root/trunk/ProjectFortress/demos/hamlet

    The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

*Act I*

*1.* Elsinore. A platform before the Castle. <#a1,s1>

*2.* Elsinore. A room of state in the Castle. <#a1,s2>

*3.* Elsinore. A room in the house of Polonius. <#a1,s3>

*4.* Elsinore. The platform before the Castle. <#a1,s4>

*5.* Elsinore. The Castle. Another part of the fortifications. <#a1,s5>

        

*Act II*

*1.* Elsinore. A room in the house of Polonius. <#a2,s1>

*2.* Elsinore. A room in the Castle. <#a2,s2>

        

*Act III*

*1.* Elsinore. A room in the Castle. <#a3,s1>

*2.* Elsinore. hall in the Castle. <#a3,s2>

*3.* A room in the Castle. <#a3,s3>

*4.* The Queen?s closet. <#a3,s4>

        

*Act IV*

*1.* Elsinore. A room in the Castle. <#a4,s1>

*2.* Elsinore. A passage in the Castle. <#a4,s2>

*3.* Elsinore. A room in the Castle. <#a4,s3>

*4.* Near Elsinore. <#a4,s4>

*5.* Elsinore. A room in the Castle. <#a4,s5>

*6.* Elsinore. Another room in the Castle. <#a4,s6>

*7.* Elsinore. Another room in the Castle. <#a4,s7>

        

*Act V*

*1.* Elsinore. A churchyard. <#a5,s1>

*2.* Elsinore. A hall in the Castle. <#a5,s2>

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Act I, Scene 1

*Elsinore. A platform before the Castle.*

                 

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Enter two Sentinels-[first,] Francisco, [who paces up and down at his
post; then] Bernardo, [who approaches him].

    * *Bernardo. *Who's there? 

    * *Francisco. *Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold yourself. 

    * *Bernardo. *Long live the King! 

    * *Francisco. *Bernardo? 5

    * *Bernardo. *He. 

    * *Francisco. *You come most carefully upon your hour. 

    * *Bernardo. *'Tis now struck twelve. Get thee to bed, Francisco. 

    * *Francisco. *For this relief much thanks. 'Tis bitter cold,
      And I am sick at heart. 10

    * *Bernardo. *Have you had quiet guard? 

    * *Francisco. *Not a mouse stirring. 

    * *Bernardo. *Well, good night.
      If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,
      The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste. 15

Enter Horatio and Marcellus.

    * *Francisco. *I think I hear them. Stand, ho! Who is there? 

    * *Horatio. *Friends to this ground. 

    * *Marcellus. *And liegemen to the Dane. 

    * *Francisco. *Give you good night. 20

    * *Marcellus. *O, farewell, honest soldier.
      Who hath reliev'd you? 

    * *Francisco. *Bernardo hath my place.
      Give you good night. Exit. 

    * *Marcellus. *Holla, Bernardo! 25

    * *Bernardo. *Say-
      What, is Horatio there ? 

    * *Horatio. *A piece of him. 

    * *Bernardo. *Welcome, Horatio. Welcome, good Marcellus. 

    * *Marcellus. *What, has this thing appear'd again to-night? 30

    * *Bernardo. *I have seen nothing. 

    * *Marcellus. *Horatio says 'tis but our fantasy,
      And will not let belief take hold of him
      Touching this dreaded sight, twice seen of us.
      Therefore I have entreated him along, 35
      With us to watch the minutes of this night,
      That, if again this apparition come,
      He may approve our eyes and speak to it. 

    * *Horatio. *Tush, tush, 'twill not appear. 

    * *Bernardo. *Sit down awhile, 40
      And let us once again assail your ears,
      That are so fortified against our story,
      What we two nights have seen. 

    * *Horatio. *Well, sit we down,
      And let us hear Bernardo speak of this. 45

    * *Bernardo. *Last night of all,
      When yond same star that's westward from the pole
      Had made his course t' illume that part of heaven
      Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself,
      The bell then beating one- 50

Enter Ghost.

    * *Marcellus. *Peace! break thee off! Look where it comes again! 

    * *Bernardo. *In the same figure, like the King that's dead. 

    * *Marcellus. *Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio. 

    * *Bernardo. *Looks it not like the King? Mark it, Horatio. 55

    * *Horatio. *Most like. It harrows me with fear and wonder. 

    * *Bernardo. *It would be spoke to. 

    * *Marcellus. *Question it, Horatio. 

    * *Horatio. *What art thou that usurp'st this time of night
      Together with that fair and warlike form 60
      In which the majesty of buried Denmark
      Did sometimes march? By heaven I charge thee speak! 

    * *Marcellus. *It is offended. 

    * *Bernardo. *See, it stalks away! 

    * *Horatio. *Stay! Speak, speak! I charge thee speak! 65

Exit Ghost.

    * *Marcellus. *'Tis gone and will not answer. 

    * *Bernardo. *How now, Horatio? You tremble and look pale.
      Is not this something more than fantasy?
      What think you on't? 70

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

    * *Marcellus. *Is it not like the King? 

    * *Horatio. *As thou art to thyself. 75
      Such was the very armour he had on
      When he th' ambitious Norway combated.
      So frown'd he once when, in an angry parle,
      He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice.
      'Tis strange. 80

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

    * *Horatio. *In what particular thought to work I know not;
      But, in the gross and scope of my opinion,
      This bodes some strange eruption to our state. 85

    * *Marcellus. *Good now, sit down, and tell me he that knows,
      Why this same strict and most observant watch
      So nightly toils the subject of the land,
      And why such daily cast of brazen cannon
      And foreign mart for implements of war; 90
      Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task
      Does not divide the Sunday from the week.
      What might be toward, that this sweaty haste
      Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day?
      Who is't that can inform me? 95

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

    * *Bernardo. *I think it be no other but e'en so. 125
      Well may it sort that this portentous figure
      Comes armed through our watch, so like the King
      That was and is the question of these wars. 

    * *Horatio. *A mote it is to trouble the mind's eye.
      In the most high and palmy state of Rome, 130
      A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,
      The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead
      Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets;
      As stars with trains of fire, and dews of blood,
      Disasters in the sun; and the moist star 135
      Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands
      Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse.
      And even the like precurse of fierce events,
      As harbingers preceding still the fates
      And prologue to the omen coming on, 140
      Have heaven and earth together demonstrated
      Unto our climature and countrymen.
      /[Enter Ghost again.]/
      But soft! behold! Lo, where it comes again!
      I'll cross it, though it blast me.- Stay illusion! 145
      /[Spreads his arms.]/
      If thou hast any sound, or use of voice,
      Speak to me.
      If there be any good thing to be done,
      That may to thee do ease, and, grace to me, 150
      Speak to me.
      If thou art privy to thy country's fate,
      Which happily foreknowing may avoid,
      O, speak!
      Or if thou hast uphoarded in thy life 155
      Extorted treasure in the womb of earth
      (For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death),
      /[The cock crows.]/
      Speak of it! Stay, and speak!- Stop it, Marcellus! 

    * *Marcellus. *Shall I strike at it with my partisan? 160

    * *Horatio. *Do, if it will not stand. 

    * *Bernardo. *'Tis here! 

    * *Horatio. *'Tis here! 

    * *Marcellus. *'Tis gone!
      /[Exit Ghost.]/ 165
      We do it wrong, being so majestical,
      To offer it the show of violence;
      For it is as the air, invulnerable,
      And our vain blows malicious mockery. 

    * *Bernardo. *It was about to speak, when the cock crew. 170

    * *Horatio. *And then it started, like a guilty thing
      Upon a fearful summons. I have heard
      The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,
      Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat
      Awake the god of day; and at his warning, 175
      Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,
      Th' extravagant and erring spirit hies
      To his confine; and of the truth herein
      This present object made probation. 

    * *Marcellus. *It faded on the crowing of the cock. 180
      Some say that ever, 'gainst that season comes
      Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
      The bird of dawning singeth all night long;
      And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad,
      The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike, 185
      No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
      So hallow'd and so gracious is the time. 

    * *Horatio. *So have I heard and do in part believe it.
      But look, the morn, in russet mantle clad,
      Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward hill. 190
      Break we our watch up; and by my advice
      Let us impart what we have seen to-night
      Unto young Hamlet; for, upon my life,
      This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him.
      Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it, 195
      As needful in our loves, fitting our duty?
      Let's do't, I pray; and I this morning know
      Where we shall find him most conveniently. 

Exeunt.

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Act I, Scene 2

*Elsinore. A room of state in the Castle.*

                 

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Flourish. [Enter Claudius, King of Denmark, Gertrude the Queen, Hamlet,
Polonius, Laertes and his sister Ophelia, [Voltemand, Cornelius,] Lords
Attendant.

    * *Claudius. *Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death
      The memory be green, and that it us befitted
      To bear our hearts in grief, and our whole kingdom
      To be contracted in one brow of woe,
      Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature 205
      That we with wisest sorrow think on him
      Together with remembrance of ourselves.
      Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen,
      Th' imperial jointress to this warlike state,
      Have we, as 'twere with a defeated joy, 210
      With an auspicious, and a dropping eye,
      With mirth in funeral, and with dirge in marriage,
      In equal scale weighing delight and dole,
      Taken to wife; nor have we herein barr'd
      Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone 215
      With this affair along. For all, our thanks.
      Now follows, that you know, young Fortinbras,
      Holding a weak supposal of our worth,
      Or thinking by our late dear brother's death
      Our state to be disjoint and out of frame, 220
      Colleagued with this dream of his advantage,
      He hath not fail'd to pester us with message
      Importing the surrender of those lands
      Lost by his father, with all bands of law,
      To our most valiant brother. So much for him. 225
      Now for ourself and for this time of meeting.
      Thus much the business is: we have here writ
      To Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras,
      Who, impotent and bedrid, scarcely hears
      Of this his nephew's purpose, to suppress 230
      His further gait herein, in that the levies,
      The lists, and full proportions are all made
      Out of his subject; and we here dispatch
      You, good Cornelius, and you, Voltemand,
      For bearers of this greeting to old Norway, 235
      Giving to you no further personal power
      To business with the King, more than the scope
      Of these dilated articles allow. /[Gives a paper.]/
      Farewell, and let your haste commend your duty. 

    * *Cornelius. */[with Voltemand]/ In that, and all things, will we
      show our duty. 240

    * *Claudius. *We doubt it nothing. Heartily farewell.
      /[Exeunt Voltemand and Cornelius.]/
      And now, Laertes, what's the news with you?
      You told us of some suit. What is't, Laertes?
      You cannot speak of reason to the Dane 245
      And lose your voice. What wouldst thou beg, Laertes,
      That shall not be my offer, not thy asking?
      The head is not more native to the heart,
      The hand more instrumental to the mouth,
      Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father. 250
      What wouldst thou have, Laertes? 

    * *Laertes. *My dread lord,
      Your leave and favour to return to France;
      From whence though willingly I came to Denmark
      To show my duty in your coronation, 255
      Yet now I must confess, that duty done,
      My thoughts and wishes bend again toward France
      And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon. 

    * *Claudius. *Have you your father's leave? What says Polonius? 

    * *Polonius. *He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave 260
      By laboursome petition, and at last
      Upon his will I seal'd my hard consent.
      I do beseech you give him leave to go. 

    * *Claudius. *Take thy fair hour, Laertes. Time be thine,
      And thy best graces spend it at thy will! 265
      But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son- 

    * *Hamlet. */[aside]/ A little more than kin, and less than kind! 

    * *Claudius. *How is it that the clouds still hang on you? 

    * *Hamlet. *Not so, my lord. I am too much i' th' sun. 

    * *Gertrude. *Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off, 270
      And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.
      Do not for ever with thy vailed lids
      Seek for thy noble father in the dust.
      Thou know'st 'tis common. All that lives must die,
      Passing through nature to eternity. 275

    * *Hamlet. *Ay, madam, it is common. 

    * *Gertrude. *If it be,
      Why seems it so particular with thee? 

    * *Hamlet. *Seems, madam, Nay, it is. I know not 'seems.'
      'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, 280
      Nor customary suits of solemn black,
      Nor windy suspiration of forc'd breath,
      No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
      Nor the dejected havior of the visage,
      Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief, 285
      'That can denote me truly. These indeed seem,
      For they are actions that a man might play;
      But I have that within which passeth show-
      These but the trappings and the suits of woe. 

    * *Claudius. *'Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet, 290
      To give these mourning duties to your father;
      But you must know, your father lost a father;
      That father lost, lost his, and the survivor bound
      In filial obligation for some term
      To do obsequious sorrow. But to persever 295
      In obstinate condolement is a course
      Of impious stubbornness. 'Tis unmanly grief;
      It shows a will most incorrect to heaven,
      A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,
      An understanding simple and unschool'd; 300
      For what we know must be, and is as common
      As any the most vulgar thing to sense,
      Why should we in our peevish opposition
      Take it to heart? Fie! 'tis a fault to heaven,
      A fault against the dead, a fault to nature, 305
      To reason most absurd, whose common theme
      Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried,
      From the first corse till he that died to-day,
      'This must be so.' We pray you throw to earth
      This unprevailing woe, and think of us 310
      As of a father; for let the world take note
      You are the most immediate to our throne,
      And with no less nobility of love
      Than that which dearest father bears his son
      Do I impart toward you. For your intent 315
      In going back to school in Wittenberg,
      It is most retrograde to our desire;
      And we beseech you, bend you to remain
      Here in the cheer and comfort of our eye,
      Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son. 320

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

    * *Hamlet. *I shall in all my best obey you, madam. 

    * *Claudius. *Why, 'tis a loving and a fair reply.
      Be as ourself in Denmark. Madam, come. 325
      This gentle and unforc'd accord of Hamlet
      Sits smiling to my heart; in grace whereof,
      No jocund health that Denmark drinks to-day
      But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell,
      And the King's rouse the heaven shall bruit again, 330
      Respeaking earthly thunder. Come away. 

Flourish. Exeunt all but Hamlet.

    * *Hamlet. *O that this too too solid flesh would melt,
      Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!
      Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd 335
      His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!
      How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
      Seem to me all the uses of this world!
      Fie on't! ah, fie! 'Tis an unweeded garden
      That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature 340
      Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
      But two months dead! Nay, not so much, not two.
      So excellent a king, that was to this
      Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother
      That he might not beteem the winds of heaven 345
      Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
      Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him
      As if increase of appetite had grown
      By what it fed on; and yet, within a month-
      Let me not think on't! Frailty, thy name is woman!- 350
      A little month, or ere those shoes were old
      With which she followed my poor father's body
      Like Niobe, all tears- why she, even she
      (O God! a beast that wants discourse of reason
      Would have mourn'd longer) married with my uncle; 355
      My father's brother, but no more like my father
      Than I to Hercules. Within a month,
      Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
      Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
      She married. O, most wicked speed, to post 360
      With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
      It is not, nor it cannot come to good.
      But break my heart, for I must hold my tongue! 

Enter Horatio, Marcellus, and Bernardo.

    * *Horatio. *Hail to your lordship! 365

    * *Hamlet. *I am glad to see you well.
      Horatio!- or I do forget myself. 

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

    * *Hamlet. *Sir, my good friend- I'll change that name with you.
      And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio? 370
      Marcellus? 

    * *Marcellus. *My good lord! 

    * *Hamlet. *I am very glad to see you.- /[To Bernardo]/ Good even,
      sir.-
      But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg? 

    * *Horatio. *A truant disposition, good my lord. 375

    * *Hamlet. *I would not hear your enemy say so,
      Nor shall you do my ear that violence
      To make it truster of your own report
      Against yourself. I know you are no truant.
      But what is your affair in Elsinore? 380
      We'll teach you to drink deep ere you depart. 

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

    * *Hamlet. *I prithee do not mock me, fellow student.
      I think it was to see my mother's wedding. 

    * *Horatio. *Indeed, my lord, it followed hard upon. 385

    * *Hamlet. *Thrift, thrift, Horatio! The funeral bak'd meats
      Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.
      Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven
      Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio!
      My father- methinks I see my father. 390

    * *Horatio. *O, where, my lord? 

    * *Hamlet. *In my mind's eye, Horatio. 

    * *Horatio. *I saw him once. He was a goodly king. 

    * *Hamlet. *He was a man, take him for all in all.
      I shall not look upon his like again. 395

    * *Horatio. *My lord, I think I saw him yesternight. 

    * *Hamlet. *Saw? who? 

    * *Horatio. *My lord, the King your father. 

    * *Hamlet. *The King my father? 

    * *Horatio. *Season your admiration for a while 400
      With an attent ear, till I may deliver
      Upon the witness of these gentlemen,
      This marvel to you. 

    * *Hamlet. *For God's love let me hear! 

    * *Horatio. *Two nights together had these gentlemen 405
      (Marcellus and Bernardo) on their watch
      In the dead vast and middle of the night
      Been thus encount'red. A figure like your father,
      Armed at point exactly, cap-a-pe,
      Appears before them and with solemn march 410
      Goes slow and stately by them. Thrice he walk'd
      By their oppress'd and fear-surprised eyes,
      Within his truncheon's length; whilst they distill'd
      Almost to jelly with the act of fear,
      Stand dumb and speak not to him. This to me 415
      In dreadful secrecy impart they did,
      And I with them the third night kept the watch;
      Where, as they had deliver'd, both in time,
      Form of the thing, each word made true and good,
      The apparition comes. I knew your father. 420
      These hands are not more like. 

    * *Hamlet. *But where was this? 

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

    * *Hamlet. *Did you not speak to it? 

    * *Horatio. *My lord, I did; 425
      But answer made it none. Yet once methought
      It lifted up it head and did address
      Itself to motion, like as it would speak;
      But even then the morning cock crew loud,
      And at the sound it shrunk in haste away 430
      And vanish'd from our sight. 

    * *Hamlet. *'Tis very strange. 

    * *Horatio. *As I do live, my honour'd lord, 'tis true;
      And we did think it writ down in our duty
      To let you know of it. 435

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

    * *Marcellus. */[with Bernardo]/ We do, my lord. 

    * *Hamlet. *Arm'd, say you? 

    * *Marcellus. */[with Bernardo]/ Arm'd, my lord. 440

    * *Hamlet. *From top to toe? 

    * *Marcellus. */[with Bernardo]/ My lord, from head to foot. 

    * *Hamlet. *Then saw you not his face? 

    * *Horatio. *O, yes, my lord! He wore his beaver up. 

    * *Hamlet. *What, look'd he frowningly. 445

    * *Horatio. *A countenance more in sorrow than in anger. 

    * *Hamlet. *Pale or red? 

    * *Horatio. *Nay, very pale. 

    * *Hamlet. *And fix'd his eyes upon you? 

    * *Horatio. *Most constantly. 450

    * *Hamlet. *I would I had been there. 

    * *Horatio. *It would have much amaz'd you. 

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

    * *Horatio. *While one with moderate haste might tell a hundred. 

    * *Marcellus. */[with Bernardo]/ Longer, longer. 455

    * *Horatio. *Not when I saw't. 

    * *Hamlet. *His beard was grizzled- no? 

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

    * *Hamlet. *I will watch to-night. 460
      Perchance 'twill walk again. 

    * *Horatio. *I warr'nt it will. 

    * *Hamlet. *If it assume my noble father's person,
      I'll speak to it, though hell itself should gape
      And bid me hold my peace. I pray you all, 465
      If you have hitherto conceal'd this sight,
      Let it be tenable in your silence still;
      And whatsoever else shall hap to-night,
      Give it an understanding but no tongue.
      I will requite your loves. So, fare you well. 470
      Upon the platform, 'twixt eleven and twelve,
      I'll visit you. 

