It is hard to imagine a world without Shakespeare. Since their composition four hundred years ago, Shakespeare’s plays and poems have traveled the globe, inviting those who see and read his works to make them their own.
Readers of the New Folger Editions are part of this ongoing process of “taking up Shakespeare,” finding our own thoughts and feelings in language that strikes us as old or unusual and, for that very reason, new. We still struggle to keep up with a writer who could think a mile a minute, whose words paint pictures that shift like clouds. These expertly edited texts are presented to the public as a resource for study, artistic adaptation, and enjoyment. By making the classic texts of the New Folger Editions available in electronic form as Folger Digital Texts, we place a trusted resource in the hands of anyone who wants them.
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I want to express my deep thanks to editors Barbara Mowat and Paul Werstine for creating these indispensable editions of Shakespeare’s works, which incorporate the best of textual scholarship with a richness of commentary that is both inspired and engaging. Readers who want to know more about Shakespeare and his plays can follow the paths these distinguished scholars have tread by visiting the Folger either in-person or online, where a range of physical and digital resources exists to supplement the material in these texts. I commend to you these words, and hope that they inspire.
Director, Folger Shakespeare Library
Until now, with the release of the Folger Digital Texts, readers in search of a free online text of Shakespeare’s plays had to be content primarily with using the Moby™ Text, which reproduces a late-nineteenth century version of the plays. What is the difference? Many ordinary readers assume that there is a single text for the plays: what Shakespeare wrote. But Shakespeare’s plays were not published the way modern novels or plays are published today: as a single, authoritative text. In some cases, the plays have come down to us in multiple published versions, represented by various Quartos (Qq) and by the great collection put together by his colleagues in 1623, called the First Folio (F). There are, for example, three very different versions of Hamlet, two of King Lear, Henry V, Romeo and Juliet, and others. Editors choose which version to use as their base text, and then amend that text with words, lines or speech prefixes from the other versions that, in their judgment, make for a better or more accurate text.
Other editorial decisions involve choices about whether an unfamiliar word could be understood in light of other writings of the period or whether it should be changed; decisions about words that made it into Shakespeare’s text by accident through four hundred years of printings and misprinting; and even decisions based on cultural preference and taste. When the Moby™ Text was created, for example, it was deemed “improper” and “indecent” for Miranda to chastise Caliban for having attempted to rape her. (See The Tempest, 1.2: “Abhorred slave,/Which any print of goodness wilt not take,/Being capable of all ill! I pitied thee…”). All Shakespeare editors at the time took the speech away from her and gave it to her father, Prospero.
The editors of the Moby™ Shakespeare produced their text long before scholars fully understood the proper grounds on which to make the thousands of decisions that Shakespeare editors face. The Folger Library Shakespeare Editions, on which the Folger Digital Texts depend, make this editorial process as nearly transparent as is possible, in contrast to older texts, like the Moby™, which hide editorial interventions. The reader of the Folger Shakespeare knows where the text has been altered because editorial interventions are signaled by square brackets (for example, from Othello: “If she in chains of magic were not bound,
”), half-square brackets (for example, from Henry V: “With
blood
and sword and fire to win your right,”), or angle brackets (for example, from Hamlet: “O farewell, honest
soldier.
Who hath relieved/you?”). At any point in the text, you can hover your cursor over a bracket for more information.
Because the Folger Digital Texts are edited in accord with twenty-first century knowledge about Shakespeare’s texts, the Folger here provides them to readers, scholars, teachers, actors, directors, and students, free of charge, confident of their quality as texts of the plays and pleased to be able to make this contribution to the study and enjoyment of Shakespeare.
Events before the start of Hamlet set the stage for tragedy. When the king of Denmark, Prince Hamlet’s father, suddenly dies, Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude, marries his uncle Claudius, who becomes the new king.
A spirit who claims to be the ghost of Hamlet’s father describes his murder at the hands of Claudius and demands that Hamlet avenge the killing. When the councilor Polonius learns from his daughter, Ophelia, that Hamlet has visited her in an apparently distracted state, Polonius attributes the prince’s condition to lovesickness, and he sets a trap for Hamlet using Ophelia as bait.
To confirm Claudius’s guilt, Hamlet arranges for a play that mimics the murder; Claudius’s reaction is that of a guilty man. Hamlet, now free to act, mistakenly kills Polonius, thinking he is Claudius. Claudius sends Hamlet away as part of a deadly plot.
After Polonius’s death, Ophelia goes mad and later drowns. Hamlet, who has returned safely to confront the king, agrees to a fencing match with Ophelia’s brother, Laertes, who secretly poisons his own rapier. At the match, Claudius prepares poisoned wine for Hamlet, which Gertrude unknowingly drinks; as she dies, she accuses Claudius, whom Hamlet kills. Then first Laertes and then Hamlet die, both victims of Laertes’ rapier.
ACT 1
Scene 1
And I am sick at heart .
If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus ,
The rivals of my watch , bid them make haste .
[9]ACT 1. SC. 1
you ?
And will not let belief take hold of him
Touching this dreaded sight twice seen of us .
Therefore I have entreated him along
With us to watch the minutes of this night ,
That , if again this apparition come ,
He may approve our eyes and speak to it .
And let us once again assail your ears ,
That are so fortified against our story ,
What we have two nights seen .
And let us hear Barnardo speak of this .
When yond same star that’s westward from the pole
Had made his course t’ illume that part of heaven
Where now it burns , Marcellus and myself ,
The bell then beating one —
[11]ACT 1. SC. 1
Together with that fair and warlike form
In which the majesty of buried Denmark
Did sometimes march ? By heaven , I charge thee ,
speak .
Is not this something more than fantasy ?
What think you on ’t ?
Without the sensible and true avouch
Of mine own eyes .
[13]ACT 1. SC. 1
Such was the very armor he had on
When he the ambitious Norway combated .
So frowned he once when , in an angry parle ,
He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice .
’Tis strange .
With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch .
But in the gross and scope of mine opinion
This bodes some strange eruption to our state .
Why this same strict and most observant watch
So nightly toils the subject of the land ,
And why such daily cast of brazen cannon
And foreign mart for implements of war ,
Why such impress of shipwrights , whose sore task
Does not divide the Sunday from the week .
What might be toward that this sweaty haste
Doth make the night joint laborer with the day ?
Who is ’t that can inform me ?
At least the whisper goes so : our last king ,
Whose image even but now appeared to us ,
Was , as you know , by Fortinbras of Norway ,
Thereto pricked on by a most emulate pride ,
Dared to the combat ; in which our valiant Hamlet
( For so this side of our known world esteemed him )
Did slay this Fortinbras , who by a sealed compact ,
Well ratified by law and heraldry ,
Did forfeit , with his life , all those his lands
Which he stood seized of , to the conqueror .
[15] ACT 1. SC. 1 Against the which a moiety competent
Was gagèd by our king , which had returned
To the inheritance of Fortinbras
Had he been vanquisher , as , by the same comart
And carriage of the article designed ,
His fell to Hamlet . Now , sir , young Fortinbras ,
Of unimprovèd mettle hot and full ,
Hath in the skirts of Norway here and there
Sharked up a list of lawless resolutes
For food and diet to some enterprise
That hath a stomach in ’t ; which is no other
( As it doth well appear unto our state )
But to recover of us , by strong hand
And terms compulsatory , those foresaid lands
So by his father lost . And this , I take it ,
Is the main motive of our preparations ,
The source of this our watch , and the chief head
Of this posthaste and rummage in the land .
Well may it sort that this portentous figure
Comes armèd through our watch so like the king
That was and is the question of these wars .
In the most high and palmy state of Rome ,
A little ere the mightiest Julius fell ,
The graves stood tenantless , and the sheeted dead
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets ;
As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood ,
Disasters in the sun ; and the moist star ,
Upon whose influence Neptune’s empire stands ,
Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse .
And even the like precurse of feared events ,
As harbingers preceding still the fates
And prologue to the omen coming on ,
[17] ACT 1. SC. 1 Have heaven and Earth together demonstrated
Unto our climatures and countrymen .
But soft , behold ! Lo , where it comes again !
I’ll cross it though it blast me . — Stay , illusion !
If thou hast any sound or use of voice ,
Speak to me .
If there be any good thing to be done
That may to thee do ease and grace to me ,
Speak to me .
If thou art privy to thy country’s fate ,
Which happily foreknowing may avoid ,
O , speak !
Or if thou hast uphoarded in thy life
Extorted treasure in the womb of earth ,
For which , they say , you spirits oft walk in death ,
Speak of it .
Stay and speak ! — Stop it , Marcellus .
We do it wrong , being so majestical ,
To offer it the show of violence ,
For it is as the air , invulnerable ,
And our vain blows malicious mockery .
Upon a fearful summons . I have heard
[19] ACT 1. SC. 1 The cock , that is the trumpet to the morn ,
Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat
Awake the god of day , and at his warning ,
Whether in sea or fire , in earth or air ,
Th’ extravagant and erring spirit hies
To his confine , and of the truth herein
This present object made probation .
Some say that ever ’gainst that season comes
Wherein our Savior’s birth is celebrated ,
This bird of dawning singeth all night long ;
And then , they say , no spirit dare stir abroad ,
The nights are wholesome ; then no planets strike ,
No fairy takes , nor witch hath power to charm ,
So hallowed and so gracious is that time .
But look , the morn in russet mantle clad
Walks o’er the dew of yon high eastward hill .
Break we our watch up , and by my advice
Let us impart what we have seen tonight
Unto young Hamlet ; for , upon my life ,
This spirit , dumb to us , will speak to him .
Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it
As needful in our loves , fitting our duty ?
Where we shall find him most convenient .
[21]ACT 1. SC. 2
Scene 2
Queen , the Council , as Polonius , and his son Laertes ,
Hamlet , with others , among them Voltemand and
Cornelius .
The memory be green , and that it us befitted
To bear our hearts in grief , and our whole kingdom
To be contracted in one brow of woe ,
Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature
That we with wisest sorrow think on him
Together with remembrance of ourselves .
Therefore our sometime sister , now our queen ,
Th’ imperial jointress to this warlike state ,
Have we ( as ’twere with a defeated joy ,
With an auspicious and a dropping eye ,
With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage ,
In equal scale weighing delight and dole )
Taken to wife . Nor have we herein barred
Your better wisdoms , which have freely gone
With this affair along . For all , our thanks .
Now follows that you know . Young Fortinbras ,
Holding a weak supposal of our worth
Or thinking by our late dear brother’s death
Our state to be disjoint and out of frame ,
Colleaguèd with this dream of his advantage ,
He hath not failed to pester us with message
Importing the surrender of those lands
Lost by his father , with all bonds of law ,
To our most valiant brother — so much for him .
Now for ourself and for this time of meeting .
