EPISODE 155 - MAN AND BOY, THIRTY YEARS

TEXT:

First Clown
Cannot you tell that? every fool can tell that: it
was the very day that young Hamlet was born; he that
is mad, and sent into England.

HAMLET
Ay, marry, why was he sent into England?

First Clown
Why, because he was mad: he shall recover his wits
there; or, if he do not, it's no great matter there.

HAMLET
Why?

First Clown
'Twill, a not be seen in him there; there the men
are as mad as he.

HAMLET
How came he mad?

First Clown
Very strangely, they say.

HAMLET
How strangely?

First Clown
Faith, e'en with losing his wits.

HAMLET
Upon what ground?

First Clown
Why, here in Denmark: I have been sexton here, man
and boy, thirty years.

NOTES:

Sexton
A sexton is an employee who works for a church and church-yard, frequently responsible for jobs like bell-ringing and grave-digging.

EPISODE 154 - REST HER SOUL, SHE'S DEAD

TEXT:

HAMLET
What man dost thou dig it for?

First Clown
For no man, sir.

HAMLET
What woman, then?

First Clown
For none, neither.

HAMLET
Who is to be buried in't?

First Clown
One that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she's dead.

HAMLET
How absolute the knave is! we must speak by the
card, or equivocation will undo us. By the Lord,
Horatio, these three years I have taken a note of
it; the age is grown so picked that the toe of the
peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier, he
gaffs his kibe. How long hast thou been a
grave-maker?

First Clown
Of all the days i' the year, I came to't that day
that our last king Hamlet overcame Fortinbras.

HAMLET
How long is that since?

NOTES:

Kibe
As promised in the episode! I actually fell down a rabbit hole of podiatrics and curiosities and found that a kibe is not another word for a heel at all. (My bad!) It’s actually a chilblain or a bunion: so the person whose foot complain is being physically galled by this proximity is the peasant, not the courtier. (Doubtless the courtier is metaphorically galled too…) Every picture I found was unpleasant, and so I haven’t shared any here. Rest assured, it’s ok not to know. Remarkably, chilblains have been noted as a symptom of Covid-19 - hopefully none of you dear readers will have been beset by Covid-kibes.

EPISODE 153 - WHOSE GRAVE'S THIS?

TEXT:

HAMLET
Is not parchment made of sheepskins?

HORATIO
Ay, my lord, and of calf-skins too.

HAMLET
They are sheep and calves which seek out assurance
in that. I will speak to this fellow. Whose
grave's this, sirrah?

First Clown
Mine, sir.

Sings

O, a pit of clay for to be made
For such a guest is meet.

HAMLET
I think it be thine, indeed; for thou liest in't.

First Clown
You lie out on't, sir, and therefore it is not
yours: for my part, I do not lie in't, and yet it is mine.

HAMLET
'Thou dost lie in't, to be in't and say it is thine:
'tis for the dead, not for the quick; therefore thou liest.

First Clown
'Tis a quick lie, sir; 'twill away gain, from me to
you.

NOTES:

Parchment
Parchment is a catch-all word to cover various kinds of writing material made from dried-out (parched) animal products. Nowadays the more clinical (if rather unpleasant) ‘membrane’ is used for all such materials. There was a supposed inference that vellum was used for the fabric made from treated calf-skins, but it is quite difficult to distinguish what is sheep and what is calf; this is why the deliberately ambiguous catch-all ‘membrane’ is preferred.

Sirrah
Many episodes ago we discussed the difference between ‘thou’ and ‘you’ - each was used for particular kinds of interaction between particular levels of social class or relationship. Sirrah is another word that belongs in this category, since it automatically highlights the class difference between the speaker and the addressee. (If I say ‘sirrah’ to you, I’m putting myself above you. It isn’t automatically a put-down - as in this scene, Hamlet is by default the social superior of his subject and by extension, his employee.)

EPISODE 152 - THE FINE OF HIS FINES

TEXT:

HAMLET
Why, e'en so: and now my Lady Worm's; chapless, and
knocked about the mazzard with a sexton's spade:
here's fine revolution, an we had the trick to
see it. Did these bones cost no more the breeding,
but to play at loggats with 'em? mine ache to think on't.

First Clown
[Sings]
A pick-axe, and a spade, a spade,
For and a shrouding sheet:
O, a pit of clay for to be made
For such a guest is meet.

