Soliloquy: God Save Ye, I Am Gone (a response to mrkinch's drabble, below)

Title: God Save Ye, I Am Gone
Author: threeoranges
Pairing: Laertes/Hamlet
Play: Hamlet
Rating: R
Notes: Written as a response to mrkinch's LJ challenge to render the H/L drabble "On the Way Out" into Shakespearean verse. Please don't read this until you've read mrkinch's drabble, posted below.



GOD SAVE YE, I AM GONE
A Shakespearean variant on ON THE WAY OUT

LAERTES: Thou lick-boot princeling! Would that thou couldst hear
These my dark thoughts before I get me hence!
Nay, nay; I am content to think alone
And not to prattle on the "whys?" and "wherefores?"
For thou wast ever thus. "Nay, I cannot!
As Hamlet must I take a wench to wife,
And bear fair Denmark heirs! It is my duty,
As 'twas my father's duty!" False and base!
Thou shouldst have brought thy noble sire to mind
When thou didst sire me on the castle walls!
Thou, noble Prince, with doublet all unbrac'd,
No hat upon thy head, thy stockings foul'd,
Ungarter'd, and down-gyved to thy ankles,
There madly thou didst laugh, to see me take
Mine rod into my hand, and in thy fundament -
"Oh Laertes! Sweet Laertes!" thou didst cry
And cry full hoarse as pleasure left thee straining!
And now bethink you of Ophelia.
What wouldst thou do with her, a spotless maid
Unknowing what men do, what men may do!
I would not leave the hen-house so unguarded.
So, 'fore my leave I spoke a whiles with her
(Lest ignorance drive innocence to flight)
And 'fore she left she swore me on her soul
That never would she speak to thee again.
No, I am gone. Now lie for me outstrewn
The paths of fortune and of Providence!
Who knows what life provides? I know full well
That thinking is the surest path to ill.
Away with it! Tonight I'll gorge on 'sack
And wake with boy's flesh underneath my hands.
God save you, I am gone from out thy sight -
Be cursed, thou bastard! Dream of me tonight!