Laertes & Hamlet Fight at Ophelia’s Grave, 5.1: (Part 8) Labors of Gratitude and Regret in Hamlet
This is the latest installment in a multi-part series examining how characters interact in Hamlet, offering opportunities, gifts, planting seeds for future inspiration, or for changes of heart & mind. It follows ideas from Lewis Hyde (“The Labor of Gratitude,” a chapter in his book, The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property). For more notes on the series and an index of previous posts in this series, see the end of this post.
Laertes & Hamlet Fight at Ophelia’s Grave, 5.1 (part 8, Labors of Gratitude & Regret in Hamlet)
(continued from the previous weeks' posts)
Act 5, scene 1 of Shakespeare's Hamlet is a rich and problematic scene: Hamlet has returned from his Jonah-like sea voyage but doesn’t seem to have been informed by Horatio of Ophelia’s death. The Queen previously gave an account of Ophelia’s drowning that seemed to blame the broken branch of a tree she was on, and the water that made her clothing heavy. But now in 5.1 we get more meaningful banter and exploration of suicide and church teaching among the gravediggers. Hamlet seems to have an Emmaus-like encounter with one gravedigger and the memory of Yorick. Many things are coming to a head, and multiple contingencies are beginning to bear fruit.
By the time we see Laertes in 5.1, he has been through a number of remarkable changes. Before we consider his fight with Hamlet at his sister’s grave, let’s review:
In 1.2, Laertes referred to Claudius as his “dread lord,” a king to be feared, and we see the king grandstanding about how he will show his gratitude toward Polonius by his generosity with Laertes.
He advised his sister to fear Hamlet, using the word fear many times, and importantly, in 1.3, she advised him to avoid hypocrisy. But in 4.5, after coming back angry and potentially rebellious from France due to the news of his father’s death, Claudius has flattered him, gained his confidence, and tricked him into acting as his assassin, to kill Hamlet. This is an end Ophelia may not have wished to live to see, and may have been part of the motivation for her not to resist a watery death after falling from the tree into the stream.
Laertes also witnessed his sister’s madness, which had no concern with revenge, and which had a transformative power: “Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself, / She turns to favour and to prettiness.”
But Claudius succeeds in flattering him and drawing his attention to plans of revenge while Ophelia drowns, making Claudius and Laertes share some blame for her death through distraction and negligence.
[Laertes, played by Edward Bennett, and Ophelia, played by Mariah Gale, in the 2009 RSC-BBC production of Hamlet, starring David Tennant in the title role]
Laertes at Ophelia's Grave, with Lazarus & the Rich Man in Mind?
When we next see Laertes in 5.1, he is disturbed that the funeral rites have been shortened. He asks, “No ceremony else?” And the priest explains that because her death was “doubtful” - a suspected suicide - she should not have been buried in the holy ground of a church cemetery, but the king had pressed for as much exception to the rule as possible.
Laertes replies, “I tell thee, churlish priest,
A ministering angel shall my sister be,
When thou liest howling.”
As I’ve argued before in previous blog posts, the contrast between Ophelia as a ministering angel and the ungenerous priest, howling in hell is similar to that between the beggar Lazarus in heaven, and the ungenerous rich man in hell, in the gospel parable.
Ungenerous Priest, Ungenerous Laertes?
This criticism of the priest by Laertes is both insightful and problematic: It rings true, but if Laertes is criticizing the priest for being ungenerous, shouldn’t Laertes perhaps be more generous and less vengeful toward Hamlet? It seems Ophelia was right to warn Laertes in 1.3 against being hypocritical, a warning Laertes has yet to fully take to heart.
The Wedding that Never Was
Hamlet, unseen near the grave, hears Laertes mention his sister and realizes finally that the funeral is for Ophelia.
Gertrude then reveals that she had hoped Ophelia would have been Hamlet’s bride:
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Sweets to the sweet: farewell!
[Scattering flowers]
I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet's wife;
I thought thy bride-bed to have deck'd, sweet maid,
And not have strew'd thy grave.
