Hamlet is a tragic drama that tells the story of a troubled teenage prince and an inventor who must contend with the vengeful impulses of his father’s ghost, and then be tormented by the prince’s own sense of decency for revenge. Shakespeare manages to drive home the feeling of the hamlet in many ways, not the least of which is the “poison in the ear” theme that runs the length of the play. Indeed, in Act 1 Scene 5 Shakespeare introduces a literal act of Claudius poisoning the “gates” of old King Hamlet’s ears, which refers to the prince’s old fan of Hamlet. As for the role of witchcraft in the play, it is only at the beginning of Act 1.5 that it begins to take root. Even in Act 1.4, before the truth of Hamlet’s king’s death is ever known or even suggested in the action of the play, Shakespeare alludes to the overwhelming power of sound. poisoned and by the suggestion of poisoned ears). Likewise, in the following 2.1, Shakespeare elaborates the argument, which, once given its form in act 1.5, is only in its infancy, although at the conclusion of the play the tortured structure becomes more and more evident.
In Act 1.4 the Ghost makes his second appearance in the play, although the village first witnesses him. In addition to advancing the plot, Act 1.4 is also a prelude to Act 1.5 in which the Holy Spirit reveals the mysterious hamlet that is the rest of the story, which governs the act of Claudius’ parricide. It is not surprising, then, that hints and suggestions of the coming revelation are elaborated in the drama. Indeed, the audience is aware of some important building, of some approaching revelation, which will shake the village to its core, for when the Saint beckons to the village from Horatio and Marcellus, it can be concluded that he has a specifically meant message, if only; prince What Hamlet doesn’t know in 1.4 is that the message of the Holy Spirit is infected with poison, a poison of forced revenge, a toxin that will eat away at his resources and his spirit and tribute personal driving limit. What must be revealed in 1.4, however, is that Horatio, following the noisy ghost of the village, suggests the dangers of being abducted, and from there he begins to procreate with sounds or words of dangerous suggestions of death:
What if he tempts you to the flood, sir?
Or to the top of the wild mountain rocks. . . .
The very place of despair lays waste;
Without reason, in every brain
That so many orgies look to the sea
And he heard a roaring. (
Hamlet 1.4.69-78)
Here Horatio warns Vicus that if he were to take him out to sea, the mere sound of the waves under the prow of the rock might induce in him the “toys of despair,” the phantasms or thoughts of harm or despair, such is the force. sound Horace’s speech is more rhetorical than anything else, a desperate attempt to remain Hamlet, but it is no accident that Hamlet is asking for the argument about the insidious nature of sound. Nor is it the case that the mayor ignores Horatio’s reasonable words, for although Horatio occasionally talks sweetly to his friend, the village is almost always consumed by hostile poisons, injected into the ears by almost all other characters.
The ghost enters, who in act 1.5, a mere line after Horace’s innocent warning, puts “plays of despair” on Hamlet’s reeling brain, narrating his murder and the village to exact revenge. But by the same token, Hamlet seems to be obliged to pay attention to everything that the Spirit says, for in Act 1.5, where he first commands your village to give a serious audience, what is necessary to say, Hamlet acknowledges the coercive nature. of sound: “Speak. I must hear” (1.5.7). Shakespeare further builds the foundation with his own prelude to the surprising revelation of the Spirit, in which he means the lightest word about his daily torments, “to burn your soul, to harden your youthful blood, / make two eyes start from their sockets.” . (1.5.17-18), which, apparently, would be fatal if heard. Continuing in this vein, the Spirit unknowingly listens to Marcellus’s portentous words in 1.4 about the corrupt state of Denmark, when Hamlet tells “Thus the whole of Denmark’s ears/ Or by the false process of my death/ Order has been abused” (1.5. 37-39). Again and again, Shakespeare shows that the old adage “words never hurt” is not only patently false, but dangerous, for in
Hamlet has the power of words to kill chicks or even rot an entire nation.
At this key moment Shakespeare finally brings up Claudius’s deed, a literal act of witchcraft, and commands that Vicus exact revenge. And since Shakespeare has so subtly introduced the poisoned nature of the sound, so to the two poisons, to the letter of Claudius, and the revelation of that act by the Spirit. Now this is not to say that malice was God’s intention, nor that the Spirit is in any way false in demanding the vengeance of his son; However, Vicus had already dealing with the death of his father and his mother’s hasty marriage, weakened by terrible events. optimistic minds, and the revelation of a parricidal conspiracy in the family is added, poison in itself is poison to hear and fatal to contemplate. So pestilential indeed, as Hamlet deals with the rest of this unpleasant act of information, the continuous groan of the Spirit from the underworld is more and more despised and despised by the maddened prince: “Peace, rest, troubled spirit.” (1.5.191). Hamlet, an unfortunate thinker, but he knows the terrible consequences of his words.
For while Horatio and Marcellus swear to silence, VICULUS also warns them not to be too loose in their speech, nor to reveal their “ancient disposition” by indirect chatter, the exact observance of which is enjoined by Polonius; the master of the bottle and the chatter, in this scene, Act 2.1 Worried about his son’s behavior in Paris, Polonius, completely unaware of it, explains that the prefect had warned against his friends’ behavior, but by not warning his husband Reynaldo against such behavior, Polonius actively encourages it;
My wife, sir, here is a trick for me. . . .
Thus he closes: “I know, Quirites;
I saw him yesterday or the other day.
either now or then, with such and such, “and as you say;
“It was a game” … (2.1.40, 57-60).
This change of character and scene is a convenient transition, inasmuch as the vast gulf that separates the minds and actions of the village is all too familiar with the poisonous effects of words, and Polonius, willingly ignorant of the power of lies and things of the kind. . Of course, this parallel between the end of 1.5 and the beginning of 2.1 is important, as it illustrates the lightness of Polonius’s character and confirms the seriousness of Hamlet. If both things were done without the benefit of the other, each would lose something essential. Polonius’s intent is only made fun because the audience is exposed to a way of intense meaning, and the fortitude with which the village demands oaths to be kept is contrary to the objective frivolity of Polonius.
Thus Acts 1.4, 1.5 and 2.1 are three moments which, when they are discussed in all important matters, are a commentary on words at the same time. Shakespeare, placing this sentence in the actual act of Claudius, clearly does what he insidiously insinuates in the rest of the play: words have the power to mutilate or destroy, and only strike a fool indiscriminately. Polonius’s ambitious and magnificent poetry foreshadows the murder of Claudius’ last poisoning by such indiscretion, and even Hamlet, whose soul is imbued with the poison of revenge, carries the spirit of his father into his ear. in the first act.
Works Citation
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. In Shakespeare’s Tragedies. Ed. David Bevington. New York:
Pearson, 2007: 1097-1149.
