HaMLeT - Act III Scene 2
Act III
Scene 2
SETTING: A room in the castle
(HAMLET enters)
HAMLET
(to himself)
These boring old fools.
GUILDENSTERN
My lord!
ROSENCRANTZ
Dear sir!
HAMLET
Ah, my good friends! How are you both doing?
ROSENCRANTZ
As well as anybody.
GUILDENSTERN
Happy that we’re not too happy, lucky in being not too lucky. We’re not exactly at the top of our luck.
HAMLET
But you’re not down and out, either, are you?
ROSENCRANTZ
No, we’re just somewhere in the middle, my lord.
HAMLET
So you’re around Lady Luck’s waist?
GUILDENSTERN
Yes, we’re privates in her army.
HAMLET
Ha, ha, so you’ve gotten into her private parts? Of course—Lady Luck is such a slut! Anyway, what’s up?
ROSENCRANTZ
Not much, my lord. Just that the world’s become honest.
HAMLET
In that case, the end is nigh. But you’re wrong. Let me ask you a specific question. What crimes have you committed to be sent here to this prison?
GUILDENSTERN
Prison, my lord?
HAMLET
Denmark’s a prison.
ROSENCRANTZ
Then I guess the whole world is one.
HAMLET
Yes, quite a large one, with many cells and dungeons, Denmark being one of the worst.
ROSENCRANTZ
We don’t think so, my lord.
HAMLET
Well, then it isn’t one to you, since nothing is really good or bad in itself. It’s all what a person thinks about it. And to me, Denmark is a prison.
ROSENCRANTZ
That’s because you’re ambitious. It’s too small for your large mind.
HAMLET
Small? No, I could live in a walnut shell and feel like the king of the universe. The real problem is that I have bad dreams.
GUILDENSTERN
Dreams are a sign of ambition, since ambition is nothing more than the shadow of a dream.
HAMLET
But a dream itself is just a shadow.
ROSENCRANTZ
Exactly! In fact, I consider ambition to be so light and airy that it’s only the shadow of a shadow.
HAMLET
Then I guess beggars are the ones with bodies, while ambitious kings and heroes are just the shadows of beggars. Should we go inside? I seem to be losing my mind a bit.
GUILDENSTERN
We’re at your service my lord, whatever you say.
HAMLET
No, no, I won’t class you with my servants, since—to be frank with you—my servants are terrible. But tell me as my friends, what are you doing here in Elsinore?
ROSENCRANTZ
Visiting you, my lord. No other reason.
HAMLET
Well, then, I thank you, though I’m such a beggar that even my thanks are not worth much. Did someone tell you to visit me? Or was it just your whim, on your own initiative? Come on, tell me the truth.
GUILDENSTERN
What should we say, my lord?
HAMLET
Anything you like, as long as it answers my question. You’ve got a guilty look on your face, which you’re too honest to disguise. I know the king and queen sent for you.
ROSENCRANTZ
Why would they do that, my lord?
HAMLET
That’s what I want you to tell me. Let me remind you of our old friendship, our youth spent together, the duties of our love for each other, and whatever else will make you answer me straight.
ROSENCRANTZ
(to GUILDENSTERN)
What do you think?
HAMLET
(to himself)
I’ve got my eye on you.
(to GUILDENSTERN)
If you care about me, be honest.
GUILDENSTERN
My lord, we were sent for—
HAMLET
I’ll tell you—so you won’t have to tell me and give away any secrets you have. Recently, though I don’t know why, I’ve lost all sense of fun, and stopped exercising. The whole world feels sterile and empty. This beautiful canopy we call the—sky this majestic roof decorated with golden sunlight—why, it’s nothing more to me than disease filled air. What a thing humans are. How noble in our capacity to reason, how unlimited in thinking, how admirable in the shape and movement, how angelic in action, how godlike in understanding! There’s nothing more beautiful. We surpass all other animals. And yet, we are but stardust. Men don’t interest me. No—women neither, but you’re smiling, so you must think they do.
ROSENCRANTZ
No, my lord, I wasn’t thinking anything like that.
HAMLET
So why did you laugh when I said that men don’t interest me?
ROSENCRANTZ
I was just thinking that if people don’t interest you, you’ll be pretty bored by the actors on their way here. We crossed paths with a drama company just a while ago, and they’re coming to entertain you.
HAMLET
How peculiar.. I will have them perform a particular piece in part for me then, and the one playing the king will be particularly welcomed. I’ll treat him like a real king. The knight will wave around his sword and shield, the lover will be rewarded for his sighs, the crazy character can rant all he wants, the clown will make everybody laugh, and the lady character can say whatever’s on her mind, or, I’ll stop the play. Which troupe is it?
