Subtext

SCENE IV. The Queen's closet.

Enter QUEEN MARGARET and POLONIUS

LORD POLONIUS

He will come straight. Look you lay home to him:
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.

Quietly stern, as if telling her for the second time.

HAMLET

[Within] Mother, mother, mother!

QUEEN GERTRUDE

I'll warrant you,
Fear me not: withdraw, I hear him coming.

Reassuring. Don’t worry.

POLONIUS hides behind the arras

Enter HAMLET

HAMLET

Now, mother, what's the matter?

Acting all innocent.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.

HAMLET

Mother, you have my father much offended.

Well YOU’VE offended my real father.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.

Reprehending. You speak foolishness.

HAMLET

Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.

Glaring. You speak lies.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Why, how now, Hamlet!

HAMLET

What's the matter now?

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Have you forgot me?

Taken aback.

HAMLET

No, by the rood, not so:
You are the queen, your husband's brother's wife;
And--would it were not so!--you are my mother.

Cruelly and with a vindictive tone, staring down at her with something akin to contempt in his eyes.


QUEEN GERTRUDE

Nay, then, I'll set those to you that can speak.

Moving away from him, as if to leave the room.


HAMLET

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.

Scary, quiet tone. Moving towards her slowly, directing her to a chair of some kind.


QUEEN GERTRUDE

What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murder me?
Help, help, ho!

Recoiling, panicking, backing up slowly away from Hamlet.


LORD POLONIUS

[Behind] What, ho! help, help, help!

HAMLET

[Drawing] How now! a rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead!

Shouting with outrage and anger. The last words screamed with a mixture of triumph and hate.


Makes a pass through the arras

LORD POLONIUS

[Behind] O, I am slain!

Does anyone actually say this? Done dramatically.


Falls and dies

QUEEN GERTRUDE

O me, what hast thou done?

Horror, shock.


HAMLET

Nay, I know not:
Is it the king?

Looking at his bloody blade, as if seeing it for the first time. Quiet, as if surprised at himself.


QUEEN GERTRUDE

O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!

What have you done??!


HAMLET

A bloody deed! almost as bad, good mother,
As kill a king, and marry with his brother.

Nothing so bad as you have done, dearest mother. Pointed tone, accusing.


QUEEN GERTRUDE

As kill a king!

Confused. Her horror at the deed currently forgotten.


HAMLET

Ay, lady, 'twas my word.

Yeah, you heard me.


Lifts 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.

Surprised, but not too remorseful. Starting with pity, then progressing to contempt.


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.

Turning to his mother. Be at ease! Let us speak as if nothing happened.

That is, unless you’ve lost all ability feel.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

What have I done, that thou darest wag thy tongue
In noise so rude against me?

Distressed, uncomprehending. She sits down hard in the chair, her hands clasped together tightly, with tears welling up in her eyes.

HAMLET

Such an act
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:

Pacing in front of her, Hamlet does not look at her. Fists clenching and unclenching, gesticulating at her every now and then. His tone becomes more and more emotional as he continues.

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:

At “soul,” Hamlet leans in toward Gertrude and motions with his hand, as if grasping something intangible with his fingers. Whispers from “The very soul.”

Yea, this solidity and compound mass,
With tristful visage, as against the doom,
Is thought-sick at the act.

Moving back, Hamlet’s voice resumes a more normal pitch and is again pointed and sharp.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Ay me, what act,
That roars so loud, and thunders in the index?

What have I done??!

HAMLET

Look here, upon this picture, and on this,
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.

Takes up to drawings and shows them to her.

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:

Holding up one higher than the other, his tone kind and affectionate.

This was your husband. Look you now, what follows:
Here is your husband; like a mildew'd ear,
Blasting his wholesome brother.

Holding the other higher now, glaring at the picture, his fist tightening on it, crumpling it a little.

Have you eyes?
Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,
And batten on this moor? Ha! have you eyes?

Would you really fall in love with this man after such a better one was in your life?

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?

How does this make any sense at all? Incredulous. At this point he casts aside the paintings, the one of Claudius torn and wrinkled from Hamlet’s grip.

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.

Pacing in front of her again, but this time looking at her and gesturing at her. His choler is rising, his words coming faster and a little more wildly.

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.

He gives a little laugh while speaking “devil.” Exasperated tone that demands no answer.

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.

Accusing. You justified your lechery with reason, ignoring the virtue of the heart.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

O Hamlet, speak no more:
Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul;
And there I see such black and grained spots
As will not leave their tinct.

Pleading. Please, no more! Clutching the sides of her head, covering her ears, shaking her head, denying.

HAMLET

Nay, but to live
In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed,
Stew'd in corruption, honeying and making love
Over the nasty sty,--

Disgusted, standing very strait, staring down at her from narrowed eyes.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

O, speak to me no more;
These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears;
No more, sweet Hamlet!

Please, no more!!

HAMLET

A murderer and a villain;
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!

Similar to Gladiator, “Husband to a murdered wife, father to a murdered son…”

QUEEN GERTRUDE

No more!

HAMLET

A king of shreds and patches,--

Enter Ghost
Save me, and hover o'er me with your wings,
You heavenly guards! What would your gracious figure?

Looking upward, beseeching the heavens/ghost

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Alas, he's mad!

To herself, eyes wide, recoiling in her chair.

HAMLET

Do you not come your tardy son to chide,
That, lapsed in time and passion, lets go by
The important acting of your dread command? O, say!

Slightly worried tone, crying up to the ghost, arms spread wide.

Ghost

Do not forget: this visitation
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.

The ghost is gesturing to Gertrude, both the ghost and Hamlet turn to look at her.

HAMLET

How is it with you, lady?

Hamlet walks towards her, smiling slightly.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Alas, how is't with you,
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?

Very concerned, leaning forward towards Hamlet. Beseechingly.

HAMLET

On him, on him! Look you, how pale he glares!
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.

Excitedly, gesturing wildly at the ghost, looking back and forth between his mother and the ghost, desiring her to see him as Hamlet does.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

To whom do you speak this?

Confused, looking at the empty space that Hamlet is gesturing towards.

HAMLET

Do you see nothing there?

Incredulous, still pointing at the ghost. Right there, right there!

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.

HAMLET

Nor did you nothing hear?

Not necessarily disappointed, but slightly crestfallen, his hand falling to his side.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

No, nothing but ourselves.

HAMLET

Why, look you there! look, how it steals away!
My father, in his habit as he lived!
Look, where he goes, even now, out at the portal!

Insisting, pointing at the ghost, desperately wanting her to see him.

Exit Ghost

QUEEN GERTRUDE

This the very coinage of your brain:
This bodiless creation ecstasy
Is very cunning in.

She’s standing now, and rests her hand on his shoulder. Her tone at once both concerned and pitying.

HAMLET

Ecstasy!
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:
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 takes her by the shoulders, looking at her in the eyes, trying to show her that he is not mad. While he is still angry with her, he desperately wants her to know that he is not mad, and indeed a good person.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.

HAMLET

O, throw away the worser part of it,
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.

His voice is almost pleading, leaning forward, entreating.

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.

His speaking increases, and whenever he references his uncle, he throws his arm out in his general direction, and his voice becomes slightly angry.

For this same lord,

Pointing to POLONIUS

Points to Polonius. His voice becomes slightly sad.

I do repent: but heaven hath pleased it so,
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.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

What shall I do?

HAMLET

Not this, by no means, that I bid you do:
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.

His voice is serious, and he has approached her and placed his arms on her shoulders.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

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.

Backing away from Hamlet’s touch, shaking her head slightly, her voice quiet and ironic.