Act 1; Scene 2

ACT 1  SCENE II. Elsinore. A room of state in the Castle.

Enter Claudius King of Denmark, Gertrude the Queen, Hamlet, Polonius, Laertes, Voltemand,
Cornelius, Lords and Attendant.

KING.
Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother’s death, Claudius is a confident politician, but he is still not as good a King as the Dane, nor as good a warrior or a tactician, or he wouldn’t have allowed a foreign army to march across his country later. Although one could argue that he allows Fortinbras to cross Denmark for the sole purpose of evaluating his army in case he later has to fight him. Still, I wouldn’t do it. The risk is far greater than the reward.
The memory be green, and that it us befitted
To bear our hearts in grief, and our whole kingdom
To be contracted in one brow of woe;
Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature
That we with wisest sorrow think on him,
Together with remembrance of ourselves.
Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen, Aegisthus was Agamemnon’s adopted brother and first cousin and thus a brother in law of Clytemnestra. They also married shortly after Agamemnon’s death.
Th’imperial jointress to this warlike state, ruling as one like Clytemnestra and Aegisthus
Have we, as ’twere with a defeated joy,
With one auspicious and one dropping eye,
With mirth in funeral, and with dirge in marriage,
In equal scale weighing delight and dole, Equal in grief and power and sin; Is he declaring that Gertrude is the rightful ruler of Denmark? Did she inherit the throne from her husband or her father? Is Claudius, the Dane’s younger brother? Why is it unclear who should succeed the Dane as King? Did Shakespeare deliberately leave the question of succession ambiguous? Or was the crown awarded by committee, like in ancient Greece by a council of elders?
Taken to wife; nor have we herein barr’d
Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone
With this affair along. For all, our thanks.
Now follows, that you know young Fortinbras, Similar to Orestes in that he wants to reclaim the throne which was stolen by Clytemnestra and Aegisthus, esp. from Aegisthus
Holding a weak supposal of our worth,
Or thinking by our late dear brother’s death Fortinbras thinks me weak and seeks to take advantage of me and Denmark. Again, why give in to the request to march across Denmark? And he’s right! You are weak when compared to the Dane.
Our state to be disjoint and out of frame,
Colleagued with this dream of his advantage,
He hath not fail’d to pester us with message,
Importing the surrender of those lands
Lost by his father, with all bonds of law,
To our most valiant brother. So much for him.
Now for ourself and for this time of meeting:
Thus much the business is: we have here writ I tattled on Fortinbras to his uncle, and he’ll rein him in
To Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras, Fortinbras, like Hamlet, is too young, too hot-headed, and untested to be crowned king, but unlike Hamlet, Fortinbras is willing to raise an army and prove that he is his father’s son and should be King over his ineffectual uncle.
Who, impotent and bed-rid, scarcely hears
Of this his nephew’s purpose, to suppress
His further gait herein; in that the levies,
The lists, and full proportions are all made
Out of his subject: and we here dispatch
You, good Cornelius, and you, Voltemand,
For bearers of this greeting to old Norway,
Giving to you no further personal power
To business with the King, more than the scope
Of these dilated articles allow.
Farewell; and let your haste commend your duty.

CORNELIUS and VOLTEMAND.
In that, and all things, will we show our duty.

KING.
We doubt it nothing: heartily farewell.

[Exeunt Voltemand and Cornelius.]

And now, Laertes, what’s the news with you? Laertes is also the name of Odysseus’ father in the Iliad and Odyssey, tentative link to Orestia who although quite old helped his son kill the suitors of Penelope, who unlike Gertrude was a faithful wife
You told us of some suit. What is’t, Laertes?
You cannot speak of reason to the Dane, By calling himself the Dane, Claudius further staking claim on his brother’s reputation of simply being the King and the head of all of the state…i.e. as the leader, all of Denmark will follow, or is he commandeering his brother’s life? He’s taken his throne, his wife, so why not take his name?
And lose your voice. What wouldst thou beg, Laertes,
That shall not be my offer, not thy asking?
The head is not more native to the heart,
The hand more instrumental to the mouth,
Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father.
What wouldst thou have, Laertes?

