The Hamlet Podcast

M

Queen Mab
Shakespeare’s descriptions of the magical are always alluring and enticing, perhaps nowhere moreso than in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. However it is in Romeo and Juliet that we get one of the most beautiful evocations of things in miniature - and I must confess that Hamlet’s “king of infinite space” within a nutshell always makes me think of it. Mercutio, gently mocking Romeo, gives this magnificent description of the fairies’ midwife, Queen Mab, as follows:

O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies
Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep;
Her wagon-spokes made of long spiders' legs,
The cover of the wings of grasshoppers,
The traces of the smallest spider's web,
The collars of the moonshine's watery beams,
Her whip of cricket's bone, the lash of film,
Her wagoner a small grey-coated gnat,
Not so big as a round little worm
Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid;
Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut
Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
Time out o' mind the fairies' coach-makers.
And in this state she gallops night by night
Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;
O'er courtiers' knees, that dream on curtsies straight,
O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees,
O'er ladies ' lips, who straight on kisses dream,
Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,
Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are:
Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,
And then dreams he of smelling out a suit;
And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig's tail
Tickling a parson's nose as a' lies asleep,
Then dreams, he of another benefice:
Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,
And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,
Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,
Of healths five-fathom deep; and then anon
Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,
And being thus frighted swears a prayer or two
And sleeps again. This is that very Mab
That plaits the manes of horses in the night,
And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs,
Which once untangled, much misfortune bodes:
This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,
That presses them and learns them first to bear,
Making them women of good carriage:
This is she…

Machine
Hamletmachine (Die Hamletmaschine) by Heiner Muller was written in 1977. Although it is only about nine pages long, it is a dense and sometimes shocking response to Shakespeare's play. 

Madness
Whether Hamlet is mad or just playing the part is a question that has generated millions and millions of words over the centuries. We will have plenty to say on the matter - but it's worth marking here that Horatio's mention is the first time in the play that the idea has surfaced. 

Makeup
Dr. Farah Karim-Cooper has written an excellent book on cosmetics and Shakespearean and Renaissance Drama, and a revised edition is coming out in May of this year. There’s a whole chapter on Hamlet, and it’s a brilliant read.

Marry
There's a long tradition of what are known as 'minced oaths' in Shakespeare - given that he was writing under the watchful eye of a censor, in a time when Puritans were gaining influence he couldn't write the full versions of any curses or swearwords or expletives. As a result we have various items - sblood, zounds, and the very common 'Marry' - which is a contraction of 'By the Virgin Mary'. There's even an argument that the word 'bloody' as a curse word came into use as a contraction of 'By Our Lady'! 

Mars
Mars was the Roman version of the God of War. In Greek his name was Ares, but thanks to his having a planet named after him, Mars is the more famous version of the name. Indeed, Shakespeare seldom uses the Greek names for any of the gods - particularly when he’s writing something that is based on a poem by Virgil or Ovid.

Massy Wheel
The only image that came into my mind while writing this episode for such an important and metaphorical wheel was the notion of the Wheel of Dharma, which is so central to Buddhist philosophy and cosmogeny. I don’t know if Rosencrantz has been studying the sutras while in Wittenberg, but his image of a turning wheel to which everyone’s destiny and well-being is attached is tantalisingly close to Buddhism’s Dharmachakra. It is possible that someone could make an argument for Rosencrantz’ Buddhism on the basis of this image an

Matins
In the life of a medieval monastery, the day was divided by the various prayers and observances. The entire system of marking the day with prayers appropriate to different times was known as the Breviary. A Book of Hours would contain all of the appropriate prayers through the day. The sequence was Matins (very late in the night or when the cock crowed), Lauds (at Dawn), various prayers at the third, sixth and ninth hours, then more prayers at the middle of the day, to be followed by Vespers in the evening and Compline before retiring to bed. This arrangement of daily prayers is attributed to Saint Benedict.

