As deep as to the lungs ? who does me this, ha? Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave, A scullion! Fie upon't! foh!-About, my brain! I have heard Have by the very cunning of the scene For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak [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 circumstance, Get from him why he puts on this confusion, Grating so harshly all his days of quiet With turbulent and dangerous lunacy? Ros. He does confess he feels himself distracted; But from what cause he will by no means speak. Guil. Nor do we find him forward to be sounded; When we would bring him on to some confession Queen. Did he receive you well? Ros. Most like a gentleman. Guil. But with much forcing of his disposition. Ros. Niggard of question; but, of our demands, Most free in his reply. Queen. To any pastime? Did you assay him Ros. Madam, it so fell out, that certain players Pol. 'Tis most true: And he beseech'd me to entreat your majesties To hear and see the matter. King. With all my heart; and it doth much content me To hear him so inclin'd. Good gentlemen, give him a further edge, And drive his purpose on to these delights Ros. We shall, my lord. [Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. King. Sweet Gertrude, leave us too; For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither, Her father and myself,-lawful espials,- If 't be the affliction of his love or no That thus he suffers for. Queen. I shall obey you : 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 To both your honours. Oph. Madam, I wish it may. [Exit Queen. Pol. Ophelia, walk you here.-Gracious, so please you, We will bestow ourselves.-Read on this book; [To Ophelia. That show of such an exercise may colour 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. King. [aside] O, 'tis too true! How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience! Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it Than is my deed to my most painted word: Pol. I hear him coming: let's withdraw, my lord. [Exeunt King and Polonius. Enter HAMLET. Ham. To be, or not to be,-that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, And by opposing end them ?-To die,-to sleep, No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks To sleep! perchance to dream :-ay, there's the rub; For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, And makes us rather bear those ills we have Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought; How does your honour for this many a day? Ham. I humbly thank you; well, well, well. That I have longèd long to re-deliver; I pray you, now receive them. Ham. I never gave you aught. No, not I; Oph. My honour'd lord, you know right well you did; And, with them, words of so sweet breath compos'd Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind. Oph. What means your lordship? Ham. That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty. Oph. Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with (47) honesty? Ham. Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner transform 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. Oph. Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so. Ham. You should not have believed me; for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock, but we shall relish of it: I loved you not. Oph. I was the more deceived. Ham. Get thee to a nunnery: why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest; but yet I could accuse 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 heaven and earth? We are arrant knaves, all; believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery. Where's your father? Oph. At home, my lord. Ham. Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool no where but in's own house. Farewell. Oph. O, help him, you sweet heavens! Ham. If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague for thy dowry, be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou |