hamlet's apocalypse final

8/8/2019 Hamlet's Apocalypse FINAL

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HAMLET’S APOCALYPSE © DARK LADY PLAYERS (2010) FINAL

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PROLOGUEStage is dark. Hamlet enters in darkness and takes his chair, up center. Slouching. Horatio

enters and turns on a Ghost Light, placed down center. He gives a look to Hamlet who issulking. Horatio exits and returns rolling a bookcase with an old fashioned lamp and large books

whose labels are visible.

As lights rise, the set is revealed: The stage is set with platforms around the edge. There aretwo large “family portraits” hanging on the upstage wall. One shows Polonius, Laertes, and

Ophelia as the Holy Family. The other shows Claudius, Gertrude, and Old Hamlet as “unholy”

There is a costume rack up stage center with large labels showing each character and his/her allegorical identities:

HAMLET AntiChrist/Nero

AntiChrist/Martin Luther

AntiChrist/The Beast from the Sea

OPHELIA

Mary/ Woman Crowned with the Sun

LAERTES

Jesus Christ

POLONIUS



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HAMLET’S APOCALYPSE © DARK LADY PLAYERS (2010)

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God the Father & The Polar Axis

CLAUDIUS

The Beast from the Land

GERTRUDE

The Whore of Babylon

GHOST OF OLD HAMLET The Devil Apollyon/The Destroyer

HORATIOThe actors are come hither, my lord.

HAMLETActors?

HORATIO

They are 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 too light. For the law of writ and the liberty, these are the only men; well, actually someare women

(Enter Four Players)

HAMLETThen you are welcome, all. I am glad to see thee well. Were you not in Wittenberg some few

years ago? It seems to me I have seen you act before. Could you give us a play tonight?

FIRST PLAYER

Yes, my lord, we performed before Dr. Faustus at the University of Wittenberg. We are thesame company, numerous enough, and well rehearsed.

HAMLET

Have you still the same three actresses with you? They used to play well.

FIRST PLAYERNo, my lord only two. One stayed behind with her husband at the Court of Saxony.

HAMLETMasters, Mistresses, you are all welcome:

HORATIO

Are you ready for a play my Lord?.

HAMLET

What is the name of the play called?

HORATIO

(he pulls out an enormous Play book) The name of the play is HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK , and each actor has their own

version so you can choose who shall perform it. It is very full of questions.



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HAMLETI know it well. It is the Book of Revelation in a most antic disposition, a Play about the Anti-

Christ and Doomsday.

ACTOR 1

My Lord, my Hamlet is an answer to a long religious poem called ‘A Fig for Fortune’.It begins with the OPENING OF THE PIT and the RULE OF GOD ends in death and Doom!

(Horatio hands Actor 1 a copy of Anthony Copley A FIG FOR FORTUNE (1596). He tries to giveit to Hamlet who will not take it and places it back on the shelf. Each actor will put her book on

Horatio’s shelf.)

ALL ACTORS (shaking their heads)

Doom

HORATIO Next.

ACTOR 2My Hamlet is an allegory for the new astronomy in which the stars fall from the heavens

Opheliais the Moon, Claudius is the Earth and Hamlet, son of Hyperion, is Helios the Sun, who

ECLIPSES the Earth and throws it into darkness.

HORATIO

Go on.(Horatio takes out Rheticus, NARRATIO PRIMA, Wittenberg (1539) )

ACTOR 2

Indeed, my Lord. The astronomers in Wittenberg now claim the Earth moves around the Sun!

HORATIOAlas, poor Claudius Ptolemy. Is your geocentric universe overthrown?

ACTOR 3 (interrupting)

It’s not that at all. Any Evangelical can see Hamlet is the ANTI-CHRIST, in three differentguises: As Martin Luther who challenged Catholicism, as the EMPEROR NERO – the letters of

his name in Hebrew mean 666 - and the BEAST FROM THE SEA. That’s why as the son of

Satan he impregnates the Virgin Mary. It is very cool. Just like Rosemary’s Baby.

(Hamlet takes out a large copy of the BOOK OF REVELATION)

HAMLET

Where are you from exactly?

ACTOR 4 (interrupting)

Hamlet is the Son of Satan, I agree, but you don’t go far enough. In Wittenberg Luther overturned the Catholic Church. So does this play. It is a parody of Revelation: SEVEN

TRUMPETS, VIALS OF PLAGUE, the HORSEMAN DEATH, the WOMAN CROWNED WITH

THE SUN, the WHORE OF BABYLON, Claudius the BEAST, the SILENCE IN HEAVEN and

SIX SIX SIX. They all come from Revelation.



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HORATIO.Very good. You read Linda Hoff’s book I see. She thinks it is an allegory of Revelation, but there

is no heavenly JERUSALEM. And last…

ACTOR 5

My play is also about astrology. When Hamlet smites the sledded Poll-Ax on the ice likePolonius the Pole, he is the Polar Axis.

(Actor 5 here begins to rotate in a circle like the polar axis, accompanied by a grinding noise---to foreshadow the death of Polonius)

The very axle of the wheel of Heaven which Amleth carries ‘round Fortune’s zodiac until all ends

in Doom.

ALL ACTORS

Doom

HORATIO

Did you also go school in Wittenberg? To treat this play as some case study in Astro-

archaeology?

ACTOR 5

(Actor hold out a copy of Santillana, HAMLET’S MILL, (1969)T’is all set out, here, true Natures’ livery. This chart sets out the stars on Fortune’s wheel from

the very button of her cap to the soles of her shoe, and those, like us, who live about her waist.

HORATIOAbout her waist? She is indeed a strumpet if such as you dwell in the private parts of Fortune!

Which will you have my lord?

HAMLET

Decisions, decisions.( At this point Hamlet is holding Revelation, Horatio is holding Rheticus, Actor 5 is holding

Hamlet’s Mill, and Actor 1 A Fig For Fortune. All are now put away)

HORATIOHang up your scripts on the wall so that all can see them

SIGNS ON THE BOARD

SEVEN TRUMPETSSATAN ESCAPES FROM THE PIT

THE ANTI-CHRISTTHE WHORE OF BABYLON

SERPENTINE BEASTWOMAN WITH THE SUN/VIRGIN MARY

SUN ECLIPSEDA GREAT STAR WORMWOOD

VIALS OF PLAGUE

DEATH APPEARS ON HIS HORSE

SPIRITS RISE FROM THEIR GRAVESTHE SILENCE IN HEAVEN

BEAST FROM THE SEA



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RULER OF GOD

666/ EMPEROR NERODOOMSDAY

HEAVENLY JERUSALEM(The Board is left up throughout the play, like the ‘Plot’ for actors in the Elizabethan theater,

which reminded them of the next scene and entrances)

HAMLET

So many! I cannot choose between them. So we will do them all. Together.

ACTORS (in uproar)

What!! My lord! That is impossible (etc)

HORATIO

If the playwright was smart enough to mash them all up, that’s how you will perform them. For Caesar nothing is impossible. And to make sure you leave nothing out, we shall check off each

part as you perform it.

HAMLET(opens newspaper THE SOUTH ATLANTIC)

It got a good review: “The central meaning of Hamlet, contained in its conspicuous allegory, has

been hidden to intelligent audiences for centuries.”

ACTOR 4

And there is an excellent part in it for you my lord. Nero the Antichrist who comes from Hell tomake a Virgin with child.

HAMLET

Then I shall play it.

ACTOR 1My lord, here is the Prologue.

(he hands Hamlet a cue card)Read this while we try out the costumes

HAMLET (reading and addressing audience) This play was written for a university audience and acted at the two universities of Oxford and

Cambridge. It is Shakespeare’s only play to feature students.

(actors try out costumes)

ACTOR 3

For the son of Satan, horns are indispensable. And a purple robe for Nero.

HAMLETIt was written around the year 1600 when Luther predicted the coming of Doomsday.

So this was very topical.

ACTOR 4This cowl works for Luther, it covers his horns very nicely



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HAMLET

Originally it had 100 question marks, not 400. (Who would write a play with so many questions?)

ACTOR 2

How about this for Helios the sun god? He is really just like Lucifer. They both come from helel

in the Hebrew

HAMLETThe original play has no religious allusions and is not set on Doomsday

ACTOR 5How is this for the sea-robe? The seaweed indicates the Beast from the Sea

HAMLETBut this re-write is a parody of Doomsday, and the return of Christ. As Hyperion’s son I inherited

the title Smintheus, the Mouse Killer and this town is full of vermin.

HORATIOIn Elizabethan slang a mouse is someone drunk and lecherous.

HAMLETThat makes my uncle the biggest mouse of all. A King Mouse.

A Caesar Mouse. An Imperial mouse.

HORATIO. He is like the Hyrcanian beast, the Bengal Tiger. A satyr. A serpent. A Hydra. He is far too big to

poison. Or for a Mousetrap. You must find some new device.

HAMLET.

And so I will.

ACTOR 5(to Hamlet ) Are you still breathing under all this allegorical baggage?

HORATIOIn that case we will begin. Places please.

