hamlet.txt 171KB

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  1. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
  2. Shakespeare homepage | Hamlet | Entire play
  3. ACT I
  4. SCENE I. Elsinore. A platform before the castle.
  5. FRANCISCO at his post. Enter to him BERNARDO
  6. BERNARDO
  7. Who's there?
  8. FRANCISCO
  9. Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold yourself.
  10. BERNARDO
  11. Long live the king!
  12. FRANCISCO
  13. Bernardo?
  14. BERNARDO
  15. He.
  16. FRANCISCO
  17. You come most carefully upon your hour.
  18. BERNARDO
  19. 'Tis now struck twelve; get thee to bed, Francisco.
  20. FRANCISCO
  21. For this relief much thanks: 'tis bitter cold,
  22. And I am sick at heart.
  23. BERNARDO
  24. Have you had quiet guard?
  25. FRANCISCO
  26. Not a mouse stirring.
  27. BERNARDO
  28. Well, good night.
  29. If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,
  30. The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste.
  31. FRANCISCO
  32. I think I hear them. Stand, ho! Who's there?
  33. Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS
  34. HORATIO
  35. Friends to this ground.
  36. MARCELLUS
  37. And liegemen to the Dane.
  38. FRANCISCO
  39. Give you good night.
  40. MARCELLUS
  41. O, farewell, honest soldier:
  42. Who hath relieved you?
  43. FRANCISCO
  44. Bernardo has my place.
  45. Give you good night.
  46. Exit
  47. MARCELLUS
  48. Holla! Bernardo!
  49. BERNARDO
  50. Say,
  51. What, is Horatio there?
  52. HORATIO
  53. A piece of him.
  54. BERNARDO
  55. Welcome, Horatio: welcome, good Marcellus.
  56. MARCELLUS
  57. What, has this thing appear'd again to-night?
  58. BERNARDO
  59. I have seen nothing.
  60. MARCELLUS
  61. Horatio says 'tis but our fantasy,
  62. And will not let belief take hold of him
  63. Touching this dreaded sight, twice seen of us:
  64. Therefore I have entreated him along
  65. With us to watch the minutes of this night;
  66. That if again this apparition come,
  67. He may approve our eyes and speak to it.
  68. HORATIO
  69. Tush, tush, 'twill not appear.
  70. BERNARDO
  71. Sit down awhile;
  72. And let us once again assail your ears,
  73. That are so fortified against our story
  74. What we have two nights seen.
  75. HORATIO
  76. Well, sit we down,
  77. And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.
  78. BERNARDO
  79. Last night of all,
  80. When yond same star that's westward from the pole
  81. Had made his course to illume that part of heaven
  82. Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself,
  83. The bell then beating one,--
  84. Enter Ghost
  85. MARCELLUS
  86. Peace, break thee off; look, where it comes again!
  87. BERNARDO
  88. In the same figure, like the king that's dead.
  89. MARCELLUS
  90. Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio.
  91. BERNARDO
  92. Looks it not like the king? mark it, Horatio.
  93. HORATIO
  94. Most like: it harrows me with fear and wonder.
  95. BERNARDO
  96. It would be spoke to.
  97. MARCELLUS
  98. Question it, Horatio.
  99. HORATIO
  100. What art thou that usurp'st this time of night,
  101. Together with that fair and warlike form
  102. In which the majesty of buried Denmark
  103. Did sometimes march? by heaven I charge thee, speak!
  104. MARCELLUS
  105. It is offended.
  106. BERNARDO
  107. See, it stalks away!
  108. HORATIO
  109. Stay! speak, speak! I charge thee, speak!
  110. Exit Ghost
  111. MARCELLUS
  112. 'Tis gone, and will not answer.
  113. BERNARDO
  114. How now, Horatio! you tremble and look pale:
  115. Is not this something more than fantasy?
  116. What think you on't?
  117. HORATIO
  118. Before my God, I might not this believe
  119. Without the sensible and true avouch
  120. Of mine own eyes.
  121. MARCELLUS
  122. Is it not like the king?
  123. HORATIO
  124. As thou art to thyself:
  125. Such was the very armour he had on
  126. When he the ambitious Norway combated;
  127. So frown'd he once, when, in an angry parle,
  128. He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice.
  129. 'Tis strange.
  130. MARCELLUS
  131. Thus twice before, and jump at this dead hour,
  132. With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.
  133. HORATIO
  134. In what particular thought to work I know not;
  135. But in the gross and scope of my opinion,
  136. This bodes some strange eruption to our state.
  137. MARCELLUS
  138. Good now, sit down, and tell me, he that knows,
  139. Why this same strict and most observant watch
  140. So nightly toils the subject of the land,
  141. And why such daily cast of brazen cannon,
  142. And foreign mart for implements of war;
  143. Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task
  144. Does not divide the Sunday from the week;
  145. What might be toward, that this sweaty haste
  146. Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day:
  147. Who is't that can inform me?
  148. HORATIO
  149. That can I;
  150. At least, the whisper goes so. Our last king,
  151. Whose image even but now appear'd to us,
  152. Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,
  153. Thereto prick'd on by a most emulate pride,
  154. Dared to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet--
  155. For so this side of our known world esteem'd him--
  156. Did slay this Fortinbras; who by a seal'd compact,
  157. Well ratified by law and heraldry,
  158. Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands
  159. Which he stood seized of, to the conqueror:
  160. Against the which, a moiety competent
  161. Was gaged by our king; which had return'd
  162. To the inheritance of Fortinbras,
  163. Had he been vanquisher; as, by the same covenant,
  164. And carriage of the article design'd,
  165. His fell to Hamlet. Now, sir, young Fortinbras,
  166. Of unimproved mettle hot and full,
  167. Hath in the skirts of Norway here and there
  168. Shark'd up a list of lawless resolutes,
  169. For food and diet, to some enterprise
  170. That hath a stomach in't; which is no other--
  171. As it doth well appear unto our state--
  172. But to recover of us, by strong hand
  173. And terms compulsatory, those foresaid lands
  174. So by his father lost: and this, I take it,
  175. Is the main motive of our preparations,
  176. The source of this our watch and the chief head
  177. Of this post-haste and romage in the land.
  178. BERNARDO
  179. I think it be no other but e'en so:
  180. Well may it sort that this portentous figure
  181. Comes armed through our watch; so like the king
  182. That was and is the question of these wars.
  183. HORATIO
  184. A mote it is to trouble the mind's eye.
  185. In the most high and palmy state of Rome,
  186. A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,
  187. The graves stood tenantless and the sheeted dead
  188. Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets:
  189. As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,
  190. Disasters in the sun; and the moist star
  191. Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands
  192. Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse:
  193. And even the like precurse of fierce events,
  194. As harbingers preceding still the fates
  195. And prologue to the omen coming on,
  196. Have heaven and earth together demonstrated
  197. Unto our climatures and countrymen.--
  198. But soft, behold! lo, where it comes again!
  199. Re-enter Ghost
  200. I'll cross it, though it blast me. Stay, illusion!
  201. If thou hast any sound, or use of voice,
  202. Speak to me:
  203. If there be any good thing to be done,
  204. That may to thee do ease and grace to me,
  205. Speak to me:
  206. Cock crows
  207. If thou art privy to thy country's fate,
  208. Which, happily, foreknowing may avoid, O, speak!
  209. Or if thou hast uphoarded in thy life
  210. Extorted treasure in the womb of earth,
  211. For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death,
  212. Speak of it: stay, and speak! Stop it, Marcellus.
  213. MARCELLUS
  214. Shall I strike at it with my partisan?
  215. HORATIO
  216. Do, if it will not stand.
  217. BERNARDO
  218. 'Tis here!
  219. HORATIO
  220. 'Tis here!
  221. MARCELLUS
  222. 'Tis gone!
  223. Exit Ghost
  224. We do it wrong, being so majestical,
  225. To offer it the show of violence;
  226. For it is, as the air, invulnerable,
  227. And our vain blows malicious mockery.
  228. BERNARDO
  229. It was about to speak, when the cock crew.
  230. HORATIO
  231. And then it started like a guilty thing
  232. Upon a fearful summons. I have heard,
  233. The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,
  234. Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat
  235. Awake the god of day; and, at his warning,
  236. Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,
  237. The extravagant and erring spirit hies
  238. To his confine: and of the truth herein
  239. This present object made probation.
  240. MARCELLUS
  241. It faded on the crowing of the cock.
  242. Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes
  243. Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
  244. The bird of dawning singeth all night long:
  245. And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad;
  246. The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
  247. No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
  248. So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.
  249. HORATIO
  250. So have I heard and do in part believe it.
  251. But, look, the morn, in russet mantle clad,
  252. Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward hill:
  253. Break we our watch up; and by my advice,
  254. Let us impart what we have seen to-night
  255. Unto young Hamlet; for, upon my life,
  256. This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him.
  257. Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it,
  258. As needful in our loves, fitting our duty?
  259. MARCELLUS
  260. Let's do't, I pray; and I this morning know
  261. Where we shall find him most conveniently.
  262. Exeunt
  263. SCENE II. A room of state in the castle.
  264. Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, HAMLET, POLONIUS, LAERTES, VOLTIMAND, CORNELIUS, Lords, and Attendants
  265. KING CLAUDIUS
  266. Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death
  267. The memory be green, and that it us befitted
  268. To bear our hearts in grief and our whole kingdom
  269. To be contracted in one brow of woe,
  270. Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature
  271. That we with wisest sorrow think on him,
  272. Together with remembrance of ourselves.
  273. Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen,
  274. The imperial jointress to this warlike state,
  275. Have we, as 'twere with a defeated joy,--
  276. With an auspicious and a dropping eye,
  277. With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage,
  278. In equal scale weighing delight and dole,--
  279. Taken to wife: nor have we herein barr'd
  280. Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone
  281. With this affair along. For all, our thanks.
  282. Now follows, that you know, young Fortinbras,
  283. Holding a weak supposal of our worth,
  284. Or thinking by our late dear brother's death
  285. Our state to be disjoint and out of frame,
  286. Colleagued with the dream of his advantage,
  287. He hath not fail'd to pester us with message,
  288. Importing the surrender of those lands
  289. Lost by his father, with all bonds of law,
  290. To our most valiant brother. So much for him.
  291. Now for ourself and for this time of meeting:
  292. Thus much the business is: we have here writ
  293. To Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras,--
  294. Who, impotent and bed-rid, scarcely hears
  295. Of this his nephew's purpose,--to suppress
  296. His further gait herein; in that the levies,
  297. The lists and full proportions, are all made
  298. Out of his subject: and we here dispatch
  299. You, good Cornelius, and you, Voltimand,
  300. For bearers of this greeting to old Norway;
  301. Giving to you no further personal power
  302. To business with the king, more than the scope
  303. Of these delated articles allow.
  304. Farewell, and let your haste commend your duty.
  305. CORNELIUS VOLTIMAND
  306. In that and all things will we show our duty.
  307. KING CLAUDIUS
  308. We doubt it nothing: heartily farewell.
  309. Exeunt VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS
  310. And now, Laertes, what's the news with you?
  311. You told us of some suit; what is't, Laertes?
  312. You cannot speak of reason to the Dane,
  313. And loose your voice: what wouldst thou beg, Laertes,
  314. That shall not be my offer, not thy asking?
  315. The head is not more native to the heart,
  316. The hand more instrumental to the mouth,
  317. Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father.
  318. What wouldst thou have, Laertes?
  319. LAERTES
  320. My dread lord,
  321. Your leave and favour to return to France;
  322. From whence though willingly I came to Denmark,
  323. To show my duty in your coronation,
  324. Yet now, I must confess, that duty done,
  325. My thoughts and wishes bend again toward France
  326. And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon.
  327. KING CLAUDIUS
  328. Have you your father's leave? What says Polonius?
  329. LORD POLONIUS
  330. He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave
  331. By laboursome petition, and at last
  332. Upon his will I seal'd my hard consent:
  333. I do beseech you, give him leave to go.
  334. KING CLAUDIUS
  335. Take thy fair hour, Laertes; time be thine,
  336. And thy best graces spend it at thy will!
  337. But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son,--
  338. HAMLET
  339. [Aside] A little more than kin, and less than kind.
  340. KING CLAUDIUS
  341. How is it that the clouds still hang on you?
  342. HAMLET
  343. Not so, my lord; I am too much i' the sun.
  344. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  345. Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off,
  346. And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.
  347. Do not for ever with thy vailed lids
  348. Seek for thy noble father in the dust:
  349. Thou know'st 'tis common; all that lives must die,
  350. Passing through nature to eternity.
  351. HAMLET
  352. Ay, madam, it is common.
  353. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  354. If it be,
  355. Why seems it so particular with thee?
  356. HAMLET
  357. Seems, madam! nay it is; I know not 'seems.'
  358. 'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
  359. Nor customary suits of solemn black,
  360. Nor windy suspiration of forced breath,
  361. No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
  362. Nor the dejected 'havior of the visage,
  363. Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief,
  364. That can denote me truly: these indeed seem,
  365. For they are actions that a man might play:
  366. But I have that within which passeth show;
  367. These but the trappings and the suits of woe.
  368. KING CLAUDIUS
  369. 'Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,
  370. To give these mourning duties to your father:
  371. But, you must know, your father lost a father;
  372. That father lost, lost his, and the survivor bound
  373. In filial obligation for some term
  374. To do obsequious sorrow: but to persever
  375. In obstinate condolement is a course
  376. Of impious stubbornness; 'tis unmanly grief;
  377. It shows a will most incorrect to heaven,
  378. A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,
  379. An understanding simple and unschool'd:
  380. For what we know must be and is as common
  381. As any the most vulgar thing to sense,
  382. Why should we in our peevish opposition
  383. Take it to heart? Fie! 'tis a fault to heaven,
  384. A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,
  385. To reason most absurd: whose common theme
  386. Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried,
  387. From the first corse till he that died to-day,
  388. 'This must be so.' We pray you, throw to earth
  389. This unprevailing woe, and think of us
  390. As of a father: for let the world take note,
  391. You are the most immediate to our throne;
  392. And with no less nobility of love
  393. Than that which dearest father bears his son,
  394. Do I impart toward you. For your intent
  395. In going back to school in Wittenberg,
  396. It is most retrograde to our desire:
  397. And we beseech you, bend you to remain
  398. Here, in the cheer and comfort of our eye,
  399. Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.
  400. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  401. Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet:
  402. I pray thee, stay with us; go not to Wittenberg.
  403. HAMLET
  404. I shall in all my best obey you, madam.
  405. KING CLAUDIUS
  406. Why, 'tis a loving and a fair reply:
  407. Be as ourself in Denmark. Madam, come;
  408. This gentle and unforced accord of Hamlet
  409. Sits smiling to my heart: in grace whereof,
  410. No jocund health that Denmark drinks to-day,
  411. But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell,
  412. And the king's rouse the heavens all bruit again,
  413. Re-speaking earthly thunder. Come away.
  414. Exeunt all but HAMLET
  415. HAMLET
  416. O, that this too too solid flesh would melt
  417. Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!
  418. Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
  419. His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!
  420. How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,
  421. Seem to me all the uses of this world!
  422. Fie on't! ah fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,
  423. That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
  424. Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
  425. But two months dead: nay, not so much, not two:
  426. So excellent a king; that was, to this,
  427. Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother
  428. That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
  429. Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
  430. Must I remember? why, she would hang on him,
  431. As if increase of appetite had grown
  432. By what it fed on: and yet, within a month--
  433. Let me not think on't--Frailty, thy name is woman!--
  434. A little month, or ere those shoes were old
  435. With which she follow'd my poor father's body,
  436. Like Niobe, all tears:--why she, even she--
  437. O, God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,
  438. Would have mourn'd longer--married with my uncle,
  439. My father's brother, but no more like my father
  440. Than I to Hercules: within a month:
  441. Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
  442. Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
  443. She married. O, most wicked speed, to post
  444. With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
  445. It is not nor it cannot come to good:
  446. But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue.
  447. Enter HORATIO, MARCELLUS, and BERNARDO
  448. HORATIO
  449. Hail to your lordship!
  450. HAMLET
  451. I am glad to see you well:
  452. Horatio,--or I do forget myself.
  453. HORATIO
  454. The same, my lord, and your poor servant ever.
  455. HAMLET
  456. Sir, my good friend; I'll change that name with you:
  457. And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio? Marcellus?
  458. MARCELLUS
  459. My good lord--
  460. HAMLET
  461. I am very glad to see you. Good even, sir.
  462. But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg?
  463. HORATIO
  464. A truant disposition, good my lord.
  465. HAMLET
  466. I would not hear your enemy say so,
  467. Nor shall you do mine ear that violence,
  468. To make it truster of your own report
  469. Against yourself: I know you are no truant.
  470. But what is your affair in Elsinore?
  471. We'll teach you to drink deep ere you depart.
  472. HORATIO
  473. My lord, I came to see your father's funeral.
  474. HAMLET
  475. I pray thee, do not mock me, fellow-student;
  476. I think it was to see my mother's wedding.
  477. HORATIO
  478. Indeed, my lord, it follow'd hard upon.
  479. HAMLET
  480. Thrift, thrift, Horatio! the funeral baked meats
  481. Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.
  482. Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven
  483. Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio!
  484. My father!--methinks I see my father.
  485. HORATIO
  486. Where, my lord?
  487. HAMLET
  488. In my mind's eye, Horatio.
  489. HORATIO
  490. I saw him once; he was a goodly king.
  491. HAMLET
  492. He was a man, take him for all in all,
  493. I shall not look upon his like again.
  494. HORATIO
  495. My lord, I think I saw him yesternight.
  496. HAMLET
  497. Saw? who?
  498. HORATIO
  499. My lord, the king your father.
  500. HAMLET
  501. The king my father!
  502. HORATIO
  503. Season your admiration for awhile
  504. With an attent ear, till I may deliver,
  505. Upon the witness of these gentlemen,
  506. This marvel to you.
  507. HAMLET
  508. For God's love, let me hear.
  509. HORATIO
  510. Two nights together had these gentlemen,
  511. Marcellus and Bernardo, on their watch,
  512. In the dead vast and middle of the night,
  513. Been thus encounter'd. A figure like your father,
  514. Armed at point exactly, cap-a-pe,
  515. Appears before them, and with solemn march
  516. Goes slow and stately by them: thrice he walk'd
  517. By their oppress'd and fear-surprised eyes,
  518. Within his truncheon's length; whilst they, distilled
  519. Almost to jelly with the act of fear,
  520. Stand dumb and speak not to him. This to me
  521. In dreadful secrecy impart they did;
  522. And I with them the third night kept the watch;
  523. Where, as they had deliver'd, both in time,
  524. Form of the thing, each word made true and good,
  525. The apparition comes: I knew your father;
  526. These hands are not more like.
  527. HAMLET
  528. But where was this?
  529. MARCELLUS
  530. My lord, upon the platform where we watch'd.
  531. HAMLET
  532. Did you not speak to it?
  533. HORATIO
  534. My lord, I did;
  535. But answer made it none: yet once methought
  536. It lifted up its head and did address
  537. Itself to motion, like as it would speak;
  538. But even then the morning cock crew loud,
  539. And at the sound it shrunk in haste away,
  540. And vanish'd from our sight.
  541. HAMLET
  542. 'Tis very strange.
  543. HORATIO
  544. As I do live, my honour'd lord, 'tis true;
  545. And we did think it writ down in our duty
  546. To let you know of it.
  547. HAMLET
  548. Indeed, indeed, sirs, but this troubles me.
  549. Hold you the watch to-night?
  550. MARCELLUS BERNARDO
  551. We do, my lord.
  552. HAMLET
  553. Arm'd, say you?
  554. MARCELLUS BERNARDO
  555. Arm'd, my lord.
  556. HAMLET
  557. From top to toe?
  558. MARCELLUS BERNARDO
  559. My lord, from head to foot.
  560. HAMLET
  561. Then saw you not his face?
  562. HORATIO
  563. O, yes, my lord; he wore his beaver up.
  564. HAMLET
  565. What, look'd he frowningly?
  566. HORATIO
  567. A countenance more in sorrow than in anger.
  568. HAMLET
  569. Pale or red?
  570. HORATIO
  571. Nay, very pale.
  572. HAMLET
  573. And fix'd his eyes upon you?
  574. HORATIO
  575. Most constantly.
  576. HAMLET
  577. I would I had been there.
  578. HORATIO
  579. It would have much amazed you.
  580. HAMLET
  581. Very like, very like. Stay'd it long?
  582. HORATIO
  583. While one with moderate haste might tell a hundred.
  584. MARCELLUS BERNARDO
  585. Longer, longer.
  586. HORATIO
  587. Not when I saw't.
  588. HAMLET
  589. His beard was grizzled--no?
  590. HORATIO
  591. It was, as I have seen it in his life,
  592. A sable silver'd.
  593. HAMLET
  594. I will watch to-night;
  595. Perchance 'twill walk again.
  596. HORATIO
  597. I warrant it will.
  598. HAMLET
  599. If it assume my noble father's person,
  600. I'll speak to it, though hell itself should gape
  601. And bid me hold my peace. I pray you all,
  602. If you have hitherto conceal'd this sight,
  603. Let it be tenable in your silence still;
  604. And whatsoever else shall hap to-night,
  605. Give it an understanding, but no tongue:
  606. I will requite your loves. So, fare you well:
  607. Upon the platform, 'twixt eleven and twelve,
  608. I'll visit you.
  609. All
  610. Our duty to your honour.
  611. HAMLET
  612. Your loves, as mine to you: farewell.
  613. Exeunt all but HAMLET
  614. My father's spirit in arms! all is not well;
  615. I doubt some foul play: would the night were come!
  616. Till then sit still, my soul: foul deeds will rise,
  617. Though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes.
  618. Exit
  619. SCENE III. A room in Polonius' house.
  620. Enter LAERTES and OPHELIA
  621. LAERTES
  622. My necessaries are embark'd: farewell:
  623. And, sister, as the winds give benefit
  624. And convoy is assistant, do not sleep,
  625. But let me hear from you.
  626. OPHELIA
  627. Do you doubt that?
  628. LAERTES
  629. For Hamlet and the trifling of his favour,
  630. Hold it a fashion and a toy in blood,
  631. A violet in the youth of primy nature,
  632. Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting,
  633. The perfume and suppliance of a minute; No more.
  634. OPHELIA
  635. No more but so?
  636. LAERTES
  637. Think it no more;
  638. For nature, crescent, does not grow alone
  639. In thews and bulk, but, as this temple waxes,
  640. The inward service of the mind and soul
  641. Grows wide withal. Perhaps he loves you now,
  642. And now no soil nor cautel doth besmirch
  643. The virtue of his will: but you must fear,
  644. His greatness weigh'd, his will is not his own;
  645. For he himself is subject to his birth:
  646. He may not, as unvalued persons do,
  647. Carve for himself; for on his choice depends
  648. The safety and health of this whole state;
  649. And therefore must his choice be circumscribed
  650. Unto the voice and yielding of that body
  651. Whereof he is the head. Then if he says he loves you,
  652. It fits your wisdom so far to believe it
  653. As he in his particular act and place
  654. May give his saying deed; which is no further
  655. Than the main voice of Denmark goes withal.
  656. Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain,
  657. If with too credent ear you list his songs,
  658. Or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure open
  659. To his unmaster'd importunity.
  660. Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister,
  661. And keep you in the rear of your affection,
  662. Out of the shot and danger of desire.
  663. The chariest maid is prodigal enough,
  664. If she unmask her beauty to the moon:
  665. Virtue itself 'scapes not calumnious strokes:
  666. The canker galls the infants of the spring,
  667. Too oft before their buttons be disclosed,
  668. And in the morn and liquid dew of youth
  669. Contagious blastments are most imminent.
  670. Be wary then; best safety lies in fear:
  671. Youth to itself rebels, though none else near.
  672. OPHELIA
  673. I shall the effect of this good lesson keep,
  674. As watchman to my heart. But, good my brother,
  675. Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,
  676. Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven;
  677. Whiles, like a puff'd and reckless libertine,
  678. Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
  679. And recks not his own rede.
  680. LAERTES
  681. O, fear me not.
  682. I stay too long: but here my father comes.
  683. Enter POLONIUS
  684. A double blessing is a double grace,
  685. Occasion smiles upon a second leave.
  686. LORD POLONIUS
  687. Yet here, Laertes! aboard, aboard, for shame!
  688. The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
  689. And you are stay'd for. There; my blessing with thee!
  690. And these few precepts in thy memory
  691. See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
  692. Nor any unproportioned thought his act.
  693. Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
  694. Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
  695. Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
  696. But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
  697. Of each new-hatch'd, unfledged comrade. Beware
  698. Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,
  699. Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee.
  700. Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
  701. Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
  702. Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
  703. But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
  704. For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
  705. And they in France of the best rank and station
  706. Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
  707. Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
  708. For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
  709. And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
  710. This above all: to thine ownself be true,
  711. And it must follow, as the night the day,
  712. Thou canst not then be false to any man.
  713. Farewell: my blessing season this in thee!
  714. LAERTES
  715. Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord.
