Ambassadors.
’KING.
Well, we shall sift him.—Welcome, my good friends.
’Say, Voltimand, what from our brother Norway?
’VOLTIMAND.
Most fair return of greetings and desires.
’Upon our first, he sent out to suppress
’His nephew's levies, which to him appeared
’To be a preparation 'gainst the Pollack,
’But better looked into, he truly found
’It was against your Highness; whereat grieved,
’That so his sickness, age, and impotence
’Was falsely borne in hand, sends out arrests
’On Fortinbras; which he, in brief, obeys,
’Receives rebuke from Norway, and, in fine,
’Makes vow before his uncle never more
’To give the assay of arms against your Majesty.
’Whereon old Norway, overcome with joy,
’Gives him three thousand crowns in annual fee
’And his commission to employ those soldiers,
’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 enterprise,
’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.
-- 275 --
’Meantime we thank you for your well-took labor.
’Go to your rest; at night we'll feast together.
’Most welcome home!
’Exeunt Ambassadors.
POLONIUS.
’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.
POLONIUS.
Madam, I swear I use no art at all.
That he is mad, 'tis true: 'Tis true 'tis pity;
And pity 'tis 'tis true. A foolish figure!
But farewell 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:
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 soul's 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?
POLONIUS.
Good madam, stay awhile. I will be faithful.
Doubt that the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
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, while this machine is to him,
Hamlet.
-- 276 --
This, is 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
Received his love?
POLONIUS.
What do you think of me?
KING.
As of a man faithful and honorable.
POLONIUS.
I would fain prove so. But what might you think,
’When I had seen this hot love on the wing
’(As I perceived 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’ played the desk or table book,
’Or given my heart a winking mute and dumb,’
Or looked upon this love with idle sight?
’What might you think?’ No, I went round to work,
And my young mistress thus I charged:
“Lord Hamlet is a prince above thy sphere.
This must not be.” And then I precepts gave her,
That she should lock herself from his resort,
Admit no messengers, receive no tokens.
Which done, she took the fruits of my advice,
And he, repelled, a short tale to make,
Fell into a sadness, then into a fast,
’Thence to a watch, thence into a weakness.’
Thence to a lightness, and, by this declension,
Into the madness wherein he now raves,
And all we wail for.
KING.
Do you think 'tis this?
QUEEN.
It may be, very likely.
POLONIUS.
Hath there been such a time—I would fain know that—
That I have positively said “'Tis so.”
When it proved otherwise?
KING.
Not that I know.
POLONIUS.
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 farther?
POLONIUS.
Sometimes he walks four hours together
Here in the lobby.
-- 277 --
QUEEN.
So he does indeed.
POLONIUS.
At such time I'll loose my daughter to him.
So please your Majesty to hide yourself
Behind the arras then.
Mark the encounter. If he love her not,
And be not from his reason fall'n thereon,
Let me be no assistant for a state,
But keep farm and carters.
KING.
We will try it.
Enter Hamlet reading.
QUEEN.
But look where sadly the poor wretch comes reading.
POLONIUS.
Away, I do beseech you, both away!
Exeunt King and Queen.
I'll board him presently. ’O give me leave,’
How does my good lord Hamlet?
’HAMLET.
Excellent well.
’POLONIUS.
Do you know me, my lord?’
HAMLET.
Excellent well. You are a fishmonger.
POLONIUS.
Not I, my lord.
HAMLET.
Then I would you were so honest a man.
POLONIUS.
Honest, my lord?
HAMLET.
Ay, sir. To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man
picked out of ten thousand.
POLONIUS.
That is very true, my lord.
HAMLET.
For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a good kissing
carrion—Have you a daughter?
POLONIUS.
I have, my lord.
HAMLET.
Let her not walk i' th' sun. Conception is a blessing, but as
your daughter may conceive, Friend, look to't.
POLONIUS (aside).
’How say you by that?’ Still harping on my daughter.
Yet he knew me not at first, but said I was a fishmonger. He is
far gone! And truly in my youth I suffered much extremity for love
—very near this. I'll speak to him again.—What do you read, my lord?
HAMLET.
Words, words, words.
POLONIUS.
What is the matter, my lord?
HAMLET.
Between who?
POLONIUS.
I mean the matter that you read, my lord.
HAMLET.
Slanders, sir; for the satirical rogue says here that old men
have grey beards; that their faces are wrinkled; their eyes purging
-- 278 --
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
potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down;
for you yourself, sir, shall grow old as I am if, like a crab, you could
go backward.
POLONIUS.
Though this be madness, yet there's method in't.—Will you
walk out of the air, my lord?
HAMLET.
Into my grave?
POLONIUS.
Marry, that's out of the air indeed. How pregnant his replies
are! a happiness that often madness hits on, ’which reason and sanity
could not so happily be delivered of. I will leave him and my daughter.’
My lord, I will take my leave of you.
HAMLET.
You cannot take from me anything that I will not more willingly
part withal, except my life.
POLONIUS.
Fare you well, my lord.
HAMLET.
These tedious old fools!
Enter Guildenstern and Rosencrans.
POLONIUS.
You go to seek Lord Hamlet; there he is.
Exit.
ROSENCRANS.
Save you, sir.
GUILDENSTERN.
My honored lord!
ROSENCRANS.
My most dear lord!
HAMLET.
My excellent good friends! How dost thou, Guildenstern? Ah,
Rosencrans! Good lads, how do you both? Well, what news?
ROSENCRANS.
None, my lord, but that the world's grown honest.
HAMLET.
Then is doomsday near! Sure your news is not true. But in
the beaten way of friendship, what makes you at Elsinoor?
-- 279 --
ROSENCRANS.
To visit you, my lord; no other occasion.
HAMLET.
Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks; but I thank you.
Were you not sent for? Is it your own inclining? Is it a free visitation?
Come, come, deal justly with me! Nay, speak.
GUILDENSTERN.
What should we say, my lord?
HAMLET.
Anything, but to the purpose you were sent for. There is a
kind of confession in your looks, which your modesties have not
craft enough to color. I know the good King and Queen have sent
for you.
ROSENCRANS.
To what end, my lord?
HAMLET.
Nay, 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 love, and by what more dear a better proposer
could charge you withal, be even and direct with me, whether you
were sent for or no.
ROSENCRANS.
What say you?
HAMLET.
Nay then, I have an eye of you. If you love me, hold not off.
GUILDENSTERN.
My lord, we were sent for.
HAMLET.
I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation prevent your discovery,
and your secrecy 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 sterile
promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, this majestical roof
fretted with golden fire—why, it appears nothing to me but a foul
and pestilent congregation of vapors. 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
-- 280 --
the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals! And yet to
me what is quintessence of dust? Man delights not me, nor woman
neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.
ROSENCRANS.
My lord, there was so such stuff in my thoughts.
HAMLET.
Why did ye laugh then, when I said “Man delights not me”?
ROSENCRANS.
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.
HAMLET.
He that plays the king shall be welcome—his Majesty shall
have tribute of me; the adventurous knight shall use his foil and target;
the lover shall not sigh gratis; the humorous man shall end his
part in peace; and the lady shall speak her mind freely, or the blank
verse shall halt for't. What players are they?
ROSENCRANS.
Even those you were wont to take such delight in, the
tragedians of the city.
HAMLET.
Do they hold the same estimation they did when I was in the
city? Are they so followed?
ROSENCRANS.
No indeed they are not.
HAMLET.
It is not very strange; for my uncle is King of Denmark, and
those that would make mouths at him while my father lived, now
give twenty, forty, fifty, nay, a hundred ducats apiece for his picture
in little. There is something in this more than natural, if philosophy
could find it out.
(A flourish.)
-- 281 --
GUILDENSTERN.
Shall we call the players?
HAMLET.
Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinoor. Your hands, come!
The appurtenance of welcome is fashion and ceremony. But my
uncle-father and aunt-mother are deceived.
GUILDENSTERN.
In what, my dear lord?
HAMLET.
I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is southerly
I know a hawk from a handsaw.
Enter Polonius.
POLONIUS.
Well be with you, gentlemen!
HAMLET.
Hark you, Guildenstern and Rosencrans—that great baby that
you see there is not yet out of his swaddling clouts.
ROSENCRANS.
Haply he is the second time come to them; for they say
an old man is twice a child.
HAMLET.
I prophesy that he comes to tell me of the players. Mark it.—
You say right, sir; a Monday morning; 'twas then indeed.
POLONIUS.
My lord, I have news to tell you.
HAMLET.
My lord, I have news to tell you; when Roscius was an actor
in Rome—
POLONIUS.
The actors are come hither, my lord.
HAMLET.
Buzz, buzz!
POLONIUS.
Upon mine honor.
HAMLET.
Then came each actor on his ass—
POLONIUS.
The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy,
history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral; ’scene undividable,
or poem unlimited.’ Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor
Plautus too light, for the law of wit and liberty. These are the only
men.
HAMLET.
O Jephtha, judge of Israel, what a treasure hadst thou!
POLONIUS.
What a treasure had he, my lord?
HAMLET.
Why one fair daughter and no more, the which he loved passing
well.
POLONIUS. (aside).
Still on my daughter.
’HAMLET.
Am I not i' th' right, old Jephtha?
’POLONIUS.
If you call me Jephtha, my lord, I have a
’Daughter that I love passing well.’
HAMLET.
Nay, that follows not.
POLONIUS.
Nay, what follows then, my lord?
-- 282 --
HAMLET.
’Why, as by lot, God wot, and then you know it came to pass
as most like it was.’ The first row of the rubric will show you more,
for look where my abridgement comes.
Enter Players.
HAMLET.
’You are welcome, masters, welcome all, my old friend!
Why thy face is valanced since I saw thee last. Com'st thou to beard
me in Denmark? What, my young lady and mistress! marry, your
ladyship is grown nearer to heaven than when I saw you last by the
altitude of a chopine. I wish your voice, like a piece of uncurrent
gold, be not cracked within the ring.—Masters, you are all welcome.
