3/10/08
Ophelia: "What means your lordship?"
Hamlet: "That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty" (lines 105 - 107)
Shakespeare's use of puns creates several meanings to these small lines. Ophelia could simply be saying "What do you mean?", "What are you talking about" or "What does your position of power mean to you?"
Honest on the footnote means chaste, which means morally pure or abstaining from sexual acts. However, honest could mean something else in this context. Honest could mean truthful, and Hamlet could be trying to pry the truth from Ophelia, therefore, he could know that she is being dishonest by working with Polonius and Claudius.
Chaste = Virginity = Artemis Goddess of the moon = Lunacy
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
The Hamlet notebook was my best work notebook wise. I felt that I pinpointed many topics of interest and it helped my anaylze the symbols and language in "Hamlet" more efficiently.
Post a Comment