Titus Andronicus

NOTES ON SHAKESPEARE’S TITUS ANDRONICUS

Notes accord with the text in Greenblatt, Stephen et al., eds. The Norton Shakespeare. 2nd edition. Four-Volume Genre Paperback Set.  Tragedies.  Norton, 2008. ISBN-13: 978-0-393-93152-5.  Document timestamp: 11/6/2011 2:38 PM

Act 1, Scene 1 (124-135, Bassianus & Saturninus advance their cause; Titus’ sons sacrifice Alarbus; Titus makes Saturninus emperor; Bassianus absconds with Lavinia, enraging Titus; Saturninus makes Tamora his empress; Tamora promises revenge against Andronici)

The play seems to be set late in the fourth century CE, and it depicts a Roman world turned upside down—one in which a Goth leader only recently brought to Rome in chains is elevated to nearly supreme power, and a valiant Roman is crushed by his rigid belief in an ancient code of honor that virtually no-one around him takes seriously.  In the eventful first scene, Titus Andronicus, a soldier of forty years’ standing, returns to Rome with his trophy Goths Tamora and her sons, only to be confronted with the bickering of Saturninus and Bassianus over the imperial succession.  While Saturninus proclaims his right as the first-born son of the late emperor, Bassianus advances his cause in the name of virtue: “suffer not dishonor to approach / The imperial seat” (125, 1.1.13-14), he pleads to the Tribunes, Senators, and his own followers. 

Titus has just returned from ten years of fighting in Rome’s cause, and all ears await his sentence as to who should take the throne.  The general’s speech to the assembled Romans is magnificent in its honest reckoning of the losses he has willingly borne for his country, and moving in its attention to the children he has lost: “Titus, unkind and careless of thine own, / Why suffer’st thou thy sons, unburied yet, / To hover on the dreadful shore of Styx?” (126-27, 1.1.86-88)  He is a Roman of the old school and a believer in strict pietas to family and state. 

At his remaining sons’ request, therefore, Titus will sacrifice conquered Tamora’s eldest son.  Titus’ sons explain clearly why they want to commit this act: “… so the shadows be not unappeas’d, / Nor we disturb’d with prodigies on earth” (127, 1.1.100-101).  Titus agrees to this demand without hesitation, but Tamora is quick to see the affair as hypocrisy: “must my sons be slaughtered in the streets / For valiant doings in their country’s cause?” (127, 1.1.112-13)  Her sons have only done what Titus’ would do in defense of their homeland.  Tamora’s plea, “Thrice-noble Titus, spare my first-born son!” (127, 1.1.119) is revealing in that its numerical quality suggests a world in which everything can be quantified or accounted for: surely, this strange honor code in which Titus believes is expansive enough to allow for generosity towards the eldest son of a valiant, defeated queen!  Titus is thrice noble, and ought to be magnanimous in victory.  But Titus disagrees: the honor code is strict, and a demand by blood for blood cannot be refused without shame.  It would, in fact, constitute an outrage against the memory of Titus’ dead sons.  So Tamora’s individual heartache, her natural appeal as a mother, must be subordinated to Roman ritual: piety must be upheld, and the general tells her to “Patient” (127, 1.1.121) herself while this supposed act of Roman religiosity is accomplished.  Tamora’s denunciation seems appropriate: “O cruel, irreligious piety!” (127, 1.1.130)  Tamora may be a barbarian queen, but she is no fool.  “Barbarism” is a worthy concept in Shakespeare’s play: the powerful Goths serve as a ground for the anxieties of a civilized people about their relationship to violence, their sense of identity, and the efficacy of their language.  Tamora and her sons both do and do not understand Rome.  The question is, how well does Rome understand them?

The aftermath of the deed done by Titus’ sons is announced with the words, “Alarbus’ limbs are lopped, / And entrails feed the sacrificing fire, / Whose smoke like incense doth perfume the sky” (128. 1.1.143-45).  The alliteration of the first line is deliciously absurd, and lets us in on the comic undertone of this otherwise tragic play: Titus Andronicus has an over-the-top quality, a tendency to revel in its scenes of violence and criminality, that mark it as a fine example of Elizabethan revenge tragedy.  “Shakespeare was young when he wrote Titus,” as an old professor of mine used to suggest by way of accounting for the play’s exuberance and outright silliness (there are approximately 217 references to body parts in Titus Andronicus—surely no accident on Shakespeare’s part), but we might as well admit that it’s a masterpiece of its kind.  The Elizabethans loved this kind of limb-hacking, blood-spattered spectacle, as the popularity of other plays such as Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy attests.  Dexter Morgan, eat your heart out!

With Alarbus’ limbs duly lopped, Titus must return to public responsibility.  Offered the throne in his own right, he magnanimously turns it down with the utterance, “Give me a staff of honor for mine age, / But not a scepter to control the world” (129, 1.1.198-99).  As kingmaker he chooses the eldest son of the departed Caesar as the new emperor, and Saturninus promises to wed Lavinia out of gratitude for this service (130, 1.1.240). 

But Bassianus, with the aid of Titus’ sons, escapes with his beloved Lavinia.  Titus kills his son Mutius when the latter bars his way in pursuit of the absconders (131, 1.1.288), but Saturninus flies into a rage anyhow, and chooses Tamora for his empress in place of Lavinia. 

The perverse nature of this choice is implied in Tamora’s promise to the young man: “If Saturnine advance the Queen of Goths, / She will a handmaid be to his desires, / A loving nurse, a mother to his youth” (132, 1.1.327-28).  Titus has given control of great Rome to a man who seeks a mother in the “barbarian” woman who wants nothing more than to destroy it as a means of revenging her losses in battle and the slaughter of her child.  As empress, Tamora  deviously smooths things over for Titus (134, 1.1.428ff), who has been left to lament the betrayal by his sons of the reputation he held dear.  As she explains to the inexperienced young emperor, she does this the better to crush Titus and his entire line when Saturninus is secure on the throne: “I’ll find a day to massacre them all …” (134, 1.1.447).  And so the act ends with Saturninus’ offer of a double wedding, and Titus’ promise of fine hunting.

Act 2, Scenes 1-2 (135-39, Aaron exults in Tamora’s success; Aaron helps Chiron and Demetrius plot the rape of Lavinia)

Aaron is exultant at Tamora’s advancement because it means great rewards for him, not only in terms of wealth but also personal pride: he will “be bright, and shine in pearl and gold,” but more than that, he will “wanton with this queen” (136, 2.1.19, 21) who promises to be the ruin of the hated Romans and their emperor.  Chiron and Demetrius scheme with Aaron’s aid to ravish Lavinia: says Aaron the strategist, “The woods are ruthless, dreadful, deaf, and dull” (138, 2.1.129), and therefore they can absorb in silence the savage crime these young men desire to commit against Lavinia.  They will all conspire with Tamora to refine the plot.  Scene 2 tells us of the hunting party’s beginning.

Act 2, Scene 3 (139-46, Bassianus and Lavinia discover Tamora and insult her; Aaron brings in Chiron and Demetrius, who kill Bassianus and rape & mutilate Lavinia with Tamora’s approval; Saturninus is duped by Aaron into arresting Martius and Quintus)

Tamora and Aaron converse in the woods, with Aaron counseling sexual restraint while revenge is yet to be had: “Madam, though Venus govern your desires, / Saturn is dominator over mine” (140, 2.3.30-31).  Then Bassianus and Lavinia discover Tamora and insult her at length (140-41, 2.3.55-87).  Aaron brings back Chiron and Demetrius, who kill Bassianus and rape and mutilate Lavinia, with Tamora’s explicit and sadistic approval (142, 2.3.114); she mocks Lavinia’s appeals to feminine compassion, reminding all present of Titus’ utter lack of compassion for her own heartrending pleas in support of her son (143, 2.3.161-64), and admonishes her sons, “The worse to her, the better loved of me” (143, 2.3.167).  Tamora goes off to enjoy herself with Aaron while the deed is done (143, 2.3.190-91).  Saturnine is easily duped by Aaron’s forged letter and planted bag of gold into thinking that Titus’ sons Martius and Quintus are Bassianus’ murderers (145, 2.3.281-85).  They are dragged from the pit into which they have fallen and brought to prison.  Tamora pretends to Titus that she will yet again assist him (146, 2.3.304).

Act 2, Scene 4 (146-47, Marcus finds Lavinia, likens her to Philomel; Titus must be informed)

Titus’ brother Marcus finds Lavinia and wonders what has happened.  Waxing poetical, he likens the scene to the story of Tereus and Philomel: “But sure some Tereus hath deflowered thee …” (146-47, 2.4.26-27).  Worse yet, he says, the ravishers have improved upon the dastardly practice of the original: “… he hath cut those pretty fingers off / That could have better sewed than Philomel” (147, 2.4.41-43).  Off they’ll go to afflict Titus with the sight of his ruined daughter, as if he hadn’t suffered enough already: as usual, the reference to suffering is harshly physical: “Come let us go, and make thy father blind …” (147, 2.4.52-53).

