Shakespeare: The Animated Tales (1992) s01e05 Episode Script
Hamlet
'Something mas rotten in the state of Denmark.
'The King was dead, 'poisoned by a serpent in his orchard, so it was said.
' 'And the poison lingered on.
'His brother was the new King 'and the widowed Queen, eager to be married again, 'was now that brother's wife.
But the dead King had left a son, Prince Hamlet, 'whose heart was eaten up with grief for his dead father.
' Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted lour off Do not forever seek for thy noble father in the dust Thou knows! 'tis mmon; all that lives must die.
Ay, madam, it is common.
If it be, why seems it so particular with thee? Seems, madam? Nay, it is.
'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 We pray you, throw to earth this unprevailing woe.
'Frailly, thy name is woman!' 'A little month; or ere those shoes were old 'With which she followed my poor father's body 'O, God! 'A beast that wants discourse of reason would have moum'd longer.
'Married with my uncle!' Horatio! Or I do forget myself - But what is your affair in Elsinore? - I me to see your father's funeral.
- I think it was to see my mother's wedding.
- Indeed, my lord, it followd hard upon.
The funeral baked meats did Idly furnish forth the marriage tables.
My father, melhinks I see my father.
- Where, my lord? - In my mind's eye, Horatio.
- My lord, I think I saw him yeslemight.
- Saw who? - My lord, the King, your father.
- The King, my father? Two nights together on their watch had these gentlemen been thus enunter'd A figure, like your father, armed at point ctly, p-a-pe.
I will watch tonight; perchance 'twill walk again My father's spirit in arms! All is not well.
'Ophelia, daughter of Polonius, the King's ulious old unsellor, 'loved Hamlet and believed that he loved her.
' 'But Laertes, her brother, who was bound for Fran 'wamed her of the dangers of a prince's love.
' - No more but so? - But you must fear His greatness weigh'd, his will is not his own.
Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain If with too credent ear you list his songs.
Fear it, Ophelia.
But here my father mes.
Yet here, Laertesl Aboard, aboard, for shame! The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail and you are slafd for.
There! My blessing with thee.
Farewell, Ophelia, and remember well what I have said to you.
'Tis in my memory lock'd.
What is't, Ophelia, he has said to you? So please you, something touching the Lord Hamlet.
What is between you? Give me up the truth.
He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders of his affection to me.
Affection! Pooh! You speak like a green girl.
My lord, he hath importuned me with love in honourable fashion.
Go to, go to.
Springes to catch woodcocks.
I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth Have you so slander any moment's leisure As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet.
Look to't, I charge you.
I shall obey you.
- What hour now? - I think it lacks of twelve.
Look! My lord, it mes! Angels and ministers of grace defend us! I am thy father's spirit Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night.
- I will follow it.
- Do not, my lord.
I say, away.
Go on! I'll follow thee.
List, list, O, list! If thou didst ever thy dear father love Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.
Murder! Murder most foul, as in the best it is 'Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard, a serpent stung me But know, thou noble youth The serpent that did sting thy father's life Now wears his crown.
O my prophetic soul! - My uncle! - Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts Won to his shameful lust the will of my most seeming-virtuous queen.
O, most pernicious woman! O, villain, villain, smiling, damned villainl Fare thee well Adieu Adieu Remember me.
'Hamlet resolved to hide his terrible knowledge 'under a cloak of madness.
' O, my lord, my lord, I have been so affrighted.
With what, in the name of God? My lord, as I mas sawing in myclosert Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbrac'd And with a look so piteous in purport As if he had been loosed out of hell to speak of honors - He mes before me.
- Mad for thy love? My lord, I do not know; but truly I do fear it.
This is the very ecstasy of love.
Have you given him any hard words of late? - As you did command.
- That hath made him mad.
Hmm.
- Do you think 'tis this? - It may be, very lilue.
How may we try it further? You know, he sometimes walks four hours together here in the lobby At such a time, I'll loose my daughter to him Be you and I behind an arras then; mark the encounter.
We will try it.
But look where sadly the poor wrertch comes.
'Bloody, bawdy villain.
'Remorseless, treacherous 'Lecherous, kindless villain.
O, vengeance! 'That I, the son of a dear father murdered 'Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell 'A dull and muddy-mottled rascal, peak and n say nothing.
