Shakespeare's Hamlet - Claudius' Soliloquy my offence is rank
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3/21/11 9:17 PM
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Hamlet
Please see the bottom of this page for explanatory notes and
related resources.
ACT III SCENE
III
A room in the castle.
[Enter KING CLAUDIUS, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN]
KING CLAUDIUS I like him not, nor stands it safe with us
To let his madness range. Therefore
prepare you;
I your commission will forthwith dispatch,
And he to England shall along with you:
The terms of our estate may not endure
Hazard so dangerous as doth hourly grow
Out of his lunacies.
GUILDENSTERN We will ourselves provide:
Most holy and religious fear it is
To keep those many many bodies safe
That live and feed upon your majesty.
10
ROSENCRANTZ The single and peculiar life is bound,
With all the strength and armour of the
mind,
To keep itself from noyance; but much
more
That spirit upon whose weal depend and
rest
The lives of many. The cease of majesty
Dies not alone; but, like a gulf, doth draw
What's near it with it: it is a massy wheel,
Fix'd on the summit of the highest mount,
To whose huge spokes ten thousand
lesser things
Are mortised and adjoin'd; which, when it
falls,
20
Each small annexment, petty
consequence,
Attends the boisterous ruin. Never alone
Did the king sigh, but with a general
groan.
KING CLAUDIUS Arm you, I pray you, to this speedy
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voyage;
For we will fetters put upon this fear,
Which now goes too free-footed.
GUILDENSTERN We will haste us.
[Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN]
[Enter POLONIUS]
LORD
POLONIUS
My lord, he's going to his mother's closet:
Behind the arras I'll convey myself,
To hear the process; and warrant she'll
tax him home:
And, as you said, and wisely was it said,
30
'Tis meet that some more audience than a
mother,
Since nature makes them partial, should
o'erhear
The speech, of vantage. Fare you well,
my liege:
I'll call upon you ere you go to bed,
And tell you what I know.
KING CLAUDIUS Thanks, dear my lord.
[Exit POLONIUS]
O, my offence is rank it smells to heaven;
It hath the primal eldest curse upon't,
A brother's murder. Pray can I not,
Though inclination be as sharp as will:
My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent; 40
And, like a man to double business
bound,
I stand in pause where I shall first begin,
And both neglect. What if this cursed
hand
Were thicker than itself with brother's
blood,
Is there not rain enough in the sweet
heavens
To wash it white as snow? Whereto
serves mercy
But to confront the visage of offence?
And what's in prayer but this two-fold
force,
To be forestalled ere we come to fall,
Or pardon'd being down? Then I'll look
up;
50
My fault is past. But, O, what form of
prayer
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Can serve my turn? 'Forgive me my foul
murder'?
That cannot be; since I am still possess'd
Of those effects for which I did the
murder,
My crown, mine own ambition and my
queen.
May one be pardon'd and retain the
offence?
In the corrupted currents of this world
Offence's gilded hand may shove by
justice,
And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself
Buys out the law: but 'tis not so above;
60
There is no shuffling, there the action lies
In his true nature; and we ourselves
compell'd,
Even to the teeth and forehead of our
faults,
To give in evidence. What then? what
rests?
Try what repentance can: what can it not?
Yet what can it when one can not repent?
O wretched state! O bosom black as
death!
O limed soul, that, struggling to be free,
Art more engaged! Help, angels! Make
assay!
Bow, stubborn knees; and, heart with
strings of steel,
70
Be soft as sinews of the newborn babe!
All may be well.
[Retires and kneels]
[Enter HAMLET]
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HAMLET
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Now might I do it pat, now he is praying;
And now I'll do't. And so he goes to
heaven;
And so am I revenged. That would be
scann'd:
A villain kills my father; and for that,
I, his sole son, do this same villain send
To heaven.
O, this is hire and salary, not revenge.
He took my father grossly, full of bread;
80
With all his crimes broad blown, as flush
as May;
And how his audit stands who knows
save heaven?
But in our circumstance and course of
thought,
'Tis heavy with him: and am I then
revenged,
To take him in the purging of his soul,
When he is fit and season'd for his
passage?
No!
Up, sword; and know thou a more horrid
hent:
When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage,
Or in the incestuous pleasure of his bed;
90
At gaming, swearing, or about some act
That has no relish of salvation in't;
Then trip him, that his heels may kick at
heaven,
And that his soul may be as damn'd and
black
As hell, whereto it goes. My mother stays:
This physic but prolongs thy sickly days.
[Exit]
KING CLAUDIUS [Rising] My words fly up, my thoughts
remain below:
100
Words without thoughts never to heaven
go.
