HAMLET; Act Four Notes
Notice that Claudius uses the royal “We” when he refers to himself. Ruling monarchs refer to themselves in the plural for they and the nation are considered as part of the other. The king or the queen embody the nation and its component parts.
His entire speech to Gertrude after he hears the troubling news of Polonius’ murder is filled with verbal irony. “….so much of our love….” Does Claudius love Hamlet?
Again notice the recurring motif of disease: “But like the owner of a foul disease…..”
A theme must be expressed in a sentence. It must have a character or a characteristic; it must have an action and it must express a result which is the effect of that action.
Themes of Hamlet:
Those who hesitate will cause more disaster than those who take action.
Regardless of one’s actions we will all wind up as dust. Regardless of one’s triumphs we will all – kings, beggars, all – wind up as dust; therefore, all action is pointless and futile.
Pith: the essential part of a living entity; the center of life in an organism.
Simile:
“O’er whom his very madness, like some ore
Among a mineral of metals base,
Shows itself pure: he weeps for what is done.”
Gertrude says this with great feeling to Claudius when they are discussing Hamlet’s apparent madness as the reason for the stabbing murder of Polonius. She is saying the fact he cried shows that within the depths of insanity (the minerals of metals base) there is awareness, sanity and goodness in Hamlet (“….like some ore….shows itself pure….)
Notice that one of the first things Claudius thinks of in the middle of a potential p.r. disaster is how to spin it so that slander and gossip do not touch him:
“So, haply, slander,
Whose whisper o’er the world’s diameter,
As level as the cannon to his blank,
Transports his poisoned shot, may miss our name
And hit the woundless air….”
This is both imagery and simile. If you visualize the above passage it becomes pretty clear what he is saying. Imagine the gossip as a cannon ball being fired from a cannon but does not hit Claudius and instead hits the invulnerable air. This is a perfect example of how a man’s actions will define him. The man's first thoughts and actions are to protect himself - this defines who Claudius is.
Act 4; Scene 2:
Kin: relative like a cousin or a brother, etc.
Hamlet calls Rosencrantz and Guildenstern both an apple kept in the mouth of the great ape, the king, or as sponges used by the king. The king keeps the apple in the corner of his mouth and then swallows it when needed, and allows the sponge to soak up information which the King squeezes when he wants the information. Both are keen insults.
Hamlet:
The body is with the king, but the King is not with the body. The King is a thing –
this is a syllogism and a paradox. This also dovetails with the notion that the role of King or monarch is a thing that resides separate from the person who is at that moment king or monarch. Hence the phrase, “The king is dead. Long live the king.” (The old king has died, but the monarchy continues because the office is immortal and impervious to the insults levied at mere flesh.) It also is a direct rebuke of Claudius’ right to rule as king. The body may refer to Claudius but the kingship is not with Claudius.
Knavish: slippery,
Act 4, Scene 3
Claudius:
“Yet must we not put the strong law on him;
He’s loved of the distracted multitude,
Who like not in their judgment but their eyes,
And where tis so, th’offender’s scourge is weighed
But never the offence.”
This is the reason Claudius sends Hamlet away. He is “loved of the distracted (confused, ignorant) multitude (public, mob) who like people based on appearance and not on their character. When a popular person is punished, regardless of how justified the punishment, the mob will blame the punisher.
Here is another example of the motif for diseases:
Claudius:
“Diseases desperate grown
By desperate appliance are relieved,
Or not at all.”
The last line is particularly chilling. This shows that Claudius sees Hamlet as a disease that must be eradicated by desperate means. This is an example of metaphor comparing Hamlet to a disease and parallelism (desperate grown and desperate appliance).
Hamlet:
At supper. Not where he eats but where he is eaten. A certain convocation of politic worms are e’en at him. Your worm is your only emperor for diet; we fat all creatures else to fat us; and we fat ourselves for maggots. Your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service – two dishes, but to one table. That’s the end.
