EPISODE 175 - I'll Be Your Foil, Laertes

TEXT:

LAERTES
I am satisfied in nature,
Whose motive, in this case, should stir me most
To my revenge: but in my terms of honour
I stand aloof; and will no reconcilement,
Till by some elder masters, of known honour,
I have a voice and precedent of peace,
To keep my name ungored. But till that time,
I do receive your offered love like love,
And will not wrong it.

HAMLET
I embrace it freely;
And will this brother's wager frankly play.
Give us the foils. Come on.

LAERTES
Come, one for me.

HAMLET
I'll be your foil, Laertes: in mine ignorance
Your skill shall, like a star i' the darkest night,
Stick fiery off indeed.

LAERTES
You mock me, sir.

HAMLET
No, by this hand.

CLAUDIUS
Give them the foils, young Osric. Cousin Hamlet,
You know the wager?

HAMLET
Very well, my lord
Your grace hath laid the odds o' the weaker side.

CLAUDIUS
I do not fear it; I have seen you both:
But since he is better, we have therefore odds.

EPISODE 174 - MADNESS IS POOR HAMLET'S ENEMY

TEXT:

Enter CLAUDIUS, GERTRUDE, LAERTES, OSRIC, Lords and Attendants with foils, & cushions.

CLAUDIUS
Come, Hamlet, come, and take this hand from me. 

CLAUDIUS puts LAERTES' hand into HAMLET's 

HAMLET 
Give me your pardon, sir: I've done you wrong; 
But pardon't, as you are a gentleman.
This presence knows, and you must needs have heard, 
How I am punished with sore distraction. 
What I have done, 
That might your nature, honour and exception 
Roughly awake, I here proclaim was madness. 
Was't Hamlet wronged Laertes? Never Hamlet: 
If Hamlet from himself be ta'en away, 
And when he's not himself does wrong Laertes, 
Then Hamlet does it not, Hamlet denies it. 
Who does it, then? His madness: if't be so, 
Hamlet is of the faction that is wronged; 
His madness is poor Hamlet's enemy.
Sir, in this audience,
Let my disclaiming from a purposed evil
Free me so far in your most generous thoughts, 
That I have shot mine arrow o'er the house, 
And hurt my brother. 

NOTES:

Cain and Abel
In the book of Genesis in the Bible, Cain and Abel are the sons of Adam and Eve. Cain was a farmer, Abel a shepherd. When both brothers made sacrifices to God, He preferred Abel's offering, and Cain killed him. This was the first murder, and Abel, therefore, the 'first corpse' mentioned in this episode's portion of the text. Cain was thereafter punished with a lifetime of wandering, and with 'the mark of Cain', a sign from God that prevented anyone from killing him - perhaps as a warning not to commit his sin again.

Shot Mine Arrow
As mentioned in this episode, there are a number of interesting essays to be found discussing this little line of the play. John Gillies wrote extensively about The Question of Original Sin in Hamlet (Shakespeare Quarterly, 2013). He refers to an even deeper dive, Vladimir Brljak’s Hamlet and Lameth (Notes and Queries, 2011). And then for a little more recent study, the first chapter of Jeffrey Kahan’s Shakespeare and Superheroes is named after this line. Hours of happy reading!

What a cover!

EPISODE 173 - THE READINESS IS ALL

TEXT:

HORATIO
You will lose this wager, my lord.

HAMLET
I do not think so: since he went into France, I
have been in continual practise: I shall win at the
odds. But thou wouldst not think how ill all's here
about my heart: but it is no matter.

HORATIO
Nay, good my lord…

HAMLET
It is but foolery; but it is such a kind of
gaingiving, as would perhaps trouble a woman.

HORATIO
If your mind dislike any thing, obey it: I will
forestall their repair hither, and say you are not fit.

HAMLET
Not a whit, we defy augury: there's a special
providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now,
'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be
now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the
readiness is all: since no man has aught of what he
leaves, what is't to leave betimes? Let be.

NOTES:

Whit
A tiny thing.

Augury
The ancient Roman practice of studying the flight paths of birds. Ancient Rome had a great penchant for the reading of omens, but the two most famous positions were that of augur (one who studied the birds and the skies for signs) and haruspex (one who studied the entrails of sacrificed animals). The Roman penchant for portents features heavily in Shakespeare’s Roman plays - he really gives a sense of the cultural faith put in signs and signals. Hamlet, by contrast, is having none of it.

The Fall of a Sparrow
In Matthew 10:29, the lesson is that not even a little bird falls without god’s awareness. Hamlet (and his audience) know the text well enough for him to paraphrase it.

John Calvin
Martin Luther may have been the most famous reformer of the 16th century, but John Calvin was the most prominent proponent of new ideas about predestination - the theory that a person’s life and afterlife were all determined even before birth. He represents the second generation of the Protestant Reformation, and was a major figure in Europe in the mid-16th century.

Seneca
Lucius Annaeus Seneca (or Seneca the Younger) was a Stoic philosopher. He also wrote plays, many of which had a direct influence on Shakespeare because we can assume he read them at school. Although he was born in what we now call Spain, Seneca grew to great prominence in Rome when he was hired as a tutor to the young Nero. He’s of interest to us here for the sentiment at the end of his LXIXth Moral Letter to Lucilius, in which he says “no man dies before his own death. And indeed, you can reflect on this thought: no on dies except on his own day. You are not throwing away any of your time, for what you leave behind does not belong to you.”

Montaigne
Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533-1592) was a Renaissance philosopher from France. He is most famous for his essays, which were made available in Shakespeare’s time in an English translation by one John Florio. If you would like to read these remarkable pieces, the New York Review Books imprint has a beautiful volume called Shakespeare’s Montaigne that is very much worth a look. Montaigne’s first essay in that book has a great deal about death, and he makes reference to a wide range of thinkers and ideas. Much like Seneca, he insists that ““no man dies before his hour. The time you leave behind was no more yours than that which was before your birth and concerneth you no more.”

EPISODE 172 - THIS LAPWING RUNS AWAY

TEXT:

HAMLET (continued)
He does well to commend it himself; there are no
tongues else for's turn.

HORATIO
This lapwing runs away with the shell on his head.

HAMLET
He did comply with his dug, before he sucked it.
Thus has he - and many more of the same bevy that I
know the drossy age dotes on - only got the tune of
the time and outward habit of encounter; a kind of
yeasty collection, which carries them through and
through the most fond and winnowed opinions; and do
but blow them to their trial, the bubbles are out.

Enter a Lord

Lord
My lord, his majesty commended him to you by young
Osric, who brings back to him that you attend him in
the hall: he sends to know if your pleasure hold to
play with Laertes, or that you will take longer time.

HAMLET
I am constant to my purposes; they follow the king's
pleasure. If his fitness speaks, mine is ready; now
or whensoever, provided I be so able as now.

Lord
The king and queen and all are coming down.

HAMLET
In happy time.

Lord
The queen desires you to use some gentle
entertainment to Laertes before you fall to play.

HAMLET
She well instructs me.

Exit Lord

NOTES:

Lapwing
There are quite a few varieties of lapwings, although they seem to be in terrible and worrying decline these days. Both the northern and southern lapwing have the kinds of crest or plume mentioned in this episode. The image of the bird emerging from the shell with a piece of it stuck to its head is proverbial.

EPISODE 171 - TWELVE FOR NINE

TEXT:

HAMLET
The phrase would be more german to the matter, if we
could carry cannon by our sides; I would it might
be hangers till then. But, on: six Barbary horses
against six French swords, their assigns, and three
liberal-conceited carriages; that's the French bet
against the Danish. Why is this 'imponed,' as you call it?

OSRIC
The king, sir, hath laid, that in a dozen passes
between yourself and him, he shall not exceed you
three hits: he hath laid on twelve for nine; and it
would come to immediate trial, if your lordship
would vouchsafe the answer.

HAMLET
How if I answer no?

OSRIC
I mean, my lord, the opposition of your person in trial.

HAMLET
Sir, I will walk here in the hall: if it please his
majesty, 'tis the breathing time of day with me;
let the foils be brought, the gentleman willing, and the
king hold his purpose, I will win for him an I can;
if not, I will gain nothing but my shame and the odd hits.

OSRIC
Shall I re-deliver you e'en so?

HAMLET
To this effect, sir; after what flourish your nature will.

OSRIC
I commend my duty to your lordship.

HAMLET
Yours, yours.

Exit Osric

NOTES:

The Wager
Claudius is betting twelve-to-nine that Hamlet will beat Laertes in this fencing match. More specifically, that across twelve passes (or rounds) “he shall not exceed you three hits”. One article attempts to explain the odds and how Claudius stacks the decks, but it focuses more on the gambling than the fencing. You can read it here. Essentially - for Laertes to win he has to hit Hamlet three times more than Hamlet hits him. We’ve been hearing non-stop about how talented a swordsman Laertes is, so it seems fair enough to give Hamlet a bit of a handicap. But, of course, we haven’t heard anything about the skills that Hamlet might have…

EPISODE 170 - RAPIER AND DAGGER

TEXT:

OSRIC
You are not ignorant of what excellence Laertes is--

HAMLET
I dare not confess that, lest I should compare
with him in excellence; but, to know a man well,
were to know himself.

