Episode 178: Much Ado About Hamlet

Welcome to the History of English Podcast, a podcast about the history of the English language.

This is episode 178, Much Ado About Hamlet.

As that title indicates, we'll be exploring a few more Shakespeare plays in this episode as we start to dig into the first few years of the 1600s.

Specifically, we'll look at a group of plays that are generally dated to the years 1600 to 1601.

As we've seen, it's a little difficult to date some of these plays, but what's fascinating about these works is how many of the passages linger in the English language to this day.

We use words and phrases and idioms from these plays all the time without even realizing it.

And in fact, Hamlet has contributed more common idioms and phrases to the English language than any other play that Shakespeare wrote.

Almost every scene gives us an expression or line that we hear all the time.

So this time, I'll take you through those plays as we trace out other important developments that took place in the first couple of years of the 1600s.

But before we begin, let me remind you that the website for the podcast is historyofenglishpodcast.com, and you can sign up to support the podcast and get bonus episodes at patreon.com/slash historyofenglish.

Now, last time, in our chronological look at the history of English, we finally wrapped up our look at the 1500s.

The Globe Theater had opened in the spring of 1599, and we looked at a couple of Shakespeare's plays that were likely performed for the first time in the weeks that followed that grand opening.

Those plays were Henry V and Julius Caesar.

Now Shakespeare's plays were primarily intended for performance in front of an audience, but some of them were also published.

The publication of a play created an additional source of revenue for the playwright or the acting company, and it made the play available for anyone who wanted to read it in their free time.

But before any work could be published, it had to be registered with the guild that regulated printers at the time.

That was the Stationers Company of London, and that guild maintained a register for all works that were intended to be published.

That register was called the Stationers Register, and it's an extremely valuable resource for scholars of the 1500s and 1600s.

And for many of the important works of literature during this period, it's the only evidence available to determine when they were composed.

And that's the case for a couple of Shakespeare's plays that are mentioned for the first time in the register in August of 1600.

An entry in the register for August 4th indicates that three plays were, quote, to be stayed, end quote.

That meant that the right to publish the material was disputed or uncertain, and therefore the publications were blocked until the issues could be resolved.

One of the plays mentioned was Henry V, which we discussed last time.

The other two plays were Much Ado About Nothing and As You Like It.

Despite that initial block, the rights to Much Ado About Nothing were soon cleared, and a quarto of that play appeared later that year.

The other play, As You Like It, was never published during Shakespeare's lifetime.

It didn't appear until the first folio of Shakespeare's works was published after his death.

But thanks to this entry in 1600, we know that it existed at that time, along with Much Ado About Nothing.

So I want to begin this episode with a quick look at those two plays.

They were both comedies, and since Much Ado About Nothing was actually published in the year 1600, let's look at it first.

It's still a popular play, and acting companies regularly present it on stages around the world to this day, but it hasn't had much of an impact on the English language.

We do find a few words recorded for the first time in the play, but overall its influence is limited.

For that reason I'm not going to spend a lot of time on it here, but there are some things you should know about it.

First of all, the play is set in the city of Messina in Sicily, so this reflects Shakespeare's general fascination with Italy and Sicily.

The main plot focuses on a young nobleman and warrior named Claudio, who is in love with the daughter of the local governor.

Her name is Hero.

Now, Claudio has just returned from battle with his commander named Don Pedro.

And when Don Pedro realizes that Claudio is interested in the governor's daughter, he agrees to help his young companion make the connection with her.

Claudio and Hero then meet, they fall in love, and they plan to marry pretty much instantly.

The antagonist of the story is Don Pedro's jealous and resentful brother named Don John.

He decides to sabotage the marriage plans.

He arranges for his associate named Barraccio to engage in a deception where he appears to seduce Claudio's fiancée Hero, but in reality it isn't Hero.

It's actually her lady-in-waiting dressed in disguise.

The deception is intentionally carried out where Claudio and Don Pedro can witness it, so as a result of this sinister plot, Claudio thinks his fiancée has cheated on him with another man.

The play then introduces one of the most popular characters in the play, and certainly the character that's of the most interest to language historians.

He's a constable named Dogberry.

He and his associate Virgis direct a couple of watchmen to keep an eye out for anyone breaking the law.

Now the reason why Dogberry and Virgis are of interest to scholars is because he constantly speaks in malapropisms.

As As you might recall, a malopropism is the mistaken substitution of one word for another word.

It usually happens when a person tries to use big fancy words, especially when the person uses words that he or she doesn't really understand.

In comedy, it's used as a technique to indicate that the speaker is a bit dim-witted.

We've seen Shakespeare use this technique in earlier plays, but the most well-known example from his plays is Dogberry because he makes these verbal mistakes in almost every passage.

Now the word malapropism is derived from the name of a character in a play from the mid-1700s called The Rivals.

The character's name was Mrs.

Malaprop, and she routinely made these verbal mistakes.

So in the 1800s, people started to refer to these mistakes as malapropisms.

But at the same time, some people called them dogberryisms, based on this old Shakespeare play, because Dogberry was one of the most famous characters to speak in that way prior to the creation of Mrs.

Maliprop.

So both terms were common at one time, but malapropism gradually won out.

Now, with respect to Dogberry, we have several passages where he uses malapropisms.

For example, he tells one of his associates, quote, This is your charge, you shall comprehend all vagrum men, end quote.

So, comprehend all vagrum men rather than apprehend all vagrant men.

Before leaving his watchman, he says, Adieu, be vigitant, instead of be vigilant.

Now, after Dogberry leaves, the watchmen overhear the person who framed the governor's daughter confess to the plot while having a conversation with a friend.

The watchmen also speak in malapropisms.

One of them says that they should call up Dogberry to tell him what they just heard.

The watchman says, quote, We have here recovered the most dangerous piece of lechery that was ever known in the Commonwealth.

So they recovered lechery rather than discovered treachery.

Now, after Dogberry is informed about the plot, he approaches the governor himself.

Dogberry says to the governor,

Sir, I would have some confidence with you that discerns you nearly.

Of course he means to say that he wants to have a conference to discuss a matter that concerns him, not a confidence to discuss a matter that discerns him.

Dogberry adds, quote, Our watch, sir, has indeed comprehended two auspicious persons, end quote.

So they comprehended two auspicious persons rather than apprehended two suspicious persons.

But as Dogberry speaks, the governor is impatient and eager to get to his daughter's wedding, which is about to take place.

Dogberry and his associate Virgis speak over each other and fail to get to the point, so they're never really able to convey the deception that they've uncovered.

At the wedding ceremony, Claudio has been deceived by the plot and thinks his fiancée, the governor's daughter, has been unfaithful to him, so at the altar he refuses to marry her, and, in despair, she faints.

Of course, in the end, the deception is revealed and the daughter's honor is restored, and she and Claudio are reconciled and do in fact get married.

