How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare (36 page)

From whence no passenger ever returned
.

Heminges and Condell’s mission, as advertised on their title page, was to present all of Shakespeare’s plays “Published according to the True Originall Copies.” In their introduction to the volume, they wrote that they wished that the author himself had lived “to have set forth and overseen his own writings,” but since he did not, it fell to his friends, “the office of their care, and pain, to have collected and published them.” Later scholarship has shown that Heminges and Condell did indeed go to great pains to ensure that the plays as printed in the First Folio were accurate. They based some texts on Shakespeare’s original manuscripts or on transcripts of those manuscripts; they based others on manuscripts used in the theater; and many were based on “good quarto” printings. Thus—and it is worth reiterating—it is thanks to Heminges and Condell that we have eighteen Shakespeare plays that we would not otherwise have at all; and we also have several additional plays that would not otherwise have been preserved for posterity in reliable form.

Your children should also understand that it was not self-evident that someone would print Shakespeare’s complete plays either during his lifetime or soon after his death. The First Folio marks the first time anyone ever took the trouble to publish the complete plays of a contemporary author, and it attests to the esteem in which Shakespeare was held in his own day. (The closest equivalent at the time was Ben Jonson, who self-published his own
Works
in 1616.) It is now believed that only about 750 copies of the First Folio were printed, and of them, about 240 survive. Over one-third of these copies are held by the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. (of which I am a trustee), and you can go into the Exhibition Hall of the Folger Library any day of the week and see a First Folio on display. You can even turn the pages electronically on a screen above the book.

One Last Frightening Anecdote

In addition to our gratitude to Heminges and Condell, we should all be thankful that the fire that destroyed the Globe Theatre in 1613 took place during a performance. As David and Ben Crystal point out in their inspired book
The Shakespeare Miscellany
, because the Globe burned down during a performance, it was possible to save many of the company’s assets,
which almost certainly included many Shakespeare scripts that were later used as sources for the First Folio. No such luck attended the Fortune Theatre (despite its name): It also burned down—in 1621—but it did so at midnight, when no one was around to help save what was in it. As a consequence, all its contents were destroyed. My heart skips a beat just thinking about it.

Passage 20
What a Piece of Work Is a Man

I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises, and, indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof, fretted with golden fire—why, it appeareth nothing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors
.

What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable; in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god: the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals—and yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?

(
Hamlet
, Act II, Scene 2, lines 318–32)

H
amlet
could well be the greatest play ever written, just as everyone says it is. It is a ghost story, a mystery, and a thriller, filled with murders, revenge, poison, a war, a troupe of actors, a play-within-a-play, love, madness, suicide, pirates, a funeral, and a final duel that leaves the stage strewn with dead bodies. Is there any child who wouldn’t want to be part of this world for a few hours? I can’t imagine it.

The passage that we’re about to memorize is delivered by Hamlet to two of his friends (though they turn out to be less than friends), Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. It occurs about a third of the way through the play, and at this point in the action Hamlet is in torment. His father, the King of Denmark, has died suddenly, and his mother, Gertrude, has married his uncle Claudius with unseemly speed. Hamlet blames his mother for her lust and disloyalty to his father, and he is in mental agony over these feelings. And then there’s the Ghost.

The play opens with a ghost, the Ghost of Hamlet’s Father, haunting the battlements of Elsinore Castle, seeking revenge. When Hamlet meets the Ghost, the Ghost tells him that Claudius, the Ghost’s own brother, murdered him in order to seize the throne.

The two scenes where the Ghost confronts Hamlet at night on the battlements and exhorts his son to
revenge his foul and most unnatural murder
—Act I, Scenes 4 and 5—are two of the most exciting scenes in all of literature, and I urge you to sit and read them with your children from beginning to end. If that seems too daunting (depending on the age of your children), describe the scenes and read them some of the best passages aloud. For example: In Scene 4, when Hamlet sees the Ghost for the first time, he cries:

Angels and ministers of grace, defend us!

Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damned
,

Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell
,

Be thy intents wicked or charitable
,

Thou com’st in such a questionable shape

That I will speak to thee. I’ll call thee “Hamlet,”

“King,” “Father,” “Royal Dane.” O, answer me!

Angels and ministers of grace, defend us!
Ask your daughter to imagine seeing a real-life ghost taking shape in front of her. How would she react? Would she fall backward? Gasp? Find it hard to breathe? Would she then cry out:

Angels and ministers of grace, defend us!

What a glorious cry of terror and wonder. Have your daughter enact the whole speech, ending with the cry:

“King,” “Father,” “Royal Dane.” O, answer me!

A moment later the Ghost beckons Hamlet to follow him to another part of the castle. Hamlet’s friends try to hold him back out of fear for his safety. Split up the parts, and let your son play Hamlet:
MARCELLUS

You shall not go, my lord
.

HAMLET

Hold off your hands!

HORATIO

Be ruled. You shall not go
.

HAMLET

My fate cries out

And makes each petty arture
[artery]
in this body

As hardy
[strong]
as the Nemean Lion’s nerve
.

Still am I called. Unhand me gentlemen
.

By heaven, I’ll make a ghost of him that lets me
[tries to stop me]!

I say, away!—

[to Ghost:]

Go on. I’ll follow thee
.

(Ghost and Hamlet exit.)

Don’t fail to point out how Shakespeare uses a pun, even at this moment of high emotion:
I’ll make a ghost of him that lets me!
It is characteristic of Shakespeare to play games with language in the most unexpected places.

When the Ghost and Hamlet are alone together (in Scene 5), the Ghost explains himself, his voice deep with wretchedness. This time have your child play the Ghost:
GHOST

I am thy father’s spirit
,

Doomed for a certain term
[period]
to walk the night

And for the day confined to fast in fires

Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
[time of living]

Are burnt and purged away.…

If thou didst ever thy dear father love—

HAMLET

O God!

GHOST

Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder
.

HAMLET

Murder?

GHOST

Murder most foul…

The Ghost then explains to Hamlet that everyone thinks he died in his orchard from being stung by a serpent, but the truth is that Claudius killed him by pouring poison into his ear. Again, your child should play the Ghost.

GHOST

But know, thou noble youth
,

The serpent that did sting thy father’s life
[kill thy father]

Now wears his crown
.

HAMLET

O, my prophetic soul! My uncle!

GHOST

Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast
,

…won to his shameful lust

The will of my most seeming-virtuous queen
.

O Hamlet, what a falling off was there!

The Ghost fills Hamlet’s ear with the details of his own murder the way Claudius filled King Hamlet’s ear with poison. This paradox underscores an important question: Is the Ghost lying or telling the truth? Are his words reliable or poisonous? This is something that Hamlet will spend the next two acts of the play trying to find out.

At the end of Scene 5, the morning light begins to dawn:
GHOST

Fare thee well at once
.

The glowworm shows the matin
[morning]
to be near…

Adieu, adieu, adieu. Remember me
.

(He exits.)

HAMLET

O all you host of heaven! O earth! What else?

…Remember thee?

Yea, from the table
[tablet]
of my memory

I’ll wipe away all trivial, fond records,…

O most pernicious woman!
[his mother]

O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!
[his uncle]

…That one may smile and smile and be a villain
.

From this point on in the story, Hamlet’s actions become quirky and unsettling. One of the interesting questions of the play is whether Hamlet is merely pretending to be mad or is, in fact, going mad with grief. The first we hear of his madness is in the very next scene, Act II, Scene 1, when Ophelia, a young woman at court, tells of a frightening occurrence. She has just had a visit from Hamlet, and she reports the encounter to her meddlesome father, Polonius, who is the King’s chief counselor. Have your son or daughter recite Ophelia’s speech aloud:
OPHELIA