OSRIC
I mean, sir, for his weapon; but in the imputation
laid on him by them, in his meed he's unfellowed. 

HAMLET
What's his weapon?

OSRIC
Rapier and dagger.

HAMLET
That's two of his weapons: but, well.

OSRIC
The king, sir, hath wagered with him six Barbary horses:
against the which he has imponed, as I take it, six French
rapiers and poniards, with their assigns, as girdle, hangers,
and so: three of the carriages, in faith, are very dear to fancy,
very responsive to the hilts, most delicate carriages,
and of very liberal conceit.

HAMLET
What call you the carriages?

HORATIO
I knew you must be edified by the margent ere you had done.

OSRIC
The carriages, sir, are the hangers.

NOTES:

Rapier and dagger
This phrase - referring to two particular kinds of weapon - has so entered the language of the theatre that most acting students are likely to get certified in their use during their training. “Rapier and dagger” is a specific and marketable skill for actors! Obviously most young actors surely dream of playing Hamlet - and the final scene certainly insists on facility with at least one of these weapons.

Poniard
A poniard (or poignard) is another kind of sword, with a thin, sharp blade. They’re particularly associated with stabbing, given how often the two words appear together in Shakespeare.

Barbary
The only things referred to as Barbary in Shakespeare are horses or pirates. Both come from the north coastal area of the continent of Africa. The name is an Anglicised version of Berber, the name of an ethnic group native to the region.

Hilt
It is possible that Osric is nervous to talk about the hilt as a scabbard. If you ever studied Latin, as he presumably did, you’ll know why he’s loath to mention it.

EPISODE 169 - THE CONCERNANCY, SIR

TEXT:

OSRIC
Your lordship speaks most infallibly of him.

HAMLET
The concernancy, sir? why do we wrap the gentleman in our more rawer breath?

OSRIC
Sir?

HORATIO
Is't not possible to understand in another tongue? You will do't, sir, really.

HAMLET
What imports the nomination of this gentleman? 

OSRIC
Of Laertes?

HORATIO
His purse is empty already; all's golden words are spent.

HAMLET
Of him, sir.

OSRIC
I know you are not ignorant…

HAMLET
I would you did, sir; yet, in faith, if you did, it would not much approve me. Well, sir?

NOTES:

Concernancy
There is no other use of the word in all of Shakespeare. Indeed, there’s very little use of it anywhere else, either!

Really
The only other time that the word really appears in any Shakespeare play is in The Two Noble Kinsmen, when the Jailer wishes that “I would I were really that I am delivered to be.” Here it has the meaning of actually, or in reality - he’s wishing that he was in real life the way that he’s been reported. Bear in mind, of course, that Shakespeare was a co-author of this play. It’s entirely possible that he didn’t write this portion of the play. The word really seems very emphatic there - but here in Hamlet, it’s less useful or direct. It sounds like a very contemporary throw-away word (“Oh REALLY, Osric…!”) but since Shakespeare uses it nowhere else, I think it’s worth considering that perhaps it’s a publishing error and that the phrase might have been ‘rarely’.

EPISODE 168 - AN ABSOLUTE GENTLEMAN

TEXT:

OSRIC
It is indifferent cold, my lord, indeed.

HAMLET
But yet methinks it is very sultry and hot for my
complexion.

OSRIC
Exceedingly, my lord; it is very sultry, as
'twere, I cannot tell how. But, my lord, his
majesty bade me signify to you that he has laid a
great wager on your head: sir, this is the matter…

HAMLET
I beseech you, remember…

HAMLET motions to him to put on his hat

OSRIC
Nay, good my lord; for mine ease, in good faith.
Sir, here is newly come to court Laertes; believe
me, an absolute gentleman, full of most excellent
differences, of very soft society and great showing:
indeed, to speak feelingly of him, he is the card or
calendar of gentry, for you shall find in him the
continent of what part a gentleman would see.

HAMLET
Sir, his definement suffers no perdition in you;
though, I know, to divide him inventorially would
dizzy the arithmetic of memory, and yet but yaw
neither, in respect of his quick sail. But, in the
verity of extolment, I take him to be a soul of
great article; and his infusion of such dearth and
rareness, as, to make true diction of him, his
semblable is his mirror; and who else would trace
him, his umbrage, nothing more.

NOTES:

Gentlemen
Throughout the play there’s been references to gentlemen - all the way back as far as Polonius trying to instil his precepts in Laertes before his return to Paris. We see another side of this when he talks to Reynaldo about what Laertes can get away with in France! Now here, Osric is at pains to point out how much of a gentleman Laertes is, or has become.

The Book of the Courtier
Baldessare Castiglione’s book The Book of the Courtier was published in Italy in 1561. Translations into other languages soon followed, and it was a huge success across Europe. The book is set at the court of Urbino, where Castiglione himself had spent time. Over the course of four nights, a series of conversations take place between courtiers, discussing love, women, humour, nobility and the key qualities of the ideal courtier or gentleman. These qualities include a cool mind, a good voice (the better to speak well-chosen and beautiful words), the confidence to be a good listener, good posture, proper bearing and physical refinement. These should be accompanied by a warrior spirit, athletic ability, good dance moves, perfect manners, and a sophisticated education in languages, politics and the humanities, classics and fine arts. Shakespeare’s plays don’t contain many perfect Renaissance gentlemen - perhaps the young men of Love’s Labour’s Lost, but certainly not the Two Gentlemen of Verona. Hamlet and Laertes, however, are exemplary Courtiers - Castiglione would be proud.

Baldassare Castiglione
Castiglione (December 6, 1478 – February 2, 1529) is one of the most influential Italian writers of the 16th century. I love this portrait of him - the hat is worthy of Osric!

Baldassare Castiglione

EPISODE 167 - ENTER OSRIC

TEXT:

Enter OSRIC

OSRIC
Your lordship is right welcome back to Denmark.

HAMLET
I humbly thank you, sir. Dost know this water-fly?

(Small apology - in the episode I think I say “dost THOU know” at least once. My own error!)

HORATIO
No, my good lord.

HAMLET
Thy state is the more gracious; for 'tis a vice to
know him. He hath much land, and fertile: let a
beast be lord of beasts, and his crib shall stand at
the king's mess: 'tis a chough; but, as I say,
spacious in the possession of dirt.

OSRIC
Sweet lord, if your lordship were at leisure, I
should impart a thing to you from his majesty.

HAMLET
I will receive it, sir, with all diligence of
spirit. Put your bonnet to his right use; 'tis for the head.

OSRIC
I thank your lordship, it is very hot.

HAMLET
No, believe me, 'tis very cold; the wind is
northerly.

NOTES:

Osric
As mentioned in the episode, the character is referred to as ‘Young’ Osric when he’s mentioned by name. We have no mention anywhere of an older Osric, so it’s anyone’s guess why Shakespeare points out the character’s youth. In the Second Quarto, his name is written as Ostricke. There is ONE reference to an ostrich anywhere in Shakespeare’s works - in Henry VI part II - but I don’t know if Shakespeare knew much about the African bird. (Perhaps it would be fun for a production to give him an ostrich feather in his troublesome hat?)
The character shares his name with several Anglo-Saxon kings - there were notable Osrics of Deira, Hwicce, Northumbria and Sussex. It’s a perfectly reasonable name for a Danish courtier to have in Shakespeare’s imagination. The name stuck around, too - there’s a lost play from 1602 called Marshal Osric. I like to think that it was inspired by Hamlet. In the quarto Osric is introduced as a braggart - one who boasts about their possessions. Soon enough Hamlet explains how his land is the only interesting thing about him, presumably having heard all about it from Osric himself over the years.

Water-flies
The only other time that Shakespeare uses the image of a water-fly is in Troilus and Cressida - again when a character is being dismissive of someone he thinks is irrelevant. With all the self-confidence you might expect, Dr. Johnson proclaims that “a water-fly skips up and down upon the surface of the water, without any apparent purpose or reason, and is thence the proper emblem of a busy trifler.”

Hats
Osric’s hat is one of the most important costume items in the play - there’s so much back and forth about it that it’s a key conversation a director and designer will need to have. (The wearing of hats can inform a great deal within the play, but it’s an essential conversation in order to make sense of this scene between Hamlet and Osric.) For more information about clothing in Elizabethan life, there’s a very informative article and display here.