The above is Hamlet’s sarcastic response to Claudius’ demand that he tell where Polonius’ body is hidden. This is a stark, existential joke, filled with puns (convocation of politic worms) about the brutal reality of life. Convocation of politic worms is a joke about a political meeting (convocation) which took place in Worms, Germany in 1521.
Hamlet:
“A man may fish with the worm that eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.”
This is an example of a chiasmus. Chiasmus is based on the Greek word for X:
A man may fish with the worm that eat of a king
Eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.
and:
Never let a fool kiss you
or
A kiss fool you.
And:
Ask not what your country can do for you but
Ask what you can do for your country.
By changing the order of the significant nouns and verbs (which would describe an “X”) one also changes the meaning to a contradictory but equally true meaning or an ironic meaning.
“Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar.”
The above is a syllogism. In this way a beggar may dine on a king.
To the increasing irritated demands by the king to tell him where Polonius’ body is, Hamlet replies:
“In heaven, Send thither to see. If your messenger find him not there, seek him i’th’other place yourself.”
In other words, go to hell yourself to find out if he is there or not.
Hamlet continues with his jokes and puns:
“But if indeed you find him not within this month, you shall nose him (smell him) as you go up the stairs into the lobby.”
And
“He will stay till you come.”
Claudius again shows verbal irony when he tells Hamlet that they are sending him away to England for his own safety:
“Hamlet, this deed, for thine especial safety –
Which we do tender, as we dearly grieve,
For that which thou hast done -
Bark: a ship
Hamlet again show sarcasm when he addresses Claudius as his mother.
When Claudius corrects him – again with verbal irony: “Thy loving father!” Hamlet replies:
“My mother. Father and mother is man and wife, man and wife is one flesh; so my mother.”
Man and wife are one. Therefore Claudius is Hamlet's mother.
After Hamlet is taken away to board the ship to England, Claudius reveals that Hamlet will be killed once he arrives in England.
“Since yet thy cicatrice looks raw and red
After the Danish sword, and thy free awe
Pays homage to us –“
Cicatrice is a scar. So Claudius is saying that since England still bears the scars from the last bloody war it fought with Denmark – and lost – and is still fearful of Denmark’s might, it cannot ignore his request to kill Hamlet.
Again we see the motif of disease when Claudius says in a soliloquy:
“For like the hectic (fever) in my blood he rages,
And thou must cure me.”
The word England as it is employed here is both a personification (giving human characteristics to an inanimate object (“and thy free awe / Pays homage to us”) and as an apostrophe. (Is England there to answer back and even if it were, could it?)
Act 4, Scene 4
This is a very short, yet very important scene in that Hamlet sees Fortinbras, truly an ubermensch, marching across Denmark leading thousands of men who will gladly lay down their lives for him. This spurs Hamlet to at last take action.
Fust: to grow moldy
Craven: fearful, cowardly
Hamlet:
“Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,
Which is not tomb enough and continent
To hide the slain?”
These 20,000 men are fighting for a piece of land that is not large enough to hold the two armies to fight the battle over (“…the numbers cannot try the cause…)
Nor is the land large enough to hold for burial all the bodies of those soldiers who will be killed in the battle (“…Which is not tomb enough and continent / To hide the slain?”)
Fortinbras’ daring shames Hamlet to action.
Act 4, Scene 5
A gentleman announces to the Queen that Ophelia wishes to speak with her, but the Queen refuses her an audience. The gentleman informs Gertrude that Ophelia has grown “distracted” or confused. She speaks darkly and obscurely about things that could be misinterpreted.
An aside is a quick remark (usually comic but not always) said by a character while speaking to other characters which reveals what the character is thinking. The audience is privy to the secret thoughts revealed by the aside, but the other characters on stage are not. Television shows now employ asides - "Scrubs", "The Office", etc. all employ asides with comic effect. One may also see examples of asides in French farces by Moliere.
