Hamlet - Act 1 Scene 2

The Court

This would likely be a formal entrance procession, possibly set to music, establishing Claudius' status and the hierarchy of the court.


While Claudius' speech is a skilful oration, his authority derives partly from the reactions of his audience. Are they supportive? Contemplative? Enthralled? Do they gasp or applaud at certain moments? Do their reactions change throughout? 

Claudius' marriage to his brother's wife would have been troubling in Shakespeare's day. Henry VIII had been married to his brother's widow, Katherine of Aragon, and his desire to divorce her led to the foundation of the Church of England, and to the birth of Queen Elizabeth.

Claudius' use of the ambassadors demonstrates his difference from Old Hamlet. Where the old king was a formidable warrior, Claudius is a capable politician.

Enter CLAUDIUS, GERTRUDE, HAMLET, POLONIUS, LAERTES, VOLTIMAND,
CORNELIUS, Lords, and Attendants

CLAUDIUS
Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death
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,
The imperial jointress to this warlike state,
Have we, as 'twere with a defeated joy –
With an auspicious and a dropping eye,
With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage,
In equal scale weighing delight and dole –
Taken to wife: nor have we herein barred
Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone
With this affair along. For all, our thanks.
Now follows, that you know, young Fortinbras,
Holding a weak supposal of our worth,
Or thinking by our late dear brother's death
Our state to be disjoint and out of frame,
Colleaguèd with the dream of his advantage,
He hath not failed 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
To Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras –
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, Voltimand,
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 delated articles allow.
Farewell, and let your haste commend your duty.

CORNELIUS & VOLTIMAND
In that and all things will we show our duty.

CLAUDIUS
We doubt it nothing: heartily farewell.

Exeunt VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS

Claudius' repeated urging indicates that Laertes takes some time to speak. The text gives no direct reason for this delay: Laertes may be shy in public or overawed by the presence of the King (setting up a contrast with their next meting in 4.5), or he may be delaying for effect, or hovering near Polonius.

And now, Laertes, what's the news with you?
You told us of some suit; what is't, Laertes?
You cannot speak of reason to the Dane,
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?

This exchange will set up contrasts between Laertes and Hamlet: Laertes is deferential where Hamlet is impertinent; Laertes is granted his request while Hamlet's is denied; Laertes' destination is libertine France, whereas Hamlet has returned from scholarly, religious Germany.

LAERTES
My dread lord,
Your leave and favour to return to France;
From whence though willingly I came to Denmark,
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.

CLAUDIUS
Have you your father's leave? What says Polonius?

Polonius only has this one speech in the scene, but it helps to establish his role as advisor to the crown. Claudius may be humoring Polonius here, or the two of them may be teasing Laertes by delaying the answer to his request.

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

CLAUDIUS
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's positioning in the court and on the stage become important here. Has he been visible to the audience all along? Is he among the courtiers or off on his own? Has he been paying attention, or distracted, or openly mocking? 

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

CLAUDIUS
How is it that the clouds still hang on you?

HAMLET
Not so, my lord; I am too much i' the sun.

Gertrude's description here, in addition to Hamlet's comments in lines 79-88, indicate that Hamlet is still dressed in black mourning clothes, making him visibly stand out from the rest of the court.

GERTRUDE
Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off,
And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.
Do not for ever with thy vailèd lids
Seek for thy noble father in the dust:
Thou know'st 'tis common; all that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.

"Common" could be taken to mean "usual" but also "low-class," or "dirty." Depending on how the line is delivered, it could be conciliatory or viciously cutting.

HAMLET
Ay, madam, it is common.

GERTRUDE
If it be,
Why seems it so particular with thee?

This speech introduces a major theme of the play: the discrepancy between inner emotion or truth and outward appearance. There is a self-referential aspect to having an actor (in costume, playing a role) talk about how costumes and role playing are superficial, and cannot express the depth of his thought and feeling.

HAMLET
Seems, madam! Nay it is; I know not 'seems.'
'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
Nor customary suits of solemn black,
Nor windy suspiration of forced breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected 'havior of the visage,
Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief,
That can denote me truly: these indeed seem,
For they are actions that a man might play:
But I have that within which passeth show;
These but the trappings and the suits of woe.

If this speech is delivered as a public address, it can be quite humiliating for Hamlet. Claudius calls him unmanly, improper, and disrespectful to his father's memory, in front of the entire court. On the other hand, if Claudius makes this a private speech, it may still sting, but it creates intimacy and respect: the King is giving Hamlet a private audience.