Throws up another skull

HAMLET
There's another: why may not that be the skull of a
lawyer? Where be his quiddities now, his quillets,
his cases, his tenures, and his tricks? Why does he
suffer this rude knave now to knock him about the
sconce with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of
his action of battery? Hum! This fellow might be
in's time a great buyer of land, with his statutes,
his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers,
his recoveries: is this the fine of his fines, and
the recovery of his recoveries, to have his fine
pate full of fine dirt? Will his vouchers vouch him
no more of his purchases, and double ones too, than
the length and breadth of a pair of indentures? The
very conveyances of his lands will hardly lie in
this box; and must the inheritor himself have no more, ha?

HORATIO
Not a jot more, my lord.

NOTES:

Loggats
According to Samuel Johnson’s dictionary (itself written about 150 years after the Hamlet) loggats “is the ancient name of a play or game, one of the unlawful games enumerated in the 33rd statute of Henry VIII”. No more than the Grave Digger’s antiquated song, perhaps Hamlet’s mention of this old-fashioned (and outlawed) game is Shakespeare’s means of making his audience think about how old these bones might be.

Legal Language
I promised to include definitions of the various property terms that Hamlet lists, and for balance I should probably include the legal ones too!
quiddities: from the Latin “quidditas” - the very essence of a thing. Quiddities are excessively subtle legal quibbles and technicalities. It’s almost onomatopoeic in its fussiness!
quillets: this word does double duty, since it can mean quibbles, and also a small pocket of land. Shakespeare and/or Hamlet seems to be geared up to use his language very cleverly throughout the scene. Early on he uses fine (‘fine revolution’…) and now here he prepares us for the property discussion with this little word that means small pieces of land.
tenures: property titles. Evidently the lawyer and the property owner shared much business - regardless which profession this skull came from, it would have held details of all these things!
tricks: again, the language is intricately woven here. Hamlet has earlier wished that we had the ‘trick’ to see the human experience for what it is. Now here he uses the word ‘tricks’ not quite as skill, so much as ‘legal trickery’ - ‘law-tricks’ was in common parlance when the play was written. There’s even an almost-contemporary play called Law Tricks by John Day!

Property Language
The various pieces of legal terminology all flow in such quick succession that it felt unnecessarily pedantic to explain them all within the episode. But never let it be said that I’d overlook a definition…!
statutes: these were securities, either for a mortgage or for a debt.
recognizances: bonds and securities to do with debt.
vouchers: these were certificates and guarantees from third parties.
recoveries: suits for the recovery or repossession of lands.
conveyances: deeds for the ownership of land

EPISODE 151 - THAT SKULL HAD A TONGUE

TEXT:

HAMLET
Has this fellow no feeling of his business, that he
sings at grave-making?

HORATIO
Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness.

HAMLET
'Tis e'en so: the hand of little employment hath
the daintier sense.

First Clown
[Sings]
But age, with his stealing steps,
Hath claw'd me in his clutch,
And hath shipped me intil the land,
As if I had never been such.

Throws up a skull

HAMLET
That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once:
how the knave jowls it to the ground, as if it were
Cain's jawbone, that did the first murder! It
might be the pate of a politician, which this ass
now o'er-reaches; one that would circumvent God,
might it not?

HORATIO
It might, my lord.

HAMLET
Or of a courtier; which could say 'Good morrow,
sweet lord! How dost thou, good lord?' This might
be my lord such-a-one, that praised my lord
such-a-one's horse, when he meant to beg it; might it not?

HORATIO
Ay, my lord.

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. As the story was told in Medieval Mystery Plays, Cain killed Abel with the jawbone of an ass.

Pate
Not to be confused with the French word for paste, pâté, pate is a (now old-fashioned) word for one’s head.

Borrowing Horses
In the text here, Hamlet is suggesting an image of one courtier borrowing another’s horse - or asking for it outright. One of the most famous lines given to Richard III in the play that bears his name is “A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!” - he famously fell off his horse during the battle that ended his reign. Meanwhile, a little after Hamlet, Shakespeare writes of other dainty folk horse-trading in Timon of Athens. In a clear example of the largesse that has bought him all too many false friends, Timon insists on giving a beautiful horse to a random lord simply because he has expressed interest in it:

TIMON
And now I remember, my lord, you gave
Good words the other day of a bay courser
I rode on: it is yours, because you liked it.

Timon of Athens, Act I, scene ii.
(If you’d like to learn more about the play, the Book Club episode devoted to it is here.)

EPISODE 150 - GET THEE TO YAUGHAN

TEXT:

First Clown
I like thy wit well, in good faith: the gallows
does well; but how does it well? it does well to
those that do in: now thou dost ill to say the
gallows is built stronger than the church: argal,
the gallows may do well to thee. To't again, come.

Second Clown
'Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or
a carpenter?'

