I'm All Ears

For those of you who were in class the other day, you've already heard me make this comment. So I'm recycling it for a blog post, not because I'm lazy but because I'm interested in it. (Okay, it is 11:30 p.m., so maybe I'm a little lazy...)

As I was reading Hamlet, I kept noticing the words "ear" or "ears" pop up. I think knowing the plot summary before reading Hamlet, and knowing that Hamlet Sr. died from poison being poured in his ear, must have put me on "ear" alert. Maybe it was just such a strange way to die, I don't think I've heard of it. It kind of reminds me of Yeerks ... Animorphs, anyone?

Anyway, when I brought up in class the reoccurring ear theme, Professor Burton pointed out the perfect website for researching this kind of thing: Shakespeare Searched. You can search for any word or phrase in any Shakespeare play or spoken by any Shakespeare character. It's a handy way to find any instances of a motif you want to learn more about.

So, here are a few of the quotes from Hamlet (Acts I, II and III) with the words "ear" or "ears":

Act I, Scene I

Bernardo:

Sit down awhile;

And let us once again assail your ears,

That are so fortified against our story

What we have two nights seen.

Act I, Scene II

Horatio:

Season your admiration for awhile

With an attent ear, till I may deliver,

Upon the witness of these gentlemen,

This marvel to you.

Act III, Scene IV

Gertrude:

O, speak to me no more;

These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears;

No more, sweet Hamlet!

Act I, Scene II

Hamlet:

I would not hear your enemy say so,

Nor shall you do mine ear that violence,

To make it truster of your own report

Against yourself: I know you are no truant.

Act II, Scene II

Hamlet:

... He would drown the stage with tears

And cleave the general ear with horrid speech,

Make mad the guilty and appal the free,

Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed

The very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I...

Act I, Scene III

Laertes:

Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain,

If with too credent ear you list his songs,

Or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure open

To his unmaster'd importunity.

Act I, Scene V

Ghost:

'Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard,

A serpent stung me; so the whole ear of Denmark

Is by a forged process of my death

Rankly abused: but know, thou noble youth,

The serpent that did sting thy father's life

Now wears his crown.

Act I, Scene V

Ghost:

Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole,

With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial,

And in the porches of my ears did pour

The leperous distilment; whose effect

Holds such an enmity with blood of man

That swift as quicksilver it courses through

The natural gates and alleys of the body,

And with a sudden vigour doth posset

And curd, like eager droppings into milk,

The thin and wholesome blood: so did it mine;

And a most instant tetter bark'd about,

Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust,

All my smooth body.

Do you notice any connections?

What I'm noticing is the ear being described as a portal into the body, one of "the natural gates and alleys of the body," as Shakespeare put it. But only in the case of the Ghost was it actual poison invading the body through the ear. In the other examples, what was infecting the body was lies.

"The whole ear of Denmark" was told that Hamlet Sr. was killed by a serpent, which wasn't true. If Ophelia's ears were too quick to believe the flattering lies Hamlet was telling her, she'd get in trouble (and have to get herself to a nunnery). The actors would amaze the ears of the audience through their lies (albeit benevolent lies, for the sake of entertainment). Hamlet takes Horatio's claim of truancy to be a lie. And Bernardo tells Horatio and Horatio tells Hamlet that they had better get their ears ready for the story of the ghost, which might seem like a lie but really isn't. (Or is it?)

Maybe what Shakespeare is trying to do is equate the "cursed hebenon" poison with lies. They both do damage -- in fact, lies possibly do more damage than poison would. After all, Hamlet Sr. just has to wait it out in purgatory, while the family and subjects he leaves behind are misled, confused, suspicious and crazy in an intricate web of lies.

In the case of Gertrude's quote, it's not lies that "like daggers enter in [her] ears." No, what is actually stabbing her ears is the truth. Hamlet is accusing her of living "in the rank sweat of an enseamed bed, stew'd in corruption, honeying and making love over the nasty sty!" And calls her "a murtherer and a villain!" Because she has succumbed to such evil and has let it dictate her life, she is so far gone that the truth stings worse than lies do. The wicked taketh the truth to be hard...

(If you want to hear President Obama's ears joke, skip to 4:00. If you love the troops, you'll watch the whole thing.)

The Colbert Report

Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive