Later on today the players put on a dumb show acting out the murder of my father. It started off with the curtains opening on a painted orchard made to look like the one my father died in. Then the Player King and Player Queen embraced each other and the Player King lied down to sleep and the Player Queen drew aside. The murderer entered the stage and mischievously poured poison into the sleeping Player King’s ear. The Player King died painfully. The Player Queen rushed to the scene and clasped her dead husband in extreme grief. The murderer then offers the Player Queen jewels until eventually she accepts them and then the show ended with the murderer and the Player Queen passionately embracing each other. After this happens what I had intended to happen did, King Claudius left his seat seeming to be terrified and outraged “by the image of his own crime.” The King seemed guilty of his crime and I told Horatio that I believed every word that the ghost had said and nothing could change my mind.
I went to visit my mother in her chambers and I was not going to feel any pity for her but I was not going to kill her. When I arrived I asked my mother how she felt but she replied by telling me that I had deeply offended my father but I told her that she was wrong and it was she who had offended my father. She told me that I had answered her in an inappropriate manner but I told her that she was wrong once again and it was her that questioned with a “wicked tongue.” My mother backed away from me after I told her this but I seized her and forced her to sit on the bed. I told her that she will not be going anywhere. She asked me what I was going to do to her and she then shouted “Thou wilt not murder me? Help, ho!” When she did this, I heard “a rat” respond from behind the curtain. Thinking that the intrusive person, who was such a coward that they had to hide behind a curtain to listen to mine and my mother’s personal conversation, was the guilty King Claudius, I stabbed my sword through the curtain to kill him. But, when I drew aside the curtain, I was shocked to see Polonius’ body lying on the floor, dead. I thought of the effects that this would have on Ophelia and I suddenly regretted my actions even though I had just killed a man who did not deserve any respect.
I showed my mother my locket with a picture of my father in it and I showed her her own locket with a picture of Claudius in it. I questioned her judgement and how she could have loved my father, a “fair mountain”, and then turned against him and marry my uncle, an insignificant “moor” compared to my father. I asked my mother twice “have you eyes?” to underline how mad she seemed marrying Claudius after my father.
What kind of judgement or wisdom could have lead my mother into believing Claudius was deserving of the widow to my great father?
