it?" I do not think so. To suppose that the King and Queen do not see the pantomime is begging the whole question, in the lack of any evidence of their neglect. There is some plausibility, perhaps, in arguing that they might not pay much attention to a minor part of the performance, inferior in interest to the main entertainment, just as some opera-goers of today talk through the overture. But I do not think this argument sufficient. Why, then, if they witness the pantomime, do they not resent it?
Let us begin with the Queen. It is important to observe, at the outset, that she did not at this time know that her first husband had been murdered by his brother.[1] That is first revealed to her by Hamlet later on, in the scene in her private apartments. So the marriage of the Player Queen to the murderer of the Player King could have, in Gertrude's mind, no resemblance to her own case. In the second place, it will be observed that the dumb-show gives no indication that the Poisoner was a relative of his victim. That is first brought out during the play proper by Hamlet's comment, "This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king." Consequently the Queen could not be affected by the spectacle of a lady marrying within the forbidden limits, for the dumb-show does not reveal this. The only thing that could offend her was the suggestion of the betrothal of a queen, hard upon the death of that queen's first husband. This was not pleasant; but it was a matter in which Gertrude and Claudius had decided to brave public opinion, and there is no adequate reason for the Queen to manifest any open resentment at this point. The case is different with the King. The moment the dumb-show is over, he realizes that Hamlet knows the whole truth.
The action of the dumb-show is too like the crime which he has himself committed to leave doubt upon that score. If there were any such doubt, the drift of Hamlet's apparently mad talk during the spoken
- ↑ This point is too familiar to need restatement here. See the Furness 'Variorum Shakespeare,' Vol. II, p. 265. The Ghost ascribes the elder Hamlet's death only to Claudius; Claudius never treats the Queen as guilty with him of the murder; and she never gives any indication of having participated in it. Particularly strong, too, is the evidence of the lines in the First Quarto given to the Queen in the Closet-scene.
But as I haue a soule, I sweare by heauen,
I neuer knew of this most horride murder.(Variorum, p. 72)
