Hamlet: Act 3, Scene II
Previous post:
First Act:
Scene I: The Crazy Occult Forays of Marcellus and Horatio.
Scene II: Claudius is the villain, but he's still hotter than you.
Scene III: Ophelia's virginity is a national treasure. Just ask her dad and brother.
Scene IV: That a ghoooooooooost?
Scene V: "'Who's your daddy?' Now that's just inappropriate."
Second Act:
Scene I: Happy families are all alike---they're totally fucked up.
Scene II--Part One: Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are creepy. and Part Two: Hamlet was a high school drama geek.
Third Act:
Scene I: Hamlet and Ophelia get couple's counseling, Elsinore style.
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 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,
the 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
periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to
very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who
for the most part are capable of nothing but
inexplicable dumbshows and noise: I would have such
a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant; it
out-herods Herod: pray you, avoid it.
First Player
I warrant your honour.
Shakespeare makes an impassioned plea for naturalism in dramatic performance. Oops, sorry, did I say Shakespeare, I meant Hamlet. You would think, considering that he's on the verge of enacting a plan that's designed to uncover treason and fratricide in the king, his mind would be fixed on more important things, like, I dunno, finding out just how many daggers you can conceal in a pair of breechclouts, but you would be wrong. To Hamlet, the important thing is to act naturally while delivering his sixteen lines of THEATRICAL GENIUS OMG.
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 o'erstep not
the modesty of nature: for any thing so overdone is
from the purpose of playing, 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. Now this overdone,
or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful
laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the
censure of the which one must in your allowance
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,
that, neither having the accent of Christians nor
the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so
strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of
nature's journeymen had made men and not made them
well, they imitated humanity so abominably.
First Player
I hope we have reformed that indifferently with us,
sir.
It's not that this isn't very sound advice, and since I've never seen the players in question it may have even been much-needed advice, it's just I think if I were directing a production of Hamlet I'd be sorely tempted to tell the Player King to throw Hamlet out of the dressing room by the scruff of the neck.
God, Hamlet is like the worst stage mother ever. The first person who writes that AU fic gets a special prize.
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 that will themselves laugh, to
set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh
too; though, in the mean time, some necessary
question of the play be then to be considered:
that's villanous, and shows a most pitiful ambition
in the fool that uses it. Go, make you ready.
The one and only Shakespeare production I've ever seen live was The Merchant of Venice at Davidson College performed by the RSC (Davidson being one of those schools that we hated for having enough money to actually FLY THE RSC TO NORTH CAROLINA just to christen their fancy new auditorium, BUT ANYWAY.) The dude who played Gobbo leapt off the stage in the middle of speech about how thin and pinched he'd become and walked up to me and started inviting me to pinch him. This is the kind of reward you reap for having an uncontrollably loud laugh---you draw the attention of transgressing clowns.
(It was all good, until he stopped asking me to pinch him and then looked down at me and said "My turn!")
How now, my lord! I will the king hear this piece of work?
LORD POLONIUS
And the queen too, and that presently.
HAMLET
Bid the players make haste.
Exit POLONIUS
Will you two help to hasten them?
ROSENCRANTZ GUILDENSTERN
We will, my lord.
HAMLET: *makes dusting motions with his hands* There's all the idiots safely bestowed.
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.
HORATIO
O, my dear lord,--
"--you're not getting my Bud Light."
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 flatter'd?
You know, Hamlet, I get that you're trying to pay Horatio a compliment here, but you keep carrying on about how ragged he is and you're going to sound like you're doing the opposite.
...oh my God, Horatio is Remus Lupin.
No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp,
And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee
Where thrift may follow fawning.
O HAY, angevin2, I FOUND U SUM FLATTERY-AS-SODOMY.
(...what? she's writing a paper!)
Dost thou hear?
Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice
And could of men distinguish, her election
Hath seal'd 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 commingled,
That they are not a pipe 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.--
In all seriousness, that speech makes me want to cry every time I read or hear it. For whatever reason, the bulk of white male criticism on this play would have you believe that Hamlet doesn't give a shit about anyone, not Ophelia, not Horatio, but that's just disaffected macho elitist bullshit talking. Hamlet gets so carried away talking about why he loves Horatio so much that he gets all embarassed and does that guy thing where he's like "...yes. Well. Anyway. You know what I mean." *awkward cough* If that's not love, I dunno what is.
There is a play to-night before the king;
One scene of it comes near the circumstance
Which I have told thee of my father's death:
So at some point while he's been running around carrying on like a madman, he's been talking secretly with Horatio and, proving me right, telling him what he couldn't tell him that night in front of Marcellus. I'd love to know what Horatio said. But it certainly proves that Hamlet's protestation of trust was sincere, doesn't it?
I prithee, when thou seest that act afoot,
Even with the very comment of thy soul
Observe mine uncle: if his occulted guilt
Do not itself unkennel in one speech,
It is a damned ghost that we have seen,
And my imaginations are as foul
As Vulcan's stithy. 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.
What a relief it must be to Hamlet to have another person whose perspective and opinion he can rely on. Too bad he's about to get his ass shipped off to England and away from Horatio. He might have been useful during, saying, UNEXPECTED PIRACY. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
HORATIO
Well, my lord:
If he steal aught the whilst this play is playing,
And 'scape detecting, I will pay the theft.
HAMLET
They are coming to the play; I must be idle:
Get you a place.
And someone, too, whom he can talk to seriously and then say, "oh, sorry, time to put on my crazy face, catch you later."
Danish march. A flourish. Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, POLONIUS, OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, and others
I really want to see a Danish march now. I don't know what it is, but I want one like burning.
HAMLET
To POLONIUS
My lord, you played once i' the university, you say?
LORD POLONIUS
That did I, my lord; and was accounted a good actor.
HAMLET
What did you enact?
LORD POLONIUS
I did enact Julius Caesar: I was killed i' the
Capitol; Brutus killed me.
HAMLET
It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf
there.
It must have been awfully slim pickings, if young!Polonius was the best they could do for Julius Caesar. And I love how Hamlet is basically saying "you're so stupid, killing you is like killing a baby animal, even when you're playing a role and it's pretend killing." Hey, Hamlet, up in the sky! It's a bird, it's a plane! It's FORESHADOWING.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me.
HAMLET
No, good mother, here's metal more attractive.
LORD POLONIUS
[To KING CLAUDIUS] O, ho! do you mark that?
Way to be a little bit RUDE TO YOUR MOM THERE, HAMLET. Also, if you weren't a prince, Ophelia would absolutely be hoofing you in the balls right now.
HAMLET
Lady, shall I lie in your lap?
Lying down at OPHELIA's feet
OPHELIA
No, my lord.
"But you could always DIE IN A FIRE."
HAMLET
I mean, my head upon your lap?
OPHELIA
Ay, my lord.
HAMLET
Do you think I meant country matters?
OPHELIA
I think nothing, my lord.
Which reminds me horribly of what she says to Polonius in scene three of act one, "I do not know what I should think." What's the point of her even having an opinion these days?
And yet, for all the defeat this suggests, I still find something refreshingly caustic and self-possessed about her rejoinders to Hamlet in this scene. At least, I think the potential for self-possession is there---mind you, if the director has Ophelia crying through the whole scene (looking at YOU, Lalla Ward!Ophelia) then it loses a little something of that potential.
HAMLET
That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs.
OPHELIA
What is, my lord?
HAMLET
Nothing.
OPHELIA
You are merry, my lord.
"And I am laughing at your many sex jokes. Ha, ha."
HAMLET
Who, I?
OPHELIA
Ay, my lord.
"No, the other guy sprawled out on my lap and wrinkling my best dress."
HAMLET
O God, your only jig-maker. 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. 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, he must build churches,
then; or else shall he suffer not thinking on, with
the hobby-horse, whose epitaph is 'For, O, for, O,
the hobby-horse is forgot.'
AWKWARD. I love how, in the Branagh production, Hamlet says that last bit quite loud and everyone is looking at him, and Ophelia looks like she has to correct him quietly to keep him from embarrassing himself, as married couples do or people who've known each other a long time.
Hautboys play. The dumb-show enters
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: lays him down upon a bank of flowers: she, seeing him asleep, leaves him. Anon comes in a fellow, takes off his crown, kisses it, and pours poison in the King's ears, and exit. The Queen returns; finds the King dead, and makes passionate action. The Poisoner, with some two or three Mutes, comes in again, seeming to lament with her. The dead body is carried away. The Poisoner wooes the Queen with gifts: she seems loath and unwilling awhile, but in the end accepts his love
Exeunt
OPHELIA
What means this, my lord?
HAMLET
Marry, this is miching mallecho; it means mischief.
OPHELIA
Belike this show imports the argument of the play.
Enter Prologue
HAMLET
We shall know by this fellow: the players cannot
keep counsel; they'll tell all.
OPHELIA
Will he tell us what this show meant?
HAMLET
Ay, or any show 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, you are naught: I'll mark the play.
Poor Ophelia. Trying to make some semblance of polite conversation, only to discover that Hamlet is absolutely useless. And Hamlet might as well have ignored her for all the good it does to talk to her, but of course he can't leave her alone, because that's not what wounded lovers do---they poke and prod and do anything for a reaction.
