I’m a little obsessed with how little there is to this joke with the carriages and hangers and canons. Like, I get that the funny part seems to be imagining a guy walking down the street with canons hanging off his lips. That is the funny part. But it would be a whole lot funnier if the hangers were an aspect of the joke. If it could somehow also be making a hangman joke (a hanger being another word for an executioner – another way to say hangman) or if it were a dirty joke. To have the centerpiece of the joke be canons at the hip…I don’t know. It feels a little simple for Shakespeare. He is not wont to go so far for a one image joke.
Author: erainbowd
The phrase would be more German to the matter, if we Could carry cannon by our sides.
German comes from germaine – which is related to being of a family – of the same parents or grandparents. But the people of Germany – that German – comes from a totally different root somehow? German being Latin. Germaine being French. Which of course comes from The Latin. So perhaps german has some German roots, too. But the funny bit of language is that a German could be german.
The carriages, sir, are the hangers.
When it comes to hanging, Shakespeare is USUALLY making a joke. He’s usually making a dick joke and/or a joke about execution.
So I’m trying very hard to make this line a joke somehow – even if only a joke at Osric’s expense.
Hangers could also be a reference to balls.
Could carriages as well? I mean – it’s just too good of an opportunity – a totally meaningless conversation about sword paraphernalia and you’re NOT going to include some dirty jokes? I just don’t see how Shakespeare could resist such a thing.
But I also don’t see a way to make this line work in a dirty way with any real likelihood.
I could deliver it as such – but it would require the laughter of Hamlet and Horatio to really sell it.
I knew you must be edified by the margent ere you had done.
Even while teasing the prince, Horatio still uses formal language. It is an interesting distance and ease – a combination of collegial informality of teasing about academic marginalia AND a royal distance with his “You.”
What call you the carriages?
Carriage is a funny word to have lasted all these years. It seems to have begun as a sort of cart – like – anything as wheels. And then anything that carries something else, as in this case, with the sword belts carrying swords and now we use it similarly for train cars, for baby carriers, for the fancy horse driven conveyances that people take through Central Park.
But it sounds as though carriage here is a not common usage.
It might be Osric prettying up “sword holders.”
Three of the Carriages, in faith, are very dear to fancy, very Responsive to the hilts, most delicate carriages, And of very liberal conceit.
This is a rather rapturous response to some sword paraphernalia. And this does rather suggest that Osric has had the opportunity to peruse them all. That suggests they have been on display, more or less. Perhaps having the swords out and touched and admired adds the opportunity for plausible deniability. The plan is, after all, to cut Hamlet with a poisoned sharp sword and if the swords have been lying around in front of just everyone – their carriages fondled considerably by men like Osric, then men like Osric will be the most likely to be fingered in the crime once it has happened. Clever really. If it had gone off as planned – Claudius might have had Osric arrested for Hamlet’s murder.
Against the which he has imponed, as I take It, six French rapiers and poniards, with their Assigns, as girdle, hangers, and so:
So this is what Laertes is staking in this bet?
The pronouns don’t make this whole situation especially clear.
But also – it is a very odd amount of specificity.
Like – why does Osric know about all the accessories of these swords?
Has Laertes made a display of his swords? Has he brought them out and paraded them around?
Is Claudius doing the same with his six Barbary horses?
Are the horses walking around a track with Laertes’ swords on their backs?
I think this section is often cut in most productions so I’ve not really paid it much attention before but it is wholly bizarre.
And the fact that Laertes and Claudius are doing it all for show so they can kill Hamlet without discovery is even more bizarre.
The king, sir, hath wagered with him six Barbary Horses:
The use of “with” here makes me wonder what the conditions and rules of this duel actually are.
The king has wagered with Laertes.
Does this mean he has bet Laertes? That is – if Laertes wins, he’ll give him six Barbary horses? Is that the deal? And then this whole swords with their carriages is what Laertes will give Claudius if he loses?
Is that right?
It’s not just a simple “Let’s see who wins” situation. There are stakes. But not for Hamlet – at least not in the public set up. It’s odd to frame it that way. The conditions are sort of needlessly complex. But maybe that needless complexity is on purpose – to distract from the murdering they’re planning on doing. If everyone is busy thinking about Barbary horses and carriages of swords, then they might not notice the murdering.
That’s two of his weapons: but well.
Classic joke. Just. Classic.
I feel like I want to do a study where I ask comedians to analyze and breakdown the jokes in Hamlet. (And possibly some other plays as well.) Like – what would we call this? Does this type of joke have a name? I’ve written a couple of jokes into my novel for young people and they’re not quite this style but they have a style similar to each other and I wonder if those jokes have a category.
Is there a book of lazzi for the modern age? A book of verbal zingers – a collection and/or taxonomy of language based jokes?
Rapier and dagger.
I’m curious about what this choice of weapons says about Laertes.
Does it reveal something about his character?
A quick google shows me that rapier and dagger was considered something that only a master fencer would use. My research on this matter is one academic style blog on the internet so it’s not extensive – but if it were so…it would suggest that simply by choice of weapon, Laertes is a skilled swordsman. It’s like – if you hear that someone is a doctor and then hear what kind, and he’s a neurosurgeon and also you were invited to have a doctoring contest with him.
The Hamlet Project 