EPISODE 135 - FROM HEAVEN TO EARTH

TEXT:

LAERTES
Do you see this, O God?

CLAUDIUS
Laertes, I must commune with your grief,
Or you deny me right. Go but apart,
Make choice of whom your wisest friends you will.
And they shall hear and judge 'twixt you and me:
If by direct or by collateral hand
They find us touch'd, we will our kingdom give,
Our crown, our life, and all that we call ours,
To you in satisfaction; but if not,
Be you content to lend your patience to us,
And we shall jointly labour with your soul
To give it due content.

LAERTES
Let this be so;
His means of death, his obscure funeral -
No trophy, sword, nor hatchment o'er his bones,
No noble rite nor formal ostentation -
Cry to be heard, as 'twere from heaven to earth,
That I must call't in question.

CLAUDIUS
So you shall;
And where the offence is let the great axe fall.
I pray you, go with me.

Exeunt

NOTES:

Heraldry
Way way back we discussed how there was quite a notable contrast between King Hamlet's relations with Norway - ending with a violent, medieval single-combat, and Claudius' diplomacy. The world of 'laws and heraldry' seems to be over, and Hamlet showed something of a nostalgia for his father's way of operating. Here we see Laertes likewise lamenting this change - his father is buried without “hatchment” - no heraldic marker was part of his “obscure funeral”.

EPISODE 134 - THERE'S ROSEMARY, THAT'S FOR REMEMBRANCE

TEXT:

OPHELIA
There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray,
love, remember: and there is pansies. that's for thoughts.

LAERTES
A document in madness, thoughts and remembrance fitted.

OPHELIA
There's fennel for you, and columbines: there's rue
for you; and here's some for me: we may call it
herb-a-grace o' Sundays: O you must wear your rue with
a difference. There's a daisy: I would give you
some violets, but they withered all when my father
died: they say he made a good end…

Sings

For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.

LAERTES
Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself,
She turns to favour and to prettiness.

OPHELIA
Sings

And will he not come again?
And will he not come again?
No, no, he is dead:
Go to thy death-bed:
He never will come again.
His beard was as white as snow,
All flaxen was his poll:
He is gone, he is gone,
And we cast away moan:
God ha' mercy on his soul!
And of all Christian souls, I pray God. God be wi' ye.

Exit (or Exeunt)

NOTES:

Robert Greene
Greene has the unfortunate position of being one of very few people immortalised for not liking Shakespeare. In his most famous text, Greene’s Groat’s-worth of Wit, he mocks Shakespeare as an “upstart crow, beautified with our feathers.” Greene represents the University Wits, so different in educational background from Shakespeare’s country grammar school. He’s been made into a preening character in Ben Elton’s sitcom about Shakespeare, appropriately titled Upstart Crow. Greene wrote a few plays and a considerable number of prose texts, among them A Quip for an Upstart Courtier, quoted in this episode. (Upstart appears to have been his word of the year, since his jab at Shakespeare was published the same year.)

Botany
It's worth always bearing in mind that Shakespeare grew up in the country, and was deeply aware of the life of the seasons. No surprise that there are enough botanical references in Shakespeare to fill a book - and a lovely one, too - Gerit Quealey has put together "An Illustrated Compendium of All the Flowers, Fruits, Herbs, Trees, Seeds, and Grasses Cited" - you can find it here. It lists every instance of every plant that Shakespeare ever mentions - terribly useful for analysing a scene like this one.

Ophelia’s Flowers
In the little gallery below you can see all of the flowers and herbs Ophelia has collected - when combined they clearly look like a haphazard bunch of stems, weeds and wild flowers. I didn’t mention in the episode that there’s some discussion over whether they are all in her head. I’ve seen productions work onstage with flowers, without flowers, and in one extraordinary instance, with old masks. Anything is possible!

She mentions the following: rosemary, pansies, fennel, columbines (note the horns!), rue/herb of grace, a daisy and some violets.

EPISODE 133 - O HEAT DRY UP MY BRAINS

TEXT:

Danes
[Within] Let her come in.

LAERTES
How now! what noise is that?

Re-enter OPHELIA

O heat, dry up my brains! tears seven times salt,
Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye!
By heaven, thy madness shall be paid by weight,
Till our scale turn the beam. O rose of May!
Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!
O heavens! is't possible, a young maid's wits
Should be as mortal as an old man's life?
Nature is fine in love, and where 'tis fine,
It sends some precious instance of itself
After the thing it loves.

OPHELIA
[Sings]
They bore him barefaced on the bier;
Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny;
And in his grave rain'd many a tear:
Fare you well, my dove!

LAERTES
Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge,
It could not move thus.

OPHELIA
[Sings]
You must sing a-down a-down,
An you call him a-down-a.
O, how the wheel becomes it! It is the false
steward, that stole his master's daughter.

LAERTES
This nothing's more than matter.

EPISODE 132 - THE KIND LIFE-RENDERING PELICAN

TEXT:

LAERTES
How came he dead? I'll not be juggled with:
To hell, allegiance! vows, to the blackest devil!
Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit!
I dare damnation. To this point I stand,
That both the worlds I give to negligence,
Let come what comes; only I'll be revenged
Most thoroughly for my father.

CLAUDIUS
Who shall stay you?

LAERTES
My will, not all the world:
And for my means, I'll husband them so well,
They shall go far with little.

CLAUDIUS
Good Laertes,
If you desire to know the certainty
Of your dear father's death, is't writ in your revenge,
That, swoopstake, you will draw both friend and foe,
Winner and loser?

LAERTES
None but his enemies.

CLAUDIUS
Will you know them then?

LAERTES
To his good friends thus wide I'll ope my arms;
And like the kind life-rendering pelican,
Repast them with my blood.

CLAUDIUS
Why, now you speak
Like a good child and a true gentleman.
That I am guiltless of your father's death,
And am most sensible in grief for it,
It shall as level to your judgment pierce
As day does to your eye.

NOTES:

Pelican
In medieval Europe, pelicans had the reputation of being especially attentive to their young. Their large bills could be used to store fish, but in leaner times it was believed that the pelican would stab its own breast to draw blood to feed its young. By extension, the bird’s self-sacrifice came to be associated with that of Jesus Christ in the Passion. Elizabeth I eventually incorporated the image into the language of her portraits - she liked the association of a mother who will do anything for her young - or her country. (Below is the so-called Pelican Portrait by Nicholas Hilliard, now housed at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool. You can see a close-up of the pelican at the centre of the queen’s own breast.)

The Pelican Portrait of Elizabeth I by Nicholas Hilliard.

EPISODE 131 - THOU VILE KING

TEXT:

LAERTES
O thou vile king,
Give me my father!

GERTRUDE
Calmly, good Laertes.

LAERTES
That drop of blood that's calm proclaims me bastard,
Cries cuckold to my father, brands the harlot
Even here, between the chaste unsmirched brow
Of my true mother.

CLAUDIUS
What is the cause, Laertes,
That thy rebellion looks so giant-like?
Let him go, Gertrude; do not fear our person:
There's such divinity doth hedge a king,
That treason can but peep to what it would,
Acts little of his will. Tell me, Laertes,
Why thou art thus incensed. Let him go, Gertrude.
Speak, man.

LAERTES
Where is my father?

CLAUDIUS
Dead.

GERTRUDE
But not by him.

CLAUDIUS
Let him demand his fill.

NOTES:

Thou and You
In Old English, thou was singular and you was plural; but sometime in the 13th century, English started copying the French manner of speaking that used the plural as a polite form. So, just like vous in French, you became a means of addressing someone formally. There's a lot of status in play with who uses which form, and to whom. You was more formal, so servants would use it to their employers, children would use it when addressing their parents, and so on. It could also be a social or societal divider. You was said to those above you on the social ladder, and then thou in return was used for those below. Likewise lower social classes use thou when addressing each other. Curiously though, thou was also used to indicate a particular kind of intimacy, as when a character might speak to God. With all of this going on, it's clear that changing from thou to you or you to thou in a conversation always conveys a contrast in meaning - a change of attitude or an altered relationship. Sometimes it is as an insult - if someone uses thou to address someone to whom they owe greater respect - it's a sign of dropping formality to express closeness or intimacy. 

Mrs. Polonius
As promised, here is the link to Anne Harris' (hopefully deliberately) hilarious exploration of the evidence for the character of Mrs. Polonius, published in The Spectator in March 1933. I'm not sure if it's out of copyright, so I haven't included the entire text on the website. 

Gigantomachy
The Gigantomachy (lit. “giant battle”) was maybe the most significant battle waged in all of Greek mythology. It was fought between the Giants (children of Ouranos and Gaia) and the Olympian gods (Zeus and his brothers, sisters, children and so on). An example of its importance is that it is one of the major inspirations for the art work on the Parthenon in Athens - one of the most significant temples ever built in Greece. There are further references to battles between the gods and others coming up later in the play, so it’s not unreasonable to think that Claudius is doing so here.

EPISODE 130 - WHERE ARE MY SWITZERS?

