Chapter 50
The intermission ended with a mood of uneasiness having settled inside Christian's girlfriend having sat down on her seat, middle third row. Christian, briefly had forgotten about Terry and their rivalry over Rose. He had also forgotten about his business with MacDonald and how Alice's error in judgement had in all probability landed him in hot waters.
Having had the opportunity to meet with the Duke of Grandchester was something he had sought for quite some time. Just by position on the society ladder, he stood above everyone else Christian knew. In reality, he did not care about society classes and the aristocracy. But he was old enough to know how the system worked. Inside and out. And he played according to its rules on the surface. Black Feathers dealt with everything else under the surface, in the dead of the night, lightening the load of some of their riches.
An endorsement from the Duke however...this was his life's opportunity as a painter, an artist. It was going to be a family portrait. Artistically speaking, not the most ground-breaking of themes. Still he could experiment with colours, paints, styles. He awaited that visit to the Grandchester mansion with great eagerness. Once he was most settled as a portrait painter for the Royals - the Duke of Grandchester was as close as he could get to the Royal family for a start - he could have the means also to explore his personal artistic themes.
He really had to keep this as much as he could under wraps. Whether he was followed by Billy or not, or Alice for that matter, he had to make sure no one from MacDonald's people would know. Rose most definitely had to join him at that visit to the Duke's mansion. For all they knew, tomorrow was just a social visit for tea and nothing more than that.
The curtains went up.
Act III, Scene 1
Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and Lords.
Hamlet's behaviour remains a mystery to Claudius and his mother. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern upon their return, they report to the royal couple that they were not able to find out why Hamlet behaved as erratical as they had mentioned. Indeed he had been acting very excited about the theatre troupe and its actors. Both Queen Gertrude and Claudius agree to watch the play with Hamlet that same night.
As Hamlet's friends leave, Claudius orders Gertrude to leave as well. He puts another plan in action where he and Polonius will spy on Hamlet's confrontation with Ophelia.
The stage is lit by the glow of the torchlights. A soft spotlight beams towards the edge. Hamlet shows up. Alone, he walks in the empty room where everyone had gathered prior, the discussions and the plans about his mind, still fresh were echoing on the walls.
His steps are heavy. His shoulders hunched, the weight of his situation, the thoughts carried in his mind, too heavy for his body to bear. Didn't even notice Ophelia, who was sitting at the table with a book open in front of her. He paces while clearly he is bothered by something. Then he stops and turns to the audience.
Terry takes a deep breath. He realises, he was preparing for that moment, his whole life. He pushes his hand through his hair, stops midway. Out loud, his thoughts, the dilemma that tears through him is known.
His voice rides on top of his thoughts; pauses to give time to mull things overs, to examine them.
It's deep and thoughtful, at points tortured.
HAMLET
To be, or not to be - that is the question
Whether...
'tis nobler in the mind to suffer... The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or
to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them.
To die -
to sleep -
No more;
and by a sleep to say we end...The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks...That flesh is heir to.
'Tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish'd.
(He looks at the distance, staring at the capricious games of his Fortune, one he wishes to have no more)
To die - to sleep.
To sleep - perchance to dream:
ay, there's the rub!
(His eyes light up to the realisation of losing his dreams, questions dawn in his mind)
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come (?)
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
(He breaths deep, his thoughts come alive. He paces. Stops with his back to the audience. Looks up, turns again - he is a man in desperate need for the answers to the question tormenting him. )
What man would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Who would bear the tyrant's offences, the proud man's contempt
The anguish of rejected love, the delays of justice,
The insolence of office,
People who are the worst take the best,
When...a naked blade can release him from such a life
(He looks down, his hand resting on the back of his neck, watching his mind unravelling on the journey, hovering between life and death.)
Who would carry such a load, To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death-
The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns -
puzzles the will, And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
(Hamlet's eyes shine like the summer sea, as he lifts his head, and steps into the light)
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.- Soft you now!
(He hears a noise. Turns and stares at Ophelia.)
Up on the theatre box, the Duke of Grandchester follows Terrence Graham as he moves on the stage.
"He's captivating don't you think?"
"Yes, he is." the Duke replied to Sir Flower. "I'm glad you mentioned him to me."
Candy only sees Hamlet's outline through the wet blur that has obscured her sight. The tears swim inside her eyes, making everything in front of her look like an impressionist painting.
Hamlet's words had found her heart, and had nested there.
