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

A king may progress through the guts of a beggar

Goat Rope is meandering through Hamlet these days, although you'll also find links and comments about current events below if Shakespeare isn't your thing.

Things really start falling apart at the end of act 3. The play did indeed catch the conscience of the king but Hamlet bungled his attempt to whack him. Then follows a highly charged and kind of Freudian confrontation between Hamlet and his mother Gertrude, during which the former kills Polonius as he hid behind a tapestry, thinking him to be the king.

By this point, Hamlet seems to be beyond ordinary human empathy, merely telling his mother at the end of their meeting that he'll "lug the guts" to a neighbor room.

There follows an amazing exchange between Hamlet and his uncle Claudius about the murder of Polonius which is full of dark humor:

KING CLAUDIUS Now, Hamlet, where's Polonius?

HAMLET At supper.

KING CLAUDIUS At supper! where?

HAMLET Not where he eats, but where he is eaten: a certain
convocation of politic worms are e'en at him. Your
worm is your only emperor for diet: we fat all
creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for
maggots: your fat king and your lean beggar is but
variable service, two dishes, but to one table:
that's the end.

KING CLAUDIUS Alas, alas!

HAMLET A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a
king, and cat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.

KING CLAUDIUS What dost you mean by this?

HAMLET Nothing but to show you how a king may go a
progress through the guts of a beggar.

KING CLAUDIUS Where is Polonius?

HAMLET In heaven; send hither to see: if your messenger
find him not there, seek him i' the other place
yourself. But indeed, if you find him not within
this month, you shall nose him as you go up the
stairs into the lobby.

KING CLAUDIUS Go seek him there.

(To some Attendants)

HAMLET He will stay till ye come.

By now, Hamlet's feigned madness is getting kind of close to the real thing.

BUBBLES. Here's Paul Krugman on the need for real financial reform.

ARE THE VOTES THERE for comprehensive health care reform? Maybe.

INEQUALITY matters.

SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF. Exercise helps reduce anxiety among the chronically ill by 20 percent.

IF SPRINGTIME EVER COMES, here are several reasons to consider growing some of your own food.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Would you were so honest a man

Was Hamlet crazy for love?

Goat Rope's meander through Hamlet continues, although if you've had enough of that you can scroll on down to the links and comments section.

As I mentioned yesterday, Polonius, father of Laertes and Ophelia and advisor to Claudius, is a twit. That is to say he is the Platonic form of twitness incarnate. He is at his twitty best (or worst) when he is caught up in his own verbiage.

One of the most amusing/irritating examples of this is when he tries to tell Claudius and Gertrude that he thinks Hamlet has gone mad through love of Ophelia. The scene occurs after diplomats have returned from Norway with news of an averted war:

This business is well ended.
My liege, and madam, to expostulate
What majesty should be, what duty is,
Why day is day, night night, and time is time,
Were nothing but to waste night, day and time.
Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief: your noble son is mad:
Mad call I it; for, to define true madness,
What is't but to be nothing else but mad?
But let that go.

You can't blame Gertude for asking for more matter with less art. But Polonius is just getting warmed up:

Madam, I swear I use no art at all.
That he is mad, 'tis true: 'tis true 'tis pity;
And pity 'tis 'tis true: a foolish figure;
But farewell it, for I will use no art.
Mad let us grant him, then: and now remains
That we find out the cause of this effect,
Or rather say, the cause of this defect,
For this effect defective comes by cause...

It doesn't get much better when he tries to engage the apparently mad Hamlet in conversation. Here's just a bit:

LORD POLONIUS: Do you know me, my lord?

HAMLET: Excellent well; you are a fishmonger.

LORD POLONIUS: Not I, my lord.

HAMLET: Then I would you were so honest a man.

In homage to this exchange, we take it as an article of faith at Goat Rope Farm that people who sell fish are paragons of veracity.

SNOW WHAT? Here's a little reminder that snow and global warming can go hand in hand.

GIRL POWER. New studies indicate that team sports bring lasting benefits to girls.

I PREFER COFFEE. Here's an interesting description of the recent TEA Party conference.

ANCIENT MARINERS (MINUS ALBATROSS). Archaeological evidence in Crete suggests that early humans or related species took to sea as early as 130,000 years ago.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth

(El Cabrero has been meandering through Hamlet lately. If you're a fan, please click on earlier posts. If, God forbid, you are not, scroll down to the links and comments below.)

There's really no nice way to say it so I'll just say it: Polonius, father of Ophelia and advisor to Claudius, is a twit. A royal twit, one might say. Pretentious, pompous, wordy, he is a comic figure who doesn't know he's funny.

He is particularly fond of spying. He overhears Laertes' conversation with Ophelia, sends a servant to spy on his son in Paris and has a fatal tendency to spy on Prince Hamlet.

In scene 1 of Act 2, he's in his spying prime as he coaches Reynaldo on how to sniff out Laertes' character. Reynaldo is told to seek out Danes in France, ask after him, admit some slight acquaintance and then insinuate that he's a wild youth. He is to suggest that the young man is addicted not only to gambling, but to

drinking, fencing, swearing, quarrelling,
Drabbing: you may go so far.

Drabbing, by the way, was consorting with those whose physical affections are on the market. These habits were not considered to be major character flaws but rather

the taints of liberty,
The flash and outbreak of a fiery mind,
A savageness in unreclaimed blood,
Of general assault.

The idea was to get the Danes to either cough up more scandalous behavior or else clear him of these changes:

See you now;
Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth:
And thus do we of wisdom and of reach,
With windlasses and with assays of bias,
By indirections find directions out...

The main carp, as in bottom feeding fish of little culinary desirability, it seems to me, is Polonius himself.

HEALTH CARE REFORM. This AP article suggests not finishing the job will cost more than finishing it.

NOT ENOUGH. This NY Times editorial argues that while some Republican ideas about health care reform have merit, they don't go far enough.

THE 10 DEADLY SINS. Here's a look at some destructive human behaviors. Did your favorites make the list?


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