Polonius bids Reynaldo farewell and then we never see him again.
What happens to him after he leaves Denmark?
Does he fall in with the wrong crowd in Paris? Or perhaps something goes awry on the way to France? Or right after he walks out of this room?
Does he reach France at all?
Does he put Polonius’ plan into action? Or is he hit by a bus on the way?
There is no real reason for Reynaldo to return to the play. He has served his purpose here. He has helped paint Polonius as a man who keeps sneaky tabs on his son and then, poof, he is gone. Farewell Reynaldo. Or rather – adieu. We won’t see you again. Maybe he’s hanging out with Marcellus.

In the 8th grade version of Hamlet we did last month, Polonius always said this line as “And let him PLAY his music.” I never corrected him – we had other things to worry about – but now that I’m looking at it and remembering, I’m wondering if it might once have been play. It’s very possible that a typesetter left out a letter in printing the folio. (Oh wait. Text question: Does this scene appear in the folio and/or both quarto? Give me the answers, Internet! If it’s in all three as PLY, it’s not a printing mistake. – – – time passing, internet checking – – – And lo, the Internet provides. The 1st Quarto has this line as “Bid him ply his learning.” So, uh, it’s clearly PLY.)
Certainly there’s a kind of Attempt implied in plying. I guess even implying is a sort of trying – an attempt to say something without saying it. One plies one’s trade – is that what Polonius is implying? That Laertes (or Leartes in the 1st Quarto!) should be allowed to pursue his interests, to chase his vices as if they were his career? And why music? There has been no mention of music before now; Where did this metaphor come from? Or is it not a metaphor? Maybe Laertes is a secret flautist? If so, he might ply or play his music.

Ha ha! What is Laertes’ inclination?!
Which of the many vices mentioned
Is he inclined to give way too?
This line tips the scales for me on the question of Laertes’ innocence.
Even if Laertes has managed to behave himself,
His father knows he was an inclination,
One which Reynaldo might fall prey to as well.
If I had to choose, I think I’d go with lust. I think Laertes might be a libertine.
His sister responds to his advice on chastity
By suggesting he not tread the primrose path of dalliance
While preaching to her. Maybe Laertes has gotten into trouble
With the ladies in some way. There’s something
Lascivious in his name. Something about the letter L even
That lays out lust and love and longing
And libidinous languorous lingering luscious lovers
Into a last lunge toward a name like Laertes.

Ye? I thought ye was like y’all – a sort of collective you – the vosotros or ustedes form of you. . . as in “God rest ye merry gentleman” or “Ye olde shoppe” – that is, the shop for ALL of you.
But – Polonius is pretty clearly just talking to Reynaldo here – which suddenly makes me wonder if this is an attempt to connect with Reynaldo. I have seen many a Northerner attempt a “Y’all” in the most clumsy fashion, not understanding the construction at all, just throwing in “y’all” as a signal for Southern-ness. I would like to give you an example of that here – but it is so outside of my own logic, I actually can’t imagine it at the moment. It’s like singing out of tune on purpose. It’s really hard to do. Suffice it to say that “y’all” just signals “South” and perhaps “Ye” for Polonius just signals “common people”?
This is all assuming that I haven’t misunderstood “ye” myself. . . which, given the years between when this was written and now, is very very possible.

You could say I have some issues with trust. I don’t think I can blame it entirely on the team building exercise at Girl Scout camp –the one where everyone was meant to balance together on a table, looking out for one another, making sure no one was lost. The fact that I was lost, that I fell from that trust table, that I felt, in fact, pushed from that trust table – well, that’s not the only time someone let me down. In fact, before that bone breaking fall, I had fallen before, betrayed by someone or other. . .so on that ropes course, I now suspect, I held myself aloof, at the periphery, sure I would not be supported, not caught, not part of the group, so, of course, I fell instead of fighting my way into that table’s inner safety.
In a life in theatre, I’ve seen dozens of trust falls, participated in them, too – but always as the catcher, not as the faller. Friends would get upset with me, Cry out, “Don’t you trust me?” And I would protest, of course, of course- I just don’t want to fall.
But, I have been lifted, pulled from the ground, carefully, by many hands, cradled, bourn about a room and no one yet has dropped me. It’s different, that. . .it takes an equal amount of trust to allow someone to lift you up but doesn’t require a fall first.
And I guess I have fallen a lot.

There are some who love to lecture – even when they do not know what they’re talking about. I read (an article) about this recently. The author found herself being lectured to about a subject that she’d written a definitive book about. In fact, the lecturer lectured her about her own book, unable to believe he might be talking to its author. It does tend to fall along gender lines, I suspect – if only because I cannot remember a lecture of this sort from any woman ever. But that could be my memory? Probably not.
But – as much as a patronizing lecture is intensely irritating, I will confess to loving a man who likes to explain things. If he were someone else, it might seem as though he were lecturing a bit – but somehow, in him, it doesn’t go quite that far. He got an explaining gene from his father (who does lecture, it must be acknowledged) and he enjoys giving that gene a little exercise. He gets a glint in his eye when an opportunity to explain something arises. I like to ask science questions. It’s like turning the key in a happy wind-up toy. I turn it and watch him go.

