Wrong ideas that appeal to me

[zdashamber]

So, I was just looking over the famous Hamlet soliloquy, and read on a bit through the following Hamlet/Ophelia scene, mentally (as I always do with Shakespeare) plotting out how I'd translate it into modern English. A la,

Beauty can make honesty into trashiness
Sooner than honesty can make beauty into truth...
I didn't used to know what the hell that meant
But now I've got the proof.

Which I find appealing, but I'm pretty sure I'm missing what the hell Hamlet's actually saying in that line. Now, given that that whole scene looks to me like Ophelia trying to help out her broody boyfriend with tough love and Hamlet basically saying, "Look, I'm a scumbag, like all my family, like all men, you should really just give up on us entirely", can anyone explain how precisely the honesty/beauty thing fits in?

Comments

[beingfrank.livejournal.com]

Well, the whole beauty corrupts truth, truth can't change beauty, and we'd rather think beauty is honesty than believe ugly truth aspect ties into the "you thought I loved you and you don't think I'm a scumbag because I'm so goddamn beautiful" side.

Or it could be that Hamlet's saying that the beauty or appeal of their love cannot resist being denigrated by the truth of the situation they find themselves in (some of it known to Ophelia and some not)? "We should be together babe, but the world's a fucked up place and I've got to kill this dude in this whole revenge kick I'm on, and well, maybe it would never have worked out in the first place. I used to think that love would conquer all and couldn't understand how anyone could think any different, but I was an immature shit. Now I'm a mature shit."

Or something else. I guess it really depends how much of a scumbag you want to make Hamlet.

[shadowflyer.livejournal.com]

The beauty he's railing at there is the beauty of his own words in the letters Ophelia is returning. It's nice to believe pretty words, isn't it, when we're young and naive? But it's time to grow up - with maturity comes the realization that the uglier the words are, the more likely they are to be true.

[zdashamber.livejournal.com]

Aha! It hadn't occurred to me that he might be speaking to the letters... I can really see how that works. Brilliant!

I'd have to disagree with him, though. Having had ugly words applied to me, I've noted that they've no more virtue, as a class, than pretty words. Truth is not bought with nastiness.

[arden-ranger.livejournal.com]

The truth can be a very ugly thing, but it can also be beautiful.

Or I haven't a clue. :P

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

I was taught, back half a lifetime ago, that the specific meaning of "honesty" in this scene was not "truthfulness" but "chastity," and that Hamlet is saying that pretty Ophelia will be easily led astray. If he hasn't seduced her already, he's saying the next fellow surely will. And "nunnery" is one of those ironic usages that probably meant "brothel" in context.

Changes things a bit, doesn't it?