Welcome back to the new thing. My name is David Barn with me as always is my good friend Alex Trio. How are you doing Alex? Doing alright.
How are you doing man? I'm doing well. It's good to see you. I'm sorry we couldn't see one another in person.
It's good to see Leo Shaus over your left shoulder. Yeah, that's something I did. Yeah. How are you doing?
My good friend Greg McBrayer. I'm doing pretty well. How are you? I'm well.
So you and I missed this conference. Our show is getting more and more popular for all you haters out there. You can't stop from our philosophic momentum. So we're getting invited to give lectures at local hooters and sometimes to the universities.
So Greg and Alex visited our good friends Dustin Seebull and some of his colleagues at Michigan State and they had a conversation on Tocqueville and other things. It was great. We should say the LaFract form. And so I want to ask you did either of you guys, I know they didn't put you in the same hotel room.
Even though we asked seeing one another, did either of you guys discover anything about the other person like negative stuff, personal hygiene, what else, etc. that you didn't know before? Like Greg, you discovered Alex brings his toothbrush but stays dry the whole weekend, you know, things like that. Yeah.
You got anything Alex? The time for this would have been where we went to the University of Austin, Strauss. They did put us up in the same hotel room. Oddly enough, I forgot my toothpaste.
I had a bar. Greg made such a big deal out of like using a little bit of toothpaste. He used the whole tube David. There was nothing left for me.
It was a time. He put it in a cup, he like squirted it all out and then was like my cup. Did you know that Alex? Disgusting.
He doesn't he go out? To be fair. To be fair, most of my body is teeth. It's a lot of teeth.
It's a lot of teeth. Greg snort a lot. That's true. You had a sinus thing going on.
Yeah. Disgusting. I mean, Greg's a hygienic clean guy. Right?
He's always well groomed. That's how he stays strong. Gave from the top of his head to toe. Cap of tea, right?
Right. Go to line from Hamlet, right? Which is what we're talking about today. Oh, look at there.
Well, Hamlet 5. Hamlet 5. We finally did it boys. It took us six plus months, but we finally got to the end.
Remember when we started the show and we're going to get some email now that said we've been going too long with our band. Yeah, yeah, for sure. We started the show from our producer. Every single Shakespeare play knocked out and all the platonic dialogues.
Whenever we meet to discuss platonic dialogues, I always say, hey, let's just knock them out because for me it's nothing ventured, nothing gained. It's not a problem. You guys take it really seriously. So I love, man, we got to study the Hipparchists for eight more years before we can discuss it.
So let me kick off before we start. Right. Hamlet 5. The final frontier.
The final frontier. There's a volume from the Library of America titled Shakespeare in America. An anthology from the Revolution to now it's edited by the Shakespeare editor. James Shapiro.
Get out. The forwards by President Bill Clinton, which is strange. I'll let you guess what attracts him most to Shakespeare. Measure for measure.
Yeah. Yeah. Let's say he derives different lessons from plays with a common man. So here's Adams.
In 1805, he writes a letter to his son and future president, John Quincy Adams. And I won't read all of it. He's basically saying, hey, man, you never call your dad, blah, blah, blah. Let me just tell you what I'm doing these days.
David, phone seven hadn't been invented yet, man. Did I say call? I thought you did on purpose. No.
No, I was just making a dumb joke. Sorry. So he says, I've been uncommonly engaged and interested in reading Shakespeare, and particularly his historical dramas, which I read through once with attention and have almost completed the second time and further down. And this is where it gets interesting, I think.
Those plays are the great poet if they are read by anyone with a view to the struggles between the red rose and the white rose, that is to the treachery, perfity, treason, murder, cruelty, sedition, and rebellions of rivals and unbalanced factions. If he can keep his gravity and his attention from being diverted by the gadian trollery of Falstaff pistol, Nim, and the rest of those rakes and bullies, he will find one of the most instructive examples for the perusal of this country. And so it's that last line that I was curious if you guys had any thoughts about. He's bringing up a particular instance in British history about all the roses.
He's saying that a tentative study to Shakespeare's history plays helps you understand America in a significant way. I just have such a good question. I don't really have a ready answer. No, no, I shouldn't put you on the spot like that.
That's a wicked way of time. Look at what he means. Which I mean, we've talked before about how clearly Lincoln treasured Shakespeare and sort of the scene. One of the things that always amazed me is how Lincoln seems to have a serious grasp of human nature and the alternatives and et cetera, et cetera.
And I always just sort of wonder where he got that. I mean, live in the backwoods of Kentucky and then, okay, fine, maybe a little more sophisticated Indiana. But we've said this before, I suppose, but if one reads Shakespeare or if one reads the platonic dialogues, one will never meet a new human being because the universe seems to comprehend all human types. So it seems to me that one, where does Lincoln's firm grasp for understanding of human nature come from?
And it seems to me that the answer must be Shakespeare on one hand and the Bible on the other. Other than that, I mean, yeah. He just, I should read a little bit more. Yeah, please.
