Marcellus.
Fran.
I think I hear them. Stand ho: who is there?
Hora
Friends to this ground.
Mar.
And Liegemen to the Dane.
Fran.
Good night.
-- 2 --
Mar.
O farewel honest Souldiers; who has relieved you?
Fran.
Barnardo has my place: good night.
Exit. Fran.
Mar.
Holla Barnardo.
Bar.
Say, what is Horatio there?
Hora.
A piece of him.
Bar.
Welcome Horatio welcome good Marcellus.
Hora.
What, has this thing appeard again to night?
Bar.
I have seen nothing.
Mar.
Horatio says 'tis but a phantasie,
And will not let belief take hold of him,
Touching this dreaded fight twice seen of us;
Therefore I have entreated him along,
With us to watch the minutes of this night,
“That if again this apparition come,
“He may approve our eyes and speak to it.
“Hora.
'Twill not appear.
Bar.
Sit down a while,
And let us once again assail your ears
That are so fortified against our story,
What we have too nights seen.
Hora.
Well, let's down,
And let us hear Barnardo speak of this.
Bar.
Last night of all,
When yond same Star that's westward from the Pole,
Had made his course to enlighten that part of heaven
Where now it burns, Marcellus and my self,
The bell then beating one.
Enter Ghost.
Mar.
Peace, break thee off, look where it comes again.
Bar.
In the same figure, like the King that's dead.
Mar.
Thou art a Scholar, speak to it Horatio.
Hor.
Most like, it startles me with fear and wonder.
Bar.
It would be spoke to.
Mar.
Speak to it Horatio.
Hora.
What art thou that usurpest this time of night,
Together with that fair and warlike form,
In which the Majesty of buried Denmark
Did sometimes march? I charge thee speak.
Mar.
It is offended.
Bar.
See it stalks away.
Hor.
Stay, speak, speak, I charge thee speak.
[Exit Ghost.
Mar.
'Tis gone and will not answer.
Bar.
How now Horatio? you tremble and look pale:
Is not this something more than phantasie?
-- 3 --
What think you of it?
Hora.
I could not believe this,
Without the sensible and true avouch
Of mine own eyes.
Mar,
Is it not like the King?
Hor.
As thou art to thy self:
Such was the very armour he had on,
When he th' ambitious Norway combated.
“So frown'd he once, when in an angry Parle
“He smote the sleaded Pollax on the ice.
'Tis strange.
Mar.
Thus twice before, and at the same hour,
With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.
Hora.
In what particular thought to work I know not,
But in the scope of mine opinion,
This bodes some strange eruption to our State.
Mar.
Pray sit down and tell me he that knows,
Why this same strict and most observant watch
So nighly toils the subject of the land,
“And with such daily cost of brasen Cannon,
“And foreign Mart for implements of war?
“Why such impress of ship-wrights, whose sore task
“Does not divide the Sunday from the week?
“What might be toward, that this sweaty haste
“Makes the night joynt labour with the day?
“Who is't that can inform me?
Hora.
That can I:
“At least the whisper goes so.—Our last King,
Whose image even but now appear'd to us,
Was, as you know, by Fortinbrass of Norway,
“Thereto prickt on by a most emulate pride,
Dar'd to the combate; in which our valiant Hamlet,
“For (so this side of our known world esteem'd him)
Did slay this Fortinbrass, who by a seal'd compact,
Well ratified by Law and Heraldry,
Did forfeit (with his life) all these his lands,
“Which he stood seiz'd of, to the Conquerour:
“Against the which a moity competent
“Was gaged by our King, which had returned
“To the inheritance of Fortinbrass,
“Had he been vanquisher: as by the same compact,
“And carriage of the Articles design,
“His fell to Hamlet: now sir, young Fortinbrass
“Of unimproved metal, hot, and full,
-- 4 --
Hath in the skirts of Norway here and there
Sharkt up a list of lawless resolutes,
“For food and diet to some enterprise
“That hath a stomack in't, which is no other
“As it doth well appear unto our state,
“But to recover of us by strong hand
“and Terms compulsatory, those foresaid lands
So by his Father lost:” and this I take it
Is the main motive of our preparations,
“The source of this our watch, and the chief head
“Of this post haste, and romage in the land.
Bar.
I think it be no other but even so:
Well may it sort that this portentous figure
Comes armed through our watch so like the King
That was and is the question of these wars.
“Hora.
A mote it is to trouble the minds eye.
“In the most high and flourishing state of Rome,
“A little e're the mightiest Julius fell,
“The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead
“Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets,
“As Stars with trains of fire, and dews of blood,
“Disasters in the Sun, and the moist Star,
“Upon whose influence Neptunes Empire stands,
“Was sick almost to Doomsday with eclipse,
“And even the like precurse of fierce events,
“As harbingers preceding still the fates.
“And Prologue to the Omen coming on,
“Have heaven and earth together demonstrated
“Unto our Climatures and Countrymen.
[Enter Ghost.
But soft, behold! lo where it comes again,
I'le cross it though it blast me: Stay illusion,
[He spreads his arms.
If thou hast any sound, or use of voice
Speak to me: if there be any good thing to be done,
That may to thee do ease, and grace to me,
Speak to me.
If thou art privy to thy Countries fate,
Which happily foreknowing may avoid,
O speak:
Or if thou hast uphoorded in thy life
Extorted treasure in the womb of earth,
For which they say your spirits oft walk in death,
[The Cock crows.
Speak of it, stay and speak; stop it Marcellus.
Mar.
Shall I strike it with my Partisan?
Hor.
Do if it will not stand.
-- 5 --
Bar.
'Tis here.
Hor.
'Tis here.
Mar.
'Tis gone.
[Exit Ghost.
We do it wrong being so majestical,
To offer it the shew of violence:
It is ever as the air, invulnerable,
And our vain blows malicious mockery.
Bar.
It was about to speak when the Cock crew.
Hor.
And then it started like a guilty thing
Upon a fearful summons: I have heard,
The Cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,
Doth with his lofty and shrill sounding throat
Awake the god of day; and at his warning,
Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,
Th' extravagant and erring spirit hyes
To his confine; “and of the truth herein
“This present object made probation.
Mar.
It faded at the crowing of the Cock.
“Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes,
“Wherein our Saviours birth is celebrated,
“This bird of dawning singeth all night long,
“And then they say no spirit dares stir abroad,
“The nights are wholesome; then no Planets strike,
“No Fairy takes, no Witch hath power to charm;
“So hallowed and so gracious is that time.
“Hor.
So have I heard, and do in part believe it:
But look, the morn in russet mantle clad
Walks o're the dew of yon high Eastern hill:
Break we our watch up, and by my advice
Let us impart what we have seen to night
Unto young Hamlet; perhaps
This spirit dumb to us will speak to him.
“Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it,
“As needful in our loves, fitting our duty?
Mar.
Lets do't I pray; and I this morning know
Where we shall find him most convenient.
[Exeunt.
Flourish. Enter Claudius King of Denmark, Gertrad the Queen, Council, as Polonius, and his Son Laertes, Hamlet, cum aliis.
King.
Though yet of Hamlet our dear brothers death
The memory be green, and that it us befitted
To bear our hearts in grief, and our whole Kingdom
To be contracted in one brow of woe:
-- 6 --
Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature,
That we with wisest sorrow think on him,
Together with remembrance of our selves:
Therefore our sometime Sister, now our Queen,
Th' Imperial Jointress to this warlike State,
Have we as 'twere with a defeated joy,
“With an auspicious and a dropping eye,
“With mirth in funeral, and with dirge in marriage,
“In equal scale weighing delight and dole,
Taken to wife, nor have we herein barr'd
Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone
With this affair along (for all our thanks)
“Now follows that you know young Fortinbrass,
“Holding a weak supposal of our worth,
“Or thinking by our late dear brothers death
“Our state to be dis-joynt, and out of frame,
“Colleagued with this dream of his advantage,
“He hath not fail'd to pester us with message,
“Importing the surrender of those lands
“Lost by his father, with all bands of Law,
“To our most valiant brother. So much for him.
“Now for our self, and for this time of meeting,
“Thus much the business is, we have here writ
“To Norway, Uncle of young Fortinbrass,
“Who impotent and bedrid, scarcely hears
“Of this his Nephews purpose, to suppress
“His further gate herein, in that the levies,
“The lists, and full proportions are all made
“Out of his subjects: and we now dispatch
“You good Cornelius, and you Voltemand,
“Ambassadors to old Norway,
“Who have no further personal power
“Of Treaty with the King, more than the scope
“Of these delated Articles allow.
“Farewel, and let your haste commend your duty.
“Cor. Vo.
In that and all things will we shew our duty.
“King.
We doubt it nothing: heartily farewel.
Now Laertes, what's the news with you?
You told us of some suit, what is't Laertes?
“You cannot speak of reason to the Dane,
“And lose your voice: what would'st thou beg Laertes?
“That shall not be my offer, not thy asking.
“The head is not more native to the heart,
“The hand more instrumental to the mouth,
-- 7 --
“Than is the Throne of Denmark to thy Father:
“What would'st thou have Laertes?
Laer.
My dear Lord,
Your leave and favour to return to France,
From whence though willingly I came to Denmark,
To shew my duty in your Coronation;
Yet now I must confess, that duty done,
My thoughts and wishes bend again toward France,
“And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon.
King.
Have you your fathers leave? what says Polonius?
Polo.
He hath, my Lord, wrung from me my slow leave,
By laboursome petition; and at last,
Upon his will I seal'd my hard consent.
“I do beseech you give him leave to go.
King.
Take thy fair hour Laertes, time be thine,
And thy best graces; spend it at thy will.
But now my cousin Hamlet, and my son.
Ham.
A little more than kin, and less than kind.
King.
How is it that the clouds still hang on you?
Ham.
Not so much my Lord, I am too much in the Sun.
Queen.
Good Hamlet cast thy nighted colour off,
And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.
Do not for ever with thy vailed lids
Seek for thy noble father in the dust:
Thou know'st 'tis common all that live must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.
Ham.
I Madam, it is common.
Queen.
If it be,
Why seems it so particular with thee?
Ham.
Seems Madam, nay it is, I know not seems,
'Tis not alone this mourning cloke could smother,
“Nor customary sutes of solemn black,
“Nor windy suspiration of forc'd breath,
“No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
“Nor the dejected haviour of the visage,
Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief,
That can denote me truly; these indeed seem,
“For they are actions that a man might play:
But I have that within which passes shew,
These but the trappings and the suits of woe.
King.
'Tis sweet and commendable in your nature Hamlet,
To give these mourning duties to your father.
But you must know your father lost a father;
That father lost, lost his, and the surviver bound
-- 8 --
In filial obligation for some term
To do obsequious sorrow; but to persevere
In obstinate condolement, dares express
An impious stubbornness, 'tis unmanly grief,
“It shews a will most incorrect to heaven,
“A heart unfortified, or mind impatient,
“An understanding simple and unschool'd:
“For what we know must be, and is as common
“As any the most vulgar thing to sense,
“Why should we in our peevish opposition
“Take it to heart? fie, 'tis a fault to heaven
“A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,
“To reason most absurd, whose common theam
“Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried
“From the first coarse till he that died to day,
‘This must be so: we pray you throw to earth
This unprevailing woe, and think of us
As of a father: and let the world take note
You are the most immediate to our throne,
“And with no less nobility of love
“Than that which dearest father bears his son
“Do I impart toward you for your intent
“In going back to School to Wittenberg;
“It is most retrograde to our desire,
“And we beseech you bend you to remain
“Here in the chear and comfort of our eye,
Our chiefest Courtier, cousin, and our son.
Queen.
Let not thy mother lose her prayers Hamlet.
I pray thee stay with us, go not to Wittenberg
Ham.
I shall in all my best obey you Madam.
King.
'Tis a loving and a fair reply.
Be as our self in Denmark. Madam come,
This gentle and unforc'd accord of Hamlet
Sits smiling to my heart, in grace whereof,
No jocund health that Denmark drinks to day
But the great Cannon to the Clouds shall tell,
“And the Kings rowse the heaven shall bruit again,
Respeaking earthly thunder: Come away.
[Flourish, Exeunt all but Hamlet.
Ham.
O that this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw and resolve it self into a dew,
Or that the everlasting had not fixt
His Cannon 'gainst self slaughter!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to mee all the uses of this world?
-- 9 --
'Tis an unweeded Garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it meerly: that it should come thus,
But two months dead, nay not so much, not two,
So excellent a King,
So loving to my mother,
That he permitted not the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly:
She used to hang on him,
As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on; and yet within a month,
Let me not think on't, frailty thy name is woman,
“A little month: or e're those shooes were old,
“With which she followed my poor fathers body,
“Like Niobe all tears, why she,
“Heaven? a beast that wants discourse of reason
“Would have mourn'd longer,” married with my uncle,
My fathers brother, but no more like my father
Than I to Hercules: within a month,
“E're yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
“Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
“She married? O most wicked speed to post
“With such dexterity to incestuous sheets,
“It is not, nor it cannot come to good.
“But break my heart, for I must hold my tongue.
Enter Horatio, Marcellus, and Barnardo.
Hor.
Hail to your Lordship.
Ham.
I am glad to see you well; Horatio, or I forget my self.
Hora.
The same my Lord, and your poor servant ever.
Ham.
Sir my good friend, I'le change that name with you;
And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio?
Marcellus.
Mar.
My good Lord.
Ham.
I am very glad to see you (good even Sir.)
But what make you from Wittenberg?
Hora.
A truant disposition, my good Lord.
Ham.
I would not hear your enemy say so,
Nor shall you do my ear that violence
To be a witness of your own report
Against your self; I know you are no truant;
But what is your affair in Elsenour?
Wee'l teach you here to drink e're you depart.
Hora.
My Lord, I came to see your Fathers Funeral.
Ham.
I prethee do not mock me fellow student.
-- 10 --
I think it was to my Mothers Wedding.
Hor.
Indeed my Lord it follow'd hard upon.
Ham.
Thrift, thrift, Horatio; the Funeral bak'd meats
Did coldly furnish forth the Marriage tables.
Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven
E're I had seen that day Horatio.
My father, methinks I see my father.
Hora.
Where my Lord?
Ham.
In my minds eye Horatio.
Hora.
I saw him once, he was a goodly King.
Ham.
He was a man, take him for all in all,
I shall not look upon his like again.
Hora.
My Lord, I think I saw him yesternight.
Ham.
Saw who?
Hora.
My Lord, the King your father.
Ham.
The King my father!
Hora.
Defer your admiration but a while
With an attentive ear, till I may deliver
Upon the witness of these Gentlemen
This wonder to you.
Ham.
Pray let me hear.
Hor.
Two nights together had these Gentlemen,
Marcellus and Barnardo, on their watch,
“In the dead vast and middle of the night
Been thus encountred: a figure like your father,
And armed exactly, Cap ape,
Appears before them, and with solemn march
Goes slow and stately by them: thrice he walkt
By their opprest and fear surprized eyes
Within this truncheons length, whilst they distill'd
Almost to gelly with their fear,
Stand dumb and speak not to him: this to me
They did impart in dreadful secresie,
And I with them the third night kept the watch,
Where as they had delivered, both in time,
Form of the thing, each word made true and good,
The apparition comes: ‘I knew your father,
“These hands are not more like.
Ham.
But where was this?
Mar.
My Lord upon the platform where we watcht.
Ham.
Did you not speak to it?
Hor.
My Lord, I did,
But answer made it none: yet once methought
It lifted up its head, and did address
-- 11 --
It self to motion, as it would speak;
But even then the morning Cock crew loud,
And at the sound it shrunk in haste away,
And vanisht from our sight.
Ham.
'Tis very strange.
Hor.
As I do live, my honour'd Lord, 'tis true,
And we did think it then our duty
To let you know it.
Ham.
Indeed Sirs but this troubles me,
Hold you the watch to night?
All.
We do my Lord.
Ham.
Arm'd say you?
All.
Arm'd my Lord.
Ham.
From top to toe?
All.
From head to foot.
Ham.
Then saw you not his face?
Hora.
O yes my Lord, he wore his Beaver up.
Ham.
What? lookt he frowningly?
Hor.
A countenance more in sorrow than in anger.
Ham
Pale or red?
Hor
Nay very pale.
Ham.
And fixt his eyes upon you?
Hor.
Most constantly.
Ham.
I would I had been there.
Hor.
It would have much amaz'd you.
Ham.
Very like: staid it long?
Hor.
While one with moderate haste might tell an hundred.
Both.
Longer, longer.
Hor.
Not when I saw't.
Ham.
His beard was grisled?
Hor.
It was as I have seen it in his life,
A sable silver'd.
Ham.
I will watch to night,
Perchance 'twill walk again.
Hor.
I warn't it will.
Ham.
If it assume my noble fathers person
I'le speak to it though hell it self should gape
And bid me hold my peace. I pray you all,
If you have hitherto conceal'd this sight,
Let it require your silence still,
And whatsoever else shall hap to night,
Give it an understanding, but no tongue;
I will requite your loves: So fare you well,
Upon the platform 'twixt eleven and twelve
-- 12 --
I'le visit you.
All.
Our duty to your honour.
[Exeunt.
Ham.
Your loves as mine to you; farewel.
[Manet Hamlet.
My fathers spirit in arms, all is not well,
I doubt some foul play, would the night were come:
Till then sit still my soul, foul deeds will rise,
Though all the earth o'rewhelm them from mens eyes.
[Exit.
Enter Laertes, and Ophelia his Sister.
Laer.
My necessaries are imbark't, farewel,
And sister, as the winds give benefit
“And convey in assistant,” do not sleep,
But let me hear from you.
Ophel.
Do you doubt that?
Laert.
For Hamlet and the trifling of his favour,
Hold it a fashion, and a toy in blood,
A violet in the youth and prime of nature,
Forward, not permanent; sweet, not lasting,
The perfume and suppliance of a minute:
No more.
