Hamlet 3:3 Flashcards
King’s soliloquy
- 3:3
- audience become certain of Claudius’ guilt and aware of his inner thoughts and feelings
- there are similarities to Macbeth and Lady Macbeth
‘O my offence…’
‘O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven’ - Claudius (soliloquy)
- apostrophe to begin: ‘O’ shows emotion, this is an appeal to external power
- similarities to Macbeth and Lady Macbeth: ‘all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand’
‘It hath the primal…’
‘It hath the primal eldest curse upon’t -/ A brother’s murder!’ - Claudius (soliloquy)
- the moment it is all confirmed, Hamlet is right
- refers to Cain’s murder of his brother in the Bible
- Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet with Derek Jacobi as Claudius: in a Church confessional for this scene
Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet - Claudius’ soliloquy/3:3
- Derek Jacobi as Claudius
- 3:3 is set in a Church confessional (cleansing)
- there is a sense of desperation and resignation but C is still selfish - he won’t give up the fruits of his act
- Claudius appears human and almost relatable
‘My stronger…’
‘My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent’ - Claudius (soliloquy)
- guilt overpowers faith
‘What if this cursed hand…’
‘What if this cursed hand/ Were thicker than itself with brother’s blood,/ Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens/ To wash it white as snow?’ - Claudius (soliloquy)
- ‘brother’s blood’ - despite having poisoned him, metaphorical blood/guilt
- echoed in Macbeth later: ‘Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?’
‘And what’s in prayer…’
‘And what’s in prayer but this twofold force’ - Claudius (soliloquy)
1. forgiveness
2. to stop him doing evil
correlation between Claudius’ soliloquy and Macbeth
- Macbeth was written after Hamlet
- washing hands - ‘not rain enough’ ‘To wash it white’ - ‘all great Neptune’s oceans’
- moment of guilt - ‘blood’ ‘stronger guilt’
- ambition - ‘mine own ambition’
primogeniture
the right of succession belonging to the firstborn child
'’Forgive me my…’
'’Forgive me my foul murder’!/ That cannot be; since I am still possess’d/ Of those effects for which I did the murder’ - Claudius (soliloquy)
- cannot ask for forgiveness whilst keeping the objects he gained
What are the ‘effects for which [Claudius] did the murder’?
‘My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.’ - Claudius
- how complicit is G
‘May one be…’
‘May one be pardon’d and retain th’ offence?’ - Claudius (soliloquy)
- to be forgiven not to undo
‘What then? What…’
‘What then? What rests?/ Try what repentance can. What can it not?/ Yet what can it when one can not repent?’ - C (soliloquy)
- must try for forgiveness
- uncertainty over whether praying will offer him any favour
penitent
feeling or showing sorrow and regret for having done wrong
‘O wretched state…’
‘O wretched state! O bosom black as death!/ O limed soul, that, struggling to be free,/ Art more engag’d!’ - Claudius (soliloquy)
- caught in a trap, attempts to escape only trap him more
- ‘limed soul’ refers Bird Lime a sticky substance put on trees to catch small birds
‘Make assay…’
‘Make assay:/ Bow, stubborn knees’ - Claudius (soliloquy)
- parallel in Macbeth where he cannot say ‘Amen’ after killing Duncan
- ‘[Retires and kneels.]’
‘[Retires and kneels]’
‘[Retires and kneels]’ - Claudius when Hamlet enters
- appears to be in a state of grace or penitence to Hamlet, dramatic irony
- PROXEMICS (use of space)
dramatic irony of Claudius’ position when Hamlet enters
- Hamlet believes he is in a state of penitence so may be forgiven his sins (unlike H sr. was able to do)
- Claudius has just been saying how it is useless for him to pray
‘Now might I…’
‘Now might I do it pat, now ‘a is a-praying/ And now I’ll do’t - and so ‘a goes t heaven,/ And so I am reveng’d.’ - Hamlet upon seeing Claudius praying, 3:3
- H believes C is in a state of grace (dramatic irony)
- in some versions the dash after ‘I’ll do’t’ is replaced with where he draws his sword, decisive action (David Tennant as Hamlet version)
- turning point where he thinks claudius might go to heaven if he kills him now - playing God?
pre-reformation setting of Hamlet, the praying scene, 3:3
- catholic setting vs protestant audience
- court falling in on itself (shows catholicism negatively)
- Shakespeare’s father had Catholic sympathies and was catholic before forced conversion
medieval vs elizabethan ideas of revenge
Medieval: revenge could be seen as atonement, balancing
Elizabethan: revenge was outlawed and against morals, stone cold wrong
‘A villain kills…’
‘A villain kills my father; and for that,/ I, his sole son, do this same villain send to heaven.’ - Hamlet
- reasonably rational thinking (albeit arguable amoral)
‘Why, this is hire…’
‘Why, this is hire and salary, not revenge.’ - Hamlet
'’A took my father…’
'’A took my father grossly, full of bread’ - Hamlet
- aka not fasting
‘To take him in the…’
‘To take him in the purging of his soul,/ When he is fit and season’d for his passage?/ No.’ - Hamlet
- believes C is in the best position to get to heaven (skipping purgatory unlike H sr.)
‘Up…’
‘Up, sword, and know thou a more horrid hent.’ - Hamlet
- decisive action to put sword away
- will wait til Claudius is ‘full of bread’ like H sr. was
- Eg. ‘drunk asleep’, ‘in his rage’, in the ‘incestuous pleasures of his bed’
‘Then trip him, that his…’
‘Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven,/ And that his soul may be as damn’d and black/ As hell, whereto it goes.’ - Hamlet
- shows thought process, an audience may feel relieved he has not killed an unarmed man (so hasn’t been lowered to Claudius’ level), he also makes an active decision here
- many critics (especially religious ones) have been horrified by Hamlets words here
critic comments on Hamlet’s choice to wait to kill Claudius so he can send him to ‘hell’
Dr Johnson was dismayed by Hamlet’s callousness in this speech. For a critic much closer in time to Shakespeare’s than our own, Hamlet’s desire to send Claudius to hell was ‘too horrible to read or to be uttered.’ - 1729
Other critics such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge have been horrified by Hamlet’s words - he completely oversteps the bounds of Christian morality in trying to damn Claudius’ soul as well as kill him.
Dr Johnson on Hamlet’s speech and decision not to kill Claudius in 3:3
Dr Johnson was dismayed by Hamlet’s callousness in this speech. For a critic much closer in time to Shakespeare’s than our own, Hamlet’s desire to send Claudius to hell was ‘too horrible to read or to be uttered.’ - 1729
Samuel Taylor Coleridge on Hamlet’s speech and decision not to kill Claudius in 3:3
horrified by Hamlet’s words - he completely oversteps the bounds of Christian morality in trying to damn Claudius’ soul as well as kill him.
what does Claudius say after Hamlet has left - deciding not to kill him yet - in 3:3
‘My words fly up, my thoughts remain below./ Words without thoughts never to heaven go.’ - Claudius
- dramatic irony
- couldn’t mean his words
