HAMLET         ’Tis now the very witching time of night

When churchyards yawn and hell itself breaks out

Contagion to this world. Now could I drink hot blood

And do such business as the bitter day

Would quake to look on. Soft, now to my mother. (3.2.378-382)

Hamlet, alone again, and breathe… He’s as wound up as he’s ever been, and his mind is bend on violence; he’s just watched the staging of a murder, had his uncle’s murder confirmed, behaved vilely to Ophelia, and (verbally) savaged his friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. He’s buzzing with adrenaline, and on the verge of losing control—and he knows it. ’Tis now the very witching time of night, late, dark, dangerous, in between and on the cusp, when churchyards yawn and hell itself breaks out contagion to this world. This is the time when the dead walk, a thin time, when the very surfaces of the earth crack and gape, when horrors which are usually unseen, or concealed, break through. Hell is imagined less as fire and smoke than as pollution, stain, an infected body which is now spreading its disease. Everything’s corrupt or corrupted, and this is the time when it’s most apparent, Hamlet suggests. I feel it, I feel dirty, compromised, but also emboldened, because all bets are off now—and so, so angry. Now could I drink hot blood, the great avenger, as savage as Pyrrhus, and do such business as the bitter day would quake to look on. Under the cover of dark, I could do—anything. I could do terrible things, things that would shock daylight itself.

But I’m not going to. Is it reluctance, a realisation that he’s not, in fact, that killer, or at least not yet? Soft, now to my mother. Calm down, get a grip. I’ve got to go to see my mother—and there can be a gulp there. I’m disgusted by her, but, she’s still my mum, and it’s bedtime, and I need to see her…