But we know Ophelia was first divided from Hamlet by her father, who forbade her to have any contact with him, a decision he later regretted when he came to believe Hamlet’s madness was caused by love-sickness.
Ophelia is further divided from Hamlet when the prince thinks Claudius is behind the arras and stabs, only to find that he has killed the meddling Polonius instead.
How Much did Claudius Reveal to Laertes?
Laertes may have been told that Hamlet’s true target was Claudius: At the start of 4.7, Claudius tells Laertes:
Now must your conscience my acquaintance seal,
And you must put me in your heart for friend,
Sith you have heard, and with a knowing ear,
That he which hath your noble father slain
Pursued my life. [emphasis mine]
But Laertes was not told the reason: That Hamlet knows his father was poisoned by Claudius. So Laertes may think Hamlet both a sexual predator and an ambitious usurper whose recklessness made Polonius a victim, collateral damage. But in fact, Claudius' choice to kill his brother and marry his brother's widow is the one action on which all following developments are most contingent.
A Gift from Gertrude?
News from the Queen that she’d hoped Ophelia would be Hamlet’s wife does not phase Laertes for now or change his course of action. But perhaps, among many other factors and contingencies, it is a kind of gift she offers, planting a seed that may later bear fruit.
Laertes Curses Hamlet:
For now, Laertes makes a dramatic rhetorical gesture which, to Hamlet, doesn’t seem entirely accurate or sincere: First, he curses the person responsible for Ophelia’s madness, which in his mind, is not at all Polonius or Laertes himself, but Hamlet alone:
LAERTES:
O, treble woe
Fall ten times treble on that cursed head,
Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense
Deprived thee of! Hold off the earth awhile,
Till I have caught her once more in mine arms:
[Leaps into the grave]
Laertes' Rebellion Against Heaven:
Next, he asks that a mountain of earth be piled on him and the corpse of Ophelia, burying them both, alluding to the Greek mythological version of a kind of Tower of Babel story, where the twin Aloadae attempted to climb and attack the gods on Mount Olympus in a rebellion against heaven:
Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead,
Till of this flat a mountain you have made,
To o'ertop old Pelion, or the skyish head
Of blue Olympus.
A rebellion against heaven is consistent with Laertes’ earlier statements, daring damnation (4.5), and being willing to cut Hamlet’s throat in a church (4.7). But it’s also a brother’s claim to die along with his beloved sister, a death-wish that will be echoed later in 5.2 when Horatio claims he wishes to drink from the poison cup and commit suicide to join his friend Hamlet in death (but Hamlet stops him).
Hamlet's Reaction to Mourning Laertes Echoes Claudius' Reaction to Hamlet in 1.2:
Laertes’ dramatic gestures at Ophelia’s grave are also vaguely reminiscent of Hamlet’s persistent mourning and wearing of black (1.2), in contrast to his mother and uncle, who seem to have gotten over the death of King Hamlet quickly enough to marry. Claudius and Gertrude both ask Hamlet to end his mourning, and Claudius criticizes Hamlet’s mourning as being obstinate, impious, stubborn, unmanly, sinful (incorrect to heaven), weak (“A heart unfortified”), impatient, simple-minded, “unschool'd,” peevish, unreasonable, offensive to heaven, to the dead, and to nature.
Now the roles are changed, and instead of Claudius criticizing the mourning Hamlet, we have Hamlet offended at being blamed for Ophelia’s madness and death, and criticizing the mourning Laertes. Hamlet seems unaware, not yet brought up to speed regarding Laertes’ return and attempted rebellion, so Hamlet speaks to Horatio in only positive terms of Laertes, and seems surprised and sincerely offended by Laertes curses and “abuse”:
HAMLET
What is he whose grief
Bears such an emphasis? whose phrase of sorrow
Conjures the wandering stars, and makes them stand
Like wonder-wounded hearers? This is I,
Hamlet the Dane.
More Parallels: Hamlet is to Laertes like Old King Hamlet was to Old Fortinbras?