She was always a fighter. In her entire life. Never really there was such a question in her mind...But when she had come back from New York, and had to restart her life - from where she had left it - those first few days, she had thought about life and how easy it would have been for her to just give up.
Like Hamlet said, in this sleep of death, dreams would not exist. She wasn't going to give up her dreams. Not when it was where she met with her Hamlet.
HAMLET
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?
(He approaches her as she is sitting at the table.)
HAMLET
I humbly thank you; well, well, well.
(Ophelia stands up - There is a pile of letters she has brought with her)
OPHELIA
My lord, I have remembrances of yours
That I have longed long to re-deliver.
I pray you, now receive them.
HAMLET (He refuses to acknowledge them)
No, not I!
I never gave you aught.
OPHELIA
My honour'd lord, you know right well you did,
And with them words of so sweet breath compos'd
As 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.
HAMLET (looks at her, not saying anything - a storm stirs inside his blue stare - his laughing is laced with anger -Asks her if she is a virgin.)
Ha, ha! Are you honest?
OPHELIA (looks surprised)
My lord?
The audience holds their breath. Candy does the same. Hamlet is at the edge of his reason. His love in those letters having been thrown so cruelly back onto his face.
HAMLET (Takes a few steps back, his breathing sounds harder)
Are you fair?
OPHELIA (She increases her distance, suspecting Hamlet's simmering anger)
What means your lordship?
Hamlet's words twist and turn like the rope around Ophelia. If according to her words, she is chaste and beautiful, her chastity should protect her beauty.
Ophelia is puzzled. Couldn't chastity and beauty be equal, my lord, she asks him.
He approaches her. Staring her in her face. No, that could not be the case, he says. The power of the beauty will change chastity into a pimp. Before the force of chastity will change beauty into its likeness. This is the paradox but it has been proven in Ophelia's case.
HAMLET (His stare has turned into cold glass, his voice carries the past between them.)
I did love you once.
OPHELIA (Tears simmer inside her eyes)
Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.
HAMLET (His face at a breath's distance from Ophelia's - holds her chin, his stare diving into hers like a knife.)
You should not have believ'd me; for virtue cannot so
inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it.
I loved you not.
OPHELIA (Tears fall down her cheeks)
I was the more deceived.
Her anguish upsets him. Turns away, puts some distance between them. But those tears act like oxygen to the fire that's burning inside him. He turns to her.
HAMLET (Raises his voice. The veins in his neck stand out.)
Get thee to a nunnery! Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?
He lowers his voice - Turns inward, looks at himself, his stare falling to the audience.
I am myself indifferent honest,
but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me.
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.
He turns again to Ophelia. Speaks with renewed urgency. Sparks in his stare.
Go thy ways to a nunnery. Where's your father?
She is dumbfounded. Doesn't know what to make of Hamlet's verbal attack. His words cut deep. Not only her, but her love for him too. Her face is wet, warm from the fresh tears.
OPHELIA
At home, my lord.
HAMLET
Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool nowhere but in's own house.
Farewell.
OPHELIA (Lowers her voice and her stare, realising Hamlet having lost his mind)
O, help him, you sweet heavens!
HAMLET (Leaps forward, grabs Ophelia by her wrist, drags her on the stage)
If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague* (thought) for thy dowry:
be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape
calumny* (slander).
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 a nunnery, go; and quickly too.
Farewell.
(He releases her from his grip and walks to the door.)
OPHELIA (Fallen on the ground, sobs.)
O heavenly powers, restore him!
(Hamlet stops one step short from the door. Turns back to her.)
HAMLET (His voice is strained when he talks to her. He kneels to her on the ground. Lifts her head up. His face is only a breath's away from hers.)
I have heard of your paintings too, well enough.
Candy swallowed her anxiety, hearing his words.
God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another.
You jig, you amble, and you lisp;
you nickname God's creatures and make your wantonness your ignorance.
Go to, I'll no more on't!
it hath made me mad.
I say, we will have no moe marriages. Those that are married already- all but one- shall live;
the rest shall keep as they are.
To a nunnery, go!
Stands up, turns away and runs out of the room.
Ophelia gets herself upright. She walks a few steps and collapses on the chair. There is no strength left inside her body. Everything has drained out of her.
"What a noble mind has been destroyed." She speaks to herself. The grief she feels is evident.
"He had the eye, the tongue, the bravery of a nobleman, a scholar and a soldier. This man, the promise and hope of the nation, the model of fashion and the perfection of physical manhood, the most admired of all men – destroyed."
