hamlet.txt

The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark Shakespeare homepage |
Hamlet | Entire play ACT I

SCENE I. Elsinore. A platform before the castle.

FRANCISCO at his post. Enter to him BERNARDO BERNARDO Who's there?
FRANCISCO Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold yourself.  BERNARDO
Long live the king!  FRANCISCO Bernardo?  BERNARDO He.  FRANCISCO
You come most carefully upon your hour.  BERNARDO 'Tis now struck
twelve; get thee to bed, Francisco.  FRANCISCO For this relief much
thanks: 'tis bitter cold, And I am sick at heart.  BERNARDO Have
you had quiet guard?  FRANCISCO Not a mouse stirring.  BERNARDO
Well, good night.  If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus, The rivals
of my watch, bid them make haste.  FRANCISCO I think I hear them.
Stand, ho! Who's there?  Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS

HORATIO Friends to this ground.  MARCELLUS And liegemen to the Dane.
FRANCISCO Give you good night.  MARCELLUS O, farewell, honest
soldier: Who hath relieved you?  FRANCISCO Bernardo has my place.
Give you good night.  Exit

MARCELLUS Holla! Bernardo!  BERNARDO Say, What, is Horatio there?
HORATIO A piece of him.  BERNARDO Welcome, Horatio: welcome, good
Marcellus.  MARCELLUS What, has this thing appear'd again to-night?
BERNARDO I have seen nothing.  MARCELLUS Horatio says 'tis but our
fantasy, And will not let belief take hold of him Touching this
dreaded sight, twice seen of us: Therefore I have entreated him
along With us to watch the minutes of this night; That if again
this apparition come, He may approve our eyes and speak to it.
HORATIO Tush, tush, 'twill not appear.  BERNARDO Sit down awhile;
And let us once again assail your ears, That are so fortified against
our story What we have two nights seen.  HORATIO Well, sit we down,
And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.  BERNARDO Last night of
all, When yond same star that's westward from the pole Had made his
course to illume that part of heaven Where now it burns, Marcellus
and myself, The bell then beating one,-- Enter Ghost

MARCELLUS Peace, break thee off; look, where it comes again!  BERNARDO
In the same figure, like the king that's dead.  MARCELLUS Thou art
a scholar; speak to it, Horatio.  BERNARDO Looks it not like the
king? mark it, Horatio.  HORATIO Most like: it harrows me with fear
and wonder.  BERNARDO It would be spoke to.  MARCELLUS Question it,
Horatio.  HORATIO What art thou that usurp'st this time of night,
Together with that fair and warlike form In which the majesty of
buried Denmark Did sometimes march? by heaven I charge thee, speak!
MARCELLUS It is offended.  BERNARDO See, it stalks away!  HORATIO
Stay! speak, speak! I charge thee, speak!  Exit Ghost

MARCELLUS 'Tis gone, and will not answer.  BERNARDO How now, Horatio!
you tremble and look pale: Is not this something more than fantasy?
What think you on't?  HORATIO Before my God, I might not this believe
Without the sensible and true avouch Of mine own eyes.  MARCELLUS
Is it not like the king?  HORATIO As thou art to thyself: Such was
the very armour he had on When he the ambitious Norway combated;
So frown'd he once, when, in an angry parle, He smote the sledded
Polacks on the ice.  'Tis strange.  MARCELLUS Thus twice before,
and jump at this dead hour, With martial stalk hath he gone by our
watch.  HORATIO In what particular thought to work I know not; But
in the gross and scope of my opinion, This bodes some strange
eruption to our state.  MARCELLUS Good now, sit down, and tell me,
he that knows, Why this same strict and most observant watch So
nightly toils the subject of the land, And why such daily cast of
brazen cannon, And foreign mart for implements of war; Why such
impress of shipwrights, whose sore task Does not divide the Sunday
from the week; What might be toward, that this sweaty haste Doth
make the night joint-labourer with the day: Who is't that can inform
me?  HORATIO That can I; At least, the whisper goes so. Our last
king, Whose image even but now appear'd to us, Was, as you know,
by Fortinbras of Norway, Thereto prick'd on by a most emulate pride,
Dared to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet-- For so this side
of our known world esteem'd him-- Did slay this Fortinbras; who by
a seal'd compact, Well ratified by law and heraldry, Did forfeit,
with his life, all those his lands Which he stood seized of, to the
conqueror: Against the which, a moiety competent Was gaged by our
king; which had return'd To the inheritance of Fortinbras, Had he
been vanquisher; as, by the same covenant, And carriage of the
article design'd, His fell to Hamlet. Now, sir, young Fortinbras,
Of unimproved mettle hot and full, Hath in the skirts of Norway
here and there Shark'd up a list of lawless resolutes, For food and
diet, to some enterprise That hath a stomach in't; which is no
other-- As it doth well appear unto our state-- But to recover of
us, by strong hand And terms compulsatory, those foresaid lands So
by his father lost: and this, I take it, Is the main motive of our
preparations, The source of this our watch and the chief head Of
this post-haste and romage in the land.  BERNARDO I think it be no
other but e'en so: Well may it sort that this portentous figure
Comes armed through our watch; so like the king That was and is the
question of these wars.  HORATIO A mote it is to trouble the mind's
eye.  In the most high and palmy state of Rome, A little ere the
mightiest Julius fell, The graves stood tenantless and the sheeted
dead Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets: As stars with
trains of fire and dews of blood, Disasters in the sun; and the
moist star Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands Was sick
almost to doomsday with eclipse: And even the like precurse of
fierce events, As harbingers preceding still the fates And prologue
to the omen coming on, Have heaven and earth together demonstrated
Unto our climatures and countrymen.-- But soft, behold! lo, where
it comes again!  Re-enter Ghost

I'll cross it, though it blast me. Stay, illusion!  If thou hast
any sound, or use of voice, Speak to me: If there be any good thing
to be done, That may to thee do ease and grace to me, Speak to me:
Cock crows

If thou art privy to thy country's fate, Which, happily, foreknowing
may avoid, O, speak!  Or if thou hast uphoarded in thy life Extorted
treasure in the womb of earth, For which, they say, you spirits oft
walk in death, Speak of it: stay, and speak! Stop it, Marcellus.
MARCELLUS Shall I strike at it with my partisan?  HORATIO Do, if
it will not stand.  BERNARDO 'Tis here!  HORATIO 'Tis here!  MARCELLUS
'Tis gone!  Exit Ghost

We do it wrong, being so majestical, To offer it the show of violence;
For it is, as the air, invulnerable, And our vain blows malicious
mockery.  BERNARDO It was about to speak, when the cock crew.
HORATIO And then it started like a guilty thing Upon a fearful
summons. I have heard, The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,
Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat Awake the god of
day; and, at his warning, Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,
The extravagant and erring spirit hies To his confine: and of the
truth herein This present object made probation.  MARCELLUS It faded
on the crowing of the cock.  Some say that ever 'gainst that season
comes Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, The bird of dawning
singeth all night long: And then, they say, no spirit dares stir
abroad; The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike, No fairy
takes, nor witch hath power to charm, So hallow'd and so gracious
is the time.  HORATIO So have I heard and do in part believe it.
But, look, the morn, in russet mantle clad, Walks o'er the dew of
yon high eastward hill: Break we our watch up; and by my advice,
Let us impart what we have seen to-night Unto young Hamlet; for,
upon my life, This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him.  Do you
consent we shall acquaint him with it, As needful in our loves,
fitting our duty?  MARCELLUS Let's do't, I pray; and I this morning
know Where we shall find him most conveniently.  Exeunt

SCENE II. A room of state in the castle.

Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, HAMLET, POLONIUS, LAERTES,
VOLTIMAND, CORNELIUS, Lords, and Attendants KING CLAUDIUS Though
yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death The memory be green, and
that it us befitted To bear our hearts in grief and our whole kingdom
To be contracted in one brow of woe, Yet so far hath discretion
fought with nature That we with wisest sorrow think on him, Together
with remembrance of ourselves.  Therefore our sometime sister, now
our queen, The imperial jointress to this warlike state, Have we,
as 'twere with a defeated joy,-- With an auspicious and a dropping
eye, With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage, In equal
scale weighing delight and dole,-- Taken to wife: nor have we herein
barr'd Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone With this affair
along. For all, our thanks.  Now follows, that you know, young
Fortinbras, Holding a weak supposal of our worth, Or thinking by
our late dear brother's death Our state to be disjoint and out of
frame, Colleagued with the dream of his advantage, He hath not
fail'd to pester us with message, Importing the surrender of those
lands Lost by his father, with all bonds of law, To our most valiant
brother. So much for him.  Now for ourself and for this time of
meeting: Thus much the business is: we have here writ To Norway,
uncle of young Fortinbras,-- Who, impotent and bed-rid, scarcely
hears Of this his nephew's purpose,--to suppress His further gait
herein; in that the levies, The lists and full proportions, are all
made Out of his subject: and we here dispatch You, good Cornelius,
and you, Voltimand, For bearers of this greeting to old Norway;
Giving to you no further personal power To business with the king,
more than the scope Of these delated articles allow.  Farewell, and
let your haste commend your duty.  CORNELIUS VOLTIMAND In that and
all things will we show our duty.  KING CLAUDIUS We doubt it nothing:
heartily farewell.  Exeunt VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS

And now, Laertes, what's the news with you?  You told us of some
suit; what is't, Laertes?  You cannot speak of reason to the Dane,
And loose your voice: what wouldst thou beg, Laertes, That shall
not be my offer, not thy asking?  The head is not more native to
the heart, The hand more instrumental to the mouth, Than is the
throne of Denmark to thy father.  What wouldst thou have, Laertes?
LAERTES My dread lord, Your leave and favour to return to France;
From whence though willingly I came to Denmark, To show my duty in
your coronation, Yet now, I must confess, that duty done, My thoughts
and wishes bend again toward France And bow them to your gracious
leave and pardon.  KING CLAUDIUS Have you your father's leave? What
says Polonius?  LORD POLONIUS He hath, my lord, wrung from me my
slow leave By laboursome petition, and at last Upon his will I
seal'd my hard consent: I do beseech you, give him leave to go.
KING CLAUDIUS Take thy fair hour, Laertes; time be thine, And thy
best graces spend it at thy will!  But now, my cousin Hamlet, and
my son,-- HAMLET [Aside] A little more than kin, and less than kind.
KING CLAUDIUS How is it that the clouds still hang on you?  HAMLET
Not so, my lord; I am too much i' the sun.  QUEEN GERTRUDE Good
Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off, And let thine eye look like a
friend on Denmark.  Do not for ever with thy vailed lids Seek for
thy noble father in the dust: Thou know'st 'tis common; all that
lives must die, Passing through nature to eternity.  HAMLET Ay,
madam, it is common.  QUEEN GERTRUDE If it be, Why seems it so
particular with thee?  HAMLET Seems, madam! nay it is; I know not
'seems.' 'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, Nor customary
suits of solemn black, Nor windy suspiration of forced breath, No,
nor the fruitful river in the eye, Nor the dejected 'havior of the
visage, Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief, That can
denote me truly: these indeed seem, For they are actions that a man
might play: But I have that within which passeth show; These but
the trappings and the suits of woe.  KING CLAUDIUS 'Tis sweet and
commendable in your nature, Hamlet, To give these mourning duties
to your father: But, you must know, your father lost a father; That
father lost, lost his, and the survivor bound In filial obligation
for some term To do obsequious sorrow: but to persever In obstinate
condolement is a course Of impious stubbornness; 'tis unmanly grief;
It shows a will most incorrect to heaven, A heart unfortified, a
mind impatient, An understanding simple and unschool'd: For what
we know must be and is as common As any the most vulgar thing to
sense, Why should we in our peevish opposition Take it to heart?
Fie! 'tis a fault to heaven, A fault against the dead, a fault to
nature, To reason most absurd: whose common theme Is death of
fathers, and who still hath cried, From the first corse till he
that died to-day, 'This must be so.' We pray you, throw to earth
This unprevailing woe, and think of us As of a father: for let the
world take note, You are the most immediate to our throne; And with
no less nobility of love Than that which dearest father bears his
son, Do I impart toward you. For your intent In going back to school
in Wittenberg, It is most retrograde to our desire: And we beseech
you, bend you to remain Here, in the cheer and comfort of our eye,
Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.  QUEEN GERTRUDE Let not
thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet: I pray thee, stay with us; go
not to Wittenberg.  HAMLET I shall in all my best obey you, madam.
KING CLAUDIUS Why, 'tis a loving and a fair reply: Be as ourself
in Denmark. Madam, come; This gentle and unforced accord of Hamlet
Sits smiling to my heart: in grace whereof, No jocund health that
Denmark drinks to-day, But the great cannon to the clouds shall
tell, And the king's rouse the heavens all bruit again, Re-speaking
earthly thunder. Come away.  Exeunt all but HAMLET

