EPISODE 115 - THIS MAD YOUNG MAN

TEXT:

ACT IV

SCENE I. A room in the castle.

Enter CLAUDIUS, GERTRUDE, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN

CLAUDIUS
There's matter in these sighs, these profound heaves:
You must translate: 'tis fit we understand them.
Where is your son?

GERTRUDE
Bestow this place on us a little while.

Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN

Ah, my good lord, what have I seen to-night!

CLAUDIUS
What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?

GERTRUDE
Mad as the sea and wind, when both contend
Which is the mightier: in his lawless fit,
Behind the arras hearing something stir,
Whips out his rapier, cries, 'A rat, a rat!'
And, in this brainish apprehension, kills
The unseen good old man.

CLAUDIUS
O heavy deed!
It had been so with us, had we been there:
His liberty is full of threats to all;
To you yourself, to us, to every one.
Alas, how shall this bloody deed be answered?
It will be laid to us, whose providence
Should have kept short, restrained and out of haunt,
This mad young man: but so much was our love,
We would not understand what was most fit;
But, like the owner of a foul disease,
To keep it from divulging, let it feed
Even on the pith of Life. Where is he gone?

Episode 114 - HOIST ON HIS OWN PETARD

TEXT:

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.

HAMLET
I must to England; you know that?

GERTRUDE
Alack,
I had forgot: 'tis so concluded on.

HAMLET
There's letters sealed: and my two schoolfellows,
Whom I will trust as I will adders fanged,
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.

Exeunt severally; HAMLET dragging in POLONIUS

NOTES:

Gertrude in the First Quarto
A major difference between the various texts of Hamlet is that in the First Quarto, Gertrude is substantially more on Hamlet’s side. As of this moment in the play, she agrees to “conceal, consent and do my best, what stratagem so’ever thou shalt devise”. Obviously there’s a lifetime of study and investigation available to those who would enjoy combing through the textual differences between the various versions of this play, but it’s worth noting big changes like this when they crop up!

Hoist on his own Petard
Hamlet’s image of a bomb-maker being blown up by his own bomb is famous to us nowadays because the words are perpetually tied to each other. It’s actually a very bathetic image. The word petard came from French, and is derived from the French word for a fart. It’s surely no accident that it’s a kind of fart-bomb that Hamlet uses to describe Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s potential failure.

William Cecil, Lord Burghley
William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley (13 September 1520 – 4 August 1598) was an English statesman, and the chief advisor of Queen Elizabeth I for most of her reign. When she was crowned queen in 1558, he was made her secretary. He stayed in her service until his death, and in that time he served twice as Secretary of State (1550–53 and 1558–72) and thereafter became Lord High Treasurer from 1572 until he died in 1598. His son Robert had an equally impressive political career that spanned the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I.

Episode 113 - I Must be Cruel only to be kind

TEXT:

HAMLET (continued)
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:
This bad begins and worse remains behind.
One word more, good lady.

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 damned 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.

NOTES:

Freud and Hamlet
Freud’s identified and named the Oedipus Complex after the mythical Greek character who killed his father and married his mother. In Freud’s analysis, it is a frequent pattern, and he suggests that Hamlet presents similar characteristics. Obviously Hamlet’s father is already dead, but he does have a father-figure in Claudius, who has himself supplanted Hamlet’s father in his mother’s bed. In this scene, there’s a terrible violence to the interaction between son and mother, and some productions do choose to highlight a sexual tension between them. Freudian scholars certainly would have much to say on the matter.

Witches and Familiars
Bats, cats and frogs were all animals that might be associated with witches and witchcraft. Shakespeare’s England was in constant fear of witches and the devil - a dark fascination that spread with the English communities that made their homes in the new world of the Americas. One sign of a witch was always that she would have an extra nipple somewhere on her body, from which she would give suck to her satanic familiar - often the kinds of small animals that Hamlet mentions here.

The Famous Ape
I’m afraid I have no helpful information on this very obscure image. Perhaps there was an apocryphal story of an ape that behaved like this, known to Shakespeare and his original audience. No more than the cat in the adage that gets a passing reference in Macbeth, this famous ape is no longer known to us…

EPISODE 112 - That monster, custom

Text:

HAMLET (continued)

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 tonight,
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 [shame? ] the devil, or throw him out
With wondrous potency. Once more, good night:
And when you are desirous to be blessed,
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.

Notes:

Hendiadys
Hendiadys (Greek for 'one through two') is a figure of speech whereby two ideas are combined to form a single image. A very simple example is a describing a cup of tea as "nice and hot". It features a great deal in the Bible, and indeed there are over sixty examples of it in Hamlet alone.

Confession
Confession was one of the sacraments that were no longer in use by the emergent Protestant church in England. Hamlet is a play that seems to straddle the divide between England’s Catholic past and Protestant future - here Hamlet is suggesting that Gertrude should repent her sins and maybe take the sacrament of confession, endeavouring to sin no more. Once she is prepared to do so, and thereby be blessed by a priest, he will be prepared to ask for her blessing again.

Quarto | Folio
Shakespeare's plays were printed in a variety of different printing formats. Some plays (Hamlet included) were first printed as quartos, or books in which the paper is folded in half twice, creating a smaller book. (Quarto because the page was folded into four smaller pages...) In 1623 the plays were edited and published as a folio, in which the pages are folded in half once. This volume, the First Folio, was put together by two actors, John Heminges and Henry Condell. The First Folio contains all of the canonical plays by Shakespeare with the exception of Pericles. Nonetheless, the Folio omits this segment of the text, so we have no way of knowing for sure just what word originally sat in the line we discussed this week. ‘Shame’ will have to suffice!

Episode 111 - Flattering Unction

TEXT:

HAMLET
Ecstasy!
My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time,
And makes as healthful music: it is not madness
That I have uttered: 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.

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.

NOTES:

Metre
As an exercise, try counting out the syllables in each line - you’ll find the rhythm very easily, as it is deliberately recognisable - since Hamlet is using it to calm Gertrude. dee-DUM, dee-DUM, dee-DUM, dee-DUM, dee-DUM. Five feet, ten beats or syllables. Once you get the hang of this, you have unlocked the music of every line of Shakespeare’s verse. Everything else is some kind of ornament - and in the passage below you’ll find a particularly interesting set of them. In this text Shakespeare displays his great mastery of metre. Just as Hamlet is trying to convince Gertrude that his pulse is steady and that he isn’t mad, the rhythm of the text does the same thing. It is amazingly constructed. Madness goes from a sticking point to part of the flow of conversation, and indeed it is replaced.

My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time,
And makes as healthful music: it is not madness (2 extra syllables)
That I have uttered: bring me to the test,
And I the matter will re-word; which madness (1 extra syllable)
Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,
Lay not that mattering unction to your soul,
That not your trespass, but my madness speaks: (no extra)
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place,
Whilst rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven; (1 extra syllable)
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; (1 extra syllable)
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.

EPISODE 110 - The Very Coinage of your Brain

TEXT:

HAMLET
On him, on him! Look you, how pale he glares!
His form and cause conjoined, 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.

GERTRUDE
To whom do you speak this?

HAMLET
Do you see nothing there?

GERTRUDE
Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.

HAMLET
Nor did you nothing hear?

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!

Exit Ghost

GERTRUDE
This the very coinage of your brain:
This bodiless creation ecstasy
Is very cunning in.

NOTES:

Ecstasy
Ecstasy is defined as the state of having transcended normal emotions. It comes from the Greek for ‘stepping out’ of oneself - Gertrude here is understandably concerned that Hamlet has gone out of his mind.

Fratricide Punished
Fratricide Punished, or The Tragedy of Fratricide Punished: or Prince Hamlet of Denmark, is the (translated) name of a German-language play. We do not know who wrote it, or when. It is a German variant of the story of Hamlet, but we don’t know if it is necessarily based on Shakespeare’s version - or on Shakespeare’s version alone. Fratricide Punished was first published in 1781 and translated to English by Georgina Archer in 1865. It seems that the original manuscript is lost, and so all approaches to the text must happen at something of a remove. While there are elements of the story of Hamlet that feature in it, it is a curiosity that would interest only the most serious Hamlet-o-phile.

EPISODE 109 - Thy Almost Blunted Purpose

TEXT:

HAMLET (continued)
A king of shreds and patches…

Enter Ghost

Save me, and hover o'er me with your wings,
You heavenly guards! What would your gracious figure?

GERTRUDE
Alas, he's mad!

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.

HAMLET
How is it with you, lady?

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?

NOTES:

Ghosts in Shakespeare
John Mullan's very helpful article on ghosts in Shakespeare is available from the British Library website - click here. 

Motley is the patterned style of clothing usually worn by medieval court fools. Shreds and patches - from Shakespeare to Gilbert and Sullivan - are a clear suggestion of motley.

Episode 108 - Stewed in Corruption

TEXT:

HAMLET (continued)
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.

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.

HAMLET
Nay, but to live
In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed,
Stewed in corruption, honeying and making love
Over the nasty sty,

GERTRUDE
O, speak to me no more;
These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears;
No more, sweet Hamlet!

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!

GERTRUDE
No more!

NOTES:

Amleth (Also written as Amlethus, or, in Icelandic, Amlóði) is a figure from Scandinavian legend, and is the foundational myth that led to Shakespeare’s version of the story in Hamlet.  The main source for the legend of Amleth is Saxo Grammaticus, who writes the story in his 13h century work, the Acts of the Danes - or Gesta Danorum.

Motley is the patterned style of clothing usually worn by medieval court fools.

Episode 107 - Shame Where is thy Blush

TEXT:

HAMLET (continued)
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?

NOTES:

Pharoah’s Dream
In the Book of Genesis, Pharoah has a dream in which he sees seven fat cows and seven healthy ears of corn consumed by thinner - or mildewed - leaner cows and corn. Happily Joseph, exiled from Canaan after his brothers sold him into slavery and then imprisoned thanks to the machinations of the wife of Potiphar, is brought in to interpret the dreams and he becomes a valued member of the pharoah’s court.

The First Quarto is an early text of the play, and is at least 1500 lines shorter than the better-established texts known as Q2 (the Second Quarto) and F1 (the First Folio). It was all but lost until the splendidly-named Sir Henry Bunbury found a copy of it in the 1820s, and the text has provoked intense debate for nearly 200 years. Since the text is significantly different to the more familiar versions of Q2 and F1, I refer to it only when there are especially illuminating passages worth mentioning. It was given the full scholarly treatment by the excellent Arden Shakespeare in 2007, when as part of the 3rd Series it was printed in its own right, alongside the F1 text. You can find more details of that edition by clicking here.

Vulcan was the blacksmith of the gods, associated with his Greek equivalent Hephaistus. He created Mercury’s magical sandals, and was responsible for a variety of other gifts. He was unhappily married to Venus, and was notoriously ugly and even deformed in some versions of his story.

Hey-Day
Hamlet means something like ‘high spirits’ or vigorous activity here. Our sense of hey-day as the zenith of vigour or capacity emerged a little later, but can still impart some meaning to the phrase.

Hoodman’s Blind
Versions of Blind Man’s Buff, or Marco Polo, or as Hamlet calls it ‘Hoodman’s Blind’ appear in playgrounds or swimming pools all over the world and throughout history. According to wikipedia, a version of the game in Ancient Greece was known as “copper mosquito”. (Sadly I have no idea why!) Hamlet mentions the game here to infantilise Gertrude, to berate her for being duped by some devil into picking Claudius - because for him there can be no other logical explanation.

Episode 106 - Hyperion's Curls

TEXT:

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.

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.

NOTES:

Hendiadys
Hendiadys (Greek for 'one through two') is a figure of speech whereby two ideas are combined to form a single image. A very simple example is a describing a cup of tea as "nice and hot". It features a great deal in the Bible, and indeed there are over sixty examples of it in Hamlet alone.

Branding
Branding was suggested as a punishment for harlotry by Henry VIII in 1513, but does not appear to have been put into practice. Branding was used throughout as a punishment (or rather an indicator) for people who had committed various crimes - often people were branded with a letter that explained what they had done. Slaves were also frequently branded. It is a particularly grim abuse of any human, marking their body for life either as criminals or as the supposed property of another person. For Hamlet even to intimate that his mother deserves to have her forehead branded is an especially violent image. Foreheads appear throughout this sequence as an indicator of a person’s character.

Hyperion
Hyperion was one of the Titans, eventually overthrown by the Olympian gods. He was the father of the Sun, the Moon and the Dawn (Helios, Selene and Eos, respectively.) He appeared earlier in the play in comparison with a satyr, and as Hamlet mentions him again, we are invited to remember the comparison, making Claudius out to be little more than a drunken, sex-obsessed half-goat.

Jove
Although he is better known as Jupiter, Jove is a frequently-used version of the name of the ruler of the Roman Gods, the Sky-Father. Jove comes from a Latin version of his name, and is a convenient version because it is only one syllable and can fit neatly into a poetic line. He was the king of the gods, and so if Hamlet is going to liken his father’s brow to any of them, it makes sense for it to be Jupiter.

Mars
Mars was the Roman version of the God of War. In Greek his name was Ares, but thanks to his having a planet named after him, Mars is the more famous version of the name.

Mercury
Mercury (Hermes in Greek) was the messenger of the gods. He had a pair of golden winged sandals that allowed him to fly faster than any bird, and also had a winged hat to match. One of the most popular gods in antiquity, Shakespeare captures him in motion here, elegantly ‘new-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill’.

Brutus
As mentioned in the episode, Shakespeare echoes Antony’s eulogy for Brutus in Julius Caesar, which I quote below. I am always fascinated to see little echoes and links between plays - snapshots, perhaps, of how Shakespeare saw the world.

ANTONY
This was the noblest Roman of them all:
All the conspirators save only he
Did that they did in envy of great Caesar;
He only, in a general honest thought
And common good to all, made one of them.
His life was gentle, and the elements
So mix'd in him that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world 'This was a man!'

Episode 105 - A Bloody Deed

TEXT:

POLONIUS
[Behind] What, ho! help, help, help!

HAMLET
[Drawing] How now! a rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead!

Makes a pass through the arras

POLONIUS
[Behind] O, I am slain!

Falls and dies

GERTRUDE
O me, what hast thou done?

HAMLET
Nay, I know not:
Is it the king?

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.

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 brassed it so
That it is proof and bulwark against sense.

GERTRUDE
What have I done, that thou darest wag thy tongue
In noise so rude against me?

NOTES:

Rats
The Arden Shakespeare that suggests two separate proverbs combine in Hamlet’s cry of “How now, a rat” - the first is the fairly obvious and common phrase “I smell a rat”. This phrase dates back at least as far as the Black Death, when dogs could be relied on to sense the presence of a plague-bearing rat long before humans might. So, to smell a rat is to detect something suspicious. The second is more unusual, mentioned in that incredible compendium Shakespeare’s Proverbial Language; it suggests that “the rat betrayed herself with her own noise”. If you didn’t have a dog with a sharp nose, you could listen out because often rats squeak and identify themselves. Rats were a common feature of urban life in London, and Shakespeare’s audience would probably have been familiar enough with the nuisance of hearing rats squeaking behind their curtains and having to deal with them. Hamlet is quick to act, and kills this ‘rat’ immediately. 

Episode 104 - You Shall Not Budge

TEXT:

SCENE IV. The Queen's closet.

Enter QUEEN GERTRUDE and POLONIUS

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.

HAMLET
[Within] Mother, mother, mother!

GERTRUDE
I'll warrant you,
Fear me not: withdraw, I hear him coming.

POLONIUS hides behind the arras

Enter HAMLET

HAMLET
Now, mother, what's the matter?

GERTRUDE
Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.

HAMLET
Mother, you have my father much offended.

GERTRUDE
Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.

HAMLET
Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.

GERTRUDE
Why, how now, Hamlet!

HAMLET
What's the matter now?

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.

GERTRUDE
Nay, then, I'll set those to you that can speak.

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.

GERTRUDE
What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murder me?
Help, help, ho!

NOTES:

The Rood
Rood was originally the Old English word for the cross on which Jesus was crucified. The Holy Rood - the ‘true’ cross - was venerated for its function in Christ’s death, and indeed the word is still remembered in the name of Holyrood Palace, the English monarch’s official residence in Scotland. Given the ban on taking the Lord’s name in vain or swearing by it on stage, Shakespeare uses ‘by the rood’ as an exclamation here.

