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4915 lines
196 KiB
Text
4915 lines
196 KiB
Text
THE TRAGEDY OF HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK
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by William Shakespeare
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Dramatis Personae
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Claudius, King of Denmark.
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Marcellus, Officer.
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Hamlet, son to the former, and nephew to the present king.
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Polonius, Lord Chamberlain.
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Horatio, friend to Hamlet.
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Laertes, son to Polonius.
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Voltemand, courtier.
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Cornelius, courtier.
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Rosencrantz, courtier.
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Guildenstern, courtier.
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Osric, courtier.
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A Gentleman, courtier.
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A Priest.
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Marcellus, officer.
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Bernardo, officer.
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Francisco, a soldier
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Reynaldo, servant to Polonius.
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Players.
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Two Clowns, gravediggers.
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Fortinbras, Prince of Norway.
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A Norwegian Captain.
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English Ambassadors.
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Getrude, Queen of Denmark, mother to Hamlet.
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Ophelia, daughter to Polonius.
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Ghost of Hamlet's Father.
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Lords, ladies, Officers, Soldiers, Sailors, Messengers,
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Attendants.
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<<THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION OF THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM
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SHAKESPEARE IS COPYRIGHT 1990-1993 BY WORLD LIBRARY, INC., AND IS
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PROVIDED BY PROJECT GUTENBERG ETEXT OF CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY
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WITH PERMISSION. ELECTRONIC AND MACHINE READABLE COPIES MAY BE
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DISTRIBUTED SO LONG AS SUCH COPIES (1) ARE FOR YOUR OR OTHERS
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PERSONAL USE ONLY, AND (2) ARE NOT DISTRIBUTED OR USED
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COMMERCIALLY. PROHIBITED COMMERCIAL DISTRIBUTION INCLUDES BY ANY
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SERVICE THAT CHARGES FOR DOWNLOAD TIME OR FOR MEMBERSHIP.>>
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SCENE.- Elsinore.
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ACT I. Scene I.
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Elsinore. A platform before the Castle.
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Enter two Sentinels-[first,] Francisco, [who paces up and down
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at his post; then] Bernardo, [who approaches him].
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Ber. Who's there.?
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Fran. Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold yourself.
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Ber. Long live the King!
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Fran. Bernardo?
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Ber. He.
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Fran. You come most carefully upon your hour.
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Ber. 'Tis now struck twelve. Get thee to bed, Francisco.
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Fran. For this relief much thanks. 'Tis bitter cold,
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And I am sick at heart.
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Ber. Have you had quiet guard?
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Fran. Not a mouse stirring.
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Ber. Well, good night.
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If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,
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The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste.
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Enter Horatio and Marcellus.
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Fran. I think I hear them. Stand, ho! Who is there?
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Hor. Friends to this ground.
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Mar. And liegemen to the Dane.
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Fran. Give you good night.
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Mar. O, farewell, honest soldier.
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Who hath reliev'd you?
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Fran. Bernardo hath my place.
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Give you good night. Exit.
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Mar. Holla, Bernardo!
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Ber. Say-
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What, is Horatio there ?
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Hor. A piece of him.
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Ber. Welcome, Horatio. Welcome, good Marcellus.
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Mar. What, has this thing appear'd again to-night?
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Ber. I have seen nothing.
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Mar. Horatio says 'tis but our fantasy,
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And will not let belief take hold of him
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Touching this dreaded sight, twice seen of us.
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Therefore I have entreated him along,
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With us to watch the minutes of this night,
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That, if again this apparition come,
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He may approve our eyes and speak to it.
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Hor. Tush, tush, 'twill not appear.
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Ber. Sit down awhile,
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And let us once again assail your ears,
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That are so fortified against our story,
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What we two nights have seen.
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Hor. Well, sit we down,
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And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.
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Ber. Last night of all,
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When yond same star that's westward from the pole
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Had made his course t' illume that part of heaven
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Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself,
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The bell then beating one-
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Enter Ghost.
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Mar. Peace! break thee off! Look where it comes again!
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Ber. In the same figure, like the King that's dead.
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Mar. Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio.
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Ber. Looks it not like the King? Mark it, Horatio.
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Hor. Most like. It harrows me with fear and wonder.
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Ber. It would be spoke to.
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Mar. Question it, Horatio.
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Hor. What art thou that usurp'st this time of night
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Together with that fair and warlike form
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In which the majesty of buried Denmark
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Did sometimes march? By heaven I charge thee speak!
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Mar. It is offended.
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Ber. See, it stalks away!
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Hor. Stay! Speak, speak! I charge thee speak!
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Exit Ghost.
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Mar. 'Tis gone and will not answer.
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Ber. How now, Horatio? You tremble and look pale.
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Is not this something more than fantasy?
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What think you on't?
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Hor. Before my God, I might not this believe
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Without the sensible and true avouch
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Of mine own eyes.
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Mar. Is it not like the King?
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Hor. As thou art to thyself.
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Such was the very armour he had on
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When he th' ambitious Norway combated.
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So frown'd he once when, in an angry parle,
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He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice.
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'Tis strange.
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Mar. Thus twice before, and jump at this dead hour,
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With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.
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Hor. In what particular thought to work I know not;
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But, in the gross and scope of my opinion,
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This bodes some strange eruption to our state.
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Mar. Good now, sit down, and tell me he that knows,
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Why this same strict and most observant watch
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So nightly toils the subject of the land,
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And why such daily cast of brazen cannon
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And foreign mart for implements of war;
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Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task
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Does not divide the Sunday from the week.
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What might be toward, that this sweaty haste
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Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day?
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Who is't that can inform me?
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Hor. That can I.
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At least, the whisper goes so. Our last king,
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Whose image even but now appear'd to us,
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Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,
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Thereto prick'd on by a most emulate pride,
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Dar'd to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet
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(For so this side of our known world esteem'd him)
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Did slay this Fortinbras; who, by a seal'd compact,
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Well ratified by law and heraldry,
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Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands
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Which he stood seiz'd of, to the conqueror;
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Against the which a moiety competent
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Was gaged by our king; which had return'd
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To the inheritance of Fortinbras,
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Had he been vanquisher, as, by the same comart
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And carriage of the article design'd,
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His fell to Hamlet. Now, sir, young Fortinbras,
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Of unimproved mettle hot and full,
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Hath in the skirts of Norway, here and there,
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Shark'd up a list of lawless resolutes,
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For food and diet, to some enterprise
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That hath a stomach in't; which is no other,
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As it doth well appear unto our state,
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But to recover of us, by strong hand
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And terms compulsatory, those foresaid lands
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So by his father lost; and this, I take it,
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Is the main motive of our preparations,
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The source of this our watch, and the chief head
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Of this post-haste and romage in the land.
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Ber. I think it be no other but e'en so.
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Well may it sort that this portentous figure
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Comes armed through our watch, so like the King
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That was and is the question of these wars.
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Hor. A mote it is to trouble the mind's eye.
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In the most high and palmy state of Rome,
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A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,
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The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead
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Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets;
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As stars with trains of fire, and dews of blood,
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Disasters in the sun; and the moist star
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Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands
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Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse.
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And even the like precurse of fierce events,
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As harbingers preceding still the fates
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And prologue to the omen coming on,
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Have heaven and earth together demonstrated
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Unto our climature and countrymen.
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Enter Ghost again.
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But soft! behold! Lo, where it comes again!
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I'll cross it, though it blast me.- Stay illusion!
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Spreads his arms.
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If thou hast any sound, or use of voice,
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Speak to me.
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If there be any good thing to be done,
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That may to thee do ease, and, race to me,
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Speak to me.
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If thou art privy to thy country's fate,
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Which happily foreknowing may avoid,
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O, speak!
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Or if thou hast uphoarded in thy life
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Extorted treasure in the womb of earth
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(For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death),
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The cock crows.
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Speak of it! Stay, and speak!- Stop it, Marcellus!
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Mar. Shall I strike at it with my partisan?
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Hor. Do, if it will not stand.
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Ber. 'Tis here!
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Hor. 'Tis here!
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Mar. 'Tis gone!
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Exit Ghost.
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We do it wrong, being so majestical,
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To offer it the show of violence;
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For it is as the air, invulnerable,
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And our vain blows malicious mockery.
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Ber. It was about to speak, when the cock crew.
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Hor. And then it started, like a guilty thing
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Upon a fearful summons. I have heard
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The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,
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Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat
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Awake the god of day; and at his warning,
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Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,
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Th' extravagant and erring spirit hies
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To his confine; and of the truth herein
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This present object made probation.
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Mar. It faded on the crowing of the cock.
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Some say that ever, 'gainst that season comes
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Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
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The bird of dawning singeth all night long;
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And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad,
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The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike,
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No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
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So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.
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Hor. So have I heard and do in part believe it.
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But look, the morn, in russet mantle clad,
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Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward hill.
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Break we our watch up; and by my advice
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Let us impart what we have seen to-night
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Unto young Hamlet; for, upon my life,
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This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him.
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Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it,
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As needful in our loves, fitting our duty?
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Let's do't, I pray; and I this morning know
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Where we shall find him most conveniently. Exeunt.
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Scene II.
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Elsinore. A room of state in the Castle.
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Flourish. [Enter Claudius, King of Denmark, Gertrude the Queen,
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Hamlet,
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Polonius, Laertes and his sister Ophelia, [Voltemand, Cornelius,]
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Lords Attendant.
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King. Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death
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The memory be green, and that it us befitted
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To bear our hearts in grief, and our whole kingdom
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To be contracted in one brow of woe,
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Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature
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That we with wisest sorrow think on him
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Together with remembrance of ourselves.
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Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen,
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Th' imperial jointress to this warlike state,
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Have we, as 'twere with a defeated joy,
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With an auspicious, and a dropping eye,
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With mirth in funeral, and with dirge in marriage,
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In equal scale weighing delight and dole,
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Taken to wife; nor have we herein barr'd
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Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone
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With this affair along. For all, our thanks.
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Now follows, that you know, young Fortinbras,
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Holding a weak supposal of our worth,
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Or thinking by our late dear brother's death
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Our state to be disjoint and out of frame,
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Colleagued with this dream of his advantage,
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He hath not fail'd to pester us with message
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Importing the surrender of those lands
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Lost by his father, with all bands of law,
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To our most valiant brother. So much for him.
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Now for ourself and for this time of meeting.
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Thus much the business is: we have here writ
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To Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras,
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Who, impotent and bedrid, scarcely hears
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Of this his nephew's purpose, to suppress
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His further gait herein, in that the levies,
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The lists, and full proportions are all made
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Out of his subject; and we here dispatch
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You, good Cornelius, and you, Voltemand,
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For bearers of this greeting to old Norway,
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Giving to you no further personal power
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To business with the King, more than the scope
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Of these dilated articles allow. [Gives a paper.]
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Farewell, and let your haste commend your duty.
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Cor., Volt. In that, and all things, will we show our duty.
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King. We doubt it nothing. Heartily farewell.
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Exeunt Voltemand and Cornelius.
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And now, Laertes, what's the news with you?
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You told us of some suit. What is't, Laertes?
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You cannot speak of reason to the Dane
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And lose your voice. What wouldst thou beg, Laertes,
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That shall not be my offer, not thy asking?
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The head is not more native to the heart,
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The hand more instrumental to the mouth,
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Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father.
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What wouldst thou have, Laertes?
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Laer. My dread lord,
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Your leave and favour to return to France;
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From whence though willingly I came to Denmark
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To show my duty in your coronation,
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Yet now I must confess, that duty done,
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My thoughts and wishes bend again toward France
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And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon.
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King. Have you your father's leave? What says Polonius?
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Pol. He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave
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By laboursome petition, and at last
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Upon his will I seal'd my hard consent.
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I do beseech you give him leave to go.
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King. Take thy fair hour, Laertes. Time be thine,
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And thy best graces spend it at thy will!
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But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son-
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Ham. [aside] A little more than kin, and less than kind!
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King. How is it that the clouds still hang on you?
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Ham. Not so, my lord. I am too much i' th' sun.
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Queen. Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off,
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And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.
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Do not for ever with thy vailed lids
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Seek for thy noble father in the dust.
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Thou know'st 'tis common. All that lives must die,
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Passing through nature to eternity.
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Ham. Ay, madam, it is common.
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Queen. If it be,
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Why seems it so particular with thee?
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Ham. Seems, madam, Nay, it is. I know not 'seems.'
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'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
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Nor customary suits of solemn black,
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Nor windy suspiration of forc'd breath,
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No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
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Nor the dejected havior of the visage,
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Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief,
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'That can denote me truly. These indeed seem,
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For they are actions that a man might play;
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But I have that within which passeth show-
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These but the trappings and the suits of woe.
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King. 'Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,
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To give these mourning duties to your father;
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But you must know, your father lost a father;
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That father lost, lost his, and the survivor bound
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In filial obligation for some term
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To do obsequious sorrow. But to persever
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In obstinate condolement is a course
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Of impious stubbornness. 'Tis unmanly grief;
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It shows a will most incorrect to heaven,
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A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,
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An understanding simple and unschool'd;
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For what we know must be, and is as common
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As any the most vulgar thing to sense,
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Why should we in our peevish opposition
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Take it to heart? Fie! 'tis a fault to heaven,
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A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,
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To reason most absurd, whose common theme
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Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried,
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From the first corse till he that died to-day,
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'This must be so.' We pray you throw to earth
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This unprevailing woe, and think of us
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As of a father; for let the world take note
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You are the most immediate to our throne,
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And with no less nobility of love
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Than that which dearest father bears his son
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Do I impart toward you. For your intent
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In going back to school in Wittenberg,
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It is most retrograde to our desire;
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And we beseech you, bend you to remain
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Here in the cheer and comfort of our eye,
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Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.
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Queen. Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet.
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I pray thee stay with us, go not to Wittenberg.
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Ham. I shall in all my best obey you, madam.
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King. Why, 'tis a loving and a fair reply.
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Be as ourself in Denmark. Madam, come.
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This gentle and unforc'd accord of Hamlet
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Sits smiling to my heart; in grace whereof,
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No jocund health that Denmark drinks to-day
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But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell,
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And the King's rouse the heaven shall bruit again,
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Respeaking earthly thunder. Come away.
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Flourish. Exeunt all but Hamlet.
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Ham. O that this too too solid flesh would melt,
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Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!
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Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
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His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!
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How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
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Seem to me all the uses of this world!
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Fie on't! ah, fie! 'Tis an unweeded garden
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That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
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Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
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But two months dead! Nay, not so much, not two.
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So excellent a king, that was to this
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Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother
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That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
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Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
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Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him
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As if increase of appetite had grown
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By what it fed on; and yet, within a month-
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Let me not think on't! Frailty, thy name is woman!-
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A little month, or ere those shoes were old
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With which she followed my poor father's body
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Like Niobe, all tears- why she, even she
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(O God! a beast that wants discourse of reason
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Would have mourn'd longer) married with my uncle;
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My father's brother, but no more like my father
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Than I to Hercules. Within a month,
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Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
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Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
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She married. O, most wicked speed, to post
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With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
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It is not, nor it cannot come to good.
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But break my heart, for I must hold my tongue!
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Enter Horatio, Marcellus, and Bernardo.
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Hor. Hail to your lordship!
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Ham. I am glad to see you well.
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Horatio!- or I do forget myself.
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Hor. The same, my lord, and your poor servant ever.
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Ham. Sir, my good friend- I'll change that name with you.
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And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio?
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Marcellus?
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Mar. My good lord!
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Ham. I am very glad to see you.- [To Bernardo] Good even, sir.-
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But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg?
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Hor. A truant disposition, good my lord.
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Ham. I would not hear your enemy say so,
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Nor shall you do my ear that violence
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To make it truster of your own report
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Against yourself. I know you are no truant.
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But what is your affair in Elsinore?
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We'll teach you to drink deep ere you depart.
|
|
Hor. My lord, I came to see your father's funeral.
|
|
Ham. I prithee do not mock me, fellow student.
|
|
I think it was to see my mother's wedding.
|
|
Hor. Indeed, my lord, it followed 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
|
|
Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio!
|
|
My father- methinks I see my father.
|
|
Hor. O, where, my lord?
|
|
Ham. In my mind's eye, Horatio.
|
|
Hor. 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.
|
|
Hor. My lord, I think I saw him yesternight.
|
|
Ham. Saw? who?
|
|
Hor. My lord, the King your father.
|
|
Ham. The King my father?
|
|
Hor. Season your admiration for a while
|
|
With an attent ear, till I may deliver
|
|
Upon the witness of these gentlemen,
|
|
This marvel to you.
|
|
Ham. For God's love let me hear!
|
|
Hor. Two nights together had these gentlemen
|
|
(Marcellus and Bernardo) on their watch
|
|
In the dead vast and middle of the night
|
|
Been thus encount'red. A figure like your father,
|
|
Armed at point exactly, cap-a-pe,
|
|
Appears before them and with solemn march
|
|
Goes slow and stately by them. Thrice he walk'd
|
|
By their oppress'd and fear-surprised eyes,
|
|
Within his truncheon's length; whilst they distill'd
|
|
Almost to jelly with the act of fear,
|
|
Stand dumb and speak not to him. This to me
|
|
In dreadful secrecy impart they did,
|
|
And I with them the third night kept the watch;
|
|
Where, as they had deliver'd, 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 watch'd.
|
|
Ham. Did you not speak to it?
|
|
Hor. My lord, I did;
|
|
But answer made it none. Yet once methought
|
|
It lifted up it head and did address
|
|
Itself to motion, like as it would speak;
|
|
But even then the morning cock crew loud,
|
|
And at the sound it shrunk in haste away
|
|
And vanish'd from our sight.
|
|
Ham. 'Tis very strange.
|
|
Hor. As I do live, my honour'd lord, 'tis true;
|
|
And we did think it writ down in our duty
|
|
To let you know of it.
|
|
Ham. Indeed, indeed, sirs. But this troubles me.
|
|
Hold you the watch to-night?
|
|
Both [Mar. and Ber.] We do, my lord.
|
|
Ham. Arm'd, say you?
|
|
Both. Arm'd, my lord.
|
|
Ham. From top to toe?
|
|
Both. My lord, from head to foot.
|
|
Ham. Then saw you not his face?
|
|
Hor. O, yes, my lord! He wore his beaver up.
|
|
Ham. What, look'd he frowningly.
|
|
Hor. A countenance more in sorrow than in anger.
|
|
Ham. Pale or red?
|
|
Hor. Nay, very pale.
|
|
Ham. And fix'd 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, very like. Stay'd it long?
|
|
Hor. While one with moderate haste might tell a hundred.
|
|
Both. Longer, longer.
|
|
Hor. Not when I saw't.
|
|
Ham. His beard was grizzled- no?
|
|
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 warr'nt it will.
|
|
Ham. If it assume my noble father's person,
|
|
I'll speak to it, though hell itself should gape
|
|
And bid me hold my peace. I pray you all,
|
|
If you have hitherto conceal'd this sight,
|
|
Let it be tenable in 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,
|
|
I'll visit you.
|
|
All. Our duty to your honour.
|
|
Ham. Your loves, as mine to you. Farewell.
|
|
Exeunt [all but Hamlet].
|
|
My father's 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'erwhelm them, to men's eyes.
|
|
Exit.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Scene III.
|
|
Elsinore. A room in the house of Polonius.
|
|
|
|
Enter Laertes and Ophelia.
|
|
|
|
Laer. My necessaries are embark'd. Farewell.
|
|
And, sister, as the winds give benefit
|
|
And convoy is assistant, do not sleep,
|
|
But let me hear from you.
|
|
Oph. Do you doubt that?
|
|
Laer. For Hamlet, and the trifling of his favour,
|
|
Hold it a fashion, and a toy in blood;
|
|
A violet in the youth of primy nature,
|
|
Forward, not permanent- sweet, not lasting;
|
|
The perfume and suppliance of a minute;
|
|
No more.
|
|
Oph. No more but so?
|
|
Laer. Think it no more.
|
|
For nature crescent does not grow alone
|
|
In thews and bulk; 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 besmirch
|
|
The virtue of his will; but you must fear,
|
|
His greatness weigh'd, his will is not his own;
|
|
For he himself is subject to his birth.
|
|
He may not, as unvalued persons do,
|
|
Carve for 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 too credent ear you list his songs,
|
|
Or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure open
|
|
To his unmast'red importunity.
|
|
Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister,
|
|
And keep you in the rear of your affection,
|
|
Out of the shot and danger of desire.
|
|
The chariest maid is prodigal enough
|
|
If she unmask her beauty to the moon.
|
|
Virtue itself scopes not calumnious strokes.
|
|
The canker galls the infants 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 itself rebels, though none else near.
|
|
Oph. I shall th' effect of this good lesson keep
|
|
As watchman to my heart. But, good my brother,
|
|
Do not as some ungracious pastors do,
|
|
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven,
|
|
Whiles, like a puff'd and reckless libertine,
|
|
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads
|
|
And recks not his own rede.
|
|
Laer. O, fear me not!
|
|
|
|
Enter Polonius.
|
|
|
|
I stay too long. But here my father comes.
|
|
A double blessing is a double grace;
|
|
Occasion smiles upon a second leave.
|
|
Pol. Yet here, Laertes? Aboard, aboard, for shame!
|
|
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
|
|
And you are stay'd 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'd, unfledg'd comrade. Beware
|
|
Of entrance to a quarrel; but being in,
|
|
Bear't that th' opposed may beware of thee.
|
|
Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice;
|
|
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
|
|
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
|
|
But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
|
|
For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
|
|
And they in France of the best rank and station
|
|
Are most select and generous, chief in that.
|
|
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
|
|
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
|
|
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
|
|
This above all- to thine own self be true,
|
|
And it must follow, as the night the day,
|
|
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
|
|
Farewell. My blessing season this in thee!
|
|
Laer. Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord.
|
|
Pol. The time invites you. Go, your servants tend.
|
|
Laer. Farewell, Ophelia, and remember well
|
|
What I have said to you.
|
|
Oph. 'Tis in my memory lock'd,
|
|
And you yourself shall keep the key of it.
|
|
Laer. Farewell. Exit.
|
|
Pol. What is't, Ophelia, he hath said to you?
|
|
Oph. 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 yourself
|
|
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 yourself so clearly
|
|
As it behooves my daughter and your honour.
|
|
What is between you? Give me up the truth.
|
|
Oph. He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders
|
|
Of his affection to me.
|
|
Pol. Affection? Pooh! You speak like a green girl,
|
|
Unsifted in such perilous circumstance.
|
|
Do you believe his tenders, as you call them?
|
|
Oph. I do not know, my lord, what I should think,
|
|
Pol. Marry, I will teach you! Think yourself a baby
|
|
That you have ta'en these tenders for true pay,
|
|
Which are not sterling. Tender yourself more dearly,
|
|
Or (not to crack the wind of the poor phrase,
|
|
Running it thus) you'll tender me a fool.
|
|
Oph. My lord, he hath importun'd me with love
|
|
In honourable fashion.
|
|
Pol. Ay, fashion you may call it. Go to, go to!
|
|
Oph. And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord,
|
|
With almost all the holy vows of heaven.
|
|
Pol. Ay, springes to catch woodcocks! I do know,
|
|
When the blood burns, how prodigal 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 take for fire. From this time
|
|
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 tether 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 show,
|
|
But mere implorators of unholy suits,
|
|
Breathing like sanctified and pious bawds,
|
|
The better to beguile. This is for all:
|
|
I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth
|
|
Have you so slander any moment leisure
|
|
As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet.
|
|
Look to't, I charge you. Come your ways.
|
|
Oph. I shall obey, my lord.
|
|
Exeunt.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Scene IV.
|
|
Elsinore. The platform before the Castle.
|
|
|
|
Enter Hamlet, Horatio, and Marcellus.
|
|
|
|
Ham. The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.
|
|
Hor. It is a nipping and an eager air.
|
|
Ham. What hour now?
|
|
Hor. I think it lacks of twelve.
|
|
Mar. No, it is struck.
|
|
Hor. Indeed? I heard it not. It then draws near the season
|
|
Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk.
|
|
A flourish of trumpets, and two pieces go off.
|
|
What does this mean, my lord?
|
|
Ham. The King doth wake to-night and takes his rouse,
|
|
Keeps wassail, and the swagg'ring upspring reels,
|
|
And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down,
|
|
The kettledrum and trumpet thus bray out
|
|
The triumph of his pledge.
|
|
Hor. Is it a custom?
|
|
Ham. Ay, 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 tax'd of other nations;
|
|
They clip us drunkards and with swinish phrase
|
|
Soil our addition; and indeed it takes
|
|
From our achievements, 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,
|
|
Since nature cannot choose his origin,-
|
|
By the o'ergrowth of some complexion,
|
|
Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason,
|
|
Or by some habit that too much o'erleavens
|
|
The form of plausive manners, that these men
|
|
Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect,
|
|
Being nature's livery, or fortune's star,
|
|
Their 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 e'il
|
|
Doth all the noble substance often dout To his own scandal.
|
|
|
|
Enter Ghost.
|
|
|
|
Hor. Look, my lord, 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 inurn'd,
|
|
Hath op'd his ponderous and marble jaws
|
|
To cast thee up again. What may this mean
|
|
That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel,
|
|
Revisits 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?
|
|
Ghost beckons Hamlet.
|
|
Hor. 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 more removed ground.
|
|
But do not go with it!
|
|
Hor. No, by no means!
|
|
Ham. It will not speak. Then will I follow it.
|
|
Hor. Do not, my lord!
|
|
Ham. Why, what should be the fear?
|
|
I do not set my life at a pin's fee;
|
|
And for my soul, what can it do to that,
|
|
Being a thing immortal as itself?
|
|
It waves me forth again. I'll follow it.
|
|
Hor. What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord,
|
|
Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff
|
|
That beetles o'er his base into the sea,
|
|
And there assume some other, horrible 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 fadoms 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!
|
|
Hor. Be rul'd. You shall not go.
|
|
Ham. My fate cries out
|
|
And makes each petty artire in this body
|
|
As hardy as the Nemean lion's nerve.
|
|
[Ghost beckons.]
|
|
|
|
Still am I call'd. Unhand me, gentlemen.
|
|
By heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that lets me!-
|
|
I say, away!- Go on. I'll follow thee.
|
|
Exeunt Ghost and Hamlet.
|
|
Hor. He waxes desperate with imagination.
|
|
Mar. Let's follow. 'Tis not fit thus to obey him.
|
|
Hor. Have after. To what issue wail this come?
|
|
Mar. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
|
|
Hor. Heaven will direct it.
|
|
Mar. Nay, let's follow him.
|
|
Exeunt.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Scene V.
|
|
Elsinore. The Castle. Another part of the fortifications.
|
|
|
|
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 sulph'rous and tormenting flames
|
|
Must render up myself.
|
|
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, when thou shalt hear.
|
|
Ham. What?
|
|
Ghost. I am thy father's spirit,
|
|
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 fretful porpentine.
|
|
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 God!
|
|
Ghost. Revenge his foul and most unnatural murther.
|
|
Ham. Murther?
|
|
Ghost. Murther 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 sweep to my revenge.
|
|
Ghost. I find thee apt;
|
|
And duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed
|
|
That rots itself in ease on Lethe wharf,
|
|
Wouldst thou not stir in this. Now, Hamlet, hear.
|
|
'Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard,
|
|
A serpent stung me. So the whole ear of Denmark
|
|
Is by a forged process of my death
|
|
Rankly abus'd. But know, thou noble youth,
|
|
The serpent that did sting thy father's life
|
|
Now wears his crown.
|
|
Ham. O my prophetic soul!
|
|
My uncle?
|
|
Ghost. Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast,
|
|
With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts-
|
|
O wicked wit and gifts, that have the power
|
|
So to seduce!- won to his shameful lust
|
|
The will of my most seeming-virtuous 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 virtue, as it never will be mov'd,
|
|
Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven,
|
|
So lust, though to a radiant angel link'd,
|
|
Will sate itself in a celestial bed
|
|
And prey on garbage.
|
|
But soft! methinks I scent the morning air.
|
|
Brief let me be. Sleeping within my orchard,
|
|
My custom always of the afternoon,
|
|
Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole,
|
|
With juice of cursed hebona in a vial,
|
|
And in the porches of my ears did pour
|
|
The leperous distilment; whose effect
|
|
Holds such an enmity with blood of man
|
|
That swift as quicksilverr it courses through
|
|
The natural gates and alleys of the body,
|
|
And with a sudden vigour it doth posset
|
|
And curd, like eager droppings into milk,
|
|
The thin and wholesome blood. So did it mine;
|
|
And a most instant tetter bark'd about,
|
|
Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust
|
|
All my smooth body.
|
|
Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother's hand
|
|
Of life, of crown, of queen, at once dispatch'd;
|
|
Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,
|
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Unhous'led, disappointed, unanel'd,
|
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No reckoning made, but sent to my account
|
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With all my imperfections on my head.
|
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Ham. O, horrible! O, horrible! most horrible!
|
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Ghost. 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 contrive
|
|
Against thy mother aught. Leave her to heaven,
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|
And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge
|
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To prick and sting her. Fare thee well at once.
|
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The glowworm shows the matin to be near
|
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And gins to pale his uneffectual fire.
|
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Adieu, adieu, adieu! Remember me. Exit.
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Ham. O all you host of heaven! O earth! What else?
|
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And shall I couple hell? Hold, hold, my heart!
|
|
And you, my sinews, grow not instant old,
|
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But bear me stiffly up. Remember thee?
|
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Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat
|
|
In this distracted globe. Remember thee?
|
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Yea, from the table of my memory
|
|
I'll wipe away all trivial fond records,
|
|
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past
|
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That youth and observation copied there,
|
|
And thy commandment all alone shall live
|
|
Within the book and volume of my brain,
|
|
Unmix'd with baser matter. Yes, by heaven!
|
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O most pernicious woman!
|
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O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!
|
|
My tables! Meet it is I set it down
|
|
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain;
|
|
At least I am sure it may be so in Denmark. [Writes.]
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So, uncle, there you are. Now to my word:
|
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It is 'Adieu, adieu! Remember me.'
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I have sworn't.
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Hor. (within) My lord, my lord!
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Enter Horatio and Marcellus.
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Mar. Lord Hamlet!
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Hor. Heaven secure him!
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Ham. So be it!
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Mar. Illo, ho, ho, my lord!
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Ham. Hillo, ho, ho, boy! Come, bird, come.
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Mar. How is't, my noble lord?
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Hor. What news, my lord?
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Mar. O, wonderful!
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Hor. Good my lord, tell it.
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Ham. No, you will reveal it.
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Hor. Not I, my lord, by heaven!
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Mar. Nor I, my lord.
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Ham. How say you then? Would heart of man once think it?
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But you'll be secret?
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Both. Ay, by heaven, my lord.
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Ham. There's neer a villain dwelling in all Denmark
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But he's an arrant knave.
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Hor. There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave
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To tell us this.
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Ham. Why, right! You are in the right!
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And so, without more circumstance at all,
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I hold it fit that we shake hands and part;
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You, as your business and desires shall point you,
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For every man hath business and desire,
|
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Such as it is; and for my own poor part,
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Look you, I'll go pray.
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Hor. These are but wild and whirling words, my lord.
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Ham. I am sorry they offend you, heartily;
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Yes, faith, heartily.
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Hor. There's no offence, my lord.
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Ham. Yes, by Saint Patrick, but there is, Horatio,
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And much offence too. Touching this vision here,
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It is an honest ghost, that let me tell you.
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For your desire to know what is between us,
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O'ermaster't as you may. And now, good friends,
|
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As you are friends, scholars, and soldiers,
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Give me one poor request.
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Hor. What is't, my lord? We will.
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Ham. Never make known what you have seen to-night.
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Both. My lord, we will not.
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Ham. Nay, but swear't.
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Hor. In faith,
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My lord, not I.
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Mar. Nor I, my lord- in faith.
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Ham. Upon my sword.
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Mar. We have sworn, my lord, already.
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Ham. Indeed, upon my sword, indeed.
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Ghost cries under the stage.
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Ghost. Swear.
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Ham. Aha boy, say'st thou so? Art thou there, truepenny?
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Come on! You hear this fellow in the cellarage.
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Consent to swear.
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Hor. Propose the oath, my lord.
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Ham. Never to speak of this that you have seen.
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Swear by my sword.
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Ghost. [beneath] Swear.
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Ham. Hic et ubique? Then we'll shift our ground.
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Come hither, gentlemen,
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And lay your hands again upon my sword.
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Never to speak of this that you have heard:
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Swear by my sword.
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Ghost. [beneath] Swear by his sword.
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Ham. Well said, old mole! Canst work i' th' earth so fast?
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A worthy pioner! Once more remove, good friends."
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Hor. O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!
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Ham. And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
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There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
|
|
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
|
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But come!
|
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Here, as before, never, so help you mercy,
|
|
How strange or odd soe'er I bear myself
|
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(As I perchance hereafter shall think meet
|
|
To put an antic disposition on),
|
|
That you, at such times seeing me, never shall,
|
|
With arms encumb'red thus, or this head-shake,
|
|
Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase,
|
|
As 'Well, well, we know,' or 'We could, an if we would,'
|
|
Or 'If we list to speak,' or 'There be, an if they might,'
|
|
Or such ambiguous giving out, to note
|
|
That you know aught of me- this is not to do,
|
|
So grace and mercy at your most need help you,
|
|
Swear.
|
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Ghost. [beneath] Swear.
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[They swear.]
|
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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 friending to you,
|
|
God willing, shall not lack. Let us go in together;
|
|
And still your fingers on your lips, I pray.
|
|
The time is out of joint. O cursed spite
|
|
That ever I was born to set it right!
|
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Nay, come, let's go together.
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Exeunt.
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<<THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION OF THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM
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SHAKESPEARE IS COPYRIGHT 1990-1993 BY WORLD LIBRARY, INC., AND IS
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PROVIDED BY PROJECT GUTENBERG ETEXT OF CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY
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WITH PERMISSION. ELECTRONIC AND MACHINE READABLE COPIES MAY BE
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DISTRIBUTED SO LONG AS SUCH COPIES (1) ARE FOR YOUR OR OTHERS
|
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PERSONAL USE ONLY, AND (2) ARE NOT DISTRIBUTED OR USED
|
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COMMERCIALLY. PROHIBITED COMMERCIAL DISTRIBUTION INCLUDES BY ANY
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SERVICE THAT CHARGES FOR DOWNLOAD TIME OR FOR MEMBERSHIP.>>
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Act II. Scene I.
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Elsinore. A room in the house of Polonius.
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Enter Polonius and Reynaldo.
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Pol. Give him this money and these notes, Reynaldo.
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Rey. I will, my lord.
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Pol. You shall do marvell's wisely, good Reynaldo,
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Before You visit him, to make inquire
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Of his behaviour.
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Rey. My lord, I did intend it.
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Pol. Marry, well said, very well said. Look you, sir,
|
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Enquire me first what Danskers are in Paris;
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And how, and who, what means, and where they keep,
|
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What company, at what expense; and finding
|
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By this encompassment and drift of question
|
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That they do know my son, come you more nearer
|
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Than your particular demands will touch it.
|
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Take you, as 'twere, some distant knowledge of him;
|
|
As thus, 'I know his father and his friends,
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And in part him.' Do you mark this, Reynaldo?
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Rey. Ay, very well, my lord.
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Pol. 'And in part him, but,' you may say, 'not well.
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But if't be he I mean, he's very wild
|
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Addicted so and so'; and there put on him
|
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What forgeries you please; marry, none so rank
|
|
As may dishonour him- take heed of that;
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|
But, sir, such wanton, wild, and usual slips
|
|
As are companions noted and most known
|
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To youth and liberty.
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Rey. As gaming, my lord.
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Pol. Ay, or drinking, fencing, swearing, quarrelling,
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Drabbing. You may go so far.
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Rey. My lord, that would dishonour him.
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Pol. Faith, no, as you may season it in the charge.
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You must not put another scandal on him,
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That he is open to incontinency.
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That's not my meaning. But breathe his faults so quaintly
|
|
That they may seem the taints of liberty,
|
|
The flash and outbreak of a fiery mind,
|
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A savageness in unreclaimed blood,
|
|
Of general assault.
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Rey. But, my good lord-
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Pol. Wherefore should you do this?
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Rey. Ay, my lord,
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I would know that.
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Pol. Marry, sir, here's my drift,
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And I believe it is a fetch of warrant.
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You laying these slight sullies on my son
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As 'twere a thing a little soil'd i' th' working,
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Mark you,
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Your party in converse, him you would sound,
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Having ever seen in the prenominate crimes
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The youth you breathe of guilty, be assur'd
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He closes with you in this consequence:
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'Good sir,' or so, or 'friend,' or 'gentleman'-
|
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According to the phrase or the addition
|
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Of man and country-
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Rey. Very good, my lord.
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Pol. And then, sir, does 'a this- 'a does- What was I about to
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say?
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By the mass, I was about to say something! Where did I leave?
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Rey. At 'closes in the consequence,' at 'friend or so,' and
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gentleman.'
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Pol. At 'closes in the consequence'- Ay, marry!
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He closes thus: 'I know the gentleman.
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I saw him yesterday, or t'other day,
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Or then, or then, with such or such; and, as you say,
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There was 'a gaming; there o'ertook in's rouse;
|
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There falling out at tennis'; or perchance,
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|
'I saw him enter such a house of sale,'
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|
Videlicet, a brothel, or so forth.
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|
See you now-
|
|
Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth;
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|
And thus do we of wisdom and of reach,
|
|
With windlasses and with assays of bias,
|
|
By indirections find directions out.
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So, by my former lecture and advice,
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Shall you my son. You have me, have you not
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Rey. My lord, I have.
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Pol. God b' wi' ye, fare ye well!
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Rey. Good my lord! [Going.]
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Pol. Observe his inclination in yourself.
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Rey. I shall, my lord.
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Pol. And let him ply his music.
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Rey. Well, my lord.
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Pol. Farewell!
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Exit Reynaldo.
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|
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Enter Ophelia.
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|
|
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How now, Ophelia? What's the matter?
|
|
Oph. O my lord, my lord, I have been so affrighted!
