"OH FOR A MUSE OF FIRE!
J M Hanes, in the comments to our Shakespearean homage -- The Tragedy of Omlet, Prince of Massachusetts picks up our sorry tale of woe, our slo-mo tragedy, with the ever popular Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, aka Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy
ACT III
Scene I
[Enter THE KING, QUEEN, POLONIUS,
OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN]
THE KING: And can you, by no drift of circumstance,
Get from Omlet why he puts on this confusion,
Grating so harshly all his days of quiet
With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?
ROSENCRANTZ: He does confess he feels himself distracted;
But from what cause he will by no means speak.
GUILDENSTERN: Nor do we find him forward to be sounded,
But, with a crafty madness, keeps aloof,
When we would bring him on to some confession.
THE KING: Yet may true stated what you have observed,
Unwrinkle the body politic in parts.
GUILDENSTERN: (The Trough!)
ROSENCRANTZ: complaining
Of complaints. Tis here our litany turns
Upon itself, and forward we report
But what our eyes have seen
GUILDENSTERN: (O Hear Him, Word)
ROSENCRANTZ: We leave to you davining,
GUILDENSTERN: (Look Ye Where
Prince Omlet, Signals He His Dogs Of War.)
ROSENCRANTZ: Throws he down his staff, calls forth whole cloth,
Scissors him new sails, yet mirror mired,
GUILDENSTERN: (O Brave New Cut Of Jib!)
ROSENCRANTZ: he preening paused,
And swift was blown awry, discoursed again.
GUILDENSTERN: (Alas!)
ROSENCRANTZ: A lackey propped him with advices
From a ghostly king,
GUILDENSTERN: (Oh Aye, Ghastly)
ROSENCRANTZ: Sweet Willaim embedded and beflowered, arose.
Cast ye clear trajectory, says he,
GUILDENSTERN: (O Princely King!)
ROSENCRANTZ: fie on fact chequery.
GUILDENSTERN: (My Kingly Prince!)
ROSENCRANTZ: Yet pays he heed to hearty Willie, nil, he lists
He luffs, he comes about, attempts a jab,
Then jibe,
GUILDENSTERN: (Ho Curséd Wind Would Rather Be!)
ROSENCRANTZ: Or naught but tempest in black kettling pot?
Enough, so Omlet cried! Havoc rising with
GUILDENSTERN: (Beware!)
ROSENCRANTZ: the tides, the march of time, he backward
Climbed, till Milady proud, and stern, unbowed,
Get thee beheinzed me said, and hauled his halyard,
GUILDENSTERN: (Hoist pertard!)
ROSENCRANTZ: Distaffed, aloft, and thus
Bedeviled, in a blue suit Omlet tried
His hand upon yon tiller, plied, but gaffed,
Soon sideswept by swift mettle testing surf.
Now spinning,
GUILDENSTERN: (Yea, Right Spinnakered Was He!)
ROSENCRANTZ: We came upon him thus,
GUILDENSTERN: (Becalméd He!)
ROSENCRANTZ: Mapping windy aspirations made
Insensible with hawks, hacks saws.
ROSENCRANTZ: (Old Saws! They Say He's Mad As Me!)
ROSENCRANTZ: Nay he
Denies it north-east-west, though claims it south,
Bold arguments himself with self, a habit
Leading only to
ROSENCRANTZ: Outspent, left leaning, beached he bark to port
Push polled him out upon the shifting sands,
GUILDENSTERN: (What Ho! Begalaland!)
ROSENCRANTZ: where yet he sits,
Conjuring carvillainies, consulting stars
Which round him garland now,
GUILDENSTERN: (Affirmament!)
ROSENCRANTZ: More like the tangled web we weave each night, of late bejewelled
With yet another thousand points of light, for taming of the shrewd.
[Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN]
Posted by Vanderleun at September 19, 2004 11:10 AM