[Exit]
Next: Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 4
__________
Explanatory Notes for Act 3, Scene 3
From Hamlet, prince of Denmark. Ed. K. Deighton. London:
Macmillan.
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_________
1, 2. I like ... range, I do not like the look of things as regards him,
nor is it safe for us to allow his madness to have free scope; his
madness, him who is mad; you, reflexive.
3. I your commission ... dispatch, I will at once make out the
commission which you are to take to England. It does not seem to
follow at all necessarily that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are privy
to the traitorous scheme for killing Hamlet in England. That he was
to be got out of the way, they of course knew; but the king would
hardly be likey to confide to his agents what was to be done with him
when thus out of the way.
4. shall along, for the omission of the verb of motion, see Abb. §
30.
5-7. The terms ... lunacies, the terms on which we hold sway are
not of so secure a nature that we can afford to look with unconcern
upon the dangers which every moment spring from his mad freaks,
and threaten us so nearly; ourselves provide, supply ourselves
with everything necessary for the voyage.
8-10. Most holy ... majesty, the anxiety you feel for the safety of
those who are dependent upon you is a most holy feeling, their
welfare being a sacred duty to one in your position.
11-3. The single ... noyance, even the individual man (who has no
one to think of but himself) is in prudence bound to use every faculty
of his mind to keep himself from injury; noyance, i.e. annoyance,
used for injury, danger, as in R. II. iii. 2. 16, Macb. V. 1. 84, and the
verb annoy in Cymb. iv. 3. 34, H. V. ii. 2. 103.
14, spirit, here little more than life, in 1. 11; the vital principle.
15, 6. The cease ... alone, the extinction of majesty in the death of
a king is much more than the single death of an ordinary man.
16, 7. but, like ... it, involves the sweeping away of everything
connected with it (sc. majesty), as a whirlpool engulfs everything that
comes within its area.
18. highest mount, i.e. from which the fall will be most headlong.
20. mortised, firmly fixed; a mortise is the groove made in timber
into which the tenon of another piece of timber is fixed; for the
substantive, cp. Oth. ii. 1. 9, "What ribs of oak ... Can hold the
mortise?"
20-2. which, ... ruin, and when this massive wheel is precipitated
down, everything however small, that is an adjunct of it, everything
however trifling that accompanies it, is swept away in its violent
overthrow.
23. but with ... groan, without that sigh being echoed by the groan
of the whole kingdom; alone, 1. 22, is somewhat redundant.
24. Arm you, prepare yourselves.
25, 6. For we ... free-footed, for I will put restraint upon this danger
which now ranges abroad too freely; for fear, = object of fear, ii. H.
IV. iv. 5. 196, "all these hold fears Thou see'st with peril I have
answered."
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28. Behind ... myself, I will betake myself to a place behind the
tapestry; that space between it and the wall being sometimes very
considerable; for arras, see note on ii. 2. 163.
29. To hear the process, to hear how the interview proceeds; tax,
a doublet of task; home, used adverbially.
30. as you said, "this was Polonius's own suggestion, which,
courtier-like, he ascribes to the king" (Moberly).
32. of vantage, "from the vantage-ground of concealment" (Abb. §
165)
36-8. 0, my offence ... murder, 0, my crime, the murder of a
brother, is so foul that the taint of it has reached the very heavens,
and on it rests the curse pronounced upon Cain.
39. Though ... will, though my inclination and my will to do so
equally spur me on; inclination, the natural disposition to do a thing;
will, the determination prompted by the understanding.
40. My stronger ... intent, strong as my purpose is, my guilt is
stronger still, and overcomes it.
41. to double ... bound, whose attention is engaged upon two
matters of business which have nothing in common with each other.
42. in pause, hesitating.
43. What if, even supposing that.
45. sweet, used here in the twofold sense of kind, gracious, and of
purifying by means of rain; for the former sense, cp. Lear, i. 5. 50,
"sweet heaven"; iii. 4. 91, "in the sweet face of heaven"; Oth. ii. 1.
197.
46, 7. Whereto ... offence, of what avail is mercy except to overawe
the face of crime so that it shrinks abashed out of sight?
48-50. And what's ... down? and what efficacy has prayer except
the twofold one of arresting our fall, or of procuring pardon when we
have fallen? The original sense of forestall is, says Skeat, "to buy
up goods before they had been displayed at a stall in the market"; so
to anticipate, and then to prevent; cp. V. 2. 203.
50. Then I'll lookup, i.e. with hopeful eyes; take courage; cp. ii. H.
IV. iv. 4. 113, "My soveieign lord, cheer up yourself, look up."
52. serve my turn? be of service in my case? a phrase very
frequent in Shakespeare, turn being equivalent to occasion,
exigence.
