‘Haha and hehe denote laughter in both Latin and English, and they sound like laughing when you say them.’ So says my favourite part of the grammar textbook by Ælfric (d. c 1010), Old English author + teacher (Harley MS 3271, f. 90r). –A V Hudson on twitter
If you want to actually go read the thing (because there are other interjections and it’s fun), it’s actually on Harley MS 3271 f.85r
Dismissing Romeo and Juliet as dumb horny teens is OUT, crying because every attempt these children made to show love, kindness and tolerance in the face of senseless hate only led to more violence and death is IN
crosspoint: the entire thing was that they were dumb kids. reading R&J growing up goes in stages: “this was so sad” “they’re so fucking dumb what the fuck” “this was so fucking sad”.
they’re dumb kids. there’s plenty of textual evidence they are both sort of selfish in their love (ie Romeo’s on the rebound, Juliet just super doesn’t want to get married to Paris and is desperate for anything-except-that-guy) and a lot of evidence they didn’t truly know each other/see each other for anything but for a romantic ideal (the entire “but soft” monologue intentionally uses grandiose terms and basically translates to “oh fuck she’s pretty”). they literally can’t even communicate essential information correctly. in my opinion they’re not a good match – and shakespeare knows how to write a good match.
but they should have been allowed to be dumb kids.
the families had gotten to a point that even love – even stupid, selfish, childish love – devolved into violence. while the scenes they share are peaceful until the end, their solo scenes are dominated by violence – romeo with physical violence and juliet suffering the violence of having been essentially sold to an older man. they took the violence that they were surrounded by and turned it onto themselves. they had been raised in it, had been cultivated by it, and when they faced adversity, violence was inevitably the only thing they knew how to control. juliet – soft, innocent, sympathetic juliet – is the final death. and hers is by a wielded blade.
they weren’t trying to be a beacon of kindness or tolerance. but they were just kids. and what had seemed perfectly sensible (after all, the feud had resulted in death in either side, the rage made sense), the suddenness of a truly…. senseless death – who else can the families blame but themselves. no more finger pointing. after trying to hurt each other for so long, they only hurt themselves.
i’m convinced r&j isn’t about a one true love. juliet is the only one who calls it true love, the narrator certainly doesn’t. the first monologue describes it as “piteous“. instead, i think it’s about how it shouldn’t have been their last love. romeo and juliet could have been a romantic comedy about how fast kids fall in love with the stupidest things, how they make declarations of true love by the hour, how they float from one person to another, how they call crushes true love without knowing each other’s middle names.
it could have been a comedy. and i think, kind of, that’s what makes it such a perfect, terrible tragedy.
in this post, i will detail my rankings and reasons thereof of the sluttiness level of every character in hamlet, or their “ho ratio,” if you will,
wh
w
where’s the rest of the post op
HAMLET ho-ratio: 11/10. thirty years old and somehow still going through his emo phase. definitely tried to convince ophelia that blue balls was a serious medical condition. has συμφορά tattooed on his bicep. probably makes out with skulls.
OPHELIA ho-ratio: 5/10. probably would have boned hamlet if he wasn’t SUCH a turd about asking. learned kissing from her maidservants. annoyed to have died a virgin but preferred death to sexual intimacy with literally anybody in the danish court.
LAERTES ho-ratio: 7/10. spent his youth in paris, presumably being very french about sex. grew up fencing with hamlet, so it can be assumed they touched dicks at least once, on a dare. nice boy, tries hard, loves the game. very relieved to die before accidentally fathering a child with someone he’d have to keep secret from his father.
GERTRUDE ho-ratio: 6/10. gamely tried to bone only her first husband for the first two years of marriage before giving up on him ever getting good at it and took her business elsewhere. will try anything once, provided claudius lets her try it on him first. comfortable with nonmonogamy, but not polyamory, because she doesn’t want to have to care about more than one person’s emotional wellbeing.
CLAUDIUS ho-ratio: 10/10, which is also the number of chefs in the court who wish he would stop doing naked bikram yoga in the kitchens.
HORATIO ho-ratio: 0/10. unproblematic. pure as the driven snow. all sexual fantasies are filled with enthusiastic consent and respectful lovemaking. wants his first time to be special, with a person he loves. has kissed one person in his whole life and refused to brag about it to his friends. “if you’re asking me how many times I’ve been in love, the answer is two. but the rest I won’t talk about.”
YORRICK ho-ratio: 2/10. literally a skull. made out with hamlet. not proud of it.
THE GHOST ho-ratio: 3/10. won’t shut up about his ex-wife during sexual encounters. generally unsexy to be around. very cold.
POLONIUS ho-ratio: 7/10. just happy, and surprised, to be here.
ROSENCRANTZ & GUILDENSTERN ho-ratio: 13/10. exclusively engage in threesomes. always down to experiment. well-known on campus for hosting parties with competitive Sexy Poetry Readings, which is when guests are invited to recite poetry naked, and instead of applause are given kisses. just here to have a good time. unfairly murdered. gone 2 soon. always in our hearts.
THE PIRATES ho-ratio: 15/10. all pirates are sluts for treasure.
