The Hamlet Project

Husbands. Plural.
What is Hamlet suggesting multiple husbands for Ophelia?
First it was a nunnery.
Then it was some innuendo, involving himself.
Now it’s multiple husbands.
I mean, in this day and age, there are some people with husbands, plural.
I know a few who’ve had more than one, the sort with First Husbands and Second Husbands even Third ones. But – in this period – having multiple husbands would indicate a death somewhere. A lady didn’t get more than one husband unless he died. And even then, it was touch and go. Unless – of course – Hamlet means the selection of a husband from an assortment of many potential ones. Or as a joke.
Which given his mood in this scene is not impossible.
Husbands who are better and worse might be a reference to far better and far worse. It’s a little bit of a stretch that. Say, not a very GOOD joke. Still better, and worse not being the MOST direct quote of the marriage vows. But it’s possible. So you must take your line analysis – not much better and worse.

What would make this wordplay perfect would be if a groaning were an actual coin of currency. Like if a groaning were like a farthing – or something that sounded like a groaning, like Matt Groening or Kroner even. Then it would be BOTH a literal bit of money AND the sexual innuendo of a groaning.

Why this is the cost of sex, I’m not sure. Moaning is actually a benefit as far as I can tell. And groaning isn’t that far from moaning. Is it that groaning is related to childbirth? I don’t get the sense that a groan is exactly the sound of childbirth, either. Groaning sounds like too mild a sound for the pain of birthing. Shouting, keening, yelling, grunting, growling all seem more likely.
But I know that in Shakespeare’s work – this joke about groaning and the cost of sex comes up a lot.
And here we have Hamlet suggesting that in order to un-sharpen his blade, as it were, he’d need to get busy with Ophelia.
Which would cost her.

And that is the unfortunate way sex shows up in so much literature – as something that a woman must pay for somehow. With a groaning, with a child, with disease  – or in a great many novels, plays and stories – with death. Anna Karenina enjoys some sexual pleasure but ultimately has to die for it. The cost of good sex is death. Which, you know, just doesn’t seem fair.

I was reminded of this trope recently when watching the film of Into the Woods – how we see the Baker’s Wife enjoy some sexual pleasure and is, in the next breath, dead.
And men’s sexual desire is the edge? Sharp painful – something to fear? Dangerous.

I’m done with this. Can’t both men and women just enjoy their bodies? Give one another pleasure? No edge. No groaning. No death.

I’ve worked with a lot of puppeteers and a lot of puppets over the years. One thing that unites them all is that sooner or later, there will be some playing around with the puppets. No matter the puppet, or the puppets’ purpose, it is very likely that there will be puppet sex. I’ve seen hand puppet sex, marionette sex, bunraku sex, shadow puppet sex, rod puppet sex and lots of inter-puppet species sex. Puppets don’t care if one is a marionette and the other is a bunraku style puppet. They will find a way to hump one another no matter the restrictions.

Which is why, when, in a show, the decision to have the puppets do it never shocks me. The writing has to be good, or justified story-wise. It’s just not enough to have two wacky puppets going at it. I’d need more than just the humping to be interested. I’d need the puppet courtship, the puppet foreplay, the puppet post-coital cigarette, the puppet break-up, I’ve seen a lot of puppet dalliances. I need good ones to stand out from the crowd.

Hamlet himself is currently nephew to the king. And yet Lucianus is not Hamlet’s surrogate in this play, but Claudius’. The layers of obfuscation continue.
Is there some implicit threat in the casting of the poisoner as closest to himself?
Is there some way he’s saying to Claudius, “I’m coming for you, watch out.” Or is it just obfuscation?

I totally thought withers were the same as udders. That made it a funny image to use for a couple of men. I thought it’d be funny for women, too – because we don’t have “withers” either. But – to jump both species AND gender seemed especially bold. Only a lady cow would have withers just like only a boy cow (AKA bull) would have a cowdong or bull balls. It’d be like if I were talking to my stepmother and was like – “Our bull balls aren’t bothered.” I can see maybe saying, “Don’t go busting our balls.” But the extra mile of referring to animal balls is especially far fetched.

And then I found out that withers are a completely different part of the body. Doh!

But aside from all of that – “our withers are unwrung” just sounds good. It is a beautifully musical phrase.

I see – it’s the galled jade who doesn’t have a free soul. And the implication is that Claudius is like the galled jade. But worse. Cause he’s a murderer not a whore.
It’s funny to choose a galled jade, though because of all the “sinners” – a harlot is probably the least likely to feel shame about her “sin.” I mean, cause if she’s a whore:

A) It’s her job not something she does against anyone else. It’s just how she has to earn a damn living

B) because it’s her job, she’s bound to be pretty inured to the shows men put on in front of her on a daily basis.

I’d guess your average sex-worker sees more shows than your average person. She’s probably trained herself not to wince in the face of awkward performances. Why, awkward performances are very likely her stock and trade! I’m not sure what would make a jade wince but knavery would likely not be it.

The sense of touch here is so different than how I usually think of it. It’s certainly not physical touch, of course. But nor is it touching in the sense that we usually use it when talking about a work of art. The quality of THAT touching is something like holding a baby or picking up a puppy.
A story that touches you, touches you like a hug, maybe even a hug after a sad-event, the kind of hug that might make you cry.
We think of works that touch you, as touching your heart.
This is a different sort of touch. This is touch like a ghost’s fingers along your spine or someone touching your wrist after picking up a block of ice.
This play would seem to touch those without free souls like a cold-fingered doctor taking your pulse. In a warm country, I had a doctor check me for pneumonia with hands colder than cold. That’s probably how this play was meant to touch the un-free.