Hamlet 3:4 Flashcards
Where is 3:4 set? Why is this significant?
- ‘The Queen’s closet.’
- her intimate, private space, undertones of female sexuality
How does Lawrence Olivier’s Hamlet present the closet scene?
- 1948
- provocative and freudian (Ernest Jones’ Oedipus essay)
- placed a bed in the closet where most productions don’t
- we are the ghost (its film not stage)
‘Hamlet, thou hast thy…’
‘Mother, you have…’
‘Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.’ - Queen
‘Mother, you have my father much offended.’ - H
- the Queen is talking about Claudius but Hamlet talks of H sr.
- Hamlet is quickly disrespectful, going on to describe her ‘wicked tongue’ and G says ‘Have you forgot me?’
‘Have you…’
‘Have you forgot me?’ - G to H
- “Have you forgotten I’m your mother?”
- H is being disrespectful
‘You are the Queen…’
‘You are the Queen, your husband’s brother’s wife;/ And - would it were not so! - you are my mother.’ - Hamlet to G
- emphasises the incestuous remarriage
- ‘would it were not so! - you are my mother’ (she is his mother though he wishes otherwise)
‘Nay then, I’ll set those…’
‘Nay then, I’ll set those to you that can speak.’ - Gertrude
- attempting to regain her power, will fetch those who can speak with more force
‘Come, come, and sit…’
‘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.’ - Hamlet
- Hamlet has the control, is trying to instruct her
- internal stage directions (H lays his hands on her given by her reaction: ‘Help, help, ho!’)
> already gone against what he said - ‘I will speak daggers to her but use none’
‘What wilt thou…’
‘What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murder me?/ Help, help, ho!’ - Gertrude
- her reaction implies Hamlet has become violent in some manner
- the questioning tone of ‘Thou wilt not murder me’ shows the distance between this mother and son
Hamlet’s reaction to realising the presence of someone behind the arras
‘How now! A rat?/ Dead, for a ducat, dead! [Kills Polonius with a pass through the arras.]’
- no reason or sign of deliberation, just acts (doesn’t even identify the person)
- loses the moral ground, blurs the hero-villain line, Laertes will want revenge
- he presumes it is the King - ‘Is it the King?’ - did he kill based on this or because he is jealous of anyone who gets to be in this intimate space with his mother
‘O, what a rash…’
‘O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!’ - Gertrude
- gets to turn the dynamic on Hamlet, he’s lost the morality defence
- however H moves on and turns the conversation back on Gertrude quickly ‘almost as bad […] as kill a King’
‘A bloody deed! - almost as…’
‘A bloody deed! - almost as bad, good mother,/ As kill a king and marry with his brother.’ - Hamlet
- turns the conversation back on Gertrude
- H holds G responsible not C (‘kill a king’)
- she appears shocked at the suggestion: ‘As kill a king!’
‘Thou wretched…’
‘Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!’ - Hamlet once he reveals the man he has murdered is Polonius
- cold response
- circular action, he was spying behind the arras for Ophelia and Hamlet’s conversation earlier
‘Leave wringing…’
‘Leave wringing of your hands. Peace; sit you down’ - H to Gertrude
- believes she is distressed and tries to calm her but she is actually angry (‘thou dar’st wag thy tongue/ In noise so rude against me?’)
