakespeare’s time it was widely known and parodied. One commentator on Hamlet says of it, “What exactly is the question? Is Hamlet asking whether life in general is worth living? Whether he should take his own life? Whether he should take action against the King?” Where do you come down on “the question”? The last time Hamlet spoke directly to the audience was at the end of his “O what a rogue and peasant slave am I” soliloquy where he seemed energized by the prospect of “catching the conscience of the King” with his plan to recreate the murder of his father. What does his mental state seem to be at this point? What might account for his sudden change of mood?
[Exeunt
KING CLAUDIUS and POLONIUS; Enter HAMLET]
HAMLET: To be, or not to be -- that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows [metaphorical missiles] of
outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them [bring them to an end
by actively taking them on]? To die, to
sleep --
No more [to die is simply to fall asleep] -- and
by a sleep to say we end
The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to [is the common burden of
humanity] -- 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep --
To sleep, perchance to dream -- ay, there's the rub
[impediment],
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil [cast
off our flesh and worldly burdens, as a
snake discards its old skin],
Must give us pause [make us hesitate]. There's
the respect [consideration]
That makes calamity of so long life [makes us
put up with unhappiness for so long].
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely
[insolence],
The pangs of despised [unrequited] love, the law's
delay,
The insolence of office [those in authority] and
the spurns
That patient merit of th’ unworthy takes [the
rejections that patient, decent people
receive at the hands of those unworthy who wield power],
When he himself might his quietus [final
accounting of a bill] make
With a bare bodkin [small decorative dagger,
like a hatpin]? Who would fardels
[burdens] bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country from whose bourn
[boundary]
No traveler returns, puzzles [bewilders] the
will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience [awareness] does make cowards of
us all,
And thus the native hue [natural color] of
resolution
Is sicklied o'er [covered with an
unhealthy film] with the pale cast [shade]
of thought [contemplation],
And enterprises of great pitch [high point in a
falcon’s flight] and moment [importance],
With this regard [on this account] their
currents turn awry [are diverted and
become stagnant]
And lose the name of action.
“To Be or Not to Be”
No one will ever be able to tell exactly what Shakespeare had in mind with this passage. All I can do is to point out some rather interesting dramatic aspects of the context in which it is placed, the choice of some key words, which seem to play against the general solemnity of the speech, and its deliberate ambiguity. Then you can form your own sense of what “the question” refers to and how Hamlet seems to respond to it.
At the most fundamental level this speech serves as a break in the action for 32 lines in which nothing vital to the storyline happens. Often in the plays when Shakespeare has some kind of deception or eavesdropping going on, where people are in hiding or disguise as the King and Polonius are here, he will ease into the situation to allow his audience to get used to the physical deception on stage. He needs to make sure everyone in the audience understands that the two men who just left the stage are hiding and can hear everything Hamlet says. So “to be or not to be” may be seen as simply verbal filler while the audience identifies where the eavesdroppers are hiding. Another dramatic context that has been used in production is to have Hamlet aware of being spied upon. He gives this speech to reinforce the idea which he has been trying to convey to the King since he spoke to the Ghost that he is fundamentally melancholy for philosophical reasons. The problem with this interpretation is that if he were giving this speech as a deception, the form of the language would probably have been in prose rather than blank verse.
The next aspect of the dramatic context is to examine what has happened to Hamlet’s emotional state since the last time he spoke directly to us. At the end of Act II, Scene 2 Hamlet was psyched up about testing Claudius’ guilt with the play. However you interpret this speech, it clearly does not seem to connect with the earlier scene. Hamlet seems profoundly depressed. He does not speak of his anger against his uncle or his supposed love for Ophelia but only in general terms about life, death and the futility of taking action. What could account for this dramatic change of mood? In Act II, Scene 2 he mocked Polonius’ ham-handed efforts to pump him for information and he discovered his two boyhood friends are not to be trusted, but neither of these discoveries comes as a surprise. They by themselves could not have made him so melancholy. This is one of those places where there appears to be a major disconnect, what I called back in the introduction “a muddle.”
The next thing to say about this passage is that the choice of words often seems ironic, almost as if Hamlet were mocking the solemnity of the message he is purportedly conveying. First the initial question – “to be or not to be” -- is a cliché` from the academic world of Wittenberg. In the medieval universities, such as Oxford and Cambridge, students did not attend classes in the sense that we are used to. Instead on a regular basis students would gather to listen to some of their colleagues arguing some philosophical question. It would be presented in exactly this format as “the question.” This is like mocking academic pretensions by announcing “Discuss the meaning of life in 500 words or less.” Hamlet adopts this slightly ironic attitude at certain points in his soliloquy, as if his struggle over suicide or taking action were a morbid joke. At line 73, when he is talking about the uncertainty of what lies after death, he refers to it as “the rub.” This was a term from the game of bowls, a precursor of bowling, and it referred to some small impediment which threw the ball off course. Hamlet in effect is calling the mystery of life after death, “a piece of gravel on the bowling alley of life.” Probably the most ironic word choices are at lines 83 – 84. Hamlet asks why anyone would want to continue living if he could achieve eternal peace through death, but he asks the question in a very odd way. He refers to death as “making one’s quietus,” a technical term from accounting meaning “the final bill.” And the means of making your quietus is with a “bare bodkin,” a wonderful phrase meaning, in effect, a tiny knife-like object. In fact lady’s hat pins in the old days were sometimes called “bodkins.” The sense Hamlet conveys here is that you can kill yourself with almost anything, although it does seem a particular challenge to do it like this.
There are some aspects of this soliloquy which are ambiguous or challenging. Look at line 65, “Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.” Is Hamlet asking if it nobler in our own mind to do this or is he asking if it is nobler to suffer in our mind? There is a difference. The image at line 68 is intriguing: how do we take arms against the sea? It seems to suggest the utter futility of struggle against misfortune. And if we die, do the troubles disappear or do we simply stop caring? At line 87 Hamlet speaks of death as the “undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns.” But of course one traveler has returned and provided at least some information – the Ghost. Finally look at the incredible mix of metaphors Hamlet uses beginning at line 92 to talk about the paralysis of the will brought on by the uncertainty of life after death:
Back in the introduction to this section I posed three interrelated questions: “Is Hamlet asking whether life in general is worth living? Should he commit suicide? Should he take action against the King?” The soliloquy begins with the question of existence versus non-existence. He seems to argue for non-existence as a way to avoid all the misery and frustration of living. In fact in the final lines of Act I, Scene 5, Hamlet had complained, “The time is out of joint. O cursed spite,/ That ever I was born to set it right.” That sentiment certainly seems to be echoed here. This sense of surrendering in the face of life’s vicissitudes is also captured in Robert Frost’s famous poem, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” But why should Hamlet feel this way at this particular time? Is the obligation of revenge too much for him? What has happened to that enthusiasm he expressed at his plan to use the play to discover the truth? Just when we expected him to be gung-ho for his revenge plot, we find him reconsidering his options. Throughout the play Hamlet seems to defy consistency in motive and feeling. The question of Hamlet’s possible suicide is problematic. We saw him considering that option back in Act I, Scene 2 when he lamented that God had “fixed his canon ‘gainst self-slaughter,” even before he knew about the Ghost. Here he talks about how easy it would be to “make his quietus/ With a bare bodkin.” What we don’t fully realize is that any action against the King will almost certainly result in Hamlet’s death. What we see as an act of private revenge is in reality an act of enormous political impact. Claudius is the anointed King of a nation in peril of foreign invasion, and Hamlet is proposing to commit an assassination which can only destabilize Denmark at the worst possible time. And what will his justification be? The Ghost told him to do it? That would certainly satisfy the people of Denmark….not! The King is guarded by a professional security detail of Swiss mercenaries, about whom we’ll learn more in Act IV. Assuming he can get at Claudius, the Swiss Guards were sworn to kill the assassin. The folklore of the time maintained that no one who struck down an anointed king would escape eternal damnation. So Hamlet’s wavering about what to do may be seen to have some legitimate justification behind his hesitation. And what about his own moral code? How will the killing of Claudius, no matter how justified in his own mind, affect his soul? Why is he so sensitive about the consequences? Why can’t he be more like Fortinbras or Laertes? The fact is he can’t act like the amoral killing machines of the traditional revenge tragedies, the Elizabethan equivalents of Schwarzenegger or Stallone. For Hamlet the sleep of death looks like an attractive alternative to some action he is forced to undertake.
Act III, Scene 1, Lines 96 – 162
This sequence is often referred to as “the nunnery scene.” In this exchange there is a definite shift in Hamlet’s attitude toward his supposed love interest, Ophelia. At what point in the sequence does this shift occur? What do you think sets this change off? What seems to be Hamlet’s concern with Ophelia in the first half? How does this change in the second half? Does Hamlet ever seem to suspect that he is being spied upon? Act III, Scene 1, Lines 96 – 162:
[Enter OPHELIA]
HAMLET:
Soft you now [“Wait a
minute”],
The fair Ophelia. -- Nymph, in thy orisons [prayers]
Be all my sins remembered.
OPHELIA: Good my lord,
How does your Honor for this many a day?
HAMLET: I humbly thank you, well.
OPHELIA: My lord, I have remembrances of yours,
That I have longed long [wanted for a long time] to
redeliver;
I pray you now receive them.
HAMLET: No, not I. I never gave you aught.
OPHELIA: My honored lord, you know right well you did,
And with them words of so sweet breath composed
As made the things more rich. Their perfume lost
[attractiveness gone],
Take these again, for to the noble mind
Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.
There, my lord.
HAMLET: Ha, ha, are you honest [virtuous]?
OPHELIA: My lord?
HAMLET: Are you fair [physically attractive]?
OPHELIA: What means your lordship?
HAMLET: That if you be honest and fair, your honesty
should admit no discourse to your beauty [Beauty and honesty – specifically
chastity – were the most important qualities for a gentlewoman
but were often seen as incompatible.]
OPHELIA: Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce [dealings]
than with honesty?
HAMLET: Ay, truly, for the power of beauty will sooner
transform honesty from what it is to a bawd [pimp] than the
force of honesty can translate [transform] beauty into his
likeness. This was sometime a paradox [unbelievable
statement], but now the time [present day] gives it proof. I did love
you once.
OPHELIA: Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.
HAMLET: You should not have believed me, for virtue
cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall
relish of it. [The image here is of grafting one kind of fruit tree onto another, in this case virtue onto the old stock of human corruption; the resulting fruit will still have a bad taste.]
I loved you not.
OPHELIA: I was the more deceived.
HAMLET: Get thee to a nunnery [place of enforced chastity].Why
wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent
honest [reasonably virtuous],
but yet I could accuse me [myself] of such things that it
were better my mother had not borne me: I am very
proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more of-
fences at my beck [beck and call] than I have
thoughts to put them in,
imagination to give them shape, or time to act them
in. What should such fellows as I do crawling
between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves [Men are
downright villains.]
all; believe none of us. Go thy ways [Hurry away] to a
nunnery.
Where's your father?
OPHELIA: At home, my lord.
HAMLET: Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the
fool no where but in's [in his] own house. Farewell.
OPHELIA: O, help him, you sweet heavens!
HAMLET: If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague for
thy dowry [wedding gift]: be thou as chaste as ice, as pure
as
snow, thou shalt not escape calumny [slander]. Get thee to a
nunnery [sometimes used to refer ironically to a brothel],
go, farewell. Or if thou wilt needs marry,
marry a fool, for wise men know well enough
what monsters [cuckolds] you make of them. To a nunnery, go,
and quickly too. Farewell.
OPHELIA: O heavenly powers, restore him!
HAMLET: I have heard of your paintings [cosmetics] too, well
enough, God has given you one face, and
you make yourselves another. You jig, you amble and
you lisp [You draw attention to yourself by the affected way you move and speak]; you nickname [misname] God's creatures, and make
your wantonness your ignorance [blame your ignorance for your affectation] Go to, I'll no
more on't [of it]. It hath made me mad. I say, we will have
no more marriages. Those that are married already,
all but one [could be a reference to Claudius], shall live. The rest shall keep as they are. To a nunnery, go. [Exit HAMLET]
The Nunnery Scene
If Hamlet’s message in “To be or not to be” was challenging, this passage is equally difficult to figure out. Is Hamlet apologetic to Ophelia and concerned about her future, or is he angry with her because of her betrayal, or is he putting on his “antic disposition” to disguise his real motives? At various points in the sequence Hamlet seems to support all three of these explanations. Perhaps he is conveying all three messages in the passage.
If we ignore the King and Polonius who are eavesdropping, this is the only time in the play where we see Hamlet and Ophelia alone together. To understand the dynamics of their exchange, we have to realize that there are two distinct parts to it. In the first half Hamlet seems to play a game with Ophelia while he tells her he never did love her and then expresses concern about her future safety in a world of corrupt men. In the second half of the exchange he suddenly turns on her and seems to condemn her and all women for the sinfulness of the world. What line signals the turning point in the exchange? Why is it significant in Hamlet’s mind?
Hamlet’s initial reaction when he first sees Ophelia with her prayer book in hand is to end his soliloquy quickly. “Soft you now” signals that he doesn’t want her to hear his thoughts. This shift is also signaled by the fact that he changes from verse to prose at line 101. Remember that verse is usually the form of language used for serious, truthful communication; prose was used when being playful or deceitful. Hamlet uses prose throughout the exchange, much as he had with Polonius and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern back in Act II, suggesting that he has adopted his “antic disposition.”
Hamlet asks Ophelia to remember his sins in her prayers and then proceeds to enumerate them at lines 127 – 140. For her part, Ophelia is very formal and correct with her alleged boyfriend, undoubtedly because she knows she is being watched closely. At line 100 she calls him “my good lord” and “Honor” and suggests they have not seen each other for “this many a day.” At line 101 he replies, “I humbly thank you, well.” However in the Folio version he replies, “well, well, well,” that repetition of three that signaled his “antic disposition” with Polonius, e.g., “Words, words, words.” It’s another indication that Hamlet is playing with her.
Breaking Up Is Hard to Do
Ophelia now takes an action that is customary of many a romantic breakup – she tries to return the gifts he had given her. She calls them “remembrances of yours”; many of them would have been things like scented handkerchief and sachets. Ophelia says she has wanted to return them for a long time. Hamlet might be excused for thinking that she is trying to erase the memory of whatever was between them by returning the gifts. That could explain his odd response at line 105: “No, not I. I never gave you aught,” as if he were preempting her denial. Is he hurt by her action? Is he playing with her? We don’t know, but she quickly asserts at line 107 that he did give her gifts,
And with them words of so sweet breath
As made the things more rich. Their perfume lost,
Take these again, for to the noble mind
Rich gifts max poor when givers prove unkind.
What we see here is that Ophelia is really hurt, not from having to return those scented presents but from the unkindness Hamlet has shown to her. (Maybe she’s thinking of that wordless encounter they had in her closet back in Act II, Scene 1.) Of course she was guilty of the first “unkindness” when, at her father’s insistence, she did “repel his letters and deny his access to me [Act II, Scene 1, line 121].” The other thing to notice here is the last two lines of the quotation above which takes a complex human interaction, a romantic breakup, and turns it into a overly simplified, neat little rhyming aphorism, exactly the kind of thing that Polonius is so good at (“Neither a borrower nor a lender be….”). Ophelia really is her father’s girl.
Hamlet’s response to his girlfriend’s attempt to revise the history of their relationship is to attack her. At lines 113 – 119 he brings up a common argument in those days – a woman cannot be both beautiful and honest. If she is “fair” she must of necessity be dishonest, especially in a sexual sense. Ophelia tries to counter Hamlet’s argument, but as we have seen with others who try and take him on intellectually (Gertrude, Claudius, Polonius, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern) it doesn’t work: he either defeats their arguments or shifts the conversation into a joke. At lines 121 – 125 Hamlet picks up on Ophelia’s question “Can beauty have better commerce than with honesty?” and he links that suggestion of “commerce” (doing business) with prostitution, where the customer did “commerce” with the bawd or pimp before using the whore. When Hamlet says at line 124 “This was sometime a paradox, but now the time gives it proof,” what he may be hinting at is that another beautiful woman in his life, his mother, has been corrupted into a whore and betrayed his trust, like Ophelia did. It’s unlikely Ophelia understands the reference; all she hears is the vitriol in his tone. He ends his diatribe by suddenly announcing, “I did love you once.”
“Love Is Like a Walnut”
Ophelia’s poignant response at line 126, “Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so,” is a rebuke to him. He had persuaded her of his love, and this may prompt a feeling of guilt in Hamlet, because he now shifts, at lines 127 – 141, to a concern for Ophelia’s future and a warning for her to avoid the path that seems laid out for her. Before he blamed the beauty of women for the corruption in the world, but he now shifts to blaming the inherent sinfulness of men. Telling her that she should not have believed him, he uses an unusual metaphor to explain the underlying evil that afflicts mankind. People from the countryside, like Shakespeare, were familiar with the age-old process of grafting different kinds of plants together. In our area we see it most commonly in walnut trees. Black walnuts thrive in our soil, but their nuts are not very good. English walnuts are much better, but their root systems are susceptible to a disease transmitted through their root systems. So black walnut trees are planted to establish a healthy root system, and the English walnut trees are grafted on the trunk. (That’s why almost all walnut trees you see in California have that dark, rough base and the smooth grey bark on the rest of the tree.) Hamlet tells Ophelia that the black walnut is the evil men are born with; the virtue they acquire is the English walnut on top, but unfortunately the resulting nuts still have a taste (“relish”) of the original stock, the black walnuts. He now shocks her with the confession at line 129, “I loved you not.”
Is Hamlet serious or is this another example of his “antic disposition?” There is no definitive answer to this question. It is one of the “inconsistencies, ambiguities and mysteries of the play” I spoke of back in the introduction. All we can do is to look at the evidence the play provides and make a judgment; that’s what actors and directors have done for the last 400 years. Although Hamlet tells her he did not love her, in Act V, Scene 1 at line 285 he declares publicly over her grave, “I loved Ophelia.” If he is being honest here with Ophelia that means Polonius was right in his warning not to believe Hamlet’s “vows,” that cynical appraisal of how the game of love works. Hamlet will agonize throughout the play over the moral consequences of all his other actions. Are we to believe that the trifling with a young girl’s affections was of no concern to him? If Hamlet is not telling the truth to Ophelia here, why would he lie? Well, when she suddenly stopped seeing him and wanted to return his gifts, he probably guessed that she had told her father about their relationship, a suspicion confirmed when Polonius kept reminding Hamlet about Ophelia. So if he can’t trust her, he may as well use her to spread more disinformation about his real state of mind, just as he did with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. There is another possible reason for Hamlet to deny his love for her in such a brutal fashion: he knows that what he has to undertake, the assassination of a sitting monarch, will probably result in his own death and possibly endanger those closest to him. If he has genuine feelings for Ophelia, even if he’s unsure he can trust her, he may want to protect her by getting her out of his life as quickly as he can. And so in this passage he pours out all his melancholy about the corruption of the world while he urges her to escape in the only way she can – a complete denial of the flesh.
There may be three reasons why Hamlet tells Ophelia to “get thee to a nunnery” at line 131. A nunnery was a place built upon the denial of human love, sex and birth. It was also a place removed from the world and its corruption. Women in a nunnery had the protection of the church, the only institution powerful enough to stand up to the throne. Ophelia would be safe there, even in the aftermath of an assassination attempt. She would also forego all the temptations of the flesh, so there would be no more unhappy love affairs and possible unwanted pregnancies. Her father would be unable to control her life any more. The most compelling reason Hamlet articulates at lines 131 – 140: Ophelia could remove herself from the process of creating more evil – “a breeder of sinners.” It is clear that the “breeder” he really has in mind is his mother and the “sinner” is himself: “I am myself indifferent honest,/ but yet I could accuse me of such things that/ it were better my mother had not borne me.” He lists his sins: he is “proud, revengeful, ambitious.” There are places in the play where we can see Hamlet exhibiting each of these behaviors, and places where he seems to deny them. (For example, he had told Rosencrantz and Guildenstern he was not ambitious: “I could be bound in a nutshell.”) He ends his speech warning Ophelia not to trust men: “We are arrant knaves all; believe none of us.”
Where’s Polonius?
Suddenly at line 141 Hamlet asks about Polonius’ whereabouts and this seems to signal a dramatic change in the conversation. He goes from blaming men for the corruption of the world to blaming women. Often in production something will trigger a suspicion that he is being spied upon, as if to remind him of Ophelia and Gertrude’s betrayal. In the Olivier production, Hamlet overhears Polonius telling Claudius he will “loose” his daughter to Hamlet; Williamson sees a movement behind the curtain; Jacobi sees that Ophelia is holding her prayer book upside down, only pretending to be reading. Watch for what makes Branagh suddenly suspicious in this scene.
In the passage at lines 143 – 162 Hamlet is much angrier and more personal than he was previously. He begins with a shot at Polonius: “Let the doors be shut upon him that he may/ play the fool nowhere but in his own house.” His very specific insult certainly suggests that Hamlet knows someone other than Ophelia is listening. Shakespeare also suggests Hamlet’s agitation by the way he structures this passage: Hamlet keeps breaking off his monologue and then remembering something else he wants to dump on Ophelia and women in general and coming back. How many times does he start to leave and then come back? He curses Ophelia at line 146 with “a plague for your dowry.” A dowry was the wealth that a woman brought to her marriage, but Hamlet “gives” Ophelia a promise that no matter virtuously she tries to behave, she will be the object of slander (“calumny.”) A woman’s reputation in those days was her most valuable possession. Even if Ophelia is able to marry, her husband, if he has any awareness at all, knows she will make him “a monster,” i.e., a cuckold with horns. Having savaged the Polonius family, he proceeds to attack women in general for all kinds of affectations, insincere behavior they practice to make them seem more desirable: they use cosmetics, i.e., “paintings”; they “jig and amble,” meaning they move in a sexually provocative manner; they “nickname God’s creatures,” that is make up cute little names for animals and people rather than speaking seriously; they “make your wantonness your ignorance,” by saying sexually explicit things and then pretending they did not know they were dirty.
At line 159 Hamlet declares that these moral failures of women “have made me mad.” If we assume Hamlet’s whole rant here is part of his play-acting, this statement might be just one more red herring he throws out to explain his “antic disposition.” He wants those spying on him to see his strange behavior as the result of misogyny, hatred of women. In at least one production, however, that starring Derek Jacobi, Hamlet says this as a serious self-realization. Whatever his intention in insisting that the inherent evil of women has led to his madness, there is a distinct and serious threat in Hamlet’s final lines at 159 – 162: “I say we will have/ no more marriages. Those that are married already,/ all but one, shall live. The rest shall keep as they are.” We know who the one married person in Denmark is that Hamlet is referring to. It’s one of the many examples of dramatic irony in the play, where Hamlet and the audience understand the real import of a statement while the casual listener would not.
O, You Mean That Kind of Nunnery!
How many times after line 141 does Hamlet tell Ophelia to go to a nunnery? Given his sudden rage at women in general, it’s unclear why Hamlet continues to insist that his girlfriend take up a religious life. However “nunnery” had another meaning in the slang of Shakespeare’s day; it was the ironic name for a brothel, with the prostitutes sarcastically referred to as “sisters.” It is possible that after Hamlet suspects or discovers that he is being spied upon, his injunction to “Get thee to a nunnery” has a more negative meaning as far as Ophelia is concerned.
Ophelia, however, has stopped trying to make sense of what she hears as Hamlet’s ravings. Notice how she reacts to his attacks after line 141: “O, help him, you sweet heavens!” and “Heavenly powers, restore him!” She does not respond to him but rather speaks of him in the third person, as if he could not hear or understand her. She is convinced he is crazy and can only be helped by divine intervention.
Act III, Scene 1, Lines 163 – 202
Notice in the final sequence of this scene how the three people who witnessed Hamlet’s performance in “To be or not to be” and in the nunnery speech explain his behavior in different ways. What decision does Claudius make here and why? Act III, Scene 1, Lines 163 -- 202
OPHELIA: O,
what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!
The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue,
sword [The eye of the courtier
for observing proper behavior at court; the tongue of the scholar
for explaining learning; the sword of the soldier for protecting
his country and his honor],
Th’ expectancy and rose of the fair state [the
young heir to the throne],
The glass of fashion [mirros of fashion] and the
mold of form [pattern of behavior],
The observed of all observers [the person at
court everyone watched], quite,
quite down [ruined]!
And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
That sucked the honey of his musicked vows
[promises like sweet music],
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason
[reason ruled the other faculties],
Like sweet bells jangled, out of time and harsh
[His sanity is disharmonious];
That unmatched form and stature of blown youth
[youth in full bloom]
Blasted with ecstasy [blighted with madness]. O,
woe is me,
To have seen what I have seen, see what I see!
[Re-enter CLAUDIUS and POLONIUS]
CLAUDIUS: Love? His affections [passions] do not that
way tend;
Nor what he spake, though it lacked form a little,
Was not like madness. There's something in his soul
O'er which his melancholy sits on brood [as if
hatching eggs],
And I do doubt the hatch and the disclose [am
afraid of what he will hatch and reveal]
Will be some danger; which for to prevent,
I have in quick determination
Thus set it down: he shall with speed to England
For the demand of our neglected tribute.
Haply the seas, and countries different,
With variable objects [a change of scene] ,shall
expel
This something-settled matter [obsession] in his
heart,
Whereon his brains still beating puts him thus
From fashion of himself. What think you on't?
POLONIUS: It shall do well. But yet do I believe
The origin and commencement of his grief
Sprung from neglected love. -- How now, Ophelia!
You need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said;
We heard it all. -- My lord, do as you please,
But, if you hold it fit, after the play
Let his queen-mother all alone entreat him
To show his grief. Let her be round [direct] with
him;
And I'll be placed, so please you, in the ear
Of all their conference. If she find him not
[doesn’t discover his secret],
To England send him, or confine him where
Your wisdom best shall think.
CLAUDIUS: It shall be
so.
Madness in great ones must not unwatched go. [Exit
all]
Projecting onto Hamlet
Three people witnessed Hamlet in the preceding lines and each saw something different. Ophelia is convinced that Hamlet has lost his mind. At lines 164 – 175 she speaks of his mind being “o’erthrown,” of his being “quite, quite down,” of his sanity being “blasted with ecstasy.” She speaks of him as being the center of attention at the court, being the chief courtier, scholar and soldier and therefore observed by everyone. Somehow the fact that his madness is so publicly visible makes it worse in Ophelia’s mind. She sees herself as suffering most from his illness because she has been most affected by his declarations of love, “his musicked vows.” What Shakespeare is doing here with Ophelia’s powerful lament is showing her projecting her own problems onto Hamlet: she is indeed already going mad herself. Just as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, two ambitious hustlers, saw Hamlet’s problem as ambition and the lecherous old sinner Polonius, who suffered much from the extremity of love in his youth, sees Hamlet as suffering from unrequited love, so Ophelia sees herself in Hamlet. Notice that the form of Ophelia’s language in this passage is in verse, after the prose of the nunnery scene, indicating this is a serious statement of her feelings.
Claudius saw the same behavior but he is sure Hamlet is not suffering from love nor is he crazy. Being the suspicious ruler he sees a possible threat, especially after that remark about one married person dying soon. He doesn’t know what’s bothering his stepson but he doesn’t want to wait to find out what the “hatch and disclose” will be, as if Hamlet was about to break the egg open and reveal some major problem for the King to deal with. So he decides to get him out of the country as soon as possible, sending him on a diplomatic mission to England which apparently owes Denmark some money (“tribute”). He hopes the change of scene will help Hamlet settle his mind, but if it doesn’t, he will be out of the way.
Now Polonius had first come up with the love-sickness explanation for Hamlet’s antic disposition, and like most people who come up with a theory, he doesn’t want to admit it is wrong. So Polonius insists that Hamlet’s madness was initially caused by unrequited love, although now, as Claudius declares, it has grown into something else. The old man sees in the situation a new opportunity to prove himself indispensible to the King. He proposes that Claudius arrange to have Gertrude meet with her son in private and demand that he reveal the cause of his strange behavior. This will give Polonius a chance to do what he does best – spy on the meeting and report back to the King. Claudius agrees to the plan, which of course will result in the old man’s death. As he says in the final rhymed couplet, signaling the end of the scene, “It shall be so./ Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.” Always a good piece of advice!
Branagh’s Hamlet, Act III, Scene 1
As we have seen in the analysis of this scene, there is ambiguity throughout the lines. However, an actor cannot portray all the ambiguity of the text; instead the people mounting a production must make a choice about what they will portray out of all the possibilities. Here are some moments in Branagh’s production of this scene to watch for. What do the actors’ gestures, vocal tones, facial expressions and settings tell us about the choices he has made:
Act III, Scene 2, Lines 1 – 97
This scene is built around the performance of the play-within-a-play, the trap Hamlet intends to use to discover Claudius’ guilt. In the opening sequence Hamlet gives advice to the actors who are performing his work. What do his thoughts about acting reveal about his own values? Then he has a moment of closeness with Horatio that prepares us for what is to follow. Why has Hamlet shared the secret of the murder with Horatio?. Act III, Scene 2, Lines 1 – 97
[Enter HAMLET and Players]
HAMLET: Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced
it to you, trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth
it, as
many of your players do, I had as lief [I had as soon] the
town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air
too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently;
for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say,
whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and
beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. O,
it offends
me to the soul to hear a robustious [noisy]
periwig-pated [wearing a small wig] fellow tear
a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the
ears of the groundlings [those who paid little and stood
at the theater performances], who for the
most part are capable of [able to appreciate] nothing but inexplicable
dumb shows [pantomimes] and noise. I would have such a fellow
whipped for o'erdoing Termagant [imaginary god of the Muslims in early drama, shown as loud and boisterous]. It out-Herods
Herod [The evil ruler who ordered the massacre of the children
in Bethlehem and was
portrayed as a ranting tyrant on stage, he had become
a cliché of over-acting]. Pray you, avoid it.
PLAYER: I warrant your Honor.
HAMLET: Be not too tame neither, but let your own
discretion be your tutor. Suit the action to the
word, the word to the action, with this special
observance, that you o’erstep not the modesty [moderation] of
nature. For anything so o’erdone is from [oppose to] the pur-
pose of playing [acting], whose end, both at the first and
now, was and is to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up
to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her
own image, and the very age and body of the time
his form and pressure [the present exactly as it is]. Now this overdone or come tardy off [done inadequately] though it make the unskillful [those lacking judgment]
laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve, the censure
of the which one [the judgment of even one] must in your allowance [estimation]o'erweigh
a whole theatre of others. O, there be players that I
have seen play, and heard others praise, and that
highly, not to speak it profanely [with no intention to profane in what I speak], that, neither
having the accent of Christians [human beings] nor the gait of
Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted and
bellowed that I have thought some of nature's
journeymen [unskilled workers] had made men and not made them
well, they imitated humanity so abominably.
PLAYER: I hope we have reformed that indifferently [pretty well]
with us, sir.
HAMLET: O, reform it altogether. And let those that play
your clowns speak no more than is set down for
them, for there be of them [some of] that will themselves
laugh, to set on some quantity of barren [unintelligent] spectators
to laugh too, though, in the meantime, some necessary
question of the play be then to be considered.
That's villainous, and shows a most pitiful ambition
in the fool that uses it. Go, make you ready. [Exit
Players]
[Enter POLONIUS, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN]
How now, my lord! Will the king hear this piece of
work?
POLONIUS: And the queen too, and that presently.
HAMLET: Bid the players make haste. [Exit
POLONIUS]
Will you two help to hasten them?
ROSENCRANTZ: Aye, my lord.
[Exit ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN]
HAMLET: What ho, Horatio! [Enter
HORATIO]
HORATIO: Here, sweet lord, at your service.
HAMLET: Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man
As e'er my conversation coped withal [I have encountered].
HORATIO: O, my dear lord,--
HAMLET: Nay, do not think I flatter;
For what advancement may I hope from thee
That no revenue hast but thy good spirits
To feed and clothe thee? Why should the poor be flattered?
No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp [the
sweet-talker kiss up to the high and mighty],
And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee [eagerly bow his
knees]
Where thrift may follow fawning [where it may do him some
good]. Dost thou hear?
