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[Enter old Polonius with his man Reynaldo.
Polonius
Give him this money and these notes, Reynaldo.
Reynaldo I will, my lord.
Polonius
You shall do marvellous wisely, good Reynaldo,
Before you visit him, to make inquire
Of his behaviour.
Reynaldo My lord, I did intend it.
Polonius
Marry, well said, very well said.Look you, sir,
Inquire me first what Danskers are in Paris;
And how, and who, what means, and where they keep,
What company, at what expense; and finding
By this encompassment and drift of question
That they do know my son, come you more nearer
Than your particular demands will touch it.
Take you, as’twere, some distant knowledge of him,
As thus:“I know his father and his friends
And, in part, him.”Do you mark this, Reynaldo?
Reynaldo Ay, very well, my lord.
Polonius
“And, in part, him, but,”you may say,“not well.
But if’t be he I mean, he’s very wild,
Addicted so and so.”And there put on him
What forgeries you please—marry, none so rank
As may dishonour him, take heed of that,
But, sir, such wanton, wild, and usual slips
As are companions noted and most known
To youth and liberty.
Reynaldo As gaming, my lord.
Polonius
Ay, or drinking, fencing, swearing,
Quarrelling, drabbing—you may go so far.
Reynaldo My lord, that would dishonour him.
Polonius
Faith, no, as you may season it in the charge.
You must not put another scandal on him
That he is open to incontinency;
That’s not my meaning.But breathe his faults so quaintly
That they may seem the taints of liberty,
The flash and outbreak of a fiery mind,
A savageness in unreclaimèd blood,
Of general assault.
Reynaldo But, my good lord—
Polonius Wherefore should you do this?
Reynaldo Ay, my lord, I would know that.
Polonius
Marry, sir, here’s my drift,
And I believe it is a fetch of wit.
You, laying these slight sullies on my son,
As’twere a thing a little soiled i’th’working,
Mark you, your party in converse, him you would sound,
Having ever seen in the prenominate crimes
The youth you breathe of guilty, be assured
He closes with you in this consequence:
“Good sir,”or so, or “friend,”or “gentleman,”
According to the phrase or the addition
Of man and country—
Reynaldo Very good, my lord.
Polonius
And then, sir, does he this, he does—what was
I about to say? By the Mass, I was about to say
something.Where did I leave?
Reynaldo At “closes in the consequence”.
Polonius
At “closes in the consequence”—ay, marry—
He closes thus:“I know the gentleman.
I saw him yesterday,”or “th’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 take this carp of truth;
And thus do we of wisdom and of reach,
With windlasses and with assays of bias,
By indirections find directions out.
So by my former lecture and advice
Shall you my son.You have me, have you not?
Reynaldo My lord, I have.
Polonius God buy you.Fare you well.
Reynaldo Good my lord.
Polonius Observe his inclination in yourself.
Reynaldo I shall, my lord.
Polonius And let him ply his music.
Reynaldo Well, my lord.
Polonius Farewell.
[Reynaldo exits.]
[Enter Ophelia.
How now, Ophelia, what’s the matter?
Ophelia Alas, my lord, I have been so affrighted!
Polonius With what, i’th’name of God?
Ophelia
My lord, as I was sewing in my chamber,
Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbraced,
No hat upon his head, his stockings fouled,
Ungartered, and down-gyvèd 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 loosèd out of Hell
To speak of horrors—he comes before me.
Polonius Mad for thy love?
Ophelia
My lord, I do not know,
But truly I do fear it.
Polonius What said he?
Ophelia
He took me by the wrist and held me hard.
Then goes he to the length of all his arm,
And, with his other hand thus o’er his brow,
He falls to such perusal of my face
As he would draw it.Long stayed he so.
At last, a little shaking of mine arm,
And thrice his head thus waving up and down,
He raised a sigh so piteous and profound
That 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 turned,
He seemed to find his way without his eyes,
For out o’doors he went without their helps
And to the last bended their light on me.
Polonius
Come, go with me.I will go seek the King.
This is the very ecstasy of love,
Whose violent property fordoes itself
And leads the will to desperate undertakings
As oft as any passions under Heaven
That does afflict our natures.I am sorry.
What, have you given him any hard words of late?