The Queen, in an aside, reveals her feelings of guilt:
To my sick soul (as sin's true nature is),
Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss.
So full of artless jealousy is guilt,
It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.
This again refers to disease. Gertrude makes a point that sin is actually a sickness or a disease. Her guilt makes her suspect that every trivial thing is a precursor to a major disaster. Guilt makes one have unnecessary suspicions which causes one to reveal the very thing one wishes to hide - one's guilt.
Ophelia, in a state of psychosis, enters. She sings snatches of songs about a lover's betrayal, of a man taking the virginity of a young maid. She says, "I cannot choose but weep to think they would lay him in the cold groung..." obvious references to the harsh treatment of her father's body.
The king says ironically that Ophelia's breakdown is the poison of deep grief - a poison that he suffers from as well, if not of grief, at least of guilt.
Ophelia exits.
A messenger arrives with the news that Laertes has arrived to the exultant cries of the people who clamor "Choose we, Laertes shall be king!"
Laertes enters. He has not yet seen the state that Ophelia is in. Notice how ferociously Gertrude defends Claudius. Claudius has to tell her twice to let go of Laertes and when Laertes demands to know where his father is, Gertrude is quick to say that he was not killed by Claudius.
Laertes says that he would be a bastard if he met the death of his father with calm.
"That drop of blood that's calm proclaim me
Bastard,
Cries "cuckold" to my father, brands the harlot
Even here between the chaste unsmirched brow
Of my true mother."
Laertes swears allegiance to the dark forces to avenge his father ("Vows, to the blackest devil!" ....and..."I dare damnation!") which is a stark counterpoint with Hamlet's dark, moody but ineffective plot for revenge and Laertes' hot headed call for revenge.
Notice how skillfully, how silkily Claudius turns the situation to his advantage. First, he makes sure that Laertes does not intend to make a bloodbath, killing friend and foe alike, in his quest to avenge his father's death; then, Claudius says "...I am guiltless in your father's death."
Actually, Ophelia - unintentionally, of course - does the job for Claudius more speedily for when she comes in, in her maddened state, that is the final horrifying blow to Laertes. Laertes says in anguish at the sight of his psychotic sister, "...is it possible a young maid's wits / Should be as mortal as an old man's life?"
Ophelia is singing and passing out flowers to the king and queen. To an Elizabethan audience well versed in the symbolic meaning of flowers and herbs, the significance of giving these particular plants to the king and queen would not go unnoticed. She first hands out the herb rosemary ("That's for remembrance") which was used in funerals to commemorate the dead and to hide the unfortunate odor of decay.
Pansies symbolize thoughts, which probably meant to keep her dead father in their thoughts.
Fennel symbolizes flattery and deceit, an interesting choice of flower to give to the queen, the significance of which would not go unrecognized either by the queen or the audience.
Rue symbolizes regret. The word rue is used in contemporary speech to mean regret: "If you don't finish high school, you will rue that decision for the rest of your life!"
"You must wear your rue with a difference!" Difference here means a variation in one's coat of arms, but Ophelia perhaps means that the king and queen have regrets for a different reason.
Columbine symbolizes foolishness because the flower petals look like the cap of a jester (clown); it is considered bad luck to give columbine to a woman.
Daisies mean dissembling or lying.
Ophelia says that she would have given them violets (a flower symbolizing faithfulness) but they had all withered when her father died - obviously meaning that all faith, all loyalty went out of this world for Ophelia when her father was murdered.
Ophelia wanders out singing a pretty song about the death of her father. Seeing his sister in this state spurs Laertes to swear hot blooded revenge on whoever killed their father. Claudius soothes him by saying that if anyone sees that he was involved in the death - either by direct means or as an accessory - of his father, then he will give up his kingdom to Laertes. Laertes says that he is disturbed and perplexed by the manner in which his father was killed and his hasty and covered up (obscure) funeral when, as an official of the court, he would be deserving of a more stately funeral with his coat of arms displayed and with noble rite and formal ostentation.
