CLAUDIUS That we would do
We should do when we would, for this ‘would’ changes
And hath abatements and delays as many
As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents,
And then this ‘should’ is like a spendthrift’s sigh
That hurts by easing. But to the quick of th’ulcer –
Hamlet comes back. What would you undertake
To show yourself in deed your father’s son
More than in words?
LAERTES To cut his throat i’th’ church. (4.7.116-124)
Claudius slowly, obliquely, has almost worked his way around to his point, his direct request. That we would do we should do when we would—we should do what we want to do when we are able to do it, right then, not delaying—for this ‘would’ changes, it shifts, alters, and hath abatements and delays as many as there are tongues, are hands, are accidents; what we really, really want to do sometimes is prevented, slowed down, by what other people say or do, or simply by chance. And then this ‘should’, the desire, the imperative, is like a spendthrift’s sigh, that hurts by easing—done, once and for all, and no time for regrets. No time like the present! (This is all pretty oblique, aphoristic, moralising—and a comment on Hamlet.)
Then a shift: but to the quick of th’ulcer—the point, the sharp end, the most painful bit of the wound, because what he’s doing to Laertes, expertly, is pressing on a bruise, again and again (and it’s an image characteristic of Hamlet himself): Hamlet comes back. He’s here, right now. This is the crisis, this is the moment. What would you undertake to show yourself in deed your father’s son more than in words? What are you going to do about it? How are you going to prove you loved your father? It’s brutal; Claudius has been reeling Laertes in, obfuscating, philosophising, flattering, and now he wants an answer: is Laertes prepared to kill Hamlet? Laertes’s response is even more brutal than the question, and it too recalls Hamlet and his inaction: what would I be prepared to do? To cut his throat i’th’ church. Yeah, that.