Some view Hamlet's declaration, "This is I, Hamlet the Dane," as his finally declaring himself king. As he is in the midst of a dispute with Laertes over who loved Ophelia best, it's also similar to his father, fighting Old Fortinbras in single combat — yet with a few key differences: Hamlet seems to have no intention of killing Laertes, as his father did of killing Fortinbras.
Laertes continues with another curse, but Hamlet (channeling Yorick?) responds with a joke about Laertes' curse as not exemplifying good prayer (Laertes seems to be praying to the devil instead of to God):
LAERTES
The devil take thy soul!
[Grappling with him]
HAMLET
Thou pray'st not well.
I prithee, take thy fingers from my throat;
For, though I am not splenitive and rash,
Yet have I something in me dangerous,
Which let thy wiseness fear: hold off thy hand.
"Something in me dangerous" as a warning and as a gift to Laertes:
This is a remarkable exchange: Laertes is the passionate one, still set on revenge, and Hamlet, though offended, is the one here who is slightly less passion’s slave, acting slightly less mad, with his wits enough about him to warn Laertes of “something in me dangerous.” Hamlet's self-control and warning to Laertes go unheeded by Laertes, but again, these may be like a gift, or the planting of seeds for future changes in Laertes' consciousness.
The king and queen ask that Laertes and Hamlet be separated, and Horatio helps.
Laertes Doth Protest Too Much (to Avoid Guilt?)
It could be that Laertes is so strong in declaring his love for his sister at her grave because at some level, he may feel guilty for not preventing her death, being negligent while planning revenge with Claudius. To paraphrase Gertrude (who in 3.2 said of the player queen, “The lady doth protest too much”), Laertes doth protest too much of his (actually negligent) love for his sister.
Hamlet's Competitive Reaction:
Instead of acting as a peace-maker, Hamlet allows this interchange to become like a contest, brother-love against seemingly betrothed- (“almost all the holy vows of heaven”) -but-canceled-love:
HAMLET
Why I will fight with him upon this theme
Until my eyelids will no longer wag.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
O my son, what theme?
HAMLET
I loved Ophelia: forty thousand brothers
Could not, with all their quantity of love,
Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?
KING CLAUDIUS
O, he is mad, Laertes.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
For love of God, forbear him.
HAMLET
'Swounds, show me what thou'lt do:
Woo't weep? woo't fight? woo't fast? woo't tear thyself?
Woo't drink up eisel? eat a crocodile?
I'll do't. Dost thou come here to whine?
To outface me with leaping in her grave?
Be buried quick with her, and so will I:
And, if thou prate of mountains, let them throw
Millions of acres on us, till our ground,
Singeing his pate against the burning zone,
Make Ossa like a wart! Nay, an thou'lt mouth,
I'll rant as well as thou.
This is more toxic masculinity of a type similar to that which distracted Laertes in 4.7 with plans of revenge while Ophelia drowned.
To Reject, or to Accept, the Feminine?
We saw in 4.7 how Laertes, after hearing news of Ophelia’s death, tries to forbid his own tears, unsuccessfully, but then hopes that after he has finished crying, the femininity that he associates with tears will be out of him. Gertrude’s next line hints that Hamlet will move toward femininity instead of away from it:
QUEEN GERTRUDE
This is mere madness:
And thus awhile the fit will work on him;
Anon, as patient as the female dove,
When that her golden couplets are disclosed,
His silence will sit drooping.
(For more on Hamlet’s movement toward the feminine, see Ruben Espinoza’s fine 2011 book,
Masculinity and Marian Efficacy in Shakespeare’s England, especially 139-148.)
About Love & Faulty Assumptions?
And now Hamlet, having declared his great love for Ophelia at her grave (after denying it temporarily in 3.1), says something else remarkable that is too often overlooked:
HAMLET
Hear you, sir;
What is the reason that you use me thus?
I loved you ever: but it is no matter….
So Hamlet has declared to Laertes, who blames him entirely for Ophelia’s madness and death, that he loved Ophelia more than forty thousand brothers, and that Hamlet also “ever” loved Laertes. This is not the statement of a prince who would merely seek to use Ophelia for sex and perhaps abandon her if she became pregnant.
Laertes, Like his Father?
