These are some complicated rules. Hamlet’s gotta get a hit in quickly in order to score, sure, that makes sense. And if he does, Claudius is going to celebrate big time. I mean – cannons? That’s a rather big reaction to a small tap with a sword. The quitting in answer of the third exchange is a little harder to make sense of. So basically – if Hamlet doesn’t get the first or second point, he can make up for it in the third round.

But what I’m not entirely clear on is HOW he does that in round three.
Part of the problem is that it’s not entirely clear what the word “quit” is doing here. It’s definitely not being used the way we use it today. Claudius is not going to sound the cannons if Hamlet gives up in round three.

Quit here is likely much more connected to acquit – and most likely to the idea of acquitting oneself.

So, practically, if he’s caught up to Laertes by round three, the king will still sound the cannons.

Claudius really wants to shoot off those cannons. And by shooting off the cannons, I mean he wants to put that poison pearl in Hamlet’s wine and kill him. So…the game is rigged so that Hamlet will have to win it in some way or another so he can get killed.

But really – aren’t the cannons on the battlements a little bit extra, as the kids would say?

It’s funny to see something that I associated with Sir Toby Belch in the mouth of King Claudius. Weirdly, I feel like I was equally exposed to these two plays – as they were the ones I performed in rep at my first job out of college. But if I had to match a phrase to a character, a stoup of wine would go direct to Toby Belch and miss Claudius entirely. It’s not necessarily a sign of character, this “stoup” business. It’s pretty much just a cup. Well, it’s a big cup. It’s a tankard. Which does feel like a Toby Belch thing. Though, if Hamlet’s perspective is accurate – Claudius does have a bit of Toby in him. He does seem to have brought back some intense drinking rituals to Elsinore – so his calling for stoups, as opposed to a glass or a cup or a dram, may indeed be a sign of character.

Are there any characters who refer to stoups of wine that aren’t big drinkers?

What a curious sentence! It sort of rounds on itself, with since and therefore pretty much doing the same job. There’s something kind of clunky about it, in a way that is unusual for Claudius.

The deal of this wager is very curious. This Laertes having to get more points to beat Hamlet than Hamlet will have to get to beat Laertes business is very curious.

It’s like making it clear to everyone that this game has been rigged.

And it has, in fact, been rigged.

It’s been rigged to get Hamlet killed, several ways.

But the appearance is that the game is rigged for Hamlet, rather than against him.

I cannot help but think of how 45 kept proclaiming the election was rigged against him while it was, in fact, in the process of being rigged in his favor.

The way Claudius says this, it sounds as if he’s watched both these guys in a show or something. Granted, I have a heavily theatrical sensibility – so of course it sounds like he’s seen them both onstage to me.

Sports are also a thing people go see. It is a spectator experience. It’s not entirely impossible that Claudius could have watched both these guys compete.

However.

When?

When have either Laertes or Hamlet had time to participate in sparring? Hamlet’s been to “England” and Laertes has been in France. Previously, it was funeral and wedding time at Elsinore. Were there games as part of those celebrations?

When exactly has Claudius seen them both?

I wonder if murderers, on the whole, are not particularly fearful people. Like, has there been a comprehensive study of the personalities of murderers? I would think they probably aren’t ruled by fear – because fear would surely prevent them from doing something as risky as murder. Like, a fearful person may really want to murder his brother but he’d be afraid of being caught, or going to hell, or failing at it, or or or. Maybe murderers are an odd kind of optimist – the kind that assumes their actions will have no unwanted consequences.

It does rather feel like Claudius might be concerned Hamlet and Laertes might start fighting in an unorganized way if he doesn’t intervene. And he definitely doesn’t want a fist fight because a fist fight will make it a lot harder for Laertes to “accidentally” kill Hamlet with a poisoned sword.

It feels a bit like Claudius is trying to defuse this back and forth so they can get to the business of killing Hamlet.

In the Prankster Hamlet, Claudius just hands him a rubber hand – either in his own sleeve or in Laertes’. And when the hand comes off, they all crack up because that gag is always a winner. It wouldn’t even need to be a rubber hand. It could be a stuffed glove. Joke still works, though.

Leaving aside the character of the man speaking this line, it is actually good advice for the current moment. Often when people recommend activists be patient, they mean to wait, to stop, to accept the current circumstances and put up with the status quo.

But there is a patience that can travel with action, with proceeding. We can proceed with patience.

I want this current government gone. I am impatient for this national nightmare to be over – but patient proceeding is probably a better strategy. To continue forward, as patiently as possible.

I saw a tweet recently wherein someone reminded us of how upset we were a couple of years ago because some rock stars died. Like – we thought 2016 was a terrible year because we lost so many greats. (And also we elected a narcissistic pathological liar to the presidency.) Now, it seems quaint. Now, every day there is a new crisis. Every day the news is the worst we could have imagined a couple of years ago. What we wouldn’t all give for an hour of quiet.