In the process of outlining this one, it became all too apparent that I have so much more to say than I originally anticipated, so I've divided my commentary by acts just for ease of organization and reading. There's just... so much to talk about. My body is ready.
ACT I
Our story famously begins at midnight with a question: "Who's there?" Barnardo, the nightwatchman on duty at Elsinore, tosses that most existential of inquiries into the cold night and for the rest of the play, questions about humanity tumble out onto the stage like marbles. Barnardo takes over Francisco's post for the night, and is soon joined by (the BEST boyfriend) Horatio and Marcellus, who ask if "this thing" has appeared again. Barnardo says not yet, bro. Horatio scoffs until A FRICKEN GHOST shows up, looking for all the world like the deceased King Hamlet. Horrified, they try to get it to talk (Horatio is encouraged to speak to it, because apparently, ghosts only talk to scholars who know Latin?) but it disappears.
Then, to pass the time, Horatio answers Marcellus' question about why the craftsmen around the castle do not "divide the Sunday from the week" in their constant toils lately: they are preparing for war with Norway because elder Fortinbras, who had a deal with Hamlet, is dead by King Hamlet's hand, and therefore the Prince Fortinbras wants to break that contract and take his lands back. Barnardo comments that times are weird, indeed, and this ghost must be a strange portent of shit to come. Horatio agrees and makes a scholar's comparison to when Julius Caesar was killed and Rome was full of strange happenings. The Ghost returns for a moment, but it vanishes after the cock crows, leading them to believe it's a "guilty thing" and that they really should let young Hamlet know about it. Suddenly, it's morning already and they go to seek Prince Hamlet.
Claudius (who is notably never called by name in the entire play) addresses his court with some words about his now dead brother and how he intends to rule (why the fuck isn't Prince Hamlet taking the throne?) and marry the widow queen Gertrude. Everyone seems fine with this despite its obvious "incestuous" tones. Everyone except Hamlet, obviously, who is sulking off in a corner while Claudius discusses statecraft. The King sends a letter to Norway--aka Fortinbras' uncle--to ask him to reign in his brash nephew. He talks to Laertes, son of his chief counselor Polonius, and gives him permission to return to France now that the funeral/wedding is over.
Claudius summons his "son" and Hamlet grumbles to himself ("A little more than kin, and less than kind") as the new King asks why Hamlet is still so emo. Hamlet explains that HELLO my dad died. Gertrude tries to comfort her son and understand better why he is still so low after all this time. It's never really clear how long King Hamlet has been dead; Two weeks? Two months? Claudius insists that Hamlet is wallowing in "unmanly grief" and that he needs to get over it like all the other sons who lost their fathers in the past. He tries to sweeten the pot by declaring that Hamlet is "most immediate to our throne" and that he should take him as his father now. Gertrude asks Hamlet to stay at Elsinore instead of leaving for Wittenberg (where he attends school, and thusly we open the eternal question of Hamlet's age) and Hamlet agrees.
When he is alone, Hamlet bursts out with his first soliloquy:
O, that this too too sallied flesh would melt
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon '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,
Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother
That he might not beteem 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 those shoes were old
With which she follow'd my poor father's body,
Like Niobe, all tears:--why she, even she--
O, God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,
Would have mourn'd longer--married with my uncle,
My father's brother, but no more like my father
Than I to Hercules: within a month:
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
She married. O, most wicked speed, to post
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.
Hamlet proceeds to NOT hold his tongue for the remainder of the play. Horatio, Marcellus, and Barnardo enter and Hamlet greets them as friends. Horatio says he's visiting from Wittenberg because of the funeral. Hamlet says it was more likely for the wedding and Horatio agrees it followed "hard upon." Hamlet says "Thrift, thrift, Horatio! the funeral baked meats/Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables." Horatio nervously spills about how he and the watchmen have seen the Ghost that looks like his dead father. Hamlet is struck by wonderment and interrogates them about all the details. Hamlet plans to join them on the watch that night in hopes of seeing it again so they can figure out what the fuck it wants.
Laertes speaks with his sister Ophelia as he prepares to leave for France. They discuss Hamlet and he warns her to guard her "chaste treasure" (it's never really clear whether or not they've done the DEED already) against Hamlet's youthful passions, as he is royalty and as a man he can fool around free of consequences while a woman cannot, and his professions of love should only be believed when he proposes marriage. He makes all kinds of floral comparisons about virginity and staying pure but Ophelia retorts:
But, good my brother,
Do not, as some ungracious 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,
And recks not his own rede.
Hashtag #METOO.
I love Laertes' reaction to his dad butting in just then: "A double blessing is a double grace,
Occasion smiles upon a second leave." I like it better than "Why leave once when you can leave twice?"
Polonius proceeds to dump a shit-ton of platitudes in Laertes' lap before his trip, including that most misunderstood-out-of-context quote (that I hate with a passion):
This above all: to thine ownself be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Don't quote Polonius. This is a lie, anyhow, since Hamlet himself proves that you can be true to yourself and easily be false to others at the same time, if your intentions bend that way. Polonius may be more shrewd than we like to give him credit for, but this is just the cherry on the sundae piled high with clichéd advice a total dad gives his son when he packs him off to college. There are so many more useful and awesome quotes in Shakespeare. Get over this one please.
