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NCT IV

Should have kept short, restrained, and out of haunt,

This mad young man: but so much was our love,
We would not understand what was most fit;
But, like the owner of a foul disease,
To keep it from divulging, let it feed
Even on the pith of life. Where is he gone?
Queen. To draw apart the body he hath killed:
O'er whom his very madness, like some ore
Among a mineral of metals base,

Shews itself pure; he weeps for what is done.
King. O, Gertrude, come away!

The sun no sooner shall the mountains touch,

But we will ship him hence: and this vile deed
We must, with all our majesty and skill,
Both countenance and excuse.-- Ho, Guilden-
stern!

Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. Friends both, go join you with some further aid: Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain, And from his mother's closet hath he dragged

him:

Go, seek him out; speak fair, and bring the body Into the chapel. I pray you, haste in this.

[Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. Come, Gertrude, we 'll call up our wisest friends; And let them know, both what we mean to do, And what's untimely done: so, haply, slander,Whose whisper o'er the world's diameter, 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.

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Ros. Tell us where 'tis; that we may take it

thence,

And bear it to the chapel.

Ham. Do not believe it.

Ros. Believe what?

Ham. 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?

Ros. Take you me for a sponge, my lord?

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

Ros. I understand you not, my lord. Ham. I am glad of it: a knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear.

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

Ham. The body is with the king, but the king is not with the body. The king is a thingGuil. A thing, my lord?

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

[Exeunt.

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Enter HAMLET and GUILDENSTERN. King. Now, Hamlet, where 's Polonius? Ham. At supper.

King. At supper!—where?

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

King. Alas, alas!

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

King. What dost thou mean by this?

Ham. Nothing, but to shew you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar. King. Where is Polonius?

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

King. Go seek him there. [To some Attendants. Ham. He will stay till you come.

[Exeunt Attendants. King. 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,
Th' associates tend, and everything is bent
For England.

Ham. For England? King. Ay, Hamlet.

Ham. Good.

King. So is it, if thou knew'st our purposes. Ham. I see a cherub that sees them. But come; for England!—Farewell, dear mother. King. Thy loving father, Hamlet.

Ham. My mother. Father and mother is man and wife; man and wife is one flesh; and so, my mother. Come, for England. [Exit.

King. Follow him at foot; tempt him with speed

aboard;

Delay it not; I'll have him hence to-night:
Away; for everything is sealed and done
That else leans on the affair: pray you, make

haste.

[Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. And, England, if my love thou hold'st at aught (As my great power thereof may give thee

sense;

Since yet thy cicatrice looks raw and red

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Cap.

pray you?

Against some part of Poland. Ham. Who commands them, sir? Cap. The nephew to old Norway,-Fortinbras. Ham. Goes it against the main of Poland, sir, Or for some frontier?

Cap. Truly to speak, sir, and with no addition, We go to gain a little patch of ground That hath in it no profit but the name. Το 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. Ham. Why, then the Polack never will defend it.

Cap. Yes, 'tis already garrisoned.

Ham. Two thousand souls, and twenty thousand ducats,

Will not debate the question of this straw! This is the imposthume of much wealth and peace;

That inward breaks, and shews no cause without Why the man dies.-I humbly thank you, sir. Cap. God be wi' you, sir. [Exit. Ros. Will't please you go, my lord?

Ham. I will be with you straight. Go a little

before.

[Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and Guildenstern. How all occasions do inform against me, And spur my dull revenge! What is a man, If his chief good, and market of his time, Be but to sleep and feed?—a beast, no more. Sure He that made us with such large discourse, Looking before and after, gave us not That capability and god-like reason To fust in us unused. Now, whether it be Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple Of thinking too precisely on the event,— A thought which, quartered, hath but one part wisdom,

And ever three parts coward,-I do not know Why yet I live to say, “This thing 's to do;" Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and

means,

To do 't. Examples gross as earth exhort me:
Witness this army of such mass and charge,
Led by a delicate and tender prince;
Whose spirit, with divine ambition puffed,
Makes mouths at the invisible event;
Exposing what is mortal and unsure
To all that fortune, death, and danger, dare,
Even for an egg-shell. Rightly to be great,
Is, not to stir without great argument;
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw,
When honour's at the stake. How stand I then,
That have a father killed, a mother stained,
Excitements of my reason and my blood,
And let all sleep? while, to my shame, I see
The imminent death of twenty thousand men,
That, for a fantasy and trick of fame,

Go to their graves like beds; fight for a plot
Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,—
Which is not tomb enough and continent
To hide the slain !-O, from this time forth,
My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!
[Exit.

SCENE V.-Elsinore. A Room in the Castle. Enter QUEEN and HORATIO. Queen. I will not speak with her. Hor. She is importunate; indeed, distract; Her mood will needs be pitied. Queen. What would she have? Hor. She speaks much of her father; says, she hears

There's tricks i' the world; and hems, and beats her heart;

Spurns enviously at straws; speaks things in doubt, That carry but half sense: her speech is nothing,

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Enter KING.

Queen. Alas, look here, my lord.

OPHELIA sings.

Larded all with sweet flowers;
Which bewept to the grave did go,
With true-love showers.

King. How do you do, pretty lady?

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

King. Conceit upon her father.

Oph. Pray let us have no words of this; but when they ask you what it means, say you this:

Sings.

Good morrow, 't is St. Valentine's day,

All in the morning betime,

And I a maid at your window,

To be your Valentine:

Then up he rose, and donned his clothes,

And dupped the chamber door;

Let in the maid, that out a maid

Never departed more.

King. Pretty Ophelia.

Oph. Indeed, without an oath, I'll make an

end on't.

Sings.

By Gis and by Saint Charity,

Alack and fie for shame!

Young men will do't if they come to 't;

By cock they are to blame.

Quoth she, before you tumbled me,

You promised me to wed:

So would I ha' done, by yonder sun,
An thou hadst not come to my bed.

King. How long hath she been thus?

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

[Exit.

King. Follow her close; give her good watch, I pray you, [Exit HORATIO.

O, this is the poison of deep grief; it springs All from her father's death.-O, Gertrude, Gertrude,

When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
But in battalions! First, her father slain;
Next, your son gone; and he most violent author
Of his own just remove: the people muddied,
Thick and unwholesome in their thoughts and
whispers,

For good Polonius' death; and we have done but

greenly,

In hugger-mugger to inter him: poor Ophelia
Divided from herself and her fair judgment;
Without the which we are pictures, or mere beasts:
Last, and as much containing as all these,
Her brother is in secret come from France;
Feeds on his wonder, keeps himself in clouds,
And wants not buzzers to infect his ear
With pestilent speeches of his father's death;
Wherein necessity, of matter beggared,
Will nothing stick our person to arraign
In ear and ear. O, my dear Gertrude, this,
Like to a murdering-piece, in many places
Gives me superfluous death. [A noise within.
Alack, what noise is this?

Queen.

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Cries "cuckold" to my father; brands the harlot Even here, between the chaste unsmirchéd brow Of my true mother.

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

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