Alas, for all my plans have gone astray,
Since Claudius, new-crowned, found me alone
And told me that I should not marry Hamlet;
Not for the sake of his own sons, for he has none,
but because - known only now to him alive,
the others being dead - the former King
had long ago paid undesired court
To my dear mother, never hearing "no",
and thus had I been made.
I do not weep
That I shall never marry Hamlet; but that
I'd kissed my unknown brother! We'd embraced!
We'd spoken words of love before the king,
And he had never thought to bid us stop,
That great and graceful king who loved us both.
Never marry Hamlet!
Long had I known
in secret I was not Polonius's daughter,
Despite the witness of midwife or priest.
But I had thought myself Polonius's son;
For all the heresy this is, I knew it deep within
Myself, that I was man within a woman's mien.
And yet! Another father's son! A king's!
I shall not say his name, it's unavenged;
My father whose false murder I avow;
My mother, wrong'd by him, no more avenged.
Let his name be unspoken and forgot.
And yet I did my best to shoot my shot:
I cannot speak for him, a son unspok'n
and will never be so (for well I know
that even as my esrtwhile father's son
I would not be heard for any shout
Over the sound my rustling garments make.)
But Hamlet, oh my brother, oh my dear,
I did my best; I laid my plots; I
Draped myself in linens to bewail
Before his eyes in evening's spooky light
The murder that he must avenge alone;
I know he heard me - like Troy's daughter, when
I wind myself in subterfuge to speak,
Then only will they listen. It was not enough.
Poor Hamlet, my sweet Prince, my brother dear,
is dead now. No more vengeance to be had.
And by his hand my boyhood's father too.
And I shall follow them. Long have I planned.
I'll ape his madness - but as womanly as
Any man could manage. I'll strew flowers,
I'll sing nurse's songs, I'll seem to pine
As much as any girl in truth could pine,
And then upon the river I will place
A doll - made not to look like me, but like
The daughter they have always thought to see,
Most perfect maiden, most ideally made,
And they will not look more. They never do.
And then she will be dead - Ophelia, the daughter
of a minister or king - what does it signify;
There never was a daughter, either one.
Her jewels drowned with her. I will sell them all
And as the bastard son of a dead king
I'll try my luck in Wittenburg. It can't
Be worse than Hamlet's was - my brother.
And so, adieu to you, to all of you,
And Elsinore as well. Fuck Elsinore.
