#Ben Crystal

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

"For she may strew dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds" (making a fresh argument for my 'Ophelia was murdered' interpretation of Hamlet)

Three-years-and-change ago, I wrote a post with my conspiracy theory literary interpretation that Ophelia was murdered. A couple weeks ago, I was tagged in another post about "The Tragedy of Hamlet," and that brought me back to my chosen hill to die on.

In this post, I'll focus on Gertrude herself, and on the iambic pentameter, because

A) The rhythm of English has not changed in the last 400 years, and B) We know Shakespeare himself wrote it that way on purpose.

Now, Shakespeare used iambic pentameter to direct the pacing of a scene, depending on context (I'm basing this on the work of Shakespearean actor and scholar Ben Crystal; see the link at the end to a video where he demonstrates how this works):

If an actors line was shorter than ten syllables, followed by a full line, that could tell the other actor in the scene exactly how long to pause and do some nonverbal reaction before speaking (the unspoken syllables are there, they're just silent).

If two, or more, lines add up to exactly ten syllables, that could tell the actors to pick up the pace, and answer without pausing

If each line is less than ten syllables, but more than ten when added together, Tell the actors to speak over each other / "step on each other's lines.

And Shakespeare uses all three variations in Act 4, scene Five.

In dialog lines of irregular length, I'll indicate silent syllables with "-_" for each iamb, and I'll underline the when the overlapping syllables blend to make a clean line of iambic pentameter. Then I'll write out the shared & overlapping dialog as though they were lines of verse, showing the stressed syllables in bold.

I hope that's clear (or will quickly become so).

First: Act 4, scene Five (MIT.edu) opens in the middle of things, with a Walk-and-Talk that would make Aaron Sorkin proud:

QUEEN GERTRUDE: I will not speak with her. -_ -_ HORATIO and Gentleman: [Insert astonished blinking man GIF here] Gentleman: She is importunate, indeed distract: Her mood will needs be pitied. QUEEN GERTRUDE: What would she have?

Her moods will needs be pit- What would she have?

Okay, so hearing that Ophelia is "acting up" certainly got the queen's attention, eh? She doesn't even wait for Gentleman to finish the last word of his line (Also: she's being told that a teenage girl is really upset that her dad's dead. And Gertrude's response is to snap: "What does she want?" Really?! Yikes).

The unnamed Gentleman goes on to describe how Ophelia is speaking of her dead father and vaguely alluding to conspiracies, that her speech is basically word salad, but her "winks and nods" give the impression that she's speaking in code.

Gentleman: [concluding] Indeed would make one think there might be thought, Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily. HORATIO: 'Twere good she were spoken with; for she may strew Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.

Though nothing sure, yet much unhapi-'Twere Good she were spoken with; for she may strew Dange-rous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.

Finally, Gertrude says: "-_ -_ -_ Let her come in."

Horatio and the Gentleman are talking over each other, in their efforts to sway the queen. I get the feeling this attempt has been going on for some time; it may have started with: "She's really sad about her father. she could use some support in dealing with grief.." But the argument that finally sways Gertrude is: "She's a potential threat to Claudius's Power."

Shakespeare wrote the line about the threat she posed in a completely different meter. Instead of giving that line a scansion of: "de-dum, de-dum, de-dum, de-dum, de-dum," he's given it the rhythm of "Dum-de-de, dum-de-de, dum-de-de, dum," which makes it stand out from the rest of the scene. That's another red underline Shakespeare is giving us.

The longish pause could have come at the end of her line, but I think it makes more sense to have her hesitate before agreeing to see Ophelia.

Exit Horatio to go fetch her. Then:

To my sick soul, as sin’s true nature is, Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss: So full of artless jealousy is guilt, It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.

As I noted in my previous post, these are two rhyming couplets -- the only "plain dialog" in the scene that rhymes (other than Ophelia's songs, but they rhyme because that's what song lyrics do), and not even in Shakespeare's usual way of rhyming alternate lines.

Now what, pray tell, could the queen be feeling so guilty about (that she absolutely, positively, does not want Ophelia to find out)?

That Ophelia's father died because of something she had asked him to do? Quite possibly. But Ophelia already knows her father has died, and the queen expressing regret about it would not likely make the queen appear guilty.

