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 faceAs he would draw it. Long stay’d he so,At last,—a little shaking of mine arm,And thrice his head thus waving up and down,He rais’d a sigh so piteous and profoundAs it did seem to shatter all his bulkAnd end his being. That done, he lets me go,And with his head over his shoulder turn’dHe 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.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 heavenThat does afflict our natures. I am sorry,—What, have you given him any hard words of late?
OPHELIA.No, my good lord; but as you did command,I did repel his letters and deniedHis access to me.
POLONIUS.That hath made him mad.I am sorry that with better heed and judgementI had not quoted him. I fear’d he did but trifle,And meant to wreck thee. But beshrew my jealousy!It seems it is as proper to our ageTo cast beyond ourselves in our opinionsAs it is common for the younger sortTo lack discretion. Come, go we to the King.This must be known, which, being kept close, might moveMore grief to hide than hate to utter love.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE II. A room in the Castle.
Enter King, Queen, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and Attendants.
KING.Welcome, dear Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.Moreover that we much did long to see you,The need we have to use you did provokeOur hasty sending. Something have you heardOf Hamlet’s transformation; so I call it,Since nor th’exterior nor the inward manResembles that it was. What it should be,More than his father’s death, that thus hath put himSo much from th’understanding of himself,I cannot dream of. I entreat you bothThat, being of so young days brought up with him,And since so neighbour’d to his youth and humour,That you vouchsafe your rest here in our courtSome little time, so by your companiesTo draw him on to pleasures and to gather,So much as from occasion you may glean,Whether aught to us unknown afflicts him thusThat, open’d, lies within our remedy.
QUEEN.Good gentlemen, he hath much talk’d of you,And sure I am, two men there are not livingTo whom he more adheres. If it will please youTo show us so much gentry and good willAs to expend your time with us awhile,For the supply and profit of our hope,Your visitation shall receive such thanksAs fits a king’s remembrance.
ROSENCRANTZ.Both your majestiesMight, by the sovereign power you have of us,Put your dread pleasures more into commandThan to entreaty.
GUILDENSTERN.We both obey,And here give up ourselves, in the full bent,To lay our service freely at your feetTo be commanded.
KING.Thanks, Rosencrantz and gentle Guildenstern.
QUEEN.Thanks, Guildenstern and gentle Rosencrantz.And I beseech you instantly to visitMy too much changed son. Go, some of you,And bring these gentlemen where Hamlet is.
GUILDENSTERN.Heavens make our presence and our practicesPleasant and helpful to him.
QUEEN.Ay, amen.
[_Exeunt Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and some Attendants._]
Enter Polonius.
POLONIUS.Th’ambassadors from Norway, my good lord,Are joyfully return’d.
KING.Thou still hast been the father of good news.
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 mineHunts not the trail of policy so sureAs it hath us’d to do—that I have foundThe very cause of Hamlet’s lunacy.
KING.O speak of that, that do I long to hear.
POLONIUS.Give first admittance to th’ambassadors;My news shall be the fruit to that great feast.
KING.Thyself do grace to them, and bring them in.
[_Exit Polonius._]
He tells me, my sweet queen, that he hath foundThe head and source of all your son’s distemper.
QUEEN.I doubt it is no other but the main,His father’s death and our o’erhasty marriage.
KING.Well, we shall sift him.
Enter Polonius with Voltemand and Cornelius.
Welcome, my good friends!Say, Voltemand, what from our brother Norway?
VOLTEMAND.Most fair return of greetings and desires.Upon our first, he sent out to suppressHis nephew’s levies, which to him appear’dTo be a preparation ’gainst the Polack;But better look’d into, he truly foundIt was against your Highness; whereat griev’d,That so his sickness, age, and impotenceWas falsely borne in hand, sends out arrestsOn Fortinbras; which he, in brief, obeys,Receives rebuke from Norway; and in fine,Makes vow before his uncle never moreTo 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 soldiersSo levied as before, against the Polack:With an entreaty, herein further shown,[_Gives a paper._]That it might please you to give quiet passThrough your dominions for this enterprise,On such regards of safety and allowanceAs therein are set down.
KING.It likes us well;And at our more consider’d time we’ll read,Answer, and think upon this business.Meantime we thank you for your well-took labour.Go to your rest, at night we’ll feast together:.Most welcome home.