HAMLET O, that this too too solid flesh would melt Thaw and resolve
itself into a dew!  Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd His canon
'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!  How weary, stale, flat and
unprofitable, Seem to me all the uses of this world!  Fie on't! ah
fie! 'tis an unweeded garden, That grows to seed; things rank and
gross in nature Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
But two months dead: nay, not so much, not two: So excellent a king;
that was, to this, Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother That
he might not beteem the winds of heaven Visit her face too roughly.
Heaven and earth!  Must I remember? why, she would hang on him, As
if increase of appetite had grown By what it fed on: and yet, within
a month-- Let me not think on't--Frailty, thy name is woman!-- A
little month, or ere those shoes were old With which she follow'd
my poor father's body, Like Niobe, all tears:--why she, even she--
O, God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason, Would have mourn'd
longer--married with my uncle, My father's brother, but no more
like my father Than I to Hercules: within a month: Ere yet the salt
of most unrighteous tears Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
She married. O, most wicked speed, to post With such dexterity to
incestuous sheets!  It is not nor it cannot come to good: But break,
my heart; for I must hold my tongue.  Enter HORATIO, MARCELLUS, and
BERNARDO

HORATIO Hail to your lordship!  HAMLET I am glad to see you well:
Horatio,--or I do forget myself.  HORATIO The same, my lord, and
your poor servant ever.  HAMLET Sir, my good friend; I'll change
that name with you: And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio?
Marcellus?  MARCELLUS My good lord-- HAMLET I am very glad to see
you. Good even, sir.  But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg?
HORATIO A truant disposition, good my lord.  HAMLET I would not
hear your enemy say so, Nor shall you do mine ear that violence,
To make it truster of your own report Against yourself: I know you
are no truant.  But what is your affair in Elsinore?  We'll teach
you to drink deep ere you depart.  HORATIO My lord, I came to see
your father's funeral.  HAMLET I pray thee, do not mock me,
fellow-student; I think it was to see my mother's wedding.  HORATIO
Indeed, my lord, it follow'd hard upon.  HAMLET Thrift, thrift,
Horatio! the funeral baked 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.
HORATIO Where, my lord?  HAMLET In my mind's eye, Horatio.  HORATIO
I saw him once; he was a goodly king.  HAMLET He was a man, take
him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again.  HORATIO
My lord, I think I saw him yesternight.  HAMLET Saw? who?  HORATIO
My lord, the king your father.  HAMLET The king my father!  HORATIO
Season your admiration for awhile With an attent ear, till I may
deliver, Upon the witness of these gentlemen, This marvel to you.
HAMLET For God's love, let me hear.  HORATIO Two nights together
had these gentlemen, Marcellus and Bernardo, on their watch, In the
dead vast and middle of the night, Been thus encounter'd. 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, distilled 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.  HAMLET But where was
this?  MARCELLUS My lord, upon the platform where we watch'd.  HAMLET
Did you not speak to it?  HORATIO My lord, I did; But answer made
it none: yet once methought It lifted up its 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.  HAMLET 'Tis very strange.  HORATIO 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.  HAMLET Indeed, indeed, sirs,
but this troubles me.  Hold you the watch to-night?  MARCELLUS
BERNARDO We do, my lord.  HAMLET Arm'd, say you?  MARCELLUS BERNARDO
Arm'd, my lord.  HAMLET From top to toe?  MARCELLUS BERNARDO My
lord, from head to foot.  HAMLET Then saw you not his face?  HORATIO
O, yes, my lord; he wore his beaver up.  HAMLET What, look'd he
frowningly?  HORATIO A countenance more in sorrow than in anger.
HAMLET Pale or red?  HORATIO Nay, very pale.  HAMLET And fix'd his
eyes upon you?  HORATIO Most constantly.  HAMLET I would I had been
there.  HORATIO It would have much amazed you.  HAMLET Very like,
very like. Stay'd it long?  HORATIO While one with moderate haste
might tell a hundred.  MARCELLUS BERNARDO Longer, longer.  HORATIO
Not when I saw't.  HAMLET His beard was grizzled--no?  HORATIO It
was, as I have seen it in his life, A sable silver'd.  HAMLET I
will watch to-night; Perchance 'twill walk again.  HORATIO I warrant
it will.  HAMLET 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.  HAMLET 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. A room in Polonius' house.

Enter LAERTES and OPHELIA LAERTES 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.  OPHELIA Do you
doubt that?  LAERTES 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.  OPHELIA No more but so?  LAERTES
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 circumscribed
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 unmaster'd 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 'scapes not
calumnious strokes: The canker galls the infants of the spring, Too
oft before their buttons be disclosed, 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.  OPHELIA I shall the 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.  LAERTES O, fear me
not.  I stay too long: but here my father comes.  Enter POLONIUS

A double blessing is a double grace, Occasion smiles upon a second
leave.  LORD POLONIUS 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
See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue, Nor any unproportioned
thought his act.  Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.  Those
friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, Grapple them to thy
soul with hoops of steel; But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledged comrade. Beware Of entrance to a
quarrel, but being in, Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy 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 of a 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
ownself 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!  LAERTES Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord.
LORD POLONIUS The time invites you; go; your servants tend.  LAERTES
Farewell, Ophelia; and remember well What I have said to you.
OPHELIA 'Tis in my memory lock'd, And you yourself shall keep the
key of it.  LAERTES Farewell.  Exit

LORD POLONIUS What is't, Ophelia, be hath said to you?  OPHELIA So
please you, something touching the Lord Hamlet.  LORD POLONIUS
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 behoves my daughter and your honour.  What
is between you? give me up the truth.  OPHELIA He hath, my lord,
of late made many tenders Of his affection to me.  LORD POLONIUS
Affection! pooh! you speak like a green girl, Unsifted in such
perilous circumstance.  Do you believe his tenders, as you call
them?  OPHELIA I do not know, my lord, what I should think.  LORD
POLONIUS Marry, I'll 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.  OPHELIA My lord,
he hath importuned me with love In honourable fashion.  LORD POLONIUS
Ay, fashion you may call it; go to, go to.  OPHELIA And hath given
countenance to his speech, my lord, With almost all the holy vows
of heaven.  LORD POLONIUS 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 somewhat 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.  OPHELIA I shall obey, my lord.  Exeunt

SCENE IV. The platform.

Enter HAMLET, HORATIO, and MARCELLUS HAMLET The air bites shrewdly;
it is very cold.  HORATIO It is a nipping and an eager air.  HAMLET
What hour now?  HORATIO I think it lacks of twelve.  HAMLET No, it
is struck.  HORATIO Indeed? I heard it not: then it draws near the
season Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk.  A flourish of
trumpets, and ordnance shot off, within

What does this mean, my lord?  HAMLET The king doth wake to-night
and takes his rouse, Keeps wassail, and the swaggering up-spring
reels; And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down, The kettle-drum
and trumpet thus bray out The triumph of his pledge.  HORATIO Is
it a custom?  HAMLET 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 traduced and tax'd of other nations: They clepe
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'er-leavens 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 eale Doth all the noble
substance of a doubt To his own scandal.  HORATIO Look, my lord,
it comes!  Enter Ghost

HAMLET 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 comest
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 canonized bones, hearsed in
death, Have burst their cerements; why the sepulchre, Wherein we
saw thee quietly inurn'd, Hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws,
To cast thee up again. What may this mean, That thou, dead corse,
again in complete steel Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon,
Making night hideous; and we fools of nature So horridly to shake
our disposition With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?  Say,
why is this? wherefore? what should we do?  Ghost beckons HAMLET

HORATIO It beckons you to go away with it, As if it some impartment
did desire To you alone.  MARCELLUS Look, with what courteous action
It waves you to a more removed ground: But do not go with it.
HORATIO No, by no means.  HAMLET It will not speak; then I will
follow it.  HORATIO Do not, my lord.  HAMLET Why, what should be
the fear?  I do not set my life in 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.  HORATIO 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 fathoms to the sea And hears it roar beneath.  HAMLET It waves
me still.  Go on; I'll follow thee.  MARCELLUS You shall not go,
my lord.  HAMLET Hold off your hands.  HORATIO Be ruled; you shall
not go.  HAMLET My fate cries out, And makes each petty artery in
this body As hardy as the Nemean lion's nerve.  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

HORATIO He waxes desperate with imagination.  MARCELLUS Let's follow;
'tis not fit thus to obey him.  HORATIO Have after. To what issue
will this come?  MARCELLUS Something is rotten in the state of
Denmark.  HORATIO Heaven will direct it.  MARCELLUS Nay, let's
follow him.  Exeunt

SCENE V. Another part of the platform.

Enter GHOST and HAMLET HAMLET Where wilt thou lead me? speak; I'll
go no further.  Ghost Mark me.  HAMLET I will.  Ghost My hour is
almost come, When I to sulphurous and tormenting flames Must render
up myself.  HAMLET Alas, poor ghost!  Ghost Pity me not, but lend
thy serious hearing To what I shall unfold.  HAMLET Speak; I am
bound to hear.  Ghost So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear.
HAMLET What?  Ghost I am thy father's spirit, Doom'd for a certain
term to walk the night, And for the day confined to fast in fires,
Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature Are burnt and purged
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 on 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-- HAMLET O God!  Ghost Revenge his foul and most unnatural
murder.  HAMLET Murder!  Ghost Murder most foul, as in the best it
is; But this most foul, strange and unnatural.  HAMLET 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 roots 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
abused: but know, thou noble youth, The serpent that did sting thy
father's life Now wears his crown.  HAMLET 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 moved, 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 hebenon 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
quicksilver it courses through The natural gates and alleys of the
body, And with a sudden vigour 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, Unhousel'd, disappointed,
unanel'd, No reckoning made, but sent to my account With all my
imperfections on my head: O, horrible! O, horrible! most horrible!
If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not; Let not the royal bed of
Denmark be A couch for luxury and damned incest.  But, howsoever
thou pursuest this act, Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive
Against thy mother aught: leave her to heaven And to those thorns
that in her bosom lodge, To prick and sting her. Fare thee well at
once!  The glow-worm shows the matin to be near, And 'gins to pale
his uneffectual fire: Adieu, adieu! Hamlet, remember me.  Exit

HAMLET O all you host of heaven! O earth! what else?  And shall I
couple hell? O, fie! Hold, hold, my heart; And you, my sinews, grow
not instant old, But bear me stiffly up. Remember thee!  Ay, thou
poor ghost, while memory holds a seat In this distracted globe.
Remember thee!  Yea, from the table of my memory I'll wipe away all
trivial fond records, All saws of books, all forms, all pressures
past, 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!  O most pernicious woman!  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'm sure it may be so in Denmark: Writing

So, uncle, there you are. Now to my word; It is 'Adieu, adieu!
remember me.' I have sworn 't.  MARCELLUS HORATIO [Within] My lord,
my lord,-- MARCELLUS [Within]        Lord Hamlet,-- HORATIO [Within]
Heaven secure him!  HAMLET So be it!  HORATIO [Within] Hillo, ho,
ho, my lord!  HAMLET Hillo, ho, ho, boy! come, bird, come.  Enter
HORATIO and MARCELLUS

MARCELLUS How is't, my noble lord?  HORATIO What news, my lord?
HAMLET O, wonderful!  HORATIO Good my lord, tell it.  HAMLET No;
you'll reveal it.  HORATIO Not I, my lord, by heaven.  MARCELLUS
Nor I, my lord.  HAMLET How say you, then; would heart of man once
think it?  But you'll be secret?  HORATIO MARCELLUS Ay, by heaven,
my lord.  HAMLET There's ne'er a villain dwelling in all Denmark
But he's an arrant knave.  HORATIO There needs no ghost, my lord,
come from the grave To tell us this.  HAMLET Why, right; you are
i' the right; And so, without more circumstance at all, I hold it
fit that we shake hands and part: You, as your business and desire
shall point you; For every man has business and desire, Such as it
is; and for mine own poor part, Look you, I'll go pray.  HORATIO
These are but wild and whirling words, my lord.  HAMLET I'm sorry
they offend you, heartily; Yes, 'faith heartily.  HORATIO There's
no offence, my lord.  HAMLET Yes, by Saint Patrick, but there is,
Horatio, And much offence too. Touching this vision here, It is an
honest ghost, that let me tell you: For your desire to know what
is between us, O'ermaster 't as you may. And now, good friends, As
you are friends, scholars and soldiers, Give me one poor request.
HORATIO What is't, my lord? we will.  HAMLET Never make known what
you have seen to-night.  HORATIO MARCELLUS My lord, we will not.
HAMLET Nay, but swear't.  HORATIO In faith, My lord, not I.  MARCELLUS
Nor I, my lord, in faith.  HAMLET Upon my sword.  MARCELLUS We have
sworn, my lord, already.  HAMLET Indeed, upon my sword, indeed.
Ghost [Beneath] Swear.  HAMLET Ah, ha, boy! say'st thou so? art
thou there, truepenny?  Come on--you hear this fellow in the
cellarage-- Consent to swear.  HORATIO Propose the oath, my lord.
HAMLET Never to speak of this that you have seen, Swear by my sword.
Ghost [Beneath] Swear.  HAMLET Hic et ubique? then we'll shift our
ground.  Come hither, gentlemen, And lay your hands again upon my
sword: Never to speak of this that you have heard, Swear by my
sword.  Ghost [Beneath] Swear.  HAMLET Well said, old mole! canst
work i' the earth so fast?  A worthy pioner! Once more remove, good
friends.  HORATIO O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!
HAMLET And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.  There are more
things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your
philosophy. But come; Here, as before, never, so help you mercy,
How strange or odd soe'er I bear myself, As I perchance hereafter
shall think meet To put an antic disposition on, That you, at such
times seeing me, never shall, With arms encumber'd thus, or this
headshake, 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 not to do, So grace
and mercy at your most need help you, Swear.  Ghost [Beneath] Swear.
HAMLET Rest, rest, perturbed spirit!  They swear

So, gentlemen, With all my love I do commend me to you: And what
so poor a man as Hamlet is May do, to 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!  Nay, come,
let's go together.  Exeunt

ACT II

SCENE I. A room in POLONIUS' house.

