Hi guys!
I thought it would be a good idea to post my creative project now and get it out of the way (: What you see here is my part of a creative project that I'm working on with Lauren K (minus the quarto part, we'll be finishing that shortly). Since I'm computer illiterate and can't figure out how to attach the PDF to my post, I've just copied it directly in. Enjoy!
The Mother Goose-ification of Hamlet
By Jasmine Foo
Adapted from
William Shakespeare’s Hamlet
I tell
you that all their battering can’t deface my beauties, nor their wise pratings
equal my wiser prattling; and all imitators of my refreshing songs might as
well write a new Billy Shakespeare as another Mother Goose- we two poets were
born together, and we shall go out of the world together.
No, no my Melodies
will never die,
While nurses sing,
or babies cry.
-Mother Goose
An Introduction
Let us wade through the ‘Once-upon-a-time’s
Read by parents while saying good night-
To the fairies and mermaids we will wave goodbye
As we leave these tales with a tear in our eye,
And look forward to stories wrapped up quite neatly-
Not in storybook form, but still done rather sweetly.
I speak of the ones that can be read in a flash;
They rhyme and have rhythm and are not at all rash.
Let us go to these poems, from a fair-feathered friend,
Whose characters and stories we all greatly commend.
And take from another, who is extremely renowned;
Those who read his works find him rather profound.
While most would ponder at the mixture of these two,
I humbly ask that you see the story through-
Shakespeare is here, I can promise you that.
But you’ll only see him if you first give it a chance.
If we were to think about the stories of our youth
One would find that there is inexplicable truth
Found in the words of dear Mother Goose
Though, while silly, did wisdom produce.
----
There once were two
good fellows
Who owned two very
grand cellos.
Named in our tale
as MarCat and BerFiddle,
They found
themselves in a troublesome diddle.
Striding the top of
the castle one night
They saw a spectre
that put their wits to flight:
The dead king in
good form,
Yet opaque enough
to look out of the norm.
Our tale continues
with the calling of
Little Boy Horatio,
who said:
“It’s Prince Hamlet
who must see this apparition
If only he weren’t
right now playing badminton!”
As the following
morning dawned bright and true,
King ClauDish set
about to knock the truth askew.
“The death of King
Hamlet deserves a tribute-
And that is why I’m
marrying Queen GerSpoon!”
Queen GerSpoon
smiled and let out a wave;
The courtiers,
enchanted, let out a hooray-
All except one.
Prince Hamlet Black
Sheep stood glaring in a corner,
While the court
discussed Denmark’s borders.
When the queen and
the king and the court left the room,
Hamlet’s suicide
rant let off a discernible gloom.
While Hamlet ranted
about death and despair,
Little Boy Horatio
came in without any fanfare.
“My angelic
prince,” he cried, “Please don’t delay!”
“We saw your dead
father at 3 a.m. on Tuesday!”
“What now?” cried
Black Sheep, drawn out of his reverie,
“My good father,
dead, seen at the top of tower thirteen?”
He let out a roar,
and proclaimed straightaway,
“There’s something
amiss; I must investigate!”
And as Prince Black
Sheep walked away,
Little Boy Horatio
whispered:
“Yes, there’s
something amiss in the state of Denmark.”
Meanwhile, Leartes
be Nimble was saying goodbye
To Little Bophelia,
with Father Humpty Dumpty Polonius nearby.
“Bophelia,” he
warned, “Please try to behave.
Don’t fall for
Prince Hamlet while I am away.”
Humpty Dumpty
Polonius tried to give knowledge
To his son of how
to survive in college.
He then turned to
his daughter and sternly told her
Not a word of love
to Hamlet could she utter.
“I will obey,” said
Little Bophelia.
“I will obey.”
That night, Prince
Hamlet Black Sheep saw his dead father
Who went on to tell
him of his unnatural slaughter.
“My son,” the king
said, ‘you have been deceived.”
“Your newlywed
uncle has killed me for greed.”
Then the cock
crowed and the sun came up as it must,
And the ghost of
King Hamlet disappeared into the dust.
