Uh. I don’t know, King Claudius – how about attempting a coup – coming in armed and dangerous, with a slew of supporters ready to crown me King Laertes? How’s that for a deed?

I mean, that’s maybe why this scene is so long (in addition to the scene that we don’t see, where Claudius is working on Laertes to explain what happened) Claudius has to manipulate Laertes so far so that he forgets his inclination to depose him and to turn that whole impulse toward Hamlet. That shit takes time.

This could be the title of a sequel.

The Prince of Denmark, Part 2: Hamlet comes back.
It’s a zombie film, obviously.
Hamlet rises from his tomb where Fortinbras has buried him. He has been buried alongside the rest of the royal family. When he rises, his father and uncle have already arisen, along with his mother who has watched them tear one another apart. She appeals to her son to help her upon his zombie awakening but he’s not so keen. Instead he goes on the hunt for Zombie Ophelia who has been buried by her brother and father. Over protective in her life, they have become extremely so in her death and are prepared to keep Hamlet from her at any cost. However, death has freed Zombie Ophelia from her previous subjected state and she will not hesitate to use a relative’s thigh bone to bash her way toward what she wants.
King Fortinbras is a bit of an absent ruler as he now has several countries to look after and simply does not have time to deal with the Zombie infestation at Elsinore. He has left Horatio in charge, who is quite conflicted about his loyalties to his old (now zombified) friend and his obligation to King Fortinbras.
In this play, it is Horatio who has the bulk of the soliloquies, as he is the human with something to solve.

The quick of the ulcer is likely the center of it, the most painful part, the originating prick of agony – like putting a finger in the center of a wound – or poking at the middle of a bruise.

When does a sigh hurt?

Perhaps if you have a broken rib, that release of breath could press on your injury and hurt you.

Or if your throat is sore and the air moving past feels like blades running into your tonsils.

Most of the time, though, a sigh is a release of hurt. It may open the floodgates of tears. It may crack open a heart. It may reveal a truth and that truth might hurt, I suppose.

And a spendthrift sigh? A wasted sigh? Why might a sigh be wasted? The sighs of an unrequited lover – are they wasted?

I think most sighs are for the good.

This is an incredible obfuscation of language. First the “would” is vague so he’s nowhere near what he’s actually saying. And then he takes a vague thing and makes a whole story around it. This “would” which he hasn’t declared is now subject to abatements and delays – thousands or millions of them – as many as there are people in the world and also accidents. It’s really quite masterful cloaking of intent.

This might be a way to engage in the current political moment – the madness of the speeches. Just by focusing on the language, on the obfuscation or bullshitting or elaborating, the content does tend to lose its sting.

Nice and vague, Mr. King. Nice and vague.
Way to sneak up on the murdering you have in mind.
Many murderers or planners of evil deeds have some of the best vague but purposeful language. I’d quite enjoy a side by side comparison of evil-doers and their vague-ness – that word is made of vague-eries that I just made up…but I’d put Claudius next to this one.
Macbeth can’t even be clear with himself, he’s so vague. “If it were done when tis done twere well it were done quickly.” Others in the canon don’t immediately spring to mind – but the famous “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?” comes to mind and that same reference just recently came up in James Comey’s hearing about the things Lil Donnie T said to him. I’m starting to think that using vague language like this might be a signal that there is evil afoot.

And as I read this, over a year later, I have just heard an interview with former FBI director, Andrew McCabe, who mentioned that mob bosses have this habit as well. They don’t ever come out and say what they want done, they hint at it, suggest it, hope for it.

We fear this sort of thing – this dying of too much pleasure, too much joy – but I think it is only fear. Perhaps it is the fear of losing the goodness that kills us or at least kills our joy.

Movement and change, that is what is constant, nothing settles, nothing stops and nothing stays perfectly the same. We have to train ourselves to adapt to change and movement if we want to be ready for life.

It is curious that so much of education is NOT that, so much of it supposes that one reaches some plateau and just relaxes. That you should work your way to some goal and then it is happily ever after in a still, repetitive same-ness.

My God, Claudius is the ultimate mansplainer. He tells Laertes all the things he didn’t want to know, all the things that surely Laertes knows better than Claudius and a whole mess of bullshit. Claudius uses speech as a weapon. If he just keeps talking, eventually his target may just surrender.

Uh, Claudius? That’s ROMANTIC LOVE you’re thinking of. Familial love generally isn’t categorized with sparks and fire. Sparks and fire do die out, it’s true. But familial love is not a fire. It is more like an ocean that is always there, always something to return to, even when you cannot make the trip anymore, or the ocean dries up (heaven forbid,) it will always be there – the tide going in and out, sometimes providing solace, sometimes picking you up and throwing you into the sand. Familial love doesn’t die – even for those members of a family that might not deserve one’s love. I have a friend whose mother has always been quite wretched to her and last year she finally made a break. Last year, she was 42. It takes decades to shake one’s self out of dysfunctional horrible love – to extract one’s self from that ocean, if you need to.

I am mostly fortunate. The unkind members of my family were largely outsiders and so only temporary. When I return to the ocean, it is mostly to sit by it and muse.