THE TRAGEDY OF HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK

Contents
ACT I
Scene I. Elsinore. A platform before the Castle
Scene II. Elsinore. A room of state in the Castle
Scene III. A room in PoloniusÕs house
Scene IV. The platform
Scene V. A more remote part of the Castle
ACT II
Scene I. A room in PoloniusÕs house
Scene II. A room in the Castle
ACT III
Scene I. A room in the Castle
Scene II. A hall in the Castle
Scene III. A room in the Castle
Scene IV. Another room in the Castle
ACT IV
Scene I. A room in the Castle
Scene II. Another room in the Castle
Scene III. Another room in the Castle
Scene IV. A plain in Denmark
Scene V. Elsinore. A room in the Castle
Scene VI. Another room in the Castle
Scene VII. Another room in the Castle
ACT V
Scene I. A churchyard
Scene II. A hall in the Castle
Dramatis Person¾
HAMLET, Prince of Denmark
CLAUDIUS, King of Denmark, HamletÕs uncle
The GHOST of the late king, HamletÕs father
GERTRUDE, the Queen, HamletÕs mother, now wife of Claudius
POLONIUS, Lord Chamberlain
LAERTES, Son to Polonius
OPHELIA, Daughter to Polonius
HORATIO, Friend to Hamlet
FORTINBRAS, Prince of Norway
VOLTEMAND, Courtier
CORNELIUS, Courtier
ROSENCRANTZ, Courtier
GUILDENSTERN, Courtier
MARCELLUS, Officer
BARNARDO, Officer
FRANCISCO, a Soldier
OSRIC, Courtier
REYNALDO, Servant to Polonius
Players
A Gentleman, Courtier
A Priest
Two Clowns, Grave-diggers
A Captain
English Ambassadors.
Lords, Ladies, Officers, Soldiers, Sailors, Messengers, and Attendants
SCENE. Elsinore.
ACT I
SCENE I. Elsinore. A platform before the Castle.
EnterÊFranciscoÊandÊBarnardo, two sentinels.
BARNARDO.
WhoÕs there?
FRANCISCO.
Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold yourself.
BARNARDO.
Long live the King!
FRANCISCO.
Barnardo?
BARNARDO.
He.
FRANCISCO.
You come most carefully upon your hour.
BARNARDO.
ÕTis now struck twelve. Get thee to bed, Francisco.
FRANCISCO.
For this relief much thanks. ÕTis bitter cold,
And I am sick at heart.
BARNARDO.
Have you had quiet guard?
FRANCISCO.
Not a mouse stirring.
BARNARDO.
Well, good night.
If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,
The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste.
EnterÊHoratioÊandÊMarcellus.
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 relievÕd you?
FRANCISCO.
Barnardo has my place. Give you good-night.
[Exit.]
MARCELLUS.
Holla, Barnardo!
BARNARDO.
Say, what, is Horatio there?
HORATIO.
A piece of him.
BARNARDO.
Welcome, Horatio. Welcome, good Marcellus.
MARCELLUS.
What, has this thing appearÕd again tonight?
BARNARDO.
I have seen nothing.
MARCELLUS.
Horatio says Õtis 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, Õtwill not appear.
BARNARDO.
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 Barnardo speak of this.
BARNARDO.
Last night of all,
When yond same star thatÕs westward from the pole,
Had made his course tÕillume that part of heaven
Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself,
The bell then beating oneÑ
MARCELLUS.
Peace, break thee off. Look where it comes again.
EnterÊGhost.
BARNARDO.
In the same figure, like the King thatÕs dead.
MARCELLUS.
Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio.
BARNARDO.
Looks it not like the King? Mark it, Horatio.
HORATIO.
Most like. It harrows me with fear and wonder.
BARNARDO
It would be spoke to.
MARCELLUS.
Question it, Horatio.
HORATIO.
What art thou that usurpÕst 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.
BARNARDO.
See, it stalks away.
HORATIO.
Stay! speak, speak! I charge thee speak!
[ExitÊGhost.]
MARCELLUS.
ÕTis gone, and will not answer.
BARNARDO.
How now, Horatio! You tremble and look pale.
Is not this something more than fantasy?
What think you onÕt?
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 thÕambitious Norway combated;
So frownÕd he once, when in an angry parle
He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice.
ÕTis 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 isÕt that can inform me?
HORATIO.
That can I;
At least, the whisper goes so. Our last King,
Whose image even but now appearÕd to us,
Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,
Thereto prickÕd on by a most emulate pride,
DarÕd to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet,
For so this side of our known world esteemÕd him,
Did slay this Fortinbras; who by a sealÕd compact,
Well ratified by law and heraldry,
Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands
Which he stood seizÕd of, to the conqueror;
Against the which, a moiety competent
Was gaged by our King; which had returnÕd
To the inheritance of Fortinbras,
Had he been vanquisher; as by the same covÕnant
And carriage of the article designÕd,
His fell to Hamlet. Now, sir, young Fortinbras,
Of unimproved mettle, hot and full,
Hath in the skirts of Norway, here and there,
SharkÕd up a list of lawless resolutes,
For food and diet, to some enterprise
That hath a stomach inÕt; 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 rummage in the land.
BARNARDO.
I think it be no other but eÕen 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 mindÕs 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 NeptuneÕs 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 climatures and countrymen.
Re-enterÊGhost.
But, soft, behold! Lo, where it comes again!
IÕll cross it, though it blast me. Stay, illusion!
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 grace to me,
Speak to me.
If thou art privy to thy countryÕs 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,
Speak of it. Stay, and speak!
[The cock crows.]
Stop it, Marcellus!
MARCELLUS.
Shall I strike at it with my partisan?
HORATIO.
Do, if it will not stand.
BARNARDO.
ÕTis here!
HORATIO.
ÕTis here!
[ExitÊGhost.]
MARCELLUS.
ÕTis gone!
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.
BARNARDO.
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,
ThÕextravagant 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 Õgainst that season comes
Wherein our SaviourÕs 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 hallowÕd 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 oÕer the dew of yon high eastward hill.
Break we our watch up, and by my advice,
Let us impart what we have seen tonight
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?
MARCELLUS.
LetÕs doÕt, 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.
Enter ClaudiusÊKingÊof Denmark, Gertrude theÊQueen, Hamlet, Polonius, Laertes, Voltemand,
Cornelius, LordsÊandÊAttendant.
KING.
Though yet of Hamlet our dear brotherÕs 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,
ThÕimperial jointress to this warlike state,
Have we, as Õtwere with a defeated joy,
With one auspicious and one 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 barrÕd
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 brotherÕs death
Our state to be disjoint and out of frame,
Colleagued with this dream of his advantage,
He hath not failÕd to pester us with message,
Importing the surrender of those lands
Lost by his father, with all bonds 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 bed-rid, scarcely hears
Of this his nephewÕs 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.
Farewell; and let your haste commend your duty.
CORNELIUS and VOLTEMAND.
In that, and all things, will we show our duty.
KING.
We doubt it nothing: heartily farewell.
[ExeuntÊVoltemandÊandÊCornelius.]
And now, Laertes, whatÕs the news with you?
You told us of some suit. What isÕt, 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.
Dread my 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 fatherÕs 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 sealÕd 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 sonÑ
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 iÕ the 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 knowÕst Õtis 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.
ÕTis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
Nor customary suits of solemn black,
Nor windy suspiration of forcÕd breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected haviour of the visage,
Together with all forms, moods, shows 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.
ÕTis 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 persevere
In obstinate condolement is a course
Of impious stubbornness. ÕTis unmanly grief,
It shows a will most incorrect to heaven,
A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,
An understanding simple and unschoolÕd;
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, Õtis 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 today,
ÔThis must be so.Õ 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, Õtis a loving and a fair reply.
Be as ourself in Denmark. Madam, come;
This gentle and unforcÕd accord of Hamlet
Sits smiling to my heart; in grace whereof,
No jocund health that Denmark drinks today
But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell,
And the KingÕs rouse the heaven shall bruit again,
Re-speaking earthly thunder. Come away.
[Exeunt all butÊHamlet.]
HAMLET.
O that this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fixÕd
His canon Õgainst self-slaughter. O God! O God!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie onÕt! Oh fie! Õtis 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 deadÑnay, 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 monthÑ
Let me not think onÕtÑFrailty, thy name is woman!
A little month, or ere those shoes were old
With which she followed my poor fatherÕs body
Like Niobe, all tears.ÑWhy she, even sheÑ
O God! A beast that wants discourse of reason
Would have mournÕd longer,Ñmarried with mine uncle,
My fatherÕs 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.
EnterÊHoratio, MarcellusÊandÊBarnardo.
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;
IÕll change that name with you:
And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio?Ñ
Marcellus?
MARCELLUS.
My good lord.
HAMLET.
I am very glad to see you.ÑGood even, sir.Ñ
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?
WeÕll teach you to drink deep ere you depart.
HORATIO.
My lord, I came to see your fatherÕs funeral.
HAMLET.
I prithee do not mock me, fellow-student.
I think it was to see my motherÕs wedding.
HORATIO.
Indeed, my lord, it followÕd hard upon.
HAMLET.
Thrift, thrift, Horatio! The funeral bakÕd 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,Ñmethinks I see my father.
HORATIO.
Where, my lord?
HAMLET.
In my mindÕs 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 GodÕs love let me hear.
HORATIO.
Two nights together had these gentlemen,
Marcellus and Barnardo, on their watch
In the dead waste and middle of the night,
Been thus encounterÕd. A figure like your father,
Armed at point exactly, cap-ˆ-pie,
Appears before them, and with solemn march
Goes slow and stately by them: thrice he walkÕd
By their oppressÕd and fear-surprised eyes,
Within his truncheonÕs length; whilst they, distillÕd
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 deliverÕd, 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.
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 vanishÕd from our sight.
HAMLET.
ÕTis very strange.
HORATIO.
As I do live, my honourÕd lord, Õtis 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 tonight?
MARCELLUS and BARNARDO.
We do, my lord.
HAMLET.
ArmÕd, say you?
Both.
ArmÕd, 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, lookÕd he frowningly?
HORATIO.
A countenance more in sorrow than in anger.
HAMLET.
Pale, or red?
HORATIO.
Nay, very pale.
HAMLET.
And fixÕd his eyes upon you?
HORATIO.
Most constantly.
HAMLET.
I would I had been there.
HORATIO.
It would have much amazÕd you.
HAMLET.
Very like, very like. StayÕd it long?
HORATIO.
While one with moderate haste might tell a hundred.
MARCELLUS and BARNARDO.
Longer, longer.
HORATIO.
Not when I sawÕt.
HAMLET.
His beard was grizzled, no?
HORATIO.
It was, as I have seen it in his life,
A sable silverÕd.
HAMLET.
I will watch tonight;
Perchance Õtwill walk again.
HORATIO.
I warrant you it will.
HAMLET.
If it assume my noble fatherÕs person,
IÕll speak to it, though hell itself should gape
And bid me hold my peace. I pray you all,
If you have hitherto concealÕd this sight,
Let it be tenable in your silence still;
And whatsoever else shall hap tonight,
Give it an understanding, but no tongue.
I will requite your loves. So, fare ye well.
Upon the platform Õtwixt eleven and twelve,
IÕll visit you.
ALL.
Our duty to your honour.
HAMLET.
Your loves, as mine to you: farewell.
[ExeuntÊHoratio, MarcellusÊandÊBarnardo.]
My fatherÕs 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 oÕerwhelm them, to menÕs eyes.
[Exit.]
SCENE III. A room in PoloniusÕs house.
EnterÊLaertesÊandÊOphelia.
LAERTES.
My necessaries are embarkÕd. 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 weighÕd, his will is not his own;
For he himself is subject to his birth:
He may not, as unvaluÕd persons do,
Carve for himself; for on his choice depends
The sanctity and health of this whole state;
And therefore must his choice be circumscribÕd
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 unmasterÕd 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 Õscapes not calumnious strokes:
The canker galls the infants of the spring
Too oft before their buttons be disclosÕd,
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 thÕeffect 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;
Whilst like a puffÕd and reckless libertine
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
And recks not his own rede.
LAERTES.
O, fear me not.
I stay too long. But here my father comes.
EnterÊPolonius.
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 stayÕd for. There, my blessing with you.
[Laying his hand onÊLaertesÕsÊhead.]
And these few precepts in thy memory
Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportionÕd 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-hatchÕd, unfledgÕd comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel; but being in,
BearÕt that thÕopposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice:
Take each manÕs censure, but reserve thy judgement.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not expressÕd in fancy; rich, not gaudy:
For the apparel oft proclaims the man;
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a 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.
