IV.v. Laertes Returns - Classics Illustrated

The original

Interestingly, the old Classics Illustrated shows us Laertes outside Elsinore, leading the rabble at the gates. That might have given the sequence a bit more menace, but Laertes is then immediately seen to enter the unguarded throne room. It's notable that no mention is made in the play, nor all that frequently in the adaptations, of guards who could have met their end in Laertes' action. The Switzers are inquired after, but aren't guarding the door. The dramatic effect is to show a deserted Elsinore where the Royals have been abandoned in the wake of the country's instability. In the comic, the mob enters the room while Claudius protests his innocence to a determined Laertes, and I'd like to think their swords have been blooded. But then Ophelia walks in.

That song and that one flower are all that remain of the sequence as scripted. It's a terrible piece of shorthand that gives Laertes pause, but diminishes this adaptation's already slim portrayal of Ophelia. As usual, this is part of the old Classics Illustrated remit of "boys' adventure" comics, with female characters sidelined in favor of sword fights and ghostly apparitions. The adapters probably didn't know how to make the flower-giving scene meaningful to their intended audience.

Strangely, Laertes is immediately cowed by this short excerpt and follows the royals out of doors, while the mob exits from another doorway entirely (and not the one they came in through; one might imagine a quiet massacre going on behind the scenes).

The Berkley version

The newer adaptation makes the same kind of outrageous cut. The confrontation is here again cut short by Ophelia's appearance (very short, he doesn't even have time to say he wants revenge for his father), though she just appears out of nowhere, sings the same song and a snatch of another in the same panel, drawn from afar, and that's it. She doesn't even have flowers with her. The character's last speaking appearance is thus wasted. Grant and Mandrake are just racing through this sequence for the plot's sake. They need their page count for things that interest them more.

IV.v. Laertes Returns - A Midwinter's Tale

Running through the whole play in a few minutes, A Midwinter's Tale keeps the energy level way up with Laertes brandishing a sword from the onset and quickly moving to behind Claudius and holding it to the King's throat. Only a quick couple lines, though if we imagine them in the context of an entire production, we can see the virtue of a thoroughly incensed and violent Laertes in this scene. He would be holding Claudius hostage through the whole sequence, ramping up the tension, and perhaps making the King's words more desperate or an even greater show of control. Perhaps they could stay in this position through Ophelia's sequence as well. I've never seen it done that way, but it would serve a number of dramatic functions - freezing the action and adding to Ophelia's ghostliness; juxtaposing Laertes' loving lines with his innate violence; turning his reactions to Ophelia's madness into accusations.

IV.v. Laertes Returns - Tennant (2009)

One motive for the Queen defending Claudius in this scene despite what Hamlet told her about him we haven't discussed is one of the motives attributed to her marrying him in the first place. While it may or may not apply to this version of the play, something in Penny Downie's performance - Gertrude's mixture of protectiveness and doubt - made me think of it. If a Queen cannot rule alone in this society, then it's in her best interest to keep the King alive, especially given the unknown fate of her son, and how this mutiny would not, in fact, end with Hamlet taking the throne. She married swiftly to keep her country stable and now can't let it slip (further) into chaos.

And the danger is very real here. Laertes comes in brandishing a handgun, pushes the Queen down to the ground, and waves the pistol in Claudius' face. It could go off at any time, without much effort, if he thinks he's being juggled with. Claudius is completely calm throughout, and by keeping the Gentleman who comes in with the news of the rebellion in the room, a nice contrast is created between two sorts of men. At one point, Laertes waves the gun in HIS face and the Gentleman falls down in terror, trying to squirm away from imagined bullets. He's the common man, Claudius is something else - a King protected by divine favor. He can even afford to walk towards the gun.

Enter Ophelia, her arms full of branches. Though she turns to bitterness occasionally, Mariah Gale is perhaps the saddest of all the Ophelias, overwhelmed by her grief, her voice often breaking and tears flowing. For that reason, she's among the most touching. One of the few breaks in that sadness is when she slings fennel and columbines at the King, her tone contemptuous. Rue's nickname makes her laugh sadly, and Gertrude tries to comfort her with a similar smile. The daisy is noncommittally thrown at the Gentleman. Its folk meaning, innocence, is something Ophelia just throws away. Her line about her father making a good end seems a small comfort to her, but a comfort nonetheless. Then comes the long funereal song as she kneels down and lays her "flowers" on an imaginary grave before leaving, a blank look in her eyes, completely emptied. Her character's arc done, she goes to throw herself in the river.

Usually, Claudius then crassly approaches the stunned Laertes and continues his appeal as if nothing happened. In this case, Laertes takes his gun out again, giving the King a lot more justification for the continued appeal. I love to watch Downie's performance here. Gertrude is riveted by Claudius' speech, and I can't decide if it's because she's fascinated by his charisma, impressed/alarmed that he would give up everything if found wanting by Laertes, or in the final seconds of the scene, shocked at how Claudius just threw Hamlet under a bus.

IV.v. Laertes Returns - Fodor (2007)

Fodor's Laertes is a psychotic brute, never more apparent than in his return from France. Instead of leading a rebellion directly to the King and Queen, he first makes a move on Hamlet's friends, Horatio and Francisco, knocking the latter out and viciously beating the former to some heavy metal music. It appears as if he's about to rape Horatio, but Laertes actually takes his belt off to choke her with it, dragging her to the beach as a hostage when he meets Claudius and Gertrude. Though the disturbing inference is there, I'm relieved the film didn't go there, as it would have been a paltry misuse of Horatio's feminization.

At the beach, this Laertes proves too gross in nature to keep to the Shakespeare's lines, dropping a number of F-bombs into his speech that emphasizes his beastliness. Of course, the text was going to suffer a lot of changes anyway, since he's not asking after his father's death, but his sister's, Polonia being this adaptation's other feminized character. The sexual politics that come into play actually give Claudius a better motive for Polonia's death, and Laertes more justification to come after the King. After all, Polonia had been Claudius' lover, so both Royals would have had reason to want her killed. Their discussion becomes a shouting match, which is perhaps the only way one can communicate with this brutish Laertes. While present, Horatio of course has no lines during this scene, but that can easily be attributed to a bruised throat. Gertrude is also largely taken out of it as the King's pleas for her to let Laertes ("Let him go, Getrude") become "Let her go, Laertes", in reference to the captive Horatio.

Then a strange moment that foreshadows Ophelia's death. Laertes hears a noise, turns around, the sound drops out in favor of eerie music, and Ophelia stands there, flowers in hand, in saturated whites and blues. She's a ghost, already dead as far as fate goes. She comes forward and kisses him passionately, something Laertes has the surprising decency to find disturbing. If there's something this whole sequence proves is that while painted as a coarse monster, Fodor's Laertes isn't sexual, only violent. He would probably be intolerable if he were both.

The the sound drops back in, the colors return to normal, and the scene regains a sense of normalcy (such as it is) as the girl frenetically looks through her brother's pockets, likely looking for heroin, though she finds nothing. Remember, Polonia was supplying her with it, and a large part of Ophelia's breakdown in this version is attributed to withdrawal. Angry and bitter, and holding back tears, she then proceeds to distributing her flowers before walking off, her final words completely cut as we move back to Claudius' seduction of Laertes. She does tweak some the lines she IS afforded to interesting effect, in particular "You must sing a-down a-down, / An you call him a-down-a" pronounced "a-down-er", a clue to the drugs that are on her mind, as well as a less-than-stellar appreciation for her cruel, manipulative sister.

IV.v. Laertes Returns - Hamlet 2000

Seconds after Ophelia is carried off by security, Laertes comes out of nowhere to confront Claudius (well, security IS distracted...). It's a quick, furious scene on a balcony overlooking a pit. It screams danger just like the Danish rabble at Laertes' heels might have. Claudius quickly moves to an adjacent room, his fear more about the public relations aspect of Laertes' rebellion than about his physical safety, though the younger man soon has his hand around the elder's throat, and image that is reversed by sequence's end when Claudius does the same, but in a kind of bond-creating embrace. In this version, the Queen is portrayed as being just as decadent as her husband, so she gets a good portion of Laertes' abuse. He screams at her to drown out her protests. He tells HER he dares damnation. In a sense, she's the King's only bodyguard in this scene, his only enforcer.

One note about the room: It somehow doesn't appear to be on the same floor as the balcony it seemed adjacent to. The street outside makes this no more than the second or third floor, while the balcony was high indeed. It gives the sense that the reception hall is a pit dug into the ground, a funnel into hell itself.

Ophelia comes in with Polaroids of flowers instead of the flowers themselves, which makes sense for the photographer she is in this adaptation. In great distress, Ophelia barely recognizes her brother and appears to be in a constant state of swooning, going weak at the knees and cross-eyed. Is she on drugs, medicine, or is this just how her madness manifests? Notably, many of her lines are cut and she does not make any reference to prayer. She's merely helped out of the room by her brother. This is because Christian notions have largely been weeded out of the text to better represent young people of Hamlet's and Ophelia's social class circa the year 2000.

"Where the offense is let the great axe fall" is now part of the next scene, not spoken to Laertes, but to Claudius himself, in the broken mirror up in his bedroom, just before he manipulates Laertes into helping him kill Hamlet. It takes on another meaning. Rather than trying to sound sincere for Laertes, he's rather psyching himself up for the task of "turning" an antagonistic "Laertes". The moment may imply that Claudius is ready to take his lumps if he can't work his magic, and that success in this instance is a sign from above that he shall prevail against Hamlet as well. The things we tell ourselves in the mirror to convince ourselves we're on the correct course.

IV.v. Laertes Returns - Kline '90

Laertes' arrival in the Kevin Kline-directed version of Hamlet is pretty standard. While there's no rabble at his heels, the pseudo-military clothes give the feeling of mutiny, and Laertes' strong physical presence is threatening to the older, shorter Claudius, despite his cocksure smile. He's on guard. Laertes himself vacillates between anger and shock, as if he harbors a fear that he's misjudged the King, betrayed his country, and put his life and honor in danger. But before we can fully explore this, his mad sister enters.

In a white dress with a long train, Ophelia looks like she's come from her own demented wedding, and perhaps she has. She hold a paper flower made of what might very well be Hamlet's letters to her, unraveling them like the life she believed she would lead, and letting them fall on the floor, parallel to her tears. It takes a beat before she recognizes her brother and embraces him, though in her confusion, she almost kisses him full on the mouth, hiccuping her line about remembrance to stop herself. That's Hamlet represented. As for her father, she speaks her lines about him ("he made a good end" and so on) in a tone that parodies the platitudes one might hear at a loved one's funeral. Like Hamlet before her, she keeps changing character. Mocking and sincere, impish - stuffing a paper petal down Gertrude's cleavage, for example - and overwhelmed with grief. At the end of the sequence, she struggles with her brother and positively screams her prayers for God to have mercy on them all, finally collapsing in his grip, spent. And she'll walk out the same way she walked in, confused and deaf to the world.

IV.v. Laertes Returns - Zeffirelli '90

Laertes rides into Elsinore, a man alone, shouting at the castle and running in to look for the King. There's no rebellion here except his own, as Zeffirelli has isolated his version of Elsinore from politics at large. We get no Fortinbras, we get no Danish rabble. Not to say the characters of the play are the only ones in this world, because Claudius is surrounded by men when Laertes catches up to him, and it's these soldiers the King warns off instead of Gertrude. She's up on a balcony, watching from behind a pillar. This makes her estrangement from Claudius more obvious, though it does beg the question as to why Laertes isn't killed as soon as he pulls a sword on the King. A sign of weakness on the realm's part? Could be, and though we never think about it, it's true of the play as written. Laertes and peasant rabble overcome trained palace guards to get into the royals' inner sanctum. Or is it a more personal affair? Claudius showed a certain preference for Laertes over Hamlet in Act I, and by disarming him rather than killing him, he seems to show such affection again. Claudius isn't arrogant when he waves his guards off. He looks at the sword, gauging the danger and what words to use next. By the time he brushes the sword point off, meeting fleeting resistance at first, he prevails because he detects doubt in Laertes.

Cries and sobs then distract Laertes, who follows them to the throne room where Ophelia is playing with dead things, twigs and bones playing the parts of flowers, on the Queen's throne (her homologue in the previous generation). Wet and impish, she distributes her wares, talking more to the King than to her brother, and walks out after reassuring Laertes that their father "made a good end". Stunned, he still gets the final line of the scene (about "a maid's wits"). Zeffirelli then cuts to Ophelia's suicide immediately, robbing Ophelia of her very last moments, her last song, her sudden nihilistic resolve, and her religious goodbyes. The director never lets her move away from the state of madness we found her in at the start of Act IV.