Episode 103 - Words Without thoughts

TEXT:

Enter HAMLET

HAMLET
Now might I do it pat, now he is praying;
And now I'll do't. And so he goes to heaven;
And so am I revenged. That would be scanned:
A villain kills my father; and for that,
I, his sole son, do this same villain send
To heaven.
O, this is hire and salary, not revenge.
He took my father grossly, full of bread;
With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May;
And how his audit stands who knows save heaven?
But in our circumstance and course of thought,
'Tis heavy with him: and am I then revenged,
To take him in the purging of his soul,
When he is fit and season'd for his passage?
No!
Up, sword; and know thou a more horrid hent:
When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage,
Or in the incestuous pleasure of his bed;
At gaming, swearing, or about some act
That has no relish of salvation in't;
Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven,
And that his soul may be as damned and black
As hell, whereto it goes. My mother stays:
This physic but prolongs thy sickly days.

Exit

CLAUDIUS
My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

Exit

NOTES:

Purgatory
According to the Catholic Church, Purgatory is an intermediate state after death, between Heaven and Hell. Merriam Webster defines it rather neatly as a place "for expiatory purification; specifically : a place or state of punishment wherein according to Roman Catholic doctrine the souls of those who die in God's grace may make satisfaction for past sins and so become fit for heaven". It is very significant to Shakespeare's construction of Hamlet's theology (or, indeed, 'philosophy'.) The greatest poet to deal with Purgatory was Dante, in The Divine Comedy - although it appears very likely that Shakespeare never read Dante. (The Italian poet was not translated into English until the 18th Century). Dante conceptualised Purgatory as existing somewhere in the southern hemisphere. Rather closer to home for Shakespeare, there was reputedly an entrance to Purgatory on Station Island in Lough Derg, in the north west of Ireland. Pilgrims have been visiting this place for almost 1500 years.

Fullness of Bread
In the Book of Ezekiel (16:49), the iniquities of the city of Sodom are laid out in some detail as a comparison with Jerusalem. Despite the story told in Genesis - of Lot and his escape from the city before it was destroyed by fire and brimstone for the licentiousness and sexual activity that still sometimes bear the city’s name - in Ezekiel the crimes of Sodom are that its daughters were over-fed and unwilling to help the poor. It specifically mentions “fullness of bread” as an iniquity (or sin), and perhaps because it is so curious a thing to be condemned, Shakespeare imagines that people will remember it. He uses it as an example of how his father was murdered without having had time to pray or fast, appropriate (Catholic) preparations for the sacraments. Here is the text of Ezekiel 16:49 from the King James Bible;

Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.

Episode 102 - The Wicked Prize

TEXT:

CLAUDIUS (continued)
May one be pardoned and retain the offence?
In the corrupted currents of this world
Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice,
And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself
Buys out the law: but 'tis not so above;
There is no shuffling, there the action lies
In his true nature; and we ourselves compelled,
Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,
To give in evidence. What then? What rests?
Try what repentance can: what can it not?
Yet what can it when one can not repent?
O wretched state! O bosom black as death!
O limed soul, that, struggling to be free,
Art more engaged! Help, angels! Make assay!
Bow, stubborn knees; and, heart with strings of steel,
Be soft as sinews of the newborn babe!
All may be well.

Retires and kneels

NOTES:

Confession is one of the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church - an opportunity for believers to confess their sins and receive absolution. In the aftermath of the English Reformation, a whole generation of former Catholics, forced to toe the new Protestant, Anglican line or face the consequences of heresy, lost the comfort of this particular sacrament. Claudius seems here to feel the loss, although his particular state is complicated by his lack of repentance. He is happy with what his crimes gained for him - and how can he repent them and still enjoy their benefits?

Birdlime
Around the world there are several versions of birdlime, a sticky substance concocted to spread out as a trap to catch birds. A popular European recipe is made from holly bark, boiled and reduced until it forms a sticky paste. Claudius’ vivid image is of a bird trapped in lime - the more the bird attempts to free itself, the more it becomes ensnared in the claggy mess.

EPISODE 101 - A Brother's Murder

TEXT:

CLAUDIUS
O, my offence is rank it smells to heaven;
It hath the primal eldest curse upon't,
A brother's murder. Pray can I not,
Though inclination be as sharp as will:
My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent;
And, like a man to double business bound,
I stand in pause where I shall first begin,
And both neglect. What if this cursed hand
Were thicker than itself with brother's blood,
Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens
To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy
But to confront the visage of offence?
And what's in prayer but this two-fold force,
To be forestalled ere we come to fall,
Or pardon'd being down? Then I'll look up;
My fault is past. But, O, what form of prayer
Can serve my turn? 'Forgive me my foul murder'?
That cannot be; since I am still possess'd
Of those effects for which I did the murder,
My crown, mine own ambition and my queen.

NOTES:

Soliloquy
A soliloquy is a dramatic device whereby a playwright has a character speak to themselves alone on stage. The word itself comes from Latin (solus, alone, and loquor, I speak...). Shakespeare's plays are filled with countless examples of the form, in comedy, history, and tragedy, and indeed the device has been popular from as far back as the writings of Montaigne (believed to have inspired Shakespeare) all the way as far as contemporary versions of it, such as Netflix' House of Cards.

The First Quarto is an early text of the play, and is at least 1500 lines shorter than the better-established texts known as Q2 (the Second Quarto) and F1 (the First Folio). It was all but lost until the splendidly-named Sir Henry Bunbury found a copy of it in the 1820s, and the text has provoked intense debate for nearly 200 years. Since the text is significantly different to the more familiar versions of Q2 and F1, I refer to it only when there are especially illuminating passages worth mentioning. It was given the full scholarly treatment by the excellent Arden Shakespeare in 2007, when as part of the 3rd Series it was printed in its own right, alongside the F1 text. You can find more details of that edition by clicking here.

Curse of Cain
Cain was the first murderer - he killed his brother Abel. He lied about the murder when God asked about it, and was cursed to a life as a fugitive and a wanderer, since the earth where Abel’s blood spilled would never yield any crops for him. Abel’s murder crops up frequently in the play - Claudius himself makes oblique reference to it very early on, when he mentions' “the first corpse” in his speech about how death is a part of life, and ‘must be so’ as he tries to assuage Hamlet. Abel, the first murder victim, was killed by his brother - it is no accident that Shakespeare plants this little reference in Claudius’ mouth. Cain was notoriously punished - and in some interpretations marked or branded to identify him for his crime - and in this soliloquy Claudius worries that the heinous crime of fratricide will haunt him too.

EPISODE 100 - Behind the Arras

TEXT:

Enter POLONIUS

POLONIUS
My lord, he's going to his mother's closet:
Behind the arras I'll convey myself,
To hear the process; and warrant she'll tax him home:
And, as you said, and wisely was it said,
'Tis meet that some more audience than a mother,
Since nature makes them partial, should o'erhear
The speech, of vantage. Fare you well, my liege:
I'll call upon you ere you go to bed,
And tell you what I know.

CLAUDIUS
Thanks, dear my lord.

NOTES:

Arras
Arras is a town in northern France famous for its tapestries. Its reputation for fine such artworks dates back at least to the 14th century, and indeed the reputation grew so great that the name of the town became synonymous with beautiful hanging tapestries.

Episode 99 - Never Alone did the King sigh

TEXT:

SCENE III. A room in the castle.

Enter CLAUDIUS, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN

CLAUDIUS
I like him not, nor stands it safe with us
To let his madness range. Therefore prepare you:
I your commission will forthwith dispatch,
And he to England shall along with you.
The terms of our estate may not endure
Hazard so dangerous as doth hourly grow
Out of his lunacies.

GUILDENSTERN
We will ourselves provide.
Most holy and religious fear it is
To keep those many many bodies safe
That live and feed upon your majesty.

ROSENCRANTZ
The single and peculiar life is bound,
With all the strength and armour of the mind,
To keep itself from noyance; but much more
That spirit upon whose weal depend and rest
The lives of many. The cease of majesty
Dies not alone; but, like a gulf, doth draw
What's near it with it: it is a massy wheel,
Fixed on the summit of the highest mount,
To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things
Are mortised and adjoined; which, when it falls,
Each small annexment, petty consequence,
Attends the boisterous ruin. Never alone
Did the king sigh, but with a general groan.

CLAUDIUS
Arm you, I pray you, to this speedy voyage;
For we will fetters put upon this fear,
Which now goes too free-footed.

ROSENCRANTZ & GUILDENSTERN
We will haste us.