Thus much the business is : we have here writ
To Norway , uncle of young Fortinbras ,
Who , impotent and bedrid , scarcely hears
[23] ACT 1. SC. 2 Of this his nephew’s purpose , to suppress
His further gait herein , in that the levies ,
The lists , and full proportions are all made
Out of his subject ; and we here dispatch
You , good Cornelius , and you , Voltemand ,
For bearers of this greeting to old Norway ,
Giving to you no further personal power
To business with the King more than the scope
Of these dilated articles allow .
Farewell , and let your haste commend your duty .
And now , Laertes , what’s the news with you ?
You told us of some suit . What is ’t , Laertes ?
You cannot speak of reason to the Dane
And lose your voice . What wouldst thou beg ,
Laertes ,
That shall not be my offer , not thy asking ?
The head is not more native to the heart ,
The hand more instrumental to the mouth ,
Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father .
What wouldst thou have , Laertes ?
Your leave and favor to return to France ,
From whence though willingly I came to Denmark
To show my duty in your coronation ,
Yet now I must confess , that duty done ,
My thoughts and wishes bend again toward France
And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon .
[25]ACT 1. SC. 2
By laborsome petition , and at last
Upon his will I sealed my hard consent .
I do beseech you give him leave to go .
And thy best graces spend it at thy will . —
But now , my cousin Hamlet and my son —
And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark .
Do not forever with thy vailèd lids
Seek for thy noble father in the dust .
Thou know’st ’tis common ; all that lives must die ,
Passing through nature to eternity .
Why seems it so particular with thee ?
’Tis not alone my inky cloak , good mother ,
Nor customary suits of solemn black ,
Nor windy suspiration of forced breath ,
No , nor the fruitful river in the eye ,
Nor the dejected havior of the visage ,
Together with all forms , moods , shapes of grief ,
That can denote me truly . These indeed ‘seem ,’
For they are actions that a man might play ;
[27] ACT 1. SC. 2 But I have that within which passes show ,
These but the trappings and the suits of woe .
Hamlet ,
To give these mourning duties to your father .
But you must know your father lost a father ,
That father lost , lost his , and the survivor bound
In filial obligation for some term
To do obsequious sorrow . But to persever
In obstinate condolement is a course
Of impious stubbornness . ’Tis unmanly grief .
It shows a will most incorrect to heaven ,
A heart unfortified , a mind impatient ,
An understanding simple and unschooled .
For what we know must be and is as common
As any the most vulgar thing to sense ,
Why should we in our peevish opposition
Take it to heart ? Fie , ’tis a fault to heaven ,
A fault against the dead , a fault to nature ,
To reason most absurd , whose common theme
Is death of fathers , and who still hath cried ,
From the first corse till he that died today ,
‘This must be so .’ We pray you , throw to earth
This unprevailing woe and think of us
As of a father ; for let the world take note ,
You are the most immediate to our throne ,
And with no less nobility of love
Than that which dearest father bears his son
Do I impart toward you . For your intent
In going back to school in Wittenberg ,
It is most retrograde to our desire ,
And we beseech you , bend you to remain
Here in the cheer and comfort of our eye ,
Our chiefest courtier , cousin , and our son .
[29]ACT 1. SC. 2
I pray thee , stay with us . Go not to Wittenberg .
Be as ourself in Denmark . — Madam , come .
This gentle and unforced accord of Hamlet
Sits smiling to my heart , in grace whereof
No jocund health that Denmark drinks today
But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell ,
And the King’s rouse the heaven shall bruit again ,
Respeaking earthly thunder . Come away .
Thaw , and resolve itself into a dew ,
Or that the Everlasting had not fixed
His canon ’gainst self-slaughter ! O God , God ,
How weary , stale , flat , and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world !
Fie on ’t , ah fie ! ’Tis an unweeded garden
That grows to seed . Things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely . That it should come to this :
But two months dead — nay , not so much , not two .
So excellent a king , that was to this
Hyperion to a satyr ; so loving to my mother
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly . Heaven and Earth ,
Must I remember ? Why , she would hang on him
As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on . And yet , within a month
( Let me not think on ’t ; frailty , thy name is woman ! ) ,
A little month , or ere those shoes were old
With which she followed my poor father’s body ,
[31] ACT 1. SC. 2 Like Niobe , all tears — why she , even she
( O God , a beast that wants discourse of reason
Would have mourned longer ! ) , married with my
uncle ,
My father’s brother , but no more like my father
Than I to Hercules . Within a month ,
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her gallèd eyes ,
She married . O , most wicked speed , to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets !
It is not , nor it cannot come to good .
But break , my heart , for I must hold my tongue .
Horatio — or I do forget myself !
And what make you from Wittenberg , Horatio ? —
Marcellus ?
even , sir . —
But what , in faith , make you from Wittenberg ?
Nor shall you do my ear that violence
To make it truster of your own report
Against yourself . I know you are no truant .
But what is your affair in Elsinore ?
We’ll teach you to drink deep ere you depart .
[33]ACT 1. SC. 2
I think it was to see my mother’s wedding .
Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables .
Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven
Or ever I had seen that day , Horatio !
My father — methinks I see my father .
I shall not look upon his like again .
With an attent ear , till I may deliver
Upon the witness of these gentlemen
This marvel to you .
Marcellus and Barnardo , on their watch ,
[35] ACT 1. SC. 2 In the dead waste and middle of the night ,
Been thus encountered : a figure like your father ,
Armed at point exactly , cap-à-pie ,
Appears before them and with solemn march
Goes slow and stately by them . Thrice he walked
By their oppressed and fear-surprisèd eyes
Within his truncheon’s length , whilst they , distilled
Almost to jelly with the act of fear ,
Stand dumb and speak not to him . This to me
In dreadful secrecy impart they did ,
And I with them the third night kept the watch ,
Where , as they had delivered , both in time ,
Form of the thing ( each word made true and good ) ,
The apparition comes . I knew your father ;
These hands are not more like .
But answer made it none . Yet once methought
It lifted up its head and did address
Itself to motion , like as it would speak ;
But even then the morning cock crew loud ,
And at the sound it shrunk in haste away
And vanished from our sight .
And we did think it writ down in our duty
To let you know of it .
Hold you the watch tonight ?
[37]ACT 1. SC. 2
hundred .
A sable silvered .
Perchance ’twill walk again .
I’ll speak to it , though hell itself should gape
And bid me hold my peace . I pray you all ,
If you have hitherto concealed this sight ,
[39] ACT 1. SC. 3 Let it be tenable in your silence still ;
And whatsomever else shall hap tonight ,
Give it an understanding but no tongue .
I will requite your loves . So fare you well .
Upon the platform , ’twixt eleven and twelve ,
I’ll visit you .
My father’s spirit — in arms ! All is not well .
I doubt some foul play . Would the night were come !
Till then , sit still , my soul . Foul deeds will rise ,
Though all the earth o’erwhelm them , to men’s
eyes .
Scene 3
And , sister , as the winds give benefit
And convey is assistant , do not sleep ,
But let me hear from you .
Hold it a fashion and a toy in blood ,
A violet in the youth of primy nature ,
Forward , not permanent , sweet , not lasting ,
The perfume and suppliance of a minute ,
No more .
[41] ACT 1. SC. 3 For nature , crescent , does not grow alone
In thews and bulk , but , as this temple waxes ,
The inward service of the mind and soul
Grows wide withal . Perhaps he loves you now ,
And now no soil nor cautel doth besmirch
The virtue of his will ; but you must fear ,
His greatness weighed , his will is not his own ,
For he himself is subject to his birth .
He may not , as unvalued persons do ,
Carve for himself , for on his choice depends
The safety and the health of this whole state .
And therefore must his choice be circumscribed
Unto the voice and yielding of that body
Whereof he is the head . Then , if he says he loves
you ,
It fits your wisdom so far to believe it
As he in his particular act and place
May give his saying deed , which is no further
Than the main voice of Denmark goes withal .
Then weigh what loss your honor may sustain
If with too credent ear you list his songs
Or lose your heart or your chaste treasure open
To his unmastered importunity .
Fear it , Ophelia ; fear it , my dear sister ,
And keep you in the rear of your affection ,
Out of the shot and danger of desire .
The chariest maid is prodigal enough
If she unmask her beauty to the moon .
Virtue itself ’scapes not calumnious strokes .
The canker galls the infants of the spring
Too oft before their buttons be disclosed ,
And , in the morn and liquid dew of youth ,
Contagious blastments are most imminent .
Be wary , then ; best safety lies in fear .
Youth to itself rebels , though none else near .
[43] ACT 1. SC. 3 As watchman to my heart . But , good my brother ,
Do not , as some ungracious pastors do ,
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven ,
Whiles , like a puffed and reckless libertine ,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads
And recks not his own rede .
I stay too long . But here my father comes .
A double blessing is a double grace .
Occasion smiles upon a second leave .
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail ,
And you are stayed for . There , my blessing with
thee .
And these few precepts in thy memory
Look thou character . Give thy thoughts no tongue ,
Nor any unproportioned thought his act .
Be thou familiar , but by no means vulgar .
Those friends thou hast , and their adoption tried ,
Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel ,
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatched , unfledged courage . Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel , but , being in ,
Bear ’t that th’ opposèd may beware of thee .
Give every man thy ear , but few thy voice .
Take each man’s censure , but reserve thy judgment .
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy ,
But not expressed in fancy ( rich , not gaudy ) ,
For the apparel oft proclaims the man ,
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous chief in that .
Neither a borrower nor a lender be ,
For loan oft loses both itself and friend ,
[45] ACT 1. SC. 3 And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry .
This above all : to thine own self be true ,
And it must follow , as the night the day ,
Thou canst not then be false to any man .
Farewell . My blessing season this in thee .
What I have said to you .
And you yourself shall keep the key of it .
Hamlet .
’Tis told me he hath very oft of late
Given private time to you , and you yourself
Have of your audience been most free and
bounteous .
If it be so ( as so ’tis put on me ,
And that in way of caution ) , I must tell you
You do not understand yourself so clearly
As it behooves my daughter and your honor .
What is between you ? Give me up the truth .
Of his affection to me .
Unsifted in such perilous circumstance .
Do you believe his ‘tenders ,’ as you call them ?
[47]ACT 1. SC. 3
That you have ta’en these tenders for true pay ,
Which are not sterling . Tender yourself more dearly ,
Or ( not to crack the wind of the poor phrase ,
Running it thus ) you’ll tender me a fool .
In honorable fashion —
With almost all the holy vows of heaven .
When the blood burns , how prodigal the soul
Lends the tongue vows . These blazes , daughter ,
Giving more light than heat , extinct in both
Even in their promise as it is a-making ,
You must not take for fire . From this time
Be something scanter of your maiden presence .
Set your entreatments at a higher rate
Than a command to parle . For Lord Hamlet ,
Believe so much in him that he is young ,
And with a larger tether may he walk
Than may be given you . In few , Ophelia ,
Do not believe his vows , for they are brokers ,
Not of that dye which their investments show ,
But mere implorators of unholy suits ,
Breathing like sanctified and pious bawds
The better to beguile . This is for all :
I would not , in plain terms , from this time forth
Have you so slander any moment leisure
[49] ACT 1. SC. 4 As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet .
Look to ’t , I charge you . Come your ways .
Scene 4
Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk .
What does this mean , my lord ?
Keeps wassail , and the swagg’ring upspring reels ;
And , as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down ,
The kettledrum and trumpet thus bray out
The triumph of his pledge .
But , to my mind , though I am native here
And to the manner born , it is a custom
More honored in the breach than the observance .
This heavy-headed revel east and west
Makes us traduced and taxed of other nations .
They clepe us drunkards and with swinish phrase
Soil our addition . And , indeed , it takes
[51] ACT 1. SC. 4 From our achievements , though performed at
height ,
The pith and marrow of our attribute .
So oft it chances in particular men
That for some vicious mole of nature in them ,
As in their birth ( wherein they are not guilty ,
Since nature cannot choose his origin ) ,
By the o’ergrowth of some complexion
( Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason ) ,
Or by some habit that too much o’erleavens
The form of plausive manners — that these men ,
Carrying , I say , the stamp of one defect ,
Being nature’s livery or fortune’s star ,
His virtues else , be they as pure as grace ,
As infinite as man may undergo ,
Shall in the general censure take corruption
From that particular fault . The dram of evil
Doth all the noble substance of a doubt
To his own scandal .
Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damned ,
Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from
hell ,
Be thy intents wicked or charitable ,
Thou com’st in such a questionable shape
That I will speak to thee . I’ll call thee ‘Hamlet ,’
‘King ,’ ‘Father ,’ ‘Royal Dane .’ O , answer me !
Let me not burst in ignorance , but tell
Why thy canonized bones , hearsèd in death ,
Have burst their cerements ; why the sepulcher ,
Wherein we saw thee quietly interred ,
Hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws
[53] ACT 1. SC. 4 To cast thee up again . What may this mean
That thou , dead corse , again in complete steel ,
Revisits thus the glimpses of the moon ,
Making night hideous , and we fools of nature
So horridly to shake our disposition
With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls ?
Say , why is this ? Wherefore ? What should we do ?
As if it some impartment did desire
To you alone .
It waves you to a more removèd ground .
But do not go with it .
I do not set my life at a pin’s fee .
And for my soul , what can it do to that ,
Being a thing immortal as itself ?
It waves me forth again . I’ll follow it .
Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff
That beetles o’er his base into the sea ,
And there assume some other horrible form
Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason
And draw you into madness ? Think of it .
The very place puts toys of desperation ,
Without more motive , into every brain
That looks so many fathoms to the sea
And hears it roar beneath .
[55]ACT 1. SC. 5
And makes each petty arture in this body
As hardy as the Nemean lion’s nerve .
Still am I called . Unhand me , gentlemen .
By heaven , I’ll make a ghost of him that lets me !
I say , away ! — Go on . I’ll follow thee .
Scene 5
further .
[57]ACT 1. SC. 5
When I to sulf’rous and tormenting flames
Must render up myself .
To what I shall unfold .
Doomed for a certain term to walk the night
And for the day confined to fast in fires
Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
Are burnt and purged away . But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison house ,
I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul , freeze thy young blood ,
Make thy two eyes , like stars , start from their
spheres ,
Thy knotted and combinèd locks to part ,
And each particular hair to stand an end ,
Like quills upon the fearful porpentine .
But this eternal blazon must not be
To ears of flesh and blood . List , list , O list !
If thou didst ever thy dear father love —
But this most foul , strange , and unnatural .
[59] ACT 1. SC. 5 As meditation or the thoughts of love ,
May sweep to my revenge .
And duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed
That roots itself in ease on Lethe wharf ,
Wouldst thou not stir in this . Now , Hamlet , hear .
’Tis given out that , sleeping in my orchard ,
A serpent stung me . So the whole ear of Denmark
Is by a forgèd process of my death
Rankly abused . But know , thou noble youth ,
The serpent that did sting thy father’s life
Now wears his crown .
With witchcraft of his wits , with traitorous gifts —
O wicked wit and gifts , that have the power
So to seduce ! — won to his shameful lust
The will of my most seeming-virtuous queen .
O Hamlet , what a falling off was there !
From me , whose love was of that dignity
That it went hand in hand even with the vow
I made to her in marriage , and to decline
Upon a wretch whose natural gifts were poor
To those of mine .
But virtue , as it never will be moved ,
Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven ,
So , lust , though to a radiant angel linked ,
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 cursèd hebona in a vial
And in the porches of my ears did pour
[61] ACT 1. SC. 5 The leprous 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 vigor it doth posset
And curd , like eager droppings into milk ,
The thin and wholesome blood . So did it mine ,
And a most instant tetter barked 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 dispatched ,
Cut off , even in the blossoms of my sin ,
Unhouseled , disappointed , unaneled ,
No reck’ning 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 damnèd incest .
But , howsomever thou pursues 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 , adieu . Remember me .
And shall I couple hell ? O fie ! Hold , hold , my heart ,
And you , my sinews , grow not instant old ,
But bear me stiffly up . Remember thee ?
Ay , thou poor ghost , whiles memory holds a seat
In this distracted globe . Remember thee ?
Yea , from the table of my memory
[63] ACT 1. SC. 5 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 ,
Unmixed with baser matter . Yes , by heaven !
O most pernicious woman !
O villain , villain , smiling , damnèd 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 .
So , uncle , there you are . Now to my word .
It is ‘adieu , adieu , remember me .’
I have sworn ’t .
it ?
But you’ll be secret ?
[65]ACT 1. SC. 5
But he’s an arrant knave .
To tell us this .
And so , without more circumstance at all ,
I hold it fit that we shake hands and part ,
You , as your business and desire shall point you
( For every man hath business and desire ,
Such as it is ) , and for my own poor part ,
I will go pray .
Yes , faith , heartily .
And much offense , 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 .
[67]ACT 1. SC. 5
truepenny ?
Come on , you hear this fellow in the cellarage .
Consent to swear .
Swear by my sword .
Come hither , gentlemen ,
And lay your hands again upon my sword .
Swear by my sword
Never to speak of this that you have heard .
A worthy pioner ! Once more remove , good friends .
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 some’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 encumbered thus , or this headshake ,
Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase ,
[69] ACT 1. SC. 5 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 do swear ,
So grace and mercy at your most need help you .
With all my love I do commend me to you ,
And what so poor a man as Hamlet is
May do t’ 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 cursèd spite
That ever I was born to set it right !
Nay , come , let’s go together .
[73]
ACT 2
Scene 1
Before you visit him , to make inquire
Of his behavior .
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 ?
[75] ACT 2. SC. 1 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 dishonor him , take heed of that ,
But , sir , such wanton , wild , and usual slips
As are companions noted and most known
To youth and liberty .
Quarreling , drabbing — you may go so far .
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 .
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 —
[77]ACT 2. SC. 1
was I about to say ? By the Mass , I was about to say
something . Where did I leave ?
or so ,’ and ‘gentleman .’
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 ?
How now , Ophelia , what’s the matter ?
[79]ACT 2. SC. 1
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 .
But truly I do fear it .
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
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 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 .
This is the very ecstasy of love ,
Whose violent property fordoes itself
[81] ACT 2. SC. 2 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 ?
I did repel his letters and denied
His access to me .
I am sorry that with better heed and judgment
I had not coted 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 .
Come .
Scene 2
Guildenstern and Attendants .
Moreover that we much did long to see you ,
The need we have to use you did provoke
Our hasty sending . Something have you heard
Of Hamlet’s transformation , so call it ,
Sith nor 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
[83] ACT 2. SC. 2 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 neighbored to his youth and havior ,
That you vouchsafe your rest here in our court
Some little time , so by your companies
To draw him on to pleasures , and to gather
So much as from occasion you may glean ,
Whether aught to us unknown afflicts him thus
That , opened , lies within our remedy .
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 goodwill
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 .
Might , by the sovereign power you have of us ,
Put your dread pleasures more into command
Than to entreaty .
And here give up ourselves in the full bent
To lay our service freely at your feet ,
To be commanded .
And I beseech you instantly to visit
My too much changèd son . — Go , some of you ,
And bring these gentlemen where Hamlet is .
Pleasant and helpful to him !
[85]ACT 2. SC. 2
with some Attendants .
Are joyfully returned .
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 .
My news shall be the fruit to that great feast .
He tells me , my dear Gertrude , he hath found
The head and source of all your son’s distemper .
His father’s death and our o’erhasty marriage .
Polonius .
[87] ACT 2. SC. 2 Welcome , my good friends .
Say , Voltemand , what from our brother Norway ?
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 ,
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 .
And , at our more considered time , we’ll read ,
Answer , and think upon this business .
Meantime , we thank you for your well-took labor .
Go to your rest . At night we’ll feast together .
Most welcome home !
My liege , and madam , to expostulate
What majesty should be , what duty is ,
[89] ACT 2. SC. 2 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 .
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 .
most beautified Ophelia —
That’s an ill phrase , a vile phrase ; ‘beautified’ is a
vile phrase . But you shall hear . Thus :
In her excellent white bosom , these , etc. —
Doubt thou the stars are fire ,
Doubt that the sun doth move ,
Doubt truth to be a liar ,
But never doubt I love .
[91] ACT 2. SC. 2 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 .
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 , repelled ( 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 .
[93]ACT 2. SC. 2
that )
That I have positively said ‘’Tis so ,’
When it proved otherwise ?
If circumstances lead me , I will find
Where truth is hid , though it were hid , indeed ,
Within the center .
Here in the lobby .
Mark the encounter . If he love her not ,
And be not from his reason fall’n thereon ,
Let me be no assistant for a state ,
But keep a farm and carters .
reading .
I’ll board him presently . O , give me leave .
How does my good Lord Hamlet ?
[95]ACT 2. SC. 2
be one man picked out of ten thousand .
dog , being a good kissing carrion — Have you a
daughter ?
blessing , but , as your daughter may conceive ,
friend , look to ’t .
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 ?
that old men have gray beards , that their faces are
wrinkled , their eyes purging thick amber and
plum-tree gum , and that they have a plentiful lack of
wit , together with most weak hams ; all which , sir ,
though I most powerfully and potently believe , yet I
hold it not honesty to have it thus set down ; for
yourself , sir , shall grow old as I am , if , like a crab ,
you could go backward .
method in ’t . — Will you walk out of the air , my lord ?
[97]ACT 2. SC. 2
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 .
will more willingly part withal — except my life ,
except my life , except my life .
Guildenstern ? Ah , Rosencrantz ! Good lads , how do
you both ?
On Fortune’s cap , we are not the very button .
middle of her favors ?
She is a strumpet . What news ?
grown honest .
[99]ACT 2. SC. 2
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 ?
wards , and dungeons , Denmark being one o’
th’ worst .
nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it
so . To me , it is a prison .
