Part 35: Why Gertrude likely suspects a poison cup (Interlude D.2)
1. In 3.2, she saw The Mousetrap, arranged by her son, showing a man poisoning a king, then wooing his victim’s widow. The analogy implies that Claudius poisoned King Hamlet to usurp the throne and marry Gertrude.
Gertrude tells Hamlet in her closet that the play “much offended” [1] Claudius, meaning they understood perfectly what Hamlet implied that Claudius had done.
2. Hamlet makes this more clear in his mother’s closet, and Gertrude says,
O Hamlet, speak no more!
Thou turn’st my eyes into my very soul,
And there I see such black and grainèd spots
As will not leave their tinct.[2]
Gertrude knows she is caught up in the sins of her envious, murderous, usurping husband.
3. Just before she speaks to Ophelia in 4.5, Gertrude says,
“To my sick soul (as sin’s true nature is),
Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss.
So full of artless jealousy is guilt,
It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.[3]
Gertrude fears to spill the secret of her guilt, having married a murderous usurper.
4. Gertrude heard Claudius say to Laertes that he was blameless in the death of his father Polonius, but she also heard Claudius tell Laertes that he should let the blame fall on those responsible (Hamlet) and by implication, take his revenge on Hamlet, not Claudius.[4]
Gertrude, while defensive of Claudius, must also feel defensive about her son, and betrayed that Claudius wants to encourage Laertes toward revenge against Hamlet.
5. In delivering news that Ophelia drowned, Gertrude personifies an “envious sliver” of a willow branch that breaks [5], envious that it was not given a crown like others. Gertrude expresses in this her awareness that the ultimate cause of Ophelia’s drowning was the murderous and sinful moral “breaking” of Claudius out of envy for a crown.
This is the dangerous kind of secret that Gertrude said might spill itself in spite of her fear of revealing it.
6. In the First Quarto (Q1), Horatio receives Hamlet’s letters upon his arrival back in Denmark and tells the queen,
“[Hamlet] writes how he escaped the danger
And subtle treason that the King had plotted.
[...]
He found the packet sent to the King of England,
Wherein he saw himself betrayed to death…[6]
So at least in Q1, the queen knows Claudius tried to have Hamlet put to death.
Even excluding Q1, from "The Mousetrap" on, Gertrude repeatedly has her new husband's murder of her first husband in mind, and plenty of reasons to suspect that Claudius, who had previously used poison (according to her son’s “Mousetrap”), might use it again.
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NOTES: All references to Hamlet (edited from Q2 and F1) are to the Folger Shakespeare Library online version: https://shakespeare.folger.edu/shakespeares-works/hamlet/entire-play/
References to First Quarto Hamlet are to the Internet Shakespeare edition edited by David Bevington at the University of Victoria: https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/doc/Ham_Q1M/index.html
[1] 3.4.12.
[2] 3.4.99-102.
[3] 4.5.22-25.
[4] See 4.5.153-4, where Laertes says he will be revenged;
see 4.5.160-164, where Claudius asks him if he will target that revenge against both friend and foe;
see 4.5.165-166:
LAERTES None but his enemies.
KING Will you know them, then?
In other words, Claudius wants Laertes to believe that Hamlet is the only person responsible for the death of Polonius, and doesn’t want him to know that his father was spying on Hamlet and Gertrude, or that Hamlet was aiming at who he thought was *Claudius,* to get revenge against the murder of *his own father’s* death. Claudius is already directing Laertes toward taking revenge on Hamlet, without knowing the larger context, and Gertrude witnesses all of this.
[5] 4.7.198.
[6] Q1 14.2985.1 - 3525.
IMAGES, L-R:
Mousetrap: Vintage mousetrap image via Etsy, cropped. Fair use. https://i.etsystatic.com/8204506/r/il/55f82e/2330759958/il_570xN.2330759958_mclp.jpg
Gertrude: (Detail) Hamlet and his Mother; The Closet Scene, 1846, Richard Dadd (1817–1886). Yale Center for British Art. Public domain via https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Richard_Dadd_-_Hamlet_and_his_Mother;_The_Closet_Scene_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg
Willow photo by Demeester, used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Via Wikipedia: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bourgoyen_knotted_willow_and_woodpile.jpg
Far R: Benjamin West (1738–1820), Hamlet: Act IV, Scene V (Ophelia Before the King and Queen), 1792. Detail. Cincinnati Art Museum. Public domain via https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Benjamin_West_-_Hamlet-_Act_IV,_Scene_V_(Ophelia_Before_the_King_and_Queen)_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg
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INDEX OF OPHELIA POSTS:
My 2023 series on Ophelia, and earlier Ophelia posts:
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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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