RR
21st August 2006, 02:37 PM
Shakespeare Shaken, not Stirred - 5
- Badri & Prabhu
That night, as promised two scenes ago, (but merely earlier that day in the play) Hamlet decides to lie in wait for his father’s ghost. His friend Horatio and the guard Marcellus, accompany him to the platform outside the castle, where the ghost was since seen.
Say what you will, but waiting for a ghost can be quite a task. There’s to begin with, the odd hour that the spook would choose to makes its appearance, almost invariably the ungodly hours of the night. And if you, like Hamlet, happen to be in Denmark, you had better be well wrapped up for the cold. But the worst thing is that there really is nothing you can do to pass the time! I mean come on, you can read a book while waiting for the train, or busy yourself with window shopping as you await your boarding call, or even play cards with your buddies, but all these somehow seem totally inappropriate when you are waiting for a ghost.
And so, severely hampered in their choices, our three friends resort to that tested and time-honoured tradition: They talk about the weather.
HAMLET: The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.
It could be a biting wind, we agree, but shrewdly? Shewdly??? That is taking anthropomorphisms a bit too far! Not to be left out, Horatio adds,
HORATIO: It is a nipping and an eager air.
And having thus exhausted the limitless possibilities of discussing the weather, one assumes they fell silent, the silence interrupted only by that shrewd and eager, biting and nipping wind.
Hamlet falls back on the next usual question, purely to keep conversation going, we suspect.
Let’s paraphrase.
HAMLET: What’s the time?
HORATIO: It is not yet twelve
Whereupon, HAMLET: No, it has already struck twelve.
HORATIO: If you bloody well knew what the time was, what great need did you have to ask? Anyway, I didn’t hear it strike twelve. This shrewd and eager, biting and nipping wind’s been blowing into my ear, making me near deaf. And it is twelve already, then let’s be prepared, for the ole’ spook takes his constitutional just about now.
Just then there is a great flourish of trumpets and gunfire.
HORATIO: Rather dramatic, eh, your Dad? Nice entry, I must say.
HAMLET: No, you moron, that is not the ghost of my late lamented father; that is the king on one of his late night drinking binges. And mind, my dear uncle and now stepfather doesn’t drink to celebrate; he celebrates every time he drinks. He downs a Rhenish, and has them blow the trumpets and let off the canons, as though it was a big achievement.
HORATIO: Rhine wine? Well, I wouldn’t begrudge him his celebration, if it is Rhine wine that he quaffing! Is that the custom around these parts then, this drinking and celebrating the drink?
The astute reader will no doubt notice the dryness in Horatio’s, no pun intended, spirit. When one has to make do with tonic water to mourn with a friend, the one compelled to mourn, and his friendship with said compeller, both come under considerable strain.
HAMLET: Well, sort of a custom but one that we were better off for not observing! They clepe as drunkards and with swinish phrase/ Soil our addition They call us pigs, Horatio, drunken pigs! And no matter how good you are, how handsome and scholarly (‘getting a little carried away are we’ Horatio smiles), how great your achievements, they spurn you and cast you aside, for this lone defect.
Horatio who would have rather been at the party downstairs, is waiting for a right moment to cut Hamlet off. But as is the lot with the members of the citizenry who happen to be befriended by royal blood, the course is unavailable to him. So, while all the time nodding with a pretence of rapt attention (an act perfected at University) he silently prays for relief. Relief arrives, in phantom form.
HORATIO: Look my lord, here it comes. (whereupon Hamlet’s attention is suitably diverted towards the much awaited party).
HAMLET: Whether you are up to good or no good, you come in such a questionable shape that I should address you.
Quite daring of Hamlet to talk of shape when he himself has been subsisting for the last two weeks on a meagre diet of Ben &Jerry’s to, apparently, overcome paternal loss. But when bull-headedness goes unchecked it supposes itself to be courage and thus Hamlet assaults the shade of his father with a flurry of questions, the pith and substance of that wordy enquiry roughly translating to: “So, what brings you here?”.
Ghosts, as a rule have enjoyed certain rare privileges, springing out of a scared reverence. It is this personal space that affords them the scope to contemplate serious issues of existence (or lack thereof), besides engaging in the interesting hobby of “here a boo, there a boo, everywhere a boo boo”. It took candlelight and reverential invitation to request their presence, chalkwritten alphabets and small change to have even a semblance of a conversation.
Senior Hamlet had not only been denied the reverential distance but had been asked a barrage of questions that he must have weakened his - once again no pun intended- spirit. However in his long career as a father he had learnt to expect the unexpected from his son. So he beckoned so as to furnish the answers in privacy.
