Characters

• Hamlet
• The Ghost of Hamlet's Father
• Claudius, King of Denmark
• Polonius, Chamberlain
• Laertes, his son
• Ophelia, his daughter
• Guildenstern
• Rosencrantz
• Marcellus
• 1st Gravedigger
• 2nd Gravedigger
• A Comedian
• The Prologue
• Gonzago
• Lucianus
• A Priest
• Gertrude, Queen of Denmark
• Bautista (Queen in the Play)
• Lords, Ladies, Players

ACT I

Scene i

The Hall of State in the Royal Palace at Elsinore.

(The King and Queen entering. Hamlet, Laertes, Ophelia, all the court.)

COURTIERS

Long live the King.

KING

Thanks, gentlemen.

COURTIERS

Long live the Queen.

QUEEN

God protect you, gentlemen.

KING

I am collapsing under the pain which overwhelms me caused by the death of a beloved brother. But today, despite this crushing blow, my brow clears at your repeated shouts, lightened by rays of public joy; for whatever sorrow, however, great it may be to an injured heart sorrow has its term fixed by reason. I have thus, with joyous heart -- although it still sighs -- undertaken to reign over this great Empire -- with your advice -- advice for me so full of sadness! Choosing she who was once our sister and joined her hand with mine -- a union blessed by the priests.

We are thankful to you, and if someone of you demands grace or justice, let him stand before us -- to his just desire career is open.

POLONIUS

(advancing)

Sire!

KING

Ah, Polonius, it's you!

POLONIUS

My son, Laertes, sire, is arriving from France.

KING

He is welcome. His is a heart noble and honest, a little lively, but familiar. Let him come to us, at least, just as he left in the past: a boon companion in love and in war -- Tell him we will have great pleasure in seeing him.

POLONIUS

Oh! Sire!

KING

(coming down the steps of the throne.)

And let him come to us to supper this evening.

(he approaches Hamlet, who pale and dressed in mourning -- stands aside)

Now, dear Hamlet -- why this morose air -- my cousin and my son?

HAMLET

Sire, let us leave things as God chooses to make them. I am more than your cousin and less than your son and you know it.

QUEEN

Hamlet!

HAMLET

What do you want, mother?

QUEEN

I want a mourning less somber and less bitter. Let your glances meet ours with love. Not, from dawn to dusk bothered with directing your feet to a tomb. Alas, it's fate's law that each step we take leads to eternity.

HAMLET

No one is unaware of what you say.

QUEEN

If that's really true, why do you still appear so sad, so ill, so full of regret?

HAMLET

Oh, I don't just seem that way, Madam, I am that way. My heart, I tell you, abhors all dissimulation. It's not the color this stuff is made from. It's not the pallor of my careworn brow -- it's not the tears which run from my eyes -- which can give witness, believe it, Madam, to the immortal shame which grows in my soul. No, I now know that mourning, tears, pallor, are only a mask for playing misery.

KING

Hamlet, be sure, first of all, I also respect profound sorrow, but I admit to thinking, that these gloomy attentions a son owes his father, you have amply filled. It is time to dream of a prosperous future. The one you mourn, lost his father too, who, in turn, struck down one sad day, lost his. Filial duty doubtless demands a tribute of sorrow, but this is not manly. It's not Christian-like to resist in this way the hand of the Lord.

HAMLET

Sire, thanks, thanks.

QUEEN

Hamlet, I join my prayers to the prayers of your father.

HAMLET

I will obey you -- if I can, mother.

KING

That's the response of a tender and submissive son -- we will reward you, Hamlet -- And you, friends -- you heard the nice promise the Prince has made us -- so, an end to sadness! Come -- the empty table awaits our joyous song that the fanfare is ready to announce to the heavens.

(All leave following the King and Queen, except Hamlet.)

HAMLET

(alone)

Alas, if this corrupt flesh would dissolve in vapor or explode, or if an accord would be reached between suicide and God's thunder!

Lord! Lord! Lord! How heavy it is, infertile -- and how disgusting the work of this world. Fie on life! Oh, fie! Abandoned garden -- full of thorns and forgetfulness, of shame and briars. And to come to this! Dead hardly two months this King who differs from the king that abuses us as much as a Satyr differs from Apollo, the God of light -- this sweet king, for whom my mother has taken such a love -- who shrinks back in alarm if a passing breeze blows a little too harshly on his face.

Dead! Oh, no! Heaven and Earth! He is dead still. Yes, their love seems more ardent, more avid each day. And see, in a month! Infamous thing! Let's not think of it any more. Fragility, your name is woman. A month? Does she still use the slippers she wore when crying her quickly forgotten tears as she followed father's poor corpse? What! This Niobe has no more tears! Misery!

Even an animal without reason, without a voice would certainly have kept its grief more than a month. Shame and terror! To rush so quickly to adultery.

(seeing someone enter)

But silence my heart, my tongue must be silent.

HORATIO

Hail, Lord!

HAMLET

(noticing him with joy and surprise)

What do I see? Horatio! It's you!

HORATIO

Got in yesterday evening from Wittenberg.

HAMLET

What! Without letting me know! Anyway, it's you. I love you. I love you, Horatio, my brother, another self! Dear and sweet companion -- old friend of 20 years -- ! For we grew up, side-by-side -- happy times! But what brings you here? What noble project? You will leave us with no expert in the art of drinking?

HORATIO

Milord, I came to see the funeral of your father.

HAMLET

Friend, you mock me -- say it was to see the wedding of my mother.

HORATIO

A very prompt wedding!

HAMLET

No -- carefully managed, the remainders from the funeral repast reheated for the wedding banquet - using the same plates -- Why haven't I, on the day before the illusion vanished, rejoined my most mortal enemy in the tomb. Ah, my father! Ah, I still think I see him come.

HORATIO

Here?

HAMLET

In memory -- with the eyes of the soul.

HORATIO

I know that prince to have a good serene soul.

HAMLET

Bah! You'll never find a soul like his again.

HORATIO

(after having consulted Bernardo and Marcellus with a glance)

Milord, I saw him this very night I think.

HAMLET

(shivering)

You saw him, who?

HORATIO

The King, your father.

HAMLET

The King, my father?

HORATIO

Calm down -- yes, it was he, I tell you.

(pointing to Marcellus and Bernardo)

They can witness the prodigy as I do.

HAMLET

Speak, by God, I am listening.

HORATIO

Tuesday evening -- at midnight on the ramparts -- at the hour at which all is dark and calm Bernardo and Marcellus, being on guard watch saw a solemn shade appear before them. A warrior fully armed majestic and slow -- passed very close to them and with his white scepter touched them -- not grave, of austere mien -- and these were indeed the features and the steps of your father.

They were struck with terror, motionless, cold -- eyes fixed, staring -- but breathless and mute -- I arrived. They shared with me the terrifying secret -- and I wanted to watch with them the following night.

HAMLET

Well --

HORATIO

They spoke the truth -- the ghost returned. The same one -- at the same time -- and I recognized him -- it was indeed your father.

HAMLET

Oh, horrifying secrets!

HORATIO

It was he! My two hands are not more real.

HAMLET

And all this took place --

HORATIO

On the ramparts yesterday.

HAMLET

And you didn't dare speak to this proud specter.

HORATIO

Indeed, I did -- I dared to say -- "Illusion, stop -- And if your voice still works -- if you can utter some sound -- speak to me!"

If you must, to shorten the pain I see you in and restore my health -- do good on Earth speak to me -- if you know some terrifying mystery - fatal to this land -- which was happy under you -- if there's time to avoid it -- speak to me.

HAMLET

And what did the shade reply?

HORATIO

Oh -- nothing -- always mute. It seemed to me that it was raising it's head and it was going to speak -- but the morning rooster had uttered his clear song -- and promptly at this signal it vanished and did not reappear.

HAMLET

Strange, mystery.

HORATIO

(excitedly)

Yes, but truly recognized. Think of it, Milord! And we thought that you should know what happened.

HAMLET

(aside)

Oh, my heart! It has indeed much other cause for alarm.

(to Bernardo and Marcellus)

Were you on watch that night?

MARCELLUS

Yes.

HAMLET

The ghost was in armor?

HORATIO

Yes.

HAMLET

From head to foot?

HORATIO

From foot to visor.

HAMLET

In that case, how could you see its face?

HORATIO

Pardon, the visor was open.

HAMLET

And the shade had a threatening air?

HORATIO

Not threatening. Somber.

HAMLET

Robust or pale?

HORATIO

Very pale.

HAMLET

And its eye fixed on you?

HORATIO

Constantly.

HAMLET

If only I'd been there.

HORATIO

Like us, you would have shivered.

HAMLET

I admit it, and without shame! And the spirit remained?

HORATIO

The time to count to a hundred.

MARCELLUS

Much longer, my friend.

HORATIO

Not when I saw him.

HAMLET

Black beard?

HORATIO

No -- just as when he was living -- thick and white.

HAMLET

I will watch tonight and if it appears again.

HORATIO

You may be sure it will come.

HAMLET

If it takes on the sacred face of the father that I weep for -- oh, I will speak to it.

HORATIO

Prince.

HAMLET

I will get to the bottom of this myself. Yes -- even did hell order me to be silent. Yes, I must leave this mournful conversation.

The beard and hair as white as his.

HORATIO

Think.

HAMLET

And you, friend, some somber event - whatever this night holds -- whether the shade appears or not -- whether it speaks or not -- in the name of friendship -- keep this secret.

HORATIO

Prince, count on us.

HAMLET

I recognize your zeal. That's fine. At midnight I intend to be here.

HORATIO

Our duty, Milord.

HAMLET

Eh? No -- not duty! Your friendship. Mine is yours. Until tonight.

(Exit Horatio, Bernardo and Marcellus.)

HAMLET

(alone)

The ghost of my father in armor. Does all this hide some crime? Oh, when will it shine? Until then, peace, my heart. They hide crimes, but destiny mocks. However they bury them under the earth, they come forth in shame to the surprised eyes of men -- and one night, reveal to us -- some bloody specter, poison in his hand or a knife in his back!

(aside)

Ophelia.

OPHELIA

(wishing to withdraw)

Oh - pardon.

HAMLET

(abandoning his somber air)

Pardon for being pretty and making me madly in love --, dear Ophelia? Is that it?

OPHELIA

No -- but for coming, Milord, to disturb you -- when perhaps --

HAMLET

Honor bright! You are suffering from a strange fear -- tell me, my pretty angel what's the news from heaven.

OPHELIA

My Lord, I was looking for --

HAMLET

Whoever he may be, the one you are looking for is a happy mortal -- why not me?

OPHELIA

Lord, it was my brother, returned from France in great haste to deviate your boredom.

HAMLET

My boredom? I am gay -- word of honor -- yet perhaps it's also because I see you.

OPHELIA

You are always joking, Milord.

HAMLET

On my soul, I don't have the wit to joke, Madam. I say what I think and I feel what I say. The damned sometimes dream of paradise. It's an added torment.

OPHELIA

If I could believe you!

HAMLET

Do you believe that a blind man wandering in black night desires a pure ray from a radiant star whose sublime flame sparkles in our eyes? Do you believe, when the breathless swimmer succumbs and feels himself engulfed in his watery tomb, he desires an enchanted shore where it is ever spring and life and beauty live? As for me, I am that blind man with the wandering gait. I am that swimmer dying breathlessly. And for me, your love, sweet and rosy ray, will give more light than the sun.

OPHELIA

(joyous)

Oh, Milord Hamlet, you see I am listening to you with a joyous face -- but doubt! Doubt!

HAMLET

I thought that every angel had the conquering gift of tracing an oath to the depths of the heart. But seeing your spirit is mired in doubt, well, I repeat what I told you and If you suspect Hamlet of treason --

(sits at table and rapidly writes some lines)

Observe his pale face -- and send this letter --

(giving the to Ophelia, he bows and leaves)

OPHELIA

(reading by herself)

Suspect the stars in the heavens of their ardor, suspect the progress of the day star in the heavens -- suspect holy truth in your soul -- suspect whatever you like -- but not my love!

(noticing Laertes, she hides the note)

Brother.

LAERTES

What's wrong with you -- and what is that letter you're hiding from me?

OPHELIA

Oh -- Milord speaks like my Master, it seems to me.

LAERTES

Not at all -- no, I am speaking as a friend -- who doesn't know what it is to love by half, and who always trembles that his adored sister will lose one of those flowers that adorns her head. Tell me -- who left just as I came in?

OPHELIA

I will answer you frankly if you speak this way. It was the Prince himself who left.

LAERTES

And what did he say to you?

OPHELIA

He told me that he loves me.

LAERTES

And you -- you believed?

OPHELIA

The aurora believes the day -- flowers believe in the breeze and a woman in love.

(Polonius enters and stands to the side at first.)

LAERTES

Ah, poor child, alas -- ignorant and credulous. Know that a Prince makes no scruple of swearing by the gods that he loves and will die, if the one he loves cannot cure him. Then, once cured, the Prince vanishes in a mist.

POLONIUS

(coming forward)

Who are you saying that about?

LAERTES

Nothing -- only that Hamlet, born Prince though he may be -- my master though he may be -- should my sister perchance be desired by him -- would see that my sheath would not hold back my sword.

OPHELIA

Brother.

LAERTES

That's the way it is.

POLONIUS

What am I to understand? Indeed, I've noticed that for some time, Hamlet, when he's around you, pays more attention than a wise man would to someone of your age.

OPHELIA

(joyously)

The Prince! You're sure?

POLONIUS

That's fine. We will talk about all this tomorrow -- then later -- we shall see. For tonight, this very moment, Laertes we must be with the King, who is expecting us.

OPHELIA

(aside)

He loves me!

POLONIUS

(to Ophelia)

Well -- I hope you are not going to remain here? To your apartment pretty scatterbrain. Get long with you.

(leaving with Laertes)

OPHELIA

He loves me! He loves me! Oh! how happy I am!

(Curtain)

Scene ii

A platform in front of the castle. Night.

(Marcellus - on watch. Hamlet and Horatio enter.)

HORATIO

The wind is sharp and bitter -- whipping the face.

HAMLET

Is it midnight?

HORATIO

Almost.

HAMLET

It's the hour.

(Fanfare and noise in the castle.)

HORATIO

What a racket. Through torches and noise, the King wishes to brave the silence and the night.

(A distance clock sounds midnight.)

HORATIO

Hear, Milord!

HAMLET

What is it now?

HORATIO

Midnight strikes. The specter is going to come without a doubt.

HAMLET

I shiver.

HORATIO

Look, Milord.

HAMLET

What?

HORATIO

The ghost!

HAMLET

Where?

HORATIO

(pointing with his finger at the ghost who appears on the twelfth tone.)

HAMLET

Angels of heaven help me! There it is. There it is!

(to the ghost)

Whether you are protected by a heavenly power, or vomited out of Hell -- whether from a funereal end, or from charity you come to call me, the form you take forces me to speak to you.

(drawing his sword)

Father, Hamlet, Majesty, King, Dane -- I admonish you. The suspicion is too frightful. Answer somber figure -- shut in death, why has your body burst from its granite prison?

Why, has the tomb opened for you its heavy stone gates where your unwaking eyelids were shut? -- Why has it, gaping, ejected you among us?

What's all this? Why, jealous ghost do you appear in hideous sight in moonlight covered in armor? And we, mad by nature, why do you plunge us into thoughts of terror which leave our souls in such a flutter? Answer! What do you want from me? Speak! What must I do?

(The ghost makes a gesture.)

HORATIO

He's beckoning you with his finger and seems to have business to discuss with you alone.

HAMLET

Yes, his inviting gesture points me to this more retired place.

HORATIO

All the same. Stay here!

HAMLET

But if I stay here, he's going to be silent. I will follow him.

HORATIO

Lord!

HAMLET

What have I to lose on earth? My life? Ah, I tell you a needle is worth more. My soul? It is the immortal child of the heavens. Quite as good as his. What can he do against it?

At the next sign, I'm going.

HORATIO

But, if his cruel hand from the summit of this rock, which leans terribly were to push you, Milord, into the foaming abyss -- if suddenly taking a more somber look, some frightening aspect, superhuman, appearances -- oh, if the shade seized your reason you would return senseless. Think! Head twisted, an icy vertigo would take you -- nothing to stop you from plunging into this profound sea -- nothing to prevent your lending an ear to the heavy sound of this wave.

(new sign from the ghost.)

HAMLET

Again -- I am following you.

HORATIO

(restraining, holding him back.)

Oh, no!

HAMLET

Let me go.

HORATIO

Pardon! I cannot.

HAMLET

My destiny shouts to me "Go" and renders every living figure in my body stronger than the nerves of the Nemean Lion. Yes, I am going there.

(releasing himself from the hands of Horatio and Marcellus)

Release me. By Heaven! -- whichever of you holds me back -- I will turn him into a shade -- let us go!

(on this imperious gesture, Horatio and Marcellus retire)

HAMLET

Now, speak to me. We are alone: stay.

GHOST

Listen carefully.

HAMLET

I'm listening.

GHOST

The hour will strike when I must return to the sulfurous abyss, to devouring pyres.

HAMLET

Poor soul. It's horrible!

GHOST

Oh -- keep your pity -- but engrave my revelations in your soul.

HAMLET

Yes, severely -- in marks of fire.

GHOST

And after I've spoken be sure the word vengeance is written there in the same way.

HAMLET

(astonished)

What?

GHOST

I am the spirit of your father wandering through the night. That's the sentence. Consumed during the day by the fires of penitence, until the flame finally purifies me of the sins which, when living I erred into. The secrets of my prison. Ah! If I could tell what I suffer down there and what my martyrdom is like -- But, eternal mysteries, you are not made for the ear of man and carnal visions -- Listen! Listen! Listen! Did you really love your father well?

HAMLET

Oh, heaven.

GHOST

You would wish to avenge his death, I hope -- an infamous murder.

HAMLET

A murder?

GHOST

Infamous! They all are! But mine -- execrable -- unheard of until our time -- surpassing them in horror.

HAMLET

Hasten to conclude: Winged thought will be less prompt in gait than my vengeance.

GHOST

Fine! They knew how to spread the rumor that I was sleeping on a bench in the garden when a serpent bit me. Arrant lie! It accustomed the Danes to my death. Listen! The serpent whose mortal venom killed your father -- he has his throne.

HAMLET

Just heaven! Oh the forebodings of my soul. Oh, mystery! My uncle?

GHOST

Yes -- that demon of incest and adultery with his cunning magic and gifts from hell -- cunning and cursed gifts - but sure to triumph, made my queen consent to his infamous desires -- she whom I held chaste among women. Oh -- what a fall, Hamlet -- Hamlet, from my love worthy as at the altar, holy as its first day -- from me who lived pure -- hand in hand with her -- to fall to this accursed one -- to prefer to mine this soul of scum and madness with desire -- to seek from incest a monstrous pleasure --

But, the fresh air of morning -- strikes my face. Let's finish. I was sleeping, as was my habit on a bench in the garden surrounded by shade.

When your uncle, unnatural brother, slid slowly towards me -- provided with henbane, a poison which passed from my lips to my soul -- that's how, while I slept, in a single day, my brother stole my crown, my life, my love and sinner, I died without priest or prayer - without extreme unction -- without as much as a backward look, appeared before my inveterate Lord charged with the whole weight of my iniquity.

HAMLET

Horrible! Horrible! Horrible! Oh, completion of horror!

GHOST

Can you suffer it, without being without feeling? Will you leave the realm of your ancestors to lascivious infamy, to odious incest?

Still -- practice some design to cover your rage. Don't soil yourself with the murder of your mother. Leave her judgment to God, the master and conqueror -- And her punishment to the remorse which will gnaw her heart.

Goodbye! I must leave. The luster, the pale fire and ice, is leaving my eyes. It's the dawn. Goodbye, my son, goodbye -- Remember! Remember!

(the ghost disappears)

HAMLET

(alone)

Oh, Legions of Heaven! Earth which trembles under me. Hell's jaws always gape for the assassin! Silence! Be silent my heart! No fainting! Muscles lend me your firm support. He said, 'Remember' -- Poor dear soul. Oh, yes, yes, so long as the past can live in the heart. Yes, I will remember. Be struck from the book of my memory, you cold and shabby dreams, vulgar recollections, stale phrases from old books, worthless achievements of frivolous study, vain impressions of a mad youth. Be struck out! I wrote without insolent confusion my father's order on the completely blank register. And I've effaced all else. Even the fruitful love which alone in my eyes could embellish the world and perfume my heart of so many open evils like a beautiful bed enclosed in a desert.

Goodbye happiness, goodbye, my Ophelia! -- A single desire presses me -- a single oath binds me.

(pulling out his notebook)

My notebook? Let's note that rage in one's heart, one can smile and smiling not be an assassin. In Denmark, at least that's no little thing.

(tracing a word, then slamming the notebook shut)

You are there, dear uncle. Now my instructions. "Goodbye, my son, goodbye. Remember!" I've sworn it.

HORATIO

(calling)

Milord.

MARCELLUS

(calling)

Lord Hamlet.

HAMLET

And I will remember!

HORATIO

May I approach, Lord?

HAMLET

Yes, come. Come on, I tell you.

(Horatio and Marcellus approach.)

MARCELLUS

Well.

HORATIO

What happened, Milord?

HAMLET

A prodigy! But lacking more details it would be better to shake hands and go to bed. Everyone to his taste -- do your own thing, be what you like, each man has, in his sphere, a role to play, a thing to coddle -- I have neither the one nor the other -- so I am giving to pray.

HORATIO

How strange and puzzling your language is!

HAMLET

Alas, I am angry -- very angry that it shocks you.

HORATIO

Oh, Milord, I see nothing offensive in it.

HORATIO

Indeed, by Saint Patrick! I offend your honor in keeping my secret. But my path is straight, don't wish me ill for it; if what my right hand has now resolved were known to my other hand, yes, I'd cut it off myself, before morning.

Now, dear friends, boon companions from school, wars and pleasure -- I require a grace.

HORATIO

Order it, Milord.

HAMLET

Never reveal what your eyes have seen today.

HORATIO and MARCELLUS

I promise.

HAMLET

Take an oath.

HORATIO

On honor, I swear it.

MARCELLUS

I swear it.

HAMLET

Swear it on my sword!

HORATIO

Insult! Milord! Two oaths for two trusty hearts.

HAMLET

Never mind -- on my sword, come -- swear!

GHOST

(from below the ground)

Swear!

HAMLET

Do you hear him?

HORATIO

(trembling)

Lord, let us change place a little. Come here.

HORATIO

(extending his sword)

Place your two hands on the steel and on honor -- you will never say what you have seen?

GHOST

(beneath)

Yes, swear on iron.

HORATIO

Dear God, what's this mean?

HAMLET

Ah, the earth, the heavens, my friends hide a greater mystery than philosophy has yet dreamed on.

Let's return to the subject. May each of you be preserved by grace. Listen! Perhaps my behavior will be bizarre, consequently, perhaps I shall feign the distraction of fools. In seeing me, then gentleman, promise not to shake your heads nor cross your arms saying "Never mind! We know the cause," or indeed, "if we want to tell what we saw, if someone asked, us." Or rather, "feigned madness" -- or some other expression permitting the presumption that you have a role in my secret life? Yes, you assure me dear friends, not a word, not a breath.

GHOST

(underground)

Swear.

HAMLET

(replacing his sword in his scabbard)

Calms yourself - down there, poor soul in torment! So -- I have your friendship in guaranty. Mine is confided in yours, gentleman with all my heart and if the little Hamlet can do with the help of God to prove the holy union that unites us -- poor man, he will do it. Come let's go back in together. Let's go back in.

Still, finger on your lips, friends! Some somber event is promised to our times. But why does the Lord employ a mortal to implement his rage when he has lightening?

(Curtain)

ACT II

Scene iii

A room in the castle.

(Polonius seated reading a letter from Hamlet. Ophelia enters excitedly.)

OPHELIA

Father!

POLONIUS

What is it? And who is bothering you so?

OPHELIA

Oh, if you knew!

POLONIUS

What?

OPHELIA

Are we alone here?

POLONIUS

Yes. What has happened?

OPHELIA

I was busy sewing when the Lord Hamlet -- my god, what a shock, head bare, hair in disorder, his doublet torn, trembling, eyes haggard -- knees knocking, and pale! Oh, that pale face -- bringing some fatal terror from hell! He came into my room.

POLONIUS

Mad -- from love for you?

OPHELIA

Father -- I don't know, but truly, I think so. Shaking me by the wrist, he let himself be carried away -- he stopped -- traced his hand like this about my head -- and dreamily analyzed and perused all my features as if he wanted to paint them.

POLONIUS

And then?

OPHELIA

He kept this gloomy attitude a long while -- his haughty face twitching with unease and shaking my arm -- finally he let out a sigh, so deep that his entire body seemed to faint under the effort.

POLONIUS

(stupefied)

That's strange.

OPHELIA

Then, his head turned like this towards his shoulder -- he left -- with the gait of a superhuman being -- who knows quite well how to find his way without looking! And, all the while watching my strange condition, slowly, without looking at it, reached the door.

POLONIUS

Pure ecstacy of love -- In my opinion, I think it's really the ecstacy of passion. I am going to speak to the King. Mad passion, the mortal plague of man, which gnaws on itself, and no matter who we are from despair drives us to somber distraction. Perhaps you may have treated him too harshly.

OPHELIA

I've only obeyed your supreme orders , father. This morning you said yourself, that I was in danger near Lord Hamlet, and ought to refuse all letters from him, even by showing it to you. He made us take another one and without opening it, I sent it back.

POLONIUS

Idiot that I am! Oh, my God, that's it. I'm in much too much of a hurry -- it's my fault, that's all. Why did I judge him with such a rapid glance? I thought he was amusing himself with you! Stupid suspicion! The young go find ruin through stupidity but old folks, we ruin ourselves through cleverness. The King -- leave, dear child -- I shall hide nothing from him.

OPHELIA

But, careful of your daughter, father.

POLONIUS

Yes, why we will answer for his royal nephew -- and silence has more danger than admission.

(Ophelia leaves; Polonius remains by the door.)

(The King, the Queen, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern enter.)

KING

Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, it's God who sends you to restore our Hamlet to reason and joy. Ah, you are not going to recognize him today --

Soul and face -- alas, in him, nothing is the same -- what troubles him so much is the death of his father. No other cause! No, no other, I hope.

You, my friends, as children you shared his games -- as young men -- his pleasures, his most outrageous inclinations. Remain here -- reawaken the mad joy in his soul -- which is expiring, mad with melancholy, and discover the evil which causes him to despair -- so that informed by you, we may cure it.

QUEEN

Hamlet speaks of you, dear gentlemen, all the time. Your share in his heart is still the best. Remain, help us, by your shining efforts -- and whatever a King has in his hands -- you shall have it. Well, will you stay with us?

ROSENCRANTZ

Oh -- you are the Queen and your will, Madame, is sovereign.

GUILDENSTERN

You, Madam, pray? Command us instead.

KING

Dear Guildenstern, and you Rosencrantz. Oh -- thanks.

