Hamlet----Complete-Moby(tm)-Edition----Downloaded from MIT WebSite.

Act 1, Scene 1

Elsinore. A platform before the castle.

     FRANCISCO at his post. Enter to him BERNARDO

BERNARDO

     Who's there?

FRANCISCO

     Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold yourself.

BERNARDO

     Long live the king!

FRANCISCO

     Bernardo?

BERNARDO

     He.

FRANCISCO

     You come most carefully upon your hour.

BERNARDO

     'Tis now struck twelve; get thee to bed, Francisco.

FRANCISCO

     For this relief much thanks: 'tis bitter cold,
     And I am sick at heart.

BERNARDO

     Have you had quiet guard?

FRANCISCO

     Not a mouse stirring.

BERNARDO

     Well, good night.
     If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,
     The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste.

FRANCISCO

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

     Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS

HORATIO

     Friends to this ground.

MARCELLUS

     And liegemen to the Dane.

FRANCISCO

     Give you good night.

MARCELLUS

     O, farewell, honest soldier:
     Who hath relieved you?

FRANCISCO

     Bernardo has my place.
     Give you good night.

     Exit

MARCELLUS

     Holla! Bernardo!

BERNARDO

     Say,
     What, is Horatio there?

HORATIO

     A piece of him.

BERNARDO

     Welcome, Horatio: welcome, good Marcellus.

MARCELLUS

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

BERNARDO

     I have seen nothing.

MARCELLUS

     Horatio says 'tis but our fantasy,
     And will not let belief take hold of him
     Touching this dreaded sight, twice seen of us:
     Therefore I have entreated him along
     With us to watch the minutes of this night;
     That if again this apparition come,
     He may approve our eyes and speak to it.

HORATIO

     Tush, tush, 'twill not appear.

BERNARDO

     Sit down awhile;
     And let us once again assail your ears,
     That are so fortified against our story
     What we have two nights seen.

HORATIO

     Well, sit we down,
     And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.

BERNARDO

     Last night of all,
     When yond same star that's westward from the pole
     Had made his course to illume that part of heaven
     Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself,
     The bell then beating one,--

     Enter Ghost

MARCELLUS

     Peace, break thee off; look, where it comes again!

BERNARDO

     In the same figure, like the king that's dead.

MARCELLUS

     Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio.

BERNARDO

     Looks it not like the king? mark it, Horatio.

HORATIO

     Most like: it harrows me with fear and wonder.

BERNARDO

     It would be spoke to.

MARCELLUS

     Question it, Horatio.

HORATIO

     What art thou that usurp'st this time of night,
     Together with that fair and warlike form
     In which the majesty of buried Denmark
     Did sometimes march? by heaven I charge thee, speak!

MARCELLUS

     It is offended.

BERNARDO

     See, it stalks away!

HORATIO

     Stay! speak, speak! I charge thee, speak!

     Exit Ghost

MARCELLUS

     'Tis gone, and will not answer.

BERNARDO

     How now, Horatio! you tremble and look pale:
     Is not this something more than fantasy?
     What think you on't?

HORATIO

     Before my God, I might not this believe
     Without the sensible and true avouch
     Of mine own eyes.

MARCELLUS

     Is it not like the king?

HORATIO

     As thou art to thyself:
     Such was the very armour he had on
     When he the ambitious Norway combated;
     So frown'd he once, when, in an angry parle,
     He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice.
     'Tis strange.

MARCELLUS

     Thus twice before, and jump at this dead hour,
     With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.

HORATIO

     In what particular thought to work I know not;
     But in the gross and scope of my opinion,
     This bodes some strange eruption to our state.

MARCELLUS

     Good now, sit down, and tell me, he that knows,
     Why this same strict and most observant watch
     So nightly toils the subject of the land,
     And why such daily cast of brazen cannon,
     And foreign mart for implements of war;
     Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task
     Does not divide the Sunday from the week;
     What might be toward, that this sweaty haste
     Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day:
     Who is't that can inform me?

HORATIO

     That can I;
     At least, the whisper goes so. Our last king,
     Whose image even but now appear'd to us,
     Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,
     Thereto prick'd on by a most emulate pride,
     Dared to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet--
     For so this side of our known world esteem'd him--
     Did slay this Fortinbras; who by a seal'd compact,
     Well ratified by law and heraldry,
     Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands
     Which he stood seized of, to the conqueror:
     Against the which, a moiety competent
     Was gaged by our king; which had return'd
     To the inheritance of Fortinbras,
     Had he been vanquisher; as, by the same covenant,
     And carriage of the article design'd,
     His fell to Hamlet. Now, sir, young Fortinbras,
     Of unimproved mettle hot and full,
     Hath in the skirts of Norway here and there
     Shark'd up a list of lawless resolutes,
     For food and diet, to some enterprise
     That hath a stomach in't; which is no other--
     As it doth well appear unto our state--
     But to recover of us, by strong hand
     And terms compulsatory, those foresaid lands
     So by his father lost: and this, I take it,
     Is the main motive of our preparations,
     The source of this our watch and the chief head
     Of this post-haste and romage in the land.

BERNARDO

     I think it be no other but e'en so:
     Well may it sort that this portentous figure
     Comes armed through our watch; so like the king
     That was and is the question of these wars.

HORATIO

     A mote it is to trouble the mind's eye.
     In the most high and palmy state of Rome,
     A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,
     The graves stood tenantless and the sheeted dead
     Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets:
     As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,
     Disasters in the sun; and the moist star
     Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands
     Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse:
     And even the like precurse of fierce events,
     As harbingers preceding still the fates
     And prologue to the omen coming on,
     Have heaven and earth together demonstrated
     Unto our climatures and countrymen.--
     But soft, behold! lo, where it comes again!

     Re-enter Ghost

     I'll cross it, though it blast me. Stay, illusion!
     If thou hast any sound, or use of voice,
     Speak to me:
     If there be any good thing to be done,
     That may to thee do ease and grace to me,
     Speak to me:

     Cock crows

     If thou art privy to thy country's fate,
     Which, happily, foreknowing may avoid, O, speak!
     Or if thou hast uphoarded in thy life
     Extorted treasure in the womb of earth,
     For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death,
     Speak of it: stay, and speak! Stop it, Marcellus.

MARCELLUS

     Shall I strike at it with my partisan?

HORATIO

     Do, if it will not stand.

BERNARDO

     'Tis here!

HORATIO

     'Tis here!

MARCELLUS

     'Tis gone!

     Exit Ghost

     We do it wrong, being so majestical,
     To offer it the show of violence;
     For it is, as the air, invulnerable,
     And our vain blows malicious mockery.

BERNARDO

     It was about to speak, when the cock crew.

HORATIO

     And then it started like a guilty thing
     Upon a fearful summons. I have heard,
     The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,
     Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat
     Awake the god of day; and, at his warning,
     Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,
     The extravagant and erring spirit hies
     To his confine: and of the truth herein
     This present object made probation.

MARCELLUS

     It faded on the crowing of the cock.
     Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes
     Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
     The bird of dawning singeth all night long:
     And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad;
     The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
     No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
     So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.

HORATIO

     So have I heard and do in part believe it.
     But, look, the morn, in russet mantle clad,
     Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward hill:
     Break we our watch up; and by my advice,
     Let us impart what we have seen to-night
     Unto young Hamlet; for, upon my life,
     This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him.
     Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it,
     As needful in our loves, fitting our duty?

MARCELLUS

     Let's do't, I pray; and I this morning know
     Where we shall find him most conveniently.

     Exeunt

Act 1, Scene 2

A room of state in the castle.

     Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, HAMLET, POLONIUS, LAERTES,
     VOLTIMAND, CORNELIUS, Lords, and Attendants

KING CLAUDIUS

     Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death
     The memory be green, and that it us befitted
     To bear our hearts in grief and our whole kingdom
     To be contracted in one brow of woe,
     Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature
     That we with wisest sorrow think on him,
     Together with remembrance of ourselves.
     Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen,
     The imperial jointress to this warlike state,
     Have we, as 'twere with a defeated joy,--
     With an auspicious and a dropping eye,
     With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage,
     In equal scale weighing delight and dole,--
     Taken to wife: nor have we herein barr'd
     Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone
     With this affair along. For all, our thanks.
     Now follows, that you know, young Fortinbras,
     Holding a weak supposal of our worth,
     Or thinking by our late dear brother's death
     Our state to be disjoint and out of frame,
     Colleagued with the dream of his advantage,
     He hath not fail'd to pester us with message,
     Importing the surrender of those lands
     Lost by his father, with all bonds of law,
     To our most valiant brother. So much for him.
     Now for ourself and for this time of meeting:
     Thus much the business is: we have here writ
     To Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras,--
     Who, impotent and bed-rid, scarcely hears
     Of this his nephew's purpose,--to suppress
     His further gait herein; in that the levies,
     The lists and full proportions, are all made
     Out of his subject: and we here dispatch
     You, good Cornelius, and you, Voltimand,
     For bearers of this greeting to old Norway;
     Giving to you no further personal power
     To business with the king, more than the scope
     Of these delated articles allow.
     Farewell, and let your haste commend your duty.

CORNELIUS

     |
     | In that and all things will we show our duty.

VOLTIMAND

     |

KING CLAUDIUS

     We doubt it nothing: heartily farewell.

     Exeunt VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS

     And now, Laertes, what's the news with you?
     You told us of some suit; what is't, Laertes?
     You cannot speak of reason to the Dane,
     And loose your voice: what wouldst thou beg, Laertes,
     That shall not be my offer, not thy asking?
     The head is not more native to the heart,
     The hand more instrumental to the mouth,
     Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father.
     What wouldst thou have, Laertes?

LAERTES

     My dread lord,
     Your leave and favour to return to France;
     From whence though willingly I came to Denmark,
     To show my duty in your coronation,
     Yet now, I must confess, that duty done,
     My thoughts and wishes bend again toward France
     And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon.

KING CLAUDIUS

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

LORD POLONIUS

     He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave
     By laboursome petition, and at last
     Upon his will I seal'd my hard consent:
     I do beseech you, give him leave to go.

KING CLAUDIUS

     Take thy fair hour, Laertes; time be thine,
     And thy best graces spend it at thy will!
     But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son,--

HAMLET

     [Aside] A little more than kin, and less than kind.

KING CLAUDIUS

     How is it that the clouds still hang on you?

HAMLET

     Not so, my lord; I am too much i' the sun.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off,
     And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.
     Do not for ever with thy vailed lids
     Seek for thy noble father in the dust:
     Thou know'st 'tis common; all that lives must die,
     Passing through nature to eternity.

HAMLET

     Ay, madam, it is common.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     If it be,
     Why seems it so particular with thee?

HAMLET

     Seems, madam! nay it is; I know not 'seems.'
     'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
     Nor customary suits of solemn black,
     Nor windy suspiration of forced breath,
     No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
     Nor the dejected 'havior of the visage,
     Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief,
     That can denote me truly: these indeed seem,
     For they are actions that a man might play:
     But I have that within which passeth show;
     These but the trappings and the suits of woe.

KING CLAUDIUS

     'Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,
     To give these mourning duties to your father:
     But, you must know, your father lost a father;
     That father lost, lost his, and the survivor bound
     In filial obligation for some term
     To do obsequious sorrow: but to persever
     In obstinate condolement is a course
     Of impious stubbornness; 'tis unmanly grief;
     It shows a will most incorrect to heaven,
     A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,
     An understanding simple and unschool'd:
     For what we know must be and is as common
     As any the most vulgar thing to sense,
     Why should we in our peevish opposition
     Take it to heart? Fie! 'tis a fault to heaven,
     A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,
     To reason most absurd: whose common theme
     Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried,
     From the first corse till he that died to-day,
     'This must be so.' We pray you, throw to earth
     This unprevailing woe, and think of us
     As of a father: for let the world take note,
     You are the most immediate to our throne;
     And with no less nobility of love
     Than that which dearest father bears his son,
     Do I impart toward you. For your intent
     In going back to school in Wittenberg,
     It is most retrograde to our desire:
     And we beseech you, bend you to remain
     Here, in the cheer and comfort of our eye,
     Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet:
     I pray thee, stay with us; go not to Wittenberg.

HAMLET

     I shall in all my best obey you, madam.

KING CLAUDIUS

     Why, 'tis a loving and a fair reply:
     Be as ourself in Denmark. Madam, come;
     This gentle and unforced accord of Hamlet
     Sits smiling to my heart: in grace whereof,
     No jocund health that Denmark drinks to-day,
     But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell,
     And the king's rouse the heavens all bruit again,
     Re-speaking earthly thunder. Come away.

     Exeunt all but HAMLET

HAMLET

     O, that this too too solid flesh would melt
     Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!
     Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
     His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!
     How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,
     Seem to me all the uses of this world!
     Fie on't! ah fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,
     That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
     Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
     But two months dead: nay, not so much, not two:
     So excellent a king; that was, to this,
     Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother
     That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
     Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
     Must I remember? why, she would hang on him,
     As if increase of appetite had grown
     By what it fed on: and yet, within a month--
     Let me not think on't--Frailty, thy name is woman!--
     A little month, or ere those shoes were old
     With which she follow'd my poor father's body,
     Like Niobe, all tears:--why she, even she--
     O, God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,
     Would have mourn'd longer--married with my uncle,
     My father's brother, but no more like my father
     Than I to Hercules: within a month:
     Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
     Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
     She married. O, most wicked speed, to post
     With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
     It is not nor it cannot come to good:
     But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue.

     Enter HORATIO, MARCELLUS, and BERNARDO

HORATIO

     Hail to your lordship!

HAMLET

     I am glad to see you well:
     Horatio,--or I do forget myself.

HORATIO

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

HAMLET

     Sir, my good friend; I'll change that name with you:
     And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio? Marcellus?

MARCELLUS

     My good lord--

HAMLET

     I am very glad to see you. Good even, sir.
     But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg?

HORATIO

     A truant disposition, good my lord.

HAMLET

     I would not hear your enemy say so,
     Nor shall you do mine ear that violence,
     To make it truster of your own report
     Against yourself: I know you are no truant.
     But what is your affair in Elsinore?
     We'll teach you to drink deep ere you depart.

HORATIO

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

HAMLET

     I pray thee, do not mock me, fellow-student;
     I think it was to see my mother's wedding.

HORATIO

     Indeed, my lord, it follow'd hard upon.

HAMLET

     Thrift, thrift, Horatio! the funeral baked meats
     Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.
     Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven
     Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio!
     My father!--methinks I see my father.

HORATIO

     Where, my lord?

HAMLET

     In my mind's eye, Horatio.

HORATIO

     I saw him once; he was a goodly king.

HAMLET

     He was a man, take him for all in all,
     I shall not look upon his like again.

HORATIO

     My lord, I think I saw him yesternight.

HAMLET

     Saw? who?

HORATIO

     My lord, the king your father.

HAMLET

     The king my father!

HORATIO

     Season your admiration for awhile
     With an attent ear, till I may deliver,
     Upon the witness of these gentlemen,
     This marvel to you.

HAMLET

     For God's love, let me hear.

HORATIO

     Two nights together had these gentlemen,
     Marcellus and Bernardo, on their watch,
     In the dead vast and middle of the night,
     Been thus encounter'd. A figure like your father,
     Armed at point exactly, cap-a-pe,
     Appears before them, and with solemn march
     Goes slow and stately by them: thrice he walk'd
     By their oppress'd and fear-surprised eyes,
     Within his truncheon's length; whilst they, distilled
     Almost to jelly with the act of fear,
     Stand dumb and speak not to him. This to me
     In dreadful secrecy impart they did;
     And I with them the third night kept the watch;
     Where, as they had deliver'd, both in time,
     Form of the thing, each word made true and good,
     The apparition comes: I knew your father;
     These hands are not more like.

HAMLET

     But where was this?

MARCELLUS

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

HAMLET

     Did you not speak to it?

HORATIO

     My lord, I did;
     But answer made it none: yet once methought
     It lifted up its head and did address
     Itself to motion, like as it would speak;
     But even then the morning cock crew loud,
     And at the sound it shrunk in haste away,
     And vanish'd from our sight.

HAMLET

     'Tis very strange.

HORATIO

     As I do live, my honour'd lord, 'tis true;
     And we did think it writ down in our duty
     To let you know of it.

HAMLET

     Indeed, indeed, sirs, but this troubles me.
     Hold you the watch to-night?

MARCELLUS

     |
     | We do, my lord.

BERNARDO

     |

HAMLET

     Arm'd, say you?

MARCELLUS

     |
     | Arm'd, my lord.

BERNARDO

     |

HAMLET

     From top to toe?

MARCELLUS

     |
     | My lord, from head to foot.

BERNARDO

     |

HAMLET

     Then saw you not his face?

HORATIO

     O, yes, my lord; he wore his beaver up.

HAMLET

     What, look'd he frowningly?

HORATIO

     A countenance more in sorrow than in anger.

HAMLET

     Pale or red?

HORATIO

     Nay, very pale.

HAMLET

     And fix'd his eyes upon you?

HORATIO

     Most constantly.

HAMLET

     I would I had been there.

HORATIO

     It would have much amazed you.

HAMLET

     Very like, very like. Stay'd it long?

HORATIO

     While one with moderate haste might tell a hundred.

MARCELLUS

     |
     | Longer, longer.

BERNARDO

     |

HORATIO

     Not when I saw't.

HAMLET

     His beard was grizzled--no?

HORATIO

     It was, as I have seen it in his life,
     A sable silver'd.

HAMLET

     I will watch to-night;
     Perchance 'twill walk again.

HORATIO

     I warrant it will.

HAMLET

     If it assume my noble father's person,
     I'll speak to it, though hell itself should gape
     And bid me hold my peace. I pray you all,
     If you have hitherto conceal'd this sight,
     Let it be tenable in your silence still;
     And whatsoever else shall hap to-night,
     Give it an understanding, but no tongue:
     I will requite your loves. So, fare you well:
     Upon the platform, 'twixt eleven and twelve,
     I'll visit you.

All

     Our duty to your honour.

HAMLET

     Your loves, as mine to you: farewell.

