Traps

Another image-pattern reflecting the way in which the Danish court is full of deceit is that of entrapment:

• Early in the play (Act I scene iii) Laertes suggests to Ophelia that she could be within the range of Hamlet's seduction —
  
  ‘the shot and danger of desire'
   
• Polonius introduces a more specific image of bird-catching: Hamlet's words of love to her are
  
  ‘springes to catch woodcocks'
   
• Laertes uses the same image as he dies — he has been caught in his own trap,
  
  ‘as a woodcock to mine own springe'
   
• Birds were also caught by smearing a sticky ‘lime' on branches, and in Act III scene iii Claudius feels that he becomes more entangled and entrapped in sin as he tries to escape its consequences:
  
  ‘limed soul, that, struggling to be free, / Art more engaged!'
   
• Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are also caught in a trap (the letter to England) set for Hamlet, and, using the image of a bomb-maker blown up by his own hidden mine, he rejoices to find
  
  ‘the engineer hoist with his own petard'
   
• Although the play which the travelling players perform is originally called ‘The Murder of Gonzago', Hamlet calls it ‘The Mousetrap' — a trap by which Hamlet will
  
  ‘catch the conscience of the King'.

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