    * *All. *Our duty to your honour. 

    * *Hamlet. *Your loves, as mine to you. Farewell.
      /[Exeunt /[all but Hamlet]/.]/ 475
      My father's spirit- in arms? All is not well.
      I doubt some foul play. Would the night were come!
      Till then sit still, my soul. Foul deeds will rise,
      Though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes. 

Exit.

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Act I, Scene 3

*Elsinore. A room in the house of Polonius.*

                 

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Enter Laertes and Ophelia.

    * *Laertes. *My necessaries are embark'd. Farewell.
      And, sister, as the winds give benefit
      And convoy is assistant, do not sleep,
      But let me hear from you. 485

    * *Ophelia. *Do you doubt that? 

    * *Laertes. *For Hamlet, and the trifling of his favour,
      Hold it a fashion, and a toy in blood;
      A violet in the youth of primy nature,
      Forward, not permanent- sweet, not lasting; 490
      The perfume and suppliance of a minute;
      No more. 

    * *Ophelia. *No more but so? 

    * *Laertes. *Think it no more.
      For nature crescent does not grow alone 495
      In thews and bulk; but as this temple waxes,
      The inward service of the mind and soul
      Grows wide withal. Perhaps he loves you now,
      And now no soil nor cautel doth besmirch
      The virtue of his will; but you must fear, 500
      His greatness weigh'd, his will is not his own;
      For he himself is subject to his birth.
      He may not, as unvalued persons do,
      Carve for himself, for on his choice depends
      The safety and health of this whole state, 505
      And therefore must his choice be circumscrib'd
      Unto the voice and yielding of that body
      Whereof he is the head. Then if he says he loves you,
      It fits your wisdom so far to believe it
      As he in his particular act and place 510
      May give his saying deed; which is no further
      Than the main voice of Denmark goes withal.
      Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain
      If with too credent ear you list his songs,
      Or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure open 515
      To his unmast'red importunity.
      Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister,
      And keep you in the rear of your affection,
      Out of the shot and danger of desire.
      The chariest maid is prodigal enough 520
      If she unmask her beauty to the moon.
      Virtue itself scopes not calumnious strokes.
      The canker galls the infants of the spring
      Too oft before their buttons be disclos'd,
      And in the morn and liquid dew of youth 525
      Contagious blastments are most imminent.
      Be wary then; best safety lies in fear.
      Youth to itself rebels, though none else near. 

    * *Ophelia. *I shall th' effect of this good lesson keep
      As watchman to my heart. But, good my brother, 530
      Do not as some ungracious pastors do,
      Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven,
      Whiles, like a puff'd and reckless libertine,
      Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads
      And recks not his own rede. 535

    * *Laertes. *O, fear me not!
      /[Enter Polonius. ]/
      I stay too long. But here my father comes.
      A double blessing is a double grace;
      Occasion smiles upon a second leave. 540

    * *Polonius. *Yet here, Laertes? Aboard, aboard, for shame!
      The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
      And you are stay'd for. There- my blessing with thee!
      And these few precepts in thy memory
      Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue, 545
      Nor any unproportion'd thought his act.
      Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar:
      Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
      Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel;
      But do not dull thy palm with entertainment 550
      Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade. Beware
      Of entrance to a quarrel; but being in,
      Bear't that th' opposed may beware of thee.
      Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice;
      Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment. 555
      Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
      But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
      For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
      And they in France of the best rank and station
      Are most select and generous, chief in that. 560
      Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
      For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
      And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
      This above all- to thine own self be true,
      And it must follow, as the night the day, 565
      Thou canst not then be false to any man.
      Farewell. My blessing season this in thee! 

    * *Laertes. *Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord. 

    * *Polonius. *The time invites you. Go, your servants tend. 

    * *Laertes. *Farewell, Ophelia, and remember well 570
      What I have said to you. 

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

    * *Laertes. *Farewell. Exit. 

    * *Polonius. *What is't, Ophelia, he hath said to you? 575

    * *Ophelia. *So please you, something touching the Lord Hamlet. 

    * *Polonius. *Marry, well bethought!
      'Tis told me he hath very oft of late
      Given private time to you, and you yourself
      Have of your audience been most free and bounteous. 580
      If it be so- as so 'tis put on me,
      And that in way of caution- I must tell you
      You do not understand yourself so clearly
      As it behooves my daughter and your honour.
      What is between you? Give me up the truth. 585

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

    * *Polonius. *Affection? Pooh! You speak like a green girl,
      Unsifted in such perilous circumstance.
      Do you believe his tenders, as you call them? 590

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

    * *Polonius. *Marry, I will teach you! Think yourself a baby
      That you have ta'en these tenders for true pay,
      Which are not sterling. Tender yourself more dearly,
      Or (not to crack the wind of the poor phrase, 595
      Running it thus) you'll tender me a fool. 

    * *Ophelia. *My lord, he hath importun'd me with love
      In honourable fashion. 

    * *Polonius. *Ay, fashion you may call it. Go to, go to! 

    * *Ophelia. *And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord, 600
      With almost all the holy vows of heaven. 

    * *Polonius. *Ay, springes to catch woodcocks! I do know,
      When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul
      Lends the tongue vows. These blazes, daughter,
      Giving more light than heat, extinct in both 605
      Even in their promise, as it is a-making,
      You must not take for fire. From this time
      Be something scanter of your maiden presence.
      Set your entreatments at a higher rate
      Than a command to parley. For Lord Hamlet, 610
      Believe so much in him, that he is young,
      And with a larger tether may he walk
      Than may be given you. In few, Ophelia,
      Do not believe his vows; for they are brokers,
      Not of that dye which their investments show, 615
      But mere implorators of unholy suits,
      Breathing like sanctified and pious bawds,
      The better to beguile. This is for all:
      I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth
      Have you so slander any moment leisure 620
      As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet.
      Look to't, I charge you. Come your ways. 

    * *Ophelia. *I shall obey, my lord. 

Exeunt.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
                

Act I, Scene 4

*Elsinore. The platform before the Castle.*

                 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Enter Hamlet, Horatio, and Marcellus.

    * *Hamlet. *The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold. 

    * *Horatio. *It is a nipping and an eager air. 

    * *Hamlet. *What hour now? 

    * *Horatio. *I think it lacks of twelve. 

    * *Marcellus. *No, it is struck. 630

    * *Horatio. *Indeed? I heard it not. It then draws near the season
      Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk.
      /[A flourish of trumpets, and two pieces go off.]/
      What does this mean, my lord? 

    * *Hamlet. *The King doth wake to-night and takes his rouse, 635
      Keeps wassail, and the swagg'ring upspring reels,
      And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down,
      The kettledrum and trumpet thus bray out
      The triumph of his pledge. 

    * *Horatio. *Is it a custom? 640

    * *Hamlet. *Ay, marry, is't;
      But to my mind, though I am native here
      And to the manner born, it is a custom
      More honour'd in the breach than the observance.
      This heavy-headed revel east and west 645
      Makes us traduc'd and tax'd of other nations;
      They clip us drunkards and with swinish phrase
      Soil our addition; and indeed it takes
      From our achievements, though perform'd at height,
      The pith and marrow of our attribute. 650
      So oft it chances in particular men
      That, for some vicious mole of nature in them,
      As in their birth,- wherein they are not guilty,
      Since nature cannot choose his origin,-
      By the o'ergrowth of some complexion, 655
      Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason,
      Or by some habit that too much o'erleavens
      The form of plausive manners, that these men
      Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect,
      Being nature's livery, or fortune's star, 660
      Their virtues else- be they as pure as grace,
      As infinite as man may undergo-
      Shall in the general censure take corruption
      From that particular fault. The dram of e'il
      Doth all the noble substance often dout To his own scandal. 665

Enter Ghost.

    * *Horatio. *Look, my lord, it comes! 

    * *Hamlet. *Angels and ministers of grace defend us!
      Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd,
      Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell, 670
      Be thy intents wicked or charitable,
      Thou com'st in such a questionable shape
      That I will speak to thee. I'll call thee Hamlet,
      King, father, royal Dane. O, answer me?
      Let me not burst in ignorance, but tell 675
      Why thy canoniz'd bones, hearsed in death,
      Have burst their cerements; why the sepulchre
      Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn'd,
      Hath op'd his ponderous and marble jaws
      To cast thee up again. What may this mean 680
      That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel,
      Revisits thus the glimpses of the moon,
      Making night hideous, and we fools of nature
      So horridly to shake our disposition
      With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls? 685
      Say, why is this? wherefore? What should we do? 

Ghost beckons Hamlet.

    * *Horatio. *It beckons you to go away with it,
      As if it some impartment did desire
      To you alone. 690

    * *Marcellus. *Look with what courteous action
      It waves you to a more removed ground.
      But do not go with it! 

    * *Horatio. *No, by no means! 

    * *Hamlet. *It will not speak. Then will I follow it. 695

    * *Horatio. *Do not, my lord! 

    * *Hamlet. *Why, what should be the fear?
      I do not set my life at a pin's fee;
      And for my soul, what can it do to that,
      Being a thing immortal as itself? 700
      It waves me forth again. I'll follow it. 

    * *Horatio. *What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord,
      Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff
      That beetles o'er his base into the sea,
      And there assume some other, horrible form 705
      Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason
      And draw you into madness? Think of it.
      The very place puts toys of desperation,
      Without more motive, into every brain
      That looks so many fadoms to the sea 710
      And hears it roar beneath. 

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

    * *Marcellus. *You shall not go, my lord. 

    * *Hamlet. *Hold off your hands! 715

    * *Horatio. *Be rul'd. You shall not go. 

    * *Hamlet. *My fate cries out
      And makes each petty artire in this body
      As hardy as the Nemean lion's nerve.
      /[Ghost beckons.]/ 720
      Still am I call'd. Unhand me, gentlemen.
      By heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that lets me!-
      I say, away!- Go on. I'll follow thee. 

Exeunt Ghost and Hamlet.

    * *Horatio. *He waxes desperate with imagination. 725

    * *Marcellus. *Let's follow. 'Tis not fit thus to obey him. 

    * *Horatio. *Have after. To what issue will this come? 

    * *Marcellus. *Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. 

    * *Horatio. *Heaven will direct it. 

    * *Marcellus. *Nay, let's follow him. 730

Exeunt.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
                

Act I, Scene 5

*Elsinore. The Castle. Another part of the fortifications.*

                 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Enter Ghost and Hamlet.

    * *Hamlet. *Whither wilt thou lead me? Speak! I'll go no further. 

    * *Father's Ghost. *Mark me. 

    * *Hamlet. *I will. 735

    * *Father's Ghost. *My hour is almost come,
      When I to sulph'rous and tormenting flames
      Must render up myself. 

    * *Hamlet. *Alas, poor ghost! 

    * *Father's Ghost. *Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing 740
      To what I shall unfold. 

    * *Hamlet. *Speak. I am bound to hear. 

    * *Father's Ghost. *So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear. 

    * *Hamlet. *What? 

    * *Father's Ghost. *I am thy father's spirit, 745
      Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night,
      And for the day confin'd to fast in fires,
      Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
      Are burnt and purg'd away. But that I am forbid
      To tell the secrets of my prison house, 750
      I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
      Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
      Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres,
      Thy knotted and combined locks to part,
      And each particular hair to stand on end 755
      Like quills upon the fretful porcupine.
      But this eternal blazon must not be
      To ears of flesh and blood. List, list, O, list!
      If thou didst ever thy dear father love- 

    * *Hamlet. *O God! 760

    * *Father's Ghost. *Revenge his foul and most unnatural murther. 

    * *Hamlet. *Murther? 

    * *Father's Ghost. *Murther most foul, as in the best it is;
      But this most foul, strange, and unnatural. 

    * *Hamlet. *Haste me to know't, that I, with wings as swift 765
      As meditation or the thoughts of love,
      May sweep to my revenge. 

    * *Father's Ghost. *I find thee apt;
      And duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed
      That rots itself in ease on Lethe wharf, 770
      Wouldst thou not stir in this. Now, Hamlet, hear.
      'Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard,
      A serpent stung me. So the whole ear of Denmark
      Is by a forged process of my death
      Rankly abus'd. But know, thou noble youth, 775
      The serpent that did sting thy father's life
      Now wears his crown. 

    * *Hamlet. *O my prophetic soul!
      My uncle? 

    * *Father's Ghost. *Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast, 780
      With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts-
      O wicked wit and gifts, that have the power
      So to seduce!- won to his shameful lust
      The will of my most seeming-virtuous queen.
      O Hamlet, what a falling-off was there, 785
      From me, whose love was of that dignity
      That it went hand in hand even with the vow
      I made to her in marriage, and to decline
      Upon a wretch whose natural gifts were poor
      To those of mine! 790
      But virtue, as it never will be mov'd,
      Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven,
      So lust, though to a radiant angel link'd,
      Will sate itself in a celestial bed
      And prey on garbage. 795
      But soft! methinks I scent the morning air.
      Brief let me be. Sleeping within my orchard,
      My custom always of the afternoon,
      Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole,
      With juice of cursed hebona in a vial, 800
      And in the porches of my ears did pour
      The leperous distilment; whose effect
      Holds such an enmity with blood of man
      That swift as quicksilver it courses through
      The natural gates and alleys of the body, 805
      And with a sudden vigour it doth posset
      And curd, like eager droppings into milk,
      The thin and wholesome blood. So did it mine;
      And a most instant tetter bark'd about,
      Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust 810
      All my smooth body.
      Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother's hand
      Of life, of crown, of queen, at once dispatch'd;
      Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,
      Unhous'led, disappointed, unanel'd, 815
      No reckoning made, but sent to my account
      With all my imperfections on my head. 

    * *Hamlet. *O, horrible! O, horrible! most horrible! 

    * *Father's Ghost. *If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not.
      Let not the royal bed of Denmark be 820
      A couch for luxury and damned incest.
      But, howsoever thou pursuest this act,
      Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive
      Against thy mother aught. Leave her to heaven,
      And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge 825
      To prick and sting her. Fare thee well at once.
      The glowworm shows the matin to be near
      And gins to pale his uneffectual fire.
      Adieu, adieu, adieu! Remember me. Exit. 

    * *Hamlet. *O all you host of heaven! O earth! What else? 830
      And shall I couple hell? Hold, hold, my heart!
      And you, my sinews, grow not instant old,
      But bear me stiffly up. Remember thee?
      Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat
      In this distracted globe. Remember thee? 835
      Yea, from the table of my memory
      I'll wipe away all trivial fond records,
      All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past
      That youth and observation copied there,
      And thy commandment all alone shall live 840
      Within the book and volume of my brain,
      Unmix'd with baser matter. Yes, by heaven!
      O most pernicious woman!
      O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!
      My tables! Meet it is I set it down 845
      That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain;
      At least I am sure it may be so in Denmark. /[Writes.]/
      So, uncle, there you are. Now to my word:
      It is 'Adieu, adieu! Remember me.'
      I have sworn't. 850

    * *Horatio. */[within]/ My lord, my lord! 

Enter Horatio and Marcellus.

    * *Marcellus. *Lord Hamlet! 

    * *Horatio. *Heaven secure him! 

    * *Hamlet. *So be it! 855

    * *Marcellus. *Illo, ho, ho, my lord! 

    * *Hamlet. *Hillo, ho, ho, boy! Come, bird, come. 

    * *Marcellus. *How is't, my noble lord? 

    * *Horatio. *What news, my lord? 

    * *Marcellus. *O, wonderful! 860

    * *Horatio. *Good my lord, tell it. 

    * *Hamlet. *No, you will reveal it. 

    * *Horatio. *Not I, my lord, by heaven! 

    * *Marcellus. *Nor I, my lord. 

    * *Hamlet. *How say you then? Would heart of man once think it? 865
      But you'll be secret? 

    * *Marcellus. */[with Horatio]/ Ay, by heaven, my lord. 

    * *Hamlet. *There's neer a villain dwelling in all Denmark
      But he's an arrant knave. 

    * *Horatio. *There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave 870
      To tell us this. 

    * *Hamlet. *Why, right! You are in the right!
      And so, without more circumstance at all,
      I hold it fit that we shake hands and part;
      You, as your business and desires shall point you, 875
      For every man hath business and desire,
      Such as it is; and for my own poor part,
      Look you, I'll go pray. 

    * *Horatio. *These are but wild and whirling words, my lord. 

    * *Hamlet. *I am sorry they offend you, heartily; 880
      Yes, faith, heartily. 

    * *Horatio. *There's no offence, my lord. 

    * *Hamlet. *Yes, by Saint Patrick, but there is, Horatio,
      And much offence too. Touching this vision here,
      It is an honest ghost, that let me tell you. 885
      For your desire to know what is between us,
      O'ermaster't as you may. And now, good friends,
      As you are friends, scholars, and soldiers,
      Give me one poor request. 

    * *Horatio. *What is't, my lord? We will. 890

    * *Hamlet. *Never make known what you have seen to-night. 

    * *Marcellus. */[with Horatio]/ My lord, we will not. 

    * *Hamlet. *Nay, but swear't. 

    * *Horatio. *In faith,
      My lord, not I. 895

    * *Marcellus. *Nor I, my lord- in faith. 

    * *Hamlet. *Upon my sword. 

    * *Marcellus. *We have sworn, my lord, already. 

    * *Hamlet. *Indeed, upon my sword, indeed. 

Ghost cries under the stage.

    * *Father's Ghost. *Swear. 

    * *Hamlet. *Aha boy, say'st thou so? Art thou there, truepenny?
      Come on! You hear this fellow in the cellarage.
      Consent to swear. 

    * *Horatio. *Propose the oath, my lord. 905

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

    * *Father's Ghost. */[beneath]/ Swear. 

    * *Hamlet. *Hic et ubique? Then we'll shift our ground.
      Come hither, gentlemen, 910
      And lay your hands again upon my sword.
      Never to speak of this that you have heard:
      Swear by my sword. 

    * *Father's Ghost. */[beneath]/ Swear by his sword. 

    * *Hamlet. *Well said, old mole! Canst work i' th' earth so fast? 915
      A worthy pioner! Once more remove, good friends." 

    * *Horatio. *O day and night, but this is wondrous strange! 

    * *Hamlet. *And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
      There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
      Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. 920
      But come!
      Here, as before, never, so help you mercy,
      How strange or odd soe'er I bear myself
      (As I perchance hereafter shall think meet
      To put an antic disposition on), 925
      That you, at such times seeing me, never shall,
      With arms encumb'red thus, or this head-shake,
      Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase,
      As 'Well, well, we know,' or 'We could, an if we would,'
      Or 'If we list to speak,' or 'There be, an if they might,' 930
      Or such ambiguous giving out, to note
      That you know aught of me- this is not to do,
      So grace and mercy at your most need help you,
      Swear. 

    * *Father's Ghost. */[beneath]/ Swear. 935

[They swear.]

    * *Hamlet. *Rest, rest, perturbed spirit! So, gentlemen,
      With all my love I do commend me to you;
      And what so poor a man as Hamlet is
      May do t' express his love and friending to you, 940
      God willing, shall not lack. Let us go in together;
      And still your fingers on your lips, I pray.
      The time is out of joint. O cursed spite
      That ever I was born to set it right!
      Nay, come, let's go together. 945

Exeunt.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
                

Act II, Scene 1

*Elsinore. A room in the house of Polonius.*

                 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Enter Polonius and Reynaldo.

    * *Polonius. *Give him this money and these notes, Reynaldo. 

    * *Reynaldo. *I will, my lord. 

