I want to know if this is a genuine question. Is Hamlet asking because he really wants to know or is he just switching tactics for setting Osric up?
It’s funny to think of people as having a weapon. Like – in Dungeons and Dragons, it’s perfectly logical for everyone to have a weapon. But for human beings to specialize in different weapons? It’s a little funny. And also not at all funny.
I mean – what’s my weapon? I’ve taken some stage combat – what was my favorite way to hurt someone?
Oh, my feet, for sure. I love a good kick. Followed only by a punch.
But also I like a weapon that’s not usually a weapon – a pen, for example – both to write something devastating but also to poke in an eye.
Author: erainbowd
But in the imputation Laid on him by them, in his meed he’s unfellowed.
Uh…who’s “them” here? Which “them” laid all this imputation on Laertes? Also – I feel that “meed” here is not accidentally sitting here sounding just like “mead” when Laertes has had a little experience with the drinking establishments in France. I mean – it’s a joke just sitting there waiting for Hamlet to make – and then he doesn’t. He goes right to an actually practical and non-joke question.
He lets that mead/meed confusion just rest there on the table.
I mean, sir, for his weapon.
It is interesting how “weapon” can so easily become a euphemism for penis. Osric surely doesn’t mean it that way but any group of actors is very likely to make this joke between shows or in rehearsal. Penis as a weapon is one of those long standing jokes – sword, dagger, rapier, etc.
And it’s funny, it’s funny, It’s so funny.
But there have been quite a few men who have, historically, used their penises as weapons. Rape is basically the weaponization of the penis.
I don’t understand how anyone would enjoy part of his body inflicting pain and trauma on another person. If I “lost control” of my knee sometimes and just “couldn’t help myself” and couldn’t stop kneeing dudes in the balls, I feel like I’d develop a sort of complicated relationship with my knee. Like, I’d need the knee to walk and to dance and what not but also, there it is – just, compulsively forcing itself into men’s crotches.
I feel like I would take precautions. I would find ways to mitigate my knee’s dark impulses. Maybe wrap it in bubble wrap? Hang signs from it that said, “Men beware, this knee wants to kick you. Maintain a distance of four feet at all times.”
If my knee were a weapon, I’d hope I would find ways to keep it sheathed. And for the men who don’t see their penises as weapons, those men seem like can just enjoy a part of their bodies and women’s bodies as well. It doesn’t really seem like it’s that difficult to just have a body with different parts and treat all other bodies with respect.
But to know a man well, were to know himself.
Certainly the better I know others, the better I know myself. When I see others clearly, I see myself in counterpoint or in affinity. I recognize that a trait that I hadn’t even noticed in myself is not universal, that it IS a trait. When I see others behaving in ways I can’t imagine, I can see some of the ways I diverge from them and could never imagine making their choices.
As a highly empathetic person I have often been unable to distinguish between myself and others. I used to not be sure which desires were mine and which belonged to others, so fused with them I felt myself to be.
But the more specific one gets about people, the more our beautiful diversity and divergence comes forward.
I dare not confess that, lest I should compare with Him in excellence.
And, of course, he does compare with him in excellence. They are, in fact, fairly evenly matched and Hamlet knows it. But it suits him to play the humble man. He stands to gain more from that.
You are not ignorant of what excellence Laertes is –
Look at Osric, doubling down on what he was going to say – just trying it again – just going on forward even though Hamlet purposefully misunderstood him.
He doesn’t rephrase, he just tries to continue his original idea – maybe fix it by doubling down on it.
Well, sir?
You’d think those years of teaching would have taught me how to do a really high quality school marm look and tone. And I can do the voice. I can do the look. But even so, I find it hard to call it forth when talking to grown-ass men who need to be called out. It might be a little easier to conjure than the wolf growl I’ve been working on.
Yet, in faith, if you did, It would not much approve me.
I feel as though, all my life, I was seeking approval from those who were unworthy of my regard. Being thought intelligent by the unintelligent would not have been any great feat – or even being thought intelligent by the intelligent but clueless or intelligent but misogynist. If I had been thought of at all by these dudes in power, it would have only been due to my physical attributes – my fuckability, perhaps. So – their approval would not have much approved me.
I would you did, sir.
That is the thing that is so infuriating, really. It’s like – my whole life I’ve been aware of sexism and I have never not been a feminist. But the level of the way things are stacked against women, still, still…well, it is astounding. What I realize when I really look at so many of the statistics laid out is that my abilities are, in fact, completely invisible to those in power and those in power are almost all men. None of them know I am not ignorant – even with pages of evidence before them, they would still be blind to anything I have to offer.
I would that they knew I was not ignorant, just the way Hamlet would that Osric knew he was not ignorant despite having said so. But alas.
I know you are not ignorant –
Today I was reading the section of Soraya Chemaly’s book where she lays out how little men think of women’s intelligence and capability. I don’t recall the exact statistic but I believe that men assumed women’s ignorance at a rather startlingly large percentage. The assumption of capability just comes with your gender if you’re a cis male.
I nearly spit with rage when I read about the doctor who was dismissed on the plane, whose credentials were questioned when the first white man to stand up and claim doctorhood was ushered to the sick person immediately.
I am spitting mad about it. And in general. It has always been thus but I cannot tolerate it anymore.
The Hamlet Project 