[_Exeunt Voltemand and Cornelius._]
POLONIUS.This business is well ended.My liege and madam, to expostulateWhat majesty should be, what duty is,Why day is day, night night, and time is timeWere nothing but to waste night, day and time.Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,I will be brief. Your noble son is mad.Mad call I it; for to define true madness,What is’t but to be nothing else but mad?But let that go.
QUEEN.More matter, with less art.
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 remainsThat we find out the cause of this effect,Or rather say, the cause of this defect,For this effect defective comes by cause.Thus it remains, and the remainder thus. Perpend,I have a daughter—have whilst she is mine—Who in her duty and obedience, mark,Hath given me this. Now gather, and surmise.[_Reads._]_To the celestial, and my soul’s idol, the most beautified Ophelia_—That’s an ill phrase, a vile phrase; ‘beautified’ is a vilephrase: but you shall hear.[_Reads._]_these; in her excellent white bosom, these, &c._
QUEEN.Came this from Hamlet to her?
POLONIUS.Good madam, stay awhile; I will be faithful.[_Reads._]_Doubt thou the stars are fire,Doubt that the sun doth move,Doubt truth to be a liar,But never doubt I love.O dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers. I have not art to reckon mygroans. But that I love thee best, O most best, believe it. Adieu.Thine evermore, most dear lady, whilst this machine is to him,HAMLET._This in obedience hath my daughter show’d me;And more above, hath his solicitings,As they fell out by time, by means, and place,All given to mine ear.
KING.But how hath she receiv’d his love?
POLONIUS.What do you think of me?
KING.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,As I perceiv’d it, I must tell you that,Before my daughter told me, what might you,Or my dear Majesty your queen here, think,If I had play’d the desk or table-book,Or given my heart a winking, mute and dumb,Or look’d upon this love with idle sight,What might you think? No, I went round to work,And my young mistress thus I did bespeak:‘Lord Hamlet is a prince, out of thy star.This must not be.’ And then I precepts gave her,That she should lock herself from his resort,Admit no messengers, receive no tokens.Which done, she took the fruits of my advice,And he, repulsed,—a short tale to make—Fell into a sadness, then into a fast,Thence to a watch, thence into a weakness,Thence to a lightness, and, by this declension,Into the madness wherein now he raves,And all we wail for.
KING.Do you think ’tis this?
QUEEN.It may be, very likely.
POLONIUS.Hath there been such a time, I’d fain know that,That I have positively said ‘’Tis so,’When it prov’d otherwise?
KING.Not that I know.
POLONIUS.Take this from this, if this be otherwise.[_Points to his head and shoulder._]If circumstances lead me, I will findWhere truth is hid, though it were hid indeedWithin the centre.
KING.How may we try it further?
POLONIUS.You know sometimes he walks four hours togetherHere in the lobby.
QUEEN.So he does indeed.
POLONIUS.At such a time I’ll loose my daughter to him.Be you and I behind an arras then,Mark the encounter. If he love her not,And be not from his reason fall’n thereon,Let me be no assistant for a state,But keep a farm and carters.
KING.We will try it.
Enter Hamlet, reading.
QUEEN.But look where sadly the poor wretch comes reading.
POLONIUS.Away, I do beseech you, both awayI’ll board him presently. O, give me leave.
[_Exeunt King, Queen and Attendants._]
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.
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 picked outof ten thousand.
POLONIUS.That’s very true, my lord.
HAMLET.For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a good kissingcarrion,—Have you a daughter?
POLONIUS.I have, my lord.
HAMLET.Let her not walk i’ th’ sun. Conception is a blessing, but not as yourdaughter may conceive. Friend, look to’t.
POLONIUS.How say you by that? [_Aside._] Still harping on my daughter. Yet heknew me not at first; he said I was a fishmonger. He is far gone, fargone. And truly in my youth I suffered much extremity for love; verynear this. I’ll speak to him again.—What do you read, my lord?
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 slave says here that old men have greybeards; that their faces are wrinkled; their eyes purging thick amberand plum-tree gum; and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, togetherwith most weak hams. All which, sir, though I most powerfully andpotently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down.For you yourself, sir, should be old as I am, if like a crab you couldgo backward.