     Exeunt all but HAMLET

     My father's spirit in arms! all is not well;
     I doubt some foul play: would the night were come!
     Till then sit still, my soul: foul deeds will rise,
     Though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes.

     Exit

Act 1, Scene 3

A room in Polonius' house.

     Enter LAERTES and OPHELIA

LAERTES

     My necessaries are embark'd: farewell:
     And, sister, as the winds give benefit
     And convoy is assistant, do not sleep,
     But let me hear from you.

OPHELIA

     Do you doubt that?

LAERTES

     For Hamlet and the trifling of his favour,
     Hold it a fashion and a toy in blood,
     A violet in the youth of primy nature,
     Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting,
     The perfume and suppliance of a minute; No more.

OPHELIA

     No more but so?

LAERTES

     Think it no more;
     For nature, crescent, does not grow alone
     In thews and bulk, but, as this temple waxes,
     The inward service of the mind and soul
     Grows wide withal. Perhaps he loves you now,
     And now no soil nor cautel doth besmirch
     The virtue of his will: but you must fear,
     His greatness weigh'd, his will is not his own;
     For he himself is subject to his birth:
     He may not, as unvalued persons do,
     Carve for himself; for on his choice depends
     The safety and health of this whole state;
     And therefore must his choice be circumscribed
     Unto the voice and yielding of that body
     Whereof he is the head. Then if he says he loves you,
     It fits your wisdom so far to believe it
     As he in his particular act and place
     May give his saying deed; which is no further
     Than the main voice of Denmark goes withal.
     Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain,
     If with too credent ear you list his songs,
     Or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure open
     To his unmaster'd importunity.
     Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister,
     And keep you in the rear of your affection,
     Out of the shot and danger of desire.
     The chariest maid is prodigal enough,
     If she unmask her beauty to the moon:
     Virtue itself 'scapes not calumnious strokes:
     The canker galls the infants of the spring,
     Too oft before their buttons be disclosed,
     And in the morn and liquid dew of youth
     Contagious blastments are most imminent.
     Be wary then; best safety lies in fear:
     Youth to itself rebels, though none else near.

OPHELIA

     I shall the effect of this good lesson keep,
     As watchman to my heart. But, good my brother,
     Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,
     Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven;
     Whiles, like a puff'd and reckless libertine,
     Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
     And recks not his own rede.

LAERTES

     O, fear me not.
     I stay too long: but here my father comes.

     Enter POLONIUS

     A double blessing is a double grace,
     Occasion smiles upon a second leave.

LORD POLONIUS

     Yet here, Laertes! aboard, aboard, for shame!
     The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
     And you are stay'd for. There; my blessing with thee!
     And these few precepts in thy memory
     See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
     Nor any unproportioned thought his act.
     Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
     Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
     Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
     But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
     Of each new-hatch'd, unfledged comrade. Beware
     Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,
     Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee.
     Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
     Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
     Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
     But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
     For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
     And they in France of the best rank and station
     Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
     Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
     For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
     And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
     This above all: to thine ownself be true,
     And it must follow, as the night the day,
     Thou canst not then be false to any man.
     Farewell: my blessing season this in thee!

LAERTES

     Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord.

LORD POLONIUS

     The time invites you; go; your servants tend.

LAERTES

     Farewell, Ophelia; and remember well
     What I have said to you.

OPHELIA

     'Tis in my memory lock'd,
     And you yourself shall keep the key of it.

LAERTES

     Farewell.

     Exit

LORD POLONIUS

     What is't, Ophelia, be hath said to you?

OPHELIA

     So please you, something touching the Lord Hamlet.

LORD POLONIUS

     Marry, well bethought:
     'Tis told me, he hath very oft of late
     Given private time to you; and you yourself
     Have of your audience been most free and bounteous:
     If it be so, as so 'tis put on me,
     And that in way of caution, I must tell you,
     You do not understand yourself so clearly
     As it behoves my daughter and your honour.
     What is between you? give me up the truth.

OPHELIA

     He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders
     Of his affection to me.

LORD POLONIUS

     Affection! pooh! you speak like a green girl,
     Unsifted in such perilous circumstance.
     Do you believe his tenders, as you call them?

OPHELIA

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

LORD POLONIUS

     Marry, I'll teach you: think yourself a baby;
     That you have ta'en these tenders for true pay,
     Which are not sterling. Tender yourself more dearly;
     Or--not to crack the wind of the poor phrase,
     Running it thus--you'll tender me a fool.

OPHELIA

     My lord, he hath importuned me with love
     In honourable fashion.

LORD POLONIUS

     Ay, fashion you may call it; go to, go to.

OPHELIA

     And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord,
     With almost all the holy vows of heaven.

LORD POLONIUS

     Ay, springes to catch woodcocks. I do know,
     When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul
     Lends the tongue vows: these blazes, daughter,
     Giving more light than heat, extinct in both,
     Even in their promise, as it is a-making,
     You must not take for fire. From this time
     Be somewhat scanter of your maiden presence;
     Set your entreatments at a higher rate
     Than a command to parley. For Lord Hamlet,
     Believe so much in him, that he is young
     And with a larger tether may he walk
     Than may be given you: in few, Ophelia,
     Do not believe his vows; for they are brokers,
     Not of that dye which their investments show,
     But mere implorators of unholy suits,
     Breathing like sanctified and pious bawds,
     The better to beguile. This is for all:
     I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth,
     Have you so slander any moment leisure,
     As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet.
     Look to't, I charge you: come your ways.

OPHELIA

     I shall obey, my lord.

     Exeunt

Act 1, Scene 4

The platform.

     Enter HAMLET, HORATIO, and MARCELLUS

HAMLET

     The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.

HORATIO

     It is a nipping and an eager air.

HAMLET

     What hour now?

HORATIO

     I think it lacks of twelve.

HAMLET

     No, it is struck.

HORATIO

     Indeed? I heard it not: then it draws near the season
     Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk.

     A flourish of trumpets, and ordnance shot off, within

     What does this mean, my lord?

HAMLET

     The king doth wake to-night and takes his rouse,
     Keeps wassail, and the swaggering up-spring reels;
     And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down,
     The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out
     The triumph of his pledge.

HORATIO

     Is it a custom?

HAMLET

     Ay, marry, is't:
     But to my mind, though I am native here
     And to the manner born, it is a custom
     More honour'd in the breach than the observance.
     This heavy-headed revel east and west
     Makes us traduced and tax'd of other nations:
     They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish phrase
     Soil our addition; and indeed it takes
     From our achievements, though perform'd at height,
     The pith and marrow of our attribute.
     So, oft it chances in particular men,
     That for some vicious mole of nature in them,
     As, in their birth--wherein they are not guilty,
     Since nature cannot choose his origin--
     By the o'ergrowth of some complexion,
     Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason,
     Or by some habit that too much o'er-leavens
     The form of plausive manners, that these men,
     Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect,
     Being nature's livery, or fortune's star,--
     Their virtues else--be they as pure as grace,
     As infinite as man may undergo--
     Shall in the general censure take corruption
     From that particular fault: the dram of eale
     Doth all the noble substance of a doubt
     To his own scandal.

HORATIO

     Look, my lord, it comes!

     Enter Ghost

HAMLET

     Angels and ministers of grace defend us!
     Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd,
     Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,
     Be thy intents wicked or charitable,
     Thou comest in such a questionable shape
     That I will speak to thee: I'll call thee Hamlet,
     King, father, royal Dane: O, answer me!
     Let me not burst in ignorance; but tell
     Why thy canonized bones, hearsed in death,
     Have burst their cerements; why the sepulchre,
     Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn'd,
     Hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws,
     To cast thee up again. What may this mean,
     That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel
     Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon,
     Making night hideous; and we fools of nature
     So horridly to shake our disposition
     With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?
     Say, why is this? wherefore? what should we do?

     Ghost beckons HAMLET

HORATIO

     It beckons you to go away with it,
     As if it some impartment did desire
     To you alone.

MARCELLUS

     Look, with what courteous action
     It waves you to a more removed ground:
     But do not go with it.

HORATIO

     No, by no means.

HAMLET

     It will not speak; then I will follow it.

HORATIO

     Do not, my lord.

HAMLET

     Why, what should be the fear?
     I do not set my life in a pin's fee;
     And for my soul, what can it do to that,
     Being a thing immortal as itself?
     It waves me forth again: I'll follow it.

HORATIO

     What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord,
     Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff
     That beetles o'er his base into the sea,
     And there assume some other horrible form,
     Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason
     And draw you into madness? think of it:
     The very place puts toys of desperation,
     Without more motive, into every brain
     That looks so many fathoms to the sea
     And hears it roar beneath.

HAMLET

     It waves me still.
     Go on; I'll follow thee.

MARCELLUS

     You shall not go, my lord.

HAMLET

     Hold off your hands.

HORATIO

     Be ruled; you shall not go.

HAMLET

     My fate cries out,
     And makes each petty artery in this body
     As hardy as the Nemean lion's nerve.
     Still am I call'd. Unhand me, gentlemen.
     By heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that lets me!
     I say, away! Go on; I'll follow thee.

     Exeunt Ghost and HAMLET

HORATIO

     He waxes desperate with imagination.

MARCELLUS

     Let's follow; 'tis not fit thus to obey him.

HORATIO

     Have after. To what issue will this come?

MARCELLUS

     Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

HORATIO

     Heaven will direct it.

MARCELLUS

     Nay, let's follow him.

     Exeunt

Act 1, Scene 5

Another part of the platform.

     Enter GHOST and HAMLET

HAMLET

     Where wilt thou lead me? speak; I'll go no further.

Ghost

     Mark me.

HAMLET

     I will.

Ghost

     My hour is almost come,
     When I to sulphurous and tormenting flames
     Must render up myself.

HAMLET

     Alas, poor ghost!

Ghost

     Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing
     To what I shall unfold.

HAMLET

     Speak; I am bound to hear.

Ghost

     So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear.

HAMLET

     What?

Ghost

     I am thy father's spirit,
     Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night,
     And for the day confined to fast in fires,
     Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
     Are burnt and purged away. But that I am forbid
     To tell the secrets of my prison-house,
     I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
     Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
     Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres,
     Thy knotted and combined locks to part
     And each particular hair to stand on end,
     Like quills upon the fretful porpentine:
     But this eternal blazon must not be
     To ears of flesh and blood. List, list, O, list!
     If thou didst ever thy dear father love--

HAMLET

     O God!

Ghost

     Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.

HAMLET

     Murder!

Ghost

     Murder most foul, as in the best it is;
     But this most foul, strange and unnatural.

HAMLET

     Haste me to know't, that I, with wings as swift
     As meditation or the thoughts of love,
     May sweep to my revenge.

Ghost

     I find thee apt;
     And duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed
     That roots itself in ease on Lethe wharf,
     Wouldst thou not stir in this. Now, Hamlet, hear:
     'Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard,
     A serpent stung me; so the whole ear of Denmark
     Is by a forged process of my death
     Rankly abused: but know, thou noble youth,
     The serpent that did sting thy father's life
     Now wears his crown.

HAMLET

     O my prophetic soul! My uncle!

Ghost

     Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast,
     With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts,--
     O wicked wit and gifts, that have the power
     So to seduce!--won to his shameful lust
     The will of my most seeming-virtuous queen:
     O Hamlet, what a falling-off was there!
     From me, whose love was of that dignity
     That it went hand in hand even with the vow
     I made to her in marriage, and to decline
     Upon a wretch whose natural gifts were poor
     To those of mine!
     But virtue, as it never will be moved,
     Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven,
     So lust, though to a radiant angel link'd,
     Will sate itself in a celestial bed,
     And prey on garbage.
     But, soft! methinks I scent the morning air;
     Brief let me be. Sleeping within my orchard,
     My custom always of the afternoon,
     Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole,
     With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial,
     And in the porches of my ears did pour
     The leperous distilment; whose effect
     Holds such an enmity with blood of man
     That swift as quicksilver it courses through
     The natural gates and alleys of the body,
     And with a sudden vigour doth posset
     And curd, like eager droppings into milk,
     The thin and wholesome blood: so did it mine;
     And a most instant tetter bark'd about,
     Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust,
     All my smooth body.
     Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother's hand
     Of life, of crown, of queen, at once dispatch'd:
     Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,
     Unhousel'd, disappointed, unanel'd,
     No reckoning made, but sent to my account
     With all my imperfections on my head:
     O, horrible! O, horrible! most horrible!
     If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not;
     Let not the royal bed of Denmark be
     A couch for luxury and damned incest.
     But, howsoever thou pursuest this act,
     Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive
     Against thy mother aught: leave her to heaven
     And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge,
     To prick and sting her. Fare thee well at once!
     The glow-worm shows the matin to be near,
     And 'gins to pale his uneffectual fire:
     Adieu, adieu! Hamlet, remember me.

     Exit

HAMLET

     O all you host of heaven! O earth! what else?
     And shall I couple hell? O, fie! Hold, hold, my heart;
     And you, my sinews, grow not instant old,
     But bear me stiffly up. Remember thee!
     Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat
     In this distracted globe. Remember thee!
     Yea, from the table of my memory
     I'll wipe away all trivial fond records,
     All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past,
     That youth and observation copied there;
     And thy commandment all alone shall live
     Within the book and volume of my brain,
     Unmix'd with baser matter: yes, by heaven!
     O most pernicious woman!
     O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!
     My tables,--meet it is I set it down,
     That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain;
     At least I'm sure it may be so in Denmark:

     Writing

     So, uncle, there you are. Now to my word;
     It is 'Adieu, adieu! remember me.'
     I have sworn 't.

MARCELLUS

     |
     | [Within] My lord, my lord,--

HORATIO

     |

MARCELLUS [Within]

     Lord Hamlet,--

HORATIO [Within]

     Heaven secure him!

HAMLET

     So be it!

HORATIO

     [Within] Hillo, ho, ho, my lord!

HAMLET

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

     Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS

MARCELLUS

     How is't, my noble lord?

HORATIO

     What news, my lord?

HAMLET

     O, wonderful!

HORATIO

     Good my lord, tell it.

HAMLET

     No; you'll reveal it.

HORATIO

     Not I, my lord, by heaven.

MARCELLUS

     Nor I, my lord.

HAMLET

     How say you, then; would heart of man once think it?
     But you'll be secret?

HORATIO

     |
     | Ay, by heaven, my lord.

MARCELLUS

     |

HAMLET

     There's ne'er a villain dwelling in all Denmark
     But he's an arrant knave.

HORATIO

     There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave
     To tell us this.

HAMLET

     Why, right; you are i' the right;
     And so, without more circumstance at all,
     I hold it fit that we shake hands and part:
     You, as your business and desire shall point you;
     For every man has business and desire,
     Such as it is; and for mine own poor part,
     Look you, I'll go pray.

HORATIO

     These are but wild and whirling words, my lord.

HAMLET

     I'm sorry they offend you, heartily;
     Yes, 'faith heartily.

HORATIO

     There's no offence, my lord.

HAMLET

     Yes, by Saint Patrick, but there is, Horatio,
     And much offence too. Touching this vision here,
     It is an honest ghost, that let me tell you:
     For your desire to know what is between us,
     O'ermaster 't as you may. And now, good friends,
     As you are friends, scholars and soldiers,
     Give me one poor request.

HORATIO

     What is't, my lord? we will.

HAMLET

     Never make known what you have seen to-night.

HORATIO

     |
     | My lord, we will not.

MARCELLUS

     |

HAMLET

     Nay, but swear't.

HORATIO

     In faith,
     My lord, not I.

MARCELLUS

     Nor I, my lord, in faith.

HAMLET

     Upon my sword.

MARCELLUS

     We have sworn, my lord, already.

HAMLET

     Indeed, upon my sword, indeed.

Ghost

     [Beneath] Swear.

HAMLET

     Ah, ha, boy! say'st thou so? art thou there,
     truepenny?
     Come on--you hear this fellow in the cellarage--
     Consent to swear.

HORATIO

     Propose the oath, my lord.

HAMLET

     Never to speak of this that you have seen,
     Swear by my sword.

Ghost

     [Beneath] Swear.

HAMLET

     Hic et ubique? then we'll shift our ground.
     Come hither, gentlemen,
     And lay your hands again upon my sword:
     Never to speak of this that you have heard,
     Swear by my sword.

Ghost

     [Beneath] Swear.

HAMLET

     Well said, old mole! canst work i' the earth so fast?
     A worthy pioner! Once more remove, good friends.

HORATIO

     O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!

HAMLET

     And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
     There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
     Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. But come;
     Here, as before, never, so help you mercy,
     How strange or odd soe'er I bear myself,
     As I perchance hereafter shall think meet
     To put an antic disposition on,
     That you, at such times seeing me, never shall,
     With arms encumber'd thus, or this headshake,
     Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase,
     As 'Well, well, we know,' or 'We could, an if we would,'
     Or 'If we list to speak,' or 'There be, an if they might,'
     Or such ambiguous giving out, to note
     That you know aught of me: this not to do,
     So grace and mercy at your most need help you, Swear.

Ghost

     [Beneath] Swear.

HAMLET

     Rest, rest, perturbed spirit!

     They swear

     So, gentlemen,
     With all my love I do commend me to you:
     And what so poor a man as Hamlet is
     May do, to express his love and friending to you,
     God willing, shall not lack. Let us go in together;
     And still your fingers on your lips, I pray.
     The time is out of joint: O cursed spite,
     That ever I was born to set it right!
     Nay, come, let's go together.

     Exeunt

Act 2, Scene 1

A room in POLONIUS' house.

     Enter POLONIUS and REYNALDO

LORD POLONIUS

     Give him this money and these notes, Reynaldo.

REYNALDO

     I will, my lord.

LORD POLONIUS

     You shall do marvellous wisely, good Reynaldo,
     Before you visit him, to make inquire
     Of his behavior.

REYNALDO

     My lord, I did intend it.

