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The formal play begins, and the Player King and Player Queen take the stage to sing their song of marital bliss and fidelity.
Player King
Full thirty times hath Phoebus' cart gone round
Neptune's salt wash and Tellus' orbed ground,
And thirty dozen moons with borrow'd sheen
About the world have times twelve thirties been,
Since love our hearts and Hymen did our hands
Unite commutual in most sacred bands.
Player Queen
So many journeys may the sun and moon
Make us again count o'er ere love be done!
But, woe is me, you are so sick of late,
So far from cheer and from your former state,
That I distrust you. Yet, though I distrust,
Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must:
For women's fear and love holds quantity;
In neither aught, or in extremity.
Now, what my love is, proof hath made you know;
And as my love is sized, my fear is so:
Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear;
Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.
Player King
'Faith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly too;
My operant powers their functions leave to do:
And thou shalt live in this fair world behind,
Honour'd, beloved; and haply one as kind
For husband shalt thou--
Player Queen
O, confound the rest!
Such love must needs be treason in my breast:
In second husband let me be accurst!
None wed the second but who kill'd the first.
HAMLET
[Aside] Wormwood, wormwood.
Player Queen
The instances that second marriage move
Are base respects of thrift, but none of love:
A second time I kill my husband dead,
When second husband kisses me in bed.
Player King
I do believe you think what now you speak;
But what we do determine oft we break.
Purpose is but the slave to memory,
Of violent birth, but poor validity;
Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree;
But fall, unshaken, when they mellow be.
Most necessary 'tis that we forget
To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt:
What to ourselves in passion we propose,
The passion ending, doth the purpose lose.
The violence of either grief or joy
Their own enactures with themselves destroy:
Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament;
Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident.
This world is not for aye, nor 'tis not strange
That even our loves should with our fortunes change;
For 'tis a question left us yet to prove,
Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love.
The great man down, you mark his favourite flies;
The poor advanced makes friends of enemies.
And hitherto doth love on fortune tend;
For who not needs shall never lack a friend,
And who in want a hollow friend doth try,
Directly seasons him his enemy.
But, orderly to end where I begun,
Our wills and fates do so contrary run
That our devices still are overthrown;
Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own:
So think thou wilt no second husband wed;
But die thy thoughts when thy first lord is dead.
Player Queen
Nor earth to me give food, nor heaven light!
Sport and repose lock from me day and night!
To desperation turn my trust and hope!
An anchor's cheer in prison be my scope!
Each opposite that blanks the face of joy
Meet what I would have well and it destroy!
Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife,
If, once a widow, ever I be wife!
HAMLET
If she should break it now!
Player King
'Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here awhile;
My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile
The tedious day with sleep.
[Sleeps]
Player Queen
Sleep rock thy brain,
And never come mischance between us twain!
[Exit]
Most knavishly does Hamlet now twist the knife in her mother’s conscience, as if the play’s presentation might be too subtle for one to get the drift. I suppose it should not be a surprise that in crafting his mousetrap that he had his mother in mind as much as Claudius. After all, before Hamlet heard from the ghost and learned of the murder of his father, we know that he was particularly aggrieved by the quick turnaround in his mother’s love. Though, we see in this exchange that Gertrude is a little plucky of character and does not simply melt away in this surprise assault from her son.
HAMLET
Madam, how like you this play?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
The lady protests too much, methinks.
HAMLET
O, but she'll keep her word.
She will keep her word, unlike certain mothers we know. Claudius gallantly stands up for his wife.
KING CLAUDIUS
Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in 't?
HAMLET
No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest; no offence
i' the world.
Poison? Weren’t we talking about the Player Queen and her pledged fealty to her lord to extend even beyond the grave? Claudius must be thrown off-balance by this apparent confusion. Or is the moody prince purposefully toying with him? What is going on?
KING CLAUDIUS
What do you call the play?
HAMLET
The Mousetrap. Marry, how? Tropically. This play
is the image of a murder done in Vienna: Gonzago is
the duke's name; his wife, Baptista: you shall see
anon; 'tis a knavish piece of work: but what o'
that? your majesty and we that have free souls, it
touches us not: let the galled jade wince, our
withers are unwrung.
