Franco Zeffirelli: The Art of Entertainment Page #6

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What have I done, that thou darest wag

thy tongue in noise so rude against me?

Such an act that blurs

the grace and blush of modesty...

calls virtue hypocrite...

makes marriage vows

as false as dicers' oaths.

Ay me, what act?

Look here, upon this picture, and on this.

The counterfeit presentment

of two brothers.

See, what a grace

was seated on this brow.

A combination and a form indeed...

where every god did seem to set his seal...

to give the world assurance of a man.

This was your husband.

Look you now, what follows.

Here is your husband...

like a mildewed ear,

blasting his wholesome brother.

Have you eyes?

Could you, on this fair mountain,

leave to feed...

and batten on this moor?

Have you eyes? You cannot call it love...

for at your age,

the heyday in the blood is tame...

it's humble, and waits upon the judgment.

And what judgment would step

from this to this?

Eyes without feeling,

feeling without sight.

O shame, where is thy blush?

Speak no more.

Thou turnest my eyes into my very soul...

and there I see such black and grained

spots as will not leave their tinct.

Nay, but to live in the rank sweat...

of an enseamed bed...

stewed in corruption...

honeying and making love

over the nasty sty.

Speak to me no more.

These words like daggers enter

in mine ears! No more, sweet Hamlet.

- A murderer and a villain.

- No!

A cutpurse of the empire and the rule.

A king of shreds and patches...

Save me, and hover over me

with your wings, you heavenly guards.

- What would your gracious figure?

- Alas, he's mad.

Do you not come your tardy son to chide?

Oh, say.

Do not forget.

This visitation is but to whet

thy almost blunted purpose.

But, look.

Amazement on thy mother sits.

Step between her and her fighting soul.

Speak to her, Hamlet.

How is it with you, lady?

Alas, how is it with you,

that you do bend your eye on vacancy...

and with the incorporal air

do hold discourse?

- O gentle son, say whereon do you look.

- On him. Look you, how pale he glares.

To whom do you speak this?

- Do you see nothing there?

- Nothing at all. Yet all that is, I see.

- Nor did you nothing hear?

- No, nothing but ourselves.

Why, look you there!

Look how it steals away.

- My father, in his habit as he lived.

- This is the very coinage of your brain!

It is not madness that I have uttered.

Mother, for love of grace...

lay not that flattering unction

to your soul...

that not your trespass

but my madness speaks.

Confess yourself to heaven...

repent what's past, avoid what is to come.

And do not spread the compost

on the weeds...

to make them ranker.

O Hamlet...

thou hast cleft my heart in twain.

Throw away the worser part of it...

and live the purer with the other half.

Good night.

And when you are desirous to be blessed...

I'll blessing beg of you.

For this same lord, I do repent.

But heaven hath pleased it so

to punish me with this, and this with me.

I will bestow him,

and will answer well the death I gave him.

So, again, good night.

I must be cruel only to be kind.

Thus bad begins

and worse remains behind.

What shall I do?

Let not the bloat King

tempt you again to bed...

pinch wanton on your cheek,

call you his mouse.

And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses...

or paddling in your neck

with his damned fingers...

make you to ravel all this matter out...

that I essentially am not in madness...

but mad in craft.

Be thou assured...

if words be made of breath,

and breath of life...

I have no life to breathe

what thou hast said to me.

Mother, good night, indeed.

This counselor is now most still,

most secret...

and most grave...

who was in life a foolish prating knave.

Come, sir,

to draw toward an end with you.

Good night, Mother.

Gertrude!

Where is your son?

Mine own lord, what have I seen tonight!

What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?

Mad...

as the sea and wind,

when both contend which is the mightier.

In his lawless fit...

he hath killed the unseen good old man.

O heavy deed!

It had been so with us, had we been there.

Guards!

Friends, go join you with some further aid.

Hamlet, in madness, hath Polonius slain.

- My lord Hamlet!

- Search over there!

- My lord Hamlet!

- Hamlet!

- Look in there!

- Over there!

I have sent to seek him

and to find the body.

Yet, sirs, we must not put

the strong law on him.

He's loved of the distracted multitude.

How now! What hath befallen?

Where the dead body is bestowed,

my lord, we could not get from him.

But where is he?

Now, Hamlet...

where's Polonius?

At supper.

At supper?

- Where?

- Not where he eats, but where he is eaten.

A certain convocation of politic worms

are e'en at him.

Alas.

A man may fish

with the worm that hath eat of a king...

and eat of the fish that fed of that worm.

- What dost thou mean by this?

- Nothing...

but to show you how a king may go

a progress through the guts of a beggar.

Where is Polonius?

In heaven. Send thither to see.

If your messenger find him not there,

seek him in the other place yourself.

But if, indeed, you find him not

within this month...

you shall nose him as you go up the stairs

into the lobby.

- Go seek him there.

- He will stay till you come.

Hamlet, this deed, for thine

especial safety, must send thee hence.

Therefore prepare thyself for England.

- For England?

- Ay, Hamlet.

- Good.

- So is it, if thou knewest our purposes.

I see a cherub that sees them.

But, come. For England!

Farewell, dear mother.

- Thy loving father, Hamlet.

- My mother.

Father and mother is man and wife,

man and wife is one flesh...

and so, my mother.

Come, for England.

I'll have him hence tonight.

Therefore, prepare you.

I your commission will forthwith dispatch,

and he to England shall along with you.

Arm you, I pray you,

to this speedy voyage.

And, England, if my love

thou holdest at aught...

thou mayest not stop our process...

which imports by letters

that these worthy men must bear...

the present death of Hamlet.

Do it, England.

My lord!

- I must to England. You know that?

- Alas.

There's letters sealed.

And my two schoolfellows,

whom I will trust as I will adders fanged...

they bear the mandate.

They must sweep my way

and marshal me to knavery.

Let it work...

for I will delve one yard

below their mines...

and blow them at the moon.

How should I your true love know

from another one?

By his cockle hat and staff

and his sandal shoon

Young men will do it, if they come to it.

By cock they are to blame.

Quoth she, "Before you tumbled me

you promised me to wed"

"So would I ha ' done, by yonder sun

an thou hadst not come to my bed"

Come, my lady.

To my sick soul, as sin's true nature is...

each toy seems prologue

to some great amiss.

So full of artless jealousy is guilt...

it spills itself in fearing to be spilt.

Where is the beauteous majesty

of Denmark?

Where is the...

How now, Ophelia?

He is dead and gone, lady

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