Candy, once more held her breath. She entered Ophelia's soul - just as she entered in her mind the dirty theatre tent in Rockstown, where she were to discover a broken Terry. Ophelia's words sounded so true to her, because she had thought of the same when she saw Terry, drunk as a skunk, slurred speech, unstable gate, trying to act under the boos and the hisses from the equally rowdy crowd.
"And I was the most dejected and miserable of all women."
Ophelia continued, looking at the audience with a stare lost.
"I experienced the joy of his attention, and now, that noble and most royal mind – all out of tune, like sweet bells that have gone wrong. That unequalled form, that flower of youth, cankered."
Her voice broke.
"I feel wretched. To have seen what I had once seen, and to see what I saw now..."
Oh, what uncanny play of Fate that was for Candy too. Picking up old wounds, bringing them back to life. Her whole body ached having witnessed Hamlet fiery interaction with Ophelia and her distress and sadness so palpable to feel afterwards.
She felt bad for having lost it a couple of days before. Despite whether she agreed or not with Terry, and putting his motives aside - whether he felt as a rival to Christian - he wanted her good, she knew that. This didn't excuse the slap she got from him, but she could have save him the hysterics from her part and discuss this in a more calm way with him.
Polonius and Claudius emerged from behind the curtain. They had witnessed everything.
Claudius was unsure whether Hamlet's outburst was because of love. Instead he felt it would be wise to send him to England to collect money they were owed. There was something brooding in his soul which he couldn't still understand but he sensed it was turning to something more dangerous. So, perhaps a trip abroad would help his mind clear. Try new experiences, his heart to calm down. He asked Polonius for his opinion.
He too agreed on sending Hamlet away. Still he thought his reaction stemmed from his unrequited love to Ophelia. He turned to her, letting her know they had heard everything. Then he hatched a plan and laid it there to Claudius.
"My lord, do as you please, but if you think it would help, when the play's over, ask his mother to see him privately to tell her about his grief." Polonius turned and said to Claudius. "She should be frank with him, and if you like, I'll place myself where I will be able to listen to their whole conversation. If she can't find out anything, send him to England, or lock him away somewhere, wherever you think best."
'We'll do that,' said Claudius. 'We can't ignore madness in high places.'
Act III, Scene 2
The play continued. Hamlet slowly tightens the screws for his uncle Claudius. As the play he has orchestrated is about to start, they all take their places. He looks in a particularly good mood when he sees Ophelia and teases her with wanting to lie on her lap. She gets confused but he continues. Finding it such an attractive thought to be able lie between a young woman's legs. He bites his lip and raises his brow, and then he hides his hurt and truths behind sarcasm and jokes - how easy it has been for his father's death to have been forgotten.
Just when the play reaches the point where the King is being murdered by his brother by dropping poison inside his ear, Claudius gets up - looking worse for wear. Polonius stops the play. And Hamlet acts confused - "Where they frightened by some play of fiction?"
Claudius leaves.
"So let the wounded deer go and weep," said Hamlet, "and let the uninjured hart play, because some must watch while others sleep – that's the way of the world. Wouldn't that speech, together with a rich costume and two rosettes on my shoes, get me a job as an actor if everything else fails?" He adds and looks towards the theatre boxes. His stare stops and rests for a moment. Then turns back.
The play Hamlet has put, halts in disarray. His friend, Guildenstern, comes with news. Claudius is in his chambers, wreathing with anger. But Hamlet doesn't seem to care.
"You would be wiser to tell his doctor, because if I were to treat him it would perhaps plunge him into a far greater anger."
'My good lord,' said Guildenstern, 'pay attention and don't change the subject all the time.'
Hamlet nodded and stops. But his stare is still dark. 'I'm listening, sir' he said. 'Talk.'
Guildenstern urges him to go and see his mother who's also in her chambers and has called for her son. She too is upset.
Hamlet hides behind his mocking words, making his friend frustrated. But he insists - Don't you know my brain is diseased? Emotions are running high. Guildenstern wants to leave but Rosencrantz lingers, reminiscing of Hamlet loving him once.
He comes and wiggles his fingers in front of Rozencrantz's face. "I still do, by these pickers and stealers," he said.
"My dear lord," said Rosencrantz. "Why are you so unhappy? You're only closing the door to help if you don't tell your friend." He insists.
