CLAUDIUS: Thanks, Rosencrantz ( turning to ROS Who is Caught unprepared, while GUIL
bows) and gentle Guildenstern ( turning to GUIL who is bent double).
GERTRUDE ( correcting): Thanks Guildenstern. ( turning to ROS , who bows as GUIL checks upward movement to bow to both bent double, squinting at each other)... and gentle Rosencrantz ( turning to GUIL , both straightening up--- GUIL checks again and bows again). And I beseech you instantly to visit My too much changed son. Go, some of you, And bring these gentlemen where Hamlet is.
TWO ATTENDANTS exit backwards, indicating that ROS and GUIL should follow.
GUIL: Heaven make our presence Pleasant and helpful to him.
GERTRUDE: Ay, amen' and our practices!
ROS and GUIL move towards a downstage wing. Before they get there, POLONIUS
enters. They stop and bow to him. He nods and hurries upstage to CLAUDIUS . They turn to look at him.
POLONIUS: The ambassadors from Norway, my good lord, are joyfully returned.
CLAUDIUS: Thou still hast been the father of good news.
POLONIUS: Have I, my lord? Assure you, my good liege, I hold my duty as I hold my soul, Both to my God and to my gracious King; And I do think, or else this brain of mine Hunts not the trail of policy so sure As it hath used to do, that I have found The very cause of Hamlet's lunacy...
Exeunt---leaving ROS and GUIL .
ROS: I want to go home.
GUIL: Don't let them confuse you.
ROS: I'm out of my stop here--- We'll soon be home and high--dry and home---I'll--- It's all over my depth--- -I'll hie you home and---
ROS: ---Out of my head---
GUIL: --dry you high and---
ROS ( cracking, high): --Over MY step over my head bodyguard tell you it's all stopping to a death, it's boding to a depth, stepping to a head, it's all heading to a dead stop---
GUIL: ( the nursemaid): There!... and we'll soon be home and dry... and high and dry...
( Rapidly. ) Has it ever happened to you that all of a sudden and for no reason at all you haven't the faintest idea how to spell the word---"wife"---or "house"---because when you write it down you just can't remember ever having seen those letters in that order before... ?
ROS: I remember
GUIL: Yes?
ROS: I remember when there were no questions.
GUIL: There -- -I Is that ways questions. To exchange one set for another is no great matter.
ROS: Answers, yes. There were answers to everything.
GUIL: You've forgotten.
ROS: ( flaring): I haven't forgotten---how I used to remember my own name---and yours, oh yes! There were answers everywhere you looked. There was no question about it ---
people knew who I was and if they didn't they asked and I told them.
GUIL: You did, the trouble is, each of them is... plausible, 38 without being instinctive. All your life you live so close to truth, it becomes a permanent blur in the comer of your eye, and when something nudges it into outline it is like. being ambushed by a grotesque. A man standing in his saddle in the half-lit half-alive dawn banged on the shutters and called two names. He was just a hat and a cloak levitating in the grey plume of his own breath, but when he called we came. That much is certain---we came.
ROS: Well I can tell you I'm sick to death of it. I don't cam one way or another, so why don't you make up your mind.
GUIL: We can't afford anything quite so arbitrary. Nor did we come all this way for a christening. All that---preceded us. But we are comparatively fortunate; we might have been left to sift the whole field of human nomenclature, like two blind men looting a bazaar for their own portraits... At least we are presented with alternatives.
ROS: Well as from now
GUIL: ---But not choice.
ROS: You made me look ridiculous in there.
GUIL: I looked just as ridiculous as you did.
ROS: ( an anguished cry): Consistency is all I ask!
GUIL: ( low, wry rhetoric): Give us this day our daily mask.
ROS: ( a dying fall): I want to go home. ( Moves. ) Which way did we come in? I've lost my sense of direction.
GUIL: The only beginning is birth and the only end is death---if you can't count on that, what can you count on? They connect again.
ROS: We don't owe anything to anyone.
GUIL: We've been caught up. Your smallest action sets off another somewhere else, and is set off by it. Keep an eye open, an ear cocked. Tread warily, follow instructions. We'll be all right.
ROS: For how long?
GUIL: Till events have played themselves out. There's a logic at work---it's all done for you, don't worry. Enjoy it. Relax. To be taken in hand and led, like being a child again, even without the innocence, a child---it's like being given a prize, an extra slice of childhood when you least expect it, as a prize for being good, or compensation for never having had one... Do I contradict myself?
ROS: I can't remember... What have we got to go on?
GUIL: We have been briefed. Hamlet's transformation. What do you recollect?
ROS: Well, he's changed, hasn't he? The exterior and inward man fails to resemble GUIL: Draw him on to pleasures---glean what afflicts him.
ROS: Something more than his father's death
GUIL: He's always talking about us---there aren't two people living whom he dotes on more than us.
ROS: We cheer him up---find out what's the matter
GUIL: Exactly, it's a matter of asking the right questions and giving away as little as we can.
It's a game.
ROS: And then we can go?
GUIL: And receive such thanks as fits a king's remembrance.
ROS: I like the sound of that. What do you think he means by remembrance?
GUIL: He doesn't forget his friends.
ROS: Would you care to estimate?
GUIL: Difficult to say, really---some kings tend to be amnesiac, others I suppose---the opposite, whatever that is...
ROS: Yes---but--- Elephantine... ?
ROS: Not how long---how much?
GUIL: Retentive---he's a very retentive king, a royal retainer. .
ROS: What are you playing at?
GUIL: Words, words. They're all we have to go on.
Pause.
ROS: Shouldn't we be doing something---constructive?
GUIL: What did you have in mind?... A short, blunt human pyramid... ?
ROS: We could go.
GUIL: Where?
ROS: After him.
GUIL: Why? They've got us placed now---if we start moving around, we'll all be chasing each other all night.
Hiatus.
ROS ( at footlights): How very intriguing! ( Turns. ) I feel like a spectator---an appalling business. The only thing that makes it bearable is the irrational belief that somebody interesting will come on in a minute...
GUIL: See anyone?
ROS: No. You?
GUIL: No. ( At footlights. ) What a fine persecution---to be kept intrigued without ever quite being enlightened... ( Pause. ) We've had no practice.
ROS: We could Play at questions.
GUIL: What good would that do?
ROS: Practice!
GUIL: Statement! one-love.