    * *Polonius. *You shall do marvell's wisely, good Reynaldo, 950
      Before You visit him, to make inquire
      Of his behaviour. 

    * *Reynaldo. *My lord, I did intend it. 

    * *Polonius. *Marry, well said, very well said. Look you, sir,
      Enquire me first what Danskers are in Paris; 955
      And how, and who, what means, and where they keep,
      What company, at what expense; and finding
      By this encompassment and drift of question
      That they do know my son, come you more nearer
      Than your particular demands will touch it. 960
      Take you, as 'twere, some distant knowledge of him;
      As thus, 'I know his father and his friends,
      And in part him.' Do you mark this, Reynaldo? 

    * *Reynaldo. *Ay, very well, my lord. 

    * *Polonius. *'And in part him, but,' you may say, 'not well. 965
      But if't be he I mean, he's very wild
      Addicted so and so'; and there put on him
      What forgeries you please; marry, none so rank
      As may dishonour him- take heed of that;
      But, sir, such wanton, wild, and usual slips 970
      As are companions noted and most known
      To youth and liberty. 

    * *Reynaldo. *As gaming, my lord. 

    * *Polonius. *Ay, or drinking, fencing, swearing, quarrelling,
      Drabbing. You may go so far. 975

    * *Reynaldo. *My lord, that would dishonour him. 

    * *Polonius. *Faith, no, as you may season it in the charge.
      You must not put another scandal on him,
      That he is open to incontinency.
      That's not my meaning. But breathe his faults so quaintly 980
      That they may seem the taints of liberty,
      The flash and outbreak of a fiery mind,
      A savageness in unreclaimed blood,
      Of general assault. 

    * *Reynaldo. *But, my good lord- 985

    * *Polonius. *Wherefore should you do this? 

    * *Reynaldo. *Ay, my lord,
      I would know that. 

    * *Polonius. *Marry, sir, here's my drift,
      And I believe it is a fetch of warrant. 990
      You laying these slight sullies on my son
      As 'twere a thing a little soil'd i' th' working,
      Mark you,
      Your party in converse, him you would sound,
      Having ever seen in the prenominate crimes 995
      The youth you breathe of guilty, be assur'd
      He closes with you in this consequence:
      'Good sir,' or so, or 'friend,' or 'gentleman'-
      According to the phrase or the addition
      Of man and country- 1000

    * *Reynaldo. *Very good, my lord. 

    * *Polonius. *And then, sir, does 'a this- 'a does- What was I about
      to say?
      By the mass, I was about to say something! Where did I leave? 

    * *Reynaldo. *At 'closes in the consequence,' at 'friend or so,' and
      gentleman.' 1005

    * *Polonius. *At 'closes in the consequence'- Ay, marry!
      He closes thus: 'I know the gentleman.
      I saw him yesterday, or t'other day,
      Or then, or then, with such or such; and, as you say,
      There was 'a gaming; there o'ertook in's rouse; 1010
      There falling out at tennis'; or perchance,
      'I saw him enter such a house of sale,'
      Videlicet, a brothel, or so forth.
      See you now-
      Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth; 1015
      And thus do we of wisdom and of reach,
      With windlasses and with assays of bias,
      By indirections find directions out.
      So, by my former lecture and advice,
      Shall you my son. You have me, have you not? 1020

    * *Reynaldo. *My lord, I have. 

    * *Polonius. *God b' wi' ye, fare ye well! 

    * *Reynaldo. *Good my lord! /[Going.]/ 

    * *Polonius. *Observe his inclination in yourself. 

    * *Reynaldo. *I shall, my lord. 1025

    * *Polonius. *And let him ply his music. 

    * *Reynaldo. *Well, my lord. 

    * *Polonius. *Farewell!
      /[Exit Reynaldo.]/
      /[Enter Ophelia.]/ 1030
      How now, Ophelia? What's the matter? 

    * *Ophelia. *O my lord, my lord, I have been so affrighted! 

    * *Polonius. *With what, i' th' name of God? 

    * *Ophelia. *My lord, as I was sewing in my closet,
      Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbrac'd, 1035
      No hat upon his head, his stockings foul'd,
      Ungart'red, and down-gyved to his ankle;
      Pale as his shirt, his knees knocking each other,
      And with a look so piteous in purport
      As if he had been loosed out of hell 1040
      To speak of horrors- he comes before me. 

    * *Polonius. *Mad for thy love? 

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

    * *Polonius. *What said he? 1045

    * *Ophelia. *He took me by the wrist and held me hard;
      Then goes he to the length of all his arm,
      And, with his other hand thus o'er his brow,
      He falls to such perusal of my face
      As he would draw it. Long stay'd he so. 1050
      At last, a little shaking of mine arm,
      And thrice his head thus waving up and down,
      He rais'd a sigh so piteous and profound
      As it did seem to shatter all his bulk
      And end his being. That done, he lets me go, 1055
      And with his head over his shoulder turn'd
      He seem'd to find his way without his eyes,
      For out o' doors he went without their help
      And to the last bended their light on me. 

    * *Polonius. *Come, go with me. I will go seek the King. 1060
      This is the very ecstasy of love,
      Whose violent property fordoes itself
      And leads the will to desperate undertakings
      As oft as any passion under heaven
      That does afflict our natures. I am sorry. 1065
      What, have you given him any hard words of late? 

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

    * *Polonius. *That hath made him mad. 1070
      I am sorry that with better heed and judgment
      I had not quoted him. I fear'd he did but trifle
      And meant to wrack thee; but beshrew my jealousy!
      By heaven, it is as proper to our age
      To cast beyond ourselves in our opinions 1075
      As it is common for the younger sort
      To lack discretion. Come, go we to the King.
      This must be known; which, being kept close, might move
      More grief to hide than hate to utter love.
      Come. 1080

Exeunt.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
                

Act II, Scene 2

*Elsinore. A room in the Castle.*

                 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Flourish. [Enter King and Queen, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern,

cum aliis.

    * *Claudius. *Welcome, dear Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
      Moreover that we much did long to see you, 1085
      The need we have to use you did provoke
      Our hasty sending. Something have you heard
      Of Hamlet's transformation. So I call it,
      Sith nor th' exterior nor the inward man
      Resembles that it was. What it should be, 1090
      More than his father's death, that thus hath put him
      So much from th' understanding of himself,
      I cannot dream of. I entreat you both
      That, being of so young days brought up with him,
      And since so neighbour'd to his youth and haviour, 1095
      That you vouchsafe your rest here in our court
      Some little time; so by your companies
      To draw him on to pleasures, and to gather
      So much as from occasion you may glean,
      Whether aught to us unknown afflicts him thus 1100
      That, open'd, lies within our remedy. 

    * *Gertrude. *Good gentlemen, he hath much talk'd of you,
      And sure I am two men there are not living
      To whom he more adheres. If it will please you
      To show us so much gentry and good will 1105
      As to expend your time with us awhile
      For the supply and profit of our hope,
      Your visitation shall receive such thanks
      As fits a king's remembrance. 

    * *Rosencrantz. *Both your Majesties 1110
      Might, by the sovereign power you have of us,
      Put your dread pleasures more into command
      Than to entreaty. 

    * *Guildenstern. *But we both obey,
      And here give up ourselves, in the full bent, 1115
      To lay our service freely at your feet,
      To be commanded. 

    * *Claudius. *Thanks, Rosencrantz and gentle Guildenstern. 

    * *Gertrude. *Thanks, Guildenstern and gentle Rosencrantz.
      And I beseech you instantly to visit 1120
      My too much changed son.- Go, some of you,
      And bring these gentlemen where Hamlet is. 

    * *Guildenstern. *Heavens make our presence and our practices
      Pleasant and helpful to him! 

    * *Gertrude. *Ay, amen! 1125

Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, [with some Attendants].

Enter Polonius.

    * *Polonius. *Th' ambassadors from Norway, my good lord,
      Are joyfully return'd. 

    * *Claudius. *Thou still hast been the father of good news. 1130

    * *Polonius. *Have I, my lord? Assure you, my good liege,
      I hold my duty as I hold my soul,
      Both to my God and to my gracious king;
      And I do think- or else this brain of mine
      Hunts not the trail of policy so sure 1135
      As it hath us'd to do- that I have found
      The very cause of Hamlet's lunacy. 

    * *Claudius. *O, speak of that! That do I long to hear. 

    * *Polonius. *Give first admittance to th' ambassadors.
      My news shall be the fruit to that great feast. 1140

    * *Claudius. *Thyself do grace to them, and bring them in.
      /[Exit Polonius.]/
      He tells me, my dear Gertrude, he hath found
      The head and source of all your son's distemper. 

    * *Gertrude. *I doubt it is no other but the main, 1145
      His father's death and our o'erhasty marriage. 

    * *Claudius. *Well, we shall sift him.
      /[Enter Polonius, Voltemand, and Cornelius.]/
      Welcome, my good friends.
      Say, Voltemand, what from our brother Norway? 1150

    * *Voltemand. *Most fair return of greetings and desires.
      Upon our first, he sent out to suppress
      His nephew's levies; which to him appear'd
      To be a preparation 'gainst the Polack,
      But better look'd into, he truly found 1155
      It was against your Highness; whereat griev'd,
      That so his sickness, age, and impotence
      Was falsely borne in hand, sends out arrests
      On Fortinbras; which he, in brief, obeys,
      Receives rebuke from Norway, and, in fine, 1160
      Makes vow before his uncle never more
      To give th' assay of arms against your Majesty.
      Whereon old Norway, overcome with joy,
      Gives him three thousand crowns in annual fee
      And his commission to employ those soldiers, 1165
      So levied as before, against the Polack;
      With an entreaty, herein further shown,
      /[Gives a paper.]/
      That it might please you to give quiet pass
      Through your dominions for this enterprise, 1170
      On such regards of safety and allowance
      As therein are set down. 

    * *Claudius. *It likes us well;
      And at our more consider'd time we'll read,
      Answer, and think upon this business. 1175
      Meantime we thank you for your well-took labour.
      Go to your rest; at night we'll feast together.
      Most welcome home! Exeunt Ambassadors. 

    * *Polonius. *This business is well ended.
      My liege, and madam, to expostulate 1180
      What majesty should be, what duty is,
      Why day is day, night is night, and time is time.
      Were nothing but to waste night, day, and time.
      Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
      And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, 1185
      I will be brief. Your noble son is mad.
      Mad call I it; for, to define true madness,
      What is't but to be nothing else but mad?
      But let that go. 

    * *Gertrude. *More matter, with less art. 1190

    * *Polonius. *Madam, I swear I use no art at all.
      That he is mad, 'tis true: 'tis true 'tis pity;
      And pity 'tis 'tis true. A foolish figure!
      But farewell it, for I will use no art.
      Mad let us grant him then. And now remains 1195
      That we find out the cause of this effect-
      Or rather say, the cause of this defect,
      For this effect defective comes by cause.
      Thus it remains, and the remainder thus.
      Perpend. 1200
      I have a daughter (have while she is mine),
      Who in her duty and obedience, mark,
      Hath given me this. Now gather, and surmise.
      /[Reads]/ the letter.]
      'To the celestial, and my soul's idol, the most beautified
      Ophelia,'- 1205
      That's an ill phrase, a vile phrase; 'beautified' is a vile phrase.
      But you shall hear. Thus:
      /[Reads.]/
      'In her excellent white bosom, these, &c.' 

    * *Gertrude. *Came this from Hamlet to her? 1210

    * *Polonius. *Good madam, stay awhile. I will be faithful. /[Reads.]/
      'Doubt thou the stars are fire;
      Doubt that the sun doth move;
      Doubt truth to be a liar;
      But never doubt I love. 1215
      'O dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers; I have not art to
      reckon my groans; but that I love thee best, O most best, believe
      it. Adieu.
      'Thine evermore, most dear lady, whilst this machine is to
      him, HAMLET.' 1220
      This, in obedience, hath my daughter shown me;
      And more above, hath his solicitings,
      As they fell out by time, by means, and place,
      All given to mine ear. 

    * *Claudius. *But how hath she 1225
      Receiv'd his love? 

    * *Polonius. *What do you think of me? 

    * *Claudius. *As of a man faithful and honourable. 

    * *Polonius. *I would fain prove so. But what might you think,
      When I had seen this hot love on the wing 1230
      (As I perceiv'd it, I must tell you that,
      Before my daughter told me), what might you,
      Or my dear Majesty your queen here, think,
      If I had play'd the desk or table book,
      Or given my heart a winking, mute and dumb, 1235
      Or look'd upon this love with idle sight?
      What might you think? No, I went round to work
      And my young mistress thus I did bespeak:
      'Lord Hamlet is a prince, out of thy star.
      This must not be.' And then I prescripts gave her, 1240
      That she should lock herself from his resort,
      Admit no messengers, receive no tokens.
      Which done, she took the fruits of my advice,
      And he, repulsed, a short tale to make,
      Fell into a sadness, then into a fast, 1245
      Thence to a watch, thence into a weakness,
      Thence to a lightness, and, by this declension,
      Into the madness wherein now he raves,
      And all we mourn for. 

    * *Claudius. *Do you think 'tis this? 1250

    * *Gertrude. *it may be, very like. 

    * *Polonius. *Hath there been such a time- I would fain know that-
      That I have Positively said 'Tis so,'
      When it prov'd otherwise.? 

    * *Claudius. *Not that I know. 1255

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

    * *Claudius. *How may we try it further? 1260

    * *Polonius. *You know sometimes he walks for hours together
      Here in the lobby. 

    * *Gertrude. *So he does indeed. 

    * *Polonius. *At such a time I'll loose my daughter to him.
      Be you and I behind an arras then. 1265
      Mark the encounter. If he love her not,
      And he not from his reason fall'n thereon
      Let me be no assistant for a state,
      But keep a farm and carters. 

    * *Claudius. *We will try it. 1270

Enter Hamlet, reading on a book.

    * *Gertrude. *But look where sadly the poor wretch comes reading. 

    * *Polonius. *Away, I do beseech you, both away
      I'll board him presently. O, give me leave.
      /[Exeunt King and Queen, /[with Attendants]/.]/ 1275
      How does my good Lord Hamlet? 

    * *Hamlet. *Well, God-a-mercy. 

    * *Polonius. *Do you know me, my lord? 

    * *Hamlet. *Excellent well. You are a fishmonger. 

    * *Polonius. *Not I, my lord. 1280

    * *Hamlet. *Then I would you were so honest a man. 

    * *Polonius. *Honest, my lord? 

    * *Hamlet. *Ay, sir. To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man
      pick'd out of ten thousand. 

    * *Polonius. *That's very true, my lord. 1285

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

    * *Polonius. *I have, my lord. 

    * *Hamlet. *Let her not walk i' th' sun. Conception is a blessing,
      but not
      as your daughter may conceive. Friend, look to't. 1290

    * *Polonius. */[aside]/ How say you by that? Still harping on my
      daughter. Yet
      he knew me not at first. He said I was a fishmonger. He is far
      gone, far gone! And truly in my youth I suff'red much extremity
      for love- very near this. I'll speak to him again.- What do you
      read, my lord? 1295

    * *Hamlet. *Words, words, words. 

    * *Polonius. *What is the matter, my lord? 

    * *Hamlet. *Between who? 

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

    * *Hamlet. *Slanders, sir; for the satirical rogue says here that
      old men 1300
      have grey beards; that their faces are wrinkled; their eyes
      purging thick amber and plum-tree gum; and that they have a
      plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams. All which,
      sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it
      not honesty to have it thus set down; for you yourself, sir, 1305
      should be old as I am if, like a crab, you could go backward. 

    * *Polonius. */[aside]/ Though this be madness, yet there is a
      method in't.-
      Will You walk out of the air, my lord? 

    * *Hamlet. *Into my grave? 

    * *Polonius. *Indeed, that is out o' th' air. /[Aside]/ How pregnant
      sometimes 1310
      his replies are! a happiness that often madness hits on, which
      reason and sanity could not so prosperously be delivered of. I
      will leave him and suddenly contrive the means of meeting between
      him and my daughter.- My honourable lord, I will most humbly take
      my leave of you. 1315

    * *Hamlet. *You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I will more
      willingly part withal- except my life, except my life, except my
      life, 

Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

    * *Polonius. *Fare you well, my lord. 1320

    * *Hamlet. *These tedious old fools! 

    * *Polonius. *You go to seek the Lord Hamlet. There he is. 

    * *Rosencrantz. */[to Polonius]/ God save you, sir! 

Exit [Polonius].

    * *Guildenstern. *My honour'd lord! 1325

    * *Rosencrantz. *My most dear lord! 

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

    * *Rosencrantz. *As the indifferent children of the earth. 

    * *Guildenstern. *Happy in that we are not over-happy. 1330
      On Fortune's cap we are not the very button. 

    * *Hamlet. *Nor the soles of her shoe? 

    * *Rosencrantz. *Neither, my lord. 

    * *Hamlet. *Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of her
      favours? 1335

    * *Guildenstern. *Faith, her privates we. 

    * *Hamlet. *In the secret parts of Fortune? O! most true! she is a
      strumpet. What news ? 

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

    * *Hamlet. *Then is doomsday near! But your news is not true. Let me
      1340
      question more in particular. What have you, my good friends,
      deserved at the hands of Fortune that she sends you to prison
      hither? 

    * *Guildenstern. *Prison, my lord? 

    * *Hamlet. *Denmark's a prison. 1345

    * *Rosencrantz. *Then is the world one. 

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

    * *Rosencrantz. *We think not so, my lord. 

    * *Hamlet. *Why, then 'tis none to you; for there is nothing either
      good 1350
      or bad but thinking makes it so. To me it is a prison. 

    * *Rosencrantz. *Why, then your ambition makes it one. 'Tis too
      narrow for your
      mind. 

    * *Hamlet. *O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a
      king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams. 1355

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

    * *Hamlet. *A dream itself is but a shadow. 

    * *Rosencrantz. *Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a
      quality that
      it is but a shadow's shadow. 1360

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

    * *Rosencrantz. */[with Guildenstern]/ We'll wait upon you. 

    * *Hamlet. *No such matter! I will not sort you with the rest of my 1365
      servants; for, to speak to you like an honest man, I am most
      dreadfully attended. But in the beaten way of friendship, what
      make you at Elsinore? 

    * *Rosencrantz. *To visit you, my lord; no other occasion. 

    * *Hamlet. *Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks; but I thank
      you; 1370
      and sure, dear friends, my thanks are too dear a halfpenny. Were
      you not sent for? Is it your own inclining? Is it a free
      visitation? Come, deal justly with me. Come, come! Nay, speak. 

    * *Guildenstern. *What should we say, my lord? 

    * *Hamlet. *Why, anything- but to th' purpose. You were sent for;
      and 1375
      there is a kind of confession in your looks, which your modesties
      have not craft enough to colour. I know the good King and Queen
      have sent for you. 

    * *Rosencrantz. *To what end, my lord? 

    * *Hamlet. *That you must teach me. But let me conjure you by the
      rights 1380
      of our fellowship, by the consonancy of our youth, by the
      obligation of our ever-preserved love, and by what more dear a
      better proposer could charge you withal, be even and direct with
      me, whether you were sent for or no. 

    * *Rosencrantz. */[aside to Guildenstern]/ What say you? 1385

    * *Hamlet. */[aside]/ Nay then, I have an eye of you.- If you love
      me, hold
      not off. 

    * *Guildenstern. *My lord, we were sent for. 