First Clown
Ay, tell me that, and unyoke.

Second Clown
Marry, now I can tell.

First Clown
To't.

Second Clown
Mass, I cannot tell.

Enter HAMLET and HORATIO, at a distance

First Clown
Cudgel thy brains no more about it, for your dull
ass will not mend his pace with beating; and, when
you are asked this question next, say 'a
grave-maker: 'the houses that he makes last till
doomsday. Go, get thee to Yaughan: fetch me a
stoup of liquor.

Exit Second Clown

First Clown digs and sings

In youth, when I did love, did love,
Methought it was very sweet,
To contract, O, the time, for, ah, my behove,
O, methought, there was nothing meet.

NOTES:

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

Thomas Vaux, Second Earl of Harrowden
Thomas Vaux (1509-1556) was a poet. He was a distant relation of Catherine Parr, the final wife of King Henry VIII. His poem, misremembered and somewhat mangled by the Grave Digger, is rather long, but I’ve copied it here.

The Aged Lover Renounceth Love

I loathe that I did love,
In youth that I thought sweet,
As time requires for my behove,
Methinks they are not meet.

My lusts they do me leave,
My fancies all be fled,
And tract of time begins to weave
Grey hairs upon my head,

For age with stealing steps
Hath clawed me with his crutch,
And lusty life away she leaps
As there had been none such.

My Muse doth not delight
Me as she did before;
My hand and pen are not in plight,
As they have been of yore.

For reason me denies
This youthly idle rhyme;
And day by day to me she cries,
“Leave off these toys in time.”

The wrinkles in my brow,
The furrows in my face,
Say, limping age will lodge him now
Where youth must give him place.

The harbinger of death,
To me I see him ride,
The cough, the cold, the gasping breath
Doth bid me provide

A pickaxe and a spade,
And eke a shrouding sheet,
A house of clay for to be made
For such a guest most meet.

Methinks I hear the clark
That knolls the careful knell,
And bids me leave my woeful wark,
Ere nature me compel.

My keepers knit the knot
That youth did laugh to scorn,
Of me that clean shall be forgot
As I had not been born.

Thus must I youth give up,
Whose badge I long did wear;
To them I yield the wanton cup
That better may it bear.

Lo, here the barèd skull,
By whose bald sign I know
That stooping age away shall pull
Which youthful years did sow.

For beauty with her band
These crooked cares hath wrought,
And shippèd me into the land
From whence I first was brought.

And ye that bide behind,
Have ye none other trust:
As ye of clay were cast by kind,
So shall ye waste to dust.

EPISODE 149 - ADAM'S PROFESSION

TEXT:

Second Clown
But is this law?

First Clown
Ay, marry, is't; crowner's quest law.

Second Clown
Will you ha' the truth on't? If this had not been
a gentlewoman, she should have been buried out o'
Christian burial.

First Clown
Why, there thou say'st: and the more pity that
great folk should have countenance in this world to
drown or hang themselves, more than their even
Christian. Come, my spade. There is no ancient
gentleman but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers:
they hold up Adam's profession.

Second Clown
Was he a gentleman?

First Clown
He was the first that ever bore arms.

Second Clown
Why, he had none.

First Clown
What, art a heathen? How dost thou understand the
Scripture? The Scripture says 'Adam digged:'
could he dig without arms? I'll put another
question to thee: if thou answerest me not to the
purpose, confess thyself…

Second Clown
Go to.

First Clown
What is he that builds stronger than either the
mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?

Second Clown
The gallows-maker; for that frame outlives a
thousand tenants.

NOTES:

Suicide
There is much discussion of suicide in this play. This first of Hamlet's soliloquies starts with his wish to end his life, and the theme will of course be picked up in the more famous 'to be or not to be' soliloquy later in the play. Later in the play it is debated whether or not Ophelia can have a full Christian burial because her death might have been a suicide too - and so the issue haunts the entire play.

Arms
Shakespeare had pursued his own coat of arms in the 1590s. For more detail about how this was discussed earlier in the podcast (and the play!) go back to Episode 19 - Foul Play.

The Peasants’ Revolt
The Peasants' Revolt happened in May 1381. There were multiple causes in play - a deeply unpopular poll tax (to help finance King Richard’s troublesome wars in France) and the economic discomfort of the aftermath of the Black Death, the plague that had ravished Europe. The peasants, whipped up by the preachings of John Ball, demanded loudly that all men should be treated equally, eager for a fairer distribution of wealth.

The King James Bible
The King James Bible would not appear until about a decade after Hamlet was written, but this scene of the play does speak to why the book was increasingly necessary. The Grave Digger jokes about the literacy of his colleague, unable to quote the Bible. (But, as mentioned he himself is misquoting it!)

Adam
The Book of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, does not have any reference to Adam doing the digging. In Genesis, it’s Cain that does the digging!

EPISODE 148 - MAKE HER GRAVE STRAIGHT

TEXT:

ACT V
SCENE I. A churchyard.
Enter two Clowns, with spades.

First Clown
Is she to be buried in Christian burial that
wilfully seeks her own salvation?

Second Clown
I tell thee she is: and therefore make her grave
straight: the crowner hath sat on her, and finds it
Christian burial.

First Clown
How can that be, unless she drowned herself in her
own defence?

Second Clown
Why, 'tis found so.

First Clown
It must be 'se offendendo;' it cannot be else. For
here lies the point: if I drown myself wittingly,
it argues an act: and an act hath three branches: it
is, to act, to do, to perform: argal, she drowned
herself wittingly.

Second Clown
Nay, but hear you, goodman delver…

First Clown
Give me leave. Here lies the water; good: here
stands the man; good; if the man go to this water,
and drown himself, it is, will he, nill he, he
goes - mark you that; but if the water come to him
and drown him, he drowns not himself: argal, he
that is not guilty of his own death shortens not his own life.

NOTES:

Clowns
As mentioned in the episode, the word clown was comparatively new in Shakespeare’s time. Jesters and fools had been around for a far longer time, but the clown was a more recent development - and an expressly theatrical one. Jesters and fools were present at court and in the real world, but ‘clown’ was a word for a particular kind of performer in the theatre. For an in-depth study of this, check out David Wiles’ book Shakespeare’s Clown. (Prof. Wiles was my supervisor for my MA in London - he is a superb scholar and his work is fascinating.)

Suicide
There is much discussion of suicide in this play. This first of Hamlet's soliloquies starts with his wish to end his life, and the theme will of course be picked up in the more famous 'to be or not to be' soliloquy later in the play. Later in the play it is debated whether or not Ophelia can have a full Christian burial because her death might have been a suicide too - and so the issue haunts the entire play.

EPISODE 147 - TOO MUCH OF WATER

TEXT:

LAERTES
Alas, then, she is drowned?

GERTRUDE
Drowned, drowned.

LAERTES
Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia,
And therefore I forbid my tears: but yet
It is our trick; nature her custom holds,
Let shame say what it will: when these are gone,
The woman will be out. Adieu, my lord:
I have a speech of fire that fain would blaze,
But that this folly drowns it.

Exit

CLAUDIUS
Let's follow, Gertrude:
How much I had to do to calm his rage!
Now fear I this will give it start again;
Therefore let's follow.

Exeunt

EPISODE 146 - THE ENVIOUS SLIVER BROKE

TEXT:

Enter GERTRUDE

CLAUDIUS
How now, sweet queen!

GERTRUDE
One woe doth tread upon another's heel,
So fast they follow: your sister's drowned, Laertes.

LAERTES
Drowned! O, where?

GERTRUDE
There is a willow grows aslant a brook,
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream;
Therewith fantastic garlands did she make
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.

NOTES:

Willow
Weeping willows didn’t really come into popularity until long after Shakespeare, but they’re now very much associated with Ophelia thanks to their mention in Gertrude’s description and the various paintings that depict her death. Crow-flowers

Nettles
Nettles are a curious choice for Ophelia’s garlands - they always sting if you grab them. Perhaps they give a sense of how distracted she is.

Daisies
Daisies symbolise innocence - but thanks to how short-lived they are, they also carry an association of sadness and grief.

Long Purples
Likely some type of orchid - Gertrude’s extended description makes it clear that they have a protrusion that looks suggestive. For the academic article mentioned in the article, click here.

Lauds
Lauds is a morning prayer. If Ophelia is praying, singing these morning prayers in praise of God, it might suggest that her death is accidental, If it is suicide, as we will see, there are severe implications.

EPISODE 145 - I BOUGHT AN UNCTION OF A MOUNTEBANK

TEXT:

LAERTES
I will do't:
And, for that purpose, I'll anoint my sword.
I bought an unction of a mountebank,
So mortal that, but dip a knife in it,
Where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare,
Collected from all simples that have virtue
Under the moon, can save the thing from death
That is but scratch'd withal: I'll touch my point
With this contagion, that, if I gall him slightly,
It may be death.

