Act IV, Scene I

Enter Puck (1)

Puck enters and withdraws Hamlet from the embrace.  With Hamlet first, Puck leads all the other characters still in a daze off stage; during the exit, with a handkerchief from the Playwright’s hand, he revives the characters Hamlet murdered and returns the handkerchief to the Playwright.  Puck exits.

Playwright:

How is man immortal mid his hatred

When sparks of love engender all I know?

What petty schemes, derisive tauntings,

Illusions of power, concealed whispers,

Rift and pursue through man’s innocent hopes?

Even the masks of beauty on beauty’s

Face? wherein do we lose the one calling

Of simple love: of gratitude’s order

So divinely cast forth in Earth’s nature,

Nay, in our individual bodies

Themselves?

The Playwright parts a curtain on the side of the stage: out runs Shylock, who runs away after the others.

                  Are we so blind not to recall

A setting sun bodes forth his rising self?

Or that winter tenders the summer child?

The hid moth that eats our tunics and robes,

She is the fair butterfly of design.