TEXT:
HAMLET (continued)
I will bestow him, and will answer well
The death I gave him. So, again, good night.
I must be cruel, only to be kind:
This bad begins and worse remains behind.
One word more, good lady.
GERTRUDE
What shall I do?
HAMLET
Not this, by no means, that I bid you do:
Let the bloat king tempt you again to bed;
Pinch wanton on your cheek; call you his mouse;
And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses,
Or paddling in your neck with his damned fingers,
Make you to ravel all this matter out,
That I essentially am not in madness,
But mad in craft. 'Twere good you let him know;
For who, that's but a queen, fair, sober, wise,
Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib,
Such dear concernings hide? who would do so?
No, in despite of sense and secrecy,
Unpeg the basket on the house's top.
Let the birds fly, and, like the famous ape,
To try conclusions, in the basket creep,
And break your own neck down.
NOTES:
Freud and Hamlet
Freud’s identified and named the Oedipus Complex after the mythical Greek character who killed his father and married his mother. In Freud’s analysis, it is a frequent pattern, and he suggests that Hamlet presents similar characteristics. Obviously Hamlet’s father is already dead, but he does have a father-figure in Claudius, who has himself supplanted Hamlet’s father in his mother’s bed. In this scene, there’s a terrible violence to the interaction between son and mother, and some productions do choose to highlight a sexual tension between them. Freudian scholars certainly would have much to say on the matter.
Witches and Familiars
Bats, cats and frogs were all animals that might be associated with witches and witchcraft. Shakespeare’s England was in constant fear of witches and the devil - a dark fascination that spread with the English communities that made their homes in the new world of the Americas. One sign of a witch was always that she would have an extra nipple somewhere on her body, from which she would give suck to her satanic familiar - often the kinds of small animals that Hamlet mentions here.
The Famous Ape
I’m afraid I have no helpful information on this very obscure image. Perhaps there was an apocryphal story of an ape that behaved like this, known to Shakespeare and his original audience. No more than the cat in the adage that gets a passing reference in Macbeth, this famous ape is no longer known to us…