64 William Shakespeare: Hamlet: Act 3

Hamlet

By William Shakespeare

Edited by Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine

with Michael Poston and Rebecca Niles

Folger Shakespeare Library

https://shakespeare.folger.edu/shakespeares-works/hamlet/

Created on Apr 23, 2016, from FDT version 0.9.2.

ACT 3

Scene 1

Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz,
Guildenstern, and Lords.

KING

And can you by no drift of conference

Get from him why he puts on this confusion,

Grating so harshly all his days of quiet

With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?

ROSENCRANTZ

He does confess he feels himself distracted,5

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.10

QUEEN 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.15

QUEEN Did you assay him to any pastime?

ROSENCRANTZ

Madam, it so fell out that certain players

We o’erraught on the way. Of these we told him,

And there did seem in him a kind of joy

To hear of it. They are here about the court,20

And, as I think, they have already order

This night to play before him.

POLONIUS ’Tis most true,

And he beseeched me to entreat your Majesties

To hear and see the matter.25

KING

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 into these delights.

ROSENCRANTZ

We shall, my lord.Rosencrantz and Guildenstern 30

and Lords exit.

KING Sweet Gertrude, leave us too,

For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither,

That he, as ’twere by accident, may here

Affront Ophelia.

Her father and myself, lawful espials,35

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 th’ affliction of his love or no

That thus he suffers for.40

QUEEN I shall obey you.

And for your part, Ophelia, I do wish

That your good beauties be the happy cause

Of Hamlet’s wildness. So shall I hope your virtues

Will bring him to his wonted way again,45

To both your honors.

OPHELIA Madam, I wish it may.

Queen exits.

POLONIUS

Ophelia, walk you here.—Gracious, so please you,

We will bestow ourselves. To Ophelia. Read on this

book,50

That show of such an exercise may color

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.55

KING, aside O, ’tis too true!

How smart a lash that speech doth give my

conscience.

The harlot’s cheek beautied with plast’ring art

Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it60

Than is my deed to my most painted word.

O heavy burden!

POLONIUS

I hear him coming. Let’s withdraw, my lord.

They withdraw.

Enter Hamlet.

HAMLET

To be or not to be—that is the question:

Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer65

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

And, by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep—

No more—and by a sleep to say we end

The heartache and the thousand natural shocks70

That flesh is heir to—’tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished. 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,75

Must give us pause. There’s the respect

That makes calamity of so long life.

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

Th’ oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,

The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,80

The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of th’ unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,85

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscovered country from whose bourn

No traveler returns, puzzles the will

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?90

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 pitch and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry95

And lose the name of action.—Soft you now,

The fair Ophelia.—Nymph, in thy orisons

Be all my sins remembered.

OPHELIA Good my lord,

How does your Honor for this many a day?100

HAMLET I humbly thank you, well.

OPHELIA

My lord, I have remembrances of yours

That I have longèd long to redeliver.

I pray you now receive them.

HAMLET

No, not I. I never gave you aught.105

OPHELIA

My honored 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 mind110

Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.

There, my lord.

HAMLET Ha, ha, are you honest?

OPHELIA My lord?

HAMLET Are you fair?115

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?120

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.125

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.130

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 offenses135

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.140

Where’s your father?

OPHELIA At home, my lord.

HAMLET Let the doors be shut upon him that he may

play the fool nowhere but in ’s own house. Farewell.

OPHELIA O, help him, you sweet heavens!145

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, farewell. Or if thou wilt needs marry,

marry a fool, for wise men know well enough what150

monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go, and

quickly too. Farewell.

OPHELIA Heavenly powers, restore him!

HAMLET I have heard of your paintings too, well

enough. God hath given you one face, and you155

make yourselves another. You jig and amble, and

you lisp; you nickname God’s creatures and make

your wantonness your ignorance. Go to, I’ll no

more on ’t. It hath made me mad. I say we will have

no more marriage. Those that are married already,160

all but one, shall live. The rest shall keep as they are.

