Hamlet (6) The Mouse-trap
Act III scene ii ll 86 ff
Claudius is watching Hamlet closely, particularly after his references to his ambition for the throne: "promise-crammed" and Hamlet must keep the King in his sights so as not to miss the moment of revelation and, after answering Polonius wittily with a pun on "Capitol/capital", he goes to sit near Ophelia, also baiting Polonius with this gesture. He makes a couple of crude jokes for distraction but also for fuel as the plotters observe him with her and, from there, he can see Claudius' actions. As Hamlet asks Ophelia to look at Gertrude, he is also directing the audience's attention to them as they chat with the Queen behaving "cheerfully" and are so engaged that they miss the dumb-show which, although this was not the norm, mirrors the plot of the main play. This preparatory mime is necessary here with its echoing of the playlet to come as the main performance is interrupted and it is clearly an invention of the actors and makes Hamlet nervous which adds tension. (He also seems concerned that his memory will die with him: "else he shall suffer not thinking on.") It is his good luck that Claudius and Gertrude do not watch it but it is potentially a premature and inadequate trap for the King although Baptista is not an adulteress nor is Lucianus the brother but the nephew of the Player King.
Ophelia is bewildered, possibly anxious at the atmosphere and the fact that the action might be a parallel to the main plot and Hamlet describes the dumb-show as "miching malicho" [secret mischief] which would seem to argue that this is not the speech he has written for insertion as he also appears angry that his careful plan might go awry: "The players cannot keep counsel, [secrets] they'll tell all." This is his only chance of proof and he is on tenterhooks that it will be prevented from serving its function until he shows his relief at: "Is this a prologue, or the posy [a motto on the inside] of a ring" but cannot resist another painful gibe at the brevity of women's love.
The actual play is long-winded, artificial and full of repetitions and circumlocutions but this means that we, the theatre audience, do not watch it but concentrate instead on Claudius since Shakespeare does not want us to miss the climactic moment as we need to know the proof of the Ghost's news also. The real drama is that between Hamlet and the King. Yet there are pointed if not entirely accurate references to the present situation: The Player Queen claims that no woman shall marry a second husband unless she kills the first, which she counts as an impossibility but Gertrude must react at the idea of killing the first again when kissing the second. The lengthy discussion of a second marriage is the main bait for Claudius and ensures that he is listening and watching closely at the moment of the poisoning and also leads the stage audience to look at him as he reacts to it. Hamlet wants both proof and witnesses. He has alerted the royal couple to the possibility of trouble and Gertrude comments: "The lady doth protest [promise in public] too much methinks," and Claudius asks if there is "no offence" in it. At this point Hamlet seems on the verge of giving the plot away when he speaks of poisoning but diverts attention by a pun on the impromptu title: the Mouse-trap. "Mouse" is Claudius' nickname for Gertrude and the second word is extended to mean either "trap-ically" or "trope-ically" [figuratively: it is not about a real mouse-trap]. Lucianus is the nephew and it is odd that Hamlet draws attention to this as the original event involves a brother but there are reasons: it distracts attention from Gertrude who did not marry a nephew and Claudius can still see his own crime although Gertrude will not - but it alerts the court to Hamlet as a possible murderer.
The Player is now over-acting and Hamlet leaves his bawdy interchange with Ophelia: "It would cost you a groaning [child-birth] to take off my edge" [a pun on her use of the word to mean 'bitter' and probably obscene] to tell him to hurry up. The next speech: "Thoughts black ..." is possibly the one Hamlet wrote as it is darkly reminiscent of the Ghost's words and is powerful enough to command attention, which it does and achieves the desired result, a public confusion and recognition that there is trouble. Hamlet is pleased with his dramatic success, which he calls upon Horatio to accept, but it is an imperfect victory: he has proved the Ghost's story but at the expense of revealing his knowledge; his behaviour and choice of play give Claudius the excuse for anger rather than guilt. The masks are now off and it is Hamlet versus Claudius. The embedded theatrical piece, the play-within-a-play has been an example of metadrama [self-consciously drawing attention to the fact we are watching a play - or two plays] and has underlined the themes of 'seeming', appearance and reality, acting in both senses of the word and spying.