LORD POLONIUS

     Marry, well said; very well said. Look you, sir,
     Inquire me first what Danskers are in Paris;
     And how, and who, what means, and where they keep,
     What company, at what expense; and finding
     By this encompassment and drift of question
     That they do know my son, come you more nearer
     Than your particular demands will touch it:
     Take you, as 'twere, some distant knowledge of him;
     As thus, 'I know his father and his friends,
     And in part him: ' do you mark this, Reynaldo?

REYNALDO

     Ay, very well, my lord.

LORD POLONIUS

     'And in part him; but' you may say 'not well:
     But, if't be he I mean, he's very wild;
     Addicted so and so:' and there put on him
     What forgeries you please; marry, none so rank
     As may dishonour him; take heed of that;
     But, sir, such wanton, wild and usual slips
     As are companions noted and most known
     To youth and liberty.

REYNALDO

     As gaming, my lord.

LORD POLONIUS

     Ay, or drinking, fencing, swearing, quarrelling,
     Drabbing: you may go so far.

REYNALDO

     My lord, that would dishonour him.

LORD POLONIUS

     'Faith, no; as you may season it in the charge
     You must not put another scandal on him,
     That he is open to incontinency;
     That's not my meaning: but breathe his faults so quaintly
     That they may seem the taints of liberty,
     The flash and outbreak of a fiery mind,
     A savageness in unreclaimed blood,
     Of general assault.

REYNALDO

     But, my good lord,--

LORD POLONIUS

     Wherefore should you do this?

REYNALDO

     Ay, my lord,
     I would know that.

LORD POLONIUS

     Marry, sir, here's my drift;
     And I believe, it is a fetch of wit:
     You laying these slight sullies on my son,
     As 'twere a thing a little soil'd i' the working, Mark you,
     Your party in converse, him you would sound,
     Having ever seen in the prenominate crimes
     The youth you breathe of guilty, be assured
     He closes with you in this consequence;
     'Good sir,' or so, or 'friend,' or 'gentleman,'
     According to the phrase or the addition
     Of man and country.

REYNALDO

     Very good, my lord.

LORD POLONIUS

     And then, sir, does he this--he does--what was I
     about to say? By the mass, I was about to say
     something: where did I leave?

REYNALDO

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

LORD POLONIUS

     At 'closes in the consequence,' ay, marry;
     He closes thus: 'I know the gentleman;
     I saw him yesterday, or t' other day,
     Or then, or then; with such, or such; and, as you say,
     There was a' gaming; there o'ertook in's rouse;
     There falling out at tennis:' or perchance,
     'I saw him enter such a house of sale,'
     Videlicet, a brothel, or so forth.
     See you now;
     Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth:
     And thus do we of wisdom and of reach,
     With windlasses and with assays of bias,
     By indirections find directions out:
     So by my former lecture and advice,
     Shall you my son. You have me, have you not?

REYNALDO

     My lord, I have.

LORD POLONIUS

     God be wi' you; fare you well.

REYNALDO

     Good my lord!

LORD POLONIUS

     Observe his inclination in yourself.

REYNALDO

     I shall, my lord.

LORD POLONIUS

     And let him ply his music.

REYNALDO

     Well, my lord.

LORD POLONIUS

     Farewell!

     Exit REYNALDO

     Enter OPHELIA

     How now, Ophelia! what's the matter?

OPHELIA

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

LORD POLONIUS

     With what, i' the name of God?

OPHELIA

     My lord, as I was sewing in my closet,
     Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbraced;
     No hat upon his head; his stockings foul'd,
     Ungarter'd, and down-gyved to his ancle;
     Pale as his shirt; his knees knocking each other;
     And with a look so piteous in purport
     As if he had been loosed out of hell
     To speak of horrors,--he comes before me.

LORD POLONIUS

     Mad for thy love?

OPHELIA

     My lord, I do not know;
     But truly, I do fear it.

LORD POLONIUS

     What said he?

OPHELIA

     He took me by the wrist and held me hard;
     Then goes he to the length of all his arm;
     And, with his other hand thus o'er his brow,
     He falls to such perusal of my face
     As he would draw it. Long stay'd he so;
     At last, a little shaking of mine arm
     And thrice his head thus waving up and down,
     He raised a sigh so piteous and profound
     As it did seem to shatter all his bulk
     And end his being: that done, he lets me go:
     And, with his head over his shoulder turn'd,
     He seem'd to find his way without his eyes;
     For out o' doors he went without their helps,
     And, to the last, bended their light on me.

LORD POLONIUS

     Come, go with me: I will go seek the king.
     This is the very ecstasy of love,
     Whose violent property fordoes itself
     And leads the will to desperate undertakings
     As oft as any passion under heaven
     That does afflict our natures. I am sorry.
     What, have you given him any hard words of late?

OPHELIA

     No, my good lord, but, as you did command,
     I did repel his fetters and denied
     His access to me.

LORD POLONIUS

     That hath made him mad.
     I am sorry that with better heed and judgment
     I had not quoted him: I fear'd he did but trifle,
     And meant to wreck thee; but, beshrew my jealousy!
     By heaven, it is as proper to our age
     To cast beyond ourselves in our opinions
     As it is common for the younger sort
     To lack discretion. Come, go we to the king:
     This must be known; which, being kept close, might
     move
     More grief to hide than hate to utter love.

     Exeunt

Act 2, Scene 2

A room in the castle.

     Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN,
     and Attendants

KING CLAUDIUS

     Welcome, dear Rosencrantz and Guildenstern!
     Moreover that we much did long to see you,
     The need we have to use you did provoke
     Our hasty sending. Something have you heard
     Of Hamlet's transformation; so call it,
     Sith nor the exterior nor the inward man
     Resembles that it was. What it should be,
     More than his father's death, that thus hath put him
     So much from the understanding of himself,
     I cannot dream of: I entreat you both,
     That, being of so young days brought up with him,
     And sith so neighbour'd to his youth and havior,
     That you vouchsafe your rest here in our court
     Some little time: so by your companies
     To draw him on to pleasures, and to gather,
     So much as from occasion you may glean,
     Whether aught, to us unknown, afflicts him thus,
     That, open'd, lies within our remedy.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     Good gentlemen, he hath much talk'd of you;
     And sure I am two men there are not living
     To whom he more adheres. If it will please you
     To show us so much gentry and good will
     As to expend your time with us awhile,
     For the supply and profit of our hope,
     Your visitation shall receive such thanks
     As fits a king's remembrance.

ROSENCRANTZ

     Both your majesties
     Might, by the sovereign power you have of us,
     Put your dread pleasures more into command
     Than to entreaty.

GUILDENSTERN

     But we both obey,
     And here give up ourselves, in the full bent
     To lay our service freely at your feet,
     To be commanded.

KING CLAUDIUS

     Thanks, Rosencrantz and gentle Guildenstern.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     Thanks, Guildenstern and gentle Rosencrantz:
     And I beseech you instantly to visit
     My too much changed son. Go, some of you,
     And bring these gentlemen where Hamlet is.

GUILDENSTERN

     Heavens make our presence and our practises
     Pleasant and helpful to him!

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     Ay, amen!

     Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, and some Attendants

     Enter POLONIUS

LORD POLONIUS

     The ambassadors from Norway, my good lord,
     Are joyfully return'd.

KING CLAUDIUS

     Thou still hast been the father of good news.

LORD POLONIUS

     Have I, my lord? I assure my good liege,
     I hold my duty, as I hold my soul,
     Both to my God and to my gracious king:
     And I do think, or else this brain of mine
     Hunts not the trail of policy so sure
     As it hath used to do, that I have found
     The very cause of Hamlet's lunacy.

KING CLAUDIUS

     O, speak of that; that do I long to hear.

LORD POLONIUS

     Give first admittance to the ambassadors;
     My news shall be the fruit to that great feast.

KING CLAUDIUS

     Thyself do grace to them, and bring them in.

     Exit POLONIUS

     He tells me, my dear Gertrude, he hath found
     The head and source of all your son's distemper.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     I doubt it is no other but the main;
     His father's death, and our o'erhasty marriage.

KING CLAUDIUS

     Well, we shall sift him.

     Re-enter POLONIUS, with VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS

     Welcome, my good friends!
     Say, Voltimand, what from our brother Norway?

VOLTIMAND

     Most fair return of greetings and desires.
     Upon our first, he sent out to suppress
     His nephew's levies; which to him appear'd
     To be a preparation 'gainst the Polack;
     But, better look'd into, he truly found
     It was against your highness: whereat grieved,
     That so his sickness, age and impotence
     Was falsely borne in hand, sends out arrests
     On Fortinbras; which he, in brief, obeys;
     Receives rebuke from Norway, and in fine
     Makes vow before his uncle never more
     To give the assay of arms against your majesty.
     Whereon old Norway, overcome with joy,
     Gives him three thousand crowns in annual fee,
     And his commission to employ those soldiers,
     So levied as before, against the Polack:
     With an entreaty, herein further shown,

     Giving a paper

     That it might please you to give quiet pass
     Through your dominions for this enterprise,
     On such regards of safety and allowance
     As therein are set down.

KING CLAUDIUS

     It likes us well;
     And at our more consider'd time well read,
     Answer, and think upon this business.
     Meantime we thank you for your well-took labour:
     Go to your rest; at night we'll feast together:
     Most welcome home!

     Exeunt VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS

LORD POLONIUS

     This business is well ended.
     My liege, and madam, to expostulate
     What majesty should be, what duty is,
     Why day is day, night night, and time is time,
     Were nothing but to waste night, day and time.
     Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
     And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
     I will be brief: your noble son is mad:
     Mad call I it; for, to define true madness,
     What is't but to be nothing else but mad?
     But let that go.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     More matter, with less art.

LORD POLONIUS

     Madam, I swear I use no art at all.
     That he is mad, 'tis true: 'tis true 'tis pity;
     And pity 'tis 'tis true: a foolish figure;
     But farewell it, for I will use no art.
     Mad let us grant him, then: and now remains
     That we find out the cause of this effect,
     Or rather say, the cause of this defect,
     For this effect defective comes by cause:
     Thus it remains, and the remainder thus. Perpend.
     I have a daughter--have while she is mine--
     Who, in her duty and obedience, mark,
     Hath given me this: now gather, and surmise.

     Reads

     'To the celestial and my soul's idol, the most
     beautified Ophelia,'--
     That's an ill phrase, a vile phrase; 'beautified' is
     a vile phrase: but you shall hear. Thus:

     Reads

     'In her excellent white bosom, these, &c.'

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     Came this from Hamlet to her?

LORD POLONIUS

     Good madam, stay awhile; I will be faithful.

     Reads

     'Doubt thou the stars are fire;
     Doubt that the sun doth move;
     Doubt truth to be a liar;
     But never doubt I love.
     'O dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers;
     I have not art to reckon my groans: but that
     I love thee best, O most best, believe it. Adieu.
     'Thine evermore most dear lady, whilst
     this machine is to him, HAMLET.'
     This, in obedience, hath my daughter shown me,
     And more above, hath his solicitings,
     As they fell out by time, by means and place,
     All given to mine ear.

KING CLAUDIUS

     But how hath she
     Received his love?

LORD POLONIUS

     What do you think of me?

KING CLAUDIUS

     As of a man faithful and honourable.

LORD POLONIUS

     I would fain prove so. But what might you think,
     When I had seen this hot love on the wing--
     As I perceived it, I must tell you that,
     Before my daughter told me--what might you,
     Or my dear majesty your queen here, think,
     If I had play'd the desk or table-book,
     Or given my heart a winking, mute and dumb,
     Or look'd upon this love with idle sight;
     What might you think? No, I went round to work,
     And my young mistress thus I did bespeak:
     'Lord Hamlet is a prince, out of thy star;
     This must not be:' and then I precepts gave her,
     That she should lock herself from his resort,
     Admit no messengers, receive no tokens.
     Which done, she took the fruits of my advice;
     And he, repulsed--a short tale to make--
     Fell into a sadness, then into a fast,
     Thence to a watch, thence into a weakness,
     Thence to a lightness, and, by this declension,
     Into the madness wherein now he raves,
     And all we mourn for.

KING CLAUDIUS

     Do you think 'tis this?

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     It may be, very likely.

LORD POLONIUS

     Hath there been such a time--I'd fain know that--
     That I have positively said 'Tis so,'
     When it proved otherwise?

KING CLAUDIUS

     Not that I know.

LORD POLONIUS

     [Pointing to his head and shoulder]
     Take this from this, if this be otherwise:
     If circumstances lead me, I will find
     Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed
     Within the centre.

KING CLAUDIUS

     How may we try it further?

LORD POLONIUS

     You know, sometimes he walks four hours together
     Here in the lobby.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     So he does indeed.

LORD POLONIUS

     At such a time I'll loose my daughter to him:
     Be you and I behind an arras then;
     Mark the encounter: if he love her not
     And be not from his reason fall'n thereon,
     Let me be no assistant for a state,
     But keep a farm and carters.

KING CLAUDIUS

     We will try it.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     But, look, where sadly the poor wretch comes reading.

LORD POLONIUS

     Away, I do beseech you, both away:
     I'll board him presently.

     Exeunt KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, and Attendants

     Enter HAMLET, reading

     O, give me leave:
     How does my good Lord Hamlet?

HAMLET

     Well, God-a-mercy.

LORD POLONIUS

     Do you know me, my lord?

HAMLET

     Excellent well; you are a fishmonger.

LORD POLONIUS

     Not I, my lord.

HAMLET

     Then I would you were so honest a man.

LORD POLONIUS

     Honest, my lord!

HAMLET

     Ay, sir; to be honest, as this world goes, is to be
     one man picked out of ten thousand.

LORD POLONIUS

     That's very true, my lord.

HAMLET

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

LORD POLONIUS

     I have, my lord.

HAMLET

     Let her not walk i' the sun: conception is a
     blessing: but not as your daughter may conceive.
     Friend, look to 't.

LORD POLONIUS

     [Aside] How say you by that? Still harping on my
     daughter: yet he knew me not at first; he said I
     was a fishmonger: he is far gone, far gone: and
     truly in my youth I suffered much extremity for
     love; very near this. I'll speak to him again.
     What do you read, my lord?

HAMLET

     Words, words, words.

LORD POLONIUS

     What is the matter, my lord?

HAMLET

     Between who?

LORD POLONIUS

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

HAMLET

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

LORD POLONIUS

     [Aside] Though this be madness, yet there is method
     in 't. Will you walk out of the air, my lord?

HAMLET

     Into my grave.

LORD POLONIUS

     Indeed, that is out o' the air.

     Aside

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

HAMLET

     You cannot, sir, take from me any thing that I will
     more willingly part withal: except my life, except
     my life, except my life.

LORD POLONIUS

     Fare you well, my lord.

HAMLET

     These tedious old fools!

     Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN

LORD POLONIUS

     You go to seek the Lord Hamlet; there he is.

ROSENCRANTZ

     [To POLONIUS] God save you, sir!

     Exit POLONIUS

GUILDENSTERN

     My honoured lord!

ROSENCRANTZ

     My most dear lord!

HAMLET

     My excellent good friends! How dost thou,
     Guildenstern? Ah, Rosencrantz! Good lads, how do ye both?

ROSENCRANTZ

     As the indifferent children of the earth.

GUILDENSTERN

     Happy, in that we are not over-happy;
     On fortune's cap we are not the very button.

HAMLET

     Nor the soles of her shoe?

ROSENCRANTZ

     Neither, my lord.

HAMLET

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

GUILDENSTERN

     'Faith, her privates we.

HAMLET

     In the secret parts of fortune? O, most true; she
     is a strumpet. What's the news?

ROSENCRANTZ

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

HAMLET

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

GUILDENSTERN

     Prison, my lord!

HAMLET

     Denmark's a prison.

ROSENCRANTZ

     Then is the world one.

HAMLET

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

ROSENCRANTZ

     We think not so, my lord.

HAMLET

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

ROSENCRANTZ

     Why then, your ambition makes it one; 'tis too
     narrow for your mind.

HAMLET

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

GUILDENSTERN

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

HAMLET

     A dream itself is but a shadow.

ROSENCRANTZ

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

HAMLET

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

ROSENCRANTZ

     |
     | We'll wait upon you.

GUILDENSTERN

     |

HAMLET

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

ROSENCRANTZ

     To visit you, my lord; no other occasion.

HAMLET

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

GUILDENSTERN

     What should we say, my lord?

HAMLET

     Why, any thing, but to the purpose. You were sent
     for; and there is a kind of confession in your looks
     which your modesties have not craft enough to colour:
     I know the good king and queen have sent for you.

ROSENCRANTZ

     To what end, my lord?

HAMLET

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

ROSENCRANTZ

     [Aside to GUILDENSTERN] What say you?

HAMLET

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

GUILDENSTERN

     My lord, we were sent for.

HAMLET

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

ROSENCRANTZ

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

HAMLET

     Why did you laugh then, when I said 'man delights not me'?

ROSENCRANTZ

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

HAMLET

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

ROSENCRANTZ

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

HAMLET

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

ROSENCRANTZ

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

HAMLET

     Do they hold the same estimation they did when I was
     in the city? are they so followed?

ROSENCRANTZ

     No, indeed, are they not.

HAMLET

     How comes it? do they grow rusty?

ROSENCRANTZ

     Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace: but
     there is, sir, an aery of children, little eyases,
     that cry out on the top of question, and are most
     tyrannically clapped for't: these are now the
     fashion, and so berattle the common stages--so they
     call them--that many wearing rapiers are afraid of
     goose-quills and dare scarce come thither.

HAMLET

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

ROSENCRANTZ

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

HAMLET

     Is't possible?

GUILDENSTERN

     O, there has been much throwing about of brains.

HAMLET

     Do the boys carry it away?

ROSENCRANTZ

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

HAMLET

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

     Flourish of trumpets within

GUILDENSTERN

     There are the players.

HAMLET

     Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore. Your hands,
     come then: the appurtenance of welcome is fashion
     and ceremony: let me comply with you in this garb,
     lest my extent to the players, which, I tell you,
     must show fairly outward, should more appear like
     entertainment than yours. You are welcome: but my
     uncle-father and aunt-mother are deceived.

GUILDENSTERN

     In what, my dear lord?