LAERTES.
Dread my lord,
Your leave and favour to return to France,
From whence though willingly I came to Denmark Why did Shakespeare choose to send Laertes to study in France? Are the French more likely to execute an aristocrat as opposed to a German? Are Germans more likely to condemn a person for heresy than a Frenchman? Germany second worst place to live during the Inquisition. Is France more liberal than Germany, looser in their morals, and not as pious or uptight? Less conservative?
To show my duty in your coronation;
Yet now I must confess, that duty done,
My thoughts and wishes bend again toward France,
And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon.

KING.
Have you your father’s leave? What says Polonius?

POLONIUS.
He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave
By laboursome petition; and at last
Upon his will I seal’d my hard consent.
I do beseech you give him leave to go.

KING.
Take thy fair hour, Laertes; time be thine,
And thy best graces spend it at thy will!
But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son—

HAMLET.
[Aside.] A little more than kin, and less than kind.

KING.
How is it that the clouds still hang on you?

HAMLET.
Not so, my lord, I am too much i’ the sun. No longer shielded by his parents, now an orphan, pun on son.Tentative reference to Apollo the god of the sun and his failed seduction of Cassandra (Ophelia) who clings to her virginity.

QUEEN.
Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off, Pun on darkness but also chivalry, knighthood?
And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.
Do not for ever with thy vailed lids vailed veiled, veil of sleep, veil of death. Agamemnon was murdered by Clytemnestra after she threw a veil over him.
Seek for thy noble father in the dust.
Thou know’st ’tis common, all that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.

HAMLET.
Ay, madam, it is common. A reference to her marriage to Claudius, a weakness of sensual passion and lust; the sin of Eve in Eden. Also commonality.

QUEEN.
If it be,
Why seems it so particular with thee? Why are you so preoccupied with your Father’s death? Because he has an Electra complex.

HAMLET.
Seems, madam! Nay, it is; I know not seems. I’m really upset by my father’s death. I’m not pretending. Appearance vs reality. I loved my father; I wasn’t pretending to love him like you.
’Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
Nor customary suits of solemn black,
Nor windy suspiration of forc’d breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected haviour of the visage,
Together with all forms, moods, shows of grief,
That can denote me truly. These indeed seem,
For they are actions that a man might play; Reference to the future players or to Gertrude’s “love” for her dead husband
But I have that within which passeth show;
These but the trappings and the suits of woe. My true feelings are, in fact, being shown; I’m not pretending or acting. At least not yet.

KING.
’Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,
To give these mourning duties to your father;
But you must know, your father lost a father,
That father lost, lost his, and the survivor bound
In filial obligation, for some term
To do obsequious sorrow. But to persevere Get over it, like your mom and me
In obstinate condolement is a course
Of impious stubbornness. ’Tis unmanly grief, Hamlet is too immature to be the king, is not a man, too feminine like Electra
It shows a will most incorrect to heaven,
A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,
An understanding simple and unschool’d; You’re acting like a petulant, immature princely little boy, which he still is at this point, Claudius is admonishing him to act like a man or like a king. i.e., both your father and I expected more from you.
For what we know must be, and is as common
As any the most vulgar thing to sense,
Why should we in our peevish opposition
Take it to heart? Fie, ’tis a fault to heaven,
A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,
To reason most absurd, whose common theme
Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried,
From the first corse till he that died today,
‘This must be so.’ We pray you throw to earth Bury your grief as you buried your father
This unprevailing woe, and think of us
As of a father; for let the world take note I’ve replaced your father in more ways than one.
You are the most immediate to our throne, You are my heir and the heir to the throne, but Gertrude is most likely in her mid-to late thirties or early forties at the most and thus still able to produce a son for Claudius, and then, Hamlet will not be the heir any longer.
And with no less nobility of love
Than that which dearest father bears his sonI have certain expectations of you, like a father. If you toe the line, I will reward someday.
Do I impart toward you. For your intent
In going back to school in Wittenberg, Setting the time of the play at the tail end of the Middle Ages and transitioning into the Renaissance.
It is most retrograde to our desire:
And we beseech you bend you to remain
Here in the cheer and comfort of our eye,
Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.

