Act 3 Flashcards
The King and Polonius use Ophelia as bait, so they can spy on Hamlet . . . Hamlet’s third soliloquy (“To be or not to be, that is the question”) . . . The King decides to send Hamlet to England, but Polonius wants to overhear what Hamlet might say to his mother.
Scene 1
Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern:
As the scene opens the King is questioning Rosencrantz and Guildenstern about why Hamlet “puts on this confusion.” Rosencrantz and Guildenstern don’t have any satisfactory answers. Hamlet admits that “he feels himself distracted,” Rosencrantz says, “But,” Guildenstern adds, “with a crafty madness, keeps aloof” (3.3.8). By calling it a “crafty madness” Guildenstern is almost certainly not suggesting that Hamlet is only pretending to be mad. He means that in his madness Hamlet is wary and shrewd.
Neither one mentions that Hamlet has figured out what they are up to. Are Rosencrantz and Guildenstern embarrassed to appear so stupid, or are they just plain stupid? It’s hard to tell.
Like a mom, the Queen seems interested in her boy’s behavior and happiness. She asks if Hamlet acted like a gentleman, and if they encouraged him to take part in any “pastime.” Rosencrantz replies with the news about the players, and Polonius adds that Hamlet has invited the King and Queen to see the play. The King agrees to that, and sends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern on their way to encourage Hamlet to go ahead with his plans for “these delights.”
Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern:
As Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are leaving, the King asks Gertrude to leave, too. He has sent for Hamlet, so “That he, as ‘twere by accident, may here / Affront Ophelia” (2.2.30-31). He and Polonius, by “seeing unseen” are going to determine “If’t be the affliction of his love or no / That thus he suffers for.” Before she leaves, Gertrude lays a heavy burden on Ophelia. She says:
And for your part, Ophelia, I do wish
That your good beauties be the happy cause
Of Hamlet’s wildness: so shall I hope your virtues
Will bring him to his wonted way again,
To both your honors. (2.2.37-41)
So Ophelia, who was told to stay away from Hamlet, for fear that he would take advantage of her weakness, is now being told that she is strong enough to save Hamlet from his madness. Gertrude is hoping that Ophelia’s beauty is indeed the cause of Hamlet’s madness. If that’s true, then Ophelia’s “virtues” (her sweet, kind, loving nature) can cure him. Ophelia says only, “Madam, I wish it may,” but we’ll find later that she has a plan.
Exit Gertrude:
As the Queen is leaving, Polonius shows Ophelia just where to walk, and the King where to hide. He also gives Ophelia a book, probably a book of devotions, so that she can pretend to be reading when Hamlet finds her. This is a more than a bit hypocritical, and Polonius, just babbling on, comments that “with devotion’s visage / And pious action we do sugar o’er / The devil himself” (3.1.46-48). Hearing what Polonius says, the King has a brief attack of conscience. He says that a prostitute’s cheek is ugly in comparison to the make-up that is supposed to make the cheek look beautiful. So his “deed” is ugly in comparison to his “most painted word.” This is as much as to say that all of his expressions of concern for Hamlet’s mental health are lies.
Enter Hamlet:
Polonius hears Hamlet coming, so he and the King hide, probably behind an arras, that is, a tapestry or heavy curtain. Ophelia is left alone for Hamlet to find, but when he enters, he apparently doesn’t see her because he’s preoccupied with his great question, “To be, or not to be” (3.1.56).
This famous soliloquy may be a surprise. A few minutes ago, in his second soliloquy, Hamlet had beat himself up for not taking revenge against the King, and then he had explained to himself that “the play’s the thing / Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king” (2.2.604-605). So he had a plan. But now he seems to have forgotten all about his plan. Instead, he’s feeling very much as he did in his first soliloquy, when he wished that his “too too solid flesh would melt / Thaw and resolve itself into a dew! (1.2.129-130).
At first, “to be, or not to be” doesn’t mean “to live or die.” It’s a question of whether to “suffer / The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” or to “take arms against a sea of troubles.” “Suffer,” in Shakespeare’s time, means primarily to “allow” or “permit,” so Hamlet is talking about just letting things happen without doing anything. This is what it would be to “not be,” but the other option, “to take arms against a sea of troubles,” doesn’t look much more hopeful. What good would a sword or spear do against a sea? Then Hamlet thinks of the ultimate solution, to “not be” at all, “To die, to sleep.” For a moment, he seems to fall in love with this possibility. He says that “‘tis a consummation / Devoutly to be wish’d,” and there’s a lullaby quality in the rise and fall of his next words: “To die, to sleep; / To sleep: perchance to dream” (3.3.60-61).
