 | Hamlet, Prince of Denmark |  |
ACT IV.
SCENE I.
The palace.Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrans, Guildenstern, gentlemen and guards.
KING.
And can you by no drift of conference
Get from him why he puts on this confusion,
’Grating so harshly all his days of quiet
’With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?
ROSENCRANS.
He does confess he feels himself distracted,
But from what cause he will by no means speak.
’GUILDENSTERN.
Nor do we find him forward to be sounded,
’But with a crafty madness keeps aloof
’When we would bring him on to some confession
’Of his true state.’
QUEEN.
Did he receive you well?
ROSENCRANS.
Most civilly.
GUILDENSTERN.
But with much forcing of his disposition.
ROSENCRANS.
Unapt to question, but of our demands
Most free in his reply.
QUEEN.
Did you invite him to any pastime?
ROSENCRANS.
Madam, it so fell out that certain players
We o'ertook on the way; of these we told him,
And there did seem in him a kind of joy
And, as I think, they have already order
This night to play before him.
POLONIUS.
'Tis most true;
And he beseeched me to entreat your Majesties
To hear and see the matter.
KING.
With all my heart. And it doth much content me
To hear him so inclined.
Good gentlemen, give him a further edge
And urge him to these delights.
ROSENCRANS.
We shall, my lord.
Exeunt Rosencrans and Guildenstern.
KING.
Sweet Gertrude, leave us too;
For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither,
That he, as 'twere by accident, may meet
Ophelia here. Her father and myself
Will so bestow ourselves that, seeing and unseen,
We may of their encounter judge,
’And gather by him as he is behaved,’
If it be the affliction of love or no,
’That thus he suffers for.’
QUEEN.
I shall obey you;
And for my part, Ophelia, I do wish
That your good beauties be the happy cause
Of Hamlet's wildness. So shall I hope your virtues
Will bring him to his wonted way again,
’To both your honors.’
Exit Queen.
OPHELIA.
Madam, I wish it may.
POLONIUS.
Ophelia, walk you here, whilst we
(If so your Majesty shall please) retire concealed.
’Read on this book,
’That show of such an exercise may color
’Your loneliness. We're oft to blame in this,
’'Tis too much proved, that with devotion's visage
’And pious action, we do sugar o'er
’The devil himself.
’KING
(aside).
O, 'tis too true!
’How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!
’The harlot's cheek, beautied with plast'ring art,
’Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it
’O heavy burden!’
POLONIUS.
I hear him coming. Retire, my lord.
Exeunt King and Polonius.
Enter Hamlet.
HAMLET.
To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them. To die—to sleep
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished, to die, to sleep;—
To sleep—perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub!
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life:
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To groan and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death—
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveler returns—puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the healthful face of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn away
And lose the name of action.—’Soft you now!’
The fair Ophelia!—Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remembered.
OPHELIA.
Good my lord, how do ye?
HAMLET.
I humbly thank you; well.
My lord, I have remembrances of yours
That I have longed to re-deliver.
Pray you now receive them.
HAMLET.
No, not I. I never gave you aught.
OPHELIA.
My honored lord, you know right well you did,
And with them words of so sweet breath composed
As made these things more rich. Their perfume lost,
Take these again; for to the noble mind
Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.
There, my lord.
HAMLET.
Ha, ha! Are you honest?
OPHELIA.
My lord!
HAMLET.
Are you fair?
OPHELIA.
What means your lordship?
HAMLET.
That if you be honest and fair, you should admit no discourse
to your beauty.
OPHELIA.
Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with
honesty?
HAMLET.
Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner transform
honesty from what it is to a bawd than the force of honesty can
translate beauty to his likeness. This was sometime a paradox, but
now the time gives it proof. I did love you once.
OPHELIA.
Indeed, my lord, you make me believe so.
HAMLET.
You should not have believed me; for virtue cannot so evacuate
our old stock but we shall relish of it. I loved you not.
OPHELIA.