CLAUDIUS
Let's further think of this;
Weigh what convenience both of time and means
May fit us to our shape: if this should fail,
And that our drift look through our bad performance,
'Twere better not assayed: therefore this project
Should have a back or second, that might hold,
If this should blast in proof. Soft! let me see:
We'll make a solemn wager on your cunnings: I ha't.
When in your motion you are hot and dry -
As make your bouts more violent to that end -
And that he calls for drink, I'll have prepared him
A chalice for the nonce, whereon but sipping,
If he by chance escape your venom'd stuck,
Our purpose may hold there.

NOTES:

Extreme Unction
Extreme Unction is one of the seven sacraments of the Catholic church. In the aftermath of the English Reformation, a whole generation of former Catholics, forced to toe the new Protestant, Anglican line or face the consequences of heresy, lost the comfort of this particular sacrament. Here Laertes is inferring that the fencing match will be the end of Hamlet’s life - but instead of the comfor of the sacraments, he will be poisoned to death.

Cataplasm
A cataplasm is a poultice, or a dressing for a wound. The word sounds like something more sinister, perhaps because words that end in -plasm have associations from horror films. The word comes from Greek - to plaster over something. A cataplasm is something put over a wound to help it heal.

Canterbury Tales
This episode mentions Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. one of the most famous texts in English before Shakespeare.

EPISODE 144 - A SWORD UNBATED

TEXT:

CLAUDIUS (continued)
There lives within the very flame of love
A kind of wick or snuff that will abate it;
And nothing is at a like goodness still;
For goodness, growing to a plurisy,
Dies in his own too much: that we would do
We should do when we would; for this 'would' changes
And hath abatements and delays as many
As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents;
And then this 'should' is like a spendthrift sigh,
That hurts by easing. But, to the quick o' the ulcer:--
Hamlet comes back: what would you undertake,
To show yourself your father's son in deed
More than in words?

LAERTES
To cut his throat i' the church.

CLAUDIUS
No place, indeed, should murder sanctuarize.
Revenge should have no bounds. But, good Laertes,
Will you do this? Keep close within your chamber.
Hamlet returned shall know you are come home:
We'll put on those shall praise your excellence
And set a double varnish on the fame
The Frenchman gave you, bring you in fine together
And wager on your heads: he, being remiss,
Most generous and free from all contriving,
Will not peruse the foils; so that, with ease,
Or with a little shuffling, you may choose
A sword unbated, and in a pass of practise
Requite him for your father.

NOTES:

Pleurisy
Pleurisy, or plurisy, is the inflammation of the membrane surrounding the lungs. The word derives from the Greek pleura, meaning ‘the side of the body’, or the rib. Pleuritis therefore is an illness affecting that area. Pleuritis became pleurisis in Late Latin, and then pleurisie in French and pleurisy in English. It does not, after all, have anything to do with excess or additions.

Ulcers
The world ulcer covers a multitude of lesions and breaks in various parts in the body. Ulcers can crop up on the skin, in the mouth, and in the digestive tract and elsewhere. Suffice to say, they are very unpleasant, and a perfect word to use for a troublesome adversary.

Swords
The words for swords, foils and rapiers all more or less interchangeable for Shakespeare. Thin, short fencing swords become ever more present and important as the play winds towards its climactic final act.

EPISODE 143 - YOUR RAPIER MOST ESPECIALLY

TEXT:

CLAUDIUS
He made confession of you,
And gave you such a masterly report
For art and exercise in your defence
And for your rapier most especially,
That he cried out “'twould be a sight indeed,
If one could match you”: the scrimers of their nation,
He swore, had neither motion, guard, nor eye,
If you opposed them. Sir, this report of his
Did Hamlet so envenom with his envy
That he could nothing do but wish and beg
Your sudden coming o'er, to play with him.
Now, out of this…

LAERTES
What out of this, my lord?

CLAUDIUS
Laertes, was your father dear to you?
Or are you like the painting of a sorrow,
A face without a heart?

LAERTES
Why ask you this?

CLAUDIUS
Not that I think you did not love your father:
But that I know love is begun by time,
And that I see, in passages of proof,
Time qualifies the spark and fire of it.

NOTES:

Hendiadys
Hendiadys (Greek for 'one through two') is a figure of speech whereby two ideas are combined to form a single image. A very simple example is a describing a cup of tea as "nice and hot". It features a great deal in the Bible, and indeed there are over sixty examples of it in Hamlet alone.

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…

Rapier
The rapier - also known as an espada ropera - was a particularly fashionable weapon in the 16th and 17th centuries. Nowadays it remains in use primarily for actors and actor-training in stage combat. (Not least because Hamlet is still so often performed that actors who can fence with rapiers can hope for frequent employment!) They tend to weigh about a kilo, and they’re usually about a metre long.

EPISODE 142 - UPON MY LIFE, LAMOND

TEXT:

CLAUDIUS
A very riband in the cap of youth,
Yet needful too; for youth no less becomes
The light and careless livery that it wears
Than settled age his sables and his weeds,
Importing health and graveness. Two months since,
Here was a gentleman of Normandy:
I've seen myself, and served against, the French,
And they can well on horseback: but this gallant
Had witchcraft in't; he grew unto his seat;
And to such wondrous doing brought his horse,
As he had been incorpsed and demi-natured
With the brave beast: so far he topped my thought,
That I, in forgery of shapes and tricks,
Come short of what he did.

LAERTES
A Norman was't?

CLAUDIUS
A Norman.

LAERTES
Upon my life, Lamond.

CLAUDIUS
The very same.

LAERTES
I know him well: he is the brooch indeed
And gem of all the nation.

NOTES:

Sable
A little reminder of our earlier discussion of sables: as well as being a rather luxurious (and warm) fur, to which Hamlet referred earlier in the play, there's a long tradition of sable being a colour used in heraldry. Sable shows up in several royal coats of arms throughout Europe, and is often matched with argent, or silver. Shakespeare's own coat of arms is described thus, in a draft from October 1596:

The arms are blazoned. “Gold, on a bend sable, a spear of the first, steeled argent [a gold spear tipped with silver on a black diagonal bar]; and for his crest, or cognizaunce a falcon his wings displayed argent, standing on a wreath of his colours, and supporting a spear gold steeled as aforesaid, set upon a helmet with mantles and tassels as hath been accustomed.”

Normandy
Normandy, in northern France, is one of the most consistently interesting locations in European history. Given its proximity to the British mainland, it spent occasional periods of its history under English control, and of course the Norman invasions likewise changed the course of history. Normandy’s strategic importance extended well into the twentieth century, when it was the site of important landings during the Second World War.

Lamond/Lamort
As promised within the episode, you can access the essay discussing whether our French horseman is called Lamond or Lamort by clicking here.

EPISODE 141 - CALL IT ACCIDENT

TEXT:

CLAUDIUS
To thine own peace. If he be now returned,
As checking at his voyage, and that he means
No more to undertake it, I will work him
To an exploit, now ripe in my device,
Under the which he shall not choose but fall:
And for his death no wind of blame shall breathe,
But even his mother shall uncharge the practise
And call it accident.

LAERTES
My lord, I will be ruled;
The rather, if you could devise it so
That I might be the organ.

CLAUDIUS
It falls right.
You have been talked of since your travel much,
And that in Hamlet's hearing, for a quality
Wherein, they say, you shine: your sum of parts
Did not together pluck such envy from him
As did that one, and that, in my regard,
Of the unworthiest siege.

LAERTES
What part is that, my lord?

NOTES:
Falconry
All the way back in Act Two, when the Players arrived, Hamlet mentioned French falconers. Falconry and its language appear quite regularly throughout the play, as in this portion of the text when Claudius likens Hamlet’s change of a direction to the ‘checking’ of a hawk. For a more detailed description of falconry in medieval life, click here. For how this language is manipulated in the play, check out Rhodri Lewis’ fascinating book Hamlet and the Vision of Darkness.

EPISODE 140 - HIGH AND MIGHTY

TEXT:

Claudius reads

High and mighty, You shall know I am set naked on
your kingdom. Tomorrow shall I beg leave to see
your kingly eyes: when I shall, first asking your
pardon thereunto, recount the occasion of my sudden
and more strange return.
Hamlet

What should this mean? Are all the rest come back?
Or is it some abuse, and no such thing?

LAERTES
Know you the hand?

CLAUDIUS
'Tis Hamlets character. 'Naked!
And in a postscript here, he says 'alone.'
Can you advise me?

LAERTES
I'm lost in it, my lord. But let him come;
It warms the very sickness in my heart,
That I shall live and tell him to his teeth,
'Thus didest thou.'

CLAUDIUS
If it be so, Laertes
As how should it be so? how otherwise?
Will you be ruled by me?

LAERTES
Ay, my lord;
So you will not o'errule me to a peace.

EPISODE 139 - MY REVENGE WILL COME

TEXT:

LAERTES
And so have I a noble father lost;
A sister driven into desperate terms,
Whose worth, if praises may go back again,
Stood challenger on mount of all the age
For her perfections: but my revenge will come.

CLAUDIUS
Break not your sleeps for that: you must not think
That we are made of stuff so flat and dull
That we can let our beard be shook with danger
And think it pastime. You shortly shall hear more:
I loved your father, and we love ourself;
And that, I hope, will teach you to imagine…

Enter a Messenger

How now! what news?