IV.v. Laertes Returns - BBC '80

The conflict between Claudius and Laertes works by contrast. David Robb gives us one of the angriest Laertes examined in this series of articles, red-faced and able to interrupt a King when he speaks. Patrick Stewart's Claudius is, in complete opposition, calm, dispassionate, even cold, but also commanding and frank. The aforementioned interruption is meaningful. Laertes won't be "juggled with". He knows of Claudius' reputation as a deft manipulator, but doesn't see that Claudius is giving him exactly what he will most respond to: a no-nonsense attitude which doesn't appeal to emotion. When Claudius eventually shouts a line, it's not out of wrath, it's to press a point home. He's winning an argument.

Enter Ophelia, with flowers in her hands. She goes to Laertes and kisses him as she would a lover. She showed such disturbing sexual behavior in the previous sequence (towards the King), and it has two effects. One is to reestablish Laertes as a mirror image of Hamlet. The other is to put Ophelia in an alternate universe, a hallucination. It's not her brother she sees there, as she proceeds to bring flowers to an invisible grave. She's reliving (or imagining, if it never actually happened in her presence) her father's burial. She tries to get the royals to dance, sings to the ground, and when her brother tries to touch her, perhaps snap her out of it, she bats him away. When she isn't by the grave, she's clutching at the wall painting of the Hades that played background to Hamlet's "undiscovered country", prettiness in Hell. And she's fairly nasty to Claudius, throwing one of the flowers she gives him on the ground, for example, and barking her prayers at him, sarcastically invoking his Christian soul before leaving with a sweet smile.

Notably, Ophelia's scene doesn't completely deflate Laertes' anger. As Claudius finishes his speech to him, Laertes is overwhelmed with emotion. Still red-faced, he's now visibly shaking, almost like he's about to go mad himself. And that's proper given how Ophelia just treated the King. If he's guiltless, why would his sister be so disrespectful to him?

IV.v. Laertes Returns - Olivier '48

Olivier's treatment of this sequence is highly cinematic and focuses on Ophelia, not her brother, with massive cuts to his lines. Between the first and second parts of Scene 5, Olivier inserted Horatio's receipt of a letter from Hamlet, and it's at the end of that scene that Ophelia crosses his path, singing one of her songs. It increases the irony of her coming suicide because she almost learns her lover is coming back, or she might have heard, and his return is part of her nihilistic motivation. In any case, the camera follows her to the great hall where Laertes' sequence is already in progress. It removes the rabble at the gates and makes unclear the wronged son's ire towards the King. It's all on her, and the argument her brother is having with the Royals is just background noise, noise she interrupts with her entrance. We don't see her face until she speaks (singing excluded), which turns her into a ghost, with a function similar to the capital "G" Ghost of the play in the closet scene. She dispels the rage and violence in the scene, possibly prevents a misunderstanding from leading to murder. Laertes is haunted, and Ophelia is a sort of spirit, not truly connecting with the world around her.

After Laertes' initial reaction, we stay with Ophelia, she walks out of the room, speaks lines to herself, leaves rosemary on Hamlet's chair (asking him to remember), returns to the hall. And they don't follow her. They're stunned. She might as well be walking through walls. Ophelia is isolated - by choice, in a sense - and impossible to communicate with. The three onlookers don't even try. She gives them flowers (appropriate to their sins), and Gertrude is made to break down and cry, but they don't respond verbally. Even Laertes' running commentary is mostly removed. In the end, Ophelia walks away, crumples by an archway, crosses herself, looks back (though we never do), and seems to make her decision to commit suicide. What she imagines or reasons at that moment is a mystery. Does she imagine her brother will now avenge her father, and that her work is done? Does she realize she's lost any connection she might have had to the people behind her? We don't know. But Olivier certainly shows us that crucial moment of decision. The camera hangs back (and still no reaction shots), watches her leave the room, then follows her, but she's gone. And the image dissolves into that of the brook as Gertrude's telling of Ophelia's final moments begins. It's obvious Olivier draws a straight line from this moment to that fatal one, and in a way that could only really be done on film.

