First: Nymphs and prayers are not usually coupled. Nymphs being quite Greek, quite pagan, quite nature cult and orisons being a sort of ritualized prayer, specifically Christian, I think? It’s a very interesting pairing.

Second: Why does he want her to remember his sins in her prayers? Does he somehow need her to absolve him? Or is he thinking of sins the two of them might have enjoyed in the past and he’s claiming them for himself? Is he asking her to pray for him? What would these prayers sound like in his imagination? 

“Dear Lord, please forgive Hamlet for scaring the beejeezus out of me in my sewing closet the other day and for acting crazy and for seducing me behind the chapel that time and in the gazebo and the library and so on. Oh and that one time, he took your name in vain. Well, I’m sure it was more than that one time, lord, but I only heard it that once. Let’s see – he’s maybe not honored his mother so much lately. As far as I know, he’s never committed adultery or murder or theft so I think he’s good there. Well, anything I’ve forgotten, lord, just go ahead and forgive him for that, too – because I’m sure he’d like you to.”

I can’t stop thinking about punctuation, apparently – or maybe, because this speech is so familiar, the punctuation is the new thing in play here. 

These editors have completed this sentence with an exclamation point; the seldom used exclamatory end stop somehow gets used here? 

Are they attempting to suggest strong surprise at spotting Ophelia? 

Why? 

Is it that Ophelia’s wearing a crazy party hat, a feather boa and a pair of overalls? 

Maybe not so fair now, eh, Hamlet? 

I’d like to see a Ophelia be something more than fair. 

This is a line that sounds really good but doesn’t really follow the previous thought – at least in my understanding of “conscience.” Maybe conscience here is more like consciousness? That the awareness that one mess might so easily lead to another, even bigger, mess might just be a factor of being a conscious thinking being. That makes some sense to me. 
However, if conscience is conscience as I normally think of it, that is, a sense of morality, of doing right by someone or something, of goodness, somehow. And yes, awareness of our actions, too, how they might not be good choices – well, in that case: Yes, conscience does keep many of us from doing many things, some of which might be called cowardly in certain societies, particularly ones with HONOR at the center. I think of that study of honor and revenge in Southern men. (Listen to a show on it on You are not so Smart) They found that in cultures with a high honor code, participants were much more likely to exhibit vengeful behavior.  It points to an interesting cultural conundrum that puts conscience and cowardice in the same boat, that makes conscience the enemy of bravery, that makes conscientious objectors chickens rather than brave people standing up for their beliefs, for another morality. Curious. 
And then many months later after I first wrote in response to this line, I discover this: Zachary Lesser’s take on this line in his discussion of the Q1. In it, I learn that my sense of conscience – as in consciousness – has been an explanation many scholar’s before me have used. But Shakespeare uses conscience in its moral sense in other places in the play – so there’s a whole world of religious sense of conscience and morals and this line becomes a lever to pry open a world of worlds behind the various editions of the play. Listen to the Free Library’s Podcast to hear more details. 

Me, I’m always trying to fly to new ills. Not these ones he’s specifically referring to, i.e. not to DEATH but the other devils I don’t know.

The devil I know is familiar and intractable. The devil I don’t is seductive and offers the possibility of change. The devil I don’t know is sexy and suave. Even the problems he brings me are interesting. The devil I don’t know whispers seductively to my wanderlust suggesting that it will all be better over there, that that place will change everything. He convinces me that the devil I know is a real devil and he, the devil I don’t know, will be different. He will treat me better than the other devil.

But, after years of listening to each new devil, I came to see how each new devil quickly revealed how much like the old devil he was. It’s really like there’s really only one devil who happens to be a master of disguise.

I can’t help but think about Backwards and Forwards with this bit. Because this is the line that really makes his case that Hamlet is not saying this speech for his own benefit. Because, the fact is, Hamlet has direct experience of a traveller returning from death. His father, who he saw interred a month prior, has shown up quite vividly before him. He’s had all kinds of descriptions of the “undiscovered country.” He’s heard about the rending flames, the horrors, the sin-burning, etc. So it is hard to see this bit as a real inquiring thought on Hamlet’s part. It starts to seem like poetic embroidery on a theme he is exploring for the benefit of his audience. It’s a beautiful poetic embroidery or maybe even the sort of embroidery anyone creating a fiction will do. When lying, for example, we usually keep talking to help make our case. 

I’m breaking this sentence up. I imagine that some editors do the same. It’s just such a giant bit of text. And not just a lot of words but a lot of complex ideas and a lot of words. So we’ll begin with the fardels and move on to the undiscovered country tomorrow. 
Today, life really does feel a bit like plowing forward under the yoke of something. There’s a way that it feels a little relentlessly difficult. When I was in my 20s, it seemed as if a better way was always around the corner. Everyone seems to be poor in their 20s – even the rich people. Then I noticed that all around me people were doing lots better than they used to be. They got jobs with salaries. They had families. And my life is still very much like it was when I was 25. I’m just as poor, if not poorer – but I have less hope for that being different and fewer people in my same boat. When there is no real hope for change, it can feel like a long hard slog across a muddy field, with a bundle of hardship on my back.   

Thousands of hearings of this speech and I don’t think I ever noticed this brief rhyme in the very middle of it. It’s like a little breath, perhaps at the end of a long sentence and in the middle of a long speech.

Also I have questions about these spurns. Is it that Patient Merit is hanging around and The Unworthy One comes along and spurns him? It’s about taking the spurns right?

“Zounds! I should take it!”

Someone making his quietus with a bare bodkin makes total sense, especially after putting up with that long list of whips and scorns.

Something really can happen to people when they take on a Position. Holding a fancy job title can sometimes create a kind of insolence. I’ve seen normal ordinary people behave like assholes suddenly because they’ve taken on a position of authority. These are usually people who have some discomfort at being in a position of some power so they tend to over-exercise it. Middle managers around the world become tyrants for fear for being seen as weak. Jung’s Shadow Sides emerge quite clearly in the offices of the world.

I don’t have much personal experience with lawsuits (gratefully) but reading Bleak House made me feel like I went through one vicariously. Dickens does such an extraordinary job of taking the reader through the hills and the valleys of a lawsuit. It is the ultimate delay of the law. The case would seem to have lingered on for ages, for generations, for lifetimes and the conclusion of all the stories are wrapped up within the conclusions of the lawsuit. I’ve never read a more vivid account of law. Or its delay.