Member-only story
Channeling Hamlet
Something is rotten…
Our political reform forebear, Prince Hamlet of Denmark, has returned from university, arriving at a foggy castle, inhabited by ghosts. Suspicious that something is ‘rotten in the state of Denmark,’ Hamlet must choose between reason and those apparitions. He walks a tightrope. Polonius, a lord and interloper/water carrier, having the ear of Claudius, tyrant in residence, engages Hamlet to find out how much he knows.
Things go badly.
LORD POLONIUS
Away, I do beseech you, both away:
I’ll board him presently.
Exeunt KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, and Attendants
Enter HAMLET, reading
O, give me leave:
How does my good Lord Hamlet?
HAMLET
Well, God-a-mercy.
LORD POLONIUS
Do you know me, my lord?
HAMLET
Excellent well; you are a fishmonger.
LORD POLONIUS
Not I, my lord.
HAMLET
Then I would you were so honest a man.
LORD POLONIUS
Honest, my lord!
