This is a strangely preliminary step toward swearing, especially for people who have already sworn (at least by their estimation.) Swearing, being a verbal act, consenting being the same. It’s like promising to promise, agreeing to agree, assenting to assent. But maybe Hamlet has a more serious oath in mind, the kind with blood and bindings, maybe an ancient ritual thrown in? Maybe he means the kind of swearings that tend to stick because they had a stinging stick at the start, the pain of which you’ll remember later if you think about breaking it.

Do they? Gertrude can’t hear this fellow in the closet. It is entirely possible that no one can hear this ghost but Hamlet. There’s no indication that they are responding to what the ghost says. They’re listening to Hamlet, watching him talk to the floor, the old mole in the earth. In staging it, probably a group of people hearing a spooky voice is more interesting than one but I’d like to try both. What if this line isn’t a statement of fact – but a hope – as in “You heard what I heard, right?” as in an unasked question, an attempt to reaffirm what one hopes is the truth. As in, “you love me” as in, “It’s not going to rain” as in, “It all works out in the end.”

Pulling on the reins of the old mule that has become my career, I shuffle my feet through the mud. I’ve run out of carrots. I used to feed that old mule little bites of sweet young carrots plucked from the ground by their leafy ferny greens. I’d give the mule a little bite, then tie the carrot to a string which I dangled well in front of us and off she’d go, slowly, of course, but surely.
But the same carrot will not last longer than a day. It will start to lose its fresh appeal and if I don’t give that old mule her carrot at the end of the day, she would be petulant and moody and not follow the next day’s carrot. But. This ground is dry and brittle. I haven’t seen vegetables poking their heads from the ground in ages. We move slowly. I can’t persuade her to go any faster than she feels like. Which is not very. But I pull on her lead anyway, hoping to convince her that the next step is better than the last.

Is there a Shakespeare lexicon App yet?
Probably there’s a limited market. Probably there aren’t legions of people clamoring for something that would be a quick reference for words like truepenny. I’d like to know all the possible associations with True Pennies – but instead, I’ll make up my own. There must have been a run on counterfeit coins so that one had to determine what pennies were true and which were false. A true penny inspired confidence and relief and came to be associated with affection and loyalty. You called someone a Truepenny in the same moment you might affectionately tousle his hair. Your school chum, your son, your familiar servant, your lover, or sure, why not, the ghost of your father.

Boy? We’re getting a bit familiar with this ghost now, aren’t we?
He’s a king, for one thing and your father and you’re calling him “boy?”
I have a pretty familiar relationship with my dad in the much more casual 21st century, and still I cannot imagine calling him “boy.”
Is it possible this is a close approximation to a “whoo boy!” exclamation?
As in “whoo boy it’s hot outside” or “Whoo boy I’m tired.”
“Whoo boy there’s a ghost’s voice rising up through the floor!”

If there’s an argument for Hamlet actually being a bit mad, I might support it here. There’s something slightly manic about the repetition of “indeed” and the insistence of multiple swearings. This scene is one of the only ones that feel like madness or, at least, mania. All the other madnesses seem to fit right into a feigned madness. He never gets out of control. He has said, “I will pretend to be crazy.” He confesses to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern as much as “I’m on to you. I’m not as crazy as I let on.” He really does know a hawk from a handsaw. But in this moment. I think if a hawk flew by, he’d barely notice it – even if it were riding a handsaw.

Faith is not enough for Hamlet. They have sworn already in faith. But Hamlet must have something he can touch and wield. It does not hurt that this thing can also hurt, that they will swear by something he can swing into them should they swerve from faith.

I don’t do much swearing of this sort. But I do enjoy swear words, as do most people I know. There’s scientific evidence that swearing helps diminish pain. They did a study with ice and the group that swore could withstand the freezing pain significantly longer. I wonder if our cultural turning to swearing belies a pain that we’re attempting to diminish. If we can shout “FUCK!” loud enough, perhaps our angst will fade and disappear.

It was one of the darkest nights I have ever spent.
Perhaps I should have never made it known but I had to write that poem.
The lucky thing about poetry, though, is that no one ever reads it.
So, even though I wrote it down (carefully, again and again,
re-crafting, re-editing, chiseling at it like marble
unlike these words here.)
Only a couple of people saw it.
I wrote it down (because I had to) but I guess never really made it known.

Horatio is the scholar;
Marcellus, the soldier.
Hamlet has called them both friends.
We never see Marcellus again after this scene;
Horatio hangs around.
Two more friends turn up in a scene or two. It strikes me that this is one of the few plays that features multiple friendships. Women tend to have a single friend. Rosalind has Celia; Helena has Hermia. And men tend to be rivals or colleagues. Lysander and Demetrius, the Mechanicals. Oh, wait, what about Hal and Falstaff – and all the guys at East Cheap. There we have a group of friends and also a Prince. The connections between Hal and Hamlet are several. For one thing, we see the friendships fall away as the Princes head to their inevitable end, one to kinghood, the other to tragedy.