Old Men in the Book and Volume of his Brain

[Ray Eston Smith]

Hamlet
... Remember thee!
Yea, from the table of my memory
I'll wipe away all trivial fond records,
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past,
That youth and observation copied there;
And thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain,
Unmix'd with baser matter

Driven by his love for his father, Hamlet has allowed his father to usurp the sovereignty of his brain. He has erased himself from the book of his brain and written his father there. He continued to write in that same "table of [his] memory":

Hamlet
O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!
My tables,--meet it is I set it down,
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain
At least I'm sure it may be so in Denmark: [Writing.] So, uncle, there you are

Claudius
Be as ourself in Denmark.

If you hate someone, you think about him a lot. An image of him lives in your brain. That image can acquire a kind of autonomy, making you behave as your enemy behaves. In short, by hating your enemy, you allow your enemy to possess you. Hamlet seems to be taking notes not just on how to recognize a smiling villain, but also on how to be one.

If you love someone, you may want to give that person all that you have. But if your dearest friend demands that you give up your very self, then that dearest friend becomes your dearest foe.

Hamlet
Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven [or Purgatory]
Ere I had ever seen that day, Horatio!
My father, methinks I see my father!

Hamlet loved his father and was therefore possessed by his father.
Hamlet hated his uncle and was therefore possessed by his uncle.
But father and uncle both had the same values – they valued dirt over people - as in the graveyard.

Busy-body Polonius will join the other "tedious old men" occupying Hamlet's brain:

Polonius
I'll board him presently

Polonius sees Hamlet reading a book (the book and volume of his brain) and asks him what he is reading.

Hamlet.
Slanders, sir: for the satirical rogue says here that old men have grey beards, that their faces are wrinkled, their eyes purging thick amber and plum-tree gum, and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams: all which, sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down; for you yourself, sir, should be old as I am, if, like a crab, you could go backward.

"Old men have grey beards" = Hamlet's father
"His beard was grizzled, no?"

"eyes purging thick amber" = Polonius.
Poland was famous for its amber. (In an earlier post I explained the Polonius/Poland parallel.)

Amber is fossilized tree sap. Here we have the image of a weeping tree. It will be echoed later in the willow whose "envious sliver broke," dropping Ophelia into the "weeping brook." (Polonius had said: "beshrew my JEALOUSY [envy]! By heaven, it is as proper to our age to cast beyond ourselves [like an overhanging branch] in our opinions as it is common for the younger sort to lack discretion.")

"a PLENTIFUL LACK of WIT" = Claudius
"With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts,
O wicked WIT and GIFTS, that have the power
So to SEDUCE!"

"Wit and gifts" refers to Bishop Whitgift, the man who instigated the crack-down on recusants which perhaps caused the decline in fortunes of Shakespeare's father. Also, Whitgift signed Shakespeare's marriage license (when he married an older woman) and later he signed the license for the publication of Shakespeare's "Venus and Adonis," a poem about a boy seduced by a goddess. "Plentiful lack" mocks Claudius first speech: "defeated joy." Plentiful lack" mocks Claudius first speech: "defeated joy."

"weak hams" = Hamlet, weakened but still present in his own brain.
Hamlet
...you, my sinews [hamstrings], grow not instant old,
But bear me stiffly up!

Hamlet had "grown instant old" hold because he was possessed by an old man.

"I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down"
Hamlet knows he was not being true to himself when he set down these tedious old men in the book and volume of his brain.

[Gladys]

If you love someone, you may want to give that person all that you have. But if your dearest friend demands that you give up your very self, then that dearest friend becomes your dearest foe.

Hamlet
Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven [or Purgatory]
Ere I had ever seen that day, Horatio!
My father, methinks I see my father!

Hamlet loved his father and was therefore possessed by his father.
Hamlet hated his uncle and was therefore possessed by his uncle.
But father and uncle both had the same values – they valued dirt over people - as in the graveyard.

This interpretation, Ray, conflicts jarringly with the immediate context. It's obvious that the remarriage of Hamlet's mother is worse than a blissful eternity spent with one's heartfelt (‘dearest’) enemy. Connecting 'my dearest foe' with Hamlet's father muddles the imagery, and seems unworthy of Shakespeare.


Hamlet.___Thrift, thrift, Horatio! The funeral bak'd meats
Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.
Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven
Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio!
My father- methinks I see my father.

[Ray Eston Smith]

"My father, methinks I see my father" is a non sequitur. It's meant to clash jarringly with the immediate context ("see my dearest foe in heaven"). What I've done is to suggest that maybe, although it's a non sequitur for Hamlet, Shakespeare actually intended "I see my father" to be connected with the immediate context ("see my dearest foe in heaven") as a foreshadowing of what Hamlet won't see until later and won't understand until the end of the play.

Clearly Hamlet meant as you said, that he'd rather spend eternity in heaven with his worst enemy than see his mother marry his slimy uncle. But that wasn't Shakespeare's plan. When Hamlet did see his "dearest foe in heaven," it wasn't spending eternity with his worst enemy. It was Hamlet, still mortal, seeing his father who was "dearest" in the sense of most loved, but also a foe, trying to usurp his sovereignty of reason, in Purgatory, which is sometimes considered an antechamber to heaven.