TEXT:
Enter CLAUDIUS, GERTRUDE, LAERTES, OSRIC, Lords and Attendants with foils, & cushions.
CLAUDIUS
Come, Hamlet, come, and take this hand from me.
CLAUDIUS puts LAERTES' hand into HAMLET's
HAMLET
Give me your pardon, sir: I've done you wrong;
But pardon't, as you are a gentleman.
This presence knows, and you must needs have heard,
How I am punished with sore distraction.
What I have done,
That might your nature, honour and exception
Roughly awake, I here proclaim was madness.
Was't Hamlet wronged Laertes? Never Hamlet:
If Hamlet from himself be ta'en away,
And when he's not himself does wrong Laertes,
Then Hamlet does it not, Hamlet denies it.
Who does it, then? His madness: if't be so,
Hamlet is of the faction that is wronged;
His madness is poor Hamlet's enemy.
Sir, in this audience,
Let my disclaiming from a purposed evil
Free me so far in your most generous thoughts,
That I have shot mine arrow o'er the house,
And hurt my brother.
NOTES:
Cain and Abel
In the book of Genesis in the Bible, Cain and Abel are the sons of Adam and Eve. Cain was a farmer, Abel a shepherd. When both brothers made sacrifices to God, He preferred Abel's offering, and Cain killed him. This was the first murder, and Abel, therefore, the 'first corpse' mentioned in this episode's portion of the text. Cain was thereafter punished with a lifetime of wandering, and with 'the mark of Cain', a sign from God that prevented anyone from killing him - perhaps as a warning not to commit his sin again.
Shot Mine Arrow
As mentioned in this episode, there are a number of interesting essays to be found discussing this little line of the play. John Gillies wrote extensively about The Question of Original Sin in Hamlet (Shakespeare Quarterly, 2013). He refers to an even deeper dive, Vladimir Brljak’s Hamlet and Lameth (Notes and Queries, 2011). And then for a little more recent study, the first chapter of Jeffrey Kahan’s Shakespeare and Superheroes is named after this line. Hours of happy reading!
What a cover!