The Laurence Olivier Awards 1997 Page #2

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in the dust.

Thou knowst

ttis common.

All that lives

must die,

passing through nature

to eternity.

Aye, madam.

It is common.

If it be,

why seems it

so particular with thee?

Seems, madam?

Nay, it is.

I know not sseems.

Tis not alone

my inky cloak, good Mother,

nor customary suits

of solemn black...

together with all forms, modes

shows of grief...

that can denote

me truly.

These indeed seem,

for they are actions

that a man might play.

But I have that within

which passeth show.

These but the trappings

and the suits of woe.

Tis sweet and commendable

in your nature, Hamlet,

to give these mourning

duties to your father,

but you must know

your father lost a father,

that father lost, lost his, and the

survivor bound in filial obligation...

for some term to do

obsequious sorrow,

but to persist

in obstinate condolement...

is a course

of impious stubbornness.

Tis unmanly grief,

a fault to heaven,

a fault against the dead,

a fault to nature,

to reason most absurd,

whose common theme

is death of fathers...

and who still hath cried from the first

corpse till he that died today,

TThis must be so.

Why should we

in our peevish opposition...

take it to heart?

We pray you throw to earth...

this unprevailing woe...

and think of us

as of a father.

For let the world

take note,

you are the most immediate

to our throne.

And with no less nobility of love...

than that which dearest father

bears his son...

do I impart

towards you.

For your intent in going back

to school at Wittenberg,

it is most retrograde

to our desire,

and we beseech you,

bend you to remain...

here in the cheer

and comfort of our eye,

our chiefest courtier,

cousin and our son.

Let not thy mother

lose her prayers, Hamlet.

I pray thee,

stay with us.

Go not to Wittenberg.

I shall in all my best

obey you, madam.

Why, tis a loving

and a fair reply.

Be as ourself

in Denmark.

Madam, come. This gentle and unforced

accord of Hamlet...

sits smiling

to my heart.

In grace whereof, no jocund health

that Denmark drinks today...

but the great cannon

to the clouds shall tell,

and the kings carouse

the heavens shall roar again,

respeaking earthly thunder.

Come, away.

Oh, that this too too

solid flesh would melt,

thaw and resolve itself

into a dew.

Or that the Everlasting had not fixed

His canon against self-slaughter.

Oh, God.

God!

How weary, stale

flat and unprofitable...

seem to me all the uses

of this world.

Fie ont, ah, fie!

Tis an unweeded garden

that grows to seed.

Things rank and gross

in nature possess it merely.

That it should

come to this.

But two months dead.

Nay, not so much.

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