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?
OPHELIA
'Tis brief, my lord.
HAMLET
As woman's love.
Here's a fun game for the viewers at home to play (with liquor): How many times during the course of the play would Hamlet have got his face slapped, if he hadn't been royalty?
Player King
Full thirty times hath Phoebus' cart gone round
Neptune's salt wash and Tellus' orbed ground,
And thirty dozen moons with borrow'd sheen
About the world have times twelve thirties been,
Since love our hearts and Hymen did our hands
Unite commutual 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 you. Yet, though I distrust,
Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must:
For women's fear and love holds quantity;
In neither aught, or in extremity.
Now, what my love is, proof hath made you know;
And as my love is sized, my fear is so:
Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear;
Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.
The thesis of the Queen's speech is that love breeds fear in proportion to the strength of attachment to the loved object, which reminds me that Laertes told Ophelia in act one that fear in love was her only safety. Hamlet ordered this play enacted to be a reproach to Claudius, but it is, in various ways, a reproach to everyone hearing it, not least Hamlet himself.
Player King
'Faith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly too;
My operant powers their functions leave to do:
And thou shalt live in this fair world behind,
Honour'd, 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 kill'd the first.
HAMLET
[Aside] Wormwood, wormwood.
Those lines spoken by the Queen are the beginning of the speech Hamlet wrote for her. Strange, considering that his goal was to force Claudius's hand, that his additions would seem primarily calculated to make Gertrude feel guilty.
Player Queen
The instances that second marriage move
Are base respects of thrift, but none of love:
A second time I kill my husband dead,
When second husband kisses me in bed.
Hamlet's lines stick out of the rest of the play like a sore thumb. There's no subtlety in them at all---the accusation is so bald that it's amazing Claudius sits through the play as long as he does.
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,
Of violent birth, but poor validity;
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:
What to ourselves in passion we propose,
The passion ending, doth the purpose lose.
The violence of either grief or joy
Their own enactures with themselves destroy:
Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament;
Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident.
This world is not for aye, 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 favourite 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,
Directly seasons him his enemy.
But, orderly to end where I begun,
Our wills and fates do so contrary run
That our devices still 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.
If Hamlet was paying the slightest attention to anything but the effect the play is having on Claudius, this speech would make him wince. But his head is much too far up his royal ass to hear it.
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!
Each opposite that blanks the face of joy
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!
Just look at all those exclamation marks. The surest sign of an amature writer. If Hamlet were submitting his fic to the Teaspoon, lizbee would reject it. And serve him right.
HAMLET
Madam, how like you this play?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
The lady protests too much, methinks.
HAMLET
O, but she'll keep her word.
Guilty conscience or not, Hamlet, she totally has a point. Sheesh.
KING CLAUDIUS
Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in 't?
HAMLET
No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest; no offence
i' the world.
KING CLAUDIUS
What do you call the play?
HAMLET
The Mouse-trap. Marry, how? Tropically. 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 o'
that? your majesty and we that have free souls, it
touches us not: let the galled jade wince, our
withers are unwrung.
The longer the play goes on, the more frantic Hamlet becomes. I wish Horatio were near enough for us to see how he reacts to Hamlet carrying on like this---in my head, I see him standing off to the side trying to catch Hamlet's eye, making throat-cutting gestures to try to get him to cut it out.
Enter LUCIANUS
This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king.
OPHELIA
You are as good as a chorus, my lord.
HAMLET
I could interpret between you and your love, if I
could see the puppets dallying.
OPHELIA
You are keen, my lord, you are keen.
HAMLET
It would cost you a groaning to take off my edge.
OPHELIA
Still better, and worse.
HAMLET
So you must take your husbands.
Ophelia doesn't know what Hamlet and Horatio know, but she's clearly aware that there is something she doesn't know. She's tense, watchful, trying to figure things out, and Hamlet keeps distracting her with insults. Possibly on purpose. I doubt he'd want to be fully accountable to her right now.
Begin, murderer;
pox, leave thy damnable faces, and begin. Come:
'the croaking raven doth bellow for revenge.'
LUCIANUS
Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing;
Confederate season, else no creature seeing;
Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected,
With Hecate's ban 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' the garden for's estate. His
name's Gonzago: the story is extant, and writ in
choice Italian: you shall see anon how the murderer
gets the love of Gonzago's wife.
Hamlet, your subtext is rapidly becoming text. Can you even imagine how uncomfortable he's making everyone around him? Even the people who don't know what Claudius has done have got to be aware what Hamlet is accusing him of---and it's such an accusation that it would make even an innocent person wince, for insult if not for shame. Which makes this a very unsatisfactory tool of justice. Which is why Batman will never let Hamlet into the Justice League.
OPHELIA
The king rises.
Ophelia is the first one to notice. Hamlet's behavior has her so on edge that she's hyper-alert to her surroundings. It's like when you take a friend to a party and everyone knows he's with you, so when he starts telling loud stories that aren't very funny you're embarrassed by the fact that he's embarrassing himself.
HAMLET
What, frighted with false fire!
QUEEN GERTRUDE
How fares my lord?
LORD POLONIUS
Give o'er the play.
KING CLAUDIUS
Give me some light: away!
I'm sure it's a coincidence that "give me some light" and "off with his head" have the same syllable count.
Exeunt all but HAMLET and HORATIO
HAMLET
Why, let the stricken deer go weep,
The hart ungalled play;
For some must watch, while some must sleep:
So runs the world away.
Hamlet improvises in rhyme. He's gangsta.
Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers-- if
the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me--with two
Provincial roses on my razed shoes, get me a
fellowship in a cry of players, sir?
HORATIO
Half a share.
Hamlet, surely you have better things to worry about right now than whether you have a future in acting once the heir-to-the-throne business falls through.
HAMLET
A whole one, I.
For thou dost know, O Damon dear,
This realm dismantled was
Of Jove himself; and now reigns here
A very, very--pajock.
HORATIO
You might have rhymed.
Okay, that actually makes me laugh. That's...God, such a weird moment to intrude in a scene like this one, but that's totally two friends kidding around, and one of the first times Horatio speaks to him like you'd think a friend would, poking fun at him with no undue courtesy or reverence.
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.
Come, some music!
He's so high. "I did very well note him," says Horatio. "And, in case you missed this, SO DID EVERYONE ELSE."
GUILDENSTERN
Good my lord, vouchsafe 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.
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.
Here's Guildenstern on his own for once. Still indistinguishable from Rosencrantz, but at least one needn't refer to them as a unit for once. He seems to be genuinely affronted on Claudius's behalf.
GUILDENSTERN
Good my lord, put your discourse into some frame and
start 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 and my return
shall be the end of my business.
In other words, Hamlet, EVERYONE IS TIRED OF YOUR SHIT. Even the Twins.
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.
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.
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, but sir, 'While the grass grows,'--the proverb
is something musty.
Rosencrantz comes sharply to the point. He says, "you once did love me" not "you once did love us". That's interesting. I'm not sure what it means, but I think it's probably interesting. It strikes me that this is the first time anyone has come right out and asked Hamlet what the hell is going on with him. Although it seems like if you wanted a good answer you'd pick a better time and place. And here's Hamlet playing along into the "ambition" theme that R & G tried to prompt him to in act two, which would seem to indicate that Hamlet is done with them, not even pretending very hard to consider them friends anymore.
, the recorders! let me see one. To withdraw with
you:--why do you go about to recover the wind of me,
as if you would drive me into a toil?
GUILDENSTERN
O, my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too
unmannerly.
HAMLET
I do not well understand that. Will you play upon
this pipe?
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, my lord.
HAMLET
'Tis as easy as lying: govern these ventages with
your lingers and thumb, give it breath with your
mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music.
Look you, these are the stops.
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 from my lowest note to
the top of my compass: and there is much music,
excellent voice, in this little organ; 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 me, yet you
cannot play upon me.
"Thing is, Guildenstern, if you want to play upon a person's stops, you have to study them first. See what I did with the king and queen a minute ago? That's how it's done. Come back after you've practiced."
Enter POLONIUS
God bless you, sir!
LORD 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?
LORD POLONIUS
By the mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed.
HAMLET
Methinks it is like a weasel.
LORD POLONIUS
It is backed like a weasel.
HAMLET
Or like a whale?
LORD POLONIUS
Very like a whale.
HAMLET
Then I will come to my mother by and by. They fool
me to the top of my bent. I will come by and by.
LORD POLONIUS
I will say so.
HAMLET
By and by is easily said.
Finally, even Hamlet is getting tired of all his carrying on. Well, it had to happen some time.
Exeunt 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 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 she be shent,
To give them seals never, my soul, consent!
Hamlet, stop putting fuel on the psychoanalysts' fires. You talk like your focus is on Claudius, but then you keep betraying the fact that your real obsession is with Gertrude. Claudius's crimes produce a kind of slow-boiling rage, but Gertrude's send him right over the top in howling. Oh and by the way, if you're trying to talk yourself out of killing your mother, let's not summon the soul of Nero WHO KILLED HIS MOTHER. Also, you've been speaking daggers all night---how is she going to notice the difference?
Tomorrow: Act 3, Scene III: Claudius is not only hot, he has depth!
