I Don't Love You, Weight, I Do!

     From Hamlet back to Turner. While reading Hamlet, the scale became present in two different instances. Though this time, it is not a feather and a globe or smoke that is being weighed. Rather, Shakespeare finds equally difficult items to weigh, yet the visual he gives us is striking. In the first instance, Laertes is talking with Ophelia: "By Heaven, thy madness shall be paid with weight, Till our scale turn the beam" (301). Here Laertes speaks of Ophelia's madness weighed against Laertes' revenge. Two items not easily weighed, yet what I see is an empty scale. Both side balanced equally. However another take could be Ophelia's brain on one side with a poison tipped sward on the other. Either way, the scale remains balanced for they both find the same end. Ophelia's madness drives her to the water where she finds her tragic end. Laertes on the other hand is driven by revenge. His inability to control himself, that is to say, act, something Hamlet is unable to do, drives Laertes to his doom. Yet another way to perceive the scale is Ophelia standing on one side, Laertes on the other. Ophelia's traditional burial allowing her passage into Heaven lifts weight from her side, in turn offering Laertes and his revenge a quick passage to Hell.
     For the second viewing of the scale, Laertes is once again present. As a matter of fact, forty thousand of him piled onto one side of the scale, verses the love of Hamlet for Ophelia on the other. The scale will not move from Hamlet's side as one by one a new Laertes stands upon the scale. Hamlet keeps the scale bottomed out as each Laertes joins the other until forty thousand have done no better than one. It is an interesting visual, for love cannot be weighed. But, at this point, Hamlet has more love than can be imagined. Yet this brings me to his Manic Depression. Just a few days earlier Hamlet expressed his love by saying to Ophelia, "You should not have believed me, for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it. I loved you not" (195). From I love you, to I love you not, back to I love you. Hamlet's emotions may never be understood. He cannot express his love face to face except when wrestling with Laertes in her grave. Love is a tricky thing, who knows if one is in it, love is difficult to express and impossible to weigh.