QUEEN.
Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet.
I pray thee stay with us; go not to Wittenberg. Wittenberg the university who boasted of Dr. Faustus as one of its learned professors.

HAMLET.
I shall in all my best obey you, madam. But not Claudius, Honor they father and mother, but Claudius is in fact not my father, and I will not obey him. Classic stepchild behavior.  You’re not my dad, and I don’t have to do what you say!

KING.
Why, ’tis a loving and a fair reply.
Be as ourself in Denmark. Madam, come;
This gentle and unforc’d accord of Hamlet
Sits smiling to my heart; in grace whereof,
No jocund health that Denmark drinks today
But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell,
And the King’s rouse the heaven shall bruit again,
Re-speaking earthly thunder. Come away.

[Exeunt all but Hamlet.]

HAMLET.
O that this too too solid flesh would melt I am a sinner.
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d
His canon ’gainst self-slaughter. O God! O God! Suicide is a mortal sin. Because if you commit suicide, you cannot ask for forgiveness. Despite his depression, Hamlet does not want to lose his immortal soul. But then he goes and commits a mortal sin when he kills Polonius.
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on’t! Oh fie! ’tis an unweeded garden Reference perhaps to Agamemnon spending ten years away from home in the Trojan War while Aegisthus invaded his garden. Did the Dane spend too much time away from home as well, and a weed, Claudius, invaded his garden? Reference to the snake in the Garden of Evil luring someone into doing something evil, or a reference to the snake being sexual and seducing Eve, as Claudius has seduced Gertrude, and as Aegisthus seduced Clytemnestra.
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature Lust is a sin, and sin begets sin
Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
But two months dead—nay, not so much, not two:
So excellent a king; that was to this
Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother, Hyperion is a Titan, a sun-god, while Claudius is a lecherous goat-man. Reference to the fact that Aegisthus was suckled by a goat after being abandoned by his mother. It could also be a reference to Agamemnon being like a god and Aegisthus being a beast. A satyr was regarded as an embodiment of the Devil.
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him
As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on; and yet, within a month— Lust not love determined Claudius and Gertrude’s union as it does in
Let me not think on’t—Frailty, thy name is woman! The marriage has stained the reputation of the royal family as a moral leader; Weakness is the cause of this, Weakness of Gertrude or women in general? A reflection of Clytemnestra not submitting to her husband and wanting to rule Mycenae with Aegisthus at her side.
A little month, or ere those shoes were old
With which she followed my poor father’s body
Like Niobe, all tears.—Why she, even she—Grieving mother whose children were killed, like Iphigenia, or a symbol of pride and hubris, reference to Claudius, or a reference to Clytemnestra whose hubris led her to usurp Agamemnon from his rightful place as ruler of Mycenae, again the sin of pride and her dalliance with Aegisthus, the sin of lust.
O God! A beast that wants discourse of reason Serpent in Eden, which could talk and whose honeyed words led to the downfall of man, beastly desires as opposed to sanctity of love and marriage
Would have mourn’d longer,—married with mine uncle,
My father’s brother; but no more like my father
Than I to Hercules. Within a month, Hercules the son of a god, but not a god himself. Ref. divine right of kings or the son of a God?
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
She married. O most wicked speed, to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets! Against canon for a woman to marry her brother in law, it was considered incest. After marriage two people are considered one, so to marry one’s brother-in-law is marrying your brother. Two hearts, two souls, two lives become one. Would Aegisthus and Clytemnestra’s marriage be considered incestuous as well since, Aegisthus was Agamemnon’s first cousin/adopted brother by this standard?
It is not, nor it cannot come to good.
But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.