ÕTis in my memory lockÕd,
And you yourself shall keep the key of it.
LAERTES.
Farewell.
[Exit.]
POLONIUS.
What isÕt, Ophelia, he hath said to you?
OPHELIA.
So please you, something touching the Lord Hamlet.
POLONIUS.
Marry, well bethought:
ÕTis 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,Ñas so Õtis put on me,
And that in way of caution,ÑI must tell you
You do not understand yourself so clearly
As it behoves 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, IÕll teach you; think yourself a baby;
That you have taÕen these tenders for true pay,
Which are not sterling. Tender yourself more dearly;
Or,Ñnot to crack the wind of the poor phrase,
Running it thus,ÑyouÕll tender me a fool.
OPHELIA.
My lord, he hath importunÕd 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 toÕt, I charge you; come your ways.
OPHELIA.
I shall obey, my lord.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE IV. The platform.
EnterÊHamlet, HoratioÊandÊMarcellus.
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 ordnance shot off within.]
What does this mean, my lord?
HAMLET.
The King doth wake tonight and takes his rouse,
Keeps wassail, and the swaggering upspring reels;
And as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down,
The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out
The triumph of his pledge.
HORATIO.
Is it a custom?
HAMLET.
Ay marry isÕt;
And to my mind, though I am native here,
And to the manner born, it is a custom
More honourÕd in the breach than the observance.
This heavy-headed revel east and west
Makes us traducÕd and taxÕd of other nations:
They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish phrase
Soil our addition; and indeed it takes
From our achievements, though performÕd 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 their oÕergrowth of some complexion,
Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason;
Or by some habit, that too much oÕerleavens
The form of plausive manners;Ñthat these men,
Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect,
Being NatureÕs livery or FortuneÕs star,Ñ
His virtues else,Ñbe 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 evil
Doth all the noble substance of a doubt
To his own scandal.
HORATIO.
Look, my lord, it comes!
EnterÊGhost.
HAMLET.
Angels and ministers of grace defend us!
Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damnÕd,
Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,
Be thy intents wicked or charitable,
Thou comÕst in such a questionable shape
That I will speak to thee. IÕll call thee Hamlet,
King, father, royal Dane. O, answer me!
Let me not burst in ignorance; but tell
Why thy canonizÕd bones, hearsed in death,
Have burst their cerements; why the sepulchre,
Wherein we saw thee quietly inurnÕd,
Hath opÕd his ponderous and marble jaws
To cast thee up again! What may this mean,
That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel,
RevisitÕst 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?
[GhostÊbeckonsÊHamlet.]
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 pinÕs fee;
And for my soul, what can it do to that,
Being a thing immortal as itself?
It waves me forth again. IÕll follow it.
HORATIO.
What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord,
Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff
That beetles oÕer 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 fathoms to the sea
And hears it roar beneath.
HAMLET.
It waves me still.
Go on, IÕll follow thee.
MARCELLUS.
You shall not go, my lord.
HAMLET.
Hold off your hands.
HORATIO.
Be rulÕd; you shall not go.
HAMLET.
My fate cries out,
And makes each petty artery in this body
As hardy as the Nemean lionÕs nerve.
[GhostÊbeckons.]
Still am I callÕd. Unhand me, gentlemen.
[Breaking free from them.]
By heaven, IÕll make a ghost of him that lets me.
I say, away!ÑGo on, IÕll follow thee.
[ExeuntÊGhostÊandÊHamlet.]
HORATIO.
He waxes desperate with imagination.
MARCELLUS.
LetÕs follow; Õtis not fit thus to obey him.
HORATIO.
Have after. To what issue will this come?
MARCELLUS.
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
HORATIO.
Heaven will direct it.
MARCELLUS.
Nay, letÕs follow him.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE V. A more remote part of the Castle.
EnterÊGhostÊandÊHamlet.
HAMLET.
Whither wilt thou lead me? Speak, IÕll go no further.
GHOST.
Mark me.
HAMLET.
I will.
GHOST.
My hour is almost come,
When I to sulphÕrous 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 fatherÕs spirit,
DoomÕd for a certain term to walk the night,
And for the day confinÕd to fast in fires,
Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
Are burnt and purgÕd 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 on 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 loveÑ
HAMLET.
O God!
GHOST.
Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.
HAMLET.
Murder!
GHOST.
Murder most foul, as in the best it is;
But this most foul, strange, and unnatural.
HAMLET.
Haste me to knowÕt, 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.
ÕTis 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 abusÕd; but know, thou noble youth,
The serpent that did sting thy fatherÕs life
Now wears his crown.
HAMLET.
O my prophetic soul!
Mine uncle!
GHOST.
Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast,
With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts,Ñ
O wicked wit, and gifts, that have the power
So to seduce!Ñwon 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 movÕd,
Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven;
So lust, though to a radiant angel linkÕd,
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 hebenon 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 quicksilver 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 barkÕd about,
Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust
All my smooth body.
Thus was I, sleeping, by a brotherÕs hand,
Of life, of crown, of queen at once dispatchÕd:
Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,
UnhousÕled, disappointed, unanelÕd;
No reckoning made, but sent to my account
With all my imperfections on my head.
O horrible! O horrible! most horrible!
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 pursuÕst 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 glow-worm shows the matin to be near,
And Õgins 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? O, fie! 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
IÕll 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,
UnmixÕd 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.
[Writing.]
So, uncle, there you are. Now to my word;
It is ÔAdieu, adieu, remember me.Õ
I have swornÕt.
HORATIO and MARCELLUS.
[Within.] My lord, my lord.
MARCELLUS.
[Within.] Lord Hamlet.
HORATIO.
[Within.] Heaven secure him.
HAMLET.
So be it!
MARCELLUS.
[Within.] Illo, ho, ho, my lord!
HAMLET.
Hillo, ho, ho, boy! Come, bird, come.
EnterÊHoratioÊandÊMarcellus.
MARCELLUS.
How isÕt, my noble lord?
HORATIO.
What news, my lord?
HAMLET.
O, wonderful!
HORATIO.
Good my lord, tell it.
HAMLET.
No, youÕll 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?Ñ
But youÕll be secret?
HORATIO and MARCELLUS.
Ay, by heaven, my lord.
HAMLET.
ThereÕs neÕer a villain dwelling in all Denmark
But heÕs an arrant knave.
HORATIO.
There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave
To tell us this.
HAMLET.
Why, right; you are iÕ the right;
And so, without more circumstance at all,
I hold it fit that we shake hands and part:
You, as your business and desire shall point you,Ñ
For every man hath business and desire,
Such as it is;Ñand for my own poor part,
Look you, IÕll go pray.
HORATIO.
These are but wild and whirling words, my lord.
HAMLET.
IÕm sorry they offend you, heartily;
Yes faith, heartily.
HORATIO.
ThereÕs 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,
OÕermasterÕt as you may. And now, good friends,
As you are friends, scholars, and soldiers,
Give me one poor request.
HORATIO.
What isÕt, my lord? We will.
HAMLET.
Never make known what you have seen tonight.
HORATIO and MARCELLUS.
My lord, we will not.
HAMLET.
Nay, but swearÕt.
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.] Swear.
HAMLET.
Ha, ha boy, sayst 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?ÊThen weÕll 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.
HAMLET.
Well said, old mole! Canst work iÕ thÕearth 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 soeÕer I bear myself,Ñ
As I perchance hereafter shall think meet
To put an antic disposition onÑ
That you, at such times seeing me, never shall,
With arms encumberÕd thus, or this head-shake,
Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase,
As ÔWell, we knowÕ, or ÔWe could and if we wouldÕ,
Or ÔIf we list to speakÕ; or ÔThere be and if they mightÕ,
Or such ambiguous giving out, to note
That you know aught of me:Ñthis not to do.
So grace and mercy at your most need help you,
Swear.
GHOST.
[Beneath.] 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 tÕexpress 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, letÕs go together.
[Exeunt.]
ACT II
SCENE I. A room in PoloniusÕs house.
EnterÊPoloniusÊandÊReynaldo.
POLONIUS.
Give him this money and these notes, Reynaldo.
REYNALDO.
I will, my lord.
POLONIUS.
You shall do marvellous wisely, good Reynaldo,
Before you visit him, to make inquiry
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 Õtwere some distant knowledge of him,
As thus, ÔI know his father and his friends,
And in part himÕÑdo you mark this, Reynaldo?
REYNALDO.
Ay, very well, my lord.
POLONIUS.
ÔAnd in part him, but,Õ you may say, Ônot well;
But ifÕt be he I mean, heÕs very wild;
Addicted so and so;Õ 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;
ThatÕs 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 lordÑ
POLONIUS.
Wherefore should you do this?
REYNALDO.
Ay, my lord, I would know that.
POLONIUS.
Marry, sir, hereÕs my drift,
And I believe it is a fetch of warrant.
You laying these slight sullies on my son,
As Õtwere a thing a little soilÕd iÕ thÕ 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 assurÕd
He closes with you in this consequence;
ÔGood sir,Õ or so; or Ôfriend,Õ or ÔgentlemanÕÑ
According to the phrase or the addition
Of man and country.
REYNALDO.
Very good, my lord.
POLONIUS.
And then, sir, does he this,Ñ
He doesÑWhat was I about to say?
By the mass, I was about to say something. Where did I leave?
REYNALDO.
At Ôcloses in the consequence.Õ
At Ôfriend or so,Õ and Ôgentleman.Õ
POLONIUS.
At Ôcloses in the consequenceÕ ay, marry!
He closes with you thus: ÔI know the gentleman,
I saw him yesterday, or tÕother day,
Or then, or then, with such and such; and, as you say,
There was he gaming, there oÕertook inÕs rouse,
There falling out at tennisÕ: or perchance,
ÔI saw him enter such a house of saleÕÑ
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 bÕ wiÕ you, fare you well.
REYNALDO.
Good my lord.
POLONIUS.
Observe his inclination in yourself.
REYNALDO.
I shall, my lord.
POLONIUS.
And let him ply his music.
REYNALDO.
Well, my lord.
POLONIUS.
Farewell.
[ExitÊReynaldo.]
EnterÊOphelia.
How now, Ophelia, whatÕs the matter?
OPHELIA.
Alas, my lord, I have been so affrighted.
POLONIUS.
With what, in the name of God?
OPHELIA.
My lord, as I was sewing in my chamber,
Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbracÕd,
No hat upon his head, his stockings foulÕd,
UngartÕred, 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 oÕer his brow,
He falls to such perusal of my face
As he would draw it. Long stayÕd he so,
At last,Ña little shaking of mine arm,
And thrice his head thus waving up and down,
He raisÕd 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 turnÕd
He seemÕd to find his way without his eyes,
For out oÕ 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,Ñ
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 judgement
I had not quoted him. I fearÕd he did but trifle,
And meant to wreck thee. But beshrew my jealousy!
It seems 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.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE II. A room in the Castle.
EnterÊKing, Queen, Rosencrantz, GuildensternÊandÊAttendants.
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 HamletÕs transformation; so I call it,
Since nor thÕexterior nor the inward man
Resembles that it was. What it should be,
More than his fatherÕs death, that thus hath put him
So much from thÕunderstanding of himself,
I cannot dream of. I entreat you both
That, being of so young days brought up with him,
And since so neighbourÕd to his youth and humour,
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, openÕd, lies within our remedy.
QUEEN.
Good gentlemen, he hath much talkÕd 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 kingÕs 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.
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.
[ExeuntÊRosencrantz, GuildensternÊand someÊAttendants.]
EnterÊPolonius.
POLONIUS.
ThÕambassadors from Norway, my good lord,
Are joyfully returnÕd.
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,Ñor else this brain of mine
Hunts not the trail of policy so sure
As it hath usÕd to doÑthat I have found
The very cause of HamletÕs lunacy.
KING.
O speak of that, that do I long to hear.
POLONIUS.
Give first admittance to thÕambassadors;
My news shall be the fruit to that great feast.
KING.
Thyself do grace to them, and bring them in.
[ExitÊPolonius.]
He tells me, my sweet queen, that he hath found
The head and source of all your sonÕs distemper.
QUEEN.
I doubt it is no other but the main,
His fatherÕs death and our oÕerhasty marriage.
KING.
Well, we shall sift him.
EnterÊPoloniusÊwithÊVoltemandÊandÊCornelius.
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 nephewÕs levies, which to him appearÕd
To be a preparation Õgainst the Polack;
But better lookÕd into, he truly found
It was against your Highness; whereat grievÕd,
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 thÕassay 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 considerÕd time weÕll read,
Answer, and think upon this business.