TEXT:

A noise within

GERTRUDE [Folio only]
Alack, what noise is this?

Enter another Gentleman

CLAUDIUS
Attend! [Quarto only]
Where are my Switzers? Let them guard the door.
What is the matter?

Gentleman
Save yourself, my lord:
The ocean, overpeering of his list,
Eats not the flats with more impetuous (/impiteous) haste
Than young Laertes, in a riotous head,
O'erbears your officers. The rabble call him lord;
And, as the world were now but to begin,
Antiquity forgot, custom not known,
The ratifiers and props of every word,
They cry 'Choose we, Laertes shall be king:'
Caps, hands, and tongues, applaud it to the clouds:
'Laertes shall be king, Laertes king!'

GERTRUDE
How cheerfully on the false trail they cry!
O, this is counter, you false Danish dogs!

CLAUDIUS
The doors are broke.

Noise within

Enter LAERTES, armed; Danes following

LAERTES
Where is this king? Sirs, stand you all without.

Danes
No, let's come in.

LAERTES
I pray you, give me leave.

Danes
We will, we will.

They retire without the door

LAERTES
I thank you: keep the door.

NOTES:

Switzers
The word appears nowhere else in Shakespeare. Switzers had already been employed around Europe as mercenaries and guards for hire for over a century by the time Hamlet was written - perhaps it is a fashionable comment, a joke that has been lost. (Although the image of an inept leader mobilising armies under his sole control remains as chilling and as reckless today as it must have then…) The Papal Swiss Guards have guarded the Vatican since 1506, and are as such one of the world’s oldest continuously-serving military forces. Recruits must be Roman Catholics from Switzerland, between the ages of 18-30, and must have undergone basic training in the Swiss army.

Gentleman
This character, who is sometimes called a messenger, could be Marcellus, the palace guard we met all the way back in Act One. He could be the same Gentleman who appeared at the beginning of the scene. I’ve even seen the lines given to Horatio (although this didn’t work as well…)

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!

EPISODE 129 - THE POISON OF DEEP GRIEF

TEXT:

CLAUDIUS
O, this is the poison of deep grief; it springs
All from her father's death. O Gertrude, Gertrude,
When sorrows come, they come not single spies
But in battalions. First, her father slain:
Next, your son gone; and he most violent author
Of his own just remove: the people muddied,
Thick and unwholesome in their thoughts and whispers,
For good Polonius' death; and we have done but greenly,
In hugger-mugger to inter him: poor Ophelia
Divided from herself and her fair judgment,
Without the which we are pictures, or mere beasts:
Last, and as much containing as all these,
Her brother is in secret come from France;
Feeds on his wonder, keeps himself in clouds,
And wants not buzzers to infect his ear
With pestilent speeches of his father's death;
Wherein necessity, of matter beggared,
Will nothing stick our person to arraign
In ear and ear. O my dear Gertrude, this,
Like to a murdering-piece, in many places
Gives me superfluous death.

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 this episode 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. Shakespeare used Thomas North’s translation of Plutarch as a starting point:

When this was done, they came to talke of Caesars will and testament, and of his funeralls and tombe. Then Antonius (Marc Antony) thinking good his testament should be red openly, and also that his body should be honorably buried, and not in hugger mugger, least the people might thereby take occasion to be worse offended if they did otherwise.

Plutarch
Plutarch (46- c.119) was a Greek historian. Many of his works were translated into English by Thomas North, and Shakespeare used them as source material for many of his plays set in the ancient world.

The Taming of the Shrew
At the end of this play, Katherina, the titular heroine, gives an extraordinary speech about women and their men. It continues to baffle interpreters, because it is such a volte face for the character. You can listen to the book club podcast about the play here. Kate’s speech includes the following image, which Claudius echoes.

A woman moved is like a fountain troubled,
Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty;
And while it is so, none so dry or thirsty
Will deign to sip or touch one drop of it.

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.

EPISODE 128 - YOU PROMISED ME TO WED

TEXT:

CLAUDIUS
Pretty Ophelia!

OPHELIA
Indeed, la, without an oath, I'll make an end on't:

Sings

By Gis and by Saint Charity,
Alack, and fie for shame!
Young men will do't, if they come to't;
By cock, they are to blame.
Quoth she, before you tumbled me,
You promised me to wed.
So would I ha' done, by yonder sun,
An thou hadst not come to my bed.

CLAUDIUS
How long hath she been thus?

