A little more than text, and less than obvious: Subtext

SCENE IV. The Queen's closet.
Enter QUEEN MARGARET and POLONIUS
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 betweenMuch heat and him. I'll sconce me even here.Pray you, be round with him.
HAMLET
[Within] Mother, mother, mother!
QUEEN GERTRUDE
I'll warrant you,Fear me not: withdraw, I hear him coming.
[Gertrude frantically gesticulates to the arras, commanding Polonius in harsh whisper]
POLONIUS hides behind the arras
Enter HAMLET
HAMLET
Now, mother, what's the matter?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended. [Gertrude speaks her lines before the murder in a concerned tone. She is troubled and confused by the recent lunacy of her only son, Prince Hamlet]
HAMLET
Mother, you have my father much offended. [Hamlet retorts in a jokingly snide manner]
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.
HAMLET
Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue. [With every line, Hamlet takes a step closer to Gertrude--increasing the tension between them while decreasing the distance between them. Also, he speaks faster and faster until Gertrude screams for help]
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Why, how now, Hamlet!
HAMLET
What's the matter now?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Have you forgot me?
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.
HAMLET
Come, come, and sit you down; you shall not budge;You go not till I set you up a glassWhere you may see the inmost part of you. [By now, Hamlet has encroached uncomfortably close to his mother, frightening her. He stares deep into her eyes, dominating her with his gaze]
QUEEN GERTRUDE
What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murder me?Help, help, ho!
LORD POLONIUS
[Behind] What, ho! help, help, help!
HAMLET
[Drawing] How now! a rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead! [Hamlet, in a moment of blind rage and shock murders Polonius, unaware of who he is actually killing]
Makes a pass through the arras
LORD POLONIUS
[Behind] O, I am slain! [Polonius, in severe pain, utters his last and unfortunately PGIO-ish words]
Falls and dies
QUEEN GERTRUDE
O me, what hast thou done?
HAMLET
Nay, I know not:Is it the king? [Hamlet is terrified that he may have killed Cladius; however, he secretly wishes he had]
QUEEN GERTRUDE
O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!
HAMLET
A bloody deed! almost as bad, good mother,As kill a king, and marry with his brother. [Hamlet has found the perfect moment to reveal the truth about King Hamlet’s murder. He takes his time to say these lines powerfully]
QUEEN GERTRUDE
As kill a king! [Gertrude: Paralyzed by truth]
HAMLET
Ay, lady, 'twas my word.
Lifts up the array and discovers POLONIUS
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 soThat it is proof and bulwark against sense. [Hamlet, enraged and disgusted by Polonius, insults the corpse]
QUEEN GERTRUDE
What have I done, that thou darest wag thy tongueIn noise so rude against me? [quivers in fear, but holds onto her strength, because now she has no one to protect her if Hamlet does try to kill her]
HAMLET
Such an actThat blurs the grace and blush of modesty,Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the roseFrom the fair forehead of an innocent loveAnd sets a blister there, makes marriage-vowsAs false as dicers' oaths: O, such a deedAs from the body of contraction plucksThe very soul, and sweet religion makesA 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. [Here, Hamlet disregards her question and stabs his mother with a philosophical rant about how she has, in essence, “sinned” against the act of marriage. Hamlet, “speak[s] daggers to her but use[s] none.”]
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Ay me, what act,That roars so loud, and thunders in the index?
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 MercuryNew-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 ageThe hey-day in the blood is tame, it's humble,And waits upon the judgment: and what judgmentWould step from this to this? Sense, sure, you have,Else could you not have motion; but sure, that senseIs apoplex'd; for madness would not err,Nor sense to ecstasy was ne'er so thrall'dBut it reserved some quantity of choice,To serve in such a difference. What devil was'tThat 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 senseCould 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 shameWhen the compulsive ardour gives the charge,Since frost itself as actively doth burnAnd reason panders will.
[Hamlet is stern, but confronts his mother in a pleading way. He wants her realize her wrongs]
[Hamlet doesn’t need any paintings of his father and Cladius to demonstrate his point in this monologue. He paints the Queen a majestic image of his father, as if to remind her what an incredible man he was. He accuses her of being blind.]
QUEEN GERTRUDE
O Hamlet, speak no more:Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul;And there I see such black and grained spotsAs will not leave their tinct. [His speech has struck a chord with the queen. She turns and says these lines, because she needs to explore this revelation by herself, if only psychologically alone]
HAMLET
Nay, but to liveIn the rank sweat of an enseamed bed,Stew'd in corruption, honeying and making loveOver the nasty sty,-- [says in a disgusted tone]
QUEEN GERTRUDE
O, speak to me no more;These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears;No more, sweet Hamlet! [tears welling in her eyes]
HAMLET
A murderer and a villain;A slave that is not twentieth part the titheOf 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
Save me, and hover o'er me with your wings,You heavenly guards! What would your gracious figure? [reaches to the Ghost, as if to an angel]
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Alas, he's mad!
HAMLET
Do you not come your tardy son to chide,That, lapsed in time and passion, lets go byThe important acting of your dread command? O, say!
Ghost
Do not forget: this visitationIs 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. [a firm reminder than Hamlet must no stray from his mission (and that he can't go overboard)]
HAMLET
How is it with you, lady? [comforts mother]
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Alas, how is't with you,That you do bend your eye on vacancyAnd 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 distemperSprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look?
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 convertMy stern effects: then what I have to doWill want true colour; tears perchance for blood.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
To whom do you speak this? [bewildered]
HAMLET
Do you see nothing there?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.
HAMLET
Nor did you nothing hear? [momentarily questions his sanity]
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! [points, tries to show mom]
Exit Ghost
QUEEN GERTRUDE
This the very coinage of your brain:This bodiless creation ecstasyIs very cunning in. [thinks Hamlet's gone off the deep end]
HAMLET
Ecstasy!My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time,And makes as healthful music: it is not madnessThat I have utter'd: bring me to the test,And I the matter will re-word; which madnessWould gambol from. 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 timesVirtue itself of vice must pardon beg,Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good. [wanting to prove his sanity, Hamlet makes a case for himself. He turns the conversation onto Gertrude's mistakes, telling her to repent.]
QUEEN GERTRUDE
O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain. [Gertrude releases this line like a sigh. (translation: Hamlet, You have broken my heart in two) She is emotionally torn between her son's madness and her recent revelation about her former husband's murder. The queen is burdened with truth and confusion.]
HAMLET
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 goodHe likewise gives a frock or livery,That aptly is put on. Refrain to-night,And that shall lend a kind of easinessTo the next abstinence: the next more easy;For use almost can change the stamp of nature,And either [ ] the devil, or throw him outWith 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,
Pointing to POLONIUS
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 wellThe 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. [Hamlet assumes the role of a godsend, whose duty was to kill Polonius and expose the truth. He says these lines proudly and heroically]
QUEEN GERTRUDE
What shall I do?
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. [domineeringly commands her not to tell anyone of his false madness. ]
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Be thou assured, if words be made of breath,And breath of life, I have no life to breatheWhat thou hast said to me. [fraily assures Hamlet, that she has no life or will to speak ill of him or reveal his 'secret']

Hamlet Websites

Mr. Coon,

I've been doing some research for some good websites on Hamlet. Here's what I've found so far:

1)Shakespeare-Online
2)To paint or not to paint? That is the question. Art of Hamlet
3)Critical Appreciation of Hamlet
4)An essay on how Disney's The Lion King was loosely based on Hamlet!


Hamlet and the Grave Digger
Pascal A.J. Dagnan-Bouveret