Hamlet, Act 1, Scene IV
Previous posts:
Act 1, Scene I: The Crazy Occult Forays of Marcellus and Horatio.
Act 1, Scene II: Claudius is the villain, but he's still hotter than you.
Act 1, Scene III: Ophelia's virginity is a national treasure. Just ask her dad and brother.
This scene is really quite short. Strangely short, as a matter of fact.
I wonder if I should have stated this at the outset, but I suppose now is as good a time as any: in these readings, I am, inevitably, proceeding from a supposition that nothing Shakespeare does is ever accidental. My faith in the breadth and depth of Shakespeare's powers is almost superstitious, but I have yet to find myself steered wrong by assuming that it is impossible to overestimate him. That's probably a bit more than any of you wanted to know about me, but I think it will help you understand my perspective rather better.
Right. I felt it was necessary to make that disclaimer because, as you will hopefully see, it automatically rules out certain answers to the question I'm about to ask, which is: why is this scene in the play? "Fucked if I know," is a perfectly acceptable answer; "Dude was hammered," is not. Not that I don't think Shakespeare wrote hammered occasionally, just that you would never know the difference, or if you did it wouldn't matter because IT WOULD STILL BE SHAKESPEARE.
The bulk of this scene is a monologue I personally find rather problematic and I hope you'll bend your brains with me to help me make sense of it.
Enter HAMLET, HORATIO, and MARCELLUS
HAMLET
The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.
HORATIO
It is a nipping and an eager air.
HAMLET
What hour now?
HORATIO
I think it lacks of twelve.
HAMLET
No, it is struck.
"What, Horatio, don't they teach you SCHOLARS how to tell time?"
"What, Hamlet, you always ask questions you already know the answer to?"
You can feel Hamlet's anxiety and excitement; this is our first glimpse of the antic, not-quite-madcap-but-slowly-getting-there Hamlet that we're going to be stuck with for the rest of the play.
Those of you playing along at home can take a drink now.
HAMLET
No, it is struck.
HORATIO
Indeed? I heard it not: then it draws near the season
Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk.
Don't feel bad that you didn't hear it, Horatio---if you think of Hamlet's ears as being tuned to a frequency only dogs can usually hear, it explains so much about his behavior from now on, doesn't it?
A flourish of trumpets, and ordnance shot off, within
What does this mean, my lord?
HAMLET
The king doth wake to-night and takes his rouse,
Keeps wassail, and the swaggering up-spring reels;
And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down,
The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out
The triumph of his pledge.
Seen through Hamlet's eyes, a very unsavory image of Claudius begins to come clear: he's "A satyr", a heavy drinker, an oversexed, overindulgent carouser who couldn't possibly be any more different from old Hamlet, who, in case you missed it, was probably Grave and Warlike, and not inclined to dance through the halls of his castle. AND NOW HAMLET'S MOM IS CAROUSING WITH HIM, WTF. "That is just wrong," says Hamlet for the thousandth time, sulky because no one will listen to him.
HORATIO
Is it a custom?
HAMLET
Ay, marry, is't:
But to my mind, though I am native here
And to the manner born, it is a custom
More honour'd in the breach than the observance.
This heavy-headed revel east and west
Makes us traduced and tax'd of other nations:
They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish phrase
Soil our addition; and indeed it takes
From our achievements, though perform'd at height,
The pith and marrow of our attribute.
Interesting, this---is Horatio not Danish, or by "custom" does he mean "custom of the royal household"? Probably the latter, all other things considered, but it's interesting to think that the only person Hamlet comes anywhere near trusting is also the only person in the castle who comes from outside it and does not become tainted by it, as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern do. Hamlet loves Horatio and Ophelia for that quality they both possess of being in Elsinore without being of it---until Ophelia caves under more pressure than any human being could possibly bear, and loses that lofty remove in Hamlet's eyes. More on that later. But I'm reminded of Twelfth Night, in which the air of Illyria seems to have a mild hallucinogenic property to it so that everyone who washes up on its shores gets fantastical ideas and treats them as common sense---in Elsinore, there is a quality in the air that darkens the heart like smoke darkens lungs.
So, oft it chances in particular men,
That for some vicious mole of nature in them,
As, in their birth--wherein they are not guilty,
Since nature cannot choose his origin--
By the o'ergrowth of some complexion,
Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason,
Or by some habit that too much o'er-leavens
The form of plausive manners, that these men,
Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect,
Being nature's livery, or fortune's star,--
Their virtues else--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 eale
Doth all the noble substance of a doubt
To his own scandal.
