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ACT I, SCENE I.

Elsinore. A platform before the castle.

FRANCISCO at his post. Enter to him BERNARDO

BERNARDO
001: Who's there?

FRANCISCO
002: Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold yourself.

BERNARDO
003: Long live the king!

FRANCISCO
004: Bernardo?

BERNARDO
005: He.

FRANCISCO
006: You come most carefully upon your hour.

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

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

BERNARDO
010: Have you had quiet guard?

FRANCISCO
011: Not a mouse stirring.

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

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

Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS

HORATIO
016: Friends to this ground.

MARCELLUS
017: And liegemen to the Dane.

FRANCISCO
018: Give you good night.

MARCELLUS
019: O, farewell, honest soldier:
020: Who hath relieved you?

FRANCISCO
021: Bernardo has my place.
022: Give you good night.

Exit

MARCELLUS
023: Holla! Bernardo!

BERNARDO
024: Say,
025: What, is Horatio there?

HORATIO
026: A piece of him.

BERNARDO
027: Welcome, Horatio: welcome, good Marcellus.

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

BERNARDO
029: I have seen nothing.

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

HORATIO
037: Tush, tush, 'twill not appear.

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

HORATIO
042: Well, sit we down,
043: And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.

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

Enter Ghost

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

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

MARCELLUS
051: Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio.

BERNARDO
052: Looks it not like the king? mark it, Horatio.

HORATIO
053: Most like: it harrows me with fear and wonder.

BERNARDO
054: It would be spoke to.

MARCELLUS
055: Question it, Horatio.

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

MARCELLUS
060: It is offended.

BERNARDO
061: See, it stalks away!

HORATIO
062: Stay! speak, speak! I charge thee, speak!

Exit Ghost

MARCELLUS
063: 'Tis gone, and will not answer.

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

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

MARCELLUS
070: Is it not like the king?

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

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

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

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

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

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

HORATIO
125: A mote it is to trouble the mind's eye.
126: In the most high and palmy state of Rome,
127: A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,
128: The graves stood tenantless and the sheeted dead
129: Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets:
130: As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,
131: Disasters in the sun; and the moist star
132: Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands
133: Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse:
134: And even the like precurse of fierce events,
135: As harbingers preceding still the fates
136: And prologue to the omen coming on,
137: Have heaven and earth together demonstrated
138: Unto our climatures and countrymen.--
139: But soft, behold! lo, where it comes again!
[Re-enter Ghost]
140: I'll cross it, though it blast me. Stay, illusion!
141: If thou hast any sound, or use of voice,
142: Speak to me:
143: If there be any good thing to be done,
144: That may to thee do ease and grace to me,
145: Speak to me:
[Cock crows]
146: If thou art privy to thy country's fate,
147: Which, happily, foreknowing may avoid, O, speak!
148: Or if thou hast uphoarded in thy life
149: Extorted treasure in the womb of earth,
150: For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death,
151: Speak of it: stay, and speak! Stop it, Marcellus.

MARCELLUS
152: Shall I strike at it with my partisan?

HORATIO
153: Do, if it will not stand.

BERNARDO
154: 'Tis here!

HORATIO
155: 'Tis here!

MARCELLUS
156: 'Tis gone!
[Exit Ghost]
157: We do it wrong, being so majestical,
158: To offer it the show of violence;
159: For it is, as the air, invulnerable,
160: And our vain blows malicious mockery.

BERNARDO
161: It was about to speak, when the cock crew.

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

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

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

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

Exeunt

ACT I, SCENE II.

A room of state in the castle.

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

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

CORNELIUS, VOLTIMAND
040: In that and all things will we show our duty.

KING CLAUDIUS
041: We doubt it nothing: heartily farewell.
[Exeunt VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS]
042: And now, Laertes, what's the news with you?
043: You told us of some suit; what is't, Laertes?
044: You cannot speak of reason to the Dane,
045: And loose your voice: what wouldst thou beg, Laertes,
046: That shall not be my offer, not thy asking?
047: The head is not more native to the heart,
048: The hand more instrumental to the mouth,
049: Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father.
050: What wouldst thou have, Laertes?

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

KING CLAUDIUS
058: Have you your father's leave? What says Polonius?

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

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

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

KING CLAUDIUS
067: How is it that the clouds still hang on you?

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

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

HAMLET
075: Ay, madam, it is common.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
076: If it be,
077: Why seems it so particular with thee?

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

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

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

HAMLET
122: I shall in all my best obey you, madam.

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

Exeunt all but HAMLET

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

Enter HORATIO, MARCELLUS, and BERNARDO

HORATIO
162: Hail to your lordship!

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

HORATIO
165: The same, my lord, and your poor servant ever.

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

MARCELLUS
168: My good lord--

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

HORATIO
171: A truant disposition, good my lord.

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

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

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

HORATIO
181: Indeed, my lord, it follow'd hard upon.

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

HORATIO
187: Where, my lord?

HAMLET
188: In my mind's eye, Horatio.

HORATIO
189: I saw him once; he was a goodly king.

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

HORATIO
192: My lord, I think I saw him yesternight.

HAMLET
193: Saw? who?

HORATIO
194: My lord, the king your father.

HAMLET
195: The king my father!

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

HAMLET
200: For God's love, let me hear.

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

HAMLET
218: But where was this?

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

HAMLET
220: Did you not speak to it?

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

HAMLET
228: 'Tis very strange.

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

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

MARCELLUS, BERNARDO
234: We do, my lord.

HAMLET
235: Arm'd, say you?

MARCELLUS, BERNARDO
236: Arm'd, my lord.

HAMLET
237: From top to toe?

MARCELLUS, BERNARDO
238: My lord, from head to foot.

HAMLET
239: Then saw you not his face?

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

HAMLET
241: What, look'd he frowningly?

HORATIO
242: A countenance more in sorrow than in anger.

HAMLET
243: Pale or red?

HORATIO
244: Nay, very pale.

HAMLET
245: And fix'd his eyes upon you?

HORATIO
246: Most constantly.

HAMLET
247: I would I had been there.

HORATIO
248: It would have much amazed you.

HAMLET
249: Very like, very like. Stay'd it long?

HORATIO
250: While one with moderate haste might tell a hundred.

MARCELLUS, BERNARDO
251: Longer, longer.

HORATIO
252: Not when I saw't.

HAMLET
253: His beard was grizzled--no?

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

HAMLET
256: I will watch to-night;
257: Perchance 'twill walk again.

HORATIO
258: I warrant it will.

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

All
269: Our duty to your honour.

HAMLET
270: Your loves, as mine to you: farewell.
[Exeunt all but HAMLET]
271: My father's spirit in arms! all is not well;
272: I doubt some foul play: would the night were come!
273: Till then sit still, my soul: foul deeds will rise,
274: Though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes.

Exit

ACT I, SCENE III.

A room in Polonius' house.

Enter LAERTES and OPHELIA

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

OPHELIA
005: Do you doubt that?

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

OPHELIA
011: No more but so?

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

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

LAERTES
054: O, fear me not.
055: I stay too long: but here my father comes.
[Enter POLONIUS]
056: A double blessing is a double grace,
057: Occasion smiles upon a second leave.

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

LAERTES
085: Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord.

LORD POLONIUS
086: The time invites you; go; your servants tend.

LAERTES
087: Farewell, Ophelia; and remember well
088: What I have said to you.

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

LAERTES
091: Farewell.

Exit

LORD POLONIUS
092: What is't, Ophelia, be hath said to you?

OPHELIA
093: So please you, something touching the Lord Hamlet.

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

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

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

OPHELIA
108: I do not know, my lord, what I should think.

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

OPHELIA
114: My lord, he hath importuned me with love
115: In honourable fashion.

LORD POLONIUS
116: Ay, fashion you may call it; go to, go to.

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

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

OPHELIA
140: I shall obey, my lord.

Exeunt

ACT I, SCENE IV.

The platform.

Enter HAMLET, HORATIO, and MARCELLUS

HAMLET
001: The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.

HORATIO
002: It is a nipping and an eager air.

HAMLET
003: What hour now?

HORATIO
004: I think it lacks of twelve.

HAMLET
005: No, it is struck.

HORATIO
006: Indeed? I heard it not: then it draws near the season
007: Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk.
[A flourish of trumpets, and ordnance shot off, within]
008: What does this mean, my lord?

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

HORATIO
014: Is it a custom?

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

HORATIO
041: Look, my lord, it comes!

Enter Ghost

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

Ghost beckons HAMLET

HORATIO
061: It beckons you to go away with it,
062: As if it some impartment did desire
063: To you alone.

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

HORATIO
067: No, by no means.

HAMLET
068: It will not speak; then I will follow it.

HORATIO
069: Do not, my lord.

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

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

HAMLET
085: It waves me still.
086: Go on; I'll follow thee.

MARCELLUS
087: You shall not go, my lord.

HAMLET
088: Hold off your hands.

HORATIO
089: Be ruled; you shall not go.

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

Exeunt Ghost and HAMLET

HORATIO
096: He waxes desperate with imagination.

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

HORATIO
098: Have after. To what issue will this come?

MARCELLUS
099: Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

HORATIO
100: Heaven will direct it.

MARCELLUS
101: Nay, let's follow him.

Exeunt

ACT I, SCENE V.

Another part of the platform.

Enter GHOST and HAMLET

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

Ghost
002: Mark me.

HAMLET
003: I will.

Ghost
004: My hour is almost come,
005: When I to sulphurous and tormenting flames
006: Must render up myself.

HAMLET
007: Alas, poor ghost!

Ghost
008: Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing
009: To what I shall unfold.

HAMLET
010: Speak; I am bound to hear.

Ghost
011: So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear.

HAMLET
012: What?

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

HAMLET
028: O God!

Ghost
029: Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.

HAMLET
030: Murder!

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

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

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

HAMLET
046: O my prophetic soul! My uncle!

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

Exit

HAMLET
097: O all you host of heaven! O earth! what else?
098: And shall I couple hell? O, fie! Hold, hold, my heart;
099: And you, my sinews, grow not instant old,
100: But bear me stiffly up. Remember thee!
101: Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat
102: In this distracted globe. Remember thee!
103: Yea, from the table of my memory
104: I'll wipe away all trivial fond records,
105: All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past,
106: That youth and observation copied there;
107: And thy commandment all alone shall live
108: Within the book and volume of my brain,
109: Unmix'd with baser matter: yes, by heaven!
110: O most pernicious woman!
111: O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!
112: My tables,--meet it is I set it down,
113: That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain;
114: At least I'm sure it may be so in Denmark:
[Writing]
115: So, uncle, there you are. Now to my word;
116: It is 'Adieu, adieu! remember me.'
117: I have sworn 't.

MARCELLUS, HORATIO [Within]
118: My lord, my lord,--

MARCELLUS [Within]
119: Lord Hamlet,--

HORATIO [Within]
120: Heaven secure him!

HAMLET
121: So be it!

HORATIO [Within]
122: Hillo, ho, ho, my lord!

HAMLET
123: Hillo, ho, ho, boy! come, bird, come.

Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS

MARCELLUS
124: How is't, my noble lord?

HORATIO
125: What news, my lord?

HAMLET
126: O, wonderful!

HORATIO
127: Good my lord, tell it.

HAMLET
128: No; you'll reveal it.

HORATIO
129: Not I, my lord, by heaven.

MARCELLUS
130: Nor I, my lord.

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

HORATIO, MARCELLUS
133: Ay, by heaven, my lord.

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

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

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

HORATIO
145: These are but wild and whirling words, my lord.

HAMLET
146: I'm sorry they offend you, heartily;
147: Yes, 'faith heartily.

HORATIO
148: There's no offence, my lord.

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

HORATIO
156: What is't, my lord? we will.

HAMLET
157: Never make known what you have seen to-night.

HORATIO, MARCELLUS
158: My lord, we will not.

HAMLET
159: Nay, but swear't.

HORATIO
160: In faith,
161: My lord, not I.

MARCELLUS
162: Nor I, my lord, in faith.

HAMLET
163: Upon my sword.

MARCELLUS
164: We have sworn, my lord, already.

HAMLET
165: Indeed, upon my sword, indeed.

Ghost [Beneath]
166: Swear.

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

HORATIO
171: Propose the oath, my lord.

HAMLET
172: Never to speak of this that you have seen,
173: Swear by my sword.