NOTES:

Massy Wheel
The only image that came into my mind while writing this episode for such an important and metaphorical wheel was the notion of the Wheel of Dharma, which is so central to Buddhist philosophy and cosmogeny. I don’t know if Rosencrantz has been studying the sutras while in Wittenberg, but his image of a turning wheel to which everyone’s destiny and well-being is attached is tantalisingly close to Buddhism’s Dharmachakra. It is possible that someone could make an argument for Rosencrantz’ Buddhism on the basis of this image an

Fetters were a particular kind of restraint, fastened around the ankles. Specifically designed to impede movement, they have been in use at least since the writing of the Bible.

EPISODE 98 - THE SOUL OF NERO

TEXT:

Enter POLONIUS

HAMLET
God bless you, sir!

POLONIUS
My lord, the queen would speak with you, and
presently.

HAMLET
Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel?

POLONIUS
By the mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed.

HAMLET
Methinks it is like a weasel.

POLONIUS
It is backed like a weasel.

HAMLET
Or like a whale?

POLONIUS
Very like a whale.

HAMLET
Then I will come to my mother by and by.
They fool me to the top of my bent.
I will come by and by.

POLONIUS
I will say so.

HAMLET
By and by is easily said.

Exit POLONIUS

Leave me, friends.

Exeunt all but HAMLET

Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world: now could I drink hot blood,
And do such bitter business as the day
Would quake to look on. Soft! now to my mother.
O heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever
The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom:
Let me be cruel, not unnatural:
I will speak daggers to her, but use none;
My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites;
How in my words soever she be shent,
To give them seals never, my soul, consent!

Exit

NOTES:

Witchcraft
There are libraries already filled with books about Shakespeare and King James and Macbeth and witchcraft. The topic is endlessly fascinating - as much today as it seems to have been in 16th and 17th century England. Hamlet’s vision of drinking hot blood stems from a Renaissance belief that witches would drink the blood of children for their dark purposes. In Shakespeare’s Edward III there’s a reference to how drinking the blood of a king could restore the sick, although Hamlet’s mind is tending more towards murder than restoratives.

Clouds
Aeromancy was the ancient art of reading the future from clouds and other atmospheric conditions. It’s not likely that Hamlet set any store in it, but it is amusing to watch him spotting camels, weasels and even clouds in the “sky” during this scene. Polonius perhaps wisely doesn’t engage too much - he has no desire to get further involved in Hamlet’s madness.

Nero
Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (15 December 37 – 9 June 68) was the last of the Julio-Claudian emperors. He succeeded his (great) uncle Claudius after the latter’s death, perhaps caused by Nero’s mother Agrippina the Younger. She herself was a sister of Caligula, another notoriously badly-behaved emperor. Nero’s reign was one of debachery and cruelty - as well as arranging the death of his own mother, he also killed his pregnant wife by kicking her in the stomach. Most famously, he is reputed to have played music while his city was on fire. Hamlet worries about a comparison with Nero since he too has an uncle Claudius that has married his mother and is blocking his ascent to the throne.

Agrippina the Younger
Daughter of Germanicus, and younger sister of Caligula, Agrippina Minor (Agrippina the Younger) was born on November 6, 15 and died on March 23, 59. She was one of the most prominent and successful women of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, and was the sister, wife and mother of three successive emperors. She was a particularly difficult mother, and was heavily involved in Nero’s succession to the imperial throne - although her heavy-handed involvement in his affairs meant that he had her murdered five years into his reign. She has been immortalised in plays, novels, television programmes and even a terrific baroque opera by Handel.

Episode 97 - As Easy As Lying

HAMLET

Re-enter Players with recorders

O, the recorders! let me see one. To withdraw with
you:--why do you go about to recover the wind of me,
as if you would drive me into a toil?

GUILDENSTERN
O, my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too
unmannerly.

HAMLET
I do not well understand that. Will you play upon
this pipe?

GUILDENSTERN
My lord, I cannot.

HAMLET
I pray you.

GUILDENSTERN
Believe me, I cannot.

HAMLET
I do beseech you.

GUILDENSTERN
I know no touch of it, my lord.

HAMLET
'Tis as easy as lying: govern these ventages with
your lingers and thumb, give it breath with your
mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music.
Look you, these are the stops.

