As a response to a compliment, this might be a sort of charmingly fumbling way of saying, “Thank you.”
Accepting praise is a kind of skill, I think. I am not particularly adept at it. I either over-defer (“It had nothing to do with me. I’m just working with great people.” Or over-accept (“Why, thank you! I’m so proud of it myself!”) I feel there is probably some clever middle way that people who accept a lot of compliments work out, some charming combination of slight self-deprecation, with a hint of pride and pleasure and a shadow of inevitability. I’ve seen people do it. I might need to consciously study them to work out how. Also I might need a lot more compliments.
POLONIUS
Have I, my lord?
Polonius, pleased.
Pleasing the politician is part and parcel of his purpose and Claudius’ perception that Polonius fathers good news cannot help but please the proud papa in him. He may be prouder of his good news children than this actual children, who do not always provide good news.
The ambassadors from Norway, my good lord, Are joyfully returned.
Cornelius and Voltemand work fast, I guess!
Or else this gives us a clue as to how much time has passed since the Ghost turned up and shook Hamlet up. Has someone done this math?
How long would it take to travel from Denmark to Norway and back at the time this play is meant to take place? And, by the way, are there any clues as to when this play was meant to take place? Or should we ask how long it would take to travel from Denmark to Norway and back when Shakespeare wrote the play? Whatever those numbers may be or might have been, we’d need to add at least a day, probably two, to allow for ambassadorial activities – ceremonies, meeting with royalty – let’s say they weren’t rushed right in to see old Norway – we’re talking a couple days at least. Probably more like a week. Even by today’s speedy traveling standards, while it might be possible to travel it all in a day – it’s highly likely that the job would take 2 or 3. And when does this gap in time happen? It seems so far, we have:
Day 1 – Horatio sees the Ghost. Sun comes up.
Leading into
Day 2 – King’s big speech. Horatio reports ghost to Hamlet who watches for it into the night. We could call this one continuous day.
Day 2?Day 3? – Does Laertes leave immediately or does it take some time to pack his stuff and make arrangements? Does Hamlet put on his antic disposition right away? Is this little scene with Ophelia in her sewing closet right after the ghost or does he take some time to work up to high amp madness? He must take some time because Ophelia had to refuse his letters and lock him out already. . .not something right away, right? The King and Queen need a few days to take in the madness and send for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who in turn need some time to arrive. . .so I can see how a week could go by between sending Cornelius and Voltemand off to Norway and receiving them again.
There are some lost days here in the middle. What happened?
Come.
I named my dog Ophelia.
I thought it would make her obedient.
I thought, perhaps, when I clapped my hands and said, “Come,” she would come.
I thought she would sit when I said sit
And would fetch things when I threw them.
Turns out, though, that you have to be taught
To do those things. The environment and the teacher and the world
Must come together to make a person, or a dog, heel.
This must be known, which, being kept close, might move More grief to hide than hate to utter love.
Huh? Is he saying that if the secret stayed in secret
It would create more grief, more trouble?
It would move it? From where to where is this grief?
And what is this hate to utter love business?
On this side of the equation: moving grief, necessary for hiding
On the other: hate speaking love.
I fail to see the comparison. Isn’t hate speaking love
Already a small number?
Even without revealing the secret –
I would think that grief would sit
In the spot where the alligator opens his mouth
Indicating the greater than sign.
While the love spoken by hate sits small
At the lesser than the end of the alligator.
Come, go we to the King.
That was nice, that apology.
Nice that you took some responsibility
For your daughter’s tears.
Nice that you realized you overstepped your bounds.
But then you return to this going to the king business
It seems a little bit like
The Chief of Staff at the White House
Going to consult with the President
Over a problem with his kid –
And not the president’s kid, either –
His own. As if his own authority
Were not enough to handle the situation.
I picture a father leading his kid by his elbow
To go confess before the big cheese –
A confession that may not reflect well on the confessor
Or the subject of the confession.
It’s a circle of embarrassment.
By heaven, it is a proper to our age To cast beyond ourselves in our opinions As it is common for the younger sort To lack discretion.
Our class is dominated by older ladies
Who are awash with opinions and do not hesitate
To share them at every turn.
They cast the net of their opinions so far and so wide that they cast a spell of silence among the rest of us. Its power was strongest in the beginning because the young new arrivals are less hesitant to speak but those of us younger students were struck dumb by it.
In other contexts, I am a most vocal student but here, in three years, I have never said a word. We, the younger sort in this class, are not quite young enough to lack discretion. In this case, the proper aged ones do cast beyond themselves in opinion and are also lacking discretion.
I work with many of the younger sort, who do, decidedly lack discretion. Part of teaching very young people is, sometimes, the task of teaching discretion. Sometimes, I long to bring these older ladies in our class to my class and there perhaps give them an opportunity to re-learn discretion.
But beshrew my jealousy.
Used to be, it was the girls who got the boys – the ones with boyfriends, lots of them, or a really cute one they held on to. Then it was the girls who looked put together no matter what they did – the ones with the culturally desirable genetic structure, the ones who could buy any old thing off the rack and look amazing in it.
Then, those with money. Those with husbands. Those with kids. Those with a house or livable apartments.
But always, the ones with success, the ones on TV, on film, on Broadway, written about in American Theatre magazine or reviewed in the New York Times, the ones who worked with the people I wanted to work with the ones with good press photos the ones who worked and worked.
I feared he did but trifle And meant to wrack thee.
Do the triflers MEAN to wrack their triflers?
Do they seize upon the sweet young things –
Innocent and milkfat sweet, dotted with delicate wildflowers,
And think: “I will leave that blossom in pieces. I will stress the petals across the grass crush them under foot, the stem bent and broken, roots expressed and crumpled.” ?
Doesn’t the trifler, rather, look at the vibrant flower growing in its meadow and think: “Wouldn’t that flower look nice on my kitchen table? I have just the vase for that pretty thing.”
And he breaks the stem, plucks it from its house and places it in some water
where it looks beautiful for a few days. Then withers, rots and dies.
The wracking isn’t something a trifler meant to do – it’s usually a by-product of the careless plucking of flowers.
I am sorry that with better heed and judgment I had not quoted him.
And now I would like to be an etymologist,
I slip back in time and dive head first into linguistics
As a young academic, toying with words, exploring them, following them through history, watching them expand and contract and shift their meanings, slipping off their significance like a robe
changing colors like chameleons
Or a mammal that has a white winter coat and exchanges it for brown in spring. I watch words like an evolutionary biologist watches Argentine Ants. I watch them fight, travel across continents, settle and colonize.
I spend years just pulling on the thread of “quote” hand over hand, following its path wheresoever it leads.
The Hamlet Project 