'The spirit that I have seen may be the devil 'And the devil have power to assume a pleasing shape 'And perhaps abuses me to damn me.
'To be or not to be: that is the question 'Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune 'Or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing, end them? 'To die, to sleep No "In 'About, my brains.
'I have heard that guilty creatures, sitting at a play 'Have by the very cunning of the scene been struck so to the soul that presently 'They have proclaimed their malefeclions.
'I will have these players play something like the murder of my father 'Before mine uncle; I'll observe his looks 'The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king 'Nymph, in thy orisons be all my sins remembered.
' Good my lord, how does your honour for this many a day? I humbly thank you; well.
My lord, I have remembran of yours that I have longed long to redeliver.
- I did love you on.
- Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.
You should not have believed me I loved you not.
- Where's your father? - At home, my lord.
Let the doors be shut upon him that he may play the fool nowhere but in his own house Gel thee to a nunneryl Why wouldsl thou be a breeder of sinners? To a nunnery go and quickly, too Farewell.
Love, his affections do not that way tend There's something in his soul.
Madness in great ones must not unwalch'd go.
- Sh! - Have you heard the argument? - Is there no of fence in it? - No, they do but jest - Poison in jest.
- Hmm.
'Player King, player Queen, poison in jest ' 'Real Queen, real King 'The very image of the murder in the orchard.
' Give me some light! - Away! - What? Frighted with false fire? My lord, the queen would speak with you.
I will me to my mother by and by.
He will me straight.
Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear - I'll silence me in here - Fear me not.
How now, Mother? Withdraw, I hear him ming.
Now, Mother, what's the matter? Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.
Mother, you have my father much offended.
What will thou do? Thou will not murder me? - Help, ho! - What ho! What ho! How now? A rat? Dead for a ducal, dead.
Is it the King? Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool farewell.
O, what a rash and bloody deed is this.
Almost as bad as kill a king and many with his brother.
- As kill a king? - Ay, lady.
Do you not me your tardy son to chide? Do not forget.
This visitation Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.
- Whereon do you look? - Look you how pale he glares - Do you see nothing there? - Nothing at all.
Why, look you there, look, how it steals away My father, in his habit as he liv'd.
This is the very coinage of your brain.
My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time And makes as healthful music It is not madness.
For this same lord I do repent but heaven hath pleas'd it so I must be cruel only to be kind Thus bad begins and worse remains behind.
'The old man's death was monstrous.
'Straightway, Hamlet was dispatched to England.
'Secret letters, rried by spies, condemned him to death The bloody deed had struck terror into the King's heart 'and driven Ophelia to madness.
' J' He is dead and gone, lady J' He is dead and gone J' At his head a grass green turf J' At his heels a stone J' What would she have? She speaks much of her father; she is importunate; indeed, distract.
J' White his shroud as the mountain snow J' Larded with sweet ï¬owers J' Which bewepl to the grave did not go J' With tme-love showers J' Follow her close.
Give her good watch.
'Laertes has relumed from Fran.
'Enraged by news of his father's death, he has stirred up rebellion.
' When sorrows me, they me not single spies but in battalions.
O, thou vile king - Give me my father! - Calmly, good Laertes.
Let him go, Gertrude.
Tell me, Laertes why thou art thus incens'd.
Where is my father? - Dead.
- But not by him.
J' They bore him barefac'd on the bier J' And in his grave rain'd many a tear J' O,roseofMï¬y Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia O, heavens, is't possible a young maid's wits Should be as mortal as an old man's life? There's rosemary, that's for remembrance I would give you some violets But they wither'd all when my father died.
The King has received a letter.
'Hamlet has relumed.
' It warms the very sickness in my heart That I shall live and tell him to his teeth, 'Thus diesl thou.
' Will you be nll'd by me? One woe doth tread upon anolher's heel So fast they follow Your sister's drown'd, Laerles Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia And therefore I forbid my tears Only, I'll be revengedl 'On his way to see the King, 'Hamlet tells Horatio how the ship taking him to his death 'had been attached by pirates 'and so he'd seized his chance to pa the King's spies 'and relum to Denmark.
' What man dost thou dig it for? - For no man, sir.
- For what woman, then? For none neither.
Who is to be buried in it? One that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she's dead Here's a skull now that's lain here in the earth three-and-twenty years.
- Whose was it? - A whoreson, mad fellows it was This same skull, sir, was Yorick's skull The King's jester.
Alas, poor Yorick I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of inï¬niie jest.
But soft! Here comes the King, the Queen, the courtiers.
Sweats to the sweet.
Farewell.
What? The fair Ophelia? Hold off the earth awhile until I have ught her on more in mine arms.
And what is he whose grief bears such an emphasis? - The devil talus thy soul! - Pluck them asunder! Good my lord, be quiet! I loved Ophelia! Forty thousand brothers could not with all their quantity of love - Make up my sum.
- Hamlet! Hamlet! - I will fight with him upon this theme.
- O, he's mad, Laertes.
'Laertes must be avenged.
' 'Hamlet must die.
' 'To this end, the fearful King devised a fencing match between the Prince and Laertes But the contest will be unequal, 'for all the rapiers are foiled, pl one.
' I will do't and for that purpose I'll anoint my sword I bought an unction of a mountebank so mortal that but dip a knife in it And that he lls for drink, I'll have prepared him a chalice for the nonce Vvhereupon but sipping If he by chance pa your venom'd stuck Our purpose may hold there.
Ifyour mind dislike anything, obey it I will forestall their repair hither and say you are not fit.
We defy augury.
There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow The readiness is all Lethe.
This is too heavy.
Let me see another.
This likes me well.
Come, begin Come on, sir.
Ah! A hit, a very palpable hit Hamlet, this pearl is thine.
I'll play this bout first.
Set it by awhile.
Come! - Another hit, what say you? - I do confess it.
The Queen muses to thy fortune, Hamlet.
Gertrude, do not drink.
I will, my mm.
'it is the poisoned cup: it is too late.
' Come, let me wipe thy fa.
- How does the Queen? - She swoons to see them bleed.
The drink! The drink! I am poisoned! Hamlet, Hamlet! Thou art slain The treacherous instrument is in thine hand Unbaled and envenom'd.
The King! The King's to blame.
Venom, do thy work! I am dead, Horatio Wrelched Queen, adieu This fell sergeant, death is strict in his arrest If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart Absent thee from felicity awhile And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain To tell my story The rest is silence.
'The King was dead, 'poisoned by a serpent in his orchard, so it was said.
' 'And the poison lingered on.
'His brother was the new King 'and the widowed Queen, eager to be married again, 'was now that brother's wife.
But the dead King had left a son, Prince Hamlet, 'whose heart was eaten up with grief for his dead father.
' Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted lour off Do not forever seek for thy noble father in the dust Thou knows! 'tis mmon; all that lives must die.
Ay, madam, it is common.
If it be, why seems it so particular with thee? Seems, madam? Nay, it is.
'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 We pray you, throw to earth this unprevailing woe.
'Frailly, thy name is woman!' 'A little month; or ere those shoes were old 'With which she followed my poor father's body 'O, God! 'A beast that wants discourse of reason would have moum'd longer.
'Married with my uncle!' Horatio! Or I do forget myself - But what is your affair in Elsinore? - I me to see your father's funeral.
- I think it was to see my mother's wedding.
- Indeed, my lord, it followd hard upon.
The funeral baked meats did Idly furnish forth the marriage tables.
My father, melhinks I see my father.
- Where, my lord? - In my mind's eye, Horatio.
- My lord, I think I saw him yeslemight.
- Saw who? - My lord, the King, your father.
- The King, my father? Two nights together on their watch had these gentlemen been thus enunter'd A figure, like your father, armed at point ctly, p-a-pe.
I will watch tonight; perchance 'twill walk again My father's spirit in arms! All is not well.
'Ophelia, daughter of Polonius, the King's ulious old unsellor, 'loved Hamlet and believed that he loved her.
' 'But Laertes, her brother, who was bound for Fran 'wamed her of the dangers of a prince's love.
' - No more but so? - But you must fear His greatness weigh'd, his will is not his own.
Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain If with too credent ear you list his songs.
Fear it, Ophelia.
But here my father mes.
Yet here, Laertesl Aboard, aboard, for shame! The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail and you are slafd for.
There! My blessing with thee.
Farewell, Ophelia, and remember well what I have said to you.
'Tis in my memory lock'd.
