Scene I.

Elsinore. A platform before the Castle.

Enter two Sentinels-[first,] Francisco, [who paces up and down at his post; then] Bernardo, [who approaches him].

Bernardo

Who’s there.?

Francisco

Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold yourself.

Bernardo

Long live the King!

Francisco

Bernardo?

Bernardo

He.

Francisco

You come most carefully upon your hour.

Bernardo

‘Tis now struck twelve. Get thee to bed, Francisco.

Francisco

For this relief much thanks. ‘Tis bitter cold,

And I am sick at heart.

Bernardo

Have you had quiet guard?

Francisco

Not a mouse stirring.

Bernardo

Well, good night.

If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,

The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste.

Enter Horatio and Marcellus.

Francisco

I think I hear them. Stand, ho! Who is there?

Horatio

Friends to this ground.

Marcellus

And liegemen to the Dane.

Francisco

Give you good night.

Marcellus

O, farewell, honest soldier.

Who hath reliev’d you?

Francisco

Bernardo hath my place.

Give you good night.

Exit.

Marcellus

Holla, Bernardo!

Bernardo

Say-

What, is Horatio there ?

Horatio

A piece of him.

Bernardo

Welcome, Horatio. Welcome, good Marcellus.

Marcellus

What, has this thing appear’d again to-night?

Bernardo

I have seen nothing.

Marcellus

Horatio says ‘tis but our fantasy,

And will not let belief take hold of him

Touching this dreaded sight, twice seen of us.

Therefore I have entreated him along,

With us to watch the minutes of this night,

That, if again this apparition come,

He may approve our eyes and speak to it.

Horatio

Tush, tush, ‘twill not appear.

Bernardo

Sit down awhile,

And let us once again assail your ears,

That are so fortified against our story,

What we two nights have seen.

Horatio

Well, sit we down,

And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.

Bernardo

Last night of all,

When yond same star that’s westward from the pole

Had made his course t’ illume that part of heaven

Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself,

The bell then beating one-

Enter Ghost.

Marcellus

Peace! break thee off! Look where it comes again!

Bernardo

In the same figure, like the King that’s dead.

Marcellus

Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio.

Bernardo

Looks it not like the King? Mark it, Horatio.

Horatio

Most like. It harrows me with fear and wonder.

Bernardo

It would be spoke to.

Marcellus

Question it, Horatio.

Horatio

What art thou that usurp’st this time of night

Together with that fair and warlike form

In which the majesty of buried Denmark

Did sometimes march? By heaven I charge thee speak!

Marcellus

It is offended.

Bernardo

See, it stalks away!

Horatio

Stay! Speak, speak! I charge thee speak!

Exit Ghost.

Marcellus

‘Tis gone and will not answer.

Bernardo

How now, Horatio? You tremble and look pale.

Is not this something more than fantasy?

What think you on’t?

Horatio

Before my God, I might not this believe

Without the sensible and true avouch

Of mine own eyes.

Marcellus

Is it not like the King?

Horatio

As thou art to thyself.

Such was the very armour he had on

When he th’ ambitious Norway combated.

So frown’d he once when, in an angry parle,

He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice.

‘Tis strange.

Marcellus

Thus twice before, and jump at this dead hour,

With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.

Horatio

In what particular thought to work I know not;

But, in the gross and scope of my opinion,

This bodes some strange eruption to our state.

Marcellus

Good now, sit down, and tell me he that knows,

Why this same strict and most observant watch

So nightly toils the subject of the land,

And why such daily cast of brazen cannon

And foreign mart for implements of war;

Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task

Does not divide the Sunday from the week.

What might be toward, that this sweaty haste

Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day?

Who is’t that can inform me?

Horatio

That can I.

At least, the whisper goes so. Our last king,

Whose image even but now appear’d to us,

Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,

Thereto prick’d on by a most emulate pride,

Dar’d to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet

(For so this side of our known world esteem’d him)

Did slay this Fortinbras; who, by a seal’d compact,

Well ratified by law and heraldry,

Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands

Which he stood seiz’d of, to the conqueror;

Against the which a moiety competent

Was gaged by our king; which had return’d

To the inheritance of Fortinbras,

Had he been vanquisher, as, by the same comart

And carriage of the article design’d,

His fell to Hamlet. Now, sir, young Fortinbras,

Of unimproved mettle hot and full,

Hath in the skirts of Norway, here and there,

Shark’d up a list of lawless resolutes,

For food and diet, to some enterprise

That hath a stomach in’t; which is no other,

As it doth well appear unto our state,

But to recover of us, by strong hand

And terms compulsatory, those foresaid lands

So by his father lost; and this, I take it,

Is the main motive of our preparations,

The source of this our watch, and the chief head

Of this post-haste and romage in the land.

Bernardo

I think it be no other but e’en so.

Well may it sort that this portentous figure

Comes armed through our watch, so like the King

That was and is the question of these wars.

Horatio

A mote it is to trouble the mind’s eye.

In the most high and palmy state of Rome,

A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,

The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead

Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets;

As stars with trains of fire, and dews of blood,

Disasters in the sun; and the moist star

Upon whose influence Neptune’s empire stands

Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse.

And even the like precurse of fierce events,

As harbingers preceding still the fates

And prologue to the omen coming on,

Have heaven and earth together demonstrated

Unto our climature and countrymen.

Enter Ghost again.

But soft! behold! Lo, where it comes again!

I’ll cross it, though it blast me.- Stay illusion!

Spreads his arms.

If thou hast any sound, or use of voice,

Speak to me.

If there be any good thing to be done,

That may to thee do ease, and, race to me,

Speak to me.

If thou art privy to thy country’s fate,

Which happily foreknowing may avoid,

O, speak!

Or if thou hast uphoarded in thy life

Extorted treasure in the womb of earth

(For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death),

The cock crows.

Speak of it! Stay, and speak!- Stop it, Marcellus!

Marcellus

Shall I strike at it with my partisan?

Horatio

Do, if it will not stand.

Bernardo

‘Tis here!

Horatio

‘Tis here!

Marcellus

‘Tis gone!

Exit Ghost.

We do it wrong, being so majestical,

To offer it the show of violence;

For it is as the air, invulnerable,

And our vain blows malicious mockery.

Bernardo

It was about to speak, when the cock crew.

Horatio

And then it started, like a guilty thing

Upon a fearful summons. I have heard

The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,

Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat

Awake the god of day; and at his warning,

Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,

Th’ extravagant and erring spirit hies

To his confine; and of the truth herein

This present object made probation.

Marcellus

It faded on the crowing of the cock.

Some say that ever, ‘gainst that season comes

Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated,

The bird of dawning singeth all night long;

And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad,

The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike,

No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,

So hallow’d and so gracious is the time.

Horatio

So have I heard and do in part believe it.

But look, the morn, in russet mantle clad,

Walks o’er the dew of yon high eastward hill.

Break we our watch up; and by my advice

Let us impart what we have seen to-night

Unto young Hamlet; for, upon my life,

This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him.

Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it,

As needful in our loves, fitting our duty?

Let’s do’t, I pray; and I this morning know

Where we shall find him most conveniently.

Exeunt.

Scene II.

Elsinore. A room of state in the Castle.

Flourish. [Enter Claudius, King of Denmark, Gertrude the Queen, Hamlet, Polonius, Laertes and his sister Ophelia, [Voltemand, Cornelius,] Lords Attendant.

King

Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother’s death

The memory be green, and that it us befitted

To bear our hearts in grief, and our whole kingdom

To be contracted in one brow of woe,

Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature

That we with wisest sorrow think on him

Together with remembrance of ourselves.

Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen,

Th’ imperial jointress to this warlike state,

Have we, as ‘twere with a defeated joy,

With an auspicious, and a dropping eye,

With mirth in funeral, and with dirge in marriage,

In equal scale weighing delight and dole,

Taken to wife; nor have we herein barr’d

Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone

With this affair along. For all, our thanks.

Now follows, that you know, young Fortinbras,

Holding a weak supposal of our worth,

Or thinking by our late dear brother’s death

Our state to be disjoint and out of frame,

Colleagued with this dream of his advantage,

He hath not fail’d to pester us with message

Importing the surrender of those lands

Lost by his father, with all bands of law,

To our most valiant brother. So much for him.

Now for ourself and for this time of meeting.

Thus much the business is: we have here writ

To Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras,

Who, impotent and bedrid, scarcely hears

Of this his nephew’s purpose, to suppress

His further gait herein, in that the levies,

The lists, and full proportions are all made

Out of his subject; and we here dispatch

You, good Cornelius, and you, Voltemand,

For bearers of this greeting to old Norway,

Giving to you no further personal power

To business with the King, more than the scope

Of these dilated articles allow. [Gives a paper.]

Farewell, and let your haste commend your duty.

Cornelius

Volt In that, and all things, will we show our duty.

King

We doubt it nothing. Heartily farewell.

Exeunt Voltemand and Cornelius.

And now, Laertes, what’s the news with you?

You told us of some suit. What is’t, Laertes?

You cannot speak of reason to the Dane

And lose your voice. What wouldst thou beg, Laertes,

That shall not be my offer, not thy asking?

The head is not more native to the heart,

The hand more instrumental to the mouth,

Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father.

What wouldst thou have, Laertes?

Laertes

My dread lord,

Your leave and favour to return to France;

From whence though willingly I came to Denmark

To show my duty in your coronation,

Yet now I must confess, that duty done,

My thoughts and wishes bend again toward France

And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon.

King

Have you your father’s leave? What says Polonius?

Polonius

He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave

By laboursome petition, and at last

Upon his will I seal’d my hard consent.

I do beseech you give him leave to go.

King

Take thy fair hour, Laertes. Time be thine,

And thy best graces spend it at thy will!

But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son-

Hamlet

[aside] A little more than kin, and less than kind!

King

How is it that the clouds still hang on you?

Hamlet

Not so, my lord. I am too much i’ th’ sun.

Queen

Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off,

And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.

Do not for ever with thy vailed lids

Seek for thy noble father in the dust.

Thou know’st ‘tis common. All that lives must die,

Passing through nature to eternity.

Hamlet

Ay, madam, it is common.

Queen

If it be,

Why seems it so particular with thee?

Hamlet

Seems, madam, Nay, it is. I know not ‘seems.’

‘Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,

Nor customary suits of solemn black,

Nor windy suspiration of forc’d breath,

No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,

Nor the dejected havior of the visage,

Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief,

‘That can denote me truly. These indeed seem,

For they are actions that a man might play;

But I have that within which passeth show-

These but the trappings and the suits of woe.

King

‘Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,

To give these mourning duties to your father;

But you must know, your father lost a father;

That father lost, lost his, and the survivor bound

In filial obligation for some term

To do obsequious sorrow. But to persever

In obstinate condolement is a course

Of impious stubbornness. ‘Tis unmanly grief;

It shows a will most incorrect to heaven,

A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,

An understanding simple and unschool’d;

For what we know must be, and is as common

As any the most vulgar thing to sense,

Why should we in our peevish opposition

Take it to heart? Fie! ‘tis a fault to heaven,

A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,

To reason most absurd, whose common theme

Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried,

From the first corse till he that died to-day,

‘This must be so.’ We pray you throw to earth

This unprevailing woe, and think of us

As of a father; for let the world take note

You are the most immediate to our throne,

And with no less nobility of love

Than that which dearest father bears his son

Do I impart toward you. For your intent

In going back to school in Wittenberg,

It is most retrograde to our desire;

And we beseech you, bend you to remain

Here in the cheer and comfort of our eye,

Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.

Queen

Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet.

I pray thee stay with us, go not to Wittenberg.

Hamlet

I shall in all my best obey you, madam.

King

Why, ‘tis a loving and a fair reply.

Be as ourself in Denmark. Madam, come.

This gentle and unforc’d accord of Hamlet

Sits smiling to my heart; in grace whereof,

No jocund health that Denmark drinks to-day

But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell,

And the King’s rouse the heaven shall bruit again,

Respeaking earthly thunder. Come away.

Flourish. Exeunt all but Hamlet.

Hamlet

O that this too too solid flesh would melt,

Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!

Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d

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

By what it fed on; and yet, within a month-

Let me not think on’t! Frailty, thy name is woman!-

A little month, or ere those shoes were old

With which she followed my poor father’s body

Like Niobe, all tears- why she, even she

(O God! a beast that wants discourse of reason

Would have mourn’d longer) married with my uncle;

My father’s brother, but no more like my father

Than I to Hercules. Within a month,

Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears

Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,

She married. O, most wicked speed, to post

With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!

It is not, nor it cannot come to good.

But break my heart, for I must hold my tongue!

Enter Horatio, Marcellus, and Bernardo.

Horatio

Hail to your lordship!

Hamlet

I am glad to see you well.

Horatio!- or I do forget myself.

Horatio

The same, my lord, and your poor servant ever.

Hamlet

Sir, my good friend- I’ll change that name with you.

And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio?

Marcellus?

Marcellus

My good lord!

Hamlet

I am very glad to see you.- [To Bernardo] Good even, sir.-

But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg?

Horatio

A truant disposition, good my lord.

Hamlet

I would not hear your enemy say so,

Nor shall you do my ear that violence

To make it truster of your own report

Against yourself. I know you are no truant.

But what is your affair in Elsinore?

We’ll teach you to drink deep ere you depart.

Horatio

My lord, I came to see your father’s funeral.

Hamlet

I prithee do not mock me, fellow student.

I think it was to see my mother’s wedding.

Horatio

Indeed, my lord, it followed hard upon.

Hamlet

Thrift, thrift, Horatio! The funeral bak’d meats

Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.

Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven

Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio!

My father- methinks I see my father.

Horatio

O, where, my lord?

Hamlet

In my mind’s eye, Horatio.

Horatio

I saw him once. He was a goodly king.

Hamlet

He was a man, take him for all in all.

I shall not look upon his like again.

Horatio

My lord, I think I saw him yesternight.

Hamlet

Saw? who?

Horatio

My lord, the King your father.

Hamlet

The King my father?

Horatio

Season your admiration for a while

With an attent ear, till I may deliver

Upon the witness of these gentlemen,

This marvel to you.

Hamlet

For God’s love let me hear!

Horatio

Two nights together had these gentlemen

(Marcellus and Bernardo) on their watch

In the dead vast and middle of the night

Been thus encount’red. A figure like your father,

Armed at point exactly, cap-a-pe,

Appears before them and with solemn march

Goes slow and stately by them. Thrice he walk’d

By their oppress’d and fear-surprised eyes,

Within his truncheon’s length; whilst they distill’d

Almost to jelly with the act of fear,

Stand dumb and speak not to him. This to me

In dreadful secrecy impart they did,

And I with them the third night kept the watch;

Where, as they had deliver’d, both in time,

Form of the thing, each word made true and good,

The apparition comes. I knew your father.

These hands are not more like.

Hamlet

But where was this?

Marcellus

My lord, upon the platform where we watch’d.

Hamlet

Did you not speak to it?

Horatio

My lord, I did;

But answer made it none. Yet once methought

It lifted up it head and did address

Itself to motion, like as it would speak;

But even then the morning cock crew loud,

And at the sound it shrunk in haste away

And vanish’d from our sight.

Hamlet

‘Tis very strange.

Horatio

As I do live, my honour’d lord, ‘tis true;

And we did think it writ down in our duty

To let you know of it.

Hamlet

Indeed, indeed, sirs. But this troubles me.

Hold you the watch to-night?

Both [Mar. and Ber.]

We do, my lord.

Hamlet

Arm’d, say you?

Both

Arm’d, my lord.

Hamlet

From top to toe?

Both

My lord, from head to foot.

Hamlet

Then saw you not his face?

Horatio

O, yes, my lord! He wore his beaver up.

Hamlet

What, look’d he frowningly.

Horatio

A countenance more in sorrow than in anger.

Hamlet

Pale or red?

Horatio

Nay, very pale.

Hamlet

And fix’d his eyes upon you?

Horatio

Most constantly.

Hamlet

I would I had been there.

Horatio

It would have much amaz’d you.

Hamlet

Very like, very like. Stay’d it long?

Horatio

While one with moderate haste might tell a hundred.

Both

Longer, longer.

Horatio

Not when I saw’t.

Hamlet

His beard was grizzled- no?

Horatio

It was, as I have seen it in his life,

A sable silver’d.

Hamlet

I will watch to-night.

Perchance ‘twill walk again.

Horatio

I warr’nt it will.

Hamlet

If it assume my noble father’s person,

I’ll speak to it, though hell itself should gape

And bid me hold my peace. I pray you all,

If you have hitherto conceal’d this sight,

Let it be tenable in your silence still;

And whatsoever else shall hap to-night,

Give it an understanding but no tongue.

I will requite your loves. So, fare you well.

Upon the platform, ‘twixt eleven and twelve,

I’ll visit you.

All

Our duty to your honour.

Hamlet

Your loves, as mine to you. Farewell.

Exeunt [all but Hamlet].

My father’s spirit- in arms? All is not well.

I doubt some foul play. Would the night were come!

Till then sit still, my soul. Foul deeds will rise,

Though all the earth o’erwhelm them, to men’s eyes.

Exit.

Scene III.

Elsinore. A room in the house of Polonius.

Enter Laertes and Ophelia.

Laertes

My necessaries are embark’d. Farewell.

And, sister, as the winds give benefit

And convoy is assistant, do not sleep,

But let me hear from you.

Ophelia

Do you doubt that?

Laertes

For Hamlet, and the trifling of his favour,

Hold it a fashion, and a toy in blood;

A violet in the youth of primy nature,

Forward, not permanent- sweet, not lasting;

The perfume and suppliance of a minute;

No more.

Ophelia

No more but so?

Laertes

Think it no more.

For nature crescent does not grow alone

In thews and bulk; but as this temple waxes,

The inward service of the mind and soul

Grows wide withal. Perhaps he loves you now,

And now no soil nor cautel doth besmirch

The virtue of his will; but you must fear,

His greatness weigh’d, his will is not his own;

For he himself is subject to his birth.

He may not, as unvalued persons do,

Carve for himself, for on his choice depends

The safety and health of this whole state,

And therefore must his choice be circumscrib’d

Unto the voice and yielding of that body

Whereof he is the head. Then if he says he loves you,

It fits your wisdom so far to believe it

As he in his particular act and place

May give his saying deed; which is no further

Than the main voice of Denmark goes withal.

Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain

If with too credent ear you list his songs,

Or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure open

To his unmast’red importunity.

Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister,

And keep you in the rear of your affection,

Out of the shot and danger of desire.

The chariest maid is prodigal enough

If she unmask her beauty to the moon.

Virtue itself scopes not calumnious strokes.

The canker galls the infants of the spring

Too oft before their buttons be disclos’d,

And in the morn and liquid dew of youth

Contagious blastments are most imminent.

Be wary then; best safety lies in fear.

Youth to itself rebels, though none else near.

Ophelia

I shall th’ effect of this good lesson keep

As watchman to my heart. But, good my brother,

Do not as some ungracious pastors do,

Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven,

Whiles, like a puff’d and reckless libertine,

Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads

And recks not his own rede.

Laertes

O, fear me not!

Enter Polonius.

I stay too long. But here my father comes.

