THE CLOSET SCENE - LINES 11-15

"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?"

At line 11, Hamlet has just finished describing his father making references to Greek Mythology. Now he wants to draw his mother's attention to his uncle's portrait. To highlight the shift from his father's magnificence to his uncle's unworthiness, Hamlet relies on some rhetorical devices:

- He uses the reiteration to make his mother better realize the irrationality of his action (in addition the use of the repetition expresses the excitement and the anger of the prince).

- The statement "This was your husband" is isolated from the others by a full stop to underline the fact that the former king is dead and that he represents the past and all the yarning linked to it.

- There is an manifest use of rhetorical questions; Hamlet shows his anger by insisting on rebuking his mother. He wants to know the reason that might have compelled her to make such an irrational act. He is astonished and disbelieving.

- The shift from a formal language, rich of classical references, to a more concrete and vernacular one, is very clear; the prince compares now his uncle to a diseased ear of corn, that is dangerous for other people, while having just described his father almost as a god;

- The linguistic choice of the word "moor" and "mountain" to describe respectively Hamlet's uncle and father shows the opinion the prince has of them. A moor is plain, windy and empty and Claudius is psychologically similar to it: he does not have sense of justice and he has not high ideals. On the other side, the dead king was similar to a mountain: in Hamlet's opinion he was strong and full of qualities, with high principles.