Claudius smoothly ushers him out to talk over in greater detail about his father's death.
When Claudius asks Laertes if he loved his father and what would he do to avenge his father's death, Laertes responds violently with "...to cut his throat in the church..." which is a stark contrast to Hamlet's restraint in plunging a dagger into Claudius when he finds him in prayer confessing his sins.
Activity:
Do a performance art piece acting out one of the following:
Choose One!
Claudius and Gertrude calming Laertes
Act 4, Scene 5; pages 213 – 219; lines 122 – 245 (Include Ophelia’s mad scene)
Ophelia’s first “mad scene”
Act 4, Scene 5; pages 207 - 209; lines 26 - 78
Or
Ophelia’s second “mad scene”
Act 4, Scene 5; pages 215 – 219; lines 178 - 224
Or
Claudius contriving a plot with Laertes.
Act 4, Scene 7; pages 225 – 233; lines 60 - 185
Or
Gertrude’s speech:
“There is a willow grows askant the brook
Act 4; Scene 7; pages 233 – 235; lines 190 - 208
For those of you who are not performers, you can do a story board for Gertrude’s speech. Please divide the monologue into five parts and storyboard for each part.
Page 205
HAMLET
ACT 4, SCENE 5
Importunate: insistent; not to be denied
Her speech is nothing.
Yet the unshaped use of it doth move
The hearers to collection. They aim at it
And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts;
Which, as her winks and nods and gestures yield them,
Indeed would make one think there might be thought
Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.
The gentleman is afraid that the people will hear Ophelia’s psychotic babblings and misconstrue and misinterpret what she is saying and cobble some other meaning onto what she is saying.
Many ancient and indigenous societies believe that the schizophrenic has divine insight and that their speech holds profound wisdom, which is why in some cultures the schizophrenic (or people who we might consider schizophrenic) is elevated to the status of shaman or priest.
Hoar: gray, white, frost, white hair, refers to the age of the person who is described as hoary headed.
Bough: a tree branch
An envious sliver broke: personification
Sliver: a tiny particle of wood
Weeping brook: riverlet
Personification
Mermaid: a mythological creature that was half woman, half fish.
Again notice the recurring motif of disease: “But like the owner of a foul disease…..”
A theme must be expressed in a sentence. It must have a character or a characteristic; it must have an action and it must express a result which is the effect of that action.
Themes of Hamlet:
Those who hesitate will cause more disaster than those who take action.
Regardless of one’s actions we will all wind up as dust. Regardless of one’s triumphs we will all – kings, beggars, all – wind up as dust; therefore, all action is pointless and futile.
Pith: the essential part of a living entity; the center of life in an organism.
Simile:
“O’er whom his very madness, like some ore
Among a mineral of metals base,
Shows itself pure: he weeps for what is done.”
Gertrude says this with great feeling to Claudius when they are discussing Hamlet’s apparent madness as the reason for the stabbing murder of Polonius. She is saying the fact he cried shows that within the depths of insanity (the minerals of metals base) there is awareness, sanity and goodness in Hamlet (“….like some ore….shows itself pure….)
Notice that one of the first things Claudius thinks of in the middle of a potential p.r. disaster is how to spin it so that slander and gossip do not touch him:
“So, haply, slander,
Whose whisper o’er the world’s diameter,
As level as the cannon to his blank,
Transports his poisoned shot, may miss our name
And hit the woundless air….”
This is both imagery and simile. If you visualize the above passage it becomes pretty clear what he is saying. Imagine the gossip as a cannon ball being fired from a cannon but does not hit Claudius and instead hits the invulnerable air. This is a perfect example of how a man’s actions will define him. The man's first thoughts and actions are to protect himself - this defines who Claudius is.
Act 4; Scene 2:
Kin: relative like a cousin or a brother, etc.
