Scene: The breakfast table in the castle at Elsinore. Mid-morning.
CLAUDIUS
Hamlet, wherefore dost thou slouch so forlorn
like some sad listless toad before his flies?
You hath barely even touched your hotcakes.
HAMLET
Hotcakes! What means a paltry hotcake to me?
that was an hour before a pound of flour.
Nay not so much! A mere half pound. And now
lays there forming the face of some poltroon.
GETRUDE
Hamlet, tis not princely to show such lack
of table gusto to the castle folk.
(gestures with knife to long table of retainers)
How will tongues wag when their prince biteth not?
What will Fish Fry Friday bring when you show
such scorn to heaps of warm hearty hotcakes?
CLAUDIUS
(chewing vigorously with mouth open)
Such who dine lustfully fight ruggedly.
Once I chomp down rich fatty bacon hunks,
beware weighty fiends who lurk by curtains!
I’ll trounce them with one hand wrapped in damask!
GERTRUDE
(tittering, clearly titillated)
Indeed, I’ve spied it – after ham haunches
your uncle in thick post-food sweat triumph
o’er dim fat knights of lunkish rough-hewn heads.
HAMLET
(violently knocks his plate to the ground, spilling the syrup)
Fie! Your bawdy breakfast byplay is gross
and rank and turns this food to wanny ash.
I’d as soon consume raw fish with hot sauce.
GETRUDE
(getting up and pointing upstairs)
Enough, brash boy! Get thee to thine lone room
And think on thy ungrateful saucy talk!
And think not of taking pastry with thee!
HAMLET
(getting up and making a ‘fie upon all of you’ gesture)
I scorn all your pastries and swinish talk!
Let a rich doom lie on this accursed meal!
Denmark never saw such vile gorging fools
nor such nauseating table manners!
(Hamlet storms out of the breakfast nook and up the stairs).
GERTRUDE
That did not go so well, my fondest Claude.
CLAUDIUS
Just wait until luncheon. We’re having ribs!