The Tragedy of HamletPrince of DenmarkDramatis Persons
¶CLAUDIUS, King of Denmark. FRANCISCO, a soldier.HAMLET, son to the late, and nephew to REYNALDO, servant to Polonius.the present King. A Priest.POLONIUS, Lord Chamberlain. Players.HORATIO, friend to Hamlet. Two Clowns, grave-diggers.LAERTES, son to Polonius. FORTINBRAS, Prince of Norway.VOLTIMAND, A Captain.CORNELIUS, English Ambassadors.
Rosencrantz,
¶GUILDENSTERN, f courtiers. GERTRUDE, Queen of Denmark, andOSRIC, mother to Hamlet.A Gentleman, OPHELIA, daughter to Polonius.MARCELLUS, j- officers.BERNARDO, Ghost of Hamlet's Father.
¶Lords, Ladies, Officers, Soldiers, Sailors, Messengers, and other Attendants
[scene: Elsinore, Denmark]Act ISCENE I. [Elsinore. A platform before the castle]FRANCISCO [at his post. Enter to him] BERNARDO
Fran. Nay, answer me. Stand, and unfold yourself.
Ber. 'Tis now struck twelve. Get thee to bed, Francisco.
¶Fran. For this relief much thanks. 'Tis bitter cold,And I am sick at heart.[94]Ber. Have you had quiet guard?Fran. Not a mouse stirring.Ber. Well, good-night.If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,The rivals 1 of my watch, bid them make haste.
Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS
¶Fran. I think I hear them. Stand, ho! Who's there?Hor. Friends to this ground.Mar. And liegemen to the DaneFran. Give you good-night.Mar. O, farewell, honest soldier.Who hath reliev'd you ?Fran. Bernardo has my place.Give you good-night.Mar. Holla! Bernardo!Ber. Say,What, is Horatio there ?Hor. A piece of him.Ber. Welcome, Horatio; welcome, good Marcellus.Hor. What, has this thing appear'd again to-night?Ber. I have seen nothing.Mar. Horatio says 'tis but our fantasy,And will not let belief take hold of himTouching this dreaded sight, twice seen of us;Therefore I have entreated him alongWith us to watch the minutes of this night,That if again this apparition come,He may approve our eyes and speak to it.Hor. Tush, tush, 'twill not appear.Ber. Sit down a while,And let us once again assail your ears,That are so fortified against our story,What we two nights have seen.Hor. Well, sit we down,And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.
¶Partners.[95]Ber. Last night of all,When yond same star that's westward from the poleHad made his course to illume that part of heavenWhere now it burns, Marcellus and myself,The bell then beating one,—
¶Enter GhostMar. Peace, break thee off! Look, where it comes again!Ber. In the same figure, like the king that's dead.Mar. Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio.Ber. Looks it not like the King? Mark it, Horatio.Hor. Most like; it harrows me with fear and wonder.Ber. It would be spoke to.Mar. Question it, Horatio.Hor. What art thou that usurp'st this time of night,Together with that fair and warlike formIn which the majesty of buried DenmarkDid sometimes march? By heaven I charge thee, speak!Mar. It is offended.Ber. See, it stalks away!Hor. Stay! speak, speak! I charge thee, speak! Exit Ghost.Mar. 'Tis gone, and will not answer.Ber. How now, Horatio! you tremble and look pale.Is not this something more than fantasy?What think you on ' t ?Hor. Before my God, I might not this believeWithout the sensible1 and true avouch2Of mine own eyes.Mar. Is it not like the King?Hor. As thou art to thyself.Such was the very armour he had onWhen 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.[96]Mar. Thus twice before, and jump 4 at this dead hour,With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.Hor. In what particular thought to work I know not;But, in the gross and scope 5 of my opinion,This bodes some strange eruption to our state.Mar. Good now, sit down, and tell me, he that knows,Why this same strict and most observant watchSo 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 taskDoes not divide the Sunday from the week.What might be toward, that this sweaty hasteDoth make the night joint-labourer with the day,Who is't that can inform me?Hor. 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,Dar'd 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 landsWhich he stood seiz'd of, 6 to the conqueror;Against the which, a moiety competentWas gaged 7 by our king; which had return'dTo the inheritance of Fortinbras,Had he been vanquisher; as, by the same covenant,And carriage of the article design'd, 8His fell to Hamlet. Now , sir, young Fortinbras,Of unimproved mettle hot and full,Hath in the skirts of Norway here and thereShark'd up 9 a list of landless resolutes,[97]For food and diet, to some enterpriseThat hath a stomach 1 0 in't; which is no other—As it doth well appear unto our state—But to recover of us, by strong handAnd terms compulsative, 1 1 those foresaid landsSo 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 headOf this post-haste and romage 1 2 in the land.[Ber. I think it be no other but e'en so.Well may it sort 1 3 that this portentous figureComes armed through our watch, so like the KingThat was and is the question of these wars.Hor. 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 deadDid squeak and gibber in the Roman streets.
p. 97¶As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,Disasters in the sun; and the moist starUpon whose influence Neptune's empire standsWas sick almost to doomsday with eclipse.And even the like precurse of fierce events,As harbingers 1 4 preceding still the fatesAnd prologue to the omen coming on,Have heaven and earth together demonstratedUnto our climatures 1 5 and countrymen.]
¶Re-enter GhostBut soft, behold! Lo, where it comes again!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 doneThat may to thee do ease and grace to me,[98]Speak to me;If thou art privy to thy country's fate,Which, happily, foreknowing may avoid,O speak!Or if thou hast uphoarded in thy lifeExtorted treasure in the womb of earth,For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death,Speak of it; stay, and speak! (Coc\ crows.)Stop it, Marcellus.Mar. Shall I strike at it with my partisan? 1 6Hor. Do , if it will not stand.Ber. 'Tis here!Hor. 'Tis here!Mar. '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.Ber. It was about to speak, when the cock crew.Hor. And then it started, like a guilty thingUpon a fearful summons. I have heard,The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throatAwake the god of day; and, at his warning,Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,The extravagant 1 7 and erring 1 7 spirit hiesTo his confine; and of the truth hereinThis present object made probation.Mar. It faded on the crowing of the cock.Some say that ever 'gainst that season comesWherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,The bird of dawning singeth all night long;And then, they say, no spirit can walk abroad;The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike, 1 8No fairy takes, 1 9 nor witch hath power to charm,So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.[99]Hor. 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 eastern hill.Break we our watch up; and, by my advice,Let us impart what we have seen to-nightUnto 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?Mar. Let's do't, I pray; and I this morning knowWhere we shall find him most conveniently. Exeunt.
¶Flourish. Enter the KING , QUEEN , HAMLET , POLONIUS, LAERTES,
¶OPHELIA, Lords, and Attendants
¶King. Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's deathThe memory be green, and that it us befittedTo bear our hearts in grief, and our whole kingdomTo be contracted in one brow of woe,Yet so far hath discretion fought with natureThat we with wisest sorrow think on himTogether with remembrance of ourselves.Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen,The imperial jointress of this warlike state,Have we, as 'twere with a defeated1 joy,—With one auspicious and one dropping eye,With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage,In equal scale weighing delight and dole,—Taken to wife; nor have we herein barr'dYour better wisdoms, which have freely goneWith 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 deathOur state to be disjoint and out of frame,[100]Colleagued with the dream of his advantage,He hath not fail'd to pester us with messageImporting the surrender of those landsLost by his father, with all bonds of law,To our most valiant brother. So much for him.
Enter VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS
¶Now for ourself and for this time of meeting,Thus much the business is: we have here writTo Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras,—Who, impotent and bed-rid, scarcely hearsOf this his nephew's purpose,—to suppressHis further gait 2 herein, in that the levies,The lists and full proportions, are all madeOut of his subject; 3 and we here dispatchYou, good Cornelius, and you, Voltimand,For bearers of this greeting to old Norway;Giving to you no further personal powerTo business with the king, more than the scopeOf these delated 4 articles allow. [Giving a paper.Farewell, and let your haste commend your duty.