First Act:
Scene I: The Crazy Occult Forays of Marcellus and Horatio.
Scene II: Claudius is the villain, but he's still hotter than you.
Scene III: Ophelia's virginity is a national treasure. Just ask her dad and brother.
Scene IV: That a ghoooooooooost?
Scene V: "'Who's your daddy?' Now that's just inappropriate."
Second Act:
Scene I: Happy families are all alike---they're totally fucked up.
Scene II--Part One: Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are creepy. and Part Two: Hamlet was a high school drama geek.
Third Act:
Scene I: Hamlet and Ophelia get couple's counseling, Elsinore style.
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 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,
the 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
periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to
very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who
for the most part are capable of nothing but
inexplicable dumbshows and noise: I would have such
a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant; it
out-herods Herod: pray you, avoid it.
First Player
I warrant your honour.
Shakespeare makes an impassioned plea for naturalism in dramatic performance. Oops, sorry, did I say Shakespeare, I meant Hamlet. You would think, considering that he's on the verge of enacting a plan that's designed to uncover treason and fratricide in the king, his mind would be fixed on more important things, like, I dunno, finding out just how many daggers you can conceal in a pair of breechclouts, but you would be wrong. To Hamlet, the important thing is to act naturally while delivering his sixteen lines of THEATRICAL GENIUS OMG.
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 o'erstep not
the modesty of nature: for any thing so overdone is
from the purpose of playing, 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. Now this overdone,
or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful
laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the
censure of the which one must in your allowance
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,
that, neither having the accent of Christians nor
the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so
strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of
nature's journeymen had made men and not made them
well, they imitated humanity so abominably.
First Player
I hope we have reformed that indifferently with us,
sir.
It's not that this isn't very sound advice, and since I've never seen the players in question it may have even been much-needed advice, it's just I think if I were directing a production of Hamlet I'd be sorely tempted to tell the Player King to throw Hamlet out of the dressing room by the scruff of the neck.
God, Hamlet is like the worst stage mother ever. The first person who writes that AU fic gets a special prize.
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 that will themselves laugh, to
set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh
too; though, in the mean time, some necessary
question of the play be then to be considered:
that's villanous, and shows a most pitiful ambition
in the fool that uses it. Go, make you ready.
The one and only Shakespeare production I've ever seen live was The Merchant of Venice at Davidson College performed by the RSC (Davidson being one of those schools that we hated for having enough money to actually FLY THE RSC TO NORTH CAROLINA just to christen their fancy new auditorium, BUT ANYWAY.) The dude who played Gobbo leapt off the stage in the middle of speech about how thin and pinched he'd become and walked up to me and started inviting me to pinch him. This is the kind of reward you reap for having an uncontrollably loud laugh---you draw the attention of transgressing clowns.
(It was all good, until he stopped asking me to pinch him and then looked down at me and said "My turn!")
How now, my lord! I will the king hear this piece of work?
LORD POLONIUS
And the queen too, and that presently.
HAMLET
Bid the players make haste.
Exit POLONIUS
Will you two help to hasten them?
ROSENCRANTZ GUILDENSTERN
We will, my lord.
HAMLET: *makes dusting motions with his hands* There's all the idiots safely bestowed.
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.
HORATIO
O, my dear lord,--
"--you're not getting my Bud Light."
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 flatter'd?
You know, Hamlet, I get that you're trying to pay Horatio a compliment here, but you keep carrying on about how ragged he is and you're going to sound like you're doing the opposite.
...oh my God, Horatio is Remus Lupin.
No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp,
And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee
Where thrift may follow fawning.
O HAY, angevin2, I FOUND U SUM FLATTERY-AS-SODOMY.
(...what? she's writing a paper!)
Dost thou hear?
Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice
And could of men distinguish, her election
Hath seal'd 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 commingled,
That they are not a pipe 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.--
In all seriousness, that speech makes me want to cry every time I read or hear it. For whatever reason, the bulk of white male criticism on this play would have you believe that Hamlet doesn't give a shit about anyone, not Ophelia, not Horatio, but that's just disaffected macho elitist bullshit talking. Hamlet gets so carried away talking about why he loves Horatio so much that he gets all embarassed and does that guy thing where he's like "...yes. Well. Anyway. You know what I mean." *awkward cough* If that's not love, I dunno what is.
There is a play to-night before the king;
One scene of it comes near the circumstance
Which I have told thee of my father's death:
So at some point while he's been running around carrying on like a madman, he's been talking secretly with Horatio and, proving me right, telling him what he couldn't tell him that night in front of Marcellus. I'd love to know what Horatio said. But it certainly proves that Hamlet's protestation of trust was sincere, doesn't it?