Laertes gone, Polonius then gets to drag Ophelia about how she's been spending too much time with Hamlet and that this makes her look like a dumb whore and therefore she is sullying their family's honor. He compares her virginity to currency (as is his wont as a man of his day, UGH) and chides her for falling for the tricks men play on women to get them into bed. He orders her not to hang out with or talk to Hamlet anymore. She obeys, but DAMN was that a tongue-lashing. Poor girl. I mean, cut her a break. She was being wooed by the most eligible bachelor in all of Daneland and he's a charming handsome intellectual soldier at that! Nobody blames her. Except her dad.
Hamlet joins Horatio and Marcellus on the guard platform of the castle that night. Hamlet explains why there are flourishes and cannon going off: the King is carousing in celebration of the wedding or whatever. It's a custom at Elsinore, and he thinks it insipid:
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.
The Ghost shows itself and Hamlet is amazed. He implores it speak to him. It points to "a more removed ground" and Hamlet goes to follow it, despite his friends holding him back. Horatio warns him that it could lead him to fall off a cliff or bring him into madness (how perceptive and poetic Horatio is... I love him!):
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.
Hamlet runs off anyway. Marcellus says "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark."
Hamlet stands before the Ghost as it imparts its story. It is the spirit of his father doomed to walk through the night until he gets this shit off his chest. He has revelations that will horrify young Hamlet: he was MURTHERED in a most horrible manner by his very brother! Hamlet promises to swiftly avenge him. The Ghost says that Claudius totally seduced Gertrude as well and he is heartbroken. He tells the story about how Claudius poisoned him with a "leprous distillment" (awesome name for a cocktail, methinks) poured into his ear as he slept in his orchard. He details how the "hebona" (aka henbane) causes the blood to curdle "swift as quicksilver" and cause scabby leper-like crusts all over his body (OMG GROSS) and that's how he died. He asks Hamlet to not let Denmark go to pot, kill Claudius and leave his mother to be judged by Heaven. The Ghost says "Adieu, adieu, adieu! Remember me!"
Hamlet freaks right out and promises revenge again:
Yea, from the table of my memory
I'll wipe away all trivial fond records,
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past,
That youth and observation copied there;
And thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain,
Unmix'd with baser matter: yes, by heaven!
O most pernicious woman!
O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!
My tables,--meet 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:
Horatio and Marcellus find him and Hamlet makes them swear they won't tell a soul about what he tells them or what just happened. "These are but wild and whirling words, my lord," Horatio says, trying to calm him down. Hamlet promises to tell him later what the Ghost relayed to him, but for now, they must swear on his sword in four different places to pretend they know nothing when Hamlet starts to put on his "antic disposition." Horatio is unsettled by all this swearing and Hamlet says "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." The Ghost cries "Swear" from below several times, and finally rests and Hamlet declares:
The time is out of joint: O cursed spite,
That ever I was born to set it right!
ACT II
Polonius calls upon his "man" Reynaldo to basically spy on Laertes to make sure he doesn't get into too much trouble in France. He instructs him to follow him even into seedy places like brothels because Laertes is a gentleman after all (you know men and their drabs! LOL *bitch face*). Ophelia bursts in and describes that "unscene" in her "closet."
A quick note on closets: hallways (distinct from a hall) as we know them (corridors that connect to many rooms) were not always a thing, and were first recorded in architecture in the very late 1500s (smack dab in the middle of Shakespeare's career). Most residences were built around a central hall which held the hearth and heated every room (if you even had extra rooms) around it. Later, when heating methods got better and the need for privacy developed, corridors started to emerge. Castles and larger homes just had room after room connected to one another only by doors, stairways, or antechambers. The further into a castle you went, the more private the rooms got, so eventually, you'd get to a "closet" (diminutive Old French for closed) which was connected to the bedroom. For someone to penetrate that far to someone's fucking CLOSET was pretty presumptuous. Had Hamlet been in Ophelia's closet before? Or perhaps he just felt like as a man and a prince he had every right to enter her sanctum sanctorum? He was acting "crazy" so there's that, too.
Anyway, Ophelia was sewing in her closet and she relays to her dad how a very disheveled Hamlet rushed in and proceeded to act profoundly troubled without saying a word. Polonius is sure this is because she didn't answer his texts and he is mad with lovesickness and they must tell the King and Queen.
The King and Queen greet Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (Hamlet's childhood friends) to court. They employ them both to seek out Hamlet's company and see WTF his deal is. They would have been better served by Horatio, who is his current BFF, so this just shows us how out of touch they are with Hamlet's life (not that Horatio would help them anyway because he's the GREATEST BOYFRIEND). They can't even tell who is whom, but R&G are such ass-vacuums that they are happy to employed by the throne of Denmark.
Polonius enters with the Norwegian ambassadors and what he believes is the clue to Hamlet's lunacy. They listen to the Norwegians first: Fortinbras originally claimed he was only gathering an army to attack the Polack, secretly intending some move on Denmark, but Old Norway has paid young Fortinbras off to leave Denmark well alone. Claudius is happy with this news and asks about Hamlet. Polonius ironically says he will be brief:
My liege, and madam, to expostulate
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,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
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 asks that he get to the point and he reads the letter from Hamlet to Ophelia as evidence. He explains how he tried to nip this in the bud and it backfired. He proposes they use Ophelia as bait while they hide in the lobby and eavesdrop on how Hamlet interacts with her. The King agrees to this plan. Hamlet walks in, reading a book, and Polonius greets him and Hamlet, in full "antic disposition" mode, proceeds to insult the shit out of Polonius. Hamlet's conversation flits from subject to subject like a bee amongst flowers while Polonius attempts to interpret his meaning.
Mentioning Ophelia, Hamlet implies that she may "conceive" (this can be read a handful of ways) and Polonius is even more assured that he is obsessed with his daughter. "Though this be madness, yet there is method in't," is Polonius' oft misquoted line. He eventually says he will take his leave of him and Hamlet aptly says "You cannot take from me any thing that I will not more willingly part withal." BURN LOL.
R&G meet up with Hamlet just then and they act friendly at first, trading bawdy jokes about "fortunes favors" (another good cocktail name). But soon enough, Hamlet asks why they are in the "prison" of Denmark. They are confused and Hamlet explains that he feels he is imprisoned, although he "could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself king of infinite space--were it not that I have bad dreams." Hamlet, suspicious from the start, insists they give up why they are at Elsinore. They shrug and admit that the King and Queen sent for them. Hamlet explains to them:
I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation
prevent your discovery, and your secrecy to the king
and queen moult no feather. 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
with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to
me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.
What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason!
how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how
express and admirable! in action how like an angel!
in apprehension 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.
But this is a tactful lie, because he knows exactly why he is acting weird and sad, but he's not about to confide in these former friends of his. R&G then let Hamlet know that they saw a gaggle of players on their way to Elsinore. This news instantly (and honestly) lifts Hamlet's spirits. They gossip about the news in the city touching acting troupes and how these players were probably delayed in their arrival due to prohibitions against rogue groups and the feud between adult vs. all-children troupes (which had happened to London in 1600-01, and is why Shakespeare alludes to it here). Ripped from the headlines!
Polonius enters to announce that the players have arrived and Hamlet uses this opportunity to rhetorically run circles around him with more insults. He merrily trots off to greet the players and here we see what is probably Hamlet in his truest state of arousal, for he is a fanboy of the theatre and knows these players well. He requests they recite a passionate speech as an amuse-bouche to what shall come later. Hamlet suggests a speech he has memorized a bit himself about how Priam, King of Troy, was killed. The Player King takes over after Hamlet as the Prince drinks it in with gusto. The passage describes the battle that ensued after the Greeks entered Troy by way of hiding inside the wooden horse. Polonius scoffs, saying it's too long and boring. Hamlet bristles, saying that only bawdy tales impress Polonius, and tells the Player to continue with how Hecuba reacted to the slaughter of her husband. Hamlet loves this impromptu monologue despite Polonius' bemusement.
Hamlet orders that Polonius give the players accommodations better than they deserve (as lowly actors): "Use them after your own honour and dignity: the less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty." As they are led away, Hamlet takes the Player King aside and asks him to perform "The Murther of Gonzago" and to insert a dozen or so lines of his own writing. The Player agrees and everyone leaves. Hamlet then launches into an impassioned soliloquy, angry at himself for not acting on his father's revenge more quickly:
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
That from her working all his visage wann'd,
Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect,
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
With forms to his conceit? 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 appal the free,
Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed
The very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I,
A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak,
Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,
And can say nothing; no, not for a king,
Upon whose property and most dear life
A damn'd defeat 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? who does me this?
Ha!
'Swounds, 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: bloody, bawdy villain!
Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!
O, vengeance!
Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,
That I, the son of a dear father murder'd,
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,
A scullion!
Fie upon't! foh! About, my brain! I have heard
That guilty creatures sitting at a play
Have by the very cunning of the scene
Been struck so to the soul that presently
They have proclaim'd 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 him to the quick: if he but blench,
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,
Abuses me to damn me: I'll have grounds
More relative than this: the play 's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.
Instead of immediately assassinating his uncle, Hamlet decides he must be more sure of the implication made by the Ghost first. He concludes that putting on a play that mirrors exactly what happened to his father will rouse guilt within Claudius and freak him out, thus giving Hamlet the reassurance he needs that revenge is the right thing to do.
ACT III
R&G report back to Claudius WTF is up with his nephew/son. They say they have no clue why he's acting mad but he was pleased as punch to hear the players had arrived. Claudius sends Gertrude out so that he and Polonius may spy on Hamlet for THE SOLILOQUY (that is technically not a soliloquy because there are really three other people on stage for it). You know, the soliloquy we English-degreed people all memorized so we have something to roll around in our brain when we're having a hard time falling asleep due to the global pandemic and civil uprisings and terrible presidential reigns and whatnot.
To be, or not to be, that is the question,
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.--Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd.
Cocktail note: I like "Quietus" as a possible (dangerously strong) drink, but "Bare Bodkin" sounds even better.
It's unclear if Hamlet knows he is being watched and recites this for the arras-dwellers (Branagh seemed to do exactly this in his film), if he sees Ophelia and recites it to her (Olivier's Hamlet did so), or if he thinks he's alone and this represents his most honest and stable state of mind at the moment (Tennant did this). The first two soliloquies in the play are so impassioned and disjointed, rife with interjections, that they seem to speak to his various levels of confusion and indecisiveness. But this speech cuts like a diamond. It's clear and effortlessly pensive. Many use this as proof that Hamlet is contemplating suicide, but just a single scene ago, he was full of the verve of resolve to put on the play to catch the King--not exactly ready to die just yet. There is some evidence that this speech may have occurred later in the play in some draft (perhaps after "The Mousetrap" and before Hamlet spies Claudius praying?). Hamlet may also simply be having a Socratian dialogue with himself for the benefit of his spies to make them believe he might off himself. It's a huge debate and it's fun.