I may have jumped the gun. Next sentence is, either two we have gone no further than a few duels in actual violence. But in slander, we have gone as far as any nation. And for anything, I know a human nature and its depravity can go.
I think what he means is there are political events that a country with a long history like England have already confronted that America, I can understand in theory or by reading history, because we haven't faced it yet. America's also never faced totalitarianism in fashions and like Europe. So we read these accounts of what you're going through. I think that's what he's saying the, so the utility of Shakespeare might be.
That makes sense. So Coriolanus captures Rome at the beginning of the Republic and then we go all the way to Caesar. And so, yeah, that's good. You see what David did there?
He asked us what something means. He's like, he doesn't elucidate. Then he reads the elucidation. Yeah.
Try to make us look like thumbs. Did you know that that anthology, right? We were just talking about this before, but it has Lincoln's note on how McBeth is his favorite play. Yeah, right.
Which is actually, you mentioned Bill Clinton. He, he liked McBeth the least because he got sad when his wife dies and he doesn't understand that at all. Pretty good. You would have been really happy at that moment.
Yeah. If I could be this, just when you brought up Lincoln in that letter, he says, some of Shakespeare's plays I've never read while others I've gone over, perhaps as frequently as any unprofessional reader. Among the latter are Lear, Richard III, Henry VIII, Hamlet, and especially McBeth. I think nothing equals McBeth.
It is wonderful. I think the soliloquy and Hamlet commencing, oh, my office, my offense is blank. Surpasses that commencing to be or not to be. But part of this small attempt at criticism, I should like to hear you pronounce the opening speech of Richard III, et cetera, et cetera.
Lincoln, that has, it's like an notorious liar. He's like, yeah, I'm just right a few of them. It's interesting that Hamlet line is, that's Claudius is soliloquy, where he's killed his brother. And he's saying, my offense is right.
He has the prime law of eldest curse upon it. He's referring to Cain and Abel. And this is, you know, Lincoln of all people, right? Trying to navigate a civil war.
Kind of interesting. Right? That was striking so much. Whereas the to be or not to be is sort of suicide in the meaning of death, right?
Not soliloquy, which maybe he didn't emphasize as much. Speaking of death, can you take us into the first scene of Act V? Yeah, Act V is like all about death, right? Yeah.
Some of these, some of these, some of these, some of these, some of these acts are a bit easier to see how to theme and others. And this one certainly has, it starts with a burial, like preparation for the burial of Ophelia and it ends with like everybody dying, you know, except for Horatian, Fort in brass and Ozric seem to be the three real like characters that we've encountered that really survive. So, yeah, I mean, it's two scenes. Seam one is relatively brief.
And then there's scene two, which is much longer and takes us through the end. And it's a kind of, it's a fun end because it is an action scene. There's a sword fight, there's a series of deaths. It's pretty gruesome and which is kind of interesting because this is a very introspective play with an introspective character with a lot of dawdling and then finally everything comes to a head.
And my, my thought here would be to go back to the last soliloquy, which we got in Act V where it seems like Hamlet just says, you know what, enough thinking, like thinking is always three parts, cowardice he says, examples gross as the earth, tell me I need to go fight and honor is to be willing to die for even something small, which is interesting, right? Examples as gross as earth, tell me I should fight for even a piece of straw, a tiny patch of land, right? So it seems like he's given away to reason and he's just going to follow his gut and just go with what presents him and then make gut reactions. And so there's a kind of desire for some sort of conviction or guiding light, but it all seems to be a giving in to passion or giving in to the moment's inclination and almost a sort of abrasive irrationality or non non-reason.
And this leads him to die. So it's not clear that this was the most prudent result since everybody dies, including his mother, who started to redeem herself somewhere and nearly his best friend, Rachel almost, commit suicide. So it's a kind of large scale of how death is operative and what it seems to mean here. I was wondering Alex, if you would be willing to talk a little bit about, probably were, but the opening of Act V for a dark end to a play, it starts out with almost a light comedic touch, right?
With these philosophic grave diggers were quite intelligent, of course, like a lot of the blue-collar workers in Shakespeare revealed themselves to be, but they interacted with Hamlet and in her ratio. Why do you suspect he begins in this manner? And just to amplify that, part of the clowning around, and actually one of the characters, his name clown, is whether or not Ophelia deserves a proper Christian burial, right? So did she commit suicide?
Well, you know, did the water come to her? Did she commit to the water? Who's to say? You know, whatever.
So even though, sort of, not just her death, but even her immortal fate seems to be somewhat treated check it literally. But the grave digger and Hamlet do talk and they kind of go at it with wits, and it seems like the grave digger gets the best of Hamlet again. Hamlet interprets his lightness or playfulness as kind of irreverence, right? This is a serious matter.
And I think Hamlet really takes death with great seriousness, as though it has to be perfect, right? He's got perfections throughout. I think Hamlet's wrong though, about why the grave digger, okay, go ahead. Yeah, no, the grave digger is actually quite serious, and even in this treatment of the suicide, right, it opens with the grave digger says, is she to be buried in Christian burial when she willfully seeks her own salvation?