QUEEN

A thousand thanks. May heaven make your efforts efficacious -- you'll go to my Hamlet, soon -- won't you?

GUILDENSTERN

We are on our way, Madam.

(The two young men leave.)

POLONIUS

In my turn, Milord, good news.

KING

When else? Would you announce something else?

POLONIUS

Ah, you know my zeal. I place it on the same rank, Milord, you may be sure, my duty toward God -- my devotion to the King. So, for once, at least, my perspicacious spirit, is not behindhand, I am convinced, in knowing in what respect the Prince is mad.

KING

Oh speak -- speak quickly.

POLONIUS

Wandering about, without knowing where, if I were going, Sire, to discourse in your presence on the supreme power and on obedience -- on night, on day, on the time -- that would be to squander time, day, night. So -- brevity being the soul of wit, I will tell you, Sire -- hear me, Madame.

First of all, we need to determine the cause of this effect, or rather the cause of this spirit's undoing -- for the effect which undoes this spirit -- so, you see the true sense of the thing -- I have my daughter -- she belongs to me, so I have her, so to speak, and the docile child curbed by duty -- has put this letter in my hands.

(reading)

'To my angel, Ophelia, to the queen of all beauties,' Queen of all beauties! Yuck! What a vulgar compliment.

QUEEN

Is it written by Hamlet?

POLONIUS

By himself -- yes -- truly !

(reading)

'Suspect in the firmament the stars of their flame, suspect in the heaven the course of the day star.

Doubt holy truth in your soul: Suspect everything -- but don't doubt my love! My heart, for me, is not a subject for poetry -- I don't put my tears in fantastic verse. But let me tell you humbly -- simply -- I love you, I love you ardently, and until the soul is ravished from my body this Hamlet speaking to you is yours, dear life, Hamlet.

(showing the letter)

There you see -- my daughter, before today had already informed me of this love.

KING

Ophelia has ill received his homage?

POLONIUS

How do you regard me?

KING

Why, honest, loyal, wise.

POLONIUS

In so judging me, what would you have said of me if I had accepted that love without terror. If I had made my heart rebel against my honor? Oh -- not at all! I said bluntly, Prince Hamlet is not of your sphere, jewel and you are going to shut yourself up under lock and key immediately. And bring me all his gifts and scribblings.

She did it! And he -- to make this story brief -- melancholy took hold of him -- followed by disgust -- followed by insomnia, then ennui of all things, then despair, then madness -- where his shipwrecked heart struggles and forgets itself.

KING

(to the Queen)

Do you think?

QUEEN

Indeed, it's possible.

POLONIUS

When have I ever advanced something that proved false?

KING

I don't know to tell the truth.

POLONIUS

(pointing alternatively to his head, then his shoulders)

Pop it off, if I have deceived you, Sire. I will go, if it comes to that, to ferret out one truth even unto the depths of Hell.

KING

But the evidence?

POLONIUS

The Prince loves to dream in this gallery -- we will send my daughter to him, and hidden behind the tapestry we will listen. If he's not mad from love, depriving the state of his firm support, you shall tell me directly to shut up.

KING

So be it! Let's try that.

QUEEN

(looking towards the door)

Hamlet -- always somber, my God! He's coming forward as he reads.

POLONIUS

Move away a bit -- let me sound him first alone, I beg you -- And I will give you a good account, I wager --

(The Queen and King exit.)

POLONIUS

How are you, Lord Hamlet?

HAMLET

Fine, thank God.

POLONIUS

Does Milord not remember me?

HAMLET

Indeed! You are a fishmonger.

POLONIUS

By my head, you are mistaken.

HAMLET

So much the worse! You would have been more honest.

POLONIUS

More honest.

HAMLET

And, dear boy, to be honest today is really something hard to do.

POLONIUS

Alas, yes -- the thing is very real.

HAMLET

Do you have a daughter?

POLONIUS

(aside)

Now he's getting there.

(aloud)

Yes, Lord --

(aside)

Poor vacillating spirit -- to think me, oh, it's really drole, a fishmonger. The illness is serious. No shade of reason. Indeed, I often recall in my youth -- love made me endure many cruel days -- and my ills sometimes approached his.

(aloud)

What were you reading, Lord?

HAMLET

Words, words, words --

POLONIUS

But the subject of the book?

HAMLET

Oh, pure slander -- the satirist assumes, in his impoverished irony, that the aged are shrivelled. Their hair is gray -- their wits feeble and their muscles debilitated.

Truths, which I also swear, without being clever -- But it's all written improperly, in my opinion, for, in the end, if you were my age -- I think you would, if you could, retreat from witchcraft of the times by retreating sidewise like a crab.

POLONIUS

He's mad! But his madness is reason in rags.

(aloud)

Have you come for a change of air?

HAMLET

Where, in my tomb?

POLONIUS

(aside)

There's a way indeed! The reply is rather pointed. Madmen sometimes find a certain wit--

Which the healthiest spirit doesn't always invent. Let's leave him. But surely, one day soon it will be necessary through some previously contrived circumstances, to arrange an interview between him and my daughter.

(aloud)

I very humbly take leave of you, Lord.

HAMLET

Take it, sir, take it! In good conscience, I cannot abandon you to anything but a most ravished soul. Away from my life! Away from my life! Away from my life!

POLONIUS

Goodbye then, Milord.

HAMLET

(aside, shrugging his shoulders)

Old fool! What a bore!

POLONIUS

(meeting Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern in the doorway)

Doubtless you are looking for Lord Hamlet.

ROSENCRANTZ

Yes.

POLONIUS

There he is.

GUILDENSTERN

Good keep you!

(Polonius leaves.)

GUILDENSTERN

(running to Hamlet)

Oh, Milord.

ROSENCRANTZ

Dear Master!

HAMLET

My good friends! It's you! Ah, I feel I've been reborn! Your hand! Your hand! How are you?

ROSENCRANTZ

Like bon vivants, defying jealous fate. Happy without oppressive joy and without tiresome pleasure.

GUILDENSTERN

Not brilliant rubies decorating the face of fortune.

ROSENCRANTZ

But not humble nails tread under Fortune's feet.

HAMLET

You have her girdle, O dear, envied pair. You have her favors without her cheats. That's not surprising, she's a courtier.

(aloud)

What's new?

ROSENCRANTZ

Nothing.

GUILDENSTERN

Indeed -- the world's good.

HAMLET

Because it feels its end coming on -- this old graybeard world, but my dear fellow, the news is really conjectural -- another question -- a bit less general -- what grudge has fate against you, friends, that it sends you to prison with us?

GUILDENSTERN

What? What prison?

HAMLET

This country -- it is a prison.

ROSENCRANTZ

Why then the earth, itself?

HAMLET

Is the common jail where one enters crying and which one leaves weeping -- an angel holds the key - the angel of death.

GUILDENSTERN

Milord, my word, let's not picture the world so sadly.

HAMLET

Prison, deep prison, a circle of dark cells, of shadowy vaults -- of which our Denmark is one of the most horrifying.

ROSENCRANTZ

We don't see it that way.

HAMLET

Very likely. For you, Denmark is a peaceful country? So be it! Each reaches his happiness and his misfortune in his own way. For me, Denmark is worse than a prison.

ROSENCRANTZ

I see! Ambition and its flaming thought leave this vast state too small for your soul.

HAMLET

As for me, my empire would be a nutshell. My God, I'd think myself a king of kings if I didn't sometimes have bad dreams.

GUILDENSTERN

Dreams of ambition without remedy and without truce. The shadow of a dream, indeed, that's all ambition is, right?

HAMLET

My friends, you reason best, but don't reason -- it suffices to live. Are you coming to court?

ROSENCRANTZ

Prepared to follow you there.

HAMLET

And you are coming for me?

GUILDENSTERN

(embarrassed)

Milord, yes.

HAMLET

Really! Ah, poor creature that I am -- even in gratitude. A thousand thanks, gentlemen -- why -- indeed without exaggeration -- a thousand thanks from me are really worth -- a penny -- so its by yourselves alone and without being pressured that you offer me your prayer, your disinterested prayers?

ROSENCRANTZ

Indeed, Milord, without a doubt.

HAMLET

So it's from pure zeal? Come then, from open-heartedness speak -- you loyal one.

GUILDENSTERN

(low to Rosencrantz)

What shall we say?

(aloud)

Milord -- !

HAMLET

Eh, my God, reply -- that's all that's asked of you. Yes, I read in your eyes the manifest admission that you do not know how to disguise, modest souls -- I know that it's the queen and our excellent king who made you come.

ROSENCRANTZ

But why, Milord?

HAMLET

Why? Hold friends. I'm going to tell you without pretense and the King's secret will remain undamaged. For some while now, I've been -- I don't know -- I've lost my high spirits. I don't do anything right, boredom, an icy, fog cloaks my burning heart.

The earth, this garden, seems empty and dull. The heavens, this azure canopy this divine firmament which reigns peacefully over all our riches. This infinite vault in which the star scintillates for my beaten spirit is but waves of mourning and odor of death.

Man is beautiful. Man is the king of eternity when an idea or love strikes fire -- his acts are angelic, his thoughts God-like. But were man as great as the world itself, dust that's all -- he will return to dust. Man does not please me. You're laughing.

GUILDENSTERN

I was thinking that our poor actors are likely to have small success in that case.

HAMLET

What actors?

ROSENCRANTZ

Folks, we met on the way, and who are doubtless coming to offer you their talents. They will fail in their purpose.

HAMLET

On the contrary! Their King shall receive my tribute; the wandering knight will beat on his shield.

The lover, will sigh out his passion. The clown will put his two hands on his hips -- the pitiless loved one will chop up blank verse rather than conceal his matchless passion. And I shall watch -- what all do.

(Noise off.)

GUILDENSTERN

Ah, the comedians, I think, Milord.

HAMLET

Be welcome gentlemen -- in Elsinore. I want to be very courteous to them. I've seen them already. Their troop is select. Don't be shocked. You've been forewarned. For indeed, once again, you are welcome. But my uncle, my father, and my aunt, my mother -- are mistaken -- by a strange fancy -- regarding me.

ROSENCRANTZ

In what respect?

HAMLET

I'm crazy -- when the wind -- refrozen blows north - northwest -- but when it comes from the south -- they'll always see me -- as long as I keep my head and know the difference between a night owl and a screech owl.

POLONIUS

(enters.)

Greetings, gentlemen.

HAMLET

(aside)

A half word to the wise is enough. He appears like a monkey on a string.

(declaiming)

At the time when Roscius was an actor in Rome --

POLONIUS

The actors are here, Milord.

HAMLET

Truly, brave man?

(sings)

Every actor, tragic or not comes mounted on an ass.

POLONIUS

Milord, excellent actors! Comedy, history, pastoral, drama and tragedy --

They know how to play everything without uniting Seneca with his sadness and Terence with his frivolity.

HAMLET

Indeed so, my old Jephta.

POLONIUS

Me, Jephta?

HAMLET

Without a doubt. Don't you have a daughter?

(singing)

A single girl --

A girl to be admired.

POLONIUS

(aside)

Back at my daughter again.

HAMLET

Listen!

(singing)

Doesn't heaven dispose of everything.

And what must happen -- could it be otherwise?

Let's go back to the 3rd couplet -- such a well-known refrain.

THE COMEDIAN

Greetings to Prince Hamlet.

HAMLET

You are welcome, gentlemen, in my dwelling. And, my word! I want to hear you immediately. For I have need of you. Tomorrow, like a good falconer, I shall unleash you -- I know on what game. Look -- let's begin -- you, my comrade, while you're waiting can you tell us a tirade? Wait -- there's a bit, you know that I love -- hold -- it was in the speech of Aneas to Dido.

THE COMEDIAN

I know --

HAMLET

One more word if you permit.

THE COMEDIAN

Speak -- aren't you the Lord and Master?

HAMLET

I wanted to give you some advise.

THE COMEDIAN

Milord!

HAMLET

Will you take it?

THE COMEDIAN

What do you mean? It's too great an honor for me.

HAMLET

There was a famous actor I saw on stage whose big voice caused me a pain. Don't go that way, friend -- don't go askew like a public crier, bellowing your lines. It's not necessary, not at all. With a rapacious gesture, lunging like a bully to monopolize the stage.

Remain in control of yourself. Never give the effect of bawling. Keep the troubles of the heart within the dignity of art. And when passion leads to roars and thunder, attempt to make the audience admire rather than astonish it. What torment is heard and seen by blockheads, who place a love in rags without remorse tearing apart at once the play and your ears -- ! While the public, stupefied by these gross marvels, applauds the loudest shouts, the largest gestures and hisses a noble actor who doesn't deafen them.

The whip to these attudinizing brawlers, who "on the horrid tyrant" wax the more! Avoid these mistakes.

THE COMEDIAN

Prince, I will try.

HAMLET

But no coldness, no mannered air. Match faithfully your gesture to your words -- and make nature blaze forth in your role.

Nature, above all! The stage is a mirror where man -- such as he is, good and bad, must see himself. Where centuries forgotten and lands unknown regain their allure and live yet again. If the image is extravagant or the reflection pale -- the vulgar find in it an accomplished work -- a brilliant wit will make war on you. For you, must carry it out alone, over the vulgar.

Oh, I've seen an actor called great and whose appearance had nothing Christian in it -- nor even pagan, nor even human -- truth to tell. Who, gesticulating, shouting , as if in delirium, seemed a poor attempt by a young apprentice to mimic nature.

And who maimed, imperfect, clumsy and without harmony was for mankind but an irony.

THE COMEDIAN

Among us, these mistakes are a bit corrected.

HAMLET

May they be so immediately, your clowns grinning nastily sometimes hurl their laughter and their strength against the poignant interests of other roles.