Under cover of his "antic disposition" Hamlet is discourteous to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern before stating, with accuracy and use of the recurrent imagery of illness: "My wit's diseased." They tell him that Gertrude wishes to speak with him but make him aware that he risks prison if he keeps silent about his "griefs". He stresses the usurpation motif, thus adding to their minds the probabality that he is dangerous. In the dialogue about recorders he reveals his bitterness at the sense of being manipulated: "You would play upon me"; he has now trapped them by insisting anyone can use the instruments. He then proceeds to trap Polonius in the conversation about clouds as he is fencing with all the spies. Yet he resolves not to kill his mother: "I will speak daggers to her, but use none" but even this is going further than the Ghost's bidding to leave her to heaven.
In scene iii Rosencrantz and Guildenstern probably do not know that Hamlet is going to his death and Claudius shows himself again as a characteristic man of the world, proactive and in contrast with Hamlet's inertia, individuality and eccentricity. Polonius reveals that the Prince is on his way to his mother's "closet" [private apartment], not a bedroom as is sometimes shown, where the old man will lurk behind an arras [wall tapestry hanging sufficiently far away from the wall to leave room for someone to hide]. Claudius, alone, now has a speech which is, in a sense, a failed prayer and therefore a soliloquy, the function of which is to show that he is not an unrepentant villain and to add to the play's religious flavour. The language in the first line contributes to the vocabulary and imagery of disgust and foulness in the drama: "O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven" and, in the second he compares himself to Cain whose murder of his brother Abel was the first fratricide. He acknowledges the extreme sinfulness and criminality of what he has done and the paralysis it engenders. His syntax is full of questions, resembling Hamlet's "To be or not to be" and deeply regrets that he cannot be shown mercy and pardoned. Yet, when he convinces himself that prayer might be effective, he cannot find the appropriate form of supplication as he still owns the benefits of the murder: "My crown, mine own ambititon, and my queen" but the audience notices that Gertrude is last in the list. He then embarks on a complex philosophical argument as to whether justice in heaven is like that on earth or has its own law. Probably no-one in the theatre will follow this in detail but the urgency of emotion is shown in the shorter, punched questions and use of apostrophe [appealing]: "O, wretched state etc" where he calls desperately on the angels to help and uses the striking image of a bird trying to escape from sticky lime and becoming more entrapped. We do not hear the actual silent prayer as Hamlet enters and realises that he could kill Claudius at this moment, which is his first opportunity since he had proof. He also semi-soliloquises at length in a speech difficult to connect with the Hamlet we know. (This is not normally considered one of the four central soliloquies although he does not have a listener).
His grammar uses a mood of doubt at the beginning: "Now might I do it pat [without delay], now he is praying" but an anacoluthon [interruption of syntax] tells us that he is not as resolute as he wishes when he does decide to do it. His surface reason is that the repenting Claudius would go to heaven and thus this would not be revenge for his father's murder in a sinful state but "hire and salary" [a contract killing]. Yet the Ghost did not instruct Hamlet to send Claudius to Hell, simply to kill him. The short lines indicate the changes of thought pattern and some self-convincing as he decides to wait until he can catch the King in a sinful act, of which there seem to be plenty although it would be difficult practically to kill him at these moments. The explicit reason given is a characteristic in revenge drama but hard to reconcile with Hamlet's complex and sophisticated character. There are at least five possible interpretations: it can be taken at face value in which case we are revolted by the excess of hatred contaminating the need for simple revenge; perhaps the desire to send Claudius to Hell is a rationalisation and afterthought to excuse his own failure; it could be an instinctive revulsion at killing a praying person, however loathsome, followed by a reaction against that revulsion which works up into a passion of hatred instead of action. Another rationalisation might be of the unconscious equation of Claudius with his father or it might be a self-hatred for spying and therefore an extension of the spying motif in the play. Whichever of these ideas strikes us in performance, we probably do not know what to feel except that we would not want Hamlet to kill him then. Shakespeare avoids making his motive unpleasant by showing him as unbalanced, consumed by hatred and jealousy and unfit to take a proper view and be disinterested. The scene ends with Claudius' acceptance of the fact that he is beyond the reach of heaven and it is hard for a producer to avoid letting him be the more sympathetic figure here.
