TEXT:
HAMLET
On him, on him! Look you, how pale he glares!
His form and cause conjoined, preaching to stones,
Would make them capable. Do not look upon me;
Lest with this piteous action you convert
My stern effects: then what I have to do
Will want true colour; tears perchance for blood.
GERTRUDE
To whom do you speak this?
HAMLET
Do you see nothing there?
GERTRUDE
Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.
HAMLET
Nor did you nothing hear?
GERTRUDE
No, nothing but ourselves.
HAMLET
Why, look you there! look, how it steals away!
My father, in his habit as he lived!
Look, where he goes, even now, out at the portal!
Exit Ghost
GERTRUDE
This the very coinage of your brain:
This bodiless creation ecstasy
Is very cunning in.
NOTES:
Ecstasy
Ecstasy is defined as the state of having transcended normal emotions. It comes from the Greek for ‘stepping out’ of oneself - Gertrude here is understandably concerned that Hamlet has gone out of his mind.
Fratricide Punished
Fratricide Punished, or The Tragedy of Fratricide Punished: or Prince Hamlet of Denmark, is the (translated) name of a German-language play. We do not know who wrote it, or when. It is a German variant of the story of Hamlet, but we don’t know if it is necessarily based on Shakespeare’s version - or on Shakespeare’s version alone. Fratricide Punished was first published in 1781 and translated to English by Georgina Archer in 1865. It seems that the original manuscript is lost, and so all approaches to the text must happen at something of a remove. While there are elements of the story of Hamlet that feature in it, it is a curiosity that would interest only the most serious Hamlet-o-phile.