Marcellus and Horatio, ever the gossip mongers, would have nothing of that. After waiting in ungodly hours in bitter cold - denying themselves the warmth of Rhenish - the last thing they want is for Hamlet to sneak off and get to know the ghostly secrets, all by himself. They stop Hamlet saying the ghost may harm him.
HAMLET: What have I to fear? I set my life at a pin’s fee
Whereupon, Horatio elaborates on all that he has to fear. The level of detail Horatio goes into it looks like he is an elaborating a secret fantasy.
HORATIO: What do you have to fear? Hmm, well let us see...yon spook might lead you into the river, or tempt you to fall off the edge of the cliff into the thunderous sea below or assume such a horrible form that might drive you stark, raving mad or...
HAMLET: My fate cries out, don’t you see? I’ll make a ghost of him that lets me.
An explanation might be due here. In a comical turn of time, the word ‘Let’, back then, meant prevent. Not allow.
Horatio has been reading a lot of nihilistic Danish poetry and even secretly writing them in the back of his parchment during the Finans thi kongelig folgesvend 101 class. He thinks, let means allow. So he sees a possible “letting Hamlet go” as a liberation from the brutal existence of an eternally repetitive life, and having to put up with Hamlet’s tendency to start verbal blogging without notice. Hamlet Sr would probably afford better company than his sad son. Unfortunately Hamlet meant let as prevent (a move that surprises linguists till date and upset Horatio that date). So he scurries off at once, leaving a surprised Marcellus and Horatio behind, who stay back to discourse on Hamlet’s madness.
HORATIO: He waxes desperate with imagination.
MARCELLUS: It was your desperate imagination, really. You went on and on with that list of all the terrible things that could happen to him. It doesn’t take much to unhinge our Prince Hamlet, I tell you. We must follow him.
HORATIO: To what effect, old chap? Methinks it’d be a better thing to do if we went back down instead. There may be some of the Rhenish still remaining.
MARCELLUS: Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
HORATIO: Now, now, it is not all that bad. The old king’s come back as a ghost, the new king celebrates every time he downs a drink and our boy prince is gone nutters, that’s all. Nothing that heaven cannot take care of, in time.
MARCELLUS: No, Lord Horatio, I for one, am not willing to leave it all in Heaven’s hands. I want a fair share of contributing to the rottenness of Denmark. Come, let us follow him.
[tscii:fc102f8adc][/tscii:fc102f8adc]
- Badri & Prabhu
That night, as promised two scenes ago, (but merely earlier that day in the play) Hamlet decides to lie in wait for his father’s ghost. His friend Horatio and the guard Marcellus, accompany him to the platform outside the castle, where the ghost was since seen.
Say what you will, but waiting for a ghost can be quite a task. There’s to begin with, the odd hour that the spook would choose to makes its appearance, almost invariably the ungodly hours of the night. And if you, like Hamlet, happen to be in Denmark, you had better be well wrapped up for the cold. But the worst thing is that there really is nothing you can do to pass the time! I mean come on, you can read a book while waiting for the train, or busy yourself with window shopping as you await your boarding call, or even play cards with your buddies, but all these somehow seem totally inappropriate when you are waiting for a ghost.
And so, severely hampered in their choices, our three friends resort to that tested and time-honoured tradition: They talk about the weather.
HAMLET: The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.
It could be a biting wind, we agree, but shrewdly? Shewdly??? That is taking anthropomorphisms a bit too far! Not to be left out, Horatio adds,
HORATIO: It is a nipping and an eager air.
And having thus exhausted the limitless possibilities of discussing the weather, one assumes they fell silent, the silence interrupted only by that shrewd and eager, biting and nipping wind.
Hamlet falls back on the next usual question, purely to keep conversation going, we suspect.
Let’s paraphrase.
HAMLET: What’s the time?
HORATIO: It is not yet twelve
Whereupon, HAMLET: No, it has already struck twelve.
HORATIO: If you bloody well knew what the time was, what great need did you have to ask? Anyway, I didn’t hear it strike twelve. This shrewd and eager, biting and nipping wind’s been blowing into my ear, making me near deaf. And it is twelve already, then let’s be prepared, for the ole’ spook takes his constitutional just about now.
Just then there is a great flourish of trumpets and gunfire.
HORATIO: Rather dramatic, eh, your Dad? Nice entry, I must say.
HAMLET: No, you moron, that is not the ghost of my late lamented father; that is the king on one of his late night drinking binges. And mind, my dear uncle and now stepfather doesn’t drink to celebrate; he celebrates every time he drinks. He downs a Rhenish, and has them blow the trumpets and let off the canons, as though it was a big achievement.
