HAMLET
Your prayers are better than that! Take your hands off my
throat. I'm not rash, yet I have in me something dangerous
you'd be wise to fear.
CLAUDIUS
Pull them apart.
(Attendants attempt to separate the
two.)
GERTRUDE
Hamlet! Hamlet!
ALL
Gentlemen!
HORATIO
My lord, stand away!
HAMLET
I'll fight him over this until my eyelids blink no more.
GERTRUDE
Over what?!
HAMLET
I loved Ophelia. The love of forty thousand brothers could
not sum the total of mine for her. (To Laertes.) What will
you do for her?
CLAUDIUS
Oh he is mad, Laertes!
GERTRUDE
For the love of god, leave him!
HAMLET
(to Laertes)
Show me what you'll do! Weep, fight, fast, and wound
yourself?! Drink vinegar and eat a crocodile?! I'll do it!
If you're going to attempt a greater show of love for her,
and go on about mountains, then throw millions of acres upon
us all, making every other mountain a wart and we're stuffed
down to the molten core!
GERTRUDE
This is madness! Roaring one moment and meek as a dove the
next!
HAMLET
(to Laertes)
Why do you treat me like this? I've always loved you.
What's it matter? Let Hercules himself do what he may, the
cat will meow, and the dog will have its day.
(Hamlet exits.)
CLAUDIUS
Horatio, go look after him.
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I'm a writer/artist/activist from California, with a degree in Creative Studies from the University of California at Santa Barbara. I've been an advocating for the convention clause of Article V since 2001.
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