And never come mischance between us twain!
Exit
Hamlet
Madam, how like you this play?
Queen Gertrude
The lady protests too much, methinks.
Hamlet
O, but she’ll keep her word.
King Claudius
Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in ’t?
Hamlet
No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest; no offence i’ the world.
King Claudius
What do you call the play?
Hamlet
The Mouse-trap. Marry, how? Tropically. This play is the image of a murder done in Vienna: Gonzago is the duke’s name; his wife, Baptista: you shall see anon; ’tis a knavish piece of work: but what o’ that? your majesty and we that have free souls, it touches us not: let the galled jade wince, our withers are unwrung.
Enter Lucianus
This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king.
Ophelia
You are as good as a chorus, my lord.
Hamlet
I could interpret between you and your love, if I could see the puppets dallying.
Ophelia
You are keen, my lord, you are keen.
Hamlet
It would cost you a groaning to take off my edge.
Ophelia
Still better, and worse.
Hamlet
So you must take your husbands. Begin, murderer; pox, leave thy damnable faces, and begin. Come: ’the croaking raven doth bellow for revenge.’
Lucianus
Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing;
Confederate season, else no creature seeing;
Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected,
With Hecate’s ban thrice blasted, thrice infected,
Thy natural magic and dire property,
On wholesome life usurp immediately.
Pours the poison into the sleeper’s ears
Hamlet
He poisons him i’ the garden for’s estate. His name’s Gonzago: the story is extant, and writ in choice Italian: you shall see anon how the murderer gets the love of Gonzago’s wife.
Ophelia
The king rises.
Hamlet
What, frighted with false fire!
Queen Gertrude
How fares my lord?
Lord Polonius
Give o’er the play.
King Claudius
Give me some light: away!
All
Lights, lights, lights!
Exeunt all but Hamlet and Horatio
Hamlet
Why, let the stricken deer go weep,
The hart ungalled play;
For some must watch, while some must sleep:
So runs the world away.
Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers — if the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me — with two Provincial roses on my razed shoes, get me a fellowship in a cry of players, sir?
Horatio
Half a share.
Hamlet
A whole one, I.
For thou dost know, O Damon dear,
This realm dismantled was
Of Jove himself; and now reigns here
A very, very — pajock.
Horatio
You might have rhymed.
Hamlet
O good Horatio, I’ll take the ghost’s word for a thousand pound. Didst perceive?
Horatio
Very well, my lord.
Hamlet
Upon the talk of the poisoning?
Horatio
I did very well note him.
Hamlet
Ah, ha! Come, some music! come, the recorders!
For if the king like not the comedy,
Why then, belike, he likes it not, perdy.
Come, some music!
Re-enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
Guildenstern
Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you.
Hamlet
Sir, a whole history.
Guildenstern
The king, sir,—
Hamlet
Ay, sir, what of him?
Guildenstern
Is in his retirement marvellous distempered.
Hamlet
With drink, sir?
Guildenstern
No, my lord, rather with choler.
Hamlet
Your wisdom should show itself more richer to signify this to his doctor; for, for me to put him to his purgation would perhaps plunge him into far more choler.
Good my lord, put your discourse into some frame and start not so wildly from my affair.
Hamlet
I am tame, sir: pronounce.
Guildenstern
The queen, your mother, in most great affliction of spirit, hath sent me to you.
Hamlet
You are welcome.
Guildenstern
Nay, good my lord, this courtesy is not of the right breed. If it shall please you to make me a wholesome answer, I will do your mother’s commandment: if not, your pardon and my return shall be the end of my business.
Hamlet
Sir, I cannot.
Guildenstern
What, my lord?
Hamlet
Make you a wholesome answer; my wit’s diseased: but, sir, such answer as I can make, you shall command; or, rather, as you say, my mother: therefore no more, but to the matter: my mother, you say,—
Rosencrantz
Then thus she says; your behavior hath struck her into amazement and admiration.
Hamlet
O wonderful son, that can so astonish a mother! But is there no sequel at the heels of this mother’s admiration? Impart.
Rosencrantz
She desires to speak with you in her closet, ere you go to bed.
Hamlet
We shall obey, were she ten times our mother. Have you any further trade with us?
