Yorick's Soliloquy over Hamlet's Skull

Yorick monológja Hamlet koponyája felett

King Fortinbras is a good boss come closing time I can go down to the
churchyard where I dig out Hamlet's skull from its secret hiding place
hold it in the palm of my hand and talk to it
poor Hamlet when I was still your jester
no one reached for his sword as I told a joke in Danish
Norwegian is fine too of course the language of a great culture unlike Danish
the courtiers split their sides laughing at my country bumpkin's accent
I receive oodles of gold now I bought myself a small house with a garden
not far from Elsinore I have a goat and a housekeeper her dialect
is even more outlandish than mine every time I go downstairs
she brings me fresh milk some fruit and after supper she sleeps with me
but I still miss you sometimes my good lord Hamlet streets are named
after you but the word street is always written in Norwegian
this is funny and sad too but one gets used to it
the official chronicles describe you as lean melancholy and a philo-Norwegian
but I remember you as plump and noisy with the sweat streaming down
your flushed cheeks when you fenced
the poisoned napkin was waiting for you there in your mother's hand but
you parried it and fought on like excuse the parallel a well-fed rat
when cornered not you others were killed by the poisoned cup and
by the foil with the poisoned blade as a matter of fact
five minutes before Fortinbras arrived you were killed by a stroke
and probably by disgust and despair that
THESE AND BY THESE AND WORSE STILL THEY WERE DANES
I am sure you were wrong and they blamed you for having paved the way
for Norwegian imperialism anyway you cackled too much
all the same I was fond of you although you made such a bad a job of
borrowing from me of cracking my jokes
of aping my grimaces it was all so clumsy and so unnatural
one could sense that you loathed the role you had assumed
unlike a pro who feels respect for the trade
as I do for this king-business
although deep down it makes me laugh but this would be
the wrong time to get into that subject too the point is
that it is your skull that's in my hand and not mine in yours
I can hear you holding forth on some high-sounding old saw
in my place while excuse my false modesty I keep gazing
into your hollow eye-sockets counting your decayed teeth
feeling the remains of your nose I try in my mind
to dress this yellowing form again
with your flesh, skin, hairs and bristles and those
watery grey eyes misty with alcohol
but still bright with intelligence I gazed into those eyes in the past
even when I knew that soon their light had to go out
and with them the light of Denmark too
forevermore but even that is doubtful.

(Translation: January 2001)

Translated by Peter Zollman