SCENE IV. The Queen's closet.
Enter QUEEN MARGARET and POLONIUS (always scheming)LORD POLONIUS
He will come straight. Look you lay home to him:HAMLET
Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear with,
And that your grace hath screen'd and stood between
Much heat and him. I'll sconce me even here.
Pray you, be round with him.
(Spoken vehemently...Polonius really wants to see Hamlet get it)
[Within] Mother, mother, mother!QUEEN GERTRUDE
(Mockingly, as if he's acting much younger than he is)
I'll warrant you,HAMLET
Fear me not: withdraw, I hear him coming.POLONIUS hides behind the arras but not well enough....
Enter HAMLET
Now, mother, what's the matter?QUEEN GERTRUDE
(Still with some condescension. He clearly knows what is the matter)
Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.HAMLET
Mother, you have my father much offended.QUEEN GERTRUDE
(to use a more modern phrase...OH SNAP)
Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.HAMLET
(She is still patient with him at this point. Perhaps as if she is reprimanding a young boy)
Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.QUEEN GERTRUDE
(Ouch.)
Why, how now, Hamlet!HAMLET
(She begins to lose her temper)
What's the matter now?QUEEN GERTRUDE
Have you forgot me?HAMLET
(Since she still babies Hamlet to an extent, she seems to think that he should still show her the same affection that a young boy would show his mother even though that is not the appropriate way to treat Hamlet.)
No, by the rood, not so:QUEEN GERTRUDE
You are the queen, your husband's brother's wife;
And--would it were not so!--you are my mother.
Nay, then, I'll set those to you that can speak.HAMLET
(Slightly taken aback)
Come, come, and sit you down; you shall not budge;QUEEN GERTRUDE
You go not till I set you up a glass
Where you may see the inmost part of you.
(Now Hamlet gains "control" of the scene. He is the one driving all the action)
What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murder me?LORD POLONIUS
Help, help, ho!
(She realizes she's lost control and is scared)
[Behind] What, ho! help, help, help!HAMLET
(He unnecessarily panics and reveals himself)
[Drawing] How now! a rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead!LORD POLONIUS(He knows what is really behind the curtain and believes that whoever it is deserves to die for being a co-conspirator in this scene and perhaps even Hamlet's father's death) Makes a pass through the arras
[Behind] O, I am slain!QUEEN GERTRUDE(Crooooak) Falls and dies
O me, what hast thou done?HAMLET
(Shocked by what just happened, she begins to feel faint and cannot seem to hold her ground)
Nay, I know not:QUEEN GERTRUDE
Is it the king?
(He wishes. He speaks very calmly for someone who has just committed murder)
O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!HAMLET
A bloody deed! almost as bad, good mother,QUEEN GERTRUDE
As kill a king, and marry with his brother.
(Almost as bad...but not quite. He places himself out of the same league as Claudius)
As kill a king!HAMLET
Ay, lady, 'twas my word.QUEEN GERTRUDELifts up the array and discovers POLONIUS
Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!
I took thee for thy better: take thy fortune;
Thou find'st to be too busy is some danger.
Leave wringing of your hands: peace! sit you down,
And let me wring your heart; for so I shall,
If it be made of penetrable stuff,
If damned custom have not brass'd it so
That it is proof and bulwark against sense.
(His anger is apparent)
What have I done, that thou darest wag thy tongueHAMLET
In noise so rude against me?
(She seems to have missed the bigger picture)
Such an actQUEEN GERTRUDE
That blurs the grace and blush of modesty,
Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose
From the fair forehead of an innocent love
And sets a blister there, makes marriage-vows
As false as dicers' oaths: O, such a deed
As from the body of contraction plucks
The very soul, and sweet religion makes
A rhapsody of words: heaven's face doth glow:
Yea, this solidity and compound mass,
With tristful visage, as against the doom,
Is thought-sick at the act.
(He continues to reprimand his mother for what she has done, reminding her of the extent to which he holds her in contempt)
Ay me, what act,HAMLET
That roars so loud, and thunders in the index?
(She still doesn't get it)
Look here, upon this picture, and on this,QUEEN GERTRUDE
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers. (He points to a portrait on the wall of Hamlet Sr. and Claudius)
See, what a grace was seated on this brow;
Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself;
An eye like Mars, to threaten and command;
A station like the herald Mercury
New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill;
A combination and a form indeed,
Where every god did seem to set his seal,
To give the world assurance of a man:
This was your husband. (Hamlet Sr.=a god) Look you now, what follows:
Here is your husband; like a mildew'd ear,
Blasting his wholesome brother. (gross) Have you eyes?
Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,
And batten on this moor? Ha! have you eyes?
You cannot call it love; for at your age
The hey-day in the blood is tame, it's humble,
And waits upon the judgment: and what judgment
Would step from this to this? Sense, sure, you have,
Else could you not have motion; but sure, that sense
Is apoplex'd; for madness would not err,
Nor sense to ecstasy was ne'er so thrall'd
But it reserved some quantity of choice,
To serve in such a difference. What devil was't
That thus hath cozen'd you at hoodman-blind?
Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight,
Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all,
Or but a sickly part of one true sense
Could not so mope.