Ghost [Beneath]
174: Swear.

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

Ghost [Beneath]
180: Swear.

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

HORATIO
183: O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!

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

Ghost [Beneath]
199: Swear.

HAMLET
200: Rest, rest, perturbed spirit!
[They swear]
201: So, gentlemen,
202: With all my love I do commend me to you:
203: And what so poor a man as Hamlet is
204: May do, to express his love and friending to you,
205: God willing, shall not lack. Let us go in together;
206: And still your fingers on your lips, I pray.
207: The time is out of joint: O cursed spite,
208: That ever I was born to set it right!
209: Nay, come, let's go together.

Exeunt

ACT II, SCENE I.

A room in POLONIUS' house.

Enter POLONIUS and REYNALDO

LORD POLONIUS
001: Give him this money and these notes, Reynaldo.

REYNALDO
002: I will, my lord.

LORD POLONIUS
003: You shall do marvellous wisely, good Reynaldo,
004: Before you visit him, to make inquire
005: Of his behavior.

REYNALDO
006: My lord, I did intend it.

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

REYNALDO
017: Ay, very well, my lord.

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

REYNALDO
026: As gaming, my lord.

LORD POLONIUS
027: Ay, or drinking, fencing, swearing, quarrelling,
028: Drabbing: you may go so far.

REYNALDO
029: My lord, that would dishonour him.

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

REYNALDO
038: But, my good lord,--

LORD POLONIUS
039: Wherefore should you do this?

REYNALDO
040: Ay, my lord,
041: I would know that.

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

REYNALDO
053: Very good, my lord.

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

REYNALDO
057: At 'closes in the consequence,' at 'friend or so,'
058: and 'gentleman.'

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

REYNALDO
074: My lord, I have.

LORD POLONIUS
075: God be wi' you; fare you well.

REYNALDO
076: Good my lord!

LORD POLONIUS
077: Observe his inclination in yourself.

REYNALDO
078: I shall, my lord.

LORD POLONIUS
079: And let him ply his music.

REYNALDO
080: Well, my lord.

LORD POLONIUS
081: Farewell!
[Exit REYNALDO]
[Enter OPHELIA]
082: How now, Ophelia! what's the matter?

OPHELIA
083: O, my lord, my lord, I have been so affrighted!

LORD POLONIUS
084: With what, i' the name of God?

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

LORD POLONIUS
093: Mad for thy love?

OPHELIA
094: My lord, I do not know;
095: But truly, I do fear it.

LORD POLONIUS
096: What said he?

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

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

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

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

Exeunt

ACT II, SCENE II.

A room in the castle.

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

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

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

ROSENCRANTZ
027: Both your majesties
028: Might, by the sovereign power you have of us,
029: Put your dread pleasures more into command
030: Than to entreaty.

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

KING CLAUDIUS
035: Thanks, Rosencrantz and gentle Guildenstern.

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

GUILDENSTERN
040: Heavens make our presence and our practises
041: Pleasant and helpful to him!

QUEEN GERTRUDE
042: Ay, amen!

Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, and some Attendants

Enter POLONIUS

LORD POLONIUS
043: The ambassadors from Norway, my good lord,
044: Are joyfully return'd.

KING CLAUDIUS
045: Thou still hast been the father of good news.

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

KING CLAUDIUS
053: O, speak of that; that do I long to hear.

LORD POLONIUS
054: Give first admittance to the ambassadors;
055: My news shall be the fruit to that great feast.

KING CLAUDIUS
056: Thyself do grace to them, and bring them in.
[Exit POLONIUS]
057: He tells me, my dear Gertrude, he hath found
058: The head and source of all your son's distemper.

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

KING CLAUDIUS
061: Well, we shall sift him.
[Re-enter POLONIUS, with VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS]
062: Welcome, my good friends!
063: Say, Voltimand, what from our brother Norway?

VOLTIMAND
064: Most fair return of greetings and desires.
065: Upon our first, he sent out to suppress
066: His nephew's levies; which to him appear'd
067: To be a preparation 'gainst the Polack;
068: But, better look'd into, he truly found
069: It was against your highness: whereat grieved,
070: That so his sickness, age and impotence
071: Was falsely borne in hand, sends out arrests
072: On Fortinbras; which he, in brief, obeys;
073: Receives rebuke from Norway, and in fine
074: Makes vow before his uncle never more
075: To give the assay of arms against your majesty.
076: Whereon old Norway, overcome with joy,
077: Gives him three thousand crowns in annual fee,
078: And his commission to employ those soldiers,
079: So levied as before, against the Polack:
080: With an entreaty, herein further shown,
[Giving a paper]
081: That it might please you to give quiet pass
082: Through your dominions for this enterprise,
083: On such regards of safety and allowance
084: As therein are set down.

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

Exeunt VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS

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

QUEEN GERTRUDE
102: More matter, with less art.

LORD POLONIUS
103: Madam, I swear I use no art at all.
104: That he is mad, 'tis true: 'tis true 'tis pity;
105: And pity 'tis 'tis true: a foolish figure;
106: But farewell it, for I will use no art.
107: Mad let us grant him, then: and now remains
108: That we find out the cause of this effect,
109: Or rather say, the cause of this defect,
110: For this effect defective comes by cause:
111: Thus it remains, and the remainder thus. Perpend.
112: I have a daughter--have while she is mine--
113: Who, in her duty and obedience, mark,
114: Hath given me this: now gather, and surmise.
[Reads]
115: 'To the celestial and my soul's idol, the most
116: beautified Ophelia,'--
117: That's an ill phrase, a vile phrase; 'beautified' is
118: a vile phrase: but you shall hear. Thus:
[Reads]
119: 'In her excellent white bosom, these, &c.'

QUEEN GERTRUDE
120: Came this from Hamlet to her?

LORD POLONIUS
121: Good madam, stay awhile; I will be faithful.
[Reads]
122: 'Doubt thou the stars are fire;
123: Doubt that the sun doth move;
124: Doubt truth to be a liar;
125: But never doubt I love.
126: 'O dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers;
127: I have not art to reckon my groans: but that
128: I love thee best, O most best, believe it. Adieu.
129: 'Thine evermore most dear lady, whilst
130: this machine is to him, HAMLET.'
131: This, in obedience, hath my daughter shown me,
132: And more above, hath his solicitings,
133: As they fell out by time, by means and place,
134: All given to mine ear.

