This is actually a pretty smart question. It might seem to be just part of the vaudeville routine – but it’s a pretty clever fact finding inquiry, too. Like – what is the story that’s gone out about why Hamlet’s been sent to England? What is the propaganda that Claudius has put out? What are people saying?
He that is mad, and sent into England.
Oh, THAT Hamlet! There are just so many of them – it’s hard to keep them all straight. There’s the one who sledded the dreaded pole-ax on the ice, of course – the old king. But then of course, there’s Hamlet the Plumber. Hamlet, the Florist. He that is athletic and sent to the Olympics. There’s he that is religious and sent to the monastery. There’s Hamlet, the game-show host – Hamlet, the organic farmer. Hamlet the adjunct professor. So it’s good you clarified that you mean the one who is mad and sent to England.
It was the very day that young Hamlet was born.
I wish we could figure out exactly what day this might have been. I’d love to be able to celebrate Hamlet’s birthday. I mean, it must be in the winter because Hamlet Senior defeats Fortinbras Senior on the ice. So we know Hamlet was born in a month that would have been icy. But in Denmark, that’s likely a fairly wide range. Is there a Shakespeare scholar/astrologer out there who has theorized about Hamlet’s astrological sign? Given the ice conditions – he’s probably not a Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo or Libra.
This would be a rather unusual overlapping of areas of knowledge – I don’t know a lot of Shakespeare scholars who are into astrology and while I do know some astrologers who LIKE Shakespeare, I wouldn’t go so far as to call them scholars. BUT. It may be time for a meeting of the minds on this. Mostly just because I want to know.
Every fool can tell that.
Fools are really making a comeback these days. We have a notorious fool in charge of the country and he has surrounded himself with fools of every stripe – and even when there are things that every fool can tell that they cannot, nothing ever changes. The whole climate seems to breed more fools. Stupidity has become fetishized and now, for sure, apparently desirable.
Cannot you tell that?
This is such a great way to say “You don’t know that? How can you not know that?” Because it’s not about the KNOWING – it’s the TELLING. Many a person will shame another person with the “Don’t you know that?” which always has an undercurrent of “What’s wrong with you? Why are you so stupid?”
Whereas “Cannot you tell that?” even though it essentially means the same thing could have a layer of remove. That is, you may know something but cannot say it. You know the answer but cannot tell it.
How long is that since?
Probably, before cameras, royals could conceivably walk around in relative anonymity if they wanted to. Just take off your crown and you have an instant cloak of relative invisibility. I mean, we see Henry the V do it in that play. Here Hamlet can play dumb about basic Denmark facts and presumably the grave-maker is none the wiser.
How would he recognize a prince? By his portrait? Probably not in person. There not being much call for the overlapping of gravemakers and princes usually.
There are no photos, no videos – just paintings and drawings and engravings, which, no matter how artful, don’t necessarily make their way to the eyes of the people.
I think if I were a royal, I’d take great solace in being able to throw off my royalty for a moment and just wander as a human. I’d probably also have to be a male royal to make that really work, though – as ladies didn’t have quite the freedom of movement that I’d find optimal. Maybe, if I had been a queen, I’d have periodically dressed as a man to go out exploring.
Of all the days i’the year, I came to’t that day that our last King Hamlet overcame Fortinbras.
Oh, you mean the day that the ghost Hamlet is stuck in, the one he’s wearing his outfit from, despite the fact that thirty some years have passed?
This day is, uh, kind of important I guess. Also – turns out Hamlet was born on the same day his dad was sledding the dreaded pole-axe/pollacks on the ice?
I mean – one would think that old King Hamlet’s defeat of old Fortinbras had cosmic resonance.
1) The ghost is dressed in his heroic Fortinbras defeating outfit.
2) Hamlet was born on that day
3) Young Fortinbras “defeats” young Hamlet with no effort at all, due to his turning up and finding the entire Danish court dead.
One might start to think that tremendous acts of violence have consequences.
How long hast thou been a gravemaker?
Now we say gravedigger. This scene is often referred to as the gravedigger scene – the characters Gravedigger 1 and 2.
But a gravedigger was once called a gravemaker. Every instance of the profession here is a gravemaker. It feels, too, as though in transforming from gravemaker to gravedigger, the job has lost a bit of status. One who makes is more respected than one who digs. There is a sense of craft in a maker – a digger is almost a machine.
Even though the action is essentially the same – a grave is made by digging after all – gravemaking seems a much more solemn activity than gravedigging. There may be a sense of the sacred in a gravemaker – a sanctification of the earth, a tending to the space. Even in the jokes these gravemakers bandy back and forth there is a sense of a grave as a house, a home for someone, built to last.
When did we move from gravemakers to gravediggers? And why?
The age is grown so picked that the toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier, he galls his kibe.
The note on Genius says that galls his kibe is scraping his heel blister. It’s a very visceral way to say this. Where I’m from, we call this giving someone a flat tire. But irritating someone’s heel blister is so much more wretched. Also – is “kibe” truly the word for heel blister? Was this such an epidemic that there was a specific word for it? Were the shoes so bad? The heels so chafing? Was a kibe a permanent fixture of a foot?
Things to be grateful for in the modern age. #1023
By the lord, Horatio, these three years I have taken note of it.
This is a rather curious specificity time-wise. What in the world has happened in the last three years? Or in Shakespeare’s London?
The major events in the past in this play happened in a matter of months, not years. Is there some movement toward democratization afoot? Three years ago, someone began printing text for the masses that removed the major barriers of learning? Is that it? Is it that Hamlet’s been at school for three years? I mean – if he is at a four year university that might make sense time wise.
It is a very curious time frame.
The Hamlet Project 