Act 2.5
(Claudius enters. The King approaches him and embraces him)
King:
You have come, as I would have done, to connect again with sanity. It’s you who bring reason here along with your urbanity. You know the world, as I do not, and you see with clearest eyes. I can only hope, in me, that what you see here you will not despise.
Claudius:
Love sees not with clouded eyes nor eyes all full of judgments. In me you’ll find a love not blind but open to your acceptance. You are the brother whom I love, and love you best I can. You are a king, a father too, and you’re simply just a man.
King:
And in my manhood I can’t speak with any kind of clarity. It’s a state of mind, the worst I can find, that fills me with barbarity. Is man but that he is a beast, and bestial live and die? If that’s the case, I cannot wait, at last, to end that life despised.
Claudius:
Despise the life that you have lived, as a king exemplary? I do not speak as courtiers do, to say things complimentary. I wish no preferment here, and surely no advancements. With my life of study rich, I am deeply enchanted. You are a man like other men, but in that you are different. You put your country before yourself, and thus have shone quite brilliant.
King:
If it shines, it does as fraud, like the gold for fools. Don’t judge the man for what he plans or achieves within his rule. It is not just what he’s done, but what become, and how he paid the price. It’s costly to gain a throne, and the process isn’t nice.
Claudius:
Your modesty and reticence surely does you credit. Your condemnation of yourself, but you simply do not merit. You are Hamlet our most noble king, and in that noble state, you have come as I have done to the extremity of fate.
King:
Does fate decree our tragedy? Are we the house of Atreus? Will we be stalked unto our deaths and live a life of horror? Life, I think, is meant as quest but not for what I have found—this terror. There’s terror in my heart and mind, and madness there to boot. This is the man that you feel you love and thus you do salute.
Claudius:
For a man who has gone mad, you speak with clarity. You discuss all this mental fuss with the greatest of solemnity. I did not think that I would find the very least of calm in mind. But in you, I see it’s true, there’s something still benign. As a madman, you say you speak, and speak that way sublime.
King:
I am mad but not a fool. My words do not escape me. Still I find what’s in my mind and all that’s there unnerves me.
I am a patricide, a regicide; do I kill our son as well? Could God’s grace still find me a place unsuited then for hell?
The ghost, our father, comes to me each everlasting night. I cannot sleep. I can but weep. Yon Christian hears my plight.
I hear the old king whisper as he could not when his life I smothered. I hear him scream, in pain it seems, as in his life did proffer. His anger feels infernal. Is he from some place of heaven sent to call me to repent and give access to the blessed eternal?
Claudius:
There is no king whose voice does ring. All of this imagined. That Hamlet of old is long since dead. Let not that hate impassion.
King:
(Turns to Claudius and speaks in they same confusion and pain as he did at the scene’s opening) Where is Hamlet?
Claudius:
My brother king, I hear you as you speak. You are here, and I am here, you are the self you seek.
King:
Where is my self still not myself but selves all in confusion. If life and time and place and space were all some vast illusion.
I am here? Our father, too? And still where is our son? All three mix here in my mind, and there’s nothing to be done.
Did I kill to save you still or did I kill for power? How can I know, how can you know even in this late hour?
Claudius:
All this is but the artifact of a lifetime of your service. The strain of all and has caused withal for distraught and this mad catharsis. It’s power that can make us mad when held too hard and long. In the end, you saved my life and done nothing of great wrong.
King:
Power has not made me mad, for only madmen reach to power. Did I kill to gain this fame and from that now I cower? Powers gain excuse all blame for it always proves itself. Yet the human stands and makes demands to serve as someone else. But when the proof of power comes, it demands forever more, yet in the face of my ancient deed, I feel so very poor.