Right. This is the point where I always start asking, "why does this scene exist." (Here is the text of the scene, so you can see where it ends.) This monologue of Hamlet's, it's...it's just so weird. First of all, I find it really hard to believe Hamlet actually gives a shit about how much drinking his countrymen do, and second, even if Hamlet is the head of the local chapter of the Elsinore Temperance Society, this is still a really weird monologue when it supports practically the entire scene by itself.
It does fulfill one useful function, though:
HORATIO
Look, my lord, it comes!
Enter Ghost
Hamlet's like, "blah blah, wine, blah blah, character defects, blah bl---HOLY SHIT, A GHOST."
I love the Ghost's entrances, they're always brilliant. And, God knows, that incredibly weird monologue of Hamlet's does the best job anything could to defuse tension and make everyone forget that, you know, they're WAITING FOR THE GHOST. But even so, it is hard to wrap my head around that monologue. The obvious interpretation, I guess, is that he's lost in a perverse fantasy where he builds Claudius's faults up to be something more substantial than they are (in this respect, at least) in order to make it easier to hate him.
Ironically, he might have saved himself the effort! Here comes a real reason!
HAMLET
Angels and ministers of grace defend us!
Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd,
Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,
Be thy intents wicked or charitable,
Thou comest in such a questionable shape
That I will speak to thee: I'll call thee Hamlet,
King, father, royal Dane: O, answer me!
Short lines (for Shakespeare, anyway), easy to say loud and fast---UP goes the tension. The phrasing and repetition of sounds in the first four lines makes it sound like a kind of Christian spell or rune to keep evil spirits under submission. And there's a sad, lonely quality in the last two lines that's really quite moving.
Let me not burst in ignorance; but tell
Why thy canonized bones, hearsed in death,
Have burst their cerements; why the sepulchre,
Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn'd,
Hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws,
To cast thee up again. What may this mean,
That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel
Revisit'st 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?
Say, why is this? wherefore? what should we do?
God, I do love those lines. Hamlet is a better orator even than Claudius, when he bestirs himself; how often did he bestir himself, in his father's life? Is he showing off for his father, now he finds himself with a second chance to do so?
Ghost beckons HAMLET
HORATIO
It beckons you to go away with it,
As if it some impartment 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.
Guys, I think that if you really didn't want Hamlet to follow the ghost, you should be drawing attention away from the fact that it's waving Hamlet onward, not staring slack-jawed at it, narrating its every movement, and then adding "but that would be a dumb idea," to Hamlet as an afterthought.
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;
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.
A second proclamation of near-suicidal intent on Hamlet's part. (Those of you playing along at home, take another drink.) Curious that an educated young man like Hamlet would overlook the very obvious threat that Horatio is about to point in the next few lines.
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
And draw you into madness? think of it:
The very place puts toys of desperation,
Without more motive, into every brain
That looks so many fathoms to the sea
And hears it roar beneath.
Mind, body, spirit: dismissing any potential threat against his body or soul, Hamlet completely overlooks the potential threat to his reason, and you'd think he'd know better than that. Maybe he's used to skirting the edge of madness, to the point it no longer seems like much of a danger?
HAMLET
It waves me still.
Go on; I'll follow thee.
MARCELLUS
You shall not go, my lord.
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.
Still am I call'd. Unhand me, gentlemen.
By heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that lets me!
I say, away! Go on; I'll follow thee.
Exeunt Ghost and HAMLET
Here, obviously, is one reason why this scene ends the way it does---Hamlet and the Ghost have to share the stage alone. But I'm sure Shakespeare could have devised a means of getting Marcellus and Horatio off the stage, if he'd wanted to. I dunno. Possibly I'm over-worrying this, but I'd appreciate insights if anyone had them.
HORATIO
He waxes desperate with imagination.
Why imagination? Hamlet hasn't seen anything Horatio hasn't seen so far, and given the circumstances I don't think his reaction is irrational.
MARCELLUS
Let's follow; 'tis not fit thus to obey him.
You know, I know that he disappears for the rest of the play after the ghost stuff is done, but I really like Marcellus. That's a true and honest servant there, one who dares his master's anger for his own good.
HORATIO
Have after. To what issue will this come?
MARCELLUS
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
HORATIO
Heaven will direct it.
MARCELLUS
Nay, let's follow him.
Well, we did establish before that Marcellus was the muscle and Horatio the brains, which is no doubt why Marcellus is all "CHARGE!" and Horatio's like, "...God will look after him, sure."
"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark." MARCELLUS GOT THE COOLEST LINE IN THIS SCENE.
Tomorrow: Act 1, Scene V, in which there is, apparently, no such thing as an end to parental disappointment---they will continue to disapprove of you from beyond the grave.
And now, a poll!
