НАМ.

Ay, lady, 't was my word.

[Lifts up
Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!
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,

the arras and discovers Polonius.

If it be made of penetrable stuff;

If damned custom have not brass'd it so,
That it be proof and bulwark against sense.

QUEEN. What have I done, that thou darest 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 tristful visage, as against the doom,
Is thought-sick at the act.

38 against sense] against feeling.

42 takes off the rose] removes the grace, the beauty. Cf. III, i, 152, supra: "the rose of the fair state."

46 contraction] the marriage contract, matrimony.

49 solidity] solid earth.

50 as against the doom] as if in sight of the day of judgment.

50

QUEEN.

Ay 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:
This was your husband.
Look you now,

follows:

Here is your husband; like a mildew'd ear,

Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes?

what

52 index] prelude (of the indictment). An "index" commonly prefaced an Elizabethan book.

53 Look here... and on this] There is some difference of opinion as to whether Hamlet points to two portraits hung on the walls, or takes a miniature of his father from his pocket, or is merely drawing on his imagination. The last interpretation seems, in the view of the scanty scenic machinery of Shakespeare's stage, to be the most probable.

54 counterfeit presentment] portrait, mimic representation.

56 Hyperion's curls] See note on I, ii, 140, supra.

front] forehead. The statues of Jupiter gave him a very noble brow, indicating much intellectual power.

58 station] attitude or pose.

58-59 Mercury... hill] The god Mercury is very similarly described in Virgil, Æneid, IV, 246–255, which was accessible in English translations.

60

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 judgement 70
Would step from this to this? Sense sure you have,
Else could you not have motion: but sure that sense
Is apoplex'd: for madness would not err,
Nor sense to ecstasy was ne'er so thrall'd
But it reserved 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,

66 leave to feed] leave off feeding.

67 batten] gourmandise, feed like a glutton.

this moor] this low and uninviting pasture.

71-76 Sense... difference] This passage is omitted from the Folios. It is only found in the Second and later Quartos. In this passage "sense" is thrice used with a meaning indistinguishable from "reason." Taking the words generally Hamlet points out that his mother must have reason or brains, otherwise she could not have power of movement. But her reasoning faculty is paralysed, quite stifled, not merely perverted as in madness. When reason is dominated by insanity, it still retains some power of choice, which must have come into play, when the difference between the objects of choice differed so vastly. 77 hoodman-blind] blind man's buff.

81 so mope] show so much stupidity. Cf. Tempest, V, i, 239-240: "Even in a dream were we . . . brought moping hither."

80

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 pandars will.

QUEEN.
Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul,
And there I see such black and grained spots
As will not leave their tinct.

O Hamlet, speak no more:

НАМ.

Nay, but to live

In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed,

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

QUEEN.

O, speak to me no more;

These words like daggers enter in my ears;
No more, sweet Hamlet!

HAM.

A murderer and a villain;

A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe
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!

83 mutine] mutiny; only used here as a verb. But the word reappears as a noun, meaning mutineer, V, ii, 6, infra.

85 her own fire] the fire of flaming youth.

88 reason pandars will] reason becomes the pander, or disreputable agent, of lust. “Lust" is a common sense of "will.”

90 grained] ingrained, fast dyed.

92 enseamed] defiled.

98 a vice of kings] a buffoon or clown of a king. In the old morality plays the "vice" was a clown or buffoon.

90

100

QUEEN.

No more!

HAM. A king of shreds and patches

Enter Ghost

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, lapsed 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 the incorporal air do hold discourse?
Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep;

102 shreds and patches] an allusion to the motley or patchwork dress of the professional fool or clown.

104 your gracious] Thus the Quartos. The Folios read you gracious. 107 lapsed passion] having let time slip by through indulgence

in mere passion.

108 important] urgent, importunate.

114 Conceit in weakest bodies] Imagination in weakest creatures.

118 incorporal] ethereal, immaterial. "Corporal" for "corporeal" is not uncommon. But this form seems unknown elsewhere.

110