What is't, Ophelia, he has said to you? So please you, something touching the Lord Hamlet.
What is between you? Give me up the truth.
He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders of his affection to me.
Affection! Pooh! You speak like a green girl.
My lord, he hath importuned me with love in honourable fashion.
Go to, go to.
Springes to catch woodcocks.
I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth Have you so slander any moment's leisure As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet.
Look to't, I charge you.
I shall obey you.
- What hour now? - I think it lacks of twelve.
Look! My lord, it mes! Angels and ministers of grace defend us! I am thy father's spirit Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night.
- I will follow it.
- Do not, my lord.
I say, away.
Go on! I'll follow thee.
List, list, O, list! If thou didst ever thy dear father love Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.
Murder! Murder most foul, as in the best it is 'Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard, a serpent stung me But know, thou noble youth The serpent that did sting thy father's life Now wears his crown.
O my prophetic soul! - My uncle! - Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts Won to his shameful lust the will of my most seeming-virtuous queen.
O, most pernicious woman! O, villain, villain, smiling, damned villainl Fare thee well Adieu Adieu Remember me.
'Hamlet resolved to hide his terrible knowledge 'under a cloak of madness.
' O, my lord, my lord, I have been so affrighted.
With what, in the name of God? My lord, as I mas sawing in myclosert Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbrac'd And with a look so piteous in purport As if he had been loosed out of hell to speak of honors - He mes before me.
- Mad for thy love? My lord, I do not know; but truly I do fear it.
This is the very ecstasy of love.
Have you given him any hard words of late? - As you did command.
- That hath made him mad.
Hmm.
- Do you think 'tis this? - It may be, very lilue.
How may we try it further? You know, he sometimes walks four hours together here in the lobby At such a time, I'll loose my daughter to him Be you and I behind an arras then; mark the encounter.
We will try it.
But look where sadly the poor wrertch comes.
'Bloody, bawdy villain.
'Remorseless, treacherous 'Lecherous, kindless villain.
O, vengeance! 'That I, the son of a dear father murdered 'Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell 'A dull and muddy-mottled rascal, peak and n say nothing.
'The spirit that I have seen may be the devil 'And the devil have power to assume a pleasing shape 'And perhaps abuses me to damn me.
'To be or not to be: that is the question 'Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune 'Or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing, end them? 'To die, to sleep No "In 'About, my brains.
'I have heard that guilty creatures, sitting at a play 'Have by the very cunning of the scene been struck so to the soul that presently 'They have proclaimed their malefeclions.
'I will have these players play something like the murder of my father 'Before mine uncle; I'll observe his looks 'The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king 'Nymph, in thy orisons be all my sins remembered.
' Good my lord, how does your honour for this many a day? I humbly thank you; well.
My lord, I have remembran of yours that I have longed long to redeliver.
- I did love you on.
- Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.
You should not have believed me I loved you not.
- Where's your father? - At home, my lord.
Let the doors be shut upon him that he may play the fool nowhere but in his own house Gel thee to a nunneryl Why wouldsl thou be a breeder of sinners? To a nunnery go and quickly, too Farewell.
Love, his affections do not that way tend There's something in his soul.
Madness in great ones must not unwalch'd go.
- Sh! - Have you heard the argument? - Is there no of fence in it? - No, they do but jest - Poison in jest.
- Hmm.
'Player King, player Queen, poison in jest ' 'Real Queen, real King 'The very image of the murder in the orchard.
' Give me some light! - Away! - What? Frighted with false fire? My lord, the queen would speak with you.
I will me to my mother by and by.
He will me straight.
Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear - I'll silence me in here - Fear me not.
How now, Mother? Withdraw, I hear him ming.
Now, Mother, what's the matter? Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.
Mother, you have my father much offended.
What will thou do? Thou will not murder me? - Help, ho! - What ho! What ho! How now? A rat? Dead for a ducal, dead.
Is it the King? Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool farewell.
O, what a rash and bloody deed is this.
Almost as bad as kill a king and many with his brother.
- As kill a king? - Ay, lady.
Do you not me your tardy son to chide? Do not forget.
This visitation Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.
- Whereon do you look? - Look you how pale he glares - Do you see nothing there? - Nothing at all.
Why, look you there, look, how it steals away My father, in his habit as he liv'd.
This is the very coinage of your brain.