¶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 lose your voice. What wouldst thou beg, Laertes,That shall not be my offer, not thy asking?The head is not more native to the heart,The hand more instrumental to the mouth,Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father.What wouldst thou have, Laertes ?Laer. Dread my lord,Your leave and favour to return to France;[101]From whence though willingly I came to DenmarkTo show my duty in your coronation,Yet now, I must confess, that duty done,My thoughts and wishes bend again towards FranceAnd bow them to your gracious leave and pardon.King. Have you your father's leave? What says Polonius?Pol. He hath, my lord, [wrung from me my slow leaveBy laboursome petition, and at lastUpon his will I seal'd my hard consent.]I do beseech you, give him leave to go.King. Take thy fair hour, Laertes. Time be thine,And thy best graces spend it at thy will!But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son,—Ham. [Aside.] A little more than kin, and less than kind.King. How is it that the clouds still hang on you ?Ham. Not so, my lord; I am too much i' the sun.Queen. Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off,And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.Do not for ever with thy vailed 5 lidsSeek for thy noble father in the dust.Thou know'st 'tis common; all that lives must die,Passing through nature to eternity.Ham. Ay, madam, it is common.Queen. If it be,Why seems it so particular with thee?Ham. 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 forc'd breath,No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,Nor the dejected haviour 6 of the visage,Together with all forms, moods, shows of grief,That can denote me truly. These indeed seem,For they are actions that a man might play;But I have that within which passeth show,These but the trappings and the suits of woe.[102]King. '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 boundIn filial obligation for some termTo do obsequious sorrow. But to perseverIn obstinate condolement is a courseOf 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 commonAs any the most vulgar thing to sense,Why should we in our peevish oppositionTake it to heart? Fie! 'tis a fault to heaven,A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,To reason most absurd, whose common themeIs 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 earthThis unprevailing woe, and think of usAs of a father; for, let the world take note,You are the most immediate to our throne,And with no less nobility of loveThan that which dearest father bears his son,Do I impart towards you. For your intentIn going back to school in Wittenberg,It is most retrograde1 to our desire;And we beseech you, bend you to remainHere in the cheer and comfort of our eye,Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.
p. 102¶Queen. Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet,I prithee, stay with us; go not to Wittenberg.Ham. I shall in all my best obey you, madam.King. Why, 'tis a loving and a fair reply.Be as ourself in Denmark. Madam, come;[103]This gentle and unforc'd accord of HamletSits 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 8 the heavens shall bruit 9 again,Re-speaking earthly thunder. Come away.Flourish. Exeunt all but HAMLET .Ham. O, that this too too solid flesh would melt,Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!Or that the Everlasting had not fix'dHis canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable,Seems to me all the uses of this world!Fie on't! oh fie, fie! 'Tis an unweeded garden,That grows to seed; things rank and gross in naturePossess it merely. 1 0 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 motherThat he might not beteem 1 1 the winds of heavenVisit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!Must I remember ? Why, she would hang on him,As if increase of appetite had grownBy what it fed on; and yet, within a month,—Let me not think on't!—Frailty, thy name is woman!—A little month, or e'er those shoes were oldWith which she followed my poor father's body,Like Niobe, all tears,—why she, even she—O God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason, 1 2Would have mourn'd longer—married with mine uncle,,My father's brother, but no more like my fatherThan I to Hercules; within a month,Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tearsHad left the flushing 13 of her galled eyes,She married. O, most wicked speed, to post
p. 103¶Carouse. 8 Repo 8 Report noisily. 1 0 Entirely. 1 1 1 1 Allow..Reasoning power. power. 1 3 Redness, or filling full.[104]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
¶Hor. Hail to your lordship!Ham. I am glad to see you well,Horatio!—or I do forget myself.Hor. The same, my lord, and your poor servant ever.Ham. Sir, my good friend; I'll change that name with you.And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio?Marcellus ?Mar. My good lord!Ham. I am very glad to see you. [To BER.] Good even, sir.—But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg?Hor. A truant disposition, good my lord.Ham. I would not hear your enemy say so,Nor shall you do mine ear that violence,To make it truster of your own reportAgainst yourself. I know you are no truant.But what is your affair in Elsinore?We'll teach you to drink deep ere you depart.Hor. My lord, I came to see your father's funeral.Ham. I pray thee, do not mock me, fellow-student.I think it was to see my mother's wedding.Hor. Indeed, my lord, it followed hard upon.Ham. Thrift, thrift, Horatio! The funeral bak'd-meatsDid coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.Would I had met my dearest foe in heavenEre I had ever seen that day, Horatio!My father!—methinks I see my father.Hor. Oh, where, my lord ?Ham. In my mind's eye, Horatio,Hor. I saw him once; he was a goodly king.Ham. He was a man, take him for all in all,I shall not look upon his like again.[105]Hor. My lord, I think I saw him yesternight.Ham. Saw? Who ?Hor. My lord, the King your father.Ham. The King my father!Hor. Season your admiration 1 4 for a whileWith an attent ear, till I may deliver,Upon the witness of these gentlemen,This marvel to you.Ham. For God's love, let me hear.Hor. Two nights together had these gentlemen,Marcellus and Bernardo, on their watch,In the dead waste and middle of the night,Been thus encount'red. A figure like your father,Arm'd at all points exactly, cap-a-pie,Appears before them, and with solemn marchGoes slow and stately by them. Thrice he walk'dBy their oppress'd and fear-surprised eyes,Within his truncheon's length; whilst they, distill'd 1 5Almost to jelly with the act of fear,Stand dumb and speak not to him. This to meIn 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.Ham. But where was this!Mar. My lord, upon the platform where we watch'd.Ham. Did you not speak to it?Hor. My lord, I did;But answer made it none. Yet once methoughtIt lifted up it 1 6 head and did addressItself 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.
¶"Wonder. "Melted. 1 6 Its.[106]Ham. 'Tis very strange.Hor. As I do live, my honour'd lord, 'tis true,And we did think it writ down in our dutyTo let you know of it.Ham. Indeed, indeed, sirs. But this troubles me.Hold you the watch to-night?
¶j - We do, my lord.
¶Ham. Arm'd, say you?
¶Mar. Arm'd, my lord.
¶Ham. From top to toe?
¶j " My lord, from head to foot.
¶Ham. Then saw you not his face?Hor. O, yes, my lord; he wore his beaver up.Ham. What, look'd he frowningly?Hor. A countenance moreIn sorrow than in anger.Ham. . Pale, or red?Hor. Nay, very pale.Ham. And fix'd his eyes upon you?Hor. Most constantly.Ham. I would I had been there.Hor. It would have much amaz'd you.Ham. Very like, very like. Stay'd it long?Hor. While one with moderate haste might tell a hundred.
¶BeT } L on Ser > l on § e r -
¶Hor. Not when I saw't.Ham. His beard was grizzly? No ?Hor. It was, as I have seen it in his life,A sable silver'd.Ham. I will watch to-night;Perchance 'twill walk again.Hor. I warrant you it will.[107]Ham. If it assume my noble father's person,I'll speak to it, though hell itself should gapeAnd bid me hold my peace. I pray you all,If you have hitherto conceal'd this sight,Let it be tenable 1 7 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 ye well.Upon the platform 'twixt eleven and twelve,I'll visit you.All. Our duty to your honour.Ham. Your love, 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.
¶SCENE III. [A room in Polonius's house]
¶Enter LAERTES and OPHELIA
¶Laer. My necessaries are embark'd, farewell;And, sister, as the winds give benefitAnd convoy is assistant, do not sleep,But let me hear from you.Oph. Do you doubt that?Laer. For Hamlet and the trifling of his favours,Hold it a fashion and a toy in blood,A violet in the youth of primy 1 nature,Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting,The [perfume and] suppliance 2 of a minute;No more.Oph. No more but so ?Laer. Think it no more:For nature crescent does not grow alone[108]In thews 3 and bulk, but, as this temple waxes,The inward service of the mind and soulGrows wide withal. Perhaps he loves you now,And now no soil nor cautel 4 doth besmirchThe 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 dependsThe sanity and health of the whole state;And therefore must his choice be circumscrib'dUnto the voice and yielding 5 of that bodyWhereof he is the head. Then, if he says he loves you,It fits your wisdom so far to believe itAs he in his particular act and placeMay give his saying deed; which is no furtherThan the main voice of Denmark goes withal.Then weigh what loss your honour may sustainIf with too credent 6 ear you list his songs,Or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure openTo his unmast'red 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 7 galls the infants of the springToo oft before the buttons 8 be disclos'd,And in the morn and liquid dew of youthContagious blastments are most imminent.Be wary then, best safety lies in fear;Youth to itself rebels, though none else near.Oph. 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,[109]Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven,Whilst, like a puff'd and reckless libertine,Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,And recks not his own rede. 9Laer. O, fear me not.
