Get this No Fear to go!
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Enter King CLAUDIUS and Queen
GERTRUDE, with ROSENCRANTZ and
GUILDENSTERN
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CLAUDIUS and
GERTRUDE enter with ROSENCRANTZ and
GUILDENSTERN. |
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CLAUDIUS
(to
GERTRUDE) There’s matter
in these sighs, these profound heaves.
You must translate. 'Tis fit we understand them.
Where is your son?
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CLAUDIUS
(to
GERTRUDE) These deep, heaving sighs
of yours mean something. You have to tell me what. I need to know.
Where’s your son?
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GERTRUDE
(to ROSENCRANTZ
and
GUILDENSTERN)
Bestow this place on us a little while.
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GERTRUDE
(to ROSENCRANTZ
and
GUILDENSTERN) Let us speak privately
awhile, please.
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Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and
GUILDENSTERN
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ROSENCRANTZ and
GUILDENSTERN exit. |
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Ah, my good lord, what have I seen tonight!
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Ah, my lord, you wouldn’t believe what I’ve
witnessed tonight!
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CLAUDIUS
What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?
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CLAUDIUS
What, Gertrude? How is Hamlet?
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GERTRUDE
Mad as the sea and wind when both contend
Which is the mightier. In his lawless fit,
Behind the arras hearing something stir,
Whips out his rapier, cries, “A rat, a rat!”
And in this brainish apprehension kills
The unseen good old man.
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GERTRUDE
As mad as the waves and the wind when they struggle together in a
storm. In an insane rage, he hears something behind the tapestry,
whips out his sword, shouts, “A rat, a rat!”
and in his deranged state of mind he kills the good old man, who is
still hidden.
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15 20 |
CLAUDIUS
O heavy deed!
It had been so with us, had we been there.
His liberty is full of threats to all—
To you yourself, to us, to everyone.
Alas, how shall this bloody deed be answered?
It will be laid to us, whose providence
Should have kept short, restrained and out of haunt,
This mad young man. But so much was our love,
We would not understand what was most fit,
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CLAUDIUS
Oh, this is terrible! It would’ve happened to me if
I’d been there. His wildness is a threat to all of
us—to you, to me, to everyone. How will we deal with this
violent deed? I’m the one who will be blamed for not
restraining and confining this mad young man. But I loved him so
much I didn’t want to think about what I had to do.
So, like someone suffering from a nasty disease who refuses to
divulge his condition and lets it infect him to
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