Act 3, Scene 1 (147-53, )

Everyone ignores Titus’ self-sacrifice of four decades, and the tribunes he implores are nowhere to be found, so he tells his “sorrows to the stones” instead (148, 3.1.36).  His entire world view has crashed, and Rome seems “a wilderness of tigers” (148, 3.1.54) intent on devouring only Titus and his kin.  Lucius has been banished for trying to assist his brothers.  At this point, we pity Titus already, but now he is shown Lavinia to top off his grief: “But that which gives my soul the greatest spurn/Is dear Lavinia” (149, 3.1.101-02).  Of course, pity has its limits when a man insists on serving up puns such as the one Titus offers Lavinia: “… what accursed hand / Hath made thee handless in thy father’s sight?” (149, 3.1.66-67).  Titus’s sacrifice of Tamora’s sons in the name of piety now appears worthless since piety is dead in Rome.  To be “wondered at in time to come” (150, 3.1.135) for the intensity of his wretchedness now seems appropriate to Titus, and his thoughts turn to what they can do to bring this about, by any means necessary.  Here Titus responds to unspeakable pain, both physical and mental.  In 3.2, he will reach a point at which there are no more tears, only vengeance, but not in the present scene; he is still processing his raw grief.

Aaron enters and offers to lend the Andronici a hand—or rather take one, and Titus, who had already thought it appropriate to “chop off” (149, 3.1.72) the hands that had vainly defended Rome, falls for the ruse: in spite of all that’s happened, he still thinks that when a man has given his word, honor will bind him to it.  Aaron’s pitch to any one of the Andronici is, “… chop off your hand / And send it to the King” (150, 3.1.153 -54).  As for Aaron, he is as always the ultimate stage villain: “Let fools do good, and fair men call for grace, / Aaron will have his soul black like his face” (151, 3.1.203-04).  Aaron’s cynical, selfish perspective is that codes exist only to get others to do what you want them to do.  But the Moor also pledges allegiance to pure wickedness, and as we can see from his exultant comments when he is in great danger later on, he is almost religious in his devotion to evil.  Titus’ rigidity in adhering to old Roman honor and morality has opened a window for Aaron’s excesses, and the man indulges his sadistic brand of individualism when Roman morality breaks down.

A messenger soon undeceives Titus (152, 3.1.233-39), and the absurd spectacle of “thy two sons’ heads, / Thy warlike hand, thy mangled daughter here,” as Marcus describes the sight (152, 3.1.253-54), brings no more weeping from the old man but instead determination to plan the destruction of Tamora and the Emperor: “Why, I have not another tear to shed” (153, 3.1.265).  This is a critical Senecan turning point in the play: Titus has turned from grief towards revenge and will not look back.  Lucius is instructed to go to the Goths to raise an army (153, 3.1.284).  Titus, Marcus and Lavinia continue the grotesque body parts motif by carting their dismembered kinsmen’s particulars off the stage: “Come, brother, take a head, / And in this hand the other I will bear …” (153, 3.1.278-81); even Lavinia is asked to pitch in and carry the severed hand of Titus.

Act 3, Scene 2 (153-55, banquet theme of hands, revenge against a fly: macabre interlude in preparation for revenge, but Titus is not insane)

Just when we thought the hand theme couldn’t be more over-the-top, along comes the second scene, with Titus and family seated at a banquet.  When Marcus clumsily blurts out, “Fie, brother, fie, teach her not thus to lay / Such violent hands upon her tender life” (154, 3.2.21-22), Titus responds with the immortal lines, “O, handle not the theme, to talk of hands, / Lest we remember still that we have none” (154, 3.2.29-30).  Titus continues to think on revenge, connecting even Marcus’ killing of a fly to this imperative: the family is not yet so reduced, he says, “But that between us we can kill a fly / That comes in likeness of a coal-black Moor” (155, 3.2.76-77).  Marcus thinks Titus is out of his mind, but that doesn’t seem to be the case; I suppose it’s just that by now his overflowing pain and grief have been transformed into a macabre sense of humor.  Titus and Lavinia soon go off to read “Sad stories chanced in the times of old” (155, 3.2.82).  Titus doesn’t know yet how informative those stories will turn out to be, but Ovid is about to provide some enlightenment about Lavinia’s travails.

Act 4, Scene 1 (155-58, Lavinia uses Ovid to reveal the truth, spurring Titus to revenge)

An excited Lavinia explains what happened to her via Ovid’s tale in the Metamorphoses about Procne, Philomel, and the wicked Thracian King Tereus, which Titus recognizes easily: “This is the tragic tale of Philomel…” (156, 4.1.47), and she writes “Stuprum–Chiron–Demetrius” (157, 4.1.77). Stuprum means rape, as in the Latin phrase, per vim stuprum, “violation by main force.”  Titus says he will be another Lucius Junius Brutus, this time expelling not Tarquins but Goths (157, 4.1.86-93), and he writes a note to be carried along with presents by the boy Lucius to Tamora’s sons at the palace (158, 4.1.113-15).  As for Ovid’s “Tereus, Procne, and Philomela” from Book 6 of The Metamorphoses, a lot of the details from this story seem to be distributed amongst the revenging factions of Titus and Tamora—the wooded setting for the rape of Lavinia mirrors the forest setting of the Thracian King Tereus’ rape of his sister-in-law Philomela, and so forth.  The strange disguises of Tamora and her sons evoke the Bacchanalian disguise in Procne and Philomela’s ruse against Tereus: he’s served the cannibal pie during the course of a Bacchanalian festival.  Ovid’s Latin story is at least as deliciously barbarous—pun intended—in its details as anything Elizabethans such as Thomas Preston (Cambises, 1561) or John Pickering (Horestes, 1567) or Shakespeare himself ever wrote. The same might be said of the Stoic Seneca, author of such bloody plays as Thyestes, circa CE 60.   

Marcus continues to believe that Titus has gone insane: “Marcus, attend him in his ecstasy” (158, 4.1.124), he says to himself, but it may not be so.  Shakespeare has cleverly combined Ovid’s story from The Metamorphoses with the violent foundational myth of the Roman Republic: the rape and suicide of Lucretia.  Below is the momentous tale from Titus Livius’ The History of Rome, in which Lucretia lets death attest to her adherence to the female married chastity necessary to preserve dynastic Roman bloodlines. The matron’s death allows her determined husband Collatinus, Lucius Junius Brutus, and others to use her outraged corpse as a prop for the expulsion of the Tarquin (Etruscan) King Lucius Tarquinius Superbus.  Lucretia, more insightful about the severe implications of the rigid Roman honor code than her own husband, provides the blood that spurs Roman valor into throwing off 244 years of Tarquin rule.  Here’s a version of the story I have shortened from a public-domain copy of Titus Livius’ History of Rome, Book 1:

1.57: […] The royal princes sometimes spent their leisure hours in feasting and entertainments, and at a wine party given by Sextus Tarquinius at which Collatinus, the son of Egerius, was present, the conversation happened to turn upon their wives, and each began to speak of his own in terms of extraordinarily high praise. As the dispute became warm, Collatinus said that there was no need of words [….] “Why do we not,” he exclaimed, “[…] pay our wives a visit and find out their characters on the spot? [.…] Thence they proceeded to Collatia, where they found Lucretia very differently employed from the king’s daughters-in-law, whom they had seen passing their time in feasting and luxury with their acquaintances. She was sitting at her wool work in the hall, late at night, with her maids busy round her. The palm in this competition of wifely virtue was awarded to Lucretia….  Sextus Tarquin, inflamed by the beauty and exemplary purity of Lucretia, formed the vile project of effecting her dishonor [.…]

1.58: A few days afterwards Sextus Tarquin went, unknown to Collatinus, with one companion to Collatia. He was hospitably received by the household, who suspected nothing, and after supper was conducted to the bedroom set apart for guests. When all around seemed safe and everybody fast asleep, he went in the frenzy of his passion with a naked sword to the sleeping Lucretia, and placing his left hand on her breast, said, “Silence, Lucretia! I am Sextus Tarquin, and I have a sword in my hand; if you utter a word, you shall die.” [.…] When he saw that she was inflexible and not moved even by the fear of death, he threatened to disgrace her, declaring that he would lay the naked corpse of the slave by her dead body, so that it might be said that she had been slain in foul adultery. By this awful threat, his lust triumphed over her inflexible chastity, and Tarquin went off exulting in having successfully attacked her honour. Lucretia, overwhelmed with grief […] sent a messenger to her father at Rome and to her husband at Ardea, asking them to come to her [….] They found Lucretia sitting in her room prostrate with grief. As they entered, she burst into tears, and [said] …, “The marks of a stranger, Collatinus, are in your bed. But it is only the body that has been violated, the soul is pure; death shall bear witness to that. But pledge me your solemn word that the adulterer shall not go unpunished. [….]  It is for you […] to see that he [Sextus Tarquinius] gets his deserts; although I acquit myself of the sin, I do not free myself from the penalty; no unchaste woman shall henceforth live and plead Lucretia’s example.”  She had a knife concealed in her dress which she plunged into her heart, and fell dying on the floor [.…]

1.59: [….] Brutus drew the knife from Lucretia’s wound, and holding it, dripping with blood, in front of him, said, “By this blood-most pure before the outrage wrought by the king’s son-I swear, and you, O gods, I call to witness that I will drive hence Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, together with his cursed wife and his whole brood, with fire and sword and every means in my power, and I will not suffer them or any one else to reign in Rome.” [….]

