Hamlet immediately begins cursing himself, bitterly commenting that the player of the previous scene was able to summon a depth of feeling and expression for Hecuba, a mythological figure who means nothing to him, while Hamlet himself is unable to take action even with his far more powerful motives–for despite his encounter with the ghost, he has not taken revenge upon Claudius. He says that he will devise a trap for Claudius, forcing the king to watch a play that closely resembles the plot of his murder of Hamlet’s father; if the king is guilty, he thinks, he will surely show some visible sign of guilt when he sees his sin re-enacted on stage. By this method, Hamlet reasons, he will obtain definitive proof of Claudius’s guilt, and will have even stronger grounds on which to take his revenge. “The plays the thing,” he declares, “wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.”
Commentary
In this section, the characters become more complex (Polonius, the loving father, begins to spy on his son; Hamlet, the thoughtful prince, seems to lose his mind), the plots thicken (Polonius begins to suspect that Hamlet’s madness is due to his love of Ophelia; the king and queen hire Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to ferret out the cause of the prince’s strange behavior), and the minds and motives of the characters become much more difficult to discern. Polonius seems by turns a doddering, pompous fool and a sinister manipulator (and has been played onstage as both). Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are in many ways baffling characters: they seem completely undifferentiated from one another, completely ineffective for the king and queen’s purposes, and completely transparent to Hamlet; yet they are treated as significant characters–they appear throughout the play, and the news of their deaths is the final tragedy at the end of Act V. Finally, the plot is complicated by the question of Hamlet’s madness, which, of course, has been the source of enduring critical controversy.
If Hamlet is merely pretending to be mad, as he suggests, he does almost too good a job at it; his portrayal is so convincing that many critics have believed that his already-fragile sanity shatters at the sight of his dead father’s ghost. Given the acute and cutting observations he makes while supposedly mad (and which this “madness” allows him to get away with), it seems unlikely that Hamlet is actually mad. But he is certainly confused and mentally disordered, and his confusion translates into an extraordinarily intense, searching quality of mind that lends authenticity to his portrayal of a madman. In other words, Hamlet’s decision to play a madman is a sane one, designed to confuse his enemies and hide his intentions as he moves toward avenging his father. But his mental state takes him to the very edge of sanity, and makes his portrayal of madness entirely convincing. He may know a “hawk from a handsaw,” but the very fact that his mind would select those two elements as items to compare indicates a trauma-induced eccentricity.
Act III, Scenes iii-iv
Elsewhere in the castle, King Claudius speaks to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Still shaken by the play and now considering Hamlet’s madness to be dangerous, Claudius asks the pair to escort Hamlet on a voyage to England, and to depart immediately. They agree, and leave to ready themselves. Polonius enters, and reminds the king of his plan to hide in Gertrude’s room and observe Hamlet’s confrontation with her. He promises to tell Claudius all that he learns. When Polonius leaves, the king is alone, and he immediately bewails his guilt and grief over his sin. A brother’s murder, he says, is the oldest sin, and “hath the eldest curse upon’t.” He longs to ask for forgiveness, but says that he is unprepared to give up that which he gained by committing the murder–namely, the crown and the queen. He falls to his knees and begins to pray.