I was the more deceived.
HAMLET.
Get thee to a nunnery! Why wouldst thou be a breeder of
sinners? I am myself indifferent honest, but yet I could accuse me of
such things that it were better my mother had not bore me. I am
very proud, revengeful ambitious; with more offenses at my back
than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape,
or time to act them in. What should such fellows as I do, crawling
between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves; believe none of us.
Go thy ways to a nunnery. Where's your father?
OPHELIA.
At home, my lord.
HAMLET.
Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool
nowhere but in's own house. Farewell.
OPHELIA.
O help him, you sweet heavens!
HAMLET.
If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague for thy dowry:
be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not 'scape
calumny. Get thee to a nunnery. Or if thou wilt needs marry, marry
a fool; for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of
them. To a nunnery go; ’and quickly too. Farewell.’
Heavenly pow'rs, restore him!
HAMLET.
I have heard of your paintings well enough. Nature hath given
you one face, and you make yourselves another. You jig and amble,
and you lisp; you nickname heaven's creatures and make your wantonness
your ignorance. Go to, I'll no more on't! it hath made me
mad. I say, we will have no more marriages. Those that are married
already—all but one—shall live; the rest shall keep as they are. To a
nunnery, go.
Exit.
OPHELIA.
O what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!
’The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword,’
The expectation and rose of the fair state,
’The glass of fashion and the mould of form,’
Th' observed of all observers, quite, quite down!
And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
’That sucked the honey of his music vows,’
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh;
’That unmatched form and stature of blown youth
’Blasted with ecstasy.’ O, woe is me
T' have seen what I have seen, seeing what I see!
Exit.
Enter King and Polonius.
KING.
Love! his affections do not that way tend;
For what he spake, though it lack form a little,
Was not like madness. ’There's something in his soul,
’O'er which his melancholy sits on brood,
’And I do doubt the hatch and the disclose
’ be some danger, which to prevent
’I have a quick determination.
’Thus set down.’ He shall with speed to England,
For the demand of our neglected tribute.
Haply the seas, and countries different,
With variable objects, shall expel
This something-settled matter in his heart,
Whereon his brains still beating puts him thus
From fashion of himself. What think you on't?
Enter Ophelia.
POLONIUS.
It shall do well. ’But yet I do believe
’Th' origin and commencement of it
You need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said;
We heard it all.—My lord, do as you please;
But if you hold it fit, after the play
Let his queen mother all alone entreat him
To show his grief. Let her be round with him;
And I'll be placed, so please you, in the ear
Of all their conference. If she find him not,
To England send him; or confine him where
Your wisdom best shall think.
KING.
It shall be so.
Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.
Exeunt.
Enter Hamlet and three Players.
HAMLET.
Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you,
smoothly from the tongue. But if you mouth it, as many of our
players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. And do not
saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in
the very torrent, tempest, and (as I may say) whirlwind of passion,
you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness.
O, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwigpated
fellow tear a passion to very rags to split the ears of the groundlings,
who (for the most part) are capable of nothing but inexplicable
dumb shows and noise. I would have such a fellow whipped for
o'erdoing Termagant; it out-Herod's Herod. Pray you avoid it.
PLAYER.
I warrant your honor.
HAMLET.
Be not too tame neither; but let your own discretion be your
tutor. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this
special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature: for
anything so o'erdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end,
both at first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up
to nature; to show virtue her feature, scorn her own image, and the
very age and body of the time his form and pressure. O, there be
players that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that
highly (not to speak it profanely), that, neither having the accent of
Christians, nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted
and bellowed that I have thought some of nature's journeymen had
made men, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so
abominably.
PLAYER.
I hope we have reformed that indifferently with us.
HAMLET.
O, reform it altogether! And let those that play your clowns
will themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren spectators
to laugh too, though in the meantime some necessary question of
the play be then to be considered. That's villainous and shows a most
pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it. Go make you ready. ’How
now, my lord, will the King hear this piece of work?’