To a nunnery, go.He exits.

OPHELIA

O, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown!

The courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s, eye, tongue,

sword,165

Th’ expectancy and rose of the fair state,

The glass of fashion and the mold of form,

Th’ observed of all observers, quite, quite down!

And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,

That sucked the honey of his musicked vows,170

Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,

Like sweet bells jangled, out of time and harsh;

That unmatched form and stature of blown youth

Blasted with ecstasy. O, woe is me

T’ have seen what I have seen, see what I see!175

KING, advancing with Polonius

Love? His affections do not that way tend;

Nor what he spake, though it lacked 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 disclose180

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,185

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?

POLONIUS

It shall do well. But yet do I believe190

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 play195

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 where200

Your wisdom best shall think.

KING It shall be so.

Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.

They exit.

Scene 2

Enter Hamlet and three of the 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 our 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;5

for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say,

whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and

beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. O,

it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious,

periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very10

rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the

most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable

dumb shows and noise. I would have such a fellow

whipped for o’erdoing Termagant. It out-Herods

Herod. Pray you, avoid it.15

PLAYER I warrant your Honor.

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

observance, that you o’erstep not the modesty of20

nature. For anything so o’erdone 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 time25

his form and pressure. Now this overdone or come

tardy off, though it makes the unskillful laugh,

cannot but make the judicious grieve, the censure

of the which one must in your allowance o’erweigh

a whole theater of others. O, there be players that I30

have seen play and heard others praise (and that

highly), not to speak it profanely, that, neither

having th’ accent of Christians nor the gait of

Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted and

bellowed that I have thought some of nature’s35

journeymen had made men, and not made them

well, they imitated humanity so abominably.

PLAYER I hope we have reformed that indifferently

with us, sir.

HAMLET O, reform it altogether. And let those that play40

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 meantime some necessary

question of the play be then to be considered.45

That’s villainous and shows a most pitiful ambition

in the fool that uses it. Go make you ready.

Players exit.

Enter Polonius, Guildenstern, and Rosencrantz.

How now, my lord, will the King hear this piece of

work?

POLONIUS And the Queen too, and that presently.50

HAMLET Bid the players make haste.Polonius exits.

Will you two help to hasten them?

ROSENCRANTZ Ay, my lord.They exit.

HAMLET What ho, Horatio!

Enter Horatio.

HORATIO Here, sweet lord, at your service.55

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 thee60

That no revenue hast but thy good spirits

To feed and clothe thee? Why should the poor be

flattered?

No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp

And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee65

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 sealed thee for herself. For thou hast been

As one in suffering all that suffers nothing,70

A man that Fortune’s buffets and rewards

Hast ta’en with equal thanks; and blessed are those

Whose blood and judgment are so well

commeddled

That they are not a pipe for Fortune’s finger75

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 tonight before the King.80

One scene of it comes near the circumstance

Which I have told thee of my father’s death.

I prithee, when thou seest that act afoot,

Even with the very comment of thy soul

Observe my uncle. If his occulted guilt85

Do not itself unkennel in one speech,

It is a damnèd 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,90

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.95

Sound a flourish.

HAMLET They are coming to the play. I must be idle.

Get you a place.

Enter Trumpets and Kettle Drums. Enter King, Queen,
Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and other
Lords attendant with the King’s guard carrying
torches.

KING How fares our cousin Hamlet?

HAMLET Excellent, i’ faith, of the chameleon’s dish. I

eat the air, promise-crammed. You cannot feed100

capons so.

KING 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’ th’ university, you say?105

POLONIUS That did I, my lord, and was accounted a

good actor.

HAMLET What did you enact?

POLONIUS I did enact Julius Caesar. I was killed i’ th’

Capitol. Brutus killed me.110

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 Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me.115

HAMLET No, good mother. Here’s metal more

attractive.Hamlet takes a place near Ophelia.

POLONIUS, to the King Oh, ho! Do you mark that?

HAMLET Lady, shall I lie in your lap?

OPHELIA No, my lord.120

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’125

legs.

OPHELIA What is, my lord?

HAMLET Nothing.

OPHELIA You are merry, my lord.

HAMLET Who, I?130

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 ’s two

hours.135

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 half140

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 oh, for oh, the

hobby-horse is forgot.”

The trumpets sounds. Dumb show follows.

Enter a King and a Queen, very lovingly, the Queen145

embracing him and he her. She kneels and makes show of

protestation unto him. He takes her up and declines his

head upon her neck. He lies him down upon a bank of

flowers. She, seeing him asleep, leaves him. Anon

comes in another man, takes off his crown, kisses it, pours150

poison in the sleeper’s ears, and leaves him. The Queen

returns, finds the King dead, makes passionate action. The

poisoner with some three or four come in again, seem to

condole with her. The dead body is carried away. The

poisoner woos the Queen with gifts. She seems harsh155

awhile but in the end accepts his love.

Players exit.

OPHELIA What means this, my lord?

HAMLET Marry, this is miching mallecho. It means

mischief.

OPHELIA Belike this show imports the argument of the160

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 will show him. Be165

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,170

Here stooping to your clemency,

We beg your hearing patiently.He exits.

HAMLET Is this a prologue or the posy of a ring?

OPHELIA ’Tis brief, my lord.

HAMLET As woman’s love.175

Enter the Player King and Queen.

PLAYER KING

Full thirty times hath Phoebus’ cart gone round

Neptune’s salt wash and Tellus’ orbèd ground,

And thirty dozen moons with borrowed sheen

About the world have times twelve thirties been

Since love our hearts and Hymen did our hands180

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,185

That I distrust you. Yet, though I distrust,

Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must.

For women fear too much, even as they love,

And women’s fear and love hold quantity,

In neither aught, or in extremity.190

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.195

My operant powers their functions leave to do.

And thou shalt live in this fair world behind,

Honored, beloved; and haply one as kind

For husband shalt thou—

PLAYER QUEEN O, confound the rest!200

Such love must needs be treason in my breast.

In second husband let me be accurst.

None wed the second but who killed the first.

HAMLET That’s wormwood!

PLAYER QUEEN

The instances that second marriage move205

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.210

Purpose is but the slave to memory,

Of violent birth, but poor validity,

Which now, the fruit unripe, sticks on the tree

But fall unshaken when they mellow be.

Most necessary ’tis that we forget215

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.220

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 prove225

Whether love lead fortune or else fortune love.

The great man down, you mark his favorite flies;

The poor, advanced, makes friends of enemies.

And hitherto doth love on fortune tend,

For who not needs shall never lack a friend,230

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;235

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,240

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,245

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. 250

PLAYER QUEEN Sleep rock thy brain,

And never come mischance between us twain.

Player Queen exits.

HAMLET Madam, how like you this play?

QUEEN The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

HAMLET O, but she’ll keep her word.255

KING Have you heard the argument? Is there no

offense in ’t?

HAMLET No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest. No

offense i’ th’ world.

KING What do you call the play?260

HAMLET “The Mousetrap.” 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 of that? Your Majesty and we that have free265

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,270

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 mine

edge.

OPHELIA Still better and worse.275

HAMLET So you mis-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 time280

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 property285

On wholesome life usurp immediately.

Pours the poison in his ears.

HAMLET He poisons him i’ th’ garden for his estate. His

name’s Gonzago. The story is extant and written in

very choice Italian. You shall see anon how the

murderer gets the love of Gonzago’s wife.290

Claudius rises.

OPHELIA The King rises.

HAMLET What, frighted with false fire?

QUEEN How fares my lord?

POLONIUS Give o’er the play.

KING Give me some light. Away!295

POLONIUS Lights, lights, lights!

All but Hamlet and Horatio exit.

HAMLET

Why, let the strucken deer go weep,

The hart ungallèd play.

For some must watch, while some must sleep:

Thus runs the world away.300

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?

HORATIO Half a share.305

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.310

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?315

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.320

Come, some music!

Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

GUILDENSTERN Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word

with you.

HAMLET Sir, a whole history.

GUILDENSTERN The King, sir—325

HAMLET Ay, sir, what of him?

GUILDENSTERN Is in his retirement marvelous

distempered.

HAMLET With drink, sir?

GUILDENSTERN No, my lord, with choler.330

HAMLET Your wisdom should show itself more richer

to signify this to the doctor, for for me to put him to

his purgation would perhaps plunge him into more

choler.

GUILDENSTERN Good my lord, put your discourse into335

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.340

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 return345

shall be the end of my business.

HAMLET Sir, I cannot.

ROSENCRANTZ What, my lord?

HAMLET Make you a wholesome answer. My wit’s

diseased. But, sir, such answer as I can make, you350

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.355

HAMLET O wonderful son that can so ’stonish 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.360

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 And do still, by these pickers and stealers.

ROSENCRANTZ Good my lord, what is your cause of365

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 in370

Denmark?

HAMLET Ay, sir, but “While the grass grows”—the

proverb is something musty.

Enter the Players with recorders.

O, the recorders! Let me see one. He takes a

recorder and turns to Guildenstern. To withdraw375

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 play380

upon this pipe?

GUILDENSTERN My lord, I cannot.

HAMLET I pray you.

GUILDENSTERN Believe me, I cannot.

HAMLET I do beseech you.385

GUILDENSTERN I know no touch of it, my lord.

HAMLET It is as easy as lying. Govern these ventages

with your fingers and thumb, give it breath with

your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent

music. Look you, these are the stops.390

GUILDENSTERN But these cannot I command to any

utt’rance 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 pluck395

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?400

Call me what instrument you will, though you can

fret me, you cannot play upon me.

Enter Polonius.

God bless you, sir.

POLONIUS My lord, the Queen would speak with you,

and presently.405

HAMLET Do you see yonder cloud that’s almost in

shape of a camel?

POLONIUS By th’ Mass, and ’tis like a camel indeed.

HAMLET Methinks it is like a weasel.

POLONIUS It is backed like a weasel.410

HAMLET Or like a whale.

POLONIUS Very like a whale.

HAMLET Then I will come to my mother by and by.

Aside. They fool me to the top of my bent.—I will

come by and by.415

POLONIUS I will say so.

HAMLET “By and by” is easily said. Leave me,

friends.

All but Hamlet exit.

’Tis now the very witching time of night,

When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes420

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.425

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:430

How in my words somever she be shent,

To give them seals never, my soul, consent.

He exits.

Scene 3

Enter King, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern.

KING

I like him not, nor stands it safe with us

To let his madness range. Therefore prepare you.

I your commission will forthwith dispatch,

And he to England shall along with you.

The terms of our estate may not endure5

Hazard so near ’s as doth hourly grow

Out of his brows.

GUILDENSTERN We will ourselves provide.

Most holy and religious fear it is

To keep those many many bodies safe10

That live and feed upon your Majesty.

ROSENCRANTZ

The single and peculiar life is bound

With all the strength and armor of the mind

To keep itself from noyance, but much more

That spirit upon whose weal depends and rests15

The lives of many. The cess of majesty

Dies not alone, but like a gulf doth draw

What’s near it with it; or it is a massy wheel

Fixed on the summit of the highest mount,

To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things20

Are mortised and adjoined, which, when it falls,

Each small annexment, petty consequence,

Attends the boist’rous ruin. Never alone

Did the king sigh, but with a general groan.

KING

Arm you, I pray you, to this speedy voyage,25

For we will fetters put about this fear,

Which now goes too free-footed.

ROSENCRANTZ We will haste us.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern exit.

Enter Polonius.

POLONIUS

My lord, he’s going to his mother’s closet.

