The world tiptoed up to Venus’ door and rang her doorbell. The planet’s gravity was strong but the world had its own gravity so it could sneak in, ring the doorbell and then make a break for it. The world ran to hide in the cloud cover nearby – ones that really looked like bushes. It laughed and laughed when Venus opened the door, and looked around.
“Hello?” she asked, “Is that Earth again? You and Mercury, always joking around.”
The world laughed all the way back into its own orbit.

I volunteer to be one of the sleeping ones.
I mean, I guess the idea is that we take turns – that the one who watches watches so that the other may sleep and so – we must switch at some point.
But – if it’s an either or situation. I’ll sleep.

My boyfriend calls me a championship sleeper.
I’m pretty good at sleeping.
I’m not a genius at getting to sleep – he’s much better at that – but at staying asleep? Sometimes it feels like I could go for days just sleeping and sleeping. It’s like, once I get started, I just don’t want to stop.
So if we’re choosing watching or sleeping. I’m gonna go with sleeping. Also, because there are dreams.

What ARE you on about, Hamlet?
The rhythm, I understand –
It’s like, nursery rhyme time
Time to celebrate or gloat or tease.
And I get, too, the metaphorical –
The deer, struck by an arrow, let’s say, is Claudius, with the arrow of the play struck home and Hamlet’s fine to let him go weep, go nurse the wound. I imagine in hunting that this might be a practice of striking, then allowing the animal to do what it needs to before following along and finishing the job.

But what about the hart? While it’s often prey, too, it’s ungalléd here, unbothered.
I guess Hamlet is the hart?
Claudius = deer going off bleeding
Hamlet = hart cavorting in the fields
Metaphorically makes some sense.

But is this a saying?
It sounds like one – though not a terribly logical saying. Unless it’s a mnemonic hunting policy – like you should always let the deer slink off and leave harts alone without bothering them?
Could be I guess.
Could be a “liquor before beer never fear” sort of saying – a little rhyme-y reminder for hunters but it feels more likely that Hamlet just makes this one up.

What did these players use for false fire?
I mean – now – there are usually some complex LEDS or just some crumpled yellow and orange gels with a moving light behind them or if there’s actual fire… it’s highly controlled by fire specialists with fire extinguisher in hand.
Nothing looks like fire like fire.

What was fire that wasn’t fire in Shakespeare’s time?

If the dumbshow is any indication, he does it with gifts. I suspect that this is not how Claudius managed it with Gertrude. What gift could he possibly have given her that she didn’t already posses or have a way to procure?
I suspect that the appeal was probably more in the charm and attentions category. Claudius is real good with words, he could probably turn a lady’s heart with those. Or maybe he offered her sexual chemistry. That can be hard to resist.
Or – perhaps – he offered her more of a role in government, more political power, more of a say. After years of watching and not doing, I might find that sufficiently seductive.
The gifts may not have been of the material kind. I don’t think Gertrude would be bought with sapphires. But the gifts of sex, or power, or attention, or authority?
Those might do the trick.

Which Italian is the choice one?Dante’s Italian? Boccaccio’s?

A Florentine Italian?

Or Roman? 

How many Italians were there when Shakespeare wrote this play? 

And which one was the choice?

The Italian language has experienced a world of change over the years – much of which was a homogenization after a great deal of diversity – even after there was an Italy to unify. 
Whose Italian was Shakespeare’s?

He’s got bushy black hair, little tufts of it come out of his ears and nose, in addition to the top of his head.
He carries a walking stick, though he doesn’t need it for walking. He mostly uses it for gesturing. His servants have learned to watch his movements carefully, to keep at least a stick’s distance away or be ready to move quickly out of it’s way. Everyone has a story about a time they got caught by surprise and ended up with a smack and bruise. Gonzago hardly notices when this happens. He is usually so caught up in his blustering monologue, even the sudden sound of a high-pitched wail of pain will not shake him from it.
He favors waistcoats with brass buttons, which he pops with some regularity. There is one servant whose principal duty is to sew buttons back on.
His wife of many years was originally impressed by her husband’s grandiosity but over the years has come merely to tolerate it. They mostly just keep out of one another’s way – except at formal dinners and festivities.
Because he holds a royal post, he has a steady stream of young men coming to request advice or funding. Gonzago very much enjoys receiving these fellows and giving them advice.

I wonder if it’s really this line that gets Claudius riled up.
He’s watched, theoretically, the action of the villain poisoning the king twice – first in the dumb show and now in the play. But he doesn’t rise until Hamlet starts talking. And this line is as true for the king of Denmark as it is for the character in this play.
Claudius definitely poisons King Hamlet in the garden for, what is effectively, his estate, if a kingship and country might be called an estate. And Hamlet, too, seconds this bit as what Claudius responds to.
He says, “Upon the talk of the poisoning.” Not the poisoning itself, no – but the TALK of the poisoning.
And while Claudius doesn’t say this when he talks about his sin later, I wonder if he’s more responding to Hamlet’s reference to the poisoning than the poisoning itself. Does he react so strangely because it suddenly seems like Hamlet knows? Maybe subconsciously – since he doesn’t mention it again and it is from here that he gets real keen on sending Hamlet to “England.”

How is this raven related to the one in Macbeth?

This raven is croaking – the one in Macbeth is hoarse. Is it possible that this is a family of ravens who just happen to have creaky voices? Maybe a family of Carol Channing ravens? Or Bea Arthurs?
Mama Croaking Raven bellows for revenge in Hamlet while Papa Hoarse Raven announces the fatal entrance of Duncan. Baby Ravens prepare to squeak out other horrors in other tragedies to come.

What is the murderer doing to inspire this? I imagine a melodramatic old school mustache twirler with a cape – the kind who ties damsels to railroad tracks and he’s making various evil expressions, warming up to do his evil business.

It makes me think of one of the opening scenes of The Imposters when Stanley Tucci and Oliver Platt are practicing acting in their bedroom. One gives the other an emotion and the other makes the face of that emotion. I imagine that this murderer in the Mousetrap is cycling through his villain faces just as those actors do in that scene.