26/09/2003 - 6:14 p.m.

The play's the way

As the single most visited page on my diary seems to be my parody of Hamlet's "To be, or not to be" soliloquy, I'm going to make the Google sensors perk up again by including my "Playscript Analysis Class Paraphrase of the Last Section of the Rouge and Peasant Slave Soliloquy from Shakespeare's Hamlet". There, that'll get 'em coming. For all the wrong reasons, but that's the point, eh?

I suppose as long as I promised it, I will now put it up here. For the record, folks, not only is this paraphrased, but it will scancion the same way I chose to scancion the original speech.

Here's what Mr. Shakespeare wrote:

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 proclaim'd their malefactions;
For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ. I'll have these players
Play something like the murder of my father
Before mine uncle: I'll observe his looks;
I'll tent him to the quick: if he but blench,
I know my course. The spirit that I have seen
May be the devil: and the devil hath power
To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps
Out of my weakness and my melancholy,
As he is very potent with such spirits,
Abuses me to damn me: I'll have grounds
More relative than this: the play 's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.

This is my paraphrase.

I have heard
Sometimes a guilty man will watch a play
In which he sees his crime re-enacted.
He will be wracked with guilt by what he sees
And, in result, he will confess his crime.
A murder, even though kept secret, can
Still be uncovered easily. I�ll have the actors
Act something like my father�s murder for this
My uncle�s viewing pleasure. I will watch
Each and every move he makes: when he goes pale,
Then I will know. Though perhaps my father�s
Ghost might be the devil: and the devil can take a
Friendly seeming shape. And maybe he does this
Out of my weakness and my depression,
As these are familiar feelings to him and
He uses them against me. I�ll have proof
More relative than this: the play�s the way
To prove he killed my dad and save the day.