Enter HORATIO, GERTRUDE, and a GENTLEMAN.

GERTRUDE     I will not speak with her.

GENTLEMAN She is importunate – indeed, distract.

Her mood will needs be pitied.

GERTRUDE                 What would she have?

GENTLEMAN She speaks much of her father, says she hears

There’s tricks i’th’ world, and hems and beats her heart,

Spurns enviously at straws, speaks things in doubt

That carry but half sense.     (4.5.1-7)

Abrupt shift, back to characters who have dropped out of the play (and perhaps the audience’s imagination) for a good while. I will not speak with her, says Gertrude, frustrated, anxious, concerned, even angry, because the Gentleman may have been trying to get her to listen and to act for some time. Who is she? An audience with knowledge of the play knows, but it’s not obvious (and Ophelia has a long history of not being named in the play, part of her pathos). I don’t want to see her, I don’t want to get involved. But the Gentleman is persistent: she is importunate—indeed, distract. She’s insistent, she won’t take no for an answer; she’s begging you. And, well, she’s mad. Not all there. Can’t be reasoned with. Her mood will needs be pitied; honestly, she’s in a terrible state. She’s not a threat, if that’s what you’re worried about; she’s a mess. But what would she have? What does she WANT? (What can I do? What power do I have, in this whole mess?) Well, she speaks much of her father—ah yes, Polonius; consequences beyond the repercussions for Hamlet—says she hears there’s tricks i’th’ world. She’s paranoid; sees conspiracies everywhere. She hems and beats her heart, she’s muttering and twitching, hitting herself (with the implication of the gesture of mea culpa, as if she thinks it’s all her fault, somehow? and because her heart is broken, and because she’s self-harming, even?) She spurns enviously at straws, lashes out, over-reacts to the slightest thing, and she speaks things in doubt that carry but half sense. She’s not making sense; she’s raving! She’s not all there…