1.60: When the news of these proceedings reached the camp, the king [.…] hurried to Rome to quell the outbreak [.…] Tarquin found the gates shut, and a decree of banishment passed against him; the Liberator of the City [L. J. Brutus] received a joyous welcome in the camp, and the king’s sons were expelled from it [.…] Lucius Tarquinius Superbus reigned twenty-five years. The whole duration of the regal government from the foundation of the City to its liberation was two hundred and forty-four years. Two consuls were then elected in the assembly [.…] They were Lucius Junius Brutus and Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus.  [End of Book 1]  From The History of Rome, Vol. I, Titus Livius. Editor Ernest Rhys. Translator Rev. Canon Roberts. Everyman’s Library. London: J.M. Dent and Sons, 1912.

Act 4, Scene 2 (158-62, Aaron figures out Titus’ note to Chiron & Demetrius, and defends his child by Tamora fiercely, even killing the nurse: the boy is his future)

Titus’ note to Chiron and Demetrius reads “Integer vitae, scelerisque purus, / Non eget Mauri jaculis, nec arcu” (159, 4.2.20-21; [the man who’s] upright in his life and free of vices has no need of Moorish spears or bows”).  But the boys aren’t good enough readers of Horace’s Odes to realize that Titus knows they conspired with the Moor.  Aaron is clearly out for himself—he doesn’t even tell Tamora about this new information.  The Empress delivers a child by Aaron, who protects his newborn son fiercely (160) when Chiron and Demetrius think to kill the infant, bearing him away to the Goths with the intention of raising the child as a warrior.  Aaron kills the Nurse (161), horrifying even the wicked sons of Tamora.  A countryman’s fair-skinned baby will be substituted and presented as Saturninus’ legitimate heir.  What is the child to Aaron?  He makes the point succinctly: “My mistress is my mistress, this myself … / … / This before all the world do I prefer” (161, 4.2.106-08).  Rome and its politics can go hang; Aaron’s main concern is to take the portion of immortality that a child of one’s own promises.

Act 4, Scene 3 (162-65, Titus aims his arrows for justice to heaven, at Saturninus’ palace: how mad or sane is he at this point?)

Titus’ arrows bear messages soliciting the gods for justice nowhere to be found on earth: “sith there’s no justice in earth nor hell, / We will solicit heaven and move the gods …” (163, 4.3.50-51).  The whole scene seems to show him both unhinged and yet canny: he tells Publius and Sempronius, “… when you come to Pluto’s region, / I pray you deliver him this petition” (163, 4.3.13-14).  His stratagem, though, is to shoot arrows towards Saturninus’ palace, and thereby to unsettle the young Emperor.  Titus also pays a rustic or “clown” to present Saturninus with a short speech and some pigeons (164, 4.3.91.4-5).  But then, perhaps we shouldn’t dismiss the notion that there’s something insane about Titus’ behavior all through the play: if insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results, Titus is at times close to a madman: he keeps supposing that if somebody makes a promise, it must be kept; and if somebody is legally entitled to an office, he’ll do his duty rather than taking advantage of the situation.  Such persistence in doing the honorable thing would make sense in a normal setting, but in decadent Rome it can only destroy the person who practices it.

Act 4, Scene 4 (165-67, Saturninus is angry at Titus, scared of Lucius: Tamora promises to neutralize the threat)

Saturninus is enraged before the Senate over Titus’ “blazoning our unjustice every where” (165, 4.4.18) and then has the clown hanged after reading the letter Titus wrote.  Tamora thinks she has at last driven Titus off the deep end: “Titus, I have touched thee to the quick” (166, 4.4.36).  The Emperor is frightened upon hearing that Lucius is headed for Rome with an army of Goths (166, 4.4.68-72), but he misunderstands Titus’ motive, which is revenge of a sort not reducible to politics.  Titus doesn’t want to rule Rome—what good would that do his battered spirit and maimed body now?  Tamora promises to soothe Titus’ anger, and thereby get him to separate Lucius from his invading force: “I will enchant the old Andronicus …” (167, 5.1.88-92).

Act 5, Scene 1 (167-71, The Goths will follow Lucius; Aaron recounts and exults in his allegedly numberless villainies; Lucius agrees to meet Saturninus at Andronici’s home)

The Goths swear loyalty to Lucius: “Be bold in us.  We’ll follow where thou lead’st …” (168, 5.1.13).  Aaron, captured with his child, is brought in.  He did not know about this new development.  Lucius threatens the child, so Aaron promises to reveal everything about his plots with Tamora and her sons, but Lucius must swear by the Christian god—for it seems that’s what Aaron attributes to Lucius by way of faith, based on his reference to Lucius’ ritualistic “popish tricks” (169, 5.1.76; see 74-85).  This is obviously a strange moment in the play since the ritual sacrifice in Act 1 has absolutely nothing to do with Christianity or, indeed, with properly pagan Roman ritual.  Well, all the plotting Aaron recounts (169-70, 5.1.87-120)—his getting a child by Tamora, the murder of Bassianus and the rape and mutilation of Lavinia that he inspired Chiron and Demetrius to do, and his own gleefully fraudulent taking of Titus’ hand -- is news to Lucius because he left to raise an army of Goths before Lavinia revealed exactly what had happened to her and who did it.

When asked if he’s sorry, Aaron outdoes himself with a flourish of supervillain rhetoric (170, 5.1.124-44).  It would be hard to top the following claim for sheer malice: “Oft have I digg’d up dead men from their graves, / And set them upright at their dear friends’ door …” (170, 5.1.135-36; see 125-40).  He seems dedicated not so much to the kind of violence that furthers his self-interest or ambition but rather to a code of evil for evil’s sake, perhaps in part out of hatred for the Romans he so evidently despises: friendship is the target of Aaron’s alleged stratagem here, and readers of classical history and culture will know that loyalty in the cause of amicitia was among the primary Roman virtues.  More than that, Aaron asserts a fierce liberty in the face of a Roman culture that depends greatly upon the ties that bind people: ties of memory, friendship, and honor.

To round off the scene, Lucius hears that Saturninus “craves a parley at your father’s house” (171, 5.1.159), and agrees to hear the emperor out if proper pledges be given.

Act 5, Scene 2 (171-75, Tamora and sons try to fool Titus by dressing up as Revenge, Murder, Rapine; Titus slaughters Chiron and Demetrius)

Tamora and sons show up at Titus’ place dressed as Revenge, Murder, and Rapine (171-72).  He doesn’t believe them, but they consider him mad in spite of the clues he lets slip.  “Revenge” wants Titus to send for Lucius, and promises that when they are all at a banquet at Titus’ home, she will bring Tamora, Chiron, Demetrius, the Emperor and any other foes so that he may take revenge upon them (173, 5.2.114-20).  Titus insists that Rapine and Murder stay with him (173, 5.1.34) and then kills them, though not before he fully informs them that they are literally on the banquet menu: “Hark, wretches, how I mean to martyr you.… / … / “I will grind your bones to dust, / And with your blood and it I’ll make a paste …” (174-75, 5.2.179, 185-86).  Like the Thracian King Tereus in the legend Ovid recounts, Tamora will “swallow her own increase” (175, 5.2.190). 

Act 5, Scene 3 (175-79, Titus serves up some C & D pie, kills Lavinia, is killed by Saturninus, who is then killed by Lucius, who will be emperor; Aaron is sentenced to starve, and Tamora to be food for the birds, refused a proper burial)

Titus enters dressed as a cook.  The table is set and dinner is served (176, 5.3.25ff).  Titus asks Saturninus if Virginius (a decemvir from 451-449 BCE) was right to kill his daughter for chastity’s sake (176, 5.3.36-38).  (Appius had used legal trickery in an attempt to force himself on her, claiming that she was actually his slave; Virginius, disguised as a slave, killed her just after Appius’ co-conspirator Marcus Claudius judged in favor of Appius.)  Titus then kills Lavinia, saying “Die, die, Lavinia, and thy shame with thee,” explaining to all present that Chiron and Demetrius had ravished her (176, 5.3.45ff).  Asked where they are, he informs Tamora and Saturninus with an unforgettably gleeful rhyme: “Why, there they are, both bakèd in this pie / Whereof their mother daintily hath fed, / Eating the flesh that she herself hath bred” (176-77, 5.3.59-61).  Titus immediately stabs Tamora, and Saturninus kills him, whereupon Lucius kills Saturninus (177, 5.3.65). 

Aemilius asks for a full account of all the misdeeds, and receives it from Lucius (177, 5.3.95-107), who is chosen emperor.  Marcus asks all assembled if the Andronici have done wrong in exacting revenge; if they have, he offers that “The poor remainder of Andronici, / Will hand in hand all headlong hurl ourselves …” (178, 5.3.130-31).  But there’s no such call.