Now that's a simplified version of the story, and as I noted, Much Ado About Nothing remains a popular play to this day.

In terms of the play's impact on the English language, as I noted, it's somewhat limited.

The most obvious phrase from the play is its title, Much Ado About Nothing.

You might assume that this is where that phrase came from, but it's not that simple.

The Oxford English Dictionary cites uses of the phrase Much Ado About Nothing a few decades before this play was composed, so it isn't a phrase that Shakespeare invented.

But having said that, there's little doubt that our modern use of that phrase was influenced by the popularity of this play and the fact that it's the actual title of the play.

It's probably why the phrase has endured so long in the language.

In fact, it's one of the few situations where we still use that old word ado.

We also use it in the phrase without further ado, but beyond that, the word isn't really that common anymore.

Beyond the title, which has lingered in the language, we find a few words recorded for the first time in the play, like the word unmitigated, a variation of the existing word mitigate.

The play also contains the term candle waster, which meant a person who wasted candles by studying late at night, but obviously that term hasn't really survived.

We also find very early uses of words like employer and negotiate, though not actually the first uses of those words.

Now, as I noted earlier, in August of 1600, the Stationers Register in London referenced this particular play, much to about nothing, and it also mentioned that other play called As You Like It.

It's another comedy, and in fact, many people consider it to be Shakespeare's happiest and most joyous play.

The plot is based on a story composed by the English writer Thomas Lodge called Rosalind.

Rosalind had been published about a decade earlier, and at some point around 1599 it appears that Shakespeare composed his version of the story.

Again, the first actual reference to the play is in the Stationer's Register in August of 1600.

The play is a pastoral comedy, meaning that most of the action is set in the countryside, specifically a place called the Forest of Arden.

Many of the characters introduced in the story end up fleeing to the forest for one reason or another, and that's where most of the action takes place.

The first to take refuge there is a local Duke named Sr., who's been deposed by his brother Frederick.

Duke Sr.'s daughter is named Rosalind.

She initially stays behind at court, where her uncle is taken over, but her uncle soon banishes her, and she flees to the forest as well to find her father.

She flees with her uncle's daughter named Celia, and Rosalind decides to dress as a man in the forest to avoid harassment.

We've seen that Shakespeare often incorporated cross-dressing in his comedies, and this is another example where it plays an important part in the story.

As Rosalind and Celia travel through the forest, Celia tires of walking, and she says to Rosalind, quote, I pray you bear with me.

I cannot go no further.

Now this passage is often cited as an example of Shakespeare's occasional use of double negatives.

I cannot go no further, rather than I cannot go any further.

The modern rule against using double negatives hadn't been adopted yet, so it isn't unusual to find that type of phrasing in works from this period.

Before leaving, Rosalind was attracted to a man named Orlando, who was also interested in her.

Well, his brother is plotting to kill him, so he also flees to the forest to start a new life.

He becomes hungry after a while, and, desperately in need for food, he stumbles across Duke Sr.

and his men.

Orlando pleads for food, saying that if the men had ever looked on better days and known pity, he would appreciate their kindness.

Duke Sr.

responds by saying, quote, true it is that we have seen better days, end quote, and he invites Orlando to join them for a meal.

Now I mention that passage because it's one of the first instances where we find the phrase, to have seen better days, meaning to have experienced better times in the past.

Shakespeare actually used the phrase again in some of his later plays, and he's probably the person responsible for popularizing it.

The phrase also appears in a play composed about a decade earlier called Sir Thomas Moore.

Now there's some speculation that Shakespeare might have been involved in writing that play, and the use of this same phrase in that play might be some evidence of that, since Shakespeare apparently liked to use it, but it's also possible that it was just a relatively new phrase in the language and he just incorporated it into his writings.

But again, to have seen better days is a phrase often associated with Shakespeare, even if he didn't actually coin it.

Now at this point, Orlando doesn't recognize the leader of the group as Duke Sr.

Remember that Sr.

is not only the exiled Duke, but he's also the father of Rosalind, the girl he's attracted to.

The Duke reveals that he's actually content with his life in the forest, and he says that there are much worse places to be.

He says, quote, this wide and universal theater presents more woeful pageants than the scene wherein we play in, end quote.

Note how he ends that line with a repetitive preposition, the scene wherein we play in.

Again, this would be frowned upon today.

We're not supposed to end a sentence with a preposition, but that wasn't really a rule at the time.

Now that line then leads into the most famous passage from this play.

One of the Duke's companions is named Jacques, and he's a bit of a philosopher who likes to speak about the general uselessness of life and how man travels through it.

This speech is sometimes called the Seven Ages of Man speech, and you'll probably recognize the first few lines.

Quote, All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players.

They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.

He then describes the stages of life, from infancy to schoolboy, to lover, to brave soldier, to wise judge, to skinny old man.

He says that the end of this eventful history is the seventh stage of life, what he calls second childishness, where a person lives without teeth, sight, taste, and most everything else.

By the way, when he refers to the end of this eventful history, that's the first recorded use of the word eventful in the English language.

It was a variation of the existing word event, but eventful appears to be a word that Shakespeare coined because there's apparently no recorded use of the word again until the mid-1700s, so it doesn't seem like it was an existing word that he picked up.

The events continue in the forest, and in a later scene Orlando expresses his love for Rosalind by writing love poems to her and hanging them on the trees.

Rosalind and Celia soon find the poems, and they realize that Orlando has written them and that he must also be in the forest.

Rosalind and Orlando soon find each other, but Rosalind is still disguised as a young man, so she doesn't reveal her actual identity to Orlando.

Orlando asks Rosalind if she lives in the forest and if she was born there.

She says that she lives on the outskirts of the forest and was indeed born there.

But Orlando is surprised by her elevated form of speech.

Remember that she is Duke Sr.'s daughter, so she comes from a noble family, and Orlando doesn't recognize her in disguise.

So Orlando says to her, quote, your accent is something finer than you could purchase in so removed a dwelling, end quote.

She thinks quickly and says that she has an uncle who is an educated man who had lived at the royal court, and he taught her to speak properly.

Now, this passage is interesting because of the way it deals with language.

It alludes to the distinction between courtly speech and rural speech.

In England, what we know today as received pronunciation, or standard southern British English, didn't exist yet.

But we can see that there was already a notion that the educated people of London spoke a form of English that was different from the form spoken in the countryside.

And of course, that London dialect was generally considered to be more elevated or proper, especially by the people from London.

And passages like this allude to that idea.

Now, the disguised Rosalind asks Orlando if he's the one who placed the love poems in the trees.

He admits that he did it and that he's in love with Rosalind.

Rosalind tells Orlando that he should practice trying to woo the girl he loves, and then she offers to let him practice on her, or him.

Again, she's in disguise.

