Polonius.
Pol.
Oh, I am slain.
Queen.
Oh me, what hast thou done?
Ham.
Nay, I know not: is it the King?
Queen.
Oh, 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, farewel,
[To Polonius.
I took thee for thy Betters; 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:
-- 239 --
If damned custom have not braz'd it so,
That it is proof and bulwark against sense.
Queen.
What have I done, that thou dar'st wag thy tongue
In noise so rude against me?
Ham.
Such an act,
That blurs the grace and blush of modesty;
Calls virtue hypocrite; 9 notetakes off the rose
From the fair forehead of an innocent love,
And sets a blister there; makes marriage vows
As false as dicers' oaths. Oh, such a deed,
As 1 notefrom the body of Contraction plucks
The very soul, and sweet Religion makes
A rhapsody of words. 2 note
Heav'n's face doth glow;
Yea, this solidity and compound mass,
With tristful visage, as against the doom,
Is thought-sick at the act.
-- 240 --
Queen.
3 note
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 or 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,
-- 241 --
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. 4 note
Sense, sure, you have,
Else could you not have notion; 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 diff'rence.—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? 5 note
rebellious hell,
-- 242 --
If thou canst mutiny 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 6 note
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 7 notegrained spots,
As will not leave their tinct.
Ham.
Nay, but to live
In the rank sweat of an 8 noteincestuous bed,
Stew'd in corruption, honying and making love
Over the nasty sty!
Queen.
Oh, speak 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 9 noteVice of Kings;—
A cutpurse of the Empire and the Rule,
1 noteThat from a shelf the precious Diadem stole
And put it in his pocket.
Queen.
No more.
-- 243 --
Enter Ghost.
Ham.
2 noteA King of shreds and patches—
Save me! and hover o'er me with your wings,
[Starting up.
You heav'nly guards! What would your gracious figure?
Queen.
Alas, he's mad—
Ham.
Do you not come your tardy son to chide,
That, 3 notelaps'd in time and passion, lets go by
Th' 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 thus you 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 hairs, 4 notelike life in excrements,
Start up, and stand on end. O gentle son,
Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper
Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look?
-- 244 --
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 on 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?
[Pointing to the Ghost.
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 ev'n 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.
What Ecstasy?
My pulse, as yours, doth temp'rately keep time,
And makes as healthful musick. 'Tis 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;
Whilst rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heav'n;
Repent what's past, avoid what is to come;
And 5 notedo not spread the compost on the weeds
To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue;
-- 245 --
For, in the fatness of these pursy times,
Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg,
Yea, 6 notecurb and wooe, for leave to do it good.
Queen.
Oh 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 mine uncle's bed,
Assume a virtue, if you have it not.
7 note
That monster custom, who all sense doth eat
Of habits, 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 can almost change the stamp of Nature,
And master ev'n the Devil, or throw him out
With wondrous potency. Once more, good night!
And when you are desirous to be blest,
I'll Blessing beg of you.—For this same Lord,
[Pointing to Polonius.
I do repent: but heav'ns have pleas'd it so,
8 note
To punish this with me, and me with this
That I must be their scourge and minister.
-- 246 --
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.
Queen.
What shall I do?
Ham.
Not this by no means, that I bid you do,
9 note
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 padling in your neck with his damn'd 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 gibbe,
Such dear concernings hide? Who would do so?
No, in despight of sense and secresy,
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 breath,
And breath of life, I have no life to breathe
What thou hast said to me.
Ham.
I must to England, you know that?
Queen.
Alack, I had forgot; 'tis so concluded on.
Ham.
1 noteThere's Letters seal'd, and my two school-fellows,
Whom I will trust, as I will 2 noteadders fang'd;
-- 247 --
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 petard; and 't 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 neighbour 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.
[Exit Hamlet, tugging in Polonius.
noteACT IV.
* [Footnote:
Samuel Johnson [1765], The plays of William Shakespeare, in eight volumes, with the corrections and illustrations of Various Commentators; To which are added notes by Sam. Johnson (Printed for J. and R. Tonson [and] C. Corbet [etc.], London) [word count] [S11001].
