Maybe it's my mood

[valarltd]

Hamlet? Is a slut.

He's propositioning Ophelia, and then, almost immediately there's this exchange with Guildenstern:

HAMLET
Ay, but sir, 'While the grass grows,'--the proverb is something musty.

(Re-enter Players with recorders)

O, the recorders! let me see one. To withdraw with you:--why do you go about to recover the wind of me, as if you would drive me into a toil?

GUILDENSTERN
O, my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly.

HAMLET
I do not well understand that. Will you play upon this pipe?

GUILDENSTERN
My lord, I cannot.

HAMLET
I pray you.

GUILDENSTERN
Believe me, I cannot.

HAMLET
I do beseech you.

GUILDENSTERN
I know no touch of it, my lord.

HAMLET
'Tis as easy as lying: govern these ventages with your lingers and thumb, give it breath with your
mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music. Look you, these are the stops.

GUILDENSTERN
But these cannot I command to any utterance of harmony; I have not the skill.

HAMLET
Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass: and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ; yet cannot you make it speak. 'Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, yet you cannot play upon me.


Did that whole thing sound like a demand for a blow-job or is it just me?

"and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ"

Comments

[franklymydear.livejournal.com]

Hee! Well, come to think of it, recorders and pipes are totally phallic instruments. And Shakespeare is way more sexual than high school English teachers would have you believe. :)

[tavaran.livejournal.com]

Having studied the sexual connotations in Antony & Cleopatra at school I'd say Shakespeare meant it to sound exactly like a demand for a blow job. Most of his plays are riddled with sex and sauciness. It makes them a lot of fun to study. :D