EPISODE 166 - THE INTERIM IS MINE

TEXT:

HAMLET
Does it not, think'st thee, stand me now upon -
He that hath killed my king and whored my mother,
Popped in between the election and my hopes,
Thrown out his angle for my proper life,
And with such cozenage - is't not perfect conscience,
To quit him with this arm? And is't not to be damned,
To let this canker of our nature come
In further evil?

HORATIO
It must be shortly known to him from England
What is the issue of the business there.

HAMLET
It will be short. The interim is mine;
And a man's life's no more than to say 'One.'
But I am very sorry, good Horatio,
That to Laertes I forgot myself;
For, by the image of my cause, I see
The portraiture of his: I'll court his favours.
But, sure, the bravery of his grief did put me
Into a towering passion.

HORATIO
Peace! who comes here?

NOTES:

Election
The question of succession is important in the play; if you’d like to read more about how Claudius comes to be elected as King instead of Hamlet, read here.

Cozenage
Cozenage is a word for trickery or deception. It came originally from the Latin for horse-trader.

Canker
As mentioned in the episode, the word is derived from the word cancer (in Latin!) - both of them refer to troublesome growths in the body.

EPISODE 165 - MIGHTY OPPOSITES

TEXT:

HAMLET
Why, even in that was heaven ordinant.
I had my father's signet in my purse,
Which was the model of that Danish seal;
Folded the writ up in form of the other,
Subscribed it, gave't the impression, placed it safely,
The changeling never known. Now, the next day
Was our sea-fight; and what to this was sequent
Thou know'st already.

HORATIO
So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to't.

HAMLET
Why, man, they did make love to this employment;
They are not near my conscience; their defeat
Does by their own insinuation grow:
'Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes
Between the pass and fell incensed points
Of mighty opposites.

HORATIO
Why, what a king is this!

EPISODE 164 - A NEW COMMISSION

TEXT:

HAMLET
Here's the commission: read it at more leisure.
But wilt thou hear me how I did proceed?

HORATIO
I beseech you.

HAMLET
Being thus be-netted round with villanies,
Ere I could make a prologue to my brains,
They had begun the play. I sat me down,
Devised a new commission, wrote it fair:
I once did hold it, as our statists do,
A baseness to write fair and laboured much
How to forget that learning, but, sir, now
It did me yeoman's service: wilt thou know
The effect of what I wrote?

HORATIO
Ay, good my lord.

HAMLET
An earnest conjuration from the king,
As England was his faithful tributary,
As love between them like the palm might flourish,
As peace should stiff her wheaten garland wear
And stand a comma 'tween their amities,
And many such-like 'as'es of great charge,
That, on the view and knowing of these contents,
Without debatement further, more or less,
He should the bearers put to sudden death,
Not shriving-time allowed.

HORATIO
How was this seal'd?

NOTES:

Handwriting
I’m not sure if there’s any such discussion of handwriting elsewhere in Shakespeare’s plays. Lady Macbeth presumably can read her husband’s handwritten letter, but she doesn’t comment on it. Orlando’s notes to Rosalind are seen all over the Forest of Arden, but do we know what the penmanship is like?

EPISODE 163 - THERE'S A DIVINITY THAT SHAPES OUR ENDS

TEXT:

SCENE II. A hall in the castle.

Enter HAMLET and HORATIO

HAMLET
So much for this, sir: now shall you see the other;
You do remember all the circumstance?

HORATIO
Remember it, my lord?

HAMLET
Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting,
That would not let me sleep: methought I lay
Worse than the mutines in the bilboes. Rashly,
And praised be rashness for it, let us know,
Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well,
When our deep plots do pall: and that should teach us
There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will,

HORATIO
That is most certain.

HAMLET
Up from my cabin,
My sea-gown scarfed about me, in the dark
Groped I to find out them; had my desire.
Finger'd their packet, and in fine withdrew
To mine own room again; making so bold,
My fears forgetting manners, to unseal
Their grand commission; where I found, Horatio -
O royal knavery! - an exact command,
Larded with many several sorts of reasons
Importing Denmark's health and England's too,
With, ho! such bugs and goblins in my life,
That, on the supervise, no leisure bated,
No, not to stay the grinding of the axe,
My head should be struck off.

HORATIO
Is't possible?

EPISODE 162 - DOG WILL HAVE HIS DAY

TEXT:

HAMLET (continued)
Be buried quick with her, and so will I:
And, if thou prate of mountains, let them throw
Millions of acres on us, till our ground,
Singeing his pate against the burning zone,
Make Ossa like a wart! Nay, an thou'lt mouth,
I'll rant as well as thou.

