As far as I know, I have never inspired fear in anyone. Maybe a cat by inadvertently slamming a door. Or a friend by walking into a room when they weren’t prepared for anyone to show up.
I generally project a “Have no fear” vibe, I think. It may be why animals are drawn to me despite my general indifference to them.
Or maybe I’m secretly terrifying – so secretly, it’s even secret to myself. I’ve fantasized about inspiring fear – a friend and I used to scheme great super-villain schemes, plotting world domination and so on. But it was funny, actually – since neither of us inspired fear in anyone nor would we want to in reality.
This is also why I made a terrible substitute teacher.
Withdraw, I hear him coming.
I copy a page of Hamlet at a time and slip it into the back of my notebook. I draw spirals on the page where I’ve already been as well as over empty spaces.
When I finish a page, I copy the next one. I finished the page that precedes this line days ago – but I’m away from home and so I’ve made do with looking at an edition on line. I’m not sure it matches with mine – but it’s an okay stop gap measure until I return to my own text. The problem today is that I also don’t have the Internet with me. No phone. No tablet. So I’m relying on my memory and I think this line is, “I hear him coming” and I think it is so because I remember a small laugh from the audience after it was said and I think the line is Gertrude’s because I think I said it and so it got the laugh. Good old Gertrude doesn’t get a lot of laughs usually. And it wasn’t me, it was Hamlet’s crazed, “Mother” repetition that did it, I just got the punchline sometimes in some audiences. I think. This memory is now 20 years old so I can’t be sure. Maybe I’m mixing up my eavesdropping scenes. Maybe it wasn’t my laugh at all.
And in some editions this line is Gertrude’s. (The New Penguin Edition that I use, for example does.) In others, they give it to Polonius. (Like the on-line version I sometimes use as well.) I’m glad I got to say it.
The year after my job playing Gertrude, I had a temp job. A very BORING temp job. I spent hours in the file closet by myself. And I would entertain myself there by trying to remember all of Hamlet from the beginning to the end. I never got this far in that exercise – In fact, I’d be surprised if I ever made it past Act 1, before my memory failed – but I bet if I kept that job, I’d have all of Hamlet memorized today.
Mother, mother, mother.
“Had I three ears I’d hear thee.”
It’s interesting how there appears to be an ongoing bit of magic in repeating a name three times. There’s almost an entire horror genre that uses this idea. Candyman? Bloody Mary? Beetlejuice?
I play a game called Name Three times that has no mysterious dark magic in it – except for magically waking up a group of people and getting their synapses firing a little bit more together.
And like any repetition in performance, this repetition is an invitation to play. You feel some drive to differentiate them or make some meaning of the repetition. To just say mother three times in the same tone would be almost avant garde. OR just boring. There was a guy who made monotone Shakespeare shows. He was/is an avant garde theatre dude and his gimmick with the plays was to do them without doing them. It was just boring, after all.
Pray you be round with him.
I think of round as warm and comforting.
Round is soft. It has no keen edge.
It is plush and you want to hug it.
Round is communal and open.
There’s always room for more at a round table.
And yet this is not at all what Polonius has in mind.
I’ll silence me even here.
Other editions have Polonius sconcing himself here. I see that “sconce” scans better and it has an imagistic quality that makes it a fun choice. It instantly makes me imagine Polonius as a candle holder, attached to the wall, quietly observing, not animate.
Silence has the benefit of being rather a lot more clear, though.
So, of course, there must be some quarto/folio choice being made here by editors. Has silence been massaged into sconce because it scans better?
Or have these editors of my edition here chosen silence for the directness and clarity? Which is folio? Which is quarto? If it is a question of neither?
Here is a moment in which I could happily use an Arden edition. Or a copy of both quarto and a folio.
Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear with, And that your grace hath screened and stood between Much heat and him.
And where, pray tell, would the source of this heat be?
From the King? From Polonius?
Who would give heat to the Prince of Denmark?
Is there some scolding from some source that might actually concern a royal young man?
It’s a funny thing that Polonius wants Gertrude to say. It is particularly interesting that Polonius references Hamlet’s pranks. We only see Hamlet pranking Polonius – but Polonius assumes these pranks are more general – so much so that he thinks Hamlet’s mother should give him some hell for them. But – really – when you look closely – there really are no pranks, per se. There’s some strange behavior, granted but it’s not as if Hamlet’s pulling practical jokes as if the Royal castle were a frat house. He’s not (as far as we know) short sheeting anyone’s bed or placing buckets of water over doorways or telling anyone their refrigerator ought to be caught due to its running.
And recently, all Hamlet has done is have a play put on. He hasn’t interrupted it or planted someone in the audience to leap out and surprise everyone. Sure, he had them add some lines – but almost no one knows that. Why is everyone so mad at Hamlet after just watching a play?
Look you lay home to him.
How does Polonius have the authority to tell the Queen of Motherfucking Denmark how she should speak to her son?
She is the Queen. He is – NOT the Queen.
Not only is he not the Queen, he’s not even some other royalty of some kind. He’s, like, the royal what? The role is never explicitly stated. Nor is it clear how long he has held this position.
The Queen, however, has been the motherfucking Queen for some time. How is it possible that this guy a) has the authority to tell her what to do and b) has the audacity to? And why does she LISTEN? She does exactly as he’s instructed her – when several scenes before she wasn’t having any of his nonsense. She more mattered and less arted him not long before.
Does he have something over her?
On her?
Has he blackmailed her? Does he know what’s up and he’s threatened to share it with her son?
Is he being all Tulkinghorn to her Lady Deadlock?
I’d expect the Gertrude of earlier scenes to give him a whack and say, “Don’t you tell me how to talk to my son. I don’t care if he is crazy – you don’t give me instructions. I am the motherfucking Queen!”
But I guess the crazy is the wild card here. If Polonius has somehow set himself up on the authority of crazy, he’s cast himself a bit like a Doctor and anyone will listen to a doctor when their loved one is at stake. So maybe she tolerates this as a kind of prescription. It is instructions are followed because she thinks Polonius knows how to handle a crazy person. Maybe she thinks he knows what’s best for Hamlet. Which is bonkers. Because he doesn’t and nothing she’s seen would suggest Polonius does know anything about Hamlet or madness.
‘A will come straight.
Yeah, this isn’t what Hamlet said. Not at all.
They had a whole back and forth in which Hamlet clearly expressed that he would come ‘by and by’ and even repeated ‘by and by.” By and by is sort of the opposite of straight.
Is Polonius being deliberately misleading here?
Is he editing what Hamlet said to somehow soften the response? Or has he worked out some behavioral tick wherein Hamlet will do the opposite of what he says he’ll do – because Hamlet does, in fact, arrive shortly after this sentence.
In any case, the report is an inaccurate reflection of what Hamlet actually said. And we all know it.
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.
Well that IS unfortunate!
You mean you don’t get a pass just for saying the prayer? You have to mean it, too?
Like, when someone is forced to apologize for something he’s done and he says, “Sorry” with a tone that suggests he is not in the least bit sorry. Then if it’s a parent doing the compelling, then the parent has to somehow get across the idea that you have to MEAN it, too. Or at least SOUND like you mean it.
The trick is – with heaven – I guess you couldn’t get away with just SOUNDING penitent. Apparently God can see your thoughts, too – so you not only have to sound like you mean it but also actually mean it. Because HE’LL know. Which – wow – talk about never getting a moment alone!
And what a big job – to read the actual thoughts of all people. I would not want that gig. TMI!
My words fly up, my thoughts remain below.
There are times when I wish I were a cartoonist. I’d create a panel for this line wherein a dialogue bubble would be at the top of the frame and a thought bubble would hover just around the subject’s head. He’d be kneeling in prayer and the dialogue bubble would feature some standard forgiveness prayer, while the thought bubble would feature lines like, “Am I really sorry? I’m glad to be the king! I’m a good king! I like being married to Gertrude! I’d kill him again, that bastard. He didn’t deserve her or his crown! Damn it. Forgive me for I have sinned – and what good sinning it was. No – wait, stop, I’m sorry, I don’t want to go to hell – that’s the thing. Do you think I could enjoy my life now and skip the hell part? Forgive me? No. Wait, stop. I’m sorry. I don’t want to go to hell – that’s the thing. Do you think I could enjoy my life now and skip the hell part? Forgive me? No. Wait. . .”
The Hamlet Project 