“Hamlet” and the Thing Part Deux

It harrows me with fear and wonder. Hamlet Act 1 Scene 1.

Act 1. Scene 1 (Continued). The night had become darker than dark. In other words, it was exceedingly dark. Enough to get Barnardo to say, “It sure is dark out here.” There was no doubt about it. Horatio, Marcellus and Barnardo could not see diddly-squat.

Except for the gray ghost of The Thing rising out of the sea. If eyeballs could have popped out, they would have popped out of the three men’s eye sockets. Without knowing it, the three fell face down onto the stone floor. And I am not talking Moe, Larry and Curly here. Horatio, Marcellus and Barnardo didn’t feel the pain of the floor because they were not just scared. They were frightened. You would have been frightened too.

Above them was The Thing, hovering, filling the sky with its grayish white.

You remember Marley in “The Christmas Carol”. It took him something like seven years to screw up his ghostly courage before he got enough gumption to visit Ebenezer Scrooge. Even then, he had to huff and puff to build himself into enough apparition to get Scrooge’s goose to gandering.

When I tell you that This Thing was no Marley, take my word for it. I wasn’t there but I have it on good authority. Horatio came by my place the other night and assured me that This Thing was one whopper of a spectre. I mean, It was a Spectre. And I am not talking the James Bond kind of SPECTRE either. And This Thing was neither shaken nor stirred.

If I had been there that night, I would have been out of there faster than Road Runner outrunning Wiley Cayote. Talk about walking on the water. I would have run across that water and been in Sweden, taking in a spa before you could shake your fist at The Thing and say, “Out, damned spot.”

The Thing, hovering above Horatio, Marcellus and Barnardo, was not large. It was not huge. It was humungus and then some. And the damned Thing moaned. It was not your run-of-the-moan either.

Believe it or not. They say that Lisa moaned when Leonardo asked if he could paint her. “With this nose,” she moaned. Originally Leo called the portrait “Moaning Lisa”. Then it was shortened to “Moan á Lisa”. Once the Louvre got a hold of the painting they weren’t about to have any of this “moaning business”. So they made the name change to “Mona Lisa” so that “Moaning Lisa” has been “Mona Lisa” ever since.

This was not that kind of moan. This was the moaningest moan ever. When folks talk about really bad moaning, this is the moan they are talking about. It was so bad it could make a banshee scream. So you know that was some moaning.

Such was The Thing’s Presence that It could have put the Fear of the Lord into an atheist. Talk about foxhole conversions, this would have been one of them.

For days, the three-bees, Horatio, Marcellus and Barnardo, walked around, white as a sheep. Their buddies snickered, “You been in Ophelia talcum powder, guys?” It was so bad that they wanted to just slap someone. Anyone. Then they remembered The Thing and thought better of it. The Thing might come back and slap them around. Believe you me, when you’ve been slapped by a Thing you’ve been slapped.

So there This Thing hovered above the three men. Shaking in his booties, Horatio took a little peepsy. Well, how ’bout that? he thunk. The bell struck two and the Thing was gone. At least for the time being.

“Hamlet” and The Thing

Now is the winter of our discontent. Richard III Act 1. Scene 1.

Act 1. Scene 1 (Continued). What would you do if you met a ghost? Oh, you don’t believe in ghosts. Neither did Horatio. After all, he had taken enough philosophy to know that he was a materialist. If it didn’t exist in the material world, it didn’t exist. Then he found himself stumbling into the first scene of “Hamlet” and all hell broke loose.

Act One Scene One opens and everybody is identifying themselves. You know the guard post is darker than dark ’cause everybody keeps asking who everybody is.

The guard, Francisco, tells Barnardo, his relief, to unfold himself. Ain’t no way that Barnardo is going to unfold himself. He’ll freeze. Don’t know why Barnardo didn’t say back, “Unfold your own self.” Then give Frenchie the finger.

But he didn’t. He did a long-live-the-king, then everything is A-Okay with Francisco. Just about the time Frenchie leaves, up shows Marcellus, another one of the guards. He’s dragged Horatio, Hamlet’s good bud, out of bed.

Once Barnardo identifies Marcellus and Marcellus identifies Horatio, Barnardo calls Marcellus “good”. How does Barnardo know that Marcellus is good? We are only in the first scene and here Shakespeare is telling us that Marcellus is good. Whatever happened to that writerly dictum, “Show don’t tell.”

If Shakespeare is not careful, Jonathan Franzen will be copying him and that will never do. Oh, that’s right. Franzen already does “tell, don’t show” better than a lot of other writers. After all, he is the twenty-first century’s answer to the question of who is the latest version of the great American novelist.