HAMLET

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

     Enter POLONIUS

LORD POLONIUS

     Well be with you, gentlemen!

HAMLET

     Hark you, Guildenstern; and you too: at each ear a
     hearer: that great baby you see there is not yet
     out of his swaddling-clouts.

ROSENCRANTZ

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

HAMLET

     I will prophesy he comes to tell me of the players;
     mark it. You say right, sir: o' Monday morning;
     'twas so indeed.

LORD POLONIUS

     My lord, I have news to tell you.

HAMLET

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

LORD POLONIUS

     The actors are come hither, my lord.

HAMLET

     Buz, buz!

LORD POLONIUS

     Upon mine honour,--

HAMLET

     Then came each actor on his ass,--

LORD POLONIUS

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

HAMLET

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

LORD POLONIUS

     What a treasure had he, my lord?

HAMLET

     Why,
     'One fair daughter and no more,
     The which he loved passing well.'

LORD POLONIUS

     [Aside] Still on my daughter.

HAMLET

     Am I not i' the right, old Jephthah?

LORD POLONIUS

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

HAMLET

     Nay, that follows not.

LORD POLONIUS

     What follows, then, my lord?

HAMLET

     Why,
     'As by lot, God wot,'
     and then, you know,
     'It came to pass, as most like it was,'--
     the first row of the pious chanson will show you
     more; for look, where my abridgement comes.

     Enter four or five Players

     You are welcome, masters; welcome, all. I am glad
     to see thee well. Welcome, good friends. O, my old
     friend! thy face is valenced since I saw thee last:
     comest thou to beard me in Denmark? What, my young
     lady and mistress! By'r lady, your ladyship is
     nearer to heaven than when I saw you last, by the
     altitude of a chopine. Pray God, your voice, like
     apiece of uncurrent gold, be not cracked within the
     ring. Masters, you are all welcome. We'll e'en
     to't like French falconers, fly at any thing we see:
     we'll have a speech straight: come, give us a taste
     of your quality; come, a passionate speech.

First Player

     What speech, my lord?

HAMLET

     I heard thee speak me a speech once, but it was
     never acted; or, if it was, not above once; for the
     play, I remember, pleased not the million; 'twas
     caviare to the general: but it was--as I received
     it, and others, whose judgments in such matters
     cried in the top of mine--an excellent play, well
     digested in the scenes, set down with as much
     modesty as cunning. I remember, one said there
     were no sallets in the lines to make the matter
     savoury, nor no matter in the phrase that might
     indict the author of affectation; but called it an
     honest method, as wholesome as sweet, and by very
     much more handsome than fine. One speech in it I
     chiefly loved: 'twas Aeneas' tale to Dido; and
     thereabout of it especially, where he speaks of
     Priam's slaughter: if it live in your memory, begin
     at this line: let me see, let me see--
     'The rugged Pyrrhus, like the Hyrcanian beast,'--
     it is not so:--it begins with Pyrrhus:--
     'The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable arms,
     Black as his purpose, did the night resemble
     When he lay couched in the ominous horse,
     Hath now this dread and black complexion smear'd
     With heraldry more dismal; head to foot
     Now is he total gules; horridly trick'd
     With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons,
     Baked and impasted with the parching streets,
     That lend a tyrannous and damned light
     To their lord's murder: roasted in wrath and fire,
     And thus o'er-sized with coagulate gore,
     With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus
     Old grandsire Priam seeks.'
     So, proceed you.

LORD POLONIUS

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

First Player

     'Anon he finds him
     Striking too short at Greeks; his antique sword,
     Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls,
     Repugnant to command: unequal match'd,
     Pyrrhus at Priam drives; in rage strikes wide;
     But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword
     The unnerved father falls. Then senseless Ilium,
     Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming top
     Stoops to his base, and with a hideous crash
     Takes prisoner Pyrrhus' ear: for, lo! his sword,
     Which was declining on the milky head
     Of reverend Priam, seem'd i' the air to stick:
     So, as a painted tyrant, Pyrrhus stood,
     And like a neutral to his will and matter,
     Did nothing.
     But, as we often see, against some storm,
     A silence in the heavens, the rack stand still,
     The bold winds speechless and the orb below
     As hush as death, anon the dreadful thunder
     Doth rend the region, so, after Pyrrhus' pause,
     Aroused vengeance sets him new a-work;
     And never did the Cyclops' hammers fall
     On Mars's armour forged for proof eterne
     With less remorse than Pyrrhus' bleeding sword
     Now falls on Priam.
     Out, out, thou strumpet, Fortune! All you gods,
     In general synod 'take away her power;
     Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel,
     And bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven,
     As low as to the fiends!'

LORD POLONIUS

     This is too long.

HAMLET

     It shall to the barber's, with your beard. Prithee,
     say on: he's for a jig or a tale of bawdry, or he
     sleeps: say on: come to Hecuba.

First Player

     'But who, O, who had seen the mobled queen--'

HAMLET

     'The mobled queen?'

LORD POLONIUS

     That's good; 'mobled queen' is good.

First Player

     'Run barefoot up and down, threatening the flames
     With bisson rheum; a clout upon that head
     Where late the diadem stood, and for a robe,
     About her lank and all o'er-teemed loins,
     A blanket, in the alarm of fear caught up;
     Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steep'd,
     'Gainst Fortune's state would treason have
     pronounced:
     But if the gods themselves did see her then
     When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport
     In mincing with his sword her husband's limbs,
     The instant burst of clamour that she made,
     Unless things mortal move them not at all,
     Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven,
     And passion in the gods.'

LORD POLONIUS

     Look, whether he has not turned his colour and has
     tears in's eyes. Pray you, no more.

HAMLET

     'Tis well: I'll have thee speak out the rest soon.
     Good my lord, will you see the players well
     bestowed? Do you hear, let them be well used; for
     they are the abstract and brief chronicles of the
     time: after your death you were better have a bad
     epitaph than their ill report while you live.

LORD POLONIUS

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

HAMLET

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

LORD POLONIUS

     Come, sirs.

HAMLET

     Follow him, friends: we'll hear a play to-morrow.

     Exit POLONIUS with all the Players but the First

     Dost thou hear me, old friend; can you play the
     Murder of Gonzago?

First Player

     Ay, my lord.

HAMLET

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

First Player

     Ay, my lord.

HAMLET

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

     Exit First Player

     My good friends, I'll leave you till night: you are
     welcome to Elsinore.

ROSENCRANTZ

     Good my lord!

HAMLET

     Ay, so, God be wi' ye;

     Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN

     Now I am alone.
     O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
     Is it not monstrous that this player here,
     But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
     Could force his soul so to his own conceit
     That from her working all his visage wann'd,
     Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect,
     A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
     With forms to his conceit? and all for nothing!
     For Hecuba!
     What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
     That he should weep for her? What would he do,
     Had he the motive and the cue for passion
     That I have? He would drown the stage with tears
     And cleave the general ear with horrid speech,
     Make mad the guilty and appal the free,
     Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed
     The very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I,
     A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak,
     Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,
     And can say nothing; no, not for a king,
     Upon whose property and most dear life
     A damn'd defeat was made. Am I a coward?
     Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across?
     Plucks off my beard, and blows it in my face?
     Tweaks me by the nose? gives me the lie i' the throat,
     As deep as to the lungs? who does me this?
     Ha!
     'Swounds, I should take it: for it cannot be
     But I am pigeon-liver'd and lack gall
     To make oppression bitter, or ere this
     I should have fatted all the region kites
     With this slave's offal: bloody, bawdy villain!
     Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!
     O, vengeance!
     Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,
     That I, the son of a dear father murder'd,
     Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,
     Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words,
     And fall a-cursing, like a very drab,
     A scullion!
     Fie upon't! foh! About, my brain! I have heard
     That guilty creatures sitting at a play
     Have by the very cunning of the scene
     Been struck so to the soul that presently
     They have proclaim'd their malefactions;
     For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
     With most miraculous organ. I'll have these players
     Play something like the murder of my father
     Before mine uncle: I'll observe his looks;
     I'll tent him to the quick: if he but blench,
     I know my course. The spirit that I have seen
     May be the devil: and the devil hath power
     To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps
     Out of my weakness and my melancholy,
     As he is very potent with such spirits,
     Abuses me to damn me: I'll have grounds
     More relative than this: the play 's the thing
     Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.

     Exit

Act 3, Scene 1

A room in the castle.

     Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, POLONIUS, OPHELIA,
     ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN

KING CLAUDIUS

     And can you, by no drift of circumstance,
     Get from him why he puts on this confusion,
     Grating so harshly all his days of quiet
     With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?

ROSENCRANTZ

     He does confess he feels himself distracted;
     But from what cause he will by no means speak.

GUILDENSTERN

     Nor do we find him forward to be sounded,
     But, with a crafty madness, keeps aloof,
     When we would bring him on to some confession
     Of his true state.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     Did he receive you well?

ROSENCRANTZ

     Most like a gentleman.

GUILDENSTERN

     But with much forcing of his disposition.

ROSENCRANTZ

     Niggard of question; but, of our demands,
     Most free in his reply.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     Did you assay him?
     To any pastime?

ROSENCRANTZ

     Madam, it so fell out, that certain players
     We o'er-raught on the way: of these we told him;
     And there did seem in him a kind of joy
     To hear of it: they are about the court,
     And, as I think, they have already order
     This night to play before him.

LORD POLONIUS

     'Tis most true:
     And he beseech'd me to entreat your majesties
     To hear and see the matter.

KING CLAUDIUS

     With all my heart; and it doth much content me
     To hear him so inclined.
     Good gentlemen, give him a further edge,
     And drive his purpose on to these delights.

ROSENCRANTZ

     We shall, my lord.

     Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN

KING CLAUDIUS

     Sweet Gertrude, leave us too;
     For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither,
     That he, as 'twere by accident, may here
     Affront Ophelia:
     Her father and myself, lawful espials,
     Will so bestow ourselves that, seeing, unseen,
     We may of their encounter frankly judge,
     And gather by him, as he is behaved,
     If 't be the affliction of his love or no
     That thus he suffers for.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     I shall obey you.
     And for your part, Ophelia, I do wish
     That your good beauties be the happy cause
     Of Hamlet's wildness: so shall I hope your virtues
     Will bring him to his wonted way again,
     To both your honours.

OPHELIA

     Madam, I wish it may.

     Exit QUEEN GERTRUDE

LORD POLONIUS

     Ophelia, walk you here. Gracious, so please you,
     We will bestow ourselves.

     To OPHELIA

     Read on this book;
     That show of such an exercise may colour
     Your loneliness. We are oft to blame in this,--
     'Tis too much proved--that with devotion's visage
     And pious action we do sugar o'er
     The devil himself.

KING CLAUDIUS

     [Aside] O, 'tis too true!
     How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!
     The harlot's cheek, beautied with plastering art,
     Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it
     Than is my deed to my most painted word:
     O heavy burthen!

LORD POLONIUS

     I hear him coming: let's withdraw, my lord.

     Exeunt KING CLAUDIUS 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 heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
     That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
     Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
     To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
     For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
     When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
     Must give us pause: there's the respect
     That makes calamity of so long life;
     For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
     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 the unworthy takes,
     When he himself might his quietus make
     With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
     To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
     But that the dread of something after death,
     The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
     No traveller returns, puzzles the will
     And makes us rather bear those ills we have
     Than fly to others that we know not of?
     Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
     And thus the native hue of resolution
     Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
     And enterprises of great pith and moment
     With this regard their currents turn awry,
     And lose the name of action.--Soft you now!
     The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
     Be all my sins remember'd.

OPHELIA

     Good my lord,
     How does your honour for this many a day?

HAMLET

     I humbly thank you; well, well, well.

OPHELIA

     My lord, I have remembrances of yours,
     That I have longed long to re-deliver;
     I pray you, now receive them.

HAMLET

     No, not I;
     I never gave you aught.

OPHELIA

     My honour'd lord, you know right well you did;
     And, with them, words of so sweet breath composed
     As made the things more rich: their perfume lost,
     Take these again; for to the noble mind
     Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.
     There, my lord.

HAMLET

     Ha, ha! are you honest?

OPHELIA

     My lord?

HAMLET

     Are you fair?

OPHELIA

     What means your lordship?

HAMLET

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

OPHELIA

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

HAMLET

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

OPHELIA

     Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.

HAMLET

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

OPHELIA

     I was the more deceived.

HAMLET

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

OPHELIA

     At home, my lord.

HAMLET

     Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the
     fool no where but in's own house. Farewell.

OPHELIA

     O, help him, you sweet heavens!

HAMLET

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

OPHELIA

     O heavenly powers, restore him!

HAMLET

     I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God
     has given you one face, and you make yourselves
     another: you jig, you amble, and you lisp, and
     nick-name God's creatures, and make your wantonness
     your ignorance. Go to, I'll no more on't; it hath
     made me mad. I say, we will have no 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 expectancy and rose of the fair state,
     The glass of fashion and the mould of form,
     The observed of all observers, quite, quite down!
     And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
     That suck'd the honey of his music vows,
     Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,
     Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh;
     That unmatch'd form and feature of blown youth
     Blasted with ecstasy: O, woe is me,
     To have seen what I have seen, see what I see!

     Re-enter KING CLAUDIUS and POLONIUS

KING CLAUDIUS

     Love! his affections do not that way tend;
     Nor what he spake, though it lack'd form a little,
     Was not like madness. There's something in his soul,
     O'er which his melancholy sits on brood;
     And I do doubt the hatch and the disclose
     Will be some danger: which for to prevent,
     I have in quick determination
     Thus set it down: he shall with speed to England,
     For the demand of our neglected tribute
     Haply the seas and countries different
     With variable objects shall expel
     This something-settled matter in his heart,
     Whereon his brains still beating puts him thus
     From fashion of himself. What think you on't?

LORD POLONIUS

     It shall do well: but yet do I believe
     The origin and commencement of his grief
     Sprung from neglected love. How now, Ophelia!
     You need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said;
     We heard it all. My lord, do as you please;
     But, if you hold it fit, after the play
     Let his queen mother all alone entreat him
     To show his grief: let her be round with him;
     And I'll be 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 CLAUDIUS

     It shall be so:
     Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go.

     Exeunt

Act 3, Scene 2

A hall in the castle.

     Enter HAMLET and Players

HAMLET

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

First Player

     I warrant your honour.

HAMLET

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

First Player

     I hope we have reformed that indifferently with us,
     sir.

HAMLET

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

     Exeunt Players

     Enter POLONIUS, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN

     How now, my lord! I will the king hear this piece of work?

LORD POLONIUS

     And the queen too, and that presently.

HAMLET

     Bid the players make haste.

     Exit POLONIUS

     Will you two help to hasten them?

ROSENCRANTZ

     |
     | We will, my lord.

GUILDENSTERN

     |

     Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN

HAMLET

     What ho! Horatio!

     Enter HORATIO

HORATIO

     Here, sweet lord, at your service.

HAMLET

     Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man
     As e'er my conversation coped withal.

HORATIO

     O, my dear lord,--

HAMLET

     Nay, do not think I flatter;
     For what advancement may I hope from thee
     That no revenue hast but thy good spirits,
     To feed and clothe thee? Why should the poor be flatter'd?
     No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp,
     And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee
     Where thrift may follow fawning. Dost thou hear?
     Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice
     And could of men distinguish, her election
     Hath seal'd thee for herself; for thou hast been
     As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing,
     A man that fortune's buffets and rewards
     Hast ta'en with equal thanks: and blest are those
     Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled,
     That they are not a pipe for fortune's finger
     To sound what stop she please. Give me that man
     That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
     In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart,
     As I do thee. --Something too much of this. --
     There is a play to-night before the king;
     One scene of it comes near the circumstance
     Which I have told thee of my father's death:
     I prithee, when thou seest that act afoot,
     Even with the very comment of thy soul
     Observe mine uncle: if his occulted guilt
     Do not itself unkennel in one speech,
     It is a damned ghost that we have seen,
     And my imaginations are as foul
     As Vulcan's stithy. Give him heedful note;
     For I mine eyes will rivet to his face,
     And after we will both our judgments join
     In censure of his seeming.

HORATIO

     Well, my lord:
     If he steal aught the whilst this play is playing,
     And 'scape detecting, I will pay the theft.

HAMLET

     They are coming to the play; I must be idle:
     Get you a place.

     Danish march. A flourish. Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE,
     POLONIUS, OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, and others

KING CLAUDIUS

     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 CLAUDIUS

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

HAMLET

     No, nor mine now.

     To POLONIUS

     My lord, you played once i' the university, you say?

LORD POLONIUS

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

HAMLET

     What did you enact?

LORD POLONIUS

     I did enact Julius Caesar: I was killed i' the
     Capitol; Brutus killed me.

HAMLET

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

ROSENCRANTZ

     Ay, my lord; they stay upon your patience.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me.

HAMLET

     No, good mother, here's metal more attractive.

LORD POLONIUS

     [To KING CLAUDIUS] O, ho! do you mark that?

HAMLET

     Lady, shall I lie in your lap?

     Lying down at OPHELIA's feet

OPHELIA

     No, my lord.

HAMLET

     I mean, my head upon your lap?

OPHELIA

     Ay, my lord.

HAMLET

     Do you think I meant country matters?

OPHELIA

     I think nothing, my lord.

HAMLET

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

OPHELIA

     What is, my lord?

HAMLET

     Nothing.

OPHELIA

     You are merry, my lord.

HAMLET

     Who, I?

OPHELIA

     Ay, my lord.

HAMLET

     O God, your only jig-maker. What should a man do
     but be merry? for, look you, how cheerfully my
     mother looks, and my father died within these two hours.

OPHELIA

     Nay, 'tis twice two months, my lord.

HAMLET

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

     Hautboys play. The dumb-show enters

     Enter a King and a Queen very lovingly; the Queen embracing him,
     and he her. She kneels, and makes show of protestation unto him.
     He takes her up, and declines his head upon her neck: 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

     Exeunt

OPHELIA

     What means this, my lord?

HAMLET

     Marry, this is miching mallecho; it means mischief.

OPHELIA

     Belike this show imports the argument of the play.

     Enter Prologue

HAMLET

     We shall know by this fellow: the players cannot
     keep counsel; they'll tell all.

OPHELIA

     Will he tell us what this show meant?

HAMLET

     Ay, or any show that you'll show him: be not you
     ashamed to show, he'll not shame 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.

     Exit

HAMLET

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

OPHELIA

     'Tis brief, my lord.

HAMLET

     As woman's love.

     Enter two Players, King and Queen

Player King

     Full thirty times hath Phoebus' cart gone round
     Neptune's salt wash and Tellus' orbed ground,
     And thirty dozen moons with borrow'd sheen
     About the world have times twelve thirties been,
     Since love our hearts and Hymen did our hands
     Unite commutual in most sacred bands.

Player Queen

     So many journeys may the sun and moon
     Make us again count o'er ere love be done!
     But, woe is me, you are so sick of late,
     So far from cheer and from your former state,
     That I distrust you. Yet, though I distrust,
     Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must:
     For women's fear and love holds quantity;
     In neither aught, or in extremity.
     Now, what my love is, proof hath made you know;
     And as my love is sized, my fear is so:
     Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear;
     Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.

Player King

     'Faith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly too;
     My operant powers their functions leave to do:
     And thou shalt live in this fair world behind,
     Honour'd, 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 kill'd the first.

HAMLET

     [Aside] Wormwood, wormwood.

Player Queen

     The instances that second marriage move
     Are base respects of thrift, but none of love:
     A second time I kill my husband dead,
     When second husband kisses me in bed.

Player King

     I do believe you think what now you speak;
     But what we do determine oft we break.
     Purpose is but the slave to memory,
     Of violent birth, but poor validity;
     Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree;
     But fall, unshaken, when they mellow be.
     Most necessary 'tis that we forget
     To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt:
     What to ourselves in passion we propose,
     The passion ending, doth the purpose lose.
     The violence of either grief or joy
     Their own enactures with themselves destroy:
     Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament;
     Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident.
     This world is not for aye, nor 'tis not strange
     That even our loves should with our fortunes change;
     For 'tis a question left us yet to prove,
     Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love.
     The great man down, you mark his favourite flies;
     The poor advanced makes friends of enemies.
     And hitherto doth love on fortune tend;
     For who not needs shall never lack a friend,
     And who in want a hollow friend doth try,
     Directly seasons him his enemy.
     But, orderly to end where I begun,
     Our wills and fates do so contrary run
     That our devices still are overthrown;
     Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own:
     So think thou wilt no second husband wed;
     But die thy thoughts when thy first lord is dead.

Player Queen

     Nor earth to me give food, nor heaven light!
     Sport and repose lock from me day and night!
     To desperation turn my trust and hope!
     An anchor's cheer in prison be my scope!
     Each opposite that blanks the face of joy
     Meet what I would have well and it destroy!
     Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife,
     If, once a widow, ever I be wife!

HAMLET

     If she should break it now!

Player King

     'Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here awhile;
     My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile
     The tedious day with sleep.

     Sleeps

Player Queen

     Sleep rock thy brain,
     And never come mischance between us twain!

     Exit

HAMLET

     Madam, how like you this play?

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     The lady protests too much, methinks.

HAMLET

     O, but she'll keep her word.

KING CLAUDIUS

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

HAMLET

     No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest; no offence
     i' the world.

KING CLAUDIUS

     What do you call the play?

HAMLET

     The Mouse-trap. 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 o'
     that? your majesty and we that have free souls, it
     touches us not: let the galled jade wince, our
     withers are unwrung.

     Enter LUCIANUS

     This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king.

OPHELIA

     You are as good as a chorus, my lord.

HAMLET

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

OPHELIA

     You are keen, my lord, you are keen.

HAMLET

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

OPHELIA

     Still better, and worse.

HAMLET

     So you must take your husbands. Begin, murderer;
     pox, leave thy damnable faces, and begin. Come:
     'the croaking raven doth bellow for revenge.'

LUCIANUS

     Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing;
     Confederate season, else no creature seeing;
     Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected,
     With Hecate's ban thrice blasted, thrice infected,
     Thy natural magic and dire property,
     On wholesome life usurp immediately.

     Pours the poison into the sleeper's ears

HAMLET

     He poisons him i' the garden for's estate. His
     name's Gonzago: the story is extant, and writ in
     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 GERTRUDE

     How fares my lord?

LORD POLONIUS

     Give o'er the play.

KING CLAUDIUS

     Give me some light: away!

All

     Lights, lights, lights!

     Exeunt all but HAMLET and HORATIO

HAMLET

     Why, let the stricken deer go weep,
     The hart ungalled play;
     For some must watch, while some must sleep:
     So runs the world away.
     Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers-- if
     the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me--with two
     Provincial roses on my razed shoes, get me a
     fellowship in a cry of players, sir?

HORATIO

     Half a share.

HAMLET

     A whole one, I.
     For thou dost know, O Damon dear,
     This realm dismantled was
     Of Jove himself; and now reigns here
     A very, very--pajock.

HORATIO

     You might have rhymed.

HAMLET

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

HORATIO

     Very well, my lord.

HAMLET

     Upon the talk of the poisoning?

HORATIO

     I did very well note him.

HAMLET

     Ah, ha! Come, some music! come, the recorders!
     For if the king like not the comedy,
     Why then, belike, he likes it not, perdy.
     Come, some music!

     Re-enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN

GUILDENSTERN

     Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you.

HAMLET

     Sir, a whole history.

GUILDENSTERN

     The king, sir,--

HAMLET

     Ay, sir, what of him?

GUILDENSTERN

     Is in his retirement marvellous distempered.

HAMLET

     With drink, sir?

GUILDENSTERN

     No, my lord, rather with choler.

HAMLET

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

GUILDENSTERN

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

HAMLET

     I am tame, sir: pronounce.

GUILDENSTERN

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

HAMLET

     You are welcome.

GUILDENSTERN

     Nay, good my lord, this courtesy is not of the right
     breed. If it shall please you to make me a
     wholesome answer, I will do your mother's
     commandment: if not, your pardon and my return
     shall be the end of my business.

HAMLET

     Sir, I cannot.

GUILDENSTERN

     What, my lord?

HAMLET

     Make you a wholesome answer; my wit's diseased: but,
     sir, such answer as I can make, you shall command;
     or, rather, as you say, my mother: therefore no
     more, but to the matter: my mother, you say,--

ROSENCRANTZ

     Then thus she says; your behavior hath struck her
     into amazement and admiration.

HAMLET

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

ROSENCRANTZ

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

HAMLET

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

ROSENCRANTZ

     My lord, you once did love me.

HAMLET

     So I do still, by these pickers and stealers.

ROSENCRANTZ

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

HAMLET

     Sir, I lack advancement.

ROSENCRANTZ

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

HAMLET

     Ay, but sir, 'While the grass grows,'--the proverb
     is something musty.

     Re-enter Players with recorders

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

GUILDENSTERN

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

HAMLET

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

GUILDENSTERN

     My lord, I cannot.

HAMLET

     I pray you.

GUILDENSTERN

     Believe me, I cannot.

HAMLET

     I do beseech you.

GUILDENSTERN

     I know no touch of it, my lord.

HAMLET

     'Tis as easy as lying: govern these ventages with
     your lingers and thumb, give it breath with your
     mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music.
     Look you, these are the stops.

GUILDENSTERN

     But these cannot I command to any utterance of
     harmony; I have not the skill.

HAMLET

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

     Enter POLONIUS

     God bless you, sir!

LORD 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?

LORD POLONIUS

     By the mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed.

HAMLET

     Methinks it is like a weasel.

LORD POLONIUS

     It is backed like a weasel.

HAMLET

     Or like a whale?

LORD 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.

LORD POLONIUS

     I will say so.

HAMLET

     By and by is easily said.

     Exit POLONIUS

     Leave me, friends.

     Exeunt all but HAMLET

     Tis now the very witching time of night,
     When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out
     Contagion to this world: now could I drink hot blood,
     And do such bitter business as the day
     Would quake to look on. Soft! now to my mother.
     O heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever
     The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom:
     Let me be cruel, not unnatural:
     I will speak daggers to her, but use none;
     My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites;
     How in my words soever she be shent,
     To give them seals never, my soul, consent!

     Exit

Act 3, Scene 3

A room in the castle.

     Enter KING CLAUDIUS, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN

KING CLAUDIUS

     I like him not, nor stands it safe with us
     To let his madness range. Therefore prepare you;
     I your commission will forthwith dispatch,
     And he to England shall along with you:
     The terms of our estate may not endure
     Hazard so dangerous as doth hourly grow
     Out of his lunacies.

GUILDENSTERN

     We will ourselves provide:
     Most holy and religious fear it is
     To keep those many many bodies safe
     That live and feed upon your majesty.

ROSENCRANTZ

     The single and peculiar life is bound,
     With all the strength and armour of the mind,
     To keep itself from noyance; but much more
     That spirit upon whose weal 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: it is a massy wheel,
     Fix'd on the summit of the highest mount,
     To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things
     Are mortised and adjoin'd; which, when it falls,
     Each small annexment, petty consequence,
     Attends the boisterous ruin. Never alone
     Did the king sigh, but with a general groan.

KING CLAUDIUS

     Arm you, I pray you, to this speedy voyage;
     For we will fetters put upon this fear,
     Which now goes too free-footed.

ROSENCRANTZ

     |
     | We will haste us.

GUILDENSTERN

     |

     Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN

     Enter POLONIUS

LORD POLONIUS

     My lord, he's going to his mother's closet:
     Behind the arras I'll convey myself,
     To hear the process; and warrant she'll tax him home:
     And, as you said, and wisely was it said,
     'Tis meet that some more audience than a mother,
     Since nature makes them partial, should o'erhear
     The speech, of vantage. Fare you well, my liege:
     I'll call upon you ere you go to bed,
     And tell you what I know.

KING CLAUDIUS

     Thanks, dear my lord.

     Exit POLONIUS

     O, my offence is rank it smells to heaven;
     It hath the primal eldest curse upon't,
     A brother's murder. Pray can I not,
     Though inclination be as sharp as will:
     My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent;
     And, like a man to double business bound,
     I stand in pause where I shall first begin,
     And both neglect. What if this cursed hand
     Were thicker than itself with brother's blood,
     Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens
     To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy
     But to confront the visage of offence?
     And what's in prayer but this two-fold force,
     To be forestalled ere we come to fall,
     Or pardon'd being down? Then I'll look up;
     My fault is past. But, O, what form of prayer
     Can serve my turn? 'Forgive me my foul murder'?
     That cannot be; since I am still possess'd
     Of those effects for which I did the murder,
     My crown, mine own ambition and my queen.
     May one be pardon'd and retain the offence?
     In the corrupted currents of this world
     Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice,
     And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself
     Buys out the law: but 'tis not so above;
     There is no shuffling, there the action lies
     In his true nature; and we ourselves compell'd,
     Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,
     To give in evidence. What then? what rests?
     Try what repentance can: what can it not?
     Yet what can it when one can not repent?
     O wretched state! O bosom black as death!
     O limed soul, that, struggling to be free,
     Art more engaged! Help, angels! Make assay!
     Bow, stubborn knees; and, heart with strings of steel,
     Be soft as sinews of the newborn babe!
     All may be well.

     Retires and kneels

     Enter HAMLET

HAMLET

     Now might I do it pat, now he is praying;
     And now I'll do't. And so he goes to heaven;
     And so am I revenged. That would be scann'd:
     A villain kills my father; and for that,
     I, his sole son, do this same villain send
     To heaven.
     O, this is hire and salary, not revenge.
     He took my father grossly, full of bread;
     With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May;
     And how his audit stands who knows save heaven?
     But in our circumstance and course of thought,
     'Tis heavy with him: and am I then revenged,
     To take him in the purging of his soul,
     When he is fit and season'd for his passage?
     No!
     Up, sword; and know thou a more horrid hent:
     When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage,
     Or in the incestuous pleasure of his bed;
     At gaming, swearing, or about some act
     That has no relish of salvation in't;
     Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven,
     And that his soul may be as damn'd and black
     As hell, whereto it goes. My mother stays:
     This physic but prolongs thy sickly days.

     Exit

KING CLAUDIUS

     [Rising] My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:
     Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

     Exit

Act 3, Scene 4

The Queen's closet.

     Enter QUEEN MARGARET and POLONIUS

LORD POLONIUS

     He will come straight. Look you lay home to him:
     Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear with,
     And that your grace hath screen'd and stood between
     Much heat and him. I'll sconce me even here.
     Pray you, be round with him.

HAMLET

     [Within] Mother, mother, mother!

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     I'll warrant you,
     Fear me not: withdraw, I hear him coming.

     POLONIUS hides behind the arras

     Enter HAMLET

HAMLET

     Now, mother, what's the matter?

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.

HAMLET

     Mother, you have my father much offended.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.

HAMLET

     Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     Why, how now, Hamlet!

HAMLET

     What's the matter now?

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     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 GERTRUDE

     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 inmost part of you.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murder me?
     Help, help, ho!

LORD POLONIUS

     [Behind] What, ho! help, help, help!

HAMLET

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

     Makes a pass through the arras

LORD POLONIUS

     [Behind] O, I am slain!

     Falls and dies

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     O me, what hast thou done?

HAMLET

     Nay, I know not:
     Is it the king?

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     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 GERTRUDE

     As kill a king!

HAMLET

     Ay, lady, 'twas my word.

     Lifts up the array and discovers POLONIUS

     Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!
     I took thee for thy better: take thy fortune;
     Thou find'st to be too busy is some danger.
     Leave wringing of your 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 brass'd it so
     That it is proof and bulwark against sense.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     What have I done, that thou darest wag thy tongue
     In noise so rude against me?

HAMLET

     Such an act
     That blurs the grace and blush of modesty,
     Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose
     From the fair forehead of an innocent love
     And sets a blister there, makes marriage-vows
     As false as dicers' oaths: O, such a deed
     As from the body of contraction plucks
     The very soul, and sweet religion makes
     A rhapsody of words: heaven's face doth glow:
     Yea, this solidity and compound mass,
     With tristful visage, as against the doom,
     Is thought-sick at the act.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     Ay me, what act,
     That roars so loud, and thunders in the index?

HAMLET

     Look here, upon this picture, and on this,
     The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
     See, what a grace was seated on this brow;
     Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself;
     An eye like Mars, to threaten and command;
     A station like the herald Mercury
     New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill;
     A combination and a form indeed,
     Where every god did seem to set his seal,
     To give the world assurance of a man:
     This was your husband. Look you now, what follows:
     Here is your husband; like a mildew'd ear,
     Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes?
     Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,
     And batten on this moor? Ha! have you eyes?
     You cannot call it love; for at your age
     The hey-day in the blood is tame, it's humble,
     And waits upon the judgment: and what judgment
     Would step from this to this? Sense, sure, you have,
     Else could you not have motion; but sure, that sense
     Is apoplex'd; for madness would not err,
     Nor sense to ecstasy was ne'er so thrall'd
     But it reserved some quantity of choice,
     To serve in such a difference. What devil was't
     That thus hath cozen'd you at hoodman-blind?
     Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight,
     Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all,
     Or but a sickly part of one true sense
     Could not so mope.
     O shame! where is thy blush? Rebellious hell,
     If thou canst mutine in a matron's bones,
     To flaming youth let virtue be as wax,
     And melt in her own fire: proclaim no shame
     When the compulsive ardour gives the charge,
     Since frost itself as actively doth burn
     And reason panders will.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     O Hamlet, speak no more:
     Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul;
     And there I see such black and grained spots
     As will not leave their tinct.

HAMLET

     Nay, but to live
     In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed,
     Stew'd in corruption, honeying and making love
     Over the nasty sty,--

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     O, speak to me no more;
     These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears;
     No more, sweet Hamlet!

HAMLET

     A murderer and a villain;
     A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe
     Of your precedent lord; a vice of kings;
     A cutpurse of the empire and the rule,
     That from a shelf the precious diadem stole,
     And put it in his pocket!

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     No more!

HAMLET

     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 GERTRUDE

     Alas, he's mad!

HAMLET

     Do you not come your tardy son to chide,
     That, lapsed in time and passion, lets go by
     The important acting of your dread command? O, say!

Ghost

     Do not forget: this visitation
     Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.
     But, look, amazement on thy mother sits:
     O, step between her and her fighting soul:
     Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works:
     Speak to her, Hamlet.

HAMLET

     How is it with you, lady?

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     Alas, how is't with you,
     That you do bend your eye on vacancy
     And with the incorporal air do hold discourse?
     Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep;
     And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm,
     Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,
     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 conjoin'd, preaching to stones,
     Would make them capable. Do not look upon me;
     Lest with this piteous action you convert
     My stern effects: then what I have to do
     Will want true colour; tears perchance for blood.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     To whom do you speak this?

HAMLET

     Do you see nothing there?

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.

HAMLET

     Nor did you nothing hear?

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     No, nothing but ourselves.

HAMLET

     Why, look you there! look, how it steals away!
     My father, in his habit as he lived!
     Look, where he goes, even now, out at the portal!

     Exit Ghost

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     This the very coinage of your brain:
     This bodiless creation ecstasy
     Is very cunning in.

HAMLET

     Ecstasy!
     My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time,
     And makes as healthful music: it is not madness
     That I have utter'd: bring me to the test,
     And I the matter will re-word; which madness
     Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,
     Lay not that mattering unction to your soul,
     That not your trespass, but my madness speaks:
     It will but skin and film the ulcerous place,
     Whilst rank corruption, mining all within,
     Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven;
     Repent what's past; avoid what is to come;
     And do not spread the compost on the weeds,
     To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue;
     For in the fatness of these pursy times
     Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg,
     Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.

HAMLET

     O, throw away the worser part of it,
     And live the purer with the other half.
     Good night: but go not to mine uncle's bed;
     Assume a virtue, if you have it not.
     That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat,
     Of habits devil, is angel yet in this,
     That to the use of actions fair and good
     He likewise gives a frock or livery,
     That aptly is put on. Refrain to-night,
     And that shall lend a kind of easiness
     To the next abstinence: the next more easy;
     For use almost can change the stamp of nature,
     And either [ ] the devil, or throw him out
     With wondrous potency. Once more, good night:
     And when you are desirous to be bless'd,
     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, good night.
     I must be cruel, only to be kind:
     Thus bad begins and worse remains behind.
     One word more, good lady.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     What shall I do?

HAMLET

     Not this, by no means, that I bid you do:
     Let the bloat king tempt you again to bed;
     Pinch wanton on your cheek; call you his mouse;
     And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses,
     Or paddling in your neck with his damn'd fingers,
     Make you to ravel all this matter out,
     That I essentially am not in madness,
     But mad in craft. 'Twere good you let him know;
     For who, that's but a queen, fair, sober, wise,
     Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib,
     Such dear concernings hide? who would do so?
     No, in despite of sense and secrecy,
     Unpeg the basket on the house's top.
     Let the birds fly, and, like the famous ape,
     To try conclusions, in the basket creep,
     And break your own neck down.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     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.

HAMLET

     I must to England; you know that?

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     Alack,
     I had forgot: 'tis so concluded on.

HAMLET

     There's letters seal'd: and my two schoolfellows,
     Whom I will trust as I will adders fang'd,
     They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way,
     And marshal me to knavery. Let it work;
     For 'tis the sport to have the engineer
     Hoist with his own petard: and 't shall go hard
     But I will delve one yard below their mines,
     And blow them at the moon: O, 'tis most sweet,
     When in one line two crafts directly meet.
     This man shall set me packing:
     I'll lug the guts into the neighbour room.
     Mother, good night. Indeed this counsellor
     Is now most still, most secret and most grave,
     Who was in life a foolish prating knave.
     Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you.
     Good night, mother.

     Exeunt severally; HAMLET dragging in POLONIUS

Act 4, Scene 1

A room in the castle.

     Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN

KING CLAUDIUS

     There's matter in these sighs, these profound heaves:
     You must translate: 'tis fit we understand them.
     Where is your son?

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     Bestow this place on us a little while.

     Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN

     Ah, my good lord, what have I seen to-night!

KING CLAUDIUS

     What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     Mad as the sea and wind, when both contend
     Which is the mightier: in his lawless fit,
     Behind the arras hearing something stir,
     Whips out his rapier, cries, 'A rat, a rat!'
     And, in this brainish apprehension, kills
     The unseen good old man.

KING CLAUDIUS

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

QUEEN GERTRUDE

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

KING CLAUDIUS

     O Gertrude, come away!
     The sun no sooner shall the mountains touch,
     But we will ship him hence: and this vile deed
     We must, with all our majesty and skill,
     Both countenance and excuse. Ho, Guildenstern!

     Re-enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN

     Friends both, go join you with some further aid:
     Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain,
     And from his mother's closet hath he dragg'd him:
     Go seek him out; speak fair, and bring the body
     Into the chapel. I pray you, haste in this.

     Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN

     Come, Gertrude, we'll call up our wisest friends;
     And let them know, both what we mean to do,
     And what's untimely done [ ]
     Whose whisper o'er the world's diameter,
     As level as the cannon to his blank,
     Transports his poison'd shot, may miss our name,
     And hit the woundless air. O, come away!
     My soul is full of discord and dismay.

     Exeunt

Act 4, Scene 2

Another room in the castle.

     Enter HAMLET

HAMLET

     Safely stowed.

ROSENCRANTZ:

     |
     | [Within] Hamlet! Lord Hamlet!

GUILDENSTERN:

     |

HAMLET

     What noise? who calls on Hamlet?
     O, here they come.

     Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN

ROSENCRANTZ

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

HAMLET

     Compounded it with dust, whereto 'tis kin.

ROSENCRANTZ

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

HAMLET

     Do not believe it.

ROSENCRANTZ

     Believe what?

HAMLET

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

ROSENCRANTZ

     Take you me for a sponge, my lord?

HAMLET

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

ROSENCRANTZ

     I understand you not, my lord.

HAMLET

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

ROSENCRANTZ

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

HAMLET

     The body is with the king, but the king is not with
     the body. The king is a thing--

GUILDENSTERN

     A thing, my lord!

HAMLET

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

     Exeunt

Act 4, Scene 3

Another room in the castle.

     Enter KING CLAUDIUS, attended

KING CLAUDIUS

     I have sent to seek him, and to find the body.
     How dangerous is it that this man goes loose!
     Yet must not we put the strong law on him:
     He's loved of the distracted multitude,
     Who like not in their judgment, but their eyes;
     And where tis so, the offender's scourge is weigh'd,
     But never the offence. To bear all smooth and even,
     This sudden sending him away must seem
     Deliberate pause: diseases desperate grown
     By desperate appliance are relieved,
     Or not at all.

     Enter ROSENCRANTZ

     How now! what hath befall'n?

ROSENCRANTZ

     Where the dead body is bestow'd, my lord,
     We cannot get from him.

KING CLAUDIUS

     But where is he?

ROSENCRANTZ

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

KING CLAUDIUS

     Bring him before us.

ROSENCRANTZ

     Ho, Guildenstern! bring in my lord.

     Enter HAMLET and GUILDENSTERN

KING CLAUDIUS

     Now, Hamlet, where's Polonius?

HAMLET

     At supper.

KING CLAUDIUS

     At supper! where?

HAMLET

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

KING CLAUDIUS

     Alas, alas!

HAMLET

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

KING CLAUDIUS

     What dost you mean by this?

HAMLET

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

KING CLAUDIUS

     Where is Polonius?

HAMLET

     In heaven; send hither to see: if your messenger
     find him not there, seek him i' the other place
     yourself. But indeed, if you find him not within
     this month, you shall nose him as you go up the
     stairs into the lobby.

KING CLAUDIUS

     Go seek him there.

     To some Attendants

HAMLET

     He will stay till ye come.

     Exeunt Attendants

KING CLAUDIUS

     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,
     The associates tend, and every thing is bent
     For England.

HAMLET

     For England!

KING CLAUDIUS

     Ay, Hamlet.

HAMLET

     Good.

KING CLAUDIUS

     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 CLAUDIUS

     Thy loving father, Hamlet.

HAMLET

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

     Exit

KING CLAUDIUS

     Follow him at foot; tempt him with speed aboard;
     Delay it not; I'll have him hence to-night:
     Away! for every thing is seal'd and done
     That else leans on the affair: pray you, make haste.

     Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN

     And, England, if my love thou hold'st at aught--
     As my great power thereof may give thee sense,
     Since yet thy cicatrice looks raw and red
     After the Danish sword, and thy free awe
     Pays homage to us--thou mayst not coldly set
     Our sovereign process; which imports at full,
     By letters congruing to that effect,
     The present death of Hamlet. Do it, England;
     For like the hectic in my blood he rages,
     And thou must cure me: till I know 'tis done,
     Howe'er my haps, my joys were ne'er begun.

     Exit

Act 4, Scene 4

A plain in Denmark.

     Enter FORTINBRAS, a Captain, and Soldiers, marching

PRINCE FORTINBRAS

     Go, captain, from me greet the Danish king;
     Tell him that, by his licence, Fortinbras
     Craves the conveyance of a promised march
     Over his kingdom. You know the rendezvous.
     If that his majesty would aught with us,
     We shall express our duty in his eye;
     And let him know so.

Captain

     I will do't, my lord.

PRINCE FORTINBRAS

     Go softly on.

     Exeunt FORTINBRAS and Soldiers

     Enter HAMLET, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, and others

HAMLET

     Good sir, whose powers are these?

Captain

     They are of Norway, sir.

HAMLET

     How purposed, sir, I pray you?

Captain

     Against some part of Poland.

HAMLET

     Who commands them, sir?

Captain

     The nephews to old Norway, Fortinbras.

HAMLET

     Goes it against the main of Poland, sir,
     Or for some frontier?

Captain

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

HAMLET

     Why, then the Polack never will defend it.

Captain

     Yes, it is already garrison'd.

HAMLET

     Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats
     Will not debate the question of this straw:
     This is the imposthume of much wealth and peace,
     That inward breaks, and shows no cause without
     Why the man dies. I humbly thank you, sir.

Captain

     God be wi' you, sir.

     Exit

ROSENCRANTZ

     Wilt please you go, my lord?

HAMLET

     I'll be with you straight go a little before.

     Exeunt all except HAMLET

     How all occasions do inform against me,
     And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,
     If his chief good and market of his time
     Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.
     Sure, he that made us with such large discourse,
     Looking before and after, gave us not
     That capability and god-like reason
     To fust in us unused. Now, whether it be
     Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
     Of thinking too precisely on the event,
     A thought which, quarter'd, hath but one part wisdom
     And ever three parts coward, I do not know
     Why yet I live to say 'This thing's to do;'
     Sith I have cause and will and strength and means
     To do't. Examples gross as earth exhort me:
     Witness this army of such mass and charge
     Led by a delicate and tender prince,
     Whose spirit with divine ambition puff'd
     Makes mouths at the invisible event,
     Exposing what is mortal and unsure
     To all that fortune, death and danger dare,
     Even for an egg-shell. Rightly to be great
     Is not to stir without great argument,
     But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
     When honour's at the stake. How stand I then,
     That have a father kill'd, a mother stain'd,
     Excitements of my reason and my blood,
     And let all sleep? while, to my shame, I see
     The imminent death of twenty thousand men,
     That, for a fantasy and trick of fame,
     Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot
     Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,
     Which is not tomb enough and continent
     To hide the slain? O, from this time forth,
     My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!

     Exit

Act 4, Scene 5

Elsinore. A room in the castle.

     Enter QUEEN GERTRUDE, HORATIO, and a Gentleman

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     I will not speak with her.

Gentleman

     She is importunate, indeed distract:
     Her mood will needs be pitied.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     What would she have?

Gentleman

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

HORATIO

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

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     Let her come in.

     Exit HORATIO

     To my sick soul, as sin's true nature is,
     Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss:
     So full of artless jealousy is guilt,
     It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.

     Re-enter HORATIO, with OPHELIA

OPHELIA

     Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     How now, Ophelia!

OPHELIA

     [Sings]
     How should I your true love know
     From another one?
     By his cockle hat and staff,
     And his sandal shoon.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?

OPHELIA

     Say you? nay, pray you, mark.

     Sings

     He is dead and gone, lady,
     He is dead and gone;
     At his head a grass-green turf,
     At his heels a stone.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     Nay, but, Ophelia,--

OPHELIA

     Pray you, mark.

     Sings

     White his shroud as the mountain snow,--

     Enter KING CLAUDIUS

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     Alas, look here, my lord.

OPHELIA

     [Sings]
     Larded with sweet flowers
     Which bewept to the grave did go
     With true-love showers.

KING CLAUDIUS

     How do you, pretty lady?

OPHELIA

     Well, God 'ild you! They say the owl was a baker's
     daughter. Lord, we know what we are, but know not
     what we may be. God be at your table!

KING CLAUDIUS

     Conceit upon her father.

OPHELIA

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

     Sings

     To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day,
     All in the morning betime,
     And I a maid at your window,
     To be your Valentine.
     Then up he rose, and donn'd his clothes,
     And dupp'd the chamber-door;
     Let in the maid, that out a maid
     Never departed more.

KING CLAUDIUS

     Pretty Ophelia!

OPHELIA

     Indeed, la, without an oath, I'll make an end on't:

     Sings

     By Gis and by Saint Charity,
     Alack, and fie for shame!
     Young men will do't, if they come to't;
     By cock, they are to blame.
     Quoth she, before you tumbled me,
     You promised me to wed.
     So would I ha' done, by yonder sun,
     An thou hadst not come to my bed.

KING CLAUDIUS

     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 should lay him
     i' the cold ground. My brother shall know of it:
     and so I thank you for your good counsel. Come, my
     coach! Good night, ladies; good night, sweet ladies;
     good night, good night.

     Exit

KING CLAUDIUS

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

     Exit HORATIO

     O, this is the poison of deep grief; it springs
     All from her father's death. O Gertrude, Gertrude,
     When sorrows come, they come not single spies
     But in battalions. First, her father slain:
     Next, your son gone; and he most violent author
     Of his own just remove: the people muddied,
     Thick and unwholesome in their thoughts and whispers,
     For good Polonius' death; and we have done but greenly,
     In hugger-mugger to inter him: poor Ophelia
     Divided from herself and her fair judgment,
     Without the which we are pictures, or mere beasts:
     Last, and as much containing as all these,
     Her brother is in secret come from France;
     Feeds on his wonder, keeps himself in clouds,
     And wants not buzzers to infect his ear
     With pestilent speeches of his father's death;
     Wherein necessity, of matter beggar'd,
     Will nothing stick our person to arraign
     In ear and ear. O my dear Gertrude, this,
     Like to a murdering-piece, in many places
     Gives me superfluous death.

     A noise within

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     Alack, what noise is this?

KING CLAUDIUS

     Where are my Switzers? Let them guard the door.

     Enter another Gentleman

     What is the matter?

Gentleman

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

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     How cheerfully on the false trail they cry!
     O, this is counter, you false Danish dogs!

KING CLAUDIUS

     The doors are broke.

     Noise within

     Enter LAERTES, armed; Danes following

LAERTES

     Where is this king? Sirs, stand you all without.

Danes

     No, let's come in.

LAERTES

     I pray you, give me leave.

Danes

     We will, we will.

     They retire without the door

LAERTES

     I thank you: keep the door. O thou vile king,
     Give me my father!

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     Calmly, good Laertes.

LAERTES

     That drop of blood that's calm proclaims me bastard,
     Cries cuckold to my father, brands the harlot
     Even here, between the chaste unsmirched brow
     Of my true mother.

KING CLAUDIUS

     What is the cause, Laertes,
     That thy rebellion looks so giant-like?
     Let him go, Gertrude; do not fear our person:
     There's such divinity doth hedge a king,
     That treason can but peep to what it would,
     Acts little of his will. Tell me, Laertes,
     Why thou art thus incensed. Let him go, Gertrude.
     Speak, man.

LAERTES

     Where is my father?

KING CLAUDIUS

     Dead.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     But not by him.

KING CLAUDIUS

     Let him demand his fill.

LAERTES

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

KING CLAUDIUS

     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 CLAUDIUS

     Good Laertes,
     If you desire to know the certainty
     Of your dear father's death, is't writ in your revenge,
     That, swoopstake, you will draw both friend and foe,
     Winner and loser?

LAERTES

     None but his enemies.

KING CLAUDIUS

     Will you know them then?

LAERTES

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

KING CLAUDIUS

     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.

Danes

     [Within] Let her come in.

LAERTES

     How now! what noise is that?

     Re-enter OPHELIA

     O heat, dry up my brains! tears seven times salt,
     Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye!
     By heaven, thy madness shall be paid by weight,
     Till our scale turn the beam. O rose of May!
     Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!
     O heavens! is't possible, a young maid's wits
     Should be as moral as an old man's life?
     Nature is fine in love, and where 'tis fine,
     It sends some precious instance of itself
     After the thing it loves.

OPHELIA

     [Sings]
     They bore him barefaced on the bier;
     Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny;
     And in his grave rain'd many a tear:--
     Fare you well, my dove!

LAERTES

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

OPHELIA

     [Sings]
     You must sing a-down a-down,
     An you call him a-down-a.
     O, how the wheel becomes it! It is the false
     steward, that stole his master's daughter.

LAERTES

     This nothing's more than matter.

OPHELIA

     There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray,
     love, remember: and there is pansies. that's for thoughts.

LAERTES

     A document in madness, thoughts and remembrance fitted.

OPHELIA

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

     Sings

     For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.

LAERTES

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

OPHELIA

     [Sings]
     And will he not come again?
     And will he not come again?
     No, no, he is dead:
     Go to thy death-bed:
     He never will come again.

     His beard was as white as snow,
     All flaxen was his poll:
     He is gone, he is gone,
     And we cast away moan:
     God ha' mercy on his soul!

     And of all Christian souls, I pray God. God be wi' ye.

     Exit

LAERTES

     Do you see this, O God?

KING CLAUDIUS

     Laertes, I must commune with your grief,
     Or you deny me right. Go but apart,
     Make choice of whom your wisest friends you will.
     And they shall hear and judge 'twixt you and me:
     If by direct or by collateral hand
     They find us touch'd, we will our kingdom give,
     Our crown, our life, and all that we can ours,
     To you in satisfaction; but if not,
     Be you content to lend your patience to us,
     And we shall jointly labour with your soul
     To give it due content.

LAERTES

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

KING CLAUDIUS

     So you shall;
     And where the offence is let the great axe fall.
     I pray you, go with me.

     Exeunt

Act 4, Scene 6

Another room in the castle.

     Enter HORATIO and a Servant

HORATIO

     What are they that would speak with me?

Servant

     Sailors, sir: they say they have letters for you.

HORATIO

     Let them come in.

     Exit Servant

     I do not know from what part of the world
     I should be greeted, if not from Lord Hamlet.

     Enter Sailors

First Sailor

     God bless you, sir.

HORATIO

     Let him bless thee too.

First Sailor

     He shall, sir, an't please him. There's a letter for
     you, sir; it comes from the ambassador that was
     bound for England; if your name be Horatio, as I am
     let to know it is.

HORATIO

     [Reads] 'Horatio, when thou shalt have overlooked
     this, give these fellows some means to the king:
     they have letters for him. Ere we were two days old
     at sea, a pirate of very warlike appointment gave us
     chase. Finding ourselves too slow of sail, we put on
     a compelled valour, and in the grapple I boarded
     them: on the instant they got clear of our ship; so
     I alone became their prisoner. They have dealt with
     me like thieves of mercy: but they knew what they
     did; I am to do a good turn for them. Let the king
     have the letters I have sent; and repair thou to me
     with as much speed as thou wouldst fly death. I
     have words to speak in thine ear will make thee
     dumb; yet are they much too light for the bore of
     the matter. These good fellows will bring thee
     where I am. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern hold their
     course for England: of them I have much to tell
     thee. Farewell.
     'He that thou knowest thine, HAMLET.'
     Come, I will make you way for these your letters;
     And do't the speedier, that you may direct me
     To him from whom you brought them.

     Exeunt

Act 4, Scene 7

Another room in the castle.

     Enter KING CLAUDIUS and LAERTES

KING CLAUDIUS

     Now must your conscience my acquaintance seal,
     And you must put me in your heart for friend,
     Sith you have heard, and with a knowing ear,
     That he which hath your noble father slain
     Pursued my life.

LAERTES

     It well appears: but tell me
     Why you proceeded not against these feats,
     So crimeful and so capital in nature,
     As by your safety, wisdom, all things else,
     You mainly were stirr'd up.

KING CLAUDIUS

     O, for two special reasons;
     Which may to you, perhaps, seem much unsinew'd,
     But yet to me they are strong. The queen his mother
     Lives almost by his looks; and for myself--
     My virtue or my plague, be it either which--
     She's so conjunctive to my life and soul,
     That, as the star moves not but in his sphere,
     I could not but by her. The other motive,
     Why to a public count I might not go,
     Is the great love the general gender bear him;
     Who, dipping all his faults in their affection,
     Would, like the spring that turneth wood to stone,
     Convert his gyves to graces; so that my arrows,
     Too slightly timber'd for so loud a wind,
     Would have reverted to my bow again,
     And not where I had aim'd them.

LAERTES

     And so have I a noble father lost;
     A sister driven into desperate terms,
     Whose worth, if praises may go back again,
     Stood challenger on mount of all the age
     For her perfections: but my revenge will come.

KING CLAUDIUS

     Break not your sleeps for that: you must not think
     That we are made of stuff so flat and dull
     That we can let our beard be shook with danger
     And think it pastime. You shortly shall hear more:
     I loved your father, and we love ourself;
     And that, I hope, will teach you to imagine--

     Enter a Messenger

     How now! what news?

Messenger

     Letters, my lord, from Hamlet:
     This to your majesty; this to the queen.

KING CLAUDIUS

     From Hamlet! who brought them?

Messenger

     Sailors, my lord, they say; I saw them not:
     They were given me by Claudio; he received them
     Of him that brought them.

KING CLAUDIUS

     Laertes, you shall hear them. Leave us.

     Exit Messenger

     Reads

     'High and mighty, You shall know I am set naked on
     your kingdom. To-morrow shall I beg leave to see
     your kingly eyes: when I shall, first asking your
     pardon thereunto, recount the occasion of my sudden
     and more strange return. 'HAMLET.'
     What should this mean? Are all the rest come back?
     Or is it some abuse, and no such thing?

LAERTES

     Know you the hand?

KING CLAUDIUS

     'Tis Hamlets character. 'Naked!
     And in a postscript here, he says 'alone.'
     Can you advise me?

LAERTES

     I'm lost in it, my lord. But let him come;
     It warms the very sickness in my heart,
     That I shall live and tell him to his teeth,
     'Thus didest thou.'

KING CLAUDIUS

     If it be so, Laertes--
     As how should it be so? how otherwise?--
     Will you be ruled by me?

LAERTES

     Ay, my lord;
     So you will not o'errule me to a peace.

KING CLAUDIUS

     To thine own peace. If he be now return'd,
     As checking at his voyage, and that he means
     No more to undertake it, I will work him
     To an exploit, now ripe in my device,
     Under the which he shall not choose but fall:
     And for his death no wind of blame shall breathe,
     But even his mother shall uncharge the practise
     And call it accident.

LAERTES

     My lord, I will be ruled;
     The rather, if you could devise it so
     That I might be the organ.

KING CLAUDIUS

     It falls right.
     You have been talk'd of since your travel much,
     And that in Hamlet's hearing, for a quality
     Wherein, they say, you shine: your sum of parts
     Did not together pluck such envy from him
     As did that one, and that, in my regard,
     Of the unworthiest siege.

LAERTES

     What part is that, my lord?

KING CLAUDIUS

     A very riband in the cap of youth,
     Yet needful too; for youth no less becomes
     The light and careless livery that it wears
     Than settled age his sables and his weeds,
     Importing health and graveness. Two months since,
     Here was a gentleman of Normandy:--
     I've seen myself, and served against, the French,
     And they can well on horseback: but this gallant
     Had witchcraft in't; he grew unto his seat;
     And to such wondrous doing brought his horse,
     As he had been incorpsed and demi-natured
     With the brave beast: so far he topp'd my thought,
     That I, in forgery of shapes and tricks,
     Come short of what he did.

LAERTES

     A Norman was't?

KING CLAUDIUS

     A Norman.

LAERTES

     Upon my life, Lamond.

KING CLAUDIUS

     The very same.

LAERTES

     I know him well: he is the brooch indeed
     And gem of all the nation.

KING CLAUDIUS

     He made confession of you,
     And gave you such a masterly report
     For art and exercise in your defence
     And for your rapier most especially,
     That he cried out, 'twould be a sight indeed,
     If one could match you: the scrimers of their nation,
     He swore, had had neither motion, guard, nor eye,
     If you opposed them. Sir, this report of his
     Did Hamlet so envenom with his envy
     That he could nothing do but wish and beg
     Your sudden coming o'er, to play with him.
     Now, out of this,--

LAERTES

     What out of this, my lord?

KING CLAUDIUS

     Laertes, was your father dear to you?
     Or are you like the painting of a sorrow,
     A face without a heart?

LAERTES

     Why ask you this?

KING CLAUDIUS

     Not that I think you did not love your father;
     But that I know love is begun by time;
     And that I see, in passages of proof,
     Time qualifies the spark and fire of it.
     There lives within the very flame of love
     A kind of wick or snuff that will abate it;
     And nothing is at a like goodness still;
     For goodness, growing to a plurisy,
     Dies in his own too much: that we would do
     We should do when we would; for this 'would' changes
     And hath abatements and delays as many
     As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents;
     And then this 'should' is like a spendthrift sigh,
     That hurts by easing. But, to the quick o' the ulcer:--
     Hamlet comes back: what would you undertake,
     To show yourself your father's son in deed
     More than in words?

LAERTES

     To cut his throat i' the church.

KING CLAUDIUS

     No place, indeed, should murder sanctuarize;
     Revenge should have no bounds. But, good Laertes,
     Will you do this, keep close within your chamber.
     Hamlet return'd shall know you are come home:
     We'll put on those shall praise your excellence
     And set a double varnish on the fame
     The Frenchman gave you, bring you in fine together
     And wager on your heads: he, being remiss,
     Most generous and free from all contriving,
     Will not peruse the foils; so that, with ease,
     Or with a little shuffling, you may choose
     A sword unbated, and in a pass of practise
     Requite him for your father.

LAERTES

     I will do't:
     And, for that purpose, I'll anoint my sword.
     I bought an unction of a mountebank,
     So mortal that, but dip a knife in it,
     Where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare,
     Collected from all simples that have virtue
     Under the moon, can save the thing from death
     That is but scratch'd withal: I'll touch my point
     With this contagion, that, if I gall him slightly,
     It may be death.

KING CLAUDIUS

     Let's further think of this;
     Weigh what convenience both of time and means
     May fit us to our shape: if this should fail,
     And that our drift look through our bad performance,
     'Twere better not assay'd: therefore this project
     Should have a back or second, that might hold,
     If this should blast in proof. Soft! let me see:
     We'll make a solemn wager on your cunnings: I ha't.
     When in your motion you are hot and dry--
     As make your bouts more violent to that end--
     And that he calls for drink, I'll have prepared him
     A chalice for the nonce, whereon but sipping,
     If he by chance escape your venom'd stuck,
     Our purpose may hold there.

     Enter QUEEN GERTRUDE

     How now, sweet queen!

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     One woe doth tread upon another's heel,
     So fast they follow; your sister's drown'd, Laertes.

LAERTES

     Drown'd! O, where?

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     There is a willow grows aslant a brook,
     That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream;
     There with fantastic garlands did she come
     Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples
     That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
     But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them:
     There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds
     Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke;
     When down her weedy trophies and herself
     Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide;
     And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up:
     Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes;
     As one incapable of her own distress,
     Or like a creature native and indued
     Unto that element: but long it could not be
     Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
     Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay
     To muddy death.

LAERTES

     Alas, then, she is drown'd?

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     Drown'd, drown'd.

LAERTES

     Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia,
     And therefore I forbid my tears: but yet
     It is our trick; nature her custom holds,
     Let shame say what it will: when these are gone,
     The woman will be out. Adieu, my lord:
     I have a speech of fire, that fain would blaze,
     But that this folly douts it.

     Exit

KING CLAUDIUS

     Let's follow, Gertrude:
     How much I had to do to calm his rage!
     Now fear I this will give it start again;
     Therefore let's follow.

     Exeunt

Act 5, Scene 1

A churchyard.

     Enter two Clowns, with spades, &c

First Clown

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

Second Clown

     I tell thee she is: and therefore make her grave
     straight: the crowner hath sat on her, and finds it
     Christian burial.

First Clown

     How can that be, unless she drowned herself in her
     own defence?

Second Clown

     Why, 'tis found so.

First Clown

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

Second Clown

     Nay, but hear you, goodman delver,--

First Clown

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

Second Clown

     But is this law?

First Clown

     Ay, marry, is't; crowner's quest law.

Second Clown

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

First Clown

     Why, there thou say'st: and the more pity that
     great folk should have countenance in this world to
     drown or hang themselves, more than their even
     Christian. Come, my spade. There is no ancient
     gentleman but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers:
     they hold up Adam's profession.

Second Clown

     Was he a gentleman?

First Clown

     He was the first that ever bore arms.

Second Clown

     Why, he had none.

First Clown

     What, art a heathen? How dost thou understand the
     Scripture? The Scripture says 'Adam digged:'
     could he dig without arms? I'll put another
     question to thee: if thou answerest me not to the
     purpose, confess thyself--

Second Clown

     Go to.

First Clown

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

Second Clown

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

First Clown

     I like thy wit well, in good faith: the gallows
     does well; but how does it well? it does well to
     those that do in: now thou dost ill to say the
     gallows is built stronger than the church: argal,
     the gallows may do well to thee. To't again, come.

Second Clown

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

First Clown

     Ay, tell me that, and unyoke.

Second Clown

     Marry, now I can tell.

First Clown

     To't.

Second Clown

     Mass, I cannot tell.

     Enter HAMLET and HORATIO, at a distance

First Clown

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

     Exit Second Clown

     He digs and sings

     In youth, when I did love, did love,
     Methought it was very sweet,
     To contract, O, the time, for, ah, my behove,
     O, methought, there was nothing meet.

HAMLET

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

HORATIO

     Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness.

HAMLET

     'Tis e'en so: the hand of little employment hath
     the daintier sense.

First Clown

     [Sings]
     But age, with his stealing steps,
     Hath claw'd me in his clutch,
     And hath shipped me intil the land,
     As if I had never been such.

     Throws up a skull

HAMLET

     That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once:
     how the knave jowls it to the ground, as if it were
     Cain's jaw-bone, that did the first murder! It
     might be the pate of a politician, which this ass
     now o'er-reaches; one that would circumvent God,
     might it not?

HORATIO

     It might, my lord.

HAMLET

     Or of a courtier; which could say 'Good morrow,
     sweet lord! How dost thou, good lord?' This might
     be my lord such-a-one, that praised my lord
     such-a-one's horse, when he meant to beg it; might it not?

HORATIO

     Ay, my lord.

HAMLET

     Why, e'en so: and now my Lady Worm's; chapless, and
     knocked about the mazzard with a sexton's spade:
     here's fine revolution, an we had the trick to
     see't. Did these bones cost no more the breeding,
     but to play at loggats with 'em? mine ache to think on't.

     A pick-axe, and a spade, a spade,
     For and a shrouding sheet:
     O, a pit of clay for to be made
     For such a guest is meet.

     Throws up another skull

HAMLET

     There's another: why may not that be the skull of a
     lawyer? Where be his quiddities now, his quillets,
     his cases, his tenures, and his tricks? why does he
     suffer this rude knave now to knock him about the
     sconce with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of
     his action of battery? Hum! This fellow might be
     in's time a great buyer of land, with his statutes,
     his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers,
     his recoveries: is this the fine of his fines, and
     the recovery of his recoveries, to have his fine
     pate full of fine dirt? will his vouchers vouch him
     no more of his purchases, and double ones too, than
     the length and breadth of a pair of indentures? The
     very conveyances of his lands will hardly lie in
     this box; and must the inheritor himself have no more, ha?

HORATIO

     Not a jot more, my lord.

HAMLET

     Is not parchment made of sheepskins?

HORATIO

     Ay, my lord, and of calf-skins too.

HAMLET

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

First Clown

     Mine, sir.

     Sings

     O, a pit of clay for to be made
     For such a guest is meet.

HAMLET

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

First Clown

     You lie out on't, sir, and therefore it is not
     yours: for my part, I do not lie in't, and yet it is mine.

HAMLET

     'Thou dost lie in't, to be in't and say it is thine:
     'tis for the dead, not for the quick; therefore thou liest.

First Clown

     'Tis a quick lie, sir; 'twill away gain, from me to
     you.

HAMLET

     What man dost thou dig it for?

First Clown

     For no man, sir.

HAMLET

     What woman, then?

First Clown

     For none, neither.

HAMLET

     Who is to be buried in't?

First Clown

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

HAMLET

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

First Clown

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

HAMLET

     How long is that since?

First Clown

     Cannot you tell that? every fool can tell that: it
     was the very day that young Hamlet was born; he that
     is mad, and sent into England.

HAMLET

     Ay, marry, why was he sent into England?

First Clown

     Why, because he was mad: he shall recover his wits
     there; or, if he do not, it's no great matter there.

HAMLET

     Why?

First Clown

     'Twill, a not be seen in him there; there the men
     are as mad as he.

HAMLET

     How came he mad?

First Clown

     Very strangely, they say.

HAMLET

     How strangely?

First Clown

     Faith, e'en with losing his wits.

HAMLET

     Upon what ground?

First Clown

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

HAMLET

     How long will a man lie i' the earth ere he rot?

First Clown

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

HAMLET

     Why he more than another?

First Clown

     Why, sir, his hide is so tanned with his trade, that
     he will keep out water a great while; and your water
     is a sore decayer of your whoreson dead body.
     Here's a skull now; this skull has lain in the earth
     three and twenty years.

HAMLET

     Whose was it?

First Clown

     A whoreson mad fellow's it was: whose do you think it was?

HAMLET

     Nay, I know not.

First Clown

     A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! a' poured a
     flagon of Rhenish on my head once. This same skull,
     sir, was Yorick's skull, the king's jester.

HAMLET

     This?

First Clown

     E'en that.

HAMLET

     Let me see.

     Takes the skull

     Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow
     of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath
     borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how
     abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rims at
     it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know
     not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your
     gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment,
     that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one
     now, to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen?
     Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let
     her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must
     come; make her laugh at that. Prithee, Horatio, tell
     me one thing.

HORATIO

     What's that, my lord?

HAMLET

     Dost thou think Alexander looked o' this fashion i'
     the earth?

HORATIO

     E'en so.

HAMLET

     And smelt so? pah!

     Puts down the skull

HORATIO

     E'en so, my lord.

HAMLET

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

HORATIO

     'Twere to consider too curiously, to consider so.

HAMLET

     No, faith, not a jot; but to follow him thither with
     modesty enough, and likelihood to lead it: as
     thus: Alexander died, Alexander was buried,
     Alexander returneth into dust; the dust is earth; of
     earth we make loam; and why of that loam, whereto he
     was converted, might they not stop a beer-barrel?
     Imperious Caesar, dead and turn'd to clay,
     Might stop a hole to keep the wind away:
     O, that that earth, which kept the world in awe,
     Should patch a wall to expel the winter flaw!
     But soft! but soft! aside: here comes the king.

     Enter Priest, &c. in procession; the Corpse of OPHELIA, LAERTES
     and Mourners following; KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, their
     trains, &c

     The queen, the courtiers: who is this they follow?
     And with such maimed rites? This doth betoken
     The corse they follow did with desperate hand
     Fordo its own life: 'twas of some estate.
     Couch we awhile, and mark.

     Retiring with HORATIO

LAERTES

     What ceremony else?

HAMLET

     That is Laertes,
     A very noble youth: mark.

LAERTES

     What ceremony else?

First Priest

     Her obsequies have been as far enlarged
     As we have warrantise: her death was doubtful;
     And, but that great command o'ersways the order,
     She should in ground unsanctified have lodged
     Till the last trumpet: for charitable prayers,
     Shards, flints and pebbles should be thrown on her;
     Yet here she is allow'd her virgin crants,
     Her maiden strewments and the bringing home
     Of bell and burial.

LAERTES

     Must there no more be done?

First Priest

     No more be done:
     We should profane the service of the dead
     To sing a requiem and such rest to her
     As to peace-parted souls.

LAERTES

     Lay her i' the earth:
     And from her fair and unpolluted flesh
     May violets spring! I tell thee, churlish priest,
     A ministering angel shall my sister be,
     When thou liest howling.

HAMLET

     What, the fair Ophelia!

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     Sweets to the sweet: farewell!

     Scattering flowers

     I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet's wife;
     I thought thy bride-bed to have deck'd, sweet maid,
     And not have strew'd thy grave.

LAERTES

     O, treble woe
     Fall ten times treble on that cursed head,
     Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense
     Deprived thee of! Hold off the earth awhile,
     Till I have caught her once more in mine arms:

     Leaps into the grave

     Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead,
     Till of this flat a mountain you have made,
     To o'ertop old Pelion, or the skyish head
     Of blue Olympus.

HAMLET

     [Advancing] What is he whose grief
     Bears such an emphasis? whose phrase of sorrow
     Conjures the wandering stars, and makes them stand
     Like wonder-wounded hearers? This is I,
     Hamlet the Dane.

     Leaps into the grave

LAERTES

     The devil take thy soul!