Polonius belatedly expressed his sorrow to Ophelia in 2.1 for misjudging Hamlet:
I am sorry that with better heed and judgment
I had not quoted him: I fear'd he did but trifle,
And meant to wreck thee; but, beshrew my jealousy!
In fact, in that scene, Polonius says "I am sorry" twice. But Laertes in France never got the memo. Laertes had also misjudged Hamlet in 1.3, but had left for France with his faulty assumptions intact. Now it seems Hamlet’s intentions toward Ophelia may have been quite sincere, before his “madness” brought on by his visit with the ghost.
How Else to Explain "Get Thee to a Nunnery"?
Perhaps Hamlet's newfound fear of the horrors of purgatory and hell motivated him to be him harsh with Ophelia ("Get thee to a nunnery. Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?). Perhaps before his Jonah-like sea-voyage and his rediscovery of a merciful Providence, his contemplation of revenge as a duty imposed on him by his father also drove him to "mad," unhealthy thoughts.
Fatalism v. Submission to Divine Will
Hamlet ends with a kind of fatalistic acceptance which perhaps transforms later into a more religious acceptance of "let be" and "the readiness is all":
I loved you ever: but it is no matter;
Let Hercules himself do what he may,
The cat will mew and dog will have his day.
Concluding observations:
So in this scene, a number of events occur that may incubate and stir up some kind of change in Laertes:
- We hear Gertrude say she had hoped Ophelia would be Hamlet's bride (a piece of information that may come as a kind of gift to Laertes, perhaps tugging him slightly away from Claudius' plans for revenge).
- We watch Laertes grapple to understand the relationship between his sister and the ungenerous priest as being something like the contrast between the beggar Lazarus and the rich man (a gift of an insight that may unconsciously inspire him to be more generous himself than vengeful).
- We see Laertes curse Hamlet and call for a mountain of earth to bury him and Ophelia, in a seeming death-wish and rebellion against heaven.
- We see Laertes grapple with Hamlet (and we might note that some scholars dispute whether Hamlet jumps down into the grave with Laertes).
- We see Hamlet exercise some restraint and warn Laertes of "something dangerous" in him (a warning as a kind of gift?), but also voice how he is offended at what he perceives as Laertes’ “abuse.” Hamlet doesn't seem to connect the dots in the same way Laertes does, viewing Hamlet as the sole cause of Ophelia's madness and death. Perhaps Hamlet blames mostly Claudius? And perhaps he would be right to do so?
- And importantly, we hear Hamlet voice his love for both Ophelia and for Laertes (another gift).
This is not the Hamlet Laertes had imagined. So some of these new seeds of potential change are being planted in Laertes’ psyche, while he is still committed to a path of revenge. Laertes is divided within himself, his desire for revenge opposed to the better angels of his nature, and to gift-events, like seeds that have been planted in him by what he has heard and witnessed from his sister and from Hamlet.
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Continued Next Week
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NOTE ON THIS SERIES OF POSTS:
Hamlet quotes are taken from the Complete Moby(tm) Shakespeare at mit.edu.
This is the latest installment in a multi-part series examining how characters interact in Hamlet, offering opportunities, gifts, planting seeds for future inspiration, or for changes of heart & mind. It follows ideas from Lewis Hyde (“The Labor of Gratitude,” a chapter in his book, The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property).
- The more I examine characters in this way, the more I realize how the major characters in Hamlet are dynamic characters who change, becoming better or worse in one way or another. This approach goes against the grain of a great deal of scholarship that seems to reify (or thing-ify) too many characters (as foil, as Oedipal, as Machiavellian, etc.) and view them as more static, rather than as dynamic, fluid, interacting. For an index of previous posts in this series, see below.
- For Laertes, there are at least two diametrically opposed sets of gift-forces at work: One set involves Claudius & Polonius who pull him in a somewhat selfish direction. Other gift-forces that pull him in another direction come from Ophelia in 1.3, 4.5, and 4.7; and from Hamlet in 5.1 and 5.2.