’Tis too narrow for your mind .
count myself a king of infinite space , were it not
that I have bad dreams .
for the very substance of the ambitious is merely
the shadow of a dream .
and light a quality that it is but a shadow’s shadow .
and outstretched heroes the beggars’ shadows .
Shall we to th’ court ? For , by my fay , I cannot
reason .
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 ?
[101]ACT 2. SC. 2
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 .
for , and there is a kind of confession in your looks
which your modesties have not craft enough to
color . I know the good king and queen have sent for
you .
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 .
you love me , hold not off .
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 faculties , in form and moving
[103] ACT 2. SC. 2 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 .
thoughts .
delights not me’ ?
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 .
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 ?
delight in , the tragedians of the city .
both in reputation and profit , was better both ways .
means of the late innovation .
when I was in the city ? Are they so followed ?
pace . But there is , sir , an aerie of children , little
eyases , that cry out on the top of question and are
most tyrannically clapped for ’t . These are now the
[105] ACT 2. SC. 2 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 .
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 ?
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 .
about of brains .
and his load too .
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 .
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 outwards , should
more appear like entertainment than yours . You are
welcome . But my uncle-father and aunt-mother are
deceived .
[107]ACT 2. SC. 2
wind is southerly , I know a hawk from a handsaw .
each ear a hearer ! That great baby you see there is
not yet out of his swaddling clouts .
them , for they say an old man is twice a child .
players ; mark it . — You say right , sir , a Monday
morning , ’twas then indeed .
was an actor in Rome —
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 .
hadst thou !
One fair daughter , and no more ,
The which he lovèd passing well .
[109]ACT 2. SC. 2
daughter that I love passing well .
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 .
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 .
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 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
savory , nor no matter in the phrase that might indict
the author of affection , but called it an honest
[111] ACT 2. SC. 2 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 .
accent and good discretion .
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 .
[113] ACT 2. SC. 2 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 armor , 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 !
Prithee say on . He’s for a jig or a tale of bawdry , or
he sleeps . Say on ; come to Hecuba .
But who , ah woe , had seen the moblèd queen —
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
[115] ACT 2. SC. 2 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 .
has tears in ’s eyes . Prithee , no more .
this 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 .
desert .
man after his desert and who shall ’scape
whipping ? Use them after your own honor and
dignity . The less they deserve , the more merit is in
your bounty . Take them in .
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 ?
need , study a speech of some dozen or sixteen
lines , which I would set down and insert in ’t ,
could you not ?
mock him not . First Player exits . My good friends ,
I’ll leave you till night . You are welcome to Elsinore .
[117]ACT 2. SC. 2
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 wanned ,
Tears in his eyes , distraction in his 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 appall 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 !
[119] ACT 2. SC. 2 O vengeance !
Why , what an ass am I ! 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 ! — Hum , 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 .
[123]
ACT 3
Scene 1
Guildenstern , and Lords .
Get from him why he puts on this confusion ,
Grating so harshly all his days of quiet
With turbulent and dangerous lunacy ?
But from what cause he will by no means speak .
But with a crafty madness keeps aloof
When we would bring him on to some confession
Of his true state .
Most free in his reply .
[125] ACT 3. SC. 1 We o’erraught on the way . Of these we told him ,
And there did seem in him a kind of joy
To hear of it . They are here about the court ,
And , as I think , they have already order
This night to play before him .
And he beseeched me to entreat your Majesties
To hear and see the matter .
To hear him so inclined .
Good gentlemen , give him a further edge
And drive his purpose into these delights .
and Lords exit .
For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither ,
That he , as ’twere by accident , may here
Affront Ophelia .
Her father and myself , lawful espials ,
Will so bestow ourselves that , seeing unseen ,
We may of their encounter frankly judge
And gather by him , as he is behaved ,
If ’t be th’ affliction of his love or no
That thus he suffers for .
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 honors .
[127] ACT 3. SC. 1 We will bestow ourselves .
book ,
That show of such an exercise may color
Your loneliness . — We are oft to blame in this
( ’Tis too much proved ) , that with devotion’s visage
And pious action we do sugar o’er
The devil himself .
How smart a lash that speech doth give my
conscience .
The harlot’s cheek beautied with plast’ring art
Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it
Than is my deed to my most painted word .
O heavy burden !
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 wished . To die , to sleep —
To sleep , perchance to dream . Ay , there’s the rub ,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come ,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil ,
Must give us pause . There’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life .
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time ,
Th’ oppressor’s wrong , the proud man’s contumely ,
[129] ACT 3. SC. 1 The pangs of despised love , the law’s delay ,
The insolence of office , and the spurns
That patient merit of th’ unworthy takes ,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin ? Who would fardels bear ,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life ,
But that the dread of something after death ,
The undiscovered country from whose bourn
No traveler returns , puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of ?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all ,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought ,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action . — Soft you now ,
The fair Ophelia . — Nymph , in thy orisons
Be all my sins remembered .
How does your Honor for this many a day ?
That I have longèd long to redeliver .
I pray you now receive them .
And with them words of so sweet breath composed
As made the things more rich . Their perfume
lost ,
Take these again , for to the noble mind
Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind .
There , my lord .
[131]ACT 3. SC. 1
should admit no discourse to your beauty .
than with honesty ?
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 .
cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall
relish of it . I loved you not .
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 offenses
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 ?
play the fool nowhere but in ’s own house . Farewell .
for thy dowry : be thou as chaste as ice , as pure as
snow , thou shalt not escape calumny . Get thee to a
[133] ACT 3. SC. 1 nunnery , 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 .
enough . God hath given you one face , and you
make yourselves another . You jig and amble , and
you lisp ; you nickname God’s creatures and make
your wantonness your ignorance . Go to , I’ll no
more on ’t . It hath made me mad . I say we will have
no more marriage . Those that are married already ,
all but one , shall live . The rest shall keep as they are .
To a nunnery , go .
The courtier’s , soldier’s , scholar’s , eye , tongue ,
sword ,
Th’ expectancy and rose of the fair state ,
The glass of fashion and the mold of form ,
Th’ observed of all observers , quite , quite down !
And I , of ladies most deject and wretched ,
That sucked the honey of his musicked vows ,
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason ,
Like sweet bells jangled , out of time and harsh ;
That unmatched form and stature of blown youth
Blasted with ecstasy . O , woe is me
T’ have seen what I have seen , see what I see !
Nor what he spake , though it lacked form a little ,
Was not like madness . There’s something in his soul
O’er which his melancholy sits on brood ,
And I do doubt the hatch and the disclose
Will be some danger ; which for to prevent ,
I have in quick determination
[135] ACT 3. SC. 2 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 ?
The origin and commencement of his grief
Sprung from neglected love . — How now , Ophelia ?
You need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said ;
We heard it all . — My lord , do as you please ,
But , if you hold it fit , after the play
Let his queen-mother all alone entreat him
To show his grief . Let her be round with him ;
And I’ll be placed , so please you , in the ear
Of all their conference . If she find him not ,
To England send him , or confine him where
Your wisdom best shall think .
Madness in great ones must not unwatched go .
Scene 2
it to you , trippingly on the tongue ; but if you mouth
it , as many of our players do , I had as lief the
town-crier spoke my lines . Nor do not saw the air
too much with your hand , thus , but use all gently ;
for in the very torrent , tempest , and , as I may say ,
whirlwind of your passion , you must acquire and
beget a temperance that may give it smoothness . O ,
[137] ACT 3. SC. 2 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 .
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 o’erdone is from the purpose
of playing , whose end , both at the first and
now , was and is to hold , as ’twere , the mirror up to
nature , to show virtue her own feature , scorn her
own image , and the very age and body of the time
his form and pressure . Now this overdone or come
tardy off , though it makes the unskillful laugh ,
cannot but make the judicious grieve , the censure
of the which one must in your allowance o’erweigh
a whole theater of others . O , there be players that I
have seen play and heard others praise ( and that
highly ) , not to speak it profanely , that , neither
having th’ accent of Christians nor the gait of
Christian , pagan , nor man , have so strutted and
bellowed that I have thought some of nature’s
journeymen had made men , and not made them
well , they imitated humanity so abominably .
with us , sir .
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
[139] ACT 3. SC. 2 question of the play be then to be considered .
That’s villainous and shows a most pitiful ambition
in the fool that uses it . Go make you ready .
How now , my lord , will the King hear this piece of
work ?
Will you two help to hasten them ?
As e’er my conversation coped withal .
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
flattered ?
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 sealed 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 blessed are those
Whose blood and judgment are so well
commeddled
[141] ACT 3. SC. 2 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 tonight before the King .
One scene of it comes near the circumstance
Which I have told thee of my father’s death .
I prithee , when thou seest that act afoot ,
Even with the very comment of thy soul
Observe my uncle . If his occulted guilt
Do not itself unkennel in one speech ,
It is a damnèd ghost that we have seen ,
And my imaginations are as foul
As Vulcan’s stithy . Give him heedful note ,
For I mine eyes will rivet to his face ,
And , after , we will both our judgments join
In censure of his seeming .
If he steal aught the whilst this play is playing
And ’scape detecting , I will pay the theft .
Get you a place .
Polonius , Ophelia , Rosencrantz , Guildenstern , and other
Lords attendant with the King’s guard carrying
torches .
eat the air , promise-crammed . You cannot feed
capons so .
words are not mine .
played once i’ th’ university , you say ?
[143]ACT 3. SC. 2
good actor .
Capitol . Brutus killed me .
calf there . — Be the players ready ?
patience .
attractive .
legs .
man do but be merry ? For look you how cheerfully
my mother looks , and my father died within ’s two
hours .
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 ,
[145] ACT 3. SC. 2 or else shall he suffer not thinking on , with the
hobby-horse , whose epitaph is ‘For oh , for oh , the
hobby-horse is forgot .’
embracing him and he her . She kneels and makes show of
protestation unto him . He takes her up and declines his
head upon her neck . He lies him down upon a bank of
flowers . She , seeing him asleep , leaves him . Anon
comes in another man , takes off his crown , kisses it , pours
poison in the sleeper’s ears , and leaves him . The Queen
returns , finds the King dead , makes passionate action . The
poisoner with some three or four come in again , seem to
condole with her . The dead body is carried away . The
poisoner woos the Queen with gifts . She seems harsh
awhile but in the end accepts his love .
mischief .
play .
cannot keep counsel ; they’ll tell all .
not you ashamed to show , he’ll not shame to tell you
what it means .
play .
For us and for our tragedy ,
Here stooping to your clemency ,
We beg your hearing patiently .
[147]ACT 3. SC. 2
Neptune’s salt wash and Tellus’ orbèd ground ,
And thirty dozen moons with borrowed sheen
About the world have times twelve thirties been
Since love our hearts and Hymen did our hands
Unite commutual in most sacred bands .
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 fear too much , even as they love ,
And women’s fear and love hold quantity ,
In neither aught , or in extremity .