A double blessing is a double grace;

Occasion smiles upon a second leave.

Polonius

Yet here, Laertes? Aboard, aboard, for shame!

The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,

And you are stay’d for. There- my blessing with thee!

And these few precepts in thy memory

Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,

Nor any unproportion’d thought his act.

Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar:

Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,

Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel;

But do not dull thy palm with entertainment

Of each new-hatch’d, unfledg’d comrade. Beware

Of entrance to a quarrel; but being in,

Bear’t that th’ opposed may beware of thee.

Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice;

Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment.

Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,

But not express’d in fancy; rich, not gaudy;

For the apparel oft proclaims the man,

And they in France of the best rank and station

Are most select and generous, chief in that.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be;

For loan oft loses both itself and friend,

And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.

This above all- to thine own self be true,

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man.

Farewell. My blessing season this in thee!

Laertes

Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord.

Polonius

The time invites you. Go, your servants tend.

Laertes

Farewell, Ophelia, and remember well

What I have said to you.

Ophelia

‘Tis in my memory lock’d,

And you yourself shall keep the key of it.

Laertes

Farewell.

Exit.

Polonius

What is’t, Ophelia, he hath said to you?

Ophelia

So please you, something touching the Lord Hamlet.

Polonius

Marry, well bethought!

‘Tis told me he hath very oft of late

Given private time to you, and you yourself

Have of your audience been most free and bounteous.

If it be so- as so ‘tis put on me,

And that in way of caution- I must tell you

You do not understand yourself so clearly

As it behooves my daughter and your honour.

What is between you? Give me up the truth.

Ophelia

He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders

Of his affection to me.

Polonius

Affection? Pooh! You speak like a green girl,

Unsifted in such perilous circumstance.

Do you believe his tenders, as you call them?

Ophelia

I do not know, my lord, what I should think,

Polonius

Marry, I will teach you! Think yourself a baby

That you have ta’en these tenders for true pay,

Which are not sterling. Tender yourself more dearly,

Or (not to crack the wind of the poor phrase,

Running it thus) you’ll tender me a fool.

Ophelia

My lord, he hath importun’d me with love

In honourable fashion.

Polonius

Ay, fashion you may call it. Go to, go to!

Ophelia

And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord,

With almost all the holy vows of heaven.

Polonius

Ay, springes to catch woodcocks! I do know,

When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul

Lends the tongue vows. These blazes, daughter,

Giving more light than heat, extinct in both

Even in their promise, as it is a-making,

You must not take for fire. From this time

Be something scanter of your maiden presence.

Set your entreatments at a higher rate

Than a command to parley. For Lord Hamlet,

Believe so much in him, that he is young,

And with a larger tether may he walk

Than may be given you. In few, Ophelia,

Do not believe his vows; for they are brokers,

Not of that dye which their investments show,

But mere implorators of unholy suits,

Breathing like sanctified and pious bawds,

The better to beguile. This is for all:

I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth

Have you so slander any moment leisure

As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet.

Look to’t, I charge you. Come your ways.

Ophelia

I shall obey, my lord.

Exeunt.

Scene IV.

Elsinore. The platform before the Castle.

Enter Hamlet, Horatio, and Marcellus.

Hamlet

The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.

Horatio

It is a nipping and an eager air.

Hamlet

What hour now?

Horatio

I think it lacks of twelve.

Marcellus

No, it is struck.

Horatio

Indeed? I heard it not. It then draws near the season

Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk.

A flourish of trumpets, and two pieces go off.

What does this mean, my lord?

Hamlet

The King doth wake to-night and takes his rouse,

Keeps wassail, and the swagg’ring upspring reels,

And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down,

The kettledrum and trumpet thus bray out

The triumph of his pledge.

Horatio

Is it a custom?

Hamlet

Ay, marry, is’t;

But to my mind, though I am native here

And to the manner born, it is a custom

More honour’d in the breach than the observance.

This heavy-headed revel east and west

Makes us traduc’d and tax’d of other nations;

They clip us drunkards and with swinish phrase

Soil our addition; and indeed it takes

From our achievements, though perform’d at height,

The pith and marrow of our attribute.

So oft it chances in particular men

That, for some vicious mole of nature in them,

As in their birth,- wherein they are not guilty,

Since nature cannot choose his origin,-

By the o’ergrowth of some complexion,

Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason,

Or by some habit that too much o’erleavens

The form of plausive manners, that these men

Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect,

Being nature’s livery, or fortune’s star,

Their virtues else- be they as pure as grace,

As infinite as man may undergo-

Shall in the general censure take corruption

From that particular fault. The dram of e’il

Doth all the noble substance often dout To his own scandal.

Enter Ghost.

Horatio

Look, my lord, it comes!

Hamlet

Angels and ministers of grace defend us!

Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn’d,

Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,

Be thy intents wicked or charitable,

Thou com’st in such a questionable shape

That I will speak to thee. I’ll call thee Hamlet,

King, father, royal Dane. O, answer me?

Let me not burst in ignorance, but tell

Why thy canoniz’d bones, hearsed in death,

Have burst their cerements; why the sepulchre

Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn’d,

Hath op’d his ponderous and marble jaws

To cast thee up again. What may this mean

That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel,

Revisits thus the glimpses of the moon,

Making night hideous, and we fools of nature

So horridly to shake our disposition

With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?

Say, why is this? wherefore? What should we do?

Ghost beckons Hamlet.

Horatio

It beckons you to go away with it,

As if it some impartment did desire

To you alone.

Marcellus

Look with what courteous action

It waves you to a more removed ground.

But do not go with it!

Horatio

No, by no means!

Hamlet

It will not speak. Then will I follow it.

Horatio

Do not, my lord!

Hamlet

Why, what should be the fear?

I do not set my life at a pin’s fee;

And for my soul, what can it do to that,

Being a thing immortal as itself?

It waves me forth again. I’ll follow it.

Horatio

What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord,

Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff

That beetles o’er his base into the sea,

And there assume some other, horrible form

Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason

And draw you into madness? Think of it.

The very place puts toys of desperation,

Without more motive, into every brain

That looks so many fadoms to the sea

And hears it roar beneath.

Hamlet

It waves me still.

Go on. I’ll follow thee.

Marcellus

You shall not go, my lord.

Hamlet

Hold off your hands!

Horatio

Be rul’d. You shall not go.

Hamlet

My fate cries out

And makes each petty artire in this body

As hardy as the Nemean lion’s nerve.

[Ghost beckons.]

Still am I call’d. Unhand me, gentlemen.

By heaven, I’ll make a ghost of him that lets me!-

I say, away!- Go on. I’ll follow thee.

Exeunt Ghost and Hamlet.

Horatio

He waxes desperate with imagination.

Marcellus

Let’s follow. ‘Tis not fit thus to obey him.

Horatio

Have after. To what issue wail this come?

Marcellus

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

Horatio

Heaven will direct it.

Marcellus

Nay, let’s follow him.

Exeunt.

Scene V.

Elsinore. The Castle. Another part of the fortifications.

Enter Ghost and Hamlet.

Hamlet

Whither wilt thou lead me? Speak! I’ll go no further.

Ghost

Mark me.

Hamlet

I will.

Ghost

My hour is almost come,

When I to sulph’rous and tormenting flames

Must render up myself.

Hamlet

Alas, poor ghost!

Ghost

Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing

To what I shall unfold.

Hamlet

Speak. I am bound to hear.

Ghost

So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear.

Hamlet

What?

Ghost

I am thy father’s spirit,

Doom’d for a certain term to walk the night,

And for the day confin’d to fast in fires,

Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature

Are burnt and purg’d away. But that I am forbid

To tell the secrets of my prison house,

I could a tale unfold whose lightest word

Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,

Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres,

Thy knotted and combined locks to part,

And each particular hair to stand an end

Like quills upon the fretful porpentine.

But this eternal blazon must not be

To ears of flesh and blood. List, list, O, list!

If thou didst ever thy dear father love-

Hamlet

O God!

Ghost

Revenge his foul and most unnatural murther.

Hamlet

Murther?

Ghost

Murther most foul, as in the best it is;

But this most foul, strange, and unnatural.

Hamlet

Haste me to know’t, that I, with wings as swift

As meditation or the thoughts of love,

May sweep to my revenge.

Ghost

I find thee apt;

And duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed

That rots itself in ease on Lethe wharf,

Wouldst thou not stir in this. Now, Hamlet, hear.

‘Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard,

A serpent stung me. So the whole ear of Denmark

Is by a forged process of my death

Rankly abus’d. But know, thou noble youth,

The serpent that did sting thy father’s life

Now wears his crown.

Hamlet

O my prophetic soul!

My uncle?

Ghost

Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast,

With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts-

O wicked wit and gifts, that have the power

So to seduce!- won to his shameful lust

The will of my most seeming-virtuous queen.

O Hamlet, what a falling-off was there,

From me, whose love was of that dignity

That it went hand in hand even with the vow

I made to her in marriage, and to decline

Upon a wretch whose natural gifts were poor

To those of mine!

But virtue, as it never will be mov’d,

Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven,

So lust, though to a radiant angel link’d,

Will sate itself in a celestial bed

And prey on garbage.

But soft! methinks I scent the morning air.

Brief let me be. Sleeping within my orchard,

My custom always of the afternoon,

Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole,

With juice of cursed hebona in a vial,

And in the porches of my ears did pour

The leperous distilment; whose effect

Holds such an enmity with blood of man

That swift as quicksilverr it courses through

The natural gates and alleys of the body,

And with a sudden vigour it doth posset

And curd, like eager droppings into milk,

The thin and wholesome blood. So did it mine;

And a most instant tetter bark’d about,

Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust

All my smooth body.

Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother’s hand

Of life, of crown, of queen, at once dispatch’d;

Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,

Unhous’led, disappointed, unanel’d,

No reckoning made, but sent to my account

With all my imperfections on my head.

Hamlet

O, horrible! O, horrible! most horrible!

Ghost

If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not.

Let not the royal bed of Denmark be

A couch for luxury and damned incest.

But, howsoever thou pursuest this act,

Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive

Against thy mother aught. Leave her to heaven,

And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge

To prick and sting her. Fare thee well at once.

The glowworm shows the matin to be near

And gins to pale his uneffectual fire.

Adieu, adieu, adieu! Remember me.

Exit.

Hamlet

O all you host of heaven! O earth! What else?

And shall I couple hell? Hold, hold, my heart!

And you, my sinews, grow not instant old,

But bear me stiffly up. Remember thee?

Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat

In this distracted globe. Remember thee?

Yea, from the table of my memory

I’ll wipe away all trivial fond records,

All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past

That youth and observation copied there,

And thy commandment all alone shall live

Within the book and volume of my brain,

Unmix’d with baser matter. Yes, by heaven!

O most pernicious woman!

O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!

My tables! Meet it is I set it down

That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain;

At least I am sure it may be so in Denmark. [Writes.]

So, uncle, there you are. Now to my word:

It is ‘Adieu, adieu! Remember me.’

I have sworn’t.

Horatio

(within) My lord, my lord!

Enter Horatio and Marcellus.

Marcellus

Lord Hamlet!

Horatio

Heaven secure him!

Hamlet

So be it!

Marcellus

Illo, ho, ho, my lord!

Hamlet

Hillo, ho, ho, boy! Come, bird, come.

Marcellus

How is’t, my noble lord?

Horatio

What news, my lord?

Marcellus

O, wonderful!

Horatio

Good my lord, tell it.

Hamlet

No, you will reveal it.

Horatio

Not I, my lord, by heaven!

Marcellus

Nor I, my lord.

Hamlet

How say you then? Would heart of man once think it?

But you’ll be secret?

Both

Ay, by heaven, my lord.

Hamlet

There’s neer a villain dwelling in all Denmark

But he’s an arrant knave.

Horatio

There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave

To tell us this.

Hamlet

Why, right! You are in the right!

And so, without more circumstance at all,

I hold it fit that we shake hands and part;

You, as your business and desires shall point you,

For every man hath business and desire,

Such as it is; and for my own poor part,

Look you, I’ll go pray.

Horatio

These are but wild and whirling words, my lord.

Hamlet

I am sorry they offend you, heartily;

Yes, faith, heartily.

Horatio

There’s no offence, my lord.

Hamlet

Yes, by Saint Patrick, but there is, Horatio,

And much offence too. Touching this vision here,

It is an honest ghost, that let me tell you.

For your desire to know what is between us,

O’ermaster’t as you may. And now, good friends,

As you are friends, scholars, and soldiers,

Give me one poor request.

Horatio

What is’t, my lord? We will.

Hamlet

Never make known what you have seen to-night.

Both

My lord, we will not.

Hamlet

Nay, but swear’t.

Horatio

In faith,

My lord, not I.

Marcellus

Nor I, my lord- in faith.

Hamlet

Upon my sword.

Marcellus

We have sworn, my lord, already.

Hamlet

Indeed, upon my sword, indeed.

Ghost cries under the stage.

Ghost

Swear.

Hamlet

Aha boy, say’st thou so? Art thou there, truepenny?

Come on! You hear this fellow in the cellarage.

Consent to swear.

Horatio

Propose the oath, my lord.

Hamlet

Never to speak of this that you have seen.

Swear by my sword.

Ghost

[beneath] Swear.

Hamlet

Hic et ubique? Then we’ll shift our ground.

Come hither, gentlemen,

And lay your hands again upon my sword.

Never to speak of this that you have heard:

Swear by my sword.

Ghost

[beneath] Swear by his sword.

Hamlet

Well said, old mole! Canst work i’ th’ earth so fast?

A worthy pioner! Once more remove, good friends.”

Horatio

O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!

Hamlet

And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,

Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

But come!

Here, as before, never, so help you mercy,

How strange or odd soe’er I bear myself

(As I perchance hereafter shall think meet

To put an antic disposition on),

That you, at such times seeing me, never shall,

With arms encumb’red thus, or this head-shake,

Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase,

As ‘Well, well, we know,’ or ‘We could, an if we would,’

Or ‘If we list to speak,’ or ‘There be, an if they might,’

Or such ambiguous giving out, to note

That you know aught of me- this is not to do,

So grace and mercy at your most need help you,

Swear.

Ghost

[beneath] Swear.

[They swear.]

Hamlet

Rest, rest, perturbed spirit! So, gentlemen,

With all my love I do commend me to you;

And what so poor a man as Hamlet is

May do t’ express his love and friending to you,

God willing, shall not lack. Let us go in together;

And still your fingers on your lips, I pray.

The time is out of joint. O cursed spite

That ever I was born to set it right!

Nay, come, let’s go together.

Exeunt.

ACT II

Hamlet (Act II Scene 2), play by William Shakespeare. Hamlet and the Players. ‘Hamlet: I heard thee speak me a speech once.’ Drawn by A Hopkins, engraved by C Roberts.

Scene I.

Elsinore. A room in the house of Polonius.

Enter Polonius and Reynaldo.

Polonius

Give him this money and these notes, Reynaldo.

Reynaldo

I will, my lord.

Polonius

You shall do marvell’s wisely, good Reynaldo,

Before You visit him, to make inquire

Of his behaviour.

Reynaldo

My lord, I did intend it.

Polonius

Marry, well said, very well said. Look you, sir,

Enquire me first what Danskers are in Paris;

And how, and who, what means, and where they keep,

What company, at what expense; and finding

By this encompassment and drift of question

That they do know my son, come you more nearer

Than your particular demands will touch it.

Take you, as ‘twere, some distant knowledge of him;

As thus, ‘I know his father and his friends,

And in part him.’ Do you mark this, Reynaldo?

Reynaldo

Ay, very well, my lord.

Polonius

‘And in part him, but,’ you may say, ‘not well.

But if’t be he I mean, he’s very wild

Addicted so and so’; and there put on him

What forgeries you please; marry, none so rank

As may dishonour him- take heed of that;

But, sir, such wanton, wild, and usual slips

As are companions noted and most known

To youth and liberty.

Reynaldo

As gaming, my lord.

Polonius

Ay, or drinking, fencing, swearing, quarrelling,

Drabbing. You may go so far.

Reynaldo

My lord, that would dishonour him.

Polonius

Faith, no, as you may season it in the charge.

You must not put another scandal on him,

That he is open to incontinency.

That’s not my meaning. But breathe his faults so quaintly

That they may seem the taints of liberty,

The flash and outbreak of a fiery mind,

A savageness in unreclaimed blood,

Of general assault.

Reynaldo

But, my good lord-

Polonius

Wherefore should you do this?

Reynaldo

Ay, my lord,

I would know that.

Polonius

Marry, sir, here’s my drift,

And I believe it is a fetch of warrant.

You laying these slight sullies on my son

As ‘twere a thing a little soil’d i’ th’ working,

Mark you,

Your party in converse, him you would sound,

Having ever seen in the prenominate crimes

The youth you breathe of guilty, be assur’d

He closes with you in this consequence:

‘Good sir,’ or so, or ‘friend,’ or ‘gentleman’-

According to the phrase or the addition

Of man and country-

Reynaldo

Very good, my lord.

Polonius

And then, sir, does ‘a this- ‘a does- What was I about to say?

By the mass, I was about to say something! Where did I leave?

Reynaldo

At ‘closes in the consequence,’ at ‘friend or so,’ and gentleman.’

Polonius

At ‘closes in the consequence’- Ay, marry!

He closes thus: ‘I know the gentleman.

I saw him yesterday, or t’other day,

Or then, or then, with such or such; and, as you say,

There was ‘a gaming; there o’ertook in’s rouse;

There falling out at tennis’; or perchance,

‘I saw him enter such a house of sale,’

Videlicet, a brothel, or so forth.

See you now-

Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth;

And thus do we of wisdom and of reach,

With windlasses and with assays of bias,

By indirections find directions out.

So, by my former lecture and advice,

Shall you my son. You have me, have you not

Reynaldo

My lord, I have.

Polonius

God b’ wi’ ye, fare ye well!

Reynaldo

Good my lord!

[Going.]

Polonius

Observe his inclination in yourself.

Reynaldo

I shall, my lord.

Polonius

And let him ply his music.

Reynaldo

Well, my lord.

Polonius

Farewell!

Exit Reynaldo.

Enter Ophelia.

How now, Ophelia? What’s the matter?

Ophelia

O my lord, my lord, I have been so affrighted!

Polonius

With what, i’ th’ name of God I

Ophelia

My lord, as I was sewing in my closet,

Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbrac’d,

No hat upon his head, his stockings foul’d,

Ungart’red, and down-gyved to his ankle;

Pale as his shirt, his knees knocking each other,

And with a look so piteous in purport

As if he had been loosed out of hell

To speak of horrors- he comes before me.

Polonius

Mad for thy love?

Ophelia

My lord, I do not know,

But truly I do fear it.

Polonius

What said he?

Ophelia

He took me by the wrist and held me hard;

Then goes he to the length of all his arm,

And, with his other hand thus o’er his brow,

He falls to such perusal of my face

As he would draw it. Long stay’d he so.

At last, a little shaking of mine arm,

And thrice his head thus waving up and down,

He rais’d a sigh so piteous and profound

As it did seem to shatter all his bulk

And end his being. That done, he lets me go,

And with his head over his shoulder turn’d

He seem’d to find his way without his eyes,

For out o’ doors he went without their help

And to the last bended their light on me.