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Pol. With what, i' th' name of God I
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|
Oph. My lord, as I was sewing in my closet,
|
|
Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbrac'd,
|
|
No hat upon his head, his stockings foul'd,
|
|
Ungart'red, and down-gyved to his ankle;
|
|
Pale as his shirt, his knees knocking each other,
|
|
And with a look so piteous in purport
|
|
As if he had been loosed out of 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 held me hard;
|
|
Then goes he to the length of all his arm,
|
|
And, with his other hand thus o'er his brow,
|
|
He falls to such perusal of my face
|
|
As he would draw it. Long stay'd he so.
|
|
At last, a little shaking of mine arm,
|
|
And thrice his head thus waving up and down,
|
|
He rais'd 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 shoulder turn'd
|
|
He seem'd to find his way without his eyes,
|
|
For out o' doors he went without their help
|
|
And to the last bended their light on me.
|
|
Pol. Come, go with me. I will go seek the King.
|
|
This is the very ecstasy of love,
|
|
Whose violent property fordoes itself
|
|
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 denied
|
|
His access to me.
|
|
Pol. That hath made him mad.
|
|
I am sorry that with better heed and judgment
|
|
I had not quoted him. I fear'd he did but trifle
|
|
And meant to wrack thee; but beshrew my jealousy!
|
|
By heaven, it is as proper to our age
|
|
To cast beyond ourselves in our opinions
|
|
As it is common for the younger sort
|
|
To lack discretion. Come, go we to the King.
|
|
This must be known; which, being kept close, might move
|
|
More grief to hide than hate to utter love.
|
|
Come.
|
|
Exeunt.
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Scene II.
|
|
Elsinore. A room in the Castle.
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|
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Flourish. [Enter King and Queen, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern,
|
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cum aliis.
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King. Welcome, dear Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
|
|
Moreover that we much did long to see you,
|
|
The need we have to use you did provoke
|
|
Our hasty sending. Something have you heard
|
|
Of Hamlet's transformation. So I call it,
|
|
Sith nor th' exterior nor the inward man
|
|
Resembles that it was. What it should be,
|
|
More than his father's death, that thus hath put him
|
|
So much from th' understanding of himself,
|
|
I cannot dream of. I entreat you both
|
|
That, being of so young clays brought up with him,
|
|
And since so neighbour'd 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 aught to us unknown afflicts him thus
|
|
That, open'd, lies within our remedy.
|
|
Queen. Good gentlemen, he hath much talk'd of you,
|
|
And sure I am two men there are not living
|
|
To whom he more adheres. If it will please you
|
|
To show us so much gentry and good will
|
|
As to expend your time with us awhile
|
|
For the supply and profit of our hope,
|
|
Your visitation shall receive such thanks
|
|
As fits a king's remembrance.
|
|
Ros. Both your Majesties
|
|
Might, by the sovereign power you have of us,
|
|
Put your dread pleasures more into command
|
|
Than to entreaty.
|
|
Guil. But we both obey,
|
|
And here give up ourselves, in the full bent,
|
|
To lay our service freely at your feet,
|
|
To be commanded.
|
|
King. Thanks, Rosencrantz and gentle Guildenstern.
|
|
Queen. Thanks, Guildenstern and gentle Rosencrantz.
|
|
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. Ay, amen!
|
|
Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, [with some
|
|
Attendants].
|
|
|
|
Enter Polonius.
|
|
|
|
Pol. Th' ambassadors from Norway, my good lord,
|
|
Are joyfully return'd.
|
|
King. Thou still hast been the father of good news.
|
|
Pol. Have I, my lord? Assure you, 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 hath us'd to do- that I have found
|
|
The very cause of Hamlet's lunacy.
|
|
King. O, speak of that! That do I long to hear.
|
|
Pol. Give first admittance to th' ambassadors.
|
|
My news shall be the fruit to that great feast.
|
|
King. Thyself do grace to them, and bring them in.
|
|
[Exit Polonius.]
|
|
He tells me, my dear Gertrude, he hath found
|
|
The head and source of all your son's distemper.
|
|
Queen. I doubt it is no other but the main,
|
|
His father's death and our o'erhasty marriage.
|
|
King. Well, we shall sift him.
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|
|
Enter Polonius, Voltemand, and Cornelius.
|
|
|
|
Welcome, my good friends.
|
|
Say, Voltemand, what from our brother Norway?
|
|
Volt. Most fair return of greetings and desires.
|
|
Upon our first, he sent out to suppress
|
|
His nephew's levies; which to him appear'd
|
|
To be a preparation 'gainst the Polack,
|
|
But better look'd into, he truly found
|
|
It was against your Highness; whereat griev'd,
|
|
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 th' 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 Polack;
|
|
With an entreaty, herein further shown,
|
|
[Gives a paper.]
|
|
That it might please you to give quiet pass
|
|
Through your dominions for this enterprise,
|
|
On such regards of safety and allowance
|
|
As therein are set down.
|
|
King. It likes us well;
|
|
And at our more consider'd time we'll read,
|
|
Answer, and think upon this business.
|
|
Meantime we thank you for your well-took labour.
|
|
Go to your rest; at night we'll feast together.
|
|
Most welcome home! Exeunt Ambassadors.
|
|
Pol. This business is well ended.
|
|
My liege, and madam, to expostulate
|
|
What majesty should be, what duty is,
|
|
Why day is day, night is night, and time is time.
|
|
Were nothing but to waste night, day, and time.
|
|
Therefore, since 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 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.
|
|
Perpend.
|
|
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] the letter.
|
|
'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:
|
|
[Reads.]
|
|
'In her excellent white bosom, these, &c.'
|
|
Queen. Came this from Hamlet to her?
|
|
Pol. Good madam, stay awhile. I will be faithful. [Reads.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
'Doubt thou 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, whilst this machine is to
|
|
him,
|
|
|
|
HAMLET.'
|
|
|
|
This, in obedience, hath my daughter shown me;
|
|
And more above, hath 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 play'd the desk or table book,
|
|
Or given my heart a winking, mute and dumb,
|
|
Or look'd upon this love with idle sight?
|
|
What might you think? No, I went round to work
|
|
And my young mistress thus I did bespeak:
|
|
'Lord Hamlet is a prince, out of thy star.
|
|
This must not be.' And then I prescripts 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, repulsed, 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 now he raves,
|
|
And all we mourn for.
|
|
King. Do you think 'tis this?
|
|
Queen. it may be, very like.
|
|
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. [points to his head and shoulder] 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. You know 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 an arras then.
|
|
Mark the encounter. If he love her not,
|
|
And he not from his reason fall'n thereon
|
|
Let me be no assistant for a state,
|
|
But keep a farm and carters.
|
|
King. We will try it.
|
|
|
|
Enter Hamlet, reading on a book.
|
|
|
|
Queen. But look where sadly the poor wretch comes reading.
|
|
Pol. Away, I do beseech you, both away
|
|
I'll board him presently. O, give me leave.
|
|
Exeunt King and Queen, [with Attendants].
|
|
How does my good Lord Hamlet?
|
|
Ham. Well, God-a-mercy.
|
|
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. Ay, sir. To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one
|
|
man
|
|
pick'd out of ten thousand.
|
|
Pol. That's very true, my lord.
|
|
Ham. For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a god
|
|
kissing carrion- Have you a daughter?
|
|
Pol. I have, my lord.
|
|
Ham. Let her not walk i' th' sun. Conception is a blessing, but
|
|
not
|
|
as your daughter may conceive. Friend, look to't.
|
|
Pol. [aside] How say you by that? Still harping on my daughter.
|
|
Yet
|
|
he knew me not at first. He said I was a fishmonger. He is
|
|
far
|
|
gone, far gone! And truly in my youth I suff'red much
|
|
extremity
|
|
for love- very near this. I'll speak to him again.- What do
|
|
you
|
|
read, my lord?
|
|
Ham. Words, words, words.
|
|
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 satirical rogue says here that old
|
|
men
|
|
have grey 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 you yourself, sir,
|
|
should be old as I am if, like a crab, you could go backward.
|
|
|
|
Pol. [aside] Though this be madness, yet there is a method
|
|
in't.-
|
|
Will You walk out of the air, my lord?
|
|
Ham. Into my grave?
|
|
Pol. Indeed, that is out o' th' air. [Aside] How pregnant
|
|
sometimes
|
|
his replies are! a happiness that often madness hits on,
|
|
which
|
|
reason and sanity could not so prosperously be delivered of.
|
|
I
|
|
will leave him and suddenly contrive the means of meeting
|
|
between
|
|
him and my daughter.- My honourable lord, I will most humbly
|
|
take
|
|
my leave of you.
|
|
Ham. You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I will more
|
|
willingly part withal- except my life, except my life, except
|
|
my
|
|
life,
|
|
|
|
Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
|
|
|
|
Pol. Fare you well, my lord.
|
|
Ham. These tedious old fools!
|
|
Pol. You go to seek the Lord Hamlet. There he is.
|
|
Ros. [to Polonius] God save you, sir!
|
|
Exit [Polonius].
|
|
|
|
Guil. My honour'd lord!
|
|
Ros. My most dear lord!
|
|
Ham. My excellent good friends! How dost thou, Guildenstern?
|
|
Ah,
|
|
Rosencrantz! Good lads, how do ye both?
|
|
Ros. As the indifferent children of the earth.
|
|
Guil. Happy in that we are not over-happy.
|
|
On Fortune's cap we are not the very button.
|
|
Ham. Nor the soles of her shoe?
|
|
Ros. Neither, my lord.
|
|
Ham. Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of her
|
|
favours?
|
|
Guil. Faith, her privates we.
|
|
Ham. In the secret parts of Fortune? O! most true! she is a
|
|
strumpet. What news ?
|
|
Ros. None, my lord, but that the world's grown honest.
|
|
Ham. Then is doomsday near! But your news is not true. Let me
|
|
question more in particular. What have you, my good friends,
|
|
deserved at the hands of Fortune that she sends you to prison
|
|
hither?
|
|
Guil. Prison, my lord?
|
|
Ham. Denmark's a prison.
|
|
Ros. Then is the world one.
|
|
Ham. A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards, and
|
|
dungeons, Denmark being one o' th' worst.
|
|
Ros. We think not so, my lord.
|
|
Ham. Why, then 'tis none to you; for there is nothing either
|
|
good
|
|
or bad but thinking makes it so. To me it is a prison.
|
|
Ros. Why, then your ambition makes it one. 'Tis too narrow for
|
|
your
|
|
mind.
|
|
Ham. O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a
|
|
king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.
|
|
Guil. Which dreams indeed are ambition; for the very substance
|
|
of
|
|
the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.
|
|
Ham. A dream itself is but a shadow.
|
|
Ros. Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality
|
|
that
|
|
it is but a shadow's shadow.
|
|
Ham. Then are our beggars bodies, and our monarchs and
|
|
outstretch'd
|
|
heroes the beggars' shadows. Shall we to th' court? for, by
|
|
my
|
|
fay, I cannot reason.
|
|
Both. We'll wait upon you.
|
|
Ham. No such matter! I will not sort you with the rest of my
|
|
servants; for, to speak to you like an honest man, I am most
|
|
dreadfully attended. But in the beaten way of friendship,
|
|
what
|
|
make you at Elsinore?
|
|
Ros. To visit you, my lord; no other occasion.
|
|
Ham. Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks; but I thank
|
|
you;
|
|
and sure, dear friends, my thanks are too dear a halfpenny.
|
|
Were
|
|
you not sent for? Is it your own inclining? Is it a free
|
|
visitation? Come, deal justly with me. Come, come! Nay,
|
|
speak.
|
|
Guil. What should we say, my lord?
|
|
Ham. Why, anything- but to th' 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 fellowship, by the consonancy of our youth, by the
|
|
obligation of our ever-preserved 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.
|
|
Ros. [aside to Guildenstern] What say you?
|
|
Ham. [aside] 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 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, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this
|
|
majestical
|
|
roof fretted with golden fire- why, it appeareth no other
|
|
thing
|
|
to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What
|
|
a
|
|
piece of work is a 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 how like a god! the
|
|
beauty of the world, the paragon of animals! And yet to me
|
|
what
|
|
is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me- no, 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 you 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 coted
|
|
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 foil
|
|
and
|
|
target; the lover shall not sigh gratis; the humorous man
|
|
shall
|
|
end his part in peace; the clown shall make those laugh whose
|
|
lungs are tickle o' th' sere; and the lady shall say her mind
|
|
freely, or the blank verse shall halt fort. 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.
|
|
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 follow'd?
|
|
Ros. No indeed are they not.
|
|
Ham. How comes it? Do they grow rusty?
|
|
Ros. Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace; but there
|
|
is,
|
|
sir, an eyrie of children, little eyases, that cry out on the
|
|
top
|
|
of question and are most tyrannically clapp'd fort. These are
|
|
now
|
|
the fashion, and so berattle the common stages (so they call
|
|
them) that many wearing rapiers are afraid of goosequills and
|
|
dare scarce come thither.
|
|
Ham. What, are they children? Who maintains 'em? How are they
|
|
escoted? Will they pursue the quality no longer than they can
|
|
sing? Will they not say afterwards, if they should grow
|
|
themselves to common players (as it is most like, if their
|
|
means
|
|
are no better), their writers do them wrong to make them
|
|
exclaim
|
|
against their own succession.
|
|
Ros. Faith, there has been much to do on both sides; and the
|
|
nation
|
|
holds it no sin to tarre them to controversy. There was, for
|
|
a
|
|
while, no money bid for argument unless the poet and the
|
|
player
|
|
went to cuffs in the question.
|
|
Ham. Is't possible?
|
|
Guil. O, there has been much throwing about of brains.
|
|
Ham. Do the boys carry it away?
|
|
Ros. Ay, that they do, my lord- Hercules and his load too.
|
|
Ham. It is not very strange; for my uncle is King of Denmark,
|
|
and
|
|
those that would make mows at him while my father lived give
|
|
twenty, forty, fifty, a hundred ducats apiece for his picture
|
|
in
|
|
little. 'Sblood, there is something in this more than
|
|
natural, if
|
|
philosophy could find it out.
|
|
|
|
Flourish for the Players.
|
|
|
|
Guil. There are the players.
|
|
Ham. Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore. Your hands, come!
|
|
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 show fairly outwards) should more appear like
|
|
entertainment than yours. You are welcome. But my
|
|
uncle-father
|
|
and aunt-mother are deceiv'd.
|
|
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 handsaw.
|
|
|
|
Enter Polonius.
|
|
|
|
Pol. Well be with you, gentlemen!
|
|
Ham. Hark you, Guildenstern- and you too- at each ear a hearer!
|
|
That great baby you see there is not yet out of his swaddling
|
|
clouts.
|
|
Ros. Happily he's the second time come to them; for they say an
|
|
old
|
|
man is twice a child.
|
|
Ham. I will prophesy he comes to tell me of the players. Mark
|
|
it.-
|
|
You say right, sir; a Monday morning; twas so indeed.
|
|
Pol. My lord, I have news to tell you.
|
|
Ham. My lord, I have news to tell you. When Roscius was an
|
|
actor in
|
|
Rome-
|
|
Pol. The actors are come hither, my lord.
|
|
Ham. Buzz, buzz!
|
|
Pol. Upon my 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,
|
|
tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral;
|
|
scene
|
|
individable, or poem unlimited. Seneca cannot be too heavy,
|
|
nor
|
|
Plautus too light. For the law of writ and the liberty, these
|
|
are
|
|
the only men.
|
|
Ham. O Jephthah, judge of Israel, what a treasure hadst thou!
|
|
Pol. What treasure had he, my lord?
|
|
Ham. Why,
|
|
|
|
'One fair daughter, and no more,
|
|
The which he loved passing well.'
|
|
|
|
Pol. [aside] Still on my daughter.
|
|
Ham. Am I not i' th' right, old Jephthah?
|
|
Pol. If you call me Jephthah, my lord, I have a daughter that I
|
|
love passing well.
|
|
Ham. Nay, that follows not.
|
|
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 pious chanson will show you more; for
|
|
look
|
|
where my abridgment comes.
|
|
|
|
Enter four or five Players.
|
|
|
|
You are welcome, masters; welcome, all.- I am glad to see
|
|
thee
|
|
well.- Welcome, good friends.- O, my 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 mistress? By'r Lady, your
|
|
ladyship is nearer to heaven than when I saw you last by the
|
|
altitude of a chopine. Pray God your voice, like a piece of
|
|
uncurrent gold, be not crack'd within the ring.- Masters, you
|
|
are
|
|
all welcome. We'll e'en to't like French falconers, fly at
|
|
anything we see. We'll have a speech straight. Come, give us
|
|
a
|
|
taste of your quality. Come, a passionate speech.
|
|
1. Play. 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,
|
|
pleas'd
|
|
not the million, 'twas caviary to the general; but it was (as
|
|
I
|
|
receiv'd 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 indict the author of
|
|
affectation; 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 lov'd. 'Twas AEneas' tale 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-'
|
|
|
|
'Tis not so; it begins with Pyrrhus:
|
|
|
|
'The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable arms,
|
|
Black as his purpose, did the night resemble
|
|
When he lay couched in the ominous horse,
|
|
Hath now this dread and black complexion smear'd
|
|
With heraldry more dismal. Head to foot
|
|
Now is be total gules, horridly trick'd
|
|
With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons,
|
|
Bak'd and impasted with the parching streets,
|
|
That lend a tyrannous and a damned light
|
|
To their lord's murther. Roasted in wrath and fire,
|
|
And thus o'ersized with coagulate gore,
|
|
With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus
|
|
Old grandsire Priam seeks.'
|
|
|
|
So, proceed you.
|
|
Pol. Fore God, my lord, well spoken, with good accent and good
|
|
discretion.
|
|
|
|
1. Play. 'Anon he finds him,
|
|
Striking too short at Greeks. His antique sword,
|
|
Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls,
|
|
Repugnant to command. Unequal match'd,
|
|
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 this 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, seem'd 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 heavens, the rack stand still,
|
|
The bold winds 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's armour, forg'd 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 fellies 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 barber's, with your beard.- Prithee say
|
|
on.
|
|
He's for a jig or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps. Say on;
|
|
come to
|
|
Hecuba.
|
|
|
|
1. Play. 'But who, O who, had seen the mobled queen-'
|
|
|
|
Ham. 'The mobled queen'?
|
|
Pol. That's good! 'Mobled queen' is good.
|
|
|
|
1. Play. 'Run barefoot up and down, threat'ning the flames
|
|
With bisson rheum; a clout upon that head
|
|
Where late the diadem stood, and for a robe,
|
|
About her lank and all o'erteemed loins,
|
|
A blanket, in the alarm of fear caught up-
|
|
Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steep'd
|
|
'Gainst Fortune's 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 husband's 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, whe'r he has not turn'd his colour, and has tears
|
|
in's
|
|
eyes. Prithee 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 bestow'd? Do you
|
|
hear? Let them be well us'd; 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. God's bodykins, man, much better! Use every man after his
|
|
desert, and who should 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.
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|
Ham. Follow him, friends. We'll hear a play to-morrow.
|
|
Exeunt Polonius and Players [except the First].
|
|
Dost thou hear me, old friend? Can you play 'The Murther of
|
|
Gonzago'?
|
|
1. Play. Ay, my lord.
|
|
Ham. We'll ha't to-morrow night. You could, for a need, study a
|
|
speech of some dozen or sixteen lines which I would set down
|
|
and
|
|
insert in't, could you not?
|
|
1. Play. Ay, my lord.
|
|
Ham. Very well. Follow that lord- and look you mock him not.
|
|
[Exit First Player.]
|
|
My good friends, I'll leave you till night. You are welcome
|
|
to
|
|
Elsinore.
|
|
Ros. Good my lord!
|
|
Ham. Ay, so, God b' wi' ye!
|
|
[Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
|
|
Now I am alone.
|
|
O what a rogue and peasant 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 his visage wann'd,
|
|
Tears in his eyes, distraction in's 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 the cue 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 appal the free,
|
|
Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed
|
|
The very faculties of eyes and ears.
|
|
Yet I,
|
|
A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, 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?
|
|
Tweaks me by th' nose? gives me the lie i' th' throat
|
|
As deep as to the lungs? Who does me this, ha?
|
|
'Swounds, I should take it! for it cannot be
|
|
But I am pigeon-liver'd and lack gall
|
|
To make oppression bitter, or ere this
|
|
I should have fatted all the region kites
|
|
With this slave's offal. Bloody bawdy villain!
|
|
Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!
|
|
O, vengeance!
|
|
Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,
|
|
That I, the son of a dear father murther'd,
|
|
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,
|
|
A scullion!
|
|
Fie upon't! foh! About, my brain! Hum, 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 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 but 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 melancholy,
|
|
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.
|
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<<THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION OF THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM
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ACT III. Scene I.
|
|
Elsinore. A room in the Castle.
|
|
|
|
Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern,
|
|
and Lords.
|
|
|
|
King. And can you by no drift of circumstance
|
|
Get from him why he puts on this confusion,
|
|
Grating so harshly all his days of quiet
|
|
With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?
|
|
Ros. He does confess he feels himself distracted,
|
|
But from what cause he will by no means speak.
|
|
Guil. Nor do we find him forward to be sounded,
|
|
But with a crafty madness keeps aloof
|
|
When we would bring him on to some confession
|
|
Of his true state.
|
|
Queen. Did he receive you well?
|
|
Ros. Most like a gentleman.
|
|
Guil. But with much forcing of his disposition.
|
|
Ros. Niggard of question, but of our demands
|
|
Most free in his reply.
|
|
Queen. Did you assay him
|
|
To any pastime?
|
|
Ros. Madam, it so fell out that certain players
|
|
We o'erraught on the way. Of these we told him,
|
|
And there did seem in him a kind of joy
|
|
To hear of it. They are here about the court,
|
|
And, as I think, they have already order
|
|
This night to play before him.
|
|
Pol. 'Tis most true;
|
|
And he beseech'd me to entreat your Majesties
|
|
To hear and see the matter.
|
|
King. With all my heart, and it doth much content me
|
|
To hear him so inclin'd.
|
|
Good gentlemen, give him a further edge
|
|
And drive his purpose on to these delights.
|
|
Ros. We shall, my lord.
|
|
Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
|
|
King. Sweet Gertrude, leave us too;
|
|
For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither,
|
|
That he, as 'twere by accident, may here
|
|
Affront Ophelia.
|
|
Her father and myself (lawful espials)
|
|
Will so bestow ourselves that, seeing unseen,
|
|
We may of their encounter frankly judge
|
|
And gather by him, as he is behav'd,
|
|
If't be th' affliction of his love, or no,
|
|
That thus he suffers for.
|
|
Queen. I shall obey you;
|
|
And for your part, Ophelia, I do wish
|
|
That your good beauties be the happy cause
|
|
Of Hamlet's wildness. So shall I hope your virtues
|
|
Will bring him to his wonted way again,
|
|
To both your honours.
|
|
Oph. Madam, I wish it may.
|
|
[Exit Queen.]
|
|
Pol. Ophelia, walk you here.- Gracious, so please you,
|
|
We will bestow ourselves.- [To Ophelia] Read on this book,
|
|
That show of such an exercise may colour
|
|
Your loneliness.- We are oft to blame in this,
|
|
'Tis too much prov'd, that with devotion's visage
|
|
And pious action we do sugar o'er
|
|
The Devil himself.
|
|
King. [aside] O, 'tis too true!
|
|
How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!
|
|
The harlot's cheek, beautied with plast'ring art,
|
|
Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it
|
|
Than is my deed to my most painted word.
|
|
O heavy burthen!
|
|
Pol. I hear him coming. Let's withdraw, my lord.
|
|
Exeunt King and Polonius].
|
|
|
|
Enter Hamlet.
|
|
|
|
Ham. To be, or not to be- that is the question:
|
|
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
|
|
The slings and arrows of outrageous 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 heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
|
|
That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation
|
|
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die- to sleep.
|
|
To sleep- perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub!
|
|
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
|
|
When we have shuffled off this 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' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
|
|
The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay,
|
|
The insolence of office, and the spurns
|
|
That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,
|
|
When he himself might his quietus make
|
|
With a bare bodkin? Who would these fardels bear,
|
|
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
|
|
But that the dread of something after death-
|
|
The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn
|
|
No traveller returns- puzzles the will,
|
|
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
|
|
Than fly to others that we know not of?
|
|
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
|
|
And thus the native hue of resolution
|
|
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of 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 orisons
|
|
Be all my sins rememb'red.
|
|
Oph. Good my lord,
|
|
How does your honour for this many a day?
|
|
Ham. I humbly thank you; well, well, well.
|
|
Oph. My lord, I have remembrances of yours
|
|
That I have longed long to re-deliver.
|
|
I pray you, now receive them.
|
|
Ham. No, not I!
|
|
I never gave you aught.
|
|
Oph. My honour'd lord, you know right well you did,
|
|
And with them words of so sweet breath compos'd
|
|
As made the things more rich. Their perfume lost,
|
|
Take these again; for to the noble mind
|
|
Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.
|
|
There, my lord.
|
|
Ham. Ha, ha! Are you honest?
|
|
Oph. My lord?
|
|
Ham. Are you fair?
|
|
Oph. What means your lordship?
|
|
Ham. That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit
|
|
no
|
|
discourse to your beauty.
|
|
Oph. Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with
|
|
honesty?
|
|
Ham. Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner transform
|
|
honesty from what it is to a bawd than the force of honesty
|
|
can
|
|
translate beauty into his likeness. This was sometime a
|
|
paradox,
|
|
but now the time gives it proof. I did love you once.
|
|
Oph. Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.
|
|
Ham. You should not have believ'd me; for virtue cannot so
|
|
inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it. I loved
|
|
you
|
|
not.
|
|
Oph. I was the more deceived.
|
|
Ham. Get thee to a nunnery! Why wouldst thou be a breeder of
|
|
sinners? I am myself indifferent honest, but yet I could
|
|
accuse
|
|
me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne
|
|
me.
|
|
I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious; with more offences 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
|
|
all;
|
|
believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery. Where's your
|
|
father?
|
|
Oph. At home, my lord.
|
|
Ham. Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool
|
|
nowhere but in's own house. Farewell.
|
|
Oph. O, help him, you sweet heavens!
|
|
Ham. If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague for thy
|
|
dowry:
|
|
be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not
|
|
escape
|
|
calumny. Get thee to a nunnery. Go, farewell. Or if thou wilt
|
|
needs marry, marry a fool; for wise men know well enough what
|
|
monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go; and quickly too.
|
|
Farewell.
|
|
Oph. O heavenly powers, restore him!
|
|
Ham. I have heard of your paintings too, well enough. God hath
|
|
given you one face, and you make yourselves another. You jig,
|
|
you
|
|
amble, and you lisp; you nickname God's 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.
|
|
Oph. O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!
|
|
The courtier's, scholar's, soldier's, eye, tongue, sword,
|
|
Th' expectancy 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 suck'd the honey of his music vows,
|
|
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,
|
|
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh;
|
|
That unmatch'd form and feature of blown youth
|
|
Blasted with ecstasy. O, woe is me
|
|
T' have seen what I have seen, see what I see!
|
|
|
|
Enter King and Polonius.
|
|
|
|
King. Love? his affections do not that way tend;
|
|
Nor what he spake, though it lack'd form a little,
|
|
Was not like madness. There's something in his soul
|
|
O'er which his melancholy sits on brood;
|
|
And I do doubt the hatch and the disclose
|
|
Will be some danger; which for to prevent,
|
|
I have in quick determination
|
|
Thus set it down: he shall with speed to England
|
|
For the demand of our neglected tribute.
|
|
Haply the seas, and countries different,
|
|
With variable objects, shall expel
|
|
This something-settled matter in his heart,
|
|
Whereon his brains still beating puts him thus
|
|
From fashion of himself. What think you on't?
|
|
Pol. It shall do well. But yet do I believe
|
|
The origin and commencement of his grief
|
|
Sprung from neglected love.- How now, Ophelia?
|
|
You need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said.
|
|
We heard it all.- My lord, do as you please;
|
|
But if you hold it fit, after the play
|
|
Let his queen mother all alone entreat him
|
|
To show 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 unwatch'd go. Exeunt.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Scene II.
|
|
Elsinore. hall in the Castle.
|
|
|
|
Enter Hamlet and three of the Players.
|
|
|
|
Ham. Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounc'd it to you,
|
|
trippingly on the tongue. But if you mouth it, as many of our
|
|
players do, I had as live 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
|
|
tatters, to very rags, to split the cars of the groundlings,
|
|
who
|
|
(for the most part) are capable of nothing but inexplicable
|
|
dumb
|
|
shows and noise. I would have such a fellow whipp'd for
|
|
o'erdoing
|
|
Termagant. It out-herods Herod. Pray you avoid it.
|
|
Player. I warrant your honour.
|
|
Ham. Be not too tame neither; but let your own discretion be
|
|
your
|
|
tutor. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action;
|
|
with
|
|
this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of
|
|
nature: for anything so overdone is from the purpose of
|
|
playing,
|
|
whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as
|
|
'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show Virtue her own
|
|
feature,
|
|
scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time
|
|
his
|
|
form and pressure. Now this overdone, or come tardy off,
|
|
though
|
|
it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious
|
|
grieve; the censure of the which one must in your allowance
|
|
o'erweigh 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 gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have
|
|
so
|
|
strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of Nature's
|
|
journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they
|
|
imitated
|
|
humanity so abominably.
|
|
Player. I hope we have reform'd that indifferently with us,
|
|
sir.
|
|
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 shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it.
|
|
Go
|
|
make you ready.
|
|
Exeunt Players.
|
|
|
|
Enter Polonius, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern.
|
|
|
|
How now, my lord? Will the King hear this piece of work?
|
|
Pol. And the Queen too, and that presently.
|
|
Ham. Bid the players make haste, [Exit Polonius.] Will you two
|
|
help to hasten them?
|
|
Both. We will, my lord. Exeunt they two.
|
|
Ham. What, ho, Horatio!
|
|
|
|
Enter Horatio.
|
|
|
|
Hor. Here, sweet lord, at your service.
|
|
Ham. Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man
|
|
As e'er my conversation cop'd withal.
|
|
Hor. O, my dear lord!
|
|
Ham. Nay, do not think I flatter;
|
|
For what advancement may I hope from thee,
|
|
That no revenue hast but thy good spirits
|
|
To feed and clothe thee? Why should the poor be flatter'd?
|
|
No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp,
|
|
And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee
|
|
Where thrift may follow fawning. Dost thou hear?
|
|
Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice
|
|
And could of men distinguish, her election
|
|
Hath scald thee for herself. For thou hast been
|
|
As one, in suff'ring all, that suffers nothing;
|
|
A man that Fortune's buffets and rewards
|
|
Hast ta'en with equal thanks; and blest are those
|
|
Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled
|
|
That they are not a pipe for Fortune's finger
|
|
To sound what stop she please. Give me that man
|
|
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
|
|
In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart,
|
|
As I do thee. Something too much of this I
|
|
There is a play to-night before the King.
|
|
One scene of it comes near the circumstance,
|
|
Which I have told thee, of my father's death.
|
|
I prithee, when thou seest that act afoot,
|
|
Even with the very comment of thy soul
|
|
Observe my uncle. If his occulted guilt
|
|
Do not itself unkennel 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 join
|
|
In censure of his seeming.
|
|
Hor. Well, my lord.
|
|
If he steal aught the whilst this play is playing,
|
|
And scape detecting, I will pay the theft.
|
|
|
|
Sound a flourish. [Enter Trumpets and Kettledrums. Danish
|
|
march. [Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz,
|
|
Guildenstern, and other Lords attendant, with the Guard
|
|
carrying torches.
|
|
|
|
Ham. They are coming to the play. I must be idle.
|
|
Get you a place.
|
|
King. How fares our cousin Hamlet?
|
|
Ham. Excellent, i' faith; of the chameleon's dish. I eat the
|
|
air,
|
|
promise-cramm'd. You cannot feed capons so.
|
|
King. I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet. These words are
|
|
not
|
|
mine.
|
|
Ham. No, nor mine now. [To Polonius] My lord, you play'd once
|
|
i' th' 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 Caesar; 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. Ay, my lord. They stay upon your patience.
|
|
Queen. Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me.
|
|
Ham. No, good mother. Here's metal more attractive.
|
|
Pol. [to the King] O, ho! do you mark that?
|
|
Ham. Lady, shall I lie in your lap?
|
|
[Sits down at Ophelia's feet.]
|
|
|
|
Oph. No, my lord.
|
|
Ham. I mean, my head upon your lap?
|
|
Oph. Ay, my lord.
|
|
Ham. Do you think I meant country matters?
|
|
Oph. I think nothing, my lord.
|
|
Ham. That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs.
|
|
Oph. What is, my lord?
|
|
Ham. Nothing.
|
|
Oph. You are merry, my lord.
|
|
Ham. Who, I?
|
|
Oph. Ay, my lord.
|
|
Ham. O God, your only jig-maker! What should a man do but be
|
|
merry?
|
|
For look you how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father
|
|
died
|
|
within 's two hours.
|
|
Oph. Nay 'tis twice two months, my lord.
|
|
Ham. So long? Nay then, let the devil wear black, for I'll have
|
|
a
|
|
suit of sables. O heavens! die two months ago, and not
|
|
forgotten
|
|
yet? Then there's hope a great man's memory may outlive his
|
|
life
|
|
half a year. But, by'r Lady, 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!'
|
|
|
|
Hautboys play. The dumb show enters.
|
|
|
|
Enter a King and a Queen very lovingly; the Queen embracing
|
|
him and he her. She kneels, and makes show of protestation
|
|
unto him. He takes her up, and declines his head upon her
|
|
neck. He lays him down upon a bank of flowers. She, seeing
|
|
him asleep, leaves him. Anon comes in a fellow, takes off his
|
|
crown, kisses it, pours poison in the sleeper's ears, and
|
|
leaves him. The Queen returns, finds the King dead, and makes
|
|
passionate action. The Poisoner with some three or four
|
|
Mutes,
|
|
comes in again, seem to condole with her. The dead body is
|
|
carried away. The Poisoner wooes the Queen with gifts; she
|
|
seems harsh and unwilling awhile, but in the end accepts
|
|
his love.
|
|
Exeunt.
|
|
|
|
Oph. What means this, my lord?
|
|
Ham. Marry, this is miching malhecho; it means mischief.
|
|
Oph. Belike this show imports the argument of the play.
|
|
|
|
Enter Prologue.
|
|
|
|
Ham. We shall know by this fellow. The players cannot keep
|
|
counsel;
|
|
they'll tell all.
|
|
Oph. Will he tell us what this show meant?
|
|
Ham. Ay, or any show that you'll show him. Be not you asham'd
|
|
to
|
|
show, he'll not shame to tell you what it means.
|
|
Oph. You are naught, you are naught! I'll mark the play.
|
|
|
|
Pro. For us, and for our tragedy,
|
|
Here stooping to your clemency,
|
|
We beg your hearing patiently. [Exit.]
|
|
|
|
Ham. Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?
|
|
Oph. 'Tis brief, my lord.
|
|
Ham. As woman's love.
|
|
|
|
Enter [two Players as] King and Queen.
|
|
|
|
King. Full thirty times hath Phoebus' cart gone round
|
|
Neptune's salt wash and Tellus' orbed ground,
|
|
And thirty dozed moons with borrowed sheen
|
|
About the world have times twelve thirties been,
|
|
Since love our hearts, and Hymen did our hands,
|
|
Unite comutual in most sacred bands.
|
|
Queen. So many journeys may the sun and moon
|
|
Make us again count o'er ere love be done!
|
|
But woe is me! you are so sick of late,
|
|
So far from cheer and from your former state.
|
|
That I distrust you. Yet, though I distrust,
|
|
Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must;
|
|
For women's fear and love holds quantity,
|
|
In neither aught, or in extremity.
|
|
Now what my love is, proof hath made you know;
|
|
And as my love is siz'd, my fear is so.
|
|
Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear;
|
|
Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.
|
|
King. Faith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly too;
|
|
My operant 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.
|
|
When second husband let me be accurst!
|
|
None wed the second but who killed the first.
|
|
|
|
Ham. [aside] Wormwood, 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, but poor validity;
|
|
Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree,
|
|
But fill unshaken when they mellow be.
|
|
Most necessary 'tis that we forget
|
|
To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt.
|
|
What to ourselves 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;
|
|
Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident.
|
|
This world is not for aye, nor 'tis not 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.
|
|
So think thou wilt no second husband wed;
|
|
But die thy thoughts 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,
|
|
An anchor's 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,
|
|
If, once a widow, ever I be wife!
|
|
|
|
Ham. If she should break it now!
|
|
|
|
King. 'Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here awhile.
|
|
My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile
|
|
The tedious day with sleep.
|
|
Queen. Sleep rock thy brain,
|
|
[He] sleeps.
|
|
And never come mischance between us twain!
|
|
Exit.
|
|
|
|
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 i'
|
|
th'
|
|
world.
|
|
King. What do you call the play?
|
|
Ham. 'The Mousetrap.' Marry, how? Tropically. This play is the
|
|
image of a murther done in Vienna. Gonzago is the duke's
|
|
name;
|
|
his wife, Baptista. You shall see anon. 'Tis a knavish piece
|
|
of
|
|
work; but what o' that? Your Majesty, and we that have free
|
|
souls, it touches us not. Let the gall'd jade winch; our
|
|
withers
|
|
are unwrung.
|
|
|
|
Enter Lucianus.
|
|
|
|
This is one Lucianus, nephew to the King.
|
|
Oph. You are as good as a chorus, my lord.
|
|
Ham. I could interpret between you and your love, if I could
|
|
see
|
|
the puppets dallying.
|
|
Oph. You are keen, my lord, you are keen.
|
|
Ham. It would cost you a groaning to take off my edge.
|
|
Oph. Still better, and worse.
|
|
Ham. So you must take your husbands.- Begin, murtherer. Pox,
|
|
leave
|
|
thy damnable faces, and begin! Come, the croaking raven doth
|
|
bellow for revenge.
|
|
|
|
Luc. Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing;
|
|
Confederate season, else no creature seeing;
|
|
Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected,
|
|
With Hecate's ban thrice blasted, thrice infected,
|
|
Thy natural magic and dire property
|
|
On wholesome life usurp immediately.