"Sir, it's because I lack promotion." Hamlet throws an excuse, avoiding to answer the truth.
"How can that be? when you have the support of the king himself for your succession in Denmark?"
"Yes, but sir.. "while the grass grows the silly horse starves." The proverb is somewhat mouldy." Hamlet's lips curl up in a smile fuelled by the riddles he hides behind.
Some actors came in with recorders.
'Oh, the recorders,' said Hamlet. 'Let me see one.' He took one from a musician. He pointed it at Guildenstern. 'Step aside with me.'
Guildenstern followed him out of the room, along the lobby and out on to a terrace where the northern sky was a dark blue above the gloomy landscape. Hamlet stopped. "Why are you trying to get the better of me, trying to trap me?" His voice turning as dark the night sky was above them.
A few nights ago, Terry had already found the answer to this same question he could have directed to Christian.
"Oh my lord," said Guildenstern. "If I'm too forward, it's my respect for you that makes me bad mannered." His friend chose to lie.
"I don't really understand that," said Hamlet. "Play something for me on this recorder."
Guildenstern laughed. "My lord, I can't."
"Please." Hamlet insisted.
"Believe me, I can't."
"I implore you." Hamlet pushed his friend further.
"I haven't got a clue, my lord." Guildenstern refused once more.
"It's as easy as lying," said Hamlet. He raised the recorder and demonstrated. 'You control these holes with your fingers and thumb, you breathe into it with your mouth, and it will produce the most eloquent music.'
Guildenstern shook his head and stepped back.
"Come on," said Hamlet. "Look, here are the stops." Hamlet passed his arm above his friend's shoulders, forcing him to look at the instrument he was holding, as he tried to give to him.
"But I'm completely unmusical," Guildenstern protested.
"Well consider this," said Hamlet. "You're insulting me. You're trying to play me like a recorder. You think you're familiar with my stops: you want to draw out my secrets: you want to bring out my music from my lowest note to the top of my range.'
Although Hamlet was talking to Guildenstern, Terry's anger too simmered towards his rival who was sitting with Candy on the third row.
He shook the recorder in front of Guildenstern's face. "There's plenty of music in this little instrument and yet you can't make it sing. God! Do you think that I can be played more easily than a recorder? Call me whatever instrument you like, you can place your fingers on my frets but you can't play me!"
His expression changed from one of anger to a foolish smile. Polonius was walking towards them. 'God bless you, sir!' he said.
'My lord, the queen would like to talk with you,' said Polonius. 'And right now.'
Hamlet stared at him. Then he looked him up and down slowly. Polonius coughed and glanced at Guildenstern. Hamlet walked away and looked up at the sky. "Do you see that cloud that looks something like a camel?"
"You're right,' said Polonius. 'It does look like a camel."
Hamlet pulled a face, considered, and shook his head. "I think it's like a weasel."
Polonius squinted. "It's back is like a weasel's," he said.
Hamlet's face showed that he still wasn't satisfied with the description. "Or like a whale?"
"Very like a whale."
"Then I will go to my mother soon." Horatio and Rosencrantz had joined them. They were all irritating him beyond measure. "I will go to my mother soon," he said.
Polonius bowed. "I will tell her."
""Soon" is an easy enough word to say." Hamlet replied looking stern.
Polonius strutted away and Hamlet sighed. "Leave me, friends," he said.
He began pacing, while talking to himself, trying to gather courage for he needs to be cruel but not hurtful towards her. He glances from time to time to the audience. His stare glimmers with the fever of the situation. He stops and turns his stare to the theatre box he looked at before.
HAMLET
'Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world.
Now could I drink hot blood
And do such bitter business as the day
Would quake to look on.
Soft! now to my mother!
O heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever
The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom.
Let me be cruel, not unnatural;
I will speak daggers to her, but use none.
My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites-
How in my words somever she be shent,
To give them seals never, my soul, consent!
The rest of the play continued with unabated intensity. Hamlet forces his mother to face her choice of the man she loved over his father. His own brother, the murderer. Hamlet kills Ophelia's father in the process. Himself was hidden, eavesdropping at Hamlet's words when Hamlet thought he saw something moving. Without thinking, his mind blinded with madness, he plunged his sword in Polonius' body.
Gertrude is beyond herself. She looked at him in astonishment. Anger welled up in her. "What have I done that you dare to wag your tongue at me so rudely?"