POLONIUS.[_Aside._] Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.—Will you walk out of the air, my lord?
HAMLET.Into my grave?
POLONIUS.Indeed, that is out o’ the air. [_Aside._] How pregnant sometimes hisreplies are! A happiness that often madness hits on, which reason andsanity could not so prosperously be delivered of. I will leave him andsuddenly contrive the means of meeting between him and my daughter.My honourable lord, I will most humbly take my leave of you.
HAMLET.You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I will more willingly partwithal, except my life, except my life, except my life.
POLONIUS.Fare you well, my lord.
HAMLET.These tedious old fools.
Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
POLONIUS.You go to seek the Lord Hamlet; there he is.
ROSENCRANTZ.[_To Polonius._] God save you, sir.
[_Exit Polonius._]
GUILDENSTERN.My honoured lord!
ROSENCRANTZ.My most dear lord!
HAMLET.My excellent good friends! How dost thou, Guildenstern? Ah,Rosencrantz. Good lads, how do ye both?
ROSENCRANTZ.As the indifferent children of the earth.
GUILDENSTERN.Happy in that we are not over-happy;On Fortune’s cap we are not the very button.
HAMLET.Nor the soles of her shoe?
ROSENCRANTZ.Neither, my lord.
HAMLET.Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of her favours?
GUILDENSTERN.Faith, her privates we.
HAMLET.In the secret parts of Fortune? O, most true; she is a strumpet. What’sthe news?
ROSENCRANTZ.None, my lord, but that the world’s grown honest.
HAMLET.Then is doomsday near. But your news is not true. Let me question morein particular. What have you, my good friends, deserved at the hands ofFortune, that she sends you to prison hither?
GUILDENSTERN.Prison, my lord?
HAMLET.Denmark’s a prison.
ROSENCRANTZ.Then is the world one.
HAMLET.A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons,Denmark being one o’ th’ worst.
ROSENCRANTZ.We think not so, my lord.
HAMLET.Why, then ’tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad butthinking 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 ofinfinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.
GUILDENSTERN.Which dreams, indeed, are ambition; for the very substance of theambitious 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 isbut a shadow’s shadow.
HAMLET.Then are our beggars bodies, and our monarchs and outstretch’d heroesthe beggars’ shadows. Shall we to th’ court? For, by my fay, I cannotreason.
ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.We’ll wait upon you.
HAMLET.No such matter. I will not sort you with the rest of my servants; for,to speak to you like an honest man, I am most dreadfully attended. But,in the beaten way of friendship, what make you at Elsinore?
ROSENCRANTZ.To visit you, my lord, no other occasion.
HAMLET.Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks; but I thank you. And sure,dear friends, my thanks are too dear a halfpenny. Were you not sentfor? Is it your own inclining? Is it a free visitation? Come, dealjustly with me. Come, come; nay, speak.
GUILDENSTERN.What should we say, my lord?
HAMLET.Why, anything. But to the purpose. You were sent for; and there is akind of confession in your looks, which your modesties have not craftenough to colour. I know the good King and Queen have sent for you.
ROSENCRANTZ.To what end, my lord?
HAMLET.That you must teach me. But let me conjure you, by the rights of ourfellowship, by the consonancy of our youth, by the obligation of ourever-preserved love, and by what more dear a better proposer couldcharge you withal, be even and direct with me, whether you were sentfor or no.
ROSENCRANTZ.[_To Guildenstern._] What say you?
HAMLET.[_Aside._] Nay, then I have an eye of you. If you love me, hold notoff.
GUILDENSTERN.My lord, we were sent for.
HAMLET.I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation prevent your discovery,and your secrecy to the King and Queen moult no feather. I have oflate, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth, forgone all customof exercises; and indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition thatthis goodly frame the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; thismost excellent canopy the air, look you, this brave o’erhangingfirmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, itappears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation ofvapours. What a piece of work is man, how noble in reason, how infinitein faculties, in form and moving, how express and admirable; in actionhow like an angel, in apprehension, how like a god: the beauty of theworld, the paragon of animals. And yet, to me, what is thisquintessence of dust? Man delights not me; no, nor woman neither,though by your smiling you seem to say so.
