OMELET

A Tragedy of Bill Shake-a-speare

David M. Brown, editorius

OMELET
A Tragedy of Bill Shake-a-speare
David M. Brown, editorius

Published by Browdix Press

Amazon Kindle Edition
Copyright 1994, 2011 by David M. Brown
All rights reserved.

OMELET: A Tragedy of Bill Shake-a-speare

David M. Brown, editorius
Dramaeticalis Personae
Clintonius, King of Denmark
Omelet, son to the late King, and nephew and step-son to the
present King
Poltroonius, Lord Chamberlame
Liartes, son to Poltroonius
Voltaicmon \
Cornoodlius |
Rosencrutch |
Goldenstuff |-courtiers
Assric
|
A Gent
/
A Priest
A Punk
A Prude
A Rube
A Fugue
Marcelcius \____officers
Bernardino /
Frankio, a soldier
Raynaldodo, servant to Poltroonius
Players
Two Clowns, gravediggers
Fortinbrass, Prince of Norway
A Norwegian Capitain
English Ambassadors
Gertie, Queen of Denmark, mother to Omelet
Awfeelia, daughter to Poltroonius, and babe to Omelet
Ghost of Omelet's father
Lords, Ladies, Officers, Soldiers, Sailors, Messengers, Attendants, Oafs,
Fools, Knaves, Etc.

ACT I
[Scene I]
Guards guarding; a castle platform o'erlooking a dark plain.
Homoleo: A spirit, say ye? Prithee where? I don't believe a word on 't!
Marcelcius: Believe it! Believe it!
Bernardino: Ya better'n believe it! We seen it these past two nights. The very
likeness o' the late Dane King.
Homoleo: When I see it, then will I most sustermagent believe it; making the
green one red.
Enter spiritus stage right.
Bernardino: Feast your eyes on that muddering flicker.
Homoleo: Tha'ts the ghost!? A pale soul. The late King of Denmark eh? In his
soldier's costume to boot. Give me breath to breathe.
Marcelcius: Aye, wait, he'll looka to be speakin'. 'Is lips is jitterin.
Bernardino: 'E's jitterin and jatterin, but he ain't gonna mutter a mumble, nor
not no nothing neither. Now look at 'im, the hobgoblin's like to walk off
stage. There 'e flitters off yon now, off over there. Same every night. Shit.
Shit anddoubleshit.
Exeit spiritus stage left.
Homoleo: A plague on both you souses. The spirit of the late King a
Denmark, say thee?! Looks fisherous to me.
Marcelcius: 'Ere now...okay...e's icumin back in now, inquire fer yerself. You
kin talk to him right wise and so. Gab at him!
Returnit spiritus stage far right.
Homoleo: Hey, Spirit wot! Indecisive, are ye? A bit changeable and vague?
Are ye dead or no? Jacka-ghoul! Here to fixicate the budgetus deficit, are

ye, wibbly wobbler? Well our new King Clintonius, he's doing jes fine-o,
jes fine-o at it! Pah! I charge thee, by heaven: speak thee up or get thee
lost!
Exeit spiritus stage [far left].
Marcelcius: It is offended.
Bernardino: 'E looks to be gone now. Zounds.
Homoleo: 'Sblood! There's no spirit there. Humbuggery! More like fair and
warlike indigestion. 'Tis some sour bit of porridge or potato, underdone,
or mayhap gnarled parsnip, just a crumb. There's more of gravy than of
grave about it, I'll warrant. An' grave's the gravaman that grave from
gravy gains, on fate's grayed-o'er grape-stained frisbee plate, howso
'gainst the gritty graven grain it grate.
Bernardino: Come again?
Marcelcius: Well, 'tis dubious in my book how the trio of us got the same
stoomick trouble 'ere.
Bernardino: Hah! An' when have ye e'er plucked up a book, Marcie? Don't
be starting with one now, ya jape-a-hape. It's other things you're wont to
pluck, most maidensome and moist, if my memory be mine.
Marcelcius: Shimmy! I read, ayah hah! I do read. Sith kings I'm loyal to,
Stephanus King's the author I pass my time by. 'Arv yar seen 'is latest?
Called The Jolly Dark 'Alf, as it's styled. A ripe foomy one, that. You'd do
well to look into it. You is a veritabull Jeckyl an' 'Ide yerself.
Bernardino: It's you sir what should go hide, criminy, with that beglongous
proboscis of yours. Like unto an elephant's trunkor should I say the arse
a Pinocchio, iffen ya snark my meaning.
Marcelcius: Forfend, ya hippa-criminny. We got a ghost on our 'ands 'ere, an
we be like to figger what should be doon aboot it.
Homoleo: Ghost, shmost. The most ghost here is the ghost up yer friggin'
snoodles. Mind your posts.
Returnit spiritus stage moderate left of center.

Marcelcius: Well, 'ere 'e come agin, Homo. Now make like a host, speak nice
to him sure an' mayhap we can extork some reply from it. Minde it.
Exeit spiritus as you like it.
Bernardino: I loved that plan; swell; so here's a toast. Went right spright.
Swell as a bell of Beelzebub. Easy come, easy goif you ask my orpinion.
Marcelcius: Nobody asked yer bloody hurpin' orpinion, Mistah Gross. But if
you'v gat a better idear, give it up schnell an be doon wi'or go roast.
Bernardino: Frabjous day! Will you ne'er desistus! Spit, spat, and sposs! 'Tis
a ghost we got on our 'ands 'ere, an we be like to figger what should be
doon aboot it.
Marcelcius: Or how to shut you the foog up.
Bernardino: Hold not your breath on that.
Marcelcius: Whate'er, and e'er again. But now needs must we must recap the
prelude to this dark dramatic, or bust. For this is omen ill, of strangical
eruption in this state;why reason else would such moldering sovereign
stir above the dirtied earth to haunt this sceptered peninsula, this realm,
this majesty, this...well, this Denmark? The royal air is bulgent with
expectation; it fumes of foulest fury. 'Tis passing strange. Can you tell us,
bro' Homoleo, why gathered in nightly watch are we, whilst our army's
rounded, stray bums and chumps impressed to serve it, guns loaded and
flags all frayed unfurled to preserve it? Hast any clue you to what agitated
portent brew? We're not i' the loop. Is't war?
Homoleo: Sure can I and will divulge, and tell, what expository backdrop I
have, be it ulge, or ell. It's like this. Our late King gent, which ghoulish
semblance e'en now did we just see, was pricked and pracked by that
quacking hack Fortinbrass of Norway, the King over there, doing that
Norway ruler thing, to a most dissimulate pride, so that in battle fury they
did presagingly engage. Except...'twas Omelet who actually slew the
Norway liege, all quick and easy, if I recall; and who, snagging fast those
lands which to conquerer from conquered go (as by inspired heraldric
compact seal is required, as you know), then divvied them with his sire
dad, as contract said; by which same comart and carriage of provision
young Omelet woulda gotten fifty percent in the division, had his father
conquered and not he (barring indecision). Such was the deal. So written;
so done. But then young Fortinbrass, mad as hell, much irked his pa'd

been pounded, of all living life divest, being thus upsnuck, commenced to
chuck his fury up into plans most bold, jawsing up a crew of screwy
dissolutes from here and there and everywhere as food and oil to the
engine of a frost ambition, an enterprise with some cold combustion in it,
to wit: to grab back those lands his father'd lost by terms compulsitoric
and so himself be big bad boss; or so they tell. Waiting on this is why
we're stuck up here a-guarding, on a Saturday night.
Bernardino: I guess you're right.
Marcelcius: Hmm. I wonder if this armd figure of the dead dead King has
anything to do with it all at all.
Homoleo: Pah. Who knows. Methinks, though, I rememberest some verse on
this...on the living dead, which clogged the streets of Rome prior the
slaying of that most Julius of Caesars by a most bruteous Brutus. Now
what was it...the sheeted dead, sheetless dead, something like, squeaking
and gibbering like mice as the cock crowed thrice. And then, when Caesar
said, "Et tu, Brute?" whilst being stabbed and sliced, Brutus, his dear dear
friend, bloody knife in hand, did say, "No, ain't et yet; not hungry; and
youet you?"or something like, and lunged again.
Enter ghost again.
What have we here.
Waveth its arms, danceth a little jig.
Bernardino: Fee, and fie, and foe, and fen! 'Tis belike to roil the blood of us
Englishmen!
Homoleo [sepulchrally]: Stay, delusion! What's up, Chuck?! Speak now or
forever
rest in peace.
If ye do ken
What foul fate
for this governmeant or country
lieth
in store or
how we may ease the sundrie burthens of your wandrous soul
Then utter words of wit to tell us
how
Or whether

And who
Why
Render fast your mind
Configure not ambiguous and confused, inscrutable; for such foreshadows
ill for critical interpretation.
Ghost departiting.
Marcelcius, stop ittry to stop it.
Marcelcius: What? with bare bodkin tine?
Homoleo: The staff man, the staff!
Marcelcius: Too late. It faded onthe crowing of the cock. Ah! Look at the
sun, it's peeping up. Must fear the light. The ghost will come back later
mayhap, an' ejaculate aright.
Homoleo: Mayhap. Well, we'd best filleth out a report and say what we saw.
So let's go. To Omelet must we reveal this; for what the spirit will not us
tell, it will well him. Else the play can scarce progress.
Marcelcius: 'Tis true, I do confess.
Homoleo: Thus far, 'tis quite a mess.
Marcelcius: Are you coming?
Bernardino: Yes.
Marcelcius: All right; come on then.
Bernardino: Okay.
[Exeunt omnes.]
[Scene II]
Flourish of trumpets, rattles and tambourines. Enterunt Clintonius, King of
Denmark; Gertie, Queen; Poltroonius, advisor, with his son Liartes;
Omelet; Voltaicmon; and Cornoodlius.

Clintonius: Now, we happeneth to think we're doing a good job, as the most
decisive regent thou hast had these last some-odd years. Sure sad were we
to see the last one go, our dear dear oh dear brother, whose loss e'en now
yet cram our heart, and do our kingdom rive apart; yet now is healing
time and all woes must go. 'Tis unity we seek. We did marry his sister
my wife, nowso. Thus in death we laughed, ho ho, in marriage bed did
boo hoo weep, in trade-off lay-off. Wait. Invert that. All's well that ends
well. But now Fortinbrass, that dumb young ass, hast strongfully and fast
gathered up a cast of minions to beseech recovery of his own dad's land,
bethinking us distracted by our late king's fate, out of joint, confused of
late. Well, joints have we aplenty. And what we aim to do is dis incover
what his chump uncle, the Norway regent, may know and whateth not,
and see if he'll check the grasping hand upon our sprawling land, or let it
stand. To which decisive end a committee formed have we, headed up by
thee, Cornoodlius, and thee, Voltaicmon, to negotiate accommodation,
and so here's this note, which I bid thee both convey, most merry. Now
hurry thither, and let him know we [care].
Cornoodlius, Voltaicmon: The like to which in gracious kingly kind, shall we
forsooth impend relay in all
Cornoodlius: good time.
Voltaicmon: we do.
Clintonius: Great. Glad to hear it. Godspeed.
Exite Coornoodlius and Voltaicmon oute.
An' now, young Liartes, whuss up wichyoo? Something on thy lips doth
vergeth forth, a bird of inquiry that would chirp and bray, were 't
unsuppressed. Let soar this equine eagle. Give voice to reason, that
feathered reasoning unfold; let logic lay, we'll both grow mulish old. Have
at thee! What want you do? Speak up, I say. Choo choo.
Liartes: Good m'lord...
Clintonius: Go on.
Liartes: I would return to France, O Most Indubitable Majesty. I came to
attend your coronation; and now, that's done. You're crowned. For that I
left my studies, which I should wish be re-begun.

Clintonius: Hmmm...They speak in strangeous accent there, that parlezvous, that recuser-moi. Oh well! What say on 't thy papa?
Poltroonius: Er...to tell true, I have awarded him most grievous leave to go,
m'lord, as go he's surely going to. A go-go to go, that's gone, a goner for
the goer. So much, lord, he's won, by tedious and importunate bitchings
dire. I beg you then, release him. Sire.
Clintonius: Be gone then. Hie thither hence, hither, thither, wherever,
whatever.
Liartes: Good king, you're more than kind.
Clintonius: And now, to Omelet, my nephew and my son....
Omelet: [Aside; speaking such as none but audience may hear.] A little too
much kin, and not quite kind by half. A sorry ratio. A disproportionate
denominate to numerate, or I'm no pomegranate.
Clintonius: Omelet, son, thou seemeth still sad about your father's death, yet
it's been lo these many couple months: approaching two. What's the
problemmo? The man is dead, and dross. 'Tis still water under brackish
bridge. Eternal sadness is the start of madness. Let it lay, lad.
Omelet: Easier done than said. (For thee.)
Queen Gertie: Why buggest thou it so?! O Omelet, Omelet, Omelet,
wherefore still grievest thou, Omelet? It's no uncommon thing, this dying.
We all kick the bucket at some sprung time, shucking off this mortal coil
to thus denatured go bouncing ga-boing-boing, ga-boingetty-boing-boing
into eternity, a slappy slinky slung. 'Tis common.
Omelet: Aye, most common. Common common common. A common spring,
like unto the wound-up winter of my discontent.
Queen Gertie: Then if such commonality it be, why seemeth it particular
with thee?
Omelet: Seemeth? Seemeth, say thee? But my lady, a seeming is but seeming,
not what's so. A seeming is what appearance outward show, whilst
underneath, something else mays't grow. Say...I seem to be this, but I'm
actually that. I seem to be Chris, but I'm actually Pat. That's seeming for
you. And if all the world's a seeming, some artifice perceptualwhy then

our goose is cooked, an' all knowing ineffectual. Let me seem what I am,
and all that I am, an' there an end. As for the outward force of calm, the
inward whirl, the regal outward state, yet inward churl; that's not me, but
such as others be. Yea, the flood of tears, the dullish gaze, the twitching
leers, the pukish phasecould all be faked and gussied up for show,
zealous mourning on the rocks, as we'd well to know. But my grief is real,
and mine own, no trapping suit of woe. I respect not seem, nor any seam
do sew.
Queen Gertie: All right then, you are particular. Particular indeed!
Clintonius: He's particular particular.
Queen Gertie: If scrambled eggs could talk, an Omelet would they be!
Clintonius: Of ham and cheese. [Aside.] I'll say this for him. 'Tis a dish with a
sprig o' holly on 't. [To Omelet.] We laud thee thy sincere lament, which
sure we be is sure well meant. That's your bent, most heaven-sent.
But...now, relent. For t'allow eaternal vent to so rageous 'plent is to the
gods impious, to this crown anent annoying. It's sweet, the way you
burble for your daddy. No, really. Touching. We loved him too. I was his
brother. Message: I care. I knew him longer than you did. But you must
know your father lost a father, who had lost his, and that one too, and so
before him, and that one also, and his one prior, and so ad infinitum, the
lot entire. Mourning is good: yes. Gnashing of teeth is fine. For a while.
Granted. All right. But that while is up. Stop crying. It's getting cloying. Be
a man. Your dad is dead. So are many other men. It happens. We laugh.
We cry. We live. We die. I don't know why. Accept it. Try. Defy, and you
but offend God, nature (the grass, the trees, the rocks, the bees, the flies),
the regulations of our state, thy own seeming better self. Forsooth, each
very quark and fiber of the universe, its each jiggling protean proton, doth
cry instantient out, "This must be so!" Ah, eh? All weakening, decay,
disintegration, corpuscular inanition, the last ragged pointless wretched
gasp, the rigor mortisverily conspire to deport us. And so an end. Why
then contend it? Buck up, Puck. Get a grip, Chip. You'll reign some day,
and a raining reign reaps but wet hay. Now, as for your request to journey
out of town for school, we beseech thee not, such being most retro-reverse
to our desire. Stay here and observe events unwind, like some
unthreading sinister spool, instead. That'd be better.
Courtier One: Well-spoke, m'lord!
Courtier Two: 'Twas a speech to die for.

Courtier Three: 'E's royal right you know. Death come to us all. Hell, I'll die
some day. An' so will you. So will my niece and nephew too. 'Tis a most
trivial and off-hand matter, belike a dew.
Courtier Four: [Aside.] If I could, though, I'd avoid it.
Queen Gertie: Yes, Omelet, please stay, we pray. In Denmark. In the dark
dank castle here, with all its must, and dust, and fear. We'd like him to
stay, wouldn't we, dear?
Clintonius: That's right. 'Twould be best for all.
Omelet: Mother...okay, I'll obey. Just as thou say.
Queen Gertie: Hurray!
Clintonius: A fair and just replye. To be in Denmark...just like us. It warmeth
the cockles of my heart, this easy agreement and accord, this so
unstrenuated, uncompelled, all-unalloyed assent. The thunderclouds shall
clap their glee, the heavens suppeth wine with me! 'Tis great! 'Tis grand! A
holiday throughout the land! A threnody of joy! A dirge of delight! Strike
up the band! Omelet's staying, our goodly son! So wonderful...ain't it,
hon? Let's go now.
Flourish and taps. Exeunt de tout but Omelet.
Omelet: I'm sick. Tired. I want to kill myself, end it all; but suchlike's against
the moral law. I further woulda shake-a-stick at the fey lit'ry prick who
wrote this shtick. Pooh. This whole estate's in deep doo-doo. It stinks. I
need a drink....
Oy, what a world, what a world! That I might melt and absolve myself into
a stew, or come unglu'd. A phantasm of the mind. A dream. A wisp. A
thespian lisp. A cookie crisp? I know not what nominal phenomenon. The
creatures which infest the earth congest it merely, mortgaged to a
prancing fate, a rusted diadem of gruel. Gawd they make me sick. Sick.
Sick. That it's come t'thisso: but seven weeks gone an' all forgotten, unremembered, in gory-buried glory; end of story. Merde! So excellent a
sovereign, so Republican in policy'n now, a left-wing nutto knave
thorough rotten's got his place, who doth a sovereign's linen memory
disparage to the blowzy wind. I feel sick, all dizzy. I'm in a tizzy. Plus I'm
talking to myself; not good.... So swell a guy: ingrasiate to his subjects,
pleasant to his dog, sweet gentle to his wife. Ah her. The queen! The

ground she on-walked was his worship. Yea:; why, the very breezes he
did enjoin to spare her cheek unscuffed, the which they did alacritous
obeyreslapping him in balmy stead, which he enstood. An' shewhy
she ador'd him! Or so she shew. So she shew. Seashells by the sea shore.
Every time he gave a speech she gazed at him belike to suck a peach, as
tho appetite but grew by what it leeched on. An now...ah, let me not
cogitate on 't.... Sob! To my uncle wed, but ten days after poppa dead! O
nimble leap to that creep's sheets! My father's brother. But no more like
that brother than was Judas like to Jefferson. Or Cain to Abel. Nothing
good can come of this. Only tragick. I feel sick. I must to bathroom.
Enterunt Homolio, Marcelcius, Bernardino.
Homoleo: What ho, hello!
Omelet: Homoleo? Unless I do forget myself...
Homoleo: No, good Prince, Homoleo 'tis. Thy servant. Dost thou essay
prefigurement with that broad self-reference?
Omelet: Phew. What's in a name? They're all the same. You say toMAYtoe, I
say toMOToe...if thou'rt my servant, I'm fain thy servant too....mark it
twain...Marcelcius...Bernardino.
Marcelcius: Hello, sweet Prince.
Bernardino: Ho there, Prince. How be you?
Omelet: Fine. So, Homo, why back to Denmark come thee?
Homoleo: A truant disposition, or imposition, m'lord, nought else.
Omelet: No imposition. Such slander is false. Pray don't present yourself in
alien troth. No, you don't impose. No. Ha ha. The merriment is mine. Lo:
shall we go catch a play, or mayhap dinner? Or...something oth'r? Ock!
What fare is fair...dinner...a show...a show...dinner...or cards...ha, poker!
There's a diversion. What say you to a scribbage of Janus-faced stud?
Homoleo: As you like it; but I fear that I'm no bluffer. My cards go on the
table; 'tis my nature. That's all I know.
Omelet: Oh.

Bernardino: Hell, I fer one wouldn't mind seeing a show.

Marcelcius: There' a right foomy one out now, becalled The Jolly Dark 'Alf,
as it's styled. Based on the worke by Stephanus King. Creepy-scary.
Omelet: Ah yes. Master King. The greatest scrivener of them all, as I've
heard. A wunderkind of words.
Marcelcius: Ah, that 'e is m'lord. That 'e is. I read a volyoom of his
once...'twas astonishing to the mind... pertaining to a grave and spooky
danger, lurking 'bout, most secretive and quiet...then...kaboom!...it did
attack...an' also, methinks, there was another one he did, much
similar...uh....
Omelet: Uh huh. I see.
Bernardino: "Horror," I think they call it, m'lord.
Omelet: 'Tis a horrifying thing, this horror.
Homoleo: Yes, well...enough of that King...I've come upon another, this past
night....
Omelet: You came to see a king?
Homoleo: To see your good father's funeral.
Omelet: There was a horror. Forsooth, you must intend [in meaning] my
mother's wedding, scheming! She married him, you know. My father's
brotherbut less like him than Solomon to Satan. The coffin lowered, they
quick fixed the marriage bed. It doth make me sick, near unto to puke. I
do forfend. My poor father...I think...I do see him.
Homoleo: See...see your father? Where? Where?
Omelet: Forsooth...in my mind's eye that is....
Homoleo: Um...m'lord...what would your assessment be vis--vis a more
substantive type of vision?
Omelet: I don't know quite what you mean.

Homoleo: Well...season your admonition with some beer...for I did enview

your father, his spirit like, about the platform 'bove the plain, in dark of
night. Last night. His soul, his ghost. M'lord, I swear...his very visage...and
his hair...right over there....
Omelet: Grey and downy, with those frizzy curls?
Homoleo: Not else! And dandruff. In battle armor too.
Omelet: Spake it?
Homoleo: No sir, it did not. Mute as a coot.
Omelet: Did you address it?
Homoleo: Verily, but conversation made it none. It was belike to jabber once,
but then the cock crew...cockadoodle doo.
Bernardino: He came and he went, came and went. Three nights like that,
sir. Our jelly legs congealed with fear 'f 't.
Omelet: What was it like?
Marcelcius: Er, ghost-like, pretty much.
Homoleo: The wraith did strut and fret a few scarceling moments 'pon the
stage, creeping in petty pace this way and that, in shuffling waddle,
emissary from a dusty death. That was his manner. And then he split,
afright, when dawn's rosy fingers scattered night.
Marcelcius: I doubt not that he'll be back tomorrow and tomorrow and
tomorrow and then the day after that.
Omelet: But...what canne it mean?
Bernardino: To us poor blokes, 'twas most mysterious, signifying nothing
unless, that is, portent of certain doom.
Omelet: I am an idiot!
Marcelcius: You, m'lord? Nay! A scholar...gentleman. The very Prince of
Denmark, at the tippety-top o' your form.

Omelet: Form indeed. I'd fill out this form. Oh sad sad day, so sad in every
way. I must enview this ghost.
Homoleo: My theory is, he'll give you discourse, e'en if none else. Your role
being pivotal.
Omelet: As 'twere, ghost to ghost? Ohhhhhhh, the ironicality of it!
Ohhhhhhh subtil!
Homoleo: Sir?
Omelet: Never mind. Unless, your post: which you'll assume this night. Your
second I will be, 'til this phantom menace flitter up to thee, which with
most conblinkd eye will I myself pretermine.
Bernardino: Good plan. Sound.
Omelet: So let it be bidden. So come. An' it assume my father's person, I'll
discern it though the maw of perdition nigh enclap my sap. If it be some
tripping trap, however, I'll rap the chap across his yap and pound from
him the crap...then spew my reason out upon his lap.
Bernardino: Better and better.
Omelet: Now hie thee hence. Keep your mouths enshutted about what you
saw, as well as what else may hap this night. Do and I'll requite your loves
true. Good bye. So: fetch you on the guard platform twixteth 'leven and
twelve or so. The ghost, it doth appear generally then?
Marcelcius: Eleven thirty seven on the dot, sir, we hear strange churnings.
Bernardino: Clanking and clattering, eleven forty three.
Marcelcius: By five to twelve the wolves are howling loud.
Bernardino: At twelve precise it comes, a somber shroud.
Omelet: Well...I'll skip the preliminarie to 't. Eleven forty nine I'll join you.
Homoleo: Let us then our sun dials synchronize.
Bernardino: I have two thirty, m'lords.

Marcelcius: Two thirty.

Homoleo: Two thirty.
Omelet: Prithee, two thirty one.
Homoleo: All right, two thirty one.
Marcelcius: Two thirty one.
Bernardino: Two thirty one. Done.
Omelet: Good bye now.
All: [Simultayneous] Yes...well, that's it then...good bye the... later...our duty
to...so see you then...honor... goodly...incarnadine... such sweet
sorrow...adieu, adieu...to yer 'n yer 'n yer...
Exeunt all but Omelet.
Omelet: My father's spirit, up in arms! Not good. Not good. I suspect foul
play. Something sucks in the state of Denmark. I wish everything were
done already, this whole baggage unplotted and unstrung. But I'll wait. I'll
wait. Waiting's my fort. For if I wait, the night will follow day.
Exeite.
[Scene III]
Enterunt Liartes and his sister, Awfeelia.
Liartes: My stuff is packed. Bye bye. And, sis, as wheels on carriage one's
journey doth assist, never neglect to write, or I'll be
Awfeelia: Of course I'll write. Dost doubt?
Liartes: On every slow plot twist.... Now, about this Omelet character. Place
not all your basket in that one egg. I prithee. Treat his flirtigation as but a
breeze of spring, wispy and soon gone, a wiffless mist that burps out with
the storm.
Awfeelia: Just that?

