SCENE IV.
The Queen's closet.
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. 8 note
I'll silence me e'en here. 9Q1191
Pray you, be round with him.
Ham. [within.]
Mother, mother, mother!—
Queen.
I'll warrant you; fear me not.
Withdraw, I hear him coming.
[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.
-- 318 --
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.
How now! a rat9 note?
Dead, for a ducat, dead.
[Hamlet strikes at Polonius through the arras.
Pol. [Behind]
O, I am slain.
Queen.
O me, what hast thou done?
Ham.
Nay, I know not:
Is it the king?
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 king1 note?
-- 319 --
Ham.
Ay, lady, 'twas my word.—
Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewel!
[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.
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; 2 note
takes off the rose
-- 320 --
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 3 notefrom the body of contraction plucks
The very soul; and sweet religion makes
A rhapsody of words: 4 note
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.
Ay me, what act,
-- 321 --
5 note
That roars so loud, and thunders in the index?
Ham.
6 note
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 curls7 note
; the front of Jove himself;
An eye like Mars, to threaten and command;
A station8 note
like the herald Mercury,
New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill;
A combination, and a form, indeed,
-- 322 --
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 ear9 note
,
Blasting his wholsome brother. Have you eyes?
Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,
And batten1 note
on this moor? Ha! have you eyes?
You cannot call it, love: for, at your age,
The hey-day in the blood2 note
is tame, it's humble,
And waits upon the judgment; And what judgment
Would step from this to this? 3 note
Sense, sure, you have,
-- 323 --
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-blind4 note
?
Eyes without feeling5 note, feeling without sight,
Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all,
Or but a sickly part of one true sense
Could not so mope6 note
.
O shame! where is thy blush? 7 note
Rebellious hell,
-- 324 --
If thou canst mutiny8 note 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 9 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 1 notegrained spots,
As will not leave their tinct2 note
.
Ham.
Nay, but to live
In the rank sweat of an 3 note
incestuous bed;
-- 325 --
Stew'd in corruption; honying, and making love
Over the nasty stye;—
Queen.
O, speak to me 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 4 notevice of kings:
A cutpurse of the empire and the rule;
5 noteThat from a shelf the precious diadem stole,
And put it in his pocket!
Queen.
No more.
Enter Ghost.
Ham.
6 noteA king of shreds and patches:—
Save me, and hover o'er me with your wings,
You heavenly guards!—What would your gracious figure?
Queen.
Alas, he's mad.
Ham.
Do you not come your tardy son to chide,
That, 7 notelaps'd in time and passion, lets go by
The important acting of your dread command?
O, say!
-- 326 --
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 you do bend your eye on vacancy,
And with the incorporal air do hold discourse?
Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep;
And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm,
Your bedded hair, 8 notelike life in excrements,
Starts up, and stands on end. O gentle son,
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 stones,
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 colour; 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!
9 note
My father, in his habit as he liv'd!
-- 327 --
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.
Ecstasy1 note!
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;
Whiles rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven;
Repent what's past; avoid what is to come;
And 2 notedo not spread the compost on the weeds,
To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue:
For, in the fatness of these pursy times,
Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg;
Yea, 3 note
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.
-- 328 --
Good night: but go not to mine uncle's bed;
Assume a virtue, if you have it not.
4 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 easy5 note:
For use can almost change the stamp of nature,
And either master 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 heaven hath pleas'd it so,—
6 note
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.—
-- 329 --
One word more, good lady7 note.
Queen.
What shall I do?
Ham.
Not this, by no means, that I bid you do:
Let the bloat king8 note
tempt you again to bed
Pinch wanton on your cheek; call you, his mouse9 note
;
And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses1 note
,
Or padling in your neck with his damn'd fingers,
Make you to ravel all this matter out,
2 note
That I essentially am not in madness,
-- 330 --
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 gib2 note
,
Such dear concernings hide? who would do so?
No, in despight of sense, and secrecy,
3 note
Unpeg the basket on the house's top,
Let the birds fly; and, like the famous ape,
To try conclusions4 note
, in the basket creep,
-- 331 --
And break your 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; 9Q1195 you know that?
Queen.
Alack, I had forgot; 'tis so concluded on.
Ham.
5 noteThere's letters seal'd: and my two school-fellows,—
Whom I will trust, as I will 6 noteadders 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
Hoist7 note 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 guts8 note
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.
-- 332 --
9 noteCome, sir, to draw toward an end with you:—
Good night, mother.
[Exit the Queen, and Hamlet dragging in Polonius.
1 noteACT IV.
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].