Since my dear [prized] soul was mistress of her choice
And could of men distinguish, her election [choice]
Hath sealed thee for herself. For thou hast been
As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing,
A man that fortune's buffets and rewards
Hast ta'en with equal thanks; and blest are those
Whose blood and judgment are so well commeddled [mixed
together]
That they are not a pipe [flute] for fortune's finger
To sound what stop she please. Give me that man
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart,
As I do thee.--Something too much of this.--
There is a play tonight before the King.
One scene of it comes near the circumstance
Which I have told thee of my father's death.
I prithee, when thou seest that act afoot,
Even with the very comment [observation] of thy soul
Observe mine uncle. If his occulted [hidden] guilt
Do not itself unkennel [reveal] in one speech,
It is a damned ghost that we have seen,
And my imaginations are as foul
As Vulcan's stithy [workshop of the blacksmith god]. Give
him heedful note,
For I mine eyes will rivet to his face,
And, after, we will both our judgments join
In censure of his seeming [analyzing his behavior].
HORATIO: Well, my lord.
If he steal aught the whilst this play is playing,
And 'scape detecting, I will pay the theft. [Sound
of flourish]
HAMLET: They are coming to the play. I must be idle [resume my
antic disposition].
Get you a place.
Catching the Conscience of the King: Advice to the Players
The advice Hamlet gives to the actors shows us that he is very knowledgeable about the theater and the craft of acting. Furthermore, he has very strong opinions about what makes good theater. This doesn’t really help develop the storyline of the play, but it does reveal some interesting aspects of his character. Despite the fact that he himself behaves in a melodramatic manner on occasions, he really dislikes overacting, actors who “tear a passion to tatters.” Hamlet praises “temperance” and “modesty,” theater which holds “the mirror up to nature.” The examples of overblown acting were embodied in two characters from earlier drama – “Termagent,” the imaginary deity medieval Christians believed Muslims worshipped, usually shown as raging and ranting; “Herod,” the tyrannical ruler of Israel in the New Testament who ordered all the babies in Bethlehem murdered. These examples had become clichés of the excess on the stage that Hamlet warns against. In addition he has harsh words for the comic actors who ad lib or deliberately laugh just to get the audience to laugh more. (Harvey Korman on the old “Carol Burnett Show” was famous for using this stunt.) That could drive the writer of the drama crazy because it would screw up the storyline.
There is no other passage in any of the plays which gives us a sense of how Shakespeare himself may have viewed his own craft of acting, so it has long been assumed that Hamlet here is speaking for the playwright himself. Certainly Shakespeare seems to be calling attention to a new kind of naturalistic acting style that was better suited to the more subtle and nuanced kind of drama that Shakespeare and some of his contemporaries were now writing.
Hamlet and Horatio: BFF
Once Hamlet gets rid of Claudius’ spies, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, at line 52, he declares his undying friendship for Horatio. In the previous scene we had seen the betrayal of Hamlet by those he had once considered his friends – Ophelia, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern – so this declaration to Horatio seems all the more important to him. Here are the things Hamlet emphasizes:
Now we have seen Hamlet himself on several occasions act as if he were “passion’s slave.” He has enough self-awareness to realize that he needs an impartial observer like Horatio to determine if Claudius really acts guilty. His friend assures him that he will watch the King so carefully during the performance that if Claudius were to steal something and he didn’t see it, Horatio would gladly pay for it. Hamlet warns us that in the coming sequence he will be “idle,” that is he is going to be doing his “antic disposition” thing full force.
Act III, Scene 2, Line 98 – 296
This is the performance. How does Hamlet use his “antic disposition” to deal with Claudius? Gertrude? Polonius? Ophelia? Behind his comic mask, what is his real message to each of these people? What is the point of the “dumb show” at the beginning of the performance? How does the actual play-within-a-play differ from the text of Hamlet? What seems to set Claudius off to interrupt the performance and storm out?
Act III, Scene 2, Line 98 – 296:
[Enter
KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, POLONIUS, OPHELIA,
ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, and others]
CLAUDIUS: How fares our cousin Hamlet?
HAMLET: Excellent, i' faith, of the chameleon's dish
[chameleons were thought to eat air].
I eat the air, promise-crammed. You cannot feed
capons
[castrated roosters, fattened for eating] so.
CLAUDIUS: I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet. These
words
are not mine [don’t answer my question].
HAMLET: No, nor mine now. [To POLONIUS] My lord, you
played once i' th’ university, you say?
POLONIUS: That did I, my lord, and was accounted a good
actor.
HAMLET: What did you enact?
POLONIUS: I did enact Julius Caesar. I was killed i' th’
Capitol. Brutus killed me.
HAMLET: It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf
[foolish animal]
there. -- Be the players ready?
ROSENCRANTZ: Ay, my lord. They stay upon your patience.
GERTRUDE: Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me.
HAMLET: No, good mother. Here's metal more attractive. [HAMLET
sits next to OPHELIA]
POLONIUS: [To CLAUDIUS] O, ho! Do you mark that?
HAMLET: Lady, shall I lie in your lap? [Lying down
at OPHELIA's feet]
OPHELIA: No, my lord.
HAMLET: I mean, my head upon your lap?
OPHELIA: Ay, my lord.
HAMLET: Do you think I meant country matters [sexual
matters, with a pun on “cunt”]?
OPHELIA: I think nothing, my lord.
HAMLET: That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs.
OPHELIA: What is, my lord?
HAMLET: Nothing [often used as a reference to a penis
or vagina].
OPHELIA: You are merry, my lord.
HAMLET: Who, I?
OPHELIA: Ay, my lord.
HAMLET: O God, your only jig-maker [the best
comedian]. What should a
man do but be merry? For look you how cheerfully
my mother looks, and my father died within these two
hours.
OPHELIA: Nay, 'tis twice two months, my lord.
HAMLET: So long? Nay then, let the devil wear black, for
I'll have a suit of sables [If my father’s been
dead that long, I’ll give the devil my
mourning clothes for a fancy suit.] . O heavens, die two
months ago, and not forgotten yet? Then there's
hope a great man's memory may outlive his life half
a year. But, by'r Lady [by the Virgin Mary], he
must build churches, then,
or else shall he suffer not thinking on [being forgotten] with the
hobby-horse [a comic figure in Morris dances, outlawed by Puritans] whose epitaph is “For oh, for oh, the hobby-horse is forgot.”
[The
actors enter, perform dumb-show]
[Enter a King and a Queen very lovingly, the Queen embracing
him, and he her. She kneels, and makes show of
protestation
unto him. He takes her up and declines his head upon her neck.
He lies him down upon a bank of flowers. She, seeing him asleep, leaves
him. Anon comes in another man, takes off his crown, kisses it, and pours
poison in the King's ears, and leaves him. The Queen returns; finds the
King dead, and makes passionate action. The poisoner with some three or
four come in again, seem to condole with her. The dead body is carried away.
The poisoner woos the Queen with gifts. She seems harsh awhile, but
in the end accepts his love Players exit
OPHELIA: What means this, my lord?
HAMLET: Marry, this is miching mallecho [sulking
mischief]. It means
mischief.
OPHELIA: Belike [Perhaps] this show imports the argument
[point] of the
play. [Enter
Prologue]
HAMLET: We shall know by this fellow. The players
cannot
keep counsel [keep a secret];they'll tell all.
OPHELIA: Will he tell us what this show meant?
HAMLET: Ay, or any show [sexual display] that you'll
show him. Be
not you ashamed to show, he'll not shame to tell you
what it
means.
OPHELIA: You are naught [naughty], you are naught.
I'll mark the
play.
PROLOGUE:For us, and for our tragedy,
Here stooping to your clemency,
We beg your hearing patiently. [Exit]
HAMLET: Is this a prologue or the posy of a ring
[short rhymed verse inscribed in a ring]?
OPHELIA: 'Tis brief, my lord.
HAMLET: As woman's love. [Enter
two Players, King and Queen]
PLAYER KING: Full thirty times hath Phoebus' cart [sun]
gone round
Neptune's salt wash [the sea] and Tellus' orbed
ground [the Earth],
And thirty dozen moons with borrowed sheen [reflected
light]
About the world have times twelve thirties been
Since love our hearts and Hymen [god of marriage] did
our hands
Unite commutual [reciprocally] in most sacred
bands.
PLAYER QUEEN: So many journeys may the sun and moon
Make us again count o'er ere love be done!
But, woe is me! You are so sick of late,
So far from cheer and from your former state,
That I distrust [fear for] you. Yet, though I distrust,
Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must.
For women fear too much, even as they love,
And
women’s fear and love hold quantity [are
in proportion to each other],
In neither aught, or in extremity [either there is
no love or fear or else it is in
excess].
Now, what my love is, proof hath made you know,
And as my love is sized, my fear is so [My love and
fear are equal.]
Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear;
Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.
PLAYER KING: Faith, I must leave thee, love,
and shortly too.
My operant powers their functions leave to do [My
vital functions will cease],
And thou shalt live in this fair world behind,
Honored, beloved; and haply one as kind
For husband shalt thou--
PLAYER QUEEN: O, confound the rest!
Such love must needs be treason in my breast.
In second husband let me be accurst.
None wed the second but who killed the first.
HAMLET: [Aside] That’s wormwood [bitter].
PLAYER QUEEN: The instances [causes] that second
marriage move
Are base respects of thrift [profit], but none
of love.
A second time I kill my husband dead
When second husband kisses me in bed.
PLAYER KING: I do believe you think what now you speak,
But what we do determine oft we break.
Purpose is but the slave to memory [Purpose must be
remembered if it is to be carried
out.],
Of violent birth, but poor validity [vigor],,
Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree
But fall, unshaken, when they mellow be.
Most necessary 'tis that we forget
To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt [We
conveniently forget the promises we
make to ourselves].
What to ourselves in passion we propose,
The passion ending, doth the purpose lose.
The violence of either grief or joy
Their own enactures [enactments] with
themselves destroy.
Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament;
Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident.
This world is not for aye [ever], nor 'tis not
strange
That even our loves should with our fortunes change;
For 'tis a question left us yet to prove
Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love.
The great man down, you mark his favorite flies;
The poor advanced makes friends of enemies.
And hitherto doth love on fortune tend,
For who not needs shall never lack a friend,
And who in want a hollow friend doth try [test],,
Directly seasons him [turns him into] his enemy.
But, orderly to end where I begun:
Our wills and fates do so contrary run
That our devices still [plans always] are
overthrown;
Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.
So think thou wilt no second husband wed,
But die thy thoughts when thy first lord is dead.
PLAYER QUEEN: Nor earth to me give food, nor heaven
light,
Sport and repose lock from me day and night,
To desperation turn my trust and hope,
An anchor's cheer in prison be my scope [a hermit’s
food and drink in prison be my
portion].
Each opposite that blanks the face of joy [whatever
opposite force makes the face of joy
pale]
Meet
what I would have well and it destroy.
Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife,
If, once a widow, ever I be wife!
HAMLET: If she should break it now!
PLAYER KING: 'Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here
awhile.
My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile
The tedious day with sleep. [Sleeps]
PLAYER QUEEN: Sleep rock
soothe] thy brain,
And never come mischance between us twain! [Exit]
HAMLET: Madam, how like you this play?
GERTRUDE: The lady protests too much, methinks.
HAMLET: O, but she'll keep her word.
CLAUDIUS: Have you heard the argument [plot]? Is
there no
offense
in 't?
HAMLET: No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest. No
offense i'
the world.
CLAUDIUS: What do you call the play?
HAMLET: “The Mouse-trap.” Marry, how? Tropically [as
a figure of speech].
This play is the image of a murder done in Vienna.
Gonzago is the duke's name, his wife, Baptista. You
shall see anon. 'Tis a knavish piece of work, but
what of that? Your majesty and we that have free [innocent]
souls,
it touches us not. Let the galled jade [horse with raw skin]wince; our
withers are unwrung [shoulders are unchafed]. [Enter
LUCIANUS]
This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king.
OPHELIA: You are as good as a chorus [a character in
a play who tells the audience
what they are able to see], my lord.
HAMLET: I could interpret between you and your love,
if I could
see the puppets dallying [I could be the
narrator of a puppet show if I
could see you and your lover making love.]
OPHELIA: You are keen, my lord, you are keen.
HAMLET: It would cost you a groaning to take off my
edge [If I am “keen” (hard), I would make you feel it to
satisfy me.]
OPHELIA: Still better, and worse [more witty and more
offensive].
HAMLET: So you mis-take your husbands [You promise to
take your husbands “for better and
worse” but you don’t.]-- Begin,
murderer. Pox, leave thy damnable faces, and
begin.
Come, 'the croaking raven [The raven was associated with evil.] doth
bellow for revenge.
LUCIANUS: Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time
agreeing;
Confederate season [time being my ally], else no
creature seeing.
Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected,
With Hecate's ban [curse of the goddess of
witchcraft] thrice blasted, thrice
infected,
Thy natural magic and dire property,
On wholesome life usurp immediately. [Pours
the poison into the sleeper's ears]
HAMLET: He
poisons him i' th’ garden for's estate. His
name's Gonzago. The story is extant [exists] and
written in
choice Italian. You shall see anon how the murderer
gets the love of Gonzago's wife. [Claudius
rises]
OPHELIA: The king rises.
HAMLET: What, frighted with false fire [gun firing
blanks]?
GERTRUDE: How fares my lord?
POLONIUS: Give o'er the play.
CLAUDIUS: Give me some light. Away!
POLONIUS: Lights, lights, lights! [Exit all but HAMLET
and HORATIO]
The Play Within the Play: The Performance
Hamlet is the theatergoer from Hell in this scene. He insults everyone, interrupts the play, offers scathing critiques of the actors and is generally infuriating. Yet behind his performance we can see him using the mask of his “antic disposition” to deliver messages which, while they may puzzle those who hear, we can decipher. At line 99 to cover his real motives, Hamlet reinforces the explanation which Rosencrantz and Guildenstern had offered for his behavior, that he was ambitious; he compares himself to a chameleon, thought to survive on air alone, since he too is fed with nothing but promises. Remember, Claudius had promised him the throne back in the second scene. However, to fulfill that promise to his heir (note the pun on “air/heir),” Claudius needs to die. That’s the message to the King. Hamlet disposes of Polonius, for whom, we already know, he has absolute contempt, at line 111 – 112. Poor Polonius, who is proud of his acting ability, becomes a “capital” calf in an elaborate pun on Julius Caesar. (Shakespeare had just finished his play Julius Caesar just before he started Hamlet.) To his mother Hamlet’s message is unequivocal at line 253. Asked how she likes the play, Gertrude responds with her line that has become famous: “The lady doth protest too much, methinks,” that is, she makes too big a deal over vowing she will never marry a second time. Hamlet responds scathingly, “O, but she’ll keep her word,” unlike the newly remarried widow.
Hamlet’s interactions with Ophelia are more complex to understand. He treats her discourteously by speaking to her publicly in an openly sexual manner. (Remember that courtly gentlewomen had to be very careful about their reputations.) We can sense her embarrassment as Hamlet seems to flaunt their previous relationship. Of course he had seen how she betrayed him to her father, so we can understand his rancor here. First he asks to lie in her lap, with an obvious sexual suggestion, and when she demurs he chided her: “Do you think I meant country matters?” with sexual jokes on “count/cunt” and “nothing" (“no-thing” or penis) which makes things worse. There is a revealing exchange at lines 129 – 144 where Hamlet comments sarcastically on his mother’s lack of proper mourning for his father. The reference to the “hobby horse” is interesting. It is a traditional figure in the English morris dance; it was often associated with sexual promiscuity and had been banned by the Puritan public officials. At lines 165 – 167 he again speaks provocatively about Ophelia staging a sex show. Finally he has an extensive insult at lines 269 – 279. Is this the same man who expressed concerns about her future in Act III, Scene 1?
The plot of the play itself is fairly straightforward: a king facing death urges his wife to remarry after his death. She protests she never will, but after he is poisoned by his nephew, she does marry the villain. The language of the play-within-a-play is anything but straightforward: it is ornate, artificial and long-winded. Look at the first six lines at 176 – 181. What it says is simply, “We’ve been married for thirty years,” but it take 45 words, elaborate circumlocutions about time and classical references to four Roman gods. When the Player King and Queen speak to each other, they spout philosophical observations, not real conversation. Shakespeare wanted his audience to recognize the difference between this old-fashioned drama and what he and his contemporaries had brought to the English stage. People have speculated for the last 400 years about what the lines were that Hamlet may have written to insert into the original play The Murder of Gonzago. (That play is Shakespeare’s invention as well.) We will never know for certain, but it does seem probable that Hamlet gave it its ironic title, The Mousetrap, and arranged for the way Lucianus kills the King by pouring poison in his ear. That’s what sets Claudius off at line 295 when he storms out.
Act III, Scene 2, Lines 297 -- 432
Here is the aftermath of the play-within-a-play. What are Hamlet and Horatio’s reactions after the court members leave? How might onlookers interpret their behavior? What is the point Hamlet tries to make with Guildenstern and Rosencrantz using the recorders? How does his interaction with Polonius differ? What seems to be Hamlet’s intent as he leaves to meet with his mother?
HAMLET: Why,
let the stricken [wounded] deer go weep,
The hart ungalled [uninjured] play.
For some must watch, while some must sleep:
So runs the world away.
Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers [worn
in the hats of actors] (if
the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me
[betray me]) with two
Provincial roses [French-style rosettes] on my razed
[decorated] shoes, get me a
fellowship [partnership] in a cry
[company] of players, sir?
HORATIO: Half a share [not a full partnership].
HAMLET: A whole one, I.
For thou dost know, O Damon [Damon
was the epitome of friendship
in Roman mythology] dear,
This realm dismantled [stripped] was
Of Jove himself; and now reigns here
A very, very—pajock [peacock].
HORATIO: You might have rhymed [Horatio expected
the verse to end with “ass.”]
HAMLET: O good Horatio, I'll take the ghost's word for a
thousand pound. Didst perceive?
HORATIO: Very well, my lord.
HAMLET: Upon the talk of the poisoning?
HORATIO: I did very well note him.
HAMLET: Ah, ha! Come, some music! Come, the recorders!
For if the king like not the comedy,
Why then, belike, he likes it not, perdy
[from French for “by God.”]
Come, some music! Re-enter ROSENCRANTZ and
GUILDENSTERN
GUILDENSTERN: Good my lord, vouchsafe [grant] me a
word with you.
HAMLET: Sir, a whole history.
GUILDENSTERN: The king, sir,--
HAMLET: Ay, sir, what of him?
GUILDENSTERN: Is in his retirement marvellous distempered
[“angry” or “ill’]
HAMLET: With drink, sir?
GUILDENSTERN: No, my lord, rather with choler.
HAMLET: Your wisdom should show itself more richer to
signify this to his doctor; for, for me to put him
to his purgation would perhaps plunge him into far
more choler.
GUILDENSTERN: Good my lord, put your discourse into
some frame
[order] and start [shy away] not so wildly from my affair.
HAMLET: I am tame, sir. Pronounce.
GUILDENSTERN: The queen, your mother, in most great
affliction of
spirit, hath sent me to you.
HAMLET: You are welcome.
GUILDENSTERN: Nay, good my lord, this courtesy is not
of the
right breed. If it shall please you to make me a
wholesome answer, I will do your mother's
commandment. If not, your pardon [permission to
leave] and my return
shall be the end of my business.
HAMLET: Sir, I cannot.
GUILDENSTERN: What, my lord?
HAMLET: Make you a wholesome answer. My wit's
diseased. But, sir, such answer as I can make, you
shall command -- or, rather, as you say, my mother.
Therefore no more, but to the matter. My mother,
you say --
ROSENCRANTZ: Then thus she says: your behavior hath
struck
her into amazement and admiration [wonder].
HAMLET: O wonderful son that can so astonish a mother!
But is
there no sequel at the heels of this mother's
admiration? Impart.
ROSENCRANTZ: She desires to speak with you in her
closet,
ere you go to bed.
HAMLET: We shall obey, were she ten times our mother.
Have you
any further trade with us?
ROSENCRANTZ: My lord, you once did love me.
HAMLET: So I do still, by these pickers and stealers
[fingers of a thief].
ROSENCRANTZ: Good my lord, what is your cause of
distemper? You do surely bar the door upon your
own
liberty, if you deny your griefs to your friend.
HAMLET: Sir, I lack advancement.
ROSENCRANTZ: How can that be, when you have the
voice of the king himself for your succession in
Denmark?
HAMLET: Ay, sir but “While the grass grows”-- the proverb
is something musty. [Re-enter Players
with recorders]
O, the recorders! Let me see one. [To Guildenstern]
To withdraw [be private] with
you: why do you go about to recover the wind [get
on the windward side] of me, as if you would drive me
into a toil [trap]?
GUILDENSTERN: O, my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love
is too
unmannerly [my love for you makes me overstep the
bounds of respect].
HAMLET: I do not well understand that. Will you play upon
this pipe [recorder]?
GUILDENSTERN: My lord, I cannot.
HAMLET: I pray you.
GUILDENSTERN: Believe me, I cannot.
HAMLET: I do beseech you.
GUILDENSTERN: I know no touch of it [I don’t know
how], my lord.
HAMLET: 'Tis as easy as lying. Govern these ventages [control
these holes] with
your fingers and thumb, give it breath with your
mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent
music. Look
you, these are the stops [holes].
GUILDENSTERN: But these cannot I command to any utterance of
harmony. I have not the skill.
HAMLET: Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing
you make of me! You would play upon me, you would seem to know my stops, you would pluck out the heart of my mystery, you would sound me [play me, test me, measure my secrets]
from my lowest note to the top of my compass [range];
and there is much music, excellent voice, in this
little organ
[instrument], yet cannot you make it speak. 'Sblood, do
you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call
me what instrument you will, though you can fret [finger or annoy] me,
yet you cannot play upon me. [Enter POLONIUS]
God bless you, sir!
POLONIUS: My lord, the queen would speak with you, and
presently.
HAMLET: Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in
shape of
a camel?
POLONIUS: By the mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed.
HAMLET: Methinks it is like a weasel.
POLONIUS: It is backed like a weasel.
HAMLET: Or like a whale?
POLONIUS: Very like a whale.
HAMLET: Then I will come to my mother by and by. [Aside]
They fool me to the top of my bent. –
I will
come by and by [soon].
POLONIUS: I will say so.
HAMLET: By and by is easily said. Leave me,
friends. [Exit
all but HAMLET]
‘Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world. Now could I drink hot blood,
And do such bitter business as the day
Would quake to look on. Soft, now to my mother.
O heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever
The soul of Nero [Roman emperor who killed his
mother] enter this firm bosom.
Let me
be cruel, not unnatural.
I will speak daggers to her, but use none.
My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites:
How in my words soever [however] she be shent
[punished],
To give them seals [validate my words by putting
them into action] never, my soul, consent! [Exit]
Play-within-a-Play: Critical Appraisal
The play-within-a-play validates what the Ghost told Hamlet: Claudius did kill the King. Hamlet’s reaction is an almost manic joy. He sings and jokes with Horatio, as if there were a release of stress of not knowing what to do. A casual observer seeing his behavior might well think he was insane, and often in productions, as members of the court rush out following Claudius, they look at Hamlet as if he were crazy. Horatio joins in the mirth to some extent. Hamlet begins with a song that contrasts the wounded deer (probably Claudius) that has been hurt by the revelation of his guilt in contrast with the hart (probably Hamlet) whose conscience is uninjured. Hamlet then crows about his prowess as a dramatist:
Would
not this, sir, and a forest of feathers [worn in the hats of actors] (if
the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me
[betray me]) with two
Provincial roses [French-style rosettes] on my razed
[decorated] shoes, get me a
fellowship [partnership] in a cry
[company] of players, sir?
It is almost as if Shakespeare were mocking himself here. As the chief playwright for the acting company, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, Shakespeare had a “fellowship,” i. e., was one of the principal partners. He was also an actor and wore feathers in his hat as a sign of his profession. When he was on the stage he undoubtedly wore fancy, decorated shoes with intricate French ornaments. Acting and writing plays had been very lucrative for Shakespeare, unlike his father whose fortunes had turned “Turk” and forced him into bankruptcy. The phrase I like best here is “cry of players.” If you can have a “herd of cattle” and a “pride of lions,” why not a “cry of players”? Hamlet and Horatio banter comically, while Hamlet continues to sing his nonsense song, but they both agree that Claudius has revealed his guilty conscience during the murder scene in the play.
Intervention of the Cluless
When Rosencrantz and Guildenstern return they take the Prince to task for upsetting the King. Hamlet refuses to take their concerns seriously. When they say at line 327 that Claudius is “distempered,” Hamlet deliberately asks if he is drunk rather than angry and then suggests that he see the doctor to be treated by blood-letting, the standard medical procedure at that time. When Guildenstern urges him “to make me a wholesome answer,” Hamlet says he can’t “because my wit’s diseased.” He plays with his former friends, even telling them at line 368 the reason for his mental illness is the ambition they had falsely assumed was the cause. At line 372 he amplifies on this deception by suggesting that as long as Claudius is still alive, he lacks advancement to the throne. At line 375 Hamlet drops the “antic disposition” long enough to reveal that he knows exactly what’s going on. He asks Guildenstern, “To withdraw with/ you: why do you go about to recover the wind [get on the windward side] of me, as if you would drive me into a toil [trap]?” He is suggesting his friends are treating him as a hunted animal they are trying to trap. He makes his accusation of their complicity with the King even more clear in his remarkable analogy of the recorders at lines 380 – 402. After he urges Guildenstern five times to play the recorder, only to have Claudius’ stooge angrily declare that he doesn’t know how to play, Hamlet declares:
Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing
you make of me! You would play upon me, you would seem to know my stops, you would pluck out the heart of my mystery, you would sound me [play me, test me, measure my secrets]
from my lowest note to the top of my compass [range];
and there is much music, excellent voice, in this
little organ
[instrument], yet cannot you make it speak. 'Sblood, do
you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe?
We know Hamlet is deadly serious about his rage when at line 401 he uses the taboo word “’Sblood,” a shortened oath for “God’s blood.” But the point to make here is that Hamlet at least has enough respect for his former friends to tell them what they have done to merit his contempt.
“Very Like a Whale”
Now Polonius enters with a message that Gertrude wants to see her son. As he has since Act II, Scene 2 Hamlet treats Polonius with absolute contempt. He teases the old man who is eager to play the sycophant:
HAMLET: Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in
shape of
a camel?
POLONIUS: By the mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed.
HAMLET: Methinks it is like a weasel.
POLONIUS: It is backed like a weasel.
HAMLET: Or like a whale?
POLONIUS: Very like a whale.
HAMLET: Then I will come to my mother by and by. [Aside]
They fool me to the top of my bent. –
He makes no effort to point out the root for his distrust and hatred of Polonius, any way the old man might be able to redeem himself, as he had with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
In his final short soliloquy in the scene, after everyone has left, Hamlet reveals two important things about his state of mind. First, he is once again positive about killing Claudius and energized to do the deed immediately:
‘Tis now
the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world. Now could I drink hot blood,
And do such bitter business as the day
Would quake to look on.
Hamlet is psyching himself up, prepared to commit any atrocity necessary. It’s interesting that he speaks in terms of the potential for evil in the night, when ghosts arise from their graves and devilish forces infect the world. His startling idea that he could “drink hot blood” connects what he plans to do with satanic rituals. It is likely that what he means here is to show how much he is willing to dare, like losing his soul, to accomplish what he has set out to do. Secondly, he is clearly conflicted about his mother but vows that he will not harm her:
Soft, now to my mother.
O heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever
The soul of Nero [Roman emperor who killed his
mother] enter this firm bosom.
Let me
be cruel, not unnatural.
I will speak daggers to her, but use none.
My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites:
How in my words soever [however] she be shent
[punished],
To give them seals [validate my words by putting
them into action] never, my soul, consent!
Although Hamlet is very angry with his mother, he promises he will never emulate Nero, the Roman emperor who murdered his own mother. Such a murder would be “unnatural,” so instead he vows that he will “speak daggers to her.” He emphasizes that he will verbalize his desire to punish her but will not harm her. This whole passage on his inner conflict is vital for understanding his behavior when he does confront Gertrude in Act III, Scene 4.
Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet Act III, Scene 2
This sequence begins with a scene without sound as Horatio reads a newspaper with news of Fortinbras’ approach through Denmark on his way to Poland. It reminds us of Fortinbras and his enmity toward the Danes. Hamlet’s advice to the actors is interesting as he speaks passionately and in a friendly fashion to the actor who will play the villain, Lucianus. At one point a number of courtiers in uniform walk past Hamlet and each bows to him as he is talking to the actor in a private conversation. Watch as Hamlet ignores them. The actors, who seem to be an extended family, are shown having made themselves at home in the corridors of the palace. Which of the actors is the Clown about whom Hamlet is concerned? What is his interaction with the Clown? In what room does Hamlet speak privately to Horatio? Why this room? What does Horatio do physically to Hamlet after he does his “Within my heart of hearts as I do thee” line? What does Horatio use to spy on Claudius during the performance? What is unusual about the theater in which the play is performed? How does Branagh play the scene where Hamlet teases Polonius? What makes Hamlet’s interaction with Ophelia even more embarrassing for her in this version? Describe the reactions of the other members of the audience to Hamlet’s behavior. Claudius and Gertrude’s reaction? At what point does Claudius become clearly uncomfortable? How does Branagh stage the exchange with the Queen saying, “The lady doth protest too much”? Describe the physical expressions that pass between Hamlet and Claudius when the King stops the play? How does Hamlet play with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern? When does he lose his temper with them? Where has Branagh moved the final soliloquy of this scene, “’Tis now the very witching time of night”? Why has he done this?
Act III, Scene 3
Why does Claudius pray in this scene? What does Hamlet think he is doing? Is Hamlet correct in his assessment? Why doesn’t Hamlet murder Claudius here while he has the chance? Does this scene make you feel any differently about Claudius? Act III, Scene 3
[Enter
KING CLAUDIUS, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN]
CLAUDIUS: I like him not [I don’t like the way he is
behaving], nor stands it safe with us
To let his madness range. Therefore prepare you;
I your commission will forthwith dispatch
[immediately prepare],
And he to England shall along with you.
The terms of our estate [my status as king] may
not endure
Hazard so near ‘s as doth hourly grow
Out of his lunacies.
GUILDENSTERN: We will ourselves provide.
Most holy and religious fear it is
To keep those many many bodies safe
That live and feed upon your majesty.
ROSENCRANTZ: The single and peculiar [private individual]
life is bound,
With all the strength and armor of the mind,
To keep itself from noyance [injury], but much
more
That spirit upon whose weal depend and rest
The lives of many. The cess [decease] of majesty
Dies not alone, but, like a gulf [whirlpool]
doth draw
What's near it with it. It is a massy wheel,
Fixed on the summit of the highest mount,
To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things
Are mortised [fastened] and adjoined, which,
when it falls,
Each small annexment [attachment], petty
consequence,
Attends the boisterous ruin. Never alone
Did the king sigh, but with a general groan
[everyone suffered].
CLAUDIUS: Arm you [prepare], I pray you, to this
speedy voyage;
For we will fetters put upon this fear,
Which now goes too free-footed. [
ROSENCRANTZ/GUILDENSTERN:
We will haste us.
[Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN]
[Enter POLONIUS]
POLONIUS: My lord, he's going to his mother's closet.
Behind the arras [tapestry] I'll convey myself
To hear the process. I’ll warrant she'll tax him
home [reprimand him].
And, as you said, (and wisely was it said),
'Tis meet that some more audience than a mother,
Since nature makes them partial, should o'erhear
The speech of vantage [from concealment]. Fare
you well, my liege.
I'll call upon you ere you go to bed
And tell you what I know.
CLAUDIUS: Thanks, dear my lord. [Exit
POLONIUS]
O, my offense is rank, it smells to heaven;
It hath the primal eldest curse [the first curse
was that of Cain who murdered
his brother, Abel] upon't,
A brother's murder. Pray can I not,
Though inclination be as sharp as will.
My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent,
And, like a man to double business bound [facing
two incompatible tasks],
I stand in pause where I shall first begin
And both neglect. What if this cursed hand
Were thicker than itself with brother's blood?
Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens
To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy
But to confront the visage of offence [“What is the
function of mercy if it does not
confront guilt?”
And what's in prayer but this two-fold force,
To be forestalled [prevented] ere we come to
fall,
Or pardoned being down? Then I'll look up.
My fault is past. But, O, what form of prayer
Can serve my turn? “Forgive me my foul murder”?
