Mojo, The Bard, & Me

Look, whe’r he has not turn’d his colour, and tears in’s eyes.

-Polonius

Hamlet                 Act II, scene ii    Line 517

Hamlet. Will’s longest, and arguably most famous work, and certainly a masterpiece. And yet, it’s a troubling little line to have to deal with today. I’m afraid I’m going to have to give a little context and try to squeeze a bit of meaningfulness out of it.

This play is full of complexities (one of the things that makes it great) and this scene is no exception. For those of you unfamiliar with the play (and if you’re reading this blog that would seem unlikely, nonetheless…), long story short: Hamlet has spoken with his dead father, King Hamlet (two different Hamlets, one a king, one a prince – keep them straight), who has informed Hamlet that he was murdered by Hamlet’s Uncle Claudius. Meanwhile Uncle Claudius, now King Claudius, has married King Hamlet’s widow Gertrude, making Uncle Claudius Hamlet’s stepfather. Hamlet has promised his dead dad, King Hamlet, that he will avenge his murder and spends the rest of the play acting strange and trying to figure out exactly how to carry out this pledge while everyone else tries to figure out what the heck he’s doing. Got it?

So I taught this play when I was doing my student teaching of high school juniors. We had a good time with it (well, I did, and I think some of them might have enjoyed it a little). I used Kenneth Branagh’s movie version a lot (which, by the way, if you’re going to watch a movie version of Hamlet, of which there are many, you can’t do any better than this one. Mel Gibson’s version- not so good, but on the other hand that one does have Ian Holmes playing Polonius, so that’s a plus.), but I don’t remember much about this scene. Anyway, the speaker of today’s Totally Random line is Polonius. He’s an advisor to King Claudius and he’s got a pretty big role in the play until he gets stabbed for hiding behind a bedroom curtain (let that be a lesson to you- never hide behind a bedroom curtain). At this point, well before the bedroom curtain scene, an acting troupe has arrived at the castle and they are reciting, impromptu, a scene for Hamlet and some others. Polonius’s Totally Random line is in reaction to these actors. There, it took two paragraphs, but that should tell you exactly where we are. Does it?

So Polonius is reacting to someone acting out the scene from a play (a play within a play, so to speak). But what’s he saying? I believe he’s impressed with the actor who’s so good that he’s made himself cry. I have to admit that I’m not quite sure what he’s referring to when he says the actor ‘has not turned his colour,’. I’m going to mull on that one and see if something doesn’t strike me during the day. So we’ll see if we can’t finish this fascinating, unprecedented post this evening.

Okay, I forgot that I have a bunch of Hamlet texts and one of them has a full modern day text and according to it the line means Look, he has turned pale and has tears in his eyes.  I was already on board with the tears, but I struggle to get to the ‘turned pale’ part. Oh well. That's okay. let's not be dismayed and just move on for now. The die tells me that tomorrow’s line will come from The Tempest, and that is one play that I know very, very well. So let’s be optimistic that we’ll be getting a good line and a proper discussion, with a somewhat better conclusion, tomorrow.