Liartes: Or I'm Jack Sprat. Look ye. Say his nature excels with fine natural
affection; that's today. But his love is but a half-moon nowto be
contemned to grow, it must be watered and attended with a hoe. Yet can
he scrape a furrow, when so much his furrowed brow impress? The man's
a prince, Awfeelia. He's gonna be a king. And he's a mess. He can't control
his fate as others do. It all depends on exigencies of state. If the populace
like you, yes thou mayst be queen; unless politics preclude. In which case
he'll grab some Mary or Cathleen; unless another then intrude. So it goes.
My advice would be, don't even talk to him. He'll just confuse you.
Countenance not his blithe enjoinings. Allow him not to touch your heart,
or, for that matter, any other part. Construe him as some noxious fart, to
keep rear of thy affection, beyond desire or infection. Brook well. Many a
modest maid has got screwed o'er by nature's cankerous call when
salacious strokes began to fall and buttons burst, bodices rip and tongues
entwine, when lapping lingerous, pulsing, throbbing, sweating, steaming
swabbing bucking sultry screaming heaving throes of gusty passion
brewed, a so brief flickering flame soon snuffed, with herpes festering
behind, or desolation, in the steamy summer of virgin wet embrace. Let
him not near.
Awfeelia: A...charming counsel, brother, to which I'll sure hark. But, swell
my brother, we're not unlike each other. Preach not thou, as some pastors
do, the thorny, shard-strewn path to heaven, whilst thyself embarkest on a
chariot race to hell on something not the prim prude path, conjecturing for
a lark a porous sheath to thine own virtue as a man who checks not his
own steed.
Liartes: Would I do that? I sow what I reap, and what I say I do. As devoid
of design as any prince of thine, withal external show belieth inward
glow. Don't worry on 't! (I dally overlong. Here's Dad. A double leave's a
double grace in hand, worth three in the bush.) See thee....
Enter Poltroonius.
Poltroonius: Hey ho ha hee, hi har hu hau bu hau, sonny boy!
Liartes: Ah, hey there Dad.
Poltroonius: Hai hoo hee ha, ha hii hou he he!
Liartes: Well, so long, got to go, my carriage waits. And a sail full of wind to
send me on.

Poltroonius: My blessing to ye. An' small word of advice. It'll take but a trice.
Hey, why aren't you on that boat already? Ha ha har hoo hoo!
Liartes: Okay.
Poltroonius: A few principles to guide thine acts is all. Here's the first. When
in mixed company, don't babble, but be bold; restrained, not cold. When
in company kind the like bewhich befriend, do not incur a devil pitch for
stirrup to thy switch in sooth for brine. Be familiar, not a chum; courteous,
not a crumb; or rather several crumbs but not a cake because that will...not
a cake, no not, and never bundling bake. Never.
Liartes: Father...that's good...I've got to get on that ship...that's great advice...
Poltroonius: Do not confer with ruthless curs for that will seem unsound. Do
not a comely maiden ever pork upon the ground. Do not besmirk a jolly
jerk his fumbling awkward frown. When beaten in a boxing match, avoid
another round. If a king should lose his head, pray up his soulthen snag
his crown. Rarely write a letter unless a courier's around. Nor promulgate
a premise that could evolve into a menace. If your teeth turn bad, your
gums all red, hie thee to a dentist. Neither a borrower nor a saver-andloaner be, unless you've got collateraland a big fat fee. Most of all, to
thine own self be true, and it must followeth as dusk follow dawn that
thou canst not then be false to
Liartes: Look, look, I have really, really, have really got to go! Most humbly
do I take my leave...father...dear Awfeelia.... Remember my counsel.
Awfeelia: I will, dear brother. 'Tis locked in memory, and you yourself shall
guard the combination. Twenty four left, five right, eleven left, nineteen
right. Good bye.
Liartes: And fairly bye thee too. [Aside.] Twenty four, five, eleven, nineteen.
Okay.
Exit Liartes.
Poltroonius: What was that all about?
Awfeelia: My brother says stear clear of Omelet, that he's bad egg for me,
discordante and automaton of state. To treat his favorings as but the
chance and vagrant flurry of a fragrant but flittering feather, all adrift, was
his shift.

Poltroonius: I see...hmmpf...I like that...feather did he say?

Awfeelia: Adrift.
Poltroonius: I like it, I like it do.
Awfeelia: Happy it is I am for you.
Poltroonius: Feather...feather...heather? Weather! Tether! Leather! But
look...he's right! He's jolly right! Neither borrow Omelet's affection, nor
lend your love! Don't count your egg before he's hatched! Don't chat with
him alone! Nor write when you're at home! Use quite a bit of rhythm if
you're gonna write a poem! Never lie supine when it's more relaxing
prone! Now what is the tale with you two? Here, have a scone. Tell me
true.
Awfeelia: Thank you.... Well, he (mmf, excuse me) hast given me many
tenderings and (mmf) securities of his (ptui!) affections.
Poltroonius: Kepuknuh! Greenish girling. There's no security in his
tendering, nor no stock. Such tendril tenderings as his tend to be tender
indeed, if you attend my meaning...which I suppose is turning trying, heh
heh heh.
Awfeelia: Nay. But sir, Omelet has been nothing but nice to me. I don't know
what everyone's so worried about.
Poltroonius: He's as inconstant as the sun. If rosy lips are red, he's just a
bum. Black wires grow on his head, and when he walks, he treads. You're
just a babe, to think his tent so honest.
Awfeelia: Wires? Tent?
Poltroonius: The tent of his contention is invention.
Awfeelia: Tent?
Poltroonius: Tent tent.
Awfeelia: Tent?
Poltroonius: Tent!

Awfeelia: He hath given most forthright avowals of his passionate intention,

in a fashion honorable.
Poltroonius: I'm sure 'tis fashion; but fashions fade. Speech is liquid pure,
but acts alone warrant confidence for sure. Hath such been made?
Awfeelia: Well...such action as a tent could compass....
Poltroonius: You don't mean....
Awfeelia: No.
Poltroonius: Pent! Dent!
Awfeelia: Tent?
Poltroonius: Tent!
Awfeelia: Hum.
Poltroonius: Heat is not good fire, nor furnace furious. A match stick is no
log. Do not equate a river with a bog. Some slippery chap donning garb
and glove to woo a gal of pure bred heart is not the sort to meet at his
apartment. Listen, daughter. Lord Omelet's got a tether to drag you down:
a shorter leash for you than he. Beware the jubjub bird, the beak that bites,
the claws that catch. Steer clear the bandersnatch. I prithee, cater to your
cool. There's a gent ambivalent. He'll say one thing, another one portend.
An Omelet hard-boiled, yet soft inside. Or vice versa. A polka-dotted
yolk! Look to 't I charge thee! Chew it not, nor suck nor drool.
Awfeelia: I'll obey, just as you say....
Poltroonius: Go to. (Feather!)
Exeunt.
[Scene IV]
Enterunt Omelet, Homoleo, and Marcelcius at guard platform.
Homoleo: Here we are. It's cold out. Nippy.

Marcelcius: A nipping and enthusiastic, eager, jovial type of air. A coolish

breeze or current.
Homoleo: Currently I'm shivering.
Omelet: What's the time?
Homoleo: Just this side of twelf. Eleven-fifty nine.
Marcelcius: No, I hear the gong. Twelf on the nose.
Omelet: Twelve?
Marcelcius: That's what I said. Twelf.
Omelet: The ghost is like to come. 'Tis his twitching hour.
Marcelcius: Yep. This is when he likes to show up.
Homoleo: I'm cold.
Marcelcius: They say it may snow, later.
Omelet: Snow? I heard of rain.
Homoleo: Rain before it's over.
Marcelcius: Snow, rain! What's the differenth? It's nigh precipitate.
Homoleo: Drizzle, sure.
Marcelcius: A crying from the sky, the heavens yawning.
Trumpets sound, plus flute and lute, within, as cannons boom, and rim shots
lace the din.
Homoleo: What's this m'lord?
Omelet: O the King, what else, up late in proof how fun and young he is,
what goodly sport. He'll drink and wet his whistle, to muzzle down the
thistle in his soul, comport.
Homoleo: That's the custom?

Omelet: The custom nowa common one. Common common. The dram of
evil doth the humor pout, the cherub's out, an' all's concealed. No virtue
can impress these touts. I'd serve a kinder and gentler station. Our
partying but shows to other nations, to France, to Germany, to
Luxembourg and Libya, Lubbock and Moravia, Novo Yorko and
Scandinavia that we're but boorish buffoons, becracking winey-marrowed
tibia. We laugh, we shout, we gad about, we hip and hop, we guzzle and
consume, we tax the producing class in the name of so-called deficit
reductionyet destiny still looms, the lash of fate, whipping its
whippoorwill path to our fraudulent ass; to tan our hide bewhile we lurch
and smart, until some awful gaseous
Homoleo: M'lord...!
Enter Ghost.
Homoleo: Look, m'lord, it is come!
Omelet: Demons and apologists of state offend us! Oh! Oh! Oh! Whate'er
you beman, beast, yeast, heavenly sinner or devil spawn of hell, intend
ill or well, need a shower, I'm nae judgementalbut speak, yea! speak! I
want answers. Talk to me babe. Express yourself. Express your feelings.
Keep it not bottled up, the cork inscrewed, inseid. Shalst I dub thee what
thou seemKing, Dane, father, Omelet Senior, my own vaster, preter
nature? A ghost, vaprous vesper, incontinent jubile jester? What is your
substance? Speak. Why hast thou burst the interred earthy bands of gilded
coffin slates to roam the earth in ghast gumptious guise, armor'd banshee
from a hearse, squeaking and gibbering some sad surmise, some curse?
Christamight. Now what?
Ghost, beckoning, drifts toward raging, id-like sea.
Homoleo: It would talk to you alone.
Omelet: Ghostcome back!
Marcelcius: He's polite enough in his gesture, ayah ha! But follow 't don't,
m'lordo!
Homoleo: That's right, follow it not!

Omelet: What choice have I got? If talk here it won't, it may talk there. Ergo
I'll go there, while you stay here.
Homoleo: Butbutbut If there you be, while we be here
Marcelcius: Then...we be here while you be there!
Omelet: So to.
Homoleo: But sir...nay, hold...what if it...it...does something to you while
there you be? Send you over the edge, into the sea, slap your face, say, or
give thy groin its knee?
Omelet: A ghost is incorporeal. Requireth an importunate amount of energy
to re-phlogisticate itself.
Homoleo: Well, but, still and should, what if it possess thee in some
deranging wise, turn your phrase ambiguous, or meaning stale, or sail
your heart against your mind, anchor out of port? Make you see what isn't
there or...or...believe what just ain't fair? You're vulnerable now. Things
are rough. You've been upset. A vision...the warrant of which we wot not
what, might push you over the edge, into a surfing froth of creepy dares.
Omelet: May I ask you a question, Homoleo?
Homoleo: Go to.
Omelet: If thou'rt so darn concerned about the effect of that wroth spirit on
mine own, why apprised thee me of its visitation in the first place? The
misty posthumous image of my own true sire will hardly forsway me in
any dire wend I mayn't mend.
Homoleo: Your pardon, lord.
Omelet: Wait here.
Marcelcius: At least let us
Omelet: No! Now excuse me. Obtrude again and there'll be more than one
ghost about tonight. Jee-zus.
Exit.

Marcelcius: This is just belike one of those...those...those Stephanus King

tales...
Homoleo: Not that again.
Marcelcius: E's good 'e is! The Jolly Dark 'Alfthat's 'is best for my money!
Six pence for sixty hundred sheet folio. Don't be tellin' me it's got no
pertinence here contrike! It tells of secret selfso has Lord Omelet there
we all of us do! Buried deepical inside...until it come popping out, pop
plop! Some little thing could spur it.
Homoleo: What e'er. 'Tis a misery to me in sooth.
Marcelcius: Can't we pursue 'im at twelf pace or such?
Homoleo: Twelf's as good a nummbero as any. Le'ts go.
Exeunt, soft.
[Scene V]
The Ghost, and Omelet, near raging id-like sea; a raven flyeth byonce,
then never more.
Omelet: Is 't good for you?
Ghost: As good a spot as any.
Omelet: Shall we sit on this moldery plot?
Ghost: Standing's fine.
Omelet: All right. What now?
Ghost: Mark me.
Omelet: With what?
Ghost: Don't be flip. Attend.
Omelet: What's up?

Ghost: My hour, nearly. Then into burning, heat-hot flames must I return.
You don't want to know....
Omelet: Poor ghost!
Ghost: Hey, don't pity me! If there's one thing I can't stand it's pity...now,
listen to this plot that I'll unveil.
Omelet: I'm listening.
Ghost: And then revenge.
Omelet: Revenge?
Ghost: First, listen to what I say; then, undertake a course of revenge.
Avenge me. Avenge with revenge. In that order. Now look ye...I am thy
father's spirit.
Omelet: This much I gathered.
Ghost: Good. Now, right now I'm suffering an extended stint of torment for
my mortal crimes. The consequence of it being that I am burned most
hideous and cruel by day whilst must wanderst the global lanes by night
until some righteous expiation is achieved, some hot purgation received. I
don't want to get into details. They're grisly crispy, and I'm forbid.
Omelet: We'll skip them then.
Ghost: It's hot down there, I'll warrant. Hot as hell.
Omelet: I'd imagine.
Ghost: Burning hot.
Omelet: So thou hast intimated.
Ghost: I'm talkin' singe city. El roasto centro. A scalding scorchery of shitty
shaming flame.
Omelet: Mm.
Ghost: I'm frying, frying! 'Tis prohibit to tell thee more. But suffice to say
your fear and gorge'd rise, o would they ever, if thou could witness 't and

see. Thine eyes would pop out of thy sockets, thine orbs would whirl, thy
blood freeze in thy veins, or boil and vaporasoratify. An' then you'd verily
hurl, upchuck your guts out 'pon the ground like a weakling girl. Your
hairs would stand on end, each one of those single particular individual
black wires on your head, as if electrified, Medusa wig unfurled, stabbing
stickling quills belike the prickley critter porcupentatine which is the
porcupine. But such scenes are not for mortal ear, nor fun, nor thrill. O
listen, listen, listen. If thou ever didst love thy father
Omelet: O God! God!
Ghost: if ever didst, at all, then avenge his most fowl and unnatural
murder!
Omelet: Whatwhat manner of beast be a "natural" murder...? Murder?! O
God! Didst thou say "murder"?
Ghost: Murder most fowl, as 'twas the blood of chicken employed to do me
in. Fowl, strange and unnatural.
Omelet: O terrible! Yes yes, revenge; that will I take! And speedily thereto!
Hurry, divulge who done it, that I may hatch a plan...and carry it out,
right quick, in jiffy haste, as like a hummingbird's dizzy wing doth flap in
blurring speed, unto the very deed! You'll style me Jack Flash when you
perceive the pace of my vengeance...but...well, I still wot not what is this
"unnatural" murder.... Murder's no dying of old age; 'tis unnatural on its
face. That much is certitudinous.
Ghost: The point is: murder! That's the crux! Focus, Omelet, focus! I tell ye,
one thing I'm glad without in hell, the perforce instruction of your pukous
pablum, so loquacious and inane and improdiginous as t' derange Diablo,
who, incidentally, is a personal acquaintance of mine. The nature I meant,
in sooth, was a very artifice, an artificial nature, mark you: the nature of
my unnatural brother, the current phony king! Art thou mad?
Omelet: My uncle! I knew it. I'm mad all right. Mad as hell. Irkitude's too
timid, and too mercurial, a noun. Style me more verbal. I'll take a dagger
to that bloody bagger. Don't you fret. I'll jag it to that faggot! In one fell
swipe.
Ghost: Good. I can't express the relief that swoops o'er me to hear your
willful bent. You'll kill him right away, you say? You'll not tarry like a
fairy? O how grand.

Omelet: Not I! Or may not Omelet my name be, nor my favorite coloring
deep hue! It's tit for tat I seek, and eager, eager, be my beak!
Ghost: Choo choo.
Omelet: O God! To think! My uncle! Oy, the bum! O prophetic prophesy! I
was right all along! Scum!
Ghost: Yes. Verily, the same adultrous scuzz an' garbage who rendered me a
cuckold. You know, don't ye, she lay with him whilst I was still alive,
belied my love? That fawning whore-bitch, thy bitch-whore mom? 'Tis
true. Her tasty sugar, 'twas but saccharin; or maybe neuter-sweet. O bitch
bitch angel bitch! So seeming virtuous, while yet yawning oily vaginous!
Bitch! Her legs spread wide, whilst your uncle plunged insidea long
dong silver ride! Oh I've got the proofs! On video. A swell Lucifer's got it
now, who will return in on the morrow. An' then I've sworn to lend it to
some other, Gabriel or perhap his brother, Bob. What matter does it make?
I'm damned what e'er I do. That's the beauty. A beauty bitcherous! (And I,
good husband too!)
Omelet: Every cloud has a silver'd border area. Look on the bright side.
Ghost: What might that be, pray?
Omelet: Er...let me think on 't.
Ghost: Well, ponder not overlong. It's action I implore; murky gross
ambivalence abhor.
Omelet: The which I'll keep in mind, and covet.
Ghost: Mind you do, too. Achoo! I feel a monologue coming on...an' smell
the morning dew. Must needs I then be brief. Here's the transpiration that
occurred. I'd just finished gilding lilies in my garden, my custom always
four p.m., a stout Roman habit albeit fem, when while drousing at my
leisure thy foul chicken-hearted uncle did spray me with a hose of fouled
fowl blood which draineth into those very nasal nostrils of my nose that
were my wont to sneeze through, to blend next with my brain; a very zen
of hen. So then I had a seizure. The infection thus infused was of the sort
that fast effects, and faster kills, a lightning quicksilver myocardial
infarction. I was deader'n a doornail before you could say
whatchamajigger whatchamajail. The potion wracked and snapped my

body, curdling my bones and shins with many a wartly wen and luckless
lesion, roughing up my roughage and rend'ring my might prone. It was
awful.
Omelet: And you
Ghost: From royal prime of life was I thus snatched, prime of sin, no
reckoning made, no penance paid, my soul all sodden, soiled and
unwashed, quite doomed to be damned. My confessional plans belayed;
I'd put them on hold until the morrow, when I'd to the pastor all my petty
crimes and paltry murders regale, mumbling a few humble Hail Mary's to
seal the sale. 'Twas scribbled in my Day-Timer, now scrap. I missed it by
twelf hourstwelf!by that small measure damned. Howso's that grab
ya? Haff a day an' I'd've slipped through heaven's gates, to pal around
with Peter, say how's it goin', God, fetch some ethereal creature to some
cloudy bed. Now I'm scrooed. Okay? So get in gear and mend this mess.
And let not your soul congeal. That's crucial. And focus on your uncle.
Leave your mother to rue her role, an' find her way to heaven if she can.
The morn has come. I gotta go...'tis searing flames for me...tally ho!
Remember me!
Exit ghost.
Omelet: Remember you...that I shall...let me note it down... here's a very pad
of paper...and ink-wet quill...[writing] ...ghost...belike unto my
father...injunction to revenge... and so forfend...murdered by my uncle, the
present king...uh...let's see...a chicken poison brew...adultery with my
ma...proofs in hell...I think that's all.
Oh it sure doth cast a pall upon the day, that much I'll say, and sicken my
heart withal! That the serried ranks of heaven, the ill-shod hosts of hell,
should merge to clang so awful, awful knell! An interd'mensional
corruption, a twilight squall. It weigheth heavy upon my brow...but
gotta...gotta buck up...get myself together...my father murdered...yeah, I'll
remember...do my best...to which end all trivial an' baser or acidic matter
but of this moment will I from memory wipe, expunge: all tips and quips,
allusions lit'ry, recipes and rhymes, traffic regulation, erotical conjecture,
rituals of church and state, e'en the honeyed waste of happy childhood
remembrance; all such I do each alike conjoint in [bangled] haste expel.
Only thy holy biddenment will inward dwell, ghost m'lord, only that. I'm
stripped and honed now, ready to rip. Call me Terminator, or call me
Pip.... O crime of ages!! Such sly slime treacheryto smile and smile and
be a baddie! Let me mark it. [Writes.] Smile and smile and be...a
baddie?...no, be a punk... skunk...as 'twere, but no...Mr. Nasty Man...not

so...be a...a...to smile and smile and be...a...miscreant! Miscreant. Yes, I'll
remember...I'll remember...nor...will I...forget!
Homoleo: [From without.] Lord Omelet! Ho!
Marcelcius: [Without.] Yo, Omelet! Ho yo!
Enterunt Homoleo and Marcelcius.
Homoleo: He's wriggling and wraggling! Keep calm! Ho!
Omelet: Go to.
Homoleo: Yo, Omelet! As day follow night, are you all right?
Omelet: Go slow I trow! Enow!
Homoleo: Well....
Marcelcius: Are you okay?
Homoleo: What news? Was the spirit communicatif tonight?
Omelet: Marry, 'twas. O 'twas! A twizzle stalked its talk!
Homoleo: Good talk? What do you mean, "twizzle"?
Omelet: A very poem of prosy wit. The form of life.
Marcelcius: So he does talk after all, the spook-a-jook!
Omelet: Take the measure of it meet, Marcelcius! Go not centigrade of
degradation! Measure for measure, in witling excess of thy pleasure!
Marcelcius: Okay.
Homoleo: Well, what did he say then? Spill it.
Omelet: No, you'll babble it.
Marcelcius: Not us!
Homoleo: Mum's the word.

Omelet: Mum?
Homoleo: Mum. Like "rum" or "gum" yet with that mutely quietant
consonantal "m" of lips enmeshed, mouth closed; a pressing sealant to a
pressing love, like somebody muffling you with a glove.
Omelet: Swear an oath.
Marcelcius: I swear!
Homoleo: And shall too so I, any vow which thou prescrie.
Omelet: This proscription: keep the matter dark, the ghost untold. Husband
it clammed within thy bosom, else hard dive by my hard hand.
Homoleo: I swear!
Marcelcius: I swear!
Omelet: Then hark: there ain't a bad guy in Denmark but he's a bad 'un. Nor
in Europe generally.
Marcelcius: Is it too late to take back my oath?
Homoleo: That bad is bad, 'tis true, but needed no ghost for that flash news.
It's most common popular opinion.
Omelet: Aye! Common! Yet how well brooked but in the breach? A book on
the beach?
Marcelcius: You raise an important issue.
Homoleo: What wouldst thou then? Contrain a dridgecoc in a hanner
condorser? Is such your wise? Bad is badwhat else?
Omelet: And so ado. With no more circumstance than this, let us slap fair
five and scoo t'affirm our contract'd faith anew. All right. We've business
t'attend. You go sort hayand II'll play.
Homoleo: Whacky words, m'lord.
Omelet: Get used to it.

Homoleo: [Aside.] What's he talking about....

Omelet: You got somethin' to say to me, say it out loud.
Homoleo: Okay. Sorry.
Omelet: If I offend, I apologize.
Homoleo: No, no offense.
Omelet: ...O, there's offense! Writ large, an' larger sti[i]l! A stench offense!
Which reeks from very heaven!
Homoleo: I shower every morn.
Marcelcius: As I do too...well, every other.
Omelet: I meant the somewhat searing sun, with its royal rays and stinking
ways. I meant there's nothing glows but glowing makes it so. I meant two
plus two is four, no more.
Marcelcius: You know, that's very true.
Homoleo: I would nae controvert it.
Omelet: No but seriously, swear you'll never tell what you've seen this night.
Homoleo, Marcelcius: [Together.] We swear!
Omelet: On my sword. Put your palms on the hilt like so. A firmer grip. Tilt
up. No Marcelcius, come, that's too slack...watch it! you'll cut yourself.
Okay. Now swear.
Ghost: [Off stage.]Swearrrrrrrr!
Homoleo, Marcelcius: What the bloody...!
Omelet: Do as he bids!
Ghost: A firm grip! Watchhhhhhhhhtchtchtch the vorpal blade! 'Tis sharp!
Homoleo, Marcelcius: Damnnable spooky!

Ghost, Omelet: Swearrrrrrrr!

Homoleo, Marcelcius: We swear, we swear!
Ghost: Swearrrrrrrr!
Omelet: O grand! He seeks some multiple affirmation! Well said, old moldy.
Vow again, boys.
Homoleo: We vow! By all that's holy, and what not. O how wondrous
strangeous! I need a drink. Omigod. Omigod.
Omelet: There's more in heaven and earth, Homoleo, than dreamt in thy
empirickal philosophy.
Homoleo: Fair enow; but I'm more the Platonist.
Omelet: The very Form of Life, and Strife. Yet hold, for stranger still may yet
still come, in this strange land. Suppose I should behave the weirdo, out of
sorts and enigmatic. Suppose I acted slightly actic, a little antsy, trifle
flum-flum, a little woozy or traumatic. So that I seemed...not to spin too
filigreed a span...a tad cuckoo or, as 'twere withal, bent? Which meaning I
might twirling wink on odd occasions, or discourse out of turn. Or scratch
my groin in public or smash snowflakes on a fern. Slap the fair Awfeelia,
or stuff her in an urn, or spurn her rapturous trusting love or take up
French to learn. Wouldst thou then beshrew me mad? Don't answer
that. The point is, don't inquire. Don't hint about my mood, don't trade on
inside info, don't sing "O la de da," or "If thou but knew what we do!" In
sum, let your movements prove mundane, your tension soft contain, your
mealy mouths fain mute; play no spirit lute. This too is bewhat your
swearing swears to.
Ghost: Swearrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
Homoleo, Marcelcius: We swear! By all that's up and down an' left and right!
By all that's bad and all that's right! Fight, kite, night, trite! Bite, smite,
tight, indict!
Ghost: Gimme a "W"!
Homoleo, Marcelcius: W!

