Good evening and welcome once again to brush up your Shakespeare where we make Shakespeare fun and easy the way it was always meant to be. This is episode 7

and we are now in Act 2 of Hamlet beginning with of course scene 1. In the last

episode we saw the ghost of Hamlet's father drop the bomb of all bombs right on Hamlet's

head.

Remember, Hamlet was already reeling from his father's death and his mother remarrying his father's

brother only a couple of months afterward.

Now Hamlet finds out that his father was murdered in his sleep by Hamlet's uncle

Claudius and the ghost has ordered Hamlet to avenge his death by killing Claudius, the new king of Denmark.

Act 2, scene 1 opens with Polonius talking to his servant.

It appears a little bit of time has passed since the end of the last scene.

Polonius' son Laiertes is now in Paris. Remember in Act 1 he was just leaving for Paris,

but now he's in Paris and seems to have been there for a little time.

We are somewhat surprised to find Polonius sending his servant off to Paris to spy on

Leertes and see what he's up to.

Polonius gives lengthy instructions to a servant

as to how to go about it by asking around

if the locals in Paris have heard of any Danskers or Danes of course Laiertes is a

day and almost everybody in this play is a day and they're from Denmark.

The servant is not to say he knows Laiertes personally, but only that he knows of his family, and by doing this he will find some people who are acquainted with Léertes in Paris and can give him the real scoop.

But the servant is not to ask direct questions, he's to ask

indirect questions and specifically in order to get the true story about Léertes, Polonius tells his servant to claim he knows of Léertes in Denmark

committing all manner of bad acts including gambling, carousing, and even visiting

...