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# Hamlet on Embodiment
- URL: https://mereorthodoxy.com/hamlet-on-embodiment/
- Published: 2010-06-04T05:05:53.000Z
- Updated: 2026-04-20T21:07:15.000Z
- Description: Hamlet on Embodiment
- Author: Mere Orthodoxy
- Tags: Matthew Lee Anderson, Literature

Tonight I enjoyed some of [the best free Shakespeare I've ever seen](http://www.shakespearefestivalstlouis.org/?ref=mereorthodoxy.com), and one of the most difficult plays to pull of well, too. It's long, it's brooding, and the over-acting potential is *through the roof.* Especially in the final scene where nearly everyone dies.

But a masterful Polonius, a balanced--if I can use the word--Hamlet, and a stunning performance by Ophelia made tonight's performance of Hamlet a surprising treat. If I had the time, I'd heartily attend again.

There's lots more to think on in the play, but tonight was all about these pregnant lines by the Danish Prince:

*"I have of late--but wherefore I know not--lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises,; and indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire--why, it appeareth no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors. What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals! And yet to me what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me--no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so."*

Couple this with my morning's reading from Lamentations:

*How the gold has grown dim,* 
*how the pure gold is changed!* 
*The holy stones lie scattered* 
*at the head of every street.*

*The precious sons of Zion,* 
*worth their weight in fine gold,* 
*how they are regarded as earthen pots,* 
*the work of a potter’s hands!*

The glory of embodiment isn't that we're earthen vessels. It's what the earthen vessels bear. "You have never seen a mere mortal."