FORTINBRAS Let four captains
Bear Hamlet like a soldier to the stage,
For he was likely, had he been put on,
To have proved most royal. And for his passage
The soldiers’ music and the rite of war
Speak loudly for him.
Take up the bodies. Such a sight as this
Becomes the field but here shows much amiss.
Go, bid the soldiers shoot. (Exeunt.)
FINIS (5.2.379-387)
Last words, and appropriate to be writing these on the morning of Remembrance Sunday. Let four captains bear Hamlet like a soldier to the stage—it’s an order, and also a theatrical direction, a stage is any platform but here it’s indelibly, unavoidably theatrical; on with the show. Like a soldier can jar—really?—but Fortinbras seems to be thinking in terms of appropriate ceremonial rather than, or at least as well as, military identity: for he was likely, had he been put on, to have proved most royal. Hamlet would have been a good king, if he’d had the chance. Empty words, platitudes? It doesn’t matter, Fortinbras is making the right noises, rounding things off; there aren’t any words, really, that can be sufficient. So, and for his passage the soldiers’ music and the rite of war speak loudly for him. That too can jar, but it’s mostly a music cue, a dead march, a slow drum. Words are going to cease, giving way to that dull, muted throb—but it’s still a pulse. (As if anyone, anything could ever speak for Hamlet, though. Perhaps that’s why it has to be sound, sound felt in the body.) A pause on the half-line for the drum to start up, the captains to assemble? Take up the bodies; that can’t all happen unless there’s an enormous ensemble, it’ll happen after the end, but Hamlet at least can be lifted up. And Fortinbras looks around again, at the slaughtered Danish court: such a sight as this becomes the field but here shows much amiss. Fortinbras is a soldier, used to death, but this—this would be appropriate on a battlefield, but here? It’s appalling. There’s a note of bathos: no words can adequately describe the wrongness of this spectacle, and no words can adequately conclude this play. Speak about Hamlet, speak for Hamlet? No chance, although his beloved friend Horatio is steeling himself to try. So at the last Fortinbras retreats into sound, into action: go, bid the soldiers shoot. (And yes there are productions in which, notoriously, all the remaining Danish courtiers and Horatio are gunned down at this moment.) A rifle volley, or cannon offstage; it’s the sound that Hamlet has objected to as part of Claudius’s revels, here as empty and insufficient, but also deadly serious. And the rest is silence.
Except that, at the Globe, that solemn, tolling drum of the dead march will have changed its rhythm to a dancing measure, and the dead will rise and dance and live to play the play again.
This is the last entry in a daily Shakespeare blog #InkyCloak #SlowShakespeare which began on 1 October 2024. I haven’t decided yet if there will be another one!