When he caught the fish, he was just thinking of a meal. He was growing weary of the beetroot salads and the beet soup and the beet casserole and he longed for something he could really TASTE, something that would melt in his mouth differently than the beets. He’d gone fishing out by the river, borrowed his friend’s pole and his lures and gave it a shot. He’d waited for hours for a bite and when it came, there was a great thrashing of his line and reeling it in took all of his strength and focus. When he finally pulled it onto the dock, he watched it flop helplessly against the wood and pictured it on the platter they hadn’t used in ages, garnished with herbs and not beetroot. He wasn’t sure how he was going to fit it in the small bucket he’d brought. He’d imagined bringing home a few small fish, flurrying amongst each other. Not this enormous carp. This carp was going to change everything.
Which, of course, it was.

As the carp thrashed on the dock, the hook through its lip, the man began to notice a strange lisping sound, a blubbery, lisp of a noise. He looked around, didn’t see anything. It sounded like someone calling “Wait, wait, wait” but not those words exactly. He looked at the fish and it seemed as though the sound was emanating from its mouth. He’d been out in the sun for some time, and so assumed he was delirious with sunstroke, with the effort of reeling in the fish, with joy at the thought of eating something besides beets.

As he bent to remove the hook, though, it became clear that the sound was centered here, that the fish was shouting, not words, no, of course not words, but shouting. He carefully pulled out the hook and the fish smacked its lips together, then pulled them in toward itself, looking for all the world like it was feeling the damage; its eyes shifting back and forth.

The man was grateful for the quiet – grateful that the fish had stopped thrashing so violently. He was just about to sit down next to it to contemplate how to bring it home when the carp opened its lips again and a very strange watery voice said “ouch.” The man fanned himself with his hat, took a sip of water and then looked back at the fish, which had begun to move its lips all around, then seemed to look right at him. “Clever trick”, it said.

The man took a deep breath and looked right at the fish. The fish’s eye looked at him steadily but with an odd sense of bemusement. The fish spoke again in that watery blubbering way. “I’d heard that there was trick food out in the bright end but I just didn’t believe it and now – well. . . it’s hard to breathe here, isn’t it?”

The man was finding it a bit hard to breathe himself but he was no fool and he knew the fish that was suddenly speaking to him would not be speaking long if he didn’t get it in some water quickly. The carp began to thrash a bit again, looking at him pleadingly, with some confusion.

“Hang on” the man said as he grabbed his bucket, filled it with water and dumped it over the fish. The fish calmed for a moment while the man looked around for options. He was not going to throw back a talking fish, not yet, no, he couldn’t. Nor could he eat it, not yet. Not before he solved its mystery.

Was it a wish granting fish? He’d heard of those in stories. He looked around urgently and spotted a little pool, where the river had ebbed away for the day. He picked the fish up in his net and said, as he carried it: “I’m going to put you back in some water but I want to keep talking with you. Could you please not stay under once I put you back in?”

The fish looked confused but blinked it eye in what appeared to be agreement.

With a hurried splash, the man dipped his net in the small pool nestled between two rocks by the river and the fish moved in the limited space of the net in what could only be described as great relief. After a few moments, it popped its head above the surface again and looked at the man. “Thank you” it said.

“You’re welcome.” said the man.

The fish dipped its head under but came back up again.

“Can I repay you?” the fish asked.

“I’m not sure” said the man, “Are you a wish fish?”

The fish blinked its eye a few times – “A what?”

“A fish that grants wishes. There are stories.”

There was a bubbling gurgle that must have been a laugh. Then the fish said, “No, no. I’m just a fish. No special wish powers. I mean, I wish I were; I’d do some wishing of my own but no, I’m just a carp.”

The man was disappointed. Visibly so – his body sagged. He hadn’t realized that he’d already planned his wishes, that he’d pictured himself at a table full of a wide variety of delicious foods (not one beet root to be seen) next to a beautiful woman in a giant house. But as the fish acknowledged no power to grant wishes, that vision vanished as quickly as it had unconsciously snuck in.

The fish blinked, taking in the image of the man disappointed and said, “I can see that you’ve lost hope.”

The man looked up, ready to deny it – then sank again, to sit on the rock by the pool, his head in his hand.

He sat there, the picture of despair. The carp made a soothing bubbly sound. “I see that I have spoken the truth. I have noticed that truth will silence many creatures.”

The man looked up at the carp, still looking at him with its bulging eye.

“My fellow carp will often swim the other way when they see me coming. They don’t say anything to me but this frog friend of mine has told me they call me the Truth. He told me it’s not that they don’t respect me, it’s just that they don’t always like to hear the truth.”

The man looked at the carp quizzically. “Do you know lots of truths?”

