Author: erainbowd

Most like a gentleman.

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Before I knew a truly gentle man, I thought of a gentlemen as just one word – you know – fancy noble type people. But then I spent some time with a man that had gentleness in his core and I thought about how the notion of gentleman is somehow supposed to express, through various signals, a degree of culture and that cultural is meant to have a civilizing effect.
Being a gentleman has been a way of demonstrating that the animal within is under control, that gentleness has won over cruelty, that kindness prevails over aggression.

Unfortunately, the bulk of horrors performed by humans in the gentlemen years were in fact performed by gentlemen. There was some idea that putting on suits and following modes of conduct would make men behave with gentleness but instead, in some cases, they became crueler, more subverted, better at hiding and sublimating – the sort of person who would open the door for the Duchess properly but in private, do her no kindnesses, or any other woman neither.

So there are gentlemen, who perform the role of gentleman appropriately and there are men who are gentle in a suit or out of it.

Did he receive you well?

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I didn’t grow up with a lot of social rituals. I learned some basic manners but not a whole lot of rules. My friend, though, grew up with a whole host of guidelines. She knows what fork to use at every occasion and is exacting in her speech.

And these things seem to be primarily a matter of class, the more social status you have as you grow up, the more ways to do things incorrectly emerge. In thinking about this Queen’s concern about Hamlet’s reception, it makes me wonder if she’s asking about his manners as much as anything.

A Royal family would, I imagine, have the most etiquette of all. There would likely be very precise ways of receiving guests, of greeting them, of parting company, of interacting while with company. The queen could be asking if her son had a good rapport with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, but she could also be asking if he’s retained his social control, if he still has his manners, if he at least continues to follow the code.

Nor do we find him forward to be sounded, But with a crafty madness keeps aloof When we would bring him on to some confession Of his true state.

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Guildenstern! What are you up to here? With every thing Rosencrantz says, in this scene, Guildenstern seconds it with a shade of derision of Hamlet. Guildenstern escalates Rosencrantz’s assessment of Hamlet as distracted to a “crafty madness” taking something relatively benign and turning it into a something a bit darker.

Is he trying to curry favor with Claudius? Has he seen which way the wind is blowing and decided to side with the king instead of the Prince?

This portion of the scene might be played as a struggle between Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, as to what side they’re on. Rosencrantz could seemingly be taking Hamlet’s side, Guildenstern, the King’s. There’s a lot of interesting stuff going on with Guildenstern if you look closely enough.

He does confess he feels himself distracted, But from what cause ‘a will by no means speak.

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I feel myself MUCH distracted and while I might not speak of it in many circles, I have no hesitation about revealing its cause here.
It’s poverty. Poverty is very distracting.
I watched a talk by Sendhil Mullainathan on the topic of his book, Scarcity and discovered that I already suspected feelingly. That when we are struggling with money, it detracts from our ability to focus on other things. Our brains continually circle back to “How am I going to make this work?” and “Where will the money come from?”

I feel this acutely. And it’s painful because the thoughts of “how will I get what I need?” intrude on the ability to do the things I need to do in order to actually make changes, or to promote the work I already do.

I used to be able to trick myself into believing I wasn’t poor. It allowed me to proceed along As If. But with struggles coming from so many corners, I can only feel my failures and my lack. I have just a little work here and a little work there and none of it adds up to enough. It is very distracting.

And can you by no drift of conference Get from him why he puts on this confusion, Grating so harshly all his days of quiet With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?

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I’m interested in this phrase about Hamlet PUTTING ON his confusion.

Is Claudius on to Hamlet? Does he know he’s faking madness? And if so, does he know why?
If he suspects, does he think Hamlet would tell Rosencrantz and Guildenstern about it?

And what if Hamlet had said, “Yeah guys, you know, you’re right. I have, of late, lost all my mirth. And I’ll tell you the fuck why. That king that hired you to spy on me actually killed my motherfucking father and I know it’s true because my murdered father’s ghost told me so. Now guys, it’s up to you: do you want to tell the king the real reason I’m upset? Do you guys want to accuse him of murder to his face? Because I’ll tell you, if he DID it, he’s not going to want to ever see your faces again and he will probably make sure that no one ever does. If he didn’t do it (a possibility I think is SUPER SLIM) he’ll be insulted and probably have you at least thrown in the dungeon if not actually executed for suggesting it.
Anyway that’s what’s actually going on with me. Share whatever you’d like with His Highness.”

The play’s the thing Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.