Enter POLONIUS and REYNALDO LORD POLONIUS Give him this money and
these notes, Reynaldo.  REYNALDO I will, my lord.  LORD POLONIUS
You shall do marvellous wisely, good Reynaldo, Before you visit
him, to make inquire Of his behavior.  REYNALDO My lord, I did
intend it.  LORD POLONIUS Marry, well said; very well said. Look
you, sir, Inquire me first what Danskers are in Paris; And how, and
who, what means, and where they keep, What company, at what expense;
and finding By this encompassment and drift of question That they
do know my son, come you more nearer Than your particular demands
will touch it: Take you, as 'twere, some distant knowledge of him;
As thus, 'I know his father and his friends, And in part him: ' do
you mark this, Reynaldo?  REYNALDO Ay, very well, my lord.  LORD
POLONIUS 'And in part him; but' you may say 'not well: But, if't
be he I mean, he's very wild; Addicted so and so:' and there put
on him What forgeries you please; marry, none so rank As may dishonour
him; take heed of that; But, sir, such wanton, wild and usual slips
As are companions noted and most known To youth and liberty.  REYNALDO
As gaming, my lord.  LORD POLONIUS Ay, or drinking, fencing, swearing,
quarrelling, Drabbing: you may go so far.  REYNALDO My lord, that
would dishonour him.  LORD POLONIUS 'Faith, no; as you may season
it in the charge You must not put another scandal on him, That he
is open to incontinency; That's not my meaning: but breathe his
faults so quaintly That they may seem the taints of liberty, The
flash and outbreak of a fiery mind, A savageness in unreclaimed
blood, Of general assault.  REYNALDO But, my good lord,-- LORD
POLONIUS Wherefore should you do this?  REYNALDO Ay, my lord, I
would know that.  LORD POLONIUS Marry, sir, here's my drift; And I
believe, it is a fetch of wit: You laying these slight sullies on
my son, As 'twere a thing a little soil'd i' the working, Mark you,
Your party in converse, him you would sound, Having ever seen in
the prenominate crimes The youth you breathe of guilty, be assured
He closes with you in this consequence; 'Good sir,' or so, or
'friend,' or 'gentleman,' According to the phrase or the addition
Of man and country.  REYNALDO Very good, my lord.  LORD POLONIUS
And then, sir, does he this--he does--what was I about to say? By
the mass, I was about to say something: where did I leave?  REYNALDO
At 'closes in the consequence,' at 'friend or so,' and 'gentleman.'
LORD POLONIUS At 'closes in the consequence,' ay, marry; He closes
thus: 'I know the gentleman; I saw him yesterday, or t' other day,
Or then, or then; with such, or such; and, as you say, There was
a' gaming; there o'ertook in's rouse; There falling out at tennis:'
or perchance, 'I saw him enter such a house of sale,' Videlicet, a
brothel, or so forth.  See you now; Your bait of falsehood takes
this carp of truth: And thus do we of wisdom and of reach, With
windlasses and with assays of bias, By indirections find directions
out: So by my former lecture and advice, Shall you my son. You have
me, have you not?  REYNALDO My lord, I have.  LORD POLONIUS God be
wi' you; fare you well.  REYNALDO Good my lord!  LORD POLONIUS
Observe his inclination in yourself.  REYNALDO I shall, my lord.
LORD POLONIUS And let him ply his music.  REYNALDO Well, my lord.
LORD POLONIUS Farewell!  Exit REYNALDO

Enter OPHELIA

How now, Ophelia! what's the matter?  OPHELIA O, my lord, my lord,
I have been so affrighted!  LORD POLONIUS With what, i' the name
of God?  OPHELIA My lord, as I was sewing in my closet, Lord Hamlet,
with his doublet all unbraced; No hat upon his head; his stockings
foul'd, Ungarter'd, and down-gyved to his ancle; 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.  LORD POLONIUS Mad for thy love?  OPHELIA My lord, I do
not know; But truly, I do fear it.  LORD POLONIUS What said he?
OPHELIA 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 raised a sigh so piteous and
profound As it did seem to shatter all his bulk And end his being:
that done, he lets me go: And, with his head over his shoulder
turn'd, He seem'd to find his way without his eyes; For out o' doors
he went without their helps, And, to the last, bended their light
on me.  LORD POLONIUS 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?  OPHELIA No, my
good lord, but, as you did command, I did repel his fetters and
denied His access to me.  LORD POLONIUS 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 wreck 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.  Exeunt

SCENE II. A room in the castle.

Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, and
Attendants KING CLAUDIUS 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 call it, Sith nor the 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 the understanding
of himself, I cannot dream of: I entreat you both, That, being of
so young days brought up with him, And sith so neighbour'd to his
youth and havior, 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 GERTRUDE 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.  ROSENCRANTZ Both your majesties Might,
by the sovereign power you have of us, Put your dread pleasures
more into command Than to entreaty.  GUILDENSTERN 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 CLAUDIUS Thanks,
Rosencrantz and gentle Guildenstern.  QUEEN GERTRUDE 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.  GUILDENSTERN Heavens make our presence
and our practises Pleasant and helpful to him!  QUEEN GERTRUDE Ay,
amen!  Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, and some Attendants

Enter POLONIUS

LORD POLONIUS The ambassadors from Norway, my good lord, Are joyfully
return'd.  KING CLAUDIUS Thou still hast been the father of good
news.  LORD POLONIUS Have I, my lord? I assure my good liege, I
hold my duty, as I hold my soul, Both to my God and to my gracious
king: And I do think, or else this brain of mine Hunts not the trail
of policy so sure As it hath used to do, that I have found The very
cause of Hamlet's lunacy.  KING CLAUDIUS O, speak of that; that do
I long to hear.  LORD POLONIUS Give first admittance to the
ambassadors; My news shall be the fruit to that great feast.  KING
CLAUDIUS 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 GERTRUDE I doubt it is no other
but the main; His father's death, and our o'erhasty marriage.  KING
CLAUDIUS Well, we shall sift him.  Re-enter POLONIUS, with VOLTIMAND
and CORNELIUS

Welcome, my good friends!  Say, Voltimand, what from our brother
Norway?  VOLTIMAND Most fair return of greetings and desires.  Upon
our first, he sent out to suppress His nephew's levies; which to
him appear'd To be a preparation 'gainst the Polack; But, better
look'd into, he truly found It was against your highness: whereat
grieved, That so his sickness, age and impotence Was falsely borne
in hand, sends out arrests On Fortinbras; which he, in brief, obeys;
Receives rebuke from Norway, and in fine Makes vow before his uncle
never more To give the assay of arms against your majesty.  Whereon
old Norway, overcome with joy, Gives him three thousand crowns in
annual fee, And his commission to employ those soldiers, So levied
as before, against the Polack: With an entreaty, herein further
shown, Giving 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 CLAUDIUS It likes us well; And at our
more consider'd time well 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 VOLTIMAND
and CORNELIUS

LORD POLONIUS This business is well ended.  My liege, and madam,
to expostulate What majesty should be, what duty is, Why day is
day, night night, and time is time, Were nothing but to waste night,
day and time.  Therefore, 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
GERTRUDE More matter, with less art.  LORD POLONIUS Madam, I swear
I use no art at all.  That he is mad, 'tis true: 'tis true 'tis
pity; And pity 'tis 'tis true: a foolish figure; But farewell it,
for I will use no art.  Mad let us grant him, then: and now remains
That we find out the cause of this effect, Or rather say, the cause
of this defect, For this effect defective comes by cause: Thus it
remains, and the remainder thus. 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

'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 GERTRUDE Came
this from Hamlet to her?  LORD POLONIUS 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 CLAUDIUS But how hath she Received his love?
LORD POLONIUS What do you think of me?  KING CLAUDIUS As of a man
faithful and honourable.  LORD POLONIUS I would fain prove so. But
what might you think, When I had seen this hot love on the wing--
As I perceived it, I must tell you that, Before my daughter told
me--what might you, Or my dear majesty your queen here, think, If
I had 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 precepts gave her, That she should lock herself
from his resort, Admit no messengers, receive no tokens.  Which
done, she took the fruits of my advice; And he, 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 CLAUDIUS Do you think 'tis this?  QUEEN GERTRUDE It may
be, very likely.  LORD POLONIUS Hath there been such a time--I'd
fain know that-- That I have positively said 'Tis so,' When it
proved otherwise?  KING CLAUDIUS Not that I know.  LORD POLONIUS
[Pointing 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 CLAUDIUS
How may we try it further?  LORD POLONIUS You know, sometimes he
walks four hours together Here in the lobby.  QUEEN GERTRUDE So he
does indeed.  LORD POLONIUS 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 be not from his reason fall'n thereon, Let me
be no assistant for a state, But keep a farm and carters.  KING
CLAUDIUS We will try it.  QUEEN GERTRUDE But, look, where sadly the
poor wretch comes reading.  LORD POLONIUS Away, I do beseech you,
both away: I'll board him presently.  Exeunt KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN
GERTRUDE, and Attendants

Enter HAMLET, reading

O, give me leave: How does my good Lord Hamlet?  HAMLET Well,
God-a-mercy.  LORD POLONIUS Do you know me, my lord?  HAMLET Excellent
well; you are a fishmonger.  LORD POLONIUS Not I, my lord.  HAMLET
Then I would you were so honest a man.  LORD POLONIUS Honest, my
lord!  HAMLET Ay, sir; to be honest, as this world goes, is to be
one man picked out of ten thousand.  LORD POLONIUS That's very true,
my lord.  HAMLET For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being
a god kissing carrion,--Have you a daughter?  LORD POLONIUS I have,
my lord.  HAMLET Let her not walk i' the sun: conception is a
blessing: but not as your daughter may conceive.  Friend, look to
't.  LORD POLONIUS [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 suffered much
extremity for love; very near this. I'll speak to him again.  What
do you read, my lord?  HAMLET Words, words, words.  LORD POLONIUS
What is the matter, my lord?  HAMLET Between who?  LORD POLONIUS I
mean, the matter that you read, my lord.  HAMLET Slanders, sir: for
the satirical rogue says here that old men have grey beards, that
their faces are wrinkled, their eyes purging 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
yourself, sir, should be old as I am, if like a crab you could go
backward.  LORD POLONIUS [Aside] Though this be madness, yet there
is method in 't. Will you walk out of the air, my lord?  HAMLET
Into my grave.  LORD POLONIUS Indeed, that is out o' the 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.  HAMLET You cannot, sir, take
from me any thing that I will more willingly part withal: except
my life, except my life, except my life.  LORD POLONIUS Fare you
well, my lord.  HAMLET These tedious old fools!  Enter ROSENCRANTZ
and GUILDENSTERN

LORD POLONIUS You go to seek the Lord Hamlet; there he is.  ROSENCRANTZ
[To POLONIUS] God save you, sir!  Exit POLONIUS