ROSENCRANTZ.My lord, there was no such stuff in my thoughts.
HAMLET.Why did you laugh then, when I said ‘Man delights not me’?
ROSENCRANTZ.To think, my lord, if you delight not in man, what Lenten entertainmentthe players shall receive from you. We coted them on the way, andhither are they coming to offer you service.
HAMLET.He that plays the king shall be welcome,—his Majesty shall have tributeof me; the adventurous knight shall use his foil and target; the lovershall 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 haltfor’t. What players are they?
ROSENCRANTZ.Even those you were wont to take such delight in—the tragedians of thecity.
HAMLET.How chances it they travel? Their residence, both in reputation andprofit, was better both ways.
ROSENCRANTZ.I think their inhibition comes by the means of the late innovation.
HAMLET.Do they hold the same estimation they did when I was in the city? Arethey so followed?
ROSENCRANTZ.No, indeed, they are not.
HAMLET.How comes it? Do they grow rusty?
ROSENCRANTZ.Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace; but there is, sir, anaerie of children, little eyases, that cry out on the top of question,and are most tyrannically clapped for’t. These are now the fashion, andso berattle the common stages—so they call them—that many wearingrapiers are afraid of goose-quills and dare scarce come thither.
HAMLET.What, are they children? Who maintains ’em? How are they escoted? Willthey pursue the quality no longer than they can sing? Will they not sayafterwards, if they should grow themselves to common players—as it ismost like, if their means are no better—their writers do them wrong tomake them exclaim against their own succession?
ROSENCRANTZ.Faith, there has been much to do on both sides; and the nation holds itno sin to tarre them to controversy. There was for a while, no moneybid for argument unless the poet and the player went to cuffs in thequestion.
HAMLET.Is’t possible?
GUILDENSTERN.O, there has been much throwing about of brains.
HAMLET.Do the boys carry it away?
ROSENCRANTZ.Ay, that they do, my lord. Hercules and his load too.
HAMLET.It is not very strange; for my uncle is King of Denmark, and those thatwould make mouths 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 findit out.
[_Flourish of trumpets within._]
GUILDENSTERN.There are the players.
HAMLET.Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore. Your hands, come. Theappurtenance of welcome is fashion and ceremony. Let me comply with youin this garb, lest my extent to the players, which I tell you must showfairly outward, should more appear like entertainment than yours. Youare welcome. But my uncle-father and aunt-mother are deceived.
GUILDENSTERN.In what, my dear lord?
HAMLET.I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is southerly, I know ahawk from a handsaw.
Enter Polonius.
POLONIUS.Well be with you, gentlemen.
HAMLET.Hark you, Guildenstern, and you too, at each ear a hearer. That greatbaby you see there is not yet out of his swaddling clouts.
ROSENCRANTZ.Happily he’s the second time come to them; for they say an old man istwice a child.
HAMLET.I will prophesy he comes to tell me of the players. Mark it.—You sayright, sir: for a Monday morning ’twas so indeed.
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.
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 poemunlimited. Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light, for thelaw 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—’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 love passingwell.
HAMLET.Nay, that follows not.
POLONIUS.What follows then, my lord?
HAMLET.Why,As by lot, God wot,and then, you know,It came to pass, as most like it was.The first row of the pious chanson will show you more. For look wheremy abridgement comes.
Enter four or five Players.
You are welcome, masters, welcome all. I am glad to see thee well.Welcome, good friends. O, my old friend! Thy face is valanc’d since Isaw thee last. Com’st thou to beard me in Denmark? What, my young ladyand mistress! By’r lady, your ladyship is nearer to heaven than when Isaw you last, by the altitude of a chopine. Pray God your voice, like apiece of uncurrent gold, be not cracked within the ring. Masters, youare all welcome. We’ll e’en to’t like French falconers, fly at anythingwe see. We’ll have a speech straight. Come, give us a taste of yourquality. Come, a passionate speech.
FIRST PLAYER.What speech, my lord?
