Shakespeare's Hamlet, Act II

Welcome to the new Thinkery. My name is David Barn with me as always. My good friend Alex Priyoh. How are you, Alex?

Doing well, just being a hoe, hoeing around. Me too. This is one of our good friend Greg McBrayer. How are you doing, Greg?

And I'm so excited to do this 2008 American comedy about a high school filming a sequel to Hamlet. I'm just very stoked that we're up to today. It's a comedy. No, Greg, we're doing Hamlet at two, not the failed movie Hamlet two.

Sorry, there's a failed movie Hamlet two. Yeah, there's a movie called Hamlet two, which is a sequel to Hamlet, which is everybody prominent in the film. There's an actor that's pretty funny, Steve Coogan. He's like the first- It's a comedy.

I can't remember it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, I'm stoked. I'm very excited for Hamlet acts too, not Hamlet two.

Yeah, it's weird when we're recording during the day. Yeah. Yeah, which is a rare occurrence, right? We usually have a night, ten deep.

Right. What felt weird is I had to start drinking at seven a.m. just to be ready for the show. Yeah, I'm sure you're well, you're in during summer break.

So that's right. That's right. That's right. That's right.

I'm always working with myself. I'm always working with myself. I'm like, we have a pool here. I'm like, we know it's eleven o'clock.

I was off a drink with lunch. But, you know, yeah. All right. Hamlet acts.

Shall we run? Hamlet's do it. Rock and roll. How about, why don't you tell us what did last time Alex?

Last time on Hamlet. Yeah, so last time on Hamlet, we had Gertrude and Claudius got married very quickly after Gertrude's ex-husband and Claudius's brother died, murdered, and just had an effect on Hamlet. When I said, a view of the world used to think everything was beautiful. A man was the crown and he is the prince who studied the organization of the cosmos seemed to be the crown, the sort of jewel on the crown.

And then he finds out his mom is willing to just get remarried to her dead husband's brother really quick. And so that's a kind of shattering effect. And he thinks the world is a world, an unweeded garden where the weeds are just taking over. We also got a lot of stuff about Polonius and his two kids, Lertis and Ophelia.

Him giving advice to both of them. And I think that's important because as the play goes on, we'll see how the seeds of that advice have an effect most immediately for today. We'll see how his advice to Ophelia, to stay away from Hamlet, is already having an effect on Hamlet and on Ophelia as well, I think. And then of course there's Hamlet in the ghost.

He sees the ghost. And one thing I just want to note from the end of Acts 1 that I don't think we noted last time is that he says, this is almost the very end, he says, but come here as before he seemed to Horatio and to Marcelus. He says, here as before, never so helping mercy how strange or odd, Samara I bear myself. As I perchance you have to show, think it me to put an antique disposition on.

So look, I'm going to act weird and I may even be doing it intentionally. Whatever it is, don't spill the beans about the ghosts, right? And so we have a sense that Hamlet is going to be acting strange. That said, we've all also seen already.

This is very difficult because he's going to act somewhat mad. On the one hand, on the other hand, he's obviously very moved by the events in his life as we've already seen. And he will be moved by other events in his life. So part of the difficulty of reading Hamlet is to understand what is Hamlet's play acting and what is genuine going forward.

Now we go to act two. It's similar to what one has to do in King Lear as well. Yeah, absolutely. And so act two, it's been a few months since the last time.

It's been a long enough that Lertis has blown his money. The first line of act two is pulling to say, give him this money in these notes for him. So this can't just be a week later. It's got to be a few months.

In fact, is it Cornelius and Vultimond have returned from their embassy to Norway and also brought back to treaty? And there's been the retreat of Forten-Bras back to Norway as well. And so there's this kind of, and then he's heading back out again. There's been enough time that things have occurred as well as Ophelia having shunned Hamlet's advances has now started to have an effect on Hamlet as well, who is quite perturbed.

And in fact, that seems to be the occasion for the beginning of act two is Hamlet has just acted quite strange with Ophelia and it seems like he's had some kind of break or shift in his personality or his disposition. That's where we're at, I feel like. Okay, so act two opens and it seems like the very beginning of act two. Although our notes, I was actually wondering if our notes indicate there might be some textual differences, but it opens and I must have just made a mistake because I was looking at two too.

So what's going on in act two, scene one? I'll give that act scene one because scene two is really the bulk of this. It's like 600 or something like that. Yeah, that's what I was looking at.

So act two, scene one. Polonius gives advice or gives directions to a guy named Reynaldo, who's one of his buddies, one of his operatives, you could say, about how to find out what Larertes has been up to. Again, Larertes has blown a lot of money. He's giving him notes.