|
|
Pours the poison in his ears.
|
|
|
|
Ham. He poisons him i' th' garden for's 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.
|
|
Oph. The King rises.
|
|
Ham. What, frighted with false fire?
|
|
Queen. How fares my lord?
|
|
Pol. Give o'er the play.
|
|
King. Give me some light! Away!
|
|
All. Lights, lights, lights!
|
|
Exeunt all but Hamlet and Horatio.
|
|
Ham. Why, let the strucken deer go weep,
|
|
The hart ungalled play;
|
|
For some must watch, while some must sleep:
|
|
Thus runs the world away.
|
|
Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers- if the rest of
|
|
my
|
|
fortunes turn Turk with me-with two Provincial roses on my
|
|
raz'd
|
|
shoes, get me a fellowship in a cry of players, sir?
|
|
Hor. Half a share.
|
|
Ham. A whole one I!
|
|
For thou dost know, O Damon dear,
|
|
This realm dismantled was
|
|
Of Jove himself; and now reigns here
|
|
A very, very- pajock.
|
|
Hor. You might have rhym'd.
|
|
Ham. O good Horatio, I'll take the ghost's word for a thousand
|
|
pound! Didst perceive?
|
|
Hor. Very well, my lord.
|
|
Ham. Upon the talk of the poisoning?
|
|
Hor. I did very well note him.
|
|
Ham. Aha! Come, some music! Come, the recorders!
|
|
For if the King like not the comedy,
|
|
Why then, belike he likes it not, perdy.
|
|
Come, some music!
|
|
|
|
Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
|
|
|
|
Guil. Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you.
|
|
Ham. Sir, a whole history.
|
|
Guil. The King, sir-
|
|
Ham. Ay, sir, what of him?
|
|
Guil. Is in his retirement, marvellous distemper'd.
|
|
Ham. With drink, sir?
|
|
Guil. No, my lord; rather with choler.
|
|
Ham. Your wisdom should show itself more richer to signify this
|
|
to
|
|
the doctor; for me to put him to his purgation would perhaps
|
|
plunge him into far more choler.
|
|
Guil. Good my lord, put your discourse into some frame, and
|
|
start
|
|
not so wildly from my affair.
|
|
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.
|
|
Guil. Nay, good my lord, this courtesy is not of the right
|
|
breed.
|
|
If it shall please you to make me a wholesome answer, I will
|
|
do
|
|
your mother's commandment; if not, your pardon and my return
|
|
shall be the end of my business.
|
|
Ham. Sir, I cannot.
|
|
Guil. What, my lord?
|
|
Ham. Make you a wholesome answer; my wit's diseas'd. But, sir,
|
|
such
|
|
answer is 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 struck her into
|
|
amazement and admiration.
|
|
Ham. O wonderful son, that can so stonish a mother! But is
|
|
there no
|
|
sequel at the heels of this mother's admiration? Impart.
|
|
Ros. She desires to speak with you in her closet ere 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 your cause of 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?
|
|
Ham. Ay, sir, but 'while the grass grows'- the proverb is
|
|
something
|
|
musty.
|
|
|
|
Enter the Players with recorders.
|
|
|
|
O, 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 do beseech you.
|
|
Guil. I know, no touch of it, my lord.
|
|
Ham. It is as easy as lying. Govern these ventages with your
|
|
fingers and thumbs, give it breath with your mouth, and it
|
|
will
|
|
discourse most eloquent music. Look you, these are the stops.
|
|
Guil. But these cannot I command to any utt'rance 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 the top of my compass; and there is much
|
|
music,
|
|
excellent voice, in this little organ, yet cannot you make it
|
|
speak. 'Sblood, do you think I am easier to be play'd on than
|
|
a
|
|
pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret
|
|
me,
|
|
you cannot play upon me.
|
|
|
|
Enter Polonius.
|
|
|
|
God bless you, sir!
|
|
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. By th' mass, and 'tis like a camel indeed.
|
|
Ham. Methinks it is like a weasel.
|
|
Pol. It is back'd like a weasel.
|
|
Ham. Or like a whale.
|
|
Pol. Very like a whale.
|
|
Ham. Then will I come to my mother by-and-by.- They fool me to
|
|
the
|
|
top of my bent.- I will come by-and-by.
|
|
Pol. I will say so. Exit.
|
|
Ham. 'By-and-by' is easily said.- Leave me, friends.
|
|
[Exeunt all but Hamlet.]
|
|
|
|
'Tis now the very witching time of night,
|
|
When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out
|
|
Contagion to this world. Now could I drink hot blood
|
|
And do such bitter business as the day
|
|
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;
|
|
I will speak daggers to her, but use none.
|
|
My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites-
|
|
How in my words somever she be shent,
|
|
To give them seals never, my soul, consent! Exit.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Scene III.
|
|
A room in the Castle.
|
|
|
|
Enter King, Rosencrantz, 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
|
|
Hazard so near us as doth hourly grow
|
|
Out of his lunacies.
|
|
Guil. We will ourselves provide.
|
|
Most holy and religious fear it is
|
|
To keep those many 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 itself from noyance; but much more
|
|
That spirit upon whose weal depends and rests
|
|
The lives of many. The cesse of majesty
|
|
Dies not alone, but like a gulf doth draw
|
|
What's near it with it. It is a massy wheel,
|
|
Fix'd on the summit of the highest mount,
|
|
To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things
|
|
Are mortis'd and adjoin'd; which when it falls,
|
|
Each small annexment, petty consequence,
|
|
Attends the boist'rous ruin. Never alone
|
|
Did the king sigh, but with a general groan.
|
|
King. Arm you, I pray you, to th', speedy voyage;
|
|
For we will fetters put upon this fear,
|
|
Which now goes too free-footed.
|
|
Both. We will haste us.
|
|
Exeunt Gentlemen.
|
|
|
|
Enter Polonius.
|
|
|
|
Pol. My lord, he's going to his mother's closet.
|
|
Behind the arras I'll convey myself
|
|
To hear the process. I'll warrant she'll 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'erhear
|
|
The speech, of vantage. Fare you well, my liege.
|
|
I'll call upon you ere you go to bed
|
|
And tell you what I know.
|
|
King. Thanks, dear my lord.
|
|
Exit [Polonius].
|
|
O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven;
|
|
It hath the primal eldest curse upon't,
|
|
A brother's murther! Pray can I not,
|
|
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 itself with brother's 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 ere we come to fall,
|
|
Or pardon'd being down? Then I'll look up;
|
|
My fault is past. But, O, what form of prayer
|
|
Can serve my turn? 'Forgive me my foul murther'?
|
|
That cannot be; since I am still possess'd
|
|
Of those effects for which I did the murther-
|
|
My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.
|
|
May one be pardon'd and retain th' offence?
|
|
In the corrupted currents of this world
|
|
Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice,
|
|
And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself
|
|
Buys out the law; but 'tis not so above.
|
|
There is no shuffling; there the action lies
|
|
In his true nature, and we ourselves 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 engag'd! 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. He kneels.
|
|
|
|
Enter Hamlet.
|
|
|
|
Ham. Now might I do it pat, now he is praying;
|
|
And now I'll do't. And so he goes to heaven,
|
|
And so am I reveng'd. That would be scann'd.
|
|
A villain kills my father; and for that,
|
|
I, his sole son, do this same villain send
|
|
To heaven.
|
|
Why, this is hire and salary, not revenge!
|
|
He took my father grossly, 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 hent.
|
|
When he is drunk asleep; or in his rage;
|
|
Or in th' incestuous pleasure of his bed;
|
|
At gaming, swearing, or about some act
|
|
That has no relish 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 physic but prolongs thy sickly days. Exit.
|
|
King. [rises] My words fly up, my thoughts remain below.
|
|
Words without thoughts never to heaven go. Exit.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Scene IV.
|
|
The Queen's closet.
|
|
|
|
Enter Queen and Polonius.
|
|
|
|
Pol. He will come straight. Look you lay home to him.
|
|
Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear with,
|
|
And that your Grace hath screen'd and stood between
|
|
Much heat and him. I'll silence me even here.
|
|
Pray you be round with him.
|
|
Ham. (within) Mother, mother, mother!
|
|
Queen. I'll warrant you; fear me not. Withdraw; I hear him
|
|
coming.
|
|
[Polonius hides behind the arras.]
|
|
|
|
Enter Hamlet.
|
|
|
|
Ham. Now, mother, what's the matter?
|
|
Queen. Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.
|
|
Ham. Mother, you have my father much offended.
|
|
Queen. Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.
|
|
Ham. Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.
|
|
Queen. Why, how now, Hamlet?
|
|
Ham. What's the matter now?
|
|
Queen. Have you forgot me?
|
|
Ham. No, by the rood, not so!
|
|
You are the Queen, your husband's brother's wife,
|
|
And (would it were not so!) you are my mother.
|
|
Queen. Nay, then I'll set those to you that can speak.
|
|
Ham. Come, come, and sit you down. You shall not budge I
|
|
You go not till I set you up a glass
|
|
Where you may see the inmost part of you.
|
|
Queen. What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murther me?
|
|
Help, help, ho!
|
|
Pol. [behind] What, ho! help, help, help!
|
|
Ham. [draws] How now? a rat? Dead for a ducat, dead!
|
|
[Makes a pass through the arras and] kills Polonius.
|
|
Pol. [behind] O, I am slain!
|
|
Queen. O me, what hast thou done?
|
|
Ham. Nay, I know not. Is it the King?
|
|
Queen. O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!
|
|
Ham. A bloody deed- almost as bad, good mother,
|
|
As kill a king, and marry with his brother.
|
|
Queen. As kill a king?
|
|
Ham. Ay, lady, it was my word.
|
|
[Lifts up the arras and sees Polonius.]
|
|
Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!
|
|
I took thee for thy better. Take thy fortune.
|
|
Thou find'st to be too busy is some danger.
|
|
Leave wringing of your hinds. 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 is proof and bulwark against sense.
|
|
Queen. What have I done that thou dar'st wag thy tongue
|
|
In noise so rude against me?
|
|
Ham. Such an act
|
|
That blurs the grace and blush of modesty;
|
|
Calls virtue hypocrite; 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. O, such a deed
|
|
As from the body of contraction plucks
|
|
The very soul, and sweet religion makes
|
|
A rhapsody of words! Heaven's face doth glow;
|
|
Yea, this solidity and compound mass,
|
|
With tristful visage, as against the doom,
|
|
Is thought-sick at the act.
|
|
Queen. Ay me, what act,
|
|
That roars so loud and thunders in the index?
|
|
Ham. Look here upon th's picture, and on this,
|
|
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
|
|
See what a grace was seated on this brow;
|
|
Hyperion's 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 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
|
|
Blasting his wholesome 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 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,
|
|
Else could you not have motion; but sure that sense
|
|
Is apoplex'd; for madness would not err,
|
|
Nor sense to ecstacy was ne'er so thrall'd
|
|
But it reserv'd some quantity of choice
|
|
To serve in such a difference. What devil was't
|
|
That thus hath cozen'd you at hoodman-blind?
|
|
Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight,
|
|
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,
|
|
If thou canst mutine in a matron's bones,
|
|
To flaming youth let virtue be as wax
|
|
And melt in her own fire. Proclaim no shame
|
|
When the compulsive ardour gives the charge,
|
|
Since frost itself as actively doth burn,
|
|
And reason panders will.
|
|
Queen. O Hamlet, speak no more!
|
|
Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul,
|
|
And there I see such black and grained spots
|
|
As will not leave their tinct.
|
|
Ham. Nay, but to live
|
|
In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed,
|
|
Stew'd in corruption, honeying and making love
|
|
Over the nasty sty!
|
|
Queen. 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 is not twentieth part the tithe
|
|
Of your precedent lord; a vice of kings;
|
|
A cutpurse of the empire and the rule,
|
|
That from a shelf the precious diadem stole
|
|
And put it in his pocket!
|
|
Queen. No more!
|
|
|
|
Enter the Ghost in his nightgown.
|
|
|
|
Ham. A king of shreds and patches!-
|
|
Save me and hover o'er me with your wings,
|
|
You heavenly guards! What would your gracious figure?
|
|
Queen. Alas, he's mad!
|
|
Ham. Do you not come your tardy son to chide,
|
|
That, laps'd in time and passion, lets go by
|
|
Th' important acting of your dread 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 fighting soul
|
|
Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works.
|
|
Speak to her, Hamlet.
|
|
Ham. How is it with you, lady?
|
|
Queen. Alas, how is't with you,
|
|
That you do bend your eye on vacancy,
|
|
And with th' encorporal air do hold discourse?
|
|
Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep;
|
|
And, as the sleeping soldiers in th' alarm,
|
|
Your bedded hairs, like life in excrements,
|
|
Start up and stand an end. O gentle son,
|
|
Upon the beat and flame of thy distemper
|
|
Sprinkle cool patience! Whereon do you look?
|
|
Ham. On him, on him! Look you how pale he glares!
|
|
His form and cause conjoin'd, preaching to stones,
|
|
Would make them capable.- Do not look upon me,
|
|
Lest with this piteous action you convert
|
|
My stern effects. Then what I have to do
|
|
Will want true colour- tears perchance for blood.
|
|
Queen. To whom do you speak this?
|
|
Ham. Do you see nothing there?
|
|
Queen. Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.
|
|
Ham. Nor did you nothing hear?
|
|
Queen. No, nothing but ourselves.
|
|
Ham. Why, look you there! Look how it steals away!
|
|
My father, in his habit as he liv'd!
|
|
Look where he goes even now out at the portal!
|
|
Exit Ghost.
|
|
Queen. This is the very coinage of your brain.
|
|
This bodiless creation ecstasy
|
|
Is very cunning in.
|
|
Ham. Ecstasy?
|
|
My pulse as yours doth temperately keep time
|
|
And makes as healthful music. It is not madness
|
|
That I have utt'red. Bring me to the test,
|
|
And I the matter will reword; which madness
|
|
Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,
|
|
Lay not that flattering unction to your soul
|
|
That not your trespass but my madness speaks.
|
|
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place,
|
|
Whiles rank corruption, mining all within,
|
|
Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven;
|
|
Repent what's past; avoid what is to come;
|
|
And do not spread the compost on the weeds
|
|
To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue;
|
|
For in the fatness of these pursy times
|
|
Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg-
|
|
Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good.
|
|
Queen. O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.
|
|
Ham. O, throw away the worser part of it,
|
|
And live the purer with the other half,
|
|
Good night- but go not to my uncle's bed.
|
|
Assume a virtue, if you have it not.
|
|
That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat
|
|
Of habits evil, 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 easy;
|
|
For use almost can change the stamp of nature,
|
|
And either [master] the devil, or throw him out
|
|
With wondrous potency. Once more, good night;
|
|
And when you are desirous to be blest,
|
|
I'll blessing beg of you.- For this same lord,
|
|
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.
|
|
Queen. What shall I do?
|
|
Ham. Not this, by no means, that I bid you do:
|
|
Let the bloat King tempt you again to bed;
|
|
Pinch wanton on your cheek; call you his mouse;
|
|
And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses,
|
|
Or paddling 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 hide? Who would do so?
|
|
No, in despite of sense and secrecy,
|
|
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.
|
|
Queen. Be thou assur'd, if words be made of breath,
|
|
And breath of life, I have no life to breathe
|
|
What thou hast said to me.
|
|
Ham. I must to England; you know that?
|
|
Queen. Alack,
|
|
I had forgot! 'Tis so concluded on.
|
|
Ham. There's letters seal'd; and my two schoolfellows,
|
|
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 enginer
|
|
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 peating knave.
|
|
Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you.
|
|
Good night, mother.
|
|
[Exit the Queen. Then] Exit Hamlet, tugging in
|
|
Polonius.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<<THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION OF THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM
|
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SHAKESPEARE IS COPYRIGHT 1990-1993 BY WORLD LIBRARY, INC., AND IS
|
|
PROVIDED BY PROJECT GUTENBERG ETEXT OF CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY
|
|
WITH PERMISSION. ELECTRONIC AND MACHINE READABLE COPIES MAY BE
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DISTRIBUTED SO LONG AS SUCH COPIES (1) ARE FOR YOUR OR OTHERS
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PERSONAL USE ONLY, AND (2) ARE NOT DISTRIBUTED OR USED
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SERVICE THAT CHARGES FOR DOWNLOAD TIME OR FOR MEMBERSHIP.>>
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|
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|
ACT IV. Scene I.
|
|
Elsinore. A room in the Castle.
|
|
|
|
Enter King and Queen, with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
|
|
|
|
King. There's matter in these sighs. These profound heaves
|
|
You must translate; 'tis fit we understand them.
|
|
Where is your son?
|
|
Queen. Bestow this place on us a little while.
|
|
[Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.]
|
|
Ah, mine own lord, what have I seen to-night!
|
|
King. What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?
|
|
Queen. 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 yourself, to us, to every one.
|
|
Alas, how shall this bloody deed be answer'd?
|
|
It will be laid to us, whose providence
|
|
Should have kept short, restrain'd, and out of haunt
|
|
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?
|
|
Queen. To draw apart the body he hath kill'd;
|
|
O'er whom his very madness, like some ore
|
|
Among a mineral of metals base,
|
|
Shows itself pure. He weeps for what is done.
|
|
King. O Gertrude, 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
|
|
Both countenance and excuse. Ho, Guildenstern!
|
|
|
|
Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
|
|
|
|
Friends both, go join you with some further aid.
|
|
Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain,
|
|
And from his mother's closet hath he dragg'd him.
|
|
Go seek him out; speak fair, and bring the body
|
|
Into the chapel. I pray you haste in this.
|
|
Exeunt [Rosencrantz and Guildenstern].
|
|
Come, Gertrude, we'll call up our wisest friends
|
|
And let them know both what we mean to do
|
|
And what's untimely done. [So haply slander-]
|
|
Whose whisper o'er the world's 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.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Scene II.
|
|
Elsinore. A passage in the Castle.
|
|
|
|
Enter Hamlet.
|
|
|
|
Ham. Safely stow'd.
|
|
Gentlemen. (within) Hamlet! Lord Hamlet!
|
|
Ham. But soft! What noise? Who calls on Hamlet? O, here they
|
|
come.
|
|
|
|
Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
|
|
|
|
Ros. What have you done, my lord, with the dead body?
|
|
Ham. Compounded it with dust, whereto 'tis kin.
|
|
Ros. Tell us where 'tis, that we may take it thence
|
|
And bear it to the chapel.
|
|
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 sponge, what replication should be made by the
|
|
son
|
|
of a king?
|
|
Ros. Take you me for a sponge, my lord?
|
|
Ham. Ay, sir; that soaks up the King's countenance, his
|
|
rewards,
|
|
his authorities. But such officers do the King best service
|
|
in
|
|
the end. He keeps them, like an ape, in the corner of his
|
|
jaw;
|
|
first mouth'd, to be last Swallowed. When he needs what you
|
|
have
|
|
glean'd, it is but squeezing you and, sponge, 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. Hide fox, and all after.
|
|
Exeunt.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Scene III.
|
|
Elsinore. A room in the Castle.
|
|
|
|
Enter King.
|
|
|
|
King. I have sent to seek him and to find the body.
|
|
How dangerous is it that this man goes loose!