p. 109¶Enter POLONIUSI stay too long: but here my father comes.A double blessing is a double grace;Occasion smiles upon a second leave.Pol. 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 you!And these few precepts in thy memorySee thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,Nor any unproportion'd thought his act.Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;But do not dull thy palm with entertainmentOf each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade. BewareOf entrance to a quarrel; but being in,Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee.Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice;Take each man's censure, 1 0 but reserve thy judgement.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 stationAre most select and generous in that.Neither a borrower nor a lender be;For loan oft loses both itself and friend,And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. 1 1This above all: to thine own self be true,And it must follow, as the night the day,Thou canst not then be false to any man.[110]Farewell; my blessing season this in thee!Laer. Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord.Pol. The time invites you; go, your servants tend.Laer. Farewell, Ophelia, and remember wellWhat I have said to you.Oph. 'Tis in my memory lock'd,And you yourself shall keep the key of it.Laer. Farewell. Exit.Pol. What is't, Ophelia, he hath said to you?Oph. So please you, something touching the Lord Hamlet.Pol. Marry, well bethought.'Tis told me, he hath very oft of lateGiven private time to you, and you yourselfHave 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 clearlyAs it behoves my daughter and your honour.What is between you? Give me up the truth.Oph. He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders 1 2Of his affection to me.Pol. Affection! pooh! You speak like a green girl,Unsifted in such perilous circumstance.Do you believe his tenders, as you call them?Oph. I do not know, my lord, what I should think.Pol. Marry, I'll teach you: think yourself a babyThat you have ta'en his 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.Oph. My lord, he hath importun'd me with loveIn honourable fashion.Pol. Ay , fashion you may call it. Go to, go to.Oph. And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord,With almost all the holy vows of heaven.Pol. Ay , springes 1 3 to catch woodcocks. I do know,[111]When the blood burns, how prodigal the soulLends the tongue vows. These blazes, daughter,Giving more light than heat, extinct in bothEven in their promise, as it is a-making,You must not take for fire. From this time, daughter,Be somewhat scanter of your maiden presence.Set your entreatments 1 4 at a higher rateThan a command to parley. For Lord Hamlet,Believe so much in him, that he is young,And with a larger tether may he walkThan may be given you. In few, Ophelia,Do not believe his vows; for they are brokers,Not of that dye which their investments 1 5 show,But mere implorators 1 6 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 leisureAs to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet.Look to't, I charge you. Come your ways.Oph. I shall obey, my lord. Exeunt.
Enter HAMLET, HORATIO, and MARCELLUS
¶Ham. The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.Hor. It is a nipping and an eager air.Ham. What hour now?Hor. I think it lacks of twelve.Mar. No , it is struck.Hor. Indeed? I heard it not. Then it draws near the seasonWherein the spirit held his wont to walk.A flourish of trumpets, and two pieces go off [within].What does this mean, my lord?Ham. The King doth wake to-night and takes his rouse,Keeps wassail, and the swaggering up-spring 1 reels;[112]And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down,The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray outThe triumph of his pledge.Hor. Is it a custom ?Ham. Ay , marry, is't,But to my mind, though I am native hereAnd to the manner born, it is a customMore honour'd in the breach than the observance.[This heavy-headed revel east and westMakes us traduc'd and tax'd 2 of other nations.They clepe 3 us drunkards, and with swinish phraseSoil our addition; 4 and indeed it takesFrom 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 5 of nature in them,As, in their birth—wherein they are not guilty,Since nature cannot choose his origin—By their o'ergrowth of some complexion 6Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason,Or by some habit that too much o'er-leavensThe form of plausive 7 manners, that these men,Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect,Being nature's livery, or fortune's star, 8—His virtues else—be they as pure as grace,As infinite as man may undergo—Shall in the general censure 9 take corruptionFrom that particular fault. The dram of eale 1 0Doth all the noble substance often dout 1 1To his own scandal.]
p. 112¶Enter GhostHor. Look, my lord, it comes!Ham. Angels and ministers of grace defend us!Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd,[113]Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,Be thy intents wicked or charitable,Thou corn'st in such a questionable 1 2 shapeThat I will speak to thee. I'll call thee Hamlet,King, father; royal Dane, O, answer me!Let me not burst in ignorance, but tellWhy thy canoniz'd bones, hearsed in death,Have burst their cerements; 1 3 why the sepulchre,Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn'd,Hath op'd his ponderous and marble jaws,To cast thee up again. What may this mean,That thou, dead corse, again in complete steelRevisits thus the glimpses of the moon,Making night hideous, and we fools of natureSo horridly to shake our dispositionWith thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls ?Say, why is this ? Wherefore ? What should we do ?Ghost beckons HAMLET.Hor. It beckons you to go away with it,As if it some impartment did desireTo you alone.Mar. Look, with what courteous actionIt wafts you to a more removed ground.But do not go with it.Hor. No , by no means.Ham. It will not speak; then will I follow it.Hor. Do not, my lord.Ham. Why, what should be the fear?I do not set my life at 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.Hor. What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord,Or to the dreadful summit of the cliffThat beetles o'er his base into the sea,And there assume some other horrible form,[114]Which might deprive your sovereignty of reasonAnd draw you into madness? Think of it.[The very place puts toys of desperation,Without more motive, into every brainThat looks so many fathoms to the seaAnd hears it roar beneath.]Ham. It wafts me still.Go on, I'll follow thee.Mar. You shall not go, my lord.Ham. Hold off your hand.Hor. Be rul'd; you shall not go.Ham. My fate cries out,And makes each petty artery in this bodyAs 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 lets1 4 me!I say, away!—Go on, I'll follow thee. Exeunt Ghost and HAMLET.Hor. He waxes desperate with imagination.Mar. Let's follow. 'Tis not fit thus to obey him.Hor. Have after. To what issue will this come?Mar. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.Hor. Heaven will direct it.Mar. Nay, let's follow him. Exeunt.
¶Ham. Where wilt thou lead me? Speak, I'll go no further.Ghost. Mark me.Ham. I will.Ghost. My hour is almost come,When I to sulphurous and tormenting flamesMust render up myself.Ham. Alas, poor ghost!Ghost. Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing[115]To what I shall unfold.Ham. Speak; I am bound to hear.Ghost. So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear.Ham. What?Ghost. I am thy father's spirit,Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night,And for the day confin'd to fast in fires,Till the foul crimes done in my days of natureAre burnt and purg'd away. But that I am forbidTo tell the secrets of my prison-house,I could a tale unfold whose lightest wordWould harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres,Thy knotty and combined locks to partAnd each particular hair to stand on end,Like quills upon the fretful porpentine. 1But this eternal blazon 2 must not beTo ears of flesh and blood. List, Hamlet, O, list!If thou didst ever thy dear father love—Ham. O God!Ghost. Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.Ham. Murder!Ghost. Murder most foul, as in the best it is,But this most foul, strange, and unnatural.Ham. Haste me to know ' t , that I, with wings as swiftAs meditation or the thoughts of love,May sweep to my revenge.Ghost. I find thee apt;And duller shouldst thou be than the fat weedThat roots itself in ease on Lethe wharf,*Wouldst thou not stir in this. Now , Hamlet, hear.It's given out that, sleeping in mine orchard,A serpent stung me; so the whole ear of DenmarkIs by a forged process 4 of my deathRankly abus'd; 5 but know, thou noble youth,[116]The serpent that did sting thy father's lifeNow wears his crown.Ham. O my prophetic soul!Mine uncle!Ghost. Ay , that incestuous, that adulterate beast,With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts,—O wicked wit and gifts, that have the powerSo to seduce!—won to his shameful lustThe will of my most seeming-virtuous queen.0 Hamlet, what a falling-off was there!From me, whose love was of that dignityThat it went hand in hand even with the vowI made to her in marriage, and to declineUpon a wretch whose natural gifts were poorTo 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 bedAnd prey on garbage.But, soft! methinks I scent the morning's air.Brief let me be. Sleeping within mine orchard,My custom always in the afternoon,Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole,With juice of cursed hebenon 6 in a vial,And in the porches of mine ears did pourThe leperous distilment; whose effectHolds such an enmity with blood of manThat swift as quicksilver it courses throughThe natural gates and alleys of the body,And with a sudden vigour it doth posset 7And curd, like eager 8 droppings into milk,The thin and wholesome blood. So did it mine,And a most instant tetter 9 bark'd about,Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust,All my smooth body.[117]Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother's handOf life, of crown, and queen, at once dispatch'd;Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,
p. 117¶Unhousel'd, 1 0 disappointed, 1 1 unanel'd, 1 2
¶No reckoning made, but sent to my accountWith 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 beA couch for luxury and damned incest.But, howsoever thou pursuest this act,Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contriveAgainst thy mother aught. Leave her to heavenAnd 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. BHam. O all you host of heaven! O earth! What else?And shall I couple hell? O, fie! Hold, my heart,And you, my sinews, grow not instant old,But bear me stiffly up. Remember thee!Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seatIn this distracted globe. Remember thee!Yea, from the table of my memoryI'll wipe away all trivial fond 1 3 records,All saws 1 4 of books, all forms, all pressures past,That youth and observation copied there,And thy commandment all alone shall liveWithin the book and volume of my brain,Unmix'd with baser matter. Yes, yes, by heaven!O most pernicious woman!O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!My tables, my tables,—meet it is I set it down!That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain![118]At least I ' m sure it may be so in Denmark.So, uncle, there you are. Now to my word;It is "Adieu, adieu! remember me."I have sworn't.
p. 118¶Hor j* ^ Within.) My lord, my lord!Mar. [Within.] Lord Hamlet!Hor. [Within.] Heaven secure him!Ham. So be it!Mar. [Within.] Illo, ho, ho, my lord!Ham. Hillo, ho, ho, boy! Come, bird, come.
Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS
¶Mar. How is't, my noble lord ?Hor. What news, my lord?Ham. O, wonderful!Hor. Good my lord, tell it.Ham. No , you'll reveal it.Hor. Not I, my lord, by heaven.Mar. Nor I, my lord.Ham. How say you, then, would heart of man once think it?—But you'll be secret?
¶j - Ay , by heaven, my lord.Ham. There's ne'er a villain dwelling in all Denmark—But he's an arrant knave.Hor. There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the graveTo tell us this.Ham. 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 desires 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.Hor. These are but wild and whirling words, my lord.Ham. I'm sorry they offend you, heartily;[119]Yes, faith, heartily.Hor. There's no offence, my lord.Ham. 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.Hor. What is't, my lord? We will.Ham. Never make known what you have seen to-night.^ ° r ^ j - My lord, we will not.Mar.Ham. Nay, but swear't.Hor. In faith,My lord, not I.Mar. Nor I, my lord, in faith.Ham. Upon my sword.Mar. We have sworn, my lord, already.Ham. Indeed, upon my sword, indeed.Ghost. Swear! Ghost cries under the stage.Ham. Ah , ha, boy! say'st thou so? Art thou there, truepenny?Come on; you hear this fellow in the cellarage.Consent to swear.Hor. Propose the oath, my lord.Ham. Never to speak of this that you have seen.Swear by my sword.Ghost. [Beneath.] Swear.Ham. Hie et ubique? 15 Then we '11 shift our ground.Come thither, 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.Ham. Well said, old mole! Canst work i' the earth so fast?A worthy pioner!1 6 Once more remove, good friends.[120]Hor. O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!Ham. 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 meetTo put an antic disposition on—That you, at such time seeing me, never shall,With arms encumb'red thus, or this headshake,Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase,As "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 noteThat you know aught of me,—this not to do,So grace and mercy at your most need help you,Swear.Ghost. [Beneath.] Swear.Ham. 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 isMay 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 II
¶[SCENE I. A room in Polonius's house]
Enter POLONIUS and REYNALDO
¶Pol. Give him this money and these notes, Reynaldo.Rey. I will, my lord.Pol. You shall do marvellous wisely, good Reynaldo,[121]Before you visit him, to make inquiryOf his behaviour.Rey. My lord, I did intend it.Pol. Marry, well said, very well said. Look you, sir,Inquire me first what Danskers 1 are in Paris,And how, and who, what means, and where they keep,What company, at what expense; and findingBy this encompassment and drift 2 of questionThat they do know my son, come you more nearerThan 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 ?Rey. Ay, very well, my lord.Pol. "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 himWhat forgeries 3 you please; marry, none so rankAs may dishonour him,—take heed of that;But, sir, such wanton, wild, and usual slipsAs are companions noted and most knownTo youth and liberty.Rey. As gaming, my lord ?Pol. Ay , or drinking, fencing, swearing, quarrelling,Drabbing; you may go so far.Rey. My lord, that would dishonour him.Pol. Faith, no, as you may season 4 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 quaindy 5That they may seem the taints of liberty,The flash and outbreak of a fiery mind,A savageness in unreclaimed blood,Of general assault. 6[122]Rey. But, my good lord,—Pol. Wherefore should you do this?Rey. Ay , my lord,I would know that.Pol. Marry, sir, here's my drift,And, I believe, it is a fetch of warrant: 7You 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 8 crimesThe youth you breathe of guilty, be assur'dHe closes with you in this consequence; 9"Good sir," or so, or "friend," or "gentleman,"According to the phrase and the addition 1 0Of man and country.Rey. Very good, my lord.Pol. 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?Rey. At "closes in the consequence," at "friend or so," and "gentleman."Pol. At "closes in the consequence," ay, marry.He closes with you thus: "I know the gentleman.I saw him yesterday, or t' other day,Or then, or then, with such and such; and, as you say,There was he gaming; there o'ertook in ' s rouse; 1 1There 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, 1 2By indirections find directions out.[123]So by my former lecture and advice,Shall you my son. You have me, have you not?Rey. My lord, I have.Pol. God buy you; fare you well.Rey. Good my lord.Pol. Observe his inclination in yourself.Rey. I shall, my lord.Pol. And let him ply his music.Rey. Well, my lord.Pol. Farewell! Exit REYNALDO.
p. 123¶Enter OPHELIAHow now, Ophelia! what's the matter?Oph. Alas, my lord, I have been so affrighted!Pol. With what, in the name of God ?Oph. My lord, as I was sewing in my chamber,Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbrac'd, 1 3No hat upon his head, his stockings foul'd,Ungart'red, and down-gyved 1 4 to his ankle,Pale as his shirt, his knees knocking each other,And with a look so piteous in purportAs if he had been loosed out of hellTo speak of horrors,—he comes before me.Pol. Mad for thy love ?Oph. My lord, I do not know,But truly, I do fear it.Pol. What said he ?Oph. 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 faceAs 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 downHe rais'd a sigh so piteous and profoundThat it did seem to shatter all his bulk[124]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 help,And, to the last, bended their light on me.Pol. [Come,] go with me, I will go seek the King.This is the very ecstasy of love,Whose violent property fordoes itselfAnd leads the will to desperate undertakingsAs oft as any passion under heavenThat does afflict our natures. I am sorry,—What, have you given him any hard words of late?Oph. No, my good lord, but, as you did command,I did repel his letters and deni'dHis access to me.Pol. That hath made him mad.I am sorry that with better heed and judgementI had not quoted1 5 him. I fear'd he did but trifleAnd meant to wreck thee; but beshrew my jealousy!By heaven, it is as proper to our ageTo cast beyond ourselves in bur opinionsAs it is common for the younger sortTo lack discretion. Come, go we to the King.This must be known, which, being kept close, might moveMore grief to hide than hate to utter love.[Come.] Exeunt.
¶Flourish. Enter KING , QUEEN , ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN,
¶with othersKing. Welcome, dear Rosencrantz and Guildenstern!Moreover that we much did long to see you,The need we have to use you did provokeOur hasty sending. Something have you heard[125]Of Hamlet's transformation; so I call it,Since not the exterior nor the inward manResembles that it was. What it should be,More than his father's death, that thus hath put himSo much from the understanding of himself,I cannot dream of. I entreat you both,That, being of so young days brought up with himAnd since so neighbour'd to his youth and humour,That you vouchsafe your rest here in our courtSome little time; so by your companiesTo draw him on to pleasures, and to gatherSo much as from occasions you may glean,[Whether aught, to us unknown, afflicts him thus,]That, open'd, lies within our remedy.Queen. Good gentlemen, he hath much talk'd of you;And sure I am two men there are not livingTo whom he more adheres. If it will please youTo show us so much gentry1 and good willAs to expend your time with us a whileFor the supply and profit of our hope,Your visitation shall receive such thanksAs fits a king's remembrance.Ros. Both your MajestiesMight, by the sovereign power you have of us,Put your dread pleasures more into commandThan to entreaty.Guil. We both obey,And here give up ourselves, in the full bentTo lay our services freely at your feet,To be commanded.King. Thanks, Rosencrantz and gentle Guildenstern.Queen. Thanks, Guildenstern and gentle Rosencrantz,And I beseech you instantly to visitMy too much changed son. Go, some of ye,And bring the gentlemen where Hamlet is.[126]Guil. Heavens make our presence and our practicesPleasant and helpful to him!Queen. Amen!
Exeunt [ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, and
¶some Attendants].
¶Enter POLONIUSPol. The ambassadors from Norway, my good lord,Are joyfully return'd.King. Thou still hast been the father of good news.Pol. Have I, my lord ? Assure you, my good liege,I hold my duty as I hold my soul,Both to my God and to my gracious king.And I do think, or else this brain of mineHunts not the trail of policy so sureAs it hath us'd to do, that I have foundThe very cause of Hamlet's lunacy.King. O , speak of that; that I do long to hear.Pol. Give first admittance to the ambassadors.My news shall be the fruit to that great feast.King. Thyself do grace to them, and bring them in.
[Exit POLONIUS.]
¶He tells me, my sweet queen, that he hath foundThe head and source of all your son's distemper.Queen. I doubt it is no other but the main,His father's death and our o'erhasty marriage.
¶Re-enter POLONIUS, with VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS
¶King. Well, we shall sift him.—Welcome, my good friends!Say, Voltimand, what from our brother Norway?Volt. Most fair return of greetings and desires.Upon our first,1 he sent out to suppressHis nephew's levies, which to him appear'dTo be a preparation 'gainst the Polack,But, better look'd into, he truly foundIt was against your Highness. Whereat grieved,[127]That so his sickness, age, and impotenceWas falsely borne in hand, 3 sends out arrestsOn Fortinbras; which he, in brief, obeys,Receives rebuke from Norway, and in fineMakes vow before his uncle never moreTo 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 passThrough your dominions for his enterprise,On such regards of safety and allowanceAs therein are set down.King. It likes us well;And at our more consider'd time 4 we'll 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.Pol. This business is well ended.My liege, and madam, to expostulateWhat 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 witAnd 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. More matter, with less art.Pol. 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![128]But farewell it, for I will use no art.Mad let us grant him then; and now remainsThat 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. 5I have a daughter—have whilst she is mine—Who , in her duty and obedience, mark,Hath given me this. Now gather, and surmise. [Reads] the letter." 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. Butyou shall hear. Thus:"In her excellent white bosom, these."Queen. Came this from Hamlet to her?Pol. Good madam, stay a while. 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 reckonmy 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 show'd me,And more above, hath his solicitings,As they fell out by time, by means, and place,All given to mine ear.King. But how hath sheReceiv'd his love?Pol. What do you think of me?King. As of a man faithful and honourable.Pol. I would fain prove so. But what might you think,
¶s Consider.[129]When I had seen this hot love on the wing,—As I perceiv'd 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. 6This 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 wail for.King. Do you think 'tis this?Queen. It may be, very likely.Pol. Hath there been such a time—I'd fain know that—That I have positively said, " 'Tis so,"When it prov'd otherwise?King. Not that I know.Pol. Take this from this, if this be otherwise.If circumstances lead me, I will findWhere truth is hid, though it were hid indeedWithin the centre.King. How may we try it further ?Pol. You know, sometimes he walks four hours togetherHere in the lobby.Queen. So he has, indeed.Pol. At such a time I'll loose my daughter to him.Be you and I behind an arras 7 then;
¶6Range of fortune. 'Tapestry.[130]Mark the encounter. If he love her notAnd be not from his reason fallen thereon,Let me be no assistant for a state,But keep a farm and carters.King. We will try it.
¶Enter HAMLET , reading on a boo\Queen. But look where sadly the poor wretch comes reading.Pol. Away, I do beseech you, both away.I'll board 8 him presently.
¶Exeunt KING , QUEEN [and Attendants].
¶O, give me leave,How does my good Lord Hamlet ?Ham. Well, God-a-mercy.Pol. Do you know me, my lord?Ham. Excellent well; you are a fishmonger.Pol. Not I, my lord.Ham. Then I would you were so honest a man.Pol. Honest, my lord!Ham. Ay , sir. To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one manpick'd out of ten thousand.Pol. That's very true, my lord.Ham. For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a goodkissing carrion,—Have you a daughter?Pol. I have, my lord.Ham. Let her not walk i' the sun. Conception is a blessing, butnot as your daughter may conceive. Friend, look to't.Pol. [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 fargone, far gone. And truly in my youth I suff'red much extremity forlove; very near this. I'll speak to him again.—What do you read, mylord?Ham. Words, words, words.Pol. What is the matter, my lord?Ham. Between who?
¶SAccost.
p. 131¶Pol. I mean, the matter you read, my lord.
¶Ham. Slanders, sir; for the satirical slave says here that old men have grey beards, that their faces are wrinkled, their eyes purging thick amber or plum-tree gum, and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with weak hams; all which, sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down; for you yourself, sir, should be old as I am, if like a crab you could go backward.
¶Pol. [Aside.] Though this be madness, yet there is method in't—Will you walk out of the air, my lord ?
¶Ham. Into my grave?
¶Pol. 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 deliver'd 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.
¶Ham. You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I will more willingly part withal,—[Aside] except my life, my life.
¶Pol. Fare you well, my lord.
¶Ham. These tedious old fools!
Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN
¶Pol. You go to seek my Lord Hamlet? There he is.Ros. [To POLONIUS.] God save you, sir! [Exit POLONIUS.]Guil. Mine honour'd lord!Ros. My most dear lord!Ham. My excellent good friends! How dost thou, Guildenstern?Oh, Rosencrantz! Good lads, how do ye both?Ros. As the indifferent children of the earth.Guil. Happy, in that we are not over-happy.On Fortune's cap we are not the very button.Ham. Nor the soles of her shoe?Ros. Neither, my lord.Ham. Then you live about her waist, or m the middle of herfavour?
p. 132¶Guil. Faith, her privates we.
¶Ham. In the secret parts of Fortune? Oh, most true; she is a strumpet. What's the news?
¶Ros. None, my lord, but that the world's grown honest.
¶Ham. 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? Guil. Prison, my lord?
¶Ham. Denmark's a prison.
¶Ros. Then is the world one.
¶Ham. A goodly one, in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons, Denmark being one o' the worst.
¶Ros. We think not so, my lord.
¶Ham. 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.
¶Ros. Why, then your ambition makes it one. 'Tis too narrow for your mind.
¶Ham. O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.
¶Guil. Which dreams indeed are ambition, for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.
¶Ham. A dream itself is but a shadow.
¶Ros. Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality that it is but a shadow's shadow.
¶Ham. Then are our beggars bodies, and our monarchs and outstretch'd heroes the beggars' shadows. Shall we to the court? for, by my fay, I cannot reason.
¶We'll wait upon you.
¶Ham. 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?
¶Ros. To visit you, my lord; no other occasion.
¶Ham. Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks, but I thank you; and sure, dear friends, my thanks are too dear a [133]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. Guil. What should we say, my lord?
¶Ham. Why, anything, but to the purpose. You were sent for; and there is a kind of confession in your looks which your modesties have not craft enough to colour. I know the good king and queen have sent for you.
¶Ros. To what end, my lord?
¶Ham. 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!
¶Ros. [Aside to GUIL.] What say you?
¶Ham. [Aside.] Nay, then, I have an eye of you.—If you love me, hold not off.
¶Guil. My lord, we were sent for.
¶Ham. I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation prevent 9 your discovery, 1 0 and your secrecy to the King and Queen moult no feather. I have of late—but wherefore I know not—lost all my mirth, foregone all custom of exercise; 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 1 1 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 1 2 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.
¶Ros. My lord, there was no such stuff in my thoughts.
¶Ham. Why did you laugh then, when I said, "Man delights not me"?
p. 134¶Ros. To think, my lord, if you delight not in man, what lenten entertainment the players shall receive from you. We coted 1 3 them on the way, and hither are they coming to offer you service.
¶Ham. He that plays,the king shall be welcome; his majesty" shall have tribute of me; the adventurous knight 1 4 shall use his foil and target; the lover 1 4 shall not sigh gratis; the humorous man 1 5 shall end his part in peace; the clown shall make those laugh whose lungs are tickle o' the sere 1 6, and the lady shall say her mind freely, or the blank verse shall halt for't. What players are they?
¶Ros. Even those you were wont to take delight in, the tragedians of the city.
¶Ham. How chances it they travel? Their residence, both in reputation and profit, was better both ways.
¶Ros. I think their inhibition 1 7 comes by the means of the late inno
¶vation. 1 8
¶Ham. Do they hold the same estimation they did when I was in the city? Are they so follow'd?
¶Ros. No , indeed, they are not.
¶Ham. How comes it? Do they grow rusty?
¶Ros. Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace; but there is, sir, an aery of children, little eyases, 1 9 that cry out on the top of question, and are most tyrannically clapp'd for't. These are now the fashion, and so berattle the common stages 2 0—so they call them—that many wearing rapiers are afraid of goose-quills 2 1 and dare scarce come thither.
¶Ham. What, are they children? Who maintains 'em? How are they escoted? 2 2 Will they pursue the quality 2 3 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? 2 4
¶Ros. Faith, there has been much to do on both sides, and the nation holds it no sin to tarre 2 5 them to controversy. There was for [135]a while no money bid for argument unless the poet and the player went to cuffs in the question.
¶Guil. O, there has been much throwing about of brains.
¶Ham. Do the boys carry it away? 2 6
¶Ros. Ay, that they do, my lord; Hercules and his load too. 2 7
¶Ham. It is not 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 apiece for his picture in little. ['Sblood,] there is something in this more than natural, if philosophy could find it out. Flourish for the Players. Guil. There are the players.
¶Ham. Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore. Your hands, come. The appurtenance of welcome is fashion and ceremony. Let me comply with you in the garb, 2 8 lest my extent 2 9 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 deceiv'd.
¶Guil. In what, my dear lord?
¶Ham. I am but mad north-north-west. 3 0 When the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw. 3 1
¶Enter POLONIUS
¶Pol. Well be with you, gentlemen!
¶Ham. [Aside to them.} Hark you, Guildenstern, and you too, at each ear a hearer: that great baby you see there is not yet out of his swathing-clouts.
¶Ros. Happily he is the second time come to them, for they say an old man is twice a child.
¶Ham. I will prophesy he comes to tell me of the players; mark it. [Aloud.] You say right, sir; for o' Monday morning 'twas so indeed.
