I see – it’s the galled jade who doesn’t have a free soul. And the implication is that Claudius is like the galled jade. But worse. Cause he’s a murderer not a whore.
It’s funny to choose a galled jade, though because of all the “sinners” – a harlot is probably the least likely to feel shame about her “sin.” I mean, cause if she’s a whore:

A) It’s her job not something she does against anyone else. It’s just how she has to earn a damn living

B) because it’s her job, she’s bound to be pretty inured to the shows men put on in front of her on a daily basis.

I’d guess your average sex-worker sees more shows than your average person. She’s probably trained herself not to wince in the face of awkward performances. Why, awkward performances are very likely her stock and trade! I’m not sure what would make a jade wince but knavery would likely not be it.

The sense of touch here is so different than how I usually think of it. It’s certainly not physical touch, of course. But nor is it touching in the sense that we usually use it when talking about a work of art. The quality of THAT touching is something like holding a baby or picking up a puppy.
A story that touches you, touches you like a hug, maybe even a hug after a sad-event, the kind of hug that might make you cry.
We think of works that touch you, as touching your heart.
This is a different sort of touch. This is touch like a ghost’s fingers along your spine or someone touching your wrist after picking up a block of ice.
This play would seem to touch those without free souls like a cold-fingered doctor taking your pulse. In a warm country, I had a doctor check me for pneumonia with hands colder than cold. That’s probably how this play was meant to touch the un-free.

Seems like, while taking a long trip on the train, my iTunes chooses the songs that are most likely to trigger a nostalgic response. There is one that I didn’t even know I had on mp3 – because I didn’t even think I had it on a CD, because I had it on tape – because it’s from over twenty years ago. Maybe 25. And I hear it and it flips my heart right over – makes me feel like I’m 16 and riding in my friend’s car through the wintery Virginia woods.

All week, I’ve been rehearsing leaving my lover. Then a love song he wrote starts playing through my earbuds. He didn’t even write it for me but still it makes me gasp. It’s horrible to consider leaving the man who wrote that beautiful hopeful song. Even if he himself isn’t feeling that hope or beauty at the moment. But he wrote that. I can’t go.

The shuffle function can be a landmine.

That is the truth. In several senses of the word. I mean – One – Hamlet is messing with the play for knavish purposes. Two – the play, as described by Hamlet makes no sense. And Three – there is a knavish poisoning character in the play.
Hamlet, too, is a knavish piece of work and that is why we love him.

At the moment, I am very seriously questioning whether I will stay in my current relationship. Each time I type up another one of these lines, I realize how far behind my timeline the publication of these lines are. By the time I type up this line, (usually 6 months ahead) I may have made that decision. And by the time I publish (usually a year and a half behind) I will have settled into it. From this angle, though, I have no idea what will have happened.

This play is very confusing to me. And when I say “this play” I mean The Mousetrap/The Murder of Gonzago/Whatever This Thing Is That the Danish Court Is Watching.
So – the main characters are Gonzago and Baptista, a married couple with Italian names in Vienna. (Already – huh?) They are a Duke and (presumably) a Duchess. Yet – the roles in the previous bit of this play are clearly a King and a Queen. Are the Duke and Duchess the same as the King and Queen?
It feels as if the language at the beginning is more ancient, more mythic, more in the Trojan wheelhouse of these players. Gonzago and Baptista suggest a more middle class story, a story about politics and money. It makes me think of Measure for Measure. That’s where Gonzago and Baptista belong, a play that also takes place in Vienna with some Italian names – and not with that arch language.
But then – Lucianus will enter. He is the nephew to the King. And his language is as arch and mythic as the openers. No mention of the Duke again. In this play are the Duke and King interchangeable? As a piece of plot, this courtly performance is very confusing. Or maybe it’s just Hamlet that’s confusing it. Taken without his explanations, it actually makes more sense.
Ophelia tells him he is as good as a chorus – but if so – he’s an obfuscating one – a chorus that seeks to confuse and muddle the plot.

Vienna is the perfect place for a murder mystery.
In the deathly quiet of a Vienna’s square, there is suddenly a scream. A body has been discovered right on the steps of a cathedral.
It’s winter. The air is clod and crisp. No leaves are on the trees. Everyone is bundled up in coats and hats, their breath steaming.

They gather round the body, the blood has begun to congeal. It is likely darker that it was when the man was murdered here.
He is stretched across the steps diagonally, covering as many steps as would be possible to cover with his body. His blood covers more.
The crowd whispers. Wonders if they know him. Does anyone know him? They wonder how it happened. Did anyone see anything?
Before long a policeman pushes his way through the crowd to come and stand over the body.
From the cathedral, a priest in his black robe hurries out to join them.
The two stand together on either side of the man on the stairs.
“Who has done this?” asks the priest.
“I will need to ask everyone some questions,” says the officer.

Did Tropically once mean Topically? Is it a printing error? What in the world does TROPICALLY have to do with anything? The Tropics? No. The next sentence makes it clear that this play takes place in Vienna – a place as far as from The Tropics as it might be possible to get – both in climate and in temperament.
TROPICALLY?
What? Is Hamlet crazy after all?
This is much crazier than a lot of the other stuff he does and says. At least it seems so to me now – but, then, I’m not looking at the notes of my edition.

Genius gives us that it is more like TRAPICALLY. That it is a figure of speech, a trope and a trap. Ok. Makes sense. Except – if it’s TRAPICALLY – then why not have it be trapically?

This bit seems like a crazy bit.
Like, Hamlet asking himself a question and then answering it?
It’s a bit – odd. Unless this is a printing error.
What if it was meant to be:

HAMLET: The Mousetrap
KING: Marry, how?
HAMLET: Tropically.

Etc

That makes sense to me. But, of course a good Hamlet could make sense of the other as well. Though, certainly, those two lines are often cut. Because what are they doing there? Tropically? Huh? Vienna is not in the tropics. And why are all the people in Vienna named like Italians?
Does he mean Venice when he says Vienna? I’ve done that.

I don’t understand this bit at all.

Marry, how is it called The Mousetrap?

Because Hamlet called it so.

(And it is designed to catch the little mouse that is Claudius’ conscience.)

Extend the metaphor and Claudius is clearly the mouse, the play designed to trap him, to catch him with the cheese as it were.
I like the image of Claudius as a mouse. It diminishes him in a funny way. It’s not the Bear Trap or the Lion trap. It makes Claudius a poisoning nuisance rather than a large threat.

I myself am afraid of mice – though I know that fear is unfounded. But even if you’re not afraid of a mouse, you still don’t want one in your house. Claudius as a mouse, hides in corners – scurries from one bad deed to the net – looking for things to chew up and consume. Claudius – The Mouse King.