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Act III scene ii ll 86 ff
Claudius is watching Hamlet closely, particularly after his references to his ambition for the throne: "promise-crammed" and Hamlet must keep the King in his sights so as not to miss the moment of revelation and, after answering Polonius wittily with a pun on "Capitol/capital", he goes to sit near Ophelia, also baiting Polonius with this gesture. He makes a couple of crude jokes for distraction but also for fuel as the plotters observe him with her and, from there, he can see Claudius' actions. As Hamlet asks Ophelia to look at Gertrude, he is also directing the audience's attention to them as they chat with the Queen behaving "cheerfully" and are so engaged that they miss the dumb-show which, although this was not the norm, mirrors the plot of the main play. This preparatory mime is necessary here with its echoing of the playlet to come as the main performance is interrupted and it is clearly an invention of the actors and makes Hamlet nervous which adds tension. (He also seems concerned that his memory will die with him: "else he shall suffer not thinking on.") It is his good luck that Claudius and Gertrude do not watch it but it is potentially a premature and inadequate trap for the King although Baptista is not an adulteress nor is Lucianus the brother but the nephew of the Player King.
Ophelia is bewildered, possibly anxious at the atmosphere and the fact that the action might be a parallel to the main plot and Hamlet describes the dumb-show as "miching malicho" [secret mischief] which would seem to argue that this is not the speech he has written for insertion as he also appears angry that his careful plan might go awry: "The players cannot keep counsel, [secrets] they'll tell all." This is his only chance of proof and he is on tenterhooks that it will be prevented from serving its function until he shows his relief at: "Is this a prologue, or the posy [a motto on the inside] of a ring" but cannot resist another painful gibe at the brevity of women's love.
The actual play is long-winded, artificial and full of repetitions and circumlocutions but this means that we, the theatre audience, do not watch it but concentrate instead on Claudius since Shakespeare does not want us to miss the climactic moment as we need to know the proof of the Ghost's news also. The real drama is that between Hamlet and the King. Yet there are pointed if not entirely accurate references to the present situation: The Player Queen claims that no woman shall marry a second husband unless she kills the first, which she counts as an impossibility but Gertrude must react at the idea of killing the first again when kissing the second. The lengthy discussion of a second marriage is the main bait for Claudius and ensures that he is listening and watching closely at the moment of the poisoning and also leads the stage audience to look at him as he reacts to it. Hamlet wants both proof and witnesses. He has alerted the royal couple to the possibility of trouble and Gertrude comments: "The lady doth protest [promise in public] too much methinks," and Claudius asks if there is "no offence" in it. At this point Hamlet seems on the verge of giving the plot away when he speaks of poisoning but diverts attention by a pun on the impromptu title: the Mouse-trap. "Mouse" is Claudius' nickname for Gertrude and the second word is extended to mean either "trap-ically" or "trope-ically" [figuratively: it is not about a real mouse-trap]. Lucianus is the nephew and it is odd that Hamlet draws attention to this as the original event involves a brother but there are reasons: it distracts attention from Gertrude who did not marry a nephew and Claudius can still see his own crime although Gertrude will not - but it alerts the court to Hamlet as a possible murderer.
The Player is now over-acting and Hamlet leaves his bawdy interchange with Ophelia: "It would cost you a groaning [child-birth] to take off my edge" [a pun on her use of the word to mean 'bitter' and probably obscene] to tell him to hurry up. The next speech: "Thoughts black ..." is possibly the one Hamlet wrote as it is darkly reminiscent of the Ghost's words and is powerful enough to command attention, which it does and achieves the desired result, a public confusion and recognition that there is trouble. Hamlet is pleased with his dramatic success, which he calls upon Horatio to accept, but it is an imperfect victory: he has proved the Ghost's story but at the expense of revealing his knowledge; his behaviour and choice of play give Claudius the excuse for anger rather than guilt. The masks are now off and it is Hamlet versus Claudius. The embedded theatrical piece, the play-within-a-play has been an example of metadrama [self-consciously drawing attention to the fact we are watching a play - or two plays] and has underlined the themes of 'seeming', appearance and reality, acting in both senses of the word and spying.
Under cover of his "antic disposition" Hamlet is discourteous to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern before stating, with accuracy and use of the recurrent imagery of illness: "My wit's diseased." They tell him that Gertrude wishes to speak with him but make him aware that he risks prison if he keeps silent about his "griefs". He stresses the usurpation motif, thus adding to their minds the probabality that he is dangerous. In the dialogue about recorders he reveals his bitterness at the sense of being manipulated: "You would play upon me"; he has now trapped them by insisting anyone can use the instruments. He then proceeds to trap Polonius in the conversation about clouds as he is fencing with all the spies. Yet he resolves not to kill his mother: "I will speak daggers to her, but use none" but even this is going further than the Ghost's bidding to leave her to heaven.
In scene iii Rosencrantz and Guildenstern probably do not know that Hamlet is going to his death and Claudius shows himself again as a characteristic man of the world, proactive and in contrast with Hamlet's inertia, individuality and eccentricity. Polonius reveals that the Prince is on his way to his mother's "closet" [private apartment], not a bedroom as is sometimes shown, where the old man will lurk behind an arras [wall tapestry hanging sufficiently far away from the wall to leave room for someone to hide]. Claudius, alone, now has a speech which is, in a sense, a failed prayer and therefore a soliloquy, the function of which is to show that he is not an unrepentant villain and to add to the play's religious flavour. The language in the first line contributes to the vocabulary and imagery of disgust and foulness in the drama: "O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven" and, in the second he compares himself to Cain whose murder of his brother Abel was the first fratricide. He acknowledges the extreme sinfulness and criminality of what he has done and the paralysis it engenders. His syntax is full of questions, resembling Hamlet's "To be or not to be" and deeply regrets that he cannot be shown mercy and pardoned. Yet, when he convinces himself that prayer might be effective, he cannot find the appropriate form of supplication as he still owns the benefits of the murder: "My crown, mine own ambititon, and my queen" but the audience notices that Gertrude is last in the list. He then embarks on a complex philosophical argument as to whether justice in heaven is like that on earth or has its own law. Probably no-one in the theatre will follow this in detail but the urgency of emotion is shown in the shorter, punched questions and use of apostrophe [appealing]: "O, wretched state etc" where he calls desperately on the angels to help and uses the striking image of a bird trying to escape from sticky lime and becoming more entrapped. We do not hear the actual silent prayer as Hamlet enters and realises that he could kill Claudius at this moment, which is his first opportunity since he had proof. He also semi-soliloquises at length in a speech difficult to connect with the Hamlet we know. (This is not normally considered one of the four central soliloquies although he does not have a listener).
His grammar uses a mood of doubt at the beginning: "Now might I do it pat [without delay], now he is praying" but an anacoluthon [interruption of syntax] tells us that he is not as resolute as he wishes when he does decide to do it. His surface reason is that the repenting Claudius would go to heaven and thus this would not be revenge for his father's murder in a sinful state but "hire and salary" [a contract killing]. Yet the Ghost did not instruct Hamlet to send Claudius to Hell, simply to kill him. The short lines indicate the changes of thought pattern and some self-convincing as he decides to wait until he can catch the King in a sinful act, of which there seem to be plenty although it would be difficult practically to kill him at these moments. The explicit reason given is a characteristic in revenge drama but hard to reconcile with Hamlet's complex and sophisticated character. There are at least five possible interpretations: it can be taken at face value in which case we are revolted by the excess of hatred contaminating the need for simple revenge; perhaps the desire to send Claudius to Hell is a rationalisation and afterthought to excuse his own failure; it could be an instinctive revulsion at killing a praying person, however loathsome, followed by a reaction against that revulsion which works up into a passion of hatred instead of action. Another rationalisation might be of the unconscious equation of Claudius with his father or it might be a self-hatred for spying and therefore an extension of the spying motif in the play. Whichever of these ideas strikes us in performance, we probably do not know what to feel except that we would not want Hamlet to kill him then. Shakespeare avoids making his motive unpleasant by showing him as unbalanced, consumed by hatred and jealousy and unfit to take a proper view and be disinterested. The scene ends with Claudius' acceptance of the fact that he is beyond the reach of heaven and it is hard for a producer to avoid letting him be the more sympathetic figure here.
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