Act 4; Scene 5

ACT IV

SCENE V. Elsinore. A room in the Castle.

Enter Queen, Horatio and a Gentleman.

QUEEN.
I will not speak with her.

GENTLEMAN.
She is importunate, indeed distract.
Her mood will needs be pitied.

QUEEN.
What would she have?

GENTLEMAN.
She speaks much of her father; says she hears
There’s tricks i’ th’ world, and hems, and beats her heart,
Spurns enviously at straws, speaks things in doubt,
That carry but half sense. Her speech is nothing,
Yet the unshaped use of it doth move
The hearers to collection; they aim at it,
And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts, People hear her, and although her words are nonsensical, they assign meaning to them due to their own prejudices.
Which, as her winks, and nods, and gestures yield them, Isn’t this why Hamlet warned Marcellus not to do this if someone asked what was the cause of his madness?
Indeed would make one think there might be thought,
Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.

HORATIO.                                                                                                                                                                                            ’Twere good she were spoken with, for she may strew
Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds. We’d better take care of her before she says something that makes people suspect the royal family of something illicit. The way she is speaking makes people believe that she knows more than she actually does. Ophelia is based on Cassandra, and like Cassandra, she tells people things which are true and no one believes her. Like the Pythia, she hints at things that may be true, and people might choose to believe what she is saying, but more often than not, they think she’s off her rocker. I recently came up with a new theory that perhaps Hamlet is based in part on Cassandra as well. He makes a prediction about the future, and of course, everything he says makes people think he’s crazy, but he isn’t.

QUEEN.
Let her come in.

[Exit Gentleman.]

Aside. To my sick soul (as sin’s true nature is),
Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss. A sign of coming disaster…an omen or perhaps a prophecy?
So full of artless jealousy is guilt, Why would she feel guilty? For Polonius? For Hamlet? For Claudius?
It spills itself in fearing to be spilt. By trying to hide one’s guilt one often exposes it.     

Enter Ophelia.

OPHELIA.
Where is the beauteous Majesty of Denmark?

QUEEN.
How now, Ophelia?

OPHELIA.
[Sings.]
   How should I your true love know
     From another one?
   By his cockle hat and staff
     And his sandal shoon.

QUEEN.
Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?

OPHELIA.
Say you? Nay, pray you mark.
[Sings.]
   He is dead and gone, lady,
     He is dead and gone,
   At his head a grass green turf,
     At his heels a stone. Who is she talking about? Her father, but it could also be a prophecy about Hamlet, Laertes, or Claudius.

QUEEN.
Nay, but Ophelia—

OPHELIA.
Pray you mark.
[Sings.]
   White his shroud as the mountain snow.

Enter King.

QUEEN.
Alas, look here, my lord!

OPHELIA.
[Sings.]
     Larded all with sweet flowers; Reference to the play she saw The Murder of Gonzalgo? Perhaps it is a reference to Gertrude being a whore?
   Which bewept to the grave did not go
     With true-love showers.

KING.
How do you, pretty lady?

OPHELIA.
Well, God dild you. They say the owl was a Owls are sacred to Athena. Cassandra sought refuge in Athena’s temple during the Trojan War. British folk tale
baker’s daughter. Lord, we know what we are but
know not what we may be. God be at your table.

KING.
Conceit upon her father.

OPHELIA.
Pray you, let’s have no words of this; but when they ask you what it means, say you this:
[Sings.]
   Tomorrow is Saint Valentine’s day,
     All in the morning betime,
   And I a maid at your window,
     To be your Valentine.

   Then up he rose and donn’d his clothes,
     And dupp’d the chamber door,
   Let in the maid, that out a maid
     Never departed more. Losing her virginity, her purity like Cassandra

KING.
Pretty Ophelia!

OPHELIA.
Indeed la, without an oath, I’ll make an end on’t.
[Sings.]
   By Gis and by Saint Charity,
     Alack, and fie for shame!
   Young men will do’t if they come to’t;
     By Cock, they are to blame.

