It’s a little past midnight and it’s cold and dark. Hamlet along with Horatio and Marcellus are waiting for the ghost on a platform where guards keep watch.
Below where they stand they hear trumpets and cannon at the King's drinking party. Surprised Horatio inquires if it’s a custom for there to be loud parties where the king is just getting wasted.
Hamlets response is far from positive:
"They clepe us drunkards and with swinish phrase/
Soil our addition. And indeed it takes/
From our achievements, though performed at height, /
The pith and marrow of our attribute. /
So oft it chances in particular men /
That for some vicious mole of nature in them— /
As in their birth (wherein they are not guilty, /
Since nature cannot choose his origin), /
By the o'ergrowth of some complexion, /
Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason, /
Or by some habit that too much o'erleavens /
The form of plausive manners—that these men, /
Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect, /
Being nature’s livery or fortune’s star, /
Their virtues else (be they as pure as grace, /
As infinite as man may undergo) /
Shall in the general censure take corruption /
From that particular fault. The dram of evil /
Doth all the noble substance of a doubt /
To his own scandal. /" (I, iv, 22-41).
On the one hand he may be right as to having other nations insult them due to their partying. On the other hand Hamlet being a prince who is against partying just sounds abnormal. So that rant on his beliefs of what the King is doing may have been just another opportunity for Hamlet to take a shot at Claudius verbally.
Moving on, after Hamlet's speech the ghost appears. Seeing that the ghost looks like his deceased father Hamlet and Hamlet acknowledges him as such by calling him father and King. Hamlet being determined to speak to his deceased father asks what the ghost intentions are and what he wants from the three of them. But the ghost doesn’t answer. Instead it "beckons" for Hamlet to follow.
Hamlet with no regard for his life as proven by him saying this justifies his curiosity by saying "Why, what should be the fear? / I do not set my life in a pin's fee/; and for my soul, what can it do to that, / Being a thing immortal as itself?" (I, iv, 71-74).
The other two people involved to a minor capacity in Marcellus and Horatio have opposite views on what to do. They are both frightened and they both warn Hamlet that he shouldn't follow.
But Horatio thinks the ghost is evil "What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord,/ Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff/ That beetles o'er his base into the sea,/ And there assume some other horrible form,/ Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason/ And draw you into madness? think of it:" (I, iv, 76-81). Horatio basically to sum it up says the ghost will make Hamlet kill himself or go insane so he shouldn’t go.
So even after the warnings as well as Horatio and Marcellus trying to physically restrain him Hamlet ends up following the ghost.
Horatio believes that the scenario is entirely supernatural and that they shouldn’t interfere because "Heaven will direct it." (I, iv, 101). While Marcellus says "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark." and with that he wants to find out what’s going on so he thinks they should follow (I, IV, 100).
In the end Marcellus leaves and Horatio goes as well to follow Prince Hamlet and insure his safety.
Okay so after reading Hamlet's speech short speech on morals (the long thing I copied and pasted… see above) so to speak I kind of thought he was also referring to waiting for the ghost to appear as well. I kind of thought he was saying that a "dram of evil" was referring to his father's murder and how it drastically changed the kingdom because he said how the loud partying which is such a small thing stains their reputation amongst other nations which is a larger issue. In addition to that I kind of also thought that coincided with the “something is rotten in the state of Denmark” quotation because the murder of a king is a complete opposite way that new legitimate ruler should come to the throne. As well as the possibility of the state going awry just because of this new illegitimate ruler. So just one act of wrongdoing can spiral into something much larger and the ghost is just a visual representation that something is wrong in Denmark because of the wrongdoing.
I was just wondering does that makes sense?
Keenan,
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you returned our attention to that speech. I didn't feel like I did a very good job glossing it in class today (It's been about 5 years since my last look at the play).
And you are right that Hamlet is drawing attention to how the partying stains the Danish reputation abroad. He likens it to an actual mole which people can have from birth, through no fault of their own. Then, no matter how virtuous they are, the general public is likely to let the minor blemish colour its opinion of them. The parallel is, of course, that the average Dane has no control over Claudius' partying but is still painted with the same brush.
You touch on a very important issue, and that was how important it was for the Elizabethans to have a monarch securely on the throne. In their view, the king or queen ruled because it was God's will, and this was well and natural. But the king also ruled over nobles, who in turn ruled over others in a "great chain of being." If something (like murder) were to upset the natural order of things, the entire society could be shaken to its foundations. Thus in MacBeth you have horses eating each other and the most violent winds blowing in 30 years.
Thank you for the summary :)
ReplyDeletevery good summary
ReplyDelete