ROSENCRANTZ
The Tragedians of the City, the ones you used to enjoy so much.
HAMLET
Why aren’t they in Wittenberg?
ROSENCRANTZ
More money and attention than in the city.
HAMLET
Are they as popular as they used to be when I lived there?
ROSENCRANTZ
No, not like before.
HAMLET
How tragic, are they getting rusty?
ROSENCRANTZ
No, they’re busy and as excellent as ever. The problem is that they have to compete with a group of children who yell out their lines and receive outrageous applause for it. These child actors are now in fashion, and they’ve so overtaken the public theaters that society types hardly come at all, they’re so afraid of being mocked by the playwrights who write for them.
HAMLET
What, you mean kid actors? Who takes care of them? Who pays their way? Will they stop working when their voices mature? Aren’t the playwrights hurting them by making them upstage adult actors, which they are going to grow up and become? (Unless, of course, they have trust funds.)
ROSENCRANTZ
There’s been a whole debate on the topic for a while, no plays were sold to the theaters without a fight between the children’s playwright and the actors playing adult roles.
HAMLET
Are you kidding me?
GUILDENSTERN
Oh, there’s been a lot of quarreling.
HAMLET
And the children are winning so far?
ROSENCRANTZ
Yes, they are, my lord—the young are carrying the whole theater on their backs, like Hercules carried the world.
HAMLET
Actually, it’s not so unusual when you think about it. My uncle is the king of Denmark, and the same people who made fun of him while my father was still alive are now rushing to pay fifty, to a hundred ducats apiece for miniature portraits of him. There’s something downright unnatural about it, if a philosopher stopped to think.
(trumpets play offstage announcing the arrival of PLAYERS)
GUILDENSTERN
The actors are here.
HAMLET
Gentlemen, welcome to Elsinore. Don’t be shy—shake hands with me. If I’m going to welcome you I have to go through all these polite customs, don’t I? And if we don’t shake hands, when I act all nice to the players it will seem like I’m happier to see them than you. You are very welcome here. But still, my uncle—father/aunt-mother have got the wrong idea.
GUILDENSTERN
In what sense, my lord?
HAMLET
I’m only crazy sometimes. At other times, I know what’s what.
(POLONIUS enters)
POLONIUS
Gentlemen, I hope you are well.
HAMLET
Listen to me, Guildenstern, and Rosencrantz.
(gestures towards POLONIUS)
This big baby is still in diapers.
ROSENCRANTZ
Yes, the second time around, since, as they say, old people become children again.
HAMLET
(whispering to ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN)
I bet he’s coming to tell me about the actors, watch.
(pretending to have another conversation)
You’re right, sir, that happened on Monday morning.
POLONIUS
My lord, I have news for you.
HAMLET
My lord, I have news for you. When Roscius was an actor in ancient Rome—
POLONIUS
The actors have arrived, my lord.
HAMLET
Yawn, snore.
POLONIUS
I swear.
HAMLET
Each actor arrived on his ass.
POLONIUS
They are the best actors in the world. The tragic playwright Seneca is not too heavy for them to handle nor is the comic writer Plautus too light. For formal plays or freer dramas, these are the best actors around.
HAMLET
Oh, Jephthah, judge of ancient Israel, what a treasure you had!
POLONIUS
What treasure did he have, my lord?
HAMLET
Well,
(sings)
One fine daughter, and no more,
Whom he loved more than anything—.
POLONIUS
(to himself)
Still talking about my daughter, I see.
HAMLET
Aren’t I right, Jephthah, old man?
POLONIUS
If you’re calling me Jephthah, my lord, I do have a daughter I love more than anything, yes.
HAMLET
No, that’s not logical.
POLONIUS
What is logical, then, my lord?
HAMLET
Why,
(sings)
As if by chance, God knows,
and then, you know,
It happened, as you’d expect—
If you want to know more, you can refer to the popular song, because now I have to stop.
(the PLAYERS enter)
Welcome, welcome to all of you!
(he turns to one of the actors)
Oh, you, I’m glad to see you.
(turns back to all of them)
Welcome, my good friends.
(turns to another actor)
Oh, it’s you! You’ve grown a beard since I saw you last. Are you going to put a beard on me too?
(turns to an actor dressed as a woman)
Well hello, my young lady friend. You’ve grown as much as the height of a pair of platform shoes at least! I hope your voice hasn’t changed yet.
(to the whole company)
All of you are most welcome here. First, a speech. Come on, give us a little speech to whet our appetites.
FIRST PLAYER
Which speech, my lord?
HAMLET
I heard you recite a speech for me once that was never acted out, or if it was, it was performed only once, since the play was not popular—like caviar for a slob who couldn’t appreciate it. It was when Aeneas told Dido about Priam’s murder. If you happen to remember this scene, begin at line—let me see, how does it go?