Why doesn’t Barnardo think Horatio is good? Could it be because Horatio is from out of town, so he’s looked down on by all the Elsinoreans? An Elsinorean, of course, is someone who lives in Elsinore. But you already knew that.

Horatio is poor. He is going to school on the G I Bill. He served with Hamlet’s dad when Dad was the King of Denmark and did a slamdunk on Norway. Horatio was the dead king’s squire and Hamlet’s roommate at Wittenberg University, Marty Luther’s alma mater. Go Lions. Horatio and Hamlet are besties. If he were asked, Horatio would say that he is at Elsinore for the old king’s funeral and the new king’s coronation and wedding.

In this story, Horatio is to the hero, Hamlet, what Nick Carroway was to Gatsby. He knows all the missing parts and he still loves the Ham. He is the one who can tell his friend’s side of things long after he is gone.

Rubbing sleep from his eyes, Horatio wanders why Marcellus dragged him out on a knight like this. And for guard duty, at that. He’d been there done that till he didn’t want to done that no more.

“We saw a thing last night,” Marcellus says.

“A thing?” Horatio asks.

“Yes, a thing,” Barnardo says.

“What kind of thing?” Horatio wants to know.

“You know,” Barnardo says, “a thing.”

“Horatio thinks we’re making this up,” Marcellus says. “But I convinced him it would appear as it has two times before.”

“I don’t know what you guys have been drinking,” Horatio says. “Or smoking, but we’re not going to see a thing tonight.” Horatio has a case of the Missouris. He has to be shown. And shown he shall be.

Then they hear the waves, splashing below, making a ruckus. Out of the darkness of the sea below…

Hamlet: What’s in a Name?

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.
Romeo and Juliet Act 2 Scene 2

Act 1. Scene 1. A changing of the guards at midnight.

I am confused. What were two Italian guys or Spanish doing in an English play, taking place in Denmark? I am talking Francisco and Barnardo.

At least,Will didn’t use Balthasar. Balthasar makes an appearance in quite a bit of his plays. He appeared in four. And Antonio gets around, jumping from play to play. Bianca manages to get in a couple of plays as well. Petruchio was in both “Taming of the Shrew” and “Romeo and Juliet”.

Could Rosaline in “Romeo and Juliet”, the girl Romeo is pining over at the beginning of the play, be Rosalind in “As You Like It” when she was older.

When Barnardo and Francisco are first introduced on sentry duty, I am wondering if I made it to the right play. Maybe “Hamlet” is going to be another “All’s Well That Ends Well” or “As You Like It” set in Italy. True love wins in those plays. Then I see the Ghost and I go, “Big Whoop.” This play is not going to turn out well.

Makes me wonder why Barnardo is not Bernhard or Bernt. It is a popular name. It means “bear” and the character is a bear of a man. He may actually look like a bear. He may even grunt like a bear. He is not the kind of guy you’d take on in a bar fight, but he’d make a great bouncer. Only thing Barnardo doesn’t grunt in “Hamlet”. He talks and shivers in the cold like everybody else. Doesn’t even seem to be the kind who’d want to fight, though he is doing guard duty. Making sure Norway is not sneaking up to attack Elsinore Castle.

You know, Dino is short for Barnardo. Wonder if Dean Martin wasn’t a Barnardo. Guess that wouldn’t have been a good show biz name.

Then there is this Francisco business. The name means that the fellow is from France. Yet there is not one oui or a parlez vous francais in the whole play. Go figure. Wonder why Shakespeare didn’t call him Franz. That would have been the right name for the right place. But Barnardo and Francisco are only the tip of the iceberg.

Next, in steps Horatio and Marcellus into the scene. They have Latin names. Hey, what’s all these foreigners doing guarding the castle? Where the heck are the Denmarkians?

All this leads me to believe that maybe these folks are hired hands. Mercenaries hired by the king to come up to Denmark and help out with the soldiering. After all, Norway’s itching for a fight and the new King of the Danes still has to consolidate his power. It would make sense to hire some boys from way down South.

Ophelia and Laertes are Greek names. Claudius, Polonius and Cornelius, are more Latin folks.Reynaldo, Polonius’ servant, has a Spanish or Portuguese name. All these characters from way down South leads one to believe that Shakespeare still had “Julius Caesar” on his mind.

Only Gertrude, Osric, Voltemand and Fortinbras sound like they should be in a play set in Scandinavia. And of course, Hamlet. Hamlet was a variation on Hamnet. Hamnet was Shakespeare’s eleven-year-old son who had died four years before “Hamlet” was performed.

Back to the Italians. Next thing we know characters with the names Linguini, Lasagna and Calimari will be showing. Speaking of Lasagna, all this writing is making me hungry for some Italian.

But just what is it with the names?