|
|
Yet must not we 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' offender's 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 Rosencrantz.
|
|
|
|
How now O What hath befall'n?
|
|
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, Guildenstern! Bring in my lord.
|
|
|
|
Enter Hamlet and Guildenstern [with Attendants].
|
|
|
|
King. Now, Hamlet, where's Polonius?
|
|
Ham. At supper.
|
|
King. At supper? Where?
|
|
Ham. Not where he eats, but where he is eaten. A certain
|
|
convocation of politic worms are e'en at him. Your worm is
|
|
your
|
|
only emperor for diet. We fat all creatures else to fat us,
|
|
and
|
|
we fat ourselves 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, and
|
|
eat
|
|
of the fish that hath fed of that worm.
|
|
King. What dost thou mean by this?
|
|
Ham. Nothing but to show 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 yourself. But indeed, if
|
|
you
|
|
find him not within this month, you shall nose him as you go
|
|
up
|
|
the stair, into the lobby.
|
|
King. Go seek him there. [To Attendants.]
|
|
Ham. He will stay till you come.
|
|
[Exeunt Attendants.]
|
|
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
|
|
With fiery quickness. Therefore prepare thyself.
|
|
The bark is ready and the wind at help,
|
|
Th' associates tend, and everything is bent
|
|
For England.
|
|
Ham. For England?
|
|
King. Ay, 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!
|
|
Farewell, 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 at foot; tempt him with speed aboard.
|
|
Delay it not; I'll have him hence to-night.
|
|
Away! for everything is seal'd and done
|
|
That else leans on th' affair. Pray you make haste.
|
|
Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern]
|
|
And, England, if my love thou hold'st at aught,-
|
|
As my great power thereof may give thee sense,
|
|
Since yet thy cicatrice looks raw and red
|
|
After the Danish sword, and thy free awe
|
|
Pays homage to us,- thou mayst 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 hectic in my blood he rages,
|
|
And thou must cure me. Till I know 'tis done,
|
|
Howe'er my haps, my joys were ne'er begun. Exit.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<<THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION OF THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM
|
|
SHAKESPEARE IS COPYRIGHT 1990-1993 BY WORLD LIBRARY, INC., AND IS
|
|
PROVIDED BY PROJECT GUTENBERG ETEXT OF CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY
|
|
WITH PERMISSION. ELECTRONIC AND MACHINE READABLE COPIES MAY BE
|
|
DISTRIBUTED SO LONG AS SUCH COPIES (1) ARE FOR YOUR OR OTHERS
|
|
PERSONAL USE ONLY, AND (2) ARE NOT DISTRIBUTED OR USED
|
|
COMMERCIALLY. PROHIBITED COMMERCIAL DISTRIBUTION INCLUDES BY ANY
|
|
SERVICE THAT CHARGES FOR DOWNLOAD TIME OR FOR MEMBERSHIP.>>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Scene IV.
|
|
Near Elsinore.
|
|
|
|
Enter Fortinbras with his Army over the stage.
|
|
|
|
For. Go, Captain, from me greet the Danish king.
|
|
Tell him that by his license Fortinbras
|
|
Craves the conveyance of a promis'd march
|
|
Over his kingdom. You know the rendezvous.
|
|
if that his Majesty would aught with us,
|
|
We shall express our duty in his eye;
|
|
And let him know so.
|
|
Capt. I will do't, my lord.
|
|
For. Go softly on.
|
|
Exeunt [all but the Captain].
|
|
|
|
Enter Hamlet, Rosencrantz, [Guildenstern,] and others.
|
|
|
|
Ham. Good sir, whose powers are these?
|
|
Capt. They are of Norway, sir.
|
|
Ham. How purpos'd, sir, I pray you?
|
|
Capt. Against some part of Poland.
|
|
Ham. Who commands them, sir?
|
|
Capt. The nephew to old Norway, Fortinbras.
|
|
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 ducats, 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 Polack never will defend it.
|
|
Capt. Yes, it is already garrison'd.
|
|
Ham. Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats
|
|
Will not debate the question of this straw.
|
|
This is th' imposthume of much wealth and peace,
|
|
That inward breaks, and shows no cause without
|
|
Why the man dies.- I humbly thank you, sir.
|
|
Capt. God b' wi' you, sir. [Exit.]
|
|
Ros. Will't please you go, my lord?
|
|
Ham. I'll be with you straight. Go a little before.
|
|
[Exeunt all but Hamlet.]
|
|
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 godlike 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 puff'd,
|
|
Makes mouths at the invisible event,
|
|
Exposing what is mortal and unsure
|
|
To all that fortune, death, and danger dare,
|
|
Even for an eggshell. 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 klll'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 fantasy 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.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<<THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION OF THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM
|
|
SHAKESPEARE IS COPYRIGHT 1990-1993 BY WORLD LIBRARY, INC., AND IS
|
|
PROVIDED BY PROJECT GUTENBERG ETEXT OF CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY
|
|
WITH PERMISSION. ELECTRONIC AND MACHINE READABLE COPIES MAY BE
|
|
DISTRIBUTED SO LONG AS SUCH COPIES (1) ARE FOR YOUR OR OTHERS
|
|
PERSONAL USE ONLY, AND (2) ARE NOT DISTRIBUTED OR USED
|
|
COMMERCIALLY. PROHIBITED COMMERCIAL DISTRIBUTION INCLUDES BY ANY
|
|
SERVICE THAT CHARGES FOR DOWNLOAD TIME OR FOR MEMBERSHIP.>>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Scene V.
|
|
Elsinore. A room in the Castle.
|
|
|
|
Enter Horatio, Queen, and a Gentleman.
|
|
|
|
Queen. I will not speak with her.
|
|
Gent. She is importunate, indeed distract.
|
|
Her mood will needs be pitied.
|
|
Queen. 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,
|
|
Yet the unshaped use of it doth move
|
|
The hearers to collection; they aim at it,
|
|
And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts;
|
|
Which, as her winks and nods and gestures yield them,
|
|
Indeed would make one think there might be thought,
|
|
Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.
|
|
Hor. 'Twere good she were spoken with; for she may strew
|
|
Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.
|
|
Queen. Let her come in.
|
|
[Exit Gentleman.]
|
|
[Aside] To my sick soul (as sin's true nature is)
|
|
Each toy seems Prologue to some great amiss.
|
|
So full of artless jealousy is guilt
|
|
It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.
|
|
|
|
Enter Ophelia distracted.
|
|
|
|
Oph. Where is the beauteous Majesty of Denmark?
|
|
Queen. How now, Ophelia?
|
|
Oph. (sings)
|
|
How should I your true-love know
|
|
From another one?
|
|
By his cockle bat and' staff
|
|
And his sandal shoon.
|
|
|
|
Queen. Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?
|
|
Oph. Say you? Nay, pray You mark.
|
|
|
|
(Sings) He is dead and gone, lady,
|
|
He is dead and gone;
|
|
At his head a grass-green turf,
|
|
At his heels a stone.
|
|
|
|
O, ho!
|
|
Queen. Nay, but Ophelia-
|
|
Oph. Pray you mark.
|
|
|
|
(Sings) White his shroud as the mountain snow-
|
|
|
|
Enter King.
|
|
|
|
Queen. Alas, look here, my lord!
|
|
Oph. (Sings)
|
|
Larded all with sweet flowers;
|
|
Which bewept to the grave did not go
|
|
With true-love showers.
|
|
|
|
King. How do you, pretty lady?
|
|
Oph. Well, God dild you! They say the owl was a baker's
|
|
daughter.
|
|
Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be. God
|
|
be at
|
|
your table!
|
|
King. Conceit upon her father.
|
|
Oph. Pray let's have no words of this; but when they ask, you
|
|
what
|
|
it means, say you this:
|
|
|
|
(Sings) To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day,
|
|
All in the morning bedtime,
|
|
And I a maid at your window,
|
|
To be your Valentine.
|
|
|
|
Then up he rose and donn'd his clo'es
|
|
And dupp'd the chamber door,
|
|
Let in the maid, that out a maid
|
|
Never departed more.
|
|
|
|
King. Pretty Ophelia!
|
|
Oph. Indeed, la, without an oath, I'll make an end on't!
|
|
|
|
[Sings] By Gis and by Saint Charity,
|
|
Alack, and fie 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 would I 'a' done, by yonder sun,
|
|
An 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
|
|
choose 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. Exit
|
|
King. Follow her close; give her good watch, I pray you.
|
|
[Exit Horatio.]
|
|
|
|
O, this is the poison of deep grief; it springs
|
|
All from her father's death. O Gertrude, Gertrude,
|
|
When sorrows come, they come not single spies.
|
|
But in battalions! First, her father slain;
|
|
Next, Your son gone, and he most violent author
|
|
Of his own just remove; the people muddied,
|
|
Thick and and unwholesome in their thoughts and whispers
|
|
For good Polonius' death, and we have done but greenly
|
|
In hugger-mugger to inter him; Poor Ophelia
|
|
Divided from herself and her fair-judgment,
|
|
Without the which we are Pictures or mere beasts;
|
|
Last, and as such containing as all these,
|
|
Her brother is in secret come from France;
|
|
And wants not buzzers to infect his ear
|
|
Feeds on his wonder, keep, himself in clouds,
|
|
With pestilent speeches of his father's death,
|
|
Wherein necessity, of matter beggar'd,
|
|
Will nothing stick Our person to arraign
|
|
In ear and ear. O my dear Gertrude, this,
|
|
Like to a murd'ring piece, in many places
|
|
Give, me superfluous death. A noise within.
|
|
Queen. Alack, what noise is this?
|
|
King. Where are my Switzers? Let them guard the door.
|
|
|
|
Enter a Messenger.
|
|
|
|
What is the matter?
|
|
Mess. Save Yourself, my lord:
|
|
The ocean, overpeering of his list,
|
|
Eats not the flats with more impetuous haste
|
|
Than Young Laertes, in a riotous head,
|
|
O'erbears Your offices. The rabble call him lord;
|
|
And, as the world were now but to begin,
|
|
Antiquity forgot, custom not known,
|
|
The ratifiers and props of every word,
|
|
They cry 'Choose we! Laertes shall be king!'
|
|
Caps, hands, and tongues applaud it to the clouds,
|
|
'Laertes shall be king! Laertes king!'
|
|
A noise within.
|
|
Queen. How cheerfully on the false trail they cry!
|
|
O, this is counter, you false Danish dogs!
|
|
King. The doors are broke.
|
|
|
|
Enter Laertes with others.
|
|
|
|
Laer. Where is this king?- Sirs, staid you all without.
|
|
All. No, let's come in!
|
|
Laer. I pray you give me leave.
|
|
All. We will, we will!
|
|
Laer. I thank you. Keep the door. [Exeunt his Followers.]
|
|
O thou vile king,
|
|
Give me my father!
|
|
Queen. 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 unsmirched brows
|
|
Of my true mother.
|
|
King. What is the cause, Laertes,
|
|
That thy rebellion looks so giantlike?
|
|
Let him go, Gertrude. Do not fear our person.
|
|
There's such divinity doth hedge a king
|
|
That treason can but peep to what it would,
|
|
Acts little of his will. Tell me, Laertes,
|
|
Why thou art thus incens'd. Let him go, Gertrude.
|
|
Speak, man.
|
|
Laer. Where is my father?
|
|
King. Dead.
|
|
Queen. But not by him!
|
|
King. Let him demand his fill.
|
|
Laer. How came he dead? I'll not be juggled with:
|
|
To hell, allegiance! vows, to the blackest devil
|
|
Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit!
|
|
I dare damnation. To this point I stand,
|
|
That both the world, 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 world!
|
|
And for my means, I'll husband them so well
|
|
They shall go far with little.
|
|
King. Good Laertes,
|
|
If you desire to know the certainty
|
|
Of your dear father's death, is't writ in Your revenge
|
|
That swoopstake you will draw both friend and foe,
|
|
Winner and loser?
|
|
Laer. None but his enemies.
|
|
King. Will you know them then?
|
|
Laer. To his good friends thus wide I'll ope my arms
|
|
And, like the kind life-rend'ring pelican,
|
|
Repast them with my blood.
|
|
King. Why, now You speak
|
|
Like a good child and a true gentleman.
|
|
That I am guiltless of your father's death,
|
|
And am most sensibly in grief for it,
|
|
It shall as level to your judgment pierce
|
|
As day does to your eye.
|
|
A noise within: 'Let her come in.'
|
|
Laer. How now? What noise is that?
|
|
|
|
Enter Ophelia.
|
|
|
|
O heat, dry up my brains! Tears seven times salt
|
|
Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye!
|
|
By heaven, thy madness shall be paid by weight
|
|
Till our scale turn the beam. O rose of May!
|
|
Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!
|
|
O heavens! is't possible a young maid's wits
|
|
Should be as mortal as an old man's life?
|
|
Nature is fine in love, and where 'tis fine,
|
|
It sends some precious instance of itself
|
|
After the thing it loves.
|
|
|
|
Oph. (sings)
|
|
They bore him barefac'd on the bier
|
|
(Hey non nony, nony, hey nony)
|
|
And in his grave rain'd many a tear.
|
|
|
|
Fare you well, my dove!
|
|
Laer. Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge,
|
|
It could not move thus.
|
|
Oph. 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
|
|
master's daughter.
|
|
Laer. This nothing's more than matter.
|
|
Oph. There's rosemary, that's for remembrance. Pray you, love,
|
|
remember. And there is pansies, that's for thoughts.
|
|
Laer. A document in madness! Thoughts and remembrance fitted.
|
|
Oph. There's fennel for you, and columbines. There's rue for
|
|
you,
|
|
and here's some for me. We may call it herb of grace o'
|
|
Sundays.
|
|
O, you must wear your rue with a difference! There's a daisy.
|
|
I
|
|
would give you some violets, but they wither'd all when my
|
|
father
|
|
died. They say he made a good end.
|
|
|
|
[Sings] For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.
|
|
|
|
Laer. Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself,
|
|
She turns to favour and to prettiness.
|
|
Oph. (sings)
|
|
And will he not come again?
|
|
And will he not come again?
|
|
No, no, he is dead;
|
|
Go to thy deathbed;
|
|
He never will come again.
|
|
|
|
His beard was as white as snow,
|
|
All flaxen was his poll.
|
|
He is gone, he is gone,
|
|
And we cast away moan.
|
|
God 'a'mercy on his soul!
|
|
|
|
And of all Christian souls, I pray God. God b' wi', you.
|
|
Exit.
|
|
Laer. Do you see this, O God?
|
|
King. Laertes, I must commune with your grief,
|
|
Or you deny me right. Go but apart,
|
|
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 touch'd, 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 trophy, sword, nor hatchment o'er his bones,
|
|
No noble rite nor formal ostentation,-
|
|
Cry to be heard, as 'twere from heaven to earth,
|
|
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
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<<THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION OF THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM
|
|
SHAKESPEARE IS COPYRIGHT 1990-1993 BY WORLD LIBRARY, INC., AND IS
|
|
PROVIDED BY PROJECT GUTENBERG ETEXT OF CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY
|
|
WITH PERMISSION. ELECTRONIC AND MACHINE READABLE COPIES MAY BE
|
|
DISTRIBUTED SO LONG AS SUCH COPIES (1) ARE FOR YOUR OR OTHERS
|
|
PERSONAL USE ONLY, AND (2) ARE NOT DISTRIBUTED OR USED
|
|
COMMERCIALLY. PROHIBITED COMMERCIAL DISTRIBUTION INCLUDES BY ANY
|
|
SERVICE THAT CHARGES FOR DOWNLOAD TIME OR FOR MEMBERSHIP.>>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Scene VI.
|
|
Elsinore. Another room in the Castle.
|
|
|
|
Enter Horatio with an Attendant.
|
|
|
|
Hor. What are they that would speak with me?
|
|
Servant. Seafaring men, sir. They say they have letters for
|
|
you.
|
|
Hor. Let them come in.
|
|
[Exit Attendant.]
|
|
I do not know from what part of the world
|
|
I should be greeted, if not from Lord Hamlet.
|
|
|
|
Enter Sailors.
|
|
|
|
Sailor. God bless you, sir.
|
|
Hor. Let him bless thee too.
|
|
Sailor. 'A shall, sir, an't please him. There's a letter for
|
|
you,
|
|
sir,- it comes from th' ambassador that was bound for
|
|
England- if
|
|
your name be Horatio, as I am let to know it is.
|
|
Hor. (reads the letter) 'Horatio, when thou shalt have
|
|
overlook'd
|
|
this, give these fellows some means to the King. They have
|
|
letters for him. Ere we were two days old at sea, a pirate of
|
|
|
|
very warlike appointment gave us chase. Finding ourselves too
|
|
slow of sail, we put on a compelled valour, and in the
|
|
grapple I
|
|
boarded them. On the instant they got clear 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 good turn
|
|
for
|
|
them. Let the King have the 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 bore of the matter. These good fellows will
|
|
bring
|
|
thee where I am. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern hold their
|
|
course
|
|
for England. Of them I have much to tell thee. Farewell.
|
|
'He that thou knowest thine, HAMLET.'
|
|
|
|
Come, I will give you way for these your letters,
|
|
And do't the speedier that you may direct me
|
|
To him from whom you brought them. Exeunt.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<<THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION OF THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM
|
|
SHAKESPEARE IS COPYRIGHT 1990-1993 BY WORLD LIBRARY, INC., AND IS
|
|
PROVIDED BY PROJECT GUTENBERG ETEXT OF CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY
|
|
WITH PERMISSION. ELECTRONIC AND MACHINE READABLE COPIES MAY BE
|
|
DISTRIBUTED SO LONG AS SUCH COPIES (1) ARE FOR YOUR OR OTHERS
|
|
PERSONAL USE ONLY, AND (2) ARE NOT DISTRIBUTED OR USED
|
|
COMMERCIALLY. PROHIBITED COMMERCIAL DISTRIBUTION INCLUDES BY ANY
|
|
SERVICE THAT CHARGES FOR DOWNLOAD TIME OR FOR MEMBERSHIP.>>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Scene VII.
|
|
Elsinore. Another room in the Castle.
|
|
|
|
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 which hath your noble father slain
|
|
Pursued my life.
|
|
Laer. It well appears. But tell me
|
|
Why you proceeded not against these feats
|
|
So crimeful and so capital in nature,
|
|
As by your safety, wisdom, all things else,
|
|
You mainly were stirr'd up.
|
|
King. O, for two special reasons,
|
|
Which may to you, perhaps, seein much unsinew'd,
|
|
But yet to me they are strong. The Queen his mother
|
|
Lives almost by his looks; and for myself,-
|
|
My virtue or my plague, be it either which,-
|
|
She's so conjunctive 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 public count I might not go
|
|
Is the great love the general gender bear him,
|
|
Who, dipping all his faults in their affection,
|
|
Would, like the spring that turneth wood to stone,
|
|
Convert his gives to graces; so that my arrows,
|
|
Too slightly timber'd for so loud a wind,
|
|
Would have reverted to my bow again,
|
|
And not where I had aim'd them.
|
|
Laer. And so have I a noble father lost;
|
|
A sister driven into desp'rate terms,
|
|
Whose worth, if praises may go back again,
|
|
Stood challenger on 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 beard be shook with danger,
|
|
And think it pastime. You shortly shall hear more.