“My father,” Black
Sheep vowed, “Do not dismay!”
“I will avenge;
from this promise I will not sway!”
The next day,
Little Bophelia rushed to her father in despair.
“The lord Hamlet,”
she cried, “seems to be losing his hair!”
“Just today I
passed by him while he was yanking it off;
He grabbed me,
bleated mournfully, and went off without a cough.”
Humpty Dumpty
Polonius rushed to the throne room
Where RosenJack and
GuildenJill were introduced by the broom.
“King ClauDish!” he
cried, “Hamlet’s source of madness is now revealed;
It is love for my
daughter that he feels!”
“How now!” cried
ClauDish, “I must know if it’s true!”
“RosenJack! GuildenJill!
Haunt Hamlet and find something new.”
The two of them
bowed and promised to obey;
they left the room
and found Hamlet astray.
“My lord!” they
both cried, “It is so good to see you!”
Of their second
agenda, Black Sheep was sure that he knew.
And thus, the
questions could barely leave their lips
As Hamlet spun word
games that left them speechless.
RosenJack and
GuildenJill told Hamlet of the approaching players;
And the players
came forward, acting like mayors.
“My players!”
Hamlet cried, “Today I don’t need mayors,
But rather
something akin to a slayer.”
Then Black Sheep
discussed his plan rather moodily;
And the eager
players agreed to do it quite crudely.
They put the play
on and shocked the pants off the king,
Who thought, “Oh my
goodness! Someone’s on to me!”
However, the king
had been closely watching the prince
And decided that
something was easily amiss.
Between the “To
be’s” and the ‘To a nunnery with you!”
He sensed there was
some sanity in the words that rang true.
Troubled, the king
talked to ‘Jack and ‘Jill
And told them make
haste to England.
“Bring the poor
Prince-to-be unfettered;
Maybe that will
make him feel better.”
When the pair left
the room, ClauDish thought himself alone;
He fell to his
knees, feeling the need to atone.
And while he prayed
by himself and made up excuses,
The Prince Black
Sheep crept in, ready to deliver abuses.
But he soon decided
that now was not the right time
To kill Uncle
ClauDish for his terrible crime.
Black Sheep mused,
“To kill him now would send him to heaven!
That is not
revenge- ClauDish must remain unforgiven.”
At this same time, Queen
GerSpoon and Humpty were conspiring
To find the reason
why Hamlet had become so unadmiring.
“You lure him in,
GerSpoon, and talk to him freely.
I’ll be behind this arras, so call if you need
me.”
Our Black Sheep
waltzed in, quite suspectful of Queenie;
They yelled at each
other and acted quite obscenely.
Polonius cried out,
“Don’t worry, I’ll save you!”
And Hamlet cried as
he stabbed through the arras: “I bid you adieu!”
It was easily seen
That all the king’s
horses
And all the king’s
men
Weren’t able to put
Polonius together again.
Hamlet was thus escorted
by ‘Jack and ‘Jill
To England, where
he was to be killed.
But the letter that
sentenced dear Black Sheep to death,
Was taken and
rewritten all in one breath.
This is how the
story goes:
RosenJack and
GuildenJill went up the hill
To fetch a Black
Sheep who was 'mentally ill’.
But the cost was
too much,
And the pair did
rush:
‘Jack fell down and
broke his dear crown,
And ‘Jill came soon
tumbling after.
While Hamlet was
gallivanting across the high seas,
Little Bophelia was
fighting for her sanity.
For she had lost
her father and brother and dear Black Sheep;
And couldn’t tell
where to find them.
Her mind was
falling fast asleep,
While around the
halls of Elsinore did she creep.
And she sang:
“There
was a mad man,
And
he had a mad wife,
And
they lived all in a mad lane!
They
had three children all at a birth,
And
they too were mad every one.
The
father was mad,
The
mother was mad,
The
children all mad beside;
And
upon a mad horse they all of them got,
And
madly away did ride.”
So Hamlet hitched a
ride back
And found his dear
‘Phelia dead.
“She went bonkers,
insane!” everyone claimed.
