The Real Inspector Hound and Other Plays (28 page)

CLAUDIUS
:

Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother’s death The memory be green
(
Enter
HAMLET
who is played by
FOX MAJOR.
)
Our sometime sister, now our Queen
Have we taken to wife.
But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son—

HAMLET
:

A little more than kin, and less than kind.
(
Exit
CLAUDIUS
and
GERTRUDE.
)
O that this too too solid flesh would melt!
That it should come to this—but two months dead!
So loving to my mother: Frailty, thy name is woman!
Married with mine uncle, my father’s brother.
The funeral baked meats did coldly furnish forth The marriage tables.
(
The crown hinges down
.
HORATIO
rushes on
.)

HORATIO
:

My lord, I think I saw him yesternight—
The King, your father—upon the platform where we watched.

HAMLET
:

’Tis very strange.

HORATIO
:

Armed, my lord—
A countenance more in sorrow than in anger.

HAMLET
:

My father’s spirit in arms? All is not well.
Would the night were come!
(
The moon hinges up. Exeunt to parapet. End scene
.)

HORATIO
and
HAMLET
appear on platform built by
EASY
.

HAMLET
:

The King doth wake tonight and takes his rouse, Though I am native here and to the manner born, It is a custom more honoured in the breach Than in the observance.
(
Wind noise
.)

HORATIO
:

Look, my lord, it comes. (
Points
)
(
Enter
GHOST
above the wall built of blocks
.)

HAMLET
:

Angels and ministers of grace defend us! Something is rotten in the state of Denmark! Alas, poor ghost.

GHOST
:

I am thy father’s spirit.
Revenge his foul and most unnnatural murder.

HAMLET
:

Murder?

GHOST
:

The serpent that did sting thy father’s life Now wears his crown.

HAMLET
:

O my prophetic soul? Mine uncle?
(
Exit
GHOST.
To
HORATIO.
)
There are more things in heaven and earth
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
(
Exit
HORATIO.
)
Hereafter I shall think meet
To put an antic disposition on.
The time is out of joint. O cursed spite
That ever I was born to set it right!
(
Exit
HAMLET.
Moon hinges down. End scene
.)

POLONIUS
:

How now Ophelia, what’s the matter?

OPHELIA
:

My lord, as I was sewing in my chamber,
Lord Hamlet with his doublet all unbraced;
No hat upon his head, pale as his shirt,
His knees knocking each other, and with a look so piteous
He comes before me.

POLONIUS
:

Mad for thy love?
I have found the very cause of Hamlet’s lunacy.
(
Enter
HAMLET,
exit
OPHELIA.
)
Look where sadly the poor wretch comes reading
What do you read, my lord?

HAMLET
:

Words, words, words.

POLONIUS
:

Though this be madness, yet there is method in it.

HAMLET
:

I am but mad north northwest: when the wind is
southerly I know a hawk from a
handsaw.
(
Slams book shut and against
POLONIUS
’s
chest
)

POLONIUS
:

The actors are come hither, my lord. (
Exits
)

HAMLET
:

We’ll hear a play tomorrow.
I have heard that guilty creatures sitting at a play
Have by the very cunning of the scene
Been struck so to the soul that presently
They have proclaimed their malefactions.
I’ll have these players play something
Like the murder of my father before mine uncle.
If he but blench, I know my course.
The play’s the thing
Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.
(
Pause
)
To be, or not to be (
Puts dagger, pulled from his sleeve, to heart.
Enter
CLAUDIUS
and
OPHELIA.
)
that is the question.

OPHELIA
:

My lord—

HAMLET
:

Get thee to a nunnery!
(
Exit
OPHELIA
and
HAMLET
.)

CLAUDIUS
:

Love? His affections do not that way tend
There’s something in his soul
O’er which his melancholy sits on brood.
He shall with speed to England.
(
Exit
CLAUDIUS.
End scene
.)

HAMLET
:

(
To puppet players
.) Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you; trippingly on the tongue. Hold, as t’were, the mirror up to nature
(
ALL
sit to watch puppet play. Masque music)
(To
GERTRUDE
.) Madam, how like you the play?

GERTRUDE
:

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

HAMLET
:

He poisons him in the garden of his estate. You shall see anon how the murderer gets the love of Gonzago’s wife.
(
CLAUDIUS
rises
.)
The King rises!
(
Music stops, hubbub noise starts
.)
What, frighted with false fire?
(
Exit
,
CLAUDIUS
.)

ALL
:

Give o’er the play.
(
Puppets disappear, crown disappears
.)

HAMLET
:

Lights! Lights! Lights! I’ll take the ghost’s word for a thousand pounds!
(
Exeunt
ALL
except
POLONIUS
.)