That's stupid. And now speak. Begin when you wish.

THE COMEDIAN

Thanks.

(declaiming)

Ah -- whoever could see Hecuba, disheveled, pale -- feet naked, running through the town wearing some rag for a crown and for her royal cloak tatters and outrage doubtless cursed by insolent, fortune -- and when Pyrrhus trampled the bloody corpse of Priam, an old man, a father, a shout of horror escaped the queen -- the gods with terror, felt their cold hearts tremble with alarm --

And the burning eye of day must see tears pour forth.

POLONIUS

Why look -- he's weeping -- he's pale. Stop! Oh.

HAMLET

Great! Keep the rest for later! Enough for now.

(to Polonius)

Sir, I beg you let these comedians be treated with honor and without meanness -- for they are the chroniclers of the times. And it would be better for you and your sixty years to have an infamous epitaph on your tomb, than living to incur a single moment of reproach from them.

POLONIUS

Fine -- they will be treated at their worth, my Prince.

HAMLET

Much better! Much better! If by mischance, each were treated only according to his deserts, who would escape a good scolding? Tell me!

Your guests are small. Consult your rank. And the smaller they are, the greater you'll be. Take them away.

POLONIUS

(to the actors)

Come.

HAMLET

(holding the actor, low)

Wait! Take this ring. Would you by chance be able to play the Murder of Gonzago?

THE COMEDIAN

When?

HAMLET

Tomorrow.

THE COMEDIAN

Yes -- without a doubt.

HAMLET

And could you really slide in a dozen or so lines of mine?

THE COMEDIAN

Yes, my Prince.

HAMLET

That's fine. I am going to prepare the verse. Follow the brave lord -- and try not to laugh.

(to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern)

Goodbye -- until this evening.

ROSENCRANTZ

Goodbye, my dear Lord.

HAMLET

(embracing Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in the gesture to the actors)

You are welcome, gentlemen in Elisnore.

(All leave.)

HAMLET

(alone)

Alone at last! Poor fool, miserable and ridiculous -- ! Isn't it monstrous? An actor without feeling can, in a lesser role, dream of passion, shape his heart beforehand to this emotion.

Force tears to his eyes, pallor to his cheeks -- shiver, make his voice quaver -- then he'll speak his part and all of it, if you please about Hecuba -- for nothing. What can Hecuba be to this actor who sobs for that name? Oh god -- why in my place if he sensed the hate and horror which chills me -- he'd flood the stage with his tears. He would make everyone tremble in shouting his sorrows.

He will discharge the good -- sad in their clemency. The ignorant dreamers, the evil thinkers.

And all will think to have, in their forgotten dream -- thunder in their ears -- and death in their eyes -- but as for me, weak, besotted I go -- slave souled and I cannot find a single cry in my breast for this king dethroned by a vile assassin -- ah, sometime also, a somber doubt stops me -- if this cherished spectre, this ghost; this shade -- were to be the demon trying to win me over?

A melancholy heart is easy to damn! And Satan is very clever! But let's consider -- they say that in the theater, a guilty man seeing his shame perfectly played in a lifelike way -- himself proclaimed his punishment!

Well -- we are going to create a show as a tribunal. If God intends to convince me -- he owes me a miracle.

(Curtain)

ACT III

Scene iv

The Hall of the first act in which a theater has been erected.

(The King, The queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.)

ROSENCRANTZ

He himself recognizes and really feels his delirium.

KING

But the cause? The cause?

GUILDENSTERN

He doesn't want to say. And it's not easy to discern. If he's pressed he hides in his distraction.

QUEEN

Something in the past distracts him no doubt.

ROSENCRANTZ

We met some actors on the way whose sight seemed to cheer him from his boredom -- and I think they will play before him this evening.

POLONIUS

That's a true fact -- look, in this gallery they've constructed a stage and the prince begs you to be there this evening, Milord and Lady.

KING

With all my heart! This fancy gives me good hope.

(rising to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.)

I intend to see if love is the real cause of his trouble. Ophelia is coming here, as if by chance to meet him, and hidden nearby we'll hear all.

QUEEN

I am leaving. Dear Ophelia, if your charming grace has produced his madness, and if you, by your soft surrender, return him to his wits, I will be really happy.

OPHELIA

Oh, Madame, and me too!

(The Queens leaves with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.)

POLONIUS

(leading Ophelia to a priedieu.)

Kneel there!

(to King)

As for us, sire, we shall hide.

(to Ophelia)

For something to do, pretend to read. It often happens, and it's not the best -- that with a saintly air and pious exterior we frequently make a saint out of the devil.

KING

(aside)

O terrible truth that cries anathema in the depth of my heart! Under his painted mask, the dreadful prostitute has a face less wrinkled than my heinous crime is black under its face of hypocrisy.

POLONIUS

Here comes Prince Hamlet. Let's retire immediately, Sire.

(they hide.)

(Ophelia kneels as Hamlet enters without seeing her.)

HAMLET

To be or not to be -- that's the question! What must be admired? Resignation, accepting on one's knees outrageous fortune -- or struggling with force on the tempestuous sea -- and seeking to calm the storm? To die! To sleep! And nothing more -- and no longer suffer! To flee these thousand torrents.

To die! To sleep! To sleep! Who knows? To dream -- perhaps! Perhaps! Ah, everything is there! What dreams populate the sleep of death when, beneath our face life and thought no longer stir.

Terrible suspicion which bends us to the beaten track. Eh! Who will bear so much shame and mourning! The insults of the powerful -- the outrage of pride, the procrastination of the law, the profound suffering which gives rise in the heart to love without hope.

The struggle of genius and blockheads when sharp steel so quickly gives peace! Who wouldn't reject his heavy burden of battles, or soak with sweat and tears, the sharp rough path if one didn't fear something in the shadow more than death?

This unknown country -- this world no one knows -- from which no traveler has yet returned. That is where horror freezes the will. And facing that night, the horrified spirit tests the real evils to which it succumbs in preference to the uncertain evils of the grave.

Then bright colored resolution falls to pale reflection -- then, its terrifying appearance troubling all tasks, doubt makes -- the most determined cowards.

OPHELIA

(aside)

His dream soars high, my love wanes, weeping -- blind to the obvious, he doesn't see me!

HAMLET

(noticing Ophelia)

Ophelia -- oh, once my life and my light -- speak of my sins, angel -- in your prayers -- !

OPHELIA

(rising and going to Hamlet)

How have you been these two days, Lord Hamlet?

HAMLET

Quite well, Ophelia, thanks.

OPHELIA

(offering him a jewel box)

I have some gifts I wanted to return to you for sometime already. Would you take them, please?

HAMLET

What did I give you? I don't understand.

OPHELIA

Hamlet! I've received from you all these presents. To each was joined a sweet word. And I thought I was happy and I was only crazy! My love now is a nuisance to you, and these sweet proofs, have lost their perfume. Take them. Go! Leave the poor woman for you don't love me anymore, Hamlet, and by my soul -- the richest presents lose their worth when it's only the hand that gives and not the heart. Take them back.

HAMLET

(looking at Ophelia)

Oh, sure! Virtue! Decency!

OPHELIA

Milord!

HAMLET

And beauty!

OPHELIA

What is your highness saying?

HAMLET

I say that I never saw -- so many gifts before. Enter a convent.

OPHELIA

A convent! Why, Milord?

HAMLET

Poor girl! Because a sort of fatality pursues all who shine and in this ungrateful world, night and silence are worth a thousand times more than day and uproar. For what is uproar? What is light. Uproar -- an echo that lies as to its first cause -- light -- a ray of changing colors -- lighting a beautiful day with ten years of sorrows. Join a convent!

OPHELIA

Milord!

HAMLET

Poor girl! There at least the gate will forever close between the impure world and your innocent heart. There, at least, you will be able, under your ineffectual veil, in your cold corridors, in your dark cell, silent as marble, pale as a shade, far from the world grieved by your chaste farewell -- flower, virginal lily under the eye of God, one day you'll find yourself -- purified of all vice -- symbol of honesty, in the hand of an archangel.

OPHELIA

To pray, to love, to die. Yes, I've often dreamed that was my fate.

HAMLET

Join a convent, poor girl! That's worth more than becoming a woman -- for to lie to the Lord in an infamous manner -- and to immodestly utter oaths of love, that one swears are eternal and which last only a day! Which to perpetuate our cursed race by giving light to some hypocritical soul, who diverts from the way to heaven to carry a rock to Babel, which the black sovereign of the eternal abyss -- in the night of hell, builds with our crimes.

OPHELIA

Hamlet, your words fill me with fear!

HAMLET

No -- rather the truth! For, tell me, after all -- wouldn't it be better for me, poor and weak, for me who's reason constantly vacillates, for me condemned in advance by destiny -- wouldn't it be better never to have been born -- or that between the cushions of her adulterous bed, at the hour of my birth I had choked my mother.

OPHELIA

Prince!

HAMLET

(aside)

I am giving myself away.

(aloud, getting control of himself and changing his tone)

Is your father at home?

OPHELIA

Yes, Milord.

HAMLET

Keep him under lock and key so he's not as stupid as he is at home!

(starts to leave)

OPHELIA

Oh -- his reason is gone again.

HAMLET

(returning)

Poor girl! Listen, if you still want to marry I'll give you this advice. Be you cold as ice, and white as snow -- well, slander will lay siege to you before a month goes by.

Join a convent!

(starts to leave, returns again)

Yes, if you really want to get married, my word marry a mad man -- trust me! For a smart man can see immediately what fool his wife is making of him. Join a convent, quick. Good evening.

(He goes out.)

OPHELIA

(watching him leave)

All powerful god -- restore his reason to him! Oh, last heir of an illustrious house! Oh, noble spirit lost! Sublime intelligence, suddenly dethroned! In the court, elegant, deep in council, valiant in combat! The hope, the flower of these vast states. The mirror of good taste. The figure of grace, the apple of all eyes -- all destroyed! All dead! And as for me, poor me alone with my weighty misfortune, I who had breathed the incense of his tenderness, who had drunk through his voice the intoxicating harmony -- to see this noble and proud genius broken like a lute, never more to sound except in discord and mockery -- to have seen his youth and his grace in their flower -- to see the day after -- wretched Ophelia.

So much hope withered in the wind of madness.

(The King and Polonius came out of hiding.)

POLONIUS

Well, as for me, I continue to believe, despite all -- that a pang of love is the cause of all this disgust.

(to Ophelia)

That's fine, go, my child, you have nothing to tell us -- we heard everything.

(Ophelia leaves)

POLONIUS

(to the King)

If you trust me, sire, the Queen this evening should remain here with him and insist on an account from him of his boredom. More as an imperious Queen than as a tender mother -- and hidden here I shall hear all.

KING

So be it! His secrets this way, I shall surprise. The dementia of the great needs watching.

(leaving with Polonius)

(Curtain)

Scene v

Same setting as the last.

HAMLET

(to a servant)

Go to our actors and hurry them up.

(servant leaves)

HORATIO

(entering)

My Prince.

HAMLET

(noticing him)

Horatio! There you are, my faithful friend.

HORATIO

Ready to obey you as is my duty.

HAMLET

Truly, it's you I love to see the most.

HORATIO

Oh, Milord!

HAMLET

Come in -- do you think I'm flattering you? You are not rich, friend! Let a vile and vapid court fall on its knees before vile and vapid gold and basely win -- grandeur and renown. That's well. But to flatter you, you who have no inheritance, you who have only your merit to support you? What's the use in that? No, you see, since this free loving heart has chosen with discernment and has placed in your heart its most cherished hopes -- for without frowning -- you bear suffering -- good fortune and ills -- you look at them all with haughty disdain. A philosopher always greater than destiny! Whoever remains so, is indeed happy -- strong and free -- his blood and his reason are in equal balance.

Surely, I bear this hero, this conqueror in my heart, like you in my heart's heart.

But hush! Tonight in the play they'll put on -- There's a scene that's connected to the death of my father -- well, from this corner, watch Claudius -- with a calm cold eye -- you understand me? If he remains unaffected and serious, then -- The other night I only saw a demon that I confronted -- and my ungrateful suspicious are blacker than hell. But if some terror that he cannot choke back.

Anyway, as always, be wise and penetrating. As for me, I will have eyes riveted on his face -- then we'll compare our two opinions. We will weigh his fate and pronounce it.

HORATIO

Fine! If during the play any light from his soul escapes me --

HAMLET

They're all coming! Come to our play!

(Enter the King, the Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, Marcellus, Courtiers.)

AN USHER

(announcing)

The King!

KING

(to Hamlet)

How is Hamlet feeling tonight?

HAMLET

My word -- never better! I live like a chameleon. Yes, I am nourished by air and promise. Behold, Sire, how I fatten.

KING

You are speaking like an enigma and I don't understand at all.

HAMLET

Me neither.

(to Polonius)

Sire, you were saying, I think that you used to play comedy at the university?

POLONIUS

Sure -- and tragedy. They told me I was as clever as any actor.

HAMLET

What did you play?

POLONIUS

Caesar and the Conspirators. Twenty times they plotted my fall at the Capitol. Twenty times was I killed by Brutus.

HAMLET

Oh, the brute -- to kill such a calf.

(to a servant who has come to him)

Well -- everything ready?

SERVANT

They are waiting, Lord.

QUEEN

(to Hamlet pointing to a seat by her)

Come -- near here, dear Hamlet -- sit.

HAMLET

Thanks, my good mother, but a stronger magnet attracts me.

(pointing to Ophelia)

POLONIUS

(low to King)

Well --

HAMLET

(to Ophelia)

Madame, allow me to sit at your knee -- and my happiness will render many jealous.

(he sits at her feet)

OPHELIA

What makes you so gay, Lord?

HAMLET

Who me?

OPHELIA

Yourself.

HAMLET

I am your clown. What is the supreme end of man? To be gay -- look at my mother's joyous air tonight -- and yet the King, my father, died before her eyes -- just two hours ago.

OPHELIA

Eh? Why it's already two months.

HAMLET

Poor woman -- you've been weeping two long months for your spouse, what the devil -- in that case, wear mourning -- as for me, I am tired of these black clothes. Let me wear ermine! Two months without the death being forgotten. Why, by our Lady, you must believe and I believe that the name of a hero will survive him six months, since he had built a church. If not, he died -- he, whom all immortalize like the death of Mardi Gras -- buried with a song.

(singing)

Mardi gras --

You're on your way --

(The Curtain of the stage in the back opens and the actor who speaks the prologue comes forward.)

OPHELIA

Hush! I want to listen -- you are naughty.

POLONIUS

We demand assistance. The actors demand indulgence. The play demands patience.

(he retires)

HAMLET

Motto for a king or a prologue to a drama?

OPHELIA

It's awfully short, Milord.

HAMLET

Like a woman's love.

(Gonzago and Bautista, the Queen of the Theatre enter into the second stage.)

GONZAGO

Phoebus has thirty times toured this world -- seeding flowers -- as pearls seed the waves -- the moon's golden face -- blonde sister of Apollo has thirty times whitened the hills and the valleys --

Since destiny for others hard and somber -- has made for us only a roof of sun and shadow --

BAUTISTA

May the night star, may the day star -- a thousand times renew their courses -- before our love undergo some harm. Yet, very often, alas, I shiver with fear -- to see your pallor and your despair -- women you know don't care to be frightened.

GONZAGO

Ah, your fear is justified, my poor beloved. Life in me is extinguishing itself -- slowly consumed -- I am soon going to die. But you -- you will remain to be happy again -- who knows? in other men's arms.

BAUTISTA

A new marriage? Oh, you blaspheme. Mercy! What have I done to you? Me -- so vile and so base! For a wife to take a second husband -- the first must die under her blows --

HAMLET

(watching his mother through a fan he has taken from Ophelia)

There's the poison.

GONZAGO

Doubtless your words come from the depths of your heart -- but life, alas, is full of surprises -- which destroy our plans -- our plans themselves grow pale and self-extinguish. Green, fruit clings tight to the branch that pushes it out. Ripe, it falls unaided on the soft grass.

Oaths taken in exaltation die at the same time with passion. And reality ever betrays the dream. And despite our vows, our destiny enacts itself in this changing world where -- no exaggeration, tears know laughter and laughter causes weeping.

BAUTISTA

Let my hopes fall to the depths of despair. Let all my desires be translated into suffering. Let them cast me alone with my crime into prison. Let my eyes know only tears, my cup only poison. Let me tempt to hell your jealous vengeance, if your widow, O my King, ever becomes a wife again.

HAMLET

After so many curses!

GONZAGO

Well, I believe you then -- but joyous sleep numbs my sadness and shuts my eyes. Let me sleep a moment, beloved.

BAUTISTA

Dreams of hope -- rock and calm his suffering -- remember us both -- O Merciful God.

(she leaves leaving the King sleeping on a bench)

HAMLET

(from afar, to his mother)

Well, Madam?

QUEEN

(moved -- upset)

The Queen does protest too much -- it seems to me.

HAMLET

Oh, Madam, she'll remember.

KING

(who begins to be uneasy)

Do you know this play? Nothing slanderous is there?

HAMLET

(watching him)

No, God be thanked.

(Lucianus enters into the second play.)

HAMLET

Ah, it's Lucianus, brother of the King.

Welcome, murderer with the sunken eyes and jaundiced face.

LUCIANUS

(pulling a vial from his breast)

Hands ready, thoughts evil, poison sure, great opportunity. This is wonderful! Everything supports and no one can see me. Mixed venom at midnight, pale, dark and mute. Hecate has composed from herbs, plucked in the woods thrice withered that she thrice cursed. O Venom! Your power torn from the fires of hell stops in a moment the sources of life.

(He pours poison on Gonzago's lips, Hamlet, during this speech, standing and on the alert, slides near his mother and the King. He suddenly slips to his knees before them and begins to speak with terrifying volubility.)

HAMLET

Look -- he poisons him and steals the throne from him.

His name was Gonzago -- oh -- everything is proven. The Italian book exists. You will see -- how Gonzago dead, the murderer carries off his window.

GONZAGO

(after a short agony)

I am dying.

(he falls)

QUEEN

Ah!

KING

(rising)

God!

QUEEN

The King is rising!

HAMLET

(to Horatio)

(Jumping up with a shout of joy and triumph)

Ah! It's clear now.

QUEEN

(to Claudius)

What's the matter, O my King?

KING

Torches!

QUEEN

What's wrong?

KING

(completely lost)

Leave me! Leave me! Let's get out of here!

POLONIUS

(following the King out)

Cursed be this funereal play.

(All leave in tumult except Hamlet and Horatio.)

HORATIO

Well -- what do you make of it?

HAMLET

The crime is evident. That's what I make of it! And you. What do you say?

HORATIO

That if one can judge the guilty by terror -- the guilty, dear prince -- was here just now.

HAMLET

(noticing Rosencrantz)

Ah -- there's the spy!

HORATIO

Should I leave?

HAMLET

Stay.

(to a servant who comes to shut the curtains of the theatre)

The flutes now! The play has little appeal for His Majesty! He doesn't like it.

ROSENCRANTZ

My dear Lord, a word.

HAMLET

Oh, sir, a whole book.

ROSENCRANTZ

The King, sir --

HAMLET

Well --

ROSENCRANTZ

We just followed him. He went to his apartment, very upset.

HAMLET

By the wine?

ROSENCRANTZ

By rage!

HAMLET

Then I employed myself vainly to cure his fury and perhaps increased it. Go to a physician -- that's more prudent.

ROSENCRANTZ

Dear Master -- try to order your speech a little better, which by its sharp turns sometimes escapes us.

HAMLET

Good, look, speak.

ROSENCRANTZ

The Queen, your mother sends me to you -- in pain and concern.

HAMLET

(ceremoniously!

Be welcome!

ROSENCRANTZ

Why no manners -- this is not the moment, Prince. Be reasonable! Reply with sense and I will tell you everything. If not, excuse me, Lord, I shall retire.

HAMLET

Answer sensibly; I am senseless! Why, indeed, I will do my best, and intend to satisfy you. You say, sir, that the Queen, my mother --

ROSENCRANTZ

Is completely shocked at heart from fear and stupor --

HAMLET

By me? Marvelous son! To shock my mother so! After this stupor?

ROSENCRANTZ

The queen insists on a short conversation with you.

HAMLET

Oh -- my mother commands -- indeed, she may be my mother -- where's she waiting for me?

ROSENCRANTZ

Within her bedroom.

HAMLET

In her bedroom? On, never! For perhaps her living spouse will come and listen or her dead spouse will be troubled with a conversation so tender. I shall await my mother here. Is that all?

ROSENCRANTZ

Dear Prince, you once loved me, and a lot.

HAMLET

And I love you still, or may the devil take me!

ROSENCRANTZ

Well, my good Lord, what mighty pain distracts your wit? Ah, to hide your tears from us is to enslave yourself to sorrows while living.

HAMLET

(noticing the actors crossing the stage)

Ah, the flute players. Come, have them give me one.

ROSENCRANTZ

Milord, I shall go if I annoy you.

HAMLET

Not at all.

(giving Rosencrantz a flute)

Would you play this for me?

ROSENCRANTZ

I cannot, Milord.

HAMLET

When I beg you like this?

ROSENCRANTZ

Why, really I cannot.

HAMLET

But I beg you.

ROSENCRANTZ

But I don't know how to play the flute.

HAMLET

Madness. You are mistaken!

ROSENCRANTZ

Lord!

HAMLET

Cover these holes with your fingers, and then uncover them and breathe all the while. The sounds will come out in divine music. Here's the flute, come on.

ROSENCRANTZ

You want me to understand completely an art I've never been taught.

HAMLET

Ah, I am indeed fallen to your scorn. What! You wish to play with me, by our Lady. You want to penetrate the secrets of my soul! You don't need to take lessons to extract from my soul sounds to your taste.

And you make my passions from their lowest tone to their highest pitch. Yet, you cannot awake under your fingers the sleeping concert in the depth of the oboes -- ha, ha, you were thinking of taking me without a struggle, you could more easily master the flute. Go to, it's useless for you to puff on my soul -- an instrument you don't know how to play.

I don't wish to speak. Good day, sir.

(starts to leave, and meets Polonius)

POLONIUS

Lord, your mother informs me --

HAMLET

(grabbing Polonius and leading him to the window)

Do you see that cloud; it almost has the shape of a camel, doesn't it?

POLONIUS

By the mass, indeed! A real camel! A camel in every respect.

HAMLET

You'd swear from here one was seeing a weasel.

POLONIUS

A weasel! Yes -- a perfect weasel.

HAMLET

It's all a whale.

POLONIUS

Oh, that's strikingly clear, my God! Just like a whale.

HAMLET

So, my dear fellow, adieu.

(to Horatio)

There are courtiers even for madness.

(aloud)

My mother can come.

POLONIUS

Right, I was forgetting.

(pretends to leave, then hides behind the tapestry)

HAMLET

(to Horatio)

I am waiting for my mother, friend.

(to Rosencrantz)

Will you leave me alone?

(Horatio and Rosencrantz leave.)

HAMLET

(alone)

I'm waiting. It's simple to say and terrible to think. This is the hour propitious to magical mysteries, when leaving their sleep and lethargic beds the dead leave the tomb and the demons, hell. And pity steals away too, from my steely heart. I could now, like an unfeeling ghost -- drink foaming blood, dare do some horrible deed that would make the sun recoil in terror.

Calm down, mother is going to come. And you, my heart, remain big. Rage can flare my nostrils, but the soul of Nero does not reside in my breast. I intend to be inflexible but not unnatural. I will show the sword, but I will hold it -- play the play, O my tongue and my soul --

But however harsh and bitter my reproach may vent, no matter what fury pervades my speech -- let the Queen, O, my God, remain my mother, still.

(The Queen enters.)

HAMLET

You wish to see me; what do you want, mother?

QUEEN

Hamlet, you are gravely offending your father.

HAMLET

Mother, you are gravely offending my father.

QUEEN

Go to ! It's a madman who answers me, really!

HAMLET

Come -- what I hear is surely impiety.

QUEEN

What's that mean?

HAMLET

What?

QUEEN

Doubtless you forget who I am! But I am going to send near you someone who will make you answer better than we --

(she starts to leave, Hamlet bars her way)

HAMLET

Stay! I remember by the cross, to the contrary. Are you not the queen and the wife of your husband's brother -- what's more, for my misfortune, alas, my mother? Answer.

(holding her against her will)

You won't budge. You shall not leave until I have offered your soul a mirror in which you can see its most secret recesses.

QUEEN

(calling, terrified)

Help! Do you intend to murder me? Help!

POLONIUS

(behind the tapestry)

Ho! What? Help.

HAMLET

(turning and drawing his sword)

What's that? A rat?

(thrusting his sword into the curtain)

Dead! I bet a ducat he's dead!

POLONIUS

I'm dying.

QUEEN

What fury! What have you done -- oh! My God?

HAMLET

Isn't it the King?

QUEEN

A bloody deed!

HAMLET

Yes, bloody, I admit almost as criminal, in the end, my good mother as killing a king to marry his brother.

QUEEN

(shocked)

Killing a king!

HAMLET

By God, that's indeed what I said.

QUEEN

Alas!

HAMLET

(raising the tapestry)

Polonius! Ah, I am indeed cursed. She who bears the weight of my madness is always you, Ophelia! Ophelia!

Oh Lord -- pardon me this murder. Oh, my God! And you, poor indiscreet bold fool, adieu! I took you for one greater than yourself. Submit to your pain. Why did you mix in other people's business?

(he lets the tapestry fall, puts his sword back in its sheath, and approaches his mother)

Sit down, Madam.

(The Queen twists her hands in despair)

Mine alone is the pain. Don't wring your hands, I will wring your heart out! If, in it there remains, at least, some sensible fiber, if all brass as it is, God intends that it be possible to penetrate it with some decent feeling --

QUEEN

Hamlet, why is your voice so harsh to me? What have I done? Look!

HAMLET

You are unaware, Madam? Ah! You've committed an infamous deed, a cowardly deed which changes in its darkness the vows of marriage into the oaths of an actor. Which removes the crown of flowers from all sincere love to replace it with ulcers! A deed which fills the world with horror. See too, the heaven's inflamed with anger, and the air saddened by a deed so somber, is, as on the last day, filled with mist and shadow.

QUEEN

Oh -- wretch -- what are these crimes -- answer -- what do you want to punish?

HAMLET

(rising)

Ah, you ask!

(showing her two pictures)

Look at these two pictures -- the portraits of two brothers. Look at this handsome face wherein are mixed by the Gods all the contrary gifts that make an ideal type. Apollo has lent his long silky hair -- Jupiter his handsome face -- Mars his threatening eye. In this noble form, Mercury has put his grace when from valleys to mountains he slides with soft stealth -- So, this perfect man was your husband.

(pointing to the other picture)

This other is your spouse. This ear of corn in its sheaf, damaged by the ear -- damaging a superb ear. Have you no eyes that you left an enchanted height for a muddy swamp?

Ah! You have no eyes! And your blind rage was not love, for at your age the passion of the blood calms and yields to reason. But could reason in any way advise falling from such a man as this to this other?

