Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Hamlet meets with the actors and instructs them as to the nature of proper acting. He tells them not to overact, and not to use large gestures. He wishes them to be honest; he asks them to mirror nature, to be entirely realistic in their portrayals. Polonius enters and announces the arrival of the King and Queen to hear the play.

While the court assembles for the performance, Hamlet explains to Horatio how the play will help prove the Ghost’s honesty and reveal Claudius’ perfidy. He asks Horatio to watch the King and note his reaction to a specific speech in Murder of Gonzago. If the play does not reveal Claudius as the killer, Hamlet promises Horatio that he will admit to having seen a “damnèd ghost” rather than the honest spirit of his late father. Horatio, Hamlet’s faithful friend, assures his Prince that he will follow Hamlet’s instructions to the letter.

As the courtiers enter the hall, Claudius greets his nephew and asks how Hamlet is, and Hamlet gives a cryptic response. Then Hamlet and Polonius exchange a few words, and Polonius brags about having been murdered by Brutus when he played Julius Caesar in his student days. Hamlet derides Polonius, but Gertrude interrupts to invite her son to sit beside her. Hamlet chooses instead to lie down at Ophelia’s feet. He converses a bit with Ophelia before the dumb show—a pantomime—begins, and she mistakes his manic behavior for merriness. The dumb show mimes the following: A man murders a king while he is sleeping in his garden, and his loving wife, initially inconsolable over the king’s death, marries the usurper, who has crowned himself king.

When the dumb show ends, the players perform the actual play, which depicts the same plot as the pantomime. An intermission follows the Player Queen’s declaration that she will never remarry should the Player King die. Hamlet seizes the moment to ask Gertrude what she thinks of the play, and Gertrude answers that she is enjoying the play but that the “Lady doth protest too much.”

Claudius asks Hamlet for the play’s title, to which Hamlet replies, The Mousetrap. He says that the play presents the true story of a murder carried out in Vienna. He explains the action of the play, and Ophelia congratulates Hamlet for his story-telling skill. Hamlet makes a crude pun, suggesting that he could interpret the actions of Ophelia and her lover if he could watch them. Ophelia accuses him of being keen (cruel), and Hamlet responds with another sexual innuendo. Hearing the word keen to mean sexually eager, he tells her she would have to work hard to relieve his sexual urges. Ophelia laughs that he is wittier than she, but more indecent. Hamlet says that women take their husbands for better or worse but then they deceive them.

As Lucianus, the Player King’s nephew, pours poison in the ears of the sleeping Player King, Hamlet explains that the murderer will presently win the love of the dead Player King’s widow. Claudius rises and calls for lights to be lit. Polonius repeats the order for the lights and stops the play. The King and his court exit, leaving Hamlet and Horatio to debrief. The two agree that the King’s reaction implicates him in the murder of King Hamlet, and Hamlet says he is now convinced of the Ghost’s trustworthiness.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern enter and tell him that the King is displeased and the Queen wants Hamlet to join her in her quarters. Hamlet promises to obey. When a Player enters carrying a recorder, Hamlet seizes the opportunity to make an off-color allusion to Guildenstern’s manhood and to chide him for being manipulative. Polonius enters and instructs Hamlet to visit his mother. Hamlet toys with Polonius, pretending to see shapes that do not exist, and then he asks that everyone leave him alone.

Hamlet observes that the dark time of night has come, when spirits and goblins rise from hell to spread their “Contagion to this world.” Incensed by the hour and the events of the evening, Hamlet claims that he is ready to perform the task that duty demands—to “be cruel.” First he will go to his mother and rebuke her, but he will not harm her. He then chides himself because his words are at war with his soul.

Commentary

Critics traditionally regard Scene 2 as more of a glimpse into Shakespeare’s theatrical world than insight into Hamlet. Indeed, the first 50 lines do relate how Shakespeare interpreted an actor’s job, and what he expected of his actors. We know that he advocated a natural style of acting rather than the declamatory style—a style of acting in which players use large gestures such as “sawing the air” and exagerrated motion in conjunction with consistently loud line readings. We also know that he advocated that actors take their direction from the script.

In addition to a primer on acting, however, Scene 2 reveals a great deal about Hamlet’s psycho-emotional makeup. Still imprisoned by words and surrounded by staging, acting, and seeming, Hamlet now directs his own world, if only for a moment. Ensuring that the play be “as ‘t were the mirror up to nature” is critical so that Claudius will not miss seeing his own reflection in the Player King’s murderous nephew. Were the actors to fail to “suit the actor to the word,” were they “too tame” or too cruel, then Claudius might dismiss the tragedy as mere melodrama. The “whirlwind of passion” would negate true feeling, and Claudius’ conscience would miss its examination.