Enter Horatio, Marcellus and Barnardo.

HORATIO.
Hail to your lordship!

HAMLET.
I am glad to see you well:
Horatio, or I do forget myself.

HORATIO.
The same, my lord,
And your poor servant ever.

HAMLET.
Sir, my good friend;
I’ll change that name with you:
And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio?—
Marcellus?

MARCELLUS.
My good lord.

HAMLET.
I am very glad to see you.—Good even, sir.—
But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg?

HORATIO.
A truant disposition, good my lord.

HAMLET.
I would not hear your enemy say so;
Nor shall you do my ear that violence,
To make it truster of your own report
Against yourself. I know you are no truant.
But what is your affair in Elsinore?
We’ll teach you to drink deep ere you depart. Hamlet although upset about his father’s death, tries to be friendly and upbeat to his friends but of course this is before he speaks to the ghost.

HORATIO.
My lord, I came to see your father’s funeral.

HAMLET.
I prithee do not mock me, fellow-student.
I think it was to see my mother’s wedding.

HORATIO.
Indeed, my lord, it follow’d hard upon.

HAMLET.
Thrift, thrift, Horatio! The funeral bak’d meats Claudius and Gertrude were trying to save money and used the funeral feast for their wedding feast. Hamlet mocking the wedding
Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.
Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven
Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio.
My father,—methinks I see my father.

HORATIO.
Where, my lord?

HAMLET.
In my mind’s eye, Horatio.

HORATIO.
I saw him once; he was a goodly king.

HAMLET.
He was a man, take him for all in all, Rejection of the divine right of Kings? Not divine, just a man. Or as the head of the church in a country? The people follow the King in religion i.e. Eng. became Anglican because of Henry VIII rejecting Catholicism and judged by the pope to be a heretic as was Elizabeth I.
I shall not look upon his like again. The Dane was just a man, but an extraordinary man.

HORATIO.
My lord, I think I saw him yesternight.

HAMLET.
Saw? Who?

HORATIO.
My lord, the King your father.

HAMLET.
The King my father!

HORATIO.
Season your admiration for a while
With an attent ear, till I may deliver
Upon the witness of these gentlemen
This marvel to you.

HAMLET.
For God’s love let me hear.

HORATIO.
Two nights together had these gentlemen,
Marcellus and Barnardo, on their watch
In the dead waste and middle of the night,
Been thus encounter’d. A figure like your father,
Armed at point exactly, cap-à-pie,
Appears before them, and with solemn march
Goes slow and stately by them: thrice he walk’d
By their oppress’d and fear-surprised eyes,
Within his truncheon’s length; whilst they, distill’d
Almost to jelly with the act of fear,
Stand dumb, and speak not to him. This to me
In dreadful secrecy impart they did,
And I with them the third night kept the watch,
Where, as they had deliver’d, both in time,
Form of the thing, each word made true and good,
The apparition comes. I knew your father;
These hands are not more like.

HAMLET.
But where was this?

MARCELLUS.
My lord, upon the platform where we watch.

HAMLET.
Did you not speak to it?

HORATIO.
My lord, I did;
But answer made it none: yet once methought
It lifted up it head, and did address
Itself to motion, like as it would speak.
But even then the morning cock crew loud,
And at the sound it shrunk in haste away,
And vanish’d from our sight. Evil hiding from the eyes of God

HAMLET.
’Tis very strange.

HORATIO.
As I do live, my honour’d lord, ’tis true;
And we did think it writ down in our duty
To let you know of it.

HAMLET.
Indeed, indeed, sirs, but this troubles me.
Hold you the watch tonight?

MARCELLUS and BARNARDO.
We do, my lord.

