pered.

Ham. With drink, sir?

Guil. No, my lord, with choler.

Ham. Your wisdom should show itself more richer, to signify this to the doctor; for, for me to put him to his purgation, would, perhaps, plunge him into more choler.

Guil. Good my lord, put your discourse into some frame, and start not so wildly from my affair.

Ham. I am tame, sir :-pronounce. Guil. The queen, your mother, in most great affliction of spirit, hath sent me to you.

Ham. You are welcome.

Ham. Sir, I lack advancement.

Ros. How can that be, when you have the voice of the king himself for your succession in Denmark? Ham. Ay, sir, but, While the grass grows, the proverb is something musty.

Enter the Players, with Recorders. O, the recorders:―let me see one.-To withdraw with you:-Why do you go about to recover the wind of me, as if you would drive me into a toil? Guil. O, my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly.

Ham. I do not well understand that. Will you play upon this pipe?

Guil. My lord, I cannot.

Ham. I pray you.

Guil. Believe me, I cannot.
Ham. I do beseech you.

Guil. I know no touch of it, my lord. Ham. "Tis as easy as lying: govern these ventages with your fingers and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music. Look you, these are the stops.

Guil. But these cannot I command to any utterance of harmony; I have not the skill.

Ham. Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass: and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little

1 Holes.

you think, I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me. Enter POLONIUS.

O, heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever
The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom:
Let me be cruel, not unnatural:

I will speak daggers to her, but use none;
My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites:
How in my words soever she be shent,"
To give them seals' never, my soul, consent! [Exit.

SCENE III-A Room in the same.
Enter KING, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN.

King. I like him not; nor stands it safe with us,
To let his madness range. Therefore, prepare you;
I your commission will forthwith despatch,
And he to England shall along with you:

Hazard so near us, as doth hourly grow
Out of his lunes.

The terms of our estate may not endure

Guil.
We will ourselves provide:
Most holy and religious fear it is,
That live, and feed, upon your majesty.
To keep those many many bodies safe,

Ros. The single and peculiar life is bound,
With all the strength and armor of the mind,
To keep itself from 'noyance; but much more
The lives of many. The cease of majesty
That spirit, upon whose weal depend and rest
Dies not alone; but, like a gulf, doth draw
What's near it, with it: it is a massy wheel,
Fix'd on the summit of the highest mount,
To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things
Are mortis'd and adjoin'd; which, when it falls,
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 voyage;
For we will fetters put upon this fear,
Which now goes too free-footed.

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,

home:

And, as you said, and wisely was it said,
"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.

lord.

Thanks, dear my
[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 engaged! Help, angels, make assay!
Bow, stubborn knees! and, heart, with strings of
steel,

Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe;
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 revenged? 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 Hea-
ven?

But in our circumstance and course of thought,
"Tis heavy with him: And am I then revenged,
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.-

Caught as with bird-lime. Should be considered.
Hold, i. e. purpose.

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.

King. My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:

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:

Tell him, his pranks have been too broad to bear with;

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. Fear me not:-withdraw, I hear him coming. I'll warrant you; [POLONIUS hides himself.

Enter HAMLET.

Ham. Now mother; what's the matter? Queen. Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.

Ham. Mother, you have my father much offended. Queen. Come, come, you answer with an idle

tongue.

Ham. Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.
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 not budge;

You go not, till I set you up a glass

Where you may see the inmost part of you.
Queen. What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murder
me?
Help, help, ho!

Pol. [Behind.] What, ho! help!

Ham.

Dead, for a ducat, dead.

Pol. [Behind.]

How now! a rat?

[Draws.

[HAMLET makes a pass through the Arras.

O, I am slain.

[Falls, and dies.

Nay, I know not:

Queen. O me, what hast thou done?

Ham

Is it the king?

[Lifts up the Arras, and draws forth POLONIUS. Queen. O, what a rash and bloody deed is this! Ham. A bloody deed!-almost as bad, good mother,

As kill a king, and marry with his brother.
Queen. As kill a king!

Ham.
Ay, lady, 'twas my word.-
Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!
[TO POLONIUS.

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,
If it be made of penetrable stuff;

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

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.

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:
This was your husband.-Look you now, what

follows:

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 judgment; And what judgment
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 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 ardor 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.3

Ham.

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 mine ears: No more, sweet Hamlet. Ham.

1 Marriage contract.

A murderer, and a villain:

* Sorrowful.

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.

Ham.

No more.

Enter Ghost.

Of shreds and patches:

A king

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.

6

How is it with you, lady? Queen. Alas, how is't with you? That you do bend your eye on vacancy, Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep; And with the incorporal air do hold discourse? And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm, Starts up, and stands on end. O gentle son, Your bedded hair, like life in excrements," Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look? Ham. On him! on him!-Look you, how pale His form and cause conjoin'd, preaching to stones, he glares! 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 color; 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
away!

My father, in his habit as he liv'd!

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;
Infects unseen.
Whiles rank corruption, mining all within,
Confess yourself to heaven;
Repent what's past: avoid what is to come;
And do not spread the compost on the weeds,
To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue
For in the fatness of these pursy times,

The hair of animals is excrementitious, that is, with out life or sensation. • Intelligent. 2 Manure

Actions.

1 Frenzy.

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 worser part of it,
And live the purer with the other half.
Good night: but go not to my uncle's bed;
Assume a virtue, if you have it not.

That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat
Of habit's devil, is angel yet in this;
That to the use of actions fair and good
He likewise gives a frock, or livery,
That aptly is put on: Refrain to-night;
And that shall lend a kind of easiness

To the next abstinence: the next more easy:
For use almost can change the stamp of nature,
And either curb the devil, or throw him out
With wondrous potency. Once more good night!
And when you are desirous to be bless'd,
I'll blessing beg of you.-For this same lord,
[Pointing to POLONIUS.
I do repent: But heaven hath pleas'd it so,-
To punish me with this, and this with me,
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.—
But one word more, good lady.

Queen.

What shall I do? Ham. Not this, by no means, that I bid you do: 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 kisses, Or paddling in your neck with his damned fingers, Make you to ravel all this matter out,

That I essentially am not in madness,
But mad in craft. "Twere good, you let him know:
For who, that's but a queen, fair, sober, wise,
Would from a paddock,' from a bat, a gib,
Such dear concernings hide? who would do so?
No, in despite of sense, and secrecy,
Unpeg the basket on the house's top,
Let the birds fly: and, like the famous ape,
To try conclusions,' in the basket creep,
And break your own neck down.

Queen. Be thou assur'd, if words be made of

Ham. There's letters seal'd: and my two schoolfellows,

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
Hoist 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 set me packing.

I'll lug the guts into the neighbor room:—
Mother, good night.-Indeed, this counsellor
Is now most still, most secret, and most grave,
Who was in life a foolish prating knave.
Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you:
Good night, mother.

[Exeunt severally; HAMLET dragging in

POLONIUS.

SCENE I-A Room in the Castle.

But, like the owner of a foul disease, To keep it from divulging, let it feed

You must translate: 'tis fit we understand them: Where is your son?

Queen. Bestow this place on us a little while. [To ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN, who go out.

Ah, my good lord, what have I seen to-night!
King. What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?
Queen. Mad as the sea, and wind, when both
contend

Which is the mightier: In his lawless fit,
Behind the arras hearing something stir,
Whips out his rapier, cries, A rat! a rat!
And, in this brainish apprehension, kills
The unseen good old man.
King.
O heavy deed!
It had been so with us, had we been there:
His liberty is full of threats to all;

To you yourself, to us, to every one.

Alas! how shall this bloody deed be answer'd? It will be laid to us, whose providence

Should have kept short, restrain'd, and out of haunt,'

This mad young man: but, so much was our love, We would not understand what was most fit; • Company.

Bend.

Queen. To draw apart the body he hath kill'd; O'er whom his very madness, like some ore, Among a mineral' of metals base,

Shows itself pure; he weeps for what is done.

King. O, Gertrude, come away!

The sun no sooner shall the mountains touch,
But we will ship him hence: and this vile deed
We must, with all our majesty and skill,
Both countenance and excuse.-Ho! Guilden-
stern!

Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.
Friends both, go join you with some further aid:
Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain,
And from his mother's closet hath he dragged him:
Go seek him out: speak fair, and bring the body
Into the chapel. I pray you haste in this.
[Exeunt Ros. and GUIL.
Come, Gertrude, we'll call up our wisest friends:
And let them know both what we mean to do,
And what's untimely done: so, haply, slander,-
Whose whisper o'er the world's diameter,
As level as the cannon to his blank,'
Transports his poison'd shot,-may miss our name,
And hit the woundless air.-O come away!
My soul is full of discord, and dismay. [Exeunt.
• Cat.
1 Experiments.
Blown up with his own bomb.
2 Mark.

• Toad. Having their teeth. 1 Mine.

SCENE II-Another Room in the same.

Enter HAMLET.

Ham.- -Safely stowed,-[Ros. &c. within. Hamlet! lord Hamlet!] But soft!-what noise? who calls on Hamlet? O, here they come.

Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. Ros. What have you done, my lord, with the dead body?

Ham. Compounded it with dust, whereto 'tis kin. Ros. Tell us where 'tis; that we may take it thence,

And bear it to the chapel.

Ham. Do not believe it.
Ros. Believe what?

Ham. That I can keep your counsel, and not mine own. Besides, to be demanded of a spongewhat replication should be made by the son of a king?

Ros. Take you me for a sponge, my lord? Ham. Ay, sir; that soaks up the king's countenance, his rewards, his authorities. But such officers do the king best service in the end: He keeps them, like an ape, in the corner of his jaw; first mouthed, to be last swallowed: When he needs what you have gleaned, it is but squeezing you, and, sponge, you shall be dry again.

Ros. I understand you not, my lord. Ham. I am glad of it: a knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear.

Ros. My lord, you must tell us where the body is, and go with us to the king.

Ham. The body is with the king, but the king is not with the body. The king is a thingGuil. A thing, my lord?

Ham. Of nothing: bring me to him. fox, and all after.'

Hide [Exeunt. SCENE III-Another Room in the same.

Or not at all.-How now? what hath befallen?
Ros. Where the dead body is bestow'd, my lord,
We cannot get from him.
King.

But where is he?

Ros. Without, my lord; guarded, to know your pleasure.

King. Bring him before us.

Ros. Ho, Guildenstern? bring in my lord.

Enter HAMLET and GUILDENSTERN. King. Now, Hamlet, where's Polonius? Ham. At supper.

King. At supper? Where?

Ham. Not where he eats, but where he is eaten : a certain convocation of politic worms are e'en at him. Your worm is your only emperor for diet: we fat all creatures else, to fat us: and we fat ourselves for maggots: Your fat king, and your lean A sport among children.

Ham. A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king; and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.

King. What dost thou mean by this?

Ham. Nothing, but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar. King. Where is Polonius?

Ham. In heaven; send thither to see if your messenger find him not there, seek him i' the other place yourself. But, indeed, if you find him not within this month, you shall nose him as you go up the stairs into the lobby.

King. Go seek him there. [To some Attendants. Ham. He will stay till you come.

[Exeunt Attendants. King. Hamlet, this deed, for thine especial safety,

Which we do tender, as we dearly grieve
For that which thou hast done,-must send thee
hence

With fiery quickness: Therefore, prepare thyself;
The bark is ready, and the wind at help.
The associates tend, and every thing is bent
For England.
For England?

Ham. King. Ham.

Ay, Hamlet. Good. King. So is it, if thou knew'st our purposes. Ham. I see a cherub, that sees them.-But, come, for England!-Farewell, dear mother. King. Thy loving father, Hamlet.

Ham. My mother: Father and mother is man and wife; man and wife is one flesh; and so, my mother. Come, for England![Exit. King. Follow him at foot: tempt him with speed aboard;

Delay it not, I'll have him hence to-night:
That else leans on the affair: Pray you, make haste.
Away; for every thing is seal'd and done
[Exeunt Ros. and GUIL.
And, England, if my love thou hold'st at aught,
(As my great power thereof may give thee sense;
Since yet thy cicatrice looks raw and red
After the Danish sword, and thy free awe
Pays homage to us,) thou mayst not coldly set
Our sovereign process; which imports at full,
By letters conjuring to that effect,

The present death of Hamlet. Do it, England;
For like the hectic in my blood he rages,

And thou must cure me: Till I know 'tis done, Howe'er my haps, my joys will ne'er begin. [Exit.

SCENE IV.-A Plain in Denmark. Enter FORTIN BRAS, and Forces, marching. For. Go, captain, from me greet the Danish king; Tell him, that, by his licence, Fortinbras Craves the conveyance of a promised march Over his kingdom. You know the rendezvous. If that his majesty would aught with us, We shall express our duty in his eye,' And let him know so.