SCENE 1: A ROOM IN THE CASTLE. — Shakespeare Retold

[Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, POLONIUS, OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN]

KING CLAUDIUS

And can you, by no drift of circumstance,

And can’t you, by remaining on the topic,

Get from him why he puts on this confusion,

Have him say why he’s acting so confused,

Grating so harshly all his days of quiet

Disrupting all tranquillity of life

With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?

With volatile and dangerous lunacy?

ROSENCRANTZ

He does confess he feels himself distracted;

He recognises he’s a bit distracted,

But from what cause he will by no means speak.

But, as for why, he flatly will not say.

GUILDENSTERN

Nor do we find him forward to be sounded,

Nor did we find him keen to be examined,

But, with a crafty madness, keeps aloof,

But, feigning lunacy, he kept aloof

When we would bring him on to some confession

When we were pressing him to tell us how

Of his true state.

He really was.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Did he receive you well?

Was he polite to you?

ROSENCRANTZ

Most like a gentleman.

Just like a gentleman.

GUILDENSTERN

But with much forcing of his disposition.

But seemed to force his own exuberance.

ROSENCRANTZ

Niggard of question; but, of our demands,

He didn’t ask us questions, but to ours

Most free in his reply.

He answered openly.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Did you assay him?

Did you engage him?

To any pastime?

In activities?

ROSENCRANTZ

Madam, it so fell out, that certain players

Well, Madam, as it happens, there were actors

We o'er-raught on the way: of these we told him;

We overtook arriving here. We told him

And there did seem in him a kind of joy

And it appeared that he was quite delighted

To hear of it: they are about the court,

To hear of this; they’re now out in the court,

And, as I think, they have already order

And I believe the actors are commissioned

This night to play before him.

Tonight to act for him.

LORD POLONIUS

'Tis most true:

That is correct:

And he beseeched me to entreat your majesties

And he implored I press the both of you

To hear and see the matter.

To come and see the play.

KING CLAUDIUS

With all my heart; and it doth much content me

Of course I will; and I am so delighted

To hear him so inclined.

To hear him think this way.

Good gentlemen, give him a further edge,

Good gentlemen, give your encouragement

And drive his purpose on to these delights.

To him to keep him focused on the play.

ROSENCRANTZ

We shall, my lord.

We will, my lord.

[Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN]

KING CLAUDIUS

Sweet Gertrude, leave us too;

Dear Gertrude, leave us too,

For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither,

For secretly we’ve called our Hamlet back

That he, as 'twere by accident, may here

So he, as if by accident, will here

Affront Ophelia:

Confront Ophelia.

Her father and myself, lawful espials,

Her father and myself, both rightful spies,

Will so bestow ourselves that, seeing, unseen,

Will hide ourselves and watch, throughout unseen,

We may of their encounter frankly judge,

So we can fairly judge their interaction

And gather by him, as he is behaved,

And thus deduce, from how he has behaved,

If 't be the affliction of his love or no

If he’s afflicted through the love of her

That thus he suffers for.

And that’s what’s causing this.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

I shall obey you.

I will obey you.

And for your part, Ophelia, I do wish

And as for you, Ophelia, I hope

That your good beauties be the happy cause

Your beauty is, delightfully, the cause

Of Hamlet's wildness: so shall I hope your virtues

Of Hamlet’s rage. I hope that your allure

Will bring him to his wonted way again,

Will help restore him to normality

To both your honours.

And thus appease you both.

OPHELIA

Madam, I wish it may.

I hope that too.

[Exit QUEEN GERTRUDE]

LORD POLONIUS

Ophelia, walk you here. Gracious, so please you,

Ophelia, just walk about. My lord,

We will bestow ourselves.

It’s time for us to hide.

[To OPHELIA]

Read on this book;

Read from this book,

That show of such an exercise may colour

And do so in a way that emphasises

Your loneliness. We are oft to blame in this,--

Your loneliness. We’re often guilty of this:

'Tis too much proved--that with devotion's visage

It’s often proved that, with a doting face

And pious action we do sugar o'er

And acting sanctimonious, we hide

The devil himself.

The devil incarnate.

KING CLAUDIUS

[Aside]

O, 'tis too true!

Oh, that is true!

How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!

Those words are like a whip across my conscience.

The harlot's cheek, beautied with plastering art,

The hooker’s face, plastered in lurid makeup,

Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it

Is just as ugly with cosmetic dressing

Than is my deed to my most painted word:

As are my actions to my outward speech.

O heavy burthen!

Oh, what a burden!

LORD POLONIUS

I hear him coming: let's withdraw, my lord.