IV.v. Laertes Returns - Branagh '96

The gentleman's story (here, a female attendant's) is intercut with the racing feet of the rebels through the halls until the break down the doors and an angry Laertes confronts the king he thinks responsible for his father's death. From there, a long run up, sword drawn, to the throne, and only Gertrude's hold on the boy's arm stays his hand. The sequence starts with a flurry of energy, and for the actor playing Laertes, it's like returning from a very long tea break and still having to crank the performance up to eleven. A red-faced Claudius, perhaps holding back on the outrage he feels, stands up to the would-be deposer, his throat close to the sword's point, but not in back to the wall by any means. This is how he puts on a show of innocence. Through his dialog with Laertes, it's at Claudius that Gertrude looks at. Her worried, even fearful look, is aimed at her husband, not at the one holding a sword. And sure enough, the manipulation Claudius uses could refer to Hamlet Sr.'s death just as well as Polonius'. A good actress - and Julie Christie is one - will make the Queen notice the similarities here and wonder how much of his brotherly grief, referred to all the way back in Act I Scene 2, was real. In a sense, she's experiencing the confrontation her son never had with his stepfather.

And then Ophelia runs in and saps the rage out of Laertes.

Perhaps because she sees her brother there, Ophelia is giddy, giggling through her songs and playing with imaginary flowers. Note the staging. Not since "To be or not to be" have characters been reflected in a mirror for this long, linking Hamlet's suicidal thoughts to what could be called Ophelia's suicide note. Unlike Hamlet, the characters do not look at their reflections, however. There is a disconnect between their emotional and rational selves that prevents them from looking at themselves and adjusting their behavior. Ophelia in the throes of madness; Laertes in his rage and then sadness. Neither can make informed or reasoned decisions, such as the one Hamlet made after deconstructing the concept of suicide. During the last song, the reflections will disappear entirely due to body position and camera angle.

The gift of flowers seems not to follow the Elizabethan symbolism. She gives remembrance and thoughtfulness to Laertes, which is standard, and similarly, flattery, male adultery and ingratitude to the Royals. However, "adultery and genuine repentance of all transgressions for women and everlasting suffering" (rue), she gives to Laertes. In her songs, "stole the master's daughter" takes on a special meaning, because she looks towards the Royals and acts like it's a secret not to be repeated, but I'm unable to decipher that meaning, if any. The master can only be the King, and he has no daughter unless Claudius somehow bedded Ophelia's mother. If so, it gives the accusations of adultery a whole other bent, and makes Ophelia Hamlet's cousin. But while you could stage the play with this over-complication, Branagh's doesn't do attempt it. But it's a thought.

Ophelia's last song is heart-breaking, devastatingly beautiful, and imbued with a finality that's absent from the rest of her performance. Before this, there's rebellion in Ophelia. She's stubborn, inappropriately disrespectful to the Royals, and seeking escape. But in this last and prettiest of melodies, she seems more at peace, more accepting of her father's death. She accepts her fate, perhaps having transferred the responsibilities of her grief to Laertes, and emotionally spent (the energy at the top of the sequence moves from Laertes to her and runs itself out there), walks into her padded cell and just stands there, a figure haunting her brother through the rest of the scene.

Before she goes, she prays for her father's soul, but also all Christian souls, foreshadowing more sin and death. And once she walks off, that's it. She will never speak again. That's why this is akin to a suicide note, if only the other characters could understand it.

IV.v. Laertes Returns

The second half of Act IV, Scene 5 sees Laertes return from France, in open rebellion against the King, with the support of the people who would crown HIM king. Laertes is fulfilling his role in the drama as an alternative to Hamlet. He too is a princely (if not of royal blood) young man with a father slain, intent on getting vengeance on the man responsible. But just as happened to Hamlet, this vengeance will be postponed. Hamlet's need to be sure of Claudius' guilt will be replayed in small by Laertes who, this time, will find Claudius NOT guilty. In a later scene, Claudius will turn into the Ghost and counsel Laertes to take revenge on the real murderer, Hamlet himself. The sequence also includes Ophelia's last appearance in the play (though many adaptations have show her suicide), as she walks back on stage to see her brother. Over the next few articles, we'll see how each adaptation has molded this sequence, and what effect both Claudius and Ophelia have on Laertes. First, we look at the text itself, in italics as usual, with my comments breaking in in normal script.

A noise within

QUEEN GERTRUDE: Alack, what noise is this?
KING CLAUDIUS: Where are my Switzers? Let them guard the door.

Enter another Gentleman

What is the matter?

GENTLEMAN: Save yourself, my lord:
The ocean, overpeering of his list,
Eats not the flats with more impetuous haste

Another link to Hamlet is this ocean metaphor. When Hamlet returns, it'll be by sea, whereas Laertes surely comes from France by land. Perhaps the audience would think, for a brief moment, that Hamlet has returned in force.