HORATIO: Rhine wine? Well, I wouldn’t begrudge him his celebration, if it is Rhine wine that he quaffing! Is that the custom around these parts then, this drinking and celebrating the drink?
The astute reader will no doubt notice the dryness in Horatio’s, no pun intended, spirit. When one has to make do with tonic water to mourn with a friend, the one compelled to mourn, and his friendship with said compeller, both come under considerable strain.
HAMLET: Well, sort of a custom but one that we were better off for not observing! They clepe as drunkards and with swinish phrase/ Soil our addition They call us pigs, Horatio, drunken pigs! And no matter how good you are, how handsome and scholarly (‘getting a little carried away are we’ Horatio smiles), how great your achievements, they spurn you and cast you aside, for this lone defect.
Horatio who would have rather been at the party downstairs, is waiting for a right moment to cut Hamlet off. But as is the lot with the members of the citizenry who happen to be befriended by royal blood, the course is unavailable to him. So, while all the time nodding with a pretence of rapt attention (an act perfected at University) he silently prays for relief. Relief arrives, in phantom form.
HORATIO: Look my lord, here it comes. (whereupon Hamlet’s attention is suitably diverted towards the much awaited party).
HAMLET: Whether you are up to good or no good, you come in such a questionable shape that I should address you.
Quite daring of Hamlet to talk of shape when he himself has been subsisting for the last two weeks on a meagre diet of Ben &Jerry’s to, apparently, overcome paternal loss. But when bull-headedness goes unchecked it supposes itself to be courage and thus Hamlet assaults the shade of his father with a flurry of questions, the pith and substance of that wordy enquiry roughly translating to: “So, what brings you here?”.
Ghosts, as a rule have enjoyed certain rare privileges, springing out of a scared reverence. It is this personal space that affords them the scope to contemplate serious issues of existence (or lack thereof), besides engaging in the interesting hobby of “here a boo, there a boo, everywhere a boo boo”. It took candlelight and reverential invitation to request their presence, chalkwritten alphabets and small change to have even a semblance of a conversation.
Senior Hamlet had not only been denied the reverential distance but had been asked a barrage of questions that he must have weakened his - once again no pun intended- spirit. However in his long career as a father he had learnt to expect the unexpected from his son. So he beckoned so as to furnish the answers in privacy.
Marcellus and Horatio, ever the gossip mongers, would have nothing of that. After waiting in ungodly hours in bitter cold - denying themselves the warmth of Rhenish - the last thing they want is for Hamlet to sneak off and get to know the ghostly secrets, all by himself. They stop Hamlet saying the ghost may harm him.
HAMLET: What have I to fear? I set my life at a pin’s fee
Whereupon, Horatio elaborates on all that he has to fear. The level of detail Horatio goes into it looks like he is an elaborating a secret fantasy.
HORATIO: What do you have to fear? Hmm, well let us see...yon spook might lead you into the river, or tempt you to fall off the edge of the cliff into the thunderous sea below or assume such a horrible form that might drive you stark, raving mad or...
HAMLET: My fate cries out, don’t you see? I’ll make a ghost of him that lets me.
An explanation might be due here. In a comical turn of time, the word ‘Let’, back then, meant prevent. Not allow.
Horatio has been reading a lot of nihilistic Danish poetry and even secretly writing them in the back of his parchment during the Finans thi kongelig folgesvend 101 class. He thinks, let means allow. So he sees a possible “letting Hamlet go” as a liberation from the brutal existence of an eternally repetitive life, and having to put up with Hamlet’s tendency to start verbal blogging without notice. Hamlet Sr would probably afford better company than his sad son. Unfortunately Hamlet meant let as prevent (a move that surprises linguists till date and upset Horatio that date). So he scurries off at once, leaving a surprised Marcellus and Horatio behind, who stay back to discourse on Hamlet’s madness.
HORATIO: He waxes desperate with imagination.
MARCELLUS: It was your desperate imagination, really. You went on and on with that list of all the terrible things that could happen to him. It doesn’t take much to unhinge our Prince Hamlet, I tell you. We must follow him.
HORATIO: To what effect, old chap? Methinks it’d be a better thing to do if we went back down instead. There may be some of the Rhenish still remaining.
MARCELLUS: Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
HORATIO: Now, now, it is not all that bad. The old king’s come back as a ghost, the new king celebrates every time he downs a drink and our boy prince is gone nutters, that’s all. Nothing that heaven cannot take care of, in time.
MARCELLUS: No, Lord Horatio, I for one, am not willing to leave it all in Heaven’s hands. I want a fair share of contributing to the rottenness of Denmark. Come, let us follow him.
[tscii:fc102f8adc][/tscii:fc102f8adc]