Aaron is carried in and judgment is sought against him (179, 5.3.175-77).  He is sentenced to starve while buried “breast-deep in earth” (179, 5.3.178), which seems like a spiteful way of denying him the sustenance that cannot be denied his child.  Still, Aaron maintains his standing as the play’s most remorseless evildoer: “If one good deed in all my life I did, / I do repent it from my very soul” (179, 5.3.188-89).  (In Julie Taymor’s adaptation, Aaron’s child is also brought in.)  The savage irony of this punishment is that, as mentioned earlier, Aaron had set himself up as a free spirit, unbound and untouched by Roman customs or values.  The Emperor will be properly buried, but Aaron will be pinned down to this lean fate and “that ravenous tiger, Tamora” (179, 5.3.194) will feast the birds.
All in all, the play is a delightfully outrageous, bloody instance of Elizabethan revenge tragedy in the tradition of Seneca and Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy, in which the protagonist Hieronymo seeks wild, violent justice for the vengeful murder of his son.  Melodramatic as it may seem, Kyd’s early revenge tragedy is serious and philosophical. It considers life’s great questions, above all what constitutes justice in a wicked world, and is perhaps worthy of comparison with similar efforts by Aeschylus or Sophocles.  Shakespeare’s play is sometimes dismissed as frivolous, and of course it isn’t exactly the metadramatic extravaganza that is Hamlet, but it has a serious dimension that repays study.  Titus is no mere villain, and neither is Tamora.  Only Aaron seems to be a thoroughgoing dastard, with Tamora’s foolish sons coming in a distant second—they lack Aaron’s cunning and brains. 

Shakespeare’s genius leads him to employ the Romans versus Goths theme in a manner that confounds any simple opposition between Roman and Goth.  Titus turns out to be more of a Goth than we might have thought: excessive, bloody, and barbarous in his revenge.  Tamora is more than a cardboard or stage barbarian; her motive for revenge is at least legitimate, and she shows herself a skilled manipulator of Roman politics. 

Aaron’s race adds yet another perspective on the Goth/Roman opposition: it’s true that the “villain plot” he drives sets itself up against the twin revenge plots of Titus and Tamora and in part displays the man’s dedication to wickedness, but Aaron shows considerable loyalty to his child as the image of himself, and exults in his blackness.  Moreover, while Shakespeare may not be subjecting the revenge code to the kind of scrutiny it receives in Hamlet (where it’s understood that revenge is against God’s law), he seems quite interested in the complexities of Roman honor.  The allusions he makes to the Lucretia story from Livy’s History of Rome and to the Philomela tale from Ovid’s Metamorphoses allow him to explore the significance of those key Roman myths. 

What is the play suggesting about moral codes?  Perhaps that people must live by them and within them, but also that they must not be imprisoned by them altogether.  Rigidity, failure to reflect on one’s values, allows cynicism and outrage to flourish: extremes beget counter-extremes.  Titus is an “honorable man,” to be sure, but the play as a whole keeps iterating that claim in action until the iterated actions generate a Mark Antony effect: by the fourth and fifth acts, what’s needed isn’t more old-fashioned honor but a plan for revenge against the barbarous Goths and Moors who have taken advantage of Titus’ stiff morality. 

Julie Taymor’s 2000 production Titus sets the play in a strangely neo-fascist Italy, with its futuristic architecture and art.  Taymor’s choice makes sense because the 1920’s-40’s dictator and Hitler ally Benito Mussolini appropriated the ancient Roman symbols of power and tried to turn Italy into an empire.  (For one thing, he invaded Ethiopia.)  And even in ancient times, the image of Rome in its imperial phase was due at least partly to the well-oiled propaganda machine of Augustus Caesar and the wisest of those who followed him as rulers.  Augustus promoted the idea that Rome’s anachronistic republican values were still operative, even though by his day, such values were probably more of a fashion statement than anything else.  By Titus’ era, his Rome no longer exists, in spite of his stubborn (if stylized) adherence to it.  Titus’ stylization, its earnestness aside, is itself decadent and not much more than an anachronistic fashion.  Of course, fashion statements can have political implications and reflect political facts on the ground, whether sincere or not.  Perhaps Shakespeare would praise Taymor’s concentration on the role of fabrication and stylistic borrowing and recycling in politics and history, with the definition of “reality” as consisting significantly (though not necessarily entirely) in a people’s perception of themselves rather than being reducible to some external standard.  Taymor’s film version ends by opening out onto the future; Aaron’s barbarian child seems the victor, the one who will inherit the time beyond the play’s frame.  Taymor’s version takes up a significant attitude towards the pageant of destruction and creation, struggle and lapse, memory and loss that we call history.

Finally, Titus Andronicus revels in gory violence, but the celebration is a response to the pain of life, a response to outrage and unfairness, a response to the simple fact of the tragic dimension of life: the world and human desire do not run parallel or accord with each other.  We may remember the scene in Martin Scorsese’s film Taxi Driver where the antihero Travis Bickle forces himself to hold his hand over an open flame for as long as he can.  This sort of grim endurance is the stuff of revenge tragedy, to which we should add a big heap of gallows humor and high-impact imagery (the Elizabethans, as Muriel Bradbrook would say, valued imagery and direct moral statement over narrative or characterization).  I prefer this revenge-play response to some of the ways we have of handling violence and pain today: violence in songs and films that justifies itself not as concentrated spectacle or protest but instead as a low species of realism: how many rappers (I don’t mean all of them, by any means) have defended their music’s gender-based and ethnic insults and raw gangster violence on the simple basis of “telling it like it is”?  I think art can do better than mindlessly perpetuate a sordid reality or claimed reality.  There are at least two legitimate ways to achieve this goal: one is an understandable retreat into the world of art—you can’t “live in art,” as a friend of Lord Tennyson correctly reminded him, but you can go there frequently and draw something good from your experience.  The other way is something more like an indirect, sophisticated exploration and even a protest with regard to the conditions of life, the human condition.  Some modern people’s sensibilities may be too delicate to handle Elizabethan or Jacobean revenge tragedy, but the plays themselves are serious efforts in the tragic and philosophical Senecan mode, with the aim being to explore the limits of pain and injustice, the better to inure an audience to its own sufferings without resorting to despair.

Hamlet

NOTES ON SHAKESPEARE’S HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK

Updated to accord with the text in Greenblatt, Stephen et al., eds. The Norton Shakespeare. 2nd edition. Four-Volume Genre Paperback Set.  Tragedies.  Norton, 2008. ISBN-13: 978-0-393-93152-5.  Document timestamp: 11/6/2011 2:33 PM

Preliminary Notes on Hamlet  

Theology. In Christian terms, revenge amounts to usurpation of God’s providential prerogatives. But this interpretation of revenge clashes with a more ancient one that’s easily seen at work in Classical literature: in The Oresteia, for instance, Orestes would be wrong not to take vengeance on his father Agamemnon’s killer. How could Orestes not kill Clytemnestra? He and we know that such an act will bring the Furies down upon his head, but it must be done in spite of the penalty incurred. The Elizabethans love a good Senecan-style revenge tragedy, as the popularity of Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy shows, but Shakespeare, who revels in the form just as much as anyone else (Titus Andronicus, anyone?) seems to face most squarely the theological dilemma it entails.

Skepticism. There is something to the idea that Hamlet is a man out of his time, someone not quite fit to be a tragic hero. That’s true even if his problem isn’t really “delay,” although he accuses himself of it. He makes his share of false assumptions and rash mistakes. I say only half in jest that the Prince’s problem may be that he has read Montaigne’s Essays and soaked in some of their epistemological skepticism. The play’s proddings towards revenge don’t seem solid to Hamlet: there is only a ghost who tells him what he wants to hear: Claudius is stealing his mother’s attention and his kingdom, so the man must be paid back.

Recognition. At what point in the play does Hamlet attain clarity about the nature of his actions? He must have come round to the idea that he needs to let things shape up as they may. But exactly how he has come that far isn’t entirely clear. Perhaps his realization is due to a number of experiences (facing the shock of Ophelia’s death, meditating on that army going to its death “even for an eggshell,” bantering with the Gravedigger and encountering Yorick’s skull as an object of meditation, escaping from the ship that was taking him to his death in England, being ransomed by pirates at sea, his conflicted feelings about Ophelia and his mother, etc.) In The Poetics, Aristotle says that well-crafted tragedies turn upon the hero’s arriving at some fundamental insight (anagnorisis, recognition, “un-unknowing”) about the mistake he or she has made. Characterize Hamlet’s insight into his situation—what is the insight, and what has led him to it? Connect this question to the gravedigger scene. What finally makes the play’s resolution possible—is it that Hamlet has been unable to act and something now makes him able to act? (Oedipus Rex, for example, combines recognition with “reversal”—expecting good news from a messenger, Oedipus instead learns that the guilt lies squarely on his own shoulders.)


Specific Notes on Hamlet


Act 1, Scene 1. (336-40, Guesses about a ghost)

The watchmen and Horatio offer some surmises: Horatio suspects that the ghost’s appearance “bodes some strange eruption to our state” (338, 1.1.68). They’re on watch because young Fortinbras is planning to take back the territory his father had lost to Hamlet Sr. Barnardo supposes the same thing when he says, “Well may it sort that this portentous figure / Comes armed through our watch so like the King / That was and is the question of these wars” (339, 1.1.106.2-4). They feel foreboding, a sickness at heart; but they have only general knowledge, and Horatio’s idea (340, 1.1.150-52) is to seek out Hamlet and have him interact with the ghost; it seems logical to him that the young Prince will be able to attain particular, intimate knowledge of the spirit’s purpose.