Messenger
Letters, my lord, from Hamlet:
This to your majesty; this to the queen.

CLAUDIUS
From Hamlet! who brought them?

Messenger
Sailors, my lord, they say; I saw them not:
They were given me by Claudio; he received them
Of him that brought them.

CLAUDIUS
Laertes, you shall hear them. Leave us.

Exit Messenger

NOTES:

Claudius 
Claudius I was emperor of Rome from 41 to 54 AD. His reign occurred between those of Caligula and Nero, two of the more spectacularly crazy Roman Emperors. Due to his marriage to his niece Agrippina the Younger, Claudius was lumped into the same category of Roman depravity. The novelist Robert Graves gave his reputation something of a redemption in his novels I, Claudius and Claudius the God. (These two were the basis of a very memorable BBC adaptation in the late 1970s.) There’s an obvious parallel between the two Claudius figures - both are sinful, incestuous villains who stand in the way of their nephew’s progress. The analogy isn’t great for Hamlet, of course, since if Claudius is like his Roman namesake, that means that Hamlet must be like Nero. He even prays that this won’t be the case in the closet scene.

Coronation of the King of Hungary
Within the episode I mentioned Harold Jenkins’ edition of Hamlet for the Arden Shakespeare in 1982 - he has a charming footnote about the King of Hungary. Apparently the king, in full regalia, would climb not a mountain (as I described it) but an artificial hill, constructed from soil collected from all parts of his kingdom. He would climb this mound in full regalia, point his sword to the four corners of the realm, and vow to protect his kingdom and his subjects - thereafter his people would pay him dutiful homage. Laertes is certainly leaving no doubt about how special his sister was.

EPISODE 138 - MY VIRTUE AND MY PLAGUE

TEXT:

SCENE VII. Another room in the castle.

Enter CLAUDIUS and LAERTES

CLAUDIUS
Now must your conscience my acquaintance seal,
And you must put me in your heart for friend,
Sith you have heard, and with a knowing ear,
That he which hath your noble father slain
Pursued my life.

LAERTES
It well appears: but tell me
Why you proceeded not against these feats,
So crimeful and so capital in nature,
As by your safety, wisdom, all things else,
You mainly were stirred up.

CLAUDIUS
O, for two special reasons;
Which may to you, perhaps, seem much unsinewed,
But yet to me they are strong. The queen his mother
Lives almost by his looks; and for myself
My virtue or my plague, be it either which
She's so conjunctive to my life and soul,
That, as the star moves not but in his sphere,
I could not but by her. The other motive,
Why to a public count I might not go,
Is the great love the general gender bear him;
Who, dipping all his faults in their affection,
Would, like the spring that turneth wood to stone,
Convert his gyves to graces; so that my arrows,
Too slightly timber'd for so loud a wind,
Would have reverted to my bow again,
And not where I had aimed them.

NOTES:

Astrology
Here Claudius conflates astrology and astronomy, mentioning conjuncts. In astrology, a conjunct is a particular “aspect”. Conjunct heavenly bodies tend to blend their respective astrological energies together; Claudius feels he needs Gertrude because they operate, in his head at least, like a unit.

Astronomy
Much earlier in the play there are references to stars and cosmic events and (perhaps) the trials of European astronomers who were trying to prove that the earth was round and not flat. Shakespeare’s theatre was called The Globe, and so we can maybe assume that he was aware that the planet is not a disc. Likewise, here he has Claudius refer to the old, Ptolemaic concept of astronomy, wherein the stars and planets orbit their spheres around the earth.

The Spring That Turneth Water into Stone
My best guess for where this image came from is in fact marketed as England’s oldest visitor attraction. It’s called Mother Shipton’s Cave, site of what’s known as a petrifying well. The water is so rich in mineral content that objects left in it seem to turn to stone, as the mineral deposits and calcifies. Mother Shipton’s Cave has been a tourist attraction since at least 1630. Another petrifying well exists near Matlock Bath. Perhaps Shakespeare had seen or heard of one elsewhere!

EPISODE 137 - THIEVES OF MERCY

TEXT:

Enter HORATIO and a Servant

HORATIO
What are they that would speak with me?

Servant
Sailors, sir: they say they have letters for you.

HORATIO
Let them come in.

Exit Servant

I do not know from what part of the world
I should be greeted, if not from Lord Hamlet.

Enter Sailors

First Sailor
God bless you, sir.

HORATIO
Let him bless thee too.