     Grappling with him

HAMLET

     Thou pray'st not well.
     I prithee, take thy fingers from my throat;
     For, though I am not splenitive and rash,
     Yet have I something in me dangerous,
     Which let thy wiseness fear: hold off thy hand.

KING CLAUDIUS

     Pluck them asunder.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     Hamlet, Hamlet!

All

     Gentlemen,--

HORATIO

     Good my lord, be quiet.

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

HAMLET

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

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     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 CLAUDIUS

     O, he is mad, Laertes.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     For love of God, forbear him.

HAMLET

     'Swounds, show me what thou'lt do:
     Woo't weep? woo't fight? woo't fast? woo't tear thyself?
     Woo't drink up eisel? eat a crocodile?
     I'll do't. Dost thou come here to whine?
     To outface me with leaping in her grave?
     Be buried quick with her, and so will I:
     And, if thou prate of mountains, let them throw
     Millions of acres on us, till our ground,
     Singeing his pate against the burning zone,
     Make Ossa like a wart! Nay, an thou'lt mouth,
     I'll rant as well as thou.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     This is mere madness:
     And thus awhile the fit will work on him;
     Anon, as patient as the female dove,
     When that her golden couplets are disclosed,
     His silence will sit drooping.

HAMLET

     Hear you, sir;
     What is the reason that you use me thus?
     I loved you ever: but it is no matter;
     Let Hercules himself do what he may,
     The cat will mew and dog will have his day.

     Exit

KING CLAUDIUS

     I pray you, good Horatio, wait upon him.

     Exit HORATIO

     To LAERTES

     Strengthen your patience in our last night's speech;
     We'll put the matter to the present push.
     Good Gertrude, set some watch over your son.
     This grave shall have a living monument:
     An hour of quiet shortly shall we see;
     Till then, in patience our proceeding be.

     Exeunt

Act 5, Scene 2

A hall in the castle.

     Enter HAMLET and HORATIO

HAMLET

     So much for this, sir: now shall you see the other;
     You do remember all the circumstance?

HORATIO

     Remember it, my lord?

HAMLET

     Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting,
     That would not let me sleep: methought I lay
     Worse than the mutines in the bilboes. Rashly,
     And praised be rashness for it, let us know,
     Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well,
     When our deep plots do pall: and that should teach us
     There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
     Rough-hew them how we will,--

HORATIO

     That is most certain.

HAMLET

     Up from my cabin,
     My sea-gown scarf'd about me, in the dark
     Groped I to find out them; had my desire.
     Finger'd their packet, and in fine withdrew
     To mine own room again; making so bold,
     My fears forgetting manners, to unseal
     Their grand commission; where I found, Horatio,--
     O royal knavery!--an exact command,
     Larded with many several sorts of reasons
     Importing Denmark's health and England's too,
     With, ho! such bugs and goblins in my life,
     That, on the supervise, no leisure bated,
     No, not to stay the grinding of the axe,
     My head should be struck off.

HORATIO

     Is't possible?

HAMLET

     Here's the commission: read it at more leisure.
     But wilt thou hear me how I did proceed?

HORATIO

     I beseech you.

HAMLET

     Being thus be-netted round with villanies,--
     Ere I could make a prologue to my brains,
     They had begun the play--I sat me down,
     Devised a new commission, wrote it fair:
     I once did hold it, as our statists do,
     A baseness to write fair and labour'd much
     How to forget that learning, but, sir, now
     It did me yeoman's service: wilt thou know
     The effect of what I wrote?

HORATIO

     Ay, good my lord.

HAMLET

     An earnest conjuration from the king,
     As England was his faithful tributary,
     As love between them like the palm might flourish,
     As peace should stiff her wheaten garland wear
     And stand a comma 'tween their amities,
     And many such-like 'As'es of great charge,
     That, on the view and knowing of these contents,
     Without debatement further, more or less,
     He should the bearers put to sudden death,
     Not shriving-time allow'd.

HORATIO

     How was this seal'd?

HAMLET

     Why, even in that was heaven ordinant.
     I had my father's signet in my purse,
     Which was the model of that Danish seal;
     Folded the writ up in form of the other,
     Subscribed it, gave't the impression, placed it safely,
     The changeling never known. Now, the next day
     Was our sea-fight; and what to this was sequent
     Thou know'st already.

HORATIO

     So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to't.

HAMLET

     Why, man, they did make love to this employment;
     They are not near my conscience; their defeat
     Does by their own insinuation grow:
     'Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes
     Between the pass and fell incensed points
     Of mighty opposites.

HORATIO

     Why, what a king is this!

HAMLET

     Does it not, think'st thee, stand me now upon--
     He that hath kill'd my king and whored my mother,
     Popp'd in between the election and my hopes,
     Thrown out his angle for my proper life,
     And with such cozenage--is't not perfect conscience,
     To quit him with this arm? and is't not to be damn'd,
     To let this canker of our nature come
     In further evil?

HORATIO

     It must be shortly known to him from England
     What is the issue of the business there.

HAMLET

     It will be short: the interim is mine;
     And a man's life's no more than to say 'One.'
     But I am very sorry, good Horatio,
     That to Laertes I forgot myself;
     For, by the image of my cause, I see
     The portraiture of his: I'll court his favours.
     But, sure, the bravery of his grief did put me
     Into a towering passion.

HORATIO

     Peace! who comes here?

     Enter OSRIC

OSRIC

     Your lordship is right welcome back to Denmark.

HAMLET

     I humbly thank you, sir. Dost know this water-fly?

HORATIO

     No, my good lord.

HAMLET

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

OSRIC

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

HAMLET

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

OSRIC

     I thank your lordship, it is very hot.

HAMLET

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

OSRIC

     It is indifferent cold, my lord, indeed.

HAMLET

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

OSRIC

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

HAMLET

     I beseech you, remember--

     HAMLET moves him to put on his hat

OSRIC

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

HAMLET

     Sir, his definement suffers no perdition in you;
     though, I know, to divide him inventorially would
     dizzy the arithmetic of memory, and yet but yaw
     neither, in respect of his quick sail. But, in the
     verity of extolment, I take him to be a soul of
     great article; and his infusion of such dearth and
     rareness, as, to make true diction of him, his
     semblable is his mirror; and who else would trace
     him, his umbrage, nothing more.

OSRIC

     Your lordship speaks most infallibly of him.

HAMLET

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

OSRIC

     Sir?

HORATIO

     Is't not possible to understand in another tongue?
     You will do't, sir, really.

HAMLET

     What imports the nomination of this gentleman?

OSRIC

     Of Laertes?

HORATIO

     His purse is empty already; all's golden words are spent.

HAMLET

     Of him, sir.

OSRIC

     I know you are not ignorant--

HAMLET

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

OSRIC

     You are not ignorant of what excellence Laertes is--

HAMLET

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

OSRIC

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

HAMLET

     What's his weapon?

OSRIC

     Rapier and dagger.

HAMLET

     That's two of his weapons: but, well.

OSRIC

     The king, sir, hath wagered with him six Barbary
     horses: against the which he has imponed, as I take
     it, six French rapiers and poniards, with their
     assigns, as girdle, hangers, and so: three of the
     carriages, in faith, are very dear to fancy, very
     responsive to the hilts, most delicate carriages,
     and of very liberal conceit.

HAMLET

     What call you the carriages?

HORATIO

     I knew you must be edified by the margent ere you had done.

OSRIC

     The carriages, sir, are the hangers.

HAMLET

     The phrase would be more german to the matter, if we
     could carry cannon by our sides: I would it might
     be hangers till then. But, on: six Barbary horses
     against six French swords, their assigns, and three
     liberal-conceited carriages; that's the French bet
     against the Danish. Why is this 'imponed,' as you call it?

OSRIC

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

HAMLET

     How if I answer 'no'?

OSRIC

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

HAMLET

     Sir, I will walk here in the hall: if it please his
     majesty, 'tis the breathing time of day with me; let
     the foils be brought, the gentleman willing, and the
     king hold his purpose, I will win for him an I can;
     if not, I will gain nothing but my shame and the odd hits.

OSRIC

     Shall I re-deliver you e'en so?

HAMLET

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

OSRIC

     I commend my duty to your lordship.

HAMLET

     Yours, yours.

     Exit OSRIC

     He does well to commend it himself; there are no
     tongues else for's turn.

HORATIO

     This lapwing runs away with the shell on his head.

HAMLET

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

     Enter a Lord

Lord

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

HAMLET

     I am constant to my purpose; they follow the king's
     pleasure: if his fitness speaks, mine is ready; now
     or whensoever, provided I be so able as now.

Lord

     The king and queen and all are coming down.

HAMLET

     In happy time.

Lord

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

HAMLET

     She well instructs me.

     Exit Lord

HORATIO

     You will lose this wager, my lord.

HAMLET

     I do not think so: since he went into France, I
     have been in continual practise: I shall win at the
     odds. But thou wouldst not think how ill all's here
     about my heart: but it is no matter.

HORATIO

     Nay, good my lord,--

HAMLET

     It is but foolery; but it is such a kind of
     gain-giving, as would perhaps trouble a woman.

HORATIO

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

HAMLET

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

     Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, LAERTES, Lords, OSRIC, and
     Attendants with foils, &c

KING CLAUDIUS

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

     KING CLAUDIUS puts LAERTES' hand into HAMLET's

HAMLET

     Give me your pardon, sir: I've done you wrong;
     But pardon't, as you are a gentleman.
     This presence knows,
     And you must needs have heard, how I am punish'd
     With sore distraction. What I have done,
     That might your nature, honour and exception
     Roughly awake, I here proclaim was madness.
     Was't Hamlet wrong'd Laertes? Never Hamlet:
     If Hamlet from himself be ta'en away,
     And when he's not himself does wrong Laertes,
     Then Hamlet does it not, Hamlet denies it.
     Who does it, then? His madness: if't be so,
     Hamlet is of the faction that is wrong'd;
     His madness is poor Hamlet's enemy.
     Sir, in this audience,
     Let my disclaiming from a purposed evil
     Free me so far in your most generous thoughts,
     That I have shot mine arrow o'er the house,
     And hurt my brother.

LAERTES

     I am satisfied in nature,
     Whose motive, in this case, should stir me most
     To my revenge: but in my terms of honour
     I stand aloof; and will no reconcilement,
     Till by some elder masters, of known honour,
     I have a voice and precedent of peace,
     To keep my name ungored. But till that time,
     I do receive your offer'd love like love,
     And will not wrong it.

HAMLET

     I embrace it freely;
     And will this brother's wager frankly play.
     Give us the foils. Come on.

LAERTES

     Come, one for me.

HAMLET

     I'll be your foil, Laertes: in mine ignorance
     Your skill shall, like a star i' the darkest night,
     Stick fiery off indeed.

LAERTES

     You mock me, sir.

HAMLET

     No, by this hand.

KING CLAUDIUS

     Give them the foils, young Osric. Cousin Hamlet,
     You know the wager?

HAMLET

     Very well, my lord
     Your grace hath laid the odds o' the weaker side.

KING CLAUDIUS

     I do not fear it; I have seen you both:
     But since he is better'd, we have therefore odds.

LAERTES

     This is too heavy, let me see another.

HAMLET

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

     They prepare to play

OSRIC

     Ay, my good lord.

KING CLAUDIUS

     Set me the stoops of wine upon that table.
     If Hamlet give the first or second hit,
     Or quit in answer of the third exchange,
     Let all the battlements their ordnance fire:
     The king shall drink to Hamlet's better breath;
     And in the cup an union shall he throw,
     Richer than that which four successive kings
     In Denmark's crown have worn. Give me the cups;
     And let the kettle to the trumpet speak,
     The trumpet to the cannoneer without,
     The cannons to the heavens, the heavens to earth,
     'Now the king dunks to Hamlet.' Come, begin:
     And you, the judges, bear a wary eye.

HAMLET

     Come on, sir.

LAERTES

     Come, my lord.

     They play

HAMLET

     One.

LAERTES

     No.

HAMLET

     Judgment.

OSRIC

     A hit, a very palpable hit.

LAERTES

     Well; again.

KING CLAUDIUS

     Stay; give me drink. Hamlet, this pearl is thine;
     Here's to thy health.

     Trumpets sound, and cannon shot off within

     Give him the cup.

HAMLET

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

     They play

     Another hit; what say you?

LAERTES

     A touch, a touch, I do confess.

KING CLAUDIUS

     Our son shall win.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     He's fat, and scant of breath.
     Here, Hamlet, take my napkin, rub thy brows;
     The queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet.

HAMLET

     Good madam!

KING CLAUDIUS

     Gertrude, do not drink.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

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

KING CLAUDIUS

     [Aside] It is the poison'd cup: it is too late.

HAMLET

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

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     Come, let me wipe thy face.

LAERTES

     My lord, I'll hit him now.

KING CLAUDIUS

     I do not think't.

LAERTES

     [Aside] And yet 'tis almost 'gainst my conscience.

HAMLET

     Come, for the third, Laertes: you but dally;
     I pray you, pass with your best violence;
     I am afeard you make a wanton of me.

LAERTES

     Say you so? come on.

     They play

OSRIC

     Nothing, neither way.

LAERTES

     Have at you now!

     LAERTES wounds HAMLET; then in scuffling, they change rapiers, and
     HAMLET wounds LAERTES

KING CLAUDIUS

     Part them; they are incensed.

HAMLET

     Nay, come, again.

     QUEEN GERTRUDE falls

OSRIC

     Look to the queen there, ho!

HORATIO

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

OSRIC

     How is't, Laertes?

LAERTES

     Why, as a woodcock to mine own springe, Osric;
     I am justly kill'd with mine own treachery.

HAMLET

     How does the queen?

KING CLAUDIUS

     She swounds to see them bleed.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

     No, no, the drink, the drink,--O my dear Hamlet,--
     The drink, the drink! I am poison'd.

     Dies

HAMLET

     O villany! Ho! let the door be lock'd:
     Treachery! Seek it out.

LAERTES

     It is here, Hamlet: Hamlet, thou art slain;
     No medicine in the world can do thee good;
     In thee there is not half an hour of life;
     The treacherous instrument is in thy hand,
     Unbated and envenom'd: the foul practise
     Hath turn'd itself on me lo, here I lie,
     Never to rise again: thy mother's poison'd:
     I can no more: the king, the king's to blame.

HAMLET

     The point!--envenom'd too!
     Then, venom, to thy work.

     Stabs KING CLAUDIUS

All

     Treason! treason!

KING CLAUDIUS

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

HAMLET

     Here, thou incestuous, murderous, damned Dane,
     Drink off this potion. Is thy union here?
     Follow my mother.

     KING CLAUDIUS dies

LAERTES

     He is justly served;
     It is a poison temper'd by himself.
     Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet:
     Mine and my father's death come not upon thee,
     Nor thine on me.

     Dies

HAMLET

     Heaven make thee free of it! I follow thee.
     I am dead, Horatio. Wretched queen, adieu!
     You that look pale and tremble at this chance,
     That are but mutes or audience to this act,
     Had I but time--as this fell sergeant, death,
     Is strict in his arrest--O, I could tell you--
     But let it be. Horatio, I am dead;
     Thou livest; report me and my cause aright
     To the unsatisfied.

HORATIO

     Never believe it:
     I am more an antique Roman than a Dane:
     Here's yet some liquor left.

HAMLET

     As thou'rt a man,
     Give me the cup: let go; by heaven, I'll have't.
     O good Horatio, what a wounded name,
     Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me!
     If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart
     Absent thee from felicity awhile,
     And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,
     To tell my story.

     March afar off, and shot within

     What warlike noise is this?

OSRIC

     Young Fortinbras, with conquest come from Poland,
     To the ambassadors of England gives
     This warlike volley.

HAMLET

     O, I die, Horatio;
     The potent poison quite o'er-crows my spirit:
     I cannot live to hear the news from England;
     But I do prophesy the election lights
     On Fortinbras: he has my dying voice;
     So tell him, with the occurrents, more and less,
     Which have solicited. The rest is silence.

     Dies

HORATIO

     Now cracks a noble heart. Good night sweet prince:
     And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!
     Why does the drum come hither?

     March within

     Enter FORTINBRAS, the English Ambassadors, and others

PRINCE FORTINBRAS

     Where is this sight?

HORATIO

     What is it ye would see?
     If aught of woe or wonder, cease your search.

PRINCE FORTINBRAS

     This quarry cries on havoc. O proud death,
     What feast is toward in thine eternal cell,
     That thou so many princes at a shot
     So bloodily hast struck?

First Ambassador

     The sight is dismal;
     And our affairs from England come too late:
     The ears are senseless that should give us hearing,
     To tell him his commandment is fulfill'd,
     That Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead:
     Where should we have our thanks?

HORATIO

     Not from his mouth,
     Had it the ability of life to thank you:
     He never gave commandment for their death.
     But since, so jump upon this bloody question,
     You from the Polack wars, and you from England,
     Are here arrived give order that these bodies
     High on a stage be placed to the view;
     And let me speak to the yet unknowing world
     How these things came about: so shall you hear
     Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts,
     Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters,
     Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause,
     And, in this upshot, purposes mistook
     Fall'n on the inventors' reads: all this can I
     Truly deliver.

PRINCE FORTINBRAS

     Let us haste to hear it,
     And call the noblest to the audience.
     For me, with sorrow I embrace my fortune:
     I have some rights of memory in this kingdom,
     Which now to claim my vantage doth invite me.

HORATIO

     Of that I shall have also cause to speak,
     And from his mouth whose voice will draw on more;
     But let this same be presently perform'd,
     Even while men's minds are wild; lest more mischance
     On plots and errors, happen.

PRINCE FORTINBRAS

     Let four captains
     Bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to the stage;
     For he was likely, had he been put on,
     To have proved most royally: and, for his passage,
     The soldiers' music and the rites of war
     Speak loudly for him.
     Take up the bodies: such a sight as this
     Becomes the field, but here shows much amiss.
     Go, bid the soldiers shoot.

     A dead march. Exeunt, bearing off the dead bodies; after which a
     peal of ordnance is shot off
