As of a man faithful and honorable.

I undervalued these qualities in my youth. While abstractly I would have said a faithful, honorable man was a good idea, I was drawn to charming, unreliable rogues. I repeatedly chose cavalierly romantic over unshakably steadfast. I’d end up under the bright moon with dark impassioned poets with girlfriends at home, or in another state, or across the ocean. Surely some faithful, honorable men stood by and watched me spiral out into heartbreak but I never noticed them and if they reached out, I must have batted them away and forgotten them quickly. I cherish honor now and adore the faithful.

But how hath she
Received his love?

How do you THINK she received it?
He’s the freakin’ Prince of freakin’ Denmark.
She’s the daughter of a public servant, really.
You think the intelligent, complicated, broody Prince shows up at the door of a quiet, passive, sheltered girl and she turns him away?! Does she shout, “We’re all set for Romantic Princes around here, thanks! Try next door! I hear they’re in the market for Melancholy Danes.”?
I mean, come on, I know that he’s a prince out of her star and all but he’s a PRINCE, OUT OF HER STAR! There’s no way she’s not interested.

We say that snails carry their homes with them but is this true? Do snails, or turtles, or all things with shells not have homes?
Is there no nest that the snail family returns to? No place where turtles gather to sleep or tell their stories?
Just because they can retreat into solitude, the kind no one can intrude upon doesn’t mean they don’t leave their shells, their selves, in the care of other turtles or snails or whatnot.
Somewhere someone greets them with “Most welcome home!”

There was a time, last summer, in which I was at my friend’s gathering in the South of France. There were many of us there, spending the days in the sea, swimming, reading, chatting, having lunch on the patio, retiring to our rooms for naps before returning to the sea. . .then, at night, dining together.
It was only a few days but they were redemptive days, days that brought back hope and pleasure and joy. The feasts (which were not so called but they take on that quality in my memory) so filled with an air of conviviality. Never has dining with a dozen strangers felt so easy or so pleasurable.
When I read my journal from those days, I was almost there again, struck by the generosity of a man I barely knew offering me his apartment in Spain or the genuine interest of human beings in other human beings, floored by the surprise of never once being asked what I did or asked to demonstrate my worth or jockey for position.
Dining together, nay, feasting together, was extraordinary in its togetherness. Together there were people adept at conversation, in two languages, creating art out of mealtime.

There’s a finality to this wish – as if sending these guys off to their death. And if I’m not mistaken, this is the last we see of Voltemand and Cornelius, so they might as well be going off to their final retirement.
Or, if they were robot ambassadors, they exit and climb into their re-charging stations where their batteries are removed until future use. Or a cryogenic freezing chamber where they suspend the lives of ambassadors until they are needed again.
Voltemand and Cornelius go off to their rest and are not seen again. What if they went off to sleep and slept so hard and sound that they didn’t wake for days and when they woke up, they were Norwegian?
Is this what happens? All the Danish royalty dies before Fortinbras shows up. Who’s left to rule Denmark but the Norwegian guy? Voltemand and Cornelius stumble out of their days of sleep and rub their eyes, wondering where their diplomatic work went wrong.

The king’s a better boss than most of mine. He handles the business expediently and thanks his employees for their work. I make a lot of organizations look good with the labor I do for them and the times that I have been honestly thanked for doing that are few and far between. There have been quite a few perfunctory thanks over the years but the authentic personal ones are in short supply. The king does not have to thank his employees here. He could just as easily give orders and dismiss them – but he thanks them anyway. I’d like that, too.

I want a world with more considered time. Everything happens so fast. Before the event is over, there are millions of tweets and tumblrs and Facebook pages and comments comments comments. Some of it is wonderful. But. . . there must be value for the slow thought, too. The one that baked in the mind all night and all day. The one that weighed one thing against another and came to a conclusion. The one that rattled around the empty house for a while before resting on the sofa.
I want to write something called “Our Considered Time” and in it, I will advocate for the response that took a while, for the person who took a while to reach a conclusion, for the slow-baked meal.

If I were the King of Denmark, I would not like this so well. Let a guy in, who, up until a few moments before, was poised to invade my kingdom? And not just let him IN to my kingdom – but let him in with weapons and soldiers and war preparation? I’m sorry, I don’t care who he needs to invade now, he’s not walking through my kingdom with that army. Not even if his feeble old uncle (who he managed to put one over on before) vouches for him and swears up and down that he’s harmless. I suppose I might, if I were itching to use all the war stuff I just got together to defend the place from this guy. Maybe letting him in leaves all sorts of openings for misunderstandings on both his and our sides. Maybe if I find that exciting, I let him in. Or maybe Claudius is just more trusting than I am.

If Voltemand and Cornelius are the king’s good friends, then it would seem that Voltemand is the better friend of the two, or at least the one he feels most comfortable talking to. It almost feels like Cornelius is the woman at the meeting – that even though she may have the higher status, the guys will always talk to the other guys. Or maybe they held an election and Voltemand was voted the guy to talk while Cornelius was voted the guy to smile and nod. Or hold the luggage. I guess that’s how status works in general. #1 speaks to #2 and #2 speaks to #3 and so on. And of course, it just makes me curious about Cornelius.

Now the ambassadors are his good friends?
Really? I guess since they bring good news.
If they came back from Norway all downcast and chagrined, I suspect
they might not be such good friends of the King.
I guess, you bring good news, you get promoted up the friendship chain.