Hamlet calls Rosencrantz and Guildenstern both an apple kept in the mouth of the great ape, the king, or as sponges used by the king. The king keeps the apple in the corner of his mouth and then swallows it when needed, and allows the sponge to soak up information which the King squeezes when he wants the information. Both are keen insults.
Hamlet:
The body is with the king, but the King is not with the body. The King is a thing –
this is a syllogism and a paradox. This also dovetails with the notion that the role of King or monarch is a thing that resides separate from the person who is at that moment king or monarch. Hence the phrase, “The king is dead. Long live the king.” (The old king has died, but the monarchy continues because the office is immortal and impervious to the insults levied at mere flesh.) It also is a direct rebuke of Claudius’ right to rule as king. The body may refer to Claudius but the kingship is not with Claudius.
Knavish: slippery,
Act 4, Scene 3
Claudius:
“Yet must we not put the strong law on him;
He’s loved of the distracted multitude,
Who like not in their judgment but their eyes,
And where tis so, th’offender’s scourge is weighed
But never the offence.”
This is the reason Claudius sends Hamlet away. He is “loved of the distracted (confused, ignorant) multitude (public, mob) who like people based on appearance and not on their character. When a popular person is punished, regardless of how justified the punishment, the mob will blame the punisher.
Here is another example of the motif for diseases:
Claudius:
“Diseases desperate grown
By desperate appliance are relieved,
Or not at all.”
The last line is particularly chilling. This shows that Claudius sees Hamlet as a disease that must be eradicated by desperate means. This is an example of metaphor comparing Hamlet to a disease and parallelism (desperate grown and desperate appliance).
Hamlet:
At supper. Not where he eats but where he is eaten. A certain convocation of politic worms are e’en at him. Your worm is your only emperor for diet; we fat all creatures else to fat us; and we fat ourselves for maggots. Your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service – two dishes, but to one table. That’s the end.
The above is Hamlet’s sarcastic response to Claudius’ demand that he tell where Polonius’ body is hidden. This is a stark, existential joke, filled with puns (convocation of politic worms) about the brutal reality of life. Convocation of politic worms is a joke about a political meeting (convocation) which took place in Worms, Germany in 1521.
Hamlet:
“A man may fish with the worm that eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.”
This is an example of a chiasmus. Chiasmus is based on the Greek word for X:
A man may fish with the worm that eat of a king
Eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.
and:
Never let a fool kiss you
or
A kiss fool you.
And:
Ask not what your country can do for you but
Ask what you can do for your country.
By changing the order of the significant nouns and verbs (which would describe an “X”) one also changes the meaning to a contradictory but equally true meaning or an ironic meaning.
“Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar.”
The above is a syllogism. In this way a beggar may dine on a king.
To the increasing irritated demands by the king to tell him where Polonius’ body is, Hamlet replies:
“In heaven, Send thither to see. If your messenger find him not there, seek him i’th’other place yourself.”
In other words, go to hell yourself to find out if he is there or not.
Hamlet continues with his jokes and puns:
“But if indeed you find him not within this month, you shall nose him (smell him) as you go up the stairs into the lobby.”
And
“He will stay till you come.”
Claudius again shows verbal irony when he tells Hamlet that they are sending him away to England for his own safety:
“Hamlet, this deed, for thine especial safety –
Which we do tender, as we dearly grieve,
For that which thou hast done -
Bark: a ship
Hamlet again show sarcasm when he addresses Claudius as his mother.
When Claudius corrects him – again with verbal irony: “Thy loving father!” Hamlet replies:
“My mother. Father and mother is man and wife, man and wife is one flesh; so my mother.”
Man and wife are one. Therefore Claudius is Hamlet's mother.
After Hamlet is taken away to board the ship to England, Claudius reveals that Hamlet will be killed once he arrives in England.
“Since yet thy cicatrice looks raw and red
After the Danish sword, and thy free awe
Pays homage to us –“
Cicatrice is a scar. So Claudius is saying that since England still bears the scars from the last bloody war it fought with Denmark – and lost – and is still fearful of Denmark’s might, it cannot ignore his request to kill Hamlet.