- internal stage directions
‘Such an act…’
‘Such an act/ That blurs the grace and blush of modesty’ - Hamlet to G
- ‘blurs’ - morality has been blurred, none of these characters seem truly good
- semantic field of feminine and royal language (‘grace’ ‘blush’ ‘modesty’ ‘rose’ ‘fair’ ‘love’), undertone of lost purity
‘tales off the rose/ From…’
‘takes off the rose/ From the fair forehead of an innocent love,/ And sets a blister there’ - Hamlet to G
- continued feminine semantic field
- ‘rose’ ‘fair’ and ‘innocent love’ refer to G’s relationship with Hamlet Sr. whilst ‘blister’ refers to Claudius
- ‘blister’ is an allusion to pox/syphilis - sexual impurity as well as corruption and disease associated with Claudius
‘makes marriage vows…’
‘makes marriage vows/ As false as dicers’ oaths.’ - H to G
‘O, such a deed…’
‘O, such a deed/ As from the body of contraction plucks/ The very soul, and sweet religion makes/ A rhapsody of words.’ - H to G
- an act that takes the soul from the marriage contract and turns sweet religion into nothing but a collection of words
‘Heaven’s face does…’
‘Heaven’s face does glow/ O’er this solidity and compound mass/ With heated visage, as against the doom -/ Is thought-sick at the act.’ - Hamlet to G
- the sky turns red over the earth as if it is judgement day
- Hamlet has a sort of preaching tone, as if he feels superior to G and knows what heaven would think of Gertrude (‘thought-sick at the act’)
- poetic language
‘Look here upon this…’
‘Look here upon this picture and on this./ The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.’ - Hamlet to G
- internal stage directions (holding up two photos, In Lawrence Olivier’s version he uses two lockets one of Hamlet’s and one of Gertrude’s)
- physical comparison of the two brothers, almost patronising (then moves to character-based comparison)
how does Hamlet describe his father (H sr) in his comparison of Gertrude’s two lovers
- very positive, glorifying language with classical allusions to divinity and heroes
- ‘grace’ ‘Hyperion’s curls’ ‘Jove himself’ ‘eye like Mars’ ‘herald Mercury’ ‘heaven-kissing hill’ ‘give the world assurance of a man’
‘See what grace…’
‘See what grace was seated on this brow;/ Hyperion’s curls; the front of Jove himself;/ An eye like Mars, to threaten and command’ - Hamlet to G about his father
- glorifying, both in terms of who he was and how he was as King (‘threaten and command’)
- internal stage directions: ‘this brow’
- ‘Hyperion’s’ ‘Jove’ ‘Mars’ are all classical allusions to Gods of Roman and Greek mythology (plus ‘Mercury’)
- associating his father with divinity
‘A station like the herald…’
‘A station like the herald Mercury/ New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill’ - Hamlet to G about his father
- placing his father as close to heaven and God (claudius is instead a ‘moor’)
- continued classical allusion (‘Mercury’)
‘A combination and…’
‘A combination and form indeed/ Where every God did seem to set his seal,/ To give the world assurance of a man.’ - Hamlet about H sr.
- hyperbole, presenting H sr. as the ideal man
‘This was your…’
‘This was your husband. Look you now on what follows:/ Here is your husband, like a’ - Hamlet to G
- internal stage directions (‘This was’ ‘Here is’)
- caesura separates Hamlet sr from Claudius
- direct comparison and emphasising the remarriage
‘Here is your…’
‘Here is your husband, like a mildew’d ear/ Blasing his wholesome brother. Have you eyes?’ - Hamlet to G
- compares the brothers to two ears of corn, one healthy, one diseased
- ‘ear’ could be H’s attempt to test what G knows about H sr.’s death
- ‘mildew’d’ - disease and corruption associated with Claudius
‘Have you eyes?/ Could…’
‘Have you eyes?/ Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,/ And batten on this moor? Ha! Have you eyes?’ - Hamlet to G
- where H sr. is compared to a ‘fair mountain’, Claudius is a contrasting, lowly ‘moor’
‘You cannot call it…’
‘You cannot call it love; for at your age/ The heyday in the blood is tame, it’s humble,/ And waits upon the judgement’ - Hamlet to G
- argues that she cannot experience love or desire at her age
- is going against the ghost and turning on his mother instead of Claudius
‘And waits upon the judgement….’
‘And waits upon the judgement, and what judgement/ Would step from this to this?’ - Hamlet
- use of ‘judgement’ implies religious morality, he is sermonising despite killing Polonius only a few moments ago - MORAL AUTHORITY
- ‘this to this’ is continued comparison of the brothers/husbands
‘for madness would not…’
‘for madness would not err,/ Nor sense to ecstasy was ne’er so thrall’d/ But it reserv’d some quantity of choice/ To serve in such a difference.’ - Hamlet
- “for even a madman would not make this mistake, and sense was never so entirely bound to desire that it did not maintain the power to choose in such cases”
- completely unjustified decision to choose Claudius, continued theme of madness within the play and this scene especially
‘O shame! where…’
‘O shame! where is thy blush?’ - Hamlet to G
- ‘blush of modesty’
‘O Hamlet, speak…’
‘O Hamlet, speak no more!/ Thou turn’st my eyes into my very soul’ - G
- she feels shamed, Hamlet has succeeded
‘Nay but to live…’
‘Nay but to live/ In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed,/ Stew’d in corruption, honeying and making love/ Over the nasty sty!’ - H to G
- vivid language reveals disgust and horror, nauseating sweetness contrasted with the squalor of a pig-‘sty’
- ‘rank’ echoes Claudius
- ‘enseamed’ - saturated with grease - semen?
