In some contexts, it does feel as though everyone has been given a card that tells them exactly what to say and when. They all have a seemingly prescribed set of topics and responses and any deviation from those will be noted and generate demerits for the deviant.
In a way, it might be easier to actually have a card than to try and guess what the parameters are in each new group.
How absolute the knave is!
My friend told me about her brother-in-law who seems to not understand jokes at all, even the simplest, most obvious ones. She finds herself making even more jokes than she might have otherwise, because his behavior is so baffling.
I would absolutely do the same. When I encounter someone as literal as my friend’s brother-in-law, I become a compulsive joke maker – somehow convinced it is my delivery not his absolute-ness. It’s a recipe for feeling very foolish when, in fact, the failure is on the part of the guy who didn’t get the joke.
One that was a woman, sir; but – rest her soul, she’s dead.
What would the world be like if we came to and went from the world without gender? Like – when you’re born, you’re just a baby – no gender and then, you pour yourself into one gender or the other (or not!) Then you spend your life as a woman, say, and at your death, your gender vanishes with you, you revert to simple personhood.
Who is to be buried in’t?
What if, at our birth, we were also given our grave? Like – you welcome a child by preparing its place in the earth. You can go and visit your grave throughout your life, know where you will finally stop, where you will end up. Not when, of course. But where. I wonder how that would impact one’s life – to be that acutely aware of your death. Perhaps it’s like that for people who had family graveyards or mausoleums or for church officials who knew they’d be buried in the churchyard. It’s not quite like knowing the exact spot. But it might be pretty close – to just see the end and the beginning simultaneously.
For none, neither.
If this were a riddle, the answer would be a child – for a child is neither man nor woman.
But – luckily that is not the situation here, as nothing kills comedy quicker than a dead child. Dead baby jokes may have been all the rage in elementary school but that is due primarily to the shock value, I think – and perhaps to a lot of kids having annoying baby siblings. Otherwise – even a hint of dead children will murder any hope of comedy happening in its wake.
What woman, then?
Hamlet thinks he’s got this game figured out.
Oh. It’s not a man…I see you’re splitting hairs about whomever this grave is for.
Ah ha! Must be a woman then. Of course.
I love that the gravedigger will not let him win. No one else in this play can match Hamlet with his language games. But this gravedigger can.
For no man, sir.
There’s something about this line that calls to mind some of the exchanges in Twelfth Night – Viola talking about her father’s daughter who loved a man, for example – or Feste splitting hairs with language. There is a rhythm to this kind of comedy. This moment links back to Hamlet toying with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern earlier, when “man delights not me.”
It all just has comedy rhythm and it is fun to play with gender in comedy.
What man dost thou dig it for?
The success of this joke depends on the assumption of the Default Man. When Hamlet says “man” he means human because the sense, for time immemorial, has been that men are the standard humans and women are the deviation. So everyone always starts with man first – as in, is it a normal person or a woman?
I would actually love to see this scene played with a female gravedigger and a male Hamlet who might, condescendingly, ask his next question, as a concession to the lady gravedigger. Or even better – what if the gravedigger were non-binary and Hamlet’s questions are not just part of a vaudeville routine but also an attempt to engage with the gender of the person before him.
‘Twill away again, from me to you.
If we could pass quickness to one another, quickness in the sense of life, that would be an interesting world. Mothers would almost always give life to their children. Lovers would keep passing life back and forth between them. “I’ll die for you.” “No, I’ll die for you!” “No, I’ll die for you!” “No – I give MY life to YOU!” Being a lover would become quite hazardous to one’s level of life.
But in a way, we do give one another life. We energize each other with love, with attention, with affection, with inspiration.
‘Tis a quick lie, sir.
I think I always assumed this was a FAST lie but now that I’m looking at, I’m not entirely sure what a fast lie would be. I suppose one that slips easily from one’s lips without any forethought or planning. But we are in a graveyard here. It is not a place for the quick, as in the living – but it IS a place for talk of the quick. Nothing reminds the living of their own state of aliveness than being surrounded by the dead. Surrounded by the dead. Surrounded by the living, a person might think, “Am I dead?” but surrounded by the dead, you know you’re alive.
So I wonder now if a quick lie might not so much be a fast lie as a living lie. Or both. It’s probably both. Shakespeare is known for that sort of thing.
The Hamlet Project 