Candy looks at Hamlet. His outburst of rage towards his mother, unstoppable even by the dead body of Polonius who lays next to them, reminds him so much of Terry's hatred toward Eleanor, back to their summer in Scotland. The same tears that run freely down the face of Gertrude, were then Eleanor's.
He sounds harsh. "Something that smears the grace and blush of modesty, calls virtue a hypocrite, takes the rosiness off the beautiful forehead of an innocent love and puts a blister there, and makes marriage vows as false as dicers' oaths. Oh, it's a deed that plucks the very soul from the body of a marriage-contract, and makes the sweetness of religion a mere rhapsody of words. It makes heaven blush. Yes, this earth, with a face as sorrowful as though doomsday were at hand, is filled with anxiety."
Gertrude shook her head. 'Dear God, what deed, that's brought such an extreme reaction?'
With force and violence in his words, he manages to make Gertrude see his truth. He takes Polonius lifeless body while he bids her mother goodbye.
Ophelia loses her mind. Not only having witnessed Hamlet turn into this crazy man who talks about death and betrayal but also finding out her father was dead. She kills herself by drowning in the lake.
Claudius orders Laertes, Ophelia's brother to kill Hamlet. The poison is too powerful. Only the tip of his sword's blade he needs dipping and a scratch to make on Hamlet and the rest will be taken care by the poison travelling inside his blood.
Hamlet stumbles in a funeral. Unbeknown to himself, it is the funeral of Ophelia. One of the young noblemen appealed to the priest. He seemed bewildered. "What more ceremony is there than this?" he said.
"Lay her in the earth, then," said Laertes. "And may violets spring from her fair and unpolluted flesh." He shook his finger in the priest's face. "Let me tell you something, churlish priest! My sister will be a ministering angel when you are in hell!"
Hamlet was astonished. It was Ophelia! The attendants lay her body in the grave. Gertrude came forward and scattered flowers into it.
"Sweets to the sweet," she said, "farewell. I hoped you would have been my Hamlet's wife. I was expecting to decorate your bridal bed, dear maiden, not strew your grave."
Laertes went to the rim of the grave and gazed down. The grave diggers leant on their spades, ready to fill the grave in. "Oh, a thirty fold curse on the head of him whose wicked deed has brought you to this!" said Laertes. He stopped the gravediggers. "Hold the earth off awhile, till I've held her in my arms once more." He leapt into the grave and lifted her, hugging her. "Now pile your dust on living and dead," Laertes shouted, "till you've made a mountain higher than old Pelion or Olympus out of this flat piece of earth."
Hamlet joined the funeral group, then. Horatio came up behind him. Hamlet called down into the grave. "Whose is this grief so loud, so intense, that it attracts the attention of the stars?' Then, jumping into the grave he shouted, "This is I, Hamlet the Dane!"
The words Hamlet spoke for Ophelia...Terry felt down to the last speckle of his soul. He wasn't ready to give up the woman he loved to Christian. All those feelings laced Hamlet's words and actions.
Laertes grabbed Hamlet by the throat. 'The devil take your soul,' he cried.
They struggled. "That is a sad prayer," gasped Hamlet. "Get your hands off my throat! I may not be hot-headed and rash but there's something dangerous in me that you'd do well to fear." He shouted.
Laertes pulled his fist back to strike and Hamlet blocked it. "Hold your hand!" he said.
Christian, looked at the scene with undivided attention. It was almost as if he was reliving their own fight outside the gentleman's club.
"Pull them apart," Claudius told two Swiss guardsmen. The guards also jumped into the grave and got between them. Gertrude pleaded her son's name. The courtiers were rushing about in a state of shock. "Gentlemen!" they said. "Gentlemen!"
Horatio appealed to Hamlet, too. "Calm down, my good lord," he said. The guards finally managed to get them back onto the level ground, where they glared at each other.
"I'll fight him on this matter until I'm dead," said Hamlet.
'Oh my son, what matter?' said Gertrude.
"I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers' love combined could not make up my total."
He turned fiercely on Laertes and the guard stopped him before he could make physical contact. 'What would you do for her?' he demanded.
"Oh he's mad, Laertes," said Claudius.
"Leave him alone, for God's sake!" exclaimed Gertrude as Hamlet tried to attack Laertes again.
But Hamlet would not let it go. His eyes for a moment seemed like they were fixed on Christian, as he tried to break through the guard and continued to shout. He turned back to Laertes.
