This sort of thing keeps many a storyteller alive. They may be particularly sensitive to the harshness of the world, to the miseries that afflict the many but they will draw their breath in pain because they feel a sense of responsibility to tell someone’s story.

One’s own story might keep you alive for a little bit but ultimately, for a consummate storyteller, it will be the responsibility to recount others’ stories that will keep them going.

It is a harsh world. It is also beautiful sometimes. The responsibility (either given or taken on) of telling someone’s story is sometimes enough to help one draw one’s breath in less pain.

It occurs to me, as I read this line, that Horatio is a sort of stand in for Shakespeare. We can imagine him as the writer of this play – attempting to clear Hamlet’s wounded name for him. It is, after all, the writer of this play who creates what lives behind Hamlet.

Of course, he also made him up. But if we look at Horatio – he does behave a lot like a writer. He observes. He watches. He listens. He asks questions. He is charged to tell this story – even if he must draw his breath in pain to do it.

Horatio must be holding that cup pretty tightly for Hamlet to have to say this.

It also occurs to me that Hamlet may not succeed in getting the cup. He’s weak, after all, losing his facility with his body, I expect. It’s clearly not having an impact on his mind or his speech. This would mean that the next lines are further attempts to get Horatio to put down that cup. That powers those lines rather powerfully.

I think I’ve usually seen this line with Hamlet getting a burst of energy and getting his hands on the cup. The next lines then become a little speech rather than a plea for Horatio to give up the deadly cup. I mean – I understand why this happens. If Horatio doesn’t surrender the cup, he could look like a real asshole who is teasing a dying man. It’s a hard look to avoid under the circumstances, though.

It’s funny that Horatio chooses to wrestle with Hamlet over this cup, right at the hour of his death. I mean, there’s a lot of things I’d choose to do at the side of a dying person – sing to them, ask them if there’s anything they need, adjust their comfort in some way, hug them, hold their hand, brush their hair, share stories, share jokes – but one thing I would not do is make them try to take something from me. Hamlet can’t be at his strongest and yet here’s Horatio holding onto this cup of poison wine while Hamlet struggles to get it from him.
If he wants to kill himself with it – why not wait until Hamlet is dead and save him the energy in his last moments on earth?

The reason to do it now is to show Hamlet he means to do it and if Hamlet doesn’t like it – just let that cup go!

Even here, at the point at death, potentially for both of them, manhood is still of the utmost importance. Is there something about dying like a man? I mean, yes, of course there is. It’s how they get young men, through the ages, to risk their lives in war. The appeal of dying like a man is so strong that even thoughtful wise ones will join up to do it.

So here is Horatio attempting to die like a man, specifically a Roman one from ancient times and here is Hamlet attempting to prevent Horatio’s dying by invoking his manhood. He is basically countering one concept of manliness by pulling in another.

My god, the suffering men have put themselves through just to feel part of their own gender.

What is popping out to me today is “the unsatisfied.” I don’t think I ever noticed this last bit of the line before. I could have quoted you the first bit without hesitation. What would Hamlet like Horatio to do at the end of the play? That’s easy.

Report me and my cause aright!

But – to whom?

I couldn’t have told you.

I don’t know whether “to the unsatisfied” is often cut or if most Hamlets swallow the last part so it sort of disappears – but it disappeared to me until today. Because who are the unsatisfied? Largely, we’re talking to the audience here. It’s an epilogue sort of moment – it’s an end of the play plea before the play has ended. It’s like Rosalind or Puck at the end of the play hoping that you liked it and Hamlet is handing over the responsibility of storytelling  to Horatio and hopping he can satisfy those who have not been satisfied by what has happened thus far.

I also am struck by the creation of the group. The Unsatisfied have gathered together, bound together by unsatisfaction and there is a hope, a small hope to be sure, but still a hope that a story from Horatio might be enough to convert them from The Unsatisfied to The Satisfied.

I would love to make that sort of affinity group switch myself. Could a story do the trick?

It’s probably important to have someone remind you that you’re alive on occasion. It’s probably even more potent when that reminder comes from a dying person. Just being near death like that can serve as a reminder of life. Watching someone die heightens the difference between the living and the dead. Ah! I am alive. Ah! My blood pumps throughout my body. It makes my flesh pliant, it puts a spark in my eyes. Life courses through me every minute and almost every minute I take it for granted.