Than young Laertes, in a riotous head,
O'erbears your officers. The rabble call him lord;
And, as the world were now but to begin,
Antiquity forgot, custom not known,
The ratifiers and props of every word,
They cry 'Choose we: Laertes shall be king:'
Caps, hands, and tongues, applaud it to the clouds:
'Laertes shall be king, Laertes king!'
QUEEN GERTRUDE: How cheerfully on the false trail they cry!
O, this is counter, you false Danish dogs!

It's notable that Gertrude is angry at this rebellion and could indicate that she's thrown in with Claudius after all, but one should remember that Claudius only became King through his alliance with her. Deposing Claudius means deposing Gertrude, and ultimately, Hamlet. No matter Claudius' worth, no Monarch is going to welcome the actions of rebels.

KING CLAUDIUS: The doors are broke.

Noise within

Enter LAERTES, armed; Danes following

LAERTES: Where is this king? Sirs, stand you all without.
DANES: No, let's come in.
LAERTES: I pray you, give me leave.
DANES: We will, we will.

They retire without the door

Though Laertes has many men, he's not really there to stage a coup. His quest is a personal one, and he leaves his troops behind to confront and accuse the King. Again, this mirrors Hamlet's actions as a prince not particularly interested in claiming the usurped throne for himself. Revenge is more important that reparation.

LAERTES: I thank you: keep the door. O thou vile king,
Give me my father!
QUEEN GERTRUDE: Calmly, good Laertes.
LAERTES: That drop of blood that's calm proclaims me bastard,
Cries cuckold to my father, brands the harlot
Even here, between the chaste unsmirched brow
Of my true mother.

A lot like Hamlet's own vows, Laertes says calming down, inaction and reflection in this case, are anathema to his very being. And in a later scene, he'll assure Claudius that he would eat Hamlet's heart in the church so constant is his need for revenge. And yet, in both cases, he does calm himself, his mood is changed (twice by Ophelia, and ultimately by Hamlet himself).

KING CLAUDIUS: What is the cause, Laertes,
That thy rebellion looks so giant-like?
Let him go, Gertrude; do not fear our person:
There's such divinity doth hedge a king,
That treason can but peep to what it would,
Acts little of his will. Tell me, Laertes,
Why thou art thus incensed. Let him go, Gertrude.
Speak, man.
LAERTES: Where is my father?
KING CLAUDIUS: Dead.
QUEEN GERTRUDE: But not by him.

This, more than her anger at the rebels, puts Gertrude on Claudius' side. She's only saying the truth when she says he didn't kill Polonius, but is seen physically restraining Laertes as he tries to reach the King. Again, this may be a question of preventing the crown from falling into a commoner's hands, but it's hard to see anything other than a wife protecting her husband here. It does depend on staging and performance, and I hope to see some fruitful variety among the adaptations.

KING CLAUDIUS: Let him demand his fill.
LAERTES: How came he dead? I'll not be juggled with:
To hell, allegiance! vows, to the blackest devil!
Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit!
I dare damnation. To this point I stand,
That both the worlds I give to negligence,
Let come what comes; only I'll be revenged
Most thoroughly for my father.
KING CLAUDIUS: Who shall stay you?
LAERTES: My will, not all the world:
And for my means, I'll husband them so well,
They shall go far with little.
KING CLAUDIUS: Good Laertes,
If you desire to know the certainty
Of your dear father's death, is't writ in your revenge,
That, swoopstake, you will draw both friend and foe,
Winner and loser?
LAERTES: None but his enemies.
KING CLAUDIUS: Will you know them then?
LAERTES: To his good friends thus wide I'll ope my arms;
And like the kind life-rendering pelican,
Repast them with my blood.
KING CLAUDIUS: Why, now you speak
Like a good child and a true gentleman.
That I am guiltless of your father's death,
And am most sensible in grief for it,
It shall as level to your judgment pierce
As day does to your eye.

Claudius gives a lesson in persuasion throughout the sequence, asking questions to Laertes whose answers open the door to the way out, all the while playing the innocent and valorous man. The political animal is out.

DANES: [Within] Let her come in.
LAERTES: How now! what noise is that?

Re-enter OPHELIA

O heat, dry up my brains! tears seven times salt,
Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye!
By heaven, thy madness shall be paid by weight,
Till our scale turn the beam. O rose of May!
Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!
O heavens! is't possible, a young maid's wits
Should be as mortal as an old man's life?
Hamlet proved far more than those two things mortal with his single blow, as we can find it responsible for all the deaths at the end of the play, as well as Denmark falling to Fortinbras with the entire line of succession dead.