The rugged Pyrrhus, strong as a tiger—
No, that’s wrong; it begins like this:
Savage Pyrrhus, whose black armor was
As dark plans, and was like the night
When he crouched inside the Trojan Horse,
Has now smeared his dark armor
With something worse. From head to foot
He’s now covered in red, decorated horribly
With the blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons. The blood is baked to a paste by fires
He set in the streets, fires that lend a terrible
Light to his horrible murders.
Boiling with anger,
And coated thick with hard—baked blood,
His eyes glowing like rubies, the hellish Pyrrhus
Goes looking for grandfather Priam.
Sir, take it from there.
POLONIUS
My God, well done my lord, the right accent, and a good ear.
FIRST PLAYER
Soon he finds Priam Failing in his battle against the Greeks. His old sword, Which Priam can no longer wield, lies where it fell.
An unfair opponent,
Pyrrhus rushes at Priam, and in his rage he misses;
But the wind created by his sword is enough to make
The weakened old man fall. Just then the city of Ilium,
As if feeling this fatal blow to its ruler,
Collapses in flames, and the crash
Captures Pyrrhus’s attention. His sword,
Which was falling onto Priam’s white—haired head
Seemed to hang in the air.
Pyrrhus stood there like a man in a painting,
Doing nothing.
But just as a raging thunderstorm
Is often interrupted by a moment’s silence,
And then soon after the region is split apart by dreadful thunderclaps,
In the same way, after Pyrrhus paused,
His newly awakened fury set him to work again.
The cyclopes wielding unbreakable armor
For Mars, God of War, hammers never fell
So mercilessly as Pyrrhus’s bloody sword
Now falls on Priam.
Get out of here, Lady Luck, you whore! All you Gods
Should come together to rob her of her powers,
Break all the spokes on her wheel of fortune,
And send it rolling down the hills of heaven
Into the depths of hell.
POLONIUS
This speech is too long.
HAMLET
We’ll have the barber trim it later, along with your beard. Please, continue, players. This old man only likes dancing or the sex scenes; he sleeps through all the rest. Go on, come to the part about Hecuba.
FIRST PLAYER
But who—ah, the sadness—had seen the muffled queen—
HAMLET
“The muffled queen”?
POLONIUS
That’s good. “The muffled queen” is good.
FIRST PLAYER
Running back and forth, spraying the flames with her tears, a cloth on the head where a crown had recently sat and a blanket instead of a robe wrapped around her body, which has withered from childbearing: anyone seeing her in such a state, no matter how spiteful they were, would have cursed Lady Luck for bringing her down like that. If the gods had seen her while she watched Pyrrhus chopping her husband into bits, the terrible cry she uttered would have made all the eyes in heaven burn with hot tears—unless, the gods don’t care about humans.
POLONIUS
Look how flushed the actor is, with tears in his eyes. All right, that’s enough, please.
HAMLET
(to FIRST PLAYER)
Wonderful! I’ll have you perform the rest of it soon.
(to POLONIUS)
—My lord, will you make sure the actors are made comfortable? Make sure you’re good to them, since what they say about us later will go down in history. It’d be better to have a bad epitaph on our graves than to have their ill will while we’re alive.
POLONIUS
My lord, I will give them all they deserve.
HAMLET
Good heavens man, give them more than that! If you pay everyone what they deserve, would anyone escape a whipping? Treat them with honor and dignity. The less they deserve, the more your generosity is worth. Lead them inside.
POLONIUS
(to PLAYERS)
Come, everyone.
HAMLET
Follow him, friends. We’ll watch a whole play tomorrow.
(to FIRST PLAYER)
My friend, can you perform The Murder of Gonzago?
FIRST PLAYER
Yes, my lord.
HAMLET
If I were to compose an extra speech of twelve to sixteen lines and stick them into the play, you could learn it by heart for tomorrow, right?
FIRST PLAYER
Yes, my lord.
HAMLET
Very good, now follow that gentleman, and be careful not to make fun of him.
(everyone except HAMLET exits)
Welcome to Elsinore!
It’s awful how these actors can force their souls to feel made—up feelings in a work of make—believe. They would drown the stage with Gods “hot tears”, burst the audience’s ears with their terrible words, drive the guilty spectators crazy, terrify the innocent ones, and confuse the ignorant, all while astounding everyone’s eyes and ears. My father’s been murdered, and I’ve been urged to seek revenge by heaven or hell, and all I can do is stand around cursing like a whore in church. Dammit, I need to get myself together here! The devil has the power to assume pleasing disguises, and I need more evidence than a ghost to work with...And so, this play will uncover the conscience of us all.
(HAMLET exits)
(END OF SCENE)
@oddmitchbrown