Polonius

Come, go with me. I will go seek the King.

This is the very ecstasy of love,

Whose violent property fordoes itself

And leads the will to desperate undertakings

As oft as any passion under heaven

That does afflict our natures. I am sorry.

What, have you given him any hard words of late?

Ophelia

No, my good lord; but, as you did command,

I did repel his letters and denied

His access to me.

Polonius

That hath made him mad.

I am sorry that with better heed and judgment

I had not quoted him. I fear’d he did but trifle

And meant to wrack thee; but beshrew my jealousy!

By heaven, it is as proper to our age

To cast beyond ourselves in our opinions

As it is common for the younger sort

To lack discretion. Come, go we to the King.

This must be known; which, being kept close, might move

More grief to hide than hate to utter love.

Come.

Exeunt.

Scene II.

Elsinore. A room in the Castle.

Flourish. [Enter King and Queen, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, cum aliis.

King

Welcome, dear Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

Moreover that we much did long to see you,

The need we have to use you did provoke

Our hasty sending. Something have you heard

Of Hamlet’s transformation. So I call it,

Sith nor th’ exterior nor the inward man

Resembles that it was. What it should be,

More than his father’s death, that thus hath put him

So much from th’ understanding of himself,

I cannot dream of. I entreat you both

That, being of so young clays brought up with him,

And since so neighbour’d to his youth and haviour,

That you vouchsafe your rest here in our court

Some little time; so by your companies

To draw him on to pleasures, and to gather

So much as from occasion you may glean,

Whether aught to us unknown afflicts him thus

That, open’d, lies within our remedy.

Queen

Good gentlemen, he hath much talk’d of you,

And sure I am two men there are not living

To whom he more adheres. If it will please you

To show us so much gentry and good will

As to expend your time with us awhile

For the supply and profit of our hope,

Your visitation shall receive such thanks

As fits a king’s remembrance.

Rosencrantz

Both your Majesties

Might, by the sovereign power you have of us,

Put your dread pleasures more into command

Than to entreaty.

Guildenstern

But we both obey,

And here give up ourselves, in the full bent,

To lay our service freely at your feet,

To be commanded.

King

Thanks, Rosencrantz and gentle Guildenstern.

Queen

Thanks, Guildenstern and gentle Rosencrantz.

And I beseech you instantly to visit

My too much changed son.- Go, some of you,

And bring these gentlemen where Hamlet is.

Guildenstern

Heavens make our presence and our practices

Pleasant and helpful to him!

Queen

Ay, amen!

Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, [with some Attendants].

Enter Polonius.

Polonius

Th’ ambassadors from Norway, my good lord,

Are joyfully return’d.

King

Thou still hast been the father of good news.

Polonius

Have I, my lord? Assure you, my good liege,

I hold my duty as I hold my soul,

Both to my God and to my gracious king;

And I do think- or else this brain of mine

Hunts not the trail of policy so sure

As it hath us’d to do- that I have found

The very cause of Hamlet’s lunacy.

King

O, speak of that! That do I long to hear.

Polonius

Give first admittance to th’ ambassadors.

My news shall be the fruit to that great feast.

King

Thyself do grace to them, and bring them in.

[Exit Polonius.]

He tells me, my dear Gertrude, he hath found

The head and source of all your son’s distemper.

Queen

I doubt it is no other but the main,

His father’s death and our o’erhasty marriage.

King

Well, we shall sift him.

Enter Polonius, Voltemand, and Cornelius.

Welcome, my good friends.

Say, Voltemand, what from our brother Norway?

Voltemand

Most fair return of greetings and desires.

Upon our first, he sent out to suppress

His nephew’s levies; which to him appear’d

To be a preparation ‘gainst the Polack,

But better look’d into, he truly found

It was against your Highness; whereat griev’d,

That so his sickness, age, and impotence

Was falsely borne in hand, sends out arrests

On Fortinbras; which he, in brief, obeys,

Receives rebuke from Norway, and, in fine,

Makes vow before his uncle never more

To give th’ assay of arms against your Majesty.

Whereon old Norway, overcome with joy,

Gives him three thousand crowns in annual fee

And his commission to employ those soldiers,

So levied as before, against the Polack;

With an entreaty, herein further shown,

[Gives a paper.]

That it might please you to give quiet pass

Through your dominions for this enterprise,

On such regards of safety and allowance

As therein are set down.

King

It likes us well;

And at our more consider’d time we’ll read,

Answer, and think upon this business.

Meantime we thank you for your well-took labour.

Go to your rest; at night we’ll feast together.

Most welcome home!

Exeunt Ambassadors.

Polonius

This business is well ended.

My liege, and madam, to expostulate

What majesty should be, what duty is,

Why day is day, night is night, and time is time.

Were nothing but to waste night, day, and time.

Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,

And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,

I will be brief. Your noble son is mad.

Mad call I it; for, to define true madness,

What is’t but to be nothing else but mad?

But let that go.

Queen

More matter, with less art.

Polonius

Madam, I swear I use no art at all.

That he is mad, ‘tis true: ‘tis true ‘tis pity;

And pity ‘tis ‘tis true. A foolish figure!

But farewell it, for I will use no art.

Mad let us grant him then. And now remains

That we find out the cause of this effect-

Or rather say, the cause of this defect,

For this effect defective comes by cause.

Thus it remains, and the remainder thus.

Perpend.

I have a daughter (have while she is mine),

Who in her duty and obedience, mark,

Hath given me this. Now gather, and surmise.

[Reads] the letter.

‘To the celestial, and my soul’s idol, the most beautified Ophelia,’-

That’s an ill phrase, a vile phrase; ‘beautified’ is a vile phrase.

But you shall hear. Thus:

[Reads.]

‘In her excellent white bosom, these.’

Queen

Came this from Hamlet to her?

Polonius

Good madam, stay awhile. I will be faithful. [Reads.]

‘Doubt thou the stars are fire;

Doubt that the sun doth move;

Doubt truth to be a liar;

But never doubt I love.

‘O dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers; I have not art to reckon my groans; but that I love thee best, O most best, believe it. Adieu.

‘Thine evermore, most dear lady, whilst this machine is to him,

HAMLET.’

This, in obedience, hath my daughter shown me;

And more above, hath his solicitings,

As they fell out by time, by means, and place,

All given to mine ear.

King

But how hath she

Receiv’d his love?

Polonius

What do you think of me?

King

As of a man faithful and honourable.

Polonius

I would fain prove so. But what might you think,

When I had seen this hot love on the wing

(As I perceiv’d it, I must tell you that,

Before my daughter told me), what might you,

Or my dear Majesty your queen here, think,

If I had play’d the desk or table book,

Or given my heart a winking, mute and dumb,

Or look’d upon this love with idle sight?

What might you think? No, I went round to work

And my young mistress thus I did bespeak:

‘Lord Hamlet is a prince, out of thy star.

This must not be.’ And then I prescripts gave her,

That she should lock herself from his resort,

Admit no messengers, receive no tokens.

Which done, she took the fruits of my advice,

And he, repulsed, a short tale to make,

Fell into a sadness, then into a fast,

Thence to a watch, thence into a weakness,

Thence to a lightness, and, by this declension,

Into the madness wherein now he raves,

And all we mourn for.

King

Do you think ‘tis this?

Queen

It may be, very like.

Polonius

Hath there been such a time- I would fain know that-

That I have Positively said ‘’Tis so,’

When it prov’d otherwise.?

King

Not that I know.

Polonius

[points to his head and shoulder] Take this from this, if this be otherwise.

If circumstances lead me, I will find

Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed

Within the centre.

King

How may we try it further?

Polonius

You know sometimes he walks four hours together

Here in the lobby.

Queen

So he does indeed.

Polonius

At such a time I’ll loose my daughter to him.

Be you and I behind an arras then.

Mark the encounter. If he love her not,

And he not from his reason fall’n thereon

Let me be no assistant for a state,

But keep a farm and carters.

King

We will try it.

Enter Hamlet, reading on a book.

Queen

But look where sadly the poor wretch comes reading.

Polonius

Away, I do beseech you, both away

I’ll board him presently. O, give me leave.

Exeunt King and Queen, [with Attendants].

How does my good Lord Hamlet?

Hamlet

Well, God-a-mercy.

Polonius

Do you know me, my lord?

Hamlet

Excellent well. You are a fishmonger.

Polonius

Not I, my lord.

Hamlet

Then I would you were so honest a man.

Polonius

Honest, my lord?

Hamlet

Ay, sir. To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man pick’d out of ten thousand.

Polonius

That’s very true, my lord.

Hamlet

For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a god kissing carrion- Have you a daughter?

Polonius

I have, my lord.

Hamlet

Let her not walk i’ th’ sun. Conception is a blessing, but not as your daughter may conceive. Friend, look to’t.

Polonius

[aside] How say you by that? Still harping on my daughter. Yet he knew me not at first. He said I was a fishmonger. He is far gone, far gone! And truly in my youth I suff’red much extremity for love- very near this. I’ll speak to him again.- What do you read, my lord?

Hamlet

Words, words, words.

Polonius

What is the matter, my lord?

Hamlet

Between who?

Polonius

I mean, the matter that you read, my lord.

Hamlet

Slanders, sir; for the satirical rogue says here that old men have grey beards; that their faces are wrinkled; their eyes purging thick amber and plum-tree gum; and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams. All which, sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down; for you yourself, sir, should be old as I am if, like a crab, you could go backward.

Polonius

[aside] Though this be madness, yet there is a method in’t.-

Will You walk out of the air, my lord?

Hamlet

Into my grave?

Polonius

Indeed, that is out o’ th’ air. [Aside] How pregnant sometimes his replies are! a happiness that often madness hits on, which reason and sanity could not so prosperously be delivered of. I will leave him and suddenly contrive the means of meeting between him and my daughter.- My honourable lord, I will most humbly take my leave of you.

Hamlet

You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I will more willingly part withal- except my life, except my life, except my life,

Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

Polonius

Fare you well, my lord.

Hamlet

These tedious old fools!

Polonius

You go to seek the Lord Hamlet. There he is.

Rosencrantz

[to Polonius] God save you, sir!

Exit [Polonius].

Guildenstern

My honour’d lord!

Rosencrantz

My most dear lord!

Hamlet

My excellent good friends! How dost thou, Guildenstern? Ah,

Rosencrantz! Good lads, how do ye both?

Rosencrantz

As the indifferent children of the earth.

Guildenstern

Happy in that we are not over-happy.

On Fortune’s cap we are not the very button.

Hamlet

Nor the soles of her shoe?

Rosencrantz

Neither, my lord.

Hamlet

Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of her favours?

Guildenstern

Faith, her privates we.

Hamlet

In the secret parts of Fortune? O! most true! she is a strumpet. What news ?

Rosencrantz

None, my lord, but that the world’s grown honest.

Hamlet

Then is doomsday near! But your news is not true. Let me question more in particular. What have you, my good friends, deserved at the hands of Fortune that she sends you to prison hither?

Guildenstern

Prison, my lord?

Hamlet

Denmark’s a prison.

Rosencrantz

Then is the world one.

Hamlet

A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons, Denmark being one o’ th’ worst.

Rosencrantz

We think not so, my lord.

Hamlet

Why, then ‘tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so. To me it is a prison.

Rosencrantz

Why, then your ambition makes it one. ‘Tis too narrow for your mind.

Hamlet

O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.

Guildenstern

Which dreams indeed are ambition; for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.

Hamlet

A dream itself is but a shadow.

Rosencrantz

Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality that it is but a shadow’s shadow.

Hamlet

Then are our beggars bodies, and our monarchs and outstretch’d heroes the beggars’ shadows. Shall we to th’ court? for, by my fay, I cannot reason.

Both

We’ll wait upon you.

Hamlet

No such matter! I will not sort you with the rest of my servants; for, to speak to you like an honest man, I am most dreadfully attended. But in the beaten way of friendship, what make you at Elsinore?

Rosencrantz

To visit you, my lord; no other occasion.

Hamlet

Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks; but I thank you; and sure, dear friends, my thanks are too dear a halfpenny. Were you not sent for? Is it your own inclining? Is it a free visitation? Come, deal justly with me. Come, come! Nay, speak.

Guildenstern

What should we say, my lord?

Hamlet

Why, anything- but to th’ purpose. You were sent for; and there is a kind of confession in your looks, which your modesties have not craft enough to colour. I know the good King and Queen have sent for you.

Rosencrantz

To what end, my lord?

Hamlet

That you must teach me. But let me conjure you by the rights of our fellowship, by the consonancy of our youth, by the obligation of our ever-preserved love, and by what more dear a better proposer could charge you withal, be even and direct with me, whether you were sent for or no.

Rosencrantz

[aside to Guildenstern] What say you?

Hamlet

[aside] Nay then, I have an eye of you.- If you love me, hold not off.

Guildenstern

My lord, we were sent for.

Hamlet

I will tell you why. So shall my anticipation prevent your discovery, and your secrecy to the King and Queen moult no feather. I have of late- but wherefore I know not- lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire- why, it appeareth no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals! And yet to me what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me- no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.

Rosencrantz

My lord, there was no such stuff in my thoughts.

Hamlet

Why did you laugh then, when I said ‘Man delights not me’?

Rosencrantz

To think, my lord, if you delight not in man, what lenten entertainment the players shall receive from you. We coted them on the way, and hither are they coming to offer you service.

Hamlet

He that plays the king shall be welcome- his Majesty shall have tribute of me; the adventurous knight shall use his foil and target; the lover shall not sigh gratis; the humorous man shall end his part in peace; the clown shall make those laugh whose lungs are tickle o’ th’ sere; and the lady shall say her mind freely, or the blank verse shall halt fort. What players are they?

Rosencrantz

Even those you were wont to take such delight in, the tragedians of the city.

Hamlet

How chances it they travel? Their residence, both in reputation and profit, was better both ways.

Rosencrantz

I think their inhibition comes by the means of the late innovation.

Hamlet

Do they hold the same estimation they did when I was in the city? Are they so follow’d?

Rosencrantz

No indeed are they not.

Hamlet

How comes it? Do they grow rusty?

Rosencrantz

Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace; but there is, sir, an eyrie of children, little eyases, that cry out on the top of question and are most tyrannically clapp’d fort. These are now the fashion, and so berattle the common stages (so they call them) that many wearing rapiers are afraid of goosequills and dare scarce come thither.

Hamlet

What, are they children? Who maintains ‘em? How are they escoted? Will they pursue the quality no longer than they can sing? Will they not say afterwards, if they should grow themselves to common players (as it is most like, if their means are no better), their writers do them wrong to make them exclaim against their own succession.

Rosencrantz

Faith, there has been much to do on both sides; and the nation holds it no sin to tarre them to controversy. There was, for a while, no money bid for argument unless the poet and the player went to cuffs in the question.

Hamlet

Is’t possible?

Guildenstern

O, there has been much throwing about of brains.

Hamlet

Do the boys carry it away?

Rosencrantz

Ay, that they do, my lord- Hercules and his load too.

Hamlet

It is not very strange; for my uncle is King of Denmark, and those that would make mows at him while my father lived give twenty, forty, fifty, a hundred ducats apiece for his picture in little. ‘Sblood, there is something in this more than natural, if philosophy could find it out.

Flourish for the Players.

Guildenstern

There are the players.

Hamlet

Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore. Your hands, come! Th’ appurtenance of welcome is fashion and ceremony. Let me comply with you in this garb, lest my extent to the players (which I tell you must show fairly outwards) should more appear like entertainment than yours. You are welcome. But my uncle-father and aunt-mother are deceiv’d.

Guildenstern

In what, my dear lord?

Hamlet

I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.

Enter Polonius.

Polonius

Well be with you, gentlemen!

Hamlet

Hark you, Guildenstern- and you too- at each ear a hearer!

That great baby you see there is not yet out of his swaddling clouts.

Rosencrantz

Happily he’s the second time come to them; for they say an old man is twice a child.

Hamlet

I will prophesy he comes to tell me of the players. Mark it.- You say right, sir; a Monday morning; twas so indeed.

Polonius

My lord, I have news to tell you.

Hamlet

My lord, I have news to tell you. When Roscius was an actor in Rome-

Polonius

The actors are come hither, my lord.

Hamlet

Buzz, buzz!

Polonius

Upon my honour-

Hamlet

Then came each actor on his ass-

Polonius

The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral; scene individable, or poem unlimited. Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light. For the law of writ and the liberty, these are the only men.

Hamlet

O Jephthah, judge of Israel, what a treasure hadst thou!

Polonius

What treasure had he, my lord?

Hamlet

Why,

‘One fair daughter, and no more,

The which he loved passing well.’

Polonius

[aside] Still on my daughter.

Hamlet

Am I not i’ th’ right, old Jephthah?

Polonius

If you call me Jephthah, my lord, I have a daughter that I love passing well.

Hamlet

Nay, that follows not.

Polonius

What follows then, my lord?

Hamlet

Why,

‘As by lot, God wot,’ and then, you know,

‘It came to pass, as most like it was.’

The first row of the pious chanson will show you more; for look where my abridgment comes.

Enter four or five Players.

You are welcome, masters; welcome, all.- I am glad to see thee well.- Welcome, good friends.- O, my old friend? Why, thy face is valanc’d since I saw thee last. Com’st’ thou to’ beard me in Denmark?- What, my young lady and mistress? By’r Lady, your ladyship is nearer to heaven than when I saw you last by the altitude of a chopine. Pray God your voice, like a piece of uncurrent gold, be not crack’d within the ring.- Masters, you are all welcome. We’ll e’en to’t like French falconers, fly at anything we see. We’ll have a speech straight. Come, give us a taste of your quality. Come, a passionate speech.

First Player.

What speech, my good lord?

Hamlet

I heard thee speak me a speech once, but it was never acted; or if it was, not above once; for the play, I remember, pleas’d not the million, ‘twas caviary to the general; but it was (as I receiv’d it, and others, whose judgments in such matters cried in the top of mine) an excellent play, well digested in the scenes, set down with as much modesty as cunning. I remember one said there were no sallets in the lines to make the matter savoury, nor no matter in the phrase that might indict the author of affectation; but call’d it an honest method, as wholesome as sweet, and by very much more handsome than fine. One speech in’t I chiefly lov’d. ‘Twas AEneas’ tale to Dido, and thereabout of it especially where he speaks of Priam’s slaughter. If it live in your memory, begin at this line- let me see, let me see:

‘The rugged Pyrrhus, like th’ Hyrcanian beast-’

‘Tis not so; it begins with Pyrrhus:

‘The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable arms,

Black as his purpose, did the night resemble

When he lay couched in the ominous horse,

Hath now this dread and black complexion smear’d

With heraldry more dismal. Head to foot

Now is be total gules, horridly trick’d

With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons,

Bak’d and impasted with the parching streets,

That lend a tyrannous and a damned light

To their lord’s murther. Roasted in wrath and fire,

And thus o’ersized with coagulate gore,

With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus

Old grandsire Priam seeks.’

So, proceed you.

Polonius

Fore God, my lord, well spoken, with good accent and good discretion.

