They have proclaim'd their malefactions;
For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ. I'll have these players 590
Play something like the murder of my father

Before mine uncle: I'll observe his looks;
I'll tent him to the quick: if he but blench,
I know my course. The spirit that I have seen
May be the devil; and the devil hath power
To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps
Out of my weakness and my melancholy,
As he is very potent with
Abuses me to damn me. I'll have grounds
More relative than this. The play's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.

such spirits,

[Exit.

590–594 I'll have . . . course] Many stories of the detection of crime in this way at a theatre were quoted by Shakespeare's contemporaries. Two are given in Thomas Heywood's Apology for Actors, 1612. (Shakesp. Soc. ed. pp. 57-59.)

593 tent... blench] probe . . . flinch. 600 relative] pertinent, definite.

600

Enter KING, QUEEN, POLONIUS, OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN

KING

ND 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;

But, with a crafty madness, keeps aloof,

When we would bring him on to some confession

Of his true state.

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
We o'er-raught on the way: of these we told him,
And there did seem in him a kind of joy
To hear of it: they are about the court,
And, as I think, they have already order
This night to play before him.

POL.

"T is 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 inclined.

Good gentlemen, give him a further edge,

And drive his purpose on to these delights.

1 by no drift of circumstance] by no circuitous method. Cf. II, i, 10, supra: "drift of question."

3 Grating] Disturbing.

13 Niggard of question] Reluctant to begin the talk. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern give a somewhat garbled account of their interview with Hamlet in Act II, Sc. ii, and are concealing the awkward fact of his discovery that they were sent for.

14 assay] tempt, challenge.

17 o'er-raught] overtook; the preterite of "o'er reach." Thus all the early editions save the Third Folio, which reads o'ertook.

10

20

30

Ros. We shall, my lord.

KING.

[Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
Sweet Gertrude, leave us too;

For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither,
That he, as 't were by accident, may here
Affront Ophelia :

Her father and myself, lawful espials,

Will so bestow ourselves that, seeing unseen,
We may of their encounter frankly judge,
And gather by him, as he is behaved,
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
Will bring him to his wonted way again,

To both your honours.

ОРН.

Madam, I wish it may. [Exit Queen.

POL. Ophelia, walk you here. Gracious, so please

you,

We will bestow ourselves. [To Ophelia] Read on this book ;
That show of such an exercise may colour

Your loneliness. We are oft to blame in this,
"T is too much proved - that with devotion's visage

29 closely] secretly.

31 Affront] Meet, encounter. Cf. line 34, infra.

32 lawful espials] legitimate onlookers. Thus the Folios. The words are omitted from the Quartos.

43 Gracious] My gracious lord. Cf. IV, vii, 43, infra: “High and mighty.” 44 this book] a book of devotion, as the references below prove.

40

o'er

And pious action we do sugar

The devil himself.

KING. [Aside] O, 't is too true!

How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!
The harlot's cheek, beautied with plastering art,

Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it
Than is my deed to my most painted word:
O heavy burthen!

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 't is nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them. To die: to sleep;

52 to the thing that helps it] when compared with the beautifying enamel. 58 painted word] falsely coloured word.

56 To be, or not to be] To live or commit suicide.

59 to take arms... troubles] This looks like a mixed metaphor, though Aristotle (Ethic. Eudem., Bk. III, ch. i), Ælian in his Histories, and some later Greek writers describe a practice "among the Celts when maddened by anger" of taking up arms against the waves of the sea and of suffering themselves to be drowned rather than retreat from the incoming tide. It is doubtful if Shakespeare is here drawing upon classical learning, though Ælian was accessible in Abraham Fleming's translation, 1576. He more probably used "sea" in the sense of "mass" as in "sea of joys" (Pericles, V, i, 191), "sea of glory" (Hen. VIII, III, ii, 360), "sea of care" (Lucrece, 1100); "Sea of troubles" too was a common phrase in other languages. Cf. Kakav Oáλaσσa, in Eschylus, Septem contra Thebas, lines 64 and 114.

51

60