Meantime we thank you for your well-took labour.
Go to your rest, at night weÕll feast together:.
Most welcome home.
[ExeuntÊVoltemandÊandÊCornelius.]
POLONIUS.
This business is well ended.
My liege and madam, to expostulate
What majesty should be, what duty is,
Why day is day, night 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 isÕt 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, Õtis true: Õtis true Õtis pity;
And pity Õtis Õtis 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 daughterÑhave whilst she is mineÑ
Who in her duty and obedience, mark,
Hath given me this. Now gather, and surmise.
[Reads.]
To the celestial, and my soulÕs idol, the most beautified OpheliaÑ
ThatÕs an ill phrase, a vile phrase; ÔbeautifiedÕ is a vile
phrase: but you shall hear.
[Reads.]
these; in her excellent white bosom, these, &c.
QUEEN.
Came this from Hamlet to her?
POLONIUS.
Good madam, stay awhile; I will be faithful.
[Reads.]
ÊÊDoubt thou the stars are fire,
ÊÊÊÊÊDoubt that the sun doth move,
ÊÊÊDoubt truth to be a liar,
ÊÊÊÊÊBut 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.
ÊÊThine evermore, most dear lady, whilst this machine is to him,
ÊÊÊÊÊHAMLET.
This in obedience hath my daughter showÕd 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 receivÕd 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 perceivÕd 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 playÕd the desk or table-book,
Or given my heart a winking, mute and dumb,
Or lookÕd upon this love with idle sight,
What might you think? No, I went round to work,
And my young mistress thus I did bespeak:
ÔLord Hamlet is a prince, out of thy star.
This must not be.Õ And then I precepts 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,Ña short tale to makeÑ
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 wail for.
KING.
Do you think Õtis this?
QUEEN.
It may be, very likely.
POLONIUS.
Hath there been such a time, IÕd fain know that,
That I have positively said ÔÕTis so,Õ
When it provÕd otherwise?
KING.
Not that I know.
POLONIUS.
Take this from this, if this be otherwise.
[Points to his head and shoulder.]
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 IÕll loose my daughter to him.
Be you and I behind an arras then,
Mark the encounter. If he love her not,
And be not from his reason fallÕn thereon,
Let me be no assistant for a state,
But keep a farm and carters.
KING.
We will try it.
EnterÊHamlet,Êreading.
QUEEN.
But look where sadly the poor wretch comes reading.
POLONIUS.
Away, I do beseech you, both away
IÕll board him presently. O, give me leave.
[ExeuntÊKing, QueenÊandÊAttendants.]
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 picked out of ten thousand.
POLONIUS.
ThatÕs very true, my lord.
HAMLET.
For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a good kissing carrion,Ñ
Have you a daughter?
POLONIUS.
I have, my lord.
HAMLET.
Let her not walk iÕ thÕ sun. Conception is a blessing, but not as your daughter may conceive. Friend, look toÕt.
POLONIUS.
How say you by that? [Aside.] 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 suffered much extremity for love; very near this. IÕll speak to him again.ÑWhat 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 slave 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 method inÕt.Ñ
Will you walk out of the air, my lord?
HAMLET.
Into my grave?
POLONIUS.
Indeed, that is out oÕ the 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.
POLONIUS.
Fare you well, my lord.
HAMLET.
These tedious old fools.
EnterÊRosencrantzÊandÊGuildenstern.
POLONIUS.
You go to seek the Lord Hamlet; there he is.
ROSENCRANTZ.
[To Polonius.] God save you, sir.
[ExitÊPolonius.]
GUILDENSTERN.
My honoured 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 FortuneÕs 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. WhatÕs the news?
ROSENCRANTZ.
None, my lord, but that the worldÕs 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.
DenmarkÕs a prison.
ROSENCRANTZ.
Then is the world one.
HAMLET.
A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons, Denmark being one oÕ thÕ worst.
ROSENCRANTZ.
We think not so, my lord.
HAMLET.
Why, then Õtis 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; Õtis 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 shadowÕs shadow.
HAMLET.
Then are our beggars bodies, and our monarchs and outstretchÕd heroes the beggarsÕ shadows. Shall we to thÕ court? For, by my fay, I cannot reason.
ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.
WeÕll 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 the 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.
[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 oÕerhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is 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 ÔMan delights not meÕ?
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,Ñhis 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 oÕ thÕ sere; and the lady shall say her mind freely, or the blank verse shall halt forÕt. What players are they?
ROSENCRANTZ.
Even those you were wont to take such delight inÑthe 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 followed?
ROSENCRANTZ.
No, indeed, they are not.
HAMLET.
How comes it? Do they grow rusty?
ROSENCRANTZ.
Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace; but there is, sir, an aerie of children, little eyases, that cry out on the top of question, and are most tyrannically clapped forÕt. These are now the fashion, and so berattle the common stagesÑso they call themÑthat many wearing rapiers are afraid of goose-quills and dare scarce come thither.
HAMLET.
What, are they children? Who maintains Õem? 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 playersÑas it is most like, if their means are no betterÑtheir 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.
IsÕt 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 mouths at him while my father lived, give twenty, forty, fifty, a hundred ducats apiece for his picture in little. ÕSblood, there is something in this more than natural, if philosophy could find it out.
[Flourish of trumpets within.]
GUILDENSTERN.
There are the players.
HAMLET.
Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore. Your hands, come. The 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 outward, should more appear like entertainment than yours. You are welcome. But my uncle-father and aunt-mother are deceived.
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.
EnterÊPolonius.
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 heÕs 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.ÑYou say right, sir: for a Monday morning Õtwas 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 RomeÑ
POLONIUS.
The actors are come hither, my lord.
HAMLET.
Buzz, buzz.
POLONIUS.
Upon my honour.
HAMLET.
Then came each actor on his assÑ
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.
WhyÑ
ÊÊÊÕOne fair daughter, and no more,
ÊÊÊThe which he loved passing well.Õ
POLONIUS.
[Aside.] Still on my daughter.
HAMLET.
Am I not iÕ thÕ 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,
ÊÊÊAs by lot, God wot,
and then, you know,
ÊÊÊIt came to pass, as most like it was.
The first row of the pious chanson will show you more. For look where my abridgement comes.
Enter four or fiveÊPlayers.
You are welcome, masters, welcome all. I am glad to see thee well. Welcome, good friends. O, my old friend! Thy face is valancÕd since I saw thee last. ComÕst thou to beard me in Denmark? What, my young lady and mistress! ByÕr 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 cracked within the ring. Masters, you are all welcome. WeÕll eÕen toÕt like French falconers, fly at anything we see. WeÕll have a speech straight. Come, give us a taste of your quality. Come, a passionate speech.
FIRST PLAYER.
What speech, my 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, pleased not the million, Õtwas caviare to the general. But it wasÑas I received it, and others, whose judgements in such matters cried in the top of mineÑan 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 indite the author of affectation, but called it an honest method, as wholesome as sweet, and by very much more handsome than fine. One speech in it, I chiefly loved. ÕTwas AeneasÕ tale to Dido, and thereabout of it especially where he speaks of PriamÕs slaughter. If it live in your memory, begin at this line, let me see, let me see:
ÊÊÊThe rugged Pyrrhus, like thÕ Hyrcanian beast,Ñ
It is not so: it begins with PyrrhusÑ
ÊÊÊThe rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable arms,
ÊÊÊBlack as his purpose, did the night resemble
ÊÊÊWhen he lay couched in the ominous horse,
ÊÊÊHath now this dread and black complexion smearÕd
ÊÊÊWith heraldry more dismal. Head to foot
ÊÊÊNow is he total gules, horridly trickÕd
ÊÊÊWith blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons,
ÊÊÊBakÕd and impasted with the parching streets,
ÊÊÊThat lend a tyrannous and a damned light
ÊÊÊTo their vile murders. Roasted in wrath and fire,
ÊÊÊAnd thus oÕersized with coagulate gore,
ÊÊÊWith eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus
ÊÊÊOld grandsire Priam seeks.
So, proceed you.
POLONIUS.
ÕFore God, my lord, well spoken, with good accent and good discretion.
FIRST PLAYER.
ÊÊÊAnon he finds him,
ÊÊÊStriking too short at Greeks. His antique sword,
ÊÊÊRebellious to his arm, lies where it falls,
ÊÊÊRepugnant to command. Unequal matchÕd,
ÊÊÊPyrrhus at Priam drives, in rage strikes wide;
ÊÊÊBut with the whiff and wind of his fell sword
ÊÊÊThÕunnerved father falls. Then senseless Ilium,
ÊÊÊSeeming to feel this blow, with flaming top
ÊÊÊStoops to his base, and with a hideous crash
ÊÊÊTakes prisoner PyrrhusÕ ear. For lo, his sword,
ÊÊÊWhich was declining on the milky head
ÊÊÊOf reverend Priam, seemÕd iÕ thÕair to stick.
ÊÊÊSo, as a painted tyrant, Pyrrhus stood,
ÊÊÊAnd like a neutral to his will and matter,
ÊÊÊDid nothing.
ÊÊÊBut as we often see against some storm,
ÊÊÊA silence in the heavens, the rack stand still,
ÊÊÊThe bold winds speechless, and the orb below
ÊÊÊAs hush as death, anon the dreadful thunder
ÊÊÊDoth rend the region; so after PyrrhusÕ pause,
ÊÊÊAroused vengeance sets him new a-work,
ÊÊÊAnd never did the CyclopsÕ hammers fall
ÊÊÊOn MarsÕs armour, forgÕd for proof eterne,
ÊÊÊWith less remorse than PyrrhusÕ bleeding sword
ÊÊÊNow falls on Priam.
ÊÊÊOut, out, thou strumpet Fortune! All you gods,
ÊÊÊIn general synod, take away her power;
ÊÊÊBreak all the spokes and fellies from her wheel,
ÊÊÊAnd bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven,
ÊÊÊAs low as to the fiends.
POLONIUS.
This is too long.
HAMLET.
It shall to the barberÕs, with your beard.ÑPrithee say on.
HeÕs for a jig or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps.
Say on; come to Hecuba.
FIRST PLAYER.
ÊÊÊBut who, O who, had seen the mobled queen,Ñ
HAMLET.
ÔThe mobled queenÕ?
POLONIUS.
ThatÕs good! ÔMobled queenÕ is good.
FIRST PLAYER.
ÊÊÊRun barefoot up and down, threatÕning the flames
ÊÊÊWith bisson rheum. A clout upon that head
ÊÊÊWhere late the diadem stood, and for a robe,
ÊÊÊAbout her lank and all oÕerteemed loins,
ÊÊÊA blanket, in thÕalarm of fear caught upÑ
ÊÊÊWho this had seen, with tongue in venom steepÕd,
ÊÊÊÕGainst FortuneÕs state would treason have pronouncÕd.
ÊÊÊBut if the gods themselves did see her then,
ÊÊÊWhen she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport
ÊÊÊIn mincing with his sword her husbandÕs limbs,
ÊÊÊThe instant burst of clamour that she made,Ñ
ÊÊÊUnless things mortal move them not at all,Ñ
ÊÊÊWould have made milch the burning eyes of heaven,
ÊÊÊAnd passion in the gods.
POLONIUS.
Look, where he has not turnÕd his colour, and has tears inÕs eyes. Pray you, no more.
HAMLET.
ÕTis well. IÕll have thee speak out the rest of this soon.ÑGood my lord, will you see the players well bestowed? Do you hear, let them be well used; for they are the abstracts 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.
GodÕs bodikin, man, much better. Use every man after his desert, and who should Õscape 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. WeÕll hear a play tomorrow.
[ExeuntÊPoloniusÊwith all theÊPlayersÊbut the First.]
Dost thou hear me, old friend? Can you playÊThe Murder of Gonzago?
FIRST PLAYER.
Ay, my lord.
HAMLET.
WeÕll haÕt tomorrow night. You could for a need study a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines, which I would set down and insert inÕt, could you not?
FIRST PLAYER.
Ay, my lord.
HAMLET.
Very well. Follow that lord, and look you mock him not.
[ExitÊFirst Player.]
[To Rosencrantz and Guildenstern] My good friends, IÕll leave you till night. You are welcome to Elsinore.
ROSENCRANTZ.
Good my lord.
[ExeuntÊRosencrantzÊandÊGuildenstern.]
HAMLET.
Ay, so, God bÕ wiÕ ye. 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 wanÕd;
Tears in his eyes, distraction inÕs aspect,
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
With forms to his conceit? And all for nothing!