Maybe Ophelia doesn't know, however, that her father was in the queen's chamber when he was killed, and the queen is afraid Ophelia would get the wrong idea. But whatever sin Gertrude is trying to hide, it's probably not that she's cheating on Claudius with Polonius so soon after the wedding (unless that's exactly it. I doubt it, though. Polonius is basically a walking-talking plot point).

At first, I thought she felt guilty about the fact that her own son (and Ophelia's boyfriend) was the murderer, and that's the secret she doesn't want Ophelia to find out. That's reasonable. That's what any halfway decent person would worry about, to protect the heart and mind of a young woman that's almost family.

But then, between Ophelia's first confrontation with the queen and her "Flower Speech," Leartes breeches Elsinore's defenses, and leads a raging mob (those ill-breeding minds in which dangerous conjectures have already been planted) to the doors just beyond Stage Left, and:

Leartes: Where is my father? Claudius: Dead. Gertrude: But not by him.

Where is my father? Dead. But not by him.

I said it in my earlier post, and I'll say it again, here: Gertrude literally does not skip a beat to defend Claudius, even when that puts her own son at risk. Doesn't stop to think about it, even for a breath.

If Queen Gertrude didn't hesitate to risk Hamlet's life. I doubt she'd be overly worried about risking Ophelia's opinion's of his character (especially since appeals to speak to her at all didn't sway her until Horatio mentioned Ophelia' threat to civil order). And yet, Shakespeare very deliberately underlined and circled the point that Gertrude is holding a deep secret guilt, and that she's afraid to speak to Ophelia, lest she let something slip.

(Also, when going back to the scene, to check something, I noticed something my mind skipped over, before: The Danish Rabble promise Leartes not to let anyone come in while he's in the room negotiating with Claudius. And yet, they're heard off-stage saying: "Let her come in" just as Ophelia reenters to give her "Flower Speech" while her brother is there. So while Leartes has been in France, Ophelia has clearly been gaining the respect of the Common Folk in the meantime. Which, to my mind, suggests this "madness" has been going on for a while, and is not a sudden reaction to deliberate or accidental poisoning. Which further suggests to me that she is simply better at "Putting on an antic disposition" than Hamlet is.)

So, all that is why Queen Gertrude started to appear very suspicious in regards to Ophelia's death.

But what's the secret Gertrude is so afraid Ophelia will find out? I think :

Claudius's legitimacy to the Danish Throne depends on the courtiers and common people Believing that he and Gertrude agreed to wed after consoling each other in their shared grief over losing a darling husband and beloved brother.

Queen Gertrude had done a "Lady Macbeth," and it was actually her idea for her first husband to have a final, forever, nap in the royal garden.

She's afraid Ophelia will figure that out. After the coded language of the Flower Speech, I think she's worried that Ophelia has already figured it out, and so gives her a little shove into the river, before she can spread that idea any further.

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*Starting here, in a 2014 presentation on Shakespeare's use of language (celebrating Willy Shakes's 450th birthday), Shakespearean actor and scholar Ben Crystal demonstrates how Iambic Pentameter shows us how Shakespeare wanted the dialog to be paced in The Tragedy of Macbeth (sorry, not sorry, not superstitious). A bit later, he and his acting friends demonstrate overlapping iambic pentameter when Hamlet and Leartes fight at Ophelia's grave.

[bisonomy]

This is truer than you know. Between Shakespeare and now, English went through an accent change called the Great Vowel Shift, which is why a whole bunch of Shakespeare and John Donne etc, doesn't rhyme, even when the rhythm indicates it's supposed to. American English warped too, obviously (lookin' at you, Boston), but Southern American English's vowels are more akin to the Elizabethan ones than modern British English.

My favorite demonstration of this is actor Ben Crystal reciting one of the dirtier sex jokes in Shakespeare, that we normally totally miss because we don't pronounce 'whore' and 'hour' as homonyms, or 'rut' and 'rot.'