Ophel.
No more but so.
Laer.
Think it no more.
“For nature cressant does not grow alone,
“In thews and bulks, but as this Temple waxes,
“The inward service of the mind and soul
“Grows wide withal: perhaps he loves you now,
“And now no soil nor cautel doth besmerch
“The virtue of his will; but you must fear
His greatness weigh'd, his will is not his own.
He may not, as interiour persons do,
Bestow himself: for on his choice depends
The safety and health of this whole state,
“And therefore must his choice be circumscrib'd
“Unto the voice and yielding of that body
“Whereof he is the head, then if he says he loves you,
“It fits your wisdom so far to believe it,
“As he in his particular act and place
“May give his saying deed; which is no further
“Than the main voice of Denmark goes withal.
Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain,
If with your credulous ear you hear his songs,
“Or loose your heart, or your chaste treasure open
“To his unmastred importunity.
Fear it Ophelia, fear it my dear sister,
“And keep you in the rear of your affection,
-- 13 --
“Out of the shot and danger of desire:
“The chariest maid is prodigal enough,
“If she unmask her beauty to the Moon:
“Virtue it self scapes not calumnious strokes;
“The canker galls the infant of the Spring
“Too oft before their buttons be disclos'd,
“And in the morn and liquid dew of youth
‘Contagious blastments are most imminent.
“Be wary then, best safety lies in fear,
“Youth to it self rebells though none else near.
Ophel.
I shall the effect of this good lesson keep,
About my heart: But good brother
Do not as some ungracious Pastors do,
Shew me the steep and thorny way to heaven,
Whiles like a Libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
“And reaks not his own reed,
[Enter Polonius.
Laer.
O fear me not;
I stay too long: “but here my father comes.
“A double blessing is a double grace,
“Occasion smiles upon a second leave.
Polo.
Yet here Laertes? aboord, aboord for shame,
“The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
“And you are staid for. There, my blessing with thee,
“And these few precepts in thy memory
“Look thou character: Give thy thoughts no tongue,
“Nor any unproportion'd thought his act:
“Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar:
“Those friends thou hast and their adoption tried,
“Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel,
“But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
“Of each new hatch't, unfledg'd courage: beware
“Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,
“Bear't that th' opposer may beware of thee:
“Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
“Take each mans censure, but reserve thy judgment:
“Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
“But not exprest in fancy; rich, nor gaudy;
“For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
“And they in France of the best rank and station,
“Are of a most select and generous, chief in that:
“Neither a borrower nor a lender boy,
“For love oft loses both it self and friend,
“And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
-- 14 --
“This above all, to thine own self be true,
“And it must follow as the night to day,
“Thou canst not then be false to any man.
“Farewel, my blessing season this in thee.
Laer.
Most humbly I do take my leave my Lord.
Pol.
The time invests you, go, your servants tend.
Laer.
Farewel Ophelia, and remember well
What I have said to you.
Ophel.
'Tis in my memory lockt,
And you your self shall keep the key of it.
Laer.
Farewel.
[Exit Laertes.
Pol.
What is't Ophelia he hath said to you?
Ophel.
So please you, something touching the Lord Hamlet.
Pol.
Marry well bethought.
'Tis told me he hath very oft of late
Given private time to you: and you your self
Have of your audience been most free and bounteous.
If it be so, as so 'tis put on me,
And that in way of caution, I must tell you
You do not understand your self so clearly
As it behoves my daughter, and your honour:
What is between you? give me up the truth.
Ophel.
He hath my Lord of late made many tenders
Of his affection to me.
Pol.
Affection! puh, you speak like a green girl,
Unsifted in such perillous circumstance:
Do you believe his tenders, as you call them?
Ophel.
I do not know, my Lord, what I should think.
Pol.
Marry I will teach you, think your self a baby,
That you have ta'n these tenders for true pay,
Which are not sterling: tender your self more dearly,
Or (not to crack the wind of the poor phrase)
Wrong it thus, you'l tender me a fool.
Ophel.
My Lord, he hath importun'd me with love
In honourable fashion.
Pol.
I, fashion you may call it, go too, go too.
Ophel.
And hath given countenance to his speech,
My Lord with almost all the holy vows of heaven.
Pol.
I springes to catch Wood-cocks; I know
When the blood burns how prodigally the soul
Lends the tongue vows, “these blazes daughter
“Giving more light than heat; extinct in both,
“Even in their promise, as it is a making,
“You must not tak't for fire: from this time
-- 15 --
“Be something scanter of your maiden presence,
“Set your entreatments at a higher rate
“Than a command to parley; for Lord Hamlet,
“Believe so much in him, that he is young,
“And with a larger tedder may he walk
“Than may be given you: in few Ophelia,
“Do not believe his vows, for they are Brokers,
“Not of that dye which their investments shew,
“But meer implorators of unholy suits,
“Breathing like sanctified and pious bonds,
“The better to beguile: this is for all,
I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth
Have you so slander any moments leisure,
As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet,
Look to't I charge you, come your ways.
Ophel.
I shall obey my Lord.
[Exeunt.
Enter Hamlet, Horatio, and Marcellus.
Ham.
The air bites shrewdly, it is very cold.
Hora.
It is a nipping, and an eager air.
Ham.
What hour now?
Hora.
I think it lacks of twelve.
Mar.
No, it is strook.
Hora.
I heard it not: it then draws near the season
Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk.
[A flourish of Trumpets and Guns.
What does this mean my Lord?
Ham.
The King doth walk to night, and takes his rowse,
“Keeps wassel, and the swaggering up spring reels,
And as he takes his draughts of Rhenish down,
The Kettle Drum and Trumpet thus proclaim
The triumph of his pledge.
Hora.
Is it a custom?
Ham.
I marry is't,
But to my mind, though I am native here
And to the manner born, it is a custom
More honour'd in the breach than the observance:
“This heavy-headed revel East and West
“Makes us traduc'd and taxed of other Nations;
“They clepe us Drunkards, and with swinish phrase
“Soil our addition: and indeed it takes
“From our atchievements, though perform'd at height,
“The pith and marrow of our attribute:
“So oft it chances in particular men,
“That for some vicious mole of nature in them,
“As in their birth, wherein they are not guilty,
-- 16 --
“(Since nature cannot choose his origen)
“By their o're-growth of some complexion,
“Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason;
“Or by some habit that too much o're-leavens
“The form of plausive manners, that these men
“Carrying I say the stamp of one defect,
“Being Natures livery, or Fortunes star,
“His virtues else be they as pure as grace,
“As infinite as man may undergo,
“Shall in the general censure take corruption
“From that particular fault: the dram of ease
“Doth all the noble substance of a doubt
“To his own scandal.
[Enter Ghost.
Hor.
Look my Lord, where it comes.
Ham.
Angels and Ministers of grace defend us!
“Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damn'd,
“Bring with thee airs from heaven, or blasts from hell,
“Be thy intents wicked or charitable,
“Thou com'st in such a questionable shape
“That I will speak to thee; I'll call thee Hamlet,
“King, Father, royal Dane: O answer me,
“Let me not burst in ignorance, but tell
“Why thy canoniz'd bones hearsed in death
“Have burst their cerements: why the Sepulchre,
“Wherein we saw thee quietly interr'd,
“Has op't his ponderous and marble jaws,
“To cast thee up again:” what may this mean
That thou dead coarse again in complete steel
Revisit'st, thus the glimpses of the Moon,
Making night hideous, and we fools of nature
So horridly to shake our disposition
With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?
Say why is this? wherefore? what should we do?
[Beckens.
Hora.
It beckons you to go away with it,
As if it some impartment did desire
To you alone.
Mar.
Look with what courteous action
It waves you to a remote ground,
But do not go with it.
Hora.
No, by no means.
Ham
It will not speak, then I will follow it.
Hora.
Do not my Lord.
Ham.
Why? what should be the fear?
I do not value my life:
-- 17 --
And for my soul what can it do to that,
Being a thing immortal as it self?
It waves me forth again, I'll follow it.
Hora.
What if it tempt you toward the floods my Lord,
Or to the dreadful border of the cliff,
“That bettels o're his base into the Sea,
And there assume some other form,
“Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason,
And draw you into madness? “think of it,
“The very place puts toys of desperation
“Without more motive, into every brain,
“That looks so many sadoms to the Sea,
“And hears it roar beneath.
Ham.
It waves me still,
“Go on, I'll follow thee.
Mar.
You shall not go my Lord.
Ham.
Hold off your hands.
Hora.
Be rul'd, you shall not go.
Ham.
My fate cries out,
And makes each petty artery in this body
As hardy as the Nemean Lions nerve:
Still I am call'd; unhand me Gentlemen,
I'll make a Ghost of him that letts me:
I say away: Go on I'll follow thee.
[Exit Ghost and Hamlet.
Hor.
He grows desperate with imagination.
Mar.
Let's follow, 'tis not fit thus to obey him.
Hora.
To what issue will this come?
Mar.
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
Hora.
Heaven will discover it
“Mar.
Nay let's follow him.
[Exeunt.
Enter Ghost and Hamlet.
Ham.
Whither wilt thou lead me? speak, I'll go no further.
Ghost.
Mark me.
Ham.
I will.
Ghost.
My hour is almost come,
When I to sulphrous and tormenting flames
Must render up my self.
Ham.
Alas poor Ghost.
Ghost.
Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing
To what I shall unfold,
Ham.
Speak, I am bound to hear
Ghost.
So art thou to revenge what thou shalt hear.
Ham.
What?
Ghost.
I am thy fathers spirit,
-- 18 --
Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night,
And for the day confin'd to fast in fires,
Till the foul crimes, done in my days of nature
Are burnt and purg'd away: But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison-house,
I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes like stars start from their spheres,
Thy knotted and combined locks to part,
And each particular hair to stand an end
Like quills upon the fearful Porcupine:
But this eternal blazon must not be
To ears of flesh, and blood: list, list, O list,
If thou didst ever thy dear father love.
Ham.
O Heayen!
Ghost.
Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.
Ham.
Murder.
Ghost.
Murder most foul, as in the best it is;
But this most foul, strange, and unnatural.
Ham.
Haste me to know't, that I with wings as swift
As meditation, or the thoughts of love,
May flie to my revenge.
Ghost.
I find thee apt;
“And duller should'st thou be than the fat weed
“That roots it self in ease on Lethe's wharf,
“Would'st thou not stir in this:” now Hamlet hear,
'Tis given out, that sleeping in my Garden
A Serpent stung me: so the whole ear of Denmark
Is by a forged process of my death
Rankly abused: but know thou, noble Youth,
The Serpent that did sting thy fathers heart
Now wears his Crown.
Ham
O my Prophetick soul, my Uncle?
Ghost.
I that incestuous, that adulterate beast,
“With witchcraft of his wits, with trait'rous gifts,
“O wicked wits, and gifts that have the power
“So to seduce!” won to his shameful lust
The will of my most seeming vertuous Queen.
O Hamlet, what a falling off was there
From me, whose love was of that dignity,
That it went hand in hand even with the vow
I made to her in marriage? and to decline
Upon a wretch, whose natural gifts were poor
To those of mine “but vertue, as it never will be mov'd
-- 19 --
“Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven,
“So but though to a radiant angle link't,
‘Will sort it self in a celestial bed,
“And prey on garbage.
But soft, methinks I sent the morning air,
Brief let me be: sleeping in my Garden,
My custom always of the afternoon,
Upon my secure hour thy Uncle to me stole
With juyce of cursed Hebona in a Vial,
And in the porches of my ears did pour
The leprous distilment, whose effects
Hold such an enmity with blood of man,
That swift as Quick-silver it courses through
The natural gates and allies of the body,
And with a sudden vigour it doth possess
“And curd, like eager droppings into milk,
The thin and wholesome blood; so did it mine,
And a most instant Tetter barkt about
Most Lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust
All my smooth body.
Thus was I sleeping, by a brothers hand,
“Of life of Crown, of Queen at once dispatcht,
Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,
“Unnuzled, disappointed, un-aneald,
“No reckoning made, but sent to my account
“With all my imperfections on my head.
“O horrible, O horrible, most horrible,
If thou hast nature in thee bear it not,
Let not the royal bed of Denmark be
A couch for Luxury and damned Incest.
But howsoever thou pursuest this act,
Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul design
Against thy mother ought, leave her to heaven,
And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge,
To prick and sting her: fare thee well at once,
The Gloworm shews the morning to be near,
And 'gins to pale his uneffectual fire:
Farewel, remember me.
“Ham.
O all you host of heaven! O earth! what else?
“And shall I couple hell? O fie!” hold hold my heart,
And you my sinews grow not instant old,
But bear me strongly up; remember thee!
I thou poor Ghost, whiles memory holds a seat
In this distracted Globe: remember thee!
-- 20 --
Yea, from the table of my memory
I'll wipe away all trivial fond records,
All Registers of books, all forms, and pressures past,
That youth and observation copied there,
And thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain,
Unmixt with baser matter; yes by heaven.
O most pernicious woman!
O villain, villain, smiling villain!
My tables, meet it is I set down,
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain;
At least I am sure it may be so in Denmark.
So Uncle there you are: now to my word,
It is farewel, remember me.
I have sworn't,
[Enter Horatio and Marcellus.
Hora.
My Lord, my Lord.
Mar.
Lord Hamlet.
Hora.
Heavens secure him.
Ham.
So be it.
Mar.
Illo, ho, ho, my Lord.
Ham.
Hillo, ho, ho boy, come and come.
Mar.
How is't my noble Lord?
Ham.
O wonderful!
Hor.
Good my Lord tell it.
Ham.
No, you will reveal it.
Hora.
Not I my Lord.
Mar.
Nor I my Lord.
Ham.
How say you then, would heart of man once think it?
But you'll be secret.
Both.
As death, my Lord.
Ham.
There's never a villain
Dwelling in all Denmark,
But he's an arrant knave.
Hora.
There needs no Ghost, my Lord, come from the grave
To tell us this.
Ham.
Why right, you are in the right,
And so without more circumstance at all
I hold it fit that we shake hands and part,
You as your business and desire shall point you,
For every man hath business and desire,
Such as it is, and for my own poor part
I will go pray.
Hora.
These are but wild and windy words my Lord.
Ham.
I am sorry they offend you heartily,
-- 21 --
Yes faith heartily
Hora.
There's no offence my Lord.
Ham.
Yes by Saint Patrick but there is Horatio,
And much offence too: touching this vision here,
It is an honest Ghost, that let me tell you;
For your desire to know what is between us
O're-master't as you may: and now good friends,
As you are friends, Scholars, and Souldiers
Give me one poor request.
Hora.
What is't my Lord, we will.
Ham.
Never make known what you have seen to night.
Both.
My Lord we will not.
Ham.
Nay but swear't.
Hora.
In faith my Lord not I.
Mar.
Nor I my Lord in faith.
Ham.
Upon my sword.
“Mar.
We have sworn my Lord already.
“Ham.
Indeed upon my sword, indeed.
[Ghost cries under the Stage.
Ghost.
Swear.
Ham
Ha, ha, boy, say'st thou so? art thou there true penny?
Come on, you hear this fellow in the Selleridge,
Consent to swear
Hora.
Propose the oath my Lord.
Ham
Never to speak of this that you have seen,
Swear by my sword.
Ghost.
Swear
Ham.
Hic & ubique, then we'll shift our ground:
Come hither Gentlemen
And lay your hands again upon my sword:
Swear by my sword.
Never to speak of this that you have heard.
Ghost.
Swear by his sword.
Ham
Well said old Mole, canst thou work i'th earth so fast?
A worthy Pioner, once more remove good friends.
Hora.
O day and night! but this is wondrous strange.
Ham.
And therefore as a stranger give it welcome:
There are more things in heaven and earth Horatio
Than are dream't of in your Philosophy: but come,
Here as before; never so help you mercy,
(How strange or odd so e're I bear my self,
As I perchance hereafter shall think meet,
To put an antick disposition on,
That you at such times seeing me, never shall
-- 22 --
With arms encumbred thus, or head thus shak't,
Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase,
As, well, well, we know, or we could and if we would,
Or if we list to speak, or there be, or if they might,
Or such ambiguous giving out, to note)
That you know ought of me, this you must swear,
“So grace and mercy at your most need help you.
Ghost.
Swear.
Ham.
Rest, rest, perturbed Spirit. So Gentlemen
With all my love I do commend me to you,
And what so poor a man as Hamlet is
May do t'express his love and friendship to you
Shall never fail, let us go in together,
And still your fingers on your lips, I pray,
The time is out of joynt, O cursed spight
That ever I was born to set it right!
Nay come, let's go together.
[Exeunt.
Act II.
Scene I.
Enter Polonius with his Man.
“Pol.
Give him this money, and these two notes Reynaldo.
“Rey.
I will my Lord.
“Pol.
You shall do marvellous wisely, good Reynaldo,
“Before you visit him to make inquiry
“Of his behaviour
“Rey.
My Lord I did intend it.
“Pol.
Marry well said, very well said, look your Sir,
“Enquire me first what Danskers are in Paris,
“And how, and who, what means and where they keep,
“What company, at what expence: and finding
“By this encompassment and drift of question,
“That they do know my son, come you more near
“Then your particular demands will touch it,
“Take you as 'twere some distant knowledge of him,
“As thus, I know his father, and his friends,
“And in part him: Do you mark this Reynaldo?
“Rey.
I very well my Lord.
“Pol.
And in part him, but you may say not well,
“But if it be he I mean he's very wild,
“Addicted so and so, and there put on him
-- 23 --
“What forgeries you please, marry none so rank
“As may dishonour him, take heed of that;
“But Sir, such wanton, wild, and usual slips
“As are companions noted and most known
“To youth and liberty.