Claudius may be motivated here by political shrewdness or personal guilt, but his advice is sound: a certain period of grief is appropriate, but eventually prolonged mourning starts to look like wallowing.

Claudius effectively makes Hamlet the heir to the throne of Denmark. This moment depends somewhat on Claudius' and Gertrude's ages: if they are relatively young, there is a possibility that they will have children, and Hamlet might be displaced again. 

CLAUDIUS
'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 persever
In obstinate condolement is a course
Of impious stubbornness; 'tis unmanly grief;
It shows a will most incorrect to heaven,
A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,
An understanding simple and unschooled:
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
This unprevailing woe, and think of us
As of a father: for let the world take note,
You are the most immediate to our throne;
And with no less nobility of love
Than that which dearest father bears his son,
Do I impart toward you. For your intent
In going back to school in Wittenberg,
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.

Wittenberg was known in Shakespeare's day as a centre for Protestant theological education; it was the town in which Martin Luther launched Protestantism, and might have been familiar to play-goers as the setting for Marlowe's Doctor Faustus.



Claudius' practice of sounding cannons as he drinks toasts is mentioned again in 1.5, and in 5.2. Small cannons loaded with paper "blanks" were sometimes used in the theatre for sound effects.

While Hamlet's contemplation of death will continue throughout the play, this is his most explicit discussion of suicide. Disgusted with the world, he longs for death, or at least non-being. These ideas will be revisited and revised in the "To be or not to be" soliloquy in 3.1, and the discussion of Ophelia's death in 5.1.

The structure of the speech suggests Hamlet's mental condition in this moment. He interrupts himself, breaking up his thought process, trying and failing to hold back the idea of his mother's marriage and the betrayal of his father's memory.

Hamlet's comparison between Claudius and Old Hamlet will be repeated as well, by the Ghost in 1.5 and Hamlet himself in 3.4. It's worth noting here that Hamlet's rhetoric links Old Hamlet with Hercules, and Hamlet himself with Claudius. Hamlet spends much of the play attempting to live up to his father's memory, but in many respects, he bears more resemblance to his uncle.

GERTRUDE
Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet;
I pray thee, stay with us; go not to Wittenberg.

HAMLET
I shall in all my best obey you, madam.

CLAUDIUS
Why, 'tis a loving and a fair reply:
Be as ourself in Denmark. Madam, come;
This gentle and unforced 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 heavens all bruit again,
Re-speaking earthly thunder. Come away.

Exeunt all but HAMLET

HAMLET
O, that this too too solid flesh would melt
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fixed
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on't! Ah fie! 'Tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
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
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 –
Let me not think on't – Frailty, thy name is woman! –
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 –
O, God! A beast, that wants discourse of reason,
Would have mourned longer – married with my uncle,
My father's brother, but no more like my father
Than I to Hercules. Within a month:
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her gallèd eyes,
She married. O, most wicked speed, to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
It is not nor it cannot come to good:
But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue.

Enter HORATIO, MARCELLUS, and BERNARDO

HORATIO
Hail to your lordship!

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

Horatio addresses Hamlet formally and deferentially, as "lord," presenting himself as Hamlet's "servant." Hamlet insists on referring to Horatio as "friend." 

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—

Marcellus and Bernardo are left out of the conversation for some time. Hamlet may pull Horatio aside, in order to converse more privately, or else this exchange may take place in front of the guards. Throughout, Marcellus and Bernardo may be signalling Horatio to stop making small talk and report the news of the Ghost.

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 mine 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.

This conversation allows us to compare Hamlet's private address (in the soliloquy above) to his more public persona. Here, he once again discusses his mother's hasty marriage to Claudius, though now he is sarcastic and irreverent where before he was passionately railing. 

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

HAMLET
I pray thee, do not mock me, fellow-student;
I think it was to see my mother's wedding.

HORATIO
Indeed, my lord, it followed hard upon.

HAMLET
Thrift, thrift, Horatio! The funeral baked meats
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's report in 1.1 indicates that he is quite familiar with Old Hamlet, so this "once" is puzzling. This would also be the logical point in the conversation to bring up the Ghost, but Horatio avoids the subject for the moment, perhaps fearing Hamlet's response.