You are living, your pulse beats like ours -- therefore you must feel -- why your feelings are paralyzed, Madam -- assuredly! Are your feelings so dull, so foolishly fickle as not to be struck at once by such a difference? What devil deceived you and hid heaven from you?

Eyes without touching him, touching him without eyes -- the ear without hands, the odor without hearing. All senses, even altered warned of the unheard of error immediately -- senses not to be scorned.

Shame! Do you no longer blush under scorn? Oh, pyres of hell, if your ephemeral fires rose to burn thus the veins of our mothers, virtue would melt the burning wax to the hearts of their children with its own torch. Youthful passion will no longer be shameful. Reason will serve as a real bawd to desire.

QUEEN

Hamlet, shut up! You are making my glance turn deep into my soul and forcing me to see there the depth of the stains of black and gangrenous sins which will never be effaced in hundreds of years.

HAMLET

And all this to wallow in monstrous pleasure in the sweats of an incestuous bed. What's your husband? A miserable valet. The execrable Cain compared to an adorable Abel. A Carnival King who stole law and power! One day the King's crown found itself in his hand: The traitor snatched it and the shameless thief shoved it in his pocket.

QUEEN

Enough! Enough!

HAMLET

A King for plays.

(the Ghost appears visible to Hamlet alone)

Save me! Hide me! Heavenly legions! It's he.

QUEEN

Who? He?

HAMLET

(to Ghost)

Look, what do you want, dear shade?

QUEEN

My son is mad! Misfortune!

HAMLET

Yes, my numberless procrastinations irritate you -- time passes, emotion wanes! I delay too long the sinister deed you've prescribed for me? Is that it, Father?

GHOST

Yes, remember. You are going to remember, I hope! I've come to awaken your sleeping will. But see your mother, Hamlet, trembling with remorse. Oh, place yourself between her and her woman's fear. For the love of my life still animates my soul. Speak to her, dear Hamlet.

HAMLET

Madame, what's the matter?

QUEEN

Oh, I ask you, on my knees, why probe empty space with an ardent look? Why speak, answer the passing breeze?

Your soul, through your haggard eyes seems to sprout. And sleeping soldiers that a shout has made quiet, your hair, shivering in a storm's breath, stand erect and living on your head. Beloved, pour cold patience on the boiling fire of your rage -- oh -- what are you staring at?

HAMLET

He! He! He's terrifying. See how pale he is -- his sad look from his fatal ordeal would make marble weep.

(to ghost)

Oh -- don't look! The misery in your eyes weakens my arm and body swooning, full of disgust, perhaps, rather than blood, I ought to shed tears.

QUEEN

But to whom are you speaking?

HAMLET

There -- don't you see anything?

QUEEN

No -- the objects that are present -- indeed, I see them quite well.

HAMLET

(following the ghost who crosses the stage)

And you don't hear anything?

QUEEN

No -- nothing except you talking.

HAMLET

But look there, then! See -- sad --he's stealing off --it's my father.

QUEEN

Ah!

HAMLET

Dressed as when he was living. Under the gateway. Wait -- again! No more, just wind.

QUEEN

Delusions inspired by fever. Ghosts, impostors brought on by delirium.

HAMLET

Delirium, Madame? Ah! So your terror wouldn't be confused by this sweet error, let my delirium speak. Oh, no -- it's your crime. Oh, mother, beware that this vain balm doesn't envenom your sin beyond cauterizing, so that the gangrene within kills you.

QUEEN

Oh -- you are tearing my heart to pieces!

HAMLET

Throw out the chaff and keep only the gold. No more demon in an angel. From tonight, flee your spouse -- your outrage! If virtue lacks heart at least let it be circumspect. On this, Madame, adieu. When you are blessed, you can bless me.

(pointing to Polonius)

As for this poor soul, I feel remorse, but heaven today wanted to punish us -- me through him, him through me. For I am high judge, instrument and victim.

I'll take care of the body and answer for the crime. And you, Madame, you pray from night until morning -- death is on the way.

(Curtain)

ACT IV

Scene vi

Same setting as ACT II.

KING

(meditating)

Polonius killed? Yet what had he done? This death recalls my own sin again. My horrible sin! Black vapor, pestilent -- rising to heaven! My life blood stained, under the ancient anathemas of the first murderer. Sobbing and flustered. If I could but pray! No! My crime is too great. My soul to weak. As between two duties I hang immobile. Which should I begin with? Nothing gets accomplished.

What for? Man has the crime, and the Lord forgetfulness. But were the blood of Abel darker on my hand, divine pardon, rosy and expiatory could make that hand as white as the snow in the fields.

Would God be so good if we weren't so bad? What is prayer? A support in the struggle -- which sustains us in battle, uplifts after the fall. Let's rise together, my heart and my eyes.

Yes, but with what words am I going to address heaven "Forgive me for my frightful murder". That's impossible. I have in my hands the price of this terrible murder. This woman, this scepter, and the grandeur of kings. What! To enjoy pardon and crime at once? Madness! In this world weighty gold buys justice and the judge gets the cream of the profits of crime -- Yes, but then pay God! When truth speaks -- dare lie a little! -- when your actions look you in the face -- try to deny them. No -- you have to beg mercy. Am I then crammed into the abyss too deeply? Angels of heaven, look, I am still living. Try! Save me! Bend rebellious knees. Heart made of steel -- be more tender and frail then the beating heart of a newborn child. Then all will go well.

(he kneels on the prayer stool)

(Hamlet enters -- noticing him.)

HAMLET

(more in terror than in joy)

What an opportunity. He's praying and I must do it all.

(a prolonged internal struggle. He half draws his sword then lets it fall back into its sheath to dry the cold sweat from his brow. Then abruptly he draws his sword and takes two steps towards the King struggling under his unsteadiness -- then stops -- takes another step then stops again, enlightened by a sudden thought)

But now I think of it, he will go straight to heaven and instead of punishing him, I am rewarding him. Look, a scoundrel murders my father, and I -- I ungrateful son, send the wretch straight to God's breast. My vengeance is really friendship and my anger indulgence -- my father died without praying -- a heavy judgment weight on him. -- Would it be a punishment for his cowardly assassin, as he is sacrificed for the infamy -- while, readying himself for the voyage he is purifying his soul?

No, no -- back to the scabbard, my sword, and together, we too will wait to strike a less chancy blow, and when we see him in an access of drunken rage gambling, pouring out blasphemy and outrage -- when he's guilty and unrepentant, when he is committing some bold crime which will bar him forever from mercy's way -- we will strike, we will strike! So that, with the heavens threatening his heel, his damned soul shall, once his protecting angel has fled, be thrust into a hell less wicked than he is.

Let's go -- wander some more. As for you, your impious prayer delays -- a bit the death the Demon is preparing for you.

(Exit Hamlet.)

KING

(rising)

Words rise in the air, thoughts cling below. And words unaccompanied by thoughts never reach God.

QUEEN

(entering, troubled)

Sire, did you see him?

KING

Who?

QUEEN

Just now -- my son was here?

KING

(terrified)

For what extreme purpose?

QUEEN

God only knows. Hamlet has been hiding himself since yesterday evening -- so much does this murder weigh on his despair. Horatio searches in vain to join him.

They saw him -- today appearing by the sea shore, then during funeral procession near the church. And then, by me just now. It was indeed he who passed me mute, rapid and somber. I wanted to call him. He fled into the shadows. Ah, protect him, Sire.

KING

Yes, indeed, we'll watch over him. Yesterday, if I had been there, I would be dead. Today Hamlet puts in peril my crown and my life. His crime is imparted to us through envy. And Laertes, everywhere, goes shouting against me.

QUEEN

My son!

KING

Be sure of it now. Ah!

(to Marcellus, who enters)

It's you Marcellus. What do you want?

MARCELLUS

It's poor Ophelia, Sire, who wants to enter.

KING

Let her come in.

MARCELLUS

(after starting to go)

Why, I was forgetting, her father and her love, ruined in a single day have doubtless troubled her wandering wits. We tried vainly to make sense of her words and her distracted eyes.

QUEEN

Misfortune! She too, mad!

KING

Why -- what's she saying?

MARCELLUS

Oh -- about her dead father. That all men are bad -- bad worse than fate. She pounds her breast, weeps, then becoming irritated with herself, speaks seriously words without meaning -- holds strange conversations, which still seem like dreaming -- and with thoughts she tries to finish. Her gestures and looks lend themselves to vague words, the mysterious meanings of clouds and waves -- you can feel her gloomy thoughts live and dream -- for they cause suffering -- suffering from a terrible illness.

KING

Bring her to us -- her obscure words will make evil people think horrors.

(Marcellus goes out and returns immediately with Ophelia.)

OPHELIA

(hair and clothes disordered)

The beautiful majesty of Denmark?

QUEEN

Well -- what's the matter with you, darling child?

OPHELIA

(singing)

Sincere love --

At what price shall I meet you?

Has he shoes, a pilgrim staff and a hat decorated with sea shells?

QUEEN

But she's not saying anything. Alas, your song.

OPHELIA

What! I beg you! Listen!

(singing)

Dead in his youth, they put him in the tomb. On his head a stone. On his feet a green turf.

(stop singing)

Oh -- oh -- God!

QUEEN

Look -- darling Ophelia.

OPHELIA

Listen! Listen!

(singing)

His shroud white as snow was strewn with flowers, watered by tears, of true lovers in the crowd.

KING

What's all this?

(to Ophelia)

How are you feeling, Madam?

OPHELIA

Just great, thanks. May the Lord protect you. They say that the screech owl was once the daughter of a baker. Poor little thing! Alas, I remember my way today. But who can tell me where I will be tomorrow? Poor, poor old man.

QUEEN

She's thinking about her father.

OPHELIA

We aren't going to talk about all this any more, I hope. Hidden meaning? My God, I'm going to make it clear --

(singing)

Here today

Saint Valentines

And I'm coming, mutineer,

Mutineer - to say hello to you.

To be your Valentine today.

QUEEN

Poor child!

OPHELIA

Just one more and then I'm gong to finish.

(singing)

'Beautiful, adored angel, will I marry you?

You were speaking sarcastically -- Yes, but just between ourselves.

The lover and the spouse is too frightening, my sweet.

(An officer enters and hands a dispatch to the King.)

KING

(reading)

An uprising -- oh! What to do?

OPHELIA

Wait -- soon everything will straighten itself out -- but despite me -- I weep -- thinking they've buried me all paralyzed. My brother will know of it -- it's unfair. Thanks! My carriage?

Good evening -- good evening, my dear lady.

(exit humming)

QUEEN

(to Marcellus)

Watch her closely -- from mercy -- the poor soul.

(Ophelia leaves followed by Marcellus.)

KING

She's lost her father and that's the terrible poison. Bitter sadness has stolen her reason.

Gertrude, misfortunes come in droves. Polonius dead, the populace grouping around the ill disposed, and murmuring low. Your son, who hides and cannot be found -- Ophelia senseless -- whose battered soul leaves her nothing more of herself than a beautiful statue. Finally as a last blow, which equals all the other, Laertes, furious, revolts against us, this letter informs me -- and as slander has hardly begun its turbulent work -- just one of these could bring death -- and will break us with their common effort.

(noises off)

QUEEN

My God! What's that noise?

KING

Ho! Someone! My guards. Defend the gate! Come! Halberdiers!

MARCELLUS

(rushing in)

Oh, flee, Milord! The roaring ocean cannot contain within its shores, a wave more wild than young Laertes in his rebellious furor overthrowing your faithful guard. The crowd follows him as one already sovereign. The world was born yesterday.

No more laws, no more restraints, history -- the past! The populace shouts. "We take Laertes for King" and in their barbarity, all throwing their caps, applaud without fear, and vociferate "Long live King Laertes".

(shouting coming closer)

KING

Ungrateful Danes -- see how their pack howls in joyous spirit with a false voice.

(Laertes and the people enter.)

LAERTES

(sword in hand)

There he is -- this King.

(to the crowd)

All remain outside.

PEOPLE

No -- let us in.

LAERTES

My friends -- mercy -- leave us!

PEOPLE

Let's do as he says!

LAERTES

Thanks. Watch the door.

(to king)

Infamous King: Return my father to me.

QUEEN

Oh -- you are carried away. Good Laertes, calm down, come.

LAERTES

Calm down? What? A calm drop of blood in me would be calling me bastard and accusing my mother.

KING

You will regret the hour of your bitter revolt so impudently raised against your sovereign.

QUEEN

My God.

KING

(to the Queen)

Fear nothing! A divine sacrament marks the face of King and forces the traitor to avert his eyes when offending his master.

Laertes what brings this furious transport on you?

(to the Queen)

Leave it alone!

LAERTES

As for me, I want my father.

KING

He is dead.

QUEEN

Why it wasn't the King --

KING

(to Queen)

Peace! Let him speak if he dares -- !

LAERTES

But why is he dead? Do you think you can impose on me? To the devil with oaths and fidelity. To hell with duty, law and faith and honesty! It little matters to me, whether this is the last day in this world or the next! Let me avenge my father and let Satan take me!

QUEEN

What can stop this perverse delirium?

LAERTES

The whole universe cannot. Only my will.

KING

Because, in your rage, Laertes, you wish to punish a murderer -- do you intend, like a storm, pious boy, to beat down before you, innocent and guilty, friend and enemy alike?

LAERTES

Only his enemies.

KING

Do you want to know them, Laertes?

LAERTES

For his friends, all my blood, all my being.

KING

Well -- his friends -- the Queen and myself -- his only enemy -- it was Hamlet.

LAERTES

What -- is it possible? Hamlet, the murderer of my father?

KING

Why hide it? Ask his mother.

QUEEN

Alas, alas -- it's true. But he's insane, you know him, sir.

LAERTES

As for me, all I know is that my father is dead, it's a fatal hand that cut --

(noticing Ophelia enter)

My sister! My sister! My God, how pale she is!

OPHELIA

(bizarrely dressed with flowers interlaced with straw. To her brother, without recognizing him)

Hello, Prince.

LAERTES

She is mad! Oh, my inflamed tears devour the sight in my consumed eyes -- Oh! go, I will make them pay dearly for your madness -- my sister, rose of May -- good and tender Ophelia. My God, you who let the same wind extinguish the breath of an old man and the wits of a child.

The soul that a pure love exalts hour by hour -- leaves with the object it loves, its better half.

OPHELIA

(singing)

They buried him without covering his pale face.

Alas, alas, three times alas --

And all hearts mourn his fatal death.

(spoken)

Goodbye my turtledove.

(singing)

LAERTES

No -- all your reason will not let you love the traitor.

No more of this delirium.

OPHELIA

Let's sing! They're starting.

(singing)

Low -- bear him low.

Ala, alas, three times alas.

(speaking)

A well-configured refrain, for sure. It's the romance of an evil servant who pitilessly kidnapped his master's daughter.

LAERTES

Oh, yes -- all such nothings and a hundred other senseless things.

OPHELIA

(tossing her flowers)

Think of me, sweet friend -- here -- these are for your thoughts. And some rosemary, the flower of remembrance.

Separated, its perfume will reunite us.

LAERTES

Her heart remembers still as her reason vanished.

OPHELIA

(to the Queen)

Let's share this rue together, Madame, for you the plant of mercy -- plant of tears for me! Here's ancolite and fennel, I think. And even here, wait, white daisies. I'd also give you some violets but all perished, sadly, sadly, when my father died -- died - they say - holily!

(singing on her knees)

The pretty little robin, makes me so happy.

LAERTES

Sadness, passion, reveries, hell even. Everything in her becomes graceful and charming.

OPHELIA

(singing)

Her hair white as snow.

(singing)

I've seen the black procession. Alas -- may God protect the dead and the orphan child -- wrapped in soft linen.

So let everything be quite Christian -- that's my last wish. Heaven be with you!

(she leaves at a gesture from the King, the Queen follows her)

LAERTES

You see it, my God! I have to avenge her! And this Hamlet hides! -- where to find the assassin, the murderer, the coward? The rest of my days to have him here living!

KING

Oh, would you had come an hour earlier.

LAERTES

Such a crime cannot for us or for you remain still unpunished!

KING

His mother loves him and lives only through her son and I don't know why, right or wrong -- as for me, I live only in her. The star doesn't deviate from its sphere, and my soul doesn't breath, nor feel, nor live except by this woman! And then the people have always taken Hamlet as their favorite, and don't want a cherished prince harmed. They will change his irons into festal garlands and my arrow, powerless before the storm's wind before it can reach the goal of vengeance will return towards the bow and pierce the archer.

LAERTES

As for me -- my father is dead! -- As for me -- my sister is mad! -- my sister who wore a halo in this world.

KING

Laertes, some good advice if you will follow it.

LAERTES

You're not going to advise me -- peace?

KING

No -- rest easy -- war!

LAERTES

Oh, yes -- war to the death!

KING

If I find a way -- your vengeance is loyal, right? And fears neither delay nor slowness. If I find a means without risk -- ?

LAERTES

Oh -- speak!

KING

To work it so that no one shall find a crime in the victim's death at your hands.

LAERTES

Be the head! Only let me be the arm, let me be the dagger.

KING

Well -- you will be! Laertes! They boasted about you, during your voyage in Hamlet's presence. They said you were master of the talent of youth and this slim accomplishment assuredly made the Prince more jealous -- than all your other gifts, all the youth are mad about.

LAERTES

What is this talent?

KING

Just a frivolous feather in the cap of a young man and which he still wears. That our dress be black and somber and yours shining. We wear hair clothe and you wear silk.

You hope and we -- mourning. We had a Norman Lord, last month -- what was his name? Lamond, I think. His memory was completely filled with you.

He especially boasted of your skill with the sword. You would make a marvelous passage of arms amongst all -- if presented a rival worthy of you, he assured.

But bah! The French fencers, seeing you on the field immediately lost all confidence -- no longer having assurance, nor tricks, nor glance! And after that, Hamlet, in his jealous pride, no longer wanted anything but your return to try a passage of arms -- well, Laertes?

LAERTES

Well --

KING

(abruptly, after a pause)

Did you love your father tenderly or is your desolation feigned?

LAERTES

Feigned! You jest, I hope.

KING

What would you really do to avenge your father?

LAERTES

What would I do?

KING

Yes.

LAERTES

I would pierce his assassin with a mortal blow even if he were at the foot of the altar.

KING

Well, the holy place agrees with the expiation of sin. But hold, dear friend, if you want me to believe it, let me take the lead, starting from today. When

Hamlet returns, we will boast before him of your talent and recall the esteem you enjoyed in France on the dueling field. We will indeed lead to a passage of arms, from Paris!

Hamlet, young, for whom life is not highly valued, generous, confident, won't watch closely the foil that he'll be given, and by inadvertence you maybe presented a sword not dulled. Then you understand? A blow, well struck and you are paid for the blood of your father. What do you say to that?

LAERTES

I say -- I am ready to do anything.

KING

Fine! I know a very sure poison in which one can dip the uncapped foil and the strange virtue of it is that a mere nick is deadly.

LAERTES

To my fury all means are good.

KING

It's necessary to have a back up plan arranged which will replace our first effort, should it fail us.

(reflecting)

One moment! Wait! Yes, that's it -- without a doubt! They'll place big bets on you. I've got it! When you are heated breathing hard -- and press him hard -- Hamlet, certainly will demand a drink and if some scratch has not already landed, the water they'll pour him, as soon as he tastes of any of it, will deliver us.

(noticing the Queen, who enters in tears)

Oh, what is it now?

QUEEN

My soul is thunderstruck by a new misfortune! Ophelia is drowned!

LAERTES

Who? My sister! Drowned! Where?

QUEEN

In the nearby stream an old willow dreamily extends its tearful branches over the crystal waters.

There, having woven bizarre crowns she wanted to hang her odorous trophy to the bowing branches -- but under her light weight, a branch broke and the poor child fell into the black stream -- with all her flowers -- her tomb.

At first, her clothes spread out, floating, kept her afloat on the water a short time. From afar, one would have said she was a white water sprite; laughing, she sang snatches of a ballad, striking the water playfully, careless of danger and like a calm swan she seemed to float.

But not for long -- for the water soaked her dress. And the poor little thing slipped away to blue heaven and the wave extinguished her life and her harmony -- and dragged her with her sweet song to death!

LAERTES

Dear! Oh, God! My poor angel! Oh, why this takes my hope and my life.

KING

(low)

Dead also through Hamlet.

LAERTES

By Hamlet! But I intend that this arm, with a single blow, avenge them both.

(Curtain)

Scene vii

A graveyard.

(Two grave diggers digging a grave.)

1st GRAVE DIGGER

Can one enter in holy ground, one who takes her own life -- without blasphemy?

2nd GRAVE DIGGER

The coroner has said so -- as for you -- in the meantime -- dig --

1st GRAVE DIGGER

Then she drowned defending her body?

2nd GRAVE DIGGER

The law recognized it.

1st GRAVE DIGGER

Reason disproves it.

2nd GRAVE DIGGER

You think it was suicide?

1st GRAVE DIGGER

What's more, I'll prove it. To drown is an action: one can establish that. An action comes in three parts: To act, to do, to accomplish. Ergo -- the beauty drowned by plan.

2nd GRAVE DIGGER

But my good gravedigger --

1st GRAVE DIGGER

Oh -- you rebel head -- allow me! Here's the water, good. Here's the man -- very good. If a man goes into the water to drown like a dog -- he is drowning himself, my dear boy -- it's vain for him to argue. But if it's the water that comes to find the man and attract him -- then he didn't drown himself.

2nd GRAVE DIGGER

And as for me, I say to you that these days they torture the law.

Now, do you want to see to the bottom of this mystery? She's of the nobility and she is interred in consecrated ground without shame.

1st GRAVE DIGGER

Yes, everything's about rank. And you cannot, because you are not great, hang or drown yourself! In short, one is a Christian.

Come, my pick axe -- you are the one who creates a gentleman. The first gentleman was a gardener.

2nd GRAVE DIGGER

A gardener?

1st GRAVE DIGGER

Adam -- you cannot deny it. Whatever our roots may be, whatever we are -- what arms portray this grandfather of mankind -- a pick axe.

2nd GRAVE DIGGER

It's true.

1st GRAVE DIGGER

One more question.

2nd GRAVE DIGGER

Which is?

1st GRAVE DIGGER

Listen carefully. What habitation lasts longer than a ship? Than a palace?

2nd GRAVE DIGGER

Beautiful puzzles. Why a gallows? It survives a thousand tenants.

1st GRAVE DIGGER

I see the gallows for you.

2nd GRAVE DIGGER

Stupid animal!

1st GRAVE DIGGER

Doubtless the gallows is for those who do ill -- and you, you do ill. And I'll prove it formally. In saying that a gallows lasts longer than a church -- the gallows is for you.

2nd GRAVE DIGGER

So, the solution?

1st GRAVE DIGGER

Is different.

2nd GRAVE DIGGER

You said -- "What habitation lasts longer"?

1st GRAVE DIGGER

Yes -- find the solution. I'm waiting.

2nd GRAVE DIGGER

I've got it. It's --

1st GRAVE DIGGER

It's -- ?

2nd GRAVE DIGGER

Bah! I give up.

1st GRAVE DIGGER

Go! Don't worry your head uselessly.

What's the good of beating a stupid donkey? Anyway, so as not to lose you on a false path -- say: The surest refuge is our work -- a grave! The last judgment alone must see the end of it. And now come with me to get a spot to drink.

(The two grave diggers leave -- Hamlet and Horatio enter.)

1st GRAVE DIGGER

(singing)

Oh, woman with a rebellious heart when you loved me, you told me, beautiful, "I want to be faithful forever."

HAMLET

Does the clown have feeling for what he's doing -- or is this sad job only a player's part? See -- Horatio, this gleeful gravedigger! Among these known dead he walks without fear -- and sings, carelessly, a love song as he digs a tomb.

HORATIO

The fact that he always does it makes it have no effect on him.

HAMLET

It's true; the unpracticed hand has the most perfect tact.

GRAVE DIGGER

(singing)

I keep my word from the first day

But you, frivolous and like a bird in flight

You leave my love --

(unearths a skull)

HAMLET

That skull had a tongue, which sang the same -- they can roll it now without its crying blasphemy.

Just as if it were the occiput of Cain.

The skull pushed aside by this vile rogue's foot perhaps once belonged to some politico who once misled God with a diplomatic touch. Isn't it very likely?

HORATIO

Yes, doubtless, Lord!

HAMLET

Or maybe it was the head of a master flatterer, of an expert courtier, with a flexible spine, whose face was blushless, insensitive to disgusting things -- was always laughing so that Milord would hang a sash of honor about his neck. What says my philosopher to that?

HORATIO

Eh! that could be.

HAMLET

Now, my Lord Earth-Worm is the master -- whose snout gnaws the poor jesting ruin that the gravedigger caresses with a brutal iron pick. Variation and lesson! The days, the months, by the thousand, formed this bone -- why? To play a game of skittles? I feel -- as I think of it, my own bones tremble.

GRAVE DIGGER

(singing)

But sterile death cannot be deterred. And taking me as he makes his rounds

Sent me walking in another world.

(he upturns another skull)

HAMLET

Another skull? Could it be a lawyer? And why not? Where are his tricks now? His clauses, his subterfuges and his refinements. He lets himself be struck with a dirty tool by a rustic villain without subpoenaing him. That's how quiet he is -- Alas, they dig him up, or perhaps he was a great proprietor with titles, grants, rights, securities, mortgages. The end of his developments, of his securities, is to have in exchange for a good and beautiful skull -- good and beautiful mud.

(to gravedigger)

How long can they stay in the ground without rotting?

GRAVE DIGGER

If one isn't rotting before death, our carcasses, sir, are sometimes gangrenous, a body can last from three to nine years. For example, a tanner keeps nine years.

HAMLET

A tanner! And why's he last so long?

GRAVE DIGGER

His skin, because of his work, is rendered impenetrable and doesn't take water at all. And nothing is more detestable than water for our cursed bodies, you see. This one, I've just dug up's been here twenty years or more.

HAMLET

Who's skull is it?

GRAVE DIGGER

Guess! The most mad of fools!

HAMLET

May God damn me if I can!

GRAVE DIGGER

The cursed wildman, he poured a whole bottle of Rhine wine on my head, one fine day, sir. It's the noodle of Yorick, the King's fool, who's playing on my pick axe.

HAMLET

(taking the skull)

This one?

GRAVE DIGGER

Sure!

HAMLET

Poor Yorick, alas! I knew him! Jester, always ready, never behind hand, a wit so fertile! A gusto so droll. A hundred times he carried me on his shoulders. And the sight of him made my heart leap!

Where then is that lip and mocking smile that I kissed a hundred times? Where are your jests, your songs, your sparkling wits and your mischievous pranks? Who is making a feast into a delirious orgy?

What? No a taunt for a joke now? Your frightful grimace? What? No lips, no cheek, no nothing? Poor Yorick -- go make your pout in some beauty's mirror and whisper to her as she's busy doubling her attractions -- say to her, poor Yorick, say to her it's no use -- that the body here belongs to the earth, that alas, we are all the playthings of chance, and that she hides in vain her wrinkles under rouge. Time -- on a fixed day, will reclaim its debt -- the cheek hides -- a skull! Revealing to her, her unknown future, by her bedizened face go place your naked mug and you will see if that makes her laugh, clown.