HAMLET.I heard thee speak me a speech once, but it was never acted, or if itwas, not above once, for the play, I remember, pleased not the million,’twas caviare to the general. But it was—as I received it, and others,whose judgements in such matters cried in the top of mine—an excellentplay, well digested in the scenes, set down with as much modesty ascunning. I remember one said there were no sallets in the lines to makethe matter savoury, nor no matter in the phrase that might indite theauthor of affectation, but called it an honest method, as wholesome assweet, and by very much more handsome than fine. One speech in it, Ichiefly loved. ’Twas Aeneas’ tale to Dido, and thereabout of itespecially where he speaks of Priam’s slaughter. If it live in yourmemory, begin at this line, let me see, let me see:_The rugged Pyrrhus, like th’ Hyrcanian beast,—_It is not so: it begins with Pyrrhus—_The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable arms,Black as his purpose, did the night resembleWhen he lay couched in the ominous horse,Hath now this dread and black complexion smear’dWith heraldry more dismal. Head to footNow is he total gules, horridly trick’dWith blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons,Bak’d and impasted with the parching streets,That lend a tyrannous and a damned lightTo their vile murders. Roasted in wrath and fire,And thus o’ersized with coagulate gore,With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish PyrrhusOld grandsire Priam seeks._So, proceed you.
POLONIUS.’Fore God, my lord, well spoken, with good accent and good discretion.
FIRST PLAYER._Anon he finds him,Striking too short at Greeks. His antique sword,Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls,Repugnant to command. Unequal match’d,Pyrrhus at Priam drives, in rage strikes wide;But with the whiff and wind of his fell swordTh’unnerved father falls. Then senseless Ilium,Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming topStoops to his base, and with a hideous crashTakes prisoner Pyrrhus’ ear. For lo, his sword,Which was declining on the milky headOf reverend Priam, seem’d i’ th’air to stick.So, as a painted tyrant, Pyrrhus stood,And like a neutral to his will and matter,Did nothing.But as we often see against some storm,A silence in the heavens, the rack stand still,The bold winds speechless, and the orb belowAs hush as death, anon the dreadful thunderDoth rend the region; so after Pyrrhus’ pause,Aroused vengeance sets him new a-work,And never did the Cyclops’ hammers fallOn Mars’s armour, forg’d for proof eterne,With less remorse than Pyrrhus’ bleeding swordNow falls on Priam.Out, out, thou strumpet Fortune! All you gods,In general synod, take away her power;Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel,And bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven,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.
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 flamesWith bisson rheum. A clout upon that headWhere late the diadem stood, and for a robe,About her lank and all o’erteemed loins,A blanket, in th’alarm of fear caught up—Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steep’d,’Gainst Fortune’s state would treason have pronounc’d.But if the gods themselves did see her then,When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sportIn mincing with his sword her husband’s limbs,The instant burst of clamour that she made,—Unless things mortal move them not at all,—Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven,And passion in the gods._
POLONIUS.Look, where he has not turn’d his colour, and has tears in’s eyes. Prayyou, no more.
HAMLET.’Tis well. I’ll have thee speak out the rest of this soon.—Good mylord, will you see the players well bestowed? Do you hear, let them bewell used; for they are the abstracts and brief chronicles of the time.After your death you were better have a bad epitaph than their illreport while you live.
POLONIUS.My lord, I will use them according to their desert.
HAMLET.God’s bodikin, man, much better. Use every man after his desert, and whoshould ’scape whipping? Use them after your own honour and dignity. Theless they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty. Take them in.
POLONIUS.Come, sirs.
HAMLET.Follow him, friends. We’ll hear a play tomorrow.
[_Exeunt Polonius with all the Players but the First._]
Dost thou hear me, old friend? Can you play _The Murder of Gonzago_?
FIRST PLAYER.Ay, my lord.
HAMLET.We’ll ha’t tomorrow night. You could for a need study a speech of somedozen or sixteen lines, which I would set down and insert in’t, couldyou not?
FIRST PLAYER.Ay, my lord.
HAMLET.Very well. Follow that lord, and look you mock him not.
[_Exit First Player._]
[_To Rosencrantz and Guildenstern_] My good friends, I’ll leave youtill night. You are welcome to Elsinore.
ROSENCRANTZ.Good my lord.
