Act 1. 4
(Polonius enters to find Claudius in study)
Polonius:
Claudius, do I disturb you?
Claudius:
Polonius, a good friend never disturbs but brings the peace of companionship.
Polonius:
I fear now I must say a word that will bring some sorrow in its release.
Claudius:
If you do bring sorrow, so be it. I trust you know its worth. If acted swift, perhaps on the morrow, we'll make better from the worse.
Polonius:
I thank you for your confidence, and to it I submit (carefully removes his chain of office and places it carefully on the table). I have come simply as a friend, and I hope you will admit. I come not as a counselor to your brother and the king. I come to you in belief that you bring new light upon some thing, a thing that worries me severe. It touches on the country and the king, two things I hold most dear.
Claudius:
You take off your chain, I see, so this talk is ours alone. That will make it a different tale than how you speak when you have it on. When enchained, your words sound like some winds that bluster inside Elsinore while outside and unchained, they come as gentle breezes. Your foolish voice seems to come and go any time it pleases.
Polonius:
My life and fortune do abide in our prince's favor. I find it wise to let him surmise some of a foolish savor. If my wit seems to taste too sharp, it might signal the king some danger, and so I talk in an aimless walk until my point is made. Thus I serve as a harmless jester, and at once, I also can still advise. In this I make a balance act, and thus I do survive.
Claudius:
In here (points to head), we have not need of rule, nor here (points to heart) no political ambition, nor in this place (he gestures at their immediate surroundings) where I feel no competition. You come to me just as an honest friend, and as such you can speak. When I answer as best I can, I, too, honesty will seek. Indeed, I seek no gain in heart, in mind, or place that will not come with my studies done in a sure and steady pace.
Polonius:
In your honesty and integrity I would stake my all. You seem like the very best of men untouched by sin's dark pall.
Claudius:
Enough of this our admiration, the kind of speech that brings its own temptation. Open your mind and express your burden, I can but hear, and share, and care for it and you, and failing help, that I can do for certain.
Polonius:
(Turns away from Claudius) The king, whose mind is often broad, has narrowed to a point. It makes it hard to find a balance sound, and it puts him out of joint. There's worry for his obsession.
Claudius:
All kings will, indeed, give must thought to their succession. It will pass when he knows at last his young wife will fill his ambition. His worry is but natural, but when she change condition, it will pass along soon enough.
Polonius:
We do not speak much ill of our dead kings, and still I feel the same. When your father fell into such a state of mind, he was no longer sane. Each day the queen does childless stay forms one more day of strain. We cannot know what strain he feels for only he can know. I only say, that every day, the danger may true grow.
Claudius:
My brother and my father, too, the mainstay of my life. I cannot think of his trouble deep without internal strife.
King Hamlet throws a shadow long and dark and with deeds and history. I am content within its shade and in its protection. These come to me as no mystery. I have studies that I pursue, and they take time and introspection. I am not a man for the world as such, but one for careful thought. I strive to do what's right and true, to act as I've been taught. He'll find no danger here with me in his worry of succession. I would support any choice he makes if the rule falls not to me.
Polonius: He does not feel he has a choice between you and, mayhap, the queen. He sees no other succession that will stand, no one else feels quite clean. They smell of rank ambition and the smell makes madness worse. He sees a king outside his blood for his nation will come as curse.
Claudius: Then whatever reluctance I may feel, the crown will come to me. The blood is there, if not quite so fair, cannot such a thought simply set him free?
Polonius:
Half brother to the king and so near his son is not enough, in this regard for succession to base on. You mother, your father's second wife, was just a pregnant common. Her charm in self was well renown, but her blood was far from royal. For many that will make a chance, and one they will not spoil. There are others who in relation stand, in some ways to the king. At his death and your sure rise, their warring suits will bring. Such civil strive will take the life from the very heart of Denmark. And that heart will befall some dark and danger to us all. For when internal strife's enough, the kingdom will surely fall.
Claudius:
My claim is still the better claim. My blood's not pure but still is sure to bear the mark of kings.
Polonius:
You and I are not made for king but for thought and contemplation. Such duties as the king must face would bring us naught but consternation. We but think of what and why. A king must act on the where and how. We will ponder with all delay, but the king takes actions now. The kingship is not blood alone. It stands as much political. You are slight known but liked therein, for a scholar that's most typical. It does not make for loyalty from others who need reasons to stand beside you in support in any given season.
Claudius:
My brother bade me as a scholar serve in which he took some pride in my creation. He kept me from the priesthood where I might go and hide from the world that surrounds and fills life with temptations. However I will say without a pause, I would serve my brother in any cause that would ease his state of mind. I know how to learn and can earn the kingship if must I find.
Polonius:
I can conceive of such a thing, your mind brought to places alien. I know these things that I can teach and all that is quite salient. You would need to study tasks and thoughts that will bring you little comfort, and much of self you will repress in making all this effort. You would thus survey ill famed Machiavelli whom both of us despise. Yet in ways political, of power he can be wise. That is the taint of politics and of war as well. To serve as king, for you my friend, might be akin to hell.
Claudius:
The portrait of a king you make, it's true I find quite daunting. But to disprove my brother's ruin, I would take on such a haunting. The ghosts of power might me possess so I can act as king. All I ask if I take on this task is that peace will it my brother bring.
Polonius:
I feel impressed with what you'll sacrifice. To enter in a world of sin that you would not devise. But such would take so many years for in truth to climb. It might be well, we cannot tell, but the king feels he has not time. He fears his death will enter soon, and you are not near ready. He needs an act that ©will comfort him and for years will make him steady.
Claudius:
I do not know the nature of this act in which I must engage, but I will answer to any call to which I am but paged.
Polonius:
In this act he takes me not into his confidence. He must seek a plan that he stands to keep in deepest silence. I do not know where his mind will go, but deliver him from distemper. What e'er he ask, please fulfill the task. Whatever asked, please enter.
Claudius:
(Goes to Polonius and takes his hand) I must admit, I will acquit as best I can but with some trepidation. To a kingship I feel no call nor the least elation. But I will serve as best I can, and this to you I pledge. I will do all that I can to balance the king my brother and my father too, this man from his very edge.
(They embrace)
Polonius:
(Carefully and slowly puts on the weight of his chain) The king will undoubted sure to come to thee anon. Although it's hard to say when anon will come. But when it does, and I can trust, your honor in your word. For words are what words will do, and you will do but serve.
Claudius:
And you return to your half fool role as advisor and of jester thus the king to serve. It may do but all you want from it, but it's nothing you deserve.