This priest is such a dick. He’s telling the mourning brother of a dead woman that if he had his way, he’d want rocks thrown on his beloved sister. And not just stones, no, sharp stones – stones that would hurt a living body in more ways than one.
It’s one thing to believe in hell and believe someone who killed themselves is going there but to say so to a grieving family member takes a particular breed of asshole.
This dude is in the wrong business. Or if he is in the right business then the business is much crappier than it’s purported to be. That is – Christianity bills itself as compassion and mercy and all sorts of charitable things but this priest is none of those things.
This line makes me want to throw stones at him.
Author: erainbowd
And, but that great command o’ersways the order, She should in ground unsanctified have lodged Til the last trumpet.
It looks like our villain Claudius has done the right thing. The priest was persuaded to preside over an actual ceremony that he clearly objected to because the king insisted. If the king had not intervened, the priest would have had her thrown in a pit far away from any churchyard. And the priest would have definitely preferred that.
This is from my modern perspective, of course – and what I think of as a respect for Ophelia’s humanity. At the time, perhaps this move of Claudius’ is more proof of his willingness to subvert religious laws. He kills his brother, he hurries Polonius’ funeral rites and he’s sanctified a body that the priest thinks is a suicide. But to my eye now, that seems like a kindness to Laertes, who mourns her. Which – you know – points to a calculation on Claudius’ part. He may have persuaded the priest, not for Ophelia, but to keep Laertes from rioting again and staging another coup.
Her death was doubtful.
As Gertrude described it, Ophelia’s death sounds entirely like an accident – like a mad woman falling into a creek and not having enough sense to climb back out. There’s nothing in that speech that suggests Ophelia meant to off herself. She doesn’t fill her pockets with stones and wade into the water; she frolics around hanging wreathes on trees, falls in the water and just floats, and sings while she floats, and then she sinks.
Now.
Is Gertrude telling the truth? If she is – this whole “doubtful”ness of the death is bullshit.
If she isn’t – and she has quite a few reasons NOT to tell the truth – then we have to imagine an entirely different image for Ophelia’s last moments. If the priest is convinced she killed herself, she must have put some stones in her pockets, declared she was done with the world and either jumped or waded in.
And no one trying to kill themselves just floats around waiting to die. So the paintings of Ophelia are Gertrude’s painted image of the death, not what actually happened to her.
And what HAPPENED to those guys who were supposed to follow her?
Is it their fault?
Her obsequies have been as for enlarged As we have warrantise.
Why is this guy called the First Priest? No other priest speaks in this scene. There is no mention of a second priest in the stage directions.
In other situations when there is only one of a kind of character speaking, he is just sailor or gentleman. One would think this priest would just be PRIEST. But he is FIRST PRIEST.
And his language is VERY overblown and obfuscating. I can see why Claudius might choose him for such an event. He’s a little Polonius-like. I mean, to say “obsequies” when Laertes has been asking for “ceremony” is just the beginning. Enlarged and warrantise are equally inflating. And then he goes on to be a real dick a few lines later – which maybe people miss because his language is so self obfuscating.
What’s funny though is that the language gets crystal clear when he’s at his worst. “Shards, flints and pebbles should be thrown on her” is perfectly direct…but then he gets arch again immediately after.
What ceremony else?
This is an interesting repetition. Usually a repetition happens within the line and this one sandwiches a line from Hamlet. But because Laertes doesn’t hear Hamlet – it really is an internal repetition for him. That is, as far as Laertes is concerned, he just says this line twice in a row.
Is he asking different people or asking the priest twice, one more forcefully than the other?
Mark.
Is there another character in Shakespeare who says “mark” as much as Hamlet?
It feels like he’s always getting someone to note something. I mean, he is an observant dude – and it does follow that once you’ve observed something, you want to bring another’s attention to it. Certainly that is partly why I blog, why I talk with people, why I podcast – to share what I have observed with others. I want them to mark what I have observed.
That is Laertes, a very noble youth.
Does Horatio really not know Laertes? He’s seen Ophelia, for sure. But I guess, yeah, Laertes left at the top of the play and I suppose it is possible that he could have missed him.
But it is curious that Hamlet describes him as just a noble youth. It would be more logical to describe him as Ophelia’s brother or Polonius’ son. Horatio should have a sense of those people even if he didn’t have much contact with Laertes.
However – it would sort of give the game away early if Hamlet mentioned Ophelia at this moment. Better to describe Laertes on his own merits and then realize it is his sister going in the ground.
What ceremony else?
Before I saw a military funeral, I don’t think I was particularly inclined toward ceremony. I did not quite see the point of burial rites of graveside services or any of the rituals to mark the passing of a person.
But I get it now. It’s powerful. Ceremony marks the passage clearly and definitely. It is over. The life lived has passed and it has been marked.
Couch we awhile, and mark.
My favorite bit of Kenneth Branagh’s delightful film, A Midwinter’s Tale, is when one of the (not very professional) actors confesses that whenever he forgets a line or what he’s supposed to do, he says, “Crouch we here awhile and lurk.” And then crouches behind something and waits. I do not think this line exists anywhere in the canon – at least not exactly – but I do so love it.
And it DOES sound a great deal like “Couch we awhile, and mark.”
And one could use it for just such an eventuality just as easily.
‘Twas of some estate.
This is kind of a fun way to say that someone is rich or well-to-do. It’s like a way that only someone of estate would say it.
It makes me think about all those articles and studies that point out how the wealthy never want to call themselves rich – they like to say things like “comfortable.” I can imagine that “of some estate” might well fit into that same category.
The Hamlet Project 