Ophelia
No, my good lord, but as you did command
I did repel his letters and denied
His access to me.
Polonius
That hath made him mad.
I am sorry that with better speed and judgement
I had not quoted him.I feared he did but trifle
And meant to wrack thee.But beshrew my jealousy!
By Heaven, it is as proper to our age
To cast beyond ourselves in our opinions
As it is common for the younger sort
To lack discretion.Come, go we to the King.
This must be known, which, being kept close, might move
More grief to hide than hate to utter love.
[They exit.]
[Flourish.
Enter King and Queen, Rosencrantz and 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 call it,
Sith not th’exterior nor the inward man
Resembles that it was.What it should be,
More than his father’s death, that thus hath put him
So much from th’understanding of himself
I cannot dream of.I entreat you both
That, being of so young days brought up with him
And sith so neighboured 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, opened, lies within our remedy.
Queen
Good gentlemen, he hath much talked of you,
And sure I am two men there is not living
To whom he more adheres.If it will please you
To show us so much gentry and good will
As to expend your time with us awhile
For the supply and profit of our hope,
Your visitation shall receive such thanks
As fits a king’s remembrance.
Rosencrantz
Both Your Majesties
Might, by the sovereign power you have of us,
Put your dread pleasures more into command
Than to entreaty.
Guildenstern
But we both obey,
And here give up ourselves in the full bent
To lay our service freely at your feet,
To be commanded.
King Thanks, Rosencrantz and gentle Guildenstern.
Queen
Thanks, Guildenstern and gentle Rosencrantz.
And I beseech you instantly to visit
My too much changèd son.—Go, some of you,
And bring these gentlemen where Hamlet is.
Guildenstern
Heavens make our presence and our practices
Pleasant and helpful to him!
Queen Ay, amen!
[Rosencrantz and Guildenstern exit with some Attendants.]
[Enter Polonius.
Polonius
Th’ambassadors from Norway, my good lord,
Are joyfully returned.
King Thou still hast been the father of good news.
Polonius
Have I, my lord? I assure my good liege
I hold my duty as I hold my soul,
Both to my God and to my gracious King,
And I do think, or else this brain of mine
Hunts not the trail of policy so sure
As it hath used to do, that I have found
The very cause of Hamlet’s lunacy.
King O, speak of that! That do I long to hear.
Polonius
Give first admittance to th’ambassadors.
My news shall be the fruit to that great feast.
King
Thyself do grace to them and bring them in.
[Polonius exits.]
He tells me, my dear Gertrude, he hath found
The head and source of all your son’s distemper.
Queen
I doubt it is no other but the main—
His father’s death and our o’erhasty marriage.
King Well, we shall sift him.
[Enter Ambassadors Voltemand and Cornelius with Polonius.
King
Welcome, my good friends.
Say, Voltemand, what from our brother Norway?
Voltemand
Most fair return of greetings and desires.
Upon our first, he sent out to suppress
His nephew’s levies, which to him appeared
To be a preparation’gainst the Polack,
But, better looked into, he truly found
It was against your Highness.Whereat, grieved
That so his sickness, age, and impotence
Was falsely borne in hand, sends out arrests
On Fortinbras, which he, in brief, obeys,
Receives rebuke from Norway, and, in fine,
Makes vow before his uncle never more
To give th’assay of arms against your Majesty.
Whereon old Norway, overcome with joy,
Gives him three-score 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,
[He 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 considered 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!
[Voltemand and Cornelius exit.]
Polonius
This business is well ended.
My liege, and madam, to expostulate
What majesty should be, what duty is,
Why day is day, night night, and time is time
Were nothing but to waste night, day, and time.
Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief.Your noble son is mad.
Mad call I it, for, to define true madness,
What is’t but to be nothing else but mad?
But let that go.
Queen More matter with less art.
Polonius
Madam, I swear I use no art at all.
That he’s mad,’tis true;’tis true’tis pity,
And pity’tis’tis true—a foolish figure,
But farewell it, for I will use no art.
Mad let us grant him then, and now remains
That we find out the cause of this effect,
Or, rather say, the cause of this defect,
For this effect defective comes by cause.
Thus it remains, and the remainder thus.
Perpend.