GUILDENSTERN My honoured lord!  ROSENCRANTZ My most dear lord!
HAMLET My excellent good friends! How dost thou, Guildenstern? Ah,
Rosencrantz! Good lads, how do ye both?  ROSENCRANTZ As the indifferent
children of the earth.  GUILDENSTERN Happy, in that we are not
over-happy; On fortune's cap we are not the very button.  HAMLET
Nor the soles of her shoe?  ROSENCRANTZ Neither, my lord.  HAMLET
Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of her favours?
GUILDENSTERN 'Faith, her privates we.  HAMLET In the secret parts
of fortune? O, most true; she is a strumpet. What's the news?
ROSENCRANTZ None, my lord, but that the world's grown honest.  HAMLET
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?  GUILDENSTERN
Prison, my lord!  HAMLET Denmark's a prison.  ROSENCRANTZ Then is
the world one.  HAMLET A goodly one; in which there are many confines,
wards and dungeons, Denmark being one o' the worst.  ROSENCRANTZ
We think not so, my lord.  HAMLET 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.  ROSENCRANTZ Why then, your ambition makes it
one; 'tis too narrow for your mind.  HAMLET O God, I could be bounded
in a nut shell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it
not that I have bad dreams.  GUILDENSTERN Which dreams indeed are
ambition, for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the
shadow of a dream.  HAMLET A dream itself is but a shadow.  ROSENCRANTZ
Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality that it
is but a shadow's shadow.  HAMLET Then are our beggars bodies, and
our monarchs and outstretched heroes the beggars' shadows. Shall
we to the court? for, by my fay, I cannot reason.  ROSENCRANTZ
GUILDENSTERN We'll wait upon you.  HAMLET 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?  ROSENCRANTZ
To visit you, my lord; no other occasion.  HAMLET 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.  GUILDENSTERN What should we say, my
lord?  HAMLET Why, any thing, but to the 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.  ROSENCRANTZ To what end, my lord?  HAMLET
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?  ROSENCRANTZ [Aside to GUILDENSTERN] What say
you?  HAMLET [Aside] Nay, then, I have an eye of you.--If you love
me, hold not off.  GUILDENSTERN My lord, we were sent for.  HAMLET
I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation prevent your discovery,
and your secrecy to the king and queen moult no feather. I have of
late--but wherefore I know not--lost all my mirth, forgone all
custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition
that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory,
this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging
firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it
appears 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 faculty! 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.  ROSENCRANTZ
My lord, there was no such stuff in my thoughts.  HAMLET Why did
you laugh then, when I said 'man delights not me'?  ROSENCRANTZ 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.  HAMLET He that plays
the king shall be welcome; his majesty shall have tribute of me;
the adventurous knight shall use his foil and target; the lover
shall not sigh gratis; the humourous man shall end his part in
peace; the clown shall make those laugh whose lungs are tickled o'
the sere; and the lady shall say her mind freely, or the blank verse
shall halt for't. What players are they?  ROSENCRANTZ Even those
you were wont to take delight in, the tragedians of the city.  HAMLET
How chances it they travel? their residence, both in reputation and
profit, was better both ways.  ROSENCRANTZ I think their inhibition
comes by the means of the late innovation.  HAMLET Do they hold the
same estimation they did when I was in the city? are they so followed?
ROSENCRANTZ No, indeed, are they not.  HAMLET How comes it? do they
grow rusty?  ROSENCRANTZ Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted
pace: but there is, sir, an aery of children, little eyases, that
cry out on the top of question, and are most tyrannically clapped
for't: these are now the fashion, and so berattle the common
stages--so they call them--that many wearing rapiers are afraid of
goose-quills and dare scarce come thither.  HAMLET 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?  ROSENCRANTZ
'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.  HAMLET Is't possible?  GUILDENSTERN
O, there has been much throwing about of brains.  HAMLET Do the
boys carry it away?  ROSENCRANTZ Ay, that they do, my lord; Hercules
and his load too.  HAMLET It is not very strange; for mine uncle
is king of Denmark, and those that would make mows at him while my
father lived, give twenty, forty, fifty, an hundred ducats a-piece
for his picture in little.  'Sblood, there is something in this
more than natural, if philosophy could find it out.  Flourish of
trumpets within

GUILDENSTERN There are the players.  HAMLET Gentlemen, you are
welcome to Elsinore. Your hands, come then: the 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 outward, should more appear like entertainment than yours.
You are welcome: but my uncle-father and aunt-mother are deceived.
GUILDENSTERN In what, my dear lord?  HAMLET I am but mad north-north-west:
when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.  Enter
POLONIUS

LORD POLONIUS Well be with you, gentlemen!  HAMLET 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.  ROSENCRANTZ
Happily he's the second time come to them; for they say an old man
is twice a child.  HAMLET I will prophesy he comes to tell me of
the players; mark it. You say right, sir: o' Monday morning; 'twas
so indeed.  LORD POLONIUS My lord, I have news to tell you.  HAMLET
My lord, I have news to tell you.  When Roscius was an actor in
Rome,-- LORD POLONIUS The actors are come hither, my lord.  HAMLET
Buz, buz!  LORD POLONIUS Upon mine honour,-- HAMLET Then came each
actor on his ass,-- LORD POLONIUS 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.  HAMLET O Jephthah,
judge of Israel, what a treasure hadst thou!  LORD POLONIUS What a
treasure had he, my lord?  HAMLET Why, 'One fair daughter and no
more, The which he loved passing well.' LORD POLONIUS [Aside] Still
on my daughter.  HAMLET Am I not i' the right, old Jephthah?  LORD
POLONIUS If you call me Jephthah, my lord, I have a daughter that
I love passing well.  HAMLET Nay, that follows not.  LORD POLONIUS
What follows, then, my lord?  HAMLET Why, 'As by lot, God wot,' and
then, you know, 'It came to pass, as most like it was,'-- the first
row of the pious chanson will show you more; for look, where my
abridgement 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! thy face is valenced since
I saw thee last: comest 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 apiece of uncurrent gold, be not cracked within
the ring. Masters, you are all welcome. We'll e'en to't like French
falconers, fly at any thing we see: we'll have a speech straight:
come, give us a taste of your quality; come, a passionate speech.
First Player What speech, my lord?  HAMLET I heard thee speak me a
speech once, but it was never acted; or, if it was, not above once;
for the play, I remember, pleased not the million; 'twas caviare
to the general: but it was--as I received it, and others, whose
judgments in such matters cried in the top of mine--an excellent
play, well digested in the scenes, set down with as much modesty
as cunning. I remember, one said there were no sallets in the lines
to make the matter savoury, nor no matter in the phrase that might
indict the author of affectation; but called it an honest method,
as wholesome as sweet, and by very much more handsome than fine.
One speech in it I chiefly loved: '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 the Hyrcanian beast,'-- it is 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 he total
gules; horridly trick'd With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters,
sons, Baked and impasted with the parching streets, That lend a
tyrannous and damned light To their lord's murder: roasted in wrath
and fire, And thus o'er-sized with coagulate gore, With eyes like
carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus Old grandsire Priam seeks.' So,
proceed you.  LORD POLONIUS 'Fore God, my lord, well spoken, with
good accent and good discretion.  First Player '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 The 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' the 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 a-work; And
never did the Cyclops' hammers fall On Mars's armour forged for
proof eterne With less remorse than Pyrrhus' bleeding sword Now
falls on Priam.  Out, out, thou strumpet, Fortune! All you gods,
In general synod 'take away her power; Break all the spokes and
fellies from her wheel, And bowl the round nave down the hill of
heaven, As low as to the fiends!' LORD POLONIUS This is too long.
HAMLET It shall to the barber's, with your beard. Prithee, say on:
he's for a jig or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps: say on: come to
Hecuba.  First Player 'But who, O, who had seen the mobled queen--'
HAMLET 'The mobled queen?' LORD POLONIUS That's good; 'mobled queen'
is good.  First Player 'Run barefoot up and down, threatening 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'er-teemed
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 pronounced: But if the gods themselves did see her then When
she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport In mincing with his sword her
husband's limbs, The instant burst of 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.' LORD POLONIUS Look, whether
he has not turned his colour and has tears in's eyes. Pray you, no
more.  HAMLET 'Tis well: I'll have thee speak out the rest soon.
Good my lord, will you see the players well bestowed? Do you hear,
let them be well used; for they are the abstract and brief chronicles
of the time: after your death you were better have a bad epitaph
than their ill report while you live.  LORD POLONIUS My lord, I
will use them according to their desert.  HAMLET 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.
LORD POLONIUS Come, sirs.  HAMLET Follow him, friends: we'll hear
a play to-morrow.  Exit POLONIUS with all the Players but the First

Dost thou hear me, old friend; can you play the Murder of Gonzago?
First Player Ay, my lord.  HAMLET 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?  First Player
Ay, my lord.  HAMLET 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.  ROSENCRANTZ Good my lord!  HAMLET Ay, so, God be 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 the nose? gives
me the lie i' the 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 murder'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! 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
murder, though it have no tongue, will speak With most miraculous
organ. I'll have these players Play something like the murder of
my father Before 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 the devil: and the devil hath power To 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

ACT III

SCENE I. A room in the castle.

Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, POLONIUS, OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ,
and GUILDENSTERN KING CLAUDIUS 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?  ROSENCRANTZ
He does confess he feels himself distracted; But from what cause
he will by no means speak.  GUILDENSTERN 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
GERTRUDE Did he receive you well?  ROSENCRANTZ Most like a gentleman.
GUILDENSTERN But with much forcing of his disposition.  ROSENCRANTZ
Niggard of question; but, of our demands, Most free in his reply.
QUEEN GERTRUDE Did you assay him?  To any pastime?  ROSENCRANTZ
Madam, it so fell out, that certain players We o'er-raught on the
way: of these we told him; And there did seem in him a kind of joy
To hear of it: they are about the court, And, as I think, they have
already order This night to play before him.  LORD POLONIUS 'Tis
most true: And he beseech'd me to entreat your majesties To hear
and see the matter.  KING CLAUDIUS With all my heart; and it doth
much content me To hear him so inclined.  Good gentlemen, give him
a further edge, And drive his purpose on to these delights.
ROSENCRANTZ We shall, my lord.  Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN

KING CLAUDIUS 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 behaved, If 't be the
affliction of his love or no That thus he suffers for.  QUEEN
GERTRUDE 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.  OPHELIA Madam, I wish it may.  Exit QUEEN
GERTRUDE

LORD POLONIUS 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 proved--that
with devotion's visage And pious action we do sugar o'er The devil
himself.  KING CLAUDIUS [Aside] O, 'tis too true!  How smart a lash
that speech doth give my conscience!  The harlot's cheek, beautied
with plastering art, Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it
Than is my deed to my most painted word: O heavy burthen!  LORD
POLONIUS I hear him coming: let's withdraw, my lord.  Exeunt KING
CLAUDIUS and POLONIUS

Enter HAMLET

HAMLET 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 heart-ache 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,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of
despised love, the law's delay, The insolence of office and the
spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes, When he himself
might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? who would 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 remember'd.  OPHELIA Good my
lord, How does your honour for this many a day?  HAMLET I humbly
thank you; well, well, well.  OPHELIA My lord, I have remembrances
of yours, That I have longed long to re-deliver; I pray you, now
receive them.  HAMLET No, not I; I never gave you aught.  OPHELIA
My honour'd lord, you know right well you did; And, with them, words
of so sweet breath composed 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.  HAMLET Ha, ha!
are you honest?  OPHELIA My lord?  HAMLET Are you fair?  OPHELIA
What means your lordship?  HAMLET That if you be honest and fair,
your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty.  OPHELIA
Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty?
HAMLET 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.  OPHELIA
Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.  HAMLET You should not
have believed me; for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock but
we shall relish of it: I loved you not.  OPHELIA I was the more
deceived.  HAMLET 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?
OPHELIA At home, my lord.  HAMLET Let the doors be shut upon him,
that he may play the fool no where but in's own house. Farewell.
OPHELIA O, help him, you sweet heavens!  HAMLET 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.  OPHELIA O heavenly powers,
restore him!  HAMLET I have heard of your paintings too, well enough;
God has given you one face, and you make yourselves another: you
jig, you amble, and you lisp, and nick-name 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

OPHELIA O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!  The courtier's,
soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword; The expectancy and rose
of the fair state, The glass of fashion and the mould of form, The
observed 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, To have seen what
I have seen, see what I see!  Re-enter KING CLAUDIUS and POLONIUS

KING CLAUDIUS 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?  LORD POLONIUS 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 placed, 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 CLAUDIUS It shall be so: Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd
go.  Exeunt

SCENE II. A hall in the castle.

Enter HAMLET and Players HAMLET Speak the speech, I pray you, as I
pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue: but if you mouth
it, as many of your players do, I had as lief 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, the whirlwind of 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 ears of the groundlings, who for the most
part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumbshows and noise:
I would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant; it
out-herods Herod: pray you, avoid it.  First Player I warrant your
honour.  HAMLET 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 o'erstep not the modesty of nature: for any thing
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.  First Player I hope we have reformed that indifferently
with us, sir.  HAMLET 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! I will the king hear this piece of work?  LORD
POLONIUS And the queen too, and that presently.  HAMLET Bid the
players make haste.  Exit POLONIUS

Will you two help to hasten them?  ROSENCRANTZ GUILDENSTERN We will,
my lord.  Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN

HAMLET What ho! Horatio!  Enter HORATIO

HORATIO Here, sweet lord, at your service.  HAMLET Horatio, thou
art e'en as just a man As e'er my conversation coped withal.  HORATIO
O, my dear lord,-- HAMLET 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 seal'd thee for herself; for thou
hast been As one, in suffering 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.-- 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 mine
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.  HORATIO Well, my lord: If he steal aught
the whilst this play is playing, And 'scape detecting, I will pay
the theft.  HAMLET They are coming to the play; I must be idle: Get
you a place.  Danish march. A flourish. Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN
GERTRUDE, POLONIUS, OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, and others

KING CLAUDIUS How fares our cousin Hamlet?  HAMLET Excellent, i'
faith; of the chameleon's dish: I eat the air, promise-crammed: you
cannot feed capons so.  KING CLAUDIUS I have nothing with this
answer, Hamlet; these words are not mine.  HAMLET No, nor mine now.
To POLONIUS

My lord, you played once i' the university, you say?  LORD POLONIUS
That did I, my lord; and was accounted a good actor.  HAMLET What
did you enact?  LORD POLONIUS I did enact Julius Caesar: I was
killed i' the Capitol; Brutus killed me.  HAMLET It was a brute
part of him to kill so capital a calf there. Be the players ready?
ROSENCRANTZ Ay, my lord; they stay upon your patience.  QUEEN
GERTRUDE Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me.  HAMLET No, good
mother, here's metal more attractive.  LORD POLONIUS [To KING
CLAUDIUS] O, ho! do you mark that?  HAMLET Lady, shall I lie in
your lap?  Lying down at OPHELIA's feet

