CLAUDIUS      O, for two special reasons

Which may to you perhaps seem much unsinewed

But yet to me they’re strong. The Queen his mother

Lives almost by his looks and for myself,

My virtue or my plague, be it either which,

She is so conjunct to my life and soul

That as the star moves not but in his sphere

I could not but by her.           (4.7.10-17)

Laertes has asked Claudius why he hasn’t acted against Hamlet already, and his answer might be surprising—if played sincerely, adding another layer of complexity to this fascinating character—or troublingly Machiavellian. Or both. (Claudius still thinks that Hamlet has gone to his death in England, after all.) O, for two special reasons which may to you perhaps seem much unsinewed but yet to me they’re strong. There are two reasons why I haven’t acted; you might regard them as poor reasons, and indeed as signs of weakness, but they matter to me. Unsinewed is interesting, it suggests the opposite of physical strength, strong-arm tactics, and it’s flattering Laertes a bit, look, I know you’d have been right in there, action man, but, well, I’m not that guy, I’m afraid. (Claudius deploys poison, secret letters, surveillance.) The Queen his mother lives almost by his looks: his mother loves him! It would upset her! and for myself, my virtue or my plague, be it either which—and I don’t know whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing, and it doesn’t really matter either way—she is so conjunct to my life and soul that as the star moves not but in his sphere I could not but by her. And, well, she’s my everything, the centre of my world; I couldn’t do anything to upset her. (This can still ring true, even if Claudius’s deployment of it is manipulative.) I love my wife! I need my wife! And she loves her son!