“Rey.
As gaming my Lord.
“Pol.
I, or drinking, fencing, swearing,
“Quarrelling, drabbing, you may go so far.
“Rey.
My Lord, that would dishonour him.
“Pol.
Faith as you may season it in the charge.
“You must not put another scandal on him,
“That he is open to incontinency,
“That's not my meaning, but breath his faults so quaintly,
“That they may seem the taints of liberty,
“The flash and out-break of a fiery mind,
“A savageness in unreclaimed blood
“Of general assault.
“Rey.
But my good Lord.
“Pol.
Wherefore should you do this?
“Rey.
I my Lord, I would know that.
“Pol.
Marry Sir, here's my drift,
“And I believe it is a fetch of wit.
“You laying these slight sullies on my son,
“As 'twere a thing a little soil'd with working,
“Mark you, your party in converse, he you would sound,
“Having ever seen in the prenominate crimes
“The youth you breath of guilty, be assur'd
“He closes with you in this consequence;
“Good Sir (or so) or friend, or Gentleman,
“According to the phrase or the addition
“Of man and Country.
“Rey.
Very good my Lord.
“Pol.
And then Sir does he this, he does: what was I about to say?
“By the Mass I was about to say something,
“Where did I leave?
“Rey.
At closes in the consequence.
“Pol.
At closes in the consequence; I marry,
“He closes thus, I know the Gentleman,
“I saw him yesterday, or th' other day,
“Or then, or then, with such or such, and, as you say,
“There was he gaming there, or took in's rowse,
“There falling out at Tennis, or perchance
“I saw him enter such and such a house of sale,
“Videlicet, a Brothel, or so forth. See you now,
-- 24 --
“Your bait of falshood takes this carp of truth,
“And thus do we of wisdom and of reach,
“With windlesses, and with essays of byas,
“By indirects find directions out:
“So by my former Lecture and advice
“Shall you my son. You have me, have you not?
“Rey.
My Lord I have.
“Pol.
God buy ye, fare ye well.
“Rey.
Good my Lord.
“Pol.
Observe his inclination in your self.
“Rey.
I shall my Lord.
“Pol.
And let him ply his Musick.
“Rey.
Well my Lord.
[Exit Rey. Enter Ophelia.
“Pol.
Farewel.’ How now Ophelia, what's the matter?
Oph.
O my Lord, my Lord, I have been so affrighted.
Polo.
With what?
Oph.
My Lord as I was reading in my closet,
Prince Hamlet with his doublet all unbrac'd,
No hat upon his head, his stockings loose,
“Ungartred, and down gyved to his anckle,
Pale as his shirt, his knees knocking each other,
And with a look so piteous
As if he had been sent from hell
To speak of horrors, he comes before me.
Pol.
Mad for thy love?
Oph.
My Lord I do not know,
But truly I do fear it.
Pol.
What said he?
Oph.
He took me by the wrist, and hold me hard,
Then goes he to the length of all his arm,
And with his other hand thus o're his brow
He falls to such perusal of my face
As he would draw it: long staid he so,
At last, a little shaking of mine arm,
And thrice his head thus waving up and down,
He raised a sigh so piteous and profound
As it did seem to shatter all his bulk,
And end his being: that done he lets me go,
And with his head over his shoulders turn'd
He seem'd to find his way without his eyes;
For out of doors he went without their helps,
And to the last bended their light on me.
Pol
Come, go with me, I will go seek the King,
This is the very extasie of love,
-- 25 --
“Whose violent property foregoes it self,
“And leads the will to desperate undertakings,
“As oft as any passion under heaven
“That does afflict our natures: I am sorry;
What? have you given him any hard words of late?
Oph.
No my good Lord, but as you did command,
I did repel his letters, and deny'd
His access to me.
Pol.
That hath made him mad:
“I am sorry that with better heed and judgment
“I had not coated him; I fear'd he did but trifle,
“And meant to wrack thee, but beshrew my jealousie;
“By heaven it is as proper to our age
“To cast beyond our selves in our opinions,
“As it is common for the younger sort
“To lack discretion:” Come, go with me to the King,
This must be known, which being kept close might move
More grief to hide, than hate to utter love.
Come.
[Exeunt.
Flourish. Enter King, Queen, Rosencraus and Guildenstern.
King.
Welcome good Rosencraus and Guildenstern,
Besides, that we did long to see you,
The need we have to use you did provoke
Our hasty sending. Something you have heard
Of Hamlet's transformation, so call it;
Sith nor th' exterior, nor the inward man
Resembles that it was: what it should be
More than his fathers death, that thus hath put him
So much from the understanding of himself
I cannot dream of: I entreat you both,
That being of so young days brought up with him,
“And sith so neighboured to his youth and haviour,
That you vouchsafe your rest here in our Court
Some little time, so by your companies
To draw him on to pleasures, and to gather
So much as from occasion you may glean,
Whether ought to us unknown afflicts him thus,
That lies within our remedy.
Queen.
Good Gentlemen, he hath much talkt of you,
And sure I am two men there are not living
To whom he more adheres; if it will please you
To shew us so much gentleness and good will,
As to employ your time with us a while
For the supply and profit of our hope
-- 26 --
Your visitation shall receive such thanks
As fits a Kings remembrance.
Ros.
Both your Majesties
Might by the Sovereign power you have over us
Put your dread pleasures more into command
Than to intreaty.
Guil.
But we both obey,
And here give up our selves in the full bent
To lay our service freely at your feet.
King.
Thanks Rosencraus and gentle Guildenstern.
“Queen.
Thanks Guildenstern and gentle Rosencraus.
And I beseech you instantly to visit
My too much changed son: go some of you
And bring these Gentlemen where Hamlet is.
Guil.
Heavens make our presence and our practices
Pleasant and helpful to him.
Queen.
Amen.
[Exeunt Ros. and Guil.
Enter Polonius.
“Pol.
Th' Embassadors from Norway, my good Lord,
“Are joyfully return'd.
“King.
Thou still hast been the father of good news.
“Pol.
Have I my Lord? I assure my good Liege
“I hold my duty as I hold my soul,
“Both to my God, and to my gracious King:
“And” I do think, or else this brain of mine
Hunts not the trail of policy so sure
As it has us'd to do, that I have found
The very cause of Hamlet's lunacy.
King.
O speak of that, that I do long to hear.
“Pol.
Give first admittance to the Embassadors.
“My news shall be the fruit to that great feast.
“King.
Thy self do grace to them, and bring them in.
“He tells me, my dear Gertrud, he hath found
“The head and source of all your sons distemper.
“Queen.
I doubt it is no other but the main,
“His fathers death, and our hasty marriage.
Enter Embassadors.
“King.
Well, we shall sift him: welcome my good friends:
“Say Voltemand, what from our brother Norway?
“Vol.
Most fair return of greetings and desires:
“Upon our first he sent out to suppress
“His Nephews levies, which to him appear'd
“To be a preparation 'gainst the Pollack,
“But better lookt into, he truly found
-- 27 --
“It was against your Highness; whereat griev'd
“That so his sickness, age, and impotence
“Was falsly born in hand, sends out arrests
“On Fortinbrass, which he in brief obeys,
“Receives rebuke from Norway, and in fine,
“Makes vow before his Uncle never more
“To give th' assay of arms against your Majesty:
“Whereon old Norway overcome with joy
“Gives him threescore thousand Crowns in annual fee,
“And his Commission, to imploy those Souldiers
“So levied as before, against the Pollack,
“With an entreaty herein further shown,
“That it might please you to give quiet pass
“Through your Dominions for this enterprize
“On such regards of safety and allowance
“As herein are set down.
“King.
It likes us well,
“And at our more considered time we'll read,
“Answer, and think upon this business:
“Mean time we thank you for your well took labour,
“Go to your rest, at night we'll feast together:
“Most welcome home.
[Exeunt Embassadors.
“Pol.
This business is well ended.
My Liege and Madam, to expostulate
What Majesty should be, what duty is,
Why day is day, night night, and time is time,
Were nothing but to waste night, day, and time;
Therefore brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes:
I will be brief: your noble son is mad,
Mad call I it? for to define true madness,
What is't but to be nothing else but mad?
But let that go.
Queen.
More matter with less art.
Pol.
Madam, I swear I use no art at all,
That he's mad, 'tis true, 'tis true, 'tis pity,
And pity 'tis 'tis true, a foolish figure,
But farewel it, for I will use no art:
Mad let us grant him then, and now remains
That we find out the cause of this effect,
Or rather say the cause of this defect,
For this effect defective comes by cause:
Thus it remains, and the remainder thus.
Consider.
-- 28 --
I have a daughter, have while she is mine,
Who in her duty and obedience, mark,
Hath given me this; now gather and surmise.
[Reads.
To the Celestial and my souls Idol, the most beautified Ophelia.
That's an ill phrase, a vile phrase; beautified is a vile phrase: but you
shall hear, thus in her excellent white bosom, These, &c.
Queen.
Came this from Hamlet to her?
Pol.
Good Madam stay a while, I will be faithful.
Doubt thou the Stars are fire,
Letter.
Doubt that the Sun doth move,
Doubt truth to be a lyar,
But never doubt I love.
O dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers, I have not art to reckon
my groans; but that I love thee best, O most best believe it: adieu.
Thine evermore most dear Lady, whilst this machine is to him.
Hamlet.
Pol.
This in obedience hath my daughter shown me,
And more concerning his solicitings,
As they fell out by time, by means, and place,
“All given to mine ear.
King.
But how hath she receiv'd his love?
Pol.
What do you think of me?
King.
As of a man faithful and honourable.
Pol.
I would fain prove so; but what might you think
“When I had seen this hot love on the wing,
“As I perceiv'd it (I must tell you that)
“Before my daughter told me; what might you
Or my dear Majesty your Queen here think,
If I had plaid the Desk, or Table-book,
“Or given my heart a winking, mute and dumb,
Or lookt upon this love with idle sight,
What might you think? no, I went round to work,
And my young Mistriss thus I charg'd:
Lord Hamlet is a Prince above thy sphere,
This must not be: and then I precepts gave her,
That she should lock her self from his resort,
Admit no messengers, receive no tokens.
Which done, she took the fruits of my advice;
And he repell'd, a short tale to make,
Fell into a sadness, then into a fast,
“Thence to a watch, then into a weakness,
Thence to a lightness, and by this declension
Into the madness wherein he now raves,
And all we mourn for.
-- 29 --
King.
Do you think 'tis this?
Queen.
It may be very likely.
Pol.
Hath there been such a time, I would fain know that,
That I have positively said, 'tis so,
When it prov'd otherwise?
King.
Not that I know.
Pol.
Take this from this, if this be otherwise,
If circumstances lead me, I will find
Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed
Within the centre.
King.
How may we try it further?
Pol.
Sometimes he walks four hours together
Here in the Lobby.
Queen
So he does indeed,
Pol.
At such a time I'll loose my daughter to him,
Be you and I behind the Arras then,
Mark the encounter; if he love her not,
And be not from his reason fal'n thereon,
Let me be no assistant for a State,
But keep a Farm and Carters.
King.
We will try it.
[Enter Hamlet.
Queen.
But look where sadly the poor wretch comes reading.
Pol.
Away, I do beseech you both away,
[Exit King and Queen.
I'll board him presently. Oh give me leave.
“How does my good Lord Hamlet?
“Ham.
Excellent well.
Pol.
Do you know me, my Lord?
Ham.
Excellent well, you are a Fishmonger.
Pol.
Not I my Lord.
Ham.
Then I would you were so honest a man.
Pol.
Honest my Lord?
Ham.
I Sir, to be honest as this world goes
Is to be one man pickt out of ten thousand.
Pol.
That's very true my Lord.
Ham.
For if the Sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a good
kissing carrion. Have you a daughter?
Pol.
I have my Lord.
Ham.
Let her not walk i'th Sun, conception is a blessing,
But as your daughter may conceive, friend look to't.
Pol.
How say you by that? still harping on my Daughter, yet he
knew me not at first, but said I was a fish-monger, he is far gone; and
truly in my youth I suffered much extremity for love, very near this:
I'le speak to him again. What do you read my Lord?
Ham.
Words, words, words.
-- 30 --
Pol.
What is the matter my Lord?
Ham.
Between who?
Pol.
I mean the matter that you read my Lord.
Ham.
Slanders Sir; for the Satyrical Rogue says here, that old
men have gray beards, that their faces are wrinkled, their eyes purging
thick Amber, and Plum-tree Gum, and that they have a plentiful
lack of wit, together with most weak hams, all which Sir
though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty
to have it thus set down, for your self Sir shall grow old, as I
am, if like a crab you could go backward.
Pol.
Though this be madness, yet there is method in't, will you
walk out of the air my Lord?
Ham.
Into my grave.
Pol.
Indeed that's out of the air; how pregnant sometimes his
replyes are! a happiness that often madness hits on, “which reason
and sanctity could not so happily be delivered of.” I will
leave him and my daughter. My Lord I will take my leave of you.
Ham.
You cannot take from me any thing that I will not more
willingly part withal, except my life, except my life, except my life.
Enter Guildenstern and Rosencraus.
Pol.
Fare you well my Lord.
Ham.
These tedious old fools.
Pol.
You go to seek the Lord Hamlet, there he is.
Ros.
Save you Sir.
Guil.
My honoured Lord.
Ros.
My most dear Lord.
Ham.
My excellent good friends, how dost thou Guildenstern?
Ah Rosencraus, good lads, how do you both?
“Ros.
As the indifferent children of the earth.
“Guil.
Happy in that we are not ever happy on fortunes cap,
“We are not the very button.
“Ham.
Nor the soles of her shooe.
“Ros.
Neither my Lord.
“Ham.
Then you live about her wast, or in the middle of her favours.
“Guil.
Faith her privates we.
“Ham.
In the secret parts of fortune, oh most true, she is a strumpet.”
What news?
Ros.
None my Lord, but the world's grown honest.
Ham.
Then is Dooms-day near: sure your news is not true.
But in the beaten way of friendship, what make you at Elsenour?
Ros.
To visit you my Lord no other occasion.
Ham.
Begger that I am, I am even poor in thanks, but I thank
you, “and sure dear friends my thanks are too dear a half peny:”
were you not sent for? is it your own inclining? is it a free visitation?
-- 31 --
come, come, deal justly with me, come, come, nay speak.
Guil.
What should we say my Lord?
Ham
Any thing, but toth' purpose you were sent for, and there
is a kind of confession in your looks, which your modesties have
not craft enough to colour: I know the good King and Queen
have sent for you.
Ros.
To what end my Lord?
Ham.
That you must teach me: but let me conjure you by the
rights of our fellowships, by the consonancy of our youth, by the
obligation of our ever preferred love, and by what more dear a
better proposer can charge you withal, be even and direct with me
whether you were sent for or no.
Ros.
What say you?
Ham.
Nay then I have an eye of you, if you love me hold not off.
Guil.
My Lord we were sent for.
Ham.
I will tell you why, so shall my anticipation prevent your
discovery, and your secresie to the King and Queen moult no feather:
I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth,
forgone all custom of exercises; “and indeed it goes so heavily
with my disposition,’ that this goodly frame the earth seems to
me a steril promontory; this most excellent Canopy the air look
you, this brave o're-hanged firmament, this majestical roof fretted
with golden fire, why it appeareth nothing to me but a foul and pestilent
congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is man! how
noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving
how express and admirable! in action how like an Angel! in apprehension,
the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals; and
yet to me what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not me,
nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.
Ros
My Lord there was no such stuff in my thoughts.
Ham.
Why did ye laugh then, when I said man delights not me?
Ros.
To think my Lord, if you delight not in man, what Lenten
entertainment the Players shall receive from you, we met them on
the way, and hither are they coming to offer you service.
Ham.
He that plays the King shall be welcome, his Majesty shall
have tribute of me, the adventurous Knight shall use his soil and
target, the lover shall not sigh gratis, the humorous man shall end
his part in peace, and the Lady shall say her mind freely, or the
blank verse shall halt for't. What Players are they?
Ros.
Even those you were wont to take such delight in, the
Tragedians of the City.
Ham.
How chances it they travel? their residence both in reputation
and profit was better both ways.
-- 32 --
Ros.
I think their inhibition comes by the means of the late innovation.
Ham.
Do they hold the same estimation they did when I was in
the City? are they so followed?
Ros.
No indeed they are not.
Ham.
It is not very strange; for my Uncle is King of Denmark,
and those that would make mouths at him while my father lived,
give twenty, forty, fifty, a hundred duckets a piece for his picture
in little: there is something in this more than natural, if Philosophy
could find it out.
[A Flourish.
Guil.
Shall we call the Players?
Ham.
Gentlemen you are welcome to Elsenour, your hands:
come then, th' appurtenance of welcome is fashion and ceremony,
let me comply with you in this garb, “lest my extent to the Players,
which I tell you must shew fairly outwards, should more appear
like entertainment than yours; you are welcome:” but
my Uncle-father, and Aunt-mother are deceived.
Guil.
In what my dear Lord?
Ham.
I am but mad North-North-west, when the wind is Southerly
I know a hawk from a hand saw.
[Enter Polonius.
Pol.
Well be with you Gentlemen.
Ham.
Hark you Guildenstern, and you too, at each ear a hearer,
that great baby as you see is not yet out of his swadling clouts.
Ros
Happily he is the second time come to them, for they say an
old man is twice a child.
Ham.
I will prophesie that he comes to tell me of the Players,
mark it: You say right Sir, a Munday morning 'twas then indeed.
Pol.
My Lord I have news to tell you.
Ham.
My Lord I have news to tell you: when Rossius was an
Actor in Rome.
Pol.
The Actors are come hither my Lord.
Ham.
Buz, buz.
Pol.
Upon mine honour.
Ham.
Then came each Actor on his Ass.
Pol.