BTW, there needs to be a shot taken for every time "arras" or "incest" is mentioned. They're both said five times each so that's a responsible amount of drinking in four hours. Right?
Hamlet and Ophelia exchange awkward greetings but Hamlet immediately gets irate when Ophelia tries to give him back his love letters. It's a touching and heartbreaking moment, and she sums up that sense of sadness all too well:
...words of so sweet breath composed
As made the things more rich: their perfume lost,
Take these again; for to the noble mind
Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.
He accuses her of lying and playing womanly tricks on him. But then he seems to warn her against him. When he asks where her father is, she lies and it may be that his heart truly breaks here, as he can tell by her looks that she is in kahoots and he cannot trust anybody. Still, it is ambiguous. Is he now actually expressing true grief at her shunning him the past few days (due to FUCKING POLONIUS) or is he acting more upset for the sake of the eavesdroppers? If he's truly angry instead of "mad" then the whole "get thee to a nunnery" (which could mean a convent or a brothel) spiel is hurtful and harsh, but if he's acting "mad" it's still super harsh to kick off like that. It could be that Hamlet is simply DONE with women at this point ("God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another") and doesn't care how he's behaving either way. It confounds me to this day. How does Horatio deal with his boy's moods?
Hamlet stalks off, leaving doleful Ophelia to darkly consider what just happened:
O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!
The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword;
The expectancy and rose of the fair state,
The glass of fashion and the mould of form,
The observed of all observers, quite, quite down!
And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
That suck'd the honey of his music vows,
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh;
That unmatch'd form and feature of blown youth
Blasted with ecstasy: O, woe is me,
To have seen what I have seen, see what I see!
Ophelia knows this is not the normal Hamlet. She knows deep in her bones that he is disturbed beyond all understanding. She surely doesn't think he is acting. The King enters and he now suspects this is not simply about heartbreak. Something is bothering the Prince and the mystery continues. Claudius and Polonius agree that after the play, they will send Hamlet off the England to cool his heels. The King ends the scene with "Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go."
Hamlet enters the next scene in considerably happier form, and he presents his Advice To The Players (so often taken as Shakespeare himself stepping through the veil with directions to all who may enact his plays in perpetuity):
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...
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...
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.
Hamlet then takes his dear Horatio aside, praises him for being such a truly great man and friend:
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
AWEEEE I love it. Anyway, then Hamlet brings Horatio into the fold and requests he assist him by making note of how Claudius reacts to the play. Horatio agrees wholeheartedly. Hamlet acts (is he acting though?) all excited as he introduces the play as if he wrote the whole thing. Indeed, it is argued that from here on out, Hamlet is "writing" Hamlet for us as he goes, and you know what? Headcanon accepted.
He has an exchange with Polonius, referencing Julius Caesar (still in the Elizabethan audience members' recent memory) and Hamlet makes a Dad joke about it. Hamlet goes to sit with Ophelia and makes a rather vulgar crack about "country matters" (I love how Tennant pronounces it as "CUNT-ry, playing up the sexual innuendo) and how his mother has forgotten about his father and the awkwardness ratchets up a few notches. The Players put on the dumb show that serves as a short prologue of the play, as was the custom with such a popular "choice Italian" piece of mischief as The Murder of Gonzago. Hamlet keeps making snide interjections as the players do their thing. The Player King and Player Queen discuss what the Queen will do when he dies and she insists she will never marry again. Hamlet asks Gertrude what she thinks of the play thus far and she answers "The lady doth protest too much, methinks." Hamlet tosses more salty sex jokes at Ophelia and usurps the entire play and explains about the poisoning and the Queen marrying the murderer until Claudius rises and asks for light.
Hamlet rejoices as he speaks with Horatio about the King's reaction.
Why, let the stricken deer go weep,
The hart ungalled play;
For some must watch, while some must sleep:
So runs the world away.
Sidenote: "So Runs the World Away" is probably my favorite Josh Ritter album ever :)
Hamlet then pours forth his "antics" like never before and either everyone around him is beginning to lose their patience with his acid remarks and are only being civil in deference to THE PRICE or they are truly all idiots who cannot keep up with him. I am not totally convinced either way. Guildenstern lets Hamlet know that the King is upset by Hamlet's behavior and so is the Queen ("O wonderful son, that can so astonish a mother!"). Rosencrantz says that the Queen wishes to speak with Hamlet ASAP. They both still try to find out WTF Hamlet is mad about and Hamlet says it's because he "lacks advancement" i.e. he has not ascended the throne (bullshit). Hamlet merrily says he will join her soon, but not before berating R&G for thinking they could possibly figure him out much less spy on him.
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.
Oh but he's PISSED. He's a total asshole in this scene and Sir Ken really nails it in his film, his nonpareil comedic timing making it so much fun (and funny!) to watch. Just then Polonius enters to again call him to his mother and Hamlet fucks with him about the shapes of clouds.
When he is left alone, Hamlet prepares.
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.
Ohhh the ANGER!
