P. King. 'Faith, I must leave thee, love, and
My operant powers their functions leave to do: And thou shalt live in this fair world behind, Honour'd, belov'd; and, haply, one as kind For husband shalt thou—
P. Queen. O, confound the rest;
Such love must needs be treason in my breast: In second husband let me be accurst!
None wed the second, but who kill'd the first. Ham. That's wormwood.
[aside. P. Queen. The instances, that second marriage Are base respects of thrift, but none of love; [move, A second time I kill my husband dead, When second husband kisses me in bed. [speak; P. King. I do believe, you think what now you But, what we do determine, oft we break. Purpose is but the slave to memory; Of violent birth, but poor validity: Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree; But fall, unshaken, when they mellow be. Most necessary 'tis, that we forget To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt: What to ourselves in passion we propose, The passion ending, doth the purpose lose. The violence of either grief or joy
Their own enactures with themselves destroy: Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament, Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident. This world is not for aye; nor 'tis not strange, That even our loves should with our fortunes For 'tis a question left us yet to prove, [change; Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love. That 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, 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: So think thou wilt no second husband wed; But die thy thoughts, when thy first lord is dead. P. Queen. Nor earth to me give food, nor heaven light!
Sport and repose lock from me, day and night! To desperation turn my trust and hope! An anchor's cheer 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!
Ham. If she should break it now,- P. King. 'Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me
My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile The tedious day with sleep.
P. Queen. Sleep rock thy brain; And never come mischance between us twain! [exit. Ham. Madam, how like you this play? Queen. The lady doth protest too much, me- [thinks. Ham. O, but she'll keep her word. King. Have you heard the argument? Is there
Ham. No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest; no offence i'the world.
King. What do you call the play?
Ham. The mouse-trap. Marry, how? Tropically. This play is the image of a murder done in Vienna: Gonzago is the duke's name: his wife, Baptista: you shall see anon; 'tis a knavish piece of work: but what of that? your majesty, and we that have free souls, it touches us not: let the galled jade wince, our withers are unwrung.Enter Lucianu
This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king. Oph. You are as good as a chorus, my lord. Ham. I could interpret between you and your love, if I could see the puppets dallying.
Oph. You are keen, my lord, you are keen. Ham. It would cost you a groaning, to take off my edge.
Oph. Still better, and worse.
Ham. So you mistake your husbands.-Begin, murderer;-leave thy damnable faces, and begin. Come;
-The croaking raven Doth bellow for revenge.
[time agreeing; Luc. Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and Confederate season, else no creature seeing; Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected, With Hecat's ban thrice blasted, thrice infected, Thy natural magic and dire property, On wholesome life usurp immediately.
[pours the poison into the Sleeper's ears. Ham. He poisons him i'the garden for his estate. His name's Gonzago: the story is extant, and written in very choice Italian: you shall see anon, how the murderer gets the love of Gonzago's wife. Oph. The king rises.
Ham. What! frighted with false fire! Queen. How fares my lord? Pol. Give o'er the play.
King. Give me some light :-away! Pol. Lights, lights, lights!
[exeunt all but Hamlet and Horatio Ham. Why, let the strucken deer go weep, The hart ungalled play:
For some must watch, while some must Thus runs the world away. [sleep; Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers, (if the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me,) with two Provencial roses on my razed shoes, get me a fellowship in a cry of players, sir? Hor. Half a share.
Ham. A whole one, I.
For thou dost know, O Damon dear, This realm dismantled was
Of Jove himself; and now reigns here A very, very-peacock.
Hor. You might have rhymed.
Ham. O, good Horatio, I'll take the ghost's word for a thousand pound. Didst perceive? Hor. Very well, my lord.
Ham. Upon the talk of poisoning,— Hor. I did very well note him.
Ham. Ah, ah!-Come, some music; come, the recorders.——
For, if the king like not the comedy, Why then, belike, he likes it not, perdy.-
Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
Come, some music.
Guil. Good, my lord, vouchsafe me a word with
Ham. Sir, a whole history.
Guil. The king, sir,—
Ham. Ay, sir, what of him?
with your mouth, and it will discourse most elo quent music. Look you, these are the stops. Guil. But these cannot I command to any utterance of harmony; I have not the skill.
Ham. Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would play upon me;
Guil. Is, in his retirement, marvellous distem- you would seem to know my stops; you would
Ham. Make you a wholesome answer; my wit's diseased: but, sir, such 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,
Ros. Then thus she says: your behaviour hath struck her into amazement and admiration.
Ham. O wonderful sou, that can so astonish a mother! But is there no sequel at the heels of this mother's admiration? impart.
Ham. Do you see yonder cloud, that's almost in shape of a camel?
Pol. By the mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed. Ham. Methinks, it is like a weasel. Pol. It is backed like a weasel. Ham. Or, like a whale.
Pol. Very like a whale.