PART ONE: THE MOUSETRAPHamlet as Nero, the Anti-Christ

HORATIOLadies and Gentlemen, a lesson in Typology. Part one, Hamlet as Nero.

Lights up on Hamlet, standing USC dressed in purple toga with 666 badge.

HAMLETO heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever The black soul of Nero enter this bosom:

Let me be cruel, but not unnatural:



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I will speak daggers to her, but use none.

HORATIO

We’ll see. (referring to Life of Nero ) Nero was considered mad. (looks to Hamlet). Check. Nerokilled his uncle Claudius. (looks to Hamlet). Check. Nero was considered the anti-Christ (looks

to Hamlet). In good time. Nero was a singer, musician, poet, playgoer, and actor who played in

tragedies like Orestes the Matricide. (he shuts the book). That’s a good place to start.

(lights up on either side of Hamlet revealing ACTOR 3/PLAYER/CLAUDIUS and ACTOR4/PLAYER/GERTRUDE)

HAMLET

We'll have a speech straight: come, give us a taste of your quality; come, a passionate speech.

FIRST PLAYER What speech, my lord?

HAMLET

I heard thee speak me a speech once, but it was never acted; or, if it was, not above once; for the play, I remember, pleased not the million; 'twas caviare to the general: but it was--as I

received it, and others, whose judgments in such matters cried in the top of mine--an excellent

play, well digested in the scenes, set down with as much

modesty as cunning. It was about Pyrrhus, the New Ptolemy, and his murderer Orestes. Onespeech in it I chiefly loved: 'twas Aeneas' tale to Dido; and thereabout of it especially, where he

speaks of Priam's slaughter: if it live in your memory, beginat this line: let me see, let me see—

During above speech, Horatio checks his library and finds the correct book: THE TRAGEDY OF

ORESTES. Hamlet/Players may consult with book.

THE TRAGEDY OF ORESTES

(The following is acted in dumb show Pyrrhus,Priam and Hecuba each have distinctive colorswhich they wear in their subsequent plays-within-the-play, and mirror Claudius, Old Hamlet and

Gertrude. Hamlet declaims the following lines, which are performed by the Players. TheHyrcanian beast is the tiger, like the leopard of the Beast in Revelation. Gules is scarlet with

blood, like the scarlet Beast of Revelation)

'The rugged Pyrrhus, like the Hyrcanian beast,'--

it is not so:--it begins with Pyrrhus:--'The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable arms,Black as his purpose, did the night resemble

When he lay hidden in the Trojan Horse,Hath now this dread and black complexion smear'd

With heraldry more dismal;Head to foot is he now total gules

And thus o'er-sized with coagulate gore,With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus

Old grandsire Priam seeks.'

(Horatio applauds)



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HORATIO

'Fore God, my lord, well spoken, with good accent and good discretion.

HAMLET If the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me, with two provincial roses on my razed shoes, would

not this get me a fellowship in a cry of players, sir?

HORATIO

Maybe half a share, my lord. (aside) Those ribbons could hide a cloven hoof.Now my lord the Players must complete the Trilogy.

HAMLETThe Trilogy?

HORATIOYes. After the Tragedy of Orestes, and the Dumbshow t’is the Tragedy of Gonzago. They are

written typologically, so the same characters appear in each. (beat )

So you may use the same cast.

HAMLETSo, proceed you.

(The characters take up exactly the same blocking that they will repeat in the other playlets, to

indicate the equivalence of their typological identities. First Player takes over role of narrator from Hamlet and takes out book THE TRAGEDY OF ORESTES from which he reads the first

few lines)

(First Player takes over role of narrator from Hamlet)

First Player

'Anon he finds him

Striking too short at Greeks; his antique sword,Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls,

Repugnant to command: unequal match'd,Pyrrhus at Priam drives; in rage strikes wide;

But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword The unnerved father falls. Then senseless Ilium,

Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming topStoops to his base, and with a hideous crash

Takes prisoner Pyrrhus' ear : for, lo! his sword,

Which was declining on the milky head Of reverend Priam, seem'd i' the air to stick:

So, as a painted tyrant, Pyrrhus stood,

And like a neutral to his will and matter,Did nothing.!'

HORATIO

This is too long.

HAMLET

It shall to the barber's, with your beard. Prithee, say on: come to Hecuba.



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FIRST PLAYER

'But who, O, who had seen the mobled queen--When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport

In mincing with his sword her husband's limbs,The instant burst of clamour that she made,

Unless things mortal move them not at all,

Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven, And passion in the gods.

Would you like to see the rest my Lord? In which Pyrrhus, the scarlet beast in bloody gulesleaves Priam’s body headless on the shore and is then killed by Orestes…?

HORATIO

Pray you, no more,

HAMLET (to the first player)

Dost thou hear me, old friend; you will play the Murder of Gonzago?

FIRST PLAYER

Ay, my lord.

HAMLET

Then we shall have it. You could, for a need, study a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines,which I would set down and insert in't, could you not?

(Hamlet hands him the scroll)

FIRST PLAYER

Ay, my lord.

HAMLET Very well.

(Exit First Player)I have heard

That guilty creatures sitting at a play

Have by the very cunning of the sceneBeen struck so to the soul that presently

They have proclaim'd their malefactions;I'll have these players

Play something like the murder of my father

Before mine uncle: I'll observe his looks;

I'll tent him to the quick: if he but blench,I know my course: the play 's the thing

Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.(Enter Players)

(During above speech, stage is set with chairs for the on-stage audience. Each seat is labeled

with a character’s name: Claudius, Gertrude, Polonius, Ophelia, Horatio. Only Hamlet and Horatio are available to take their seats, but they may “interact” with the empty chairs as if theother characters are seated. They are, in fact, the same people playing. Horatio may have a



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large program.)

HORATIO

(reading from Book of the Revelation)

Chapter 17: I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast which was full of blasphemous names,

The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and bedecked with gold and jewels and pearls,holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her fornication; and

on her forehead was written a name of mystery: "Babylon the great, mother of harlots. As she

glorified herself and played the wanton, so give her a like measure of torment and mourning.Render to her as she herself has rendered, and repay her double for her deeds; mix a double

draught for her in the cup she mixed. And God remembered great Babylon, to make her drainthe cup of the fury of his wrath.

THE MOUSETRAP PLAY

(Enter Player King and Queen and Poisoner. Hamlet can hand them their props. For the first verse of the speech the Player King/Old Hamlet and Queen speak the verse but do not move

and watch the dumb show.

In the dumb show to one side the Poisoner/Earth/Tellus/Claudius stands still. Holding on toPolonius and his pole. Nearest to him Ophelia as the Moon circles him rapidly. Further out Hamlet as the Sun does so more slowly, both holding their Planets and moving in opposite

directions. Yet further out, another actor circulates even more slowly holding a golden star as

Guildernstern. After the first four lines Hamlet as the sun reverses the direction of his

movement)

Pla yer King Full thirty times hath Phoebus' cart gone round

Neptune's salt wash and Tellus' orbed ground, And thirty dozen moons with borrow'd sheen

About the World have times twelve thirties been,

Since love our hearts and Hymen did our handsUnite commutual in most sacred bands.

Pla yer Queen So many journeys may the Sun and moon

Make us again count o'er ere love be done!

(Astronomical dumb show finishes, Ophelia, Hamlet and Guilderstern leave their Celestial

bodies at their seats. Ophelia and Polonius will sit and become “themselves.”)

Pla yer Queen Such love must needs be treason in my breast:In second husband let me be accurst!

None wed the second but who kill'd the first..

A second time I kill my husband dead,When second husband kisses me in bed.

Pla yer King I do believe you think what now you speak;

But what we do determine oft we break.



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Purpose is but the slave to memory,

So think thou wilt no second husband wed;But die thy thoughts when thy first lord is dead.

Pla yer Queen Nor earth to me give food, nor heaven light!

Sport and repose lock from me day and night!

Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife,If, once a widow, ever I be wife!

Pla yer King 'Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here awhile;

My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguileThe tedious day with sleep.

(Sleeps)

Pla yer Queen

Sleep rock thy brain, And never come mischance between us twain!

(The Player Queen goes and sits at Gertrude’s throne, the Player King who represents Old

Hamlet lies down to sleep)

HORATIO

What means this show, my lord?

(Hamlet opens up book St Malachy’s DOOMSDAY PROPHECIES, 1595)

HAMLET Marry, this is milching Mallachy; it means mischief!

HORATIO

Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in 't?

HAMLET

No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest; no offence i' the world.

HORATIO

What do you call the play?

HAMLET The Mouse-trap. Marry, how? Trap-ically. This play is the image of a murder done in Vienna:

Gonzago is the duke's name; his wife, Baptista: you shall see anon; 'tis a knavish piece of work:but what o' that?.

(Enter LUCIANUS making faces)

This is the poisoner Lucianus. (off a look from Horatio. Hamlet points to a spot in Horatio’sbook/program.) Like Locusta who poisoned Claudius so Nero could have his throne.

HORATIO

You are as good as a chorus, my lord.