GUILDENSTERN
But these cannot I command to any utterance of
harmony; I have not the skill.

HAMLET
Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of
me! You would play upon me; you would seem to know
my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my
mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to
the top of my compass: and there is much music,
excellent voice, in this little organ; yet cannot
you make it speak. 'Sblood, do you think I am
easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what
instrument you will, though you can fret me, yet you
cannot play upon me.

Minced Oaths
A minced oath is an expression formed by adapting a blasphemous or taboo word or phrase, in order to reduce the offence it might cause. Since Shakespeare was writing under the watchful eye of a censor, in a time when Puritans were gaining influence, he couldn't write the full versions of any curses or swearwords or expletives. As a result we have various items - sblood, zounds, and the very common 'Marry' - which is a contraction of 'By the Virgin Mary'. There's even an argument that the word 'bloody' as a curse word came into use as a contraction of 'By Our Lady'!  Likewise in episode 68 we have ‘God’s bodykins’ - a rather cute way for Hamlet to swear at Polonius.

Hunting
Rhodri Lewis’ recent book Hamlet and the Vision of Darkness has a spectacularly good chapter all about imagery of hunting in the play. It’s an extraordinary new interpretation and very much worth a look. (Good news is that Prof. Lewis is completing a paperback version of the text, hopefully available very soon.

Musical Instruments
We have tantalisingly little information about the use of music in Shakespeare’s theatre. There’s a great variety of songs in the plays, and we’re led to believe that most (or even all) performances ended with a jig - a tradition that has been revived at Shakespeare’s Globe in London. The standard stage band could have included recognisable Elizabethan instruments like the lute, but also ones that are less familiar, including the viol (bass or treble), the citterne, the bandora or even the flute. Less commonly mentioned is the recorder - it’s entirely possible that Shakespeare weaves it into this corner of Hamlet because it is was then (as it is now) such a simple instrument to play, and it gives Hamlet a chance to mock Guildenstern even more savagely. As mentioned within this episode, there’s also a connection with hunting, as the recorder is quite similar to the kinds of simple pipes used to hunt and trap birds. For more information on music in Shakespeare’s theatre, click here.

Episode 96 - Pickers and Stealers

TEXT:

HAMLET
Sir, I cannot.

GUILDENSTERN
What, my lord?

HAMLET
Make you a wholesome answer; my wit's diseased: but,
sir, such answer as I can make, you shall command;
or, rather, as you say, my mother: therefore no
more, but to the matter: my mother, you say?

ROSENCRANTZ
Then thus she says; your behavior hath struck her
into amazement and admiration.

HAMLET
O wonderful son, that can so astonish a mother! But
is there no sequel at the heels of this mother's
admiration? Impart.

ROSENCRANTZ
She desires to speak with you in her closet, ere you
go to bed.

HAMLET
We shall obey, were she ten times our mother. Have
you any further trade with us?

ROSENCRANTZ
My lord, you once did love me.

HAMLET
So I do still, by these pickers and stealers.

ROSENCRANTZ
Good my lord, what is your cause of distemper? you
do, surely, bar the door upon your own liberty, if
you deny your griefs to your friend.

HAMLET
Sir, I lack advancement.

ROSENCRANTZ
How can that be, when you have the voice of the king
himself for your succession in Denmark?

HAMLET
Ay, but sir, 'While the grass grows…' - the proverb
is something musty.

NOTES:

The Book of Common Prayer
Originally published in 1549 , The Book of Common Prayer was a major project of the English Reformation - the first publication ever to include all of the prayers and offices of religious service in English. It is still a key part of Protestant worship all over the world. Within it was a catechism, which is an introduction of the terms of religious doctrine. The catechism would be learned by rote, and was written as a series of questions. The segment that Hamlet is quoting is an explanation of the meaning of the 8th Commandent, “thou shalt not steal”. After the explanation of each commandment’s teaching, there came a sequence of questions and specific quotations from the Bible that were used to back up each text. For our segment the question is “How do you prove it your duty to keep your hands from picking and stealing?” The answers come from Ephesians iv. 28 “Let him that stole steal no more”, and Thessalonians iv. 6 “That no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter”. Horatio probably understands all of this but it seems that the reference is utterly lost on Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.