Act 5 Flashcards
Enter two Clowns:
The last time we saw Hamlet he was saying, “O, from this time forth, / My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth! (4.4.65-66). Since then Ophelia has died, the King and Laertes have plotted Hamlet’s death, and Hamlet has sent letters to the King announcing his sudden return to Denmark. Given all this build-up, we could expect climatic confrontation between Hamlet and the King. Instead, we get gravediggers.
In a scene that adds nothing to the plot, but offers generous helpings of comedy and philosophy, the gravediggers are clowns. In Shakespeare’s plays a “clown” doesn’t have a red nose and floppy shoes, but he is funny. He’s a hick, an ignoramus, a fool who thinks he’s wise. These clowns discuss the most profound issues in their clownish way, starting with the opening line of the scene, “Is she to be buried in Christian burial that willfully seeks her own salvation?” (5.1.1-2). It’s a laugh line. Instead of “salvation,” he should have said “destruction.” The Second Clown’s reply is also a laugh line. He says “the crowner hath sat on her, and finds it Christian burial” (5.1.4-5). First of all, instead of “coroner,” the clown says “crowner,” which did mean “coroner” a hundred years before. This suggests that the clown thinks of the coroner as a guy who hands out crowns, like a judge at an archery contest. Second, a coroner, like a judge or jury, “sits,” but he sits in judgment, not on the corpse.
By this time, it must have occurred to us that these two clowns are digging Ophelia’s grave. It’s been less than two minutes since we heard the beautifully elegiac description of Ophelia’s death, and now the gravediggers are busily at work, digging, and trying to figure out whether or not Ophelia committed suicide. First Clown offers the idea that it wasn’t suicide if she drowned herself in self-defense. As though proving his point, he offers a fragment of fractured Latin: “It must be “se offendendo “; it cannot be else” (5.1.9). If the clown knew what he was talking about, he would have said “se defendendo,” but his blunder is no more absurd than his idea. To kill someone is “se offendendo,” an offense, unless it is “se defendendo,” in self-defense, but how do you defend yourself against an offense committed by yourself in defense of yourself?
If the actors playing the clowns are any good, we’re laughing. Are we supposed to think while we’re laughing? Because if we think about the clowns’ absurdities, we might realize that when we’re not laughing, their absurdities are not so absurd. In fact, we think that the most common reason for suicide is that people “can’t stand it anymore.” They commit suicide because they are in unremitting pain, physical or psychological. So they do commit suicide in self-defense. Hamlet said as much when he asked why anyone would put up with the insults of life, “When he himself might his quietus make / With a bare bodkin? (3.1.75-76).
The clowns then reflect that if Ophelia had not been a gentlewoman she would not have had a Christian burial, and this leads First Clown to assert that the first gentlemen were “gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers” (5.1.30). His clownish reasoning is that they “bore arms.” To “bear arms” is the sign of a gentleman, and it means that you have an officially registered coat of arms, such as Shakespeare got for his family when he had enough money. But the clown’s idea is that all the diggers–“gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers”–must have had arms, or they couldn’t have done any digging. First Clown then follows this up with another joke, a riddle that asks “What is he that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?” (5.1.41-42).
Enter Hamlet and Horatio:
Before the gravedigger answers his own riddle, Hamlet and Horatio enter and observe him. As they watch, the gravedigger triumphantly gives his answer: it is the “gravemaker” that builds strongest of all, because “the houses that he makes last till doomsday” (5.1.59). Then he sends his partner away for some liquor, and continues to dig. As he digs, he sings a song about how love was sweet when he was young, but now that he is old, everything has changed.
Hamlet asks Horatio, “Has this fellow no feeling of his business, that he sings at grave-making? (5.1.65-66). Horatio sensibly replies that the gravedigger has gotten used to it. Up to this point in the play, Hamlet has been unable to get used to the idea of his father’s death, but in the following moments of the scene, Hamlet seems to adopt the gravedigger’s viewpoint.
Nowadays, it’s illegal to commingle human remains, but Shakespeare’s day made more economical use of graveyard space, so as the gravedigger digs, he shovels up a skull. Hamlet comments, “That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once” (5.1.75). This comment is the first of many that Hamlet makes in the same vein. He mockingly speculates that the skull could have belonged to a politician who thought he could outsmart God, or to a courtier, who thought he could flatter a man out of a horse. Now there’s just the skull, being knocked around by the gravedigger’s spade. Hamlet says, “Here’s fine revolution, and we had the trick to see’t” (5.1.90-91). “Revolution” means “change,” “and” means “if,” and “trick” means “knack” or “ability.” So Hamlet is saying that this change from life to death is a good thing to keep in mind, if only we could keep it in mind.