[Enter LUCIANUS]
This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king.
Nephew to the king? Wasn’t the play supposed to be about a duke? Another confusion? Or another thrust in some strange game that Hamlet seems to be playing?
Ophelia apparently seeks to diffuse the tension and distract Hamlet, though her efforts will win her only another smutty joke upon her honor, and perhaps a cruel jest that she is mistaken if she thinks he will ever be her husband.
OPHELIA
You are as good as a chorus, my lord.
HAMLET
I could interpret between you and your love, if I
could see the puppets dallying.
OPHELIA
You are keen, my lord, you are keen.
HAMLET
It would cost you a groaning to take off my edge.
OPHELIA
Still better, and worse.
HAMLET
So you miss-take your husbands.
Begin, murderer;
pox, leave thy damnable faces, and begin. Come:
'the croaking raven doth bellow for revenge.'
LUCIANUS
Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing;
Confederate season, else no creature seeing;
Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected,
With Hecate's ban thrice blasted, thrice infected,
Thy natural magic and dire property,
On wholesome life usurp immediately.
[Pours the poison into the sleeper's ears]
HAMLET
He poisons him i' the garden for's estate. His
name's Gonzago: the story is extant, and writ in
choice Italian: you shall see anon how the murderer
gets the love of Gonzago's wife.
OPHELIA
The king rises.
HAMLET
What, frighted with false fire!
QUEEN GERTRUDE
How fares my lord?
LORD POLONIUS
Give o'er the play.
KING CLAUDIUS
Give me some light: away!
POLONIUS
Lights, lights, lights!
[Exeunt all but HAMLET and HORATIO]
The storm has broke and all is out. There are no more secrets between the two mighty opposites. Only one can live, if that many.
Player King
Full thirty times hath Phoebus' cart gone round
Neptune's salt wash and Tellus' orbed ground,
And thirty dozen moons with borrow'd sheen
About the world have times twelve thirties been,
Since love our hearts and Hymen did our hands
Unite commutual in most sacred bands.
Player Queen
So many journeys may the sun and moon
Make us again count o'er ere love be done!
But, woe is me, you are so sick of late,
So far from cheer and from your former state,
That I distrust you. Yet, though I distrust,
Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must:
For women's fear and love holds quantity;
In neither aught, or in extremity.
Now, what my love is, proof hath made you know;
And as my love is sized, my fear is so:
Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear;
Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.
Player King
'Faith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly too;
My operant powers their functions leave to do:
And thou shalt live in this fair world behind,
Honour'd, beloved; and haply one as kind
For husband shalt thou--
Player Queen
O, confound the rest!
Such love must needs be treason in my breast:
In second husband let me be accurst!
None wed the second but who kill'd the first.
HAMLET
[Aside] Wormwood, wormwood.
Player Queen
The instances that second marriage move
Are base respects of thrift, but none of love:
A second time I kill my husband dead,
When second husband kisses me in bed.
Player King
I do believe you think what now you speak;
But what we do determine oft we break.
Purpose is but the slave to memory,
Of violent birth, but poor validity;
Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree;
But fall, unshaken, when they mellow be.
Most necessary 'tis that we forget
To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt:
What to ourselves in passion we propose,
The passion ending, doth the purpose lose.
The violence of either grief or joy
Their own enactures with themselves destroy:
Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament;
Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident.
This world is not for aye, nor 'tis not strange
That even our loves should with our fortunes change;
For 'tis a question left us yet to prove,
Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love.
The great man down, you mark his favourite flies;
The poor advanced makes friends of enemies.
And hitherto doth love on fortune tend;
For who not needs shall never lack a friend,
And who in want a hollow friend doth try,
Directly seasons him his enemy.
But, orderly to end where I begun,
Our wills and fates do so contrary run
That our devices still are overthrown;
Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own:
So think thou wilt no second husband wed;
But die thy thoughts when thy first lord is dead.
Player Queen
Nor earth to me give food, nor heaven light!
Sport and repose lock from me day and night!
To desperation turn my trust and hope!
An anchor's cheer in prison be my scope!
Each opposite that blanks the face of joy
Meet what I would have well and it destroy!
Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife,
If, once a widow, ever I be wife!
HAMLET
If she should break it now!
Player King
'Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here awhile;
My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile
The tedious day with sleep.
[Sleeps]
Player Queen
Sleep rock thy brain,
And never come mischance between us twain!
[Exit]
Most knavishly does Hamlet now twist the knife in her mother’s conscience, as if the play’s presentation might be too subtle for one to get the drift. I suppose it should not be a surprise that in crafting his mousetrap that he had his mother in mind as much as Claudius. After all, before Hamlet heard from the ghost and learned of the murder of his father, we know that he was particularly aggrieved by the quick turnaround in his mother’s love. Though, we see in this exchange that Gertrude is a little plucky of character and does not simply melt away in this surprise assault from her son.
HAMLET
Madam, how like you this play?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
The lady protests too much, methinks.
HAMLET
O, but she'll keep her word.
She will keep her word, unlike certain mothers we know. Claudius gallantly stands up for his wife.
KING CLAUDIUS
Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in 't?
HAMLET
No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest; no offence
i' the world.
Poison? Weren’t we talking about the Player Queen and her pledged fealty to her lord to extend even beyond the grave? Claudius must be thrown off-balance by this apparent confusion. Or is the moody prince purposefully toying with him? What is going on?
KING CLAUDIUS
What do you call the play?
HAMLET
The Mousetrap. Marry, how? Tropically. This play
is the image of a murder done in Vienna: Gonzago is
the duke's name; his wife, Baptista: you shall see
anon; 'tis a knavish piece of work: but what o'
that? your majesty and we that have free souls, it
touches us not: let the galled jade wince, our
withers are unwrung.
[Enter LUCIANUS]
This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king.
Nephew to the king? Wasn’t the play supposed to be about a duke? Another confusion? Or another thrust in some strange game that Hamlet seems to be playing?
Ophelia apparently seeks to diffuse the tension and distract Hamlet, though her efforts will win her only another smutty joke upon her honor, and perhaps a cruel jest that she is mistaken if she thinks he will ever be her husband.
OPHELIA
You are as good as a chorus, my lord.
HAMLET
I could interpret between you and your love, if I
could see the puppets dallying.
OPHELIA
You are keen, my lord, you are keen.
HAMLET
It would cost you a groaning to take off my edge.
OPHELIA
Still better, and worse.
HAMLET
So you miss-take your husbands.
Begin, murderer;
pox, leave thy damnable faces, and begin. Come:
'the croaking raven doth bellow for revenge.'
LUCIANUS
Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing;
Confederate season, else no creature seeing;
Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected,
With Hecate's ban thrice blasted, thrice infected,
Thy natural magic and dire property,
On wholesome life usurp immediately.
[Pours the poison into the sleeper's ears]
HAMLET
He poisons him i' the garden for's estate. His
name's Gonzago: the story is extant, and writ in
choice Italian: you shall see anon how the murderer
gets the love of Gonzago's wife.
OPHELIA
The king rises.
HAMLET
What, frighted with false fire!
QUEEN GERTRUDE
How fares my lord?
LORD POLONIUS
Give o'er the play.
KING CLAUDIUS
Give me some light: away!
POLONIUS
Lights, lights, lights!
[Exeunt all but HAMLET and HORATIO]
The storm has broke and all is out. There are no more secrets between the two mighty opposites. Only one can live, if that many.
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no subject
Date: 2012-07-27 08:43 pm (UTC)From:That our devices still are overthrown;
Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own:
These are very apt lines that could be said to lay down the moral of "Hamlet". If I am not mistaken, the movie adaptation starring Ethan Hawke used these line to close the movie, and very well done.
The elder Hamlet has all his devices and intentions overthrown, as not only the traitorous Claudius winds up dead, but also wife and son, and all the kingdom lost. Claudius obviously has his devices overthrown, losing the wife and crown he killed for, as well as his life. Even our protagonist Hamlet really has his devices overthrown as well. He does end up getting Claudius, but lost mother, lover, as well as life. Everyone gets hoisted on his own petard. The same could be said for Polonius as well as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. All dark designs meet their dark end.