On the willows there, we hung up our lyres

Feels good, Laertes answers--the first answer easy, instinctive. But as he thinks more on it, he finds himself trying to wrap words around it, like forming clay onto an armature. "It means something different, to choose a pain and endure it," he says after a moment. "I like not the pains that come upon me suddenly. To smash my thumb with a hammer, or to dash my leg upon a table, pleases me not. But to bear my hurts for one I love ... it feels different. As though each strike or cut were purifying, like a lance of light that pierces any shadow. All else falls away, and I am glorified by it."