Meanwhile, the gravedigger shovels up another skull, and sings a morbidly jolly gravedigging song, about a “pickaxe,” a “spade,” and a “pit of clay” (5.1.96). Hamlet speculates that the second skull could have belonged to a lawyer, and he makes a series of punning comments about lawyers. (Have lawyers ever gotten any respect?) The general point of the jokes is that no matter how many legal documents you have, your whole estate will eventually be just six feet of dirt. Then Hamlet decides–for no apparent reason other than just because–that he will speak to the gravedigger. He steps forward, asks the gravedigger whose grave it is, and meets his match in mockery.
The gravedigger’s answer to Hamlet’s question is “Mine, sir” (5.1.119). This begins a quick-witted exchange between Hamlet and the clown, and the clown has the punchline. In answer to Hamlet’s questions, the clown claims that the grave is not for a man, and not for a woman, either; when Hamlet finally asks who is to be buried in the grave, the clown answers: “One that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she’s dead” (5.1.135-136). So Hamlet never does learn that this is Ophelia’s grave, and we’re laughing at the way the gravedigger mocks death.
Next, Hamlet asks the gravedigger how long he’s been on the job. The clown replies that he started the day that King Hamlet defeated King Fortinbras, which was the same day that Hamlet was born. He adds that the Hamlet he’s talking about is the one who has gone mad and been sent to England. In England, he’ll either “recover his wits,” or not. If not, it won’t matter, because everyone in England is mad. Hamlet then asks how Hamlet went mad, and the gravedigger gives him a nonsense answer, “e’en with losing his wits.” Hamlet asks again, saying “upon what ground?” “Ground” means “cause,” but the gravedigger turns the question away with a pun, saying, “Why, here in Denmark: I have been sexton here, man and boy, thirty years” (5.1.161-162).
(Thus, amidst the jokes, we learn that Hamlet is thirty years old. However, it’s hard to see why this information is offered, and in such a roundabout, casual way. Shakespeare doesn’t specify ages very often, and when he does so in other plays, it’s easy to see why. Juliet’s youth is an important element in her character, and Lear’s age is equally important to his story. But thirty is neither very young nor very old, and if the fact that Hamlet is thirty is important, why weren’t we told earlier?)
Hamlet’s next question is “How long will a man lie i’ the earth ere he rot?” (5.1.163). Finally, one of his questions receives a straight answer: eight or nine years. Unless the man is rotten before he dies. On the other hand, a leather tanner will last longer, because then he’ll be tanned himself, and keep out the water. And speaking of lying in the earth here’s a skull, says the gravedigger, that’s been in the grave for twenty-three years. At this moment, this meandering conversation suddenly takes a poignant turn. The skull is Yorick’s.
If you’ve ever seen a picture of Hamlet, there’s a good chance it has shown him holding Yorick’s skull and looking into its empty eyes.
“Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy” (5.1.185-186), says Hamlet. Yorick was his father’s jester, a man with the knack of making people laugh, a man who had given Hamlet, then a child of six or seven, a “thousand” piggy-back rides. This precious memory collides with the skull in Hamlet’s hand, and he feels his throat tighten. He says, “my gorge rises at it” (5.1.188), but instead of crying, he starts bantering with Yorick’s skull. He asks Yorick where his “flashes of merriment” are, and accuses him of being “quite chop-fallen” (5.1.193). Your chops are your lower cheeks, your jaw, and if you are “chop-fallen,” you have a long face because you’re sad. Yorick the jester isn’t jesting now. He’s chop-fallen. In fact, his chops have fallen completely off. In short, Hamlet has just made a terrible pun at Yorick’s expense.
Hamlet tells Yorick’s skull to go to a fine woman’s dressing room and tell her that no matter how much make-up she uses, she’ll be only a skull soon enough. Then he asks Horatio if Alexander the Great, after he was dead, looked like this skull. Horatio says that he must have, and Hamlet dismisses the skull, saying, “And smelt so? pah!” (5.1.200). At this point the editorial stage directions usually say that Hamlet “puts down the skull,” but the “pah” makes it feel like he just tosses it aside. But he doesn’t forget it. Yorick’s skull has reminded him that we must all come to this, and he launches into a flight of fancy about how the clay of Alexander or great Caesar could be used as a cork for a beer-barrel or caulk to fix a hole in a wall.