GERTRUDE
This is mere madness:
And thus awhile the fit will work on him;
Anon, as patient as the female dove,
When that her golden couplets are disclosed,
His silence will sit drooping.

HAMLET
Hear you, sir;
What is the reason that you use me thus?
I loved you ever: but it is no matter;
Let Hercules himself do what he may,
The cat will mew and dog will have his day.

Exit

CLAUDIUS
I pray you, good Horatio, wait upon him.

Exit HORATIO

To LAERTES

Strengthen your patience in our last night's speech;
We'll put the matter to the present push.
Good Gertrude, set some watch over your son.
This grave shall have a living monument:
An hour of quiet shortly shall we see;
Till then, in patience our proceeding be.

Exeunt

NOTES:

Million
The word does not appear very often in Shakespeare’s plays. It is an extravagant number, almost beyond imagining to most characters, with the exception of Shylock, who is seemingly rich enough to have to use it in his counting.

Mount Ossa
Like Mount Pelion, Mount Ossa is also located in Thessaly, Northern Greece. It’s a more defined mountain point than Mount Pelion, and so it makes sense that Hamlet envisages it being reduced to a wart. (Not to be confused with the Mount Ossa in Tasmania, Australia!)

Hercules
The great hero Hercules was famous for completing the twelve labours, but in drama it is the darker sides of his story that have been immortalised. Both Euripides and Seneca wrote version of the story of how he was driven mad by the Furies, and in his madness, murdered his own wife and children. As a character particularly associated with dramatic madness, it is perhaps no accident that Hamlet mentions him here.

Dog will have his Day
The phrase is almost a cliche in English now - the sense being that everyone gets their chance eventually. It appears as early as the Adages of Erasmus, and the line here in Hamlet has helped it become part of the vernacular.

EPISODE 161 - EAT A CROCODILE

TEXT:

HAMLET (continued)
I prithee, take thy fingers from my throat;
For, though I am not splenitive and rash,
Yet have I something in me dangerous,
Which let thy wisdom fear: hold off thy hand.

CLAUDIUS
Pluck them asunder.

GERTRUDE
Hamlet, Hamlet!
ALL
Gentlemen!

Attendants part them.

HORATIO
Good my lord, be quiet.

HAMLET
Why I will fight with him upon this theme
Until my eyelids will no longer wag.

GERTRUDE
O my son, what theme?

HAMLET
I loved Ophelia: forty thousand brothers
Could not, with all their quantity of love,
Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?

CLAUDIUS
O, he is mad, Laertes.

GERTRUDE
For love of God, forbear him.

HAMLET
'Swounds, show me what thou'lt do:
Woo't weep? woo't fight? woo't fast? woo't tear thyself?
Woo't drink up eisel? Eat a crocodile?
I'll do't. Dost thou come here to whine?
To outface me with leaping in her grave? 

NOTES:

The Humours
The four humours date back at least to medicine in the time of Hippocrates. Ancient Greek medicine identified four humours - black bile (whose name in Greek gives us the word melancholy), yellow bile, phlegm and blood. Galen suggested that an excess of any of these led to one of four personality types: melancholic, choleric, phlegmatic and sanguine. Although rejected by most of modern medicine, in this breakdown we do have the seeds that grew into personality indicators like the Meyers-Briggs test and its many off-shoots. You can check out Episode 27 for more details of how these relate to Hamlet. In this episode, Hamlet suggests that he is not splenetic - prone to the kinds of complaints that the spleen should govern. This feels quite ironic, given that the spleen was especially associated with melancholy, one of Hamlet’s major traits, and more loosely with bad temper or anger - which he has also displayed!

Forty
Forty is often the number Shakespeare uses for a whole heap of things - forty shillings, forty ducats, you name it. It’s large enough to be impressive but also still a conceivable number. Likewise here, forty thousand is huge but still comprehensible. (Although we’ll have an even bigger number next week!)

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, swounds/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. More recently, Ophelia said “Gis”, a contraction of “Jesus”.

Eisel (Vinegar)
Eisel is a long-obsolete word for vinegar, and can be traced (via Middle English and Old English) to the Latin acetum or acetillum. While researching this episode I read a completely different explanation of this word that suggests that Hamlet means the river Ijssel (also pronounced EYE-sel), a tributary of the Rhine. Here the suggestion would be that Laertes might drink a river dry as a feat to show the extent of his love for Ophelia. Drinking a river and eating a crocodile might thereby be considered impossible tasks.