  Quoth she, before you tumbled me,
  You promis’d me to wed. Men will do anything to get in your pants and then once they get what they want, they don’t really want the woman anymore. Men are untrue, but is she talking about Hamlet or Claudius? Claudius knows later on that the wine Gertrude is about to drink is poisonous, but he dares not knock it from her hand because he doesn’t really love her as much as he loves himself. He can always get another Queen. Apollo is untrue. If he really loved Cassandra, would he have allowed what happened to her to have happened? No. It’s highly unlikely Agamemnon ever loved any of the women he slept with; not Clytemnestra, not Briseis, not Chryseis. He didn’t even love his own daughter, or he wouldn’t have sacrificed Iphigenia. It is also very unlikely that he felt anything for Cassandra other than sexual desire. I seriously doubt he had any feelings for her. He used her and cast her aside like he did all the women in his life. Like Claudius does to Ophelia and later Gertrude. If Hamlet had truly loved Ophelia, he wouldn’t have treated her like he did. Is Ophelia truly out of her mind, or is she just pretending like Hamlet?
 So would I ha’ done, by yonder sun,
 An thou hadst not come to my bed.

KING.
How long hath she been thus?

OPHELIA.
I hope all will be well. We must be patient. But I cannot choose but weep,                                                                                        to think they would lay him i’ th’ cold ground.  Who will they lay in the cold ground? Polonius is already buried. It could be a prophecy about Hamlet, Claudius, or even Laertes. They are the only ones left.                                                                                                                                                  My brother shall know of it.                                                                                                                                                                       And so I thank you for your good counsel.                                                                                                                                              Come, my coach!                                                                                                                                                                              Good night, ladies; good night, sweet ladies; good night, good night.

[Exit.]

KING.
Follow her close; give her good watch, I pray you.He doesn’t do a good job, does he?

[Exit Horatio.]

O, this is the poison of deep grief; it springs
All from her father’s death. O Gertrude, Gertrude, That and Hamlet’s treatment of her. Is it possible that Hamlet has taken her virginity and once he has it, has spurned her, and she is trying to tell everyone without coming right out and saying it?
When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
But in battalions. First, her father slain;
Next, your son gone; and he most violent author
Of his own just remove; the people muddied,
Thick, and unwholesome in their thoughts and whispers
For good Polonius’ death; and we have done but greenly
In hugger-mugger to inter him. Poor Ophelia Polonius has been buried probably too soon to assuage Ophelia’s grief, and in secret, so she was not allowed to properly mourn for him. Like Agamemnon was buried in the Orestia. Clytemnestra and Aegisthus never told the people of Mycenae exactly what they had done. Only that they were now in power and it was too late to do anything about it, when the Chorus attempted to do just that, Aegisthus showed up with soldiers loyal to him and Clytemnestra, not Agamemnon.
Divided from herself and her fair judgement,
Without the which we are pictures or mere beasts. Reference to Hamlet talking about himself being a beast, man’s baser nature
Last, and as much containing as all these,
Her brother is in secret come from France,
Feeds on his wonder, keeps himself in clouds, He is in shock but listening to the rumors surrounding Polonius’ death
And wants not buzzers to infect his ear
With pestilent speeches of his father’s death,
Wherein necessity, of matter beggar’d,
Will nothing stick our person to arraign
In ear and ear. O my dear Gertrude, this,
Like to a murdering piece, in many places I gotta protect myself
Gives me superfluous death.

[A noise within.]

QUEEN.
Alack, what noise is this?

KING.
Where are my Switzers? Let them guard the door.

Enter a Gentleman.

What is the matter?

GENTLEMAN.
Save yourself, my lord.
The ocean, overpeering of his list,
Eats not the flats with more impetuous haste
Than young Laertes, in a riotous head,
O’erbears your offices. The rabble call him lord, Laertes is based on Orestes, so it only stands to reason that he be considered the rightful king by the Commoners and opposed by Clytemnestra (Claudius) and Aegisthus (Gertrude). Laertes is the mirror image of Hamlet and thus must be made into a prince so that he can be Hamlet’s twin (character twin).
And, as the world were now but to begin,
Antiquity forgot, custom not known,
The ratifiers and props of every word,
They cry ‘Choose we! Laertes shall be king!’ Has the kingdom turned on Hamlet? Have they heard about his madness or about Polonius?
Caps, hands, and tongues applaud it to the clouds,
‘Laertes shall be king, Laertes king.’