First Sailor
He shall, sir, an't please him. There's a letter for
you, sir; it comes from the ambassador that was
bound for England; if your name be Horatio, as I am
let to know it is.

HORATIO
[Reads] 'Horatio, when thou shalt have overlooked
this, give these fellows some means to the king:
they have letters for him. Ere we were two days old
at sea, a pirate of very warlike appointment gave us
chase. Finding ourselves too slow of sail, we put on
a compelled valour, and in the grapple I boarded
them: on the instant they got clear of our ship; so
I alone became their prisoner. They have dealt with
me like thieves of mercy: but they knew what they
did; I am to do a good turn for them. Let the king
have the letters I have sent; and repair thou to me
with as much speed as thou wouldst fly death. I
have words to speak in thine ear will make thee
dumb; yet are they much too light for the bore of
the matter. These good fellows will bring thee
where I am. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern hold their
course for England: of them I have much to tell
thee. Farewell.
'He that thou knowest thine, HAMLET.’

Come, I will make you way for these your letters;
And do't the speedier, that you may direct me
To him from whom you brought them.

Exeunt

NOTES:

Pirates
As mentioned within the episode, there are a great many things to read about Shakespeare and pirates, if you choose to go looking for them. My personal favourite is “Pieces of Eight: Recent Trends in Pirate Studies” by Claire Jowitt. Pirates were a comparatively new phenomenon in the early modern world, as European countries took to the seas, exploring new territories around the planet. They brought bounties back from their travels, so it’s no surprise that pirates started roaming the seas too, hoping for some of the action.

(Compendium of all of Shakespeare’s Pirates is forthcoming!)

EPISODE 136 - THOUSAND MOTHER'S BLESSINGS

TEXT:

Enter Horatio and the Queen.

Horatio
Madam, your son is safe arrived in Denmark,
This letter I even now received of him,
Wherein he writes how he escaped the danger
And subtle treason that the king had plotted,
Being crossed by the contention of the windes,
He found the packet sent to the king of England,
Wherein he saw himself betrayed to death,
And at his next conversion with your grace,
He will relate the circumstance at full.

Gertrude
Then I perceive there's treason in his looks
That seemed to sugar o'er his villany:
But I will soothe and please him for a time,
For murderous minds are always jealous.
But know not you Horatio where he is?

Horatio
Yes Madame, and he hath appointed me
To meet him on the east side of the city
Tomorrow morning.

Gertrude
 O fail not, good Horatio, and withal, commend me
A mothers care to him, bid him a while
Be wary of his presence, lest that he
Fail in that he goes about.

Horatio 
Madam, never make doubt of that: I think by this
The news be come to court: He is arrived,
Observe the king, and you shall quickly find, 
Hamlet being here, things fell not to his mind.

Gertrude
But what became of Gilderstone and Rossencraft?

Horatio
He being set ashore, they went for England,
And in the packet there writ down that doom
To be performed on them pointed for him:
And by great chance he had his fathers seal,
So all was done without discovery.

Gertrude
Thanks be to heaven for blessing of the prince,
Horatio once again I take my leave,
With thousand mother’s blessings to my son.

Horatio 
Madam adie.

NOTES:

The First Quarto (1603)
As mentioned within the episode, the First Quarto was only (re)discovered in the 1820s. It is substantially shorter than the more familiar versions of the play that we have in the Second Quarto and the First Folio. It’s also substantially different: some of the names are changed, some scenes appear in a different order, and the third soliloquy sounds very different indeed:

To be, or not to be, ay, there's the point,
To Die, to sleepe, is that all? Ay, all:
No, to sleepe, to dreame, I mary there it goes,
For in that dreame of death, when wee awake,
And borne before an euerlasting Iudge,
From whence no passenger euer retur'nd,
The vndiscouered country, at whose sigh
The happy smile, and the accursed damn'd.
But for this, the ioyfull hope of this,
Whol'd beare the scornes and flattery of the world,
Scorned by the right rich, the rich curssed of the poore?
The widow being oppressed, the orphan wrong'd,
The taste of hunger, or a tirants raigne,
And thousand more calamities besides,
To grunt and sweate vnder this weary life,
When that he may his full Quietus make,
With a bare bodkin, who would this indure,
But for a hope of something after death?
Which pusles the braine, and doth confound the sence,
Which makes vs rather beare those euilles we haue,
Than flie to others that we know not of.
I that, O this conscience makes cowardes of vs all,
Lady in thy orizons, be all my sinnes remembred.

(I’ve kept the original spelling to make it even more fun to read!)
For the complete text of the First Quarto, with various other resources, click here.