OPHELIA No, my lord.  HAMLET I mean, my head upon your lap?  OPHELIA
Ay, my lord.  HAMLET Do you think I meant country matters?  OPHELIA
I think nothing, my lord.  HAMLET That's a fair thought to lie
between maids' legs.  OPHELIA What is, my lord?  HAMLET Nothing.
OPHELIA You are merry, my lord.  HAMLET Who, I?  OPHELIA Ay, my
lord.  HAMLET 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 these two hours.  OPHELIA Nay, 'tis twice two
months, my lord.  HAMLET 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: 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, and pours poison
in the King's ears, and exit. The Queen returns; finds the King
dead, and makes passionate action. The Poisoner, with some two or
three Mutes, comes in again, seeming to lament with her. The dead
body is carried away. The Poisoner wooes the Queen with gifts: she
seems loath and unwilling awhile, but in the end accepts his love

Exeunt

OPHELIA What means this, my lord?  HAMLET Marry, this is miching
mallecho; it means mischief.  OPHELIA Belike this show imports the
argument of the play.  Enter Prologue

HAMLET We shall know by this fellow: the players cannot keep counsel;
they'll tell all.  OPHELIA Will he tell us what this show meant?
HAMLET Ay, or any show that you'll show him: be not you ashamed to
show, he'll not shame to tell you what it means.  OPHELIA You are
naught, you are naught: I'll mark the play.  Prologue For us, and
for our tragedy, Here stooping to your clemency, We beg your hearing
patiently.  Exit

HAMLET Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?  OPHELIA 'Tis
brief, my lord.  HAMLET As woman's love.  Enter two Players, King
and Queen

Player King Full thirty times hath Phoebus' cart gone round Neptune's
salt wash and Tellus' orbed ground, And thirty dozen moons with
borrow'd sheen About the world have times twelve thirties been,
Since love our hearts and Hymen did our hands Unite commutual in
most sacred bands.  Player 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 sized, my fear is so: Where
love is great, the littlest doubts are fear; Where little fears
grow great, great love grows there.  Player 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,
beloved; and haply one as kind For husband shalt thou-- Player Queen
O, confound the rest!  Such love must needs be treason in my breast:
In second husband let me be accurst!  None wed the second but who
kill'd the first.  HAMLET [Aside] Wormwood, wormwood.  Player 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.  Player 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 fall, 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 advanced 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.  Player 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!  HAMLET If she should break it now!
Player King 'Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here awhile; My
spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile The tedious day with
sleep.  Sleeps

Player Queen Sleep rock thy brain, And never come mischance between
us twain!  Exit

HAMLET Madam, how like you this play?  QUEEN GERTRUDE The lady
protests too much, methinks.  HAMLET O, but she'll keep her word.
KING CLAUDIUS Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in
't?  HAMLET No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest; no offence
i' the world.  KING CLAUDIUS What do you call the play?  HAMLET The
Mouse-trap. Marry, how? Tropically. This play is the image of a
murder 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 galled jade wince, our withers are unwrung.  Enter LUCIANUS

This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king.  OPHELIA You are as good
as a chorus, my lord.  HAMLET I could interpret between you and
your love, if I could see the puppets dallying.  OPHELIA You are
keen, my lord, you are keen.  HAMLET It would cost you a groaning
to take off my edge.  OPHELIA Still better, and worse.  HAMLET So
you must take your husbands. Begin, murderer; pox, leave thy damnable
faces, and begin. Come: 'the croaking raven doth bellow for revenge.'
LUCIANUS 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 into the sleeper's ears

HAMLET He poisons him i' the garden for's estate. His name's Gonzago:
the story is extant, and writ in choice Italian: you shall see anon
how the murderer gets the love of Gonzago's wife.  OPHELIA The king
rises.  HAMLET What, frighted with false fire!  QUEEN GERTRUDE How
fares my lord?  LORD POLONIUS Give o'er the play.  KING CLAUDIUS
Give me some light: away!  All Lights, lights, lights!  Exeunt all
but HAMLET and HORATIO

HAMLET Why, let the stricken deer go weep, The hart ungalled play;
For some must watch, while some must sleep: So 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 razed
shoes, get me a fellowship in a cry of players, sir?  HORATIO Half
a share.  HAMLET 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.  HORATIO You might have rhymed.  HAMLET O good
Horatio, I'll take the ghost's word for a thousand pound. Didst
perceive?  HORATIO Very well, my lord.  HAMLET Upon the talk of the
poisoning?  HORATIO I did very well note him.  HAMLET Ah, ha! 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!
Re-enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN

GUILDENSTERN Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you.  HAMLET
Sir, a whole history.  GUILDENSTERN The king, sir,-- HAMLET Ay,
sir, what of him?  GUILDENSTERN Is in his retirement marvellous
distempered.  HAMLET With drink, sir?  GUILDENSTERN No, my lord,
rather with choler.  HAMLET Your wisdom should show itself more
richer to signify this to his doctor; for, for me to put him to his
purgation would perhaps plunge him into far more choler.  GUILDENSTERN
Good my lord, put your discourse into some frame and start not so
wildly from my affair.  HAMLET I am tame, sir: pronounce.  GUILDENSTERN
The queen, your mother, in most great affliction of spirit, hath
sent me to you.  HAMLET You are welcome.  GUILDENSTERN 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.
HAMLET Sir, I cannot.  GUILDENSTERN What, my lord?  HAMLET Make you
a wholesome answer; my wit's diseased: but, sir, such answer as I
can make, you shall command; or, rather, as you say, my mother:
therefore no more, but to the matter: my mother, you say,-- ROSENCRANTZ
Then thus she says; your behavior hath struck her into amazement
and admiration.  HAMLET O wonderful son, that can so astonish a
mother! But is there no sequel at the heels of this mother's
admiration? Impart.  ROSENCRANTZ She desires to speak with you in
her closet, ere you go to bed.  HAMLET We shall obey, were she ten
times our mother. Have you any further trade with us?  ROSENCRANTZ
My lord, you once did love me.  HAMLET So I do still, by these
pickers and stealers.  ROSENCRANTZ 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.  HAMLET Sir, I lack
advancement.  ROSENCRANTZ How can that be, when you have the voice
of the king himself for your succession in Denmark?  HAMLET Ay, but
sir, 'While the grass grows,'--the proverb is something musty.
Re-enter 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?  GUILDENSTERN O, my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love
is too unmannerly.  HAMLET I do not well understand that. Will you
play upon this pipe?  GUILDENSTERN My lord, I cannot.  HAMLET I
pray you.  GUILDENSTERN Believe me, I cannot.  HAMLET I do beseech
you.  GUILDENSTERN I know no touch of it, my lord.  HAMLET 'Tis as
easy as lying: govern these ventages with your lingers and thumb,
give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent
music.  Look you, these are the stops.  GUILDENSTERN But these
cannot I command to any utterance of harmony; I have not the skill.
HAMLET 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 played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument
you will, though you can fret me, yet you cannot play upon me.
Enter POLONIUS

God bless you, sir!  LORD POLONIUS My lord, the queen would speak
with you, and presently.  HAMLET Do you see yonder cloud that's
almost in shape of a camel?  LORD POLONIUS By the mass, and 'tis
like a camel, indeed.  HAMLET Methinks it is like a weasel.  LORD
POLONIUS It is backed like a weasel.  HAMLET Or like a whale?  LORD
POLONIUS Very like a whale.  HAMLET Then I will come to my mother
by and by. They fool me to the top of my bent. I will come by and
by.  LORD POLONIUS I will say so.  HAMLET By and by is easily said.
Exit POLONIUS

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 soever she be shent,
To give them seals never, my soul, consent!  Exit

SCENE III. A room in the castle.

Enter KING CLAUDIUS, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN KING CLAUDIUS 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 dangerous as doth hourly grow Out of his
lunacies.  GUILDENSTERN 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.  ROSENCRANTZ 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
depend and rest The lives of many. The cease 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 mortised and adjoin'd;
which, when it falls, Each small annexment, petty consequence,
Attends the boisterous ruin. Never alone Did the king sigh, but
with a general groan.  KING CLAUDIUS Arm you, I pray you, to this
speedy voyage; For we will fetters put upon this fear, Which now
goes too free-footed.  ROSENCRANTZ GUILDENSTERN We will haste us.
Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN

Enter POLONIUS

LORD POLONIUS My lord, he's going to his mother's closet: Behind
the arras I'll convey myself, To hear the process; and 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 CLAUDIUS 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 murder. 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 two-fold 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 murder'?
That cannot be; since I am still possess'd Of those effects for
which I did the murder, My crown, mine own ambition and my queen.
May one be pardon'd and retain the 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
can not repent?  O wretched state! O bosom black as death!  O limed
soul, that, struggling to be free, Art more engaged! Help, angels!
Make assay!  Bow, stubborn knees; and, heart with strings of steel,
Be soft as sinews of the newborn babe!  All may be well.  Retires
and kneels

Enter HAMLET

HAMLET 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 revenged. That would be
scann'd: A villain kills my father; and for that, I, his sole son,
do this same villain send To heaven.  O, 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 revenged, To take him
in the purging of his soul, When he is fit and season'd for his
passage?  No!  Up, sword; and know thou a more horrid hent: When
he is drunk asleep, or in his rage, Or in the 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 CLAUDIUS [Rising] My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.  Exit

SCENE IV. The Queen's closet.

Enter QUEEN GERTRUDE and POLONIUS LORD POLONIUS 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 sconce me even here.  Pray you, be round
with him.  HAMLET [Within] Mother, mother, mother!  QUEEN GERTRUDE
I'll warrant you, Fear me not: withdraw, I hear him coming.  POLONIUS
hides behind the arras

Enter HAMLET

HAMLET Now, mother, what's the matter?  QUEEN GERTRUDE Hamlet, thou
hast thy father much offended.  HAMLET Mother, you have my father
much offended.  QUEEN GERTRUDE Come, come, you answer with an idle
tongue.  HAMLET Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.  QUEEN
GERTRUDE Why, how now, Hamlet!  HAMLET What's the matter now?  QUEEN
GERTRUDE Have you forgot me?  HAMLET 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 GERTRUDE Nay, then, I'll set
those to you that can speak.  HAMLET Come, come, and sit you down;
you shall not budge; You go not till I set you up a glass Where you
may see the inmost part of you.  QUEEN GERTRUDE What wilt thou do?
thou wilt not murder me?  Help, help, ho!  LORD POLONIUS [Behind]
What, ho! help, help, help!  HAMLET [Drawing] How now! a rat? Dead,
for a ducat, dead!  Makes a pass through the arras

LORD POLONIUS [Behind] O, I am slain!  Falls and dies

QUEEN GERTRUDE O me, what hast thou done?  HAMLET Nay, I know not:
Is it the king?  QUEEN GERTRUDE O, what a rash and bloody deed is
this!  HAMLET A bloody deed! almost as bad, good mother, As kill a
king, and marry with his brother.  QUEEN GERTRUDE As kill a king!
HAMLET Ay, lady, 'twas my word.  Lifts up the array and discovers
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 hands: peace! sit you down, And let me wring
your heart; for so I shall, If it be made of penetrable stuff, If
damned custom have not brass'd it so That it is proof and bulwark
against sense.  QUEEN GERTRUDE What have I done, that thou darest
wag thy tongue In noise so rude against me?  HAMLET 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 GERTRUDE
Ay me, what act, That roars so loud, and thunders in the index?
HAMLET Look here, upon this picture, and on this, The counterfeit
presentment of two brothers.  See, what a grace was seated on this
brow; Hyperion's 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 hey-day in the blood is tame, it's humble, And
waits upon the judgment: and what judgment Would step from this to
this? Sense, sure, you have, Else could you not have motion; but
sure, that sense Is apoplex'd; for madness would not err, Nor sense
to ecstasy was ne'er so thrall'd But it reserved 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 GERTRUDE 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.  HAMLET 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 GERTRUDE O, speak to
me no more; These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears; No more,
sweet Hamlet!  HAMLET A murderer 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 GERTRUDE No more!
HAMLET A king of shreds and patches,-- Enter Ghost

Save me, and hover o'er me with your wings, You heavenly guards!
What would your gracious figure?  QUEEN GERTRUDE Alas, he's mad!
HAMLET Do you not come your tardy son to chide, That, lapsed in
time and passion, lets go by The 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.  HAMLET How is it
with you, lady?  QUEEN GERTRUDE Alas, how is't with you, That you
do bend your eye on vacancy And with the incorporal air do hold
discourse?  Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep; And, as
the sleeping soldiers in the alarm, Your bedded hair, like life in
excrements, Starts up, and stands on end. O gentle son, Upon the
heat and flame of thy distemper Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do
you look?  HAMLET 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 GERTRUDE To whom do you
speak this?  HAMLET Do you see nothing there?  QUEEN GERTRUDE Nothing
at all; yet all that is I see.  HAMLET Nor did you nothing hear?
QUEEN GERTRUDE No, nothing but ourselves.  HAMLET Why, look you
there! look, how it steals away!  My father, in his habit as he
lived!  Look, where he goes, even now, out at the portal!  Exit
Ghost