For Hecuba?
WhatÕs 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 damnÕd 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 the nose, gives me the lie iÕ thÕ throat
As deep as to the lungs? Who does me this?
Ha! ÕSwounds, I should take it: for it cannot be
But I am pigeon-liverÕd, and lack gall
To make oppression bitter, or ere this
I should have fatted all the region kites
With this slaveÕs offal. Bloody, bawdy villain!
Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!
Oh vengeance!
Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,
That I, the son of a dear father murderÕd,
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 uponÕt! Foh!
About, my brain! 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 proclaimÕd their malefactions.
For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ. IÕll have these players
Play something like the murder of my father
Before mine uncle. IÕll observe his looks;
IÕll tent him to the quick. If he but blench,
I know my course. The spirit that I have seen
May be the devil, and the devil hath power
TÕassume 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. IÕll have grounds
More relative than this. The playÕs the thing
Wherein IÕll catch the conscience of the King.
[Exit.]
ACT III
SCENE I. A room in the Castle.
EnterÊKing, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, RosencrantzÊandÊGuildenstern.
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 oÕer-raught on the way. Of these we told him,
And there did seem in him a kind of joy
To hear of it. They are about the court,
And, as I think, they have already order
This night to play before him.
POLONIUS.
ÕTis most true;
And he beseechÕd 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 inclinÕd.
Good gentlemen, give him a further edge,
And drive his purpose on to these delights.
ROSENCRANTZ.
We shall, my lord.
[ExeuntÊRosencrantzÊandÊGuildenstern.]
KING.
Sweet Gertrude, leave us too,
For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither,
That he, as Õtwere 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 behavÕd,
IfÕt be thÕaffliction 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 HamletÕs 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.
[ExitÊQueen.]
POLONIUS.
Ophelia, walk you here.ÑGracious, so please you,
We will bestow ourselves.Ñ[To Ophelia.] Read on this book,
That show of such an exercise may colour
Your loneliness.ÑWe are oft to blame in this,
ÕTis too much provÕd, that with devotionÕs visage
And pious action we do sugar oÕer
The devil himself.
KING.
[Aside.] O Õtis too true!
How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!
The harlotÕs cheek, beautied with plastering art,
Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it
Than is my deed to my most painted word.
O heavy burden!
POLONIUS.
I hear him coming. LetÕs withdraw, my lord.
[ExeuntÊKingÊandÊPolonius.]
EnterÊHamlet.
HAMLET.
To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether Õtis 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 dieÑto sleep,
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to: Õtis a consummation
Devoutly to be wishÕd. To die, to sleep.
To sleep, perchance to dreamÑay, thereÕs the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. ThereÕs the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressorÕs wrong, the proud manÕs contumely,
The pangs of disprizÕd love, the lawÕs delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the 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 undiscoverÕd 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 oÕer 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 rememberÕd.
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 honourÕd lord, you know right well you did,
And with them words of so sweet breath composÕd
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 believed 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. WhereÕs your father?
OPHELIA.
At home, my lord.
HAMLET.
Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool nowhere but inÕs own house. Farewell.
OPHELIA.
O help him, you sweet heavens!
HAMLET.
If thou dost marry, IÕll 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, and nickname GodÕs creatures, and make your wantonness your ignorance. Go to, IÕll no more onÕt, it hath made me mad. I say, we will have no more 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 oÕerthrown!
The courtierÕs, soldierÕs, scholarÕs, eye, tongue, sword,
ThÕexpectancy and rose of the fair state,
The glass of fashion and the mould of form,
ThÕobservÕd of all observers, quite, quite down!
And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
That suckÕd the honey of his music vows,
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,
Like sweet bells jangled out of tune and harsh,
That unmatchÕd form and feature of blown youth
Blasted with ecstasy. O woe is me,
TÕhave seen what I have seen, see what I see.
EnterÊKingÊandÊPolonius.
KING.
Love? His affections do not that way tend,
Nor what he spake, though it lackÕd form a little,
Was not like madness. ThereÕs something in his soul
OÕer 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 onÕt?
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 IÕll be placÕd, 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 unwatchÕd go.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE II. A hall in the Castle.
EnterÊHamletÊand certainÊPlayers.
HAMLET.
Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue. But if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as lief 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 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 ears of the groundlings, who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise. I would have such a fellow whipped for oÕerdoing Termagant. It out-Herods Herod. Pray you avoid it.
FIRST 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 oÕerstep 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 Õtwere 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 oÕerweigh a whole theatre of others. O, there be players that I have seen playÑand heard others praise, and that highlyÑnot 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 NatureÕs journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.
FIRST PLAYER.
I hope we have reformÕd 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 meantime some necessary question of the play be then to be considered. ThatÕs villainous, and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it. Go make you ready.
[ExeuntÊPlayers.]
EnterÊPolonius, RosencrantzÊandÊGuildenstern.
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.
[ExitÊPolonius.]
Will you two help to hasten them?
ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.
We will, my lord.
[ExeuntÊRosencrantzÊandÊGuildenstern.]
HAMLET.
What ho, Horatio!
EnterÊHoratio.
HORATIO.
Here, sweet lord, at your service.
HAMLET.
Horatio, thou art eÕen as just a man
As eÕer my conversation copÕd 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 flatterÕd?
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 sealÕd thee for herself. For thou hast been
As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing,
A man that FortuneÕs buffets and rewards
Hast taÕen with equal thanks. And blessed are those
Whose blood and judgement are so well co-mingled
That they are not a pipe for FortuneÕs finger
To sound what stop she please. Give me that man
That is not passionÕs slave, and I will wear him
In my heartÕs core, ay, in my heart of heart,
As I do thee. Something too much of this.
There is a play tonight before the King.
One scene of it comes near the circumstance
Which I have told thee, of my fatherÕs death.
I prithee, when thou seeÕst that act a-foot,
Even with the very comment of thy soul
Observe mine 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 VulcanÕs stithy. Give him heedful note;
For I mine eyes will rivet to his face;
And after we will both our judgements join
In censure of his seeming.
HORATIO.
Well, my lord.
If he steal aught the whilst this play is playing,
And Õscape detecting, I will pay the theft.
HAMLET.
They are coming to the play. I must be idle.
Get you a place.
Danish march. A flourish. EnterÊKing, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, GuildensternÊand others.
KING.
How fares our cousin Hamlet?
HAMLET.
Excellent, iÕ faith; of the chameleonÕs dish: I eat the air, promise-crammed: 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 playÕd once iÕ thÕuniversity, 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 killÕd iÕ thÕ Capitol. Brutus killed 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, hereÕs metal more attractive.
POLONIUS.
[To the King.] O ho! do you mark that?
HAMLET.
Lady, shall I lie in your lap?
[Lying down atÊOpheliaÕsÊfeet.]
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.
ThatÕs a fair thought to lie between maidsÕ 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 withinÕs two hours.
OPHELIA.
Nay, Õtis twice two months, my lord.
HAMLET.
So long? Nay then, let the devil wear black, for IÕll have a suit of sables. O heavens! die two months ago, and not forgotten yet? Then thereÕs hope a great manÕs memory may outlive his life half a year. But byÕr lady, he must build churches then; or else shall he suffer not thinking on, with the hobby-horse, whose epitaph is ÔFor, O, for O, the hobby-horse is forgot!Õ
Trumpets sound. 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. 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 KingÕs ears, and exits. The Queen returns, finds the King dead, and makes passionate action. The Poisoner with some three or four Mutes, comes in again, seeming to lament with her. The dead body is carried away. The Poisoner woos the Queen with gifts. She seems loth and unwilling awhile, but in the end accepts his love.
[Exeunt.]
OPHELIA.
What means this, my lord?
HAMLET.
Marry, this is miching mallecho; it means mischief.
OPHELIA.
Belike this show imports the argument of the play.
EnterÊPrologue.
HAMLET.
We shall know by this fellow: the players cannot keep counsel; theyÕll tell all.
OPHELIA.
Will they tell us what this show meant?
HAMLET.
Ay, or any show that youÕll show him. Be not you ashamed to show, heÕll not shame to tell you what it means.
OPHELIA.
You are naught, you are naught: IÕll mark the play.
PROLOGUE.
ÊÊÊFor us, and for our tragedy,
ÊÊÊHere stooping to your clemency,
ÊÊÊWe beg your hearing patiently.
HAMLET.
Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?
OPHELIA.
ÕTis brief, my lord.
HAMLET.
As womanÕs love.
Enter aÊKingÊand aÊQueen.
PLAYER KING.
Full thirty times hath PhoebusÕ cart gone round
NeptuneÕs salt wash and TellusÕ orbed ground,
And thirty dozen moons with borrowÕd sheen
About the world have times twelve thirties been,
Since love our hearts, and Hymen did our hands
Unite commutual in most sacred bands.
PLAYER QUEEN.
So many journeys may the sun and moon
Make us again count oÕer 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 womenÕs 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 sizÕd, my fear is so.
Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear;
Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.
PLAYER 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,
HonourÕd, belovÕd, and haply one as kind
For husband shalt thouÑ
PLAYER QUEEN.
O confound the rest.
Such love must needs be treason in my breast.
In second husband let me be accurst!
None wed the second but who killÕd the first.
HAMLET.
[Aside.] Wormwood, wormwood.
PLAYER 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.
PLAYER 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 fall unshaken when they mellow be.
Most necessary Õtis 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 Õtis not strange
That even our loves should with our fortunes change,
For Õtis 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 advancÕd 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.
PLAYER 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 anchorÕs 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.
[To Ophelia.] If she should break it now.
PLAYER KING.
ÕTis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here awhile.
My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile
The tedious day with sleep.
[Sleeps.]
PLAYER QUEEN.
Sleep rock thy brain,
And never come mischance between us twain.
[Exit.]
HAMLET.
Madam, how like you this play?
QUEEN.
The lady protests too much, methinks.
HAMLET.
O, but sheÕll keep her word.
KING.
Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence inÕt?
HAMLET.
No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest; no offence iÕ thÕ world.
KING.
What do you call the play?
HAMLET.
The Mousetrap.ÊMarry, how? Tropically. This play is the image of a murder done in Vienna. Gonzago is the DukeÕs name, his wife Baptista: you shall see anon; Õtis a knavish piece of work: but what oÕ that? Your majesty, and we that have free souls, it touches us not. Let the gallÕd jade wince; our withers are unwrung.
EnterÊLucianus.
This is one Lucianus, nephew to the King.
OPHELIA.
You are a good 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 mistake your husbands.ÑBegin, murderer. Pox, leave thy damnable faces, and begin. Come, the croaking raven doth bellow for revenge.
LUCIANUS.
Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing,
Confederate season, else no creature seeing;
Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected,
With HecateÕs ban thrice blasted, thrice infected,
Thy natural magic and dire property
On wholesome life usurp immediately.
[Pours the poison into the sleeperÕs ears.]
HAMLET.
He poisons him iÕ thÕgarden forÕs estate. His nameÕs Gonzago. The story is extant, and written in very choice Italian. You shall see anon how the murderer gets the love of GonzagoÕs wife.
OPHELIA.
The King rises.
HAMLET.
What, frighted with false fire?
QUEEN.
How fares my lord?
POLONIUS.
Give oÕer the play.
KING.
Give me some light. Away.
All.
Lights, lights, lights.
[Exeunt all butÊHamletÊandÊHoratio.]
HAMLET.
ÊÊÊWhy, let the strucken deer go weep,
ÊÊÊÊÊThe hart ungalled play;
ÊÊÊFor some must watch, while some must sleep,
ÊÊÊÊÊSo 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 razed shoes, get me a fellowship in a cry of players, sir?
HORATIO.
Half a share.
HAMLET.
A whole one, I.
ÊÊÊFor thou dost know, O Damon dear,
ÊÊÊÊÊThis realm dismantled was
ÊÊÊOf Jove himself, and now reigns here
ÊÊÊÊÊA very, veryÑpajock.
HORATIO.
You might have rhymed.
HAMLET.
O good Horatio, IÕll take the ghostÕs 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.
Ah, ha! Come, some music. Come, the recorders.
ÊÊÊFor if the king like not the comedy,
ÊÊÊWhy then, belike he likes it not, perdie.
Come, some music.
EnterÊRosencrantzÊandÊGuildenstern.
GUILDENSTERN.
Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you.
HAMLET.
Sir, a whole history.
GUILDENSTERN.
The King, sirÑ
HAMLET.
Ay, sir, what of him?
GUILDENSTERN.
Is in his retirement, marvellous distempered.