    * *Hamlet. *I will tell you why. So shall my anticipation prevent your
      discovery, and your secrecy to the King and Queen moult no 1390
      feather. I have of late- but wherefore I know not- lost all my
      mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed, it goes so
      heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth,
      seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the
      air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical 1395
      roof fretted with golden fire- why, it appeareth no other thing
      to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a
      piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in
      faculties! in form and moving how express and admirable! in
      action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the 1400
      beauty of the world, the paragon of animals! And yet to me what
      is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me- no, nor woman
      neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so. 

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

    * *Hamlet. *Why did you laugh then, when I said 'Man delights not
      me'? 1405

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

    * *Hamlet. *He that plays the king shall be welcome- his Majesty shall
      have tribute of me; the adventurous knight shall use his foil and 1410
      target; the lover shall not sigh gratis; the humorous man shall
      end his part in peace; the clown shall make those laugh whose
      lungs are tickle o' th' sere; and the lady shall say her mind
      freely, or the blank verse shall halt for't. What players are
      they? 1415

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

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

    * *Rosencrantz. *I think their inhibition comes by the means of the
      late 1420
      innovation. 

    * *Hamlet. *Do they hold the same estimation they did when I was in the
      city? Are they so follow'd? 

    * *Rosencrantz. *No indeed are they not. 

    * *Hamlet. *How comes it? Do they grow rusty? 1425

    * *Rosencrantz. *Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace; but
      there is,
      sir, an eyrie of children, little eyases, that cry out on the top
      of question and are most tyrannically clapp'd for't. These are now
      the fashion, and so berattle the common stages (so they call
      them) that many wearing rapiers are afraid of goosequills and 1430
      dare scarce come thither. 

    * *Hamlet. *What, are they children? Who maintains 'em? How are they
      escoted? Will they pursue the quality no longer than they can
      sing? Will they not say afterwards, if they should grow
      themselves to common players (as it is most like, if their means 1435
      are no better), their writers do them wrong to make them exclaim
      against their own succession. 

    * *Rosencrantz. *Faith, there has been much to do on both sides; and
      the nation
      holds it no sin to tarre them to controversy. There was, for a
      while, no money bid for argument unless the poet and the player 1440
      went to cuffs in the question. 

    * *Hamlet. *Is't possible? 

    * *Guildenstern. *O, there has been much throwing about of brains. 

    * *Hamlet. *Do the boys carry it away? 

    * *Rosencrantz. *Ay, that they do, my lord- Hercules and his load
      too. 1445

    * *Hamlet. *It is not very strange; for my uncle is King of Denmark,
      and
      those that would make mows at him while my father lived give
      twenty, forty, fifty, a hundred ducats apiece for his picture in
      little. 'Sblood, there is something in this more than natural, if
      philosophy could find it out. 1450

Flourish for the Players.

    * *Guildenstern. *There are the players. 

    * *Hamlet. *Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore. Your hands,
      come! Th'
      appurtenance of welcome is fashion and ceremony. Let me comply
      with you in this garb, lest my extent to the players (which I 1455
      tell you must show fairly outwards) should more appear like
      entertainment than yours. You are welcome. But my uncle-father
      and aunt-mother are deceiv'd. 

    * *Guildenstern. *In what, my dear lord? 

    * *Hamlet. *I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is
      southerly I 1460
      know a hawk from a handsaw. 

Enter Polonius.

    * *Polonius. *Well be with you, gentlemen! 

    * *Hamlet. *Hark you, Guildenstern- and you too- at each ear a hearer!
      That great baby you see there is not yet out of his swaddling 1465
      clouts. 

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

    * *Hamlet. *I will prophesy he comes to tell me of the players. Mark
      it.-
      You say right, sir; a Monday morning; twas so indeed. 1470

    * *Polonius. *My lord, I have news to tell you. 

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

    * *Polonius. *The actors are come hither, my lord. 

    * *Hamlet. *Buzz, buzz! 

    * *Polonius. *Upon my honour- 1475

    * *Hamlet. *Then came each actor on his ass- 

    * *Polonius. *The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy,
      history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral,
      tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral; scene
      individable, or poem unlimited. Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor 1480
      Plautus too light. For the law of writ and the liberty, these are
      the only men. 

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

    * *Polonius. *What treasure had he, my lord? 

    * *Hamlet. *Why, 1485
      'One fair daughter, and no more,
      The which he loved passing well.' 

    * *Polonius. */[aside]/ Still on my daughter. 

    * *Hamlet. *Am I not i' th' right, old Jephthah? 

    * *Polonius. *If you call me Jephthah, my lord, I have a daughter
      that I 1490
      love passing well. 

    * *Hamlet. *Nay, that follows not. 

    * *Polonius. *What follows then, my lord? 

    * *Hamlet. *Why,
      'As by lot, God wot,' 1495
      and then, you know,
      'It came to pass, as most like it was.'
      The first row of the pious chanson will show you more; for look
      where my abridgment comes.
      /[Enter four or five Players.]/ 1500
      You are welcome, masters; welcome, all.- I am glad to see thee
      well.- Welcome, good friends.- O, my old friend? Why, thy face is
      valanc'd since I saw thee last. Com'st' thou to' beard me in
      Denmark?- What, my young lady and mistress? By'r Lady, your
      ladyship is nearer to heaven than when I saw you last by the 1505
      altitude of a chopine. Pray God your voice, like a piece of
      uncurrent gold, be not crack'd within the ring.- Masters, you are
      all welcome. We'll e'en to't like French falconers, fly at
      anything we see. We'll have a speech straight. Come, give us a
      taste of your quality. Come, a passionate speech. 1510

    * *First Player. *What speech, my good lord? 

    * *Hamlet. *I heard thee speak me a speech once, but it was never
      acted;
      or if it was, not above once; for the play, I remember, pleas'd
      not the million, 'twas caviary to the general; but it was (as I
      receiv'd it, and others, whose judgments in such matters cried in 1515
      the top of mine) an excellent play, well digested in the scenes,
      set down with as much modesty as cunning. I remember one said
      there were no sallets in the lines to make the matter savoury,
      nor no matter in the phrase that might indict the author of
      affectation; but call'd it an honest method, as wholesome as 1520
      sweet, and by very much more handsome than fine. One speech in't
      I chiefly lov'd. 'Twas AEneas' tale to Dido, and thereabout of it
      especially where he speaks of Priam's slaughter. If it live in
      your memory, begin at this line- let me see, let me see:
      'The rugged Pyrrhus, like th' Hyrcanian beast-' 1525
      'Tis not so; it begins with Pyrrhus:
      'The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable arms,
      Black as his purpose, did the night resemble
      When he lay couched in the ominous horse,
      Hath now this dread and black complexion smear'd 1530
      With heraldry more dismal. Head to foot
      Now is be total gules, horridly trick'd
      With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons,
      Bak'd and impasted with the parching streets,
      That lend a tyrannous and a damned light 1535
      To their lord's murther. Roasted in wrath and fire,
      And thus o'ersized with coagulate gore,
      With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus
      Old grandsire Priam seeks.'
      So, proceed you. 1540

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

    * *First Player. *'Anon he finds him,
      Striking too short at Greeks. His antique sword,
      Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls,
      Repugnant to command. Unequal match'd, 1545
      Pyrrhus at Priam drives, in rage strikes wide;
      But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword
      Th' unnerved father falls. Then senseless Ilium,
      Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming top
      Stoops to his base, and with a hideous crash 1550
      Takes prisoner Pyrrhus' ear. For lo! his sword,
      Which was declining on the milky head
      Of reverend Priam, seem'd i' th' air to stick.
      So, as a painted tyrant, Pyrrhus stood,
      And, like a neutral to his will and matter, 1555
      Did nothing.
      But, as we often see, against some storm,
      A silence in the heavens, the rack stand still,
      The bold winds speechless, and the orb below
      As hush as death- anon the dreadful thunder 1560
      Doth rend the region; so, after Pyrrhus' pause,
      Aroused vengeance sets him new awork;
      And never did the Cyclops' hammers fall
      On Mars's armour, forg'd for proof eterne,
      With less remorse than Pyrrhus' bleeding sword 1565
      Now falls on Priam.
      Out, out, thou strumpet Fortune! All you gods,
      In general synod take away her power;
      Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel,
      And bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven, 1570
      As low as to the fiends! 

    * *Polonius. *This is too long. 

    * *Hamlet. *It shall to the barber's, with your beard.- Prithee say on.
      He's for a jig or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps. Say on; come to
      Hecuba. 1575

    * *First Player. *'But who, O who, had seen the mobled queen-' 

    * *Hamlet. *'The mobled queen'? 

    * *Polonius. *That's good! 'Mobled queen' is good. 

    * *First Player. *'Run barefoot up and down, threat'ning the flames
      With bisson rheum; a clout upon that head 1580
      Where late the diadem stood, and for a robe,
      About her lank and all o'erteemed loins,
      A blanket, in the alarm of fear caught up-
      Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steep'd
      'Gainst Fortune's state would treason have pronounc'd. 1585
      But if the gods themselves did see her then,
      When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport
      In Mincing with his sword her husband's limbs,
      The instant burst of clamour that she made
      (Unless things mortal move them not at all) 1590
      Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven
      And passion in the gods.' 

    * *Polonius. *Look, whe'r he has not turn'd his colour, and has
      tears in's
      eyes. Prithee no more! 

    * *Hamlet. *'Tis well. I'll have thee speak out the rest of this
      soon.- 1595
      Good my lord, will you see the players well bestow'd? Do you
      hear? Let them be well us'd; for they are the abstract and brief
      chronicles of the time. After your death you were better have a
      bad epitaph than their ill report while you live. 

    * *Polonius. *My lord, I will use them according to their desert. 1600

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

    * *Polonius. *Come, sirs. 1605

    * *Hamlet. *Follow him, friends. We'll hear a play to-morrow.
      /[Exeunt Polonius and Players /[except the First]/.]/
      Dost thou hear me, old friend? Can you play 'The Murther of
      Gonzago'? 

    * *First Player. *Ay, my lord. 1610

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

    * *First Player. *Ay, my lord. 

    * *Hamlet. *Very well. Follow that lord- and look you mock him not. 1615
      /[Exit First Player.]/
      My good friends, I'll leave you till night. You are welcome to
      Elsinore. 

    * *Rosencrantz. *Good my lord! 

    * *Hamlet. *Ay, so, God b' wi' ye! 1620
      /[Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern]/
      Now I am alone.
      O what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
      Is it not monstrous that this player here,
      But in a fiction, in a dream of passion, 1625
      Could force his soul so to his own conceit
      That, from her working, all his visage wann'd,
      Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect,
      A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
      With forms to his conceit? And all for nothing! 1630
      For Hecuba!
      What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
      That he should weep for her? What would he do,
      Had he the motive and the cue for passion
      That I have? He would drown the stage with tears 1635
      And cleave the general ear with horrid speech;
      Make mad the guilty and appal the free,
      Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed
      The very faculties of eyes and ears.
      Yet I, 1640
      A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak
      Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,
      And can say nothing! No, not for a king,
      Upon whose property and most dear life
      A damn'd defeat was made. Am I a coward? 1645
      Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across?
      Plucks off my beard and blows it in my face?
      Tweaks me by th' nose? gives me the lie i' th' throat
      As deep as to the lungs? Who does me this, ha?
      'Swounds, I should take it! for it cannot be 1650
      But I am pigeon-liver'd and lack gall
      To make oppression bitter, or ere this
      I should have fatted all the region kites
      With this slave's offal. Bloody bawdy villain!
      Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain! 1655
      O, vengeance!
      Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,
      That I, the son of a dear father murther'd,
      Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,
      Must (like a whore) unpack my heart with words 1660
      And fall a-cursing like a very drab,
      A scullion!
      Fie upon't! foh! About, my brain! Hum, I have heard
      That guilty creatures, sitting at a play,
      Have by the very cunning of the scene 1665
      Been struck so to the soul that presently
      They have proclaim'd their malefactions;
      For murther, though it have no tongue, will speak
      With most miraculous organ, I'll have these Players
      Play something like the murther of my father 1670
      Before mine uncle. I'll observe his looks;
      I'll tent him to the quick. If he but blench,
      I know my course. The spirit that I have seen
      May be a devil; and the devil hath power
      T' assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps 1675
      Out of my weakness and my melancholy,
      As he is very potent with such spirits,
      Abuses me to damn me. I'll have grounds
      More relative than this. The play's the thing
      Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King. Exit. 1680

------------------------------------------------------------------------
                

Act III, Scene 1

*Elsinore. A room in the Castle.*

                 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern,

and Lords.

    * *Claudius. *And can you by no drift of circumstance
      Get from him why he puts on this confusion,
      Grating so harshly all his days of quiet 1685
      With turbulent and dangerous lunacy? 

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

    * *Guildenstern. *Nor do we find him forward to be sounded,
      But with a crafty madness keeps aloof 1690
      When we would bring him on to some confession
      Of his true state. 

    * *Gertrude. *Did he receive you well? 

    * *Rosencrantz. *Most like a gentleman. 

    * *Guildenstern. *But with much forcing of his disposition. 1695

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

    * *Gertrude. *Did you assay him
      To any pastime? 

    * *Rosencrantz. *Madam, it so fell out that certain players 1700
      We o'erraught on the way. Of these we told him,
      And there did seem in him a kind of joy
      To hear of it. They are here about the court,
      And, as I think, they have already order
      This night to play before him. 1705

    * *Polonius. *'Tis most true;
      And he beseech'd me to entreat your Majesties
      To hear and see the matter. 

    * *Claudius. *With all my heart, and it doth much content me
      To hear him so inclin'd. 1710
      Good gentlemen, give him a further edge
      And drive his purpose on to these delights. 

    * *Rosencrantz. *We shall, my lord. 

Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

    * *Claudius. *Sweet Gertrude, leave us too; 1715
      For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither,
      That he, as 'twere by accident, may here
      Affront Ophelia.
      Her father and myself (lawful espials)
      Will so bestow ourselves that, seeing unseen, 1720
      We may of their encounter frankly judge
      And gather by him, as he is behav'd,
      If't be th' affliction of his love, or no,
      That thus he suffers for. 

    * *Gertrude. *I shall obey you; 1725
      And for your part, Ophelia, I do wish
      That your good beauties be the happy cause
      Of Hamlet's wildness. So shall I hope your virtues
      Will bring him to his wonted way again,
      To both your honours. 1730

    * *Ophelia. *Madam, I wish it may. 

[Exit Queen.]

    * *Polonius. *Ophelia, walk you here.- Gracious, so please you,
      We will bestow ourselves.- /[To Ophelia]/ Read on this book,
      That show of such an exercise may colour 1735
      Your loneliness.- We are oft to blame in this,
      'Tis too much prov'd, that with devotion's visage
      And pious action we do sugar o'er
      The Devil himself. 

    * *Claudius. */[aside]/ O, 'tis too true! 1740
      How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!
      The harlot's cheek, beautied with plast'ring art,
      Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it
      Than is my deed to my most painted word.
      O heavy burthen! 1745

    * *Polonius. *I hear him coming. Let's withdraw, my lord. 

Exeunt King and Polonius].

Enter Hamlet.

    * *Hamlet. *To be, or not to be- that is the question:
      Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer 1750
      The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
      Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
      And by opposing end them. To die- to sleep-
      No more; and by a sleep to say we end
      The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks 1755
      That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation
      Devoutly to be wish'd. To die- to sleep.
      To sleep- perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub!
      For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
      When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, 1760
      Must give us pause. There's the respect
      That makes calamity of so long life.
      For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
      Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
      The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay, 1765
      The insolence of office, and the spurns
      That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,
      When he himself might his quietus make
      With a bare bodkin? Who would these fardels bear,
      To grunt and sweat under a weary life, 1770
      But that the dread of something after death-
      The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn
      No traveller returns- puzzles the will,
      And makes us rather bear those ills we have
      Than fly to others that we know not of? 1775
      Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
      And thus the native hue of resolution
      Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
      And enterprises of great pith and moment
      With this regard their currents turn awry 1780
      And lose the name of action.- Soft you now!
      The fair Ophelia!- Nymph, in thy orisons
      Be all my sins rememb'red. 

    * *Ophelia. *Good my lord,
      How does your honour for this many a day? 1785

    * *Hamlet. *I humbly thank you; well, well, well. 

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

    * *Hamlet. *No, not I! 1790
      I never gave you aught. 

    * *Ophelia. *My honour'd lord, you know right well you did,
      And with them words of so sweet breath compos'd
      As made the things more rich. Their perfume lost,
      Take these again; for to the noble mind 1795
      Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.
      There, my lord. 

    * *Hamlet. *Ha, ha! Are you honest? 

    * *Ophelia. *My lord? 

    * *Hamlet. *Are you fair? 1800

    * *Ophelia. *What means your lordship? 

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

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

    * *Hamlet. *Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner transform
      1805
      honesty from what it is to a bawd than the force of honesty can
      translate beauty into his likeness. This was sometime a paradox,
      but now the time gives it proof. I did love you once. 

    * *Ophelia. *Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so. 

    * *Hamlet. *You should not have believ'd me; for virtue cannot so 1810
      inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it. I loved you
      not. 

    * *Ophelia. *I was the more deceived. 

    * *Hamlet. *Get thee to a nunnery! Why wouldst thou be a breeder of
      sinners? I am myself indifferent honest, but yet I could accuse 1815
      me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me.
      I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious; with more offences at my
      beck than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give
      them shape, or time to act them in. What should such fellows as I
      do, crawling between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves all; 1820
      believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery. Where's your
      father? 

    * *Ophelia. *At home, my lord. 

    * *Hamlet. *Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool
      nowhere but in's own house. Farewell. 1825

    * *Ophelia. *O, help him, you sweet heavens! 

    * *Hamlet. *If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague for thy
      dowry:
      be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape
      calumny. Get thee to a nunnery. Go, farewell. Or if thou wilt
      needs marry, marry a fool; for wise men know well enough what 1830
      monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go; and quickly too.
      Farewell. 

    * *Ophelia. *O heavenly powers, restore him! 

    * *Hamlet. *I have heard of your paintings too, well enough. God hath
      given you one face, and you make yourselves another. You jig, you 1835
      amble, and you lisp; you nickname God's creatures and make your
      wantonness your ignorance. Go to, I'll no more on't! it hath made
      me mad. I say, we will have no moe marriages. Those that are
      married already- all but one- shall live; the rest shall keep as
      they are. To a nunnery, go. Exit. 1840

    * *Ophelia. *O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!
      The courtier's, scholar's, soldier's, eye, tongue, sword,
      Th' expectancy and rose of the fair state,
      The glass of fashion and the mould of form,
      Th' observ'd of all observers- quite, quite down! 1845
      And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
      That suck'd the honey of his music vows,
      Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,
      Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh;
      That unmatch'd form and feature of blown youth 1850
      Blasted with ecstasy. O, woe is me
      T' have seen what I have seen, see what I see! 

Enter King and Polonius.

    * *Claudius. *Love? his affections do not that way tend;
      Nor what he spake, though it lack'd form a little, 1855
      Was not like madness. There's something in his soul
      O'er which his melancholy sits on brood;
      And I do doubt the hatch and the disclose
      Will be some danger; which for to prevent,
      I have in quick determination 1860
      Thus set it down: he shall with speed to England
      For the demand of our neglected tribute.
      Haply the seas, and countries different,
      With variable objects, shall expel
      This something-settled matter in his heart, 1865
      Whereon his brains still beating puts him thus
      From fashion of himself. What think you on't? 