We don't know what that's about. You really wonder what these notes are. Is it just messages or is it advice or is it briefings on what's going on in Denmark? He sends me an although with guidance as to how to make inquiries about what his son has been up to, right?

How he's been spending all this money. And he says, just sort of asking, are there any gains around here? Dancers. He says, oh, I know that guy when his name comes up, he likes to party at that.

And he says, oh, yeah, gaming. And he goes, yeah, gaming. Also drinking, fencing, swearing, quarreling, drabbing, right? And grabbing being, going after, going after hoes, right?

Something you used to do. So what do you think this scene is doing is just setting up the character of Larertes? Yeah, I understand you. Look bad so that people will spill the beans.

And on him. And so we can talk a little bit. There's some really good lines in that. And Reynaldo's a bit resistant.

He's like, this is going to make him sound like that. He's like, no, no, no. And this is why you want to do that. Right.

Reynaldo acts as a filia comes in and she relates a strange encounter she's had with him. Loni's is troubled. He takes this as insight into the cause of him. Madness about which I think he's incorrect or at least at best partially correct.

And then it ends with their decision to go to the king and tell him. And scene two is we see the king and the queen. They're up to their own plotting and, you know, Loni's eventually comes in. So, right.

Here's where we see our good friends. Rosen bar and Guilden for you, right? And they're going to jump in. You know what happens to them.

Yeah. So what happens to the beginning of the scene? I was sort of amused or interested. So like the queen and the king call in Rosen, Krans and Guilders, who are Hamlet's two friends.

And they are just like figure out what's going on with Hamlet. And it seems to me, well, you guys should tell me or not. But so the queen says, they're friends. I got the impression that they were friends with Hamlet, right?

Yeah. They're old school friends with Hamlet. Okay. Which is why they call in Rosen, Guilders, and Guilders, and they're like something's wrong with the boy.

Let's call in his friends figure out what's wrong with him. Yeah. At least the queen, I'm a little torn and how much of what's going on. Because on the one hand, it seems there are two possible interpretations.

One is that the king and queen are like, they call them in and they're like, listen, do us a solid and we'll take care of you. And the queen says basically, if you do this, the king will remember you. But on the other hand, there's this possibility that they bring his two friends in and they're like, hey, we're worried about our son. Or not our son, depending on the case, I don't think about Claudia's.

But help us out. And so I'm having trouble figuring out where things stand because Guildenstern says, like the line, what 37, something like this, Heavens make our presence in a presence that's helpful to him. So I guess there's a third interpretation. Like, is Guildenstern being honest there?

And when he says he wants to help Hamlet, or is he sort of speaking about the coming together of the pleasant and helpful? We'll be pleased because we get this nice reward and we'll get to help our friend. And so I guess, do you have any thoughts on that? Yeah, I think let me add another part to that because after they requested this, Rose and Kran says, both your magices might, but the sovereign power you have of us, put your dread pleasures more into command than to entreaty.

So you can put this also this undercurrent of compulsion, right? Right. But isn't him saying that also implying that they're not doing that, although they're aware that that could be behind it. Like, you could do this, but you're treating us instead.

Yeah, they feel obliged. They'd be perfect. But obviously, like, so one way to read what Rose and Kran said is that, and we find this out later when Hamlet sees them. These are the only Danish names.

Is that, I mean, there's, okay, I mean, there's some of the few Danish characters that right specifically that least in name and their action name. That's what I mean. Yeah, because Claudia does not sound Danish. No, not right.

A lot of these. Yeah. But there are actually, Jan Blitz points out in his excellent book on Hamlet that these are actually traditional noble names. And later, later, we encounter a guy named Osrick who's hanging out in the court, who's made a lot of money through business and stuff.

Because Rose and Kran said, Guildenstern, don't seem to be hanging around in the palace. Hamlet's like, hey, what are you guys here? So I think the fact that they're kind of on the outs, kind of Danish noblemen, and yet there's this wealthy guy, there's technology in the background, right? And so, we've talked about the scenes of war that we heard about in the first scene of Act I.

We get a sense that there's a changing world. So we've talked a bit about the background of sort of Protestantism and Catholicism as well as pagan versus Christian morality. We've shared out to that the kind of decline or a sort of supplanting of the feudal order with a new mercantile and technological order as well. Right.

Can I ask a quick question related to the scene? So in Act I, the reader has been primed by Hamlet and the appearance of the ghosts, but it's monologues to understand the king and queen is indecent people to put it lightly. But in here in a part two of Act II, or scene two of Act II, you have a seemingly concerned mother and sometimes father calling his friends to say, hey, we're worried about, because the only heir to the kingdom. And please suss out and see how he's doing.