HAMLET Begin, murderer; pox, leave thy damnable faces, and begin. Come: 'the croaking raven doth



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bellow for revenge.' Pour out your Vile plague

Pyrrhus / Poisoner/Lucianus/Claudius (Holding a Vial marked Vial) Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing;

Confederate season, else no creature seeing,

Thy natural magic and dire property,

On wholesome life usurp immediately .

(Pours the poison into the sleeping Player King’s ear .)

HAMLET

He poisons him i' the garden for's estate. His name's Gonzago: the story is extant, and writ inchoice Italian: you shall see anon how the murderer gets the love of Gonzago's wife.

(All frewze. Light effect. Everyone is seated “normally” dressed in their one base costume asClaudius, Gertrude, Ophelia, Polonius; The Ghost of Old Hamlet has exited or is looming

upstage in the shadows. Polonius as God posts the following sign:

THE TABLETS OF COMMANDMENTS Thou shalt not worship any other gods

Thou shalt not kill

Thou shalt not commit adultery Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife

Honor thy father and mother

(This could be a joke if it is hung near Claudius who then wants it moved.)

PART TWO; THE SIGNS OF DOOMSDAYHamlet initi al ly in stage bla ck as Amleth/Brutus and then Son of Satan

(There is a moment of quiet as the actors look at each other. Hamlet goes up to the Board and CHECKS off “Vials of Plague” and “The Anti-Christ”- Royal Family can sit in “tableaux” as

following happens down stage or on another part of the stage).

HORATIO BOOK OF REVELATION Chapter 9: And the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star fallenfrom heaven to earth, and he was given the key of the shaft of the bottomless pit;They have as

king over them the angel of the bottomless pit; his name in Hebrew is Abad'don, and in Greek

he is called Apol'lyon, meaning The Exterminator. (Nothing happens, no one moves.)Why are we waiting still? Is it for Advent? That season wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,

the bird of dawning singeth all night long: and then, they say, no spirits stir abroad; the nightsare wholesome then, no planets strike.

ACTOR FOR OLD HAMLET

Or is this Advent of a different hue, the second coming of the Christ, Parousia, when the deadwalk from their graves as part of the Last Days and the fall of empires?

HORATIO

A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,

Disasters in the sun; and the moist star



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Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands

Was sick almost to Doomsday with eclipse.When Julius fell, the graves stood tenantless

ACTOR FOR OLD HAMLET

And the sheeted dead

Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets. (exits squeaking)

TRUMPET (ONE) BLAST (Hamlet in stage black enters with a cardboard tube telescope held to his eye and Rheticus,

NARRATIO PRIMA, Wittenberg (1539) under his arm. He CHECKS off “Eclipse”)

HAMLET.

Where have you been Horatio? I have been waiting on this roof, watching the heavens.

Are the stars bounded in this nutshell or should I count myself a king of infinite space?They surround the earth, like ten thousand lesser things attached to spokes of some great

wheel of Fortune, which when it falls from heaven…Oh, look at Cassiopea! She has gone into

supernova. Don’t you think she looks rather like a weasel? Or maybe a whale. Don’t you think it

looks rather like a whale?

HORATIO

I thought that happened in 1572. You are breaking the unities of space and time.

HAMLET

Details, details. This is a play Horatio, It does not have to be astronomically accurate.

HORATIO

But how can there be a new star? To what would it be fixed? Ptolemy tells us that God made

the seven crystal spheres, the celestial orbs to rotate around the earth, each bearing one of theseven planets and around them all the sphere of heavenly stars, the Firmament on which they

are fixed like studded nails. Where is the room for a new star? Would it not break the sphereand shatter its crystal?

HAMLET

Crack its nutshell. Overthrow Governments. Shatter the Primum Mo-bi-le’ .(Hamlet exits)

HORATIO (calls after him)

Revolution, dear Amleth, a whole new world! Claudius Ptolemy’s geocentric universe iscracking.

MARCELLUS

Peace, break thee off; look, where it comes!

HORATIO In the same figure, like the king that's dead.

MARCELLUS

Looks it not like the king? mark it, Horatio.

HORATIO



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Most like: it harrows me with fear and wonder.

It would be spoke to.

MARCELLUS Question it, Horatio.

HORATIO What art thou that usurp'st this time of night,

Together with that fair and warlike formIn which the majesty of buried Denmark

Did sometimes march? by heaven I charge thee, speak!

MARCELLUS

It is offended.

See, it stalks away!

HORATIO

Stay! speak, speak! I charge thee, speak!

(Exit Ghost followed by Marcellus and Horatio who CHECKS off Satan Escapes from the Pit)

HAMLET

The stars are falling. Soon there will be eclipses of the sun, and such things as the good daywould quake to look upon. God wears the mask of the devil and the Anti-Christ is needed now in

Wittenberg.

(Enter Gertrude drunkenly as the Whore of Babylon in a purple robe, holding her cup and sitting on the back of Claudius. Around his neck is hung a serpent, and he wears purple and scarlet as

the Beast of the Apocalypse. He is dressed in scarlet and his hands are smeared in blood. This

should be a horrific spectacle)

TRUMPET (TWO) BLASTS

HAMLET (to the audience) Frailty, thy name is woman!--

A little month, or ere those shoes were oldWith which she follow'd my poor father's body,

Like Niobe, all tears:--why she, even she--

O, God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,Would have mourn'd longer--married with my uncle,

My father's brother, but no more like my father

Than I to Hercules: within a month she married.

The funeral baked meats did coldly furnish forththe marriage tables. O, most wicked speed, to post

With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!

Such an act blurs the grace and blush of modesty,Calls virtue hypocrite, makes marriage-vows as false as dicers' oaths:

But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue

For here comes he that hath kill'd my kingand whored my mother.



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QUEEN GERTRUDE Good Amleth, cast thy nighted colour off,

And let thine eye look like a friend on noble Claudius.Thou know'st 'tis common; all that lives must die,

Passing through nature to eternity.

HAMLET

Ay, madam, it is common.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

If it be, why seems it so particular with thee?

HAMLET

Seems, madam! nay it is; I know not 'seems.''Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,

Nor customary suits of solemn black,

Nor the dejected 'havior of the visage,

Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief,That can denote me truly: these indeed seem,

For they are actions that a man might play:

Let the devil wear black for I'll wear a suit of sables.For I have that within which passeth show;

These but the trappings and the suits of woe.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

I pray thee, stay with us; go not to Wittenberg.

(She gets off Claudius’s back)

KING CLAUDIUS 'Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,

To give these mourning duties to your father:But, you must know, your father lost a father;

That father lost, lost his, and the survivor boundIn filial obligation for some term

To do obsequious sorrow: but to persever

In obstinate condolement is a course

Of impious stubbornness;To reason most absurd: whose common theme

Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried,From the first corse till he that died to-day,

'This must be so.' We pray you, throw to EarthThis unprevailing woe, and think of us

As of a father: for let the world take note,You are the most immediate to our throne;

And with no less nobility of love

Than that which dearest father bears his son,

Do I impart toward you. For your intentIn going back to school in Wittenberg,

It is most retrograde to our desire:



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(Hamlet walks backwards around Claudius in a circle, mirroring the astronomical movement known as retrograde movement.)

QUEEN GERTRUDE

You must not be so contrary, dear Hamlet. Your star must not move backwards, in peevishopposition to your sovereign.

POLONIUSYour lord is your World, you are governed by his will as surely as the heavens move ‘round the

Earth. In the great chain of being in which our sovereign is the center around whom all thingsrevolve, so the order in the heavens is repeated here below in Dan-mark.

(Horatio CHECKS off Whore of Babylon and Serpentine Beast)

KING CLAUDIUS So we beseech you, bend you to remain

Here, in the cheer and comfort of our eye,

Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our Sonne.

TRUMPET THREE BLASTS

(Gertrude,Claudius and Polonius exit. Enter Horatio holding a large Golden Star)

HAMLETSo runs the World away.

I do think this Earth a mere sterile promontory

And this goodly canopy the sky

to me is but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.What news good Guildern-Stern?

What in faith brings you in haste from Wittenberg?

HORATIO AS MESSENGER. News. News and Revelations from God! The trumpet sounded, and there fell a great star from

heaven, burning like a lamp it fell upon the rivers, that star is Wormwood: and many men havedied.

(CHECKS off ‘Wormwood” puts down star )

HAMLETWormwood. Wormwood. Hyperion was my father, like Apollo, the god of light now he is confined

to the great Abyss, the pit of Tartarus. Like poor Abel who died in sin by his brother’s handunannointed, unshriven, uncommunicate.

HORATIO.

This news cannot be good. The time is out of joint. Surely Doomsday is at hand, the stars flungout their orbits as the great star Wormwood sets the earth aflame, the Pit is opened. Apollyon

the destroyer is upon us.

(opens up BOOK OF GENESIS chapter 49)

And Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path.

(Enter Ghost)



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Look, my lord, what comes!

HAMLET

Angels and ministers of grace defend us!I'll speak to it, though hell itself should gape

And bid me hold my peace.

Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd,Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,

Be thy intents wicked or charitable,Thou comest in such a questionable shape

That I will speak to thee: I'll call thee Hamlet,

King, father, royal Dane: O, answer me!Let me not burst in ignorance; but tell

Why thy canonized bones, hearsed in death,

Have burst their cerements; why the sepulchre,Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn'd,

Hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws,

To cast thee up again. What may this mean,

That thou, dead corpse, again in complete steelRevisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon,

Making night hideous.

GHOST

Mark me.

HAMLET I will.

GHOST I am thy father's spirit,

(Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night,And for the day confined to fast in fires,

Till the foul crimes done in my days of natureAre burnt and purged away).

If thou didst ever thy dear father love—Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.

HAMLET

Murder!

GHOST Murder most foul, strange and unnatural.

Now, Hamlet, hear:'Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard,

A serpent stung me; so the whole ear of Dan-markIs by a forg’ed process of my death

Rankly abused: but know, thou noble youth,

The serpent that did sting thy father's life

Now wears his crown.

HAMLET



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(consultsGenesischapter49)

A serpent? From the tribe of Dan?

GHOST

Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate Beast,Sleeping within my orchard,

My custom always of the afternoon,Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole,

With juice of cursed hebenon in a Vial,

And in the porches of my ears did pour The leperous distilment; All my smooth body.

Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother's hand

Of life, of crown, of queen, at once dispatch'd.O, horrible! O, horrible! most horrible!

If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not;Let not the royal bed of Denmark be

A couch for luxury and damned incest.Remember me.

HAMLETRemember thee!

Yea, from the table of my memory

I'll wipe away all trivial fond records,

All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past,That youth and observation copied there;

(Hamlet crosses out the Commandments and writes REVENGE in a distant echo of Moses,writing Satan’s Commandments rather than God’s)

And thy Commandment all alone shall live

Within the Book and Volume of my brain,Unmix'd with baser matter:

HORATIO The Sixth Commandment forbids all private revenging between private persons. But thou hast a

new Scripture Hamlet, new commandments. Alas, thy father murdered, like old Abel murderedby Cain his brother who now sits guiltless as the King. O day and night, but this is wondrous

strange!

HAMLET And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,

Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Tis now the very witching time of night,

When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes outContagion to this world:

(makes Eucharistic gestures of consecration in a parody of the black mass)

Now could I drink hot blood,



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And do such bitter business as the day

would quake to look upon.The spirit that I have seen

May be the devil loosed out of hellFor the devil hath power to assume a pleasing shape.

But come; never, so help you mercy,

How oe'er strange or odd I bear myself,As I perchance hereafter shall think meet

To put an antic disposition on.

(Hamlet puts on his devil horns)

Like Brutus, Amleth shall play the fool in strange disguises so neither the exterior nor the inward

man resembles that it was. They will think me mad and give occasion for my just revenge.

As we often see, against some storm, a silence in the Heavens,the bold winds speechless, the orb below as hush as death,

anon the dreadful thunder doth rend the region.

(CHECKS off “silence in heaven”)

PART THREE: VICES AND VIRTUES

HORATIOAccording to Adso’s Letter on the Anti- Christ, the sign the Anti-Christ is near is that men will

teach Vices as if they were Virtues, and Virtues become Vices.*(Horatio puts on a cape and is seated, and slyly becomes Reynaldo for the following)

POLONIUS

You shall do marvellous wisely, good Reynaldo,Before you visit my son Laertes, to make inquiry

To spy out his behavior.REYNALDO

My lord, I did intend it.

POLONIUS Marry, well said; very well said. Look you, sir,

Inquire me first what Danskers are in Paris;

And how, and who, what means, and where they keep,What company, at what expense; and findingBy this encompassment and drift of question

That they do know my son, come you more nearer Than your particular demands will touch it:

Take you, as 'twere, some distant knowledge of him;

As thus, 'I know his father and his friends,And in part him: ' do you mark this, Reynaldo?

REYNALDO

Ay, very well, my lord.



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POLONIUS

'And in part him; but' you may say 'not well:But, if't be he I mean, he's very wild;

Addicted so and so:' and there put on himWhat forgeries you please; marry, none so rank

As may dishonour him; take heed of that;

But, sir, such wanton, wild and usual slipsAs are companions noted and most known

To youth and liberty.

REYNALDO

As gaming , my lord.

POLONIUS

Ay, or drinking , fencing , swearing, quarrelling, Whoring: you may go so far to say

you saw him enter a house of sale, videlict , a brothel

REYNALDO My lord, that would dishonour him,

T’is mortal sin and damnation.

POLONIUS

'Faith, no; as you may season it in the charge

You must not put another scandal on him,That he is open to incontinency ;

That's not my meaning: but breathe his faults so quaintly

That they may seem the taints of liberty,

The flash and outbreak of a fiery mind,A savageness in unreclaimed blood,

Of general assault.

REYNALDO But, my good lord, should I report

When he is drunk asleep, or in a rageOr in the lustful pleasures of his bed

At game, a-swearing or at some other act

that has no relish of salvation to it?

Should I accuse Laertes of all Seven Sins?

POLONIUS Wherefore should you do this?

REYNALDO

Ay, my lord, I would know that.

POLONIUS

Marry, sir, here's my drift;

And I believe, it is a fetch of wit:You laying these slight sullies on my son,

As 'twere a thing a little soil'd i' the working,



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For as on Doomsday, Vices turn to Virtues,

so must the man of Virtue turn to Vice.(They exit)

(Enter Ophelia with Laertes)

LAERTES (who chants the first line) My necessaries are embark'd, farewell dear sister!

And as the winds give benefit and convoy is assistant,Do not sleep, but let me hear from you.

OPHELIA Do you doubt that?

LAERTES For Hamlet and the trifling of his favour,

Hold it a fashion and a toy in blood,

A violet in the youth of primy nature,

Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting,The perfume and suppliance of a minute; No more.

OPHELIA No more but so?

LAERTES Think it no more;

For nature, crescent, does not grow alone

In thews and bulk, but, as this temple waxes,

The inward service of the mind and soulGrows wide withal. Perhaps he loves you now,

And now no soil nor cautel doth besmirchThe virtue of his will: but you must fear,

His greatness weigh'd, his will is not his own;For he himself is subject to his birth:

He may not, as unvalued persons do,Carve for himself; for on his choice depends

The safety and health of this whole state;

And therefore must his choice be circumscribed.

Then if he says he loves you, it fits your wisdomSo far to believe it as he in his particular Sect

May give his saying deed; which is no further.If with too credent ear you list his songs,

Or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure openTo his unmaster'd importunity.

Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister,And keep you in the rear of your affection,

(last line chanted)

Out of the shot and danger of desire.

OPHELIA

I shall the effect of this good lesson keep,



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As watchman to my heart. But, good my brother,

Do not, as some ungracious Pastors do,Show me the steep and thorny way to Heaven;

Whiles, like a puff'd and reckless libertine,Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,

And recks not his own rede.

LAERTES

O, fear me not.I stay too long, but here someone comes

(He exits)

PART FOUR: THE WOMAN CROWNED WITH THE SUN

HORATIO

REVELATION Chapter 12: And a great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with thesun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; she was with child

and she cried out in her pangs of birth, in anguish for delivery.

MESSENGER(walks across stage)

At the Annunciation, the Angel Gabriel found the Virgin sewing in her chamber and announced

she should bear a child and become pregnant by the Spirit, like a sunbeam,

as the Woman Crowned with the Sun.

(Ophelia becomes spot-lit, as the Virgin Mary/Woman Crowned with the Sun and Polonius asGod the Father dressed in white, with a beard and carrying a staff).

POLONIUS

How now, Ophelia? What's the matter?

OPHELIA

O my lord, my lord, I have been so affrighted!

POLONIUS

With what, i' th' name of God?

(Hamlet mimes the following actions)

OPHELIA

My lord, as I was sewing in my closet,Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbrac'd,

No hat upon his head, his stockings foul'd,

Ungart'red, and down-gyved to his ankle;Pale as his shirt, his knees knocking each other,

And with a look so piteous in purportAs if he had been loosed out of Hell

To speak of horrors- he comes before me.

POLONIUS



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Mad for thy love?

OPHELIA

My lord, I do not know,But truly I do fear it.

POLONIUSWhat said he?

OPHELIAHe took me by the wrist and held me hard;

Then goes he to the length of all his arm,And, with his other hand thus o'er his brow,

He falls to such perusal of my face

As he would draw it. Long stay'd he so. At last, a little shaking of mine arm,

And thrice his head thus waving up and down,

He rais'd a sigh so piteous and profound

As it did seem to shatter all his bulkAnd end his being. That done, he lets me go,

And with his head over his shoulder turn'd

He seem'd to find his way without his eyes,For out o' doors he went without their help

And to the last bended their light on me.

POLONIUSCome, go with me.

This is the very ecstasy of love,

Whose violent property fordoes itself And leads the will to desperate undertakings

As oft as any passion under heavenThat does afflict our natures. I am sorry.

What, have you given him any hard words of late?

OPHELIANo, my good lord; but, as you did command,

I did repel his letters and denied his access to me.

(Ophelia gives prominent Fedex Envelope to Polonius and exits)

POLONIUSThat hath made him mad.