The best Actors in the world, either for Tragedy, Comedy,
History, Pastoral, Pastoral-Comical, Historical-Pastoral Scene, individable,
or Poem unlimited: Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus
too light for the law of wit and the liberty; these are the only men.
Ham.
O Jeptha Judge of Israel what a treasure hadst thou?
Pol.
What a treasure had he my Lord?
Ham.
Why one fair daughter and no more, the which he loved
passing well.
Pol.
Still on my daughter.
Ham.
Am I not i'th right old Jeptha?
-- 33 --
Pol.
What follows then my Lord?
“Ham.
Why as by lot God wot, and then you know it came to
pass, as most like it was:” the first row of the Rubrick will
shew you more, for look where my abridgement comes.
Enter Players.
Ham.
You are welcome masters, welcome all, “I am glad to see
thee well, welcome good friends;” oh old friend! why thy face
is valanc'd since I saw thee last, com'st thou to beard me in Denmark?
what my young Lady and Mistriss! my Lady your Ladiship
is nearer to heaven than when I saw you last by the altitude of a
Chopine, I wish your voice, like a piece of uncurrant gold, be not
crackt within the ring: masters you are all welcome, we'll e'ne to't
like friendly Faulkeners, fly at any thing we see, we'll have a speech
strait, come give us a taste of your quality, come a passionate
peech.
Player.
What speech my good Lord?
Ham.
I heard thee speak me a speech once, but it was never acted,
or if it was, not above once, for the Play I remember pleased
not the million, 'twas a caviary to the general, “but it was as I received
it and others, whose judgments in such matters cried in
the top of mine, an excellent Play, well digested in the Scenes, set
down with as much modesty as cunning. I remember one said
there were no sallets in the lines to make the matter savoury, nor
no matter in the phrase that might indite the author of affection,
but call'd it an honest method, as wholesome as sweet, and by very
much more handsome than fine;” one speech in't I chiefly loved,
'twas Æneas talk to Dido, and thereabout of it especially when he
speaks of Priams slaughter, if it live in your memory begin at this
line, let me see, let me see, the rugged Pyrrhus like th'Hircanian Beast,
'tis not it begins with Pyrrhus. The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable
arms,
Black as his purpose did the night resemble,
“When he lay couched in th'ominous horse,
“Hath now his dread and black complexion smear'd
“With Heraldry more dismal head to foot:
“Now is he total Gules, horridly trickt
“With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons,
“Bak'd and embasted with the parching streets,
“That lend a tyrannous and a damned light
“To their Lords murder, roasted in wrath and fire,
“And thus o're-cised with coagulate gore,
“With eyes like Carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus
“Old grandsire Priam seeks; so proceed you.
-- 34 --
Pol.
My Lord well spoken, with good accent and good discretion
So proceed.
Play.
Anon he finds him
Striking too short at Greeks, his antick sword
Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls,
Repugnant to command; unequal matcht,
Pyrrhus at Priam drives, in rage strikes wide,
But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword
Th' unnerved father falls.
“Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming top
“Stoops to his base, and with a hideous crash
“Takes prisoner Pyrrhus ear: for loe his sword,
“Which was declining on the milky head
“Of reverend Priam seem'd i'th air to stick,
“So as a painted tyrant Pyrrhus stood,
“Like a neutral to his will and matter,
“Did nothing:
But as we often see against some storm,
A silence in the heavens, the racks stand still,
The bold wind speechless, and the orb below
As hush as death, anon the dreadful thunder
Doth rend the region: so after Pyrrhus pawse,
A rowsed vengeance sets him new awork,
And never did the Cyclops hammers fall,
On Mars his armour, forg'd for proof etern,
With less remorse than Pyrrhus bleeding sword
Now falls on Priam.
Out, out, thou strumpet Fortune! “all you gods
“In general Synod take away her power,
“Break all the spokes and felloes from her wheel,
“And bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven,
“As low as to the fiends.
Pol.
This is too long.
Ham.
It shall to the Barbers with your beard: prethee say on,
he's for a jig, or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps; say on, come to
Hecuba.
Pla.
But who alas had seen the mobled Queen.
Ham.
The mobled Queen!
Pol.
That's good.
Play
Run bare-foot up and down, threatning the flames,
A clout upon that head.
Where late the Diadem stood, and for a robe,
About her lank and all o're-teamed loyns,
A blanket in the alarm of fear caught up.
-- 35 --
Who this had seen, with tongue in venome steept,
'Gainst fortunes state would Treason have pronounc'd:
“But if the gods themselves did see her then,
“When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport
“In mincing with his sword her husbands limbs,
“The instant burst of clamour that she made,
“Unless things mortal move them not at all,
“Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven,
“And passion in the gods.
Pol.
Look where he has not turned his colour, and has tears
in's eyes: prethee no more.
Ham.
'Tis well, I'll have thee speak out the rest of this soon.
Good my Lord will you see the Players well bestowed, do you hear,
let them be well used, for they are the abstract and brief Chronicles
of the time; after your death you were better have a bad Epitaph,
than their ill report while you live.
Pol.
My Lord I will use them according to their desert.
Ham.
Much better, use every man after his desert, and who shall
scape whipping? use them after your own honour and dignity, the
less they deserve the more merit is in your bounty: Take them in.
Pol.
Come sirs.
Ham.
Follow him friends; we'll hear a Play to morrow; doest
thou hear me old friend, can you play the murder of Gonzago?
Play.
I my Lord.
Ham.
We'll have't to morrow night: you could for need study
a speech of some dosen lines, which I would set down and insert
in't, could you not?
Pol.
I my Lord.
Ham.
Very well: follow that Lord, and look you mock him
not. My good friends, I'le leave you till night, you are welcome to
Elsenour.
[Exeunt Pol. and Players.
Ros.
Good my Lord.
[Exit.
“Ham.
I so, God buy to you; now am I alone.
O what a rogue and pesant slave am I!
Is it not monstrous that this Player here
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit,
That from her working all the visage wand,
Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect,
A broken voice, and his whole function suting
With forms to his conceit, and all for nothing,
For Hecuba?
What's Hecuba to him, or he to her,
That he should weep for her? what wouldhe do
-- 36 --
Had he the motive, and that for passion
That I have? he would “drown the stage with tears,
“And cleave the general ear with horrid speech,
Make mad the guilty and appeal the free,
“Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed
“The very faculties of eyes and ears; yet I,
“A dull and muddy metled raskal, peak
“Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,
“And can say nothing, no not for a King,
“Upon whose property and most dear life
“A damn'd defeat was made: am I a coward?
“Who calls me villain, breaks my pate across,
“Plucks off my beard, and blows it in my face,
“Twekes me by th' nose gives me the lye i'th throat
“As deep as to the lungs? who does me this?
“Hah? s'wounds I should take it, for it cannot be
But I am pigeon liver'd, and lack gall
To make oppression bitter, or e're this
I should have fatted all the region Kites
With this slaves offal: “bloody, bawdy villain,
“Remorsless, treacherous lecherous, kindless villain.
“Why what an ass am I? this is most brave,
“That I the son of a dear father murthered,
“Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,
“Must like a whore unpack my heart with words,
“And fall a cursing like a very drab, stallion, fie upon't, foh.
“About my brains,” hum, I have heard
That guilty creatures sitting at a Play
Have by the very cunning of the Scene
Been strook so to the soul, that presently
They have proclaim'd their malefactions:
For murther though it have no tongue will speak
“With most miraculous organ.” I'll have these Players
Play something like the murther of my father
Before mine Uncle: I'll observe his looks,
“I'll tent him to the quick, if he do blench
“I know my course.” The spirit that I have seen
May be a Devil, and the Devil hath power
T assume a pleasing shape, “yea and perhaps
“Out of my weakness and my melancholly,
“As he is very potent with such spirits,
“Abuses me to damn me:” I'll have grounds
More relative than this, the Play's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King.
[Exit.
-- 37 --
Act III.
Scene I.
Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencraus, Guildenstern, Lords.
King.
And can you by no drift of conference
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 estate.
Queen.
Did he receive you well?
Ros
Most civilly.
Guil.
But with much forcing of his disposition.
Ros.
Unapt to question; but of our demands
Most free in his reply.
Queen.
Did you invite him to any pastime?
Ros.
Madam, it so fell out that certain Players
We o're-took 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 beseecht 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 urge him to these delights.
Ros.
We shall my Lord.
[Exeunt Ros. and Guild.
King.
Sweet Gertrard leave us two,
For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither,
That he as 'twere by accident may meet
Ophelia here; her father and my self,
Will so bestow our selves, that seeing and unseen
-- 38 --
We may of their encounter 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 vertues
Will bring him to his wonted way again,
To both your honours.
Ophel.
Madam, I wish it may.
Pol.
Ophelia walk you here whilst we
(If so your Majesty shall please) retire conceal'd; “read on this Book,
“That shew of such an exercise may colour
“Your loneliness: we are oft to blame in this,
“'Tis too much prov'd, that with devotions visage,
“And pious action we do sugar o're
“The Devil himself.
“King.
O 'tis too true:
“How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!
“The harlots check beautied with plastring art,
“Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it,
“Than is my deed to my most painted word:
“O heavy burden!
[Enter Hamlet.
Pol.
I hear him coming, withdraw my Lord.
Ham.
To be or not to be, that is the question,
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outragious fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them: to die to sleep
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ake, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to; 'tis a consummation,
Devoutly to be wisht, to dye to sleep,
To sleep perchance to dream, I there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil
Must give us pause, there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life:
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th' oppressors wrong, the proud mans contumely,
The pangs of despised love, and the laws delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,
-- 39 --
When as himself might his Quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To groan and sweat under a weary life?
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd Country, from whose born
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than flie to others that we know not of.
Thus conscience does make cowards,
And thus the healthful face of resolution
Shews sick and pale with thought:
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. Soft you now,
The fair Ophelia, Nymph in thy Orizons
Be all my sins remembred?
Ophel.
Good my Lord,
How does your honour for this many a day?
Ham.
I humbly thank you, well.
Ophel.
My Lord I have remembrances of yours,
That I have longed to re-deliver,
I pray you now receive them.
Ham.
No, not I, I never gave you ought.
Ophel.
My honoured Lord, you know right well you did,
And with them words of so sweet breath composed
As made these 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?
Ophel.
My Lord.
Ham.
Are you fair?
Ophel.
What means your Lordship?
Ham,
That if you be honest and fair, you should admit no discourse
to your beauty.
Ophel
Could beauty my lord have better commerce
Than with honesty.
Ham.
I 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 to his likeness: this was sometime a Paradox, but now
the time gives it proof. I did love you once,
Ophel.
Indeed my Lord you made me believe so.
Ham
You should not have believed me, for vertue cannot so
evacuate our old stock but we shall rellish of it: I loved you not.
-- 40 --
Ophel.
I was the more deceived.
Ham
Get thee to a Nunnery, why wouldest thou be a breeder
of sinners? I am my self indifferent honest, but yet I could accuse
me of such things, that it were better my mother had not born me:
I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offences at my
beck than I have thoughts to put 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, believe
none of us, go thy ways to a Nunnery? Where's your father?
Ophel.
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.
Ophel.
O help him you sweet heavens.
Ham.
If thou doest 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 wisemen know well enough what monsters you
make of them: to a Nunnery go, and quickly too, farewel.
Ophel.
Heavenly powers restore him.
Ham.
I have heard of your paintings well enough: nature hath
given you one face, and you make your selves another, you jig and
amble, and you lisp, you nick-name heavens creatures, and make
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.
Ophel.
O what a noble mind is here o'rethrown!
The Courtiers, Souldiers, Scholars, eye, tongue, sword,
Th' expectation and Rose of the fair state,
The glass of fashion, and the mould of form,
Th' observ'd of all observers, quite, quite down,
And I of Ladies most deject and wretched,
‘ That suckt the honey of his Musick vows;
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason
Like sweet bells jangled out of tune and harsh,
That unmatcht form and stature of blown youth
Blasted with extasie. O woe is me
T' have seen what I have seen, see what I see!
[Exit.
Enter King and Polonius.
King.
Love! his affections do not that way tend,
For what he spake, though it lack form a little,
Was not like madness, there's something in his soul
O're which his melancholly fits on brood,
-- 41 --
And I doubt the hatch and the disclose
Will be some danger, which to prevent
I have in quick determination
Thus set 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 setled 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 I do believe the origen and commencement of it
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 him,”
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 unwatcht go.
[Exeunt.
Enter Hamlet and three of the Players.
“Ham.
Speak the speech I pray you as I pronounc'd it to you
smoothly from the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of our
Players do, I had as lieve the Town-crier spoke my lines: nor do
not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently;
for in the very torrent tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of
your passion you must acquire and beget a temperance that may
give it smoothness: O it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious
Periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to very rags, to split the
ears of the ground-lings, who for the most part are capable of
nothing but inexplicable dumb shews and noise: I would have
such a fellow whipt for ore-doing Termagant, it out-Herods Herod,
pray you avoid it.
“Pla.
I warrant your honour.
“Ham.
Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be
your tutor; sute the action to the word, the word to the action,
with this special observance, that you o're-step not the modesty of
Nature: for any thing so o're-done is from the purpose of Playing,
whose end both at first, and now, was, and is, to hold as 'twere
-- 42 --
the mirror up to nature, to shew vertue her feature, scorn her own
image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure:
now this over-done, or come tardy of, though it makes the
unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure
of which one must in your allowance o're-weigh a whole Theatre
of others. O there be Players that I have seen play, and heard
others praise, and that highly, not to speak it profanely, that neither
having the accent of Christians, nor the gate of Christian, Pagan,
nor man, have so strutted and bellowed, that I have thought
some of Natures journey-men had made men, and not made them
well, they imitated humanity so abominably.
“Play.
I hope we have reformed that indifferently with us.
“Ham.
O reform it altogether, and let those that play your
Clowns speak no more than is set down for them, for there be of
them that will themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren
spectators to laugh too, though in the mean time some necessary
question of the Play be then to be considered: that's villanous,
and shews a most pitiful ambition in the Fool that uses it: go,
make you ready.” How now my Lord? will the King hear this
piece of work?
Enter Polonius, Guildenstern, and Rosencraus.
Pol.
And the Queen too, and that presently.
Ham.
Bid the Players make haste. Will you two help to hasten them.
Ros.
I my Lord.
[Exeunt those two.
Ham.
What ho, Horatio?
[Enter Horatio.
Hora.
Here my Lord, at your service.
Ham,
Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man
As e're my conversation met withal.
Hora.
O my dear Lord.
Ham.
Nay, do not think I flatter,
For what advancement may I hope from thee
That hast no revenue but thy good spirits
To feed and cloath thee? why should the poor be flattered?
“No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp,
“And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee
“Where thrift may follow fawning, doest thou hear?
Since my dear soul was Mistress of her choice,
And could of men distinguish her election,
Sh'ath seal'd thee for her self: for thou hast been
As one in suffering all that suffers nothing;
“A man that fortunes buffets and rewards
“Hast ta'n with equal thanks: and blest are those
“Whose blood and judgment are so well commedled
“That they are not a pipe for fortunes finger,
-- 43 --
“To sound what stop she please:” give me that man
That is not passions slave, and I will wear him
In my hearts core, I, in my heart of hearts
As I do thee. Something too much of this:
There is a Play to night before the King,
One Scene of it comes near the circumstance
Which I have told thee of my fathers death;
I prethee when thou seest that Act on foot
Even with the very comment of thy soul
Observe my Uncle: if then his hidden guilt
Do not it self discover in one speech,
It is a damned Ghost that we have seen,
“And my imaginations are as foul
“As Vulcan's stithy:” give him heedful note,
For I mine eyes will rivet to his face,
And after we will both our judgments joyn
In censure of his seeming.
Hora.
Well my Lord,
If he steal ought the whilst this Play is playing
And scape detection, I will pay the theft.
Enter Trumpets and Kettle Drums, King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia.
Ham.
They are coming to the Play, I must be idle.
Get you a place.
King.
How fares our Cousin Hamlet.
Ham.
Excellent ifaith,
Of the Cameleons dish I eat the air,
Promise-cram'd, you cannot feed Capons so.
King.
I have nothing with this answer Hamlet,
These words are not mine.
Ham.
No, nor mine now my Lord.
You play'd once in the University you say.
Pol.
That did I my Lord, and was accounted a good Actor.
Ham.
What did you enact?
Pol.
I did enact Julius Cæsar, I was kill'd i'th Capitol,
Brutus kill'd me.
Ham.
It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf there.
Be the Players ready?
Ros.
I my Lord, they wait upon your patience.
Gert.
Come hither my dear Hamlet, sit by me.
Ham.
No good mother, here's metel more attractive.
Pol.
O ho, do you mark that?
Ham.
Lady, shall I lie in your lap?
Ophel.
No my Lord.
Ham.
Do you think I mean Country matters?
-- 44 --
“Ophel.
I think nothing my Lord.
“Ham.
That's a fair thought to lie between maids legs.
“Ophel.
What is my Lord?
“Ham.
Nothing.
Ophel.
You are merry my Lord.
Ham.
Who I?
Ophel.
I my Lord.
Ham.
Your only Jig-maker, what should a man do but be merry:
for look you how chearfully my mother looks, and my father
died within's two hours.
Ophel.
Nay, 'tis twice two months my Lord.
Ham.
So long! nay then let the Devil wear black, for I'le have
a sute of sables: O heavens! die two months ago, and not forgotten
yet! then there's hope a great mans memory may out-live his
life half a year; but he must build Churches then, “or else shall he
suffer not thinking on, with the hobby-horse, whose Epitaph is,
for O, for O, the Hobby-horse is forgot.
The Trumpets sound. Dumb shew follows.