Hamlet slips quietly into the room, and steels himself to kill the unseeing Claudius. Suddenly he realizes that if he kills the king while he is praying, he will send the king’s soul to heaven–which is hardly an adequate revenge, especially since Claudius, by killing Hamlet’s father before he had time to make his last confession, ensured that his brother would not go to heaven. Hamlet decides to wait, resolving to kill Claudius when he is sinning–when he is drunk, angry, or lustful. He leaves; Claudius rises and declares that he has been unable to pray sincerely. (”My words fly up, my thoughts remain below…”)
In Gertrude’s chamber, Polonius urges the queen to be harsh with Hamlet when he arrives, taking him to task for his recent behavior. Gertrude agrees, and Polonius hides behind an arras, or tapestry, to watch. Hamlet storms into the room and asks his mother why she has sent for him. She says that he has offended his father, meaning his stepfather, Claudius; he interrupts her, and says that she has offended his father, meaning the dead King Hamlet. Hamlet accosts her with an almost violent intensity, and declares his intention to make her fully aware of the profundity of her sin. Fearing for her life, Gertrude calls for help; from behind the arras, Polonius cries out. Crying “How now! a rat?”, Hamlet draws his sword and stabs it through the tapestry, killing the unseen Polonius. Gertrude asks what Hamlet has done, and he replies, “Nay, I know not: / Is it the king?” The queen says his action was a “rash and bloody” deed, and Hamlet replies that it was almost as rash and bloody as murdering a king and marrying his brother. Disbelieving, the queen asks, “As kill a king?” and Hamlet replies that she heard him correctly.
Hamlet lifts the arras and discovers Polonius’s body. He bids the old man farewell, and turns to his mother, declaring that he will wring her heart. He shows her a picture of the dead king, and a picture of the current king, and bitterly comments on the superiority of his father to his uncle; he asks her furiously what has driven her to marry a rotten man such as Claudius, and she pleads with him to stop his speech, saying that he has turned her eyes onto her soul, and that she does not like what she sees there. Hamlet continues to excoriate her and rail against Claudius, until suddenly, the ghost appears before him.
Hamlet speaks to the apparition, but Gertrude is unable to see it, and believes him to be mad. The ghost intones that it has come to remind Hamlet of his purpose; noting that Gertrude is amazed and unable to see him, the ghost asks Hamlet to intercede with her. Hamlet describes the ghost, but Gertrude sees nothing, and in a moment the ghost disappears. Hamlet tries desperately to convince Gertrude that he is not mad, but has merely feigned madness all along, and urges her to forsake Claudius and regain her good conscience. He urges her as well not to reveal to Claudius that his madness has been an act. Gertrude agrees to keep his secret. He bids her goodnight, but before he leaves he points to Polonius’s corpse and declares that heaven has “punished me with this and this with me.” Hamlet reminds his mother that he must sail to England with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, whom he says he will trust as fully as though they were venomous snakes. Dragging Polonius’s body behind him, Hamlet leaves his mother’s room.
Commentary
Again, the limitations of theological law prevent Hamlet from taking action. Finally psychologically ready to kill Claudius, Hamlet is thwarted by his realization that doing so would send his uncle to heaven, while Claudius’s murder of Hamlet’s father sent him to hell. In the same way, Hamlet has curtailed his desire to commit suicide based on a fear of religious punishment in the afterlife. These invocations of apparently arbitrary theological rules would seem abstract and haphazard, were it not for the actual presence of the hell-tormented ghost to prove their validity. In light of the presence of the ghost, the rules of theology become legitimated commentaries on the theme of retribution and justice–just as Hamlet must kill Claudius to punish him for his father’s death, he cannot kill himself for fear of similar punishment.
Hamlet is determined that, just as Claudius hurt his father on both the natural and supernatural levels, he must not only murder Claudius but send him to hell as well, effectively achieving revenge for eternity. Strangely out of place in all this theology is the idea that the revenge Hamlet seeks is itself anti- Christian. This problem is never explored in the play, which exhibits a far more Old-Testament vision of theological law–except in the scene of Claudius’s prayer.
Hamlet’s confrontation with his mother gives Shakespeare the chance to explore and dispose of the moral problem of Gertrude in one fell swoop: in powerful, passionate language, Hamlet sums up Gertrude’s crimes and shows her the way to salvation (which she will refuse to take). Again, his pretense of madness verges on the real thing; and again, his family relationship is revealed to be terribly damaged and probably irreparable. When the ghost appears before Hamlet and his mother, their nuclear family is reunited–but what a bitter reunion! Gertrude is unable even to see her husband, and believes that her son is mad for speaking to him.