R&G go to Claudius and discuss Hamlet's rages. The King orders them to prepare to escort Hamlet to England. Rosencrantz can't help his sycophantic ways before he goes, talking about how important the King is to the entire country: "Never alone did the King sigh, but with a general groan." Polonius comes in and says he will hide in the arras (DRINK!) in Gertrude's closet (DRINK!) while she meets with Hamlet because you know, you can't trust a woman's word when her son is involved. Polonius then leaves Claudius, and the King takes this moment to eloquently speechify his admission of guilt about murdering his brother:
O, my offence is rank it smells to heaven;
It hath the primal eldest curse 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,
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?
And what's in prayer but this two-fold force,
To be forestalled ere we come to fall,
Or pardon'd 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 possess'd
Of those effects for which I did the murder,
My crown, mine own ambition and my queen.
May one be pardon'd and retain the offence?
In the corrupted currents of this world
Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice,
And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself
Buys out the law: but 'tis not so above;
There is no shuffling, there the action lies
In his true nature; and we ourselves compell'd,
Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,
To give in evidence. What then? what rests?
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 soul, that, struggling to be free,
Art more engaged! Help, angels! Make assay!
Bow, stubborn knees; and, heart with strings of steel,
Be soft as sinews of the newborn babe!
All may be well.
So many questions! Claudius is guilt-ridden. Too bad Hamlet didn't hear all this! It's only when Claudius is silent that Hamlet sneaks in and decides now is the ripe moment to stab his uncle. But no, he stays his hand, because murdering someone while they are at prayer will just send them to heaven and Hamlet doesn't want that at all. This is a rare moment when Hamlet expresses any kind of "Christian" concern about his intentions, other than in his first soliloquy where he wishes that "the Everlasting had not fix'd His canon 'gainst self-slaughter." He leaves him and Claudius has the last (evil!) line:
My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.
Oh, Claudius you bastard.
Gertrude and Polonius prepare for Hamlet to arrive. He enters and the big row we've all been waiting for ensues. Hamlet is rough with his words and Gertrude fears he will harm her, which is when Polonius screams out for help and Hamlet stabs at the arras (DRINK!), killing him. Gertrude is horrified and Hamlet is merely disappointed that it wasn't Claudius (Olivier's arras had an image of king on it, which I thought was obviously deliberate and clever). He takes his mother aside, ignoring the bleeding Polonius altogether, and proceeds to "set [her] up a glass" so she can see her innermost soul. He outlines his outrage at how she could go from his wonderful "Hyperion" of a father to the "mildewed ear" of his uncle. He cannot (does not) want to believe she is sexually attracted to Claudius because "for at your age, the heyday in the blood is tame, it's humble," which, um, thanks a lot for respecting women's libido, Hamlet! God forbid a woman has physical needs or desires! He goes on to essentially say she is without sense to have re-married and asks how can she possibly wish to sleep with a MURTHERER.
Then the Ghost butts in and either only Hamlet sees it and Gertrude thinks he's actually mad, or she sees it as well and pretends not to, but the Ghost comes to tell Hamlet to lay off his poor mom (she didn't know about the MURTHERING) and just go kill fucking Claudius already. Gertrude tries to calm Hamlet down:
Alas, how is't with you,
That you do bend your eye on vacancy
And with the incorporal air do hold discourse?
Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep;
And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm,
Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,
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 points at the Ghost and cannot believe she cannot see it. She says it is just "the very coinage of [his] brain," and Hamlet insists he is not mad (for once).
Mother, for love of grace,
Lay not that flattering unction to your soul,
That not your trespass, but my madness speaks:
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place,
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.
Weeds and plants are a recurring theme throughout Hamlet. He mentioned things "going to seed" in the first soliloquy, the Ghost himself mentions a "fat weed" of ease, plants are used to make all the poisons floating around, Ophelia plucks flowers and drowns with them... it's a fucked up garden, this Elsinore. "Flattering unction" is yet another magnificent cocktail name BTW. DRINK!
Hamlet tells Gertrude to "throw away the worser part of [her soul] and live the purer with the other half" and she should refrain from falling into bed with Claudius from now on. He says "I must be cruel only to be kind" and she should tell the King that he is not truly mad, just crafty as hell. They remember that he must go to England now and Hamlet compares his trust in R&G to that he would have for "adders fanged" but it's no matter since he will hoist them with their own petard anyway. He goes to "lugs the guts" of Polonius out of the room and bids her goodnight.
Um, damn, Hamlet. Way to prove you're completely mentally stable right now.
Seriously though, people tend to criticize Hamlet for being such a douchenozzle to his mom here, and they often cite his Oedipal jealousy--the classic Freudian reading. Hold up. Um, if your uncle murdered your dad and your mom married your uncle, I'd bet you'd be pretty dig-dang disgusted too. So don't go pretending like you'd be well-adjusted if you were in Hamlet's place. Jus' sayin'.
ACT IV
Gertrude tells Claudius about Polonius' murder and he's like "OH shit I knew we should have shipped him off to England already" and he tells R&G to go find Hamlet's ass and bring the body to the chapel (this is the most Goodfellas scene in all of Shakespeare, tell you what). R&G find Hamlet having just "safely stow'd" the body somewhere. Hamlet compares Rosencrantz to a sponge who soaks in the King's praises for being a kiss-butt and also a bite of apple held in the cheek of an ape, and R just doesn't get it and Hamlet says "a knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear."
Claudius frets because the hoi polloi of Denmark LOVE Hamlet and if he punishes the Prince he'll be unpopular. R&G bring Hamlet to him and Hamlet makes jokes about Polonius' body:
a certain
convocation of politic 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, two dishes, but to one table:
that's the end...
