Pol.
He will ^note come straight. Look, you lay home to him:
Tell him, his pranks have been too broad to bear with;
And that your grace hath screen'd and stood between
Much heat and him. I'll silence me14Q1455 even † here.
Pray you, be round ^note

Que.
I'll warrant you; ^note fear me not.
Withdraw, I hear him coming. [Pol. hides himself. Enter Hamlet, abruptly.

Ham.
Now, mother; what's the matter?

Que.
Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.

Ham.
Mother, you have my father much offended.

Que.
Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue. ^note

Ham.
Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.

Que.
Why, how now, Hamlet?

Ham.
What's the matter now?

Que.
Have you forgot me?

Ham.
No, by the rood ^note, not so:
You are the queen, your husband's brother's wife;
And, 'would it were ^note not so, you are my mother.

Que.
Nay, then I'll set those to you that can speak.

Ham.
Come, come, and sit you down; you shall not budge;
You go not, 'till I set you up ^note a glass,
Where you may see the inmost ^note part of you.

Que.
What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murther me?
Help, help, ho! ^note

Pol. [behind.]
What, ho! help! ^note

Ham.
How now! a rat?
Dead, for a ducat, dead. [making a Pass at the Arras.

Pol. [behind.]
O, I am slain. [falls forward, and dies.

Que.
O me, what hast thou done?

Ham.
Nay, I know not:
Is it the king? [lifts up the Arras, and draws forth Polonius.

Que.
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.

Que.
As kill a ^note king?

Ham.
Ay, lady, 'twas ^note my word—
Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewel!
I took thee for thy better; ^note take thy fortune:
Thou find'st, to be too busy, is some danger.—
Leave wringing of your hands: Peace, sit you down;
And let me wring your heart: for so I shall,
If it be made of penetrable stuff;
If damned custom have not braz'd ^note it so,
That it be proof ^note and bulwark against sense.

Que.
What have I done, that thou dar'st wag thy tongue
In noise so rude against me?

Ham.
Such an act,
That blurs the grace and blush of modesty;
Calls virtue, hypocrite; takes off the rose
From the fair forehead of an innocent love,
And sets a ^note blister there; makes marriage vows
As false as dicers' oaths: o, such a deed,14Q1456
As from the body of contraction plucks
The very soul; and sweet religion makes
A rhapsody of words: Heaven's face doth glow ^note;
Yea, this ^note solidity and compound mass,
With tristful visage ^note, as against the doom,
Is thought-sick at the act.

Que.
Ay me, what act, ^note
That roars so loud, and thunders in the index ^note?

Ham.
Look here ^note, upon this † picture, and on † this;
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
See, what a grace was ^note seated on this ^note † brow:
Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself;
An eye like Mars, to threaten and command ^note;

A station like the herald Mercury,
New ^note-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill;
A combination, and a form, indeed,
Where every god did seem to set his seal,
To give the world assurance of a man:
This was your husband. Look you now, what follows:
Here † is your husband; like a mildew'd ear ^note,
Blasting his wholesome brother. Have ^note 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 hey-day in 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; ^note14Q1457
Else, could you not have motion: But, sure, that sense
Is apoplex'd: for madness would not err;
Nor sense to exstasy was ne'er so thral'd,
But it reserv'd some quantity of choice,
To serve in such a difference. What devil was't,
That thus hath cozen'd you at hoodman-blind?
Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight, ^note
Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all,
Or but a sickly part of one true sense
Could not so mope.
O shame! where is thy blush? Rebellious hell, ^note
If thou canst mutine ^note in a matron's bones,
To flaming youth let virtue be as wax,
And melt in her own fire: proclaim no shame,
When the compulsive ardor gives the charge;
Since frost itself as actively doth burn,
And reason ^note panders ^note will.

Que.
O Hamlet, speak no more:

Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul; ^note
And there I see such black and grained spots ^note,
As will not leave their ^note tinct.

Ham.
Nay, but to live
In the rank sweat of an incestuous ^note bed;
Stew'd in corruption; honying, and making love,
Over the nasty sty;—

Que.
O, speak to me no more;
These words like daggers enter in my ears; ^note
No more, sweet Hamlet.

