Act V
Scene 1
SETTING: Main hall
(HORATIO enters)
GERTRUDE
(offstage)
I won’t speak to her!
(GERTRUDE enters)
What does she want?
HORATIO
It’s a good idea to speak to her, she might lead those with evil intentions to dangerous conclusions.
GERTRUDE
Fine, show her in.
(to herself)
My soul is sick, and my guilt is full of stupid suspicions that give yourself away from the thing you’re trying so hard not to.
(OPHELIA enters (insane))
OPHELIA
Where is the beautiful queen of Denmark?
GERTRUDE
What are you doing, Ophelia?
OPHELIA
(sings)
How can you tell the difference
Between your true lover and some other?
Your true one wears a pilgrim’s hat
And a pilgrim’s sandals and staff.
GERTRUDE
Oh heavens, what does that song mean, my dear?
OPHELIA
I’m sorry, did you say something? Please just listen.
(sings)
He is dead and gone, lady,
He is dead and gone.
At his head is a patch of green grass,
And at his feet, there is a tombstone.
Oh, ho!
GERTRUDE
No, Ophelia—
OPHELIA
Just listen, please.
(sings)
His death shroud was as white as snow—
(CLAUDIUS enters)
GERTRUDE
My lord, look at this poor girl.
OPHELIA
(sings)
Covered with sweet flowers
Which did not fall to the ground
In true-love showers.
CLAUDIUS
How are you doing, my dear sweet Ophelia?
OPHELIA
I’m quite well, and may God give you what you deserve. They say the baker’s daughter was turned into an owl for refusing Jesus' bread. My lord, we know what we are now, but not what we may become. May God be at your table.
CLAUDIUS
She’s talking about her dead father.
OPHELIA
Oh, let’s not talk about that, but when they ask you what it means, just say:
(sings)
Tomorrow is St. Valentine’s Day
And Early in the morning
I’m a girl below your window
Waiting to be your Valentine.
Then he got up and put on his clothes
And opened the door to his room.
He let in the girl, and when she left
She wasn’t a virgin anymore.
CLAUDIUS
Pretty Ophelia—
OPHELIA
Hang on, I’ll end it soon, I promise:
(sings)
By the name of Jesus and Saint Charity,
My goodness, what a shame it is,
Young men will do it if they get a chance:
By God, they’re very bad.
She said, “Before you got me into bed,
You promised to marry me.”
He answers:
“I would have married you, I swear,
If you hadn’t gone to bed with me.”
CLAUDIUS
How long has she been like this?
OPHELIA
I hope everything will turn out fine. We must be patient, but I can’t help crying when I think of him being laid in the cold ground. My brother will know of this.. And so,-I thank you for your gracious counsel, and bid ya’ll adieu,
adieu,
adieu,
adieu.
(OPHELIA dances off)
CLAUDIUS
(to HORATIO)
Keep an eye on her, please.
(HORATIO exits after OPHELIA)
Her grief has poisoned her mind. First, her father was killed, then your son was taken away—for his own violent actions. People are spreading rumors about Polonius’s death, and I foolishly buried him without a proper funeral. -All while her brother has secretly returned from France and is surrounded by gossip-mongers. Naturally he’ll attribute the murder to me. -Oh, Gertrude, I feel as though I’m being murdered many times over.
(a noise offstage)
GERTRUDE
Oh, God—what’s that noise?
CLAUDIUS
Listen! Guards! Where are my bodyguards?
GERTRUDE
They sound so cheerful as they hunt down the wrong prey. You disloyal Danish dogs!
(a noise offstage)
CLAUDIUS
The doors have been smashed open.
(LAERTES enters)
LAERTES
Where is the vile so-called king?
GERTRUDE
Calm down, good Laertes.
LAERTES
I’ve got exactly one calm drop of blood in my body, and it proclaims that I’m a bastard, says my father was betrayed, and stamps the label “whore” on the pure forehead of my devoted mother.
