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,

If it be made of penetrable stuff;

If damned custom have not braz'd it so,
That it be proof and bulwark against sense.
Queen. What have I done, that thou dar'st wag
thy tongue

In noise so rude against me?

Ham.
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
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 tristful2-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 ?3
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 stations 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:
This was your husband.-Look you now,
lows:

(1) Marriage-contract.

what fol

(2) Sorrowful.

(3) Index of contents prefixed to a book.
(4) Apollo's. (5) The act of standing.

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 judgment; and what judg

ment

Would step from this to this? Sense,2 sure, you have, Else, could you not have motion: But, sure, that

sense

Is apoplex'd: for madness would not err;
Nor sense to ecstasy3 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 ?4
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.6

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.7

Ham.

Nay, but to live

In the rank sweat of an enseameds bed;

Stew'd in corruption; honeying and making love Over the nasty sty ;

Queen.

O, speak to me no more;

(1) To grow fat. (2) Sensation. (3) Frenzy.

(4) Blindman's buff.

(6) Be so stupid.

(5) Without.

(7) Colour. (8) Greasy.

These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears: No more, sweet Hamlet.

Ham. A murderer, and a villain : A slave, that is not twentieth part the tythe Of your precedent lord :—a vicel of kings: A cutpurse of the empire and the rule; That from a shelf the precious diadem stole, And put it in his pocket!

Queen.

Ham.

No more.

Enter Ghost.

A king

Of shreds and patches :

Save me, and hover o'er me with your wings, You heavenly guards!-What would your gracious figure?

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;
Conceit2 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 the incorporal air do hold discourse?
Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep;
And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm,
Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,3
Starts up, and stands on end. O gentle son,
Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper

(1) Mimic.

(2) Imagination.

(3) The hair of animals is excrementitious, that is, without life or sensation.

Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look? Ham. On him! on him!-Look you, how pale lie glares!

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:2 then what I have to do

Will want true colour; tears, perchance,3 for blood. Queen. To whom do you speak this?

Нам.

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

away!

My father, in his habit as he liv'd!

Look, where he goes, even now, out at the portal! [Exit Ghost.

Queen. This is the very coinage of your brain: This bodiless creation ecstasy4

Is very cunning in.

Ham. Ecstasy!

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 compost5 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;

(1) Intelligent. (4) Frenzy.

(2) Actions.

(5) Manure.

(3) Perhaps

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 beu;
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, 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:
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!-
I must be cruel, only to be kind :

Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.—
But one word more, good lady.

What shall I do?

Queen. 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;2 And let him, for a pair of reechy3 kisses,

Or paddling in your neck with his damned 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:

(2) A term of endearment.

(1) Bend.
(3) Steaming with heat.