¶Pol. My lord, I have news to tell you.
¶Ham. My lord, I have news to tell you. When Roscius was an actor in Rome,-—
p. 136¶Pol. The actors are come hither, my lord.Ham. Buzz, buzz!Pol. Upon mine honour,—Ham. "Then came each actor on his ass,"—Pol. 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 thelaw of writ and the liberty, 3 2 these are the only men.Ham. O Jephthah, judge of Israel, what a treasure hadst thou!Pol. What a treasure had he, my lord ?Ham. Why,"One fair daughter, and no more,The which he loved passing well."Pol. [Aside.] Still on my daughter.Ham. Am I not i' the right, old Jephthah?Pol. If you call me Jephthah, my lord, I have a daughter that Ilove passing well.Ham. Nay, that follows not.Pol. What follows, then, my lord?Ham. 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 3 3 will show you more, for lookwhere my abridgements 3 4 come.
¶Enter four or five PlayersYou're welcome, masters, welcome all. I am glad to see thee well.Welcome, good friends. O, my old friend! Thy face is valanc'd 3 5since I saw thee last; corn'st thou to beard me in Denmark? What,my young lady and mistress! By 'r lady, your ladyship is nearerheaven than when I saw you last, by the altitude of a chopine. 3 6Pray God, your voice, like a piece of uncurrent gold, be not crack'd
p. 137¶within the ring. 3 7 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.
¶/. Play. What speech, my lord?
¶Ham. 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, pleas'd not the million; 'twas caviare to the general; 3 8 but it was—as I receiv'd it, and others, whose judgement in such matters cried in the top of mine 3 9—an excellent play, well digested in the scenes, set down with as much modesty as cunning. I remember, one said there were no sallets 4 0 in the lines to make the matter savoury, nor no matter in the phrase that might indict the author of affectation; but call'd it an honest method, [as wholesome as sweet, and by very much more handsome than fine.] One speech in it I chiefly lov'd; 'twas ^Eneas' 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/ 1 horribly trick'd 4 2
¶With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons,
¶Bak'd and impasted with the parching streets
¶That lend a tyrannous and damned light
¶To their vile murders. 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.]
p. 138¶Pol. 'Fore God, my lord, well spoken, with good accent and gooddiscretion.i. Play. "Anon he finds himStriking too short at Greeks. His antique sword,Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls,Repugnant to command. Unequal match,Pyrrhus at Priam drives, in rage strikes wide.But with the whiff and wind of his fell swordThe unnerved father falls. Then senseless Ilium,Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming topStoops to his base, and with a hideous crashTakes prisoner Pyrrhus' ear; for, lo! his sword,Which was declining on the milky headOf reverend Priam, seem'd i' the air to stick.So, as a painted tyrant, Pyrrhus stoodAnd 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 4 3 stand still,The bold winds speechless and the orb belowAs hush as death, anon the dreadful thunderDoth rend the region; 4 4 so, after Pyrrhus' pause,Aroused vengeance sets him new a-work;And never did the Cyclops' hammers fallOn Mars his armour forg'd for proof eterneWith less remorse than Pyrrhus' bleeding swordNow 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 heavenAs low as to the fiends!"Pol. This is too long.Ham. It shall to the barber's, with your beard. Prithee, say on;he's for a jig 4 5 or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps. Say on; come toHecuba.
¶Vapory clouds. "Sky, air. 4 5 Merry ballad.[139]/. Play. "But who, O, who had seen the mobled queen"—Ham. "The mobled 4 6 queen?"Pol. That's good; "mobled queen" is good./. Play. "Run barefoot up and down, threat'ning the flameWith bisson 4 7 rheum, a clout about that headWhere late the diadem stood, and for a robe,About her lank and all o'er-teemed 4 8 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 pronounc'd.But if the gods themselves did see her then,When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sportIn 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 4 9 the burning eyes of heaven,And passion in the gods."Pol. Look, whe'er he has not turn'd his colour and has tears in ' seyes. Pray you, no more.Ham. 'Tis well; I '11 have thee speak out the rest soon. Good mylord, will you see the players well bestow'd? 5 0 Do ye hear? Letthem be well us'd, for they are the abstracts and brief chronicles ofthe time; after your death you were better have a bad epitaph thantheir ill report while you live.Pol. My lord, I will use them according to their desert.Ham. God's bodykins, man, better. Use every man after hisdesert, and who should scape whipping? Use them after your ownhonour and dignity. The less they deserve, the more merit is inyour bounty. Take them in.Pol. Come, sirs. [Exit.Ham. Follow him, friends; we'll hear a play to-morrow. [Exeuntall the Players but the First.] Dost thou hear me, old friend? Canyou play "The Murder of Gonzago"?/. Play. Ay, my lord.Ham. We'll ha't to-morrow night. You could, for a need, study[140]a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines, which I would set downand insert in't, could ye not?/. Play. Ay, my lord.Ham. Very well. Follow that lord,—and look you mock him not.[Exit First Player.] My good friends, I'll leave you till night. Youare welcome to Elsinore.Ros. Good my lord! Exeunt [ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.]Ham. Ay , so, God buy ye.—Now I am alone.O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!Is it not monstrous that this player here,But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,Could force his soul so to his own conceitThat from her working all his visage wann'd,Tears in his eyes, distraction in ' s aspect,A broken voice, and his whole function suitingWith 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 passionThat I have? He would drown the stage with tearsAnd cleave the general ear with horrid speech,Make mad the guilty and appall the free, 5 1Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeedThe very faculties of eyes and ears.Yet I,A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peakLike John-a-dreams, unpregnant of 5 2 my cause,And can say nothing; no, not for a king,Upon whose property and most dear lifeA damn'd defeat 5 3 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 throatAs deep as to the lungs, who does me this?Ha![141]['Swounds,] I should take it; for it cannot beBut I am pigeon-liver'd and lack gallTo make oppression bitter, or ere thisI should have fatted all the region 5 4 kitesWith this slave's offal. Bloody, bawdy villain!Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless 5 5 villain!O, vengeance!Why, what an ass am I! Sure, this is most brave,That I, the son of a dear father murdered,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 heardThat guilty creatures sitting at a playHave by the very cunning of the sceneBeen struck so to the soul that presently 5 8They have proclaim'd their malefactions;For murder, though it have no tongue, will speakWith most miraculous organ. I'll have these playersPlay something like the murder of my fatherBefore mine uncle. I'll observe his looks;I'll tent 5 7 him to the quick. If he but blench,I know my course. The spirit that I have seenMay be the devil; and the devil hath powerTo assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhapsOut of my weakness and my melancholy,As he is very potent with such spirits,Abuses me to damn me. I'll have groundsMore relative 5 8 than this. The play's the thingWherein I'll catch the conscience of the King. Exit.
[ Act III]
¶[SCENE I. A room in the castle]
¶Enter KING , QUEEN , POLONIUS, OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ, and
Guildenstern
¶King. And can you, by no drift of circumstance, 1Get from him why he puts on this confusion,Grating so harshly all his days of quietWith turbulent and dangerous lunacy?Ros. He does confess he feels himself distracted;But from what cause he will by no means speak.Guil. Nor do we find him forward to be sounded,But, with a crafty madness, keeps aloofWhen we would bring him on to some confessionOf his true state.Queen. Did he receive you well?Ros. Most like a gentleman.Guil. But with much forcing of his disposition.Ros. Niggard of question; but, of our demands,Most free in his reply.Queen. Did you assay himTo any pastime?Ros. Madam, it so fell out, that certain playersWe o'er-raught 2 on the way; of these we told him,And there did seem in him a kind of joyTo hear of it. They are about the court,And, as I think, they have already orderThis night to play before him.Pol. 'Tis most true.And he beseech'd me to entreat your MajestiesTo hear and see the matter.King. With all my heart; and it doth much content meTo hear him so inclin'd.Good gentlemen, give him a further edge,And drive his purpose on to these delights.
p. 143¶Ros. We shall, my lord.
Exeunt [ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.]
¶King. Sweet Gertrude, leave us too,For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither,That he, as 'twere by accident, may hereAffront 3 Ophelia.Her father and myself, lawful espials, 4Will so bestow 5 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 noThat thus he suffers for.Queen. I shall obey you.And for your part, Ophelia, I do wishThat your good beauties be the happy causeOf Hamlet's wildness. So shall I hope your virtuesWill bring him to his wonted way again,To both your honours.Oph. Madam, I wish it may. [Exit QUEEN.]Pol. Ophelia, walk you here. Gracious, so please ye,We will bestow ourselves. [To OPHELIA.] Read on this book,That show of such an exercise may colourYour loneliness. We are oft to blame in this,—'Tis too much prov'd—that with devotion's visageAnd pious action we do sugar o'erThe devil himself.King. O, 'tis true![Aside.] How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!The harlot's cheek, beautied with plast'ring art,Is not more ugly to 6 the thing that helps itThan is my deed to my most painted word.O heavy burden!Pol. I hear him coming. Let's withdraw, my lord.