OPHELIA
I hope all will be well. We must be patient: but I
cannot choose but weep, to think they should lay him
i' the cold ground. My brother shall know of it:
and so I thank you for your good counsel. Come, my
coach! Good night, ladies; good night, sweet ladies;
good night, good night.

Exit

CLAUDIUS
Follow her close; give her good watch,
I pray you.

Exit HORATIO

NOTES:

An
Often in Shakespeare, an is used instead of “if”. “An thou hadst not come to my bed” is a clear example.

The Knight’s Tale
The Knight’s Tale is the first of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. A stirring tale of romance, it inspired numerous other stories, not least Shakespeare’s own play, The Two Noble Kinsmen.

Tamburlaine
Tamburlaine is a sprawling play by Christopher Marlowe. Based on the life of Timur, the central Asian emperor, it was one of the first major artistic and commercial successes of Elizabethan drama. It and The Spanish Tragedy were vital to Shakespeare’s development, and each casts a shadow over Hamlet.

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. In this episode, “GIs” is a contraction of “Jesus”.

EPISODE 127 - THE OWL WAS A BAKER'S DAUGHTER

TEXT:

GERTRUDE
Alas, look here, my lord.

OPHELIA [Sings]
Larded with sweet flowers
Which bewept to the grave did not go
With true-love showers.

CLAUDIUS
How do you, pretty lady?

OPHELIA
Well, God 'ild you! They say the owl was a baker's
daughter. Lord, we know what we are, but know not
what we may be. God be at your table!

CLAUDIUS
Conceit upon her father.

OPHELIA
Pray you, let's have no words of this; but when they
ask you what it means, say you this:

Sings

Tomorrow is Saint Valentine's day,
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,
To be your Valentine.
Then up he rose, and donned his clothes,
And dupped the chamber-door;
Let in the maid, that out a maid
Never departed more.

NOTES:

Lard
Shakespeare uses the word “lard” to mean “decorate” in four different instances. The meaning is derived from cookery - lard is pig fat, specifically (as opposed to suet, which comes from beef). Lard was added to dishes to enrich the texture and enhance the flavour. In the late 20th century it fell out of favour, since it is not suitable for vegetarians, vegans, or anyone who avoids pork products. It has had something of a renaissance of late among foodies who like to enhance and enrich dishes with it.

Jesus, the Owl and the Baker’s Daughter
While I’m not particularly convinced of how it’s relevant to Ophelia, here is the story of Jesus and the baker’s daughter, as described in Francis Douce in his “Illustrations of Shakespeare” in 1839. He himself records it as coming from the Gloucestershire peasantry: “Our Saviour went into a baker's shop where they were baking, and asked for some bread to eat; the mistress of the shop immediately put a piece of dough into the oven to bake for him; but was reprimanded by her daughter, who, insisting that the piece of dough was too large, reduced it to a very small size; the dough, however, immediately began to swell, and presently became a most enormous size, whereupon the baker's daughter cried out, 'Heugh, heugh, heugh!' which owl-like noise probably induced our Saviour to transform her into that bird for her wickedness." Another version of the same story, as formerly known in Herefordshire, substitutes a fairy in the place of our Saviour. Similar legends are found on the Continent.” (I do like that he acknowledges that between Gloucestershire and Herefordshire there’s a difference, and that in Herefordshire it’s a fairy who changes the young lady into a bird!)

Owls
I went rather overboard looking for owls in Shakespare this week. There’s so much material that I’ve given it its own page. You can read it all here.

Bakers’ Daughters
There are very few bakers in all of Shakespeare. Bakers’ wives get a mention in Henry IV, and the baker’s daughter shows up in Hamlet. In both cases, the speaker is likely referring to prostitutes. The association seems to go back at least as far as ancient Rome, where “the alicariae, or [female] bakers, were women of the street who waited for fortune at the doors of bakeries, especially those which sold certain cakes destined for offerings to Venus. On certain festivals, the master bakers sold nothing but sacrificial breads, and at the same time they had slave girls or servant maids who prostituted themselves day and night in the bakery.” (This text comes from the extravagant, six-volume History of Prostitution by Paul Lacroix, written in the 1850s.)

Valentine’s Day
The first recorded association between St. Valentine’s Day and romantic love is in Chaucer’s Parliament of Fowls, in which he describes the match between Richard II and his queen, Anne of Bohemia. Thereafter the celebration blossomed through the centuries to the monstrous pressure-cooker of chocolate, cards, roses and expectation enjoyed annually on February 14th.

EPISODE 126 - ALAS SWEET LADY, WHAT IMPORTS THIS SONG?

TEXT:

Exit HORATIO

GERTRUDE (continued)
To my sick soul, as sin's true nature is,
Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss:
So full of artless jealousy is guilt,
It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.

