Hamlet: range of interpretationsComments on John Russell Brown's multiplicity of meanings in the final moments of Hamlet Although I almost completely agree with John Russell Brown's close reading of the words dying of Hamlet and with his thesis that "Shakespeare chose, very positively, to provide a multiplicity of meanings at this crucial point" (30), I wonder whether his analysis, useful as it is for understanding the text in the studio, is equally valid in the theatre. If we were talking about a Shakespeare sonnet it would be much easier for me to believe in the coexistence of four or five distinct meanings, even if they "tend to cancel each other out" (27). In performance, however, we may find ourselves rather in the position of Jane Austen's "inferior young man", Mr. Rushworth, who "hardly knew what to do with so much meaning". a number of possible interpretations, as John Russell Brown says --and no one knows it better than him!--, but it is also worth paying more attention to the textual problem in question. Thinking of Hamlet's last moments on the stage, I would like to make a supplication reading the Folio, "The rest is silence. Or, or, or, or."2 The four letters following "silence" are easily one of the most overlooked in the canon, which is quite surprising in a work in which almost a single punctuation mark has not been examined or commented on.3 Most editions ignore them completely or dismiss them as the invention of some actor. An early honorable exception is Nicolaus Delius's edition in which he explains the reading of the Folio as "Hamlets Todesgestöhn".4 The only modern edition I know of that takes this reading seriously is The...... middle of paper ..... .unwarranted derision" (352). Honigmann's interesting article makes no direct reference to the Hamlet passage. [Return to text]7. See, for example, "Ask me tomorrow and you will find me a man grave" by Mercutio. (3.1.98-99; ed. Brian Gibbons, Arden Edition [London: Methuen, 1980] [Return to text]8. ]). [Return to text]9. This is also underlined in the stimulating study by Marvin Rosenberg Hamlet's Masks (Newark: U of Delaware P, 1992), which suggests a range of possible meanings even beyond John Russell Brown: "Os can be very eloquent. (Try them)" (924). It would be foolish to deny, however, that, at least for the actor, "the Os may indicate, in addition to death, something of the final mystery of Hamlet's last perception" (923). [Return to text]10. See Hawkes 22.