Now Francisco and Bernardo, they was guardin' the castle,
Leanin' on their spears, not lookin' for no hassle,
Havin' themselves a brew or two,
When out in the night they hear woooo-woooo-wooo.
And here comes this ghost, lookin' ragged and rank,
In a rusty suit of armor, goin' clank, clank, clank.
They say, "Hey, Mr. Ghost, are you our dear departed King?"
But the ghost don't say one motherfuckin' thing.
He goes, "Wooo-wooo-wooo." They say, "Hey, we better split,
And go tell Hamlet about this shit."
So they run find Hamlet, they say, "Hey, sweet Prince,
Your daddy's ghost been seen runnin' hither and hince.
He's all full of maggots and he's grizzly and grim,
Somthin's rotten in Denmark and -- whew-- we think it's him."
Hamlet says, "Oh, are you sure it's my pop?
Did he have matty gray hair with a bald spot on top?
Did he have bright blue eyes hat never know fear
And a tattoo says GERTRUDE FOREVER right here?"
They say, "Hey, the thing just flittered by our station,
We didn't give him no physical examination.
And we don't know for sure if your daddy was the one,
But we do know a motherfuckin' ghost when we see one."
[Shell Silverstein, "Hamlet: As Told on the Street."]
Leanin' on their spears, not lookin' for no hassle,
Havin' themselves a brew or two,
When out in the night they hear woooo-woooo-wooo.
And here comes this ghost, lookin' ragged and rank,
In a rusty suit of armor, goin' clank, clank, clank.
They say, "Hey, Mr. Ghost, are you our dear departed King?"
But the ghost don't say one motherfuckin' thing.
He goes, "Wooo-wooo-wooo." They say, "Hey, we better split,
And go tell Hamlet about this shit."
So they run find Hamlet, they say, "Hey, sweet Prince,
Your daddy's ghost been seen runnin' hither and hince.
He's all full of maggots and he's grizzly and grim,
Somthin's rotten in Denmark and -- whew-- we think it's him."
Hamlet says, "Oh, are you sure it's my pop?
Did he have matty gray hair with a bald spot on top?
Did he have bright blue eyes hat never know fear
And a tattoo says GERTRUDE FOREVER right here?"
They say, "Hey, the thing just flittered by our station,
We didn't give him no physical examination.
And we don't know for sure if your daddy was the one,
But we do know a motherfuckin' ghost when we see one."
[Shell Silverstein, "Hamlet: As Told on the Street."]
VIEW 4 of 4 COMMENTS
i liked your points about despite being a relativist, still having some sense of objectivity. i was talking to a former prof (a posty thru & thru) and a colleague (another posty) this past weekend. and, backing you up, they both said much of the same thing: while they may not think there are 'absolute truths' out there, that is not the same thing as thinking there is not objectivity (a way to understand the causes, effects of social events).
perhaphs in some ways - to go out on a limb of pure conjecture here - being a relativist makes you *more* objective. in other words, you are not beholden to some prior explanation (marxism, colonialism, rational human action, whatever) for a phenomenon. rather, you can investigate an event from a number of differnet places - and might be more willing to accept explanations from a number of different fields.
and bring on the street hamlet!