SCENE I.
The PALACE.
Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern.
King.
And can you by no drift of conference1 note
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?
-- 272 --
Ros.
Most like a gentleman.
Guil.
But with much forcing of his disposition.
Ros.
2 note
Niggard of question; but, of our demands,
Most free in his reply.
Queen.
Did you assay him
To any pastime?
Ros.
Madam, it so fell out, that certain players
We 3 note
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 here about the court;
And, as I think, they have already order
This night to play before him.
Pol.
'Tis 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 inclin'd.
Good gentlemen, give him a further edge,
And drive his purpose on to these delights.
Ros.
We shall, my lord.
[Exeunt Ros. and Guil.
King.
Sweet Gertrude, leave us too:
For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither;
That he, as 'twere by accident, may here
-- 273 --
4 note
Affront Ophelia.
Her father, and myself (lawful espials5 note
)
Will so bestow ourselves, that, seeing, unseen,
We may of their encounter frankly judge;
And gather by him, as he is behav'd,
If't be the affliction of his love, or no,
That thus he suffers for.
Queen.
I shall obey you:—
And, for my 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.
Oph.
Madam, I wish it may.
[Exit Queen.
Pol.
Ophelia, walk you here:—Gracious, so please you,
We will bestow ourselves:—Read on this book;
[To Oph.
That show of such an exercise may colour
Your loneliness.—6 noteWe are oft to blame in this,—
7 note'Tis too much prov'd,—that, with devotion's visage,
And pious action, we do sugar o'er
The devil himself.
King.
O, 'tis too true! how smart
A lash that speech doth give my conscience!
[Aside.
-- 274 --
The harlot's cheek, beauty'd with plast'ring art,
Is not 8 notemore ugly to the thing that helps it,
Than is my deed to my most painted word:
O heavy burden!
Pol.
I hear him coming; let's withdraw, my lord.
[Exeunt King, and Polonius.
Enter Hamlet.
Ham.
9 note
To be, or not to be, that is the question:—
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind, to suffer
-- 275 --
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune1 note;
2 note
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And, by opposing, end them?—3 note
To die;—to sleep;—
No more?—and, by a sleep, to say we end
The heart-ach, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to,—'tis a consummation
-- 276 --
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die;—to sleep;—
To sleep! perchance, to dream;—Ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this 4 notemortal coil,
Must give us pause: There's the respect,
That makes calamity of so long life:
For who would bear 5 note
the whips and scorns of time, 9Q1180
-- 277 --
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, 9Q1181
The pangs of despis'd love,6 note the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself 7 note
might his quietus make
-- 278 --
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
8 note
To groan and sweat under a weary life;
But that the dread of something after death,—
The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns9 note
—puzzles the will;
-- 279 --
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sickly'd o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprizes of great pith1 note and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry2 note,
And lose the name of action.—Soft you, now!
[Seeing Ophelia.
The fair Ophelia?—3 noteNymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd.
Oph.
Good my lord,
How does your honour for this many a day?
Ham.
I humbly thank you; well.
Oph.
My lord, I have remembrances of yours,
That I have longed long to re-deliver;
I pray you, now receive them.
Ham.
No, not I;
I never gave you aught.
Oph.
My honour'd lord, you know right well, you did;
And, with them, words of so sweet breath compos'd
As made the things more rich: their perfume lost,
Take these again; for to the noble mind
Rich gifts wax poor, when givers prove unkind.
There, my lord.
Ham.
Ha, ha! are you honest?
Oph.
My lord?
Ham.
Are you fair?
-- 280 --
Oph.
What means your lordship?
Ham.
4 note
That, if you be honest, and fair, you should
admit no discourse to your beauty.
Oph.
Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce
than with honesty?
Ham.
Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will
sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd,
than the force of honesty can translate beauty into
its likeness: this was some time a paradox, but now
the time gives it proof. I did love you once.
Oph.
Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.
Ham.
You should not have believ'd me: for virtue
cannot so inoculate5 note our old stock, but we shall
relish of it: I lov'd you not.
Oph.
I was the more deceiv'd.
Ham.
Get thee to a nunnery; Why would'st thou
be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest;
but yet I could accuse me of such things, that
it were better, my mother had not borne me: I am
very proud, revengeful, ambitious; with more offences
6 note
at my beck, than I have thoughts to put
-- 281 --
them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to
act them in: What should such fellows as I do
crawling between earth and heaven? We are arrant
knaves, all; believe none of us: Go thy ways to a
nunnery. Where's your father?
Oph.
At home, my lord.
Ham.
Let the doors be shut upon him; that he may
play the fool no where but in's own house. Farewel.
Oph.
O, help him, you sweet heavens!
Ham.
If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague
for thy dowry; Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as
snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to
a nunnery; farewel: Or, if thou wilt needs marry,
marry a fool; for wise men know well enough, what
monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go;
and quickly too. Farewel.
Oph.
Heavenly powers, restore him!
Ham.
7 note
I have heard of your paintings too well
enough; God hath given you one face, and you
make yourselves another: you jig, you amble, and
you lisp, and nick-name God's creatures, and 8 notemake
-- 282 --
your wantonness your ignorance: Go to; I'll no
more on't; it hath made me mad. I say, we will
have no more marriages: those that are married
already, all but one, shall live; the rest shall keep as
they are. To a nunnery, go.
[Exit Hamlet.
Oph.
O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!
9 note
The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword;
The expectancy and rose of the fair state,
The glass of fashion, and 1 notethe mould of form,
The observ'd of all observers! quite, quite down!
And I, of ladies most deject2 note
and wretched,
That suck'd the honey of his music vows,
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune3 note and harsh;
That unmatch'd form and feature4 note of blown youth,
Blasted with ecstasy5 note
: O, woe is me!
-- 283 --
To have seen what I have seen, see what I see!
Re-enter King, and Polonius.
King.
Love! his affections do not that way tend;
Nor what he spake, though it lack'd form a little,
Was not like madness. There's something in his soul,
O'er which his melancholy sits on brood;
And, I do doubt, the hatch, and the disclose,
Will be some danger; Which for to prevent,
I have, in quick determination,
Thus set it down; He shall with speed to England,
For the demand of our neglected tribute:
Haply, the seas, and countries different,
With variable objects, shall expel
This something-settled matter in his heart;
Whereon his brains still beating, puts him thus
From fashion of himself. What think you on't?
Pol.
It shall do well: But yet do I believe
The origin and commencement of his grief
Sprung from neglected love.—How now, Ophelia?
You need not tell us what lord Hamlet said;
We heard it all.—My lord, do as you please;
But, if you hold it fit, after the play,
Let his queen mother all alone entreat him
To shew his grief; let her be round with him6 note;
And I'll be plac'd, so please you, in the ear
Of all their conference: If she find him not,
To England send him; or confine him, where
Your wisdom best shall think.
King.
It shall be so:
Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go.
[Exeunt.
-- 284 --
Samuel Johnson [1778], The plays of William Shakspeare. In ten volumes. With the corrections and illustrations of various commentators; to which are added notes by Samuel Johnson and George Steevens. The second edition, Revised and Augmented (Printed for C. Bathurst [and] W. Strahan [etc.], London) [word count] [S10901].
