You heavenly guards!-What would your gracious Queen. Alas, he's mad!
[figure
Ham. Do you not come your tardy fon to chide,
That, laps'd in time and paffion, lets go by
The important acting of your dread command?
O, fay!
Ghost. Do not forget: This vifitation
Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.
But, look amazement on thy mother fits:
O, step between her and her fighting foul;
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 incorporeal air do hold difcourfe?
Forth at your eyes your fpirits wildly peep;
And, as the fleeping foldiers in the alarm,
Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,
Starts up,
and stands on end. O gentle fon!
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 ftones,
Would make them capable.-Do not look upon me;
Left, with this piteous action, you convert
My ftern 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 fee nothing there?
Queen. Nothing at all; yet all that is, I fee.
Ham. Nor did you nothing hear?
Queen. No, nothing, but ourfelves.
Ham. Why, look you there! look, how it steals My father, in his habit as he liv'd!
Look, where he goes, even now, out at the portal!
Queen. This is the very coinage of your brain:
This bodilefs creation ecstasy
Is very cunning in.
My pulfe as yours, doth temperately keep time,
And makes as healthful mufick: 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 foul,
That not your trefpafs, but my madness, speaks:
It will but fkin and film the ulcerous place;
Whiles rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unfeen. Confefs yourself to heaven:
Repent what's paft; avoid what is to come;
And do not spread the compoft on the weeds,
To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue:
For, in the fatness of these purfy times,
Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg;
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 worfer part of it,
And live the purer with the other half.
Good night but go not to mine uncle's bed;
Affume a virtue, if you have it not.
That monster, custom, who all fense doth eat,
Of habits devil, is angel yet in this;
That to the use of actions fair and good
He likewife gives a frock, or livery,
That aptly is put on: Refrain to-night;
H
And that shall lend a kind of eafinefs
To the next abstinence; the next, more easy :
For use can almost change the stamp of nature,
And either mafter the devil, or throw him out
With wondrous potency. Once more, good night
And when you are defirous to be blest,
I'll bleffing beg of you.-For this fame lord,
[Pointing to POLONIUS
I do repent; but heaven hath pleas'd it fo-
To punish him with me, and me with this-
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.—
One word more, good lady.
Queen. What shall I do?
Ham. Not this, by no means, that I bid you Let the bloat king tempt you again to bed, Pinch wanton on your cheek; call you, his mouse ; And let him, for a pair of reechy kiffes, Or paddling in your neck with his damn'd fingers, Make you to ravel all this matter out,
That I effentially am not in madness,
But mad in craft. 'Twere good, you let him know
For who, that's but a queen, fair, fober, wise,
Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib,
Such dear concerning hide? who would do fo?
No, in defpight of sense, and secrecy,
Unpeg the basket on the house's top,
Let the birds fly; and, like the famous ape,
To try conclufions, in the basket creep,
And break your neck down.
Queen. Be thou affur'd, if words be made of breath,
And breath of life, I have no life to breathe
What thou haft faid to me.
Ham. I must to England; you know that?
Queen. Alack, I had forgot; 'tis fo concluded on.
Ham. There's letters feal'd: and my two school-
fellows,-
Whom I will trust, as I will adders fang'd,—
They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way,
And marshal me to knavery: Let it work;
For 'tis the sport, to have the engineer
Hoift with his own petar: and it shall go hard,
But I will delve one yard below their mines,
And blow them at the moon: O, 'tis most sweet,
When in one line two crafts directly meet !-
This man shall fet me packing.
I'll lug the guts into the neighbour room :-
Mother, good night.-Indeed, this counsellor
Is now most ftill, moft fecret, and most grave,
Who was in life a foolish prating knave.
Come, fir, to draw toward an end with
Good night, mother.
[Exit the Queen, and HAMLET dragging in POLONIUS,
SCENE I. A Royal Apartment.
Enter King, Queen, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDEN
THERE'S matter in the fe fighs, thefe profound heaves,
You must translate; 'tis fit we understand them : Where is your fon?
Queen. Bestow this place on us a little while.[To Ros. and GUIL who go out.
Ah, my good lord, what have I seen to-night?
King. What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?
Queen. Mad, as the fea, and wind, when both
Which is the mightier: In his lawlefs fit, [contend
Behind the arras hearing fomething ftir,
He whips his rapier out, and cries, A rat! A rat
And, in this brainish apprehenfion, kills
The unfeen good old man.
King. O heavy deed!
It had been fo with us, had we been there :
His liberty is full of threats to all;
To you yourself, to us, to every one.
Alas! how fhall this bloody deed be answer❜d?
It will be laid to us ; whofe providence
Should have kept short, restrain'd, and out of haunt
This mad young man: but, fo much was our love,
We would not understand what was most fit;
But, like the owner of a foul disease,
To keep it from divulging, let it feed,
Even on the pith of life. Where is he gone?
Queen. To draw apart the body he hath kill'd
O'er whom his very madness, like fome ore,
Among a mineral of metals bafe,
Shews itself pure: he weeps for what is done.
King. O, Gertrude, come away!
The fun no fooner fhall the mountains touch,
But we will ship him hence: and this vile deed
We must with all our majefty and skill,
Both countenance and excufe.-Ho! Guildenftern
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