Let me, this is jumping ahead to Act II, but this is relevant. And I think really kind of revealing of Claudius's character. Plonius comes in at the beginning of Act II and says, hey, I've got this news. I know why Hamlet's nuts.

And the king says, oh, I want to hear this. Don't hear this. Yeah, but let's listen to the ambassadors first. And then he tells Gertrude and she's like, yeah, I guess it's still over-hasty marriage.

And she's right, by the way, it's not just Ophelia's love. It's that plus the over-hasty. His father's death and over-hasty marriage. Yes, yeah.

Right. But also Ophelia's rejection of him is part of it. But then when on page 87, after the Vault of Mana Cornelius, tell him what's going on, the king says it likes us well and at our more considered time will read, answer and think upon this business. In the meantime, we thank you for your well.

Take a labor, go to your rest, and I will fuse together. Let's welcome home. So he's like, okay, yeah, that's done. When I have actually time because he's rushed by the Hamlet situation.

So I think, well, that's all just to say that I think Claudius is more worried than Gertrude. Gertrude is worried, but I think she knows, whereas Claudius I think is nervous, I think for his own safety. So, okay. I think he senses, especially in Act 1 at one point, both Claudius and Gertrude give Hamlet a command.

And he only addresses his mother. He says, oh, yeah, I'll listen to you. And so there's a sense that he's really disrespecting Claudius. And I guess that would explain why.

I mean, with the uncertainty before in war looming and then kind of dissipating, Claudius can now turn his attention to domestic affairs. My problem with that is like, I think he is more concerned with domestic affairs, but it seems like, I guess I mentioned this last time I thought, it seems like he's not paying sufficient attention to foreign affairs, right? Like this is in Act 2 scene 2, Voltamond says, maybe that's what you're saying. Oh, you know, how are things with our brother from Norway?

It's fine. You know, there's some problems there. They get some problems with those stupid pollocks. They just want to pass through your dominions.

They say, okay. It likes us well. It's worse than that. It is worse than that.

At first he went to attack you pretending to attack the polls. But now he's gone back and now he's gone to writ to attack the polls while going through your land. Yeah. It's like, I mean, the appearance is exactly the same.

And there's any chance he could, you know, betray his uncle. So if I were the king, I'd be like, I need to read this. This is this could be an invasion happening right now. So I think the domestic affairs distract him.

Yes, that's what I was saying. Yeah. I think it's a huge mistake. I mean, if I read this, I'd be like, wait, what?

No, he should bring the army home. Call it quits. And then that's it, right? He didn't need to attack the polls.

He wasn't attacking the polls before. Why does he suddenly need to attack them with all his army? I mean, it's so strange. I mean, so it's, I think the speaks to the greed of which, Claudius is judgment is being what's the word?

Was it impaired? Distracted? Yeah. If I get concerned.

So that would answer a question I had about the act one, the illusions that Hamlet is making are very, very clear about his stepfather, uncle father's guilt. And either he is pretending not, Claudius is pretending not to understand or he's stupid. Because if he were to understand the implications of Hamlet's anger, I think he would have him stamped out, right? He's already proven himself capable of murder.

So is he just a stupid person? Well, I mean, I'm ostensibly his wife would have known about murdering her husband. So what, it seems like marrying her was part of what gives him a title to the kingship. And so he can't murder her son, can he?

That's gotta be like plan acts or something like that, right? Yeah, that's what I mean. I mean, like it's because his wife won't stand it. Yeah.

Well, I mean, it's one thing to murder your husband, another murder your son. So it's a question whether Gertrude knows about the murder. Yeah. I go back and forth on this.

I mean, I think they've had an affair possibly going back 30 years to when Hamlet was born. All snap. Yeah. But I think he's a dirty girl.

Trudy? I think that's what she calls her. Yeah. I mean, you know, sweet nothing.

She's not coloricurtured. That's too, you know, you gotta get a little pet name for her. Yeah, there's no way you're you're screaming on Gertrude at the height of passion. Right?

No. Sorry. I need to derail it that bit. But I mean, I wonder about the way that she knows about the murder.

Yeah, I agree. I think look, the guy dies by a sneak bite where there's no really that venomous. He's in the thing. It doesn't work.

Anyways, dies by a sniper bite and then he, and then all of a sudden to get married, it does look a little like a shady. Yeah. Looks shady. Yeah.

We talk about, I want to talk real quick about back in scene one, Polonius's plan, which we've already discussed the basic mechanics of it. And I want to, this is online 70 in my edition. Polonius says, I want to know though, see you now, your bait of falsehood, take this carp of truth. And thus do we of wisdom and of reach with witnesses and with a say is a bias by indirection, find directions out.

Right? So he thinks if he does this, you'll find out what's actually going on with the layer T's. But this is obviously, I think flawed, right? Because if you start talking like, Oh, I heard this, I heard that people embellish, right?

They embellish the exaggerate. They will outright lie. If they think if he said that he's connected to the advisors to the king, they might lie to get in his, you know, good races seem trustworthy. And this is revealed a little later when Polonius says, observe his that means layer T's inclination in yourself like that means like find it out for yourself.

Don't leave this up to somebody else. Right? Go, go sort of. And he doesn't mean go watch layer T's.

He means do this yourself like try, don't just listen to secondhand here, people who have been hanging out with him. And I think there's that shows the difficulty. You can't actually, you can't actually observe people's inclinations directly. It is always interactions.

By interactions, you often find interactions out is another way to put it, right? You don't know the way, and this is the whole thing with him, right? Which is, you know, is Hamlet's madness genuine or fake, right? Right.

Well, at times it seems genuine at times it seems fake and there's very hard to draw that blur. It's you can't observe the inclinations. Or as Hamlet says back in Act 1, scene 2, I have that within which surpasses show. There are sometimes things that you just can't ever make obvious, which is part of the problem of being human is that if people take what you say one way or another way, it's very difficult and not impossible to ever show them what you really meant to say nothing of understanding yourself, what you really meant, what you really.

Because we know it's interesting about Hamlet's method for uncovering early on, they talk about observing Hamlet as he paces the halls of the castle late at night. And he's aware of what's going on that he's going to be spied on. And he knows that Rose and Crancing Guildenster, so if we take Hamlet out as well. He knows he goes, I know why you're here.

Well, how does he know that? Right. He's a member of a kind of domestic spy, but he has his own apparatus for staying in form. And he's the author of that surveillance.

And so he's never caught on the wares. And then he finds people who are when he stabs through the, what is that? What would you describe? The hour.

So whatever the. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He seems to have a wonderful ability to pierce through the veil that other people might put up and just understanding that scene metaphorically. Yeah.

I don't know. I think that's totally right. I just switch gears to soy sauce. But just one detail to support David's point.

Yeah. Much later when he sent back to England, when he sent to England to be killed by Claudius, Horatio is just hanging around. And there's certain moments where Horatio knows things that he must have heard off stage from him. So Horatio seems to be a kind of five or handle.

And there's a deep love, I think, between the two two. Interesting. I was just going to always a small detail, but this is an act two scene to when Hamlet first comes back on the scene. This is around line 168.

King enter Hamlet Queen. But look, where sadly the poor wretch comes reading. There's a couple of small points and then we'll, I want to say something kind of a little crazy. But the serious point, the first serious point is we've just seen the king being unwilling to read something that seemed very important.

And it seems like if I were to press this, it seems to me like here Hamlet might be making the opposite mistake. He's reading when he probably shouldn't be or something like this. Like he's too academic. He's too intellectual.

He's too thinking about things, if that makes sense. He's going to be some contrast here between the two of them. No. That's if you take the description of Hamlet reading on face value.

Sure. He's pacing the halls seemingly engrossed in some time. But not really. Well, listen to him.

I don't know. That's definitely possible. No, that's entirely possible. I'm Polonius wants to know what he's reading.

He has to line 190. And here's my crazy fun moment for the moment. Hamlet says, I swear to be honest, as this world goes, it's one man picked out of 10,000. So you all know immediately what I think.

Yeah. Of course, I'm going to be a Hamlet's reading. The university student who's interested in Greek and Roman things is probably reading the analysis, which would have been, which has historically been the standard introductory text to Greek for folks. So I don't know if that means anything here.

And I'll see if I can pick up any of the other themes. He himself is a kind of reluctant leader thrust into political military matters. Does he see himself as the intellectual example as thrust into a sort of political military role? I mean, he certainly, I think he certainly does feel himself.

I think he certainly is that type and so it's a bucket. I mean, later he reveals the contents of it that is a pound of old people. And now, of course, they are. But that's obviously he's joking at Polonius, which it doesn't mean that this is the book he's holding, but there is a list traces this down.

There's some Roman work about how old age is awful or something like that. Or something like that. Or something like that. Or something like that.

Or something like that. But he's blitz doesn't think this is just him, what picking it. It could be. It could be.

He's holding the inhabitants. But then he whips something out of Cicero or wherever the. I thought it was maybe the. Yeah, anyways.

Yeah, there's a lot of stuff about text here. I mean, way back in Act 1 scene, probably way back is just the. Or I see he. After he seemed to ghost, he says, the ghost says the last thing he says is, I do, I do, I do remember me and he says, remember the from the table of my memory, I'll wipe away all trivial font records, all saws of books, all forms, all pressures passed that youth and observation here.

