A New Scene For Hamlet: Explaining Gertrude Poem by Keith Shorrocks Johnson

ACT* SCENE **The Queen's closet.

QUEEN MARGARET is alone brushing her hair - enter Hamlet

QUEEN GERTRUDE
How would you steal into this tower
At so late an hour - am I your lover?
I am not your garlanded Ophelia
Fresh with the blooms and flowers
Of youth and untested beauty
But your mother come to autumn
And the fall of that which budded
Once when life itself was young
Hard now with jewels not petals.

HAMLET
Mother I am beset with thought itself,
With doubts, with jealousy and fear,
Oppressed by darkness unrelieved -
Were we ever friends, I might confide.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Enough, are you a small boy again
That needs must use my apron strings
To tag along and stem your tears?

HAMLET
What is it with us lady that so disturbs
Our conversations and intercourse?
How is it that our love is so uneven?
Did you not want me as a son?
Did you not love my father?
Tell me truly what the matters are.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Sweet boy, you touch upon unruly truths
That are much better left unsaid.

HAMLET
What, would you make my maddening worse
When I for want of understanding run
To every touchstone of conjecture?

QUEEN GERTRUDE
This I will tell you - once I loved your father
When I was sweet and young and knew no better
But he grew proud in all his powers
And took his majesty as right
Then taking me so forcibly
In neglect and habit and disdain
That I became no better than the maids.
Then no longer sweet, I saw his orders
And his postures as unjust, unnatural
Mere assumptions of superiority
And I no worse or sometimes better
In the understanding and conduct of the world.

HAMLET
What of me, was I conceived in love
Or in unwelcome force?

QUEEN GERTRUDE
I know not - I have no memory of that
For when we couple, lust brings
Force and love to bear in several parts
And none remembers which the most.

Now go I beseech you - my liege awaits.
I must guild the royal bed tonight
And take my part in serving smaller majesty
More tractable, more sweet and better loving.

HAMLET
Is it not cruel to talk of best and least
In being bedded by two brothers
And chide the grieving son of one
That his supplanter has the vantage?

GERTRUDE
Silly boy - can you be sure of which is which?
Do you not look like your uncle
Have you not his tractable nature
His pensive looks, his fancies
His easy bending to conspiracies?

-

Stay - put away that fiery look -
Those doubts which mar your beauty:
You indeed are your father's son.

HAMLET
You use me as a plaything still -
And mock when you should care
A string which holds me close
And then let's go and shuts me out -
Cup and ball in endless back and to
It ricochets my mind with me the fool.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
And like the brothers do you seek the cup
That you might out-sip the two of them
And dally with the taste of faded rose
To sweeten wine from generations past?

HAMLET
And you twice married, me betrothed
This is too base - and I your only son!

QUEEN GERTRUDE
You have touched and seen the very core of me
When as a baby you sought the light and air
Then you were mine alone within me
Before confinement became separation
And whatever man had had his way
His touch was long since gone from thence.

Can you encompass what that act means
So consequential and full of lust for life
And how little the ecstasy of men compares?

HAMLET
And does this giving of life extend to living
Have not men to stand apart to play their roles?
Destiny demands that those best suited
Take the greater part in bringing acts
To resolution - which motherhood itself gainsays.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Could you but listen to yourself
You might learn to see the world.

HAMLET
Tell me then in my darkness and distress
Putting aside the thrust and parry of your whimsy
Did you - do you ever love me for myself?

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Fool - I loved you more than life itself!
Oft I would creep to your cradle
To kiss your curls and hear you breathe
You were my life - I trembled at your smile.
And when you grew to oldest boyhood
I would still creep to your room
To watch you sleep and tuck your covers.

HAMLET
Aye - and in your cups touch my hair
And spread your fingers across my chest
As I feigned sleep in feared deception
And once when giddy with wine
You took my mouth in yours and drank deep
Until my father came and took you back.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Whether it was so or not I cannot now recall
I only know that you were once mine
And that my love if tainted was born pure.

You talk of destiny and final stages:
No affair of life or play was ever cast
Where ends and means were crystal clear
And motives purged of lies and subtleties
Or errant subterfuge and wishful thinking.
Put aside this Little O that still deceives
And take such comfort as half-truth conceives.

Be off with you, I cannot mend your life
Stand back from resolution and revenge
Learn to live with broken dreams
And unfulfillment as we women must
Our flesh will live when anger turns to dust.

HAMLET
Good night my lady - never lost for words
And never once is honour mentioned.
Sweet dreams become you when the bed goes quiet