Hamthello

HAM/THELLO: the moor of denmark
copyright © 2006 Jeff Goode

SCENE 5 - A hall in the castle.
Enter HAMLET
HAMLET
What ho! Horatio!
Enter HORATIO
HORATIO
Here, sweet lord, at your service.
HAMLET
There is a play to-night before the king;
One scene of it comes near the circumstance
Which I have told thee of my father's death:
I prithee, when thou seest that act afoot,
Observe Othello: if his occulted guilt
Do not itself unkennel in one speech,
It is a damnèd ghost that we have seen.
HORATIO
Well, my lord:
If he steal aught the whilst this play is playing,
And 'scape detecting, I will pay the theft.
Danish march. A flourish.
HAMLET
They are coming to the play; I must be idle:
Get you a place.
Enter OTHELLO, DESDEMONA, OPHELIA, IAGO, and others
OTHELLO
How fares our cousin Hamlet?
HAMLET
Excellent, i' faith; of the chameleon's dish:
I eat the air, promise-crammed: you cannot feed capons so.
OTHELLO
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.
[To MARCELLUS] Be the players ready?
MARCELLUS
Ay, my lord; they stay upon your patience.
OTHELLO and IAGO withdraw aside
OTHELLO
There's something in his soul,
O'er which his melancholy sits on brood;
And I do doubt the hatch and the disclose
Will be some danger: which for to prevent,
I have in quick determination
Thus set it down: he shall with speed to England.
IAGO
My lord, do as you please;
But, if you hold it fit, after the play
Let his queen mother all alone entreat him
And I'll be placed, so please you, in the ear
Of all their conference. If this find him not,
To England send him, or confine him where
Your wisdom best shall think.
They take their seats; HAMLET lies down at OPHELIA's feet
HAMLET
Lady, shall I lie in your lap?
OPHELIA
You are merry, my lord.
HAMLET
O God, your only jig-maker. What should a man do but be merry? for, look you, how
cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died within these two hours.
OPHELIA
Nay, 'tis twice two months, my lord.
HAMLET
So long? Nay then, let the devil wear black, for I'll have a suit of sables. O heavens! die two
months ago, and not forgotten yet? Then there's hope a great man's memory may outlive his
life half a year:
DESDEMONA
Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me.
IAGO
[To OTHELLO] O, ho! do you mark that?
OTHELLO
Pray, chuck, come hither.
DESDEMONA
What is the matter?
OTHELLO
I have a salt and sorry rheum offends me;
Lend me thy handkerchief.
DESDEMONA
Here, my lord.
OTHELLO
That which I gave you.
DESDEMONA
I have it not about me.
OTHELLO
Not?
DESDEMONA
No, indeed, my lord.
OTHELLO
That is a fault.
Hautboys play. The dumb-show enters.
While the dumb-show performs, OTHELLO and
DESDEMONA converse over the action
That handkerchief
Did an Egyptian to my mother give;--
Enter a King and a Queen very lovingly; the Queen embracing him, and he her. She kneels,
and makes show of protestation unto him. He takes her up, and declines his head upon her
neck: lays him down upon a bank of flowers: she, seeing him asleep, leaves him. Anon comes
in a fellow, takes off his crown, kisses it, and pours poison in the King's ears, and exit. The
Queen returns; finds the King dead, and makes passionate action. The Poisoner, with some
two or three Mutes, comes in again, seeming to lament with her. The dead body is carried
away. The Poisoner woos the Queen with gifts: she seems loath and unwilling awhile, then he
seduces her with a magic potion and she in the end accepts his love
The following dialogue takes place DURING the
dumb show:
She was a charmer, and could almost read
The thoughts of people: she told her, while she kept it,
'Twould make her amiable and subdue my father
Entirely to her love, but if she lost it
Or made gift of it, my father's eye
Should hold her loathed and his spirits should hunt
After new fancies: she, dying, gave it me;
And bid me, when my fate would have me wive,
To give it her. I did so: and take heed on't;
To lose't or give't away were such perdition
As nothing else could match.
DESDEMONA
Is't possible?
OTHELLO
'Tis true: there's magic in the web of it:
DESDEMONA
Then would to God that I had never seen't!
OTHELLO
Ha!
Exit the dumb-show
OPHELIA
Belike this show imports the argument of the play.
