Nimejutia Kusoma "Hamlet" Wakati wa Sikukuu

Siku kadhaa zilizopita, nilianza kusoma Hamlet, tamthilia ya Shakespeare, kama nilivyoandika katika blog ya ki-Ingereza. Tamthilia hii haikuwa ngeni kwangu. Ni moja ya tungo za Shakespeare ambazo nimezifahamu au kuzisoma tangu ujana wangu.

Lakini kuna jambo ambalo sikulizingatia nilipoamua kusoma Hamlet wakati huu, ambao ni wa sikukuu ya Krismasi. Ulikuwa si wakati muafaka wa kusoma Hamlet, hadithi yenye matukio ya kusikitisha. Mkondo mkuu wa hadithi hii ni jinsi baba ya Hamlet alivyouawa na ndugu yake, mfalme Claudius, ambaye miezi miwili tu kufuatia msiba huo alimwoa mama yake Hamlet. Mambo haya yanampa Hamlet msongo mkubwa wa mawazo.

Mzimu wa marehemu baba yake unamtokea Hamlet na kumweleza ufedhuli uliofanyika na kisha kumwelekeza alipize kisasi. Hamlet anatafakari afanye nini. Hasira na huzuni zake anazieleza kwa hisia na ufasaha tena na tena, kwa mfano katika tamko hili:

Ham. O that this too too solid flesh would melt
Thaw and resolve itself into dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fixed
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on't! ah, fie! 'Tis an unweeded garden
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
But two months dead--nay, not so much, not two!
So excellent a king, that was to this
Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him
As if increase of appetite had grown
But what it fed on; and yet, within a month--
Let me not think on't! Frailty, thy name is woman!
....
              Act I. Sc. II

Tafakari yake inamfanya hata ajiulize kama aendelee kuishi na kupambana na masaibu ya maisha kwa mategemeo ya kuyamaliza, au atoe uhai wake, kama tunavyomsikia katika tamko hili maarufu sana:

Ham. To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them. To die--to sleep--
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. 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....
                                              Act. III. Sc. I

Ili kuzipata vizuri hisia za Hamlet, tushuhudie jinsi Laurence Olivier alivyoliigiza tamko hili la pili, katika filamu ya mwaka 1948, ambayo niliiangalia kwa mara ya kwanza mwaka 1971, nilipokuwa Mkwawa High School, Tanzania: