SFSD-X Short Story Smackdown

3.1 Hamlet and Ophelia - The Renaissance

Part 3 of the Smackdown is Barkpunk! Every contestant must choose between 2 selected plays from Shakespeare and use the given song lyrics as inspiration.

Play: Hamlet

A selections of quotes (those not used directly are sources of inspiration for the text):

Hamlet: There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Marcellus: Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

Hamlet: There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so...

Polonius: Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't.

Hamlet: To be or not to be, that is the question....To die, to sleep. To sleep, perchance to dream-ay, there's the rub, for in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause.

Ophelia: O, woe is me, to have seen what I have seen, see what I see.

Hamlet: Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight, ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all.

Ophelia: Lord, we know what we are, but not what we may be.

Gertrude: The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

Hamlet: What is a man, if his chief good and market of his time be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more.

Song inspiration: I, Melvin

Mascara (eyeliner) hides the sleepless nights

Years of abuse, the downs and highs

A lonely drunk staggers on stage

Weathered and worn, battered and broken, I feel my age

Like a puppet on strings, look he strums and he sings, I feel like a cartoon

I'm alone on the stage, I'm the man on the moon

I'm the deer in the headlights, I'm the fish in the bowl

I'm on automatic pilot, I am remote controlled

Just a second guitarist, playing on the 3rd string

I'm the disclaimer, I'm a walking (fucking) routine

I'm happily a cog, stand me up, plug me in

Like a robot I play all the songs, with a grin

I am Eric Melvin

And now, let the story begin....