KING CLAUDIUS
135: But how hath she
136: Received his love?

LORD POLONIUS
137: What do you think of me?

KING CLAUDIUS
138: As of a man faithful and honourable.

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

KING CLAUDIUS
160: Do you think 'tis this?

QUEEN GERTRUDE
161: It may be, very likely.

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

KING CLAUDIUS
165: Not that I know.

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

KING CLAUDIUS
171: How may we try it further?

LORD POLONIUS
172: You know, sometimes he walks four hours together
173: Here in the lobby.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
174: So he does indeed.

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

KING CLAUDIUS
181: We will try it.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
182: But, look, where sadly the poor wretch comes reading.

LORD POLONIUS
183: Away, I do beseech you, both away:
184: I'll board him presently.
[Exeunt KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, and Attendants]
[Enter HAMLET, reading]
185: O, give me leave:
186: How does my good Lord Hamlet?

HAMLET
187: Well, God-a-mercy.

LORD POLONIUS
188: Do you know me, my lord?

HAMLET
189: Excellent well; you are a fishmonger.

LORD POLONIUS
190: Not I, my lord.

HAMLET
191: Then I would you were so honest a man.

LORD POLONIUS
192: Honest, my lord!

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

LORD POLONIUS
195: That's very true, my lord.

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

LORD POLONIUS
198: I have, my lord.

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

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

HAMLET
208: Words, words, words.

LORD POLONIUS
209: What is the matter, my lord?

HAMLET
210: Between who?

LORD POLONIUS
211: I mean, the matter that you read, my lord.

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

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

HAMLET
223: Into my grave.

LORD POLONIUS
224: Indeed, that is out o' the air.
[Aside]
225: How pregnant sometimes his replies are! a happiness
226: that often madness hits on, which reason and sanity
227: could not so prosperously be delivered of. I will
228: leave him, and suddenly contrive the means of
229: meeting between him and my daughter.--My honourable
230: lord, I will most humbly take my leave of you.

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

LORD POLONIUS
234: Fare you well, my lord.

HAMLET
235: These tedious old fools!

Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN

LORD POLONIUS
236: You go to seek the Lord Hamlet; there he is.

ROSENCRANTZ [To POLONIUS]
237: God save you, sir!

Exit POLONIUS

GUILDENSTERN
238: My honoured lord!

ROSENCRANTZ
239: My most dear lord!

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

ROSENCRANTZ
242: As the indifferent children of the earth.

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

HAMLET
245: Nor the soles of her shoe?

ROSENCRANTZ
246: Neither, my lord.

HAMLET
247: Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of
248: her favours?

GUILDENSTERN
249: 'Faith, her privates we.

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

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

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

GUILDENSTERN
257: Prison, my lord!

HAMLET
258: Denmark's a prison.

ROSENCRANTZ
259: Then is the world one.

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

ROSENCRANTZ
262: We think not so, my lord.

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

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

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

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

HAMLET
273: A dream itself is but a shadow.

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

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

ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN
279: We'll wait upon you.

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

ROSENCRANTZ
284: To visit you, my lord; no other occasion.

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

GUILDENSTERN
290: What should we say, my lord?

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

ROSENCRANTZ
295: To what end, my lord?

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

ROSENCRANTZ [Aside to GUILDENSTERN]
302: What say you?

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

GUILDENSTERN
305: My lord, we were sent for.

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

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

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

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

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

ROSENCRANTZ
339: Even those you were wont to take delight in, the
340: tragedians of the city.

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

ROSENCRANTZ
343: I think their inhibition comes by the means of the
344: late innovation.

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

ROSENCRANTZ
347: No, indeed, are they not.

HAMLET
348: How comes it? do they grow rusty?

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

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

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

HAMLET
368: Is't possible?

GUILDENSTERN
369: O, there has been much throwing about of brains.

HAMLET
370: Do the boys carry it away?

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

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

Flourish of trumpets within

GUILDENSTERN
378: There are the players.

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

GUILDENSTERN
386: In what, my dear lord?

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

Enter POLONIUS

LORD POLONIUS
389: Well be with you, gentlemen!

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

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

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

LORD POLONIUS
398: My lord, I have news to tell you.

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

LORD POLONIUS
401: The actors are come hither, my lord.

HAMLET
402: Buz, buz!

LORD POLONIUS
403: Upon mine honour,--

HAMLET
404: Then came each actor on his ass,--

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

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

LORD POLONIUS
413: What a treasure had he, my lord?

HAMLET
414: Why,
415: 'One fair daughter and no more,
416: The which he loved passing well.'

LORD POLONIUS [Aside]
417: Still on my daughter.

HAMLET
418: Am I not i' the right, old Jephthah?

LORD POLONIUS
419: If you call me Jephthah, my lord, I have a daughter
420: that I love passing well.

HAMLET
421: Nay, that follows not.

LORD POLONIUS
422: What follows, then, my lord?

HAMLET
423: Why,
424: 'As by lot, God wot,'
425: and then, you know,
426: 'It came to pass, as most like it was,'--
427: the first row of the pious chanson will show you
428: more; for look, where my abridgement comes.
[Enter four or five Players]
429: You are welcome, masters; welcome, all. I am glad
430: to see thee well. Welcome, good friends. O, my old
431: friend! thy face is valenced since I saw thee last:
432: comest thou to beard me in Denmark? What, my young
433: lady and mistress! By'r lady, your ladyship is
434: nearer to heaven than when I saw you last, by the
435: altitude of a chopine. Pray God, your voice, like
436: apiece of uncurrent gold, be not cracked within the
437: ring. Masters, you are all welcome. We'll e'en
438: to't like French falconers, fly at any thing we see:
439: we'll have a speech straight: come, give us a taste
440: of your quality; come, a passionate speech.

First Player
441: What speech, my lord?

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

LORD POLONIUS
475: 'Fore God, my lord, well spoken, with good accent and
476: good discretion.

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

LORD POLONIUS
507: This is too long.

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

First Player
511: 'But who, O, who had seen the mobled queen--'

HAMLET
512: 'The mobled queen?'

LORD POLONIUS
513: That's good; 'mobled queen' is good.

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

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

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

LORD POLONIUS
537: My lord, I will use them according to their desert.

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

LORD POLONIUS
543: Come, sirs.

HAMLET
544: Follow him, friends: we'll hear a play to-morrow.
[Exit POLONIUS with all the Players but the First]
545: Dost thou hear me, old friend; can you play the
546: Murder of Gonzago?

First Player
547: Ay, my lord.

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

First Player
551: Ay, my lord.

HAMLET
552: Very well. Follow that lord; and look you mock him
553: not.
[Exit First Player]
554: My good friends, I'll leave you till night: you are
555: welcome to Elsinore.

ROSENCRANTZ
556: Good my lord!

HAMLET
557: Ay, so, God be wi' ye;
[Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN]
558: Now I am alone.
559: O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
560: Is it not monstrous that this player here,
561: But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
562: Could force his soul so to his own conceit
563: That from her working all his visage wann'd,
564: Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect,
565: A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
566: With forms to his conceit? and all for nothing!
567: For Hecuba!
568: What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
569: That he should weep for her? What would he do,
570: Had he the motive and the cue for passion
571: That I have? He would drown the stage with tears
572: And cleave the general ear with horrid speech,
573: Make mad the guilty and appal the free,
574: Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed
575: The very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I,
576: A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak,
577: Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,
578: And can say nothing; no, not for a king,
579: Upon whose property and most dear life
580: A damn'd defeat was made. Am I a coward?
581: Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across?
582: Plucks off my beard, and blows it in my face?
583: Tweaks me by the nose? gives me the lie i' the throat,
584: As deep as to the lungs? who does me this?
585: Ha!
586: 'Swounds, I should take it: for it cannot be
587: But I am pigeon-liver'd and lack gall
588: To make oppression bitter, or ere this
589: I should have fatted all the region kites
590: With this slave's offal: bloody, bawdy villain!
591: Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!
592: O, vengeance!
593: Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,
594: That I, the son of a dear father murder'd,
595: Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,
596: Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words,
597: And fall a-cursing, like a very drab,
598: A scullion!
599: Fie upon't! foh! About, my brain! I have heard
600: That guilty creatures sitting at a play
601: Have by the very cunning of the scene
602: Been struck so to the soul that presently
603: They have proclaim'd their malefactions;
604: For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
605: With most miraculous organ. I'll have these players
606: Play something like the murder of my father
607: Before mine uncle: I'll observe his looks;
608: I'll tent him to the quick: if he but blench,
609: I know my course. The spirit that I have seen
610: May be the devil: and the devil hath power
611: To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps
612: Out of my weakness and my melancholy,
613: As he is very potent with such spirits,
614: Abuses me to damn me: I'll have grounds
615: More relative than this: the play 's the thing
616: Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.

Exit

ACT III, SCENE I.

A room in the castle.

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

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

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

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

QUEEN GERTRUDE
011: Did he receive you well?

ROSENCRANTZ
012: Most like a gentleman.

GUILDENSTERN
013: But with much forcing of his disposition.

ROSENCRANTZ
014: Niggard of question; but, of our demands,
015: Most free in his reply.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
016: Did you assay him?
017: To any pastime?

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

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

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

ROSENCRANTZ
031: We shall, my lord.

Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN

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

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

OPHELIA
048: Madam, I wish it may.

Exit QUEEN GERTRUDE

LORD POLONIUS
049: Ophelia, walk you here. Gracious, so please you,
050: We will bestow ourselves.
[To OPHELIA]
051: Read on this book;
052: That show of such an exercise may colour
053: Your loneliness. We are oft to blame in this,--
054: 'Tis too much proved--that with devotion's visage
055: And pious action we do sugar o'er
056: The devil himself.

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

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

Exeunt KING CLAUDIUS and POLONIUS

Enter HAMLET

HAMLET
064: To be, or not to be: that is the question:
065: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
066: The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
067: Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
068: And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
069: No more; and by a sleep to say we end
070: The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
071: That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
072: Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
073: To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
074: For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
075: When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
076: Must give us pause: there's the respect
077: That makes calamity of so long life;
078: For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
079: The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
080: The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
081: The insolence of office and the spurns
082: That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
083: When he himself might his quietus make
084: With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
085: To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
086: But that the dread of something after death,
087: The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
088: No traveller returns, puzzles the will
089: And makes us rather bear those ills we have
090: Than fly to others that we know not of?
091: Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
092: And thus the native hue of resolution
093: Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
094: And enterprises of great pith and moment
095: With this regard their currents turn awry,
096: And lose the name of action.--Soft you now!
097: The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
098: Be all my sins remember'd.

OPHELIA
099: Good my lord,
100: How does your honour for this many a day?

HAMLET
101: I humbly thank you; well, well, well.

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

HAMLET
105: No, not I;
106: I never gave you aught.

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

HAMLET
113: Ha, ha! are you honest?

OPHELIA
114: My lord?

HAMLET
115: Are you fair?

OPHELIA
116: What means your lordship?

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

OPHELIA
119: Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than
120: with honesty?

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

OPHELIA
126: Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.

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

OPHELIA
130: I was the more deceived.

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

OPHELIA
142: At home, my lord.

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

OPHELIA
145: O, help him, you sweet heavens!

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

OPHELIA
153: O heavenly powers, restore him!

HAMLET
154: I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God
155: has given you one face, and you make yourselves
156: another: you jig, you amble, and you lisp, and
157: nick-name God's creatures, and make your wantonness
158: your ignorance. Go to, I'll no more on't; it hath
159: made me mad. I say, we will have no more marriages:
160: those that are married already, all but one, shall
161: live; the rest shall keep as they are. To a
162: nunnery, go.

Exit

OPHELIA
163: O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!
164: The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword;
165: The expectancy and rose of the fair state,
166: The glass of fashion and the mould of form,
167: The observed of all observers, quite, quite down!
168: And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
169: That suck'd the honey of his music vows,
170: Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,
171: Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh;
172: That unmatch'd form and feature of blown youth
173: Blasted with ecstasy: O, woe is me,
174: To have seen what I have seen, see what I see!