[_Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern._]
HAMLET.Ay, so, God b’ wi’ ye. Now I am alone.O what a rogue and peasant slave am I!Is it not monstrous that this player here,But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,Could force his soul so to his own conceitThat from her working all his visage wan’d;Tears in his eyes, distraction in’s aspect,A broken voice, and his whole function suitingWith forms to his conceit? And all for nothing!For Hecuba?What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,That he should weep for her? What would he do,Had he the motive and the cue for passionThat I have? He would drown the stage with tearsAnd cleave the general ear with horrid speech;Make mad the guilty, and appal the free,Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed,The very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I,A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peakLike John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,And can say nothing. No, not for a kingUpon whose property and most dear lifeA damn’d defeat was made. Am I a coward?Who calls me villain, breaks my pate across?Plucks off my beard and blows it in my face?Tweaks me by the nose, gives me the lie i’ th’ throatAs deep as to the lungs? Who does me this?Ha! ’Swounds, I should take it: for it cannot beBut I am pigeon-liver’d, and lack gallTo make oppression bitter, or ere thisI should have fatted all the region kitesWith this slave’s offal. Bloody, bawdy villain!Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!Oh vengeance!Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,That I, the son of a dear father murder’d,Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with wordsAnd fall a-cursing like a very drab,A scullion! Fie upon’t! Foh!About, my brain! I have heardThat guilty creatures sitting at a play,Have by the very cunning of the scene,Been struck so to the soul that presentlyThey have proclaim’d their malefactions.For murder, though it have no tongue, will speakWith most miraculous organ. I’ll have these playersPlay something like the murder of my fatherBefore mine uncle. I’ll observe his looks;I’ll tent him to the quick. If he but blench,I know my course. The spirit that I have seenMay be the devil, and the devil hath powerT’assume a pleasing shape, yea, and perhapsOut of my weakness and my melancholy,As he is very potent with such spirits,Abuses me to damn me. I’ll have groundsMore relative than this. The play’s the thingWherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.
[_Exit._]
ACT III
SCENE I. A room in the Castle.
Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
KING.And can you by no drift of circumstanceGet from him why he puts on this confusion,Grating so harshly all his days of quietWith 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 aloofWhen we would bring him on to some confessionOf his true state.
QUEEN.Did he receive you well?
ROSENCRANTZ.Most like a gentleman.
GUILDENSTERN.But with much forcing of his disposition.
ROSENCRANTZ.Niggard of question, but of our demands,Most free in his reply.
QUEEN.Did you assay him to any pastime?
ROSENCRANTZ.Madam, it so fell out that certain playersWe o’er-raught on the way. Of these we told him,And there did seem in him a kind of joyTo hear of it. They are about the court,And, as I think, they have already orderThis night to play before him.
POLONIUS.’Tis most true;And he beseech’d me to entreat your MajestiesTo hear and see the matter.
KING.With all my heart; and it doth much content meTo hear him so inclin’d.Good gentlemen, give him a further edge,And drive his purpose on to these delights.
ROSENCRANTZ.We shall, my lord.
[_Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern._]
KING.Sweet Gertrude, leave us too,For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither,That he, as ’twere by accident, may hereAffront Ophelia.Her father and myself, lawful espials,Will so bestow ourselves that, seeing unseen,We may of their encounter frankly judge,And gather by him, as he is behav’d,If’t be th’affliction of his love or noThat thus he suffers for.
QUEEN.I shall obey you.And for your part, Ophelia, I do wishThat your good beauties be the happy causeOf Hamlet’s wildness: so shall I hope your virtuesWill bring him to his wonted way again,To both your honours.
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 colourYour loneliness.—We are oft to blame in this,’Tis too much prov’d, that with devotion’s visageAnd pious action we do sugar o’erThe devil himself.
KING.[_Aside._] O ’tis too true!How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!The harlot’s cheek, beautied with plastering art,Is not more ugly to the thing that helps itThan is my deed to my most painted word.O heavy burden!
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 sufferThe slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,And by opposing end them? To die—to sleep,No more; and by a sleep to say we endThe heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocksThat flesh is heir to: ’tis a consummationDevoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep.To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there’s the rub,For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,Must give us pause. There’s the respectThat makes calamity of so long life.For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,The pangs of dispriz’d love, the law’s delay,The insolence of office, and the spurnsThat patient merit of the unworthy takes,When he himself might his quietus makeWith a bare bodkin? Who would these fardels bear,To grunt and sweat under a weary life,But that the dread of something after death,The undiscover’d country, from whose bournNo traveller returns, puzzles the will,And makes us rather bear those ills we haveThan fly to others that we know not of?Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,And thus the native hue of resolutionIs sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,And enterprises of great pith and moment,With this regard their currents turn awryAnd lose the name of action. Soft you now,The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisonsBe all my sins remember’d.