That cannot be, since I am still possessed
Of those effects for which I did the murder:
My crown, mine own ambition and my queen.
May one be pardoned and retain the offense [that
which I gained]?
In the corrupted currents [events] of this world
Offense's gilded hand [the offender’s
golden hand, with the suggestion of “guilty”]
may shove by justice,
And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself
Buys out the law. But 'tis not so above [in
heaven]:
There is no shuffling [evasion]; there the
action lies
In his true nature, and we ourselves compelled,
Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,
To give in evidence [In God’s court we ourselves
are forced to testify about our own
crimes.”] What then? What rests [remains]?
Try what repentance can. What can it not?
Yet what can it when one can not repent?
O wretched state! O bosom black as death!
O limed [like a bird trapped in birdlime] soul,
that, struggling to be free,
Art more engaged [entangled]! Help, angels! Make
assay [an attempt]!
Bow, stubborn knees, and, heart with strings of steel,
Be soft as sinews of the newborn babe!
All may be well. [Retires and kneels] [Enter
HAMLET]
HAMLET: Now might I do it pat, now he is a-praying,
And now I'll do't. [Hamlet draws his sword] And
so he goes to heaven,
And so am I revenged. That would be scanned
[considered carefully]:
A villain kills my father; and for that,
I, his sole son, do this same villain send
To heaven.
Why, this is hire and salary, not revenge.
He took my father grossly, full of bread [sated
with sin],
With all his crimes broad blown [in full bloom],
as flush as May;
And how his audit [the state of my father’s
soul] stands who knows save heaven?
But in our circumstance and course of thought
[from circumstantial evidence],
'Tis heavy with him [his soul is in trouble],
and am I then revenged,
To take him [Claudius] in the purging of his
soul,
When he is fit and seasoned for his passage?
No!
Up, sword; and know thou a more horrid hent
[wait for a more horrible occasion]. [Hamlet
sheathes his sword]
When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage,
Or in the incestuous pleasure of his bed,
At gaming, swearing, or about some act
That has no relish of salvation in 't --
Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven,
And that his soul may be as damned and black
As hell, whereto it goes. My mother stays
[waits].
This physic [medicine of praying] but prolongs
thy sickly days. [Exit]
CLAUDIUS: [Rising] My words fly up, my thoughts
remain below;
Words without thoughts never to heaven go. [Exit]
Claudius Dodges a Bullet
This scene provides Hamlet with a perfect opportunity to wreak his revenge on Claudius, but he doesn’t take it. It reveals again Claudius’ inner conflict about what he has committed.
The scene opens with Claudius angry about Hamlet’s behavior at the play-within-a-play. He puts his personal rage into political terms, describing Hamlet’s “lunacies” as a “hazard” to the “terms of our estate,” that is, to his rule as king. Guildenstern and Rosencrantz are quick to pick up on the political implications of the King’s upset. Both of them flatter Claudius as being essential to the well-being of Denmark. At line 9 Guildenstern puts this general concern into the image of “holy and religious fear” of all those “That live and feed upon your Majesty.” Rosencrantz expresses the same idea in a couple of descriptive images: the general disaster that attends the downfall of majesty is like a “gulf” or whirlpool that sucks many others down with it; it is the descent of a “massy wheel” from a mountain that carries with it the thousands of people who are “mortised and adjoined” to it. The upshot is that Claudius orders Hamlet to go to England, as he had suggested back at the end of Act III, Scene1. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are to accompany him as his handlers. They are undoubtedly happy to be doing important work for the King and advancing themselves at court.
Polonius enters next and sets in motion a plan for him to eavesdrop on a conversation between Hamlet and his mother. Notice at line 33 Polonius justifies his deception in spying on the conversation by saying the King wants it as a way of making sure Gertrude doesn’t allow her love for her son to distort the message.
Now alone Claudius reveals to us his profound inner conflict, something he had hinted at back at lines 56 – 62 in Act III, Scene 1. The King is racked by feelings of guilt, something Hamlet never realizes. Like most humans, Hamlet oversimplifies his perception of the Claudius, making the King a black-hearted villain, incapable of regret or second thoughts. Claudius begins by identifying his crime with that of the murder of Abel by Cain, the original killing in Genesis. He describes the conflict between regret and what he calls at line 44 his “intent” or desire for what he gained as being “to double business bound.” It is the same kind of double-bind that Hamlet described in his “To be or not to be” soliloquy. It turns out Hamlet and Claudius have things in common. Claudius even has a scathing criticism of the corruption of society at lines 60 -- 68, the kind of thing we hear from Hamlet throughout the play. Overcome with his spiritual dilemma, Claudius kneels to pray for forgiveness.
At that point Hamlet enters and finds Claudius, alone and defenseless, the perfect opportunity to exact revenge on his father’s murder. Instead, Hamlet pauses to ponder the consequences of his act. If he kills Claudius when he is praying for forgiveness, he will be in a state of grace. According to traditional Christian theology, his soul will go to heaven. As we know from the scene with the Ghost, Hamlet’s father’s soul is not in heaven and may well never get there. So Hamlet decides to play God, to wait for a moment when Claudius is doing something sinful so “his heels will kick at heaven” as his soul goes to hell. Of course, Hamlet’s decision is based on the assumption that he knows the state of Claudius’ mind. It turns out Claudius was not in a state of grace. His effort at redemption was futile since he was unable pray in a sincere manner: “Words without thoughts never to heaven go.” Hamlet’s effort to consider the consequences of any action clearly backfires here.
Branagh’s Hamlet, Act III, Scene 3
What is Claudius doing as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern flatter him? Is he listening to them? Where does the scene take place where Claudius prays? What is unusual about the way that Hamlet is shown preparing to stab the King? In what part of Claudius’ body does he intend to stab him?
Act III, Scene 4, Lines 1 – 117
How do Hamlet’s actions in this sequence compare with his actions in the previous scene? How might we account for the difference? What is the most serious charge that Hamlet makes against his mother in this scene? What exactly is it that Gertrude admits to in her confession to her son? Act III, Scene 4, Lines 1 – 117:
[The
Queen's closet.] [Enter QUEEN GERTRUDE and
POLONIUS]
POLONIUS: He will come straight [immediately]. Look
you lay home to him [reprimand
him].
Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear with
[insulting to tolerate]
And that your grace hath screened and stood between
Much heat and him. I'll sconce [hide] me even
here.
Pray you, be round [blunt] with him.
HAMLET: [Within] Mother, mother, mother!
GERTRUDE: I'll warrant you. Fear me not [don’t
worry]. Withdraw,
I
hear him coming. [POLONIUS hides behind the arras]
[Enter HAMLET]
HAMLET: Now, mother, what's the matter?
GERTRUDE: Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.
HAMLET: Mother, you have my father much offended.
GERTRUDE: Come, come, you answer with an idle [senseless]
tongue.
HAMLET: Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.
GERTRUDE: Why, how now, Hamlet!
HAMLET: What's the matter now?
GERTRUDE: Have you forgot me [forgotten who I am]?
HAMLET: No, by the rood
[cross] not so.
You are the Queen, your husband's brother's wife,
And (would it were not so) you are my mother.
GERTRUDE: Nay, then, I'll set those to you that can speak.
HAMLET: Come, come, and sit you down; you shall not budge.
You go not till I set you up a glass [mirror]
Where you may see the inmost part of you.
GERTRUDE: What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murder me?
Help, ho!
POLONIUS: [Behind the arras] What, ho! Help!
HAMLET: [Drawing his sword] How now, a rat? Dead
for a ducat [I’ll bet a ducat he
is dead] dead! [thrusts through the arras]
POLONIUS: [Behind the arras] O, I am slain! [Falls
and dies]
GERTRUDE: O me, what hast thou done?
HAMLET: Nay, I know not. Is it the king?
GERTRUDE: O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!
HAMLET: A bloody deed -- almost as bad, good mother,
As kill a king and marry with his brother.
GERTRUDE: As kill a king?
HAMLET: Ay, lady, it was my
word.
[pulls
POLONIUS’ body from behind the arras]
Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell.
I took thee for thy better [the King]. Take thy
fortune.
Thou find'st to be too busy is some danger.
[to GERTRUDE] Leave wringing of your hands. Peace,
sit you down,
And let me wring your heart; for so I shall
If it be made of penetrable stuff,
If damned custom have not brazed it so
That it is proof and bulwark [invulnerable] against
sense [feeling].
GERTRUDE: What have I done, that thou dar’st wag thy tongue
In noise so rude against me?
HAMLET: Such an act
That blurs the grace and blush of modesty,
Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose
From the fair forehead of an innocent love
And sets a blister there, makes marriage-vows
As false as dicers' oaths -- O, such a deed
As from the body of contraction [marriage
contract] plucks
The very soul, and sweet religion makes
A rhapsody [cacophony] of words! Heaven's face
doth glow [burns with embarrassment
or rage]
O’er this solidity and compound mass [the Earth]
With heated visage, as against the doom [when
Doomsday comes],
Is thought-sick [Heaven is sick at the thought] at
the act.
GERTRUDE: Ay
me, what act
That roars so loud and thunders in the index
[introduction]?
HAMLET: Look here upon this picture and on this,
The counterfeit presentment [portraits] of two
brothers.
See what a grace was seated on this brow,
Hyperion's [sun god, considered most attractive]
curls, the front [brow] of Jove
himself;
An eye like Mars’ to threaten and command,
A station like the herald Mercury [way of
standing like the god Mercury]
New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill,
A combination and a form indeed
Where every god did seem to set his seal
To give the world assurance of a man.
This was your husband. Look you now, what follows.
Here is your husband, like a mildewed ear [diseased
cereal]
Blasting [infecting] his wholesome brother. Have
you eyes?
Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed
[stop consuming]
And batten [fatten] on this moor [barren
land]? Ha! Have you eyes?
You cannot call it love, for at your age
The heyday [excitement] in the blood is tame,
it's humble
And waits upon the judgment. And what judgment
Would step from this to this? Sense [perception]
sure you have,
Else could you not have motion; but sure that sense
Is apoplexed [unconscious]; for madness would
not err,
Nor sense to ecstasy was ne'er so thralled
But it reserved some quantity of choice
To serve in such a difference [The five senses are
never affected by lunacy] What
devil was 't
That thus hath cozened [tricked] you at hoodman-blind
[blindman’s bluff]?
Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight,
Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all
[without the other senses],
Or but a sickly part of one true sense
Could not so mope [be so dull]. O shame, where
is thy blush?
Rebellious hell,
If
thou canst mutine [mutiny] in a matron's bones,
To flaming youth let virtue be as wax [melt like
a wax candle]
And melt in her own fire. Proclaim no shame
When the compulsive ardor gives the charge,
Since frost itself as actively doth burn
And reason panders will [Do not call it shameful
when youthful passion acts impetuously,
since the frost of age is itself aflame and reason is
acting like a pander for desire rather than controlling it.]
GERTRUDE: O Hamlet, speak no more!
Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul,
And there I see such black and grained [indelible]
spots
As will not leave their tinct [will not fade].
HAMLET: Nay, but to live
In the rank sweat of an enseamed [greasy] bed,
Stewed in corruption, honeying and making love
Over the nasty sty!
GERTRUDE: O, speak to me no more!
These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears.
No more, sweet Hamlet!
HAMLET: A murderer and a
villain,
A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe
[tenth]
Of your precedent [previous] lord; a vice of
kings [a mockery of a monarch],
A cutpurse [pickpocket] of the empire and the
rule,
That from a shelf the precious diadem [crown] stole
And put it in his pocket!
GERTRUDE: No more!
HAMLET: A king of shreds and patches [jester, whose
uniform was made of “shreds and
patches” and called “motley"] --
“Speaking Daggers”: Polonius Is Collateral Damage
In this sequence Hamlet acts in a forceful and unthinking way, very different from his deliberative manner in the previous scene. Once again, the inconsistency of his behavior contributes to the sense of his unpredictability. Polonius urges Gertrude to “lay home to him,” i.e. to really get on his case. He then hides behind the arras to listen in on their conversation. But Hamlet enters the scene loaded for bear and quickly turns Gertrude’s attack back on her, doing what he had said he would do at the end of Act III, Scene 2, “speaking daggers.” He begins at line 12 by mocking his mother by repeating her words back at her: “Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended,” meaning Claudius, to which Hamlet responds, “Mother, you have my father much offended,” meaning Hamlet Senior. In addition to parroting her words and syntax, Hamlet is also using pronouns in a subtly insulting fashion. Gertrude uses the familiar form of “thou” and “thy” that you would normally use with members of your immediate family, like your son. Hamlet answers using the formal form of “you” and “yours” that you would normally use with strangers. Hamlet is linguistically distancing himself from his mother. She accuses him of answering her “with an idle tongue.” (Remember how Hamlet had told Horatio just before the play-within-the-play that “I must be idle,” that is, do his “antic disposition” routine.) Hamlet answers that Gertrude questions him “with a wicked tongue.” (He may act crazy, but her betrayal of his father makes her immoral.) At line 18 she reminds him that he can’t speak this way to his Queen and mother, but he responds that he will force her to confront her inner self in all its imperfections, himself serving as her mirror. Gertrude, as the Queen of Denmark and Hamlet’s mother, is not used to being spoken to like this, and her son’s strange behavior frightens her so she cries out at line 26, “What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murder me?” Polonius, unable to see what is happening, also cries out for help with fatal consequences.
Hamlet reacts to Polonius’ call instantly and instinctually. He whips out his sword, shouts, “How, now, a rat?” Elizabethan homes were plagued with mice and rats which often scurried behind the tapestries or arrases hung on the wall for insulation; it’s also an appropriate thing to yell at whoever is spying on him. Then he imitates an Elizabethan gambler doing the equivalent of “All in!” on Poker Stars: “Dead for a ducat, dead!” Without any consideration of the consequences or even knowing who is there, Hamlet stabs through the arras and skewers Polonius. Notice that it is three lines after he kills the old man that he finally asks, “Is it the King?” This may be Hamlet’s new strategy for achieving his revenge: he’ll walk around stabbing every curtain he sees until he finally finds Claudius hiding behind one (smile).
Gertrude’s Guilt
Appalled by this mindless act of violence, Gertrude calls it “a rash and bloody deed.” At line 34 Hamlet hits his mother with a bombshell: “A bloody deed -- almost as bad, good mother,/ As kill a king and marry with his brother.” Now this accusation is out of the blue. The Ghost never said or even implied that his wife was involved in his murder. Hamlet accuses Gertrude of the murder without even mentioning Claudius, and he repeats it when she questions him. Why does Hamlet say this? It may be that in the heat of the moment he says the most outrageous thing he can think of. We’ve all done that when we’re under stress, say what will be shocking. Or Hamlet may be revealing a latent suspicion that his mother was involved in his father’s death, perhaps urging Claudius to commit the murder, perhaps just knowing about it without doing anything to stop it.
Hamlet drags Polonius out from behind the arras and treats the body of the old man with the same level of disrespect he showed when he was alive. At line 38 he calls him a “wretched, rash, intruding fool” and tells him that he died because Hamlet mistook him for the King. A courtier like Polonius served at court in hopes of an eventual reward from the King, a royal fortune. Hamlet taunts the dead man with “Take thy fortune,” an ignoble death engaged in a dishonorable act rather than money. He adds ironically, “Thou find’st to be too busy is some danger.” Polonius was indeed “busy” about his spying on everybody, including his own kids, and it has proven to be somewhat dangerous.
Now from line 49 – 117 Hamlet proceeds to catalogue in detail all the ways in which his mother has disappointed him. At line 52 he contrasts her action of marrying his father, which created a rose of innocent love on her forehead, with her marrying Claudius, which left a blister, like branding with a red hot iron which was the punishment meted out to prostitutes. He illustrates her choice at lines 63 – 77 by referring to two miniature portraits of her husbands, Claudius around her neck, Hamlet Senior around Hamlet’s. He praises his father’s appearance and behavior by comparing him to four Roman gods: Hyperion, Jove, Mars and Mercury. Claudius he dismisses as a “mildewed ear,” a particular vivid comparison of the villain to a diseased cereal grain. His father was a mountain, his uncle “a moor,” a piece of barren land.
Hamlet then shifts to attacking Gertrude in very unflattering terms. He begins at line 78 by denying that she could have chosen Claudius for romantic reasons because she is too old, a common misperception made by the young. At lines 81 – 86 he makes a rather involved argument showing that she can’t argue temporary insanity since even crazy people still have their five senses. At line 87 he concludes that she must have been tricked in a game of blindman’s bluff to accept Claudius. If someone like Gertrude could make such a terrible mistake, then young people cannot be blamed for their sexual excesses, since even “matrons” are getting it on.
At line 99 the Queen finally responds to her son’s savage attack with another bombshell:
“Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul,/ And there I see such black and grained [indelible] spots/ As will not leave their tinct [will not fade].” Gertrude admits to feelings of guilt! But what is it that she is guilty of? That is never made clear, and this is the only suggestion in the play that she has these feelings. Did she conspire in the death of her former husband? Did she know about it and do nothing to stop it? Or did she suspect something after the fact and then try to deny it? We don’t know. It’s another perplexing mystery of the play.
Whatever the source of Gertrude’s guilt, the admission sets Hamlet off in a series of three more savage and revealing attacks, lines 103 – 117. The first attack focuses on his physical disgust at his mother’s sexuality:
Nay,
but to live
In the rank sweat of an enseamed [greasy] bed,
Stewed in corruption, honeying and making love
Over the nasty sty!
Here Hamlet envisions the bed after the King and Queen have made love. It reeks of sex. (Notice the word rank that we have seen frequently in the play, evoking the image of animals in heat.) It still has the sweat of their bodies. Finally the sheets are greasy (“enseamed”) from their bodily fluids. Hamlet reinforces this disgusting image by evoking the sexual act itself between Gertrude and Claudius: “stewed in corruption,” making the immorality of their actions (“corruption”) even worse by linking it to some kind of food which has been “stewed” or “honeyed.” As a final grotesque touch, Hamlet links these food images to a pigpen (“sty”). These four lines show us Hamlet’s unhealthy obsession with the physicality of his mother’s sexual actions. No wonder Sigmund Freud used Hamlet as an extreme example of the Oedipal Complex in action.
The second attack, at lines 110 – 115, returns to Claudius. But notice that the insults about Claudius do not focus on his sexual identity but on his unworthiness as the successor to Hamlet’s father. He is a “murderer and a villain,” a ”slave” that is not worth one twentieth of a tenth part (“tithe”) of the previous King. “A vice of kings” is an interesting insult. In the old morality plays which were popular in the late medieval period, the figure of “Vice” was often played as a parody of virtue. Claudius plays such a role. He is a pickpocket of the empire, a petty thief.
The final attack also has an interesting historical background. For centuries the figure of the court jester was associated with a special costume called motley. Originally the jester or fool was a mental defective who was kept around to serve a figure of scorn and ridicule. As such he was at the bottom of the society and was given rags (“shreds and patches”) to sew together to cover himself. By the time of Shakespeare the figure of the jester was identified by this costume and so Hamlet accuses Claudius of being a King only in the sense of performing the role of a jester, “a king of shreds and patches.” But at that moment Hamlet is interrupted by the appearance of the Ghost.
Act III, Scene 4, Line 118 – 240
Why does the Ghost reappear? How is his appearance different from when we saw him before? How is Hamlet able to convince his mother he is not crazy? What does Hamlet ask Gertrude to do to further his plot against Claudius? How does Hamlet’s continuing obsession with his mother’s sexual behavior reveal itself here? What does Hamlet suspect about his upcoming trip to England? Act III, Scene 4, Lines 118 – 240
[Enter Ghost]
HAMLET: Save me and hover o'er me with your wings,
You heavenly guards! -- What would your gracious figure?
GERTRUDE: Alas, he's mad!
HAMLET: Do you not come your tardy son to chide,
That, lapsed in time and passion [having let time elapse and
passions cool], lets go by
The important [urgent] acting of your dread command?
O, say!
GHOST: Do not forget. This visitation
Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.
But look, amazement on thy mother sits [Your mother is in
shock].
O, step between her and her fighting soul.
Conceit [imagination] in weakest bodies strongest works.
Speak to her, Hamlet.
HAMLET: How is it with you, lady?
GERTRUDE: Alas, how is 't with you,
That you do bend your eye on vacancy
And with th’ incorporal [empty] air do hold discourse?
Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep,
And, as the sleeping soldiers in th’ alarm [sleeping
soldiers awakened by a call to arms],
Your bedded hair, like life in excrements [your lifeless
hair acts as if it were alive],
Starts up and stands on end. O gentle son,
Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper
Sprinkle cool patience! Whereon do you look?
HAMLET: On him, on him! Look you how pale he glares.
His form and cause conjoined, preaching to stones,
Would make them capable [responsive]. [to the Ghost]
Do not look upon me,
Lest with this piteous action you convert
My stern effects [purposes]. Then what I have to do
Will want [lack] true colors -- tears perchance for blood.
GERTRUDE: To whom do you speak this?
HAMLET: Do you see nothing there?
GERTRUDE: Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.
HAMLET: Nor did you nothing hear?
GERTRUDE: No, nothing but ourselves.
HAMLET: Why, look you there, look how it steals away!
My father, in his habit as he lived [in clothes he wore when
he was alive].
Look where he goes even now out at the portal! [Exit
Ghost]
GERTRUDE: This is the very coinage of your brain.
This bodiless creation ecstasy [madness]
Is very cunning in.
HAMLET: Ecstasy?
My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time,
And makes as healthful music. It is not madness
That I have uttered. Bring me to the test,
And I the matter will reword, which madness
Would gambol from [wander from]. Mother, for love of grace,
Lay not that flattering unction [soothing salve] to your
soul
That not your trespass but my madness speaks.
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place [cover
an infected wound with a thin layer],
Whilst rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven,
Repent what's past, avoid what is to come,
And do not spread the compost on the weeds
To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue,
For, in the fatness [grossness] of these pursy [flabby]
times,
Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg,
Yea, curb [bow] and woo for leave [permission] to do
him good.
GERTRUDE: O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.
HAMLET: O, throw away the worser part of it,
And live the purer with the other half!
Good night. But go not to mine uncle's bed.
Assume a virtue, if you have it not.
That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat,
Of habits devil [‘Custom, that monster which consumes all
sense, is therefore like a devil in
suggesting evil habits], is angel yet in this,
That to the use [habit] of actions fair and good
He likewise gives a frock or livery
That aptly [easily] is put on. Refrain tonight,
And that shall lend a kind of easiness
To the next abstinence, the next more easy;
For use almost can change the stamp of nature
And either [many editors put “master” here ] the devil or
throw him out
With wondrous potency. Once more, good night,
And when you are desirous to be blest,
I'll blessing beg of you. For this same lord, [Pointing to
POLONIUS]
I do repent; but heaven hath pleased it so
To punish me with this and this with me,
That I must be their scourge and minister [heaven’s punisher
and agent of divine retribution]
I will bestow him and will answer well
The death I gave him. So, again, good night.
I must be cruel only to be kind.
Thus bad begins and worse remains behind [is yet to come].
One word more, good lady.
GERTRUDE: What shall I do?
HAMLET: Not this by no means that I bid you do:
Let the bloat king tempt you again to bed,
Pinch wanton [give you sensuous caresses] on your cheek,
call you his mouse,
And let him, for a pair of reechy [foul-smelling] kisses
Or paddling in your neck with his damned fingers,
Make you to ravel all this matter out
That I essentially am not in madness,
But mad in craft. 'Twere good you let him know [meant
sarcastically],
For who that's but a queen, fair, sober, wise,
Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib [a toad, bat and
tomcat were often considered animal forms that
witches’ familiars took]
Such dear concernings [such important matters] hide? Who
would do so?
No, in despite of sense and secrecy,
Unpeg the basket on the house's top,
Let the birds fly, and like the famous ape,
To try conclusions, in the basket creep
And break your own neck down [This refers to a fable now lost
in which an ape takes a birdcage to the top of the
house. Opens it and lets the birds fly away and then
tries to imitate them by climbing in a basket,
jumping out and leaping into the air, only to fall to his death].
GERTRUDE: Be thou assured, if words be made of breath
And breath of life, I have no life to breathe
What thou hast said to me.
HAMLET: I must to England, you know that?
GERTRUDE: Alack,
I had forgot! 'Tis so concluded on.
HAMLET: There's letters sealed; and my two schoolfellows,
Whom I will trust as I will adders fanged,
They bear the mandate [orders]; they must sweep [prepare]
my way
And marshal me to knavery. Let it work,
For 'tis the sport to have the engineer
Hoist with his own petard [It is funny to have the munitions
expert blown up by his own device]; and 't shall
go hard [with any luck],
But I will delve one yard below their mines
And blow them at the moon. O, 'tis most sweet
When in one line two crafts directly meet [two deceptive
plots intersect].
This man shall set me packing [ get me sent abroad].
I'll lug the guts into the neighbor [next] room.
Mother, good night indeed. This counselor
Is now most still, most secret, and most grave,
Who was in life a foolish prating knave. --
Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you.
Good night, mother.
[Exit separately; HAMLET
dragging in POLONIUS]
“Speaking Daggers”: The Ghost Returns and Hamlet Goes All Freudian
The sudden appearance of the Ghost interrupts Hamlet’s tirade about Claudius and Gertrude and suggests that his verbal outrage may just be a substitute for doing anything. Almost immediately he guesses the reason for the Ghost’s return: “Do you not come your tardy son to chide,/ That, lapsed in time and passion, lets go by/ The important acting of your dread command?” And that is indeed the reason for the Ghost’s visit: “This visitation/ Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.” But the Ghost seems most interested in protecting Gertrude. He worries that her imagination, “conceit,” will affect her soul. (If she were in any way guilty of his murder, he probably wouldn’t be so solicitous of her well-being.) We notice that the Ghost can apparently control who can see or hear him. Gertrude can’t, and so she assumes that when Hamlet talks to the empty air, it is a symptom of his madness. At lines 134 –139 she catalogues some of the physical changes she perceives in Hamlet, including an image of his hair standing on end like soldiers awakened by an alarm in the night. (Remember the Shakespeare’s audience was several thousand in the Globe, so any small physical detail needed to be verbally communicated.) Hamlet is shaken by the Ghost’s appearance and at lines 145 – 148 he pleads that the spirit not look at him because it will turn his stern, blood-thirsty intention into tearful sorrow at his father’s plight. At line 155, as the Ghost leaves, we learn he is dressed “in his habit as he lived,” that is the clothes he normally wore around the palace, unlike the more formal suit of armor in which he appeared back in Act I. What is the significance of the costume change?
Gertrude calls Hamlet’s behavior “ecstasy” or madness. At lines 160 – 165 Hamlet answers this charge. What are the two ways in which he offers to prove his sanity? At lines 165 – 176 he turns her attack back on her. He calls her attempt to question his sanity a “flattering unction,” that is a medicine which may make her feel better but which hides the real cause of her distress, as when an infected wound develops a film which covers the cause. At lines 169 and 173 Shakespeare uses the word “rank” which signals Hamlet’s sense of physical disgust, here associated with the corruption of an infection and with compost which only makes the weed grow more. He ends at lines 173 – 176 apologizing for having to ask her to “repent what’s past, avoid what is to come.” He says, probably sarcastically, that the excess sinfulness of the times forces virtue to beg vices’s pardon, even when it is trying to do something for vice’s benefit.
Gertrude confesses that Hamlet has gotten to her, “cleft my heart in twain.” He urges her to throw away the “worser part of it/ And live the purer with the other half.” At lines 180 – 191 he explains exactly what he means, in great detail. We see again his obsession with Gertrude’s sexuality. Now Hamlet could have asked his mother to do any number of things: kill Claudius, help Hamlet kill the King, reveal how his father was murdered, etc. Instead all he asks of her is not to sleep with Claudius again, telling her that she can get into the habit of abstinence and linking it to the repudiation of the Devil. At line 192 he begs her pardon for his rough treatment, telling her, “And when you are desirous to be blest,/ I’ll blessing beg of you.” It’s a rather poignant moment after the verbally violent attacks he has unleashed. He even repents for having killed Polonius, explaining that for some reason heaven has made him its “scourge and minister,” that is the agent of punishment in this world and of divine retribution. He acknowledges that he will have to explain why he killed the old man and concludes his speech at line 199 by declaring, “I must be cruel only to be kind.” He then asks Gertrude to do one more thing for him: not to have sex with Claudius, again. Would you say this guy is obsessive? Notice how between lines 204 – 210 he envisions five very specific acts of physical intimacy that he wants his mother to avoid, revealing a level of unhealthy interest on Hamlet’s part. In effect he does all this to get her to protect his secret – that he is not really crazy but rather “mad in craft,” that is using his “antic disposition” to cover his real motives. In lines 210 –218 he uses a heavy sarcasm to urge her not to tell Claudius anything. In an interesting note he connects the King with animals which were often associated with witches; the demons that controlled the witches took the form of toads (paddocks), bats and tomcats (gibs) and were called the witches’ “familiars.” He warns her not to make the same mistake as the curious ape that let the birds fly away and then fell to his death trying to imitate them.
Hamlet reminds his mother that he is being sent to England in the company of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. He is under no illusions about their trustworthiness, saying that he trusts them as much as he would snakes, that they will “marshal me to knavery.” In a perceptive observation Hamlet points out that they have the “mandate,” the letters the King is sending to the ruler of England. This is highly unusual since normally the ranking member of the delegation, in this case the Prince, would carry the missive. Hamlet is naturally suspicious and uses an interesting comparison to explain his countermeasures. At that time many military battles were fought to try and take fortified towns. One of the strategies the attackers used to break down the walls was to dig a tunnel under the fortification and use gunpowder to collapse it. The tunnel was dug by soldiers called “engineers” and the explosive charge they used was a “petard.” The defense against this kind of attack was to dig a defensive tunnel even deeper from inside the walls and blow up the tunneling attackers before they could detonate their charge, hence “hoist the engineer with his own petard and blow him to the moon.”
The scene ends with Hamlet dragging Polonius’ body out of the room. We are told not to speak ill of the dead, but Hamlet treats the dead man with as much respect as he did when he was alive: at line 235 he calls him simply “the guts”; then at lines 236 – 239 he has a mocking epitaph for the newly departed:
This
counselor
Is now most still, most secret, and most grave,
Who was in life a foolish prating knave. --
Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you.
When alive, Polonius prided himself on the virtues of a royal counselor, being “most still, most secret, and most grave.” Now he has achieved these perfections, ironically, through death, even though in life he was “foolish,” talked too much (“prating”) and dishonest (“knave”). Whenever he tried to impress people, he talked on and on. Finally Hamlet draws Polonius “towards an end,” a singularly inelegant way to celebrate a man’s death.
Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet, Act III, Scene 4
In previous film productions of Hamlet made in the 20th Century, this scene was often played in a way heavily influenced by Freud’s assertion that the hero suffers from an Oedipal complex; Hamlet was physically affectionate with his mother in an inappropriate manner. Do you see any hint of the Freudian interpretation in the way Branagh plays the scene? In the opening moments of this scene Gertrude is very angry and upset about her son’s accusations; at what moment in this performance does Gertrude seem to change in her resistance? How is the Ghost’s appearance in this scene different from the way he appeared in the opening scene? How do you account for the difference? From his expression and demeanor, what is the Ghost’s attitude toward Gertrude? How does Hamlet’s attitude toward his mother change in the course of the scene? Why? What is unusual about the camera angle used in the scene when Hamlet gets up from the bed and goes to start dragging the body out of the room?
How does Gertrude honor her promise to Hamlet in the previous scene? What upsets Claudius most about Polonius’ death? Act IV, Scene 1
[A
room in the castle] [Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE,
ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN ]
CLAUDIUS: There's matter in these sighs; these profound
heaves
You must translate; 'tis fit we understand them.
Where is your son?
GERTRUDE: Bestow this place on us a little while.
[Exit ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN]
Ah, my good lord, what have I seen to-night!
CLAUDIUS: What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?
GERTRUDE: Mad as the sea and wind, when both contend
Which is the mightier. In his lawless fit,
Behind the arras hearing something stir,
Whips out his rapier, cries, “A rat, a rat!'”
And
in this brainish apprehension, kill
The unseen good old man.
CLAUDIUS: O heavy deed!
It had been so with us, had we been there.
His liberty is full of threats to all --
To you yourself, to us, to everyone.
Alas, how shall this bloody deed be answered?