  716. LORD POLONIUS
  717. The time invites you; go; your servants tend.
  718. LAERTES
  719. Farewell, Ophelia; and remember well
  720. What I have said to you.
  721. OPHELIA
  722. 'Tis in my memory lock'd,
  723. And you yourself shall keep the key of it.
  724. LAERTES
  725. Farewell.
  726. Exit
  727. LORD POLONIUS
  728. What is't, Ophelia, be hath said to you?
  729. OPHELIA
  730. So please you, something touching the Lord Hamlet.
  731. LORD POLONIUS
  732. Marry, well bethought:
  733. 'Tis told me, he hath very oft of late
  734. Given private time to you; and you yourself
  735. Have of your audience been most free and bounteous:
  736. If it be so, as so 'tis put on me,
  737. And that in way of caution, I must tell you,
  738. You do not understand yourself so clearly
  739. As it behoves my daughter and your honour.
  740. What is between you? give me up the truth.
  741. OPHELIA
  742. He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders
  743. Of his affection to me.
  744. LORD POLONIUS
  745. Affection! pooh! you speak like a green girl,
  746. Unsifted in such perilous circumstance.
  747. Do you believe his tenders, as you call them?
  748. OPHELIA
  749. I do not know, my lord, what I should think.
  750. LORD POLONIUS
  751. Marry, I'll teach you: think yourself a baby;
  752. That you have ta'en these tenders for true pay,
  753. Which are not sterling. Tender yourself more dearly;
  754. Or--not to crack the wind of the poor phrase,
  755. Running it thus--you'll tender me a fool.
  756. OPHELIA
  757. My lord, he hath importuned me with love
  758. In honourable fashion.
  759. LORD POLONIUS
  760. Ay, fashion you may call it; go to, go to.
  761. OPHELIA
  762. And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord,
  763. With almost all the holy vows of heaven.
  764. LORD POLONIUS
  765. Ay, springes to catch woodcocks. I do know,
  766. When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul
  767. Lends the tongue vows: these blazes, daughter,
  768. Giving more light than heat, extinct in both,
  769. Even in their promise, as it is a-making,
  770. You must not take for fire. From this time
  771. Be somewhat scanter of your maiden presence;
  772. Set your entreatments at a higher rate
  773. Than a command to parley. For Lord Hamlet,
  774. Believe so much in him, that he is young
  775. And with a larger tether may he walk
  776. Than may be given you: in few, Ophelia,
  777. Do not believe his vows; for they are brokers,
  778. Not of that dye which their investments show,
  779. But mere implorators of unholy suits,
  780. Breathing like sanctified and pious bawds,
  781. The better to beguile. This is for all:
  782. I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth,
  783. Have you so slander any moment leisure,
  784. As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet.
  785. Look to't, I charge you: come your ways.
  786. OPHELIA
  787. I shall obey, my lord.
  788. Exeunt
  789. SCENE IV. The platform.
  790. Enter HAMLET, HORATIO, and MARCELLUS
  791. HAMLET
  792. The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.
  793. HORATIO
  794. It is a nipping and an eager air.
  795. HAMLET
  796. What hour now?
  797. HORATIO
  798. I think it lacks of twelve.
  799. HAMLET
  800. No, it is struck.
  801. HORATIO
  802. Indeed? I heard it not: then it draws near the season
  803. Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk.
  804. A flourish of trumpets, and ordnance shot off, within
  805. What does this mean, my lord?
  806. HAMLET
  807. The king doth wake to-night and takes his rouse,
  808. Keeps wassail, and the swaggering up-spring reels;
  809. And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down,
  810. The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out
  811. The triumph of his pledge.
  812. HORATIO
  813. Is it a custom?
  814. HAMLET
  815. Ay, marry, is't:
  816. But to my mind, though I am native here
  817. And to the manner born, it is a custom
  818. More honour'd in the breach than the observance.
  819. This heavy-headed revel east and west
  820. Makes us traduced and tax'd of other nations:
  821. They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish phrase
  822. Soil our addition; and indeed it takes
  823. From our achievements, though perform'd at height,
  824. The pith and marrow of our attribute.
  825. So, oft it chances in particular men,
  826. That for some vicious mole of nature in them,
  827. As, in their birth--wherein they are not guilty,
  828. Since nature cannot choose his origin--
  829. By the o'ergrowth of some complexion,
  830. Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason,
  831. Or by some habit that too much o'er-leavens
  832. The form of plausive manners, that these men,
  833. Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect,
  834. Being nature's livery, or fortune's star,--
  835. Their virtues else--be they as pure as grace,
  836. As infinite as man may undergo--
  837. Shall in the general censure take corruption
  838. From that particular fault: the dram of eale
  839. Doth all the noble substance of a doubt
  840. To his own scandal.
  841. HORATIO
  842. Look, my lord, it comes!
  843. Enter Ghost
  844. HAMLET
  845. Angels and ministers of grace defend us!
  846. Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd,
  847. Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,
  848. Be thy intents wicked or charitable,
  849. Thou comest in such a questionable shape
  850. That I will speak to thee: I'll call thee Hamlet,
  851. King, father, royal Dane: O, answer me!
  852. Let me not burst in ignorance; but tell
  853. Why thy canonized bones, hearsed in death,
  854. Have burst their cerements; why the sepulchre,
  855. Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn'd,
  856. Hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws,
  857. To cast thee up again. What may this mean,
  858. That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel
  859. Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon,
  860. Making night hideous; and we fools of nature
  861. So horridly to shake our disposition
  862. With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?
  863. Say, why is this? wherefore? what should we do?
  864. Ghost beckons HAMLET
  865. HORATIO
  866. It beckons you to go away with it,
  867. As if it some impartment did desire
  868. To you alone.
  869. MARCELLUS
  870. Look, with what courteous action
  871. It waves you to a more removed ground:
  872. But do not go with it.
  873. HORATIO
  874. No, by no means.
  875. HAMLET
  876. It will not speak; then I will follow it.
  877. HORATIO
  878. Do not, my lord.
  879. HAMLET
  880. Why, what should be the fear?
  881. I do not set my life in a pin's fee;
  882. And for my soul, what can it do to that,
  883. Being a thing immortal as itself?
  884. It waves me forth again: I'll follow it.
  885. HORATIO
  886. What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord,
  887. Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff
  888. That beetles o'er his base into the sea,
  889. And there assume some other horrible form,
  890. Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason
  891. And draw you into madness? think of it:
  892. The very place puts toys of desperation,
  893. Without more motive, into every brain
  894. That looks so many fathoms to the sea
  895. And hears it roar beneath.
  896. HAMLET
  897. It waves me still.
  898. Go on; I'll follow thee.
  899. MARCELLUS
  900. You shall not go, my lord.
  901. HAMLET
  902. Hold off your hands.
  903. HORATIO
  904. Be ruled; you shall not go.
  905. HAMLET
  906. My fate cries out,
  907. And makes each petty artery in this body
  908. As hardy as the Nemean lion's nerve.
  909. Still am I call'd. Unhand me, gentlemen.
  910. By heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that lets me!
  911. I say, away! Go on; I'll follow thee.
  912. Exeunt Ghost and HAMLET
  913. HORATIO
  914. He waxes desperate with imagination.
  915. MARCELLUS
  916. Let's follow; 'tis not fit thus to obey him.
  917. HORATIO
  918. Have after. To what issue will this come?
  919. MARCELLUS
  920. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
  921. HORATIO
  922. Heaven will direct it.
  923. MARCELLUS
  924. Nay, let's follow him.
  925. Exeunt
  926. SCENE V. Another part of the platform.
  927. Enter GHOST and HAMLET
  928. HAMLET
  929. Where wilt thou lead me? speak; I'll go no further.
  930. Ghost
  931. Mark me.
  932. HAMLET
  933. I will.
  934. Ghost
  935. My hour is almost come,
  936. When I to sulphurous and tormenting flames
  937. Must render up myself.
  938. HAMLET
  939. Alas, poor ghost!
  940. Ghost
  941. Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing
  942. To what I shall unfold.
  943. HAMLET
  944. Speak; I am bound to hear.
  945. Ghost
  946. So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear.
  947. HAMLET
  948. What?
  949. Ghost
  950. I am thy father's spirit,
  951. Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night,
  952. And for the day confined to fast in fires,
  953. Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
  954. Are burnt and purged away. But that I am forbid
  955. To tell the secrets of my prison-house,
  956. I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
  957. Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
  958. Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres,
  959. Thy knotted and combined locks to part
  960. And each particular hair to stand on end,
  961. Like quills upon the fretful porpentine:
  962. But this eternal blazon must not be
  963. To ears of flesh and blood. List, list, O, list!
  964. If thou didst ever thy dear father love--
  965. HAMLET
  966. O God!
  967. Ghost
  968. Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.
  969. HAMLET
  970. Murder!
  971. Ghost
  972. Murder most foul, as in the best it is;
  973. But this most foul, strange and unnatural.
  974. HAMLET
  975. Haste me to know't, that I, with wings as swift
  976. As meditation or the thoughts of love,
  977. May sweep to my revenge.
  978. Ghost
  979. I find thee apt;
  980. And duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed
  981. That roots itself in ease on Lethe wharf,
  982. Wouldst thou not stir in this. Now, Hamlet, hear:
  983. 'Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard,
  984. A serpent stung me; so the whole ear of Denmark
  985. Is by a forged process of my death
  986. Rankly abused: but know, thou noble youth,
  987. The serpent that did sting thy father's life
  988. Now wears his crown.
  989. HAMLET
  990. O my prophetic soul! My uncle!
  991. Ghost
  992. Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast,
  993. With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts,--
  994. O wicked wit and gifts, that have the power
  995. So to seduce!--won to his shameful lust
  996. The will of my most seeming-virtuous queen:
  997. O Hamlet, what a falling-off was there!
  998. From me, whose love was of that dignity
  999. That it went hand in hand even with the vow
  1000. I made to her in marriage, and to decline
  1001. Upon a wretch whose natural gifts were poor
  1002. To those of mine!
  1003. But virtue, as it never will be moved,
  1004. Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven,
  1005. So lust, though to a radiant angel link'd,
  1006. Will sate itself in a celestial bed,
  1007. And prey on garbage.
  1008. But, soft! methinks I scent the morning air;
  1009. Brief let me be. Sleeping within my orchard,
  1010. My custom always of the afternoon,
  1011. Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole,
  1012. With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial,
  1013. And in the porches of my ears did pour
  1014. The leperous distilment; whose effect
  1015. Holds such an enmity with blood of man
  1016. That swift as quicksilver it courses through
  1017. The natural gates and alleys of the body,
  1018. And with a sudden vigour doth posset
  1019. And curd, like eager droppings into milk,
  1020. The thin and wholesome blood: so did it mine;
  1021. And a most instant tetter bark'd about,
  1022. Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust,
  1023. All my smooth body.
  1024. Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother's hand
  1025. Of life, of crown, of queen, at once dispatch'd:
  1026. Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,
  1027. Unhousel'd, disappointed, unanel'd,
  1028. No reckoning made, but sent to my account
  1029. With all my imperfections on my head:
  1030. O, horrible! O, horrible! most horrible!
  1031. If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not;
  1032. Let not the royal bed of Denmark be
  1033. A couch for luxury and damned incest.
  1034. But, howsoever thou pursuest this act,
  1035. Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive
  1036. Against thy mother aught: leave her to heaven
  1037. And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge,
  1038. To prick and sting her. Fare thee well at once!
  1039. The glow-worm shows the matin to be near,
  1040. And 'gins to pale his uneffectual fire:
  1041. Adieu, adieu! Hamlet, remember me.
  1042. Exit
  1043. HAMLET
  1044. O all you host of heaven! O earth! what else?
  1045. And shall I couple hell? O, fie! Hold, hold, my heart;
  1046. And you, my sinews, grow not instant old,
  1047. But bear me stiffly up. Remember thee!
  1048. Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat
  1049. In this distracted globe. Remember thee!
  1050. Yea, from the table of my memory
  1051. I'll wipe away all trivial fond records,
  1052. All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past,
  1053. That youth and observation copied there;
  1054. And thy commandment all alone shall live
  1055. Within the book and volume of my brain,
  1056. Unmix'd with baser matter: yes, by heaven!
  1057. O most pernicious woman!
  1058. O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!
  1059. My tables,--meet it is I set it down,
  1060. That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain;
  1061. At least I'm sure it may be so in Denmark:
  1062. Writing
  1063. So, uncle, there you are. Now to my word;
  1064. It is 'Adieu, adieu! remember me.'
  1065. I have sworn 't.
  1066. MARCELLUS HORATIO
  1067. [Within] My lord, my lord,--
  1068. MARCELLUS
  1069. [Within] Lord Hamlet,--
  1070. HORATIO
  1071. [Within] Heaven secure him!
  1072. HAMLET
  1073. So be it!
  1074. HORATIO
  1075. [Within] Hillo, ho, ho, my lord!
  1076. HAMLET
  1077. Hillo, ho, ho, boy! come, bird, come.
  1078. Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS
  1079. MARCELLUS
  1080. How is't, my noble lord?
  1081. HORATIO
  1082. What news, my lord?
  1083. HAMLET
  1084. O, wonderful!
  1085. HORATIO
  1086. Good my lord, tell it.
  1087. HAMLET
  1088. No; you'll reveal it.
  1089. HORATIO
  1090. Not I, my lord, by heaven.
  1091. MARCELLUS
  1092. Nor I, my lord.
  1093. HAMLET
  1094. How say you, then; would heart of man once think it?
  1095. But you'll be secret?
  1096. HORATIO MARCELLUS
  1097. Ay, by heaven, my lord.
  1098. HAMLET
  1099. There's ne'er a villain dwelling in all Denmark
  1100. But he's an arrant knave.
  1101. HORATIO
  1102. There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave
  1103. To tell us this.
  1104. HAMLET
  1105. Why, right; you are i' the right;
  1106. And so, without more circumstance at all,
  1107. I hold it fit that we shake hands and part:
  1108. You, as your business and desire shall point you;
  1109. For every man has business and desire,
  1110. Such as it is; and for mine own poor part,
  1111. Look you, I'll go pray.
  1112. HORATIO
  1113. These are but wild and whirling words, my lord.
  1114. HAMLET
  1115. I'm sorry they offend you, heartily;
  1116. Yes, 'faith heartily.
  1117. HORATIO
  1118. There's no offence, my lord.
  1119. HAMLET
  1120. Yes, by Saint Patrick, but there is, Horatio,
  1121. And much offence too. Touching this vision here,
  1122. It is an honest ghost, that let me tell you:
  1123. For your desire to know what is between us,
  1124. O'ermaster 't as you may. And now, good friends,
  1125. As you are friends, scholars and soldiers,
  1126. Give me one poor request.
  1127. HORATIO
  1128. What is't, my lord? we will.
  1129. HAMLET
  1130. Never make known what you have seen to-night.
  1131. HORATIO MARCELLUS
  1132. My lord, we will not.
  1133. HAMLET
  1134. Nay, but swear't.
  1135. HORATIO
  1136. In faith,
  1137. My lord, not I.
  1138. MARCELLUS
  1139. Nor I, my lord, in faith.
  1140. HAMLET
  1141. Upon my sword.
  1142. MARCELLUS
  1143. We have sworn, my lord, already.
  1144. HAMLET
  1145. Indeed, upon my sword, indeed.
  1146. Ghost
  1147. [Beneath] Swear.
  1148. HAMLET
  1149. Ah, ha, boy! say'st thou so? art thou there,
  1150. truepenny?
  1151. Come on--you hear this fellow in the cellarage--
  1152. Consent to swear.
  1153. HORATIO
  1154. Propose the oath, my lord.
  1155. HAMLET
  1156. Never to speak of this that you have seen,
  1157. Swear by my sword.
  1158. Ghost
  1159. [Beneath] Swear.
  1160. HAMLET
  1161. Hic et ubique? then we'll shift our ground.
  1162. Come hither, gentlemen,
  1163. And lay your hands again upon my sword:
  1164. Never to speak of this that you have heard,
  1165. Swear by my sword.
  1166. Ghost
  1167. [Beneath] Swear.
  1168. HAMLET
  1169. Well said, old mole! canst work i' the earth so fast?
  1170. A worthy pioner! Once more remove, good friends.
  1171. HORATIO
  1172. O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!
  1173. HAMLET
  1174. And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
  1175. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
  1176. Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. But come;
  1177. Here, as before, never, so help you mercy,
  1178. How strange or odd soe'er I bear myself,
  1179. As I perchance hereafter shall think meet
  1180. To put an antic disposition on,
  1181. That you, at such times seeing me, never shall,
  1182. With arms encumber'd thus, or this headshake,
  1183. Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase,
  1184. As 'Well, well, we know,' or 'We could, an if we would,'
  1185. Or 'If we list to speak,' or 'There be, an if they might,'
  1186. Or such ambiguous giving out, to note
  1187. That you know aught of me: this not to do,
  1188. So grace and mercy at your most need help you, Swear.
  1189. Ghost
  1190. [Beneath] Swear.
  1191. HAMLET
  1192. Rest, rest, perturbed spirit!
  1193. They swear
  1194. So, gentlemen,
  1195. With all my love I do commend me to you:
  1196. And what so poor a man as Hamlet is
  1197. May do, to express his love and friending to you,
  1198. God willing, shall not lack. Let us go in together;
  1199. And still your fingers on your lips, I pray.
  1200. The time is out of joint: O cursed spite,
  1201. That ever I was born to set it right!
  1202. Nay, come, let's go together.
  1203. Exeunt
  1204. ACT II
  1205. SCENE I. A room in POLONIUS' house.
  1206. Enter POLONIUS and REYNALDO
  1207. LORD POLONIUS
  1208. Give him this money and these notes, Reynaldo.
  1209. REYNALDO
  1210. I will, my lord.
  1211. LORD POLONIUS
  1212. You shall do marvellous wisely, good Reynaldo,
  1213. Before you visit him, to make inquire
  1214. Of his behavior.
  1215. REYNALDO
  1216. My lord, I did intend it.
  1217. LORD POLONIUS
  1218. Marry, well said; very well said. Look you, sir,
  1219. Inquire me first what Danskers are in Paris;
  1220. And how, and who, what means, and where they keep,
  1221. What company, at what expense; and finding
  1222. By this encompassment and drift of question
  1223. That they do know my son, come you more nearer
  1224. Than your particular demands will touch it:
  1225. Take you, as 'twere, some distant knowledge of him;
  1226. As thus, 'I know his father and his friends,
  1227. And in part him: ' do you mark this, Reynaldo?
  1228. REYNALDO
  1229. Ay, very well, my lord.
  1230. LORD POLONIUS
  1231. 'And in part him; but' you may say 'not well:
  1232. But, if't be he I mean, he's very wild;
  1233. Addicted so and so:' and there put on him
  1234. What forgeries you please; marry, none so rank
  1235. As may dishonour him; take heed of that;
  1236. But, sir, such wanton, wild and usual slips
  1237. As are companions noted and most known
  1238. To youth and liberty.
  1239. REYNALDO
  1240. As gaming, my lord.
  1241. LORD POLONIUS
  1242. Ay, or drinking, fencing, swearing, quarrelling,
  1243. Drabbing: you may go so far.
  1244. REYNALDO
  1245. My lord, that would dishonour him.
  1246. LORD POLONIUS
  1247. 'Faith, no; as you may season it in the charge
  1248. You must not put another scandal on him,
  1249. That he is open to incontinency;
  1250. That's not my meaning: but breathe his faults so quaintly
  1251. That they may seem the taints of liberty,
  1252. The flash and outbreak of a fiery mind,
  1253. A savageness in unreclaimed blood,
  1254. Of general assault.
  1255. REYNALDO
  1256. But, my good lord,--
  1257. LORD POLONIUS
  1258. Wherefore should you do this?
  1259. REYNALDO
  1260. Ay, my lord,
  1261. I would know that.
  1262. LORD POLONIUS
  1263. Marry, sir, here's my drift;
  1264. And I believe, it is a fetch of wit:
  1265. You laying these slight sullies on my son,
  1266. As 'twere a thing a little soil'd i' the working, Mark you,
  1267. Your party in converse, him you would sound,
  1268. Having ever seen in the prenominate crimes
  1269. The youth you breathe of guilty, be assured
  1270. He closes with you in this consequence;
  1271. 'Good sir,' or so, or 'friend,' or 'gentleman,'
  1272. According to the phrase or the addition
  1273. Of man and country.
  1274. REYNALDO
  1275. Very good, my lord.
  1276. LORD POLONIUS
  1277. And then, sir, does he this--he does--what was I
  1278. about to say? By the mass, I was about to say
  1279. something: where did I leave?
  1280. REYNALDO
  1281. At 'closes in the consequence,' at 'friend or so,'
  1282. and 'gentleman.'
  1283. LORD POLONIUS
  1284. At 'closes in the consequence,' ay, marry;
  1285. He closes thus: 'I know the gentleman;
  1286. I saw him yesterday, or t' other day,
  1287. Or then, or then; with such, or such; and, as you say,
  1288. There was a' gaming; there o'ertook in's rouse;
  1289. There falling out at tennis:' or perchance,
  1290. 'I saw him enter such a house of sale,'
  1291. Videlicet, a brothel, or so forth.
  1292. See you now;
  1293. Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth:
  1294. And thus do we of wisdom and of reach,
  1295. With windlasses and with assays of bias,
  1296. By indirections find directions out:
  1297. So by my former lecture and advice,
  1298. Shall you my son. You have me, have you not?
  1299. REYNALDO
  1300. My lord, I have.
  1301. LORD POLONIUS
  1302. God be wi' you; fare you well.
  1303. REYNALDO
  1304. Good my lord!
  1305. LORD POLONIUS
  1306. Observe his inclination in yourself.
  1307. REYNALDO
  1308. I shall, my lord.
  1309. LORD POLONIUS
  1310. And let him ply his music.
  1311. REYNALDO
  1312. Well, my lord.
  1313. LORD POLONIUS
  1314. Farewell!
  1315. Exit REYNALDO
  1316. Enter OPHELIA
  1317. How now, Ophelia! what's the matter?
  1318. OPHELIA
  1319. O, my lord, my lord, I have been so affrighted!
  1320. LORD POLONIUS
  1321. With what, i' the name of God?
  1322. OPHELIA
  1323. My lord, as I was sewing in my closet,
  1324. Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbraced;
  1325. No hat upon his head; his stockings foul'd,
  1326. Ungarter'd, and down-gyved to his ancle;
  1327. Pale as his shirt; his knees knocking each other;
  1328. And with a look so piteous in purport
  1329. As if he had been loosed out of hell
  1330. To speak of horrors,--he comes before me.
  1331. LORD POLONIUS
  1332. Mad for thy love?
  1333. OPHELIA
  1334. My lord, I do not know;
  1335. But truly, I do fear it.
  1336. LORD POLONIUS
  1337. What said he?
  1338. OPHELIA
  1339. He took me by the wrist and held me hard;
  1340. Then goes he to the length of all his arm;
  1341. And, with his other hand thus o'er his brow,
  1342. He falls to such perusal of my face
  1343. As he would draw it. Long stay'd he so;
  1344. At last, a little shaking of mine arm
  1345. And thrice his head thus waving up and down,
  1346. He raised a sigh so piteous and profound
  1347. As it did seem to shatter all his bulk
  1348. And end his being: that done, he lets me go:
  1349. And, with his head over his shoulder turn'd,
  1350. He seem'd to find his way without his eyes;
  1351. For out o' doors he went without their helps,
  1352. And, to the last, bended their light on me.
  1353. LORD POLONIUS
  1354. Come, go with me: I will go seek the king.
  1355. This is the very ecstasy of love,
  1356. Whose violent property fordoes itself
  1357. And leads the will to desperate undertakings
  1358. As oft as any passion under heaven
  1359. That does afflict our natures. I am sorry.
  1360. What, have you given him any hard words of late?
  1361. OPHELIA
  1362. No, my good lord, but, as you did command,
  1363. I did repel his fetters and denied
  1364. His access to me.
  1365. LORD POLONIUS
  1366. That hath made him mad.
  1367. I am sorry that with better heed and judgment
  1368. I had not quoted him: I fear'd he did but trifle,
  1369. And meant to wreck thee; but, beshrew my jealousy!
  1370. By heaven, it is as proper to our age
  1371. To cast beyond ourselves in our opinions
  1372. As it is common for the younger sort
  1373. To lack discretion. Come, go we to the king:
  1374. This must be known; which, being kept close, might
  1375. move
  1376. More grief to hide than hate to utter love.
  1377. Exeunt
  1378. SCENE II. A room in the castle.
  1379. Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, and Attendants
  1380. KING CLAUDIUS
  1381. Welcome, dear Rosencrantz and Guildenstern!
  1382. Moreover that we much did long to see you,
  1383. The need we have to use you did provoke
  1384. Our hasty sending. Something have you heard
  1385. Of Hamlet's transformation; so call it,
  1386. Sith nor the exterior nor the inward man
  1387. Resembles that it was. What it should be,
  1388. More than his father's death, that thus hath put him
  1389. So much from the understanding of himself,
  1390. I cannot dream of: I entreat you both,
  1391. That, being of so young days brought up with him,
  1392. And sith so neighbour'd to his youth and havior,
  1393. That you vouchsafe your rest here in our court
  1394. Some little time: so by your companies
  1395. To draw him on to pleasures, and to gather,
  1396. So much as from occasion you may glean,
  1397. Whether aught, to us unknown, afflicts him thus,
  1398. That, open'd, lies within our remedy.
  1399. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  1400. Good gentlemen, he hath much talk'd of you;
  1401. And sure I am two men there are not living
  1402. To whom he more adheres. If it will please you
  1403. To show us so much gentry and good will
  1404. As to expend your time with us awhile,
  1405. For the supply and profit of our hope,
  1406. Your visitation shall receive such thanks
  1407. As fits a king's remembrance.
  1408. ROSENCRANTZ
  1409. Both your majesties
  1410. Might, by the sovereign power you have of us,
  1411. Put your dread pleasures more into command
  1412. Than to entreaty.
  1413. GUILDENSTERN
  1414. But we both obey,
  1415. And here give up ourselves, in the full bent
  1416. To lay our service freely at your feet,
  1417. To be commanded.
  1418. KING CLAUDIUS
  1419. Thanks, Rosencrantz and gentle Guildenstern.
  1420. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  1421. Thanks, Guildenstern and gentle Rosencrantz:
  1422. And I beseech you instantly to visit
  1423. My too much changed son. Go, some of you,
  1424. And bring these gentlemen where Hamlet is.
  1425. GUILDENSTERN
  1426. Heavens make our presence and our practises
  1427. Pleasant and helpful to him!
  1428. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  1429. Ay, amen!
