Hamlet Subtext

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.

Lord Polonius is informing the Queen on what she has to do in regards to Hamlet and getting information from him.HAMLET
[Within] Mother, mother, mother!
QUEEN GERTRUDE
I'll warrant you,
Fear me not: withdraw, I hear him coming.

Lord Polonius does as the queen tells him and hides behind the arras so that Hamlet will not see him and because he wants to hear the conversation between Hamlet and the Queen.

POLONIUS hides behind the arras
Enter HAMLET
HAMLET
Now, mother, what's the matter?

Hamlet knows that he has been called in to talk because about his behavior but he plays it off like he does not know what is to come of the conversation.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.

In Hamlets eyes he is just in his behavior but the Queen accuses him of offending Claudius.

HAMLET
Mother, you have my father much offended.

Hamlet believes that the Queen is the one that has been doing the offending because she married Claudius right after his father’s death.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.

Both the Queen and Hamlet think that the other character is wrong and has a bad attitude. Neither character sees wrong in their actions.
HAMLET
Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.

Hamlet is letting the Queen know that he thinks she is wrong even though she does not have the same feelings.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Why, how now, Hamlet!
HAMLET
What's the matter now?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Have you forgot me?
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.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Nay, then, I'll set those to you that can speak.

Hamlet and the Queen go back and forth because of their differing viewpoints. Queen Gertrude finds Hamlet to be disrespectful to her especially since she is his mother but Hamlet only gets more angry offensive towards her.
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.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murder me?
Help, help, ho!

Hamlet makes The Queen sit down so that he can further attempt to make her see that her marriage was a wrong action. However, Queen Gertrude becomes frightened by Hamlet and calls out for help knowing that Polonius is behind the arras.

LORD POLONIUS
[Behind] What, ho! help, help, help!
HAMLET
[Drawing] How now! a rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead!
Makes a pass through the arras
LORD POLONIUS
[Behind] O, I am slain!

Hamlet becomes furious that Polonius was present for the whole conversation and in his anger he stabs Polonius with his sward through the arras and kills him. Falls and dies
QUEEN GERTRUDE
O me, what hast thou done?
HAMLET
Nay, I know not:
Is it the king?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!
HAMLET
A bloody deed! almost as bad, good mother,
As kill a king, and marry with his brother.

Hamlet hopes that he has just killed Claudius but finds that it was indeed not him. He then informs his mother of why he has been acting the way he has and why he is so upset with her.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
As kill a king!
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.

Hamlet discovers that it was Polonius that he killed instead of Claudius but does not show sorrow or regret in killing him.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
What have I done, that thou darest wag thy tongue
In noise so rude against me?
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.

The Queen does not understand why Hamlet is being so hostile towards her because she was not the one that killed the King even thought she is getting the sense that Hamlet knows more then she thought. Hamlet gets very mad at the Queen because she does not seem to understand his feelings on how her fast marriage was wrong and shameful.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Ay me, what act,
That roars so loud, and thunders in the index?
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.

Queen Gertrude starts to cry as Hamlet could not longer control his anger and began to yell at her. He does not understand how she could go from his great father to his underachieving uncle, especially by doing it so openly and fast after his father’s death. He his angry with his mother for not seeing the wrong in the whole situation.

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.

Queen Gertrude finally seems to realize some of the wrong in her marriage to Claudius and the pain that she has caused Hamlet.
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,--

Hamlet continues to make her feel bad by making references to her bed being tainted since she has slept in it with both her husbands.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
O, speak to me no more;
These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears;
No more, sweet Hamlet!

Gertrude can not longer handle Hamlets words.

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!
QUEEN GERTRUDE
No more!
HAMLET
A king of shreds and patches,--

Hamlet continues to attack his mother by bashing Claudius and saying that he was not half the man that Hamlet’s father was. Hamlet continues on until he is unexpectedly interrupted by the ghost.
Enter Ghost
Save me, and hover o'er me with your wings,
You heavenly guards! What would your gracious figure?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Alas, he's mad!

Hamlet begins to speak to the ghost even though he is the only one who can see it so consequently the Queen thinks that he is crazy.
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!

Hamlet is worried that the ghost thinks that he is taking to long to kill Claudius.
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.
HAMLET
How is it with you, lady?

The Ghost reminds Hamlet that he has succeeded in making the Queen feel bad and so he has completed his intensions for his visit. Gertrude thinks that Hamlet has gone crazy after seeing him have a conversation with what she thinks is himself for the last few minutes.
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?

At this point Hamlet and his mother are calmly talking with each other as opposed to Hamlet’s previous yelling. Gertrude is trying to understand why Hamlet has been acting so crazy.
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.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
To whom do you speak this?
HAMLET
Do you see nothing there?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.

Hamlet is trying to get the Queen to see the ghost but she cannot because Hamlet does not understand that not everyone can see it. It appears as if she wants to understand Hamlet but she cannot since she cannot see the ghost. Hamlet becomes a bit confused.
HAMLET
Nor did you nothing hear?
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!

Hamlet tries to get the Queen to see the ghost by directing her to it but she cannot see or hear the ghost, to her it is just the two of them in the room. Hamlet tells her that the ghost is his father.
Exit Ghost
QUEEN GERTRUDE
This the very coinage of your brain:
This bodiless creation ecstasy
Is very cunning in.

Gertrude now feels that Hamlet is indeed crazy to the point that he is making up stories about ghosts of his father.
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 does not know why his mother will not believe him and seems to begin to need his mother to trust him. He knows that the ghost is real, Hamlet just wishes that he could prove it to his mother.
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.
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,

The Queen claims that she understand her wrongdoing and wants to fix it. Hamlet is very pleased and asks his mother to forget the struggle they had before in getting her to understand the whole situation. Hamlet says goodnight to his mother. 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.

Hamlet knows that murder is wrong but he feels that it is right to honor his father’s ghost and that he must follow through with killing Claudius. He tells his mother not to return to Claudius since she has realized her wrongs.

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.

The Queen is confused on what to do next and Hamlet tries to assure her that all will be fine if she listens to him and does not give in to or return to Claudius.
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.

The Queen confirms to Hamlet that she will not speak to Claudius about the situation or about Hamlet’s plan. The Queen appears to understand her son and believe that he is right in his motives and actions.