The Rest Is...

“All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down.
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death?
…………………….
I should be glad of another death.” —“Journey of the Magi” (1935). T. S. Eliot.

I know how it feels to die.

Nothingness encroaches, pressing upon your throat with Everything’s weight. It is as if the galaxy has imploded upon you. Gravity’s only thought is to flatten and squeeze you into an infinitesimal jot of Nothing.

Forget breathing. You cannot anyway. Forget screaming. You cannot—you cannot breathe. Forget weeping. Forget making any noisy protest against Fate or Gravity or Nothingness, any cry for pity, any expression of regret. No one will hear you. The rest is…

I know how it feels to die. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s 2010 production of Hamlet, directed by Bill Rauch, taught me how it feels to die. In Act V, Scene 2 of Shakespeare’s script, four characters perish: Gertrude, Laertes, Claudius, and Hamlet. All poisoned. Hamlet’s last words are, “The rest is silence.” Fortinbras enters, sees the carnage, and bids soldiers carry Hamlet to the stage. He will hear Horatio’s story and honor Hamlet; for “had he lived, he might have proved most royal.”

Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet ends with Hamlet choking out his final line. Then, a stern-faced, regal Fortinbras receives his immediate coronation and orders a lavish military funeral for Denmark’s dead prince. Fortinbras may rule Denmark, but Hamlet won.

Bill Rauch’s Hamlet ends with Hamlet—the son of a deaf king—speaking his final line and signing the words in American Sign Language. Yet the word “silence” never passes his lips. Unlike Branagh’s Hamlet, who barely chokes out the last word before dying, Dan Donahue’s Hamlet dies with the final word. Hamlet signs “silence” and then dies in silence. Then, a camou -clad Fortinbras kicks over Claudius’ chair and prances about the stage, spitting Shakespeare’s words in a ridiculous accent. In Rauch’s modern production, if Horatio could be a hobo, than Fortinbras could be Borat. This Fortibras shows anything but respect for Denmark’s royal dead. Fortinbras rules Denmark. Hamlet lost.

The light dims. A spotlight illuminates only Hamlet. The King his father, still in military uniform, steps into the lit circle and takes his son’s body in his arms. The deaf King’s head lowers. And we are deaf to his weeping as the spotlight shrinks around the father and his son until death’s oblivion swallows them.

Is this how it feels to die?

Is the whole world made deaf by Death, so that no one can hear one’s dying cry: “This is not what I wanted”?

Does Death destroy everything that is good in the world? Prompt incest, condemn a sensible young woman to madness, make Denmark a prison for Danes and home for tyrannical Swedes?

Is Death invincible?

What is, besides silence and nothingness and Death?

If “the rest is silence,” what is there before “the rest” that is “silence,” but noise, the harbinger of life?


“For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but with a wimper.” —“The Hollow Men” (1925). T. S. Eliot.