QUEEN.
How cheerfully on the false trail they cry.
O, this is counter, you false Danish dogs.

[A noise within.]

KING.
The doors are broke.

Enter Laertes, armed; Danes following.

LAERTES.
Where is this king?—Sirs, stand you all without.

Danes.
No, let’s come in.

LAERTES.
I pray you, give me leave.

DANES.
We will, we will.

[They retire without the door.]

LAERTES.
I thank you. Keep the door. O thou vile king,
Give me my father.

QUEEN.
Calmly, good Laertes.

LAERTES.
That drop of blood that’s calm proclaims me bastard; Again, a mirror of Hamlet, but unlike Hamlet, he seeks vengeance, not Justice. Hamlet only says he wants justice. He only really wants revenge.
Cries cuckold to my father, brands the harlot
Even here between the chaste unsmirched brow
Of my true mother. Like the Dane was cuckolded by his brother and Gertrude was made into a harlot by Claudius.

KING.
What is the cause, Laertes,
That thy rebellion looks so giant-like?—
Let him go, Gertrude. Do not fear our person.
There’s such divinity doth hedge a king, God didn’t protect my brother, and he let me commit treason, but it won’t happen to me. The self-deception of a cheater. My husband may have cheated on his first wife with me, but he won’t cheat on me. Yeah right. He won’t right up until he does.
That treason can but peep to what it would,
Acts little of his will.—Tell me, Laertes,
Why thou art thus incens’d.—Let him go, Gertrude:—
Speak, man.

LAERTES.
Where is my father?

KING.
Dead.

QUEEN.
But not by him. Actually, it was because of Claudius that Polonius was killed. He was doing his dirty work when Hamlet killed him, and he was acting treasonably toward the true king of Denmark.

KING.
Let him demand his fill.

LAERTES.
How came he dead? I’ll not be juggled with.
To hell, allegiance! Vows, to the blackest devil!
Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit!
I dare damnation. To this point I stand, Not concerned with damnation, unlike Hamlet
That both the worlds, I give to negligence,
Let come what comes; only I’ll be reveng’d
Most throughly for my father. Orestes was told by the gods that he had to kill Clytemnestra and Aegisthus even though he was set upon by the Furies afterward. In other words, he was damned. Apollo and Athena eventually saved him from the Furies, but it took a while.

KING.
Who shall stay you?

LAERTES.
My will, not all the world.
And for my means, I’ll husband them so well,
They shall go far with little.

KING.
Good Laertes,
If you desire to know the certainty
Of your dear father’s death, is’t writ in your revenge
That, sweepstake, you will draw both friend and foe,
Winner and loser?

LAERTES.
None but his enemies.

KING.
Will you know them then?

LAERTES.
To his good friends thus wide I’ll ope my arms;
And, like the kind life-rendering pelican,
Repast them with my blood.

KING.
Why, now you speak
Like a good child and a true gentleman.
That I am guiltless of your father’s death, But he’s not really, Polonius was only there to help Claudius so in a way he’s guilty of his death. He was also committing treason against the true king of Denmark…Hamlet and what happens to traitors…they get killed. Reference back to Hecuba and Priam. Did Priam deserve to die because of Achillies? He didn’t kill him but that was why Neoptolemus killed Priam, because he was grief-stricken and furious.
And am most sensibly in grief for it,
It shall as level to your judgement ’pear
As day does to your eye.

DANES.
[Within.] Let her come in.

LAERTES.
How now! What noise is that?

Re-enter Ophelia, fantastically dressed with straws and flowers.

