for’s estate: i.e., to gain his property.

anon: shortly.

The source play for The Murder of Gonzago is no longer extant, though it may have been in Shakespeare’s time. In “The Play Scene in Hamlet” (1919), William Witherle Lawrence observes:

The ‘Murder of Gonzago,’ while not of a sort unknown to the audience of the Globe Theater, would have seemed old-fashioned on account of its conventionality, its monotonous rhymes, and its rather turgid rhetoric. All this, with the antiquated dumb-show, set sharply against the prose of the speeches of Hamlet, Ophelia, and the King, would have increased its illusion as a stage stage-play.

The play may have been based on a real-life incident involving the historical Francesco Maria I della Rovere, Duke of Urbino. For more on the sources of The Murder of Gonzago, see G. Bullough’s “The Murder of Gonzago” and the Arden Shakespeare: Third Series.

Fascinatingly, the murderer in this play-within-a-play is not the King’s brother but the King’s nephew–paralleling Hamlet’s own relationship with the King he’s supposed to kill. This makes the play, as John Russell puts it in Hamlet and Narcissus (1995), “both a recreation of his father’s murder and a preview of his revenge on the murderer.”

Is this detail part of the material Hamlet’s had the Players adapt? Or something he’s added himself, intended to further rattle Claudius? The uncertainty as to how much of this play is Hamlet’s own work creates rich ambiguities, while the nephew/brother discrepancy creates a dense web of parallels and ironies further explored by Russell. (And sometimes by actors: in a 1964 Hamlet production, Tony Richardson delivered this line as: “brother…nephew to the king.”)

For more on sources of The Murder of Gonzago, see here.

A chorus is an actor or group of actors, lacking defined characters, who comment on the main action of the play in order to aid the audience’s understanding. Shakespeare himself employs a single-actor Chorus (or the equivalent) in a number of plays, such as Henry V. In Shakespeare and the History of Soliloquies (2003), James E. Hirsh notes that:

Unlike an ancient Greek chorus, a Shakespeare Chorus is a single character. Also in contrast to ancient Greek choruses, no Shakespeare Chorus ever interacts with the characters who are engaged in the fictional action.

Ophelia means that Hamlet is acting as the interpreter of the play. By now she may suspect the hand he’s had in writing it, and/or his intentions in staging it.

Again we see that this play that Hamlet is supposedly staging for a practical purpose–to “catch the conscience of the King”–is also intended to rattle and embarrass his mother. In fact, it’s his mother’s reaction he studies first.

what o'that?: so what?

touches: affects.

Laying the irony on thick, Hamlet asks Claudius: “So what if the play contains knavish (wicked) material? You and I both have clear consciences, so it doesn’t affect us.”

deeply sworn: sincerely promised.

fain I would: I would like to.

never…twain: may misfortune never come between us.

This is a melodramatic rendering of King Hamlet’s lying down for the nap during which he was murdered. For more on sleep and death imagery in Hamlet, see “To be or not to be.”

Hamlet compares our “purpose” (intentions) to unripe fruit that may cling to the tree for now, but will fall to the ground–without any “shaking” by external forces–after enough time goes by. In other words, our intentions naturally mellow and die away.

Image via

Hamlet’s comeback may imply he would go in for the actor’s life wholeheartedly, not halfheartedly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RD78dtBhwtw

The hart ungalled: the unwounded deer.

watch: stay awake.

The implication of this little ballad stanza, which Hamlet appears to be inventing or quoting from memory, is that some people get hurt, some don’t; some are alert, some are caught napping; that’s how the world goes. (“Watch” vs. “sleep” may also imply live vs. die.)

In her essay “Securing Sleep in Hamlet” (2010), Rebecca Totaro analyzes this stanza in depth as it relates to the play’s themes of sleep and alertness.

Indie rocker Josh Ritter borrowed “So runs the world away” for the title of a 2010 album.