Justice Stevens questions the Bard authenticity...

[monmouth]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123998633934729551.html

Wonderful article in the WSJ about Justice Stevens questioning whether Shakespeare was truly the author of the works. Some very humorous stuff.

[RandomThoughts]

1. Just for some interpretation.

Maybe Horatio his friend wrote it.

Or maybe some other thing beyond comprehension, maybe at times he wrote in sorrow and despair, and times in love and honor.

Horatio:
O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!

Hamlet:
And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.


I should say I disagree with this next part.

Hamlet:
To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die—to sleep,
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to: 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there's the rub:
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause—there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th'oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of dispriz'd love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th'unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovere'd country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.

It is a writing of despair. Since it seems to claim life is but troubles.

Some translations are that it means to think on giving up life. I think it means to live, and not let 'fear of death' to guide oneself. Death itself is not the goal, nor ever the wish, but to be subjected to the petty fears of death can be used to remove the ability to live.

In a deeper sense death of the soul, is to give up. For giving up is loss of hope, and hope is a cornerstone of much that is good. If a transition were ever to occur, that put you in a place where what you believe, or what you strive for will come true, those without hope, would be in a bad place, for what would it be without hope, if all was, only what they believed.

And most importantly, his comment,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovere'd country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns

Is laughably wrong. And even a contradiction in his own writings.