It will be laid to us, whose providence
Should have kept short, restrained and out of haunt
This mad young man. But so much was our love,
We would not understand what was most fit,
But, like the owner of a foul disease,
To keep it from divulging, let it feed
Even on the pith of life. Where is he gone?
GERTRUDE: To draw apart the body he hath killed,
O'er whom his very madness, like some ore
Among a mineral of metals base,
Shows itself pure: he weeps for what is done.
CLAUDIUS: O Gertrude, come away!
The sun no sooner shall the mountains touch,
But we will ship him hence; and this vile deed
We must, with all our majesty and skill,
Both countenance and excuse. -- Ho, Guildenstern!
[Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN]
Friends both, go join you with some further aid.
Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain,
And from his mother's closet hath he dragged him.
Go seek him out, speak fair, and bring the body
Into the chapel. I pray you, haste in this.
[Exit ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN]
Come, Gertrude, we'll call up our wisest friends
And let them know, both what we mean to do,
And what's untimely done. O, come away!
My soul is full of discord and dismay. [Exit]
The Chickens Come Home to Roost
The palace at Elsinore, as we have already seen, is a place of secrecy and intrigue. So we shouldn’t be surprised that when Claudius asks his wife what is wrong when she comes in sighing, she will not tell him until he sends away Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Then she honors her son’s request for help by hiding what really happened with Polonius in the closet. She tells Claudius three untruths to cover what really happened: 1.) He is insane, in a lawless fit, when he killed the “Unseen good old man.” 2.) When he stabbed Polonius he shouted, “A rat, a rat,” which is true, but she implies that he really did believe there was a rat in his madness. 3.) Despite his insanity something decent inside him (a pure ore mixed with base minerals), made him weep for what he had done, something patently untrue in Hamlet’s brusque dismissal of poor Polonius. This is the one place in the play where another character performs any action to assist Hamlet’s plan.
Now look at Claudius’ response. He immediately realizes that it could have been him hiding in the closet who got killed. His second reaction is more political: Hamlet’s continued freedom is a threat to everyone and the stability of the realm; the death of Polonius will have to be addressed, especially the implication that Claudius was remiss in not taking steps to restrain Hamlet before he killed Polonius. At line 32 –33 he explains that he will have to admit the crime and at the same time excuse it – a political trick even back in Shakespeare’s time. Claudius sends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern out to find Hamlet and cajole him into revealing where he has hidden it. He ends by telling us he will once again, much as he had when he got others’ opinions about marrying Gertrude, consult with his “wisest friends” to use them as political cover for his decisions.
Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet, Act IV, Scene 1
What is Claudius’ first concern when he learns that Hamlet has killed Polonius? What does Claudius do in response? What is the King’s reaction when Gertrude tries to mitigate Hamlet’s crime? When in this scene does Claudius first embrace his wife?
Act IV, Scene 2
How does Hamlet use his “antic disposition” in this scene to frustrate Rosencrantz and Guildenstern? What is the point of Hamlet’s speech about the sponge?
[Enter
HAMLET, Another room in the castle]
HAMLET: Safely stowed.
ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN: [Within] Hamlet! Lord Hamlet!
HAMLET: What noise? Who calls on Hamlet?
O, here they come. [Enter ROSENCRANTZ and
GUILDENSTERN]
ROSENCRANTZ: What have you done, my lord, with the dead
body?
HAMLET: Compounded it with dust whereto 'tis kin
[allusion to the Biblical injunction in
Genesis about humans returning to dust]
ROSENCRANTZ: Tell us where 'tis, that we may take it thence
And bear it to the chapel.
HAMLET: Do not believe it.
ROSENCRANTZ: Believe what?
HAMLET: That I can keep your counsel and not mine own.
Besides, to be demanded of [requested by] a
sponge, what
replication [answer] should be made by the son
of a king?
ROSENCRANTZ: Take you me for a sponge, my lord?
HAMLET: Ay, sir, that soaks up the King's countenance
[favorable looks], his
rewards, his authorities. But such officers do the
King best service in the end. He keeps them, like
an ape an apple in the corner of his jaw, first
mouthed, to
be last swallowed. When he needs what you have
gleaned, it is but squeezing you, and, sponge, you
shall be dry again.
ROSENCRANTZ: I understand you not, my lord.
HAMLET: I am glad of it. A knavish speech sleeps in a
foolish ear.
ROSENCRANTZ: My lord, you must tell us where the body is,
and go
with us to the king.
HAMLET: The body is with the king, but the king is not with
the body. The King is a thing--
GUILDENSTERN: A “thing,” my lord?
HAMLET: Of nothing. Bring me to him. Hide fox, and all
after [a line from a children’s
game like hide-and-seek; Hamlet may run off at this point].
[Exit]
Sponge, You Shall Be Dry Again
As the scene opens Hamlet has just hidden Polonius’ body when he is accosted by his “friends” Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, demanding to know where the body is. Previously Hamlet had treated the two with some degree of respect, making clear in Act III, Scene 2 how they were trying to pump him for information. Here he uses his “antic disposition” to flaunt them and their desire to serve the King. Notice how at line 7 Rosencrantz addresses Hamlet in blank verse, but refusing to be serious, Hamlet answers in prose. He plays on the religious injunction, “Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, and dust to dust” by saying that he has “compounded” Polonius’ body “with dust whereto ‘tis kin.” He then calls their demand for information impertinent because he is the son of a King and they are merely “sponges.” He explains they are sponges because of the way the King is using them, which he compares with the way an ape will squeeze something like an apple in his mouth until he has used it up. When they profess not to understand his message, Hamlet retorts that he’s glad since fools don’t understand what’s good for them. At line 27 Hamlet’s exchange about the King and the body is a real puzzle. Maybe what he implies is that the King is not yet with the body of Polonius since he is not yet dead. He ends with a line like “olly, olly, oxen free!” from your childhood and runs off. The important thing in this scene is that Hamlet’s warning to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern proves to be true; like the sponge in the mouth of an ape, they will be used and thrown away.
Branagh’s Hamlet, Act IV, Scene 2
Where is the first place Claudius’ guards look for Hamlet in this scene? Why do you think Branagh stages the scene this way? How does Branagh heighten the sense of the danger that Hamlet faces in this scene? Which room does Hamlet escape to?
Act IV, Scene 3
In this scene we see how Claudius plans to handle the political problem of Hamlet, including the sinister plan he has behind sending him to England. Hamlet plays some more with his “antic disposition” in a creative fashion. Why does he call the King “mother”? Act IV, Scene 3
[Enter KING CLAUDIUS, with attendants]
CLAUDIUS: I have sent to seek him and to find the body.
How dangerous is it that this man goes loose!
Yet must not we put the strong law on him.
He's loved of [by] the distracted [fickle]
multitude,
Who like not in their judgment, but their eyes;
And, where ‘tis so, th’ offender's scourge is weighed
[punishment is considered]
But never the offense [crime]. To bear all
smooth and even [to conduct this
business to avoid suspicion],
This sudden sending him away must seem
Deliberate pause [carefully considered]. Diseases
desperate grown
By desperate appliance are relieved [desperate
diseases required desperate measures],
Or not at all. [Enter
ROSENCRANTZ]
How now, what hath befallen?
ROSENCRANTZ: Where the dead body is bestowed, my lord,
We cannot get from him.
CLAUDIUS: But where is he?
ROSENCRANTZ: Without, my lord, guarded, to know your
pleasure.
CLAUDIUS: Bring him before us.
ROSENCRANTZ: Ho! Bring in my lord.
[Enter
HAMLET and GUILDENSTERN]
CLAUDIUS: Now, Hamlet, where's Polonius?
HAMLET: At supper.
CLAUDIUS: At supper where?
HAMLET: Not where he eats, but where he is eaten. A
certain convocation of politic [shrewd] worms are e'en at
him. Your worm is your only emperor for diet. We
fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves
for maggots. Your fat king and your lean beggar is
but
variable service [interchangeable meals] , two dishes, but to one table.
That's the end.
CLAUDIUS: Alas, alas!
HAMLET: A man may fish with the worm that hath eat
of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that
worm.
CLAUDIUS: What dost you mean by this?
HAMLET: Nothing but to show you how a king may go a
progress [royal procession] through the guts of
a beggar.
CLAUDIUS: Where is Polonius?
HAMLET: In heaven. Send hither to see. If your messenger
find him not there, seek him i' th’ other
place yourself. But indeed, if you find him not
within this month, you shall nose him as you go up
the
stairs into the lobby.
CLAUDIUS: Go seek him there. [To some
Attendants]
HAMLET: He will stay till ye come. [Exit
Attendants]
CLAUDIUS: Hamlet, this deed, for thine especial safety
(Which we do tender [value as highly], as we
dearly grieve
For that which thou hast done) must send thee hence
With fiery quickness. Therefore prepare thyself.
The bark [ship] is ready, and the wind at help,
Th’ associates tend [wait], and every thing is bent
[ready]
For England.
HAMLET: For England!
CLAUDIUS: Ay, Hamlet.
HAMLET: Good.
CLAUDIUS: So is it, if thou knew'st our purposes.
HAMLET: I see a cherub [God’s angel who was supposed
to see all human intentions]
that sees them. But, come, for England!
Farewell,
dear mother.
CLAUDIUS: Thy loving father,
Hamlet.
HAMLET: My mother. Father and mother is man and wife,
man and wife is one flesh, and so, my mother. –
Come,
for England! [Exit]
CLAUDIUS: Follow him at foot [closely]; tempt [encourage]
him with speed aboard.
Delay it not. I'll have him hence tonight.
Away, for everything is sealed and done
That else leans on th’ affair. Pray you, make haste. [Exit
all but King]
And England, if my love thou hold'st at aught
[value]
(As my great power thereof may give thee sense
[remind you],
Since yet thy cicatrice [battle scar] looks raw
and red
After the Danish sword, and thy free awe
[voluntary obedience]
Pays homage [acknowledges allegiance] to us) thou
mayst not coldly set
Our sovereign process [ignore our royal commands]
which imports at full,
By letters congruing to that effect [confirming
my intent],
The present [immediate] death of Hamlet. Do it, England,
For like the hectic [fever] in my blood he
rages,
And thou must cure me. Till I know 'tis done,
Howe'er my haps [whatever my fortune], my joys
were ne'er begun. [Exit]
Hectic in the Blood
The scene opens with Claudius telling members of his court the political problems he faces with Hamlet. What he leaves unsaid is his personal anger, frustration and fear of his stepson. Claudius has gone from experiencing profound regret in Act III, Scene 3 to extreme rage. His political problem, expressed at lines 4 – 7, is that he cannot touch Hamlet since he is popular with the people of Denmark. So Claudius is challenged to cover up the reasons for Hamlet’s sudden departure for England, to make it seem as if it were all planned in advance. Two important aspects of Shakespeare’s dramatic craft are shown in this sequence: 1.) When Shakespeare has an event which will happen off-stage (like the trip to England), he is careful to prepare the audience by repeating the point and having the information come from different characters. So we have been told about Hamlet’s going to England from the last lines of Act III, Scene 1 to this scene by Hamlet and Claudius at least four times. 2.) Throughout this play Shakespeare uses multiple images related to disease and physical corruption, as at lines 9 – 11. Why has Shakespeare used so many images of disease and physical corruption through out the entire play?
When Hamlet comes in he is pretending to be crazy and in the guise of his “antic disposition,” he delivers three exceptionally clever and biting insults. First he gives his final sendoff to Polonius who is not eating but is being eaten (line 22). The worms are described as “a certain convocation of politic worms.” “Convocation” is a fancy term for a formal meeting of governmental or church leaders, the kind of function Polonius used to attend. These worms are “politic,” that is, “shrewd,” “busy about statecraft,” the kind of qualities which Polonius demonstrated. The irony is Polonius is being consumed by a bunch of miniature versions of himself. The second joke involves the King being eaten by a worm then consumed by a fish which is eaten by a beggar. The point is that the flesh of the King, Claudius, could “go a progress through the guts of a beggar.” A “progress” was a fancy royal procession with the King and all the members of the court, here incongruously parading through a beggar’s lower intestine. The third insult is directly made to Claudius, who insists that Hamlet tell him where Polonius’s body is:” In heaven. Send hither to see. If your messenger/ find him not there, seek him i' th’ other/ place yourself.” What a classy way of telling Claudius to go to Hell!
After Claudius insists that Hamlet leave for England, Hamlet seems to acquiesce and says “good,” to which Claudius says, “So it is, if thou knew’st our purposes.” Hamlet answers, “I see a cherub that sees them,” suggesting that he knows what Claudius is up to. When he says goodbye at line 58, he calls Claudius “dear mother.”
CLAUDIUS:
Thy loving father, Hamlet.
HAMLET: My mother. Father and mother is man and wife,
man and wife is one flesh, and so, my mother. –
Come, for England!
At one level this is just a silly joke, part of his “antic disposition” that Hamlet engages in. At a deeper level it may be Hamlet having a last laugh at what is about to happen in Claudius’ married life. In Act III, Scene 4 Hamlet had gotten his mother to agree to hide his secret and to refrain from having sex with Claudius anymore. As Hamlet says, the Bible pronounces that man and wife are “one flesh,” but Gertrude and Claudius are about to stop being “one flesh.”
In his final speech Claudius reveals to us what his real plan is for Hamlet’s trip to England: he is sending instructions for the King of England to execute the prince. This way he will get rid of his problem, Hamlet, and he will do so apparently without any blame attaching to him. How Claudius reveals this sinister plan shows us something about Shakespeare’s dramatic craft. This murder plot is a big deal, so Shakespeare wants to make its revelation dramatic. He does so here by putting it at the very end of a long sentence, building suspense. The sentence begins at line 67 when Claudius is finally alone. It is composed of a series of clauses and phrases, filled with the formal language of diplomacy, 50 words in all, about how England has no choice but to do what the Danish King requires it to do, and finally ending with the stark declaration at line 74, “The present death of Hamlet.” Shakespeare follows this by another one of those images of disease and infection which fill the play: “For like the hectic [fever] in my blood he rages,/ And thou must cure me.”
Branagh’s Hamlet, Act IV, Scene 3
Who else is seized along with Hamlet and brought before the King? Why does Branagh do this? What does Claudius do when Hamlet refuses to answer him? How does Branagh stage the lines where Hamlet calls Claudius “mother”? Why does he do it this way? How does Ophelia learn of Polonius’ death?
Act IV, Scene 4
Hamlet and Fortinbras, two royal sons, come very close here to meeting each other. Instead Hamlet meets a Captain in Fortinbras’ army as it marches through Denmark. What is the Captain’s attitude toward the army’s invasion of Polish territory? What is Hamlet’s attitude? Why does he have mixed feelings about what Fortinbras is doing? How does he use it to measure his own actions?
[A
plain in Denmark] [Enter FORTINBRAS, a Captain, and Soldiers, marching
]
FORTINBRAS: Go, captain, from me greet the Danish king;
Tell him that, by his license [permission],Fortinbras
Craves the conveyance [escort] of a promised
[agreed upon] march
Over his kingdom. You know the rendezvous.
If that his Majesty would aught with us [wants
anything with us],
We shall express our duty in his eye [in his
presence],
And let him know so.
CAPTAIN: I will do 't, my lord.
FORTINBRAS: Go softly [slowly] on. [Exeunt
FORTINBRAS and Soldiers]
[Enter HAMLET, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, and others]
HAMLET: Good sir, whose powers are these?
CAPTAIN: They are of Norway, sir.
HAMLET: How purposed, sir, I pray you?
CAPTAIN: Against some part of Poland.
HAMLET: Who commands them, sir?
CAPTAIN: The nephews to old Norway, Fortinbras.
HAMLET: Goes it against the main [major portion] of Poland, sir,
Or for some frontier?
CAPTAIN: Truly to speak, and with no addition [with
no more details],
We go to gain a little patch of ground
That hath in it no profit but the name [bragging
rights].
To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it [I
wouldn’t rent it for five ducats to
farm it],
Nor will it yield [is it worth] to Norway or the Pole
A ranker [higher] rate, should it be sold in
fee [outright].
HAMLET: Why, then the Polack never will defend it.
CAPTAIN: Yes, it is already garrisoned.
HAMLET: Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats
Will not debate the question of this straw [are
not enough to contest this trifling dispute].
This is the imposthume [abscess] of much wealth
and peace,
That inward breaks, and shows no cause without
[outside]
Why the man dies. I humbly thank you, sir.
CAPTAIN: God be wi' you, sir. [Exit]
ROSENCRANTZ: Will ‘t please you go, my lord?
HAMLET: I'll be with you straight. Go a little before. [Exit
all except HAMLET]
How all occasions do inform against me
[denounce]
And spur my dull revenge! What is a man
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more.
Sure He that made us with such large discourse
[extensive power of reasoning]
Looking before and after [past and future], gave
us not
That capability and godlike reason
To fust [grow moldy] in us unused. Now, whether
it be
Bestial oblivion [animal mindlessness] or some craven
scruple
Of thinking [cowardly hesitation that results from
thinking] too precisely on th’ event,
(A thought which, quartered, hath but one part wisdom
And ever three parts coward), I do not know
Why yet I live to say “This thing's to do,”
Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means
To do 't. Examples gross as earth [evident as
earth] exhort me:
Witness this army of such mass and charge,
Led by a delicate and tender prince,
Whose spirit with divine ambition puffed
Makes mouths at the invisible [makes faces at
the unforeseeable] event,
Exposing what is mortal and unsure
To all that fortune, death and danger dare,
Even for an eggshell. Rightly to be great
Is not to stir without great argument,
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
When honor's at the stake. [To be truly great, one
should not fight except when the
argument is great in itself, unless honor is at the stake]. How
stand I, then,
That have a father killed, a mother stained,
Excitements of my reason and my blood,
And let all sleep, while to my shame I see
The imminent death of twenty thousand men
That for a fantasy and trick of fame [illusion
of honor]
Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot
Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause [on
which the number of fighting men
do not have enough room to fight the battle],
Which is not tomb enough [is not large enough to
provide space for burial of those killed]and
continent [container]
To hide the slain? O, from this time forth
My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth! [Exit]
Fortinbras the Role Model?
Back at the beginning of Act II, Scene 1 the ambassadors to the King of Norway returned with a proposed deal that would allow Fortinbras to take his army, march through Denmark and attack Poland. Here the young Prince arrives, just as Hamlet is leaving, and sends a captain to greet Claudius and ask for an escort for their march. Notice at lines 5 – 6 that Fortinbras is practicing already to be a king by speaking of himself with the royal “we.”
Hamlet questions the Captain about the army he sees. This Captain has clearly been around a while and is not impressed by the illusions of conquest. He is brutally honest about the purpose of the invasion of Poland:
Truly
to speak, and with no addition [with no more details],
We go to gain a little patch of ground
That hath in it no profit but the name [bragging rights].
To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it [I wouldn’t
rent it for five ducats to farm
it],
Nor will it yield [is it worth] to Norway or the Pole
A ranker [higher] rate, should it be sold in fee
[outright].
The territory they go to conquer isn’t worth much, yet the invaders and the defenders will expend treasure and thousands of lives in this futile endeavor. What is the moral of this story of the Polish adventure? That is what Hamlet will spend the rest of the scene exploring.
Hamlet begins at line 28 to explain why men would behave so irrationally: “This is the imposthume [abscess] of much wealth and peace,/ That inward breaks, and shows no cause without [outside]/ Why the man dies.” Notice that he uses that prevalent imagery of disease that we have seen before. This armed adventure is like an infection that silently kills the person; it’s the result of a long period of peace and prosperity that have cause people to forget the horrors of war.
Once he is alone, Hamlet comes back to the moral lesson of Fortinbras’ army, but rather than berating the human capacity for self-delusion and self-destruction, Hamlet beats himself up because he cannot be more like Fortinbras! Would that really be a good thing? Throughout this famous soliloquy, “How all occasions do inform against me” (lines 34 – 69), Hamlet displays a curious ambivalent attitude. He wishes he could act in a way that he clearly finds distasteful and ignorant. Look at the message of lines 35 – 37: “What is a man/ If his chief good and market of his time/ Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more.” Within the context what Hamlet seems to be saying is that exacting revenge is the highest achievement (“chief good and market of his time’) for humanity. It is what God has created us for, with our “capability and godlike reason.” We cannot allow it to “fust in us unused.”
At lines 41 – 46 Hamlet analyzes what has prevented him from achieving the epitome of human effort: “bestial oblivion” – like an animal he can’t remember what he was supposed to do; “craven scruple of thinking too precisely on the event” – the action of a coward who spends all his time thinking about what he is afraid to do. Why has he failed to act so far, since he has “examples gross as earth” to inspire him? Fortinbras, “with divine ambition puffed,” daring his fate, “even for an eggshell.” This is the ambivalence I was talking about before. Hamlet is angry he can’t act like Fortinbras even though he clearly sees Fortinbras is a fool who risks everything for something worth nothing. He even states this idea at line 56:
Rightly
to be great
Is not to stir without great argument,
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
When honor's at the stake.
“To be great” means you don’t just fight for any little thing, unless your honor is involved at which point you fight for nothing. It is a self-contradiction. He exaggerates the carnage that lies before Fortinbras’ men as he gets himself worked up. At line 63 he envisions 20,000 dying, whereas back at line 26 it had only been 2,000. And yet he is under no illusion about what they are all dying for – “a fantasy and trick of fame.”
So what does Hamlet do with this great philosophical insight? He vows at the end of his speech, “O, from this time forth/ My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!” And yet what does he do? He meekly goes off after Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to get on the ship to go to England! When Hamlet tries to puzzle out what to do, as he did when he decided not to kill Claudius at prayer, he gets himself screwed up. And when he acts without thinking, as he did when he killed Polonius, he still screws it up.
Branagh’s Hamlet, Act IV, Scene 4
What does Fortinbras’ captain think of the coming war with Poland when he meets Hamlet? What is the visual background that Branagh uses for the “How all occasions do inform against me….”soliloquy? What is the musical background for this scene? How does the camera move during the soliloquy? How do the music, visuals and camera work shape our perception of this scene in the film?
Act IV, Scene 5, Lines 1 – 79
In the aftermath of Polonius’ death, no one has mentioned Ophelia. We now see the effect of her father’s murder by her erstwhile boyfriend. Watch for all the ways in which she demonstrates her insanity. What is the import of her song about St. Valentine’s Day? Act IV, Scene 5
[Elsinore. A room in the castle]
[Enter
QUEEN GERTRUDE, HORATIO, and a Gentleman]
GERTRUDE: I will not speak with her.
GENTLEMAN: She is importunate,
Indeed distract [distraught]; her mood will needs be [must be] pitied.
GERTRUDE: What
would she have?
GENTLEMAN: She speaks much of her father; says she hears
There's tricks [plots] i' the world; and hems, and beats her
heart,
Spurns enviously at straws [grows angry over trifles];
speaks things in doubt [of uncertain
meaning]
That carry but half sense. Her speech is nothing,
Yet the unshaped use of it doth move
The hearers to collection. [She speaks without meaning, but the
very formlessness of what she says causes
people to draw conclusions]They
aim at it
And botch the words up [patch together] fit to their own
thoughts;
Which, as her winks, and nods, and gestures yield them,
Indeed would make one think there might be thought, [The words,
together with her gestures, would make one think she
was making sense],
Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.
HORATIO: 'Twere good she were spoken with, for she may strew
Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.
GERTRUDE: Let her come in. [Exit HORATIO]
[Aside] To my sick soul, (as sin's true nature is) [In its
true nature sin is a sickness of the soul],
Each toy [trifle] seems prologue to some great amiss
[catastrophe].
So full of artless jealousy [awkward suspicions] is guilt,
It spills [destroys] itself in fearing to be spilt
[divulged].
[Enter HORATIO, with OPHELIA]
OPHELIA: Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?
GERTRUDE: How now, Ophelia!
OPHELIA: [Sings] How should I your true love know
From another one?
By his cockle hat and staff [sign
of religious pilgrim]
And his sandal shoon
[archaic form of “shoes’]
GERTRUDE: Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?
OPHELIA: Say you? Nay, pray you, mark. [Sings]
He is dead and gone, lady,
He is dead and gone;
At his head a grass-green turf,
At his heels a stone.
Oh, ho!
GERTRUDE:
Nay, but, Ophelia --
OPHELIA: Pray you, mark. [Sings]
White his shroud as the mountain snow -- [Enter
KING]
GERTRUDE: Alas, look here, my lord.
OPHELIA: [Sings] Larded with sweet flowers
Which bewept to the grave did not go
[Ophelia has added “not” to
this line from the original ballad]
With true-love showers.
CLAUDIUS: How do you, pretty lady?
OPHELIA: Well, God 'ild you [reward you]! They say the
owl was a
baker's daughter [according to legend the baker’s daughter refuse Jesus some bread and was turned into an owl]. Lord, we now what we are, but
know not what we may be. God be at your
table!
CLAUDIUS: Conceit upon her father.
OPHELIA: Pray you, let's have no words of this; but when they
ask you what it means, say you this: [Sings]
To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day,
All in the morning betime [early],
And I a maid at your window,
To be your Valentine.
Then up he rose, and donned his clothes,
And dupped [opened] the
chamber-door;
Let in the maid, that out a maid
Never departed more.
CLAUDIUS: Pretty Ophelia!
OPHELIA: Indeed, la, without an oath, I'll make an end on 't: [Sings]
By Gis [Jesus] and by Saint Charity,
Alack, and fie for shame!
Young men will do't, if they come to't;
By cock [substitute for “God”]
they are to blame.
Quoth she, before you tumbled me,
You promised me to wed.
So would I ha' done, by yonder sun,
An [If] thou hadst not come
to my bed.
CLAUDIUS: How long hath she been thus?
OPHELIA: I hope all will be well. We must be patient, but I
cannot choose but weep, to think they should lay him
i' th’ cold ground. My brother shall know of it.
And so I thank you for your good counsel. Come, my
coach! Good night, ladies; good night, sweet ladies;
good night, good night. [Exit]
CLAUDIUS: Follow her close; give her good watch,
I pray you. [Exit
HORATIO]
An Intervention for Ophelia
A gentleman of the court and Horatio warn Gertrude that Ophelia has gone mad and that her behavior is arousing suspicion among the Danish people who hear her ravings. In his speech at lines 5 – 17, the Gentleman describes how many “botch her words up fit to their own thoughts.” That is, they hear in her language and see in her “winks, nods and gestures” what they already suspect about skullduggery at the palace. Even the usually self-contained Horatio urges Gertrude to speak to Ophelia, least “she may strew dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.” That’s exactly what she does!
While Gertrude waits for Ophelia to enter, she gives us another brief glimpse of the feelings of guilt and inner conflict that Hamlet aroused in her soul back in Act III, Scene 4. She calls her sense of sin a sign of a “sick soul” and insightfully observes that it is the effort to cover up the revelation of the sin that causes people to self-destruct, a fact that many disgraced politicians can attest to.
In Shakespeare’s theater the mere appearance and behavior of Ophelia in the rest of the sequence would be proof that she is insane. We already have the testimony of the Gentleman and Horatio that she is unbalanced. In the stage tradition of this play back to Shakespeare’s time, Ophelia often appeared before the Queen with her hair undone, a sure symptom of mental illness in the uptight world of courtly ladies, (just as Hamlet’s unkempt appearance in Ophelia’s closet led Polonius to declare he was mad). Next there is the way she barges in and initiates conversations with the King and Queen, something a proper Elizabethan lady would never do. Then there is her singing. Between lines 28 – 71 she sings two ballads, one about the death of a lover, the other about the loss of a girl’s virginity. It is not appropriate behavior to sing before royalty unless requested to perform, and the second song in particular is really taboo. The next sign of her insanity is more subtle, but notice how throughout this sequence when either the King or Queen ask her a question, she does not answer but rather initiates her own conversational direction. Her language itself has tempted scholars for four hundred years to offer theories about what she is talking about. (As Polonius said about Hamlet’s ravings, “Though this be madness, yet there’s method in it.”) The first song she sings about the dead lover seems to refer to her father, whose death would seem to be the cause of her madness. But Ophelia has suffered one psychological blow after another in the course of the first four acts of the play. It’s not just Polonius’ death but the loss of her lover and her own sense of innocence as Hamlet catches her helping in the scam by Claudius and Polonius to entrap him. It will be difficult for her to start dating Hamlet again in light of his murder of her father : ) As for the second ballad, about the young virgin who is sexually exploited by her erstwhile lover, many literalists declare this is proof that Hamlet had had an affair and had taken her virginity. (In the Nicole Williamson Hamlet Ophelia sang the song about the seduction of the maid directly to Claudius, suggesting that he had been the one to deflower her.) But a literal association is not necessary to understand Ophelia’s possible message here. Someone can be used in ways other than sexual. Ophelia has been used and abused by her father, her lover and the King. She has been betrayed by those who should have been looking out for her. One of the most poignant lines she utters is at 48: “Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be.” For Ophelia who has seen her life turned upside down, she is all too aware of what she is now: spurned by her lover, used by her father, at the King’s insistence, as bait in a sting operation, the object of public ridicule and now the bereaved daughter. What might she have been if she had had the strength to stand up to her father?
One final comment on Ophelia’s song and speech: at line 44 as she finishes the ballad of the dead lover, she alters the line of the original song Shakespeare uses here – “Larded all with flowers\ That bewept to the ground did not go….” One of the most painful aspects of Polonius’ death is that, in order to try and cover up what happened, the old man’s body, when it is finally found, is apparently dumped unceremoniously into a hole in the ground without any formal burial ritual. In those days that is a terrible insult to the dead and a painful burden for the family. At line 47 she evokes the legend of the baker’s daughter who was turned into an owl for denying Jesus. Does Ophelia see herself as the transformed victim? We don’t know. Finally her parting words show us she is aware of what caused her grief: “I cannot choose but weep, to think they should lay him i' th’ cold ground.” And she is aware of the consequences: “My brother shall know of it.” Boy, howdy, does Laertes know of it, as we’ll see in the next sequence. Her farewell to “sweet ladies” is problematic in the text because Gertrude is the only woman present. This possible confusion over the gender of Claudius may echo Hamlet’s deliberate mistake in the previous scene when he called the King “dear mother.”
Act IV, Scene 5, Lines 80 – 245
Explain how the consequences of Claudius’ political actions come back in this scene to plague him? How does the King demonstrate courage in his confrontation with Laertes? How is Claudius able to turn Laertes around? Act IV, Scene 5, Lines 80 –245
CLAUDIUS:
O, this is the poison of deep grief. It springs
All from her father's death, and now behold
O
Gertrude, Gertrude,
When sorrows come, they come not single spies
[scouts],
But in battalions: first, her father slain;
Next, your son gone, and he most violent author
Of his own just remove [through his violence the
cause of his own exile] the people muddied
[confused],
Thick and unwholesome in their thoughts and whispers
For good Polonius' death, and we have done but
greenly [I have acted like an amateur]
In hugger-mugger [in secret and in haste] to
inter him; poor Ophelia
Divided from herself and her fair judgment,
Without the which we are pictures or mere beasts;
Last, and as much containing as all these,
Her brother is in secret come from France,
Feeds on his wonder, keeps himself in clouds [an
atmosphere of suspicion],
And wants not buzzers [does not lack gossips] to
infect his ear
With pestilent speeches of his father's death,
Wherein necessity, of matter beggared [lacking
facts],
Will nothing stick our person to arraign [won’t
hesitate to accuse me of crimes],
In ear and ear. O, my dear Gertrude, this,
Like to a murd’ring piece, in many places
Gives me superfluous death. [these troubles, like
a cannon firing multiple projectiles,
kills me over and over] [A noise offstage]
GERTRUDE: Alack, what noise is this?
CLAUDIUS: Attend. [listen]
Where
are my Switzers [Swiss bodyguards]? Let them guard the door.
[Enter a Messenger]
What is the matter?
GENTLEMAN: Save yourself, my lord.
The ocean, overpeering of his list [overflowing
his shore]
Eats not the flats with more impiteous haste
[comes in rapid waves]
Than young Laertes, in a riotous head [leading a
noisy mob]
O'erbears [overwhelms] your officers. The rabble
call him “lord,”
And, as the world were now but to begin,
Antiquity forgot, custom not known,
The ratifiers and props of every word [as if the
world had just begun anew, and
all sense of precedent and custom lost, which help us know
how to behave]
They cry “Choose we, Laertes shall be king!”