First Player.

‘Anon he finds him,

Striking too short at Greeks. His antique sword,

Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls,

Repugnant to command. Unequal match’d,

Pyrrhus at Priam drives, in rage strikes wide;

But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword

Th’ unnerved father falls. Then senseless Ilium,

Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming top

Stoops to his base, and with a hideous crash

Takes prisoner Pyrrhus’ ear. For lo! his sword,

Which was declining on the milky head

Of reverend Priam, seem’d i’ th’ air to stick.

So, as a painted tyrant, Pyrrhus stood,

And, like a neutral to his will and matter,

Did nothing.

But, as we often see, against some storm,

A silence in the heavens, the rack stand still,

The bold winds speechless, and the orb below

As hush as death- anon the dreadful thunder

Doth rend the region; so, after Pyrrhus’ pause,

Aroused vengeance sets him new awork;

And never did the Cyclops’ hammers fall

On Mars’s armour, forg’d for proof eterne,

With less remorse than Pyrrhus’ bleeding sword

Now falls on Priam.

Out, out, thou strumpet Fortune! All you gods,

In general synod take away her power;

Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel,

And bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven,

As low as to the fiends!

Polonius

This is too long.

Hamlet

It shall to the barber’s, with your beard.- Prithee say on.

He’s for a jig or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps. Say on; come to Hecuba.

First Player.

‘But who, O who, had seen the mobled queen-’

Hamlet

‘The mobled queen’?

Polonius

That’s good! ‘Mobled queen’ is good.

First Player.

‘Run barefoot up and down, threat’ning the flames

With bisson rheum; a clout upon that head

Where late the diadem stood, and for a robe,

About her lank and all o’erteemed loins,

A blanket, in the alarm of fear caught up-

Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steep’d

‘Gainst Fortune’s state would treason have pronounc’d.

But if the gods themselves did see her then,

When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport

In Mincing with his sword her husband’s limbs,

The instant burst of clamour that she made

(Unless things mortal move them not at all)

Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven

And passion in the gods.’

Polonius

Look, whe’r he has not turn’d his colour, and has tears in’s eyes. Prithee no more!

Hamlet

‘Tis well. I’ll have thee speak out the rest of this soon.-

Good my lord, will you see the players well bestow’d? Do you hear? Let them be well us’d; for they are the abstract and brief chronicles of the time. After your death you were better have a bad epitaph than their ill report while you live.

Polonius

My lord, I will use them according to their desert.

Hamlet

God’s bodykins, man, much better! Use every man after his desert, and who should scape whipping? Use them after your own honour and dignity. The less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty. Take them in.

Polonius

Come, sirs.

Hamlet

Follow him, friends. We’ll hear a play to-morrow.

Exeunt Polonius and Players [except the First].

Dost thou hear me, old friend? Can you play ‘The Murther of Gonzago’?

First Player.

Ay, my lord.

Hamlet

We’ll ha’t to-morrow night. You could, for a need, study a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines which I would set down and insert in’t, could you not?

First Player.

Ay, my lord.

Hamlet

Very well. Follow that lord- and look you mock him not.

[Exit First Player.]

My good friends, I’ll leave you till night. You are welcome to Elsinore.

Rosencrantz

Good my lord!

Hamlet

Ay, so, God b’ wi’ ye!

[Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

Now I am alone.

O what a rogue and peasant slave am I!

Is it not monstrous that this player here,

But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,

Could force his soul so to his own conceit

That, from her working, all his visage wann’d,

Tears in his eyes, distraction in’s aspect,

A broken voice, and his whole function suiting

With forms to his conceit? And all for nothing!

For Hecuba!

What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,

That he should weep for her? What would he do,

Had he the motive and the cue for passion

That I have? He would drown the stage with tears

And cleave the general ear with horrid speech;

Make mad the guilty and appal the free,

Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed

The very faculties of eyes and ears.

Yet I,

A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak

Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,

And can say nothing! No, not for a king,

Upon whose property and most dear life

A damn’d defeat was made. Am I a coward?

Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across?

Plucks off my beard and blows it in my face?

Tweaks me by th’ nose? gives me the lie i’ th’ throat

As deep as to the lungs? Who does me this, ha?

‘Swounds, I should take it! for it cannot be

But I am pigeon-liver’d and lack gall

To make oppression bitter, or ere this

I should have fatted all the region kites

With this slave’s offal. Bloody bawdy villain!

Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!

O, vengeance!

Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,

That I, the son of a dear father murther’d,

Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,

Must (like a whore) unpack my heart with words

And fall a-cursing like a very drab,

A scullion!

Fie upon’t! foh! About, my brain! Hum, I have heard

That guilty creatures, sitting at a play,

Have by the very cunning of the scene

Been struck so to the soul that presently

They have proclaim’d their malefactions;

For murther, though it have no tongue, will speak

With most miraculous organ, I’ll have these Players

Play something like the murther of my father

Before mine uncle. I’ll observe his looks;

I’ll tent him to the quick. If he but blench,

I know my course. The spirit that I have seen

May be a devil; and the devil hath power

T’ assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps

Out of my weakness and my melancholy,

As he is very potent with such spirits,

Abuses me to damn me. I’ll have grounds

More relative than this. The play’s the thing

Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.

Exit.

ACT III

SHAKESPEARE: HAMLET. /nClaudius and Polonius listen to Hamlet soliloquize, Act III, Scene I. Wood engraving after Sir John Gilbert (1817-1897).

Scene I.

Elsinore. A room in the Castle.

Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and Lords.

King

And can you by no drift of circumstance

Get from him why he puts on this confusion,

Grating so harshly all his days of quiet

With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?

Rosencrantz

He does confess he feels himself distracted,

But from what cause he will by no means speak.

Guildenstern

Nor do we find him forward to be sounded,

But with a crafty madness keeps aloof

When we would bring him on to some confession

Of his true state.

Queen

Did he receive you well?

Rosencrantz

Most like a gentleman.

Guildenstern

But with much forcing of his disposition.

Rosencrantz

Niggard of question, but of our demands

Most free in his reply.

Queen

Did you assay him

To any pastime?

Rosencrantz

Madam, it so fell out that certain players

We o’erraught on the way. Of these we told him,

And there did seem in him a kind of joy

To hear of it. They are here about the court,

And, as I think, they have already order

This night to play before him.

Polonius

‘Tis most true;

And he beseech’d me to entreat your Majesties

To hear and see the matter.

King

With all my heart, and it doth much content me

To hear him so inclin’d.

Good gentlemen, give him a further edge

And drive his purpose on to these delights.

Rosencrantz

We shall, my lord.

Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

King

Sweet Gertrude, leave us too;

For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither,

That he, as ‘twere by accident, may here

Affront Ophelia.

Her father and myself (lawful espials)

Will so bestow ourselves that, seeing unseen,

We may of their encounter frankly judge

And gather by him, as he is behav’d,

If’t be th’ affliction of his love, or no,

That thus he suffers for.

Queen

I shall obey you;

And for your part, Ophelia, I do wish

That your good beauties be the happy cause

Of Hamlet’s wildness. So shall I hope your virtues

Will bring him to his wonted way again,

To both your honours.

Ophelia

Madam, I wish it may.

[Exit Queen.]

Polonius

Ophelia, walk you here.- Gracious, so please you,

We will bestow ourselves.- [To Ophelia] Read on this book,

That show of such an exercise may colour

Your loneliness.- We are oft to blame in this,

‘Tis too much prov’d, that with devotion’s visage

And pious action we do sugar o’er

The Devil himself.

King

[aside] O, ‘tis too true!

How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!

The harlot’s cheek, beautied with plast’ring art,

Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it

Than is my deed to my most painted word.

O heavy burthen!

Polonius

I hear him coming. Let’s withdraw, my lord.

Exeunt King and Polonius].

Enter Hamlet.

Hamlet

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 wish’d. 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. There’s the respect

That makes calamity of so long life.

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

Th’ oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,

The pangs of despis’d love, the law’s delay,

The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of th’ unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? Who would these fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death-

The undiscover’d country, from whose bourn

No traveller returns- puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprises of great pith and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry

And lose the name of action.- Soft you now!

The fair Ophelia!- Nymph, in thy orisons

Be all my sins rememb’red.

Ophelia

Good my lord,

How does your honour for this many a day?

Hamlet

I humbly thank you; well, well, well.

Ophelia

My lord, I have remembrances of yours

That I have longed long to re-deliver.

I pray you, now receive them.

Hamlet

No, not I!

I never gave you aught.

Ophelia

My honour’d lord, you know right well you did,

And with them words of so sweet breath compos’d

As made the things more rich. Their perfume lost,

Take these again; for to the noble mind

Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.

There, my lord.

Hamlet

Ha, ha! Are you honest?

Ophelia

My lord?

Hamlet

Are you fair?

Ophelia

What means your lordship?

Hamlet

That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty.

Ophelia

Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty?

Hamlet

Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness. This was sometime a paradox, but now the time gives it proof. I did love you once.

Ophelia

Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.

Hamlet

You should not have believ’d me; for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it. I loved you not.

Ophelia

I was the more deceived.

Hamlet

Get thee to a nunnery! Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest, but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me, I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious; with more offences at my beck than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in. What should such fellows as I do, crawling between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves all; believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery. Where’s your father?

Ophelia

At home, my lord.

Hamlet

Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool nowhere but in’s own house. Farewell.

Ophelia

O, help him, you sweet heavens!

Hamlet

If thou dost marry, I’ll give thee this plague for thy dowry: be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery. Go, farewell. Or if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool; for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go; and quickly too.

Farewell.

Ophelia

O heavenly powers, restore him!

Hamlet

I have heard of your paintings too, well enough. God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another. You jig, you amble, and you lisp; you nickname God’s creatures and make your wantonness your ignorance. Go to, I’ll no more on’t! it hath made me mad. I say, we will have no moe marriages. Those that are married already- all but one- shall live; the rest shall keep as they are. To a nunnery, go.

Exit.

Ophelia

O, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown!

The courtier’s, scholar’s, soldier’s, eye, tongue, sword,

Th’ expectancy and rose of the fair state,

The glass of fashion and the mould of form,

Th’ observ’d of all observers- quite, quite down!

And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,

That suck’d the honey of his music vows,

Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,

Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh;

That unmatch’d form and feature of blown youth

Blasted with ecstasy. O, woe is me

T’ have seen what I have seen, see what I see!

Enter King and Polonius.

King

Love? his affections do not that way tend;

Nor what he spake, though it lack’d form a little,

Was not like madness. There’s something in his soul

O’er which his melancholy sits on brood;

And I do doubt the hatch and the disclose

Will be some danger; which for to prevent,

I have in quick determination

Thus set it down: he shall with speed to England

For the demand of our neglected tribute.

Haply the seas, and countries different,

With variable objects, shall expel

This something-settled matter in his heart,

Whereon his brains still beating puts him thus

From fashion of himself. What think you on’t?

Polonius

It shall do well. But yet do I believe

The origin and commencement of his grief

Sprung from neglected love.- How now, Ophelia?

You need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said.

We heard it all.- My lord, do as you please;

But if you hold it fit, after the play

Let his queen mother all alone entreat him

To show his grief. Let her be round with him;

And I’ll be plac’d so please you, in the ear

Of all their conference. If she find him not,

To England send him; or confine him where

Your wisdom best shall think.

King

It shall be so.

Madness in great ones must not unwatch’d go.

Exeunt.

Scene II.

Elsinore. hall in the Castle.

Enter Hamlet and three of the Players.

Hamlet

Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounc’d it to you, trippingly on the tongue. But if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as live the town crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and (as I may say) whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the cars of the groundlings, who (for the most part) are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise. I would have such a fellow whipp’d for o’erdoing Termagant. It out-herods Herod. Pray you avoid it.

Player

I warrant your honour.

Hamlet

Be not too tame neither; but let your own discretion be your tutor. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special observance, that you o’erstep not the modesty of nature: for anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as ‘twere, the mirror up to nature; to show Virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure. Now this overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of the which one must in your allowance o’erweigh a whole theatre of others. O, there be players that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly (not to speak it profanely), that, neither having the accent of Christians, nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of Nature’s journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.

Player

I hope we have reform’d that indifferently with us, sir.

Hamlet

O, reform it altogether! And let those that play your clowns speak no more than is set down for them. For there be of them that will themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too, though in the mean time some necessary question of the play be then to be considered. That’s villanous and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it. Go make you ready.

Exeunt Players.

Enter Polonius, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern.

How now, my lord? Will the King hear this piece of work?

Polonius

And the Queen too, and that presently.

Hamlet

Bid the players make haste, [Exit Polonius.] Will you two help to hasten them?

Both

We will, my lord.

Exeunt they two.

Hamlet

What, ho, Horatio!

Enter Horatio.

Horatio

Here, sweet lord, at your service.

Hamlet

Horatio, thou art e’en as just a man

As e’er my conversation cop’d withal.

Horatio

O, my dear lord!

Hamlet

Nay, do not think I flatter;

For what advancement may I hope from thee,

That no revenue hast but thy good spirits

To feed and clothe thee? Why should the poor be flatter’d?

No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp,

And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee

Where thrift may follow fawning. Dost thou hear?

Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice

And could of men distinguish, her election

Hath scald thee for herself. For thou hast been

As one, in suff’ring all, that suffers nothing;

A man that Fortune’s buffets and rewards

Hast ta’en with equal thanks; and blest are those

Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled

That they are not a pipe for Fortune’s finger

To sound what stop she please. Give me that man

That is not passion’s slave, and I will wear him

In my heart’s core, ay, in my heart of heart,

As I do thee. Something too much of this I

There is a play to-night before the King.

One scene of it comes near the circumstance,

Which I have told thee, of my father’s death.

I prithee, when thou seest that act afoot,

Even with the very comment of thy soul

Observe my uncle. If his occulted guilt

Do not itself unkennel in one speech,

It is a damned ghost that we have seen,

And my imaginations are as foul

As Vulcan’s stithy. Give him heedful note;

For I mine eyes will rivet to his face,

And after we will both our judgments join

In censure of his seeming.

Horatio

Well, my lord.

If he steal aught the whilst this play is playing,

And scape detecting, I will pay the theft.

Sound a flourish. [Enter Trumpets and Kettledrums. Danish march. [Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and other Lords attendant, with the Guard carrying torches.

Hamlet

They are coming to the play. I must be idle.

Get you a place.

King

How fares our cousin Hamlet?

Hamlet

Excellent, i’ faith; of the chameleon’s dish. I eat the air, promise-cramm’d. You cannot feed capons so.

King

I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet. These words are not mine.

Hamlet

No, nor mine now. [To Polonius] My lord, you play’d once i’ th’ university, you say?

Polonius

That did I, my lord, and was accounted a good actor.

Hamlet

What did you enact?

Polonius

I did enact Julius Caesar; I was kill’d i’ th’ Capitol; Brutus kill’d me.

Hamlet

It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf there. Be the players ready.

Rosencrantz

Ay, my lord. They stay upon your patience.

Queen

Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me.

Hamlet

No, good mother. Here’s metal more attractive.

Polonius

[to the King] O, ho! do you mark that?

Hamlet

Lady, shall I lie in your lap?

[Sits down at Ophelia’s feet.]

Ophelia

No, my lord.

Hamlet

I mean, my head upon your lap?

Ophelia

Ay, my lord.

Hamlet

Do you think I meant country matters?

Ophelia

I think nothing, my lord.

Hamlet

That’s a fair thought to lie between maids’ legs.

Ophelia

What is, my lord?

Hamlet

Nothing.

Ophelia

You are merry, my lord.

Hamlet

Who, I?

Ophelia

Ay, my lord.

Hamlet

O God, your only jig-maker! What should a man do but be merry?

For look you how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died within ‘s two hours.

Ophelia

Nay ‘tis twice two months, my lord.

Hamlet

So long? Nay then, let the devil wear black, for I’ll have a suit of sables. O heavens! die two months ago, and not forgotten yet? Then there’s hope a great man’s memory may outlive his life half a year. But, by’r Lady, he must build churches then; or else shall he suffer not thinking on, with the hobby-horse, whose epitaph is ‘For O, for O, the hobby-horse is forgot!’

Hautboys play. The dumb show enters.

Enter a King and a Queen very lovingly; the Queen embracing him and he her. She kneels, and makes show of protestation unto him. He takes her up, and declines his head upon her neck. He lays him down upon a bank of flowers. She, seeing him asleep, leaves him. Anon comes in a fellow, takes off his crown, kisses it, pours poison in the sleeper’s ears, and leaves him. The Queen returns, finds the King dead, and makes passionate action. The Poisoner with some three or four Mutes, comes in again, seem to condole with her. The dead body is carried away. The Poisoner wooes the Queen with gifts; she seems harsh and unwilling awhile, but in the end accepts his love.

Exeunt.

Ophelia

What means this, my lord?

Hamlet

Marry, this is miching malhecho; it means mischief.

Ophelia

Belike this show imports the argument of the play.

Enter Prologue.

Hamlet

We shall know by this fellow. The players cannot keep counsel; they’ll tell all.

Ophelia

Will he tell us what this show meant?

Hamlet

Ay, or any show that you’ll show him. Be not you asham’d to show, he’ll not shame to tell you what it means.

Ophelia

You are naught, you are naught! I’ll mark the play.

Pro. For us, and for our tragedy,

Here stooping to your clemency,

We beg your hearing patiently.

[Exit.]

Hamlet

Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?

Ophelia

‘Tis brief, my lord.

Hamlet

As woman’s love.

Enter [two Players as] King and Queen.

King

Full thirty times hath Phoebus’ cart gone round

Neptune’s salt wash and Tellus’ orbed ground,

And thirty dozed moons with borrowed sheen

About tile world have times twelve thirties been,

Since love our hearts, and Hymen did our hands,

Unite comutual in most sacred bands.

Queen

So many journeys may the sun and moon

Make us again count o’er ere love be done!

But woe is me! you are so sick of late,

So far from cheer and from your former state.

That I distrust you. Yet, though I distrust,

Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must;

For women’s fear and love holds quantity,

In neither aught, or in extremity.

Now what my love is, proof hath made you know;

And as my love is siz’d, my fear is so.

Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear;

Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.

King

Faith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly too;

My operant powers their functions leave to do.

And thou shalt live in this fair world behind,

Honour’d, belov’d, and haply one as kind

For husband shalt thou-

Queen

O, confound the rest!

Such love must needs be treason in my breast.

When second husband let me be accurst!

None wed the second but who killed the first.

Hamlet

[aside] Wormwood, wormwood!

Queen

The instances that second marriage move

Are base respects of thrift, but none of love.

A second time I kill my husband dead

When second husband kisses me in bed.

King

I do believe you think what now you speak;

But what we do determine oft we break.

Purpose is but the slave to memory,

Of violent birth, but poor validity;

Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree,

But fill unshaken when they mellow be.

Most necessary ‘tis that we forget

To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt.

What to ourselves in passion we propose,

The passion ending, doth the purpose lose.

The violence of either grief or joy

Their own enactures with themselves destroy.

Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament;

Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident.

This world is not for aye, nor ‘tis not strange

That even our loves should with our fortunes change;

For ‘tis a question left us yet to prove,

Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love.

The great man down, you mark his favourite flies,

The poor advanc’d makes friends of enemies;

And hitherto doth love on fortune tend,

For who not needs shall never lack a friend,

And who in want a hollow friend doth try,

Directly seasons him his enemy.

But, orderly to end where I begun,

Our wills and fates do so contrary run

That our devices still are overthrown;

Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.

So think thou wilt no second husband wed;

But die thy thoughts when thy first lord is dead.

Queen.

Nor earth to me give food, nor heaven light,

Sport and repose lock from me day and night,

To desperation turn my trust and hope,

An anchor’s cheer in prison be my scope,

Each opposite that blanks the face of joy

Meet what I would have well, and it destroy,

Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife,

If, once a widow, ever I be wife!

Hamlet

If she should break it now!

King.

‘Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here awhile.

My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile

The tedious day with sleep.

Queen.

Sleep rock thy brain,

[He sleeps.]

And never come mischance between us twain!

Exit.

Hamlet

Madam, how like you this play?

Queen

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

Hamlet

O, but she’ll keep her word.

King

Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in’t?

Hamlet

No, no! They do but jest, poison in jest; no offence i’ th’ world.

King

What do you call the play?

Hamlet

‘The Mousetrap.’ Marry, how? Tropically. This play is the image of a murther done in Vienna. Gonzago is the duke’s name; his wife, Baptista. You shall see anon. ‘Tis a knavish piece of work; but what o’ that? Your Majesty, and we that have free souls, it touches us not. Let the gall’d jade winch; our withers are unwrung.

Enter Lucianus.

This is one Lucianus, nephew to the King.

Ophelia

You are as good as a chorus, my lord.

Hamlet

I could interpret between you and your love, if I could see the puppets dallying.

Ophelia

You are keen, my lord, you are keen.

Hamlet

It would cost you a groaning to take off my edge.

Ophelia

Still better, and worse.

Hamlet

So you must take your husbands.- Begin, murtherer. Pox, leave thy damnable faces, and begin! Come, the croaking raven doth bellow for revenge.

Luc

Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing;

Confederate season, else no creature seeing;

Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected,

With Hecate’s ban thrice blasted, thrice infected,

Thy natural magic and dire property

On wholesome life usurp immediately.

Pours the poison in his ears.

Hamlet

He poisons him i’ th’ garden for’s estate. His name’s Gonzago.

The story is extant, and written in very choice Italian. You shall see anon how the murtherer gets the love of Gonzago’s wife.

Ophelia

The King rises.

Hamlet

What, frighted with false fire?

Queen

How fares my lord?

Polonius

Give o’er the play.

King

Give me some light! Away!

All

Lights, lights, lights!

Exeunt all but Hamlet and Horatio.

Hamlet

Why, let the strucken deer go weep,

The hart ungalled play;

For some must watch, while some must sleep:

Thus runs the world away.

Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers- if the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me-with two Provincial roses on my raz’d shoes, get me a fellowship in a cry of players, sir?

Horatio

Half a share.

Hamlet

A whole one I!

For thou dost know, O Damon dear,

This realm dismantled was

Of Jove himself; and now reigns here

A very, very- pajock.

Horatio

You might have rhym’d.

Hamlet

O good Horatio, I’ll take the ghost’s word for a thousand pound! Didst perceive?

Horatio

Very well, my lord.

Hamlet

Upon the talk of the poisoning?

Horatio

I did very well note him.

Hamlet

Aha! Come, some music! Come, the recorders!

For if the King like not the comedy,

Why then, belike he likes it not, perdy.

Come, some music!

Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

Guildenstern

Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you.

Hamlet

Sir, a whole history.

Guildenstern

The King, sir-

Hamlet

Ay, sir, what of him?

Guildenstern

Is in his retirement, marvellous distemper’d.

Hamlet

With drink, sir?

Guildenstern

No, my lord; rather with choler.

Hamlet

Your wisdom should show itself more richer to signify this to the doctor; for me to put him to his purgation would perhaps plunge him into far more choler.

Guildenstern

Good my lord, put your discourse into some frame, and start not so wildly from my affair.

Hamlet

I am tame, sir; pronounce.

Guildenstern

The Queen, your mother, in most great affliction of spirit hath sent me to you.

Hamlet

You are welcome.

Guildenstern

Nay, good my lord, this courtesy is not of the right breed.

If it shall please you to make me a wholesome answer, I will do your mother’s commandment; if not, your pardon and my return shall be the end of my business.

Hamlet

Sir, I cannot.

Guildenstern

What, my lord?

Hamlet

Make you a wholesome answer; my wit’s diseas’d. But, sir, such answer is I can make, you shall command; or rather, as you say, my mother. Therefore no more, but to the matter! My mother, you say-

Rosencrantz

Then thus she says: your behaviour hath struck her into amazement and admiration.

Hamlet

O wonderful son, that can so stonish a mother! But is there no sequel at the heels of this mother’s admiration? Impart.

Rosencrantz

She desires to speak with you in her closet ere you go to bed.

Hamlet

We shall obey, were she ten times our mother. Have you any further trade with us?

Rosencrantz

My lord, you once did love me.

Hamlet

And do still, by these pickers and stealers!

Rosencrantz

Good my lord, what is your cause of distemper? You do surely bar the door upon your own liberty, if you deny your griefs to your friend.

Hamlet

Sir, I lack advancement.

Rosencrantz

How can that be, when you have the voice of the King himself for your succession in Denmark?

Hamlet

Ay, sir, but ‘while the grass grows’- the proverb is something musty.

Enter the Players with recorders.

O, the recorders! Let me see one. To withdraw with you- why do you go about to recover the wind of me, as if you would drive me into a toil?

Guildenstern

O my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly.

Hamlet

I do not well understand that. Will you play upon this pipe?

Guildenstern

My lord, I cannot.

Hamlet

I pray you.

Guildenstern

Believe me, I cannot.

Hamlet

I do beseech you.

Guildenstern

I know, no touch of it, my lord.

Hamlet

It is as easy as lying. Govern these ventages with your fingers and thumbs, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music. Look you, these are the stops.

Guildenstern

But these cannot I command to any utt’rance of harmony. I have not the skill.

Hamlet

Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass; and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ, yet cannot you make it speak. ‘Sblood, do you think I am easier to be play’d on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me.

Enter Polonius.

God bless you, sir!

Polonius

My lord, the Queen would speak with you, and presently.

Hamlet

Do you see yonder cloud that’s almost in shape of a camel?

Polonius

By th’ mass, and ‘tis like a camel indeed.

Hamlet

Methinks it is like a weasel.

Polonius

It is back’d like a weasel.

Hamlet

Or like a whale.

Polonius

Very like a whale.

Hamlet

Then will I come to my mother by-and-by.- They fool me to the top of my bent.- I will come by-and-by.

Polonius

I will say so.

Exit.

Hamlet

‘By-and-by’ is easily said.- Leave me, friends.

[Exeunt all but Hamlet.]

‘Tis now the very witching time of night,

When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out

Contagion to this world. Now could I drink hot blood

And do such bitter business as the day

Would quake to look on. Soft! now to my mother!

O heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever

The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom.

Let me be cruel, not unnatural;

I will speak daggers to her, but use none.

My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites-

How in my words somever she be shent,

To give them seals never, my soul, consent!

Exit.

Scene III.

A room in the Castle.

Enter King, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern.

King

I like him not, nor stands it safe with us

To let his madness range. Therefore prepare you;

I your commission will forthwith dispatch,

And he to England shall along with you.

The terms of our estate may not endure

Hazard so near us as doth hourly grow

Out of his lunacies.

Guildenstern

We will ourselves provide.

Most holy and religious fear it is

To keep those many many bodies safe

That live and feed upon your Majesty.

Rosencrantz

The single and peculiar life is bound

With all the strength and armour of the mind

To keep itself from noyance; but much more

That spirit upon whose weal depends and rests

The lives of many. The cesse of majesty

Dies not alone, but like a gulf doth draw

What’s near it with it. It is a massy wheel,

Fix’d on the summit of the highest mount,

To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things

Are mortis’d and adjoin’d; which when it falls,

Each small annexment, petty consequence,

Attends the boist’rous ruin. Never alone

Did the king sigh, but with a general groan.

King

Arm you, I pray you, to th’, speedy voyage;

For we will fetters put upon this fear,

Which now goes too free-footed.

Both

We will haste us.

Exeunt Gentlemen.

Enter Polonius.

Polonius

My lord, he’s going to his mother’s closet.

Behind the arras I’ll convey myself

To hear the process. I’ll warrant she’ll tax him home;

And, as you said, and wisely was it said,

‘Tis meet that some more audience than a mother,

Since nature makes them partial, should o’erhear

The speech, of vantage. Fare you well, my liege.

I’ll call upon you ere you go to bed

And tell you what I know.

King

Thanks, dear my lord.

Exit [Polonius].

O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven;

It hath the primal eldest curse upon’t,

A brother’s murther! Pray can I not,

Though inclination be as sharp as will.

My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent,

And, like a man to double business bound,

I stand in pause where I shall first begin,

And both neglect. What if this cursed hand

Were thicker than itself with brother’s blood,

Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens

To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy

But to confront the visage of offence?

And what’s in prayer but this twofold force,

To be forestalled ere we come to fall,

Or pardon’d being down? Then I’ll look up;

My fault is past. But, O, what form of prayer

Can serve my turn? ‘Forgive me my foul murther’?

That cannot be; since I am still possess’d

Of those effects for which I did the murther-

My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.

May one be pardon’d and retain th’ offence?

In the corrupted currents of this world

Offence’s gilded hand may shove by justice,

And oft ‘tis seen the wicked prize itself

Buys out the law; but ‘tis not so above.

There is no shuffling; there the action lies

In his true nature, and we ourselves compell’d,

Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,

To give in evidence. What then? What rests?

Try what repentance can. What can it not?

Yet what can it when one cannot repent?

O wretched state! O bosom black as death!

O limed soul, that, struggling to be free,

Art more engag’d! Help, angels! Make assay.

Bow, stubborn knees; and heart with strings of steel,

Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe!

All may be well.

He kneels.

Enter Hamlet.

Hamlet

Now might I do it pat, now he is praying;

And now I’ll do’t. And so he goes to heaven,

And so am I reveng’d. That would be scann’d.

A villain kills my father; and for that,

I, his sole son, do this same villain send

To heaven.

Why, this is hire and salary, not revenge!

He took my father grossly, full of bread,

With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May;

And how his audit stands, who knows save heaven?

But in our circumstance and course of thought,

‘Tis heavy with him; and am I then reveng’d,

To take him in the purging of his soul,

When he is fit and seasoned for his passage?

No.

Up, sword, and know thou a more horrid hent.

When he is drunk asleep; or in his rage;

Or in th’ incestuous pleasure of his bed;

At gaming, swearing, or about some act

That has no relish of salvation in’t-

Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven,

And that his soul may be as damn’d and black

As hell, whereto it goes. My mother stays.

This physic but prolongs thy sickly days.

Exit.

King

[rises] My words fly up, my thoughts remain below.

Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

Exit.

Scene IV.

The Queen’s closet.

Enter Queen and Polonius.

Polonius

He will come straight. Look you lay home to him.

Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear with,

And that your Grace hath screen’d and stood between

Much heat and him. I’ll silence me even here.

Pray you be round with him.

Hamlet

(within) Mother, mother, mother!

Queen

I’ll warrant you; fear me not. Withdraw; I hear him coming.

[Polonius hides behind the arras.]

Enter Hamlet.

Hamlet

Now, mother, what’s the matter?

Queen

Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.

Hamlet

Mother, you have my father much offended.

Queen

Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.

Hamlet

Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.

Queen

Why, how now, Hamlet?

Hamlet

What’s the matter now?

Queen

Have you forgot me?

Hamlet

No, by the rood, not so!

You are the Queen, your husband’s brother’s wife,

And (would it were not so!) you are my mother.

Queen

Nay, then I’ll set those to you that can speak.

Hamlet

Come, come, and sit you down. You shall not budge I

You go not till I set you up a glass

Where you may see the inmost part of you.

Queen

What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murther me?

Help, help, ho!

Polonius

[behind] What, ho! help, help, help!

Hamlet

[draws] How now? a rat? Dead for a ducat, dead!

[Makes a pass through the arras and] kills Polonius.

Polonius

[behind] O, I am slain!

Queen

O me, what hast thou done?

Hamlet

Nay, I know not. Is it the King?

Queen

O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!

Hamlet

A bloody deed- almost as bad, good mother,

As kill a king, and marry with his brother.

Queen

As kill a king?

Hamlet

Ay, lady, it was my word.

[Lifts up the arras and sees Polonius.]

Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!

I took thee for thy better. Take thy fortune.

Thou find’st to be too busy is some danger.

Leave wringing of your hinds. Peace! sit you down

And let me wring your heart; for so I shall

If it be made of penetrable stuff;

If damned custom have not braz’d it so

That it is proof and bulwark against sense.

Queen

What have I done that thou dar’st wag thy tongue

In noise so rude against me?

Hamlet

Such an act

That blurs the grace and blush of modesty;

Calls virtue hypocrite; takes off the rose

From the fair forehead of an innocent love,

And sets a blister there; makes marriage vows

As false as dicers’ oaths. O, such a deed

As from the body of contraction plucks

The very soul, and sweet religion makes

A rhapsody of words! Heaven’s face doth glow;

Yea, this solidity and compound mass,

With tristful visage, as against the doom,

Is thought-sick at the act.

Queen

Ay me, what act,

That roars so loud and thunders in the index?

Hamlet

Look here upon th’s picture, and on this,

The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.

See what a grace was seated on this brow;

Hyperion’s curls; the front of Jove himself;

An eye like Mars, to threaten and command;

A station like the herald Mercury

New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill:

A combination and a form indeed

Where every god did seem to set his seal

To give the world assurance of a man.

This was your husband. Look you now what follows.

Here is your husband, like a mildew’d ear

Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes?

Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,

And batten on this moor? Ha! have you eyes

You cannot call it love; for at your age

The heyday in the blood is tame, it’s humble,

And waits upon the judgment; and what judgment

Would step from this to this? Sense sure you have,

Else could you not have motion; but sure that sense

Is apoplex’d; for madness would not err,

Nor sense to ecstacy was ne’er so thrall’d

But it reserv’d some quantity of choice

To serve in such a difference. What devil was’t

That thus hath cozen’d you at hoodman-blind?

Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight,

Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all,

Or but a sickly part of one true sense

Could not so mope.

O shame! where is thy blush? Rebellious hell,

If thou canst mutine in a matron’s bones,

To flaming youth let virtue be as wax

And melt in her own fire. Proclaim no shame

When the compulsive ardour gives the charge,

Since frost itself as actively doth burn,

And reason panders will.

Queen

O Hamlet, speak no more!

Thou turn’st mine eyes into my very soul,

And there I see such black and grained spots

As will not leave their tinct.

Hamlet

Nay, but to live

In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed,

Stew’d in corruption, honeying and making love

Over the nasty sty!

Queen

O, speak to me no more!

These words like daggers enter in mine ears.

No more, sweet Hamlet!

Hamlet

A murtherer and a villain!

A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe

Of your precedent lord; a vice of kings;

A cutpurse of the empire and the rule,

That from a shelf the precious diadem stole

And put it in his pocket!

Queen

No more!

Enter the Ghost in his nightgown.

Hamlet

A king of shreds and patches!-

Save me and hover o’er me with your wings,

You heavenly guards! What would your gracious figure?

Queen

Alas, he’s mad!

Hamlet

Do you not come your tardy son to chide,

That, laps’d in time and passion, lets go by

Th’ important acting of your dread command?

O, say!

Ghost

Do not forget. This visitation

Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.

But look, amazement on thy mother sits.

O, step between her and her fighting soul

Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works.

Speak to her, Hamlet.

Hamlet

How is it with you, lady?

Queen

Alas, how is’t with you,

That you do bend your eye on vacancy,

And with th’ encorporal air do hold discourse?

Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep;

And, as the sleeping soldiers in th’ alarm,

Your bedded hairs, like life in excrements,

Start up and stand an end. O gentle son,

Upon the beat and flame of thy distemper

Sprinkle cool patience! Whereon do you look?

Hamlet

On him, on him! Look you how pale he glares!

His form and cause conjoin’d, preaching to stones,

Would make them capable.- Do not look upon me,

Lest with this piteous action you convert

My stern effects. Then what I have to do

Will want true colour- tears perchance for blood.

Queen

To whom do you speak this?

Hamlet

Do you see nothing there?

Queen

Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.

Hamlet

Nor did you nothing hear?

Queen

No, nothing but ourselves.

Hamlet

Why, look you there! Look how it steals away!

My father, in his habit as he liv’d!

Look where he goes even now out at the portal!

Exit Ghost.

Queen

This is the very coinage of your brain.

This bodiless creation ecstasy

Is very cunning in.

Hamlet

Ecstasy?

My pulse as yours doth temperately keep time

And makes as healthful music. It is not madness

That I have utt’red. Bring me to the test,

And I the matter will reword; which madness

Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,

Lay not that flattering unction to your soul

That not your trespass but my madness speaks.

It will but skin and film the ulcerous place,

Whiles rank corruption, mining all within,

Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven;

Repent what’s past; avoid what is to come;

And do not spread the compost on the weeds

To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue;

For in the fatness of these pursy times

Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg-

Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good.

Queen

O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.

Hamlet

O, throw away the worser part of it,

And live the purer with the other half,

Good night- but go not to my uncle’s bed.

Assume a virtue, if you have it not.

That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat

Of habits evil, is angel yet in this,

That to the use of actions fair and good

He likewise gives a frock or livery,

That aptly is put on. Refrain to-night,

And that shall lend a kind of easiness

To the next abstinence; the next more easy;

For use almost can change the stamp of nature,

And either [master] the devil, or throw him out

With wondrous potency. Once more, good night;

And when you are desirous to be blest,

I’ll blessing beg of you.- For this same lord,

I do repent; but heaven hath pleas’d it so,

To punish me with this, and this with me,

That I must be their scourge and minister.

I will bestow him, and will answer well

The death I gave him. So again, good night.

I must be cruel, only to be kind;

Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.

One word more, good lady.

Queen

What shall I do?

Hamlet

Not this, by no means, that I bid you do:

Let the bloat King tempt you again to bed;

Pinch wanton on your cheek; call you his mouse;

And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses,

Or paddling in your neck with his damn’d fingers,

Make you to ravel all this matter out,

That I essentially am not in madness,

But mad in craft. ‘Twere good you let him know;

For who that’s but a queen, fair, sober, wise,

Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib

Such dear concernings hide? Who would do so?

No, in despite of sense and secrecy,

Unpeg the basket on the house’s top,

Let the birds fly, and like the famous ape,

To try conclusions, in the basket creep

And break your own neck down.

Queen

Be thou assur’d, if words be made of breath,

And breath of life, I have no life to breathe

What thou hast said to me.

Hamlet

I must to England; you know that?

Queen

Alack,

I had forgot! ‘Tis so concluded on.