Die commandment all alone shall live within the book and volume of my brain and mixed with bass or matter. Yes, my heaven. And which is crazy because you can't wipe your brain clean, but there is this even his understanding of action and of taking a directive is highly literary and character. Though I think your point is is well taken David.

I mean, he's probably using this as an opportunity to just sort of monitor what's going on, knowing that people and a little later he'll give us a little queen while a polonius and the king are hiding behind. I think it's at the beginning of Act 3. And so there's I think every indication that he's aware maybe that people are around and trying to control them. We should finish C1.

Oh, sorry. C2. Was that? Sorry, I already moved on to C2.

Go ahead. But just the Ophelia thing that she comes in says, him who was acting weird, he falls to such pretzel of my face as he would draw it long stayed he's so at last a little she can. So he's just like looking at it's very strange. And then he leaves and as he leaves he's looking back over shoulder staring at her yet still able to make his way in front of him.

So somehow able to see what he's not seeing or kind of aware by intuition of where he's going, even those eyes are fixed elsewhere. Obviously he's he's had been affected by Ophelia's rejection of him, which I take to be important because he said that in his first eloquy that the world is an unweeded garden. And I think he would have said the one flower among it is Ophelia. But now that she's rejected his advances and he knows because he'll later reveal this that it was because of her father, he thinks, you know, what is this you love but you obey your father who's you know, obviously up to something that's just the way he is.

I think now he's really lost God and despair. At this point up to this point, it could have been the story could have been that, okay, the quality says King, eventually he dies, him, what's going to be King, he'll marry Ophelia, they have genuine love, they are two flowers and he can bring some beauty back to Denmark. That hope I think is off the table. And that's I think.

If you don't think there's any chance that his affection for Felio's vein, like this is for the madness, I was going to ask, what's the, what would be the initial attraction to her? She seems like a hysterical, you know what I'm talking about. What do you say? What I'm talking about?

He's talking about? She's hot. I guess so. I mean, she's got to be attracted.

I mean, Gertrude at one point says that she's hot. That's it, that she's hot. I mean, it says just as base as that, I don't know. I don't know.

I mean, it's about this is colored by Ophelia's madness where I'm just like, okay, you're crazy. We know very little of her. I mean, suburban mom or something going nuts after too much wine. Well, I mean, Gertrude will later say after she dies, I had hoped she'd be, she'd have married Hamlet become queen.

So I think there's some talk that this was a serious possibility. Right. Yeah. If Hamlet's feigning madness.

I'll just do it by piece or something. But if he's feigning madness and he's writing her these letters and we know that the father shows the the letters or reads parts the letters to them. Is that part of the plan? Like to make him think that he's crazy about her and not crazy about the murder and the marriage.

Oh, I see. Yeah, that's good. So like he's he's paying him. He's he's intentionally affecting that he's mad, but it would probably not be prudent to affect that the madness, the root cause is actually your guys is incestuous bed where you every night slay my mom after having slayed my dad.

That that just wouldn't be prudent. No, I like a little sharper in the daytime than it's in a collection. The crash. The crash.

Oh, man. I'm an old man. Before he started acting mad, Ophelia says in Acts 1, C, 3 to her father, my lord, he have impertuned me with love and honorable fashion and have given countenance to speech my lord with all almost all the holy vows and heaven. So he's been doing right by it.

So it predates. Okay. It predates. Now it doesn't mean that there's so I think there's, I don't know, maybe I'm being old fashioned, but I think he'll genuinely cares.

No, it could be that he genuinely cares. She's that he's a little bit older than marriage. Yeah. Well, it could be that he genuinely cared.

Things have kind of cooled on her end. He senses it out and he's all right. She'll be my foil now. That's a good point.

It's too much later. And another, another indication of this is that when he is with Rosie Cranston, Gilden Stern, he talks about his change of mood, right? Because he knows he says, yeah, I know my parents quote unquote, sent you guys to monitor me. And I'll tell you why is around line three, 16, my vision.

I'll tell you why social my anticipation, prevention, discovery, and your secrecy to the king of queen, no feather. I have of late, but wherefore I know not, which I think is a lie, but I have of late lost all my worth for gone all custom of exercises, which we also find out later is a lie. And indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly framed the earth seems to me a sterile promontory, his most excellent canopy, the air look you this brave or hanging firmament, this majestic old roof, fretted with golden fire. Why it appears nothing to me but a foul and pestling congregation vapors.

