Hamlet: Act 3, Scene II

[cesario]

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First Act:
Scene I: The Crazy Occult Forays of Marcellus and Horatio.
Scene II: Claudius is the villain, but he's still hotter than you.
Scene III: Ophelia's virginity is a national treasure. Just ask her dad and brother.
Scene IV: That a ghoooooooooost?
Scene V: "'Who's your daddy?' Now that's just inappropriate."

Second Act:

Comments

[corbistheca]

Maybe I've just got a very dirty mind, but when Hamlet started in on Guildenstern about playing him like a recorder, I went "Wait a minute, is he actually saying 'if you're going to mess with me like that, might as well give me a blowjob'?" And then I wondered if Horatio was still in earshot, and what HE thought of all that. Considering how a little earlier Hamlet got so carried away with how he wants to LICK Horatio that he utterly forgot about the whole plot-to-catch-the-King for about fifteen lines.

On a less mind-in-the-gutter note -- perhaps it's only because I just read emilyray's take on the previous scene, but I was really seeing Ophelia here as playing along with Hamlet much more than she's itching to slap him. She's chastising him a little bit, here and there -- "you are as good as a chorus, my lord" i.e. shut the fuck up, you're being incredibly obvious -- but mostly I read her "ay, my lord" and "no, my lord"s as putting on yet another little show for the surrounding crowd, particularly Polonius who you know (and Ophelia certainly knows) is watching. She's quite possibly annoyed with Hamlet, but if she was really fed up with him and not performing for anyone else, do you think she'd throw him lines to react to like "what means this, my lord?" and "belike this show imports the argument of the play." I think she's too smart to say those lines just for the sake of saying them, especially if she's pissed off at Hamlet. In fact, her pointing out "the King rises" makes me wonder if she's rather in on the plot of the Mousetrap plot -- not that Hamlet and Horatio told her about it, but that it's so incredibly self-evident that she can't help but pick up on what's going on (though Polonius, of course, doesn't, and so can go on talking about clouds and hiding in Gertrude's closet without the slightest sense of impending DOOM) -- and is saying "HEY, LOOK, HE'S ONTO YOU" as an attempt to warn Hamlet that his "trap" worked a little too well...
And "I think nothing, my lord" has SUCH a bite to it. Every time she says it, or something like it, it's really "You all underestimate me."

~ c.

[cesario]

Well, it's certainly true that Ophelia is aware she's being observed, just as during their last conversation only now she doesn't have to pretend. I agree that's certainly going to influence how she chooses to speak.