Author: erainbowd

Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet:

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I like this framing of forgiveness as an exchange. Usually, of course, we like to beat the drum of forgiveness being a thing one does for one’s self. The common wisdom is that it doesn’t matter if I get anything in return from the person who wronged me – the benefit will be for myself in forgiving them.

But of course it will feel better if it is an equal exchange. I can forgive you this if you forgive me that.

And here, we have an interesting exchange where Laertes is offering forgiveness for two bodies to Hamlet’s one.

Does Laertes get what he’s asking for here? He doesn’t get it in words. Hamlet doesn’t apologize, ask for Laertes’ forgiveness or respond to Laertes at all until it is too late and Laertes is dead. It’s possible the exchange is understood by a physical gesture or contact – but there are no words for it.

It is a poison temper’d by himself.

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I’m fairly certain that Laertes doesn’t mean this literally. I think he means it as a kind of expression of karma – that he mixed the poison that killed him, he set himself up. But given Claudius’ proclivity for poisoning people, I am still very much enamored of the image of him in a lab, mixing up compounds and trying them on small animals, just like the Queen in Cymbeline.

He might not be mixing these compounds himself. Maybe, like the Queen in Cymbeline, he has a helpful assistant who brings poisons for his collection. This strikes me as fairly risky, however. If you’re going to commit regicide, you probably don’t want someone who knows you bought king killing drugs because he sold them to you.

I suppose Claudius could have disguised himself to visit the apothecary or just visited apothecaries around the world in places no one would recognize him.

My favorite method of procurement, though, is Claudius mixing his poisons himself – the literal meaning of this line.

He is justly served.

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For a guy with a reputation as a hothead, Laertes comes around to this conclusion rather quickly. I’m actually curious about what changes Laertes’ mind about Claudius. It happens so fast. He’s getting twinges of conscience and then once he kills Hamlet, it’s like he starts to see more clearly. It could be the clarifying process of death, I suppose. In seeing his end so soon ahead of him, perhaps it all falls into place. Or is there something that Claudius does or does not do that makes it obvious to Laertes? Letting Gertrude die is one thing but Laertes is as aware as the king of that fact, as it is happening, and he is still ready to do the king’s bidding. So I don’t think it’s Gertrude’s death that shifts his opinion of the king. I wonder if there’s a way in the fight that the king could be seen as responsible for Laertes’ death as well. Like – once Laertes has struck Hamlet and it should be over, Claudius lets it continue and while Laertes is looking to the king for support, Hamlet seizes the moment to strike back. That is, is there a way to show the moment when the king loses Laertes’ loyalty. The king is likely to be just as happy to have Laertes killed as the rest. Laertes is, after all, the key witness to this plot that has killed the Queen and Prince of Denmark. It would be convenient for Claudius if he were also dead after this fight.

It could, of course, just be Laertes’ conscience kicking in at the end of his life that has him give up the king but…there could be more.

Follow my mother.

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There’s something about this line that FEELS good. It feels like a good send off for Claudius after his multiple murderings. There’s a level of venom and force that saying this sentence allows.

I wonder, though, if there’s a hint of misogyny in it. Like, certainly, there’s the literal following here – in that Claudius’ death follows Gertrude’s. There’s also the drinking from this goblet after her.

But could there also be a sense of following, the way others follow the king? And if so, is there a layer of shaming happening? Is following a woman just not done? (I mean it WAS done in this period. A man had in fact JUST followed a woman in succession.)

Or maybe there’s no misogyny in it at all and it just feels viscerally good to send Claudius after the woman he’s just killed.

Is thy union here?

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Genius suggests that this is a reference to Claudius’ marriage but it seems to me that the more immediate purpose of this line is to let Claudius know that he knows, not only THAT the king killed the Queen, but how.

It’s a direct reference to what Hamlet knows is the murder weapon. Also – depending on how the poison was delivered, the union might still literally be in the drink. If, for example, it was a pearl coated in poison, the pearl coated in poison, the pearl is still in there. If it was a pearl made from poison that dissolves in liquid, it’s gone.

If there’s still a pearl in that cup, Claudius could choke on it – providing yet another method of killing him. It may be the literal definition of overkill but Claudius could die from stabbing, blood poisoning, drink poisoning and maybe even choking.