(Enter Claudius and Gertrude)

POLONIUSPerpend.

I have a daughter (have while she is mine),

Who in her duty and obedience, mark,Hath shown me this.



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[Reads the Envelope]

'What a strange address; From Hamlet; To the celestial

CLAUDIUSThat is in Heaven

POLONIUSAnd my soul’s idol

GERTRUDEThat is idolatry

POLONIUS

The most beatified

That's an ill phrase, a vile phrase; 'beatified' is a VILE phrase.

CLAUDIUS

That means supremely blessed.

POLONIUSI told her that Hamlet was a star outside the orb of her crescent moon

GERTRUDE

Her name is the Greek for succour, as in Mary our lady of Succour.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed is…(She stops by a look from Claudius)

CLAUDIUS

To the supremely blessed, heavenly idol, the Lady of Succour.This strange address surely proves his madness.

GERTRUDE

He thinks Ophelia is the Virgin Mary! The Woman crowned with the Sun.(Messenger CHECKS off woman crowned with the sun and exits)

CLAUDIUSWhat madness. How may we try it further?

POLONIUSYou know sometimes he walks for hours together

Here in the lobby.At such a time I'll loose my daughter to him.

CLAUDIUS

We will try it. (Claudius and Gertrude exit)

(Enter Hamlet)

POLONIUS

How does my good Lord Hamlet?



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HAMLET

Well, God-a-mercy.

POLONIUS

Do you know me, my lord?

HAMLETExcellent well. You are a fishmonger.

POLONIUS

Not I, my lord.

HAMLET Then I would you were so honest a man

POLONIUS

Honest, my lord.

(Ophelia takes out a maggot from her pregnant belly,which Hamlet takes and throws at Polonius)

HAMLET Ay, sir. For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog,being a god kissing carrion- Have you a daughter?

POLONIUSI have, my lord.

HAMLETLet her not walk i' th' sun. Conception is a blessing, but not as your daughter may conceive.

Friend, look to't.

POLONIUS.

How pregnant sometimes his replies are! A happiness that often madness hits on, which reasonand sanity could not so prosperously be delivered of. I will leave him and suddenly contrive the

means of meeting between him and my daughter.

(Enter Ophelia pregnant)

POLONIUS

Ophelia, walk you here - Read on this book,

(Gives her book that reads on the cover side Alanus De Insulis, ANTI-CLAUDIANUS (1202)

and on the inside MARY CONCEIVED CHRIST LIKE THE WAY THAT THE SUN BREEDS MAGGOTS IN CARRION )

That show of such an exercise may colour your loneliness. We are oft to blame in this—‘Tis too

much proved—that with devotion’s visage And pious actions we do sugar over The devilhimself. I will find where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed within the center. I hear him

coming. (Exits)



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(Hamlet in melancholic suicidal mood talking to himself)

HAMLETIn that sleep of death what dreams may come

when we have shuffled off this mortal coil?

Who would these fardels bear

To grunt and sweat under a weary lifeThe pangs of dispriz’d love, the law’s delay,

When he himself might his quietus make with a bare bodkin?

to be or not to be, that is the questionSoft you now! The fair Ophelia!

Nymph, in thy orisons be all my sins rememb'red.

OPHELIA

Good my lord,

How does your honour for this many a day?

HAMLET

I humbly thank you; well,…… well, well!(he notices her pregnant belly)

OPHELIA

My lord, I have remembrances of yoursThat I have longed long to re-deliver.

I pray you, now receive them.

HAMLETNo, not I!

I never gave you aught.

OPHELIAMy honour'd lord, you know right well you did,

And with them words of so sweet breath compos'dAs made the things more rich. Their perfume lost,

Take these again; for to the noble mind

Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.

There, my lord.

(Ophelia pulls out a maggot and gives to Hamlet who puts it aside)

HAMLET

Ha, ha! Are you honest?

OPHELIA

My lord?

HAMLETAre you fair?

OPHELIA

What means your lordship?



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HAMLETThat if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty.

OPHELIA

Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty?

HAMLET

Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd thanthe force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness. This was sometime a paradox, but

now the time gives it proof. I did love you once.

OPHELIA

Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.

HAMLETYou should not have believ'd me; for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish

of it. I loved you not.

OPHELIAI was the more deceived.

HAMLET

Get thee to a nunnery! Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent

honest, but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borneme. I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious; with more offences at my

beck than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in.

What should such fellows as I do, crawling between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves

all; believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery.

OPHELIAO, help him, you sweet heavens!

TRUMPET FOUR BLASTS

HAMLETIf thou dost marry, I'll give thee this Plague for thy dowry: be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as

snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery. Go, farewell. Or if thou wilt needs

marry, marry a fool; for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them. To anunnery, go; and quickly too. Farewell.

OPHELIA

O heavenly powers restore him!Does he think himself some revenging angel from the Book of Revelation or from Hell sending

down plagues of ice and hail?

HAMLET

I have heard of your paintings too, well enough. God hath given you one face, and you make

yourselves another. You jig, you amble, and you lisp; you nickname God's creatures and makeyour wantonness your ignorance. Go to, I'll no more on't! it hath made me mad. I say, we will

have no more marriages.



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HORATIO (sadly)

Oh…

HAMLET

Those that are married already- all but one- shall live; the rest shall keep as they are. To anunnery, go.

OPHELIAO, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!

O, woe is meT' have seen what I have seen, see what I see! (exits)

(enter messenger/pilgrim through the house begging from the audience)

PILGRIM

Charity? Any charity for a poor pilgrim to Walsingham? In the Year of our Lord 1061 Holy Mary,

Mother of God came to the Lady of Walsingham in a vision and told her she was to build thehouse of the Baby Jesus at Walsingham.

(sings) As you came from Walsingham

from that holy land

Met you not with my true loveby the way you came?

How should I your true love know

that hath met many a oneAs I came from the holy land

that have come, that have gone

(Ophelia enters no longer pregnant)

OPHELIA [sings] How should I your true-love know

From another one?By his cockle bat and' staff And his sandal shoon.

PILGRIM

Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song? Why sing of pilgrims cockles and Our Lady‘Walsingham?, our England’s Nazareth, our Lady’s sacred Shrine that copied Mary’s House

where Angel Gabriel announced the incarnation of our true Lord?

OPHELIAHe is dead and gone,

He is dead and gone;At his head a grass-green turf,

At his heels a stone.

O, ho!

White his shroud as the mountain snow-



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Larded all with sweet flowers;

Which bewept to the grave did not goWith true-love showers.

PILGRIM

The poor lady is mad

OPHELIA.

Pray let's have no words of this; but when they ask you whatit means, say you this:

(Sings) To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day, All in the morning bedtime,

And I a maid at your window,To be your Valentine.

Then up he rose and donn'd his clo'es

And dupp'd the chamber door,Let in the maid, that out a maid

Never departed more.

PILGRIMPretty Ophelia!

OPHELIA. Indeed, la, without an oath, I'll make an end on't!

[Sings] By Jesus and by Saint Charity,

Alack, and fie for shame!

Young men will do't if they come to't

By God, they are to blame.Quoth she, 'Before you tumbled me,

You promis'd me to wed.'He answers:

'So would I 'a' done, by yonder sun,An thou hadst not come to my bed.'

They bore him barefac'd on the bier (Hey non nony, nony, hey nony)

And in his grave rain'd many a tear.

Fare you well, my dove. You must sing 'A-down a-down, and you call him a-down-a.'

O, how the wheel becomes it! It is the false steward, that stole his master's daughter.

PILGRIM Is there meaning in this madness? Why use these rude words?

The vagina is a nony-nony and a down is a whore. But who is it you mourn, and by our Lady,why have you collected these sad flowers?

OPHELIA

(distributes flowers to audience) There's rosemary, that's for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember.

PILGRIMIt brings down women’s menses



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OPHELIAAnd there is pansies, that's for thoughts.

PILGRIM

(consulting GERARD’S HERBAL (1597)

And its good against the pox

OPHELIAThere's fennel for you,

PILGRIMTo bring about menstruation

OPHELIAAnd columbines

PILGRIM

For cuckoldry

OPHELIA

There's rue for you, and here's some for me.We may call it herb of grace o' Sundays.

O, you must wear your rue with a difference!

PILGRIM(Consulting BATMAN’S HERBAL (1582)

That chaste herb putteth a dead child out of the womb.

OPHELIA

There's a daisy

PILGRIMFor deception in love

OPHELIAI would give you some violets, but they wither'd all when my father died. They say he made a

good end.

PILGRIMThe poor Lady has been deflowered, but violets cast out the conception of women.

and with rosemary, fennel and rue will give a strong abortion.

(He picks up any dropped flowers.)

OPHELIA

[Sings] And will he not come again?

And will he not come again?



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No, no, he is dead;

Go to thy deathbed; He never will come again.

His beard was as white as snow, All flaxen was his poll.

He is gone, he is gone,

And we cast away moan. God 'a'mercy on his soul!

