University of Virginia Library

ACT V.

SCENE I.

A royal apartment.
Enter King and Queen, with Rosencrans and Guildenstern.
KING.
There's matter in these sighs; ’these profound heaves;’
You must translate; 'tis fit we understand them.
Where is your son?

QUEEN.
Bestow this place on us a little while.
Exeunt Rosencrans and Guildenstern.
Ah, my lord, what have I seen tonight!

KING.
What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?

QUEEN.
Mad as the seas and wind when both contend
Which is mightier. In his lawless fit,
Behind the arras hearing something stir,
He whips his rapier out and cries a Rat!
And in his brainish apprehension kills
The unseen good old man.

KING.
O heavy deed!
It had been so with us, had we been there.
’His liberty is full of threats to all,
’To you yourself, to us, to every one.
’Alas, how shall this bloody deed be answered?
’It will be laid to us, whose providence
’Should have kept short, restrained and out of haunt
’This mad young man. But so much was our love,
’We would not understand what was most fit;
’But like the owner of a dire disease
’To keep it from divulging, let it feed
’Even on the pith of life.’ Where is he gone?

QUEEN.
To draw apart the body he hath killed,
’O'er whom his very madness like some ore
Among a mineral of metals base,
’Shows itself poor; he weeps for what is done.’

KING.
O Gertrude, come away!
The sun no sooner shall the mountains touch
But we will ship him hence; and this vile deed
We must with all our majesty and skill
Both count'nance and excuse.—Ho, Guildenstern!
Enter Rosencrans and Guildenstern.
Friends both, go join you with some further aid.
Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain,
And from his mother's closet he has dragged him.
Go seek him out; speak fair, and bring the body
Into the chapel; pray you haste in this.
Come, Gertrude, we'll call up our wisest friends
And let them know both what we mean to do
And what's untimely done. For sland'rous malice
’(Whose whisper o'er the world's diameter,
’As level as the cannon to his blank,
’Transports his poisoned shot)—may miss our name
’And hit the woundless air.—O, come away!
’My soul is full of discord and dismay.’

Exeunt.
Enter Hamlet.
HAMLET.
Safely stowed.
Within: Hamlet! Lord Hamlet!
What noise? who calls on Hamlet?
O here they come.

[Enter Rosencrans and Guildenstern.]
ROSENCRANS.
What have you done, my lord, with the dead body?

HAMLET.
Compounded it with dust, whereto 'tis kin.

ROSENCRANS.
Tell us where 'tis, that we may take it thence
And bear it to the chapel.

HAMLET.
Do not believe it.

ROSENCRANS.
Believe what?

HAMLET.

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

ROSENCRANS.

Take you me for a sponge, my lord?

HAMLET.

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

ROSENCRANS.

I understand you not, my lord.

HAMLET.

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

ROSENCRANS.

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

’HAMLET.
The King is a thing.

’GUILDENSTERN.
A thing, my lord!

HAMLET.
’Of nothing.’ Bring me to him.

Exeunt.
Enter King and Gentlemen.
KING.
I've sent to seek him and to find the body.
How dang'rous is it that this man goes loose!
Yet must we not put the strong law upon him.
He's loved of the distracted multitude,
Who like not in their judgment, but their eyes;
And where 'tis so, th' offender's scourge is weighed,
But never the offense. To bear all smooth and even,
This sudden sending him away must seem
Deliberate pause. Diseases desperate grown
By desperate appliance are reliev'd,
Or not at all.
Enter Rosencrans and Guildenstern.
How now? What hath befallen?

ROSENCRANS.
Where the dead body is bestowed, my lord,
We cannot get from him.

KING.
But where is he?

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

KING.
Bring him before us.

ROSENCRANS.
Ho, Guildenstern! Bring in my lord.

Enter Hamlet and Guards.
KING.
Now, Hamlet, where's Polonius?

HAMLET.
At supper.

KING.
At supper? Where?

HAMLET.

Not where he eats, but where he is eaten. A certain convocation
of politic worms are e'en at him.

KING.

Where is Polonius?

HAMLET.

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

KING.
Go seek him there.

HAMLET.
He will stay till you come.

KING.
Hamlet, this deed, for thine especial safety,—
(Which we do tender as we dearly grieve
’For that which thou hast done,)’—must send thee hence
With fiery quickness. Therefore prepare thyself.
The bark is ready and the wind at help.
’Th' associates tend, and everything is bent’
For England.

HAMLET.
For England?

