But howsomever thou pursues this act, Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive Against thy mother aught.

erainbowd

Now how’s the son of a murdered king
SUPPOSED to pursue this act
Without tainting his mind?
Seems to me, instilling a murderous directive
Is instant taint and it’s the ghost that’s
Doing the tainting.
However – howsomever
I also question how a soul
Could contrive anything at all
Unless I’m vastly misunderstanding
What a soul is.
It would seem to me that contrivance
Would be a quality of the brain
So I wonder how one prevents
Thy soul from contriving
Even against one’s mother
Or whomsoever.

2 thoughts on “But howsomever thou pursues this act, Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive Against thy mother aught.”

  1. Andrew Seeley's avatar Andrew Seeley August 10, 2013 / 9:28 am

    I totally agree that “Taint not thy mind” taken alone makes no sense, given the murderous rage the ghost is arousing in Hamlet. How about taking this with the next line: “Taint not thy mind…against thy mother.”

    Reply
    • erainbowd's avatar erainbowd August 10, 2013 / 10:06 pm

      Ah! Yes! THAT does make much more sense. Brilliant.
      And maybe a clever editor would put a comma in there after the soul contriving bit. . .

      Reply

Leave a reply to Andrew Seeley Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.