Act 1, Scene 2. (340-46, Hamlet’s grief schooled, soliloquized; suspicions; ghost info!) 

Hamlet’s grief seems impolitic, self-indulgent, even prideful—at least to Claudius, who must govern. But Claudius’ rhetoric betrays a “schizoid” sense of his own conduct. He sees with “one auspicious, and one dropping eye” (341, 1.2.6-14), which is of course unnatural and nearly impossible even to imagine. The new King’s grief over his brother’s death is pushed aside by his evil ambition to retain the crown he has unfairly won, and his scoffing at young Fortinbras’ supposition that Denmark is “disjoint and out of frame” (341, 1.2.20) is ironic since, as we later find out, there’s nothing but disorder in Claudius’ realm. At this point, however, if we are a first-time audience, we don’t yet know that Claudius is a murderer, i.e. that the ghost’s story is true, so the new king is entitled to be annoyed with the excessive grief and surliness of Prince Hamlet. As Claudius points out, he has the backing of the citizenry, and Gertrude’s advice to her son is not without wisdom: “Thou know’st it is common, all that lives must die, / Passing through nature to eternity. / … Why seems it so particular with thee?” (342, 1.2.72-75)

Soon thereafter, Hamlet speaks his first soliloquy, lamenting that “the Everlasting had not fix’d / His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter” (343, 1.2.131-32), reproaching the general run of females in the person of Gertrude—“Frailty, thy name is woman!” (344, 1.2.146)—and profoundly disparaging Claudius in comparison with Hamlet, Sr. The latter was, says the Prince, “Hyperion” to Claudius’ “satyr” (344, 1.2.140), which makes Gertrude’s choice to remarry all the more contemptible. Hamlet’s imagination at this point, even before he hears the ghost’s damning information, seems morbid: he sees the whole world as “an unweeded garden / That grows to seed” (344, 1.2.135-36), one inhabited entirely by “things rank and gross in nature” (344, 1.2.136). Hamlet seems to play with the amount of time that has passed between the old king’s death and Gertrude’s marriage, and that she was apparently in genuine sorrow for her first husband only makes her subsequent conduct more unacceptable. Hamlet is already obsessed with the dark intimation that people are not what they seem: Gertrude is not the loyal wife she seemed, and Claudius is not the rightful successor the court and the people apparently believe he is. But Hamlet also knows that he must repress this obsession in public: “But break my heart, for I must hold my tongue” (344, 1.2.159). Privately, things are different: he already seems to suspect that “some foul play” (346, 1.2.255) was involved in his father’s death or that “foul play” is now afoot, even though his questioning of Horatio about the ghost’s appearance indicates genuine uncertainty about its provenance and mission. The stage is set for Hamlet’s moral mission, if we call “revenge” a moral mission. Indeed, the question will trouble Hamlet as the play proceeds. But for now we hear the sententia, “[Foul] deeds will rise, / Though all the earth o’erwhelm them, to men’s eyes” (346, 1.2.256-57). To me, this line indicates that the “deeds” to which Hamlet refers have already been committed, in his estimation. There is an ambiguity in this last passage of Act 1, Scene 2, a bit of shuffling between matters of state (“My father’s spirit—in arms!” 344, 1.2.254) and essentially private thoughts about the suspicious loss of a dear father.

Act 1, Scene 3. (346-49, Laertes and Ophelia lecture each other about virtue) 

Laertes has evidently been taught well in the arts of windbaggery by his father Polonius since he lectures Ophelia sententiously about the dangers of giving in to the importunate suit of a lustful young man far above her station. (346-47, 1.3.5ff) This advice is sound enough as such things go—Hamlet is, after all, a Prince, so he is not free to love as he wishes without thought of Denmark; but as Gertrude later admits when Ophelia is dead, she had hoped the two lovers would in fact marry. But in any case, Ophelia holds her own, showing that while circumstances may constrain her, she is not lacking in understanding or the courage to speak her own mind. (347-48, 1.3.45ff) Polonius soon comes onto the scene and offers similar advice, accusing Ophelia of naivety about Hamlet’s intentions and showing that he reads the character of others as a function of stereotypes: Hamlet is a young, lusty bachelor, and is therefore not to be trusted, quite aside from his status as a prince. (348, 1.3.88ff)

Act 1, Scene 4. (349-52, Ghost beckons to Hamlet) 

At the beginning of Scene 4, Hamlet discusses the Court of Denmark’s fondness for alcohol, declaring that his country is “traduc’d and tax’d of other nations” (350, 1.4.18.2) for this weakness. In his 1948 film adaptation of the play, Laurence Olivier chooses to quote directly from this passage and apply the words to the Prince himself, who by implication suffers from “a vicious mole of nature” (350, 1.4.18.8) in that he simply cannot “make up his mind” (Olivier’s voiceover). But this is an overstatement, perhaps, since there is good reason to doubt the purposes of a ghost such as the one Hamlet sees here for the first time: “What may this mean, / That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel / Revisits thus the glimpses of the moon . . . ?” (351, 1.4.32-34)

Act 1, Scene 5. (352-56, Ghost commands, Hamlet vows: resentment, strategy) 

The Ghost then recounts in bloodcurdling detail exactly what happened to him and who is responsible for it, eliciting an excited “O my prophetic soul!” (353, 1.5.41) from the Prince, as if he had suspected all along that Claudius had killed his father. The terms the Ghost uses to describe both Claudius and Gertrude are strongly reminiscent of the very ones Hamlet had used shortly before. I think we may be certain that the Ghost exists in the play-world, but at the same time, it’s almost as if Prince Hamlet is talking to himself. He is utterly convinced at this point, begging the Ghost that he will, “Haste me to know’t, that I with wings as swift / As meditation, or the thoughts of love, / May sweep to my revenge” (352, 1.5.29-31).

There is a problem with the Ghost’s demand for vengeance, however: God says in Deuteronomy, “To me belongeth vengeance and recompense” (32:35). Why, then, should a soul in purgatory (a Catholic concept, by the way) be fixated on revenge? Revenge is an ancient pagan demand, and it seems petty. But Hamlet Sr. was a warrior king, so perhaps his demand that his son should punish Claudius seems reasonable in that context: the latter is a “traitor to his lord” and a dishonorable wretch who has corrupted the state. The Ghost insists that “the royal bed of Denmark” be redeemed from its current status as “A couch for luxury and damned incest” (353b, 1.5.82-83), but his call still seems mostly a private affair. It strains the “fatherly king” framework, and would require the son to set himself against the current order of the State, most likely at the cost of his own life. The Ghost has laid upon the Prince an extremely difficult set of demands—not only must he kill the new king without damning himself, but he must deal with Gertrude in such as way as not to damn her: “Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive / Against thy mother aught” (353b, 1.5.85-86). How is the young man to do these things? He was already “tainted” in his mind before he ever saw the Ghost, we might say, and what’s more, since the Ghost deals in the ancient imperative of revenge, it makes sense to remind ourselves that even the most righteous acts of revenge in ancient literature entailed pollution that had to be atoned for afterwards. One thinks of Odysseus purifying his great hall after the slaughter of those mannerless suitors who have beset Penelope, or the dreadful punishment incurred by Clytemnestra when she killed Agamemnon, or the penalty threatened against Orestes by the Erinyes after he in turn killed Clytemnestra. In either the pagan or the Christian context, to take revenge is to pollute oneself in the doing. Had Shakespeare written a mindlessly celebratory “revenge tragedy,” we wouldn’t need to think any of these things, but there seems to be a metageneric dimension in Hamlet that positively demands such consideration.

One might take the Ghost’s appearance as a general protest against Denmark’s rotten condition, but the Prince doesn’t seem certain of much yet, as we can see from his words and actions after the Ghost bids him farewell. On the one hand, we hear that Hamlet is determined to take revenge: “Yea, from the table of my memory / I’ll wipe away all trivial fond records, / . . . And thy commandement all alone shall live / Within the book and volume of my brain” (354, 1.5.98-99, 102-03). His wax-writing-tablet metaphor seems sincere, although it’s perhaps slightly comic in that Hamlet, a young man who has (accurately or otherwise) become a byword for deferral and delay, speaks of writing at the very instant when he’s most certain of his desire to act: “make a note to myself, take revenge,” so to speak. His indecisiveness or resentment at the task to which he has been called shows much more strongly, of course, in his concluding words during this scene: “The time is out of joint—O cursed spite, / That ever I was born to set it right!” (356, 1.5.189-90). That abrupt remark suggests anything but a determination to proceed “with wings as swift / As meditation” to a “sweep[ing]” revenge, the precise manner of which has been left to his own devising. One other useful thing to draw from Hamlet at this point is his remark to Horatio and the Watchmen that he may, at some points, “think meet / To put an antic disposition on” (356, 1.5.172-73). He has already hit upon the strategy of feigning something like lunacy to accomplish his great task. It may be difficult to tell at some points just how much control Hamlet has over his speech and his actions, but here, at least, we see that he puts his wildness down to strategy.