(to Horatio)

Friend, reply a bit.

HORATIO

Milord has only to speak.

GRAVE DIGGER

Do you think Alexander had this sullen air in his tomb?

HORATIO

Yes, indeed.

HAMLET

(tossing the skull)

Yuck! And this odor.

HORATIO

The same -- absolutely!

HAMLET

What a coarse end we must come to! By following the dust of Alexander the Great, carefully -- soon one comes to the jug in the hand of a rustic.

HORATIO

That's too subtle a way of imagining things.

HAMLET

No indeed! Nothing more simple than these metamorphoses. Nothing that can be denied. Hold: Alexander is dead. They put him in the tomb. There all are in agreement. He returns to dust -- and that dust is earth -- and earth is clay -- and without any further mystery -- from clay which was Alexander the Great, a potter can indeed make a pot -- after all. Imperious Caesar, dead, becoming mud, can fill a chink where the wind plays - -and the mind which held the universe in sway winds up plastering an old weather-beaten wall.

(Enter the King, the Queen, Laertes, a Priest and the entire court following a funeral procession.)

HAMLET

But silence! The King! All the court! The Queen! What cortege are they following? The one they bring ended his days by violence -- for there's no crosses, you see? Still, he's a noble. Let's observe.

LAERTES

(to the monk)

Are there no further ceremonies? Speak.

HAMLET

Laertes!

PRIEST

No.

LAERTES

What. Everything is finished?

PRIEST

We cannot do more, Milord. Her death was suspect, and this is honor enough! For you see, she has the crown of virgins, the bells of the church and flowers and candles.

LAERTES

Nothing more can be done?

PRIEST

That would be to profane the service for the dead, sir -- to intone a pious Requiem and to implore for her the repose that is the reward only for a faithful soul.

LAERTES

So be it! In his supreme farewell, I confide her body to the earth! And her beautiful soul to God. Let them make, mercifully in their metamorphosis -- roses with the body -- an angel with her soul! Ophelia! Until we meet in a better world!

HAMLET

Great God -- It's Ophelia!

QUEEN

(throwing flowers on the bier)

Oh flower, receive these flowers! Before I saw you as my beloved daughter, now I decorate your embalmed bed with flowers. And alas, I give flowers only to your bier. Adieu, poor Ophelia!

LAERTES

Oh -- may a triple mourning fall on the cowardly murderer who caused your madness. Wait! A last kiss my Ophelia.

(to grave diggers)

Now bury the dead and the living until this tomb rises to the stars -- towering over Pelion and blue Olympus.

HAMLET

(coming forward)

Who is he whose suffering acted before a divine audience would wish to snuff out with his tears the stars in heaven?

It is I -- Hamlet!

LAERTES

(drawing his sword)

May hell take your soul!

HAMLET

The prayer is impious! Sheath that blade! And step back, sir, I am peaceable and gentle. But it is more prudent to protect yourself.

QUEEN

Hamlet! Hamlet!

ALL

Gentleman.

HORATIO

Lord!

KING

Let someone interpose!

HAMLET

Do you wish us two to combat for this cause, until our eyes are forever closed?

QUEEN

For what cause, Hamlet?

HAMLET

For her! I loved her. And I am equal in love to 40,000 brothers?

QUEEN

Hamlet! My dear, Hamlet. No bold outbursts!

He's mad, dear Laertes - spare him, for God!

HAMLET

Speak! What did you do for her? Speak a little! Whine like a child? Weep like a woman? Well -- that's the sorrow found in every soul. To fight before her tomb under the eyes of spectators? So would fools do, or gladiators. We will retire in some obscure cloister, and there faces bowed, eyes fixed on the ground -- All the time, we'll say these words to each other -- "it's necessary to die". Say, do you want all that? My sorrow is too proud to allow your regrets by a single step in arrear. Or isn't that enough? And do you want, in braving me -- to offer to bury yourself alive with her? So be it, I consent again. You are speaking of mountains. Let them heap hills and fields on us -- by millions of acres until the heap from the torrid zone extends its massif, making Mount Ossa as small as an atom. Order, I obey, speak and I am your man!

QUEEN

(to Laertes)

Let these excesses pass -- and you will see him retake the soft gloom of grief and this sad dream from which nothing can distract him.

HAMLET

(to Laertes)

(after a silence)

Why are you angry with me? I loved you, my brother!

QUEEN

Horatio, follow on his path. Grace!

KING

(low to Laertes)

Recall from yesterday and don't trouble yourself. Come, calm down, friend! Soon on this tomb we shall pile a human sacrifice!

(Curtain)

ACT V

Scene viii

The Hall of the first and third acts. The theater has been removed.

HAMLET

(entering)

Goodday, Horatio! Sir, I am entirely yours. My friends give me your hands -- one and the other.

GUILDENSTERN

If your Lordship has the leisure I have to inform your Highness of a wish of His Majesty.

HAMLET

Fine! My Lordship is ready! They made this hat for you to cover your head, Sir.

GUILDENSTERN

No, this is much more comfortable for me -- in honor. Laertes is recently returned, Milord.

Ah, he's an astonishing gentleman, admirable, of charming language, adorable mien -- you could say he's the phoenix of the court -- to speak truly of him.

HAMLET

Yes, sir, the description is authentic. Memory must dispute with arithmetic to number his virtues. For he's a cavalier such as none have seen. A rare wit, foreign, unique, inimitable and a mirror alone can show the like.

GUILDENSTERN

With what conviction you exalt him.

HAMLET

I embalm him, as do you -- in admiration. But let's get to the point -- these words are but the shell.

GUILDENSTERN

For a long time, Lord, you've known his strength -- I am speaking of his prowess in arms only -- where none surpass him -- incontestably. The King is wagering against him six black mares and he a dozen daggers with their accessories. Belts, baldricks, a dozen french daggers.

HAMLET

And the object of the bet?

GUILDENSTERN

Why your common success? The King maintains that in a dozen passes, you will not be nicked more than three times but Laertes wages nine in the dozen. And if you respond their arguments would be empty immediately.

HAMLET

A passage at arms! When his sister hardly passed yesterday! The ancients celebrated their games on a tomb, it's true. Since today, this desire is his -- let's do as they did in ancient times, sir.

GUILDENSTERN

You consent to it then, Prince?

HAMLET

I'm a good devil and want whatever they want! Oh, inconsolable brother! Your immortal shame died yesterday. In this gallery where I just took the air bring foils and if the King is ready -- if Laertes still persists and desires it. We will do our best for him to lose to us, if not, ours be the shame and the blows.

GUILDENSTERN

That's your response?

HAMLET

In a practical way, yes -- you can embellish it with your flowery style.

GUILDENSTERN

Their Majesties are going to come shortly with all the court.

HAMLET

Fine! I am awaiting them.

GUILDENSTERN

My prince, before the battle the Queen begs you, at least to offer your hand to the brother of Ophelia.

HAMLET

Yes, with all my heart, sir. Goodbye.

GUILDENSTERN

My devotion commends itself to you.

(he leaves.)

HAMLET

He's right, really, to commend himself. Mad brain! Mannequin, rigid and hollow in the frivolous mode. Bubble on which a thousand reflections sparkle. But when one breathes on it -- what remains? Wind.

HORATIO

Milord, you will lose your bet.

HAMLET

No -- I think I've taken exercise during his long absence -- it gives me advantage and I will be victor -- oh, but if you know what a weight I have on my heart. Ah -- what does it matter?

HORATIO

Still!

HAMLET

Nothing. Caprice of soul. Fears of a child -- to trouble a woman.

HORATIO

Dear Prince, heed this troubling secret. I am going to announce to them you are not ready.

HAMLET

No -- I am ready for everything -- and even for the tomb. For a sparrow to fall, God must allow it. It will come sooner or later, my great unknown day -- and if it is not to come, it's because it has come.

Tomorrow, tonight, may bring the hour that ends the future -- one has nothing but what comes from God. Be ready -- everyone is here -- let's march on our way!

(Enter King, Queen, Laertes, Guildenstern, Rosencrantz, Courtiers.)

KING

(putting Laertes hand in that of Hamlet)

Come, Hamlet, come and take this hand.

HAMLET

(to Laertes)

Pardon me, sir. The offense made to man, I demand pardon, Laertes, of a gentleman. You know my reason suffers cruelly and it was not I but this distraction, a greater enemy of Hamlet than Laertes, even -- which wounded your honor -- good companion that I love.

So I demand your forgiveness before all. And I wouldn't be more innocent, you see, if thrusting by chance at shadows to distract me, I had wounded my brother through the wall.

LAERTES

You've just appeased my soul, Milord. But can I regard as intact my honor and shake this dear hand. That's for arbiters to judge, if you please. Until then, satisfied in full, I receive as a friend your offers of friendship.

HAMLET

Oh, I am really happy about it! No more contrary discussions and we will dispute gaily our wager as brothers. The foils? I can only be your laughingstock and add a jewel to your success. And serve you only as contrast and shadow. The star shines brighter when the night is darkest.

LAERTES

You are mocking me.

HAMLET

Not at all.

KING

Guildenstern, the foils.

(to Hamlet)

You know the wager.

HAMLET

And I have a thousand regrets for making you lose it.

KING

Oh -- I am in no fear. I've seen both of you gentlemen pass at arms. He's better trained but he will give you points.

LAERTES

(choosing a foil)

This foil is too heavy; good this one here is lighter.

HAMLET

(choosing his turn)

Are they all the same length?

GUILDENSTERN

Yes -- all.

HAMLET

I have mine.

KING

The decanters? If my son touches his adversary, in the first three passes to salute him fire all the cannons -- and I throw in with my cup the most beautiful pearl with which a King can decorate his new crown.

And clarions of the palace, cannons on the ramparts, echoes in heaven -- let all say in every direction. 'The King is drinking to his son!' The Queen is watching you, go to it, gentlemen.

(The King and Queen have taken places on the throne.)

HAMLET

Laertes -- en garde!

LAERTES

Hamlet -- en garde!

(They begin the duel)

HAMLET

Touche.

LAERTES

No.

HAMLET

(to judges)

Decide.

GUILDENSTERN

Touche, certainly.

(Trumpets and cannons.)

LAERTES

Come, let's start over.

KING

Dear Hamlet, one moment! I am drinking to you.

(drinks and tosses poison in the cup)

There's your pearl. Pass him the cup.

HAMLET

(to a servant who presents the cup)

No -- I want to finish this pass. Put the cup there.

(they continue. He touches Laertes)

Touche -- what do you say?

LAERTES

Yes, touche, I agree.

KING

Fortune is with us.

(Cannons and trumpets)

QUEEN

(coming down and taking the poisoned cup)

Hamlet, your mother drinks to your success.

HAMLET

Madame -- very nice.

KING

(low to Queen)

Don't drink, Gertrude, on your soul.

QUEEN

What? Not drink to my son -- by chance! Why?

(She drinks.)

KING

(low to Laertes)

It's the poison! Just God -- he's too late.

QUEEN

(offering the cup to Hamlet)

Hamlet, to you.

HAMLET

Thanks, Madam -- later.

LAERTES

(low to King)

Oh -- I am going to touch him this time.

KING

(low to Laertes)

Yes -- let him die.

HAMLET

At the third, friend, play all your trumps for your skill, I fear, looks at me like a child and spares me not.

LAERTES

Ah, you jest! En garde!

(fight)

GUILDENSTERN

Nothing either way.

(Hamlet links Laertes foil and makes it jump from his hands -- then picks it up and presents it to Laertes)

LAERTES

Pardon, but you are offering me, I think -- your foil?

HAMLET

(courteously)

Doubtless -- well?

LAERTES

(aside)

I'm done for!

HAMLET

Touche.

LAERTES

Dead.

KING

Stop the fight. They are almost possessed.

HAMLET

No, not yet.

(The Queen falls in a faint.)

HORATIO

Oh, heaven! The Queen!

GUILDENSTERN

(running to Laertes)

His blood's running.

HAMLET

(running to his mother)

Oh mother, we must help her!

GUILDENSTERN

What's wrong with you, Laertes?

LAERTES

(tottering)

I -- we are going to die. I am both murderer and victim, taken in my own snare.

HAMLET

(leaning over his mother)

Oh -- mother is it a crime?

KING

No -- seeing blood spilled.

QUEEN

No -- treason -- the cup, dear, Hamlet, the cup -- poison!

HAMLET

Infamy -- oh - -shut the doors right away and let's find the guilty.

LAERTES

He's not far! Come quick! The Queen has imbibed death -- nothing can save her. Hamlet, I must never rise again, all help would be in vain. My life is condemned. And the weapon is in your hands -- look -- empoisoned. And the executioner dying at your feet -- that's me.

But the double murderer -- he's there. It's the King!

HAMLET

I have an empoisoned weapon! Then poison -- to work.

(strikes the King)

GUILDENSTERN

Treason!

KING

(wounded)

Ah!

HAMLET

Death.

KING

I am only wounded, my friends, help.

HAMLET

(forcing him to drink from the cup)

Incestuous murderer -- empty this! Drink -- cursed one -- have you found your pearl?

(The Ghost appears -- visible to Hamlet alone.)

HAMLET

The shade! The shade! Come see your murderer die, somber ghost.

(to the courtiers after a sign from the ghost)

And all of you, leave us.

(The courtiers hesitate -- he brandishes his foil!)

HAMLET

If one of you takes a step, he will not take a second. I am King, right? King of your existence and their agony. It's necessary that between the five of us the play be finished. Leave us!