Caps [caps thrown in the air], hands, and
tongues applaud it to the clouds,
“Laertes shall be king! Laertes king!” [Noise
offstage]
GERTRUDE: How cheerfully on the false trail they cry!
O, this is counter [wrong direction] you false
Danish dogs!
CLAUDIUS: The doors are broke. [Enter LAERTES, armed;
Danes following]
LAERTES: Where is this king?-- Sirs, stand you all without
[outside].
DANES: No, let's come in!
LAERTES: I pray you, give me leave [let me do this].
DANES: We will, we will. [They
leave out the door]
LAERTES: I thank you. Keep the door. O thou vile king,
Give me my father!
GERTRUDE: Calmly, good Laertes.
LAERTES: That drop of blood that's calm proclaims me
bastard,
Cries “cuckold” to my father, brands the harlot
Even here between the chaste unsmirched brow
Of my true [chaste] mother.
CLAUDIUS: What is the cause,
Laertes,
That thy rebellion looks so giant-like? --
Let him go, Gertrude. Do not fear our person
[don’t be afraid for me].
There's such divinity doth hedge [protect] a
king
That treason can but peep to what it would [can
only glimpse its desire]
Acts little of his will [can achieve but little].
-- Tell me, Laertes,
Why thou art thus incensed. -- Let him go, Gertrude.
Speak, man.
LAERTES: Where is my father?
CLAUDIUS: Dead.
GERTRUDE: But not by him.
CLAUDIUS: Let him demand his fill.
LAERTES: How came he dead? I'll not be juggled with
[manipulated].
To hell, allegiance! Vows, to the blackest devil!
Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit!
I dare damnation. To this point I stand,
That both the worlds I give to negligence [I
don’t care what happens to me in this world or the
next],
Let come what comes, only I'll be revenged
Most throughly [thoroughly] for my father.
CLAUDIUS: Who shall stay [stop] you?
LAERTES: My will, not all the world.
And for my means, I'll husband them so well
They shall go far with little [I’ll marshal my
means for revenge so well that I
will be able to do much with little].
CLAUDIUS: Good Laertes,
If you desire to know the certainty
Of your dear father's death, is 't writ in your revenge
That, swoopstake [gather in all the bets on the
table], you will draw both friend and
foe,
Winner and loser?
LAERTES: None but his enemies.
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 [the pelican was
believed to pierce its own breast
and feed its young with its own 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 [intensely] in grief for
it,
It shall as level [plain] to your judgment ‘pear
As day does to your eye.
DANES: [Offstage]] Let her come in.
LAERTES: How now, what noise is that? [Re-enter
OPHELIA]
O heat, dry up my brains! Tears seven times salt
Burn out the sense and virtue [power] of mine
eye!
By heaven, thy madness shall be paid by weight
Till our scale turn the beam [ your insanity will
be revenged so thoroughly that it will make the scales
turn in our favor]! O rose of May,
Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!
O heavens! Is 't possible a young maid's wits
Should be as mortal as an old man's life?
Nature is fine in [refined by] love, and, where
'tis fine,
It sends some precious instance of itself
After the thing it loves [Ophelia’s sanity has been
taken as a token of her love for her
dead father].
OPHELIA: [Sings] They bore him barefaced on the bier;
Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny,
And in his grave rained many a
tear.
Fare you well, my dove!
LAERTES: Hadst thou thy wits and didst persuade revenge,
It could not move thus [it could not be this
moving].
OPHELIA: [Sings] You must sing “A-down a-down,” -- And
you
“Call him a-down-a [Ophelia explains to different people how to sing different parts of the round].” -- O, how the wheel [refrain] becomes it! It is the false steward, that stole his master's
daughter [reference to a tale now lost].
LAERTES: This nothing's more than matter [This
nonsense is more sensible than
sane speech].
OPHELIA: There's rosemary [Ophelia begins
distributing real or imaginary flowers],
that's for remembrance.
Pray, love, remember. And there is pansies,
that's
for thoughts.
LAERTES: A document [instruction] in madness:
thoughts and
remembrance
fitted.
OPHELIA: There's fennel [symbolized flattery and
deceit] for you, and columbines.
There's rue [symbolizes regret] for you, and here's some
for me; we
may call it herb of grace o' Sundays: O you must wear
your rue with a difference [you must do so because of difference in rank or because of difference in cause]. There's a daisy [symbolized deceit] I would
give you some violets [symbolized faithfulness],
but they withered all when my father died. They say he made a good
end,-- [Sings]
For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.
LAERTES: Thought [melancholy] and affliction, passion
[suffering] hell itself
She turns to favor and to prettiness.
OPHELIA: [Sings] And will he not come again?
And will he not come again?
No, no, he is dead:
Go to thy death-bed.
He never will come again.
His beard was as white as snow,
All flaxen was his poll [head].
He is gone, he is gone,
And we cast away moan.
God ‘a mercy on his soul!
And of all Christian souls, I pray God. God be wi'
you. [Exit]
LAERTES: Do you see this, O God?
CLAUDIUS: Laertes, I must commune with your grief,
Or you deny me right. Go but apart,
Make choice of whom your wisest friends you will,
And they shall hear and judge 'twixt you and me.
If by direct or by collateral [indirectly] hand
They find us touched [implicated], we will our kingdom give,
Our crown, our life, and all that we call ours,
To you in satisfaction; but if not,
Be you content to lend your patience to us,
And we shall jointly labor with your soul
To give it due content.
LAERTES: Let this be so.
His means of death, his obscure funeral
(No trophy, sword, nor hatchment [display of coat of arms] o'er
his bones,
No noble rite nor formal ostentation [ceremony])
Cry to be heard, as 'twere from heaven to earth,
That I must call 't in question [so that I must demand an
explanation].
CLAUDIUS: So you shall,
And where the offense, is let the great axe fall.
I pray you, go with me. [Exit]
Sometimes the Villain Can Be Heroic
In trying to cover up his murder of his brother, Claudius has set in motion a lot of problems which he calls “sorrows.” How many sorrows does Claudius outline in the speech at lines 80 – 103? Right at the beginning the King declares that Ophelia’s insanity is entirely the result of her father’s death. However, we have seen her (especially in performance) pushed into her current state by the way she has been used by her father, by the King and by Hamlet, each of whom has progressively stripped her of her integrity and self-respect. She was about halfway to Crazy Town when her boyfriend killed her father. Notice how at line 85 Claudius emphasizes that Hamlet’s exile to England (and his death) is his own fault. Even though he is absolute ruler, Claudius has to worry about his political situation, even with the commoners who have no power at all. Nevertheless, they are unsettled by the sudden death of Polonius and the effort to cover it up by giving him a quick and secret burial. The King does not excuse himself from the cascade of disasters, commenting at line 90 – 91 that he handled the cover –up badly (“greenly”) like an amateur in its “hugger-mugger,” unseemly rush. The greatest of the sorrows is that Laertes has returned secretly from France and has people telling him all kinds of stories implicating the King in a conspiracy to kill Polonius. We have certainly seen this kind of political unrest repeatedly in our own history. When those in charge try to cover up the truth, the resulting uncertainty feeds the frenzy of conspiracy theorists, what Claudius sneeringly calls “buzzers” who lack factual evidence, “matter beggared.” The comparison he uses to describe his own situation is especially appropriate: at lines 102 – 103 he is the target of a cannon which fires “grapeshot,” multiple projectiles, which kill him over and over.
Laertes, at the head of a mob of Danes, comes to the door at line 104 and the King calls for his “Switzers.” These were the hired bodyguards that almost all the monarchs of Europe employed. They were from Switzerland because the Swiss, much as today, were neutral and therefore, theoretically, would stay loyal. They are still used to guard the Pope. If Hamlet were to kill Claudius, these are the guys who would try and prevent it and, failing that, would kill Hamlet.
A gentleman comes to warn the King of the mob at line 108. He compares the actions of the mob storming the palace to a wave washing over the shore, in a particularly descriptive passage. We find a few places in Shakespeare’s plays where we see popular uprisings against authority, and they are always pictured in a negative fashion, as here. Especially telling are lines 113 – 116 which assert that such attempts at fledgling democracy are an unnatural action which sweeps away custom, precedent and the rule of law. The fact that the mob chooses Laertes as King is immaterial. When the mob breaks in we see that even Laertes has a difficult time controlling them. They want to be there when Laertes confronts the King, and he has to ask them twice (at lines 122 – 126) to let him handle the situation on his own.
Whether the Queen is appalled by the rabble seeking to control their own political destiny or is worried for her husband, Gertrude becomes the sole protector of Claudius at lines 119 – 147. Even before they break down the door, she calls them “false Danish dogs” and likens their actions to those of hunting dogs which pick up the scent of an animal, but follow it “counter,” that is, the wrong way, headed back in the direction the animal came from. When Laertes demands that Claudius give him his father, it is Gertrude who tells him to be calm and again at line 146 assures Laertes the King had nothing to do with Polonius’ death. Gertrude’s behavior in this scene challenges an actress: on one hand she has entered into a conspiracy to hide the truth about her son, but on the other she protects the life of her husband. In a word she is conflicted.
The rage which Laertes shows throughout this scene is a model for how the traditional revenge hero was expected to behave. In response to Gertrude’s direct order to remain calm, he angrily declares:
That
drop of blood that's calm proclaims me bastard,
Cries “cuckold” to my father, brands the harlot
Even here between the chaste unsmirched brow
Of my true [chaste] mother.
In those days there was always an uncertainty about whether husbands had been the biological fathers of their offspring. So Laertes is saying that he is so enraged by Polonius’ death that if even one drop of his blood is calm, it means the old man was not really his father and his mother must have been a whore and gotten pregnant by someone else, something he asserts could not have happened. At line 148 he makes an even stronger declaration of his righteous anger. “I’ll not be juggled with” means he won’t allow himself to be manipulated, much as his father had been by the King. (After all, why was the old man in harm’s way hiding in Gertrude’s room? Certainly Polonius enjoyed playing the spy, but it was at the King’s express direction. Unfortunately, Laertes will indeed end up being “juggled” by Claudius and will die as a result.) Laertes’ verbal hyperbole of daring everything for revenge reaches its pinnacle at lines 149 – 154:
To
hell, allegiance! Vows, to the blackest devil!
Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit!
I dare damnation. To this point I stand,
That both the worlds I give to negligence [I
don’t care what happens to me in this world or the
next],
Let come what comes, only I'll be revenged
Most throughly [thoroughly] for my father.
Here Laertes consciously and dramatically breaks all the vows that members of the court were expected to keep. First there is “allegiance,” the special personal oath which all the nobles took to the King, not only as the ruler of the country but as the subject’s personal “liege lord.” (Notice that “liege” is the root for “allegiance.”) Personal vows like that are condemned to the devil. He sends “conscience and grace,” two of the most important virtues, to the deepest, “profoundest,” pit of Hell. He brags that he dares “damnation,” explaining that that he doesn’t care about this world or the afterlife but will stop at nothing to gain his revenge.
Now Laertes reacts to revenge in the way you were supposed to: let nothing stand in your way. He lays all his rage out in public in front of those responsible and with extreme vigor. By contrast Hamlet is verbal violent in private; rather than beating up others, he beats himself up. Rather than being direct in his promised vengeance, Hamlet is subtle and indirect.
Finally look at how Claudius confronts this threat to his reign and his life. He has no guards and only Gertrude to try and ward off the attack of a crazed Laertes, and yet he shows no fear. He tells Gertrude twice not to try and stop Laertes and to let him “demand his fill.” He asserts the special divinity that “hedges” or protects a king at line 138. The King distracts Laertes at lines 160 – 164 by posing a philosophical question: who all will be targets of his revenge? Laertes responds with an unusual comparison: his revenge will target only his enemies; to his friends he will be like the pelican which was believed to pierce its breast to feed its young with its own blood. You can see the subtle signs that Claudius has seized the initiative in his confrontation with his would-be assassin at lines 170 – 175 as he addresses Laertes as “a good child and a true gentleman.” He is patronizing Laertes here, asserting superiority in the situation, even as he assures him he and Laertes are both on the same side.
Ophelia, the Flower Girl
At this point another of Claudius’ “sorrows” shows up, as the insane Ophelia comes back. Notice that before she opens her mouth Laertes realizes she is crazy and at line 180 he vows more revenge for whoever has driven her mad. We know that the girl’s madness had several authors, among them the King. Laertes offers a poignant explanation for her affliction at line 185 – 187. Her love for her father has drawn her sanity to join the spirit of her dead father.
Ophelia throughout this sequence sings snatches of a ballad written for a dead lover. That’s one of the reason some scholars suspect that Ophelia is filled with grief for her dead father but also for her departed lover, Hamlet. The other really odd thing she does is to hand out flowers to everyone present. Now in those days before refrigeration and chemical embalming, you brought flowers to a funeral to cover the smell of death. The Elizabethans had created a whole series of meanings for different kinds of flowers. Scholars have puzzled over which flowers Ophelia gives to which characters and what they mean, but often in productions the flowers are purely imaginary, as if the poor girl was trying to recreate the ceremony which neither she nor her brother could attend. It’s likely that she gives the King the “fennel” since it represented deceit. To Gertrude she gives “rue” for regret over the loss of Hamlet, but since the Queen is a royal and a mother, she must wear hers “with a difference.” With a poignant touch of piety, blessing “all Christian souls,” Ophelia leaves to kill herself.
After Ophelia’s appearance Claudius must once again try to control Laertes. At lines 227 – 236 he offers the angry young man a political deal: Laertes will select some of his wisest friends and they will judge whether or not Claudius was implicated directly or indirectly in Polonius’ death. If he was then the King will surrender his kingdom, all he owns and even his life. Otherwise, Laertes will agree to work with Claudius to satisfy his need for revenge. Laertes, at lines 238 – 242, articulates the basis for his anger: uncertainty over the details of his father’s death, the rushed and secret funeral and the fact that there was no display over his grave showing his rank and title. All of these omissions were a slur on his title in that time of hypersensitivity over social rank. The King ominously promises that the person responsible for the offense will be punished by the “great axe.” In Shakespeare’s day the method of execution used for the upper class was the executioner’s axe, since that was considered more “gentle” and humane. Lower class criminals were hung.
Before we leave this scene we do need to comment on the similarities and differences between Ophelia’s real madness and Hamlet’s “antic disposition” or pretend madness.
Both characters convince most of the other characters that they are insane by the way they appear, by their inappropriate dialogue (both engage publicly in sexually frank talk in inappropriate locations) and both sing in situations where singing seems odd. However, Hamlet’s “mad scenes” always have an undertone of sarcasm and teasing, an “inside” joke the audience is in on. Ophelia has no such conscious double message in her mad ravings, although we can guess at what emotional trauma has wounded her. What other differences and similarities do you see between the two characters?
Branagh’s Hamlet, Act IV, Scene 5
How does Branagh give us a quick recap of what is happening in the play at this point? How is Ophelia presented in this scene? Why? In which room is the scene staged and why? Describe Ophelia’s exchange with Claudius. What intercut scene does Branagh use to illustrate the “Saint Valentine’s Day” song? Comment on Ophelia’s make-up in this scene? Describe Laertes’ confrontation with Claudius. How is the King able to turn things around? How are Ophelia’s flowers and her song presented here? Where does Ophelia go after she finishes her song? How is mental illness treated medically in the time when the play is set?
Act IV, Scene 6
This short scene explains some of what happened to Hamlet on his voyage to England and prepares us for his eventual return to Denmark. What is amusing about this scene? Act IV, Scene 6:
[Enter
HORATIO and a Servant]
HORATIO: What are they that would speak with me?
SERVANT: Seafaring men, sir. They say they have
letters
for you.
HORATIO: Let them come in. [Exit Servant] I do not
know from what part of the world I should
be
greeted, if not from Lord Hamlet. [Enter Sailors]
FIRST SAILOR: God bless you, sir.
HORATIO: Let Him bless thee too.
FIRST SAILOR: He shall, sir, an 't please Him. There's a
letter for
you, sir; it comes from th’ ambassador [Hamlet] that
was
bound for England -- if your name be Horatio, as I am
let to know it is. [He hands
Horatio a letter]
HORATIO: [Reads] “Horatio, when thou shalt have
overlooked [read] this, give these fellows some means [access] to the
King.
They have letters for him. Ere we were two days old
at sea, a pirate of very warlike appointment [an
armed pirate ship] gave us chase. Finding
ourselves too slow of sail, we put on
a compelled
valor [reluctantly fought] and in the grapple I boarded
them. On the instant they got clear of our ship; so I
alone
became their prisoner. They have dealt with me like thieves
of mercy [merciful criminals], but they knew what they
did: I am to do a good turn for them. Let the King have
the letters I have sent; and repair
thou [come to] me with as much speed as
thou wouldst fly death. I have words to speak in thine
ear will make thee dumb; yet are they much too
light for the bore of the matter [inadequate]. These good fellows will bring thee where I am. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern hold their course for England; of them I have much
to
tell thee. Farewell.
He that thou
knowest thine,
Hamlet.”
Come, I will give you way [access] for these
your letters;
And do 't the speedier, that you may direct me
To him from whom you brought them. [Exit]
“You’ve Got Mail”
So Hamlet, through a fluke, has returned to Denmark while Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern continue on to England. It is odd that Hamlet has apparently made
allies of the pirates. Often this scene, in performance, is given some comic
touches, since it comes
between two very heavy dramatic scenes of Ophelia’s madness and her suicide. For example, in the Williamson Hamlet one of the pirates grabs Horatio from behind and restrains him while the other holds up the letter for him to read. Except the pirate is illiterate and holds the letter upside down. There is a slightly comic exchange built into the text between Horatio, who asks God to bless the pirate, and the buccaneer, who assures him that God will bestow the blessing only if he feels like it, and not because of anything the student says.
Branagh’s Hamlet, Act IV, Scene 6
What is the weather like as Horatio reads Hamlet’s letter? Why has Branagh made this choice?
Act IV, Scene 7
What is the King’s reaction to the letter from Hamlet? How does he reassure Laertes that he’s not hiding anything from him about Hamlet’s intention? How does Claudius manipulate Laertes into doing what he wants him to? Why does the conspiracy to murder Hamlet get so complicated? What do you notice about the way Gertrude delivers the news of Ophelia’s death? What is Laertes’ reaction to the news of his sister’s death? Act IV, Scene 7:
CLAUDIUS:
Now must your conscience my acquaintance seal [acknowledge my innocence]
And you must put me in your heart for friend,
Sith you have heard, and with a knowing ear,
That he which hath your noble father slain
Pursued my life.
LAERTES: It well appears. But tell me
Why you proceeded not against these feats,
So criminal and so capital [fatal] in nature,
As by your safety, wisdom, all things else,
You mainly [greatly] were stirred up.
CLAUDIUS: O, for two special reasons,
Which may to you perhaps seem much unsinewed
[weak],
But yet to me they are strong. The Queen his mother
Lives almost by his looks, and for myself
(My virtue or my plague, be it either which)
She's so conjunctive [joined] to my life and
soul,
That, as the star moves not but in his sphere
[its orbit],
I could not but by her. The other motive,
Why to a public count [accounting] I might not
go
Is the great love the general gender [common
people] bear him,
Who, dipping all his faults in their affection,
Work like the spring that turneth wood to stone
[work like mineral springs that petrify
wood]
Convert his gyves [transform his chains] to
graces; so that my arrows,
Too slightly timbered [having too slight a
shaft] for so loud a wind [for so strong
an opposition],
Would have reverted [bounced back] to my bow
again,
And not where I had aimed them.
LAERTES: And so have I a noble father lost;
A sister driven into desperate terms
[conditions],
Whose worth, if praises may go back again [if I
may praise her as she used to be]
Stood challenger on mount of all the age
For her perfections [challenged everyone of our age
from the top of perfection]. But
my revenge will come.
CLAUDIUS: Break not your sleeps for that [Don’t lose
any sleep over it!] You must
not think
That we are made of stuff so flat and dull
[inert]
That we can let our beard be shook with danger
[can be insulted]
And think it pastime [harmless fun]. You shortly
shall hear more:
I loved your father, and we love ourself;
And that, I hope, will teach you to imagine-- [Enter
a Messenger]
How now? what news?
MESSENGER: Letters, my lord, from Hamlet:
These to your Majesty; this to the Queen.
CLAUDIUS: From Hamlet? Who brought them?
MESSENGER: Sailors, my lord, they say. I saw them not.
They were given me by Claudio. He received them
Of him that brought them.
CLAUDIUS: Laertes, you shall hear
them.
Leave
us. [Exit Messenger]
[Reads]
“High and mighty, you shall know I am set naked [defenseless]
on
your kingdom. Tomorrow shall I beg leave to see
your kingly eyes, when I shall, first asking your
pardon [permission] thereunto, recount the
occasion of my sudden
and more strange return. Hamlet.”
What should this mean? Are all the rest come back?
Or is it some abuse [deceit] and no such thing?
LAERTES: Know you the hand?
CLAUDIUS: 'Tis Hamlet’s character [handwriting]. “Naked!”
And in a postscript here, he says “alone.”
Can you advise me?
LAERTES: I'm lost in it, my lord. But let him come.
It warms the very sickness in my heart,
That I shall live and tell him to his teeth
“Thus didst thou.”
CLAUDIUS:
If it be so, Laertes
(As how should it be so? how otherwise?)
Will you be ruled by me?
LAERTES: Ay, my lord;
So [provided] you will not o'errule me to a
peace.
CLAUDIUS: To thine own peace. If he be now returned,
As checking at [interrupting] his voyage, and
that he means
No more to undertake it, I will work him
To an exploit, now ripe in my device [devising],
Under the which he shall not choose but fall;
And for his death no wind of blame shall breathe,
But even his mother shall uncharge the practice
[will not blame the stratagem]
And call it accident.
LAERTES: My lord, I will be ruled,
The rather, if you could devise it so
That I might be the organ [agent, instrument].
CLAUDIUS: It falls right
[that fits exactly with my plan].
You have been talked of since your travel much,
And that in Hamlet's hearing, for a quality
Wherein they say you shine. Your sum of parts
[all your qualities combined]
Did not together pluck such envy from him
As did that one, and that, in my regard,
Of the unworthiest siege [least importance].
LAERTES: What part is that, my lord?
CLAUDIUS: A very ribbon in the cap of youth [a mere
decoration of the young]--
Yet needful too, for youth no less becomes
The light and careless livery that it wears
Than settled age his sables and his weeds,
Importing health and graveness [The clothes of
youth are as becoming of the young as
the comfortable and rich apparel to the old]. Two months
since,
Here was a gentleman of Normandy.
I've seen myself, and served against, the French,
And they can well [are skillful] on horseback,
but this gallant
Had witchcraft in 't. He grew unto his seat,
And to such wondrous doing brought his horse
As he had been [as if he had been] incorpsed
and demi-natured [combined into a single body]
With the brave [noble] beast. So far he topped
[surpassed] my thought
That I in forgery of shapes and tricks
Come short of what he did [in imagining what he
could do, I came up short of his
actual performance].
LAERTES: A Norman was 't?
CLAUDIUS: A Norman.
LAERTES: Upon my life, Lamond.
CLAUDIUS: The very
same.
LAERTES: I know him well. He is the brooch [star] indeed
And gem of all the nation.
CLAUDIUS: He made confession of you [acknowledged
you]
And gave you such a masterly report
For art and exercise [theory and practice of
fencing] in your defense
And for your rapier most especially,
That he cried out, 'twould be a sight indeed,
If one could match you. The scrimers [fencers] of
their nation,
He swore, had had neither motion, guard, nor eye,
If you opposed them. Sir, this report of his
Did Hamlet so envenom with his envy
That he could nothing do but wish and beg
Your sudden coming o'er, to play [fence] with
him.
Now, out of this --
LAERTES: What out of this, my lord?
CLAUDIUS: Laertes, was your father dear to you?
Or are you like the painting of a sorrow,
A face without a heart?
LAERTES: Why ask you this?
CLAUDIUS: Not that I think you did not love your father;
But that I know love is begun by time;
And that I see, in passages of proof [in proven
instances],
Time qualifies [lessens] the spark and fire of
it.
There lives within the very flame of love
A kind of wick or snuff [burned wick] that will
abate it;
And nothing is at a like goodness still [will
always remain at the same level of
perfection];
For goodness, growing to a pleurisy [excess],
Dies in his own too much. That we would do
We should do when we would; for this “would” changes
And hath abatements and delays as many
As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents;
And then this “should” is like a spendthrift sigh,
That hurts by easing [Elizabethans believed that a
sigh relieved distress but drew blood
from the heart]. But, to the quick o' the ulcer:
Hamlet comes back. What would you undertake,
To show yourself indeed your father's son
More than in words?
LAERTES: To cut his throat i' the
church.
CLAUDIUS: No place, indeed, should murder sanctuarize
[should murder be able to turn into a
sanctuary];
Revenge should have no bounds. But, good Laertes,
Will you do this, keep close within your chamber.
Hamlet returned shall know you are come home.
We'll put on [incite] those shall praise your
excellence
And set a double varnish on the fame
The Frenchman gave you, bring you in fine [in
conclusion] together
And wager on your heads. He, being remiss
[carelessly trusting],
Most generous and free from all contriving,
Will not peruse the foils; so that, with ease,
Or with a little shuffling, you may choose
A sword unbated [without a protective button] and
in a pass of practice [a deceptive
thrust]
Requite him for your father.
LAERTES: I will do 't,
And for that purpose I'll anoint my sword.
I bought an unction [a salve] of a mountebank
[from a quack doctor]
So mortal that, but dip a knife in it,
Where it draws blood no cataplasm [antidote] so
rare,
Collected from all simples that have virtue
[made from all the plants that have
medicinal power]
Under the moon, can save the thing from death
That is but scratched withal. I'll touch my point
With this contagion [poison], that, if I gall
him slightly,
It may be death [if I just scratch him, he may
die].
CLAUDIUS: Let's further think of
this,
Weigh what convenience both of time and means
May fit us to our shape [may suit our plans]. If
this should fail,
And that our drift look through our bad performance
[our murderous intentions are
revealed through our bungled efforts],
'Twere better not assayed [attempted]. Therefore
this project
Should have a back or second [a backup plan]
that might hold,
If this should blast in proof [blow up in our
faces] Soft, let me see.
We'll make a solemn wager on your cunnings
[skills]. –
I ha 't.
When in your motion you are hot and dry
(As make your bouts more violent to that end)
And that he calls for drink, I'll have prepared him
A chalice for the nonce [occasion], whereon but sipping,
If he by chance escape your venomed stuck [thrust],
Our purpose may hold there.—But stay, what noise? [Enter
QUEEN GERTRUDE]
GERTRUDE: One woe doth tread upon another's heel,
So fast they follow. Your sister's drowned, Laertes.
LAERTES: Drowned? O, where?
GERTRUDE: There is a willow grows askant [aslant] a brook
That shows his hoar [gray] leaves in the glassy stream.
There with fantastic garlands did she come
Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples [wild
orchids]
That liberal [plainspoken] shepherds give a grosser name,
But our cold [chaste] maids do dead men's fingers call them:
There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds
Clambering to hang, an envious sliver [malicious twig] broke;
When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide,
And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up.
Which time she chanted snatches of old lauds [tunes],
As one incapable of [unable to understand] her own
distress,
Or like a creature native and endued [naturally adapted]
Unto that element. But long it could not be
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.
LAERTES: Alas, then, she is drowned?
GERTRUDE: Drowned, drowned.
LAERTES: Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia,
And therefore I forbid my tears. But yet
It is our trick [weeping is natural]; nature her custom
holds,
Let shame say what it will. When these are gone,
The woman will be out [when I finish weeping, my female
weakness of emotion will be over].-- Adieu, my
lord:
I have a speech of fire, that fain would blaze,
But that this folly drown it, [Exit]
CLAUDIUS: Let's follow, Gertrude:
How much I had to do to calm his rage!
Now fear I this will give it start again.
Therefore let's follow. [Exit]
Laertes, What Are You Willing to Do?
Throughout this scene we will watch Claudius manipulate Laertes in subtle psychological ways that keep the angry young man under control while using him to further the King’s plans. Remember it wasn’t that long ago that Laertes had the upper hand and could have killed the monarch if he had acted resolutely. At lines 1 – 5 Claudius tells Laertes that he must admit the King was also threatened by Hamlet, making them allies. When Laertes asks the next logical question, “Why didn’t you move against Hamlet? You are the absolute monarch, after all,” the King takes Laertes into his confidence – another means of manipulation by making it seem you have nothing to hide. And Claudius’ answers at lines 11 – 26 are quite revealing; he says they may make him look “unsinewed,” or weak. The first reason he did not act is personal:
The
Queen his mother
Lives almost by his looks, and for myself
(My virtue or my plague, be it either which)
She's so conjunctive [joined] to my life and soul,
That, as the star moves not but in his sphere [its orbit],
I could not but by her.
This admission of a weakness because of the love he has for Gertrude makes Claudius appear all too human, but it is also a kind of psychological manipulation: he has shared a confidence and at the same time made himself look more sympathetic. “Laertes, you can’t blame a man who was only acting out of love.”
The second reason the King did not move against Hamlet is also revealing:
The
other motive,
Why to a public count [accounting] I might not go
Is the great love the general gender [common people] bear
him,
Who, dipping all his faults in their affection,
Work like the spring that turneth wood to stone [work like
mineral springs that petrify wood]
Convert his gyves [transform his chains] to graces; so that
my arrows,
Too slightly timbered [having too slight a shaft] for so
loud a wind [for so strong an
opposition],
Would have reverted [bounced back] to my bow again,
And not where I had aimed them.
Claudius has offered Laertes a glimpse into his emotional life; now he gives hi a look at his political calculations, which is also a private confidence. According to the King Hamlet is well-liked by the common people (“general gender”) who would excuse his faults. In an unusual comparison Claudius equates this process to the action of a mineral spring that petrifies wood, so that rather than wearing the chains (“gyves”) of a criminal, his moral failings would look like “graces.” Claudius continues with a different comparison, likening his efforts against Hamlet to arrows which are shot into a strong wind of public opposition and end up being blown back at him. Now all this may be true, but we can see the King using this revelation as an additional kind of psychological manipulation, convincing Laertes that he is being totally honest. Poor Laertes is left, at line 31, counting up his lost relatives and vowing revenge.
Now Claudius has been dying to tell someone about his masterstroke of arranging for Hamlet’s execution in England. (It’s lonely at the top, especially when you’re a master villain, like Claudius, and have to hide your “good works.”) So at line 32 the king begins to reveal eagerly what he has done. “Break not your sleeps for that” he says about Laertes’ rage for revenge, almost exulting in his scheme. In the previous speech Claudius had revealed his personal weakness; now he asserts himself as the strong man of action, not allowing anybody to “shake his beard with danger,” an act considered highly insulting. But before the King can reveal his triumph, he is trumped, once again, by Hamlet, whose letters arrive.
Throughout the play we have seen Hamlet use his “antic disposition” in interactions with others to disguise his real motives and to confuse his enemies. Now we see him do the same in writing, as his problematic message confounds Claudius:
“High
and mighty, you shall know I am set naked [defenseless] on
your kingdom. Tomorrow shall I beg leave to see
your kingly eyes, when I shall, first asking your
pardon [permission] thereunto, recount the occasion of my
sudden
and more strange return. Hamlet.”
Claudius had been just telling Laertes how clever he was in dealing with Hamlet, and now Hamlet screws up his plan. You can imagine Hamlet writing “high and mighty” with a mocking smirk on his face. He knows about the King’s plot to kill him, so when he says he is “naked on your kingdom,” he is almost flaunting the fact that Claudius was unable to touch him. He offers an elaborate gesture of obsequious flattery asking for a chance to “see your kingly eyes” and then “asking permission” or pardon to explain how he has ended up back in Denmark, a “sudden and more strange return.” Normal people would have offered an explanation about what had happened, but Hamlet consciously deepens the mystery. A frustrated Claudius wonders if the other passengers have also returned; at line 55 he wonders if the whole thing is “abuse,” meaning some kind of deliberate deception.
The King is anxious to find out what is going on with Hamlet, but he is also super-aware of maintaining his hold on the volatile Laertes. He assures the young man that the message is written in Hamlet’s handwriting, “character,” and asks if Laertes can figure out what it means. All Laertes can think about is that this return will give him a chance to
take revenge on the prince.