...A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a
king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm...
Nothing but to show you how a king may go a
progress through the guts of a beggar.
This just pisses off the King and Hamlet finally says he's hidden in the lobby and that if they don't find him soon, they will "nose him" in a month. The King upbraids Hamlet and says it's high time he goes to England now. R&G lead him away and the King admits that his instructions to the English king are to kill Hamlet. There's that problem all sussed out!
As Hamlet is escorted across a plain in Denmark, they encounter a Captain in the Norwegian army and ask WTF is going on and the Captain says young Fortinbras is leading them through Denmark only to fight over some shitty piece of land in Poland. Hamlet wonders why it is being fought over then. He concludes that fighting over "a straw" is just something rich bored people do. He then delivers the last BIG SOLILOQUY of the play:
How all occasions do inform against me,
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,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and god-like reason
To fust in us unused. Now, whether it be
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
Of thinking too precisely on the event,
A thought which, quarter'd, 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 exhort me:
Witness this army of such mass and charge
Led by a delicate and tender prince,
Whose spirit with divine ambition puff'd
Makes mouths at the invisible event,
Exposing what is mortal and unsure
To all that fortune, death and danger dare,
Even for an egg-shell. Rightly to be great
Is not to stir without great argument,
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
When honour's at the stake. How stand I then,
That have a father kill'd, a mother stain'd,
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,
Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot
Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,
Which is not tomb enough and continent
To hide the slain? O, from this time forth,
My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!
When I memorized this one years ago (I still recall snatches of it but not all :P), I realized in reciting it aloud that this is the most steady and tempered speech Hamlet gives. The first two soliloquies are a mess of questions and short bursts of anger. The third one is still full of questions but more placid and the sentences get longer. In these twenty-eight lines, Hamlet uses but eight sentences with only two questions, and he answers them both himself. He has achieved an adequate level of resolve that will carry him through the remainder of the play. It's a rousing speech, inspired by his princely alter-ego Fortinbras, who is ready to bring twenty-thousand men to die for a bit of dust while Hamlet's been dicking around over a much more personal (i.e. more important) matter, so a little perspective gathered after actually leaving his bubble of Elsinore gives him the kick in the ass he needed.
Then we circle back to Ophelia. Oh Lord. Gertrude and Horatio are scratching their heads about her bizarre behavior of late. Horatio suggests they try speaking with her, because if outsiders heard her rantings and ravings, they might, I dunno, think something's rotten in the state of Denmark? Ophelia waltzes in with a lute, singing nonsense songs about her dead father with random references to the Bible. The King comes and sees this display of true madness and asks how long this has been going on. Ophelia runs off, Horatio on her heels. Claudius is sure this is due to Polonius' death by Hamlet's hand (and for once, he's right). "When sorrows come, they come not single spies But in battalions," he says. Not shit!
Then there's a commotion, and it turns out it's Laertes coming on with a throng of people ready for revolution over Polonius' death. He threatens the King with death and demands to know WTF happened. Claudius tries to calm him down when Ophelia swoops in again, and Laertes watches her with horror and wonder as she babbles about flowers and sings sad ditties. She leaves and Claudius tells dumbstruck Laertes he will explain. This scene is most heart-wrenching when acted well, and for my money, Kate Winslet did it most justice.
Outside, Horatio receives letters from some randoms written by fucking HAMLET of all people. They him a stack of letters and he reads the one addressed to him aloud and boy oh boy what an info dump:
Ere we were two days old
at sea, a pirate of very warlike appointment gave us
chase. Finding ourselves too slow of sail, we put on
a compelled valour, 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: 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 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. 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.
Hamlet fights and then befriends fucking PIRATES and it all happens offstage. Major missed opportunity for some action!
Meanwhile, Claudius takes his sweet time mansplaining to Laertes why he didn't prevent Hamlet from murdering his dad. He blames Gertrude and how she dotes on Hamlet (Oh yeah OK, thanks, Claudius, just dump that on your wife) and how the general public adore Hamlet as well, so of course he couldn't act rashly lest he lose polling numbers. Laertes is strangely cool with this reasoning. Messengers come with Hamlet's letters and the King reads them, immediately astonished by the fact that the Prince will return sooner than expected (and not DEAD).
Laertes says "Awesome, I will get my revenge!" and Claudius suggests they devise a plan wherein Laertes can kill him and make it look like an accident so Claudius doesn't look bad. Laertes is fine with this. Claudius goes on to stroke Laertes' ego regarding his skill with fencing and proposes a match be arranged between him and Hamlet during which Laertes can use an unbated sword and Laertes doubles down by saying he'll use an unction he just happened to pick up from a quack doctor to poison the sword's tip, so that Hamlet will die even if he doesn't stab him enough. Claudius triples down, saying he will poison a cup of wine to offer Hamlet if the sword and unction don't work. Damn, guys, that is some twisted shit!
Just then the Queen interrupts to sadly announce that Ophelia has DROWN'D goddamnit, DROWN'D:
There is a willow grows aslant a brook,
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream;
There with fantastic garlands did she come
Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them:
There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds
Clambering to hang, an envious sliver 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 tunes;
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indued
Unto that element: but long it could not be
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death...