O heat, dry up my brains. Tears seven times salt,
Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye.
By heaven, thy madness shall be paid by weight,
Till our scale turn the beam. O rose of May!
Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!
O heavens, is’t possible a young maid’s wits
Should be as mortal as an old man’s life? Did she lose her mind because of Polonius’ death? Or was it because she lost the man she loved? A man who betrayed her trust in him and killed her father? Did the Chorus think Cassandra had lost her mind because of Priam’s death? I should look that up.
Nature is fine in love, and where ’tis fine,
It sends some precious instance of itself
After the thing it loves.

OPHELIA.
[Sings.]
   They bore him barefac’d on the bier,
   Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny
   And on his grave rain’d many a tear.—
   Fare you well, my dove!

LAERTES.
Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge,
It could not move thus.

OPHELIA.
You must sing ‘Down a-down, and you call him a-down-a.’                                                                                                               O, how the wheel becomes it!                                                                                                                                                               It is the false steward that stole his master’s daughter.

LAERTES.
This nothing’s more than matter.

OPHELIA.
There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; pray love, remember. And there is pansies, that’s for thoughts.

LAERTES.
A document in madness, thoughts and remembrance fitted.

OPHELIA.
There’s fennel for you, and columbines.
There’s rue for you, and here’s some for me; we
may call it herb of grace o’ Sundays. You must wear
your rue with a difference. There’s a daisy. I would Rue was believed to ward off poison, evil, and evil doers.
give you some violets, but they withered all when
my father died. They say he made a good end.
Sings. For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.
[Sings.]
   For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.

LAERTES.
Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself
She turns to favour and to prettiness.

OPHELIA.
[Sings.]
   And will he not come again?
   And will he not come again?
     No, no, he is dead,
     Go to thy death-bed,
   He never will come again.

   His beard was as white as snow, Who’s beard? Polonius or Claudius? The Dane’s was sable. Hamlet, Horatio and Lauertes are all too young to have beards as white as snow.
   All flaxen was his poll.
     He is gone, he is gone,
     And we cast away moan.
   God ha’ mercy on his soul.

And of all Christian souls, I pray God. God b’ wi’ ye.

[Exit.]

LAERTES.
Do you see this, O God?

KING.
Laertes, I must commune with your grief,
Or you deny me right. Go but apart,
Make choice of whom your wisest friends you will,
And they shall hear and judge ’twixt you and me.
If by direct or by collateral hand
They find us touch’d, we will our kingdom give,
Our crown, our life, and all that we call ours
To you in satisfaction; but if not,
Be you content to lend your patience to us,
And we shall jointly labour with your soul
To give it due content. Contrast this with his actions following the play. He is not guilty of Polonius’ murder and therefore is not afraid to put himself on trial, so to speak, but because he is guilty of his brother’s murder, he will act with depraved indifference to Gertrude’s death and with murder in his heart when he attempts to have Hamlet killed in England…All to protect his secret.

LAERTES.
Let this be so;
His means of death, his obscure burial,—
No trophy, sword, nor hatchment o’er his bones,
No noble rite, nor formal ostentation,—
Cry to be heard, as ’twere from heaven to earth,
That I must call’t in question.

KING.
So you shall.
And where th’offence is let the great axe fall.
I pray you go with me.

[Exeunt.]

Ophelia’s flowers

From: https://bardgarden.blogspot.com/2015/01/ophelias-flowers.html

Rosemary is for remembrance. Ophelia's plea to the court to remember has a touch of melancholy about it. As Rosemary formed part of burial wreaths it serves as a forewarning to her tragic death.

Pansies are for thoughts, closely connected to memory, of keeping people within your thoughts.

Fennel refers to the false flattery and deceit of the court.

Columbine calls the King and Queen adulterers.

Rue is a call for those around her to regret and repent their past evil deeds.

Daisies are for innocence. Ophelia names the Daisy but does not hand it out, suggesting that the court lacks innocence and purity. Perhaps she keeps it for herself because she has remained pure.

Violets are for faithfulness and fidelity. As Ophelia has none to give to the Queen she exposes the Queen's infidelity.