QUEEN GERTRUDE This the very coinage of your brain: This bodiless
creation ecstasy Is very cunning in.  HAMLET Ecstasy!  My pulse,
as yours, doth temperately keep time, And makes as healthful music:
it is not madness That I have utter'd: bring me to the test, And I
the matter will re-word; which madness Would gambol from. Mother,
for love of grace, Lay not that mattering unction to your soul,
That not your trespass, but my madness speaks: It will but skin and
film the ulcerous place, Whilst 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 GERTRUDE O Hamlet,
thou hast cleft my heart in twain.  HAMLET O, throw away the worser
part of it, And live the purer with the other half.  Good night:
but go not to mine uncle's bed; Assume a virtue, if you have it
not.  That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat, Of habits devil,
is angel yet in this, That to the use of actions fair and good He
likewise gives a frock or livery, That aptly is put on. Refrain
to-night, And that shall lend a kind of easiness To the next
abstinence: the next more easy; For use almost can change the stamp
of nature, And either [ ] the devil, or throw him out With wondrous
potency. Once more, good night: And when you are desirous to be
bless'd, I'll blessing beg of you. For this same lord, Pointing to
POLONIUS

I do repent: but heaven hath pleased 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
GERTRUDE What shall I do?  HAMLET 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 GERTRUDE Be thou
assured, if words be made of breath, And breath of life, I have no
life to breathe What thou hast said to me.  HAMLET I must to England;
you know that?  QUEEN GERTRUDE Alack, I had forgot: 'tis so concluded
on.  HAMLET 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 engineer Hoist with his own petard: 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 prating knave.  Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you.
Good night, mother.  Exeunt severally; HAMLET dragging in POLONIUS

ACT IV

SCENE I. A room in the castle.

Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN
KING CLAUDIUS There's matter in these sighs, these profound heaves:
You must translate: 'tis fit we understand them.  Where is your
son?  QUEEN GERTRUDE Bestow this place on us a little while.  Exeunt
ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN

Ah, my good lord, what have I seen to-night!  KING CLAUDIUS What,
Gertrude? How does Hamlet?  QUEEN GERTRUDE 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 CLAUDIUS 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
GERTRUDE 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 CLAUDIUS 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!  Re-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. O, come away!
My soul is full of discord and dismay.  Exeunt

SCENE II. Another room in the castle.

Enter HAMLET HAMLET Safely stowed.  ROSENCRANTZ: GUILDENSTERN:
[Within] Hamlet! Lord Hamlet!  HAMLET What noise? who calls on
Hamlet?  O, here they come.  Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN

ROSENCRANTZ What have you done, my lord, with the dead body?  HAMLET
Compounded it with dust, whereto 'tis kin.  ROSENCRANTZ Tell us
where 'tis, that we may take it thence And bear it to the chapel.
HAMLET Do not believe it.  ROSENCRANTZ Believe what?  HAMLET 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?
ROSENCRANTZ Take you me for a sponge, my lord?  HAMLET 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 mouthed, to be
last swallowed: when he needs what you have gleaned, it is but
squeezing you, and, sponge, you shall be dry again.  ROSENCRANTZ I
understand you not, my lord.  HAMLET I am glad of it: a knavish
speech sleeps in a foolish ear.  ROSENCRANTZ My lord, you must tell
us where the body is, and go with us to the king.  HAMLET The body
is with the king, but the king is not with the body. The king is a
thing-- GUILDENSTERN A thing, my lord!  HAMLET Of nothing: bring
me to him. Hide fox, and all after.  Exeunt

SCENE III. Another room in the castle.

Enter KING CLAUDIUS, attended KING CLAUDIUS 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 loved of
the distracted multitude, Who like not in their judgment, but their
eyes; And where tis so, the 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 relieved, Or not at all.  Enter ROSENCRANTZ

How now! what hath befall'n?  ROSENCRANTZ Where the dead body is
bestow'd, my lord, We cannot get from him.  KING CLAUDIUS But where
is he?  ROSENCRANTZ Without, my lord; guarded, to know your pleasure.
KING CLAUDIUS Bring him before us.  ROSENCRANTZ Ho, Guildenstern!
bring in my lord.  Enter HAMLET and GUILDENSTERN

KING CLAUDIUS Now, Hamlet, where's Polonius?  HAMLET At supper.
KING CLAUDIUS At supper! where?  HAMLET 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 CLAUDIUS Alas, alas!  HAMLET A man may
fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and cat of the fish
that hath fed of that worm.  KING CLAUDIUS What dost you mean by
this?  HAMLET Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress
through the guts of a beggar.  KING CLAUDIUS Where is Polonius?
HAMLET In heaven; send hither to see: if your messenger find him
not there, seek him i' the other place yourself. But indeed, if you
find him not within this month, you shall nose him as you go up the
stairs into the lobby.  KING CLAUDIUS Go seek him there.  To some
Attendants

HAMLET He will stay till ye come.  Exeunt Attendants

KING CLAUDIUS 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, The associates tend, and
every thing is bent For England.  HAMLET For England!  KING CLAUDIUS
Ay, Hamlet.  HAMLET Good.  KING CLAUDIUS So is it, if thou knew'st
our purposes.  HAMLET I see a cherub that sees them. But, come; for
England! Farewell, dear mother.  KING CLAUDIUS Thy loving father,
Hamlet.  HAMLET My mother: father and mother is man and wife; man
and wife is one flesh; and so, my mother. Come, for England!  Exit

KING CLAUDIUS Follow him at foot; tempt him with speed aboard; Delay
it not; I'll have him hence to-night: Away! for every thing is
seal'd and done That else leans on the affair: pray you, make haste.
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

SCENE IV. A plain in Denmark.

Enter FORTINBRAS, a Captain, and Soldiers, marching PRINCE FORTINBRAS
Go, captain, from me greet the Danish king; Tell him that, by his
licence, Fortinbras Craves the conveyance of a promised 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.  Captain I will do't, my lord.  PRINCE FORTINBRAS Go softly
on.  Exeunt FORTINBRAS and Soldiers

Enter HAMLET, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, and others

HAMLET Good sir, whose powers are these?  Captain They are of Norway,
sir.  HAMLET How purposed, sir, I pray you?  Captain Against some
part of Poland.  HAMLET Who commands them, sir?  Captain The nephews
to old Norway, Fortinbras.  HAMLET Goes it against the main of
Poland, sir, Or for some frontier?  Captain 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.  HAMLET Why, then the Polack never will
defend it.  Captain Yes, it is already garrison'd.  HAMLET Two
thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats Will not debate the
question of this straw: This is the imposthume of much wealth and
peace, That inward breaks, and shows no cause without Why the man
dies. I humbly thank you, sir.  Captain God be wi' you, sir.  Exit

ROSENCRANTZ Wilt please you go, my lord?  HAMLET I'll be with you
straight go a little before.  Exeunt all except 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 god-like reason To fust in us unused. Now, whether it be Bestial
oblivion, or some craven scruple Of thinking too precisely on the
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 egg-shell. Rightly to be great Is not
to stir without great argument, But greatly to find quarrel in a
straw When honour's at the stake. How stand I then, That have a
father kill'd, a mother stain'd, Excitements of my reason and my
blood, And let all sleep? while, to my shame, I see The imminent
death of twenty thousand men, That, for a 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

SCENE V. Elsinore. A room in the castle.

Enter QUEEN GERTRUDE, HORATIO, and a Gentleman QUEEN GERTRUDE I
will not speak with her.  Gentleman She is importunate, indeed
distract: Her mood will needs be pitied.  QUEEN GERTRUDE What would
she have?  Gentleman She speaks much of her father; says she hears
There's tricks i' the 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.  HORATIO 'Twere
good she were spoken with; for she may strew Dangerous conjectures
in ill-breeding minds.  QUEEN GERTRUDE Let her come in.  Exit HORATIO

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.  Re-enter HORATIO, with OPHELIA

OPHELIA Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?  QUEEN GERTRUDE
How now, Ophelia!  OPHELIA [Sings] How should I your true love know
From another one?  By his cockle hat and staff, And his sandal
shoon.  QUEEN GERTRUDE Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?
OPHELIA 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.  QUEEN GERTRUDE Nay, but,
Ophelia,-- OPHELIA Pray you, mark.  Sings

White his shroud as the mountain snow,-- Enter KING CLAUDIUS

QUEEN GERTRUDE Alas, look here, my lord.  OPHELIA [Sings] Larded
with sweet flowers Which bewept to the grave did go With true-love
showers.  KING CLAUDIUS How do you, pretty lady?  OPHELIA Well, God
'ild 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 CLAUDIUS Conceit upon her father.  OPHELIA Pray you, 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 betime, And
I a maid at your window, To be your Valentine.  Then up he rose,
and donn'd his clothes, And dupp'd the chamber-door; Let in the
maid, that out a maid Never departed more.  KING CLAUDIUS Pretty
Ophelia!  OPHELIA 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 promised me to wed.  So would I ha'
done, by yonder sun, An thou hadst not come to my bed.  KING CLAUDIUS
How long hath she been thus?  OPHELIA I hope all will be well. We
must be patient: but I cannot choose but weep, to think they should
lay him i' the 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 CLAUDIUS 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 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
much containing as all these, Her brother is in secret come from
France; Feeds on his wonder, keeps himself in clouds, And wants not
buzzers to infect his ear 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 murdering-piece, in many places Gives me superfluous
death.  A noise within

QUEEN GERTRUDE Alack, what noise is this?  KING CLAUDIUS Where are
my Switzers? Let them guard the door.  Enter another Gentleman

What is the matter?  Gentleman 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 officers.
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!' QUEEN GERTRUDE How cheerfully on the false trail they cry!
O, this is counter, you false Danish dogs!  KING CLAUDIUS The doors
are broke.  Noise within

Enter LAERTES, armed; Danes following

LAERTES Where is this king? Sirs, stand you all without.  Danes No,
let's come in.  LAERTES I pray you, give me leave.  Danes We will,
we will.  They retire without the door

LAERTES I thank you: keep the door. O thou vile king, Give me my
father!  QUEEN GERTRUDE Calmly, good Laertes.  LAERTES That drop
of blood that's calm proclaims me bastard, Cries cuckold to my
father, brands the harlot Even here, between the chaste unsmirched
brow Of my true mother.  KING CLAUDIUS What is the cause, Laertes,
That thy rebellion looks so giant-like?  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 incensed. Let him go, Gertrude.
Speak, man.  LAERTES Where is my father?  KING CLAUDIUS Dead.  QUEEN
GERTRUDE But not by him.  KING CLAUDIUS Let him demand his fill.
LAERTES 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 worlds I give to negligence, Let come what comes; only
I'll be revenged Most thoroughly for my father.  KING CLAUDIUS Who
shall stay you?  LAERTES My will, not all the world: And for my
means, I'll husband them so well, They shall go far with little.
KING CLAUDIUS 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?  LAERTES None
but his enemies.  KING CLAUDIUS Will you know them then?  LAERTES
To his good friends thus wide I'll ope my arms; And like the kind
life-rendering pelican, Repast them with my blood.  KING CLAUDIUS
Why, now you speak Like a good child and a true gentleman.  That I
am guiltless of your father's death, And am most sensible in grief
for it, It shall as level to your judgment pierce As day does to
your eye.  Danes [Within] Let her come in.  LAERTES How now! what
noise is that?  Re-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 moral 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.  OPHELIA [Sings] They bore him
barefaced on the bier; Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny; And in his
grave rain'd many a tear:-- Fare you well, my dove!  LAERTES Hadst
thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge, It could not move thus.
OPHELIA [Sings] You must sing a-down a-down, An you call him a-down-a.
O, how the wheel becomes it! It is the false steward, that stole
his master's daughter.  LAERTES This nothing's more than matter.
OPHELIA There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray, love,
remember: and there is pansies. that's for thoughts.  LAERTES A
document in madness, thoughts and remembrance fitted.  OPHELIA
There's fennel for you, and columbines: there's rue for you; and
here's some for me: we may call it herb-grace o' Sundays: O you
must wear your rue with a difference. There's a daisy: I would give
you some violets, but they withered all when my father died: they
say he made a good end,-- Sings

For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.  LAERTES Thought and affliction,
passion, hell itself, She turns to favour and to prettiness.  OPHELIA
[Sings] And will he not come again?  And will he not come again?
No, no, he is dead: Go to thy death-bed: 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 ha' mercy on his soul!  And
of all Christian souls, I pray God. God be wi' ye.  Exit

LAERTES Do you see this, O God?  KING CLAUDIUS 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 can 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.  LAERTES 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 CLAUDIUS So you shall; And where the offence is let the great
axe fall.  I pray you, go with me.  Exeunt

SCENE VI. Another room in the castle.