CLAUDIUS
Laertes, what makes you so rebellious? Let him go, Gertrude. Don’t worry about my getting hurt. God protects the king, so traitors can’t hurt him.—Tell me, Laertes, why you’re so angry.—Gertrude, let him go.—Tell me, son.
LAERTES
Where’s my father?
CLAUDIUS
He’s dead.
GERTRUDE
But the king didn’t kill him.
CLAUDIUS
Let him ask what he wants to ask.
LAERTES
I will avenge my father’s murder. To hell with my vows of allegiance to you, or anyone! Vows can go to hell, and bring my conscious with it.
CLAUDIUS
What’s stopping you?
LAERTES
My free will—nothing else. What little means I have, I’ll use against you.
CLAUDIUS
My dear Laertes, in your eagerness to know the truth about your father’s death, are you determined to hurt his friends and enemies alike?
LAERTES
No, only his enemies.
CLAUDIUS
Do you want to know who they are, then?
LAERTES
I’ll open my arms wide to his true friends, and like a mother pelican with her blood, I’ll even give my life for them.
CLAUDIUS
Why now you’re talking like a good son and a true gentleman. I’ll prove to you as clearly as daylight that I’m innocent of your father’s death, and struck with grief over it.
OPHELIA
(offstage)
Let me in! let me in!
LAERTES
What’s that noise?
(OPHELIA enters)
Oh, you springtime rose, dear maiden, kind sister, sweet Ophelia! Is it possible that a young woman’s mind could fade away as easily as an old man’s life?
OPHELIA
(sings)
They carried him uncovered in the coffin,
Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny.
And tears poured down into his grave.
Good-bye, honey.
LAERTES
If you were sane and could urge me to take revenge, you couldn’t be more persuasive than you are now.
OPHELIA
You’re supposed to sing, “A down a-down,” and you, “Call him a-down-a.” Oh, how it turns around like a wheel! Like the worker who stole his boss’s daughter.
LAERTES
This nonsense means more than rational speech.
OPHELIA
Look at my flowers. There’s rosemary, that’s for remembering. Please remember, love. And those are pansies, they’re for thoughts.
LAERTES
A case study in madness, to connect memory and thought.
OPHELIA
(to GERTRUDE)
Here are fennel and columbines for you—they symbolize adultery.
(to CLAUDIUS)
And here’s rue for you—it symbolizes repentance. We can call it the merciful Sunday flower. You should wear it for a different reason. And here’s a daisy, for unhappy love. I’d give you some violets, flowers of faithfulness, but they all dried up when my father died. They say he looked good when he did.
(sings)
For good sweet Robin is all my joy.
LAERTES
Sadness and torment, suffering, hell itself—she makes them almost pretty.
OPHELIA
(sings)
And won’t he come again?
And won’t he come again?
No, no, he’s dead.
Go to your deathbed.
He’ll never come again.
His beard was white as snow,
His hair was all white too.
He’s gone, he’s gone,
And we moan as we’re cast away.
God have mercy on his soul.
And on the souls of all good Christians, I hope. Goodbye, God be with you.
(OPHELIA exits)
LAERTES
Oh, God. Did you do this!
CLAUDIUS
Laertes, I have a right to share your grief. Go choose your wisest friends, and have them listen to what I have to say. If directly or indirectly they find me implicated in your father’s murder, I’ll give up my kingdom, my crown, and my life as restitution. But if they find me innocent, be patient and I’ll work to satisfy your deepest need for revenge.
LAERTES
All right, then. The way he died, his secret funeral without rites, military display, or formal ceremony—I must call the way he died into question.
CLAUDIUS
May the guilty party be punished by death.
BLINK
CLAUDIUS
Now you’ve got to acknowledge my innocence and believe I’m your friend, since you’ve heard and understood that the man who killed your father was trying to kill me.
