weeks.
I really think we may as well stay in.
Horatio.
[Doggedly.] I’m sorry, but I can’t agree with you.
I shall sit here.
[Sits down resolutely with his back to the castle.
Fortinbras.
[Turning up his coat collar resignedly.] It’s perfect rot, you know,
To let yourself be frightened by a Ghost!
Horatio.
[Angrily.] A Ghost! You’re always so inaccurate!
Nobody minds a spectre at the feast
Less than Horatio, but a dozen spectres,
All sitting round your hospitable board
And clamouring for dinner, are a sight
No one can bear with equanimity.
Of course, I know it’s different for you.
You don’t believe in ghosts!... Ugh, what was that?
Fortinbras.
Nothing.
Horatio.
I’m sure I saw a figure moving there.
Fortinbras.
Absurd! It’s far too dark to see at all.
[Argumentatively.] After all, what are ghosts?
In the most high and palmy state of Rome
A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,
People saw
hoards of them! Just ring for lights,
And let us make ourselves as comfortable
As this inclement atmosphere permits.
Horatio.
[Despondently.] I’d ring with pleasure, if I thought the bell
Had any prospect of being answered.
But as there’s not a servant in the house——
Fortinbras.
[Annoyed.] No servants?
Horatio.
[Bitterly.]As my genial friend, Macbeth,
Would probably have put it, “Not a maid
Is left this vault to brag of.” In other words,
They left en masse this morning.
Fortinbras.
Dash it all!
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark
When you, its reigning monarch, cannot keep
Your servants for a week.
Horatio.
[Sadly.]Ah, Fortinbras,
If you inhabited a haunted castle
You’d find your servants would give warning too.
It’s not as if we only had one ghost.
They simply swarm! [Ticking them off on his fingers.]
There’s Hamlet’s father.
He walks the battlements from ten to five.
You’ll see him here in half an hour or so.
Claudius, the late King, haunts the State apartments,
The Queen the keep, Ophelia the moat,
And Rosencrantz and Guildenstern the hall.
Polonius you will usually find
Behind the arras murmuring platitudes,
And Hamlet stalking in the corridors.
Alas, poor ghost! his fatal indecision
Pursues him still. He can’t make up his mind
Which rooms to take—you’re never safe from him!
Fortinbras.
But why object to meeting Hamlet’s Ghost?
I’ve heard he was a most accomplished Prince,
A trifle fat and scant of breath, perhaps;
But then a disembodied Hamlet
Would doubtless show a gratifying change
In that respect.
Horatio.
[Irritably.]I tell you, Fortinbras,
It’s not at all a theme for joking.
I shall move in, and all the ghosts in limbo
May settle here as far as I’m concerned.
Fortinbras.
When will that be?
Horatio.
The architect declares
He’ll have the roof on by the end of March.
Fortinbras.
[Rising briskly.] It is a nipping and an eager air.
Suppose we stroll and see it?
Horatio.
[Rising also.]With all my heart.
Indeed, I think we’d better go at once.
[Looks at watch.
The Ghost of Hamlet’s father’s almost due.
His morbid love of punctuality
Makes him arrive upon the stroke of ten,
And as the castle clock is always fast
He’s rather apt to be before his time.
[The clock begins to strike as they exeunt hastily. On the last stroke, Ghost enters.
Ghost.
I am Hamlet’s father’s spirit,
Doomed for a certain term to walk the night,
And for the day....
[Stops, seeing no one there.
What! Nobody about?
Why, this is positively disrespectful.
I’ll wait until Horatio returns
And, when I’ve got him quietly alone,
I will a tale unfold will make him jump!
[Sits down resolutely to wait for Horatio.
Scene II.—Before the New Wing of the Castle. The two Clowns, formerly grave-diggers but now employed with equal appropriateness as builders, are working on the structure in the extremely leisurely fashion to be expected of artizans who are not members of a Trades Union.
1st Clown.
[In his best Elizabethan
