The Hamlet Project

1. Once you find out the translation of this bit of Latin, can you keep the Beatles song “Here, There and Everywhere” out of your head?
2. Why is Hamlet speaking Latin right now? He’s not trying to impress anyone, I would imagine. Do the rest of the people in this scene speak Latin? Hamlet’s a scholar. Horatio is too. So that’s two. Does the ghost? Marcellus? In the midst of a moment when a ghost is throwing his voice all over the stage, why throw in a Latin phrase?
3. Was this maybe some popular Latin catch phrase that everybody used? Like a Renaissance “Isn’t that special?”
4. Normally, the characters that toss in a Latin phrase or two are high on the self-importance scale. Holofernes. Polonius. The occasional high falutin’ fool. Hamlet’s wordy, for sure – but pompous? Maybe.