Now the King begins another long manipulation of Laertes to use him for his own ends at lines 64 – 185. He begins by quickly coming up with the complicated plot that will allow the two of them to kill Hamlet while making it look like an accident so that even Gertrude will “uncharged the practice.” (“Uncharge” is the opposite of “bring criminal charges,” so it means “exonerate.”) Claudius will use the word “practice” several times in his manipulation; it meant what we normally mean by the word, a kind of rehearsal for the real event, but it also meant “an elaborate deception.” When Laertes begs to be a part of the stratagem, Claudius graciously agrees to “use” him. Laertes is clearly Polonius’ son in that he lusts to be part of the world of espionage and intrigue; it will eventually cost him his life.
Claudius has a plan and a willing person to carry it out, but he is in no hurry to reveal his plot to Laertes. He wants to manipulate him some more. He begins by flattering the young man about his reputation as a swordsman, a skill that the King at line 88 calls the “very ribbon on the cap of youth.” It was indeed the hallmark of a young courtly gentleman in the Renaissance to be skilled at fencing, but it was a practice that upset the authorities who got tired of dealing with the consequences of sword fights between hot-blooded gentlemen with an inflated sense of their own honor and reputation. Therefore, as a king, Claudius condemns it as “of the unworthiest siege,” least important status. However, as a master manipulator, Claudius turns around two lines later and says it is a “needful” skill for the young; he wants to be careful not to alienate Laertes.
Having
established that he will use Laertes’ fencing prowess, he still does not tell
Laertes what he has in mind but instead goes off on an apparent tangent about a
Frenchman, a gentleman of Normandy, named “Lamond.” Claudius goes on at length
praising the horsemanship of this Frenchman, from lines 92 – 116. At first
reading you might think this is an irrelevant piece of trivial information.
Scholars over the centuries have tried to pin down the “identity” of Lamond, as
if Shakespeare must have had a real person in mind and just threw in this
information for topical interest. But what Shakespeare is doing here, in my
opinion, is demonstrating the way in which the court works and preparing us for
Claudius’ final plot which will lead to his own death. Polonius had said, back
in Act II, Scene 1: “By indirection find direction out.” Claudius wants to get
Laertes to agree to be his instrument in the murder of Hamlet, and Laertes is
certainly willing. But the King approaches the subject in this convoluted, indirect
manner. Having established that this fictional Lamond is a famous courtier
(Laertes calls him “the brooch indeed/ and gem of all the nation”), Claudius
uses his supposed report of Laertes’ skill as a fencer to flatter Polonius’
son. (For all we know, the King could be making all this up, along with
Hamlet’s supposed “envy” over Laertes’ skill and his desire to have a bout.)
Claudius had the idea for this plot to murder Hamlet back at line 70, and he
has taken 50 lines to circle around, hinting at the details and using
indirection and flattery to manipulate Laertes to do his dirty work for
him, just as he had done with his father.
And he’s still not ready to reveal what he has in mind. At line 121 even Laertes wants him to get to the point: “What out of this, my lord?” Claudius has set up the conceptual basis for his plan; he now undertakes to enflame Laertes’ rage to secure his commitment emotionally. He begins his campaign by asking if Polonius was “dear to you,” knowing full well that he was. He explains his rather odd question at lines 126 – 143, saying that people profess to care passionately about another person but that the passage of time “qualifies the spark and fire” of that love, diminishing it. At lines 134 – 138 Claudius offers a description of the consequences of delay in acting on one’s desire:
That
we would do
We should do when we would; for this “would” changes
And hath abatements and delays as many
As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents;
This short passage might well aptly describe the way Hamlet feels about his own
inability to act in his revenge plot. It’s curious that Claudius has the same
insight and seeks to insure that Laertes won’t be hampered by “thinking too
precisely on the event.” One other interesting aspect of Claudius’ speech is
his use of images which evoke disease and medical procedures: we have
“pleurisy” and “the quick o’ the ulcer” and the process of treating diseases
caused from excess by “easing” or bloodletting.
To prove his commitment to his dead father, Laertes offers to cut Hamlet’s throat in a church at line 144. You can see that this would be particularly strong proof because it is a double sin: you are not only murdering someone, but doing it in a holy place. Claudius justifies such a sacrilegious act, saying that a murderer should not be safe anywhere, even in a church. Finally at around line 145 the King gets around to explaining the plot which he came up with 70 lines earlier. Notice that at line 153 Claudius says they can get away with switching swords on Hamlet because he is “remiss, most generous and free from all contriving,” that is, he will suspect nothing. So Laertes will be able to take a special sword which has no protective button on the end – “I didn’t know the gun was loaded, your honor.” This is the kind of plotting and intrigue that Polonius built a career on, and his son is no different. So Laertes comes up with a back-up plan, putting a deadly poison on the tip of the unbated sword. Not to be outdone, the King adds another back-up plan – a poisoned cup of wine for Hamlet to taste. Claudius rationalizes this plethora of plots at line 171, saying that if the attempt fails it will reveal their intended murder through their “bad performance.” So there are now three different plans to kill Hamlet, more things to go wrong and the odds are increasing that the “engineers will be hoist on their own petards,” as Hamlet told his mother.
Ophelia Goes for a Swim
The Queen enters at line 186 with another bombshell – the death of Ophelia. There is never an easy way to tell someone a beloved relative has died, but Gertrude shares the details of her death in one of the most beautiful speeches in all the plays. She begins by describing the scene of Ophelia’s death in a brook. As we saw in her last scene, the girl was fascinated by flowers, and the Queen lists the flowers she had woven into little crowns. One flower, a wild orchid called long purple, has a “grosser name” because it resembles a human phallus growing out of what look like testicles. Among the grosser names are “dogstones” and “fool’s ballocks.” The fact that Danish girls apparently called the flowers “dead men’s fingers” is morbidly appropriate under these circumstances. The description of Ophelia’s actions in the water emphasizes that she was not in her right mind but also that the death had a kind of peacefulness to it. The language Shakespeare uses in this passage is quite poetic. Throughout there are frequent sibilant sounds of “s” and soft “c,” and Shakespeare often uses alliteration (words beginning with the same consonant sound.) Look particularly at lines 207 – 208: “Pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay/ To muddy death.” Notice how the alliterations of “p” and “m” sounds link the various elements together.
Laertes takes the news badly, but Shakespeare expresses his grief in a rather odd fashion – with a kind of serious pun:
Too
much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia,
And therefore I forbid my tears. But yet
It is our trick [weeping is natural]; nature her custom
holds,
Let shame say what it will. When these are gone,
The woman will be out [when I finish weeping, my female
weakness of emotion will be over].
“Since my sister just drowned, she has had enough water, so I won’t cry.” This kind of play on words in serious situations is often found in the plays. People in Shakespeare’s audience found nothing unusual about this approach; for them the connection established by the words was what was important. Despite his initial refusal to weep, Laertes cannot help himself. He refers to his tears as connected to his “woman,” that is, the feminine side of his nature. It is what keeps him from uttering his “speech of fire” which his water will drown. In the final lines Claudius reveals he is less concerned that Ophelia has died than that this latest tragedy will enflame Laertes’ rage again.
Branagh’s Hamlet, Act IV, Scene 7
What are Claudius and Laertes doing when we see them again? What is the attitude of the two as the plot Hamlet’s death? What seems to be the purpose of the Lamond story in this production? Why doesn’t Branagh show us Ophelia’s drowning? Describe Laertes’ reaction when Gertrude tells him of Ophelia’s death. What is the musical accompaniment for this scene and why? What is the only shot we get of Ophelia in this scene? What is Gertrude’s reaction when her husband says at the end of the scene, “Let’s follow”?
What is the dramatic purpose of this sequence, coming between Ophelia’s death and her burial? What new perspectives on the events of the play do the Gravedigger and his friend provide for us?
[A
churchyard. Enter a Gravedigger and another]
GRAVEDIGGER: Is she to be buried in Christian burial,
when
she willfully seeks her own salvation [mistake for “damnation”]?
OTHER: I tell thee she is. Therefore make her grave
straight [immediately]. The crowner [coroner]
hath sat on her [held an inquiry],
and finds it Christian burial [determine that she didn’t commit
suicide].
GRAVEDIGGER: How can that be, unless she drowned
herself
in her own defense?
OTHER: Why, 'tis found so.
GRAVEDIGGER: It must be “se offendendo”
[self-offense, a mistake for “self- defense];
it cannot be
else. For here lies the point: if I drown myself
wittingly [deliberately], it argues an act, and an act hath three branches – it is, to act, to do, to perform. Argal [Mistake for “ergo’], she
drowned
herself wittingly.
OTHER: Nay, but hear you, goodman delver [neighbor
digger],--
GRAVEDIGGER: Give me leave [Let me go on]. Here lies
the water;
good. Here stands the man; good. If the man go to
this water, and drown himself, it is (will he, nill he [whatever he wished])
he
goes; mark you that. But if the water come to him
and drown him, he drowns not himself. Argal, he
that is not guilty of his own death shortens not his
own
life.
OTHER: But is this law?
GRAVEDIGGER: Ay, marry, is 't -- crowner's quest [inquest]
law.
OTHER: Will you ha' the truth on 't? If this had not been
a gentlewoman, she should have been buried out o'
Christian burial.
GRAVEDIGGER: Why, there thou say'st [that’s right]. And
the more
pity that great folk should have countenance [legal permission] in this
world to drown or hang themselves, more than
their even-Christian [fellow Christians]. Come, my spade. There is no
ancient [well-established] gentleman but gardeners, ditchers, and
grave-makers.
They hold up [maintain] Adam's profession.
OTHER: Was he a gentleman?
GRAVEDIGGER: He was the first that ever bore arms
[had the coat-of-arms of a
gentleman].
OTHER: Why, he had none.
GRAVEDIGGER: What, art a heathen? How dost thou
understand the Scripture? The Scripture says Adam
digged.
Could he dig without arms? I'll put another
question to thee. If thou answerest me not to the
purpose, confess thyself--
OTHER: Go to [Give me a break].
GRAVEDIGGER: What is he that builds stronger than
either
the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?
OTHER: The gallows-maker; for that frame [scaffolding
for gallows] outlives a
thousand tenants.
GRAVEDIGGER: I like thy wit well, in good faith. The
gallows does well. But how does it well? It does
well
to those that do ill. Now thou dost ill to say the
gallows is built stronger than the church. Argal, the
gallows
may do well to thee. To 't again, come.
OTHER: “Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright,
or
a carpenter?”
GRAVEDIGGER: Ay, tell me that, and unyoke [quit
trying].
OTHER: Marry, now I can tell.
GRAVEDIGGER: To 't.
OTHER: Mass [by the Mass], I cannot tell. [Enter
HAMLET and HORATIO afar off]
GRAVEDIGGER: Cudgel thy brains [beat yourself up] no
more about it,
for your dull ass will not mend his pace with
beating [you can’t make a stupid donkey go any faster with a beating]. And, when you are asked this question
next, say “a grave-maker.” The houses he makes
last
till doomsday. Go, get thee in, and fetch me a
stoup of liquor. [Exit the
OTHER]
[He digs and sings]
In youth, when I did love, did love,
Methought it was very sweet,
To contract, O, the time, for, ah, my behove
[to pass the time for my own pleasure],
O, methought, there was nothing a- meet
[more appropriate].
HAMLET: Has this fellow no feeling of his business? He
sings at grave-making.
HORATIO: Custom hath made it in him a property of
easiness [habit has made it easy for him to do].
HAMLET: 'Tis e'en so. The hand of little employment [not
used to doing]
hath
the daintier sense [is always more sensitive].
GRAVEDIGGER: [Sings]
But age, with his stealing steps,
Hath claw'd me in his clutch,
And hath shipped me into the land, [land of
the aged]
As if I had never been such.
[i.e. young] [Digs up a skull]
HAMLET: That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing
once. How the knave jowls [dashes] it to the ground as if
‘twere Cain's jaw-bone, that did the first murder!
It
might be the pate of a politician which this ass
now o'er-reaches [gets the better of]; one that
would circumvent God,
might it not?
HORATIO: It might, my lord.
HAMLET: Or of a courtier; which could say “Good
morrow, sweet lord! How dost thou, good lord?”
This might be my Lord Such-a-one, that praised my
Lord Such-a-one's horse, when he meant to beg it,
might
it not?
HORATIO: Ay, my lord.
HAMLET: Why, e'en so. And now my Lady Worm's,
chapless [without a lower jaw] and knocked about the mazzard [head] with a sexton's spade. Here's fine revolution [social reversal], an we had
the trick to see 't. Did these bones cost no more the
breeding, but to play at loggats [skittles] with 'em? Mine
ache
to think on 't.
GRAVEDIGGER: [Sings]
A
pick-axe, and a spade, a spade,
For and a shrouding sheet.
O, a pit of clay for to be made
For such a guest is meet. [Digs
up another skull]
HAMLET: There's another. Why may not that be the
skull of a lawyer? Where be his quiddities [minor philosophical points] now, his quillets [verbal quibbles], his cases, his tenures [property titles],and his tricks? Why does he suffer this rude knave now to knock him about the sconce [head] with a dirty shovel and will not tell
him
of his action of battery [legal suit for battery]? Hum, this fellow might
be in 's time a great buyer of land, with his statutes,
his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers,
his recoveries. Is this the fine of his fines, and
the recovery of his recoveries [legal terms
associated with the buying of property]
to have his fine pate full
of fine dirt? Will his vouchers vouch him no more
of his purchases, and double ones too, than the
length and breadth of a pair of indentures [legal contracts]? The very
conveyances [deeds] of his lands will hardly lie in this box [i.e. the skull],
and
must th’ inheritor [owner] himself have no more, ha?
HORATIO: Not a jot more, my lord.
HAMLET: Is not parchment made of sheepskins?
HORATIO: Ay, my lord, and of calves’ skins too.
HAMLET: They are sheep and calves [considered foolish
animals] which seek out assurance in that. I will
speak to this fellow. –
Whose
grave's this, sirrah?
GRAVEDIGGER: Mine, sir. [Sings]
O, a pit of clay for to be made
For such a guest is meet.
HAMLET: I think it be thine, indeed; for thou liest in't.
GRAVEDIGGER: You lie out on 't [outside of it], sir,
and therefore ‘tis
not yours. For my part, I do not lie in 't, yet
it
is mine.
HAMLET: 'Thou dost lie in 't, to be in 't and say it is
thine.
'Tis for the dead, not for the quick [living];
therefore thou
liest.
GRAVEDIGGER: 'Tis a quick [fast-moving] lie, sir;
'twill away again,
from
me to you.
HAMLET: What man dost thou dig it for?
GRAVEDIGGER: For no man, sir.
HAMLET: What woman, then?
GRAVEDIGGER: For none, neither.
HAMLET: Who is to be buried in 't?
GRAVEDIGGER: One that was a woman, sir, but, rest
her
soul, she's dead.
HAMLET: How absolute the knave is! We must speak by the
card [by the book], or equivocation [quibbling]
will undo us. By the
Lord,
Horatio, these three years I have taken a note of
it: the age is grown so picked [affected] that
the toe of the
peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier, he
gaffs his kibe [the peasant is so close to the
gentleman that he chafes the sore on his
heel, i.e. there’s little social distinction left]. -- How long
hast thou been a grave-maker?
GRAVEDIGGER: Of all the days i' the year, I came to 't
that day that our last king Hamlet overcame
Fortinbras.
HAMLET: How long is that since?
GRAVEDIGGER: Cannot you tell that? Every fool can
tell that. It was the very day that young Hamlet
was
born -- he that is mad, and sent into England.
HAMLET: Ay, marry, why was he sent into England?
GRAVEDIGGER: Why, because he was mad. He shall
recover his wits there. Or if he do not, it's no great
matter
there.
HAMLET: Why?
GRAVEDIGGER: 'Twill, a not be seen in him there. There
the
men are as mad as he.
HAMLET: How came he mad?
GRAVEDIGGER: Very strangely, they say.
HAMLET: How “strangely”?
GRAVEDIGGER: Faith, e'en with losing his wits.
HAMLET: Upon what ground [from what cause]?
GRAVEDIGGER: Why, here in Denmark. I have been
sexton
here, man and boy, thirty years.
HAMLET: How long will a man lie i' th’ earth ere he rot?
GRAVEDIGGER: I' faith, if he be not rotten before he die
--as we have many pocky corses [bodies infected with syphilis] nowadays, that will scarce hold the laying in [burial ritual], he will last you some
eight year or nine year. A tanner will last you nine
year.
HAMLET: Why he more than another?
GRAVEDIGGER: Why, sir, his hide is so tanned with his
trade, that he will keep out water a great while; and
your water is a sore decayer of your whoreson [vile] dead
body.
Here's a skull now has lain you i’ th’ earth
three-and twenty years.
HAMLET: Whose was it?
GRAVEDIGGER: A whoreson mad fellow's it was.
Whose
do you think it was?
HAMLET: Nay, I know not.
GRAVEDIGGER: A pestilence on him for a mad rogue!
He poured a flagon of Rhenish [wine] on my head once.
This same skull, sir, was Yorick's skull, the
King's
jester.
HAMLET: This?
GRAVEDIGGER: E'en that.
HAMLET: Let me see. [Takes the skull] Alas, poor
Yorick! I knew him, Horatio. A fellow of infinite
jest, of most excellent fancy [imagination]. He hath borne me on
his back a thousand times, and now, how abhorred in
my imagination it is! My gorge rises [my stomach turns] at it. Here hung
those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft.
Where be your gibes [comic insults] now? your gambols [tricks]? your
songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to
set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your
own grinning? Quite chapfallen [dejected, lacking a lower jaw]? Now get you to my lady's chamber [girlfriend’s room], and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favor [appearance] she must come. Make her laugh at
that.--
Prithee, Horatio, tell me one thing.
HORATIO: What's that, my lord?
HAMLET: Dost thou think Alexander [ancient Greek king
who conquered the world] looked o' this fashion i' the
earth?
HORATIO: E'en so.
HAMLET: And smelt so? Pah! [Puts down
the skull]
HORATIO: E'en so, my lord.
HAMLET: To what base uses we may return, Horatio!
Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of
Alexander,
till he find it stopping a bung-hole [outlet in a beer barrel]?
HORATIO: 'Twere to consider too curiously [with
excessive ingenuity], to consider so.
HAMLET: No, faith, not a jot; but to follow him thither
with modesty [moderation] enough, and likelihood to lead it,
as
thus: Alexander died, Alexander was buried,
Alexander returneth into dust; the dust is earth; of earth
we
make loam; and why of that loam, whereto he
was converted, might they not stop a beer-barrel?
Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away.
O, that that earth, which kept the world in awe,
Should patch a wall t’ expel the winter flaw
[draft]!
A Morbid Comic Relief
Shakespeare
learned early in his career that you cannot sustain a single emotional response
for a prolonged time if your drama is to be effective. If that were the case
the best comedy would be a nonstop routine of rapid-fire jokes and the best
tragedy would be a mindless video game of slaughter. Therefore in his
tragedies he created short scenes of comic relief between his emotional
highpoints, to gives his audience a chance to recharge their emotional
batteries. This sequence with the gravediggers is a prime example of “comic
relief,” but it bears the unmistakable Shakespearean stamp. It is funny
but it hardly gives us respite from the knowledge of the deaths which have
occurred or are about to. Rather than “relief” in the sense of
“changing the subject,” a Shakespearean comic relief changes the perspective.
What happens to all those bodies that get strewn around the place during the
course of Hamlet working out his issues with revenge? Somebody has to clear up
after him. So we get this perspective of a couple of working stiffs who are
digging the grave for Ophelia’s body.
They don’t know her or Hamlet and could care less about all the angst that is going on at the palace, and so they are like a breath of fresh air after the claustrophobic first four acts.
They are interested in the legalities of the dead person’s case, only in so far as to how it impacts their job of digging the grave. People in Shakespeare’s audience were fascinated by suicide, because it was considered a mortal sin and carried with it a very strong taboo. We know Shakespeare shared this fascination because there is at least one suicide in every one of his tragedies. Some plays, such as Romeo and Juliet and Othello, end with the suicide of the central character. In traditional English society those who committed suicide were barred from being buried in the church graveyard, hallowed ground. Your body was instead buried on the common road, often at a crossroad, where many people would walk on your grave as a sign of disrespect. In some cases you would have a stake driven through your body instead of a grave marker. That which is most heavily forbidden in a society is that which is most often of fascination to its people.
We watch as the Gravedigger and his friend dispute the decision of the coroner, “crowner,” on whether or not Ophelia committed suicide. From Gertrude’s account, we know she fell into the brook by accident, but we also know she made no effort to save herself. Did she commit suicide? From the very beginning we know these two aren’t particularly well-educated. At line 2 the Gravedigger refers to the deceased as seeking her own “salvation” when he means “damnation.” Shakespeare often shows us lower-class characters who try to appear intelligent messing up their vocabulary, usually with words of more than two syllables. These malapropisms reveal a speaker who probably isn’t able to read but has pretensions and wants to appear educated. Other malapropisms used in this sequence include “argal” for “ergo” and the Latin phrase “se offendendo” for “self-offense” when he means “self-defense.” In addition to screwing up vocabulary, these working guys have real problems with the logic behind the “crowner’s quest law,” i.e. “the coroner’s inquest decision.” Look at the twisted reasoning at lines 15 – 21: if the man jumps in the water, he takes his own life, but if the water jumps on the man, it’s OK. And yet for all their verbal blunders they know what’s going on – politics is more important than the law. Look at line 24 – 26: “Will you ha' the truth on 't? If this had not been/ a gentlewoman, she should have been buried out o'/ Christian burial.” The Gravedigger agrees that it isn’t fair that upper-class people get permission, “have countenance,” to drown or hang themselves more than their fellow Christians.
At line 30 the Gravedigger gets in another little dig at the social inequity in his society: “There is no/ ancient gentleman but gardeners, ditchers, and /grave-makers. They hold up Adam’s profession.” The major social distinction in English society at that time was between the gentle class and the rest of society. The gentlemen and ladies controlled most of the economy and served in official positions. They distinguished themselves from the lower class by their ability to read and write Latin and by their breeding. Their official seal of approval within that society was a “coat-of-arms.” In the Middle Ages only gentlemen could carry a sword which is the origin of the coat-of-arms. (When Shakespeare purchased a “coat-of-arms” for his father, both father and son were thereafter referred to as “gentlemen” and had to be addressed as “Mister.”) The Gravedigger insists that the original gentlemen were the people like himself who dug ditches, graves and gardens. After all, they could hardly do their jobs unless they had “arms.”
At line 42 the Gravedigger poses a riddle for his friend: “What is he that builds stronger than/ either the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?” The first answer his friend comes up with is “the gallows maker” since the gallows houses a thousand tenants. The gravedigger praises this clever answer but points out that it could put him in danger of being hanged since it suggests the gallows are stronger than the church. He urges him to come up with another answer. When his friend is unable to, the Gravedigger offers an aphorism: “your dull ass will not mend his pace with beating,” i.e. “don’t sweat it.” He names the grave maker as the champion builder because the grave will house the dead until Doomsday, when according to the Bible the dead will rise again. The Gravedigger sends his friend off to get him some wine while he finishes the grave. It is at this point, line 63, that Hamlet and Horatio approach him while he sings a song. Hamlet is appalled that the Gravedigger sings while he is at work, and the first stanza at lines 63 – 66 does seem pretty trivial. However, the song turns out to be a more serious treatment of age and mortality, giving us the image “But age, with his stealing steps,/ Hath claw'd me in his clutch.”
You need to know what the rather gruesome task is that the Gravedigger is performing. The sacred ground around the church in every English village was rather small, and many generations of inhabitants had to be buried there. Rather than expanding the cemetery as we do in this country, the English practiced recycling. When they needed to dig a new grave in a crowded graveyard, they simply dug up an old body about which no one cared anymore and planted the new corpse. The old bones were amassed in a special shelter called a “charnel house.” That’s what the Gravedigger is doing as Hamlet muses philosophically on the nature of death.
Whose Skull Is It, Anyway?
At lines 80 – 114 Hamlet speculates about the different skulls the Gravedigger throws out of the grave. Who are the three fictional people he imagines and what do they all have in common?
Previously the Gravedigger and his friend had deplored the way social inequality was used to justify the upper classes getting an unfair advantage. At lines 77 –119 Hamlet deplores the idea that death makes everybody equal. At line 92 he sarcastically calls it “a fine revolution,” or upset of the normal social order. Hamlet is obsessed with the life each skull represents. At line 80 he imagines a skull could have been that of a politician, a clever, scheming fellow like Polonius tried to be, who could figure a way to get around even God. Now a dummy like the Gravedigger “o’er-reaches” him and what he represents.
Or the skull could have belonged to a courtier, someone who was used to the intrigue and power plays of the court. Such a person was skilled in the use of “indirection,” which Polonius was so proud of using. Hamlet imagines the courtier flattering his friend “Lord Such-a-one” because he eventually wants to ask him to borrow his horse.
At line 100 Hamlet begins his third and most complicated imaginary account of
the prior life of a skull – “Why may not that be the skull of a lawyer?”
Shakespeare has his hero mock the legal profession, which seems only right
since we know from records that the playwright had had a lot of experience with
the law. Besides the list of all the different kinds of documents and terms
used in legal affairs, we can get a sense of this mockery in the words
themselves. Look at the alliteration (similar initial consonant sounds) at
lines 101 – 102: “Where be his quiddities now, his/ quillets, his
cases, his tenures, and his tricks?” When we want to make fun of
something we often call attention to the words used to articulate it, like Tina
Fey doing a take-off on Sarah Palin’s “You betcha!” Shakespeare expends most of
his language on the aspects of law which he knew best, buying property at lines
105 – 114. One term in particular needs further explanation. “a pair of
indentures.” In the old days before copies of legal documents could be easily
made and many people who needed them could not read them, an original contract
would be written on a single sheet of parchment and then torn in half. The
jagged line of this tear resembled the irregular appearance of teeth and came
to be called “indentures.” When the parties to a contract wanted to check the
wording of the original document, they put their two halves together to check
and make sure they were the original. Hence contracts themselves came to be
called “indentures.” Some perceptive scholars have pointed out that these
jagged lines also appear on a skull showing where the different plates of the
human head grew together during infancy. Perhaps in examining the skull Hamlet
is reminded of the “indentures.” At line 118 Hamlet makes fun of people who
seek assurance in such documents made out of the skins of foolish animals like
calves and sheep.
Don’t Mess with Gravediggers
At line 120 Hamlet finally speaks to the Gravedigger and gets a rude surprise. Throughout the play we have seen Hamlet use his wits to frustrate and mock everyone from his mother to the King. The only character in the play that gets the best of this trained intellectual is the illiterate Gravedigger. The two skirmish with puns over who is “lying” in the grave (“resting” versus “not telling the truth”) and then Hamlet tries to find out for whom the grave is being dug and trips over the Gravedigger’s “absolute” approach to language: neither man or woman, but “one that was a woman, sir, but, rest her soul, she’s dead.” At line 141 Hamlet comments on this peasant’s audacity in taking him on intellectually:
By the
Lord,
Horatio, these three years I have taken a note of
it: the age is grown so picked [affected] that
the toe of the
peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier, he
gaffs his kibe [the peasant is so close to the
gentleman that he chafes the sore on his
heel, i.e. there’s little social distinction left].
This leveling of social differences between the traditional gentle classes and the great mass of the society is a theme that Shakespeare explores in many of his plays. Ironically it was a process he himself had been a part of when he succeeded as a playwright and used his money and influence to buy his father a coat-of-arms and make him a recognized gentleman.
Hamlet asks the Gravedigger another question that gives him a chance for more wisecracks. For how many years has he been a gravedigger? (Notice that this colorful character is simply known by his job title, since lower-class characters were assumed to be of importance in that society only for their occupations, which often gave them their original last names, like “Graves” and “Sexton.”) The Gravedigger says he began work the day that Hamlet Senior defeated Fortinbras Senior and Gertrude delivered a son, Hamlet. That would make Hamlet 30 years old. The age of a character is often relative in Shakespeare’s plays, and this assertion of Hamlet’s being 30 is not something that should be taken as a vital piece of information. I have seen the character played as a disaffected teenager (Ethan Hawke) all the way to an elderly woman (Dame Judith Anderson in her 70’s). They all worked. In mentioning Hamlet the Gravedigger, who probably has not recognized him, says that he is mad and has been “sent into England.” Why was he sent into England, the subject of this piece of gossip asks. “’Twill not be seen in him there. There the men are as mad as he.” In the plays Shakespeare often portrayed his society in a humorously negative ways: the English drank more than anybody else, stole other countries’ fashions, could not speak other languages or, as here, were crazy. Such insults undoubtedly got a good laugh from an audience smug in its sense of superiority.
Then at line 168 Hamlet asks his third major question of the Gravedigger: “How long will a man lie i’ th’ earth ere he rot?” Throughout the play Hamlet has been obsessed about death – with the Ghost, in “To be or not to be,” during his observations of the Gravedigger and the skulls. In “To be or not to be” he had said that Death was a country “from whose bourn/ No traveler returns.” But here is a person who knows all about death, at least physically. Hamlet has had two travelers who return from the land of Death – his father, as a ghost, and the Gravedigger, for whom Death holds no surprise. In a matter-of-fact fashion the Gravedigger gives Hamlet the lowdown on death. Many corpses these days suffer from the effects of syphilis and are so rotten they can’t last the “laying in,” burial ritual. Otherwise the average corpse lasts for eight years. A tanner, who cures leather, will last longer because his tough skin will hold out water longer. That’s a piece of trivia you probably didn’t know.
At line 178 the Gravedigger presents Hamlet with a fourth skull and asks him to guess whose it is. (Notice that the Gravedigger digs up a skull buried 23 years earlier and knows exactly whose it is; this guy really knows his bodies.) Hamlet, of course, has no idea. The Gravedigger, building a little suspense by delaying the revelation at lines 180 –186, finally tells Hamlet it was the skull of Yorick, the jester of the late King. Hamlet utters one of the most memorable lines in all of literature: “Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio.” Why is that line so famous? I think it is because the moment represents a powerful epiphany for the Prince. Up to this point he has been talking about Death in the abstract as he speculates about its meaning and its effect on one’s body and soul. Now it becomes powerfully real as he holds in his hands the remains of someone he once loved. He recalls all the physical affection he shared as a boy with the jester and contrasts that with the disgust/fascination he feels with the jawless skull of his friend. He asks ironically where Yorick’s humor is now. He concludes with one final, powerful reminder of mortality – “Now get/ you to my lady’s chamber, and tell her, let her paint an/ inch thick, to this favor she must come. Make her laugh at that.” That’s a great line, but who do you think Hamlet has in mind when he says, “My lady”? How about Ophelia?
In the last 20 lines of the sequence Hamlet returns again to a meditation on futility of
worldly glory in the face of inevitable death. At line 209 he makes what he thinks is a
profound statement: “To what base uses we may return, Horatio!” He illustrates his
insight by tell us once again that Alexander the Great didn’t look so hot or smell so good
after he had died and turned to dust, which might have been used to stuff hole in a beer
barrel. Despite his friend’s warning, “’Twere to consider too curiously to consider so,”
Hamlet ends his philosophical reflections at lines 220 – 223 with two rhymed couplets
verse:
Imperious Caesar, dead and turned
to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away.
O, that that earth, which kept the world in awe,
Should patch a wall t’ expel the winter flaw [draft]!
Shakespeare often used such couplets to signal the conclusion of a scene or to emphasize
the summation of the point he had been making. Hamlet’s neatly wraps up his
conclusion about death trumping one’s accomplishments, but ironically he is about to get
a second shock; the grave which displaced his first love, Yorick, will be used to house his
second one, Ophelia.
Act V, Scene 1, Lines 224 – 319
Why does Laertes lose his temper with the “churlish priest”? Why does Hamlet lose his
temper at Laertes here? What does Hamlet challenge Laertes to do? What does Gertrude
reveal about her feelings for Ophelia? What do Claudius and Laertes plan to do at the end
of the scene?
[Enter KING, QUEEN, LAERTES, Attendants, body of OPHELIA and a DOCTOR OF DIVINITY]
HAMLET: But soft, but soft awhile! Here comes the King,
The queen, the courtiers. Who is this they follow?
And with such maimed [diminished] rites? This doth betoken
The corse they follow did with desperate hand
Fordo [destroy] its own life. 'Twas of some estate
[high rank].
