Sleep of Death Read Online Free PDF

murder.’
    ‘Out with his sword and into his uncle? End of play?’ said Nell.
    ‘We’ve hardly started,’ I said.
    ‘I hope so,’ she said.
    ‘I meant the story. Hamlet, you see, is a thinker, not a doer, and although he rages against his uncle and vows instant vengeance he doesn’t actually do anything. He wonders whether the ghost was actually the spirit of his father.’
    ‘Who else could it have been?’ said Nell, her breath coming slightly short. For myself, I was finding the narrative a useful distraction from an early (and, one might say, a dishonourable) discharge.
    ‘A devil maybe. Out to trick Hamlet. A devil in the guise of his father spinning some cock-and-bull tale about a murder so as to provoke the Prince into killing a totally innocent man.’
    ‘Sounds like a lot of trouble to go to for that.’
    ‘Hamlet is thinking, but he’s not thinking straight. He’s looking for reasons to avoid killing his uncle, maybe.’
    ‘So the ghost is a real ghost,’ said Nell. ‘My mother saw a ghost once.’
    ‘The ghost is real – and Claudius is guilty as sin – move down a bit.’
    ‘Claudius? Like this?’
    ‘Uncle, King, murderer, adulterer. Yes, that’s good.’
    ‘Oh, him.’
    ‘Do you want to change round yet?’
    ‘In a moment. When you’ve reached the end. Of the play.’
    ‘Luckily for Hamlet, who should fetch up in the Elsinore castle at this moment but a company of players. And he has the bright idea of getting them to do a play which will mirror the way his father died and be performed in front of an unsuspecting Claudius. This play inside the play’ll have a King and a Queen in it—’
    ‘Like most plays.’
    ‘—and the Queen will swear undying love to the King, et cetera. But then the poisoner steps out and knocks off said King. That’s me, poisoner. I have six lines – “Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit and time agreeing” – you get the idea.’
    ‘Put one of your apt hands right here – now.’
    ‘This is the twist. The poisoner – me – is announced as Lucianus, nephew to the King.’
    ‘When it should be the brother?’
    ‘Precisely.’
    ‘That’s deep, Nick.’
    ‘Good. This is a cleverness on the part of our author which I haven’t yet fathomed. Anyway, the play inside the play works because just after my entry Claudius storms off in rage. Oh! He has seen something to stir his conscience. He kneels down to pray. Hamlet comes in. Ah! Hamlet won’t kill him because he wants to catch his uncle when he’s gambling or pissed or in flagrante—’
    ‘In what?’
    ‘In this. Though, now I come to think of it, that’s a bit strange – because if Hamlet was catching the King in flagrante then he’d be catching his mother at it too, and I’m not sure that he’d want that . . .’
    ‘Dirty boy. Him . . . and you too.’
    ‘Claudius gets in a state, and sends Hamlet to England. Yes! This is after Hamlet’s killed a wise old fool of a councillor who was eavesdropping behind an arras on Hamlet and his mother – in the Queen’s bedchamber.’
    ‘What was Hamlet doing in his mother’s bedroom? Not in flag . . . what’s that word?’
    ‘Flagrante. No, he was just giving his mother a real ear-bashing . . .’
    ‘That’s all right then.’
    ‘So our hero gets shoved off to England in the company of a couple of old schoolfriends or snakes – you sure you don’t want to change round yet?’
    ‘Get on with it.’
    ‘And of course he’s right not to trust them because they’re carrying a warrant for Hamlet’s execution the moment they reach the English court. Oh Nell! But Hamlet never makes England. On the way his ship’s attacked by pirates and he is carried off after a daring single-handed boarding of the pirate boat—’
    ‘The groundlings enjoy a good fight.’
    ‘We don’t see the fight. Just hear about it in a letter. This is where Burbage is economising. Anyway pirates aren’t important, they’re a device to get Hamlet back to