Hamlet - a stressed syllable

[Jumbuck]

I saw the RSC production on TV at Christmas and am now watching it on DVD (and am enjoying it very much again), and one particular detail that has struck me is that just before the players appear to perform The Mousetrap, Hamlet is lying in Ophelia's lap and says to her "Do you think that I meant country matters?" with the first syllable of the word 'country' stressed very deliberately.

I am not a Shakespeare scholar so I wonder whether this is wordplay that The Bard himself would have used or just a invention for this particular production?

[swedeheart]

Oh he knew what he was doing, the little rascal ;-) Have a look at Wikipedia's entry on the C word, subtitle Usage: pre-20th century.

[swedeheart]

(Sorry, subtitle is the wrong word and I can't recall the right one, being a Swede in the middle of the night and everything;-) but you see what I mean don't you. Similar to a headline but smaller, dividing the text into manageable chunks.)

[jno]

yes, entirely deliberate. There's also Hamlet talking to Ros and Guil:

Guil. Happy, in that we are not the over-happy.
On Fortune’s cap we are not the very button.
Ham. Nor the soles of her shoe?
Ros. Neither, my lord.
Ham. Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of her favour?
Guil. Faith, her privates we.

There are whole books on Shakespeare's use of bawdy language.

[Canary42]

He certainly meant it - Hamlet is flirting outrageously with Ophelia during this scene - for example not only with the bit you mentioned :-

§ HAMLET
§ Do you think I meant country matters?
§
§ OPHELIA
§ I think nothing, my lord.
§
§ HAMLET
§ That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs.
§

... but also later in the same scene the following dialogue takes place :-


§ OPHELIA
§ You are keen, my lord, you are keen.
§
§ HAMLET
§ It would cost you a groaning to take off my edge.
§

In Shakespeare's day "a groaning" could refer to sexu@l interc0urse.

He could be quite "filthy" at times - it appealed to the Groundlings.

[Jumbuck]

Thanks for the replies.

I expected as much; the effects of a bottle of wine made the pause between 1st and 2nd syllable seem to go on forever and thus worth asking about.