The badger was in bed for about a month; but at last, in spite of the
red pepper application, his burns healed and he got well. When the
rabbit saw that the badger was getting well, he thought of another plan
by which he could compass the creature's death. So he went one day to
pay the badger a visit and to congratulate him on his recovery.

During the conversation the rabbit mentioned that he was going fishing,
and described how pleasant fishing was when the weather was fine and
the sea smooth.

A - B - C - D - E - F - G
H - I - J - K - L - M - N - O - P
Q - R - S - T - U and V,
W - X - Y and Z
Now I know my A - B - C's
Next time won't you sing with me?

Enter SILVIUS and PHEBE   SILVIUS. Sweet Phebe, do not scorn me; do not, Phebe.  Say that you love me not; but say not so  In bitterness. The common executioner,  Whose heart th' accustom'd sight of death makes hard,  Falls not the axe upon the humbled neck  But first begs pardon. Will you sterner be  Than he that dies and lives by bloody drops?   Enter ROSALIND, CELIA, and CORIN, at a distance   PHEBE. I would not be thy executioner;  I fly thee, for I would not injure thee.  Thou tell'st me there is murder in mine eye.  'Tis pretty, sure, and very probable,  That eyes, that are the frail'st and softest things,  Who shut their coward gates on atomies,  Should be call'd tyrants, butchers, murderers!  Now I do frown on thee with all my heart;  And if mine eyes can wound, now let them kill thee.  Now counterfeit to swoon; why, now fall down;  Or, if thou canst not, O, for shame, for shame,  Lie not, to say mine eyes are murderers.  Now show the wound mine eye hath made in thee.  Scratch thee but with a pin, and there remains  Some scar of it; lean upon a rush,  The cicatrice and capable impressure  Thy palm some moment keeps; but now mine eyes,  Which I have darted at thee, hurt thee not;  Nor, I am sure, there is not force in eyes  That can do hurt.  SILVIUS. O dear Phebe,  If ever- as that ever may be near-  You meet in some fresh cheek the power of fancy,  Then shall you know the wounds invisible  That love's keen arrows make.  PHEBE. But till that time  Come not thou near me; and when that time comes,  Afflict me with thy mocks, pity me not;  As till that time I shall not pity thee.  ROSALIND. [Advancing] And why, I pray you? Who might be your  mother,  That you insult, exult, and all at once,  Over the wretched? What though you have no beauty-  As, by my faith, I see no more in you  Than without candle may go dark to bed-  Must you be therefore proud and pitiless?  Why, what means this? Why do you look on me?  I see no more in you than in the ordinary  Of nature's sale-work. 'Od's my little life,  I think she means to tangle my eyes too!  No faith, proud mistress, hope not after it;  'Tis not your inky brows, your black silk hair,  Your bugle eyeballs, nor your cheek of cream,  That can entame my spirits to your worship.  You foolish shepherd, wherefore do you follow her,  Like foggy south, puffing with wind and rain?  You are a thousand times a properer man  Than she a woman. 'Tis such fools as you  That makes the world full of ill-favour'd children.  'Tis not her glass, but you, that flatters her;  And out of you she sees herself more proper  Than any of her lineaments can show her.  But, mistress, know yourself. Down on your knees,  And thank heaven, fasting, for a good man's love;  For I must tell you friendly in your ear:  Sell when you can; you are not for all markets.  Cry the man mercy, love him, take his offer;  Foul is most foul, being foul to be a scoffer.  So take her to thee, shepherd. Fare you well.  PHEBE. Sweet youth, I pray you chide a year together;  I had rather hear you chide than this man woo.  ROSALIND. He's fall'n in love with your foulness, and she'll fall  in love with my anger. If it be so, as fast as she answers thee  with frowning looks, I'll sauce her with bitter words. Why look  you so upon me?  PHEBE. For no ill will I bear you.  ROSALIND. I pray you do not fall in love with me,  For I am falser than vows made in wine;  Besides, I like you not. If you will know my house,  'Tis at the tuft of olives here hard by.  Will you go, sister? Shepherd, ply her hard.  Come, sister. Shepherdess, look on him better,  And be not proud; though all the world could see,  None could be so abus'd in sight as he.  Come, to our flock. Exeunt ROSALIND, CELIA, and CORIN  PHEBE. Dead shepherd, now I find thy saw of might:  'Who ever lov'd that lov'd not at first sight?'  SILVIUS. Sweet Phebe.  PHEBE. Ha! what say'st thou, Silvius?  SILVIUS. Sweet Phebe, pity me.  PHEBE. Why, I am sorry for thee, gentle Silvius.  SILVIUS. Wherever sorrow is, relief would be.  If you do sorrow at my grief in love,  By giving love, your sorrow and my grief  Were both extermin'd.  PHEBE. Thou hast my love; is not that neighbourly?  SILVIUS. I would have you.  PHEBE. Why, that were covetousness.  Silvius, the time was that I hated thee;  And yet it is not that I bear thee love;  But since that thou canst talk of love so well,  Thy company, which erst was irksome to me,  I will endure; and I'll employ thee too.  But do not look for further recompense  Than thine own gladness that thou art employ'd.  SILVIUS. So holy and so perfect is my love,  And I in such a poverty of grace,  That I shall think it a most plenteous crop  To glean the broken ears after the man  That the main harvest reaps; loose now and then  A scatt'red smile, and that I'll live upon.  PHEBE. Know'st thou the youth that spoke to me erewhile?  SILVIUS. Not very well; but I have met him oft;  And he hath bought the cottage and the bounds  That the old carlot once was master of.  PHEBE. Think not I love him, though I ask for him;  'Tis but a peevish boy; yet he talks well.  But what care I for words? Yet words do well  When he that speaks them pleases those that hear.  It is a pretty youth- not very pretty;  But, sure, he's proud; and yet his pride becomes him.  He'll make a proper man. The best thing in him  Is his complexion; and faster than his tongue  Did make offence, his eye did heal it up.  He is not very tall; yet for his years he's tall;  His leg is but so-so; and yet 'tis well.  There was a pretty redness in his lip,  A little riper and more lusty red  Than that mix'd in his cheek; 'twas just the difference  Betwixt the constant red and mingled damask.  There be some women, Silvius, had they mark'd him  In parcels as I did, would have gone near  To fall in love with him; but, for my part,  I love him not, nor hate him not; and yet  I have more cause to hate him than to love him;  For what had he to do to chide at me?  He said mine eyes were black, and my hair black,  And, now I am rememb'red, scorn'd at me.  I marvel why I answer'd not again;  But that's all one: omittance is no quittance.  I'll write to him a very taunting letter,  And thou shalt bear it; wilt thou, Silvius?  SILVIUS. Phebe, with all my heart.  PHEBE. I'll write it straight;  The matter's in my head and in my heart;  I will be bitter with him and passing short.  Go with me, Silvius.   Exeunt 
ACT IV. SCENE I. The forest  Enter ROSALIND, CELIA, and JAQUES   JAQUES. I prithee, pretty youth, let me be better acquainted with  thee.  ROSALIND. They say you are a melancholy fellow.  JAQUES. I am so; I do love it better than laughing.  ROSALIND. Those that are in extremity of either are abominable  fellows, and betray themselves to every modern censure worse than  drunkards.  JAQUES. Why, 'tis good to be sad and say nothing.  ROSALIND. Why then, 'tis good to be a post.  JAQUES. I have neither the scholar's melancholy, which is  emulation; nor the musician's, which is fantastical; nor the  courtier's, which is proud; nor the soldier's, which is  ambitious; nor the lawyer's, which is politic; nor the lady's,  which is nice; nor the lover's, which is all these; but it is a  melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, extracted  from many objects, and, indeed, the sundry contemplation of my  travels; in which my often rumination wraps me in a most humorous  sadness.  ROSALIND. A traveller! By my faith, you have great reason to be  sad. I fear you have sold your own lands to see other men's; then  to have seen much and to have nothing is to have rich eyes and  poor hands.  JAQUES. Yes, I have gain'd my experience.    Enter ORLANDO   ROSALIND. And your experience makes you sad. I had rather have a  fool to make me merry than experience to make me sad- and to  travel for it too.  ORLANDO. Good day, and happiness, dear Rosalind!  JAQUES. Nay, then, God buy you, an you talk in blank verse.  ROSALIND. Farewell, Monsieur Traveller; look you lisp and wear  strange suits, disable all the benefits of your own country, be  out of love with your nativity, and almost chide God for making  you that countenance you are; or I will scarce think you have  swam in a gondola. [Exit JAQUES] Why, how now, Orlando! where  have you been all this while? You a lover! An you serve me such  another trick, never come in my sight more.  ORLANDO. My fair Rosalind, I come within an hour of my promise.  ROSALIND. Break an hour's promise in love! He that will divide a  minute into a thousand parts, and break but a part of the  thousand part of a minute in the affairs of love, it may be said  of him that Cupid hath clapp'd him o' th' shoulder, but I'll  warrant him heart-whole.  ORLANDO. Pardon me, dear Rosalind.  ROSALIND. Nay, an you be so tardy, come no more in my sight. I had  as lief be woo'd of a snail.  ORLANDO. Of a snail!  ROSALIND. Ay, of a snail; for though he comes slowly, he carries  his house on his head- a better jointure, I think, than you make  a woman; besides, he brings his destiny with him.  ORLANDO. What's that?  ROSALIND. Why, horns; which such as you are fain to be beholding to  your wives for; but he comes armed in his fortune, and prevents  the slander of his wife.  ORLANDO. Virtue is no horn-maker; and my Rosalind is virtuous.  ROSALIND. And I am your Rosalind.  CELIA. It pleases him to call you so; but he hath a Rosalind of a  better leer than you.  ROSALIND. Come, woo me, woo me; for now I am in a holiday humour,  and like enough to consent. What would you say to me now, an I  were your very very Rosalind?  ORLANDO. I would kiss before I spoke.  ROSALIND. Nay, you were better speak first; and when you were  gravell'd for lack of matter, you might take occasion to kiss.  