OPHELIA.Good my lord,How does your honour for this many a day?
HAMLET.I humbly thank you; well, well, well.
OPHELIA.My lord, I have remembrances of yoursThat I have longed long to re-deliver.I pray you, now receive them.
HAMLET.No, not I.I never gave you aught.
OPHELIA.My honour’d lord, you know right well you did,And with them words of so sweet breath compos’dAs made the things more rich; their perfume lost,Take these again; for to the noble mindRich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.There, my lord.
HAMLET.Ha, ha! Are you honest?
OPHELIA.My lord?
HAMLET.Are you fair?
OPHELIA.What means your lordship?
HAMLET.That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourseto your beauty.
OPHELIA.Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty?
HAMLET.Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty fromwhat it is to a bawd than the force of honesty can translate beautyinto his likeness. This was sometime a paradox, but now the time givesit proof. I did love you once.
OPHELIA.Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.
HAMLET.You should not have believed me; for virtue cannot so inoculate our oldstock 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 ammyself indifferent honest; but yet I could accuse me of such thingsthat it were better my mother had not borne me. I am very proud,revengeful, ambitious, with more offences at my beck than I havethoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to actthem in. What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth andheaven? We are arrant knaves all, believe none of us. Go thy ways to anunnery. Where’s your father?
OPHELIA.At home, my lord.
HAMLET.Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool nowhere butin’s own house. Farewell.
OPHELIA.O help him, you sweet heavens!
HAMLET.If thou dost marry, I’ll give thee this plague for thy dowry. Be thouas chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Getthee to a nunnery, go: farewell. Or if thou wilt needs marry, marry afool; for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them. Toa 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 oneface, and you make yourselves another. You jig, you amble, and youlisp, and nickname God’s creatures, and make your wantonness yourignorance. Go to, I’ll no more on’t, it hath made me mad. I say, wewill have no more marriages. Those that are married already, all butone, shall live; the rest shall keep as they are. To a nunnery, go.
[_Exit._]
OPHELIA.O, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown!The courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s, eye, tongue, sword,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!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 youthBlasted with ecstasy. O woe is me,T’have seen what I have seen, see what I see.
Enter King and Polonius.
KING.Love? His affections do not that way tend,Nor what he spake, though it lack’d form a little,Was not like madness. There’s something in his soulO’er which his melancholy sits on brood,And I do doubt the hatch and the discloseWill be some danger, which for to prevent,I have in quick determinationThus set it down: he shall with speed to EnglandFor the demand of our neglected tribute:Haply the seas and countries different,With variable objects, shall expelThis something settled matter in his heart,Whereon his brains still beating puts him thusFrom fashion of himself. What think you on’t?
POLONIUS.It shall do well. But yet do I believeThe origin and commencement of his griefSprung from neglected love. How now, Ophelia?You need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said,We heard it all. My lord, do as you please,But if you hold it fit, after the play,Let his queen mother all alone entreat himTo show his grief, let her be round with him,And I’ll be plac’d, so please you, in the earOf all their conference. If she find him not,To England send him; or confine him whereYour wisdom best shall think.
KING.It shall be so.Madness in great ones must not unwatch’d go.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE II. A hall in the Castle.
Enter Hamlet and certain Players.
HAMLET.Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly onthe tongue. But if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had aslief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too muchwith your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent,tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of passion, you must acquire andbeget a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to thesoul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion totatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who, forthe most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows andnoise. I would have such a fellow whipped for o’erdoing Termagant. Itout-Herods Herod. Pray you avoid it.
FIRST PLAYER.I warrant your honour.
HAMLET.Be not too tame neither; but let your own discretion be your tutor.Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this specialobservance, that you o’erstep not the modesty of nature; for anythingso overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at thefirst and now, was and is, to hold as ’twere the mirror up to nature;to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very ageand body of the time his form and pressure. Now, this overdone, or cometardy off, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make thejudicious grieve; the censure of the which one must in your allowanceo’erweigh a whole theatre of others. O, there be players that I haveseen play—and heard others praise, and that highly—not to speak itprofanely, that, neither having the accent of Christians, nor the gaitof Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted and bellowed that I havethought some of Nature’s journeymen had made men, and not made themwell, 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 nomore than is set down for them. For there be of them that willthemselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren spectators to laughtoo, though in the meantime some necessary question of the play be thento be considered. That’s villainous, and shows a most pitiful ambitionin the fool that uses it. Go make you ready.
[_Exeunt Players._]
Enter Polonius, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
How now, my lord?Will the King hear this piece of work?
POLONIUS.And the Queen too, and that presently.
HAMLET.Bid the players make haste.
[_Exit Polonius._]
Will you two help to hasten them?
ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.We will, my lord.
[_Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern._]
HAMLET.What ho, Horatio!
Enter Horatio.
HORATIO.Here, sweet lord, at your service.
HAMLET.Horatio, thou art e’en as just a manAs e’er my conversation cop’d withal.
HORATIO.O my dear lord.
HAMLET.Nay, do not think I flatter;For what advancement may I hope from thee,That no revenue hast, but thy good spiritsTo feed and clothe thee? Why should the poor be flatter’d?No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp,And crook the pregnant hinges of the kneeWhere thrift may follow fawning. Dost thou hear?Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice,And could of men distinguish, her electionHath seal’d thee for herself. For thou hast beenAs one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing,A man that Fortune’s buffets and rewardsHast ta’en with equal thanks. And blessed are thoseWhose blood and judgement are so well co-mingledThat they are not a pipe for Fortune’s fingerTo sound what stop she please. Give me that manThat is not passion’s slave, and I will wear himIn my heart’s core, ay, in my heart of heart,As I do thee. Something too much of this.There is a play tonight before the King.One scene of it comes near the circumstanceWhich I have told thee, of my father’s death.I prithee, when thou see’st that act a-foot,Even with the very comment of thy soulObserve mine uncle. If his occulted guiltDo not itself unkennel in one speech,It is a damned ghost that we have seen;And my imaginations are as foulAs Vulcan’s stithy. Give him heedful note;For I mine eyes will rivet to his face;And after we will both our judgements joinIn censure of his seeming.
HORATIO.Well, my lord.If he steal aught the whilst this play is playing,And ’scape detecting, I will pay the theft.
HAMLET.They are coming to the play. I must be idle.Get you a place.
Danish march. A flourish. Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia,Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and others.
KING.How fares our cousin Hamlet?
HAMLET.Excellent, i’ faith; of the chameleon’s dish: I eat the air,promise-crammed: you cannot feed capons so.
KING.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 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 killedme.
HAMLET.It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf there. Be theplayers ready?
ROSENCRANTZ.Ay, my lord; they stay upon your patience.
QUEEN.Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me.
HAMLET.No, good mother, here’s metal more attractive.
POLONIUS.[_To the King._] O ho! do you mark that?
HAMLET.Lady, shall I lie in your lap?
[_Lying down at Ophelia’s feet._]
OPHELIA.No, my lord.
HAMLET.I mean, my head upon your lap?
OPHELIA.Ay, my lord.
HAMLET.Do you think I meant country matters?
OPHELIA.I think nothing, my lord.
HAMLET.That’s a fair thought to lie between maids’ legs.
OPHELIA.What is, my lord?
HAMLET.Nothing.
OPHELIA.You are merry, my lord.
HAMLET.Who, I?
OPHELIA.Ay, my lord.
HAMLET.O God, your only jig-maker! What should a man do but be merry? For lookyou how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died within’s twohours.
OPHELIA.Nay, ’tis twice two months, my lord.
HAMLET.So long? Nay then, let the devil wear black, for I’ll have a suit ofsables. O heavens! die two months ago, and not forgotten yet? Thenthere’s hope a great man’s memory may outlive his life half a year. Butby’r lady, he must build churches then; or else shall he suffer notthinking on, with the hobby-horse, whose epitaph is ‘For, O, for O, thehobby-horse is forgot!’
Trumpets sound. The dumb show enters.