Act 2, Scene 1. (356-59, Polonius gathers intelligence from Ophelia) 

Polonius is both an endearing character, full of well-intentioned, if comically delivered, advice to his children (and the royal couple) and a meddling intelligencer who deals with those same children in a sneaky, underhanded way. He sets spies on Laertes to find out if the young fellow is behaving (356-57), and, after having commanded Ophelia to stay away from Hamlet, he tethers her near him like a sacrificial goat to find out what’s eating him and inform Claudius and Gertrude of it. But at this point, Polonius’ assumption that the Prince’s distraction is “the very ecstasy of love” (358, 2.1.103) seems reasonable, based upon what Ophelia has told him about Hamlet’s bizarre sighing and strange state of undress.

Act 2, Scene 2. (359-72, C & G & Polonius ponder Hamlet’s behavior; Hamlet greets R & G, hears players rehearse; adapts Gonzago to trap Claudius) 

Everybody’s favorite nobodies Rosencrantz and Guildenstern make their first appearance in the play (359-60, 2.2.1-18), and Voltemand brings what seems to be good news about that troublesome issue of young Fortinbras “sharking up” an army of ruffians to take back what his father lost to the Danes—now the young blade wants only to use Denmark’s territory as a marching ground on his way to Poland, where he has other fighting to do. (360-61, 2.2.60-79) Polonius’ insistence that he has “found / The very cause of Hamlet’s lunacy” (360-62, 2.2.48-49) excites Claudius, who says, “O, speak of that, that do I long to hear!” (360, 2.2.50) Together these remarks suggest that Hamlet has been putting on a good show, taking up his “antic disposition” early in the game since “lunacy” would not be the right term with which to describe he initial surliness and melancholia in Act 1. The Prince must, we presume, act in such a manner as to draw Claudius beyond his semi-comfortable geniality towards Hamlet, and into the active agent’s circle of consequence and blood revenge. Polonius is certainly moved to act: he declares to the King and Queen, “I’ll loose my daughter to [Hamlet]. / Be you and I behind an arras then, / Mark the encounter. . .” (362, 2.2.163-64). This determination is made stronger still when Hamlet wanders into the scene and Polonius engages him (sans Ophelia as yet) in a strange conversation that is afterwards carried on with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern after Polonius exits. Not realizing the irony of his formalistic amazement at Hamlet’s “pregnant replies,” Polonius admiringly says, “Though this be madness, yet there is / method in’t” (363, 2.2.203-04).

Hamlet kindly receives his old friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and he deftly, but rather gently, unmasks their dishonesty preparatory to his later, much harsher dealings with them. After the pair admit that they were indeed “sent for” (365, 2.2.284), Hamlet suggests that the King and Queen are worried about his mopishness, nothing more, and he immediately utters one of the most famous invocations of Renaissance humanism and aliveness to the beauty of a world people were beginning to see afresh after centuries of otherworldliness (that’s the stereotype, anyway—the Middle Ages weren’t as drab as we like to suppose). “What a piece of work is a / man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in / form and moving, how express and admirable in / action, how like an angel in apprehension, how like a / god!” (365, 2.2.293-300) He says all this only to bring the whole “majestical roof” (365, 2.2.291) down on our heads, reminding us that we are but the most refined dust in the cosmos, a “quintessence of dust” (365, 2.2.298). The letdown is deepened by Rosencrantz’s dirty-minded interpretation of Hamlet’s words, and the whole thing leads directly to the announcement that a troupe of actors (“players”) is on the way to Elsinore. (366, 2.2.304-07)

Hamlet comments briefly on the state of late Elizabethan theater, saying that the mannerisms of child actors (he refers to the current craze for plays put on by children) have become an object of mockery—there’s too much affectation, too much pandering to the crowd, too much willingness to break the dramatic illusion. (366, 2.2.331-51) Denmark is disturbed as well; things aren’t what they seem, and the stage “chronicles” the age. Hamlet listens with rapt interest to the player’s interpretation of the tragic ending of the Trojan War. (369-70, 2.2.448-98) In The Aeneid, Book 2 (lines 675ff, Fagles translation) Achilles’ son Pyrrhus (called Neoptolemus in The Iliad and The Odyssey) has the simple task of revenging his father, and he proceeds with all swiftness to his bloody deed. (Odysseus’ brief account of the young man’s career in The Odyssey at 11.575ff has Neoptolemus behaving with great forthrightness throughout the War, too.) It is the Trojan Prince Aeneas who is filled with horror at the sight of his king Priam’s corpse because it puts him in mind of his wife Creusa and his father Anchises. Aeneas’ rage flows at once to perfidious Helen, and is only cooled by a vision of his mother Venus, who tells him to look to his family in their time of need. As for Hecuba’s grief at the murder of her husband, the player makes it seem so natural that even he gets worked up imitating it. Hamlet beholds the real article—he has a murdered father to avenge—so why doesn’t he act at once? (371, 2.2.536-39) Things are so much simpler in fiction; a noble lie or mere representation may allow us to perpetuate our highest ideals, but real life is weighed down with epistemological uncertainties, Machiavellian considerations, and “vicious mole[s] of nature” such as indecisiveness. Hamlet’s revenge imperative is hindered by Christian scruples and by doubts about the Ghost’s purpose and provenance, as his soliloquy from line 550 onwards shows: “The spirit that I have seen / May be a [dev’l], and the [dev’l] hath power / T’ assume a pleasing shape, yea, and perhaps, / Out of my weakness and my melancholy, / . . . Abuses me to damn me” (372, 2.2.575-80). Basing his plan on the literary gossip that “guilty creatures sitting at a play / Have by the very cunning of the scene / . . . proclaim’d their malefactions” (371, 2.2.566-69), he invests much hope in his augmentations to The Murder of Gonzago as a means of discovering certainty in the guilty visage of Claudius. (372, 2.2.571-75) This plan does not give us license to despise fiction as the mere opposite of “real life”—in this instance, the public, political realm, the world of cold, hard reality and necessity, is exactly what allows Claudius to keep his murderous nature hidden from everyone but himself.

Act 3, Scene 1. (372-76, Players! “To be …”; Hamlet breaks Ophelia’s heart) 

The King tells Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to encourage this new business of the players’ coming to Elsinore. (372, 3.1.27-28) Perhaps it will draw out the reason for Hamlet’s eccentric behavior. He and Polonius will conceal themselves to hear Hamlet talk with Ophelia. (373, 3.1.45) Hamlet’s famous “to be or not to be” soliloquy, the main point of which is to state that our ignorance of what comes after death keeps us from acting on our resolutions in this life. Hamlet’s wild words to Ophelia concern mainly the impossibility of virtue maintaining itself in a corrupt world: “get thee to a nunnery” probably means just that—remove yourself from this wicked world, and seek shelter from the “arrant knaves” who go about in it. Hamlet denies that he ever established any relationship with Ophelia, that he ever made any promises. (374, 3.1.119-20) He asks Ophelia where her father is (375, 3.1.130), a line usually taken to indicate that he knows he’s being overheard. At line 142, Hamlet seems to lose his composure in a way that is not entirely scripted, and he utters words that frighten Claudius: “I say we shall have no moe marriages, etc.” (375, 3.1.142-48) Claudius derives from this outburst the thought that Hamlet’s disturbed state of mind is “not like madness” (375, 3.1.163), so he must be watched even more closely. The Prince’s “melancholy,” says Claudius (whose guilt had already been spurred by Polonius’ unwitting words about “sugar[ing] o’er” (373, 3.1.50) the most damnable deeds with piousness), “sits on brood” (375, 3.1.164) over something still darker, and that is what he finds most troubling about the young man’s hostility towards him.