Re-enter HORATIO, with OPHELIA

OPHELIA
Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?

GERTRUDE
How now, Ophelia!

OPHELIA (sings)
How should I your true love know
From another one?
By his cockle hat and staff,
And his sandal shoon.

GERTRUDE
Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?

OPHELIA
Say you? nay, pray you, mark.

Sings

He is dead and gone, lady,
He is dead and gone;
At his head a grass-green turf,
At his heels a stone.

GERTRUDE
Nay, but, Ophelia…

OPHELIA
Pray you, mark.

Sings

White his shroud as the mountain snow…

Enter CLAUDIUS

NOTES:

Walsingham
The song is often played as an instrumental, but click here for a recording by the singer Joel Frederiksen. It is about the old pilgrimage site of Walsingham, which was dismantled in the 1530s when King Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries.

Santiago de Compostela
Located in Galicia in northern Spain, Compostela has been a site of pilgrimage since at least the 9th century. The Camino, or Way of St. James, was a major pilgrimage in the Middle Ages. (it has grown in popularity since the 1980s as a retreat from modern life.) The shell of the scallop, or cockle, has long been the symbol of its pilgrims, thanks to various legends associated with the region and St. James.

Pilgrims
In Romeo and Juliet, the lovers meet at Juliet’s family party. Their elegant and witty exchange takes place over fourteen lines - in perfect sonnet form - at the end of which, they kiss. Romeo calls Juliet a saint, and her body a holy shrine, as if he has come to worship there. Juliet plays along, and calls him “pilgrim”. The wordplay acknowledges the literary tradition of likening pilgrims and lovers, echoed also in Ophelia’s choice of song.

ROMEO
If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

JULIET
Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.

ROMEO
Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?

JULIET
Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.

ROMEO
O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;
They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.

JULIET
Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.

ROMEO
Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take.

Episode 125 - Dangerous Conjectures

TEXT:

SCENE V. Elsinore. A room in the castle.

Enter GERTRUDE, HORATIO, and a Gentleman

*as mentioned in this episode, the sources differ over who says what. I’ve marked these below; Q2 is the Second Quarto, F is the Folio.

GERTRUDE
I will not speak with her.

Gentleman
She is importunate, indeed distract:
Her mood will needs be pitied.

GERTRUDE
What would she have?

Gentleman (Q2) - Horatio (F)
She speaks much of her father; says she hears
There's tricks i' the world; and hems, and beats her heart;
Spurns enviously at straws; speaks things in doubt,
That carry but half sense: her speech is nothing,
Yet the unshaped use of it doth move
The hearers to collection; they aim at it,
And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts;
Which, as her winks, and nods, and gestures yield them,
Indeed would make one think there might be thought,
Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.

HORATIO (Q2) - Gertrude (F)
'Twere good she were spoken with; for she may strew
Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.

HORATIO (Q2) - Gertrude (F)
Let her come in.

NOTES:
Horace
The episode mentions a variety of sources that Shakespeare blended to create the character of Horatio. One further echo might be the Roman poet Horace - Horatius - whose influence within a standard classical education should not be overlooked. Horace wrote poetry in a wide variety of genres, but he is known for his approachability, the charm of his approach, and the pleasure of his poetry. A friend one would definitely like to have. In Ben Jonson’s satirical comedy Poetaster, he includes Horace as a caricature of himself.

The Spanish Tragedy
The Spanish Tragedy was written by Thomas Kyd in about 1582. It is a grim story of murder and revenge, and was hugely influential - and enduringly popular. The play was the first ever revenge tragedy written for the English theatre. It crops up in references within plays by Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Johnson and many others. Its surtitle, "Hieronimo is Mad Again" is a reference to the play's protagonist, who pretends to be mad in order to lull the victims of his ultimate revenge. The Spanish Tragedy is also notable for featuring the first instance of a play-within-a-play - the dramatic device of having characters in a play put on a play themselves. It starts with a ghost who appears, hungry for revenge, and ends with the deaths of nearly all of its main characters. Just like Hamlet!

Saxo Grammaticus
Many of the key elements of the story of Hamlet appear in Saxo Grammaticus' 'Deeds of the Danes' - Gesta Danorum - written about 1200AD. As well as being an essential source for the medieval history of Denmark, it’s also landmark document in the histories of Latvia and Estonia. Saxo Grammaticus lived c.1150-1220, and his name means “Saxo the Literate”.