What a piece of work is a man how noble and recent, infinite in faculties in form and moving how expressive admirable in action, how like an angel in apprehension, how like a god, the beauty of the world, the paradigm, the animals, and yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust, man delights, not me, no, nor woman, neither. So I take this to be an indication. By the way, we learn that when he says man delights me, not that Rose and Francis laughed. Yes.

And he says the nor woman either. You think that's why? Okay. So, okay.

My lord then why is such stuff in my thoughts? Why did you laugh when I said man delights me not? So, and I suspect that that's why he and also woman. Like I think some maybe it's just a Ophelia or something like this.

I took that there's the laugh then and then I took the women. So yeah, let's maybe we can debate this, but I took women neither to be part of what he intended, meaning he's talking about Ophelia and perhaps his mom, like these I've been disappointed by two of the people I trusted most. And so he's talking about man in the general that he moves to women. And so, so he used to think everything was beautiful, then it was an unweeded garden.

Now it's just vapors and dust. So I think everything's a desert at this point. Yeah, you're right. There is the laugh.

So it is possibly adds women as well. Yeah, I have a question about that. But the, what Hamlet just said, if everything is dust, do either of you pick up on a nascent kind of realism? Is this all the world's a stage is from Hamlet, right?

No, either wrong play. No, you think of, is that the guy? So, Hamlet says something similar. And so I'm just wondering, do you detect a sense of nihilism in his, in his thought?

Yeah, except it's too lamenty. Like it doesn't seem like his limitations to me show that there's a hope that undergirds his nihilism. So maybe there's maybe a sort of thorough going consistent nihilism is impossible. I don't know.

But like this going on and on about how it's entirely meaningless seems to betray that his soul longs are some kind of meaning. Yeah. And so I guess the reason I'm asking is because if everything is meaningless, then what's his drive to murder his uncle dad? Exactly.

I think that's where does that come from? Where's that? Another alternative here is that this is a kind of very Christian view because like it's not saying it's all meaningless. It's the earth is meaningless, right?

Man is meaningless. And so the possum, I mean, but you're still, your puzzle still remains. If nothing matters in this world, why do you care about avenging your father's death? Yeah.

And then the Christian stuff, the only reason I would push back on that is because he's in league with a stupid ass ghost and he doesn't seem exactly church going. I think, I mean, I've said this maybe two episodes ago, but I think that one of the biggest, I think one of the biggest tragic elements here and by the way, Rosencrantz points out the fact that Hamlet himself likes tragedies. So we know something and I can't imagine Hamlet watching a comedy for us worth. That just doesn't really seem to fit his character.

But you know, he's studying in Wittenberg and I think that for me, a lot of the, a lot of the inner tension in Hamlet's soul has to do with this conflicting conceptions of virtue in ancient verses, a Roman, especially versus a sort of Christian conception of morality. But there are some other passages where he talks about Christian things. I could find them for him to just moment, but you're right. There doesn't seem to be like, he's not going to church.

Well, he doesn't, he doesn't murder his dad, his uncle in church. That seems to be something. He doesn't want to go to heaven. So he doesn't believe in repentance.

He doesn't believe in afterlife. So that's compatible with the idea that this isn't nihilistic. It's just the world is meaningless. All that matters is the afterlife.

But if that's true, then if you can just be a throwaway Christian, then turn the other cheek. There's no reason to avenge your father's death at the hands of your uncle. Yeah, I mean, that's good. Yeah.

I mean, there is, you're right. It's kind of weirded sipping at nihilism, but it's not complete. I mean, otherwise I would end here though. I mean, his last words are the rest is silent.

So you kind of wonder whether the nihilism wins out in the end. But at least here, even as he gives nihilistic views when he says our monarchs and outstretched heroes are the beggars' shadows, which implies that beggars have ambition. Ambition is a dream, but the dream is to become something great, which is ultimately just a shadow. So it's all just figments and dreams.

So one of the things I think, I said this two episodes ago, so I think we're kind of revisiting this theme, but it's an important one or going in circles as Greg suggests, is that when you have these various traditions, right, plus like a university where you're studying them carefully, and then you're faced with a real problem that puts these traditions into conflicts, you kind of end up taking the position of both poet and actor in your life, or poet and character. On the one hand, you're like, will I be the Achilles type or will I be the, you know, the Christ-like figure? Well, let me read up and figure it out and see what the rest of my life will look like. And so all this references to acting now, I think the problem is when you approach a life like that is it gets way too literary, way too performative, not very genuine, and different kind of nihilistic, right?

When you think about your life as a story that you're writing, drawing on all these classical and Christian, you know, traditions, it's not coming from within in a real way. And so it's, I think it's really hard to avoid just looking at everything as just shadows and phantoms covering over a world of vapors and dust, right? So it seems nihilistic, but it's significant. That was a small transition question.

