Act
Four
Act
Four Scene Four
Sub
Scene Two
Pride
and Prejudice
Alone
by himself, Hamlet slipped into his pensive mood. He stood on the open view of
the airship landing area. He watched the airships take off or land, some
perfectly, some shaky at most till the wheels hit the solid ground. All the
passengers seen had the same thought as him.
“As
flies to wanton boys are we to the gods. They kill us for their sport.” William
Shakespeare, King Lear Hamlet had that cynical thought in his mind. He
wondered how many airships had crashed, and lives lost.
“Do
they swear revenge toward Gods? Or like me, undecisive or cowardly?” Hamlet
sighed. He then looked in the direction of the castle.
“How
all occasions do inform against me and spur my dull revenge. Do I hold the
courage?”
“What
is a man if the chief good and market of his time be but to sleep and feed? A
beast, no more.” Some of us do with the contend of being fed and rest, nary a
concern on the surrounding. Young Hamlet was one. “Sure He that made us with
such large discourse, looking before and after, gave us not that capability and
godlike reason to fust in us unused.”
“It’s
the price of being in the upper niche of society, most times we utilised the
spoils of our elderly and claimed it for
ourselves when an effort was not into it.”
“Now
whether it be bestial oblivion or some craven scruple of thinking too precisely
on the event; a thought which, quartered, hath but one part wisdom and
ever three parts coward), I do not know.” Hamlet sighed. He is still in a
dilemma. “Am I the fool or not?”
“Why
yet I live to say. This thing’s to do, sith I have a cause, and will, and
strength, and means to do ’t.” Hamlet continued. “Examples gross as Earth
exhort me: witness this army of such mass and charge, led by a delicate and
tender prince, whose spirit with divine ambition puffed (as ego does.).”
Other
Norway with a huge army of five hundred led by, to Hamlet’s mind, an egoistic
man to swat a gnat with the huge swatter. Maybe like Xerxes fighting Leonidas
at the Battle of Thermopylae; a hundred thousand against three hundred, and
victory it was but at a price.
“A
tailor’s tale of swatting seven flies with one blow indeed.” Hamlet also
thought of the fable of the tailor. “Makes mouths at the invisible event, exposing
what is mortal and unsure to all that fortune, death, and danger dare, even for
an eggshell.”
According
to the fable, the tailor was put to perform certain tasks of danger but he
achieved it with some smart thinking.
“Rightly
to be great is not to stir without great argument, but greatly to find quarrel
in a straw when honor’s at the stake.” Hamlet chuckled. “The achievement of one
does not come from performing the great task, but the menial one did which may
be one that will make him for greatness.”
Like
an actor who graces the play in a minor role, but made an astonishing entry
that many well remembered and paced the path to major roles. No one recalled
his other menial parts before then.
“How
to stand I, then, that have a father killed, a mother stained, excitements
of my reason and my blood, and let all sleep, while to my shame I see the
imminent death of twenty-two thousand lives that for a fantasy and trick of
fame go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot whereon the numbers cannot
try the cause, which is not tomb enough and continent to hide the slain?”
“More
than ten million died in the trenches of the last war (World War One), and to
that, we had learned nothing.n Their lives are committed by others to fight for
honor. On my honor, I have one death in my family not by the war, but of a
different war. A war between the King and Emperor. The King was killed; a
father by bloodline, and on my right, I am to avenge his death. I know of his
killer, I had identified his killer. I had spent days pondering yet I am
unmoving to my action.”
“O,
from this time forth my thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth!” Hamlet forced
his mind to think. “Am I truly lily-livered? I feel nothing of worth in me but
anger.”
“Or
am I mad to do anything? I am maybe that. I am mad in my mind to think of all
acts, yet there were just plays. Acting before an audience and backstage I am
my own. I am putting on faces for others.” Hamlet was in self-questioning then.
“Why
me, Father? Do I deserve this? You whom I hated since five, banished me, and on
your death, you called me back. I did reluctantly if not for Horatio’s pleading,
I may not have. I returned to see the
woman I …loved, and yet hated too. You did me well; ghostly to appeal toward
me, a tug on my heart, and bounded to seek your vengeance.”
“Father,
you bred me to be an actor, not a Prince, nor a killer. I had heard of the evil
deeds that you have done as King; taking another of their career or destroying
their families, or taking their mortal life, it matters not to you. You were
the King. The more I hear, I dislike you. I detest you.”
“Yet
I returned.” Hamlet sighed. “I must have been mad.”
“Was
it our bloodline to be mad?” Hamlet chuckled.
“But
truly, it was not you came back for, but Ophelia. She is…not anymore, she was
to be mine, but I had to bring her out. Away from your castle, and her father;
he peeks when he should not….. and your
empire.”
“The
truth, when I saw her, I could not. She was so much in there. I was in putting
on faces to avoid her, and behind the faces, I was still attracted to her. I
cared for her, loved her, and yet I am unable to fulfill my obligations toward
her. I guess I was not to see her for my lover, but maybe… a sister.”
“Again,
I was undecided.” Hamlet sighed.
“Decisions…decisions…
to be or not to be? That was always my question.” Hamlet looked to the sky. “It
was so easy to soar like a bird, but what if I was the ape that was not to
leave the ground?”
“It
was easy to defend what is yours? Two streets it may be to others, but a nation
came to its aid knowing that the bloodbath will awash with theirs, and yet they
are there.” Hamlet thought of the Polacks. “They are not mad, Father. They are
passionate about what is theirs. As I must do for myself.”
“I
must decide now. Or madness will take over me.” Hamlet looked at the airships.
“I know now. I must reach my decision. If I can’t fly, I will be flown.”
“Father,
I cannot be you entirely but I will act in parts like you. I will avenge your
death as you wanted, and take Ophelia away. Thereafter, I will wait for the
final curtain. What transpires behind the stage will be of myself/..” Hamlet
rejoins the others.
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