Very good orators, when they are out, they will spit; and for  lovers lacking- God warn us!- matter, the cleanliest shift is to  kiss.  ORLANDO. How if the kiss be denied?  ROSALIND. Then she puts you to entreaty, and there begins new  matter.  ORLANDO. Who could be out, being before his beloved mistress?  ROSALIND. Marry, that should you, if I were your mistress; or I  should think my honesty ranker than my wit.  ORLANDO. What, of my suit?  ROSALIND. Not out of your apparel, and yet out of your suit.  Am not I your Rosalind?  ORLANDO. I take some joy to say you are, because I would be talking  of her.  ROSALIND. Well, in her person, I say I will not have you.  ORLANDO. Then, in mine own person, I die.  ROSALIND. No, faith, die by attorney. The poor world is almost six  thousand years old, and in all this time there was not any man  died in his own person, videlicet, in a love-cause. Troilus had  his brains dash'd out with a Grecian club; yet he did what he  could to die before, and he is one of the patterns of love.  Leander, he would have liv'd many a fair year, though Hero had  turn'd nun, if it had not been for a hot midsummer night; for,  good youth, he went but forth to wash him in the Hellespont, and,  being taken with the cramp, was drown'd; and the foolish  chroniclers of that age found it was- Hero of Sestos. But these  are all lies: men have died from time to time, and worms have  eaten them, but not for love.  ORLANDO. I would not have my right Rosalind of this mind; for, I  protest, her frown might kill me.  ROSALIND. By this hand, it will not kill a fly. But come, now I  will be your Rosalind in a more coming-on disposition; and ask me  what you will, I will grant it.  ORLANDO. Then love me, Rosalind.  ROSALIND. Yes, faith, will I, Fridays and Saturdays, and all.  ORLANDO. And wilt thou have me?  ROSALIND. Ay, and twenty such.  ORLANDO. What sayest thou?  ROSALIND. Are you not good?  ORLANDO. I hope so.  ROSALIND. Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing? Come,  sister, you shall be the priest, and marry us. Give me your hand,  Orlando. What do you say, sister?  ORLANDO. Pray thee, marry us.  CELIA. I cannot say the words.  ROSALIND. You must begin 'Will you, Orlando'-  CELIA. Go to. Will you, Orlando, have to wife this Rosalind?  ORLANDO. I will.  ROSALIND. Ay, but when?  ORLANDO. Why, now; as fast as she can marry us.  ROSALIND. Then you must say 'I take thee, Rosalind, for wife.'  ORLANDO. I take thee, Rosalind, for wife.  ROSALIND. I might ask you for your commission; but- I do take thee,  Orlando, for my husband. There's a girl goes before the priest;  and, certainly, a woman's thought runs before her actions.  ORLANDO. So do all thoughts; they are wing'd.  ROSALIND. Now tell me how long you would have her, after you have  possess'd her.  ORLANDO. For ever and a day.  ROSALIND. Say 'a day' without the 'ever.' No, no, Orlando; men are  April when they woo, December when they wed: maids are May when  they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives. I will  be more jealous of thee than a Barbary cock-pigeon over his hen,  more clamorous than a parrot against rain, more new-fangled than  an ape, more giddy in my desires than a monkey. I will weep for  nothing, like Diana in the fountain, and I will do that when you  are dispos'd to be merry; I will laugh like a hyen, and that when  thou are inclin'd to sleep.  ORLANDO. But will my Rosalind do so?  ROSALIND. By my life, she will do as I do.  ORLANDO. O, but she is wise.  ROSALIND. Or else she could not have the wit to do this. The wiser,  the waywarder. Make the doors upon a woman's wit, and it will out  at the casement; shut that, and 'twill out at the key-hole; stop  that, 'twill fly with the smoke out at the chimney.  ORLANDO. A man that had a wife with such a wit, he might say 'Wit,  whither wilt?' ROSALIND. Nay, you might keep that check for it, till you met your  wife's wit going to your neighbour's bed.  ORLANDO. And what wit could wit have to excuse that?  ROSALIND. Marry, to say she came to seek you there. You shall never  take her without her answer, unless you take her without her  tongue. O, that woman that cannot make her fault her husband's  occasion, let her never nurse her child herself, for she will  breed it like a fool!  ORLANDO. For these two hours, Rosalind, I will leave thee.    PHEBE. I would not be thy executioner;  I fly thee, for I would not injure thee.  Thou tell'st me there is murder in mine eye.  'Tis pretty, sure, and very probable,  That eyes, that are the frail'st and softest things,  Who shut their coward gates on atomies,  Should be call'd tyrants, butchers, murderers!  Now I do frown on thee with all my heart;  And if mine eyes can wound, now let them kill thee.  Now counterfeit to swoon; why, now fall down;  Or, if thou canst not, O, for shame, for shame,  Lie not, to say mine eyes are murderers.  Now show the wound mine eye hath made in thee.  Scratch thee but with a pin, and there remains  Some scar of it; lean upon a rush,  The cicatrice and capable impressure  Thy palm some moment keeps; but now mine eyes,  Which I have darted at thee, hurt thee not;  Nor, I am sure, there is not force in eyes  That can do hurt.  SILVIUS. O dear Phebe,  If ever- as that ever may be near-  You meet in some fresh cheek the power of fancy,  Then shall you know the wounds invisible  That love's keen arrows make.  PHEBE. But till that time  Come not thou near me; and when that time comes,  Afflict me with thy mocks, pity me not;  As till that time I shall not pity thee.  ROSALIND. [Advancing] And why, I pray you? Who might be your  mother,  That you insult, exult, and all at once,  Over the wretched? What though you have no beauty-  As, by my faith, I see no more in you  Than without candle may go dark to bed-  Must you be therefore proud and pitiless?  Why, what means this? Why do you look on me?  I see no more in you than in the ordinary  Of nature's sale-work. 'Od's my little life,  I think she means to tangle my eyes too!  No faith, proud mistress, hope not after it;  'Tis not your inky brows, your black silk hair,  Your bugle eyeballs, nor your cheek of cream,  That can entame my spirits to your worship.  You foolish shepherd, wherefore do you follow her,  Like foggy south, puffing with wind and rain?  You are a thousand times a properer man  Than she a woman. 'Tis such fools as you  That makes the world full of ill-favour'd children.  'Tis not her glass, but you, that flatters her;  And out of you she sees herself more proper  Than any of her lineaments can show her.  But, mistress, know yourself. Down on your knees,  And thank heaven, fasting, for a good man's love;  For I must tell you friendly in your ear:  Sell when you can; you are not for all markets.  Cry the man mercy, love him, take his offer;  Foul is most foul, being foul to be a scoffer.  So take her to thee, shepherd. Fare you well.  PHEBE. Sweet youth, I pray you chide a year together;  I had rather hear you chide than this man woo.  ROSALIND. He's fall'n in love with your foulness, and she'll fall  in love with my anger. If it be so, as fast as she answers thee  with frowning looks, I'll sauce her with bitter words. Why look  you so upon me?  PHEBE. For no ill will I bear you.  ROSALIND. I pray you do not fall in love with me,  For I am falser than vows made in wine;  Besides, I like you not. If you will know my house,  'Tis at the tuft of olives here hard by.  Will you go, sister? Shepherd, ply her hard.  Come, sister. Shepherdess, look on him better,  And be not proud; though all the world could see,  None could be so abus'd in sight as he.  Come, to our flock. Exeunt ROSALIND, CELIA, and CORIN  PHEBE. Dead shepherd, now I find thy saw of might:  'Who ever lov'd that lov'd not at first sight?'  SILVIUS. Sweet Phebe.  PHEBE. Ha! what say'st thou, Silvius?  SILVIUS. Sweet Phebe, pity me.  PHEBE. Why, I am sorry for thee, gentle Silvius.  SILVIUS. Wherever sorrow is, relief would be.  If you do sorrow at my grief in love,  By giving love, your sorrow and my grief  Were both extermin'd.  PHEBE. Thou hast my love; is not that neighbourly?  SILVIUS. I would have you.  PHEBE. Why, that were covetousness.  Silvius, the time was that I hated thee;  And yet it is not that I bear thee love;  But since that thou canst talk of love so well,  Thy company, which erst was irksome to me,  I will endure; and I'll employ thee too.  But do not look for further recompense  Than thine own gladness that thou art employ'd.  SILVIUS. So holy and so perfect is my love,  And I in such a poverty of grace,  That I shall think it a most plenteous crop  To glean the broken ears after the man  That the main harvest reaps; loose now and then  A scatt'red smile, and that I'll live upon.  PHEBE. Know'st thou the youth that spoke to me erewhile?  SILVIUS. Not very well; but I have met him oft;  And he hath bought the cottage and the bounds  That the old carlot once was master of.  PHEBE. Think not I love him, though I ask for him;  'Tis but a peevish boy; yet he talks well.  But what care I for words? Yet words do well  When he that speaks them pleases those that hear.  It is a pretty youth- not very pretty;  But, sure, he's proud; and yet his pride becomes him.  He'll make a proper man. The best thing in him  Is his complexion; and faster than his tongue  Did make offence, his eye did heal it up.  He is not very tall; yet for his years he's tall;  His leg is but so-so; and yet 'tis well.  There was a pretty redness in his lip,  A little riper and more lusty red  Than that mix'd in his cheek; 'twas just the difference  Betwixt the constant red and mingled damask.  There be some women, Silvius, had they mark'd him  In parcels as I did, would have gone near  To fall in love with him; but, for my part,  I love him not, nor hate him not; and yet  I have more cause to hate him than to love him;  For what had he to do to chide at me?  He said mine eyes were black, and my hair black,  And, now I am rememb'red, scorn'd at me.  I marvel why I answer'd not again;  But that's all one: omittance is no quittance.  I'll write to him a very taunting letter,  And thou shalt bear it; wilt thou, Silvius?  SILVIUS. Phebe, with all my heart.  PHEBE. I'll write it straight;  The matter's in my head and in my heart;  I will be bitter with him and passing short.  Go with me, Silvius.   Exeunt  