KING.
Ay, Hamlet.

HAMLET.
Good.

KING.
So is it, if thou knew'st our purposes.

HAMLET.
I see a cherub that sees them. But come; for England!
Farewell, dear mother.

KING.
Thy loving father, Hamlet.

HAMLET.

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

Exit.
KING.
Follow him at foot; tempt him with speed aboard;
’Delay it not,’ I'll have him hence tonight.
Away! Everything is sealed and done
’That else leans on the affair. Pray make you haste.’
Exeunt Guildenstern, Rosencrans.
And England, if my present love thou hold'st at aught,
Let it be testified in Hamlet's death.
O do it, England—for like a hectic in my blood he rages
And thou must cure me.

Exit.

SCENE II.

A wood.
Trumpets and drums at a distance.
Enter Hamlet and Rosencrans meeting Guildenstern.
’HAMLET.
Well, the news! Have you learnt whence are those powers?

’GUILDENSTERN.
They are of Norway, sir—
’And claim conveyance of a promised march
’Over this kingdom.

’HAMLET.
How purposed, sir, I pray you?

’GUILDENSTERN.
Against some part of Poland.

’HAMLET.
Who commands them, pray?

’GUILDENSTERN.
The nephew of old Norway, Fortinbras.

’HAMLET.
Goes it against the main of Poland, sir,
’Or against some frontier?

’GUILDENSTERN.
Truly to speak, and with no addition,
’They go to gain a little patch of ground
’That hath in it no profit but the name.
’To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it;
’Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole
’A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee.

’HAMLET.
Why, then the Pollack never will defend it.

’GUILDENSTERN.
Nay, it is already garrisoned.

’HAMLET.
Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats
’Will not debate the question of this straw.
’This is th' imposthume of much wealth and peace,
’That inward breaks, and shows no cause without
’Why the man dies.

’ROSENCRANS.
Wilt please you go, my lord?

’HAMLET.
I'll be with you straight. Go a little before.
’[Exeunt Rosencrans and Guildenstern.]
’How all occasions do inform against me
’And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,
’If his chief good and market of his time
’Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more.
’Sure he that made us with such large discourse,
’Looking before and after, gave us not
’That capability and godlike reason
’To rust in us unused. Now, whether it be
’Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
’Of thinking too precisely on th' event,—
’A thought which, quartered, hath but one part wisdom
’And ever three parts coward,—I do not know
’Why yet I live to say “This thing's to do,”
’Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means
’To do't. Examples gross as earth exhort me.
’Witness this army of such mass and charge,
’Led by a delicate and tender prince,
’Whose spirit with divine ambition puffed,
’Makes mouths at the invincible event,
’Exposing what is mortal and unsure
’To all that fortune, death, and danger dare,
’Ev'n for an eggshell. Rightly to be great
’Is not to stir without great argument,
’But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
’When honor's at the stake. How stand I then,
’That have a father killed, a mother stained,
’Excitements of my reason and my blood,
’And let all sleep, while to my shame I see
’The imminent death of twenty thousand men
’That for a fantasy and trick of fame
’Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot
’Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,
’Which is not tomb enough and continent
’To hide the slain? O, from this time forth,
’My thoughts be bloody’ all! the hour is come—
’I'll fly my keepers—sweep to my revenge.

Exit.
Enter Queen, Horatio, and a Gentleman.
QUEEN.
I will not speak with her.

GENTLEMAN.
She is importunate, indeed distract;
Her mood needs be pitied.

QUEEN.
What would she have?

GENTLEMAN.
She speaks much of her father, says she hears
There's tricks i' th' world, and hems, and beats her heart;
Spurns enviously at straws; speaks things in doubt,
That carry but half sense. Her speech is nothing,
Yet the unshaped use of it doth move
The hearers to collection; ’they aim at it,’
’And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts;’
Which, as her winks and nods and gestures yield them,
’Indeed would make one think there might be thoughts,’
Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.

HORATIO.
'Twere good she were spoken with; for she may strew
Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.

QUEEN.
Let her come in.

Enter Ophelia.
OPHELIA.
Where is the beauteous Majesty of Denmark?

QUEEN.
How now, Ophelia?

OPHELIA
(sings).

QUEEN.
Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?

OPHELIA.
Say you? Nay, pray you mark.
(Sings.)

QUEEN.
Nay, but Ophelia—

OPHELIA.
Pray you mark.
(Sings.)

Enter King.
’QUEEN.
Alas! look here, my lord.’