Re-enter KING CLAUDIUS and POLONIUS

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

LORD POLONIUS
189: It shall do well: but yet do I believe
190: The origin and commencement of his grief
191: Sprung from neglected love. How now, Ophelia!
192: You need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said;
193: We heard it all. My lord, do as you please;
194: But, if you hold it fit, after the play
195: Let his queen mother all alone entreat him
196: To show his grief: let her be round with him;
197: And I'll be placed, so please you, in the ear
198: Of all their conference. If she find him not,
199: To England send him, or confine him where
200: Your wisdom best shall think.

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

Exeunt

ACT III, SCENE II.

A hall in the castle.

Enter HAMLET and Players

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

First Player
016: I warrant your honour.

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

First Player
037: I hope we have reformed that indifferently with us,
038: sir.

HAMLET
039: O, reform it altogether. And let those that play
040: your clowns speak no more than is set down for them;
041: for there be of them that will themselves laugh, to
042: set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh
043: too; though, in the mean time, some necessary
044: question of the play be then to be considered:
045: that's villanous, and shows a most pitiful ambition
046: in the fool that uses it. Go, make you ready.
[Exeunt Players]
[Enter POLONIUS, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN]
047: How now, my lord! I will the king hear this piece of work?

LORD POLONIUS
048: And the queen too, and that presently.

HAMLET
049: Bid the players make haste.
[Exit POLONIUS]
050: Will you two help to hasten them?

ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN
051: We will, my lord.

Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN

HAMLET
052: What ho! Horatio!

Enter HORATIO

HORATIO
053: Here, sweet lord, at your service.

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

HORATIO
056: O, my dear lord,--

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

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

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

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

KING CLAUDIUS
094: How fares our cousin Hamlet?

HAMLET
095: Excellent, i' faith; of the chameleon's dish: I eat
096: the air, promise-crammed: you cannot feed capons so.

KING CLAUDIUS
097: I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet; these words
098: are not mine.

HAMLET
099: No, nor mine now.
[To POLONIUS]
100: My lord, you played once i' the university, you say?

LORD POLONIUS
101: That did I, my lord; and was accounted a good actor.

HAMLET
102: What did you enact?

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

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

ROSENCRANTZ
107: Ay, my lord; they stay upon your patience.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
108: Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me.

HAMLET
109: No, good mother, here's metal more attractive.

LORD POLONIUS [To KING CLAUDIUS]
110: O, ho! do you mark that?

HAMLET
111: Lady, shall I lie in your lap?

Lying down at OPHELIA's feet

OPHELIA
112: No, my lord.

HAMLET
113: I mean, my head upon your lap?

OPHELIA
114: Ay, my lord.

HAMLET
115: Do you think I meant country matters?

OPHELIA
116: I think nothing, my lord.

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

OPHELIA
118: What is, my lord?

HAMLET
119: Nothing.

OPHELIA
120: You are merry, my lord.

HAMLET
121: Who, I?

OPHELIA
122: Ay, my lord.

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

OPHELIA
126: Nay, 'tis twice two months, my lord.

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

Enter a King and a Queen very lovingly; the Queen embracing him, and he her. She kneels, and makes show of protestation unto him. He takes her up, and declines his head upon her neck: lays him down upon a bank of flowers: she, seeing him asleep, leaves him. Anon comes in a fellow, takes off his crown, kisses it, and pours poison in the King's ears, and exit. The Queen returns; finds the King dead, and makes passionate action. The Poisoner, with some two or three Mutes, comes in again, seeming to lament with her. The dead body is carried away. The Poisoner wooes the Queen with gifts: she seems loath and unwilling awhile, but in the end accepts his love

Exeunt

OPHELIA
135: What means this, my lord?

HAMLET
136: Marry, this is miching mallecho; it means mischief.

OPHELIA
137: Belike this show imports the argument of the play.

Enter Prologue

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

OPHELIA
140: Will he tell us what this show meant?

HAMLET
141: Ay, or any show that you'll show him: be not you
142: ashamed to show, he'll not shame to tell you what it means.

OPHELIA
143: You are naught, you are naught: I'll mark the play.

Prologue
144: For us, and for our tragedy,
145: Here stooping to your clemency,
146: We beg your hearing patiently.

Exit

HAMLET
147: Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?

OPHELIA
148: 'Tis brief, my lord.

HAMLET
149: As woman's love.

Enter two Players, King and Queen

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

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

Player King
168: 'Faith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly too;
169: My operant powers their functions leave to do:
170: And thou shalt live in this fair world behind,
171: Honour'd, beloved; and haply one as kind
172: For husband shalt thou--

Player Queen
173: O, confound the rest!
174: Such love must needs be treason in my breast:
175: In second husband let me be accurst!
176: None wed the second but who kill'd the first.

HAMLET [Aside]
177: Wormwood, wormwood.

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

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

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

HAMLET
220: If she should break it now!

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

Sleeps

Player Queen
224: Sleep rock thy brain,
225: And never come mischance between us twain!

Exit

HAMLET
226: Madam, how like you this play?

QUEEN GERTRUDE
227: The lady protests too much, methinks.

HAMLET
228: O, but she'll keep her word.

KING CLAUDIUS
229: Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in 't?

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

KING CLAUDIUS
232: What do you call the play?

HAMLET
233: The Mouse-trap. Marry, how? Tropically. This play
234: is the image of a murder done in Vienna: Gonzago is
235: the duke's name; his wife, Baptista: you shall see
236: anon; 'tis a knavish piece of work: but what o'
237: that? your majesty and we that have free souls, it
238: touches us not: let the galled jade wince, our
239: withers are unwrung.
[Enter LUCIANUS]
240: This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king.

OPHELIA
241: You are as good as a chorus, my lord.

HAMLET
242: I could interpret between you and your love, if I
243: could see the puppets dallying.

OPHELIA
244: You are keen, my lord, you are keen.

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

OPHELIA
246: Still better, and worse.

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

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

Pours the poison into the sleeper's ears

HAMLET
256: He poisons him i' the garden for's estate. His
257: name's Gonzago: the story is extant, and writ in
258: choice Italian: you shall see anon how the murderer
259: gets the love of Gonzago's wife.

OPHELIA
260: The king rises.

HAMLET
261: What, frighted with false fire!

QUEEN GERTRUDE
262: How fares my lord?