    * *Polonius. *It shall do well. But yet do I believe
      The origin and commencement of his grief
      Sprung from neglected love.- How now, Ophelia? 1870
      You need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said.
      We heard it all.- My lord, do as you please;
      But if you hold it fit, after the play
      Let his queen mother all alone entreat him
      To show his grief. Let her be round with him; 1875
      And I'll be plac'd so please you, in the ear
      Of all their conference. If she find him not,
      To England send him; or confine him where
      Your wisdom best shall think. 

    * *Claudius. *It shall be so. 1880
      Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go. Exeunt. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------
                

Act III, Scene 2

*Elsinore. hall in the Castle.*

                 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Enter Hamlet and three of the Players.

    * *Hamlet. *Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounc'd it to you,
      trippingly on the tongue. But if you mouth it, as many of our
      players do, I had as live the town crier spoke my lines. Nor do 1885
      not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all
      gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and (as I may say)
      whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a
      temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the
      soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to 1890
      tatters, to very rags, to split the cars of the groundlings, who
      (for the most part) are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb
      shows and noise. I would have such a fellow whipp'd for o'erdoing
      Termagant. It out-herods Herod. Pray you avoid it. 

    * *First Player. *I warrant your honour. 1895

    * *Hamlet. *Be not too tame neither; but let your own discretion be
      your
      tutor. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with
      this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of
      nature: for anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing,
      whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 1900
      'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show Virtue her own feature,
      scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his
      form and pressure. Now this overdone, or come tardy off, though
      it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious
      grieve; the censure of the which one must in your allowance 1905
      o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. O, there be players that I
      have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly (not to
      speak it profanely), that, neither having the accent of
      Christians, nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so
      strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of Nature's 1910
      journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated
      humanity so abominably. 

    * *First Player. *I hope we have reform'd that indifferently with
      us, sir. 

    * *Hamlet. *O, reform it altogether! And let those that play your
      clowns
      speak no more than is set down for them. For there be of them 1915
      that will themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren
      spectators to laugh too, though in the mean time some necessary
      question of the play be then to be considered. That's villanous
      and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it. Go
      make you ready. 1920
      /[Exeunt Players.]/
      /[Enter Polonius, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern.]/
      How now, my lord? Will the King hear this piece of work? 

    * *Polonius. *And the Queen too, and that presently. 

    * *Hamlet. *Bid the players make haste, /[Exit Polonius.]/ Will you
      two 1925
      help to hasten them? 

    * *Rosencrantz. */[with Guildenstern]/ We will, my lord. 

Exeunt they two.

    * *Hamlet. *What, ho, Horatio! 

Enter Horatio.

    * *Horatio. *Here, sweet lord, at your service. 

    * *Hamlet. *Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man
      As e'er my conversation cop'd withal. 

    * *Horatio. *O, my dear lord! 

    * *Hamlet. *Nay, do not think I flatter; 1935
      For what advancement may I hope from thee,
      That no revenue hast but thy good spirits
      To feed and clothe thee? Why should the poor be flatter'd?
      No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp,
      And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee 1940
      Where thrift may follow fawning. Dost thou hear?
      Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice
      And could of men distinguish, her election
      Hath seal'd thee for herself. For thou hast been
      As one, in suff'ring all, that suffers nothing; 1945
      A man that Fortune's buffets and rewards
      Hast ta'en with equal thanks; and blest are those
      Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled
      That they are not a pipe for Fortune's finger
      To sound what stop she please. Give me that man 1950
      That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
      In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart,
      As I do thee. Something too much of this I
      There is a play to-night before the King.
      One scene of it comes near the circumstance, 1955
      Which I have told thee, of my father's death.
      I prithee, when thou seest that act afoot,
      Even with the very comment of thy soul
      Observe my uncle. If his occulted guilt
      Do not itself unkennel in one speech, 1960
      It is a damned ghost that we have seen,
      And my imaginations are as foul
      As Vulcan's stithy. Give him heedful note;
      For I mine eyes will rivet to his face,
      And after we will both our judgments join 1965
      In censure of his seeming. 

    * *Horatio. *Well, my lord.
      If he steal aught the whilst this play is playing,
      And scape detecting, I will pay the theft.
      Sound a flourish. /[Enter Trumpets and Kettledrums. Danish 1970
      march. /[Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz,
      Guildenstern,
      and other Lords attendant, with the Guard carrying torches.]/ /

    * /*Hamlet. *They are coming to the play. I must be idle.
      Get you a place. /

    * /*Claudius. *How fares our cousin Hamlet? 1975/

    * /*Hamlet. *Excellent, i' faith; of the chameleon's dish. I eat the
      air,
      promise-cramm'd. You cannot feed capons so. /

    * /*Claudius. *I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet. These words
      are not
      mine. /

    * /*Hamlet. *No, nor mine now. /[To Polonius]/ My lord, you play'd
      once 1980
      i' th' university, you say? /

    * /*Polonius. *That did I, my lord, and was accounted a good actor. /

    * /*Hamlet. *What did you enact? /

    * /*Polonius. *I did enact Julius Caesar; I was kill'd i' th'
      Capitol; Brutus
      kill'd me. 1985/

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

    * /*Rosencrantz. *Ay, my lord. They stay upon your patience. /

    * /*Gertrude. *Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me. /

    * /*Hamlet. *No, good mother. Here's metal more attractive. 1990/

    * /*Polonius. */[to the King]/ O, ho! do you mark that? /

    * /*Hamlet. *Lady, shall I lie in your lap? /

/ [Sits down at Ophelia's feet.] /

    * /*Ophelia. *No, my lord. /

    * /*Hamlet. *I mean, my head upon your lap? 1995/

    * /*Ophelia. *Ay, my lord. /

    * /*Hamlet. *Do you think I meant country matters? /

    * /*Ophelia. *I think nothing, my lord. /

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

    * /*Ophelia. *What is, my lord? 2000/

    * /*Hamlet. *Nothing. /

    * /*Ophelia. *You are merry, my lord. /

    * /*Hamlet. *Who, I? /

    * /*Ophelia. *Ay, my lord. /

    * /*Hamlet. *O God, your only jig-maker! What should a man do but be
      merry? 2005
      For look you how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died
      within 's two hours. /

    * /*Ophelia. *Nay 'tis twice two months, my lord. /

    * /*Hamlet. *So long? Nay then, let the devil wear black, for I'll
      have a
      suit of sables. O heavens! die two months ago, and not forgotten 2010
      yet? Then there's hope a great man's memory may outlive his life
      half a year. But, by'r Lady, he must build churches then; or else
      shall he suffer not thinking on, with the hobby-horse, whose
      epitaph is 'For O, for O, the hobby-horse is forgot!'
      /[Hautboys play. The dumb show enters.]/ 2015
      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. He lays him down upon a bank of flowers. She, seeing
      him asleep, leaves him. Anon comes in a fellow, takes off his 2020
      crown, kisses it, pours poison in the sleeper's ears, and
      leaves him. The Queen returns, finds the King dead, and makes
      passionate action. The Poisoner with some three or four Mutes,
      comes in again, seem to condole with her. The dead body is
      carried away. The Poisoner wooes the Queen with gifts; she 2025
      seems harsh and unwilling awhile, but in the end accepts
      his love. /

/ Exeunt. /

    * /*Ophelia. *What means this, my lord? /

    * /*Hamlet. *Marry, this is miching malhecho; it means mischief. 2030/

    * /*Ophelia. *Belike this show imports the argument of the play. /

/ Enter Prologue. /

    * /*Hamlet. *We shall know by this fellow. The players cannot keep
      counsel;
      they'll tell all. /

    * /*Ophelia. *Will he tell us what this show meant? 2035/

    * /*Hamlet. *Ay, or any show that you'll show him. Be not you
      asham'd to
      show, he'll not shame to tell you what it means. /

    * /*Ophelia. *You are naught, you are naught! I'll mark the play.
      Pro. For us, and for our tragedy,
      Here stooping to your clemency, 2040
      We beg your hearing patiently. /[Exit.]/ /

    * /*Hamlet. *Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring? /

    * /*Ophelia. *'Tis brief, my lord. /

    * /*Hamlet. *As woman's love. /

/ Enter [two Players as] King and Queen. /

    * /*Player King. *Full thirty times hath Phoebus' cart gone round
      Neptune's salt wash and Tellus' orbed ground,
      And thirty dozen moons with borrowed sheen
      About the world have times twelve thirties been,
      Since love our hearts, and Hymen did our hands, 2050
      Unite comutual in most sacred bands. /

    * /*Gertrude. *So many journeys may the sun and moon
      Make us again count o'er ere love be done!
      But woe is me! you are so sick of late,
      So far from cheer and from your former state. 2055
      That I distrust you. Yet, though I distrust,
      Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must;
      For women's fear and love holds quantity,
      In neither aught, or in extremity.
      Now what my love is, proof hath made you know; 2060
      And as my love is siz'd, my fear is so.
      Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear;
      Where little fears grow great, great love grows there. /

    * /*Player King. *Faith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly too;
      My operant powers their functions leave to do. 2065
      And thou shalt live in this fair world behind,
      Honour'd, belov'd, and haply one as kind
      For husband shalt thou- /

    * /*Player Queen. *O, confound the rest!
      Such love must needs be treason in my breast. 2070
      When second husband let me be accurst!
      None wed the second but who killed the first. /

    * /*Hamlet. */[aside]/ Wormwood, wormwood!
      Queen. The instances that second marriage move
      Are base respects of thrift, but none of love. 2075
      A second time I kill my husband dead
      When second husband kisses me in bed. /

    * /*Player King. *I do believe you think what now you speak;
      But what we do determine oft we break.
      Purpose is but the slave to memory, 2080
      Of violent birth, but poor validity;
      Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree,
      But fall unshaken when they mellow be.
      Most necessary 'tis that we forget
      To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt. 2085
      What to ourselves in passion we propose,
      The passion ending, doth the purpose lose.
      The violence of either grief or joy
      Their own enactures with themselves destroy.
      Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament; 2090
      Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident.
      This world is not for aye, nor 'tis not strange
      That even our loves should with our fortunes change;
      For 'tis a question left us yet to prove,
      Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love. 2095
      The great man down, you mark his favourite flies,
      The poor advanc'd makes friends of enemies;
      And hitherto doth love on fortune tend,
      For who not needs shall never lack a friend,
      And who in want a hollow friend doth try, 2100
      Directly seasons him his enemy.
      But, orderly to end where I begun,
      Our wills and fates do so contrary run
      That our devices still are overthrown;
      Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own. 2105
      So think thou wilt no second husband wed;
      But die thy thoughts when thy first lord is dead. /

    * /*Player Queen. *Nor earth to me give food, nor heaven light,
      Sport and repose lock from me day and night,
      To desperation turn my trust and hope, 2110
      An anchor's cheer in prison be my scope,
      Each opposite that blanks the face of joy
      Meet what I would have well, and it destroy,
      Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife,
      If, once a widow, ever I be wife! 2115/

    * /*Hamlet. *If she should break it now! /

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

    * /*Player Queen. *Sleep rock thy brain, 2120/

/He sleeps.] /

    * /*Player Queen. *And never come mischance between us twain! /

/Exit. /

    * /*Hamlet. *Madam, how like you this play? /

    * /*Gertrude. *The lady doth protest too much, methinks. 2125/

    * /*Hamlet. *O, but she'll keep her word. /

    * /*Claudius. *Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in't? /

    * /*Hamlet. *No, no! They do but jest, poison in jest; no offence i'
      th'
      world. /

    * /*Claudius. *What do you call the play? 2130/

    * /*Hamlet. *'The Mousetrap.' Marry, how? Tropically. This play is the
      image of a murther done in Vienna. Gonzago is the duke's name;
      his wife, Baptista. You shall see anon. 'Tis a knavish piece of
      work; but what o' that? Your Majesty, and we that have free
      souls, it touches us not. Let the gall'd jade winch; our withers 2135
      are unwrung. /

/ Enter Lucianus.This is one Lucianus, nephew to the King. /

    * /*Ophelia. *You are as good as a chorus, my lord. /

    * /*Hamlet. *I could interpret between you and your love, if I could
      see
      the puppets dallying. 2140/

    * /*Ophelia. *You are keen, my lord, you are keen. /

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

    * /*Ophelia. *Still better, and worse. /

    * /*Hamlet. *So you must take your husbands.- Begin, murtherer. Pox,
      leave
      thy damnable faces, and begin! Come, the croaking raven doth 2145
      bellow for revenge.
      Luc. Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing;
      Confederate season, else no creature seeing; Thou mixture rank, of
      midnight weeds collected, With Hecate's ban thrice blasted, thrice
      infected, Thy natural magic and dire property On wholesome life
      usurp immediately. /

/ Pours the poison in his ears. /

    * /*Hamlet. *He poisons him i' th' garden for's estate. His name's
      Gonzago.
      The story is extant, and written in very choice Italian. You 2150
      shall see anon how the murtherer gets the love of Gonzago's wife. /

    * /*Ophelia. *The King rises. /

    * /*Hamlet. *What, frighted with false fire? /

    * /*Gertrude. *How fares my lord? /

    * /*Polonius. *Give o'er the play. 2155/

    * /*Claudius. *Give me some light! Away! /

    * /*All. *Lights, lights, lights! /

/ Exeunt all but Hamlet and Horatio. /

    * /*Hamlet. *Why, let the strucken deer go weep,
      The hart ungalled play; 2160
      For some must watch, while some must sleep:
      Thus runs the world away.
      Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers- if the rest of my
      fortunes turn Turk with me-with two Provincial roses on my raz'd
      shoes, get me a fellowship in a cry of players, sir? 2165/

    * /*Horatio. *Half a share. /

    * /*Hamlet. *A whole one I!
      For thou dost know, O Damon dear,
      This realm dismantled was
      Of Jove himself; and now reigns here 2170
      A very, very- pajock. /

    * /*Horatio. *You might have rhym'd. /

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

    * /*Horatio. *Very well, my lord. 2175/

    * /*Hamlet. *Upon the talk of the poisoning? /

    * /*Horatio. *I did very well note him. /

    * /*Hamlet. *Aha! Come, some music! Come, the recorders!
      For if the King like not the comedy,
      Why then, belike he likes it not, perdy. 2180
      Come, some music!
      Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. /

    * /*Guildenstern. *Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you. /

    * /*Hamlet. *Sir, a whole history. /

    * /*Guildenstern. *The King, sir- 2185/

    * /*Hamlet. *Ay, sir, what of him? /

    * /*Guildenstern. *Is in his retirement, marvellous distemper'd. /

    * /*Hamlet. *With drink, sir? /

    * /*Guildenstern. *No, my lord; rather with choler. /

    * /*Hamlet. *Your wisdom should show itself more richer to signify
      this to 2190
      the doctor; for me to put him to his purgation would perhaps
      plunge him into far more choler. /

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

    * /*Hamlet. *I am tame, sir; pronounce. 2195/

    * /*Guildenstern. *The Queen, your mother, in most great affliction
      of spirit
      hath sent me to you. /

    * /*Hamlet. *You are welcome. /

    * /*Guildenstern. *Nay, good my lord, this courtesy is not of the
      right breed.
      If it shall please you to make me a wholesome answer, I will do 2200
      your mother's commandment; if not, your pardon and my return
      shall be the end of my business. /

    * /*Hamlet. *Sir, I cannot. /

    * /*Guildenstern. *What, my lord? /

    * /*Hamlet. *Make you a wholesome answer; my wit's diseas'd. But,
      sir, such 2205
      answer as I can make, you shall command; or rather, as you say,
      my mother. Therefore no more, but to the matter! My mother, you
      say- /

    * /*Rosencrantz. *Then thus she says: your behaviour hath struck her
      into
      amazement and admiration. 2210/

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

    * /*Rosencrantz. *She desires to speak with you in her closet ere
      you go to bed. /

    * /*Hamlet. *We shall obey, were she ten times our mother. Have you any
      further trade with us? 2215/

    * /*Rosencrantz. *My lord, you once did love me. /

    * /*Hamlet. *And do still, by these pickers and stealers! /

    * /*Rosencrantz. *Good my lord, what is your cause of distemper? You
      do surely
      bar the door upon your own liberty, if you deny your griefs to
      your friend. 2220/

    * /*Hamlet. *Sir, I lack advancement. /

    * /*Rosencrantz. *How can that be, when you have the voice of the
      King himself
      for your succession in Denmark? /

    * /*Hamlet. *Ay, sir, but 'while the grass grows'- the proverb is
      something
      musty. 2225
      /[Enter the Players with recorders. ]/
      O, the recorders! Let me see one. To withdraw with you- why do
      you go about to recover the wind of me, as if you would drive me
      into a toil? /

    * /*Guildenstern. *O my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too
      unmannerly. 2230/

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

    * /*Guildenstern. *My lord, I cannot. /

    * /*Hamlet. *I pray you. /

    * /*Guildenstern. *Believe me, I cannot. /

    * /*Hamlet. *I do beseech you. 2235/

    * /*Guildenstern. *I know, no touch of it, my lord. /

    * /*Hamlet. *It is as easy as lying. Govern these ventages with your
      fingers and thumbs, give it breath with your mouth, and it will
      discourse most eloquent music. Look you, these are the stops. /

    * /*Guildenstern. *But these cannot I command to any utt'rance of
      harmony. I 2240
      have not the skill. /

    * /*Hamlet. *Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me!
      You
      would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would
      pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my
      lowest note to the top of my compass; and there is much music, 2245
      excellent voice, in this little organ, yet cannot you make it
      speak. 'Sblood, do you think I am easier to be play'd on than a
      pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me,
      you cannot play upon me.
      /[Enter Polonius.]/ 2250
      God bless you, sir! /

    * /*Polonius. *My lord, the Queen would speak with you, and presently. /

    * /*Hamlet. *Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a
      camel? /

    * /*Polonius. *By th' mass, and 'tis like a camel indeed. /

    * /*Hamlet. *Methinks it is like a weasel. 2255/

    * /*Polonius. *It is back'd like a weasel. /

    * /*Hamlet. *Or like a whale. /

    * /*Polonius. *Very like a whale. /

    * /*Hamlet. *Then will I come to my mother by-and-by.- They fool me
      to the
      top of my bent.- I will come by-and-by. 2260/

    * /*Polonius. *I will say so. Exit. /

    * /*Hamlet. *'By-and-by' is easily said.- Leave me, friends.
      /[Exeunt all but Hamlet.]/
      'Tis now the very witching time of night,
      When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out 2265
      Contagion to this world. Now could I drink hot blood
      And do such bitter business as the day
      Would quake to look on. Soft! now to my mother!
      O heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever
      The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom. 2270
      Let me be cruel, not unnatural;
      I will speak daggers to her, but use none.
      My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites-
      How in my words somever she be shent,
      To give them seals never, my soul, consent! Exit. 2275/

/       /

------------------------------------------------------------------------
                

Act III, Scene 3

*A room in the Castle.*

                 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Enter King, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern.

    * *Claudius. *I like him not, nor stands it safe with us
      To let his madness range. Therefore prepare you;
      I your commission will forthwith dispatch,
      And he to England shall along with you. 2280
      The terms of our estate may not endure
      Hazard so near us as doth hourly grow
      Out of his lunacies. 

    * *Guildenstern. *We will ourselves provide.
      Most holy and religious fear it is 2285
      To keep those many many bodies safe
      That live and feed upon your Majesty. 

    * *Rosencrantz. *The single and peculiar life is bound
      With all the strength and armour of the mind
      To keep itself from noyance; but much more 2290
      That spirit upon whose weal depends and rests
      The lives of many. The cesse of majesty
      Dies not alone, but like a gulf doth draw
      What's near it with it. It is a massy wheel,
      Fix'd on the summit of the highest mount, 2295
      To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things
      Are mortis'd and adjoin'd; which when it falls,
      Each small annexment, petty consequence,
      Attends the boist'rous ruin. Never alone
      Did the king sigh, but with a general groan. 2300

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

    * *Rosencrantz. */[with Guildenstern]/ We will haste us. 

Exeunt Gentlemen.

Enter Polonius.

    * *Polonius. *My lord, he's going to his mother's closet.
      Behind the arras I'll convey myself
      To hear the process. I'll warrant she'll tax him home;
      And, as you said, and wisely was it said, 2310
      'Tis meet that some more audience than a mother,
      Since nature makes them partial, should o'erhear
      The speech, of vantage. Fare you well, my liege.
      I'll call upon you ere you go to bed
      And tell you what I know. 2315

    * *Claudius. *Thanks, dear my lord.
      /[Exit /[Polonius]/.]/
      O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven;
      It hath the primal eldest curse upon't,
      A brother's murther! Pray can I not, 2320
      Though inclination be as sharp as will.
      My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent,
      And, like a man to double business bound,
      I stand in pause where I shall first begin,
      And both neglect. What if this cursed hand 2325
      Were thicker than itself with brother's blood,
      Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens
      To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy
      But to confront the visage of offence?
      And what's in prayer but this twofold force, 2330
      To be forestalled ere we come to fall,
      Or pardon'd being down? Then I'll look up;
      My fault is past. But, O, what form of prayer
      Can serve my turn? 'Forgive me my foul murther'?
      That cannot be; since I am still possess'd 2335
      Of those effects for which I did the murther-
      My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.
      May one be pardon'd and retain th' offence?
      In the corrupted currents of this world
      Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice, 2340
      And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself
      Buys out the law; but 'tis not so above.
      There is no shuffling; there the action lies
      In his true nature, and we ourselves compell'd,
      Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults, 2345
      To give in evidence. What then? What rests?
      Try what repentance can. What can it not?
      Yet what can it when one cannot repent?
      O wretched state! O bosom black as death!
      O limed soul, that, struggling to be free, 2350
      Art more engag'd! Help, angels! Make assay.
      Bow, stubborn knees; and heart with strings of steel,
      Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe!
      All may be well. He kneels. 

Enter Hamlet.

    * *Hamlet. *Now might I do it pat, now he is praying;
      And now I'll do't. And so he goes to heaven,
      And so am I reveng'd. That would be scann'd.
      A villain kills my father; and for that,
      I, his sole son, do this same villain send 2360
      To heaven.
      Why, this is hire and salary, not revenge!
      He took my father grossly, full of bread,
      With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May;
      And how his audit stands, who knows save heaven? 2365
      But in our circumstance and course of thought,
      'Tis heavy with him; and am I then reveng'd,
      To take him in the purging of his soul,
      When he is fit and seasoned for his passage?
      No. 2370
      Up, sword, and know thou a more horrid hent.
      When he is drunk asleep; or in his rage;
      Or in th' incestuous pleasure of his bed;
      At gaming, swearing, or about some act
      That has no relish of salvation in't- 2375
      Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven,
      And that his soul may be as damn'd and black
      As hell, whereto it goes. My mother stays.
      This physic but prolongs thy sickly days. Exit. 

    * *Claudius. */[rises]/ My words fly up, my thoughts remain below. 2380
      Words without thoughts never to heaven go. Exit. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------
                

Act III, Scene 4

*The Queen?s closet.*

                 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Enter Queen and Polonius.

    * *Polonius. *He will come straight. Look you lay home to him.
      Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear with,
      And that your Grace hath screen'd and stood between 2385
      Much heat and him. I'll silence me even here.
      Pray you be round with him. 

    * *Hamlet. */[within]/ Mother, mother, mother! 

    * *Gertrude. *I'll warrant you; fear me not. Withdraw; I hear him
      coming. 

[Polonius hides behind the arras.]

Enter Hamlet.

    * *Hamlet. *Now, mother, what's the matter? 

    * *Gertrude. *Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended. 

    * *Hamlet. *Mother, you have my father much offended. 

    * *Gertrude. *Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue. 2395

    * *Hamlet. *Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue. 

    * *Gertrude. *Why, how now, Hamlet? 

    * *Hamlet. *What's the matter now? 

    * *Gertrude. *Have you forgot me? 

    * *Hamlet. *No, by the rood, not so! 2400
      You are the Queen, your husband's brother's wife,
      And (would it were not so!) you are my mother. 

    * *Gertrude. *Nay, then I'll set those to you that can speak. 

    * *Hamlet. *Come, come, and sit you down. You shall not budge;
      You go not till I set you up a glass 2405
      Where you may see the inmost part of you. 

    * *Gertrude. *What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murther me?
      Help, help, ho! 

    * *Polonius. */[behind]/ What, ho! help, help, help! 

    * *Hamlet. */[draws]/ How now? a rat? Dead for a ducat, dead! 2410

[Makes a pass through the arras and] kills Polonius.

    * *Polonius. */[behind]/ O, I am slain! 

    * *Gertrude. *O me, what hast thou done? 

    * *Hamlet. *Nay, I know not. Is it the King? 

    * *Gertrude. *O, what a rash and bloody deed is this! 2415

    * *Hamlet. *A bloody deed- almost as bad, good mother,
      As kill a king, and marry with his brother. 

    * *Gertrude. *As kill a king? 

    * *Hamlet. *Ay, lady, it was my word.
      /[Lifts up the arras and sees Polonius.]/ 2420
      Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!
      I took thee for thy better. Take thy fortune.
      Thou find'st to be too busy is some danger.
      Leave wringing of your hands. Peace! sit you down
      And let me wring your heart; for so I shall 2425
      If it be made of penetrable stuff;
      If damned custom have not braz'd it so
      That it is proof and bulwark against sense. 

    * *Gertrude. *What have I done that thou dar'st wag thy tongue
      In noise so rude against me? 2430

    * *Hamlet. *Such an act
      That blurs the grace and blush of modesty;
      Calls virtue hypocrite; takes off the rose
      From the fair forehead of an innocent love,
      And sets a blister there; makes marriage vows 2435
      As false as dicers' oaths. O, such a deed
      As from the body of contraction plucks
      The very soul, and sweet religion makes
      A rhapsody of words! Heaven's face doth glow;
      Yea, this solidity and compound mass, 2440
      With tristful visage, as against the doom,
      Is thought-sick at the act. 

    * *Gertrude. *Ah me, what act,
      That roars so loud and thunders in the index? 

    * *Hamlet. *Look here upon th's picture, and on this, 2445
      The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
      See what a grace was seated on this brow;
      Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself;
      An eye like Mars, to threaten and command;
      A station like the herald Mercury 2450
      New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill:
      A combination and a form indeed
      Where every god did seem to set his seal
      To give the world assurance of a man.
      This was your husband. Look you now what follows. 2455
      Here is your husband, like a mildew'd ear
      Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes?
      Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,
      And batten on this moor? Ha! have you eyes
      You cannot call it love; for at your age 2460
      The heyday in the blood is tame, it's humble,
      And waits upon the judgment; and what judgment
      Would step from this to this? Sense sure you have,
      Else could you not have motion; but sure that sense
      Is apoplex'd; for madness would not err, 2465
      Nor sense to ecstacy was ne'er so thrall'd
      But it reserv'd some quantity of choice
      To serve in such a difference. What devil was't
      That thus hath cozen'd you at hoodman-blind?
      Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight, 2470
      Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all,
      Or but a sickly part of one true sense
      Could not so mope.
      O shame! where is thy blush? Rebellious hell,
      If thou canst mutine in a matron's bones, 2475
      To flaming youth let virtue be as wax
      And melt in her own fire. Proclaim no shame
      When the compulsive ardour gives the charge,
      Since frost itself as actively doth burn,
      And reason panders will. 2480

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

    * *Hamlet. *Nay, but to live 2485
      In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed,
      Stew'd in corruption, honeying and making love
      Over the nasty sty! 

    * *Gertrude. *O, speak to me no more!
      These words like daggers enter in mine ears. 2490
      No more, sweet Hamlet! 

    * *Hamlet. *A murtherer and a villain!
      A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe
      Of your precedent lord; a vice of kings;
      A cutpurse of the empire and the rule, 2495
      That from a shelf the precious diadem stole
      And put it in his pocket! 

    * *Gertrude. *No more! 

Enter the Ghost in his nightgown.

    * *Hamlet. *A king of shreds and patches!- 2500
      Save me and hover o'er me with your wings,
      You heavenly guards! What would your gracious figure? 

    * *Gertrude. *Alas, he's mad! 

    * *Hamlet. *Do you not come your tardy son to chide,
      That, laps'd in time and passion, lets go by 2505
      Th' important acting of your dread command?
      O, say! 

    * *Father's Ghost. *Do not forget. This visitation
      Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.
      But look, amazement on thy mother sits. 2510
      O, step between her and her fighting soul
      Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works.
      Speak to her, Hamlet. 

    * *Hamlet. *How is it with you, lady? 

    * *Gertrude. *Alas, how is't with you, 2515
      That you do bend your eye on vacancy,
      And with th' encorporal air do hold discourse?
      Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep;
      And, as the sleeping soldiers in th' alarm,
      Your bedded hairs, like life in excrements, 2520
      Start up and stand an end. O gentle son,
      Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper
      Sprinkle cool patience! Whereon do you look? 

    * *Hamlet. *On him, on him! Look you how pale he glares!
      His form and cause conjoin'd, preaching to stones, 2525
      Would make them capable.- Do not look upon me,
      Lest with this piteous action you convert
      My stern effects. Then what I have to do
      Will want true colour- tears perchance for blood. 

    * *Gertrude. *To whom do you speak this? 2530

    * *Hamlet. *Do you see nothing there? 

    * *Gertrude. *Nothing at all; yet all that is I see. 

    * *Hamlet. *Nor did you nothing hear? 

    * *Gertrude. *No, nothing but ourselves. 

    * *Hamlet. *Why, look you there! Look how it steals away! 2535
      My father, in his habit as he liv'd!
      Look where he goes even now out at the portal! 

Exit Ghost.

    * *Gertrude. *This is the very coinage of your brain.
      This bodiless creation ecstasy 2540
      Is very cunning in. 

    * *Hamlet. *Ecstasy?
      My pulse as yours doth temperately keep time
      And makes as healthful music. It is not madness
      That I have utt'red. Bring me to the test, 2545
      And I the matter will reword; which madness
      Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,
      Lay not that flattering unction to your soul
      That not your trespass but my madness speaks.
      It will but skin and film the ulcerous place, 2550
      Whiles rank corruption, mining all within,
      Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven;
      Repent what's past; avoid what is to come;
      And do not spread the compost on the weeds
      To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue; 2555
      For in the fatness of these pursy times
      Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg-
      Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good. 

    * *Gertrude. *O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain. 

    * *Hamlet. *O, throw away the worser part of it, 2560
      And live the purer with the other half,
      Good night- but go not to my uncle's bed.
      Assume a virtue, if you have it not.
      That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat
      Of habits evil, is angel yet in this, 2565
      That to the use of actions fair and good
      He likewise gives a frock or livery,
      That aptly is put on. Refrain to-night,
      And that shall lend a kind of easiness
      To the next abstinence; the next more easy; 2570
      For use almost can change the stamp of nature,
      And either /[master]/ the devil, or throw him out
      With wondrous potency. Once more, good night;
      And when you are desirous to be blest,
      I'll blessing beg of you.- For this same lord, 2575
      I do repent; but heaven hath pleas'd it so,
      To punish me with this, and this with me,
      That I must be their scourge and minister.
      I will bestow him, and will answer well
      The death I gave him. So again, good night. 2580
      I must be cruel, only to be kind;
      Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.
      One word more, good lady. 

    * *Gertrude. *What shall I do? 

    * *Hamlet. *Not this, by no means, that I bid you do: 2585
      Let the bloat King tempt you again to bed;
      Pinch wanton on your cheek; call you his mouse;
      And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses,
      Or paddling in your neck with his damn'd fingers,
      Make you to ravel all this matter out, 2590
      That I essentially am not in madness,
      But mad in craft. 'Twere good you let him know;
      For who that's but a queen, fair, sober, wise,
      Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib
      Such dear concernings hide? Who would do so? 2595
      No, in despite of sense and secrecy,
      Unpeg the basket on the house's top,
      Let the birds fly, and like the famous ape,
      To try conclusions, in the basket creep
      And break your own neck down. 2600

    * *Gertrude. *Be thou assur'd, if words be made of breath,
      And breath of life, I have no life to breathe
      What thou hast said to me. 

    * *Hamlet. *I must to England; you know that? 

    * *Gertrude. *Alack, 2605
      I had forgot! 'Tis so concluded on. 

    * *Hamlet. *There's letters seal'd; and my two schoolfellows,
      Whom I will trust as I will adders fang'd,
      They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way
      And marshal me to knavery. Let it work; 2610
      For 'tis the sport to have the enginer
      Hoist with his own petar; and 't shall go hard
      But I will delve one yard below their mines
      And blow them at the moon. O, 'tis most sweet
      When in one line two crafts directly meet. 2615
      This man shall set me packing.
      I'll lug the guts into the neighbour room.-
      Mother, good night.- Indeed, this counsellor
      Is now most still, most secret, and most grave,
      Who was in life a foolish peating knave. 2620
      Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you.
      Good night, mother. 

[Exit the Queen. Then] Exit Hamlet, tugging in

Polonius.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
                

Act IV, Scene 1

*Elsinore. A room in the Castle.*

                 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Enter King and Queen, with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

    * *Claudius. *There's matter in these sighs. These profound heaves
      You must translate; 'tis fit we understand them.
      Where is your son? 

    * *Gertrude. *Bestow this place on us a little while.
      /[Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.]/ 2630
      Ah, mine own lord, what have I seen to-night! 

    * *Claudius. *What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet? 

    * *Gertrude. *Mad as the sea and wind when both contend
      Which is the mightier. In his lawless fit
      Behind the arras hearing something stir, 2635
      Whips out his rapier, cries 'A rat, a rat!'
      And in this brainish apprehension kills
      The unseen good old man. 

    * *Claudius. *O heavy deed!
      It had been so with us, had we been there. 2640
      His liberty is full of threats to all-
      To you yourself, to us, to every one.
      Alas, how shall this bloody deed be answer'd?
      It will be laid to us, whose providence
      Should have kept short, restrain'd, and out of haunt 2645
      This mad young man. But so much was our love
      We would not understand what was most fit,
      But, like the owner of a foul disease,
      To keep it from divulging, let it feed
      Even on the pith of life. Where is he gone? 2650

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

    * *Claudius. *O Gertrude, come away! 2655
      The sun no sooner shall the mountains touch
      But we will ship him hence; and this vile deed
      We must with all our majesty and skill
      Both countenance and excuse. Ho, Guildenstern!
      /[Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.]/ 2660
      Friends both, go join you with some further aid.
      Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain,
      And from his mother's closet hath he dragg'd him.
      Go seek him out; speak fair, and bring the body
      Into the chapel. I pray you haste in this. 2665
      /[Exeunt /[Rosencrantz and Guildenstern]/.]/
      Come, Gertrude, we'll call up our wisest friends
      And let them know both what we mean to do
      And what's untimely done. /[So haply slander-]/
      Whose whisper o'er the world's diameter, 2670
      As level as the cannon to his blank,
      Transports his poisoned shot- may miss our name
      And hit the woundless air.- O, come away!
      My soul is full of discord and dismay. 

Exeunt.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
                

Act IV, Scene 2

*Elsinore. A passage in the Castle.*

                 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Enter Hamlet.

    * *Hamlet. *Safely stow'd. 

    * *Gentlemen. */[within]/ Hamlet! Lord Hamlet! 

    * *Hamlet. *But soft! What noise? Who calls on Hamlet? O, here they 

come.

Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

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

    * *Hamlet. *Compounded it with dust, whereto 'tis kin. 

    * *Rosencrantz. *Tell us where 'tis, that we may take it thence
      And bear it to the chapel. 2685

    * *Hamlet. *Do not believe it. 

    * *Rosencrantz. *Believe what? 

    * *Hamlet. *That I can keep your counsel, and not mine own. Besides,
      to be
      demanded of a sponge, what replication should be made by the son
      of a king? 2690

    * *Rosencrantz. *Take you me for a sponge, my lord? 

    * *Hamlet. *Ay, sir; that soaks up the King's countenance, his rewards,
      his authorities. But such officers do the King best service in
      the end. He keeps them, like an ape, in the corner of his jaw;
      first mouth'd, to be last swallowed. When he needs what you have 2695
      glean'd, it is but squeezing you and, sponge, you shall be dry
      again. 

    * *Rosencrantz. *I understand you not, my lord. 

    * *Hamlet. *I am glad of it. A knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear. 

    * *Rosencrantz. *My lord, you must tell us where the body is and go
      with us to 2700
      the King. 

    * *Hamlet. *The body is with the King, but the King is not with the
      body.
      The King is a thing- 

    * *Guildenstern. *A thing, my lord? 

    * *Hamlet. *Of nothing. Bring me to him. Hide fox, and all after. 2705

Exeunt.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
                

Act IV, Scene 3

*Elsinore. A room in the Castle.*

                 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Enter King.

    * *Claudius. *I have sent to seek him and to find the body.
      How dangerous is it that this man goes loose!
      Yet must not we put the strong law on him. 2710
      He's lov'd of the distracted multitude,
      Who like not in their judgment, but their eyes;
      And where 'tis so, th' offender's scourge is weigh'd,
      But never the offence. To bear all smooth and even,
      This sudden sending him away must seem 2715
      Deliberate pause. Diseases desperate grown
      By desperate appliance are reliev'd,
      Or not at all.
      /[Enter Rosencrantz.]/
      How now O What hath befall'n? 2720

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

    * *Claudius. *But where is he? 

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

    * *Claudius. *Bring him before us. 2725

    * *Rosencrantz. *Ho, Guildenstern! Bring in my lord. 

Enter Hamlet and Guildenstern [with Attendants].

    * *Claudius. *Now, Hamlet, where's Polonius? 

    * *Hamlet. *At supper. 

    * *Claudius. *At supper? Where? 2730

    * *Hamlet. *Not where he eats, but where he is eaten. A certain
      convocation of politic worms are e'en at him. Your worm is your
      only emperor for diet. We fat all creatures else to fat us, and
      we fat ourselves for maggots. Your fat king and your lean beggar
      is but variable service- two dishes, but to one table. That's the 2735
      end. 

    * *Claudius. *Alas, alas! 

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

    * *Claudius. *What dost thou mean by this? 2740

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

    * *Claudius. *Where is Polonius? 

    * *Hamlet. *In heaven. Send thither to see. If your messenger find
      him not
      there, seek him i' th' other place yourself. But indeed, if you 2745
      find him not within this month, you shall nose him as you go up
      the stair, into the lobby. 

    * *Claudius. *Go seek him there. /[To Attendants.]/ 

    * *Hamlet. *He will stay till you come. 

[Exeunt Attendants.]

    * *Claudius. *Hamlet, this deed, for thine especial safety,-
      Which we do tender as we dearly grieve
      For that which thou hast done,- must send thee hence
      With fiery quickness. Therefore prepare thyself.
      The bark is ready and the wind at help, 2755
      Th' associates tend, and everything is bent
      For England. 

    * *Hamlet. *For England? 

    * *Claudius. *Ay, Hamlet. 

    * *Hamlet. *Good. 2760

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

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

    * *Claudius. *Thy loving father, Hamlet. 

    * *Hamlet. *My mother! Father and mother is man and wife; man and
      wife is 2765
      one flesh; and so, my mother. Come, for England! 

Exit.

    * *Claudius. *Follow him at foot; tempt him with speed aboard.
      Delay it not; I'll have him hence to-night.
      Away! for everything is seal'd and done 2770
      That else leans on th' affair. Pray you make haste.
      /[Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern]/
      And, England, if my love thou hold'st at aught,-
      As my great power thereof may give thee sense,
      Since yet thy cicatrice looks raw and red 2775
      After the Danish sword, and thy free awe
      Pays homage to us,- thou mayst not coldly set
      Our sovereign process, which imports at full,
      By letters congruing to that effect,
      The present death of Hamlet. Do it, England; 2780
      For like the hectic in my blood he rages,
      And thou must cure me. Till I know 'tis done,
      Howe'er my haps, my joys were ne'er begun. Exit. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------
                

Act IV, Scene 4

*Near Elsinore.*

                 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Enter Fortinbras with his Army over the stage.

    * *Fortinbras. *Go, Captain, from me greet the Danish king. 2785
      Tell him that by his license Fortinbras
      Craves the conveyance of a promis'd march
      Over his kingdom. You know the rendezvous.
      If that his Majesty would aught with us,
      We shall express our duty in his eye; 2790
      And let him know so. 

    * *Norwegian Captain. *I will do't, my lord. 

    * *Fortinbras. *Go softly on. 

Exeunt [all but the Captain].

Enter Hamlet, Rosencrantz, [Guildenstern,] and others.

    * *Hamlet. *Good sir, whose powers are these? 

    * *Norwegian Captain. *They are of Norway, sir. 

    * *Hamlet. *How purpos'd, sir, I pray you? 

    * *Norwegian Captain. *Against some part of Poland. 

    * *Hamlet. *Who commands them, sir? 2800

    * *Norwegian Captain. *The nephew to old Norway, Fortinbras. 

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

    * *Norwegian Captain. *Truly to speak, and with no addition,
      We go to gain a little patch of ground 2805
      That hath in it no profit but the name.
      To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it;
      Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole
      A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee. 

    * *Hamlet. *Why, then the Polack never will defend it. 2810

    * *Norwegian Captain. *Yes, it is already garrison'd. 

    * *Hamlet. *Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats
      Will not debate the question of this straw.
      This is th' imposthume of much wealth and peace,
      That inward breaks, and shows no cause without 2815
      Why the man dies.- I humbly thank you, sir. 

    * *Norwegian Captain. *God b' wi' you, sir. /[Exit.]/ 

    * *Rosencrantz. *Will't please you go, my lord? 

    * *Hamlet. *I'll be with you straight. Go a little before.
      /[Exeunt all but Hamlet.]/ 2820
      How all occasions do inform against me
      And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,
      If his chief good and market of his time
      Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more.
      Sure he that made us with such large discourse, 2825
      Looking before and after, gave us not
      That capability and godlike reason
      To fust in us unus'd. Now, whether it be
      Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
      Of thinking too precisely on th' event,- 2830
      A thought which, quarter'd, hath but one part wisdom
      And ever three parts coward,- I do not know
      Why yet I live to say 'This thing's to do,'
      Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means
      To do't. Examples gross as earth exhort me. 2835
      Witness this army of such mass and charge,
      Led by a delicate and tender prince,
      Whose spirit, with divine ambition puff'd,
      Makes mouths at the invisible event,
      Exposing what is mortal and unsure 2840
      To all that fortune, death, and danger dare,
      Even for an eggshell. Rightly to be great
      Is not to stir without great argument,
      But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
      When honour's at the stake. How stand I then, 2845
      That have a father kill'd, a mother stain'd,
      Excitements of my reason and my blood,
      And let all sleep, while to my shame I see
      The imminent death of twenty thousand men
      That for a fantasy and trick of fame 2850
      Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot
      Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,
      Which is not tomb enough and continent
      To hide the slain? O, from this time forth,
      My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth! Exit. 2855

------------------------------------------------------------------------
                

Act IV, Scene 5

*Elsinore. A room in the Castle.*

                 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Enter Horatio, Queen, and a Gentleman.

    * *Gertrude. *I will not speak with her. 

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

    * *Gertrude. *What would she have? 2860

    * *Gentleman. *She speaks much of her father; says she hears
      There's tricks i' th' world, and hems, and beats her heart;
      Spurns enviously at straws; speaks things in doubt,
      That carry but half sense. Her speech is nothing,
      Yet the unshaped use of it doth move 2865
      The hearers to collection; they aim at it,
      And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts;
      Which, as her winks and nods and gestures yield them,
      Indeed would make one think there might be thought,
      Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily. 2870

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

    * *Gertrude. *Let her come in.
      /[Exit Gentleman.]/
      /[Aside]/ To my sick soul (as sin's true nature is) 2875
      Each toy seems Prologue to some great amiss.
      So full of artless jealousy is guilt
      It spills itself in fearing to be spilt. 

Enter Ophelia distracted.

    * *Ophelia. *Where is the beauteous Majesty of Denmark? 2880

    * *Gertrude. *How now, Ophelia? 

    * *Ophelia. */[sings]/
      How should I your true-love know
      From another one?
      By his cockle bat and' staff 2885
      And his sandal shoon. 

    * *Gertrude. *Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song? 

    * *Ophelia. *Say you? Nay, pray You mark.
      (Sings) He is dead and gone, lady,
      He is dead and gone; 2890
      At his head a grass-green turf,
      At his heels a stone.
      O, ho! 

    * *Gertrude. *Nay, but Ophelia- 

    * *Ophelia. *Pray you mark. 2895
      (Sings) White his shroud as the mountain snow- 

Enter King.

    * *Gertrude. *Alas, look here, my lord! 

    * *Ophelia. */[Sings]/
      Larded all with sweet flowers; 2900
      Which bewept to the grave did not go
      With true-love showers. 

    * *Claudius. *How do you, pretty lady? 

    * *Ophelia. *Well, God dild you! They say the owl was a baker's
      daughter.
      Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be. God be at 2905
      your table! 

    * *Claudius. *Conceit upon her father. 

    * *Ophelia. *Pray let's have no words of this; but when they ask,
      you what
      it means, say you this:
      (Sings) To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day, 2910
      All in the morning bedtime,
      And I a maid at your window,
      To be your Valentine.
      Then up he rose and donn'd his clo'es
      And dupp'd the chamber door, 2915
      Let in the maid, that out a maid
      Never departed more. 

    * *Claudius. *Pretty Ophelia! 

    * *Ophelia. *Indeed, la, without an oath, I'll make an end on't!
      /[Sings]/ By Gis and by Saint Charity, 2920
      Alack, and fie for shame!
      Young men will do't if they come to't
      By Cock, they are to blame.
      Quoth she, 'Before you tumbled me,
      You promis'd me to wed.' 2925
      He answers:
      'So would I 'a' done, by yonder sun,
      An thou hadst not come to my bed.' 

    * *Claudius. *How long hath she been thus? 

    * *Ophelia. *I hope all will be well. We must be patient; but I
      cannot 2930
      choose but weep to think they would lay him i' th' cold ground.
      My brother shall know of it; and so I thank you for your good
      counsel. Come, my coach! Good night, ladies. Good night, sweet
      ladies. Good night, good night. Exit 

    * *Claudius. *Follow her close; give her good watch, I pray you. 2935
      /[Exit Horatio.]/
      O, this is the poison of deep grief; it springs
      All from her father's death. O Gertrude, Gertrude,
      When sorrows come, they come not single spies.
      But in battalions! First, her father slain; 2940
      Next, your son gone, and he most violent author
      Of his own just remove; the people muddied,
      Thick and and unwholesome in their thoughts and whispers
      For good Polonius' death, and we have done but greenly
      In hugger-mugger to inter him; poor Ophelia 2945
      Divided from herself and her fair judgment,
      Without the which we are pictures or mere beasts;
      Last, and as much containing as all these,
      Her brother is in secret come from France;
      Feeds on his wonder, keeps, himself in clouds, 2950
      And wants not buzzers to infect his ear
      With pestilent speeches of his father's death,
      Wherein necessity, of matter beggar'd,
      Will nothing stick our person to arraign
      In ear and ear. O my dear Gertrude, this, 2955
      Like to a murd'ring piece, in many places
      Give me superfluous death. A noise within. 

    * *Gertrude. *Alack, what noise is this? 

    * *Claudius. *Where are my Switzers? Let them guard the door.
      /[Enter a Messenger.]/ 2960
      What is the matter? 

    * *Messenger. *Save Yourself, my lord:
      The ocean, overpeering of his list,
      Eats not the flats with more impetuous haste
      Than Young Laertes, in a riotous head, 2965
      O'erbears Your offices. The rabble call him lord;
      And, as the world were now but to begin,
      Antiquity forgot, custom not known,
      The ratifiers and props of every word,
      They cry 'Choose we! Laertes shall be king!' 2970
      Caps, hands, and tongues applaud it to the clouds,
      'Laertes shall be king! Laertes king!' 

A noise within.

    * *Gertrude. *How cheerfully on the false trail they cry!
      O, this is counter, you false Danish dogs! 2975

    * *Claudius. *The doors are broke. 

Enter Laertes with others.

    * *Laertes. *Where is this king?- Sirs, staid you all without. 

    * *All. *No, let's come in! 

    * *Laertes. *I pray you give me leave. 2980

    * *All. *We will, we will! 

    * *Laertes. *I thank you. Keep the door. /[Exeunt his Followers.]/
      O thou vile king,
      Give me my father! 

    * *Gertrude. *Calmly, good Laertes. 2985

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

    * *Claudius. *What is the cause, Laertes, 2990
      That thy rebellion looks so giantlike?
      Let him go, Gertrude. Do not fear our person.
      There's such divinity doth hedge a king
      That treason can but peep to what it would,
      Acts little of his will. Tell me, Laertes, 2995
      Why thou art thus incens'd. Let him go, Gertrude.
      Speak, man. 

    * *Laertes. *Where is my father? 

    * *Claudius. *Dead. 

    * *Gertrude. *But not by him! 3000

    * *Claudius. *Let him demand his fill. 

    * *Laertes. *How came he dead? I'll not be juggled with:
      To hell, allegiance! vows, to the blackest devil
      Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit!
      I dare damnation. To this point I stand, 3005
      That both the world, I give to negligence,
      Let come what comes; only I'll be reveng'd
      Most throughly for my father. 

    * *Claudius. *Who shall stay you? 

    * *Laertes. *My will, not all the world! 3010
      And for my means, I'll husband them so well
      They shall go far with little. 

    * *Claudius. *Good Laertes,
      If you desire to know the certainty
      Of your dear father's death, is't writ in your revenge 3015
      That sweepstake you will draw both friend and foe,
      Winner and loser? 

    * *Laertes. *None but his enemies. 

    * *Claudius. *Will you know them then? 

    * *Laertes. *To his good friends thus wide I'll ope my arms 3020
      And, like the kind life-rend'ring pelican,
      Repast them with my blood. 

    * *Claudius. *Why, now You speak
      Like a good child and a true gentleman.
      That I am guiltless of your father's death, 3025
      And am most sensibly in grief for it,
      It shall as level to your judgment pierce
      As day does to your eye. 

A noise within: 'Let her come in.'

    * *Laertes. *How now? What noise is that? 3030
      /[Enter Ophelia. ]/
      O heat, dry up my brains! Tears seven times salt
      Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye!
      By heaven, thy madness shall be paid by weight
      Till our scale turn the beam. O rose of May! 3035
      Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!
      O heavens! is't possible a young maid's wits
      Should be as mortal as an old man's life?
      Nature is fine in love, and where 'tis fine,
      It sends some precious instance of itself 3040
      After the thing it loves. 

    * *Ophelia. */[sings]/
      They bore him barefac'd on the bier
      (Hey non nony, nony, hey nony)
      And in his grave rain'd many a tear. 3045
      Fare you well, my dove! 

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

    * *Ophelia. *You must sing 'A-down a-down, and you call him
      a-down-a.' O,
      how the wheel becomes it! It is the false steward, that stole his 3050
      master's daughter. 

    * *Laertes. *This nothing's more than matter. 

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

    * *Laertes. *A document in madness! Thoughts and remembrance fitted.
      3055

    * *Ophelia. *There's fennel for you, and columbines. There's rue for
      you,
      and here's some for me. We may call it herb of grace o' Sundays.
      O, you must wear your rue with a difference! There's a daisy. I
      would give you some violets, but they wither'd all when my father
      died. They say he made a good end. 3060
      /[Sings]/ For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy. 

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

    * *Ophelia. */[sings]/
      And will he not come again? 3065
      And will he not come again?
      No, no, he is dead;
      Go to thy deathbed;
      He never will come again.
      His beard was as white as snow, 3070
      All flaxen was his poll.
      He is gone, he is gone,
      And we cast away moan.
      God 'a'mercy on his soul!
      And of all Christian souls, I pray God. God b' wi' you. 3075

Exit.

    * *Laertes. *Do you see this, O God? 

    * *Claudius. *Laertes, I must commune with your grief,
      Or you deny me right. Go but apart,
      Make choice of whom your wisest friends you will, 3080
      And they shall hear and judge 'twixt you and me.
      If by direct or by collateral hand
      They find us touch'd, we will our kingdom give,
      Our crown, our life, and all that we call ours,
      To you in satisfaction; but if not, 3085
      Be you content to lend your patience to us,
      And we shall jointly labour with your soul
      To give it due content. 

    * *Laertes. *Let this be so.
      His means of death, his obscure funeral- 3090
      No trophy, sword, nor hatchment o'er his bones,
      No noble rite nor formal ostentation,-
      Cry to be heard, as 'twere from heaven to earth,
      That I must call't in question. 

    * *Claudius. *So you shall; 3095
      And where th' offence is let the great axe fall.
      I pray you go with me. 

Exeunt

------------------------------------------------------------------------
                

Act IV, Scene 6

*Elsinore. Another room in the Castle.*

                 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Enter Horatio with an Attendant.

    * *Horatio. *What are they that would speak with me? 3100

    * *Servant. *Seafaring men, sir. They say they have letters for you. 

    * *Horatio. *Let them come in.
      /[Exit Attendant.]/
      I do not know from what part of the world
      I should be greeted, if not from Lord Hamlet. 3105

Enter Sailors.

    * *Sailor. *God bless you, sir. 

    * *Horatio. *Let him bless thee too. 

    * *Sailor. *'A shall, sir, an't please him. There's a letter for you,
      sir,- it comes from th' ambassador that was bound for England- if 3110
      your name be Horatio, as I am let to know it is. 

    * *Horatio. */[reads the letter]/ 'Horatio, when thou shalt have
      overlook'd
      this, give these fellows some means to the King. They have
      letters for him. Ere we were two days old at sea, a pirate of
      very warlike appointment gave us chase. Finding ourselves too 3115
      slow of sail, we put on a compelled valour, and in the grapple I
      boarded them. On the instant they got clear of our ship; so I
      alone became their prisoner. They have dealt with me like thieves
      of mercy; but they knew what they did: I am to do a good turn for
      them. Let the King have the letters I have sent, and repair thou 3120
      to me with as much speed as thou wouldst fly death. I have words
      to speak in thine ear will make thee dumb; yet are they much too
      light for the bore of the matter. These good fellows will bring
      thee where I am. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern hold their course
      for England. Of them I have much to tell thee. Farewell. 3125
      'He that thou knowest thine, HAMLET.'
      Come, I will give you way for these your letters,
      And do't the speedier that you may direct me
      To him from whom you brought them. Exeunt. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------
                

Act IV, Scene 7

*Elsinore. Another room in the Castle.*

                 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Enter King and Laertes.

    * *Claudius. *Now must your conscience my acquittance seal,
      And You must put me in your heart for friend,
      Sith you have heard, and with a knowing ear,
      That he which hath your noble father slain
      Pursued my life. 3135

    * *Laertes. *It well appears. But tell me
      Why you proceeded not against these feats
      So crimeful and so capital in nature,
      As by your safety, wisdom, all things else,
      You mainly were stirr'd up. 3140

    * *Claudius. *O, for two special reasons,
      Which may to you, perhaps, seem much unsinew'd,
      But yet to me they are strong. The Queen his mother
      Lives almost by his looks; and for myself,-
      My virtue or my plague, be it either which,- 3145
      She's so conjunctive to my life and soul
      That, as the star moves not but in his sphere,
      I could not but by her. The other motive
      Why to a public count I might not go
      Is the great love the general gender bear him, 3150
      Who, dipping all his faults in their affection,
      Would, like the spring that turneth wood to stone,
      Convert his gives to graces; so that my arrows,
      Too slightly timber'd for so loud a wind,
      Would have reverted to my bow again, 3155
      And not where I had aim'd them. 

    * *Laertes. *And so have I a noble father lost;
      A sister driven into desp'rate terms,
      Whose worth, if praises may go back again,
      Stood challenger on mount of all the age 3160
      For her perfections. But my revenge will come. 

    * *Claudius. *Break not your sleeps for that. You must not think
      That we are made of stuff so flat and dull
      That we can let our beard be shook with danger,
      And think it pastime. You shortly shall hear more. 3165
      I lov'd your father, and we love ourself,
      And that, I hope, will teach you to imagine-
      /[Enter a Messenger with letters.]/
      How now? What news? 

    * *Messenger. *Letters, my lord, from Hamlet: 3170
      This to your Majesty; this to the Queen. 

    * *Claudius. *From Hamlet? Who brought them? 

    * *Messenger. *Sailors, my lord, they say; I saw them not.
      They were given me by Claudio; he receiv'd them
      Of him that brought them. 3175

    * *Claudius. *Laertes, you shall hear them.
      Leave us.
      /[Exit Messenger.]/
      /[Reads]/'High and Mighty,-You shall know I am set naked on your
      kingdom. To-morrow shall I beg leave to see your kingly eyes; 3180
      when I shall (first asking your pardon thereunto) recount the
      occasion of my sudden and more strange return. 'HAMLET.'
      What should this mean? Are all the rest come back?
      Or is it some abuse, and no such thing? 

    * *Laertes. *Know you the hand? 3185

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

    * *Laertes. *I am lost in it, my lord. But let him come!
      It warms the very sickness in my heart 3190
      That I shall live and tell him to his teeth,
      'Thus didest thou.' 

    * *Claudius. *If it be so, Laertes
      (As how should it be so? how otherwise?),
      Will you be rul'd by me? 3195

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

    * *Claudius. *To thine own peace. If he be now return'd
      As checking at his voyage, and that he means
      No more to undertake it, I will work him 3200
      To exploit now ripe in my device,
      Under the which he shall not choose but fall;
      And for his death no wind shall breathe
      But even his mother shall uncharge the practice
      And call it accident. 3205

    * *Laertes. *My lord, I will be rul'd;
      The rather, if you could devise it so
      That I might be the organ. 

    * *Claudius. *It falls right.
      You have been talk'd of since your travel much, 3210
      And that in Hamlet's hearing, for a quality
      Wherein they say you shine, Your sum of parts
      Did not together pluck such envy from him
      As did that one; and that, in my regard,
      Of the unworthiest siege. 3215

    * *Laertes. *What part is that, my lord? 