Enter a King and a Queen, the Queen embracing him, and he her, he
takes her up, and declines his head upon her neck, he lies him down
upon a bank of flowers she seeing him asleep, leaves him: anon comes
in another man, takes off his Crown, kisses it, pours poison in the sleepers
ears, and leaves him; the Queen returns, finds the King dead,
makes passionate action; the poisoner with some three or four comes in
again, seem to condole with her, the dead body is carried away, the
poisoner woes the Queen with gifts, she seems harsh a while, but in
the end accepts love.
Ophel.
What means this my Lord?
Ham.
It is munching Mallico, it means mischief.
Ophel.
Belike this shew imports the argument of the Play.
“Ham.
We shall know by this fellow.
[Enter Prologue.
The Players cannot keep, they'l shew all straight.
Ophel.
Will he shew us what this shew meant?
Ham.
I, or any shew that you will shew him, be not you asham'd
to shew, he'l not shame to tell you what it means.
Ophel.
You are naught, you are naught, I'l mark the Play.
Prologue.
For us and for our Tragedy,
Here stooping to your clemency,
We beg your hearing patiently.
Ham.
Is this a Prologue, or the poesie of a Ring?
Ophel.
'Tis brief my Lord.
Ham.
As womans love.
Enter King and Queen.
King.
Full thirty times hath Phœbus Cart gone round
-- 45 --
“Neptunes salt wash, and Tellus orb'd the ground,
“And thirty dozen Moons with borrowed sheen
“About the world have twelve times thirty been,
Since love our hearts, and Hymen did our hands
Unite infolding them in sacred bands'
Queen.
So many journies may the Sun and Moon
Make us again count o're e're love be done:
But woe is me, you are so sick of late,
So far different from your former state;
That I distrust you; yet though I distrust,
Discomfort you my Lord it nothing must.
For women fear too much, even as they love,
“And womens fear and love hold quantity,
“Either none, in neither ought, or in extremity.
Now what my love has been proof makes you know,
And as my love is great my fear is so:
Where love is great, the smallest doubts are fear;
Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.
King.
I must leave thee Love, and shortly too,
My working powers their functions leave to do,
And thou shalt live in this fair world behind,
Honour'd, belov'd, and haply one as kind
For husband shalt thou.—
Queen.
O confound the rest!
Such love must needs be treason in my breast.
In second husband let me be accurst,
None wed the second but who kill'd the first:
Ham.
That's wormwood.
Queen.
The instances that second marriage move
Are base respects of thrift but none of love:
“A second time I kill my husband dead
“When second husband kisses me in bed.
King.
I do believe you think what now you speak,
But what we do determine oft we break,
Purpose is but the slave to memory,
Of violent birth and poor validity;
Which now like fruits unripe sticks on the tree,
But fall unshaken when they mellow be.
Most necessary 'tis that we forget
To pay our selves what to our selves is debt:
What to our selves in passion we propose,
The passion ending doth the purpose lose;
“The violence of either grief or joy
“Their own enactures with themselves destroy;
“Where joy most revels grief doth most lament:
-- 46 --
“Grief joy, joy griefs on slender accident.
This world is not for aye, not is it strange,
That even our loves should with our fortunes change:
For 'tis a question left us yet to prove,
Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love.
“The great man down, you mark his favourite flies,
“The poor advanc'd makes friends of enemies:
“And hitherto doth love on fortune tend,
“For who not needs shall never lack a friend,
“And who in want a hollow friend doth try,
“Directly seasons him his enemy.
“But orderly to end where I begun,
“Our wills and fates do so contrary run,
“That our devices still are overthrown:
“Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.
Think still thou wilt no second husband wed
But thy thoughts dye when thy first Lord is dead.
Queen.
Nor earth to me give food, nor heaven light,
Sport and repose lock from me day and night,
“To desperation turn my trust and hope,
“And Anchors cheer in prison be my scope,
“Each opposite that blanks the face of joy,
“Meet what I would have well, and it destroy;
Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife,
Ham.
If he should break it now.
Queen.
If once I widow be, and then a wife.
King.
'Tis deeply sworn: sweet leave me here a while,
My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile
The tedious day with sleep.
Queen.
Sleep rock thy brain,
And never come mischance between us twain.
[Exeunt.
Ham.
Madam, how like you this play?
Queen.
The Lady doth protest too much methinks.
Ham.
O but she'll keep her word.
King.
Have you heard the argument? is there no offence in't?
Ham.
No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest, no offence.
King.
What do you call the Play?
Ham.
The Mouse-trap; marry how? tropically. This Play is
the image of a murther done in Vienna, Gonzago is the Dukes name,
his wife Baptista, you shall see anon, 'tis a knavish piece of work,
but what of that? your Majesty and we shall have free souls, it
touches not us; let the galled jade winch, our withers are unwrung.
This is one Lucianus, Nephew to the King.
[Enter Lucianus.
Ophel.
You are as good as a Chorus my Lord.
Ham.
I could interpret between you and your love
-- 47 --
If I could see the puppits dallying.
“Ophel.
You are keen my Lord, you are keen.
Ham.
It would cost you a groaning to take off mine edge.
Ophel.
Still worse and worse.
“Ham.
So you mistake your husbands.” Begin murtherer,
leave thy damnable faces and begin, come, the croaking Raven
doth bellow for revenge.
Luc.
Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing,
Considerate season, and no creature seeing,
Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected,
With Hecats bane, thrice blasted, thrice infected,
Thy natural magick, and dire property,
On wholsome life usurps immediately.
Ham.
He poisons him i'th Garden for his estate, his name's Gonzago,
the story is extant, and written in very choice Italian: you
shall see anon how the murtherer gets the love of Gonzago's Wife.
Ophel.
The King rises.
Queen.
How fares my Lord?
Pol.
Give o're the Play.
King.
Give me some light, away.
Pol.
Lights, lights, lights.
[Exeunt all but Hamlet and Hora.
Ham.
Why let the strucken Deer go weep,
The Hart ungalled go play,
For some must watch whilst some must sleep,
Thus runs the world away. “Would not this sir, and a forrest of
feathers, if the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me, with provincial
Roses on my raz'd shooes, get me a fellowship in a City of
Players?
‘Hora.
Half a share.
“Ham.
A whole one I
“For thou doest know O Damon dear
“This Realm dismantled was
“Of Jove himself, and now reigns here
“A very very Paicock.
Hora.
You might have rim'd.
Ham.
O good Horatio, I'll take the Ghosts word for a thousand
pound. Didst perceive?
Hora.
Very well my Lord.
Ham.
Upon the talk of the poisoning.
Hora.
I did very well note him.
Ham.
Ah ha, come some musick, come the Recorders,
“For if the King likes not the Comedy,
“Why then belike he likes it not perdie.
“Come, some-musick.
-- 48 --
Enter Rosencraus and Guildenstern.
Guil.
Good my Lord vouchsafe me a word with you.
Ham.
Sir a whole History.
Guil.
The King Sir.
Ham.
I Sir, what of him?
Guil.
Is in his retirement marvellous distempered.
Ham.
With drink Sir?
Guil.
No my Lord, with choler.
Ham.
Your wisdom should shew it self richer to signifie 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 business.
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.
Guild.
Nay good my Lord this courtesie is not of the right breed,
if it shall please you to make me a wholsome answer, I will do your
Mothers commandment, if not, your pardon and my return shall
be the end of the business.
Ham.
Sir I cannot.
Ros.
What my Lord?
Ham.
Make you a wholsome answer, my wit's diseas'd, but Sir,
such answer as I can make you shall command, or rather as you say,
my mother; therefore no more, but to the matter, my mother you
say.
Ros.
Then thus she says, your behaviour hath strook her into
amazement and admiration.
Ham.
O wonderful son that can thus astonish a mother! but is
there no sequel at the heels of this mothers admiration? impart.
Ros.
She desires to speak with you in her Closet e're you go to bed.
Ham.
We shall obey, were she ten times our mother; have you
any further trade with us?
Ros.
My Lord you once did love me.
Ham.
And do still by these pickers and stealers.
Ros.
Good my Lord what is the cause of your distemper? you
do surely bar the door upon your own liberty, if you deny your
griefs to your friend.
Ham.
Sir I lack advancement.
Ros.
How can that be; when you have the voice of the King himself
for your succession in Denmark?
Enter the Players with Recorders,
Ham.
I Sir, but while the grass grows; the Proverb is something
-- 49 --
musty: oh 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 beseech you.
Guil.
I know no touch of it my Lord.
Ham.
It is as easie as lying; govern these ventages with your
fingers and the thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will
discourse most eloquent musick: 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 my compass, and there is much musick,
excellent voice in this little organ, yet cannot you make it speak, do
you think I am easier to be plaid on than a pipe? Call me what instrument
you will, though you can fret me you cannot play upon
me.
[Enter Polonius.
Pol.
My Lord the Queen would speak with you, and presently,
Ham.
Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a Camel?
Pol.
'Tis like a Camel indeed.
Ham.
Methinks it is like a Wezel.
Pol.
It is black like a Wezel.
Ham.
Or like a Whale.
Pol.
Very like a Whale.
Ham.
Then I will come to my mother by and by;
They fool me to the top of my bent. ‘I will come by and by;
“Leave me friends.
“I will say so. By and by is easily said.
'Tis now the very witching time of night,
When Church-yards yawn, and hell it self breaths out
Contagion to the world: now could I drink hot blood,
And do such business as day it self
Would quake to look on: soft, now to my mother,
O heart lose not thy nature! let not ever
The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom!
Let me be cruel, not unnatural.
-- 50 --
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.
Enter King, Rosencraus, 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 dispatch,
And he to England shall along with you,
The terms of our estate may not endure
Hazzard so near us as doth hourly grow
Out of his brows.
Guil.
We will our selves provide;
Most holy and religious fear it is
To keep those many bodies safe
That live and feed upon your majesty.
“Ros
The single and peculiar life is bound
“With all the strength and armour of the mind
“To keep it self from noyance, but much more
“That spirit upon whose weal depends and rests
“The lives of many: the cess of Majesty
“Dies not alone, but like a gulf doth draw
“What's near it with it: or it is a massie wheel,
“Fixt on the somnet of the highest mount,
“To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things
“Are morteist and adjoyn'd, which when it falls,
“Each small annexment, petty consequence
“Attends the boistrous rain, never alone
“Did the King sigh, but a general grone.
King.
Arm you I pray you to this speedy voyage,
For we will setters put about this fear
Which now goes too free footed.
Ros.
We will make haste.
[Exeunt Gent.
Enter Polonius.
Pol.
Sir, he's going to his mothers closet,
Behind the Arras I'll convey my self
To hear the Process, I'll warrant she'l tax him 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're-hear
Their speech; fare you well my Liege,
I'll call upon you e're you go to bed,
And tell you what I hear.
Exit.
King.
Thanks dear my Lord,
-- 51 --
O my offence is rank, it smells to heaven,
It hath the eldest curse upon't;
A brothers murder: pray I cannot,
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 it self with brothers 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 twofold force,
To be forestalled e're we come to fall,
Or pardon'd being down? then I'll look up:
My fault is past: but oh! what form of prayer
Can serve my turn? forgive me my foul murther?
That cannot be, since I am still possest
Of those effects for which I did the murther,
My Crown, mine own ambition, and my Queen:
May one be pardoned and retain th' offence?
“In the corrupted currents of this world
“Offences guided hand may shew by justice,
And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize it self
Buyes out the Law; but 'tis not so above,
There is no shuffling, there the action lies
In his true nature, and we our selves 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 ingaged! 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.
[Enter Hamlet.
Ham.
Where is this murderer, he kneels and prays.
And now I'll do't, and so he goes to heaven,
And so am I reveng'd? that would be scann'd;
He kill'd my father, and for that
I his sole son send him
To heaven:
Why this is a reward,—not revenge:
-- 52 --
He took my father grosly, full of bread,
With all his crimes broad blown as flush as May,
And how his audit stands who knows save heaven?
But in our circumstance and course of thought,
'Tis heavy with him; and am I then reveng'd
To take him in the purging of his soul,
When he is fit and seasoned for his passage?
No,
Up sword, and know thou a more horrid time,
When he is drunk, asleep, or in his rage,
Or in th' incestuous pleasures of his bed,
At game, a swearing, or about some act
That has no rellish of salvation in't,
“Then trip him that his heels may kick at heaven,
“And that his soul may be as damn'd and black.
“As hell whereto it goes:” my mother stays,
This Physick but prolongs thy sickly days.
[Exit.
King.
My words flie up, my thoughts remain below,
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.
[Exit.
Enter Queen and Polonius.
Pol.
He will come strait, look you lay home to him,
Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear with,
And that your grace hath stood between
Much heat and him. I'll here conceal my self,
Pray you be round.
[Enter Hamlet.
Qu.
I'll warrant you, fear me not,
Withdraw, I hear him coming.
Ham.
Now mother, what's the matter?
Qu.
Hamlet thou hast thy father much offended.
Ham.
Mother you have my father much offended.
Qu.
Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue,
Ham.
Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.
Qu.
Why how now Hamlet?
Ham.
What's the matter now?
Qu.
Have you forgot me?
Ham.
No by the Rood not so,
You are the Queen, your husbands brothers wife,
And would it were not so, you are my mother.
Qu.
Nay then I'll set those to you that can speak.
Ham.
Come, come, and sit down, you shall not budge,
You go not till I set you up a glass
Where you may see the utmost part of you.
Qu.
What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murder me?
Help ho.
-- 53 --
Pol.
What hoe help.
Ham.
How now, a Rat, dead for a Ducket, dead.
Pol.
O I am slain.
Qu.
O me, what hast thou done?
Ham.
Nay I know not, is it the King?
Qu.
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.
Qu.
As kill a King.
Ham.
I Lady, it was my word.
Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewel,
I took thee for thy better, take thy fortune,
Thou findest to be too busie 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.
Qu,
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 vertue 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: oh such a deed
As from the body of contraction plucks
The very soul, and sweet Religion makes
A rapsody of words, “heavens face does glow
“Yea this solidity and compound mass
“With heated visage as against the doom,
“Is thought-sick at the act.
Ah me that act.
Qu.
Ay me, what act?
Ham.
That roars so loud, and thunders in the Index:
Look here upon this picture, and on this,
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers;
See what a grace was seated on this brow,
Hiperions 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 form indeed
Where every god did seem to set his seal,
-- 54 --
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 wholsome 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 heyday of 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 apoplext, for madness would not err,
Nor sense to extasie 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 couzen'd you at hodman-blind?
“Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight,
“Ears without hands, or eyes, smelling fans all,
“Or but a sickly part of one true sense
“Could not so mope,” Oh shame! where is thy blush?
Rebellious hell,
If thou canst mutine in a Matrons bones
To flaming youth, let vertue be as wax
And melt in her own fire, proclaim no shame
When the compulsive ardure gives the charge,
Since frost it self as actively doth burn,
And reason pardons will.
Qu.
O Hamlet speak no more,
Thou turn'st my very eyes into my soul,
“And there I see such black and grieved spots
“As will leave there their tinct.
Ham.
Nay but to live
In the rank sweat of an incestuous bed,
Stew'd in corruption, “honeying and making love
“Over the nasty stye.
Qu.
O speak to me no more,
These words like daggers enter in mine ears,
No more sweet Hamlet.
Ham.
A murtherer and a villain,
A slave that's not the twentieth part the tythe
Of your precedent Lord, a vice of Kings,
A cut-purse of the Empire and the rule,
That from a shelf the precious Diadem stole:
And put it in his pocket.
[Enter Ghost.
-- 55 --
Ham.
A King of shreds and patches.
Save me and hover o're me with your wings
You heavenly guards: what would your gracious fire?
Qu.
Alas he's mad.
Ham.
Do you not come your tardy son to chide.
That lap'st in time, and person lets go by
Th' important acting of your dead 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 sighing soul!
Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works.
Speak to her Hamlet.
Ham,
How is it with you Lady?
Qu.
Alass how is't with you,
That you do bend your eye on vacancy,
And with th' incorporeal air do hold discourse?
Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep,
And as the sleeping Souldiers in th' alarm,
Your hair
Starts up and stands an 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 gleres,
His form and cause conjoyn'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.
Qu.
To whom do you speak this?
Ham
Do you see nothing there?
Qu
Nothing at all, yet all that is here I see.
Ham.
Nor did you nothing hear?
Qu.
No nothing but our selves.
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.
Qu.
This is the very coinage of your brain,
This bodiless creation extasie is very cunning in.
Ham
My pulse as yours doth temperately keep time,
And makes as healthful musick: it is not madness
That I have uttered, bring me to the test,
And I the matter will re-word, which madness
Cannot do Mother, for love of grace
-- 56 --
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 your self 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 vertue,
“For in the fatness of these pursie times
“Vetrue it self of vice must pardon beg,
“Yea curb and wooe for leave to do him good.
Qu.
O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart.
Ham.
Then throw away the worser part of it,
And leave the purer with the other half.
Goodnight, but go not to my Uncles bed,
Assume a vertue if you have it not. Once more goodnight.
“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 easie;
“For use almost can change the stamp of nature,
“And master the Devil, or throw him out
“With wonderous potency: Once more good night,
And when you are desirous to be blest
I'll blessing beg of you: for this same Lord
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.
One word more good Lady
Qu.
What shall I do?
“Ham.
Not this by no means that I bid you do,
Let not the King tempt you to bed again,
“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,
-- 57 --
But mad in craft; “'twere good you let him know
“For who that's but Queen, fair, sober, wise,
“Would from a paddock, from a Bat, a Gib,
“Such dear concerning hide? who would do so?
“No, in despight of sense and secresie
“Unpeg the basket on the houses top,
“Let the birds flie, and like the famous Ape,
“To try conclusions in the basket creep,
“And break your own neck down.
Qu.
Be thou assur'd if words be made of breath,
And breath of life, I have no life to breath
What thou hast said to me.