Rosencrantz
My lord, you once did love me.
Hamlet
So I do still, by these pickers and stealers.
Rosencrantz
Good my lord, what is your cause of distemper? you do, surely, bar the door upon your own liberty, if you deny your griefs to your friend.
Hamlet
Sir, I lack advancement.
Rosencrantz
How can that be, when you have the voice of the king himself for your succession in Denmark?
Hamlet
Ay, but sir, ‘While the grass grows,’— the proverb is something musty.
Re-enter Players with recorders
O, the recorders! let me see one. To withdraw with you:— why do you go about to recover the wind of me, as if you would drive me into a toil?
Guildenstern
O, my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly.
Hamlet
I do not well understand that. Will you play upon this pipe?
Guildenstern
My lord, I cannot.
Hamlet
I pray you.
Guildenstern
Believe me, I cannot.
Hamlet
I do beseech you.
Guildenstern
I know no touch of it, my lord.
Hamlet
’Tis as easy as lying: govern these ventages with your lingers and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music. Look you, these are the stops.
Guildenstern
But these cannot I command to any utterance of harmony; I have not the skill.
Hamlet
Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass: and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ; yet cannot you make it speak. ’sblood, do you think I am easier to be playe
d on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, yet you cannot play upon me.
Enter Polonius
God bless you, sir!
Lord Polonius
My lord, the queen would speak with you, and presently.
Hamlet
Do you see yonder cloud that’s almost in shape of a camel?
Lord Polonius
By the mass, and ’tis like a camel, indeed.
Hamlet
Methinks it is like a weasel.
Lord Polonius
It is backed like a weasel.
Hamlet
Or like a whale?
Lord Polonius
Very like a whale.
Hamlet
Then I will come to my mother by and by. They fool me to the top of my bent. I will come by and by.
Lord Polonius
I will say so.
Hamlet
By and by is easily said.
Exit Polonius
Leave me, friends.
Exeunt all but Hamlet
Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world: now could I drink hot blood,
And do such bitter business as the day
Would quake to look on. Soft! now to my mother.
O heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever
The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom:
Let me be cruel, not unnatural:
I will speak daggers to her, but use none;
My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites;
How in my words soever she be shent,
To give them seals never, my soul, consent!
Exit
SCENE III. A ROOM IN THE CASTLE.
Enter King Claudius, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern
King Claudius
I like him not, nor stands it safe with us
To let his madness range. Therefore prepare you;
I your commission will forthwith dispatch,
And he to England shall along with you:
The terms of our estate may not endure
Hazard so dangerous as doth hourly grow
Out of his lunacies.
Guildenstern
We will ourselves provide:
Most holy and religious fear it is
To keep those many many bodies safe
That live and feed upon your majesty.
Rosencrantz
The single and peculiar life is bound,
With all the strength and armour of the mind,
To keep itself from noyance; but much more
That spirit upon whose weal depend and rest
The lives of many. The cease of majesty
Dies not alone; but, like a gulf, doth draw
What’s near it with it: it is a massy wheel,
Fix’d on the summit of the highest mount,
To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things
Are mortised and adjoin’d; which, when it falls,
Each small annexment, petty consequence,
Attends the boisterous ruin. Never alone
Did the king sigh, but with a general groan.
King Claudius
Arm you, I pray you, to this speedy voyage;
For we will fetters put upon this fear,
Which now goes too free-footed.
Rosencrantz
Guildenstern
We will haste us.
Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
Enter Polonius
Lord Polonius
My lord, he’s going to his mother’s closet:
Behind the arras I’ll convey myself,
To hear the process; and warrant she’ll tax him home:
And, as you said, and wisely was it said,
’Tis meet that some more audience than a mother,
Since nature makes them partial, should o’erhear
The speech, of vantage. Fare you well, my liege:
I’ll call upon you ere you go to bed,
And tell you what I know.
King Claudius
Thanks, dear my lord.
Exit Polonius
O, my offence is rank it smells to heaven;
It hath the primal eldest curse upon’t,
A brother’s murder. Pray can I not,
Though inclination be as sharp as will:
My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent;
And, like a man to double business bound,
I stand in pause where I shall first begin,
And both neglect. What if this cursed hand
Were thicker than itself with brother’s blood,
Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens
To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy
But to confront the visage of offence?
