Act 4 Flashcards
Enter King, Queen, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern.
Re-enter Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern.
Enter King, Queen, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern:
The Queen has gone straight from Hamlet to the King, and finds him with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who have been looking for Hamlet. She is obviously in a state of emotional turmoil, and the King says, “There’s matter in these sighs, these profound heaves: / You must translate” (4.1.1-2). Apparently the Queen feels a need to be cautious about her news, because the first thing she does is ask Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to leave her alone with the King.
As soon as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are gone, the Queen begins to shade the truth. She says that Hamlet is as “Mad as the sea and wind, when both contend / Which is the mightier” (4.1.7-8), which she may truly believe, but which also is what Hamlet wants her to say. She does not mention that Hamlet said he was only “mad in craft.” She goes on to tell how Hamlet killed Polonius, and the King immediately sees that if he had been behind that arras, he would have been dead. He’s also worried that he will be held responsible for what Hamlet has done, because he should have kept Hamlet under control.
Then, when the King asks where Hamlet is, the Queen apparently tells a very big lie. She answers:
To draw apart the body he hath kill’d:
O’er whom his very madness, like some ore
Among a mineral of metals base,
Shows itself pure; he weeps for what is done. (4.1.24-27)
An “ore” is a vein of pure gold and a “mineral” is a mine, so the Queen means that Hamlet’s tears show that even in his madness he really has a heart of gold. But when did Hamlet weep? After Polonius was dead, Hamlet called him “fool” (3.4.31), “this” (3.4.174), and “guts” (3.4.212). Apparently Gertrude is lying to protect her son. Or perhaps she really did think Hamlet wept, because that’s what she wanted to think of her son.
Re-enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern:
The King vows to get Hamlet out of the country before sunset, but he’s feeling quite sorry for himself. He tells his wife that he will have to excuse Hamlet’s actions as best he can, and calls for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. The King tells the “friends both” to find Hamlet and bring Polonius’ body into the chapel. They hurry out, and the King says he will have a conference with his advisors to explain what has happened and what he’s doing about it. He hopes that his reputation won’t suffer, but his “soul is full of discord and dismay” (4.1.45).
Scene 1
Enter Hamlet, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern:
This short scene opens with Hamlet’s words, “Safely stowed” (4.2.1), indicating that he has just hidden Polonius’ body, although we never do learn why he hides the body. He seems to have no intention of pretending that he didn’t kill Polonius. Perhaps he’s just acting crazy.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are hot on Hamlet’s trail, and we can hear them shouting “Hamlet! Lord Hamlet!” Soon enough, they appear and ask Hamlet what he’s done with the body of Polonius. They tell him that they want to take the body to the chapel. Hamlet replies, “Do not believe it,” and when Rosencrantz asks “Believe what?” Hamlet answers, “That I can keep your counsel and not mine own” (4.2.11). This is a little obscure. “To keep counsel” means to keep a secret, so Hamlet is saying that they shouldn’t think that he can keep their secret, but not his secret. His secret is where he has hidden Polonius, but what’s their secret?
After this, Hamlet directs a stream of insults at Rosencrantz. He tells Rosencrantz that he is a “sponge,” and that although he’s now soaking up the King’s favors, when the King is done with him, he’ll squeeze him dry. Rosencrantz replies that he doesn’t understand, but he’s probably lying, because Hamlet’s message is quite clear. Hamlet has been insulting Rosencrantz and Guildenstern ever since he found out that they were working for the King, and Rosencrantz probably figures it’s just better to let all that stuff roll off his back.
At any rate, Rosencrantz gets back to the point, telling Hamlet, “My lord, you must tell us where the body is, and go with us to the king.” Hamlet answers with some “mad” talk, saying, “The body is with the king, but the king is not with the body. The king is a thing–” (4.1.27-28). (This is part of legal doctrine. “The body is with the king” means that the king, in his own body, can enforce the king’s laws; “but the king is not with the body” means that you can’t stop obeying the king’s laws when the king is dead, because the king is not just a body, but a principle.) Hamlet hasn’t finished his thought, probably to lure a response out of his two “friends.” Guildenstern bites, saying “A thing, my lord?” Hamlet delivers the punch line, “Of nothing,” meaning both that the king is an idea, a no-thing, and that this particular king, Claudius, is a good-for-nothing, and will soon be–if Hamlet has his way–nothing but a dead body.
