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- Here Was One
Here Was One
No. 22
Grant Thomas
December 18, 2023
Hamlet
Dear Reader,
Without question, the most influential writer in the history of the English language was William Shakespeare (1564-1616). The poet and playwright wrote roughly 150 sonnets and 40 plays; and, as one of the most popular writers of the Elizabethan era, when modern English became standardized, his influence went beyond theatre and literature. Shakespeare’s work shaped the nascent language itself.
My personal favorite passage from Shakespeare is the following exchange from Romeo and Juliet:
Romeo: If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
Juliet: Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.
Romeo: Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?
Juliet: Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.
Romeo: O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;
They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
Juliet: Saints do not move, though grant for prayers’ sake.
Romeo: Then move not, while my prayer’s effect I take.
This is the first meeting of the two lovers, and Shakespeare ingeniously structures their dialogue in the form of a sonnet—the verse form most associated with love—so that the two literally complete each other’s rhyme.
Background
Shakespeare most famous play is Hamlet (c. 1600). And arguably his most famous bit of writing is the soliloquy that appears in the play’s third act: “To be, or not to be.”
Hamlet follows a Danish prince, Hamlet, who is confronted by a ghost that resembles his father, the late king. The ghost tells Hamlet that his uncle, Claudius, has killed the king in order to seize the throne and marry Gertrude, the queen.
In shock, and unsure of what he’s seen, Hamlet hatches several plans to get to the truth. He feigns madness for a time, and also convinces a troupe of actors to put on a play for Claudius and Gertrude that stages the murder of a king.
In Act III, everyone gathers to watch the play, and, at the king’s death, Claudius abruptly rises and flees—confirming his guilt in Hamlet’s eyes. Armed with this knowledge, however, Hamlet is wracked with indecision about what he should do next.
“To be, or not to be” (from Hamlet)
By William Shakespeare
To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die—to sleep,
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to: 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there's the rub:
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause—there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th'oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of dispriz'd love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th'unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovere'd country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.
What It Offers
Over the last 400 years, scholars have proposed two plausible, but very different, interpretations of Hamlet’s soliloquy. The first and best-known interpretation, rooted more in the text, is that Hamlet is considering whether or not to commit suicide given the awful truth that he’s just uncovered. “To be, or not to be,” translated literally as “to live or not to live” in the face of a cruel world.
The second interpretation is better supported by the play’s context and Hamlet’s character. Rather that contemplating suicide (something that he never considers before or after the passage), Hamlet is instead questioning how to respond to Claudius’s evil act. Should he murder Claudius and throw the kingdom into tumult, or just let things be?
Critics have noted that Hamlet fits within a well-established genre called the “revenge tragedy,” where a protagonist fervently pursues revenge at the cost of their own innocence and often (at the end of the work) their life. Hamlet seems completely self-aware as he confronts this dilemma—in essence, asking himself whether he should pursue the path of violence and murder, or just turn the other cheek.
It’s possible of course that Shakespeare intended the viability of both interpretations. In any event, the genius of the soliloquy is that—in the same text—it allows the reader to consider the question of whether to live, alongside the question of how to live. After all, both are equally essential; and, as long as we live in a fallen world, sailing across the “sea of troubles,” both are equally unavoidable.
*****
What is the meaning of life? That was all—a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with years, the great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead, there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark; here was one.