Poll Does the Great Shakespearean Adventure need its own home?
Act 1, Scene I: The Crazy Occult Forays of Marcellus and Horatio.
Act 1, Scene II: Claudius is the villain, but he's still hotter than you.
Act 1, Scene III: Ophelia's virginity is a national treasure. Just ask her dad and brother.
This scene is really quite short. Strangely short, as a matter of fact.
I wonder if I should have stated this at the outset, but I suppose now is as good a time as any: in these readings, I am, inevitably, proceeding from a supposition that nothing Shakespeare does is ever accidental. My faith in the breadth and depth of Shakespeare's powers is almost superstitious, but I have yet to find myself steered wrong by assuming that it is impossible to overestimate him. That's probably a bit more than any of you wanted to know about me, but I think it will help you understand my perspective rather better.
Right. I felt it was necessary to make that disclaimer because, as you will hopefully see, it automatically rules out certain answers to the question I'm about to ask, which is: why is this scene in the play? "Fucked if I know," is a perfectly acceptable answer; "Dude was hammered," is not. Not that I don't think Shakespeare wrote hammered occasionally, just that you would never know the difference, or if you did it wouldn't matter because IT WOULD STILL BE SHAKESPEARE.
The bulk of this scene is a monologue I personally find rather problematic and I hope you'll bend your brains with me to help me make sense of it.
Enter HAMLET, HORATIO, and MARCELLUS
HAMLET
The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.
HORATIO
It is a nipping and an eager air.
HAMLET
What hour now?
HORATIO
I think it lacks of twelve.
HAMLET
No, it is struck.
"What, Horatio, don't they teach you SCHOLARS how to tell time?"
"What, Hamlet, you always ask questions you already know the answer to?"
You can feel Hamlet's anxiety and excitement; this is our first glimpse of the antic, not-quite-madcap-but-slowly-getting-there Hamlet that we're going to be stuck with for the rest of the play.
Those of you playing along at home can take a drink now.
HAMLET
No, it is struck.
HORATIO
Indeed? I heard it not: then it draws near the season
Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk.
Don't feel bad that you didn't hear it, Horatio---if you think of Hamlet's ears as being tuned to a frequency only dogs can usually hear, it explains so much about his behavior from now on, doesn't it?
A flourish of trumpets, and ordnance shot off, within
What does this mean, my lord?
HAMLET
The king doth wake to-night and takes his rouse,
Keeps wassail, and the swaggering up-spring reels;
And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down,
The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out
The triumph of his pledge.
Seen through Hamlet's eyes, a very unsavory image of Claudius begins to come clear: he's "A satyr", a heavy drinker, an oversexed, overindulgent carouser who couldn't possibly be any more different from old Hamlet, who, in case you missed it, was probably Grave and Warlike, and not inclined to dance through the halls of his castle. AND NOW HAMLET'S MOM IS CAROUSING WITH HIM, WTF. "That is just wrong," says Hamlet for the thousandth time, sulky because no one will listen to him.
HORATIO
Is it a custom?
HAMLET
Ay, marry, is't:
But to my mind, though I am native here
And to the manner born, it is a custom
More honour'd in the breach than the observance.
This heavy-headed revel east and west
Makes us traduced and tax'd of other nations:
They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish phrase
Soil our addition; and indeed it takes
From our achievements, though perform'd at height,
The pith and marrow of our attribute.
Interesting, this---is Horatio not Danish, or by "custom" does he mean "custom of the royal household"? Probably the latter, all other things considered, but it's interesting to think that the only person Hamlet comes anywhere near trusting is also the only person in the castle who comes from outside it and does not become tainted by it, as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern do. Hamlet loves Horatio and Ophelia for that quality they both possess of being in Elsinore without being of it---until Ophelia caves under more pressure than any human being could possibly bear, and loses that lofty remove in Hamlet's eyes. More on that later. But I'm reminded of Twelfth Night, in which the air of Illyria seems to have a mild hallucinogenic property to it so that everyone who washes up on its shores gets fantastical ideas and treats them as common sense---in Elsinore, there is a quality in the air that darkens the heart like smoke darkens lungs.
So, oft it chances in particular men,
That for some vicious mole of nature in them,
As, in their birth--wherein they are not guilty,
Since nature cannot choose his origin--
By the o'ergrowth of some complexion,
Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason,
Or by some habit that too much o'er-leavens
The form of plausive manners, that these men,
Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect,
Being nature's livery, or fortune's star,--
Their virtues else--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 eale
Doth all the noble substance of a doubt
To his own scandal.