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

HAMLET
He was a man, take him for all in all,
I shall not look upon his like again.

HORATIO
My lord, I think I saw him yesternight.

HAMLET
Saw? Who?

This three-line exchange interrupts the smooth rhythm of the iambic lines in the scene thus far, and may suggest pauses in the conversation, as Horatio delivers his incredible news, and Hamlet struggles to respond.

HORATIO
My lord, the King your father.

HAMLET
The King my father!

HORATIO
Season your admiration for awhile
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 is describing events that the audience has mostly already seen. The repetition reminds us of the important details, but Horatio's account also casts him as the hero of this story, able to act and speak while the guards were paralyzed with fear.

HORATIO
Two nights together had these gentlemen,
Marcellus and Bernardo, on their watch,
In the dead vast and middle of the night,
Been thus encountered. A figure like your father,
Armèd at point exactly, cap-a-pe,
Appears before them, and with solemn march
Goes slow and stately by them: thrice he walked
By their oppressed and fear-surprisèd eyes,
Within his truncheon’s length; whilst they, distilled
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 delivered, 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 watched.

Hamlet's question may be aimed at Horatio, or else Hamlet is questioning Marcellus, and Horatio responds, either coming to the guard's aid or interrupting his potential reply.

HAMLET
Did you not speak to it?

HORATIO
My lord, I did;
But answer made it none; yet once methought
It lifted up its 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 vanished from our sight.

HAMLET
'Tis very strange.

HORATIO
As I do live, my honoured 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 & BERNARDO
We do, my lord.

Hamlet's questioning is odd here, as he begins by asking about the approaching watch and the guards, then switches abruptly into asking about the previous nights and the Ghost. 

HAMLET
Armed, say you?

MARCELLUS & BERNARDO
Armed, my lord.

HAMLET
From top to toe?

MARCELLUS & BERNARDO
My lord, from head to foot.

HAMLET
Then saw you not his face?

Horatio once more takes over the exchange. Again, Hamlet may be addressing him, or Marcellus and Bernardo may be unable to answer, or Horatio may be interrupting.

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

HAMLET
What, looked he frowningly?

HORATIO
A countenance more in sorrow than in anger.

HAMLET
Pale or red?

Even with the open visor, the audience probably cannot see much of the Ghost's face. This description, however, may feed into the delivery of the Ghost's lines in 1.5. 

HORATIO
Nay, very pale.

HAMLET
And fixed his eyes upon you?

HORATIO
Most constantly.

This entire exchange is made in short, staccato bursts, mostly in simple monosyllable words, marking a change in rhythm and tone from the earlier lengthy speeches.

HAMLET
I would I had been there.

HORATIO
It would have much amazed you.

HAMLET
Very like, very like. Stayed it long?

HORATIO
While one with moderate haste might tell a hundred.

MARCELLUS and BERNARDO
Longer, longer.

HORATIO
Not when I saw't.

A "grizzled" beard would be gray or graying. A "sable silvered" would be black with white strands or patches. These may be equivalent statements, or else Horatio may be contradicting Hamlet, which would suggest that Hamlet's question was misleading, a deliberate test which Horatio passes.

HAMLET
His beard was grizzled – no?

HORATIO
It was, as I have seen it in his life,
A sable silvered.

HAMLET
I will watch tonight;
Perchance 'twill walk again.

HORATIO
I warrant it will.

"Assume" is an important idea here: the belief was that spirits could take on various shapes, including those of departed souls. The Ghost may be Hamlet's father, or else some spirit using his shape, either for good cause (warning of danger to the realm) or evil (tempting Hamlet into damnation).

HAMLET
If it assume my noble father's person,
I'll speak to it, though hell itself should gape
And bid me hold my peace. I pray you all,
If you have hitherto concealed 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 you well.
Upon the platform, 'twixt eleven and twelve,
I'll visit you.

As before, Hamlet rejects the proper offer of "duty," substituting "love" in its place. He insists that Horatio and the guards-- his social inferiors-- are friends and confidantes, which may explain their loyalty to him.

Where Horatio saw the Ghost as a warning of events to come, Hamlet posits it as a result of a past transgression. His talk of "foul deeds" raises the idea of a hidden crime, but the play has not yet suggested what it might be.

ALL
Our duty to your honour.

HAMLET
Your loves, as mine to you: farewell.

Exeunt all but HAMLET

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,
Though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes.

Exit