Bertie's Paraphrases of Famous Scenes from Shakespeare: Hamlet, Act 5, Scene 1 (The Graveyard Scene)
[Setting: the graveyard at Elsinore Castle in Denmark]
[Enter two grave-diggers]
DIGGER 1: Is she to be buried in Christian burial, when she wilfully
seeks her own salvation?
DIGGER 2: I tell you she is, therefore make her grave straight.
: The coroner has sat on her [case], and finds it Christian
burial.
[Note: they are talking about Ophelia, who has gone mad and drowned after Hamlet killed her father (mistaking him for King Claudius, who killed Hamlet's father)]
DIGGER 1: How can that be, unless she drowned herself in her own
defence?
DIGGER 2: Well, it's found so.
DIGGER 1: It must be se offendendo, it cannot be [anything] else.
[Note: the digger has mistaken 'se offendendo', which means 'self offence',
for the legal term 'se defendendo', which means 'self defence'.]
: For here lies the point: if I drown myself wittingly, it argues
[there has been] an act, and an act has three branches - it is
to act, to do, to perform.
: Therefore, she drowned herself wittingly.
DIGGER 2: No, but listen my good digger...
DIGGER 1: Give me permission [to finish].
: Here lies the water; good.
: Here stands the man; good.
: If the man goes to this water and drowns himself, it is, will
he nill he, he goes, take note of that.
: But if the water comes to him and drowns him, he doesn't drown
himself.
: Therefore, he that is not guilty of his own death doesn't
shorten his own life.
DIGGER 2: But is this law?
DIGGER 1: Yes by Saint Mary, it is - coroner's inquest law.
DIGGER 2: Will you hear the truth of it?
: If this had not been a gentlewoman, she would have been buried
out of Christian burial.
DIGGER 1: Why, there you have it.
: And more's the pity that great folk should have permission in
this world to drown or hang themselves more than their fellow-
Christians.
: Come, [hand me] my spade.
: There are no ancient gentlemen but gardeners, ditch-diggers,
and grave-makers.
: They uphold Adam's profession.
DIGGER 2: Was he a gentleman?
DIGGER 1: He was the first that ever carried arms.
DIGGER 2: Why, he had none!
DIGGER 1: What, are you a heathen?
: How do you understand the Scripture?
: The Scripture says Adam digged.
: Could he dig without arms?
: I'll put another question to you.
: If you don't answer me to the point, confess yourself...
[Note: the proverb goes, 'Confess yourself, and be hanged.']
DIGGER 2: Go on!
DIGGER 1: What is he that builds stronger than either the mason, the
shipwright, or the carpenter?
DIGGER 2: The gallows-maker, for that outlives a thousand tenants.
DIGGER 1: I like your wit well, in good faith.
: The gallows does well.
: But how does it [do] well?
: It does well to those that do ill.
: Now, you do ill to say the gallows is built stronger than the
church.
: Therefore, the gallows may do well to you.
: Try it again, come.
DIGGER 2: Who builds stronger than a mason, a ship-builder, or a
carpenter?
DIGGER 1 : Yes, tell me that and finish up.
DIGGER 2: By Mary, now I can tell!
DIGGER 1: Go to it.
DIGGER 2: By the mass, I cannot tell.
DIGGER 1: Batter your brains no more about it, because your dull ass
will not change his pace with beating.
: And when you are asked this question next, say 'a grave-maker':
- the houses he makes last till doomsday.
: Go, get yourself inside, and fetch me a sip of liquor.
[Exit Digger 2]
[Digger 1 gets into the grave and begins digging and singing]
: "In youth when I did love, did love,
I thought it was very sweet
To shorten work-time for my benefit,
Oh I thought there was nothing so meet [= so proper]."
[Enter Hamlet and Horatio. Hamlet is Prince of Denmark and Horatio is his university buddy. Hamlet has just returned from a brief exile in England for killing Ophelia's father]
HAMLET: Has this fellow no feeling for his business?
: He sings in grave-making.
HORATIO: Habit has made an attitude of indifference in him.
HAMLET: It is exactly so.
: The hand unused to work has the daintier sense.
DIGGER 1: "But age with his sneaking steps
Has clawed me in his clutch,
And has sent me into the ground,
As if I had never been such [as I was]."
[He throws out a skull]
HAMLET: That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once.
: How the scoundrel dashes it to the ground, as if it were Cain's
jawbone, he that did the first murder!