And what’s in prayer but this two-fold force,
To be forestalled ere we come to fall,
Or pardon’d being down? Then I’ll look up;
My fault is past. But, O, what form of prayer
Can serve my turn? ‘Forgive me my foul murder’?
That cannot be; since I am still possess’d
Of those effects for which I did the murder,
My crown, mine own ambition and my queen.
May one be pardon’d and retain the offence?
In the corrupted currents of this world
Offence’s gilded hand may shove by justice,
And oft ’tis seen the wicked prize itself
Buys out the law: but ’tis not so above;
There is no shuffling, there the action lies
In his true nature; and we ourselves compell’d,
Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,
To give in evidence. What then? what rests?
Try what repentance can: what can it not?
Yet what can it when one can not repent?
O wretched state! O bosom black as death!
O limed soul, that, struggling to be free,
Art more engaged! Help, angels! Make assay!
Bow, stubborn knees; and, heart with strings of steel,
Be soft as sinews of the newborn babe!
All may be well.
Retires and kneels
Enter Hamlet
Hamlet
Now might I do it pat, now he is praying;
And now I’ll do’t. And so he goes to heaven;
And so am I revenged. That would be scann’d:
A villain kills my father; and for that,
I, his sole son, do this same villain send
To heaven.
O, this is hire and salary, not revenge.
He took my father grossly, full of bread;
With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May;
And how his audit stands who knows save heaven?
But in our circumstance and course of thought,
’Tis heavy with him: and am I then revenged,
To take him in the purging of his soul,
When he is fit and season’d for his passage?
No!
Up, sword; and know thou a more horrid hent:
When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage,
Or in the incestuous pleasure of his bed;
At gaming, swearing, or about some act
That has no relish of salvation in’t;
Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven,
And that his soul may be as damn’d and black
As hell, whereto it goes. My mother stays:
This physic but prolongs thy sickly days.
Exit
King Claudius
[Rising] My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.
Exit
SCENE IV. THE QUEEN’S CLOSET.
Enter Queen Margaret and Polonius
Lord Polonius
He will come straight. Look you lay home to him:
Tell h
im his pranks have been too broad to bear with,
And that your grace hath screen’d and stood between
Much heat and him. I’ll sconce me even here.
Pray you, be round with him.
Hamlet
[Within] Mother, mother, mother!
Queen Gertrude
I’ll warrant you,
Fear me not: withdraw, I hear him coming.
Polonius hides behind the arras
Enter Hamlet
Hamlet
Now, mother, what’s the matter?
Queen Gertrude
Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.
Hamlet
Mother, you have my father much offended.
Queen Gertrude
Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.
Hamlet
Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.
Queen Gertrude
Why, how now, Hamlet!
Hamlet
What’s the matter now?
Queen Gertrude
Have you forgot me?
Hamlet
No, by the rood, not so:
You are the queen, your husband’s brother’s wife;
And — would it were not so!— you are my mother.
Queen Gertrude
Nay, then, I’ll set those to you that can speak.
Hamlet
Come, come, and sit you down; you shall not budge;
You go not till I set you up a glass
Where you may see the inmost part of you.
Queen Gertrude
What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murder me?
Help, help, ho!
Lord Polonius
[Behind] What, ho! help, help, help!
Hamlet
[Drawing] How now! a rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead!
Makes a pass through the arras
Lord Polonius
[Behind] O, I am slain!
Falls and dies
Queen Gertrude
O me, what hast thou done?
Hamlet
Nay, I know not:
Is it the king?
Queen Gertrude
O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!
Hamlet
A bloody deed! almost as bad, good mother,
As kill a king, and marry with his brother.
Queen Gertrude
As kill a king!
Hamlet
Ay, lady, ’twas my word.
Lifts up the array and discovers Polonius
Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!
I took thee for thy better: take thy fortune;
Thou find’st to be too busy is some danger.
Leave wringing of your hands: peace! sit you down,
And let me wring your heart; for so I shall,
If it be made of penetrable stuff,
If damned custom have not brass’d it so
That it is proof and bulwark against sense.
Queen Gertrude
What have I done, that thou darest wag thy tongue
In noise so rude against me?