This is just a, maybe it's just completely trivial. This is act two scene two. And I noticed that I think we have different line numbers and I'm using a different edition, the Pelican Shakespeare and at least one really, a few important lines are not included in the body, the text, but they're included in some alternative stuff. So one of the fun ones is where it's not included in the body, but it is included in his notes on the text is that Hamlet calls Denmark a prison at one point, which I think is probably pretty serious and problematic for somebody who potentially wants to be the king.

But I'm on line 340. This is a different question. Act two scene two, Plonius goes through the different kinds of actors. I was just wondering if there was any significance to this.

He talks about tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral, comical, historical, pastorals, and then there's indivisible scenes or unlimited poems. You're grinning. So maybe you do have something to say. I didn't even say except like do you guys have anything to say about this?

Here Shakespeare talking about different kinds of plays within his own, different kinds of tragedies, different kinds of actors within his own work. No, I'm most curious about the poem unlimited. Yeah, me too. I didn't have any answers on it.

No, it's fine. Okay. When I first read this years ago, I've seen it performed as a slight levity, joking kind of style. I think it's part of his kind of Plonius' own bookishness.

You find out later. Yeah. And both the authors he mentions are Roman, right? Seneca and Plowtas.

So a comic writer and then Seneca wrote what histories? They know the names of the plays. Oh, he did write plays. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. That's philosophic essays, right? And then Plowtas he wrote comedies. There's, Polonius has a kind of bookish quality and he's been interested in the theater.

He's acted much like Hamlet has spent some time in the theater and he greets the players that come in later in the scene as friends multiple times he calls them friends and shows a kind of familiarity with them. So I think there's a kind of weird similarity between Polonius and Ham. But we, a little bit earlier when Polonius is revealing to the king and queen what he thinks is the cause of Hamlet's madness. He goes into a high rhetorical style.

Yeah, I noticed that too. And he's like a lot of kiasmus and a lot of hilarious. Like it's like almost comically poetic. Oh, yeah.

And shows that he's really studied and Blitz read the standard rhetoric kind of works that somebody at this time would have read in university. But just a little bit to give a sense of he goes, my leech and madam to expostulate when majesty should be what duty is why day is day, night's night and time is time where nothing but to waste night, day and time. Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit and tedious, tediousness, the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief. But he hasn't been.

Yeah. Your noble son is mad. Mad call it I for to define true madness. What is it?

Anything else but mad? But let that go. And then the queen goes more matter with less art. So she recognizes the artifice in this.

And he does and he continues with the art though, right? It's his true to he's mad to true to true to it's pity and pity to true to foolish. Like it's all it's like he just won't stop with it. So yeah.

And another question about Polonius by the way. So he knows rhetoric. Does he know the Bible? So right where I left off where he's Polonius just quoted Seneca and plowed us Hamlet likens him to Jeptha.

And he's like, Oh, I'm like, I'm like, Jeff, he's a guy. You have a daughter. He's like, Oh, that's nice. Jeff has a daughter.

Jeff sacrifices his daughter. Like he kills her. So is Hamlet kind of like, this seems kind of nasty. What Hamlet doing here with Polonius.

Am I wrong? Isn't he implying that like some way that Polonius will be sacrificing his own daughter? Yeah. I mean, it's just like, I think at least three levels is common.

Yeah. Of course. One hand is stupid as level is you have a daughter like Defla. Right.

Yeah, of course. And this is, let's jump to the deepest level, which is I think is on shakes. I don't think Hamlet can know. Sure.

Because of what he's done. Ophelius is going to commit suicide. Yeah. Right.

And maybe Hamlet. That direction. But if I came to you and said, Oh, you're like Jeff though with the daughter. I mean, wouldn't you be like, No, what's wrong with you?

Yeah. I mean, this is Polonius being flat footed. Yeah. Okay.

And then I'll tell you that reveals something about him. If that's right, that reveals that he's not familiar with the story in the Bible. So he does know the Roman authors, but he doesn't know the Bible. He might be more more classically educated than religiously educated.

But in the middle of, I think is something like this that Hamlet says you've really, you've effectively killed your daughter by forbidding her to come to spend time with me. Like we could have been happy. But in exerting your will over her interests and her love, you've really just destroyed your future. In fact, which is also true.

And I think predictable within the context of Hamlet. We should probably talk about an act to Hamlet start tashing his plan to find his to find his uncle out, right? Or is there anything you want to talk about before that or? No, I think we got to keep moving.

I mean, one, I mean, everybody knows this, right? The plan is that plan is hatched to make a play to try and make his uncle feel guilty. Basically. More than that.