: This might be the pate of a politician, which this ass now
throws out of office; one who would get around God, might he
not?
HORATIO: He might, my lord.
HAMLET: Or of a courtier, who could say, 'Good day, sweet lord! How do
you do, sweet lord?'
: This might be my Lord Such-a-One, that praised my Lord Such-a-
One's horse when he went to borrow it, might it not?
HORATIO: Yes, my lord.
HAMLET: Why, even so; and now he's my Lady Worm's, jawless, and knocked
about the noggin with a grave-digger's spade.
: Here's a fine turnabout, if we had the trick of seeing it.
: Did these bones cost no more in the breeding than that we can
play at ninepins with them?
: Mine ache to think about it.
DIGGER 1: "A pickaxe and a spade, a spade,
Oh and a shrouding sheet;
A pit of clay oh to be made
For such a guest is meet [= is proper, with a pun on 'meat']."
[He throws out another skull]
HAMLET: There's another.
: Why, may not that be the skull of a lawyer?
: Where are his arguments now, his quibbles, his cases, his
tenures and his tricks?
: Why does he allow this mad rascal now to knock him about the
scone with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of his [legal]
action for battery?
: Hmm!
: This fellow might have been in his time a great buyer of land,
with his mortgages, his bills of debt, his fines, his summonses,
his recoveries.
: Is this the fine [= result] of his fines, and the recovery of
his recoveries, to have his fine head full of fine dirt.
[Note that there are four senses of the word 'fine' here.]
: Will vouchers vouch [= guarantee] him nothing more from his
purchases and tricks than the length and breadth of a pair of
papers.
[Note: Hamlet is likening the shape of legal papers to the shape of a grave.]
: The very conveyance papers of his lands will scarcely lie in
this box [= the box-shaped grave (and probably the coffin) as
likened to a box for storing legal papers], and must the
inheritor [of the lands] himself have no more, huh?
HORATIO: Not a jot more, my lord.
HAMLET: Is not parchment made of sheepskins?
HORATIO: Yes, my lord, and of calves' skins too.
HAMLET: They are sheep and calves [= fools] who seek security in that.
: I will speak to this fellow.
: Whose grave's this, sirrah?
[Note: 'sirrah' was a less respectful form of 'sir'.]
DIGGER 1: Mine, sir.
: "Oh a pit of clay to be made for..."
HAMLET: I think it is yours indeed, for you lie [= speak falsely] in it.
DIGGER 1: You lie [= are located] out of it, sir, and therefore it's
not yours.
: For my part, I do not lie [= speak falsely] in it, yet it is
mine.
HAMLET: You do lie in it, to be in it and say it is yours: it's for the
dead, not for the quick [= the living], therefore you lie.
DIGGER 1: It's a quick lie, sir; it'll run away again from me to you.
[Note: in other words, 'Here's your insult right back at you.']
HAMLET: What man do you dig it for?
DIGGER 1: For no man, sir.
HAMLET: What woman then?
DIGGER 1: For none neither.
HAMLET: Who is to be buried in it?
DIGGER 1: One that was a woman, sir, but, rest her soul, she's dead.
HAMLET [To Horatio]: How precise the scoundrel is!
: We must speak by the rules, or double-meaning will
undo us.
: [I swear] by the Lord, Horatio, for these last three years
I have taken note of it, the times have grown so rarefied that
the toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier
he kicks his chilblain.
[To Digger 1]: How long have you been a grave-maker?
DIGGER 1: Of the days in the years, I came to it that day that our last
king Hamlet overcame Fortinbras.
[Note: "our last king Hamlet" was Prince Hamlet's father]
HAMLET: How long ago is that?
DIGGER 1: Cannot you tell that?
: Every fool can tell that.
: It was the very day that young Hamlet was born - he that is
mad and sent into England.
HAMLET: Yes, by Mary, why was he sent to England?
DIGGER 1: Why, because he was mad.
: He shall recover his wits there, or if he do not, it's no
great matter there.
HAMLET: Why?
DIGGER 1: It'll not be seen in him there.
: There the men are as mad as he.
HAMLET: How did he come to be mad?
DIGGER 1: Very strangely, they say.
HAMLET: How [do you mean] strangely?
DIGGER 1: Truly, just by losing his wits.
HAMLET: Upon what ground? [= From what cause?]
DIGGER 1: Why, here in Denmark.
: I have been grave-digger here, man and boy, thirty years.
HAMLET: How long will a man lie in the earth before he rots?