Hamlet

There’s letters seal’d; and my two schoolfellows,

Whom I will trust as I will adders fang’d,

They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way

And marshal me to knavery. Let it work;

For ‘tis the sport to have the enginer

Hoist with his own petar; and ‘t shall go hard

But I will delve one yard below their mines

And blow them at the moon. O, ‘tis most sweet

When in one line two crafts directly meet.

This man shall set me packing.

I’ll lug the guts into the neighbour room.-

Mother, good night.- Indeed, this counsellor

Is now most still, most secret, and most grave,

Who was in life a foolish peating knave.

Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you.

Good night, mother.

[Exit the Queen. Then] Exit Hamlet, tugging in Polonius.

ACT IV

(Act IV, Scene V) Ophelia, gone mad, distributes flowers.

Scene I.

Elsinore. A room in the Castle.

Enter King and Queen, with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

King

There’s matter in these sighs. These profound heaves

You must translate; ‘tis fit we understand them.

Where is your son?

Queen

Bestow this place on us a little while.

[Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.]

Ah, mine own lord, what have I seen to-night!

King

What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?

Queen

Mad as the sea and wind when both contend

Which is the mightier. In his lawless fit

Behind the arras hearing something stir,

Whips out his rapier, cries ‘A rat, a rat!’

And in this brainish apprehension kills

The unseen good old man.

King

O heavy deed!

It had been so with us, had we been there.

His liberty is full of threats to all-

To you yourself, to us, to every one.

Alas, how shall this bloody deed be answer’d?

It will be laid to us, whose providence

Should have kept short, restrain’d, and out of haunt

This mad young man. But so much was our love

We would not understand what was most fit,

But, like the owner of a foul disease,

To keep it from divulging, let it feed

Even on the pith of life. Where is he gone?

Queen

To draw apart the body he hath kill’d;

O’er whom his very madness, like some ore

Among a mineral of metals base,

Shows itself pure. He weeps for what is done.

King

O Gertrude, come away!

The sun no sooner shall the mountains touch

But we will ship him hence; and this vile deed

We must with all our majesty and skill

Both countenance and excuse. Ho, Guildenstern!

Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

Friends both, go join you with some further aid.

Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain,

And from his mother’s closet hath he dragg’d him.

Go seek him out; speak fair, and bring the body

Into the chapel. I pray you haste in this.

Exeunt [Rosencrantz and Guildenstern].

Come, Gertrude, we’ll call up our wisest friends

And let them know both what we mean to do

And what’s untimely done. [So haply slander-]

Whose whisper o’er the world’s diameter,

As level as the cannon to his blank,

Transports his poisoned shot- may miss our name

And hit the woundless air.- O, come away!

My soul is full of discord and dismay.

Exeunt.

Scene II.

Elsinore. A passage in the Castle.

Enter Hamlet.

Hamlet

Safely stow’d.

Gentlemen

(within) Hamlet! Lord Hamlet!

Hamlet

But soft! What noise? Who calls on Hamlet? O, here they come.

Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

Rosencrantz

What have you done, my lord, with the dead body?

Hamlet

Compounded it with dust, whereto ‘tis kin.

Rosencrantz

Tell us where ‘tis, that we may take it thence

And bear it to the chapel.

Hamlet

Do not believe it.

Rosencrantz

Believe what?

Hamlet

That I can keep your counsel, and not mine own. Besides, to be demanded of a sponge, what replication should be made by the son of a king?

Rosencrantz

Take you me for a sponge, my lord?

Hamlet

Ay, sir; that soaks up the King’s countenance, his rewards, his authorities. But such officers do the King best service in the end. He keeps them, like an ape, in the corner of his jaw; first mouth’d, to be last Swallowed. When he needs what you have glean’d, it is but squeezing you and, sponge, you shall be dry again.

Rosencrantz

I understand you not, my lord.

Hamlet

I am glad of it. A knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear.

Rosencrantz

My lord, you must tell us where the body is and go with us to the King.

Hamlet

The body is with the King, but the King is not with the body.

The King is a thing-

Guildenstern

A thing, my lord?

Hamlet

Of nothing. Bring me to him. Hide fox, and all after.

Exeunt.

Scene III.

Elsinore. A room in the Castle.

Enter King.

King

I have sent to seek him and to find the body.

How dangerous is it that this man goes loose!

Yet must not we put the strong law on him.

He’s lov’d of the distracted multitude,

Who like not in their judgment, but their eyes;

And where ‘tis so, th’ offender’s scourge is weigh’d,

But never the offence. To bear all smooth and even,

This sudden sending him away must seem

Deliberate pause. Diseases desperate grown

By desperate appliance are reliev’d,

Or not at all.

Enter Rosencrantz.

How now O What hath befall’n?

Rosencrantz

Where the dead body is bestow’d, my lord,

We cannot get from him.

King

But where is he?

Rosencrantz

Without, my lord; guarded, to know your pleasure.

King

Bring him before us.

Rosencrantz

Ho, Guildenstern! Bring in my lord.

Enter Hamlet and Guildenstern [with Attendants].

King

Now, Hamlet, where’s Polonius?

Hamlet

At supper.

King

At supper? Where?

Hamlet

Not where he eats, but where he is eaten. A certain convocation of politic worms are e’en at him. Your worm is your only emperor for diet. We fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots. Your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service- two dishes, but to one table. That’s the end.

King

Alas, alas!

Hamlet

A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.

King

What dost thou mean by this?

Hamlet

Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar.

King

Where is Polonius?

Hamlet

In heaven. Send thither to see. If your messenger find him not there, seek him i’ th’ other place yourself. But indeed, if you find him not within this month, you shall nose him as you go up the stair, into the lobby.

King

Go seek him there. [To Attendants.]

Hamlet

He will stay till you come.

[Exeunt Attendants.]

King

Hamlet, this deed, for thine especial safety,-

Which we do tender as we dearly grieve

For that which thou hast done,- must send thee hence

With fiery quickness. Therefore prepare thyself.

The bark is ready and the wind at help,

Th’ associates tend, and everything is bent

For England.

Hamlet

For England?

King

Ay, Hamlet.

Hamlet

Good.

King

So is it, if thou knew’st our purposes.

Hamlet

I see a cherub that sees them. But come, for England!

Farewell, dear mother.

King

Thy loving father, Hamlet.

Hamlet

My mother! Father and mother is man and wife; man and wife is one flesh; and so, my mother. Come, for England!

Exit.

King

Follow him at foot; tempt him with speed aboard.

Delay it not; I’ll have him hence to-night.

Away! for everything is seal’d and done

That else leans on th’ affair. Pray you make haste.

Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern]

And, England, if my love thou hold’st at aught,-

As my great power thereof may give thee sense,

Since yet thy cicatrice looks raw and red

After the Danish sword, and thy free awe

Pays homage to us,- thou mayst not coldly set

Our sovereign process, which imports at full,

By letters congruing to that effect,

The present death of Hamlet. Do it, England;

For like the hectic in my blood he rages,

And thou must cure me. Till I know ‘tis done,

Howe’er my haps, my joys were ne’er begun.

Exit.

Scene IV.

Near Elsinore.

Enter Fortinbras with his Army over the stage.

For

Go, Captain, from me greet the Danish king.

Tell him that by his license Fortinbras

Craves the conveyance of a promis’d march

Over his kingdom. You know the rendezvous. if that his Majesty would aught with us,

We shall express our duty in his eye;

And let him know so.

Captain

I will do’t, my lord.

For

Go softly on.

Exeunt [all but the Captain].

Enter Hamlet, Rosencrantz, [Guildenstern,] and others.

Hamlet

Good sir, whose powers are these?

Captain

They are of Norway, sir.

Hamlet

How purpos’d, sir, I pray you?

Captain

Against some part of Poland.

Hamlet

Who commands them, sir?

Captain

The nephew to old Norway, Fortinbras.

Hamlet

Goes it against the main of Poland, sir,

Or for some frontier?

Captain

Truly to speak, and with no addition,

We go to gain a little patch of ground

That hath in it no profit but the name.

To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it;

Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole

A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee.

Hamlet

Why, then the Polack never will defend it.

Captain

Yes, it is already garrison’d.

Hamlet

Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats

Will not debate the question of this straw.

This is th’ imposthume of much wealth and peace,

That inward breaks, and shows no cause without

Why the man dies.- I humbly thank you, sir.

Captain

God b’ wi’ you, sir.

[Exit.]

Rosencrantz

Will’t please you go, my lord?

Hamlet

I’ll be with you straight. Go a little before.

[Exeunt all but Hamlet.]

How all occasions do inform against me

And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,

If his chief good and market of his time

Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more.

Sure he that made us with such large discourse,

Looking before and after, gave us not

That capability and godlike reason

To fust in us unus’d. Now, whether it be

Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple

Of thinking too precisely on th’ event,-

A thought which, quarter’d, hath but one part wisdom

And ever three parts coward,- I do not know

Why yet I live to say ‘This thing’s to do,’

Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means

To do’t. Examples gross as earth exhort me.

Witness this army of such mass and charge,

Led by a delicate and tender prince,

Whose spirit, with divine ambition puff’d,

Makes mouths at the invisible event,

Exposing what is mortal and unsure

To all that fortune, death, and danger dare,

Even for an eggshell. Rightly to be great

Is not to stir without great argument,

But greatly to find quarrel in a straw

When honour’s at the stake. How stand I then,

That have a father klll’d, a mother stain’d,

Excitements of my reason and my blood,

And let all sleep, while to my shame I see

The imminent death of twenty thousand men

That for a fantasy and trick of fame

Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot

Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,

Which is not tomb enough and continent

To hide the slain? O, from this time forth,

My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!

Exit.

Scene V.

Elsinore. A room in the Castle.

Enter Horatio, Queen, and a Gentleman.

Queen

I will not speak with her.

Gent

She is importunate, indeed distract.

Her mood will needs be pitied.

Queen

What would she have?

Gent

She speaks much of her father; says she hears

There’s tricks i’ th’ world, and hems, and beats her heart;

Spurns enviously at straws; speaks things in doubt,

That carry but half sense. Her speech is nothing,

Yet the unshaped use of it doth move

The hearers to collection; they aim at it,

And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts;

Which, as her winks and nods and gestures yield them,

Indeed would make one think there might be thought,

Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.

Horatio

‘Twere good she were spoken with; for she may strew

Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.

Queen

Let her come in.

[Exit Gentleman.]

[Aside] To my sick soul (as sin’s true nature is)

Each toy seems Prologue to some great amiss.

So full of artless jealousy is guilt

It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.

Enter Ophelia distracted.

Ophelia

Where is the beauteous Majesty of Denmark?

Queen

How now, Ophelia?

Ophelia

(Sings)

How should I your true-love know

From another one?

By his cockle bat and’ staff

And his sandal shoon.

Queen

Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?

Ophelia

Say you? Nay, pray You mark.

(Sings)

He is dead and gone, lady,

He is dead and gone;

At his head a grass-green turf,

At his heels a stone.

O, ho!

Queen

Nay, but Ophelia-

Ophelia

Pray you mark.

(Sings)

White his shroud as the mountain snow-

Enter King.

Queen

Alas, look here, my lord!

Ophelia

(Sings)

Larded all with sweet flowers;

Which bewept to the grave did not go

With true-love showers.

King

How do you, pretty lady?

Ophelia

Well, God dild you! They say the owl was a baker’s daughter.

Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be. God be at your table!

King

Conceit upon her father.

Ophelia

Pray let’s have no words of this; but when they ask, you what it means, say you this:

(Sings)

To-morrow is Saint Valentine’s day,

All in the morning bedtime,

And I a maid at your window,

To be your Valentine.

Then up be rose and donn’d his clo’es

And dupp’d the chamber door,

Let in the maid, that out a maid

Never departed more.

King

Pretty Ophelia!

Ophelia

Indeed, la, without an oath, I’ll make an end on’t!

[Sings]

By Gis and by Saint Charity,

Alack, and fie for shame!

Young men will do’t if they come to’t

By Cock, they are to blame.

Quoth she, ‘Before you tumbled me,

You promis’d me to wed.’

He answers:

‘So would I ‘a’ done, by yonder sun,

An thou hadst not come to my bed.’

King

How long hath she been thus?

Ophelia

I hope all will be well. We must be patient; but I cannot choose but weep to think they would lay him i’ th’ cold ground.

My brother shall know of it; and so I thank you for your good counsel. Come, my coach! Good night, ladies. Good night, sweet ladies. Good night, good night.

Exit

King

Follow her close; give her good watch, I pray you.

[Exit Horatio.]

O, this is the poison of deep grief; it springs

All from her father’s death. O Gertrude, Gertrude,

When sorrows come, they come not single spies.

But in battalions! First, her father slain;

Next, Your son gone, and he most violent author

Of his own just remove; the people muddied,

Thick and and unwholesome in their thoughts and whispers

For good Polonius’ death, and we have done but greenly

In hugger-mugger to inter him; Poor Ophelia

Divided from herself and her fair-judgment,

Without the which we are Pictures or mere beasts;

Last, and as such containing as all these,

Her brother is in secret come from France;

And wants not buzzers to infect his ear

Feeds on his wonder, keep, himself in clouds,

With pestilent speeches of his father’s death,

Wherein necessity, of matter beggar’d,

Will nothing stick Our person to arraign

In ear and ear. O my dear Gertrude, this,

Like to a murd’ring piece, in many places

Give, me superfluous death.

A noise within.

Queen

Alack, what noise is this?

King

Where are my Switzers? Let them guard the door.

Enter a Messenger.

What is the matter?

Mess

Save Yourself, my lord:

The ocean, overpeering of his list,

Eats not the flats with more impetuous haste

Than Young Laertes, in a riotous head,

O’erbears Your offices. The rabble call him lord;

And, as the world were now but to begin,

Antiquity forgot, custom not known,

The ratifiers and props of every word,

They cry ‘Choose we! Laertes shall be king!’

Caps, hands, and tongues applaud it to the clouds,

‘Laertes shall be king! Laertes king!’

A noise within.

Queen

How cheerfully on the false trail they cry!

O, this is counter, you false Danish dogs!

King

The doors are broke.

Enter Laertes with others.

Laertes

Where is this king?- Sirs, staid you all without.

All

No, let’s come in!

Laertes

I pray you give me leave.

All

We will, we will!

Laertes

I thank you. Keep the door.[Exeunt his Followers.]

O thou vile king,

Give me my father!

Queen

Calmly, good Laertes.

Laertes

That drop of blood that’s calm proclaims me bastard;

Cries cuckold to my father; brands the harlot

Even here between the chaste unsmirched brows

Of my true mother.

King

What is the cause, Laertes,

That thy rebellion looks so giantlike?

Let him go, Gertrude. Do not fear our person.

There’s such divinity doth hedge a king

That treason can but peep to what it would,

Acts little of his will. Tell me, Laertes,

Why thou art thus incens’d. Let him go, Gertrude.

Speak, man.

Laertes

Where is my father?

King

Dead.

Queen

But not by him!

King

Let him demand his fill.

Laertes

How came he dead? I’ll not be juggled with:

To hell, allegiance! vows, to the blackest devil

Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit!

I dare damnation. To this point I stand,

That both the world, I give to negligence,

Let come what comes; only I’ll be reveng’d

Most throughly for my father.

King

Who shall stay you?

Laertes

My will, not all the world!

And for my means, I’ll husband them so well

They shall go far with little.

King

Good Laertes,

If you desire to know the certainty

Of your dear father’s death, is’t writ in Your revenge

That swoopstake you will draw both friend and foe,

Winner and loser?

Laertes

None but his enemies.

King

Will you know them then?

Laertes

To his good friends thus wide I’ll ope my arms

And, like the kind life-rend’ring pelican,

Repast them with my blood.

King

Why, now You speak

Like a good child and a true gentleman.

That I am guiltless of your father’s death,

And am most sensibly in grief for it,

It shall as level to your judgment pierce

As day does to your eye.

A noise within: ‘Let her come in.’

Laertes

How now? What noise is that?

Enter Ophelia.

O heat, dry up my brains! Tears seven times salt

Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye!

By heaven, thy madness shall be paid by weight

Till our scale turn the beam. O rose of May!

Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!

O heavens! is’t possible a young maid’s wits

Should be as mortal as an old man’s life?

Nature is fine in love, and where ‘tis fine,

It sends some precious instance of itself

After the thing it loves.

Ophelia

(sings)

They bore him barefac’d on the bier

(Hey non nony, nony, hey nony)

And in his grave rain’d many a tear.

Fare you well, my dove!

Laertes

Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge,

It could not move thus.

Ophelia

You must sing ‘A-down a-down, and you call him a-down-a.’ O, how the wheel becomes it! It is the false steward, that stole his master’s daughter.

Laertes

This nothing’s more than matter.

Ophelia

There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember. And there is pansies, that’s for thoughts.

Laertes

A document in madness! Thoughts and remembrance fitted.

Ophelia

There’s fennel for you, and columbines. There’s rue for you, and here’s some for me. We may call it herb of grace o’ Sundays.

O, you must wear your rue with a difference! There’s a daisy. I would give you some violets, but they wither’d all when my father died. They say he made a good end.

[Sings]

For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.

Laertes

Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself,

She turns to favour and to prettiness.

Ophelia

(sings)

And will he not come again?

And will he not come again?

No, no, he is dead;

Go to thy deathbed;

He never will come again.

His beard was as white as snow,

All flaxen was his poll.

He is gone, he is gone,

And we cast away moan.

God ‘a’mercy on his soul!

And of all Christian souls, I pray God. God b’ wi’, you.

Exit.

Laertes

Do you see this, O God?

King

Laertes, I must commune with your grief,

Or you deny me right. Go but apart,

Make choice of whom your wisest friends you will,

And they shall hear and judge ‘twixt you and me.

If by direct or by collateral hand

They find us touch’d, we will our kingdom give,

Our crown, our life, and all that we call ours,

To you in satisfaction; but if not,

Be you content to lend your patience to us,

And we shall jointly labour with your soul

To give it due content.

Laertes

Let this be so.

His means of death, his obscure funeral-

No trophy, sword, nor hatchment o’er his bones,

No noble rite nor formal ostentation,-

Cry to be heard, as ‘twere from heaven to earth,

That I must call’t in question.

King

So you shall;

And where th’ offence is let the great axe fall.

I pray you go with me.

Exeunt.

Scene VI.

Elsinore. Another room in the Castle.

Enter Horatio with an Attendant.

Horatio

What are they that would speak with me?

Servant

Seafaring men, sir. They say they have letters for you.

Horatio

Let them come in.

[Exit Attendant.]

I do not know from what part of the world

I should be greeted, if not from Lord Hamlet.

Enter Sailors.

Sailor

God bless you, sir.

Horatio

Let him bless thee too.

Sailor

‘A shall, sir, an’t please him. There’s a letter for you, sir,- it comes from th’ ambassador that was bound for England- if your name be Horatio, as I am let to know it is.