  1430. Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, and some Attendants
  1431. Enter POLONIUS
  1432. LORD POLONIUS
  1433. The ambassadors from Norway, my good lord,
  1434. Are joyfully return'd.
  1435. KING CLAUDIUS
  1436. Thou still hast been the father of good news.
  1437. LORD POLONIUS
  1438. Have I, my lord? I assure my good liege,
  1439. I hold my duty, as I hold my soul,
  1440. Both to my God and to my gracious king:
  1441. And I do think, or else this brain of mine
  1442. Hunts not the trail of policy so sure
  1443. As it hath used to do, that I have found
  1444. The very cause of Hamlet's lunacy.
  1445. KING CLAUDIUS
  1446. O, speak of that; that do I long to hear.
  1447. LORD POLONIUS
  1448. Give first admittance to the ambassadors;
  1449. My news shall be the fruit to that great feast.
  1450. KING CLAUDIUS
  1451. Thyself do grace to them, and bring them in.
  1452. Exit POLONIUS
  1453. He tells me, my dear Gertrude, he hath found
  1454. The head and source of all your son's distemper.
  1455. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  1456. I doubt it is no other but the main;
  1457. His father's death, and our o'erhasty marriage.
  1458. KING CLAUDIUS
  1459. Well, we shall sift him.
  1460. Re-enter POLONIUS, with VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS
  1461. Welcome, my good friends!
  1462. Say, Voltimand, what from our brother Norway?
  1463. VOLTIMAND
  1464. Most fair return of greetings and desires.
  1465. Upon our first, he sent out to suppress
  1466. His nephew's levies; which to him appear'd
  1467. To be a preparation 'gainst the Polack;
  1468. But, better look'd into, he truly found
  1469. It was against your highness: whereat grieved,
  1470. That so his sickness, age and impotence
  1471. Was falsely borne in hand, sends out arrests
  1472. On Fortinbras; which he, in brief, obeys;
  1473. Receives rebuke from Norway, and in fine
  1474. Makes vow before his uncle never more
  1475. To give the assay of arms against your majesty.
  1476. Whereon old Norway, overcome with joy,
  1477. Gives him three thousand crowns in annual fee,
  1478. And his commission to employ those soldiers,
  1479. So levied as before, against the Polack:
  1480. With an entreaty, herein further shown,
  1481. Giving a paper
  1482. That it might please you to give quiet pass
  1483. Through your dominions for this enterprise,
  1484. On such regards of safety and allowance
  1485. As therein are set down.
  1486. KING CLAUDIUS
  1487. It likes us well;
  1488. And at our more consider'd time well read,
  1489. Answer, and think upon this business.
  1490. Meantime we thank you for your well-took labour:
  1491. Go to your rest; at night we'll feast together:
  1492. Most welcome home!
  1493. Exeunt VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS
  1494. LORD POLONIUS
  1495. This business is well ended.
  1496. My liege, and madam, to expostulate
  1497. What majesty should be, what duty is,
  1498. Why day is day, night night, and time is time,
  1499. Were nothing but to waste night, day and time.
  1500. Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
  1501. And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
  1502. I will be brief: your noble son is mad:
  1503. Mad call I it; for, to define true madness,
  1504. What is't but to be nothing else but mad?
  1505. But let that go.
  1506. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  1507. More matter, with less art.
  1508. LORD POLONIUS
  1509. Madam, I swear I use no art at all.
  1510. That he is mad, 'tis true: 'tis true 'tis pity;
  1511. And pity 'tis 'tis true: a foolish figure;
  1512. But farewell it, for I will use no art.
  1513. Mad let us grant him, then: and now remains
  1514. That we find out the cause of this effect,
  1515. Or rather say, the cause of this defect,
  1516. For this effect defective comes by cause:
  1517. Thus it remains, and the remainder thus. Perpend.
  1518. I have a daughter--have while she is mine--
  1519. Who, in her duty and obedience, mark,
  1520. Hath given me this: now gather, and surmise.
  1521. Reads
  1522. 'To the celestial and my soul's idol, the most
  1523. beautified Ophelia,'--
  1524. That's an ill phrase, a vile phrase; 'beautified' is
  1525. a vile phrase: but you shall hear. Thus:
  1526. Reads
  1527. 'In her excellent white bosom, these, & c.'
  1528. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  1529. Came this from Hamlet to her?
  1530. LORD POLONIUS
  1531. Good madam, stay awhile; I will be faithful.
  1532. Reads
  1533. 'Doubt thou the stars are fire;
  1534. Doubt that the sun doth move;
  1535. Doubt truth to be a liar;
  1536. But never doubt I love.
  1537. 'O dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers;
  1538. I have not art to reckon my groans: but that
  1539. I love thee best, O most best, believe it. Adieu.
  1540. 'Thine evermore most dear lady, whilst
  1541. this machine is to him, HAMLET.'
  1542. This, in obedience, hath my daughter shown me,
  1543. And more above, hath his solicitings,
  1544. As they fell out by time, by means and place,
  1545. All given to mine ear.
  1546. KING CLAUDIUS
  1547. But how hath she
  1548. Received his love?
  1549. LORD POLONIUS
  1550. What do you think of me?
  1551. KING CLAUDIUS
  1552. As of a man faithful and honourable.
  1553. LORD POLONIUS
  1554. I would fain prove so. But what might you think,
  1555. When I had seen this hot love on the wing--
  1556. As I perceived it, I must tell you that,
  1557. Before my daughter told me--what might you,
  1558. Or my dear majesty your queen here, think,
  1559. If I had play'd the desk or table-book,
  1560. Or given my heart a winking, mute and dumb,
  1561. Or look'd upon this love with idle sight;
  1562. What might you think? No, I went round to work,
  1563. And my young mistress thus I did bespeak:
  1564. 'Lord Hamlet is a prince, out of thy star;
  1565. This must not be:' and then I precepts gave her,
  1566. That she should lock herself from his resort,
  1567. Admit no messengers, receive no tokens.
  1568. Which done, she took the fruits of my advice;
  1569. And he, repulsed--a short tale to make--
  1570. Fell into a sadness, then into a fast,
  1571. Thence to a watch, thence into a weakness,
  1572. Thence to a lightness, and, by this declension,
  1573. Into the madness wherein now he raves,
  1574. And all we mourn for.
  1575. KING CLAUDIUS
  1576. Do you think 'tis this?
  1577. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  1578. It may be, very likely.
  1579. LORD POLONIUS
  1580. Hath there been such a time--I'd fain know that--
  1581. That I have positively said 'Tis so,'
  1582. When it proved otherwise?
  1583. KING CLAUDIUS
  1584. Not that I know.
  1585. LORD POLONIUS
  1586. [Pointing to his head and shoulder]
  1587. Take this from this, if this be otherwise:
  1588. If circumstances lead me, I will find
  1589. Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed
  1590. Within the centre.
  1591. KING CLAUDIUS
  1592. How may we try it further?
  1593. LORD POLONIUS
  1594. You know, sometimes he walks four hours together
  1595. Here in the lobby.
  1596. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  1597. So he does indeed.
  1598. LORD POLONIUS
  1599. At such a time I'll loose my daughter to him:
  1600. Be you and I behind an arras then;
  1601. Mark the encounter: if he love her not
  1602. And be not from his reason fall'n thereon,
  1603. Let me be no assistant for a state,
  1604. But keep a farm and carters.
  1605. KING CLAUDIUS
  1606. We will try it.
  1607. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  1608. But, look, where sadly the poor wretch comes reading.
  1609. LORD POLONIUS
  1610. Away, I do beseech you, both away:
  1611. I'll board him presently.
  1612. Exeunt KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, and Attendants
  1613. Enter HAMLET, reading
  1614. O, give me leave:
  1615. How does my good Lord Hamlet?
  1616. HAMLET
  1617. Well, God-a-mercy.
  1618. LORD POLONIUS
  1619. Do you know me, my lord?
  1620. HAMLET
  1621. Excellent well; you are a fishmonger.
  1622. LORD POLONIUS
  1623. Not I, my lord.
  1624. HAMLET
  1625. Then I would you were so honest a man.
  1626. LORD POLONIUS
  1627. Honest, my lord!
  1628. HAMLET
  1629. Ay, sir; to be honest, as this world goes, is to be
  1630. one man picked out of ten thousand.
  1631. LORD POLONIUS
  1632. That's very true, my lord.
  1633. HAMLET
  1634. For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a
  1635. god kissing carrion,--Have you a daughter?
  1636. LORD POLONIUS
  1637. I have, my lord.
  1638. HAMLET
  1639. Let her not walk i' the sun: conception is a
  1640. blessing: but not as your daughter may conceive.
  1641. Friend, look to 't.
  1642. LORD POLONIUS
  1643. [Aside] How say you by that? Still harping on my
  1644. daughter: yet he knew me not at first; he said I
  1645. was a fishmonger: he is far gone, far gone: and
  1646. truly in my youth I suffered much extremity for
  1647. love; very near this. I'll speak to him again.
  1648. What do you read, my lord?
  1649. HAMLET
  1650. Words, words, words.
  1651. LORD POLONIUS
  1652. What is the matter, my lord?
  1653. HAMLET
  1654. Between who?
  1655. LORD POLONIUS
  1656. I mean, the matter that you read, my lord.
  1657. HAMLET
  1658. Slanders, sir: for the satirical rogue says here
  1659. that old men have grey beards, that their faces are
  1660. wrinkled, their eyes purging thick amber and
  1661. plum-tree gum and that they have a plentiful lack of
  1662. wit, together with most weak hams: all which, sir,
  1663. though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet
  1664. I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down, for
  1665. yourself, sir, should be old as I am, if like a crab
  1666. you could go backward.
  1667. LORD POLONIUS
  1668. [Aside] Though this be madness, yet there is method
  1669. in 't. Will you walk out of the air, my lord?
  1670. HAMLET
  1671. Into my grave.
  1672. LORD POLONIUS
  1673. Indeed, that is out o' the air.
  1674. Aside
  1675. How pregnant sometimes his replies are! a happiness
  1676. that often madness hits on, which reason and sanity
  1677. could not so prosperously be delivered of. I will
  1678. leave him, and suddenly contrive the means of
  1679. meeting between him and my daughter.--My honourable
  1680. lord, I will most humbly take my leave of you.
  1681. HAMLET
  1682. You cannot, sir, take from me any thing that I will
  1683. more willingly part withal: except my life, except
  1684. my life, except my life.
  1685. LORD POLONIUS
  1686. Fare you well, my lord.
  1687. HAMLET
  1688. These tedious old fools!
  1689. Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN
  1690. LORD POLONIUS
  1691. You go to seek the Lord Hamlet; there he is.
  1692. ROSENCRANTZ
  1693. [To POLONIUS] God save you, sir!
  1694. Exit POLONIUS
  1695. GUILDENSTERN
  1696. My honoured lord!
  1697. ROSENCRANTZ
  1698. My most dear lord!
  1699. HAMLET
  1700. My excellent good friends! How dost thou,
  1701. Guildenstern? Ah, Rosencrantz! Good lads, how do ye both?
  1702. ROSENCRANTZ
  1703. As the indifferent children of the earth.
  1704. GUILDENSTERN
  1705. Happy, in that we are not over-happy;
  1706. On fortune's cap we are not the very button.
  1707. HAMLET
  1708. Nor the soles of her shoe?
  1709. ROSENCRANTZ
  1710. Neither, my lord.
  1711. HAMLET
  1712. Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of
  1713. her favours?
  1714. GUILDENSTERN
  1715. 'Faith, her privates we.
  1716. HAMLET
  1717. In the secret parts of fortune? O, most true; she
  1718. is a strumpet. What's the news?
  1719. ROSENCRANTZ
  1720. None, my lord, but that the world's grown honest.
  1721. HAMLET
  1722. Then is doomsday near: but your news is not true.
  1723. Let me question more in particular: what have you,
  1724. my good friends, deserved at the hands of fortune,
  1725. that she sends you to prison hither?
  1726. GUILDENSTERN
  1727. Prison, my lord!
  1728. HAMLET
  1729. Denmark's a prison.
  1730. ROSENCRANTZ
  1731. Then is the world one.
  1732. HAMLET
  1733. A goodly one; in which there are many confines,
  1734. wards and dungeons, Denmark being one o' the worst.
  1735. ROSENCRANTZ
  1736. We think not so, my lord.
  1737. HAMLET
  1738. Why, then, 'tis none to you; for there is nothing
  1739. either good or bad, but thinking makes it so: to me
  1740. it is a prison.
  1741. ROSENCRANTZ
  1742. Why then, your ambition makes it one; 'tis too
  1743. narrow for your mind.
  1744. HAMLET
  1745. O God, I could be bounded in a nut shell and count
  1746. myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I
  1747. have bad dreams.
  1748. GUILDENSTERN
  1749. Which dreams indeed are ambition, for the very
  1750. substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.
  1751. HAMLET
  1752. A dream itself is but a shadow.
  1753. ROSENCRANTZ
  1754. Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a
  1755. quality that it is but a shadow's shadow.
  1756. HAMLET
  1757. Then are our beggars bodies, and our monarchs and
  1758. outstretched heroes the beggars' shadows. Shall we
  1759. to the court? for, by my fay, I cannot reason.
  1760. ROSENCRANTZ GUILDENSTERN
  1761. We'll wait upon you.
  1762. HAMLET
  1763. No such matter: I will not sort you with the rest
  1764. of my servants, for, to speak to you like an honest
  1765. man, I am most dreadfully attended. But, in the
  1766. beaten way of friendship, what make you at Elsinore?
  1767. ROSENCRANTZ
  1768. To visit you, my lord; no other occasion.
  1769. HAMLET
  1770. Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks; but I
  1771. thank you: and sure, dear friends, my thanks are
  1772. too dear a halfpenny. Were you not sent for? Is it
  1773. your own inclining? Is it a free visitation? Come,
  1774. deal justly with me: come, come; nay, speak.
  1775. GUILDENSTERN
  1776. What should we say, my lord?
  1777. HAMLET
  1778. Why, any thing, but to the purpose. You were sent
  1779. for; and there is a kind of confession in your looks
  1780. which your modesties have not craft enough to colour:
  1781. I know the good king and queen have sent for you.
  1782. ROSENCRANTZ
  1783. To what end, my lord?
  1784. HAMLET
  1785. That you must teach me. But let me conjure you, by
  1786. the rights of our fellowship, by the consonancy of
  1787. our youth, by the obligation of our ever-preserved
  1788. love, and by what more dear a better proposer could
  1789. charge you withal, be even and direct with me,
  1790. whether you were sent for, or no?
  1791. ROSENCRANTZ
  1792. [Aside to GUILDENSTERN] What say you?
  1793. HAMLET
  1794. [Aside] Nay, then, I have an eye of you.--If you
  1795. love me, hold not off.
  1796. GUILDENSTERN
  1797. My lord, we were sent for.
  1798. HAMLET
  1799. I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation
  1800. prevent your discovery, and your secrecy to the king
  1801. and queen moult no feather. I have of late--but
  1802. wherefore I know not--lost all my mirth, forgone all
  1803. custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily
  1804. with my disposition that this goodly frame, the
  1805. earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most
  1806. excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave
  1807. o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted
  1808. with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to
  1809. me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.
  1810. What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason!
  1811. how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how
  1812. express and admirable! in action how like an angel!
  1813. in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the
  1814. world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me,
  1815. what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not
  1816. me: no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling
  1817. you seem to say so.
  1818. ROSENCRANTZ
  1819. My lord, there was no such stuff in my thoughts.
  1820. HAMLET
  1821. Why did you laugh then, when I said 'man delights not me'?
  1822. ROSENCRANTZ
  1823. To think, my lord, if you delight not in man, what
  1824. lenten entertainment the players shall receive from
  1825. you: we coted them on the way; and hither are they
  1826. coming, to offer you service.
  1827. HAMLET
  1828. He that plays the king shall be welcome; his majesty
  1829. shall have tribute of me; the adventurous knight
  1830. shall use his foil and target; the lover shall not
  1831. sigh gratis; the humourous man shall end his part
  1832. in peace; the clown shall make those laugh whose
  1833. lungs are tickled o' the sere; and the lady shall
  1834. say her mind freely, or the blank verse shall halt
  1835. for't. What players are they?
  1836. ROSENCRANTZ
  1837. Even those you were wont to take delight in, the
  1838. tragedians of the city.
  1839. HAMLET
  1840. How chances it they travel? their residence, both
  1841. in reputation and profit, was better both ways.
  1842. ROSENCRANTZ
  1843. I think their inhibition comes by the means of the
  1844. late innovation.
  1845. HAMLET
  1846. Do they hold the same estimation they did when I was
  1847. in the city? are they so followed?
  1848. ROSENCRANTZ
  1849. No, indeed, are they not.
  1850. HAMLET
  1851. How comes it? do they grow rusty?
  1852. ROSENCRANTZ
  1853. Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace: but
  1854. there is, sir, an aery of children, little eyases,
  1855. that cry out on the top of question, and are most
  1856. tyrannically clapped for't: these are now the
  1857. fashion, and so berattle the common stages--so they
  1858. call them--that many wearing rapiers are afraid of
  1859. goose-quills and dare scarce come thither.
  1860. HAMLET
  1861. What, are they children? who maintains 'em? how are
  1862. they escoted? Will they pursue the quality no
  1863. longer than they can sing? will they not say
  1864. afterwards, if they should grow themselves to common
  1865. players--as it is most like, if their means are no
  1866. better--their writers do them wrong, to make them
  1867. exclaim against their own succession?
  1868. ROSENCRANTZ
  1869. 'Faith, there has been much to do on both sides; and
  1870. the nation holds it no sin to tarre them to
  1871. controversy: there was, for a while, no money bid
  1872. for argument, unless the poet and the player went to
  1873. cuffs in the question.
  1874. HAMLET
  1875. Is't possible?
  1876. GUILDENSTERN
  1877. O, there has been much throwing about of brains.
  1878. HAMLET
  1879. Do the boys carry it away?
  1880. ROSENCRANTZ
  1881. Ay, that they do, my lord; Hercules and his load too.
  1882. HAMLET
  1883. It is not very strange; for mine uncle is king of
  1884. Denmark, and those that would make mows at him while
  1885. my father lived, give twenty, forty, fifty, an
  1886. hundred ducats a-piece for his picture in little.
  1887. 'Sblood, there is something in this more than
  1888. natural, if philosophy could find it out.
  1889. Flourish of trumpets within
  1890. GUILDENSTERN
  1891. There are the players.
  1892. HAMLET
  1893. Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore. Your hands,
  1894. come then: the appurtenance of welcome is fashion
  1895. and ceremony: let me comply with you in this garb,
  1896. lest my extent to the players, which, I tell you,
  1897. must show fairly outward, should more appear like
  1898. entertainment than yours. You are welcome: but my
  1899. uncle-father and aunt-mother are deceived.
  1900. GUILDENSTERN
  1901. In what, my dear lord?
  1902. HAMLET
  1903. I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is
  1904. southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.
  1905. Enter POLONIUS
  1906. LORD POLONIUS
  1907. Well be with you, gentlemen!
  1908. HAMLET
  1909. Hark you, Guildenstern; and you too: at each ear a
  1910. hearer: that great baby you see there is not yet
  1911. out of his swaddling-clouts.
  1912. ROSENCRANTZ
  1913. Happily he's the second time come to them; for they
  1914. say an old man is twice a child.
  1915. HAMLET
  1916. I will prophesy he comes to tell me of the players;
  1917. mark it. You say right, sir: o' Monday morning;
  1918. 'twas so indeed.
  1919. LORD POLONIUS
  1920. My lord, I have news to tell you.
  1921. HAMLET
  1922. My lord, I have news to tell you.
  1923. When Roscius was an actor in Rome,--
  1924. LORD POLONIUS
  1925. The actors are come hither, my lord.
  1926. HAMLET
  1927. Buz, buz!
  1928. LORD POLONIUS
  1929. Upon mine honour,--
  1930. HAMLET
  1931. Then came each actor on his ass,--
  1932. LORD POLONIUS
  1933. The best actors in the world, either for tragedy,
  1934. comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical,
  1935. historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-
  1936. comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or
  1937. poem unlimited: Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor
  1938. Plautus too light. For the law of writ and the
  1939. liberty, these are the only men.
  1940. HAMLET
  1941. O Jephthah, judge of Israel, what a treasure hadst thou!
  1942. LORD POLONIUS
  1943. What a treasure had he, my lord?
  1944. HAMLET
  1945. Why,
  1946. 'One fair daughter and no more,
  1947. The which he loved passing well.'
  1948. LORD POLONIUS
  1949. [Aside] Still on my daughter.
  1950. HAMLET
  1951. Am I not i' the right, old Jephthah?
  1952. LORD POLONIUS
  1953. If you call me Jephthah, my lord, I have a daughter
  1954. that I love passing well.
  1955. HAMLET
  1956. Nay, that follows not.
  1957. LORD POLONIUS
  1958. What follows, then, my lord?
  1959. HAMLET
  1960. Why,
  1961. 'As by lot, God wot,'
  1962. and then, you know,
  1963. 'It came to pass, as most like it was,'--
  1964. the first row of the pious chanson will show you
  1965. more; for look, where my abridgement comes.
  1966. Enter four or five Players
  1967. You are welcome, masters; welcome, all. I am glad
  1968. to see thee well. Welcome, good friends. O, my old
  1969. friend! thy face is valenced since I saw thee last:
  1970. comest thou to beard me in Denmark? What, my young
  1971. lady and mistress! By'r lady, your ladyship is
  1972. nearer to heaven than when I saw you last, by the
  1973. altitude of a chopine. Pray God, your voice, like
  1974. apiece of uncurrent gold, be not cracked within the
  1975. ring. Masters, you are all welcome. We'll e'en
  1976. to't like French falconers, fly at any thing we see:
  1977. we'll have a speech straight: come, give us a taste
  1978. of your quality; come, a passionate speech.
  1979. First Player
  1980. What speech, my lord?
  1981. HAMLET
  1982. I heard thee speak me a speech once, but it was
  1983. never acted; or, if it was, not above once; for the
  1984. play, I remember, pleased not the million; 'twas
  1985. caviare to the general: but it was--as I received
  1986. it, and others, whose judgments in such matters
  1987. cried in the top of mine--an excellent play, well
  1988. digested in the scenes, set down with as much
  1989. modesty as cunning. I remember, one said there
  1990. were no sallets in the lines to make the matter
  1991. savoury, nor no matter in the phrase that might
  1992. indict the author of affectation; but called it an
  1993. honest method, as wholesome as sweet, and by very
  1994. much more handsome than fine. One speech in it I
  1995. chiefly loved: 'twas Aeneas' tale to Dido; and
  1996. thereabout of it especially, where he speaks of
  1997. Priam's slaughter: if it live in your memory, begin
  1998. at this line: let me see, let me see--
  1999. 'The rugged Pyrrhus, like the Hyrcanian beast,'--
  2000. it is not so:--it begins with Pyrrhus:--
  2001. 'The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable arms,
  2002. Black as his purpose, did the night resemble
  2003. When he lay couched in the ominous horse,
  2004. Hath now this dread and black complexion smear'd
  2005. With heraldry more dismal; head to foot
  2006. Now is he total gules; horridly trick'd
  2007. With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons,
  2008. Baked and impasted with the parching streets,
  2009. That lend a tyrannous and damned light
  2010. To their lord's murder: roasted in wrath and fire,
  2011. And thus o'er-sized with coagulate gore,
  2012. With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus
  2013. Old grandsire Priam seeks.'
  2014. So, proceed you.
  2015. LORD POLONIUS
  2016. 'Fore God, my lord, well spoken, with good accent and
  2017. good discretion.
  2018. First Player
  2019. 'Anon he finds him
  2020. Striking too short at Greeks; his antique sword,
  2021. Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls,
  2022. Repugnant to command: unequal match'd,
  2023. Pyrrhus at Priam drives; in rage strikes wide;
  2024. But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword
  2025. The unnerved father falls. Then senseless Ilium,
  2026. Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming top
  2027. Stoops to his base, and with a hideous crash
  2028. Takes prisoner Pyrrhus' ear: for, lo! his sword,
  2029. Which was declining on the milky head
  2030. Of reverend Priam, seem'd i' the air to stick:
  2031. So, as a painted tyrant, Pyrrhus stood,
  2032. And like a neutral to his will and matter,
  2033. Did nothing.
  2034. But, as we often see, against some storm,
  2035. A silence in the heavens, the rack stand still,
  2036. The bold winds speechless and the orb below
  2037. As hush as death, anon the dreadful thunder
  2038. Doth rend the region, so, after Pyrrhus' pause,
  2039. Aroused vengeance sets him new a-work;
  2040. And never did the Cyclops' hammers fall
  2041. On Mars's armour forged for proof eterne
  2042. With less remorse than Pyrrhus' bleeding sword
  2043. Now falls on Priam.
  2044. Out, out, thou strumpet, Fortune! All you gods,
  2045. In general synod 'take away her power;
  2046. Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel,
  2047. And bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven,
  2048. As low as to the fiends!'
  2049. LORD POLONIUS
  2050. This is too long.
  2051. HAMLET
  2052. It shall to the barber's, with your beard. Prithee,
  2053. say on: he's for a jig or a tale of bawdry, or he
  2054. sleeps: say on: come to Hecuba.