Ghost: Gimme an "E"!

Homoleo, Marcelcius: E!
Ghost: Gimme an "S"! A "W"!
Homoleo, Marcelcius: S! W!
Ghost: An "E," an "A," an "R"!
Homoleo, Marcelcius: E! A! R!
Ghost: What does it spell? What?
Homoleo, Marcelcius: We-e-e-e swear! We swear! By our troth we do!
Ghost: What's troth got to do, got to do with it? What's your troth-h-h-h but
a second-hand compo-o-o-o-tion?
Homoleo, Marcelcius: We swear! We swear! We swear! O, we do! Ooh oo!
Omelet: That's some quite fine electric bugaloo. Now rest, disturbed and
reverber'nt spirit. And you two chums, go too, that my friendship may be
later better borne to you. The time is disconjoint. O, what dastard custard
spitethat I'm the soul ensworn to stir it right! Well, let's leave. We've
aced Act One, now it's time for Two. Tell them, dim the light.
Exeunt.

ACT II
[Scene I]
Enterunt Poltroonius and servant Raynaldodo.
Poltroonius: Here's the dough, Raynaldodo.
Raynaldodo: Ho.
Poltroonius: Convey it to him straight. Also these sundry reports,
instructions, and general papers. An' this most gentle pleasant
kaleidoscope for his passing pleasure.
Raynaldodo: Righto. Okay.
Poltroonius: Now, Raynald'do, thou'rt a savvy chap, ayah hah?
Raynaldodo: I strive so.
Poltroonius: Um. Okay! It would be a goodly thing, I thinkI think it would
be goodif thou make some incidental, casual inquire of my son's
conduct afore visiting. Once you've arrived, the city where he's in, that is.
The burg of his reside. Before meeting face to face.
Raynaldodo: I intended it.
Poltroonius: Ah! Ha ha! Yes, well, we are wont to make inquiries around
here, in as much as things may not always be what they seem, or what
persons profess. Not that I deem it other than meet to trust my son, I
confess, but
Raynaldodo: Oh, I very understand sir. Thou'rt solicitous concerned, belike
any dithering dad.
Poltroonius: Uh...that's right. Yes. So...now, this is what I had in mind...now,
what you do...attend this well...here's my thought on 't...you must
approach, you know, in just a casual wise...some denizens or people there.
Fashion it as follows. Strike up conversation, politics and weather, the
market for feather such and so, leading then subtly on to the traipsing
wayward ways of youth and familial relations, dark forebodings, the
crowd about town, who is who and what is what, what crap's the latest at
the Gap, what's on tap. That sort of rap. Just let it slip, you know, facile,

how thou hapst to know the king, the Poltroonius family, and such and
so, and O yes you've bumped into Liartes a couple times, heard he was in
town there, that sort of line, in fine...follow?
Raynaldodo: 'Tis a following for furrow.
Poltroonius: Quite quite. In such wise will you ferret out the friends he fools
with, the which will tell ye, "Verily, I know him." Or: "Good ol' Liartes, we
are jolly students together!" Or: "Liartes, Liartes, Liartes, me, 'im, we're
like this." Dost see?
Raynaldodo: 'Tis a struggle but I'm getting there.
Poltroonius: Just steady plow that furrow and sow my meaning there. Ha
ha!
Raynaldodo: I'll need manure, some bullshit in supply.
Poltroonius: Eh...you'll get it by and by. But hark. When you draw them out,
next merrily mark a few conjectured ventures by my son; let it slip you've
heard he's sure such fun...a terror on the town...that you've supped with
him betimes, so forth...you see...?
Raynaldodo: A glimmer filters in...
Poltroonius: In sooth, any general sin you fitly can enlist within the booth of
thy enterprise. Nothing overmark'd. Just cozen it, O yeah, I heard he likes
to booze it up, chaseth dames, do the shuffle, board games...
Raynaldodo: Gaming is a good one.
Poltroonius: ...perhaps a very whorer, or Capulet supporter....
Raynaldodo: We don't want to roil the algaed sea of truth too great, or
suggest...
Poltroonius: Uhbut not that you'd impress these firmly, or such belike
condite, only unspool some hints, you know...
Raynaldodo: Just fishing.
Poltroonius: That's all. And all is that. And then...then...what was I...come
come...what was I saying? What? O what?

Raynaldodo: Hints and cruft.

Poltroonius: Yes, yes. Harmless guff. Just aenuff to draw the sails of drifting
gossip, the pitch of conscious hue, entrap what's apt. A tale with this
termination: show the true flaming shape of my son's passions, whether
they simmer or blaze bright, whether then careen into carousing or aid
sober study with their light. No biggie. Just a few slender flutt'ring petals
of passing pretense is all you'll strew, some fading feathery fluff
feather!soon swept up and quicker shredded, much as hard-done Atlas
did swift chuck the buckling burden of the earth, relinquishing to orbit.
Do that, that do.
Raynaldodo: Mm. Withal, I'm a little loathe to weave thus webby woofs; e'en
most gossamer thread coarsens, tangles in the dust.
Poltroonius: Then leave the weaving to the the royal seamstress; ha ha; now
get thee hence. You've a job to do. (Feather!)
Raynaldodo: Bye bye marry then. [Aside.] It's called deceiving.
Exit Raynaldodo. Enter Awfeelia.
Poltroonius: My dear, what ever art the matter?
Awfeelia: I am afraid.
Poltroonius: What is 't, chile?
Awfeelia: Omelet scrambles my poor soul, with passing strange compart
thatcheth brackish brambles in my poor tender heart. He confixed me
with such a perturbing stare...the like to nothing which can
compare...came to me in his underwear...no comb had touched his hair in
a time. I enjoined him, sit down, m'lord...tried thereby to guide him...
Poltroonius: Er...to a...chair?
Awfeelia: 'Twas to a chair I pointed, yea, a golden, varnished one, fair,
verily; but, sir, he sat not, but, grabbing grimly, gripped my shoulders
with a fretting fury, like a strong-muscled Achilles self-banned from
battle. His searing look slathering and frothing, lunatic, demon-pup. Not
the Omelet of before, nor poached nor boiled.

Poltroonius: Hmm.... What else but mad dog for thy love! Hah! Could it be
else? I kneweth it!
Awfeelia: Well...whatever it is it scares me, and that's a factus. I think I shall
be wont to feint. I'm passing woozy.
Poltroonius: Let me think, let me think. What did he say? The words! The
nouns...verbs. Yes.
Awfeelia: His...well, his verbs were action verbs, methinks... yet held a
stillness that was passive. An'...to be sure, he'd daring plunge to present
progressive, only to lapse sadly thence to a past past perfect, in mode of
artifice and scheme. Nor was he partisan of future tense, though tense he
was, and future artisan; foreboding wrenched his brow enow. Gerunds
made him cry. Finally, a special fixation on infinitive must I note. Such
was his grammar, in the main. A linguistic static rain. But what was most
troublous was
Poltroonius: And his acts?
Awfeelia: Gazed into my eyes and tweeked my nose, then patted my plump
bumps, squeezing them nigh, and tarrying on my rump. I could not tell
his goal. His hands wandered and pressed, insistent, then fluttered, only
to desist, then start afresh. He stared at me again, and one word spake,
before departing. Brambles clutched my heart.
Poltroonius: Which word?
Awfeelia: "Closed-bud"...something..."rose-bud," "hose-mud," "prosecud"...something. Does it matter, Dadder?
Poltroonius: Mad hatter for thy love! 'Tis plain as plangency, or the nose on
thy fresh blooming face! Rose-bud: and he wouldst be thy clipper! As
gardener to thy affection! As fertilizer of fallen faithas, marry, he doth
frame 't in his feverd mind, else I'm a goof! Why, 'tis alone the hectic surf
of love which could propel the male form to thus foamings and
contractions. Prose-cud? Chewing words of love! That's evident. But I
babble. Hast thou been curt with him, or snappish, to incur such
consarned babblings?
Awfeelia: No. Just stayed clear, per your advice.

Poltroonius: It's an unclear clarity, I fear. He must needs s'pose you like him
not. My fartly doing. Beshrew my shrupka! Alack! So he's stewing.
Hmm.... Tell you what though: now we know his heart is true, which is a
good thing. It signifies. But a test will tell. We'll propose a posturing kind
of game, to let his true soul in tempest yield. Do it thus and so: Meet with
him again as though per chance, whilst the King an' I hide behind some
frillish curtain. I'll to the liege now and vouchsafe the plan. The truth must
outte.
Awfeelia: Some curtain, aching, o'erdrapes his soul, father. Shall a sucking
wind of strategem carry it off?
Poltroonius: Worry not what style blow job may gird his flagging spirit. I'll
bend to 't soon enough.
Exeunt les deux.
[Scene II]
Flourish and flounces. Enterunt King, Queen, Rosencrutch, Goldenstuff,
others.
Clintonius: So, Rosencrutch! So, Goldenstuff! We have greatish need of thee,
the which is why I'fe callt yoom hither.
Rosencrutch: Sire.
Goldenstuff: Sire.
Clintonius: You're chums of Omelet? Sith with Omelet not himself, neither in
nor out, belike before, perdoit alienated and withdrawn in tooth with
time, we're in a tither tethered. You grew up with him. You know his
mettle and his fettle. Fried fish with him using a kettle, and so forth.
Sound him out, fathom the freakish fury which filleth his form like some
pared pawned apricot of doom....
Goldenstuff: We'll try, sire.
Clintonius: Get certain answers to certain questions. Is it just his grave-gone
dad hacking out this deficit of soul? Or: something more-ish? Thing is, his
funk seems to've grown of late. What ales him? Might some other factor
be predominate? His self seems altered. You must investigate. What are
his imputations and purport? To which strange ends might he resort? Is

he insane? If so, why so? Discern, identify and explain. You have five
hours. Begin.
Queen Gertie: He loves you guys. I know him well, and by my troth I trust
he trusts thee most of any. Go to him. Talk to him, I prithee. Collect the
needful info. Return with that info to us, in a jiffee. Earn our royal
gratitude: a thanks for thy hip pocket, to cherish all thy days, a gracious
bounty. Be sure of it. The king's own kind remembrance, every yule. What
a boon that'll be, for such as ye.
Rosencrutch: O m'lady an' m'lord! No need t'entreat us! Such majestical
personages as you guys...a twitch of thy little pinky, an' thou mayest
impose your will to your fill's end. At most, sharp intimation of yon
switch....
Goldenstuff: If persuasion be neededwhich assure thyseffs 'tis not, not
notwhy, you could lash us! Eh? Heh heh. But we'll gladly seek to shed
poor Omelet's gauzy guise. And to your majesties relate the tale. We're at
your beck, so enjoin us as is meet. Right, Rosencrutch?
Rosencrutch: Right, Goldenstuff!
Clintonius: Well. There it is. Thanks, rosy Rosencrutch, and godspeed,
goodly golden Goldenstuff. We appreciate thy support in this critical
junk-tour.
Queen Gertie: Thanks, golden Rosencrutch, and rosy Goldenstuff. Joe, direct
these two to whither Omelet's at. You carried his bags out. Guide them
whither.
Joe: Okay.
Goldenstuff: I only hope our presence helps him!
Queen Gertie: Ayah men to that.
Clintonius: Thanks again. Godspeed. Buh-bye.
Exeunt Goldenstuff, Rosencrutch, Joe. Enter Poltroonius.
Poltroonius: M'lady...m'lord...news...news!
Clintonius: What news?

Poltroonius: A newsy news a nosy nose would know, but no news that
would
Queen Gertie: Shut up and talk.
Poltroonius: Uh. Yes. Well, simply, that the pair you sent to Norway on
affairs of diplomacy are back now, and joyous was their jaunt.
Moreover
Clintonius: You've been always the preceder of cheery tidings. An' now still.
Poltroonius: Well, I suppose! I try to tend my duty as to my own shoe's sole.
Anywayst, that was one thing. The other that I know is the wherefore of
Omelet's woe.
Clintonius: Thatthat's good. Been a little curious about it myself. So
what's...what's the wherefore there?
Poltroonius: Er, but I'm sure matters of state come first...? The ambassadors
are waiting outside. What I'll next reveal could serve as syrup to that
whipped cream.
Clintonius: Yes. Fine. We've been unmanned by this prospective incursion.
Bring them in. Wait outside and come back right after they leave.
Exit Poltroonius.
Clintonius: Well my dear, looks like we're gonna find what fried that son of
thine.
Queen Gertie: Can't imagine it's muchous more than my husband's drear
undonement in demise, combined mayhap with your mur'dring of him
plus our own adulterous, o'erhasty sleazy marriage, that hast confounded
hin. What else? Unless thy putricious public policy.
Entrunt Voltaicmon and Cornoodlius.
Clintonius: We'll know soon enuff how these siftings sift, for silk or shit.
Lo, Voltaicmon! Cornoodlius! Your trip went well, we're told. The word
you've brought: it's gleaming gold?

Voltaicmon: That's three words, King! But in brief, this shiny nugget
Fortinbrass, that dumb young ass, by his regent uncle o'er-ruled at last!
Yep. Poor old man. He'd knowneth not of his nephew's plans afore we
roused him, then gave that kid a cuffing. 'Twas a sight to see. Before our
seeing eyes' most penetrant gaze, this nephew, numbed, and dazed, beknocked his head against the reflecting shining wall, and neighed, "What
was I thinking? It wasn't Denmark I wouldst invade! But Poland! It's just
that I need to go through Denmark to get to Poland! Howso thou didst
misconstrueth!" The uncle, satisfied, released monies multiplied to back
that action, singing satin leave to go; and now we have in hand this
document, by both signed, which is a standard proper parchment
guarantee of peace and friendship 'til the end of time. In exchange for
which we're t'allow free passage, letting Fortinbrass cross our land
unhindered, within a few blocks of the castle but not closer, as is here clear
writ with many safeguards and legal recourse should he conquer you in
violation of the treaty.
Clintonius: That seems most fit. Let me enview that paper...hmm...seems
okay to me. I'll read it over closer later. Anywayst, good job! Thanks
again. Bye now.
Cornoodlius: But
Clintonius: Close the door on thy way out.
Exeunt Voltaicmon and Cornoodlius. Enter Poltroonius.
Clintonius: What else? Oh yes, you wanted to tell us something about our
son. Well?
Poltroonius: Hoo! Feather!
Clintonius: Excuse me?
Poltroonius: None, great sire, is necessary.
Clintonius: Uh.... It shall be meet that thou gettest to the meat. Prithee.
Poltroonius: Oh that's good! A meaty meet. Such business is well done. My
lord, my lady: I well know that to fugulate in this nonce on the
metaphysics of duty, or the temper of time, or why twilight is twilight or
dawn dawn, marshmallow soft or chocolate sweet, B follows A or C the
B...would but belabor duty, time, twilight, dawn, marshmallow, chocolate

and alphabetical sequence. As brevity is the porch of wit, tedium the attic,
I'll as brief as brief can be lest cobwebs mortise me. Let me then to it: The
sound and savor of it is, your son is mad, mad, mad. Mad I mean. O he's
mad! That's clear. Mad. A simple Anglo-Saxon word. Simple, brief, and
clear; as "mud," but with an "a" instead of "u." To wit, the force and ladder
of a monument of mind, toppled and confused, the rungs all fused. Mad! I
call it mad because mad is what it is. We must name things for what they
are, not for what they're not. But you knew that.
Queen Gertie: More matter and less farting around.
Poltroonius: By the bowel, I vow I farted not... But that he's mad, 'tis true, 'tis
true 'tis sad, and sad 'tis 'tis true. An apt ept wording, but pass it, for I'll
fart no fart. The point is, he's mad; but what's the reason?
Clintonius: Yes
Poltroonius: Every effect has a cause in season. Every defect is an effect
whose causation's in relation. Any tumult is a result whose engend'ring
spawned some rendering. This is so, and so is this. Consider: I have a
daughter, the fair Awfeelia, fair withal. She gave me a letter from Omelet,
which as you know is your son or nephew and the prince, whosoest came
to call, but which she in spiritual delicacy transiently rejected. Well, listen
to this. Quotha: "Fairest Awfeelia, fairest, most byooshus of them all"ha!
"byooshus"that's a word!but let's hear the rest, for you'll hear it
"thou art the swan-feathered cherub of my soul"hoo! feather!"an angel
dust of dew"hoo! dew!"the sultry sacrament of my savage swelling"
hoo! "of my"! what's that descry?"how do I loveth thee? let me count the
ways...a one, an' a two..."hoo hoo!"a passionate breast for breeding
and congealing"hm"a wedding to my wont"and such, and so,
continues it on to go. "Doubt the stars in heaven above, doubt the truth of
lies in state, doubt that devil's horns do prick, before thou doubt thou
make me sick." That's it. Well?
Queen Gertie: But what has mirked this madness? What matter effect in
what sort season propended what defective mocking from what precise
prospective engend'ring, for what type reason? It seemeth circus without
purpose.
Clintonius: Say us the scoope. Tarry not still.
Poltroonius: Marry, I will. Or, er, I uh won't. But I shall! Not that I don't.
Marry then: ain't it love for my daughter which has knocked him off his

rocker? That's a question, but observation too. Alas, I had some hand in 't.
Most tenderly was I, mere trying to help.
Queen Gertie: Trying, no doubt.
Poltroonius: Trying, trying! That's me. An ardent effort of my will. But let
that go. Thus I advised her, play it cool with Omelet. She so neglected
him, and 'twas then his ravings started. As I warrant, a temporal sequence
a causal link reveals: post hoc ergo propter hoc, is how I feel.
Clintonius: Why the meddling?
Queen Gertie: Is sweet Awfeelia too good for our hot Omelet?
Poltroonius: Your Omelet's fine! It's just that
Clintonius: Yes? Go to. It.
Poltroonius: Well
Queen Gertie: His bacon sizzles off the skittle?
Poltroonius: No! I mean...I felt...that his station...that is, that their love...so
young...and doubt...then again, his royal prospects...but I...and so...I
don't...I mean...I don't know...frankly, with his rank so high, with him a
shining star in firmament above, and her but fragrant flower in
fundament below...it wouldn't...well, bewhat was I supposed to do, just let
it proceed without comment?
Queen Gertie: A high crime, that. Or missed demeanor.
Clintonius: Yet we'd have pardon'd it.
Poltroonius: But the point is...sire, sire...sires...m'lady, m'lord, m'lady...the
point, the point here, vis-a-vis his madness: it must be a hobbling from felt
woe. That's why he's antic. From this take this for this, for what it is. 'Tis
with no fond pride that I report my role. Yet what was I to do? Surely, I
could not
Clintonius: All right, we get it. And don't call us Shirley.
Queen Gertie: But how to be certain? There's the rub.

Poltroonius: [Aside.] Row, row, row or wade, gently in a stream...buh-dum

buh-dum, buh-dumpety-bump...life is but a scheme....
Ghost: [From cellarage.] Sweeeaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!
Clintonius: What think you, Gertie? Is 't such?
Queen Gertie: Belike. Mayhap, I warrant. Prithee sooth.
Poltroonius: Have e'er I steered thee astray?
Clintonius, Queen Gertie: Wellll...
Clintonius: What do you suggest to test thy guess?
Poltroonius: There is cure for this. Omelet is of a mind now and then to walk
around the garden, by his self, mumbling blank verse. We'll hide there
when my Awfeelia happens by; as by chance she will. From the encounter
which proceeds we'll perceive what we conceive. What will be will be;
which shall fast prove, else lop my head off.
Clintonius: I like that plot.
Queen Gertie: Choo choo.
Clintonius: Let's do it.
Enter Omelet.
Omelet: "Buh-dum buh-dum, buh-dumpety-bump...."
Poltroonius: Poor twittering sap. Perhaps thou should reserve thyselves. I'll
handle this.
Exeunt royal couple.
Poltroonius: Omelet!
Omelet: Poltroonio.
Poltroonius: Heh heh!
Omelet: Ha ha.

Poltroonius: Hee hee hee!

Omelet: How are you?
Poltroonius: Ho ho ho! Fine, just fine-o. Et tu?
Omelet: Good. As good as getting gets. We all roll the die.
Poltroonius: [Aside.] Hmmm. [To Omelet.] Yes, well, I'm no gambler myself.
But tell me, how is the weather?
Omelet: Nigh sunny, though glowering clouds accume.
Poltroonius: [Aside.] Hmmm. [To Omelet.] I see. These clouds, might they be
cirrus?
Omelet: Most cirrus indeed. Though cumulonimbus may the better figure
be: a halo plus a shroud.
Poltroonius: [Aside.] Hmmm. [To Omelet] A very weather.
Omelet: Very.
Poltroonius: [Aside.] Hmmm.
Omelet: Yep.
Poltroonius: Hee hee.
Omelet: An' who might you be?
Poltroonius: Excuse me? Why, don't you know me, good sir?
Omelet: I think I do. Thou art are a most excellent jackass-monger.
Poltroonius: What? Not me. Say you such? I am the King's own counsel.
Omelet: I am refuted.
Poltroonius: You're more than kind. Anywayst, I happen to have these ink
blots with me, and I'd pray play a little game, my lord, if you'll pardon the
conceit. What I wish to do is shew to you each of the blottings in their

turn, so you from them discern what each you can, and explicate of what
clues mind thee. Willst thou play this?
Omelet: No.
Poltroonius: Just an idea! [Aside.] So much for that.
Throweth cards away over his shoulder.
Poltroonius: [To Omelet.] The weather, it is bad?
Omelet: Passing.
Poltroonius: Yes.
Omelet: Pertake thyself as honest, jackass-monger?
Poltroonius: I'm not that, sir.
Omelet: Then I would you were so honest a man.
Poltroonius: Honest?
Omelet: Heard of the term?
Poltroonius: Yes! Of course.
Omelet: What means it then?
Poltroonius: Er, why, simply, to fail fully to dissimulate.... Uh...to utter
truth.... Forthrightly! To craft of things as they are, as oppos'd to riddling
substitute of what not, as fraudulent glitter of a smog. [Aside.] By the bog,
he's loonytunes far gone! A bonker ballad of lament! Honesty? Where
does he get this stuff? 'Tis a crooning for cryin'. I'll figure him though. But
how t'approach him? That's the question. [To Omelet.] I'm a student of
honesty myself.
Omelet: Your meaning proves it. To be honest in this world is to be one out
of seven billion. That thou even pursueth the subject is a crown of valor
which far exceeding the mettle of most men. Some change as night to day;
and then again; and do pronounce all change as good, like any
Heraclitean hood. But the man who says such first is hardly he who utters
next; though form be like, and spirit be the form. Still, honesty is steadfast,

no foul fluxing flow; that's so. Yet an honest stream will through still
mountain still go, while liar, running, is milled in mildew mold.
Poltroonius: I always say, dishonesty don't pay. [Aside.] Mad, mad, mad!
And mad again! Coo-coo, coo-coo! Earth-to-Omelet, Earth-to-Omelet:
come in, Omelet! Yoo hoo, yoo hoo, get a clue! Choo choo. [To Omelet.]
Not in any way.
Omelet: Speaking of dead carrion, have you a daughter?
Poltroonius: Yes.
Omelet: Her name's...
Poltroonius: Awfeelia.
Omelet: And you might be...?
Poltroonius: Poltroonius.
Omelet: Don't let her walk i' the sun. She'll get sunburned. Rays of heat can
scorch a milky hue. I warn thee. A radiant burning bathes all in its path,
especially after having emergeth from the clouds. Know thy math?
Poltroonius: Two plus two make four.
Omelet: I'll say no more.
Poltroonius: [Aside.] Still on my daughter! He loves her, sure! What else?
(Sunburn?) So I'll construe it. [To Omelet.] She'll use a lotion.
Omelet: Out i' the sun! Entire! Avoid the fire!
Poltroonius: Yes, sire.
Omelet: I mean it, man. Nor out of fire into frying pan.
Poltroonius: I'll warrant it. [Aside.] ...not! [To Omelet.] Say, what're you
reading there?
Omelet: A book.
Poltroonius: What's the matter?

Omelet: I'm fine. What's it to you, anyway, or anyway to you?

Poltroonius: I mean, what's the matter in the book? The content?
Omelet: The content? not the form?
Poltroonius: Er...
Omelet: There's no difference?
Poltroonius: What's in there?
Omelet: Words, words, words, stark black print on page. And the man who
put them there, is called a sage. That's the content. Take that content and
kick it all about, and what is left? Only some sicklied o'er, pretty, palsied
jest, that lacks all clout, howbeit remnant form it keep, yammering of a
lout. A gnarled ghost of past portending...[sigh]. Look ye, can a ghost be
honest, no matter the form?
Poltroonius: Well, I always say...dishonesty don't pay!
Omelet: There ya go.
Poltroonius: [Aside.] Though this be madness, there is some percipient
methodology in it, a wisdom passing sensibility. The conclusion is: he
needs my daughter. I better find her. [To Omelet.] My lord, let me take
my leave of you.
Omelet: Take it and go.
Poltroonius: Ha ha! Bye bye now.
Exit Poltroonius.
Omelet: Idiot. (And I mean that sincerely.)
Enterunt Rosencrutch and Goldenstuff.
Goldenstuff: Glorious lord!
Rosencrutch: Most wondrous, shining lord! O mighty an' powerful prince!
Dear man! Dear dear darling man!