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 motherÕs 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 witÕs diseased. But, sir, such answer as I can make, you shall command; or rather, as you say, my mother. Therefore no more, but to the matter. My mother, you say,Ñ
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 motherÕs admiration?
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 so I 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 growsÑthe proverb is something musty.
Re-enter theÊPlayersÊwith recorders.
O, the recorders. Let me see one.ÑTo 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.
ÕTis as easy as lying: govern these ventages with your finger and thumb, 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 utterance 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. ÕSblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me.
EnterÊPolonius.
God bless you, sir.
POLONIUS.
My lord, the Queen would speak with you, and presently.
HAMLET.
Do you see yonder cloud thatÕs almost in shape of a camel?
POLONIUS.
By the mass, and Õtis like a camel indeed.
HAMLET.
Methinks it is like a weasel.
POLONIUS.
It is backed like a weasel.
HAMLET.
Or like a whale.
POLONIUS.
Very like a whale.
HAMLET.
Then will I come to my mother by and by.ÑThey fool me to the top of my bent.ÑI will come by and by.
POLONIUS.
I will say so.
[Exit.]
HAMLET.
By and by is easily said. Leave me, friends.
[Exeunt all butÊHamlet.]
ÕTis 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.
EnterÊKing, RosencrantzÊandÊGuildenstern.
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 Õnoyance; but much more
That spirit upon whose weal depend and rest
The lives of many. The cease of majesty
Dies not alone; but like a gulf doth draw
WhatÕs near it with it. It is a massy wheel
FixÕd on the summit of the highest mount,
To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things
Are mortisÕd and adjoinÕd; which when it falls,
Each small annexment, petty consequence,
Attends the boistÕrous ruin. Never alone
Did the King sigh, but with a general groan.
KING.
Arm you, I pray you, to this speedy voyage;
For we will fetters put upon this fear,
Which now goes too free-footed.
ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.
We will haste us.
[ExeuntÊRosencrantzÊandÊGuildenstern.]
EnterÊPolonius.
POLONIUS.
My lord, heÕs going to his motherÕs closet.
Behind the arras IÕll convey myself
To hear the process. IÕll warrant sheÕll tax him home,
And as you said, and wisely was it said,
ÕTis meet that some more audience than a mother,
Since nature makes them partial, should oÕerhear
The speech of vantage. Fare you well, my liege,
IÕll call upon you ere you go to bed,
And tell you what I know.
KING.
Thanks, dear my lord.
[ExitÊPolonius.]
O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven;
It hath the primal eldest curse uponÕt,Ñ
A brotherÕs murder! 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 brotherÕs 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 whatÕs in prayer but this twofold force,
To be forestalled ere we come to fall,
Or pardonÕd being down? Then IÕll look up.
My fault is past. But O, what form of prayer
Can serve my turn? Forgive me my foul murder!
That cannot be; since I am still possessÕd
Of those effects for which I did the murder,Ñ
My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.
May one be pardonÕd and retain thÕoffence?
In the corrupted currents of this world
OffenceÕs gilded hand may shove by justice,
And oft Õtis seen the wicked prize itself
Buys out the law. But Õtis not so above;
There is no shuffling, there the action lies
In his true nature, and we ourselves compellÕd
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 engagÕd! 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.
[Retires and kneels.]
EnterÊHamlet.
HAMLET.
Now might I do it pat, now he is praying.
And now IÕll doÕt. And so he goes to heaven;
And so am I revengÕd. That would be scannÕd:
A villain kills my father, and for that
I, his sole son, do this same villain send
To heaven. O, 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,
ÕTis heavy with him. And am I then revengÕd,
To take him in the purging of his soul,
When he is fit and seasonÕd for his passage? No.
Up, sword, and know thou a more horrid hent:
When he is drunk asleep; or in his rage,
Or in thÕincestuous pleasure of his bed,
At gaming, swearing; or about some act
That has no relish of salvation inÕt,
Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven,
And that his soul may be as damnÕd and black
As hell, whereto it goes. My mother stays.
This physic but prolongs thy sickly days.
[Exit.]
TheÊKingÊrises and advances.
KING.
My words fly up, my thoughts remain below.
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.
[Exit.]
SCENE IV. Another room in the Castle.
EnterÊQueenÊandÊPolonius.
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 screenÕd and stood between
Much heat and him. IÕll silence me eÕen here.
Pray you be round with him.
HAMLET.
[Within.] Mother, mother, mother.
QUEEN.
IÕll warrant you, Fear me not.
Withdraw, I hear him coming.
[PoloniusÊgoes behind the arras.]
EnterÊHamlet.
HAMLET.
Now, mother, whatÕs 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.
WhatÕs the matter now?
QUEEN.
Have you forgot me?
HAMLET.
No, by the rood, not so.
You are the Queen, your husbandÕs brotherÕs wife,
And, would it were not so. You are my mother.
QUEEN.
Nay, then IÕll set those to you that can speak.
HAMLET.
Come, come, and sit you down, you shall not budge.
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 murder me?
Help, help, ho!
POLONIUS.
[Behind.] What, ho! help, help, help!
HAMLET.
How now? A rat? [Draws.]
Dead for a ducat, dead!
[Makes a pass through the arras.]
POLONIUS.
[Behind.] O, I am slain!
[Falls and dies.]
QUEEN.
O me, what hast thou done?
HAMLET.
Nay, I know not. Is it the King?
[Draws forthÊPolonius.]
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, Õtwas my word.Ñ
[To Polonius.] Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!
I took thee for thy better. Take thy fortune,
Thou findÕst to be too busy is some danger.Ñ
Leave wringing of your hands. 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 brazÕd it so,
That it is proof and bulwark against sense.
QUEEN.
What have I done, that thou darÕst 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 dicersÕ oaths. O such a deed
As from the body of contraction plucks
The very soul, and sweet religion makes
A rhapsody of words. HeavenÕs 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 this picture, and on this,
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
See what a grace was seated on this brow,
HyperionÕs 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 mildewÕd 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 hey-day in the blood is tame, itÕs humble,
And waits upon the judgement: and what judgement
Would step from this to this? Sense sure you have,
Else could you not have motion; but sure that sense
Is apoplexÕd, for madness would not err
Nor sense to ecstacy was neÕer so thrallÕd
But it reservÕd some quantity of choice
To serve in such a difference. What devil wasÕt
That thus hath cozenÕd 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 matronÕs 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 turnÕst 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,
StewÕd 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 murderer 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.
HAMLET.
A king of shreds and patches!Ñ
EnterÊGhost.
Save me and hover oÕer me with your wings,
You heavenly guards! What would your gracious figure?
QUEEN.
Alas, heÕs mad.
HAMLET.
Do you not come your tardy son to chide,
That, lapsÕd in time and passion, lets go by
The 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 isÕt with you,
That you do bend your eye on vacancy,
And with the incorporal air do hold discourse?
Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep,
And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm,
Your bedded hairs, like life in excrements,
Start up and stand an end. O gentle son,
Upon the heat 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 conjoinÕd, preaching to stones,
Would make them capable.ÑDo 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 livÕd!
Look where he goes even now out at the portal.
[ExitÊGhost.]
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 utterÕd. Bring me to the test,
And I the matter will re-word; 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,
Whilst rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven,
Repent whatÕs 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 mine uncleÕs 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 tonight,
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 curb the devil, or throw him out
With wondrous potency. Once more, good night,
And when you are desirous to be blesÕd,
IÕll blessing beg of you. For this same lord
[Pointing to Polonius.]
I do repent; but heaven hath pleasÕd 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 damnÕd fingers,
Make you to ravel all this matter out,
That I essentially am not in madness,
But mad in craft. ÕTwere good you let him know,
For who thatÕs 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 houseÕs 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 assurÕd, 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. ÕTis so concluded on.
HAMLET.
ThereÕs letters sealÕd: and my two schoolfellows,
Whom I will trust as I will adders fangÕd,Ñ
They bear the mandate, they must sweep my way
And marshal me to knavery. Let it work;
For Õtis the sport to have the enginer
Hoist with his own petard, and Õt shall go hard
But I will delve one yard below their mines
And blow them at the moon. O, Õtis most sweet,
When in one line two crafts directly meet.
This man shall set me packing.
IÕll 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 prating knave.
Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you.
Good night, mother.
[ExitÊHamletÊdragging outÊPolonius.]
ACT IV
SCENE I. A room in the Castle.
EnterÊKing, Queen, RosencrantzÊandÊGuildenstern.
KING.
ThereÕs matter in these sighs. These profound heaves
You must translate; Õtis fit we understand them.
Where is your son?
QUEEN.
Bestow this place on us a little while.
[ToÊRosencrantzÊandÊGuildenstern,Êwho go out.]
Ah, my good lord, what have I seen tonight!
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 ÔA rat, a rat!Õ
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 everyone.
Alas, how shall this bloody deed be answerÕd?
It will be laid to us, whose providence
Should have kept short, restrainÕd, 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 killÕd,
OÕer 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.ÑHo, Guildenstern!
Re-enterÊRosencrantzÊandÊGuildenstern.
Friends both, go join you with some further aid:
Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain,
And from his motherÕs closet hath he draggÕd him.
Go seek him out, speak fair, and bring the body
Into the chapel. I pray you haste in this.
[ExeuntÊRosencrantzÊandÊGuildenstern.]
Come, Gertrude, weÕll call up our wisest friends,
And let them know both what we mean to do
And whatÕs untimely done, so haply slander,
Whose whisper oÕer the worldÕs diameter,
As level as the cannon to his blank,
Transports his poisonÕd shot, may miss our name,
And hit the woundless air. O, come away!
My soul is full of discord and dismay.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE II. Another room in the Castle.
EnterÊHamlet.
HAMLET.
Safely stowed.
ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.
[Within.] Hamlet! Lord Hamlet!
HAMLET.
What noise? Who calls on Hamlet? O, here they come.
EnterÊRosencrantzÊandÊGuildenstern.
ROSENCRANTZ.
What have you done, my lord, with the dead body?
HAMLET.
Compounded it with dust, whereto Õtis kin.
ROSENCRANTZ.
Tell us where Õtis, 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 spongeÑwhat 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 KingÕs 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 mouthed, to be last swallowed: when he needs what you have gleaned, 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 thingÑ
GUILDENSTERN.
A thing, my lord!
HAMLET.
Of nothing. Bring me to him. Hide fox, and all after.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE III. Another room in the Castle.
EnterÊKing,Êattended.
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:
HeÕs lovÕd of the distracted multitude,
Who like not in their judgement, but their eyes;
And where Õtis so, thÕoffenderÕs scourge is weighÕd,
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 relievÕd,
Or not at all.
EnterÊRosencrantz.
How now? What hath befallÕn?
ROSENCRANTZ.
Where the dead body is bestowÕd, 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.
EnterÊHamletÊandÊGuildenstern.
KING.
Now, Hamlet, whereÕs 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 eÕen 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,Ñtwo dishes, but to one table. ThatÕs 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 iÕ thÕother place yourself. But indeed, if you find him not within this month, you shall nose him as you go up the stairs into the lobby.
KING.
[To some Attendants.] Go seek him there.
HAMLET.
He will stay till you come.
[ExeuntÊAttendants.]
KING.
Hamlet, this deed, for thine especial safety,Ñ
Which we do tender, as we dearly grieve
For that which thou hast done,Ñmust send thee hence
With fiery quickness. Therefore prepare thyself;
The bark is ready, and the wind at help,
ThÕassociates tend, and everything is bent
For England.
HAMLET.
For England?
KING.
Ay, Hamlet.
HAMLET.
Good.
KING.
So is it, if thou knewÕst 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; IÕll have him hence tonight.
Away, for everything is sealÕd and done
That else leans on thÕaffair. Pray you make haste.
[ExeuntÊRosencrantzÊandÊGuildenstern.]
And England, if my love thou holdÕst at aught,Ñ
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,Ñthou mayst not coldly set
Our sovereign process, which imports at full,
By letters conjuring 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 Õtis done,
HoweÕer my haps, my joys were neÕer begun.
[Exit.]
SCENE IV. A plain in Denmark.
EnterÊFortinbrasÊandÊForcesÊmarching.
FORTINBRAS.
Go, Captain, from me greet the Danish king.
Tell him that by his license, Fortinbras
Craves the conveyance of a promisÕd 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 doÕt, my lord.
FORTINBRAS.
Go softly on.
[Exeunt all but theÊCaptain.]
EnterÊHamlet, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern &c.
HAMLET.
Good sir, whose powers are these?
CAPTAIN.
They are of Norway, sir.
