stiny: "Confess yourself to heaven; / Repent what's past; avoid what is to come; And do not spread the compost on the weeds, To make them ranker" (III.iv.149-52). The intensity of Hamlet's feeling makes it possible to interpret his relationship with Gertrude in Oedipal terms. But the text of the closet scene per se focuses less on Hamlet's displaced Oedipal feelings than on the residue of filial piety toward the elder Hamlet. The Ghost does not blame Gertrude for the murder, telling Hamlet to "leave her to heaven / And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge" (I.v). The Ghost explains that Gertrude was virtuous but helpless bef
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