Ham.
I must to England, you know that.
Qu.
Alack I had forgot,
'Tis so concluded on.
“Ham.
There's letters seal'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
“Hoist with his own petar, 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 will set me packing,
I'll lug the guts into the neighbour room.
Mother good night indeed, this Counseller
Is now most still, most secret, and most grave,
Who was in's life a most foolish prating knave.
Come Sir, to draw toward an end with you.
Good night mother.
[Exit.
Act IV.
Scene I.
Enter King and Queen with Rosencraus and Guildenstern.
King.
There's matter in these sighs, these profound heaves,
You must translate, 'tis fit we understand them:
Where is your son?
Qu.
Bestow this place on us a little while.
[Exeunt Ros. and Guild.
Ah mine own Lord, what have I seen to night?
King.
What Gertrard, how does Hamlet?
-- 58 --
Qu.
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 your self, to us, to every one.
Alas, how shall this bloody deed be answered?
It will be laid to us, whose providence
Should have restrain'd
This mad young man: but so 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?
Qu.
To draw apart the body he hath kill'd,
O're whom his very madness, like some Ore.
Among a mineral of metal base,
Shews it self pure, he weeps for what is done.
King.
Gertrard 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
[Enter Ros. and Guild.
Both countenance and excuse. Ho Guyldenstern,
Friends both, go joyn with you some further aid,
Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain,
And from his mothers closet hath he drag'd him,
Go seek him out, speak fair, and bring the body
Into the Chappel; I pray you haste in this:
Come Gertrard we'll call up our wisest friends,
And let them know both what we mean to do,
And what's untimely done,
Whose whisper o're the worlds Diameter,
As level as the Cannon to his blank
“Transports his poisoned shot, may miss our name,
“And hit the woundless air: O come away,
“My soul is full of discord and dismay.
[Exeunt.
Enter Hamlet, Rosencraus, and others.
Ham.
Safely stow'd: what noise? who calls Hamlet?
O here they come,
-- 59 --
Ros.
What have you done my Lord with the dead body?
Ham.
Compounded it with dust, whereto it is a kin.
Ros.
Tell us where 'tis that we may take it thence,
And bear it to the Chappel.
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 spunge, what replication should be made by
the son of a King?
Ros.
Take you me for a spunge my Lord?
Ham.
I Sir, that sokes up the Kings countenance, his rewards, his
authorities: but such Officers do the King best service in the end,
he keeps them like an apple in the corner of his jaw, first mouth'd
to be last swallowed; when he needs what you have gleaned, it is
but squeesing you, and spunge 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 thing.
“Guil.
A thing my Lord?
“Ham.
Of nothing,” bring me to him.
[Exeunt.
Enter King and two or three.
King.
I have sent to seek him, and to find the body;
How dangerous is it that this man goes loose?
Yet must we not put the strong law on him,
He's lov'd of the distracted multitude,
Who like not in their judgment, but their eyes,
And where 'tis so, th' offenders scourge is weigh'd,
But never the offence: to bear all smooth and even,
This sudden sending him away must seem
Deliberate pause; diseases desperate grown
By desperate appliance are reliev'd
Or not at all.
Enter Rosencraus, and all the rest.
“King.
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, bring in the Lord Hamlet.
[They enter.
King.
Now Hamlet, where's Polonius?
-- 60 --
Ham.
At supper.
King.
At supper; where?
Ham.
Not where he eats, but where he is eaten, a certain convocation
of politick worms are e'en at him: “your worm is your only
Emperour for diet. We fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat our
selves for maggots; your fat King and your lean beggar is but variable
service, two dishes but to one table, that's the end.
King.
Alas alas!
Ham.
A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a King,
“eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.
“King.
What doest thou mean by this?
“Ham.
Nothing but to shew 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 th' other place your self: 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.
Ham.
He will stay till you come.
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:
Therefore prepare thy self,
The Bark is ready, and the wind sits fair,
“Th' associates tend, and every thing is bent
For England.
Ham.
For England?
King.
I Hamlet.
Ham.
Good.
King.
So is it if thou knew'st our purposes.
Ham.
I see a Cherub that sees them: but come, for England:
Farewel 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
Tempt him with speed aboard,
Delay it not, I'll have him hence to night:
Away, for every thing is seal'd and done
That else leans on the affair; “pray you make haste:
“And England, if my present love thou holdst at ought,
“As my great power thereof may give thee sense,
-- 61 --
“Since yet thy cicatrice looks raw and red
“After the Danish Sword, and thy free awe
“Pays homage to us, thou maist not coldly set
“Our Sovereign process, which imports at full
“By Letters congruing to that effect
“The present death of Hamlet, do it England,
“For like the Hectick in my blood he rages,
“And thou must cure me: till I know 'tis done,
“How e're my haps, my joys will ne'er begin.
[Exit.
[Enter Fortinbrass with his Army over the Stage.
“Fort.
Go Captain, from me greet the Danish King,
“Tell him that by his license Fortinbrass
“Craves the conveyance of a promis'd march
“Over his Kingdom; you know the rendezvous,
“If that his Majesty would ought with us
“We shall express our duty in his eye,
“And let him know so.
“Capt.
I will do't my Lord.
“Fort.
Go softly on.
Enter Hamlet, Rosencraus, &c.
“Ham.
Good Sir whose powers are these?
“Capt.
They are of Norway Sir.
“Ham.
How propos'd Sir I pray you?
“Capt.
Against some part of Poland.
“Ham.
Who commands them Sir?
“Capt.
The Nephew of old Norway, Fortinbrass.
“Ham.
Goes it against the main of Poland Sir,
“Or for some frontier?
“Capt.
Truly to speak, and with no addition,
“We go to gain a little patch of ground
“That hath in it no profit but the name,
‘To pay five duckets, five I would not farm it,
“Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole
“A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee.
“Ham.
Why then the Pollock never will defend it.
“Capt.
Nay 'tis already garrison'd.
“Ham.
Two thousand souls, and 20000 duckets
“Will not debate the question of this straw;
“This is th' imposthume of much wealth and peace,
“That inward breaks and shews no cause without
“Why the man dies. I humbly thank you Sir.
“Capt.
God b'w'ye Sir.
“Ros.
Wil't please you go my Lord?
“Ham.
I'll be with you straight, go a little before.
-- 62 --
“How all occasions do inform against me,
“And spur my dull revenge? what is a man,
“If his chief good and market of his time
“Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.
“Sure he that made us with such large discourse,
“Looking before and after, gave us not
“That capability and God-like reason
“To fust in us unus'd: now whether it be
“Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
“Of thinking too precisely on th' event,
“A thought which quarter'd hath but one part wisdom,
“And ever three parts coward: I do not know
“Why yet I live to say this thing's to do,
“Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means
“To do't: examples gross as earth exhort me,
“Witness this army of such mass and charge,
“Led by a delicate and tender Prince,
“Whose spirit with divine ambition puft
“Makes mouths at the invisible event,
“Exposing what is mortal and unsure
“To all that fortune, death, and danger dare,
“Even for an egg-shell. Rightly to be great
“Is not to stir without great argument,
“But greatly to find quarrel in a straw,
“When honour's at the stake. How stand I then,
“That have a father kill'd, a mother stain'd,
“Excitements of my reason and my blood,
“And let all sleep, while to my shame I see
“The imminent death of twenty thousand men,
“That for a fantasie and trick of fame
“Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot
“Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,
“Which is not tomb enough and continent
“To hide the slain? O from this time forth,
“My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth.
[Exit.
Enter Horatio, Gertrard, and a Gentleman.
Qu.
I will not speak with her.
Gent.
She is importunate,
Indeed distracted and deserves pity.
Qu.
What would she have?
Gent.
She speaks much of her father, says she hears
There's tricks i'th' world, and hems, and beats her heart,
Spurns enviously at straws, speaks things in doubt
That carry but half sense, her speech is nothing,
-- 63 --
Yet the unshaped use of it doth move
The hearers to collection, “they yawn at it,
“And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts,
“Which as winks, and nods, and gestures yield them,
“Indeed would make one think there might be thought,
“Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily,
Hora.
'Twere good she were spoken with, for she may strew
Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.
Let her come in.
[Enter Ophelia.
Qu.
“To my sick soul, as sins true nature is,
“Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss,
“So full of artless jealousie is guilt,
“It spills it self in fearing to be spilt.
Ophel.
Where is the beauteous Majesty of Denmark?
Qu.
How now Ophelia?
[She sings.
Ophel.
How should I your true love know from another one?
By his cockle hat and staff, and by his sendal shoon.
Qu.
Alas sweet Lady, what imports this song?
Ophel.
Say you, nay pray you mark.
He is dead and gone Lady, he is dead and gone,
[Song.
At his head a grass-green turf, at his heels a stone.
O ho.
Qu.
Nay but Ophelia.
Oph.
Pray you mark. White his shrowd as the mountain snow.
Enter King.
Qu.
Alas, look here my Lord.
Ophel.
Larded all with sweet flowers,
[Song.
Which beweept to the ground did not go,
With true love showers.
King.
How do you pretty Lady?
Ophel.
Well, good dild you, they say the Owl was a Bakers
daughter: we know what we are, but know not what we may
be.
King.
Conceit upon her father
Ophel.
Pray let's have no words of this, but when they ask you
what it means, say you this.
To morrow is S. Valentines day
[Song.
All in the morning betime,
And I a Maid at your window
To be your Valentine.
“Then up he rose and dond his clothes, and dupt the Chamber door,
“Let in the Maid, that out a Maid never departed more.
King.
Pretty Ophelia.
Ophel.
Indeed, without an oath, I'll make an end on't.
-- 64 --
By gis and by Saint Charity,
alack and tie for shame,
Young men will do't if they come to't,
by cock they are to blame.
“Quoth she, before you tumbled me you promis'd me to wed.
“He answers.) So should I have done, by yonder Sun
And thou hadst not come to my bed.
King.
How long hath she been thus;
Oph.
I hope all will be well, we must be patient; but I cannot
chuse but weep to think they would lay him i'th cold ground; my
brother shall know of it, and so I thank you for your good counsel.
Come my coach, good night Ladies good night,
Sweet Ladies good night, good night.
King.
Follow her close, give her good watch I pray you.
O this is the poison of deep grief, it springs all from her fathers
death: and now behold O Gertrard, Gertrard,
When sorrows come they come not single spies,
But in battalians: first, her father slain,
Next, your son gone, and he most violent author
Of his own just remove; the people muddied,
Thick and unwholsome in thoughts and whispers
For good Polonius death, and we have done but
Obscurely to interr him; poor Ophelia
Divided from her self and her fair judgment,
Without which we are but pictures, or meer beasts.
Last, and as much containing as all these,
Her brother is in secret come from France,
Feeds on this wonder, keeps himself in clouds,
And wants not whispers to infect his ear
With pestilent speeches of his fathers death,
“Wherein necessity of matter beggerd
“Will nothing stick our person to arraign
“In ear and ear:” O my dear Gertrard, this
“Like to a murdering-piece in many places
“Gives me superfluous death.
[A noise within.
Enter Messengers.
King,
Where are my Swissers? let them guard the door,
What is the matter?
Messen.
Save your self my Lord.
The Ocean over-peering of his list
Eats not the flats with more impetuous haste
Than young Laertes in a riotous head
O're-bears your Officers; the rabble call him Lord,
And as the world were now but to begin,
-- 65 --
Antiquity forgot, custom not known,
The ratifiers and props of every word,
They cry chuse we Laertes for our King,
Caps, hands, and tongues applaud it to the clouds,
Laertes shall be King.
“Qu.
How chearfully on the false tail they cry,
A noise within.
“O this is counter you false Danish doggs.
Enter Laertes with others.
King.
The doors are broke.
Laer.
Where is this King? Sirs stand you all without.
All.
No lets come in.
Laer.
I pray you give me leave.
All.
We will, we will.
Laer.
I thank you, keep the door. O thou vile King
Give me my father.
Qu.
Calmly good Laertes.
Laer.
That drop of blood that's calm proclaims me bastard,
Cries Cuckold to my father, brands the Harlot
Even here between the chaste brows
Of my true mother.
King.
What is the cause Laertes
That thy rebellion looks so Giant-like?
Let him go Gertrard, do not fear our person,
There's such divinity doth hedge a King,
That treason dares not reach at what it would,
Acts little of his will: tell me Laertes
Why thou art thus incenst: let him go Gertrard,
Speak man.
Laer;
Where is my father?
King.
Dead.
Qu.
But not by him.
King.
Let him demand his fill.
Laer.
How came he dead? I'll not be jugled with:
To hell allegeance, vows to the blackest Devil,
“Conscience and grace to the profoundest pit,
“I dare damnation,” to this point I stand,
That both the worlds I give to negligence,
Let come what comes, only I'll be reveng'd
Most throughly for my father.
King.
Who shall stay you?
Laer.
My will, not all the worlds:
And for my means I'll husband them so well
They shall go far with little.
King.
Will you in revenge of your
-- 66 --
Dear fathers death destroy both friend and foe?
Laer.
None but his enemies.
King.
Will you know them then?
Laer.
To this good friends thus wide Ile ope my arms,
And like the kind life-rendring Pelican
Relieve them with my blood.
King.
Why now you speake
Like a good childe, and a true Gentleman.
That I am guiltless of your fathers death,
And am most sensible in grief for it,
It shall as level to your judgment lye.
As day does to your eye.
[A noise within
Enter Ophelia.
Laer.
Let her come in.
“How now? what noise is that?
“O heat dry up my brains, tears seven times fast
“Burn out the sense and vertue of mine eye:
By heaven” thy madness shall be paid with weight
Till our scale turn the beam. O Rose of May!
Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!
O heavens! is't possible a young maids wits
Should be as mortal as a sick mans life!
Ophel.
They bore him bare-fac'd on the Beer,
[Song.
And in his grave rain'd many a tear.
Fare you well my Dove.
Laer.
Hadst thou thy wits, and didst perswade revenge
It could not move thus
Ophel.
You must sing a down, a down,
And you call him a down a. O how the wheel becomes it,
It is the false steward that stole his Masters daughter.
Laer.
This nothing is much more than matter.
Ophel.
There's Rosemary, that's for remembrance, pray you
love remember, and there's Pancies, that's for thoughts.
Laer.
A document in madness, thoughts and remembrance fitted.
Ophel.
There's Fennel for you, and Columbines, there's Rew
for you and here's some for me, we may call it herb of Grace a
Sundays, you may wear your Rew with a difference; there's a
Dasie: I would give you some Violets, but they withered all when
my father died; they say he made a good end.
For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.
Laer.
Thoughts and afflictions, passion, hell it self
She turns to favour and to prettiness.
Ophel.
And will he not come again,
[Song.
“And will he not come again?
-- 67 --
No, no, he is dead, go to thy death bed,
He never will come again.
His beard was as white as snow,
Flaxen was his pole,
He is gone, he is gone, and we cast away moane,
And peace be with his soul and with all Lovers souls.
King,
Laertes I must share in your grief,
Or you deny me right; go but a part.
Make choice of whom your wisest friends you will,
And they shall hear and judge 'twixt you and me,
If by direct or by collateral hand
They find us toucht, we will our Kingdom give,
“Our Crown, our life and all that we call ours
To you in satisfaction; but if not,
Be you content to lend your patience to us,
And we shall jointly labour with your soul
To give it due content.
Laer.
Let this be so.
His means of death, his obscure funeral,
No Trophey, sword, nor Hatchment ore his bones,
No noble right, nor formal ostentation
Cry to be heard as 'twere from earth to heaven,
That I must call't in question.
King.
So you shall,
And where th' offence is let the great axe fall.
I pray you go with me.
[Exeunt.
Enter Horatio and others.
Hora.
What are they that would speake with me?
Gen.
Sea-fairing men Sir, they say they have Letters for you.
Hora.
Let them come in.
I do not know from what part of the world
I should be greeted, if not from Lord Hamlet.
[Enter Saylers.
Say.
Save you Sir.
Say
There's a Letter for you Sir, it came from the Embassador
that was bound for England, if your name be Horatio, as I am let
to know it is.
Hor.
Horatio. when thou shalt have over-look't this, give these
fellows some means to the King, they have Letters for him. Ere
we were two days old at Sea, a Pirat of very warlike appointment
gave us chase. Finding our selves too slow of sail, we put on a
compelled valor and in the grapple I boarded them: on the instant
they got cleer of our Ship, so I alone became their prisoner. They
have dealt with me like Thieves of mercy, but they knew what
they did; I am to do a turn for them. Let the King have the
-- 68 --
Letters I have sent, and repair thou to me with as much speed as
thou wouldst fly death. I have words to speak in thine Ear will
make thee dumb, yet are they much too light for the matter, these
good fellows will bring thee where I am. Rosencraus and Guildenstern
hold their course for England, of them I have much to tell thee.
Farewel.
Hamlet.
Hora.
Come, I will make you way for these your Letters,
And do't the speedier that you may direct me
To him from whom yov brought them.
[Exeunt.
Enter King and Laertes.
King.
Now must your conscience my acquittance seal,
And you must put me in your heart for friend,
Sith you have heard, and with a knowing ear,
That he who hath your noble father slain.
Pursued my life.
Laer.
It well appears: but tell me
Why you proceed not against these seats
So criminal and so capital in nature,
As by your safety, greatness, wisdom, all things else,
You mainly were stirr'd up.
King.
For two special reasons,
Which may perhaps to you seem weak,
But yet to me they're strong: the Queen his mother
Lives almost by his looks, and for my self,
My virtue or my plague, be it either,
She is so precious to my life and soul,
That as the Star moves not but in his Sphere,
I could not but by her: the other motive
Why to a publick count I might not go,
Is the great love the people bear him,
Who dipping all his faults in their affection,
Work like the Spring that turneth wood to stone,
“Convert his gyves to graces so that my arrows
“Too slightly timbered for so loved, arms,
‘Would have reverted to my bow again,
“But not where I have aim'd them.