I hear him coming; let’s withdraw, my lord.

[Exeunt KING CLAUDIUS and POLONIUS]

[Enter HAMLET]

HAMLET

To be, or not to be, that is the question,

To live, or not to live: I have to wonder.

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

Would I find greater honour if I suffered

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

The stinging pain wrought by my wretched luck

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

Instead of fighting back against my troubles,

And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;

Which, doing so, would kill me? Death. I’d sleep

No more; and by a sleep to say we end

No longer. Being dead will be the end

The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks

Of all the heartache and the seismic shocks

That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation

That life inflicts. Oh, what a state of being

Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep;

Wholeheartedly to hope for! Endless sleep!

To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;

But sleeping, I might dream, and there’s the catch:

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

When we have left this turmoil of existence?

Must give us pause: there's the respect

It’s worth a thought, for sure. That is the issue

That makes calamity of so long life;

That makes us tolerate our dismal lives,

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

Because who would endure this dismal life,

The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,

Abuse from those in power, swaggering insults,

The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,

The pain of love rebuked, the law’s delay,

The insolence of office and the spurns

Officials’ gall or all the condescension

That patient merit of the unworthy takes,

That decent folk endure from those less worthy,

When he himself might his quietus make

When one could bring eternal rest from death

With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,

All by a dagger’s stab? Who’d bear such burdens,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

To grunt and sweat their weary way through life,

But that the dread of something after death,

Unless it was in fear of worse in death,

The undiscovered country from whose bourn

An undiscovered country from whose border

No traveller returns, puzzles the will

No traveller returns, and makes us ponder,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Concluding that we’d rather bear the pain

Than fly to others that we know not of?

We know of than of that that we do not?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;

And so, awareness turns us into cowards;

And thus the native hue of resolution

And thus our natural drive to solve a problem

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,

Recedes and fades through over-contemplation,

And enterprises of great pith and moment

And those endeavours, once thought so important,

With this regard their currents turn awry,

Lose depth and influence as time ebbs by,

And lose the name of action.--Soft you now!

Resulting in inaction. Quieten up!

The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons

My dear Ophelia! Love, in your prayers

Be all my sins remembered.

Remember all my sins.

OPHELIA

Good my lord,

Hello, my lord,

How does your honour for this many a day?

How have you been since last time that we met?

HAMLET

I humbly thank you; well, well, well.

OPHELIA

My lord, I have remembrances of yours,

My lord, I have some keepsakes that are yours

That I have longed long to re-deliver;

That for some time I’ve wanted to return;

I pray you, now receive them.

So, please accept them back.

HAMLET

No, not I;

It wasn’t me;

I never gave you aught.

I never gave you nothing.

OPHELIA

My honoured lord, you know right well you did;

My honoured lord, I know for sure you did;

And, with them, words of so sweet breath composed

You also gave them with exquisite words

As made the things more rich: their perfume lost,

That made them all more loved; their sheen removed,

Take these again; for to the noble mind

They’re yours again; for to a decent person

Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.

Fine gifts lose charm when givers turn out mean.

There, my lord.

HAMLET

Ha, ha! Are you honest?

Ha ha! Are you honest?

OPHELIA

My lord?

Meaning?

HAMLET

Are you fair?

Are you gorgeous?

OPHELIA

What means your lordship?

What do you mean, my lord?

HAMLET

That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should

If you’re honest and gorgeous, honesty

admit no discourse to your beauty.

should have no interaction with your beauty.

OPHELIA

Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than

My lord, could beauty better interact

with honesty?

HAMLET

Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner

For sure; because the force of beauty quickly

transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than the

transforms an honest girl into a hooker,

force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness:

faster than honesty can make her gorgeous.

this was sometime a paradox, but now the

This formerly was thought a contradiction,

time gives it proof. I did love you once.

but time has proved it so. I loved you once.

OPHELIA

Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.

Indeed, my lord, you made me think you did.

HAMLET

You should not have believed me; for virtue cannot

You shouldn’t have believed me; goodness can’t

so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it:

completely overcome our rotten souls.

I loved you not.

I never loved you.

OPHELIA

I was the more deceived.

Well then, you had me fooled.

HAMLET

Get thee to a nunnery: why wouldst thou be a

Resettle in a convent! Why become

breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest;

a mother of more sinners? I’m quite honest

but yet I could accuse me of such things that it

but yet I could accuse myself of sins

were better my mother had not borne me: I am very

so bad it better I had not been born.

proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offences at

I’m proud, vindictive, driven, guilty of

my beck than I have thoughts to put them in,