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mark z. danielewski

Garum, a sort of Roman fish sauce, was everywhere in Rome and apparently Pompeii was particularly famous for their garum industry. There’s lots of sources both in and outside Pompeii, and several different manufacturers and sellers have been found in the city.

The part that I can’t stop thinking about: jars of garum have been found with labels advertising it as kosher.

arguments for:

six seven itself has no actual meaning and originates from a clip of a viral song on tiktok, so hamlet's way of pretending to be "mad" could be repeating something widespread but meaningless, like how he quotes song lyrics and idioms (2.2, 430-432; 3.2, 306-310; 3.2 371-372)

hamlet often uses nonsensical, surreal humor, usually ones that appeal to the youth and confuse the older generation, to cope with his despair (2.2, 190-199; 5.1, 204-207)

he puts on the antic disposition partly to confuse claudius and gertrude, which this absolutely would

i don't think hamlet would ever have gen alpha humor, which is the point. he's changed to the point of being unrecognizable in his madness (2.2, 4-1; 316-321)

polonius would try to find meaning in it and come to an entirely incorrect conclusion

arguments against:

hamlet may not have tiktok or even know of this meme in the first place, because he's said to be a stable and well-liked individual prior to the play (4.7, 18-20)

To fear that number, seven? Marry,

Seven, eight, nine; so sev'n hath nine devour'd,

Highest digit, thus by less consumed.

POLONIUS: Six seven, ay; so the youth

Are said to say. There was an article

In which I read it; let me find it

And bring it to your learning.

HAMLET: Six seven, mark it. There they stand

Two numbers side by side, both cozy

And cozening. Shall mortal flesh endure't?

How can one, or six, o'erlook such dastardy

At such scant separation! O death, death!

Six seven!

He departs.

Nifty little language game here.

I can read back to 1500 with basically no difficulty

at 1400 I have to read slowly and carefully, but I can understand all of it save a couple words

at 1300 I can still comprehend most of it if I read slowly, but a much larger percentage of the words are unfamiliar to me, even with context

"Bot þei maden no answer, neyþer good ne yuel. Þei weren stille as stoon, and stoden about me as men þat wayte on þeir lordes commandement."

Like, ask me what "Bot þei maden" means and I'd have no fucking clue. But reading it quickly as part of a story, it's like "But they made no answer, neither good nor (?). They were(n) still as stone and stood(en) about me as men that wait on their lord's commandment" is just how it sounds, phonetically.

And that context made me realize that "yuel" must be "evil." The "n" at the end of verbs will be explained I'm sure, but still feels weirdly natural and sort of German-y? Or Scottishy? I say as someone who knows neither language.

Though going in knowing that þ = "th" was a big boon. ȝ seems to be both a "y" and a "gh" from what I can tell? (Writing this as I'm pausing after 1300.) And Þ is evidently a capital þ.

That said, also,

Þe euele man louȝ, whan that he sawe my peine, and it was a crueel louȝter, wiþouten merci or pitee as of a man þat haþ no rewþe in his herte.

reading it, uh, yeah, I did a triple-take at "sawe my peine" LMAO but otherwise, it seems to again just be different spellings of "The evil man laugh, when that he saw my pain, and it was a cruel laughter, without mercy or pity as of a man that hath no ruth in his heart." (Ruth being the opposite of ruthless, obv.)

1200 I'm getting bits and pieces, which is weird, bc one sentence is totally incomprehensible and the next is more or less legible. Though to be fair, I feel like I'm picking up vocab words as we go lol. Like how the word "heþene" came up in 1400 and in context seems to clearly be "heathen," so I can pick up on that in the 1200 section too.

I also THINK?? uuif is "wolf" based on there being a "wulf" in an earlier passage. Otherwise, no clue what kind of fast animal it would be haha. later passages make me think maybe mare/steed but uh.

I s2g, "deorcnesse" for "darkness" ........ lmao.....

Sadly I don't know enough to guess what ƿ is (best guess is w??? or r/l combo maybe??). I keep looking for a single word to be my rosetta stone and can't find it lol.

sadly 1000 is like, a word or two max. Or a couple words I recognize from above as meaning "I said"

OK I'm on the explanation now. Yay!! I was right about ȝ!!! And my first guess for ƿ was right as well, not that it helped me much to try to read it as such. I thought I remembered that ð = th, but with everything else going on and what I assumed was a bunch of new (old) vocab, I questioned myself.

UUIF WAS WIFE.... (meaning woman, not necessarily married, which I did know!!) I did consider that but thought he wound up getting carried out by her, so I thought it must be an animal.

🎶I got a lotta catchin' up I gotta do While the night is still young🎶

This next song is a deeper cut. It's a song about romance but also growth and change.

A mature love song, some might call it a life song. A lovely song for a lovely mutual, for @middlering, this is The Night Is Still Young.

My current favourite:

fuck you; I’m eating the ginger

And here he is.  Feigang Fei.