And of all Christian souls, I pray God. God b' wi' you. (Ophelia Exits)

(Enter Horatio as Rosenkrantz praying on very large rosary beads, counting off each item)

ROSENKRANTZ

We remember the holy annunciation -

PILGRIMThat’s Ophelia sewing in her closet and interrupted reading.

ROSENKRATZThe Virginal Conception.

PILGRIMThat’s the maggots in the dead dog.

ROSENKRANTZOur Heavenly Queen.

PILGRIM

Ophelia as the celestial idol.

ROSENKRANTZ Mary as Mother.

PILGRIM

That’s the pregnant bride with the abortionists' herbs. Now for the last part: Mary’s coronationand assumption into heaven, when Mary physically went up into the sky and got crowned with

the sun.

ROSENCRANTZCrowned? One woe doth tread upon another's heel,

So fast they follow. Ophelia's drown'd,

(Ophelia enters and mimes her death)

PILGRIMDrown'd! O, where?

ROSENKRANTZ

There is a willow…

PILGRIM



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Salix Alba, the abortionist’s friend…

ROSENKRANTZ

Which grows aslant a brook,That shows his hoary leaves in the glassy stream.

There with fantastic garlands did she come, of crowflowers,

PILGRIM

Crowsfoot, prevents fertility

ROSENKRANTZ

Nettles,

PILGRIM

For bad luck

ROSENKRANTZ

Daisies,

PILGRIMFor deception

ROSENKRANTZ

And long purples, that liberal shepherds give a grosser name,

PILGRIMBollocks. They call them bollocks.

ROSENKRANTZBut our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them.

There on the pendant boughs her coronet weedsClamb'ring to hang, an envious sliver broke,

When down her weedy trophies and herself,Fell in the weeping brook.

And for a while her clothes spread wide abroad,Bore the young Lady up, and there she sat smiling,

Even mermaid like, twixt heaven and earth;

Which time she chaunted snatches of old Lauds,

As one incapable of her own distress,Or like a creature native and indued

Unto that element;

PILGRIMDid she fall into the sky? And was she crowned, clothed with the sun as the bride of Christ?

(Ophelia mimes falling from the sky )

ROSENKRANTZ

It could not be. Her garments, heavy with their drink,Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay,

to muddy death.



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PILGRIMAlas, then she is drown'd. And must needs be buried.

(they all exit)

PART FIVE; THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEADHamlet as Luther, the Second Anti-Chr ist

POLONIUS holding Saxo’s Dani sh History (1514)In the sources, here I spy on Hamlet and he stabs me,cuts my body into pieces, and feeds me to the swine.

But no swine are here on stage

Though Gertrude’s bedroom is foul

In all the rank corruption of an enseem’ed bedStewed in corruption, honeying and making love

Over the nasty sty. But someone comes.

So I must hide myself behind this arras(he “hides” behind a purple cloth)

HORATIOHoping it will prove more like ara the altar

Than hara the pigsty.

POLONIUSOr else Polonius will end his days as polony.

(Enter Hamlet dressed like Luther, with his black monk’s hood)

HAMLET Amleth is the Dan-ish for Brutus, the Caesar-killer…

POLONIUS

Brutus killed me as I played Julius Caesar at the Capitol.

HAMLET

So has he done again.(he stabs Polonius)

POLONIUS

Oh, you have killed me, you brute,Like Titus killed God behind the curtain

I die, I die, I die.

(Dies in a rotating movement like the axle-tree he represents, ideally to a grinding noise.Hamlet covers him over with the purple cloth)

HAMLET

(addresses the audience)This counselor is now most still, most secret and most grave, Who was in life a foolish prating



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knave. He will play Caesar no more; I will lug his guts to the lobby and hide him away as a diet

for worms.(Hamlet exits, taking Polonius with him)

HORATIO.

That’s odd. The Diet of Worms isn’t till 1521 when Martin Luther, the Anti-Christ, got condemned

for his views about the Eucharist. Oh welcome Cornelius. What news from Wittenberg?

(Enter Cornelius)CORNELIUS

None, my lord, but that the world's grown honest.

HORATIO

Then is Doomsday near. What is the year, I mean the day?

CORNELIUS

Why 1517. Tonight is the feast day of Marcellus. Tomorrow is All Hallows Eve, and after that All

Saints and then All Souls. These times will shake the earth and make the spirits walk. Today theastronomers overthrow the stars. Tomorrow Luther nails his theses to the church door in

Wittenberg, to o’erthrow the beast of Rome. Let all Dan-mark beware,

For as the Christ sprang out of Judah, so springs the Antichrist from the tribe of Dan.(exits)

HORATIO This prophecy speaks of war. Luther has attacked the marriage of King Henry to his brother’swife, by calling it incest, a foul corruption of their ensemened bed, the Queen a Whore and the

King a Beast.

(Hamlet enters holding a string of sausages)

Where, by God, is good lord Polonius? I would he stayed for supper.

HAMLET. He is at supper. Not where he eats but where he is eaten. A certain Convocation of politic

worms are e'en at him. Your worm is your only emperor for diet: we fat all creatures else to fatus, and we fat ourselves for maggots:

CORNELIUS

What do you mean by this?

HAMLET A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king,

and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.

HORATIOWHERE. IS. POLONIUS?

HAMLET

A king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar . Your fat king and your lean beggar is

but variable service, two dishes, but to one table: that's the end.



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CORNELIUSYou killed that old, unseen, and good old man. Luther’s Diet of Worms denies the Eucharist. Do

you compare cruel maggots to communicants eating the body of Christ the king? Will Christ notcome again? Is there no resurrection? Will the dead not walk?

HORATIOREVELATION Chapter 20: so I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their

testimony to Jesus. They came to life, and reigned with Christ a thousand years. The rest of thedead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection.

(Enter two gravediggers. The First picks up the spade and gets into the ‘grave’, a piece of black

cloth. The second puts up a construction sign. “Place of the Skull. Men at work” and thenCHECKS off “Spirits rise from graves”

FIRST GRAVEDIGGER

Is she to be buried in Christian burial that wilfully seeks her own salvation?

SECOND GRAVEDIGGER I tell thee she is: and therefore make her grave straight east-west: the coroner hath sat on her,

and finds it Christian burial. Come, my spade. There is no ancient gentleman but gardeners,ditchers, and grave-makers:

FIRST GRAVEDIGGER

Tell me, what is he that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?(throws up bones, worms)

SECOND GRAVEDIGGER The gallows-maker; for that frame outlives a thousand tenants.

FIRST GRAVEDIGGER I like thy wit well, in good faith: the gallows does well; but how does it well? it does well to thosethat do ill: now thou dost ill to say the gallows is built stronger than the church: argal, the gallows

may do well to thee. To't again, come

(Throws up first skull, making it dance)

SECOND GRAVEDIGGER

Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a carpenter?

FIRST GRAVEDIGGER

Ay, tell me that, and unyoke.

SECOND GRAVEDIGGER Mass, I cannot tell.

(Throws up second skull making it dance)

FIRST GRAVEDIGGER Cudgel thy brains no more about it, for your dull ass will not mend his pace with beating; and,when you are asked this question next, say 'a grave-maker: 'the houses that he makes last till

Doomsday.



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(Crash of thunder/lightning. They notice the pile of bones.)

SECOND GRAVEDIGGER

Ha. Did these bones cost no more the breeding, to be knocked about the mazzard with a

sexton's spade: but to play at loggats with 'em?

(he rolls the two skulls like dice, as men played dice at the Place of the Skull )

Understand me this. If graves last to Doomsday and these graves will last no longer, then couldtoday be Doomsday? Are these the skulls of spirits come out their graves for the day of

judgment according to the Revelation of St John….?

FIRST GRAVEDIGGER

Go to, go to. Get thee to Yohannan:

fetch me back a stoup of his liquor.

SECOND GRAVEDIGGER

Yohannan?

FIRST GRAVEDIGGERYou know, John

SECOND GRAVEDIGGER

Why didn’t you say so?

You come to America, you should use American names(exits)

FIRST GRAVEDIGGER[Sings]

But age, with his stealing steps,Hath claw'd me in his clutch,

And hath shipped me intil the land,As if I had never been such.

A pick-axe, and a spade,And eke a shrouding sheet:A pit of clay for to be made

For such a guest is meet.

HAMLETWhose grave's this, sirrah?

FIRST GRAVEDIGGER

Mine, sir.

HAMLET I think it be thine, indeed; for thou liest in't.



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FIRST GRAVEDIGGER

You lie out on't, sir, and therefore it is not yours: for my part, I do not lie in't, and yet it is mine.

HAMLET 'Thou dost lie in't, to be in't and say it is thine: 'tis for the dead, not for the quick; therefore thou

liest.

FIRST GRAVEDIGGER

'Tis a quick lie, sir; 'twill away gain, from me to you.

HAMLET

What man dost thou dig it for?

FIRST GRAVEDIGGER

For no man, sir.

HAMLET

What woman, then?

FIRST GRAVEDIGGER

For none, neither.

HAMLET

Who is to be buried in't?

FIRST GRAVEDIGGER

One that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she's dead.

HAMLET

How absolute the knave is!