I have a daughter—have while she is mine—
Who, in her duty and obedience, mark,
Hath given me this.Now gather and surmise.
[reads] To the celestial, and my soul’s idol, the most beautified Ophelia—
That’s an ill phrase, a vile phrase;“beautified” is a vile phrase.But you shall hear.Thus:
[reads] In her excellent white bosom, these ….
Queen Came this from Hamlet to her?
Polonius
Good madam, stay awhile.I will be faithful.
[reads the letter]
Doubt thou the stars are fire,
Doubt that the sun doth move,
Doubt truth to be a liar,
But never doubt I love.
O dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers.I have not art to reckon my groans, but that I love thee best, O most best, believe it.Adieu.
Thine evermore, most dear lady, whilst this machine is to him, Hamlet.
This, in obedience, hath my daughter shown me,
And more above, hath his solicitings,
As they fell out by time, by means, and place,
All given to mine ear.
King But how hath she received his love?
Polonius What do you think of me?
King As of a man faithful and honourable.
Polonius
I would fain prove so.But what might you think,
When I had seen this hot love on the wing
As I perceived it, I must tell you that,
Before my daughter told me, what might you,
Or my dear Majesty your queen here, think,
If I had played the desk or table-book
Or given my heart a winking, mute and dumb,
Or looked upon this love with idle sight?
What might you think? No, I went round to work,
And my young mistress thus I did bespeak:
“Lord Hamlet is a prince, out of thy star.
This must not be.”And then I prescripts gave her,
That she should lock herself from his resort,
Admit no messengers, receive no tokens;
Which done, she took the fruits of my advice,
And he, repulsèd a short tale to make,
Fell into a sadness, then into a fast,
Thence to a watch, thence into a weakness,
Thence to a lightness, and, by this declension,
Into the madness wherein now he raves
And all we mourn for.
King [to Queen] Do you think’tis this?
Queen It may be, very like.
Polonius
Hath there been such a time, I would fain know that
That I have positively said“’Tis so,”
When it proved otherwise?
King Not that I know.
Polonius
Take this from this, if this be otherwise.
If circumstances lead me, I will find
Where truth is hid, though it were hid, indeed,
Within the centre.
King How may we try it further?
Polonius
You know sometimes he walks four hours together
Here in the lobby.
Queen So he does indeed.
Polonius
At such a time I’ll loose my daughter to him.
[to the King] Be you and I behind an arras then.
Mark the encounter.If he love her not,
And be not from his reason fallen thereon,
Let me be no assistant for a state,
But keep a farm and carters.
King We will try it.
[Enter Hamlet reading on a book.
Queen
But look where sadly the poor wretch comes reading.
Polonius
Away, I do beseech you both, away.
I’ll board him presently.O, give me leave.
[King and Queen exit with Attendants.]
How does my good Lord Hamlet?
Hamlet Well, God-a-mercy.
Polonius Do you know me, my lord?
Hamlet Excellent well.You are a fishmonger.
Polonius Not I, my lord.
Hamlet Then I would you were so honest a man.
Polonius Honest, my lord?
Hamlet
Ay, sir.To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.
Polonius That’s very true, my lord.
Hamlet
For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a good kissing carrion—Have you a daughter?
Polonius I have, my lord.
Hamlet
Let her not walk i’th’sun.Conception is a blessing, but, as your daughter may conceive, friend, look to’t.
Polonius [aside]
How say you by that? Still harping on my daughter.Yet he knew me not at first; he said I was a fishmonger.
He is far gone.And truly, in my youth, I suffered much extremity for love, very near this.I’ll speak to him again.—What do you read, my lord?
Hamlet Words, words, words.
Polonius What is the matter, my lord?
Hamlet Between who?
Polonius I mean the matter that you read, my lord.
Hamlet
Slanders, sir; for the satirical rogue says here that old men have gray beards, that their faces are wrinkled, their eyes purging thick amber or plum-tree gum, and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams; all which, sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down; for yourself, sir, should be old as I am, if, like a crab, you could go backward.
Polonius [aside]
Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.—
Will you walk out of the air, my lord?
Hamlet Into my grave?
Polonius
Indeed, that’s out of 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 lord, I will take my leave of you.
