(A/N: Sorry that this took forever. I was terrified that this chapter wasn't as good as it should be, and then there were... complications. This chapter wouldn't come up at all if it weren't for Tiger-cub864, although... oh, never mind.)

II.i

[POLONIUS and LAERTES enter the GENERIC FOREST.]

LAERTES: My dear father!
POLONIUS: My good son!

LAERTES: How does this place like you?
POLONIUS: Fairly enough. No thing is auspicious, nor anything dropping. In whole there is nothing I should want.

LAERTES: What, have you been transfigured into sheep?

POLONIUS: Why say you that?

[HAMLET enters.]

HAMLET: Good morrow, Laertes.

POLONIUS: The prince!
HAMLET: Greetings, Polonius.

[POLONIUS steps back.]

POLONIUS: You!

HAMLET: It is I.

POLONIUS: Thou, murderous knave that dare profane the air with thy bawdy breath! Thou who slays carelessly, lisping tales of schooling and ghosts that do not pay even for the hearing. The lyingest knave in all of Christendom!

HAMLET: Knowing this be Purgatory, is it Christendom?

LAERTES: Father—

POLONIUS: Soft, my son.

HAMLET: If this be of thy death—

POLONIUS: If? If? How can you look on me and tell me it is not? You part me from the living world and wonder why I hate thee? Where is thy shame? It hides behind thy cowardice, clinging to her skirts.

[HAMLET hits POLONIUS.]

HAMLET: Hear thy own words, knave! You speak of Christendom and block your ears to thy fellow man! Your words slap mine cheeks, when thou should turn thine own. Thou—

[LAERTES tries to separate them.]

LAERTES: Father! Prince! Look on thyselves!

POLONIUS: This is not thy office, son.

HAMLET: Our business is not thine, though my pity is with you for thy father.

POLONIUS: What? Thou villainous knave—

LAERTES: Father, mark you that cloud?
POLONIUS: Which cloud?
LAERTES: The cloud in butter-churn shape.

POLONIUS: Indeed, it is like cloud translated into a churning churn.

[LAERTES, as POLONIUS says this line, exits. HAMLET realizes LAERTES's trick and exits after him. POLONIUS, after two beats, sees that he has left.]

POLONIUS: O, the artless miscreant. He thinks himself a trout – nay, a salmon – nay, a pike – nay, a swordfish… He thinks himself a slippery sliding eel, ducking and weaving out of every fisher's net. I am no fishmonger!

[HE exits.]

Scene Two:

[ST. CLARE and ST. JOHN enter the CLEARING.]

ST. JOHN: How now, fair sister?

ST. CLARE: Not sister, my brother.

ST. JOHN: Your tongue denies what your mouth does acknowledge?

ST. CLARE: That it does. This goes here and that goes there, does it not?

ST. JOHN: It does.

ST. CLARE: Nothing does!

ST. JOHN: This and that are nothing?
ST. CLARE: They are, just like the whole mind of mine Hamlet.

ST. JOHN: Again that for my dearest Ophelia.

ST. CLARE: Thus treble nothing for them both! Am I right?

ST. JOHN: Indeed thou art. I cannot make sense out of the maiden. She by turns senses and sings.

ST. CLARE: I'faith, for the sake of our loves' charges, and our charges' loves, we must be that senses. But how?
ST. JOHN: Well, should not again convening complete the thing?

ST. CLARE: Give thy cause away! Thou would make them to salt in each other's wounds?

ST. JOHN: …I would not, but what would you?

ST. CLARE: Dost thou think that, were the young Hamlet to catch most fleeting sight of fair Ophelia, 'twould set his heart into a second ecstasy?

ST. JOHN: Would that he would chase her, I doubt she would translate to laurels.

ST. CLARE: Well, hast thou any ideas superior?

ST. JOHN: I do not. Hast thou?

[ST. CLARE crosses her arms and smiles. THEY shake hands and exit in the same direction.]

Scene Three:

[GENERIC FOREST. At stage left is a bouquet of fennel on the ground. HAMLET and LAERTES stand center upstage.]

HAMLET: Could you be in any creature's shape, what shape would you be in?

LAERTES: Would I not be shaped like myself?
HAMLET: No, for thou wouldst be a creature, not thyself.

LAERTES: But if I were a creature, then the shape of that creature would be the shape I was myself.

HAMLET: Thy wits are sharp.

[OPHELIA enters from stage right, walking to stage left.]

OPHELIA: [sings] All you that merry lives do lead/although your means be little/That seldom are o'erseen in bread/nor take much thought for vittle/Attend while I'll exemplify the mind that I do carry/I take delight both morne and night/to have mine own vagary.

[She ceases to sing, catching sight of the bouquet.] Mark! A sprig of fennel!

[SHE runs to stage right, taking the fennel as she goes, and exits in that direction. HAMLET and LAERTES are shocked for a few beats before speaking again.]

LAERTES: Was that my fair sister?
HAMLET: I do think it was.

LAERTES: Was she still distracted?

HAMLET: I'faith, I do not know. Did you see violets in her hair?
LAERTES: I did, and she did run barefoot. Then distracted she was.

HAMLET: Think you she is sensible?
LAERTES: Sensing to the flowers, but not us.

HAMLET: Could here there be happy circumstance to cure her?
LAERTES: No wound ever healed but not by degrees.

HAMLET: Her condition seems fair, but not all of it.

LAERTES: Has she still even choler?

HAMLET: I know not.

LAERTES: Perhaps mutualities should be hard at hand.

HAMLET: They should not.

LAERTES: Wherefore? Surely she may become the more slipper as she evades our grasp.

HAMLET: Look after an advantage to it, then.

[HAMLET exits, soon followed by LAERTES, as the CURTAIN falls.]

Footnotes to Act II:

Scene Two:

13: Endue; endow.

14: "Give thy cause away"; give up your cause.

17: A reference to the myth of Apollo and Daphne. Apollo fell in love with Daphne, but she didn't like him, so he chased her, so she ran away and turned into a laurel tree. Laurels, as you obviously know, are a symbol of victory. St. John thinks that Hamlet seeing Ophelia and chasing her would not even lead to that half-victory.

Scene Three:

6: An Elizabethan ballad; really just the first verse. Fennel, as you know already from previous footnotes, is a symbol of treachery or deceit. Subtextually, it was planted by one of the saints.

9: Distracted; mad.

15: Happy; fortunate.

16: From Othello.

17: Condition actually means character or disposition as well. In other words, Hamlet is saying she still appears to be happy and nice, but not in the best (mental) condition.

18: Choler; anger.

20: Mutualities; pleasantries. Hard at hand; immediate.

22: Slipper: Slippery.

23: Advantage: Opportunity.