There’s nothing specifically erotic about this passage in the play but this sentence, out of context, has several erotic elements. Mouths, breath and music generally call to mind sensual pleasures. Eloquent music strokes the ear like a lover strokes the skin. In the right mouth, breath can be enough to stoke the amorous fires. Mouth, breath, music. Say this line right and it could be a seduction.

It is funny when we distinguish the thumb from the fingers – I mean, it is one of the five. There isn’t always a good reason for it – but in this case – Hamlet’s right, when you play the recorder, your thumb does something quite different from the other fingers. Look at this – Hamlet and Shakespeare giving ACTUAL instruction on recorder playing.
Of course – if this were the only instruction you had for how to play the recorder, you probably wouldn’t get very far.

Ventages is a fun word for holes, though.

The This American Life story about a guy who’d been raised to be 100% honest ended up demonstrating what a lot of value there is in lying. This guy basically had to learn how to lie or perhaps even more importantly, to not tell the truth all the time.

I was struck by the way he learned that total honesty was essentially selfish – that it meant he was not considering how others might feel when he expressed himself. And that’s what it can be – expressing one’s self – without much attention on how one’s self might impact another. Every “honest” person I’ve ever met proves this theory. The people who regularly defend their cruelty with “I’m just being honest” are habitually unconcerned with other people’s feelings. It presumes a kind of moral high ground, a superiority over the poor thin skinned other who just can’t handle the truth.
And certainly at some point honesty is more important than feelings – but the reverse is also true – and this guy’s journey makes that clear.

For some lying is easy. For some honest is easier. Depends on your bias toward your own truth or other people’s feelings.

Origins of “beseech”?
This is one of those phrases that has, after so many years with Shakespeare, become to familiar to me, I barely notice it when it turns up in a play. I forget, sometimes, that its meaning might not be immediately obvious to a new Shakespeare reader. It’s one of those that most people can work out from context, with a little time and attention, but it can slow down some readers.

Sometimes in reading something with fresh readers, I’m called upon to explain things like this that have become so familiar to me, I ‘ve forgotten details I once knew about them.

This happened with the word “Marry” the other day – as in, “Marry, sir” as in. . .a word that doesn’t mean what we THINK it means in that context. I found myself struggling to find an appropriate paraphrase. I went with “By gum” and “By George” but after sleeping on it, I realized, “You see” would be a better equivalency.

In this case – beseech has a nice direct corollary in Beg or Implore – but it does make me curious about where it comes from.

I’m in a café where they have recently installed a TV, which I hate, yet cannot keep myself from looking at on occasion. I have caught myself compulsively watching episodes of Jeopardy, a documentary about Tanya Harding, various scenes from soap operas and today there appears to be a Gospel competition on. There is dancing, singing and a lot of clapping. It looks pretty fun, actually, like the most effervescent prayer possible.I know that Hamlet is not LITERALLY praying for Guildenstern to play the recorder but that is the origin of the phrase, I presume. That is the kind of pleading that is so strong that it goes beyond the person you’re asking – on up to God, who could help push the person into fulfilling your request.

Maybe if he added lights and sound and some of the cool dance moves they’ve got going on this gospel show, he’d get Guildenstern to actually play that pipe.

I’d love for more social interactions to feature this exchange. You’re hanging at the coffee shop with your colleagues, maybe having a meeting – then you just pull out this pipe and ask, “Will you play upon this pipe?”
Or at a job interview, you could just offer up a pipe to play.
I’d do it. I don’t what that says about me. But if someone in a job interview asked me to play upon a pipe, I would.
Or you could have a pipe in your pocket when you go to visit the Senior Center.
Children, of course, will instantly play upon a pipe or absolutely anything else, if they’re interested.
When buying airline tickets, at sporting events, at the dry cleaners (why have I chosen all the things that I don’t actually do? Except airline tickets. I do buy those sometimes but always on-line.)
I guess I’d just like to see a random bit of pipe playing interrupt just about anything. . .but especially the more privileged worlds where everyone takes themselves so seriously.

After years of pushing against lousy leadership, it is baffling to be around excellent leadership. Baffling – and then – I can’t understand why everyone doesn’t do it.

I just got asked to join the planning team for a Shakespeare program because the Leadership understood that I could offer a perspective that almost no one else could provide. That I have been sitting around un-utilized in this capacity for some time is one thing – but the simple gesture of looking around and seeing a need to get multiple perspectives on something and then doing something about it? Why doesn’t everyone do this?

Also, the way honesty is so startling and refreshing – and that atmosphere of honesty radiates outward and creates an atmosphere so pleasant to work in, I don’t even care if they’re paying me. And I really need money. I’ve had to become incredibly mercenary in my work – and suddenly I don’t care?
Why doesn’t everyone lead this way?
This leader, she’s fearless, I think. She just doesn’t seem to worry about what anyone else thinks. She just does what she thinks is right and asks for the same from her team.
Why doesn’t everyone lead this way?
I don’t well understand that, not really.
It does seem simple on some level – while being very remarkable and unusual.

He’s begun the recorder metaphor already.
To play the recorder, one must cover a hole, to stop the wind. The wind here feels as if it is the air, the animating force, the inspiration and animation of the self. Or I think, too, of the wind in Chinese medicine – there must be some equation with the humors. . .what is the windy humor?
Or is it a fart joke?

I mean – the ESSENCE of the line is obviously, “Why are you being such a pain in the ass?”
But – the layers of metaphor and meaning are complex.
I picture it literally, like Guildenstern is squeezing Hamlet, a bit like a recorder, but also a bagpipe, trying to get him to make the sound he wants to hear. He blows into him, hoping to get music – but Hamlet’s not willing to be played.

When the going gets tough, the tough retract. I used to think I was not tough. I am soft. I am vulnerable. I am easily wounded, highly sensitive, and a sharp tone in a voice can ruin my day. But there is a toughness that can encompass those things – a toughness that protects and surrounds those vulnerabilities so as to mine them for art and spirit and so on.
So when things get difficult, I do not stay to fight – I withdraw, slip into my turtle shell and go inside. And sometimes from inside the shell, I will send out a little message from the softness, a little flag of resistance, sometimes of revolution.
But when all the world comes knocking, it’s time to withdraw even further. That is where the quiet is.

Sometimes, when I work with students, they’ll tell me they’ve got their little performance ready – that they’ve worked out their tableaux or their scene or whatever it is and that’s when I say, “Show me. Let me see.” If they claim shyness, I compromise and say, “You don’t have to show me the whole thing. Let me see just a part of it. Maybe just the beginning” – or if it’s three parts – “Just show me the first one.”
Seven times out of ten , they will concede that they are not actually ready and will need to actually go back to work to have something to show me.
When I come back, there’s something to see.