Hamlet Solved #7

In my last post (Hamlet Solved #6) I wrote about how the very first lines that Hamlet speaks in the play are explosive.

Shakespeare wasted no time in giving Hamlet some of his most incendiary lines, that are loaded with meaning.

Shakespeare also wastes no time in giving Hamlet his very first soliloquy--and it is even more combustible.

This speech begins with a word that has confused Shakespeare scholars for centuries.

I will present to you an elegant solution. For the first time in history, this mystery has a plausible and logical answer.

About 130 lines into the scene, Hamlet is left all alone. Here are the first four lines of his long soliloquy:

HAMLET

Oh, that this too, too solid flesh would melt,

Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew,

Or that the Everlasting had not fixed

His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter!

This can be translated as:

Oh, if only my body would melt and thaw, and become a dew--or if only God had not forbidden suicide.

Hamlet is saying that he wants to evaporate, which is to say that he wants to die. Or, if God had not prohibited suicide, he would kill himself.

There is much more to this soliloquy. Hamlet goes on to complain about his uncle, Claudius. He even compares him to a beastly satyr.

There is a question about the word solid. This is such a strange choice of word. Why does he refer to his flesh at all, and to how solid or firm it is?

In other texts of the play, the word is printed as sullied, or as sallied.

So which is it--solid, sullied, or sallied?

Is Hamlet's flesh too solid meaning hard, or too sullied meaning soiled?

Or is his flesh sallied--which suggests that he has been attacked or assaulted?

What is Shakespeare really trying to say?

As we have seen in my last post, Hamlet plays with words. It is perhaps the most important and defining characteristic of this, Shakespeare's most famous character.

Shakespeare constantly has Hamlet using words that contain multiple meanings, precisely in order to force us to interpret his meaning.

In the case of solid/sullied/sallied--it is quite possible that Shakespeare wanted to make his audience think of all three words. After all, this line of dialogue is meant to be spoken on stage, where it might be heard in different ways.

But--I have a new and radical theory for what solid/sullied/sallied really means.

In his very first lines of the play, which I wrote about in the last post, Hamlet is very upset that he himself is not the King of Denmark. It would seem that Claudius stole or usurped the throne from Hamlet.

Hamlet knows that Claudius is not the rightful king.

Much later in the play, Hamlet come across Claudius all alone in prayer. Hamlet wants to kill Claudius, but then decides that he should not.

This resembles an incident the Bible. King Saul was in a cave, and David had a chance to kill him, but decided not to.

Saul had been hunting after David, to kill him--which resembles how Claudius conspires to kill Hamlet.

David had been anointed to be the next King of Israel, after Saul. It is possible that David believed that Saul was not the rightful king.

In other words, throughout the Hamlet play, Shakespeare is creating a story where Hamlet resembles David, and Claudius resembles Saul.

There are a great many reasons why Shakespeare would do this--but suffice to say that the David and Saul story makes the meaning of the word solid or sullied or sallied clearer.

When Hamlet says this line, he is making a pun. He is saying that he is like David who has been hunted and attacked and assaulted by King Saul.

What Hamlet is saying is that he feels Saul-ed.

Hamlet is saying that Claudius has mistreated him, and this has transformed his fleshly body.

This would help to explain the other odd word Shakespeare uses in the second line--resolve.

It could be considered re-Saul-ve.

Hamlet is saying that the transformation of his fleshly body reduces him to nothing more than water.

Before his father died, Prince Hamlet was likely a happy and contented young man. After his father died, and after his uncle seized the throne, Hamlet is mistreated by Claudius, and this makes him desire death.

Hamlet is saying that he has been transformed into a David, by Claudius who is very much like a Saul. And this transformation has hurt him so much, he wants to die.

Saul famously threw spears at David, to kill him. Hamlet is perhaps implying that every time he is in the presence of Claudius, he is fearful for his life--and that every word that Claudius speaks to him is like a spear thrown at him.

Or in other words--Hamlet knows that Claudius is a threat to him, and that he is a threat to Claudius. This is very similar to how Saul felt threatened by David who felt threatened by Saul.

Hamlet hates his uncle, and says bad things about him. Hamlet does not know that his father was murdered by Claudius. In murdering Hamlet's father, Claudius has also murdered Hamlet. He has destroyed Hamlet's spirit, his peace of mind, his sense of security, his will to live.

Over the course of the play, Shakespeare continues to refer to the David and Saul story.

But in the very first line of the very first soliloquy, Shakespeare found a very creative way for Hamlet tell us that Claudius is as bad as Saul.

In his first appearance on stage, Hamlet makes puns with the words kin and kind, sun and son, solid and Saul-ed, and resolve and re-Saul-ve.

He is telling the audience that this a battle royal--and these explosive verbal puns are his opening salvo.

He is saying that he is in the greatest fight of his life--a fight that is so important and so monumental, it is biblical.

It almost does not matter whether the word is solid or sullied or sallied.

No matter which word is spoken on stage, the effect is to make the word sound like "Saul-ed."

Shakespeare does not end there. In the next act, Polonius sends Reynaldo to go and spy on his son, Laertes. He tells him to spread rumors about his son--"slight sullies" as he calls them.

Polonius says that he wants everyone to know that Laertes is "a little soiled"--a little disreputable, dishonest, etc.

Sullies and Saul-lies. Soiled and Saul-ed.

What Shakespeare is doing is creating a theme, regarding King Saul, and how he treated David.

Claudius has no children of his own, that we know of. He treats Hamlet like his son, and this treatment is so bad, and so damaging--that Hamlet wants to die.

Polonius has a son and a daughter. He is a terrible father. By the end of the play, all three of them are dead.

Shakespeare is saying something to the effect that fathers--which includes father-figures, and people in authority--can and do mistreat their own sons, or children, or their subjects.

He is likely saying that if a family wants to stay healthy, then the parents and the children should not mistreat each other like this.

This is also true of rulers and their subjects. If a nation is to be healthy, the rulers and the people should not mistreat each other.

King Lear mistreats his children. Two of them turn evil, and conspire against him. He banishes the only good daughter. So this theme is not only found in the Hamlet play.

This is not the first and only time that Shakespeare concealed or embedded a word or a name, in his plays and poems. Shakespeare was constantly playing with language, and attempting to communicate to us through such puns and wordplay.

One of the biggest reasons why he did this was because of religion. Shakespeare was not permitted to write religious plays. They were banned in his lifetime.

For a great many reasons, he chose to draw overt and covert parallels to David and Saul, with his Hamlet play.

This is at the heart of my series of novels, which explores Shakespeare's faith, and how the Word of God, as written in the Bible, is found everywhere in his plays and poems.

In the next post I will write, I will explain why Shakespeare uses the words melt, and dew in the same soliloquy.

I'll give you a hint. Shakespeare was referring to the Psalms--written by David.

Cheers,