- ‘Stew’d’ - heat, fat, and the Elizabethan word for brothel
- ‘corruption’ and ‘sty’ associated with Claudius
‘O, speak to me…’
‘O, speak to me no more!/ These words like daggers enter in my ears;/ No more, sweet Hamlet.’ - Gertrude
- ‘I will speak daggers to her’
- ‘enter in my ears’
‘A murderer and a…’
‘A murderer and a villain!/ A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe/ Of your precedent lord’ - Hamlet to G
- returning to the topic of Claudius
- C does not compare to H sr.
‘That from a shelf the…’
‘That from a shelf the precious diadem stole/ And put it in his pocket!’ - Hamlet
- ‘diadem’ - crown
- Claudius stole the crown
‘No…’
‘[Enter…’
‘No more!’ - G
‘[Enter Ghost.]’
- supporting the queen
- people normally see the ghost too but Gertrude will not be able to: ‘Alas, he’s mad!’
- this allows her to ignore his comments about Claudius and raises the question as to whether Hamlet really is mad
‘Do not forget…’
‘Do not forget; this visitation/ Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.’ - Ghost
‘Conceit in…’
‘Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works.’ - Ghost to H
- imagination is most effective in weak people (women in the eyes of the audience)
‘That you do…’
‘That you do bend your eye on vacancy,/ And with th’ incorporal air do hold discourse?’ - Gertrude
- confirming she cannot see the ghost
- hold conversation with “thin air”
‘And, as the sleeping…’
‘And, as the sleeping soldiers in th’alarm,/ Your bedded hairs like life in excrements/ Start up and stand on end.’ - Gertrude
- stereotypical image of a mad man
- rooted hairs rise as if they have a life of their own
‘Look you how…’
‘Look you how pale he glares./ His form and cause conjoin’d, preaching to stone,/ Would make them capable.’ - Hamlet
- his appearance and story (the ghost’s) could make stones feel
‘Do not look upon me…’
‘Do not look upon me,/ Lest with this piteous action you convert/ My stern effects; then what I have to do will want true colour - tears perchance for blood.’ - Hamlet to Ghost
- tells the ghost not to look at him as this will turn his anger to grief (‘tears perchance for blood’), taking away the ‘true colour’ from what he must do - avenge his father
‘Do you see…’
‘Nothing at…’
‘Do you see nothing there?’ - H
‘Nothing at all; yet that is I see.’ - G
‘This is the very…’
‘This is the very coinage of your brain./ This bodiless creation ecstasy/ Is very cunning in.’ - G
- hallucinations, madness, imagination
- ‘ecstasy’ echoes Ophelia’s ‘Blasted with ecstasy’ - the two women
‘My pulse as yours doth…’
‘My pulse as yours doth temperately keep time,/ And makes as healthful music. It is not madness/ That I have utt’red.’ - Hamlet
- trying to prove his sanity
- ‘It is not madness’ is the turning point where Hamlet know longer keeps up his ‘antic disposition’ with his mother - trust?
‘Mother, for love of…’
‘Mother, for love of grace,/ Lay not that flattering unction to your soul,/ That not your trespass but my madness speaks’ - Hamlet to G
- back to sermonising but more imploring ‘for love of grace’ (the Ghost has softened him)
- ‘Lay not that … speaks’ - “Do not flatter yourself that it is my madness rather than your sin that we are talking about”
- does Hamlet hold less power now?