Enter two PLAYERS, King and Queen; The PLAYER QUEEN, like Desdemona, gestures with
her handkerchief, when speaking
PLAYER KING
Full thirty times hath Phoebus' cart gone round
Neptune's salt wash and Tellus' orbèd ground,
Since love our hearts and Hymen did our hands
Unite commutual in most sacred bands.
OTHELLO
[to DESDEMONA] Is't lost? is't gone? speak, is it out o' the way?
PLAYER QUEEN
So many journeys may the sun and moon
Make us again count o'er ere love be done!
DESDEMONA
[to OTHELLO] It is not lost; but what an if it were?
OTHELLO
How!
DESDEMONA
I say, it is not lost.
PLAYER QUEEN
But, woe is me, you are so sick of late,
So far from cheer and from your former state,
OTHELLO
[to DESDEMONA] Fetch't, let me see't.
DESDEMONA
Why, so I can, sir, but I will not now.
PLAYER KING
'Faith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly too;
My operant powers their functions leave to do:
And thou shalt live in this fair world behind,
Honour'd, beloved; and haply one as kind
For husband shalt thou--
PLAYER QUEEN
O, confound the rest!
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.
HAMLET
[Aside] Wormwood, wormwood.
PLAYER KING
I do believe you think what now you speak;
But what we do determine oft we break.
So think thou wilt no second husband wed;
But die thy thoughts when thy first lord is dead.
PLAYER QUEEN
Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife,
If, once a widow, ever I be wife!
HAMLET
If she should break it now!
PLAYER KING
'Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here awhile;
My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile
The tedious day with sleep.
Sleeps
PLAYER QUEEN
Sleep rock thy brain,
And never come mischance between us twain!
She wipes his brow with her handkerchief, and exit
HAMLET
Madam, how like you this play?
DESDEMONA
The lady protests too much, methinks.
HAMLET
O, but she'll keep her word.
IAGO
[Aside to OTHELLO] And did you see the handkerchief?
OTHELLO
Was that mine?
IAGO
Yours by this hand: and to see how he prizes his foolish mother your wife! she gave it him,
and he hath given it this whore.
Enter LUCIANUS
HAMLET
This is one Lucianus, general to the king. He poisons him i' the garden for's estate.
While the murder takes place, OTHELLO and
DESDEMONA converse over the action
LUCIANUS
Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing;
Confederate season, else no creature seeing;
Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected,
With Hecate's ban thrice blasted, thrice infected,
Thy natural magic and dire property,
On wholesome life usurp immediately.
Pours the poison into the sleeper's ears
The following dialogue takes place DURING the
murder scene:
OTHELLO
Fetch me the handkerchief: my mind misgives.
DESDEMONA
Come, come;--
OTHELLO
The handkerchief!
DESDEMONA
I have sent to bid Hamlet come speak with you.
OTHELLO
The handkerchief!
DESDEMONA
I pray, talk me of Hamlet.
OTHELLO
The handkerchief!
DESDEMONA
In sooth, you are to blame.
OTHELLO
Away!
The PLAYER QUEEN enters, weeping for the dead
King, gesticulating with her handkerchief
OPHELIA
The king rises.
HAMLET
What, frighted with false fire!
DESDEMONA
How fares my lord?
IAGO
Give o'er the play.
OTHELLO
By heaven, that should be my handkerchief!
OTHELLO seizes the PLAYER QUEEN's
handkerchief; She struggles to keep it; He strikes
her to the ground
Give me some light: away!
ALL
Lights, lights, lights!
Exeunt all but HAMLET and HORATIO
HAMLET
O good Horatio,
I'll take the ghost's word for a thousand pound.
Didst perceive?
HORATIO
Very well, my lord.
HAMLET
Upon the talk of the poisoning?
HORATIO
I did very well note him.
Re-enter MARCELLUS
MARCELLUS
The king, sir,--
HAMLET
Ay, sir, what of him?
MARCELLUS
Is in his retirement marvellous distempered.
HAMLET
With drink, sir?
MARCELLUS
No, my lord, rather with choler.
The queen, your mother, in most great affliction of spirit, hath sent me to you. Your
behavior hath struck her into amazement and admiration.
HAMLET
O wonderful son, that can so astonish a mother! But is there no sequel at the heels of this
mother's admiration? Impart.
MARCELLUS
She desires to speak with you in her closet, ere you go to bed.
HAMLET
We shall obey, were she ten times our mother.
Exeunt

Forth!

Act One // Act Two // Act Three // Act Four // Act Five