KING.
How do you, pretty lady?

OPHELIA.

Well, good dil'd you! They say the owl was a baker's daughter.
We know what we are, but know not what we may be.

KING.

Conceit upon her father.

OPHELIA.

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

(Sings.)

KING.
Pretty Ophelia!

OPHELIA.
Indeed, without an oath, I'll make an end on't!

KING.
How long hath she been thus?

OPHELIA.

I hope all will be well. We must be patient; but I cannot
choose but weep to think they would lay him i' th' cold ground.
My brother shall know of it; and so I thank you for your good
counsel. Come, my coach! Goodnight, ladies. Goodnight, sweet
ladies, goodnight, goodnight.

Exit.
KING.
Follow her close; give her good watch, I pray you.
O, this is the poison of deep grief; it springs
All from her father's death. ’O Gertrude, Gertrude,
’When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
’But in battalions! First, her father slain;
’Next, your son gone, and he most frantic author
’Of his own just remove; the people muddied,
’Thick and unwholesome in their thoughts and whispers
’For good Polonius' death, and we have done but greenly,
’Obscurely to inter him; poor Ophelia
’Divided from herself and her fair judgment,
’Without which we're but pictures or mere beasts.
’Last, and as much containing as all these,
’Her brother, tempest-beaten back to Denmark.
’Feeds on this wonder, keeps himself in clouds,
’And wants not whispers to infect his ear
’With pestilent speeches of his father's death.

A noise within.
Enter Gentleman.
QUEEN.
Alack, what noise is this?

KING.
’Where are my Swissers? Let 'em guard the door.’
What is the matter?

GENTLEMAN.
’Save yourself, my lord.
’The ocean, over-piercing of his list,
’Eats not the flats with more impetuous haste
’Than' young Laertes in a riotous head,
O'erbears your officers. The rabble call him lord;
’And, as the world were now but to begin,
’Antiquity forgot, custom not known,
’They cry “Choose we Laertes for our king!”’
Caps, hands, and tongues applaud it to the clouds,
“Laertes shall be king! Laertes king!”

A noise within.
’KING.
The doors are broke!’

LAERTES
(within).
Where is the King? Sirs, stand you all without.

ALL.
No, let's come in.

LAERTES.
I pray you give me leave.

ALL.
We will, we will!

LAERTES.
I thank you. Keep the door.
Enter Laertes.
O thou vile King, give me my father.

QUEEN.
Calmly, good Laertes.

LAERTES.
That drop of blood that's calm proclaims me bastard;
Cries cuckold to my father, brands the harlot
Ev'n here between the chaste unsmitched brows
Of my true mother.

KING.
What is the cause, Laertes,
That thy rebellion looks so giantlike?
Let him go, Gertrude. Do not fear our person.
There's such divinity doth hedge a king
That treason dares not reach at what it would.
’Tell me,’ Laertes,
’Why thou art thus incensed? Let him go, Gertrude.’

LAERTES.
Where is my father?

KING.
Dead.

QUEEN.
But not by him.

KING.
Let him demand his fill.

LAERTES.
How came he dead? I'll not be juggled with:
To hell, allegiance! vows, to the blackest devil!
To this point I stand,
That both the worlds I give to negligence,
Let come what comes; only I'll be revenged
Most thoroughly for my father.

KING.
Who shall stay you?

LAERTES.
My will, not all the world!
And for my means, I'll husband them so well
They shall go far with little.

KING.
Will you in revenge of your
Dear father's death destroy both friend and foe?

LAERTES.
None but his enemies.

KING.
Will you know them then?

LAERTES.
To his good friends thus wide I'll ope my arms
And, like the kind life-rend'ring pelican,
Repast them with my blood.

KING.
Why, now you speak
Like a good child and a true gentleman.
That I am guiltless of your father's death,
And am most sensible in grief for it,
It shall as level to your judgment pierce
As day does to your eye. Go but apart,
Make choice of whom your wisest friends you will,
And they shall hear and judge 'twixt you and me.
If by direct or by collateral hand
They find us touched, we will our kingdom give
To you in satisfaction; but if not,
Be you content to lend your patience to us,
And we shall jointly labor with your soul
To give it due content.

LAERTES.
Let this be so.
His means of death, his obscure funeral—
No trophy sword, or hatchment o'er his bones,
No noble rite nor formal ostentation,—
Cry to be heard, as 'twere from earth to heaven,
That I must call't in question.