The scene ends with Orlando promising to come by Rosalind's cottage every day to practice wooing Rosalind, because he doesn't realize that he's actually speaking to her.

In a later scene, as Orlando courts the disguised Rosalind, Orlando asks if she will have him.

She playfully responds by saying, sure, and twenty others like you, adding, quote, Why, then, can one desire too much of a good thing?

End quote.

Now I mention that passage because it's the first recorded use of the phrase, too much of a good thing.

So if you ever feel like you can't get too much of a good thing, it appears to be a phrase coined by Shakespeare here in this play.

If he didn't coin it, he was at least the first known writer to use it.

Now in the final part of the play, Orlando's brother, who had earlier plotted to kill Orlando, is sent to the forest to retrieve Orlando.

As the brother takes a nap, a lion lion approaches and threatens to attack him.

But Orlando comes across the lion and his brother, and he manages to scare the lion away.

Having saved his brother's life, the two of them reconcile.

Later, Rosalind reveals her true identity to Orlando, and they finally come together as a couple.

Meanwhile, Duke Sr.'s brother gives up the throne back in town, so in the end, everyone is reconciled and a happy ending ensues.

Now, in addition to the specific Shakespearean phrases associated with this play, like to have seen better days and too much of a good thing,

there are also some new words recorded for the first time.

One of the most enduring of those new words was lackluster, which appears to be a word that Shakespeare coined.

It was literally something lacking luster or sheen.

He loved to combine the word lack with other words.

He used lack love in a midsummer night's Dream and Lack Beard in that other play I discussed earlier called Much Ado About Nothing.

And he used lack brain in Henry IV Part I.

They all appear to be terms he coined, but lack luster is the only one that really survived.

And again, the best evidence that it wasn't a term already in use is the fact that it isn't recorded again until the mid-1700s.

So it was apparently a unique term when Shakespeare used it in As You Like It.

Now so far we've looked at two Shakespeare plays that are mentioned for the first time in the public record in the summer of 1600.

Well around that same time another important work appeared.

In earlier episodes I talked about Richard Hocklut, who wrote extensively about English naval history.

Most of his writings were composed with one aim in mind and that was to encourage the creation of an English colony in the New World.

In this same year 1600 he published the final part of an expanded work called The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffics, and Discoveries of the English Nation.

Now this third and final part included a map of the world, and that map is actually important to our story.

The map was prepared by an English mathematician and map maker named Edward Wright.

His map was innovative for certain technical reasons that aren't really important to our story, specifically the way he incorporated lines of latitude and longitude and the way he adjusted the sizes of the landmasses near the north and south pole to keep them fixed to those grid lines.

Again, the technical aspects aren't really important here, but what is important is the detail that he included on the map.

Wright relied on every piece of available evidence at the time from European sources to depict the islands, continents, and other landmasses in the Americas and in the Far East.

Prior to this map, those regions were often vaguely depicted, and the depictions were often inaccurate.

But Wright's map was much more accurate.

It was really a summary of the collective knowledge of European explorers at the time.

Now, you may be wondering why I'm telling you about this particular map.

Well, first of all, the map was so notable at the time that Shakespeare even made a reference to it in one of his plays called Twelfth Night.

We'll look at that play next time.

But the map is also important because it proved to be a valuable tool for sailors and merchants who wanted to reach those far corners of the globe, especially the islands of the East Indies, and specifically the island chain we know today as Indonesia.

Up until the final few years of the 1500s, the trade with the East Indies had been dominated by Portugal.

But Portuguese power was on the decline, so there were opportunities for other European powers to break the Portuguese monopoly and trade directly with the islands of the Far East.

To understand why other European powers were so interested in getting in on the action, we have to understand the value of the spices and other commodities that came from the Far East.

The specific spices in question were those that were grown in and around modern-day Indonesia.

They included pepper, nutmeg, mace, cloves, and cinnamon.

Of course, people used those spices as flavorings, but they were also used to help with digestion and as meat preservatives.

They were also common ingredients in perfumes and medicines.

So there was an incredible demand for those spices, but it was extremely difficult to obtain them in the West.

And of course, when you have a high demand for something and a limited supply, the price skyrockets.

Today we can go to the local grocery store or supermarket and buy those spices for a few dollars or pounds.

But in the early modern period, they were incredibly expensive.

You could say that they were worth their weight in gold, but that wasn't literally true because they were actually worth more than gold.

They were sometimes even used as currency.

So if you were a merchant and you were able to send a ship to Indonesia and fill it up with those spices and bring it back home, you could make a fortune.

The problem is that it was almost impossible to do that.

To mount such a trading expedition, you needed ships, a full crew, and supplies and provisions for the crew.

You also needed goods and products that you could trade for the spices that you wanted to obtain.

And all of that cost a lot of money.

And here's something that people today don't really appreciate.

It literally took two or three years to sail from Western Europe to Indonesia and back.

So if you invested all of that money and all of those resources, you literally had to wait a few years to find out if it paid off.

And there was no guarantee that the ships would even make it back home.

During the voyage, the ships had to fend off foreign powers and pirates that would attack the ships.

And of course, storms could destroy the ships, and diseases could wipe out the crew.

So you were lucky if your ships made it back home loaded with spices.

It was a high-risk venture, and there was a good chance that you would lose all of the money you invested.

But if the ships actually made it back home, filled with with spices, you could make a fortune.

It was high risk and high reward.

With the decline of Portuguese power in the East, there were opportunities for other European powers to take that risk and to break that Portuguese monopoly.

And the first country to try to do that was the Netherlands.

The Netherlands had been under Spanish control for many years, but in earlier episodes we saw that the Dutch had rebelled against Spanish authority, and by the late 1500s the region had obtained a degree of independence, though the war with Spain continued for a few more decades.

Spain didn't recognize the region's independence, and in fact, Spanish authorities blocked Dutch ships from accessing Spanish ports.

That blockade limited Dutch access to those valuable spices, so out of desperation, the Dutch decided to send ships directly to the Far East to obtain them.

That effort began in the previous decade, the 1590s, and by the current point in our story in 1600, several groups of Dutch merchants were sending ships to Indonesia.

Of course, that competition cut into profits, but there was still a lot of money to be made.

Well, back in England, a group of merchants observed what the Dutch were doing.

So in 1599, a group of those English merchants reached out to Queen Elizabeth and requested that she give them a royal charter to launch their own trading expeditions to the East Indies.

That decision was held up for several months, but late in the year 1600, Elizabeth finally gave her consent.

And on December 31, 1600, a royal charter created a company that could trade directly with the East Indies, from India all the way to Indonesia.

That company became known as the East India Company.

And I thought you should know how it was established, because you're going to hear a lot more about it as we move move forward with the podcast.

The creation of this company had numerous consequences, far too many to list here, but the most obvious consequence for our story is the eventual establishment of an English colony in India, and the gradual export of the English language to South Asia over the next few centuries.