Act IV, Scenes i-iv
Summary
Gertrude goes to Claudius, who is in conference with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and asks to speak to him alone. She tells him that Hamlet is as mad as the sea during a violent storm, and tells Claudius that Hamlet has killed Polonius. Aghast, the king calls Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, tells them about the murder, and sends them to find Hamlet.
Elsewhere in the castle, Hamlet, alone, comments that Polonius’s body has been “safely stowed”; Rosencrantz and Guildenstern come upon him, and ask what he has done with the corpse. Hamlet refuses to give them a straight answer, instead saying “The body is with the king, but the king is not with the body.” He calls Rosencrantz a “sponge… that soaks up the king’s countenance, his rewards, his authorities.” Rosencrantz and Guildenstern escort him to Claudius.
The king is speaking to a group of attendants, telling them of Polonius’s death and his intention to send Hamlet to England. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern appear with Hamlet, who is under guard. Pressed by Claudius to reveal the location of Polonius’s body, Hamlet is by turns mad, coy, and clever, saying that Polonius is being eaten by worms, and that the king could send a messenger to find him in heaven–or to seek him in hell himself. Finally Hamlet reveals that Polonius’s body is under the stairs near the lobby, and the king dispatches his attendants to look there. The king tells Hamlet that he must leave at once for England, and Hamlet enthusiastically agrees; he exits, and Claudius sends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to ensure that he boards the ship at once. Alone, Claudius expresses urgently his wish that England will obey the sealed orders he sends with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern–which, he reveals, call for Prince Hamlet to be put to death.
On a nearby plain in Denmark, young Prince Fortinbras marches at the head of his army, traveling through Denmark on the way to attack Poland. Fortinbras orders his captain to go and ask the King of Denmark for permision to travel through is lands. On his way, the captain encounters Hamlet, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern, and informs them that the Norwegian army rides to fight the Poles. Hamlet asks about the basis of the conflict, and the man tells him that the armies will fight over “a little patch of land / That hath in it no profit but the name.” Astonished by the news, Hamlet marvels over how human beings could act so violently and purposefully for so little gain. (In comparison, he still delays his violent action, while he has everything to gain.) Disgusted with himself for having failed to gain his revenge on Claudius, Hamlet declares that from this moment on, his thoughts will be bloody.
Commentary
Hamlet’s killing of Polonius in the previous section is one of the most morally disturbing moments in the play. If it was possible before to consider Hamlet a “hero” or an idealized version of a human being, it is not possible after he kills Polonius. The trait that constantly interferes with his ability to take revenge on Claudius–his inactive, reflective nature–here disappears in favor of its violent obverse: a rash, murderous explosion of activity. Hamlet leaps to the conclusion that Claudius is behind the arras, or else he simply lashes out thoughtlessly. In any case, Hamlet’s moral superiority to Claudius is now thrown into question–he has done to Polonius just as Claudius did to the former king, the only difference being that Hamlet’s murder was not premeditated. (The other mitigating factor–the fact that Polonius was dishonestly spying on Hamlet at the moment when he was killed–seems to be what Hamlet falls back on to ease his conscience, as when he declares “Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!”) But the end-result of Hamlet’s deed is very similar to Claudius’s: Laertes and Ophelia have lost a father, just as Hamlet himself did.
In any event, the murder of Polonius and his subsequent traumatic encounter with his mother seem to leave Hamlet in a frantic, unstable frame of mind: he taunts Claudius, toward whom his hostility is now barely disguised; makes light of Polonius’s murder by playing word-games about it; and pretends to be madly thrilled at the idea of sailing for England with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Of course, on some level he is prepared for what is to come; his farewell to his mother proved that, when he told her that he would trust his old schoolfellows as if they were “adders fang’d.” But although Hamlet suspects his old friends’ treachery, he may not fully realize the malevolence of Claudius’s designs for him: Claudius’s subterfuge in asking the English to execute Hamlet reveals the extent to which he now fears Hamlet, and to which he is now caught up in the inexorable logic of their situation: whether Hamlet is sane or mad, he is a danger to Claudius, and Claudius wishes him to die.