HAMLET.
How purposÕd, 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 garrisonÕd.
HAMLET.
Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats
Will not debate the question of this straw!
This is thÕimposthume of much wealth and peace,
That inward breaks, and shows no cause without
Why the man dies. I humbly thank you, sir.
CAPTAIN.
God bÕ wiÕ you, sir.
[Exit.]
ROSENCRANTZ.
WillÕt please you go, my lord?
HAMLET.
IÕll be with you straight. Go a little before.
[Exeunt all butÊHamlet.]
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 unusÕd. Now whether it be
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
Of thinking too precisely on thÕevent,Ñ
A thought which, quarterÕd, hath but one part wisdom
And ever three parts coward,ÑI do not know
Why yet I live to say this thingÕs to do,
Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means
To doÕt. 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 puffÕd,
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 honourÕs at the stake. How stand I then,
That have a father killÕd, a mother stainÕd,
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.
EnterÊQueen, HoratioÊand aÊGentleman.
QUEEN.
I will not speak with her.
GENTLEMAN.
She is importunate, indeed distract.
Her mood will needs be pitied.
QUEEN.
What would she have?
GENTLEMAN.
She speaks much of her father; says she hears
ThereÕs tricks iÕ thÕ 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.
ÕTwere good she were spoken with, for she may strew
Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.
QUEEN.
Let her come in.
[ExitÊGentleman.]
To my sick soul, as sinÕs 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.
EnterÊOphelia.
OPHELIA.
Where is the beauteous Majesty of Denmark?
QUEEN.
How now, Ophelia?
OPHELIA.
[Sings.]
ÊÊÊHow should I your true love know
ÊÊÊÊÊFrom another one?
ÊÊÊBy his cockle hat and staff
ÊÊÊÊÊAnd his sandal shoon.
QUEEN.
Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?
OPHELIA.
Say you? Nay, pray you mark.
[Sings.]
ÊÊÊHe is dead and gone, lady,
ÊÊÊÊÊHe is dead and gone,
ÊÊÊAt his head a grass green turf,
ÊÊÊÊÊAt his heels a stone.
QUEEN.
Nay, but OpheliaÑ
OPHELIA.
Pray you mark.
[Sings.]
ÊÊÊWhite his shroud as the mountain snow.
EnterÊKing.
QUEEN.
Alas, look here, my lord!
OPHELIA.
[Sings.]
ÊÊÊÊÊLarded all with sweet flowers;
ÊÊÊWhich bewept to the grave did not go
ÊÊÊÊÊWith true-love showers.
KING.
How do you, pretty lady?
OPHELIA.
Well, God dild you! They say the owl was a bakerÕs 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 you, letÕs have no words of this; but when they ask you what it means, say you this:
[Sings.]
ÊÊÊTomorrow is Saint ValentineÕs day,
ÊÊÊÊÊAll in the morning betime,
ÊÊÊAnd I a maid at your window,
ÊÊÊÊÊTo be your Valentine.
ÊÊÊThen up he rose and donnÕd his clothes,
ÊÊÊÊÊAnd duppÕd the chamber door,
ÊÊÊLet in the maid, that out a maid
ÊÊÊÊÊNever departed more.
KING.
Pretty Ophelia!
OPHELIA.
Indeed la, without an oath, IÕll make an end onÕt.
[Sings.]
ÊÊÊBy Gis and by Saint Charity,
ÊÊÊÊÊAlack, and fie for shame!
ÊÊÊYoung men will doÕt if they come toÕt;
ÊÊÊÊÊBy Cock, they are to blame.
ÊÊÊQuoth she, before you tumbled me,
ÊÊÊÊÊYou promisÕd me to wed.
ÊÊÊSo would I haÕ done, by yonder sun,
ÊÊÊÊÊAn 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 iÕ thÕ 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.
[ExitÊHoratio.]
O, this is the poison of deep grief; it springs
All from her fatherÕs 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 unwholesome in their thoughts and whispers
For good PoloniusÕ death; and we have done but greenly
In hugger-mugger to inter him. Poor Ophelia
Divided from herself and her fair judgement,
Without the which we are pictures or mere beasts.
Last, and as much containing as all these,
Her brother is in secret come from France,
Feeds on his wonder, keeps himself in clouds,
And wants not buzzers to infect his ear
With pestilent speeches of his fatherÕs death,
Wherein necessity, of matter beggarÕd,
Will nothing stick our person to arraign
In ear and ear. O my dear Gertrude, this,
Like to a murdering piece, in many places
Gives me superfluous death.
[A noise within.]
QUEEN.
Alack, what noise is this?
KING.
Where are my Switzers? Let them guard the door.
Enter aÊGentleman.
What is the matter?
GENTLEMAN.
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,
OÕerbears 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 ÔChoose we! Laertes shall be king!Õ
Caps, hands, and tongues applaud it to the clouds,
ÔLaertes shall be king, Laertes king.Õ
QUEEN.
How cheerfully on the false trail they cry.
O, this is counter, you false Danish dogs.
[A noise within.]
KING.
The doors are broke.
EnterÊLaertes,Êarmed;ÊDanesÊfollowing.
LAERTES.
Where is this king?ÑSirs, stand you all without.
Danes.
No, letÕs come in.
LAERTES.
I pray you, give me leave.
DANES.
We will, we will.
[They retire without the door.]
LAERTES.
I thank you. Keep the door. O thou vile king,
Give me my father.
QUEEN.
Calmly, good Laertes.
LAERTES.
That drop of blood thatÕs calm proclaims me bastard;
Cries cuckold to my father, brands the harlot
Even here between the chaste unsmirched brow
Of my true mother.
KING.
What is the cause, Laertes,
That thy rebellion looks so giant-like?Ñ
Let him go, Gertrude. Do not fear our person.
ThereÕs such divinity doth hedge a king,
That treason can but peep to what it would,
Acts little of his will.ÑTell me, Laertes,
Why thou art thus incensÕd.ÑLet him go, Gertrude:Ñ
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? IÕll 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 worlds, I give to negligence,
Let come what comes; only IÕll be revengÕd
Most throughly for my father.
KING.
Who shall stay you?
LAERTES.
My will, not all the world.
And for my means, IÕll husband them so well,
They shall go far with little.
KING.
Good Laertes,
If you desire to know the certainty
Of your dear fatherÕs death, isÕt writ in your revenge
That, sweepstake, 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 IÕll ope my arms;
And, like the kind life-rendering 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 fatherÕs death,
And am most sensibly in grief for it,
It shall as level to your judgement Õpear
As day does to your eye.
DANES.
[Within.] Let her come in.
LAERTES.
How now! What noise is that?
Re-enterÊOphelia,Êfantastically dressed with straws and flowers.
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, isÕt possible a young maidÕs wits
Should be as mortal as an old manÕs life?
Nature is fine in love, and where Õtis fine,
It sends some precious instance of itself
After the thing it loves.
OPHELIA.
[Sings.]
ÊÊÊThey bore him barefacÕd on the bier,
ÊÊÊHey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny
ÊÊÊAnd on his grave rainÕd many a tear.Ñ
ÊÊÊFare you well, my dove!
LAERTES.
Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge,
It could not move thus.
OPHELIA.
You must sing ÔDown a-down, and you call him a-down-a.Õ O, how the wheel becomes it! It is the false steward that stole his masterÕs daughter.
LAERTES.
This nothingÕs more than matter.
OPHELIA.
ThereÕs rosemary, thatÕs for remembrance; pray love, remember. And there is pansies, thatÕs for thoughts.
LAERTES.
A document in madness, thoughts and remembrance fitted.
OPHELIA.
ThereÕs fennel for you, and columbines. ThereÕs rue for you; and hereÕs some for me. We may call it herb of grace oÕ Sundays. O you must wear your rue with a difference. ThereÕs a daisy. I would give you some violets, but they witherÕd all when my father died. They say he made a good end.
[Sings.]
ÊÊÊFor bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.
LAERTES.
Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself
She turns to favour and to prettiness.
OPHELIA.
[Sings.]
ÊÊÊAnd will he not come again?
ÊÊÊAnd will he not come again?
ÊÊÊÊÊNo, no, he is dead,
ÊÊÊÊÊGo to thy death-bed,
ÊÊÊHe never will come again.
ÊÊÊHis beard was as white as snow,
ÊÊÊAll flaxen was his poll.
ÊÊÊÊÊHe is gone, he is gone,
ÊÊÊÊÊAnd we cast away moan.
ÊÊÊGod haÕ mercy on his soul.
And of all Christian souls, I pray God. God bÕ wiÕ ye.
[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 Õtwixt you and me.
If by direct or by collateral hand
They find us touchÕd, 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 burial,Ñ
No trophy, sword, nor hatchment oÕer his bones,
No noble rite, nor formal ostentation,Ñ
Cry to be heard, as Õtwere from heaven to earth,
That I must callÕt in question.
KING.
So you shall.
And where thÕoffence is let the great axe fall.
I pray you go with me.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE VI. Another room in the Castle.
EnterÊHoratioÊand aÊServant.
HORATIO.
What are they that would speak with me?
SERVANT.
Sailors, sir. They say they have letters for you.
HORATIO.
Let them come in.
[ExitÊServant.]
I do not know from what part of the world
I should be greeted, if not from Lord Hamlet.
EnterÊSailors.
FIRST SAILOR.
God bless you, sir.
HORATIO.
Let him bless thee too.
FIRST SAILOR.
He shall, sir, andÕt please him. ThereÕs a letter for you, sir. It comes from thÕambassador that was bound for England; if your name be Horatio, as I am let to know it is.
HORATIO.
[Reads.] ÔHoratio, when thou shalt have overlooked 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 haste 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.
ÊÊÊÊÊHe that thou knowest thine,
ÊÊÊÊÊHAMLET.Õ
Come, I will give you way for these your letters,
And doÕt the speedier, that you may direct me
To him from whom you brought them.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE VII. Another room in the Castle.
EnterÊKingÊandÊLaertes.
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
PursuÕd 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 stirrÕd up.
KING.
O, for two special reasons,
Which may to you, perhaps, seem much unsinewÕd,
But yet to me they are strong. The Queen his mother
Lives almost by his looks; and for myself,Ñ
My virtue or my plague, be it either which,Ñ
SheÕs 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 gyves to graces; so that my arrows,
Too slightly timberÕd for so loud a wind,
Would have reverted to my bow again,
And not where I had aimÕd them.
LAERTES.
And so have I a noble father lost,
A sister driven into desperate 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 lovÕd your father, and we love ourself,
And that, I hope, will teach you to imagineÑ
Enter aÊMessenger.
How now? What news?
MESSENGER.
Letters, my lord, from Hamlet.
This to your Majesty; this to the Queen.
KING.
From Hamlet! Who brought them?
MESSENGER.
Sailors, my lord, they say; I saw them not.
They were given me by Claudio. He receivÕd them
Of him that brought them.
KING.
Laertes, you shall hear them.
Leave us.
[ExitÊMessenger.]
[Reads.] ÔHigh and mighty, you shall know I am set naked on your kingdom. Tomorrow shall I beg leave to see your kingly eyes. When I shall, first asking your pardon thereunto, recount the occasions of my sudden and more strange return.
ÊÊÊÊÊHAMLET.Õ
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.
ÕTis HamletÕs character. ÔNaked!Õ
And in a postscript here he says Ôalone.Õ
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,
ÔThus diest thou.Õ
KING.
If it be so, Laertes,Ñ
As how should it be so? How otherwise?Ñ
Will you be rulÕd by me?
LAERTES.
Ay, my lord;
So you will not oÕerrule me to a peace.
KING.
To thine own peace. If he be now returnÕd,
As checking at his voyage, and that he means
No more to undertake it, I will work him
To an exploit, now ripe in my device,
Under the which he shall not choose but fall;
And for his death no wind shall breathe,
But even his mother shall uncharge the practice
And call it accident.
LAERTES.
My lord, I will be rulÕd;
The rather if you could devise it so
That I might be the organ.
KING.
It falls right.
You have been talkÕd of since your travel much,
And that in HamletÕs hearing, for a quality
Wherein they say you shine. Your sum 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 needful too, for youth no less becomes
The light and careless livery that it wears
Than settled age his sables and his weeds,
Importing health and graveness. Two months since
Here was a gentleman of Normandy,Ñ
IÕve seen myself, and servÕd against, the French,
And they can well on horseback, but this gallant
Had witchcraft inÕt. He grew unto his seat,
And to such wondrous doing brought his horse,
As had he been incorpsÕd and demi-naturÕd
With the brave beast. So far he toppÕd my thought
That I in forgery of shapes and tricks,
Come short of what he did.