  2055. First Player
  2056. 'But who, O, who had seen the mobled queen--'
  2057. HAMLET
  2058. 'The mobled queen?'
  2059. LORD POLONIUS
  2060. That's good; 'mobled queen' is good.
  2061. First Player
  2062. 'Run barefoot up and down, threatening the flames
  2063. With bisson rheum; a clout upon that head
  2064. Where late the diadem stood, and for a robe,
  2065. About her lank and all o'er-teemed loins,
  2066. A blanket, in the alarm of fear caught up;
  2067. Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steep'd,
  2068. 'Gainst Fortune's state would treason have
  2069. pronounced:
  2070. But if the gods themselves did see her then
  2071. When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport
  2072. In mincing with his sword her husband's limbs,
  2073. The instant burst of clamour that she made,
  2074. Unless things mortal move them not at all,
  2075. Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven,
  2076. And passion in the gods.'
  2077. LORD POLONIUS
  2078. Look, whether he has not turned his colour and has
  2079. tears in's eyes. Pray you, no more.
  2080. HAMLET
  2081. 'Tis well: I'll have thee speak out the rest soon.
  2082. Good my lord, will you see the players well
  2083. bestowed? Do you hear, let them be well used; for
  2084. they are the abstract and brief chronicles of the
  2085. time: after your death you were better have a bad
  2086. epitaph than their ill report while you live.
  2087. LORD POLONIUS
  2088. My lord, I will use them according to their desert.
  2089. HAMLET
  2090. God's bodykins, man, much better: use every man
  2091. after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping?
  2092. Use them after your own honour and dignity: the less
  2093. they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty.
  2094. Take them in.
  2095. LORD POLONIUS
  2096. Come, sirs.
  2097. HAMLET
  2098. Follow him, friends: we'll hear a play to-morrow.
  2099. Exit POLONIUS with all the Players but the First
  2100. Dost thou hear me, old friend; can you play the
  2101. Murder of Gonzago?
  2102. First Player
  2103. Ay, my lord.
  2104. HAMLET
  2105. We'll ha't to-morrow night. You could, for a need,
  2106. study a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines, which
  2107. I would set down and insert in't, could you not?
  2108. First Player
  2109. Ay, my lord.
  2110. HAMLET
  2111. Very well. Follow that lord; and look you mock him
  2112. not.
  2113. Exit First Player
  2114. My good friends, I'll leave you till night: you are
  2115. welcome to Elsinore.
  2116. ROSENCRANTZ
  2117. Good my lord!
  2118. HAMLET
  2119. Ay, so, God be wi' ye;
  2120. Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN
  2121. Now I am alone.
  2122. O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
  2123. Is it not monstrous that this player here,
  2124. But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
  2125. Could force his soul so to his own conceit
  2126. That from her working all his visage wann'd,
  2127. Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect,
  2128. A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
  2129. With forms to his conceit? and all for nothing!
  2130. For Hecuba!
  2131. What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
  2132. That he should weep for her? What would he do,
  2133. Had he the motive and the cue for passion
  2134. That I have? He would drown the stage with tears
  2135. And cleave the general ear with horrid speech,
  2136. Make mad the guilty and appal the free,
  2137. Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed
  2138. The very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I,
  2139. A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak,
  2140. Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,
  2141. And can say nothing; no, not for a king,
  2142. Upon whose property and most dear life
  2143. A damn'd defeat was made. Am I a coward?
  2144. Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across?
  2145. Plucks off my beard, and blows it in my face?
  2146. Tweaks me by the nose? gives me the lie i' the throat,
  2147. As deep as to the lungs? who does me this?
  2148. Ha!
  2149. 'Swounds, I should take it: for it cannot be
  2150. But I am pigeon-liver'd and lack gall
  2151. To make oppression bitter, or ere this
  2152. I should have fatted all the region kites
  2153. With this slave's offal: bloody, bawdy villain!
  2154. Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!
  2155. O, vengeance!
  2156. Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,
  2157. That I, the son of a dear father murder'd,
  2158. Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,
  2159. Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words,
  2160. And fall a-cursing, like a very drab,
  2161. A scullion!
  2162. Fie upon't! foh! About, my brain! I have heard
  2163. That guilty creatures sitting at a play
  2164. Have by the very cunning of the scene
  2165. Been struck so to the soul that presently
  2166. They have proclaim'd their malefactions;
  2167. For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
  2168. With most miraculous organ. I'll have these players
  2169. Play something like the murder of my father
  2170. Before mine uncle: I'll observe his looks;
  2171. I'll tent him to the quick: if he but blench,
  2172. I know my course. The spirit that I have seen
  2173. May be the devil: and the devil hath power
  2174. To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps
  2175. Out of my weakness and my melancholy,
  2176. As he is very potent with such spirits,
  2177. Abuses me to damn me: I'll have grounds
  2178. More relative than this: the play 's the thing
  2179. Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.
  2180. Exit
  2181. ACT III
  2182. SCENE I. A room in the castle.
  2183. Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, POLONIUS, OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN
  2184. KING CLAUDIUS
  2185. And can you, by no drift of circumstance,
  2186. Get from him why he puts on this confusion,
  2187. Grating so harshly all his days of quiet
  2188. With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?
  2189. ROSENCRANTZ
  2190. He does confess he feels himself distracted;
  2191. But from what cause he will by no means speak.
  2192. GUILDENSTERN
  2193. Nor do we find him forward to be sounded,
  2194. But, with a crafty madness, keeps aloof,
  2195. When we would bring him on to some confession
  2196. Of his true state.
  2197. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  2198. Did he receive you well?
  2199. ROSENCRANTZ
  2200. Most like a gentleman.
  2201. GUILDENSTERN
  2202. But with much forcing of his disposition.
  2203. ROSENCRANTZ
  2204. Niggard of question; but, of our demands,
  2205. Most free in his reply.
  2206. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  2207. Did you assay him?
  2208. To any pastime?
  2209. ROSENCRANTZ
  2210. Madam, it so fell out, that certain players
  2211. We o'er-raught on the way: of these we told him;
  2212. And there did seem in him a kind of joy
  2213. To hear of it: they are about the court,
  2214. And, as I think, they have already order
  2215. This night to play before him.
  2216. LORD POLONIUS
  2217. 'Tis most true:
  2218. And he beseech'd me to entreat your majesties
  2219. To hear and see the matter.
  2220. KING CLAUDIUS
  2221. With all my heart; and it doth much content me
  2222. To hear him so inclined.
  2223. Good gentlemen, give him a further edge,
  2224. And drive his purpose on to these delights.
  2225. ROSENCRANTZ
  2226. We shall, my lord.
  2227. Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN
  2228. KING CLAUDIUS
  2229. Sweet Gertrude, leave us too;
  2230. For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither,
  2231. That he, as 'twere by accident, may here
  2232. Affront Ophelia:
  2233. Her father and myself, lawful espials,
  2234. Will so bestow ourselves that, seeing, unseen,
  2235. We may of their encounter frankly judge,
  2236. And gather by him, as he is behaved,
  2237. If 't be the affliction of his love or no
  2238. That thus he suffers for.
  2239. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  2240. I shall obey you.
  2241. And for your part, Ophelia, I do wish
  2242. That your good beauties be the happy cause
  2243. Of Hamlet's wildness: so shall I hope your virtues
  2244. Will bring him to his wonted way again,
  2245. To both your honours.
  2246. OPHELIA
  2247. Madam, I wish it may.
  2248. Exit QUEEN GERTRUDE
  2249. LORD POLONIUS
  2250. Ophelia, walk you here. Gracious, so please you,
  2251. We will bestow ourselves.
  2252. To OPHELIA
  2253. Read on this book;
  2254. That show of such an exercise may colour
  2255. Your loneliness. We are oft to blame in this,--
  2256. 'Tis too much proved--that with devotion's visage
  2257. And pious action we do sugar o'er
  2258. The devil himself.
  2259. KING CLAUDIUS
  2260. [Aside] O, 'tis too true!
  2261. How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!
  2262. The harlot's cheek, beautied with plastering art,
  2263. Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it
  2264. Than is my deed to my most painted word:
  2265. O heavy burthen!
  2266. LORD POLONIUS
  2267. I hear him coming: let's withdraw, my lord.
  2268. Exeunt KING CLAUDIUS and POLONIUS
  2269. Enter HAMLET
  2270. HAMLET
  2271. To be, or not to be: that is the question:
  2272. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
  2273. The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
  2274. Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
  2275. And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
  2276. No more; and by a sleep to say we end
  2277. The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
  2278. That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
  2279. Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
  2280. To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
  2281. For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
  2282. When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
  2283. Must give us pause: there's the respect
  2284. That makes calamity of so long life;
  2285. For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
  2286. The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
  2287. The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
  2288. The insolence of office and the spurns
  2289. That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
  2290. When he himself might his quietus make
  2291. With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
  2292. To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
  2293. But that the dread of something after death,
  2294. The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
  2295. No traveller returns, puzzles the will
  2296. And makes us rather bear those ills we have
  2297. Than fly to others that we know not of?
  2298. Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
  2299. And thus the native hue of resolution
  2300. Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
  2301. And enterprises of great pith and moment
  2302. With this regard their currents turn awry,
  2303. And lose the name of action.--Soft you now!
  2304. The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
  2305. Be all my sins remember'd.
  2306. OPHELIA
  2307. Good my lord,
  2308. How does your honour for this many a day?
  2309. HAMLET
  2310. I humbly thank you; well, well, well.
  2311. OPHELIA
  2312. My lord, I have remembrances of yours,
  2313. That I have longed long to re-deliver;
  2314. I pray you, now receive them.
  2315. HAMLET
  2316. No, not I;
  2317. I never gave you aught.
  2318. OPHELIA
  2319. My honour'd lord, you know right well you did;
  2320. And, with them, words of so sweet breath composed
  2321. As made the things more rich: their perfume lost,
  2322. Take these again; for to the noble mind
  2323. Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.
  2324. There, my lord.
  2325. HAMLET
  2326. Ha, ha! are you honest?
  2327. OPHELIA
  2328. My lord?
  2329. HAMLET
  2330. Are you fair?
  2331. OPHELIA
  2332. What means your lordship?
  2333. HAMLET
  2334. That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should
  2335. admit no discourse to your beauty.
  2336. OPHELIA
  2337. Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than
  2338. with honesty?
  2339. HAMLET
  2340. Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner
  2341. transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than the
  2342. force of honesty can translate beauty into his
  2343. likeness: this was sometime a paradox, but now the
  2344. time gives it proof. I did love you once.
  2345. OPHELIA
  2346. Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.
  2347. HAMLET
  2348. You should not have believed me; for virtue cannot
  2349. so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of
  2350. it: I loved you not.
  2351. OPHELIA
  2352. I was the more deceived.
  2353. HAMLET
  2354. Get thee to a nunnery: why wouldst thou be a
  2355. breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest;
  2356. but yet I could accuse me of such things that it
  2357. were better my mother had not borne me: I am very
  2358. proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offences at
  2359. my beck than I have thoughts to put them in,
  2360. imagination to give them shape, or time to act them
  2361. in. What should such fellows as I do crawling
  2362. between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves,
  2363. all; believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery.
  2364. Where's your father?
  2365. OPHELIA
  2366. At home, my lord.
  2367. HAMLET
  2368. Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the
  2369. fool no where but in's own house. Farewell.
  2370. OPHELIA
  2371. O, help him, you sweet heavens!
  2372. HAMLET
  2373. If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague for
  2374. thy dowry: be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as
  2375. snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a
  2376. nunnery, go: farewell. Or, if thou wilt needs
  2377. marry, marry a fool; for wise men know well enough
  2378. what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go,
  2379. and quickly too. Farewell.
  2380. OPHELIA
  2381. O heavenly powers, restore him!
  2382. HAMLET
  2383. I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God
  2384. has given you one face, and you make yourselves
  2385. another: you jig, you amble, and you lisp, and
  2386. nick-name God's creatures, and make your wantonness
  2387. your ignorance. Go to, I'll no more on't; it hath
  2388. made me mad. I say, we will have no more marriages:
  2389. those that are married already, all but one, shall
  2390. live; the rest shall keep as they are. To a
  2391. nunnery, go.
  2392. Exit
  2393. OPHELIA
  2394. O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!
  2395. The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword;
  2396. The expectancy and rose of the fair state,
  2397. The glass of fashion and the mould of form,
  2398. The observed of all observers, quite, quite down!
  2399. And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
  2400. That suck'd the honey of his music vows,
  2401. Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,
  2402. Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh;
  2403. That unmatch'd form and feature of blown youth
  2404. Blasted with ecstasy: O, woe is me,
  2405. To have seen what I have seen, see what I see!
  2406. Re-enter KING CLAUDIUS and POLONIUS
  2407. KING CLAUDIUS
  2408. Love! his affections do not that way tend;
  2409. Nor what he spake, though it lack'd form a little,
  2410. Was not like madness. There's something in his soul,
  2411. O'er which his melancholy sits on brood;
  2412. And I do doubt the hatch and the disclose
  2413. Will be some danger: which for to prevent,
  2414. I have in quick determination
  2415. Thus set it down: he shall with speed to England,
  2416. For the demand of our neglected tribute
  2417. Haply the seas and countries different
  2418. With variable objects shall expel
  2419. This something-settled matter in his heart,
  2420. Whereon his brains still beating puts him thus
  2421. From fashion of himself. What think you on't?
  2422. LORD POLONIUS
  2423. It shall do well: but yet do I believe
  2424. The origin and commencement of his grief
  2425. Sprung from neglected love. How now, Ophelia!
  2426. You need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said;
  2427. We heard it all. My lord, do as you please;
  2428. But, if you hold it fit, after the play
  2429. Let his queen mother all alone entreat him
  2430. To show his grief: let her be round with him;
  2431. And I'll be placed, so please you, in the ear
  2432. Of all their conference. If she find him not,
  2433. To England send him, or confine him where
  2434. Your wisdom best shall think.
  2435. KING CLAUDIUS
  2436. It shall be so:
  2437. Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go.
  2438. Exeunt
  2439. SCENE II. A hall in the castle.
  2440. Enter HAMLET and Players
  2441. HAMLET
  2442. Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to
  2443. you, trippingly on the tongue: but if you mouth it,
  2444. as many of your players do, I had as lief the
  2445. town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air
  2446. too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently;
  2447. for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say,
  2448. the whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget
  2449. a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it
  2450. offends me to the soul to hear a robustious
  2451. periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to
  2452. very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who
  2453. for the most part are capable of nothing but
  2454. inexplicable dumbshows and noise: I would have such
  2455. a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant; it
  2456. out-herods Herod: pray you, avoid it.
  2457. First Player
  2458. I warrant your honour.
  2459. HAMLET
  2460. Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion
  2461. be your tutor: suit the action to the word, the
  2462. word to the action; with this special o'erstep not
  2463. the modesty of nature: for any thing so overdone is
  2464. from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the
  2465. first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the
  2466. mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature,
  2467. scorn her own image, and the very age and body of
  2468. the time his form and pressure. Now this overdone,
  2469. or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful
  2470. laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the
  2471. censure of the which one must in your allowance
  2472. o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. O, there be
  2473. players that I have seen play, and heard others
  2474. praise, and that highly, not to speak it profanely,
  2475. that, neither having the accent of Christians nor
  2476. the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so
  2477. strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of
  2478. nature's journeymen had made men and not made them
  2479. well, they imitated humanity so abominably.
  2480. First Player
  2481. I hope we have reformed that indifferently with us,
  2482. sir.
  2483. HAMLET
  2484. O, reform it altogether. And let those that play
  2485. your clowns speak no more than is set down for them;
  2486. for there be of them that will themselves laugh, to
  2487. set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh
  2488. too; though, in the mean time, some necessary
  2489. question of the play be then to be considered:
  2490. that's villanous, and shows a most pitiful ambition
  2491. in the fool that uses it. Go, make you ready.
  2492. Exeunt Players
  2493. Enter POLONIUS, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN
  2494. How now, my lord! I will the king hear this piece of work?
  2495. LORD POLONIUS
  2496. And the queen too, and that presently.
  2497. HAMLET
  2498. Bid the players make haste.
  2499. Exit POLONIUS
  2500. Will you two help to hasten them?
  2501. ROSENCRANTZ GUILDENSTERN
  2502. We will, my lord.
  2503. Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN
  2504. HAMLET
  2505. What ho! Horatio!
  2506. Enter HORATIO
  2507. HORATIO
  2508. Here, sweet lord, at your service.
  2509. HAMLET
  2510. Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man
  2511. As e'er my conversation coped withal.
  2512. HORATIO
  2513. O, my dear lord,--
  2514. HAMLET
  2515. Nay, do not think I flatter;
  2516. For what advancement may I hope from thee
  2517. That no revenue hast but thy good spirits,
  2518. To feed and clothe thee? Why should the poor be flatter'd?
  2519. No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp,
  2520. And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee
  2521. Where thrift may follow fawning. Dost thou hear?
  2522. Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice
  2523. And could of men distinguish, her election
  2524. Hath seal'd thee for herself; for thou hast been
  2525. As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing,
  2526. A man that fortune's buffets and rewards
  2527. Hast ta'en with equal thanks: and blest are those
  2528. Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled,
  2529. That they are not a pipe for fortune's finger
  2530. To sound what stop she please. Give me that man
  2531. That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
  2532. In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart,
  2533. As I do thee.--Something too much of this.--
  2534. There is a play to-night before the king;
  2535. One scene of it comes near the circumstance
  2536. Which I have told thee of my father's death:
  2537. I prithee, when thou seest that act afoot,
  2538. Even with the very comment of thy soul
  2539. Observe mine uncle: if his occulted guilt
  2540. Do not itself unkennel in one speech,
  2541. It is a damned ghost that we have seen,
  2542. And my imaginations are as foul
  2543. As Vulcan's stithy. Give him heedful note;
  2544. For I mine eyes will rivet to his face,
  2545. And after we will both our judgments join
  2546. In censure of his seeming.
  2547. HORATIO
  2548. Well, my lord:
  2549. If he steal aught the whilst this play is playing,
  2550. And 'scape detecting, I will pay the theft.
  2551. HAMLET
  2552. They are coming to the play; I must be idle:
  2553. Get you a place.
  2554. Danish march. A flourish. Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, POLONIUS, OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, and others
  2555. KING CLAUDIUS
  2556. How fares our cousin Hamlet?
  2557. HAMLET
  2558. Excellent, i' faith; of the chameleon's dish: I eat
  2559. the air, promise-crammed: you cannot feed capons so.
  2560. KING CLAUDIUS
  2561. I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet; these words
  2562. are not mine.
  2563. HAMLET
  2564. No, nor mine now.
  2565. To POLONIUS
  2566. My lord, you played once i' the university, you say?
  2567. LORD POLONIUS
  2568. That did I, my lord; and was accounted a good actor.
  2569. HAMLET
  2570. What did you enact?
  2571. LORD POLONIUS
  2572. I did enact Julius Caesar: I was killed i' the
  2573. Capitol; Brutus killed me.
  2574. HAMLET
  2575. It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf
  2576. there. Be the players ready?
  2577. ROSENCRANTZ
  2578. Ay, my lord; they stay upon your patience.
  2579. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  2580. Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me.
  2581. HAMLET
  2582. No, good mother, here's metal more attractive.
  2583. LORD POLONIUS
  2584. [To KING CLAUDIUS] O, ho! do you mark that?
  2585. HAMLET
  2586. Lady, shall I lie in your lap?
  2587. Lying down at OPHELIA's feet
  2588. OPHELIA
  2589. No, my lord.
  2590. HAMLET
  2591. I mean, my head upon your lap?
  2592. OPHELIA
  2593. Ay, my lord.
  2594. HAMLET
  2595. Do you think I meant country matters?
  2596. OPHELIA
  2597. I think nothing, my lord.
  2598. HAMLET
  2599. That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs.
  2600. OPHELIA
  2601. What is, my lord?
  2602. HAMLET
  2603. Nothing.
  2604. OPHELIA
  2605. You are merry, my lord.
  2606. HAMLET
  2607. Who, I?
  2608. OPHELIA
  2609. Ay, my lord.
  2610. HAMLET
  2611. O God, your only jig-maker. What should a man do
  2612. but be merry? for, look you, how cheerfully my
  2613. mother looks, and my father died within these two hours.
  2614. OPHELIA
  2615. Nay, 'tis twice two months, my lord.
  2616. HAMLET
  2617. So long? Nay then, let the devil wear black, for
  2618. I'll have a suit of sables. O heavens! die two
  2619. months ago, and not forgotten yet? Then there's
  2620. hope a great man's memory may outlive his life half
  2621. a year: but, by'r lady, he must build churches,
  2622. then; or else shall he suffer not thinking on, with
  2623. the hobby-horse, whose epitaph is 'For, O, for, O,
  2624. the hobby-horse is forgot.'
  2625. Hautboys play. The dumb-show enters
  2626. 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, and pours poison in the King's ears, and exit. The Queen returns; finds the King dead, and makes passionate action. The Poisoner, with some two or three Mutes, comes in again, seeming to lament with her. The dead body is carried away. The Poisoner wooes the Queen with gifts: she seems loath and unwilling awhile, but in the end accepts his love
  2627. Exeunt
  2628. OPHELIA
  2629. What means this, my lord?
  2630. HAMLET
  2631. Marry, this is miching mallecho; it means mischief.
  2632. OPHELIA
  2633. Belike this show imports the argument of the play.
  2634. Enter Prologue
  2635. HAMLET
  2636. We shall know by this fellow: the players cannot
  2637. keep counsel; they'll tell all.
  2638. OPHELIA
  2639. Will he tell us what this show meant?
  2640. HAMLET
  2641. Ay, or any show that you'll show him: be not you
  2642. ashamed to show, he'll not shame to tell you what it means.
  2643. OPHELIA
  2644. You are naught, you are naught: I'll mark the play.
  2645. Prologue
  2646. For us, and for our tragedy,
  2647. Here stooping to your clemency,
  2648. We beg your hearing patiently.
  2649. Exit
  2650. HAMLET
  2651. Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?
  2652. OPHELIA
  2653. 'Tis brief, my lord.
  2654. HAMLET
  2655. As woman's love.
  2656. Enter two Players, King and Queen
  2657. Player King
  2658. Full thirty times hath Phoebus' cart gone round
  2659. Neptune's salt wash and Tellus' orbed ground,
  2660. And thirty dozen moons with borrow'd sheen
  2661. About the world have times twelve thirties been,
  2662. Since love our hearts and Hymen did our hands
  2663. Unite commutual in most sacred bands.
  2664. Player Queen
  2665. So many journeys may the sun and moon
  2666. Make us again count o'er ere love be done!
  2667. But, woe is me, you are so sick of late,
  2668. So far from cheer and from your former state,
  2669. That I distrust you. Yet, though I distrust,
  2670. Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must:
  2671. For women's fear and love holds quantity;
  2672. In neither aught, or in extremity.
  2673. Now, what my love is, proof hath made you know;
  2674. And as my love is sized, my fear is so:
  2675. Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear;
  2676. Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.
  2677. Player King
  2678. 'Faith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly too;
  2679. My operant powers their functions leave to do:
  2680. And thou shalt live in this fair world behind,
  2681. Honour'd, beloved; and haply one as kind
  2682. For husband shalt thou--
  2683. Player Queen
  2684. O, confound the rest!
  2685. Such love must needs be treason in my breast:
  2686. In second husband let me be accurst!
  2687. None wed the second but who kill'd the first.
  2688. HAMLET
  2689. [Aside] Wormwood, wormwood.
  2690. Player Queen
  2691. The instances that second marriage move
  2692. Are base respects of thrift, but none of love:
  2693. A second time I kill my husband dead,
  2694. When second husband kisses me in bed.
  2695. Player King
  2696. I do believe you think what now you speak;
  2697. But what we do determine oft we break.
  2698. Purpose is but the slave to memory,
  2699. Of violent birth, but poor validity;
  2700. Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree;
  2701. But fall, unshaken, when they mellow be.
  2702. Most necessary 'tis that we forget
  2703. To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt:
  2704. What to ourselves in passion we propose,
  2705. The passion ending, doth the purpose lose.
  2706. The violence of either grief or joy
  2707. Their own enactures with themselves destroy:
  2708. Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament;
  2709. Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident.
  2710. This world is not for aye, nor 'tis not strange
  2711. That even our loves should with our fortunes change;
  2712. For 'tis a question left us yet to prove,
  2713. Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love.
  2714. The great man down, you mark his favourite flies;
  2715. The poor advanced makes friends of enemies.
  2716. And hitherto doth love on fortune tend;
  2717. For who not needs shall never lack a friend,
  2718. And who in want a hollow friend doth try,
  2719. Directly seasons him his enemy.
  2720. But, orderly to end where I begun,
  2721. Our wills and fates do so contrary run
  2722. That our devices still are overthrown;
  2723. Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own:
  2724. So think thou wilt no second husband wed;
  2725. But die thy thoughts when thy first lord is dead.
  2726. Player Queen
  2727. Nor earth to me give food, nor heaven light!
  2728. Sport and repose lock from me day and night!
  2729. To desperation turn my trust and hope!
  2730. An anchor's cheer in prison be my scope!
  2731. Each opposite that blanks the face of joy
  2732. Meet what I would have well and it destroy!
  2733. Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife,
  2734. If, once a widow, ever I be wife!
  2735. HAMLET
  2736. If she should break it now!
  2737. Player King
  2738. 'Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here awhile;
  2739. My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile
  2740. The tedious day with sleep.
  2741. Sleeps
  2742. Player Queen
  2743. Sleep rock thy brain,
  2744. And never come mischance between us twain!
  2745. Exit
  2746. HAMLET
  2747. Madam, how like you this play?
  2748. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  2749. The lady protests too much, methinks.