I prithee, when thou seest that act afoot,
Even with the very comment of thy soul
Observe mine uncle: if his occulted guilt
Do not itself unkennel in one speech,
It is a damned ghost that we have seen,
And my imaginations are as foul
As Vulcan's stithy. 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.
What a relief it must be to Hamlet to have another person whose perspective and opinion he can rely on. Too bad he's about to get his ass shipped off to England and away from Horatio. He might have been useful during, saying, UNEXPECTED PIRACY. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
HORATIO
Well, my lord:
If he steal aught the whilst this play is playing,
And 'scape detecting, I will pay the theft.
HAMLET
They are coming to the play; I must be idle:
Get you a place.
And someone, too, whom he can talk to seriously and then say, "oh, sorry, time to put on my crazy face, catch you later."
Danish march. A flourish. Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, POLONIUS, OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, and others
I really want to see a Danish march now. I don't know what it is, but I want one like burning.
HAMLET
To POLONIUS
My lord, you played once i' the university, you say?
LORD POLONIUS
That did I, my lord; and was accounted a good actor.
HAMLET
What did you enact?
LORD POLONIUS
I did enact Julius Caesar: I was killed i' the
Capitol; Brutus killed me.
HAMLET
It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf
there.
It must have been awfully slim pickings, if young!Polonius was the best they could do for Julius Caesar. And I love how Hamlet is basically saying "you're so stupid, killing you is like killing a baby animal, even when you're playing a role and it's pretend killing." Hey, Hamlet, up in the sky! It's a bird, it's a plane! It's FORESHADOWING.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me.
HAMLET
No, good mother, here's metal more attractive.
LORD POLONIUS
[To KING CLAUDIUS] O, ho! do you mark that?
Way to be a little bit RUDE TO YOUR MOM THERE, HAMLET. Also, if you weren't a prince, Ophelia would absolutely be hoofing you in the balls right now.
HAMLET
Lady, shall I lie in your lap?
Lying down at OPHELIA's feet
OPHELIA
No, my lord.
"But you could always DIE IN A FIRE."
HAMLET
I mean, my head upon your lap?
OPHELIA
Ay, my lord.
HAMLET
Do you think I meant country matters?
OPHELIA
I think nothing, my lord.
Which reminds me horribly of what she says to Polonius in scene three of act one, "I do not know what I should think." What's the point of her even having an opinion these days?
And yet, for all the defeat this suggests, I still find something refreshingly caustic and self-possessed about her rejoinders to Hamlet in this scene. At least, I think the potential for self-possession is there---mind you, if the director has Ophelia crying through the whole scene (looking at YOU, Lalla Ward!Ophelia) then it loses a little something of that potential.
HAMLET
That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs.
OPHELIA
What is, my lord?
HAMLET
Nothing.
OPHELIA
You are merry, my lord.
"And I am laughing at your many sex jokes. Ha, ha."
HAMLET
Who, I?
OPHELIA
Ay, my lord.
"No, the other guy sprawled out on my lap and wrinkling my best dress."
HAMLET
O God, your only jig-maker. 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. 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, he must build churches,
then; or else shall he suffer not thinking on, with
the hobby-horse, whose epitaph is 'For, O, for, O,
the hobby-horse is forgot.'
AWKWARD. I love how, in the Branagh production, Hamlet says that last bit quite loud and everyone is looking at him, and Ophelia looks like she has to correct him quietly to keep him from embarrassing himself, as married couples do or people who've known each other a long time.
Hautboys play. The dumb-show enters
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: lays him down upon a bank of flowers: she, seeing him asleep, leaves him. Anon comes in a fellow, takes off his crown, kisses it, and pours poison in the King's ears, and exit. The Queen returns; finds the King dead, and makes passionate action. The Poisoner, with some two or three Mutes, comes in again, seeming to lament with her. The dead body is carried away. The Poisoner wooes the Queen with gifts: she seems loath and unwilling awhile, but in the end accepts his love
Exeunt
OPHELIA
What means this, my lord?
HAMLET
Marry, this is miching mallecho; it means mischief.
OPHELIA
Belike this show imports the argument of the play.
Enter Prologue
HAMLET
We shall know by this fellow: the players cannot
keep counsel; they'll tell all.
OPHELIA
Will he tell us what this show meant?
HAMLET
Ay, or any show 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, you are naught: I'll mark the play.
Poor Ophelia. Trying to make some semblance of polite conversation, only to discover that Hamlet is absolutely useless. And Hamlet might as well have ignored her for all the good it does to talk to her, but of course he can't leave her alone, because that's not what wounded lovers do---they poke and prod and do anything for a reaction.