Right. And the other here says, I tell these, she is, right? So clearly, this other is told, given him instructions, he's coming to sort of tell him what's to be done. This is therefore a maker grave straight.
The coroner has sat on her and finds a Christian burial burial, and he rejects the state authority, right? He's fighting the state authority saying that can't be. And so the quibilang, which is kind of funny and humorous, does come from a serious place. He has a kind of reverence and concern for law and he forces the other guy to say, will you have the truth on it?
If this had not been a gentle woman, she would have been buried out of Christian burial, right? So he just says, look, we're forced to do this. And even the priest says that it's really the state that's forcing me to do this. So there's a kind of very serious question here about the relationship between spiritual power and temple.
You know, so I always saw it in the grave digger, and these opening exchanges, the shade of Hamlet in the earlier acts, right? He's that when he reasons with himself and almost a lighthearted manner, but about serious things. And now he can't take it anymore. That's not a real insight, but another place where I think Hamlet's mistaken is, let's see, Horatio says, so Hamlet says, what's wrong with this guy?
What is he have no feeling for what he's doing? He's singing while he's grave making. Horatio says, custom has made it in him a property of easiness, maybe I'm reading this wrong, but it seems like one of the things he's saying here is, I mean, in the way that friends of yours who may be doctors or something like that, they just sort of get accustomed to working with dead bodies. And so there's a way in which one has to sort of psychologically sort of make oneself not feel what one's doing so that you can look at a skeleton or a skull even and not see a dead person.
And in fact, actually doesn't, Hamlet asking who's buried here, he's like, nobody's buried here. And he's like, oh, what man's buried here? Nobody. And then he says, well, it's this woman, it's her body that she's disposed of or something like this.
And so the notion is that it could even be that he's serving, he's been able to tell himself that once the soul leaves the body, this is just matter. And so he sort of dissociative self from the corpses as it were seems to me. Yeah. And yeah, this is where he talks about he's like, oh, Yorick, the last thing he knew, he's a man of infinite jest.
Yeah. This is like what we would, I mean, quite frankly, if we were grave diggers, it's like how much worse to a skull, yeah, how much joke about it. Oh, he's like, whoa, there. Like we wouldn't do my school when I die for the first.
David, you'd be selling the bodies to perverts around the corner, right? Come in at 3 AM, do what you will. Yeah, I mean, you got to make a dollar. Can I say another point where the grave digger is humor shows a kind of seriousness?
Right. When he tells a joke, he says, what is he that builds stronger than either the Mason, the shipwright or the carpenter? The guy says, the gallows maker for that frame out lives at thousand tenants, right? Obviously, no, house can do that.
He says, I like that I went well in good faith. The gallows does well, but how does it well? It does well to those that do ill. Right.
And so he says, answer again, he says, who builds stronger than a Mason, a shipwright or a shipwright? Tell me that and I'm yoke. Mary, now I can tell to it. Mass, I cannot tell.
And the graveyard says, cultural librarians know more about it, for your dull ass will not mend his pace with beating. And when you are asked this question, next day a grave maker, the houses he makes last till doomsday go get the in and fetch me a stupid looker. So he's saying the grave maker digs graves that last till doomsday. And then immediately after that, he digs up a skull.
So he can't mean, right? So obviously that person's grave, you know, he must mean that the grave digger's job is deeply serious because we consecrate the dead, right? We give them a proper burial and that helps determine where they're going to go, right? So I take it, the grave digger is saying, I have a serious job here.
I'm not going to bury a suicide with a Christian burial. I'm here to consecrate. There's something solemn about it. So I think his lightness also doesn't come just from custom.
I think his lightness also comes from feeling that a good religious burial gives death closure, right? And it situates it within a larger Christian order. Yeah. So what's interesting about this scene also is the grave diggers will be called up again to work.
We just don't read about it. You know, they're about to work over time. It's a great point. So maybe I wonder if in some of their speech, do you think they foreshadow how Denmark gets closer after the carnage of the play?
Yeah, I guess you end the play with a kind of poetic closure. I'm going to tell his story, et cetera. But there's also this sort of religious right or ritual that's going to be performed that'll give closure. I don't know whether that makes him right.
The idea that he'll get that, maybe that scene this partly motivates him. I don't know. That's a really good question. I hadn't thought about that connection.
You know, this is scene one. There were scene three. We'd be right back here. A small point you mentioned that in Kings, so locally earlier, they'd been mentioned that Cain and Abel, there's another one here.
So that seems to be consistent being raised twice. It leads me to think that Shakespeare's strong attention that's sort of some reason, not that I put it together. I guess there's still this sort of inter familial fighting. Is that what's going on?
We just so common and Greek tragedy. Is that what's being spoken of here? That sort of the family is the proper nexus of tragedy or something like this? Yeah, I'm forgetting the line.
Should it be the line? Sure. It's my decision. It's line 70ish.
And then it says that skull had a tongue in it and could sing once. How the nave jows it to the ground as if where Cain's jawbone that did the first murder. This might be the paint. I don't know if that's right.