[moonagedaydreamsofrhiannon]

Yellowjackets as famous artworks

Misty and Crystal as “Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan” by Ilya Repin:

Shauna and Jackie as “Saturn Devouring His Son” by Francisco Goya:

Lottie as “The Wounded Deer” by Frida Kahlo:

Doomcoming as “Fire Dance” by Joseph Tomanek:

Javi as “The Sacrifice of Isaac” by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio:

Laura Lee as “Joan of Arc” by John Everett Millais:

Coach Ben as “The Desperate Man” by Gustave Courbet:

Natalie and her dad as “Judith Beheading Holofernes” by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio:

The Jackie feast as “The Golden Apple of Discord” by Jacob Jordaens:

Shauna’s marriage as “The Reluctant Bride” by Auguste Toulmouche:

The team during the winter as “The Potato Eaters” by Vincent Van Gogh:

Travis during Doomcoming as “The Flaying of Marsyas” by Titian:

The card drawing as “The Execution of Lady Jane Grey” by Paul Delaroche:

Coach Ben witnessing the Jackie feast as “The Scream” by Edvard Munch:

Travis and Javi as “Anguish” by August Friedrich Schenck:

Tai and Van on the expedition as “The Dead Miner” by Charles Christian Nahl:

Shauna as “The Lunatic of Étretat” by Hugues Merle:

The final few survivors as “Cannibals” by Odd Nerdrum:

Natalie as “Death and the Soldier” by Hans Larwin:

The team and the Wilderness as “Self-Portrait with Death Playing the Fiddle” by Arnold Böcklin:

[fairytwles]

yellowjackets as those silly stick figure drawings

Laura Lee

Shauna in that one season 3 teaser shot

javi after disappearing for months

crystal (after misty pushed her off that cliff)

coach ben

the other tai

jackie

misty

bonus: sophie nelisse

[deerest-deer]

♡ yellowjackets characters as littlest pet shops pt. 2 ♡

here's part 1 ♡

[rockybloo]

I keep saying that I am insane about my OC color palettes.

This was from back when I was trying to figure out the main crew's colors for Beanstalked.

I was DETERMINED to make sure everyone's was different. I'm talking:

THEME color

SKIN color

HAIR color

I'M SERIOUS ABOUT MY COLORS MAN

[crystal-moon-101]

Next up for the Crystal 10 full renders is Pygmalion, her Chromastone transformation!💎

[eahsayswhat]

I love how the first panel has Faybelle reacting like she's heard Rosabella say that before. Since Sleeping Beauty is derived from the Italian tale Sun, Moon, and Talia I headcanon Briar, and Rosabella by extension, as being EAH-equivalent Italian, hence Rosabella's mother being named Giulia (meaning "youthful", fitting for the previous Belle).

[ivydarkrose]

10 YEARS ago I created the twins, Nathan and Crystal posted them and their origin story onto Deviantart.

I can’t believe 10 YEARS has passed so  many memories around this guy and his sister. Crazy amount of self discovery, to think I also began taking art as an active hobby and I doubt my past self would believe where this would all go too! I remember being a little kid, telling myself I can’t draw but I got so motivated to be active in the CRP fandom that I tried. I can’t give enough thanks to the many people who messaged me and encouraged me. THANK you from the bottom of my heart. 

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Rules!

No tracing, AI, or stealing anyone’s work.

Use #NathanLux10

Tag me! This is so I can make sure I see the entry as sometimes # ‘s act up! (DMing the post works too) 

Any art style accepted, after all this is for fun! 

I will be accepting all entries from any form of social media location. Not just Here! 

Optional: Tag some artists who would like to join. .. .

DEADLINE:  Sept 22nd 2024, Time extension can be offered too. 

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Prizes: 

1st Place: A fully shaded artwork(Max 2 characters + background)

2nd Place: A fully shaded character art (1 character) 3rd Place: Half body character art 4-5 Places: Colored Chibi

If there ends up with only a few entities or less I will deal out prizes to those who’ve joined.

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On top of hosting this DTIYS I am also hosting a raffle for hitting 1.1k followers on Ista! Stay tuned for that >w<

[searchsystem]

Niall Corbet / Ben Ledi Ice Crystals / Photography / 2019

[rockybloo]

Here are all the main key players in Beanstalked aka the Fabled Five and most of the Briar Patch Town residents.

To read up on all them including what each other their Bookmarks are or general bios OR if you just wanna learn more about Beanstalked in general, I have a neat little Neocities Beanstalked webpage for explorin'.

[crystal-moon-101]

Finally finished off the final alien to Crystal 10's aliens based Ben's original playlist. Welcome her celestialsapien form, Nyx!✨

[evilhorse]

Fantastic Four (Volume 7) #24

[heartz4shauna]

could’ve made more but i was #toolazy

[esqueletosgays]

FRIDAY THE 13TH (2009)

Director: Marcus Nispel Cinematography: Daniel C. Pearl

[kangarooqueen]

How I act if I have no blanket to sleep with: