TEXT:
SCENE VII. Another room in the castle.
Enter CLAUDIUS and LAERTES
CLAUDIUS
Now must your conscience my acquaintance seal,
And you must put me in your heart for friend,
Sith you have heard, and with a knowing ear,
That he which hath your noble father slain
Pursued my life.
LAERTES
It well appears: but tell me
Why you proceeded not against these feats,
So crimeful and so capital in nature,
As by your safety, wisdom, all things else,
You mainly were stirred up.
CLAUDIUS
O, for two special reasons;
Which may to you, perhaps, seem much unsinewed,
But yet to me they are strong. The queen his mother
Lives almost by his looks; and for myself
My virtue or my plague, be it either which
She's so conjunctive to my life and soul,
That, as the star moves not but in his sphere,
I could not but by her. The other motive,
Why to a public count I might not go,
Is the great love the general gender bear him;
Who, dipping all his faults in their affection,
Would, like the spring that turneth wood to stone,
Convert his gyves to graces; so that my arrows,
Too slightly timber'd for so loud a wind,
Would have reverted to my bow again,
And not where I had aimed them.
NOTES:
Astrology
Here Claudius conflates astrology and astronomy, mentioning conjuncts. In astrology, a conjunct is a particular “aspect”. Conjunct heavenly bodies tend to blend their respective astrological energies together; Claudius feels he needs Gertrude because they operate, in his head at least, like a unit.
Astronomy
Much earlier in the play there are references to stars and cosmic events and (perhaps) the trials of European astronomers who were trying to prove that the earth was round and not flat. Shakespeare’s theatre was called The Globe, and so we can maybe assume that he was aware that the planet is not a disc. Likewise, here he has Claudius refer to the old, Ptolemaic concept of astronomy, wherein the stars and planets orbit their spheres around the earth.
The Spring That Turneth Water into Stone
My best guess for where this image came from is in fact marketed as England’s oldest visitor attraction. It’s called Mother Shipton’s Cave, site of what’s known as a petrifying well. The water is so rich in mineral content that objects left in it seem to turn to stone, as the mineral deposits and calcifies. Mother Shipton’s Cave has been a tourist attraction since at least 1630. Another petrifying well exists near Matlock Bath. Perhaps Shakespeare had seen or heard of one elsewhere!