Finally, Hamlet appears to calm down, saying “bring me to him,” but he’s just fooling. He suddenly turns and runs, saying “Hide fox, and all after,” as if they were children playing hide-and-seek. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern run after him, and the scene’s over.
Scene 2
Enter King, then Rosencrantz, Hamlet, and Guildenstern:
We see the King and two or three attendants. The attendants say nothing, but they’re important. They shouldn’t be servants or soldiers, but gentlemen and courtiers, because the King is telling them the official position. The official position is that the King is taking firm and reasonable action. He has sent people to find both Hamlet and the body of Polonius. He cannot prosecute Hamlet under the law because “He’s loved of the distracted multitude” (4.3.4). Furthermore, it must appear that Hamlet’s trip to England is the result of “deliberate pause,” that is, careful consideration. The King’s attendants are supposed to understand all of this, and they are also supposed to understand that if it appears that the King is acting in desperation, it’s because he has no choice: “diseases desperate grown / By desperate appliance are relieved, / Or not at all” (4.3.9-11).
Now Rosencrantz shows up with the news that although they have Hamlet, he won’t tell them where Polonius’ body is. The King orders Hamlet brought in, and Rosencrantz calls to Guildenstern to “bring in the lord.” Rosencrantz has said that Hamlet is “guarded,” so in performance, Hamlet often comes in with soldiers who have their swords drawn on him, so he can’t get away.
Hamlet immediately begins mocking the King every chance he gets. The first time the King asks where Polonius is, Hamlet tells him that Polonius is “at supper,” “Not where he eats, but where he is eaten” (4.3.19). The second time the King asks, Hamlet answers that Polonius is in heaven and that the King can “send hither to see: if your messenger find him not there, seek him i’ the other place yourself” (4.3.33-35). Hamlet’s joke is that he’s just told the King to go to hell. Finally, Hamlet relents a little and says that if Polonius isn’t found within a month, he’ll begin to stink, and “you shall nose him as you go up the stairs into the lobby.” Immediately the King sends some attendants to check out the stairs. Apparently the attendants run or jog, because Hamlet shouts after them “He will stay till you come.” In other words, “There’s no need to hurry, because he’s not going anywhere, being dead and all.”
Now the King moves on to the second order of business–getting Hamlet off to England. He tells Hamlet that he’s sending him to England for his own safety and that he must go with “fiery quickness.” Hamlet answers “good,” and the King responds, “So is it, if thou knew’st our purposes,” meaning that he’s doing it all for Hamlet’s own good. Hamlet answers “I see a cherub that sees them” (4.3.48), meaning that he knows that heaven knows that the King’s purposes are not good at all. The modern equivalent of this is “Yeah, right.”
Just before he goes, Hamlet takes one last poke at the King, by calling him “dear mother.” The King responds, “Thy loving father, Hamlet,” and Hamlet answers with this: “My mother: father and mother is man and wife; man and wife is one flesh; and so, my mother. This conundrum sounds mad, in a witty way, but it also states what is driving Hamlet “mad”: he can’t think of the mother he loves without thinking of her as a part of the “father” he hates.
Exeunt all but the King:
When Hamlet goes, the King sends everyone else out after him, and we see what the King’s purposes really are. In a short soliloquy, the King speaks to “England,” that is, the King of England. Claudius says that England has lost a battle against Denmark, and therefore fears Denmark, and pays tribute to Denmark. Therefore, England dare not disobey the orders contained in the letters that are going to England with Hamlet. Those orders are for Hamlet to be executed immediately. The King says, “Do it, England; / For like the hectic in my blood he rages, / And thou must cure me” (4.3.65-67). Saying again that he’ll never be happy until Hamlet is dead, the King leaves.
Scene 3
Enter Fortinbras, Captain, and army:
Fortinbras, on the march to Poland, pauses for a moment to order one of his captains to go speak with the Danish King. Fortinbras already has permission to cross Danish territory, and all he needs now is a Danish “conveyance,” that is, an escort. After delivering his command, Fortinbras marches on.