Couch we [let us hide] awhile, and mark. [They step
aside]
LAERTES: What ceremony else?
HAMLET: That is Laertes, a very noble youth. Mark.
LAERTES: What ceremony else?
DOCTOR: Her obsequies have been as far enlarged
As we have warranty. Her death was doubtful [suspicious],
And, but that great command o'ersways the order [except for
the fact that the King’s order overrides the decision
of the Church],
She should in ground unsanctified have lodged
Till the last trumpet [She should have been buried in unholy
ground until the trumpet sounded at Judgment Day]. For
charitable prayers,
Shards [broken pottery], flints and pebbles should be thrown
on her;
Yet here she is allowed her virgin crants [garlands],
Her maiden strewments [flowers strewn on the grave] and the
bringing home
Of bell and burial [brought to her grave, her last home, with a
bell].
LAERTES: Must there no more be done?
DOCTOR: No more be done.
We should profane the service of the dead
To sing a requiem and such rest [pray for such rest] to her
As to peace-parted souls [those we died at peace].
LAERTES: Lay her i' th’ earth,
And from her fair and unpolluted flesh
May violets spring! I tell thee, churlish priest,
A ministering angel shall my sister be,
When thou liest howling [screaming in pain in Hell].
HAMLET: What, the fair Ophelia!
GERTRUDE: Sweets to the sweet. farewell! [Scattering
flowers]
I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet's wife;
I thought thy bride-bed to have decked, sweet maid,
And not have strewed thy grave.
LAERTES: O, treble woe
Fall ten times treble on that cursed head
Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense
Deprived thee of [deprived you of your mind]! Hold off the earth
awhile,
Till I have caught her once more in mine arms. [Leaps
into the grave]
Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead,
Till of this flat a mountain you have made
To o'ertop old Pelion [a high mountain on which the giants
placed Mt. Ossa in their attempt to reach Mount Olympus] or the skyish head
Of blue Olympus.
HAMLET: [Advancing] What is he whose grief
Bears such an emphasis? Whose phrase of sorrow
Conjures the wandering stars [planets], and makes them stand
Like wonder-wounded hearers? This is I,
Hamlet the Dane. [Leaps into the grave]
LAERTES: The devil take thy soul! [Grappling
with him]
HAMLET: Thou pray'st not well.
I prithee, take thy fingers from my throat,
For, though I am not splenitive [quick-tempered] and rash,
Yet have I something in me dangerous,
Which let thy wisdom fear. Hold off thy hand.
KING: Pluck them asunder.
QUEEN: Hamlet, Hamlet!
ALL: Gentlemen!
HORATIO: Good my lord, be quiet. [HAMLET and
LAERTES parted]
HAMLET: Why I will fight with him upon this theme
Until my eyelids will no longer wag!
QUEEN: O my son, what theme?
HAMLET: I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers
Could not, with all their quantity of love,
Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?
KING: O, he is mad, Laertes!
QUEEN: For love of God, forbear him.
HAMLET: 'Swounds, show me what thou'lt [will thou] do.
Woo't [would thou] weep, woo't fight, woo't fast, woo't tear
thyself,
Woo't drink up easel [vinegar], eat a crocodile?
I'll do't. Dost thou come here to whine?
To outface me with leaping in her grave?
Be buried quick [alive] with her, and so will I.
And, if thou prate of mountains, let them throw
Millions of acres on us, till our ground,
Singeing his pate against the burning zone [sun’s orbit],
Make Ossa like a wart! Nay, an thou'lt mouth,
I'll rant as well as thou.
QUEEN: This is mere madness.
And thus awhile the fit will work on him.
Anon [soon], as patient as the female dove,
When that her golden couplets are disclosed [two yellow
chicks hatch],
His silence will sit drooping.
HAMLET: Hear you, sir;
What is the reason that you use me thus?
I loved you ever. But it is no matter.
Let Hercules himself do what he may,
The cat will mew, and dog will have his day. [Exit]
KING: I pray thee, good Horatio, wait upon him [take care of
him].
[Exit HORATIO] [To
LAERTES]
Strengthen your patience in [by remembering] our last
night's speech;
We'll put the matter to the present push [immediate action].
--
Good Gertrude, set some watch over your son. --
This grave shall have a living monument.
An hour of quiet shortly shall we see;
Till then, in patience our proceeding be. [Exit]
The Funeral from Hell
Remember that suicide was an extreme taboo in those days, and this was nowhere more
evident than when it came to traditional religious burial ritual. The meager appearance of
the funeral party tells Hamlet that the corpse was that of a suicide. The priest presiding
over Ophelia’s burial is a Doctor of Divinity. A real stickler for theological niceties, he
makes it clear to Laertes that Ophelia is getting as much sanctification as he should
expect: some flowers and a bell. To pray for her soul or sing a requiem would “profane
the service of the dead.” (Those who are cruel at a personal level often do so in the guise
of protecting some abstract principle.) At line 233 the priest makes it clear that Ophelia is
being buried in sacred ground only because the King commanded the Church authorities
to do it. He would have preferred to have thrown pebbles and broken pottery on her
body. No wonder Laertes, at line 250, angrily declares: “I tell thee, churlish priest,/ A
ministering angel shall my sister be,/ When thou liest howling.” In other words, Ophelia
will go to heaven, the priest to hell.
At line 255 Gertrude sprinkles flowers on the body and makes a startling announcement:
“I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet's wife;/ I thought thy bride-bed to have
decked, sweet maid,/ And not have strewed thy grave.” So despite all those efforts by
Polonius and Laertes back at the beginning of the play to break up Hamlet and Ophelia, it
seems at least the Queen would have welcomed such an alliance. This is an ironic twist.
The mention of “Hamlet” sets off Laertes: “O, treble woe/ Fall ten times treble on that
cursed head/ Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense/ Deprived thee of!” Laertes is
using hyperbole or exaggeration here when he calls down “treble woe” to fall on
Hamlet’s head “ten times treble.” (If you’re keeping count that that’s three times thirty or
90 woes.) He identifies Hamlet’s killing Polonius as the “wicked deed” that deprived his sister of her sanity. Laertes then indulges in one of those graveside antics that you hate to see: he jumps into the open grave to embrace his sister’s body one last time and then declares:
Now
pile your dust upon the quick and dead,
Till of this flat a mountain you have made
To o’ertop old Pelion or the skyish head
Of blue Olympus.
We saw Laertes’ tendency to express his anger and grief earlier with hyperbole “treble woe,” but this next bit is really over the top. He wants to be buried alive with a heap of dirt so high it will rival a mountain. Pelion, in ancient Greece, which according to legend had been created by a bunch of giants who were trying to reach Mt. Olympus, where the gods resided.
“Please Do Not Fight in the Open Grave”
Now, at line 267 Hamlet steps out of the shadows where he has been silently watching the proceedings. He doesn’t reveal himself when he hears of Ophelia’s death; he doesn’t object when he is accused of killing Polonius and driving his girlfriend to madness and suicide. No, the thing he objects to his Laertes’ melodramatic rant:
What
is he whose grief
Bears such an emphasis? Whose phrase of sorrow
Conjures the wandering stars, and makes them stand
Like wonder-wounded hearers? This is I,
Hamlet the Dane.
This is really quite odd, that Hamlet takes exception to the excessive expression of grief from a man whose father he has murdered and whose sister he has helped to kill. He is being very sarcastic when he refers to Laertes’ “emphasis,” as if it were a violation of good taste. It is grief which is so outsized that it stops the planets in their orbits as if they were listeners struck by the wonder of it all. Hamlet reveals himself and then says he “Hamlet the Dane,” which is a way of reminding everyone not of his nationality but rather his identity as the possible future king.
Laertes jumps out of the grave and attacks Hamlet. (Often in production the director may have Hamlet pulled into the grave so the subsequent struggle happens literally over Ophelia’s body.) Hamlet’s response is very measured: he asks Laertes politely, “I prithee take thy fingers from my throat,” and warns him that while he doesn’t lose his temper easily (“I am not splenitive”) he does have feelings that make him dangerous. Those present shout to stop the fight and the two combatants are separated. Hamlet offers to continue to fight as long as he is alive (“my eyelids wag”) to defend his reputation. At line 285 he declares his love for Ophelia and offers to pit his affection against that of Laertes: “I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers/ Could not, with all their quantity of love,/ Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?” Think about the interactions between Ophelia and Hamlet throughout the play. Do you think he means it when he declares his love for her?
The King and Queen urge Laertes to back off because Hamlet is crazy, but the Prince pushes his challenge at line 290:
'Swounds,
show me what thou'lt [will thou] do.
Woo't [would thou] weep, woo't fight, woo't fast,
woo't tear thyself,
Woo't drink up eisel [vinegar], eat a crocodile?
I'll do't. Dost thou come here to whine?
To outface me with leaping in her grave?
Be buried quick [alive] with her, and so will I.
And, if thou prate of mountains, let them throw
Millions of acres on us, till our ground,
Singeing his pate against the burning zone
[sun’s orbit],
Make Ossa like a wart!
We know Hamlet is deadly serious about matching Laertes’ gesture to prove his love for Ophelia. His use of the taboo word “’Swounds” (a shortened form of “God’s wounds”) right at the beginning is a signal that he is not fooling. He starts out listing all the things Laertes might do for his sister (“weep,” “fight,’ “fast,” etc.) and ends up mocking his hyperbole: “Woo’t drink up eisel, eat a crocodile.” He declares Laertes’ outburst is simply whining and an attempt to “outface me,” meaning “trying to outstare me.” Now Hamlet offers an ingenious rebuke: if Laertes will be buried under Pelion, Hamlet will be buried under Mount Ossa, which was the mountain on top of Pelion the giants built to attack Olympus. Only Hamlet would think to top his opponent with a superior classical reference!
Trying to protect her son from Laertes’ wrath, Gertrude at line 302 once again asserts that Hamlet is insane and that he will soon revert to his gentle nature, which she compares to a mother dove that has just hatched two babies and is cooing. But Hamlet is not crazy at this point, although he may be in deep denial. In all seriousness he asks Laertes why he is so upset: “What is the reason you use me thus?/ I did ever love you.” I don’t know, maybe a murdered father and sister driven to self-destruction? Finally he dismisses Laertes’ threats by comparing him to Hercules, who may have been a super-hero in ancient Greek mythology but had become a ranting bombast in Elizabethan theater. (If you are familiar with A Midsummer Night’s Dream, you may recall Bottom bragging about being able to rant like “Erecles.”) Hamlet concludes as he leaves by saying, “Every dog will have his day,” in other words, “I’m going to do what I have to do.”
Claudius reasserts his control over Laertes by reminding him of their previous conversation about killing Hamlet which he says they will put to “present push,” that is, immediate action. Laertes will thereby provide his sister with a “living monument,” i.e. Hamlet’s life. All they have to do is to be patient until they have an opportunity to act.
Branagh’s Hamlet, Act V, Scene 1
What is the relationship between the two gravediggers in this scene? What comic bits does Billy Crystal bring to his portrayal of the Gravedigger? What does the Gravedigger do with the bones he digs up? How is Yorick’s skull made recognizable? How does Branagh establish Hamlet as a boy with Yorick? What is unusual about the way Branagh stages the speech Hamlet makes about the skull? What is Hamlet’s reaction when he learns the grave is for Ophelia? What does Laertes throw at Hamlet and why is it significant? How does Hamlet declare “I loved Ophelia”?
Act V, Scene 2, Lines 1 –238
Of all the things that happened to Hamlet on his sea voyage, what impressed him most and how do we know? Does Hamlet accept any responsibility for the deaths of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern? What is the dramatic function of the character Osric? Hamlet and Horatio mock him on the basis of what qualities?
[A
hall in the castle. Enter HAMLET and HORATIO]
HAMLET: So much for this, sir. Now shall you see the other;
You do remember all the circumstance?
HORATIO: Remember it, my lord!
HAMLET: Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting
That would not let me sleep. Methought I lay
Worse than the mutines in the bilboes [mutineers
in chains]. Rashly --
And praised be rashness for it: let us know,
Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well
When our deep plots do pall [weaken]; and that
should learn [teach] us
There's a divinity that shapes our ends
[outcomes of our actions],
Rough-hew them how we will [no matter how
roughly we shape them] --
HORATIO: That
is most certain.
HAMLET: Up from my cabin,
My sea-gown scarfed about me, in the dark
Groped I to find out them; had my desire,
Fingered their packet, and in fine withdrew
To mine own room again, making so bold
(My fears forgetting manners) to unfold
Their grand commission; where I found, Horatio,--
O royal knavery -- an exact command,
Larded [ornamented] with many several sorts of
reasons
Importing Denmark's health and England's too,
With -- ho! -- such bugs and goblins in my life
[such frightening things in my life if I
were allowed to live]
That, on the supervise, no leisure bated [that
as soon as the letter was read, Hamlet was
to be executed without any delay at all]
No, not to stay the grinding of the axe,
My head should be struck off.
HORATIO: Is 't possible?
HAMLET: Here's the commission. Read it at more leisure.
But wilt thou hear me how I did proceed?
HORATIO: I beseech you.
HAMLET: Being thus benetted round with villanies,
Or [before] I could make a prologue to my
brains,
They had begun the play. I sat me down,
Devised a new commission, wrote it fair [clear
handwriting of a clerk] --
I once did hold it, as our statists [statesmen] do,
A baseness to write fair [a lower class virtue
to write well] and labored much
How to forget that learning, but, sir, now
It did me yeoman's [substantial] service. Wilt
thou know
The effect [substance] of what I wrote?
HORATIO: Ay, good my
lord.
HAMLET: An earnest conjuration from the king,
As England was his faithful tributary [a nation
under his domination],
As love between them like the palm might flourish,
As peace should still her wheaten garland wear
And stand a comma 'tween their amities [serve to
link their friendships],
And many such-like ases of great charge
[“whereas “ phrases of great legal
significance]
That, on the view and knowing of these contents,
Without debatement further, more or less,
He should the bearers put to sudden death,
Not shriving-time allowed.
HORATIO: How was this sealed?
HAMLET: Why, even in that was heaven ordinant [working to
control event].
I had my father's signet [seal ring] in my
purse,
Which was the model [replica] of that Danish
seal;
Folded the writ up in form of the other,
Subscribed [signed] it, gave 't the
impression, placed it safely,
The changeling never known. Now, the next day
Was our sea-fight; and what to this was sequent [what
followed this]
Thou know 'st already.
HORATIO: So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to 't.
HAMLET: Why, man, they did make love to this employment.
They are not near my conscience. Their defeat
[destruction]
Does by their own insinuation [voluntary
involvement] grow.
'Tis dangerous when the baser [inferior] nature
comes
Between the pass and fell incensed points [the
thrust of fiercely angry swords]
Of mighty opposites.
HORATIO: Why, what a king is this!
HAMLET: Does it not, think thee, stand me now upon
[Is it not now my duty] --
He that hath killed my king and whored my mother,
Popped in between the election [election of the
Danish king] and my hopes,
Thrown out his angle [fishhook] for my proper
[very] life,
And with such cozenage—is 't not perfect conscience,
To quit [repay] him with this arm? And is 't not
to be damned
To let this canker of our nature come
In further evil?
HORATIO: It must be shortly known to him from England
What is the issue of the business there.
HAMLET: It will be short. The interim is mine,
And a man's life's no more than to say “one.”
But I am very sorry, good Horatio,
That to Laertes I forgot myself,
For, by the image of my cause, I see
The portraiture of his [I see the picture of
Laertes’ situation in my own]. I'll
court his favors.
But, sure, the bravery [boastful showiness] of
his grief did put me
Into a towering passion.
HORATIO: Peace, who comes here? [Enter
OSRIC]
OSRIC: Your lordship is right welcome back to Denmark.
HAMLET: I humbly thank you, sir. [to
HORATIO]
Dost
know this waterfly [trivial, gaudy person]?
HORATIO: [Aside] No, my good lord.
HAMLET: [Aside] Thy state is the more gracious,
for 'tis a vice to know him. He hath much
land, and fertile. Let a beast be lord of beasts, and his
crib shall stand at the king's mess. [If a man is rich enough with a large herd of animals, even if he is no better than an animal himself, he will be welcomed at the King’s table]'Tis a chough [talking crow],
but,
as I say, spacious in the possession of dirt.
OSRIC: Sweet lord, if your lordship were at leisure, I
should impart a thing to you from his Majesty.
HAMLET: I will receive it, sir, with all diligence of
spirit. Put your bonnet to his right use: 'tis for
the
head [men usually wore hats but removed
them in the presence of royalty].
OSRIC: I thank your lordship, it is very hot.
HAMLET: No, believe me, 'tis very cold; the wind is
northerly.
OSRIC: It is indifferent [somewhat] cold, my lord,
indeed.
HAMLET: But yet methinks it is very sultry and hot for
my
complexion [temperament].
OSRIC: Exceedingly, my lord; it is very sultry, as
'tweren -- I cannot tell how. But, my lord, his Majesty
bade me signify to you that he has laid a great wager
on
your head. Sir, this is the matter --
HAMLET: I beseech you, remember. [HAMLET motions
to put on his hat]
OSRIC: Nay, good my lord; for mine ease, in good faith.
Sir, here is newly come to court Laertes -- believe
me, an absolute gentleman, full of most excellent
differences, of very soft society and great showing.
Indeed, to speak feelingly of him, he is the card or
calendar of gentry [model of courtly behavior], for
you shall find in him the continent [that
which contains] of what part a gentleman would see.
HAMLET: Sir, his definement [definition] suffers no perdition
[loss] in
you, though I know to divide him inventorially [to list his qualities separately]
would dozy [stagger] the arithmetic of memory, and yet but
yaw
[deviate] neither, in respect of his quick sail [excellence]. But, in
the
verity of extolment [truthful praise], I take
him to be a soul of great article; and his
infusion of such dearth and rareness,
as, to make true diction of him, his semblable is his
mirror [his only equal is his mirror image] and who else would trace [try to rival him] him, his umbrage [his shadows],
nothing
more.
OSRIC: Your lordship speaks most infallibly of him.
HAMLET: The concernancy, sir? Why do we wrap
the
gentleman in our more rawer breath [why
are we talking about him]?
OSRIC: Sir?
HORATIO: [Aside to HAMLET] Is 't not possible to
understand
in
another tongue? You will to 't [you will manage it], sir, really.
HAMLET: [to OSRIC] What imports the nomination
[naming] of
this
gentleman?
OSRIC: Of Laertes?
HORATIO: [Aside] His purse is empty already; all 's [all
his]
golden
words are spent.
HAMLET: Of him, sir.
OSRIC: I know you are not ignorant --
HAMLET: I would you did, sir; yet, in faith, if you did,
it would not much approve [commend] me. Well,
sir?
OSRIC: You are not ignorant of what excellence Laertes is--
HAMLET: I dare not confess that, lest I should compare with
him in excellence. But to know a man well
were
to know himself.
OSRIC: I mean, sir, for his weapon. But in the imputation
[reputation]
laid on him by them, in his meed [merit] he's unfellowed
[unmatched].
HAMLET: What's his weapon?
OSRIC: Rapier and dagger [used together in fencing at
that time].
HAMLET: That's two of his weapons. But, well --
OSRIC: The King, sir, hath wagered with him six Barbary
horses, against the which he has impawned, as I take
it, six French rapiers and poniards [daggers],
with their
assigns [accessories], as girdle, hangers
[sword belt and straps], and so. three of the carriages
[Osric uses a word that usually referred to wheeled supports
for a cannon] in faith, are very dear to fancy, very
responsive to the hilts, most delicate carriages,
and of very liberal conceit [lavish design].
HAMLET: What call you the carriages?
HORATIO: I knew you must be edified by the margent [enlightened
by a marginal notes in a
textbook] ere you had done.
OSRIC: The carriages, sir, are the hangers.
HAMLET: The phrase would be more germane to the
matter, if we could carry cannon by our sides. I
would it might be “hangers” till then. But, on. Six
Barbary horses against six French swords, their
assigns, and three liberal-conceited carriages –
that's the French bet against the Danish. Why is this
“impawned,”
as you call it?
OSRIC: The king, sir, hath laid [bet] that in a dozen
passes [exchanges] between yourself and him, he shall not
exceed
you three hits. He hath laid on twelve for nine; and it
would come to immediate trial, if your lordship
would vouchsafe the answer [agree to meet
Laertes].
HAMLET: How if I answer “no”?
OSRIC: I mean, my lord, the opposition of your person in
trial.
HAMLET: Sir, I will walk here in the hall. If it please his
majesty, 'tis the breathing [exercised] time of
day with me. Let
the foils [rapiers blunted for fencing] be
brought, the gentleman willing, and the King hold
his purpose, I will win for him an I can.
If not, I will gain nothing but my shame and the odd
hits.
OSRIC: Shall I deliver you e'en so?
HAMLET: To this effect, sir; after what flourish your nature
will.
OSRIC: I commend my duty [Osric means “I offer my
duty” but it could also mean “I
praise my own duty”] to your lordship.
HAMLET: Yours. [Exit OSRIC] He does well to commend
[praise]
it
himself; there are no tongues else for's turn [for his purpose].
HORATIO: This lapwing runs away with the shell on his
head [sarcastic reference
to the idea that Osric, like a newly-hatched bird, runs
off with the shell still on his head, like the enormous hat Osric wears]
HAMLET: He did comply with his dug [praised
his mother’s teat] before he sucked it. Thus
has he (and many more of the same
breed that I know the drossy [worthless] age dotes on) only got
the
tune of the time, and, out of an habit of encounter; a kind of
yesty [trivial] collection, which carries them
through and
through the most fond and winnowed opinions; and do
but blow them to their trial, the bubbles are out. [Enter
a Lord]
LORD: My lord, his majesty commended him to you by
young Osric, who brings back to him that you
attend him in the hall. He sends to know if your
pleasure hold to play with Laertes, or that you will
take
longer time.
HAMLET: I am constant to my purpose. They follow
the King's pleasure. If his fitness speaks, mine is
ready [if the King is ready, so am I] now or whensoever,
provided I be so able as now.
LORD: The King and Queen and all are coming down.
HAMLET: In happy time [that’s opportune].
LORD: The Queen desires you to use some gentle
entertainment to Laertes [receive Laertes
nicely] before you fall to play.
HAMLET: She well instructs me. [Exit
Lord]
HORATIO: You will lose, my lord.
HAMLET: I do not think so. Since he went into France, I
have been in continual practice. I shall win at the
odds [with the advantage]. But thou wouldst not
think how ill all's here
about my heart. But it is no matter.
HORATIO: Nay, good my lord --
HAMLET: It is but foolery, but it is such a kind of
gaingiving [misgiving] as would perhaps trouble a
woman.
HORATIO: If your mind dislike anything, obey it. I will
forestall their repair [coming] hither, and say
you are not fit.
HAMLET: Not a whit. We defy augury [predictions]. There's
a special
providence in the fall of a sparrow [reference to
Matthew 10 and the idea of God’s direct
intervention in the world]. If it be now,
'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be
now; if it be not now, yet it will come. The
readiness is all. Since no man of aught he leaves
knows, what is 't to leave betimes [Since no one knows for sure what he leaves behind, what difference does it make if we leave early] ? Let be.
“What I Did on the Cruise”
This scene begins in the middle of a conversation between Hamlet and Horatio. It implies
that Hamlet has told Horatio more details about his abortive trip to England, leading up to
the dramatic climax of the voyage. This use of the implied conversation was a device
Shakespeare employed if he wanted to create a sense that there was more going on than
there really was on the stage.
At line 3 Hamlet begins to detail the profound change that has occurred in him since we
saw him in Act IV, Scene 4. He has become convinced that a higher power controls
the events of his life. On board the ship headed to England he was unable to sleep telling
us that he was more ill at ease than the prisoners locked in chains. He suddenly and
without thinking about it (“rashly”) got up and took action. The very unpremeditated
nature of what he did impressed him -- “praised be rashness for it” – and he realizes that
when his elaborate plans or “plots” fail or “pall,” “there is a divinity that shapes our
ends,/ Rough-hew them how we will.”
Throughout the first four acts of the play Hamlet had sought to control the events taking
place around him, from the plot to test Claudius’ guilt to his decision not to kill the King
while he was praying. Now he lets events control him, or at least waits for them to
unfold. This change will explain a lot about how the end of the tragedy plays out. There
is an interesting story about the language Shakespeare uses here to convey Hamlet’s
insight at line 11 – 12. Two Shakespearean scholars were walking through the
countryside around Oxford, not far from Stratford where Shakespeare grew up. They
watched two farm laborers constructing a temporary fence for livestock by taking small
tree trunks and branches and weaving them into a barrier. One of the workers said to his
companion as he cut the wood into equal lengths, “I’ll rough-hew them and then you
shape them,” that is, trim off the excess and make them presentable. The scholars realized
that Shakespeare had probably gotten the image for his philosophical idea from the
peasants he grew up around.
In his next speech Hamlet outlines the sequence of actions he undertook that night on the
ship, how he stole the royal packet Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were carrying and took
it back to his cabin, opened it and discovered Claudius’ secret plot. The King of England
was commanded to cut off Hamlet’s head immediately. Of course this cold-blooded
murder was justified in the letter with fancy language (“larded”) and rationales. It will be
good for the health of both countries, because Hamlet is guilty of all kinds of unspecified
sins (“bugs and goblins in my life” – notice how he mocks the charges against him.) He
is to be executed immediately without even sharpening the axe! Hamlet presents Horatio
with the original order as proof of Claudius’ plot against him.
At line 33 Hamlet uses an unusual image in describing this conspiracy against him. He
compares it to a drama which is playing out, but before he has even written the prologue
to the piece, his enemies have already started the play. We know that Hamlet really
enjoys matching wits with the conspirators because he goes into so much detail about his
counter-measures at lines 35 – 60. First, he wrote a new commission with professional-
looking handwriting. Members of the upper-classes in those days took perverse pride in
having bad handwriting, a lot like doctors today, leaving it to their lower-class clerks to
make their writing presentable. Hamlet is an exception and thus creates the illusion his
phony letter is the real thing. Then he imitates the flowery, phony language of the
original message, mocking the hypocritical words Claudius had chosen to beautify his
murderous intent.
As England was his faithful tributary,
As love between them like the palm might flourish,
As peace should still her wheaten garland wear
And stand a comma 'tween their amities,
You have to keep reminding yourself as you read through these diplomatic euphemisms
that the underlying message is “Kill them!” Shakespeare imagines that at this time
England was under the domination of Denmark (“faithful tributary”), as it had been
earlier in its history. He uses images of growth (“like the palm might flourish”) and
harvest (“wheaten garland wear,” associated with festivals). The most unusual is the
idea that this murder would serve as “a comma,” a punctuation mark that links syntactical
units in a sentence, in this case cementing two countries. Hamlet at line 48 sarcastically
calls these “many such-like ases of great charge,” just like the formal wording still found
in official proclamations with their long lists of “whereases.” The point of the altered
commission is the death of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, which Hamlet seems to pass
off as just part of the joke.
The third thing that Hamlet did to make the phony letter seem authentic was to close it
with a special wax seal using his father’s signet ring. Hamlet credits the intervention of
God for making sure he had the ring with him to make the “impression” in the wax.
(Using a wax seal with a recognizable design from a ring was how you could make sure
your communications had not been tampered with in those days.) Hamlet calls the forged
letter as a “changeling,” referring to the belief that fairies would kidnap human infants
and leave inferior babies in their stead. It is interesting that after spending 30 lines
explaining in great detail the process of forging the letter, Hamlet dismisses the fight with
the pirates in just three lines at 60 – 62. You or I might have found that the more
interesting aspect of his experience.
At line 63 Horatio goes back to comment on the impending death of Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern, as well he might. Being friends with Hamlet can be very dangerous to your
health, as Horatio is finding out. But Hamlet doesn’t have the slightest regret about
sending his supposed schoolmates to their doom:
Why, man, they did make love to this employment.
They are not near my conscience. Their defeat [destruction]
Does by their own insinuation [voluntary involvement] grow.
'Tis dangerous when the baser [inferior] nature comes
Between the pass and fell incensed points [the thrust of
angry swords]
Of mighty opposites.
He is, of course, correct that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern had betrayed him and eagerly
sought to be part of the conspiracy against him. It’s also true that it is dangerous to get in
the middle of a fight between very powerful people. But Hamlet had no particular reason
to throw R & G under the bus. It is not as if they were aware of their part in the plot to
murder him. This is still one more insight into the character of the Prince – his moral
sensitivity about taking another’s life can be pretty selective, as we will see again in a
few lines when it comes to Ophelia.
At line 71 Hamlet catalogues all the justifications he can think of for killing the King:
The one factor we have not heard before is the idea that Hamlet feels cheated because he
was not elected King by the Danish court. Back in Act II he had told Rosencrantz and Guildenstern that he could be “bounded in a nutshell and count myself king of infinite space” in response to the charge that he was ambitious. Now it appears that he did harbor
hopes of ruling the country. Notice that Hamlet makes this list of justifications to Horatio to see if his friend agrees that he should kill Claudius, something he had sworn to the Ghost back in Act I that he would do. In fact, he now adds at line 79 that to allow him to live would be unnatural since he is a “canker of our nature,” that is, the King has become the embodiment of all that is corrupt in humanity.
But Horatio doesn’t give Hamlet the answer he wants: “Go for it!” Instead he draws Hamlet’s attention to the consequences of the actions he has already undertaken. Claudius will soon know that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have been executed in England and will guess that Hamlet discovered the plot. What will the Prince do? Hamlet agrees he doesn’t have much time, but what time he has will be his to control. He seems to foresee his own death at line 84, suggesting that a “man’s life is no more than to say ‘one.’” (We will see this idea of a life being no more than “one” in a few lines.)
Now Hamlet jumps to another topic altogether, the reason for his upset with Laertes at the graveyard. He regrets that he “forgot myself,” that is, lost his temper, especially since he sees Laertes’ situation as paralleling his own, seeking revenge for a murdered father. The thing that upset the Prince was the “bravery of [Laertes’] grief.” Apparently if Laertes had simply knelt at his sister’s grave, wept a few tears and said nothing that would have been acceptable. Instead he got all crazy about the suicide of Ophelia following the murder of their father. Go figure! (Here’s another insight into Hamlet’s selective morality: he never even mentions Ophelia!)
The Messenger of Death – Osric
At line 92 a young courtier named Osric enters to tell Hamlet of a friendly fencing match the King wants to set up between the Prince and Laertes. We already know the elaborate plan Claudius and Laertes have in mind with the lethal sword, covered with poison and the poisoned drink, so in fact this character is the messenger of death. But what an odd emissary! Osric is an affected caricature of a courtly gentleman. He is not very bright, but he really wants to impress the Prince, first with an enormous hat he carries and then with his fancy language about sword fighting. Instead Hamlet and Horatio treat him with subtle contempt and take delight in mocking him. At line 95 Hamlet asks if Horatio knows “this waterfly.” He seems to mean that Osric is a trivial, insignificant although gaudy person. When Horatio says he doesn’t know him, Hamlet declares, “Thy state is the more gracious,” that is, you’re better off. Hamlet sarcastically offers an explanation for Osric’s presence at Claudius’ court at line 98:
He hath much
land, and fertile. Let a beast be lord of beasts, and his
crib shall stand at the king's mess. [If a man is rich enough with a large herd of animals, even if he is no better than an animal himself, he will be welcomed at the King’s table] 'Tis a chough [talking crow],
but, as I say, spacious in the possession of dirt.
Osric has nothing to commend him to people like Hamlet, but Claudius, obviously seeking to curry the favor of wealthy courtiers, allows him at his table (“mess”) to feed like an animal at the feeding stall in a barn (“crib”). I particularly like the phrase “spacious in the possession of dirt.”
Look at Osric’s extreme deference at line 102: “Sweet lord, if your lordship were at leisure, I/ should impart a thing to you from his Majesty.” Normally, if you had a message from the King, you wouldn’t ask permission to deliver it. You just did it. Hamlet mockingly says that he will “receive it with all diligence of spirit.” He then starts a comic routine with the clueless Osric about putting his enormous hat back on. Following the ritual of the day, the courtier has appeared before the royal Prince his hat in hand. (We know that Osric wore a big hat from a sketch someone left from around the time of the play’s first performance showing something that looks like a hat from Beach Blanket Babylon.) The Prince jerks the courtier around about putting his hat back on several times, but Osric offers the lame excuse that he cannot because it is too hot. Hamlet begins to play with the obsequious Osric much as he had with Polonius back in Act III, Scene 2, about the shape of the cloud. Osric is so eager to please Hamlet that he agrees it is too hot and then too cold.
