Act 1.1
(King Hamlet stands behind his medical practitioner, looks over the practitioner’s shoulder and the glasses and containers on the rather massive table that dominates center stage. They are in the king's private quarters—his closet)
King:
What do you see about my health my best of all soothsayers? Do my entrails speak to you in some language to me foreign? What is your knowledge of my better parts? Does my body offer wealth? What can you tell me from your medical stealth? Am I whole, or am I broken? My health is more than mine alone, as Hamlet King all Denmark needs to know if I'm robust. Much turns upon my cast of health, in me the nation trusts. I cannot fail in my aged self, no matter my strains unuttered. Through the task of rule, I am the nation's tool, and in fame and danger suffer.
Practitioner:
My liege, I do not say the sooth, for mine is art and science. I act in ways that I hope persuade; I do so in all conscience. I know the gravitas with which I must take my task. For the honest truth I will speak; you need only now to ask.
King:
And ask I did and do again and get on with your medical stammer. I want an answer straight and true not some pleasing banter. I am the king and grief I can bring but not for simple truth. Get on with it. Just get it out, and do it now—forsooth.
Practitioner:
I take your urine up to the light, and thus I can observe the colors therein you do produce which tells a tale in truth. I swirl and sniff and hold it for inspection , so I see its makes, and shades, and tints. Thus I make my first detection. There are five shades of yellow, four of red, and five of green (from a rainbow to a leek). There are two shades but nearly black; one translucent; and another the white of milk or sheet. In all of this, there’s still the smell from sweet down to the fetid. I examine close and to the most to get the whole investigated.
King:
And from this ponderous examination, can you tell the tale? Do you say what I must know as all my thoughts grow pale? I need an answer for my health in full and in its part. Will I live and what will give full strength within my heart? Your urinal meditation, I find most fascinating, but now I want an answer smart, and no more hesitating.
Practitioner:
My king I do not hesitate but to tell the truth of tests. It's through these tests that I know best how to detect condition. All in my art, I can see what what's, and who is who, the better. I do these things but to your aid and not to make you fret. I have given thought as I am ought lest you that forget. I study out your urine, and finger excreta of the stool. I engage even in swirls of spit as a diagnostic tool.
King:
And in the end, do you know a thing, something that tells me truth. If medicine means just to make more tests, for me it is no use.
Practitioner:
I swear by the god Asclepius and by serpent and staff entwined, that medicine will seek to know, and will always find.
King Hamlet
When you find still vexes me, and what you'll do is worse. Is what you swear unto your god something like a curse? I know the symbol of that snake quite well, and it leaves me troubled. By the tongue and the serpent's breath you can heal, but you can still make some poison doubled.
Practitioner:
I poison not! Have you forget, I have made you oft times better?
King: (Showing a rising anger)
Than was then and now is now and lest you muster courage, to speak what you know or forever keep your silence and then go, or you must treat my choler.
Practitioner:
I must admit, in all of this, I see there no deep rumors. I find no ill wind that would disturb the balance of your humors.
King:
But I am aged and have not made a son and heir to leave behind me. Ironic that I have not filled this most essential duty. Time departs and ends grow near. Can ought be done, or do I need to fear?
Practitioner:
Yearly depredations come to you and me alike. This we must afford, but you are not diminished by your years of life, my lord.
King:
Not diminished in many ways, and desire serves me strongly. But I am aged, and near enraged, and age does do me wrongly. What can there be done?
Practitioner:
In age comes wisdom, sire, if not always sons.
King:
If in age comes wisdom, does it follow that wisdom thus brings age and its infirmities? If that's the case, I'd best escape, and live as a young and healthy fool. Now in wisdom, I am aged and have no son, and is there no balm for that? Are your arts a useless tool?
Practitioner:
That is the fact, and I can't detract, the balm for age is death. In the end, all of us must rest.
King:
You say that you have cured my ills and have made me feel some better. Can you keep to this vow and remove my heirless fetter?
Practitioner:
I have proved but many cures, and that is sure, but as for sons, when things are done, we must leave that full to God.
King: (Calms in acceptance and desperation)
Your operation has succeeded. You have assured me of my health, and you have killed my hope. Leave me surgeon and cut me no more on my diminished scope.
Practitioner: (Bowing himself out)
Sire. (Exits)
King:
This foolish man, he prates and prates and all he spouts is wind. I have a need, a faulted seed, and he cannot deliver. His ministrations and their kin have failed, and now I ask myself where I’ll go hither.