Ghost.
Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast,
With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts,--
O wicked wit and gifts, that have the power
So to seduce!--won to his shameful lust
The will of my most seeming-virtuous queen:
O Hamlet, what a falling-off was there!
From me, whose love was of that dignity
That it went hand in hand even with the vow
I made to her in marriage; and to decline
Upon a wretch whose natural gifts were poor
To those of mine!
But virtue, as it never will be mov'd,
Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven;
So lust, though to a radiant angel link'd,
Will sate itself in a celestial bed
And prey on garbage.
But soft! methinks I scent the morning air;
Brief let me be.--Sleeping within my orchard,
My custom always of the afternoon,
Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole,
With juice of cursed 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 it doth posset
And curd, like eager droppings into milk,
The thin and wholesome blood; so did it mine;
And a most instant tetter bark'd about,
Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust
All my smooth body.
Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother's hand,
Of life, of crown, of queen, at once dispatch'd:
Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,
Unhous'led, 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 pursu'st 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 glowworm shows the matin to be near,
And 'gins to pale his uneffectual fire:
Adieu, adieu! Hamlet, remember me.

[Exit.]

Ham.
O all you host of heaven! O earth! what else?
And shall I couple hell? O, fie!--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 am 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.

Hor.
[Within.] My lord, my lord,--

Mar.
[Within.] Lord Hamlet,--

Hor.
[Within.] Heaven secure him!

Ham.
So be it!

Mar.
[Within.] Illo, ho, ho, my lord!

Ham.
Hillo, ho, ho, boy! Come, bird, come.

[Enter Horatio and Marcellus.]

Mar.
How is't, my noble lord?

Hor.
What news, my lord?

Ham.
O, wonderful!

Hor.
Good my lord, tell it.

Ham.
No; you'll reveal it.

Hor.
Not I, my lord, by heaven.

Mar.
Nor I, my lord.

Ham.
How say you then; would heart of man once think it?--
But you'll be secret?

Hor. and Mar.
Ay, by heaven, my lord.

Ham.
There's ne'er a villain dwelling in all Denmark
But he's an arrant knave.

Hor.
There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave
To tell us this.

Ham.
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 desires shall point you,--
For every man hath business and desire,
Such as it is;--and for my own poor part,
Look you, I'll go pray.

Hor.
These are but wild and whirling words, my lord.

Ham.
I'm sorry they offend you, heartily;
Yes, faith, heartily.

Hor.
There's no offence, my lord.

Ham.
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.

Hor.
What is't, my lord? we will.

Ham.
Never make known what you have seen to-night.

Hor. and Mar.
My lord, we will not.

Ham.
Nay, but swear't.

Hor.
In faith,
My lord, not I.

Mar.
Nor I, my lord, in faith.

Ham.
Upon my sword.

Mar.
We have sworn, my lord, already.

Ham.
Indeed, upon my sword, indeed.

Ghost.
[Beneath.] Swear.

Ham.
Ha, ha boy! say'st thou so? art thou there, truepenny?--
Come on!--you hear this fellow in the cellarage,--
Consent to swear.

Hor.
Propose the oath, my lord.

Ham.
Never to speak of this that you have seen,
Swear by my sword.

Ghost.
[Beneath.] Swear.

Ham.
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.

Ham.
Well said, old mole! canst work i' the earth so fast?
A worthy pioner!--Once more remove, good friends.

Hor.
O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!

Ham.
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 head-shake,
Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase,
As 'Well, well, we know'; or 'We could, an if we would';--
Or 'If we list to speak'; or 'There be, an if they might';--
Or such ambiguous giving out, to note
That you know aught of me:--this is not to do,
So grace and mercy at your most need help you,
Swear.

Ghost.
[Beneath.] Swear.

Ham.
Rest, rest, perturbed spirit!--So, gentlemen,
With all my love I do commend me to you:
And what so poor a man as Hamlet is
May do, 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's house.

[Enter Polonius and Reynaldo.]

Pol.
Give him this money and these notes, Reynaldo.

Rey.
I will, my lord.

Pol.
You shall do marvellous wisely, good Reynaldo,
Before You visit him, to make inquiry
Of his behaviour.

Rey.
My lord, I did intend it.

Pol.
Marry, well said; very well said. Look you, sir,
Enquire 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?

Rey.
Ay, very well, my lord.

Pol.
'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.

Rey.
As gaming, my lord.

Pol.
Ay, or drinking, fencing, swearing, quarrelling,
Drabbing:--you may go so far.

Rey.
My lord, that would dishonour him.

Pol.
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.

Rey.
But, my good lord,--

Pol.
Wherefore should you do this?

Rey.
Ay, my lord,
I would know that.

Pol.
Marry, sir, here's my drift;
And I believe it is a fetch of warrant:
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 assur'd
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.

Rey.
Very good, my lord.

Pol.
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?

Rey.
At 'closes in the consequence,' at 'friend or so,' and
gentleman.'

Pol.
At--closes in the consequence'--ay, marry!
He closes with you 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 he 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 windlaces, 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?

Rey.
My lord, I have.

Pol.
God b' wi' you, fare you well.

Rey.
Good my lord!

Pol.
Observe his inclination in yourself.

Rey.
I shall, my lord.

Pol.
And let him ply his music.

Rey.
Well, my lord.

Pol.
Farewell!

[Exit Reynaldo.]

[Enter Ophelia.]

How now, Ophelia! what's the matter?

Oph.
Alas, my lord, I have been so affrighted!

Pol.
With what, i' the name of God?

Oph.
My lord, as I was sewing in my chamber,
Lord Hamlet,--with his doublet all unbrac'd;
No hat upon his head; his stockings foul'd,
Ungart'red, and down-gyved to his ankle;
Pale as his shirt; his knees knocking each other;
And with a look so piteous in purport
As if he had been loosed out of hell
To speak of horrors,--he comes before me.

Pol.
Mad for thy love?

Oph.
My lord, I do not know;
But truly I do fear it.

Pol.
What said he?

Oph.
He took me by the wrist, and held me hard;
Then goes he to the length of all his arm;
And with his other hand thus o'er his brow,
He falls to such perusal of my face
As he would draw it. Long stay'd he so;
At last,--a little shaking of mine arm,
And thrice his head thus waving up and down,--
He rais'd a sigh so piteous and profound
As it did seem to shatter all his bulk
And end his being: that done, he lets me go:
And, with his head over his shoulder turn'd
He seem'd to find his way without his eyes;
For out o' doors he went without their help,
And to the last bended their light on me.

Pol.
Come, go with me: I will go seek the king.
This is the very ecstasy of love;
Whose violent property fordoes itself,
And leads the will to desperate undertakings,
As oft as any passion under heaven
That does afflict our natures. I am sorry,--
What, have you given him any hard words of late?

Oph.
No, my good lord; but, as you did command,
I did repel his letters and denied
His access to me.

Pol.
That hath made him mad.
I am sorry that with better heed and judgment
I had not quoted him: I fear'd he did but trifle,
And meant to wreck thee; but beshrew my jealousy!
It seems it 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, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and Attendants.]

King.
Welcome, dear Rosencrantz and Guildenstern!
Moreover that we much did long to see you,
The need we have to use you did provoke
Our hasty sending. Something have you heard
Of Hamlet's transformation; so I call it,
Since 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 since so neighbour'd to his youth and humour,
That you vouchsafe your rest here in our court
Some little time: so by your companies
To draw him on to pleasures, and to gather,
So much as from occasion you may glean,
Whether aught, to us unknown, afflicts him thus,
That, open'd, lies within our remedy.

Queen.
Good gentlemen, he hath much talk'd of you,
And sure I am two men there are not living
To whom he more adheres. If it will please you
To show us so much gentry and good-will
As to expend your time with us awhile,
For the supply and profit of our hope,
Your visitation shall receive such thanks
As fits a king's remembrance.

Ros.
Both your majesties
Might, by the sovereign power you have of us,
Put your dread pleasures more into command
Than to entreaty.

Guil.
We both obey,
And here give up ourselves, in the full bent,
To lay our service freely at your feet,
To be commanded.

King.
Thanks, Rosencrantz and gentle Guildenstern.

Queen.
Thanks, Guildenstern and gentle Rosencrantz:
And I beseech you instantly to visit
My too-much-changed son.--Go, some of you,
And bring these gentlemen where Hamlet is.

Guil.
Heavens make our presence and our practices
Pleasant and helpful to him!

Queen.
Ay, amen!

[Exeunt Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and some Attendants].

[Enter Polonius.]

Pol.
Th' ambassadors from Norway, my good lord,
Are joyfully return'd.

King.
Thou still hast been the father of good news.

Pol.
Have I, my lord? Assure you, my good liege,
I hold my duty, as I hold my soul,
Both to my God and to my gracious king:
And I do think,--or else this brain of mine
Hunts not the trail of policy so sure
As it hath us'd to do,--that I have found
The very cause of Hamlet's lunacy.

King.
O, speak of that; that do I long to hear.

Pol.
Give first admittance to the ambassadors;
My news shall be the fruit to that great feast.