Enter HORATIO and a Servant HORATIO What are they that would speak
with me?  Servant Sailors, sir: they say they have letters for you.
HORATIO Let them come in.  Exit Servant

I do not know from what part of the world I should be greeted, if
not from Lord Hamlet.  Enter Sailors

First Sailor God bless you, sir.  HORATIO Let him bless thee too.
First Sailor He shall, sir, an't please him. There's a letter for
you, sir; it comes from the ambassador that was bound for England;
if your name be Horatio, as I am let to know it is.  HORATIO [Reads]
'Horatio, when thou shalt have overlooked 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 make you way for
these your letters; And do't the speedier, that you may direct me
To him from whom you brought them.  Exeunt

SCENE VII. Another room in the castle.

Enter KING CLAUDIUS and LAERTES KING CLAUDIUS Now must your conscience
my acquaintance 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.  LAERTES 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 CLAUDIUS O, for two special
reasons; Which may to you, perhaps, seem 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 gyves
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.  LAERTES And so have I a noble father lost; A sister driven
into desperate 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 CLAUDIUS 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 loved your father, and we love ourself;
And that, I hope, will teach you to imagine-- Enter a Messenger

How now! what news?  Messenger Letters, my lord, from Hamlet: This
to your majesty; this to the queen.  KING CLAUDIUS From Hamlet! who
brought them?  Messenger Sailors, my lord, they say; I saw them
not: They were given me by Claudio; he received them Of him that
brought them.  KING CLAUDIUS 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?
LAERTES Know you the hand?  KING CLAUDIUS 'Tis Hamlets character.
'Naked!  And in a postscript here, he says 'alone.' Can you advise
me?  LAERTES I'm 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 CLAUDIUS If it be so, Laertes--
As how should it be so? how otherwise?-- Will you be ruled by me?
LAERTES Ay, my lord; So you will not o'errule me to a peace.  KING
CLAUDIUS 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 an exploit, now ripe in my device, Under the which he shall
not choose but fall: And for his death no wind of blame shall
breathe, But even his mother shall uncharge the practise And call
it accident.  LAERTES My lord, I will be ruled; The rather, if you
could devise it so That I might be the organ.  KING CLAUDIUS 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 sum of parts Did not together pluck such envy from him
As did that one, and that, in my regard, Of the unworthiest siege.
LAERTES What part is that, my lord?  KING CLAUDIUS A very riband
in the cap of youth, Yet needful too; for youth no less becomes The
light and careless livery that it wears Than settled age his sables
and his weeds, Importing health and graveness. Two months since,
Here was a gentleman of Normandy:-- I've seen myself, and served
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 he had been incorpsed and demi-natured
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.  LAERTES A Norman
was't?  KING CLAUDIUS A Norman.  LAERTES Upon my life, Lamond.  KING
CLAUDIUS The very same.  LAERTES I know him well: he is the brooch
indeed And gem of all the nation.  KING CLAUDIUS 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 had neither motion, guard, nor eye,
If you opposed 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 him.  Now, out of this,-- LAERTES What
out of this, my lord?  KING CLAUDIUS Laertes, was your father dear
to you?  Or are you like the painting of a sorrow, A face without
a heart?  LAERTES Why ask you this?  KING CLAUDIUS 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' the ulcer:-- Hamlet
comes back: what would you undertake, To show yourself your father's
son in deed More than in words?  LAERTES To cut his throat i' the
church.  KING CLAUDIUS No place, indeed, should murder sanctuarize;
Revenge should have no bounds. But, good Laertes, Will you do this,
keep close within your chamber.  Hamlet return'd shall know you are
come home: We'll put on those shall praise your excellence And set
a double varnish on the fame The Frenchman gave you, bring you in
fine together And wager 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 practise Requite him for your father.
LAERTES 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 That is but scratch'd withal: I'll touch my point With
this contagion, that, if I gall him slightly, It may be death.  KING
CLAUDIUS Let's further think of this; Weigh what convenience both
of time and means May fit us to our shape: if this should fail, And
that our drift look through our bad performance, 'Twere better not
assay'd: therefore this project Should have a back or second, that
might hold, If this should 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 prepared him A chalice for
the nonce, whereon but sipping, If he by chance escape your venom'd
stuck, Our purpose may hold there.  Enter QUEEN GERTRUDE

How now, sweet queen!  QUEEN GERTRUDE One woe doth tread upon
another's heel, So fast they follow; your sister's drown'd, Laertes.
LAERTES Drown'd! O, where?  QUEEN GERTRUDE 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 crow-flowers, 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 pendent boughs her coronet weeds Clambering 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 chanted 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.  LAERTES Alas, then, she is
drown'd?  QUEEN GERTRUDE Drown'd, drown'd.  LAERTES 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 CLAUDIUS Let's follow, Gertrude: How much I had to do to calm
his rage!  Now fear I this will give it start again; Therefore let's
follow.  Exeunt

ACT V

SCENE I. A churchyard.

Enter two Clowns, with spades, & c First Clown Is she to be buried
in Christian burial that wilfully seeks her own salvation?  Second
Clown I tell thee she is: and therefore make her grave straight:
the crowner hath sat on her, and finds it Christian burial.  First
Clown How can that be, unless she drowned herself in her own defence?
Second Clown Why, 'tis found so.  First 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, to perform: argal, she drowned herself
wittingly.  Second Clown Nay, but hear you, goodman delver,-- First
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.  Second Clown
But is this law?  First Clown Ay, marry, is't; crowner's quest law.
Second Clown Will you ha' the truth on't? If this had not been a
gentlewoman, she should have been buried out o' Christian burial.
First Clown Why, there thou say'st: and the more pity that great
folk should have countenance in this world to drown or hang themselves,
more than their even Christian. Come, my spade. There is no ancient
gentleman but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers: they hold up
Adam's profession.  Second Clown Was he a gentleman?  First Clown
He was the first that ever bore arms.  Second Clown Why, he had
none.  First Clown What, art a heathen? How dost thou understand
the Scripture? The Scripture says 'Adam digged:' could he dig without
arms? I'll put another question to thee: if thou answerest me not
to the purpose, confess thyself-- Second Clown Go to.  First Clown
What is he that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright,
or the carpenter?  Second Clown The gallows-maker; for that frame
outlives a thousand tenants.  First 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 in: 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.  Second Clown 'Who builds stronger than a
mason, a shipwright, or a carpenter?' First Clown Ay, tell me that,
and unyoke.  Second Clown Marry, now I can tell.  First Clown To't.
Second Clown Mass, I cannot tell.  Enter HAMLET and HORATIO, at a
distance

First Clown Cudgel thy brains no more about it, for your dull ass
will not mend his pace with beating; and, when you are asked this
question next, say 'a grave-maker: 'the houses that he makes last
till doomsday. Go, get thee to Yaughan: fetch me a stoup of liquor.
Exit Second Clown

He digs and sings

In youth, when I did love, did love, Methought it was very sweet,
To contract, O, the time, for, ah, my behove, O, methought, there
was nothing meet.  HAMLET Has this fellow no feeling of his business,
that he sings at grave-making?  HORATIO Custom hath made it in him
a property of easiness.  HAMLET 'Tis e'en so: the hand of little
employment hath the daintier sense.  First Clown [Sings] But age,
with his stealing steps, Hath claw'd me in his clutch, And hath
shipped me intil the land, As if I had never been such.  Throws up
a skull

HAMLET That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once: how the
knave jowls it to the ground, as if it were Cain's jaw-bone, that
did the first murder! It might be the pate of a politician, which
this ass now o'er-reaches; one that would circumvent God, might it
not?  HORATIO It might, my lord.  HAMLET 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 praised my lord such-a-one's
horse, when he meant to beg it; might it not?  HORATIO Ay, my lord.
HAMLET Why, e'en so: and now my Lady Worm's; chapless, and knocked
about the mazzard with a sexton's spade: here's fine revolution,
an we had the trick to see't. Did these bones cost no more the
breeding, but to play at loggats with 'em? mine ache to think on't.
First Clown [Sings] A pick-axe, 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

HAMLET There's another: why may not that be the skull of a lawyer?
Where be his quiddities 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 hardly lie in this box; and must
the inheritor himself have no more, ha?  HORATIO Not a jot more,
my lord.  HAMLET Is not parchment made of sheepskins?  HORATIO Ay,
my lord, and of calf-skins too.  HAMLET They are sheep and calves
which seek out assurance in that. I will speak to this fellow. Whose
grave's this, sirrah?  First Clown Mine, sir.  Sings

O, a pit of clay for to be made For such a guest is meet.  HAMLET
I think it be thine, indeed; for thou liest in't.  First Clown You
lie out on't, sir, and therefore it is not yours: for my part, I
do not lie in't, and yet it is mine.  HAMLET '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.  First Clown 'Tis a quick lie, sir;
'twill away gain, from me to you.  HAMLET What man dost thou dig
it for?  First Clown For no man, sir.  HAMLET What woman, then?
First Clown For none, neither.  HAMLET Who is to be buried in't?
First Clown One that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she's
dead.  HAMLET How absolute the knave is! we must speak by the card,
or equivocation will undo us. By the Lord, Horatio, these three
years I have taken a note of it; the age is grown so picked that
the toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier, he
gaffs his kibe. How long hast thou been a grave-maker?  First Clown
Of all the days i' the year, I came to't that day that our last
king Hamlet overcame Fortinbras.  HAMLET How long is that since?
First 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.  HAMLET Ay, marry, why was he sent into England?
First Clown Why, because he was mad: he shall recover his wits
there; or, if he do not, it's no great matter there.  HAMLET Why?
First Clown 'Twill, a not be seen in him there; there the men are
as mad as he.  HAMLET How came he mad?  First Clown Very strangely,
they say.  HAMLET How strangely?  First Clown Faith, e'en with
losing his wits.  HAMLET Upon what ground?  First Clown Why, here
in Denmark: I have been sexton here, man and boy, thirty years.
HAMLET How long will a man lie i' the earth ere he rot?  First Clown
I' faith, if he be not rotten before he die--as we have many pocky
corses now-a-days, that will scarce hold the laying in--he will
last you some eight year or nine year: a tanner will last you nine
year.  HAMLET Why he more than another?  First Clown Why, sir, his
hide is so tanned with his trade, that he 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 has lain in the earth three
and twenty years.  HAMLET Whose was it?  First Clown A whoreson mad
fellow's it was: whose do you think it was?  HAMLET Nay, I know
not.  First Clown A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! a' poured a
flagon of Rhenish on my head once. This same skull, sir, was Yorick's
skull, the king's jester.  HAMLET This?  First Clown E'en that.
HAMLET 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
times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rims
at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed 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-fallen?  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.  HORATIO What's that, my lord?  HAMLET Dost thou
think Alexander looked o' this fashion i' the earth?  HORATIO E'en
so.  HAMLET And smelt so? pah!  Puts down the skull

HORATIO E'en so, my lord.  HAMLET To what base uses we may return,
Horatio! Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander,
till he find it stopping a bung-hole?  HORATIO 'Twere to consider
too curiously, to consider so.  HAMLET 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 to expel the winter flaw!  But soft! but
soft! aside: here comes the king.  Enter Priest, & c. in procession;
the Corpse of OPHELIA, LAERTES and Mourners following; KING CLAUDIUS,
QUEEN GERTRUDE, their trains, & c

The queen, the courtiers: who is this they follow?  And with such
maimed rites? This doth betoken The corse they follow did with
desperate hand Fordo its own life: 'twas of some estate.  Couch we
awhile, and mark.  Retiring with HORATIO

LAERTES What ceremony else?  HAMLET That is Laertes, A very noble
youth: mark.  LAERTES What ceremony else?  First Priest Her obsequies
have been as far enlarged As we have warrantise: her death was
doubtful; And, but that great command o'ersways the order, She
should in ground unsanctified have lodged 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.  LAERTES Must
there no more be done?  First 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.  LAERTES Lay her i' the earth: And
from her fair and unpolluted flesh May violets spring! I tell thee,
churlish priest, A ministering angel shall my sister be, When thou
liest howling.  HAMLET What, the fair Ophelia!  QUEEN GERTRUDE
Sweets to the sweet: farewell!  Scattering flowers

I hoped 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.  LAERTES O, treble woe Fall ten times treble on that cursed
head, Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense Deprived thee of!
Hold off the earth awhile, Till I have caught her once more in mine
arms: Leaps into the grave

Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead, Till of this flat a
mountain you have made, To o'ertop old Pelion, or the skyish head
Of blue Olympus.  HAMLET [Advancing] What is he whose grief Bears
such an emphasis? whose phrase of sorrow Conjures the wandering
stars, and makes them stand Like wonder-wounded hearers? This is
I, Hamlet the Dane.  Leaps into the grave

LAERTES The devil take thy soul!  Grappling with him

HAMLET Thou pray'st not well.  I prithee, take thy fingers from my
throat; For, though I am not splenitive and rash, Yet have I something
in me dangerous, Which let thy wiseness fear: hold off thy hand.
KING CLAUDIUS Pluck them asunder.  QUEEN GERTRUDE Hamlet, Hamlet!
All Gentlemen,-- HORATIO Good my lord, be quiet.  The Attendants
part them, and they come out of the grave

HAMLET Why I will fight with him upon this theme Until my eyelids
will no longer wag.  QUEEN GERTRUDE O my son, what theme?  HAMLET
I loved Ophelia: forty thousand brothers Could not, with all their
quantity of love, Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?  KING
CLAUDIUS O, he is mad, Laertes.  QUEEN GERTRUDE For love of God,
forbear him.  HAMLET 'Swounds, show me what thou'lt do: Woo't weep?
woo't fight? woo't fast? woo't tear thyself?  Woo't drink up eisel?
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 GERTRUDE This is mere madness:
And thus awhile the fit will work on him; Anon, as patient as the
female dove, When that her golden couplets are disclosed, His silence
will sit drooping.  HAMLET Hear you, sir; What is the reason that
you use me thus?  I loved 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 CLAUDIUS I pray you, 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. A hall in the castle.