O shame! where is thy blush? Rebellious hell,
If thou canst mutine in a matron's bones,
To flaming youth let virtue be as wax,
And melt in her own fire: proclaim no shame
When the compulsive ardour gives the charge,
Since frost itself as actively doth burn
And reason panders will.
(With each line, his anger mounts and he moves closer to his mother. As he speaks, Gertrude becomes more and more upset by Hamlet's harsh words.)
O Hamlet, speak no more:HAMLET
Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul;
And there I see such black and grained spots
As will not leave their tinct.
(She wipes tears from her eyes)
Nay, but to liveQUEEN GERTRUDE
In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed,
Stew'd in corruption, honeying and making love
Over the nasty sty,--
O, speak to me no more;HAMLET
These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears;
No more, sweet Hamlet!
(She cuts him off, appalled)
A murderer and a villain;QUEEN GERTRUDE
A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe
Of your precedent lord; a vice of kings;
A cutpurse of the empire and the rule,
That from a shelf the precious diadem stole,
And put it in his pocket!
No more!HAMLET
(She begins to sob)
A king of shreds and patches,--QUEEN GERTRUDEEnter Ghost
Save me, and hover o'er me with your wings,
You heavenly guards! What would your gracious figure?
(He looks up and in the opposite direction of Gertrude to where the ghost is)
Alas, he's mad!HAMLET
Do you not come your tardy son to chide,Ghost
That, lapsed in time and passion, lets go by
The important acting of your dread command? O, say!
Do not forget: this visitationHAMLET
Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.
But, look, amazement on thy mother sits:
O, step between her and her fighting soul:
Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works:
Speak to her, Hamlet.
(He rebukes Hamlet for upsetting his mother so. After all, the ghost still loves her)
How is it with you, lady?QUEEN GERTRUDE
Alas, how is't with you,HAMLET
That you do bend your eye on vacancy
And with the incorporal air do hold discourse?
Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep;
And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm,
Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,
Starts up, and stands on end. O gentle son,
Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper
Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look?
(She is slightly more collected but still thinks Hamlet is bonkers)
On him, on him! Look you, how pale he glares!QUEEN GERTRUDE
His form and cause conjoin'd, preaching to stones,
Would make them capable. 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.
(He doesn't understand that she cannot see the ghost)
(They speak quickly) To whom do you speak this?HAMLET
Do you see nothing there?QUEEN GERTRUDE
Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.HAMLET
Nor did you nothing hear?QUEEN GERTRUDE
No, nothing but ourselves.HAMLET
Why, look you there! look, how it steals away!QUEEN GERTRUDE
My father, in his habit as he lived!
Look, where he goes, even now, out at the portal!Exit Ghost
This the very coinage of your brain:HAMLET
This bodiless creation ecstasy
Is very cunning in.
Ecstasy!QUEEN GERTRUDE
My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time,
And makes as healthful music: it is not madness
That I have utter'd: bring me to the test,
And I the matter will re-word; which madness
Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,
Lay not that mattering unction to your soul,
That not your trespass, but my madness speaks: (I'm crazy but I know what I'm talking about)
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place,
Whilst rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven;
Repent what's past; avoid what is to come;
And do not spread the compost on the weeds,
To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue;
For in the fatness of these pursy times
Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg,
Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good.
(He still has some love for his mother. He wants her to reform her ways. He has not yet completely given up on her soul. He still holds her in higher regard that he holds the others)
O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.HAMLET
(You broke my heart)
O, throw away the worser part of it,QUEEN GERTRUDE
And live the purer with the other half.
Good night: but go not to mine uncle's bed;
Assume a virtue, if you have it not. (He is clearly begging her to listen to him)
That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat,
Of habits devil, is angel yet in this,
That to the use of actions fair and good
He likewise gives a frock or livery,
That aptly is put on. Refrain to-night,
And that shall lend a kind of easiness
To the next abstinence: the next more easy;
For use almost can change the stamp of nature,
And either [ ] the devil, or throw him out
With wondrous potency. Once more, good night:
And when you are desirous to be bless'd,
I'll blessing beg of you. For this same lord,Pointing to POLONIUS (and effecting a more scornful tone of voice)
I do repent: but heaven hath pleased it so, (looks up)
To punish me with this and this with me,
That I must be their scourge and minister.
I will bestow him, and will answer well
The death I gave him. So, again, good night.
I must be cruel, only to be kind:
Thus bad begins and worse remains behind.
One word more, good lady.
What shall I do? (She is exasperated by everything that has just taken place)HAMLET
Not this, by no means, that I bid you do:QUEEN GERTRUDE
Let the bloat king tempt you again to bed;
Pinch wanton on your cheek; call you his mouse;
And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses,
Or paddling in your neck with his damn'd fingers,
Make you to ravel all this matter out,
That I essentially am not in madness,
But mad in craft. 'Twere good you let him know;
For who, that's but a queen, fair, sober, wise,
Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib,
Such dear concernings hide? who would do so?
No, in despite of sense and secrecy,
Unpeg the basket on the house's top.
Let the birds fly, and, like the famous ape,
To try conclusions, in the basket creep,
And break your own neck down.
(He wants her to reveal the truth about Claudius because her word is more reputable than Hamlet's. He begs her to condemn Claudius even at her own expense)
Be thou assured, if words be made of breath,
And breath of life, I have no life to breathe
What thou hast said to me.
(I can't do it.)
