Hamlet

Act IV

Method to the Madness• “Not where he eats, but where he is eaten: a

certain convocation of politic worms are e'en at him. Your worm is your only emperor for diet: we fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots: your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service,--two dishes, but to one table: that's the end…A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm…Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar.”

• (IV.iii.22-28, 30-32, 34-35) Equality of Death

• A poor man can eat a king.• Death comes to us all.

Method to the Madness

• “In heaven: send thither to see: if your messenger find him not there, seek him i' the other place yourself. But, indeed, if you find him not within this month, you shall nose him as you go up the stairs into the lobby.”

(IV.iii.37-41)• Insulting to the King

– Hamlet predicts the destiny of the King

The King’s Plan Part I

• Sends Hamlet to England to “recover” his wits.

• Suggests that Hamlet needs to leave Denmark in order to be protected

• In reality, Claudius is sending Hamlet to England in order to be executed.

Ophelia’s Songs

• “How should I your true love knowFrom another one?

By his cockle hat and staffAnd his sandal shoon.

He is dead a gone, lady,He is dead and gone;

Ophelia’s Songs

• At his head a grass-green turfAt his heels a stone.

White his shroud as the mountain snow

Larded all with sweet flowers;Which bewept to the ground did not go

With true-love showers.”• Sadness over Polonius’ death.

Ophelia’s Songs

“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 donned his clothes And dupped the chamber door,Let in the maid, that out a maid Never departed more.

Ophelia’s Songs

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 promised me to wed.’‘So would I ‘a done, by yonder sun, An thou hadst not come to my bed.’”

Ophelia’s Songs

• Insight into the relationship of Hamlet and Ophelia?

• Was she intimate with Hamlet because she expected to marry him?

• Is marriage out of the question now?• Hamlet killed her father.• Characterization of Ophelia

– Dependent versus independent

Ophelia and the Flowers

• Rosemary– Remembrance

• Laertes

Ophelia and the Flowers

• Pansies– Thoughts

• Laertes

Ophelia and the Flowers

• Fennel– Flattery and

Deceit (Marital Infidelity)• Gertrude and

Claudius?

Ophelia and the Flowers

• Columbines– Flattery and

Insincerity• Gertrude and

Claudius?

Ophelia and the Flowers

• Rue– Sorrow or

Repentance• Gertrude and

Claudius?• Keeps some

for herself

Ophelia and the Flowers

• Daisy – Forsaken or

Unhappy Love• Gertrude?• Ophelia?

Ophelia and the Flowers

• Violets – Faithfulness• “they

withered all when my father died.”

Laertes’ Anger with the King

• Angry that Hamlet has not been punished

• Angry that Polonius did not receive a proper funeral

Connections to Hamlet

“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,That both the worlds I give to negligence,Let come what comes, only I’ll be revengedMost throughly for my father.”

(IV.v.148-154)• Both have had a father murdered.• Hamlet talks about action, but (so far) has not actually

acted.• Laertes talks about action too

Act Scene vi

• Horatio enters with a letter from Hamlet

• His ship attacked by pirates- jumped aboard their ship

• They treated him fairly as a prisoner • Is coming with news- G & R still on

their way to England

Act IV Scene viiClaudius to Laertes:“The queen his mother

Lives almost by his looks; and for myself--My virtue or my plague, be it either which--She's so conjunctive to my life and soul,That, as the star moves not but in his sphere,I could not but by her. The other motive,Why to a public count I might not go,Is the great love the general gender bear him;Who, dipping all his faults in their affection,Would, like the spring that turneth wood to stone,Convert his gyves to graces; so that my arrows,Too slightly timber'd for so loud a wind,Would have reverted to my bow again,And not where I had aim'd them” (IV. Vii. 11-24)

Act IV Scene vii

• King tells Laertes that Hamlet is to blame

• Asks why Hamlet wasn’t killed– Loves mom – People love him

• Vows to avenge his father’s death

The King’s Plan

• Claudius will arrange a fencing match between Hamlet and Laertes.

• Laertes will use an unbated sword.• Laertes will poison tip of sword.• Poison cup of wine.

The Death of Ophelia • “There is a willow grows aslant a brook,

That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream;There with fantastic garlands did she comeOf crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purplesThat liberal shepherds give a grosser name,But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them:There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weedsClambering to hang, an envious sliver broke;

The Death of Ophelia• When down her weedy trophies and herself

Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide;And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up:Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes;As one incapable of her own distress,Or like a creature native and induedUnto that element: but long it could not beTill that her garments, heavy with their drink,Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious

layTo muddy death.” (IV.vii.190-208)