Laer.
And so I have a noble father lost,
A sister driven into desperate terms,
Whose worth if praises may go back again,
Stood challenger on the mount of all the age
For her perfections: but my revenge will come
King.
Break not your sleeps for that, you must not think
That we are made of stuff so flat and dull,
That we can let our beards be shook with danger,
-- 69 --
And think it pastime: you shortly shall hear more.
I lov'd your father, and we love our self,
“And that I hope will teach you to imagine
Enter a Messenger with Letters.
Mess.
These to your Majesty, this to the Queen.
King.
From Hamlet? who brought them?
Mess.
Saylors my Lord they say, I saw them not,
They were given me by Claudio, he received them
Of him that brought them.
King.
Laertes you shall hear them: leave us.
[Exeunt.
High and mighty, you shall know I am set naked on your Kingdom:
to morrow shall I beg leave to see your Kingly eyes, when
I shall [first asking you pardon) thereunto recount the occasion of
my sudden return.
King.
What should this mean? are all the rest come back?
Or is it some abuse, and no such thing?
Laer.
Know you the hand?
King.
'Tis Hamlet's character. Naked!
And in a postscript here he says alone,
Can you advise me?
Laer.
I am lost in it my Lord; but let him come,
It warms the very sickness in my heart,
That I live, and tell him to his teeth,
Thus didst thou
King.
If it be so Laertes,
As how should it be so, how otherwise?
Will you be rul'd by me?
Laer.
I my Lord, so you will not o're-rule me to a peace.
King.
To thine own peace: if he be now returned
As liking not his voyage, and that he means
No more to undertake it, I will work him
To an exploit now ripe in my device,
Under the which he shall not chuse but fall,
And for his death no wind of blame shall breath,
But even his mother shall uncharge the practice,
And call it accident.
Laer
My Lord I will be rul'd,
The rather if you could devise it so
That I might be the instrument.
King.
It falls right:
You have been talkt of since your travel much,
And that in Hamlet's hearing, for a quality
Wherein they say you shine; your sum of parts
Did not together pluck such envy from him
-- 70 --
“As did that one, and that in my regard
“Of the unworthiest siege.
Laer.
What part is that my Lord?
King
A very feather in the cap of youth,
“Yet needful too, for youth no less becomes
“The light and careless livery that it wears,
“Than setled age his sables, and his weeds,
“Importing health and graveness:” two months since
Here was a Gentleman of Normandy,
I have seen my self, and serv'd against the French,
And they can well on horse-back; but this Gallant
Had witchcraft in't, he grew unto his seat,
And to such wondrous doing brought his horse
As he had been incorps'd and demi-natur'd
With the brave beast; so far he topt my thought,
That I in forgery of shapes and tricks
Come short of what he did.
Laer.
A Norman was't?
King.
A Norman.
Laer.
Upon my life Lamord
King.
The very same.
Laer.
I know him well, he is indeed
The gem of all the Nation
King.
He made confession of you,
And gave you such a masterly report
For art and exercise in your defence,
And for your Rapier most especially,
That he cry'd out, 'twould be a sight indeed
If one could match you: the Fencers of their Nation
He swore had neither motion, guard, nor eye
If you oppos'd them: Sir this report of his
Did Hamlet so envenome with his envy,
That he could nothing do, but wish and beg
Your sudden coming o're to play with you.
Now out of this.
Laer.
What out of this my Lord?
King.
Laertes, was your father dear to you?
Or are you like the painting of a sorrow,
A face without a heart?
Laer.
Why ask you this?
King.
Not that I think you did not love your father
“But that I know love is begun by time,
“And that I see in passages of proof,
“Time qualifies the spark and fire of it;
-- 71 --
“There lives within the very flame of love
“A kind of wick or snuff that will abate it,
“And nothing is at a like goodness still;
“For goodness growing to a pleurisie,
“Dies in his own too much, that we would do,
“We should do when we would: for this would changes,
“And hath abatements and delays as many
“As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents,
“And then this Should is like a spend-thrift sigh,
“That hurts by easing:” but to the quick of th' ulcer,
Hamlet comes back, what would you undertake
To shew your self indeed your fathers son
More than in words?
Laer.
To cut his throat i'th' Church.
King.
No place indeed should protect a murderer,
Revenge should have no bounds: but good Laertes
Keep close within your chamber,
Hamlet return'd shall know you are come home,
We'll put on those shall praise your excellence,
And set a double varnish on the fame
The Frenchman gave you, bring you in fine together,
And wager o're your heads; he being remiss,
Most generous and free from all contriving,
Will not peruse the foils, so that with ease,
Or with a little shuffling, you may chuse
A sword unbated, and in a pace of practice
Requite him for your father.
Laer.
I will do't;
And for the purpose I'll anoint my sword:
I bought an Unction of a Mountebank
So mortal, that but dip a knife in it,
Where it draws blood, no Cataplasm so rare
Collected from all Simples that have vertue
Under the Moon, can save the thing from death
That is but scratcht withal; I'll touch my point
With this contagion, that if I gall him slightly it may be death.
King.
Let's further think of this,
“Weigh what conveyance both of time and means,
“May fit us to our shape if this should fail,
“And that our drift look through our bad performance
“'Twere better not assay'd. Therefore this project
“Should have a back or second, that might hold
“If this did blast in proof:’ soft, let me see,
We'll make a solemn wager on your cunnings,
-- 72 --
I hav't, when in your motion you are hot and dry,
As make your bouts more violent to that end,
And that he calls for drink, I'll have prepar'd him
A Chalice for the purpose, whereon but tasting,
If he by chance escape your venom'd tuck,
Our purpose may hold there. But stay, what noise?
[Enter Queen.
Qu.
One woe doth tread upon anothers heel,
So fast they follow: your sister's drown'd Laertes.
Laer.
Drown'd! O where?
Qu
There is a willow growing o're a Brook,
That shews his hoary leaves in the glassie stream,
Near which fantastick garlands she did make
Of Crow-flowers, Nettles, Daisies, and long Purples,
“That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
“But our culcold maids do dead mens fingers ca'l them,
There on the boughs her Coronet weeds
Clambring to hang, an envious shiver broke,
When down her weedy trophies and her self
Fell in the weeping Brook, “her clothes spred wide,
“And Mermaid-like a while they bore her up,
“Which time she chanted remnants of old lauds,
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indued
Unto that element, but long it could not be
Till that her garments heavy with their drink
Pull'd the gentle maid from her melodious lay
To muddy death.
Laer,
Alas then is she drown'd?
Qu.
Drown'd, drown'd.
Laer.
Too much of water hast thou poor Ophelia,
And therefore I forbid my tears; but yet
It is our trick, nature her custom holds,
Let shame say what it will; “when these are gone
“The woman will be out.” Adieu my Lord,
I have a fire that fain would blase,
But that this folly drowns it.
[Exit.
King.
Let's follow Gertrard;
How much I had to do to calm his rage!
Now I fear this will give it start again,
Therefore let's follow.
[Exeunt.
-- 73 --
Act V.
Scene I.
Enter two Clowns with Spades and Mattocks.
Clow.
Is she to be buried in Christian burial, when she wilfully
seeks her own salvation?
Oth.
I tell thee she is, therefore make her grave straight, the
Crowner hath sate on her, and finds it Christian burial.
Clow.
How can that be, unless she drown'd her self in her own
defence?
Oth.
Why 'tis found so.
Clow.
It must be so offended, it cannot be else; for here lies the
point, if I drown my self wittingly it argues an act; and an act
hath three branches, it is to act, to do, and to perform, or all; she
drown'd her self wittingly.
Oth.
Nay but hear you goodman delver.
Clow.
Give me leave, here lies the water, good, here stands the
man, good; if the man go to this water and drown himself, it is
will he nill he; he goes, mark you that: but if the water come to
him and drown him, he drowns not himself; argal he that is not
guilty of his own death, shortens not his own life.
Oth.
But is this law?
Clow.
I marry is't, Crowners quest law.
Clow.
Will you have the truth on't, if this had not been a Gentlewoman
she should have been buried without Christian burial.
Clow.
Why there thou sayest, and the more pity that great folk
should have countenance in this world to drown or hang themselves
more than we: Come my spade, there is no ancient Gentlemen
but Gardeners, Ditchers, and Grave-makers, they hold up
Adams profession.
Oth.
Was he a Gentleman?
Clow.
He was the first that ever bore arms.
I'll put another question to thee, if thou answerest me not to the
purpose, confess thy self.
Oth.
Go to.
Clow.
What is he that builds stronger than either the Mason,
the Shipwright, or the Carpenter?
Oth.
The Gallows-maker, for that out-lives a thousand tenants.
Clow.
I like thy wit well, the gallows does well, but how does it
well? it does well to those that do ill, now thou doest ill to say
-- 74 --
the Gallows is built stronger than the Church: argal the Gallows
may do well to thee. To't again, come.
Oth.
Who builds stronger than a Mason, a Shipwright, or a
Carpenter?
Clow.
I, tell me that and unyoke.
Oth.
Marry now I can tell.
Clow.
To't
Oth.
Mass I cannot tell.
Clow.
Cudgel thy brains no more about it, for your dull ass will
not mend his pace with beating, and when you are askt this question
next, say a Grave-maker, the houses he makes last till Doomsday.
Go get thee in and fetch me a stoop of liquor.
In youth when I did love did love,
[Song.
Methought it was very sweet
To contract O the time for a my behove,
O methought there was nothing a meet.
Enter Hamlet and Horatio.
Ham.
Has this fellow no feeling in his business? he sings in
Grave-making.
Hor.
Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness.
Ham.
'Tis e'en so, the hand of little employment hath the daintier sense.
Clow.
But age with his stealing steps
[Song.
hath clawed me in his clutch,
And hath shipped me into the land,
as if I had never been such.
Ham.
That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once, how
the knave jowls it to the ground, as if 'twere Cains jaw-bone, that
did the first murther: this might be the pate of a Polititian which
this asse now o're-reaches, one that would circumvent Heaven,
might it not?
Hora.
It might my Lord.
Ham.
Or of a Courtier, which could say, good morrow my
Lord, how doest thou sweet Lord? this might be my Lord such a
one, that praised my Lord such a ones horse when he meant to beg
him, might it not?
Hora.
I my Lord.
“Ham.
Why e'en so, and now my Lady worms Choples, and
knockt about the mazer with a Sextons Spade;” here's a fine
revolution, and we had the trick to see't; did these bones cost no
more the breeding but to play at loggits with them? mine ake to
think on't.
Clow.
A pickax and a spade a spade,
for and a shrowding sheet,
O a pit of clay for to be made
for such a guest is meet.
-- 75 --
Ham.
There's another, why may not that be the skul of a Lawyer?
where be his quiddities now, his quilities, his cases, his tenures,
and his tricks? why does he suffer this mad knave now to knock
him about the sconce with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of
his actions of battery? hum: this fellow might be in's time a great
buyer of land, with his statutes, his recognisances, his fines, his
double vouchers, his recoveries, to have his fine pate full of fine
dirt: will vouchers vouch him no more of his purchases and doubles,
than the length and bredth of a pair of Indentures? the very
conveyances of his land will scarcely lie in this box, and must th'
inheritor himself have no more? ha?
Hora.
Not a jot more my Lord.
Ham.
“Is not parchment made of sheep-skins?
Hora.
“I my Lord, and of calve-skins too.
Ham.
“They are sheep and calves which seek out assurance in
that.” I will speak to this fellow: Whose grave's this sirrah?
Clow.
Mine Sir, or a pit of clay for to be made.
Ham.
I think it's thine indeed, for thou ly'st in't.
Clow.
You lye out on't Sir, and therefore 'tis not yours: for my
part I do not lye in't, yet it's mine.
Ham.
Thou doest lye in't, to be in't and say it is thine, 'tis for the
dead, not for the quick, therefore thou lyest.
Clow.
'Tis a quick lye Sir, 'twill again from me to you.
Ham.
What man doest thou dig it for?
Clow.
For no man Sir.
Ham.
What woman then?
Clow.
For none neither.
Ham.
Who is to be buried in't?
Clow.
One that was a woman Sir, but rest her soul, she's dead.
Ham
How absolute the knave is, we must speak by the card, or
equivocation will undo us. Horatio this three years I have took notice
of it, the age is grown so picked, that the toe of the Pesant comes
so near the heel of the Courtier, he galls his kibe. How long hast
thou been a Grave-maker?
Clow.
Of all the days i'th'year I came to't that day that our last
King Hamlet overcame Fortinbrass.
Ham.
How long is that since?
Clow.
Cannot you tell that? every fool can tell that; it was that
very day that young Hamlet was born, he that is mad and sent into
England.
Ham.
I marry, why was he sent into England?
Clow.
Why? because he was mad, he shall recover his wits
there, or if he do not 'tis no great matter there.
Ham.
Why?
-- 76 --
Clow.
'Twill not be seen in him there, there are men as mad as he.
Ham.
How came he mad?
Clow.
Very strangely they say.
Ham.
How strangely?
Clow.
Faith e'en with losing his wits.
Ham.
Upon what ground?
Clow.
Why here in Denmark: where I have been Sexton, man
and boy thirty years.
Ham.
How long will a man lie i'th earth e're he rot?
Clow.
Faith if he be not rotten before he die, as we have many
pocky coarses that will scarce hold the laying in, he will last you
some eight years, or nine years: a Tanner will last you nine years.
Ham.
Why he more than another?
Clow.
Why Sir his hide is so tann'd with his trade, that he will
keep out water a great while, and your water is a sore decayer of
your whorson dead body: here's a skull now hath lien you i'th'
earth three and twenty years.
Ham.
Whose was it?
Clow.
A whorson mad fellow's it was, whose do you think it was?
Ham.
Nay I know not.
Clow.
A pestilence on him for a mad rouge, he pour'd a flaggon
of Rhenish on my head once; this same skull Sir, was Sir Yorick's
skull the Kings Jester.
Ham.
This?
Clow.
E'en that.
Ha.
Alas poor Yorick, I knew him Horatio, a fellow of infinite
jest, of most excellent fancy, he hath bore me on his back a thousand
times, and now how abhorred in my imagination it is? my gorge
rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kist I know not how
oft: where be your jibes now, your jests, your songs, your flashes of
merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? not one now
to mock your own grinning? quite chopsaln? Now get you to
my Ladies table, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this savour
she must come; make her laugh at that,
Prethee Horatio tell me one thing.
Hora
What's that my Lord?
Ham.
Dost thou think Alexander lookt on this fashion i'th' earth?
Hora.
E'en so.
Ham.
And smelt so? pah.
Hora.
E'en so my Lord.
Ham.
To what base uses we may return Horatio! why may not
imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander till he find it stopping
a bung-hole.
Hora.
'Twere to consider too curiously to consider so.
-- 77 --
Ham.
No faith not a jot. but to follow him thither with modesty
enough, and likelihood to lead it. Alexander died, Alexander was
buried, Alexander returneth to dust, the dust is earth, of earth we
make lome, and why of that lome whereto he was converted might
they not stop a Beer-barrel?
Imperious Cæsar dead and turn'd to clay
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away.
O that that earth which kept the world in awe,
Should patch a wall t'expel the waters flaw!
But soft, but soft a while, here comes the King,
[Enter King, Queen, Laertes, and the coarse.
The Queen, the Courtiers: who is this they follow,
And with such maimed rites? this doth betoken,
The coarse they follow did with desperate hand
Fordo its own life, 'twas of some estate:
Stand by a while and mark.
Laer.
What Ceremony else?
Ham.
That is Laertes a very noble youth.
Laer.
What Ceremony else?
Doct.
Her obsequies have been as far inlarg'd
As we have warranty; her death was doubtful,
And but that great command o're-sways the order,
She should in ground unsanctified been lodg'd:
For charitable prayers,
Flints and pebbles should be thrown on her,
Yet here she is allow'd her virgin rites,
Her maiden strewments, and the bringing home
Of bell and burial.
Laer.
Must there no more be done?
Doct.
No more:
We should profane the service of the dead
To sing a Requiem and such rest to her
As to peace-parted souls.
Laer.
Lay her i'th' earth,
And from her fair and unpolluted flesh
May violets spring: I tell thee churlish Priest
A ministring Angel shall my sister be
When thou liest howling.
Ham.
What? the fair Ophelia?
Qu.
Sweets to the sweet, farewel,
I hop'd thou should'st have been my Hamlet's wife,
I thought thy bride bed to have deckt sweet maid,
And not have strew'd thy grave.
Laer.
O treble woe!
Fall ten times double on that cursed head,
-- 78 --
Whose wicked deeds deprived thee of
Thy most ingenuous sense: hold off the earth a while,
Till I have caught her once more in mine arms.
Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead,
Till of this flat a mountain you have made
T'oretop old Pelion, or the skyish head
Of blew Olympus.
Ham.
What is he whose grief
Bears such an emphasis, whose phrase of sorrow
Conjures the wandring stars, and makes them stand
Like wonder-wounded hearers? 'tis I,
Hamlet the Dane.
Laer.
Perdition catch thee.
Ham.
Thou pray'st not well: I prethee take thy fingers from my throat,
For though I am not spleenative and rash,
Yet have I in me something dangerous,
Which let thy wisdom fear; hold off thy hand.
King.
Pluck them asunder.
Qu.
Hamlet, Hamlet.
All.
Gentlemen.
Hora.
Good my Lord be quiet.
Ham
Why I will fight with him upon this theam
Until my eye-lids will no longer wag.
Qu.
O my son, what theam?
Ham.
I lov'd Ophelia, forty thousand brothers
Could not with all their quantity of love
Make up my sum: What wilt thou do for her?