Hamlet
You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I will more willingly part withal—except my life, except my life, except my life.
Polonius Fare you well, my lord.
Hamlet [aside] These tedious old fools.
[Enter Guildenstern and Rosencrantz.
Polonius You go to seek the Lord Hamlet.There he is.
Rosencrantz [to Polonius] God save you, sir.
[Polonius exits.]
Guildenstern My honoured lord.
Rosencrantz My most dear lord.
Hamlet
My excellent good friends! How dost thou, Guildenstern?
Ah, Rosencrantz! Good lads, how do you both?
Rosencrantz As the indifferent children of the earth.
Guildenstern
Happy in that we are not over-happy.
On Fortune’s cap, we are not the very button.
Hamlet Nor the soles of her shoe?
Rosencrantz Neither, my lord.
Hamlet
Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of her favours?
Guildenstern Faith, her privates we.
Hamlet
In the secret parts of Fortune? O, most true!
She is a strumpet.What news?
Rosencrantz
None, my lord, but that the world’s grown honest.
Hamlet
Then is doomsday near.But your news is not true.
Let me question more in particular.What have you, my good friends, deserved at the hands of Fortune that she sends you to prison hither?
Guildenstern Prison, my lord?
Hamlet Denmark’s a prison.
Rosencrantz Then is the world one.
Hamlet
A goodly one, in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons, Denmark being one o’th’worst.
Rosencrantz We think not so, my lord.
Hamlet
Why, then,’tis none to you, for there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.To me, it is a prison.
Rosencrantz
Why, then, your ambition makes it one.
’Tis too narrow for your mind.
Hamlet
O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.
Guildenstern
Which dreams, indeed, are ambition, for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.
Hamlet A dream itself is but a shadow.
Rosencrantz
Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality that it is but a shadow’s shadow.
Hamlet
Then are our beggars bodies, and our monarchs and outstretched heroes the beggars’shadows.Shall we to th’court? For, by my fay, I cannot reason.
Rosencrantz AND Guildenstern We’ll wait upon you.
Hamlet
No such matter.I will not sort you with the rest of my servants, for, to speak to you like an honest man, I am most dreadfully attended.But, in the beaten way of friendship, what make you at Elsinore?
Rosencrantz To visit you, my lord, no other occasion.
Hamlet
Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks; but I thank you, and sure, dear friends, my thanks are too dear a halfpenny.Were you not sent for? Is it your own inclining? Is it a free visitation? Come, come, deal justly with me.Come, come; nay, speak.
Guildenstern What should we say, my lord?
Hamlet
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.
Rosencrantz To what end, my lord?
Hamlet
That you must teach me.But let me conjure you by the rights of our fellowship, by the consonancy of our youth, by the obligation of our ever-preserved love, and by what more dear a better proposer can charge you withal: be even and direct with me whether you were sent for or no.
Rosencrantz [to Guildenstern] What say you?
Hamlet [aside]
Nay, then, I have an eye of you.—If you love me, hold not off.
Guildenstern My lord, we were sent for.
Hamlet
I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation prevent your discovery, and your secrecy to the King and Queen molt no feather.I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises, and, indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the Earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof, fretted with golden fire—why, it appeareth nothing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors.What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, in form and moving how express and admirable; in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god: the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals—and yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me, no, nor women neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.
Rosencrantz
My lord, there was no such stuff in my thoughts.
Hamlet
Why did you laugh, then, when I said “man delights not me”？
Rosencrantz
To think, my lord, if you delight not in man, what Lenten entertainment the players shall receive from you.We coted them on the way, and hither are they coming to offer you service.
Hamlet
He that plays the King shall be welcome—his Majesty shall have tribute on me.The adventurous knight shall use his foil and target, the lover shall not sigh gratis, the humorous man shall end his part in peace, the clown shall make those laugh whose lungs are tickle o’th’sear, and the lady shall say her mind freely, or the blank verse shall halt for’t.What players are they?
Rosencrantz
Even those you were wont to take such delight in, the tragedians of the city.
Hamlet
How chances it they travel? Their residence, both in reputation and profit, was better both ways.
Rosencrantz
I think their inhibition comes by the means of the late innovation.
