Almost every time a crocodile shows up in Shakespeare, it is in its metaphorical sense of one who cries false tears. The mentions in Othello and Henry IV both expand on this idea and deal with it explicitly. The references to crocodiles in Antony and Cleopatra may also hint at the tears aspect of crocodiles and then there’s this one.

It always seemed to be a line about doing something impossible and ridiculous – like a crocodile is big and tough and would be incredibly awkward to sink one’s teeth into.

But seeing as how Shakespeare mostly referenced crocodiles when accusing people of false shows of grief, I read it more as a challenge to Laertes’ grief. Maybe by consuming a crocodile, one might take on his false tears of grief as well?

That is, Hamlet offers to match Laertes’ tears of grief ? Hamlet offers to match Laertes’ tears with the consumed crocodile.

It’s not very fair to the crocodile though.

I love when I google a word and its only example of usage is Shakespeare and usually the very line I’m exploring. So. It means vinegar. Okay. I need more.
The only other definition is from the Urban Dictionary where it reportedly means someone who comes from an intellectual or academic background. This is so incredibly specific and again, I want more. Who says this? When? Why?

Anyway – all of that aside.
What’s this drinking vinegar business all about?
People are doing it now all the time for health and hipness.
And my cursory research on the history of vinegar suggests that drinking vinegar wasn’t completely out of the question in Shakespeare’s time either. There were flavored vinegars then, for example.

It’s sour, sure. And wouldn’t taste good to drink, say, a whole bottle of it.

But does that really fall in the same category as tearing one’s self or eating a crocodile? I see why some scholars have theorized that eisel is a lake somewhere. Lake Eisel. So drinking it up WOULD be as challenging as tearing one’s self or eating a crocodile.
But…there’s no evidence of that really so here we are, imagining Hamlet or Laertes downing a bottle of vinegar.

This would be pretty hard to do, actually. It’s not so hard to tear out hair and probably scratching might be possible (and probably that’s what Hamlet actually means here) but to tear one’s self, like one would tear a piece of paper or even a piece of clothing would be.
Trying to tear one’s self might be a lot like that silly alt-right fella trying to tear up a protest sign and just trying over and over as hard as he could and never managing it. A study in futility and a delightful episode of schadenfreude.

I have never felt I could fast. I heard of it first as a young kid – maybe about Gandhi and other peace activists using it to help their causes – and I instantly thought “NOPE.”
But I didn’t really know why I had such a strong reaction to the idea of fasting.
I think I know now, though. Because of my migraine brain, I really couldn’t do such a thing without triggering a pretty severe migraine. Were I to fast, I’d just be writhing in the dark. I mean, pretty quickly that intentional fast would turn into an unintentional one – because if the migraine got bad, I for sure wouldn’t be able to eat anything without throwing up.
So. I would not fast. Not on purpose, no.

I’d rather not.
But I will if pushed too far.
It takes a fair amount of pushing but once it’s happened, my little repressed “something dangerous” will scare me more than anyone.

I woo’t.
I woo’t weep a lot.
I have been thinking about this quite a bit recently. I started to wonder about how often I weep. I weep at almost any release. I weep during Awareness Through Movement Lessons all the time – when I soften my chest, when I lengthen my side, when I let my breath go, when I give over to the floor. I didn’t use to weep like that when I was in training but I think it was mostly because I was surrounded by dozens of people.

I wept the other day while re-watching an episode of Slings and Arrows – the one at Oliver’s memorial service, when Geoffrey eulogizes not just Oliver but what he once believed about the power of theatre. Tears were streaming down my face while he talked about regimes being toppled and love re-kindled by the power of a show and the recognition that it was a silly idea really.

Anyway – I woo’t weep a lot, really. And I sometimes wonder about that. To the outside world, I know many see me as a happy, joyful presence. But maybe I’m able to project that because I also give myself permission to weep and weep and weep and weep. Even for silly ideas like theatre.

Hamlet! Getting salty! ‘Swounds! Zounds!
AND making a contraction to form “thou’lt”? That is also fairly salty somehow. I mean, it’s as simple as you’ll but seems much saucier, somehow, than you’ll. Feels like you might as well say “Thou wilt” – because thou’lt is a little tricky on the tongue. But Hamlet’s getting salty here. Swearing at a funeral. In front of a priest. And the royal family.

Whatever you do for a dead woman, you do too late. You could write her a poem or carve her a sculpture but she will never see it. Anything you do for a dead woman, you do for the living – which is not to say you should not write that poem or carve that sculpture.
We need monuments to women. In New York City, there are five monuments to women. I have seen one of them – just by chance. I stumbled upon the sculpture of Gertrude Stein in Bryant Park. I did not know it was there and was so delighted to suddenly see her. I wish there were monuments to Margaret Sanger, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Madam Restell, Victoria Woodhull, Susan B. Anthony, Zora Neal Hurston, Josephine Baker and dozens and dozens of others.

This is a real shitty way to declare you love someone. I mean. On one hand, it’s got just the extremity of high numbers and hyperbole that we expect from lovers.
It’s got some quality of Juliet’s love being as boundless as the sea. Love is big! Love is out sized! Love is forty thousand times love!

But it’s not just the standard hyperbole of lovers – it’s comparative. It’s saying my love is 40,000 times bigger than yours, Laertes.
Which is just dick measuring but with love.

Did you, Hamlet? This is the first moment in the play wherein it feels as though you did. Pretty much the rest of it you’ve been a complete and total cock.
And actually now, too, to Laertes and everyone else here who came to mourn her. Leaping into her grave? Fighting with her beloved brother? There are men who love like this, I suppose. The woman herself is inconsequential – it’s the men around her he must prove himself to.