Crocodiles
Crocodiles show up in three other plays by Shakespeare - Henry VI.ii, Othello and Antony and Cleopatra. No surprise that Shakespeare’s play set on the Nile has two crocodiles, while both others are discussed for their artificial and untrustworthy tears.

EPISODE 160 - THE QUICK AND DEAD

TEXT:

HAMLET
What, the fair Ophelia!

GERTRUDE
Sweets to the sweet: farewell!
I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet's wife;
I thought thy bride-bed to have decked, sweet maid,
And not have strewed thy grave.

LAERTES
O, treble woe
Fall ten times treble on that cursed head,
Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense
Deprived thee of! Hold off the earth awhile,
Till I have caught her once more in mine arms:
Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead,
Till of this flat a mountain you have made,
To o'ertop old Pelion, or the skyish head
Of blue Olympus.

HAMLET
What is he whose grief
Bears such an emphasis? Whose phrase of sorrow
Conjures the wandering stars, and makes them stand
Like wonder-wounded hearers? This is I,
Hamlet the Dane.

LAERTES
The devil take thy soul!

HAMLET
Thou pray'st not well.

NOTES:

Ten Times Treble
As we will see throughout this scene, there’s a tendency towards hyperbole. It’s not enough that the woe of Ophelia’s death is trebled, it’s ten times that. This feels like a large number only until Hamlet starts talking about forty thousand, and then a million!

Quick
In contemporary English quick means fast, or rapid, but for Shakespeare it also means alive. As in the line here, it means the opposite of dead. (Don’t be fooled by the western movie that borrows from this line, though - the inference there is that if you aren’t the fastest shooter, you’re dead!)

Mount Pelion
Pelion is a mountain in Thessaly, in the northern part of Greece. It is named after Peleus, the father of Achilles, and was famously the home of the centaur Chiron. It was the location for the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, the fateful occasion on which Eris, Goddess of Spite, produced the golden apple that led, eventually, to the Trojan War. For our purposes, it’s known from a different story, that of the Titans Ephialtes and Otus, who lifted Mount Pelion and put it on top of Mount Ossa (see later episode!) in their attempt to storm Mount Olympus, the highest mountain in Greece.

EPISODE 159 - WHAT CEREMONY ELSE?

TEXT:

LAERTES
What ceremony else?

HAMLET
That is Laertes,
A very noble youth: mark.

LAERTES
What ceremony else?

Priest
Her obsequies have been as far enlarged
As we have warrantise: her death was doubtful;
And, but that great command o'ersways the order,
She should in ground unsanctified have lodged
Till the last trumpet: for charitable prayers,
Shards, flints and pebbles should be thrown on her;
Yet here she is allow'd her virgin crants,
Her maiden strewments and the bringing home
Of bell and burial.

LAERTES
Must there no more be done?

Priest
No more be done:
We should profane the service of the dead
To sing a requiem and such rest to her
As to peace-parted souls.

LAERTES
Lay her i' the earth:
And from her fair and unpolluted flesh
May violets spring! I tell thee, churlish priest,
A ministering angel shall my sister be,
When thou liest howling.

NOTES:

Funerals
Shakespeare’s plays actually feature a great many funerals. But, given that it was against the law to put relegious ceremonies on stage (or to use religious language), it is worth noting that whenever there’s a ceremony on stage, you can bet that it will go wrong. The plays are full of weddings and funerals that go wrong; in Titus Andronicus, the burial is interrupted because Titus refuses to let his sons be buried in the family tomb. In Antony and Cleopatra, the Egyptian queen buries herself in the face of defeat - but of course, she’s still alive. And in Richard III, the funeral of a dead king is subverted when Richard interrupts its procession, seduces the widowed queen and sends the corpse to be buried in a different resting place. In Hamlet, there are multiple funerals that have not happened properly. The play begins in the shadow of the former king’s death, and Hamlet is at pains to tell us how little of the proper respect has been shown. Instead of an appropriate time of mourning, his mother the queen has married Claudius so fast that he can joke that the food for the appropriate funeral dinner was served to the guests at the wedding. After that, Polonius’ body was likewise hastily interred - he didn’t have a proper funeral, and was buried “hugger mugger” (see the Glossary page for more on this.) And now we have a third funeral, for Ophelia, which is likewise a ‘maimed rite’. Something really is rotten in the state of Denmark, when even in death one cannot be guaranteed any hope of an appropriate funeral.

