Hamlet Deciphered

By J. Aldric Gaudet

“BLASPHEMOUS!”

HAMLET DECIPHERED adjusts and updates words and phrases to account for 400 years of exploration, commerce, industry, and invention which have altered their meaning while maintaining the rich texture of the original. A careful blend of all 3 Official versions of the play written in prose style for clarity.

The Story

Hamlet is refused permission by his uncle, the King, to return to University.

His sweetheart Ophelia is glad they will have more time together to help him get over his father’s sudden death and his mother’s sudden marriage. Instead, her brother warns her to stay away from Hamlet, then her father tries to reason with her, finally ordering her to cease all contact.

The ghost of Hamlet’s father tasks him with a revenge murder which puts Hamlet in a tailspin.

Ophelia hears rumours that Hamlet has gone mad and a brief visit confirms it. She wonders, with some hope, that it is because they have been kept apart and agrees to help her father and the King spy on them so she can talk to Hamlet. During the meeting she and the King realize his madness has nothing to do with love.

The arrival of travelling players gives Hamlet the idea of using a play to prove the guilt of the King. Emboldened by certainty, Hamlet comes across the King unprotected but will not slay him at prayer. He continues on to his mother and berates her for bedding his uncle, then discovers someone hiding in the room and kills him. The spy is Ophelia’s father and her tenuous hold on reality begins to crumble.

When Hamlet is sent away Ophelia has nothing left but flowers in her life. It is not enough.

At sea, Hamlet discovers his companions hold a royal command for his execution. He changes the names and escapes. Horatio meets him back on shore with rough clothes and they walk back to the castle. Passing a graveyard they come across Ophelia’s burial. Hamlet despairs and fights her brother Laertes at the grave claiming his love is stronger.

The King takes Laertes aside to plot the murder of Hamlet during a sporting duel.

It ends tragically for all involved.

Read HAMLET DECIPHERED first, then enjoy the poetry.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jan 3, 2024
• ISBN: 9781304755971

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

The year is 1599. Tea is only being introduced to London, a city whose population approaches a quarter of a million. Nelson has just chased off the Spanish Armada.

It is a time regularly threatened by wars. A time when men wear rapiers and women carry daggers. A time whose social mores are imposed by the all pervasive church, whose laws are enforced by iron fisted royalty. A time when people believe ghosts and witches and fairies and elves are as real as heaven and hell. A time when astrology is considered a science.

Anyone in direct contact with royalty wields the kind of power one gains by association and those who do, become courtiers. A loose definition of a courtier would include a mix of entourage, executive staff, and lobbyist. Mostly made up of noblemen, soldiers, and clerks, courtiers act as advisors and agents for royalty.

Baldassare Castiglione published a handbook describing the ideal courtier as having a cool mind and a sonorous, clear, sweet and well sounding voice, using beautiful, elegant and brave words, spoken with the proper bearing and gestures. A courtier conceals art, and presents what is done and said as if it was done without effort and virtually without thought. If the art is discovered it quite destroys our credit and brings us into small esteem.

There are dangers in such a life of pandering to the most outrageous demands as if they were simple requests satisfiable in an instant. The art of acting deviously to maintain the façade creates a self-fulfilling culture of paranoia.

ONE

Elsinore castle in Denmark in the middle of the night. The air is crisp. A guard platform runs along the top of two sides of the castle. The other two sides are protected by a boulder-strewn shoreline at the foot of steep cliffs.

The entrance from inside the castle is in the middle of the west platform.

Makeshift benches are gathered around a firepot where the platforms join, the corner providing a clear view of all approaches.

A soldier, Francisco, stands under a small shelter there, leaning, his eyes almost closed.

Another soldier, Bernardo, appears from the castle entrance and sees Francisco nodding off. He booms out, Who’s there?

Francisco jerks to attention, automatically calling down to the main gate, No, answer me. Stop and show yourself.

Bernardo laughs and calls out, Long live the king!

Francisco sees him on the platform, Bernardo?

That’s me.

You come most untimely upon your hour.

It has only now struck twelve. Get yourself to bed, Francisco.

Francisco grabs his kit to leave, Much thanks. It’s bitter cold, and I am heartily weary.

Have you had quiet guard?

Not a mouse stirring.

Well, good night. If you meet Horatio and Marcellus, companions of my watch, ask them to hurry.

I think I hear them. Francisco calls out, Halt! Who’s there?

Horatio steps into view, Friends to this land.

Another young man, a soldier, Marcellus, comes in behind him and adds, And freemen loyal to the king.

God grant you a good night, Francisco salutes Marcellus on his way by.

Oh, farewell, honest soldier, Marcellus replies. Who has relieved you?

Bernardo has my place, Francisco says, God grant you a good night.

Marcellus calls ahead, Holla, Bernardo!

Bernardo is happy to see Marcellus’s companion, Tell me, is Horatio there?

Horatio, here reluctantly replies sullenly, A part of him.

Welcome, Horatio. Welcome, good Marcellus.

Horatio gets straight to the point, Has this thing appeared again tonight?

I have seen nothing.

Marcellus fills Bernardo in, Horatio says it’s only our fantasy, and will not let belief take hold of him regarding this fearful sight, twice seen by us. And so I asked him to watch the minutes of this night along with us so that if this apparition comes again, he may confirm what our eyes have seen and speak to it.

Horatio looks around the platform and scoffs, Come, come, it will not appear.

Marcellus gestures to the benches around the fire, Sit down awhile, and let us once again assail your ears, that are so fortified against our story, with what we have seen these two nights.