Behind the arras I’ll convey myself30

To hear the process. I’ll warrant she’ll tax him

home;

And, as you said (and wisely was it said),

’Tis meet that some more audience than a mother,

Since nature makes them partial, should o’erhear35

The speech of vantage. Fare you well, my liege.

I’ll call upon you ere you go to bed

And tell you what I know.

KING Thanks, dear my lord.

Polonius exits.

O, my offense is rank, it smells to heaven;40

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,45

I stand in pause where I shall first begin

And both neglect. What if this cursèd 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 mercy50

But to confront the visage of offense?

And what’s in prayer but this twofold force,

To be forestallèd ere we come to fall,

Or pardoned being down? Then I’ll look up.

My fault is past. But, O, what form of prayer55

Can serve my turn? “Forgive me my foul murder”?

That cannot be, since I am still possessed

Of those effects for which I did the murder:

My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.

May one be pardoned and retain th’ offense?60

In the corrupted currents of this world,

Offense’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 lies65

In his true nature, and we ourselves compelled,

Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,

To give in evidence. What then? What rests?

Try what repentance can. What can it not?

Yet what can it, when one cannot repent?70

O wretched state! O bosom black as death!

O limèd 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.75

All may be well.He kneels.

Enter Hamlet.

HAMLET

Now might I do it pat, now he is a-praying,

And now I’ll do ’t.He draws his sword.

And so he goes to heaven,

And so am I revenged. That would be scanned:80

A villain kills my father, and for that,

I, his sole son, do this same villain send

To heaven.

Why, this is hire and salary, not revenge.

He took my father grossly, full of bread,85

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,90

When he is fit and seasoned for his passage?

No.

Up sword, and know thou a more horrid hent.

He sheathes his sword.

When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage,

Or in th’ incestuous pleasure of his bed,95

At game, a-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 damned and black

As hell, whereto it goes. My mother stays.100

This physic but prolongs thy sickly days.

Hamlet exits.

KING, rising

My words fly up, my thoughts remain below;

Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

He exits.

Scene 4

Enter Queen and Polonius.

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 screened and stood

between5

Much heat and him. I’ll silence me even here.

Pray you, be round with him.

HAMLET, within Mother, mother, mother!

QUEEN I’ll warrant you. Fear me not. Withdraw,

I hear him coming.10

Polonius hides behind the arras.

Enter Hamlet.

HAMLET Now, mother, what’s the matter?

QUEEN

Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.

HAMLET

Mother, you have my father much offended.

QUEEN

Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.

HAMLET

Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.15

QUEEN

Why, how now, Hamlet?

HAMLET What’s the matter now?

QUEEN

Have you forgot me?

HAMLET No, by the rood, not so.

You are the Queen, your husband’s brother’s wife,20

And (would it were not so) you are my mother.

QUEEN

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.25

QUEEN

What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murder me?

Help, ho!

POLONIUS, behind the arras What ho! Help!

HAMLET

How now, a rat? Dead for a ducat, dead.

He kills Polonius by thrusting a rapier

through the arras.

POLONIUS, behind the arras

O, I am slain!30

QUEEN O me, what hast thou done?

HAMLET Nay, I know not. Is it the King?

QUEEN

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.35

QUEEN

As kill a king?

HAMLET Ay, lady, it was my word.

He pulls Polonius’ body from behind the arras.

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.40

To Queen. 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 damnèd custom have not brazed it so45

That it be proof and bulwark against sense.

QUEEN

What have I done, that thou dar’st wag thy tongue

In noise so rude against me?

HAMLET Such an act

That blurs the grace and blush of modesty,50

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 plucks55

The very soul, and sweet religion makes

A rhapsody of words! Heaven’s face does glow

O’er this solidity and compound mass

With heated visage, as against the doom,

Is thought-sick at the act.60

QUEEN 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,65

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 indeed70

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 mildewed ear

Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes?75

Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed

And batten on this moor? Ha! Have you eyes?

