Hamlet
Is Gertrude guilty?!
Is Gertrude guilty of participating in any way in the murder of King Hamlet? Was she involved with Claudius prior to the murder? Did she condone it by marrying him so quickly after? Why does the ghost not want her harmed, but believes her conscious will get her? What does that tell the reader about her role?
“Do not forever with thy vailèd lids / Seek for thy noble father in the dust. / Thou know’st ’tis common. All that lives must die, / Passing through nature to eternity” (1.2.70-73).
She is saying that Hamlet needs to stop mourning his father and understand that death happens to everyone all the time; Hamlet needs to get over it.
“Nor have we herein barred/ Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone / With this affair along”
Claudius says that he and Gertrude got married because everyone had been rightfully advising them to do so for so long.
“Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed / And batten on this moor? Ha, have you eyes?” (3. 4. 67-68).
Hamlet is asking Gertrude how could she actually go from her husband of such high status, to someone like Claudius, who has nothing.
“If thou canst mutine in a matron’s bones, / To flaming youth let virtue be as wax / And melt in her own fire. Proclaim no shame / When the compulsive ardor gives the charge, / Since frost itself as actively doth burn, / And reason panders will” (3. 4. 85-89).
Hamlet is obviously asking Gertrude if such horrid acts can over take her then they shall over take him as well because it is no longer shameful to act on impulse.
“Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife / If, once a widow, ever I be wife!” (3, 2, 210-211). The play queen vows to the play king that if ever she marries after the kings death, may she never have peace. To the play Queen Gertrude replies, “The lady protests too much, methinks” (3, 2, 217).
But not by him.
Protecting claudius from death as if her life depended on it
Good Gertrude, set some watch over your son.
Telling Gertrude to make sure her son is watched by guards as if she is apart of the whole plan from the start
I dare not drink yet, madam. By and by.
Hamlet seems skeptical about the drink and doesn’t know whether to trust his mother or not
Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother’s death the memory be green, and that it us befitted to bear our heart in grief and our whole kingdom to be contracted in grief and our whole kingdom to be contracted in one brow of woe.
That we with wisest sorrow think on him together with remembrance of ourselves. Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen, the imperial join tress to this warlike state, have we — as twerp with a a defeated joy, with an auspicious and a dropping eye, with mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage, in equal scale weighting delight and dole— taken to wife. Nor have we herein barred your better wisdoms, which have freely gone with this affair along. For all, our thanks.
Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted color off, and let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark. Do not forever with they vailéd lids seek for thy noble father in the dust. Thous know’st tis common All that lives must die, passing through nature to eternity
“Seems,” madam? Nay, it is. I know not “seems.” 'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,Nor customary suits of solemn black, Nor windy suspiration of forced breath, No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,Nor the dejected 'havior of the visage, Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief, That can denote me truly. These indeed “seem,” For they are actions that a man might play. But I have that within which passeth show, These but the trappings and the suits of woe.
O Hamlet, speak no more! Thou turn’st mine eyes into my very soul, And there I see such black and grainèd spots As will not leave their tinct.
Gertrude is saying that she did something bad, possibly involved with Claudius
“Makes marriage vows As false as dicers' oaths —oh, such a deed As from the body of contraction plucks The very soul, and sweet religion makes A rhapsody of words”
Makes marriage vows as false as a gambler’s oath—oh, you’ve done a deed that plucks the soul out of marriage and turns religion into meaningless blather.
"In second husband let me be accursed! None wed the second but who killed the first.”
Hamlet adds this line in his play The Mousetrap. It means when a woman takes a second husband, it’s because she’s killed off the first.