The Lost Hamlet
The Ur-Hamlet (the German prefix Ur- means "primordial", or original) is a play by an unknown author, though it is maintained that it could have been written by Thomas Kyd (who wrote The Spanish Tragedy) or perhaps by Shakespeare himself. Scholarship dates it to sometime during 1587.  No printed copy of the text survives, but it is mentioned in various places. All we really know about the play is that it featured a character called Hamlet and a ghost character that exhorted him to revenge. It’s possible there might have been a proto-Horatio figure too, but this is little more than conjecture.

EPISODE 124 - HONOUR'S AT THE STAKE

TEXT:

HAMLET (continued)
  Rightly to be great
Is not to stir without great argument,
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
When honour's at the stake. How stand I then,
That have a father kill'd, a mother stain'd,
Excitements of my reason and my blood,
And let all sleep? while, to my shame, I see
The imminent death of twenty thousand men,
That, for a fantasy and trick of fame,
Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot
Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,
Which is not tomb enough and continent
To hide the slain? O, from this time forth,
My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!

Exit

NOTES

Honour at the stake is an image that Shakespeare uses in multiple plays - it appears here in Hamlet, and also in Twelfth Night, Troilus and Cressida and All’s Well That Ends Well - Olivia, Achilles and the King of France are all concerned that their honour or their reputation is under attack, often with surrounding words that make us think of the dogs attacking the bear in the bear-pit.

OLIVIA (Twelfth Night, Act III scene i)
Have you not set mine honour at the stake
And baited it with all the unmuzzled thoughts
That tyrannous heart can think?

ACHILLES (Troilus and Cressida, Act III scene iii)
I see my reputation is at stake
My fame is shrewdly gored.

KING (All’s Well That Ends Well, Act II, scene iii)
My honour's at the stake; which to defeat,
I must produce my power.

A few other instances make it very clear that when Shakespeare is talking about the stake, it’s to do with bear-baiting rather than witch-burning. (Except when there’s a woman like Joan of Arc or Beatrice making the reference, and in those instances there’s usually language to do with fire to make it very clear!) These quotations come from Macbeth, Henry VI, Julius Caesar and King Lear - each is a clear echo of the practice of bear-baiting.

MACBETH (Macbeth, Act V, scene vii)
They have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly,
But, bear-like, I must fight the course.

Richard Plantagenet (Henry VI pt 2, Act V, scene i)
Call hither to the stake my two brave bears, 
That with the very shaking of their chains 
They may astonish these fell-lurking curs: 

OCTAVIUS (Julius Caesar, Act IV, scene i)
Let us do so: for we are at the stake, 
And bay'd about with many enemies; 
And some that smile have in their hearts, I fear, 
Millions of mischiefs.

GLOUCESTER (King Lear, Act III, scene vii)
I am tied to th' stake, and I must stand the course.

Bear-baiting itself remained popular in England until the 19th century. This engraving from the late 16th or early 17th century shows “the bear garden” somewhere on the south bank of the Thames in London - you could be forgiven for thinking it was a picture of the Globe!

EPISODE 123 - HOW ALL OCCASIONS...

TEXT:

HAMLET

How all occasions do inform against me,
And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more.
Sure, he that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and god-like reason
To fust in us unused. Now, whether it be
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
Of thinking too precisely on the event,
A thought which, quartered, hath but one part wisdom
And ever three parts coward, I do not know
Why yet I live to say 'This thing's to do;'
Sith I have cause and will and strength and means
To do't. Examples gross as earth exhort me:
Witness this army of such mass and charge
Led by a delicate and tender prince,
Whose spirit with divine ambition puffed
Makes mouths at the invisible event,
Exposing what is mortal and unsure
To all that fortune, death and danger dare,
Even for an egg-shell. 

Episode 122 - A Little Patch of Ground

TEXT:

Captain
Truly to speak, and with no addition,
We go to gain a little patch of ground
That hath in it no profit but the name.
To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it;
Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole
A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee.

HAMLET
Why, then the Polack never will defend it.

Captain
Yes, it is already garrisoned.

HAMLET
Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats
Will not debate the question of this straw.
This is the imposthume of much wealth and peace,
That inward breaks, and shows no cause without
Why the man dies. I humbly thank you, sir.

Captain
God be wi' you, sir.

Exit

ROSENCRANTZ
Wilt please you go, my lord?

HAMLET
I'll be with you straight. Go a little before.

Exeunt all except HAMLET

NOTES:

George Hibbard edited a major edition of Hamlet for the Oxford Shakespeare in the late 1980s. His focus was very much on the Folio text of the play and anything that didn’t appear there appeared only as an appendix. For a very brief overview of who’s done what in recent editions of the play, check out this review of the Arden Shakespeare 3rd edition: click here.

