Hamlet Scene

SCENE IV. The Queen's closet.

Enter QUEEN GERTRUDE 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.
Polonius says this in a very hurried tone, anxious to hide for fear of Hamlet. He is firm with the Queen in her orders towards Hamlet in order to make sure he carries out his orders from the King; he stays true to his loyalty to the King.HAMLET
[Within] Mother, mother, mother!
Calls for his mother in a highly sarcastic tone ready for a battle royale of wits against his mother’s wishes for him to accept his father.QUEEN GERTRUDE
I'll warrant you,
Fear me not: withdraw, I hear him coming.
In an anxious tone, also fearful of the possible wrath to ensue from Hamlet. She is loyal to her king, but also vulnerable, this is her son. She braces herself.POLONIUS hides behind the arras
Enter HAMLET
HAMLET
Now, mother, what's the matter?
In a “what’s the matter noooww” attitude. Slightly mocking.QUEEN GERTRUDE
Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.
In a tone that is much belittling.HAMLET
Mother, you have my father much offended.
Heavy emphasis on the “my”. A little bit cheeky and playful in his statement.QUEEN GERTRUDE
Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.
Still in a belittling tone, a little more hasty.HAMLET
Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.
Says this in a slow tone with much emphasis on each word; evil tone.QUEEN GERTRUDE
Why, how now, Hamlet!
She says this hastily with hurt but forcefulness.HAMLET
What's the matter now?
Still maintains his calmness; now belittles his mother.QUEEN GERTRUDE
Have you forgot me?
In a motherly, tender voice with sadness. She tries for one last time to bridge a relationship from the past with her son. She says this in a slight wisper.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.
He says this with emotional bridge and with a tinge of anger as he reminds his mother that she married his uncle. It is told in order to bite at her. First most he refers her as the queen rather than his mother. This is the reason of acting sane towards her instead of paying respect to one’s mother.QUEEN GERTRUDE
Nay, then, I'll set those to you that can speak.
She does not sense the anger or sarcasm in Hamlet’s voice. She resumes the role of Queen and reminds Hamlet that he is indebted to her for she has more power than he does. She gets hold of herself since letting go of her guard obviously did not work on Hamlet. He will not let up.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.
He resumes the upper hand. Playful with an underlying hatred. He is slightly emotional here with flinging arms. Crazy eyes. He has a psychotic look to him with tensed features.QUEEN GERTRUDE
What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murder me?
Help, help, ho!
Vulnerable with arms also flailing with woe and a look as if about to cry. LORD POLONIUS
[Behind] What, ho! help, help, help!
In a shock as if woken from sleep, he shouts with horror.HAMLET
[Drawing] How now! a rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead!
Makes a pass through the arras
In an all too casual tone, he makes believe he is aiding his mother from a far greater beast, a rat. LORD POLONIUS
[Behind] O, I am slain!
In an overly dramatic tone, falls abruptly. Falls and dies
QUEEN GERTRUDE
O me, what hast thou done?
She expresses sympathy and shock towards someone she does not know. She is viewing Hamlet in a new light. He is alien to her. She grasps her bosom as she says this with a sympathetic whisper. HAMLET
Nay, I know not:
Is it the king?
In a joking manner, almost laughing, but a psychotic laugh.QUEEN GERTRUDE
O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!
Still in shock at the event that has just occurred in front of her eyes. She realizes what Hamlet is actually capable of.HAMLET
A bloody deed! almost as bad, good mother,
As kill a king, and marry with his brother.
Without a beat, he snaps back at his mother not even paying Polonius a second glance. In a rollercoaster tone, he gains another point against his mother.QUEEN GERTRUDE
As kill a king!
Grasps her chest as she says this in the utmost shock at this statement which is unpatriotic. Anyone against the King is against the nation which is a great defiance. HAMLET
Ay, lady, 'twas my word.
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.
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.
Belittles the corpse with anger and a tone of teaching a child its lesson of revenge. Hamlet has had his fill of being sensible. He is rash and is proud.QUEEN GERTRUDE
What have I done, that thou darest wag thy tongue
In noise so rude against me?
Ignorant of what Hamlet has been saying all along, still in a sympathetic “poor me” tone. She is impatient.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: 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.
This is said with anger almost to the point of crying. He is so angry that he is on the verge of tears. He looks down at the floor and cannot bear to look at his mother’s face. He is ashamed.QUEEN GERTRUDE
Ay me, what act,
That roars so loud, and thunders in the index?
She says this as if she were saying "What is wrong with you". Like he is sick and twisted for belittling her.
HAMLET
Look here, upon this picture, and on this,
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
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. Look you now, what follows:
Here is your husband; like a mildew'd ear,
Blasting his wholesome brother. 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.
He looks her in the face with a pointed finger. He gets physical and impatient. He does not know how to get through to her. He is frustrated. He is also almost to the verge of crying as he is less angry, but more accepting that she is evil to him. There is no more playfulness as he gets truly emotional, and goes on a tangent. He looks her in the face with occasional glances off into the heavens with his arms floating as well as being forceful. He feels sorrow for himself as being alone. In the beginning; however, he is nostalgic and nicely pointing out the difference between good and evil to a child.
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.
