LAERTES        And so have I a noble father lost,

A sister driven into desperate terms

Whose worth, if praises may go back again,

Stood challenger on mount of all the age

For her perfections. But my revenge will come.

CLAUDIUS      Break not your sleeps for that; you must not think

That we are made of stuff so flat and dull

That we can let our beard be shook with danger

And think it pastime. You shortly shall hear more.

I loved your father and we love ourself,

And that, I hope, will teach you to imagine –

Enter a Messenger with letters.         (4.7.26-36)

Laertes isn’t rolling over yet, not quite: and so have I a noble father lost—he killed my dad!—a sister driven into desperate terms whose worth, if praises may go back again, stood challenger on mount of all the age for her perfections. And my sister, she’s broken, utterly destroyed (and desperate suggests that Laertes fears for Ophelia’s life, that she will attempt suicide)—and now he dwells, idealistically, perhaps unrealistically, on what Ophelia apparently used to be: she was peerless, perfect. It’s a counterpoint to Claudius’s assertion of Hamlet’s popularity, equally unprovable within the world of the play, a doomed, flat attempt to convey Laertes’s sense of loss, my sister, she used to be lovely! (It’s also a version of Hamlet’s own idealisation of his dead father.) Laertes still isn’t blaming Hamlet specifically, but neither is he explicitly blaming Claudius. But my revenge will come, he concludes, and it’s a bit lame, he’s running out of steam, really, and Claudius has won.

Break not your sleeps for that, oh, don’t lose sleep over that, dear boy, don’t worry; Claudius presses home his advantage. You must not think that we are made of stuff so flat and dull that we can let our beard be shook with danger and think it pastime. I’m not taking this lying down, of course I’m incensed, no one insults me in this way and gets away with it. (Claudius, of course, has not been injured directly by Hamlet in the way that Laertes has, but that’s how he’s playing it, as an outrage to the crown, lèse majesté, to public decency, law and order. He’s back using the royal plural.) I’m just playing a slightly longer game. You shortly shall hear more. Just sit tight, wait a bit longer. I loved your father—a belated, slightly perfunctory claim?—and we love ourself. I’m sensible of my own dignity, and my own safety. And that, I hope, will teach you to imagine—what? that I will make a move, soon, against Hamlet? But it’s never articulated, because here’s a Messenger, with letters, mid sentence.