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Index of other posts in this series:
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2024/09/index-character-arcs-labors-of.html
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Disclaimer: If and when I quote or paraphrase bible passages or mention religion in many of my blog posts, I do not intend to promote any religion over another, nor am I attempting to promote religious belief in general; only to explore how the Bible and religion influenced Shakespeare, his plays, and his age.
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Laertes & Hamlet Fight at Ophelia’s Grave, 5.1 (part 8, Labors of Gratitude & Regret in Hamlet)
(continued from the previous weeks' posts)
Act 5, scene 1 of Shakespeare's Hamlet is a rich and problematic scene: Hamlet has returned from his Jonah-like sea voyage but doesn’t seem to have been informed by Horatio of Ophelia’s death. The Queen previously gave an account of Ophelia’s drowning that seemed to blame the broken branch of a tree she was on, and the water that made her clothing heavy. But now in 5.1 we get more meaningful banter and exploration of suicide and church teaching among the gravediggers. Hamlet seems to have an Emmaus-like encounter with one gravedigger and the memory of Yorick. Many things are coming to a head, and multiple contingencies are beginning to bear fruit.
By the time we see Laertes in 5.1, he has been through a number of remarkable changes. Before we consider his fight with Hamlet at his sister’s grave, let’s review:
In 1.2, Laertes referred to Claudius as his “dread lord,” a king to be feared, and we see the king grandstanding about how he will show his gratitude toward Polonius by his generosity with Laertes.
He advised his sister to fear Hamlet, using the word fear many times, and importantly, in 1.3, she advised him to avoid hypocrisy. But in 4.5, after coming back angry and potentially rebellious from France due to the news of his father’s death, Claudius has flattered him, gained his confidence, and tricked him into acting as his assassin, to kill Hamlet. This is an end Ophelia may not have wished to live to see, and may have been part of the motivation for her not to resist a watery death after falling from the tree into the stream.
Laertes also witnessed his sister’s madness, which had no concern with revenge, and which had a transformative power: “Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself, / She turns to favour and to prettiness.”
But Claudius succeeds in flattering him and drawing his attention to plans of revenge while Ophelia drowns, making Claudius and Laertes share some blame for her death through distraction and negligence.
[Laertes, played by Edward Bennett, and Ophelia, played by Mariah Gale, in the 2009 RSC-BBC production of Hamlet, starring David Tennant in the title role]
Laertes at Ophelia's Grave, with Lazarus & the Rich Man in Mind?
When we next see Laertes in 5.1, he is disturbed that the funeral rites have been shortened. He asks, “No ceremony else?” And the priest explains that because her death was “doubtful” - a suspected suicide - she should not have been buried in the holy ground of a church cemetery, but the king had pressed for as much exception to the rule as possible.
Laertes replies, “I tell thee, churlish priest,
A ministering angel shall my sister be,
When thou liest howling.”
As I’ve argued before in previous blog posts, the contrast between Ophelia as a ministering angel and the ungenerous priest, howling in hell is similar to that between the beggar Lazarus in heaven, and the ungenerous rich man in hell, in the gospel parable.
Ungenerous Priest, Ungenerous Laertes?
This criticism of the priest by Laertes is both insightful and problematic: It rings true, but if Laertes is criticizing the priest for being ungenerous, shouldn’t Laertes perhaps be more generous and less vengeful toward Hamlet? It seems Ophelia was right to warn Laertes in 1.3 against being hypocritical, a warning Laertes has yet to fully take to heart.
The Wedding that Never Was
Hamlet, unseen near the grave, hears Laertes mention his sister and realizes finally that the funeral is for Ophelia.
Gertrude then reveals that she had hoped Ophelia would have been Hamlet’s bride:
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Sweets to the sweet: farewell!
[Scattering flowers]
I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet's wife;
I thought thy bride-bed to have deck'd, sweet maid,
And not have strew'd thy grave.
But we know Ophelia was first divided from Hamlet by her father, who forbade her to have any contact with him, a decision he later regretted when he came to believe Hamlet’s madness was caused by love-sickness.
Ophelia is further divided from Hamlet when the prince thinks Claudius is behind the arras and stabs, only to find that he has killed the meddling Polonius instead.