Act 3, Scene 2. (376-85, Hamlet lectures players; Gonzago & D-Show outs Claudius; Hamlet lashes out at R & G, anger flows against Gertrude) 

Hamlet admonishes the players about their craft: his key bits of advice are that they “o’erstep not the modesty of nature” (20) and make certain “to / hold as ‘twere the mirror up to nature: to show virtue / her feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure” (377, 3.1.14-40). In part, this is a moral statement akin to what we may find in Samuel Johnson much later—actors should display virtue as it is, and force vice to confront itself head on. Hamlet means to do just that by means of his spectacle: simply showing and then speaking Claudius’ sin should make that sin’s effects register on his countenance. (378-82, 3.2.123-238) No embellishment is necessary for such a hideous sin as his. Hamlet’s words strike home when he tells the offended Claudius, “No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest—no offense i’ th’ world” (381, 3.2.214-15). The King has consistently failed to take the measure of the consequences entailed by his evil conduct; his stability of mind depends on repressing consciousness of that conduct. Hamlet is cruelly merry with Ophelia in this scene—he seems to be baiting her, blaming her for the sins of his mother. (378, 3.2.101-15) The dumb show soon follows (379, 3.2.122ff)—it is an eerie scene that shows Claudius what he has done, no more, no less. But the dialogue also plays up the absolutely binding quality of the oath that Gertrude has violated, in Hamlet’s view: “Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife, / If once a widow, ever I be wife!” (381, 3.2.202-03). That sort of language equates Gertrude with a villainess such as Clytemnestra in Aeschylus’ Oresteia. Forced to watch “himself” commit the same dark sin twice, Claudius howls out, “Give me some light. Away!” (382, 3.2.247) With the King out of the scene, Hamlet’s anger turns first towards Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, whom he disabuses of any hope that they may “play upon” him like a musical instrument (384, 3.2.341), and then to Gertrude, who is perhaps the main target of the whole scene, so savage is the representation of her role in the bloody affair. The Prince’s rejection of “instrumentality” is interesting in its own right—what Hamlet seems to need most of all, at this point, is to take control of events, and we will see that he must let go of this desire to control what happens around him before his revenge can be effected. But with respect to Gertrude, Hamlet’s words are even harsher than were those in The Murder of Gonzago; he says, “Now could I drink hot blood, / And do such [bitter business as the] day / Would quake to look on” (385, 3.2.360-62). Perhaps this violent thought is directed towards Claudius only, but it’s hard to avoid supposing from what follows that it also applies to Gertrude: “Let me be cruel, not unnatural; / I will speak [daggers] to her, but use none” (385, 3.2.365-66).

Act 3, Scene 3. (385-87, Claudius decides to send Hamlet away; bootless prayer) 

The King has decided in his anger that Hamlet must be off to England, and Rosencrantz speaks more truly than he knows when he says to Claudius, “The cease of majesty / Dies not alone, but like a gulf doth draw / What’s near it with it” (385, 3.3.15-17). These two flatter the King that what he does is necessary to protect the welfare of the state and the people: “Most holy and religious fear it is / To keep those many bodies safe / That live and feed upon your Majesty” (385, 3.3.8-10). The political realm is like an exoskeleton protecting Claudius from the ravages of introspection, and even from the guilt that comes when one knows one is putting off such inward-tending thoughts. This is the same sort of “tyrant’s plea” that accounts for the magnificent hollowness of Satan’s rhetoric in Paradise Lost. Confronting Adam and Eve in Book 4, Satan says, “. . . Melt, as I doe, yet public reason just, / Honour and Empire with revenge enlarg’d, / By conquering this new World, compels me now / To do what else though damnd I should abhorre.” At line 36 and following, Claudius kneels and tries to confront “the visage of offense” (386, 3.3.36-72), but he cannot because he won’t give up the crown, the effects of his sin. It’s doubtful if we are to understand this attempt at repentance as sincere—doesn’t it seem as if Claudius isn’t so much sorry for killing the king as determined to indulge himself in remorse? Is he just “feeling sorry for himself”? Most likely, to judge from the results of his kneeling prayer: “My words fly up, my thoughts remain below; / Words without thoughts never to heaven go” (387, 3.3.97-98). Hamlet looks almost as much the villain as the King at this point, when he reveals his earnestly un-Christian desire that Claudius’ soul at death “may be as damn’d and black / As hell, whereto it goes” (387, 3.3.94-95). But just at this point, the King relieves Hamlet of the need to contrive such an outcome by showing that he is completely unable to repent for his mortal sin, or even to take the first necessary steps that would reclaim his chance at salvation.

Act 3, Scene 4. (387-92, Polonius killed, Gertrude forced to look within) 

After himself slaughtering the hidden Polonius, Hamlet goes so far as to accuse Gertrude of taking part in Claudius’ plot to murder Hamlet, Sr. when he blurts out, “A bloody deed! Almost as bad, good mother, / As kill a king, and marry with his brother” (388, 3.4.27-28). She seems genuinely shocked at the suggestion. Hamlet has little time now for a “wretched, rash, intruding fool” (388, 3.4.30) like Polonius, a man everyone else held in high regard and with whom they showed considerable patience, and he drives onward to make Gertrude confront her sinfulness as directly as he made Claudius behold his during the “Gonzago” scene. Hamlet suggests that Gertrude’s lust is not even excusable by reference to the heat of youth; at her age, he insists, “The heyday in the blood is tame, it’s humble, / And waits upon the judgment” (389, 3.4.68-69). His efforts succeed without too much trouble since Gertrude cries, “Thou turn’st my [eyes into my very] soul” (389, 3.4.79). At this point, Ernest Jones’ “Oedipal reading” of the play comes into its own, if it hadn’t already: Hamlet can scarcely stand to imagine—and yet can’t help but imagine—his mother in bed with Claudius, where they spend their time “honeying and making love / Over the nasty sty!” (389b-90, 3.4.82-84) The obsession is so deep that the Ghost must step in to admonish Hamlet about his “almost blunted purpose” (390, 3.4.101) of taking revenge against Claudius.

As for Polonius, to the thought of whom Hamlet now returns, there is some remorse, but it’s quickly smoothed over with philosophizing: “For this same lord, / I do repent; but heaven hath pleas’d it so / To punish me with this, and this with me, / That I must be their scourge and minister” (391, 3.4.156-59). Hamlet tells Gertrude not to let on that he’s not exactly insane, and he confides in her, at least to a degree, what he has in mind. Knowing he cannot trust Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, he says nonetheless, “Let it work, / For ‘tis the sport to have the enginer / Hoist with his own petar, an’t shall go hard / But I will delve one yard below their mines, / And blow them at the moon” (392, 3.4.185.4-8). This is an odd exclamation since Hamlet knows only that he’s being “marshal[ed] to knavery” (392, 3.4.185.4) of some sort; he can’t know the precise plan, but speaks with almost military precision, promising to turn their evil back upon them.

Act 4, Scene 1. (393-94, Claudius is dismayed about Hamlet’s conduct) 

The King is by now “full of discord and dismay” (394, 4.1.40) at the turn of events; he knows Hamlet’s sword was meant for him.

Act 4, Scene 2. (394-94, Hamlet mocks R & G as instruments of Claudius) 

Hamlet calls Rosencrantz a “sponge” (394, 4.2.11, 14-16) who “soaks up the King’s countenance, his rewards, his authorities” (15-16). As for Claudius, he is “a thing,” says Hamlet, “of nothing.” His odd remark that “The body is with the King, but the King is not with the body” (394, 4.2.25-28) most obviously refers to Polonius’ corpse, but it might be interpreted along the lines of the longstanding political doctrine that the king has both a civil or corporate body (imperishable) and a natural, mortal one. In this sense, perhaps Hamlet is making an oblique threat against Claudius.

Act 4, Scene 3. (394-96, Hamlet mocks Claudius, who has commanded his death) 

Claudius realizes the desperate state in which he stands: “Diseases desperate grown / By desperate appliance are reliev’d, / Or not at all” (395, 4.3.9-11). Then follows Hamlet’s quizzical “fishing” conversation with the King, which culminates with the fine demonstration that “a king may go / a progress through the guts of a beggar” (395, 4.3.30-31). The adornment and aggrandizing of this decaying body, so easily inducted into the dark processiveness of nature, is what Claudius has traded his soul for, so in this respect he truly is “a thing . . . nothing.” Hamlet calls Claudius “dear mother” (396, 4.3.51), a slip-up that seems sincere since he has had trouble keeping the two apart in his mind. Claudius is increasingly disturbed by Hamlet’s presence, and even by his very existence: requesting “The present death of Hamlet” (396, 4.3.66), Claudius says, “Do it, England, / For like the hectic in my blood he rages, / And thou must cure me” (396, 4.3.66-68). But what the King seeks most of all is security: “Till I know ‘tis done, / Howe’er my haps, my joys were ne’er [begun]” (396, 4.3.68-69).

Act 4, Scene 4. (396-98, Another resolution from Hamlet over Fortinbras’ march) 

Young Fortinbras seeks conveyance through Denmark on his way to Poland, and the Captain Hamlet speaks to doesn’t think much of his assignment: “We go to gain a little patch of ground / That hath in it no profit but the name” (397, 4.4.9.8-9). Hamlet takes the point to heart, making yet another resolution that his mind will contain only thoughts of vengeance from now on: “O, from this time forth, / My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!” (398, 4.4.9.56) But this one is no more permanent than the ones he made earlier in the play—this is fundamentally not Hamlet’s nature, if we may endow a literary character with such a thing. Part of the interest in Hamlet is, of course, that not only is the time “out of joint,” but the hero himself is “out of joint,” not immediately adapted to the dreadful role he must play. In this way, I think the romantic reading of the tragedy, in which Hamlet is too aloof and philosophical to carry out such a task as revenging a murdered father briskly, is worthy of respect.

