A/N: This came from something that actually happened during our school's production of Hamlet. I was Horatio, and someone missed an entrance after my line. Our Hamlet, the wonderful and ever intuitive Jacob, had this response. Also: excuse my iambic pentameter.
Disclaimer: While I don't own this, it's public domain people! Partly because everyone knows that Hamlet, Prince of Denmark was written by Shakespeare. This scene is abridged according to how it was read in our production. Of course, the improvisational lines of Prince Hamlet are owned solely by Jacob Proctor, who was the one who said them onstage. They've been a little altered, based on proper Shakespearean language and my own foggy memory.
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
Hamlet, son to the late, and nephew to the present king. Played by Jacob Proctor.
Horatio, friend to Hamlet. Played by Olivia Smith.
Osric, courtier. Played by Marcelle Fischer.
Act V. Scene II. A hall in the castle.
"So much for this sir: now shall you see the other;
You do remember all the circumstance?"
Hamlet was facing away from his friend, as if lost in the memory of the tale he was about to tell.
"Remember it, my lord?" Horatio was still eagerly awaiting the story of how his prince got back to Denmark. He knew about the pirates, but Hamlet had not said in his letter why he boarded them, instead of staying on the ship bound for England.
"Sir in my heart there was a kind of fighting,
That would not let me sleep:
There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will,—"
"That is most certain," interjected Horatio, not wanting the prince to keep philosophising when there was a story to be told.
Hamlet continued.
"Up from my cabin, in the dark
Groped I to find out them; had my desire.
Finger'd their packet, and in fine withdrew
To mine own room again; making so bold,
My fears forgetting manners, to unseal
Their grand commission; where I found, Horatio,—
an exact command, that my head should be struck off."
Horatio gasped.
"Is't possible?"
Hamlet took a letter from the inside of his vest and handed it to his friend.
"Here's the commission: read it at more leisure.
But wilt thou hear me how I did proceed?"
"I beseech you."
"Being thus be-netted round with villanies,—" He paused, and toned down the dramatics.
"I sat me down, devised a new commission, wrote it fair:
wilt thou know the effect of what I wrote?"
Of course I do, you idiot! Just tell me already! Horatio, to his credit, being ever polite and perhaps a bit enamoured towards Prince Hamlet, who seemed to have let go of his grief for the death of Ophelia unusually quickly for all the crying and shouting he had been doing in the churchyard earlier, kept those particular thoughts to himself.
"Ay, good my lord."
Hamlet cleared his throat, and assumed his 'king' voice.
"An earnest conjuration from the king,
As England was his faithful tributary,
As love between them like the palm might flourish,
Etcetera, etcetera,
That, on the view and knowing of these contents,
Without debatement further, more or less,
He should the bearers put to sudden death."
Horatio was quiet for a moment. His prince had just sent his childhood friends to their deaths. Unsure as how to reply to this, he decided to take a safe path. Hopefully his voice wouldn't shake too much.
"How was this seal'd?" Damn it. There was a bit of a quaver in the first part.
"Why, even that was heaven ordinant."
Horatio briefly wondered why heaven would trade one death for two.
"I had my father's signet in my purse,
Which was the model of that Danish seal;
Folded the writ up in form of the other,
Subscribed it, gave't the impression, placed it safely,
The changeling never known. Now, the next day
Was our sea-fight; and what to this was sequent
Thou know'st already."
"So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to't." If they weren't dead already, which they probably were.
"Why, man, they did make love to this employment;
They are not near my conscience."
"Why, what a king is this!" For the deaths of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were on the prince's uncle's conscience now.
"Does it not, think'st thee, stand me now upon—
He that hath kill'd my king and whored my mother,
Is't not perfect conscience, to quit him with this arm?
And is't not to be damn'd, to let this canker of our nature come into further evil?"
"It must be shortly known to him from England
What is the issue of the business there."
After all, what with the prince's outburst in the churchyard, Claudius most certainly knew that his nephew was not as dead as he had hoped.
"It will be short: the interim is mine;
And a man's life's no more than to say 'One.'
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 favours.
But, sure, the bravery of his grief did put me
Into a towering passion."
Horatio thought that Prince Hamlet's grief had mysteriously vanished, but decided against saying anything. He heard a slight noise from a door down the hall.
"Peace! who comes here?"
There was silence for a moment.
"There's no one there," said the prince.
Horatio, trying to cover up his embarrassment, managed to stutter out, "I could've sworn I heard someone."
The prince turned to look at him, and grinned. "Well, obviously thou wert mistaken."
Horatio blushed. "I apologise."
There was a moment of awkward silence.
"Why don't we just leave?" the prince exclaimed.
"What, my lord?" Horatio thought that the madness the prince had been wearing as a mask was starting to become reality.
"What are we waiting for? You go get some horses, I'll go kill my uncle, and we'll be out of here by the end of the day! But no, we're just going to stand here, and wait!"
Horatio wasn't sure as to how to respond to that. Luckily, he didn't have to. "Look, someone's actually coming this time!"
"Your lordship is right welcome back to Denmark."
Horatio barely restrained himself from groaning. It was the overly flamboyant Laertes groupie, Osric. He got out the letter the prince had given to him, and braced himself for the annoyance of the conversation to come. He saw another letter on the floor, and picked it up. Apparently, in addition to having a letter delivered to Horatio, his prince had written one to his uncle as well. He tossed it over his shoulder, into an adjoining hall.
A/N: Yeah… One night, I kept finding leftover props that people forgot on stage. I picked up that letter and Ophelia's prayer beads. And Osric leads a group of crazy Laertes groupies/stalkers that follow everything Laertes does. Osric has a crush.