The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 20.0297 Tuesday, 9 June 2009
From: Alan Pierpoint <
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Date: Saturday, 06 Jun 2009 02:46:38 -0400
Subject: 20.0289 What ho, Horatio
Comment: Re: SHK 20.0289 What ho, Horatio
The point about Horatio not telling Hamlet about Ophelia's death,
attributed to me but made by another contributor to the list, is
perplexing. It's hard to see how Horatio, mister information in Act I,
would not know of Ophelia's death. Did he lack the courage to be the
bearer of bad news? Neither explanation is convincing. Plot hole?
Anyway, I'm puzzled by Conrad Cook's statement that the king and queen
don't know about the relationship between Hamlet and Ophelia. Gertrude's
"Sweets to the sweet" speech in V.i expresses, I think sincerely, the
hope she once had of having Ophelia for a daughter-in-law, and her lack
of surprise when Polonius shows them Hamlet's love letter way back in
Act II suggests, to me anyway, a knowledge of the relationship that
predates the events of the play. Laertes and Polonius certainly know
about it in Act I; wouldn't the whole court know by the end of Act IV?
Regarding the snakebite story: Europe's adders being timid little
things, the possibility of one biting and killing a healthy king as he
slept would be exactly zero. But even if Denmark had been crawling with
king cobras, regicide, or threat of same, was common enough back then to
make the story suspicious; the point being that the audience of the
Mousetrap would have every reason to be predisposed to see guilt in
Claudius's reaction. Shakespeare plainly expected HIS audience to see it
that way. Remember, too, that after the Mousetrap and the death of
Polonius, in the time it took a man to get from Wittenberg to Elsinore,
Claudius had a full revolt on his hands. The peasantry was prepared to
replace its king with the son of a government minister. Can't we infer
that the whole country "knew" that it had a usurper on the throne?
-Alan Pierpoint
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