Melancholy
For a very good article by Erin Sullivan on heartbreak and Shakespeare, including some discussion of contemporary medicine and medical opinion on sadness and heartbreak, click here

-ment
Shakespeare is clearly on a roll in Hamlet, cooking up new words as they come to him. Already in the play we have heard condolement and now blastment. I'll keep this Index entry on this family of words up to date whenever we meet a new one in the play. 

Mercury
Mercury (Hermes in Greek) was the messenger of the gods. He had a pair of golden winged sandals that allowed him to fly faster than any bird, and also had a winged hat to match. One of the most popular gods in antiquity, Shakespeare captures him in motion here, elegantly ‘new-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill’.

Metre
As an exercise, try counting out the syllables in each line - you’ll find the rhythm very easily, as it is deliberately recognisable - since Hamlet is using it to calm Gertrude. dee-DUM, dee-DUM, dee-DUM, dee-DUM, dee-DUM. Five feet, ten beats or syllables. Once you get the hang of this, you have unlocked the music of every line of Shakespeare’s verse. Everything else is some kind of ornament - and in the passage below you’ll find a particularly interesting set of them. In this text Shakespeare displays his great mastery of metre. Just as Hamlet is trying to convince Gertrude that his pulse is steady and that he isn’t mad, the rhythm of the text does the same thing. It is amazingly constructed. Madness goes from a sticking point to part of the flow of conversation, and indeed it is replaced.

My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time,
And makes as healthful music: it is not madness (2 extra syllables)
That I have uttered: bring me to the test,
And I the matter will re-word; which madness (1 extra syllable)
Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,
Lay not that mattering unction to your soul,
That not your trespass, but my madness speaks: (no extra)
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place,
Whilst rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven; (1 extra syllable)
Repent what's past; avoid what is to come;
And do not spread the compost on the weeds,
To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue; (1 extra syllable)
For in the fatness of these pursy times
Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg,
Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good.

Michael MacLiammoir was an Irish actor, writer, and co-director of Dublin’s Gate Theatre for much of the theatre’s history. He wrote a splendid memoir called All For Hecuba - An Irish Theatrical Autobiography. It’s out of print and rather hard to find online, but if you happen upon it in a second-hand shop, don’t hesitate!

Minced Oaths
A minced oath is an expression formed by adapting a blasphemous or taboo word or phrase, in order to reduce the offence it might cause. Since Shakespeare was writing under the watchful eye of a censor, in a time when Puritans were gaining influence, he couldn't write the full versions of any curses or swearwords or expletives. As a result we have various items - sblood, zounds, and the very common 'Marry' - which is a contraction of 'By the Virgin Mary'. There's even an argument that the word 'bloody' as a curse word came into use as a contraction of 'By Our Lady'!  Likewise in episode 68 we have ‘God’s bodykins’ - a rather cute way for Hamlet to swear at Polonius. Later, Ophelia says “Gis”, a contraction of “Jesus”.

Missing Lines
(Episode 116) Some editions of the play go so far as to fill in the blank after “what’s untimely done”. Some editions will jump straight to “O come away”, as is written in the Folio. Others might acknowledge that there’s a gap here, and still others might include the addition proposed by Edward Capell, an 18th century editor. He suggested that the hole could be filled with the phrase “so haply slander”. Have a look at your copy of the text, whoever might have edited it, and see for yourself if they include this little segment that follows, or indeed if they even acknowledge that those words were his suggestion. What we DO still have are the four lines that follow. Capell’s suggestion was that Claudius is describing slander, and hoping to avoid it. Slander, 

Whose whisper o’er the world’s diameter,
As level as the cannon to his blank,
Transports the poisoned shot - may miss our name 
And hit the soundless air. 

The Mote and the Beam
The parable of the mote and the beam is notable for having appeared in the gospels of both Matthew (7.1) and Luke (13.6), in key sermons given by Jesus to his followers. Its lesson is to be wary of criticising the faults of others before working on one's own issues. (A biblical version of the pot calling the kettle black, if you will.) 