Enter Polonius, Guildenstern and Rosencrans.
’POLONIUS.
And the Queen too, and that presently.’
HAMLET.
Bid the players make haste. Will you two help to hasten them?
ROSENCRANS.
Ay, my lord.
Exeunt those three.
Enter Horatio.
HAMLET.
What ho, Horatio!
HORATIO.
Here, my lord, at your service.
HAMLET.
Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man
As e'er my conversation met withal.
HORATIO.
O, my dear lord!
HAMLET.
Nay, do not think I flatter;
For what advancement may I hope from thee,
That hast no revenue but thy good spirits
To feed and clothe thee? Why should the poor be flatter'd?
Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice
And could of men distinguish her election,
Sh' hath sealed thee for herself. For thou hast been
As one in suffering all, hast suffered nothing.
Give me the man
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of hearts,
As I do thee. Something too much of this!
There is a play tonight before the King.
One scene of it comes near the circumstance,
Which I have told thee, of my father's death.
I prithee, when thou seest that act on foot,
Observe my uncle. Give him heedful note;
For I mine eyes will rivet to his face,
And after we will both our judgments join
In censure of his seeming.
HORATIO.
I will, my lord.
Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, gentlemen.
HAMLET.
They're coming to the play. I must be idle.
Get you a place.
KING.
How fares our cousin Hamlet?
HAMLET.
Excellent, i' faith, of the chameleon's dish: I eat the air,
promise-crammed. You cannot feed capons so.
KING.
I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet. These words are not
mine.
HAMLET.
No, nor mine now, my lord.
(To Polonius.)
You played once
in the university, you say?
POLONIUS.
That I did, my lord, and was accounted a very good actor.
HAMLET.
What did you enact?
POLONIUS.
I did enact Julius Caesar. I was killed i' th' Capitol; Brutus
killed me.
HAMLET.
It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf there. Be the
players ready?
ROSENCRANS.
Ay, my lord. They wait upon your patience.
QUEEN.
Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me.
HAMLET.
No, good mother, here's metal more attractive.
POLONIUS.
O, ho! do you mark that?
HAMLET.
Lady, shall I lie in your lap?
OPHELIA.
No, my lord.
HAMLET.
Do you think I mean country matters?
OPHELIA.
You are merry, my lord.
HAMLET.
’Who, I?’ Your only jig-maker! What should a man do but
be merry? For look how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father
died within's two hours.
Nay, 'tis twice two month, my lord.
HAMLET.
So long? Nay then, let the devil wear black, for I'll have a
suit of sables. ’O! heavens!’ die two months ago, and not forgotten
yet? Then there's hope a great man's memory may outlive his life
half a year. But he must build churches then.
OPHELIA.
What means the play, my lord?
HAMLET.
It is munching Mallico. It means mischief.
OPHELIA.
But what's the argument?
Enter Prologue.
HAMLET.
We shall know by this fellow. The players cannot keep secret;
they'll show all.
OPHELIA.
Are they so good at show, my lord?
HAMLET.
Ay, at any show that you will show them. Be not you ashamed
to show, and they'll not blush to tell you what it means.
OPHELIA.
You are naught, you are naught! I'll mark the play.
PROLOGUE.
For us, and for our tragedy,
Here stooping to your clemency,
We beg your hearing patiently.
HAMLET.
Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?
OPHELIA.
'Tis brief, my lord.
HAMLET.
As woman's love.
Enter Player-King and Queen.
PLAYER-KING.
Full thirty times hath Phoebus' car gone round
’Neptune's salt wash and Tellus orbed the ground,
’And thirty dozen moons with borrowed sheen
’About the world have twelve times thirty been,’
Since love our hearts, and Hymen did our hands,
Unite, enfolding them in sacred bands.
PLAYER-QUEEN.
So many journeys may the sun and moon
Make us again count o'er, ere love be done!
But woe is me! you are so sick of late,
And so far different from your former state,
That I distrust you. Yet, tho' I distrust,
Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must;
For women fear too much, ev'n as they love,
’Now women's fear and love hold quantity
Now what my love has been, proof makes you know;
And as my love is great, my fear is so.
Where love is great, the smallest doubts are fear;
Where little fear grows great, great love grows there.
PLAYER-KING.
I must leave thee, love, and shortly too;
My working powers their functions leave to do.
But thou shalt live in this fair world behind,
Honored, beloved, and haply one as kind
For husband shalt thou—
PLAYER-QUEEN.
O, confound the rest!
Such love must needs be treason in my breast.
In second husband let me be accurst!
None wed the second but who killed the first.
HAMLET.
That's wormwood.
’PLAYER-QUEEN.
The instances that second marriage move
’Are base respects of thrift, but none of love.
’A second time I kill my husband dead
’When second husband kisses me in bed.’
PLAYER-KING.
I do believe you think what now you speak;
But what we do determine oft we break.
’Purpose is but the slave of memory,
’Of violent birth, but poor validity;
’Which now, like fruits unripe, sticks on the tree,
’But fall unshaken when they mellow be.
’Most necessary 'tis that we forget
’To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt.
’What to ourselves in passion we propose,
’The passion ending, doth the purpose lose.
’The violence of either grief or joy
’Their own enactures with themselves destroy.
’Where joy must revels, grief doth most lament;
’Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident.
’This world is not for aye, nor 'tis not strange
’That even our loves should with our fortunes change;
’For 'tis a question left us yet to prove,
’Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love.
’The great man down, you mark his favorite flies,
’The poor advanced makes friends of enemies.
’And hitherto doth love our fortune tend,
’For who not needs shall never lack a friend,
’And who in want a hollow friend doth try,
’Directly seasons him his enemy.
’Our wills and fates do so contrary run
’That our devices still are overthrown;
’Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.’
Think still thou wilt no second husband wed;
But thy thoughts die when thy first lord is dead.
PLAYER-QUEEN.
Nor earth to give me food, nor heaven light,
Sport and respose lock from me day and night,
’To desperation turn my trust and hope,
’An anchor's cheer in prison be my scope,
’Each opposite that blanks the face of joy,
’Meet what I would have well, and it destroy,’
Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife,
If once I widow be, and then a wife.
HAMLET.
If she should break it now!
PLAYER-KING.
'Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here awhile.
My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile
The tedious day with sleep.
PLAYER-QUEEN.
Sleep rock thy brain,
And never come mischance between us twain!
Exeunt.
HAMLET.
Madam, how like you the play?
QUEEN.
The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
HAMLET.
O, but she'll keep her word.
KING.
Have you heard the argument? Is there no offense in't?
HAMLET.
No, no! They do but jest, poison in jest; no offense.
KING.
What do they call the play?
HAMLET.
“The Mousetrap.” Marry, how? Tropically. This play is the
image of a murder done in Vienna. Gonzago is the duke's name: his
wife, Baptista. You shall see anon. 'Tis a knavish piece of work; but
what of that? Your Majesty and we shall have free souls; it touches
us not. Let the galled jade winch; our withers are unwrung. This is
one Lucianus, nephew to the King.
Enter Lucianus.
OPHELIA.
You are as good as a chorus, my lord.
HAMLET.
I could interpret between you and your love,
If I could see the puppets dallying.
Come, this croaking raven doth bellow forth revenge.
LUCIANUS.
Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing;
Confederate season, and no creature seeing;
Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected,
With Hecate's bane thrice blasted, thrice infected,
Thy natural magic and dire property
On wholesome life usurps immediately.
HAMLET.
He poisons him i' th' garden for his estate; his name's Gonzago.
The story is extant, and written in very choice Italian. You
shall see anon how the murderer gets the love of Gonzago's wife.
OPHELIA.
The King rises.
’HAMLET.
What, frighted with false fire?’
QUEEN.
How fares my lord?