Now what my love is , proof hath made you know ,
And , as my love is sized , my fear is so :
Where love is great , the littlest doubts are fear ;
Where little fears grow great , great love grows there .
My operant powers their functions leave to do .
And thou shalt live in this fair world behind ,
Honored , beloved ; and haply one as kind
For husband shalt thou —
Such love must needs be treason in my breast .
In second husband let me be accurst .
None wed the second but who killed the first .
[149]ACT 3. SC. 2
Are base respects of thrift , but none of love .
A second time I kill my husband dead
When second husband kisses me in bed .
But what we do determine oft we break .
Purpose is but the slave to memory ,
Of violent birth , but poor validity ,
Which now , the fruit unripe , sticks on the tree
But fall unshaken when they mellow be .
Most necessary ’tis that we 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 favorite flies ;
The poor , advanced , makes friends of enemies .
And hitherto doth love on fortune tend ,
For who not needs shall never lack a friend ,
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 .
[151]ACT 3. SC. 2
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 .
My spirits grow dull , and fain I would beguile
The tedious day with sleep .
And never come mischance between us twain .
offense in ’t ?
offense i’ th’ world .
This play is the image of a murder done in Vienna .
Gonzago is the duke’s name , his wife Baptista . You
shall see anon . ’Tis a knavish piece of work , but
what of that ? Your Majesty and we that have free
souls , it touches us not . Let the galled jade wince ;
our withers are unwrung .
This is one Lucianus , nephew to the king .
[153]ACT 3. SC. 2
if I could see the puppets dallying .
edge .
murderer . Pox , leave thy damnable faces and
begin . Come , the croaking raven doth bellow for
revenge .
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 .
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 .
Why , let the strucken deer go weep ,
The hart ungallèd play .
For some must watch , while some must sleep :
Thus runs the world away .
[155] ACT 3. SC. 2 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 ?
For thou dost know , O Damon dear ,
This realm dismantled was
Of Jove himself , and now reigns here
A very very — pajock .
a thousand pound . Didst perceive ?
recorders !
For if the King like not the comedy ,
Why , then , belike he likes it not , perdy .
Come , some music !
with you .
distempered .
to signify this to the doctor , for for me to put him to
his purgation would perhaps plunge him into more
choler .
[157]ACT 3. SC. 2
some frame and start not so wildly from my
affair .
affliction of spirit , hath sent me to you .
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 .
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 —
struck her into amazement and admiration .
But is there no sequel at the heels of this
mother’s admiration ? Impart .
closet ere you go to bed .
Have you any further trade with us ?
distemper ? You do surely bar the door upon your
own liberty if you deny your griefs to your friend .
voice of the King himself for your succession in
Denmark ?
[159]ACT 3. SC. 2
proverb is something musty .
O , the recorders ! Let me see one . He takes a
recorder and turns to Guildenstern . To withdraw
with you : why do you go about to recover the wind
of me , as if you would drive me into a toil ?
love is too unmannerly .
upon this pipe ?
with your fingers and thumb , give it breath with
your mouth , and it will discourse most eloquent
music . Look you , these are the stops .
utt’rance of harmony . I have not the skill .
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 .
God bless you , sir .
[161]ACT 3. SC. 2
and presently .
shape of a camel ?
come by and by .
friends .
’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 .
[163]ACT 3. SC. 3
Scene 3
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 ’s as doth hourly grow
Out of his brows .
Most holy and religious fear it is
To keep those many many bodies safe
That live and feed upon your Majesty .
With all the strength and armor of the mind
To keep itself from noyance , but much more
That spirit upon whose weal depends and rests
The lives of many . The cess of majesty
Dies not alone , but like a gulf doth draw
What’s near it with it ; or it is a massy wheel
Fixed on the summit of the highest mount ,
To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things
Are mortised and adjoined , which , when it falls ,
Each small annexment , petty consequence ,
Attends the boist’rous ruin . Never alone
Did the king sigh , but with a general groan .
For we will fetters put about this fear ,
Which now goes too free-footed .
[165]ACT 3. SC. 3
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 .
O , my offense 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 cursèd hand
Were thicker than itself with brother’s blood ?
Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens
To wash it white as snow ? Whereto serves mercy
But to confront the visage of offense ?
And what’s in prayer but this twofold force ,
To be forestallèd ere we come to fall ,
Or pardoned being down ? Then I’ll look up .
My fault is past . But , O , what form of prayer
Can serve my turn ? ‘Forgive me my foul murder’ ?
That cannot be , since I am still possessed
Of those effects for which I did the murder :
My crown , mine own ambition , and my queen .
May one be pardoned and retain th’ offense ?
In the corrupted currents of this world ,
Offense’s gilded hand may shove by justice ,
[167] ACT 3. SC. 3 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 compelled ,
Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults ,
To give in evidence . What then ? What rests ?
Try what repentance can . What can it not ?
Yet what can it , when one cannot repent ?
O wretched state ! O bosom black as death !
O limèd soul , that , struggling to be free ,
Art more engaged ! Help , angels ! Make assay .
Bow , stubborn knees , and heart with strings of steel
Be soft as sinews of the newborn babe .
All may be well .
And now I’ll do ’t .
And so he goes to heaven ,
And so am I revenged . That would be scanned :
A villain kills my father , and for that ,
I , his sole son , do this same villain send
To heaven .
Why , this is hire and salary , not revenge .
He took my father grossly , full of bread ,
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 seasoned for his passage ?
No .
Up sword , and know thou a more horrid hent .
When he is drunk asleep , or in his rage ,
[169] ACT 3. SC. 4 Or in th’ incestuous pleasure of his bed ,
At game , a-swearing , or about some act
That has no relish of salvation in ’t —
Then trip him , that his heels may kick at heaven ,
And that his soul may be as damned and black
As hell , whereto it goes . My mother stays .
This physic but prolongs thy sickly days .
Words without thoughts never to heaven go .
Scene 4
Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear
with
And that your Grace hath screened and stood
between
Much heat and him . I’ll silence me even here .
Pray you , be round with him .
I hear him coming .
[171]ACT 3. SC. 4
You are the Queen , your husband’s brother’s wife ,
And ( would it were not so ) you are my mother .
You go not till I set you up a glass
Where you may see the inmost part of you .
Help , ho !
through the arras .
As kill a king and marry with his brother .
[173]ACT 3. SC. 4
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 .
you down ,
And let me wring your heart ; for so I shall
If it be made of penetrable stuff ,
If damnèd custom have not brazed it so
That it be proof and bulwark against sense .
In noise so rude against me ?
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 does glow
O’er this solidity and compound mass
With heated visage , as against the doom ,
Is thought-sick at the act .
That roars so loud and thunders in the index ?
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 ,
[175] ACT 3. SC. 4 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 mildewed 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 heyday 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 apoplexed ; for madness would not err ,
Nor sense to ecstasy was ne’er so thralled ,
But it reserved some quantity of choice
To serve in such a difference . What devil was ’t
That thus hath cozened you at hoodman-blind ?
Eyes without feeling , feeling without sight ,
Ears without hands or eyes , smelling sans all ,
Or but a sickly part of one true 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 ardor gives the charge ,
Since frost itself as actively doth burn ,
And reason panders will .
Thou turn’st my eyes into my very soul ,
And there I see such black and grainèd spots
As will not leave their tinct .
In the rank sweat of an enseamèd bed ,
Stewed in corruption , honeying and making love
Over the nasty sty !
[177]ACT 3. SC. 4
These words like daggers enter in my ears .
No more , sweet Hamlet !
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 —
Save me and hover o’er me with your wings ,
You heavenly guards ! — What would your gracious
figure ?
That , lapsed in time and passion , lets go by
Th’ important acting of your dread command ?
O , say !
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 .
That you do bend your eye on vacancy
And with th’ incorporal air do hold discourse ?
Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep ,
And , as the sleeping soldiers in th’ alarm ,
Your bedded hair , like life in excrements ,
Start up and stand an end . O gentle son ,
[179] ACT 3. SC. 4 Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper
Sprinkle cool patience ! Whereon do you look ?
His form and cause conjoined , preaching to stones ,
Would make them capable .
look upon me ,
Lest with this piteous action you convert
My stern effects . Then what I have to do
Will want true color — tears perchance for blood .
My father , in his habit as he lived !
Look where he goes even now out at the portal !
This bodiless creation ecstasy
Is very cunning in .
My pulse as yours doth temperately keep time
And makes as healthful music . It is not madness
That I have uttered . Bring me to the test ,
And I the matter will reword , which madness
Would gambol from . Mother , for love of grace ,
Lay not that flattering unction to your soul
That not your trespass but my madness speaks .
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place ,
Whiles rank corruption , mining all within ,
Infects unseen . Confess yourself to heaven ,
[181] ACT 3. SC. 4 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 .
And live the purer with the other half !
Good night . But go not to my uncle’s bed .
Assume a virtue if you have it not .
That monster , custom , who all sense doth eat ,
Of habits devil , is angel yet in this ,
That to the use of actions fair and good
He likewise gives a frock or livery
That aptly is put on . Refrain tonight ,
And that shall lend a kind of easiness
To the next abstinence , the next more easy ;
For use almost can change the stamp of nature
And either [...] the devil or throw him out
With wondrous potency . Once more , good night ,
And , when you are desirous to be blest ,
I’ll blessing beg of you . For this same lord
I do repent ; but heaven hath pleased it so
To punish me with this and this with me ,
That I must be their scourge and minister .
I will bestow him and will answer well
The death I gave him . So , again , good night .
I must be cruel only to be kind .
This bad begins , and worse remains behind .
One word more , good lady .
[183]ACT 3. SC. 4
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 damned fingers ,
Make you to ravel all this matter out
That I essentially am not in madness ,
But mad in craft . ’Twere good you let him know ,
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 .
And breath of life , I have no life to breathe
What thou hast said to me .
I had forgot ! ’Tis so concluded on .
Whom I will trust as I will adders fanged ,
They bear the mandate ; they must sweep my way
And marshal me to knavery . Let it work ,
For ’tis the sport to have the enginer
Hoist with his own petard ; and ’t shall go 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 .
[185] ACT 3. SC. 4 I’ll lug the guts into the neighbor room .
Mother , good night indeed . This counselor
Is now most still , most secret , and most grave ,
Who was in life a foolish prating knave . —
Come , sir , to draw toward an end with you . —
Good night , mother .
[189]
ACT 4
Scene 1
Guildenstern .
You must translate ; ’tis fit we understand them .
Where is your son ?
Ah , mine own lord , what have I seen tonight !
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 .
It had been so with us , had we been there .
His liberty is full of threats to all —
To you yourself , to us , to everyone .
Alas , how shall this bloody deed be answered ?
It will be laid to us , whose providence
[191] ACT 4. SC. 1 Should have kept short , restrained , 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 ?
O’er whom his very madness , like some ore
Among a mineral of metals base ,
Shows itself pure : he weeps for what is done .
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 !
Friends both , go join you with some further aid .
Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain ,
And from his mother’s closet hath he dragged him .
Go seek him out , speak fair , and bring the body
Into the chapel . I pray you , haste in this .
Come , Gertrude , we’ll call up our wisest friends
And let them know both what we mean to do
And what’s untimely done . [...]
Whose whisper o’er the world’s diameter ,
As level as the cannon to his blank
Transports his poisoned shot , may miss our name
And hit the woundless air . O , come away !
My soul is full of discord and dismay .
[193]ACT 4. SC. 2
Scene 2
O , here they come .
And bear it to the chapel .
own . Besides , to be demanded of a sponge , what
replication should be made by the son of a king ?
his rewards , his authorities . But such officers do the
King best service in the end . He keeps them like an
ape an apple 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 .
foolish ear .
body is and go with us to the King .
with the body . The King is a thing —
[195]ACT 4. SC. 3
all after !
Scene 3
How dangerous is it that this man goes loose !
Yet must not we put the strong law on him .
He’s loved of the distracted multitude ,
Who like not in their judgment , but their eyes ;
And , where ’tis so , th’ offender’s scourge is weighed ,
But never the offense . To bear all smooth and even ,
This sudden sending him away must seem
Deliberate pause . Diseases desperate grown
By desperate appliance are relieved
Or not at all .
How now , what hath befallen ?
We cannot get from him .
[197]ACT 4. SC. 3
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 .
of a king and eat of the fish that hath fed of that
worm .
progress through the guts of a beggar .
find him not there , seek him i’ th’ other
place yourself . But if , indeed , you find him not
within this month , you shall nose him as you go up
the stairs into the lobby .
( 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 ,
Th’ associates tend , and everything is bent
For England .
[199]ACT 4. SC. 4
England .
Farewell , dear mother .
Man and wife is one flesh , and so , my mother . —
Come , for England .
Delay it not . I’ll have him hence tonight .
Away , for everything is sealed and done
That else leans on th’ affair . Pray you , make haste .
And England , if my love thou hold’st at aught
( As my great power thereof may give thee sense ,
Since yet thy cicatrice looks raw and red
After the Danish sword , and thy free awe
Pays homage to us ) , thou mayst not coldly set
Our sovereign process , which imports at full ,
By letters congruing to that effect ,
The present death of Hamlet . Do it , England ,
For like the hectic in my blood he rages ,
And thou must cure me . Till I know ’tis done ,
Howe’er my haps , my joys will ne’er begin .
Scene 4
Tell him that by his license Fortinbras
Craves the conveyance of a promised march
Over his kingdom . You know the rendezvous .
[201] ACT 4. SC. 4 If that his Majesty would aught with us ,
We shall express our duty in his eye ;
And let him know so .
Or for some frontier ?
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 .
Will not debate the question of this straw .
This is th’ impostume of much wealth and peace ,
That inward breaks and shows no cause without
Why the man dies . — I humbly thank you , sir .
[203]ACT 4. SC. 4
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 unused . Now whether it be
Bestial oblivion or some craven scruple
Of thinking too precisely on th’ event
( A thought which , quartered , 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 puffed
Makes mouths at the invisible event ,
Exposing what is mortal and unsure
To all that fortune , death , and danger dare ,
Even for an eggshell . Rightly to be great
Is not to stir without great argument ,
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
When honor’s at the stake . How stand I , then ,
That have a father killed , a mother stained ,
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 ,
[205] ACT 4. SC. 5 Which is not tomb enough and continent
To hide the slain ? O , from this time forth
My thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth !
Scene 5
Indeed distract ; her mood will needs be pitied .
There’s tricks i’ th’ 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 unshapèd 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 .
strew
Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds .
Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss .
So full of artless jealousy is guilt ,
It spills itself in fearing to be spilt .
[207]ACT 4. SC. 5
How should I your true love know
From another one ?
By his cockle hat and staff
And his sandal shoon .
He is dead and gone ;
At his head a grass-green turf ,
At his heels a stone .
Oh , ho !
Larded all with sweet flowers ;
Which bewept to the ground did not go
With true-love showers .
baker’s daughter . Lord , we know what we are but
know not what we may be . God be at your table .
they ask you what it means , say you this :
[209] ACT 4. SC. 5
All in the morning betime ,
And I a maid at your window ,
To be your Valentine .
Then up he rose and donned his clothes
And dupped the chamber door ,
Let in the maid , that out a maid
Never departed more .
Alack and fie for shame ,
Young men will do ’t , if they come to ’t ;
By Cock , they are to blame .
Quoth she ‘Before you tumbled me ,
You promised me to wed .’
He answers :
‘So would I ’a done , by yonder sun ,
An thou hadst not come to my bed .’
but I cannot choose but weep to think they would
lay him i’ th’ cold ground . My brother shall know of
it . And so I thank you for your good counsel . Come ,
my coach ! Good night , ladies , good night , sweet
ladies , good night , good night .
O , this is the poison of deep grief . It springs
All from her father’s death , and now behold !
O Gertrude , Gertrude ,
When sorrows come , they come not single spies ,
But in battalions : first , her father slain ;
Next , your son gone , and he most violent author
Of his own just remove ; the people muddied ,
[211] ACT 4. SC. 5 Thick , and unwholesome in their thoughts and
whispers
For good Polonius’ death , and we have done but
greenly
In hugger-mugger to inter him ; poor Ophelia
Divided from herself and her fair judgment ,
Without the which we are pictures or mere beasts ;
Last , and as much containing as all these ,
Her brother is in secret come from France ,
Feeds on his wonder , keeps himself in clouds ,
And wants not buzzers to infect his ear
With pestilent speeches of his father’s death ,
Wherein necessity , of matter beggared ,
Will nothing stick our person to arraign
In ear and ear . O , my dear Gertrude , this ,
Like to a murd’ring piece , in many places
Gives me superfluous death .
Where is my Switzers ? Let them guard the door .
What is the matter ?
The ocean , overpeering of his list ,
Eats not the flats with more impiteous haste
Than young Laertes , in a riotous head ,
O’erbears your officers . The rabble call him ‘lord ,’
And , as the world were now but to begin ,
Antiquity forgot , custom not known ,
The ratifiers and props of every word ,
They cry ‘Choose we , Laertes shall be king !’
Caps , hands , and tongues applaud it to the clouds ,
‘Laertes shall be king ! Laertes king !’
[213]ACT 4. SC. 5
O , this is counter , you false Danish dogs !
vile king ,
Give me my father !
bastard ,
Cries ‘cuckold’ to my father , brands the harlot
Even here between the chaste unsmirchèd brow
Of my true mother .
That thy rebellion looks so giant-like ? —
Let him go , Gertrude . Do not fear our person .
There’s such divinity doth hedge a king
That treason can but peep to what it would ,
Acts little of his will . — Tell me , Laertes ,
Why thou art thus incensed . — Let him go ,
Gertrude . —
Speak , man .
[215]ACT 4. SC. 5
To hell , allegiance ! Vows , to the blackest devil !
Conscience and grace , to the profoundest pit !
I dare damnation . To this point I stand ,
That both the worlds I give to negligence ,
Let come what comes , only I’ll be revenged
Most throughly for my father .
And for my means , I’ll husband them so well
They shall go far with little .
If you desire to know the certainty
Of your dear father , is ’t writ in your revenge
That , swoopstake , you will draw both friend and
foe ,
Winner and loser ?
And , like the kind life-rend’ring pelican ,
Repast them with my blood .
Like a good child and a true gentleman .
That I am guiltless of your father’s death
And am most sensibly in grief for it ,
It shall as level to your judgment ’pear
As day does to your eye .
O heat , dry up my brains ! Tears seven times salt
Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye !
[217] ACT 4. SC. 5 By heaven , thy madness shall be paid with weight
Till our scale turn the beam ! O rose of May ,
Dear maid , kind sister , sweet Ophelia !
O heavens , is ’t possible a young maid’s wits
Should be as mortal as an old man’s life ?
Nature is fine in love , and , where ’tis fine ,
It sends some precious instance of itself
After the thing it loves .
They bore him barefaced on the bier ,
Hey non nonny , nonny , hey nonny ,
And in his grave rained many a tear .
Fare you well , my dove .
It could not move thus .
‘Call him a-down-a .’ — O , how the wheel becomes
it ! It is the false steward that stole his master’s
daughter .
Pray you , love , remember . And there is pansies ,
that’s for thoughts .
fitted .
There’s rue for you , and here’s some for me ; we
may call it herb of grace o’ Sundays . You must wear
your rue with a difference . There’s a daisy . I would
give you some violets , but they withered all when
my father died . They say he made a good end .
She turns to favor and to prettiness .
[219]ACT 4. SC. 5
And will he not come again ?
And will he not come again ?
No , no , he is dead .
Go to thy deathbed .
He never will come again .
His beard was as white as snow ,
All flaxen was his poll .
He is gone , he is gone ,
And we cast away moan .
God ’a mercy on his soul .
And of all Christians’ souls , I pray God . God be wi’
you .
Or you deny me right . Go but apart ,
Make choice of whom your wisest friends you will ,
And they shall hear and judge ’twixt you and me .
If by direct or by collateral hand
They find us touched , we will our kingdom give ,
Our crown , our life , and all that we call ours ,
To you in satisfaction ; but if not ,
Be you content to lend your patience to us ,
And we shall jointly labor with your soul
To give it due content .
His means of death , his obscure funeral
( No trophy , sword , nor hatchment o’er his bones ,
No noble rite nor formal ostentation )
Cry to be heard , as ’twere from heaven to earth ,
That I must call ’t in question .
And where th’ offense is , let the great ax fall .
I pray you , go with me .
[221]ACT 4. SC. 6
Scene 6
letters for you .
know from what part of the world I should be
greeted , if not from Lord Hamlet .
for you , sir . It came from th’ ambassador that was
bound for England — if your name be Horatio , as I
am let to know it is .
overlooked this , give these fellows some means to the
King . They have letters for him . Ere we were two days
old at sea , a pirate of very warlike appointment gave
us chase . Finding ourselves too slow of sail , we put on
a compelled valor , and in the grapple I boarded them .
On the instant , they got clear of our ship ; so I alone
became their prisoner . They have dealt with me like
thieves of mercy , but they knew what they did : I am to
do a good turn for them . Let the King have the letters
I have sent , and repair thou to me with as much speed
as thou wouldst fly death . I have words to speak in
thine ear will make thee dumb ; yet are they much too
light for the bore of the matter . These good fellows
will bring thee where I am . Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
hold their course for England ; of them I have
much to tell thee . Farewell .
He that thou knowest thine ,
Hamlet .
[223] ACT 4. SC. 7 Come , I will give you way for these your letters
And do ’t the speedier that you may direct me
To him from whom you brought them .
Scene 7
And you must put me in your heart for friend ,
Sith you have heard , and with a knowing ear ,
That he which hath your noble father slain
Pursued my life .
Why you proceeded not against these feats ,
So criminal and so capital in nature ,
As by your safety , greatness , wisdom , all things else ,
You mainly were stirred up .
Which may to you perhaps seem much unsinewed ,
But yet to me they’re strong . The Queen his mother
Lives almost by his looks , and for myself
( My virtue or my plague , be it either which ) ,
She is so conjunctive to my life and soul
That , as the star moves not but in his sphere ,
I could not but by her . The other motive
Why to a public count I might not go
Is the great love the general gender bear him ,
Who , dipping all his faults in their affection ,
Work like the spring that turneth wood to stone ,
Convert his gyves to graces , so that my arrows ,
Too slightly timbered for so loud a wind ,
Would have reverted to my bow again ,
But not where I have aimed them .
[225] ACT 4. SC. 7 A sister driven into desp’rate terms ,
Whose worth , if praises may go back again ,
Stood challenger on mount of all the age
For her perfections . But my revenge will come .
That we are made of stuff so flat and dull
That we can let our beard be shook with danger
And think it pastime . You shortly shall hear more .
I loved your father , and we love ourself ,
And that , I hope , will teach you to imagine —
How now ? What news ?
Hamlet .
These to your Majesty , this to the Queen .
They were given me by Claudio . He received them
Of him that brought them .
them . —
Leave us .
naked on your kingdom . Tomorrow shall I beg leave to
see your kingly eyes , when I shall ( first asking your
pardon ) thereunto recount the occasion of my sudden
and more strange return . Hamlet .
What should this mean ? Are all the rest come back ?
Or is it some abuse and no such thing ?
And in a postscript here , he says ‘alone .’
Can you advise me ?
[227]ACT 4. SC. 7
It warms the very sickness in my heart
That I shall live and tell him to his teeth
‘Thus didst thou .’
( As how should it be so ? how otherwise ? ) ,
Will you be ruled by me ?
So you will not o’errule me to a peace .
As checking at his voyage , and that he means
No more to undertake it , I will work him
To an exploit , now ripe in my device ,
Under the which he shall not choose but fall ;
And for his death no wind of blame shall breathe ,
But even his mother shall uncharge the practice
And call it accident .
The rather if you could devise it so
That I might be the organ .
You have been talked of since your travel much ,
And that in Hamlet’s hearing , for a quality
Wherein they say you shine . Your sum of parts
Did not together pluck such envy from him
As did that one , and that , in my regard ,
Of the unworthiest siege .
Yet needful too , for youth no less becomes
The light and careless livery that it wears
Than settled age his sables and his weeds ,
Importing health and graveness . Two months since
[229] ACT 4. SC. 7 Here was a gentleman of Normandy .
I have seen myself , and served against , the French ,
And they can well on horseback , but this gallant
Had witchcraft in ’t . He grew unto his seat ,
And to such wondrous doing brought his horse
As had he been encorpsed and demi-natured
With the brave beast . So far he topped my thought
That I in forgery of shapes and tricks
Come short of what he did .
And gem of all the nation .
And gave you such a masterly report
For art and exercise in your defense ,
And for your rapier most especial ,
That he cried out ’twould be a sight indeed
If one could match you . The ’scrimers of their
nation
He swore had neither motion , guard , nor eye ,
If you opposed them . Sir , this report of his
Did Hamlet so envenom with his envy
That he could nothing do but wish and beg
Your sudden coming-o’er , to play with you .
Now out of this —
Or are you like the painting of a sorrow ,
A face without a heart ?
[231]ACT 4. SC. 7
But that I know love is begun by time
And that I see , in passages of proof ,
Time qualifies the spark and fire of it .
There lives within the very flame of love
A kind of wick or snuff that will abate it ,
And nothing is at a like goodness still ;
For goodness , growing to a pleurisy ,
Dies in his own too-much . That we would do
We should do when we would ; for this ‘would’
changes
And hath abatements and delays as many
As there are tongues , are hands , are accidents ;
And then this ‘should’ is like a spendthrift sigh ,
That hurts by easing . But to the quick of th’ ulcer :
Hamlet comes back ; what would you undertake
To show yourself indeed your father’s son
More than in words ?
Revenge should have no bounds . But , good Laertes ,
Will you do this ? Keep close within your chamber .
Hamlet , returned , shall know you are come home .
We’ll put on those shall praise your excellence
And set a double varnish on the fame
The Frenchman gave you ; bring you , in fine ,
together
And wager on your heads . He , being remiss ,
Most generous , and free from all contriving ,
Will not peruse the foils , so that with ease ,
Or with a little shuffling , you may choose
A sword unbated , and in a pass of practice
Requite him for your father .
[233]ACT 4. SC. 7
And for that purpose I’ll anoint my sword .
I bought an unction of a mountebank
So mortal that , but dip a knife in it ,
Where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare ,
Collected from all simples that have virtue
Under the moon , can save the thing from death
That is but scratched withal . I’ll touch my point
With this contagion , that , if I gall him slightly ,
It may be death .
Weigh what convenience both of time and means
May fit us to our shape . If this should fail ,
And that our drift look through our bad
performance ,
’Twere better not assayed . Therefore this project
Should have a back or second that might hold
If this did blast in proof . Soft , let me see .
We’ll make a solemn wager on your cunnings —
I ha ’t !
When in your motion you are hot and dry
( As make your bouts more violent to that end )
And that he calls for drink , I’ll have prepared
him
A chalice for the nonce , whereon but sipping ,
If he by chance escape your venomed stuck ,
Our purpose may hold there . — But stay , what
noise ?
So fast they follow . Your sister’s drowned , Laertes .
[235] ACT 4. SC. 7 That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream .
Therewith fantastic garlands did she make
Of crowflowers , nettles , daisies , and long purples ,
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name ,
But our cold maids do ‘dead men’s fingers’ call
them .
There on the pendant boughs her coronet weeds
Clamb’ring to hang , an envious sliver broke ,
When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook . Her clothes spread wide ,
And mermaid-like awhile they bore her up ,
Which time she chanted snatches of old lauds ,
As one incapable of her own distress
Or like a creature native and endued
Unto that element . But long it could not be
Till that her garments , heavy with their drink ,
Pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death .
And therefore I forbid my tears . But yet
It is our trick ; nature her custom holds ,
Let shame say what it will . When these are gone ,
The woman will be out . — Adieu , my lord .
I have a speech o’ fire that fain would blaze ,
But that this folly drowns it .
How much I had to do to calm his rage !
Now fear I this will give it start again .
Therefore , let’s follow .
[239]
ACT 5
Scene 1
when she willfully seeks her own salvation ?
straight . The crowner hath sat on her and finds it
Christian burial .
herself in her own defense ?
else . For here lies the point : if I drown myself
wittingly , it argues an act , and an act hath three
branches — it is to act , to do , to perform . Argal , she
drowned herself wittingly .
good . Here stands the man ; good . If the man go to
this water and drown himself , it is ( will he , nill he )
he goes ; mark you that . But if the water come to him
and drown him , he drowns not himself . Argal , he
that is not guilty of his own death shortens not his
own life .
[241]ACT 5. SC. 1
a gentlewoman , she should have been buried out o’
Christian burial .
pity that great folk should have count’nance in this
world to drown or hang themselves more than
their even-Christian . Come , my spade . There is no
ancient gentlemen but gard’ners , ditchers , and
grave-makers . They hold up Adam’s profession .
understand the scripture ? The scripture says Adam
digged . Could he dig without arms ? I’ll put another
question to thee . If thou answerest me not to the
purpose , confess thyself —
either the mason , the shipwright , or the carpenter ?
thousand tenants .
gallows does well . But how does it well ? It does
well to those that do ill . Now , thou dost ill to say the
gallows is built stronger than the church . Argal , the
gallows may do well to thee . To ’t again , come .
or a carpenter ?’
[243] ACT 5. SC. 1 for your dull ass will not mend his pace with
beating . And , when you are asked this question
next , say ‘a grave-maker .’ The houses he makes
lasts till doomsday . Go , get thee in , and fetch me a
stoup of liquor .
In youth when I did love , did love ,
Methought it was very sweet
To contract — O — the time for — a — my behove ,
O , methought there — a — was nothing — a — meet .
sings in grave-making .
easiness .
hath the daintier sense .
But age with his stealing steps
Hath clawed me in his clutch ,
And hath shipped me into the land ,
As if I had never been such .
once . How the knave jowls it to the ground as if
’twere Cain’s jawbone , that did the first murder !
This might be the pate of a politician which this ass
now o’erreaches , one that would circumvent God ,
might it not ?
morrow , sweet lord ! How dost thou , sweet lord ?’
This might be my Lord Such-a-one that praised my
Lord Such-a-one’s horse when he went to beg it ,
might it not ?
[245]ACT 5. SC. 1
chapless and knocked about the mazard with a
sexton’s spade . Here’s fine revolution , an we had
the trick to see ’t . Did these bones cost no more the
breeding but to play at loggets with them ? Mine
ache to think on ’t .
A pickax and a spade , a spade ,
For and a shrouding sheet ,
O , a pit of clay for to be made
For such a guest is meet .
skull of a lawyer ? Where be his quiddities now , his
quillities , his cases , his tenures , and his tricks ? Why
does he suffer this mad knave now to knock him
about the sconce with a dirty shovel and will not tell
him of his action of battery ? Hum , this fellow might
be in ’s time a great buyer of land , with his statutes ,
his recognizances , his fines , his double vouchers ,
his recoveries . Is this the fine of his fines and the
recovery of his recoveries , to have his fine pate full
of fine dirt ? Will his vouchers vouch him no more
of his purchases , and double ones too , than the
length and breadth of a pair of indentures ? The very
conveyances of his lands will scarcely lie in this box ,
and must th’ inheritor himself have no more , ha ?
assurance in that . I will speak to this fellow . —
Whose grave’s this , sirrah ?
For such a guest is meet .
[247]ACT 5. SC. 1
not yours . For my part , I do not lie in ’t , yet it is
mine .
’Tis for the dead , not for the quick ; therefore thou
liest .
from me to you .
her soul , she’s dead .
the card , or equivocation will undo us . By the
Lord , Horatio , this three years I have took note of
it : the age is grown so picked that the toe of the
peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier , he
galls his kibe . — How long hast thou been
grave-maker ?
that day that our last King Hamlet overcame
Fortinbras .
tell that . It was that very day that young Hamlet
was born — he that is mad , and sent into England .
recover his wits there . Or if he do not , ’tis no great
matter there .
the men are as mad as he .
[249]ACT 5. SC. 1
sexton here , man and boy , thirty years .
( as we have many pocky corses nowadays that will
scarce hold the laying in ) , he will last you some
eight year or nine year . A tanner will last you nine
year .
trade that he will keep out water a great while ; and
your water is a sore decayer of your whoreson dead
body . Here’s a skull now hath lien you i’ th’ earth
three-and-twenty years .
Whose do you think it was ?
He poured a flagon of Rhenish on my head once .