Sidenote: "Long Purples" are a very common orchis flower ("marsh orchid") in the English countryside (I've seen them in the wild in Northumbrian meadows myself) and they are the only species of orchid ever mentioned in Shakespeare.
Also, "Melodious Lay" = totally a cocktail.
Laertes reacts to this exactly as you might expect. He runs off in a fury and Claudius stands there, staring at Gertrude like "Bitch, I only just managed to calm his ass down and then you had to ruin the moment!" UGH, sorry, for telling the damn truth, Claudius.
It has to be noted, though: was Gertrude witness to Ophelia's end? Did she just stand by and write this poetic missive as she did nothing to stop Ophelia from possibly killing herself? Or did some literate country commoner relay what they saw to Gertrude? I'm not sure Ophelia was committing suicide--it sounds like she was just so out to lunch that she fell to her death by accident. Either way, d-d-d-damn.
ACT V
Here's proof of just how tragically goth Hamlet is: the only "clowns" employed in the entire play to lighten things up are GRAVEDIGGERS. Yep. Gravediggers. And we come upon two of them as they whistle while they work. They debate whether or not this woman for whom they are currently digging a grave actually deserves a Christian burial because they heard she drowned herself. They conclude that if she weren't a gentlewoman, she wouldn't get such a nice burial treatment. And they're probably not wrong either:
the more pity that
great folk should have countenance in this world to
drown or hang themselves, more than their even
Christian...
White rich privilege, all the way.
They go on to riddle each other about their craft:
What is he that builds stronger than either the
mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?
The gallows-maker; for that frame outlives a
thousand tenants.
say 'a
grave-maker: 'the houses that he makes last till
doomsday.
Hamlet and Horatio stroll by and watch the digger toss skulls out of the grave (OMG people were DUG UP so Ophelia could be buried how grotesque). Hamlet waxes poetic about death, as is his wont, imagining the people whose skulls are being laid out, wondering about their previous lives, making up odd puns and shrugging at how these dead have all come to the same end (in the same grave no less). Hamlet walks up to the digger and engages him in a rather fine bit of banter over who is to be buried. This little argument serves as the only time Hamlet is well matched in wit for the entire play! They talk about how long the man's been digging graves (since the day Hamlet was born--thirty years! So that's how old Hamlet is supposed to be, yes?) and how long it takes for a body to decompose (tanners take longer because their skin is more waterproof). The digger then hands Hamlet old Yorick's skull. Yorick was the King's jester until he died twenty-three years before. This sets Hamlet into a darkly nostalgic mood.
Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow
of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath
borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how
abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rims at
it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know
not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your
gambols? 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 chap-fallen?
Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let
her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must
come; make her laugh at that.
Hamlet is definitely at least three-and-twenty, even if the gravedigger is wrong about Hamlet's birthdate. Hamlet goes on to ask Horatio if he thinks Alexander the Great or even Julius Caesar (DRINK!) is naught but a skull anymore.
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? ...
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 turn'd 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 to expel the winter flaw!
From thus comes the iconic "Hamlet holding a skull" imagery. Ghosts and worms and bungholes. That's what becomes of us in the end.
The King, Queen, Laertes, a Priest and some extras carry a corse toward the grave as Hamlet and Horatio watch from afar. Laertes argues with the "churlish priest" over the honors that must be afforded for this questionable death and Hamlet realizes it's Ophelia they are about to relinquish to the earth. Laertes leaps into the grave to hold Ophelia one last time (dude, chill). Hamlet reveals himself ("What is he whose grief bears such an emphasis... This is I, Hamlet the Dane!"), jumps into the grave, declares that he mourns harder than Laertes, and Laertes tries to strangle him. The attendants try to pry them apart while Hamlet raves:
'Swounds, show me what thou'lt do:
Woo't weep? woo't fight? woo't fast? woo't tear thyself?
Woo't drink up eisel? eat a crocodile?
I'll do't. Dost thou come here to whine?
To outface me with leaping in her grave?
Be buried quick 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,
Make Ossa like a wart! Nay, an thou'lt mouth,
I'll rant as well as thou.
"Eat a crocodile" is good. Great line, that.
The Queen and King insist that Hamlet is mad and Laertes should leave him be. Hamlet drops another of his greatest hits before his exit with Horatio hot on his tail: "The cat will mew, and dog will have his day."
Hamlet tries to explain his rash behavior to Horatio, saying " There's a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them as we will." Then he recounts his piratical adventures and how he took R&G's letter from the King and wrote a new one, sending R&G to their deaths, then sealed it with his signet ring. Horatio is stunned that Hamlet signed their death warrants. "Why, man, they did make love to this employment, They are not near my conscience," Hamlet says, by way of justifying his execution orders. That's pretty cold, buddy.
Well, at least he does admit regret over how he treated Laertes, for he totally gets why Laertes acted as he did, and Hamlet promises he will "court his favors." Just then, Osric, a foppish courtier, enters to give them news from the King, who wants he and Laertes to engage in a fencing match with horses and swords wagered against one another. Even in this strange mood, Hamlet cannot resist taking this opportunity to soundly mock this poor dude about wearing his hat and make dick jokes about swords.
HAMLET: What call you the carriages?
HORATIO: I knew you must be edified by the margent 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 a cannon by our sides...
Hahahahahaha. Cannon.
Hamlet agrees to participate whenever the King wants. Osric leaves, and Horatio doesn't think this is a great idea. Hamlet is confident he'll win. Horatio offers to come up with some excuse for Hamlet, but he says it's fine:
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 has aught of what he
leaves, what is't to leave betimes? Let be.