POLONIUS.
Give o'er the play.
KING.
Give me some lights! Away!
POLONIUS.
Lights, lights, lights!
Exeunt all but Hamlet and Horatio.
HAMLET.
The hart ungalled go play;
For some must watch, whilst some must sleep:
Thus runs the world away.
O good Horatio, I'll take the ghost's word for a thousand pounds.
Didst perceive?
HORATIO.
Very well, my lord.
HAMLET.
Upon the talk of poisoning?
HORATIO.
I did very well note him.
HAMLET.
Ah, ah, come, some music! Come, the recorders!
[Exit Horatio.]
Enter Rosencrans and Guildenstern.
GUILDENSTERN.
Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you.
HAMLET.
Sir, a whole history.
GUILDENSTERN.
The King, sir.—
HAMLET.
Ay, sir, what of him?
GUILDENSTERN.
Is in his retirement marvellous distempered.
HAMLET.
With drink, sir?
GUILDENSTERN.
No, my lord, with choler.
HAMLET.
Your wisdom would show itself richer to signify this to the
doctor; for me to put him to his purgation would perhaps plunge
him into more choler.
GUILDENSTERN.
Good my lord, put your discourse into some frame, and
start not so wildly from my business.
HAMLET.
I am tame, sir; pronounce.
GUILDENSTERN.
The Queen, your mother, in most great affliction of
spirit hath sent me to you.
HAMLET.
You are welcome.
GUILDENSTERN.
Nay, my good lord, this courtesy is not of the right
breed. If it shall please you to make me a wholesome answer, I will
do your mother's commandment; if not, your pardon and my return
shall be the end of the business.
HAMLET.
Sir, I cannot.
ROSENCRANS.
What, my lord?
HAMLET.
Make you a wholesome answer; my wit's diseased. But, sir,
such answer as I can make, you shall command, or rather, as you say,
my mother.
ROSENCRANS.
Then thus she says: your behavior of late hath struck her
into amazement and admiration.
HAMLET.
O wonderful son, that can thus astonish a mother! But is there
no sequel at the heels of this mother's admiration? Impart.
ROSENCRANS.
She desires to speak with you in her closet ere you go to
bed.
HAMLET.
We shall obey, were she ten times our mother. Have you any
further trade with us?
ROSENCRANS.
My lord, you once did love me.
HAMLET.
And do still, by these pickers and stealers.
ROSENCRANS.
Good my lord, what is the cause of your distemper? You
do surely bar the door upon your own liberty, if you deny your
griefs to your friend.
HAMLET.
Sir, I lack advancement.
How can that be, when you have the voice of the King
himself for your succession in Denmark?
Enter Horatio with recorders.
HAMLET.
Ay, sir, but “while the grass grows”—the proverb is something
musty. Oh, the recorders! Let me see one. To withdraw with
you—why do you go about to recover the wind of me, as if you
would drive me into a toil?
GUILDENSTERN.
Oh, my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too
unmannerly.
HAMLET.
I do not well understand that. Will you play upon this pipe?
GUILDENSTERN.
My lord, I cannot.
HAMLET.
I pray you.
GUILDENSTERN.
Believe me, I cannot.
HAMLET.
I beseech you.
GUILDENSTERN.
I know no touch of it, my lord.
HAMLET.
'Tis as easy as lying. Govern these vantages with your fingers
and the thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse
most excellent music. Look you, these are the stops.
GUILDENSTERN.
But these cannot I command to any utterance of harmony.
I have not the skill.
HAMLET.
Why, look ye now, how unworthy a thing you make of me!
You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you
would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from
my lowest note to the top of my compass; and there is much music,
excellent voice, in this little organ, yet cannot you make it speak.
'Sdeath, do you think I'm easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me
what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play
upon me.
Enter Polonius.
POLONIUS.
My lord, the Queen would speak with you, and presently.
HAMLET.
Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel?
POLONIUS.
'Tis like a camel, indeed.
HAMLET.
Methinks 'tis like a weasel.
POLONIUS.
It is black like a weasel.
HAMLET.
Or like a whale.
POLONIUS.
Very like a whale.
HAMLET.
Then I will come to my mother by-and-by.
They fool me to the top of my bent. ’I will come by-and-by.’
Exeunt [Polonius, Rosencrans, Guildenstern].
When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to the world. Now could I drink hot blood
And do such deeds as day itself
Would quake to look on. Soft! now to my mother!
O heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever
The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom!
Let me be cruel, not unnatural;
I will speak daggers to her, but use none.
Exit.
Enter King, Rosencrans, and Guildenstern.
KING.
I like him not, nor stands it safe with us
To let his madness range. Therefore prepare you.
’I your commission will forthwith dispatch,
’And he to England shall along with you.
’The terms of our estate may not endure
’Hazards so near us as do hourly grow
’Out of his lunacies.
’GUILDENSTERN.
We will ourselves provide.
’Most holy and religious fear it is
’To keep those many bodies safe
’That live and feed upon your Majesty.
’ROSENCRANS.
The single and peculiar life is bound
’With all the strength and armor of the mind
’To keep itself from noyance; but much more
’That spirit upon whose weal depend and rest
’The lives of many. The cease of majesty
’Dies not alone, but like a gulf doth draw
’What's near it with it; or it's a massy wheel,
’Fixed on the summit of the highest mount,
’To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things
’Are mortised and adjoined; which when it falls,
’Each small annexment, petty consequence,
’Attends the boist'rous ruin. Ne'er alone
’Did the king sigh, but with a general groan.’
KING.
Arm then, I pray you, to this speedy voyage;
For we will fetters put about this fear,
Which now goes to free-footed.
ROSENCRANS.
We will make haste.
Enter Polonius.
POLONIUS.
Sir, he is going to his mother's closet.
Behind the arras I'll convey myself
To hear the process. I'll warrant she'll tax him home;
And as you said, and wisely was it said,
'Tis meet that some more audience than a mother,
Since nature makes them partial, should o'erhear
Their speech. Fare you well, my liege.
I'll call upon you ere you go to bed
And tell you what I hear.
Exit.
KING.
Thanks, dear my lord.
O, my offense is rank, it smells to heaven!
It hath the eldest curse upon't,
A brother's murder! Pray I cannot,
Though inclination be as sharp as will.
My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent,
And, like a man to double business bound,
I stand in pause where I shall first begin,
And both neglect. What if this cursed hand
Were thicker than itself with brother's blood,
Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens
To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy
But to confront the visage of offense?
’And what's in prayer but this twofold force,
’To be forestalled ere we come to fall,
’Or pardoned being down?’ Then I'll look up.
’My fault is past; but oh! what form of prayer
’Can serve my turn? “Forgive me my foul murder”?’
That cannot be; since I am still possessed
Of those effects for which I did the murder—
My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.
May one be pardoned and retain the offense?
In the corrupted currents of this world
Offense's gilded hand may shove by justice,
And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself
Buys out the law; but 'tis not so above.
There is no shuffling; there the action lies
In its true nature, and we ourselves compelled,
Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,
Try what repentance can: what can it not?
Yet what can it, when one cannot repent?
O wretched state! O bosom black as death!
O limed soul, that, struggling to be free,
Art more engaged! ’Help, angles! Make assay!’
Bow, stubborn knees; and heart with strings of steel
Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe!
All may be well. (The King kneels.)
Enter Hamlet.
HAMLET.
Where is this murderer? He kneels and prays;
And now I'll do't. And so he goes to heaven,
And so I am revenged. That would be scanned.
He killed my father; and for that,
I, his sole son, send him to heaven.
Why this is reward—not revenge!
He took my father grossly, ’full of bread,’
With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May;
And how his audit stands, who knows save heaven?