Enter HAMLET and HORATIO HAMLET So much for this, sir: now shall
you see the other; You do remember all the circumstance?  HORATIO
Remember it, my lord?  HAMLET Sir, in my heart there was a kind of
fighting, That would not let me sleep: methought I lay Worse than
the mutines in the bilboes. Rashly, And praised be rashness for it,
let us know, Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well, When our
deep plots do pall: and that should teach us There's a divinity
that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will,-- HORATIO That
is most certain.  HAMLET Up from my cabin, My sea-gown scarf'd about
me, in the dark Groped 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, ho! such bugs and goblins in my life, That,
on the supervise, no leisure bated, No, not to stay the grinding
of the axe, My head should be struck off.  HORATIO Is't possible?
HAMLET Here's the commission: read it at more leisure.  But wilt
thou hear me how I did proceed?  HORATIO I beseech you.  HAMLET
Being thus be-netted round with villanies,-- Ere I could make a
prologue to my brains, They had begun the play--I sat me down,
Devised 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 The effect of what I wrote?  HORATIO Ay, good my
lord.  HAMLET An earnest conjuration from the king, As England was
his faithful tributary, As love between them like the palm might
flourish, As peace should stiff her wheaten garland wear And stand
a comma 'tween their amities, And many such-like 'As'es 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.  HORATIO How was this
seal'd?  HAMLET 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 form of the other, Subscribed it, gave't
the impression, placed it safely, The changeling never known. Now,
the next day Was our sea-fight; and what to this was sequent Thou
know'st already.  HORATIO So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to't.
HAMLET 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.  HORATIO Why, what a
king is this!  HAMLET Does it not, think'st thee, stand me now
upon-- He that hath kill'd my king and whored my mother, Popp'd in
between the election and my hopes, Thrown out his angle for my
proper life, And with such cozenage--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?  HORATIO It must be
shortly known to him from England What is the issue of the business
there.  HAMLET It will be short: the interim is mine; And a man's
life's 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 towering passion.  HORATIO
Peace! who comes here?  Enter OSRIC

OSRIC Your lordship is right welcome back to Denmark.  HAMLET I
humbly thank you, sir. Dost know this water-fly?  HORATIO No, my
good lord.  HAMLET 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.  OSRIC
Sweet lord, if your lordship were at leisure, I should impart a
thing to you from his majesty.  HAMLET I will receive it, sir, with
all diligence of spirit. Put your bonnet to his right use; 'tis for
the head.  OSRIC I thank your lordship, it is very hot.  HAMLET No,
believe me, 'tis very cold; the wind is northerly.  OSRIC It is
indifferent cold, my lord, indeed.  HAMLET But yet methinks it is
very sultry and hot for my complexion.  OSRIC 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,-- HAMLET I beseech you,
remember-- HAMLET moves him to put on his hat

OSRIC 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.  HAMLET Sir, his definement suffers no
perdition in you; though, I know, to divide him inventorially would
dizzy the 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.
OSRIC Your lordship speaks most infallibly of him.  HAMLET The
concernancy, sir? why do we wrap the gentleman in our more rawer
breath?  OSRIC Sir?  HORATIO Is't not possible to understand in
another tongue?  You will do't, sir, really.  HAMLET What imports
the nomination of this gentleman?  OSRIC Of Laertes?  HORATIO His
purse is empty already; all's golden words are spent.  HAMLET Of
him, sir.  OSRIC I know you are not ignorant-- HAMLET I would you
did, sir; yet, in faith, if you did, it would not much approve me.
Well, sir?  OSRIC You are not ignorant of what excellence Laertes
is-- HAMLET I dare not confess that, lest I should compare with him
in excellence; but, to know a man well, were to know himself.  OSRIC
I mean, sir, for his weapon; but in the imputation laid on him by
them, in his meed he's unfellowed.  HAMLET What's his weapon?  OSRIC
Rapier and dagger.  HAMLET That's two of his weapons: but, well.
OSRIC The king, sir, hath wagered with him six Barbary horses:
against the which he has imponed, 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.
HAMLET What call you the carriages?  HORATIO I knew you must be
edified by the margent ere you had done.  OSRIC The carriages, sir,
are the hangers.  HAMLET The phrase would be more german 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 'imponed,' as you
call it?  OSRIC 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.  HAMLET How if I answer
'no'?  OSRIC I mean, my lord, the opposition of your person in
trial.  HAMLET Sir, I will walk here in the hall: if it please his
majesty, 'tis 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 an I can; if not, I will gain nothing but my shame
and the odd hits.  OSRIC Shall I re-deliver you e'en so?  HAMLET
To this effect, sir; after what flourish your nature will.  OSRIC
I commend my duty to your lordship.  HAMLET Yours, yours.  Exit
OSRIC

He does well to commend it himself; there are no tongues else for's
turn.  HORATIO This lapwing runs away with the shell on his head.
HAMLET He did comply with his dug, before he sucked it.  Thus has
he--and many more of the same bevy that I know the dressy 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 fond 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.  HAMLET I am constant to my purpose; 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.  HAMLET In happy time.  Lord The queen
desires you to use some gentle entertainment to Laertes before you
fall to play.  HAMLET She well instructs me.  Exit Lord

HORATIO You will lose this wager, my lord.  HAMLET I do not think
so: since he went into France, I have been in continual practise:
I shall win at the odds. But thou wouldst not think how ill all's
here about my heart: but it is no matter.  HORATIO Nay, good my
lord,-- HAMLET It is but foolery; but it is such a kind of gain-giving,
as would perhaps trouble a woman.  HORATIO If your mind dislike any
thing, obey it: I will forestall their repair hither, and say you
are not fit.  HAMLET 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 be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will
come: the readiness is all: since no man has aught of what he leaves,
what is't to leave betimes?  Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE,
LAERTES, Lords, OSRIC, and Attendants with foils, & c

KING CLAUDIUS Come, Hamlet, come, and take this hand from me.  KING
CLAUDIUS puts LAERTES' hand into HAMLET's

HAMLET Give me your pardon, sir: I've done you wrong; But pardon't,
as you are a gentleman.  This presence knows, And you must needs
have heard, how I am punish'd With sore distraction. What I have
done, That might your nature, honour and exception Roughly awake,
I here proclaim was madness.  Was't Hamlet wrong'd Laertes? Never
Hamlet: If Hamlet from himself be ta'en away, And when he's not
himself does wrong Laertes, Then Hamlet does it not, Hamlet denies
it.  Who does it, then? His madness: if't be so, Hamlet is of the
faction that is wrong'd; His madness is poor Hamlet's enemy.  Sir,
in this audience, Let my disclaiming from a purposed evil Free me
so far in your most generous thoughts, That I have shot mine arrow
o'er the house, And hurt my brother.  LAERTES I am satisfied in
nature, Whose motive, in this case, should stir me most To my
revenge: but in my terms of honour I stand aloof; and will no
reconcilement, Till by some elder masters, of known honour, I have
a voice and precedent of peace, To keep my name ungored. But till
that time, I do receive your offer'd love like love, And will not
wrong it.  HAMLET I embrace it freely; And will this brother's wager
frankly play.  Give us the foils. Come on.  LAERTES Come, one for
me.  HAMLET I'll be your foil, Laertes: in mine ignorance Your skill
shall, like a star i' the darkest night, Stick fiery off indeed.
LAERTES You mock me, sir.  HAMLET No, by this hand.  KING CLAUDIUS
Give them the foils, young Osric. Cousin Hamlet, You know the wager?
HAMLET Very well, my lord Your grace hath laid the odds o' the
weaker side.  KING CLAUDIUS I do not fear it; I have seen you both:
But since he is better'd, we have therefore odds.  LAERTES This is
too heavy, let me see another.  HAMLET This likes me well. These
foils have all a length?  They prepare to play

OSRIC Ay, my good lord.  KING CLAUDIUS Set me the stoops 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 heavens to earth, 'Now the
king dunks to Hamlet.' Come, begin: And you, the judges, bear a
wary eye.  HAMLET Come on, sir.  LAERTES Come, my lord.  They play

HAMLET One.  LAERTES No.  HAMLET Judgment.  OSRIC A hit, a very
palpable hit.  LAERTES Well; again.  KING CLAUDIUS Stay; give me
drink. Hamlet, this pearl is thine; Here's to thy health.  Trumpets
sound, and cannon shot off within

Give him the cup.  HAMLET I'll play this bout first; set it by
awhile. Come.  They play

Another hit; what say you?  LAERTES A touch, a touch, I do confess.
KING CLAUDIUS Our son shall win.  QUEEN GERTRUDE He's fat, and scant
of breath.  Here, Hamlet, take my napkin, rub thy brows; The queen
carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet.  HAMLET Good madam!  KING CLAUDIUS
Gertrude, do not drink.  QUEEN GERTRUDE I will, my lord; I pray
you, pardon me.  KING CLAUDIUS [Aside] It is the poison'd cup: it
is too late.  HAMLET I dare not drink yet, madam; by and by.  QUEEN
GERTRUDE Come, let me wipe thy face.  LAERTES My lord, I'll hit him
now.  KING CLAUDIUS I do not think't.  LAERTES [Aside] And yet 'tis
almost 'gainst my conscience.  HAMLET Come, for the third, Laertes:
you but dally; I pray you, pass with your best violence; I am afeard
you make a wanton of me.  LAERTES Say you so? come on.  They play

OSRIC Nothing, neither way.  LAERTES Have at you now!  LAERTES
wounds HAMLET; then in scuffling, they change rapiers, and HAMLET
wounds LAERTES

KING CLAUDIUS Part them; they are incensed.  HAMLET Nay, come,
again.  QUEEN GERTRUDE falls

OSRIC Look to the queen there, ho!  HORATIO They bleed on both
sides. How is it, my lord?  OSRIC How is't, Laertes?  LAERTES Why,
as a woodcock to mine own springe, Osric; I am justly kill'd with
mine own treachery.  HAMLET How does the queen?  KING CLAUDIUS She
swounds to see them bleed.  QUEEN GERTRUDE No, no, the drink, the
drink,--O my dear Hamlet,-- The drink, the drink! I am poison'd.
Dies

HAMLET O villany! Ho! let the door be lock'd: Treachery! Seek it
out.  LAERTES 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 practise 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.  HAMLET The point!--envenom'd too!  Then,
venom, to thy work.  Stabs KING CLAUDIUS

All Treason! treason!  KING CLAUDIUS O, yet defend me, friends; I
am but hurt.  HAMLET Here, thou incestuous, murderous, damned Dane,
Drink off this potion. Is thy union here?  Follow my mother.  KING
CLAUDIUS dies

LAERTES He is justly served; 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

HAMLET 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 livest;
report me and my cause aright To the unsatisfied.  HORATIO Never
believe it: I am more an antique Roman than a Dane: Here's yet some
liquor left.  HAMLET As thou'rt a man, Give me the cup: let go; by
heaven, I'll have'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?  OSRIC Young Fortinbras, with conquest
come from Poland, To the ambassadors of England gives This warlike
volley.  HAMLET O, I die, Horatio; The potent poison quite o'er-crows
my spirit: I cannot live to hear the news from England; But I do
prophesy the election lights On Fortinbras: he has my dying voice;
So tell him, with the occurrents, more and less, Which have solicited.
The rest is silence.  Dies

HORATIO Now cracks a noble heart. Good night sweet prince: And
flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!  Why does the drum come
hither?  March within

Enter FORTINBRAS, the English Ambassadors, and others

PRINCE FORTINBRAS Where is this sight?  HORATIO What is it ye would
see?  If aught of woe or wonder, cease your search.  PRINCE FORTINBRAS
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?  First Ambassador The sight is dismal; And our affairs
from England come too late: The ears are senseless that should give
us hearing, To tell him his commandment is fulfill'd, That Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern are dead: Where should we have our thanks?  HORATIO
Not from his mouth, Had it the 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 arrived 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 forced cause, And, in this upshot,
purposes mistook Fall'n on the inventors' reads: all this can I
Truly deliver.  PRINCE FORTINBRAS 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.  HORATIO 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.
PRINCE FORTINBRAS Let four captains Bear Hamlet, like a soldier,
to the stage; For he was likely, had he been put on, To have proved
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.  A dead march. Exeunt, bearing off the dead bodies;
after which a peal of ordnance is shot off