The creation of this new trading company is also notable because of the way it was structured.

It was structured as a corporation.

A corporation was a relatively new type of business structure.

They'd been used to operate cities and churches, but in the late 1500s, they started to be used for private businesses.

Since a corporation had shareholders that were distinct from the people who actually ran the business, the underlying ownership could change while the entity itself was largely unaffected.

So investors could come and go while the business itself was largely perpetual.

It was a perfect structure for a long-term enterprise like a trading company.

The era of the private corporation had finally arrived, and the new East India Company formed in London was destined to become the most powerful corporation in the history of the world.

The company was also granted broad and sweeping powers.

Because of the challenges posed by foreign powers, the company's royal charter allowed it to raise armies and wage war against rival powers if the need arose.

The company could establish trading posts and settlements in the East Indies, and it could appoint people to govern those settlements.

It could make laws in those settlements, and it could even mint its own money.

The Company became a government in itself, and it became the agent of English colonization in the East.

Now over the course of the year 1600, while those initial merchants were waiting for the Royal Charter to be issued, they started looking for ships that they could use in the operation.

They looked at a lot of ships, and one of the ships they considered was a ship called the Mayflower, but they ultimately passed on it.

Of course, that ship would soon pass into history for a different reason.

Its destiny lay in a voyage to the west, not the east.

When the charter was finally approved on New Year's Eve of 1600, the merchants were able to jump into action.

There was no delay, since many of the arrangements had been worked out in advance, and within a couple of months they were ready to go.

In February of 1601, the company's first five ships left England for the East Indies.

Around the time those ships set sail in February there was another notable development in England, and this development actually takes us back to Shakespeare.

The matter concerned Robert Devereux, the Earl of Essex, known to history as simply Essex.

I mentioned him in the last episode and a few episodes prior to that.

He was a prominent earl and a key member of Elizabeth's court, but he also had a strained relationship with her.

A little over a year earlier he had led a military expedition to Ireland to put down a rebellion there, but he didn't have much success, and he ultimately entered into a truce with the Irish rebel leader over Elizabeth's objection.

He then left his post and came back to England to explain his actions, again, over Elizabeth's objection.

He was then put under house arrest, and he was still under house arrest a few months later in February of 1601.

But Essex had a lot of popular support, and he had support among several prominent members of the nobility, including the Earl of Southampton, who had been Shakespeare's early patron, and who may have been the young man referenced in Shakespeare's early sonnets, which I discussed in prior episodes.

Shakespeare even alluded to Essex's Irish campaign in glowing terms in his play Henry V.

Again, we looked at that development last time.

So there's reason to believe that Shakespeare saw Essex as a sympathetic figure.

But by this point in 1601, Essex and his supporters had become restless and were contemplating the unthinkable, actually rising in rebellion and deposing Elizabeth.

Now this was always a concern for Elizabeth and her close advisors, especially given that there had been numerous plots against her over the years.

The English authorities were sensitive to any suggestion that Elizabeth's reign was illegitimate, or that she might be replaced with someone else.

That sensitivity extended to the arts, including drama.

One play that bothered Elizabeth and her advisors was Shakespeare's history play about Richard II, which had been composed a few years earlier.

It's the story of Richard II, the last in the main line of Plantagenet kings.

He was childless, and he was overthrown by his cousin, Henry Bolingbroke, who became the first Lancastrian king.

Well, the play featured a scene where Richard was deposed, and in every printed version of the play during Elizabeth's reign, that scene was omitted.

It was clearly censored by the authorities.

In fact, there's an account of Elizabeth having a conversation with the man who was the keeper of the records at the Tower of London.

The keeper, named William Lambard, had prepared a summary of the records that were in his possession.

As Elizabeth was reviewing the summary, Lambard mentioned some records associated with Richard I Second, at which point Elizabeth interrupted, and purportedly said,

I am Richard the Second know ye not that?

She then added,

This tragedy was played forty times in open streets and houses.

So it was obviously a sore subject for her, and she knew precisely how many times the play had been performed.

Well, during this first week of February, the plan to depose Elizabeth was set in motion by Essex and his supporters.

They wanted to generate popular support for the rebellion, so one of Essex's accomplices, named Sir Gilly Meyrick, went to the Globe Theater, and he asked the actors there to set aside any other productions they had planned and to perform Richard II instead.

He offered them 40 shillings on top of the regular box office revenue.

The next day, February 7th, the company performed Richard II, including the scene where the king was deposed.

Many of Essex's supporters were in the audience.

The next morning, the royal authorities went to Essex's home to determine what he was planning.

But Essex took them prisoner, and he left with about 200 supporters to meet up with another conspirator who promised 1,000 additional supporters.

But the whole plot quickly fell apart.

The supporters didn't show up, and when the authorities got word of what was happening, they immediately went after Essex.

He was soon forced to return home where he was promptly arrested.

Essex was given a quick trial for treason, and he was executed a few days later, along with several of his accomplices.

Interestingly, Shakespeare's former patron, the Earl of Southampton, was also put on trial and found guilty.

He was also ordered to be executed, but at the last minute his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.

As it turned out, the life sentence was really for his life or Elizabeth's life, whichever ended first, and Elizabeth only had a couple of years to live.

When she died, her successor, James I, released Southampton from confinement.

Now, Shakespeare's acting company, the Lord Chamberlain's men, were also implicated in the plot.

One of the leading actors in the company was questioned extensively by the authorities, and he declared that the actors had no knowledge of the plot.

He declared that they were merely actors and they had simply responded to a request for a command performance of one of their plays.

In the end it was determined that the acting company had done nothing wrong and in fact the surviving records show that they performed at Elizabeth's court on the same day that she signed the warrant for the execution of Essex.

So Shakespeare and his acting company and his former patron all escaped with their lives.

But it was a close call, and it was a reminder that there was a fine line between drama and real life.

Now speaking of Shakespeare and plays about kings being deposed by relatives, that happened to be the premise of another Shakespeare play that appeared around this time, probably at some point in 1601.

And that play was called The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.

But most people know it today as simply Hamlet.

Hamlet is the longest Shakespeare play, and it's probably had more influence on the English language than any other play.

Almost every scene of the play features a line or phrase that speakers still use to this day.

The exact date of the play is unknown, but most scholars think it was first performed in or around the year sixteen o one.

It wasn't mentioned in the list of Shakespeare's plays assembled by Francis Mears in fifteen ninety eight, so it's generally agreed that it was composed after that date.

And in July of the following year, 1602, the play was registered with the Stationer's Company to be published.

The entry in the register says the play was quote lately acted by the Lord Chamberlain and his servants, end quote.

So that implies that the play had been performed on the stage prior to that point.

That puts the earliest performances at some point around the year 1601.

Now I should note that a quarto version of the play was published in 1603 and another quarto was published in 1604.