Alright, we’ll sit down, Horatio agrees, then interrupts Marcellus, And let Bernardo speak of this.

Bernardo takes a moment to gather his thoughts, Only last night, when that same star that’s westward from the pole had made its course to light that part of heaven where it now burns, Marcellus and myself, the bell then beating one–

He has broken off because he sees the apparition where he was pointing, dressed in full battle armour. The visor is up so the face is visible. Piercing eyes shine from a deathly pale face, contrasting with its full black beard threaded with silver streaks.

Marcellus says, Look, where it comes again.

Like the king that’s dead, Bernardo adds.

Marcellus appeals to Horatio who is stunned by the sight, You are a scholar. Speak to it, Horatio.

Doesn’t it look like the king? Bernardo says. See it, Horatio.

Horatio takes a moment to recover his voice, Most like. It harrows me with fear and wonder.

The Ghost gestures toward them.

It wants to be spoken to, suggests Bernardo.

Question it, Horatio, Marcellus insists.

Horatio puffs up his courage and confronts the Ghost, What are you that possess this time of night, in that handsome and warlike form in which the buried majesty of Denmark sometimes marched? By heaven I command you, speak!

The Ghost moves away.

It is offended, Marcellus guesses.

Bernardo agrees, See, it stalks away.

Stop, Horatio demands. Speak, speak, I command you, speak.

The Ghost keeps moving and fades into nothingness.

It is gone, and will not answer, Marcellus says.

Come now, Horatio, you tremble and look pale, Bernardo says. Isn’t this something more than fantasy? What do you think?

Before God, I would not believe this without the true witness of my own eyes.

Is it not like the king? Marcellus asks.

As you are to yourself, Horatio agrees. Like the very armour he wore when he fought the ambitious Norway. It is strange.

They gather back around the fire as Marcellus explains, Twice before, and exactly at this dead hour, he has marched by our watch.

Horatio wonders, I don’t know how, but in my opinion this predicts some strange disruption to our nation.

They look out over the city and see the open shops and the harbour fully lit as workers toil through the night.

Marcellus stokes the fire and asks Horatio, Then, sit down, and tell me, if you know, why such strict and most observant watch so nightly toils over the land. And why such daily casting of cannon and foreign trading for implements of war? Why such hiring of shipwrights whose dedicated task does not divide Sunday from the week? What might be in preparation that this sweaty haste makes the night joint-labourer with the day? Who can tell me?

I can, at least as whispers go, Horatio says. Our late king, whose image just now appeared, was, spurred by his most ambitious pride, dared to combat by Fortinbras of Norway. In which our valiant Hamlet killed this Fortinbras. Who, by a sealed contract, ratified by law and heraldry, forfeited, with his life, all those his lands which he possessed, to the conqueror. Against which, an equivalent portion was pledged by our king, which would have passed to Fortinbras, had he been vanquisher.

He huddles closer to the fire and warms to the storytelling, Now, sir, young Fortinbras, hot and full of untested courage, has here and there along the borders of Norway snapped up a band of rogues, for the cost of food and shelter, to recover by strong hand and forceful means these lands lost by his father.

He gestures at the bustling harbour, And this, I take it, is the main motive of our preparations, the cause of our watch, and the chief origin of this urgency and turmoil in the land.

I think it must be so, Bernardo agrees. It may be why this ominous figure comes armed through our watch, so like the king that was and is the question of these wars.

It is grit to trouble the mind’s eye, Horatio says. In the most high and noble state of Rome, a little before the mighty Julius fell, the graves stood empty, and the shrouded dead, squealed and gabbled in the Roman streets. And the same precursor of fearful events heaven and earth have together demonstrated unto our region and countrymen.

Horatio sees the Ghost reappear, But wait, behold. Look, where it comes again.

He draws his rapier and points the blade toward heaven, I’ll cross it, though it blast me. He faces the Ghost, rapier thrust forward, Stop, illusion, if you have any sound, or use of voice, speak to me. If there is any good thing to be done, that may do ease to you, and grace to me, speak of it. If you know of your country’s fate, which foreknowledge may avoid, speak. Or if you have hidden extorted treasure in the earth, for which, they say, you spirits often walk in death. Speak of it.

The Ghost, about to say something, reacts to a cock crow at the approach of dawn and moves off.

Horatio calls to it, Stop and speak.

He rallies the others, Stop it, Marcellus.

Shall I strike at it?

Yes, if it will not halt.

Bernardo calls out, It’s here.

Marcellus says, It’s here.

The Ghost fades from sight.

It’s gone, Horatio confirms.

The men gather back around the fire.

Marcellus says, We do it wrong, being so majestical, to offer it the show of violence. For it is as invulnerable as the air, and our vain blows malicious mockery.

It was about to speak, when the cock crew, Bernardo says.

Horatio recalls, And then it started like a guilty thing upon a fearful summons. I have heard, the cock, that is the trumpet to the morning, with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat awakes the god of day. And, at this warning, whether in sea or fire, in earth or air, the wandering spirit must speed to its cell. Which this present object proved.

Marcellus says, Some say that in that season when our Saviour’s birth is celebrated, the cock crows all night long. And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad. The nights are wholesome. Then no planets strike, no fairy infects, nor witch has power to charm, so hallowed and so gracious is the time.

Horatio agrees, So I have heard and do in part believe.

Horatio sees the sun rising over the shipyards, "But, look, the morning sun treads the dew of that high eastern hill. Suppose we break our watch. And by my advice, let us tell what we have seen tonight to young