Omelet: So, good friends, hello. How goes it with you?

Goldenstuff: Good.
Rosencrutch: Going good. We are, as 'twere, the insipid children of the earth,
sprung entire from belly button lint of green and gracious nature.
Goldenstuff: Happy, yet not over so, I'd say. Content, not giddy. Nor
ecstatic, nor joyous, nor enraptured, or any such divine exotic state; just
fat and nappy, kind of catty. I shouldn't say supine on Fortune's belly
linerather maybe, snuggled mewling a little feline lower, curled,
pleasant smelly.
Omelet: Not belly lint, just pussy jelly, eh?
Goldenstuff: At kitty corner.
Rosencrutch: Meow meow! Woof!
Omelet: Yes...you two are just the sort I'd choose as lifelong bosom friends
e'en had fair flound'ring fate foregone to fling us i' this court, averse my
muse; uncivil tort.
Goldenstuff: An amusing motion.
Rosencrutch: Meoooowwwwwww!!
Omelet: What do you want?
Rosencrutch: Nothin', 'cept to say that the world's grown honest overnight,
an' honor honourable. It's generally pronounced. All fibs and
machinations are put away.
Omelet: And you are the proof?
Goldenstuff: Right!
Omelet: What about the nether world, is that honest too? Do devils an'
spirits groan truth only?
Rosencrutch: I suppose it would depend on their characters in life.

Goldenstuff: I concur, with this amendment: we must allow for stress and
impetus of hell. Those're rough conditions down there.
Omelet: So what bringst ye to this hell Denmark?
Rosencrutch: Denmark, a hell?
Goldenstuff: Then so's the world. Or solus system.
Rosencrutch: Add to 't the galactic vortex. Every broader cluster. The
universe entire. Sub-space too! The ether! And the dew!
Omelet: So are they all, if thou art consumed by them with nowhere else to
go. An insect in a dew is choked and damned. So are we all. War is hell.
Love is hell. Familial obligation is hell. Breakfast is hell. Hell is hell. Mark
me, this very cozen'd den of royal cosmos seeming is a reg'lar honeycomb
o' higglety-pigglety hell, of jazzy jabbing hot concentric flaming fire sweet
yet fickle, trapping, licking, stinging, cloying dire poison smoking singing
ever denser, higher, higher.
Rosencrutch: Well, we're comfy enough.
Omelet: Why then, 'tis not to you, if you negate it.
Goldenstuff: Think positive, then!
Omelet: Golden words, from golden stuff.
Rosencrutch: It all cometh down to Attitude.
Goldenstuff: Yep.
Omelet: I can play no lyre.
Rosencrutch: You're ambitious. All space seems less than closet to your goal.
Howe'er, could thou be a tad more organized....
Omelet: I could be bounded in a limerick yet count myself a master of epic
meter and pace were it not that I've got nutty luck. I'm left with shadow of
a scheme: a penumbra, a dream, a cashew caisson.
Rosencrutch: Ambition's but a dream, hence shadow.

Goldenstuff: A wish for something other, always other.

Omelet: If a dream's a shadow, a shade is too.
Rosencrutch: To dream of ambition, now that's shadow of a shadow. A
shadow of that would be a shadow flat. Call that a shallow shadow.
Goldenstuff: We speak of dreams and goals. Yet maybe our thinking's full o'
holes. Yet thinking's not an object either. A hole in that would be hole
indeed. It's hard to figure what to do; or what to say except
Rosencrutch: Only shadow knows, for sure.
Omelet: Your wit and scholarship exceed me. Tell me again what brings you
here.
Rosencrutch: We just wanted to say hello, that's all.
Goldenstuff: Because you're our dear friend, and we're yours as well, withal.
Omelet: Um hum. That's all?
Rosencrutch: This is mere a visitation.
Omelet: Okay.
Goldenstuff: Well, what would you have us say?
Omelet: Anything but the truth, so help you God. Tell me. Was't the King an'
Queen sent you?
Rosencrutch: To what end, m'lord?
Omelet: Why, to tutor me in the anatomical ways of thought, obvious enow.
But brain me no brain, nor liver me no liver. Were you sent by reign, or
don't you fain know?
Rosencrutch: Rain? I heard of snow.
Goldenstuff: Rain before it's over.
Rosencrutch: Snow, rain! It's all precipitate.

Goldenstuff: Drizzle, sure.

Rosencrutch: A crying from the sky, the heavens yawning.
Omelet: Yawning, yes. A weary breath, as o'erdrawn exchequer to fun.
Come come! By our bonded loving of childhood, enclew me what's the
deal.
Goldenstuff: A bonded bond is bondage, such much is sure.
Rosencrutch: Our fealty is shackled troth to thee, with chains and ropesfor
real.
Omelet: Not gagged, though. Your tongues are free?
Rosencrutch: To smack and cozen thee. Hee hee.
Goldenstuff: Or lick and lap, as conforms thy wont.
Omelet: I'd rather drown in the Hellespont. Prithee, didst the King and
Queen enjoin you join me?
Goldenstuff: A fair conjointic joining, as would encircling links of mercuric
mettle make, the one to other, scoring less or more so round a torso,
wrapping as they rend.
Omelet: Is that a 'yes'?
Rosencrutch: [Aside to Goldenstuff.] Well?
Goldenstuff: [Aside to Rosencrutch.] Well....
Omelet: [Aside to himself.] Well well well.
Goldenstuff: Okay, okaywe were asked to come, we grant; by royal
summons dunned. We woulda dropped by anywayst, only now we're
here in just a little extra haste. Call it tomato paste of Fate.
Rosencrutch: Or potato pure!
Omelet: Either one is plantand mashed. But I'd fain prevent your secrecy
wi' the King from moulting feathers. I' faith, don't worry on't. I know it's
cuz I seem cuckoo to them and thee...but, oh I dunno, I'm out of sorts of

late, my kilter curdled, heart engirdled. E'en glittering circling crown of

royal state seems but encrusted diadem of gruel, reflecting not so much
majestic cool as demonic usurpation. Am I looney or what? Ha ha! (Don't
answer that.)
Truth is, I have somewhat lost my mirth. And gained some girth. I hardly
exercise any more, passing bypass gymnasium class, consume overmuch
pastries. The fair condo earth seems but stale and musty dormitory, the
sphere of black heavens blinking with so bright bestippled light do
beteem nought else but shattered chandelier of flourescent shellac that
cracks the mirror crack'd. Even the arrassed air doth stink of confounded
congregating gases. Would that some great Dane or Scott beam me out of
this blighted plot! Or bight bite me!
O what a masterwork is man, what a wonder! what a ham! How smart in
reason, how facile in facility...energetic in exertion, decisive daring in
decision! How precise in precision! How express and admirable in the
contour of his maximus, so much more masculine than any lass's is. In
aspiration how like an angel, in worship-worthiness how like a god! The
king of the animals. The beauty of the beasts. Yet man delights not me
um, nor women neither...though by your smiles so you seem to say so.
Rosencrutch: Marry, not me!
Goldenstuff: Marry me.
Omelet: Well, you chuckled or something when I said, "Man delights not
me." What was that all about? Do you think I'm
Rosencrutch: Oh, well, it's just that, if, as you frame it, "men delight not
me" You say what a glorious ham is man, and now, just as royal players
are coming to call, how in your perception man's a scam. If I be wrong,
smack me. Anyway, these noble beasts are arriving right now.
Omelet: Interesting. Well, whichever of them plays the king I'll pledge a
dridgecoc for a hanner condorser, or no verse will scan by plan, nor
piteous purging slake. Which troupe?
Rosencrutch: Why, what else, but the Bard Fardicals? Up here from London
this fortnight. Yes, that's right. They got here in a jiffy and they're all quite
spiffy. Their acting's fine; they know their lines. They rhyme in time. Their
favorite drink is lemon lime. Their artistry is sublime. Some of it is
pantomime. The show they're doing now is tragedian. The cost to see it is
a shilling. To miss it is a crime.

Omelet: London? I thought they were faring well there.

Rosencrutch: They got kicked out. Seems one of their plays, posing as mirror
to old woe, provoked a royal mass murdering or some such. Astonishing
machinations and death.
Omelet: Have they the same critical adulation as before?
Rosencrutch: Attendance is down.
Omelet: Have they lost their touch?
Rosencrutch: No, they're touched as ever. But some squalling thespians from
competing playhouses ha'e most taken over the stages, crying down as
they call it the slaying of art's immunity from life, an' thereso conjuring
strife. There's brawling in the street over how iambic a pentameter may
be, whether a peasant e'er resemble a pheasant in his fleas. Every body's afeared now to see a show unless it boast triple imprimatur from every
feuding faction extant, you know; an' every screeching scrawling
scribbler, bearing cultural compass and a sextant, doth his quills draw as
darts, render'ring crisp green a bright red in rectitude borne of palpitating
terror of petty epic incorrectitude. Anyone irregular doth forfeit his
proper place, the which why our foreign friends have gamboled here
apace, where the air's more liberal.
Omelet: Is 't so?
Goldenstuff: O, there's been much browbeating of brains.
Omelet: An' such jokers dictate terms?
Rosencrutch: They've cauteled all the squirms. Any lyric Atlas would shrug
his poetic globe in that clime.
Omelet: It doesn't surpise me, alas. My uncle is the King of Denmark, and
suck-up jesters who sneered at him before now beg and creep before his
door. But it's no proud flag half-masted. They're hardly heroes crushed by
Fate; they'd hae been the same in any state. 'Tis a state of things that
philosophy should study. I'd do it myself had I the time.
Flourish.
Goldenstuff: The players art arriving.

Omelet: Good to see you. Now I'll go an' say a hello to these other souls.
Thanks for coming. But you err.
Goldenstuff: How so?
Omelet: I am but bonkers south-south-east. When the gusts blow northerly, I
may tell a spanner from a hanner very plain.
Goldenstuff: [Aside.] What we need's a weather vane.
Enter Poltroonius.
Poltroonius: Well be you, gentle men!
Rosencrutch: Well; all's well.
Omelet: [Aside to Goldenstuff.] Watch this baby bawl this same news you've
told withal.
Goldenstuff: [Aside in reply.] Every man's a baby twice they say, an' three's
the charm.
Omelet: Hey ho, y'olde crow!
Poltroonius: Hee ha hi har heh hau! Ha ha hey hee hoo.
Omelet: Yeah, that's right.
Poltroonius: M'lord, I have brand news to tell you
Omelet: `M'lord, I have brand news to tell you' the very latest dope on Liz
an' Richard, Bob an' Linda, or mayhap Antony an' Cleopatra...come come,
tell. Give or go.
Poltroonius: Getting going good is giving gonna good go, but a good going
given g'aes given getting good gone.
Omelet: Mm.
Poltroonius: Players are come to put on an act.

Omelet: What? Is that thunder I hear cracking? What a jake thund'rous news
is that! Actors a-come! To put on a show? What a day, what a day. Hell
would be a happy place if folk went there to paint a monkey face. Is it
true? A performance is a-brew? Confount me.
Poltroonius: I
Omelet: O, ne'er mind. Two straight men just told me. We're all set t'attend.
Poltroonius: O...uh...ah! Goodly. You'll love it, m'lord. These players, they
are true actors categorical in all matter tragic an' historical, including
figures rhythmic and metaphysical, and metaphysic-rhythmical, and
linguistic and hubristic and contingent prototypical.
Omelet: Daughter daughter daughter. Judas. Eve. Delilah. Liz. Phizz. Cube
root of seven.
Poltroonius: [Aside.] Still on my daughter!
Omelet: Slaughter slaughter slaughter.
Poltroonius: [Aside.] Perplexitous mad cadence! Clearly: he longs for dear
Awfeelia dearly. [To Omelet.] The play is tragical, that's sure.
Omelet: An' topical an trappical.
Poltroonius: I guess you know that lo I have a daughter.
Omelet: No, it follows not. Check your premise...and keep it in check.
Poltroonius: What follows then else?
Omelet: Not much else but concludent certain you're a lunkhead on stilts, a
crappo capo. Let 't not cramp thee, though.
Poltroonius: Um, yes...well...marry!
Omelet: Or divorce. (But first kill all the lawyers.) A word hatchwise: mark
the temper guise and tempo of corrupt infection of confection, for it shall
stark alike divideth in what hath passeth last from what most like shall
be.... Porpend!
Enterunt the Players (half a dozen or so).

Omelet: Hup! Hallo! Welcome, welcome. Good to see ya. How do, how do.
Say, your faces fairly curl with frizzy furl. Come to beard me, ayah ha?
Haw haw...beard...ya get it? Come to beard me? Or stab at a shave in
sooth? A close shave?Heh heh heh hegggghhhhhhhhh.... Shave, warrant
ye? But no, seriously, look there, thou Player, see how you know this
what day is it?
Player One: What day? Why, it's to-day sir, of course.
Omelet: Today? [Aside.] Then I haven't missed it. But then, nary a poetic
spirit flits on down the pike but what can't craft anything it like. [Up
tempo.] Say, fine fellow, hallo!
Player One: 'Hallo!'
Omelet: (Quotha!) Knowest ye the Poultrygeister's i'th next street over but
one contrike, verily on the corner?
Player One: I should 'ope I should suh!
Omelet: (Intelligent boy! Remarkibul boy!) And, fathom whether e'er yet
they've sold the prize turkey hanging out there, a flubbery fat stout
feathered fowl?
Player One: Waeith the feather in 'is cap as blond as me?
Omelet: [Aside.] What a swell, apt lyrical boy! 'Tis duhlight to talk to him!
[To chap.] Yea, the same, with his ripe toy an' sap. Here, go 'n purchase his
approval
Player One: Choo choo!
Omelet: No, really, do it do. Here's a crown. Bob-crotch it, every one. Clap.
Clap! I say: clap!
General clapping. Exeit Player.
Now for you I've query too, an' pray the silver coinage of your voice show
no quick fluid change, nor counter fit. For I'd savor charring speech from
your own noir repertoireand put some tongue in it.
Player Two: Any particular speech?

Omelet: A goodly one. A goodly one. A fabric knit of wonder words is best,
but scorn not theme nor plot nor all the rest. You know the type. Born of
hype, buried with the corn. So forth.
Player Two: Okay, okay. Then, let's see, how about... "Once upon a time..."
Omelet: Nay no; not that old hat.
Player Two: "When in the seminar of human events"
Omelet: Pish posh, bosh.
Player Two: 'I am the Lord thy Clod. Thou shalt have no other clods before
me. Thou shalt"
Omelet: Next.
Player Two: [Sigh.] "We are all Caine's ions now"
Omelet: Zap it.
Player Two: "Liberty, or death."
Omelet: Granted.
Player Two: Uh..."It ought to be remembered that there is nothing more
difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its
success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things."
Omelet: Solon?
Player Two: Machiavelli.
Omelet: You sup at a lush banquet of words and but doggy-bag the scraps.
Player Two: Which, then? O which?
Omelet: From this to this bring this: "Friends, acquaintances, passersby,
vouchsafe me an ear loan. I come to bury Caesar, not to braise him"and
so.

Player Two: O sure. "Caesar's dead. The guys who whacked him are
honorable guys. If any brute pretend cause to slay him, I accept such
claims at froth face value...."
Poltroonius: He's good. He's good. Very convincing.
Omelet: "Froth face"?
Poltroonius: "Froth face" is good. I like the alliteration. A lot.
Player Two: "...honorable guys all right. Say, didja ever notice how the evil
that men do sticks after them, like mud on hobnails, while the good's oft
buried with their bones in the enmolded pine of neglectful memory?
Caesar's virtue is now sunk i' the mantled earth, below our ken. So swell a
guy: ingrasiate to his subjects, pleasant to his dog, sweet gentle to his wife.
But he was a punk, a leader, ambitioussay those honorable guys who
stabbed him in the back. He deserved it, Brutus saysand Brutus, why,
Brutus is an honorable guy. (By the by, I hear the Brooklynus Bridge is for
sale. Have I a bid? I pause for a reply.)
"You ask, you ask, 'O why O why did Caesar have to die; why why?' O, he
was ambitious, was the problem. He tried to make something of himself.
Tried to be all he could be. There's a crime! Lead the peepul to a better
way, yoonite the nayshun under a manidged health care plan, an' cut your
taxes later.... And when ever a widowed orphan's tormented kitty would
get caught in a tree, he'd cry and cry with seared sympathetic eyes. And
why, O why, did he do that? Because...he...cared. He was a very caring,
caring kind of person, loathe t'allow the better things to worsen. Ambition
should be made of stiffer stuff. It really should. O what a bastard. Did you
know that in his will, this greedy Caesar bestows on each of you a condom
and a pill? Perverted man. He'd help you from your cradle to your grave,
sweet regulatory hand. But no. No no. He had to go. For such he's
damned. But honor bade it. And Brutus is an honorable guy. Honor honor
honor, noble honor, which to Hecuba" O God, I can't go on! [Sob.]
Hecuba!
Flees.
Omelet: Hecuba? Hecuba? Who the heck is Hecuba, an' heck to who...? How
doth a put-on passion affect him so? Still...that's drama though, when craft
emotion propels invention past all reason, all convention. What a
wonderful habiliment. Would that I could don it.
Muses.

Player Three: Well, why don't you, sir?

Poltroonius: Youth! The fragrant scent of snow, melting into dew! A blank
canvas, accruing dust and glue!
Rosencrutch, Goldenstuff: Boo hoo!
Poltroonius: Poor Hecuba! Poor him! Gawd-a-mercy! It doth tickle me i' the
pit o' my soul!
Omelet: These guys are good, that's sure. We must ensure we make good use
of them. They'll entertain the entire royal family, the consorts and
attendants too. Prepare well what they need.
Poltroonius: I'll use them according to their dessert.
Omelet: No no! Use everyone according to his dessert, an' who should
escape flogging?
Poltroonius: Flogging!
Omelet: Please now...go...all of you...I vahnt...to be...alone....
Exeunt omnes.
Omelet: Alone. Zone. Tone. Pone. Moan. Ah, what a wretch am I. What
dullard. O dullard wretch! O wretched dull procrastinator! O fowl thumbtwiddler! I am like a pattern on a page!
In sooth, is it not travastic queer that this player here, this man about
playhouse, enacting as 'twere in a fiction fraud or farcic fling, doth by dint
of a few mouthed mint lines, crumple into an emotional puddle, bones
wailing, every fibre sobbing with mottled, stricken grief to the core of his
capacity, banishing scruple? And for what? And me! O me!
Consider me, by way of comparison and contrast! Is my feeling pure and
strong and right, sheer an' unadulterated, in and out of sight? Like that
guy's? Yet...my grief is real! I should possess his fervor to the exponent of
four or more! I'm no player on a hook, no character in a book! Still, I moan
and dally. 'What am I gonna do? What am I gonna do?' That's my plaint. It
isn't fair. Because I do care. I care. Thing is though, I've got a legitimate
problem. That ghost I saw. Is it really my dad? Maybe it's just some
diseased devil dressed in plaid. What's real and what's not? What's for
show and what's to go? I'm in a spot.

Thing is, I can't rightly take revenge based entirely on some murky
phantom's unsubstantiated say-so. He could be trying to diddle me. So I'm
stuck. But wait...wait...I've got an idea...got an idea here...might
work...yeah. The king'sking!he's gonna be watching the play tonight,
ain't he? Sure. The whole royal family will be there. So: I'll through the
play hold a glass to his own fowl play, if foul it be, and then we'll see. Hee
hee. I'll confect some new material, stick it into the night's performance,
an' watch the results.
I've adequate ground for this. Research shows that people who commit
crimes manifest their guilt in telltale jerks or spasms whilst viewing in
public torrid fictions loosely if unmistakeably based on those crimes. 'Tis
rightly said, murder doth lack a tongue but puke a bucket. Well then, I'll
shew the very murder to the liege; if the ghost be fibber, the bozo king
will take the trial calm and cool, his wits collected, soul ungashed,
uninfected. But if he start, ajitter, ashamed, aghast; if he gibber as tho a
scouring diamond rag has swabbed his pastthat punk is sunk. Yeah. I've
a plan now, a plan of action. We're skating in the rink, now. The play's the
way to snag the conscience of that fink.
Exeit.

ACT III
[Scene I]
Enterunt Clintonius, Queen Gertie, Poltroonius, Awfeelia, Rosencrutch,
Goldenstuff.
Clintonius: That's it? You've no single clue anent why his screws are loose,
nor why his speech show such profusion of confusion?
Rosencrutch: He admits to being out of sorts, but as to the wellspring of 't, is
quite quiet.
Clintonius: I believeth not this. I believeth not. We enjoin you to dis-incover
the motivation of our Prince Omelet, and you can't do that one little thing?
What the fucketh do we pay thee for, damneth thee?
Rosencrutch: Sire...
Goldenstuff: Prithee, sire, prithee for a second here, will ya? He's got this
crafty madness thing going, we can't make head nor tail of it. His aim is
nought but in his brain, that's sure. We canst approach him only so far
along a certain path, upon which point he doth gang far aft agley along
some other one less traveled by, the portent of which we cannot too well
espie.
Queen Gertie: How did he receive you?
Rosencrutch: Receptively. Sure.
Goldenstuff: Sweet gracious his manner, albeit cunning his tongue,
deceptively.
Rosencrutch: We were licked from the beginning.
Queen Gertie: Would nothing draw him out?
Goldenstuff: 'Twas one speech he gave revealing, on the wonderment of
man. Mayhap then he's gay.
Clintonius: Really?
Queen Gertie: Not my Omelet! Forfend.

Poltroonius: He's mad on my Awfeelia!

Goldenstuff: Just an idea. [Sigh.]
Clintonius: Hmm.
Queen Gertie: What of games or recreation? Did you invite him to
distraction?
Rosencrutch: I'll tell thee this. He was interested in the players who came
today to town. He's looking forward to the show they're staging on the
grounds. Seemed pretty excited about it.
Poltroonius: O yes, that's right. An' I think he's fond for your majesties to
attend. A potent magic it would bring, I should think. Anyway, mayn't
mend things worse.
Queen Gertie: Omelet loves a play.
Rosencrutch: He very does.
Clintonius: O does he.
Goldenstuff: 'The play's the thing,' I've heard him say anon. It makes him
sing, doth send his spirit yon.
Poltroonius: 'The thing'? What thing?
Queen Gertie: What kind of thing?
Rosencrutch: A thing thing, I think. A thing among things. That kind of
thing.
Poltroonius: Anything that is a thing is a thing that
Clintonius: Shut up.
Poltroonius: Sure.
Clintonius: Now Gertie, go. We've sent for Omelet hither, to come upon our
sweet Awfeelia here as if by inadvertical accident. Poltroono here and I
will plant our asses behind the arras, to mark the speech which

subsequent passes. We should detect keen hints of our young son's

meaning, without overmuch leaning. Awfeelia, ask many a leading
question, that we might enjoy a productive session. That's it. Places,
everyone. Action.
Queen Gertie: I'll obey m'lord. Goodbye.
Exeit Queen.
Clintonius: Bye bye O very bye. Awfeelia?
Awfeelia: As ready as I may ever.
Clintonius: Just be yourself. That'll seem natural.
Poltroonius: Here, take this prayer book. Research shows that piety
professed is great cover for a psychologic mess or strategem or test; by
which we may devil the devil himself. Skim it as the prince approaches.
Then note what subject thereupon he broaches. Step to one side for the
nonce until he come. All the best.
Exeit Awfeelia.
Clintonius: [Aside.] How that glucose call to piety reproaches! It doth jab me
to the very saddle of my conscience. What fell hell it be in full only time
will tell enow, as events begin to gel. Meantime, must the show go on. O
well.
Poltroonius: Omelet's footfalls! Needs must we must now hide.
Exeunt duo.
Enter Omelet.
Omelet: What a daa-a-ay this has been...what a raaaaar-r-re mood I'm
in...hmm hmm, hmm hmm hmm, hmmm...
Enter Fool.
Fool: Prince...Prince Omelet...Omelet...hie thee ho! Yo ho, yo ho!
Omelet: My ho? What ho?

Fool: O no! Ho ho. Ha ha. No, but in sooth, prithee, I have a question on
some application that I make. Thou art student?
Omelet: I would be.
Fool: Knowest ye to profitable avail the ins and outs of institutional inquiry
and assayal?
Omelet: What are you babbling about? I ponder issues of greater moment
at the moment.
Fool: No, but seriously. Regarding this application. For the number one
question I simply provideth my name an' place of residing, which I guess
would be the castle here. I have a room in the east wing...
Omelet: Go to!
Fool: No, no, but I do! I'm not so happy about the ventilation.... But never
mind. But then, this second question of it reveals structure which is
double-parted. In the part 'a' it requests financial status, and in sooth 'tis
hard to know how to answer as I'm a ward of state. There are many
blanks for this. At any rate, this second part, '2b', inquires on my
existential grounding and my fate. Ah...anyway...mayhap I'll consult with
thee another time. Heh heh.
Exeit Fool.
Omelet [after pause]: 2b or not 2b, that is the question.... Existence or nonexistence; or, as might be said, a metaphysical option in my head....
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of
outrageous fortune, an onslaught of bad breaks, or to take arms against a
sea of troubles...no, "arms" and "sea" mix the metaphor; an', the greater
moiety is might...take arms against an army of troubles...um.... Whether
'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous
fortune, or to take arms against an army...a battalion.... Nobler in the mind
to suffer the bows and arrows, or battle a battalion of troubles.... Bad
breaks.... Battle a battalion of bad breaks, and by opposing dispose them.
Opposing, that isto be perfect clearthe very ground of being which
alone enables attentiveness to, and angst over, moral and social
corruption. Snuff that self-conscious consciousness out, in brief. End it.
Stop.