Horatio

(reads the letter) ‘Horatio, when thou shalt have overlook’d this, give these fellows some means to the King. They have letters for him. Ere we were two days old at sea, a pirate of very warlike appointment gave us chase. Finding ourselves too slow of sail, we put on a compelled valour, and in the grapple I boarded them. On the instant they got clear of our ship; so I alone became their prisoner. They have dealt with me like thieves of mercy; but they knew what they did: I am to do a good turn for them. Let the King have the letters I have sent, and repair thou to me with as much speed as thou wouldst fly death. I have words to speak in thine ear will make thee dumb; yet are they much too light for the bore of the matter. These good fellows will bring thee where I am. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern hold their course for England. Of them I have much to tell thee. Farewell.

‘He that thou knowest thine, HAMLET.’

Come, I will give you way for these your letters,

And do’t the speedier that you may direct me

To him from whom you brought them.

Exeunt.

Scene VII.

Elsinore. Another room in the Castle.

Enter King and Laertes.

King

Now must your conscience my acquittance seal,

And You must put me in your heart for friend,

Sith you have heard, and with a knowing ear,

That he which hath your noble father slain

Pursued my life.

Laertes

It well appears. But tell me

Why you proceeded not against these feats

So crimeful and so capital in nature,

As by your safety, wisdom, all things else,

You mainly were stirr’d up.

King

O, for two special reasons,

Which may to you, perhaps, seein much unsinew’d,

But yet to me they are strong. The Queen his mother

Lives almost by his looks; and for myself,-

My virtue or my plague, be it either which,-

She’s so conjunctive to my life and soul

That, as the star moves not but in his sphere,

I could not but by her. The other motive

Why to a public count I might not go

Is the great love the general gender bear him,

Who, dipping all his faults in their affection,

Would, like the spring that turneth wood to stone,

Convert his gives to graces; so that my arrows,

Too slightly timber’d for so loud a wind,

Would have reverted to my bow again,

And not where I had aim’d them.

Laertes

And so have I a noble father lost;

A sister driven into desp’rate terms,

Whose worth, if praises may go back again,

Stood challenger on mount of all the age

For her perfections. But my revenge will come.

King

Break not your sleeps for that. You must not think

That we are made of stuff so flat and dull

That we can let our beard be shook with danger,

And think it pastime. You shortly shall hear more.

I lov’d your father, and we love ourself,

And that, I hope, will teach you to imagine-

Enter a Messenger with letters.

How now? What news?

Mess

Letters, my lord, from Hamlet:

This to your Majesty; this to the Queen.

King

From Hamlet? Who brought them?

Mess

Sailors, my lord, they say; I saw them not.

They were given me by Claudio; he receiv’d them

Of him that brought them.

King

Laertes, you shall hear them.

Leave us.

Exit Messenger.

[Reads] ’High and Mighty,-You shall know I am set naked on your kingdom. To-morrow shall I beg leave to see your kingly eyes; when I shall (first asking your pardon thereunto) recount the occasion of my sudden and more strange return.

‘HAMLET.’

What should this mean? Are all the rest come back?

Or is it some abuse, and no such thing?

Laertes

Know you the hand?

King

‘Tis Hamlet’s character. ‘Naked!’

And in a postscript here, he says ‘alone.’

Can you advise me?

Laertes

I am lost in it, my lord. But let him come!

It warms the very sickness in my heart

That I shall live and tell him to his teeth,

‘Thus didest thou.’

King

If it be so, Laertes

(As how should it be so? how otherwise?),

Will you be rul’d by me?

Laertes

Ay my lord,

So you will not o’errule me to a peace.

King

To thine own peace. If he be now return’d

As checking at his voyage, and that he means

No more to undertake it, I will work him

To exploit now ripe in my device,

Under the which he shall not choose but fall;

And for his death no wind

But even his mother shall uncharge the practice

And call it accident.

Laertes

My lord, I will be rul’d;

The rather, if you could devise it so

That I might be the organ.

King

It falls right.

You have been talk’d of since your travel much,

And that in Hamlet’s hearing, for a quality

Wherein they say you shine, Your sun of parts

Did not together pluck such envy from him

As did that one; and that, in my regard,

Of the unworthiest siege.

Laertes

What part is that, my lord?

King

A very riband in the cap of youth-

Yet needfull too; for youth no less becomes

The light and careless livery that it wears

Thin settled age his sables and his weeds,

Importing health and graveness. Two months since

Here was a gentleman of Normandy.

I have seen myself, and serv’d against, the French,

And they can well on horseback; but this gallant

Had witchcraft in’t. He grew unto his seat,

And to such wondrous doing brought his horse

As had he been incorps’d and demi-natur’d

With the brave beast. So far he topp’d my thought

That I, in forgery of shapes and tricks,

Come short of what he did.

Laertes

A Norman was’t?

King

A Norman.

Laertes

Upon my life, Lamound.

King

The very same.

Laertes

I know him well. He is the broach indeed

And gem of all the nation.

King

He made confession of you;

And gave you such a masterly report

For art and exercise in your defence,

And for your rapier most especially,

That he cried out ‘twould be a sight indeed

If one could match you. The scrimers of their nation

He swore had neither motion, guard, nor eye,

If you oppos’d them. Sir, this report of his

Did Hamlet so envenom with his envy

That he could nothing do but wish and beg

Your sudden coming o’er to play with you.

Now, out of this-

Laertes

What out of this, my lord?

King

Laertes, was your father dear to you?

Or are you like the painting of a sorrow,

A face without a heart,’

Laertes

Why ask you this?

King

Not that I think you did not love your father;

But that I know love is begun by time,

And that I see, in passages of proof,

Time qualifies the spark and fire of it.

There lives within the very flame of love

A kind of wick or snuff that will abate it;

And nothing is at a like goodness still;

For goodness, growing to a plurisy,

Dies in his own too-much. That we would do,

We should do when we would; for this ‘would’ changes,

And hath abatements and delays as many

As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents;

And then this ‘should’ is like a spendthrift sigh,

That hurts by easing. But to the quick o’ th’ ulcer!

Hamlet comes back. What would you undertake

To show yourself your father’s son in deed

More than in words?

Laertes

To cut his throat i’ th’ church!

King

No place indeed should murther sanctuarize;

Revenge should have no bounds. But, good Laertes,

Will you do this? Keep close within your chamber.

Will return’d shall know you are come home.

We’ll put on those shall praise your excellence

And set a double varnish on the fame

The Frenchman gave you; bring you in fine together

And wager on your heads. He, being remiss,

Most generous, and free from all contriving,

Will not peruse the foils; so that with ease,

Or with a little shuffling, you may choose

A sword unbated, and, in a pass of practice,

Requite him for your father.

Laertes

I will do’t!

And for that purpose I’ll anoint my sword.

I bought an unction of a mountebank,

So mortal that, but dip a knife in it,

Where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare,

Collected from all simples that have virtue

Under the moon, can save the thing from death

This is but scratch’d withal. I’ll touch my point

With this contagion, that, if I gall him slightly,

It may be death.

King

Let’s further think of this,

Weigh what convenience both of time and means

May fit us to our shape. If this should fall,

And that our drift look through our bad performance.

‘Twere better not assay’d. Therefore this project

Should have a back or second, that might hold

If this did blast in proof. Soft! let me see.

We’ll make a solemn wager on your cunnings-

I ha’t!

When in your motion you are hot and dry-

As make your bouts more violent to that end-

And that he calls for drink, I’ll have prepar’d him

A chalice for the nonce; whereon but sipping,

If he by chance escape your venom’d stuck,

Our purpose may hold there.- But stay, what noise,

Enter Queen.

How now, sweet queen?

Queen

One woe doth tread upon another’s heel,

So fast they follow. Your sister’s drown’d, Laertes.

Laertes

Drown’d! O, where?

Queen

There is a willow grows aslant a brook,

That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream.

There with fantastic garlands did she come

Of crowflowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples,

That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,

But our cold maids do dead men’s fingers call them.

There on the pendant boughs her coronet weeds

Clamb’ring to hang, an envious sliver broke,

When down her weedy trophies and herself

Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide

And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up;

Which time she chaunted snatches of old tunes,

As one incapable of her own distress,

Or like a creature native and indued

Unto that element; but long it could not be

Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,

Pull’d the poor wretch from her melodious lay

To muddy death.

Laertes

Alas, then she is drown’d?

Queen

Drown’d, drown’d.

Laertes

Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia,

And therefore I forbid my tears; but yet

It is our trick; nature her custom holds,

Let shame say what it will. When these are gone,

The woman will be out. Adieu, my lord.

I have a speech of fire, that fain would blaze

But that this folly douts it.

Exit.

King

Let’s follow, Gertrude.

How much I had to do to calm his rage I

Now fear I this will give it start again;

Therefore let’s follow.

Exeunt.

ACT V

Act V, Scene 1: Hamlet and Horatio by the grave being dug for Ophelia.

Scene I.

Elsinore. A churchyard.

Enter two Clowns, [with spades and pickaxes].

Clown

Is she to be buried in Christian burial when she wilfully seeks her own salvation?

Other

I tell thee she is; therefore make her grave straight.

The crowner hath sate on her, and finds it Christian burial.

Clown

How can that be, unless she drown’d herself in her own defence?

Other

Why, ‘tis found so.

Clown

It must be se offendendo; it cannot be else. For here lies the point: if I drown myself wittingly, it argues an act; and an act hath three branches-it is to act, to do, and to perform; argal, she drown’d herself wittingly.

Other

Nay, but hear you, Goodman Delver!

Clown

Give me leave. Here lies the water; good. Here stands the man; good. If the man go to this water and drown himself, it is, will he nill he, he goes- mark you that. But if the water come to him and drown him, he drowns not himself. Argal, he that is not guilty of his own death shortens not his own life.

Other

But is this law?

Clown

Ay, marry, is’t- crowner’s quest law.

Other

Will you ha’ the truth an’t? If this had not been a gentlewoman, she should have been buried out o’ Christian burial.

Clown

Why, there thou say’st! And the more pity that great folk should have count’nance in this world to drown or hang themselves more than their even-Christen. Come, my spade! There is no ancient gentlemen but gard’ners, ditchers, and grave-makers. They hold up Adam’s profession.

Other

Was he a gentleman?

Clown

‘A was the first that ever bore arms.

Other

Why, he had none.

Clown

What, art a heathen? How dost thou understand the Scripture?

The Scripture says Adam digg’d. Could he dig without arms? I’ll put another question to thee. If thou answerest me not to the purpose, confess thyself-

Other

Go to!

Clown

What is he that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?

Other

The gallows-maker; for that frame outlives a thousand tenants.

Clown

I like thy wit well, in good faith. The gallows does well.

But how does it well? It does well to those that do ill. Now, thou dost ill to say the gallows is built stronger than the church. Argal, the gallows may do well to thee. To’t again, come!

Other

Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a carpenter?

Clown

Ay, tell me that, and unyoke.

Other

Marry, now I can tell!

Clown

To’t.

Other

Mass, I cannot tell.

Enter Hamlet and Horatio afar off.

Clown

Cudgel thy brains no more about it, for your dull ass will not mend his pace with beating; and when you are ask’d this question next, say ‘a grave-maker.’ The houses he makes lasts till doomsday. Go, get thee to Yaughan; fetch me a stoup of liquor.

[Exit Second Clown.]

[Clown digs and sings.]

In youth when I did love, did love,

Methought it was very sweet;

To contract- O- the time for- a- my behove,

O, methought there- a- was nothing- a- meet.

Hamlet

Has this fellow no feeling of his business, that he sings at grave-making?

Horatio

Custom hath made it in him a Property of easiness.

Hamlet

‘Tis e’en so. The hand of little employment hath the daintier sense.

Clown

(sings)

But age with his stealing steps

Hath clawed me in his clutch,

And hath shipped me intil the land,

As if I had never been such.

[Throws up a skull.]

Hamlet

That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once. How the knave jowls it to the ground,as if ‘twere Cain’s jawbone, that did the first murther! This might be the pate of a Politician, which this ass now o’erreaches; one that would circumvent God, might it not?

Horatio

It might, my lord.

Hamlet

Or of a courtier, which could say ‘Good morrow, sweet lord!

How dost thou, good lord?’ This might be my Lord Such-a-one, that prais’d my Lord Such-a-one’s horse when he meant to beg it- might it not?

Horatio

Ay, my lord.

Hamlet

Why, e’en so! and now my Lady Worm’s, chapless, and knock’d about the mazzard with a sexton’s spade. Here’s fine revolution, and we had the trick to see’t. Did these bones cost no more the breeding but to play at loggets with ‘em? Mine ache to think on’t.

Clown

(Sings)

A pickaxe and a spade, a spade,

For and a shrouding sheet;

O, a Pit of clay for to be made

For such a guest is meet.

Throws up [another skull].

Hamlet

There’s another. Why may not that be the skull of a lawyer?

Where be his quiddits now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks? Why does he suffer this rude knave now to knock him about the sconce with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of his action of battery? Hum! This fellow might be in’s time a great buyer of land, with his statutes, his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers, his recoveries. Is this the fine of his fines, and the recovery of his recoveries, to have his fine pate full of fine dirt? Will his vouchers vouch him no more of his purchases, and double ones too, than the length and breadth of a pair of indentures? The very conveyances of his lands will scarcely lie in this box; and must th’ inheritor himself have no more, ha?

Horatio

Not a jot more, my lord.

Hamlet

Is not parchment made of sheepskins?

Horatio

Ay, my lord, And of calveskins too.

Hamlet

They are sheep and calves which seek out assurance in that. I will speak to this fellow. Whose grave’s this, sirrah?

Clown

Mine, sir.

[Sings]

O, a pit of clay for to be made

For such a guest is meet.

Hamlet

I think it be thine indeed, for thou liest in’t.

Clown

You lie out on’t, sir, and therefore ‘tis not yours.

For my part, I do not lie in’t, yet it is mine.

Hamlet

Thou dost lie in’t, to be in’t and say it is thine. ‘Tis for the dead, not for the quick; therefore thou liest.

Clown

‘Tis a quick lie, sir; ‘twill away again from me to you.

Hamlet

What man dost thou dig it for?

Clown

For no man, sir.

Hamlet

What woman then?

Clown

For none neither.

Hamlet

Who is to be buried in’t?

Clown

One that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she’s dead.

Hamlet

How absolute the knave is! We must speak by the card, or equivocation will undo us. By the Lord, Horatio, this three years I have taken note of it, the age is grown so picked that the toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier he galls his kibe.- How long hast thou been a grave-maker?

Clown

Of all the days i’ th’ year, I came to’t that day that our last king Hamlet overcame Fortinbras.

Hamlet

How long is that since?

Clown

Cannot you tell that? Every fool can tell that. It was the very day that young Hamlet was born- he that is mad, and sent into England.

Hamlet

Ay, marry, why was be sent into England?

Clown

Why, because ‘a was mad. ‘A shall recover his wits there; or, if ‘a do not, ‘tis no great matter there.

Hamlet

Why?

Clown

‘Twill not he seen in him there. There the men are as mad as he.

Hamlet

How came he mad?

Clown

Very strangely, they say.

Hamlet

How strangely?

Clown

Faith, e’en with losing his wits.

Hamlet

Upon what ground?

Clown

Why, here in Denmark. I have been sexton here, man and boy thirty years.

Hamlet

How long will a man lie i’ th’ earth ere he rot?

Clown

Faith, if ‘a be not rotten before ‘a die (as we have many pocky corses now-a-days that will scarce hold the laying in, I will last you some eight year or nine year. A tanner will last you nine year.

Hamlet

Why he more than another?

Clown

Why, sir, his hide is so tann’d with his trade that ‘a will keep out water a great while; and your water is a sore decayer of your whoreson dead body. Here’s a skull now. This skull hath lien you i’ th’ earth three-and-twenty years.

Hamlet

Whose was it?

Clown

A whoreson, mad fellow’s it was. Whose do you think it was?

Hamlet

Nay, I know not.

Clown

A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! ‘A pour’d a flagon of Rhenish on my head once. This same skull, sir, was Yorick’s skull, the King’s jester.

Hamlet

This?

Clown

E’en that.

Hamlet

Let me see. [Takes the skull.] Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him,

Horatio

A fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath borne me on his back a thousand tunes. And now how abhorred in my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kiss’d I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning? Quite chap- fall’n? Now get you to my lady’s chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come. Make her laugh at that. Prithee, Horatio, tell me one thing.

Horatio

What’s that, my lord?

Hamlet

Dost thou think Alexander look’d o’ this fashion i’ th’ earth?

Horatio

E’en so.

Hamlet

And smelt so? Pah!

[Puts down the skull.]

Horatio

E’en so, my lord.

Hamlet

To what base uses we may return, Horatio! Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander till he find it stopping a bunghole?

Horatio

‘Twere to consider too curiously, to consider so.

Hamlet

No, faith, not a jot; but to follow him thither with modesty enough, and likelihood to lead it; as thus: Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth into dust; the dust is earth; of earth we make loam; and why of that loam (whereto he was converted) might they not stop a beer barrel?

Imperious Caesar, dead and turn’d to clay,

Might stop a hole to keep the wind away.

O, that that earth which kept the world in awe

Should patch a wall t’ expel the winter’s flaw!

But soft! but soft! aside! Here comes the King-

Enter [priests with] a coffin [in funeral procession], King, Queen, Laertes, with Lords attendant.]

The Queen, the courtiers. Who is this they follow?

And with such maimed rites? This doth betoken

The corse they follow did with desp’rate hand

Fordo it own life. ‘Twas of some estate.

Couch we awhile, and mark.

[Retires with Horatio.]

Laertes

What ceremony else?

Hamlet

That is Laertes,

A very noble youth. Mark.

Laertes

What ceremony else?

Priest

Her obsequies have been as far enlarg’d

As we have warranty. Her death was doubtful;

And, but that great command o’ersways the order,

She should in ground unsanctified have lodg’d

Till the last trumpet. For charitable prayers,

Shards, flints, and pebbles should be thrown on her.

Yet here she is allow’d her virgin crants,

Her maiden strewments, and the bringing home

Of bell and burial.

Laertes

Must there no more be done?

Priest

No more be done.

We should profane the service of the dead

To sing a requiem and such rest to her

As to peace-parted souls.

Laertes

Lay her i’ th’ earth;

And from her fair and unpolluted flesh

May violets spring! I tell thee, churlish priest,

A minist’ring angel shall my sister be

When thou liest howling.

Hamlet

What, the fair Ophelia?

Queen

Sweets to the sweet! Farewell.

[Scatters flowers.]

I hop’d thou shouldst have been my Hamlet’s wife;

I thought thy bride-bed to have deck’d, sweet maid,

And not have strew’d thy grave.

Laertes

O, treble woe

Fall ten times treble on that cursed head

Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense

Depriv’d thee of! Hold off the earth awhile,

Till I have caught her once more in mine arms.

Leaps in the grave.

Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead

Till of this flat a mountain you have made

T’ o’ertop old Pelion or the skyish head

Of blue Olympus.

Hamlet

[comes forward] What is he whose grief

Bears such an emphasis? whose phrase of sorrow

Conjures the wand’ring stars, and makes them stand

Like wonder-wounded hearers? This is I,

Hamlet the Dane.

[Leaps in after Laertes.]

Laertes

The devil take thy soul!

[Grapples with him].