DIGGER: Truly, if he be not rotten before he die, as we have many poxy
corpses that will scarcely last till they are laid in [the
ground], he will last you some eight or nine year.
: A tanner will last you nine year.
HAMLET: Why he more than another?
DIGGER 1: Why sir, his hide is so tanned from his trade that he will
keep out water a great while, and your water is a powerful
decayer of your whoreson dead body.
: Here's a skull now that has lain in the earth these three and
twenty years.
HAMLET: Whose was it?
DIGGER 1: A whoreson mad fellow's it was.
: Whose do you think it was?
HAMLET: No, I don't know.
DIGGER 1: A plague on him for a mad rogue!
: He poured a flagon of Rhenish [wine] on my head once.
: This same skull, sir, was, sir, Yorick's skull, the king's
jester.
HAMLET [taking the skull] This?
DIGGER 1: Just that.
HAMLET: Alas, poor Yorick!
: I knew him, Horatio.
: A fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent imagination.
: He has carried me on his back a thousand times, and now how
abhorrent in my imagination it is.
: My gorge rises at it.
: Here hung those lips that I have kissed [as a child] I don't
know how often.
[To the skull]: Where are your jokes now? - your dances, your songs, your
flashes of merriment that were likely to set the whole
table to roaring [with laughter]?
: Not one now to mock your own grinning? - quite slack-jawed?
: Now get yourself to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let
her paint [her face] an inch thick, to this look she must
come; make her laugh at that.
: Please, Horatio, tell me one thing.
HORATIO: What's that, my lord?
HAMLET: Do you think Alexander [the Great] looked this way in the earth?
HORATIO: Just so.
HAMLET [Putting down the skull] And smelt so? - pah!
HORATIO: Just so, my lord.
HAMLET: To what low states we may return, Horatio!
: Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander till
it finds it stopping a bunghole?
HORATIO: It would be to consider too cleverly to consider so.
HAMLET: No, truly, not a jot, but to follow him there with simplicity
enough, and [sense of] likelihood to lead the way.
: Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returns to dust;
the dust is earth, of earth we make clay, and why, of that clay
into which he was converted, might they not stopper a beer
barrell?
: Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay, might stopper a hole
to keep the wind away.
: Oh that the earth which kept the world in awe should patch a
wall to expel the water's flaw [= storm]!
[Exit the gravedigger]
: But hush, but hush a while!
: Here comes the king, the queen, the courtiers.
[Enter King Claudius, Queen Gertrude (Hamlet's mother), Laertes (Ophelia's brother), a priest, and attendants, following the body of Ophelia.]
: Who is this they are following?
: And with such incomplete rites?
: This indicates that the corpse they follow did with desperate
hands take its own life.
: It was [someone] of some rank.
: We'll hide a while, and watch.
LAERTES [To the priest] What ceremony else?
HAMLET: That is Laertes, a very noble youth.
: Watch.
LAERTES: What ceremony else?
PRIEST: Her funeral has been as far enlarged as we have a right to.
: Her death was suspicious, and except that the great command
[= the king's command] over-rides the [religious] order, she
should have been lodged in unsanctified ground until the last
trumpet.
[Note: the last trumpet is that played by the Angel Gabriel to signal Judgment Day.]
: Instead of charitable prayers, broken pots, flints, and pebbles
should be thrown on her.
: Yet here she is allowed her virgin's garland, her maiden's
flowers, and the bringing [to her final] home with bell and
burial rites.
LAERTES: Must there be no more done?
PRIEST: No more must be done.
: We would profane the service for the dead to sing a requiem and
the rest for her as for peacefully departed souls.
LAERTES: Lay her in the earth, and from her fair and unpolluted flesh
may violets spring!
: I tell you, churlish priest, my sister shall be a ministering
angel when you lie howling [in Hell].
HAMLET: What, the fair Ophelia?
GERTRUDE [scattering flowers around the grave] Sweets to the sweet.
: Farewell.
: I hoped you would have been my Hamlet's wife.
: I thought to have decorated your bridal-bed [with flowers],
sweet maid, and not to have scattered them on your grave.
LAERTES: Oh triple woe fall ten times double on that cursed head whose
wicked deed deprived you of your delicate senses.
: Hold off the earth a while, till I have held her once more in
my arms.
[Laertes jumps in beside the coffin.]
: Now pile your dust upon the living and the dead, till you have
made of this flat ground a mountain to overtower old Pelion
or the skyish head of blue Olympus.
[Hamlet and Horatio approach the grave]
HAMLET: Who is he whose grief carries such an emphasis?
: Whose phrase of sorrow casts a spell on the wandering stars,
and makes them wait like wonder-wounded hearers?
: This is I, Hamlet the Dane.
[Note that in calling himself 'the Dane' Hamlet is saying he has the
right to be king.]
[Hamlet jumps in beside Laertes.]
LAERTES: The devil take your soul!
HAMLET: You don't pray well.
: I ask you to take your fingers from around my throat, for,
though I am not hot-tempered and rash, yet I have something
dangerous in me, which you would be wise to fear.
: Take away your hand!
CLAUDIUS [To attendants]: Pull them apart.
GERTRUDE: Hamlet, Hamlet!
ATTENDANTS: Gentlemen!
HORATIO: My good lord, be peaceful.
HAMLET: Why, I will fight with him upon this theme until my eyelids
will no longer wag.
GERTRUDE: Oh my son, what theme?
HAMLET: I loved Ophelia.
: Forty thousand brothers with all their quantity of love could
not equal my sum.
[To Laertes]: What will you do for her?
CLAUDIUS: Oh he is mad, Laertes.
GERTRUDE: For the love of God, let him be!
HAMLET: God's wounds! - show me what you'd do!
: Would you weep?
: Would you fight?
: Would you fast?
: Would you tear yourself?
: Would you drink up vinegar?
: Eat a crocodile?
: I'll do it.
: Did you come here to whine?
: To outface me by leaping into her grave?
: Be buried alive with her, and so will I.
: And if you talk of mountains, let them throw millions of acres
on us, till our ground, singeing his head gainst the burning
zone [of the sun], makes Mount Ossa look like a wart!
: yes, if you'll rave, I'll rant as well as you.
GERTRUDE: This is mere madness, and the fit will have this effect on
him for a while.
: Soon, as patient as the female dove when her golden chicks
are hatched, his silence will sit drooping.
HAMLET: Hear this, sir!
: What is the reason that you treat me this way?
: I have always respected you.
: But that doesn't matter.
: Let Hercules himself do what he may, the cat will meow and
the dog will have his day.
[Exit Hamlet]
CLAUDIUS: I ask you, good Horatio, watch over him.
[Exit Horatio]
[To Laertes]: Strengthen your patience by thinking of our talk last
night.
: We'll put the matter to the test immediately.
[Note: Claudius, fearing Hamlet's revenge, has suggested that Laertes challenge him to a supposedly peacemaking bout of fencing and kill him]
: Good Gertrude, put some watch over your son; in that way we
shall see an hour of quiet.
: Till then we will proceed in patience.
: This grave shall have an enduring monument.
[Exit all]
[End of scene]
I love this scene!
I used to dislike it and it's hard for me to remember why. Perhaps it was the sudden appearance of the comic relief, the transition from the conversation with the gravedigger to violence in the grave or what I took to be a detour/stall in the plot. The memory slips through my fingers.
But I wrote a short paper (shorter than I wanted) saying that Hamlet was all about the issues of legal inheritance and this scene was the linchpin of two aspects of my reasoning. The writing is so tightly packed and ingenious as to be beyond belief. The many different uses of the word "fine" all within just a couple of Hamlet's lines, the significant clues that Shakespeare drops in without interrupting the dramatic flow as well as the hidden motivations and meanings behind the actions of absolutely every character assembled. You read it and all doubt about why this writing has lasted 400 years falls away. What a great choice of a scene.
Shakespeare could totally bring it.
The Bard is often difficult to read, but always well worth the effort. No other writer has left me so genuinely awe-struck at the breadth and depth of his genius.
I may ask you to lead me through Julius Caesar at some point because, reading it I just don't get it. Same thing for Anthony and Cleopatra except that I saw it, not read it, and it left me cold. After Shakespeare has turned around on me so many times I no longer think that it's him when I don't like one of his plays, I think it's me... and I think I hate that. I don't let anyone else tell me what to like/think. Stoopid Dead White Guy.
You'll have to be more specific about what you don't get re. JC. And as for simply watching a performance of one of the plays (particularly A&C) and expecting to gain anything like a thorough understanding - can't be done, no way nohow. Us stoopid living guys must study Shakespeare to really get him. He was largely a mystery to me until I determined to 'translate' him sentence by sentence. Sound like hard work? At first, maybe, but, once you figure out how his usage of many words differs from the way we use them, then you get better at it and his hold is upon you.