The carp blinked and said, “Yes. There are the truths of the creatures, the truths of the deep, the truths of the beyond, the truths of the shallow, of the bright, of the big, the small, the future, the past.”

The man’s eyes lit up. “Do you know the future?”

The fish dipped back down into the pool for a moment, then re-emerged. It chewed on a bit of algae and blinked. “I know some of the future,” it said.

The man shifted his position on the rock, some hope slipping back into his body. He gripped the pole of his net as if it were the fish’s hand and said, “Can you tell me my future?”

“Things will get better,” said the fish.

The man smiled and loosened his grip on the net.

“Then they will get worse.”

The man let the net go entirely and sank back on his rock.

“But then,” said the fish, “it will get better again.”

The man sat neither forward nor backwards, just poised in the middle.

“Yes,” said the fish, “that is right. It will bob in both directions, like a bit of algae.”

The man stared at the fish for a moment. “That’s the truth?”

“I think so,” said the carp.

“Well,” said the man, “tell me this. Will I take you home and eat you for dinner?”

The fish dipped below the water. It swam around its contained area for a moment then re-emerged, blinking its eyes. The carp spoke slowly. It was an old carp, one who had learned quite a bit in its days in the deep. The carp looked at the man and said: “You want to. You want to eat me. You are very hungry for my flesh. But I think you will not take me home and eat me for dinner and this is why: There is no one there who will tell you the truth. So I think you will lift me again and return me to the flow of my home. Then you will return over the next passings of the time and the river. You will drop this circle here in the flow and I will emerge to tell you more truths.”

It was the man’s turn to blink. He couldn’t decide if this was, in fact, the truth or the carp’s attempt to save itself. Or perhaps, he thought, it was both at once. As he thought, the carp dipped back underwater, swimming back and forth. The man pictured himself pulling the fish from the water, watching it die, cooking it up, then sitting down to eat. He imagined the smell, the flavor, the clear absence of beet on the table. He saw the bones on his plate, saw himself trying to make meaning from the bones, to read them the way the fortune teller reads chicken bones. Then he saw the next day, when the fish was all gone and beets were on his table again and he’d have to smile and pretend they were what he wanted most in the world.

The fish had popped its head out again. The man said, “How do I know that you will come when I drop the net?”

The carp blinked dispassionately and said, “I tell the truth.”

With that, the man picked up his net and the fish in it, flopping as he did and walked it toward the river’s edge.

Neither mirrors nor photographs ever accurately reflect the self I think I am. In photographs from the current moment, I see someone I don’t know. Someone I find shockingly ugly, fat, unattractive, disheveled and/or at odds with her world. But I remember looking at photographs of myself when I was 17 and feeling exactly the same way – photographs that I can look at now and see completely differently. From my 30 something eyes, I see a beautiful 17 year old and remember the 17 year old who couldn’t see the same image that way at all.
“We act according to our self-image” and we act in response to images, too. Imagining that a photograph or mirror is reflecting an objective view is just that. . .imagining.
So I try now to imagine the self exactly as I sense it. I lie on the floor feeling each limb and line, noticing where it touches the floor and where it leaves and this is the real seeing – even if it is not with the eyes.

Robyn and I went to Pompeii. Rachel had gone back to Paris and Robyn and I thought we’d see one more sight before the end of our holidays.
It was a grey day to walk among the remains of the city. We wandered the streets, looking at walls that withstood the destructive force of the volcano, wondering what we shouldn’t miss. I had a guide book, or a brochure, and I had discovered that one of the buildings that remained relatively intact was a brothel. It sounded like a very compelling building to see. We giggled about it. Two American college-girls getting our dose of culture but still interested in sex, too, of course. What would we see in the remains of a house of sale? We wandered around for a long long time looking for it. We thought about asking for directions but I’d never learned the Italian word for brothel in my language studies and it wasn’t something I was interested in describing for someone.
After our feet were worn out and our tourist eyes exhausted by the stone, I finally gave it a shot. I think I described the bordello as a house for women. The house where men buy women? I’m not sure I got any further than the “house for women” before the guard said “Il Bordello?” and I felt like an utter fool. We never found it either. It was too far from where we were. We just went to the theatre, sat there for awhile and called it a day.

I’ve been having bra trouble. The super expensive fancy bras I bought 4 years ago have finally been stretched out beyond any reasonable usability. I’ve been putting off the purchasing of more bras. It takes time and attention I haven’t had to buy my curiously difficult to find size. But the trouble has gotten more and more extreme as time goes by. It’s not just that the bras don’t look good under my shirts anymore, no, no. At rehearsal, as I attempt a physical feat or standard roll, I find the cups inching up over my breasts – creating a sort of quadrabreast pack requiring me to rescue my girls from bondage and replace them in their cups. While attempting a lazy relaxation exercise, I found myself caught in the underwire of my bra. Then, there was that game of tennis. That ill fated horrible game of tennis.