King.
O he is mad Laertes.
Qu.
Forbear him.
Ham.
Shew me what thou't do,
Wilt weep, wilt fight, wilt fast, wilt tear thy self,
Wilt drink up Esil, eat a Crocodile?
I'll do't; doest thou come here to whine?
To out-face me with leaping in her grave?
Be buried quick with her, and so will I;
And if thou prate of mountains, let them throw
Millions of acres on us, till our ground
Sindging his pate against the burning Zone,
Make Ossa like a wart; nay, and thou'lt mouth
I'll rant as well as thou.
Qu.
This is meer madness,
And thus a while the sit will work on him;
Anon as patient as a female Doe,
When first her golden couplets are disclos'd,
-- 79 --
His silence will sit drooping.
Ham.
Hear you Sir,
What is the reason that you use me thus?
I lov'd you ever, but it is no matter,
Let Hercules himself do what he may
The Cat will mew, a Dog will have his day.
[Exit Hamlet and Horatio.
King.
I pray thee good Horatio wait upon him.
Strengthen your patience in our last nights speech,
We'll put the matter to the present push.
Good Gertrard set some watch over your son,
This Grave shall have a living monument,
“An hour of quiet thereby shall we see,
“Till then in patience our proceeding be.
[Exeunt.
Enter Hamlet and Horatio.
Ham.
So much for this Sir you shall now see the other:
You do remember all the circumstance.
Hora.
Remember it my Lord?
Ham.
Sir in my heart there was a kind of fighting
That would not let me sleep, “methought I lay
“Worse than the mutines in the Bilboes, rashly,
“And prais'd be rashness for it; let us know
Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well
When our deep plots do fall, and that should learn us,
There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough hew them how we will.
Hora.
That is most certain.
Ham.
Up from my Cabbin,
My Sea-gown wrapt about me, in the dark
I grop'd to find out them, had my desire,
Reach'd their packet, and in fine withdrew
To mine own room again, making so bold
(My fears forgetting manners) to unfold
Their grand Commission, where I found, Horatio,
An exact command,
“Larded with many several sorts of reasons,
“Importing Denmarks health, and Englands too,
“With hoe such Bugs and Goblins in my life,
“That on the supervise, no leisure bated,
“No not to stay the grinding of the ax,
My head should be strook off.
Hora.
Is't possible;
Ham.
Here's the Commission, read it at more leasure:
But wilt thou hear now how I did proceed?
Hora.
I beseech you.
-- 80 --
Ham.
Being thus be-netted round with villains,
E're I could make a Prologue to my brains
They had begun the Play: I sate me down,
Devis'd a new Commission, wrote it fair:
I once did hold it, as our Statists do,
A baseness to write fair, and labour'd much
How to forget that learning; but Sir now
It did me Yeomans service; wilt thou know
Th'effect of what I wrote?
Hora
I good my Lord.
Ham.
An earnest conjuration from the King,
As England was his faithful tributary,
As love between them like the Palm might flourish,
As peace should still her wheaten garland wear,
“And stand a Comma 'tween their amities,
“And many such like, as Sir of great charge,
That on the view of these contents,
Without debatement further more or less
He should those bearers put to sudden death,
“Not shriving time allow'd.
Hora.
How was this seal'd?
Ham,
Why even in that was heaven ordinant:
I had my fathers Signet in my purse,
Which was the model of that Danish Seal,
Folded the Writ up in the form of th other,
Subscrib'd it, gav't th' impression, plac'd it safely,
The changling never known; now the next day
Was our Sea-fight, and what to this was sequent
Thou know'st already.
Hora.
So Guildenstern and Rosencraus went to't.
Ham.
They are not near my conscience, their defeat
Does by their own insinuation grow;
“'Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes
“Between the pass and fell incensed point.
“Of mighty opposites.
Hor.
Why what a King is this!
Ham.
Does it not, think you, stand me now upon?
He that hath kill'd my King, and whor'd my mother,
Stept in between th' election and my hopes,
Thrown out his angle for my proper life,
And with such cosenage, is't not perfect conscience?
[Enter a Courtier.
Court.
Your Lordship is right welcome back to Denmark.
Ham.
I humbly thank you Sir,
Doest know this water-flie?
-- 81 --
Hora.
No my good Lord.
Ham.
Thy state is the more graciou, for 'tis a vice to know him;
he hath much land and fertil, let a beast be Lord of beasts, and his
crib shall stand at the Kings mess; 'tis a chough, but as I say, spacious
in the possession of dirt.
Court.
Sweet Lord, If your Lordship were at leisure I should impart
a thing to you from his Majesty.
Ham.
I will receive it, Sir, with all diligence of spirit; your bonnet
to his right use, 'tis for the head.
Court.
I thank your Lordship, 'tis very hot.
Ham.
No believe me 'tis very cold, ithe wind is Northerly.
Court.
It is indifferent cold my Lord indeed.
Ham.
But yet methinks it is very soultry and hot, for my complexion.
Court.
Exceedingly my Lord, it is very soultry, as 'twere I cannot
tell how. My Lord, his Majesty bad me signifie unto you, that
he has laid a great wager on your head, Sir this is the matter.
Ham.
I beseech you remember.
Cour.
Nay good my Lord, for my ease. Sir here is newly come
to Court Laertes, believe me an absolute Gentleman, full of most
excellent differences, of very soft society, and great shew: indeed,
to speak feelingly of him, he is the Card or Kalendar of Gentry,
for you shall find in him the substance of what part a Gentleman
would see.
Ham.
Sir, his definement suffers no lossin you, though I know
to divide him inventorially, would dizzy th' arithmetick of memory,
and yet but raw neither in respect of his quick sail; but in the
verity of extolment I take him to be a soul of great article, and his
infusion of such dearth and rareness, as to make true diction of
him, his semblable is his mirrour, and who else would trace him,
his umbrage, nothing more.
Court.
Your Lordship speaks most infallibly of him.
Ham.
The concernancy Sir, why do we wrap the Gentleman in
our rawer breath?
Cour.
Sir.
Hora.
Is't not possible to understand in another tongue, you will
do't Sir really
Ham.
What imports the nomination of this Gentleman?
Court.
Of Laertes?
Ham.
His purse is empty already, all's golden words are spent.
Ham
Of him Sir.
Cour.
I know you are not ignorant.
Ham.
I would you did Sir, yet if you did it would not much
approve me: well Sir.
-- 82 --
Court
You are ignorant of what excellence Laertes is.
Ham.
I dare not confess that, lest I should compare with him in
excellence; but to know a man well were to know himself.
Court
I mean Sir for his weapon, but in the imputation laid on
him by them in his meed he's unfellowed.
Ham.
What's his weapon?
Court.
Single Rapier.
The King Sir hath wager'd with him six Barbery horses, against the
which he has impawn'd as I take it six French Rapiers and Poniards,
with their assigns, as Girdle, Hanger, and so: three of the carriages
are very dear to fancy, very responsive to the hilts, most delicate
carriages and of very liberal conceit.
Ham.
What call you the carriages?
Hora.
I knew you must be edified by the margin e're you had
done.
Court.
The carriages Sir are the hangers.
Ham.
The phrase would be more german to the matter if we
could carry a cannon by our sides, I would it might be hangers till
then: but on, six Barbary horses against six French swords, their
assigns, and three liberal conceited carriages, that's the French bet
against the Danish, why is this all you call it?
Court.
The King Sir, hath laid Sir, that in a dozen passes between
your self and him he shall not exceed you three hits, he hath laid
on twelve for nine, and it would come to immediate trial, if your
Lordship would vouchsafe the answer.
Ham.
How if I answer no?
Court.
I mean my Lord the opposition of your person in trial.
Ham.
Sir I will walk here in the Hall, if it please his Majesty, it
is the breathing time of the day with me, let the foils be brought,
the Gentleman willing, and the King hold his purpose, I will win
for him if I can; if not, I will gain nothing but my shame and the
odd hits.
Court.
Shall I deliver you so?
Ham.
To this effect Sir, after what flourish your nature will.
Court.
I commend my duty to your Lordship.
Ham.
Yours does well to commend it self, there are no tongues
else for his turn.
Hora.
This lapwing runs away with the shell on his head.
Ham.
“He did so Sir with his dug before he suckt it;” thus
has he and many more of the same breed that I know, the drossie age
dotes on, only get the tune of the time, and out of an habit of incounter,
a kind of misty collection, which carries them through and
through the most profane and renowned opinions; and do but
blow them to their trial, the bubbles are out.
-- 83 --
Enter a Lord.
Lord.
My Lord, his Majesty commended him to you by young
Ostrick who brings back to him that you attend him in the hall, he
sends to know if your pleasure hold to play with Laertes, or that
you will take longer time?
Ham.
I am constant to my purposes, they follow the Kings pleasure;
if his fitness speaks, mine is ready, now or whensoever, provided
I be so able as now.
Lord.
The King and Queen and all are coming down.
Ham.
In happy time.
Lord.
The Queen desires you to use some gentle entertainment to
Laertes before you go to play.
Ham.
She well instructs me.
Hora.
You will lose my Lord.
Ham.
I do not think so, since he went into France I have been in
continual practice; I shall win at the odds: thou wouldest not
think how ill all's here about my heart, but it is no matter.
Hora.
Nay good my Lord.
Ham.
It is but foolery, but it is such a kind of boding as would
perhaps trouble a woman.
Hora.
If your mind dislike any thing obey it, I will forestal their
repair hither, and say you are not fit.
Ham.
Not a whit, we defie Augury, “there is a special providence
in the fall of a Sparrow: if it be, 'tis not to come; if it be
not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come,
the readiness is all, since no man of ought he leaves knows what
'tis to leave betimes, let be.
A Table prepared, Drums, Trumpets, and Officers with cushions, King, Queen, and all the State, Foils, Daggers, and Laertes.
King
Come Hamlet, come and take this hand from me.
Ham.
Give me your pardon Sir, I have done you wrong,
But pardon't as you are a Gentleman: this presence knows,
And you must needs have heard how I am punisht
With a sore distraction; what I have done
That might your nature, honour, and exception
Roughly awake, I here proclaim was madness.
Was't Hamlet wrong'd Laertes? never Hamlet;
If Hamlet from himself be ta'en away,
And when he's not himself does wrong Laertes,
Then Hamlet does it not, Hamlet denies it:
Who does it then? his madness: if't be so,
Hamlet is of the faction that is wronged,
His madness is poor Hamlet's enemy;
Let my disclaiming from a purpos'd evil
-- 84 --
Free me so far in your most generous thoughts,
That I have shot my arrow o're the house,
And hurt my brother.
Laer.
I am satisfied in nature,
Whose motive in this case should stir me most
To my revenge, “but in my terms of honour
“I stand aloof, and will no reconcilement,
“Till by some elder Masters of known honour
“I have a voice and president of peace
“To my name ungor'd: but all that time”
I do receive your offered love like love,
And will not wrong it.
Ham.
I embrace it freely, and will this brothers wager
Frankly play.
Give us the foils.
Laer.
Come, one for me.
Ham.
I'll be your foil Laertes, in mine ignorance
Your skill shall like a star i'th darkest night
Appear.
Laer.
You mock me Sir.
Ham.
No on my honour.
King.
Give them the foils young Ostrick: cousin Hamlet,
You know the wager.
Ham
Very well my Lord:
Your Grace has laid the odds o'th' weaker side.
King.
I do not fear it, I have seen you both,
But since he is better we have therefore odds.
Laer.
This is too heavy, let me see another.
Ham
This likes me well, these foils have all a length.
Ostr
I my good Lord.
King.
Set me the stoops of wine upon the table;
If Hamlet give the first or second hit,
Or quit in answer of the third exchange,
Let all the Battlements their Ordnance fire;
The King shall drink to Hamlet's better breath,
And in the cup an Onyx shall he throw
Richer than that which four successive Kings
In Denmarks Crown have worn. Give me the cups,
And let the Kettle to the Trumpet speak,
The Trumpet to the Cannoneer without,
The Cannons to the Heavens the Heavens to Earth.
Now the King drinks to Hamlet: come begin,
[Trumpets the while.
And you the Judges bear a wary eye.
Ham.
Come on Sir.
-- 85 --
Laer.
Come my Lord.
Ham.
One.
Laer.
No.
Ham.
Judgment.
Ostr.
A hit, a very palpable hit.
[Drums, Trumpets, and Shot, Flourish, a Piece goes off.
Laer.
Well again.
King.
Stay, give me drink, Hamlet this pearl is thine,
Here's to thy health: give him the cup.
Ham.
I'll play this bout first, set it by a while.
Come, another hit, what say you?
Laer.
I do confess't.
King.
Our son shall win.
Queen.
He's fat and scant of breath.
Here Hamlet, take my Handkerchief, wipe thy brows:
The Queen salutes thy fortune Hamlet.
Ham.
Good Madam.
King.
Gertrard do not drink.
Qu.
I will my Lord, I pray you pardon me.
King.
It is the poisoned cup, it is too late.
Ham.
I dare not drink yet Madam, by and by.
Qu.
Come let me wipe thy face.
Laer.
My Lord I'll hit him now.
King.
I do not think't.
Laer.
And yet it is almost against my conscience.
Ham.
Come, for the third Laertes, you do but dally,
I pray you pass with your best violence,
I am sure you make a wanton of me.
Laer.
Say you so? come on.
Ostr.
Nothing neither way.
Laer.
Have at you now.
King.
Part them, they are incens't.
Ham.
Nay come again.
Ostr.
Look to the Queen there ho.
Hora
They bleed on both sides, how is't my Lord?
Ostr.
How is't Laertes?
Laer.
Why as a Woodcock in mine own sprindge Ostrick,
I am justly kill'd with mine own treachery.
Ham.
How does the Queen?
King.
She swoons to see them bleed.
Qu.
No no the drink, the drink, O my dear Hamlet,
The drink, the drink, I am poisoned.
Ham.
O villain! ho let the door be lockt,
Treachery, seek it out.
Laer.
It is here Hamlet; thou art slain,
-- 86 --
No medicine in the world can do thee good,
In thee there is not half an hours life,
The treacherous instrument is in my hand,
Unbated and envenom'd, the foul practice
Hath turn'd it self on me; lo here I lie
Never to rise again: thy mothers poison'd,
I can no more, the King, the King's to blame.
Ham.
The point envenom d too, then venom to thy work.
All.
Treason, treason.
King.
O yet defend me friends, I am but hurt.
Ham.
Here thou incestuous Dane,
“Drink off this potion: is the Onyx here?
Follow my mother.
Laert.
“He is justly serv'd, it is a poison temper'd by himself.
Exchange forgiveness with me noble Hamlet,
Mine and my fathers death come not upon thee,
Nor thine on me.
[Dies.
Ham.
Heaven make thee free of it, I follow thee:
I am dead Horatio, wretched Queen farewel.
You that look pale and tremble at this chance,
That are but mutes or audience to this act,
Had I but time (as this fell Sergeant Death
Is strict in his arrest) O I could tell you;
But let it be: Horatio I am dead,
Thou livest, report me and my cause aright
To the unsatisfied.
Hora.
Never believe it.
I am more an antick Roman than a Dane,
Here's yet some liquor left.
Ham.
As th'art a man
Give me the cup, let go, I'll have't:
O Horatio what a wounded name,
Things standing thus unknown, shall I leave behind me?
If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart
Absent thee from felicity a while,
And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain
[A march afar off.
To tell my story: what warlike noise is this?
Enter Ostrick.
Ostr.
Young Fortinbrass with conquest come from Poland,
Th' Embassadors of England give this warlike volley.
Ham.
O I die Horatio,
The potent poison quite o'regrows my spirit;
I cannot live to hear the news from England,
But I do prophesie the election lights
-- 87 --
On Fortinbrass; he has my dying voice,
So tell him, with th' occurrents more and less
Which have solicited: the rest in silence.
Hora.
Now cracks a noble heart, good night sweet Prince,
And choires of Angels sing thee to thy rest.
Why does the drum come hither?
Enter Fortinbrass with the Embassadours.
Fort.
Where is this sight?
Hora.
What is it you would see?
If ought of woe or wonder, cease your search?
Fort.
“This quarry cries on havock:” O proud death,
What feast is toward in thine infernal Cell,
That thou so many Princes at a shot
So bloodily hast strook?
Embass.
The sight is dismal,
And our affairs from England come too late,
The ears are sensless that should give us hearing.
To tell him his commandment is fulfill'd,
That Rosencraus and Guildenstern are dead,
Where should we have our thanks?
Hora.
Not from his mouth,
Had it th' ability of breath to thank you
He never gave commandement for their death.
But since so apt upon this bloody question
You from the Pollack wars, and you from England
Are here arrived, give order that these bodies
High on a stage be placed to publick view,
And let me speak to th' yet unknowing world
How these things came about; so shall you hear
Of cruel, bloody, and unnatural acts,
Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters,
Of deaths put on by cunning, and for no cause,
And in this upshot, purposes mistook,
Fall'n on the inventors heads: all this can I
Truly deliver.
Fort.
Let us haste to hear it,
And call the nobless to the audience:
For me, with sorrow I embrace my fortune,
I have some rights of memory in this Kingdom,
Which now to claim my interest doth invite me.
Hora.
Of that I shall have also cause to speak,
And from his mouth whose voice will draw no more:
But let this same be presently perform'd,
Even while mens minds are wild, lest more mischance
-- 88 --
On plots and errors happen.
Fort.
“Let four Captains
Bear Hamlet like a Souldier to the Stage,
For he was likely had he been put on,
T'have prov'd most royal: and for his passage,
The Souldiers Musick and the rights of War
Speak loudly for him.
Take up the bodies; such a sight as this
Becomes the Field, but here shews much amiss.
“Go bid the Souldiers Shoot.
[Exeunt.
