Ready the Sorrow Regiment.
They gear up over the hill ready to attack.
They don’t need to wear armor.
There’s no way to fight them.
Sorrows are unbeatable and sure, occasionally they travel on their own but usually they bring their friends. They hit you once, then again and again. They knock you around until you think you’ll never get back up again.
It’s better to let them pass- fighting them only makes it worse. Perhaps it will be years before you’re confronted with the Sorrow Battalion again.

There’s something about this emphasis on ALL that raises some red flags, some questions. Because what is Claudius hiding that he needs to say “All”? It’s obvious that Polonius’ death is the trigger. And the other major contender for madness might be her dysfunctional relationship with Hamlet – which Claudius would have no motivation to hide.
It’s like – the use of the word “all” and its placement at the beginning of the sentence seem to make it pop. Sure. You could read it with a regular iambic pentameter rhythm and unemphasize it – But then you’re emphasizing “from” – which is generally weird.
Emphasizing a preposition when there’s a word like “all” around is not USUALLY the most effective way in to a sentence. But you could do that.
Still, though, that ALL is sitting there like a big neon sign for me. All All All. Nothing to see here.
Which, again, supports my very weird counter narrative of Claudius being somehow implicated in Ophelia’s madness. I mean I wouldn’t put it past him.

Or perhaps it is the release of deep grief.
Grief does sharpen everything – it brings things into focus.
Everything seems both flatter and heightened at once.
The important things rise up and everything else blends into one another.
I can see how things that have been long repressed might bubble up and take center stage.
But I’m not sure it’s poison.
It is a kind of clarity – even if it triggers madness.

It would be funny to see a cave man Claudius.
I picture the unfrozen caveman lawyer that Phil Hartman played on Saturday Night Live – but with a crown. And this line, if spoken by a caveman, could suggest giving Ophelia a nice timepiece. Caveman Claudius orders that Ophelia be given a Rolex as a parting gift. Of course, this line doesn’t mean that at all. But it would be funny.

http://gph.is/1JmT3NH

 

Where are these followers later? Where did they go? How did Ophelia lose them? And how did Gertrude come to be following her instead? And why would a Queen be out in the countryside watching a young girl drown herself? Especially if the king has appointed some guys to follow her close. Theoretically they are following her to prevent her from doing exactly what she does. How does a young woman in dire emotional straits shake off trained followers? Or does this following cease? Once Laertes shows up – maybe Claudius calls off the Ophelia suicide watch. Which is, of course, a mistake.
It is interesting how no one in the scene ever questions how Gertrude knows all the poetic description of Ophelia’s death. It’s kind of a beautiful mystery. And the sort of thing, if this play were written today, some dramaturg would insist that Shakespeare put a line in about it. Or cut the speech – because it raises questions that aren’t answered.

How long do you think, King Claudius?
I mean – how long COULD she have been thus? Didn’t you JUST see her at the play? Was she thus then?
Or has somehow a lot of time passed since the play and Polonius’ death? It always felt to me as if this scene was the next day – that no time had passed at all. Which would make this a stupid question.

But I can forgive him for it actually, if it is that long (which I can’t be sure it is) – it’s hard to know what to say or do around madness.

Just a note, for future reference. If I happen to go mad, the way to call me back is not with “pretty.” If you’re trying to get through to me the way Claudius is (theoretically) trying to get through to Ophelia, “pretty” is not going to do it. I think it will probably not be effective for most women. The one possible exception I can think of would be Blanche DuBois. She might respond to “pretty.” But even Blanche would need more than Pretty to call her back.

I very much want what Ophelia’s saying in the previous bit to NOT be a conceit upon her father. I want her to be trying like hell to communicate something to Claudius and I want him to understand it fully and excuse his understanding with this line.
I’m not sure I have justification for this – but her lines are so oblique and Claudius is trying so hard to make everything about Polonius that it feels like there has to be some underlying message passing between them.
This is where I might really go deep in a rehearsal process – I might come up with some story about Claudius having approached Ophelia in the past. Like, maybe, before he killed the King and married Gertrude, he tried to seduce her or he proposed or somehow secretly had a relationship with her. And they never talked about it again..but Claudius is afraid that it will come out – so he is assiduously defending against any other interpretation. This is why he declares “it springs all from her father’s death” because it definitely doesn’t. And he has no reason to protect Hamlet.

Another possible research topic (probably already investigated):
“Pretty-ness in Shakespeare.”
Why is the king calling Ophelia “pretty lady”? Usually she’s called “Fair” and “fairness” appears a whole lot more in Shakespeare than “pretty.” Are there distinctions between “pretty,” “fair” and “beautiful” at this time?
“Pretty” has a kind of diminutive quality. Maria in West Side Story feels pretty – not beautiful. Pretty has a youthful quality. Young girls are pretty. Women are beautiful. Men are never pretty in Shakespeare. But I suspect Adonis (at least) is beautiful. There is male and female beauty – but men who are pretty are feminine – so in a sense pretty men might as well be women as far as these distinctions go.
It does make me wonder if Claudius is speaking to Ophelia like a child.

I’d like to see Claudius at some self-help workshop where the leader asks everyone what they think will make them truly happy.
Some people say money, others say love.
Claudius, when it’s his turn says, “the death of Hamlet.”
And our unflappable workshop leader doesn’t even flinch – she just proceeds to demonstrate how the things we think we want won’t ACTUALLY provide us happiness. Most of her examples are about power and money and love and she struggles to find a way to fold in the murder of a nephew, but she does manage to include it in a list at some point.