Hamlet’s encounter with the Norwegian captain serves to remind the reader of Fortinbras’s presence in the world of the play, and gives Hamlet another example of the will to action that he lacks. Earlier, he was amazed by the player’s evocation of powerful feeling for Hecuba, a woman who meant nothing to him; now, he is as awestruck by the willingness of Fortinbras to devote the energy of an entire army, probably wasting hundreds of lives and even risking his own, to reclaim a worthless scrap of land in Poland. Hamlet seems to be able to understand the moral ambiguity of Fortinbras’s action, but more than anything else he is simply impressed by the forcefulness of it; and that forcefulness becomes a kind of ideal toward which Hamlet decides at last to strive. “My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!” he declares; of course, he fails to put this exclamation into action, as he has failed at every previous turn to achieve his revenge on Claudius. “My thoughts be bloody,” Hamlet says; it is telling that he does not say “My deeds.”
Act IV, Scenes v-vii
Summary
Hamlet has sailed for England; Polonius has been buried in near secrecy to prevent outrage among the Danish people. At Elsinore, Gertrude refuses to speak to Ophelia; but Horatio convinces her that she should. Ophelia enters, adorned with flowers and singing strange songs; she seems to have gone mad. Claudius enters, and hears Ophelia’s ravings (”They say the owl was a baker’s daughter…”). He says that Ophelia’s grief stems from her father’s death, and that the people have been “muddied, / Thick and unwholesome in their thoughts and whispers / For good Polonius’ death.” He also says that Laertes has secretly sailed back from France.
A loud noise echoes from somewhere in the castle. Claudius calls for his guards, and a gentleman enters to warn the king that Laertes has come with a mob of commoners who call him “lord,” and who say, “Laertes shall be king.” Infuriated, Laertes storms into the hall, fuming in his desire to avenge his father’s death. Claudius attempts to soothe him, but Gertrude protests her husband’s innocence, and when Ophelia re-enters, visibly insane, Laertes plunges again into rage. Claudius claims that he is not responsible for Polonius’s death, and says that Laertes’s desire for revenge does him credit–so long as he seeks revenge upon the proper person. Claudius convinces Laertes to hear his version of events, which he says will answer all his questions. Laertes agrees, and Claudius seconds his desire to make right on Polonius’s death: “Where the offence is let the great axe fall.”
In another part of the castle, Horatio is introduced to a pair of sailors bearing a letter for him from Hamlet. In the letter, Hamlet says that his ship was captured by pirates, who have returned him to Denmark. He asks Horatio to escort the sailors to the king and queen, for they have messages for them as well. He also says that he has much to tell of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Horatio takes the sailors to the king, and then follows them to find Hamlet.
In the meantime, Claudius and a calmer Laertes discuss Polonius’s death. Claudius explains that he acted as he did–that is, burying Polonius secretly and not punishing Hamlet for the murder–because both the common people and the queen love Hamlet very much, and he did not wish to upset either of them, as a king and as a husband. A messenger enters with the letter from Hamlet to Claudius, which informs the king that Hamlet will return tomorrow. Laertes is pleased that Hamlet has come back to Denmark, and that his revenge will not be delayed. Claudius agrees that Laertes deserves to be revenged upon Hamlet. He recalls that Hamlet has been jealous in the past of Laertes’s prowess with a sword, recently praised to all the court by a Frenchman who had seen him in combat. The king speculates that if Hamlet could be tempted into a duel with Laertes, it might provide Laertes with the chance to kill him. Laertes agrees, and they settle on a plan: Laertes will use a sharpened sword rather than a dull fencing-blade as is the custom. Laertes also proposes to poison his sword, so that even a scratch from it will kill Hamlet. The king concocts a back-up plan as well: if Hamlet succeeds in the duel, the king will offer him a poisoned cup of wine to drink from.