POLONIUS
:

(
Standing at side
.) He’s going to his mother’s closet. Behind the arras I’ll convey myself to hear the process.
(
End scene
.)

HAMLET
:

Now Mother, what’s the matter?

GERTRUDE
:

Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.

HAMLET
:

Mother, you have my father much offended.
(
Holds her
.)

GERTRUDE
:

What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murder me? Help! Help! Ho!

POLONIUS
:

(
Behind the arras
.) Help!

HAMLET
:

How now? A rat? (Stafe
POLONIUS
.) Dead for a ducat, dead!

GERTRUDE
:

O me, what hast thou done?

HAMLET
:

Nay, I know not.

GERTRUDE
:

Alas, he’s mad.

HAMLET
:

I must be cruel only to be kind. Good night, Mother.
(
Exit
HAMLET
dragging
POLONIUS.
Exit
GERTRUDE,
sobbing. Arras hinges back. End scene
.)

CLAUDIUS
:

Now, Hamlet, where’s Polonius?

HAMLET
:

At supper. (
Hiding his sword clumsily
.)

CLAUDIUS
:

Hamlet, this deed must send thee hence. Therefore prepare thyself, Everything is bent for England.
(
Exit
HAMLET.
)
And England, if my love thou holds’t at aught, Thou may’st not coldly set our sov’reign process, The present death of Hamlet. Do it, England!
(
Exit
CLAUDIUS.
Crown hingest down. End scene
.)

LAERTES
:

Where is my father?

CLAUDIUS
:

Dead.
(
Enter
OPHELIA
in mad trance, singing and carrying a bouquet of flowers wrapped in cellophane and with a red ribbon. Lute music
.)

OPHELIA
:

They bore him barefaced on the bier,
(
After her first line she gives a flower to
LAERTES.
) Hey nonny nonny, hey nonny.
(
After her second, she slams the bouquet in
CLAUDIUS
’s
stomach. It is, of course, the missing bouquet from the speech-day ceremony
.)

OPHELIA
:

And on his grave rained many a tear …
(
Half-way through her third line she disappears behind the screen stage left and pauses
.
CLAUDIUS
and
LAERTES
peer round the side she disappeared and she runs round the other behind them
.)

LAERTES
:

O heat dry up my brains—O kind Sister,
(
OPHELIA
falls to ground. She catches a flower thrown from stage right screen
.)
Had’st thou thy wits, and did’st persuade revenge It could not move thus.

CLAUDIUS
:

And where the offence is, let the great axe fall.
(
Exit
CLAUDIUS
and
LAERTES. OPHELIA
sits up to reach gravestone which she swings down to conceal her. Bell tolls four times. End scene
.)

HAMLET
:

Ere we were two days at sea, a pirate of very warlike appointment gave us chase. In the grapple I boarded them. On the instant they got clear of our ship; so I alone became their prisoner. They have dealt with me like thieves of mercy.

GRAVEDIGGER
:

What is he that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright or the carpenter?

HAMLET
:

A gravemaker. The houses he makes will last till Doomsday.
(
GRAVEDIGGER
gives skull to
HAMLET.
)
Whose was it?

GRAVEDIGGER
:

This same skull, Sir, was Yorick’s skull, the King’s jester.

HAMLET
:

Alas, poor Yorick. (
Returns skull to
GRAVEDIGGER.
)
But soft—that is Laertes. (
Withdraws to side
.)
(
Enter
LAERTES
.)

LAERTES
:

What ceremony else?
Lay her in the earth,
May violets spring. I tell thee, churlish priest …
(
Enter
CLAUDIUS
and
GERTRUDE.
)
A ministering angel shall my sister be
When thou liest howling.

HAMLET
:

(
Hiding behind the brick platform
.) What, the fair Ophelia?

LAERTES
:

O treble woe. Hold off the earth awhile,
Till I have caught her once more in my arms.

HAMLET
:

(
Re-entering acting area
.)
What is he whose grief bears such an emphasis?
This is I, Hamlet the Dane!

LAERTES
:

The devil take thy soul.
(
They grapple
.)

HAMLET
:

Away thy hand!
(
CLAUDIUS
and
GERTRUDE
pull them apart
.)

CLAUDIUS/GERTRUDE
:

Hamlet! Hamlet!

HAMLET
:

I loved Ophelia. What wilt thou do for her?

GERTRUDE
:

O he is mad. Laertes!
(
Exit
CLAUDIUS, GERTRUDE
and
LAERTES
.)

HAMLET
:

The cat will mew, and dog will have his day!
(
Exeunt. End scene
.)