Hamlet Group

Question:

vladik1
vladik1
Student
High School - 9th Grade

What is Hamlet asking Horatio when he says "Dost thou think Alexander looked o' this fashion i' th' earth?" What theme of the play does it link to?

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Posted by vladik1 on Thursday March 5, 2009 at 4:25 PM and tagged with alexander, death, gravediggers, hamlet, horatio, mortality, shakespeare, skulls.

Answers:


  1. robertwilliam

    eNotes Editor

    Hamlet and Horatio are looking at the skulls which the gravedigger is turfing out as he digs Ophelia's grave (though at this stage, neither Hamlet nor Horatio know that the grave is for Ophelia). Hamlet considers that everyone will eventually become a hollow-eyed, dirty skull in the ground: and it is a keytheme of the play - the universality of death, and the fragility of mortality. We are all just skulls waiting to happen.

    HAMLET:
    Dost thou think Alexander looked o' this fashion i'the earth?

    HORATIO:
    E'en so.

    HAMLET:
    And smelt so? Pah!

    HORATIO:
    E'en so, my lord.

    HAMLET:
    To what base uses we may return, Horatio!...

    Even Alexander the Great becomes a skull which looks bad and smells bad. Even the world's greatest conqueror just becomes a skull like any other: he is returned to a base (common) use: simply a skull to be thrown out of the ground when a country grave is dug.

    Hope it helps!

    Sources:
    http://www.enotes.com/hamlet-text/act-v-scene-i?start=2

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    Posted by robertwilliam on Friday March 6, 2009 at 3:33 AM

  2. ray-eston-smith-jr
    ray-eston-smith-jr

    I don't know how it fits into the play.  But I think, on one level, it was a set-up to use the incongruous phrase "to stop a bunghole."  I think "to stop a bunghole" is an allusion to the Babington Plot, in which conspirators communicated with Mary Queen of Scots (the mother of James VI of Scotland, who became James I of England about the time Hamlet was written) via messages hidden in stoppers of bungholes in beer barrels brought into her castle-prison.   The discovery of the Babington Plot lead to the execution of Mary and put James at risk for a similar fate.

    I believe James VI wrote the Ur-Hamlet and collaborated with Shakespeare on Hamlet.  See "Did James VI of Scotland write Ur-Hamlet?" at Literature Network Forums

    http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=41482&highlight=Ur-Hamlet

    Think about how weird and incongruous "to stop a bunghole" is.  He was talking about expelling the winter's wind (related to "I am but mad when the wind is north by northwest") through a wall, then suddenly he switches to stopping a bunghole  (wind into a beer barrel?  or madness smuggled through the walls of Mary's prison?). Consider how "to stop a bunghole" would resonate in English minds just 15 years after the Babington Plot.  Consider how the censors would react to even an accidental reference to a regicidal plot when any current history references were forbidden.  How could that phrase get past the censors without help from the incoming King?

    Ray Eston Smith Jr

    Sources:
    http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=...

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    Posted by ray-eston-smith-jr on Friday March 6, 2009 at 6:12 AM