Merrily hello.
Reluctantly wait a sec.
Disparagingly You didn’t know?
Respectfully Repeat that.
Dismissively never mind.
Wonderingly well.
Awkwardly later.
Whisperingly Take Care.
Claudius
We doubt it nothing.
I think he’s saying, “I don’t doubt you” or “I trust you” or “I have faith in you.”
It’s a funny way to say it.
I guess that’s the thing about a king in an uneasy crown;
It hasn’t quite settled on his head
So he has to manipulate his words
Into funny shapes
Make ‘em a little high falutin’.
In other words, only vaguely make sense.
To obscure your speech
Make it a little less plain
Rearrange it so it only has the appearance of sense.
All four of these words are easy and the meaning is in there but when examined closely
. . . huh?
Farewell; and let your haste command your duty.
Speed has been my master
Hurry: my boss.
In its service, I have sacrificed
Self, health and love.
Study this: the study with the clergymen
Who were encountered in an alley
By a man who needed help.
The only consistent factor that prevented them from helping
Was if they were in a hurry.
So our kindness depends on our watches and the world gets
Faster and faster and we stop
To help less and less.
Haste commands us.
Giving to you no further personal power To business with the king, more than the scope Of these delated articles allow.
What license would Cornelius and Voltemand have had?
What personal power do they normally command?
Why make the public limitation?
The rebel in me constrains against
This limitation of these two minor characters personal power.
I want to empower them
Send them over borders to charm the Norwegians.
I picture a bridle of rules and regulations
That they have to strain against;
The saddle tight and chafing,
The bit, bitter and blood-like,
All made of paper
Of bureaucratic restriction.
Voltemand and Cornelius have only to follow the instructions
On this missive
That is their one charge.
Are they ambassadors?
If so, why have they become simple messengers?
Strap a bag on them
Get out a cart
Make them a pony express.
When some administrator hands me a set of tasks,
I buck and kick
But ultimately have to lower my head and accept the bridle,
The bit,
The saddle and
The whip.
And we here dispatch You, good Cornelius, and you, Voltemand, For bearers of this greeting to old Norway.
Oh, so, Cornelius is good, huh?
Good Cornelius and that good for nothing Voltemand?
Jackass Voltemand?
Cornelius is a brownnoser, I’ll tell you what –
Always sucking up and bowing and scraping
Good Cornelius won’t share, though –
If he had a cookie, he wouldn’t give you a bite. Not unless it’d get him something.
Oh good. Cornelius.
Can’t wait to take a trip with that ass-wipe.
And to Norway, no less.
Guess I’ll be buying all my own lox.
Thus much the business is: we have here writ To Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras,– Who, impotent and bed-rid, scarcely hears Of this his nephew’s purpose,–to suppress His further gait herein; in that the levies, The lists and full proportions, are all made Out of his subject.
The old men
Write to each other
From their beds –
Requesting that their young whipper snapper relatives
Be kept in line.
Please tell your impetuous son to get off my lawn.
Get your nephew to stop playing baseball in my yard.
Drag your feeble old bones out of your bed
Get your young people in line –
Don’t you know what he’s up to?
Now for ourself and for this time of meeting.
Let’s gather ourself together now
Call a meeting
Get us all in one place
See who is here
There is first, he who called the meeting –
The organizer, the Leader – capital L
Who calls for order, order, order.
Right behind him, his second
Who will slap you into place
Stick a cane in your back to get you to stand
Upright and swat your hands if you reach for the offered refreshments.
There is the shy child
Sneaking in behind its mothers skirts
Placing only her eyes on the table.
There’s the jester in her motley
Making loud farting noises and inappropriate jokes
Walking behind the teacher
Who strides ever forward
Pretending not to hear.
The Broadway star swoops in,
Her cape swirling behind her
Eddying in her expansive wake.
We just keep arriving
There are more and more.
If we wait for everyone to arrive
will the time to start ever begin?
So much for him.
The multitude of ways to dismiss someone
Can be sort of overwhelming
We create so many kiss-offs, we humans.
We tear, we rip, we give the finger
We grind into dirt
We laugh
We wave off
We punch.
Young Fortinbras, Holding a weak supposal of our worth, Or thinking by our late dear brother’s death Our state to be disjoint and out of frame, Colleagued with the dream of his advantage, He hath not fail’d to pester us with message, Importing the surrender of those lands Lost by his father, with all bonds of law, To our most valiant brother.
Someone else in this play finds the state
To be out of joint.
It’s not just Fortinbras.
Suddenly though, I picture the castle
Or the scene
Or the stage
Framed slightly askew
With bits of it obscured
And the under matte exposed.
Things are held together loosely
Wood doesn’t quite meet wood where it ought.
The rungs of the chair are just barely holding together.
Here we have Claudius attempting to convince
This cobbled together court
That it is sound
That its joints will hold
While they try not to fall out of their broken chairs.
Now follows that you know.
Let me break it down for you again
Let me tell you what you know
Everything I’m about to say is common knowledge
The information
That will shortly
Fall out of my mouth
Like water from a fountain
Flowing from one word to the next word
With no seeming end
Is not news.
If I tell you it is not news
I am asking you to listen
For something other than fact.
I am preparing your ears
For something
Else.
The Hamlet Project 