The change from first person singular to first person plural in the middle of this sentence is very interesting to me. It feels like the first bit is a kind of honest blurt and then he calls himself to a less revealing stance. It’s like he switches from person to king in the middle of the sentence. Like, he suddenly remembers he’s the king.
It is also interesting that he pitches the real danger as to himself – which is true. He is the only one Hamlet really has it in for – but it’s funny that he reveals that to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. I mean, if they think he’s legit crazy, he’d be a danger to everyone not just the king. However –

The magnetisim of trouble.
We see the king struggling. Is he in pain? Is he ill?
We gather round to see what’s happened to see what we can do?
We get ready to offer water or a hand or comfort.

But we are repelled. The gathering is the last thing this man in trouble needs. He wants solitude – and quickly, too. He pushes us back, like an opposing magnet to our magnets.
We are drawn to the difficulty and the difficulty repels us.

My mother has seasonal affective disorder. She got herself a special light to help combat the effects of it. It is remarkable that light is so powerful – powerful enough to impact your entire mood and sense of well being.
But when the days shorten and the world is darker, for those with sensitivity to it, there’s a metaphorical darkness that descends.
As the daughter of a light sensitive person, it occurs to me that I might have the same quirk. One which I surely magnify by keeping late hours and missing early morning daylight time. Nocturnal Light Sensitive Artist ISO LIGHT. Light.

Curious construction. Why is this question:
“What do you call the play?”
Wouldn’t it make more sense to say, “What is the play called?”
Does he think Hamlet wrote it?
Did Hamlet suggest that he did?
Or is there some implication of a pet name for the play? Like the play’s actually called Death of a Salesman but I like to call it Uncle in the Closet.
Or, like, the play’s called Macbeth but I call it The One with the Witches. JK. I call it Mackers. JK. I call it The Scottish Play. JK. I just call it Macbeth. Seriously.

Furthermore –
Why does Claudius use the formal YOU here?
For that matter, why is EVERYONE in this scene speaking formally?
Is it because it is a public event?
Or because it is happening in front of actors?
Is it because they’re all nobles talking to each other in front of the artist class? Very Curious.

I read a feminist defense of the song “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” The song had been accused of being a little bit “rape-y” in the last couple of years due, mostly, to the line, “Say, what’s in this drink?”
There are those, now that they’ve read the defense, who are joyously shouting vindication for the song. And those who are finding other details still on the sexist side.
Is there offense in it? It depends.
Certainly it was written in a much more sexist time than our own and is clearly a product of its time. Which doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy it now. Ultimately, for me, like Shakespeare and other classic texts, it comes down to how it is performed.
If Bill Cosby sings this song to a woman, like, say, Beverly Johnson (or ANY woman) it does feel VERY rape-y.
Which doesn’t mean he shouldn’t sing it with Beverly Johnson. It would be the creepiest, most uncomfortable and interesting “Baby, it’s Cold Outside” ever.
When Luke Wheeler and Rayna James on the TV show, Nashville, sang it to each other, well, that’s just fine. Those two characters were hot for each other and in love. We want to see a nice sexy duet like that.
It all depends on how into the gentleman the Lady is and how uncreepy the Gentleman is. Joseph Gordon Levitt and Zoey Deschanel sang it, it would have a sweet quirky niceness.
But if Deschanel sang it with Christopher Walken in Deerhunter mode? Creepy. Scary. Not okay. But again, interesting!
It’s always always interpretation.

And then there’s the fun gender reversed way.

There’s something interesting about framing the plot of a play as an argument. It implies certain amount of inherent conflict in the work. What is the argument? Thinking Man against the obligation of Revenge?
But of course it is not that simple if it’s even that at all.
Does this notion of argument come from rhetorical training and history?
In that Q2 talk from the Free Library
Lesser posits that the To Be or Not to Be speech is actually classic abstract rhetoric structure and content. What is the Central Question? To Be or Not to Be.
Point 1: Suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune

Counterpoint 1: Or take arms against a sea of trouble.

It is essentially an argument. Not really a soliloquy. It does not feature I at any point. It does not feature any of his actual circumstances. It does not ask the audience to solve it.
It is a very good argument, of course but an argument. Is a plot an argument?
Sometimes it is, yes.

We had a long hard discussion last night. Hours and hours of sorting through, figuring it out, working it out. Mostly, we managed without too much heat or anger. But I notice that one of the things that gets me hottest is a misattribution of what I said. Even if the sense is similar, I will get touchy if I am misquoted. I want my words, not those! Those words aren’t the ones I used! They’re not what I meant!

I have nothing with this answer, either. Or this question. Or this line. I have nothing, really in general. Full up on exhaustion and disorder, it’s nearly impossible to access the creative response in myself. I search and search within but I have nothing with this answer.

I have a lot of anxieties and worries and concerns and a sore back from moving and practical concerns like where to put my guitar. But I don’t have anything of merit for this. And I guess that’s what the king’s saying, too.

“I got nothing for this, Hamlet. You’re not giving me anything to work with.”

I love the way this line has a quality of being a public pronouncement sort of question. It’s not like, “Hey, Hamlet, you doing okay? I know you’ve been under the weather. How’s it going?”

It’s very formal and public – giving Hamlet a title and using the good old royal collective we/our/us.

If this question were asked without Hamlet in the room, it might be spoken with some concern, like, “How’s Uncle Charlie doing? Any news?”
But as it stands, it seems to be a question TO Hamlet, who is in the room – and also the first line after a Danish march and Flourish, featuring Trumpets and Kettle Drums.

After that arrival, one might expect a king to make a pronouncement. Something like: “I hereby declare that every Tuesday shall be Bring Thy Nephew to Work Day!” or something.

But no, rather than declaring war on Norway or announcing diplomatic progress he asks his nephew how he’s doing as if it were a pronouncement.

It would be almost impossible for the madness of royalty to go unwatched, given how closely watched they are in general. Whatever a royal person does he has a multitude of eyes upon it. In some cultures, royals get no privacy whatsoever, not even to take a shit in peace. There is someone with you at all times.

That would make me mad pretty darn quickly, I can tell you. With never a moment on my own to collect my thoughts, I would be a raving lunatic in a matter of days.

And maybe that explains why there has been so much madness in the kingdoms around the world – they were watched to the point of madness and then watched through madness and so on and so on.