Sunset, Palos Verdes Peninsula, California, USA (photo (c) Ulrike Boehm; all rights reserved)
The Prince's "qué será, será": His duel with Laertes is about to begin, and Hamlet – Horatio – we all know instinctively what is at stake. The Prince admits to Horatio that he's feeling all "ill ... about [his] heart. But it is no matter," he adds. "It is but foolery ... such a kind of gaingiving as would perhaps trouble a woman." Horatio doesn't buy it. He offers to ask for a delay of the duel. "Not a whit," Hamlet firmly dismisses him. "We defy augury":
[T]here's a special providence in
the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be
not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come:
the readiness is all. Since no man knows aught of what he leaves,
what is't to leave betimes? Let be.
The reference is, yet again, a biblical one – they really pile up as we reach the end of the play: "Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows." (Matthew 10:29 – 31.) "It's all in God's hands, Horatio," Hamlet tells his friend. "If I am to die now, then so be it – I am ready." Self-determination in death is no longer even an option; death has become exclusively a matter of fate; or rather, of a higher power's will. And whatever lies beyond, the Prince is no longer afraid. He has left behind the horrific visions that had haunted him in "To be, or not to be;" and he has reconciled himself to the notion that, whatever the fate of his soul, his earthly remains will be reduced to nothing but dust. So what else is there to fear?
It is a moment of great power – and of course, great sadness to us who, with Horatio, would like to see Hamlet live. Franco Zeffirelli beautifully celebrates it by isolating the scene and having Hamlet watch the setting sun on the eve of the duel as he speaks these words. And yet: however much I love Zeffirelli's imagery, I would want Horatio to be there, too, the way he is in the scene as originally written. For this is also the two friends' last shared moment of privacy; their "good-bye before the good-bye," their private, spriritual, quiet farewell before Hamlet's very public and violent death; and though I am sympathetic to Sir Laurence Olivier's decision to add in the first part of Hamlet's praise of Horatio from Act III, Scene 2, in order to replace the Prince's report on Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's death – as private a moment as this one – I myself am only too happy to give the two friends two of these moments, not just one. Because while Horatio is present at the duel as well (how could he not be?), and Hamlet has much of importance left to tell him yet, neither the emotional impact of his dying commission to Horatio to "tell [his] story" nor that of "the rest is silence" would be as lasting without this private farewell, which thus also confirms and reinforces the impact of Hamlet's earlier praise of his friend prior to the "play within the play."
Copyright 2002 – 2009: Ulrike Böhm, all rights reserved.