Was that what it's more than that, right? I think so. Yeah. Okay.

You're acting weird. I'm trying to think of his name. I'll just note real quick. Hamlet, we already kind of lanced across this book.

Hamlet plays with his food when he's with Loni's and Rosie Cranston. Girl, this is, I mean, he's just like batting a mouse or something like that. It's pretty, it's pretty like. So it's just another testament to Hamlet's own kind of intelligence, how he can double speak and so I actually think he might enjoy comedy because he does enjoy a pond and play it.

Although he is more tragic, I think it's a dud. Sorry, Donik. Is that the right word though? He's humor.

It's a little sadistic too. Yeah. The way he plays with Ophelia later is really nasty. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong.

No, it's I'm in leather and you're wearing a pig mask. Yeah. Yeah. And you have safe words and stuff, just like in grad school, right?

That's right, buddy. So let's jump to the end. Let's just jump to the end with the plans because I think, you know, we'll see the players more later. I think we can just move on a bit.

Yeah. Yeah. What do you have to say? I got nothing.

I got nothing. Well, so one thing I'll point out, people, you know, he goes to the players, he says, this is great. You'll put on a show later. No mention about the king coming.

Right. Right. So I'm going to say, hey, if I give you some lines, will you put them in there? This is 12 or 14.

Right. What's the number? That's actually calling one. Sorry.

Yeah. Yeah. Does it are 16? Then it does.

And we get the third soliloquy, which is fantastic. But to the point of this, just to quote one line, he says, this is towards the end of it. He says, why would an Asami? This is most brave that I, the son of a dear father murdered prompted by my to my revenge by having in hell must like a whore unpack my heart with words and fall accersing like a very drab, a stallion, file upon it, fought about my brains.

So what he's saying is, I have all this good reason. I've heard it from heaven in hell. I need to think. I need to think.

And as I know what I'll do is I'll put on a play and then catch out my uncle. Now there's a problem here. Right. He's already asked for the performance and for the addition before he hatches the plan.

His uncle because this is just a little, he has no ulterior motive in pretending or something like that. You can maybe say, oh, maybe he doesn't know that he's already sounds a little strange. But then a little later, he says, the spirit that I've seen may be a devil and the devil has the power to assume. So earlier he takes it as for granted, just like 10, 15 lines earlier.

Now he's questioning it. So something very strange is how there's been a kind of reversal when he says about my brains, where he's telling himself to think, think, think, and now he comes up with a plot. So I take this as a real question. I have my thoughts on this, but what was his original intention in asking for the performance and adding the lines?

If it's not to have caught Claudius. It's an only the only thing I can think of. His mom? No, no, because there's no he hasn't said, oh, and we invite the king.

He could have told to learn. I think he wanted to see a play performed so he could see what his murder of his uncle would look like to see what it moved him to action. So I think this to be part of his attempt to figure out through literary means, what life he wants to, because it cannot be for the catching his uncle. It has to.

So that's the best. I don't have textual evidence other than that. This is part and parcel of his character throughout. Wow.

Yeah, I really like that, Alex. I do Tim. That's why I used to do that with Ken and Barbie dolls when I was a kid, I'd be like, I want to ask this girl out and on. I'd be like, Hey, you want to go out?

Yeah. And usually she'd like, no. I put in the Barbie car and drive her off the bed. I'm not the island fire.

So Alex, we're the time or doll in my like, japanese. I'll pull you up. And so we watch three months, but this is August 4th. So anything anticipating?

We're going to get the actors to get one problem. And although this is out is we get a soliloquy at the end of act two. And then the next time we see him, is at the is early in act three and we get another soliloquy. Usually you get soliloquies to signal a shift in a character's disposition or something like that, but we've not seen him do or say anything between the third and the fourth soliloquy.

So something must have happened off stage that makes him have another sort of speech that warrants another speech. So I think it's worth thinking about what it is. Oh, yeah, that is good. I can pick up on that.

Yeah, I think it's a real problem. Yeah. Yeah. And Greg, thanks a note about the 10,000.

I actually didn't pick up on it either. I'm just right or not. Who knows? But it was fun to think about.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

That was uncharacteristically risky of me. I apologize for the folks at home who come for this family friendly information about philosophy and literature. Well, I got to go get back to my notary guys. All right.

Get into an artery. Yeah. Go for good. Great.

Like subscribe. Donate. And send that pic. Send it.

It's like an artery. If you're like Ophelia, you know, send the pic or we'll go crazy. And if your dad forbids you, don't listen. Yeah.

Yeah, this won't work. No, no, no, no, don't be afraid. Listen to that old pulonius. We'll kill him.