FIRST GRAVEDIGGERShe should in ground unsanctified have lodged ‘till the last trumpet, but by decree will be given

these maimed rites. Here's a skull now; this skull has lain in the earth three and twenty years.

(Digs up third skull and lines them up in a row)

HAMLET Whose was it?

FIRST GRAVEDIGGER

A whoreson mad fellow's it was: whose do you think it was?

HAMLET Nay, I know not.

FIRST GRAVEDIGGER

A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! a' poured a flagon of Rhenish on my head once. Thissame skull, sir, was Yorick's skull, the king's jester.



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HAMLET

This?

FIRST GRAVEDIGGER E'en that. (gets out of ‘grave’ and exits)

HAMLET Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him…But soft! but soft! aside: here comes the king.

(Hamlet and Horatio hide to one side. Enter Laertes,Gertrude,Claudius. They approach the

grave)

TRUMPET FIVE BLASTS

LAERTES

And so have I a noble father lost;A sister driven into desperate terms,

Whose worth, if praises may go back again,

Stood challenger on mount of all the ageFor her perfections: but my revenge will come.

(holds his arms in a cross)

But to my father’s friends thus wide I'll ope my arms;And like Christ, the kind, life-rendering pelican,

I’ll repast them with my blood. (puts arms down)

Is there no ceremony else?Lay her i' the earth:

And from her fair and unpolluted flesh

May violets spring!

QUEEN GERTRUDE Sweets to the sweet: farewell! I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet's wife. I thought thy

bride-bed to have deck'd, sweet maid, And not have strew'd thy grave.

(Laertes leaps into the grave)

LAERTES

O, treble woe

Fall ten times treble on that cursed head,Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense

Deprived thee of! Hold off the earth awhile,

Till I have caught her once more in mine arms:

HAMLETWhat is he whose grief bears such an emphasis? Whose phrase of sorrow conjures the

wandering stars, and makes them stand like wonder-wounded hearers? Who takes suchpleasure in this necrophelia?

HORATIO (consulting Homer’s ODYSSEY) T’is old Laertes, brought back from death by wise Athena.



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HAMLET This is I, Hamlet the Dane.

(Laertes leaps out of the grave and grapples with him. Everyone circles around the wrestling between the Christ and the AntiChrist.)

LAERTES

The devil take thy soul!

HAMLET Forget thy prayers Laertes.

I prithee, take thy fingers from my throat;

For, though I am not splenitive and rash,

Yet have I something in me dangerous,Which let thy wiseness fear: hold off thy hand.

KING CLAUDIUS Pluck them asunder.

(Laertes stands behind the Place of the Skull sign. Once more he holds his arms in a cross.Second Gravedigger enters with a very large bottle marked St. John’s Eisel Vinegar”

GRAVEDIGGER

I got it

Hamet takes it from the Gravedigger and starts trying to make Laertes drink it, paralleling the

vinegar mentioned in the Gospel of John as being offered to Jesus on the cross)

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Hamlet, Hamlet!

HAMLET (addresses Laertes) I loved Ophelia: forty thousand brothers

Could not, with all their quantity of love,

Make up my sum. Doubt thou the stars are fire;

Doubt that the sun doth move; But never doubt I love.(Hamlet prods Laertes’ side)

God’s wounds. What wilt thou do for her, thou Pelican!Show me what thou wouldst do:

Woo't weep? Woo't drink up eisel? (Def)eat a Crocodile?

woo't fight? woo't fast? woo't tear thyself?

(Laertes refuses to drink the vinegar but remains in position. Gravedigger packs the bottle,

Place of the Skull sign, the skulls/bones into the grave and exits with them).

(Claudius,Gertrude, Laertes, and Gravedigger exit)

HORATIOSurely the day of resurrection has come. The Lord has come again and must be close at hand



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with his mighty army to fight the Anti-Christ. The Book of Revelation is coming all to pass.

PART SIX: APOCALYPSE Hamlet as the Beast from the Sea, the origina l Anti-Christ

HORATIO

REVELATION Chapter 13: And the dragon stood on the shore of the sea. And I saw a beastcoming out of the sea. The dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority.

The whole world was astonished and followed the beast.

TRUMPET SIX BLASTS

(Enter Horatio who hands Claudius a letter with a big seal. Messenger ticks off trumpet blasts,maybe counting them on his fingers. Claudius reads the letter aloud)

GERTRUDE

Know you the hand?

KING CLAUDIUS 'Tis Hamlet’s character

'High and mighty, You shall know I am set naked on your kingdom. To-morrow shall I beg leave

to see your kingly eyes: when I shall, first asking your pardon thereunto, recount the occasion of

my sudden and more strange return. 'HAMLET.'What should this mean? Are all the rest come back? I had sent my cousin Hamlet safe secure

to England and ne’r thought to see him more.

If he be now return'd from the Sea,

As checking at his voyage, and that he meansNo more to undertake it, I will work him

To an exploit, now ripe in my device,

(Noise of shouts, Lord, Lord, Lord).

CROWDPraise the Lord; Laertes is Lord, etc.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Alack, what noise is this?

KING CLAUDIUS Where are my Switzers? Let them guard the door. What is the matter?

OSRIC

Save yourself, my lord: ‘tis young Laertes, in a riotous head,

O'erbears your officers. The rabble call him Lord; They cry 'Choose we: Laertes shall be king’As if the New World were now but to begin

QUEEN GERTRUDE How cheerfully on the false trail they cry!

O, this is counter, you false Danish dogs!



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KING CLAUDIUS

The doors are broke.(Noise within)

(Enter LAERTES, armed)

LAERTES Where is this king? O thou vile king,

KING CLAUDIUS

What is the cause, Laertes,That thy rebellion looks so giant-like?

Let him go, Gertrude; do not fear our person:

There's such divinity doth hedge a king,

That treason can but peep to what it would,Acts little of his will. Tell me, Laertes, Why thou art thus incensed.

Let him go, Gertrude. Speak, man.

LAERTESWhere is my father?

KING CLAUDIUSDead.

QUEEN GERTRUDEBut not by him.

KING CLAUDIUS

Let him demand his fill.

LAERTESHow came he dead? I'll not be juggled with:

To hell, allegiance! vows, to the blackest devil!

Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit!

I dare damnation. To this point I stand,

That both the worlds I give to negligence,Let come what comes; only I'll be revenged

Most thoroughly for my father.

KING CLAUDIUS

Who shall stay you?

LAERTESMy will, not all the world:

CLAUDIUSYou shall not be revenged upon me

(for I am guiltless of thy father’s death)

But upon my cousin Hamlet.



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LAERTES

How so my lord?

CLAUDIUSI have had report from a gentleman of Normandy,

A most excellent horseman, called La Mort,

He had witchcraft in him, and brought his horseto such wondrous doings as if he had been incorpse’d with the animal.

LAERTESLa Mort! His very name means death! As if he were the Horseman of the Apocalypse.

(he CHECKS off the “horseman”) What out of this my lord?

CLAUDIUS

La Mort made good report of your skills in the rapier.My cousin Hamlet will be here shortly and I will contrive

an exploit, now ripe in my device,

Under which he shall not choose but fall

Are we agreed? But look, he comes.(Enter Hamlet in a Brown Sea-robe with sea-weed/barnacles,

like a Beast still wearing the number 666 and CHECKS off ‘Beast from the Sea”)

Why Hamlet. Why is my Sonne so soon return-ed from the Sea?

How was the voyage?

I thought not to see you again so soon,Come, Hamlet, come, and take this hand from me.

(KING CLAUDIUS puts LAERTES' hand into HAMLET's)

HAMLET Give me your pardon, sir: I've done you wrong;

But pardon't, as you are a gentleman.This presence knows,

And you must needs have heard, how I am punish'd

With sore distraction.

LAERTES I am satisfied in nature,

Whose motive, in this case, should stir me most

To my revenge: but in my terms of honour I stand aloof; and will no reconcilement,

HORATIO

Chapter 2: He who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, I will give him power over the nations, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron.

(enter Osric in brightly colored clothes, and a large cone shaped paper hat, and holding large 3

foot long ruler with which he will measure swords, distances etc)

KING CLAUDIUS

Come, Hamlet, come,



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Young Osric shall judge your contest

And as his name impliesT’is he will maintain the Rule of God

(Osric CHECKS off “Ruler of God”)

HAMLETWhat he? This waterfly is so new hatched

he carries his eggshell on his head(Hamlet adjusts Osric’s cap. Claudius and Laertes confer)

OSRICWhat is your counsel my Lord?

HAMLETYou keep your own counsel

And I mine own.

Besides, to be demanded of a sponge!

OSRICTake you me for a sponge, my lord?

(Hamlet takes up Suetonius THE BIOGRAPHY OF VESPASIAN CAESAR, and looks Osric up

and down)

HAMLETAy, sir, that soaks up the king's countenance, his rewards, his authorities. But such officers do

the king best service in the end: like Vespasian Caesar, he keeps them close at hand, So when

he needs what you have gleaned, it is but squeezing you, and, sponge, you shall be dry again.