    * *Claudius. *A very riband in the cap of youth-
      Yet needfull too; for youth no less becomes
      The light and careless livery that it wears
      Than settled age his sables and his weeds, 3220
      Importing health and graveness. Two months since
      Here was a gentleman of Normandy.
      I have seen myself, and serv'd against, the French,
      And they can well on horseback; but this gallant
      Had witchcraft in't. He grew unto his seat, 3225
      And to such wondrous doing brought his horse
      As had he been incorps'd and demi-natur'd
      With the brave beast. So far he topp'd my thought
      That I, in forgery of shapes and tricks,
      Come short of what he did. 3230

    * *Laertes. *A Norman was't? 

    * *Claudius. *A Norman. 

    * *Laertes. *Upon my life, Lamound. 

    * *Claudius. *The very same. 

    * *Laertes. *I know him well. He is the broach indeed 3235
      And gem of all the nation. 

    * *Claudius. *He made confession of you;
      And gave you such a masterly report
      For art and exercise in your defence,
      And for your rapier most especially, 3240
      That he cried out 'twould be a sight indeed
      If one could match you. The scrimers of their nation
      He swore had neither motion, guard, nor eye,
      If you oppos'd them. Sir, this report of his
      Did Hamlet so envenom with his envy 3245
      That he could nothing do but wish and beg
      Your sudden coming o'er to play with you.
      Now, out of this- 

    * *Laertes. *What out of this, my lord? 

    * *Claudius. *Laertes, was your father dear to you? 3250
      Or are you like the painting of a sorrow,
      A face without a heart,' 

    * *Laertes. *Why ask you this? 

    * *Claudius. *Not that I think you did not love your father;
      But that I know love is begun by time, 3255
      And that I see, in passages of proof,
      Time qualifies the spark and fire of it.
      There lives within the very flame of love
      A kind of wick or snuff that will abate it;
      And nothing is at a like goodness still; 3260
      For goodness, growing to a plurisy,
      Dies in his own too-much. That we would do,
      We should do when we would; for this 'would' changes,
      And hath abatements and delays as many
      As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents; 3265
      And then this 'should' is like a spendthrift sigh,
      That hurts by easing. But to the quick o' th' ulcer!
      Hamlet comes back. What would you undertake
      To show yourself your father's son in deed
      More than in words? 3270

    * *Laertes. *To cut his throat i' th' church! 

    * *Claudius. *No place indeed should murther sanctuarize;
      Revenge should have no bounds. But, good Laertes,
      Will you do this? Keep close within your chamber.
      Hamlet return'd shall know you are come home. 3275
      We'll put on those shall praise your excellence
      And set a double varnish on the fame
      The Frenchman gave you; bring you in fine together
      And wager on your heads. He, being remiss,
      Most generous, and free from all contriving, 3280
      Will not peruse the foils; so that with ease,
      Or with a little shuffling, you may choose
      A sword unbated, and, in a pass of practice,
      Requite him for your father. 

    * *Laertes. *I will do't! 3285
      And for that purpose I'll anoint my sword.
      I bought an unction of a mountebank,
      So mortal that, but dip a knife in it,
      Where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare,
      Collected from all simples that have virtue 3290
      Under the moon, can save the thing from death
      This is but scratch'd withal. I'll touch my point
      With this contagion, that, if I gall him slightly,
      It may be death. 

    * *Claudius. *Let's further think of this, 3295
      Weigh what convenience both of time and means
      May fit us to our shape. If this should fall,
      And that our drift look through our bad performance.
      'Twere better not assay'd. Therefore this project
      Should have a back or second, that might hold 3300
      If this did blast in proof. Soft! let me see.
      We'll make a solemn wager on your cunnings-
      I ha't!
      When in your motion you are hot and dry-
      As make your bouts more violent to that end- 3305
      And that he calls for drink, I'll have prepar'd him
      A chalice for the nonce; whereon but sipping,
      If he by chance escape your venom'd stuck,
      Our purpose may hold there.- But stay, what noise,
      /[Enter Queen.]/ 3310
      How now, sweet queen? 

    * *Gertrude. *One woe doth tread upon another's heel,
      So fast they follow. Your sister's drown'd, Laertes. 

    * *Laertes. *Drown'd! O, where? 

    * *Gertrude. *There is a willow grows aslant a brook, 3315
      That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream.
      There with fantastic garlands did she come
      Of crowflowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples,
      That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
      But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them. 3320
      There on the pendant boughs her coronet weeds
      Clamb'ring to hang, an envious sliver broke,
      When down her weedy trophies and herself
      Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide
      And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up; 3325
      Which time she chaunted snatches of old tunes,
      As one incapable of her own distress,
      Or like a creature native and indued
      Unto that element; but long it could not be
      Till that her garments, heavy with their drink, 3330
      Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay
      To muddy death. 

    * *Laertes. *Alas, then she is drown'd? 

    * *Gertrude. *Drown'd, drown'd. 

    * *Laertes. *Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia, 3335
      And therefore I forbid my tears; but yet
      It is our trick; nature her custom holds,
      Let shame say what it will. When these are gone,
      The woman will be out. Adieu, my lord.
      I have a speech of fire, that fain would blaze 3340
      But that this folly douts it. Exit. 

    * *Claudius. *Let's follow, Gertrude.
      How much I had to do to calm his rage I
      Now fear I this will give it start again;
      Therefore let's follow. 3345

Exeunt.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
                

Act V, Scene 1

*Elsinore. A churchyard.*

                 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Enter two Clowns, [with spades and pickaxes].

    * *First Clown. *Is she to be buried in Christian burial when she
      wilfully seeks her own salvation? 

    * *Second Clown. *I tell thee she is; therefore make her grave
      straight.
      The crowner hath sate on her, and finds it Christian burial. 3350

    * *First Clown. *How can that be, unless she drown'd herself in her own
      defence? 

    * *Second Clown. *Why, 'tis found so. 

    * *First Clown. *It must be se offendendo; it cannot be else. For
      here lies
      the point: if I drown myself wittingly, it argues an act; and an 3355
      act hath three branches-it is to act, to do, and to perform;
      argal, she drown'd herself wittingly. 

    * *Second Clown. *Nay, but hear you, Goodman Delver! 

    * *First Clown. *Give me leave. Here lies the water; good. Here
      stands the
      man; good. If the man go to this water and drown himself, it is, 3360
      will he nill he, he goes- mark you that. But if the water come to
      him and drown him, he drowns not himself. Argal, he that is not
      guilty of his own death shortens not his own life. 

    * *Second Clown. *But is this law? 

    * *First Clown. *Ay, marry, is't- crowner's quest law. 3365

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

    * *First Clown. *Why, there thou say'st! And the more pity that
      great folk
      should have count'nance in this world to drown or hang themselves
      more than their even-Christian. Come, my spade! There is no 3370
      ancient gentlemen but gard'ners, ditchers, and grave-makers. They
      hold up Adam's profession. 

    * *Second Clown. *Was he a gentleman? 

    * *First Clown. *'A was the first that ever bore arms. 

    * *Second Clown. *Why, he had none. 3375

    * *First Clown. *What, art a heathen? How dost thou understand the
      Scripture?
      The Scripture says Adam digg'd. Could he dig without arms? I'll
      put another question to thee. If thou answerest me not to the
      purpose, confess thyself- 

    * *Second Clown. *Go to! 3380

    * *First Clown. *What is he that builds stronger than either the
      mason, the
      shipwright, or the carpenter? 

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

    * *First Clown. *I like thy wit well, in good faith. The gallows
      does well. 3385
      But how does it well? It does well to those that do ill. Now,
      thou dost ill to say the gallows is built stronger than the
      church. Argal, the gallows may do well to thee. To't again, come! 

    * *Second Clown. *Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a
      carpenter? 3390

    * *First Clown. *Ay, tell me that, and unyoke. 

    * *Second Clown. *Marry, now I can tell! 

    * *First Clown. *To't. 

    * *Second Clown. *Mass, I cannot tell. 

Enter Hamlet and Horatio afar off.

    * *First Clown. *Cudgel thy brains no more about it, for your dull
      ass will
      not mend his pace with beating; and when you are ask'd this
      question next, say 'a grave-maker.' The houses he makes lasts
      till doomsday. Go, get thee to Yaughan; fetch me a stoup of
      liquor. 3400

[Exit Second Clown.]

[Clown digs and] sings.

    * *First Clown. *In youth when I did love, did love,
      Methought it was very sweet;
      To contract- O- the time for- a- my behove, 3405
      O, methought there- a- was nothing- a- meet. 

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

    * *Horatio. *Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness. 

    * *Hamlet. *'Tis e'en so. The hand of little employment hath the
      daintier 3410
      sense. 

    * *First Clown. */[sings]/
      But age with his stealing steps
      Hath clawed me in his clutch,
      And hath shipped me intil the land, 3415
      As if I had never been such. 

[Throws up a skull.]

    * *Hamlet. *That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once. How the
      knave jowls it to the ground,as if 'twere Cain's jawbone, that
      did the first murther! This might be the pate of a Politician, 3420
      which this ass now o'erreaches; one that would circumvent God,
      might it not? 

    * *Horatio. *It might, my lord. 

    * *Hamlet. *Or of a courtier, which could say 'Good morrow, sweet lord!
      How dost thou, good lord?' This might be my Lord Such-a-one, that 3425
      prais'd my Lord Such-a-one's horse when he meant to beg it- might
      it not? 

    * *Horatio. *Ay, my lord. 

    * *Hamlet. *Why, e'en so! and now my Lady Worm's, chapless, and knock'd
      about the mazzard with a sexton's spade. Here's fine revolution, 3430
      and we had the trick to see't. Did these bones cost no more the
      breeding but to play at loggets with 'em? Mine ache to think
      on't. 

    * *First Clown. */[Sings]/
      A pickaxe and a spade, a spade, 3435
      For and a shrouding sheet;
      O, a Pit of clay for to be made
      For such a guest is meet.
      Throws up /[another skull]/. 

    * *Hamlet. *There's another. Why may not that be the skull of a
      lawyer? 3440
      Where be his quiddits now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures,
      and his tricks? Why does he suffer this rude knave now to knock
      him about the sconce with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him
      of his action of battery? Hum! This fellow might be in's time a
      great buyer of land, with his statutes, his recognizances, his 3445
      fines, his double vouchers, his recoveries. Is this the fine of
      his fines, and the recovery of his recoveries, to have his fine
      pate full of fine dirt? Will his vouchers vouch him no more of
      his purchases, and double ones too, than the length and breadth
      of a pair of indentures? The very conveyances of his lands will 3450
      scarcely lie in this box; and must th' inheritor himself have no
      more, ha? 

    * *Horatio. *Not a jot more, my lord. 

    * *Hamlet. *Is not parchment made of sheepskins? 

    * *Horatio. *Ay, my lord, And of calveskins too. 3455

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

    * *First Clown. *Mine, sir.
      /[Sings]/ O, a pit of clay for to be made
      For such a guest is meet. 3460

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

    * *First Clown. *You lie out on't, sir, and therefore 'tis not yours.
      For my part, I do not lie in't, yet it is mine. 

    * *Hamlet. *Thou dost lie in't, to be in't and say it is thine. 'Tis
      for
      the dead, not for the quick; therefore thou liest. 3465

    * *First Clown. *'Tis a quick lie, sir; 'twill away again from me to
      you. 

    * *Hamlet. *What man dost thou dig it for? 

    * *First Clown. *For no man, sir. 

    * *Hamlet. *What woman then? 

    * *First Clown. *For none neither. 3470

    * *Hamlet. *Who is to be buried in't? 

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

    * *Hamlet. *How absolute the knave is! We must speak by the card, or
      equivocation will undo us. By the Lord, Horatio, this three years
      I have taken note of it, the age is grown so picked that the toe 3475
      of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier he galls
      his kibe.- How long hast thou been a grave-maker? 

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

    * *Hamlet. *How long is that since? 3480

    * *First Clown. *Cannot you tell that? Every fool can tell that. It
      was the
      very day that young Hamlet was born- he that is mad, and sent
      into England. 

    * *Hamlet. *Ay, marry, why was be sent into England? 

    * *First Clown. *Why, because 'a was mad. 'A shall recover his wits
      there; 3485
      or, if 'a do not, 'tis no great matter there. 

    * *Hamlet. *Why? 

    * *First Clown. *'Twill not he seen in him there. There the men are
      as mad as
      he. 

    * *Hamlet. *How came he mad? 3490

    * *First Clown. *Very strangely, they say. 

    * *Hamlet. *How strangely? 

    * *First Clown. *Faith, e'en with losing his wits. 

    * *Hamlet. *Upon what ground? 

    * *First Clown. *Why, here in Denmark. I have been sexton here, man
      and boy 3495
      thirty years. 

    * *Hamlet. *How long will a man lie i' th' earth ere he rot? 

    * *First Clown. *Faith, if 'a be not rotten before 'a die (as we
      have many
      pocky corses now-a-days that will scarce hold the laying in, I
      will last you some eight year or nine year. A tanner will last 3500
      you nine year. 

    * *Hamlet. *Why he more than another? 

    * *First Clown. *Why, sir, his hide is so tann'd with his trade that
      'a will
      keep out water a great while; and your water is a sore decayer of
      your whoreson dead body. Here's a skull now. This skull hath lien 3505
      you i' th' earth three-and-twenty years. 

    * *Hamlet. *Whose was it? 

    * *First Clown. *A whoreson, mad fellow's it was. Whose do you think
      it was? 

    * *Hamlet. *Nay, I know not. 

    * *First Clown. *A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! 'A pour'd a
      flagon of 3510
      Rhenish on my head once. This same skull, sir, was Yorick's
      skull, the King's jester. 

    * *Hamlet. *This? 

    * *First Clown. *E'en that. 

    * *Hamlet. *Let me see. /[Takes the skull.]/ Alas, poor Yorick! I
      knew him, 3515
      Horatio. A fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He
      hath borne me on his back a thousand times. And now how abhorred
      in my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it. Here hung those
      lips that I have kiss'd I know not how oft. Where be your gibes
      now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment that 3520
      were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your
      own grinning? Quite chap- fall'n? Now get you to my lady's
      chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this
      favour she must come. Make her laugh at that. Prithee, Horatio,
      tell me one thing. 3525

    * *Horatio. *What's that, my lord? 

    * *Hamlet. *Dost thou think Alexander look'd o' this fashion i' th'
      earth? 

    * *Horatio. *E'en so. 

    * *Hamlet. *And smelt so? Pah! 

[Puts down the skull.]

    * *Horatio. *E'en so, my lord. 

    * *Hamlet. *To what base uses we may return, Horatio! Why may not
      imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander till he find it
      stopping a bunghole? 

    * *Horatio. *'Twere to consider too curiously, to consider so. 3535

    * *Hamlet. *No, faith, not a jot; but to follow him thither with
      modesty
      enough, and likelihood to lead it; as thus: Alexander died,
      Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth into dust; the dust is
      earth; of earth we make loam; and why of that loam (whereto he
      was converted) might they not stop a beer barrel? 3540
      Imperious Caesar, dead and turn'd to clay,
      Might stop a hole to keep the wind away.
      O, that that earth which kept the world in awe
      Should patch a wall t' expel the winter's flaw!
      But soft! but soft! aside! Here comes the King- 3545
      Enter /[priests with]/ a coffin /[in funeral procession]/, King,
      /[Queen, Laertes, with Lords attendant.]/
      The Queen, the courtiers. Who is this they follow?
      And with such maimed rites? This doth betoken
      The corse they follow did with desp'rate hand 3550
      Fordo it own life. 'Twas of some estate.
      Couch we awhile, and mark. 

[Retires with Horatio.]

    * *Laertes. *What ceremony else? 

    * *Hamlet. *That is Laertes, 3555
      A very noble youth. Mark. 

    * *Laertes. *What ceremony else? 

    * *Priest. *Her obsequies have been as far enlarg'd
      As we have warranty. Her death was doubtful;
      And, but that great command o'ersways the order, 3560
      She should in ground unsanctified have lodg'd
      Till the last trumpet. For charitable prayers,
      Shards, flints, and pebbles should be thrown on her.
      Yet here she is allow'd her virgin rites,
      Her maiden strewments, and the bringing home 3565
      Of bell and burial. 

    * *Laertes. *Must there no more be done? 

    * *Priest. *No more be done.
      We should profane the service of the dead
      To sing a requiem and such rest to her 3570
      As to peace-parted souls. 

    * *Laertes. *Lay her i' th' earth;
      And from her fair and unpolluted flesh
      May violets spring! I tell thee, churlish priest,
      A minist'ring angel shall my sister be 3575
      When thou liest howling. 

    * *Hamlet. *What, the fair Ophelia? 

    * *Gertrude. *Sweets to the sweet! Farewell.
      /[Scatters flowers.]/
      I hop'd thou shouldst have been my Hamlet's wife; 3580
      I thought thy bride-bed to have deck'd, sweet maid,
      And not have strew'd thy grave. 

    * *Laertes. *O, treble woe
      Fall ten times treble on that cursed head
      Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense 3585
      Depriv'd thee of! Hold off the earth awhile,
      Till I have caught her once more in mine arms.
      /[Leaps in the grave.]/
      Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead
      Till of this flat a mountain you have made 3590
      T' o'ertop old Pelion or the skyish head
      Of blue Olympus. 

    * *Hamlet. */[comes forward]/ What is he whose grief
      Bears such an emphasis? whose phrase of sorrow
      Conjures the wand'ring stars, and makes them stand 3595
      Like wonder-wounded hearers? This is I,
      Hamlet the Dane. /[Leaps in after Laertes.]/ 

    * *Laertes. *The devil take thy soul! 

[Grapples with him.]

    * *Hamlet. *Thou pray'st not well. 3600
      I prithee take thy fingers from my throat;
      For, though I am not splenitive and rash,
      Yet have I in me something dangerous,
      Which let thy wisdom fear. Hold off thy hand! 

    * *Claudius. *Pluck them asunder. 3605

    * *Gertrude. *Hamlet, Hamlet! 

    * *All. *Gentlemen! 

    * *Horatio. *Good my lord, be quiet. 

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

    * *Hamlet. *Why, I will fight with him upon this theme 3610
      Until my eyelids will no longer wag. 

    * *Gertrude. *O my son, what theme? 

    * *Hamlet. *I lov'd Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers
      Could not (with all their quantity of love)
      Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her? 3615

    * *Claudius. *O, he is mad, Laertes. 

    * *Gertrude. *For love of God, forbear him! 

    * *Hamlet. *'Swounds, show me what thou't do.
      Woo't weep? woo't fight? woo't fast? woo't tear thyself?
      Woo't drink up esill? eat a crocodile? 3620
      I'll do't. Dost thou come here to whine?
      To outface me with leaping in her grave?
      Be buried quick with her, and so will I.
      And if thou prate of mountains, let them throw
      Millions of acres on us, till our ground, 3625
      Singeing his pate against the burning zone,
      Make Ossa like a wart! Nay, an thou'lt mouth,
      I'll rant as well as thou. 

    * *Gertrude. *This is mere madness;
      And thus a while the fit will work on him. 3630
      Anon, as patient as the female dove
      When that her golden couplets are disclos'd,
      His silence will sit drooping. 

    * *Hamlet. *Hear you, sir!
      What is the reason that you use me thus? 3635
      I lov'd you ever. But it is no matter.
      Let Hercules himself do what he may,
      The cat will mew, and dog will have his day. 

Exit.

    * *Claudius. *I pray thee, good Horatio, wait upon him. 3640
      /[Exit Horatio.]/
      /[To Laertes]/ Strengthen your patience in our last night's speech.