And here is where Rosencrantz signs his own death warrant. He might have been able to pull Hamlet’s allegiance back at this point with a different answer.
He’s been pushing at Hamlet to tell him what’s wrong pretty every time he sees him and here Hamlet finally tells him something trued and Rosencrantz shuts it down.
If he’d said something like, “Yes, that is upsetting.”
Or even just did some straight up reflective listening like, “You lack advancement.” Hamlet might have begun to trust him – but by essentially taking Claudius point of view, he condemns himself.
It is here where Hamlet quits playing their game, gets out the pipes and starts turning the tables on them.
Smooth move, Rosencrantz.
Sir, I lack advancement.
You and me both, Hamlet. You and me both.
For years, I searched for what it was that must be wrong with me that kept me from progress. Then I realized that the system was rigged and that no amount of positive thinking would fix it. Shifting the language around this is key – for example, saying I lack advancement is a lot less self-defeating than “I’m not as successful as I’d like to be.” Or “I’ve failed.” I lack advancement in the way that I lack a certain amount of privilege. It’s not something that’s wrong with me – just something that I don’t have in possession. It’s like not having a car. The car isn’t a part of me that’s missing – it’s a thing I don’t have. Would having a car be helpful in getting me where I’d like to go? Absolutely. Same as advancement.
Shifting things to an outside focus means that I can skip the self-flagellation and get about the business of tracking down the things I need – like a car and advancement. Except I don’t really need a car.
You do surely bar the door upon your own liberty if you deny your griefs to your friend.
Rosencrantz is the kind of friend I used to have – the kid who is constantly trying to manipulate people into telling him more than they want to. He’s like the friend who says, “If you were really my friend, you would. . .” and it’s either something he wants you to do or something he wants you to say and somehow you end up doing it or saying it. But then you feel bad – and you think, “Yeah, you know – maybe I’m actually NOT your friend, so no thanks. I won’t tell you that intimate secret, actually. No, no, you don’t get to hear about my innermost feelings.”
This is a particularly sneaky manipulation – the idea that by somehow NOT telling Rosencrantz he is preventing his own freedom, he own cure.
When, of course, there’s nothing wrong with Hamlet that a little revenge won’t cure.
Good my lord, what is your cause of distemper?
I’d hoped it was winter.
I’d hoped that once the snow drifts melted and the air got warmer and clearer, that the mood would clear.
But the flowers beginning to send their little green sprouts up out of the cold hard earth haven’t shaken the dark that descended on me with the snow.
And do still, by these pickers and stealers.
How we joke with one another can determine so much. Again and again, Hamlet proposes some opportunities for banter with his old friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and again and again, they let the offers lie. In the improvisation of their rapport, they’re almost always blocking him. He makes an offer. They insist he be serious. He makes another offer – they respond with frustration.
Yet if they found a way to support Hamlet’s play, if they joined in the jokes, in the games he proposes, they might find a more companionable Hamlet and might have a better shot at getting what they want. But they keep banging on the serious gong and lose all their credibility with him.
My lord, you once did love me.
A little presumptuous, isn’t this?
How can he be so sure?
This is a declarative sentence. It almost sounds like an accusation, which is a little bit disingenuous from a guy who’s been brought in to spy on his friend and fails to come clean about it.
It strikes me now because I’m struggling with my relationship – feeling like perhaps the love is gone – that my love no longer loves me. . . but I realized, in thinking about this line, that I would NEVER say this to him, even though I think it to be true. I think he did once love me and probably still does to some degree but I would never presume, not even about the past. I would ask. I wouldn’t declare.
That Rosencrantz declares
And at the moment when he’s affectively being dismissed, well, doesn’t say a lot for Rosencrantz’s delicacy.
Truth is, in addition to being a lousy friend, he’s also a lousy a spy. He lacks cunning, charm, savvy and acting skills.
When England gets that notice about beheading this traitor, they must look at him and go, “Really? This guy? I have trouble believing he’s a spy.”
Have you any further trade with us?
This sounds like a royal dismissal. A “you don’t have anything else to say, do you? You’re done wasting my time now, right?”
And Rosencrantz’s response has a quality of acknowledging that. Rosencrantz sounds a little wounded – but really, all the spying and lying aside, the imperious tone they took when delivering the Queen’s message was just. . .well, it makes me feel like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern started this change in tone and Hamlet just takes it to the next level.
“You’re going to treat me like a misbehaving child? Fine. Let me remind you that I’m the Prince, you patronizing pricks.”
We shall obey, were she ten times our mother.
Oooh. Hamlet getting imperial. Getting all “Royal We” on these guys. Royalty up the language, getting super formal. Ten times our mother is a lot of mother but in the obeying, there is a resistance and a pointing toward his own status, which must, inevitably, diminish theirs.
She desires to speak with you in her closet ere you go to bed.
It would be funny if Rosencrantz meant closet the way we mean closet today. If he were like:
“Yeah, your mom wants to meet with you, surrounded by her dresses and shoes. She’ll push the blouses to the side to make a little space for you to sit on the shoe shelf. It’s pretty sturdy.
I mean, I’ve been in your mom’s closet and it smells pretty good in there. It’s cozy. I like being surrounded by all the fancy clothes. Feels safe, too. It’s hard to be overheard in a closet. All those clothes act like soundproofing.”
And then the entire Gertrude and Hamlet scene is in there, entirely claustrophobic and weirdly intimate.
Impart.
This word looks funny all on its own.
In context, it’s perfectly clear, perfectly sensible.
By itself, it looks surreal.
I put it on a blue/grey painted canvas, with several abstract shapes and maybe a gear or clockworks.
Across the top, “Impart” is stenciled in block print.
Why? I’m not sure. It’s a painting now, not just a line.
The Hamlet Project 