Ham. Then will I come to my mother by-andby. They fool me to the top of my bent.-I will come by-and-by.
Pol. I will say so. [erit Polonius. Ham. By-and-by is easily said.-Leave me friends. [exeunt Ros. Guil. Hor. &c. 'Tis now the very witching time of night; When church-yards yawn, and hell itself breathe Contagion to this world: now could I drink hot And do such business as the bitter day [blood Would quake to look on. Soft; now to my mother. O, heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever
Ros. She desires to speak with you in her The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom : closet, ere you go to bed.
Ham We shall obey, were she ten times our mother. Have you any further trade with us? Ros. My lord, you once did love me. Ham. And do still, by these pickers and stealers. Ros. Good, my lord, what is your cause of distemper? you do, surely, but bar the door upon your own liberty, if you deny your griefs to your friend. Ham. Sir, I lack advancement.
Ros. How can that be, when you have the voice of the king himself for your succession in Denmark? Ham. Ay, sir, but, while the grass grows,'the proverb is something musty.
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? Guil. O, my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly.
Ham. I do not well understand that. Will you play upon this pipe?
Guil. My lord, J cannot.
Ham. I pray you.
Guil. Believe me, I cannot. Ham. I do beseech you.
Guil. I know no touch of it, my lord. Ham. 'Tis as easy as lying: govern these ven- tages with your fingers and thumb, give it breath
Let me be cruel, not unnatural:
I will speak daggers to her, but use none; My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites: How in my words soever she be shent, To give them seals never, my soul, consent! [exit
SCENE III. A ROOM IN THE SAME.
Enter King, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern. King. I like him not; nor stands it safe with us To let his madness range. Therefore, prepare you; I your commission will forthwith despatch, And he to England shall along with you: The terms of our estate may not endure Hazard so near us, as doth hourly grow Out of his lunes.
Guil. We will ourselves provide: Most holy and religious fear it is, To keep those many bodies safe, That live, and feed, upon your majesty.
Ros. The single and peculiar life is bound, With all the strength and armour of the mind, To keep itself from 'noyance; but much more That spirit, upon whose weal depend and rest The lives of many. The cease 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, 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. King. Arm you, I pray you, to this speedy voy- For we will fetters put upon this fear, [age; Which now goes too free-booted. Ros. & Guil. We will haste us.
[exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Enter Polonius.
Pol. 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 And, as you said, and wisely was it said, [home: 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.
King. Thanks, dear my lord. O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven; It hath the primal eldest curse upon't, A brother's murder!-Pray can I not, Though inclination be as sharp as will; My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent; And, like a man to double business bound, I stand in pause where I shall first begin, And both neglect. What if this cursed hand 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 two-fold force,- To be forestalled, ere we come to fall,
Or pardon'd, being down? Then I'll look up; My fault is past. But O, what form of prayer Can serve my turn? Forgive me my foul murder!- That cannot be; since I am still possess'd Of those effects for which I did the murder, My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen. May one be pardon'd, and retain the offence? In the corrupted currents of this world, Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice; 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, To give in evidence. What then? what rests? Try what repentance can: What can it not? Yet what can it, when one cannot repent? O wretched state! O, bosom, black as death! O, limed soul; that, struggling to be free, Art more engag'd! Help, angels, make assay! Bow, stubborn knees! and, heart, with strings of Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe; [steel, All may be well! [retires, and kneels.
Enter Hamlet. Ham. 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 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? 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 season'd for his passage? No. Up, sword; and know thou a more horrid hent When he is drunk, asleep, or in his rage, Or in the incestuous pleasures of his bed; At gaming, swearing; or about some act That has no relish of salvation in't: 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. The King rises and advances. [below; King. My words fly up, my thoughts remain Words, without thoughts, never to heaven go. [exit.
SCENE IV. ANOTHER ROOM IN THE SAME.
Enter Queen and Polonius.
Pol. He will come straight. Look, you lay home to him [with;
Tell him, his pranks have been too broad to bear And that your grace hath screen'd and stood between Much heat and him. I'll silence me e'en here. Pray you, be round with him. Queen. I'll warrant you;
Fear me not-withdraw, I hear him coming. [Polonius hides himself Enter Hamlet.
Ham. Now, mother; what's the matter? Queen. Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.
Ham. Mother, you have my father much offended. Queen. Come, come, you answer with an idle [tongue.
Ham. Go, go, you question with a wicked Queen. Why, how now, Hamlet? Ham. What's the matter now? Queen. Have you forgot me? Ham. No, by the rood, not so: You are the queen, your husband's brother's wife; And, 'would it were not so!-you are my mother. Queen. Nay, then I'll set those to you that can speak.
Ham. Come, come, and sit you down; you shall You go not, till I set you up a glass, [not budge; Where you may see the inmost part of you. Queen. What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murHelp, help, ho! [der me?
Pol. [behind.] What, ho! help!
Ham. How now, a rat?
Dead, for a ducat, dead.
[Hamlet makes a pass through the arras. Pol. [behind.] O, I am slain. [falls and dies. Queen. O, me, what hast thou done?
Ham. Nay, I know not.
[lifts up the arras, and draws forth Polonius. Queen. O, what a rash and bloody deed is this! Ham. A bloody deed;-almost as bad, good Askill a king, and marry with his brother. [mother, Queen. As kill a king!
Ham. Ay, lady, 'twas my word. Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell! [to Polonius.
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 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, With tristful visage, as against the doom, Is thought-sick at the act.
Queen. Ah me, what act,
That roars so loud, and thunders in the index? Ham. Look here, upon this picture, and on this; 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, 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: [lows: This was your husband. Look you now, what fol- 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, The hey-day in the blood is tame, it's humble, And waits upon the judgement; and what judge- ment
Would step from this to this? Sense, sure, you have, Else could you not have motion: but, sure, that Is apoplex'd: for madness would not err; [sense Nor sense to ecstasy 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, 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, 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.
Queen. 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.
Ham. Nay, but to live
In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed;
Of shreds and patches:
Save me, and hover o'er me with your wings, You heavenly guards!—What would your gracious Queen. Alas, he's mad.
Ham. Do you not come your tardy son to chide, That, laps'd in time and passion, lets go by The important acting of your dread command? O, say!
Ghost. Do not forget: This visitation Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose. But, look! amazement on thy mother sits: O, step between her and her fighting soul; Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works: Speak to her, Hamlet.
Ham. How is it with you, lady?
Queen. Alas, how is't with you?
That you do bend your eye on vacancy And with th' incorporal air do hold discourse? Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep; And, as the sleeping soldiers in th' aların, Your bedded hair, like life in excrements, Starts up, and stands on end. O, gentle son, Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look?
Ham. On him! on him!-Look you, how pale
His form and cause conjoin'd, preaching to stones, 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. Queen. To whom do you speak this? Ham. Do you see nothing there? Queen. Nothing at all; yet all, that is, I see. Ham. Nor did you nothing hear? Queen. No, nothing, but ourselves.
Ham. Why, look you there! look, how it steals My father, in his habit as he liv'd; [away! Look, where he goes, even now, out at the portal! [exit Ghost.
Queen. This is the very coinage of your brain: This bodiless creation ecstasy Is very cunning in.
My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time, And makes as healthful music. It is not madness That I have utter'd: bring me to the test, And I the matter will re-word; 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 ;
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: 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. Queen. O Hamlet! thou hast cleft my heart in twain.
Ham. O, throw away the worser part of it, 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 habit's devil, is angel yet in this; That to the use of actions fair and good He likewise gives a frock, a livery, That aptly is put on. Refrain to-nignt; And that shall lend a kind of easiness
To the next abstinence: the next more easy: For use almost can change the stamp of nature, And either curb the devil, or throw him out With wondrous potency. Once more, good night; And when you are desirous to be bless'd, I'll blessing beg of you.
For this same lord, [pointing to Polonius. 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! í must be cruel, only to be kind :
Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.— But one word more, good lady.
Queen. What shall I do? Ham. Not this, by no means, that I bid you do. 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, 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? 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.
Queen. Be thou assur'd, if words be made of And breath of life, I have no life to breathe [breath, What thou hast said to me.
Ham. I must to England; you know that? Queen. Alack,
I had forgot; 'tis so concluded on.
Ham. There's letters sealed: and my two school- 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; For 'tis the sport, to have the engineer Hoist with his own petar: and it 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.- 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 prating knave. Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you Good night, mother.
[ex. severally; Ham. dragging in Pol
Enter King, Queen, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern. King. There's matter in these sighs; these profound heaves
To keep it from divulging, let it feed Even on the path of life. Where is he gone?
Queen. To draw apart the body he hath kiil'd. O'er whom his very madness, like some ore,
You must translate: 'tis fit we understand them. Among a mineral of metals base, Where is your son?
Queen. Bestow this place on us a little while.- [to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who go out. Ah, my good lord, what have I seen to night! King. What, Gertrude?-How does Hamlet? Queen. Mad as the sea and wind, when both con- Which is the mightier: In his lawlesss fit, [tend Behind the arras, hearing something stir, Whips out his rapier, cries, 'a rat! a rat!' And, in this brainish apprehension, kills The unseen good old man.
It had been so with us, had we been there: 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, 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,
Shows 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! Guildenstern! 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 dragg'd him: Go, seek him out; speak fair, and bring the body Into the chapel. I pray you, haste in this.
[exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildensterr. 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 poison'd shot, may miss our name, And hit the woundless air.-O, come away! My soul is full of discord and dismay. [exeunt.
« PreviousContinue » |