Enter Priest, Laertes, King, Queen, courtiers, in procession with the Corpse of Ophelia:
As Hamlet is ruminating on the future uses of human dust, another corpse comes onto the scene. Hamlet sees a funeral procession conducted with “maimed rites” (5.1.219). The impression of “maimed rites” is nearly impossible to reproduce on the modern stage. That is, we have rich funerals and poor ones, but not different procedures that indicate who the deceased was and how he/she died. Because we lack these customs, we cannot see what Hamlet (and Shakespeare’s audience) does. Luckily, Hamlet explains the significance of what he sees. The deceased was “of some estate,” of the upper class, but not royal. And the deceased was a suicide. Hamlet and Horatio step out of sight–though not out of the audience’s sight–to watch. Presumably, they would want to know why a suicide is being buried in sanctified ground.
In the funeral procession, the first person we hear is Laertes, asking the priest “What ceremony else? (5.1.223). Hamlet recognizes him, and points him out to Horatio as “a very noble youth.” In a few minutes, Hamlet’s opinion will change drastically.
Laertes is angry that Ophelia’s rites are “maimed,” and wants more to be done for his sister. The priest doesn’t answer, Laertes repeats the question, and we find that the priest isn’t too happy either. He says that Ophelia’s death was “doubtful,” and “but that great command o’ersways the order, / She should in ground unsanctified have lodged” (5.1.228-229). That is, if he had had his way, the regular procedure (“order”) for a suicide would have been followed, and Ophelia would have been buried in unsanctified ground, and rocks thrown on her grave. But, because of a “great command” (presumably the King’s), Ophelia has flowers. She has her “virgin crants” (a garland), and flowers to be scattered over her corpse, her “maiden strewments” (5.1.233). Laertes asks again if nothing more is to be done, and the priest replies that to do more would be an insult to “peace-parted” souls. This makes Laertes very angry. He declares that violets will grow from Ophelia’s grave, while the priest can go to hell. He says, “I tell thee, churlish priest, / A ministering angel shall my sister be, / When thou liest howling” (5.1.240-242).
Only now does Hamlet realize whose grave this is. Meanwhile, Ophelia’s corpse has been lowered into the grave, and the Queen steps forward to strew flowers, saying “Sweets to the sweet: farewell! / I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet’s wife” (5.1.243-244). This is certainly not what Laertes wants to hear, and he curses Hamlet, then leaps into Ophelia’s grave, saying “Hold off the earth awhile, / Till I have caught her once more in mine arms” (5.1.249-250). With Ophelia’s body in his arms he asks that the earth be piled on the both of them until a mountain covers the “quick and the dead.”
Laertes’ actions and words enrage Hamlet, and he rushes out from his hiding-place to leap into the grave, too. The fact that Laertes has just cursed him doesn’t seem to matter to Hamlet. What matters, as he explains to Horatio in the next scene, is that “the bravery of his grief did put me / Into a towering passion” (5.2.79-80). “Bravery” means “showiness.” Hamlet doesn’t accuse Laertes of outright hypocrisy, but of being melodramatic. Of course, Hamlet is almost certainly right about Laertes. If Hamlet hadn’t rushed out to join Laertes in the grave, it doesn’t seem likely that Laertes would have actually stayed in there while the gravedigger shoveled dirt onto him. Still, why should it matter so much to Hamlet?
Hamlet’s first words melodramatically mock Laertes’ melodramatic grief: “What is he whose grief / Bears such an emphasis? whose phrase of sorrow / Conjures the wandering stars, and makes them stand / Like wonder-wounded hearers?” (5.1.254-257). Once Hamlet is in the grave, Laertes grapples with him, but apparently not with deadly intent, because Hamlet takes four lines to tell him to get his fingers off his throat. Horatio and others intervene to separate the two, and they come out of the grave. (Just how grotesque have these few moments been? There are at least four feet in that grave with Ophelia’s body. Does she get stepped on?)
Hamlet declares that he loved Ophelia, saying, “Forty thousand brothers / Could not, with all their quantity of love, / Make up my sum” (5.1.269-271). He then asks Laertes what he’ll do for Ophelia. Will he fight? Starve himself? Eat a crocodile? If Laertes will do it, Hamlet will too. The motivation for this furious mockery now seems to be that Laertes’ grief is an affront to Hamlet’s, as though Laertes were putting on a show of grief in order to demonstrate that Hamlet has no grief for Ophelia. Hamlet says to Laertes, “Dost thou come here to whine? To outface me with leaping in her grave?” (5.2.277-278). And just before he exits, Hamlet asks Laertes, perhaps without mockery, “Hear you, sir; / What is the reason that you use me thus? / I loved you ever” (5.1.288-290). The notion that Laertes is trying to outdo Hamlet in grief seems highly illogical, but perhaps it indicates that Hamlet has doubts or guilt about the depth of his feeling for Ophelia.
Both the King and Queen try to calm Laertes by saying that Hamlet is mad, but as soon as Hamlet is gone, the King takes the opportunity to reassure Laertes that they will soon put their plot against Hamlet into motion.
Thus, as far as the plot of the play is concerned, the only thing that happens in the whole scene is that the threat to Hamlet’s life is intensified. It seems that a major purpose of the scene must be to show the development of Hamlet’s character. But development in what direction? He banters about death with the gravedigger, with Yorick’s skull, and with Horatio, then flashes into anger at Laertes’ grief over Ophelia. And there’s no soliloquy to explain it all.
Scene 1
Enter Hamlet and Horatio:
As the scene opens, Hamlet and Horatio are in the middle of a conversation. Hamlet has already told Horatio something about what happened to him and is now coming to the crucial part. He asks Horatio if he remembers “all the circumstance,” which probably means the events that happened just before Hamlet was sent to England. To show that he certainly does remember, Horatio replies, “Remember it, my lord?” The one part of that “circumstance” that we should keep in mind is that the King said the trip was for Hamlet’s own safety. Now we are about to see how Hamlet discovered the King’s true intentions.
Hamlet tells Horatio that when he was on the ship, “in my heart there was a kind of fighting, / That would not let me sleep” (5.2.4-5). Hamlet begins the next sentence with the word “rashly,” but pauses in his story to praise rashness, and to say that “Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well” because “There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, / Rough-hew them how we will” (5.2.10-11). Our “ends” are our purposes or goals, and to “shape” means to give final form to something. Hamlet’s general point is that the goals we set for ourselves are really only rough outlines; it’s “a divinity” that gives them final form. Specifically, Hamlet formed his counter-plot to the King’s plot only by chance, because of his rashness.
Returning to his story, Hamlet says he stole the “commission,” King Claudius’ message to the King of England, from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s diplomatic pouch. Opening it, he found that the King of England was supposed to behead Hamlet as soon as he saw him. Horatio is astounded, and asks “Is’t possible?” Hamlet answers, “Here’s the commission: read it at more leisure” (5.2.26). This isn’t a particularly memorable line, but it’s worth remembering the fact that at this moment Hamlet has in his hand the King’s order for his death. Now, it would seem that Hamlet must take action, because if he doesn’t kill the King, the King will kill him.
However, right now Hamlet wants Horatio to hear the rest of his story. He asks Horatio, “But wilt thou hear me how I did proceed?” Of course Horatio wants to hear it, and Hamlet seems to be asking only because he’s feeling pretty proud of himself. He had planned to make a plot of his own, but his finding of the commission showed that the game had already begun, and taught him what to do next. He wrote out a new commission, with a lot official-sounding drivel about the love and friendship between Denmark and England. Only, this commission says that it is Rosencrantz and Guildenstern who are to be executed on sight.
Horatio asks how the commission was sealed, because without the proper seal, made in the sealing wax, it wouldn’t look official. Hamlet replies that heaven took care of that, too, saying, “Why, even in that was heaven ordinant” (5.2.48). It so happened that he had his father’s signet with him, and he used it to put the official Danish impression on the seal of the new commission.
Horatio remarks, “So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to’t,” meaning that they’re going to die, and Hamlet replies “Why, man, they did make love to this employment; / They are not near my conscience” (5.2.57-58). He’s not saying that they knew that they were carrying an order for Hamlet’s death, only that it was their own fault that they got themselves in above their heads, because “‘Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes / Between the pass and fell incensed points / Of mighty opposites” (5.2.60-62). He and the King are the mighty opposites, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are those of “baser natures,” or, in current parlance, punks. (Question: Even if Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are punks, do we admire Hamlet for sending them to their deaths?)
Horatio exclaims, “Why, what a king is this!” Hamlet’s reaction is ambiguous. At first, he sounds like the Hamlet we heard in the second and fourth soliloquies, the one who beat himself up for not taking revenge against King Claudius. Hamlet asks Horatio “is’t not perfect conscience, / To quit him with this arm? and is’t not to be damn’d, / To let this canker [cancer] of our nature [i.e., human nature] come / In further evil?” (5.2.67-70). But Hamlet does not make a plan to move against the King. Horatio remarks that the King will soon know what happened to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Horatio is tactfully pointing out that Hamlet hasn’t got much time, because once the King knows what happened in England, he will also know that Hamlet has reason to kill him. Hamlet understands perfectly well what Horatio means, but all he says is “the interim is mine; / And a man’s life’s no more than to say “One” (5.2.73-74). Then he changes the subject, and says that he is sorry that he lost his temper at Laertes. As a matter of fact, he sympathizes with Laertes, because they both have the same “cause,” the loss of a father. He resolves to try to make it up to Laertes. This feeling for Laertes may be understandable, but it seems off the point. As Horatio tried to point out, Hamlet could be letting his chance to kill the King slip by, because once the King finds out what happened in England, there will be no chance of catching him off-guard.
Enter Osric:
As Hamlet is talking of his feelings about Laertes, in comes Osric, whose mission is to invite Hamlet to the fencing match with Laertes.
Osric is a coxcomb, a fop, a dandy. If he were played in modern costume, he’d probably have long blonde hair, an open shirt, and a gaudy gold chain. He believes that he is all that is charming, and loves to show his appreciation for the charm of others. When Hamlet sees Osric coming, he asks Horatio “Dost know this water-fly?” (5.2.82). A “water-fly” in Shakespeare’s time was the same as in our time: a tiny little creature that flits aimlessly over the surface of the water. In short, Osric is one of Shakespeare’s great comic creations. The only question we might have is “Why”? Why is it Osric who invites Hamlet to his death?
Hamlet hardly gives Osric a chance to deliver his message. Osric calls Hamlet “Sweet lord” (5.2.89), and gives him a flourish of his hat. Hamlet urges him to put his “bonnet” back on his head. Osric is just smart enough to realize that he might have gone a bit overboard with the hat business, but he doesn’t want to admit that, so he says it’s hot, and that’s why he took his hat off. Hamlet contradicts him, saying that it’s cold and the wind is northerly (which is almost always true in Denmark). Osric doesn’t want to argue with the sweet prince, but he’s gotten himself into somewhat of a corner, and so he tries to straddle the fence, saying “It is indifferent cold, my lord, indeed” (5.2.97). “Indifferent” means “so-so” or “somewhat,” and “indifferent” doesn’t cut it, because Hamlet now switches sides and says that it’s too hot. Osric tries to agree with that, too, but doesn’t quite make it. Meanwhile, he’s waving the hat around, because he can’t quite decide what to do with it. Finally, he stumbles forward to the announcement that the King has laid a wager on Hamlet’s head, and the fact that “here is newly come to court Laertes; believe me, an absolute gentleman” (5.2.106-107).
Hamlet lets Osric prattle on about what a fine gentleman Laertes is, then beats Osric at his own game. He praises Laertes, too, but where Osric used two words for every one that was needed, Hamlet uses three or four, and longer ones, too. Osric doesn’t really follow, but says that Hamlet “speaks most infallibly of him.” Hamlet then asks Osric “Why do we wrap the gentleman in our more rawer breath?” (5.2.122-123), which is almost as hard to understand as it is to say. Thoroughly bewildered, Osric can only say, “Sir?” Horatio then comments, “Is’t not possible to understand in another tongue? You will do’t, sir, really (5.2.125-126). This comment is explained different ways by different editors of Shakespeare. One explanation is that Horatio is speaking to Osric, asking him if he can’t possibly communicate without all the fancy words, and telling him that he can do it, “really.” Another explanation is that Horatio is speaking to Hamlet, asking him if he truly needs to mimic Osric’s jargon, and warning him that if he keeps it up, he’s “really” going to get a lot more of the same from Osric. Whatever way you take Horatio’s remark, it’s clear that Hamlet has made his friend laugh at Osric, because a moment later Horatio says to Hamlet, “His purse is empty already; all’s golden words are spent” (5.2.130-131).
After this, Hamlet continues to harass Osric, but Osric manages to get the message out. The King has a bet with Laertes–a fairly large bet, six horses against six rapiers and all their gear–that in a dozen bouts, Laertes won’t win by more than twelve to nine. (That makes twenty-one bouts, not a dozen, but either way, the King gets those six rapiers if Hamlet just beats the spread.) Hamlet agrees to do it, saying “‘tis the breathing time of day with me” (5.2.174). In other words, time for a bit of exercise. Thus, ever so casually, does Hamlet agree to the fencing match in which he will die.
As Osric runs to tell the King, he finally puts his very large hat back on his head, so Horatio remarks, “This lapwing runs away with the shell on his head” (5.2.185). Hamlet comments that there are many people like Osric, who have caught the tune of the time, and are admired, but who are as fragile as bubbles. Within a minute or so of Osric’s departure, a “Lord” comes to make sure that Hamlet is ready to begin the fencing match. Hamlet says he is, and is informed that the “King and Queen and all” are already coming down to the hall where Hamlet is. Also, Hamlet is told that his mother wants him to be nice to Laertes before the match begins. Hamlet replies, “She well instructs me” (5.2.208), and the Lord leaves.
Now Hamlet has a minute or two alone with Horatio before the arrival of the King, Queen, Laertes, and a great crowd of courtiers and servants. Horatio thinks that Hamlet will lose, but Hamlet replies that he’s in practice and pretty sure he can beat the odds. Then, suddenly, out of nowhere, he says “But thou wouldst not think how ill all’s here about my heart” (5.2.212-213).
He’s not talking about chest pains, but about misgivings, second thoughts. Of course he has good reason to have second thoughts about this fencing match. He knows that Laertes blames him for the deaths of both Polonius and Ophelia. Not only that, but Hamlet certainly hasn’t expressed any regret to Laertes. The last time they saw each other was at Ophelia’s grave, where Hamlet called Laertes a “dog.” But if any of that is on Hamlet’s mind, we don’t hear about it, because Hamlet quickly has second thoughts about his second thoughts. He says “It is but foolery; but it is such a kind of gain-giving, as would perhaps trouble a woman.” Horatio is thoroughly alarmed and offers to go tell everyone Hamlet is sick. Hamlet replies,
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. (5.2.219-224)
Basically, Hamlet is telling Horatio to do nothing, to “let be.” But the speech raises questions. The sparrow apparently comes from Matthew 10:29, where Jesus, encouraging the disciples to go out and preach, tells them to have no fear because the very hairs on their heads are numbered, and a sparrow “shall not fall on the ground without your Father.” But Hamlet’s sparrow isn’t quite so comforting. Hamlet says in three different ways that the sparrow will either die now, or it will die later. And because he says it in three different ways, it sounds a bit comical, and more fatalistic than Christian. Then Hamlet says, that “the readiness is all.” Does that mean that he is ready for whatever comes to him? If he is, why? How and when did he get ready? Finally, Hamlet asks, “since no man has aught of what he leaves, what is’t to leave betimes?” In other words, since we can’t take anything with us when we leave this world, what does it matter if we leave right away? The answer could be that there are a few things we’d like to do before we leave this world. We might, for instance, like to take revenge on the villain who murdered our father.
(Textual Note: The first Folio (F1), which was the first edition of all of Shakespeare’s plays, and which was published in 1623, well after Shakespeare’s death, is the source of the phrase, “since no man has aught of what he leaves.” Most editors favor the phrase from the second edition of Hamlet (Q2), published in 1604: “since no man of aught he leaves knows.” Editors punctuate this in different ways, trying to make it make sense.)
Enter King, Queen, Laertes, others:
As Hamlet is ascending towards the heights of philosophical calm, the real world comes noisily into the hall. Here come the King, the Queen, and Laertes. Here come servants with cushions, and others with the rapiers, and still others with wine, and a table to set the wine on. And here’s Osric, ready to officiate in the fencing match. And here are more servants, with trumpets and drums, to make appropriate fencing-match music. Everybody’s ready, and Hamlet proceeds with the fencing match.
The King has Hamlet and Laertes shake hands, and Hamlet makes a half-baked apology. He begins well enough, saying to Laertes,”Give me your pardon, sir: I’ve done you wrong; / But pardon’t, as you are a gentleman” (5.2.226-227). However, what he says next makes it hard to admire him. He says that whatever wrong he had done Laertes is the result of his madness. Hamlet even goes so far as claim to be the victim of his own madness, saying “Hamlet is of the faction that is wrong’d; / His madness is poor Hamlet’s enemy” (5.2.238-239). Even if we think that Hamlet is a bit mad at moments, there is much evidence that Hamlet never considers himself mad, so he must be lying when he says that his madness made him do it. Perhaps Hamlet is just trying to be nice. It wouldn’t be too nice to tell Laertes that his father was a damn fool who deserved what he got. Still, it’s disappointing that Hamlet lies at all.
In the next breath Hamlet says that he did no “purposed [intentional] evil.” That may be somewhat closer to the truth, but he isn’t exactly innocent of Polonius’ death, either. Laertes says that he accepts the apology on a personal level, although he reserves the right to take further action in defense of his honor. Meanwhile, he says “I do receive your offer’d love like love, / And will not wrong it” (5.2.251-252). Of course Laertes is lying through his teeth. His whole plan at this fencing match is to do wrong to Hamlet with a poisoned rapier.
This exchange of lies is not Hamlet’s finest moment, but he seems wholly admirable in what follows–the fencing match itself. As the King predicted, Hamlet shows himself to be a noble man who wouldn’t think of examining the rapiers carefully. While Laertes is making sure he gets the right rapier, Hamlet modestly says that his lack of skill will make Laertes look good. As for the rapiers, Hamlet chooses his quickly, merely asking Osric if the rapiers are all the same length. At the same time, the King sets the backup plot in motion. He orders wine set on the table and proclaims that if Hamlet wins the first or second bout, he’ll drink to Hamlet’s health and throw a rich pearl (the “union” or “onion”) in Hamlet’s cup. This pearl, we know, has been dipped in poison, so that it will poison the wine. So, although he doesn’t know it, Hamlet is trapped. If Laertes’ rapier doesn’t get him, the King’s poisoned wine will.
To start things off, the King now drinks to Hamlet, and makes a big show of it. He says that the kettle drums will speak to the trumpets, the trumpets to the cannon, the cannon to the heavens, and the heavens–echoing all that noise back to earth–will shout “‘Now the king drinks to Hamlet’” (5.2.278). All of this is done, so that the fatal fencing match is preceded by the grand thunder of the King’s hypocritical joy.
The fencing match is often performed with a great deal of swashbuckling flash and dash, with twirls and leaps and other moves that would get you killed in actual combat. Without the protective button, a fencing foil is a rapier, and two inches of it can make you dead within two minutes. This fencing match should be a time of high tension. Maybe if Hamlet and Horatio were playing catch with hand grenades, and we knew that one pin had been pulled, we’d get the idea.
Hamlet escapes death for a while only because, contrary to everyone’s expectations, he’s a much better fencer than Laertes. When Hamlet gets the first hit, Laertes can’t believe it until Osric makes the official call: “A hit, a very palpable hit” (5.2.281). Laertes wants to start the next bout right away, but the King has already seen enough. He makes a big show of congratulating Hamlet, then drops the pearl in Hamlet’s cup, as though doing him a great honor. The pearl poisons the wine, but Hamlet doesn’t drink. He plays the second bout with Laertes, and wins again, so decisively that Laertes admits it. Now the Queen comes forward to congratulate Hamlet. In a motherly way, she gives Hamlet her handkerchief, to wipe his sweaty brows, and then takes up his cup, saying “The queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet” (5.2.289).
At this moment the King’s love for the Queen is tested and found wanting. He asks Gertrude not to drink, but she says she will, and he does nothing more. He tells himself it’s “too late,” but it’s not too late for him to jump up and take the cup from Gertrude as Hamlet later does for Horatio. It’s “too late” only if the King is willing to sacrifice his wife to his plot.
She drinks to Hamlet and offers him the cup. He refuses the drink, but she insists on wiping his face for him. While she is doing this, Laertes says to the King “My lord, I’ll hit him now” (5.2.295). To stab Hamlet while his mother is wiping his brow would be a despicable, cowardly act, and it would cancel any possibility that Hamlet’s death could be explained away as a fencing accident. Besides, Laertes realizes that “‘tis almost ‘gainst my conscience.” Then Hamlet steps forward for the third bout, and Laertes’ opportunity to be a coward is gone for now.
Hamlet, with apparent joviality, says that Laertes surely has just been fooling with him, and now it’s time for Laertes to show what he can really do. This bout is the best so far, and the two of them seem very evenly matched. They play to a tie, but when Osric announces “Nothing, neither way,” and Hamlet turns away, the frustrated Laertes rushes Hamlet, shouting “Have at you now!” (5.2.302). He nicks Hamlet in the shoulder or back. The stage direction here, “in scuffling they change rapiers,” lacks color. This is an exciting action sequence. It turns out that Hamlet is so much better with his rapier that he is able to use it, even though it is practically harmless, to beat Laertes’ rapier out of his hand. He then picks up Laertes’ rapier, sees the sharp point that made him bleed, and says “Nay, come again.” This is extremely funny in a sardonic way. Laertes, who no longer has the sharp rapier, isn’t very eager for another bout, but Hamlet thinks it would be a fine time for Laertes to “come again.”
There’s a very brief battle, in which Hamlet wounds Laertes, and then everyone starts to go down. Laertes falls, and the Queen collapses from the effect of the poison. The King tries to cover his tracks by saying “She swoons to see them bleed,” but the Queen knows the truth: “No, no, the drink, the drink,–O my dear Hamlet,– / The drink, the drink! I am poison’d” (5.2.309-310). Following the Queen’s example, Laertes also tells the truth in his dying moments. Hamlet has not a half hour to live, says Laertes, and “the king, the king’s to blame” (5.2.320). Then there’s a wonderful moment for those of us who like the sort of action sequences in which the evil-doer is beaten at his own game. Hamlet stabs the King with the poisoned rapier, and forces the cup into his face, making him drink the poisoned wine, right down to the poisoned pearl.
Once the King is dead, Hamlet feels the hand of death close about his throat, and he wants one thing above all–to have his story told. Laertes has just enough life to say that the King deserved his death, and to make a request: “Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet: / Mine and my father’s death come not upon thee, / Nor thine on me” (5.2.329-331). Hamlet replies, “Heaven make thee free of it,” and says “adieu” to his mother, but that’s all he has to say to the dead. To the living he says that if he had time he could “tell” them something, but he doesn’t have enough life left to tell what he could tell, and he asks Horatio to “Report me and my cause aright” (5.2.339). Horatio, out of love for Hamlet, reaches for the cup of poisoned wine, so that he can follow Hamlet in death. With his last strength, Hamlet wrests the cup away from Horatio and exclaims, “O good Horatio, what a wounded name, / Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me!” (5.2.344-345). Presumably, Hamlet doesn’t want to be thought of as a murderer and traitor, but perhaps there is more that he could say if he had time.
Enter Fortinbras with the English Ambassadors:
Before Horatio has a chance to respond to Hamlet’s dying request, we hear cannons and the music of a march. Hamlet asks what the “warlike noise” is, and Osric says that Fortinbras, returning from his victory over Poland, has just saluted the English ambassadors, who are also approaching Elsinore. At this news, Hamlet predicts that Fortinbras will be king, and gives him his “dying voice.” Hamlet’s last words are, “So tell him, with the occurrents, more and less, / Which have solicited. The rest is silence” (5.2.357-358). That is, Horatio is to tell Fortinbras that Hamlet wanted him to be king, along with every one (“more and less”) of the occurrences (“occurrents”) that have “solicited,” or instigated — something. We never learn exactly what the something is, but we can guess that it is the scene of blood, poison, and death which Fortinbras will see in a moment.
Naturally Hamlet wouldn’t want to be remembered as a murderer or traitor, but his desire to have his story told seems oddly urgent, especially considering that he has not appeared to be a man who has particularly cared about the opinion of the world. Whatever the opinion of the world, Hamlet’s reputation is secure with his one steadfast friend. Horatio’s farewell is justly famous: “Now cracks a noble heart. Good night sweet prince: / And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!” (5.2.359-60).
The rest of the scene wraps things up in ways that seem ironical. One of the English Ambassadors says that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead, but so is the King, and so the ambassadors are left wondering “Where should we have our thanks?” (5.2.372). Horatio tells them that even if the King were alive, he wouldn’t thank them. And we know that Hamlet, who sent Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to their deaths, might well have laughed at the news. Nobody cares about Rosencrantz and Guildenstern now, if anyone ever did.
Horatio tells both Fortinbras and the English Ambassadors what should be done. The bodies should be displayed “high on a stage” while he explains what happened to the “yet unknowing world”:
So shall you hear
Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts,
Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters,
Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause,
And, in this upshot, purposes mistook
Fall’n on the inventors’ heads. . . . (5.2.380-385).
Of course, Horatio loved Hamlet, but he doesn’t propose to tell a story in which Hamlet–or anyone else–is the hero. Horatio’s story will be one of the world as it was described in Hamlet’s first soliloquy: “Fie on’t! ah fie! ‘tis an unweeded garden, / That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature / Possess it merely” (1.1.134-136).
Fortinbras agrees to Horatio’s plan for the speech, but he also has something to say, which is that he, Fortinbras, is going to be the new King of Denmark. He has “some rights of memory,” that is, some political claim, probably derived from a time when someone in the Norwegian royal family married someone in the Danish royal family. More importantly, he has “vantage,” which is simply to say that both the King and Prince of Denmark are dead, and he, Fortinbras, is on the scene with an army. So Fortinbras says, “with sorrow I embrace my fortune” (5.2.388), which is reminiscent of Claudius’ words about his brother’s death: “we with wisest sorrow think on him, / Together with remembrance of ourselves” (1.1.6-7).
Horatio reassures Fortinbras that the speech he will give will both strengthen Fortinbras’ claim to the throne, and put a stop to wild rumors. Then Fortinbras has the final words in the play. He orders that the bodies be taken to the stage where Horatio will make his speech. And, to do honor to Hamlet, “soldiers’ music” is to be played, and cannon is to be shot off. The last words we hear are, “Go, bid the soldiers shoot” (5.2.403), and the last sounds we hear are the booming cannon shots that so irritated Hamlet when King Claudius used them as drinking-music.
Scene 2