Hamlet
Do they hold the same estimation they did when I was in the city? Are they so followed?
Rosencrantz No, indeed are they not.
Hamlet How comes it? Do they grow rusty?
Rosencrantz
Nay, their endeavor keeps in the wonted pace.But there is, sir, an aerie of children, little eyases, that cry out on the top of question and are most tyrannically clapped fot’t.These are now the fashion and so berattle the common stages, so they call them, that many wearing rapiers are afraid of goose quills and dare scarce come thither.
Hamlet
What, are they children? Who maintains’em? How are they escoted? Will they pursue the quality no longer than they can sing? Will they not say afterwards, if they should grow themselves to common players, as it is most like, if their means are no better, their writers do them wrong to make them exclaim against their own succession?
Rosencrantz
Faith, there has been much to-do on both sides, and the nation holds it no sin to tar them to controversy.There was for a while no money bid for argument unless the poet and the player went to cuffs in the question.
Hamlet Is’t possible?
Guildenstern
O, there has been much throwing about of brains.
Hamlet Do the boys carry it away?
Rosencrantz
Ay, that they do, my lord—Hercules and his load too.
Hamlet
It is not very strange; for 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 apiece for his picture in little.’Sblood, there is something in this more than natural, if philosophy could find it out.
[A flourish for the Players.]
Guildenstern There are the players.
Hamlet
Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore.Your hands, come then.Th’appurtenance of welcome is fashion and ceremony.Let me comply with you in this garb, lest my extent to the players, which, I tell you, must show fairly outward, should more appear like entertainment than yours.You are welcome.But my uncle-father and aunt-mother are deceived.
Guildenstern In what, my dear lord?
Hamlet
I am but mad north-north-west.When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw.
[Enter Polonius.
Polonius Well be with you, gentlemen.
Hamlet
Hark you, Guildenstern, and you too—at each ear a hearer! That great baby you see there is not yet out of his swaddling clouts.
Rosencrantz
Happily he’s the second time come to them, for they say an old man is twice a child.
Hamlet
I will prophesy he comes to tell me of the players; mark it.—You say right, sir, a Monday morning,’twas then indeed.
Polonius My lord, I have news to tell you.
Hamlet
My lord, I have news to tell you: when Roscius was an actor in Rome—
Polonius The actors are come hither, my lord.
Hamlet Buzz, buzz.
Polonius Upon my honour—
Hamlet Then came each actor on his ass.
Polonius
The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem unlimited.Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light.For the law of writ and the liberty, these are the only men.
Hamlet
O Jephthah, judge of Israel, what a treasure hadst thou!
Polonius What a treasure had he, my lord?
Hamlet
Why,
One fair daughter, and no more,
The which he lovèd passing well.
Polonius [aside] Still on my daughter.
Hamlet Am I not i’th’right, old Jephthah?
Polonius
If you call me Jephthah, my lord: I have a daughter that I love passing well.
Hamlet Nay, that follows not.
Polonius What follows then, my lord?
Hamlet
Why,
As by lot, God wot
and then, you know,
It came to pass, as most like it was—
the first row of the pious chanson will show you more, for look where my abridgment comes.
[Enter the Players.
Hamlet
You are welcome, masters; welcome all.—I am glad to see thee well.—Welcome, good friends.—O my old friend! Why, thy face is valanced since I saw thee last.Com’st thou to beard me in Denmark?—What, my young lady and mistress! By’r Lady, your Ladyship is nearer to Heaven than when I saw you last, by the altitude of a chopine.Pray God your voice, like a piece of uncurrent gold, be not 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.
First Player What speech, my good lord?
Hamlet
I heard thee speak me a speech once, but it was never acted, or, if it was, not above once; for the play, I remember, pleased not the million:’twas caviary to the general.But it was, as I received it, and others whose judgements 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 savory, nor no matter in the phrase that might indict the author of affection, but called it an honest method, as wholesome as sweet and, by very much, more handsome than fine.One speech in’t I chiefly loved.’Twas Aeneas’tale to Dido, and thereabout of it especially when he speaks of Priam’s slaughter.If it live in your memory, begin at this line—let me see, let me see:
The rugged Pyrrhus, like th’Hyrcanian beast—
’tis not so; it begins with Pyrrhus:
The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable arms,
Black as his purpose, did the night resemble
When he lay couchèd in th’ominous horse,
Hath now this dread and black complexion smeared
With heraldry more dismal.Head to foot,
Now is he total gules, horridly tricked
With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons,
Baked and impasted with the parching streets,
That lend a tyrannous and a damnèd light
To their lord’s murder.Roasted in wrath and fire,
And thus o’ersizèd with coagulate gore,
With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus
Old grandsire Priam seeks.