As Fortinbras and his army exit the stage, in comes Hamlet with his escort–Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and some others. Hamlet stops the Norwegian Captain and questions him. He learns that Fortinbras is marching against Poland, but not the “main of Poland.” They go only “to gain a little patch of ground / That hath in it no profit but the name” (4.4.18-19). The Norwegian Captain bitterly remarks that it isn’t worth five ducats, and Hamlet guesses that the battle will cost twenty thousand ducats and two thousand men. Hamlet then remarks, “This is the imposthume [abscess] of much wealth and peace, / That inward breaks, and shows no cause without / Why the man dies” (4.4.27-29). In short, the battle is absolutely meaningless.
Exeunt all but Hamlet:
As the Norwegian Captain leaves, going to face death for nothing, Hamlet seems lost in thought, and Rosencrantz asks if he’s ready to go. Hamlet, who is not technically a prisoner, tells the rest to go on ahead, and speaks his fourth soliloquy. He exclaims, “How all occasions do inform against me / And spur my dull revenge!” (4.4.32-33). To “inform” is to denounce or accuse. So Hamlet feels guilty that he hasn’t carried out his revenge. He feels that he’s not really a man, but only a beast, because all he does is eat and sleep. He should use the reason that God gave him, and act, but he hasn’t. And he doesn’t know why, perhaps it’s “Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple / Of thinking too precisely on the event” (4.4.40-41). He has “cause and will and strength and means / To do’t” (4.4.45-46), but he hasn’t.
From this point on, Hamlet’s basic thought is that if Fortinbras can do what he’s doing, Hamlet should be able to do what he’s supposed to do. But Hamlet undercuts his own argument at every step, because he views Fortinbras as a damn fool. Fortinbras will expose himself “To all that fortune, death and danger dare, / Even for an egg-shell” (4.4.52-53). To Hamlet’s shame, Fortinbras is marching off to war, but only to gain a piece of ground “Which is not tomb enough and continent / To hide the slain” (4.4.64-65). In other words, the piece of ground is not large enough to serve as a graveyard for the soldiers who will die in the battle. This seems to be war’s ultimate absurdity, and this idea gives a hollow ring to Hamlet’s final words of the scene, “O, from this time forth, / My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth! (4.4.65-66). Then Hamlet walks off–not to kill the King, but to continue his journey to England with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
Scene 4
Enter Queen, Horatio and a Gentleman:
This scene begins in the middle of a conversation. The first thing we hear is “I will not speak with her” (4.5.1), spoken by the Queen as she comes into the room. Horatio and a gentleman follow the Queen into the room, trying to get her to change her mind. As the scene progresses, we learn that they must be speaking of Ophelia, who has gone mad and wants to see the Queen. The gentleman says that “Her mood will needs be pitied.” The Queen asks, “What would she have?” (4.5.3), but the gentleman doesn’t answer her question. Instead, he tells the Queen it would be a safer to speak to Ophelia, because she has been talking about her father, and “tricks,” and she’s making people wonder what’s going on. Horatio sums it up by saying, “‘Twere good she were spoken with; for she may strew / Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds” (4.5.14-15). Apparently Horatio has more influence with the Queen than the gentleman does, and she says that Ophelia can come in.
Alone for a moment while Horatio and the Gentleman go to get Ophelia, the Queen reveals why she doesn’t want to speak to Ophelia. She says “To my sick soul, as sin’s true nature is, / Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss” (4.5.17-18). That is, she feels great guilt, and any little thing can make her think that everything is about to go terribly wrong. We still don’t know exactly what makes her feel guilty, but she feels so much guilt that she’s afraid that even her efforts to hide it may give her away.
Enter Ophelia:
The rest of the scene is more interesting if we remember the Queen’s fear of Ophelia’s madness, and the fact that Ophelia has asked to speak with the Queen. Random craziness can be quite boring, but Ophelia, though she is indeed crazy, must think that she is delivering some sort of message to the Queen.
When Ophelia enters she asks, “Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?” (4.5.21), and sings an old ballad that begins “How should I your true-love know / From another one?” In the closet scene, Hamlet asked Queen Gertrude that same kind of question, and answered it, too. In his view, King Hamlet was her “true love,” and he could be distinguished from “another one” by the fact that he was handsome and noble, whereas Claudius is an ugly murderer. In Ophelia’s song, the question is answered by saying that the “true-love” is a pilgrim on his way to the holy shrine of St. James in Spain. Then the Queen asks Ophelia what she means, and Ophelia answers with another bit of song, beginning, “He is dead and gone, lady” (4.5.29). Ophelia’s father is “dead and gone,” but so is King Hamlet, and perhaps Ophelia is singing as one bereft woman to another.
Enter King:
As Ophelia is singing of the funeral of the one who is “dead and gone,” the King enters, and Ophelia promptly changes a line of the old ballad. The ballad describes a beautiful, sentimental funeral, in which a pure white shroud covers the body. On the shroud are mounds of flowers, and as the body is lowered into the grave, the flowers are “bewept” by “true-love showers.” That is, the dead one’s lover is crying so hard that the flowers are getting all wet. Ophelia, however, adds a contradictory “not” to this pretty picture. She sings that the body was “Larded with sweet flowers / Which bewept to the grave did not go / With true-love showers” (4.5.38-40). There could be two connections between Ophelia’s “not” and the King. The King got Polonius’ funeral over with as quickly and quietly as possible. And probably the King didn’t have much time for tears at his brother’s funeral, either, seeing that he was set on marrying his brother’s wife.
When the King asks Ophelia how she’s doing, she answers with a greeting and then a kind of philosophical comment: “They say the owl was a baker’s daughter. Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be” (4.5.42-44). According to legend, a baker’s daughter was stingy when Jesus asked her for bread, so she was turned into an owl. This was a strange transformation, and what Ophelia says seems to indicate that we are all subject to such transformations, because we “know not what we may be.” The King, for example, was the King’s brother, and now he’s the King himself. And Ophelia, for another example, was once beloved of both Hamlet and her father. Now, one has killed the other, and she’s crazy.
Finally, Ophelia sings a song that she says will say “what it means.” The song is about St. Valentine’s day, and it starts out lilting and romantic, with a girl saying she is “a maid at your window, / To be your Valentine” (4.5.50-51). But then the song turns darkly cynical. The man opens his door to “Let in the maid, that out a maid / Never departed more” (4.5.54-55). This says, with a pun, that the girl was a virgin when she went in, but not when she came out. Then the girl complains that her valentine promised to marry her if she went to bed with him, and he pulls the old double-standard trick on her. Sure, he would have married her, if “thou hadst not come to my bed” (4.5.66).
Why does Ophelia sing this song? Perhaps because it expresses just what her brother told her about Hamlet. Laertes told her that even though it might look like Hamlet really loved her, as soon as he got her into bed, it would be all over, because he wouldn’t marry her. If this is what Ophelia is referring to, being crazy seems to have made her more knowing about how the world goes.
As Ophelia leaves, she says she can’t help herself from weeping at the thought of “him” in the “cold ground.” If the “him” is her father, her next words probably give the King a little scare: “My brother shall know of it . . . .” At the end, Ophelia seems to imagine herself as a kind of princess, calling for her coach and saying “Good night, ladies; good night, sweet ladies; good night, good night” (4.5.72-73).
Exit Ophelia and Horatio:
Horatio goes out with Ophelia, and the King and Queen are alone. The King bewails their fate. Troubles are piling up. Polonius has been killed and buried “hugger-mugger,” Ophelia has gone mad, the “muddied” people are passing around rumors about Polonius’ death, and to top it off, Laertes has secretly come back from France and is listening to those rumors. Already, everybody probably thinks the King killed Polonius. The King says “O my dear Gertrude, this, / Like to a murdering-piece, in many places / Gives me superfluous death” (4.5.94-96). A “murdering-piece” is a canon that works like a shotgun, shooting hundreds of pellets all over the place. It’s enough to almost make us feel sorry for the King, if he hadn’t brought it all on himself.
Just as the King is finishing his complaint, we hear noises and in comes a messenger with more bad news. Laertes is just outside, at the head of a mob which is clapping, cheering, and shouting, “Choose we: Laertes shall be king!” (4.5.107).