Osric is in no hurry to deliver all of his message. He is obsessed about being a gentleman and especially the ornate ritual of swords and sword fighting, and so he drags out the details of the wager, using the opportunity to try and impress Hamlet with his apparent knowledge of the subject. We see his affected courtly language first at lines 119 –124:
Sir,
here is newly come to court Laertes -- believe
me, an absolute gentleman, full of most excellent
differences, of very soft society and great showing.
Indeed, to speak feelingly of him, he is the card or
calendar of gentry [model of courtly behavior], for
you shall find in him the continent [that
which contains] of what part a gentleman would see.
If we examine this statement closely we realize it is almost meaningless. It tells us very little about Laertes other than vague phrases like “excellent differences,” “soft society” and “great showing.” Hamlet answers at line 125, mocking Osric’s empty language by outdoing it:
Sir, his definement [definition] suffers no perdition [loss] in
you, though I know to divide him inventorially [to list his qualities separately]
would dozy [stagger] the arithmetic of memory, and yet but
yaw
[deviate] neither, in respect of his quick sail [excellence]. But, in
the
verity of extolment [truthful praise], I take
him to be a soul of great article; and his
infusion of such dearth and rareness,
as, to make true diction of him, his semblable is his
mirror [his only equal is his mirror image] and who else would trace [try to rival him] him, his umbrage [his shadows],
nothing more.
This passage sounds great, but it is mostly nonsense. Hamlet seems to agree with Osric’s excessive praise of Laertes, but you would be hard-pressed to find a single concrete detail about the man in all this verbiage. Two of the words here, “definement” and “extolment,” were coined by Shakespeare for the express purpose of being included. What’s really funny about Hamlet’s phony praise is Osric’s reaction to the empty language at line 134:
“Your lordship speaks most infallibly of him.”
Hamlet asks why they are talking about Laertes, only he uses another fancy, made-up word, “concernancy.” Suddenly Osric is in over his head; he has no idea what Hamlet is talking about, prompting Horatio to wonder, “Is‘t not possible to understand in another tongue?” He may mean, “Isn’t it possible for you two to speak a foreign language and still achieve better communication than you are now, trying to outdo each other in silly, affected speech?” After another exchange Horatio quips at line 143, “His purse is empty already; all’s golden words are spent.” Hamlet toys with Osric some more before the courtier finally explains that his praise of Laertes is for his ability as a swordfighter, citing his use of his “weapon,” “rapier and dagger.” In combat with swords at that time, the fencer had a rapier, a light, thin-bladed sword to thrust with, and a short dagger, to parry the thrusts of your opponent. Hamlet, reacting literally, corrects him, “That’s two of his weapons.”
As he explains the bet that Claudius has made with Laertes, Osric’s language again grows fuzzy and imprecise:
The
King, sir, hath wagered with him six Barbary
horses, against the which he has impawned, as I take
it, six French rapiers and poniards, with their
assigns, as girdle, hangers, and so. Three of the carriages,
in
faith, are very dear to fancy, very
responsive to the hilts, most delicate carriages,
and of very liberal conceit.
If you did not have the first three lines of this quotation, you would find it difficult to know what the last four were talking about. Osric talks about the weapons as if they were alive. You can guess from this passage that Osric is obsessed with weapons. Hamlet picks up on Osric’s unusual choice of words in saying that the swords have “carriages,” a word normally used to describe the wheeled supports for cannons. When Hamlet asks what Osric means, Horatio teases the Prince, saying that he knew Hamlet “must be edified by the margent,” meaning he would have to refer to marginal comments on the original text, a process familiar to university scholars. Hamlet in turns mocks Osric, saying that “carriages” would only make sense if men carried cannons at their sides.
The Wager
At line 178 Osric finally get around to the details of the bet: Claudius has wagered that in a fencing match Hamlet will get at least nine hits to a dozen by Laertes. Now think about this situation. Hamlet has murdered Laertes’ father and driven his sister to kill herself, but the two young men, after trying to kill one another just a few minutes before, will now have a friendly sword fight. What’s wrong with this picture? No wonder Hamlet’s first reaction to the invitation is “How if I answer no?” Osric simply can’t understand anyone passing up an opportunity like this, and so he assumes Hamlet didn’t grasp the point and he repeats the invitation. Now at line 186 Hamlet accedes to the fencing match, saying he will be in the hall and at leisure and that if the King really wants him to, he will fence with Laertes. Osric runs off to deliver the message, first telling Hamlet, “I commend my duty to your lordship.” Osric means that he is glad to serve the Prince in the capacity of a messenger, but ironically this line could mean, “I praise my own duty,” which would seem odd. And so after he leaves Horatio and Hamlet make fun of Osric’s affectations. When he was a baby nursing at his mother’s breasts, he went through the same elaborate verbal ritual, says Hamlet. He suggests that Osric is characteristic of a lot of gentlemen in this “drossy age,” a time when people are fooled by the worthless. Their behavior is like bubbles rising from a “yeasty collection” which, if you simply blow, will promptly burst.
Now at line 209 another lord comes into to deliver another message to the Prince. Osric had left only 12 lines before, and someone else comes back already to check to see if Hamlet is still willing to fence. Are the King and Laertes anxious? Is this too obvious? Hamlet reconfirms his acceptance of the match. When the lord says the King and Queen are coming, Hamlet says sarcastically, “In good time.” But when the lord says that Gertrude asks that Hamlet treat Laertes with “gentle entertainment,” the Prince agrees to do so.
“To Be or Not to Be” Revisited
Now Hamlet expresses some second thoughts to his friend: “But thou wouldst not think how ill all's here/ about my heart.” Surely he must suspect that this “friendly” fencing match is a set-up, that the King who has already tried to kill him will make another effort. And yet having expressed his discomfort Hamlet rejects any attempt to stop what is about to happen. Even when Horatio, who can probably see this is a trap, urges him, “If your mind dislike anything, obey it. I will/ forestall their repair [coming] hither, and say you are not fit,” he refuses. In one of the key passages in the entire play, Hamlet explains at line 233
Not
a whit. We defy augury. There's a special
providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now,
'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be
now; if it be not now, yet it will come. The
readiness is all. Since no man of aught he leaves
knows, what is 't to leave betimes?
Let be.
After having expressed his misgivings, Hamlet now adopts a devil-may-care attitude: “Not a whit. We defy augury.” He’s not concerned even a little. He makes a joke about his future, invoking the practice of the ancients of forecasting what was to come by examining the entrails of sacrificed animals (“augury’). Then he turns philosophical for a moment, reminding his friend of the passage from Matthew 10 that says God is aware of everything, even the death of a sparrow….or a prince. Then he really gets deep! His collusion with Claudius, which he refers to here as simply “it,” is fated. It is going to happen, whether it is now or later. Hamlet cannot control when or how it will occur, as he had tried so hard to do in the first four acts of the play. All he can do is to be ready for it. These are not bad words for any of us to live our lives by. Then he adds a fascinating postscript, which I take to mean, “Since no one really knows what his future holds for him, what difference does it make if he leaves his life early?” The final benediction in this last, most intriguing meditation on life and death in the play is simply, “Let be.” It reminds us of other moments in the play, certainly “To be or not to be.” These two words resonate with meaning. At one level it is simply a request that Horatio not urge him to postpone the fencing match. At another level it is an acceptance of his fate.
But look at the form of this final passage. Why is it in prose? Why isn’t it a soliloquy? Hamlet’s other heavy duty philosophical pronouncements in the play had been made when he was by himself and in blank verse – from “O, that this too, too sullied flesh” to “How all occasions do inform against me.” This is presented as a conversational exchange between friends. Speculate on why Shakespeare made this choice.
Act V, Scene 2, Lines 239 – 449
We have reached the final sequence in Hamlet. Please hold your applause and don’t try any of these behaviors at home: ) In the opening exchange among Claudius, Laertes and Hamlet, examine the different levels of deception and dishonesty going on. Whose betrayal is morally most reprehensible? Why does Gertrude drink the wine even after her husband tells her not to? Why does Laertes feel regret before he stabs Hamlet with the poisoned sword? What echoes from previous lines in the play do you find here? Why does the dying Hamlet insist that Horatio not commit suicide? What is ironic about the way Fortinbras chooses to honor Hamlet’s body at the end of the play?
[Enter
KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, LAERTES, Lords, OSRIC,
and Attendants with foils and flagons of wine]
CLAUDIUS: Come, Hamlet, come and take this hand from me.
[He puts LAERTES' hand into HAMLET'S]
HAMLET: Give me your pardon, sir. I've done you wrong;
But pardon 't, as you are a gentleman. This presence
[royal audience] knows,
And you must needs [necessarily] have heard, how
I am punished
With sore [grave] distraction. What I have done,
That might your nature, honor and exception
[dissatisfaction]
Roughly awake [harshly awakened], I here
proclaim was madness.
Was 't Hamlet wronged Laertes? Never Hamlet.
If Hamlet from himself be ta'en away,
And when he's not himself does wrong Laertes,
Then Hamlet does it not; Hamlet denies it.
Who does it, then? His madness. If 't be so,
Hamlet is of the faction that is wronged;
His madness is poor Hamlet's enemy.
Sir, in this audience
Let my disclaiming from [denying] a purposed
evil [intentional sin]
Free me so far in your most generous thoughts
That I have [as if I had] shot mine arrow o'er
the house
And hurt my brother.
LAERTES: I am satisfied in nature [natural affection
for my family members],
Whose motive in this case should stir me most
To my revenge; but in my terms of honor [offense
to my honor]
I stand aloof and will no reconcilement
Till by some elder masters of known honor
I have a voice and precedent of peace
To keep my name ungored [I will not formally
reconcile until some experts in questions
of personal honor can give me precedent and approval for
making peace without staining my reputation]. But till that time
I receive your offered love like love
And will not wrong it.
HAMLET: I embrace it freely;
And will this brothers’ wager frankly [willing] play.
--
Give us the foils. Come on.
LAERTES: Come, one for me.
HAMLET: I'll be your foil [the dark background to set
off your dazzling skill], Laertes; in
mine ignorance
Your skill shall, like a star i' th’ darkest night,
Stick fiery off [stand in sharp contrast] indeed.
LAERTES: You mock me, sir.
HAMLET: No, by this hand.
CLAUDIUS: Give them the foils, young Osric. Cousin Hamlet,
You know the wager?
HAMLET: Very well, my lord
Your Grace hath laid the odds o' th’ weaker side
[you bet on the one with the weaker
skill, i.e. Hamlet].
CLAUDIUS: I do not fear it; I have seen you both.
But since he is better, we have therefore odds
[i.e., Laertes has to get three more hits than Hamlet
in order to win].
LAERTES: This is too heavy. Let me see another [here
Laertes selects a sword without a
blunted point.
HAMLET: This likes me well [I like this one]. These
foils have all a length [are they
all the same length]?
[They prepare to play]
OSRIC: Ay, my good lord.
CLAUDIUS: Set me the stoups [flagons] of wine upon
that table. --
If Hamlet give the first or second hit
Or quit in answer of the third exchange [repay
Laertes’ first two hits by wining the
third point] ,
Let all the battlements their ordnance fire.
The King shall drink to Hamlet's better breath,
And in the cup an union [pearl] shall he throw,
Richer than that which four successive kings
In Denmark's crown have worn. Give me the cups,
And let the kettle [kettledrum] to the trumpet
speak,
The trumpet to the cannoneer without,
The cannons to the heavens, the heavens to earth,
“Now the king drinks to Hamlet.” Come, begin.
And you, the judges, bear a wary eye. [Trumpets
sound]
HAMLET: Come on, sir.
LAERTES: Come, my lord. [They play]
HAMLET: One.
LAERTES: No.
HAMLET: Judgment!
OSRIC: A hit, a very palpable hit.
LAERTES: Well, again.
CLAUDIUS: Stay, give me drink. -- Hamlet, this pearl is
thine.
Here's to thy health. [Trumpets sound, and cannon
shot off within]
Give him the cup.
HAMLET: I'll play this bout first. Set it by awhile. [They
play]
Come. Another hit. What say you?
LAERTES: A touch, a touch. I do confess ‘t.
CLAUDIUS: Our son shall win.
GERTRUDE: He's fat and scant of
breath.
Here, Hamlet, take my napkin [handkerchief]; rub
thy brows;
The Queen carouses [drinks a toast] to thy
fortune, Hamlet.
HAMLET: Good madam!
CLAUDIUS: Gertrude, do not drink.
GERTRUDE: I will, my lord; I pray you pardon me. [She
drinks]
CLAUDIUS: [Aside] It is the poisoned cup. It is too
late.
HAMLET: I dare not drink yet, madam -- by and by.
GERTRUDE: Come, let me wipe thy face.
LAERTES: [to Claudius] My lord, I'll hit him now.
CLAUDIUS: I do not think 't.
LAERTES: [Aside] And yet it is almost against my
conscience.
HAMLET: Come, for the third, Laertes. You but dally.
I pray you, pass [thrust] with your best
violence.
I am afeard you make a wanton of me [play with
me like a child].
LAERTES: Say you so? Come on. [They
play]
OSRIC: Nothing, neither way.
LAERTES: Have at you now!
[LAERTES wounds HAMLET. Then in
scuffling, they change rapiers,
and HAMLET wounds LAERTES]
CLAUDIUS: Part them. They are incensed.
HAMLET: Nay, come, again. [QUEEN
falls]
OSRIC: Look to the queen there, ho!
HORATIO: They bleed on both sides. -- How is it, my lord?
OSRIC: How is 't, Laertes?
LAERTES: Why as a woodcock to mine own springe [a
stupid bird caught in its own trap]Osric.
[He falls]
I am justly killed with mine own treachery.
HAMLET: How does the queen?
CLAUDIUS: She swoons to
see them bleed.
GERTRUDE: No, no, the drink, the drink! O my dear Hamlet!
The drink, the drink! I am poisoned. [She
dies]
HAMLET: O villainy! Ho! Let the door be locked. [OSRIC
exits]
Treachery! Seek it out.
LAERTES: It is here, Hamlet. Hamlet, thou art slain.
No med’cine in the world can do thee good.
In thee there is not half an hour of life.
The treacherous instrument is in thy hand,
Unbated and envenomed [sharp and poisoned]. The
foul practice
Hath turned itself on me. Lo, here I lie,
Never to rise again. Thy mother's poisoned.
I can no more. The King, the King's to blame.
HAMLET: The point envenomed too! Then, venom, to thy work.
[Stabs CLAUDIUS]
ALL: Treason, treason!
CLAUDIUS: O, yet defend me, friends! I am but hurt.
HAMLET: Here, thou incestuous, murd’rous, damned Dane,
Drink off this potion. Is thy union [pu on pearl
and marriage] here? [Forces
the KING to drink]
Follow my mother. [CLAUDIUS
dies]
LAERTES: He is justly served.
It is a poison tempered [mixed] by himself.
Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet.
Mine and my father's death come not upon thee,
Nor thine on me. [Dies]
HAMLET: Heaven make thee free of it! I follow thee. --
I am dead, Horatio. -- Wretched queen, adieu! --
You that look pale and tremble at this chance
[event],
That are but mutes [actors without lines] or
audience to this act,
Had I but time (as this fell sergeant [cruel
arresting officer], Death,
Is strict in his arrest) O, I could tell you--
But let it be. -- Horatio, I am dead.
Thou livest; report me and my cause aright
To the unsatisfied.
HORATIO: Never believe it.
I am more an antique Roman than a Dane.
Here's yet some liquor left. [He
picks up the cup]
HAMLET: As thou'rt a man,
Give me the cup. Let go! By heaven, I'll ha 't.
O God, Horatio, what a wounded name,
Things standing thus unknown, shall I leave behind me!
If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart,
Absent thee from felicity awhile [keep yourself
from the happiness of Death]
And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain
To tell my story. [March
afar off, and shot within]
What warlike noise is this? [Enter
OSRIC]
OSRIC: Young Fortinbras, with conquest come from Poland,
To th’ ambassadors of England gives
This warlike volley [Fortinbras, returning in
triumph from Poland, has shot off a volley of cannon
to salute the ambassadors from England].
HAMLET: O, I die, Horatio!
The potent poison quite o'ercrows [triumphs
over] my spirit.
I cannot live to hear the news from England.
But I do prophesy the election lights
On Fortinbras; he has my dying voice [vote].
So tell him, with th’ occurrents, more and less,
Which have solicited [events which have brought
about]-- the rest is silence. [HAMLET
dies]
HORATIO: Now cracks a noble heart. Good night sweet prince,
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest! [March
within]
Why
does the drum come hither?
[Enter FORTINBRAS, the English
Ambassadors, and others]
FORTINBRAS: Where is this sight?
HORATIO: What is it ye would see?
If aught of woe or wonder, cease your search.
FORTINBRAS: This quarry cries on havoc [this heap of
dead bodies indicates havoc has been at
work].O proud Death,
What feast is toward [in preparation] in thine
eternal cell,
That thou so many princes at a shot
So bloodily hast struck?
AMBASSADOR: The sight is dismal,
And our affairs from England come too late.
The ears are senseless [incapable of listening] that
should give us hearing,
To tell him [Claudius] his commandment is
fulfilled,
That Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead.
Where should we have our thanks?
HORATIO: Not from his
mouth,
Had it the ability of life to thank you:
He never gave commandment for their death.
But since, so jump upon this bloody question [so
soon after this bloody event took place],
You from the Polack wars, and you from England,
Are here arrived give order that these bodies
High on a stage [platform] be placed to the
view,
And let me speak to the yet unknowing world
How these things came about. So shall you hear
Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts,
Of accidental judgments, casual [caused by
chance] slaughters,
Of deaths put on [instigated] by cunning and
forced cause,
And, in this upshot, purposes mistook
Fall’n on the inventors' heads. All this can I
Truly deliver [speak of].
FORTINBRAS: Let us haste to hear it,
And call the noblest to the audience.
For me, with sorrow I embrace my fortune.
I have some rights of memory [some claim of
inheritance I recall] in this kingdom,
Which now to claim my vantage doth invite me
[which my presence here at this advantageous time
invites me to claim.]
HORATIO: Of that I shall have also cause to speak,
And from his mouth whose voice will draw on more
[words from Hamlet that others will
confirm].
But let this same be presently [immediately] performed
Even while men's minds are wild, lest more mischance
On plots and errors happen [caused by plots and
misconceptions].
FORTINBRAS: Let four captains
Bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to the stage,
For he was likely, had he been put on [put to
the test],
To have proved most royally; and for his passage
[death],
The soldiers' music and the rites of war
Speak loudly for him.
Take up the bodies. Such a sight as this
Becomes the field [battlefield] but here shows
much amiss.
Go, bid the soldiers shoot.
[They exit, marching, after which a peal of
ordnance is shot off.]
The opening sequence here lines 239 – 270 contain a series of deceptions and dissembling. First, the King forces Laertes and Hamlet to shake hands and make nice, knowing all the time that he and Laertes plan to kill the prince. Then in a long speech Hamlet blames all his bad behavior on his madness. It’s a convenient excuse but a lie. He makes no mention of the betrayal he suffered at the hands of both Ophelia and her father which, he felt, justified his actions. Instead, he declares “His madness is poor Hamlet’s enemy.” That’s a common dodge – to blame the disease and not the one who acted. Hamlet final rationalization is rather picturesque: “I have shot mine arrow o’er the house/ And hurt my brother.” Finally there is Laertes’ dodge, which the most elaborate and perfidious. Beginning at line 259 he declares, “I am satisfied in nature/ Whose motive in this case should stir me most.” What he says, in effect, is “It’s OK with me if you killed my father and drove my sister to commit suicide. The only reason that I don’t pardon you entirely is that I have to have some experts examine the situation and determine if my acceptance of your apology compromises my honor in any way.” Then at line 266 “I receive your offered love like love/ And will not wrong it.” You can see that Laertes goes out of his way to deny that he has any hard feeling toward Hamlet.
The fencing match begins at line 270. Hamlet tries to compliment Laertes’ skill – “ in mine ignorance/ Your skill shall, like a star i’ th’ darkest night,/ Stick fiery off indeed.” But Laertes assumes Hamlet is being sarcastic – “You mock me.” That’s not a good sign between two guys who have supposedly just made peace. At line 283 Laertes rejects the first sword he has selected and sneakily picks the foil which has not been blunted. As Claudius predicted back in Act IV, Scene 7, Hamlet is “remiss,/ Most generous, and free from all contriving.” He takes a foil and simply asks for assurance that the swords are all the same length. The fop Osric will referee the match, for which the original stage directions say, “They play.” It’s a reminder that this was supposed to be a friendly encounter.
Before they can begin, however, Claudius interrupts at line 286, eager to put his plot in place. And it is vintage Claudius – part flattery, part bribe, all grandiose self-aggrandizement. First, he sets the standards for putting the pearl in Hamlet’s wine ridiculously low. If he gets any of the first three hits he wins the “prize.” But it’s more than just the pearl; “The King shall drink to Hamlet’s better health.” That’s ironic – a dose of poison for your “better health,” but it’s also flattering. After all, the King himself is toasting you. Furthermore he’s going to put a really expensive pearl called a “union” in the cup as a reward for you. But wait, there’s more! In addition to having the King honor you with a toasting and a reward, you get the full royal treatment – getting the cannons shot off, just like we saw back in Act I! Claudius love the extravagant spectacle of having the kettledrums signal the trumpet which in turn lets the cannon guy know to shoot off a blast which alerts the heavens to tell the gods they have to return an echo for the amusement of the King. Wouldn’t being just a part of that really motivate you? Isn’t such a gesture totally lost on Hamlet?
They begin, and Hamlet scores the first hit and signals that fact at line 301: “One.” Remember back at line 84 in this scene, when Hamlet was talking about how he had a small window of opportunity to act before Claudius found out that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were dead. He said, “And a man’s life is no more than to say ‘one.’” And now he has just on the brink of ending four lives. Laertes’ reaction to the hit is interesting. Even though he only wants to kill Hamlet, he is still highly competitive and resents the idea that he loses the first round. In his characteristic fashion, Osric has to verbally inflate his part: “A hit, a very palpable hit.” Is a “palpable hit” different from a mere “hit”? And Claudius panics and makes a fatal decision. In most productions he takes the cup of wine at line 306, drinks from it (thereby proving that it’s not poisoned), gets his ego stoked with the kettledrum/trumpet/cannon routine and puts the poison in the cup. Hamlet’s reaction is predictable: when the King flattered you by drinking a health to you, you were not supposed to dismiss it, which is exactly what Hamlet does here. “Set it by a while.”
The second round goes much as the first and Hamlet scores another hit. Claudius now is really panicking: “Our son shall win.” But Gertrude, ever the mother, disagrees: “He’s fat and scant of breath.” (You can just hear her nagging the kid, “You’ve need to go on a diet, and some exercise wouldn’t hurt.”) She tries to get him to wipe the sweat off his forehead and then picks up the poisoned cup, saying “The Queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet.” Claudius tells her not to drink, but she refuses to stop. Now why does Gertrude drink? It’s probably the first time she has asserted herself with her husband, and her independent action, ironically, costs her life. Perhaps she is tired of having everything centered around Claudius, with his damned cannons every time he takes a drink. Maybe it’s her gesture of solidarity with her son. In some productions Gertrude is played as having the suspicion that her husband is up to no good with his pear-in-the-cup routine, so she drinks to test whether it’s all right for her son to drink. It’s a great moment for the actress playing the part to explore a lot of different motivations.
Now, as their multiple plots collide and collapse, Claudius really panics and Laertes does as well. With Hamlet’s back turned while he talks with his mother, Laertes declares that he will “hit him now.” Claudius responds, “I do not think it.” Does he believe Laertes is incapable of doing it after having watched him muff his first two chances? Does he realize that doing something sneaky like that will alert Hamlet to the fact that something is not right? In any event, Laertes is struck with a sense of remorse even as he prepares to stab Hamlet: “And yet it is almost against my conscience.” Like Claudius, Laertes is a reluctant villain. The two have a third pass at each other, and then Laertes, probably frustrated from having missed his chance again, gives Hamlet a flesh wound. Then everything falls apart; in about 17 lines four people die or are fatally wounded. (After having agonized over acting for the entire play, when Hamlet does act it is quick.) The fencers scuffle over the swords and Hamlet ends up with Laertes’ poisoned sword and nicks him with the unguarded point. The engineers are getting hoisted on their own petards. The Queen collapses. Laertes, at line 336, says he is like the woodcock caught in his own trap, “springe,” an echo of what Polonius said about Ophelia taking Hamlet’s declaration of lover seriously back in Act I, Scene 3, line 125. Filled with regret he says he is killed by his own treachery. Claudius feels no compunction, and when his beloved wife is dying, he still tries to cover up the plot with her collapse, saying she has simply fainted from seeing the blood. (So much for true love in this play!) Gertrude uses her dying breath to warn Hamlet that the drink was poisoned. Hamlet takes charge, ordering the doors to be locked so no one can escape from the scene of the crime. Laertes reveals the plot of the “unbated and envenomed sword” and confirms Gertrude’s revelation about the poisoned wine, blaming the King. And so, finally, at line 352 of the last scene, Hamlet acts. With a voice fairly dripping with sarcasm, he taunts Claudius’ overly elaborate plot: “The point envenomed too! Then, venom, to thy work.” Hamlet stabs the King.
Even though he knows the sword is poisoned and he is doomed, Claudius hangs on to his life stubbornly, calling on his friends to defend him. Apparently after Laertes’ confession the King has no more friends, because no one comes to his aid. Instead Hamlet pours the rest of the poisoned wine down his throat and finally gets to tell Claudius what he thinks of him: “Here, thou incestuous, mur’drous, damned Dane,/ Drink off this potion. Is thy union here? / Follow my mother.” Now we see why Shakespeare initially called the poisoned jewel a “union” – it allows for a serious pun on marriage/union. Somehow it seems appropriate that Claudius would die with Hamlet’s scornful, taunting humor in his ears. Laertes now at line 359 explains the extent of Claudius’ culpability: ”He is justly served./ It is a poison tempered by himself.” Laertes now offers forgiveness to Hamlet, absolving him of his and Polonius’ deaths. (It’s interesting that he doesn’t include Ophelia or her demise in his pardon.) In exchange, he asks Hamlet to forgive him for his actions, as he dies.
Hamlet’s death scene last from line 364 – 395, a fairly long time for expiring in Shakespeare’s tragedies. One reason we know this is his death scene is that he keeps telling us he is dying. How many times does Hamlet announce this? As he surveys the on-lookers, he realizes they have no idea why all this has happened. He refers to them as “mutes,” people with no lines in a play, or an audience who must just watch. He would like to tell them all that has happened, but death, whom he calls “this fell sergeant,” a cruel arresting officer, is really tough, so he does not have time. At line 370 he dismisses any effort to tell his story, saying, “Let it be,” the last time this signature line of Hamlet’s is used in the play. He turns to his friend Horatio to tell what transpired to the “unsatisfied.” But Horatio, undoubtedly caught up in the emotion of the moment, says he too will now commit suicide by drinking what’s left of the poisoned wine. He calls this being an “antique Roman” rather than a Dane. The Romans were notorious in Renaissance England for their willingness to commit suicide when they were faced with the loss of honor, something that was extremely taboo for the English.
Hamlet stops him by seizing the cup of wine; in many productions he actually drinks what’s left to keep Horatio from doing it. Then he pleads with his friend, “what a wounded name,/ Things standing thus unknown, shall I leave behind me!” Then he asks Horatio to “Absent thee from felicity awhile/ And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain/ To tell my story.” Throughout the play we have seen Hamlet toy with the attraction of death. Now at the end we see that for him to continue living is a pain, death a happiness. So this fate is something that Hamlet does not fear but welcomes.
Fortinbras, returning with his army from Poland, shoots his cannons as a salute to the ambassadors from England, who arrive at Elsinore at the same time. In the third installment of his death speech, Hamlet spends his dying breath seeking to re-establish political order in Denmark. For modern audiences the only thing that matters is the death of Hamlet, and in many productions the play ends at this point. But for the Elizabethans the restoration of orderly government is vital; they wanted assurance that there was someone in charge who would see to it that justice was served. So for Shakespeare, Hamlet final act must be to declare, “I do prophesy the election lights/ On Fortinbras; he has my dying voice.” So in a sense we have come full circle. Just before the play began, Claudius had won election as the King; now Fortinbras will follow in an election made possible by Hamlet. Hamlet’s final words are fitting for the Shakespearean hero who talks the most in all the plays: “The rest is silence.”
Horatio pays tribute to his dead friend in memorable words at line 397: “Now cracks a noble heart. Good night sweet prince,/ And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!” (Even here, Shakespeare may be using one of his serious puns, with Horatio’s “rest” connecting back to Hamlet’s “strict in his arrest” at line 369.) Horatio at lines 422 – 427 he describes what he can share with the newcomers, Fortinbras and the English ambassadors, who arrive right after Hamlet’s death:
So
shall you hear
Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts,
Of accidental judgments, casual [caused by
chance] slaughters,
Of deaths put on [instigated] by cunning and
forced cause,
And, in this upshot, purposes mistook
Fall’n on the inventors' heads.
The “carnal act” is probably Claudius’ affair with Gertrude, the “bloody and unnatural act” the murder of Hamlet Senior by his brother. The “accidental judgment” may be the death of Polonius, the suicide of Ophelia the “casual slaughter.” Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s execution could be “deaths put on by cunning and forced cause.” And finally the plot of Claudius and Laertes disastrously gone-astray would be the “purposes mistook/ Fall’n on the inventors’ heads.” Horatio asks that he be allowed to deliver his explanation quickly and publicly, “Even while men’s minds are wild, lest more mischance/ On plots and errors happen.” (Remember that the mob which stormed the palace is still running around.)
The ambassadors from England are confused as to whom they should deliver the news that they have executed the two messengers and receive their thanks. Horatio says rather sarcastically that Claudius won’t be rewarding them, even if he were still alive, since he had not ordered their deaths. Fortinbras’ initial reaction at lines 403 – 406 is to express shock at the pile of dead bodies which he refers to as a “quarry.” This was a word used to describe the mass of dead animals destined for the feast after a large-scale hunt. He suggests the sight suggests “havoc.” This is a word used when invaders broke into walled cities; the commanding general of the conquering army would cry “Havoc” which was a signal to rape and murder all the inhabitants as punishment for resistance. In his second speech at lines 429 – 433 Fortinbras seizes the absence of any authority to “embrace my fortune,” claiming that he has some right to the Danish throne. In his final sequence at lines 441 – 447 Fortinbras pays an unusual tribute to Hamlet, a young man he never met. He assumes that Hamlet would have made a good soldier and orders that four captains carry his body to the stage. For his funeral, Fortinbras has military music played and the rites of a heroic soldier performed. Furthermore, he guesses that Hamlet would have “proved most royally,” that is a good ruler. Now the Hamlet we have come to know in the play was many things, but a soldier and a king he was not. He was far too introspective and reflective to be either. Yet ironically this is his epitaph, delivered by the man he has helped to the throne. In a final ironic indignity, the play ends with those damned cannon being shot off, just like Claudius would have liked, in honor of Hamlet.
Thus ends the saga of the Melancholy Dane.
Branagh’s Hamlet, Act V, Scene 2
Into what room do Hamlet and Horatio go when they discuss what happened to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern? What is Horatio’s reaction when he learns the two have been executed? Describe Osric’s hat. What comic bits does Robin Williams bring to his role as Osric? How does Branagh stage the approach of Fortinbras’ army? Why? How does Branagh stage “We defy augury”? In what room is the sword fight staged? What is Laertes’ emotional state when he says “I do receive your offered love like love/ And will not wrong it”? At what point in the fencing match does Hamlet realize it is a serious fight? Describe how Hamlet and Laertes’ appearances change in the course of the sword fight? How does Laertes poison his sword in the fight? What appears to happen to Osric? How does Hamlet stop Horatio from drinking the poisoned wine? What is Fortinbras’ reaction when he enters the throne room? (The short scene with the English ambassador features the noted English actor David Attenborough.) What does Fortinbras do to signal that he is now in charge of Denmark? What does Hamlet’s body remind you of as it is carried out of the throne room? What is the significance of the final scene in the film?