So, proceed you.
Polonius
Fore God, my lord, well spoken, with good accent and good discretion.
First Player
Anon he finds him
Striking too short at Greeks.His antique sword,
Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls,
Repugnant to command.Unequal matched,
Pyrrhus at Priam drives, in rage strikes wide;
But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword
Th’unnervèd 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, seemed i’th’air to stick.
So as a painted tyrant Pyrrhus stood
And, like a neutral to his will and matter,
Did nothing.
But as we often see against some storm
A silence in the heavens, the rack stand still,
The bold winds speechless, and the orb below
As hush as death, anon the dreadful thunder
Doth rend the region; so, after Pyrrhus’pause,
Arousèd vengeance sets him new a-work,
And never did the Cyclops’hammers fall
On Mars’s armour, forged for proof eterne,
With less remorse than Pyrrhus’bleeding sword
Now falls on Priam.
Out, out, thou strumpet Fortune! All you gods
In general synod take away her power,
Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel,
And bowl the round nave down the hill of Heaven
As low as to the fiends!
Polonius This is too long.
Hamlet
It shall to the barber’s with your beard.—
Prithee say on.He’s for a jig or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps.Say on; come to Hecuba.
First Player
But who, ah who, had seen the mobled queen—
Hamlet “The mobled queen”？
Polonius That’s good.“Mobled queen” is good.
First Player
Run barefoot up and down, threat’ning the flames
With bisson rheum, a clout upon that head
Where late the diadem stood, and for a robe,
About her lank and all o’erteemèd loins
A blanket, in the alarm of fear caught up—
Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steeped,
’Gainst Fortune’s state would treason have pronounced.
But if the gods themselves did see her then
When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport
In mincing with his sword her husband’s limbs,
The instant burst of clamor 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.
Polonius
Look whe’er he has not turned his colour and has tears in’s eyes.Pray you, no more.
Hamlet
’Tis well.I’ll have thee speak out the rest soon.
Good my lord, will you see the players well bestowed?
Do you hear, let them be well used, for they are the abstract and brief chronicles of the time.After your death you were better have a bad epitaph than their ill report while you live.
Polonius
My lord, I will use them according to their desert.
Hamlet
God’s bodykins, man, much better! Use every man after his desert and who shall scape whipping? Use them after your own honour and dignity.The less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty.Take them in.
Polonius Come, sirs.
Hamlet
Follow him, friends.We’ll hear a play tomorrow.
[As Polonius and Players exit, Hamlet speaks to the First Player.]
Dost thou hear me, old friend? Can you play “The Murder of Gonzago”？
First Player Ay, my lord.
Hamlet
We’ll ha’t tomorrow night.You could, for a need, study a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines, which I would set down and insert in’t, could you not?
First Player Ay, my lord.
Hamlet
Very well.Follow that lord—and look you mock him not.
[First Player exits.]
[to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern] My good friends, I’ll leave you till night.You are welcome to Elsinore.
Rosencrantz Good my lord.
Hamlet Ay, so, good bye to you.
[Rosencrantz and Guildenstern exit.]
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 whole conceit
That from her working all his visage wanned,
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 damned 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’th’throat
As deep as to the lungs? Who does me this?
Ha!’Swounds, I should take it! For it cannot be
But I am pigeon-livered 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! Ay, sure.This is most brave,
That I, the son of a dear father murdered,
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 stallion! Fie upon’t! Foh!
About, my brains!—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 proclaimed 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 do blench,
I know my course.The spirit that I have seen
May be a devil, and the devil hath power
T’assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps,
Out of my weakness and my melancholy,
As he is very potent with such spirits,
Abuses me to damn me.I’ll have grounds
More relative than this.The play’s the thing
Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.
[He exits.]