Hamlet and Gertrude: take 2

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.

He calls from outside the room.
HAMLET
Mother, mother, mother!

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

Polonius hides behind the arras as Hamlet enters. He knows what his mother called him in for but plays ignorant to see how the situation plays out.
HAMLET
Now, mother, what's the matter?

Hamlet's behavior in the past couple days has been unexplainable, but the stunt he pulled during the play pushed it over to inexcusable.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.

If anyone has offended any fathers, it was Gertrude by marrying King Hamlet's brother right after his death.
HAMLET
Mother, you have my father much offended.

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

He is seeing how far he can push his mother with his attitude. He disdain for her at this point is so strong he can hardly be civil towards her.
HAMLET
Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.

Gertrude can't understand why Hamlet is so upset with her, for in her mind she has done nothing wrong and that Hamlet is just overreacting with her marriage to Claudius.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Why, how now, Hamlet!

HAMLET
What's the matter now?

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Have you forgot me?

He feels no respect for her at all and when she belittles him with the threats of sending for others he shows his true feelings, anger and shame, more and more with each line.
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.

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

He pushes her into a chair, his anger becomes more obvious in his tone.
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.

Her eyes are wide with fright as she grips the arms of the chair.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murder me?
Help, help, ho!

Polonius panics from behind the arras.
Lord Polonius
What, ho! help, help, help!

Hearing Polonius, he draws his sword and whips around. Livid that he is being spied on, he loses all self-control.
HAMLET
How now! a rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead!
Makes a pass through the arras. Gertrude gets up from her chair and runs to the other side of the room in fear as Hamlet slashes at the arras.

Clutching his wound, Polonius struggles to speak.
LORD POLONIUS
[Behind] O, I am slain!
Falls and dies, his eyes wide, with almost a look of surprise on his face.

In shock over what has just happened, she slowly approaches Hamlet, her voice soft with fright.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
O me, what hast thou done?

Slightly stunned by his own actions, he looks at his sword, and then at the torn arras.
HAMLET
Nay, I know not:
Is it the king?

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

He slowly turns to her and glares, upset by his mother's inability to see how wrong her marrying Claudius was.
HAMLET
A bloody deed! almost as bad, good mother,
As kill a king, and marry with his brother.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
As kill a king!

He knows Gertrude knows what he is talking about.
HAMLET
Ay, lady, 'twas my word.
Hamlet lifts up the array and discovers POLONIUS. He sighs heavily. He is disheartened for he knows if Polonius had just minded his own business he would still be alive.
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.

Speaking to Hamlet's back, her question sounds sincere.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
What have I done, that thou darest wag thy tongue
In noise so rude against me?

He turns and looks at her with disbelief that she is still pretending to not know what he is talking about. He really can't believe that she is still denying it.
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.

She is becoming frustrated with Hamlet, her voice pained with confusion.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Ay me, what act,
That roars so loud, and thunders in the index?

At first he is filled with anguish, but it evolves into anger as he finally lets out all hate and disgust he felt towards Gertrude and Claudius.
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.

She had begun to cry while Hamlet yelled at her. Not wanting to face the awful reality of her marriage to Claudius, she begs him to stop.
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.

He comes in close to Gertrude's face, his anger only increasing due to the shame he feels towards her. He clenches his teeth in anger.
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,--

Gertrude can't take it anymore. She falls to her knees sobbing, her hands over her ears.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
O, speak to me no more;
These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears;
No more, sweet Hamlet!

Hamlet feels almost a sense of satisfaction after finally telling his mother how he feels. He yells his accusation and speaks clearly,as if he wants the entire world to hear it.
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!

QUEEN GERTRUDE
No more!

HAMLET
A king of shreds and patches,--
Enter Ghost. As if suddenly under a spell, Hamlet becomes calm, falling to his knees as a sign of respect for his father.
Save me, and hover o'er me with your wings,
You heavenly guards! What would your gracious figure?

She regains her senses and is puzzled by Hamlet's sudden calmness.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Alas, he's mad!

Hamlet, ignoring his mother, is anxious to know why the ghost is visiting him and is hoping he has come to give him more instructions.
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!

Hamlet has strayed from his original goal of seeking revenge on Claudius, and the ghost is putting him back in his place.
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 doesn't know how to answer Hamlet's question. The conversation he just had with himself in addition to his strange behavior over the past few days only confirms that he has gone crazy. However, Gertrude senses Hamlet is having a semi-sane moment and jumps at the opportunity to attempt to gain any insight.
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?

Hamlet's anger has subsided and is attempting to somewhat rebuild the bridge he has just burned with his mother, hoping to do so by showing her his father's ghost. The problem with this however, is that its distracting Hamlet from his revenge.
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.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
To whom do you speak this?

The mood has become tense for neither Gertrude nor Hamlet wants to upset the other. They are tiptoeing around the issue that in their own mind, the other person is slightly off.
HAMLET
Do you see nothing there?

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

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!

The ghost leaves. Gertrude is trying her hardest to bring Hamlet back to reality.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
This the very coinage of your brain:
This bodiless creation ecstasy
Is very cunning in.

This is key, for throughout the entire play Hamlet has been playing the crazy card a but now it has made it impossible for anyone to take him seriously. He is frustrated the one time he wants to be seen as sane, he is viewed as a lunatic.
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.
Hamlet attempts to get back to the issue of his mother and Claudius. He and Gertrude are drifting from the real problem, which is Gertrude marrying Claudius, not Hamlet's questionable sanity.
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.

She wants nothing more than for all of this too end for it isn't doing any good for anyone. She falls back into her chair, exhausted with grief.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.

Hamlet has hope for his mother. He takes her hands in his and earnestly looks at her, feeling a need to protect her from Claudius and hoping she has enough strength to resist him.
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,
He motions toward Polonius, aware that he must face the consequences of his actions.
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.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
What shall I do?

He cautions her to not be lulled into a false sense of security by Claudius and expose his plan and all he has worked for. The situation is very delicate at this point and even the smallest upset could ruin everything.
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.

Easier said than done. She is not strong enough to betray Claudius like that.
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.

Let it be sung

Hallelujah by Jeff buckley

Well I heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
Well it goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall and the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

Well Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
she tied you to her kitchen chair
And she broke your throne and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

Well baby I've been here before
I know this room and I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you
I've seen your flag on the marble arch
Love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

Well there was a time when you let me know
What's really going on below
But now you never show that to me do you?
And remember when I moved in you?
And the holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

Well maybe there's a God above
But all I've ever learned from love
Was how to shoot somebody who'd out drew you
And it's not a cry that you hear at night
It's not somebody who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah