I went to see Hamlet last week at the Yale Repertory Theater, starring Paul Giamatti. It was quite good, and I liked Paul Giamatti in the role, although I think I preferred him more as a sleazy film producer in Big Fat Liar. I get pretty twitchy if plays run long, and this was very much on the long side (3 ½ plus hours). But I enjoyed the sword fight at the end.
I’d read Hamlet in college, and seen the movie a couple of times, but it was during this performance that some lines jumped out at me for the first time. They’re in the gravedigger’s scene (just before Hamlet holds up the skull and delivers his famous “Alas, poor Yorick” speech). Here’s what made me prick up my ears:
GRAVEDIGGER
Faith, if he be not rotten before he die—as we have many pocky corses nowadays that will scarce hold the laying in— he will last you some eight year or nine year. A tanner will last you nine year.
HAMLET
Why he more than another?
GRAVEDIGGER
Why, sir, his hide is so tanned with his trade that he will keep out water a great while, and your water is a sore decayer of your whoreson dead body.
When I read this in college, I had no clue what tanners were or did, outside of a vague idea that they made leather. But Shakespeare’s audience would have been all too familiar with what the gravedigger was talking about. Everyone knew about the tanning trade, because it was probably the smelliest job one could have during an extremely smelly period of history. It’s the process of turning animal hides into leather.
Tanners got hides from local butchers and slaughterhouses. During Shakespeare’s time, the bloody, hairy, slimy hides were first soaked for several weeks in a solution of lime and urine, where they gradually rotted. The tanner then hauled out the rotten hides and scraped off the guts and hair. The fatty bits were sent off to be made into soap.
Next, the dehaired hide was soaked in—brace yourself—a solution of watered-down dog poop. Something about the enzymes in the poop helped to soften up the leather. It worked even better if the poop soup was warmed up, adding to the aromas and further enraging the neighbors.
Finally, the hide was soaked in the “tanning” solution, which was a brew made of watered-down oak bark. Then they were stretched out and dried. It was a dismal job, but someone had to do it.