Act Five
Act
Five Scene Two
Sub
Scene One
Confessional
times.
Horatio had Hamlet back to his
abode and shared a drink with the young lord. Hamlet was silent while Horatio
remained muted not to stir up the madness.
“Was I unwell just now, Horatio?”
Hamlet asked. “I felt as I was.”
“No, my lord. None whatsoever. You were
upset at Laertes who attacked you, as anyone would, retaliate in kind.” Horatio
said.
“So much for this, sir. Now shall
you see the other. You do remember all the circumstance?”
“Remember it, my lord!” Horatio
nodded.
“Sir, in my heart …no, it was in my
head, there was a kind of fighting that would not let me sleep.” Hamlet
confesses.
“Did you take your medication
prescribed?” Horatio asked. Hamlet has a list of medications to take since
young. During his care, he had to administer the medication daily as
prescribed.
“Yes, I do.” Hamlet lied. He was
off them for a while. “I thought I lay worse than the mutines in the bilboes.
Rashly— And praised be rashness for it: let us know, our indiscretion sometime
serves us well when our deep plots do pall; and that should learn us there’s
a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will—”
“That is most certain.” Horatio
smiled. “God smile on the good.”
“Here take this now, my lord. It
will calm you.” Horatio handed over the powdered medication to Hamlet.
“I …”
“None took, my lord. Drink up.”
Horatio told Hamlet who took the drink voluntarily. The medicine took its
effect and Hamlet was talking again, not ranting.
“Up from my cabin, at sea
across the channel, I scarfed about me, in the dark, groped I to find out them;
had my desire, fingered their packet,” Hamlet was interrupted by Horatio.
“Of whom were they?”
“My traveling associates;
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.” Hamlet gave the names. “ And in fine withdrew to
mine own room again, making so bold to unfold their grand commission.”
“How did you know of the
commission?” Horatio asked.
“It was Rosencrantz who told me. He
was cranky that evening after he saw Guidenstern talking to another sailor. I
played him along, and he spewed more than his bodily fluid.”
“What did you read?” Horatio asked.
“A royal knavery—an exact command,
larded with many several sorts of reasons Importing Denmark’s health and
England’s too; such group of bugs and goblins in my life, that on the
supervise, no leisure bated, no, not to stay the grinding of the ax, my head
should be struck off.
“Is ’t possible? They want to
behead you?” Horatio looked at Hamlet. “Are you surely sure of that?”
“Here’s the commission. Read it at
more leisure.” Hamlet pulled the paper from his tunic pocket. ‘But wilt thou
hear now how I did proceed?”
“I beseech you.” Horatio encouraged
the explanation.
“Being thus be netted round with
villainies, Or I could make a prologue to my brain that they had begun the
play. I sat down, devised a new commission, wrote it fair— I once did hold
it, as our statists do, a baseness to write fair, and labored much. How to
forget that learning; but, sir, now it did me yeoman’s service. Wilt thou
know th’ effect of what I wrote?”
“Ay, good my lord.” Horatio waited
for the news.
“An earnest conjuration from the Emperor,
as England was his faithful tributary, as love between them like the palm might
flourish, as close as the fish and chips in one serving.” Hamlet went into
his tributes. “As peace should still her wheaten garland wear and stand a comma
’tween their amities, and many suchlike cases of great charge, that, on the
view and knowledge of these contents, without debatement further, more or
less, he should those bearers put to sudden death, without delay.”
“Will they believe you? You hold no
seal of your own?” A seal was then like an attestation to the validity of the
sender of the mail.
“I have. I have King Hamlet’s seal.
I took out from the castle when I left last. I had it sealed over the wax on
the new letter. It was returned to the other pocket.” Hamlet smiled.
“So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz taken
your place?” Horatio asked. “But why them?”
“Why, man, they did make love to
this employment. They are not near my conscience. Their defeat does by
their insinuation growth. They deserve their fate.”
“My challenge with the Emperor is dangerous
when the baser nature comes between the pass and fell incensèd points of mighty
opposites.” Hamlet thinks of himself as the equal foe. “I may be with less of
resources, but I can draw from Leonidas at the Battle of Thermopylae. But my
conclusion will not be my death but his.”
“Why, what a king is that? My
academics are of the entrants since then.”
“Does it not, think thee, stand me
now upon— I am talking of the Emperor here against me. He that hath killed my
king and whored my mother, popped in between th’ election and my hopes, thrown
out his angle for my proper life, and with such cozenage—is ’t not
perfect conscience to quit him with this arm? And is ’t not to be damned to
let this canker of our nature come in further evil?”
“It must be shortly known to him
from England what is the issue of the business there?” Horatio cautioned
Hamlet. “They do communicate from there.”
“It will be short. The interim’s
mine, and a man’s life’s no more than to say “one.” Hamlet thought of the two
friends in England.
“But I am very sorry, good Horatio.
That to Laertes I forgot myself, for by the image of my cause I see the
portraiture of his. I’ll court his favors. but, sure, the bravery of his grief
did put me into a tow’ring passion.”
Horatio smiled. The medication was
working once more. He heard then the approaching steps.
“Peace, who comes here?” Horatio
called out.
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