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The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 10.0475  Wednesday, 17 March 1999.

From:           Kate Brookfield <kbrookf@tgis.co.uk>
Date:           Tuesday, 16 Mar 1999 17:01:36 -0000
Subject:        Hamlet

A Scot sums up Hamlet. It sounds better sung, but thought list members
might feel like singing it when the class needs a wake up.


HAMLET

by Adam MacNaughton
after Bill the Quill
tune : - The Mason's Apron

There was this King sitting in the garden all alane
When his brother, in his ear, poured a wee tate of henbane
And his brother stole his crown and his money and his widow
But the deid king walked and got his son and said  "Hey, listen Kiddo
I've been killed and it's your duty to take revenge on Claudius.
Kill him quick and clean and tell the Nation what a fraud he is."
The boy says "Right, I'll do it but I'll need to play it crafty
And so's naeone will suspect me I'll kid on that I'm a daftie."

So with all except Horatio (and he trusts him as a friend)
Hamlet, that's the boy, kids on he's roond the bend
And because he wasnae ready for obligatory killing
He tried to make the king think he was tuppence off the shilling
Took the mickey out Polonius treated poor Ophelia vile
Tellt Rosencranz and Gildenstern that Denmark was a jail
Then a group of wandering actors like Seven Eighty Four
Arrived to do a special one night gig in Elsinore.

Hamlet, Hamlet, loved his mammy
Hamlet, Hamlet, acting bammy
Hamlet, Hamlet, hesitating
Wonders if the ghost's a cheat and that is how he's waiting.

So Hamlet wrote a scene for the players to enact
So Horatio and him could watch to see if Claudius cracked.
The play was called the mousetrap (no the one that's running noo)
Sure enough the king walked out before the scene was through.
So Hamlet's got the proof that Claudius gave his dad a dose,
The only problem being now that Claudius knows he knows
So while Hamlet tells his ma that her new husband's no a fit yin
Uncle Claude puts out a contract with the English king as hitman.

Thus when Hamlet stabbed Polonius the concealed corpus delecti
Was the king's excuse to send him for an English hempen necktie
With Rosencranz and Gildenstern to make sure he got there.
Hamlet jumped the boat and put the finger on that pair.
Meanwhile Laertes heard his dad had been stabbed in the Arras,
He came racing back to Elsinore tout de suite, hot foot from Paris
And Ophelia with her dad killed by the man she was to marry
After saying it with flowers she committed Hari Kari.

Hamlet, Hamlet, nae messin'
Hamlet, Hamlet, learnt his lesson
Hamlet, Hamlet, Yorick's crust
Convinced him that men good or bad at last must come to dust.

Then Laertes lost the place and was demanding retribution
But the king says "Keep the heid, son, I'll provide you a solution".
He arranged a sword-fight for the interested parties
With a blunted sword for Hamlet and a sharp sword for Laertes.
To make things double sure, the old belt and braces line,
He arranged a poison sword-tip and a poison cup of wine.
The poison sword got Hamlet but Laertes went and muffed it,
'Cos he got stabbed himsel' and he confessed before he snuffed it.

Hamlet's mammy drank the wine and as her face turned blue
Hamlet says, "I'm quite convinced the king's a baddy noo".
"Incestuous, murderous, damned Dane!" he said, to be precise
And made up for hesitation by killing Claudius twice.
'Cos he stabbed him with the sword and forced the wine between his lips.
He cried, "The rest is silence". That was Hamlet had his chips.
They fired a volley over him that reached the topmost rafter,
And Fortinbras, knee deep in Danes, lived happy ever after.

Hamlet, Hamlet, all that gory
Hamlet, Hamlet, end of story
Hamlet, Hamlet, I'm away
And if you think this was boring, you should read the bloody play!

Kate Brookfield
...in  "Bonnie" Scotland!

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