|
|
I lov'd your father, and we love ourself,
|
|
And that, I hope, will teach you to imagine-
|
|
|
|
Enter a Messenger with letters.
|
|
|
|
How now? What news?
|
|
Mess. Letters, my lord, from Hamlet:
|
|
This to your Majesty; this to the Queen.
|
|
King. From Hamlet? Who brought them?
|
|
Mess. Sailors, my lord, they say; I saw them not.
|
|
They were given me by Claudio; he receiv'd them
|
|
Of him that brought them.
|
|
King. Laertes, you shall hear them.
|
|
Leave us.
|
|
Exit Messenger.
|
|
[Reads]'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 your pardon thereunto) recount the
|
|
occasion of my sudden and more strange return.
|
|
'HAMLET.'
|
|
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 shall live and tell him to his teeth,
|
|
'Thus didest thou.'
|
|
King. If it be so, Laertes
|
|
(As how should it be so? how otherwise?),
|
|
Will you be rul'd by me?
|
|
Laer. Ay my lord,
|
|
So you will not o'errule me to a peace.
|
|
King. To thine own peace. If he be now return'd
|
|
As checking at his voyage, and that he means
|
|
No more to undertake it, I will work him
|
|
To exploit now ripe in my device,
|
|
Under the which he shall not choose but fall;
|
|
And for his death no wind
|
|
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 organ.
|
|
King. It falls right.
|
|
You have been talk'd of since your travel much,
|
|
And that in Hamlet's hearing, for a quality
|
|
Wherein they say you shine, Your sun of parts
|
|
Did not together pluck such envy from him
|
|
As did that one; and that, in my regard,
|
|
Of the unworthiest siege.
|
|
Laer. What part is that, my lord?
|
|
King. A very riband in the cap of youth-
|
|
Yet needfull too; for youth no less becomes
|
|
The light and careless livery that it wears
|
|
Thin settled age his sables and his weeds,
|
|
Importing health and graveness. Two months since
|
|
Here was a gentleman of Normandy.
|
|
I have seen myself, and serv'd against, the French,
|
|
And they can well on horseback; but this gallant
|
|
Had witchcraft in't. He grew unto his seat,
|
|
And to such wondrous doing brought his horse
|
|
As had he been incorps'd and demi-natur'd
|
|
With the brave beast. So far he topp'd 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, Lamound.
|
|
King. The very same.
|
|
Laer. I know him well. He is the broach indeed
|
|
And 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 cried out 'twould be a sight indeed
|
|
If one could match you. The scrimers of their nation
|
|
He swore had neither motion, guard, nor eye,
|
|
If you oppos'd them. Sir, this report of his
|
|
Did Hamlet so envenom with his envy
|
|
That he could nothing do but wish and beg
|
|
Your sudden coming o'er 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.
|
|
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 plurisy,
|
|
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 spendthrift sigh,
|
|
That hurts by easing. But to the quick o' th' ulcer!
|
|
Hamlet comes back. What would you undertake
|
|
To show yourself your father's son in deed
|
|
More than in words?
|
|
Laer. To cut his throat i' th' church!
|
|
King. No place indeed should murther sanctuarize;
|
|
Revenge should have no bounds. But, good Laertes,
|
|
Will you do this? Keep close within your chamber.
|
|
Will 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 on 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 choose
|
|
A sword unbated, and, in a pass of practice,
|
|
Requite him for your father.
|
|
Laer. I will do't!
|
|
And for that 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 virtue
|
|
Under the moon, can save the thing from death
|
|
This is but scratch'd 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 convenience both of time and means
|
|
May fit us to our shape. If this should fall,
|
|
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-
|
|
I ha'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 nonce; whereon but sipping,
|
|
If he by chance escape your venom'd stuck,
|
|
Our purpose may hold there.- But stay, what noise,
|
|
|
|
Enter Queen.
|
|
|
|
How now, sweet queen?
|
|
Queen. One woe doth tread upon another's heel,
|
|
So fast they follow. Your sister's drown'd, Laertes.
|
|
Laer. Drown'd! O, where?
|
|
Queen. There is a willow grows aslant a brook,
|
|
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream.
|
|
There with fantastic garlands did she come
|
|
Of crowflowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples,
|
|
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
|
|
But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them.
|
|
There on the pendant boughs her coronet weeds
|
|
Clamb'ring to hang, an envious sliver broke,
|
|
When down her weedy trophies and herself
|
|
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide
|
|
And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up;
|
|
Which time she chaunted snatches of old tunes,
|
|
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 poor wretch from her melodious lay
|
|
To muddy death.
|
|
Laer. Alas, then she is drown'd?
|
|
Queen. 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 speech of fire, that fain would blaze
|
|
But that this folly douts it. Exit.
|
|
King. Let's follow, Gertrude.
|
|
How much I had to do to calm his rage I
|
|
Now fear I this will give it start again;
|
|
Therefore let's follow.
|
|
Exeunt.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<<THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION OF THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM
|
|
SHAKESPEARE IS COPYRIGHT 1990-1993 BY WORLD LIBRARY, INC., AND IS
|
|
PROVIDED BY PROJECT GUTENBERG ETEXT OF CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY
|
|
WITH PERMISSION. ELECTRONIC AND MACHINE READABLE COPIES MAY BE
|
|
DISTRIBUTED SO LONG AS SUCH COPIES (1) ARE FOR YOUR OR OTHERS
|
|
PERSONAL USE ONLY, AND (2) ARE NOT DISTRIBUTED OR USED
|
|
COMMERCIALLY. PROHIBITED COMMERCIAL DISTRIBUTION INCLUDES BY ANY
|
|
SERVICE THAT CHARGES FOR DOWNLOAD TIME OR FOR MEMBERSHIP.>>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
ACT V. Scene I.
|
|
Elsinore. A churchyard.
|
|
|
|
Enter two Clowns, [with spades and pickaxes].
|
|
|
|
Clown. Is she to be buried in Christian burial when she
|
|
wilfully
|
|
seeks her own salvation?
|
|
Other. I tell thee she is; therefore make her grave straight.
|
|
The crowner hath sate on her, and finds it Christian burial.
|
|
Clown. How can that be, unless she drown'd herself in her own
|
|
defence?
|
|
Other. Why, 'tis found so.
|
|
Clown. It must be se offendendo; it cannot be else. For here
|
|
lies
|
|
the point: if I drown myself wittingly, it argues an act; and
|
|
an
|
|
act hath three branches-it is to act, to do, and to perform;
|
|
argal, she drown'd herself wittingly.
|
|
Other. Nay, but hear you, Goodman Delver!
|
|
Clown. 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.
|
|
Other. But is this law?
|
|
Clown. Ay, marry, is't- crowner's quest law.
|
|
Other. Will you ha' the truth an't? If this had not been a
|
|
gentlewoman, she should have been buried out o' Christian
|
|
burial.
|
|
Clown. Why, there thou say'st! And the more pity that great
|
|
folk
|
|
should have count'nance in this world to drown or hang
|
|
themselves
|
|
more than their even-Christen. Come, my spade! There is no
|
|
ancient gentlemen but gard'ners, ditchers, and grave-makers.
|
|
They
|
|
hold up Adam's profession.
|
|
Other. Was he a gentleman?
|
|
Clown. 'A was the first that ever bore arms.
|
|
Other. Why, he had none.
|
|
Clown. What, art a heathen? How dost thou understand the
|
|
Scripture?
|
|
The Scripture says Adam digg'd. Could he dig without arms?
|
|
I'll
|
|
put another question to thee. If thou answerest me not to the
|
|
purpose, confess thyself-
|
|
Other. Go to!
|
|
Clown. What is he that builds stronger than either the mason,
|
|
the
|
|
shipwright, or the carpenter?
|
|
Other. The gallows-maker; for that frame outlives a thousand
|
|
tenants.
|
|
Clown. I like thy wit well, in good faith. The gallows does
|
|
well.
|
|
But how does it well? It does well to those that do ill. Now,
|
|
thou dost ill to say the gallows is built stronger than the
|
|
church. Argal, the gallows may do well to thee. To't again,
|
|
come!
|
|
Other. Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a
|
|
carpenter?
|
|
Clown. Ay, tell me that, and unyoke.
|
|
Other. Marry, now I can tell!
|
|
Clown. To't.
|
|
Other. Mass, I cannot tell.
|
|
|
|
Enter Hamlet and Horatio afar off.
|
|
|
|
Clown. Cudgel thy brains no more about it, for your dull ass
|
|
will
|
|
not mend his pace with beating; and when you are ask'd this
|
|
question next, say 'a grave-maker.' The houses he makes lasts
|
|
till doomsday. Go, get thee to Yaughan; fetch me a stoup of
|
|
liquor.
|
|
[Exit Second Clown.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
[Clown digs and] sings.
|
|
|
|
In youth when I did love, did love,
|
|
Methought it was very sweet;
|
|
To contract- O- the time for- a- my behove,
|
|
O, methought there- a- was nothing- a- meet.
|
|
|
|
Ham. Has this fellow no feeling of his business, that he sings
|
|
at
|
|
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.
|
|
Clown. (sings)
|
|
But age with his stealing steps
|
|
Hath clawed me in his clutch,
|
|
And hath shipped me intil the land,
|
|
As if I had never been such.
|
|
[Throws up a skull.]
|
|
|
|
Ham. That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once. How
|
|
the
|
|
knave jowls it to the ground,as if 'twere Cain's jawbone,
|
|
that
|
|
did the first murther! This might be the pate of a
|
|
Politician,
|
|
which this ass now o'erreaches; one that would circumvent
|
|
God,
|
|
might it not?
|
|
Hor. It might, my lord.
|
|
Ham. Or of a courtier, which could say 'Good morrow, sweet
|
|
lord!
|
|
How dost thou, good lord?' This might be my Lord Such-a-one,
|
|
that
|
|
prais'd my Lord Such-a-one's horse when he meant to beg it-
|
|
might
|
|
it not?
|
|
Hor. Ay, my lord.
|
|
Ham. Why, e'en so! and now my Lady Worm's, chapless, and
|
|
knock'd
|
|
about the mazzard with a sexton's spade. Here's fine
|
|
revolution,
|
|
and we had the trick to see't. Did these bones cost no more
|
|
the
|
|
breeding but to play at loggets with 'em? Mine ache to think
|
|
on't.
|
|
Clown. (Sings)
|
|
A pickaxe and a spade, a spade,
|
|
For and a shrouding sheet;
|
|
O, a Pit of clay for to be made
|
|
For such a guest is meet.
|
|
Throws up [another skull].
|
|
|
|
Ham. There's another. Why may not that be the skull of a
|
|
lawyer?
|
|
Where be his quiddits now, his quillets, his cases, his
|
|
tenures,
|
|
and his tricks? Why does he suffer this rude knave now to
|
|
knock
|
|
him about the sconce with a dirty shovel, and will not tell
|
|
him
|
|
of his action of battery? Hum! This fellow might be in's time
|
|
a
|
|
great buyer of land, with his statutes, his recognizances,
|
|
his
|
|
fines, his double vouchers, his recoveries. Is this the fine
|
|
of
|
|
his fines, and the recovery of his recoveries, to have his
|
|
fine
|
|
pate full of fine dirt? Will his vouchers vouch him no more
|
|
of
|
|
his purchases, and double ones too, than the length and
|
|
breadth
|
|
of a pair of indentures? The very conveyances of his lands
|
|
will
|
|
scarcely lie in this box; and must th' inheritor himself have
|
|
no
|
|
more, ha?
|
|
Hor. Not a jot more, my lord.
|
|
Ham. Is not parchment made of sheepskins?
|
|
Hor. Ay, my lord, And of calveskins too.
|
|
Ham. They are sheep and calves which seek out assurance in
|
|
that. I
|
|
will speak to this fellow. Whose grave's this, sirrah?
|
|
Clown. Mine, sir.
|
|
|
|
[Sings] O, a pit of clay for to be made
|
|
For such a guest is meet.
|
|
|
|
Ham. I think it be thine indeed, for thou liest in't.
|
|
Clown. You lie out on't, sir, and therefore 'tis not yours.
|
|
For my part, I do not lie in't, yet it is mine.
|
|
Ham. Thou dost lie in't, to be in't and say it is thine. 'Tis
|
|
for
|
|
the dead, not for the quick; therefore thou liest.
|
|
Clown. 'Tis a quick lie, sir; 'twill away again from me to you.
|
|
Ham. What man dost thou dig it for?
|
|
Clown. For no man, sir.
|
|
Ham. What woman then?
|
|
Clown. For none neither.
|
|
Ham. Who is to be buried in't?
|
|
Clown. 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. By the Lord, Horatio, this three
|
|
years
|
|
I have taken note of it, the age is grown so picked that the
|
|
toe
|
|
of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier he
|
|
galls
|
|
his kibe.- How long hast thou been a grave-maker?
|
|
Clown. Of all the days i' th' year, I came to't that day that
|
|
our
|
|
last king Hamlet overcame Fortinbras.
|
|
Ham. How long is that since?
|
|
Clown. Cannot you tell that? Every fool can tell that. It was
|
|
the
|
|
very day that young Hamlet was born- he that is mad, and sent
|
|
into England.
|
|
Ham. Ay, marry, why was be sent into England?
|
|
Clown. Why, because 'a was mad. 'A shall recover his wits
|
|
there;
|
|
or, if 'a do not, 'tis no great matter there.
|
|
Ham. Why?
|
|
Clown. 'Twill not he seen in him there. There the men are as
|
|
mad as
|
|
he.
|
|
Ham. How came he mad?
|
|
Clown. Very strangely, they say.
|
|
Ham. How strangely?
|
|
Clown. Faith, e'en with losing his wits.
|
|
Ham. Upon what ground?
|
|
Clown. Why, here in Denmark. I have been sexton here, man and
|
|
boy
|
|
thirty years.
|
|
Ham. How long will a man lie i' th' earth ere he rot?
|
|
Clown. Faith, if 'a be not rotten before 'a die (as we have
|
|
many
|
|
pocky corses now-a-days that will scarce hold the laying in,
|
|
I
|
|
will last you some eight year or nine year. A tanner will
|
|
last
|
|
you nine year.
|
|
Ham. Why he more than another?
|
|
Clown. Why, sir, his hide is so tann'd with his trade that 'a
|
|
will
|
|
keep out water a great while; and your water is a sore
|
|
decayer of
|
|
your whoreson dead body. Here's a skull now. This skull hath
|
|
lien
|
|
you i' th' earth three-and-twenty years.
|
|
Ham. Whose was it?
|
|
Clown. A whoreson, mad fellow's it was. Whose do you think it
|
|
was?
|
|
Ham. Nay, I know not.
|
|
Clown. A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! 'A pour'd a flagon
|
|
of
|
|
Rhenish on my head once. This same skull, sir, was Yorick's
|
|
skull, the King's jester.
|
|
Ham. This?
|
|
Clown. E'en that.
|
|
Ham. Let me see. [Takes the skull.] Alas, poor Yorick! I knew
|
|
him,
|
|
Horatio. A fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy.
|
|
He
|
|
hath borne me on his back a thousand tunes. And now how
|
|
abhorred
|
|
in my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it. Here hung
|
|
those
|
|
lips that I have kiss'd I know not how oft. Where be your
|
|
gibes
|
|
now? your gambols? 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 chap- fall'n? Now get you to my lady's
|
|
chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this
|
|
favour she must come. Make her laugh at that. Prithee,
|
|
Horatio,
|
|
tell me one thing.
|
|
Hor. What's that, my lord?
|
|
Ham. Dost thou think Alexander look'd o' this fashion i' th'
|
|
earth?
|
|
Hor. E'en so.
|
|
Ham. And smelt so? Pah!
|
|
[Puts down the skull.]
|
|
Hor. 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 bunghole?
|
|
Hor. 'Twere to consider too curiously, to consider so.
|
|
Ham. No, faith, not a jot; but to follow him thither with
|
|
modesty
|
|
enough, and likelihood to lead it; as thus: Alexander died,
|
|
Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth into dust; the dust
|
|
is
|
|
earth; of earth we make loam; and why of that loam (whereto
|
|
he
|
|
was converted) might they not stop a beer barrel?
|
|
Imperious Caesar, 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 winter's flaw!
|
|
But soft! but soft! aside! Here comes the King-
|
|
|
|
Enter [priests with] a coffin [in funeral procession], King,
|
|
Queen, Laertes, with Lords attendant.]
|
|
|
|
The Queen, the courtiers. Who is this they follow?
|
|
And with such maimed rites? This doth betoken
|
|
The corse they follow did with desp'rate hand
|
|
Fordo it own life. 'Twas of some estate.
|
|
Couch we awhile, and mark.
|
|
[Retires with Horatio.]
|
|
|
|
Laer. What ceremony else?
|
|
Ham. That is Laertes,
|
|
A very noble youth. Mark.
|
|
Laer. What ceremony else?
|
|
Priest. Her obsequies have been as far enlarg'd
|
|
As we have warranty. Her death was doubtful;
|
|
And, but that great command o'ersways the order,
|
|
She should in ground unsanctified have lodg'd
|
|
Till the last trumpet. For charitable prayers,
|
|
Shards, flints, and pebbles should be thrown on her.
|
|
Yet here she is allow'd her virgin crants,
|
|
Her maiden strewments, and the bringing home
|
|
Of bell and burial.
|
|
Laer. Must there no more be done?
|
|
Priest. No more be done.
|
|
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 minist'ring angel shall my sister be
|
|
When thou liest howling.
|
|
Ham. What, the fair Ophelia?
|
|
Queen. Sweets to the sweet! Farewell.
|
|
[Scatters flowers.]
|
|
I hop'd thou shouldst have been my Hamlet's wife;
|
|
I thought thy bride-bed to have deck'd, sweet maid,
|
|
And not have strew'd thy grave.
|
|
Laer. O, treble woe
|
|
Fall ten times treble on that cursed head
|
|
Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense
|
|
Depriv'd thee of! Hold off the earth awhile,
|
|
Till I have caught her once more in mine arms.
|
|
Leaps in the grave.
|
|
Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead
|
|
Till of this flat a mountain you have made
|
|
T' o'ertop old Pelion or the skyish head
|
|
Of blue Olympus.
|
|
Ham. [comes forward] What is he whose grief
|
|
Bears such an emphasis? whose phrase of sorrow
|
|
Conjures the wand'ring stars, and makes them stand
|
|
Like wonder-wounded hearers? This is I,
|
|
Hamlet the Dane. [Leaps in after Laertes.
|
|
Laer. The devil take thy soul!
|
|
[Grapples with him].
|
|
Ham. Thou pray'st not well.
|
|
I prithee take thy fingers from my throat;
|
|
For, though I am not splenitive and rash,
|
|
Yet have I in me something dangerous,
|
|
Which let thy wisdom fear. Hold off thy hand!
|
|
King. Pluck thein asunder.
|
|
Queen. Hamlet, Hamlet!
|
|
All. Gentlemen!
|
|
Hor. Good my lord, be quiet.
|
|
[The Attendants part them, and they come out of the
|
|
grave.]
|
|
Ham. Why, I will fight with him upon this theme
|
|
Until my eyelids will no longer wag.
|
|
Queen. O my son, what theme?
|
|
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.
|
|
Queen. For love of God, forbear him!
|
|
Ham. 'Swounds, show me what thou't do.
|
|
Woo't weep? woo't fight? woo't fast? woo't tear thyself?
|
|
Woo't drink up esill? eat a crocodile?
|
|
I'll do't. Dost thou come here to whine?
|
|
To outface 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,
|
|
Singeing his pate against the burning zone,
|
|
Make Ossa like a wart! Nay, an thou'lt mouth,
|
|
I'll rant as well as thou.
|
|
Queen. This is mere madness;
|
|
And thus a while the fit will work on him.
|
|
Anon, as patient as the female dove
|
|
When that her golden couplets are disclos'd,
|
|
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, and dog will have his day.
|
|
Exit.
|
|
King. I pray thee, good Horatio, wait upon him.
|
|
Exit Horatio.
|
|
[To Laertes] Strengthen your patience in our last night's
|
|
speech.
|
|
We'll put the matter to the present push.-
|
|
Good Gertrude, set some watch over your son.-
|
|
This grave shall have a living monument.
|
|
An hour of quiet shortly shall we see;
|
|
Till then in patience our proceeding be.
|
|
Exeunt.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Scene II.
|
|
Elsinore. A hall in the Castle.
|
|
|
|
Enter Hamlet and Horatio.
|
|
|
|
Ham. So much for this, sir; now shall you see the other.
|
|
You do remember all the circumstance?
|
|
Hor. 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 mutinies in the bilboes. Rashly-
|
|
And prais'd be rashness for it; let us know,
|
|
Our indiscretion sometime serves us well
|
|
When our deep plots do pall; and that should learn us
|
|
There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
|
|
Rough-hew them how we will-
|
|
Hor. That is most certain.
|
|
Ham. Up from my cabin,
|
|
My sea-gown scarf'd about me, in the dark
|
|
Grop'd I to find out them; had my desire,
|
|
Finger'd their packet, and in fine withdrew
|
|
To mine own room again; making so bold
|
|
(My fears forgetting manners) to unseal
|
|
Their grand commission; where I found, Horatio
|
|
(O royal knavery!), an exact command,
|
|
Larded with many several sorts of reasons,
|
|
Importing Denmark's health, and England's too,
|
|
With, hoo! such bugs and goblins in my life-
|
|
That, on the supervise, no leisure bated,
|
|
No, not to stay the finding of the axe,
|
|
My head should be struck off.
|
|
Hor. Is't possible?
|
|
Ham. Here's the commission; read it at more leisure.
|
|
But wilt thou bear me how I did proceed?
|
|
Hor. I beseech you.
|
|
Ham. Being thus benetted round with villanies,
|
|
Or I could make a prologue to my brains,
|
|
They had begun the play. I sat 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 yeoman's service. Wilt thou know
|
|
Th' effect of what I wrote?
|
|
Hor. Ay, 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's of great charge,
|
|
That, on the view and knowing of these contents,
|
|
Without debatement further, more or less,
|
|
He should the bearers put to sudden death,
|
|
Not shriving time allow'd.
|
|
Hor. How was this seal'd?
|
|
Ham. Why, even in that was heaven ordinant.
|
|
I had my father's 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, gave't th' impression, plac'd it safely,
|
|
The changeling never known. Now, the next day
|
|
Was our sea-fight; and what to this was sequent
|
|
Thou know'st already.
|
|
Hor. So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to't.
|
|
Ham. Why, man, they did make love to this employment!
|
|
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 points
|
|
Of mighty opposites.
|
|
Hor. Why, what a king is this!
|
|
Ham. Does it not, thinks't thee, stand me now upon-
|
|
He that hath kill'd my king, and whor'd my mother;
|
|
Popp'd in between th' election and my hopes;
|
|
Thrown out his angle for my Proper life,
|
|
And with such coz'nage- is't not perfect conscience
|
|
To quit him with this arm? And is't not to be damn'd
|
|
To let this canker of our nature come
|
|
In further evil?
|
|
Hor. It must be shortly known to him from England
|
|
What is the issue of the business there.
|
|
Ham. It will be short; the interim is mine,
|
|
And a man's life is no more than to say 'one.'
|
|
But I am very sorry, good Horatio,
|
|
That to Laertes I forgot myself,
|
|
For by the image of my cause I see
|
|
The portraiture of his. I'll court his favours.
|
|
But sure the bravery of his grief did put me
|
|
Into a tow'ring passion.
|
|
Hor. Peace! Who comes here?
|
|
|
|
Enter young Osric, a courtier.
|
|
|
|
Osr. Your lordship is right welcome back to Denmark.
|
|
Ham. I humbly thank you, sir. [Aside to Horatio] Dost know this
|
|
waterfly?
|
|
Hor. [aside to Hamlet] No, my good lord.
|
|
Ham. [aside to Horatio] Thy state is the more gracious; for
|
|
'tis a
|
|
vice to know him. He hath much land, and fertile. Let a beast
|
|
be
|
|
lord of beasts, and his crib shall stand at the king's mess.
|
|
'Tis
|
|
a chough; but, as I say, spacious in the possession of dirt.
|
|
|
|
Osr. 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. Put
|
|
your
|
|
bonnet to his right use. 'Tis for the head.
|
|
Osr. I thank your lordship, it is very hot.
|
|
Ham. No, believe me, 'tis very cold; the wind is northerly.
|
|
Osr. It is indifferent cold, my lord, indeed.
|
|
Ham. But yet methinks it is very sultry and hot for my
|
|
complexion.
|
|
Osr. Exceedingly, my lord; it is very sultry, as 'twere- I
|
|
cannot
|
|
tell how. But, my lord, his Majesty bade me signify to you
|
|
that
|
|
he has laid a great wager on your head. Sir, this is the
|
|
matter-
|
|
Ham. I beseech you remember.
|
|
[Hamlet moves him to put on his hat.]
|
|
Osr. Nay, good my lord; for mine ease, in good faith. Sir, here
|
|
is
|
|
newly come to court Laertes; believe me, an absolute
|
|
gentleman,
|
|
full of most excellent differences, of very soft society and
|
|
great showing. Indeed, to speak feelingly of him, he is the
|
|
card
|
|
or calendar of gentry; for you shall find in him the
|
|
continent of
|
|
what part a gentleman would see.
|
|
Ham. Sir, his definement suffers no perdition in you; though, I
|
|
|
|
know, to divide him inventorially would dozy th' arithmetic
|
|
of
|
|
memory, and yet but yaw 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 mirror, and who
|
|
else
|
|
would trace him, his umbrage, nothing more.
|
|
Osr. Your lordship speaks most infallibly of him.
|
|
Ham. The concernancy, sir? Why do we wrap the gentleman in our
|
|
more
|
|
rawer breath
|
|
Osr. Sir?
|
|
Hor [aside to Hamlet] Is't not possible to understand in
|
|
another
|
|
tongue? You will do't, sir, really.
|
|
Ham. What imports the nomination of this gentleman
|
|
Osr. Of Laertes?
|
|
Hor. [aside] His purse is empty already. All's golden words are
|
|
spent.
|
|
Ham. Of him, sir.
|
|
Osr. I know you are not ignorant-
|
|
Ham. I would you did, sir; yet, in faith, if you did, it would
|
|
not
|
|
much approve me. Well, sir?
|
|
Osr. You are not 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.
|
|
Osr. 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?
|
|
Osr. Rapier and dagger.
|
|
Ham. That's two of his weapons- but well.
|
|
Osr. The King, sir, hath wager'd with him six Barbary horses;
|
|
against the which he has impon'd, as I take it, six French
|
|
rapiers and poniards, with their assigns, as girdle, hangers,
|
|
and
|
|
so. Three of the carriages, in faith, are very dear to fancy,
|
|
very responsive to the hilts, most delicate carriages, and of
|
|
very liberal conceit.
|
|
Ham. What call you the carriages?
|
|
Hor. [aside to Hamlet] I knew you must be edified by the
|
|
margent
|
|
ere you had done.
|
|
Osr. The carriages, sir, are the hangers.
|
|
Ham. The phrase would be more germane to the matter if we could
|
|
carry 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 impon'd, as you call
|
|
it?
|
|
Osr. The King, sir, hath laid that, in a dozen passes between
|
|
yourself 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?
|
|
Osr. 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 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.
|
|
Osr. Shall I redeliver you e'en so?
|
|
Ham. To this effect, sir, after what flourish your nature will.
|
|
Osr. I commend my duty to your lordship.
|
|
Ham. Yours, yours. [Exit Osric.] He does well to commend it
|
|
himself; there are no tongues else for's turn.
|
|
Hor. This lapwing runs away with the shell on his head.
|
|
Ham. He did comply with his dug before he suck'd it. Thus has
|
|
he,
|
|
and many more of the same bevy that I know the drossy age
|
|
dotes
|
|
on, only got the tune of the time and outward habit of
|
|
encounter-
|
|
a kind of yesty collection, which carries them through and
|
|
through the most fann'd and winnowed opinions; and do but
|
|
blow
|
|
them to their trial-the bubbles are out,
|
|
|
|
Enter a Lord.
|
|
|
|
Lord. My lord, his Majesty commended him to you by young Osric,
|
|
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 King's
|
|
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 fall to play.
|
|
Ham. She well instructs me.
|
|
[Exit Lord.]
|
|
Hor. You will lose this wager, 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. But thou wouldst
|
|
not
|
|
think how ill all's here about my heart. But it is no matter.
|
|
Hor. Nay, good my lord -
|
|
Ham. It is but foolery; but it is such a kind of gaingiving as
|
|
would perhaps trouble a woman.
|
|
Hor. If your mind dislike anything, obey it. I will forestall
|
|
their
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|
repair hither and say you are not fit.
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Ham. Not a whit, we defy augury; there's a special providence
|
|
in
|
|
the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come', if it
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|
be
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|
not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will
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|
come:
|
|
the readiness is all. Since no man knows aught of what he
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|
leaves,
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|
what is't to leave betimes? Let be.
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|
|
|
Enter King, Queen, Laertes, Osric, and Lords, with other
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|
Attendants with foils and gauntlets.
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|
A table and flagons of wine on it.
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|
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|
King. Come, Hamlet, come, and take this hand from me.
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|
[The King puts Laertes' hand into Hamlet's.]
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|
Ham. Give me your pardon, sir. I have done you wrong;
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|
But pardon't, as you are a gentleman.
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|
This presence knows,
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|
And you must needs have heard, how I am punish'd
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|
With sore distraction. What I have done
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|
That might your nature, honour, and exception
|
|
Roughly awake, I here proclaim was madness.
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|
Was't Hamlet wrong'd Laertes? Never Hamlet.
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|
If Hamlet from himself be taken away,
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|
And when he's not himself does wrong Laertes,
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|
Then Hamlet does it not, Hamlet denies it.
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|
Who does it, then? His madness. If't be so,
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|
Hamlet is of the faction that is wrong'd;
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|
His madness is poor Hamlet's enemy.
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|
Sir, in this audience,
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|
Let my disclaiming from a purpos'd evil
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|
Free me so far in your most generous thoughts
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|
That I have shot my arrow o'er the house
|
|
And hurt my brother.
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|
Laer. I am satisfied in nature,
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|
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 precedent of peace
|
|
To keep my name ungor'd. But till that time
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|
I do receive your offer'd love like love,
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|
And will not wrong it.
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|
Ham. I embrace it freely,
|
|
And will this brother's wager frankly play.
|
|
Give us the foils. Come on.
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|
Laer. Come, one for me.
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|
Ham. I'll be your foil, Laertes. In mine ignorance
|
|
Your skill shall, like a star i' th' darkest night,
|
|
Stick fiery off indeed.
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|
Laer. You mock me, sir.
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|
Ham. No, by this bad.
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|
King. Give them the foils, young Osric. Cousin Hamlet,
|
|
You know the wager?
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|
Ham. Very well, my lord.
|
|
Your Grace has laid the odds o' th' weaker side.
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|
King. I do not fear it, I have seen you both;
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|
But since he is better'd, we have therefore odds.
|
|
Laer. This is too heavy; let me see another.
|
|
Ham. This likes me well. These foils have all a length?
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|
Prepare to play.
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|
Osr. Ay, my good lord.
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|
King. Set me the stoups of wine upon that 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 union shall he throw
|
|
Richer than that which four successive kings
|
|
In Denmark's 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 heaven to earth,
|
|
'Now the King drinks to Hamlet.' Come, begin.
|
|
And you the judges, bear a wary eye.
|
|
Ham. Come on, sir.
|
|
Laer. Come, my lord. They play.
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|
Ham. One.
|
|
Laer. No.
|
|
Ham. Judgment!
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|
Osr. A hit, a very palpable hit.
|
|
Laer. Well, again!
|
|
King. Stay, give me drink. Hamlet, this pearl is thine;
|
|
Here's to thy health.
|
|
[Drum; trumpets sound; a piece goes off [within].
|
|
Give him the cup.
|
|
Ham. I'll play this bout first; set it by awhile.
|
|
Come. (They play.) Another hit. What say you?
|
|
Laer. A touch, a touch; I do confess't.
|
|
King. Our son shall win.
|
|
Queen. He's fat, and scant of breath.
|
|
Here, Hamlet, take my napkin, rub thy brows.
|
|
The Queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet.
|
|
Ham. Good madam!
|
|
King. Gertrude, do not drink.
|
|
Queen. I will, my lord; I pray you pardon me. Drinks.
|
|
King. [aside] It is the poison'd cup; it is too late.
|
|
Ham. I dare not drink yet, madam; by-and-by.
|
|
Queen. Come, let me wipe thy face.
|
|
Laer. My lord, I'll hit him now.
|
|
King. I do not think't.
|
|
Laer. [aside] And yet it is almost against my conscience.
|
|
Ham. Come for the third, Laertes! You but dally.
|
|
pray You Pass with your best violence;
|
|
I am afeard You make a wanton of me.
|
|
Laer. Say you so? Come on. Play.
|
|
Osr. Nothing neither way.
|
|
Laer. Have at you now!
|
|
[Laertes wounds Hamlet; then] in scuffling, they
|
|
change rapiers, [and Hamlet wounds Laertes].
|
|
King. Part them! They are incens'd.
|
|
Ham. Nay come! again! The Queen falls.
|
|
|
|
Osr. Look to the Queen there, ho!
|
|
Hor. They bleed on both sides. How is it, my lord?
|
|
Osr. How is't, Laertes?
|
|
Laer. Why, as a woodcock to mine own springe, Osric.
|
|
I am justly kill'd with mine own treachery.
|
|
Ham. How does the Queen?
|
|
King. She sounds to see them bleed.
|
|
Queen. No, no! the drink, the drink! O my dear Hamlet!
|
|
The drink, the drink! I am poison'd. [Dies.]
|
|
Ham. O villany! Ho! let the door be lock'd.
|
|
Treachery! Seek it out.
|
|
[Laertes falls.]
|
|
Laer. It is here, Hamlet. Hamlet, thou art slain;
|
|
No medicine in the world can do thee good.
|
|
In thee there is not half an hour of life.
|
|
The treacherous instrument is in thy hand,
|
|
Unbated and envenom'd. The foul practice
|
|
Hath turn'd itself on me. Lo, here I lie,
|
|
Never to rise again. Thy mother's poison'd.
|
|
I can no more. The King, the King's to blame.
|
|
Ham. The point envenom'd too?
|
|
Then, venom, to thy work. Hurts the King.
|
|
All. Treason! treason!
|
|
King. O, yet defend me, friends! I am but hurt.
|
|
Ham. Here, thou incestuous, murd'rous, damned Dane,
|
|
Drink off this potion! Is thy union here?
|
|
Follow my mother. King dies.
|
|
Laer. He is justly serv'd.
|
|
It is a poison temper'd by himself.
|
|
Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet.
|
|
Mine and my father's 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, adieu!
|
|
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 liv'st; report me and my cause aright
|
|
To the unsatisfied.
|
|
Hor. Never believe it.
|
|
I am more an antique Roman than a Dane.
|
|
Here's yet some liquor left.
|
|
Ham. As th'art a man,
|
|
Give me the cup. Let go! By heaven, I'll ha't.
|
|
O good Horatio, what a wounded name
|
|
(Things standing thus unknown) shall live behind me!
|
|
If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart,
|
|
Absent thee from felicity awhile,
|
|
And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,
|
|
To tell my story. [March afar off, and shot within.]
|
|
What warlike noise is this?
|
|
Osr. Young Fortinbras, with conquest come from Poland,
|
|
To the ambassadors of England gives
|
|
This warlike volley.
|
|
Ham. O, I die, Horatio!
|
|
The potent poison quite o'ercrows my spirit.
|
|
I cannot live to hear the news from England,
|
|
But I do prophesy th' election lights
|
|
On Fortinbras. He has my dying voice.
|
|
So tell him, with th' occurrents, more and less,
|
|
Which have solicited- the rest is silence. Dies.
|
|
Hor. Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince,
|
|
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!
|
|
[March within.]
|
|
Why does the drum come hither?
|
|
|
|
Enter Fortinbras and English Ambassadors, with Drum,
|
|
Colours, and Attendants.
|
|
|
|
Fort. Where is this sight?
|
|
Hor. What is it you will see?
|
|
If aught of woe or wonder, cease your search.
|
|
Fort. This quarry cries on havoc. O proud Death,
|
|
What feast is toward in thine eternal cell
|
|
That thou so many princes at a shot
|
|
So bloodily hast struck.
|
|
Ambassador. The sight is dismal;
|
|
And our affairs from England come too late.
|
|
The ears are senseless that should give us bearing
|
|
To tell him his commandment is fulfill'd
|
|
That Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead.
|
|
Where should We have our thanks?
|
|
Hor. Not from his mouth,
|
|
Had it th' ability of life to thank you.
|
|
He never gave commandment for their death.
|
|
But since, so jump upon this bloody question,
|
|
You from the Polack wars, and you from England,
|
|
Are here arriv'd, give order that these bodies
|
|
High on a stage be placed to the view;
|
|
And let me speak to the yet unknowing world
|
|
How these things came about. So shall You hear
|
|
Of carnal, bloody and unnatural acts;
|
|
Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters;
|
|
Of deaths put on by cunning and forc'd cause;
|
|
And, in this upshot, purposes mistook
|
|
Fall'n on th' inventors' heads. All this can I
|
|
Truly deliver.
|
|
Fort. Let us haste to hear it,
|
|
And call the noblest 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 vantage doth invite me.
|
|
Hor. Of that I shall have also cause to speak,
|
|
And from his mouth whose voice will draw on more.
|
|
But let this same be presently perform'd,
|
|
Even while men's minds are wild, lest more mischance
|
|
On plots and errors happen.
|
|
Fort. Let four captains
|
|
Bear Hamlet like a soldier to the stage;
|
|
For he was likely, had he been put on,
|
|
To have prov'd most royally; and for his passage
|
|
The soldiers' music and the rites of war
|
|
Speak loudly for him.
|
|
Take up the bodies. Such a sight as this
|
|
Becomes the field but here shows much amiss.
|
|
Go, bid the soldiers shoot.
|
|
Exeunt marching; after the which a peal of ordnance
|
|
are shot off.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
THE END
|