Inadequate is what I feel and hope power compensates. Still I claim, when I win the game, that my power is so great. But death will limit power, and power limit’s care. I would kill my son for that, and that brings me despair. I have used my power in ways I think were right, but that thought can bring but scarce relief to the terrors of the night. I killed my father so long ago, to keep my brother safe. But I became the king at that; was the excuse my soul’s escape? To kill my father was a sin for which I know I’m culpable. I cannot sin again this way no matter power’s trouble. I am troubled in my depth, and I must find a cure. The only one will come in death and make my peace secure.
Yet I may well not feel secure, and in death seek my revenge. For what I cannot really know, but the idea makes me unhinged. I can fly to death out of my distress, but I find I have no wings. Release me from this torment, and let my soul go free. Still please trust not what that means, and protect yourself from me. If you hear a tale of me somewhere in your command, keep young Hamlet far away from me and my vile demands. If death makes not my sanity, I may ask of him too much. I can make him as mad as I am mad, and I am quite enough. Now this thing I ask of you, I know that you will falter, but you can change what’s now my pain. It’s the only way it alters.
Claudius:
For your madness deep and your pain I weep, but through all I hear still shines your sanity. You can hear the voice of my confused humanity. You ask me now to make a death for love as you asked me once to make love for life and in both of these I sin. Yet can I remove your sad reproof if the end I do not begin?
King:
If you touch me here, and could feel this pain, in no way would you falter. If you do not kill, I will be so ill, that soon I’ll be the one who slaughters.
This point is this. How can you dismiss a matter of such moment? Will you risk our own son’s life and leave me to this torment?
What can I say? What can I do? How can I gain your favor? I cannot stand this madness in hand and a life that’s lost all savor.
The burden of my sin is great; self-slaughter will make it greater.
Old King:
But this is good, just as it should. The one you saved will kill. You will die and end my cry: avenge me. Then my death be still. But will you not seek your revenge once dead and thus you are forgotten? Your son, too, can seek revenge if you but ask for action. Cry for revenge, and you will end the horror I’ve begotten.
King:
I hear him now. And how he howls and still cries for my blood. I must die and in madness cry or find our son to murder. I saved your life from our father’s strife, and now you save another. You save a son and his dear life, and you save your suffering brother.
How can it be a sin somewhere therein when you grant so much peace and rest? Divine grace can keep apace; all you can do is guess.
Claudius:
You are my brother, whom I love, and my king whom I admire. Cannot you wait until your fate lets you soon expire?
King:
Dear brother you speak to me in sanity, but I am mad you know. You talk as if I were sane; how far can such talk go? If I remain, and am insane, I will kill all Hamlets as a cancer. All three will die unless you hear my cry and give me proper answer.
Claudius:
(Deeply torn and in pain) In hear your cry and can but decry against my own confusion. In all my doubts and all my pains that come in great profusion, I will act with you in pact, and may heaven swift forgive me.
(The two embrace)
King:
I have a poison that will work well. You place it in the portal of my ear. In moments then the time will tell, and will no longer feel this fear. This fear that drives me ever far into misery and danger, and to myself I have become my own most vicious stranger.
(A long pause. Claudius separates)
Claudius:
The plan you make is very deep, and I have thus agreed. Another thought invade as it aught, and it leaves my mind aggrieved. In this plot that you do plan to keep: to die so peaceful in your sleep, you will leave behind your loving wife with nothing left but weep. What of Gertrude in this scheme? Have you left her from your dream? Will she pay a price quite dear when she faces the death of the man that she reveres?
King:
In my distress, I am remiss. She has made my life just possible. I cannot simply pass into sleep and leave her in this crucible.
Claudius:
As hard as it may seem to you, you must tell and she must agree. Without her approval, for your life’s removal, I cannot act but flee. She has given love, given heart, her soul and you a son. Without her seal, you will not heal not even in your life to come.
King:
I still hear you, and I’ll seek to do, the right thing here in my parting and my rest. Send my Christian to bring her here, and we’ll speak of life and death. She will pain to see what has become of me, and she will grant me rest. She will just see she must agree to save her son from me. One of us is bound to die. Of that, I have no doubt, but I am Hamlet just here and now but soon I’ll be without.
(Claudius exits)