Mothers and Daughters
As mentioned in this episode, mothers and daughters very seldom share the stage in plays by Shakespeare. The only ones I can think of Queen Isabel of France and her daughter Katharine in Henry V, Mistress Page and her daughter Anne in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Thaisa and Marina in Pericles, Hermione and Perdita in The Winter’s Tale, Lady Capulet and her headstrong child in Romeo & Juliet, and perhaps their distant cousin the Widow Capilet and her daughter Diana, who is instrumental in making sure that All’s Well That Ends Well. A formidable trio of women appears in Coriolanus (Volumnia, his mother, Virgilia, his wife, and Valeria, 'a noble lady of Rome') - but they are not directly mother and daughter. Lear, Prospero, Titus Andronicus, Duke Senior, Shylock, and Brabantio have fascinating children, but none of them have wives any more. It's such a startling absence from what is otherwise so rich a canon of characters and human experiences.

Motley is the patterned style of clothing usually worn by medieval court fools. Shreds and patches - from Shakespeare to Gilbert and Sullivan - are a clear suggestion of motley.

The Mousetrap
I mentioned within this episode that The Mousetrap is an alternate name (given by Hamlet himself) for the play-within-the-play. It is also the name of the longest-running play in the history of the theatre - The Mousetrap by Agatha Christie has been running in London’s West End for decades already. They’ve already achieved the astonishing milestone of 25000 performances. (And despite many, many trips to London I have never seen it!)

The Murder of Gonzago
There’s sadly no record of any play with this title - in choice Italian or any other language! I feel it’s fairly safe to assume that Shakespeare made it up. We will soon have to discuss more about The Spanish Tragedy, Thomas Kyd’s enormously popular revenge tragedy, which many believe was a major influence on Hamlet.

Murdering piece
The weapon that Claudius is describing gets its name from a meutrière, a thin window in the wall of a castle or tower that was strategically narrow. Archers, and later cannons, could shoot out of them, but they were thin enough that it was difficult for attacking outsiders to shoot through them. A meutrière piece (murdering piece, in Claudius’ version of the idea) was therefore a weapon that could shoot through such a window. As Claudius describes it, the weapon has been developed in such a way that it can shoot out several rounds (or even just several kinds of ballistic) at once.

Musical Instruments
We have tantalisingly little information about the use of music in Shakespeare’s theatre. There’s a great variety of songs in the plays, and we’re led to believe that most (or even all) performances ended with a jig - a tradition that has been revived at Shakespeare’s Globe in London. The standard stage band could have included recognisable Elizabethan instruments like the lute, but also ones that are less familiar, including the viol (bass or treble), the citterne, the bandora or even the flute. Less commonly mentioned is the recorder - it’s entirely possible that Shakespeare weaves it into this corner of Hamlet because it is was then (as it is now) such a simple instrument to play, and it gives Hamlet a chance to mock Guildenstern even more savagely. As mentioned within this episode, there’s also a connection with hunting, as the recorder is quite similar to the kinds of simple pipes used to hunt and trap birds. For more information on music in Shakespeare’s theatre, click here.

N

Names
Officially Claudius is never named within the play. All of the surviving texts do give him the name Claudius, of course, but only in the stage direction that begins this scene (hence this episode's name!) As with Lady Macbeth, who is likewise never named in her play, the character's status and position are made perfectly clear within the scenes and interactions of the play.  

Thomas Nashe
Nashe is considered the greatest of the Elizabethan pampleteers - writers who produced pamphlets, or unbound and therefore easily distributed pieces of writing. He wrote a wide variety of items in an even wider variety of styles, very much appearing as an Elizabethan man of letters. His name appears on the title page of Christoper Marlowe's Dido, Queen of Carthage, although we have no idea what, if anything, he contributed to the play. He comes up in connection with teh Ur-Hamlet because of his somewhat convoluted reference to a Hamlet text in his address To the Gentlemen Students of Oxford, in which he laments the poor talents of writers contributing to English drama at the time. In comparison with Seneca, he feels they are rather worthless. There's an inference - given the comparison with Seneca, whose Roman plays are notoriously blood-soaked - that perhaps the Ur-Hamlet was also quite a bloody tale. (The body count in Shakespeare's version isn't anything to be sneezed at, either.)