OSRICI understand you not. My lord, you are not ignorant of what excellence Laertes is, the most

gracious Lord in all of Christendom, Brother to such a maid, the Sonof such a noble Father, not God himself could find more virtue in’t.

HAMLET I dare not confess that, lest I should compare with him in excellence; but, to know a man well,

were to know himself.

OSRIC

I mean, sir, for his weapon; but in the imputation laid on him by them, in his merit he'sunfellowed.

HAMLET

What's his weapon?

OSRIC

Rapier and dagger.

HAMLET

That's two of his weapons: but, well.



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OSRIC The king, sir, hath wagered with him six Barbary horses: against the which he has imponed, as I

take it, six French rapiers and six poniards,

(Actor brings on stage the numbers 666,)

HAMLET

Let the foils be brought, the gentleman willing, and the king hold his purpose, I will win for himan I can; if not, I will gain nothing but my shame and the odd hits.

OSRIC I commend my duty to your lordship.

CLAUDIUSCome masters what tales have you to entertain us in our revels?

OSRIC (reads from Revelation)

(as he reads the plot points, a member of the company marks them off from the scene list.)Our first tale is of the End of Days, when two great beasts rise from the land and sea. The

Whore and her beast from the land, and the beastly Nero from the sea. Then angels destroy the

wicked by casting a great star from the heavens. Then comes a woman crowned with the sun.Then the dead walk from their graves and birds devour the dead in God’s Great Supper. Next, a

new Jerusalem will descend from the sky, guarded by a man whose feet are bronze. And the

building of the wall of it was of jasper: and the city was pure gold, like unto clear glass.

CLAUDIUS

What else have you got?

OSRIC

The next story is from the Arabian Nights

(brings in very large Book titled’ The Arabian Nights; Night 566. The City of Brass)

GERTRUDEI adore the Arabian Nights.

OSRIC

The Arabian Nights is about a city, where birds devour the dead. It is guarded by a statue madeof bronze, empty of people, its streets are like glass, its walls are black and made of finest

brass,,,.

HORATIO (as an aside)Chapter 21: Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth

had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming

down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband;

CLAUDIUSOne with walls of gold, the other made of brass Bah! They are all the same. Let’s get on with the

fighting!



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HAMLET

Give us the foils and we shall fight as if this were the Last Battle.

LAERTES Come, one for me.

HAMLET I'll be your foil, Laertes: in mine ignorance

Your skill shall, like a star i' the darkest night,Stick fiery off indeed.

KING CLAUDIUS Give them the foils, young Osric.

Good Hamlet, you know the wager?

HAMLET Very well, my lord

KING CLAUDIUS Set me the stoops of wine upon that table.

If Hamlet give the first or second hit,

Or quit in answer of the third exchange,Let all the battlements their ordnance fire:

The king shall drink to Hamlet's better breath;

And in the cup a pearl shall he throw,Richer than that which four successive kings

In Dan-mark's crown have worn. Give me the cups;

'Now the king drinks to Hamlet.' Come, begin:

And Osric as the judge, bear a wary eye.

HAMLET Come on, sir.

LAERTES

Come, my lord.(They fight)

HAMLET

One.

LAERTES

No.

HAMLET Judgment.

OSRIC

A hit, a very palpable hit.

LAERTES



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Well; again.

KING CLAUDIUS

Stay; give me drink. Hamlet, this pearl is thine;(adds pearl to the cup)

Here's to thy health. Give him the cup.

HAMLET

I'll play this bout first; set it by awhile. Come.(They fight)

Another hit; what say you?

LAERTES

A touch, a touch, I do confess.

KING CLAUDIUS Our Sonne shall win.

OSRIC (as commentator reads from REVELATION) ROUND ONE. THE FALL OF THE WHORE OF BABYLON

The Whore says in her heart I am no widow but a Queen! Clothed in purple and scarlet she is

drunk with the blood of the saints holding in her hand a cup of abomination. Repay her as shehas rendered, mix a double drought for her in the cup and give her a measure of torment and

grief.

QUEEN GERTRUDE The queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet.

(she holds up the cup in a tableau)

HAMLET

Good madam!

KING CLAUDIUS

Gertrude, do not drink.

QUEEN GERTRUDE I will drink, my lord; I pray you, pardon me.

KING CLAUDIUS ( Aside) It is the poison'd cup: it is too late.

HAMLET

I dare not drink yet, madam; by and by.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Come, let me wipe thy face.

LAERTES

My lord, I'll hit him now.



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KING CLAUDIUS

I do not think't.

LAERTES ( Aside) And yet 'tis almost 'gainst my conscience.

HAMLET Come, Laertes: you but dally;

I pray you, pass with your best violence;I am afeard you make a wanton of me.

LAERTES Say you so? come on.

(They fight)

OSRIC Nothing, neither way.

LAERTES Have at you now!

(LAERTES wounds HAMLET; then in scuffling, they change rapiers, and HAMLET wounds

LAERTES)

KING CLAUDIUS

Part them; they are incensed.

HAMLET Nay, come, again.

(QUEEN GERTRUDE falls)

OSRIC Look to the queen there, ho!

HORATIO

They bleed on both sides. How is it, my lord?

OSRIC

How is't, Laertes?

LAERTES

Why, as a woodcock to mine own springe, Osric;

I am justly kill'd with mine own treachery.

HAMLET

How does the queen?

KING CLAUDIUS

She swounds to see them bleed.

QUEEN GERTRUDE



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No, no, the drink, the drink,--O my dear Hamlet,--

The drink, the drink! I am poison'd.(Dies)

OSRICROUND TWO: THE DEATH OF THE GREAT BEAST.

KING CLAUDIUS

What!

OSRIC

Like seven Caesars, the beast had seven heads. The Whore rode upon the Beast and men

made images of it and the Beast fought against the army of heaven.

HAMLET

O villany! Ho! let the door be lock'd:

Treachery! Seek it out.

LAERTES

It is here, Hamlet: Hamlet, thou art slain;

No medicine in the world can do thee good;In thee there is not half an hour of life;

The treacherous instrument is in thy hand,Unbated and envenom'd: the foul practise

Hath turn'd itself on me lo, here I lie,

Never to rise again: thy mother's poison'd:

I can no more: the king, the king's to blame.

HAMLET The point--envenom'd too!

Then, venom, to thy work.(Stabs KING CLAUDIUS)

KING CLAUDIUS O, yet defend me, friends; I am but hurt.

HAMLET Here, thou incestuous serpent, murderous, damn’ed Dane,

Drink off this poison. Is thy union here?

Follow my mother.

(KING CLAUDIUS dies.)

OSRIC

ROUND THREE: THE CHRIST AND ANTI-CHRIST MEET THEIR DOOM(He CHECKS off “Doomsday’)

LAERTES He is justly served; it is a poison temper'd by himself.



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Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet:

Mine and my father's death come not upon thee,Nor thine on me.

( Hamlet refuses him forgiveness, so Laertes dies unforgiven)

HAMLET

Heaven make thee free of it! I follow thee.

I am dead, Horatio.

HORATIO (opening the book)

That’s what it says

HAMLET

Wretched queen, adieu!But let it be. Horatio, I am dead;

Thou livest; report me and my cause arightTo the unsatisfied.

HAMLET

My heart sickens, mine eyes have lost their sight,

O I am dead Horatio, fare thee well(Hamlet Dies. Horatio covers the body in a purple cloth—to indicate Hamlet’s identity as the

third Caesar Nero-Domitian, and then kneels in a mock ironical prayer)

HORATIO Good night sweet prince.

(chanted) May the ranks of angels receive you,

OSRIC

And with Lazarus, the poor man, may you have eternal rest in Paradise

and the Holy City of Je-ru-sa-lem.

(lights dark , Horatio and Osric look around expectatntly.

Osric tries measuring the distance to the ceiling)

OSRICAND FOR OUR FINAL ROUND: THE NEW JERUSALEM DESCENDS.

TRUMPET SEVEN BLASTS & DRUMS A City-of-Gold –

FORT-IN-BRASS (Enters, wearing large nameplate or holding banner/flag) A Fort-in-brass!

OSRIC

Revelation 21. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. And I saw the holy city, the newJerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. He will wipe away the tear from every eye,

and death will be no more. Mourning and crying and pain will be no more.




FORT-IN-BRASS

His men are lawless resolutes, Shark'd up for food and diet,to some enterprise That hath a stomach in it.

OSRIC

But this is the Apocalypse, When the Rosary and the Golden-star are dead. The Earth, the Sun

and Moon are all o’erthrown. The Polar axis is carried off to Doom, and the whole world thrownin darkness. The Whore of Babylon and the Beasts are slain,

FORT-IN-BRASSBut so are Christ and the Woman Crowned with the Sun.

OSRIC

The Rule of God is over

(He goes to the list and puts a question mark against “Heavenly Jerusalem”)

FORT-IN-BRASS

Alas, what sight is this?

The quarry cries on havoc. O proud DeathWhat Feast is in thine eternal cell

That thou so many princes at a shot

So bloodily has struck.Take up the bodies to the stage.

Such a sight as this becomes the field

but here shows much amiss.

HORATIO

The end

hamlet's apocalypse final

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