Seeing her teacup set on the island recalls Laertes's to him; he picks it up again to find it cold. "I am the son of Denmark's lord chamberlain, older brother to a younger sister. I love music, and yet I haven't managed to play a note in months. I had not the patience for astronomy, and I have spent my whole life regretting this as a moral deficiency. I learned every art of the shipwright's trade for long enough to build a boat for Annie, and if my life were forfeit, I could not remember enough to make another. I know not what to say when a young woman tells me that she would like to know me better."