Oh, politician, which this ass now or reaches one that would circumvent God might not. Yeah, it's interesting. So he starts speculating about the different lives and that sounds like Claudius. Right.
We hear about a lawyer or a great buyer of land, a great buyer of land would seem to be. Osra, can we meet later? But he sees it as the ultimate irreverence. The grief diggers being deeply irreverent and violating the grave.
The grave diggers seems to recognize that the dead are already consecrated. So I'm going to go on a limb here. I've not thought this out before, but we had that joke a few weeks ago about that Strauss blew and blew and made about what if Socrates had been edifice and found out he was sleeping with his mom? Small world, right?
So it's a joke, but the notion that there's a kind of rational quick acceptance of wrong having been done. Like why why compound wrong with wrong? And I'm wondering if there's not some notion here that Hamlet's fixate on death. And even if it's the case that his father was murdered by his uncle, maybe there's a certain sort of rational response that says, get on with it.
Like, you know, commit, I don't know if that's, I mean, I'm not sure the revenge is the proper rational response, but like, but it's been done as done. There's nothing you can do that will actually avenge your father. He's dead. There's no bringing him back.
And so, and so this here again, right, these great diggers aren't paying proper respect to dead people and it bothers him. And so therefore he's worried about his own mortality, which also explains by the way his hesitation in acting that if he were sort of resolved to be okay with dying, he'd go and avenge the death, maybe, I don't know. I think I think one way to think about this, because this is such a sort of, um, serious and playful scene, right, where you get these two clowns, you even get the skull of a clown, right, being on earth. One way is to think about how Hamlet jokes, right, where he goes through the different lives humans live in the all seem like, like meaningless in relation to death, right?
And so there is a kind of his humor comes from a kind of nihilism or scorn or a kind of scoffing at the endeavors of human beings. Even Alexander and Caesar, right, which earlier had featured in the play as well. Can I ask a question, but I would like to just finish this point. So his relationship to death, I think comes from a really sad place, right?
Like it's on, and that that do think has to do with his hesitance acts, right? Like he, he's trying to find some life that would be meaningful and then nothingness, right? His last words are the rest of silence, which could be said to say, well, there's nothing left, right? It's all over, um, would suggest that he clings to life because he'll never find a life that overcomes death in some way.
But the grave diggers humor comes from the same sort of smallness of human life, but in light of a larger order that Hamlet, I think can't buy into anymore, even though he sometimes gives it for us. Do you guys, did you guys draw any parallels between the grave diggers, what that scene represents and the humanity spiny chance, the necessity to burial and stop a cyclical generational, you know, tip or tap murder. If there's something about these bodies, what need to get underground and soon there will be a lot more bodies underground. And so, you know, Athens can return kind of just, and Tigany as well.
I'm, uh, he's a structure. It's not like a one to one example, but. I mean, you need something like law, right? Some kind of structured order surrounding death and just.
I thought it reminded me that, you know, their conversation about the Christian burial, they're involved in a kind of legal reasoning too. It made me think a lot about the humanities bar. I mean, law comes up in the very like 2021 or 22, right? He says he does not guilty of his own death, shortens not his own life.
And the other says, but is this law? The graveyard says, I, Mary, it is Crowners' quest law, right? Which is to say the corners in quest law. So this is, this is about the law regarding religious burial.
It begins with divine law in a way, right? Or law concerning divine matters. And so this is absolutely has to do something with these sets of issues about death and right. This curious and two regards, right?
Like the final act that you mentioned seen too is so filled with action, you know, bimbo's and explosions. And it's serious. And the first act, the first scene of act five is lighthearted. And nothing really happened.
I guess there's a skirmish between we are teas and hamlet, I suppose. But there's not really action filled in comparison to the final scene. It's almost comic relief right before poop hits the fan. Yeah, you're right.
It's like, there's something restful about the first part of scene one, at least, or we again, there is that back and forth where there to strangle hamlet briefly, right? But but there is no, but you could say the same things to have seen to, which begins with hamlet and Horatio strolling and talking, joking about Ozrek and then he gets active again. So there's a kind of pause and then action. Should we talk about hamlet and leartis exchange?
Oh, yeah. Find over that girl. Just like a good southern man. He must be from southern Denmark because he's fighting over his sister.
I mean, he says, is this funny? Hamlet's last, it locally is, you know, when honors at stake, you should throw your life in for a straw. The next thing he does is he gets into a fight over dead Ophelia, right? And so she's the straw, right?
She's the worthless thing. And you can see this because Hamlet when Hamlet says, why I will fight him upon this theme until my eyelids will no longer wag. Right. Maybe I'll stop linking.
I'll die, which is mom says, Oh, my son, what theme? And Hamlet says, I loved Ophelia. 40,000 brothers could not with all their quantity of love make up my son. What will thou do for her?
And here, Claudia's goes, Oh, he's mad, leartis. He's not. He's crazy. But he says he's mad.