As he says these words, Hamlet–as Hamlet tends to do–hears himself thinking, which makes him think another thought. That other thought is that the sleep of death may not be comforting at all. (The Ghost has told him that the experience of purgatory is terrifying.) He says, “there’s the respect [thought] /That makes calamity of so long life” (3.1.68-69). In other words, even if our life is a total calamity, we’ll prolong the calamity, rather than face the unknown of death. Otherwise, says Hamlet, who would endure all of the common pain and agony of life, when he might solve all of his problems with a “bare [mere] bodkin [dagger]”?
Again, Hamlet hears himself thinking, and says, “thus the native hue of resolution / Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought” (3.1.84-85), meaning that if he had been decisive enough to solve his problems, it’s too late now, because thinking makes healthy decisiveness sick. Taken altogether, this soliloquy seems to float away from the context of the action. There’s nothing specific in it about his father, or his mother, or the King, or anything that Hamlet has done or failed to do. He expresses a desire for death, and a fear of death, and scorn for himself for thinking himself out of actually doing anything. He seems overwhelmed, but it’s hard to see what–other than his own thoughts–is overwhelming.
Hamlet sees Ophelia:
After a few more words about how thinking stops action, Hamlet sees Ophelia and greets her. His greeting, like his soliloquy, is surprising. Ophelia has dumped him, and he has paid her a strange, silent visit that frightened her, but now he says “Nymph, in thy orisons / Be all my sins remember’d” (3.3.89-90). A “nymph” is a minor goddess of a field, forest, or stream, and a “nymph” is any beautiful girl that could be thought to look like a nymph. In short, Hamlet just called Ophelia something like “babe,” and asked her to pray for him.
Ophelia has a little surprise of her own. After greeting Hamlet, she says, “My lord, I have remembrances of yours, / That I have longed long to re-deliver; / I pray you, now receive them” (3.1.93-95). “Remembrances” could be love-letters, or pressed flowers, or any little gifts that a man might give a woman because he likes her. They can’t be the book that Polonius gave Ophelia to “color [her] loneliness.” So Ophelia has gone far beyond what her father has asked of her, which was just to be where Hamlet would find her. Hamlet says “I never gave you aught,” which we must take to mean “I never gave you anything that you need to return,” since we know that he did give her the love-letter that Polonius read to the King and Queen. Ophelia then says that he should take “these things” back because he doesn’t love her anymore, and “Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind” (3.1.101).
What’s Ophelia up to? Does she consider his silent visit “unkind”? Or does she hope that he will tell her to keep the remembrances because he really does love her after all? In any case, she completely ignores the fact that she was the one who dumped him, and this seems to be what makes Hamlet say “Ha, ha! are you honest?”
At first, Hamlet seems to be simply asking if she really believes what she’s saying, but her “My lord?” seems to show that she doesn’t understand the question. So there she is, a beautiful woman for whom he has (or had) strong feelings, either lying or blind to the way she is twisting the truth. When Hamlet absorbs this, he changes the way he uses the word “honest.” He tells Ophelia that her “honesty should admit no discourse to [her] beauty” because “the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness” (3.1.111-114). Now Hamlet is using the word “honest” to mean “chaste” and he means that beauty can be a pimp. He adds, “this was sometime a paradox, but now the time gives it proof.” He’s probably referring to his mother, whose beauty attracted Claudius, so that she changed from an honest wife to King Hamlet into (in Hamlet’s eyes) King Claudius’ whore.
After this outburst, Hamlet tells Ophelia, “I did love you once.” In what follows, the words are clear, but Hamlet’s emotional tone is not. As soon as Ophelia says “you made me believe so,” he says “I loved you not.” “Get thee to a nunnery” (3.1.121) he advises her, because there she’ll be safe from men, who are all–himself included–“arrant knaves.” Hamlet could be sarcastically throwing her own dishonesty in her face, by telling her he’s just as bad as she is, or he could be tenderly attempting to get her to protect herself from a harsh world.
Now there’s another twist. From out of the blue–as when Hamlet asked Rosencrantz and Guildenstern if they were “sent for”–Hamlet asks Ophelia, “Where’s your father?” Movies of Hamlet often give the prince a clue for this line, by showing him spotting a shoe or a pair of eyes, but it seems more likely that Hamlet simply intuits the truth that Ophelia’s very presence is a lie, and that he’s being spied upon.
Poor Ophelia naturally lies, saying “At home, my lord,” and Hamlet explodes in rage. Twice he says, “Farewell,” but thinks of something more to say, and turns back to heap more abuse upon Ophelia. He calls Polonius a “fool,” and speaks to Ophelia as though she is all deceiving women: “Or, if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool; for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them” (3.1.138-140). He tells her again to get herself to a “nunnery,” but this time he’s probably using the word in its slang sense of “whorehouse.” Finally, he’s really ready to leave, but not before issuing a threat:
I say, we will have no more marriages: those that are married already, all but one, shall live; the rest shall keep as they are. (3.1.147-149)
We may guess that the one married person who is destined to die is the King.