To die, to sleepdozebulldozeend it all. The heartache. The pain. The

regrets. The Mets. No more. And by that sleep to say we end the thousand
natural pricks and tickles flesh is ere to. To opt on 't. To sleep, perchance
to dreamAye, there's the rub. Rubby-dub-dub in a tub. O tub. Be there
an afterlife? If so, how so? What might it consist of? What is its form and
figure? That's the problem that makes problems so prolonged. I mean,
who'd withstand the whips and scorns of time, the oppressor's wrong,
ever-higher taxation and political corruption, bitter racial tension, riots,
terrorist bombings, foreign policy waffling, glib-stockinged evil or rank
hypocrisy, media mendacity, agents and editors bereft of brains, stock
market slumps and rising crime, the law's delay, witless wit or shameless
parody of poetry nonpareil; who'd withstand this friggin' crap could he
preclude it with a nap, fetching peace and quietus with a bare bodkin or
noose so tight as to render mincemeat of all biasesunless the prospect of
unknown fate doth thwart him.
Here's something from the Local Minstrel that makes me mope, despair of
sparing hope. Seems crime is up by ten percent. The king is mad, yelps we
must act, must make a dent. How to swing that trick in brief time span, so
that it stick? Make the criminals pay for their crimes, beef up our security
in uncertain times? O no. The answer is, a national health care plan.
Prithee gotta hike the taxes, make all the coverage mandatory, yoke
everyone against his will, ram down a bitter pill. That's the story. Then
bad guys won't be bad no more, high costs never high no more. Running
free's unhealthy, insofar as only for the wealthy, is the song; whereas
sickness was a bad thing all along. So gotta stitch a medical social netting,
in the process glibly getting for every man and woman and child the latest
bandages and bloodlettingand cheap will be the price. The sole proviso
is, but which shouldn't cause a frown, writs of rights must playeth possum
on the ground. In short, to bring everybody up, fling everybody down.
Use a brick to smash some skulls if objections make the rounds. Then let a
jury learn how technicalities abound. Self-esteem thus fed will blossom,
an' thugs will smile, in the days when any penitential dental patient may
cap his every gap with crowns. By this nice royal engineering knife, that
same which took my father's life, all social sickness will be curednot to
mention strife. Just great, just great. Is it any wonder why I hate this
waking state? Yet, alas, howe'er dark an' dour this globe may be, howe'er
dreary public policy, we fear that what lurks beyond this worldly bourne
will be e'en worse. An' so we groan and stagger through weary days,
delaying that final starry trek through mortal portals in a hearse for fear of
undiscovered country. Thus doth conscience make swaggering cowards
out of the vast majority of us, and the native hue of broken resolution is
plastered with the pale cast of thought.

I don't know. Dying might be scary, but staying alive's no picnic either. The
verdict is obscure, the jury's out. I'm sick, sick, sick, near unto to puke, an'
my insurance will not cover it. 'Tis six of one and half a dozen of the other.
You can't win....
Enter Awfeelia.
Omelet: Well, well, well, if it ain't Awfeelia. Pray for me, babe.... Say, got an
astrolabe?
Awfeelia: Good Omelet, lord knows I workle not what thou sayest. How
fare thee?
Omelet: Fare? Fare? What meanst thou?
Awfeelia: Nothing niggling. Nor not nigh nothing norkle, neither. Just a
question.
Omelet: Give me a breather...okay. Okay. Okay. I'm okay. I had a spell, my
brain in a whirl, but now I'm well. Thanks for your concen, girl.
Awfeelia: Um, an' I wanted to thank thee for thy interest too. I didst receive
thy candy an' flowers...didn't get back to you...been busy...but, I
wanted...gracious lord, um, to acknowledge...real nice of thee....
Omelet: I sent nothing.
Awfeelia: O but I was sure...the card's inscribed, "from Omelet, to my sweet
Awfeelia, prithee accept profound affection, forsooth" and so...I mean, that
was you, no?
Omelet: No.
Awfeelia: O...
Omelet: Get thee to nunnery; go!
Awfeelia: Excuse me?
Omelet: You've got the prayer book. You've got the simpering demeanor.
You've certainly got thy chastity. Nada prospect of proposal. A convent
waits. Get out of my face.

Awfeelia: M-m-m-muh-m'lord...w-w-w-w-what's cometh over thee? You

gave me those things. That's a factus. Sorry I am I didn't thank thee
sooner, as long I longed to, yet I wast most inhibit. Now I warrant I'm
ready to reply in kind. Don't get mad, get glad. Rich gifts wax poor when
givers change their minds.
Omelet: Need I thy lesson, hench wench? Bitch shifts tax more when shivers
lax care find. How 'bout that?
Awfeelia: M'lord...! Thy speach miscoils so enigmatic. A strangeous burden,
most unpragmatic.
Omelet: Are you honest, Awfeelia?
Awfeelia: What do you mean?
Omelet: By honesty? In honesty? Mostly, straightforwardness. Plus also
modesty. Veiled but unveiled in a coventry. A dual meaning, yet of
unitary type. A concealment stripped of hype.
Awfeelia: That's a poor honesty, which goes unpromoted and unseen.
Omelet: Poor but true. Yet it may be seen in one way, yet not another.
Awfeelia: 'Tis ambiguous.
Omelet: I prefer a clear ambiguity to ambiguous clarity.
Awfeelia: And me?
Omelet: Get thee to a nunnery!
Awfeelia: But...but...dost not thou lovest me withal, and woulds't make of
me thy wife?
Omelet: O? An' then whatst wouldst happen? Wouldst thou render me a
cuckold, as is woman's power an' delight? Ah...! But methinks the
institution of marriage far rated o'er, anywayye. Much may be said for the
bachelor an' independent life. AndI hate you.
Awfeelia: Hate? Hate hate? O say not so! O horror, that this only hate
springs from my only love! What mocking fate!

Omelet: Are you fair?

Awfeelia: Modest?
Omelet: Fair! Just fair.
Awfeelia: I guess. Fair-to-middling.
Omelet: Fairly good-looking? Fairly fair? Fair in fairness? A fair farer?
Awfeelia: I don't see where you're going with this.
Omelet: Just this. Let not your beauty commune with your duty.
Awfeelia: How do you mean?
Omelet: Sully beauty with duty an' ugliness follows. Imbue duty with
beauty and hide a soul sallow, which must i' faith breathe out its aweful
form upon the dirtied earth disglamoured, unpretty, untrue. The grim
duty I mention is ugly gross honesty. It's duty dire, too. But beauty's hitch
is higher; howso it curve askew. I loved you once, i'faith.
Awfeelia: So gave you me to gather, m'lord. Indeed, I did up-scoop the
petals of thy strewn promise for mine own, an' hae sewn of them garland
nuptial as grace to fortune's bed and my life. My life.
Omelet: Petals wilt, as doth my strung-out love, if love 'twere ere.
Awfeelia: Unnatural petal!
Omelet: Petal, shmettle! Get thee to a nunnery! O, I know thy type. Thou'lst
mince and lisp and cookie crisp, afore the end of 't. An' the next thing ya
know: murthur! A fowl chicken-hearted plot, or thematic giblets! I'll not
await it! Pah! Woman! Get out of here! Go! Go now. Read my lips: move
thy hips! Fey, I never loved thee, clinging, whining vine! Get yer coat in
fine!
Awfeelia: No coat can coat this moat of brine, this sinking heart, this
grievous pining. [Aside.] O Gawd! He is mad, mad, mad: mad as a look in
the eyes of a kook! He loves me...now he loves me not? O petal! Such
inconstancy, so alien to normal man! To change his mind in such short
span! He needeth professional therapy, ayah hah.

Omelet: You're better off without me! I bethought myself a nice guy, once't.
But now I wish I'd ne'er been born-o. I'm cast as vengeful, neurotic,
athwart the day; so I am. A reflecting mirror to fowl woe, forgetting that
as I reap, so shall I sow. To a nunnery: go already! A bastard is what you
see, as art the company entire that reign about thee! Flee! O flee! Save
thyself! Doom! Doom! Flee! Hide! Recluse thyself from these sordid
doings! And your name, again, is...?
Awfeelia: O distortive, funhouse mirror! Heaven help him! His brain is
brackishif he suppose the folks here less than swell! O what a mad mad
mad mad world this is, when so smart prince the truth sheer misses.
Withal, I find myself confused.
Omelet: Where's your poppa?
Awfeelia: Home.
Omelet: I see. Well, just let him stay there, as sweet innocent perjury might
warm Pandora's bosom.
Awfeelia: [Aside.] O heavenly powers restore him! Restoreth his soul!
Omelet: I enjoin thee: go: go go! To a nunnery, ho! Marry me, and be thou as
chaste as dry ice, as pure as fresh-mown snow, thou shalt shovel calumny,
enfrost the pitch-defiling dew! I'm bad news, babe!... Say, got an astrolabe?
Exeit.
Awfeelia: What a noble mind is here o'erthrown! Omelet, my Omelet, once
upon a time professing all the sweetest lilting sentiment, shewing sheer
incisiveness of soul, with always fresh presentiment of fine beauty and
contentment, now distempered, bent, all tilting, jilting his intended. I
think I'll give up quilting. A brilliant man once, deep of thought, an
observer of observers, most clever wrought. His brain hath selfdestructed, his reason lost its tune. [Sob!] He's now a jangled loon. I
cannot bear it. To see what I see, to know what I know, is woe, is woe, is
woe!
Enterunt Clintonius and Poltroonio.
Poltroonius: Mad dog for thy love! What else? Have I not said it?

Awfeelia: Prithee, are there any convents in the area?

Clintonius: Something's afoot. His overt lunacy, what e'er the cause...has a
game sub-text to it, sinuous and cruel, tormented, purposeful. He's
changed. I like it not well.
Poltroonius: A plucking lyre, harping on my daughter! Solicitous of her
purity! Didst thou not hear him, sire?
Clintonius: You know, sometimes methinks that thou hearest only what
thou want to hearest, Poltroonius. Piqued it not thy curiosity and
foreboding in the least, how he described ye as a fool who needeth caging
for thy safety?
Poltroonius: A metaphor, my liege! The whole world's a cage to our lit'ry
Omelet, as has been anon reportedand we [all] but felons in 't, en-jaild
for life! Ha ha!
Clintonius: What of that part wherein he slanders our royal health care plan?
'Tis treason! We worked hard on that plan, man! Zounds, 'tis nigh a bipartisan plan! Thus mutinous rumbling doth scald and harrow us to our
very marrow pus! The lad's melancholic to the point of frolic. 'Tis a danger
to our rood, this mood. It needs a change of venue. Here's my quick and
firm executive decision: we'll ship his butt abroad to England, to get some
taxes due us. The new air there may clear his something-nettled head. In
the bargain, he'll fetch our bread. Nuff said. So shall it be written. So done.
Poltroonius: But I warrant ye, the spring an' foment of his embitterment is
nothing but deflected love 'neath clouded sun. I see nothing more 'n 't.
Here's my further suggestial: When the play tonight is done, the curtain
drawn, let him with his mother be alone in secluded private. I'll hide
behind a drapery to spectate what prevail. To her direct inquisital, he may
the fresh warm body of his complaint stabbing straight unveil. Surely he
shall confide in his own mother.
Clintonius: We'll take it under advisement. And don't call us Shirley.
Exeunt omnibus.
[Scene II]
The castle. Enterunt Omelet and Three Players.

Omelet: Hast thou learned the lines I gave thee?

Players: Verily, m'lord.
Omelet: 'Tis important stuff, an' I pray you pronounce it trippingly on the
tongue. And don't trip over it, as some rogue troupes do. That's what ails
me, by the way: when bald broad emphasis is bestown by happe and
hazard on each third dramatic line, a dim-witted rend'ring by players who
but obliquely scan the truth an' carriage of the words, wanting any damp
drivel to be jawed portentous. Understatement, man! Finesse! I pray you!
Stretch not taffy into goo. I hate it when bad actors tear passions to tatters,
serving up raw-cooked emotion on over-cooked clay platters. T'won't do.
Player: We'll be fine.
Omelet: Nor be bland when strength's demanded, neither; nor toss sand
when rocks are needed. Attend a discretion tutorial, so as to paint a
portrait immemorial. A balance must be struck, betwick artistic skill an'
realism; heed it! Art must hold a glass to nature, showing at very least her
nomenclature. If some hypocrisy be thus labeled in it, such may but
expose some natural thing's false-hewn affected stature. Virtue spurns a
mocked-up image: she wants a true-won scrimmage. Authentic art
contemns a phony part.
Player: Uh huh.
Omelet: Now, the play gains closure through fine spectation, the soul of
which is delectation. Thus gear your wit to men of taste and conscience
not droolers lacking sentience. Do you agree?
Player: True enow, m'lord.
Omelet: Proceed on that basis, then.
Players: M'lord, we shall obey. We'll play it as you say.
Omelet: Good.
Players: We have to go set up now. The play begins shortly.
Omelet: All right.
Players: Enjoy the show.

Omelet: Yes.
Exeunt Players. Enterunt Poltroonius, Goldenstuff and Rosencrutch.
Omelet: Well? Is the king ready to play?
Poltroonius: And the queen, once she finishes her make-up. Expect a royal
show.
Exeit.
Omelet: I doubt it nothing.
Goldenstuff: We're all ready to see what happens.
Rosencrutch: Yes, we're ready too.
Exeunt les deux.
Omelet: Good. Good good.
Enter Homoleo.
Homoleo: At your service, m'lord.
Omelet: What ho! Homoleo!
Homoleo: That's my name.
Omelet: Hey, just wanna say, thou art the swellest guy what ever came my
way.
Homoleo: Gee, Prince Omelet
Omelet: No, think not I flatter; my issuement's true matter. (Not that you
have overly much competition hereabouts.) Art thee rich? Famous?
Powerful? Socially disadvantaged? What mongrel bounty can ye proffer?
But your virtues: steadfastness, civility, friendship, thy poor an' deferrent
honesty. The meager assets of a pauper monk, a pauper crew, a foul Fagin
fetchment. But! A very but: let some other candy-ass lick the lavish
lacquer licorice or lash of preening pomp. I prefer a nobler, simpler way,

belike a dew, thus do sew thy spirit into the sorghum sinew of my heart;
left ventricle.
Thou has been a rock, Homo. An anchor. A compass. A map. A reg'lar
schedule on a clock, tick-tock. A goodly, faithful chap. No weather vane to
Fortune's buffets and harangues, no cute lute for her to play on. Howso
she lift or hurl, kiss or smite, blow or bite thee: still ye take a single way to
go: straight ahead an' forward, or just plain still: no tergiversations to
strumpets froward. I really appreciate that kind of thing. God bless the
man whose reason and emotion, fused, en-still commotion. Always to
thine own self true. (Wouldst thou contrain a dridge coc with a hanner
condorser? I think not!) But my feeling overfloats, an' frothy jetslook
ye
Soon the play begins, the which fast forward will our plot. I would ye
inspeck the King as events unfold, observing how he take each turn in
turn. Attend a particular scene which mimics the murdur I've related.
Look for a sign. If he's guilty, a certain twitch will show, as shall your
wisdom know, and studies prove. But if he sanguine take it, the ghost's a
fakerand our fears forged of Vulcan logic. We'll compare notes later so
as to attain full and fair assessment. Prejudgement's prejudicial, as is
guessment.
Homoleo: I'll keep my eyes open.
Enterunt trumpets and trombones, flutes, lutes, lyres, drums, bagpipes,
dridge cocs, King, Queen, Poltroonius, Awfeelia, Goldenstuff,
Rosencrutch, Fools, Knaves, Lords, Attendants, Rubes. Sound of flourish.
Dance of whirling dervish.
Omelet: They're coming for the show. I better feign the fool. Hyuck hyuck!
Howdy doody, folks!
Clintonius: Hiya, Omelet. How fare thee?
Omelet: I fare fair, i'faith. A comely dish, sweet savory to taste. Green eggs
an' ham.
Clintonius: Well, IthisI can't deal with this. That's not what I asked him.
Honey, you talk to him.
Queen Gertie: O Omelet, Omelet, Omelet! Wherefore scrambled art thou,
Omelet?
Omelet: No: green eggs an' ham: that's what I am. Green eggs an' ham.

Queen Gertie: A colored egg!

Awfeelia: A paltry petal!
Fool: A sly devil!
Knave: What a hoot!
Omelet: [Aside.] All true (an' false to boot). [To Poltroonius.] Sir, you played
i' college anon, didntcha, nay? On stage.
Poltroonius: Yessir I did, that's right. That's how I obtained my first acting.
Omelet: What was your role?
Poltroonius: I enactivated Caesar, yessir. Brutus slew me in the imperial
boudoir.
Omelet: It must've been a brutish Brutus to've kilt thee in so sacred a salon.
Poltroonius: Well...mayhap, mayhap! Yea verily though, 'twas the stars
which failed him, not so much himself; the net astrologics of the matter
being set against him. Very tragical, very tragical tale.
Omelet: Are the players ready?
Rosencrutch: Yes.
Queen Gertie: Omelet, come sit by me.
Omelet: Now now, 'tis to Awfeelia I must crook my knee. Hey babe, can I
put my face i' yer lap? Let me seek thy sap.
Awfeelia: Uh...verily.
Poltroonius: [Aside.] Do you note? Always on my daughter!
Clintonius: [Drily.] Verily.
Omelet: How's that!
Awfeelia: Please!

Omelet: May 't please you....

Awfeelia: Omelet! I'll winch thee!
Omelet: What are you thinking?
Awfeelia: My mind's a blank.
Omelet: A swell concavity for any nether region.
Awfeelia: Thou sick, disgustious man!
Omelet: Enjoy the show.
Awfeelia: Well, you seem to be enjoying thyself enow.
Omelet: O, what!? Is 't not joy should haze our gazes, the way it doth my
uncle an' the queen? An' my father dead all these past few weeks? A
bouyant burden; it but dimly grazes, fazes, crazes.
Queen Gertie: Months, Omelet. Almost two since thy father died.
Omelet: O, what! Months, say ye! Is 't verified? An' still his e'ergreen
memory's not felled and burified? Vouchsafe an axe an' shovel and I'll
requit this crime, interring any mention of the man until the end of time.
Let me dig! Let me dig! An' thenwhy then, I'll dance a jig!
Awfeelia: Hush. Here come the players.
Omelet: So they do. Watch i' now...here comes a good part.
Trumpets and feathers. Players enterunt upon the stage, perform a dumb
show. There is a King, there is a Queen. They hug. Queen leaves. King lies
down to nap. Another man cometh in chasing a chicken. He doth grab it,
chop off its head, pour its blood into a vial as King sleepeth peacefully.
The man doth then extract various powders from a pouch to intermix with
the chicken blood, using a royal swizzle stick. He then spilleth liquid from
the vial into the ear of the recumbent King. King suffereth fits and
paroxysms, until still. The Queen returneth. She looketh surprised and
upset. The man consoleth her. She relaxeth and smileth. They kiss. He
yanketh the crown off the dead King's head and placeth it upon his own.
They smileth belike dastard fowl-hearted fiends, walk off stage. Curtain.

Awfeelia: Methinks this enactment enacts the argument of the play, doth it
not?
Omelet: So it may. Tell me, Awfeelia, doth our King look a teensy little bit
blue at the gills to thee?
Awfeelia: Why, how dost thou mean?
Enter Prologue.
Omelet: Here comes a good part.
Awfeelia: Will he tell us what the show means?
Omelet: He sure should. Or any-a show you might shirk shame to show
enow.
Awfeelia: You are opaque. I'll attend.
Prologue: Welcome to our show. 'Tis good enow to go. So prithee, grab a
seat, For what ye miss, we won't repeat Unless in subsequent
performance.
Exit. Enterunt Player King and Player Queen.
Player King: The wings of Icarus hath flapped below bounteous burning
suns, weary Atlas weary struggled under trembling global tons; 'tis epic
time since we were wedhow sweet it would be if we went again to bed.
Player Queen: Headache, headache, is what I suffer; yet betwick me an' thee,
too slender buffer. Tender to the day an' cloister'd, my feeling wilt ne'er
darken, wilt, forsake thee.
Player King: I've but vague vague notion what you just said; c'mon, c'mon,
let's off to bed. My mortal time grows short, I feel; I'm sick an' tired, of
commonweal. Yet now I'm wired.
Player Queen: You're getting weak, an' palsied, incapacitate. I fear for thee
enormitous of late. Love each little fear doth foster and imbrue. I, fearing,
love; loving, fear thy fate. This fearful love is loving's fearsome mate. So
love a fear fain fashions from a fiddle. With this exception: law of
excluded middle.

Player King: I'm melting, melting, melting into dew. I soon must leave thee,
farewell my kingdom too. My single hope is, when I'm gone, ye sing a
happy song, then set aside our marriage band and fetch a fair new
husband
Omelet: Here it comes a good part, listen
Awfeelia: You're quite a chorus for us.
Player Queen: No no, O no! I say not so! Forsooth I'd mourn thee good long
while. The idea of quick new vows fills me with bile, and how. None
speeds wed second hubbie but who slew the first; if I take that tack may I
be cursed.
Omelet: [Aside.] That's the worstwormwood!
Player King: Well, I'm sure you believe what you just spake. It lacking playenacture of fey fawner on the make. But oft enow, my dear, what we say
we're gonna do... Up the chimney goes, like smokechoo choo. For
purpose is oft but serf to soggy surface sentiment that like too-ripe fruit
falls en-dented to hard pavement. 'Tis something like a new season's
awkward fall event, which truth alone an' love plus honesty prevent. 'Tis
quite habitual, in sooth, that tomorrow we neglect to fair return what
today fair souls reflect; so that what by yapping maw may be most
passionate proposd Is later on pretty quick disposd. Thus are passion's
tears or rapture, erupting salient in the dark, under improvd light made
light of as salty wailing or a lark. And thus we show, if with new fortune
we rescind old loveas though deceit with majesty fit hand in glove
that our love's fortune swivels on which fortune we'd fain leave; for 'tis an
open question, which lack we greater grieve. Many a friend in flagging
fortune is like a sagging sheave who quick betrays his fellow if quick
silver might receive. Yet if you say you'll miss me, such I must believe. An'
by my troth I can't conceive ye've intent other up thy sleeve; Still, any end
we will we own may by set fate be overthrown. But now let me nap; I
crave reprieve From this waking day, so bright. For after day comes night.
Egad, my head...is...heavier...than a stone.
Player Queen: My lord, I swear, I swear, by all that's up and down and left
and right, by all that's bad an' all that's right: never shall I soil any
memory of thine, not while I've breath left mine. If ever I change my
mind, may hellfire scorch me, an' strife strafe me through my life. And
after life. May I then be despoiled, wretched and damned.

Omelet: That's confirmed, eh? If she should betray him now...!

Player King: 'Tis good to know. Now let us to bed go.
Omelet: [To Queen.] How like ye the play so far?
Queen Gertie: The lady doth protest too much, mefeels.
Clintonius: What is this, Omelet? You seen this before? Doth it not offend? I
hate it and it makes me feel guilty.
Omelet: Nah, 'tis scant of portent to construe. We're out here i' the real
world, an' she's up there on stage. Just a playful much-ado.
Queen Gertie: What's it called?
Omelet: Marry, The Rat Trap, by some lame Dame Agatha. You'll appreciate
how it turn out. O, 'tis trash, but so what? We may while away the hour
with 't. It's nutten to do wid us, yer majesties! Let the spurred horse neigh
an' truckle, we're secure in saddle an' buckle. But look, unclenow comes
the image of the King's own brother. 'Tis a good part.
Enter Play King's Own Brother.
Awfeelia: Thou seemest most acquainted with the action.
Omelet: [Muttering.] I'll acquaint thee with some action anon.
Play King's Brother: So. My brother an' the crown sleepeth, doth he? Well,
sleep away the day, swell my brother. Sleep sleep sleep. An' what thou
lose in sleep, that I may grab to keep. With the help of this here poisoned
chicken blood.
Pours chicken blood into the King's ear.
Omelet: Do it! Do it, damnd punk! Poison his form with that fowl junk!
Render his royal greatness dead and pompous-plumd posture in his
emptied stead!
Awfeelia: The king riseth!
Clintonius: Light! Light! My kingdom for some light!

Omelet: Hoo! Neigh, neigh.

Queen Gertie: The king is up-set!
Omelet: Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses, And all the king's men, Couldn't make royal what
was never royal to begin with.
Poltroonius: Stop the play; the play, stop. 'Tis something avante garde.
Clintonius: Out! Damned plot! Light! Away!
Exit omnes but Omelet and Homoleo.
Omelet: Well, I think that went well, Homoleo, don't you?
Homoleo: The play is not ended.
Omelet: The last act will come anon.
Homoleo: Marry.
Omelet: Hickory dickory docks. The mice ran up the clock. The clocks struck
twelve. The facts speak for themselves. Hickory dickory pox.
Homoleo: It is a riddle.
Omelet: I'd bet my life on that ghost dad! Didst mark how the King flinched
upon mention of poison chicken blood?
Homoleo: Yes, very well.
Omelet: 'Twas unmistakable, wast not?
Homoleo: Verily.
Omelet: He reacted very strongly.
Homoleo: That he did, prince.
Omelet: The meaning is clear.

Homoleo: He is not a great connoisseur of the stage.

Enter Goldenstuff.
Goldenstuff: I would have some word with thee, m'lord.
Omelet: I'd like some toonot with thee.
Goldenstuff: Hee hee ha ha hoo! One word, Prince!
Omelet: Make it a history. Rise and fall.
Goldenstuff: The King
Omelet: Ah, what about the King?
Goldenstuff: Is up-set.
Omelet: Call a doctor. Check his policy and diet.
Goldenstuff: Sir.... The Queen is muddled an' perturbed.
Omelet: You're very welcome.
Goldenstuff: Uh...right. But look. The Queen is agitated in her spirit, and
implores word with thee.
Omelet: I'll attend.
Goldenstuff: Thank you.
Omelet: God bless you.
Goldenstuff: ButI didn't sneeze!
Omelet: Don't mention it.
Goldenstuff: Uh...goodbye.
Exit.
Omelet: Hasta la vista...baby.

Enter Rosencrutch.
Rosencrutch: Hallo! Was that Goldenstuff I saw leaving?
Omelet: Yes. What's it to you?
Rosencrutch: Nut'n, honey. Look, your mother seeks thee.
Omelet: Go to.
Rosencrutch: No, verily. Prithee go, nor warily, for her concern of thee is
real.
Omelet: Why might that be? My wits congeal.
Rosencrutch: Just the point. She would them heal.
Omelet: I've already said I'd droppeth by. Anything else, Tweedle?
Rosencrutch: Whatwhat's the matter, Omelet? You loved me once. What
ails thee? Why so unsettled?
Omelet: I lack prospect of promotion.
Rosencrutch: Gimme a break. Yer almost King. Fer heaven's sake!
Omelet: Heaven's not involved; nor may a tarnished crown descend upon
my brow. Art thou a music player, Crutch?
Rosencrutch: Forsooth, I dunno.
Omelet: Playeth upon this here pipe.
Rosencrutch: O no, I couldn't. Really. I haven't played anything in a while.
Omelet: 'Tis easy, ayah hah! These variant fluted stops, your mutant, muted
breath, fretful fingers flying. Easy as lying. Play the lyre, play the pipe.
Take it. Tune it. Shake it. Fake it.
Rosencrutch: B-b-but I've not the dexterity!
Omelet: No? But am I no so many stops for you to play on? Am I so much
simpler to rig and rip a tune off? What am I, en-choppd liver? A banjo on

thy knee? Is that what you're saying to me? Huh? Is that what you're
trying to telleth me, bitch?
Rosencrutch: M-m-m-m-muh-m'lord
Omelet: What 's it, pal-o-mine? Can't spit it out? Try pantomime.
Rosencrutch: No such thought was in my brain, I swear
Omelet: First word: "beware." Eh, mon frre?
Enter Poltroonius.
Poltroonius: Sire, sire, 'tis exigent, exigent 't is, that thy mother
Omelet: See me?
Poltroonius: Er, yes, that's right.
Omelet: Look out the window.
Poltroonius: Yes, m'lordship.
Omelet: See that patch of fog?
Poltroonius: Yes, very.
Omelet: Doth it not resemble a bog?
Poltroonius: Very much so, so much.
Omelet: More like a dog.
Poltroonius: A growling dog, yes m'lord.
Omelet: Or snuffling pig.
Poltroonius: Very like a pig.
Omelet: A fig.
Poltroonius: That's it.

Omelet: A twig.
Poltroonius: Twig.
Omelet: Apple.
Poltroonius: Apple.
Omelet: A corn-cob castle.
Poltroonius: Exactly.
Omelet: Thou art steadfast and true. Very well then, tell my mother I'll see
her bye and bye.
Poltroonius: I'll say it soon.
Omelet: Catch her on the rise.
Exeunt all but Omelet.
Omelet: Kee-e-e-ripes! It exhausteth, quilting quirks for these queer jerks.
Tetches me to th'end of my ability.... Now do I direct me to the womb and
origin of my fate.... Action! 'Tis late, the watching hour, when hot hell
unleash its power.... Soft! To the bat cave, robin!... Feather! Let red wings
blench black, a royal heart fall dark. Yea, I'll inquire what my mother's
sobbin'. Be cruel to be kind, her kind anyway. My plan: cut her to the
quick with verbal blades, mere words, a whirring rotary recital, forbearing
real steel though sweet Nemesis herself such much recourse perforce
enjoin. I'm no Nero.
Exeit.
[Scene III]
The castle. Enterunt King, Rosencrutch, Goldenstuff.
Clintonius: I like him not, nor seems it safe with us to let his strange
derangement range. Get ready to go to England with him. I don't want
him around right now. Makes me nervous. There's some business over
there needs handling. Handle it. That is all.

Goldenstuff: Thy holy fear is surfeitingly legitimate. So many depend on

you, your Majesty.
Rosencrutch: 'Tis like unto a dominoe effect. Thou art the tile at the start; if
shouldst topple, the rest in true succession follow, clicking-clackety. Any
private citizen is bound to arm himself from harm. How much moreso
then, must the just bearer of a crown, given how many on him rely, all
around. If thou'rt rung down, the whole society's perplected. Should
vacuum take thy place, the kingdom's clean disgraced.
Clintonius: Thanks for the civics lesson. Get ready. We'll bind this fear,
which now too freely roams.
Rosencrutch: We're on our way.
Exeunt. Enter Poltroonius.
Poltroonius: My liege, the time crawls near. Omelet ith with hith mother. So
I'll convey me behind an arras there an' watch what passes. Doubtless
she'll elicit relevent info from him, but, I fear, being partial, may not in full
its portent martial. That's why I have to be there, as critical observer, sir.
Clintonius: Okay, sure. Go to. Thanks for the update.
Exeit Poltroonius.
Clintonius: So it's come to thisso. My offense is rank, an awesome regal
stank. The odor of the crime plenteous rotten, of primal provenance
accursed, besotten. My own brother by mine own hand slain, like Abel got
from Cain. Yes, I admit it! I did it! I made a mistake! I murdered my own
brother. I do regret it! Yet wouldn't any penance I might now make be
jaded, fake? My guilt's a gummy glue precluding prayer fair and true. O,
I'm sorry! So sorry! But what the fucketh good doth that do? My guilt with
my remorse, together, produceth nought but waffling whining. Can I pray
to gain forgiving for a crime I'm still much living? And persist in moated
pretense?
Butbutand here's a very significant aspect of the situationif I set aside
my crown, my social programs tumble down, in addition to which I'll
forfeit pension. So that's no good. Forget the mention. What's done is
done. Butheaven can wash away my blood-encrusted sin, and cleanse
me, can't it? Make a charcoal soul as white as snow? Sure, why not? Ha ha,
heaven's intervention is powerful, very powerful! Go to work, celestial
steam cleaners! Even if I must a few eggs further crack to break the

opposition's back, a single session of confession should undo my soul's

regression. Or would it? Heaven won't be bribed like earthly places, in
which corruption reigns. O brother. Yet I've no option other. Gotta give it
a shot. [Kneels.] 'Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, all
the same....'
Enter Omelet.
Omelet: Here's my chance. He's kneeling. Praying. Helpless. One quick
stroke and he'll quick croak. Die an' fry, you scum, diean.... No, wait a
minute. What am I saying? He's praying. Praying! He'll ascend to heaven
then. That's no help. My father was murthured amidst a sin bingethe
grammar of his soul unhinged. He fell to hell short-shrifted, sans allablating absolution, still subjected to a tainting predication. Shall the
villain who propelt him there fetch less? Upsy-daisy, sword, an' let me
sheath you. We'll heft a better hent when the king's all-too-predictable
bent gives vent to his next damning mur'drous event. Then we'll lance the
royal boil. Yeah. According to Hoyle. Later, gator.
Leaves.
Clintonius: and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.
[Scene IV]
[Boudoir o' the Queen.]
Poltroonius: Omelet's coming straightaway, great queen. I'll hide behind the
arras here; okay? Now don't fear. Just critique him for his strange
behaviorism, an' tell him how 'tis alone thy favoritism which protecteth
him. 'Tain't meet that thee for him should take the heat, nor cookie
neither. But soft He's icumin' in! Soft quiet, not soft cookie! Is what I
meant. Okay. I'm going. Not that I'm against cookies. Okay.
Preparething to exeit.
Omelet: [Without.] Ma! 'Tis me: Omelet! I'm icumin'!
Queen Gertie: Quick! Go to. Come in, dear.
Enter Omelet.
Omelet: Hallo.

Queen Gertie: You look well.

Omelet: Hell.
Queen Gertie: No, very well. Well.
Omelet: What's up?
Queen Gertie: Well...don't take this wrongish, but thy behaviorism's strange
of late. It doth grate excessive on our state. And thou hath thy father much
offended.
Omelet: Yeah? You've offended my father, in Clytemnestric wise.
Queen Gertie: Let's be serious.
Omelet: I'm dead serious.
Queen Gertie: Now now, don't be silly.
Omelet: Then then, let me kill thee.
Queen Gertie: What? Hast thou forgot me?
Omelet: Nay, I remember thee well.
Queen Gertie: If thou'lt not abide me
Omelet: Nay, not sostay, not go! Let emerald grue grow grey, that this
glass reflect thy naturethat thou know true what thou true art, mommie
dearestapart thy part
Queen Gertie: Get out wi'that mirror i' my facehelpwhat 'r ya gonna do,
murthur me? He-e-e-lp! Ayah!
Poltroonius: [From behind arras.] H-e-e-lp! O God, help; help, O God! He-ee-e-e-e-lp! O please somebody, help us; us help, somebody!
Omelet: [Swinging his sword.] A screeching mouse? A louse? Fowl rat? Take
that [Stabs at arras.]
Queen Gertie: O no! What hast thou done?

Poltroonius: O! UhI am slain; slainuh O.

Omelet: I dunno. Is 't the King?
Queen Gertie: Omigod.
Omelet: [Parting arras.] What will be will
Dead body of Poltroonius falleth forward onto floor.
Omelet: Oops.
Queen Gertie: 'Oops'? A man is dead. Hast thou lost thy head?
Omelet: Dumb bastard stoop. Nosey son of a bitch! I took thee for thy fetter.
Take a number. Ding-a-ling! Warblers sing! Static things cling!
Queen Gertie: O rash and violent thing!
Omelet: Yeah As 'twould be to kill a king, then marry the brother; eh,
mother?
Queen Gertie: King?
Omelet: 'King.' What I said, lady. 'Madam, I'm Adam.'
Queen Gertie: O God. O God. Methinks I need a drink.
Omelet: Wilt thou swill the seltzer of a swank serenity, and dine on vanity,
an' suck an incubussic lust? Siddown! Stop wringing your hands that I
mayst wring thy wasted heart, for what matter may still matter there;
which if not lurched else, nor lost in lapidary lure, beats back a busted
trust.
Queen Gertie: But the corpse
Omelet: Down!
Queen Gertie: Yikes! What e'er did I do?
Omelet: Quite err! O no! The bottom mayn't head start. Say not so the horror
there, the regal fare. (Could an apple be a pear?) O Cujo care! O harp and

tear! O wicker chair! A gerbil crawling in thy hair? Ah...ah ah ah ah ah. O,

O, O! Whoa, thou...ho!
Queen Gertie: Prithee, prithee
Omelet: Think of en-famd brothers of yore. Abel, Cain, Romulus, Remus,
how they loved and hated one another. Think of iron, think of tin. Ponder
fraternity thick and thin. Whether nice guys ever win. Now view these
brothers portrayed here: our present king and the former one, done in....
See them? Look upon your husband, the dead one: look on his likeness
now...see his Vedic visage, the Beowulfian brow, art-deco Greco eyes,
sweet Apollonian blush, Martial brow.... Oh hush! 'Tis too much! The
mettle of this man was poured in Olympian mold, with Hephaestan valor,
an' Thor's own hammer battered hard his form. A board of gods
organized the job. His soul was woven with Penelope's own wool, in the
warp and woof of celestial regs and rules. There walked a man; his tread
was song. Now look ye this other, his vile brother, serpentine, satyric,
alien, other, O so utter other. Part demon, part bum, his blood shot
through with rum. A leeching liege in offal state. What bethought you to
wed this jerk? Was it some apoplectic quirk? Had your feeling lost all
sense, your mental purse its pence? Had your hinges lost their hitch? Art
thee dumb and blind, witch-bitch? Human kind's accoutered with five
senses in the norm: sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell. Do yours still
function? Can ye sniff a flower? Doth dung not still offend? Art thy
passions still your friend? This is fire waxed in ice, a frosted flame that
queerly warms. Go ahead, explain: how doth reason pimp for shills!
Queen Gertie: O Omelet. Omelet, Omelet. Pleasedon't... just...I...I.... Thy
words stab me unto my very soul, wrenching the clam shell of my heart as
chowder to my hope.
Omelet: To sweat and frolic in that melancholic bed like some whoresome
whore...!
Queen Gertie: No...no...no...say not so. No more
Omelet: He's a baddie! He's a killer, a damn killer...thief... baddie. Mr. Bad
Man. To smile and smile...just like a crocodile! Miscreant! What a bad
person he is!
Queen Gertie: No...no no...that's enough...no really...stop it right
there...please...

Omelet: O damn it all to hell!

Enter Ghost.
Ghost: Don't...swear-r-r-r-r-r-....
Omelet: Father! O royal rag man! King of patches and swatches! What do
you want now?
Queen Gertie: He's mad, mad I say!
Omelet: O I know, I know, to chide me for I...that I haven't done...the deed.
I've been meaning to...just that, well...I've been gathering....
Ghost: Don't forget.
Omelet: No, butyou know, with one thing and another
Ghost: Look at your mother, struck with amazement! She can't see me, you
know. Her soul isn't pure enough. Don't confuse her by addressing what
she doth not see.
Omelet: How is it with you, lady?
Queen Gertie: How me? How you, rather. What was all that blather? You
look terrified, each one of thy particular black hairs up standing as if
electricalified. What are you looking at?
Omelet: This kills me. You don't see it? Right over there.
Queen Gertie: What, the mantel?
Omelet: No, no. Thirty-eight degrees to the left.
Queen Gertie: Gosh, I...do you mean the nymphs on the wainscoting?
Omelet: No nymph! Out of my face, ghost!
Queen Gertie: Who are you talking to?
Omelet: Don't you see? How pale and piteous? See thou not nothing?
Queen Gertie: Everything and nothing, alas, but what thou will.

Omelet: But nowhe goes! See him flit away? O what a day!
Exit Ghost, shaking his head.
Queen Gertie: Omelet, this is but the coinage of feverish brain, a sweaty
penny minting. Some kind of frayed mental bunting.
Omelet: Don't kid yourself, Mom. I'm saner than you're hinting. Spray not
flattering grease-paint on your corruption. You'll only get a rash. Repent.
The end draws nigh. Do not frost your cake with cocoa dregs!!
Queen Gertie: What...what should I do then? Cake?
Omelet: First, sleep not with that murd'rous bastard again. Don't mingle
with soiled soil. If ye have no suit of virtue, feign a frock. Second, don't
relay any information to him about our conversation or deliberate with
him about my mental state or content. Third, don't let anybody else hide
behind your arras; I mean that sincerely. Fourth, get somebody to
fumigate. It stinks in here.
Queen Gertie: I listen and I obey. I'll do just as you say.
Omelet: I'm sorry about this. The corpse I'll drag away. I shall pay for this, as
heaven reaps. But, just to be clear, I was being cruel to be kind. Harsh
deeds now better justice quicker finds. I thought he was somebody else.
Queen Gertie: Thou hast rent my soul in twain.
Omelet: Divest the worser half. I'm off to England soon on some chore.
Queen Gertie: I know.
Omelet: Yeah, Rosencrutch and Goldenstuff are tagging along. We know
who's signing their checks, don't we? Well, they mayst find themselves
hoist with their own leotards if they don't watch it. Aw jeez, this one
sports a graver and more serious demeanor dead than he ever did alive.
Doesn't talk a lot now either. Unh! Heavier than a stone
Exeunt both, with Omelet dragging corpse.

ACT IV
[Scene I]
The castle. Enterunt Clintonius, Queen Gertie, Rosencrutch, Goldenstuff.
Clintonius: There's matter in these sighs. You must scan the physic of it.
Where's your son?
Queen Gertie: Bestow this gracious space on us a while.
Goldenstuff, Rosencrutch: We go.
Exit Goldenstuff, Rosencrutch.
Queen Gertie: Those two giveth me the creeps.
Clintonius: I like them not well neither: but they serve.
Queen Gertie: My lord...what I have seeneth tonight...!
Clintonius: Tell me, Gertie girl! how haps Omelet?
Queen Gertie: A hapless hent. Whether his mind rage rain or snow, or do
both contend in storm, smashing fronts of hot and cold, I know not yclept,
but 'tis weather with a worm. In bold stormy scrent did he in raw flourish
excess detect a rustle abaft the arras, then in hustle stabbed and rent and
kilt the cloaked ol' jackass, quaking crying "Rat! O Rat! Take that! And
that!"and so in mad terror. He said it was an error. Had hoped it was
you there. Then he glared at me.
Clintonius: Omigod. Omigod. If I'd-a been thereJe-e-e-esus. O Jesus Jesus
Jesus. Soso thus belike would 't have been with us! Somebody on the
loose like that, at largea regular Madame Defargehe's a danger to us
all, to you, me, the servants, me, the kingdom, general polity; me; to
everyone, everyone, including me. 'Tis fault my own. Shoulda done
something earlier. (Moan!) Cut his leash nasty, brutish, shorteject him
from the ken of other menforbid his wont to haunt a-jaunt. Done now.
Past. Water under the bridge, tho' flowing still. Out of love let I it lay!
Love, I say! 'Tis belike I owned a disease most foul and t'en-seal a
lowering secret didst enlist a lesion snuff the stuff of life. Exactly belike.
Okay. Well, let's move on. Where's he now?

Queen Gertie: Disposing the body, politic. He's upset about what happened.
Hehe wails o'er the corpse as tho'd mad-mixed gold and ore, or
mirrored mangled metaphor.
Clintonius: Let's get cracking. No sooner will the sun's golden rays blend
azure mountain with azure sky than our soon unpurpled prince shall span
wet ocean blue, or I'm no king true. Meantime needs must we must this
unjust vile deed at home defuse, or bust, using all our majestic skill and
ruse. Goldie! Rosie!
Enterunt Rosencrutch, Goldentstuff.
Clintonius: Got a chore for you. Seems Omelet's slain Poltroonius. Terrible
thing. Find out where he chucked the body and lug it to the chapel in a
sling. Godspeed. Here's some silver.
Exeunt, counting.
Clintonius: That's step one. Now for spin time. We to our inner circle must
explain events from our own subject perspective, that the shaft of arrow
fate which opinion's wonton bronze-thewn bow flings at honest hearts
may be hindered in its circumstantial arc, landing in somebody else's ball
park. To which end we our trusted Gergius shall enjoin, with aid from
Stefan Populus.
Let's go. My soul's chock-full of woe.
Exeunt.
[Scene II]
Still in the castle. A dark and gloomy night. Enter Omelet.
Omelet: Dead and buried.
Somebody: Yo, Omelet, Lord Omelet!
Omelet: Who calls? Who Says my name? Who is that? O, here they come.
Enterunt Rosencrutch, Goldenstuff.
Rosencrutch: We've come at royal behest to help thee. Where's the body,
m'lord?

Omelet: Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Look i' the earth, if you must.
Rosencrutch: Prithee, we've been most royally required to find the body and
haul it to the chapel. You know the routine. There's to be a service, a wake,
sweet sad lyrics funereal, a solemn burial, good night's rest; then in the
morn' a bowl of cereal.
Omelet: Don't believe it for a minute.
Rosencrutch: Believe what?
Omelet: There again.
Rosencrutch: Again what? Believe what? M'lord
Omelet: That a son of a king need answer a muddy sponge. Clean up yer act.
Rosencrutch: I'm a sponge now?
Omelet: That sops up every regal spittle and frothing favor to swell with
sodden glory. Watch he don't use you next on the royal toilet. That'd be a
lesson to absorb.
Rosencrutch: I don't follow you.
Omelet: I'm aware.
Rosencrutch: Prithee, take us to the body and let us take you to the king.
Omelet: The body is with the king. But the king is not with the body. See?
Rosencrutch: I don't get it.
Omelet: No, I shouldn't think so. Nor will I. 'Tis an incongruent congruency.
The King is a thing
Goldenstuff: Thing, my lord?
Omelet: Nothing. Forget it. Whither thou goest I shall go. Get our ducks
lined up in a row. Last one's a rotten egg!
Exeunt omnes, allegro.

[Scene III]
The castle. Enter King.
Clintonius: They seek the body as we speak. But it's a mind that's lost, that's
the real problem. Can't have that prince running around loose! 'Tis hazard
to our state! A loon. A hair shirt. But can't just doff him. No. Public
relations disaster. The flak I'd get. Bad image. No. No no. Crowd loves
him, multitudinous fleas in gaberdine. To them he's keen, the offense
much hidden in the offender's theme, which once related, would our
regime discombobulate at the seams. So off he goes, to sea. By God, he
goes! I'd rig the vessal myself if necessary, but lord knows all must look
well good, plotted out fair, a foreign policy trip announced to the general
air. Nip this thing in the bud, excise the canker, is what it's about. Then
another couple of prayers to expiate the sin of the affair. This is going to
work. This is going to work. I'm sure of it. Okay.
Enterunt Rosencrtuch, Goldenstuff, etc.
Well? What's the deal?
Rosencrutch: Can't find the body. Looked high, looked low. Omelet says
nothing but what he says.
Clintonius: I believeth not this crap.
Goldenstuff: He doth say, an' I quoth, this is a direct quoth, "The body is
with the King. Already. But the King is not with the body." Close quoth.
Clintonius: You know, that is just so helpful. Thank thee so much for
bringething that to my attention. Where's our prince laureate now,
prithee?
Rosencrutch: Down the dank, shadow-leaping hall. Do you know the alcove
with the overstuffed chair at the far end, across from the torture chamber?
We left him there. He claimed to want to give a matter thought. I told him
not all matter has thought, but some thought has matter. Then he asked
me to get a copy of thy schedule down to the minute for the next week, an'
especially when your royal worship would be alone and isolated.
Goldenstuff: He sits about ten paces from that very slipping, sliding,
creaking, whining, mud-caked mahogany door which doth soft to the
torture chamber leadeth, yon anteroom to doom. A guard attends.

Clintonius: Uh huh. Fine. Get him.

Rosencrutch: Guard! bring the prince!
Enterunt Omelet and guard.
Clintonius: Little question for you, son. Where's Poltroonius?
Omelet: At dinner.
Clintonius: Dinner? Where?
Omelet: With his friends the maggots, which art chowin' down in royal
maggot wise. Knowest thou what it meansto lose thy fair form at table?
Commingle with the mannerless mud? Forfeit a shadow faith in
devouring oblivion?
Clintonius: No. No idea. Can't picture it. Can't say that I have.
Omelet: Thou art king. Thou shoudst know such things. I warrant thee, just
as the encircling dirt doth crown the ambitious mantle of the globe, so
harsh bleach best cleans a robe.
Clintonius: Come on. We're all reasonable men here. Let us reason together.
Omelet: 'Tis possible to eat what has eaten else, and in turn consume the
eater of what ate you and it.
Clintonius: What dost thou fucking talking about?
Omelet: 'Tis a cannibal conundrum as you may well suspect.
Clintonius: My point was, where's Poltroonius?
Omelet: Lunch.
Clintonius: Oh now
Omelet: My hunch is he's in heaven, munching dust, advising God. Or hell.
Maybe they're equivalent. See for yourself if you don't believe me.
Otherwise, try under the stairs in the lobby.

Clintonius: [To attendants.] Check the damnd lobby!

Omelet: Yeah, check the lobby, then do thou lobby for a check.
Exeunt attendants.
Clintonius: Omelet, Omelet, Omelet. What be it thou, eh? I must tenderly
send you hence, in tending of thy safety, in consequence of thy most
worrisome deed. We ergo book thy travel on a steady ship of state, to
England, bound with all speedy speed. They have a lot of poetry there. It
will suit.
Omelet: England.
Clintonius: That's right.
Omelet: Sounds great.
Clintonius: Well, it is, if you but understood our purpose.
Omelet: I know a porpoise that knows them; dauphin too. A little angel told
them.
Clintonius: Okay. An escort shalt accompany thee to the boat.
Omelet: Farewell, mom.
Clintonius: Godspeed.
Omelet: To England!
Exeit.
Clintonius: Heaven help us. En-certify he board the ship. The business is
signed, sealed and deliver'd for a nice neat packet. That's the end of this
shit. Hie thee ho. Go go. 'Tis cold out. Wear a jacket.
Exeunt Rosencrutch, Goldenstuff.
Clintonius: Hmm. I hope, I hope thou wilt still well regard our power after
how hard last time we convailed thee, England...and thus in tribute some
extra measure now contribute. By a most sovereign pigeon process is our
most sincerest prayer un-pent, of a dark-done present in the death of our

soul-misbegotten son, shriven and shent. Do it, baby! do it! celestial isle!
O crack that egg! Lance the bitter bile boil which hath burthened my soul's
soil, that I may smile, I pray, I beg, I beg. O let me close the file. Stop.
Amen.
And now...I mustto bathroom...choom!
Exeit.
[Scene IV]
A plain in Denmark. Enterunt Fortinbrass and army.
Fortinbrass: Capitain, tell the Danish sire we're ready to march through his
territory in goodly time, as per our permit assented to before. That's the
story. Also let him know, we'll be by, anon, to say hello. We must prepare.
Capitain: Will do, yer greatness.
Fortinbrass: Soft to.
Exeunt all but Capitain; Enterunt Omelet, Rosencrutch, etc.
Omelet: Swell sir, whose power is that, prithee?
Capitain: 'Tis Norway power.
Omelet: Well, what are they here for?
Capitain: They march on Poland.
Omelet: Poland? Why doth everybody pick on Poland?
Capitain: We but follow orders sir. Jest doin' our jobbo.
Omelet: Whose command is 't belike?
Capitain: Belike nephew to old Norway, young Fortinbrass, a very manly
young man.
Omelet: Tell me of him.
Capitain: Why, sure 'n begora, he's something of your age sir, an' height.
Also, sometimes he wears a fedora, and a friend of his owns a Menorah.

