My pulse makes healthful music

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.

Subtext: Polonius knows that the Queen needs a little encouragement before putting her son in his place.

HAMLET
[Within] Mother, mother, mother!

 Subtext: Hamlet is using every ounce of his will power to keep from unleashing his wrath upon his mother.

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

Subtext: Gertrude urgently tells Polonius to hide before Hamlet enters.

POLONIUS hides behind the arras
Enter HAMLET
HAMLET
Now, mother, what's the matter? Subtext: Hamlet is desperately trying to control himself in his mother’s presence.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.

Subtext: Gertrude attempts to chastise Hamlet. Her words instead grant him permission to reveal emotions to her that he has long been hiding.

HAMLET
Mother, you have my father much offended.

Subtext: He emphasizes “you” in this sentence. He answers in the same style she addressed him with to remind her that the man she speaks of is most definitely not his father.

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

Subtext: Gertrude does not know what to make of Hamlet’s response and she gets defensive.

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

Subtext: Hamlet again answers in the style she had just addressed him with. Their conversation is turning into a juvenile, back-and-forth fight.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Why, how now, Hamlet!

Subtext: Gertrude is shocked. Her son has never spoken to her in her way.

HAMLET
What's the matter now?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Have you forgot me?

Subtext: She cannot believe Hamlet’s audacity. No son may disrespect his mother like this.

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.

Subtext: Hamlet makes this statement because he knows how much it will anger his mother. He unleashes his store of hurtful ammunition upon her.

QUEEN 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.

Subtext: With great force, Hamlet grabs his mother. He is seething with anger and disgust.

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

Subtext: Gertrude starts to panic feverishly. She is finally realizing Hamlet’s capabilities.

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

Subtext: Polonius, still cloaked by the drapes, is very frightened by Gertrude’s screams.

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

Subtext: Hamlet is under the impression that Claudius is hiding behind the curtains. He reacts without a second thought and thrusts his sword into Polonius.

Makes a pass through the arras
LORD POLONIUS
[Behind] O, I am slain!
Falls and dies
QUEEN GERTRUDE
O me, what hast thou done?
HAMLET
Nay, I know not:
Is it the king?

Subtext: Hamlet, forgetting his rage, is excited at the possibility of the dead King.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!

Subtext: Gertrude cannot even begin to comprehend all that has happened in this short period of time.

HAMLET
A bloody deed! almost as bad, good mother,
As kill a king, and marry with his brother.

Subtext: Hamlet shows no sign of remorse. In a calm, even voice, he openly accuses his mother of being apart of a plan to kill her husband and marry his brother.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
As kill a king!

Subtext: Gertrude does not understand the implications of Hamlet’s words and questions their meaning.

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.

Subtext: Hamlet, though disappointed that it was not Claudius that he killed, believes that Polonius deserves death. He then turns back to his mother and warns her that he is not yet finished giving her a piece of his mind.

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

Subtext: Gertrude is very obviously naïve to her son’s rantings.

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.

Subtext: Hamlet exhibits a complete lack of respect for his mother. He tells her plainly that she is a sinful, classless woman. He boldly tells her that she should be ashamed.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Ay me, what act,
That roars so loud, and thunders in the index?

Subtext: Gertrude is still not catching on to the implications of Hamlet’s words.

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.

Subtext: Hamlet is now ranting. He cannot keep the words that he has stifled for so long from coming out. Finally, he speaks directly about his father and Claudius. He compares the two of them to show his mother the error of her ways.

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.

Subtext: Gertrude is trying desperately to convince him that she too believes what she did was wrong so that perhaps he will not hurt her.

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,--

Subtext: Hamlet makes a reference to the bed in which his mother has disgraced herself by sharing it with both her husband and her husband’s brother.

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

Subtext: Hamlet succeeds in making his mother suffer.

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!

Subtext: Hamlet now begins a verbal attack against Claudius and the way he wrongfully usurped his brother’s kingdom and legacy.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
No more!

Subtext: Gertrude is sobbing and pleading.

HAMLET
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?

Subtext: Seeing his father’s ghost, Hamlet stops his yelling and questions the ghost’s presence respectfully.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Alas, he's mad!

Subtext: Gertrude cannot see the ghost. She then comes to the conclusion that Hamlet must be out of his mind.

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!

Subtext: Hamlet knows that his father’s ghost has come because has let his main priority—revenge—slip his mind.

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.

Subtext: The ghost reprimands Hamlet for his inaction.

HAMLET
How is it with you, lady?
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?

Subtext: Gertrude is confused and frightened. She attempts to get her son to return to reality and forget his hallucinations She speaks softly to calm him down.

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.

Subtext: Hamlet is panicky and paranoid. He wishes that his father’s ghost would stop pressuring him with his ominous glares.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
To whom do you speak this?

Subtext: Gertrude tries to gently hint to her son that what he is seeing is not real.

HAMLET
Do you see nothing there?

Subtext: Hamlet’s mind is racing. He does not know what to believe.

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

 Subtext: She tells Hamlet that she can see everything there is to be seen in the room, meaning that there is no ghost present.

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!

 Subtext: Hamlet wants to convince his mother that this is not a product of his imagination.

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

Subtext: Gertrude tells Hamlet in a soothing voice that he must believe her when she says that there is no one in the room but themselves.

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.

Subtext: Hamlet frantically begs his mother to listen to him and believe all the things that he has seen and been told by this ghost. He no longer yells at her for her sins but instead wants her to repent them so that she may be forgiven.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.

 Subtext: She tells Hamlet that he has reached the inner most part of her heart with his words. He has caused her a great deal of pain but she now knows what to do to rectify her bad deeds.

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,
[Pointing to Polonious]
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.

Subtext: Hamlet shows his mother compassion—the purpose of everything he has said was to help her. He tells her that all hope is not lost and everything she has done can be fixed. He shows her the way to absolve her sins. He also finally feels remorse for accidentally condemning Polonius to death.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
What shall I do?

Subtext: A mother asks her son’s advice

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.

Subtext: Hamlet precisely lays out the course of action that his mother must avoid.

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.

Subtext: Gertrude has been enlightened. She is drained and exhausted.

HAMLET I must to England; you know that?
QUEEN GERTRUDE Alack, I had forgot: 'tis so concluded on.
HAMLET There's letters seal'd: and my two schoolfellows,
Whom I will trust as I will adders fang'd,
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