Exit Hamlet:
Even before Hamlet finally storms out, poor Ophelia interprets all of his anger as madness, saying “O, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown!” (3.1.150). She remembers that he had been the perfect man, a soldier who was charming, educated, handsome, and a prince of whom great things were expected. It’s not too much to guess that she hoped, even expected, to be his wife and eventually Queen. She describes herself as “of ladies most deject and wretched, / That suck’d the honey of his music vows” (3.1.155-156).
Enter King and Polonius:
If Ophelia’s actions match her words, she’s weeping, and at this point an editor may put in a stage direction such as “Ophelia withdraws,” because Polonius seems to act as if his daughter were not even there. If the editor makes Ophelia “withdraw,” she has to come back into view later, so that Polonius can tell her she doesn’t need to say anything because “We heard it all” (3.1.180). So, even if Ophelia withdraws and then comes back, Polonius is still a total jerk who doesn’t care anything about his daughter’s feelings.
Meanwhile, the King has seen quite enough. He is pretty sure that Hamlet is not in love and not mad, and that “There’s something in his soul, / O’er which his melancholy sits on brood” (3.3.163-164). Of course, the King Claudius knows that the “something” could very well be the murder of King Hamlet, and that Hamlet could be dangerous. He tells Polonius that he has determined to send Hamlet to England “For the demand of our neglected tribute,” because a sea voyage will be good for Hamlet’s mental health. Polonius, however, will not let go of his idea that Hamlet’s problem is “neglected love,” so he proposes a new scheme, which is to “Let his queen mother all alone entreat him / To show his grief” (3.1.182-183), while Polonius again hides and listens in. The King replies “It shall be so,” but we don’t get the idea that he’s changed his mind about getting rid of Hamlet.
Scene 1
Performance of “The Murder of Gonzago” . . . The King rises . . . Hamlet summoned to speak with his mother.
Scene 2
Enter Hamlet and Players:
As the scene opens, Hamlet is giving advice to the players on how to “hold . . . the mirror up to nature” (3.2.22). We may suppose that Hamlet wants the performance to be as realistic as possible, so that there will be a better chance that it will “catch the conscience of the King,” but he goes on at such length that we may suspect that Shakespeare took the opportunity to air some of his pet peeves about actors.
Enter Polonius, Guildenstern, and Rosencrantz, then exeunt all three. Enter Horatio:
After Hamlet has told the players to go get ready for the performance, Polonius, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern pass through and Hamlet learns that the King and Queen are ready to see the play. Perhaps Rosencrantz and Guildenstern think they ought to hang around with Hamlet, but he sends them to “hasten” the players and calls for Horatio. Horatio promptly answers the call, and Hamlet tells him that he is “e’en as just a man / As e’er my conversation coped withal” (3.2.54-55).
Horatio is a bit embarrassed at the praise, but Hamlet has much to say about his friendship for Horatio. It would seem that Hamlet makes such a point of affirming his friendship for Horatio because every other person that Hamlet encounters has an agenda. First, Hamlet says that his praise of Horatio is sincere, because he has nothing to gain by flattering Horatio, who is a poor man with nothing to offer but friendship. Then Hamlet says that his (Hamlet’s) soul, from the time it was capable of making such a choice, “has seal’d thee for herself.” (This implies that Hamlet and Horatio have known each other since they were children.) Finally, Hamlet gets to the reason that he likes Horatio so well. Horatio is a steady man, one who can take “Fortune’s buffets and rewards” with “equal thanks.” Apparently, Hamlet sees in his friend a quality that he lacks, and he says,
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. (3.2.71-74)
At this point, Hamlet himself becomes embarrassed, too, saying “Something too much of this.” He then asks Horatio’s help in keeping an eye on the King during the performance of the play. Horatio readily agrees, and promises that the King will not “[e]scape detecting.”
Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and attendants:
Now we hear a “flourish,” noisy music announcing the arrival of the King. With the King come a lot of attendants and all those who think something is wrong with Hamlet–the Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern. Hamlet says “They are coming to the play; I must be idle” (3.2.90), but he is much more than idle. He immediately begins messing with other people’s minds. When the King asks him how he’s doing, he replies, “Excellent, i’ faith; of the chameleon’s dish: I eat the air, promise-crammed: you cannot feed capons so” (3.2.93-95). A chameleon was supposed to eat air, and with a pun on air / heir, Hamlet is saying that the King promised he would be heir to the throne, but that promise isn’t even chicken feed. With another pun, Hamlet calls Polonius a “calf,” and then turns his attention to Ophelia.