Enter Laertes:
No sooner has the messenger delivered his warning than Laertes himself comes bursting in, shouting, “O thou vile king, / Give me my father!” (4.5.116-117). To protect her husband, Gertrude rushes forward and clings to Laertes, but the King acts the part of a king and faces Laertes down. He tells Gertrude to let Laertes go, because “There’s such divinity doth hedge a king, / That treason can but peep to what it would, / Acts little of his will” (4.5.124-126). This king hasn’t much divinity in him, but he gets his way. Laertes is full of words, saying that he doesn’t care if he’s damned to hell. He says, “Let come what comes; only I’ll be revenged / Most thoroughly for my father” (4.5.136-137). But Laertes doesn’t act. Instead he listens as the King tell him that “I am guiltless of your father’s death, / And am most sensibly in grief for it” (4.5.150-151).
Re-enter Ophelia:
At this point, just as it appears that the King is getting Laertes to calm down, there’s more trouble. The mob outside begins rumbling again, and we hear someone say “Let her come in!” Ophelia has apparently gotten free of her keepers, and she comes back into the room, alone, and very deranged.
Traditionally, she appears–in the sixteenth-century phrase–“with her hair about her ears,” and carrying flowers. As soon as Laertes sees her, he understands that she has gone mad. His first reaction is horror; he doesn’t want to look at what he’s seeing, saying “tears seven times salt, / Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye!” (4.5.155-156). In other words, he wishes that his tears could make him blind. His next thought is of revenge, and he promises that someone will have to pay for his sister’s madness. Last, he mourns. He addresses his sister as “O rose of May! / Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!” (4.5.158-159). Then he asks if a young woman’s wits can be destroyed as easily as an old man’s life, and decides that Ophelia loved her father so much that her sanity followed him to the grave.
As before, Ophelia sings. Now she seems to be singing of how her father was carried to his grave, never to return. But before she finishes singing the song, Ophelia passes out flowers. Today, we associate roses with love, and lilies with Easter. In Shakespeare’s time, many more flowers had meaning, and it seems that Ophelia’s flowers have some kind of mad meaning. Perhaps the rosemary for remembrance and the pansies for thought go to Laertes, who remembers his father and thinks about his sister. The fennel for flattery and the columbines for ingratitude could go to the King. Ophelia has some rue, for sorrow and repentance, and maybe she gives some to the Queen, with the comment that “you must wear your rue with a difference” (4.5.183), because the Queen’s sorrow and repentance are not the same as Ophelia’s. There’s a daisy for dissembling, which could also go to the Queen, or perhaps the King. Finally, there’s violets for faithfulness. Ophelia says of them: “I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died: they say he made a good end” (4.5.184-186). Then Ophelia sings again of a funeral, and says goodbye, and is gone.
Exit Ophelia:
After Ophelia has gone, the King gets right back to work on Laertes, telling him how sorry he is, and that Laertes can choose anyone he wants to judge whether or not he had anything to do with Polonius’ death. If the King is guilty, Laertes can have the kingdom and everything else the King has. If not, Laertes must let the King help him get revenge on the guilty party. Laertes still wants know why his father didn’t get a better funeral, but it’s clear that the King is going to be able to make use of Laertes’ anger for his own purposes.
Scene 5
Enter Horatio, Gentleman, then Sailors:
In this very short scene a gentleman brings “sea-faring men” (4.6.2) to Horatio. One of the sailors has letters from Hamlet. One of the letters is to Horatio, and he reads it aloud.
Hamlet writes that his ship was attacked by pirates. In the battle, Hamlet boarded the pirate ship, and at that moment the pirate ship got clear of Hamlet’s ship. One might expect that the pirates would want to hold the prince for ransom, but Hamlet promised the pirates to do them a “good turn” at some future time, and so persuaded them to bring him back to Denmark.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are still headed for England. Horatio is to deliver Hamlet’s other letters to the King, and then come meet him. Hamlet has astonishing news for Horatio.
Scene 6
Enter King and Laertes:
As the scene opens, the King has just about finished the job of making Laertes see things his way. Not only did Hamlet kill Polonius, but “he which hath your noble father slain / Pursued my life” (4.7.4-5). Laertes has just one more question: Why didn’t the King bring Hamlet to account for the murder?
The King has two reasons. The first is that he loves Gertrude, and Gertrude loves her son. She “Lives almost by his [Hamlet’s] looks” (4.7.12). The second reason is that Hamlet has the love of “the general gender” (4.7.18); the King means that everybody loves Hamlet, and so any accusations against him might backfire.
It’s hard to tell how much truth there is in the King’s explanations, given his need to cover himself, but he’s probably not telling absolute lies. Gertrude is indeed protective of Hamlet, and the fact that a crowd shouted “Laertes shall be king!” (4.5.107), seems to show that the King has reason to fear the “general gender.” Still, it seems to me that the primary reason the King didn’t hold Hamlet accountable for the killing of Polonius is that the King strongly suspects that Hamlet knows who killed King Hamlet. If that’s the case, the last thing the King wants is a public confrontation with Hamlet; having Hamlet killed out of view, in England, is much more suited to the King’s way of doing things.
Laertes buys the King’s explanations and vows revenge against Hamlet. The King reassures Laertes that he needn’t lose any sleep over that. He, the King, is not somebody to be messed with, and he loved Polonius.
Enter Messenger:
But just as the King is going on about how tough he is, and about how Laertes can trust him, there’s a surprise. A messenger enters with the letters from Hamlet. One of the letters is to the King, the other to the Queen. (But the letter to the Queen is never mentioned again.) The King, showing Laertes that he has nothing to hide, reads Hamlet’s letter aloud. The letter is in Hamlet’s mocking tone, beginning, “High and mighty, You shall know I am set naked on your kingdom” (4.7.43-44). At first, the King doesn’t know what to think. He wonders if Hamlet’s escort has come back, too, but Hamlet has specified that he is alone. And the King wonders if the letter might be a forgery, but he recognizes Hamlet’s handwriting. Laertes isn’t any help in solving the mystery of Hamlet’s sudden return, but he says he’s glad of it, because “It warms the very sickness in my heart, / That I shall live and tell him to his teeth, / ‘Thus didst thou’ (4.7.55-57).
If Laertes had indeed confronted Hamlet, that would have been a manly thing to do, but the King talks him into doing a cowardly thing. He tells Laertes he has a plan to kill Hamlet, one so cunning that “for his death no wind of blame shall breathe” (4.7.66). Laertes is all for it, especially if he can be the one who actually kills Hamlet. Still, the King seems to have some doubts about Laertes’ willpower, because he gives Laertes a thorough psychological working-over before he actually reveals the plan.
The King starts with flattery, telling Laertes that Hamlet envies him “for a quality / Wherein, they say, you shine” (4.7.72-73). Laertes asks what that quality is, but the King leads him on, telling him that the quality is “A very riband in the cap of youth” (4.7.77). Then the King starts talking about a certain gentleman of Normandy, and what a wonderful horseman he is. The idea seems to be that anyone would be proud to know this gentleman, and Laertes gets sucked in. He identifies the gentleman as “Lamond,” and says, “I know him well: he is the brooch indeed / And gem of all the nation” (4.7.94-95). Now, when he has Laertes all excited about Lamond, the King says that Lamond has praised Laertes “For art and exercise in your defence / And for your rapier most especial” (4.7.97-98). And this is why, according to the King, Hamlet envies Laertes.
“Now, out of this–,” says the King, as though he’s about to lay out his plan, but when Laertes asks, “What out this, my lord?” the King asks a question that is very close to being an insult: “Laertes, was your father dear to you? / Or are you like the painting of a sorrow, / A face without a heart?” (4.7.107-109). The King goes on to explain that he doesn’t doubt that Laertes loved his father, but love itself can die. He says, “I know love is begun by time; / And that I see, in passages of proof, / Time qualifies the spark and fire of it” (4.7.111-113). From this, the King draws the lesson whatever we’re going to do, we should do right away: “That we would do / We should do when we would” (4.7.118-119). Otherwise, the longer we delay, the less likely we are to act, until the thing we said we would do becomes only something we should do, sometime or another.
The King has put enormous pressure on Laertes. First he flattered him, and then he challenged him to prove that he really loved his father. Naturally, when he asks Laertes what he would do “To show yourself indeed your father’s son / More than in words,” Laertes answers “To cut his throat i’ the church” (4.7.126).
This exchange between the King and Laertes has echoes from many other places in the play. The King’s suggestion that Laertes may be “a face without a heart” reminds us of what Hamlet said of his sorrow for his father, “I have that within which passeth show” (1.2.85). The King’s assertion that “time qualifies the spark and fire of love” reminds us that when the Ghost appears in his mother’s closet, Hamlet described himself as “lapsed in time and passion” (3.4.107). Also, the player King said “‘tis not strange / That even our loves should with our fortunes change” (3.2.200-201). And when the King tells Laertes that what “we would do / We should when we would” we’re reminded of Hamlet’s struggles with the question of “Why yet I live to say ‘This thing’s to do’” (4.4.44). Finally, Laertes’ assertion that he would “cut his throat i’ the church” reminds us that Hamlet had the chance to kill the King while he was praying. Hamlet even got so far as saying, “And now I’ll do’t” (3.3.74), but he didn’t.
Returning to the King and Laertes, we see that only now, when he has Laertes thoroughly hooked, does the King reveal his plan. When Hamlet comes home Laertes is to stay away from him, but the King will get people to praise Laertes’ skill with his rapier in front of Hamlet, so that Hamlet will become even more envious. (In the following scenes we don’t see or hear anything more of this first part of the King’s plan.) Then a wager will be made that Hamlet can’t best Laertes in a fencing match. At the fencing match Laertes will have a “sword unbated,” that is, one without the protective button on the sharp end. At this point, the King gives Hamlet an unconscious compliment, saying that “He, being remiss, / Most generous and free from all contriving, / Will not peruse the foils” (4.7.134-136). So Laertes will be able to get his revenge accidentally on purpose.
Laertes not only agrees, he gets into it. He has a poison that he can put on his sword, so that a mere scratch will kill Hamlet. (Are we supposed to ask what Laertes is doing with that poison in the first place?) Laertes’ back-up plan inspires the King to come up with a back-up to the back-up. He thinks things through, and worries that their plans might fail, then has a bright idea. Laertes is to make the fencing match very vigorous, so that they will get “hot and dry.” Hamlet will call for drink, and the King will give him chalice of poisoned wine. That ought to do it.
Enter Queen:
Just as the King is telling Laertes his fool-proof method of killing Hamlet, the Queen enters with bad news: “One woe doth tread upon another’s heel, / So fast they follow; your sister’s drown’d, Laertes” (4.7.163-164). Laertes asks “where?” and the Queen replies with a speech that has become famous because it is so poignant. Ophelia died in flowers and song. The Queen begins her story by describing a place where “There is a willow grows aslant a brook” (4.7.166). There Ophelia made garlands of willow branches, interwoven with wildflowers: “crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples / That liberal shepherds give a grosser name” (4.7.169-170). The willow is a traditional symbol of forsaken love, and making a garland of willow is what a lover does when his/her beloved has left him/her. Also, the daisy is a symbol of dissembling, and nettles sting, and the “grosser name” of the “long purples” is almost certainly sexual. Altogether, it seems that we are seeing a woman who has been driven mad by lost love, rather than by the death of her father. Ophelia climbs the willow to hang her garlands on it, a branch breaks, and she falls into the water with the garlands. “Her clothes spread wide; / And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up: / Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes” (4.7.175-177). (At this point we might ask why no one jumped in after her. An answer might be that no lady would know how to swim, but the real answer is that it’s not an issue that Shakespeare brings up, so don’t ask.) As Ophelia floats among her weeds and flowers, singing, her clothes become waterlogged and pull “the poor wretch from her melodious lay / To muddy death” (4.7.182-183).
At the news, Laertes tries to fight off tears, but without success. First he makes a kind of sad joke, saying “Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia, / And therefore I forbid my tears” (4.7.185-186). But the tears come, and Laertes promises that “when these are gone, / The woman will be out” (4.7.188-189). That is, when he has finished crying, he will have gotten all of the “woman” out of himself and be a man again. He exits, still weeping, with his best-remembered lines: “I have a speech of fire, that fain would blaze, / But that this folly drowns it” (4.7.190-191).
The King, true to form, is worried about his own skin. He tells the Queen that they have to follow Laertes because the news of Ophelia’s death may ignite Laertes’ rage again. So it seems that the King, even after all of his manipulation of Laertes, is still afraid of him.
Scene 7
