He double-takes. ROS snatches the letter. GUIL snatches it back. ROS snatches it half back. They read it again and look up The PLAYER gets to his feet and walks over to his barrel and kicks it and shouts into it.
PLAYER: They've gone! It's all over!
One by one the PLAYERS emerge, impossibly, from the barrel, and form a casually menacing circle round ROS and GUIL , Who are still appalled and mesmerised.
GUIL (quietly) : Where we went wrong was getting on a boat. We can move, of course, change direction, rattle about, but our movement is contained within a larger one that carries us along as inexorably as the wind and current…
ROS: They had it in for us, didn't they? Right from the beginning. Who'd have thought that we were so important?
GUIL: But why? Was it all for this? Who are we that so much should converge on our little deaths? (In anguish to the PLAYER :) Who are we?
PLAYER: You are Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. That's enough.
GUIL: No-it is not enough. To be told so little-to such an end and still, finally, to be denied an explanation
PLAYER: In our experience, most things end in death.
GUIL: (fear, vengeance, scorn) : Your experience!-Actors!
He snatches a dagger from the PLAYER 's belt and holds the point at the PLAYER 'S throat: the PLAYER backs and GUILadvances, speaking more quietly.
I'm talking about death-and you've never experienced that. And you cannot act it. You die a thousand casual deaths-with none of that intensity which squeezes out life… and no blood runs cold anywhere. Because even as you die you know that you will come back Is a different hat. But no one gets up after death-there is no applause-there is only silence and some second-hand clothes and that's-death-
And he pushes the blade in up to the hilt. The PLAYER stands with huge, terrible eyes, clutches at the wound as the blade withdraws: he makes small weeping sounds and falls to his knees, and then right down. While he Is dying, GUIL , nervous, high, almost hysterical, wheels on the TRAGEDIANS.
If we have a destiny, then so had he-and if this is ours, then that was his-and if there are no explanations for us, then let there be none for him.
The TRAGEDIANS watch the PLAYER die: they watch with some Interest. The PLAYER finally ties still. A short moment of silence. Then the TRAGEDIANS start to applaud with genuine admiration. The PLAYER stands up, brushing himself down.
PLAYER (modestly) : Oh, come, come, gentlemen-no flattery-it was merely competent.
The TRAGEDIANS are still congratulating him. The PLAYER approaches GUIL , who stands rooted, holding the dagger.
PLAYER: What did you think? (Pause.) You see, it is the kind they do believe in-it's what is expected.
He holds his hand out for the dagger. GUIL Slowly puts the point of the dagger on to the PLAYER 's hand, and pushes. the blade slides back into the handle. The PLAYERsmiles, reclaims the dagger.
For a moment you thought I'd-cheated.
ROS relieves his own tension with loud nervy laughter.
ROS: Oh, very good! Very good! Took me in completely-didn't he take you in completely- (claps his hands) . Encore! Encore!
PLAYER (activated, arms spread, the professional) : Deaths for all ages and occasions! Deaths by suspension, convulsion, consumption, incision, execution, asphyxiation and malnutrition-! Climactic carnage, by poison and by steel-! Double deaths by duel-! Show!-
ALFRED , still in his Queen's costume, dies by poison: the PLAYER , with rapier, kills the " KING " and duels with a fourth TRAGEDIAN , inflicting and receiving a wound. The two remaining TRAGEDIANS , the two "SPIES" dressed in the same coats as ROS and GUIL, are stabbed, as before. And the light is fading over the deaths which take place right upstage. (Dying amid the dying-tragically, romantically.)
So there's an end to that-it's commonplace: light goes with life, and in the winter of your years the dark comes early…
GUIL (tired, drained, but still an edge of impatience; over the mime) : No… no… not for us, not like that. Dying is not romantic, and death is not a game which will soon be over… Death is not anything… death is not –.. It's the absence of presence, nothing more… the endless time of never coming back… a gap you can't see, and when the wind blows through it, it makes no sound…
The light has gone upstage. Only GUIL and ROS are visible as ROS 's clapping falters to silence. A Small pause.
ROS: That's it, then, is it?
No answer. He looks out front.
The sun's going down. Or the earth's coming up, as I fashionable theory has it.
Small pause.
N ot that it makes any difference.
Pause.
What was it all about? When did it begin?
Pause. No answer.
Couldn't we just stay put? I mean no one is going to come on and drag us off… They'll just have to wait. We're still young… fit… we've got years…
Pause. No answer.
(A cry.) We've done nothing wrong! We didn't harm anyone. Did we?
GUIL: I can't remember.
ROS pulls himself together.
ROS: All right, then. I don't care. I've had enough. To tell truth, I'm relieved.
And he disappears from View. GUIL does not notice.
GUIL: Our names shouted in a certain dawn… a message. summons… There must have been a moment, at the beginning, where we could have said-no. But some missed it. (He looks round and sees he is alone.) Rosen-? Guil-?
He gathers himself.
Well, we'll know better next time. Now you see me, now you (and disappears) .
Immediately the whole stage is lit up, revealing, upstage, arranged in the approximate positions last held by the dead TRAGEDIANS , the tableau of court and corpses which is he last scene of Hamlet. That is: The KING , QUEEN , LAERTES and HAMLET all dead.. HORATIO holds HAMLET . FORTINBRAS is there. So are two AMBASSADORS from England.
Ambassador
The sight is dismal;
And our affairs from England come too late:
The ears are senseless that should give us hearing,
To tell him his commandment is fulfill'd
That Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead:
Where should we have our thanks?
Horatio
Not from his mouth,
Had it the ability of life to thank you:
He never gave commandment for their death.
But since, so jump upon this bloody question,
You from the Polack wars, and you from England,
Are here arriv'd, give order that these bodies
High on a stage be placed to the view;
And let me speak to the yet unknowing world
How these things came about: so shall you hear
Of carnal, bloody and unnatural acts;
Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters;
Of deaths put on by cunning and forc'd cause;
And, in this upshot, purposes mistook
Fall'n on the inventors' heads: all this can I
Truly deliver.
But during the above speech, the play fades out, overtaken by dark and music.