He asks Ophelia, “Lady, shall I lie in your lap?” In Shakespeare’s time “lie” could be used in the sexual sense that we give to “sleep with,” and “lap” could have a strong sexual meaning, too. Naturally, Ophelia says, “No, my lord,” but when Hamlet comes back at her with “I mean, my head upon your lap,” she says “Aye, my lord.” This gives Hamlet an opening for a very nasty pun, “Do you think I meant country matters?” (3.2.116). (Say the word “country” aloud a couple of times, and you’ll get it.) After another nasty pun from Hamlet, Ophelia defends herself by saying “You are merry, my lord.” She means that Hamlet is just making jokes, but Hamlet turns that around by replying that everyone should be merry, “for, look you, how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died within these two hours” (3.2.126-127).
Enter Players:
After a little more “mad” talk from Hamlet about how the dead are soon forgotten, trumpets sound and the players enter. First comes a “dumb show,” a silent pantomime which previews the plot of The Murder of Gonzago. It’s a short, simple plot. We see a loving King and Queen. She expresses her love for him, and leaves him to sleep “upon a bank of flowers.” The villain enters, takes the King’s crown, pours poison in the King’s ear, and leaves. The Queen returns, finds the King dead, and “makes passionate action.” The villain then comes back and makes a move on the Queen. She resists for a while, “but in the end accepts love.” (Incidentally, if this is an exact representation of what happened to King Hamlet, it indicates that Gertrude did not participate in his murder and did not have an affair with Claudius before her husband’s death.)
After the dumb show comes the actual play. Shakespeare wrote stiff, old-fashioned couplets for his Player King and Player Queen to speak, and in performances the lines are often drastically cut, but there’s a significant bit of philosophy here. The Player King and Queen have been married for thirty years, but the King is getting sick and foresees his death. He hopes that his Queen will find another husband as kind as he has been. She protests that she will never remarry, and the King answers with a long speech about how we make plans and promises to ourselves, yet often fail to carry out the plans or keep the promises. His philosophy is that we need to accept such failures as part of life, because we change, the world changes, and “‘tis not strange / That even our loves should with our fortunes change” (3.2.200-201). He says, “Most necessary ‘tis that we forget / To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt” (3.2.192-193). In other words, once we see that we’re not going to keep a promise to ourselves, we should forgive ourselves for it, and forget it. This idea is just the opposite of what tortures Hamlet, the idea that he is a coward for not acting on his promise to kill King Claudius.
Exit Player Queen:
The Player Queen once again proclaims that she’ll never remarry, and leaves her husband to sleep. At this point in the play-within-the-play, Hamlet begins to get impatient. He asks his mother how she likes the play. She replies with the perceptive comment that “The lady protests too much, methinks” (3.2.230). The King wants to know if there’s any “offense” in the play, and Hamlet’s mocking replies suggest that there is indeed. He even tells the King that the name of the play is “‘The Mouse-trap’.” Now the villain of the play enters, and Hamlet announces that “This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king.” Ophelia comments that Hamlet is “as good as a chorus,” and is rewarded with two wisecracks suggesting that she’s a slut. Lucianus, to Hamlet’s way of thinking, takes too long to get down to business, and Hamlet tells him to hurry up. Then, when Lucianus pours the poison in the sleeping Player King’s ear, Hamlet can’t restrain himself any more. He bursts in with information that Lucianus “poisons him i’ th’ garden for his estate,” and “you shall see anon how the murderer gets the love of Gonzago’s wife.” The implications of this are obvious, and the King rises, saying “Give me some light: away!” (3.2.269). The play is stopped short, and everyone leaves with the King, except for Hamlet and Horatio.
Exeunt all but Hamlet and Horatio:
Hamlet excitedly celebrates his victory by reciting snatches of poetry, proclaiming himself an actor, and asking if Horatio saw the same thing he did. When Horatio says that he did “very well note” the King, Hamlet celebrates some more and calls for music.
Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern:
Now Rosencrantz and Guildenstern come in, and Guildenstern tells Hamlet that the King “Is in his retirement marvellous distempered” (3.2.301). If Rosencrantz and Guildenstern thought Hamlet would be impressed with this news, they were certainly mistaken. By “distempered,” they mean “upset and angry,” but Hamlet immediately begins punning, and takes “distempered” to mean “drunk.” Thus begins a brief struggle between Hamlet and his two “friends.” They want him to be sorry for what he has done, as a normal person would, and talk to them like a normal person would, but he mocks them at every turn.
Hamlet’s mockery consists in demonstrating to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern that their worst suspicions about him are true. When Guildenstern asks for a “wholesome answer,” Hamlet replies that he can’t because his “wit’s diseased.” Moments later, Rosencrantz tells Hamlet that his behavior has upset his mother, and she wants to speak to him. Rosencrantz’s tone shows that he thinks that Hamlet, as a loving son, should be sorry and go apologize. But instead of being sorry, Hamlet suggests that he’s doing her a big favor by speaking to her. He says, “We shall obey, were she ten times our mother” (3.2.333-334).
While Rosencrantz is trying, as nicely as he can, to get Hamlet to tell them what’s wrong with him, the players enter “with recorders.” Apparently they heard him call for music, and are now prepared to give him a song. Hamlet takes a recorder and says “To withdraw with you,” as though he and a player are going to go somewhere and make some music, but Guildenstern gets in his way. Hamlet says, “why do you go about to recover the wind of me, as if you would drive me into a toil?” (3.2.346-347). His metaphor is taken from hunting, in which hunters get to the windward side of the animals, in order to drive them into a net (“toil”). Guildenstern smoothly explains that he’s doing what he’s doing only out of “love” for Hamlet. Hamlet responds by harassing his harasser. He sticks the recorder in Guildenstern’s face and demands that he play it. Guildenstern doesn’t know how, but Hamlet tells him “It is as easy as lying,” and then makes his point:
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? (3.2.363-370)
Enter Polonius:
Now Polonius shows up, to tell Hamlet what he already knows, that Hamlet’s mother wants to speak with him, and “presently,” that is, right away. Hamlet’s response is more harassment. He points to a cloud that he says looks like a camel, but when Polonius says it does indeed look like a camel, Hamlet says it looks like a weasel. Hamlet goes on to a whale and then says to himself “They fool me to the top of my bent” (3.2.384). He means that if he’s playing the fool, it’s their fault. Polonius and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have treated him like a fool, smiling and nodding and poking and probing, and he’s sick of it.
Exeunt all but Hamlet:
Finally Hamlet promises to go to his mother “by and by,” and gets rid of everyone else. Alone, he thinks about what he’s about to do. He says he “could drink hot blood,” but he reminds himself that he is not to touch his mother, saying “I will speak daggers to her, but use none” (3.2.396). This is a little startling. After assuring himself that the King is indeed guilty of murder, Hamlet is now almost ready to kill–his mother.
Scene 2
Enter King, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern:
The King enters with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who have apparently just told him that Hamlet wouldn’t give them a straight answer about anything. The King’s first words, “I like him not” (3.3.1), goes far beyond a statement of personal distaste. The King is using the word “like” as we do when we say “I don’t like where this is going.”
He gives Rosencrantz and Guildenstern the job of taking Hamlet to England, saying “The terms of our estate may not endure / Hazard so dangerous as doth hourly grow / Out of his lunacies” (3.3.5-7). We know why Hamlet is dangerous to the King, but he isn’t about to tell Rosencrantz and Guildenstern that he killed his brother. Instead, he explains it as a matter of “The terms of our estate,” which means something like “the nature of my position as king.” A king, like a mafia don, must maintain respect, and Hamlet has been showing total disrespect.
Naturally, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern tell the King what he wants to hear, which is that he must indeed be protected, because it’s necessary “To keep those many many bodies safe / That live and feed upon your majesty” (3.3.9-10). Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are sucking up to the King, but what they say about kingship was generally true. In Shakespeare’s day, a King was much more powerful than any president or prime minister is today, and only a strong king could keep his country safe. So, most people in Shakespeare’s audience would agree with Rosencrantz’s last words in the scene: “Never alone / Did the king sigh, but with a general groan” (3.3.22-23).
Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Enter Polonius:
Just after Rosencrantz and Guildenstern hurry out, Polonius comes hurrying in. He’s on his way to hide behind the “arras” (a heavy curtain), so that he can overhear the conversation between Hamlet and his mother. Polonius’ original idea was that by doing this, he could prove that “The origin and commencement of [Hamlet’s] grief / Sprung from neglected love” (3.1.177-178), but now he seems more interested in seeing to it that the Queen “tax him home” (3.3.29), that is, scold Hamlet into being a good boy. The King’s only response is “Thanks, my dear lord,” because he doesn’t really care. He’s already made arrangements to send Hamlet to England.
Exit Polonius:
Now the King is alone with his conscience. This soliloquy, though not as famous as any of Hamlet’s, is just as psychologically persuasive. At the performance of The Murder of Gonzago the King got spooked, but he didn’t admit anything to anybody. Hamlet may have figured out what happened, but the King doesn’t know that for sure, and he’s about to get rid of Hamlet. Still, he feels exposed. He feels that he stinks to heaven. Perhaps no one else knows his secret, but God knows. As he says, “O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven” (3.3.36). He tries to pray, but cannot. He knows that any sin can be forgiven, but he also knows that for a sin to be forgiven, it must be repented, and he cannot truly repent, because “I am still possess’d / Of those effects for which I did the murder, / My crown, mine own ambition and my queen.” (3.3.53-55). God doesn’t allow a thief to say “I’m sorry” and keep the money. In this world, if you steal enough money, you can hire an all-star team of defense lawyers, so that “Offence’s gilded hand may shove by justice” (3.3.58), but “‘tis not so above.” So, at the end, he urges himself on, asks the angels to help him, and tells his knees they must bend. He kneels, saying “All may be well.”
Enter Hamlet:
As the King kneels, Hamlet happens by and sees him. Hamlet says “Now might I do it pat, now he is praying / And now I’ll do’t” (3.3.73). As he says this, it’s usual to see Hamlet take out his sword and step towards the King, as though he’s about to stab him the back. But then Hamlet says to himself “and so ‘a goes to heaven, / And so am I reveng’d,” and hears what he is saying. If the King does actually go to heaven, that wouldn’t be revenge, but “hire and salary.” So Hamlet decides that he’ll wait until he can catch the King when he is certainly in a state of sin, “When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage, / Or in the incestuous pleasure of his bed” (3.3.89-90). Hamlet puts up his sword and leaves to speak with his mother. After he has gone, the King rises and says, “My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: / Words without thoughts never to heaven go” (3.3.97-98). Thus we see that his attempt to pray failed, and that if Hamlet had killed him, he would not have gone to heaven. So Hamlet’s habit of thinking about his own thinking saved his enemy’s life.
Scene 3
The King tries to pray . . . Hamlet passes up a chance to kill him.
Scene 3
Hamlet and his mother . . . Hamlet kills Polonius . . . Final appearance of the Ghost.
Scene 4
Enter Queen and Polonius:
The location of this scene is the Queen’s closet. Ever since Laurence Olivier’s film version of Hamlet, there’s been a huge bed in the closet, and all too often Hamlet and Gertrude have bounced around on it. Forget that. Remember that Hamlet paid Ophelia his silent visit while she was sewing in her closet. The bed is in the “bedchamber,” and a “closet” is a small study or sewing room.
Before he hides behind the arras (a heavy curtain) Polonius gives the Queen instructions. When Hamlet comes, she is supposed to chew him out, even threaten him. Polonius says, “Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear with, / And that your grace hath screen’d and stood between / Much heat and him” (3.2-4).
Enter Hamlet:
When Hamlet comes in, the Queen follows Polonius’ instructions. She starts right out with “Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended” (3.4.9) Of course this offends Hamlet. By “father” she means the King, and Hamlet knows him as his father’s murderer, not his father. He throws her words back in her face with “Mother, you have my father much offended.” This sort of exchange continues until the Queen threatens to “set those to you that can speak.” She means that she’ll get somebody else to talk to him, someone who will make him listen. At this point we might wish that Shakespeare had written more stage directions, because there seems to be some action of Hamlet’s that frightens the Queen very badly. Perhaps she starts toward the door and he grabs her and throws her into a chair as he says, “Come, come, and sit you down; you shall not budge; / You go not till I set you up a glass / Where you may see the inmost part of you” (3.4.18-20). Or perhaps he just accidentally rests his hand on his sword. Whatever Hamlet’s action is, somehow his tremendous anger makes contact with her guilty conscience, and she screams “What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murder me?” When she screams, Polonius yells “help,” and Hamlet says, “How now? A rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead!” He stabs through the arras, killing Polonius, whose last words are “O, I am slain.” (This is realistic in a physical sense. A person who has a sword driven through his heart has about enough time for four words before he dies.)
Hamlet stabs through the arras:
After Polonius, still unseen, dies behind the arras, there is a moment that raises many questions. Here it is:
QUEEN O me, what hast thou done?
HAMLET Nay, I know not:
Is it the king?
QUEEN O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!
HAMLET A bloody deed! almost as bad, good mother,
As kill a king, and marry with his brother.
QUEEN As kill a king!
HAMLET Ay, lady, ‘twas my word. (3.4.25-30)
We may ask just what Hamlet intended when he stabbed through the arras. And what does he mean by “Nay, I know not: / Is it the King?” Did he mean to kill the King? Or did he strike blindly and the next instant hope that he had killed the King? If he meant to kill the King, how could he have thought it was the King behind the arras? About three minutes ago (in stage time) Hamlet walked away from the King, leaving him on his knees in apparent prayer. If he struck blindly, why? There was no imminent danger.
In addition, Hamlet’s words, “almost as bad, good mother, / As kill a king, and marry with his brother,” constitute a direct accusation that his mother participated in the murder of her husband. If this is a fact, it’s a very important fact, and a new one, because the Ghost made no such accusation. On the other hand, later in the scene Hamlet calls the King a “murderer and a villain” (3.4.96), and the Queen doesn’t deny it or express any surprise. Whatever the case, we never find out whether or not the Queen was an accessory to the murder of her husband. After Hamlet says, “Ay, lady, ‘twas my word,” he drops the subject, and it doesn’t come up again. (There is a version of Hamlet called “Q1” by scholars, in which the Queen says that this is the first she knew about the murder, but that version is not considered particularly reliable.) Critics have referred to Hamlet as a “mystery story,” but no good mystery would let such a long thread dangle.