I must confess that I (think I) disagree with you. I think you are right in that one is not likely to come away with a deep understanding of the bard from watching one performance. However, his language does have a way of burrowing into you brain, of settling into the blood, if you will. Watching several of his plays fairly close together, while not serious study, certainly can flip the light on for some people.
Like learning most languages, immersion can often trump 'serious study'.
Of course, perhaps you would include that as serious study, which is groovy by me. I am not sure I have ever seriously studied Shakespeare, but I feel I have a good grasp of the plays I have encountered. I certainly understood nearly everything you 'translated' in the above scene.
Actually, if I were giving advice to a new reader, I would beg him or her to get an edition with a very short introduction and few if any footnotes. In my opinion, one should never attempt to study Shakespeare until one has enjoyed him, and that often can't happen if one is constantly freezing the flow of his liquid language to consult footnotes.
In fact, watching a great performance is a better introduction than reading a play. These were, after all, meant to be watched rather than read. Reading them will grant you great profit, but they cannot substitute for the intended experience any more than reading the lyric sheet to Blonde on Blonde can substitute for hearing the album.
There's my two cents. Toss 'em in the fountain if you like... :)
Now, after spewing all that, I must say I rather enjoyed this entry, and I beg for a sequel.
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
I confess that I hate most performances of the plays. The plays are long and almost all productions try to shorten them (by lopping off lines, and) by having the actors race through the remaing lines as if competing for a speed record. This is a serious impediment to comprehesion and an insult both to the author and the audience. True, one can get a hint of a 'feel' for The Bard by immersion in performances, but it is only a hint compared to what is gained by studious reading and the employment of one's own 'inner player'. Shakespeare's drama is mostly wide open to interpretation by performers, and by far the best interpretations are those based on a thorough understanding of what the lines mean.
Once you understand what's being said, *then* you can best appreciate the great verse in which what is said is expressed.
So, we do seem to disagree. And so I thank you for giving me this occasion to rally my thoughts on the matter.
I'm flattered that you want to read more of my amateur (many would say 'barbaric') paraphrase of this greatest of all plays. How about the scene in which Hamlet kills Polonius and then confronts his mother with her 'incest'?
I agree that most performances rush matters to a confusing degree. My patience for watching great art is legendary here (last night, I scanned my DVD collection for an 90 minute film to watch between events and realized I have few films under two hours and too too many over three hours!), but I know most people might not be up for complete performances. I would rather they tastefully cut a play than cram all the words into an indecipherable gunk.
Olivier's cut of Hamlet is an excellent example of such a concession to attention spans.
I agree that a thorough understanding of Shakespeare's sense is as vital as an open enjoyment of Shakespeare's sounds is to appreciating the bard fully. I believe our difference is our decision of which element to focus on upon introduction.
Perhaps it is the inevitable clash of opinions between a good (I surmise) philosopher and a bad (I know) poet. :)
I would very much enjoy reading your translation of the scene you mentioned. If I may nominate one, I would recommend, for a change of pace, The Taming of the Shrew, Act II, Scene I. It should provide ample opportunities for amplification.
It might also demand no small measure of courage...
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
I would like to oblige you with the scene you have nominated, but I have not paraphrased every one of the plays and unfortunately TTOTS is one of those I have not. Here is a list of those I have done:
As You Like It
The Comedy of Errors
Coriolanus
Hamlet
Henry the Fifth
Henry the Sixth, Part 1
Henry the Sixth, Part 2
Henry the Sixth, Part 3
Julius Caesar
King John
King Lear
Love's Labour's Lost
Macbeth
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Much Ado About Nothing
Othello
Richard the Second
Richard the Third
Romeo and Juliet
The Merchant of Venice
The Tempest
Twelfth Night
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
Choose any scene from any of these and I can post my paraphrase of it almost immediately.
Well, I have a request. I don't remember the number of the scene, but I would like to see a paraphrase of that scene from Twelfth Night in which Andrew writes that ridiculous letter challenging Viola to a duel.
I have been trying to find ten minutes to sit down and write something longer than this but... maybe next time. I haven't read all of your other paraphrases so the more that you continue to post the more I have to look forward to. If I have a preference or advice to give I would suggest that you do a play that you haven't covered yet. Also, since I think you smashed the head of the nail with your choice of a scene from Hamlet , I would like it if you picked what you thought was the most important, significant, influential, interesting... whatever-it-is scene. Or just the best scene, IYHO. This way I'll feel free to gripe and grouse about your choice.
