Act Three
Act
Three Scene One
Sub
Scene Three
The
doves perched
“Nothing
is, but what is not” Hamlet was talking to himself. “Even though it’s just a
fantasy so far, the mere thought of committing murder shakes me up so much that
I hardly know who I am anymore. My ability to act is stifled by my thoughts and
speculations, and the only things that matter to me are things that don’t
exist." (http://nfs.sparknotes.com/macbeth/page_22.html)
Hamlet
stopped on his walk and looked at the walls around him.
“To
be or not to be—that is the question:” The direction ahead fork in different
paths, and one behind us, shall never be trodden once more. That is the journey
of life; ever forward with each new path our decisive next fork in the journey.
“Whether
’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous
fortune; I may remain the Prince for now.” Hamlet smiled. “Or to take arms
against a sea of troubles and, by opposing, end them like many princes for the
right to be King.”
“‘Sound
trumpets! let our bloody colors wave! And either victory or else a grave.’ Let
me borrow from Henry VI, Act 3.” Hamlet smiled.
“Or
to die, to sleep—” Hamlet's hands clutched his heart with a chuckle. “No
more—and by a sleep to say we end the heartache and the thousand natural shocks.
It may end bloodless.”
“That
flesh is heir to—’tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.” Hamlet lowered his
arms to the side and then to his ears, as if he was sleeping he leaned his head
to the hands.
“To
sleep— To sleep, perchance to dream.” Hamlet's eyes closed with a smile on his
face. “ Ay, there’s the rub, for in that sleep of death what dreams may come.”
“When
we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause. There’s the
respect that makes calamity of so long life for who would bear the whips and
scorns of time.” The left hand of Hamlet swiped at his face as if to remove the
veil that was there. Or to wake from the dream.
“Th’
oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely, the pangs of despised love, the
law’s delay, The insolence of office, and the spurns that patient merit of th’
unworthy takes”, Hamlet lowered his head. “When he might his quietus make with
a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear, to grunt and sweat under a weary
life, but that the dread of something after death, the undiscovered
country from whose bourn.”
“No
traveler returns, puzzles the will, And makes us rather bear those ills we have
than fly to others that we know not of?” Hamlet felt that death was never known
its destiny for none had returned to tell but if death may end his woes but to
what and where were his thoughts like being lost?
“I
do fear that.” Hamlet sighed for his cowardice to be dead. “Or unknown to the
soul; the untravelled frontier.
“Thus
conscience does make cowards of us all, and thus the native hue of resolution is
sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought, and enterprises of great pitch and
moment with this regard their currents turn awry.” Hamlet reflected on his
inaction and then laughed.
“Where
art thou? The ghost may soon be asked of me. Or it will be the Devil if it was
the ghost awaiting the next scene.”
“Have
more than thou showest, speak less than thou knowest, lend less than thou
owest” (King Lear, The Fool Act 1 Scene IV).” Hamlet shuddered as when he did
for his act then; anxiety awaits one when the audience is them and not you.
“Be
your character when the curtain rises. Let it embody you and made words your
lines. Ignore the audience fir your acting will awe them then.” Hamlet’s first
instructor then gave him the confidence to act. He did and never had he
faltered since then or was it then he did?
“I
am not the fool, but the King I am…not to.” Hamlet sighed. “And lose the name
of action.—Soft you now, the fair Ophelia.—Nymph, in thy orisons, be all my
sins remembered.”
Hamlet's
hands once more clutched his heart.
“To
be or not to be—that is the question here.” Hamler for once in his life
questioned himself.
“Good
my lord, how does your honor for this many a day?” Ophelia approached the man
she had not seen for some days.
“I
humbly thank you, I am well.” Hamlet bowed to the lady to hide his pained
expression. Like an actor, he raised himself to upright, an expression than of
the norm; a weak smile on the lips.
“My
lord, I have remembrances of yours that I have longèd long to redeliver. I pray
you now receive them.” Ophelia wanted to reach towards Hamlet in the feel but
felt the barrier to it.
“No,
not I. I never gave you aught.” Hamlet held the expression of ‘I never stop
you’.
“My
honored lord, you know right well you did, and with them words of so sweet
breath composed
As made things richer. Their perfume lost, take these again, for to the noble
mind.” Ophelia reached out with her words to the man in the actor. “Rich gifts
wax poor when givers prove unkind.”
“There,
my lord.” Ophelia motioned to Hamlet’s heart.
“Ha,
ha, are you honest?” Hamlet held an expression of disbelief.
“My
lord?” Ophelia approached the other. Her desire to rekindle the past.
“Are
you fair?” Hamlet held out his arms to stop here.
“What
means your Lordship?”
“That
if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your
beauty.”
“Could
beauty, my lord, have better commerce than honesty?” Ophelia thought of herself
as beautiful but her real beauty was her inside. It may exist for beauty was
beneath the skin.
“Ay,
truly, for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to
a bawd than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness.”
Hamlet slipped into his acting profile, an actor addressing the audience to
explain the other character.
Ophelia
read his words and sighed. She knew that beauty can more easily change a good
girl into a whore than goodness could change a beautiful girl into a
virgin.
“Does
he ever love me for myself or my …virtue?” Ophelia self questions the love of
the other. And Hamlet cleared her doubt.
“This
was sometime a paradox, but now the time gives it proof.” Hamlet stabbed her
then. “I did love you once.”
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