Why does everyone say that they played someone ‘like a fiddle’? Fiddles are actually pretty difficult to play? Why not say ‘I played him like a recorder’? ‘Like a xylophone’? ‘Like a triangle’?
I think it’s got to do with detail and subtlety. If you play someone like a fiddle, that’s like, Iago or some shit. If you play someone like a triangle, you just told them there was free food somewhere when there wasn’t.
I’ve once read the following exchange:
“You played me!”
“Like the cheap kazoo you are.”
Which in my books is a pretty epic burn if we’re going to be making musical comparisons.
hamlet had a sick burn where he told either rosencranz or guildenstern (i forget which is which, and i suspect sometimes so did they) to play him a song on the flute, and when the guy was like “well prince bossypants i can’t actually play the flute” hamlet was like “really? that’s funny cuz you just tried to play me…”
and the reason that’s the sickest is not only was it a reversal of the ‘played you like an instrument’ thing, flutes are kinda phallic and you blow them so there is an implication of ‘get off my dick’
salt truck hamlet strikes again
Honestly like 80% of what Hamlet says to R&G consists of sick burns, I’m not really clear on why they keep hanging out with him.