How Much did Claudius Reveal to Laertes?
Laertes may have been told that Hamlet’s true target was Claudius: At the start of 4.7, Claudius tells Laertes:
Now must your conscience my acquaintance seal,
And you must put me in your heart for friend,
Sith you have heard, and with a knowing ear,
That he which hath your noble father slain
Pursued my life. [emphasis mine]
But Laertes was not told the reason: That Hamlet knows his father was poisoned by Claudius. So Laertes may think Hamlet both a sexual predator and an ambitious usurper whose recklessness made Polonius a victim, collateral damage. But in fact, Claudius' choice to kill his brother and marry his brother's widow is the one action on which all following developments are most contingent.
A Gift from Gertrude?
News from the Queen that she’d hoped Ophelia would be Hamlet’s wife does not phase Laertes for now or change his course of action. But perhaps, among many other factors and contingencies, it is a kind of gift she offers, planting a seed that may later bear fruit.
Laertes Curses Hamlet:
For now, Laertes makes a dramatic rhetorical gesture which, to Hamlet, doesn’t seem entirely accurate or sincere: First, he curses the person responsible for Ophelia’s madness, which in his mind, is not at all Polonius or Laertes himself, but Hamlet alone:
LAERTES:
O, treble woe
Fall ten times treble on that cursed head,
Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense
Deprived thee of! Hold off the earth awhile,
Till I have caught her once more in mine arms:
[Leaps into the grave]
Laertes' Rebellion Against Heaven:
Next, he asks that a mountain of earth be piled on him and the corpse of Ophelia, burying them both, alluding to the Greek mythological version of a kind of Tower of Babel story, where the twin Aloadae attempted to climb and attack the gods on Mount Olympus in a rebellion against heaven:
Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead,
Till of this flat a mountain you have made,
To o'ertop old Pelion, or the skyish head
Of blue Olympus.
A rebellion against heaven is consistent with Laertes’ earlier statements, daring damnation (4.5), and being willing to cut Hamlet’s throat in a church (4.7). But it’s also a brother’s claim to die along with his beloved sister, a death-wish that will be echoed later in 5.2 when Horatio claims he wishes to drink from the poison cup and commit suicide to join his friend Hamlet in death (but Hamlet stops him).
Hamlet's Reaction to Mourning Laertes Echoes Claudius' Reaction to Hamlet in 1.2:
Laertes’ dramatic gestures at Ophelia’s grave are also vaguely reminiscent of Hamlet’s persistent mourning and wearing of black (1.2), in contrast to his mother and uncle, who seem to have gotten over the death of King Hamlet quickly enough to marry. Claudius and Gertrude both ask Hamlet to end his mourning, and Claudius criticizes Hamlet’s mourning as being obstinate, impious, stubborn, unmanly, sinful (incorrect to heaven), weak (“A heart unfortified”), impatient, simple-minded, “unschool'd,” peevish, unreasonable, offensive to heaven, to the dead, and to nature.
Now the roles are changed, and instead of Claudius criticizing the mourning Hamlet, we have Hamlet offended at being blamed for Ophelia’s madness and death, and criticizing the mourning Laertes. Hamlet seems unaware, not yet brought up to speed regarding Laertes’ return and attempted rebellion, so Hamlet speaks to Horatio in only positive terms of Laertes, and seems surprised and sincerely offended by Laertes curses and “abuse”:
HAMLET
What is he whose grief
Bears such an emphasis? whose phrase of sorrow
Conjures the wandering stars, and makes them stand
Like wonder-wounded hearers? This is I,
Hamlet the Dane.
More Parallels: Hamlet is to Laertes like Old King Hamlet was to Old Fortinbras?
Some view Hamlet's declaration, "This is I, Hamlet the Dane," as his finally declaring himself king. As he is in the midst of a dispute with Laertes over who loved Ophelia best, it's also similar to his father, fighting Old Fortinbras in single combat — yet with a few key differences: Hamlet seems to have no intention of killing Laertes, as his father did of killing Fortinbras.
