Act 1.13
(The queen's bedchamber. She is in bed sitting up. She holds a bundle. The door bursts open, and King Hamlet enters)
King:
Where is Hamlet? My newly blessed son? Where is Hamlet? Now that he has come?
Gertrude:
My lord please to find me now in bed tired from exertion. He sleeps too, exhausted thus, in his own portion. He has come into the light from darkness, as all of us must do. In our birth and in our lives, the light can see us through.
King:
(Sits on the bed, caresses Gertrude, stares at the bundle) My son, my son has come to me. He has become my light.
Gertrude:
He is my son too, for all the love I give to him and still will give to you.
King:
This son will end the darkest night that I have long lived through. He will banish dreams of long dead schemes and long dead fathers, too. Hamlet has the light. It shines so bright, all that seems right. It all feels renewed. A father must have a son by any and all means attended. Hamlet's come and I have my son and my father's vengeance ended.
Gertrude:
Would your father revenge his son this many years now past?
King:
Hatred then in madness come is a thing that lasts. He swears to me in every dream that he will thus deprive me of the life of my own living son as I with him arrived.
Gertrude:
Can a man come to fear his son and feel toward him such hatred?
King:
Who is a son and what is done? I was his son and killed him. All men die by their son's hands. It's a manly competition. Who must win and who must lose in endless repetition. The son must strike the father down to take his place by might. If the father cannot stand down, the son will act aright.
Gertrude:
Will both my loves come to such blows and tear my world to pieces? Will you rend me to my soul? Can such work be ceaseless?
King:
Oh yes, my love, such things can end in the love and trust of fathers. Good fathers need not to win. It's not a thing that bothers. A father's love with open arms will welcome a son that grows and become the master of himself with everything he knows. My son will train for mind and heart. He'll go to Wittenberg. There'll he study until he's ready to come home and to serve. He'll be my loyal subject he, and he will become king. Although I am and will be then, and my life is then the thing that I must preserve so that he'll not serve one day sooner than he should. Ambition can grow in any heart and be stronger than all love.
Gertrude:
You have a son whose heart is as his father's heart and to such things impervious. He will always love and cherish you, and to you, with love, do service.
King:
Love is as what love does, and this a thing I know. We cannot tell what will dwell in the heart of one so young.
Gertrude:
He will love as I do now, and he'll do so now forever.
King:
As I love you, I do swear true, that his father will protect and love this very son of ours and never to neglect. He'll keep his mind and he will find all ways to protect our young Hamlet. This I swear, and beware, it's not a thing to forget.
Gertrude:
I will know and you will know and thus the father knows well. In our hearts and in our minds your pledge will always dwell. You need not ask where Hamlet is, he's there within your heart. In that way, we'll start this day—we will never be apart.
King:
“Where's Hamlet” then, I will amend and ne'er need cry again. I'll never look, for by our book, we can never part.
Fade to black.