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The amazing thing about this strategy is that it works. Or rather, it works in this play. In real life, I’ve almost never seen someone use art to communicate something and have it directly understood. I think of all the love-sick mix-tapes I made as a young person. I was trying to say something (usually, “I LOVE you!”) and also trying very hard to mask it. So I’d put on “You Do Something to Me” and immediately follow it with The Smothers Brothers doing “The Streets of Laredo” and somehow expect my listener to both know I loved him and also be able to claim innocence in case he wasn’t interested. (And he usually wasn’t. Mix-tapes not usually being the thing that’ll win a man’s heart.)

I’ve watched people watching shows or movies that would seem to be exactly what they were struggling with and they can somehow emerge unaffected by the similarities of their lives and the characters. There have been many times in which I have been stunned by how the personal connections sail right past them. But Claudius gets it right away. Hamlet sets The Mousetrap and Claudius goes for the cheese and gets caught. Hamlet sets it up as a test and it totally works.

Which does remind me of that time I wrote a song about a man I liked and years later, after I didn’t really like him anymore, I played that song at a gig he happened to attend. And he totally caught it. He came up to me and said, “This may be one of those – ‘You’re so vain you probably think this song is about you’ situations. But I sort of thing that song is about me.” So sometimes Art does say what you meant it to say. Just maybe not when you meant to say it.

I’ll have grounds More relative than this.

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Grounds is a very funny word. In this case it is most clearly linked to the legal sense of grounds, as in grounds for arrest, grounds for divorce, etc. But where does that come from? A sort of metaphorical sense? That you must be able to stand firmly on the thing – that you need ground enough to stand on?

The college in my hometown calls its campus The Grounds, which gives it a sort of stately mansion feel, as one does tend to wander the grounds of a nobleman’s estate.

And then, there are coffee grounds, as in something that has been ground up, I guess. That is probably not a place where you stand.

The spirit I have seen May be a devil, and the devil hath power T’assume a pleasing shape, yea, and perhaps Out of my weakness and my melancholy, As he is very potent with such spirits, Abuses me to damn me.

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In a world with devils in it, this is a very logical and reasonable thing to consider. And why shouldn’t the Ghost be a devil? It’s already supernatural to have a Ghost appear; why not go an additional step and have a devil ghost?

In fact, what if, even if what the ghost says is true (and we have to assume it is, based on Claudius’ soliloquy) it were still a devil? After all, this play does end in a TOTAL tragedy. The entire Danish court is murdered. Every single one. As a diabolical plan, this one is pretty good.

Maybe it doesn’t end up with everyone going to hell – (it’s possible that Hamlet and Laertes escape the tormenting flames due to their exchange of forgiveness but otherwise,) the devils would seem to have racked up a nice list here.
1) The old king Hamlet (all his sins upon his head)
2) Polonius? (This one’s a toss-up. We have no real evidence of his sins.)
3) Ophelia (drowning yourself being a one-way ticket to hell)
4) Gertrude (assuming she had a hand in at least one of the things going on around here – adultery, maybe? Accessory to murder, possibly? Standing there watching Ophelia drown herself maybe?)
5) Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (Just for being toadies, I’d say. Though maybe they get a second to absolve themselves before they get beheaded.)
6) Claudius (big score there)
In terms of creating mischief, this is great devil’s work. In terms of upping the population of hell, it’s also pretty damn good.

If ‘a do blench, I know my course.

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It suddenly occurs to me that Hamlet might really be hoping that Claudius won’t blench at this point. (Not that I’m entirely clear what blenching is, now that I really think about it. I’ve always thought of it as a kind of blend between flinching and turning white.)

But his course really ISN’T a pleasant one. Of course he doesn’t want to follow it. Kill his uncle? I’d certainly be hoping that this little theatrical test might let me off the hook. Of course, that’s me. I’d be looking for any out I could find.

I’ll tent him to the quick.

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I have heard this speech hundreds of times. I have read it over and over again. I have even memorized it and performed it. But I don’t know if I ever really gave this line much thought. Looking at it on its own, it feels like I’ve never heard or seen it before.

Out of context, I would think if I were attempting to tent a man, I would be attempting to get his manhood to stand to. Or if not raising the tent pole, tenting him might be to provide him shelter. Tents are seemingly the same idea for Caesar and Antony as they are for us, though without the zipper and high-tech fabrics, of course.

But in context, it seems tenting has an entirely different meaning, one that is perhaps more related to attention than tee-pees. To tent someone to the quick might then be a way to attend to them so closely, you could almost see inside them.

Sometimes that’s what doing Feldenkrais feels like. Just attending to someone so closely you can almost read their minds *but of course, you are simply (or rather not so simply) reading their bodies and movement.