Is there a Shakespeare lexicon App yet?
Probably there’s a limited market. Probably there aren’t legions of people clamoring for something that would be a quick reference for words like truepenny. I’d like to know all the possible associations with True Pennies – but instead, I’ll make up my own. There must have been a run on counterfeit coins so that one had to determine what pennies were true and which were false. A true penny inspired confidence and relief and came to be associated with affection and loyalty. You called someone a Truepenny in the same moment you might affectionately tousle his hair. Your school chum, your son, your familiar servant, your lover, or sure, why not, the ghost of your father.
Author: erainbowd
Ha, ha, boy, sayst thou so?
Boy? We’re getting a bit familiar with this ghost now, aren’t we?
He’s a king, for one thing and your father and you’re calling him “boy?”
I have a pretty familiar relationship with my dad in the much more casual 21st century, and still I cannot imagine calling him “boy.”
Is it possible this is a close approximation to a “whoo boy!” exclamation?
As in “whoo boy it’s hot outside” or “Whoo boy I’m tired.”
“Whoo boy there’s a ghost’s voice rising up through the floor!”
Swear.
It really is supposed to help you feel better.
Have I said this already? Have I set down the scientific study that proves that swearing helps diminish pain? Goddamn it. Why do I always forget what’s come be-fucking-fore?! I feel a strong need to swear at the moment (not this way, of course, there’s nothing I feel I need to swear by or to or for) but I have a strong desire to let loose a string of expletives, at full volume. Not to ease the physical pain (that queasiness in my belly isn’t all that bad) but to ease the pain of sitting in meetings, or receiving condescending emails, or watching my experience devalued, diminished, tossed away like rubbish – of being treated as if I were disposable. It’s like holding my hand against ice, as they did in the study, and I’m finding it harder and harder to keep my hand there pressed against the biting cold, watching my fingers turn pink and then red, wondering how much longer I can keep this up.
Indeed, upon my sword, indeed.
If there’s an argument for Hamlet actually being a bit mad, I might support it here. There’s something slightly manic about the repetition of “indeed” and the insistence of multiple swearings. This scene is one of the only ones that feel like madness or, at least, mania. All the other madnesses seem to fit right into a feigned madness. He never gets out of control. He has said, “I will pretend to be crazy.” He confesses to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern as much as “I’m on to you. I’m not as crazy as I let on.” He really does know a hawk from a handsaw. But in this moment. I think if a hawk flew by, he’d barely notice it – even if it were riding a handsaw.
We have sworn, my lord, already.
Is Marcellus hesitating to swear upon a sword for some reason?
Is it that this swearing will be redundant after the preceding swearing in faith?
Is it that swearing upon a sword involves contact with the blade in such a way that might be painful to the swearer?
It’s possible that this is an oath Marcellus isn’t sure he should commit to before knowing what exactly the problem here is. Or maybe he’s thinking that this is one of those times when you might have to break a trust with someone in order to do something in their best interest.
I’ve had to do that and it was awful. I’d do it again, though.
I know that I will call a policeman to save you from yourself no matter how much you might hate me for it.
There are promises one just can’t keep.
Marcellus makes this one, then disappears.
Upon my sword.
Faith is not enough for Hamlet. They have sworn already in faith. But Hamlet must have something he can touch and wield. It does not hurt that this thing can also hurt, that they will swear by something he can swing into them should they swerve from faith.
Nor I, my lord – in faith.
Sometimes you commit to a project that you made up for yourself, one which only you give a shit about, one which no one may ever read but you and then you wonder why you bother. It’s all going along just fine – fruitlessly perhaps – the spinning of words not really amounting to anything but when does it ever? But then you come across the next step, the step of the staircase, almost identical to the stair before it and the one before that and suddenly you need a whole lot of strength or will or something to put your foot on the next one. There’s really nothing at the top of the stairs, nor anything particularly compelling about the journey. There’s nothing at the bottom urging you up, nor anything down there that would shame you if you returned. There’s literally no reason at all to keep walking up the stairs. Well, there’s one. It is simply the agreement with yourself that you would walk up and an idea that you would keep going even when it got difficult. Or tedious. So you keep walking up. One step at a time.
In faith, my lord, not I.
And who will help me pick the wheat?
And who will help me carry it to the mill?
And who will help me grind it?
And who will help me bake the bread?
And who will help me eat it?
Hamlet, as the Little Red Hen.
Horatio, as the pig.
Marcellus, as whatever other animals are in this story.
Nay, but swear’t.
I don’t do much swearing of this sort. But I do enjoy swear words, as do most people I know. There’s scientific evidence that swearing helps diminish pain. They did a study with ice and the group that swore could withstand the freezing pain significantly longer. I wonder if our cultural turning to swearing belies a pain that we’re attempting to diminish. If we can shout “FUCK!” loud enough, perhaps our angst will fade and disappear.
My lord, we will not.
It’s a tricky thing when characters speak together. It almost never seems spontaneous.
No character ever speaks with another in a play, then looks at the other in wonder, the way we do when this happens in life. Onstage, choral speaking is an accepted convention, I suppose.
I have no objection to it. In fact I’d probably like more of it. It’s satisfying to hear people speak together.
Just once, though, I’d like to see two characters speak at once, then look at each other and do a “Jinx, buy me a coke” gesture.
The Hamlet Project 