The Hamlet Project

I enjoy o’ercrows here. It makes me picture Hamlet’s spirit and the potent poison in a crowing contest, like Peter Pan crowing with the Lost Boys. Hamlet’s spirit crows, weakly…and the poison crows, triumphantly, loudly, proudly and the observers all shake their heads regretfully because it’s such a shame that that bully poison should beat the resilient philosophical royal spirit of Hamlet? How can a poison be so potent? So able to overcome the strong? How is it able to crow so loud and strong?

The gift in this sentence is the O. It changes the subject, it takes everyone’s attention. 

Maybe.

I mean – it depends on the production. The O could be a simple, reaction to the news that Norway and England have arrived and are greeting each other with war sounds. O. I see.

Or the O could rise up from a pain in his body. It could surge out of his guts and through his mouth as he realizes, more acutely now that the end is moments away.

Or he could be suddenly seeing the ghost of his father beckoning him to the other side. Or flights of angels waiting to receive him.

There is a conversation about Hamlet’s end that features some Os at the end of this speech – those Os are not featured in this edition – but there are a lot of possibilities and the way that Hamlet senses the death that awaits him is significant. It could be physical. It could be spiritual. It could be visual. It is full of possibilities.

Given the sound, one might assume that war had been declared. It would be a logical conclusion. Denmark is after all preparing for war at the start of this play. One might assume that Fortinbras has come to take over, not to report on his other wars. (I mean, he does sort of take over but only because no one is left in this royal court.)

This raises the question for me of who all those war preparations at the start were for. Is it support troops for Fortinbras’ campaign? Does Claudius do more for that war than just grant permission for Fortinbras to march through?

Also – it is very interesting that Norway and England greet each other with warlike noise – even though they both simply come with news.

And they arrive at the same moment?

Couldn’t they have arrived a little sooner and forestalled this little sword play?

This sort of thing keeps many a storyteller alive. They may be particularly sensitive to the harshness of the world, to the miseries that afflict the many but they will draw their breath in pain because they feel a sense of responsibility to tell someone’s story.

One’s own story might keep you alive for a little bit but ultimately, for a consummate storyteller, it will be the responsibility to recount others’ stories that will keep them going.

It is a harsh world. It is also beautiful sometimes. The responsibility (either given or taken on) of telling someone’s story is sometimes enough to help one draw one’s breath in less pain.

It occurs to me, as I read this line, that Horatio is a sort of stand in for Shakespeare. We can imagine him as the writer of this play – attempting to clear Hamlet’s wounded name for him. It is, after all, the writer of this play who creates what lives behind Hamlet.

Of course, he also made him up. But if we look at Horatio – he does behave a lot like a writer. He observes. He watches. He listens. He asks questions. He is charged to tell this story – even if he must draw his breath in pain to do it.

Horatio must be holding that cup pretty tightly for Hamlet to have to say this.

It also occurs to me that Hamlet may not succeed in getting the cup. He’s weak, after all, losing his facility with his body, I expect. It’s clearly not having an impact on his mind or his speech. This would mean that the next lines are further attempts to get Horatio to put down that cup. That powers those lines rather powerfully.

I think I’ve usually seen this line with Hamlet getting a burst of energy and getting his hands on the cup. The next lines then become a little speech rather than a plea for Horatio to give up the deadly cup. I mean – I understand why this happens. If Horatio doesn’t surrender the cup, he could look like a real asshole who is teasing a dying man. It’s a hard look to avoid under the circumstances, though.

It’s funny that Horatio chooses to wrestle with Hamlet over this cup, right at the hour of his death. I mean, there’s a lot of things I’d choose to do at the side of a dying person – sing to them, ask them if there’s anything they need, adjust their comfort in some way, hug them, hold their hand, brush their hair, share stories, share jokes – but one thing I would not do is make them try to take something from me. Hamlet can’t be at his strongest and yet here’s Horatio holding onto this cup of poison wine while Hamlet struggles to get it from him.
If he wants to kill himself with it – why not wait until Hamlet is dead and save him the energy in his last moments on earth?

The reason to do it now is to show Hamlet he means to do it and if Hamlet doesn’t like it – just let that cup go!

Even here, at the point at death, potentially for both of them, manhood is still of the utmost importance. Is there something about dying like a man? I mean, yes, of course there is. It’s how they get young men, through the ages, to risk their lives in war. The appeal of dying like a man is so strong that even thoughtful wise ones will join up to do it.

So here is Horatio attempting to die like a man, specifically a Roman one from ancient times and here is Hamlet attempting to prevent Horatio’s dying by invoking his manhood. He is basically countering one concept of manliness by pulling in another.

My god, the suffering men have put themselves through just to feel part of their own gender.