See, everybody wins!
Do u have Romeo and Juliet Act 1 scene 1?
Yes, but I'll not carry coals; for then I'd be a collier.
hey bertie
you said you'd paraphrased Twelfth Night. Could you post Viola's monologue from lines 17-41??
Thanks a billion
Nichola
Damn! I missed your post up here. You need to post using the "start a new discussion" link, not the "reply to" link (unless you are actually making a reply).
See my post to you at the bottom of the page.
I think that we all agree that Shakespeare should be seen performed on stage (or maaaybe in a movie.) It is always very impressive to see a performance and think, "That guy's been dead for four hundred years... that's a lot of years!" Live performance gives you an insight into Stagemaster Willie's "original intent". He is surprisingly easy to enjoy on stage. At least it used to be surprising to me that I enjoyed his plays. But there is a distinction between "enjoyment" and "appreciation" of something. You may not enjoy that but I hope you appreciate it.
To truly "appreciate" Shakespeare I think you have to read him as well as have some knowledge about the context of his writings. I do not want to be a cultural "Margaret Dumont" chastising people in a high voice for not "apree-see-ating the Bard." I just think that a closer study of the texts (okay, maybe I do wish to be Ms. Dumont) deepens an audience's experience exponentially. In addition it offers insurance against cuts in the play, misguided interpretations of the text and bad actors.
You know what the funniest thing about Shakespeare is? It's the little differences:
We may know what Hamlet means when he mutters "Wormwood, wormwood" [III.ii.178] in response to the Player Queen's false words of devotion to the Player King (they are stand-ins for Hamlet's parents: Queen Gertrude and the dead King Hamlet.) Wormwood was not (and is not) wormy wood, it is an herb that in modern times is used to make the liqueur absinthe. The tarragon-like herb is very bitter and, in large enough amounts, deadly. So Hamlet may be referring to wormwood's taste and is saying that the Player Queen's words are bitter or they make him feel bitter upon hearing them.
Example?
Wormwood was, in Shakespeare's time, used by wet-nurses to wean infants from nursing. Shakespeare had already used wormwood in this sense when, in Romeo and Juliet , Juliet's nurse calculates Juliet's age by the amount of time that has passed since her weaning. So Hamlet's citation of the wormwood herb could refer to his final break from his mother, Queen Gertrude. The bitter, even poisonous, taste that wormwood imparts is Hamlet's emotional reaction to Gertrude's betrayal of King Hamlet. Prince Hamlet may be rejecting his mother due to actions of hers that he finds not literally but figuratively distasteful.
They don't call it "distasteful"?
A more interesting and subtle interpretation of Hamlet's utterance falls out of a knowledge of Proverbs V which is a warning against an unchaste, adulterous woman. " "For the lips of a strange woman drop as a honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil: / but her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. / Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell. / Lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life, her ways are movable, that thou canst not know them" [Proverbs, V.3-6 (KJV)] In this light Hamlet's whispering becomes a double edged condemnation of his mother's lack of chastity in marrying his uncle Claudius. So not only are the Player Queen's words bitter to Hamlet but they are an echo of a biblical warning against an unchaste woman.
"Unchaste woman"!
This analysis leads to a double image of the betrayal of King Hamlet. On one side there is Queen Gertrude pouring metaphorical honeyed poison in her husband's ear in the form of false promises. On the other side there is King Hamlet's brother, Claudius, pouring literal poison into the King's ear. Considering Hamlet's reaction at the play we see that the emotional betrayal by his mother is of greater offense to him than the actions of his uncle in the killing of the King.
What do they call his uncle?
King Claudius is the actual murderer of King Hamlet. However Prince Hamlet considers Queen Gertrude to have performed the first and greater offense through her betrayal. Shakespeare uses the metaphor of "wormwood" to apply different shades of meaning to Hamlet's much analyzed mood depending upon the interpretation of the term. Gertrude kills the memory of King Hamlet, which is an act that is bitter to Prince Hamlet in every way. This closer reading has also pointed the way to considering that Hamlet may rather exact revenge on his mother, Queen Gertrude, and not his father's killer, King Claudius.
What do they call Lady Macbeth?
I dunno. I didn't go into McB's
nykichiki - I need you to be more specific. Lines 17 - 41, Act ? Scene ?