Hamlets Advice to Gertrude

Beast vs. God

Old Hamlet

Hamlet threatens the consequences of Getrude's incest and what will happen if she tells Claudius he is faking his madness

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 damned 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.

(3.4.185-200)

-kind gentleman

- curly hair forehead like a Greek God

-eye could command like the god of war (fit king)

-agile body like mercury landing on a high hill

-good qualities like every God has stamped him.

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 Mercury

New-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 mildewed ear

Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes?

(3.4.54-67)

Admits madness is not the reason to his target;

-Doubt for success of his revenge towards Claudius?

Claudius

-mildewed ear of corn infecting the healthy one next to it

"Don't flatter yourself into thinking I am the problem you'd simply be concealing the rot in your stomach"

Hamlet:

"Ecstasy?

My pulse as yours doth temperately keep time

And makes as healthful music. It is not madness

That I have uttered. Bring me to the test,

And I the matter will reword, which madness

Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,

Lay not that flattering 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 times

Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg,

Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good."

(3.4.143-157)

Don’t spread manure over the weeds in your heart; it will only make them more filthy.

Hamlets Advice to Gertrude

Hamlet advises his mother to stop committing sins of adultery, repent, and to confess her sins to avoid damnation.

Queen:

"This the very coinage of your brain.

This bodiless creation ecstasy

Is very cunning in."

(3.4.139-141)

-accusation of Hamlets madness

- "Madness is good at creating hallucinations"

Is Gertrude in denial or making excuses?