Right. This is the point where I always start asking, "why does this scene exist." (Here is the text of the scene, so you can see where it ends.) This monologue of Hamlet's, it's...it's just so weird. First of all, I find it really hard to believe Hamlet actually gives a shit about how much drinking his countrymen do, and second, even if Hamlet is the head of the local chapter of the Elsinore Temperance Society, this is still a really weird monologue when it supports practically the entire scene by itself.
It does fulfill one useful function, though:
HORATIO
Look, my lord, it comes!
Enter Ghost
Hamlet's like, "blah blah, wine, blah blah, character defects, blah bl---HOLY SHIT, A GHOST."
I love the Ghost's entrances, they're always brilliant. And, God knows, that incredibly weird monologue of Hamlet's does the best job anything could to defuse tension and make everyone forget that, you know, they're WAITING FOR THE GHOST. But even so, it is hard to wrap my head around that monologue. The obvious interpretation, I guess, is that he's lost in a perverse fantasy where he builds Claudius's faults up to be something more substantial than they are (in this respect, at least) in order to make it easier to hate him.
Ironically, he might have saved himself the effort! Here comes a real reason!
HAMLET
Angels and ministers of grace defend us!
Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd,
Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,
Be thy intents wicked or charitable,
Thou comest in such a questionable shape
That I will speak to thee: I'll call thee Hamlet,
King, father, royal Dane: O, answer me!
Short lines (for Shakespeare, anyway), easy to say loud and fast---UP goes the tension. The phrasing and repetition of sounds in the first four lines makes it sound like a kind of Christian spell or rune to keep evil spirits under submission. And there's a sad, lonely quality in the last two lines that's really quite moving.
Let me not burst in ignorance; but tell
Why thy canonized bones, hearsed in death,
Have burst their cerements; why the sepulchre,
Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn'd,
Hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws,
To cast thee up again. What may this mean,
That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel
Revisit'st 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?
Say, why is this? wherefore? what should we do?
God, I do love those lines. Hamlet is a better orator even than Claudius, when he bestirs himself; how often did he bestir himself, in his father's life? Is he showing off for his father, now he finds himself with a second chance to do so?
Ghost beckons HAMLET
HORATIO
It beckons you to go away with it,
As if it some impartment 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.
Guys, I think that if you really didn't want Hamlet to follow the ghost, you should be drawing attention away from the fact that it's waving Hamlet onward, not staring slack-jawed at it, narrating its every movement, and then adding "but that would be a dumb idea," to Hamlet as an afterthought.
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;
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.
A second proclamation of near-suicidal intent on Hamlet's part. (Those of you playing along at home, take another drink.) Curious that an educated young man like Hamlet would overlook the very obvious threat that Horatio is about to point in the next few lines.
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
And draw you into madness? think of it:
The very place puts toys of desperation,
Without more motive, into every brain
That looks so many fathoms to the sea
And hears it roar beneath.
Mind, body, spirit: dismissing any potential threat against his body or soul, Hamlet completely overlooks the potential threat to his reason, and you'd think he'd know better than that. Maybe he's used to skirting the edge of madness, to the point it no longer seems like much of a danger?
HAMLET
It waves me still.
Go on; I'll follow thee.
MARCELLUS
You shall not go, my lord.
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.
Still am I call'd. Unhand me, gentlemen.
By heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that lets me!
I say, away! Go on; I'll follow thee.
Exeunt Ghost and HAMLET
Here, obviously, is one reason why this scene ends the way it does---Hamlet and the Ghost have to share the stage alone. But I'm sure Shakespeare could have devised a means of getting Marcellus and Horatio off the stage, if he'd wanted to. I dunno. Possibly I'm over-worrying this, but I'd appreciate insights if anyone had them.
HORATIO
He waxes desperate with imagination.
Why imagination? Hamlet hasn't seen anything Horatio hasn't seen so far, and given the circumstances I don't think his reaction is irrational.
MARCELLUS
Let's follow; 'tis not fit thus to obey him.
You know, I know that he disappears for the rest of the play after the ghost stuff is done, but I really like Marcellus. That's a true and honest servant there, one who dares his master's anger for his own good.
HORATIO
Have after. To what issue will this come?
MARCELLUS
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
HORATIO
Heaven will direct it.
MARCELLUS
Nay, let's follow him.
Well, we did establish before that Marcellus was the muscle and Horatio the brains, which is no doubt why Marcellus is all "CHARGE!" and Horatio's like, "...God will look after him, sure."
"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark." MARCELLUS GOT THE COOLEST LINE IN THIS SCENE.
Tomorrow: Act 1, Scene V, in which there is, apparently, no such thing as an end to parental disappointment---they will continue to disapprove of you from beyond the grave.
And now, a poll!
Poll Does the Great Shakespearean Adventure need its own home?