Museo Antropológico de la Ciudad de México, Mexico City, Mexico: Aztec Calendar – detail (photo (c) Ulrike Boehm; all rights reserved)
Act IV, Scene 3 (Hamlet and Claudius).
Man, you just gotta admire this kid's sang-froid. And I do confess't, despite the victimisation and abuse of Ophelia and his own mother, despite that missed opportunity to kill Claudius, and despite the killing of Polonius instead, this scene reconciles me with our Prince every single time. Just think about it: He knows he's being shipped off to England, care of his two schoolfellows, who have now shown themselves the pawns to Claudius that they are. He knows that the erroneous killing of Polonius has given Claudius the upper hand, not only because of that killing itself but also, as he at least must suspect, because Claudius has a very clear idea about the true target of the blade of Hamlet's dagger. He is being brought before Claudius and his courtiers and attendants, escorted by armed guards. He knows that he has absolutely no card left to play, at least at the moment. He knows that Evil Power Incarnate, the Enemy, the representative of the dark forces and of the inverted world, the ruthless despot and murderer has won this round; and that he is even in a position to win the entire game. And what does he do? He assumes the role of court jester and, under the guise of madness, tells his uncle to his face that he sees through him and that in the end, all of his efforts will come to naught; however ruthlessly he may be pursuing his goals.
Now, Hamlet, where's Polonius?
Pure regal power ...
At supper.
... met by undaunted audacity. I imagine Hamlet casually strolling up to Claudius here; armed guards behind him be damned.
At supper? Where?
Not where he eats, but where he is eaten. A certain
convocation of politic worms are e'en at him. Your worm is your
only emperor for diet. We fat all creatures else to fat us, and
we fat ourselves for maggots. Your fat King and your lean beggar
is but variable service – two dishes, but to one table. That's the
end.
Death – the Great Equaliser, catching up with the powerful just as surely as with the powerless, and reducing their earthly remains to the same dirt and decay that we all face in the end.
Alas, alas!
A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a King, and eat
of the fish that hath fed of that worm.
What dost thou mean by this?
Nothing but to show you how a King may go a progress through
the guts of a beggar.
And even worse, in the grand scheme of things the powerful may thus be reduced to feeding the powerless. So why should a man be feared just because he is powerful now?
Where is Polonius?
Of course Claudius can't have this kind of insurrection. So he asserts his authority again ...
In heaven. Send thither to see. If your messenger find him not
there, seek him i' th' other place yourself.
... and is rebuked even worse by being told to go look for Polonius's soul in his own domain – in hell – if it be not found in Heaven. (This, I imagine, is spat right into Claudius's face.)
But indeed, if you
find him not within this month, you shall nose him as you go up
the stair, into the lobby.
Only then, almost as an afterthought, Hamlet reveals the whereabouts of Polonius's body. But he leaves his best shot for last, when he finally takes his leave from Claudius with the words, "Farewell, dear mother" – and upon being pointedly corrected in a parent's tone – as he has undoubtedly expected Claudius would respond – "Thy loving father, Hamlet," deadpans, "My mother! Father and mother is man and wife; man and wife is one flesh; and so, my mother." For truly, in this inverted state of the world, can opposites still be distinguished at all? – Of course he has already played a similar game once before, when designating Claudius and Gertrude as his "uncle-father and aunt-mother" in his initial welcome of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. But what at that time was essentially a comment on his uncle's and his mother's marriage and an (ultimately fruitless) warning to his two schoolfellows not to let the King and Queen use and abuse them, now becomes a comment on Claudius's reign itself; like that remark on "th'other place" acidly addressed directly to Claudius. As I said: You just gotta admire this kid's sang-froid ...
Copyright 2002 – 2009: Ulrike Böhm, all rights reserved.