Nature is fine in love, and where 'tis fine,
It sends some precious instance of itself
After the thing it loves.
OPHELIA: [Sings] They bore him barefaced on the bier;
Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny;
And in his grave rain'd many a tear:--
Fare you well, my dove!
LAERTES: Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge,
It could not move thus.
OPHELIA: [Sings] You must sing a-down a-down,
An you call him a-down-a.
O, how the wheel becomes it! It is the false steward, that stole his master's daughter.
LAERTES: This nothing's more than matter.

While Ophelia's speech is laced with that the other characters consider complete non sequiturs, neither does Laertes respond directly to anything she says. Both are entirely disconnected from their sibling, both are holding parallel conversations. This is emotionally true of their situation, but more importantly, it continues the pattern of Ophelia being defined by men. What Laertes does here is the same he's always done, which is describe Ophelia as she is or as he thinks she should be. His sadness in part stems from the idea that he can no longer control her, though it would be unkind of anyone but his critics to say so.

OPHELIA: There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray, love, remember: and there is pansies. That's for thoughts.
LAERTES: A document in madness, thoughts and remembrance fitted.
OPHELIA: There's fennel for you, and columbines: there's rue for you; and here's some for me: we may call it herb-grace o' Sundays: O you must wear your rue with a difference. There's a daisy: I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died: they say he made a good end,--

Each flower has a meaning in local English lore, of course, and Ophelia is intimately tied to flowers in the manner of her death (she too withers). So rosemary is remembrance, pansies are thoughtfulness (in French, we call them pensées, which literally means thoughts), fennel for flattery, columbine for male adultery and ingratitude, rue for adultery and genuine repentance of all transgressions for women and everlasting suffering, daisies for innocence, and violets for fidelity. Note how it isn't always clear from the text who she gives each flower to, allowing the director and actors to modulate Ophelia's message, though of course, modern audiences will not get the hidden meanings unless Ophelia reveals them (which she sometimes does). Laertes obviously gets remembrance and thoughts, as is asked to remember her and their family as it used to be. This is in many ways her suicide note. Fennel might well go to Claudius, the flatterer, and the same character receives columbines, the sign of male adultery. So rue must go to Gertrude, though she takes some too, both women linked by suffering and the crimes of men. Proponents of the theory that Ophelia was pregnant should be aware that rue was used in abortions. The daisy (innocence) doesn't seem to go anywhere, it's been lost. As for violets, fidelity and loyalty have died along with her father. As we've seen already, she blames the Royals for her hardships.

[Sings] For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.
LAERTES: Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself,
She turns to favour and to prettiness.
OPHELIA: [Sings] And will he not come again?
And will he not come again?
No, no, he is dead:
Go to thy death-bed:
He never will come again.
His beard was as white as snow,
All flaxen was his poll:
He is gone, he is gone,
And we cast away moan:
God ha' mercy on his soul!
And of all Christian souls, I pray God. God be wi' ye.

Exit

LAERTES: Do you see this, O God?
KING CLAUDIUS: Laertes, I must commune with your grief,
Or you deny me right. Go but apart,
Make choice of whom your wisest friends you will.
And they shall hear and judge 'twixt you and me:
If by direct or by collateral hand
They find us touch'd, we will our kingdom give,
Our crown, our life, and all that we can ours,
To you in satisfaction; but if not,
Be you content to lend your patience to us,
And we shall jointly labour with your soul
To give it due content.
LAERTES: Let this be so;
His means of death, his obscure funeral--
No trophy, sword, nor hatchment o'er his bones,
No noble rite nor formal ostentation--
Cry to be heard, as 'twere from heaven to earth,
That I must call't in question.
KING CLAUDIUS: So you shall;
And where the offence is let the great axe fall.
I pray you, go with me.

Exeunt

Ophelia exits and Claudius ruthlessly exploits Laertes' vulnerability by returning to arguments of his innocence. And yet, Ophelia just delivered a coded message about the Royals' improprieties. But Laertes doesn't have all the information that would link his father's death to a sequence of events that go back at least to Hamlet Sr.'s. Not as worthy as Hamlet, Laertes will not try things further or uncover the truth until it's too late.