And then a Beatles song starts playing. God help us.
The whole world enters then, with all the accoutrements of a fencing match, including some soon-to-be-poisoned rosé. Hamlet and Laertes hold hands and Hamlet politely asks his pardon. Laertes is bemused at this kindness, but accepts it, or so he says out loud. The King announces that if Hamlet gets the first hit, he will reward him with a "union" (a rare pearl) better than anything worn in Danish crowns.
Hamlet and Laertes play. Hamlet scores a hit and the King offers Hamlet some wine but he sets it aside. Hamlet scores another hit. Gertrude toasts and goes to drink, but the King stops her. She drinks anyway. The King knows it is the poisoned cup and quietly shits his pants. Laertes goes to play again but says to himself that it is "almost against my conscience" at this point. They play again, Laertes wounds Hamlet and they scuffle, exchanging weapons. Hamlet wounds him back just as the Queen swoons. She warns Hamlet that she is poisoned by the drink.
Laertes admits that Hamlet holds the "treacherous instrument" in his hand and how he used a weapon "unbated and envenom'd." And it was all the King's idea. Hamlet attacks Claudius and makes him drink the rest of the wine, killing him. With his dying breath, Laertes asks forgiveness of Hamlet and he gives it. Hamlet tells Horatio he is close to death now. Horatio is so upset that he wishes to drink off the rest of the drink: "I am more an antique Roman than a Dane." Hamlet orders him not to drink, for he must live!
O good Horatio, what a wounded name,
Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me!
If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart
Absent thee from felicity awhile,
And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,
To tell my story.
Meanwhile, some "warlike noise" interrupts them--it's fricken Fortinbras invading the castle.
O, I die, Horatio;
The potent poison quite o'er-crows 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;
So tell him, with the occurrents, more and less,
Which have solicited. The rest is silence.
Horatio gives him a fitting send-off, just as a good boyfriend should:
Now cracks a noble heart. Good night sweet prince:
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!
I truly wish there were more productions emphasizing the relationship between these two. It doesn't even have to be gay (although I'd be more than fine with that interpretation) but there's a reason why Hamlet requests Horatio to tell his story: he's the only one he's trusted with certain information, above all else, and that's special coming from Hamlet, who held his feelings so close to the vest the entire time. I love them.
Fortinbras enters, takes one glance and is like "What the actual fuck did I just walk into?" The Embassador from England walks in as well, just to announce that "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead." Just add them to the pile of bodies. Horatio shakes his head and says that he would be more than happy to explain all this shit. Fortinbras says he is ready to hear all the tea, and he announces that he is now King. He comments on how the scene looks like a battlefield, then he orders that Hamlet be carried off like a soldier Prince and given all the appropriate burial rites. "Go bid the soldiers shoot" are the final words.
Dayum. A closing scene to end all scenes.
Why the EFF does everybody love this flippin' play so much, you may ask. Well, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the old dead 19th century white guy we have to thank for raising Hamlet out of the previous Shakespeare critics' sea of denigration, once very famously said: "I have a smack of Hamlet myself, if I do say."
We love Hamlet because he is the mirror held up to our very soul. Is it a bit narcissistic to see ourselves in the most intelligent character ever put to parchment? Yes. Yes it is. But Hamlet is also the most emotional and thoughtful character in English lit history, and we all love to get emotional and think too much. Cogito ergo sum Hamlet.
Also, there's multiple MURTHERS. And DAMNED INCEST. And a GHOST. And FENCING. That's Entertainment!
For my part, I love Hamlet because there's just SO MUCH. All the characters have such distinct voices (even fricken R&G) that they pop off the page. The sheer number of famous lines and phrases and images contained within is mind-boggling... one does not even have to read the play to know that holding up a skull is HAMLET. It's a wonderful piece that serves as a glimpse into Shakespeare's obsessions at the time, one of which, is the tale of the medieval Scandinavian legend about "Amleth."
That name supposedly came from Icelandic for "trickster" or "madness." Saxo Grammaticus described Amleth's story, which most definitely inspired Shakespeare for all its parallels about a dude killing his bro and marrying his wife and when the son gets wind of it, he acts crazy and tries to avenge his dad. Amleth was even sent to England with two attendants and he changed their letter so they would be killed instead of him. Amleth eventually gets his revenge and becomes king, so it's a bit happier than Hamlet's end.
Shakespeare loved this story so much that he named his son Hamnet. The anglicized "Amleth" was spelled a handful of ways (like how parents these days try to make their dumb kids "unique" by spelling "Caitlin" with a K or a Y or thirty N's) so "Hamlet" was really the same name. It's even postulated that Shakespeare was so saddened by his young son's death (he was eleven) that he wrote Hamlet as a kind of wish fulfillment fanfiction... imagining his genius son growing into something like his Danish hero.
AWEEEEEEEE. When you put it that way... OMG. *heart eyes*
So there's an idea. I like it.
I shall end there for today. In another seven years I'll have even more insights into this beloved play, I'm sure. I am sad to leave Hamlet behind for now, but DAMN was that invigorating. Always fun to get wrapped up in the old Danish play. I hope y'all had fun and learned something for Jeopardy!
Next week the cross-dressing returns in full force with Twelfth Night or What You Will. I will have at it.
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