The Laurence Olivier Awards 1997 Page #5

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Yet he knew me not at first.

He said I was a fishmonger.

Hes far gone,

far gone.

But Ill

speak to him again.

What do you read,

my lord?

Words, words, words.

- What is the matter, my lord?

- Between who?

- I mean, the letter that you read, my lord.

- Slander, sir.

For the satirical rogue says here

that old men have gray beards,

that their faces are wrinkled,

their eyes purging thick amber...

and plum tree gum,

that they have

a plentiful lack of wit,

together with

most weak hams.

All of which, sir, though I

most powerfully believe,

yet I hold it not honesty

to have it thus set down,

for you yourself, sir,

shall be old as I am...

if like a crab

you could go backward.

Though this be madness,

yet theres method intt.

-Will you walk out of the air, my lord?

-Into my grave?

Indeed, that is

out of the air.

How pregnant sometimes

his replies are.

My honorable lord,

I will most humbly

take my leave of you.

You cannot, sir, take from me anything

that I will more willingly part withal.

Except my life.

Read on this book.

That show of such an exercise

may color your loneliness.

Gracious, so please you,

well bestow ourselves.

Ophelia, walk you here.

Lets withdraw,

my lord.

Soft you now.

The fair Ophelia.

Nymph, in thy orisons

be all my sins remembered.

Good, my lord!

How does Your Honor

for this many a day?

I humbly thank you.

Well, well, well.

My lord, I have

remembrances of yours...

that I have

longed long to redeliver.

I pray you now,

receive them.

No, not I.

I never gave you aught.

My honored lord, you know

right well you did.

And with them,

words of so sweet breath composed...

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.

Are you honest?

My lord?

I did love you once.

Indeed, my lord,

you made me believe so.

You should not

have believed me.

Get thee to a nunnery.

Why wouldst thou be

a breeder of sinners?

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 offenses 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 heaven and earth?

We are arrant knaves all.

Believe none of us.

Go thy ways

to a nunnery.

Wheres your father?

At home, my lord.

Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may

play the fool nowhere but in his own house.

- Farewell!

- Oh, help me, you sweet heavens.

I have heard your paintings too,

well enough!

God hath given you one face,

and you make yourselves another.

You jig, you amble,

you lisp.

You nickname Gods creatures and make

your wantonness your ignorance.

Get thee to a nunnery,

and quickly, too. Farewell!

Or if thou wilt needs marry,

marry a fool,

for wise men know well enough

what monsters you make of them.

Go to! Ill no more of it!

It hath made me mad.

I say we will have

no more marriages!

Those that are

married already,

all but one

shall live!

The rest shall stay

as they are.

To a nunnery...

go.

Love! His affections

do not that way tend.

Nor what he spake, though it

lacked form a little,

was not

like madness.

Theres something

in his soul...

oer which his melancholy

sits on brood.

And I do fear the unheeded consequence

will be some danger,

the which to prevent I have in quick

determination thus set it down.

He shall with speed

to England.

Haply the seas and countries

different with variable objects...

shall expel this something

settled matter in his heart.

- What think you ont?

- It shall do well,

but yet I do believe the origin

and commencement of his grief...

sprung from

neglected love.

How now, Ophelia?

You need not tell us

what Lord Hamlet said.

We heard it all.

My lord,

do as you please.

It shall be so. Madness in great ones

must not unwatched go.

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 wished.

To die, to sleep.

To sleep.

Perchance to dream!

Aye, theres the rub.

For in that sleep of death,

what dreams may come...

when we have shuffled off

this mortal coil...

must give us pause.

Theres the respect that makes

calamity of so long life.

For who would bear the whips

and scorns of time,

the oppressors wrong,

the proud mans contumely,

the pangs of despised love,

the laws delays,

the insolence of office...

and the spurns that patient

merit of the unworthy takes...

when he himself might

his quietus make...

with a bare bodkin?

Who would fardels bear,

to grunt and sweat

under a weary life,

but that the dread of

something after death,

the undiscovered 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?

Thus conscience

doth make cowards of us all.

And thus the native hue of

resolution is sicklied oer...

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.

My lord, I have news

to tell you.

The actors are come hither,

my lord.

He that plays the king

shall be welcome.

TThe best actors in the world,

either for tragedy, comedy,

history, pastoral,

pastoral-comical,

historical-pastoral,

tragical-historical,

tragical-comical-historical-pastoral.

Seneca cannot be too heavy

nor Plautus too light.

For these are the only men.

You are welcome, masters.

Welcome, all.

I am glad to see thee well.

Welcome, good friends!

Oh, my old friend. Why, thy face

is valanced since I saw thee last.

Comest thou to beard me

in Denmark?

What, my young lady and mistress!

By our lady, your ladyship is nearer

to heaven than when I saw you last.

Pray God, your voice, like a piece of

uncurrent gold, be not cracked in its ring.

Masters, you are all welcome!

Good my lord, will you

see the players well bestowed?

Do you hear,

let them be well used,

for they are the abstract and

brief chronicles of the time.

After your death you were better have a bad

epitaph than their ill report while you live.

My lord, I will use them

according to their desert.

Gods bodykins, much better. Use every man

after his desert and who shall escape whipping?

Use them after your own honor

and dignity.

The less they deserve, the more merit

is in your bounty. Take them in.

- Come, sirs.

- Follow him, friends.

We hear a play tomorrow.

Dost hear me, old friend.

Can you play

The Murder of Gonzago?

- Aye, my lord.

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