King.
Thyself do grace to them, and bring them in.

[Exit Polonius.]

He tells me, my sweet queen, he hath found
The head and source of all your son's distemper.

Queen.
I doubt it is no other but the main,--
His father's death and our o'erhasty marriage.

King.
Well, we shall sift him.

[Enter Polonius, with Voltimand and Cornelius.]

Welcome, my good friends!
Say, Voltimand, what from our brother Norway?

Volt.
Most fair return of greetings and desires.
Upon our first, he sent out to suppress
His nephew's levies; which to him appear'd
To be a preparation 'gainst the Polack;
But, better look'd into, he truly found
It was against your highness; whereat griev'd,--
That so his sickness, age, and impotence
Was falsely borne in hand,--sends out arrests
On Fortinbras; which he, in brief, obeys;
Receives rebuke from Norway; and, in fine,
Makes vow before his uncle never more
To give th' assay of arms against your majesty.
Whereon old Norway, overcome with joy,
Gives him three thousand crowns in annual fee;
And his commission to employ those soldiers,
So levied as before, against the Polack:
With an entreaty, herein further shown,
[Gives a paper.]
That it might please you to give quiet pass
Through your dominions for this enterprise,
On such regards of safety and allowance
As therein are set down.

King.
It likes us well;
And at our more consider'd time we'll read,
Answer, and think upon this business.
Meantime we thank you for your well-took labour:
Go to your rest; at night we'll feast together:
Most welcome home!

[Exeunt Voltimand and Cornelius.]

Pol.
This business is well ended.--
My liege, and madam,--to expostulate
What majesty should be, what duty is,
Why day is day, night is night, and time is time.
Were nothing but to waste night, day, and time.
Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief:--your noble son is mad:
Mad call I it; for to define true madness,
What is't but to be nothing else but mad?
But let that go.

Queen.
More matter, with less art.

Pol.
Madam, I swear I use no art at all.
That he is mad, 'tis true: 'tis true 'tis pity;
And pity 'tis 'tis true: a foolish figure;
But farewell it, for I will use no art.
Mad let us grant him then: and now remains
That we find out the cause of this effect;
Or rather say, the cause of this defect,
For this effect defective comes by cause:
Thus it remains, and the remainder thus.
Perpend.
I have a daughter,--have whilst 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.
Came this from Hamlet to her?

Pol.
Good madam, stay awhile; I will be faithful.
[Reads.]
  'Doubt thou the stars are fire;
     Doubt that the sun doth move;
   Doubt truth to be a liar;
     But never doubt I love.
'O dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers; I have not art to
reckon my groans: but that I love thee best, O most best, believe
it. Adieu.
  'Thine evermore, most dear lady, whilst this machine is to him,
     HAMLET.'
This, in obedience, hath my daughter show'd me;
And more above, hath his solicitings,
As they fell out by time, by means, and place,
All given to mine ear.

King.
But how hath she
Receiv'd his love?

Pol.
What do you think of me?

King.
As of a man faithful and honourable.

Pol.
I would fain prove so. But what might you think,
When I had seen this hot love on the wing,--
As I perceiv'd it, I must tell you that,
Before my daughter told me,-- what might you,
Or my dear majesty your queen here, think,
If I had play'd the desk or table-book,
Or given my heart a winking, mute and dumb;
Or look'd upon this love with idle sight;--
What might you think? No, I went round to work,
And my young mistress thus I did bespeak:
'Lord Hamlet is a prince, out of thy sphere;
This must not be:' and then I precepts gave her,
That she should lock herself from his resort,
Admit no messengers, receive no tokens.
Which done, she took the fruits of my advice;
And he, 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 wail for.

King.
Do you think 'tis this?

Queen.
It may be, very likely.

Pol.
Hath there been such a time,--I'd fain know that--
That I have positively said ''Tis so,'
When it prov'd otherwise?

King.
Not that I know.

Pol.
Take this from this, if this be otherwise:
[Points to his head and shoulder.]
If circumstances lead me, I will find
Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed
Within the centre.

King.
How may we try it further?

Pol.
You know sometimes he walks for hours together
Here in the lobby.

Queen.
So he does indeed.

Pol.
At such a time I'll loose my daughter to him:
Be you and I behind an arras then;
Mark the encounter: if he love her not,
And he not from his reason fall'n thereon
Let me be no assistant for a state,
But keep a farm and carters.

King.
We will try it.

Queen.
But look where sadly the poor wretch comes reading.

Pol.
Away, I do beseech you, both away
I'll board him presently:--O, give me leave.

[Exeunt King, Queen, and Attendants.]

[Enter Hamlet, reading.]

How does my good Lord Hamlet?

Ham.
Well, God-a-mercy.

Pol.
Do you know me, my lord?

Ham.
Excellent well; you're a fishmonger.

Pol.
Not I, my lord.

Ham.
Then I would you were so honest a man.

Pol.
Honest, my lord!

Ham.
Ay, sir; to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man
picked out of ten thousand.

Pol.
That's very true, my lord.

Ham.
For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a god-kissing
carrion,--Have you a daughter?

Pol.
I have, my lord.

Ham.
Let her not walk i' the sun: conception is a blessing, but not
as your daughter may conceive:--friend, look to't.

Pol.
How say you by that?--[Aside.] 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?

Ham.
Words, words, words.

Pol.
What is the matter, my lord?

Ham.
Between who?

Pol.
I mean, the matter that you read, my lord.

Ham.
Slanders, sir: for the satirical slave says here that old men
have grey beards; that their faces are wrinkled; their eyes
purging thick amber and plum-tree gum; and that they have a
plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams: all which,
sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it
not honesty to have it thus set down; for you yourself, sir,
should be old as I am, if, like a crab, you could go backward.

Pol.
[Aside.] Though this be madness, yet there is a method in't.--
Will you walk out of the air, my lord?

Ham.
Into my grave?

Pol.
Indeed, that is out o' 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.

Ham.
You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I will more
willingly part withal,--except my life, except my life, except my
life.

Pol.
Fare you well, my lord.

Ham.
These tedious old fools!

[Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.]

Pol.
You go to seek the Lord Hamlet; there he is.

Ros.
[To Polonius.] God save you, sir!

[Exit Polonius.]

Guil.
My honoured lord!

Ros.
My most dear lord!

Ham.
My excellent good friends! How dost thou, Guildenstern? Ah,
Rosencrantz! Good lads, how do ye both?

Ros.
As the indifferent children of the earth.

Guil.
Happy in that we are not over-happy;
On fortune's cap we are not the very button.

Ham.
Nor the soles of her shoe?

Ros.
Neither, my lord.

Ham.
Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of her
favours?

Guil.
Faith, her privates we.

Ham.
In the secret parts of fortune? O, most true; she is a
strumpet. What's the news?

Ros.
None, my lord, but that the world's grown honest.

Ham.
Then is doomsday near; but your news is not true. Let me
question more in particular: what have you, my good friends,
deserved at the hands of fortune, that she sends you to prison
hither?

Guil.
Prison, my lord!

Ham.
Denmark's a prison.

Ros.
Then is the world one.

Ham.
A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards, and
dungeons, Denmark being one o' the worst.

Ros.
We think not so, my lord.

Ham.
Why, then 'tis none to you; for there is nothing either good
or bad but thinking makes it so: to me it is a prison.

Ros.
Why, then, your ambition makes it one; 'tis too narrow for your
mind.

Ham.
O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a
king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.

Guil.
Which dreams, indeed, are ambition; for the very substance of
the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.

Ham.
A dream itself is but a shadow.

Ros.
Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality that
it is but a shadow's shadow.

Ham.
Then are our beggars bodies, and our monarchs and outstretch'd
heroes the beggars' shadows. Shall we to the court? for, by my
fay, I cannot reason.

Ros. and Guild.
We'll wait upon you.

Ham.
No such matter: I will not sort you with the rest of my
servants; for, to speak to you like an honest man, I am most
dreadfully attended. But, in the beaten way of friendship, what
make you at Elsinore?

Ros.
To visit you, my lord; no other occasion.

Ham.
Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks; but I thank you:
and sure, dear friends, my thanks are too dear a halfpenny. Were
you not sent for? Is it your own inclining? Is it a free
visitation? Come, deal justly with me: come, come; nay, speak.

Guil.
What should we say, my lord?

Ham.
Why, anything--but to 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.

Ros.
To what end, my lord?

Ham.
That you must teach me. But let me conjure you, by the rights
of our fellowship, by the consonancy of our youth, by the
obligation of our ever-preserved love, and by what more dear a
better proposer could charge you withal, be even and direct with
me, whether you were sent for or no.

Ros.
[To Guildenstern.] What say you?

Ham.
[Aside.] Nay, then, I have an eye of you.--If you love me, hold
not off.

Guil.
My lord, we were sent for.

Ham.
I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation prevent your
discovery, and your secrecy to the king and queen moult no
feather. I have of late,--but wherefore I know not,--lost all my
mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed, it goes so
heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth,
seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the
air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical
roof fretted with golden fire,--why, it appears no other thing
to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a
piece of work is man! How noble in reason! how infinite in
faculties! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in
action how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the
beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what
is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me; no, nor woman
neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.

Ros.
My lord, there was no such stuff in my thoughts.

Ham.
Why did you laugh then, when I said 'Man delights not me'?

Ros.
To think, my lord, if you delight not in man, what lenten
entertainment the players shall receive from you: we coted them
on the way; and hither are they coming to offer you service.

Ham.
He that plays the king shall be welcome,--his majesty shall
have tribute of me; the adventurous knight shall use his foil and
target; the lover shall not sigh gratis; the humorous man shall
end his part in peace; the clown shall make those laugh whose
lungs are tickle o' the sere; and the lady shall say her mind
freely, or the blank verse shall halt for't. What players are
they?