These questions lead to more. Is the uncertainty about Hamlet’s motivations and the Queen’s actions something that Shakespeare wanted in the play, perhaps to indicate the characters’ lack of self-knowledge? Or is the “uncertainty” just the result of our thinking too hard about a scene that was meant to be performed quickly?
Returning to the story, Hamlet now draws back the arras and finds the body of Polonius. He has only a few contemptuous words for the body. Hamlet says he thought Polonius was the King, and that Polonius now knows that it’s dangerous to stick your nose in other people’s business.
Immediately after this, Hamlet turns back to his mother, tells her to stop wringing her hands, shut up, and sit down, so that he can “wring [her] heart” (3.4.35). What follows is one of the most harrowing passages in the whole play. In a storm of words, Hamlet overwhelms the Queen’s feeble attempts to defend herself. Hamlet tells her that what she has done makes meaningless “modesty,” “virtue,” “innocent love,” “marriage vows,” and “sweet religion.” He shows her pictures of her two husbands, King Claudius and King Hamlet. He is very rough with her psychologically, and maybe physically, too. Often in performances, the picture of Hamlet’s father is in a locket that he wears, and the picture of the King is in a locket that the Queen wears. Hamlet then uses the chain of the Queen’s locket to jerk her towards him and make her look. When she looks she should see that King Hamlet had features like the gods, so that the whole world could see that he was a real “man” (3.4.62). She should see that Claudius is “like a mildew’d ear, / Blasting his wholesome brother” (3.4.64-65). And she should see that she can’t really see, that taking King Claudius instead of King Hamlet shows that she has “Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight, / Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all” (3.4.78-79).
She pleads with him to “speak no more,” but he rushes on to the heart of his anger, which is that she is living “In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed, / Stew’d in corruption, honeying and making love / Over the nasty sty” (3.4.92-94). He is shouting or weeping, or perhaps doing both at once.
Enter Ghost:
If performed with passion, this scene is nerve-wracking. Hamlet is not asking his mother a question she can answer, or making a request that she can possibly fulfill. He is simply unloading on her, and there seems to be no end in sight, until the moment when, as Hamlet continues to rave on about the King, the Ghost appears to him.
When Hamlet speaks to the Ghost, his mother, who sees nothing, concludes that he’s mad. Hamlet has a different analysis of himself. He asks the Ghost, “Do you not come your tardy son to chide, / That, lapsed in time and passion, lets go by / The important acting of your dread command? (3.4.106-108). We can understand why Hamlet considers himself “lapsed in time”; a few minutes ago he had an opportunity to kill the King and passed it up. More interesting is “lapsed in . . . passion.” He is acknowledging that he’d rather chew out his mother than revenge his father.
The Ghost has two messages for Hamlet. Hamlet is to take revenge, but right now he is to help his mother, to “step between her and her fighting soul (3.4.113). So Hamlet, considered mad by his mother, must make sure that she doesn’t go mad. Following the Ghost’s command, Hamlet asks his mother how she’s doing, and she replies by asking him what he’s looking at. Wanting him to calm down, she describes him to himself. “Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep,” she says, and “Your bedded hair, like life in excrements , / Starts up, and stands on end” (3.4.121-122). “Excrements” means “outgrowths,” not what it means now, and his hair is “bedded” simply because it’s combed. She is saying that his hair, standing on end, seems to have taken on a life of its own. This description of Hamlet repeats what the Ghost had predicted would happen if Hamlet learned the “secrets” of his “prison-house.” That knowledge, the Ghost said, would “Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres, / Thy knotted and combined locks to part / And each particular hair to stand on end” (1.5.17-19). Perhaps it is impossible for any actor playing Hamlet to make his hair stand on end, but this is how we should see him in our mind’s eye. We can understand why his mother thinks he’s mad.
Hamlet points to the Ghost and tries to make his mother see, saying “His form and cause conjoin’d, preaching to stones, / Would make them capable” (3.4.126-127). He means she should be able to see and hear the Ghost, because the Ghost’s appearance, together with the story of his murder, would make the very stones understand. Then he speaks to the Ghost, and asks him to not look at him, “Lest with this piteous action you convert / My stern effects: then what I have to do / Will want true color; tears perchance for blood” (3.4.128-130). Hamlet is a thinking man, but here he seems to not be thinking, only reporting a strange emotional encounter with himself. He is afraid that the pitiful image of the Ghost will be so powerful in his mind that he will weep, rather than kill. (Or perhaps it’s his mother who is looking at Hamlet, and perhaps it’s his pity for her that will overcome him and make him forget his promise to take blood revenge.)