Episode 121 - Greet the Danish King

TEXT:

SCENE IV. A plain in Denmark.

Enter FORTINBRAS, a Captain, and Soldiers, marching

FORTINBRAS
Go, captain, from me greet the Danish king;
Tell him that, by his licence, Fortinbras
Craves the conveyance of a promised march
Over his kingdom. You know the rendezvous.
If that his majesty would aught with us,
We shall express our duty in his eye;
And let him know so.

Captain
I will do't, my lord.

FORTINBRAS
Go softly on.

Exeunt FORTINBRAS and Soldiers

Enter HAMLET, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, and others

HAMLET
Good sir, whose powers are these?

Captain
They are of Norway, sir.

HAMLET
How purposed, sir, I pray you?

Captain
Against some part of Poland.

HAMLET
Who commands them, sir?

Captain
The nephews to old Norway, Fortinbras.

HAMLET
Goes it against the main of Poland, sir,
Or for some frontier?

EPISODE 120 - THE PRESENT DEATH OF HAMLET

TEXT:

CLAUDIUS
Follow him at foot; tempt him with speed aboard;
Delay it not; I'll have him hence tonight:
Away! for every thing is sealed and done
That else leans on the affair: pray you, make haste.

Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN

And, England, if my love thou hold'st at aught -
As my great power thereof may give thee sense,
Since yet thy cicatrice looks raw and red
After the Danish sword, and thy free awe
Pays homage to us - thou mayst not coldly set
Our sovereign process; which imports at full,
By letters congruing to that effect,
The present death of Hamlet. Do it, England;
For like the hectic in my blood he rages,
And thou must cure me: till I know 'tis done,
Howe'er my haps, my joys were ne'er begun.

Exit

NOTES:

Caesura
A caesura is a pause or break in a metrical line of poetry. It is frequently suggested by a punctuation mark or the end of a phrase. The caesura is a longstanding feature of rhythmic poetry, very common across multiple languages. They appear throughout Shakespeare, Beowulf, and as far back as Latin and even Ancient Greek. The first lines of two of the greatest classics, The Iliad and The Aeneid, both have notable caesurae in their opening lines. (Indeed, Virgil’s opening line echoes Homer’s - and there’s every chance Shakespeare was emulating both in the opening line of HIS war epic, Henry V…!)

Homer: The Iliad
μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ <caesura> Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος (Sing, Goddess, of the rage of Achilles, son of Peleus…)
Virgil: The Aeneid
Arma virumque cano <caesura> Troiae qui primus ab oris (Of arms and the man, I sing. || Who first from the shores of Troy...)
Shakespeare: Henry V
O for a muse of fire, <caesura> that would ascend…

We have a perfect example of a caesura in the text of this episode: “…the present death of Hamlet. <caesura> Do it, England!

Episode 119 - For England!

TEXT:

CLAUDIUS
Alas, alas!

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

CLAUDIUS
What dost thou mean by this?

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

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.

CLAUDIUS
Go seek him there.

To some Attendants

HAMLET
He will stay till ye come.

Exeunt Attendants

CLAUDIUS
Hamlet, this deed, for thine especial safety,
Which we do tender, as we dearly grieve
For that which thou hast done, must send thee hence
With fiery quickness: therefore prepare thyself;
The bark is ready, and the wind at help,
The associates tend, and every thing is bent
For England.

HAMLET
For England!

CLAUDIUS
Ay, Hamlet.

HAMLET
Good.

CLAUDIUS
So is it, if thou knew'st our purposes.

HAMLET
I see a cherub that sees them. But, come; for
England! Farewell, dear mother.

CLAUDIUS
Thy loving father, Hamlet.

HAMLET
My mother: father and mother is man and wife; man
and wife is one flesh; and so, my mother. Come, for England!

Exit

NOTES:

Angels
Praying for the intercession of angels - or indeed their protection is a particularly Catholic thing, with which perhaps Shakespeare himself may have grown up. Hamlet's call to "angels and ministers of grace" makes him sound distinctly Catholic, and would not have gone unnoticed. He, Claudius and later Horatio all refer to angels throughout the play. Here the reference to cherubs - a particular kind of angel responsible for looking over mankind - seems almost like a reminder to Claudius that the old regime - whether that of Old Hamlet or indeed of catholicism in Shakespeare’s England - hasn’t entirely been forgotten, and there will be a reckoning eventually.

Progress
A progress was a royal outing - often kings and queens of England would make a progress through the country, visiting cities and estates across the realm. It could be ruinously expensive to host the royal court when it was on the move. But, of course, there was no way to refuse such a visit… Below is a picture of Henry VIII arriving in Warwickshire in 1511.

EPISODE 118 - WE FAT OURSELVES FOR MAGGOTS

SCENE III. Another room in the castle.

Enter KING CLAUDIUS, attended

CLAUDIUS
I have sent to seek him, and to find the body.
How dangerous is it that this man goes loose!
Yet must not we put the strong law on him:
He's loved of the distracted multitude,
Who like not in their judgment, but their eyes;
And where tis so, the offender's scourge is weighed,
But never the offence. To bear all smooth and even,
This sudden sending him away must seem
Deliberate pause: diseases desperate grown
By desperate appliance are relieved,
Or not at all.

Enter ROSENCRANTZ

How now! what hath befallen?

ROSENCRANTZ
Where the dead body is bestowed, my lord,
We cannot get from him.

CLAUDIUS
But where is he?

ROSENCRANTZ
Without, my lord; guarded, to know your pleasure.

CLAUDIUS
Bring him before us.

ROSENCRANTZ
Ho, Guildenstern! bring in my lord.

Enter HAMLET and GUILDENSTERN

CLAUDIUS
Now, Hamlet, where's Polonius?

HAMLET
At supper.

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.

NOTES:
The Diet of Worms
The Diet of Worms was an imperial assemby (or diet) of the Holy Roman Empire that took place in 1521. The Holy Roman Emperor Charles V presided, and it took place in Worms, an Imperial Free City in what is now Germany. The assembly is most famous for having been a major moment in the career of Martin Luther, who addressed the assembly and was answered with the Edict of Worms. Hamlet is surely making a reference to it in the speech we cover in this episode. For more information on this historical episode and its relationship with Hamlet, you should check out Stephen Greenblatt’s superb book Hamlet in Purgatory.

EPISODE 117 - HIDE FOX, AND ALL AFTER

SCENE II. Another room in the castle.

Enter HAMLET

HAMLET
Safely stowed.

ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN
[Within] Hamlet! Lord Hamlet!

HAMLET
What noise? who calls on Hamlet?
O, here they come.

Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN

ROSENCRANTZ
What have you done, my lord, with the dead body?

HAMLET
Compounded it with dust, whereto 'tis kin.

ROSENCRANTZ
Tell us where 'tis, that we may take it thence
And bear it to the chapel.

HAMLET
Do not believe it.

ROSENCRANTZ
Believe what?

HAMLET
That I can keep your counsel and not mine own.
Besides, to be demanded of a sponge! what
replication should be made by the son of a king?

ROSENCRANTZ
Take you me for a sponge, my lord?

HAMLET
Ay, sir, that soaks up the king's countenance, his
rewards, his authorities. But such officers do the
king best service in the end: he keeps them, like
an ape, in the corner of his jaw; first mouthed, to
be last swallowed: when he needs what you have
gleaned, it is but squeezing you, and, sponge, you
shall be dry again.

ROSENCRANTZ
I understand you not, my lord.

HAMLET
I am glad of it: a knavish speech sleeps in a
foolish ear.

ROSENCRANTZ
My lord, you must tell us where the body is, and go
with us to the king.

HAMLET
The body is with the king, but the king is not with
the body. The king is a thing--

GUILDENSTERN
A thing, my lord!

HAMLET
Of nothing: bring me to him. Hide fox, and all after.

Exeunt

NOTES:

Apes and Apples
The image of the ape holding its food in the corner of its mouth is, for my money, stronger than the idea of the apple, and certainly better than the image conjured by editors trying to join the ape AND the apple…!

EPISODE 116 - We Will Ship Him Hence

TEXT:

GERTRUDE
To draw apart the body he hath killed:
O'er whom his very madness, like some ore
Among a mineral of metals base,
Shows itself pure; he weeps for what is done.

CLAUDIUS
O Gertrude, come away!
The sun no sooner shall the mountains touch,
But we will ship him hence: and this vile deed
We must, with all our majesty and skill,
Both countenance and excuse. Ho, Guildenstern!

Re-enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN

Friends both, go join you with some further aid:
Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain,
And from his mother's closet hath he dragged him:
Go seek him out; speak fair, and bring the body
Into the chapel. I pray you, haste in this.

Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN

Come, Gertrude, we'll call up our wisest friends;
And let them know, both what we mean to do,
And what's untimely done. […]
O, come away!
My soul is full of discord and dismay.

Exeunt

NOTES:

Missing Lines
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.