Nemean Lion
The Nemean Lion was the first of the Twelve Labours of Hercules - and it became the hero's personal signature garment. Because the lion's skin was impermeable and his claws invincible, the story goes that Hercules (Herakles in Greek) had to strangle the beast to death. A variant suggests that he shot an arrow into its mouth. When he was trying to skin the beast's corpse, he likewise had difficulty making any impact, until the thought struck him that he should use the animal's own claws for the job! 

Neptune
Known in Greek as Poseidon, Neptune was the god of the sea. His salt wash, therefore, is the ocean.

Nero
Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (15 December 37 – 9 June 68) was the last of the Julio-Claudian emperors. He succeeded his (great) uncle Claudius after the latter’s death, perhaps caused by Nero’s mother Agrippina the Younger. She herself was a sister of Caligula, another notoriously badly-behaved emperor. Nero’s reign was one of debachery and cruelty - as well as arranging the death of his own mother, he also killed his pregnant wife by kicking her in the stomach. Most famously, he is reputed to have played music while his city was on fire. Hamlet worries about a comparison with Nero since he too has an uncle Claudius that has married his mother and is blocking his ascent to the throne.

Niggard
Although it dates back almost a thousand years to Old English, this word has very much fallen out of favour due to its close similarity to that very worst of racial slurs. Happily we now live in a world where no decent person would think of using the latter word, but as a result its homonym is likewise avoided for fear of misunderstanding. Believe it or not, there’s an entire Wikipedia entry dedicated to controversies and difficulties that surround the word niggard. It is unlikely that niggard or niggardly will come back into common use, with their meanings of stinginess or miserliness, and that’s probably for the best.

Niobe
Niobe was the mother of fourteen children, but when she bragged about this to Leto, mother of Apollo and Artemis, mocking her for having had only two children, the latter woman was insulted. In revenge for this hubris, Leto's divine children slaughtered all of Niobe's children, and her grief for them made her synonymous with weeping. 

A noise within
In A Dictionary of Stage Directions in Elizabethan Drama, the editors maintain that “within” appears over 800 times in plays that survive from the period. “A noise within” features increasingly during this act - there are several more to come. It appears frequently enough as a stage direction in Shakespeare’s works - well over 25 times - that a theatre company in Pasadena, California, even took it as their name!

Nunnery
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first reference to a nunnery with the implied meaning of a brothel was in Thomas Nash’s book, Christs Teares over Jerusalem (1593), which refers to prostitutes who ‘give free priviledge’ to gentlemen in ‘theyr Nunnery’. Nash had very harsh words for the city of London and its sinful ways, and he believed the city was on the brink of great peril. He was eventually sent to prison for calling London a ‘seeded garden of ‘sinne’ – which certainly might have inspired Hamlet’s own rather disillusioned description of the world as ‘an unweeded garden / That grows to seed’ (Act I Scene ii).

Nymph
Nowadays we hear nymph and might be prompted to think of nymphomania, which suggests a negative connotation that Shakespeare did not know. Whenever nymph appears in the plays (most often in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, unsurprisingly) it is describing a beautiful woman. Hamlet is complimenting Ophelia here, likening her to a beautiful Greek spirit, the kind that lived in trees or water. Greek mythology had a great many kinds of nymphs - dryads lived in trees, naiads in rivers, nereids in the sea, oreads in mountains and maenads, the frenzied followers of Dionysus.

O

OH!
I wrote a whole extended introduction to today's episode about the word Oh and the way Shakespeare uses it within the texts of his plays. I've saved it and it'll show up in the not-too-distant future at a more appropriate moment. For now, suffice it to mention that it's the 3rd most frequent word in the whole play - after Lord and Good!

Orisons
From the Latin word for ‘to speak’, again via French (oreison), this is another word for prayers. It shows up in Shakespeare when characters are praying for intercession - Hamlet asks Ophelia to pray for his sins, and that other trouble-maker Juliet is fully aware when she says “I am in need of many orisons.”

Owls
I went rather overboard looking for owls in Shakespeare, and the result was an entire page dedicated to their various appearances! You can read it all here.