¶Exeunt [ KING and POLONIUS.] ' Encounter. 4 Spies. 5 Place. 6 Compared to.
p. 144¶Enter HAMLETHam. To be, or not to be: that is the question.Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to sufferThe 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 endThe heart-ache and the thousand natural shocksThat flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummationDevoutly to be wish'd. To die; to sleep;—To sleep? Perchance to dream! Ay , there's the rub; 7For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,When we have shufH'd off this mortal coil, 8Must give us pause. There's the respectThat 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 dispriz'd 9 love, the law's delay,The insolence of office, and the spurnsThat patient merit of the unworthy takes,When he himself might his quietus 1 0 makeWith a bare bodkin? 1 1 Who would fardels 1 2 bear,To grunt and sweat under a weary life,But that the dread of something after death,The undiscovered country from whose bourn"No traveller returns, puzzles the willAnd makes us rather bear those ills we haveThan fly to others that we know not of?Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;And thus the native hue of resolutionIs sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, 1 4And enterprises of great pith and momentWith this regard their currents turn awry,And lose the name of action.—Soft you now![145]The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisonsBe all my sins rememb'red.Oph. Good my Lord,How does your honour for this many a day ?Ham. I humbly thank you, well, well, well.Oph. My lord, I have remembrances of yoursThat I have longed long to re-deliver.I pray you, now receive them.Ham. No , no;I never gave you aught.Oph. My honour'd lord, I know right well you did,And, with them, words of so sweet breath compos'dAs made the things more rich. Their perfume lost,Take these again; for to the noble mindRich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.There, my lord.Ham. Ha ha! are you honest? 1 5Oph. My lord!Ham. Are you fair?Oph. What means your lordship?Ham. That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admitno discourse to your beauty.Oph. Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce 1 6 than withhonesty ?Ham. Ay , truly; for the power of beauty will sooner transformhonesty from what it is to a bawd than the force of honesty cantranslate beauty into his likeness. This was sometime a paradox,but now the time gives it proof. I did love you once.Oph. Indeed, my lord you made me believe so.Ham. You should not have believ'd me, for virtue cannot soinoculate 1 7 our old stock but we shall relish of it. I loved younot.Oph. I was the more deceived.Ham. Get thee to a nunnery; why wouldst thou be a breeder ofsinners? I am myself indifferent honest, but yet I could accuse meof such things that it were better my mother had not borne me. I
p. 146¶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 heaven and earth? We are arrant knaves all; believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery. Where's your father?
¶Oph. At home, my lord.
¶Ham. Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool nowhere but in ' s own house. Farewell!
¶Oph. O, help him, you sweet heavens!
¶Ham. 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!
¶Oph. O heavenly powers, restore him!
¶Ham. 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.
¶Oph. 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 observ'd 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 1 8 youth
¶Blasted with ecstasy. 1 9 O, woe is me,
¶To have seen what I have seen, see what I see!
¶King. 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 soulO'er which his melancholy sits on brood,And I do doubt the hatch and the disclose 2 0Will be some danger; which for to prevent,I have in quick determinationThus set it down: he shall with speed to EnglandFor the demand of our neglected tribute.Haply the seas and countries differentWith variable objects shall expelThis something-settled matter in his heart,Whereon his brains still beating puts him thusFrom fashion of himself. What think you on't?Pol. It shall do well; but yet do I believeThe origin and commencement of this griefSprung 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 playLet his queen mother all alone entreat himTo show his griefs. Let her be round 2 1 with him,And I'll be plac'd, so please you, in the earOf all their conference. If she find him not,To England send him, or confine him whereYour wisdom best shall think.King. It shall be so.Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go. Exeunt.
¶[SCENE II. A hall in the castle]
¶Enter HAMLET and Players
¶Ham. Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounc'd it to you,trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of your
p. 148¶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 see a robustious 1 periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings 2 who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows and noise. I could have such a fellow whipp'd for o'erdoing Termagant. 3 It out-herods Herod. 4 Pray you, avoid it.
¶1. Play. I warrant your honour.
¶Ham. Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty 5 of nature. For anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age 6 and body of the time his form and pressure. 7 Now this overdone, or come tardy off, 8 though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure 9 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.
¶/. Play. I hope we have reform'd that indifferently with us, sir.
¶Ham. 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! Will the King hear this piece o£ work?Pol. And the Queen too, and that presently.Ham. Bid the players make haste. Exit POLONIUS.Will you two help to hasten them ?
¶Guil } ^ e m ^ ' or<^'
Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.
¶Ham. What ho! Horatio.
¶Enter HORATIOHor. Here, sweet lord, at your service.Ham. Horatio, thou art e'en as just a manAs e'er my conversation cop'd 1 0 withal.Hor. O, my dear lord,—Ham. Nay, do not think I flatter,For what advancement may I hope from theeThat no revenue hast but thy good spiritsTo 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 kneeWhere thrift 1 2 may follow fawning. Dost thou hear?Since my dear soul was mistress of my choiceAnd could of men distinguish, her electionHath seal'd thee for herself; for thou hast beenAs one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing,A man that Fortune's buffets and rewardsHath ta'en with equal thanks; and blest are thoseWhose blood and judgement are so well commingled,That they are not a pipe for Fortune's fingerTo sound what stop she please. Give me that manThat is not passion's slave, and I will wear himIn 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.[150]One scene of it comes near the circumstanceWhich I have told thee of my father's death.I prithee, when thou seest that act a-foot,Even with the very comment of thy soulObserve mine uncle. If his occulted guiltDo not itself unkennel in one speech,It is a damned ghost that we have seen,And my imaginations are as foulAs Vulcan's stithy. 1 3 Give him heedful note;For I mine eyes will rivet to his face,And after we will both our judgements joinTo censure 1 4 of his seeming.Hor. Well, my lord.If he steal aught the whilst this play is playing,And scape detecting, I will pay the theft.
p. 150¶Danish march. A flourish. Enter KING , QUEEN, POLONIUS, OPHELIA,ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, and other Lords attendant, withthe guard carrying torchesHam. They are coming to the play; I must be idle.Get you a place.King. How fares our cousin Hamlet ?Ham. Excellent, i' faith,—of the chameleon's dish. I eat the air,promise-cramm'd. You cannot feed capons so.King. I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet; these words arenot mine.Ham. No , nor mine now. [To POLONIUS.] My lord, you play'donce i' the university, you say?Pol. That I did, my lord, and was accounted a good actor.Ham. And what did you enact?Pol. I did enact Julius Caesar. I was kill'd i' the Capitol; Brutuskill'd me.Ham. It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf there.—Be the players ready ?Ros. Ay, my lord, they stay upon your patience.Queen. Come hither, my good Hamlet, sit by me.
p. 151¶Ham. No, good mother, here's metal more attractive.
¶[Lying down at OPHELIA'S feet.] Pol. [To the King.] O , ho! do you mark that?
¶Ham. Lady, shall I lie in your lap?
¶Oph. No , my lord.
¶Ham. I mean, my head upon your lap?
¶Oph. Ay, my lord.
¶Ham. Do you think I meant country matters?
¶Oph. I think nothing, my lord.
¶Ham. That's a fair thought to lie between maid's legs.
¶Oph. What is, my lord?
¶Ham. Nothing.
¶Oph. You are merry, my lord.
¶Ham. Who, I?
¶Oph. Ay, my lord.
¶Ham. 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's two hours.
¶Oph. Nay, 'tis twice two months, my lord.
¶Ham. So long? Nay then, let the devil wear black, for I'll have a suit of sables.1 5 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 Queen very lovingly, the Queen embracing him. She kneels and makes show of protestation unto him. He takes her up and declines his head upon her nec\; lays him down upon a bank of flowers. She, seeing him asleep, leaves him. Anon comes in a fellow, ta\es 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 woos the Queen with
p. 152¶gifts; she seems loath and unwilling a while, but in the end acceptshis love. Exeunt.Oph. What means this, my lord?Ham. Marry, this is miching mallecho; 1 6 that means mischief.Oph. Belike this show imports the argument of the play ?
¶Enter PROLOGUEHam. We shall know by this fellow. The players cannot keepcounsel, they'll tell all.Oph. Will they tell us what this show meant?Ham. Ay , or any show that you'll show him. Be not you asham'dto show, he'll not shame to tell you what it means.Oph. You are naught, 1 7 you are naught. I'll mark the play.Pro. For us, and for our tragedy,Here stooping to your clemency,We beg your hearing patiently. [Extf.]Ham. Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?Oph. 'Tis brief, my lord.Ham. As woman's love.