  2750. HAMLET
  2751. O, but she'll keep her word.
  2752. KING CLAUDIUS
  2753. Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in 't?
  2754. HAMLET
  2755. No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest; no offence
  2756. i' the world.
  2757. KING CLAUDIUS
  2758. What do you call the play?
  2759. HAMLET
  2760. The Mouse-trap. Marry, how? Tropically. This play
  2761. is the image of a murder done in Vienna: Gonzago is
  2762. the duke's name; his wife, Baptista: you shall see
  2763. anon; 'tis a knavish piece of work: but what o'
  2764. that? your majesty and we that have free souls, it
  2765. touches us not: let the galled jade wince, our
  2766. withers are unwrung.
  2767. Enter LUCIANUS
  2768. This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king.
  2769. OPHELIA
  2770. You are as good as a chorus, my lord.
  2771. HAMLET
  2772. I could interpret between you and your love, if I
  2773. could see the puppets dallying.
  2774. OPHELIA
  2775. You are keen, my lord, you are keen.
  2776. HAMLET
  2777. It would cost you a groaning to take off my edge.
  2778. OPHELIA
  2779. Still better, and worse.
  2780. HAMLET
  2781. So you must take your husbands. Begin, murderer;
  2782. pox, leave thy damnable faces, and begin. Come:
  2783. 'the croaking raven doth bellow for revenge.'
  2784. LUCIANUS
  2785. Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing;
  2786. Confederate season, else no creature seeing;
  2787. Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected,
  2788. With Hecate's ban thrice blasted, thrice infected,
  2789. Thy natural magic and dire property,
  2790. On wholesome life usurp immediately.
  2791. Pours the poison into the sleeper's ears
  2792. HAMLET
  2793. He poisons him i' the garden for's estate. His
  2794. name's Gonzago: the story is extant, and writ in
  2795. choice Italian: you shall see anon how the murderer
  2796. gets the love of Gonzago's wife.
  2797. OPHELIA
  2798. The king rises.
  2799. HAMLET
  2800. What, frighted with false fire!
  2801. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  2802. How fares my lord?
  2803. LORD POLONIUS
  2804. Give o'er the play.
  2805. KING CLAUDIUS
  2806. Give me some light: away!
  2807. All
  2808. Lights, lights, lights!
  2809. Exeunt all but HAMLET and HORATIO
  2810. HAMLET
  2811. Why, let the stricken deer go weep,
  2812. The hart ungalled play;
  2813. For some must watch, while some must sleep:
  2814. So runs the world away.
  2815. Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers-- if
  2816. the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me--with two
  2817. Provincial roses on my razed shoes, get me a
  2818. fellowship in a cry of players, sir?
  2819. HORATIO
  2820. Half a share.
  2821. HAMLET
  2822. A whole one, I.
  2823. For thou dost know, O Damon dear,
  2824. This realm dismantled was
  2825. Of Jove himself; and now reigns here
  2826. A very, very--pajock.
  2827. HORATIO
  2828. You might have rhymed.
  2829. HAMLET
  2830. O good Horatio, I'll take the ghost's word for a
  2831. thousand pound. Didst perceive?
  2832. HORATIO
  2833. Very well, my lord.
  2834. HAMLET
  2835. Upon the talk of the poisoning?
  2836. HORATIO
  2837. I did very well note him.
  2838. HAMLET
  2839. Ah, ha! Come, some music! come, the recorders!
  2840. For if the king like not the comedy,
  2841. Why then, belike, he likes it not, perdy.
  2842. Come, some music!
  2843. Re-enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN
  2844. GUILDENSTERN
  2845. Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you.
  2846. HAMLET
  2847. Sir, a whole history.
  2848. GUILDENSTERN
  2849. The king, sir,--
  2850. HAMLET
  2851. Ay, sir, what of him?
  2852. GUILDENSTERN
  2853. Is in his retirement marvellous distempered.
  2854. HAMLET
  2855. With drink, sir?
  2856. GUILDENSTERN
  2857. No, my lord, rather with choler.
  2858. HAMLET
  2859. Your wisdom should show itself more richer to
  2860. signify this to his doctor; for, for me to put him
  2861. to his purgation would perhaps plunge him into far
  2862. more choler.
  2863. GUILDENSTERN
  2864. Good my lord, put your discourse into some frame and
  2865. start not so wildly from my affair.
  2866. HAMLET
  2867. I am tame, sir: pronounce.
  2868. GUILDENSTERN
  2869. The queen, your mother, in most great affliction of
  2870. spirit, hath sent me to you.
  2871. HAMLET
  2872. You are welcome.
  2873. GUILDENSTERN
  2874. Nay, good my lord, this courtesy is not of the right
  2875. breed. If it shall please you to make me a
  2876. wholesome answer, I will do your mother's
  2877. commandment: if not, your pardon and my return
  2878. shall be the end of my business.
  2879. HAMLET
  2880. Sir, I cannot.
  2881. GUILDENSTERN
  2882. What, my lord?
  2883. HAMLET
  2884. Make you a wholesome answer; my wit's diseased: but,
  2885. sir, such answer as I can make, you shall command;
  2886. or, rather, as you say, my mother: therefore no
  2887. more, but to the matter: my mother, you say,--
  2888. ROSENCRANTZ
  2889. Then thus she says; your behavior hath struck her
  2890. into amazement and admiration.
  2891. HAMLET
  2892. O wonderful son, that can so astonish a mother! But
  2893. is there no sequel at the heels of this mother's
  2894. admiration? Impart.
  2895. ROSENCRANTZ
  2896. She desires to speak with you in her closet, ere you
  2897. go to bed.
  2898. HAMLET
  2899. We shall obey, were she ten times our mother. Have
  2900. you any further trade with us?
  2901. ROSENCRANTZ
  2902. My lord, you once did love me.
  2903. HAMLET
  2904. So I do still, by these pickers and stealers.
  2905. ROSENCRANTZ
  2906. Good my lord, what is your cause of distemper? you
  2907. do, surely, bar the door upon your own liberty, if
  2908. you deny your griefs to your friend.
  2909. HAMLET
  2910. Sir, I lack advancement.
  2911. ROSENCRANTZ
  2912. How can that be, when you have the voice of the king
  2913. himself for your succession in Denmark?
  2914. HAMLET
  2915. Ay, but sir, 'While the grass grows,'--the proverb
  2916. is something musty.
  2917. Re-enter Players with recorders
  2918. O, the recorders! let me see one. To withdraw with
  2919. you:--why do you go about to recover the wind of me,
  2920. as if you would drive me into a toil?
  2921. GUILDENSTERN
  2922. O, my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too
  2923. unmannerly.
  2924. HAMLET
  2925. I do not well understand that. Will you play upon
  2926. this pipe?
  2927. GUILDENSTERN
  2928. My lord, I cannot.
  2929. HAMLET
  2930. I pray you.
  2931. GUILDENSTERN
  2932. Believe me, I cannot.
  2933. HAMLET
  2934. I do beseech you.
  2935. GUILDENSTERN
  2936. I know no touch of it, my lord.
  2937. HAMLET
  2938. 'Tis as easy as lying: govern these ventages with
  2939. your lingers and thumb, give it breath with your
  2940. mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music.
  2941. Look you, these are the stops.
  2942. GUILDENSTERN
  2943. But these cannot I command to any utterance of
  2944. harmony; I have not the skill.
  2945. HAMLET
  2946. Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of
  2947. me! You would play upon me; you would seem to know
  2948. my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my
  2949. mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to
  2950. the top of my compass: and there is much music,
  2951. excellent voice, in this little organ; yet cannot
  2952. you make it speak. 'Sblood, do you think I am
  2953. easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what
  2954. instrument you will, though you can fret me, yet you
  2955. cannot play upon me.
  2956. Enter POLONIUS
  2957. God bless you, sir!
  2958. LORD POLONIUS
  2959. My lord, the queen would speak with you, and
  2960. presently.
  2961. HAMLET
  2962. Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel?
  2963. LORD POLONIUS
  2964. By the mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed.
  2965. HAMLET
  2966. Methinks it is like a weasel.
  2967. LORD POLONIUS
  2968. It is backed like a weasel.
  2969. HAMLET
  2970. Or like a whale?
  2971. LORD POLONIUS
  2972. Very like a whale.
  2973. HAMLET
  2974. Then I will come to my mother by and by. They fool
  2975. me to the top of my bent. I will come by and by.
  2976. LORD POLONIUS
  2977. I will say so.
  2978. HAMLET
  2979. By and by is easily said.
  2980. Exit POLONIUS
  2981. Leave me, friends.
  2982. Exeunt all but HAMLET
  2983. Tis now the very witching time of night,
  2984. When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out
  2985. Contagion to this world: now could I drink hot blood,
  2986. And do such bitter business as the day
  2987. Would quake to look on. Soft! now to my mother.
  2988. O heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever
  2989. The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom:
  2990. Let me be cruel, not unnatural:
  2991. I will speak daggers to her, but use none;
  2992. My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites;
  2993. How in my words soever she be shent,
  2994. To give them seals never, my soul, consent!
  2995. Exit
  2996. SCENE III. A room in the castle.
  2997. Enter KING CLAUDIUS, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN
  2998. KING CLAUDIUS
  2999. I like him not, nor stands it safe with us
  3000. To let his madness range. Therefore prepare you;
  3001. I your commission will forthwith dispatch,
  3002. And he to England shall along with you:
  3003. The terms of our estate may not endure
  3004. Hazard so dangerous as doth hourly grow
  3005. Out of his lunacies.
  3006. GUILDENSTERN
  3007. We will ourselves provide:
  3008. Most holy and religious fear it is
  3009. To keep those many many bodies safe
  3010. That live and feed upon your majesty.
  3011. ROSENCRANTZ
  3012. The single and peculiar life is bound,
  3013. With all the strength and armour of the mind,
  3014. To keep itself from noyance; but much more
  3015. That spirit upon whose weal depend and rest
  3016. The lives of many. The cease of majesty
  3017. Dies not alone; but, like a gulf, doth draw
  3018. What's near it with it: it is a massy wheel,
  3019. Fix'd on the summit of the highest mount,
  3020. To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things
  3021. Are mortised and adjoin'd; which, when it falls,
  3022. Each small annexment, petty consequence,
  3023. Attends the boisterous ruin. Never alone
  3024. Did the king sigh, but with a general groan.
  3025. KING CLAUDIUS
  3026. Arm you, I pray you, to this speedy voyage;
  3027. For we will fetters put upon this fear,
  3028. Which now goes too free-footed.
  3029. ROSENCRANTZ GUILDENSTERN
  3030. We will haste us.
  3031. Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN
  3032. Enter POLONIUS
  3033. LORD POLONIUS
  3034. My lord, he's going to his mother's closet:
  3035. Behind the arras I'll convey myself,
  3036. To hear the process; and warrant she'll tax him home:
  3037. And, as you said, and wisely was it said,
  3038. 'Tis meet that some more audience than a mother,
  3039. Since nature makes them partial, should o'erhear
  3040. The speech, of vantage. Fare you well, my liege:
  3041. I'll call upon you ere you go to bed,
  3042. And tell you what I know.
  3043. KING CLAUDIUS
  3044. Thanks, dear my lord.
  3045. Exit POLONIUS
  3046. O, my offence is rank it smells to heaven;
  3047. It hath the primal eldest curse upon't,
  3048. A brother's murder. Pray can I not,
  3049. Though inclination be as sharp as will:
  3050. My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent;
  3051. And, like a man to double business bound,
  3052. I stand in pause where I shall first begin,
  3053. And both neglect. What if this cursed hand
  3054. Were thicker than itself with brother's blood,
  3055. Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens
  3056. To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy
  3057. But to confront the visage of offence?
  3058. And what's in prayer but this two-fold force,
  3059. To be forestalled ere we come to fall,
  3060. Or pardon'd being down? Then I'll look up;
  3061. My fault is past. But, O, what form of prayer
  3062. Can serve my turn? 'Forgive me my foul murder'?
  3063. That cannot be; since I am still possess'd
  3064. Of those effects for which I did the murder,
  3065. My crown, mine own ambition and my queen.
  3066. May one be pardon'd and retain the offence?
  3067. In the corrupted currents of this world
  3068. Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice,
  3069. And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself
  3070. Buys out the law: but 'tis not so above;
  3071. There is no shuffling, there the action lies
  3072. In his true nature; and we ourselves compell'd,
  3073. Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,
  3074. To give in evidence. What then? what rests?
  3075. Try what repentance can: what can it not?
  3076. Yet what can it when one can not repent?
  3077. O wretched state! O bosom black as death!
  3078. O limed soul, that, struggling to be free,
  3079. Art more engaged! Help, angels! Make assay!
  3080. Bow, stubborn knees; and, heart with strings of steel,
  3081. Be soft as sinews of the newborn babe!
  3082. All may be well.
  3083. Retires and kneels
  3084. Enter HAMLET
  3085. HAMLET
  3086. Now might I do it pat, now he is praying;
  3087. And now I'll do't. And so he goes to heaven;
  3088. And so am I revenged. That would be scann'd:
  3089. A villain kills my father; and for that,
  3090. I, his sole son, do this same villain send
  3091. To heaven.
  3092. O, this is hire and salary, not revenge.
  3093. He took my father grossly, full of bread;
  3094. With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May;
  3095. And how his audit stands who knows save heaven?
  3096. But in our circumstance and course of thought,
  3097. 'Tis heavy with him: and am I then revenged,
  3098. To take him in the purging of his soul,
  3099. When he is fit and season'd for his passage?
  3100. No!
  3101. Up, sword; and know thou a more horrid hent:
  3102. When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage,
  3103. Or in the incestuous pleasure of his bed;
  3104. At gaming, swearing, or about some act
  3105. That has no relish of salvation in't;
  3106. Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven,
  3107. And that his soul may be as damn'd and black
  3108. As hell, whereto it goes. My mother stays:
  3109. This physic but prolongs thy sickly days.
  3110. Exit
  3111. KING CLAUDIUS
  3112. [Rising] My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:
  3113. Words without thoughts never to heaven go.
  3114. Exit
  3115. SCENE IV. The Queen's closet.
  3116. Enter QUEEN GERTRUDE and POLONIUS
  3117. LORD POLONIUS
  3118. He will come straight. Look you lay home to him:
  3119. Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear with,
  3120. And that your grace hath screen'd and stood between
  3121. Much heat and him. I'll sconce me even here.
  3122. Pray you, be round with him.
  3123. HAMLET
  3124. [Within] Mother, mother, mother!
  3125. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  3126. I'll warrant you,
  3127. Fear me not: withdraw, I hear him coming.
  3128. POLONIUS hides behind the arras
  3129. Enter HAMLET
  3130. HAMLET
  3131. Now, mother, what's the matter?
  3132. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  3133. Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.
  3134. HAMLET
  3135. Mother, you have my father much offended.
  3136. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  3137. Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.
  3138. HAMLET
  3139. Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.
  3140. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  3141. Why, how now, Hamlet!
  3142. HAMLET
  3143. What's the matter now?
  3144. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  3145. Have you forgot me?
  3146. HAMLET
  3147. No, by the rood, not so:
  3148. You are the queen, your husband's brother's wife;
  3149. And--would it were not so!--you are my mother.
  3150. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  3151. Nay, then, I'll set those to you that can speak.
  3152. HAMLET
  3153. Come, come, and sit you down; you shall not budge;
  3154. You go not till I set you up a glass
  3155. Where you may see the inmost part of you.
  3156. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  3157. What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murder me?
  3158. Help, help, ho!
  3159. LORD POLONIUS
  3160. [Behind] What, ho! help, help, help!
  3161. HAMLET
  3162. [Drawing] How now! a rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead!
  3163. Makes a pass through the arras
  3164. LORD POLONIUS
  3165. [Behind] O, I am slain!
  3166. Falls and dies
  3167. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  3168. O me, what hast thou done?
  3169. HAMLET
  3170. Nay, I know not:
  3171. Is it the king?
  3172. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  3173. O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!
  3174. HAMLET
  3175. A bloody deed! almost as bad, good mother,
  3176. As kill a king, and marry with his brother.
  3177. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  3178. As kill a king!
  3179. HAMLET
  3180. Ay, lady, 'twas my word.
  3181. Lifts up the array and discovers POLONIUS
  3182. Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!
  3183. I took thee for thy better: take thy fortune;
  3184. Thou find'st to be too busy is some danger.
  3185. Leave wringing of your hands: peace! sit you down,
  3186. And let me wring your heart; for so I shall,
  3187. If it be made of penetrable stuff,
  3188. If damned custom have not brass'd it so
  3189. That it is proof and bulwark against sense.
  3190. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  3191. What have I done, that thou darest wag thy tongue
  3192. In noise so rude against me?
  3193. HAMLET
  3194. Such an act
  3195. That blurs the grace and blush of modesty,
  3196. Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose
  3197. From the fair forehead of an innocent love
  3198. And sets a blister there, makes marriage-vows
  3199. As false as dicers' oaths: O, such a deed
  3200. As from the body of contraction plucks
  3201. The very soul, and sweet religion makes
  3202. A rhapsody of words: heaven's face doth glow:
  3203. Yea, this solidity and compound mass,
  3204. With tristful visage, as against the doom,
  3205. Is thought-sick at the act.
  3206. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  3207. Ay me, what act,
  3208. That roars so loud, and thunders in the index?
  3209. HAMLET
  3210. Look here, upon this picture, and on this,
  3211. The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
  3212. See, what a grace was seated on this brow;
  3213. Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself;
  3214. An eye like Mars, to threaten and command;
  3215. A station like the herald Mercury
  3216. New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill;
  3217. A combination and a form indeed,
  3218. Where every god did seem to set his seal,
  3219. To give the world assurance of a man:
  3220. This was your husband. Look you now, what follows:
  3221. Here is your husband; like a mildew'd ear,
  3222. Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes?
  3223. Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,
  3224. And batten on this moor? Ha! have you eyes?
  3225. You cannot call it love; for at your age
  3226. The hey-day in the blood is tame, it's humble,
  3227. And waits upon the judgment: and what judgment
  3228. Would step from this to this? Sense, sure, you have,
  3229. Else could you not have motion; but sure, that sense
  3230. Is apoplex'd; for madness would not err,
  3231. Nor sense to ecstasy was ne'er so thrall'd
  3232. But it reserved some quantity of choice,
  3233. To serve in such a difference. What devil was't
  3234. That thus hath cozen'd you at hoodman-blind?
  3235. Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight,
  3236. Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all,
  3237. Or but a sickly part of one true sense
  3238. Could not so mope.
  3239. O shame! where is thy blush? Rebellious hell,
  3240. If thou canst mutine in a matron's bones,
  3241. To flaming youth let virtue be as wax,
  3242. And melt in her own fire: proclaim no shame
  3243. When the compulsive ardour gives the charge,
  3244. Since frost itself as actively doth burn
  3245. And reason panders will.
  3246. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  3247. O Hamlet, speak no more:
  3248. Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul;
  3249. And there I see such black and grained spots
  3250. As will not leave their tinct.
  3251. HAMLET
  3252. Nay, but to live
  3253. In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed,
  3254. Stew'd in corruption, honeying and making love
  3255. Over the nasty sty,--
  3256. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  3257. O, speak to me no more;
  3258. These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears;
  3259. No more, sweet Hamlet!
  3260. HAMLET
  3261. A murderer and a villain;
  3262. A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe
  3263. Of your precedent lord; a vice of kings;
  3264. A cutpurse of the empire and the rule,
  3265. That from a shelf the precious diadem stole,
  3266. And put it in his pocket!
  3267. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  3268. No more!
  3269. HAMLET
  3270. A king of shreds and patches,--
  3271. Enter Ghost
  3272. Save me, and hover o'er me with your wings,
  3273. You heavenly guards! What would your gracious figure?
  3274. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  3275. Alas, he's mad!
  3276. HAMLET
  3277. Do you not come your tardy son to chide,
  3278. That, lapsed in time and passion, lets go by
  3279. The important acting of your dread command? O, say!
  3280. Ghost
  3281. Do not forget: this visitation
  3282. Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.
  3283. But, look, amazement on thy mother sits:
  3284. O, step between her and her fighting soul:
  3285. Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works:
  3286. Speak to her, Hamlet.
  3287. HAMLET
  3288. How is it with you, lady?
  3289. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  3290. Alas, how is't with you,
  3291. That you do bend your eye on vacancy
  3292. And with the incorporal air do hold discourse?
  3293. Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep;
  3294. And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm,
  3295. Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,
  3296. Starts up, and stands on end. O gentle son,
  3297. Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper
  3298. Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look?
  3299. HAMLET
  3300. On him, on him! Look you, how pale he glares!
  3301. His form and cause conjoin'd, preaching to stones,
  3302. Would make them capable. Do not look upon me;
  3303. Lest with this piteous action you convert
  3304. My stern effects: then what I have to do
  3305. Will want true colour; tears perchance for blood.
  3306. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  3307. To whom do you speak this?
  3308. HAMLET
  3309. Do you see nothing there?
  3310. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  3311. Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.
  3312. HAMLET
  3313. Nor did you nothing hear?
  3314. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  3315. No, nothing but ourselves.
  3316. HAMLET
  3317. Why, look you there! look, how it steals away!
  3318. My father, in his habit as he lived!
  3319. Look, where he goes, even now, out at the portal!
  3320. Exit Ghost
  3321. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  3322. This the very coinage of your brain:
  3323. This bodiless creation ecstasy
  3324. Is very cunning in.
  3325. HAMLET
  3326. Ecstasy!
  3327. My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time,
  3328. And makes as healthful music: it is not madness
  3329. That I have utter'd: bring me to the test,
  3330. And I the matter will re-word; which madness
  3331. Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,
  3332. Lay not that mattering unction to your soul,
  3333. That not your trespass, but my madness speaks:
  3334. It will but skin and film the ulcerous place,
  3335. Whilst rank corruption, mining all within,
  3336. Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven;
  3337. Repent what's past; avoid what is to come;
  3338. And do not spread the compost on the weeds,
  3339. To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue;
  3340. For in the fatness of these pursy times
  3341. Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg,
  3342. Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good.
  3343. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  3344. O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.
  3345. HAMLET
  3346. O, throw away the worser part of it,
  3347. And live the purer with the other half.
  3348. Good night: but go not to mine uncle's bed;
  3349. Assume a virtue, if you have it not.
  3350. That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat,
  3351. Of habits devil, is angel yet in this,
  3352. That to the use of actions fair and good
  3353. He likewise gives a frock or livery,
  3354. That aptly is put on. Refrain to-night,
  3355. And that shall lend a kind of easiness
  3356. To the next abstinence: the next more easy;
  3357. For use almost can change the stamp of nature,
  3358. And either [ ] the devil, or throw him out
  3359. With wondrous potency. Once more, good night:
  3360. And when you are desirous to be bless'd,
  3361. I'll blessing beg of you. For this same lord,
  3362. Pointing to POLONIUS
  3363. I do repent: but heaven hath pleased it so,
  3364. To punish me with this and this with me,
  3365. That I must be their scourge and minister.
  3366. I will bestow him, and will answer well
  3367. The death I gave him. So, again, good night.
  3368. I must be cruel, only to be kind:
  3369. Thus bad begins and worse remains behind.
  3370. One word more, good lady.
  3371. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  3372. What shall I do?
  3373. HAMLET
  3374. Not this, by no means, that I bid you do:
  3375. Let the bloat king tempt you again to bed;
  3376. Pinch wanton on your cheek; call you his mouse;
  3377. And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses,
  3378. Or paddling in your neck with his damn'd fingers,
  3379. Make you to ravel all this matter out,
  3380. That I essentially am not in madness,
  3381. But mad in craft. 'Twere good you let him know;
  3382. For who, that's but a queen, fair, sober, wise,
  3383. Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib,
  3384. Such dear concernings hide? who would do so?
  3385. No, in despite of sense and secrecy,
  3386. Unpeg the basket on the house's top.
  3387. Let the birds fly, and, like the famous ape,
  3388. To try conclusions, in the basket creep,
  3389. And break your own neck down.
  3390. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  3391. Be thou assured, if words be made of breath,
  3392. And breath of life, I have no life to breathe
  3393. What thou hast said to me.
  3394. HAMLET
  3395. I must to England; you know that?
  3396. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  3397. Alack,
  3398. I had forgot: 'tis so concluded on.
  3399. HAMLET
  3400. There's letters seal'd: and my two schoolfellows,
  3401. Whom I will trust as I will adders fang'd,
  3402. They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way,
  3403. And marshal me to knavery. Let it work;
  3404. For 'tis the sport to have the engineer
  3405. Hoist with his own petard: and 't shall go hard
  3406. But I will delve one yard below their mines,
  3407. And blow them at the moon: O, 'tis most sweet,
  3408. When in one line two crafts directly meet.
  3409. This man shall set me packing:
  3410. I'll lug the guts into the neighbour room.
  3411. Mother, good night. Indeed this counsellor
  3412. Is now most still, most secret and most grave,
  3413. Who was in life a foolish prating knave.
  3414. Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you.
