Is the suggestion here that Ophelia is like a dead dog and that maggots will breed in her when the sun hits her? Eep. Gross. Or is it that whatever’s in her is gross and will come to light in the sun? Or that Hamlet himself has planted some maggots in her and the sun’s going to multiply them?

None of it’s very nice. Particularly to the father of your girlfriend, man.

Hamlet is asking questions he knows the answers to. You gotta figure he’s up to something here. It’s an interesting game. Polonius proposed it, really, by asking Hamlet if he knew him. Hamlet pretends he knows him as someone he is not, then brings the game around to someone that he is i.e., the father of his love interest. Now, this is curious to me. Why is Hamlet interested in toying with Polonius on the subject of his daughter? It would seem that the strategy of particularly convincing Polonius that he’s mad would feed more sensible in to Polonius’ role in the Danish Court. If he’s going to taunt Polonius about anything, the dirty jokes about his daughter, while surely designed to make Polonius uncomfortable, don’t necessarily lead directly back to the King.

I suppose this is where a study of Elizabethan madness might come in handy because both Hamlet’s feigned madness and Ophelia’s actual madness (FOOTNOTE: I assume Ophelia’s madness is actual, I’d be interested in a version of Hamlet in which hers is feigned, too) feature the crossing of sexual boundaries. Is madness in this era not really madness unless it does that? I’ve seen many varieties of madness in real life – one or two featured some inappropriate sexuality but the bulk of them did not. And maybe its only Danish madness that has to be this way. Lear and Edgar’s (actual and feigned) madnesses don’t really go so blue. Is Lady M mad? Or just sleepwalking? Who else goes mad in Shakespeare? What are the symptoms?

I’m gonna need some help with this one. I get how the sun might breed maggots in a dead dog. I mean, there’s the dead dog and when the temperature suits them, the maggots get busy and start multiplying so despite the fact that it is not the sun’s literal breeding of the maggots, their reproduction is connected to its heat. Sense made.
However – who or what is the good kissing carrion? The body of the dead dog? And is it good for kissing of the maggots? The corpse is like the romantic hotel for maggots? Is that it? I guess part of the difficulty is that Hamlet does not complete this thought so it’s not clear whether the good kissing carrion applies to what’s come before or more closely to what might come after which ends up being Ophelia and maybe the idea is that he wants to tie a breeding ground for maggots with Polonius’ daughter. Which is really shitty if you think about it.
Anyway, all I know is, I don’t know anyone who’d be into kissing carrion. Although I suppose there’s always someone. Gross.

The honest man isn’t too hard to pick out. He’s usually on his own these days and as he moves through a public space, those that know him tend to get out of his way. If a stranger should, unawares, ask him a quick, “How’s it going?” you can watch his slow edge in the other direction sometime after the third or fourth sentence of the honest man’s answer. This is usually made more awkward as the honest man notes out loud that the stranger is inching away and perhaps is not really interested in how it’s going for the honest man, upon which he might be questioned on his motivations for nodding in a friendly fashion and asking a question he did not care to hear the answer to.
The honest man met the honest woman once and they managed to struggle through a one night stand but the honest man had to ask how it was for her and she had to tell him and while they admired one another’s honesty they agreed that that was about all either of them had to offer the other and so they parted ways acknowledging that none would ever have interest or occasion in calling the other ever again.

I met a man who gets things done yesterday. He’s a man in search of good ideas and when he hears one, he starts setting the wheels in motion. Though we’d never met before, he treated me with utmost respect. Then after leaving him, I went on to the job I’ve had for almost 14 years, where I can feel the judgment and the push towards the door, where despite all that I’ve brought to the organization over the years, I do not feel seen or recognized, valued nor respected. Sometimes seeing these sorts of things next to one another can be revealing. And also heartbreaking.
But my focus and energy are turning towards those that say “Ay” that give me YES and AND.

Then I would you were so honest a man.

Are fishmongers a particularly honest breed?
I guess it’s hard to lie about the freshness of a fish, though you could lie about where you caught it.

You are a fishmonger.

Fishmonger is just one of those words that you do not need to know exactly what it means to get the sense of it. It just sounds insulting. Fish being just the opposite of human, meaning-wise – and the sound of the word, no matter how much you like fish, sounding fishy. And MONGER?! My goodness. Maybe it’s because it comes close to MONSTER? Or just because, I don’t know, it sounds unpleasant, just the NG and the MONG and the GER all put together with FISH?

Even if no one ever told you what a monger was, you’d know you wouldn’t want to be called that – even if you WERE a fishmonger. I don’t imagine that a seller of fish is delighted to introduce himself at cocktail parties with, “How de do? I’m a fishmonger.” Even mongers of other goods don’t tend to use the monger bit. I guess I’ve heard of a cheese-monger but almost always in a sort of comical way or a self-consciously pretentious way. Because how else COULD you be a cheese-monger? It’s just a funny word! But it might be fun to have coffee mongers and cell phone mongers and haute coutre mongers and cocktail mongers and then send them all to that cocktail party to meet the fish and cheese mongers.

Even those that I know very well, whose secrets I have heard, whose quirks I have observed, whose fears I understand, whose frustrations I have empathized with, whose stories I have heard multiple times. Even those, I’m not sure I could confidently say I know them excellent well but I suppose I know some of them as well as anyone can know another person.

Well, God-a-mercy.

There’s something about this reply that leads Polonius to ask if Hamlet knows who he is. This leads me to wonder what Hamlet has said, or more probably neglected to say that makes Polonius wonder. Is it a simple breach of etiquette? What is the way that the prince usually addresses the king’s counselor, or Lord Chamberlin or whatever Polonius’ Official designation is? This particular response seems perfectly cordial. Hamlet’s been asked how he is. He says he is well and gives thanks for that to his god. Simple enough. Doesn’t seem to raise questions of identity or insanity or rudeness, even. Except it must because Polonius subsequently treats Hamlet like he’s 90 years old and losing his memory.