Again we see the motif of disease when Claudius says in a soliloquy:
“For like the hectic (fever) in my blood he rages,
And thou must cure me.”
The word England as it is employed here is both a personification (giving human characteristics to an inanimate object (“and thy free awe / Pays homage to us”) and as an apostrophe. (Is England there to answer back and even if it were, could it?)
Act 4, Scene 4
This is a very short, yet very important scene in that Hamlet sees Fortinbras, truly an ubermensch, marching across Denmark leading thousands of men who will gladly lay down their lives for him. This spurs Hamlet to at last take action.
Fust: to grow moldy
Craven: fearful, cowardly
Hamlet:
“Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,
Which is not tomb enough and continent
To hide the slain?”
These 20,000 men are fighting for a piece of land that is not large enough to hold the two armies to fight the battle over (“…the numbers cannot try the cause…)
Nor is the land large enough to hold for burial all the bodies of those soldiers who will be killed in the battle (“…Which is not tomb enough and continent / To hide the slain?”)
Fortinbras’ daring shames Hamlet to action.
Act 4, Scene 5
A gentleman announces to the Queen that Ophelia wishes to speak with her, but the Queen refuses her an audience. The gentleman informs Gertrude that Ophelia has grown “distracted” or confused. She speaks darkly and obscurely about things that could be misinterpreted.
An aside is a quick remark (usually comic but not always) said by a character while speaking to other characters which reveals what the character is thinking. The audience is privy to the secret thoughts revealed by the aside, but the other characters on stage are not. Television shows now employ asides - "Scrubs", "The Office", etc. all employ asides with comic effect. One may also see examples of asides in French farces by Moliere.
The Queen, in an aside, reveals her feelings of guilt:
To my sick soul (as sin's true nature is),
Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss.
So full of artless jealousy is guilt,
It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.
This again refers to disease. Gertrude makes a point that sin is actually a sickness or a disease. Her guilt makes her suspect that every trivial thing is a precursor to a major disaster. Guilt makes one have unnecessary suspicions which causes one to reveal the very thing one wishes to hide - one's guilt.
Ophelia, in a state of psychosis, enters. She sings snatches of songs about a lover's betrayal, of a man taking the virginity of a young maid. She says, "I cannot choose but weep to think they would lay him in the cold groung..." obvious references to the harsh treatment of her father's body.
The king says ironically that Ophelia's breakdown is the poison of deep grief - a poison that he suffers from as well, if not of grief, at least of guilt.
Ophelia exits.
A messenger arrives with the news that Laertes has arrived to the exultant cries of the people who clamor "Choose we, Laertes shall be king!"
Laertes enters. He has not yet seen the state that Ophelia is in. Notice how ferociously Gertrude defends Claudius. Claudius has to tell her twice to let go of Laertes and when Laertes demands to know where his father is, Gertrude is quick to say that he was not killed by Claudius.
Laertes says that he would be a bastard if he met the death of his father with calm.
"That drop of blood that's calm proclaim me
Bastard,
Cries "cuckold" to my father, brands the harlot
Even here between the chaste unsmirched brow
Of my true mother."
Laertes swears allegiance to the dark forces to avenge his father ("Vows, to the blackest devil!" ....and..."I dare damnation!") which is a stark counterpoint with Hamlet's dark, moody but ineffective plot for revenge and Laertes' hot headed call for revenge.
Notice how skillfully, how silkily Claudius turns the situation to his advantage. First, he makes sure that Laertes does not intend to make a bloodbath, killing friend and foe alike, in his quest to avenge his father's death; then, Claudius says "...I am guiltless in your father's death."
Actually, Ophelia - unintentionally, of course - does the job for Claudius more speedily for when she comes in, in her maddened state, that is the final horrifying blow to Laertes. Laertes says in anguish at the sight of his psychotic sister, "...is it possible a young maid's wits / Should be as mortal as an old man's life?"