¶Enter [two Players,] a King and his QueenP. King. Full thirty times hath Phoebus' cart 1 8 gone roundNeptune's salt wash and Tellus' orbed ground,And thirty dozen moons with borrowed sheenAbout the world have times twelve thirties been,Since love our hearts and Hymen did our handsUnite commutual in most sacred bands.P. Queen. So many journeys may the sun and moonMake 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, 1 9In neither aught, or in extremity.Now, what my love is, proof hath made you know;[153]And as my love is siz'd, my fear is so.[Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear;Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.]P. 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, belov'd; and haply one as kind.For husband shalt thou—P. 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.Ham. [Aside.] Wormwood, wormwood!P. Queen. The instances that second marriage moveAre base respects of thrift, but none of love.A second time I kill my husband dead,When second husband kisses me in bed.P. 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 forgetTo 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 joyTheir own enactures1 0 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 strangeThat 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;[154]The poor advanc'd 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 runThat 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.P. 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 2 1 in prison be my scope!]Each opposite 2 2 that blanks 2 3 the face of joyMeet what I would have well and it destroy!Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife,If, once a widow, ever I be wife!Ham. If she should break it now!P. King. 'Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here a while.My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguileThe tedious day with sleep. Sleeps.P. Queen. Sleep rock thy brain,And never come mischance between us twain! Exit.Ham. Madam, how like you this play?Queen. The lady protests too much, methinks.Ham. O, but she'll keep her word.King. Have you heard the argument ? Is there no offence in't ?Ham. No , no, they do but jest, poison in jest.No offence i' the world.King. What do you call the play ?Ham. The Mouse-trap. Marry, how? Tropically. 2 4 This play isthe 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[155]touches us not. Let the gall'd jade wince, our withers are un-wrung.Enter LUCIANUSThis is one Lucianus, nephew to the king.Oph. You are a good chorus, my lord.Ham. I could interpret between you and your love, 2 5 if I couldsee the puppets dallying. 2 6Oph. You are keen, my lord, you are keen.Ham. It would cost you a groaning to take off my edge.Oph. Still better, and worse.Ham. So you mistake 2 7 your husbands. Begin, murderer; pox,leave thy damnable faces and begin. Come, "the croaking ravendoth bellow for revenge."Luc. 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 propertyOn wholesome life usurp immediately.Pours the poison in [to the sleeper's] ears.Ham. He poisons him i' the garden for's estate. His name's Gon-zago; the story is extant, and writ in choice Italian. You shall seeanon how the murderer gets the love of Gonzago's wife.Oph. The King rises.Ham. What, frighted with false fire? 28Queen. How fares my lord?Pol. Give o'er the play.King. Give me some light. Away !All. Lights, lights, lights!
p. 155¶Exeunt all but HAMLET and HORATIO.
¶Ham. Why, let the strucken deer go weep,The hart ungalled play;For some must watch, while some must sleep,—So runs the world away.[156]Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers 2 9—if the rest of myfortunes turn Turk with me—with two Provincial roses 3 0 on myraz'd 3 1 shoes, get me a fellowship in a cry of players, sir?Hor. Half a share.Ham. A whole one, I.For thou dost know, O Damon dear,This realm dismantled was• Of Jove himself; and now reigns hereA very, very—pajock.Hor. You might have rhym'd.Ham. O good Horatio, I'll take the ghost's word for a thousandpound. Didst perceive?Hor. Very well, my lord.Ham. Upon the talk of the poisoning?Hor. I did very well note him.
Re-enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN
¶Ham. 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!Guil. Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you.Ham. Sir, a whole history.Guil. The King, sir,—Ham. Ay, sir, what of him?Guil. Is in his retirement marvellous distemper'd. 3 2Ham. With drink, sir?Guil. No , my lord, rather with choler. 3 3Ham. Your wisdom should show itself more richer to signify thisto his doctor; for, for me to put him to his purgation would perhapsplunge him into far more choler.Guil. Good my lord, put your discourse into some frame, andstart not so wildly from my affair.Ham. I am tame, sir; pronounce.
p. 157¶Guil. The Queen, your mother, in most great affliction of spirit, hath sent me to you.
¶Ham. You are welcome.
¶Guil. 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.
¶Ham. Sir, I cannot.
¶Guil. What, my lord?
¶Ham. Make you a wholesome answer. My wit ' s diseas'd. But, sir, such answers 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,—
¶Ros. Then thus she says: your behaviour hath struck her into amazement and admiration. 3 4
¶Ham. O wonderful son, that can so astonish a mother! But is there no sequel at the heels of this mother's admiration? [Impart.] Ros. She desires to speak with you in her closet ere you go to bed.
¶Ham. We shall obey, were she ten times our mother. Have you any further trade with us ?
¶Ros. My lord, you once did love me.
¶Ham. So I do still, by these pickers and stealers. 3 5
¶Ros. 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.
¶Ham. Sir, I lack advancement.
¶Ros. How can that be, when you have the voice of the King himself for your succession in Denmark ?
¶Ham. Ay , but "While the grass grows,"— 3 6 the proverb is something musty.
¶Re-enter one with a recorder
¶O, the recorder! Let me see.—To withdraw 3 7 with you:—why do you go about to recover the wind of me, as if you would drive me into a toil ?
¶u Wonder. 3 5 Hands. 3 6 "—the steed starves." 3 7 Talk apart.[158]Guil. O, my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly.Ham. I do not well understand that. Will you play upon thispipe?Guil. My lord, I cannot.Ham. I pray you.Guil. Believe me, I cannot.Ham. I do beseech you.Guil. I know no touch of it, my lord.Ham. 'Tis as easy as lying. Govern these ventages" with yourfinger and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most excellent music. Look you, these are the stops.Guil. But these cannot I command to any utterance of harmony.I have not the skill.Ham. Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make ofme! You would play upon me, you would seem to know my stops,you would pluck out the heart of my mystery, you would sound mefrom my lowest note to the top of my compass; and there is muchmusic, excellent voice, in this little organ, yet cannot you make it[speak. 'Sblood,] do you think that I am easier to be play'd on thana pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret 3 9 me,you cannot play upon me.
¶Enter POLONIUSGod bless you, sir.Pol. My lord, the Queen would speak with you, and presently.Ham. Do you see that cloud that's almost in shape like a camel?Pol. By the mass, and it's like a camel, indeed.Ham. Methinks it is like a weasel.Pol. It is back'd like a weasel.Ham. Or like a whale?Pol. Very like a whale.Ham. Then will I come to my mother by and by. [Aside.]They fool me to the top of my bent.—I will come by and by.Pol. I will say so. Exit.[159]Ham. "By and by" is easily said. Leave me, friends.[Exeunt all but HAMLET . ]'Tis now the very witching time of nightWhen churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes outContagion to this world. Now could I drink hot blood,And do such bitter business as the dayWould quake to look on. Soft! now to my mother,0 heart, lose not thy nature! Let not everThe 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 4 0To give them seals never, my soul, consent! Exit.
Enter KING, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN
¶King. I like him not, nor stands it safe with usTo 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 endureHazard so dangerous as doth hourly growOut of his lunacies.Guil. We will ourselves provide.Most holy and religious fear it isTo keep those many many bodies safeThat live and feed upon your Majesty.Ros. The single and peculiar life is boundWith all the strength and armour of the mindTo keep itself from noyance, 1 but much moreThat spirit upon whose weal depends and restsThe lives of many. The cease of majestyDies not alone, but, like a gulf, 2 doth drawWhat's near it with it. It is a massy wheel,[160]Fixed on the summit of the highest mount,To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser thingsAre mortis'd and adjoin'd; which, when it fallsEach small annexment, petty consequence,Attends the boisterous ruin. Never aloneDid the King sigh, but with a general groan.King. Arm you, I pray you, to this speedy voyage,For we will fetters put upon this fear,Which now goes too free-footed.Ros. \We will haste us.Guil. (
Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.
¶Enter POLONIUSPol. My lord, he's going to his mother's closet.Behind the arras I'll convey myself,To hear the process. I'll warrant she'll tax him home;And, as you said, and wisely was it said,'Tis meet that some more audience than a mother,Since nature makes them partial, should o'erhearThe speech, of vantage.1 Fare you well, my liege.I'll call upon you ere you go to bed,And tell you what I know.King. 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 handWere thicker than itself with brother's blood,Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavensTo wash it white as snow ? Whereto serves mercy[161]But to confront the visage of offence ?And what's in prayer but this twofold 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 prayerCan serve my turn? "Forgive me my foul murder"?That cannot be; since I am still possess'dOf 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?1In the corrupted currents of this worldOffence's gilded hand may shove by justice,And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itselfBuys out the law. But 'tis not so above.There is no shuffling, there the action liesIn 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 cannot repent ?O wretched state! O bosom black as death!O limed soul, that, struggling to be free,Art more engag'd! Help, angels! Make assay!Bow, stubborn knees, and, heart with strings of steel,Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe!All may be well. [Retires and] kjieels.