"Come on! Show me what you would do! Will you weep, will you fight, will you fast, will you wound yourself, will you drink vinegar, eat a crocodile? I will! Did you come here to whine and upstage me by leaping into her grave? Be buried alive with her and so will I. And if you prattle on about mountains then let them throw millions of acres on top of us until their peak is scorched by the sun, making Mount Ossa look like a wart! Go on, whatever you rant about I can do as well."
The command in Terry's voice brought goosebumps on Candy's flesh.
"This is nothing but madness," said Gertrude. "This fit will work on him for a while and then he will become as calm as a dove."
Hamlet hadn't finished yet, although his tone was becoming more reasonable. "Listen, sir," he said. "Why are you treating me like this? I've always loved you. But it doesn't matter. Regardless of what Hercules may say, the cat will mew and the dog will have his day." He strode off.
"Look after him, good Horatio" said Claudius.
Horatio hurried after his friend. Claudius went close to Laertes. "About our conversation last night," he said. "Be patient. We'll arrange it immediately."
He went back to his wife. "Good Gertrude, put a watch on your son." Then, with a smile, to the assembled mourners. "This grave shall have a tombstone. We'll rest for an hour and attend to matters after that."
The last act came. Hamlet has been challenged to a fight with Laertes but Horatio, his friend has doubts. He tries to talk Hamlet out of it, as he fears Hamlet will lose. The weapons used will be a dagger and a rapier (* a thin light-weighted, sharp sword). Claudius has poisoned the wine, has poisoned the blades, Laertes will be holding. If Hamlet doesn't fall dead by the blade, he'll fall dead by the wine.
Out of three wins was the bet. Two wins in go for Hamlet. Claudius raised the poisoned chalice and prompts Hamlet to drink to his health. But his mother sees him tired. Gives him a handkerchief to wipe his brow while she takes the poisoned cup from Claudius' hands and drinks it herself, despite the protests from Claudius.
The two men commence the fencing, aiming for the third win. Laertes wounds Hamlet. They end up in a scuffle and the swords are changed. Unknowingly Hamlet holds the poisoned sword, hurts Laertes. Claudius orders the men to separate them. "They overdo it!" He shouts.
As the Queen falls down, and the two men start bleeding, the realisation dawns in Hamlet's mind. Without too much time to waste, he hurts Claudius with the same blade. He then forces him to finish the drink that killed his mother.
HAMLET (His voice is forced by the effort he makes, he is gravely wounded himself)
Here, thou incestuous, murderous, damnèd Dane,Drink off this potion. Is thy union here? Follow my mother.
Terry falls down. His eyes turn to Horatio, his friend, in whose arms he now lies.
HAMLET
Heaven make thee free of it. I follow thee.—I am dead, Horatio.—Wretched queen, adieu!—You that look pale and tremble at this chance, That are but mutes or audience to this act, Had I but time (as this fell sergeant, Death,Is strict in his arrest), O, I could tell you—But let it be.—Horatio, I am dead. Thou livest. Report me and my cause aright To the unsatisfied.
Horatio picks up the cup. Wanting to drink himself what's left to follow his friend to death. Hamlet stops him. He wants him to stay alive to tell his story.
HAMLET
O, I die, Horatio. The potent poison quite o'ercrows my spirit.I cannot live to hear the news from England. But I do prophesy the election lights On Fortinbras. He has my dying voice. So tell him, with th' occurrents, more and less, Which have solicited. The rest is silence.
Hamlet is dead.
HORATIO (Speaks with wet cheeks, in a theatre hall where the silence is such, not a pin is dropped.)
Now cracks a noble heart.—Good night, sweet prince, And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!—Why does the drum come hither?
Seeing, the body of Hamlet, lifeless on stage, bears heavy in Candy's heart. This was her first time, she had managed to see Terry in a leading role and none other than Hamlet. The one, that Eleanor had sent her tickets for and she had refused. Years later, another lifetime, and still it had affected her greatly.
Fortinbras, the Norwegian king will become the new King of Denmark, upon his return from England.
Horatio, explains to him what happened.
FORTINBRAS
Let four captains Bear Hamlet like a soldier to the stage, For he was likely, had he been put on, To have proved most royally. And, for his passage, The soldiers' music and the rites of war Speak loudly for him. Take up the bodies. Such a sight as this Becomes the field, but here shows much amiss. Go, bid the soldiers shoot.
The body of Hamlet is carried off stage. The canons fire, bringing the end of the tale.