  3415. Good night, mother.
  3416. Exeunt severally; HAMLET dragging in POLONIUS
  3417. ACT IV
  3418. SCENE I. A room in the castle.
  3419. Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN
  3420. KING CLAUDIUS
  3421. There's matter in these sighs, these profound heaves:
  3422. You must translate: 'tis fit we understand them.
  3423. Where is your son?
  3424. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  3425. Bestow this place on us a little while.
  3426. Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN
  3427. Ah, my good lord, what have I seen to-night!
  3428. KING CLAUDIUS
  3429. What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?
  3430. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  3431. Mad as the sea and wind, when both contend
  3432. Which is the mightier: in his lawless fit,
  3433. Behind the arras hearing something stir,
  3434. Whips out his rapier, cries, 'A rat, a rat!'
  3435. And, in this brainish apprehension, kills
  3436. The unseen good old man.
  3437. KING CLAUDIUS
  3438. O heavy deed!
  3439. It had been so with us, had we been there:
  3440. His liberty is full of threats to all;
  3441. To you yourself, to us, to every one.
  3442. Alas, how shall this bloody deed be answer'd?
  3443. It will be laid to us, whose providence
  3444. Should have kept short, restrain'd and out of haunt,
  3445. This mad young man: but so much was our love,
  3446. We would not understand what was most fit;
  3447. But, like the owner of a foul disease,
  3448. To keep it from divulging, let it feed
  3449. Even on the pith of Life. Where is he gone?
  3450. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  3451. To draw apart the body he hath kill'd:
  3452. O'er whom his very madness, like some ore
  3453. Among a mineral of metals base,
  3454. Shows itself pure; he weeps for what is done.
  3455. KING CLAUDIUS
  3456. O Gertrude, come away!
  3457. The sun no sooner shall the mountains touch,
  3458. But we will ship him hence: and this vile deed
  3459. We must, with all our majesty and skill,
  3460. Both countenance and excuse. Ho, Guildenstern!
  3461. Re-enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN
  3462. Friends both, go join you with some further aid:
  3463. Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain,
  3464. And from his mother's closet hath he dragg'd him:
  3465. Go seek him out; speak fair, and bring the body
  3466. Into the chapel. I pray you, haste in this.
  3467. Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN
  3468. Come, Gertrude, we'll call up our wisest friends;
  3469. And let them know, both what we mean to do,
  3470. And what's untimely done. O, come away!
  3471. My soul is full of discord and dismay.
  3472. Exeunt
  3473. SCENE II. Another room in the castle.
  3474. Enter HAMLET
  3475. HAMLET
  3476. Safely stowed.
  3477. ROSENCRANTZ: GUILDENSTERN:
  3478. [Within] Hamlet! Lord Hamlet!
  3479. HAMLET
  3480. What noise? who calls on Hamlet?
  3481. O, here they come.
  3482. Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN
  3483. ROSENCRANTZ
  3484. What have you done, my lord, with the dead body?
  3485. HAMLET
  3486. Compounded it with dust, whereto 'tis kin.
  3487. ROSENCRANTZ
  3488. Tell us where 'tis, that we may take it thence
  3489. And bear it to the chapel.
  3490. HAMLET
  3491. Do not believe it.
  3492. ROSENCRANTZ
  3493. Believe what?
  3494. HAMLET
  3495. That I can keep your counsel and not mine own.
  3496. Besides, to be demanded of a sponge! what
  3497. replication should be made by the son of a king?
  3498. ROSENCRANTZ
  3499. Take you me for a sponge, my lord?
  3500. HAMLET
  3501. Ay, sir, that soaks up the king's countenance, his
  3502. rewards, his authorities. But such officers do the
  3503. king best service in the end: he keeps them, like
  3504. an ape, in the corner of his jaw; first mouthed, to
  3505. be last swallowed: when he needs what you have
  3506. gleaned, it is but squeezing you, and, sponge, you
  3507. shall be dry again.
  3508. ROSENCRANTZ
  3509. I understand you not, my lord.
  3510. HAMLET
  3511. I am glad of it: a knavish speech sleeps in a
  3512. foolish ear.
  3513. ROSENCRANTZ
  3514. My lord, you must tell us where the body is, and go
  3515. with us to the king.
  3516. HAMLET
  3517. The body is with the king, but the king is not with
  3518. the body. The king is a thing--
  3519. GUILDENSTERN
  3520. A thing, my lord!
  3521. HAMLET
  3522. Of nothing: bring me to him. Hide fox, and all after.
  3523. Exeunt
  3524. SCENE III. Another room in the castle.
  3525. Enter KING CLAUDIUS, attended
  3526. KING CLAUDIUS
  3527. I have sent to seek him, and to find the body.
  3528. How dangerous is it that this man goes loose!
  3529. Yet must not we put the strong law on him:
  3530. He's loved of the distracted multitude,
  3531. Who like not in their judgment, but their eyes;
  3532. And where tis so, the offender's scourge is weigh'd,
  3533. But never the offence. To bear all smooth and even,
  3534. This sudden sending him away must seem
  3535. Deliberate pause: diseases desperate grown
  3536. By desperate appliance are relieved,
  3537. Or not at all.
  3538. Enter ROSENCRANTZ
  3539. How now! what hath befall'n?
  3540. ROSENCRANTZ
  3541. Where the dead body is bestow'd, my lord,
  3542. We cannot get from him.
  3543. KING CLAUDIUS
  3544. But where is he?
  3545. ROSENCRANTZ
  3546. Without, my lord; guarded, to know your pleasure.
  3547. KING CLAUDIUS
  3548. Bring him before us.
  3549. ROSENCRANTZ
  3550. Ho, Guildenstern! bring in my lord.
  3551. Enter HAMLET and GUILDENSTERN
  3552. KING CLAUDIUS
  3553. Now, Hamlet, where's Polonius?
  3554. HAMLET
  3555. At supper.
  3556. KING CLAUDIUS
  3557. At supper! where?
  3558. HAMLET
  3559. Not where he eats, but where he is eaten: a certain
  3560. convocation of politic worms are e'en at him. Your
  3561. worm is your only emperor for diet: we fat all
  3562. creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for
  3563. maggots: your fat king and your lean beggar is but
  3564. variable service, two dishes, but to one table:
  3565. that's the end.
  3566. KING CLAUDIUS
  3567. Alas, alas!
  3568. HAMLET
  3569. A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a
  3570. king, and cat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.
  3571. KING CLAUDIUS
  3572. What dost you mean by this?
  3573. HAMLET
  3574. Nothing but to show you how a king may go a
  3575. progress through the guts of a beggar.
  3576. KING CLAUDIUS
  3577. Where is Polonius?
  3578. HAMLET
  3579. In heaven; send hither to see: if your messenger
  3580. find him not there, seek him i' the other place
  3581. yourself. But indeed, if you find him not within
  3582. this month, you shall nose him as you go up the
  3583. stairs into the lobby.
  3584. KING CLAUDIUS
  3585. Go seek him there.
  3586. To some Attendants
  3587. HAMLET
  3588. He will stay till ye come.
  3589. Exeunt Attendants
  3590. KING CLAUDIUS
  3591. Hamlet, this deed, for thine especial safety,--
  3592. Which we do tender, as we dearly grieve
  3593. For that which thou hast done,--must send thee hence
  3594. With fiery quickness: therefore prepare thyself;
  3595. The bark is ready, and the wind at help,
  3596. The associates tend, and every thing is bent
  3597. For England.
  3598. HAMLET
  3599. For England!
  3600. KING CLAUDIUS
  3601. Ay, Hamlet.
  3602. HAMLET
  3603. Good.
  3604. KING CLAUDIUS
  3605. So is it, if thou knew'st our purposes.
  3606. HAMLET
  3607. I see a cherub that sees them. But, come; for
  3608. England! Farewell, dear mother.
  3609. KING CLAUDIUS
  3610. Thy loving father, Hamlet.
  3611. HAMLET
  3612. My mother: father and mother is man and wife; man
  3613. and wife is one flesh; and so, my mother. Come, for England!
  3614. Exit
  3615. KING CLAUDIUS
  3616. Follow him at foot; tempt him with speed aboard;
  3617. Delay it not; I'll have him hence to-night:
  3618. Away! for every thing is seal'd and done
  3619. That else leans on the affair: pray you, make haste.
  3620. Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN
  3621. And, England, if my love thou hold'st at aught--
  3622. As my great power thereof may give thee sense,
  3623. Since yet thy cicatrice looks raw and red
  3624. After the Danish sword, and thy free awe
  3625. Pays homage to us--thou mayst not coldly set
  3626. Our sovereign process; which imports at full,
  3627. By letters congruing to that effect,
  3628. The present death of Hamlet. Do it, England;
  3629. For like the hectic in my blood he rages,
  3630. And thou must cure me: till I know 'tis done,
  3631. Howe'er my haps, my joys were ne'er begun.
  3632. Exit
  3633. SCENE IV. A plain in Denmark.
  3634. Enter FORTINBRAS, a Captain, and Soldiers, marching
  3635. PRINCE FORTINBRAS
  3636. Go, captain, from me greet the Danish king;
  3637. Tell him that, by his licence, Fortinbras
  3638. Craves the conveyance of a promised march
  3639. Over his kingdom. You know the rendezvous.
  3640. If that his majesty would aught with us,
  3641. We shall express our duty in his eye;
  3642. And let him know so.
  3643. Captain
  3644. I will do't, my lord.
  3645. PRINCE FORTINBRAS
  3646. Go softly on.
  3647. Exeunt FORTINBRAS and Soldiers
  3648. Enter HAMLET, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, and others
  3649. HAMLET
  3650. Good sir, whose powers are these?
  3651. Captain
  3652. They are of Norway, sir.
  3653. HAMLET
  3654. How purposed, sir, I pray you?
  3655. Captain
  3656. Against some part of Poland.
  3657. HAMLET
  3658. Who commands them, sir?
  3659. Captain
  3660. The nephews to old Norway, Fortinbras.
  3661. HAMLET
  3662. Goes it against the main of Poland, sir,
  3663. Or for some frontier?
  3664. Captain
  3665. Truly to speak, and with no addition,
  3666. We go to gain a little patch of ground
  3667. That hath in it no profit but the name.
  3668. To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it;
  3669. Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole
  3670. A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee.
  3671. HAMLET
  3672. Why, then the Polack never will defend it.
  3673. Captain
  3674. Yes, it is already garrison'd.
  3675. HAMLET
  3676. Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats
  3677. Will not debate the question of this straw:
  3678. This is the imposthume of much wealth and peace,
  3679. That inward breaks, and shows no cause without
  3680. Why the man dies. I humbly thank you, sir.
  3681. Captain
  3682. God be wi' you, sir.
  3683. Exit
  3684. ROSENCRANTZ
  3685. Wilt please you go, my lord?
  3686. HAMLET
  3687. I'll be with you straight go a little before.
  3688. Exeunt all except HAMLET
  3689. How all occasions do inform against me,
  3690. And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,
  3691. If his chief good and market of his time
  3692. Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.
  3693. Sure, he that made us with such large discourse,
  3694. Looking before and after, gave us not
  3695. That capability and god-like reason
  3696. To fust in us unused. Now, whether it be
  3697. Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
  3698. Of thinking too precisely on the event,
  3699. A thought which, quarter'd, hath but one part wisdom
  3700. And ever three parts coward, I do not know
  3701. Why yet I live to say 'This thing's to do;'
  3702. Sith I have cause and will and strength and means
  3703. To do't. Examples gross as earth exhort me:
  3704. Witness this army of such mass and charge
  3705. Led by a delicate and tender prince,
  3706. Whose spirit with divine ambition puff'd
  3707. Makes mouths at the invisible event,
  3708. Exposing what is mortal and unsure
  3709. To all that fortune, death and danger dare,
  3710. Even for an egg-shell. Rightly to be great
  3711. Is not to stir without great argument,
  3712. But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
  3713. When honour's at the stake. How stand I then,
  3714. That have a father kill'd, a mother stain'd,
  3715. Excitements of my reason and my blood,
  3716. And let all sleep? while, to my shame, I see
  3717. The imminent death of twenty thousand men,
  3718. That, for a fantasy and trick of fame,
  3719. Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot
  3720. Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,
  3721. Which is not tomb enough and continent
  3722. To hide the slain? O, from this time forth,
  3723. My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!
  3724. Exit
  3725. SCENE V. Elsinore. A room in the castle.
  3726. Enter QUEEN GERTRUDE, HORATIO, and a Gentleman
  3727. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  3728. I will not speak with her.
  3729. Gentleman
  3730. She is importunate, indeed distract:
  3731. Her mood will needs be pitied.
  3732. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  3733. What would she have?
  3734. Gentleman
  3735. She speaks much of her father; says she hears
  3736. There's tricks i' the world; and hems, and beats her heart;
  3737. Spurns enviously at straws; speaks things in doubt,
  3738. That carry but half sense: her speech is nothing,
  3739. Yet the unshaped use of it doth move
  3740. The hearers to collection; they aim at it,
  3741. And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts;
  3742. Which, as her winks, and nods, and gestures
  3743. yield them,
  3744. Indeed would make one think there might be thought,
  3745. Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.
  3746. HORATIO
  3747. 'Twere good she were spoken with; for she may strew
  3748. Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.
  3749. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  3750. Let her come in.
  3751. Exit HORATIO
  3752. To my sick soul, as sin's true nature is,
  3753. Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss:
  3754. So full of artless jealousy is guilt,
  3755. It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.
  3756. Re-enter HORATIO, with OPHELIA
  3757. OPHELIA
  3758. Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?
  3759. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  3760. How now, Ophelia!
  3761. OPHELIA
  3762. [Sings]
  3763. How should I your true love know
  3764. From another one?
  3765. By his cockle hat and staff,
  3766. And his sandal shoon.
  3767. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  3768. Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?
  3769. OPHELIA
  3770. Say you? nay, pray you, mark.
  3771. Sings
  3772. He is dead and gone, lady,
  3773. He is dead and gone;
  3774. At his head a grass-green turf,
  3775. At his heels a stone.
  3776. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  3777. Nay, but, Ophelia,--
  3778. OPHELIA
  3779. Pray you, mark.
  3780. Sings
  3781. White his shroud as the mountain snow,--
  3782. Enter KING CLAUDIUS
  3783. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  3784. Alas, look here, my lord.
  3785. OPHELIA
  3786. [Sings]
  3787. Larded with sweet flowers
  3788. Which bewept to the grave did go
  3789. With true-love showers.
  3790. KING CLAUDIUS
  3791. How do you, pretty lady?
  3792. OPHELIA
  3793. Well, God 'ild you! They say the owl was a baker's
  3794. daughter. Lord, we know what we are, but know not
  3795. what we may be. God be at your table!
  3796. KING CLAUDIUS
  3797. Conceit upon her father.
  3798. OPHELIA
  3799. Pray you, let's have no words of this; but when they
  3800. ask you what it means, say you this:
  3801. Sings
  3802. To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day,
  3803. All in the morning betime,
  3804. And I a maid at your window,
  3805. To be your Valentine.
  3806. Then up he rose, and donn'd his clothes,
  3807. And dupp'd the chamber-door;
  3808. Let in the maid, that out a maid
  3809. Never departed more.
  3810. KING CLAUDIUS
  3811. Pretty Ophelia!
  3812. OPHELIA
  3813. Indeed, la, without an oath, I'll make an end on't:
  3814. Sings
  3815. By Gis and by Saint Charity,
  3816. Alack, and fie for shame!
  3817. Young men will do't, if they come to't;
  3818. By cock, they are to blame.
  3819. Quoth she, before you tumbled me,
  3820. You promised me to wed.
  3821. So would I ha' done, by yonder sun,
  3822. An thou hadst not come to my bed.
  3823. KING CLAUDIUS
  3824. How long hath she been thus?
  3825. OPHELIA
  3826. I hope all will be well. We must be patient: but I
  3827. cannot choose but weep, to think they should lay him
  3828. i' the cold ground. My brother shall know of it:
  3829. and so I thank you for your good counsel. Come, my
  3830. coach! Good night, ladies; good night, sweet ladies;
  3831. good night, good night.
  3832. Exit
  3833. KING CLAUDIUS
  3834. Follow her close; give her good watch,
  3835. I pray you.
  3836. Exit HORATIO
  3837. O, this is the poison of deep grief; it springs
  3838. All from her father's death. O Gertrude, Gertrude,
  3839. When sorrows come, they come not single spies
  3840. But in battalions. First, her father slain:
  3841. Next, your son gone; and he most violent author
  3842. Of his own just remove: the people muddied,
  3843. Thick and unwholesome in their thoughts and whispers,
  3844. For good Polonius' death; and we have done but greenly,
  3845. In hugger-mugger to inter him: poor Ophelia
  3846. Divided from herself and her fair judgment,
  3847. Without the which we are pictures, or mere beasts:
  3848. Last, and as much containing as all these,
  3849. Her brother is in secret come from France;
  3850. Feeds on his wonder, keeps himself in clouds,
  3851. And wants not buzzers to infect his ear
  3852. With pestilent speeches of his father's death;
  3853. Wherein necessity, of matter beggar'd,
  3854. Will nothing stick our person to arraign
  3855. In ear and ear. O my dear Gertrude, this,
  3856. Like to a murdering-piece, in many places
  3857. Gives me superfluous death.
  3858. A noise within
  3859. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  3860. Alack, what noise is this?
  3861. KING CLAUDIUS
  3862. Where are my Switzers? Let them guard the door.
  3863. Enter another Gentleman
  3864. What is the matter?
  3865. Gentleman
  3866. Save yourself, my lord:
  3867. The ocean, overpeering of his list,
  3868. Eats not the flats with more impetuous haste
  3869. Than young Laertes, in a riotous head,
  3870. O'erbears your officers. The rabble call him lord;
  3871. And, as the world were now but to begin,
  3872. Antiquity forgot, custom not known,
  3873. The ratifiers and props of every word,
  3874. They cry 'Choose we: Laertes shall be king:'
  3875. Caps, hands, and tongues, applaud it to the clouds:
  3876. 'Laertes shall be king, Laertes king!'
  3877. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  3878. How cheerfully on the false trail they cry!
  3879. O, this is counter, you false Danish dogs!
  3880. KING CLAUDIUS
  3881. The doors are broke.
  3882. Noise within
  3883. Enter LAERTES, armed; Danes following
  3884. LAERTES
  3885. Where is this king? Sirs, stand you all without.
  3886. Danes
  3887. No, let's come in.
  3888. LAERTES
  3889. I pray you, give me leave.
  3890. Danes
  3891. We will, we will.
  3892. They retire without the door
  3893. LAERTES
  3894. I thank you: keep the door. O thou vile king,
  3895. Give me my father!
  3896. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  3897. Calmly, good Laertes.
  3898. LAERTES
  3899. That drop of blood that's calm proclaims me bastard,
  3900. Cries cuckold to my father, brands the harlot
  3901. Even here, between the chaste unsmirched brow
  3902. Of my true mother.
  3903. KING CLAUDIUS
  3904. What is the cause, Laertes,
  3905. That thy rebellion looks so giant-like?
  3906. Let him go, Gertrude; do not fear our person:
  3907. There's such divinity doth hedge a king,
  3908. That treason can but peep to what it would,
  3909. Acts little of his will. Tell me, Laertes,
  3910. Why thou art thus incensed. Let him go, Gertrude.
  3911. Speak, man.
  3912. LAERTES
  3913. Where is my father?
  3914. KING CLAUDIUS
  3915. Dead.
  3916. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  3917. But not by him.
  3918. KING CLAUDIUS
  3919. Let him demand his fill.
  3920. LAERTES
  3921. How came he dead? I'll not be juggled with:
  3922. To hell, allegiance! vows, to the blackest devil!
  3923. Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit!
  3924. I dare damnation. To this point I stand,
  3925. That both the worlds I give to negligence,
  3926. Let come what comes; only I'll be revenged
  3927. Most thoroughly for my father.
  3928. KING CLAUDIUS
  3929. Who shall stay you?
  3930. LAERTES
  3931. My will, not all the world:
  3932. And for my means, I'll husband them so well,
  3933. They shall go far with little.
  3934. KING CLAUDIUS
  3935. Good Laertes,
  3936. If you desire to know the certainty
  3937. Of your dear father's death, is't writ in your revenge,
  3938. That, swoopstake, you will draw both friend and foe,
  3939. Winner and loser?
  3940. LAERTES
  3941. None but his enemies.
  3942. KING CLAUDIUS
  3943. Will you know them then?
  3944. LAERTES
  3945. To his good friends thus wide I'll ope my arms;
  3946. And like the kind life-rendering pelican,
  3947. Repast them with my blood.
  3948. KING CLAUDIUS
  3949. Why, now you speak
  3950. Like a good child and a true gentleman.
  3951. That I am guiltless of your father's death,
  3952. And am most sensible in grief for it,
  3953. It shall as level to your judgment pierce
  3954. As day does to your eye.
  3955. Danes
  3956. [Within] Let her come in.
  3957. LAERTES
  3958. How now! what noise is that?
  3959. Re-enter OPHELIA
  3960. O heat, dry up my brains! tears seven times salt,
  3961. Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye!
  3962. By heaven, thy madness shall be paid by weight,
  3963. Till our scale turn the beam. O rose of May!
  3964. Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!
  3965. O heavens! is't possible, a young maid's wits
  3966. Should be as moral as an old man's life?
  3967. Nature is fine in love, and where 'tis fine,
  3968. It sends some precious instance of itself
  3969. After the thing it loves.
  3970. OPHELIA
  3971. [Sings]
  3972. They bore him barefaced on the bier;
  3973. Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny;
  3974. And in his grave rain'd many a tear:--
  3975. Fare you well, my dove!
  3976. LAERTES
  3977. Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge,
  3978. It could not move thus.
  3979. OPHELIA
  3980. [Sings]
  3981. You must sing a-down a-down,
  3982. An you call him a-down-a.
  3983. O, how the wheel becomes it! It is the false
  3984. steward, that stole his master's daughter.
  3985. LAERTES
  3986. This nothing's more than matter.
  3987. OPHELIA
  3988. There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray,
  3989. love, remember: and there is pansies. that's for thoughts.
  3990. LAERTES
  3991. A document in madness, thoughts and remembrance fitted.
  3992. OPHELIA
  3993. There's fennel for you, and columbines: there's rue
  3994. for you; and here's some for me: we may call it
  3995. herb-grace o' Sundays: O you must wear your rue with
  3996. a difference. There's a daisy: I would give you
  3997. some violets, but they withered all when my father
  3998. died: they say he made a good end,--
  3999. Sings
  4000. For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.
  4001. LAERTES
  4002. Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself,
  4003. She turns to favour and to prettiness.
  4004. OPHELIA
  4005. [Sings]
  4006. And will he not come again?
  4007. And will he not come again?
  4008. No, no, he is dead:
  4009. Go to thy death-bed:
  4010. He never will come again.
  4011. His beard was as white as snow,
  4012. All flaxen was his poll:
  4013. He is gone, he is gone,
  4014. And we cast away moan:
  4015. God ha' mercy on his soul!
  4016. And of all Christian souls, I pray God. God be wi' ye.
  4017. Exit
  4018. LAERTES
  4019. Do you see this, O God?
  4020. KING CLAUDIUS
  4021. Laertes, I must commune with your grief,
  4022. Or you deny me right. Go but apart,
  4023. Make choice of whom your wisest friends you will.
  4024. And they shall hear and judge 'twixt you and me:
  4025. If by direct or by collateral hand
  4026. They find us touch'd, we will our kingdom give,
  4027. Our crown, our life, and all that we can ours,
  4028. To you in satisfaction; but if not,
  4029. Be you content to lend your patience to us,
  4030. And we shall jointly labour with your soul
  4031. To give it due content.
  4032. LAERTES
  4033. Let this be so;
  4034. His means of death, his obscure funeral--
  4035. No trophy, sword, nor hatchment o'er his bones,
  4036. No noble rite nor formal ostentation--
  4037. Cry to be heard, as 'twere from heaven to earth,
  4038. That I must call't in question.
  4039. KING CLAUDIUS
  4040. So you shall;
  4041. And where the offence is let the great axe fall.
  4042. I pray you, go with me.
  4043. Exeunt
  4044. SCENE VI. Another room in the castle.
  4045. Enter HORATIO and a Servant
  4046. HORATIO
  4047. What are they that would speak with me?
  4048. Servant
  4049. Sailors, sir: they say they have letters for you.
  4050. HORATIO
  4051. Let them come in.
  4052. Exit Servant
  4053. I do not know from what part of the world
  4054. I should be greeted, if not from Lord Hamlet.
  4055. Enter Sailors
  4056. First Sailor
  4057. God bless you, sir.
  4058. HORATIO
  4059. Let him bless thee too.
  4060. First Sailor
  4061. He shall, sir, an't please him. There's a letter for
  4062. you, sir; it comes from the ambassador that was
  4063. bound for England; if your name be Horatio, as I am
  4064. let to know it is.
  4065. HORATIO
  4066. [Reads] 'Horatio, when thou shalt have overlooked
  4067. this, give these fellows some means to the king:
  4068. they have letters for him. Ere we were two days old
  4069. at sea, a pirate of very warlike appointment gave us
  4070. chase. Finding ourselves too slow of sail, we put on
  4071. a compelled valour, and in the grapple I boarded
  4072. them: on the instant they got clear of our ship; so
  4073. I alone became their prisoner. They have dealt with
  4074. me like thieves of mercy: but they knew what they
  4075. did; I am to do a good turn for them. Let the king
  4076. have the letters I have sent; and repair thou to me
  4077. with as much speed as thou wouldst fly death. I
  4078. have words to speak in thine ear will make thee
  4079. dumb; yet are they much too light for the bore of
  4080. the matter. These good fellows will bring thee
  4081. where I am. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern hold their
  4082. course for England: of them I have much to tell
  4083. thee. Farewell.