She has had enough. She herself cannot look into the eyes of Hamlet and shakes her head in disapproval at the ground. She has truly had enough, on the verge of tears, she understands…finally. She sees no point to going on, utterly hopeless.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,--
He is not finished. He feels that she cannot feel bad when she is still committing a crime against her dead husband. He cannot feel sorry for her or let her end this argument. He is on a roll. He gives her the right to live but live with hatred of oneself.QUEEN GERTRUDE
O, speak to me no more;
These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears;
No more, sweet Hamlet!
She is utterly hopeless, she tries to convince him that she is being sincere in her act of sorrow. She is disturbed by him, she tries one last time to convince him that she really does feel sad.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!
He uses his words to poke and prod at her heart. He cannot stop this joy he feels with making his mother unhappy. He is psychotic in the look he has for her. He is on a role and cannot let up because if he does he feels as if he has failed. He continues with his jabs at his mother in order to hopefully make a true difference, and ignores the sincere pain he sees in her eyes.QUEEN GERTRUDE
No more!
She yells with tears in her eyes, and violently crying. She is getting physically weaker.HAMLET
A king of shreds and patches,--
He starts out with rambling off but with a sudden pause as he views an ghost-like figure hovering.Enter Ghost
Save me, and hover o'er me with your wings,
You heavenly guards! What would your gracious figure?
He speaks affectionately to the ghost with trusting tones begging for advice. He looks up with his arms flailing. QUEEN GERTRUDE
Alas, he's mad!
She awakes from her crying and stares wide-eyed surprise. She does not move her body or face except to udder these words. She does not take her eyes off Hamlet.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!
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.
He tells him in a nice tone deemed to simply give advice. HAMLET
How is it with you, lady?
Speaks as if nothing previous has occurred. His face is happy but sarcastic. 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?
She throws away the concern for herself, she acts motherly as she tends to his seeing things that are not there. “How am I? How are you!” She confronts him on the psychotic tendencies to view things that are not really there. She shows concern, which might be superficial.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.
He points frustratingly at nothingness. He speaks hurriedly in order to convince his mother of his craziness and plays with her. QUEEN GERTRUDE
To whom do you speak this?
In a cordial tone.
HAMLET
Do you see nothing there?
Shocked, perhaps sarcastic.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.
Confused.
HAMLET
Nor did you nothing hear?
Scared at being the only one to see the ghost.QUEEN GERTRUDE
No, nothing but ourselves.
Serious tone. A final sentence to end the back and forth statements.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!
Speaks dreamily, like a child.
Exit Ghost
QUEEN GERTRUDE
This the very coinage of your brain:
This bodiless creation ecstasy
Is very cunning in.
She speaks as if she has the only perfect explanation. Her face is clear with realism. This all cannot be, it simply cannot.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.
Hamlet is defensive in his tone.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.
She says this as though he has broken her heart. She says this with her head tilted downward with an affectionate glance of self-pity.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.
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
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.
He says this with perfect composure as he says it how it is. He gives her a little bit of hope that he cares for her.QUEEN GERTRUDE
What shall I do?
She says this as though saying, “well what should I do now?” As if there is no other way for her to go about her life unless it is through sin.
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.
He is done with her. He speaks in a cooing tone dripping with sarcasm. He gains anger towards the end.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.
She is speechless and says this in a quiet tone giving him room to let her know that she is still a good person deserving of his love. She wants him badly to be on her side, but eventually realizes that he must never at this point unless she does what he wants her to do. She is utterly conflicted and cannot satisfy anyone.HAMLET
I must to England; you know that?
He laughs at this statement as he is telling it. It is more of a laugh/you know what he is doing to me sort of statement. He feels alienated, and wishes to give her any pity.QUEEN GERTRUDE
Alack,
I had forgot: 'tis so concluded on.
She says this as if this conversation has doled on way too long. Alas, another thing. She hardly gives any emotion towards this statement.HAMLET
There's letters seal'd: and my two schoolfellows,
Whom I will trust as I will adders fang'd,
They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way,
And marshal me to knavery. Let it work;
For 'tis the sport to have the engineer
Hoist with his own petard: and 't shall go hard
But I will delve one yard below their mines,
And blow them at the moon: O, 'tis most sweet,
When in one line two crafts directly meet.
This man shall set me packing:
I'll lug the guts into the neighbour room.
Mother, good night. 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.
Good night, mother.
He says this all matter-of-factly. He states the facts, jokes about Polonius, and affectionately concludes with a goodnight to his mother that he has just yelled at, but now addresses her as if it has been forgotten. This is his life in short. He simply is stating all of the things he must do now, almost as if stating a list jotted down in a planner that makes him bored of things he must now do. What a busy schedule.Exeunt severally; HAMLET dragging in POLONIUS