LAERTES.
A Norman wasÕt?
KING.
A Norman.
LAERTES.
Upon my life, Lamord.
KING.
The very same.
LAERTES.
I know him well. He is the brooch 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 Õtwould be a sight indeed
If one could match you. The scrimers of their nation
He swore had neither motion, guard, nor eye,
If you opposÕd 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 oÕer to play with him.
Now, out of this,Ñ
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 pleurisy,
Dies in his own too much. That we would do,
We should do when we would; for this ÔwouldÕ changes,
And hath abatements and delays as many
As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents;
And then this ÔshouldÕ is like a spendthrift sigh
That hurts by easing. But to the quick oÕ thÕulcer:
Hamlet comes back: what would you undertake
To show yourself your fatherÕs son in deed,
More than in words?
LAERTES.
To cut his throat iÕ thÕ church.
KING.
No place, indeed, should murder sanctuarize;
Revenge should have no bounds. But good Laertes,
Will you do this, keep close within your chamber.
Hamlet returnÕd shall know you are come home:
WeÕll 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 doÕt.
And for that purpose IÕll 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 scratchÕd withal. IÕll touch my point
With this contagion, that if I gall him slightly,
It may be death.
KING.
LetÕs further think of this,
Weigh what convenience both of time and means
May fit us to our shape. If this should fail,
And that our drift look through our bad performance.
ÕTwere better not assayÕd. Therefore this project
Should have a back or second, that might hold
If this did blast in proof. Soft, let me see.
WeÕll make a solemn wager on your cunnings,Ñ
I haÕt! When in your motion you are hot and dry,
As make your bouts more violent to that end,
And that he calls for drink, IÕll have preparÕd him
A chalice for the nonce; whereon but sipping,
If he by chance escape your venomÕd stuck,
Our purpose may hold there.
EnterÊQueen.
How now, sweet Queen?
QUEEN.
One woe doth tread upon anotherÕs heel,
So fast they follow. Your sisterÕs drownÕd, Laertes.
LAERTES.
DrownÕd! O, where?
QUEEN.
There is a willow grows aslant a brook,
That shows his hoary leaves in the glassy stream.
There with fantastic garlands did she make
Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples,
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
But our cold maids do dead menÕs fingers call them.
There on the pendant boughs her coronet weeds
ClambÕring 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,
PullÕd the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.
LAERTES.
Alas, then she is drownÕd?
QUEEN.
DrownÕd, drownÕd.
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.
LetÕs follow, Gertrude;
How much I had to do to calm his rage!
Now fear I this will give it start again;
Therefore letÕs follow.
[Exeunt.]
ACT V
SCENE I. A churchyard.
Enter twoÊClownsÊwith spades, &c.
FIRST CLOWN.
Is she to be buried in Christian burial, when she wilfully seeks her own salvation?
SECOND CLOWN.
I tell thee she is, and therefore make her grave straight. The crowner hath sat on her, and finds it Christian burial.
FIRST CLOWN.
How can that be, unless she drowned herself in her own defence?
SECOND CLOWN.
Why, Õtis found so.
FIRST CLOWN.
It must beÊse 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 drowned herself wittingly.
SECOND CLOWN.
Nay, but hear you, goodman delver,Ñ
FIRST 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,Ñmark 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.
SECOND CLOWN.
But is this law?
FIRST CLOWN.
Ay, marry, isÕt, crownerÕs quest law.
SECOND CLOWN.
Will you haÕ the truth onÕt? If this had not been a gentlewoman, she should have been buried out oÕ Christian burial.
FIRST CLOWN.
Why, there thou sayÕst. And the more pity that great folk should have countenance in this world to drown or hang themselves more than their even Christian. Come, my spade. There is no ancient gentlemen but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers: they hold up AdamÕs profession.
SECOND CLOWN.
Was he a gentleman?
FIRST CLOWN.
He was the first that ever bore arms.
SECOND CLOWN.
Why, he had none.
FIRST CLOWN.
What, art a heathen? How dost thou understand the Scripture? The Scripture says Adam diggÕd. Could he dig without arms? IÕll put another question to thee. If thou answerest me not to the purpose, confess thyselfÑ
SECOND CLOWN.
Go to.
FIRST CLOWN.
What is he that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?
SECOND CLOWN.
The gallows-maker; for that frame outlives a thousand tenants.
FIRST 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. ToÕt again, come.
SECOND CLOWN.
Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a carpenter?
FIRST CLOWN.
Ay, tell me that, and unyoke.
SECOND CLOWN.
Marry, now I can tell.
FIRST CLOWN.
ToÕt.
SECOND CLOWN.
Mass, I cannot tell.
EnterÊHamletÊandÊHoratio, at a distance.
FIRST CLOWN.
Cudgel thy brains no more about it, for your dull ass will not mend his pace with beating; and when you are asked this question next, say Ôa grave-makerÕ. The houses he makes last till doomsday. Go, get thee to Yaughan; fetch me a stoup of liquor.
[ExitÊSecond Clown.]
[Digs and sings.]
ÊÊÊIn youth when I did love, did love,
ÊÊÊÊÊMethought it was very sweet;
ÊÊÊTo contract, O, the time for, a, my behove,
ÊÊÊÊÊO methought there was nothing 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.
ÕTis eÕen so; the hand of little employment hath the daintier sense.
FIRST CLOWN.
[Sings.]
ÊÊÊBut age with his stealing steps
ÊÊÊÊÊHath clawÕd me in his clutch,
ÊÊÊAnd hath shippÕd me into the land,
ÊÊÊÊÊAs 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 thÕ ground, as if Õtwere CainÕs jawbone, that did the first murder! This might be the pate of a politician which this ass now oÕer-offices, one that would circumvent God, might it not?
HORATIO.
It might, my lord.
HAMLET.
Or of a courtier, which could say ÔGood morrow, sweet lord! How dost thou, good lord?Õ This might be my lord such-a-one, that praised my lord such-a-oneÕs horse when he meant to beg it, might it not?
HORATIO.
Ay, my lord.
HAMLET.
Why, eÕen so: and now my Lady WormÕs; chapless, and knocked about the mazard with a sextonÕs spade. HereÕs fine revolution, an we had the trick to seeÕt. Did these bones cost no more the breeding but to play at loggets with Õem? Mine ache to think onÕt.
FIRST CLOWN.
[Sings.]
ÊÊÊA pickaxe and a spade, a spade,
ÊÊÊÊÊFor and a shrouding-sheet;
ÊÊÊO, a pit of clay for to be made
ÊÊÊÊÊFor such a guest is meet.
[Throws up another skull.]
HAMLET.
ThereÕs 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 inÕs 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 the inheritor himself have no more, ha?
HORATIO.
Not a jot more, my lord.
HAMLET.
Is not parchment made of sheep-skins?
HORATIO.
Ay, my lord, and of calf-skins too.
HAMLET.
They are sheep and calves which seek out assurance in that. I will speak to this fellow.ÑWhose graveÕs this, sir?
FIRST CLOWN.
Mine, sir.
[Sings.]
ÊÊÊO, a pit of clay for to be made
ÊÊÊÊÊFor such a guest is meet.
HAMLET.
I think it be thine indeed, for thou liest inÕt.
FIRST CLOWN.
You lie out onÕt, sir, and therefore Õtis not yours.
For my part, I do not lie inÕt, yet it is mine.
HAMLET.
Thou dost lie inÕt, to be inÕt and say it is thine. ÕTis for the dead, not for the quick; therefore thou liest.
FIRST CLOWN.
ÕTis a quick lie, sir; Õt will away again from me to you.
HAMLET.
What man dost thou dig it for?
FIRST CLOWN.
For no man, sir.
HAMLET.
What woman then?
FIRST CLOWN.
For none neither.
HAMLET.
Who is to be buried inÕt?
FIRST CLOWN.
One that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, sheÕs dead.
HAMLET.
How absolute the knave is! We must speak by the card, or equivocation will undo us. By the Lord, Horatio, these 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.ÑHow long hast thou been a grave-maker?
FIRST CLOWN.
Of all the days iÕ thÕ year, I came toÕt that day that our last King Hamlet oÕercame Fortinbras.
HAMLET.
How long is that since?
FIRST CLOWN.
Cannot you tell that? Every fool can tell that. It was the very day that young Hamlet was born,Ñhe that is mad, and sent into England.
HAMLET.
Ay, marry, why was he sent into England?
FIRST CLOWN.
Why, because he was mad; he shall recover his wits there; or if he do not, itÕs no great matter there.
HAMLET.
Why?
FIRST CLOWN.
ÕTwill not be seen in him there; there the men are as mad as he.
HAMLET.
How came he mad?
FIRST CLOWN.
Very strangely, they say.
HAMLET.
How strangely?
FIRST CLOWN.
Faith, eÕen with losing his wits.
HAMLET.
Upon what ground?
FIRST CLOWN.
Why, here in Denmark. I have been sexton here, man and boy, thirty years.
HAMLET.
How long will a man lie iÕ thÕearth ere he rot?
FIRST CLOWN.
Faith, if he be not rotten before he die,Ñas we have many pocky corses nowadays that will scarce hold the laying in,Ñhe will last you some eight year or nine year. A tanner will last you nine year.
HAMLET.
Why he more than another?
FIRST CLOWN.
Why, sir, his hide is so tannÕd with his trade that he will keep out water a great while. And your water is a sore decayer of your whoreson dead body. HereÕs a skull now; this skull hath lain in the earth three-and-twenty years.
HAMLET.
Whose was it?
FIRST CLOWN.
A whoreson, mad fellowÕs it was. Whose do you think it was?
HAMLET.
Nay, I know not.
FIRST CLOWN.
A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! A pourÕd a flagon of Rhenish on my head once. This same skull, sir, was YorickÕs skull, the KingÕs jester.
HAMLET.
This?
FIRST CLOWN.
EÕen 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 times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissÕd 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 chop-fallen? Now get you to my ladyÕs chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come. Make her laugh at that.ÑPrithee, Horatio, tell me one thing.
HORATIO.
WhatÕs that, my lord?
HAMLET.
Dost thou think Alexander looked oÕ this fashion iÕ thÕearth?
HORATIO.
EÕen so.
HAMLET.
And smelt so? Pah!
[Throws down the skull.]
HORATIO.
EÕen 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 bung-hole?
HORATIO.
ÕTwere 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 turnÕd 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 tÕexpel the winterÕs flaw.
But soft! but soft! aside! Here comes the King.
EnterÊpriests, &c,Êin procession; the corpse ofÊOphelia, LaertesÊandÊMournersÊfollowing;ÊKing, Queen,Êtheir Trains, &c.
The Queen, the courtiers. Who is that they follow?
And with such maimed rites? This doth betoken
The corse they follow did with desperate hand
Fordo it own life. ÕTwas of some estate.
Couch we awhile and mark.
[Retiring withÊHoratio.]
LAERTES.
What ceremony else?
HAMLET.
That is Laertes, a very noble youth. Mark.
LAERTES.
What ceremony else?
PRIEST.
Her obsequies have been as far enlargÕd
As we have warranties. Her death was doubtful;
And but that great command oÕersways the order,
She should in ground unsanctified have lodgÕd
Till the last trumpet. For charitable prayers,
Shards, flints, and pebbles should be thrown on her.
Yet here she is allowed her virgin rites,
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 sage requiem and such rest to her
As to peace-parted souls.
LAERTES.
Lay her iÕ thÕearth,
And from her fair and unpolluted flesh
May violets spring. I tell thee, churlish priest,
A ministÕring angel shall my sister be
When thou liest howling.
HAMLET.
What, the fair Ophelia?
QUEEN.
[Scattering flowers.] Sweets to the sweet. Farewell.
I hopÕd thou shouldst have been my HamletÕs wife;
I thought thy bride-bed to have deckÕd, sweet maid,
And not have strewÕd thy grave.
LAERTES.
O, treble woe
Fall ten times treble on that cursed head
Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense
DeprivÕd thee of. Hold off the earth a while,
Till I have caught her once more in mine arms.
[Leaps into the grave.]
Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead,
Till of this flat a mountain you have made,
To oÕertop old Pelion or the skyish head
Of blue Olympus.
HAMLET.
[Advancing.]
What is he whose grief
Bears such an emphasis? whose phrase of sorrow
Conjures the wandÕring stars, and makes them stand
Like wonder-wounded hearers? This is I,
Hamlet the Dane.
[Leaps into the grave.]
LAERTES.
[Grappling with him.] The devil take thy soul!