Ros.
Even those you were wont to take such delight in,--the
tragedians of the city.

Ham.
How chances it they travel? their residence, both in
reputation and profit, was better both ways.

Ros.
I think their inhibition comes by the means of the late
innovation.

Ham.
Do they hold the same estimation they did when I was in the
city? Are they so followed?

Ros.
No, indeed, are they not.

Ham.
How comes it? do they grow rusty?

Ros.
Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace: but there is,
sir, an 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.

Ham.
What, are they children? who maintains 'em? How are they
escoted? Will they pursue the quality no longer than they can
sing? will they not say afterwards, if they should grow
themselves to common players,--as it is most like, if their means
are no better,--their writers do them wrong to make them exclaim
against their own succession?

Ros.
Faith, there has been much to do on both sides; and the nation
holds it no sin to tarre them to controversy: there was, for
awhile, no money bid for argument unless the poet and the player
went to cuffs in the question.

Ham.
Is't possible?

Guil.
O, there has been much throwing about of brains.

Ham.
Do the boys carry it away?

Ros.
Ay, that they do, my lord; Hercules and his load too.

Ham.
It is not very strange; for my uncle is king of Denmark, and
those that would make mouths at him while my father lived, give
twenty, forty, fifty, a 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.]

Guil.
There are the players.

Ham.
Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore. Your hands, come: 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.

Guil.
In what, my dear lord?

Ham.
I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is southerly I
know a hawk from a handsaw.

[Enter Polonius.]

Pol.
Well be with you, gentlemen!

Ham.
Hark you, Guildenstern;--and you too;--at each ear a hearer: that
great baby you see there is not yet out of his swaddling clouts.

Ros.
Happily he's the second time come to them; for they say an old
man is twice a child.

Ham.
I will prophesy he comes to tell me of the players; mark it.--You
say right, sir: o' Monday morning; 'twas so indeed.

Pol.
My lord, I have news to tell you.

Ham.
My lord, I have news to tell you. When Roscius was an actor in
Rome,--

Pol.
The actors are come hither, my lord.

Ham.
Buzz, buzz!

Pol.
Upon my honour,--

Ham.
Then came each actor on his ass,--

Pol.
The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy,
history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral,
tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene
individable, or poem unlimited: Seneca cannot be too heavy nor
Plautus too light. For the law of writ and the liberty, these are
the only men.

Ham.
O Jephthah, judge of Israel, what a treasure hadst thou!

Pol.
What treasure had he, my lord?

Ham.
Why--
   'One fair daughter, and no more,
   The which he loved passing well.'


Pol.
[Aside.] Still on my daughter.

Ham.
Am I not i' the right, old Jephthah?

Pol.
If you call me Jephthah, my lord, I have a daughter that I
love passing well.

Ham.
Nay, that follows not.

Pol.
What follows, then, my lord?

Ham.
Why--
   'As by lot, God wot,'
and then, you know,
   'It came to pass, as most like it was--'
The first row of the pious chanson will show you more; for look
where my abridgment comes.

[Enter four or five Players.]

You are welcome, masters; welcome, all:--I am glad to see thee
well.--welcome, good friends.--O, my old friend! Thy face is
valanc'd 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 a piece 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
anything we see: we'll have a speech straight: come, give us a
taste of your quality: come, a passionate speech.

I Play.
What speech, my lord?

Ham.
I heard thee speak me a speech once,--but it was never acted;
or if it was, not above once; for the play, I remember, 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 indite 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 th' 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,
   Bak'd and impasted with the parching streets,
   That lend a tyrannous and a damned light
   To their vile murders: roasted in wrath and fire,
   And thus o'ersized with coagulate gore,
   With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus
   Old grandsire Priam seeks.'

So, proceed you.

Pol.
'Fore God, my lord, well spoken, with good accent and good
discretion.

I Play.
   Anon he finds him,
   Striking too short at Greeks: his antique sword,
   Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls,
   Repugnant to command: unequal match'd,
   Pyrrhus at Priam drives; in rage strikes wide;
   But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword
   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,
   A roused vengeance sets him new a-work;
   And never did the Cyclops' hammers fall
   On Mars's armour, forg'd for proof eterne,
   With less remorse than Pyrrhus' bleeding sword
   Now falls on Priam.--
   Out, out, thou strumpet, Fortune! All you gods,
   In general synod, take away her power;
   Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel,
   And bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven,
   As low as to the fiends!

Pol.
This is too long.

Ham.
It shall to the barber's, with your beard.--Pr'ythee say on.--
He's for a jig or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps:--say on; come
to Hecuba.

I Play.
   But who, O who, had seen the mobled queen,--

Ham.
'The mobled queen'?

Pol.
That's good! 'Mobled queen' is good.

I Play.
   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'erteemed loins,
   A blanket, in the alarm of fear caught up;--
   Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steep'd,
   'Gainst Fortune's state would treason have pronounc'd:
   But if the gods themselves did see her then,
   When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport
   In mincing with his sword her husband's limbs,
   The instant burst of clamour that she made,--
   Unless things mortal move them not at all,--
   Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven,
   And passion in the gods.

Pol.
Look, whether he has not turn'd his colour, and has tears in's
eyes.--Pray you, no more!

Ham.
'Tis well. I'll have thee speak out the rest of this soon.--
Good my lord, will you see the players well bestowed? Do you
hear? Let them be well used; for they are the abstracts and brief
chronicles of the time; after your death you were better have a
bad epitaph than their ill report while you live.

Pol.
My lord, I will use them according to their desert.

Ham.
Odd's bodikin, man, better: use every man after his
desert, and who should scape whipping? Use them after your own
honour and dignity: the less they deserve, the more merit is in
your bounty. Take them in.

Pol.
Come, sirs.

Ham.
Follow him, friends: we'll hear a play to-morrow.

[Exeunt Polonius with all the Players but the First.]

Dost thou hear me, old friend? Can you play 'The Murder of
Gonzago'?

I Play.
Ay, my lord.

Ham.
We'll ha't to-morrow night. You could, for a need, study a
speech of some dozen or sixteen lines which I would set down and
insert in't? could you not?

I Play.
Ay, my lord.

Ham.
Very well.--Follow that lord; and look you mock him not.

[Exit First Player.]

--My good friends [to Ros. and Guild.], I'll leave you till
night: you are welcome to Elsinore.

Ros.
Good my lord!

[Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.]

Ham.
Ay, so, God b' wi' ye!
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 wan'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, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, and
Guildenstern.]

King.
And can you, by no drift of circumstance,
Get from him why he puts on this confusion,
Grating so harshly all his days of quiet
With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?

Ros.
He does confess he feels himself distracted,
But from what cause he will by no means speak.

Guil.
Nor do we find him forward to be sounded,
But, with a crafty madness, keeps aloof
When we would bring him on to some confession
Of his true state.

Queen.
Did he receive you well?

Ros.
Most like a gentleman.

Guil.
But with much forcing of his disposition.

Ros.
Niggard of question; but, of our demands,
Most free in his reply.

Queen.
Did you assay him
To any pastime?

Ros.
Madam, it so fell out that certain players
We o'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.

Pol.
'Tis most true;
And he beseech'd me to entreat your majesties
To hear and see the matter.

King.
With all my heart; and it doth much content me
To hear him so inclin'd.--
Good gentlemen, give him a further edge,
And drive his purpose on to these delights.

Ros.
We shall, my lord.

[Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.]

King.
Sweet Gertrude, leave us too;
For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither,
That he, as 'twere by accident, may here
Affront Ophelia:
Her father and myself,--lawful espials,--
Will so bestow ourselves that, seeing, unseen,
We may of their encounter frankly judge;
And gather by him, as he is behav'd,
If't be the affliction of his love or no
That thus he suffers for.

Queen.
I shall obey you:--
And for your part, Ophelia, I do wish
That your good beauties be the happy cause
Of Hamlet's wildness: so shall I hope your virtues
Will bring him to his wonted way again,
To both your honours.

Oph.
Madam, I wish it may.

[Exit Queen.]

Pol.
Ophelia, walk you here.--Gracious, so please you,
We will bestow ourselves.--[To Ophelia.] Read on this book;
That show of such an exercise may colour
Your loneliness.--We are oft to blame in this,--
'Tis too much prov'd,--that with devotion's visage
And pious action we do sugar o'er
The Devil himself.

King.
[Aside.] O, 'tis too true!
How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!
The harlot's cheek, beautied with plastering art,
Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it
Than is my deed to my most painted word:
O heavy burden!

Pol.
I hear him coming: let's withdraw, my lord.

[Exeunt King and Polonius.]

[Enter Hamlet.]

Ham.
To be, or not to be,--that is the question:--
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?--To die,--to sleep,--
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to,--'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die,--to sleep;--
To sleep! perchance to dream:--ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would these fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,--
The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns,--puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.--Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia!--Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd.

Oph.
Good my lord,
How does your honour for this many a day?

Ham.
I humbly thank you; well, well, well.

Oph.
My lord, I have remembrances of yours
That I have longed long to re-deliver.
I pray you, now receive them.

Ham.
No, not I;
I never gave you aught.

Oph.
My honour'd lord, you know right well you did;
And with them words of so sweet breath compos'd
As made the things more rich; their perfume lost,
Take these again; for to the noble mind
Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.
There, my lord.

Ham.
Ha, ha! are you honest?

Oph.
My lord?

Ham.
Are you fair?

Oph.
What means your lordship?

Ham.
That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no
discourse to your beauty.

Oph.
Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty?

Ham.
Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner transform
honesty from what it is to a bawd than the force of honesty can
translate beauty into his likeness: this was sometime a paradox,
but now the time gives it proof. I did love you once.