Hamlet

Thou pray’st not well.

I prithee take thy fingers from my throat;

For, though I am not splenitive and rash,

Yet have I in me something dangerous,

Which let thy wisdom fear. Hold off thy hand!

King

Pluck thein asunder.

Queen

Hamlet, Hamlet!

All

Gentlemen!

Horatio

Good my lord, be quiet.

[The Attendants part them, and they come out of the grave.]

Hamlet

Why, I will fight with him upon this theme

Until my eyelids will no longer wag.

Queen

O my son, what theme?

Hamlet

I lov’d Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers

Could not (with all their quantity of love)

Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?

King

O, he is mad, Laertes.

Queen

For love of God, forbear him!

Hamlet

‘Swounds, show me what thou’t do.

Woo’t weep? woo’t fight? woo’t fast? woo’t tear thyself?

Woo’t drink up esill? eat a crocodile?

I’ll do’t. Dost thou come here to whine?

To outface me with leaping in her grave?

Be buried quick with her, and so will I.

And if thou prate of mountains, let them throw

Millions of acres on us, till our ground,

Singeing his pate against the burning zone,

Make Ossa like a wart! Nay, an thou’lt mouth,

I’ll rant as well as thou.

Queen

This is mere madness;

And thus a while the fit will work on him.

Anon, as patient as the female dove

When that her golden couplets are disclos’d,

His silence will sit drooping.

Hamlet

Hear you, sir!

What is the reason that you use me thus?

I lov’d you ever. But it is no matter.

Let Hercules himself do what he may,

The cat will mew, and dog will have his day.

Exit.

King

I pray thee, good Horatio, wait upon him.

Exit Horatio.

[To Laertes] Strengthen your patience in our last night’s speech.

We’ll put the matter to the present push.-

Good Gertrude, set some watch over your son.-

This grave shall have a living monument.

An hour of quiet shortly shall we see;

Till then in patience our proceeding be.

Exeunt.

Scene II.

Elsinore. A hall in the Castle.

Enter Hamlet and Horatio.

Hamlet

So much for this, sir; now shall you see the other.

You do remember all the circumstance?

Horatio

Remember it, my lord!

Hamlet

Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting

That would not let me sleep. Methought I lay

Worse than the mutinies in the bilboes. Rashly-

And prais’d be rashness for it; let us know,

Our indiscretion sometime serves us well

When our deep plots do pall; and that should learn us

There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,

Rough-hew them how we will-

Horatio

That is most certain.

Hamlet

Up from my cabin,

My sea-gown scarf’d about me, in the dark

Grop’d I to find out them; had my desire,

Finger’d their packet, and in fine withdrew

To mine own room again; making so bold

(My fears forgetting manners) to unseal

Their grand commission; where I found, Horatio

(O royal knavery!), an exact command,

Larded with many several sorts of reasons,

Importing Denmark’s health, and England’s too,

With, hoo! such bugs and goblins in my life-

That, on the supervise, no leisure bated,

No, not to stay the finding of the axe,

My head should be struck off.

Horatio

Is’t possible?

Hamlet

Here’s the commission; read it at more leisure.

But wilt thou bear me how I did proceed?

Horatio

I beseech you.

Hamlet

Being thus benetted round with villanies,

Or I could make a prologue to my brains,

They had begun the play. I sat me down;

Devis’d a new commission; wrote it fair.

I once did hold it, as our statists do,

A baseness to write fair, and labour’d much

How to forget that learning; but, sir, now

It did me yeoman’s service. Wilt thou know

Th’ effect of what I wrote?

Horatio

Ay, good my lord.

Hamlet

An earnest conjuration from the King,

As England was his faithful tributary,

As love between them like the palm might flourish,

As peace should still her wheaten garland wear

And stand a comma ‘tween their amities,

And many such-like as’s of great charge,

That, on the view and knowing of these contents,

Without debatement further, more or less,

He should the bearers put to sudden death,

Not shriving time allow’d.

Horatio

How was this seal’d?

Hamlet

Why, even in that was heaven ordinant.

I had my father’s signet in my purse, which was the model of that Danish seal;

Folded the writ up in the form of th’ other,

Subscrib’d it, gave’t th’ impression, plac’d it safely,

The changeling never known. Now, the next day

Was our sea-fight; and what to this was sequent

Thou know’st already.

Horatio

So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to’t.

Hamlet

Why, man, they did make love to this employment!

They are not near my conscience; their defeat

Does by their own insinuation grow.

‘Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes

Between the pass and fell incensed points

Of mighty opposites.

Horatio

Why, what a king is this!

Hamlet

Does it not, thinks’t thee, stand me now upon-

He that hath kill’d my king, and whor’d my mother;

Popp’d in between th’ election and my hopes;

Thrown out his angle for my Proper life,

And with such coz’nage- is’t not perfect conscience

To quit him with this arm? And is’t not to be damn’d

To let this canker of our nature come

In further evil?

Horatio

It must be shortly known to him from England

What is the issue of the business there.

Hamlet

It will be short; the interim is mine,

And a man’s life is no more than to say ‘one.’

But I am very sorry, good Horatio,

That to Laertes I forgot myself,

For by the image of my cause I see

The portraiture of his. I’ll court his favours.

But sure the bravery of his grief did put me

Into a tow’ring passion.

Horatio

Peace! Who comes here?

Enter young Osric, a courtier.

Osric

Your lordship is right welcome back to Denmark.

Hamlet

I humbly thank you, sir. [Aside to Horatio] Dost know this waterfly?

Horatio

[aside to Hamlet] No, my good lord.

Hamlet

[aside to Horatio] Thy state is the more gracious; for ‘tis a vice to know him. He hath much land, and fertile. Let a beast be lord of beasts, and his crib shall stand at the king’s mess. ‘Tis a chough; but, as I say, spacious in the possession of dirt.

Osric

Sweet lord, if your lordship were at leisure, I should impart a thing to you from his Majesty.

Hamlet

I will receive it, sir, with all diligence of spirit. Put your bonnet to his right use. ‘Tis for the head.

Osric

I thank your lordship, it is very hot.

Hamlet

No, believe me, ‘tis very cold; the wind is northerly.

Osric

It is indifferent cold, my lord, indeed.

Hamlet

But yet methinks it is very sultry and hot for my complexion.

Osric

Exceedingly, my lord; it is very sultry, as ‘twere- I cannot tell how. But, my lord, his Majesty bade me signify to you that he has laid a great wager on your head. Sir, this is the matter-

Hamlet

I beseech you remember.

[Hamlet moves him to put on his hat.]

Osric

Nay, good my lord; for mine ease, in good faith. Sir, here is newly come to court Laertes; believe me, an absolute gentleman, full of most excellent differences, of very soft society and great showing. Indeed, to speak feelingly of him, he is the card or calendar of gentry; for you shall find in him the continent of what part a gentleman would see.

Hamlet

Sir, his definement suffers no perdition in you; though, I know, to divide him inventorially would dozy th’ arithmetic of memory, and yet but yaw neither in respect of his quick sail.

But, in the verity of extolment, I take him to be a soul of great article, and his infusion of such dearth and rareness as, to make true diction of him, his semblable is his mirror, and who else would trace him, his umbrage, nothing more.

Osric

Your lordship speaks most infallibly of him.

Hamlet

The concernancy, sir? Why do we wrap the gentleman in our more rawer breath

Osric

Sir?

Horatio

[aside to Hamlet] Is’t not possible to understand in another tongue? You will do’t, sir, really.

Hamlet

What imports the nomination of this gentleman

Osric

Of Laertes?

Horatio

[aside] His purse is empty already. All’s golden words are spent.

Hamlet

Of him, sir.

Osric

I know you are not ignorant-

Hamlet

I would you did, sir; yet, in faith, if you did, it would not much approve me. Well, sir?

Osric

You are not ignorant of what excellence Laertes is-

Hamlet

I dare not confess that, lest I should compare with him in excellence; but to know a man well were to know himself.

Osric

I mean, sir, for his weapon; but in the imputation laid on him by them, in his meed he’s unfellowed.

Hamlet

What’s his weapon?

Osric

Rapier and dagger.

Hamlet

That’s two of his weapons- but well.

Osric

The King, sir, hath wager’d with him six Barbary horses; against the which he has impon’d, as I take it, six French rapiers and poniards, with their assigns, as girdle, hangers, and so. Three of the carriages, in faith, are very dear to fancy, very responsive to the hilts, most delicate carriages, and of very liberal conceit.

Hamlet

What call you the carriages?

Horatio

[aside to Hamlet] I knew you must be edified by the margent ere you had done.

Osric

The carriages, sir, are the hangers.

Hamlet

The phrase would be more germane to the matter if we could carry cannon by our sides. I would it might be hangers till then.

But on! Six Barbary horses against six French swords, their assigns, and three liberal-conceited carriages: that’s the French bet against the Danish. Why is this all impon’d, as you call it?

Osric

The King, sir, hath laid that, in a dozen passes between yourself and him, he shall not exceed you three hits; he hath laid on twelve for nine, and it would come to immediate trial if your lordship would vouchsafe the answer.

Hamlet

How if I answer no?

Osric

I mean, my lord, the opposition of your person in trial.

Hamlet

Sir, I will walk here in the hall. If it please his Majesty, it is the breathing time of day with me. Let the foils be brought, the gentleman willing, and the King hold his purpose, I will win for him if I can; if not, I will gain nothing but my shame and the odd hits.

Osric

Shall I redeliver you e’en so?

Hamlet

To this effect, sir, after what flourish your nature will.

Osric

I commend my duty to your lordship.

Hamlet

Yours, yours. [Exit Osric.] He does well to commend it himself; there are no tongues else for’s turn.

Horatio

This lapwing runs away with the shell on his head.

Hamlet

He did comply with his dug before he suck’d it. Thus has he, and many more of the same bevy that I know the drossy age dotes on, only got the tune of the time and outward habit of encounter- a kind of yesty collection, which carries them through and through the most fann’d and winnowed opinions; and do but blow them to their trial-the bubbles are out,

Enter a Lord.

Lord

My lord, his Majesty commended him to you by young Osric, who brings back to him, that you attend him in the hall. He sends to know if your pleasure hold to play with Laertes, or that you will take longer time.

Hamlet

I am constant to my purposes; they follow the King’s pleasure.

If his fitness speaks, mine is ready; now or whensoever, provided

I be so able as now.

Lord

The King and Queen and all are coming down.

Hamlet

In happy time.

Lord

The Queen desires you to use some gentle entertainment to Laertes before you fall to play.

Hamlet

She well instructs me.

[Exit Lord.]

Horatio

You will lose this wager, my lord.

Hamlet

I do not think so. Since he went into France I have been in continual practice. I shall win at the odds. But thou wouldst not think how ill all’s here about my heart. But it is no matter.

Horatio

Nay, good my lord -

Hamlet

It is but foolery; but it is such a kind of gaingiving as would perhaps trouble a woman.

Horatio

If your mind dislike anything, obey it. I will forestall their repair hither and say you are not fit.

Hamlet

Not a whit, we defy augury; there’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ‘tis not to come’, if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all. Since no man knows aught of what he leaves, what is’t to leave betimes? Let be.

Enter King, Queen, Laertes, Osric, and Lords, with other Attendants with foils and gauntlets.

A table and flagons of wine on it.

King

Come, Hamlet, come, and take this hand from me.

[The King puts Laertes’ hand into Hamlet’s.]

Hamlet

Give me your pardon, sir. I have done you wrong;

But pardon’t, as you are a gentleman.

This presence knows,

And you must needs have heard, how I am punish’d

With sore distraction. What I have done

That might your nature, honour, and exception

Roughly awake, I here proclaim was madness.

Was’t Hamlet wrong’d Laertes? Never Hamlet.

If Hamlet from himself be taken away,

And when he’s not himself does wrong Laertes,

Then Hamlet does it not, Hamlet denies it.

Who does it, then? His madness. If’t be so,

Hamlet is of the faction that is wrong’d;

His madness is poor Hamlet’s enemy.

Sir, in this audience,

Let my disclaiming from a purpos’d evil

Free me so far in your most generous thoughts

That I have shot my arrow o’er the house

And hurt my brother.

Laertes

I am satisfied in nature,

Whose motive in this case should stir me most

To my revenge. But in my terms of honour

I stand aloof, and will no reconcilement

Till by some elder masters of known honour

I have a voice and precedent of peace

To keep my name ungor’d. But till that time

I do receive your offer’d love like love,

And will not wrong it.

Hamlet

I embrace it freely,

And will this brother’s wager frankly play.

Give us the foils. Come on.

Laertes

Come, one for me.

Hamlet

I’ll be your foil, Laertes. In mine ignorance

Your skill shall, like a star i’ th’ darkest night,

Stick fiery off indeed.

Laertes

You mock me, sir.

Hamlet

No, by this bad.

King

Give them the foils, young Osric. Cousin Hamlet,

You know the wager?

Hamlet

Very well, my lord.

Your Grace has laid the odds o’ th’ weaker side.

King

I do not fear it, I have seen you both;

But since he is better’d, we have therefore odds.

Laertes

This is too heavy; let me see another.

Hamlet

This likes me well. These foils have all a length?

Prepare to play.

Osric

Ay, my good lord.

King

Set me the stoups of wine upon that table.

If Hamlet give the first or second hit,

Or quit in answer of the third exchange,

Let all the battlements their ordnance fire;

The King shall drink to Hamlet’s better breath,

And in the cup an union shall he throw

Richer than that which four successive kings

In Denmark’s crown have worn. Give me the cups;

And let the kettle to the trumpet speak,

The trumpet to the cannoneer without,

The cannons to the heavens, the heaven to earth,

‘Now the King drinks to Hamlet.’ Come, begin.

And you the judges, bear a wary eye.

Hamlet

Come on, sir.

Laertes

Come, my lord.

They play.

Hamlet

One.

Laertes

No.

Hamlet

Judgment!

Osric

A hit, a very palpable hit.

Laertes

Well, again!

King

Stay, give me drink. Hamlet, this pearl is thine;

Here’s to thy health.

[Drum; trumpets sound; a piece goes off [within].

Give him the cup.

Hamlet

I’ll play this bout first; set it by awhile.

Come. (They play.) Another hit. What say you?

Laertes

A touch, a touch; I do confess’t.

King

Our son shall win.

Queen

He’s fat, and scant of breath.

Here, Hamlet, take my napkin, rub thy brows.

The Queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet.

Hamlet

Good madam!

King

Gertrude, do not drink.

Queen

I will, my lord; I pray you pardon me.

Drinks.

King

[aside] It is the poison’d cup; it is too late.

Hamlet

I dare not drink yet, madam; by-and-by.

Queen

Come, let me wipe thy face.

Laertes

My lord, I’ll hit him now.

King

I do not think’t.

Laertes

[aside] And yet it is almost against my conscience.

Hamlet

Come for the third, Laertes! You but dally. pray You Pass with your best violence; I am afeard You make a wanton of me.

Laertes

Say you so? Come on. Play.

Osric

Nothing neither way.

Laertes

Have at you now!

[Laertes wounds Hamlet; then] in scuffling, they change rapiers, [and Hamlet wounds Laertes].

King

Part them! They are incens’d.

Hamlet

Nay come! again!

The Queen falls.

Osric

Look to the Queen there, ho!

Horatio

They bleed on both sides. How is it, my lord?

Osric

How is’t, Laertes?

Laertes

Why, as a woodcock to mine own springe, Osric.

I am justly kill’d with mine own treachery.

Hamlet

How does the Queen?

King

She sounds to see them bleed.

Queen

No, no! the drink, the drink! O my dear Hamlet!

The drink, the drink! I am poison’d.

[Dies.]

Hamlet

O villany! Ho! let the door be lock’d.

Treachery! Seek it out.

[Laertes falls.]

Laertes

It is here, Hamlet. Hamlet, thou art slain;

No medicine in the world can do thee good.

In thee there is not half an hour of life.

The treacherous instrument is in thy hand,

Unbated and envenom’d. The foul practice

Hath turn’d itself on me. Lo, here I lie,

Never to rise again. Thy mother’s poison’d.

I can no more. The King, the King’s to blame.

Hamlet

The point envenom’d too?

Then, venom, to thy work.

Hurts the King.

All

Treason! treason!

King

O, yet defend me, friends! I am but hurt.

Hamlet

Here, thou incestuous, murd’rous, damned Dane,

Drink off this potion! Is thy union here?

Follow my mother.

King dies.

Laertes

He is justly serv’d.

It is a poison temper’d by himself.

Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet.

Mine and my father’s death come not upon thee,

Nor thine on me!

Dies.

Hamlet

Heaven make thee free of it! I follow thee.

I am dead, Horatio. Wretched queen, adieu!

You that look pale and tremble at this chance,

That are but mutes or audience to this act,

Had I but time (as this fell sergeant, Death,

Is strict in his arrest) O, I could tell you-

But let it be. Horatio, I am dead;

Thou liv’st; report me and my cause aright

To the unsatisfied.

Horatio

Never believe it.

I am more an antique Roman than a Dane.

Here’s yet some liquor left.

Hamlet

As th’art a man,

Give me the cup. Let go! By heaven, I’ll ha’t.

O good Horatio, what a wounded name

(Things standing thus unknown) shall live behind me!

If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart,

Absent thee from felicity awhile,

And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,

To tell my story. [March afar off, and shot within.]

What warlike noise is this?

Osric

Young Fortinbras, with conquest come from Poland,

To the ambassadors of England gives

This warlike volley.

Hamlet

O, I die, Horatio!

The potent poison quite o’ercrows my spirit.

I cannot live to hear the news from England,

But I do prophesy th’ election lights

On Fortinbras. He has my dying voice.

So tell him, with th’ occurrents, more and less,

Which have solicited- the rest is silence.

Dies.

Horatio

Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince,

And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!

[March within.]

Why does the drum come hither?

Enter Fortinbras and English Ambassadors, with Drum, Colours, and Attendants.

Fortinbras

Where is this sight?

Horatio

What is it you will see?

If aught of woe or wonder, cease your search.

Fortinbras

This quarry cries on havoc. O proud Death,

What feast is toward in thine eternal cell

That thou so many princes at a shot

So bloodily hast struck.

Ambassador

The sight is dismal;

And our affairs from England come too late.

The ears are senseless that should give us bearing

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 th’ 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 th’ inventors’ heads. All this can I

Truly deliver.

Fortinbras

Let us haste to hear it,

And call the noblest to the audience.

For me, with sorrow I embrace my fortune.

I have some rights of memory in this kingdom

Which now, to claim my vantage doth invite me.

Horatio

Of that I shall have also cause to speak,

And from his mouth whose voice will draw on more.

But let this same be presently perform’d,

Even while men’s minds are wild, lest more mischance

On plots and errors happen.

Fortinbras

Let four captains

Bear Hamlet like a soldier to the stage;

For he was likely, had he been put on,

To have prov’d most royally; and for his passage

The soldiers’ music and the rites of war

Speak loudly for him.

Take up the bodies. Such a sight as this

Becomes the field but here shows much amiss.

Go, bid the soldiers shoot.

Exeunt marching; after the which a peal of ordinance are shot off.