He's got a cousin named Lenora. Once he vacationed in Bora Bora. When
'e sleeps he tends to snore-a, I'm told.
Omelet: How much of Poland art thou after?
Capitain: Poof. Not enuff for sniggerin' laughter. In account, below the
lowest run-down castle. Hardly worth the hassle. Wouldn't pay ten pence
on any of't myself. No profit but the name. Wretched plots, foul farming,
all the lot.
Omelet: Will Poland bother defending something so scant?
Capitain: They've already set up a garrison.
Omelet: Huh. A face may launch a thousand ships, warriors wail and grind
their hips, public jesters joust with juvenile witless quips...none clasp clue
to what is true...yet nary a deed hesitate to do. This is but violent porridge,
gruel dividend of peace. People are bored.
Capitain: Well, g'bye now.
Exeit.
Rosencrutch: Are you ready to go? We have a vessel to catch. Or else it's
woe.
Omelet: I'll be right with you.
Exeunt all but Omelet.
Omelet: I'm way behind schedule. How all occasions do inform against me,
and blunt my dull revenge! But what hath made delay? I know I know my
duty. My soul is no Stone Henge. My mind is sheer, my compass clear;
mayn't I get 'im in the end? We each are man, a thinking creature, in Latin
homo sapiens procrastinatiens. Reasoning's our boon from nature: we
daren't act counter cogitation, belike a clod, defiling stature. A clod of
earth is sod, no regal bower. Yet...thinking, thinking, always thinking on
the event without e'er to actual action sinking but rend'rs thought more
bereft of power by the hour.
That villain deserves to die! And I have the means, motive, opportunity,
clout to do it yet do it not. Why? O why? I mean, same thing with my
room. Been planning to clean it up for weeks...weeks.... Is it thinking too
precisely on the event? Distaste for dust an' dirtand grime? O, such sour

en-boggd thought's divisive! 'Tis one part wisdom, ever three parts
critical caviling, a couple parts newt and [basil]. What thought could be
decisive? Look at these guys. That Norway prince, puffed with a royal
rank ambitious pride, doth with raw mass of men the maw of risible
pretense vast withal assize, risking sinew, bone, and mortal all for but a
lyric eggshell prize. That's greatness for you, taking largest stake in the
merest reed-like straw for dull honor's siren sake. So many men will die.
Thenlook at me, ah me, by way of comparison and contrast. My father
killed, my mother wicked wed, an idiot advisor dead, an' still I'm still,
closing act yet still ahead. In conclusion: I believe that there is a tide in the
affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; let shallow,
drains from virtue's reservoir the last hollow dreg remains, purged of all
but must and noir.
I've got to manage my time better....
Exeit.
[Scene V]
[Meanwhile, back at the castle. Enterunt Homoleo, Queen Gertie, Guards,
Fool, Observer, and a Fellow.]
Queen Gertie: No. I can't see that girl. I can't.
Fellow: Might be a good idea, your Highness. The way she warbles...'tis not
meet.
Queen Gertie: What would she have?
Fellow: What would any of us? Understanding. A shoulder to cry on. A little
sympathy. The milk of human kindness. Listen to her. I prithee.
Queen Gertie: Listen? To what? O what?
Fellow: She's in addled wise, majesty. Her voice dandles like the dew, a
honeyed lunacy of soft petals. Such posy's not all rosy. Claims there's
tricks i' the world, and deception, an' evils of inception. Fusts about the
tiniest thingsa trait ne'er hitherto noticed in her sex. Here's the odd
thing about it. Her glistening words are formless, yet cast from formlike
mold, so all who hear them cry how poignant, yet sad and wrenching to
the human heart, then do argue on the meaning of it, and life. (Sigh.)

Homoleo: Better speak with her, lest she strew strangical conjectures in
minds of ill-bred hinds.
Queen Gertie: Let her in.
Exeit fellow.
Queen Gertie: [Aside, such as none but audience may hear.] To my sick soul,
sin's sickening wroth own goal, each sad such lurch seems cause for
church, cardinal whole. Black past acts prologue; guilt spills itself in
pouring guilt's spilt milk.
Enter Awfeelia.
Queen Gertie: How feel ya?
Awfeelia: Awfeel. [Sings.] Where hath all-l-l the majesty gone? Wher-r-re, O
whe-eh-e-ere?...When will they ever learn...when will they...ever....
Queen Gertie: How now, thou?
Awfeelia (singing): Love's last lane is quite lorn i' fain. How send it, so the
main, damn Dane. Catcher in the rye, is why. These clothes we sha-a-all
tye-dye. Our household deficit, decry. Tra la la, tra la la, la la. La. These
clo-o-thes...we sha-al-ll...tye-dye. La!
Queen Gertie: I see.
Homoleo: Ferret thee.
Queen Gertie: What imports this verse, Awfeelia? And why dost thou carry
that heap of azalea?
Awfeelia: Mark you pray i' sooth, marry, verily. (Sings.) He's dead, he's
buried. His soul ain't tarried. On earth we mourn with cotton and corn.
No monument graces his deep-six bourne. A bouyant burden but dimly
fazes. Good to go. O ho!
Queen Gertie: But, Awfeelia dear
Awfeelia: Pray, mark! (Sings.) His shroud of dan-n-n-d-druff snow....
Enter King.

Queen Gertie: Mark this honey.

Awfeelia: Doth help his proud mouldering grow...
Clintonius: Oh my. Doting on her father.
Queen Gertie: She's working up quite a pother.
Awfeelia: ...shroud of...da-an-n-d-r-r-uff...sno-ow-w-w...
Clintonius: Pretty lady
Awfeelia: Well there, if it i'nt the King o' Denmark! God gild you suh, an' a
merry dressing. We know who we are, but not who we may be. Did you
know that More is Lessing?
Clintonius: She is upset.
Awfeelia: Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the King's horses and all the King's men Had a great fall. Splat.
Clintonius: What imports this, child?
Awfeelia: Hickory dickory dock. The mouse ran up the clock. The clock
struck twelve. Had a great fall. Splat. Splat.
Clintonius: How long? How long hath this gone on?
Awfeelia: Merry, merry, quite contrary. How doth thy sock hose grow? Yea I
hope all will be well, but wormwood is nae goodly broth to smell. The
earth is cold. Can you tell? Ha ha ha! Should we take stock in worldly
bands? What is the better place to invest? My brother will know. It is a
term for life. Thank 'e. Thank 'e very much. Good bye now. Take care. Bye
bye. So long. Au revoir. Parting is such sweet sorrow...but, I guess, I'll see
thee tomorrow....
Exeit.
Clintonius: Keep on eye on her, wilt thee, Homoleo? For her own good,
rolled oats in oleo. Hold a sec. Tell us...fathom ye what percolateth in
Omelet's meta-consciousness, and why?

Homoleo: No.
Exeit Homoleo.
Clintonius: How warble we the cage of dubiety's flight! This chalks fair kin
to a feather-flown height, as when Icarus mooned dawn. O star-pawned,
Hyperion gambit! What furrows our penitent celestial ambit, to shed
blench bloom for soul-sung gloomy blight?
Queen Gertie: Yclept. O, yclept!
Clintonius: Sorrows come not single spies, but armies of the night, treble
trouble. To tabulate the royal tragedy to date: first, her father slain. Next,
your son, her suitor, gone, ga-waine, and fairly so, he being dread actor of
said deed one. Third, we the corpse dirt-fed in too low hasty wise,
un-looking leaping, for fear o' poly-sedicious public weeping; which our
pale an' unceremonious cast did but incite, not sate, and most raggd
inflect a bereaved maiden's unstable mental state. Now her brother's back,
much miffed and seething, and all upsnuck, chucking his fury up in plans
most bold, with lots of the facts wrong he's been told. All this stuff adds
up. It's too much.
Queen Gertie: You can say that again.
Clintonius: Sorrows come not single spies, but armies of the night, treble
trouble. To tabulate the royal tragedy to date: first, her father slain. Next,
your son, her suitor, gone, ga-waine, and fairly so, he being dread actor of
said deed one. Third, we the corpse dirt-fed in too low hasty wise,
un-looking leaping, for fear o' poly-sedicious and public weeping; which
our pale an' unceremonious cast did but incite, not sate, and most raggd
inflect a bereaved maiden's unstable mentalunstable mentaluh
Fool: State.
Clintonius: state. Now her brother's back, much miffed and seething, and
all upsnuck, to chuck his fury up in plans most bold, with doubtless most
of the facts wrong he's been told. All this stuff adds up, and pains, O so
pains my soul. It's too much.
Queen Gertie: Yes. Way over the toppe. What is that noise?
Enter Messenger of Doom in context of general clatter.

Clintonius: Whither my guards? I had a couple contras around here

somewhere. We be King. The crown is to defend. What now?
Messenger: I bring but portent of certain doom, yer Majesty. Better clear the
room, cut a swath for thy safety. Save yourself! Hooh! Excuse me, had
to run quite a Marathon to getget herefeel like Pheidippides on stilts.
Hooh!Liartes, 'tis Liartes, sire; on fire. Jogged all the way from
Lancastershire. Hooh!gotta catch my breath, okay, I'm okay
Queen Gertie: Some lemon aid?
Messenger: No, I'm fine, really. Warrant it, neither most riotous river
flowing up upon the shore, nor most rumbling Poseidon-spawn
earthquake reckless rending ceiling and the floor, couldst loose more force
than hath Liartes rattling the officer corps. The very rabble crowd roughly
to his side, and ride upon his tide. Yea, verily, there is a tide in the
affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leaves in its wake a lot of mud.
It's as if time were all forgot, history un-made, all epochs washed-andfade, the way they rally around his name and follow his faint shade, to
crown him king. Three times did he refuse the crown. A false vision grabs
their hearts; even fumigates their
Clintonius: I get the picture.
Banging and noise within.
Queen Gertie: How they bark up the wrong, false tree! We already have a
king! Don't these stupid people realize? What are they thinking? O fickle
fools!
Enterunt Liartes and cohorts.
Clintonius: Well, this tears it.
Liartes: Where's the bloody King? Ayah hah! Wait outside.
All: Nay, prithee let us join you. If there you be, while we be here...why, then
we be here while you be there!
Liartes: Wait without.
Exeunt cohorts.

Liartes: You skunk. You hunka junk. Deliver my father.

Clintonius: Hey, slow down a minute. Take a deep breath, I prithee. Gertie,
open the window. I know how thou dost feel. I feel thy pain. Sure, 'tis ruff.
You're hurting. Butcalm down. I pray. I beg.
Liartes: Calm this...! If I'm calm, then I'm a satyr. If tranquilthen a traitor,
or weakling bastard. Any drop of cool and ebbing, sanguine blood
wouldst in languor prove my father a fatuous, clucking cuckold; my poor
dead mother harlot, whore and truckle. This soul is craft of sterner stuff,
not fluffer-nutter fluff. Vengeance shall be mine.
Clintonius: All right. Let himokayit's okay. A king enjoyeth divine
protection. 'Tis divine aura, warding off all will. Speak. What buggest
thou much so?
Liartes: Divine this, fey lumpen shill...! [Gestures.] Where's my father?
Clintonius: Dead. As pickle dill.
Queen Gertie: But not by him!
Clintonius: Let him demand his fill.
Liartes: How came he to be dead, to not to be? I sweardon't screw around
wi' me! To hell with allegiance, vows, conscience, courtesy, and cloth
divine! I spill them to the furthest curtilage of oblivion and beyond, like
too-quick-trampled wine! To the bottom brine of the most fathomless
pond! Thus do I dare damnation! Refute refutation! Addle adulation! Cull
inculcation! Revenge, revenge; that will I take! You better let me slake!
Clintonius: Well spake! 'Tis thine! [flutters hand]
Liartes: And speedily thereto! Hurry, divulge who done it, that I may hatch
a plan...and carry it out, right quick, in jiffy haste, snap snap snap, as like a
hummingbird's warping wing doth flap in speed, unto the very deed!
Speak.
Clintonius: 'Twas Omelet, none else.
Liartes: Omelet? Omelet? O, I'll jag it to that faggot! 'E's a dead man!

Clintonius: Prithee a sec: in thy net of sprawling vengeance, tell me, wilt
thou be snagging enemies alone, or friends and enemies, indifferent?
Liartes: Just the enemies.
Clintonius: Well know thee then this, sith I'm as guiltless in his death as in
any deficit amiss, which ain't no diss: Omelet's your man.
Liartes: Omelet. Okay. Omelet.
Enter Awfeelia.
Awfeelia: Deese an' dem and dose and roses, eeny miney moe and Moses....
Bury him? Ho ho! Nary him! Lo! Lo! O low!
Liartes: Sister!
Awfeelia: Hallo, hallo. La la la. Have a tulip. If ye have a cairne. An' here's
rosemary for pansies. An' jolly holly too. Daisies.
Liartes: Gawd-a-mercy! This is crumpled crumpet, prone scone. O May
sunrise fry my brain, my virtue soak with stain if such fain gay cinder
madness gain no whey reply in flower, wi' a sprig of bitter holly on 't; else
I'm no vower. Sweet Awfeelia! soft Awfeelia! weak and emotionally
scarred, vulnerable Awfeelia! A jiggered portent to our muse! She speaks
of rose'tis rose quashed in the bud, crimson coffin to a spud; O mashd
spud! Fragrance curdld into stench! Thus is nature's wealth accursed, her
showered gifts in stealth reversed.
Clintonius: I hear you. I feel your pain.
Awfeelia: (Sings.) Hey nonny nonny, nonny hey, nonny hey; hey nonny
nonny get away, get away. There'll be no farewell funeral, nor no fair
wake, not today, not today; hey nonny nonny, nonny hey. Everybody
now! Hey nonny
All: Nonny nonny hey, nonny hey; hey nonny nonny nonny, heyhey-hey! get away! get away!
Exeit Awfeelia.
Liartes: Levity is the soul dim lit. My father taught me that.

Queen Gertie: Yclept! O, yclept!

Liartes: All joy is down the drain.
Clintonius: I feel your pain.
Fool: Hey nonny nonny nonny hey.
Queen Gertie: Off with his head!
Fool: [Being dragged away.] Nomy God, I was jokingwhat are youno!
No! Noo-o-o-o-o-o-o...!
Exeit fool and security men; followed by screams and be-thwacking sound.
Clintonius: Don't leave a mess out there! Liartes, let me commune with
your grief, or you deny me right. Know well how shattered we are.
Heinous sight. I swear to you, on our brother's grave by all that's holy, by
all that's up and down and left and right, our rustless crown shines clean
of taking anyone down, body or soul, matter, spirit, whatever. We subsist
in each last duty; if not, let proof reproof it so, and fast impeach us in our
gown.
Liartes: So let it be written. So dun. This bootless, criminally negligent death
cries out for punitive settlement.
Clintonius: Just one word: plastics.
Liartes: I hear you.
Clintonius: May the force be with you.
Exeunt everybody.
[Scene VI]
The castle. Enterunt Homoleo et Gentleman.
Homoleo: What does he want?
Gentleman: Letters for you.
Homoleo: Let him bring them. Must be news from Omelet.

Exeit gentleman. Enter sailor.

Sailor: God bless you sir.
Homoleo: Let Him bless you too.
Sailor: Lord willing, an much-o thanks to ye, tho I should expeck separate
blessings, as what I would nae 'ope ter be blessed in the same holy breath
as blessed royalty an' friends is blessed i' the holy castle hahr.
Homoleo: I'm sure He'll be pleased to bless us both in gracious simultaneity.
Now pray divulge thy business.
Sailor: Pressing, if yer the Homoleo I've heard tell of, which I expeck is so,
noting yer general features an' compleckshun. A letter from Lord Omelet
of pith and moment. I didn't read it, but sir, he told me the pith and
moment are there and to go on and get it to you. I must remain to hear
your orders.
Homoleo: Ah! Thank you. Mm hm, mm hm, greetings, hello hello, quotha,
"Homoleo. Thou wilt ne'er guess what hath transpireth. On my wayye to
England was our vessel violated by most strangical and fated lit'ry pirates,
belike to battle us with fretting fury; howe'er by gum to but weak avail
until we did chivvy hoist our sail, in leeward of which chance was snared
myself alone on destiny's shoal, and rough-sanded aspiration. So my trip's
been trimmed. But Rosencrutch and Goldenstuff do hap'ly persist to
England, bearing the sealed message enjoind me dutifully convey. So all
looketh well. A note enclosed is for our King. This courier shall navigate
thy deliverance to where I am, bless him. There is much to tell thee. Very
truely and pelluciddely yours, etc. etc., OMELET. P.S. Bring a quill." Close
quotha. Huh. Let's go.
Exeunt.
[Scene VII]
The castle. Enterunt King and Liartes in conspiratorial wise.
Clintonius: Let your conscience be your guide, and to thine own self be true.
Know well that we are as innocent as the day is bright [peals of thunder
roll], that ye may count us as your friend, as fast affirmations prove.

Liartes: Mm.
Clintonius: It is well said, in great words of great man, that when in
company kind the like bewhich befriend, do not incur a devil pitch but
stirrup to thy switch in sooth for brine.
Liartes: Mm. Most well said. But tell me, what hath stayed thy own
intervention in these matters, especially with thy own skin endangerd? It
puzzles.
Clintonius: I'm going to tell you a couple things, Liartes, which I want you to
keep under your hat. Now...when you're King of Denmark, thou art in a
position unique in all the land. Thou hast access...to certain
information...certain intelligence...with so many factors to consider...social
factors...and economic...and military...have to put it all
together...orchestrate it...keep society in shape...the pressure...'tis
horrifying responsibility at times, Liartes...it can scare...one doesn't always
ponder straight...I did, I admit, I did let things get out of hand, I know that
now...had two main causes of my most dilatory delay, I guess they might
seem a little unsinewed to thee...not me...had lots of sinew in my
view...the Queen dotes on him, was one thing, didn't want to get her
unstrung, see...she's as much conjunctive to my soul as a star in its
sphere...then again, the public is sweet on him too, an' doth dip his faults
in saturate affection to cast a candy apple for their eye...then too, the
general court is enameled of him...and foreign potentates send him fan
mail...just a very sticky wicket to get involved in, would've been shooting
myself in the foot to act against him too soon...but now my hands are
tied...he's gone too far, gone too far...
Liartes: Yes...you could say thatwith my father dead, dear own sister mad,
who'd lodged fair bid as most innocent girl in all the helmed realm. Ah
woe! It's bad. But revenge...
Clintonius: Thou shalt have it. When I thinkah, if only I had prevented it!
How constraint! How curdled with loving fear, so dire corbomite a web!
But look...I'm on your side here, you mustO Gawd! (Sawb!)
Liartes: No, I know, I know, I mean, it's not like I'm blaming you. You've
been in a difficult position. I realize that.
Clintonius: See, if I spend too much time on one thing, then people
calumniate me for not dealing with another. There's stuff of ours pending
in the Commons...

Liartes: Sure.
Clintonius: Gotta keep the kingdom together. Keep it together.
Liartes: Yeah...I'll scramble that punk!
Clintonius: No, I know, I know, I mean, that's what we're gonna do. Sure.
Chisel me in your heart as friend, an' seal off your conscience with our
acquittal. We are not so dull and insensate a sovereign that
Enter Messenger bearing letters.
Clintonius: Now what the f
Messenger: Letters, sire, for you an' the Queen, from Omelet.
Clintonius: Omelet? Who brought them?
Messenger: Sailors. Apparently Homoleo spoke to somebody from the ship.
Clintonius: Letters? From Omelet?
Messenger: I'm just the messenger.
Clintonius: Of course. Glad tidings, I'm sure. I double thank thee. Okay,
leave.
Messenger: Plus good of thee, sire. Good day.
Exeit.
Clintonius: Let's see here...Liartes, you shall hear. [Reading.] "I'll be back...
Verily, upon my return on the morrow will I apply for royal conference
with thee, O King, and then pour the most sweet red strangical tale of my
reversal into thy regal eagle ears. Omelet." Huh. I don't get it. Says he's
coming alone. Fain.
Liartes: That's his scribbling, is it not?
Clintonius: The resemblance waxeth inauspicious, at any rate. May one forge
the style of a prince and craft it well?

Liartes: The devil might; a crafty devil. But let him come.
Clintonius: Yes. But, Liartes, wilt thou be ruled by me, for thy sake as well as
the commonweal?
Liartes: Just so you don't rule me by slow law.
Clintonius: By thy own law.
Liartes: Deal.
Clintonius: Then, take the measure of it meet. We'll rig a trick that in its
quick shall cut him tongue and feet, as by a seizure, the which all may
scan as accident, the Queen too, may 't please her, and neat.
Liartes: Go on.
Clintonius: Hark this: we'll stage a sword play, a clash of wit and blade, with
the bluntness of your own perforce unmade.
Liartes: The wit or the blade?
Clintonius: Well, I think the blade will have a much better chance of cutting
him, don't you...? Now, as it happens, Omelet hath known of thy
reputation as a swordsman, much batted about since your departure, and
he is steeped with confounding envy. That's the kind of man he is,
someone who is just so darn worried that somebody like you, whose
father he slew and sister drove insane just for the heck of it, might be
perceived as more adept in swordplay. Butthou art a fine swordsman,
art-n't thou?
Liartes: The finest in Nottingham.
Clintonius: Then. There shouldst be no difficulty. I'll set it up. Omelet, being
of open and generous heart, except when he's killing people, will lack
suspicion in taking up his foil. Once we play this scene, we'll see what
moral we may glean.
Liartes: Let's do it.
Clintonius: You're serious, I hope. You loved your father?
Liartes: How do you mean?

Clintonius: You're not just prizing the proof of heaving pain, are thee? With
a righteous lily-gilded grieving?
Liartes: May I be cursed first!
Clintonius: Well, I'm sure you believe what you just spake. It lacking playenacture of fey fawner on the make. But oft enow, my son, what we say
we're gonna do...up the chimney sweeps, like smokechoo choo. For
purpose is oft but serf to soggy surface sentiment, which like too-ripe fruit
falls en-dented to hard sediment. 'Tis something near new season's
scabrous fall event, that truth alone an' love plus honesty may prevent.
'Tis quite habitual, in sooth, that tomorrow we neglect to fair return what
in fair truth fair souls today reflect; so what by yapping maw is now most
passionate proposd may soon enuff be pretty quick withal disposd.
Yet...if you say you grieve him, such I sure believe.
Liartes: Don't worry about it. I'll do my part.
Clintonius: I doubt it nothing. On the other hand, needs must we must craft
some kind of back-up plan, alter option, if things don't quite deft stage as
we do deft direct...lemme see...okay, methinks I've got it. Poison.
Liartes: Poison.
Clintonius: Poison! That corrupts the very soul and marrow with heartless
impunity. Eh? Eh? Whaddya think? If he pause for breath an' need a
drink
Liartes: Very well. If the direct approach misses, then poison. But let him
die the death!
Clintonius: Death!
Liartes: Death to Omelet!
Clintonius: To Omelet! Death!
Liartes: Cut his throat i' the church!
Clintonius: Hack 'im, an' besmirch! Tender no sanctuary
Liartes: for that fairy!

Enter Queen Gertie, weeping.

Queen Gertie: Alas! Awfeelia's dead! O dead!
Liartes: Dead!
Clintonius: Dead!
Queen Gertie: That's what I just said: dead. Woes are stomping on each
woe's toes, as sharp foes in quick excession. Drowned. Overcome. I feel
glum.
Liartes: Drowned? O where? O why? O no.
Queen Gertie: You know that pond of despond yon? She was knitting
wreaths from flowers, her lovely art, so simple and unaffected, with that
certain poise-ful pose, and apparently slipped and fell, in part. Accounts
differ as to what happened next, but it's clear she lost her bearings,
slapped by sidling branches, envious foul fate, singing softly as she sank.
She muffed it on a tuffet.
Clintonius: Too much water hast thou, Awfeelia, therefore I'll forbid our
tears
Liartes: Excuse me?
Clintonius: There's been too much water already, I'm not going to
Liartes: I believeth not this crap! Too much water, so you'll ban crying?
What? If it rains, nobody must mourn? What? That's a stone fluid edict.
Clintonius: Hey, of course you're upset
Liartes: Jesus.
Clintonius: I feel your pain.
Liartes: Heaven help us if something goes wrong with the plumbing in this
place.
Exeit.

Clintonius: Let's go Gertie. Our lines got switched, and we're bewitched.
Exeunt.

ACT V
Concludatory
[Scene I]
A churchyard. Enterunt two clowns: gravediggers.
Clown One: I am so sick of this world.
Clown Two: Makes me sick.
Clown One: You know if this dame is ter be burified in right royal wise or
no?
Clown Two: 'Aven't the foggiest, Joe. You've 'eard somethin' 'ave ye?
Clown One: To go down with full honors, her coat of arms embroider'd o'er
her breast.
Clown Two: Go on ye!
Clown One: 'Tis true.
Clown Two: I 'eard she kilt herself, no less.
Clown One: I do confess, such is my understanding also. Accounts differ.
Clown Two: Spiffer. Why, it'd be hell an' damnation if any of us common
folkus went a jump ahead'f ourseffs, or scheduled our own yooloojee.
Clown One: An 'orrifying prospeck. It can scare.
Clown Two: Don't spit when yer talkin'.
Clown One: Sorry, 'tis a 'abit I fell inter fum chewin terbacco as surcease fum
the deadly gloom of our workus.
Clown Two: Quite forgiveable, I'm shaw....
Clown One: Haw haw haw!
Clown Two: Haw!

