A hit, a very palpable hit

Some of Goat Rope's regular readers will be glad to know that this is just about the end of a long jag on Hamlet. If you've already had your limit, scroll down to the links and comments section.

We're now at the climax of the play, when Hamlet and Laertes are about to engage in a fencing match. The king, who has conspired with Laertes to poison Hamlet, pretends to have made a fine bet on his victory. As the courtier Osric puts it,

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 asks Laertes for his pardon, blaming his madness for the death of Polonius:

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 punish'd
With sore distraction. What I have done,
That might your nature, honour and exception
Roughly awake, I here proclaim was madness.
Was't Hamlet wrong'd 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 wrong'd;
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.

I'm not sure I'd buy it if I was Laertes, but with all the twists and turns of plot it's hard to tell just how mad or sane Hamlet was. Laertes is not reconciled but pretends to agree to a truce.

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 offer'd love like love,
And will not wrong it.

You know how it turns out. They fight, exchange wounds and blades in the mixup and wind up poisoning each other. Gertrude drinks the poisoned wine intended for Hamlet. Laertes confesses all and says "The king's to blame." Hamlet finally revenges his father's murder by killing Claudius.

The thrill of seeing it live was of course the fight scene, something audiences were as crazy about in Shakespeare's time as our own.

But there are still a few great lines left, which will keep until tomorrow.

MEMORY LANE. Has it been 20 years since WV's great teacher's strike? I guess so. I remember it fondly. After the UMWA/Pittston coal strike ended in early 1990, I was going through labor dispute withdrawal when state teachers were kind enough to oblige me. The strike spread like wildfire from southern WV and won major gains for teachers. It was a short wild ride.

RETURNING VETERANS from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan face higher unemployment rates than civilians.

A NEW POVERTY TRAP. Private for-profit schools often lure students into heavy student loan debt without delivering on the promise of good paying jobs.

TALKING SENSE ON PRISONS. Here's an op-ed on prison overcrowding by my friend the Rev. Matthew Watts.

DID I MENTION that I hate the day after daylight savings time goes into effect?

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

I have something in me dangerous

(Goat Rope is almost done with Hamlet, but you can skip to the links if Shakespeare doesn't do it for you.)

Ordinarily, you don't want a lot of drama at a funeral. Dealing with death is enough of a task. But, this being Shakespeare and all, there is quite a bit at Ophelia's funeral.

Hamlet's banter with the gravedigger is interrupted by a funeral procession which turns out to be hers. Her brother Laertes is already outraged by the abbreviated funeral rights, which are due to the questionable nature of her death. In the past, suicides were typically denied Christian burial and hers could have been interpreted as such.

Laertes curses Hamlet, who he blames for her madness:

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:

(Leaps into the grave)
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 then announces himself and leaps into the grave himself. Laertes goes wild and tries to choke him. Hamlet has a great response, one that I hope to use next time somebody chokes me:

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 wiseness fear: hold off thy hand.

He claims a far greater grief for her that Laertes (not that either of them did her a lot of good):

'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?
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.

Methinks he doth protest too much. Eventually, the two are separated and it's pretty clear that the trouble between them isn't over.

THE WAITING is the hardest part, as philosopher Tom Petty noted some time ago. Lately, unemployed workers have been waiting longer than at any other time on record before they find another job.

SPEAKING OF WHICH, the Senate yesterday passed a bill extending unemployment benefits and other provisions aimed at spurring recovery.

CONTRARY TO WHAT YOU MAY HAVE HEARD, most Americans want changes to health care.

WHO'D A THUNK IT? It might be possible to generate electricity from "bottled air" stored underground.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

There is a willow grows aslant a brook

Ophelia by John Everett Millais (1852), by way of wikipedia.

Goat Rope's long jag on Hamlet continues, although you can skip the Shakespeare if that isn't your thing and scroll on down to the links and comments section.

I have referred to the character of Polonius as a twit several times. I must now add that twitness of one kind or another seems to run in the male line of that family. After Polonius is killed by Hamlet, his son Laertes returns from France eager for revenge. Once there, he finds that his sister Ophelia has gone mad.

One would have hoped that he would have taken a little time to take care of her and covered some basic bases--like maybe keeping her from drowning herself, for example. But he couldn't be bothered over this small detail.

Here's how Gertrude, the queen of Denmark and mother of Hamlet describes her end:

There is a willow grows aslant a brook,
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream;
There with fantastic garlands did she come
Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them:
There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds
Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke;
When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide;
And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up:
Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes;
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indued
Unto that element: but long it could not be
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.

All the men in her life were useless at best, and deadly cruel at worst.

TO BE OR NOT TO BE? That is the question for health care reform and it may be answered fairly soon.

SHARE THE WORK. One of the links in yesterday's post was about the policy of work sharing, which could be a very effective way of helping people get through the Great Recession. Economist Dean Baker has written an op-ed on the subject that is worth a look. Here it is

A RISING TIDE, it is said, lifts all boats. But to benefit from that, first you need a boat. Here's an item from the Washington Post about how the recession and the Recovery Act are affecting minority communities.

YOU'VE HEARD OF THE TEA PARTY. Here's the Coffee Party. I've always preferred that beverage.

THE WAR ON SCIENCE continues.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

The primrose path of dalliance

If you know anything about Shakespeare's tragedies, you know that a lot of bodies are going to pile up by the end. Hamlet's whole family will wind up shuffling off this mortal coil, but they won't be alone. Another whole family will join them before it's over.

That would be the family of Polonius, counselor to Claudius and a major twit as well. Apparently a widower, he has a son, Laertes, and a daughter Ophelia. Laertes has been studying (or, more likely, partying) in Paris and returned to Denmark for the funeral/wedding. Those ceremonies concluded, he seeks and is granted permission to go back to France.

In the meantime, Hamlet has begun or revived his courtship of Ophelia since he returned from his studies in Wittenberg. She, alas, will be double-teamed by son and father in Act 1, scene 3 and told not to trust Hamlet's pledges of affection and even to break off the relationship.

Laertes takes aim first, warning her not to take Hamlet's professions seriously:

For Hamlet and the trifling of his favour,
Hold it a fashion and a toy in blood,
A violet in the youth of primy nature,
Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting,
The perfume and suppliance of a minute; No more...

He (no doubt hypocritically) urges her to chastity:

Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain,
If with too credent ear you list his songs,
Or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure open
To his unmaster'd importunity.
Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister,
And keep you in the rear of your affection,
Out of the shot and danger of desire.
The chariest maid is prodigal enough,
If she unmask her beauty to the moon:
Virtue itself 'scapes not calumnious strokes:
The canker galls the infants of the spring,
Too oft before their buttons be disclosed,
And in the morn and liquid dew of youth
Contagious blastments are most imminent.
Be wary then; best safety lies in fear:
Youth to itself rebels, though none else near.

Ophelia appears to yield, but she knows a double standard when she hears it and urges him to take his own advice:

I shall the effect of this good lesson keep,
As watchman to my heart. But, good my brother,
Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven;
Whiles, like a puff'd and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
And recks not his own rede.

SPEAKING OF DALLIANCE, here's an article on edible aphrodisiacs.

SCARRING. Here's a sobering look at the possible long term impacts of the Great Recession.

MYSTERIOUS PRESENCES and near death experiences are discussed here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED