untitled
|
|
|
Hamlet Act V scene 1 3/8
Enter Ghost
Ghost: Whilst on the last eve of my term, for the long awaited peace of heaven, I Strolled through the city of the dead. In bitterness and jealousy, I loathed the Souls who hath forgone my hell. They rest already in eternal bliss; all that Remains are bones. As I walked I heard the sweet song, melodious, never-Ending, silent to the mortal ear. Tis the song of the body: the whisper of the Bones. They speak a forgotten language, guttural and poetic, old and strange, Hath survived since the dawn of time. Whence I walked that weary night I Paused for one last joke over the bones of Yorick the Jester, my confidant, my Friend deceased since three and twenty.
Yorick: All is black, black, there is naught I see
Eternal Slumber is thine ecstasy
No more is pain nor love nor sorrow
Farewell dear soul dear rising Morrow
Ne’re more shall I want nor have desire
So I sleep eternal twixt the mire
Enter Clowns, Hamlet and Horatio
Ghost: Alas, the solitude I expected I did not receive. Tis an overflow of bodies in the Graveyard tonight. The living walk amongst the dead. Amidst Yorick’s remains The gravediggers stand and my stalwart son with Horatio by his side. Damn him! Curse my foolish son may his soul be condemned to hell! Who is the living to awaken the dead, to speak of what they do not know.!
Yorick: Who darest arrest me from my slumber
Move my bones from deep asunder
Twas Hamlet plucked me from my resting place
To stare his madness in the face
Fools! Knavish fiends be gone!
From this cursed ground of Hades’ spawn
Leave us rest. Disturb us naught
Amongst the worms, leave us rot
1st Clo. [gestures towards a skull] A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! A poured a flagon of Rhenish on my head once. This same skull, sir, was Yorick’s skull, the King’s jester.
Ghost: [Chuckles] Dearest Yorick, your sense of humor oft caused me a smile.
Hamlet: [Takes the skull] This?
1st Clo. E’en that.
Hamlet: Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now, your gambles, your songs, your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now to mock your own grinning? Quite chop-fallen? Now get you to my lady’s chamber, and tell her, let her paint her face an inch thick, to this favour she must come. Make her laugh at that. Prithee, Horatio, tell me one thing.
Horatio: What's that, my lord?
Hamlet: Dost thou think Alexander looked o'er this fashion i’ the earth?
Horatio: Even so.
Hamlet: And smelt so? Pah! [Puts down the skull]
Ghost: My time grows short, I must desist, as my essence fades, my heart resists. My son speaks in riddles. I fear he be farther gone than I. He speaks of Yorick as a brother, my poor lad, he hallucinates. He knows Yorick like Samson and Lazarus, through stories and naught more. Dear Yorick forgive them their trespasses. Get ye back to your peaceful rest
Yorick: Oh soft earth, the velvet residing neath my head
Sweet with the stench of the rotting dead
Ghost: [Beneath] Forgive them.
Yorick: To think He the prince and I the fool
Tis irony that, strange and cruel
His lunacy radiates from inside
He utters nonsense more than I
Ghost: [Beneath] Forgive him
Yorick: He speaks though he knows me naught
But for the stories he heard from wence I walked
His madness condemns him all around
Aught be him not I nestled underground
Ghost: [Beneath] Humor him
Yorick: Fair maiden of maggots your insane prince beckons
To postpone your sleep with laughter he reckons
But where we reside, talk is naught but vain
My mind grows weary into eternity’s reign
Sleep well Ophelia, thy eternal slumber
Nay more be troubled by thy damned prince infernal
Ophelia: Curse Him
bravenet.com