Barnyard Hamlet

Barnardo: Who’s there?

Francisco: Barnado?

Barnado: He. Have you had quiet guard?

Francisco: Not a mouse stirring.

Barnado: If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus, bid them make haste.

Francisco: I think I hear them. – Stand, ho! Who’s there?

Horatio: Friends to this ground.

Marcellus: And liegemen to the Dane.

Francisco: Give you good night. Barnado has my place.

Barnado: Welcome, good Marcellus. Is Horatio there?

Marcellus: A piece of him. He says ‘tis but our fantasy and will not let this dreaded sight take hold of him. Therefore I have entreated him along with us so that if again this apparition come – has this thing appeared again?

Barnado: I have seen nothing.

Horatio: Tush, tush, ‘twill not appear.

Barnardo: Sit down for awhile and let us once again assail your ears, that are so fortified against our story –

Marcellus: Peace, break thee off. Look where it comes again!

Barnardo: In the same figure like the king that’s dead.

Horatio: Before my God, I might not this believe without mine own eyes.

Marcellus: Thou art a scholar. Speak to it, Horatio.

Horatio: What art though? If thou hast any sound or use of voice, speak to me. Stay and speak! Stop it, Marcellus.

Barnardo: ‘Tis here.

Horatio: ‘Tis here.

Marcellus: ‘Tis gone and will not answer.

Horatio: Let us impart what we have seen tonight unto young Hamlet, for, upon my life, this spirit will speak to him.

Marcellus: I know where we shall find him most conveniently.

Claudius: Young Fortinbras hath not failed to pester us with message importing the surrender of those lands lost to his father to our most valiant brother. We here dispatch you, Cornelius, and you, Voltimand, to Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras, to suppress his further gait herein, in that the levies, the lists, and full proportions are all made out of his subject.

Cornelius, Voltimand: In that and all things will we show our duty.

Claudius: We doubt it nothing. Now Laertes, what’s the news with you?

Laertes: Your leave and favor to return to France, where my thoughts and wishes bend toward.

Claudius: Have you your father’s leave?

Polonius: He hath, my lord, rung from me my hard consent by laborsome petition.

Claudius: Take thy fair hour, Laertes. Time be thine. But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son –

Hamlet: (aside) A little more than kin and less than kind.

Claudius: - your intent in going back to Wittenberg is most retrograde to our desire. And we do besceech you, remain here in the cheer and comfort of our eye, our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.

Gertude: Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet. I pray thee, stay.

Hamlet: I shall in all my best obey you, madam.

Claudius: Why, ‘tis a loving and a fair reply. Madam, come away.

Hamlet: Oh, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew. Not so much two months dead, so excellent a king. The funeral baked meats did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables with my uncle. Frailty, thy name is woman! Methinks I see my father –

Horatio: Where, my lord?

Hamlet: Horatio? Marcellus? In my mind’s eye.

Horatio: My lord, I think I saw him yesternight.

Hamlet: Who?

Horatio: The king your father.

Hamlet: The king my father?! But where was this?

Marcellus: My lord, upon the platform where we watch.

Hamlet: I will watch tonight. Perchance ‘Twill walk again.

Horatio: I warrant it will.

Characters

Hamlet, Ghost, Gertrude: German sheepdog. On a farm, dogs were frequently used to herd animals into place; thus, they were, in essence, the rulers of the animals on the farm.

Claudius: Pig. While Claudius is Hamlet’s uncle, the pig symbolizes the greed for power and control, as well as the lavish lifestyle that he now lives much better than a sheepdog.

Laertes, Polonius: cat. By being a cat, Polonus and Laertes are set apart from Hamlet and Claudius, distinguishing social classes that become important later on. It also sets up Laertes’s need for revenge, and Polonius’s spying.

Horatio: Owl. Wise, and level-headed.

Marcellus: Rooster. As the rooster calls forth the day, Marcellus calls forth the ghost. He also drives it away, an allusion to the cock in the full play.

Cornelius and Voltimand: Pigeon. Messengers.

Barnardo: Duck. A quacker who talks, but doesn’t help much in terms of detaining the ghost.

Francisco: Sheep. Could be various animals, as he has a very brief role.