Laertes continues with another curse, but Hamlet (channeling Yorick?) responds with a joke about Laertes' curse as not exemplifying good prayer (Laertes seems to be praying to the devil instead of to God):
LAERTES
The devil take thy soul!
[Grappling with him]
HAMLET
Thou pray'st not well.
I prithee, take thy fingers from my throat;
For, though I am not splenitive and rash,
Yet have I something in me dangerous,
Which let thy wiseness fear: hold off thy hand.
"Something in me dangerous" as a warning and as a gift to Laertes:
This is a remarkable exchange: Laertes is the passionate one, still set on revenge, and Hamlet, though offended, is the one here who is slightly less passion’s slave, acting slightly less mad, with his wits enough about him to warn Laertes of “something in me dangerous.” Hamlet's self-control and warning to Laertes go unheeded by Laertes, but again, these may be like a gift, or the planting of seeds for future changes in Laertes' consciousness.
The king and queen ask that Laertes and Hamlet be separated, and Horatio helps.
Laertes Doth Protest Too Much (to Avoid Guilt?)
It could be that Laertes is so strong in declaring his love for his sister at her grave because at some level, he may feel guilty for not preventing her death, being negligent while planning revenge with Claudius. To paraphrase Gertrude (who in 3.2 said of the player queen, “The lady doth protest too much”), Laertes doth protest too much of his (actually negligent) love for his sister.
Hamlet's Competitive Reaction:
Instead of acting as a peace-maker, Hamlet allows this interchange to become like a contest, brother-love against seemingly betrothed- (“almost all the holy vows of heaven”) -but-canceled-love:
HAMLET
Why I will fight with him upon this theme
Until my eyelids will no longer wag.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
O my son, what theme?
HAMLET
I loved Ophelia: forty thousand brothers
Could not, with all their quantity of love,
Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?
KING CLAUDIUS
O, he is mad, Laertes.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
For love of God, forbear him.
HAMLET
'Swounds, show me what thou'lt do:
Woo't weep? woo't fight? woo't fast? woo't tear thyself?
Woo't drink up eisel? eat a crocodile?
I'll do't. Dost thou come here to whine?
To outface me with leaping in her grave?
Be buried quick with her, and so will I:
And, if thou prate of mountains, let them throw
Millions of acres on us, till our ground,
Singeing his pate against the burning zone,
Make Ossa like a wart! Nay, an thou'lt mouth,
I'll rant as well as thou.
This is more toxic masculinity of a type similar to that which distracted Laertes in 4.7 with plans of revenge while Ophelia drowned.
To Reject, or to Accept, the Feminine?
We saw in 4.7 how Laertes, after hearing news of Ophelia’s death, tries to forbid his own tears, unsuccessfully, but then hopes that after he has finished crying, the femininity that he associates with tears will be out of him. Gertrude’s next line hints that Hamlet will move toward femininity instead of away from it:
QUEEN GERTRUDE
This is mere madness:
And thus awhile the fit will work on him;
Anon, as patient as the female dove,
When that her golden couplets are disclosed,
His silence will sit drooping.
(For more on Hamlet’s movement toward the feminine, see Ruben Espinoza’s fine 2011 book,
Masculinity and Marian Efficacy in Shakespeare’s England, especially 139-148.)
About Love & Faulty Assumptions?
And now Hamlet, having declared his great love for Ophelia at her grave (after denying it temporarily in 3.1), says something else remarkable that is too often overlooked:
HAMLET
Hear you, sir;
What is the reason that you use me thus?
I loved you ever: but it is no matter….
So Hamlet has declared to Laertes, who blames him entirely for Ophelia’s madness and death, that he loved Ophelia more than forty thousand brothers, and that Hamlet also “ever” loved Laertes. This is not the statement of a prince who would merely seek to use Ophelia for sex and perhaps abandon her if she became pregnant.
Laertes, Like his Father?
Polonius belatedly expressed his sorrow to Ophelia in 2.1 for misjudging Hamlet:
I am sorry that with better heed and judgment
I had not quoted him: I fear'd he did but trifle,
And meant to wreck thee; but, beshrew my jealousy!