Ophelia is singing and passing out flowers to the king and queen. To an Elizabethan audience well versed in the symbolic meaning of flowers and herbs, the significance of giving these particular plants to the king and queen would not go unnoticed. She first hands out the herb rosemary ("That's for remembrance") which was used in funerals to commemorate the dead and to hide the unfortunate odor of decay.
Pansies symbolize thoughts, which probably meant to keep her dead father in their thoughts.
Fennel symbolizes flattery and deceit, an interesting choice of flower to give to the queen, the significance of which would not go unrecognized either by the queen or the audience.
Rue symbolizes regret. The word rue is used in contemporary speech to mean regret: "If you don't finish high school, you will rue that decision for the rest of your life!"
"You must wear your rue with a difference!" Difference here means a variation in one's coat of arms, but Ophelia perhaps means that the king and queen have regrets for a different reason.
Columbine symbolizes foolishness because the flower petals look like the cap of a jester (clown); it is considered bad luck to give columbine to a woman.
Daisies mean dissembling or lying.
Ophelia says that she would have given them violets (a flower symbolizing faithfulness) but they had all withered when her father died - obviously meaning that all faith, all loyalty went out of this world for Ophelia when her father was murdered.
Ophelia wanders out singing a pretty song about the death of her father. Seeing his sister in this state spurs Laertes to swear hot blooded revenge on whoever killed their father. Claudius soothes him by saying that if anyone sees that he was involved in the death - either by direct means or as an accessory - of his father, then he will give up his kingdom to Laertes. Laertes says that he is disturbed and perplexed by the manner in which his father was killed and his hasty and covered up (obscure) funeral when, as an official of the court, he would be deserving of a more stately funeral with his coat of arms displayed and with noble rite and formal ostentation.
Claudius smoothly ushers him out to talk over in greater detail about his father's death.
When Claudius asks Laertes if he loved his father and what would he do to avenge his father's death, Laertes responds violently with "...to cut his throat in the church..." which is a stark contrast to Hamlet's restraint in plunging a dagger into Claudius when he finds him in prayer confessing his sins.
Activity:
Do a performance art piece acting out one of the following:
Choose One!
Claudius and Gertrude calming Laertes
Act 4, Scene 5; pages 213 – 219; lines 122 – 245 (Include Ophelia’s mad scene)
Ophelia’s first “mad scene”
Act 4, Scene 5; pages 207 - 209; lines 26 - 78
Or
Ophelia’s second “mad scene”
Act 4, Scene 5; pages 215 – 219; lines 178 - 224
Or
Claudius contriving a plot with Laertes.
Act 4, Scene 7; pages 225 – 233; lines 60 - 185
Or
Gertrude’s speech:
“There is a willow grows askant the brook
Act 4; Scene 7; pages 233 – 235; lines 190 - 208
For those of you who are not performers, you can do a story board for Gertrude’s speech. Please divide the monologue into five parts and storyboard for each part.
Page 205
HAMLET
ACT 4, SCENE 5
Importunate: insistent; not to be denied
Her speech is nothing.
Yet the unshaped use of it doth move
The hearers to collection. They aim at it
And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts;
Which, as her winks and nods and gestures yield them,
Indeed would make one think there might be thought
Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.
The gentleman is afraid that the people will hear Ophelia’s psychotic babblings and misconstrue and misinterpret what she is saying and cobble some other meaning onto what she is saying.
Many ancient and indigenous societies believe that the schizophrenic has divine insight and that their speech holds profound wisdom, which is why in some cultures the schizophrenic (or people who we might consider schizophrenic) is elevated to the status of shaman or priest.
Hoar: gray, white, frost, white hair, refers to the age of the person who is described as hoary headed.
Bough: a tree branch
An envious sliver broke: personification
Sliver: a tiny particle of wood
Weeping brook: riverlet
Personification
Mermaid: a mythological creature that was half woman, half fish.
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