The Hamlet Project

Even though I know that to gambol means to play around, skip about, to frolic, as it were – I still thought gambols were a particular dance move, like a jig or a caper or that move that Sir Andrew Aguecheek can do as well as any man in Illyria. But one moment with a dictionary clarifies that gambols are just the noun version of gamboling.

All of which makes me quite curious about Yorick’s gambols. How did he gambol? Gracefully? Awkwardly? Like a child or a clumsy fool? Was Yorick a joyful clown or a cynical one? I suspect he must have and a playful spirit to have connected so potently with the young Hamlet. But that doesn’t tell us his comic stylings.