  4084. 'He that thou knowest thine, HAMLET.'
  4085. Come, I will make you way for these your letters;
  4086. And do't the speedier, that you may direct me
  4087. To him from whom you brought them.
  4088. Exeunt
  4089. SCENE VII. Another room in the castle.
  4090. Enter KING CLAUDIUS and LAERTES
  4091. KING CLAUDIUS
  4092. Now must your conscience my acquaintance seal,
  4093. And you must put me in your heart for friend,
  4094. Sith you have heard, and with a knowing ear,
  4095. That he which hath your noble father slain
  4096. Pursued my life.
  4097. LAERTES
  4098. It well appears: but tell me
  4099. Why you proceeded not against these feats,
  4100. So crimeful and so capital in nature,
  4101. As by your safety, wisdom, all things else,
  4102. You mainly were stirr'd up.
  4103. KING CLAUDIUS
  4104. O, for two special reasons;
  4105. Which may to you, perhaps, seem much unsinew'd,
  4106. But yet to me they are strong. The queen his mother
  4107. Lives almost by his looks; and for myself--
  4108. My virtue or my plague, be it either which--
  4109. She's so conjunctive to my life and soul,
  4110. That, as the star moves not but in his sphere,
  4111. I could not but by her. The other motive,
  4112. Why to a public count I might not go,
  4113. Is the great love the general gender bear him;
  4114. Who, dipping all his faults in their affection,
  4115. Would, like the spring that turneth wood to stone,
  4116. Convert his gyves to graces; so that my arrows,
  4117. Too slightly timber'd for so loud a wind,
  4118. Would have reverted to my bow again,
  4119. And not where I had aim'd them.
  4120. LAERTES
  4121. And so have I a noble father lost;
  4122. A sister driven into desperate terms,
  4123. Whose worth, if praises may go back again,
  4124. Stood challenger on mount of all the age
  4125. For her perfections: but my revenge will come.
  4126. KING CLAUDIUS
  4127. Break not your sleeps for that: you must not think
  4128. That we are made of stuff so flat and dull
  4129. That we can let our beard be shook with danger
  4130. And think it pastime. You shortly shall hear more:
  4131. I loved your father, and we love ourself;
  4132. And that, I hope, will teach you to imagine--
  4133. Enter a Messenger
  4134. How now! what news?
  4135. Messenger
  4136. Letters, my lord, from Hamlet:
  4137. This to your majesty; this to the queen.
  4138. KING CLAUDIUS
  4139. From Hamlet! who brought them?
  4140. Messenger
  4141. Sailors, my lord, they say; I saw them not:
  4142. They were given me by Claudio; he received them
  4143. Of him that brought them.
  4144. KING CLAUDIUS
  4145. Laertes, you shall hear them. Leave us.
  4146. Exit Messenger
  4147. Reads
  4148. 'High and mighty, You shall know I am set naked on
  4149. your kingdom. To-morrow shall I beg leave to see
  4150. your kingly eyes: when I shall, first asking your
  4151. pardon thereunto, recount the occasion of my sudden
  4152. and more strange return. 'HAMLET.'
  4153. What should this mean? Are all the rest come back?
  4154. Or is it some abuse, and no such thing?
  4155. LAERTES
  4156. Know you the hand?
  4157. KING CLAUDIUS
  4158. 'Tis Hamlets character. 'Naked!
  4159. And in a postscript here, he says 'alone.'
  4160. Can you advise me?
  4161. LAERTES
  4162. I'm lost in it, my lord. But let him come;
  4163. It warms the very sickness in my heart,
  4164. That I shall live and tell him to his teeth,
  4165. 'Thus didest thou.'
  4166. KING CLAUDIUS
  4167. If it be so, Laertes--
  4168. As how should it be so? how otherwise?--
  4169. Will you be ruled by me?
  4170. LAERTES
  4171. Ay, my lord;
  4172. So you will not o'errule me to a peace.
  4173. KING CLAUDIUS
  4174. To thine own peace. If he be now return'd,
  4175. As checking at his voyage, and that he means
  4176. No more to undertake it, I will work him
  4177. To an exploit, now ripe in my device,
  4178. Under the which he shall not choose but fall:
  4179. And for his death no wind of blame shall breathe,
  4180. But even his mother shall uncharge the practise
  4181. And call it accident.
  4182. LAERTES
  4183. My lord, I will be ruled;
  4184. The rather, if you could devise it so
  4185. That I might be the organ.
  4186. KING CLAUDIUS
  4187. It falls right.
  4188. You have been talk'd of since your travel much,
  4189. And that in Hamlet's hearing, for a quality
  4190. Wherein, they say, you shine: your sum of parts
  4191. Did not together pluck such envy from him
  4192. As did that one, and that, in my regard,
  4193. Of the unworthiest siege.
  4194. LAERTES
  4195. What part is that, my lord?
  4196. KING CLAUDIUS
  4197. A very riband in the cap of youth,
  4198. Yet needful too; for youth no less becomes
  4199. The light and careless livery that it wears
  4200. Than settled age his sables and his weeds,
  4201. Importing health and graveness. Two months since,
  4202. Here was a gentleman of Normandy:--
  4203. I've seen myself, and served against, the French,
  4204. And they can well on horseback: but this gallant
  4205. Had witchcraft in't; he grew unto his seat;
  4206. And to such wondrous doing brought his horse,
  4207. As he had been incorpsed and demi-natured
  4208. With the brave beast: so far he topp'd my thought,
  4209. That I, in forgery of shapes and tricks,
  4210. Come short of what he did.
  4211. LAERTES
  4212. A Norman was't?
  4213. KING CLAUDIUS
  4214. A Norman.
  4215. LAERTES
  4216. Upon my life, Lamond.
  4217. KING CLAUDIUS
  4218. The very same.
  4219. LAERTES
  4220. I know him well: he is the brooch indeed
  4221. And gem of all the nation.
  4222. KING CLAUDIUS
  4223. He made confession of you,
  4224. And gave you such a masterly report
  4225. For art and exercise in your defence
  4226. And for your rapier most especially,
  4227. That he cried out, 'twould be a sight indeed,
  4228. If one could match you: the scrimers of their nation,
  4229. He swore, had had neither motion, guard, nor eye,
  4230. If you opposed them. Sir, this report of his
  4231. Did Hamlet so envenom with his envy
  4232. That he could nothing do but wish and beg
  4233. Your sudden coming o'er, to play with him.
  4234. Now, out of this,--
  4235. LAERTES
  4236. What out of this, my lord?
  4237. KING CLAUDIUS
  4238. Laertes, was your father dear to you?
  4239. Or are you like the painting of a sorrow,
  4240. A face without a heart?
  4241. LAERTES
  4242. Why ask you this?
  4243. KING CLAUDIUS
  4244. Not that I think you did not love your father;
  4245. But that I know love is begun by time;
  4246. And that I see, in passages of proof,
  4247. Time qualifies the spark and fire of it.
  4248. There lives within the very flame of love
  4249. A kind of wick or snuff that will abate it;
  4250. And nothing is at a like goodness still;
  4251. For goodness, growing to a plurisy,
  4252. Dies in his own too much: that we would do
  4253. We should do when we would; for this 'would' changes
  4254. And hath abatements and delays as many
  4255. As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents;
  4256. And then this 'should' is like a spendthrift sigh,
  4257. That hurts by easing. But, to the quick o' the ulcer:--
  4258. Hamlet comes back: what would you undertake,
  4259. To show yourself your father's son in deed
  4260. More than in words?
  4261. LAERTES
  4262. To cut his throat i' the church.
  4263. KING CLAUDIUS
  4264. No place, indeed, should murder sanctuarize;
  4265. Revenge should have no bounds. But, good Laertes,
  4266. Will you do this, keep close within your chamber.
  4267. Hamlet return'd shall know you are come home:
  4268. We'll put on those shall praise your excellence
  4269. And set a double varnish on the fame
  4270. The Frenchman gave you, bring you in fine together
  4271. And wager on your heads: he, being remiss,
  4272. Most generous and free from all contriving,
  4273. Will not peruse the foils; so that, with ease,
  4274. Or with a little shuffling, you may choose
  4275. A sword unbated, and in a pass of practise
  4276. Requite him for your father.
  4277. LAERTES
  4278. I will do't:
  4279. And, for that purpose, I'll anoint my sword.
  4280. I bought an unction of a mountebank,
  4281. So mortal that, but dip a knife in it,
  4282. Where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare,
  4283. Collected from all simples that have virtue
  4284. Under the moon, can save the thing from death
  4285. That is but scratch'd withal: I'll touch my point
  4286. With this contagion, that, if I gall him slightly,
  4287. It may be death.
  4288. KING CLAUDIUS
  4289. Let's further think of this;
  4290. Weigh what convenience both of time and means
  4291. May fit us to our shape: if this should fail,
  4292. And that our drift look through our bad performance,
  4293. 'Twere better not assay'd: therefore this project
  4294. Should have a back or second, that might hold,
  4295. If this should blast in proof. Soft! let me see:
  4296. We'll make a solemn wager on your cunnings: I ha't.
  4297. When in your motion you are hot and dry--
  4298. As make your bouts more violent to that end--
  4299. And that he calls for drink, I'll have prepared him
  4300. A chalice for the nonce, whereon but sipping,
  4301. If he by chance escape your venom'd stuck,
  4302. Our purpose may hold there.
  4303. Enter QUEEN GERTRUDE
  4304. How now, sweet queen!
  4305. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  4306. One woe doth tread upon another's heel,
  4307. So fast they follow; your sister's drown'd, Laertes.
  4308. LAERTES
  4309. Drown'd! O, where?
  4310. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  4311. There is a willow grows aslant a brook,
  4312. That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream;
  4313. There with fantastic garlands did she come
  4314. Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples
  4315. That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
  4316. But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them:
  4317. There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds
  4318. Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke;
  4319. When down her weedy trophies and herself
  4320. Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide;
  4321. And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up:
  4322. Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes;
  4323. As one incapable of her own distress,
  4324. Or like a creature native and indued
  4325. Unto that element: but long it could not be
  4326. Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
  4327. Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay
  4328. To muddy death.
  4329. LAERTES
  4330. Alas, then, she is drown'd?
  4331. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  4332. Drown'd, drown'd.
  4333. LAERTES
  4334. Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia,
  4335. And therefore I forbid my tears: but yet
  4336. It is our trick; nature her custom holds,
  4337. Let shame say what it will: when these are gone,
  4338. The woman will be out. Adieu, my lord:
  4339. I have a speech of fire, that fain would blaze,
  4340. But that this folly douts it.
  4341. Exit
  4342. KING CLAUDIUS
  4343. Let's follow, Gertrude:
  4344. How much I had to do to calm his rage!
  4345. Now fear I this will give it start again;
  4346. Therefore let's follow.
  4347. Exeunt
  4348. ACT V
  4349. SCENE I. A churchyard.
  4350. Enter two Clowns, with spades, & c
  4351. First Clown
  4352. Is she to be buried in Christian burial that
  4353. wilfully seeks her own salvation?
  4354. Second Clown
  4355. I tell thee she is: and therefore make her grave
  4356. straight: the crowner hath sat on her, and finds it
  4357. Christian burial.
  4358. First Clown
  4359. How can that be, unless she drowned herself in her
  4360. own defence?
  4361. Second Clown
  4362. Why, 'tis found so.
  4363. First Clown
  4364. It must be 'se offendendo;' it cannot be else. For
  4365. here lies the point: if I drown myself wittingly,
  4366. it argues an act: and an act hath three branches: it
  4367. is, to act, to do, to perform: argal, she drowned
  4368. herself wittingly.
  4369. Second Clown
  4370. Nay, but hear you, goodman delver,--
  4371. First Clown
  4372. Give me leave. Here lies the water; good: here
  4373. stands the man; good; if the man go to this water,
  4374. and drown himself, it is, will he, nill he, he
  4375. goes,--mark you that; but if the water come to him
  4376. and drown him, he drowns not himself: argal, he
  4377. that is not guilty of his own death shortens not his own life.
  4378. Second Clown
  4379. But is this law?
  4380. First Clown
  4381. Ay, marry, is't; crowner's quest law.
  4382. Second Clown
  4383. Will you ha' the truth on't? If this had not been
  4384. a gentlewoman, she should have been buried out o'
  4385. Christian burial.
  4386. First Clown
  4387. Why, there thou say'st: and the more pity that
  4388. great folk should have countenance in this world to
  4389. drown or hang themselves, more than their even
  4390. Christian. Come, my spade. There is no ancient
  4391. gentleman but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers:
  4392. they hold up Adam's profession.
  4393. Second Clown
  4394. Was he a gentleman?
  4395. First Clown
  4396. He was the first that ever bore arms.
  4397. Second Clown
  4398. Why, he had none.
  4399. First Clown
  4400. What, art a heathen? How dost thou understand the
  4401. Scripture? The Scripture says 'Adam digged:'
  4402. could he dig without arms? I'll put another
  4403. question to thee: if thou answerest me not to the
  4404. purpose, confess thyself--
  4405. Second Clown
  4406. Go to.
  4407. First Clown
  4408. What is he that builds stronger than either the
  4409. mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?
  4410. Second Clown
  4411. The gallows-maker; for that frame outlives a
  4412. thousand tenants.
  4413. First Clown
  4414. I like thy wit well, in good faith: the gallows
  4415. does well; but how does it well? it does well to
  4416. those that do in: now thou dost ill to say the
  4417. gallows is built stronger than the church: argal,
  4418. the gallows may do well to thee. To't again, come.
  4419. Second Clown
  4420. 'Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or
  4421. a carpenter?'
  4422. First Clown
  4423. Ay, tell me that, and unyoke.
  4424. Second Clown
  4425. Marry, now I can tell.
  4426. First Clown
  4427. To't.
  4428. Second Clown
  4429. Mass, I cannot tell.
  4430. Enter HAMLET and HORATIO, at a distance
  4431. First Clown
  4432. Cudgel thy brains no more about it, for your dull
  4433. ass will not mend his pace with beating; and, when
  4434. you are asked this question next, say 'a
  4435. grave-maker: 'the houses that he makes last till
  4436. doomsday. Go, get thee to Yaughan: fetch me a
  4437. stoup of liquor.
  4438. Exit Second Clown
  4439. He digs and sings
  4440. In youth, when I did love, did love,
  4441. Methought it was very sweet,
  4442. To contract, O, the time, for, ah, my behove,
  4443. O, methought, there was nothing meet.
  4444. HAMLET
  4445. Has this fellow no feeling of his business, that he
  4446. sings at grave-making?
  4447. HORATIO
  4448. Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness.
  4449. HAMLET
  4450. 'Tis e'en so: the hand of little employment hath
  4451. the daintier sense.
  4452. First Clown
  4453. [Sings]
  4454. But age, with his stealing steps,
  4455. Hath claw'd me in his clutch,
  4456. And hath shipped me intil the land,
  4457. As if I had never been such.
  4458. Throws up a skull
  4459. HAMLET
  4460. That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once:
  4461. how the knave jowls it to the ground, as if it were
  4462. Cain's jaw-bone, that did the first murder! It
  4463. might be the pate of a politician, which this ass
  4464. now o'er-reaches; one that would circumvent God,
  4465. might it not?
  4466. HORATIO
  4467. It might, my lord.
  4468. HAMLET
  4469. Or of a courtier; which could say 'Good morrow,
  4470. sweet lord! How dost thou, good lord?' This might
  4471. be my lord such-a-one, that praised my lord
  4472. such-a-one's horse, when he meant to beg it; might it not?
  4473. HORATIO
  4474. Ay, my lord.
  4475. HAMLET
  4476. Why, e'en so: and now my Lady Worm's; chapless, and
  4477. knocked about the mazzard with a sexton's spade:
  4478. here's fine revolution, an we had the trick to
  4479. see't. Did these bones cost no more the breeding,
  4480. but to play at loggats with 'em? mine ache to think on't.
  4481. First Clown
  4482. [Sings]
  4483. A pick-axe, and a spade, a spade,
  4484. For and a shrouding sheet:
  4485. O, a pit of clay for to be made
  4486. For such a guest is meet.
  4487. Throws up another skull
  4488. HAMLET
  4489. There's another: why may not that be the skull of a
  4490. lawyer? Where be his quiddities now, his quillets,
  4491. his cases, his tenures, and his tricks? why does he
  4492. suffer this rude knave now to knock him about the
  4493. sconce with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of
  4494. his action of battery? Hum! This fellow might be
  4495. in's time a great buyer of land, with his statutes,
  4496. his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers,
  4497. his recoveries: is this the fine of his fines, and
  4498. the recovery of his recoveries, to have his fine
  4499. pate full of fine dirt? will his vouchers vouch him
  4500. no more of his purchases, and double ones too, than
  4501. the length and breadth of a pair of indentures? The
  4502. very conveyances of his lands will hardly lie in
  4503. this box; and must the inheritor himself have no more, ha?
  4504. HORATIO
  4505. Not a jot more, my lord.
  4506. HAMLET
  4507. Is not parchment made of sheepskins?
  4508. HORATIO
  4509. Ay, my lord, and of calf-skins too.
  4510. HAMLET
  4511. They are sheep and calves which seek out assurance
  4512. in that. I will speak to this fellow. Whose
  4513. grave's this, sirrah?
  4514. First Clown
  4515. Mine, sir.
  4516. Sings
  4517. O, a pit of clay for to be made
  4518. For such a guest is meet.
  4519. HAMLET
  4520. I think it be thine, indeed; for thou liest in't.
  4521. First Clown
  4522. You lie out on't, sir, and therefore it is not
  4523. yours: for my part, I do not lie in't, and yet it is mine.
  4524. HAMLET
  4525. 'Thou dost lie in't, to be in't and say it is thine:
  4526. 'tis for the dead, not for the quick; therefore thou liest.
  4527. First Clown
  4528. 'Tis a quick lie, sir; 'twill away gain, from me to
  4529. you.
  4530. HAMLET
  4531. What man dost thou dig it for?
  4532. First Clown
  4533. For no man, sir.
  4534. HAMLET
  4535. What woman, then?
  4536. First Clown
  4537. For none, neither.
  4538. HAMLET
  4539. Who is to be buried in't?
  4540. First Clown
  4541. One that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she's dead.
  4542. HAMLET
  4543. How absolute the knave is! we must speak by the
  4544. card, or equivocation will undo us. By the Lord,
  4545. Horatio, these three years I have taken a note of
  4546. it; the age is grown so picked that the toe of the
  4547. peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier, he
  4548. gaffs his kibe. How long hast thou been a
  4549. grave-maker?
  4550. First Clown
  4551. Of all the days i' the year, I came to't that day
  4552. that our last king Hamlet overcame Fortinbras.
  4553. HAMLET
  4554. How long is that since?
  4555. First Clown
  4556. Cannot you tell that? every fool can tell that: it
  4557. was the very day that young Hamlet was born; he that
  4558. is mad, and sent into England.
  4559. HAMLET
  4560. Ay, marry, why was he sent into England?
  4561. First Clown
  4562. Why, because he was mad: he shall recover his wits
  4563. there; or, if he do not, it's no great matter there.
  4564. HAMLET
  4565. Why?
  4566. First Clown
  4567. 'Twill, a not be seen in him there; there the men
  4568. are as mad as he.
  4569. HAMLET
  4570. How came he mad?
  4571. First Clown
  4572. Very strangely, they say.
  4573. HAMLET
  4574. How strangely?
  4575. First Clown
  4576. Faith, e'en with losing his wits.
  4577. HAMLET
  4578. Upon what ground?
  4579. First Clown
  4580. Why, here in Denmark: I have been sexton here, man
  4581. and boy, thirty years.
  4582. HAMLET
  4583. How long will a man lie i' the earth ere he rot?
  4584. First Clown
  4585. I' faith, if he be not rotten before he die--as we
  4586. have many pocky corses now-a-days, that will scarce
  4587. hold the laying in--he will last you some eight year
  4588. or nine year: a tanner will last you nine year.
  4589. HAMLET
  4590. Why he more than another?
  4591. First Clown
  4592. Why, sir, his hide is so tanned with his trade, that
  4593. he will keep out water a great while; and your water
  4594. is a sore decayer of your whoreson dead body.
  4595. Here's a skull now; this skull has lain in the earth
  4596. three and twenty years.
  4597. HAMLET
  4598. Whose was it?
  4599. First Clown
  4600. A whoreson mad fellow's it was: whose do you think it was?
  4601. HAMLET
  4602. Nay, I know not.
  4603. First Clown
  4604. A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! a' poured a
  4605. flagon of Rhenish on my head once. This same skull,
  4606. sir, was Yorick's skull, the king's jester.
  4607. HAMLET
  4608. This?
  4609. First Clown
  4610. E'en that.
  4611. HAMLET
  4612. Let me see.
  4613. Takes the skull
  4614. Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow
  4615. of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath
  4616. borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how
  4617. abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rims at
  4618. it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know
  4619. not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your
  4620. gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment,
  4621. that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one
  4622. now, to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen?
  4623. Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let
  4624. her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must
  4625. come; make her laugh at that. Prithee, Horatio, tell
  4626. me one thing.
  4627. HORATIO
  4628. What's that, my lord?
  4629. HAMLET
  4630. Dost thou think Alexander looked o' this fashion i'
  4631. the earth?
  4632. HORATIO
  4633. E'en so.
  4634. HAMLET
  4635. And smelt so? pah!
  4636. Puts down the skull
  4637. HORATIO
  4638. E'en so, my lord.
  4639. HAMLET
  4640. To what base uses we may return, Horatio! Why may
  4641. not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander,
  4642. till he find it stopping a bung-hole?
  4643. HORATIO
  4644. 'Twere to consider too curiously, to consider so.
  4645. HAMLET
  4646. No, faith, not a jot; but to follow him thither with
  4647. modesty enough, and likelihood to lead it: as
  4648. thus: Alexander died, Alexander was buried,
  4649. Alexander returneth into dust; the dust is earth; of
  4650. earth we make loam; and why of that loam, whereto he
  4651. was converted, might they not stop a beer-barrel?
  4652. Imperious Caesar, dead and turn'd to clay,
  4653. Might stop a hole to keep the wind away:
  4654. O, that that earth, which kept the world in awe,
  4655. Should patch a wall to expel the winter flaw!
  4656. But soft! but soft! aside: here comes the king.
  4657. Enter Priest, & c. in procession; the Corpse of OPHELIA, LAERTES and Mourners following; KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, their trains, & c
  4658. The queen, the courtiers: who is this they follow?
  4659. And with such maimed rites? This doth betoken
  4660. The corse they follow did with desperate hand
  4661. Fordo its own life: 'twas of some estate.
  4662. Couch we awhile, and mark.
  4663. Retiring with HORATIO
  4664. LAERTES
  4665. What ceremony else?
  4666. HAMLET
  4667. That is Laertes,
  4668. A very noble youth: mark.
  4669. LAERTES
  4670. What ceremony else?
  4671. First Priest
  4672. Her obsequies have been as far enlarged
  4673. As we have warrantise: her death was doubtful;
  4674. And, but that great command o'ersways the order,
  4675. She should in ground unsanctified have lodged
  4676. Till the last trumpet: for charitable prayers,
  4677. Shards, flints and pebbles should be thrown on her;
  4678. Yet here she is allow'd her virgin crants,
  4679. Her maiden strewments and the bringing home
  4680. Of bell and burial.
  4681. LAERTES
  4682. Must there no more be done?
  4683. First Priest
  4684. No more be done:
  4685. We should profane the service of the dead
  4686. To sing a requiem and such rest to her
  4687. As to peace-parted souls.
  4688. LAERTES
  4689. Lay her i' the earth:
  4690. And from her fair and unpolluted flesh
  4691. May violets spring! I tell thee, churlish priest,
  4692. A ministering angel shall my sister be,
  4693. When thou liest howling.
  4694. HAMLET
  4695. What, the fair Ophelia!
  4696. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  4697. Sweets to the sweet: farewell!
  4698. Scattering flowers
  4699. I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet's wife;
  4700. I thought thy bride-bed to have deck'd, sweet maid,
  4701. And not have strew'd thy grave.
  4702. LAERTES
  4703. O, treble woe
  4704. Fall ten times treble on that cursed head,
  4705. Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense
  4706. Deprived thee of! Hold off the earth awhile,
  4707. Till I have caught her once more in mine arms:
  4708. Leaps into the grave
  4709. Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead,
  4710. Till of this flat a mountain you have made,
  4711. To o'ertop old Pelion, or the skyish head
  4712. Of blue Olympus.
  4713. HAMLET
  4714. [Advancing] What is he whose grief
  4715. Bears such an emphasis? whose phrase of sorrow
  4716. Conjures the wandering stars, and makes them stand
  4717. Like wonder-wounded hearers? This is I,
  4718. Hamlet the Dane.
  4719. Leaps into the grave
  4720. LAERTES
  4721. The devil take thy soul!
  4722. Grappling with him
  4723. HAMLET
  4724. Thou pray'st not well.
  4725. I prithee, take thy fingers from my throat;
  4726. For, though I am not splenitive and rash,
  4727. Yet have I something in me dangerous,
  4728. Which let thy wiseness fear: hold off thy hand.
  4729. KING CLAUDIUS
  4730. Pluck them asunder.
  4731. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  4732. Hamlet, Hamlet!
  4733. All
  4734. Gentlemen,--
  4735. HORATIO
  4736. Good my lord, be quiet.
  4737. The Attendants part them, and they come out of the grave
  4738. HAMLET
  4739. Why I will fight with him upon this theme
  4740. Until my eyelids will no longer wag.
  4741. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  4742. O my son, what theme?