HAMLET.
Thou prayÕst not well.
I prithee take thy fingers from my throat;
For though I am not splenative and rash,
Yet have I in me something dangerous,
Which let thy wiseness fear. Away thy hand!
KING.
Pluck them asunder.
QUEEN.
Hamlet! Hamlet!
All.
Gentlemen!
HORATIO.
Good my lord, be quiet.
[TheÊAttendantsÊpart 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 lovÕd 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.
ÕSwounds, show me what thouÕlt do:
WoulÕt weep? woulÕt fight? woulÕt fast? woulÕt tear thyself?
WoulÕt drink up eisel? eat a crocodile?
IÕll doÕt. 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 thouÕlt mouth,
IÕll rant as well as thou.
QUEEN.
This is mere madness:
And thus awhile the fit will work on him;
Anon, as patient as the female dove,
When that her golden couplets are disclosÕd,
His silence will sit drooping.
HAMLET.
Hear you, sir;
What is the reason that you use me thus?
I lovÕd 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.
[ExitÊHoratio.]
[To Laertes]
Strengthen your patience in our last nightÕs speech;
WeÕll put the matter to the present push.Ñ
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. A hall in the Castle.
EnterÊHamletÊandÊHoratio.
HAMLET.
So much for this, sir. Now let me 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 praisÕd be rashness for it,Ñlet us know,
Our indiscretion sometime serves us well,
When our deep plots do pall; and that should teach us
ThereÕs 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 scarfÕd about me, in the dark
GropÕd I to find out them; had my desire,
FingerÕd 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,
Oh royal knavery! an exact command,
Larded with many several sorts of reasons,
Importing DenmarkÕs health, and EnglandÕs too,
With ho! such bugs and goblins in my life,
That on the supervise, no leisure bated,
No, not to stay the grinding of the axe,
My head should be struck off.
HORATIO.
IsÕt possible?
HAMLET.
HereÕs the commission, read it at more leisure.
But wilt thou hear me how I did proceed?
HORATIO.
I beseech you.
HAMLET.
Being thus benetted round with villanies,Ñ
Or I could make a prologue to my brains,
They had begun the play,ÑI sat me down,
DevisÕd a new commission, wrote it fair:
I once did hold it, as our statists do,
A baseness to write fair, and labourÕd much
How to forget that learning; but, sir, now
It did me yeomanÕs service. Wilt thou know
The 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 Õtween their amities,
And many such-like ÔasÕes of great charge,
That on the view and know of these contents,
Without debatement further, more or less,
He should the bearers put to sudden death,
Not shriving-time allowÕd.
HORATIO.
How was this sealÕd?
HAMLET.
Why, even in that was heaven ordinant.
I had my fatherÕs signet in my purse,
Which was the model of that Danish seal:
Folded the writ up in the form of the other,
SubscribÕd it: gaveÕt thÕimpression; placÕd it safely,
The changeling never known. Now, the next day
Was our sea-fight, and what to this was sequent
Thou knowÕst already.
HORATIO.
So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go toÕt.
HAMLET.
Why, man, they did make love to this employment.
They are not near my conscience; their defeat
Does by their own insinuation grow.
ÕTis 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, thinksÕt thee, stand me now upon,Ñ
He that hath killÕd my king, and whorÕd my mother,
PoppÕd in between thÕelection and my hopes,
Thrown out his angle for my proper life,
And with such cozenageÑisÕt not perfect conscience
To quit him with this arm? And isÕt not to be damnÕd
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 manÕs lifeÕs no more than to say ÔOneÕ.
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. IÕll court his favours.
But sure the bravery of his grief did put me
Into a towÕring passion.
HORATIO.
Peace, who comes here?
EnterÊOsric.
OSRIC.
Your lordship is right welcome back to Denmark.
HAMLET.
I humbly thank you, sir. Dost know this waterfly?
HORATIO.
No, my good lord.
HAMLET.
Thy state is the more gracious; for Õtis 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 kingÕs mess; Õtis 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 with all diligence of spirit. Put your bonnet to his right use; Õtis for the head.
OSRIC.
I thank your lordship, Õtis very hot.
HAMLET.
No, believe me, Õtis very cold, the wind is northerly.
OSRIC.
It is indifferent cold, my lord, indeed.
HAMLET.
Methinks it is very sultry and hot for my complexion.
OSRIC.
Exceedingly, my lord; it is very sultry,Ñas ÕtwereÑI 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,Ñ
HAMLET.
I beseech you, remember,Ñ
[HamletÊmoves him to put on his hat.]
OSRIC.
Nay, in good faith; 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 dizzy thÕarithmetic 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.
IsÕt not possible to understand in another tongue? You will doÕt, sir, really.
HAMLET.
What imports the nomination of this gentleman?
OSRIC.
Of Laertes?
HORATIO.
His purse is empty already, allÕs golden words are spent.
HAMLET.
Of him, sir.
OSRIC.
I know you are not ignorant,Ñ
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,Ñ
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 heÕs unfellowed.
HAMLET.
WhatÕs his weapon?
OSRIC.
Rapier and dagger.
HAMLET.
ThatÕs two of his weapons. But well.
OSRIC.
The King, sir, hath wagerÕd with him six Barbary horses, against the which he has imponed, 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.
I knew you must be edified by the margin ere you had done.
OSRIC.
The carriages, sir, are the hangers.
HAMLET.
The phrase would be more german 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: thatÕs the French bet against the Danish. Why is this all imponed, as you call it?
OSRIC.
The King, sir, hath laid that in a dozen passes between you 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 re-deliver you eÕen so?
HAMLET.
To this effect, sir; after what flourish your nature will.
OSRIC.
I commend my duty to your lordship.
HAMLET.
Yours, yours.
[ExitÊOsric.]
He does well to commend it himself, there are no tongues else forÕs turn.
HORATIO.
This lapwing runs away with the shell on his head.
HAMLET.
He did comply with his dug before he suckÕd it. Thus has he,Ñand many more of the same bevy that I know the drossy age dotes on,Ñ only got the tune of the time and outward habit of encounter; a kind of yeasty collection, which carries them through and through the most fanned and winnowed opinions; and do but blow them to their trial, the bubbles are out.
Enter aÊLord.
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 KingÕs 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.
[ExitÊLord.]
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 allÕs 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 gain-giving 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. ThereÕs a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, Õtis 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 has aught of what he leaves, what isÕt to leave betimes?
EnterÊKing, Queen, Laertes, Lords, OsricÊandÊAttendantsÊwith foils &c.
KING.
Come, Hamlet, come, and take this hand from me.
[TheÊKingÊputsÊLaertesÕsÊhand intoÊHamletÕs.]
HAMLET.
Give me your pardon, sir. I have done you wrong;
But pardonÕt as you are a gentleman.
This presence knows, and you must needs have heard,
How I am punishÕd with sore distraction.
What I have done
That might your nature, honour, and exception
Roughly awake, I here proclaim was madness.
WasÕt Hamlet wrongÕd Laertes? Never Hamlet.
If Hamlet from himself be taÕen away,
And when heÕs not himself does wrong Laertes,
Then Hamlet does it not, Hamlet denies it.
Who does it, then? His madness. IfÕt be so,
Hamlet is of the faction that is wrongÕd;
His madness is poor HamletÕs enemy.
Sir, in this audience,
Let my disclaiming from a purposÕd evil
Free me so far in your most generous thoughts
That I have shot my arrow oÕer 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 ungorÕd. But till that time
I do receive your offerÕd love like love,
And will not wrong it.
HAMLET.
I embrace it freely,
And will this brotherÕs wager frankly play.Ñ
Give us the foils; come on.
LAERTES.
Come, one for me.
HAMLET.
IÕll be your foil, Laertes; in mine ignorance
Your skill shall like a star iÕ thÕ darkest night,
Stick fiery off indeed.
LAERTES.
You mock me, sir.
HAMLET.
No, by this hand.
KING.
Give them the foils, young Osric. Cousin Hamlet,
You know the wager?
HAMLET.
Very well, my lord.
Your Grace has laid the odds oÕ the weaker side.
KING.
I do not fear it. I have seen you both;
But since he is betterÕd, we have therefore odds.
LAERTES.
This is too heavy. Let me see another.
HAMLET.
This likes me well. These foils have all a length?
[They 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 HamletÕs better breath,
And in the cup an union shall he throw
Richer than that which four successive kings
In DenmarkÕs 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 heavens to earth,
ÔNow the King drinks to Hamlet.Õ 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.
Judgement.
OSRIC.
A hit, a very palpable hit.
LAERTES.
Well; again.
KING.
Stay, give me drink. Hamlet, this pearl is thine;
HereÕs to thy health.
[Trumpets sound, and cannon shot off within.]
Give him the cup.
HAMLET.
IÕll play this bout first; set it by awhile.
[They play.]
Come. Another hit; what say you?
LAERTES.
A touch, a touch, I do confess.
KING.
Our son shall win.
QUEEN.
HeÕs 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.
KING.
[Aside.] It is the poisonÕd 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, IÕll hit him now.
KING.
I do not thinkÕt.
LAERTES.
[Aside.] And yet Õtis almost Õgainst my conscience.
HAMLET.
Come for the third, Laertes. You do but dally.
I pray you pass with your best violence.
I am afeard you make a wanton of me.
LAERTES.
Say you so? Come on.
[They play.]
OSRIC.
Nothing neither way.
LAERTES.
Have at you now.
[LaertesÊwoundsÊHamlet;Êthen, in scuffling, they change rapiers, andÊHamletÊwoundsÊLaertes.]
KING.
Part them; they are incensÕd.
HAMLET.
Nay, come again!
[TheÊQueenÊfalls.]
OSRIC.
Look to the Queen there, ho!
HORATIO.
They bleed on both sides. How is it, my lord?
OSRIC.
How isÕt, Laertes?
LAERTES.
Why, as a woodcock to my own springe, Osric.
I am justly killÕd with mine own treachery.
HAMLET.
How does the Queen?
KING.
She swoons to see them bleed.
QUEEN.
No, no, the drink, the drink! O my dear Hamlet!
The drink, the drink! I am poisonÕd.
[Dies.]
HAMLET.
O villany! Ho! Let the door be lockÕd:
Treachery! Seek it out.
[LaertesÊfalls.]
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 envenomÕd. The foul practice
Hath turnÕd itself on me. Lo, here I lie,
Never to rise again. Thy motherÕs poisonÕd.
I can no more. The King, the KingÕs to blame.
HAMLET.
The point envenomÕd too!
Then, venom, to thy work.
[Stabs theÊKing.]
OSRIC and LORDS.
Treason! treason!
KING.
O yet defend me, friends. I am but hurt.
HAMLET.
Here, thou incestuous, murderous, damned Dane,
Drink off this potion. Is thy union here?
Follow my mother.
[KingÊdies.]
LAERTES.
He is justly servÕd.
It is a poison temperÕd by himself.
Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet.
Mine and my fatherÕs 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,Ñas this fell sergeant, death,
Is strict in his arrest,ÑO, I could tell you,Ñ
But let it be. Horatio, I am dead,
Thou livÕst; report me and my cause aright
To the unsatisfied.
HORATIO.
Never believe it.
I am more an antique Roman than a Dane.
HereÕs yet some liquor left.
HAMLET.
As thÕart a man,
Give me the cup. Let go; by Heaven, IÕll haveÕt.
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 oÕer-crows my spirit:
I cannot live to hear the news from England,
But I do prophesy thÕelection lights
On Fortinbras. He has my dying voice.
So tell him, with the 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.
Why does the drum come hither?
[March within.]
EnterÊFortinbras, the English AmbassadorsÊand others.
FORTINBRAS.
Where is this sight?
HORATIO.
What is it you would 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?
FIRST AMBASSADOR.
The sight is dismal;
And our affairs from England come too late.
The ears are senseless that should give us hearing,
To tell him his commandment is fulfillÕd,
That Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead.
Where should we have our thanks?
HORATIO.
Not from his mouth,
Had it thÕability 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 arrivÕd, give order that these bodies
High on a stage be placed to the view,
And let me speak to thÕ yet unknowing world
How these things came about. So shall you hear
Of carnal, bloody and unnatural acts,
Of accidental judgements, casual slaughters,
Of deaths put on by cunning and forcÕd cause,
And, in this upshot, purposes mistook
FallÕn on the inventorsÕ 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 performÕd,
Even while menÕs 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 provÕd most royally; and for his passage,
The soldiersÕ 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.
[A dead march.]
[Exeunt, bearing off the bodies, after which a peal of ordnance is shot off.]