Act 2.4
(The king gets up from bed. His father the Old King appears in this scene. He can come as a disembodied voice or as a projection of some kind or with an actor on stage)
Old King:
You do not sleep but from your crime, and for that crime avenge me.
King:
Was it not enough for you to haunt me thus and make of life a misery?
Old King:
Still you live and the crown you give. It’s me you killed, and I want some equal slaughter.
King:
You have murdered me and enslaved me, and in some way drawn and quartered.
Old King:
Your mind’s one thing, but I want you to bring some bloody son to my shrine. Besides like you, he will pursue and kill for the power that was mine. You stole from me. He’ll steal from you and leave you to a fate violent and unkind. Avenge me and defend yourself, and this act you will do, the two things that you most need to hold to the life you once pursued.
King:
You tell me young Hamlet has grown to feel so bold? That I am not secure where I lay my head, and that his thoughts impure come to trouble me in bed and kill me then, now that I am old?
Old King:
He is young, and his will be done if you stand there in his way. He will kill you silently, as you did me, not in the light of day.
King:
Thus in his death I can do two things, satisfy your vengeance cry and secure myself as king.
Old King:
The one who saved a son will be the one to kill a son and thus I’ll have revenge. Avenge me.
King:
How can I think such evil thoughts? Or are these the thoughts of some other.
Old King:
My thoughts entered you, as you made true you plan my life to smother. It was in my death, and at my behest, that you became your other.
King:
A mind divided cannot survive, and I have held to life too long. I cannot stop these thoughts that drive me forever to do wrong.
Old King:
But wrong is right when you see with sight that has festered all these years. Death is the answer to your curse, to escape these nightly torments. Each night, you know, these things grow worse, and much trouble do you foment. If word of weakness reaches the court, the schemers will dethrone you all. Even if you do not kill, your son will surely fall.
King:
I will save my son if I kill my son and if I kill I save myself? If this is true, and it goes through, then I’ll turn to someone else. I will be you, in blood and truth: the mad king with bloody hands. I wished naught but good, and there I stood to defend my brother’s life.
Old King:
Still you won my powers sum through that and my thoughts of endless strife. You wanted power and to protect him from me may have been a ruse.
King:
I am insane. I have naught to gain. I have everything to lose.
Old King:
Then kill yourself at your own hand, but that will end in nothing. You’re bound for hell wherein you’ll dwell and where you’ll find no bluffing. You’ll see the truth, and your son will lose his life that you have bartered. The schemers will find him out without a doubt, and leave the young prince martyred. If you leave no king to keep charge, the nation will be slaughtered.
King:
I’ll leave a king and take my life, and all will find its order. I stake my claim, and my honors fame, on the strong heart of my dear brother. I saved him once, and he’ll save me now at my end of living. He is a man I can but trust with my son, my wife, and all my nation’s being.
(Claudius enters)