My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time And makes as healthful music It is not madness.
For this same lord I do repent but heaven hath pleas'd it so I must be cruel only to be kind Thus bad begins and worse remains behind.
'The old man's death was monstrous.
'Straightway, Hamlet was dispatched to England.
'Secret letters, rried by spies, condemned him to death The bloody deed had struck terror into the King's heart 'and driven Ophelia to madness.
' J' He is dead and gone, lady J' He is dead and gone J' At his head a grass green turf J' At his heels a stone J' What would she have? She speaks much of her father; she is importunate; indeed, distract.
J' White his shroud as the mountain snow J' Larded with sweet ï¬owers J' Which bewepl to the grave did not go J' With tme-love showers J' Follow her close.
Give her good watch.
'Laertes has relumed from Fran.
'Enraged by news of his father's death, he has stirred up rebellion.
' When sorrows me, they me not single spies but in battalions.
O, thou vile king - Give me my father! - Calmly, good Laertes.
Let him go, Gertrude.
Tell me, Laertes why thou art thus incens'd.
Where is my father? - Dead.
- But not by him.
J' They bore him barefac'd on the bier J' And in his grave rain'd many a tear J' O,roseofMï¬y Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia O, heavens, is't possible a young maid's wits Should be as mortal as an old man's life? There's rosemary, that's for remembrance I would give you some violets But they wither'd all when my father died.
The King has received a letter.
'Hamlet has relumed.
' It warms the very sickness in my heart That I shall live and tell him to his teeth, 'Thus diesl thou.
' Will you be nll'd by me? One woe doth tread upon anolher's heel So fast they follow Your sister's drown'd, Laerles Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia And therefore I forbid my tears Only, I'll be revengedl 'On his way to see the King, 'Hamlet tells Horatio how the ship taking him to his death 'had been attached by pirates 'and so he'd seized his chance to pa the King's spies 'and relum to Denmark.
' What man dost thou dig it for? - For no man, sir.
- For what woman, then? For none neither.
Who is to be buried in it? One that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she's dead Here's a skull now that's lain here in the earth three-and-twenty years.
- Whose was it? - A whoreson, mad fellows it was This same skull, sir, was Yorick's skull The King's jester.
Alas, poor Yorick I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of inï¬niie jest.
But soft! Here comes the King, the Queen, the courtiers.
Sweats to the sweet.
Farewell.
What? The fair Ophelia? Hold off the earth awhile until I have ught her on more in mine arms.
And what is he whose grief bears such an emphasis? - The devil talus thy soul! - Pluck them asunder! Good my lord, be quiet! I loved Ophelia! Forty thousand brothers could not with all their quantity of love - Make up my sum.
- Hamlet! Hamlet! - I will fight with him upon this theme.
- O, he's mad, Laertes.
'Laertes must be avenged.
' 'Hamlet must die.
' 'To this end, the fearful King devised a fencing match between the Prince and Laertes But the contest will be unequal, 'for all the rapiers are foiled, pl one.
' I will do't and for that purpose I'll anoint my sword I bought an unction of a mountebank so mortal that but dip a knife in it And that he lls for drink, I'll have prepared him a chalice for the nonce Vvhereupon but sipping If he by chance pa your venom'd stuck Our purpose may hold there.
Ifyour mind dislike anything, obey it I will forestall their repair hither and say you are not fit.
We defy augury.
There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow The readiness is all Lethe.
This is too heavy.
Let me see another.
This likes me well.
Come, begin Come on, sir.
Ah! A hit, a very palpable hit Hamlet, this pearl is thine.
I'll play this bout first.
Set it by awhile.
Come! - Another hit, what say you? - I do confess it.
The Queen muses to thy fortune, Hamlet.
Gertrude, do not drink.
I will, my mm.
'it is the poisoned cup: it is too late.
' Come, let me wipe thy fa.
- How does the Queen? - She swoons to see them bleed.
The drink! The drink! I am poisoned! Hamlet, Hamlet! Thou art slain The treacherous instrument is in thine hand Unbaled and envenom'd.
The King! The King's to blame.
Venom, do thy work! I am dead, Horatio Wrelched Queen, adieu This fell sergeant, death is strict in his arrest If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart Absent thee from felicity awhile And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain To tell my story The rest is silence.