Of course, the version we know today is the version published in the first folio of Shakespeare's works compiled after his death.

By the way, they're all different in many respects, and they show that some of the well-known passages from the play were probably different in the early performances.

And speaking of early versions of this play, I should note that there are also references to a play about Hamlet in the 1580s, but that version doesn't survive and its author is unknown.

It isn't clear if Shakespeare's version was based on that earlier play or was influenced by it.

By the way, the story of Hamlet is derived from an account about a legendary Danish king named Amleth who lived during the Viking era.

That account was composed about four centuries earlier by a Danish writer, but there's no solid evidence that such a king ever really lived.

But the point is that this wasn't a completely original story.

There were earlier versions of this story floating around.

Nevertheless, Shakespeare's version is considered to be one of his masterpieces.

The play opens in a gloomy castle in Elsinore in Denmark.

Sentries are keeping watch over the battlements when they see a ghost.

The ghost has the appearance of the recently deceased king who had lived in the castle.

The sentries assume that the ghostly figure is a sign.

Since the ghost appears to take the image of the deceased king, and since the figure was dressed in battle armor, they assume that the ghost represents impending war with Denmark's enemy, Norway.

The king had defeated the Norwegians before he died, and now they were gathering their forces for retribution.

The centuries find a man named Horatio, who is a friend of the king's son.

When they tell him what they saw, Horatio says that such signs often warn of forthcoming events, and he gives examples of events that pretended the murder of Julius Caesar, some of which also appeared in Shakespeare's play about Julius Caesar.

And this is one of several references to Julius Caesar in Hamlet, and many scholars think this is evidence that Hamlet was composed around the same time as Julius Caesar, probably a short time afterward.

Shakespeare apparently still had Caesar on his mind.

The ghost then reappears but doesn't speak.

Horatio and the sentries try to communicate with the apparition, but it soon disappears.

One One of the centuries says, quote, it was about to speak when the cock crew, end quote.

Now, today we would say that the cock crowed, but this is another example of a phenomenon I discussed at the end of the last episode.

The verb to crow was once a strong verb.

The past tense was crew, just like the past tense of grow was grue, and blow was blue, and as I've noted before, snow was once snoo.

But over time, that strong verb crew has become the weak verb crowed.

So the verb crow now takes a regular ED ending in the past tense in standard English.

But we can see that older form used in this passage in Hamlet.

Now after the ghost disappears again without speaking, the centuries consider the fact that the figure takes the appearance of the dead king and conclude that it might speak with the dead king's son named Hamlet.

Now when Hamlet's father died, his uncle Claudius succeeded him as king, and Claudius then married Hamlet's mother, who had been the queen before Claudius took the throne.

So Hamlet's mother remained the queen after this marriage.

Claudius basically stepped into the old king's shoes in more ways than one.

So at this early point in the story, the assumption is that Hamlet's father had died unexpectedly of natural causes, and Hamlet's uncle had simply taken his place on the throne.

Hamlet had been away at university, but he's recently returned to the Danish court.

His uncle Claudius, the king, insists that Hamlet stay rather than return to university.

Hamlet agrees, though he has little choice under the circumstances.

When his uncle and mother leave, Hamlet vents his frustration.

We find out that his father has only been dead a few weeks, and Hamlet is angry that his mother married his uncle so quickly.

He considers it an act of disloyalty to his father, and he says of the situation, quote, Frailty, thy name is woman, end quote.

And this is another line from the play that endures to this day.

The centuries from earlier suddenly arrive along with Horatio.

Remember that Horatio is a friend of Hamlet, but they haven't seen each other for a while.

Hamlet recounts his father's unexpected death and the quick marriage between his mother and his uncle.

until this play became so popular.

So Shakespeare's use of the phrase in this play is apparently what popularized the phrase.

Horatio then informs Hamlet that he in the centuries have seen an apparition that appears to take the form of his father.

When Hamlet asks how the ghost looked and if he was frowning, Horatio says, quote, a countenance more in sorrow than in anger, end quote.

Now that line gave us the phrase, more in sorrow than in anger, which is typically used to refer to a situation where we might expect someone to act in anger, but instead the person acts in a sense of sadness or disappointment.

It's another Shakespearean phrase.

Hamlet then makes it clear that he intends to join the sentries on their watch, so he can see the ghost for himself.

The next scene introduces three new characters, a close advisor and courtier of the king, named Polonius, and his two children, a son named Laertes and a daughter named Ophelia.

We soon find out that Hamlet is attracted to Ophelia, but he has little use for her father.

Her brother Laertes is packing his bags because he's returning to university in Paris.

He pauses to warn Ophelia about Hamlet's intentions with her.

He thinks that Hamlet's present intentions may be honest, but because of his position as prince, that may change with time.

He says, quote, Perhaps he loves you now, and no soil nor cautal doth besmirch the virtue of his will but you must fear, his will is not his own.

Now I mention that passage because it contains the first recorded use of the word besmirch in the English language.

It appears to be a word coined by Shakspeare here in this passage.

He derived it from the older word smirch, which meant to make dirty.

Interestingly, the word smirch soon fell out of common use, but Shakespeare's new word, be smirch, survives to this day.

Now Ophelia takes her brother's advice about romantic relationships, but she warns him not to be like the hypocritical pastor who shows the steep and thorny way to heaven while treading the primrose path of dalliance.

That passage contains another Shakespearean term, primrose path.

To day, if someone takes the primrose path, it means they live the easy life, or take the pleasurable path of idleness.

Again, it comes from this play.

Now their father Polonius arrives, and he tells his son Laertes to hurry before the ship to France leaves without him.

He also gives his son various pieces of advice on how to behave at university, including a suggestion that he should dress as nicely as he can, saying,

For the apparel oft proclaims the man.

This is an early form of the expression we know to day as clothing makes the man.

Again, it's a phrase generally attributed to Shakespeare.

Polonius continues the advice to his son, telling him to avoid making loans and incurring debts.

He says,

neither a borrower nor a lender be, end quote.

The father concludes his speech with this sage advice,

this above all, to thine own self be true.

Again, both of those phrases are recorded here for the first time, and are considered to be Shakespearean in origin.

Now after this scene, we return to Elsinore Castle at midnight.

Hamlet joins Horatio and one of the other sentries who have seen the ghost that looks like Hamlet's father.

They're standing on the battlements of the castle where the ghost had appeared before, and Hamlet hears trumpets and cannon shot, and observes that his uncle is drinking and reveling late into the evening.

Hamlet then says that even though he was born into that way of life, he's decided to break from that custom.

He says, quote, but to my mind, though I am native here and to the manner born, it is a custom more honored in the breach than the observance.

End quote.

Now this passage gives us the phrase, to the manner born.

Here, the phrase is rendered in its original Shakespearean form with the word manner.

M-A-N-N-E-R.

So when Hamlet says that he was to the manner born, he meant that he was born born to that manner of behavior or custom or lifestyle.

But in later centuries the phrase was altered slightly, perhaps as a pun, by replacing the word manner, m a n e r with the word manner, m a n o r,

thereby creating the more modern version of the phrase, to the manner born, which implies someone born into a high estate or aristocracy.

This modern version became solidified in the language thanks to a popular British sitcom with that version as the title.

So today we're more likely to encounter it as to the manner born with M-A-N-O-R in the sense of someone born into wealth and privilege.

But ultimately it's another Shakespearean phrase from Hamlet.

Now while Hamlet speaks, the ghost suddenly appears.

The ghost beckons Hamlet away from the others and Hamlet follows.

Horatio and the other century initially remained behind, and the century says, quote, something is rotten in the state of Denmark, end quote.

Of course, that's another line from the play that's survived into modern English.

The ghost then reveals to Hamlet that he's the spirit of Hamlet's father.

The ghost says that he cannot reveal all that occurred.

If he could reveal the details, it would strike terror in Hamlet and cause, quote, each particular hair to stand on end, end quote.

Now, this is where we get the phrase to make your hair stand on end, meaning to be shocked or very afraid.

It's actually a line from this play.

The ghost then reveals that there had been a quote murder most foul.

The apparition explains that Hamlet's uncle placed drops of poison in the ear of Hamlet's father while his father was asleep.

The poison caused a quick death, and the uncle then reported that Hamlet's father had died from a snake bite.

The ghost asks Hamlet to avenge the murder, and then it disappears.

Horatio and the other century have overheard what the ghost said, but Hamlet demands that they never reveal what they heard.

He also demands that they must not say anything, no matter what Hamlet himself says or does, even if he seems to be mad or out of his mind.

And that sets the stage for events to come.

Hamlet has to devise a plan to avenge his father's murder while also revealing his uncle's culpability.

It's the only way that Hamlet can get revenge while also securing the throne for himself.

The scene then shifts forward an unspecified period of time, and we have reports of Hamlet's mad behavior from his girlfriend, Ophelia.

She reports Hamlet's madness to her father Polonius.

Remember that Polonius is the king's close advisor.

By this point, King Claudius is also aware of Hamlet's purported madness, and he's trying to determine if Hamlet has really gone insane or if he's just pretending because he's learned how his father really died.

Polonius reports to the king that he knows whether Hamlet's madness is real.

King Claudius is eager to find out, but Polonius is long winded, as is his normal manner.

At one point in the long wind up, he ironically mentions that he'll get to the point by saying, quote, brevity is the soul of wit, end quote.

Of course Polonius doesn't doesn't apply that principle to himself, but that passage is the source of the modern idiom, brevity is the soul of wit.

It means that clever people know how to put things succinctly.

When Polonius finally gets to the point, he says that Hamlet has gone mad due to love.

That scene is followed by a separate scene where Polonius and Hamlet speak directly to each other.

Hamlet continues to feign madness and says things that seem insane sometimes have a bit of fundamental truth about them.

At one point, Polonius turns to the audience and remarks, quote, Though this be madness, yet there is method in it, end quote.

That line has also survived the centuries.

Today, if a person acts a little crazy to achieve a specific goal, you might hear someone say that there was method in his madness.

It comes from this passage in Hamlet.

We then have a scene where Hamlet meets two of his good friends who he knows from university.

They're visiting the royal court, but we know from an earlier scene that they've been sent by King Claudius to spy on Hamlet, to determine if he's really mad.

The two friends eventually acknowledge that they have indeed been sent by the king.

Hamlet replies that he's become depressed and hopeless.

He says

What a piece of work is a man.

He adds that man is noble in reason, infinitely able, angelic, and the most perfect of animals.

But neither man nor woman delights him anymore.

Now I mention that passage because Hamlet's opening line in that passage, What a piece of work is a man, is still common in the language today.

Hamlet meant it in a positive way, indicating that man was perfect in many respects.

But today the piece of work part is usually used ironically or sarcastically to mean the opposite.

So if we encounter a very annoying person today, we might say of of that person, what a piece of work.

But believe it or not, that expression actually comes from this line in Hamlet.

Now the two friends then inform Hamlet that a group of actors are arriving at Elsinore Castle.

They have come to entertain the court.

Hamlet loves drama, so he's very interested in this development, and it soon becomes part of his plan to reveal his uncle's treachery.

He decides to use the actors to stage a play that will reveal his uncle's guilt.

The scene concludes with Hamlet's well known line,

The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king, end quote.

Of course, this is where we find the origin of the phrase the play's the thing.

The next scene gives us probably the most famous soliloquy in the entire Shakespeare canon.

It's the to be or not to be speech from Hamlet.

At first glance it's a contemplation contemplation of suicide, but most scholars agree that there's a lot more going on.

Hamlet considers the unknown consequences of death and the fear of what happens when we die.

All of that has to be considered and taken into account if life comes to an end.

But Hamlet's contemplation of death isn't simply about taking his own life.

It's about taking revenge against his uncle.

If he simply murders his uncle without establishing his uncle's guilt, then Hamlet himself will be killed as a traitor or usurper.

So by killing his uncle, Hamlet would effectively be committing suicide.

So this soliloquy is as much about whether to kill his uncle as it is about whether he should take his own life.

Here are the first few lines of the soliloquy from a version presented by the Irish actor Andrew Scott.

Now this version is a bit non-traditional in its delivery, but I like the conversational approach, and I think it makes the language a little more approachable.

Here it is:

To be

or not

to be,

that is the question:

Whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

and by opposing

end them,

to die,

to sleep,

no more,

and by asleep to say

we end the heartache

and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.

Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished

to die,

to sleep,

to sleep, perchance, to dream.

Aye, there's the rob

for in that sleep of death,

what dreams may come when we have shuffled off?

This mortal coil must give us pause.

Now, in addition to the to be or not to be part and the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune part,

that passage also gives us the wonderful Shakespearean line there's the rub.

Today if we encounter a dilemma or personal problem and we say there's the rub, it comes from this passage.

And of course the passage also contains the reference to being shuffled off this mortal coil, meaning to die and leave the earthly realm.

Again, it's another classic Shakespearean line.

That famous soliloquy then leads to a scene where Hamlet and Ophelia have a conversation.

Hamlet's uncle, the king, and Ophelia's father, Polonius, are secretly listening to the conversation to determine if Hamlet is really mad.

Hamlet may be aware that they're listening, and he continues to feign madness.

That means that he has to be cruel to Ophelia.

At one point, he denies loving her and says, quote, get thee to a nunnery, end quote.

The statement is made as part of a passage where Hamlet says that she should never have to give birth to sinners, thus his suggestion that she should retire to a nunnery.