You cannot call it love, for at your age

The heyday in the blood is tame, it’s humble

And waits upon the judgment; and what judgment80

Would step from this to this? Sense sure you have,

Else could you not have motion; but sure that sense

Is apoplexed; for madness would not err,

Nor sense to ecstasy was ne’er so thralled,

But it reserved some quantity of choice85

To serve in such a difference. What devil was ’t

That thus hath cozened 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 sense90

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 shame95

When the compulsive ardor gives the charge,

Since frost itself as actively doth burn,

And reason panders will.

QUEEN O Hamlet, speak no more!

Thou turn’st my eyes into my very soul,100

And there I see such black and grainèd spots

As will not leave their tinct.

HAMLET Nay, but to live

In the rank sweat of an enseamèd bed,

Stewed in corruption, honeying and making love105

Over the nasty sty!

QUEEN O, speak to me no more!

These words like daggers enter in my ears.

No more, sweet Hamlet!

HAMLET A murderer and a villain,110

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—115

QUEEN 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?120

QUEEN Alas, he’s mad.

HAMLET

Do you not come your tardy son to chide,

That, lapsed in time and passion, lets go by

Th’ important acting of your dread command?

O, say!125

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.130

Speak to her, Hamlet.

HAMLET How is it with you, lady?

QUEEN Alas, how is ’t with you,

That you do bend your eye on vacancy

And with th’ incorporal air do hold discourse?135

Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep,

And, as the sleeping soldiers in th’ alarm,

Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,

Start up and stand an end. O gentle son,

Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper140

Sprinkle cool patience! Whereon do you look?

HAMLET

On him, on him! Look you how pale he glares.

His form and cause conjoined, preaching to stones,

Would make them capable. To the Ghost. Do not

look upon me,145

Lest with this piteous action you convert

My stern effects. Then what I have to do

Will want true color—tears perchance for blood.

QUEEN To whom do you speak this?

HAMLET Do you see nothing there?150

QUEEN

Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.

HAMLET Nor did you nothing hear?

QUEEN No, nothing but ourselves.

HAMLET

Why, look you there, look how it steals away!

My father, in his habit as he lived!155

Look where he goes even now out at the portal!

Ghost exits.

QUEEN

This is the very coinage of your brain.

This bodiless creation ecstasy

Is very cunning in.

HAMLET Ecstasy?160

My pulse as yours doth temperately keep time

And makes as healthful music. It is not madness

That I have uttered. Bring me to the test,

And I the matter will reword, which madness

Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,165

Lay not that flattering unction to your soul

That not your trespass but my madness speaks.

It will but skin and film the ulcerous place,

Whiles rank corruption, mining all within,

Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven,170

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,175

Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good.

QUEEN

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 my uncle’s bed.180

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 livery185

That aptly is put on. Refrain tonight,

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 out190

With wondrous potency. Once more, good night,

And, when you are desirous to be blest,

I’ll blessing beg of you. For this same lord

Pointing to Polonius.

I do repent; but heaven hath pleased it so

To punish me with this and this with me,195

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.

This bad begins, and worse remains behind.200

One word more, good lady.

QUEEN 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,205

And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses

Or paddling in your neck with his damned 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,210

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,215

Let the birds fly, and like the famous ape,

To try conclusions, in the basket creep

And break your own neck down.

QUEEN

Be thou assured, if words be made of breath

And breath of life, I have no life to breathe220

What thou hast said to me.

HAMLET

I must to England, you know that.

QUEEN Alack,

I had forgot! ’Tis so concluded on.

HAMLET

There’s letters sealed; and my two schoolfellows,225

Whom I will trust as I will adders fanged,

They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way

And marshal me to knavery. Let it work,

For ’tis the sport to have the enginer

Hoist with his own petard; and ’t shall go hard230

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 neighbor room.235

Mother, good night indeed. This counselor

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.240

They exit, Hamlet tugging in Polonius.