KING.
So you shall;
And where th' offense is let the great ax fall.
I pray you go with me.

Noise within. As they are going they see Ophelia.
LAERTES
(within).
O my poor Ophelia!—Let her come in.
Enter Ophelia.
By heaven, thy madness shall be paid with weight
Till our scale turn the beam. O rose of May!
Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!
O heavens! is't possible a young maid's wits
Should be as mortal as a sick man's life?

OPHELIA
(sings).
They bore him barefaced on the bier,
And in his grave rained many a tear;
Fare you well, my love.

LAERTES.
Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge,
It could not move thus.

OPHELIA.

You must sing “Down a-down,” and you, “Call him a-down-a.”
O how the wheel becomes it! It is the false steward that stole his
master's daughter.

LAERTES.

This nothing is much more than matter.

OPHELIA.

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

LAERTES.

A document in madness! Thoughts and remembrance fitted.

OPHELIA.

There's fennel for you, and columbines. There's rue for you,
and here's some for me. We may call it herb of grace o' Sundays.
O, you may wear your rue with a difference. There's a daisy. I
would give you some violets, but they all withered when my father
died. They say he made a good end.

(Sings.)

LAERTES.
Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself,
She turns to favor and to prettiness.

OPHELIA.

Exit.
LAERTES.
O treble woe
Fall ten times double on that cursed head
Whose wicked deed deprived thee of
Thy most ingenious sense! Let me but see him heaven !
'Twould warm the very sickness of my heart,
That I should live and tell him to his teeth
“Thus didst thou!”

[Enter Hamlet.]
HAMLET.
What is he whose griefs
Bear such an emphasis? whose phrase of sorrow
Conjures the wand'ring stars, and makes them stand
Like wonder-wounded hearers? This is I,
Hamlet the Dane!

LAERTES.
Then my revenge is come.
(Draws his sword.)

HAMLET.
I prithee take thy fingers from thy sword,
For, though I am not splenetive and rash,
Yet have I in me something dangerous,
Which let thy wisdom fear.

KING.
Keep them asunder.

HAMLET.
Why, I'll fight with him upon this theme
Until my eyelids will no longer wag.

QUEEN.
O my son, what theme?

HAMLET.
I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers
Could not (with all their quantity of love)
Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?

KING.
O, he is mad, Laertes.

HAMLET.
Show me what thou wilt do.
Wilt weep? wilt fight? wilt fast? wilt tear thyself?
Wilt drink up eisell? eat a crocodile?
I'll do't! and more—nay, and you'll mouth it, sir,
I'll rant as well as thou—

QUEEN.
O Hamlet—Hamlet—
For love of heav'n forbear him!—
(To Laertes.)

KING.
We will not bear this insult to our presence.
Hamlet, I did command you hence to England.
Affection hitherto has curbed my power,
But you have trampled on allegiance,
And now shall feel my wrath.—Guards!

HAMLET.
First feel mine!—
(Stabs him.)
Here, thou incestuous, murd'rous, damned Dane.
There's for thy treachery, lust, and usurpation!

KING.
O yet defend me, friends; I am but hurt—
(Falls and dies.)

QUEEN.
O mercy, heaven!—Save me from my son—

(Runs out).
LAERTES.
What treason, ho! Thus then do I revenge
My father, sister, and my King—

Hamlet runs upon Laertes's sword and falls.
HORATIO.
And I, my prince and friend—

(Draws.)
HAMLET.
Hold, good Horatio! 'Tis the hand of heav'n
Administers by him this precious balm
For all my wounds. Where is the wretched Queen?

Enter Messenger.
MESSENGER.
Struck with the horror of the scene, she fled.
But 'ere she reached her chamber door she fell
Entranced and motionless—unable to sustain the load
Of agony and sorrow—

HAMLET.
O, my Horatio—watch the wretched Queen,
When from this trance she wakes—O, may she breathe
An hour of penitence 'ere madness ends her.
Exchange forgiveness with me, brave Laertes,
Thy sister's, father's death, come not on me,
Nor mine on thee!

LAERTES.
Heaven make us free of 'em.

HAMLET.
O, I die, Horatio!—But one thing more.
O take this hand from me—unite your virtues—
(Joins Horatio's hand to Laertes'.)
To calm this troubled land. I am no more;
Nor have I more to ask but mercy, heav'n!

(Dies.)
HORATIO.
Now cracks a noble heart. Goodnight, sweet prince,
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.
Take up the body; such a sight as this
Becomes the field, but here shows much amiss.