Act 4, Scenes 5-7. (398-408, Ophelia’s madness and death; Laertes’ rage; Hamlet is back in Denmark; Claudius and Laertes plot revenge) 

Ophelia brings dismay to the Court when she shows clear signs of madness. (398-99, 4.5.23-70) Perhaps her condition should not be much of a surprise since she has been used as an agent against Hamlet, dangled before him like a piece of meat. A love match has been perverted by the general condition of Denmark, as embodied in the selfish behavior of Polonius and the King. As for Ophelia’s references to flowers, well, flowers are natural beauties, things we use to express a whole range of human experience and sentiment. Ophelia’s mind is disordered, and she registers the corruption all around her, trying pathetically to beautify it with floral symbolism and songs. She has lost her father, and Gertrude will wear her “rue with a difference” (401-02, 4.5.163-179) because she has lost her son to England. Ophelia is the blighted flower of the kingdom, the beauty and innocence that has been sacrificed for the sake of its ambition and lust. Her demise shows the consequences of Denmark’s degeneracy even more clearly, perhaps, than all the play’s violence. Even Claudius seems genuinely stricken at this latest step in the march of events: “When sorrows come, they come not single spies, / But in battalions” (399, 4.5.74-75), he laments to Gertrude, and no sooner has he said it than Laertes bursts in with the common folk at his back, shouting him up for the new king. His main function is, of course, to present an obvious contrast with Hamlet—Laertes will, unlike the Prince, “sweep to his revenge” without much delay; he has no scruples about the concept. Claudius speaks with amazing irony when he promises Gertrude that Laertes will not harm him: “There’s such divinity doth hedge a king / That treason can but peep to what it would, / Acts little of his will” (400-01, 4.5.120-22). Clearly, this truism afforded Hamlet, Sr. no protection from Claudius. Sailors pass a letter from Hamlet to Horatio, explaining how he managed to board a pirate ship that attacked the vessel bound for England. (403, 4.6.11-25) In Scene 7, the King explains to Laertes that so far, he has had to avoid confronting Hamlet because Gertrude and the people are fond of him. He temporizes: “I am guiltless of your father’s death” (401, 4.5.147). Hamlet’s letter to the King is ominous: “High and mighty, You shall know I am set / naked on your kingdom” (405, 4.7.42-43). This tone is no less alarming for the promise Hamlet tenders to explain how he has returned.

The King has come to see in Laertes his earthly salvation; the young hothead promises that he would do no less to Hamlet than “cut his throat ‘i th’ church” (406b, 4.7.98), and Claudius lays out the plot he has partly contrived (406, 4.7.84-88), only to find that Polonius is able to add a master stroke with the introduction of “an unction” (407, 4.7.113) he bought from some itinerant medical charlatan, which he will use to envenom the tip of his rapier. As surety, Claudius will offer Hamlet a poisoned chalice during the fencing match. (407, 4.7.130-31)

The scene concludes with the news that Ophelia has drowned. Gertrude’s beautiful, ekphrastic description of Ophelia’s death (4.7.166-83) honors her loss, but doesn’t redeem the faults that caused it. The death isn’t described as suicide, really; it seems that Ophelia simply stops resisting and is dragged down by her water-logged clothing. Another function of this episode is that it gives Hamlet space for the recognition that he must attain.

Act 5, Scene 1. (408-15, Gravedigger jests, Hamlet’s Yorick; Ophelia’s funeral) 

The Gravedigger scene works as comic relief, but it also gives us and Hamlet a broader perspective on events up to this point. (408-12, 5.1.1-199) The Gravedigger calmly goes about his business in the face of death, and even makes jests about it—jests that, as the Riverside editors inform us, refer to an actual law case, that of Hale v. Petit. (The Shakespeare Law Library’s account of that case may be viewed at http://www.shakespearefellowship.org/virtualclassroom/Law/law6.htm#hale.) We will get no maudlin speeches or meditative musings over Yorick-skulls from him; he’s full of riddles about the sturdiness of the “houses” that gravediggers build. Hamlet appreciates by means of his experiences in this act (and in the fourth act) that the earthly prize of a kingdom, of reputation, of a patch of land, is a joke: “Imperial Caesar, dead and turn’d to clay, / Might stop a hole to keep the wind away” (412, 5.1.196). If the sought-for revenge is to be accomplished, it can only happen when Hamlet’s mind isn’t tainted by pride or earthly attachment, so his meditation on Yorick the Jester’s skull is vital. (412, 5.1.171-80) Why, indeed, should we cling to life? the skull seems to ask the Prince, who promptly aims this intuition at womankind: “Now get you / to my lady’s [chamber], and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favor she must come; make her laugh at that” (412, 5.1.178-79). Soon follows the funeral procession of Ophelia, the quibbling of the Churchmen over what rites to accord a possible suicide, and the preposterous one-upmanship between Laertes and Hamlet in and on Ophelia’s uncovered grave. (413-15, 5.1.200-84) This is obviously not the way Hamlet had meant to reveal himself to the King, but events have gotten the better of him for the moment, and he vents his grief. It almost goes without saying that the two men have ruined Ophelia’s funeral altogether. It’s just one final, if unintended, insult to this long-suffering character.

Act 5, Scene 2. (415-24, Hamlet’s recognition, challenge, fight, death) 

Killing Polonius got Hamlet shipped off to England to face execution, but now he recounts to Horatio how on the ship he learned an important lesson: “Rashly— / And prais’d be rashness for it—let us know / Our indiscretion sometime serves us well / When our deep plots do pall, and that should learn us / There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, / Rough-hew them how we will . . .” (415, 5.2.6-11). It seems that this speech refers to Hamlet’s insomnia-induced impatience to know the contents of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s letter. (415, 5.2.13ff) What exactly, he wants to know, is their “grand commission” (415, 5.2.19)? This known, he forges a new commission purporting that his old pals R & G should be executed on the spot, once they make it to the English King’s presence. His justification of this rather harsh turnabout is simply, “[Why, man, they did make love to this employment,] / They are not near my conscience. . . . / ‘Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes / Between the pass and fell incensed points / Of mighty opposites” (416, 5.2.58). Perhaps this as an injustice on Hamlet’s part, an act of disproportionate violence against men who know nothing of the evil Claudius has done, but it’s hard to feel much sympathy for them; perhaps our minds are too thoroughly poisoned by listening to Hamlet for that to be possible. They serve the interests of the King against their friend, they are “sponges” just looking for preferment, and to Hamlet they are utterly insignificant pawns in the deadly game of chess between himself and Claudius. Well, if they’ll just be patient for about four centuries, Tom Stoppard will make it up to them by writing that witty play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, so “all’s well that ends well,” right?

Hamlet brings up a new motive (though in speaking to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, he had already hinted at 384, 3.2.311 when he said, “I lack advancement”): he says that “He that hath kill’d my king and whor’d my mother” has also “Popp’d in between th’ election and my hopes” (416, 5.2.66). In other words, Claudius’ hasty marriage with the Queen has deprived him for now of the succession. The Oedipal significance of this remark is not difficult to see. (On the theme of “inheritance,” see Anthony Burton’s “Further Aspects of Inheritance Law in Hamlet.”)

When the foppish Osric enters (417) bearing the King and Laertes’ challenge, Hamlet calmly accepts it, overriding Laertes’ misgivings with the grand statement, “[W]e defy augury. There is special / providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be [now], / ‘tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if / it be not now, yet it [will] come—the readiness is all” (419, 5.2.157-61). This match is not of his making, but whatever happens, Hamlet accepts the outcome. This may be the insight or right attitude he has needed all along; he must become an instrument of God’s vengeance, which will turn the schemes of Claudius and Laertes against them. We might recall that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, although all too willing to prostitute themselves to the designs of earthly rulers, nonetheless go to their deaths as instruments of forces larger than they can imagine, so in this sense they show Hamlet the way. Claudius’ plan is frustrated, and his union with Gertrude nullified when she drinks from the poisoned chalice: “I will, my Lord” (421, 5.2.234) There’s a Christian lesson to be drawn: the wicked will ultimately will find a way to destroy themselves; they are remarkably consistent in the patterns of their evil. Hamlet gains no earthly reward but death. Young Fortinbras enters the kingdom almost by accident (423, 5.2.305), in the wake of the old order’s self-destruction: he and other onlookers will hear from Horatio of “purposes mistook, / Fall’n on the inventors’ heads” (424, 5.2.324-29). There’s really no question of Fortinbras’ being a better ruler than his predecessors, though Hamlet’s final thoughts commend him. He is simply an opportunist in the right time at the right place. This hardly amounts to a strong purification of the State, though it’s fair to say that that was never really the play’s emphasis.

To return to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (423, 5.2.313-15), some critics see them as loose ends that Shakespeare has deliberately left hanging at the play’s conclusion—have they really deserved their harsh fate, considering that they are only minor players in a grand tragedy? Does their taking-off mean that God’s providential design is a bit “rough-hewn,” or at least that his justice is not self-evidently “just” to us? Perhaps, but in my view, this messy fact (along with Ophelia’s lamentable and unfair demise) doesn’t necessarily destroy the “providential” reading to which I have generally subscribed. At the least, Hamlet is a curious revenge play in that it ultimately denies agency to the very character who is most responsible for ensuring that the play’s villain gets what he deserves, and yet the revenge “gets itself accomplished” nonetheless, in the most hideously appropriate manner, as if Shakespeare’s God has much the same sense of “poetic justice” as Dante’s did. The play involves two levels of meaning: there’s something petty, intimate, and even sordid about the royal family, yet providence seems to guide Hamlet in carrying out his revenge. Hamlet is caught in the middle: a revenger whose nature and doctrine work against his mission.