Trumpets
According to the Book of Revelations (11:15), the seventh trumpet shall signal the end of the world and the beginning of the Kingdom of Heaven. The ‘last trumpet’ is an apocryphal way of describing the end of time. When I directed a play about the end of the world, one of the more peculiar challenges was to find a sound effect that might replicate what such eschatological trumpets might sound like…!

EPISODE 158 - TO WHAT BASE USES MAY WE RETURN, HORATIO

TEXT:

HORATIO
E'en so, my lord.

HAMLET
To what base uses we may return, Horatio! Why may
not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander,
till he find it stopping a bung-hole?

HORATIO
'Twere to consider too curiously, to consider so.

HAMLET
No, faith, not a jot; but to follow him thither with
modesty enough, and likelihood to lead it: as
thus: Alexander died, Alexander was buried,
Alexander returneth into dust; the dust is earth;
of earth we make loam; and why of that loam, whereto he
was converted, might they not stop a beer-barrel?
Imperious Caesar, dead and turn'd to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away:
O, that that earth, which kept the world in awe,
Should patch a wall to expel the winter flaw!
But soft! but soft! aside: here comes the king.

Enter Priest, & c. in procession; the Corpse of OPHELIA, LAERTES and Mourners following;
CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, their trains, & cetera.

The queen, the courtiers: who is this they follow?
And with such maimed rites? This doth betoken
The corse they follow did with desperate hand
Fordo its own life: 'twas of some estate.
Couch we awhile, and mark.

NOTES:

Julius Caesar
Shakespeare's play about the conspirators who assassinate Julius Caesar can be reasonably assumed to have been first performed in 1599. The likelihood is that it appeared just before Hamlet, and so the references to ancient Rome discussed in several episodes are hardly surprising since Rome was still on Shakespeare's mind. In Julius Caesar, Antony insists that Caesar’s body be shown to the public after the assassination, and he gives a highly strategic and effective eulogy, pointing out his wounds - the “holes” in his body.

Prose and Verse
For a good deal more information about prose and verse and how Shakespeare uses them, visit The Basics, a series of several episodes looking at the building blocks of how Shakespeare writes.

EPISODE 157 - ALAS, POOR YORICK

TEXT:

HAMLET (continued)

Takes the skull

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow
of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath
borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how
abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rises at
it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know
not how oft. Where be your gibes now? Your
gambols? Your songs? Your flashes of merriment,
that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one
now, to mock your own grinning? Quite chap-fallen?
Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let
her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must
come; make her laugh at that. Prithee, Horatio, tell
me one thing.

HORATIO
What's that, my lord?

HAMLET
Dost thou think Alexander looked o' this fashion i'
the earth?

HORATIO
E'en so.

HAMLET
And smelt so? pah!

Puts down the skull

NOTES:

Alexander the Great
Alexander the Great - Alexander III of Macedon - lived from July 356 to June 323 BC. In the course of his short life he amassed an empire that stretched from Egypt to India, and was a paragon of military and political achievement. Shakespeare presumably read his depiction in the histories of Plutarch - he would have had them to hand while writing Julius Caesar, and indeed he shows up in Henry V too!

Cosmetics
As mentioned, the brilliant study by Dr. Farah Karim-Cooper can be found here.

EPISODE 156 - THE KING'S JESTER

TEXT:

HAMLET
How long will a man lie i' the earth ere he rot?

First Clown
I' faith, if he be not rotten before he die--as we
have many pocky corses now-a-days, that will scarce
hold the laying in--he will last you some eight year
or nine year: a tanner will last you nine year.

HAMLET
Why he more than another?

First Clown
Why, sir, his hide is so tanned with his trade, that
he will keep out water a great while; and your water
is a sore decayer of your whoreson dead body.
Here's a skull now; this skull has lain in the earth
three and twenty years.

HAMLET
Whose was it?

First Clown
A whoreson mad fellow's it was: whose do you think it was?

HAMLET
Nay, I know not.

First Clown
A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! a' poured a
flagon of Rhenish on my head once. This same skull,
sir, was Yorick's skull, the king's jester.

HAMLET
This?

First Clown
E'en that.

HAMLET
Let me see.

NOTES:

Tanning
Shakespeare’s England was still a world heavily reliant on agriculture and all of the products that come from animal husbandry. His own father was a glove-maker, and so he would have grown up very aware of the processes of taking sheepskin and curing it, treating it and turning it into leather for gloves. Whatever personal knowledge Shakespeare might have had of the charnel-house, he certainly knew how tanners worked.