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“Hamlet, I need a straight away answer from you: Did you, or did you not, have sexual relations with your friend Horatio?” Claudius had taken it upon himself to grill Hamlet about his speculated sexual proclivities.
“Well, uncle, if you want a straight answer, here you go: I would never consider having sexual relations with a man.” Claudius smiled and went to leave, before he realized the double meaning of Hamlet’s statement. He quickly rushed back.
“I do not need a ‘straight’ answer, I need an honest answer.”
“Honest, you say? Alright, if that is what you wish. I would never consider having sex.”
“Not that kind of honest, nephew. You know what I mean.”
“Do I? To have or not to have sex with Horatio, that is the question. Whether ‘tis nobler in the behind to suffer the slings and arrows of my outrageous fortune—”
“Enough. Did you, or did you not, have sex with Horatio?”
“He is as just a man as ever my conversation coped withal.”
“What kind of ‘conversation?’ What kind of ‘coped?’ You are frightening your mother. She suspects you two are intimate.”
“We are as intimate as can be. I wear him in my heart’s core, my heart of heart.”
“She suspects you two are sexually intimate. Have you had sex with him?”
“I merely filled him with the love of Denmark, me being the body of the nation and its representative.”
“Hamlet. I need to know if you two have had sex. Your statement can be read in multiple ways.”
“Horatio is merely my servant, and how he loves to serve! He is willing to give his entire soul and body to gratify my wishes. There has never been a more loyal man in all of Denmark. Denmark has never been in such a man either, until now. You know, with his recent arrival to Elsinore and all.”
“Hamlet—”
“Sometimes it is like only the word ‘Hamlet’ is on his mind. I must hear my name from his mouth a thousand times a day. Night, too.”
Claudius stormed out of the room.
“Are we all done? Do you not want to hear about Horatio’s pipe playing? How we form a union of ‘top’ and ‘bottom’ in regards to social class? How—”
Claudius came back to throw a shoe at Hamlet.