We'll e'en to't like friendly falconers, fly at anything we see. We'll
have a speech straight. Come, give us a taste of your quality. Come,
a passionate speech.
PLAYERS.
What speech, my good lord?
HAMLET.
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 caviar to the multitude. One speech in't I chiefly
loved. 'Twas Aeneas's talk to Dido, and thereabout of it especially
where he speaks of Priam's slaughter. If it live in your memory, begin
at this line—let me see, let me see—“The rugged Pyrrhus, like th'
Hyrcanian beast”—“Beast!” no, that's not it, yet it begins with
Pyrrhus.
The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable arms,
Black as his purpose, did the night resemble,
-- 283 --
’Old gransire Priam seeks.’
So proceed you.
POLONIUS.
My lord, well-spoken, with good accent and good discretion.
HAMLET.
So proceed you.
PLAYER.
Anon he finds him,
Striking too short at Greeks, his antic sword
Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls,
Repugnant to command. Unequal matched,
Pyrrhus at Priam drives, in rage strikes wide;
But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword
Th' unnerved father falls. Then senseless Ilium,
’Seeming to feel his blow, with flaming top
’Stoops to his base, and with a hideous crash
’Takes prisoner Pyrrhus' ear. For lo! his sword,
’Which was declining on the milky head
’Of reverend Priam, seemed i' th' air to stick.
’So, as a painted tyrant, Pyrrhus stood,
’And like a neutral to his will and matter,
’Did nothing.’
But as we often see against some storm,
A silence in the heaven, the rack 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' pause,
Aroused vengeance sets him new awork;
And never did the Cyclops' hammers fall
On Mars his armor, forged for proof eterne,
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!’
POLONIUS.
This is too long.
HAMLET.
It shall to the barber's, with your beard.—Prithee, say on. He's
for a jig or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps. Say on, and come to
Hecuba.
PLAYER.
But who, alas, had seen the mobled queen—
HAMLET.
The mobled queen!
POLONIUS.
That's good.
PLAYER.
Run barefoot up and down, threat'ning the flames;
A clout upon that head
-- 284 --
Where late the diadem stood, and for a robe,
’About her lank and all o'erteemed loins,’
A blanket, in th' alarm of fear caught up—
Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steeped,
’Gainst fortune's state would treason have pronounced.
’But if the gods themselves did see her then,
’When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport
’In mincing with his sword her husband's limbs,
’The instant burst of clamor 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.’
POLONIUS.
Look whether he has not turned his color, and has tears in's
eyes. Prithee, no more!
HAMLET.
'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.
POLONIUS.
My lord, I will use them according to their desert.
HAMLET.
Much better! Use every man, sir, according to his desert, and
who should 'scape whipping? Use 'em after your own honor and
dignity. The less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty.
Take them in.
POLONIUS.
Come, sirs.
HAMLET.
Follow him, friends. Dost thou hear me, old friend? Can you
play “The Murder of Gonzago”?
PLAYER.
Ay, my lord.
HAMLET.
We'll have it tomorrow night. You could for need study a
speech of some dozen lines which I would set down and insert,
could you not?
PLAYER.
Ay, my lord.
HAMLET.
Very well. Follow that lord—and look you mock him not. My
good friends, I'll leave you till night. You are welcome to Elsinoor.
Exeunt all but Hamlet.
HAMLET.
O what a wretch and pleasant 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
-- 285 --
That, from her working, all the visage warmed,
Tears in his eyes, distraction in his aspect,
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
With forms to his conceit? and all for nothing,
For Hecuba?
What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her? What would he do,
Had he the motive and that ground for passion
That I have? He would drown the stage with tears,
Make mad the guilty and appal the free,
Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed
The very faculties of eyes and ears.
For it cannot be. Am I a coward?
But I am pigeon-livered and lack gall
To make oppression bitter, or ere this
I should have fatted all the region kites
With this slave's offal. I have heard
That guilty creatures, sitting at a play,
Have by the very cunning of the scene
Been struck so to the soul that presently
They have proclaimed their malefactions;
For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
’With most miraculous organ.’ I'll have these players
Play something like the murder of my father
Before my uncle. I'll observe his looks.
I'll tent him to the quick; if he look pale,
I know my course. The spirit that I have seen
May be a devil, and the devil may have power
-- 286 --
T'assume a pleasing shape; I'll have grounds
More relative than this. The play's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King.
Exit.
David Garrick [1981], [Hamlet, Prince of Denmark: A Tragedy 1772, in] The plays of David Garrick: A complete collection of the social satires, French adaptations, pantomimes, Christmas and musical plays, preludes, interludes, and burlesques, to which are added the Alterations and Adaptations of the Plays of Shakespeare and Other Dramatists from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Centuries: Volume 4: Garrick's Adaptations of Shakespeare, 1759–1773: Edited with commentary and notes by Harry William Pedicord and Frederick Louis Bergmann (Southern Illinois University Press, Edwardsville) [word count] [S38900].
