Soliloquy Notes
Soliloquy #4: “My Offense is Rank”
CLAUDIUS: 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;
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;
My fault is past. But, O, what form of prayer
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;
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?
Claudius begins by admitting his guilt and
that his “offense”—that of murdering his brother and
his king—is so rotten that heaven—God—can smell
it. The “primal eldest curse” is the murder of Abel by
his brother Cain, a nefarious deed if ever there were
one. Claudius knows that he has committed a terrible
sin. But he also knows that he wants to be forgiven
for his sin, and he is inclined to pray to God to ask for
this forgiveness. However, he also admits that his
“stronger guilt” is more powerful than his desire to be
forgiven.
He asks if there isn’t room to be forgiven for
his sin. Even if his cursed hand were literally covered
in blood, isn’t there enough rain from heaven to wash
it clean? This metaphor takes us back to the
archetypal image of water being used to cleanse us.
Throughout human history, water is used to cleanse
and bring about rebirth—baptism, the flood, etc.—
and we see this ritual repeated in literature—
Huckleberry Finn on the river comes to mind. Clearly
the ritual of water speaks to us on some collective
level.
Claudius goes on to question whether or not
he can have mercy, and he elevates mercy with
personification, asking whether or not mercy can
confront his offense. In other words, can’t mercy do
something to mitigate his terrible crime? What is the
value of mercy, then, if we can’t call on it when we
need it the most?
He asks, probably in a fairly sarcastic tone, if
he can’t pray something like “[f]orgive me my foul
murder” and have God now grant him mercy. I like
this line said somewhat sarcastically because
Claudius has to know that he cannot ask such a huge
favor from God.
Then he gives perhaps his most honest line
in the whole play. He acknowledges that he still has
the things that he killed for—the crown and the
Queen—and because of this he knows that his
repentance is not complete. If he will not give up the
things he killed for, then he has not truly earned the
right to be forgiven.
The “gilded hand”—wealth or power—may
shove justice around a little in this world, but it is
“not so above.” In heaven, money cannot buy you out
of your guilt or any offense you may have committed.
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,
Be soft as sinews of the newborn babe!
All may be well.
Claudius asks what repentance can do for him
if he can’t truly repent in his heart. He laments his
wretched state and his “black” heart that has
committed these ugly crimes, but then he tells his
knees and his heart to bend and be soft so that they
can humble themselves before God and ask for
forgiveness. He calls for help from the angels and then
he looks like he is praying and in direct
communication with God. For a moment, at least, he
wants to be like a newborn baby, someone with no
sins on his head. He longs for his previous state of
innocence.
[Retires and kneels]
Soliloquy #5: “Now I Might Do It”
[Enter HAMLET]
HAMLET: 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;
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;
At gaming, swearing, or about some act
While Claudius assumes the position of
prayer, Hamlet comes along, heading to his
mother’s chamber to read her the riot act. But he
stops to see what Claudius is doing.
Hamlet has just seen the King react badly to
the play, and he knows for sure that his father has
been murdered by his uncle. He is ready to exact
his revenge, and here is the perfect time.
Except…he sees that Claudius is praying, and being
killed in such a religious act would guarantee
Claudius a direct express trip to heaven. Hamlet
thinks that he needs to think about this a little more
(Seriously, when doesn’t Hamlet think a little more
than is necessary?) It is not enough for Claudius to
be killed here on earth; he has to pay for his crime
in the afterlife as well. He can’t just get a free ride to
heaven; he must pay in the fires of hell.
Hamlet points out that the spirit that
visited him told him that his father has had to pay
for some of the crimes that he committed in life
because he died unforgiven. If he kills Claudius and
sends him to a better place, that is “hire and salary,”
meaning it is killing for money, not for the true
death that Claudius deserves and for the revenge
that both Hamlet and his father deserve.
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]
So Hamlet resolves that he will get Claudius
later, when he is doing something wicked or evil like
drinking, acting enraged, engaging in sexual relations
with Hamlet’s mother (there’s a visual that might send
him therapy, eh?), gambling, cussing, or any of a
number of things that Claudius does that are not seen
as holy or wholesome acts.
Thus when Claudius dies, he will not go to
heaven at all, and he can follow his blackened soul
straight to hell.
CLAUDIUS: [Rising] My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.
You have to love the irony of this moment.
Hamlet, who has told us and his mother that he
recognizes the difference between what “seems” to
be and what “is,” does not see the significance of what
Claudius is doing here. Claudius looks like he is
praying, but he tells us in these lines that while he
may be saying the right thing, his heart is not in it,
and, therefore, his pleas are not reaching God.
Hamlet could have killed him; he wasn’t really
praying.
And we see here that there is a difference
between saying that one wants to repent and then
one actually repenting. Claudius doesn’t want to feel
guilty, but he also doesn’t want to go back to not
being King and husband. He has made a judgment
about what is more important to him, and it isn’t
forgiveness and repentance.
God has not heard him.