Oph.
Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.

Ham.
You should not have believ'd me; for virtue cannot so
inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it: I loved you
not.

Oph.
I was the more deceived.

Ham.
Get thee to a nunnery: why wouldst thou be a breeder of
sinners? I am myself indifferent honest; but yet I could accuse
me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me:
I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious; with more offences at my
beck than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give
them shape, or time to act them in. What should such fellows as I
do crawling between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves, all;
believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery. Where's your
father?

Oph.
At home, my lord.

Ham.
Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool
nowhere but in's own house. Farewell.

Oph.
O, help him, you sweet heavens!

Ham.
If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague for thy dowry,--
be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape
calumny. Get thee to a nunnery, go: farewell. Or, if thou wilt
needs marry, marry a fool; for wise men know well enough what
monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go; and quickly too.
Farewell.

Oph.
O heavenly powers, restore him!

Ham.
I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God hath
given you one face, and you make yourselves another: you jig, you
amble, and you lisp, and nickname God's creatures, and make your
wantonness your ignorance. Go to, I'll no more on't; it hath made
me mad. I say, we will have no more marriages: those that are
married already, all but one, shall live; the rest shall keep as
they are. To a nunnery, go.

[Exit.]

Oph.
O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!
The courtier's, scholar's, soldier's, eye, tongue, sword,
The expectancy and rose of the fair state,
The glass of fashion and the mould of form,
The observ'd of all observers,--quite, quite down!
And I, of ladies most deject and wretched
That suck'd the honey of his music vows,
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh;
That unmatch'd form and feature of blown youth
Blasted with ecstasy: O, woe is me,
To have seen what I have seen, see what I see!

[Re-enter King and Polonius.]

King.
Love! his affections do not that way tend;
Nor what he spake, though it lack'd form a little,
Was not like madness. There's something in his soul
O'er which his melancholy sits on brood;
And I do doubt the hatch and the disclose
Will be some danger: which for to prevent,
I have in quick determination
Thus set it down:--he shall with speed to England
For the demand of our neglected tribute:
Haply the seas, and countries different,
With variable objects, shall expel
This something-settled matter in his heart;
Whereon his brains still beating puts him thus
From fashion of himself. What think you on't?

Pol.
It shall do well: but yet do I believe
The origin and commencement of his grief
Sprung from neglected love.--How now, Ophelia!
You need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said;
We heard it all.--My lord, do as you please;
But if you hold it fit, after the play,
Let his queen mother all alone entreat him
To show his grief: let her be round with him;
And I'll be plac'd, so please you, in the ear
Of all their conference. If she find him not,
To England send him; or confine him where
Your wisdom best shall think.

King.
It shall be so:
Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go.

[Exeunt.]



Scene II. A hall in the Castle.

[Enter Hamlet and certain Players.]

Ham.
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,
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 dumb
shows and noise: I would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing
Termagant; it out-herods Herod: pray you avoid it.

I Player.
I warrant your honour.

Ham.
Be not too tame neither; but let your own discretion be your
tutor: suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with
this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of
nature: for anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing,
whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as
'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own image,
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.

I Player.
I hope we have reform'd that indifferently with us, sir.

Ham.
O, reform it altogether. And let those that play your clowns
speak no more than is set down for them: for there be of them
that will themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren
spectators to laugh too, though in the meantime some necessary
question of the play be then to be considered: that's villanous
and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it. Go
make you ready.

[Exeunt Players.]

[Enter Polonius, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern.]

How now, my lord! will the king hear this piece of work?

Pol.
And the queen too, and that presently.

Ham.
Bid the players make haste.

[Exit Polonius.]

Will you two help to hasten them?

Ros. and Guil.
We will, my lord.

[Exeunt Ros. and Guil.]

Ham.
What, ho, Horatio!

[Enter Horatio.]

Hor.
Here, sweet lord, at your service.

Ham.
Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man
As e'er my conversation cop'd withal.

Hor.
O, my dear lord,--

Ham.
Nay, do not think I flatter;
For what advancement may I hope from thee,
That no revenue hast, but thy good spirits,
To feed and clothe thee? Why should the poor be flatter'd?
No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp;
And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee
Where thrift may follow fawning. Dost thou hear?
Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice,
And could of men distinguish, her election
Hath 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 bles'd 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 pr'ythee, when thou see'st that act a-foot,
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.

Hor.
Well, my lord:
If he steal aught the whilst this play is playing,
And scape detecting, I will pay the theft.

Ham.
They are coming to the play. I must be idle:
Get you a place.

[Danish march. A flourish. Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia,
Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and others.]

King.
How fares our cousin Hamlet?

Ham.
Excellent, i' faith; of the chameleon's dish: I eat the air,
promise-crammed: you cannot feed capons so.

King.
I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet; these words are not
mine.

Ham.
No, nor mine now. My lord, you play'd once i' the university, you
say? [To Polonius.]

Pol.
That did I, my lord, and was accounted a good actor.

Ham.
What did you enact?

Pol.
I did enact Julius Caesar; I was kill'd i' the Capitol; Brutus
killed me.

Ham.
It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf there.--Be
the players ready?

Ros.
Ay, my lord; they stay upon your patience.

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

Ham.
No, good mother, here's metal more attractive.

Pol.
O, ho! do you mark that? [To the King.]

Ham.
Lady, shall I lie in your lap?
[Lying down at Ophelia's feet.]

Oph.
No, my lord.

Ham.
I mean, my head upon your lap?

Oph.
Ay, my lord.

Ham.
Do you think I meant country matters?

Oph.
I think nothing, my lord.

Ham.
That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs.

Oph.
What is, my lord?

Ham.
Nothing.

Oph.
You are merry, my lord.

Ham.
Who, I?

Oph.
Ay, my lord.

Ham.
O, your only jig-maker! What should a man do but be merry?
for look you how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died
within 's two hours.

Oph.
Nay, 'tis twice two months, my lord.

Ham.
So long? Nay then, let the devil wear black, for I'll have a
suit of sables. O heavens! die two months ago, and not forgotten
yet? Then there's hope a great man's memory may outlive his life
half a year: but, by'r lady, he must build churches then; or else
shall he suffer not thinking on, with the hobby-horse, whose
epitaph is 'For, O, for, O, the hobby-horse is forgot!'

[Trumpets sound. 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, pours poison in the king's ears, and exit. The
Queen returns, finds the King dead, and makes passionate action.
The Poisoner with some three or four Mutes, comes in again,
seeming to lament with her. The dead body is carried away. The
Poisoner wooes the Queen with gifts; she seems loth and unwilling
awhile, but in the end accepts his love.]

[Exeunt.]

Oph.
What means this, my lord?

Ham.
Marry, this is miching mallecho; it means mischief.

Oph.
Belike this show imports the argument of the play.

[Enter Prologue.]

Ham.
We shall know by this fellow: the players cannot keep counsel;
they'll tell all.

Oph.
Will he tell us what this show meant?

Ham.
Ay, or any show that you'll show him: be not you ashamed to
show, he'll not shame to tell you what it means.

Oph.
You are naught, you are naught: I'll mark the play.

Pro.
   For us, and for our tragedy,
   Here stooping to your clemency,
   We beg your hearing patiently.

Ham.
Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?

Oph.
'Tis brief, my lord.

Ham.
As woman's love.

[Enter a King and a Queen.]

P. 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.

P. Queen.
So many journeys may the sun and moon
Make us again count o'er ere love be done!
But, woe is me, you are so sick of late,
So far from cheer and from your former state.
That I distrust you. Yet, though I distrust,
Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must:
For women's fear and love holds quantity;
In neither aught, or in extremity.
Now, what my love is, proof hath made you know;
And as my love is siz'd, my fear is so:
Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear;
Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.

P. King.
Faith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly too;
My operant powers their functions leave to do:
And thou shalt live in this fair world behind,
Honour'd, belov'd, and haply one as kind
For husband shalt thou,--

P. 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.

Ham.
[Aside.] Wormwood, wormwood!

P. 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.

P. 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 advanc'd makes friends of enemies;
And hitherto doth love on fortune tend:
For who not needs shall never lack a friend;
And who in want a hollow friend doth try,
Directly seasons him his enemy.
But, orderly to end where I begun,--
Our wills and fates do so contrary run
That our devices still are overthrown;
Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own:
So think thou wilt no second husband wed;
But die thy thoughts when thy first lord is dead.

P. Queen.
Nor earth to me give food, nor heaven light!
Sport and repose lock from me day and night!
To desperation turn my trust and hope!
An anchor's cheer in prison be my scope!
Each opposite that blanks the face of joy
Meet what I would have well, and it destroy!
Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife,
If, once a widow, ever I be wife!

Ham.
If she should break it now! [To Ophelia.]

P. King.
'Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here awhile;
My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile
The tedious day with sleep.
[Sleeps.]

P. Queen.
Sleep rock thy brain,
And never come mischance between us twain!

[Exit.]

Ham.
Madam, how like you this play?

Queen.
The lady protests too much, methinks.

Ham.
O, but she'll keep her word.

King.
Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in't?

Ham.
No, no! They do but jest, poison in jest; no offence i' the
world.

King.
What do you call the play?

Ham.
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 gall'd jade wince; our withers
are unwrung.

[Enter Lucianus.]

This is one Lucianus, nephew to the King.

Oph.
You are a good chorus, my lord.

Ham.
I could interpret between you and your love, if I could see
the puppets dallying.

Oph.
You are keen, my lord, you are keen.

Ham.
It would cost you a groaning to take off my edge.

Oph.
Still better, and worse.

Ham.
So you must take your husbands.--Begin, murderer; pox, leave
thy damnable faces, and begin. Come:--'The croaking raven doth
bellow for revenge.'

Luc.
Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing;
Confederate season, else no creature seeing;
Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected,
With Hecate's ban thrice blasted, thrice infected,
Thy natural magic and dire property
On wholesome life usurp immediately.

[Pours the poison into the sleeper's ears.]

Ham.
He poisons him i' the garden for's 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.

Oph.
The King rises.

Ham.
What, frighted with false fire!

Queen.
How fares my lord?

Pol.
Give o'er the play.

King.
Give me some light:--away!

All.
Lights, lights, lights!

[Exeunt all but Hamlet and Horatio.]

Ham.
   Why, let the strucken deer go weep,
     The hart ungalled play;
   For some must watch, while some must sleep:
     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?

Hor.
Half a share.

Ham.
     A whole one, I.
   For thou dost know, O Damon dear,
     This realm dismantled was
   Of Jove himself; and now reigns here
     A very, very--pajock.

Hor.
You might have rhymed.

Ham.
O good Horatio, I'll take the ghost's word for a thousand
pound! Didst perceive?

Hor.
Very well, my lord.

Ham.
Upon the talk of the poisoning?--

Hor.
I did very well note him.

Ham.
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!

[Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.]

Guil.
Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you.

Ham.
Sir, a whole history.

Guil.
The king, sir--

Ham.
Ay, sir, what of him?

Guil.
Is, in his retirement, marvellous distempered.

Ham.
With drink, sir?

Guil.
No, my lord; rather with choler.

Ham.
Your wisdom should show itself more richer to signify this to
the doctor; for me to put him to his purgation would perhaps
plunge him into far more choler.

Guil.
Good my lord, put your discourse into some frame, and start
not so wildly from my affair.

Ham.
I am tame, sir:--pronounce.

Guil.
The queen, your mother, in most great affliction of spirit,
hath sent me to you.

Ham.
You are welcome.

Guil.
Nay, good my lord, this courtesy is not of the right breed.
If it shall please you to make me a wholesome answer, I will do
your mother's commandment: if not, your pardon and my return
shall be the end of my business.

Ham.
Sir, I cannot.

Guil.
What, my lord?

Ham.
Make you a wholesome answer; my wit's 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,--

Ros.
Then thus she says: your behaviour hath struck her into
amazement and admiration.

Ham.
O wonderful son, that can so stonish a mother!--But is there no
sequel at the heels of this mother's admiration?

Ros.
She desires to speak with you in her closet ere you go to bed.

Ham.
We shall obey, were she ten times our mother. Have you any
further trade with us?

Ros.
My lord, you once did love me.

Ham.
And so I do still, by these pickers and stealers.

Ros.
Good my lord, what is your cause of distemper? you do, surely,
bar the door upon your own liberty if you deny your griefs to
your friend.

Ham.
Sir, I lack advancement.

Ros.
How can that be, when you have the voice of the king himself
for your succession in Denmark?

Ham.
Ay, sir, but 'While the grass grows'--the proverb is something
musty.

[Re-enter the Players, with recorders.]

O, the recorders:--let me see one.--To withdraw with you:--why do
you go about to recover the wind of me, as if you would drive me
into a toil?

Guil.
O my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly.

Ham.
I do not well understand that. Will you play upon this pipe?

Guil.
My lord, I cannot.

Ham.
I pray you.

Guil.
Believe me, I cannot.

Ham.
I do beseech you.

Guil.
I know, no touch of it, my lord.

Ham.
'Tis as easy as lying: govern these ventages with your
finger and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will
discourse most eloquent music. Look you, these are the stops.

Guil.
But these cannot I command to any utterance of harmony; I
have not the skill.

Ham.
Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You
would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would
pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my
lowest note to the top of my compass; and there is much music,
excellent voice, in this little organ, yet cannot you make it
speak. 'Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a
pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me,
you cannot play upon me.

[Enter Polonius.]

God bless you, sir!

Pol.
My lord, the queen would speak with you, and presently.

Ham.
Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel?

Pol.
By the mass, and 'tis like a camel indeed.

Ham.
Methinks it is like a weasel.

Pol.
It is backed like a weasel.

Ham.
Or like a whale.

Pol.
Very like a whale.

Ham.
Then will I come to my mother by and by.--They fool me to the
top of my bent.--I will come by and by.

Pol.
I will say so.

[Exit.]

Ham.
By-and-by is easily said.

[Exit Polonius.]

--Leave me, friends.

[Exeunt Ros, Guil., Hor., and Players.]

'Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world: now could I drink hot blood,
And do such bitter business as the day
Would quake to look on. Soft! now to my mother.--
O heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever
The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom:
Let me be cruel, not unnatural;
I will speak daggers to her, but use none;
My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites,--
How in my words somever she be shent,
To give them seals never, my soul, consent!

[Exit.]



Scene III. A room in the Castle.

[Enter King, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern.]

King.
I like him not; nor stands it safe with us
To let his madness range. Therefore prepare you;
I your commission will forthwith dispatch,
And he to England shall along with you:
The terms of our estate may not endure
Hazard so near us as doth hourly grow
Out of his lunacies.

Guil.
We will ourselves provide:
Most holy and religious fear it is
To keep those many many bodies safe
That live and feed upon your majesty.

Ros.
The single and peculiar life is bound,
With all the strength and armour of the mind,
To keep itself from 'noyance; but much more
That spirit upon whose weal 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 mortis'd 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.
Arm you, I pray you, to this speedy voyage;
For we will fetters put upon this fear,
Which now goes too free-footed.

Ros and Guil.
We will haste us.

[Exeunt Ros. and Guil.]

[Enter Polonius.]

Pol.
My lord, he's going to his mother's closet:
Behind the arras I'll convey myself
To hear the process; I'll warrant she'll tax him home:
And, as you said, and wisely was it said,
'Tis meet that some more audience than a mother,
Since nature makes them partial, should o'erhear
The speech, of vantage. Fare you well, my liege:
I'll call upon you ere you go to bed,
And tell you what I know.

King.
Thanks, dear my lord.

[Exit Polonius.]

O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven;
It hath the primal eldest curse upon't,--
A brother's 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 twofold force,--
To be forestalled ere we come to fall,
Or pardon'd being down? Then I'll look up;
My fault is past. But, O, what form of prayer
Can serve my turn? Forgive me my foul 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 cannot repent?
O wretched state! O bosom black as death!
O limed soul, that, struggling to be free,
Art more engag'd! Help, angels! Make assay:
Bow, stubborn knees; and, heart, with strings of steel,
Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe!
All may be well.

[Retires and kneels.]

[Enter Hamlet.]

Ham.
Now might I do it pat, now he is praying;
And now I'll do't;--and so he goes to heaven;
And so am I reveng'd.--that would be scann'd:
A villain kills my father; and for that,
I, his sole son, do this same villain send
To heaven.
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, reveng'd,
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.]

[The King rises and advances.]

King.
My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

[Exit.]



Scene IV. Another room in the castle.

[Enter Queen and Polonius.]

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

Ham.
[Within.] Mother, mother, mother!

Queen.
I'll warrant you:
Fear me not:--withdraw; I hear him coming.

[Polonius goes behind the arras.]

[Enter Hamlet.]

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

Queen.
Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.

Ham.
Mother, you have my father much offended.

Queen.
Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.

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

Queen.
Why, how now, Hamlet!

Ham.
What's the matter now?

Queen.
Have you forgot me?

Ham.
No, by the rood, not so:
You are the Queen, your husband's brother's wife,
And,--would it were not so!--you are my mother.

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

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

Queen.
What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murder me?--
Help, help, ho!

Pol.
[Behind.] What, ho! help, help, help!

Ham.
How now? a rat? [Draws.]
Dead for a ducat, dead!

[Makes a pass through the arras.]

Pol.
[Behind.] O, I am slain!

[Falls and dies.]

Queen.
O me, what hast thou done?

Ham.
Nay, I know not: is it the king?

[Draws forth Polonius.]

Queen.
O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!

Ham.
A bloody deed!--almost as bad, good mother,
As kill a king and marry with his brother.

Queen.
As kill a king!

Ham.
Ay, lady, 'twas my word.--
Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!
[To Polonius.]
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 braz'd it so
That it is proof and bulwark against sense.

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

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

Queen.
Ah me, what act,
That roars so loud, and thunders in the index?

Ham.
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 milldew'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 ecstacy was ne'er so thrall'd
But it reserv'd some quantity of choice
To serve in such a difference. What devil was't
That thus hath cozen'd you at hoodman-blind?
Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight,
Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all,
Or but a sickly part of one true sense
Could not so mope.
O shame! where is thy blush? Rebellious hell,
If thou canst mutine in a matron's bones,
To flaming youth let virtue be as wax,
And melt in her own fire: proclaim no shame
When the compulsive ardour gives the charge,
Since frost itself as actively doth burn,
And reason panders will.

Queen.
O Hamlet, speak no more:
Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul;
And there I see such black and grained spots
As will not leave their tinct.

Ham.
Nay, but to live
In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed,
Stew'd in corruption, honeying and making love
Over the nasty sty,--

Queen.
O, speak to me no more;
These words like daggers enter in mine ears;
No more, sweet Hamlet.

Ham.
A 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.
No more.

Ham.
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.
Alas, he's mad!

Ham.
Do you not come your tardy son to chide,
That, laps'd 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.

Ham.
How is it with you, lady?

Queen.
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 hairs, like life in excrements,
Start up and stand an end. O gentle son,
Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper
Sprinkle cool patience! Whereon do you look?

Ham.
On him, on him! Look you how pale he glares!
His form and cause conjoin'd, preaching to stones,
Would make them capable.--Do not look upon me;
Lest with this piteous action you convert
My stern effects: then what I have to do
Will want true colour; tears perchance for blood.