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?
OPHELIA
'Tis brief, my lord.
HAMLET
As woman's love.
Here's a fun game for the viewers at home to play (with liquor): How many times during the course of the play would Hamlet have got his face slapped, if he hadn't been royalty?
Player King
Full thirty times hath Phoebus' cart gone round
Neptune's salt wash and Tellus' orbed ground,
And thirty dozen moons with borrow'd sheen
About the world have times twelve thirties been,
Since love our hearts and Hymen did our hands
Unite commutual 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 you. Yet, though I distrust,
Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must:
For women's fear and love holds quantity;
In neither aught, or in extremity.
Now, what my love is, proof hath made you know;
And as my love is sized, my fear is so:
Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear;
Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.
The thesis of the Queen's speech is that love breeds fear in proportion to the strength of attachment to the loved object, which reminds me that Laertes told Ophelia in act one that fear in love was her only safety. Hamlet ordered this play enacted to be a reproach to Claudius, but it is, in various ways, a reproach to everyone hearing it, not least Hamlet himself.
Player King
'Faith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly too;
My operant powers their functions leave to do:
And thou shalt live in this fair world behind,
Honour'd, 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 kill'd the first.
HAMLET
[Aside] Wormwood, wormwood.
Those lines spoken by the Queen are the beginning of the speech Hamlet wrote for her. Strange, considering that his goal was to force Claudius's hand, that his additions would seem primarily calculated to make Gertrude feel guilty.
Player Queen
The instances that second marriage move
Are base respects of thrift, but none of love:
A second time I kill my husband dead,
When second husband kisses me in bed.
Hamlet's lines stick out of the rest of the play like a sore thumb. There's no subtlety in them at all---the accusation is so bald that it's amazing Claudius sits through the play as long as he does.
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,
Of violent birth, but poor validity;
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:
What to ourselves in passion we propose,
The passion ending, doth the purpose lose.
The violence of either grief or joy
Their own enactures with themselves destroy:
Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament;
Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident.
This world is not for aye, 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 favourite 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,
Directly seasons him his enemy.
But, orderly to end where I begun,
Our wills and fates do so contrary run
That our devices still 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.
If Hamlet was paying the slightest attention to anything but the effect the play is having on Claudius, this speech would make him wince. But his head is much too far up his royal ass to hear it.
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!
Each opposite that blanks the face of joy
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!
Just look at all those exclamation marks. The surest sign of an amature writer. If Hamlet were submitting his fic to the Teaspoon, lizbee would reject it. And serve him right.
HAMLET
Madam, how like you this play?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
The lady protests too much, methinks.
HAMLET
O, but she'll keep her word.
Guilty conscience or not, Hamlet, she totally has a point. Sheesh.
KING CLAUDIUS
Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in 't?
HAMLET
No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest; no offence
i' the world.
KING CLAUDIUS
What do you call the play?
HAMLET
The Mouse-trap. Marry, how? Tropically. 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 o'
that? your majesty and we that have free souls, it
touches us not: let the galled jade wince, our
withers are unwrung.
The longer the play goes on, the more frantic Hamlet becomes. I wish Horatio were near enough for us to see how he reacts to Hamlet carrying on like this---in my head, I see him standing off to the side trying to catch Hamlet's eye, making throat-cutting gestures to try to get him to cut it out.
Enter LUCIANUS
This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king.
OPHELIA
You are as good as a chorus, my lord.
HAMLET
I could interpret between you and your love, if I
could see the puppets dallying.
OPHELIA
You are keen, my lord, you are keen.
HAMLET
It would cost you a groaning to take off my edge.
OPHELIA
Still better, and worse.
HAMLET
So you must take your husbands.
Ophelia doesn't know what Hamlet and Horatio know, but she's clearly aware that there is something she doesn't know. She's tense, watchful, trying to figure things out, and Hamlet keeps distracting her with insults. Possibly on purpose. I doubt he'd want to be fully accountable to her right now.
Begin, murderer;
pox, leave thy damnable faces, and begin. Come:
'the croaking raven doth bellow for revenge.'
LUCIANUS
Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing;
Confederate season, else no creature seeing;
Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected,
With Hecate's ban 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' the garden for's estate. His
name's Gonzago: the story is extant, and writ in
choice Italian: you shall see anon how the murderer
gets the love of Gonzago's wife.
Hamlet, your subtext is rapidly becoming text. Can you even imagine how uncomfortable he's making everyone around him? Even the people who don't know what Claudius has done have got to be aware what Hamlet is accusing him of---and it's such an accusation that it would make even an innocent person wince, for insult if not for shame. Which makes this a very unsatisfactory tool of justice. Which is why Batman will never let Hamlet into the Justice League.