The song of the Rose

For Zeus chose us a King of the flowers in his mirth,
He would call to the rose, and would royally crown it;
For the rose, ho, the rose! is the grace of the earth,
Is the light of the plants that are growing upon it!
For the rose, ho, the rose! is the eye of the flowers,
Is the blush of the meadows that feel themselves fair,
Is the lightning of beauty that strikes through the bowers
On pale lovers that sit in the glow unaware.
Ho, the rose breathes of love! ho, the rose lifts the cup
To the red lips of Cypris invoked for a guest!
Ho, the rose having curled its sweet leaves for the world
Takes delight in the motion its petals keep up,
As they laugh to the wind as it laughs from the west.

-Sappho

To the cuckoo

O blithe newcomer! I have heard,
I hear thee and rejoice:
O Cuckoo! shall I call thee bird,
Or but a wandering Voice?

While I am lying on the grass
Thy twofold shout I hear;
From hill to hill it seems to pass,
At once far off and near.

Though babbling only to the vale
Of sunshine and of flowers,
Thou bringest unto me a tale
Of visionary hours.

Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring!
Even yet thou art to me
No bird, but an invisible thing,
A voice, a mystery;

The same whom in my schoolboy days
I listened to; that Cry
Which made me look a thousand ways
In bush, and tree, and sky.

To seek thee did I often rove
Through woods and on the green;
And thou wert still a hope, a love;
Still longed for, never seen!

And I can listen to thee yet;
Can lie upon the plain
And listen, till I do beget
That golden time again.

O blessed birth! the earth we pace
Again appears to be
An unsubstantial, fairy place,
That is fit home for Thee!

-William Wordsworth

She walks in Beauty

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!
-Lord Byron

Cinderella

The prince leans to the girl in scarlet heels,
Her green eyes slant, hair flaring in a fan
Of silver as the rondo slows; now reels
Begin on tilted violins to span

The whole revolving tall glass palace hall
Where guests slide gliding into light like wine;
Rose candles flicker on the lilac wall
Reflecting in a million flagons' shine,

And glided couples all in whirling trance
Follow holiday revel begun long since,
Until near twelve the strange girl all at once
Guilt-stricken halts, pales, clings to the prince

As amid the hectic music and cocktail talk
She hears the caustic ticking of the clock.

Sylvia Plath

Cinderella

The prince leans to the girl in scarlet heels,
Her green eyes slant, hair flaring in a fan
Of silver as the rondo slows; now reels
Begin on tilted violins to span

The whole revolving tall glass palace hall
Where guests slide gliding into light like wine;
Rose candles flicker on the lilac wall
Reflecting in a million flagons' shine,

And glided couples all in whirling trance
Follow holiday revel begun long since,
Until near twelve the strange girl all at once
Guilt-stricken halts, pales, clings to the prince

As amid the hectic music and cocktail talk
She hears the caustic ticking of the clock.

Sylvia Plath