Claudius sure knows how to ask an inflammatory question. My god.
This one reminds me of kids I’ve known, usually somewhere on the autism spectrum. It makes me wonder what would happen if you played Claudius on the spectrum. Would he engender some more sympathy that way? Would he make different kinds of sense? He’s smooth enough to get social interactions right a lot of the time but the times where he steers wrong, those are pretty wrong.
What out of this, my lord?
The note on Genius says that one does not usually interrupt the King. It is not polite. It is not wise for a subject to interrupt his King. This explains a) why kings tend to be so maddeningly long – winded and b) why Claudius is such a jerk to Laertes in the next line.
I wonder if Claudius benefited from his proximity to the King before he was king and learned his longwindedness at his brother’s side, or did he watch his brother ramble on and on and it was this privilege of his that he envied the most, perhaps talking without interruption was his big dream and so when Laertes does it…it really rankles.
The privilege to not be interrupted is definitely enviable. Women know this well. And men who are interrupted by women respond with so much rancor as Claudius. See also Jeff Sessions questioned by Senator Kamala Harris.
Now, out of this, –
The problem with this migraine situation is that there does not appear on “out of this” to be. Now that it has reared its head, it appears that this will be my new normal. This is the situation now. I have moved into a place where my doctor says a migraine once a week is pretty good actually, compared to other migraineurs. There is no eliminating them entirely. Even if they vanished, they’d still be an ever possible threat. There is no cure. It’s just the this that I will never be out of.
Sir, this report of his Did Hamlet so envenom with his envy That he could nothing do but wish and beg Your sudden coming oe’r, to play with him.
The picture Claudius is painting of Hamlet is incredibly infantilized. It’s like – he’s this child wishing and begging for his friend to come over to play with him. As if they were going to play Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or jacks or Cowboys and Indians or Danes and Swedes or whatever games the children of Elsinore might play with each other. Wishing and begging are not particularly adult behaviors.
The scrimers of their nations He swore, had had neither motion, guard, nor eye, If you opposed them.
So the story here is that Laertes is so good at fencing that anyone who steps into the “ring” with him becomes a clumsy fool.
This makes me think of an incredibly cool French woman I know. And I actually know quite a few incredibly cool French women – but this one, for some reason, always triggers incredibly clutzy behavior in me. I spill drinks, drop food, lose the ability to bring my fork to my mouth. She is somehow grace personified and I become ineptitude. But it is curious that I feel not the slightest bit of judgment from her when this happens. She’ll just hand me a napkin and continue asking me respectful interesting questions.
He made confession of you, And gave you such a masterly report For art and exercise in your defence And for your rapier most especially, That he cried out, ‘twould be a sight indeed, If one could match you.
One thing that the current moment has taught me is how easily some people are manipulated. I have seen men especially vulnerable to this sort of flattery. The fragility of masculinity is such that any bolstering or diminishment of its symbols is extremely effective.
Hillary Clinton told us 45 could be baited with a tweet and she was right. Today I read about him blocking a veterans group and Steven King on Twitter. Which, sure, I guess that means they’ve challenged his masculinity sufficiently to have him (or his staff) shut them down.
But simultaneously, that display of loyalty, the “which of you doth love me most” cabinet meeting shows how any flattery of 45s masculinity can secure the most loathsome sort of folks a seat at the table. 45 has surrounded himself with Iagos, Claudiuses, Aarons, Richard the Thirds, Gloucesters and Cassiuses. 45 is not only Roderigo and Laertes and Clarence and the little princes and Lear but also Bardolph, the gravediggers and the Dauphin. He is Leontes. He is Lear. With much shittier language. He is toddler Lear and baby Leontes.
He is the brooch indeed And gem of all the nation.
Oooh. Lamond is a brooch? How stylish!
Now – very possibly a brooch did not quite have the association with femininity that it has now. But there’s something about this description that rings of fabulousness. That fashionable Lamond is the gem of the nation, placed like a jewel in a sparkly bit of bling.
I know him well.
Lamond the French horseman and Laertes the Danish traveler.
They meet at a brothel in Paris. Lamond makes fun of Laertes’ Danish accent and Laertes makes fun of Lamond’s stockings. They buy each other drinks, visit the brothel together, maybe engage in some mild homo-eroticisim with a female intermediary.
Two young noble men on the town, preening for each other’s skills as a way of boasting of their own.
It was Lamond who planted the idea of a coup in Laertes’ mind – long before the opportunity arose. Lamond liked to joke that Laertes should be king since he was so self-righteous. It is Lamond’s voice Laertes hears when the crowd shouts “Laertes shall be king.”
The very same.
In the process of trying to put together a piece about my generation, I kept running across how cyclical the world can be. I discovered that pretty much every generation got called the Me Generation in their youth. One article I read pointed out that maybe it’s not that the generation is narcissistic, it’s that young people tend to be narcissists and so as we age, we perceive them as such, seeing those behind us as uniquely selfish when we ourselves were the very same when we were their age.
Upon my life, Lamond.
There was a kid named Lamont in my classes growing up. I wonder if Lamont was once Lamond and if the Lamont I grew up with was somehow, in his soul, descended from the legendary Lamond that Laertes and Claudius are discussing here. This also begs the question of whether this whole exchange might be a reference to some contemporary figure in Renaissance Europe. Is this Lamond referring to some specific Lamond?
The Hamlet Project 