LAERTES
Perhaps, but why didn’t you take immediate action against his criminal acts, when your own safety and everything else would seem to call for it?
CLAUDIUS
Oh, for two main reasons which may seem weak to you, but strong to me. The queen, his mother, is devoted to him. And(for better or worse, whichever it is) I can’t live apart from her, anymore than a planet can leave its orbit. The other reason why I couldn’t prosecute Hamlet is the public loves him. In their affection they overlook his faults. Like magic, they convert them into virtues, so whatever I say against him would end up hurting me, not him.
LAERTES
And so, I’ve lost my noble father, had my sister driven insane—my sister who once was the most perfect girl who ever lived. But I will have my revenge.
CLAUDIUS
Do you believe that I can be severely threatened and think it just a game? I loved your father, and I love myself, which should be enough to—
(ship bell noises)
(ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN GHOSTS enter dropping off letters)
What is it? What’s this news?
LAERTES
It appears to be letters from Hamlet. This one’s for you, and this one is for the queen.
(gives CLAUDIUS letters)
CLAUDIUS
From Hamlet?
LAERTES
I believe so.
(ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN GHOSTS exit)
(ship noises fading)
CLAUDIUS
Let's see what they say.
(reads)
“High and Mighty one,
You know I’ve been set down naked, you might say, in
your kingdom. Tomorrow I’ll beg permission to look
into your kingly eyes, at which point I’ll tell you
the story(after first apologizing) of how I came back
to Denmark so strangely and suddenly.
Hamlet.”
What does this mean? Has everyone else come back too? Or is it all a lie—and no one has returned?
LAERTES
Do you recognize the handwriting?
CLAUDIUS
It’s Hamlet’s writing. “Naked,” he says.
LAERTES
Let him come. It warms my weary heart to think I’ll get the chance to look him in the eye and say, “You did this.”
CLAUDIUS
And why shouldn’t you? Will you let me guide and direct you?
LAERTES
As long as you won’t lead me towards peace.
CLAUDIUS
Only towards your own peace of mind.
LAERTES
I only ask to be the agent of his death.
CLAUDIUS
Of course. There’s a quality of yours in which, they say, you shine.
LAERTES
And what quality is that?
CLAUDIUS
Fencing. What proof will you offer—in action, not just words—that you’re your father’s son?
LAERTES
I will cut his throat in the middle of church.
CLAUDIUS
Oh, ok—perhaps we should have a backup plan ready in case the first one doesn’t work. Let me think. We’ll place bets on you and Hamlet. When the two of you have gotten hot and dry, Hamlet will ask for something to drink and I’ll have prepared a chalice for the nonce.
LAERTES
I have poison that if scratched by will likely die.
CLAUDIUS
If by chance he escapes your poisoned sword tip, the drink will kill him.
(offstage noise)
What on earth could it be now?
(GERTRUDE enters)
GERTRUDE
The bad news just keeps on coming, one disaster after another. My dear lord Laertes, I’m so sorry, your sister Ophelia, she, she has drowned.
LAERTES
Drowned!
GERTRUDE
Yes, there’s a willow that leans over a brook, dangling its white leaves over the glassy water. Ophelia made wild wreaths out of those leaves. Climbing onto the tree to hang them on the branches, she and her flowers fell into the gurgling brook. Her clothes spread out wide in the water, and buoyed her up for a while as she sang bits of old hymns, like someone accustomed to danger not realizing how much they’re in. It was only a matter of time before her clothes, heavy with water, pulled the poor thing out of her song.
LAERTES
She is drowned..
GERTRUDE
Drowned, drowned.
LAERTES
Oh, my sweet, poor, loving Ophelia! I have fiery words I could speak, but my foolish tears are drowning them out.
(LAERTES exits)
CLAUDIUS
I had worked so hard to calm him down, but now.. Come Gertrude, we must follow him.
(CLAUDIUS and GERTRUDE exit)
(END OF SCENE)
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