Hamlet’s instructions to the actors also serve to demonstrate how well Hamlet is prepared to play his role, to put on his antic disposition. Hamlet clearly possesses an actor’s sensibility and understands that, in order to sell a performance an actor must become his role. This insight into Hamlet’s psyche may provide one answer to the question that people most often raise concerning Hamlet’s character: Is he truly mad, or is he truly acting? This scene confirms the possibility that Hamlet represents an actor who plays his role so well that he loses himself in the role and becomes what he pretends to be. What begins as an antic disposition becomes his hopeless, true self.

We can see Hamlet’s instructions to the actors from a third angle as well. In his world of deception and betrayal, Hamlet recognizes the need to exercise reason and caution, and to remain aloof from blind passion. Thus he can again justify his inaction and validate his slow approach to avenging his father’s murder. He must assure himself once more that this is his father’s spirit and not a demon from hell. Hence, he informs Horatio of the plan so that he has a man who is “not passion’s slave” to observe the King and confirm his reactions. Identifying the Ghost’s validity is critical. Should it prove itself a demon, Hamlet’s worst fears would be warranted, and Claudius may be blameless.

While waiting, Claudius asks after Hamlet’s health, and Hamlet answers in seeming madness: “Excellent, i’faith, of the chameleon’s dish: I eat the air, promise-crammed. You cannot feed capons so.” Claudius is nearly speechless in response to Hamlet’s answer. Hamlet has accused him of having emasculated (capons) and disinherited his nephew, and all he can say is, “I have nothing with this answer Hamlet, these words are not mine.” He has all but said a childish, “Oh, shut up.”

Polonius then diverts all attention with tales of his fleeting career as an actor playing Julius Caesar while at the university.

Besides the obvious thematic threads illuminated by the literary allusion to Shakespeare’s earlier play, the reference to Julius Caesar contains theatrical historical merit. An allusion to a play often provides a glimpse into the season during which a play was premiered. The actor playing Polonius was undoubtedly playing Julius Caesar at the same time in a concurrent production of Julius Caesar. By studying the character of Julius Caesar, an actor can extrapolate information helpful for Polonius’ character development, and we can learn that Polonius is not merely the buffoon that he is conventionally portrayed to be.

Hamlet sits by Ophelia and asks to put his head in her lap, a request that is demeaning in public while at the same time indicating that the two have a far more intimate relationship than has been indicated thus far. Ophelia seems pleased with his attention and says, “You are merry, my lord.” Hamlet’s cynicism reemerges, and he again casts aspersions at his mother. Once again he convinces everyone that he is mad.

Ophelia’s question, “What means this, my lord?” reflects the fact that the guests did not expect a dumb show. Dumb shows no longer preceded tragedies by the time of Hamlet’s first production, and Shakespeare’s desire to include one baffles critics. Perhaps Shakespeare thought it clarified elements of the story that he needed in order to heighten the intensity of contrast between the play and the play within the play.

Whatever the reason for the dumb show, the actual speaking play follows, and Claudius remains unperturbed until the Player King actually pours the poison in his brother’s ear. He then jumps up in a moment of heightened drama and, after his courtiers notice him, he shouts, “Give me some lights.” The King has sprung Hamlet’s Mousetrap; Claudius’ own revulsion to The Murder of Gonzago catches him. Hamlet’s mission now becomes obligatory. Not only does he know he must avenge his father’s death, but Horatio also knows—and the entire court may now suspect foul play in the death of their former king, so that no his inaction is unmanly. Hamlet must act decisively and immediately.

And yet, Hamlet keeps talking. He volleys words about his unlikely succession to Claudius’ throne with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Finally he agrees to visit Gertrude. Before he goes, however, he postures yet again with words. He says that he has reached another midnight and that the dark nature of that witching hour makes him bloodthirsty and makes him desire to decisively take action. But the audience knows better. Hamlet is still not ready to commit to action.

Hamlet’s short soliloquy is often used to support the Freudian interpretation of Hamlet’s relationship to his mother. Here he speaks of going to her softly, worried that he will not be strong enough to speak his piece. “O heart, lose not thy nature. . . .” Having just assessed his feelings in the language of a traditional revenger in Elizabethan melodrama, Hamlet turns his attention to Gertrude whom he goes to confront as though she were an offending wife to his cuckold.

Glossary