Act Two
Act
Two Scene Two
Sub
Scene Seven
Fishmonger
and the fishes
“There
are the players.” Guildenstern reminded Hamlet of the troupe. “They are cometh
soon.”
“Gentlemen
and to them the troupe, you are all welcome to Elsinore. Your hands, come then.
The appurtenance of welcome is fashion and ceremony. Let me comply, Hamlet
clapped his hands together. “With you in this garb, lest my extent to the
players, which, I tell you, must show fairly outwards, should more appear like
entertainment than yours. You are welcome. But my uncle-father and aunt-mother
are deceived.” Hamlet sighed.
“In
what, my dear lord?” Guildenstern asked feigning no idea as to what the elders
thought of Hamler.
“I
am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a
handsaw.” Hamlet explained himself and then turned his back.’
“Is
he…” Rosencrantz whispered to Guildenstern but the other hushed it. It was then
Polonius arrived at the opportune of timing to shoo the two friends of Hamlet.
“Well
be with you, gentlemen.” Polonius waved the two gentlemen to leave.”I have this
only to the ears of Hamlet.”
“Tally
Ho then.” Guildenstern gleefully turned to leave.
“Hark
you, Guildenstern, and you too, Rosencrantz. Each ear is a hearer! That great
baby you see there is
not yet out of his swaddling clouts.” Hamlet called out to the two departing
friends.
“What
does he mean?” Rosencrantz took to heels behind Guildenstern.
“I
don’t know, but recalled he will say that when the play has yet to conclude,”
Guildenstern replied. “We are to be off. The elderly one comes again.”
“Haply
he is the second time come to them, for they say an old man is twice a child,”
Rosencrantz said of the elderly man who may there to repeat his sayings, like
the senile ailment he may be inflicted.
“I
cared not, but we are invited to perform and will do so to earn our keep for
our part has yet to and.” Guildenstern walked on.
“My
lord, I have news to tell you.” Polonius turned to face Hamlet on the exiting
of the other two from the chamber.
“Nay, that follows not.” Hamlet picked
the book once more.
“What follows then, my lord? There is
none.” Polonius looked around, and at the window, where the sun remained high.
He saw nothing out of the ordinary. “What will follow, my Lord?”
Polonius saw the book that Hamlet was
reading once more.
“Fishmonger, I read to you a passage
here. The
realm of imagination was seen to be a “reservation” made during the painful
transition from the pleasure principle to the reality principle to provide a substitute
for instinctual satisfactions which had to be given up in real life.” Hamlet
looked at Polonius. “Do you follow?”
Polonius had the expression ‘am I hearing right then?’.
“Perhaps you don’t have the imagination like here?’ Hamlet had
the queried expression. “Perhaps… the Oedipus
complex? That was based on the belief that young children experienced an
unconscious desire for their opposite-sex parent.” Hamlet looked at the elderly
man. “Or the other way around? Fishmonger, are you in love with your daughter
that you deny her the true love of her equal? You not infallible, as …. A
fishmonger.”
“My
daughter again? Fishmonger?” Polonius muttered in his mind. “What does he care
about her when I do more than he ever did in her life? And me on her?
Absurdity, and blasphemy to the thoughts. I am her father and the mad one is
Hamlet there.”
“And
he thrives on sex.” Polonius shook his head. “The man is mad in the flesh and
mind. I think his thoughts are corroded that it seeps out through his eyes and
ears too.”
“My lord, I have news to tell you…” Polonius placed aside
his conclusion on Hamlet and pushed for the reason he was there but Hamlet
insisted on speaking his words.
“When Roscius was an actor in Rome… Do you know Roscius?” Hamlet
paused to ask Polonius.
“Roscius,
in full Quintus Roscius Gallus, (died 62 BC), Roman comic actor of
such celebrity that his name became an honorary epithet for any
particularly successful actor. Although Roscius was known for his painstaking
rehearsal of the fine points of each role, he also had a gift for
improvisation. He is said to have instructed Cicero in elocution.
Cicero, in turn, defended Roscius in a lawsuit, and his oration on behalf of
the actor, Pro Roscio ‘comoedo’, survives. Among those
to acquire the honorary epithet Roscius was the English child
star William Henry West Betty (1791–1874), known as the Young
Roscius, and the American-born black tragedian Ira Aldridge (1807–67), dubbed
the African Roscius.” Hamlet
narrated the details of the man. (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Roscius).
“Hamlet,” Polonius resorted to the personal name. “The actors have come hither, my lord.”
“Buzz, buzz..” Hamlet mimicked as if he was
swatting a fly there with the book. “There you are.”
Hamlet swatted his rear with the book.
“Upon my honor…” Polonius asserted his
voice.
“Then
came each actor on his ass.” Hamlet pranced around the chamber as if he was on
his haunches clutching his smacked rear.
“The best actors in the world, either
for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral,
tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable,
or poem unlimited. Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor ‘Plautus’ is too light.”
Polonius defended the skills of the actors in their performance across the
broad subjects of the play. “For the law of writ and the liberty, these are the
only men.”
“Well supported, Fishmonger.” Hamlet
looked at the other. “Your words are imposed on in the play.”
A tone of accusation for the actors was
to act in what was scripted.
“You not unlike Jephthah to lay claim on
your daughter and yet denied her of the claim in her.” Hamlet sighed louder.
“Whom she may love yet your words imposed on her on whom to love.”
“One
that passed daily to the daughter, and dearly loving by each day denied her
own.” Hamlet sighed.
“You
are …” Polonius held back his accusations. “I will …”
The
arguments were laid aside when the chamber was intruded upon by others.
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