54. effects, the advantages which he specifies in the next line.
55. ambition. Delius explains this as the realization of ambition. It
does not seem certain to me that the word, instead of being one of
three "effects," is not in apposition with My crown, i.e. my crown
which was the very object of my ambition.
56. May one ... offence, is it possible for one to be pardoned while
still retaining that for which he sinned? offence, abstract for
concrete.
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57. In the ... world, in the tainted streams of this world, i.e. in the
corrupted ways in which this world goes. Dyce and Furness adopt
Walker's conjecture 'currents, i.e. occurrents; but it seems that there
is a reference to a polluted stream, and the confusion of metaphors
is not greater than others we have had.
58. offence's ... justice, the wealthy offender is able to thrust
justice aside.
59. 60. the wicked .... law, a favourable verdict is secured by the
very wealth which has been wrongfully acquired.
61, 2. There ... nature, before God's tribunal there is no evading
justice, there the deed is seen in its real enormity. The Cl. Pr. Edd.
say that Shakespeare here uses lies in its legal sense; but though
there is probably a play upon the word in that sense, it can scarcely
be the only or even primary one.
62-4. and we ... evidence, and we cannot escape being brought
face to face with our own sins to give evidence against them; for to
the teeth, cp. below, iv. 7. 57, and H. VIII. i. 2. 36, "Daring the event
to the teeth"; the auxiliary verb 'are' before compelled is to be
supplied from lies in 1. 61.
65. Try, let me try.
66. Yet what ... repent? yet of what avail is repentance when it
consists in sorrow only without amendment of life?
68, 9. O limed soul ... engaged! O soul entangled in difficulties,
and only more thoroughly entangled by your efforts to free yourself.
The metaphor is from snaring a bird by means of bird-lime, a
glutinous substance which boys smear over a stick placed across
the nest, and by which the bird when alighting is held fast, its
struggles to get free only causing it to smear itself with more of the
bird-lime.
69. Make assay! make vigorous effort to rescue me!
70. heart ... steel, naturally so unyielding.
73. Now ... pat, I could not find a time more fit for my purpose; cp.
H. VIII. ii. 3. 84, "Come pat betwixt too early and too late"; "this can
hardly be other than the same word as pat, a tap ... But the sense is
clearly due to an extraordinary confusion with Du. pas, pat,
convenient, in time, which is used in exactly the same way as E. pat"
... (Skeat, Ety. Dict.).
74. And so, and the consequence will be that, etc.
75. That would be scann'd, that point requires careful scrutinizing.
76. for that, in return for that.
79. O, this ... salary, such a deed as that would be something for
which I might well ask payment, i.e.. I should be doing him the
greatest possible kindness, not punishing him, as I ought.
80. He took ... bread, he took my father by surprise when in a state
of gross and luxurious living. Malone points out that full of bread is
borrowed from Ezekiel, vi. 49, "Behold, this was the iniquity of thy
sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness."
81. With all ... May, with all his sins in full blossom, and with his
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blood flowing in his veins with the lusty vigour of the sap of trees in
mid-spring; cp. below, iii. 4. 69.
82. And how ... heaven, and how his account in the next world
stands none knows but God.
83. 4. But in our ... him, but so far as we can judge by looking at
the matter from all points of view, things are in an evil plight with
him; our circumstance and course of thought, is equivalent to the
circumstantial course of our thought, the course of our thought
which goes round and round the subject and views it in all its
particulars.
85. To take ... soul, in seizing the opportunity of killing him when he
is purging his soul of guilt.
86. passage, sc. from this world to the next.
88. Up, sword, return to your sheath; suiting the action to the word:
and know ... hent, and wait to seize a more terrible opportunity;
hent, is variously explained as grasp, opportunity, grip; it is the
participle of O. E. henten, A. S. hentan, to snatch, seize.
89. drunk asleep, in a drunken sleep.
91. At gaming, engaged in gaming; about, occupied with.
92. That has ... in 't, that, unlike his present occupation, has nothing
in it that savours of the salvation of his soul.
93. Then trip ... heaven, then give him such a fall that he will go
headlong to hell.
95. stays, is waiting for me.
96. This physic ... days, "Hamlet calls his temporary forbearance a
physic which does not impart life to his foe, but prolongs his illness"
(Delius).
98. Words ... go, mere words of prayer, into which heartfelt
penitence does not enter, never reach the throne of God.
________
How to cite the explanatory notes:
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet, prince of Denmark. Ed.
K. Deighton. London: Macmillan, 1919. Shakespeare
Online. 20 Feb. 2010. (date when you accessed the
information) < http://www.shakespeareonline.com/plays/hamlet_3_3.html >.
_________
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