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 reserved some quantity of choice,
To serve in such a difference. What devil was't
That thus hath cozen'd you at hoodman-blind?
Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight,
Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all,
Or but a sickly part of one true sense
Could not so mope.
O shame! where is thy blush? Rebellious hell,
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 ardour gives the charge,
Since frost itself as actively doth burn
And reason panders will.

 

 

 

In “The closet scene” (act III, scene 4) right from the start the intelligent reader understand that the scene is focused on a dialogue between mother and son. The function is to show Hamlet’s emotion: he is angry  because his mother married his uncle and he consider him less virtuous than his father.

 

Hamlet is speaking with his mother Gertrude, it takes place in a closet and the idea of having a scene in an inner place implies that it may refer to something private, hidden to the external world.

As a matter of fact Hamlet is showing Gertrude two portraits: Hamlet’s father portrait and Hamlet’s uncle.

Hamlet starts with the image of his father because he wants to focus Gertrude attention on the superiority of his father and this highlights Hamlet’s esteem for his father, he comes first.

Right from the start Hamlet is addressing to his mother with an imperative tone: he is rebuking her, he wants her to feel guilty and to make her understand his father’s quality.

The use of “this” shows that the two protagonist are very closer to the portraits (“ look here upon this picture and on this”).

Hamlet using the words “two brothers” at line 2 wants to communicate that even if his father and his uncle are brothers, they are very different and it implies also an implicit negative judgment.

 

Hamlet’s objective is to underline Claudius’s weak points using some stylistic devices such as euphemism, irony and classical reference.

As I said, Hamlet starts with his father’s portrait and on line 3 he is inviting Gertrude to focus her attention on the king’s brow, this is a metaphor for a quality that is implicitly conveyed by the word “grace”.

On the following lines Hamlet compares his father to a God, he exaggerated but this is only a device to make his mother understand his father’s greatness and to underline that his uncle has not got the quality to be a king. In particular on line 4 “Hyperion’s curls; the front of Jove himself” there is a reference to the mythology in fact he compares his father to Jove, the king of gods; he also make reference to Hyperion’s curls because in the middle ages curls were considered elegant.

On line 5 “ an eye like Mars, to threaten and command” Hamlet is comparing the king to Mars, the god of war, and so this implies that Hamlet’s father had the qualities of a good warrior and of a leader, he wants to underline his skills on fighting.

The further god quoted is Mercury on line 6  “a station like the herald Mercury”: he is the messenger of the gods and the king’s bearing is like the god’s bearing; in the middle ages a good bearing was symbol for good moral qualities.

On lines 7-8-9-10 “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.” With this lines Hamlet is showing his aim: he wants to underline his father’s qualities in contrast with his uncle’s. The king is kissing by gods, he is almost like a God in the earth.

 

At this point Hamlet invites his mother to compare her previous husband to the new one, Hamlet defines his uncle “like a mildrew’d ear” and so like something rotten. Finally he says to his mother “have you eyes?” this means that Hamlet cannot believe that his mother does not see the differences between the old king and the new one and that she not understand that the old one was perfect.