Because sometimes one death is not enough for a real villain like Claudius. You gotta kill him all the ways.

Here, thou incestuous, murderous damned Dane, Drink off this potion.

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I don’t know why people complain about how long Hamlet waits to kill Claudius.
It is worth the wait.

I mean. This line is very satisfying.
Very satisfying indeed.
And by working up all that non-killing energy, Hamlet sort of gets to kill Claudius twice. He gets to stab him AND make him drink poison. He also gets to use all the insults he’s been saying in private about this guy to his FACE and in front of the entire court. It is, sure, a bummer that he has to die, too – but putting that aside, there is no better death for Claudius. If Hamlet had killed him on his knees while trying to pray? Very disappointing. I mean – if you’re really rooting for Hamlet to go ahead and get it done, maybe you hold your breath and want him to run Claudius through with that sword in that moment – but then…even if you’re disappointed then, it makes this payoff all the better. Shakespeare has designed this play, this moment to make us go, “Yeah! Get him! You got him!” If it’s staged well – and by staged well, I mean not just this scene, but the whole play – an audience might cheer here. That’s what we’re going for.

I am but hurt.

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Not really, though. From what Laertes has said, the poison on this sword is deadly from the first touch. Does Claudius think he’s immune to it? Or maybe, having been through the bodies of Laertes and Hamlet, the poison has been washed off with blood?

I mean, now that I think about it, it is pretty amazing that it could go through the bodies of two people and retain its potency. I’d think you might need to reapply the poison after each use – but no. It works just as well on all three people it’s used on – and rather than losing potency, it seems to increase – as each subsequent person seems to die more quickly – the first person to get struck is the last to die.

Maybe there’s something in the compound that reacts to blood and increases its potency the more blood it is exposed to. I mean – probably not. I don’t think that could be a real thing – but a fictional thing, sure.

O, yet defend me, friends.

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Ah, yes, Claudius’ mythic friends. They were mentioned in an earlier scene. They’re wise, apparently. But despite “All” chanting “Treason” – he doesn’t really seem to have any friends left. He might count Osric on his team but Osric, we’ve seen, goes where the wind is blowing. (Or takes his hat off according to the reported weather.) But Osric is not in the least bit likely to stick his neck out, especially when the wind is blowing with poisoned swords and poisoned wine in it. Who is Claudius appealing to? The ALL? The mysterious ALL who chanted “Treason!”? That’s who he hopes will defend him? But whoever ALL is – they don’t defend him at all.

Treason!

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Sure does feel like there was a whole lot of treasonous sort of stuff flying around our government those last couple of years. I wasn’t ever too interested in treason and what the lines are before. I was maybe a little more relativist and not so concerned with borders, which seemed sort of arbitrary to me. Now that we’ve experienced a hostile foreign power attempting to interfere in our democratic process, I get why treason is important to recognize and address. It’s not just someone doing a regular old bad thing – it’s someone doing a bad thing that damages the nation. It’s actually awful. And yet – there has been very little done to address all the treasonous acts. They are harder to prosecute as treason, I suppose. So smaller crimes step forward.

Treason!

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Um. Who is this “all”? Did Shakespeare’s company have a large chorus of people who could just be on-lookers?

I mean – first there is the question of what this call of treason is referring to. Is it Hamlet who is committing treason by killing the king? That seems the standard definition. But, there is also the treason that the king himself has committed against his office. In that case, these calls of treason became a sort of cheerleading of Hamlet’s vengeance.

But practically – who is part of this “All”? Laertes is dying and unlikely to shout. Horatio is team Hamlet but it’s hard to imagine him shouting “Treason!” Gertrude is dead and cannot call. Hamlet probably doesn’t say it himself. Claudius might. But he’s got other things to do, like managing his injury. Which, of the people onstage – leaves, essentially Osric. Who is not an all.

Basically we have six people definitely onstage and another person with some troops about to come on.


Did the King’s Men bring back the actors playing Polonius and Ophelia and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to come be a crowd and shout “treason!”

From what I remember, Shakespeare’s company was made up of about 15 people – which means this “all” here is probably pretty small.