OPHELIA
The king rises.
Ophelia is the first one to notice. Hamlet's behavior has her so on edge that she's hyper-alert to her surroundings. It's like when you take a friend to a party and everyone knows he's with you, so when he starts telling loud stories that aren't very funny you're embarrassed by the fact that he's embarrassing himself.
HAMLET
What, frighted with false fire!
QUEEN GERTRUDE
How fares my lord?
LORD POLONIUS
Give o'er the play.
KING CLAUDIUS
Give me some light: away!
I'm sure it's a coincidence that "give me some light" and "off with his head" have the same syllable count.
Exeunt all but HAMLET and HORATIO
HAMLET
Why, let the stricken deer go weep,
The hart ungalled play;
For some must watch, while some must sleep:
So runs the world away.
Hamlet improvises in rhyme. He's gangsta.
Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers-- if
the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me--with two
Provincial roses on my razed shoes, get me a
fellowship in a cry of players, sir?
HORATIO
Half a share.
Hamlet, surely you have better things to worry about right now than whether you have a future in acting once the heir-to-the-throne business falls through.
HAMLET
A whole one, I.
For thou dost know, O Damon dear,
This realm dismantled was
Of Jove himself; and now reigns here
A very, very--pajock.
HORATIO
You might have rhymed.
Okay, that actually makes me laugh. That's...God, such a weird moment to intrude in a scene like this one, but that's totally two friends kidding around, and one of the first times Horatio speaks to him like you'd think a friend would, poking fun at him with no undue courtesy or reverence.
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.
Come, some music!
He's so high. "I did very well note him," says Horatio. "And, in case you missed this, SO DID EVERYONE ELSE."
GUILDENSTERN
Good my lord, vouchsafe 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.
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.
Here's Guildenstern on his own for once. Still indistinguishable from Rosencrantz, but at least one needn't refer to them as a unit for once. He seems to be genuinely affronted on Claudius's behalf.
GUILDENSTERN
Good my lord, put your discourse into some frame and
start 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 and my return
shall be the end of my business.
In other words, Hamlet, EVERYONE IS TIRED OF YOUR SHIT. Even the Twins.
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.
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.
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, but sir, 'While the grass grows,'--the proverb
is something musty.
Rosencrantz comes sharply to the point. He says, "you once did love me" not "you once did love us". That's interesting. I'm not sure what it means, but I think it's probably interesting. It strikes me that this is the first time anyone has come right out and asked Hamlet what the hell is going on with him. Although it seems like if you wanted a good answer you'd pick a better time and place. And here's Hamlet playing along into the "ambition" theme that R & G tried to prompt him to in act two, which would seem to indicate that Hamlet is done with them, not even pretending very hard to consider them friends anymore.
, the recorders! let me see one. To withdraw with
you:--why do you go about to recover the wind of me,
as if you would drive me into a toil?
GUILDENSTERN
O, my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too
unmannerly.
HAMLET
I do not well understand that. Will you play upon
this pipe?
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, my lord.
HAMLET
'Tis as easy as lying: govern these ventages with
your lingers and thumb, give it breath with your
mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music.
Look you, these are the stops.
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 from my lowest note to
the top of my compass: and there is much music,
excellent voice, in this little organ; 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 me, yet you
cannot play upon me.
"Thing is, Guildenstern, if you want to play upon a person's stops, you have to study them first. See what I did with the king and queen a minute ago? That's how it's done. Come back after you've practiced."
Enter POLONIUS
God bless you, sir!
LORD 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?
LORD POLONIUS
By the mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed.
HAMLET
Methinks it is like a weasel.
LORD POLONIUS
It is backed like a weasel.
HAMLET
Or like a whale?
LORD POLONIUS
Very like a whale.
HAMLET
Then I will come to my mother by and by. They fool
me to the top of my bent. I will come by and by.
LORD POLONIUS
I will say so.
HAMLET
By and by is easily said.
Finally, even Hamlet is getting tired of all his carrying on. Well, it had to happen some time.
Exeunt 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 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 she be shent,
To give them seals never, my soul, consent!
Hamlet, stop putting fuel on the psychoanalysts' fires. You talk like your focus is on Claudius, but then you keep betraying the fact that your real obsession is with Gertrude. Claudius's crimes produce a kind of slow-boiling rage, but Gertrude's send him right over the top in howling. Oh and by the way, if you're trying to talk yourself out of killing your mother, let's not summon the soul of Nero WHO KILLED HIS MOTHER. Also, you've been speaking daggers all night---how is she going to notice the difference?
Tomorrow: Act 3, Scene III: Claudius is not only hot, he has depth!