Act 2.9
(Claudius and Gertrude alone in the king’s garden)
Claudius:
He has called us once again in a winter of his seasons. He asks of us the hardest thing: to do wrong for the best of reasons. We did it once, and out came good for young Hamlet came to life. We had one night where doing right meant we were man and wife. Now he asks us to act again in a sinful concert, to help him ease his way away from life and end the danger he asserts.
Gertrude:
To all of that, I’d say, we have made no reference. For fifteen years we have kept away as we both feel and enact our penitence. We have not spoken of Hamlet our son in any way as parents. I will not regret that we were well met in that night’s alliance. The good we made has long since stayed and grown to a noble youth. So I agree that he has no need to hear of our past truth.
Claudius:
We need to speak of what is now, what is now and true. We need to speak of what that means and what we choose to do. Something must be done to protect our son from the man he deeply loves. The gates of sin are strained this day and soon will break and flood. What do we do in the face of this? Out of this, what ere we choose, it must come to some good.
Gertrude:
In these threats of life and death I see but little good, but we still must make this choice. Either one will give us pain and no reason to rejoice. To put young Hamlet in deepest risk is nothing we can stand, but to cage the king, as he should need, would destroy the man. I cannot stand to see the man I love in pain. But how can I agree to what I see is killing when laid plain?
Claudius:
There is no doubt what I’m about will take the stance of murder. But as it’s framed, no matter blame, all this can go no further. This king must die or the new king to come or this king suffer endless madness. In this stead, what can be said of young Hamlet and his pain? He will feel shame and punished by such an unending sadness. When this king is dead, the grief will come, but the edge will dull in time. If this king stays mad, as he has said, young Hamlet’s pain will climb. What that will do to his young mind, we can only just surmise. That it bodes but ill, it sends a chill, down my stiffened spine. We cannot take whatever break as nothing but surprise.
Gertrude:
The end of such a melancholy is painful to behold. I can make of one so very young into a man who is so old. Let the young fulfill his grief and still get on with his own life. The death that’s here of this man dear will provide us all relief. His torture is our torture too. It comes with empathy. If I should ask what way I’d pass, I’d want to be set free.
Claudius:
In sadness then will live our lives, but even that secreted. No one else must this burden feel. For in the world you know our sad tale’s not needed. Good Christian knows, but he will hold his tongue, of that I am sure. He has the soul of a saint of old and will keep his promise pure.
Gertrude:
Let us return to the task at hand. We’ll burn from its execution. We act in right with all our might, but we end in persecution. Our consciences will not forget, nor will they forgive. We will take a life this day, so another life will live. I will go back to say good-bye, and that way I will serve. Then I will leave and go to grieve and feel endlessly unnerved.
Claudius:
King Hamlet has long since had his ghost. Now we will have one, too.