“After her father
she was never the same.”
Laertes Be Nimble
came back to Elsinore
To avenge his
father with a great big roar.
“My father and
sister, dead and gone!
Hamlet’s to blame!
I’m gonna mow his lawn!”
“Don’t beat him
just yet!” King ClauDish said hastily.
“How about we
poison him? He’ll find it tasty.”
Laertes thought
hard and finally agreed.
“We’ll poison him
thoroughly!” ‘Be Nimble decreed.
“Not only the
drink, but the sword as well!
I have a fancy
poison from France that will work swell.”
They both shook
hands and settled on the morrow;
Nobody could
predict all the soon coming sorrow.
The next day came
and the fight was announced.
Lil’ Boy Horatio
said, “I’m not too sure of this joust.
I have a bad
feeling. It rings a bad bell.”
But Hamlet assured
him, “If I need you, I’ll yell.”
When Black Sheep
strode in, his opponent stood waiting.
Someone shouted
“Go!” and then they were scraping.
A One hit a Two hit
a Three hit a Four!
Just one more will
do, just one more to score.
A tap on the
shoulder, and Laertes fell.
“A drink to
Hamlet,” cried the king, meaning not well.
But Hamlet refused,
and Queen GerSpoon was thirsty.
“Just a drink from
the goblet!” she cried out quite blithely.
Another round came
just as fast as the first,
And ended with
Hamlet again without thirst.
Laertes, enraged,
jumped to stab the sheep’s wool
Only to find
himself used as a tool.
The two boys
wrestled, and the swords were switched.
Laertes be nimble,
Laertes be quick.
But this time he’s
not jumping over a candlestick.
Too slow was he,
and he ended up stabbed.
Realizing his error, at Hamlet he grabbed.
“I’m poison, I’m
poisoned!” cried Laertes Be Nimble.
“Queen GerSpoon is
too, now were all in a diddle!”
GerSpoon gasped,
and fell down with a clatter.
Laertes fell too,
and make such a big splatter.
In this story, the
Dish did run away with the Spoon,
But in the end the
Spoon’s life was ended by noon,
And the Dish was
cracked beyond any repair:
Stabbed and
poisoned through, was this dishware.
And then Hamlet
Black Sheep gave a cry of despair.
“I’m finished! I’m
done!” he shouted up in the air.
“I’m joining
Bophelia up in the stars; oh my!
This is it. Now I
die, die, die, die!”
This Hamlet Black
Sheep had a lot of wool,
Yes he did; he had
three bags full.
Unfortunately these
bags did him no good.
And that is why
Black Sheep ended up dead too.
The
only person left was Little Boy Horatio.
The black sheep was
dead in the meadow,
But Horatio wasn’t
to blame.
Still he mournfully
thought, “Is this the way you mind your sheep,
Under the haycock
fast asleep?”
With this mindset
in place,
He tried to
reconcile by helping Hamlet to fame.
Horatio told the
world the story
Of the woeful times
in Elsinore.
He mentioned the
events that divided family more,
And ultimately created
a family war.
For there were two
brothers who shared the same queen-
Being both son and
nephew, Black Sheep felt the need to intervene.
He spoke of the
supposed glory and fame-
And the
dysfunctional family that could not keep sane.
-----
An
Author’s Note:
Mother Goose has
always played an integral part in my childhood memories. I always remember her
nursery rhymes alongside the colorful children’s books written by Richard
Scarry and Dr. Seuss, other prime contributors to my reading at a younger age.
Nursery rhymes appeal not only to children, but to adults as well- the simple
cadence of words are both easy to understand and interesting to listen to.
Nursery rhymes tell us stories that engage our ears and our minds. What better
medium for something like Hamlet, which is one of Shakespeare’s longest plays?
Most people think of his works as complicated and hard to read- I can only hope
that I’ve helped to change that a little in an entertaining manner.
And one more thing-
I found the most perfect Mother Goose rhyme to fit in as Ophelia’s song (found
on page 7). I couldn’t bring myself to change anything about it, as I felt that
no change was needed. The rhyme can be found here:
