Dane: (n) a native or inhabitant of Denmark.
Some words get swallowed up by just one definition.
For instance:
- “Appaloosa” always finds you horsing around.
- “Rockies” brings mountains to mind.
- And for me, the word “barbecue” will always be linked with ribs.
The “Dane” that always comes to my mind is Hamlet.
Actually, it’s a vision of a very distraught young man, eating cheese Danish.
With my limited understanding of the Shakespearean play, what we have here is a whiny millennial from the sixteenth century, upset because his life is miserable, everybody’s lied to him and he seems to be trapped in a family of the hysterical. (And I don’t mean funny.)
So his answer is to consider suicide.
And he’s very noisy about it.
I guess I would kind of assume that anyone who’s noisy about trying to kill himself is hoping that someone will lodge an objection. Otherwise, you open the door one morning and they’ve already gone to it.
Hamlet whines.
I suppose there’s some level of interest in the style of his complaint—his wording—and you may even think that his character explores the depths of human despair and depravity.
But he doesn’t do much to promote the cause of the Dane—especially since there are people like me, who don’t have any other reference about a whole nation of people, other than their twisted, perhaps unfavored son, Hamlet.
To be or not to be?
That is…
Depressing.