‘It will but skin and…’
‘It will but skin and film the ulcerous place,/ Whiles rank corruption, mining all within/ Infects unseen.’ - Hamlet to G
- moves conversation back to Gertrude’s sins with grotesque, physically jarring language
- ‘corruption’ and ‘infects’ hold similar connotations to the ‘mildew’d ear’ used to describe Claudius earlier in the scene
- again, ‘rank’ echoes C’s description of his sins
‘Confess yourself to…’
‘Confess yourself to heaven;/ Repent what’s past; avoid what is to come’ - H to G
- sermonising, attempting to save her (his father and religious ideas of judgement
- condescending given he just killed someone
‘And do not spread the…’
‘And do not spread the compost on the weeds,/ To make them ranker.’ - H to G
- “do not make your sins worse”
- ‘ranker’ again
grotesque language H uses to describe Gertrude’s supposed sins
‘skin’ ‘film’ ‘ulcerous’ ‘weeds’ ‘rank’
‘O Hamlet, thou…’
‘O, throw away the…’
‘O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.’ - G
‘O, throw away the worser part of it,/ And live the purer with the other half.’ - H
- broken heart, one half with C the other with H
- making her choose
‘Good night - but go…’
‘Good night - but go not to my uncle’s bed;/ Assume a virtue, if you have it not.’ - H to G
- believes he has authority
- asks her to pretend to be virtuous (inversion, she hasn’t lied yet)
‘Refrain to-night…’
‘Refrain to-night;/ And that shall lend a kind of easiness/ To the next abstinence’ - H
- reflects Elizabethan ideas about female sexuality even though a modern audience may view Hamlet as overbearing and patronising here
- it should be noted that with conjugal rights it is not up to Gertrude to refrain
For use almost can…’
‘For use almost can change the stamp of nature,/ And either curb the devil, or throw him out,/ With wonderous potency.’ - H
‘I’ll blessing beg…’
‘I’ll blessing beg of you.’ - H to G
- proper order of things, son kneeling for a mother’s blessing (as L does to P in 1:2)
‘For this same lord…’
‘For this same lord/ I do repent; but Heaven hath pleas’d it so,/ To punish me with this’ - H
- showing remorse for killing Polonius and recognises that he will be punished for it
‘That I must be their…’
‘That I must be their scourge and minister.’ - Hamlet
- agent of the heavens
‘I must be cruel…’
‘I must be cruel only to be kind’ - H to G
‘What shall…’
‘What shall I do?’ - G
- instead of replying to this with what he thinks she should do he returns to talking of her sex life and what she shouldn’t do
- ‘Not this, by no means, that I bid you do:’
‘Not this, by no…’
‘Not this, by no means, that I bid you do:’ - H
What does H tell G not to do?
- ‘Let the bloat King tempt you again to bed’
- ‘Pinch wanton on your cheek’
- ‘call you his mouse’
- ‘pair of reechy kisses’
- ‘paddling in your neck with his damn’d fingers’
‘Let the bloat..’
‘Let the bloat King tempt you again to bed’ - H
- ‘bloat’, disgust aimed at C
- ‘reechy kisses’
‘And let him, for…’
‘And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses’ - H
- ‘reechy’ - reaking (disgust aimed at Claudius)
- ‘bloat King’
‘Make you ravel all this…’
‘Make you ravel all this manner out,/ That I essentially am not in madness,/ But mad in craft.’ - H
- asking G not to tell Claudius that he’s not mad (asking someone who thinks he’s mad to pretend he’s mad)
‘Be thou assur’d…’
‘Be thou assur’d, if words be made of breath/ And breath of life, I have no life to breathe/ What thou hast said to me.’ - G
‘and my two school…’
‘and my two school-fellows,/ Whom I trust as I will adders fang’d’ - H
- ‘adders fang’d’ - poisonous snakes
- reveals his distrust for Ros and Guil which suggests he is convinced of G’s loyalty to him
‘They bear the…’
‘[Ros and Guil] bear the mandate; they must sweep my way/ And marshal me to knavery.’ - H
- they have the king’s orders and are to prepare his way and lead him into some kind of trickery
‘Hoist with his…’
‘Hoist with his own petard’ - H
- poetic justice
- revealing to G that he plans to trap Ros and Guil
‘O, ‘tis most…’
‘O, ‘tis most sweet/ When in one line two crafts directly meet.’ - H
- when two plots or cunning devices meet (and one destroys the other)
‘Indeed, this counsellor…’
‘Indeed this counsellor/ Is now most still, most secret, and most grave,/ Who was in life a foolish prating knave. Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you.’ - H about P
- disrespect towards Polonius/ his body (‘lug the guts’ ‘foolish prating knave’)
- sours the end of the scene
