When I played the Queen of Denmark
I ended up with the guy who played the king.
For the second part of the tour we shared a bed. Sometimes
I thought of that bed as the Royal Bed of Denmark.
I became fascinated with the metaphors
Surrounding our bed and a poem emerged –
a long, Hamlet-infused poem that I labored over
For years. It was my epic.
Because that time was epic.
But now is not the time for that story.
I will say that my royal bed of Denmark (or Harrisonburg, VA)
Was not a couch for luxury (though it was a water bed, it wasn’t ours)
Or damned incest (we barely knew each other) and while we did
Do some rolling around in that bed, there were many lines we did not cross.
I continue, though, to be fascinated with the Royal Bed.
The rituals of the Royal Bed in pre-Revolutionary France
For example, are fairly well documented,
Courtiers standing around while King and Queen got into bed,
Watching and waiting over conception.
What pomp, what rules
Surrounded the Royal Bed of Denmark?
Was Hamlet conceived publicly?
The Hamlet Project 