LAERTES        Know you the hand?

CLAUDIUS                  ’Tis Hamlet’s character. ‘Naked’,

And in a postscript here he says ‘alone’.

Can you devise me?

LAERTES        I am lost in it, my lord, but let him come.

It warms the very sickness in my heart

That I live and tell him to his teeth

‘Thus didst thou.’

CLAUDIUS                  If it be so, Laertes –

As how should it be so, how otherwise? –

Will you be ruled by me?

LAERTES                    Ay, my lord,

So you will not o’errule me to a peace.        (4.7.49-58)

Laertes asks the practical question: know you the hand? is it Hamlet’s handwriting? Oh yes, ’tis Hamlet’s character. It’s his writing alright. ‘Naked’, though, Claudius muses. That bit’s odd. And in a postscript here he says ‘alone’. That Claudius only just notices the postscript makes it seem as if he’s really looking hard at the letter, turning it over and over for clues—and also that Hamlet’s offering some kind of reassurance, that he’s unaccompanied, unarmed even. The conjunction of naked and alone also suggests a kind of rebirth, Hamlet returning to Denmark once again in the same condition in which he was born to it. Hamlet 2.0.

Can you devise me? Claudius asks, can you interpret this at all? It might be less a request for help than a reinforcement of him and Laertes being on the same side—but Laertes can’t help—I am lost in it, my lord, no idea—but let him come. Bring it on. It warms the very sickness in my heart that I live and tell him to his teeth ‘Thus didst thou’. It’s some comfort at least to me that I can confront him, tell him to his face, ‘This is all your fault!’ Look what you’ve done, how much pain you’ve caused!

Ah, potential loose cannon still here then. If it be so, Laertes—as how should it be so, how otherwise? completely understandable, of course that’s what you’re going to do—will you be ruled by me? Do as I say, follow my advice? Ay, my lord, so you will not o’errule me to a peace. There’s a sulky teenage note there, ok, so long as you don’t make me make up with him, shake hands and be ‘friends’. (Because that wouldn’t be FAIR, none of this is FAIR.)