LORD POLONIUS
263: Give o'er the play.

KING CLAUDIUS
264: Give me some light: away!

All ... :: Picked those most likely to sympathize with the king to help him to shout "get some light."


265: Lights, lights, lights!

Exeunt all but HAMLET and HORATIO

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

HORATIO
274: Half a share.

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

HORATIO
280: You might have rhymed.

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

HORATIO
283: Very well, my lord.

HAMLET
284: Upon the talk of the poisoning?

HORATIO
285: I did very well note him.

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

Re-enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN

GUILDENSTERN
290: Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you.

HAMLET
291: Sir, a whole history.

GUILDENSTERN
292: The king, sir,--

HAMLET
293: Ay, sir, what of him?

GUILDENSTERN
294: Is in his retirement marvellous distempered.

HAMLET
295: With drink, sir?

GUILDENSTERN
296: No, my lord, rather with choler.

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

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

HAMLET
303: I am tame, sir: pronounce.

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

HAMLET
306: You are welcome.

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

HAMLET
312: Sir, I cannot.

GUILDENSTERN
313: What, my lord?

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

ROSENCRANTZ
318: Then thus she says; your behavior hath struck her
319: into amazement and admiration.

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

ROSENCRANTZ
323: She desires to speak with you in her closet, ere you
324: go to bed.

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

ROSENCRANTZ
327: My lord, you once did love me.

HAMLET
328: So I do still, by these pickers and stealers.

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

HAMLET
332: Sir, I lack advancement.

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

HAMLET
335: Ay, but sir, 'While the grass grows,'--the proverb
336: is something musty.
[Re-enter Players with recorders]
337: O, the recorders! let me see one. To withdraw with
338: you:--why do you go about to recover the wind of me,
339: as if you would drive me into a toil?

GUILDENSTERN
340: O, my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too
341: unmannerly.

HAMLET
342: I do not well understand that. Will you play upon
343: this pipe?

GUILDENSTERN
344: My lord, I cannot.

HAMLET
345: I pray you.

GUILDENSTERN
346: Believe me, I cannot.

HAMLET
347: I do beseech you.

GUILDENSTERN
348: I know no touch of it, my lord.

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

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

HAMLET
355: Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of
356: me! You would play upon me; you would seem to know
357: my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my
358: mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to
359: the top of my compass: and there is much music,
360: excellent voice, in this little organ; yet cannot
361: you make it speak. 'Sblood, do you think I am
362: easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what
363: instrument you will, though you can fret me, yet you
364: cannot play upon me.
[Enter POLONIUS]
365: God bless you, sir!

LORD POLONIUS
366: My lord, the queen would speak with you, and
367: presently.

HAMLET
368: Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel?

LORD POLONIUS
369: By the mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed.

HAMLET
370: Methinks it is like a weasel.

LORD POLONIUS
371: It is backed like a weasel.

HAMLET
372: Or like a whale?

LORD POLONIUS
373: Very like a whale.

HAMLET
374: Then I will come to my mother by and by. They fool
375: me to the top of my bent. I will come by and by.

LORD POLONIUS
376: I will say so.

HAMLET
377: By and by is easily said.
[Exit POLONIUS]
378: Leave me, friends.
[Exeunt all but HAMLET]
379: Tis now the very witching time of night,
380: When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out
381: Contagion to this world: now could I drink hot blood,
382: And do such bitter business as the day
383: Would quake to look on. Soft! now to my mother.
384: O heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever
385: The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom:
386: Let me be cruel, not unnatural:
387: I will speak daggers to her, but use none;
388: My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites;
389: How in my words soever she be shent,
390: To give them seals never, my soul, consent!

Exit

ACT III, SCENE III.

A room in the castle.

Enter KING CLAUDIUS, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN

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

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

ROSENCRANTZ
012: The single and peculiar life is bound,
013: With all the strength and armour of the mind,
014: To keep itself from noyance; but much more
015: That spirit upon whose weal depend and rest
016: The lives of many. The cease of majesty
017: Dies not alone; but, like a gulf, doth draw
018: What's near it with it: it is a massy wheel,
019: Fix'd on the summit of the highest mount,
020: To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things
021: Are mortised and adjoin'd; which, when it falls,
022: Each small annexment, petty consequence,
023: Attends the boisterous ruin. Never alone
024: Did the king sigh, but with a general groan.

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

ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN
028: We will haste us.

Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN

Enter POLONIUS

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

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

Retires and kneels

Enter HAMLET

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

Exit

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

Exit

ACT III, SCENE IV.

The Queen's closet.

Enter QUEEN GERTRUDE and POLONIUS

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

HAMLET [Within]
006: Mother, mother, mother!

QUEEN GERTRUDE
007: I'll warrant you,
008: Fear me not: withdraw, I hear him coming.

POLONIUS hides behind the arras

Enter HAMLET

HAMLET
009: Now, mother, what's the matter?

QUEEN GERTRUDE
010: Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.

HAMLET
011: Mother, you have my father much offended.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
012: Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.

HAMLET
013: Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
014: Why, how now, Hamlet!

HAMLET
015: What's the matter now?

QUEEN GERTRUDE
016: Have you forgot me?

HAMLET
017: No, by the rood, not so:
018: You are the queen, your husband's brother's wife;
019: And--would it were not so!--you are my mother.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
020: Nay, then, I'll set those to you that can speak.

HAMLET
021: Come, come, and sit you down; you shall not budge;
022: You go not till I set you up a glass
023: Where you may see the inmost part of you.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
024: What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murder me?
025: Help, help, ho!

LORD POLONIUS [Behind]
026: What, ho! help, help, help!

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

Makes a pass through the arras

LORD POLONIUS [O, I am slain!]
028: O, I am slain!

Falls and dies

QUEEN GERTRUDE
029: O me, what hast thou done?

HAMLET
030: Nay, I know not:
031: Is it the king?

QUEEN GERTRUDE
032: O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!

HAMLET
033: A bloody deed! almost as bad, good mother,
034: As kill a king, and marry with his brother.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
035: As kill a king!

