If I said, “ I will be faithful” I think the automatic assumption would be that I was talking about being faithful to a romantic partner. Despite faith’s importance to religion, even religious folks are rarely heard to declare, “I will be faithful.”
In our current climate, we would seem to be the most concerned with being faithful to each other. This is the essence of a promise between lovers. But when else might we hear this phrase now? A writer adapting the novel for the screen, perhaps, or a theatre director known for his avant garde interpretations letting us know that he won’t be messing this particular dramatic text around. It is in art and in love that we are worried about faithfulness, I suppose. In religion, you just have faith – in love and in art, you are faithful.

I’m trying to find a way to interpret this line a way that isn’t condescending. From every angle I look at it, it has a patronizing hue. From one side, it has a Calm-down-little-lady-stick-around-for-the-end-of-the-story quality.
From another side: “Now, now. Don’t go anywhere.”
Or a “You’ll get your answer in a minute.”
Or – and this is one I’ve said – “Just watch the movie.”
A woman, who I loathed but was obligated to spend a lot of time with, couldn’t watch a film or a play without asking a multitude of inane questions. “Who’s that?” “Why’s he stabbing him?” “Why is she crying?” “Why does he have a skull?”
She was particularly aggravated by the mysteries of plot. When an unidentified stranger appeared on the scene, she asked, “Who’s that?” and expected an answer. She was never happy getting the answer from the story. You could say, “We don’t know yet. He’s a stranger.” But it didn’t help. So in order not to miss any of the plot yourself, you’d pretty much have to say, “Just watch the movie. We’ll find out.”

Polonius is about to read a letter. His “thus” an intro to text. Thus can also lead to text of the body. His head moved thusly. Thus he took the letter from the hands of his lover. Thus did the main character write to his lady love. Thus did he appear to go mad. Thus did he send his former friends to their death via a letter. Thus did he die. Thus did Horatio live to tell his story. Thus did Shakespeare write it all down. Thus did I write a whole lot of shite in response to it.

There was a video floating around the internet a while back of a child hearing for the first time. He’d just had a cochlear implant and had never heard anything before. After the operation, they filmed him as they activated the implant. He hears his mother’s voice for the first time. It’s an image of wonder. The child responds with delight. It’s like we get to watch a kid’s world expand exponentially in an instant. We watch him enter a whole new world and it is glorious.
There are stories, though, of adults who have had this surgery and upon hearing the world for the first time, are completely overwhelmed by it. Their brains have no way of making sense of all that they hear so that they cannot distinguish the hum of the machine from the hum of a friend. It all sounds like an extraordinary wave of noise and it cannot be turned off. I think at least one person reversed the surgery, preferring the silence to the constant roar of unintelligible sound.

He’s not wrong, on one level.
This is not good writing.
But

a) I’m not sure it’s actually VILE, vile is a bit of a leap. Unless vile didn’t mean anything disgusting or hateful back in the day but something like cliché or corny.

b) He seems to be objecting to “beautified” which is not a phrase, but a word, unless by phrase he means word. Or his objecting to the whole phrase – polluted by “beautified.”

But all that aside, it’s just not good form to do literary analysis on people’s loves notes – especially in front of their mothers.

It’s not so much that it’s vile but beautified seems to imply something entirely different from either Beautiful or Beatified. Beautified has the quality of beauty being done to you. Like – the classic make-over show- a plain, unhappy, shlubby girl is kidnapped by the Beauty Team and they take over, ignore her will and transform her, they beautify her, she’s the new woman! Beautified! And as much as I have fantasized about this sort of kidnapping (Won’t someone please just tell me what to wear! Could someone else please take responsibility for this hair?) I feel in this moment that this kind of beautification has nothing to do with the person it gets done to. She is the canvas and the beauty is the paint. Once she is beautified, people just look at the painting.

The problem I have been talking about has been addressed by a group, gathered together via social media. They have had brunches and meetings. They have sat together and cast about for solutions to the problem. On social media, I am a part of this group. I get the messages, see the pictures, read the links – but it is ultimately the gathering, in person, of these people that will accomplish something. And not simply the gathering. It is also the surmising, the guessing about what to do. A gathering could be just a party, just folks hanging out making small talk – but this crucial step of creating an hypothesis and testing it? That can vault a group into action.

Ophelia’s obedience feels like a currency
That Polonius is flashing at the King –
Like her devotion to her father could be
Stacked into a collection of bills, all crisply folded,
Face up and secured with a silver clip.
Polonius rolls up, pulls out his wad
Of filial fidelity and starts handing it around,
Greasing palms, building up his own reputation.

Yes, yes, yours til you walk her down the aisle. You’ll give her away along with a few of your chickens and a box full of jewelry. Yours for now. Then, someone else’s. Never hers. Never her own self, poor Ophelia.