I think because Hamlet, you know, Claudia's heard Hamlet read Ophelia really badly. All the nunnery stuff saying, I never loved you. Right. At this point to do this for Ophelia, it just doesn't make sense.
Right. So what's funny is, is he gives up reasoning and what you get is a completely nonsensical move. Right. And so leartis is strangling him and then he gets separated and then Hamlet's ultimately the one who runs out.
Claudia says, you know, go wait upon Hamlet ratio and then seem to because of the walking. So you imagine it's not that long later. And then he turns to the leartis and says, strengthen your patience in our last night's speech. We'll put the matter to present.
Right. He's saying calm down. He seems more dumbstruck than anything by the end of it. What the hell is going on with Hamlet?
Which I think helps to prepare for scene two where Hamlet makes an apology, right, for the death of Polonius. And leartis ultimately feels guilty for what he's about to do. And then when he does stab him, he does feel guilty and confesses. So I think you're seeing the beginnings of not a reconciliation, but some kind of coming to terms on leartis part, you know, with his circumstance.
You want to, is there anything to make out of the fact that this is now the second dead person who's defense, let's run through it. But Hamlet comes to him. Is there anything going on there? Like first his father and then if you're right.
Yeah, both times. I know the first one, he's taking too long in both, right? Right. Though she, if he had gone earlier, I feel he wouldn't have died.
Right. It's kind of both the lay idea. Yeah. All right.
Lay out the plot of scene two. What's the draw? What happens? They pull, they draw, stab his dad drink, drink, what's happening?
Hamlet's walk through. Just lay out with action first, right? Like the folks at home they want to know what happened. Yeah, they're waiting six months to hear how Hamlet ends.
That's true. So Hamlet and Horatio are walking. Hamlet narrates his return. He admits he added, he admits he acted rationally in coming to, in going after it.
Lerties. This in a scene that begins with him saying rationally he acted and praised me rashes for it. Let us know our indiscretion sometimes serves as well. Let our deep plots do Paul and that should learn us.
There's a divinity that shapes her and so he starts with praising rashes and then emits, he was being rashed. Anyways. He reveals that he's overcame rosocrancy, gilded discern and that he's sort of sent them to die. I think it's worth asking whether they deserve that, what they did wrong.
Stitches. Stitches. Yeah, that's true. And then finally at the end, at the end, we find out they did die.
Then we get the entrance of Ozric who's trying to urge this fencing match between Lerties and Hamlet. He's trying to get him there. Yeah, right, right. Yeah.
And then Hamlet and Horatio make fun of Ozric for being a sort of landowner and they think this is low and they're kind of upset that people like this have a say in the court. We then get the fencing scene. Command says, well, Hamlet apologizes to Lerties for the death of Polonius. And he says, look, I'm insane.
I've been having problems lately. Right. Sorry, I killed your dad. Right.
And then they, they, uh, cool. And there's a sequence of deaths. Gertrude drinks the poison chalice. Who made the poison chalice?
What's the name of Claudius? For whom? For Hamlet in case. Not for his wife.
He did not make the poison cover's wife. I don't think he did. But she drank it. She drank it.
Right. We should go off so thirsty. Are you driving at some cell? Just back to Bill Clinton wishing his wife for that.
So he could be. He was trying to, I just know the folks at home, like, one of the things that seemed like to me, uh, Claudius has these multiple ideas for how he's going to kill Hamlet, but they all end up killing other people. That's all. Yeah.
And also there's some notion that Hamlet's fat and out of breath. And so they're hoping that he'll, it's a good plan, right? Like you have something ready to drink for the fat out of shape, dude. That's a couple of blows get landed.
But the mom, but the mom's like, oh, it's powerful hot and he almost drink it instead. And then she drinks it. And then she drinks it. And Claudius is like, no, no, sorry.
I should have said that. Yeah. The more you look at what he does, as bad as Polonius is at planning things, Claudius is even worse. You sort of wonder how he successfully killed Hamlet, the senior.
Well, I mean, the girl turned into a boy's in his ear. He did it. He poured his in his ear. It's a terrible plan.
And they say it's a snake bite and Adders bite. I looked it up there are no like venomous snakes, murderous venomous snakes, native Norway, native. I don't know. You gotta keep pretending.
We've got to. Have you ever heard of venomous snakes are always in like, like hot climates They're cold blooded animal. They're going to be in the cold north. a very good point.
Listen, listen, I don't want to go on a live here. This bro does this well. I don't know. Give Shakespeare a break.
Listen, listen, listen, listen, two references to Can And Abel and Snake's purpose. Clearly, you're in a garden. He's taking his he's for a snake is supposed to be a pecker. Like, that's right.
You're driving that crazy. That's what I'm driving at. I'm just I'm just trying to give a summary. I look at what I'm talking about peckers in Hamlet's senior's ear, which to be frank, would turn this tragedy into a company.
It was right, right. It's a bunch of a man on ear penetration, but anyways, a bunch of deaths, gertrude drinks, the chalice, Hamlet gets stabbed, and then Lertis gets stabbed. So Hamlet gets stabbed with a poison sword. Yes.
