A man, that fortune's buffets and rewards
Hast ta'en with equal thanks: and blest are those,
Whose blood and judgment are so well co-mingled,
That they are not a pipe for fortune's finger
To sound what stop she please: give me that man
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core, ay in my heart of heart,
As I do thee. Something too much of this.-
There is a play to-night before the king;
One scene of it comes near the circumstance,
Which I have told thee, of my father's death.
I pr'ythee, when thou seest that act a-foot,
Even with the very comment of thy soul
Observe my uncle: if his occulted guilt
Do not itself unkennel in one speech,
It is a damned ghost that we have seen;
And my imaginations are as foul

As Vulcan's stithy. Give him heedful note:
For I mine eyes will rivet to his face;
And after we will both our judgments join
In censure of his seeming.

Hor. Well, my lord:

If he steal aught, the whilst this play is playing, And 'scape detecting, I will pay the theft.

Ham. They are coming to the play; I must be Get you a place.

[idle; Danish march. A flourish. Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and others.

King. How fares our cousin Hamlet? Ham. Excellent, i'faith; of the camelion'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.

Ham. No, nor mine now. My lord,-you played once in the university, you say? [to Polonius. Pol. That did I, my lord; and was accounted a good actor.

Ham. And what did you enact?

Pol. I did enact Julius Cæsar: I was killed i'the Capitol; Brutus killed me.

Ham. It was a brute part of him, to kill so capital a calf there.-Be the players ready?

Ros. Ay, my lord; they stay upon your patience. Queen. Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me. Ham. No, good mother, here's metal more attractive.

Pol. O ho! do you mark that? [to the King.
Ham. Lady, shall I lie in your lap?
[lying down at Ophelia's feet.

Oph. No, my lord.
Ham. I mean, my head upon your lap?
Oph. Ay, my lord.

Ham. Do you think, I meant country matters?
Oph. I think nothing, my lord.
Ham. That's a fair thought, to lie between
Oph. What is, my lord? [maids' legs.

Ham. Nothing.

Oph. Nay, 'tis twice two months, my lord. Ham. So long? Nay, then let the devil wear black, for I'll have a suit of sables. O heavens! die two months ago, and not forgotten yet? Then there's hope a great man's memory may outlive his life half a year: but, by'r-lady, he must build churches then: or else shall he suffer not thinking on, with the hobby-horse; whose epitaph is, For, O, for, O, the hobby-horse is forgot.'

He

[trumpet sounds: the dumb show follows. Enter a King and a Queen, very lovingly: the Queen embracing him, and he her. She kneels, and makes show of protestation unto him. takes her up, and declines his head upon her neck: lays him down upon a bank of flowers; she, seeing him asleep, leaves him. Anon comes in a fellow, takes off his crown, kisses it, and pours poison in the King's ear, and exit. The Queen returns; finds the King dead, and makes passionate action. The poisoner, with some two or three Mutes, comes in again, seeming to lament with her. The dead body is carried away. The poisoner wooes the Queen with gifts; she seems lothe and unwilling awhile, but, in the end, accepts his love. [exeunt.

Oph. What means this, my lord? Ham. Marry, this is miching mallecho; it means mischief.

Oph. Belike, this show imports the argument of the play.

Enter Prologue.

Ham. We shall know by this fellow: the players cannot keep counsel; they'll tell all.

Oph. Will he tell us what this show meant? Ham. Ay, or any show that you'll show him: be not you ashamed to show, he'll not shame to tell you what it means.

Oph. You are naught, you are naught; I'll mark the play.

Pro. For us, and for our tragedy,

Here stooping to your clemency, We beg your hearing patiently.' Ham. Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring? Oph. 'Tis brief, my lord. Ham. As woman's love.

Enter a King and Queen.

P. King. Full thirty times hath Phoebus' cart gone round

Neptune's salt wash, and Tellus' orbed ground; And thirty dozen moons, with borrow'd sheen, About the world have times twelve thirties been; Since love our hearts, and Hymen did our hands, Unite commutual in most sacred bands.

P. Queen. So many journeys may the sun and Make us again count o'er, ere love be done! [moon But, woe is me, you are so sick of late, So far from cheer, and from your former state, That I distrust you. Yet, though I distrust, Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must: For women fear too much, even as they love; And women's fear and love hold quantity; In neither aught, or in extremity. Now, what my love is, proof hath made you know And as my love is siz'd, my fear is so. Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear Where little fear grows great,great love grows there.

;

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.

[exit Polonius.

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

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.

[draws.

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
And let me wring your heart: for so I shall, [down,
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
In noise so rude against me? [thy tongue

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 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;

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

Queen. O, speak to me no more; 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 vice 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. No more.

Enter Ghost.

Ham. A king 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.
[figure?

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' alarm,
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

he 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: 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.

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;