Look Upon This Picture

Hamlet, young Prince of Denmark, has returned home from studying in Wittenberg to find that his father is dead, apparently of a snake-bite, and his mother has married his father’s brother Claudius, who is now styling himself King. Utterly disgusted, and far from convinced by the supposed cause of death, he tells his mother exactly what he thinks of the bargain she has made.

Look here, upon this picture, and on this;*
The counterfeit presentment* of two brothers.
See, what a grace was seated on this brow:
Hyperion’s curls;* the front of Jove himself;
An eye like Mars, to threaten and command;
A station like the herald Mercury,
New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill;
A combination, and a form, indeed,
Where every god did seem to set his seal,
To give the world assurance of a man:
This was your husband. — Look you now, what follows:
Here is your husband; like a mildew’d ear,
Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes?
Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,
And batten on this moor?* Ha! have you eyes?
You cannot call it, love: for, at your age,
The hey-day in the blood is tame, it’s humble,
And waits upon the judgment. And what judgment
Would step from this to this? Sense, sure, you have,
Else, could you not have motion: But, sure, that sense
Is apoplex’d; for madness would not err;
Nor sense to ecstasy was ne’er so thrall’d,
But it reserv’d some quantity of choice,
To serve in such a difference. What devil was’t,
That thus hath cozen’d you at hoodman-blind?*

Continue to Part 2

* This could be metaphor, or it could be that Hamlet really did have two pictures to refer to, perhaps portraits on the walls, or perhaps the locket of his father round his own neck, and the locket of his uncle round his mother’s neck.

* Counterfeit presentment here means an exact likeness. In this instance, ‘counterfeit’ does not have the negative connotation we give it today.

* Hyperion was the Greek god of the sun, so we gather that Hamlet’s father had a full head of golden curls, which was how the ancient Greeks liked to depict him on their coins.

* Hamlet does not choose an opposite to ‘mountain’ such as valley or plain, but another kind of high ground, less in height, and bleak and featureless rather than grandly impressive.

* Cozen means trick, take someone in. The Queen, says Hamlet, has played blind man’s buff (a children’s game in which a blindfolded player tries to catch one of her companions and identify him correctly) but has been tricked into mistaking a man of no value for a real prize.

Précis

Variations: 1.increase the length of this precis to exactly 65 words. 2.reduce the length of this precis to exactly 55 words. 3.introduce one of the following words into the precis: if, just, may, otherwise, since, until, whereas, who.

Précis

Word Games

Clay Lane

The Copy Book