Queen.
To whom do you speak this?

Ham.
Do you see nothing there?

Queen.
Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.

Ham.
Nor did you nothing hear?

Queen.
No, nothing but ourselves.

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

[Exit Ghost.]

Queen.
This is the very coinage of your brain:
This bodiless creation ecstasy
Is very cunning in.

Ham.
Ecstasy!
My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time,
And makes as healthful music: it is not madness
That I have 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 flattering 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.
O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.

Ham.
O, throw away the worser part of it,
And live the purer with the other half.
Good night: but go not to mine uncle's bed;
Assume a virtue, if you have it not.
That monster custom, who all sense doth eat,
Of habits evil, is angel yet in this,--
That to the use of actions fair and good
He likewise gives a frock or livery
That aptly is put on. Refrain to-night;
And that shall lend a kind of easiness
To the next abstinence: the next more easy;
For use almost can change the stamp of nature,
And either curb the devil, or throw him out
With wondrous potency. Once more, good-night:
And when you are desirous to be bles'd,
I'll blessing beg of you.--For this same lord
[Pointing to Polonius.]
I do repent; but heaven hath pleas'd it so,
To punish me with this, and this with me,
That I must be their scourge and minister.
I will bestow him, and will answer well
The death I gave him. So again, good-night.--
I must be cruel, only to be kind:
Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.--
One word more, good lady.

Queen.
What shall I do?

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

Queen.
Be thou assur'd, if words be made of breath,
And breath of life, I have no life to breathe
What thou hast said to me.

Ham.
I must to England; you know that?

Queen.
Alack,
I had forgot: 'tis so concluded on.

Ham.
There's letters seal'd: and my two schoolfellows,--
Whom I will trust as I will adders fang'd,--
They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way
And marshal me to knavery. Let it work;
For 'tis the sport to have the enginer
Hoist with his own 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 peating knave.
Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you:--
Good night, mother.

[Exeunt severally; Hamlet, dragging out Polonius.]



ACT IV.

Scene I. A room in the Castle.

[Enter King, Queen, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.]

King.
There's matter in these sighs. These profound heaves
You must translate: 'tis fit we understand them.
Where is your son?

Queen.
Bestow this place on us a little while.

[To Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who go out.]

Ah, my good lord, what have I seen to-night!

King.
What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?

Queen.
Mad as the sea and wind, when both contend
Which is the mightier: in his lawless fit
Behind the arras hearing something stir,
Whips out his rapier, cries 'A rat, a rat!'
And in this brainish apprehension, kills
The unseen good old man.

King.
O heavy deed!
It had been so with us, had we been there:
His liberty is full of threats to all;
To you yourself, to us, to every one.
Alas, how shall this bloody deed be answer'd?
It will be laid to us, whose providence
Should have kept short, restrain'd, and out of haunt
This mad young man. But so much was our love
We would not understand what was most fit;
But, like the owner of a foul disease,
To keep it from divulging, let it feed
Even on the pith of life. Where is he gone?

Queen.
To draw apart the body he hath kill'd:
O'er whom his very madness, like some ore
Among a mineral of metals base,
Shows itself pure: he weeps for what is done.

King.
O Gertrude, come away!
The sun no sooner shall the mountains touch
But we will ship him hence: and this vile deed
We must with all our majesty and skill
Both countenance and excuse.--Ho, Guildenstern!

[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: so haply slander,--
Whose whisper o'er the world's diameter,
As level as the cannon to his blank,
Transports his poison'd shot,--may miss our name,
And hit the woundless air.--O, come away!
My soul is full of discord and dismay.

[Exeunt.]

Scene II. Another room in the Castle.

[Enter Hamlet.]

Ham.
Safely stowed.

Ros. and Guil.
[Within.] Hamlet! Lord Hamlet!

Ham.
What noise? who calls on Hamlet? O, here they come.

[Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.]

Ros.
What have you done, my lord, with the dead body?

Ham.
Compounded it with dust, whereto 'tis kin.

Ros.
Tell us where 'tis, that we may take it thence,
And bear it to the chapel.

Ham.
Do not believe it.

Ros.
Believe what?

Ham.
That I can keep your counsel, and not mine own. Besides, to be
demanded of a sponge!--what replication should be made by the son
of a king?

Ros.
Take you me for a sponge, my lord?

Ham.
Ay, sir; that soaks up the King's countenance, his rewards,
his authorities. But such officers do the king best service in
the end: he keeps them, like an ape, in the corner of his jaw;
first mouthed, to be last swallowed: when he needs what you have
gleaned, it is but squeezing you, and, sponge, you shall be dry
again.

Ros.
I understand you not, my lord.

Ham.
I am glad of it: a knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear.

Ros.
My lord, you must tell us where the body is and go with us to
the king.

Ham.
The body is with the king, but the king is not with the body.
The king is a thing,--

Guil.
A thing, my lord!

Ham.
Of nothing: bring me to him. Hide fox, and all after.

[Exeunt.]



Scene III. Another room in the Castle.

[Enter King,attended.]

King.
I have sent to seek him and to find the body.
How dangerous is it that this man goes loose!
Yet must not we put the strong law on him:
He's lov'd of the distracted multitude,
Who like not in their judgment, but their eyes;
And where 'tis so, 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 reliev'd,
Or not at all.

[Enter Rosencrantz.]

How now! what hath befall'n?

Ros.
Where the dead body is bestow'd, my lord,
We cannot get from him.

King.
But where is he?

Ros.
Without, my lord; guarded, to know your pleasure.

King.
Bring him before us.

Ros.
Ho, Guildenstern! bring in my lord.

[Enter Hamlet and Guildenstern.]

King.
Now, Hamlet, where's Polonius?

Ham.
At supper.

King.
At supper! where?

Ham.
Not where he eats, but where he is eaten: a certain
convocation of politic worms are e'en at him. Your worm is your
only emperor for diet: we fat all creatures else to fat us, and
we fat ourselves for maggots: your fat king and your lean beggar
is but variable service,--two dishes, but to one table: that's
the end.

King.
Alas, alas!

Ham.
A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat
of the fish that hath fed of that worm.

King.
What dost thou mean by this?

Ham.
Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through
the guts of a beggar.

King.
Where is Polonius?

Ham.
In heaven: send thither to see: if your messenger find him not
there, seek him i' 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.
Go seek him there. [To some Attendants.]

Ham.
He will stay till you come.

[Exeunt Attendants.]

King.
Hamlet, this deed, for thine especial safety,--
Which we do tender, as we dearly grieve
For that which thou hast done,--must send thee hence
With fiery quickness: therefore prepare thyself;
The bark is ready, and the wind at help,
The associates tend, and everything is bent
For England.

Ham.
For England!

King.
Ay, Hamlet.

Ham.
Good.

King.
So is it, if thou knew'st our purposes.

Ham.
I see a cherub that sees them.--But, come; for England!--
Farewell, dear mother.

King.
Thy loving father, Hamlet.

Ham.
My mother: father and mother is man and wife; man and wife is
one flesh; and so, my mother.--Come, for England!

[Exit.]

King.
Follow him at foot; tempt him with speed aboard;
Delay it not; I'll have him hence to-night:
Away! for everything is seal'd and done
That else leans on 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 conjuring 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, and Forces marching.]

For.
Go, Captain, from me greet the Danish king:
Tell him that, by his license, Fortinbras
Craves the conveyance of a promis'd march
Over his kingdom. You know the rendezvous.
If that his majesty would aught with us,
We shall express our duty in his eye;
And let him know so.

Capt.
I will do't, my lord.

For.
Go softly on.

[Exeunt all For. and Forces.]

[Enter Hamlet, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, &c.]

Ham.
Good sir, whose powers are these?

Capt.
They are of Norway, sir.

Ham.
How purpos'd, sir, I pray you?

Capt.
Against some part of Poland.

Ham.
Who commands them, sir?

Capt.
The nephew to old Norway, Fortinbras.

Ham.
Goes it against the main of Poland, sir,
Or for some frontier?

Capt.
Truly to speak, and with no addition,
We go to gain a little patch of ground
That hath in it no profit but the name.
To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it;
Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole
A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee.

Ham.
Why, then the Polack never will defend it.

Capt.
Yes, it is already garrison'd.

Ham.
Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats
Will not debate the question of this straw:
This is the imposthume of much wealth and peace,
That inward breaks, and shows no cause without
Why the man dies.--I humbly thank you, sir.

Capt.
God b' wi' you, sir.

[Exit.]

Ros.
Will't please you go, my lord?

Ham.
I'll be with you straight. Go a little before.

[Exeunt all but Hamlet.]

How all occasions do inform against me
And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.
Sure he that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and godlike reason
To fust in us unus'd. Now, whether it be
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
Of thinking too precisely on 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 and Horatio.]

Queen.
I will not speak with her.

Gent.
She is importunate; indeed distract:
Her mood will needs be pitied.

Queen.
What would she have?

Gent.
She speaks much of her father; says she hears
There's tricks i' 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.
'Twere good she were spoken with; for she may strew
Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.

Queen.
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.]

Oph.
Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?

Queen.
How now, Ophelia?

Oph. [Sings.]
   How should I your true love know
     From another one?
   By his cockle bat and' staff
     And his sandal shoon.

Queen.
Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?

Oph.
Say you? nay, pray you, mark.
[Sings.]
   He is dead and gone, lady,
     He is dead and gone;
   At his head a grass green turf,
     At his heels a stone.

Queen.
Nay, but Ophelia--

Oph.
Pray you, mark.
[Sings.]
   White his shroud as the mountain snow,

[Enter King.]

Queen.
Alas, look here, my lord!