Exit Ghost:
After the Ghost “steals away,” the Queen tells Hamlet that his vision of the Ghost is an effect of his madness. Hamlet seems offended. He offers to “reword” what he has said in order to prove his sanity, and then returns to the attack. He tells her that she’s only flattering herself if she thinks the problem is his madness rather than her “trespass.” He concludes with the sarcastic request that she “Forgive me this my virtue” (3.4.152).
Her response is, “O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain” (3.4.156). If she means that she has a deep inner conflict, it’s hard to see just what it is. A little earlier, she said that Hamlet was turning “mine eyes into my very soul; / And there I see such black and grained spots / As will not leave their tinct” (3.4.89-91). But what are those “spots”? She has not admitted any complicity in King Hamlet’s murder, and she has not agreed with Hamlet’s idea that her intimate relations with her husband are naturally nasty.
Nevertheless, Hamlet proceeds as though she knows she’s committed a terrible sin. He says “Good night,” but then asks (or commands) her to stay out of her husband’s bed. He tells her that if she at least pretends to be virtuous, she will becomes virtuous indeed. And he explains that virtue will get easier as she goes along, until it is habitual. He says, “Refrain to-night, / And that shall lend a kind of easiness / To the next abstinence: the next more easy” (3.4.165-167). At this point it is impossible to keep from noticing what Hamlet does not say. He doesn’t ask for any information about his father’s murder. He doesn’t ask for his mother’s assistance in revenging his father’s murder. His seems to be interested in only one thing: his mother’s sexual relationship with his uncle.
Apparently the Queen has no idea of how to respond to her son. His tone softening, Hamlet says “good night” again and promises to ask her blessing if she should ask for his. He notices Polonius’ body and says he repents killing him, although he seems to be only sorry for the trouble that Polonius’ death is going to cause. He says, “heaven hath pleased it so, / To punish me with this and this with me, / That I must be their scourge and minister” (3.4.173-175). He means that he is an agent of heavenly justice, and that being an agent of heavenly justice is itself a punishment. He knows that he’s going to have to answer for Polonius’ death, and perhaps is looking for a little motherly sympathy, but when he says “good night” for the third time, she still doesn’t respond. Finally, he demands “One word more, good lady,” and she answers “What shall I do?” (3.4.180).
What else could she say? Hamlet’s anger has made her feel guilty, but how could she go to her husband and explain that because her mad son considers him to be an ugly, murdering villain, she’s not going to have sex with him anymore? Her “What shall I do?” makes Hamlet angry again. He sarcastically bids her to “Let the bloat king tempt you again to bed; / Pinch wanton on your cheek” (3.4.182-183), so that–and here his speech veers wildly into new territory–she will “ravel all this matter out, / That I essentially am not in madness, / But mad in craft” (3.4.186-188). This is the first time that we’ve heard that she’s supposed to know that he’s only pretending to be mad. And it’s also a surprise to learn that Hamlet now thinks that his mother should stay out of her husband’s bed so that she won’t tell her son’s secret. And Hamlet’s not done. He compares her to a “famous ape” who climbed a rooftop, where he let some birds out of a basket, and then, thinking that the basket might enable him to fly, too, climbed into the basket, whereupon the basket fell to the ground, breaking the ape’s neck. It’s not clear how all the points of the ape story relate to the Queen, but it is clear that he’s suggesting that if she tells his secret, she may well get herself into more trouble than she knows how to get out of.
Whether she’s afraid of Hamlet, or loves him, or both, the Queen promises that “I have no life to breathe / What thou hast said to me” (3.4.198-199). Hamlet then asks if she knows that he “must to England.” She does. (How Hamlet got the information, we don’t know.) She’s sorry that he has to go, but Hamlet boasts that he knows that he can’t trust Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and that he will outdo their “knavery.” In fact, it will be fun, “For ‘tis the sport to have the engineer / Hoist with his own petard” (3.4.206-207). The picture that Hamlet paints is indeed somewhat comical, in a cartoonish sort of way. An “engineer” is a soldier who digs tunnels (“mines”) to the walls of a castle. The idea is place a bomb (“petard”) at the foundations of the castle and blow a hole in the castle wall. So the engineer who is “hoist with his own petard” is one whose own bomb explodes in his face, blowing him up through the roof of the tunnel.
Finally, Hamlet is done with his mother. Looking at Polonius, he says, “This man shall set me packing: / I’ll lug the guts into the neighbour room” (3.4.211-212). There seems to be something about Polonius that inspires Hamlet to make puns, because he makes a couple at Polonius’ expense as he is dragging out the body, the last of which is “Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you” (3.4.216). He means that he drawing toward the end of his dealings with Polonius, as he is drawing (dragging) him out of the room. And with a final “Good night, mother,” he is gone. The Queen never does say “good night” to him.
Scene 4
