Yet another insightful bit of social commentary from the “clown.”
Class is a social construction.
There were no gentlemen in ancient times – not for a good long while.
In a small growing society, there is no need for a separation.
Everyone is a worker at the beginning.
Author: erainbowd
Come, my spade.
This line just made me post my first ever annotation on the Genius website. I have often liked a post or even voted something down. But – I’ve never been moved to contribute before. In this case, I just couldn’t let it stand that this line could only mean “Come my fellow gravedigger.” I mean – sure – that’s a possibility but it’s also the least practical, the most of a stretch. In my experience with Shakespeare, the best solution is often the simplest, most elegant, most logical.
What’s more logical here? For the gravedigger to want his fellow gravedigger to come or to be handed his spade or even to speak to the spade itself before he uses it.
I’m not saying he’s definitely NOT talking to his fellow gravedigger but it is only one possibility of several.
And the more pity that Great folk should have countenance in this world to drown or hang themselves, more than their even Christian.
I am embarrassed to say that I have mostly missed this social critique in my many encounters with this play and this scene. Maybe it’s often cut – but it’s darkly funny and terribly sharp. Like, it’s too bad that rich people have more leeway to kill themselves than the poor. I mean – the inequities go all the way up and all the way down to the grave.
I have taught this play to dozens of classes of young people who are not inexperienced with income inequality. They might have really appreciated the proposition that rich people get more rope to hang themselves than the poor if I had thought to direct them to this section. But no, I probably cut it to make it easier to say.
Why, there thou say’st.
Tracking the switches between thee/thou and you in this scene is a bit of a whirlwind. This scene only started a few lines ago and we’re already switched back and forth. We started at thee, switched to you and are now back at thou.
This very much supports my notion that this scene is a status battle.
If this had not been a gentlewoman, she should have been buried out o’ Christian burial.
This is actually a pretty astute social observation for a character that is often played as stupid. This is not stupid. This is very likely the real unvarnished truth. There are rules that do not apply to the gentry, to the upper crust, to the wealthy. Rules are stringently applied to the poor and loosely to the privileged.
Now – in this case, we don’t know that Ophelia is NOT due this Christian burial. By Gertrude’s account, she drowned by accident – so it’s perfectly acceptable to bury her legitimately. But – with even a whiff of doubt, a poor woman would have likely been shifted to the doubtful corner. A noblewoman, a gentlewoman, enjoys the benefit of the doubt and a poor woman, if there is any doubt, does not enjoy any benefit. There is no benefit of the doubt for a poor woman. Probably a priest is expensive.
Will you ha’ the truth on’t?
Yes, please. I will always have the truth on it. I’d like to have the systemic truth, the political truth, the personal truth. I am very much attached to authenticity.
That is not to say I need to have my truth unvarnished. I like some varnishing. I don’t need to be told if I don’t look my best – I don’t care, really – and someone’s opinion on this will only make me feel bad. I also am willing to sit on the truth for peace – like in some of my relationships where we just quietly accept that we are not telling one another everything.
But in most other instances, I’m keen on having the truth.
crowner’s quest law.
Previously, I really only saw the joke of calling a coroner a crowner. Hey – these guys are dumb! Or have an exceptionally colorful dialect! Either way – funny stuff! But I have a comedy mind. So I will often see the joke before I see something else. Now – though – the sense of a crowner is much richer than just a funny way to say coroner. A king is a crowner. He crowns his heir and his wife – a long line of crowns. And with the divine right of kings – a crowner might also be God. God is your only king-maker. Your only crownmaker. And so on. With the simple (mis)pronunciation joke, the crowner’s quest is like the coroner’s inquest or question. But a King’s quest is a different law entirely. And a God’s quest even more so.
Ay, marry, is’t.
I just finished reading Angela Carter’s Nights at the Circus in which the clowns fare rather badly. I’m not sure what Carter has against clowns but she pretty much killed them all off, including their dogs. I love Carter’s writing but the dark take on the clowns ruffled my feathers a bit. (So to speak – you might find that last line funny if you’ve read the book.) First, her clowns were more buffon than clown. They traveled in packs like buffon. They could be satirical. They had a real mean streak. They were grotesque.
Second, as a clown, I take a small amount of exception to the fact that a novice performer can be thrown in with the clowns and become expert immediately.
Third, what kinds of clowns never take off their make-up? Answer – magical realist ones of course. But – still.
Anyway – the sole surviving clown (who is, granted, not truly a clown) begins to speak a bit like this toward the end of the book.
But is this law?
There are some things that are laws that just seem weird. Like – why do we have marriage laws? Why is the law involved in love? Why do you have to go get an official document to get officially married? Why do you need to be officially married? Like – for the IRS, I guess? I don’t know why there are benefits for married people. I guess because they tend to make children? And we want to make sure they’re provided for officially? It just seems weird to legislate people’s relationships.
I’m not a libertarian – there are many many laws that make total sense to me. Laws that help us take better care of each other, for example. Laws that provide for children. Laws that guide us to treat our fellow citizens with respect – that prevent us from yielding to our baser instincts. But marriage laws are baffling to me.
Argal, he that is not guilty of his own death shortens not his own life.
There is a bit of an epidemic of this in my generation – the men, shortening their own lives like this – though I don’t see them as guilty.
There must be something that has made things impossibly hard for them – perhaps a sense of being alone, of being locked into a toxic masculinity while recognizing its toxicity- but unable to shake it off. I don’t know – but right now it’s being discussed as an epidemic of the suicides of middle aged men.
The Hamlet Project 