  4743. HAMLET
  4744. I loved Ophelia: forty thousand brothers
  4745. Could not, with all their quantity of love,
  4746. Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?
  4747. KING CLAUDIUS
  4748. O, he is mad, Laertes.
  4749. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  4750. For love of God, forbear him.
  4751. HAMLET
  4752. 'Swounds, show me what thou'lt do:
  4753. Woo't weep? woo't fight? woo't fast? woo't tear thyself?
  4754. Woo't drink up eisel? eat a crocodile?
  4755. I'll do't. Dost thou come here to whine?
  4756. To outface me with leaping in her grave?
  4757. Be buried quick with her, and so will I:
  4758. And, if thou prate of mountains, let them throw
  4759. Millions of acres on us, till our ground,
  4760. Singeing his pate against the burning zone,
  4761. Make Ossa like a wart! Nay, an thou'lt mouth,
  4762. I'll rant as well as thou.
  4763. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  4764. This is mere madness:
  4765. And thus awhile the fit will work on him;
  4766. Anon, as patient as the female dove,
  4767. When that her golden couplets are disclosed,
  4768. His silence will sit drooping.
  4769. HAMLET
  4770. Hear you, sir;
  4771. What is the reason that you use me thus?
  4772. I loved you ever: but it is no matter;
  4773. Let Hercules himself do what he may,
  4774. The cat will mew and dog will have his day.
  4775. Exit
  4776. KING CLAUDIUS
  4777. I pray you, good Horatio, wait upon him.
  4778. Exit HORATIO
  4779. To LAERTES
  4780. Strengthen your patience in our last night's speech;
  4781. We'll put the matter to the present push.
  4782. Good Gertrude, set some watch over your son.
  4783. This grave shall have a living monument:
  4784. An hour of quiet shortly shall we see;
  4785. Till then, in patience our proceeding be.
  4786. Exeunt
  4787. SCENE II. A hall in the castle.
  4788. Enter HAMLET and HORATIO
  4789. HAMLET
  4790. So much for this, sir: now shall you see the other;
  4791. You do remember all the circumstance?
  4792. HORATIO
  4793. Remember it, my lord?
  4794. HAMLET
  4795. Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting,
  4796. That would not let me sleep: methought I lay
  4797. Worse than the mutines in the bilboes. Rashly,
  4798. And praised be rashness for it, let us know,
  4799. Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well,
  4800. When our deep plots do pall: and that should teach us
  4801. There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
  4802. Rough-hew them how we will,--
  4803. HORATIO
  4804. That is most certain.
  4805. HAMLET
  4806. Up from my cabin,
  4807. My sea-gown scarf'd about me, in the dark
  4808. Groped I to find out them; had my desire.
  4809. Finger'd their packet, and in fine withdrew
  4810. To mine own room again; making so bold,
  4811. My fears forgetting manners, to unseal
  4812. Their grand commission; where I found, Horatio,--
  4813. O royal knavery!--an exact command,
  4814. Larded with many several sorts of reasons
  4815. Importing Denmark's health and England's too,
  4816. With, ho! such bugs and goblins in my life,
  4817. That, on the supervise, no leisure bated,
  4818. No, not to stay the grinding of the axe,
  4819. My head should be struck off.
  4820. HORATIO
  4821. Is't possible?
  4822. HAMLET
  4823. Here's the commission: read it at more leisure.
  4824. But wilt thou hear me how I did proceed?
  4825. HORATIO
  4826. I beseech you.
  4827. HAMLET
  4828. Being thus be-netted round with villanies,--
  4829. Ere I could make a prologue to my brains,
  4830. They had begun the play--I sat me down,
  4831. Devised a new commission, wrote it fair:
  4832. I once did hold it, as our statists do,
  4833. A baseness to write fair and labour'd much
  4834. How to forget that learning, but, sir, now
  4835. It did me yeoman's service: wilt thou know
  4836. The effect of what I wrote?
  4837. HORATIO
  4838. Ay, good my lord.
  4839. HAMLET
  4840. An earnest conjuration from the king,
  4841. As England was his faithful tributary,
  4842. As love between them like the palm might flourish,
  4843. As peace should stiff her wheaten garland wear
  4844. And stand a comma 'tween their amities,
  4845. And many such-like 'As'es of great charge,
  4846. That, on the view and knowing of these contents,
  4847. Without debatement further, more or less,
  4848. He should the bearers put to sudden death,
  4849. Not shriving-time allow'd.
  4850. HORATIO
  4851. How was this seal'd?
  4852. HAMLET
  4853. Why, even in that was heaven ordinant.
  4854. I had my father's signet in my purse,
  4855. Which was the model of that Danish seal;
  4856. Folded the writ up in form of the other,
  4857. Subscribed it, gave't the impression, placed it safely,
  4858. The changeling never known. Now, the next day
  4859. Was our sea-fight; and what to this was sequent
  4860. Thou know'st already.
  4861. HORATIO
  4862. So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to't.
  4863. HAMLET
  4864. Why, man, they did make love to this employment;
  4865. They are not near my conscience; their defeat
  4866. Does by their own insinuation grow:
  4867. 'Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes
  4868. Between the pass and fell incensed points
  4869. Of mighty opposites.
  4870. HORATIO
  4871. Why, what a king is this!
  4872. HAMLET
  4873. Does it not, think'st thee, stand me now upon--
  4874. He that hath kill'd my king and whored my mother,
  4875. Popp'd in between the election and my hopes,
  4876. Thrown out his angle for my proper life,
  4877. And with such cozenage--is't not perfect conscience,
  4878. To quit him with this arm? and is't not to be damn'd,
  4879. To let this canker of our nature come
  4880. In further evil?
  4881. HORATIO
  4882. It must be shortly known to him from England
  4883. What is the issue of the business there.
  4884. HAMLET
  4885. It will be short: the interim is mine;
  4886. And a man's life's no more than to say 'One.'
  4887. But I am very sorry, good Horatio,
  4888. That to Laertes I forgot myself;
  4889. For, by the image of my cause, I see
  4890. The portraiture of his: I'll court his favours.
  4891. But, sure, the bravery of his grief did put me
  4892. Into a towering passion.
  4893. HORATIO
  4894. Peace! who comes here?
  4895. Enter OSRIC
  4896. OSRIC
  4897. Your lordship is right welcome back to Denmark.
  4898. HAMLET
  4899. I humbly thank you, sir. Dost know this water-fly?
  4900. HORATIO
  4901. No, my good lord.
  4902. HAMLET
  4903. Thy state is the more gracious; for 'tis a vice to
  4904. know him. He hath much land, and fertile: let a
  4905. beast be lord of beasts, and his crib shall stand at
  4906. the king's mess: 'tis a chough; but, as I say,
  4907. spacious in the possession of dirt.
  4908. OSRIC
  4909. Sweet lord, if your lordship were at leisure, I
  4910. should impart a thing to you from his majesty.
  4911. HAMLET
  4912. I will receive it, sir, with all diligence of
  4913. spirit. Put your bonnet to his right use; 'tis for the head.
  4914. OSRIC
  4915. I thank your lordship, it is very hot.
  4916. HAMLET
  4917. No, believe me, 'tis very cold; the wind is
  4918. northerly.
  4919. OSRIC
  4920. It is indifferent cold, my lord, indeed.
  4921. HAMLET
  4922. But yet methinks it is very sultry and hot for my
  4923. complexion.
  4924. OSRIC
  4925. Exceedingly, my lord; it is very sultry,--as
  4926. 'twere,--I cannot tell how. But, my lord, his
  4927. majesty bade me signify to you that he has laid a
  4928. great wager on your head: sir, this is the matter,--
  4929. HAMLET
  4930. I beseech you, remember--
  4931. HAMLET moves him to put on his hat
  4932. OSRIC
  4933. Nay, good my lord; for mine ease, in good faith.
  4934. Sir, here is newly come to court Laertes; believe
  4935. me, an absolute gentleman, full of most excellent
  4936. differences, of very soft society and great showing:
  4937. indeed, to speak feelingly of him, he is the card or
  4938. calendar of gentry, for you shall find in him the
  4939. continent of what part a gentleman would see.
  4940. HAMLET
  4941. Sir, his definement suffers no perdition in you;
  4942. though, I know, to divide him inventorially would
  4943. dizzy the arithmetic of memory, and yet but yaw
  4944. neither, in respect of his quick sail. But, in the
  4945. verity of extolment, I take him to be a soul of
  4946. great article; and his infusion of such dearth and
  4947. rareness, as, to make true diction of him, his
  4948. semblable is his mirror; and who else would trace
  4949. him, his umbrage, nothing more.
  4950. OSRIC
  4951. Your lordship speaks most infallibly of him.
  4952. HAMLET
  4953. The concernancy, sir? why do we wrap the gentleman
  4954. in our more rawer breath?
  4955. OSRIC
  4956. Sir?
  4957. HORATIO
  4958. Is't not possible to understand in another tongue?
  4959. You will do't, sir, really.
  4960. HAMLET
  4961. What imports the nomination of this gentleman?
  4962. OSRIC
  4963. Of Laertes?
  4964. HORATIO
  4965. His purse is empty already; all's golden words are spent.
  4966. HAMLET
  4967. Of him, sir.
  4968. OSRIC
  4969. I know you are not ignorant--
  4970. HAMLET
  4971. I would you did, sir; yet, in faith, if you did,
  4972. it would not much approve me. Well, sir?
  4973. OSRIC
  4974. You are not ignorant of what excellence Laertes is--
  4975. HAMLET
  4976. I dare not confess that, lest I should compare with
  4977. him in excellence; but, to know a man well, were to
  4978. know himself.
  4979. OSRIC
  4980. I mean, sir, for his weapon; but in the imputation
  4981. laid on him by them, in his meed he's unfellowed.
  4982. HAMLET
  4983. What's his weapon?
  4984. OSRIC
  4985. Rapier and dagger.
  4986. HAMLET
  4987. That's two of his weapons: but, well.
  4988. OSRIC
  4989. The king, sir, hath wagered with him six Barbary
  4990. horses: against the which he has imponed, as I take
  4991. it, six French rapiers and poniards, with their
  4992. assigns, as girdle, hangers, and so: three of the
  4993. carriages, in faith, are very dear to fancy, very
  4994. responsive to the hilts, most delicate carriages,
  4995. and of very liberal conceit.
  4996. HAMLET
  4997. What call you the carriages?
  4998. HORATIO
  4999. I knew you must be edified by the margent ere you had done.
  5000. OSRIC
  5001. The carriages, sir, are the hangers.
  5002. HAMLET
  5003. The phrase would be more german to the matter, if we
  5004. could carry cannon by our sides: I would it might
  5005. be hangers till then. But, on: six Barbary horses
  5006. against six French swords, their assigns, and three
  5007. liberal-conceited carriages; that's the French bet
  5008. against the Danish. Why is this 'imponed,' as you call it?
  5009. OSRIC
  5010. The king, sir, hath laid, that in a dozen passes
  5011. between yourself and him, he shall not exceed you
  5012. three hits: he hath laid on twelve for nine; and it
  5013. would come to immediate trial, if your lordship
  5014. would vouchsafe the answer.
  5015. HAMLET
  5016. How if I answer 'no'?
  5017. OSRIC
  5018. I mean, my lord, the opposition of your person in trial.
  5019. HAMLET
  5020. Sir, I will walk here in the hall: if it please his
  5021. majesty, 'tis the breathing time of day with me; let
  5022. the foils be brought, the gentleman willing, and the
  5023. king hold his purpose, I will win for him an I can;
  5024. if not, I will gain nothing but my shame and the odd hits.
  5025. OSRIC
  5026. Shall I re-deliver you e'en so?
  5027. HAMLET
  5028. To this effect, sir; after what flourish your nature will.
  5029. OSRIC
  5030. I commend my duty to your lordship.
  5031. HAMLET
  5032. Yours, yours.
  5033. Exit OSRIC
  5034. He does well to commend it himself; there are no
  5035. tongues else for's turn.
  5036. HORATIO
  5037. This lapwing runs away with the shell on his head.
  5038. HAMLET
  5039. He did comply with his dug, before he sucked it.
  5040. Thus has he--and many more of the same bevy that I
  5041. know the dressy age dotes on--only got the tune of
  5042. the time and outward habit of encounter; a kind of
  5043. yesty collection, which carries them through and
  5044. through the most fond and winnowed opinions; and do
  5045. but blow them to their trial, the bubbles are out.
  5046. Enter a Lord
  5047. Lord
  5048. My lord, his majesty commended him to you by young
  5049. Osric, who brings back to him that you attend him in
  5050. the hall: he sends to know if your pleasure hold to
  5051. play with Laertes, or that you will take longer time.
  5052. HAMLET
  5053. I am constant to my purpose; they follow the king's
  5054. pleasure: if his fitness speaks, mine is ready; now
  5055. or whensoever, provided I be so able as now.
  5056. Lord
  5057. The king and queen and all are coming down.
  5058. HAMLET
  5059. In happy time.
  5060. Lord
  5061. The queen desires you to use some gentle
  5062. entertainment to Laertes before you fall to play.
  5063. HAMLET
  5064. She well instructs me.
  5065. Exit Lord
  5066. HORATIO
  5067. You will lose this wager, my lord.
  5068. HAMLET
  5069. I do not think so: since he went into France, I
  5070. have been in continual practise: I shall win at the
  5071. odds. But thou wouldst not think how ill all's here
  5072. about my heart: but it is no matter.
  5073. HORATIO
  5074. Nay, good my lord,--
  5075. HAMLET
  5076. It is but foolery; but it is such a kind of
  5077. gain-giving, as would perhaps trouble a woman.
  5078. HORATIO
  5079. If your mind dislike any thing, obey it: I will
  5080. forestall their repair hither, and say you are not
  5081. fit.
  5082. HAMLET
  5083. Not a whit, we defy augury: there's a special
  5084. providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now,
  5085. 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be
  5086. now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the
  5087. readiness is all: since no man has aught of what he
  5088. leaves, what is't to leave betimes?
  5089. Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, LAERTES, Lords, OSRIC, and Attendants with foils, & c
  5090. KING CLAUDIUS
  5091. Come, Hamlet, come, and take this hand from me.
  5092. KING CLAUDIUS puts LAERTES' hand into HAMLET's
  5093. HAMLET
  5094. Give me your pardon, sir: I've done you wrong;
  5095. But pardon't, as you are a gentleman.
  5096. This presence knows,
  5097. And you must needs have heard, how I am punish'd
  5098. With sore distraction. What I have done,
  5099. That might your nature, honour and exception
  5100. Roughly awake, I here proclaim was madness.
  5101. Was't Hamlet wrong'd Laertes? Never Hamlet:
  5102. If Hamlet from himself be ta'en away,
  5103. And when he's not himself does wrong Laertes,
  5104. Then Hamlet does it not, Hamlet denies it.
  5105. Who does it, then? His madness: if't be so,
  5106. Hamlet is of the faction that is wrong'd;
  5107. His madness is poor Hamlet's enemy.
  5108. Sir, in this audience,
  5109. Let my disclaiming from a purposed evil
  5110. Free me so far in your most generous thoughts,
  5111. That I have shot mine arrow o'er the house,
  5112. And hurt my brother.
  5113. LAERTES
  5114. I am satisfied in nature,
  5115. Whose motive, in this case, should stir me most
  5116. To my revenge: but in my terms of honour
  5117. I stand aloof; and will no reconcilement,
  5118. Till by some elder masters, of known honour,
  5119. I have a voice and precedent of peace,
  5120. To keep my name ungored. But till that time,
  5121. I do receive your offer'd love like love,
  5122. And will not wrong it.
  5123. HAMLET
  5124. I embrace it freely;
  5125. And will this brother's wager frankly play.
  5126. Give us the foils. Come on.
  5127. LAERTES
  5128. Come, one for me.
  5129. HAMLET
  5130. I'll be your foil, Laertes: in mine ignorance
  5131. Your skill shall, like a star i' the darkest night,
  5132. Stick fiery off indeed.
  5133. LAERTES
  5134. You mock me, sir.
  5135. HAMLET
  5136. No, by this hand.
  5137. KING CLAUDIUS
  5138. Give them the foils, young Osric. Cousin Hamlet,
  5139. You know the wager?
  5140. HAMLET
  5141. Very well, my lord
  5142. Your grace hath laid the odds o' the weaker side.
  5143. KING CLAUDIUS
  5144. I do not fear it; I have seen you both:
  5145. But since he is better'd, we have therefore odds.
  5146. LAERTES
  5147. This is too heavy, let me see another.
  5148. HAMLET
  5149. This likes me well. These foils have all a length?
  5150. They prepare to play
  5151. OSRIC
  5152. Ay, my good lord.
  5153. KING CLAUDIUS
  5154. Set me the stoops of wine upon that table.
  5155. If Hamlet give the first or second hit,
  5156. Or quit in answer of the third exchange,
  5157. Let all the battlements their ordnance fire:
  5158. The king shall drink to Hamlet's better breath;
  5159. And in the cup an union shall he throw,
  5160. Richer than that which four successive kings
  5161. In Denmark's crown have worn. Give me the cups;
  5162. And let the kettle to the trumpet speak,
  5163. The trumpet to the cannoneer without,
  5164. The cannons to the heavens, the heavens to earth,
  5165. 'Now the king dunks to Hamlet.' Come, begin:
  5166. And you, the judges, bear a wary eye.
  5167. HAMLET
  5168. Come on, sir.
  5169. LAERTES
  5170. Come, my lord.
  5171. They play
  5172. HAMLET
  5173. One.
  5174. LAERTES
  5175. No.
  5176. HAMLET
  5177. Judgment.
  5178. OSRIC
  5179. A hit, a very palpable hit.
  5180. LAERTES
  5181. Well; again.
  5182. KING CLAUDIUS
  5183. Stay; give me drink. Hamlet, this pearl is thine;
  5184. Here's to thy health.
  5185. Trumpets sound, and cannon shot off within
  5186. Give him the cup.
  5187. HAMLET
  5188. I'll play this bout first; set it by awhile. Come.
  5189. They play
  5190. Another hit; what say you?
  5191. LAERTES
  5192. A touch, a touch, I do confess.
  5193. KING CLAUDIUS
  5194. Our son shall win.
  5195. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  5196. He's fat, and scant of breath.
  5197. Here, Hamlet, take my napkin, rub thy brows;
  5198. The queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet.
  5199. HAMLET
  5200. Good madam!
  5201. KING CLAUDIUS
  5202. Gertrude, do not drink.
  5203. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  5204. I will, my lord; I pray you, pardon me.
  5205. KING CLAUDIUS
  5206. [Aside] It is the poison'd cup: it is too late.
  5207. HAMLET
  5208. I dare not drink yet, madam; by and by.
  5209. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  5210. Come, let me wipe thy face.
  5211. LAERTES
  5212. My lord, I'll hit him now.
  5213. KING CLAUDIUS
  5214. I do not think't.
  5215. LAERTES
  5216. [Aside] And yet 'tis almost 'gainst my conscience.
  5217. HAMLET
  5218. Come, for the third, Laertes: you but dally;
  5219. I pray you, pass with your best violence;
  5220. I am afeard you make a wanton of me.
  5221. LAERTES
  5222. Say you so? come on.
  5223. They play
  5224. OSRIC
  5225. Nothing, neither way.
  5226. LAERTES
  5227. Have at you now!
  5228. LAERTES wounds HAMLET; then in scuffling, they change rapiers, and HAMLET wounds LAERTES
  5229. KING CLAUDIUS
  5230. Part them; they are incensed.
  5231. HAMLET
  5232. Nay, come, again.
  5233. QUEEN GERTRUDE falls
  5234. OSRIC
  5235. Look to the queen there, ho!
  5236. HORATIO
  5237. They bleed on both sides. How is it, my lord?
  5238. OSRIC
  5239. How is't, Laertes?
  5240. LAERTES
  5241. Why, as a woodcock to mine own springe, Osric;
  5242. I am justly kill'd with mine own treachery.
  5243. HAMLET
  5244. How does the queen?
  5245. KING CLAUDIUS
  5246. She swounds to see them bleed.
  5247. QUEEN GERTRUDE
  5248. No, no, the drink, the drink,--O my dear Hamlet,--
  5249. The drink, the drink! I am poison'd.
  5250. Dies
  5251. HAMLET
  5252. O villany! Ho! let the door be lock'd:
  5253. Treachery! Seek it out.
  5254. LAERTES
  5255. It is here, Hamlet: Hamlet, thou art slain;
  5256. No medicine in the world can do thee good;
  5257. In thee there is not half an hour of life;
  5258. The treacherous instrument is in thy hand,
  5259. Unbated and envenom'd: the foul practise
  5260. Hath turn'd itself on me lo, here I lie,
  5261. Never to rise again: thy mother's poison'd:
  5262. I can no more: the king, the king's to blame.
  5263. HAMLET
  5264. The point!--envenom'd too!
  5265. Then, venom, to thy work.
  5266. Stabs KING CLAUDIUS
  5267. All
  5268. Treason! treason!
  5269. KING CLAUDIUS
  5270. O, yet defend me, friends; I am but hurt.
  5271. HAMLET
  5272. Here, thou incestuous, murderous, damned Dane,
  5273. Drink off this potion. Is thy union here?
  5274. Follow my mother.
  5275. KING CLAUDIUS dies
  5276. LAERTES
  5277. He is justly served;
  5278. It is a poison temper'd by himself.
  5279. Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet:
  5280. Mine and my father's death come not upon thee,
  5281. Nor thine on me.
  5282. Dies
  5283. HAMLET
  5284. Heaven make thee free of it! I follow thee.
  5285. I am dead, Horatio. Wretched queen, adieu!
  5286. You that look pale and tremble at this chance,
  5287. That are but mutes or audience to this act,
  5288. Had I but time--as this fell sergeant, death,
  5289. Is strict in his arrest--O, I could tell you--
  5290. But let it be. Horatio, I am dead;
  5291. Thou livest; report me and my cause aright
  5292. To the unsatisfied.
  5293. HORATIO
  5294. Never believe it:
  5295. I am more an antique Roman than a Dane:
  5296. Here's yet some liquor left.
  5297. HAMLET
  5298. As thou'rt a man,
  5299. Give me the cup: let go; by heaven, I'll have't.
  5300. O good Horatio, what a wounded name,
  5301. Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me!
  5302. If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart
  5303. Absent thee from felicity awhile,
  5304. And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,
  5305. To tell my story.
  5306. March afar off, and shot within
  5307. What warlike noise is this?
  5308. OSRIC
  5309. Young Fortinbras, with conquest come from Poland,
  5310. To the ambassadors of England gives
  5311. This warlike volley.
  5312. HAMLET
  5313. O, I die, Horatio;
  5314. The potent poison quite o'er-crows my spirit:
  5315. I cannot live to hear the news from England;
  5316. But I do prophesy the election lights
  5317. On Fortinbras: he has my dying voice;
  5318. So tell him, with the occurrents, more and less,
  5319. Which have solicited. The rest is silence.
  5320. Dies
  5321. HORATIO
  5322. Now cracks a noble heart. Good night sweet prince:
  5323. And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!
  5324. Why does the drum come hither?
  5325. March within
  5326. Enter FORTINBRAS, the English Ambassadors, and others
  5327. PRINCE FORTINBRAS
  5328. Where is this sight?
  5329. HORATIO
  5330. What is it ye would see?
  5331. If aught of woe or wonder, cease your search.
  5332. PRINCE FORTINBRAS
  5333. This quarry cries on havoc. O proud death,
  5334. What feast is toward in thine eternal cell,
  5335. That thou so many princes at a shot
  5336. So bloodily hast struck?
  5337. First Ambassador
  5338. The sight is dismal;
  5339. And our affairs from England come too late:
  5340. The ears are senseless that should give us hearing,
  5341. To tell him his commandment is fulfill'd,
  5342. That Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead:
  5343. Where should we have our thanks?
  5344. HORATIO
  5345. Not from his mouth,
  5346. Had it the ability of life to thank you:
  5347. He never gave commandment for their death.
  5348. But since, so jump upon this bloody question,
  5349. You from the Polack wars, and you from England,
  5350. Are here arrived give order that these bodies
  5351. High on a stage be placed to the view;
  5352. And let me speak to the yet unknowing world
  5353. How these things came about: so shall you hear
  5354. Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts,
  5355. Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters,
  5356. Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause,
  5357. And, in this upshot, purposes mistook
  5358. Fall'n on the inventors' reads: all this can I
  5359. Truly deliver.
  5360. PRINCE FORTINBRAS
  5361. Let us haste to hear it,
  5362. And call the noblest to the audience.
  5363. For me, with sorrow I embrace my fortune:
  5364. I have some rights of memory in this kingdom,
  5365. Which now to claim my vantage doth invite me.
  5366. HORATIO
  5367. Of that I shall have also cause to speak,
  5368. And from his mouth whose voice will draw on more;
  5369. But let this same be presently perform'd,
  5370. Even while men's minds are wild; lest more mischance
  5371. On plots and errors, happen.
  5372. PRINCE FORTINBRAS
  5373. Let four captains
  5374. Bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to the stage;
  5375. For he was likely, had he been put on,
  5376. To have proved most royally: and, for his passage,
  5377. The soldiers' music and the rites of war
  5378. Speak loudly for him.
  5379. Take up the bodies: such a sight as this
  5380. Becomes the field, but here shows much amiss.
  5381. Go, bid the soldiers shoot.
  5382. A dead march. Exeunt, bearing off the dead bodies; after which a peal of ordnance is shot off