But some scholars note that the word nunnery was often used as a slang term for a brothel in Elizabethan England.

So some people read the line as a harsh insult, saying that she would be better suited for sex work.

But whichever meaning was intended, the line itself has survived the centuries.

By this point, King Claudius has become convinced that Hamlet's madness is all an act.

The scene then shifts to the rehearsal of the play that would be performed for the court.

Hamlet directs the actors how to perform, and this is where we find his instructions to them to speak their lines, quote, trippingly on the tongue, end quote, meaning that they should speak the lines, and then meaning that they should speak the lines in an easy or natural way.

I discussed that line in the earlier episode I did about Shakespeare's language.

Hamlet says that some actors are overly dramatic and overact, adding that he would have such an actor whipped for doing so.

He says, quote, it out-herods Herod.

Pray you avoid it, end quote.

Of course, King Herod was one of the villains of the Bible, as he tried to kill the infant Jesus, so if you out-herod Herod, you're pretty bad.

It's another line that lingers in the language to this day.

Now Hamlet continues his advice to the actors by telling them the purpose of acting is, quote, to hold, as it were, the mirror up to nature, end quote.

In other words, the theater should reflect our true nature back to ourselves.

To hold up a mirror to nature is another classic Shakespearean line from the play.

Of course, all of these passages give Shakespeare an opportunity to comment on the theater and the acting profession.

Hamlet then sees his friend Horatio, and they speak.

Hamlet begins by flattering him.

He says,

Give me that man that is not passion's slave, and I will wear him in my heart's core, I, in my heart of heart, as I do thee.

This passage is also notable because of that phrase in my heart of heart.

Here, the first use of heart means center or core, so heart of heart means at the core of my heart.

That's the part reserved for the greatest affection.

Over time, the phrase heart of heart became in my heart of hearts, and this is ultimately where that phrase comes from.

Hamlet then asks Horatio a favor.

He says that when the play is performed that night before the king, there's a scene that resembles the events surrounding his father's death, and he asks Horatio to observe the king's reaction to that scene.

He thinks his uncle's reaction will reveal his guilt.

Hamlet's uncle, the king, as well as his mother, the queen, then arrive.

They are accompanied by Ophelia's father, Polonius.

Hamlet asks Polonius if it's true that he once performed in a play at university.

Polonius confirms that he did.

He says, quote, I did enact Julius Caesar.

I was killed in the capital.

Brutus killed me.

Now scholars are fascinated by that passage because it's another apparent reference to Shakespeare's earlier play about Julius Caesar.

As I noted earlier, scholars think Hamlet was composed very soon after Julius Caesar, given these types of references, and the general time frame in which the play was likely composed.

Both plays were probably in the repertoire of the Lord Chamberlain's men at the same time.

And in fact, many scholars think that the actor who originally portrayed Polonius in this play was the same actor who played Julius Caesar in the earlier play.

So here, when Polonius says that he was killed by Brutus and Julius Caesar, the statement would have worked on two levels.

The actor would have been referring to the fact fact that he himself portrayed Caesar in the earlier play, and he had died in that role.

It would have been a joke for audience members who had seen the company perform Julius Caesar on a previous day.

At any rate, this is considered to be more evidence that Julius Caesar and Hamlet were contemporary plays.

Now, at this point in Hamlet, we're presented with the play within the play.

The scene features a king and queen, and the queen in the play repeatedly expresses her loyalty to her husband, and that she will never remarry if he should die.

Hamlet watches this portion of the play with his mother and his uncle, and he's very curious about his mother's reaction to the scene where the queen affirms her loyalty to her husband, especially given that Hamlet's mother had remarried so quickly after his father died.

At that point in the play, Hamlet asks his mother how she likes the play, and his mother replies with one of the most misquoted and misinterpreted lines from Hamlet.

She says, quote, The lady doth protest too much, methinks, end quote.

Now, obviously, this line is still common in English.

First of all, people tend to misquote it by placing the word methinks at the front of the line rather than at the end.

So they say, methinks the lady doth protest too much.

They also use it to refer to a situation where someone objects to something so much that they seem insincere.

But here, the queen in the play isn't really objecting to anything.

She's doing the opposite.

She's affirming her loyalty to her husband.

So why would Hamlet's mother say that the lady doth protest too much?

Well, it's because the word protest had a slightly different meaning in earlier periods of English.

Originally, to protest meant to assert or affirm or promise something.

That was still the common meaning of the word during the Elizabethan period.

So when Hamlet's mother says that the queen in the play protests too much, she means that she's promising or avowing too much, so much so that she loses credibility.

In other words, she's too over-the-top in her expressions of loyalty.

So this original meaning is sort of the opposite of the way we use the phrase today.

Over the following century or so, the word protest evolved from a sense of asserting or affirming something to a sense of asserting an objection to something.

So there was still a sense of formally declaring one's position, but rather than declaring support of something, it came to mean declaring opposition to something.

And with that gradual change in meaning, the meaning of the lady doth protest too much also changed with time.

But again, it's ultimately a Shakespearean phrase coined here in Hamlet.

As the play being presented before the royal court proceeds, Hamlet's uncle becomes more and more uncomfortable as the plot starts to hit close to home.

In the crucial scene, the king in the play is murdered by his nephew in the exact same way that Hamlet's father was killed.

The nephew pours poison in his ear while he's sleeping.

With this, Hamlet's uncle knows that his treachery has been revealed.

He stands up and rushes out, and the play before the court comes to an abrupt end.

Now Hamlet is overjoyed that the plan worked.

He now knows that he can avenge his father's death by killing his uncle Claudius, and it can be justified by explaining his uncle's reaction to what took place on the stage.

King Claudius is now aware that Hamlet knows that he murdered Hamlet's father.

With this knowledge, Claudius knows that he has to get rid of Hamlet, so he devises a plan to send Hamlet to an embassy in England, where Hamlet will be quietly murdered.

Claudius is alone, and he kneels to pray.

He says,

Oh, my offense is rank.

It smells to heaven.

It hath the primal eldest curse upon it, a brother's murder.

That passage is notable because it gave us the phrase, it smells to heaven.

By saying that the offense is rank, he's saying that it's putrid, and thus it smells to heaven.

Hamlet then comes upon his uncle Claudius while he's praying.

Hamlet has his sword with him, so he could kill his uncle at that moment, but he hesitates since the king is praying.

He decides to wait for a better time.

Hamlet then confronts his mother.

He's still outraged that she would marry the man who killed his father and usurped the throne.

Given Hamlet's anger, she fears for her life.

Polonius is eavesdropping behind a curtain and fearing for the queen's safety, he calls for help.

Hamlet thinks Polonius is his uncle Claudius, and he stabs at the curtain, killing the man behind it.

But it's not the king, it's Polonius.

Hamlet isn't really saddened by what's happened, he's enraged.