But in our circumstance and course of thought,
'Tis heavy with him; and am I then revenged,
To take him in the purging of his soul,
When he is fit and seasoned for his passage? No.
Up, sword, and know thou a more horrid time.
When he is drunk, asleep, or in a rage,
Or in th' incestuous pleasures of his bed;
’At gaming, swearing,’ or about some act
That has no relish of salvation in't—
Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven,
’And that his soul may be as damned and black
’As hell whereto it goes.’ My mother stays.
This physic but prolongs thy sickly days.
Exit.
KING.
My words fly up, my thoughts remain below;
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.
Exit.
Enter Queen and Polonius.
POLONIUS.
He will come straight. Look you lay home to him.
Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear with,
Much heat and him. I'll here conceal myself.
Pray you be round with him.
HAMLET
(within).
Mother, mother, mother!
QUEEN.
I warrant you,
Fear me not. Withdraw; I hear him coming.
Enter Hamlet.
HAMLET.
Now, mother, what's the matter?
QUEEN.
Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.
HAMLET.
Mother, you have my father much offended.
QUEEN.
Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.
HAMLET.
Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.
QUEEN.
Why, how now, Hamlet?
HAMLET.
What's the matter now?
QUEEN.
Have you forgot me?
HAMLET.
No, ’by the rood, not so.’
You are the Queen, your husband's brother's wife,
And—would it were not so—you are my mother.
QUEEN.
Nay, then I'll set those to you that can speak.
HAMLET.
Come, come, and sit you down; you shall not budge!
You go not till I set you up a glass
Where you may see the utmost part of you.
QUEEN.
What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murder me?
Help, ho!
POLONIUS
(behind the arras).
What ho, help!
HAMLET.
How now, a rat? dead for a ducket, dead. (Kills Polonius.)
POLONIUS.
O, I am slain!
QUEEN.
O me, what hast thou done?
HAMLET.
Nay, I know not. Is it the King?
QUEEN.
O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!
HAMLET.
A bloody deed—almost as bad, good mother,
As kill a king and marry with his brother.
QUEEN.
As kill a king?
HAMLET.
Ay, lady, 'twas my word.
Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!
I took thee for thy better. Take thy fortune.
Thou find'st to be too busy is some danger.—
Leave wringing of your hands. Peace! sit you down
And let me wring your heart; for so I shall
If it be made of penetrable stuff;
’If damned custom have not brazed it so
’That it be proof and bulwark against sense.’
What have I done that thou dar'st wag thy tongue
In noise so rude against me?
HAMLET.
Such an act
That blurs the grace and blush of modesty;
Calls virtue hypocrite; takes off the rose
From the fair forehead of an innocent love,
And sets a blister there; make marriage vows
As false as dicer's oath. Oh, such a deed
As from the body of contraction plucks
The very soul, and sweet religion makes
A rhapsody of words! Ah me! that act!
QUEEN.
Ah me, what act?
HAMLET.
Look here upon this picture, and on this,
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
See what grace was seated on this brow;
Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself;
An eye like Mars, to threaten and command;
’A station like the herald Mercury
’New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill;’
A combination and a form indeed
Where every god did seem to set his seal
To give the world assurance of a man.
This was your husband. Look you now what follows.
Here is your husband, like a mildewed ear
Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes?
Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed
And batten on the moor? Ha! have you eyes?
You cannot call it love; for at your age
The heyday of the blood is tame, it's humble,
And waits upon the judgment; and what judgment
Would step from this to this? Sense sure you have,
Else could you not have motion; but sure that sense
Is apoplexed; for madness would not err,
Nor sense to ecstasy was never yet so thralled
But it reserved some quantity of choice
To serve in such a difference. ’What devil was't
’That thus has cozened you at hoodman-blind?
’Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all,
’Or but a sickly part of one true sense
’Could not so mope.’ Oh shame! where is thy blush?
Rebellious hell,
If thou canst mutiny in a matron's bones,
To flaming youth let virtue be as wax
And melt in her own fire. ’Proclaim no shame’
When the compulsive ardor gives the charge,
Since frost itself as actively doth burn
As reason panders will.