But then they like drop swords. And each guy's like, Oh, I'll just take the other guy's sword. And the other guy knows that the sword has the poison on it. And then Hamlet stabs, Lertis, because the fact that he got stabbed, she was cheating.
So he's getting revenge for the stab. Right. Now, it takes Hamlet a long time to die. Lertis gets the poison second, but dies first.
Then, uh, uh, while he gets him was fat, so it takes longer to get through the whole body. Yeah, that's true. Because mom says he's fat, by the way, so get the voice of a drink. Yeah, what is up?
He sent that Shakespeare, he had drained all of his profundity in the beginning in the first four acts. And he's like, damn it, I'm done with this. I'm just gonna wrap it up. Everyone's dying.
This death, like what Greg was pointing out the man or like the saber's getting. All right, man, really? It's like comedy, very like, yeah, I mean, it comes like, I'm just gonna say if I had a poison glass for someone to drink, I probably wouldn't put it near someone else. I'd be like, hold on to it, be like, no, there's only for Hamlet.
And then he puts a pearl at it, which is the poison. He's like, here's a pro for you. And then starts facing people. But this was lost on Shakespeare.
What were ridiculous this always? This is the thing after Polonius dies, causes like, I need some wise advisors, right? And then, and then he, and then he matches the plan on the fly with Lertis. He's like, what do I do?
Because he's just heard that Hamlet's returning. So we know that he's just figuring it out as making it up as he goes along. The plan is so stupid. Like, bad plan.
First of all, he's gonna get stabbed. You're not supposed to have a sharp sword. Second of all, even if he gets a superficial wound, he's gonna die, he's obviously been poisoned now. Why don't you just kill him?
Claudius could blame that on Lertis doing something nefarious to get revenge. I say go. Haven't taken away shackled killed, right? And that's two words killed, two popularly swear people.
So there, the boys and chalice thing immediately undercuts that because he'll be like drink this and then he drinks it and he dies. Right. So it's I think you get this sense that that the that Claudius in the absence of Polonius is just like, I'm just gonna go with what I think he says, I said, well, I'm just gonna go with whatever comes to mind, we're gonna get this time. And he just got a plan that gets everybody killed.
Hamlet's partially a brilliant but Claudius to it. But anyway, so we got a rapid succession of deaths. Hamlet is stabbed first, but is the last of the crew to die, which makes me wonder whether he was just not stabbed deep enough to really get the poison. And because there is a moment where he might Horatius about to drink, he says, give me the cup, he might drink it there for all we know it's not not clear.
That's my suspicion. But he stabs, he stabs Claudius and then pours the poison down his throat. Right. I think in an effort to keep him from confessing, he's like, Oh, shoot, I gotta make sure this guy dies.
So Claudius has the quickest death from poison to death, right, of all the people. And then Hamlet finally dies, Fortin-Bross comes in, and Hamlet sees us as I think the election will light on him. And then Horatius speaks about Hamlet. So a serious suggestion about the craziness of the final act, it's for the audience.
I don't know, like this was like TV at the time as Paul Cantor likes to remind us so like it may be sort of mental balance, just how introspective the whole rest of the play is. So people in their league are like, Oh man, you gotta go see the Hamlet play. A lot of us stabby stabby at the end. Now, can I answer that correct or can I say yeah, please question, do you think it's meant to balance or obscure?
So there's no way, there was no way one can digest Hamlet from a seeking the theatre and really understand it in its totality. You have to read and reread the early passages, especially when he's sort of pontificating. Very good. Right.
A lot of a lot of a lot of good You'll remember the college at the very end. Yeah, very good. And maybe one or two lines that you know, they're quoted now, but but everything else is almost forgotten. That's kind of it's a much more intelligent version of what I was trying to say.
I like that. Yeah, no, no, no, I was one serious. He takes me is trying to obscure a different part of the play. I wonder why he's doing it or is that that that may just be too far?
Well, we've often talked about the ways in which these serious works of philosophy have to be sort of presented in a kind of medium that's attractive and interesting to people. And so I mean, we joke about like bimbo's and car explosions. But that is a way to think about my people's prints, how much violence there is in that book. And I really think that part of that is to sort of attract the attention of the young and to keep your attention.
So oh, so you know, I see what you're saying, you because you can be assured that some people will hear about it thinking they're going to in in trans kind of the violence, but you'll catch a few folks that stay longer to to be like Homer think about having listen, listen down as a young person child listening to Homer for the whole culture of your life. And then like as you become like 1819 20 starting to realize, wait a minute, there's some really interesting stuff going on here. Maybe this is just maybe this isn't just car chases. And no, people are hearing about the catalog of ships and you know, when you're 12, you're like, who cares?
But later on, you're like, Oh, wait a minute, maybe there's something important here. Why? Who's in the middle? Why does he have so few ships?
Why am I not taking a 10 year hiatus from my marriage and sleeping with witches? Why aren't you sorry? I let my private thoughts out. I thought you'll be trying to sleep away with get away from the witch.
See, for me, the pigs are the most attractive part of the story. That's true. I hear what you're saying. You know, you know, you know, you don't want to be on an Odyssey with with Greg McBray, you get turned up, and you're like, Oh, no, he's coming.
You start running away your snort and your host can't move you fast enough because Greg's a biped and then suddenly you're taken. I'm like, look, it's burning man islands and Alex says, No, those are Lotus eaters don't do drugs, David. People just forget all about doing other things. No, no, let's eat the drugs.
I don't know. Here's where we are. I think this is a point about the action at the end. I think that's if you even think of like some of the most popular works of philosophy or the popular works of certain thinkers, right, like Plato's apology, right?
I think a good example of this is Descartes was writing the rules for the direction of the mind and he stopped and he wrote the discourse on method, which is this compelling story of a guy who just doubts everything and arrives at a new way of looking at the world that ends up being so consequential, right? Or any number of works that are more digestible, even like Nietzsche's use of aphorisms where I know that when I was a young guy reading Nietzsche, thinking about, you know, which schoolboys I wanted to kill, I would just sort of have a favorite aphorism or a favorite section and you can just kind of pick it out and say, I'll read this one. This one doesn't go from me. I'll read this one.
Oh, this is interesting. You'll read it over again. Like digestibility, approachability, provocativeness, it all works together. But what's so remarkable here is that the play for that you would think would be like Beth, it's like a sequence of deaths leading and it's the shortest of the plays and it's just powerful.
This one, what's strange is that you wait for hours and then suddenly everybody dies and you're like, you kind of see it coming a bit but you're sort of shocked. And then Fortenborough walks in, you're kind of with him and he's like, holy hell, what happened here? And then done. Yeah, and then I'll just pick up the crown.
What's that guess? I'll just pick up the crown. I know. Okay.
But um, this confirms that we've been going on pretty long or the six months talking about how foreign relations seems actually the subcurrent of the play. It ends on a foreign power conquering Denmark without having to do anything. Yeah, that's kind of impressive. Yeah.
I can't study philosophy. What was that? What was Hamlet's field of study? Theology, I think.
Theology. I was looking at all on Plato and Aristotle. Sorry. So I smoke over there.
They destabilized the Plato and Aristotle just destabilized the whole regime. Hamlet got a little bit too much book learning. I don't think it's that. So the picture of the world of Hamlet, I mean, that's part of it.
I mean, I'm just joking around. Well, no, no, he studied theology, right? And the goat and then his dad dies. His mom is like, what the hell is going on?
The ghost reveals one, he should get pagan revenge, two, there seems to be a Christian order, but three, he's surrounded by Machiavellian actors. So it seems like it's the birth of the Machiavellian world. And this is signaled also, you have the Reformation, right, which is post Machiavellian. You have the rise of industry.
And this is people like Ozrick that are left. You have the rise of the university as a separate authority from the church. You have increasing international order and merchant order as well as imperialism. All of these sort of post Machiavellian phenomena.
And then who do you have at the end? Rosicranti Gildenstern, the nobles are gone, right? Hamlet, who's stuck in this earlier conflict is gone. The old kings are gone.
Fort Ross is now apparently won in Poland. He's now accepting Denmark. And he's gotten Norway. So now you're getting an even broader empire and order, sort of maintained sort of hegemony.
And then Ozrick is around, right? So you have Ozrick the merchant, you have Fort Ross the king who's kind of maintaining this larger global kind of order. And then you have Horatio, who loves Hamlet, as problematic difficult, even though you don't want to be Hamlet, there's something interesting about him. And it seems like what you're left with is this kind of this satisfying lower internet, global kind of mercantile order, and is longing for the complexities of that prior life.
And that, to me, strikes a very familiar tone where you're like, you're just going about everything is like trade, everything is international, and like everything is kind of boring. And then you read old books and you hear old characters. And you don't want to live that life, that complicated life. You do wish you had a more interesting.
This is why I kept thinking I was drawn back. I should look this up. Again, it's not one-to-one, but this is why I kept thinking about the humanities. It ends with the fall of the house of Atreus, which is really interesting in family, where you learn a lot of political things.
And then what happens, essentially, it's the birth of commercial Athens. Justice is more or less established. Things get settled. Very good.
It's of new gods with the laws, but they don't say that. So the old gods kind of receive either underground or background. I don't know. I think that's too much of a stretch of the parallel, but for some reason, I think the common point would be something like this, that while you want peace, peace is uninteresting.
And the very things that make life really interesting also make it frightening, chaotic, full of debt, etc. That when you have real serious claims that this is the way the world works, it is pagan, his Christian, whatever it is, and you have real commitment to that, you get conflict, internal conflict, and conflict between nations. And that's not great. We want that peace, but the peace comes at a cost.
It reminds me, in a way of that Churchill speech, we did an episode on Mass Effect and Modern Life, which is life is comfortable. Life is good, but the scenery is dull. You kind of want to go back to the lowlands where there were these high peaks. Now we're at a high plateau where everything's flat, but it is technologically elevated.
And that's a trade-off. And it's one that it's hard to want to change, right? You don't want to be Hamlet, but you kind of admire the sort of dynamic sort of tensions in which he lived in that he had to think through and that he failed to think through. He's a character you love, but you never choose his life.
Maybe one last thing is when we mentioned having some guests on. Is that something we should preview? Have we previewed already? Yeah, I think we have, we're going to have Jan Blitzen.
He has a new edition of Hamlet coming out. What's that? Blitzkrieg is that I like to call him, because his wisdom overwhelms us. And his murderous, murderous wisdom.
What? I've learned a lot about Hamlet. I'm looking forward to his edition coming out from St. Augustine's.
We'll tease it now. Whenever that's more readily available, we get our free copies. We're going to have them on to discuss Hamlet. I'm looking forward to that.
I'm looking forward to signing his edition. The Notes is McBeth edition was just fantastic. I mean, we're back. So returning guest from the show, Jan Blitzen and some others, right?
So just in case you thought this Hamlet series is never ending, this is our sixth episode on Hamlet. We're going to do a seven, possibly an eight. Maybe a nine. Who knows?
I don't know. We might murder people, too. I hope the show goes out like Hamlet. I thought, I'm not going to go out murder, but we're going to slowly die.
Maybe we're going to die. Who knows? I'm like, man, David died or Greg died. And then what do you do?
The show has to go on through our home play with my school. And I went generational new thinkery hosts. We have to ask the torch. We have to find the most intelligent to generate men who will carry the show or women who will carry the show.
We'll be holding interviews and auditions, I guess, really at the NPSA in Boston in 24. So anybody wants to go to Greg McBrayer's casting couch? That's that's sight of horrors. Right.
The man can't afford an island like Epstein, but he can't afford a couch. I mean, for a night or two. All right, guys, we got to end this. Anything else?
Anything else to end with on Hamlet? Can I say something about Horatio wanting to commit suicide? It's very strange because you sympathize. I sympathize.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Why are you joking about that, man? Okay.
But he's a kind of stoic, right? A nice sweet preview. He's kind of stoic that Hamlet praises. But I think in the course of his coming to know Hamlet, he comes to love him as a kind of friend.
I think I think one it's easy to pass over Horatio's character development. But I do think it's there. I do think it's Rihanna. I think Hamlet knows this, that there's a kind of bond, but then also Hamlet Horatio can kind of be his voice after death.
But I mean, what does that say about Rachel if he's grown more affectionate? Doesn't that mean that speaking is still there? Yeah, I'm like, Hamlet's losing his mind, right? Yeah, he's putting Packers in people's ears.
That's not right. That's right. That's why he's not a attacker. Well, you know, but in so far as Hamlet wants, you don't have to defend it.
And he got kind of any kind of English. Yeah, he really did. I feel like the rails are getting off of them. The rails are getting off on them.
We're getting off of them. Anything right there. I mean, I don't think I really, I'm not sure that Hamlet ever goes nuts. I think everything is somewhat overly calculated, which might be a kind of Oh, madness in itself.
Yeah, maybe or madness is a little strong, but like some kind of mental inadequacy, not in this part. And maybe there's a kind of madness in completely letting go of reason, and just say I'm just going to go with my guy, which seems to be where he's at, at the end. That said, I think, you know, Hamlet isn't, I think maybe one of the most, if not the most impressive of Shakespeare's characters and his intellect, his punnigability seems to be closest to the poet among his prosperous, a good example. But he is highly poetic and is punnig.
He actually writes poetry and knows how to act much like Shakespeare actor and poet. There's a kind of kinship and and Horatio, maybe a director and director, I should say, maybe Horatio is closer to Shakespeare in that he's also going to be a kind of poet telling the story of Hamlet. And maybe Horatio stands for Shakespeare's own affection for this, this character, this kind of singular character complex and tragic as he might be. There's something not enviable, but compelling to me at least.
Don't forget folks, there's more Hamlet coming your way, but we finished it at least. We hope you've enjoyed it. We hope you've enjoyed it. We hope that you're ready for more episodes and you think because we're not dying anytime soon.
It's very unlikely that all three of us will die anytime soon, which is why the three of us will never ever be seen again in the same time and place, which is why David didn't come to East Lansing. That's why it's going to be one to carry it on. It'll be Greg and myself at a conference right now. It's like the royal family, but you never want to have the act.
That's right. And really, that's our gift to we like to see each other, humanity together, but it's our gift to our listeners, right? Yes. That's how we sacrifice.
We make. Yeah. What if we all got together and I just shot you both and that was like the tragic entity? Listen, no, no, if we're going to do this, we're going to do this with a sword fight where the sword is dipped in poison and I'm on the side drinking a chalice.
I thought if we do, we have a poison on our and then that's how we kill each other. I thought we would have a sexual battle and whoever's led out first from hemorrhaging nobody makes it this far. Do they make it this far? If you make it this far, send us a deal.
Eric Adler. Eric Adler makes it this far. Don't forget to like, rate, subscribe, and put those on. And if you actually do like the show, well, I'll pray for you.