Ham.
A murtherer, and a villain:
A slave, that is not twentieth part the tythe
Of your precedent lord: a vice of kings:14Q1458
A cutpurse of the empire and the rule;
That from a shelf the precious diadem stole,
And put it in his pocket.

Que.
No more. ^note Enter Ghost.

Ham.
A king of shreds and patches:—
Save me, and hover o'er me with your wings,
You heavenly guards!—What would your gracious ^note figure?

Que.
Alas, he's mad.

Ham.
Do you not come your tardy son to chide,
That, laps'd in time and passion, let's ^note go by
The important acting of your dread command?
O, say.

Gho.
Do not forget: This visitation
Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.
But, look, amazement on thy mother sits:
O, step between her and her fighting ^note soul;
Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works;
Speak to her, Hamlet.

Ham.
How is it with you, lady?

Que.
Alas, how is't with you?
That thus you bend ^note your eye on vacancy,
And with the incorporal ^note air do hold discourse?
Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep;
And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm,
Your bedded ^note hair, like life in excrements,
Starts up, and stands ^note 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 glares!
His form and cause conjoin'd, preaching to stones,
Would make them capable.—Do not look upon me;
Lest, with this piteous action, you convert
My stern effects: then what I have to do
Will want true colour; tears, perchance, for blood.

Que.
To whom ^note do you speak this?

Ham.
Do you see nothing † there?

Que.
Nothing at all; yet all, that is, I ^note see.

Ham.
Nor did you nothing hear?

Que.
No, nothing, but ourselves.

Ham.
Why, look you † there; look, how it steals away;
My father, in his habit as he liv'd, ^note
Look, where he goes, even now, out at the portal! [Exit Ghost.

Que.
This is the very coinage of your brain:
This bodiless creation exstasy
Is very cunning in.

Ham.
What exstasy? ^note
My pulse, as yours, doth temperately ^note keep time,
And makes as healthful musick: It is not madness,

That I have utter'd: bring me to the test,
And I the ^note matter will re-word; which madness
Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,
Lay not that flattering ^note unction to your soul,
That not your trespass, but my madness, speaks:
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place;
Whiles ^note rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven;
Repent what's past; avoid what is to come;
And do not spread the compost on the ^note weeds,
To make them ranker. ^note Forgive me this my virtue:
For, in the fatness of these pursy ^note times,
Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg;
Yea, courb ^note, and woo, for leave to do him good.

Que.
O, Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.

Ham.
O, throw away the worser part of it,
And live ^note the purer with the other half.
Good night: but go not to my uncle's ^note bed;
Assume a virtue, if you have it not.
That monster, custom14Q1459, who all sense doth eat ^note
Of habits evil, ^note 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 ^note to-night;
And that shall lend a kind of easiness
To the next abstinence: the next, more easy: ^note
For use almost can change the stamp of nature,
And master even the ^note devil, or throw him out
With wondrous potency. Once more, good night:
And, when you are desirous to be blest,
I'll blessing beg of you. For this † same lord,
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 ^note begins, and worse remains behind.—
Hark, one word more, good lady. ^note

Que.
What shall I do!

Ham.
Not this, by no means, that I bid you do:
Let the bloat king ^note tempt you again to bed;
Pinch wanton on your cheek; call you, his mouse;
And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses,
Or padling in your neck with his damn'd fingers,
Make you to ravel all this matter out,
That I essentially am not in madness,
But mad in craft. 'Twere good, you let him know:
For who, that's but a queen, fair, sober, wise,
Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib,
Such dear concernings ^note hide? who would do so?
No, in despight of sense, and secresy,
Unpeg the basket on the house's top,
Let the birds fly; and, like the famous ape,
To try conclusions, in the basket creep,
And break your own neck down.

Que.
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?

Que.
Alack,
I had forgot; 'tis so concluded on.

Ham.
There's letters seal'd: and my two school-fellows,— ^note
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 shall set me packing.
I'll lug the guts into the neighbour room:—
Mother, good night.—Indeed, this counsellor
Is now most still, most secret, and most grave,
Who was in life a foolish ^note prating knave.
Come, sir, to † draw toward an end with you:—
Good night, mother. [Exeunt, severally; Hamlet tugging in Polonius.

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