He rails at his mother, expressly accusing his uncle of killing his father and stealing the crown.

At one point Hamlet says to her,

I must be cruel only to be kind, end quote.

In other words, his cruel words are intended to save her from further debauchery with his murderous uncle.

Today that phrase cruel to be kind is still common in the language, but it originated here in this play.

Hamlet then acknowledges the sealed letters he received from his uncle that will send him to England where he will likely be imprisoned or killed.

But Hamlet says that the plan may backfire, and he may outsmart those who conspire against him.

He says, quote, for tis the sport to have the engineer hoist with his own petard, and it shall go hard, but I will delve one yard below their minds and blow them to the moon.

Now this passage is notable because it contains another Shakespearean phrase, to hoist with his own petard.

This is where that phrase originated.

But what exactly does it mean?

Well, if you've listened to the earlier episodes, you might recall that I discussed the meaning of this phrase way back in episode 78, where I talked about castle sieges and medieval warfare.

The entire passage I just read is a reference to siege warfare.

A petard is a French word for a type of bomb.

It was a bucket-shaped container filled with gunpowder.

The besieger would approach the castle walls and place the batard on or against the wall, and then he would detonate it.

The problem is that the person who delivered the bomb was sometimes killed when it exploded.

As Shakespeare puts it, they were hoisted or blown into the air by their own batard.

It's basically what happens when a plan of attack backfires.

And that's what Hamlet is referring to here.

He says the plan to kill him will backfire.

But Hamlet realizes the problem he's created for himself by killing Polonius.

He's seemingly confirmed the suspicions of the court that he's gone mad, so no one will believe him if he kills his uncle and then tries to justify it.

No one will believe him when he says that his uncle killed his father.

He can't take revenge and claim the throne himself.

At the order of Claudius, Hamlet is sent away to England.

Meanwhile, Ophelia has gone mad with grief about the death of her father.

Denmark grows restless with rumors surrounding the the murder of Polonius in the absence of Hamlet.

Shakespeare refers to those who spread rumors and gossip as buzzers, from the sense of the word buzz as noise or murmur.

Some of that sense of buzz survives when we talk about the buzz surrounding a new movie or technology.

But when Shakespeare used the word buzzer as someone who spreads gossip, it was the first recorded use of that word.

It soon came to refer to insects that make a buzzing noise, and then it eventually came to refer to anything that makes a buzzing noise, like a buzzer on an alarm.

So if you're watching a game show and the host tells the contestants to avoid the buzzer that signals a wrong answer, well now you know the word can ultimately be traced back to Hamlet, where it was first recorded as a gossiper.

Now we soon find out that Hamlet has escaped from England and returned to Denmark.

And we also find out that Polonius' son and Ophelia's brother Laertes has returned from France after learning of his father's death.

Claudius sees an opportunity to use Laertes to get rid of Hamlet.

Both Laertes and Hamlet see themselves as skilled swordsmen and fencers, so Claudius arranges a fencing match where the foil used by Laertes has its guarded point removed and covered with poison.

One scratch of the foil will ensure Hamlet's death.

As soon as the plan is made, news arrives that Laertes' sister Ophelia has drowned, which fuels Laertes' anger even further.

The implication is that she's committed suicide.

We then have another famous scene from the play.

Hamlet is walking outside of Elsinore Castle when he comes across gravediggers digging a grave.

They dig up a skull and toss it to Hamlet.

It's the skull of an old court jester named Yorick, who had been the jester many years before when Hamlet's father was king.

Hamlet holds the skull and says, quote, Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him, end quote.

But he soon becomes repulsed by the skull and sickened by the death and decay that it represents.

It soon becomes apparent who the newly dug grave is intended for.

It's for Ophelia.

Her brother Laertes is distraught and throws himself in the grave.

Hamlet also comes forward and expresses his love for her, and Laertes attacks him.

King Claudius is there and he tells Laertes to ignore Hamlet because he's gone mad, and this leads to the final scene of the play, where Laertes and Hamlet engage in a fencing duel.

The duel is witnessed by Hamlet's uncle and mother.

Of course his uncle Claudius wants Hamlet dead, and as I noted, the plan is that Laertes' poisoned foil will scratch Hamlet and kill him.

To make sure that the event results in Hamlet's death, and just in case Hamlet defeats Laertes, King Claudius places some poison in a cup which he will offer to Hamlet to celebrate his victory.

The duel begins and Hamlet is dominant early on.

His mother, the queen, toasts to a successful round, but she accidentally grabs the cup with the poison in it and drinks it.

Meanwhile, the bout between Hamlet and Laertes continues, and Laertes finally manages to cut Hamlet with the poisoned tip of his foil.

A scuffle breaks out between the two, and in the confusion Hamlet grabs Laertes' foil and then strikes him with the poisoned tip.

So Hamlet's mother is struggling from the poison she drank, and Hamlet and Laertes have both been cut with the poisoned tip of the fencing weapon.

They're all dying.

Laertes explains to Hamlet what's happened, and that they've all been poisoned.

He then lets it be known that the whole plot was arranged by King Claudius, and that he's the one responsible for the poison which is now killing them all.

At that point, Hamlet stabs and kills his uncle, as everyone realizes that he's completely justified in doing so.

So at this point, all of the main characters have died or lay dying, except for Hamlet's friend Horatio.

In his dying words, Hamlet tells Horatio to tell his story and make the truth of the events known to everyone.

Horatio responds with the well-known line, Good night, sweet prince.

And that brings an end to Shakespeare's version of Hamlet.

It's a true tragedy as almost all of the main characters die in the end.

Now I took you through the entire play, the longest in the Shakespeare canon, because it's filled with phrases and idioms that survive to this day, more than any other play that Shakespeare wrote.

So in that regard, it's had the greatest influence on the English language.

And it also points to the long-term popularity of the play.

To this day, the play is still performed on stages around the world.

But where was the play first performed outside of England?

Well, we actually know the answer to that question.

In fact, if we assume that the play was first performed in 1601, it was performed outside of England just six years later.

It might seem remarkable that the play would reach an international audience that quickly, but there was a special circumstance.

Remember that the first English ships of the East India Company left for the Far East early in 1601, perhaps around the time that Hamlet was first appearing on the stages of London.

Well, six years later, in 1607, one of the company's ships called the Red Dragon anchored off the coast of Sierra Leone.

And according to a surviving account of that voyage, members of the crew performed the tragedy of Hamlet to an audience of sailors and merchants.

The English language was starting to spread around the world, and Shakespeare was going with it.

Next time, we'll continue our look at the spread of English around the world, but we'll turn our attention to the West.

And we'll also look at the final days of Elizabeth I as the Elizabethan period came to an end.

And we'll also look at another defining moment in English history.

literally a defining moment, and that's the publication of the first official dictionary of the English language.

So, until then, thanks for listening to the History of English podcast.