HAMLET
036: Ay, lady, 'twas my word.
[Lifts up the array and discovers POLONIUS]
037: Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!
038: I took thee for thy better: take thy fortune;
039: Thou find'st to be too busy is some danger.
040: Leave wringing of your hands: peace! sit you down,
041: And let me wring your heart; for so I shall,
042: If it be made of penetrable stuff,
043: If damned custom have not brass'd it so
044: That it is proof and bulwark against sense.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
045: What have I done, that thou darest wag thy tongue
046: In noise so rude against me?

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

QUEEN GERTRUDE
059: Ay me, what act,
060: That roars so loud, and thunders in the index?

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

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

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

QUEEN GERTRUDE
105: O, speak to me no more;
106: These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears;
107: No more, sweet Hamlet!

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

QUEEN GERTRUDE
114: No more!

HAMLET
115: A king of shreds and patches,--
[Enter Ghost]
116: Save me, and hover o'er me with your wings,
117: You heavenly guards! What would your gracious figure?

QUEEN GERTRUDE
118: Alas, he's mad!

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

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

HAMLET
128: How is it with you, lady?

QUEEN GERTRUDE
129: Alas, how is't with you,
130: That you do bend your eye on vacancy
131: And with the incorporal air do hold discourse?
132: Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep;
133: And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm,
134: Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,
135: Starts up, and stands on end. O gentle son,
136: Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper
137: Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look?

HAMLET
138: On him, on him! Look you, how pale he glares!
139: His form and cause conjoin'd, preaching to stones,
140: Would make them capable. Do not look upon me;
141: Lest with this piteous action you convert
142: My stern effects: then what I have to do
143: Will want true colour; tears perchance for blood.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
144: To whom do you speak this?

HAMLET
145: Do you see nothing there?

QUEEN GERTRUDE
146: Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.

HAMLET
147: Nor did you nothing hear?

QUEEN GERTRUDE
148: No, nothing but ourselves.

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

Exit Ghost

QUEEN GERTRUDE
152: This the very coinage of your brain:
153: This bodiless creation ecstasy
154: Is very cunning in.

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

QUEEN GERTRUDE
172: O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.

HAMLET
173: O, throw away the worser part of it,
174: And live the purer with the other half.
175: Good night: but go not to mine uncle's bed;
176: Assume a virtue, if you have it not.
177: That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat,
178: Of habits devil, is angel yet in this,
179: That to the use of actions fair and good
180: He likewise gives a frock or livery,
181: That aptly is put on. Refrain to-night,
182: And that shall lend a kind of easiness
183: To the next abstinence: the next more easy;
184: For use almost can change the stamp of nature,
185: And either ... the devil, or throw him out
186: With wondrous potency. Once more, good night:
187: And when you are desirous to be bless'd,
188: I'll blessing beg of you. For this same lord,
[Pointing to POLONIUS]
189: I do repent: but heaven hath pleased it so,
190: To punish me with this and this with me,
191: That I must be their scourge and minister.
192: I will bestow him, and will answer well
193: The death I gave him. So, again, good night.
194: I must be cruel, only to be kind:
195: Thus bad begins and worse remains behind.
196: One word more, good lady.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
197: What shall I do?

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

QUEEN GERTRUDE
214: Be thou assured, if words be made of breath,
215: And breath of life, I have no life to breathe
216: What thou hast said to me.

HAMLET
217: I must to England; you know that?

QUEEN GERTRUDE
218: Alack,
219: I had forgot: 'tis so concluded on.

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

Exeunt severally; HAMLET dragging in POLONIUS

ACT IV, SCENE I.

A room in the castle.

Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN

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

QUEEN GERTRUDE
004: Bestow this place on us a little while.
[Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN]
005: Ah, my good lord, what have I seen to-night!

KING CLAUDIUS
006: What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?

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

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

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

KING CLAUDIUS
029: O Gertrude, come away!
030: The sun no sooner shall the mountains touch,
031: But we will ship him hence: and this vile deed
032: We must, with all our majesty and skill,
033: Both countenance and excuse. Ho, Guildenstern!
[Re-enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN]
034: Friends both, go join you with some further aid:
035: Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain,
036: And from his mother's closet hath he dragg'd him:
037: Go seek him out; speak fair, and bring the body
038: Into the chapel. I pray you, haste in this.
[Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN]
039: Come, Gertrude, we'll call up our wisest friends;
040: And let them know, both what we mean to do,
041: And what's untimely done...
042: Whose whisper o'er the world's diameter,
043: As level as the cannon to his blank,
044: Transports his poison'd shot, may miss our name,
045: And hit the woundless air. O, come away!
046: My soul is full of discord and dismay.

Exeunt

ACT IV, SCENE II.

Another room in the castle.

Enter HAMLET

HAMLET
001: Safely stowed.

ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN [Within]
002: Hamlet! Lord Hamlet!

HAMLET
003: What noise? who calls on Hamlet?
004: O, here they come.

Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN

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

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

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

HAMLET
009: Do not believe it.

ROSENCRANTZ
010: Believe what?

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

ROSENCRANTZ
014: Take you me for a sponge, my lord?

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

ROSENCRANTZ
022: I understand you not, my lord.

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

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

HAMLET
027: The body is with the king, but the king is not with
028: the body. The king is a thing--

GUILDENSTERN
029: A thing, my lord!

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

Exeunt

ACT IV, SCENE III.

Another room in the castle.

Enter KING CLAUDIUS, attended

KING CLAUDIUS
001: I have sent to seek him, and to find the body.
002: How dangerous is it that this man goes loose!
003: Yet must not we put the strong law on him:
004: He's loved of the distracted multitude,
005: Who like not in their judgment, but their eyes;
006: And where tis so, the offender's scourge is weigh'd,
007: But never the offence. To bear all smooth and even,
008: This sudden sending him away must seem
009: Deliberate pause: diseases desperate grown
010: By desperate appliance are relieved,
011: Or not at all.
[Enter ROSENCRANTZ]
012: How now! what hath befall'n?

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

KING CLAUDIUS
015: But where is he?

ROSENCRANTZ
016: Without, my lord; guarded, to know your pleasure.

KING CLAUDIUS
017: Bring him before us.

ROSENCRANTZ
018: Ho, Guildenstern! bring in my lord.

Enter HAMLET and GUILDENSTERN

KING CLAUDIUS
019: Now, Hamlet, where's Polonius?

HAMLET
020: At supper.