HAMLET.
Arm’d, say you?

Both.
Arm’d, my lord.

HAMLET.
From top to toe?

BOTH.
My lord, from head to foot.

HAMLET.
Then saw you not his face?

HORATIO.
O yes, my lord, he wore his beaver up.

HAMLET.
What, look’d he frowningly?

HORATIO.
A countenance more in sorrow than in anger.

HAMLET.
Pale, or red?

HORATIO.
Nay, very pale.

HAMLET.
And fix’d his eyes upon you?

HORATIO.
Most constantly.

HAMLET.
I would I had been there.

HORATIO.
It would have much amaz’d you.

HAMLET.
Very like, very like. Stay’d it long?

HORATIO.
While one with moderate haste might tell a hundred.

MARCELLUS and BARNARDO.
Longer, longer.

HORATIO.
Not when I saw’t.

HAMLET.
His beard was grizzled, no?

HORATIO.
It was, as I have seen it in his life,
A sable silver’d.

HAMLET.
I will watch tonight;
Perchance ’twill walk again. Does Hamlet ask all these questions because he is skeptical of them seeing a ghost: a rational man as opposed to a superstitious one?

HORATIO.
I warrant you it will.

HAMLET.
If it assume my noble father’s person, Going against Christian admonitions to abstain from consorting with supernatural beings because they might be demons like Mephistopheles and intent on luring a human soul into damnation, reference to Wittenburg and Faustus
I’ll speak to it, though hell itself should gape Defiance of the Church, Defiance of God by committing a sin. To learn the truth about his father’s death, Hamlet is willing to commit a sin. He is also willing to commit sins to punish those responsible for his father’s death, but unfortunately, he ends up getting everyone he cares about dead, whether they were guilty or not like Ophelia.
And bid me hold my peace. I pray you all,
If you have hitherto conceal’d this sight,
Let it be tenable in your silence still;
And whatsoever else shall hap tonight,
Give it an understanding, but no tongue.
I will requite your loves. So, fare ye well.
Upon the platform ’twixt eleven and twelve,
I’ll visit you.

ALL.
Our duty to your honour.

HAMLET.
Your loves, as mine to you: farewell.

[Exeunt Horatio, Marcellus and Barnardo.]

My father’s spirit in arms! All is not well;
I doubt some foul play: would the night were come!
Till then sit still, my soul: foul deeds will rise, Doesn’t believe the Ghost is evil at this point, but expects that the truth will be revealed no matter how deep someone might try to bury it
Though all the earth o’erwhelm them, to men’s eyes.

[Exit.]

In the Orestia, after witnessing this “Supernatural event” or something out of the ordinary, the witness immediately goes to tell a member of the royal family.

Claudius refers to Gertrude as an imperial jointress in ruling Denmark with him. It does not seem likely by this passage that Gertrude is the true ruler of Denmark and her husband merely a “consort of the Queen” who has no real power, like Queen Elizabeth II and her husband. It seems to me that it was decided that Claudius should assume the role of King because Hamlet, the rightful heir, was not of age and not considered mature enough to ascend the throne. Later, when the gravedigger says that Hamlet is much older, I think it’s a typo.

After killing Agamemnon, Clytemnestra proclaims that she and Aegisthus will now rule as one. Orestes would have been a teenager at this point and not mature enough to rule Mycenae after Agamemnon’s death. It is only years later, during the Libation Bearers, that Orestes is ready to take on the mantle of a king. When need be, Shakespeare switches from Electra to Orestes. It’s necessary to keep the story cohesive and flowing, but the character of Hamlet is closest to Electra, who has been transformed into a boy.

 The reference to Wittenburg is interesting. Could it be that Shakespeare likened the Ghost to Mephistopheles in Faustus and thus is an evil entity who has set out, like Mephistopheles lured Faustus into greater and greater sin, to lure Hamlet into sin?