FORTINBRAS ho-ratio: 2/10. just a soft beefcake looking for a nice girl. confused by denmark. probably would have boned hamlet if he hadn’t been dead by the time he got there.
for all of you trying to tell me that ophelia didn’t die a virgin, first of all i specifically said that these ratings were 100% correct and not to refute them, and secondly, i cannot believe a single one of you honestly thinks she would have caved to hamlet, the least sexy and most unbearable person in all of denmark. also, you will note that her rating is 5/10, not 0/10. there is MORE TO SEXUAL ACTIVITY THAN APPARENTLY ANY OF YOU HAVE DREAMT OF IN YOUR PHILOSOPHY.
me thinking about shakespeare normally: mercutio was gay
me thinking about shakespeare at 3 am: romeo and juliet is underrated as a story. why? because everyone treats it as a love story when they should be treating it as a commentary on how children are too afraid to come to their parents with a problem or even voice their opinions on things without fear of facing repercussions. juliet didn’t want to marry paris, some old guy she didn’t know. so OF COURSE she was going to choose romeo, some hot young thing that talked nice and looked nicer and probably made her feel special. she had had at least a conversation with the guy. but no. she can’t tell her father that she doesn’t want to marry and would rather try to get to know that nice montague boy that was chatting her up while crashing her party. but of course she can’t. both of because societal expectations and because of the whole blood feud. and then there’s romeo. we all call him an emo fuck but the fact remains that it is highly hinted that he had depression and while finding someone “to love” doesn’t automatically fix that in a person, him “loving” juliet definitely did seem to improve his mood while his parents just brushed him off. and in the end of the story, they’d both rather kill themselves then tell their parents that they’re going to be disappointing them by telling them who they “love” and that’s just fucked up. these were teenagers. and while this may have not been old billy shakes’ original message, it stands that this interpretation could benefit being taught to a lot of students and even some parents.
me thinking about shakespeare at 3:30 am: also know what was fucked up? mercutio and tybalt died without even knowing what they were dying for. they literally say in the beginning of the play that no one remembers why the blood feud started. and mercutio wasn’t even an capulet or montague. this wasn’t his fight. but he died anyways, under romeo’s arm, by tybalt’s hand. sure, they were fighting because tybalt was pissed about romeo seeing juliet and shit, but mercutio didn’t know that. he thought tybalt was just starting shit just to start shit. he didn’t know what he was dying for. “a plague on both your houses” indeed. and then tybalt. fucking firey tybalt. like i said before, no one knows why the blood feud started. he essentially just died because his family hates another guy’s family probably over something like the 13th century equivalent of a sports rivalry. that’s so fucked up. while i don’t remember what their exact ages were, i’m pretty sure they were teenagers too. what the fuck.
me thinking about shakespeare at 3:35 am: and then benevolio. oh god benevolio. what even happened to him??? first, he watches this guy who was always a jackass to him but he’s probably known all his life get killed, then his (boy)friend dies all because of something his cousin does, and then his cousin is exiled/flees before he’s exiled. he’s then all alone for like the rest of the play, until he assuredly walks into the mausoleum at the end of the play and sees his cousin dead on the ground with some girl he’s maybe seen twice in his life dead on top of him. what the fuck. what the actual fuck. poor benevolio just lost his two best friends and now he’s all alone. and you know they never even say if he’s in the play for the rest of the thing. you just assume he is. for all we know he could’ve skipped town, or killed himself as well, or died in a duel, or anything. i always headcanoned him as the youngest of the group. and like, that just makes it worse. poor benevolio, the guy that was left all alone at the end of the play with all his friends and acquaintances dead. “for never was a story of more woe / than that of juliet and her romeo”???? bullshit. for never was a story of more woe than that of our poor fucking benevolio.
These glorious insults are from an era before the English language got boiled down to 4-letter words.
A member of Parliament to Disraeli: “Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease”. “That depends, Sir,“ said Disraeli, “whether I embrace your policies or your mistress.”
“He had delusions of adequacy.” – Walter Kerr
“He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.”- Winston Churchill
“I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.” -Clarence Darrow
“He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.” – William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway).
“Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I’ll waste no time reading it.” – Moses Hadas
“I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.” – Mark Twain
“He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends..” – Oscar Wilde
“I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend…. if you have one.” (George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill) “Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second …. if there is one.“ (Winston Churchill, in response.)
“I feel so miserable without you; it’s almost like having you here.” – Stephen Bishop
“He is a self-made man and worships his creator.” – John Bright
“I’ve just learned about his illness. Let’s hope it’s nothing trivial.” – Irvin S. Cobb
“He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others.” – Samuel Johnson
“He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up.” – Paul Keating
“In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily.” – Charles, Count Talleyrand
“He loves nature in spite of what it did to him.” – Forrest Tucker
“Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?” -Mark Twain
“His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.” – Mae West
“Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.” – Oscar Wilde
“He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts… for support rather than illumination.” Andrew Lang (1844-1912)
“He has Van Gogh’s ear for music.” – Billy Wilder
“I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn’t it.” Groucho Marx
Plume de Lynx 