Clown One: Haw haw!

Clown Two: But sahriously, I garther she was a stickler fer propah
ceremony.
Clown One: What e'er, and err again. I don't truck wi' no ceremony, meseff.
It's all show. This I know: she was a flowery girl. Somethin dainty an'
petal about 'er, an' bumblety bees stalked an' stung 'er soul.
Clown Two: Huh. Deeper.
Clown One: Six foot, right. She was a pretty girl.
Clown Two: Pretty.
Clown One: But not many as wot could understand 'er.
Clown Two: Unh.
Clown One: An' pretty addled toward the end. Claimt there wust tricks i' the
world, and deception, and evils of inception. They says 'er gloistening
words was formless, yet punched out fum formlike mold, a very jello as
you would style it, or crasstic aspic, so ast all who what 'eard 'em cried out
how winsome poygnint they was, yet sad in their way and wrenching to
the human gut; then argayled on the meaning of it, and life.
Clown Two: Huh.
Clown One: When I'm thinkin' of it, it seems, 'tis much belike a mirror
shined too shiny which cracks fum excess image.
Clown Two: Huh. Keep digging.
Clown One: That's the jobbo.
Digs. Enterunt Omelet, Homoleo, stage right.
Clown One: Get me some coffee, will ya?
Exeit Clown Two.

Clown One: (Sings.) She's dead, she's buried. Her soul ain't tarried. On earth
we mourn with cotton and scorn sweet gelatin laces her deep-six bourne.
Good to go. O ho!
Omelet: "Sweet gelatin." Whatwhat is this? Hath the clown no gravity? 'A
sings in his grave-making. Death's bed! 'Zounds!
Homoleo: He's used to it. What's the man supposed to do, mope ever? On a
good day, it's ten graves in a row.
Omelet: Make it eleven, then. I'll send him myself! Whoreson! Whoreson!
Call heaven!
Homoleo: Let him be. Let him...be.
Grabs.
Omelet: To let him be...or to not let be. That's the question. Whether 'tis
nobler to suffer the flings and furrows of a hind's upstaging distortion, or
tame a tortuous torment, and flip it. To sleep, perchance to dream...aye,
there's the rub...feathered fate...and what about probate?
Homoleo: Not worth it.
Clown One: In youth I loved, yes loved...methought it exceeding sweet...yet
now I'd greatly admit, admit...'tis an act I'd hate to repeat...repeat....
Omelet: Common! All too common.
Homoleo: Give 'im a break.
Omelet: I'll break 'im!
Homoleo: Not what I meant.
Omelet: A hapless hent. Yo, bubba!
Clown One: Ayah hah? Trubba?
Homoleo: Leave it alone.
Omelet: Bah! Cur!

Clown One: Wha...? Sir?

Tosses up a skull, keeps digging.
Omelet: Look on't. That skull had a tongue once, a song it sung. But this
graveyard clerk chucks it like dry dung, the jerk. Can he not perceive it? It
looks a very skull of doom, doth it not? Thus dust-encrust. It may have
been a head of state. Or a guy name of Yorick I once knew. Alas, poor
Yorick. I knew him...well....
Clown tosses up another skull, digs.
Andthere another. Mayhap the other's mother.
Tosses up another skull.
This one likely was a poet navigant, some lit'ry artist too extravigaent.
Tosses up another skull.
I think, a barber or a sailor.
Tosses up another skull.
Probably a tailor.
Another skull.
Philosopher or jailer. Notice the pronounced brow ridge.
Another.
Apothecary.
Final skull.
Seamstress. No more. All dead now. All done. Their fates all spun.
Clown One: Oy. Too many bones.
Digs.
Homoleo: Yes.

Omelet: All done.

Homoleo: Yes.
Omelet: Finito. Kaput. Expiende.
Homeleo: Yes.
Omelet: I wonder if...yo, digger!
Clown One: Sir?
Omelet: Hast thou fair use for this refuse?
Clown One: Woulda?
Omelet: Right. Let me just...
Picks up a skull.
Homoleo: Prince, let's leave here. Men grieve here.
Omelet: Do you need this?
Clown One: No.
Omelet: How 'bout these others?...Let me try something here....
Picks up other skulls.
Homoleo: Good prince. Sweet prince.
Omelet: A-one, an'...a-two...
Begins juggling.
Whoa there!...this is not as easy as it looks...whoa...!
Drops one.
Whoa! Do it baby, do it! Crack that skull!

Juggles.
Omelet's the name...death...is...the...game...whoa! Look at that...eh? Eh?
Whoa!
Homoleo: This looks not well.
Clown One: Chumbley! But I must be digging...
Digs.
Omelet: Whoa! Whoa!...Oops!
Drops another.
Damn!
Juggles.
Whoa!
Drops another.
Ha ha! Whoa! Lo! C'mon baby...c'mon...go! go! go!
Drops all. They fall.
O well. It's not as if they were better off up in the air.
Kicks.
He scores! A musical paradigm for our time. Is it not sublime?
Clown One: Something odd about that man.
Homoleo: He'll get even.
Enter Clown Two.
Clown Two: Here ya go, Joe. Coffee. Black. I'll be back.
Exeit.

Omelet: Hey, digger. How do you figger?

Clown One: Whuh?
Omelet: These dead folk.
Clown One: Wayul, 'tis common, sirrah.
Homoleo: Don't get him started.
Omelet: Aye, common!
Homoleo: Too late.
Omelet: First they were alive and nowdead!
Clown One: Dead as a door screw.
Omelet: Can one tame death?
Clown One: Try taming a shrew first.
Omelet: Who's grave is this?
Clown One: Mine.
Omelet: Thou art lying in it, if thou sayest it's yours.
Clown One: I stand by my work.
Omelet: If you stand, ye cannot lie, you liar.
Clown One: I stand corrected.
Omelet: Stand down. Who's it for?
Clown One: No one living.
Omelet: Male or female?
Clown One: Neither/nor. What wasno more.
Omelet: A nice point. But in life?

Clown One: A would-be wife. In deatha grave decay, past struggle, past
strife, pass. Entropy gains 'er way.
Omelet: What do you know from entropy?
Clown One: My father was an apothecary. Heythat's his skull lying over
there! Looks a bit tumbreled, don't 'e?
Omelet: Knowest the name o' the dame?
Clown One: Well...something rather Awfeel...
Omelet: Awfeelia?!
Clown One: Did ye know her?
Omelet: O this sick, so O sick globe! This theatre! This robe! Revenge! Dead?
How dead?
Clown One: Well, pretty dead; or they don't call me.
Homoleo: Good workman digger, how did she die?
Clown One: She was swamped, fum what I 'eard, an' so drowned. Excess of
slime. Sad case. She was to wed the Prince, but he kilt her father dead.
Rotten waste. A looney, that 'un, juggled before 'is time. So they shipped
the poor sod to England to fetch quibbles n' giblets. An' there an end.
Omelet: Praise be.
Clown One: I better dig.
Omelet: What feather dust of fate, Homoleo! Think on't well! Any mordant
rust curdles in the dervish dell of hell, but makes that matter? They say,
air particles recirculate. What you breath, I breath tooof Alexander,
Pope, Caesar, Tiglathpileser, Homer, hope, what have you. So then, this
fancy. First we're alive, aye, then dead. And as you see, when this
greatness dies, to thick skulls it swift swift flies.
Homoleo: So, what you're saying is, there's some good in the worst of us,
some bad in the best of us.

Omelet: No. No, that's not what I'm saying at all.

Homoleo: I'm sorry, I thought
Omelet: You don't listen!
Homoleo: I'm sorry, I
Omelet: Listen! Listen to what I am telling you! The words! The content! The
syntax! Use your brain!
Homoleo: Look, I can'tIyou're out of line.
Omelet: O I can play it out. An Ariadne string will trace the route.
Homoleo: I don't doubt it.
Omelet: We'll talk later. Here comes the King with an assortment, including
good Liartes. Let's witness their comportment elsewhere. It were better so.
Exeit Omelet, Homoleo. Enterunt King, Queen, Liartes, Priest, coffin,
assorted else.
Omelet: Now let's go back.
Enterunt Omelet, Homoleo.
King: Omelet.
Omelet: Hello.
Queen Gertie: Omelet. Homoleo. Good troth to ye.
Omelet: Mother.
Homoleo: Hello your highness.
Liartes: Omelet.
Omelet: You look tense.
Liartes: The devil take thy soul!

Lunges.
Omelet: I sidestep at present.
Sidesteps.
This is bad form, worse appearance.
Liartes: Let it be a true, true clearance!
Lunges.
Omelet: Stop! Egad, you're...choking...me! Get 'im off!...(Cough!) Prithee
substract thy fingers from my throat. Do me this favor, an' get thee a
groat.
General scuffle, grave.
Clintonius: Liartes, forfend! Pluck them asunder. Let lightning obscure
thunder.
Liartes: All right. All right! An end! Leggo! O fragging, triple woe! Stepping
triple on my toe! Damn it all to hell!
Clintonius: Let's all calm down a little.
Omelet: You seem upset.
Priest: Ahem. Anyway, as I was saying, it were not meet to tender full
ceremonial honor. She departed in dubious wise. Ergo, flowers I may
warrant, but no trumpets or requiem proper. And: no dew.
Liartes: This one too...! She tends angels whilst ye with quick dead casuistry
do stoke perdition, you stinking monk! Croak thee like the rest!
Priest: I don't need this...who needs this?
Exeit.
Clintonius: Now why did you have to go and antagonize him? Fie, we need
that guy for the ceremony.
Omelet: Some stand on ceremony.

Liartes: Shut up! Shut up! Some one...shut...him...up!

Omelet: Your phrase of sorrow conjures the wand'ring stars, and makes
them stand like wonder-wounded hearers.
Liartes: O shut up!
Clintonius: Prithee, Omelet, prithee. Peace.
Omelet: So that? What? Her spirit may find release? I also loved her. Forty
thousand brothers make no better love. So he's upset? He despairs? He
really really cares? 'Tis whining time? Hey, I'll whine. I'll fine-tune
whining. Grave-dance with the best of them. You want lament? I'll show
you lament. Grieve in Herculean fine. Moaning? Watch me moan. Pining?
No pine tree can out-pine my pining. Nor birch out-bitch me.
Queen Gertie: Here we go.
Omelet: No willow weeps the woe I warble when I
Liartes: Shut...up!
Exeit.
Clintonius: This is not well. Homo-san, see if you can turn our Omelet,
season him with reason.
Exeunt Homoleo, Omelet.
This is not well.
Queen Gertie: No. Not well. Something rotten, out of joint.
Exeunt.
Fool: Good point.
Exeit.
Idiot: Yeah.
Exeit.

[Scene II]
The castle. Enterunt Omelet and Homoleo.
Omelet: All right. Everything is going according to plan, except details.
Recall the circumstances?
Homoleo: Recall, lord? I shall never forget them!
Omelet: Good. Let's proceed on that basis. We should realize there's a
divinitycall him the plot-meisterwhich shapes our ends, rough-hew
them how we will. The only sane conclusion is, with the development
palling, I should leave the castle, lest fate frown and general tragedy mow
us down.
Homoleo: Really?
Omelet: Nonot really.
Homoleo: Oh.
Omelet: I'm joking! Can't you take a joke? My father is not yet avenged. You
know that as well as I do.
Homoleo: I know that. I'm aware of that. Yes.
Omelet: I should stress that I believe that we are making progress. The
problem is, I've been forced to pursue a very specific, delimited course of
action, from considerations of duty, justice, honor, filial affection, politics,
celestial ordinance and so forth such that my crafting wise isn't nearly as
effective as I might like, nor yielding of the precise results. I think you see
how frustrating this can be for me, personally. And sometimes I am
ambivalent in my own mind. We're getting there though. Yes, there are
problems and setbacks. But we're dealing with them one by one as they
come up, we're moving in the right direction, and as long as we're doing
that, I think we're okay. We'd best just stay the course, not jump off our
horse in mid-stream.
Homoleo: That is certain.

Omelet: Let me just give you just one example of a positive thing, where I
was able to tilt events in my favor. Do you remember my being sent to
England?
Homoleo: Yes.
Omelet: I remember one incident in particular. It was a dark and stormy
night...and all about me, all felt fright. A howl rang out. We saw strange
light. The ship began to pitch. My legsto twitch. The portals to unhitch.
You can imagine my distress. My digestion was a mess. I retreated to my
cabin. (Sorry if I'm babblin'.) As my gown scarfed wild about me, I lit a
candle, pulled out the letter the King bade me deliver to England, broke
the seal, and read it. It saideth, quoth, "Dearest England: Re the bearer of
this epistle, a young enigmatic vandal, please chop his head off clean as a
whistle, forthwith. Hope all is well. Love, Denmark." Close quoth.
Homoleo: No!
Omelet: Yes.
Homoleo: I am shockedshocked!
Omelet: Of course. But thou art also naive in the extremity. In any wise, thus
benetted with villains, who'd vetted their play before I could even get a
prologue to my brain, see, I rigged an artistry whereby I, for my part,
hopped the next pirate ship back to Denmark, whilst sending Rosencrutch
and Goldenstuff yon way in tippling stead to star in a fabulous new role.
It would be their greatest performance. I cribbed a substitutinous note,
signed and specially sealed, which is known by me by rote, which said, in
sooth, quoth, "Dearest England: Re the bearers of this letter, two bettered
swishy meddlers, do slay them for me, will ya? To thy greater glory. And
may peace wear a wheaten garland and stand like checkmarks 'twixt our
starch amities. Love ya, Denmark." Close quoth. End of story.
Homoleo: I hope it lacks a sequel.
Omelet: Would it lacked the prequel. What's done is dun. An' now, mayhap,
gleams gleaming of the sun.
Homoleo: Let's hope.
Omelet: Ha ha. I'll bet you two pence to crumpets, heads rolled with nary
shriving time allowed. Even there, was heaven ordinant.

Homoleo: Was that your wish?

Omelet: Just so they weren't kneeling when they got it, mouths and hearts
agape. If only heaven'd do my bidding on a more consistent basis!
Homoleo: So Rosencrutch and Goldenstuff are dead.
Omelet: They had it coming! Fly where the wind blows, ask not the why
when blown off course to crash bedeck a ship of state on a frost iceberg
ethic, the crum-bum scum. My conscience is clear.
Homoleo: Thou't make a jiffy king.
Omelet: Attend. I'm dealing with a guy who did in my king and father,
whored my mother, stole my election like a whoreson knavedoth it not
stand now incumbent upon me to repay like with like? We must do what
we must do. Thou canst not make an omelet without breaking eggs. If I
hath said it once, I hath said it twice. To no great persuasive effect,
apparently. But let that go.
Homoleo: The news shall reach the court anon.
Omelet: I'm not worried. I'm not. What bothers me only is that I lost my
temper with Liartes, who's borne great grief. By the image of my cause I
see the portraiture of his. He nettled me though. I didn't mean to kill his
dad and derange his sister. My mistake, tho'. I take full responsibility. But
let's move on.
Homoleo: Who's this?
Enter young Assriccourtier and ass.
Assric: God bless ye sir, an' a merry welcome back to the court!
Omelet: Why, thanks a bunch-o. [Aside to Homoleo.] Know this ass-o?
Homoleo: [Aside to Omelet.] Can't say as I do.
Omelet: [Aside to Homoleo.] 'Tis vice to know such lice. He's quite the
rump-kisser. Devoted his life to that royal striving. Watch this. [To Assric.]
So, what say you?

Assric: Sweet lord, I might impart a thing or two, from his Majesty to you.
Omelet: Say. Hot enow today, ayah eh?
Assric: Very hot.
Omelet: Though passing cold.
Assric: Uh, bitter cold. Brr-rr-r-r-r.
Omelet: Sweltering.
Assric: Y-yes, yes indeed.
Omelet: You should wear your hat.
Assric: Uh, methinkswell, okay.
Omelet: Here, let me help you. Justcock it like thus.
Assric: No, I've got itthat's down too far
Omelet: Freezing today.
Assric: Yes. I can't see.
Omelet: You can see how hot it is.
Assric: 'Tis not the heat m'lord, so much as the humidity.
Omelet: Humidity? What humidity?
Assric: Ertoo dry for my bones, that is sure.
Omelet: Sweltering.
Assric: Terrible.
Omelet: Torrential. A blizzard of tranquility. Perfect peace.
Assric: Y-y-yes. Yes. I would say so.
Omelet: So you would. Thou art a man for all seasons.

Assric: Thank you sir. I want to tell youthe king, he's betting on you.
Omelet: The hat!
Assric: What?
Omelet: Ye must press it down most firmly...there. Now, stand on one foot
and scratch that there thy belly.
Assric: But
Omelet: The fleas, man! The golden fleas. Now, be a fair chap and hop up
and down...very nice. Very nice. Thou appeareth a perfect monkey.
Assric: Thankthank you sir. Well-I, I-say, the-king, king-is, betting,
betting-on-you, on-you-sir, sir-sir.
Omelet: Ga-boing, ga-boing, ga-boing. I'll wager he is. What are the odds?
Assric: Ten toten to one. May I...? Everyone in the court has added to the
pot.
Omelet: And, what do they to bet on?
Homoleo: That would be good to know.
Omelet: Suds! Egad! No one has shampooed his hat!
Assric: 'Tis shampooed most verily sir, or this day's no tranquil tempest day.
But anywayst, as you'd be wondering of it sir, an' for his part this kindlyfaced gentleman, a proposal's extant for a friendly game of fencing
between you, sire, and one Mr. Liartes, a fine gentleman.
Omelet: And Liartes would duel?
Assric: 'Twould an honor be, he says. He's a gentleman.
Omelet: His perdition suffers no definement to dozy the calculus of memory,
in yaw to which to row the oar of a top-sail soaring gale foe would be a
bore. The dearth an' rareness of his fairness is quite a shadow of his face,
which to switch to umbrage of his image, would augur unenlightened
visage. To know a man well were to know himself, a call to port.

Assric: Your lordship speaks most infallibly of him.

Omelet: Your opinion's similar?
Assric: Oh my. Yes, he's quite...quite the gentleman. Yes.
Omelet: You must be exhausted. Very well. Go to.
Assric: Sir?
Omelet: Go to the king and tell him I'll mark him for this sport.
Assric: Ah...does that mean you'll....
Omelet: I'll be there. What weapons?
Assrics: Swords, sir. French with Barbarous hilts, gilt with Danish gilt.
Omelet: A heavy gilt. Very well.
Assric: Ah, good. Fine. Very good. Very good. I shall sure report it. I
commend my duty to your lordship. Um, they'd like to start right away....
Omelet: I'll be there briefly.
Assric: Ah. Fair enough then.
Exeit.
Omelet: So. The telling time ticks near, in telling gaugement of my fear. A
scythe-like pendulum twitching, twitching, ever sheer. It shan't swing
clear. I swear. I swear it shan't swing clear.
A raven flyeth by.
Now that's queer.
Assric: [Calling without.] Coming m'lord?
Courtier/Lord: [Calling without.] Uh, if 'tis true you'lt make pleasant trial
with young Liartes, good Omelet, no time waxes more sure than the

present. The scene, she is set, nyet? All bets been bet. Lateness is but a
delayed and ruptured Now, put off somehow, distended, rended, ka-pow.
Omelet: [Calling.] Yea, verily. I'm constant to my purposes, which follow the
true King's pleasure. [Soft.] He's so schooled in metaphysic, he must figure
my meaning. Come on, Homoleo. Let's go do the show. Bring the smoke
an' mirrors. Also a deck of cards, a cracked chalice rimmed with dried
nectar, a spoon, and three dead rats.
They followeth Assric to another room i' the castle. Thereat lounge about
lords and ladies fair, courtiers and beggars, friars, hares.
Homoleo: I like it not well. Say the word, I'll say you're not fit, and we'll
leave.
Omelet: Not a whit. Providence conspires against sparrows. If falling time is
now, it not be later, if later not now, if not later on than now, then not the
now or late of now or later. We're bidden by fate, and out the starting
gate.
Enterunt King Clintonius, Queen Gertie, Liartes.
Lord: Lords and ladies...the King...of the Realm...of Denmark!
Trumpets, general bugeling.
Clintonius: Omelet.
Omelet: King.
Liartes: Prince.
Omelet: Liar.
Clintonius: A few of the nobler nobles...Lord Bufus....
Omelet: Lord.
Clintonius: Lord Chatterly.
Omelet: Lord.
Clintonius: Lord Lordie.

Omelet: Lord.
Liartes: Let's get on with it. The bets are placed.
Clintonius: Come, Omelet, and join hands in troth.
Hands Omelet's hand to Liartes in troth.
Omelet: Troth.
Liartes: Troth. Let's do it.
Attendant: Swords?
Omelet: Swords.
Liartes: Let me have that one.
Omelet: Fine, then I'll take the other.
A raven flyeth by.
Look, I just want to say, how loath to have done thee wrong, an' in soothe
that none of it was my doing all along, but a madness loosed, inhabitant of
soul, an alter ego, demented, which did seem in presentiment roiling rage,
as the whole court knows, the whole stage. So 'twas not I that did what
e'er was done, but some demon lyric bum, scratching scribbling. To
prevent our fates' congealing, let's dispel hard feeling.
Liartes: I'm nothing wroth. Let's see what haps 'pon higher authority, but for
now thy words acquit my love. Ready?
Omelet: Ready.
Liartes: Touch.
They touch blades, step back.
Good.
Omelet: Touch.

They touch blades, step back.

Liartes: Touch. Touch and go.
They touch again, swipe, clash.
Omelet: This mettle's matter.
Inspects the sword.
Liartes: What?
Omelet: Never mind. Go. Go.
Liartes: Touch.
Omelet: Touch.
Liartes: Touch.
Omelet: Good touch. Go.
Liartes: Go go go.
They clash.
Omelet: Good one.
Liartes: Continue.
They clash.
Clintonius: Omelet? Are you tired? Sip of ice water?
Omelet: That's all right.
Further clash.
Queen Gertie: Prithee, I'll have some. Omelet, I carouse to thy good fortune,
thy swell fate!
Clintonius: Uh...no my dear, don't touch...

She drinks.
Queen Gertie: What?
Clintonius: No matter. [Aside.] Woe is me. Ah woe. Ah woe. Now all's
undone. [To court.] Continue.
Assric: A hit! A very palpable hit!
Cannon fires, trumpets blare, etc.
Liartes: I credit a nominal skill.
Omelet: Nominate me as ye will.
They clash palpably. Queen Gertie gasps.
Clintonius: Er...anything the matter?
Queen Gertie: You kill me. Omelet! Don't...drink...the water....
Dies.
Lord: The Queen is dead!
Fool: Long live the King!
General commotion. Omelet and Liartes clash.
Omelet: Thou...art not quite...the deft performer...reputation claims.
Liartes: Nor...art thou...quite the daft conformer...a strike!
(Omelet is struck.)
A palpable poing!
Omelet: I am cut.
Jerk: Blades will do that to you.
Liartes: Act!

They clash. Omelet thrusts. Riposte by Liartes. Thrust anew. Parry or bust.
Wary. Dew. Furious clash. A turn. Fool stabbed. Thrust and lunge.
Rapiers somehow switched. Then a quirky jab.
Omelet: Take that! And that! Thou defiling dirty rat!
Liartes: I hate you!
Omelet: Damn you!
Liartes: Damn you! Aaaghhh!! I am scratched! The end is nigh! 'Tis poetic
justice! Omelet, let me divulge it quickthou art...pricked...with the same
poison that me hath licked. Your mother got it too. The King's to blame, or
mayhap society at large. See you in hell, guy!...bye....
Dies.
Omelet: I forgive you. Mother! By my trothWhat hast thou done, you
dung?
Clintonius: Iwhy, she just collapsed. Never seen anything like it. I shall
appoint an investigative body.
Omelet: First one parentnow two! Sup thy own chicken-blooded drink,
foul fink! Is thy union here? Follow her! Cheers!
Forces wine down throat of helpless struggling king; hurls goblet against
castle wall, stabs king, then shoves rats down his throat; king dies.
Pick a card! Any card! Ah, the knave! Take it to the grave!...
Falls.
Fool: What a card.
All: Treason! That's treason, right there!
Omelet: Homoleo...no, don't drink...try to conjure up enough...felicity...for a
while...to tell the bard my story...you know the facts...but...do you have
any questions? What's that noise?
Marching noise outside the castle.

My God...it's full of stars.

Dies.
Homoleo: He was a good man. This is sad. So long, sweet prince. May
singing celestial representatives accompany thee to thy rest.
Enterunt Fortinbrass and his troops.
Fortinbrass: Jesus! What happened here?
All: Ain't it obvious?! The royal family's slain! We've lost our greatest Dane!
Homoleo: I'll tell you the whole story, which to prevent possible
misinterpretation had best be related quickly and clearly.
Fortinbrass: Huh. My arrival as conquering liege is most fortuitous. Let's
clean up in here.
Cleaning Lady: Very good sir.
Fortinbrass: Omelet, we hardly knew ya. Let's go.
Exeunt all but one, lugging corpses.
Fool: So our little play is done. And the curtain curtly comes. The theme was
tragick, to say the least. So is salmonella at a feast. What we've said up
here is true. If you don't like it, well...choo choo.
Heavy piano chord.
FINISHED