In fact, in that scene, Polonius says "I am sorry" twice. But Laertes in France never got the memo. Laertes had also misjudged Hamlet in 1.3, but had left for France with his faulty assumptions intact. Now it seems Hamlet’s intentions toward Ophelia may have been quite sincere, before his “madness” brought on by his visit with the ghost.
How Else to Explain "Get Thee to a Nunnery"?
Perhaps Hamlet's newfound fear of the horrors of purgatory and hell motivated him to be him harsh with Ophelia ("Get thee to a nunnery. Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?). Perhaps before his Jonah-like sea-voyage and his rediscovery of a merciful Providence, his contemplation of revenge as a duty imposed on him by his father also drove him to "mad," unhealthy thoughts.
Fatalism v. Submission to Divine Will
Hamlet ends with a kind of fatalistic acceptance which perhaps transforms later into a more religious acceptance of "let be" and "the readiness is all":
I loved you ever: but it is no matter;
Let Hercules himself do what he may,
The cat will mew and dog will have his day.
Concluding observations:
So in this scene, a number of events occur that may incubate and stir up some kind of change in Laertes:
- We hear Gertrude say she had hoped Ophelia would be Hamlet's bride (a piece of information that may come as a kind of gift to Laertes, perhaps tugging him slightly away from Claudius' plans for revenge).
- We watch Laertes grapple to understand the relationship between his sister and the ungenerous priest as being something like the contrast between the beggar Lazarus and the rich man (a gift of an insight that may unconsciously inspire him to be more generous himself than vengeful).
- We see Laertes curse Hamlet and call for a mountain of earth to bury him and Ophelia, in a seeming death-wish and rebellion against heaven.
- We see Laertes grapple with Hamlet (and we might note that some scholars dispute whether Hamlet jumps down into the grave with Laertes).
- We see Hamlet exercise some restraint and warn Laertes of "something dangerous" in him (a warning as a kind of gift?), but also voice how he is offended at what he perceives as Laertes’ “abuse.” Hamlet doesn't seem to connect the dots in the same way Laertes does, viewing Hamlet as the sole cause of Ophelia's madness and death. Perhaps Hamlet blames mostly Claudius? And perhaps he would be right to do so?
- And importantly, we hear Hamlet voice his love for both Ophelia and for Laertes (another gift).
This is not the Hamlet Laertes had imagined. So some of these new seeds of potential change are being planted in Laertes’ psyche, while he is still committed to a path of revenge. Laertes is divided within himself, his desire for revenge opposed to the better angels of his nature, and to gift-events, like seeds that have been planted in him by what he has heard and witnessed from his sister and from Hamlet.
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Continued Next Week
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NOTE ON THIS SERIES OF POSTS:
Hamlet quotes are taken from the Complete Moby(tm) Shakespeare at mit.edu.
This is the latest installment in a multi-part series examining how characters interact in Hamlet, offering opportunities, gifts, planting seeds for future inspiration, or for changes of heart & mind. It follows ideas from Lewis Hyde (“The Labor of Gratitude,” a chapter in his book, The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property).
- The more I examine characters in this way, the more I realize how the major characters in Hamlet are dynamic characters who change, becoming better or worse in one way or another. This approach goes against the grain of a great deal of scholarship that seems to reify (or thing-ify) too many characters (as foil, as Oedipal, as Machiavellian, etc.) and view them as more static, rather than as dynamic, fluid, interacting. For an index of previous posts in this series, see below.
- For Laertes, there are at least two diametrically opposed sets of gift-forces at work: One set involves Claudius & Polonius who pull him in a somewhat selfish direction. Other gift-forces that pull him in another direction come from Ophelia in 1.3, 4.5, and 4.7; and from Hamlet in 5.1 and 5.2.
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Index of other posts in this series:
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2024/09/index-character-arcs-labors-of.html
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Disclaimer: If and when I quote or paraphrase bible passages or mention religion in many of my blog posts, I do not intend to promote any religion over another, nor am I attempting to promote religious belief in general; only to explore how the Bible and religion influenced Shakespeare, his plays, and his age.
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Thanks for reading!
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