CLAUDIUS: Thou still hast been the father of good news. POL…
CLAUDIUS: Thou still hast been the father of good news. POLONIUS: Have I, my lord? Assure you, my good liege, I hold my duty as I hold my soul, Both to my God and to my gracious King; And I do think or else this brain of mine Hunts not the trail of policy for sure As it hath used to do, that I have found The very cause of Hamlet’s lunacy… (Exeunt – leaving ROS and GUIL) ROS: I want to go home. GUIL: Don’t let them confuse you. ROS: I’m out of my step here – GUIL: We’ll soon be home and high – dry and home – I’ll – ROS: It’s all over my depth – GUIL: I’ll hie you home and – ROS: – out of my head – GUIL: – dry you high and – ROS (cracking, high): – over my step over my head body! – I tell you it’s all stopping to a death, it’s boding to a depth, stepping to a head, it’s all heading to a dead stop – GUIL (the nursemaid): There!… and we’ll soon be home and dry… and high and dry… (Rapidly.) Has it ever happened to you that all of a sudden and for no reason at all you haven’t the faintest idea how to spell the word – “wife” – or “house” – because when you write it down you just can’t remember ever having seen those letters in that order before…? ROS: I remember… GUIL: Yes? ROS: I remember there were no questions. GUIL: There were always questions. To exchange one set for another is no great matter. ROS: Answers, yes. There were answers to everything. GUIL: You’ve forgotten. ROS (flaring): I haven’t forgotten – how I used to remember my own name – and yours, oh ): I haven’t forgotten – how I used to remember my own name – and yours, oh yes! There were answers everywhere you looked. There was no question about it – people knew who I was and if they didn’t they asked and I told them. GUIL: You did, the trouble is each of them is… plausible, without being instinctive. All your life you live so close to truth, it becomes a permanent blur in the corner of your eye, and when something nudges it into outline it is like being ambushed by a grotesque. A man standing in his saddle in the half-lit half-alive dawn banged on the shutters and called two names. He was just a hat and the cloak levitating in the grey plume of his own breath, but when he called we came. That much is certain – we came. ROS: Well I can tell you I’m sick to death of it. I don’t care one way or another, so why don’t you make up your mind. GUIL: We can’t afford anything quite so arbitrary. Nor did we come all this way for a christening. All that – preceded us. But we are comparatively fortunate; we might have been left to sift the whole field of human nomenclature, like two blind men looting a bazaar for their own portraits… At least we are presented with alternatives.
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