QUEEN.
O Hamlet, speak no more!
Thou turn'st my very eyes into my soul.
HAMLET.
Nay, but to live
In the rank sweat of an incestuous bed,
Stewed in corruption, ’honeying and making love
’Over the nasty sty!’
QUEEN.
O speak no more, sweet Hamlet!
HAMLET.
A murderer and a villain!
A slave that's not the twentieth part the tithe
Of your precedent lord; a vice of kings;
A cutpurse of the empire and the rule,
That from a shelf the precious diadem stole
And put it in his pocket!
A king of shreds and patches.
Enter Ghost.
Save me and hover o'er me with your wings,
You heavenly guards! What would your gracious figure?
QUEEN.
Alas, he's mad!
HAMLET.
Do you not come your tardy son to chide,
That, lapsed in time and passion, lets go by
Th' important acting of your dread command: O say!
GHOST.
Do not forget. This visitation
Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.
But look, amazement on thy mother sits.
O step between her and her fighting soul!
Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works.
Speak to her, Hamlet.
HAMLET.
How is it with you, madam?
QUEEN.
Alas, how is't with you,
That you do bend your eye on vacancy,
Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep;
And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm,
Your hair starts up and stands on end. O gentle son,
Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper
Sprinkle cool patience! Whereon do you look?
HAMLET.
On him, on him! Look you how pale he glares!
His form and cause conjoined, preaching to stones,
Would make them capable.—Don't look upon me,
Lest with this piteous action you convert
My stern effects. Then what I have to do
Will want true color—tears perchance for blood.
QUEEN.
To whom do you speak this?
HAMLET.
Do you see nothing there?
QUEEN.
Nothing at all; yet all that's here I see.
HAMLET.
Nor did you nothing hear?
QUEEN.
No, nothing but ourselves.
HAMLET.
Why, look you there! Look how it stalks away!
My father, in his habit as he lived!
Look where he goes ev'n now out at the portal!
Exit Ghost.
QUEEN.
This is the very coinage of your brain.
This bodiless creation ecstasy is very cunning in.
HAMLET.
My pulse as yours doth temperately keep time
And makes as healthful music. 'Tis not madness
That I have uttered. Bring me to the test,
And I the matter will reword; which madness
Cannot do. Mother, for the love of grace,
Lay not that flattering unction to your soul,
That not your trespass but your madness speaks.
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place,
While rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven;
Repent what's past; avoid what is to come.
QUEEN.
O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart.
HAMLET.
Then throw away the worser part of it,
And live the purer with the other half.
Goodnight—but go not to my uncle's bed.
Once more, goodnight,
’And when you are desirous to be blest,
’I'll blessing beg of you.’ For this same lord, (Pointing to Polonius.)
I do repent; but heaven hath pleased it so,
To punish me with this, and this with me,
That I must be their scourge and minister.
I will bestow him, and will answer well
The death I gave him. So again, goodnight.
I must be cruel, only to be kind;
Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.
One word more.
QUEEN.
What shall I do?
HAMLET.
Let not the King tempt you to bed again,
Make you to ravel all this matter out,
That I essentially am not in madness,
But mad in craft.
QUEEN.
Be thou assured, if words be made of breath,
And breath of life, I have no life to breathe
What thou hast said to me.
I must to England; you know that?
QUEEN.
Alack,
I had forgot. 'Tis so concluded on.
HAMLET.
’My two schoolfellows delve one yard below their mines,
’And blow them at the moon. O, 'tis most sweet
’When in one line two crafts directly meet.’
This man will set me packing.
I'll lug the guts into the neighb'ring room.—
Mother, goodnight.—This counsellor
Is now most still, most secret, and most grave,
Who was in's life a foolish prating knave.
Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you.
Goodnight, mother.
Exit Hamlet, dragging in Polonius.
| Hamlet, Prince of Denmark | |