This same skull , sir , was , sir , Yorick’s skull , the
King’s jester .
Yorick ! I knew him , Horatio — a fellow of infinite
jest , of most excellent fancy . He hath bore me on his
back a thousand times , and now how abhorred in
my imagination it is ! My gorge rises at it . Here hung
those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft .
Where be your gibes now ? your gambols ? your
[251] ACT 5. SC. 1 songs ? your flashes of merriment that were wont to
set the table on a roar ? Not one now to mock your
own grinning ? Quite chapfallen ? Now get you to my
lady’s chamber , and tell her , let her paint an inch
thick , to this favor she must come . Make her laugh
at that . — Prithee , Horatio , tell me one thing .
fashion i’ th’ earth ?
Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of
Alexander till he find it stopping a bunghole ?
so .
with modesty enough and likelihood to lead it , as
thus : Alexander died , Alexander was buried , Alexander
returneth to dust ; the dust is earth ; of earth
we make loam ; and why of that loam whereto he
was converted might they not stop a beer barrel ?
Imperious Caesar , dead and turned to clay ,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away .
O , that that earth which kept the world in awe
Should patch a wall t’ expel the winter’s flaw !
corpse of Ophelia , with a Doctor of Divinity .
But soft , but soft awhile ! Here comes the King ,
The Queen , the courtiers . Who is this they follow ?
And with such maimèd rites ? This doth betoken
The corse they follow did with desp’rate hand
Fordo its own life . ’Twas of some estate .
Couch we awhile and mark .
[253]ACT 5. SC. 1
As we have warranty . Her death was doubtful ,
And , but that great command o’ersways the order ,
She should in ground unsanctified been lodged
Till the last trumpet . For charitable prayers
Shards , flints , and pebbles should be thrown on
her .
Yet here she is allowed her virgin crants ,
Her maiden strewments , and the bringing home
Of bell and burial .
We should profane the service of the dead
To sing a requiem and such rest to her
As to peace-parted souls .
And from her fair and unpolluted flesh
May violets spring ! I tell thee , churlish priest ,
A minist’ring angel shall my sister be
When thou liest howling .
I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet’s wife ;
I thought thy bride-bed to have decked , sweet maid ,
And not have strewed thy grave .
Fall ten times treble on that cursèd head
Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense
Deprived thee of ! — Hold off the earth awhile ,
Till I have caught her once more in mine arms .
[255] ACT 5. SC. 1 Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead ,
Till of this flat a mountain you have made
T’ o’ertop old Pelion or the skyish head
Of blue Olympus .
Bears such an emphasis , whose phrase of sorrow
Conjures the wand’ring stars and makes them stand
Like wonder-wounded hearers ? This is I ,
Hamlet the Dane .
I prithee take thy fingers from my throat ,
For though I am not splenitive and rash ,
Yet have I in me something dangerous ,
Which let thy wisdom fear . Hold off thy hand .
Until my eyelids will no longer wag !
Could not with all their quantity of love
Make up my sum . What wilt thou do for her ?
Woo’t weep , woo’t fight , woo’t fast , woo’t tear
thyself ,
Woo’t drink up eisel , eat a crocodile ?
[257] ACT 5. SC. 1 I’ll do ’t . Dost thou come here to whine ?
To outface me with leaping in her grave ?
Be buried quick with her , and so will I .
And if thou prate of mountains , let them throw
Millions of acres on us , till our ground ,
Singeing his pate against the burning zone ,
Make Ossa like a wart . Nay , an thou ’lt mouth ,
I’ll rant as well as thou .
And thus awhile the fit will work on him .
Anon , as patient as the female dove
When that her golden couplets are disclosed ,
His silence will sit drooping .
What is the reason that you use me thus ?
I loved you ever . But it is no matter .
Let Hercules himself do what he may ,
The cat will mew , and dog will have his day .
night’s speech .
We’ll put the matter to the present push . —
Good Gertrude , set some watch over your son . —
This grave shall have a living monument .
An hour of quiet thereby shall we see .
Till then in patience our proceeding be .
[259]ACT 5. SC. 2
Scene 2
You do remember all the circumstance ?
That would not let me sleep . Methought I lay
Worse than the mutines in the bilboes . Rashly —
And praised be rashness for it ; let us know ,
Our indiscretion sometime serves us well
When our deep plots do pall ; and that should learn
us
There’s a divinity that shapes our ends ,
Rough-hew them how we will —
certain .
My sea-gown scarfed about me , in the dark
Groped I to find out them ; had my desire ,
Fingered their packet , and in fine withdrew
To mine own room again , making so bold
( My fears forgetting manners ) to unfold
Their grand commission ; where I found , Horatio ,
A royal knavery — an exact command ,
Larded with many several sorts of reasons
Importing Denmark’s health and England’s too ,
With — ho ! — such bugs and goblins in my life ,
That on the supervise , no leisure bated ,
No , not to stay the grinding of the ax ,
My head should be struck off .
[261] ACT 5. SC. 2 But wilt thou hear now how I did proceed ?
Or I could make a prologue to my brains ,
They had begun the play . I sat me down ,
Devised a new commission , wrote it fair —
I once did hold it , as our statists do ,
A baseness to write fair , and labored much
How to forget that learning ; but , sir , now
It did me yeoman’s service . Wilt thou know
Th’ effect of what I wrote ?
As England was his faithful tributary ,
As love between them like the palm might flourish ,
As peace should still her wheaten garland wear
And stand a comma ’tween their amities ,
And many suchlike ases of great charge ,
That , on the view and knowing of these contents ,
Without debatement further , more or less ,
He should those bearers put to sudden death ,
Not shriving time allowed .
I had my father’s signet in my purse ,
Which was the model of that Danish seal ;
Folded the writ up in the form of th’ other ,
Subscribed it , gave ’t th’ impression , placed it
safely ,
The changeling never known . Now , the next day
Was our sea-fight ; and what to this was sequent
Thou knowest already .
[263]ACT 5. SC. 2
They are not near my conscience . Their defeat
Does by their own insinuation grow .
’Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes
Between the pass and fell incensèd points
Of mighty opposites .
He that hath killed my king and whored my mother ,
Popped in between th’ election and my hopes ,
Thrown out his angle for my proper life ,
And with such cozenage — is ’t not perfect
conscience
To quit him with this arm ? And is ’t not to be
damned
To let this canker of our nature come
In further evil ?
What is the issue of the business there .
And a man’s life’s no more than to say ‘one .’
But I am very sorry , good Horatio ,
That to Laertes I forgot myself ,
For by the image of my cause I see
The portraiture of his . I’ll court his favors .
But , sure , the bravery of his grief did put me
Into a tow’ring passion .
Denmark .
[265]ACT 5. SC. 2
Dost know this waterfly ?
for ’tis a vice to know him . He hath much
land , and fertile . Let a beast be lord of beasts and his
crib shall stand at the king’s mess . ’Tis a chough ,
but , as I say , spacious in the possession of dirt .
should impart a thing to you from his Majesty .
spirit . Put your bonnet to his right use : ’tis for the
head .
northerly .
my complexion .
’twere — I cannot tell how . My lord , his Majesty
bade me signify to you that he has laid a great wager
on your head . Sir , this is the matter —
Osric to put on his hat .
Sir , here is newly come to court Laertes — believe
me , an absolute gentleman , full of most excellent
differences , of very soft society and great showing .
Indeed , to speak feelingly of him , he is the card or
calendar of gentry , for you shall find in him the
continent of what part a gentleman would see .
you , though I know to divide him inventorially
would dozy th’ arithmetic of memory , and yet but
yaw neither , in respect of his quick sail . But , in the
[267] ACT 5. SC. 2 verity of extolment , I take him to be a soul of great
article , and his infusion of such dearth and rareness
as , to make true diction of him , his semblable is his
mirror , and who else would trace him , his umbrage ,
nothing more .
gentleman in our more rawer breath ?
in another
tongue ? You will to ’t , sir , really .
this gentleman ?
golden words
are spent .
would not much approve me . Well , sir ?
is —
with him in excellence . But to know a man well
were to know himself .
laid on him by them , in his meed he’s
unfellowed .
horses , against the which he has impawned , as I
take it , six French rapiers and poniards , with their
assigns , as girdle , hangers , and so . Three of the
carriages , in faith , are very dear to fancy , very
[269] ACT 5. SC. 2 responsive to the hilts , most delicate carriages , and
of very liberal conceit .
by the margent
ere you had done .
matter if we could carry a cannon by our sides . I
would it might be ‘hangers’ till then . But on . Six
Barbary horses against six French swords , their
assigns , and three liberal-conceited carriages —
that’s the French bet against the Danish . Why is this
all ‘impawned ,’ as you call it ?
passes between yourself and him , he shall not
exceed you three hits . He hath laid on twelve for
nine , and it would come to immediate trial if your
Lordship would vouchsafe the answer .
in trial .
Majesty , it is the breathing time of day with me . Let
the foils be brought , the gentleman willing , and the
King hold his purpose , I will win for him , an I can .
If not , I will gain nothing but my shame and the odd
hits .
nature will .
it himself . There are no tongues else for ’s
turn .
head .
[271]ACT 5. SC. 2
sucked it . Thus has he ( and many more of the same
breed that I know the drossy age dotes on ) only got
the tune of the time , and , out of an habit of
encounter , a kind of yeasty collection , which carries
them through and through the most fanned
and winnowed opinions ; and do but blow them to
their trial , the bubbles are out .
young Osric , who brings back to him that you
attend him in the hall . He sends to know if your
pleasure hold to play with Laertes , or that you will
take longer time .
the King’s pleasure . If his fitness speaks , mine is
ready now or whensoever , provided I be so able as
now .
entertainment to Laertes before you fall to play .
have been in continual practice . I shall win at the
odds ; but thou wouldst not think how ill all’s here
about my heart . But it is no matter .
gaingiving as would perhaps trouble a woman .
forestall their repair hither and say you are not fit .
special providence in the fall of a sparrow . If it be
now , ’tis not to come ; if it be not to come , it will be
[273] ACT 5. SC. 2 now ; if it be not now , yet it will come . The
readiness is all . Since no man of aught he leaves
knows , what is ’t to leave betimes ? Let be .
with cushions , King , Queen , Osric , and all the state ,
foils , daggers , flagons of wine , and Laertes .
But pardon ’t as you are a gentleman . This presence
knows ,
And you must needs have heard , how I am punished
With a sore distraction . What I have done
That might your nature , honor , and exception
Roughly awake , I here proclaim was madness .
Was ’t Hamlet wronged Laertes ? Never Hamlet .
If Hamlet from himself be ta’en away ,
And when he’s not himself does wrong Laertes ,
Then Hamlet does it not ; Hamlet denies it .
Who does it , then ? His madness . If ’t be so ,
Hamlet is of the faction that is wronged ;
His madness is poor Hamlet’s enemy .
Sir , in this audience
Let my disclaiming from a purposed evil
Free me so far in your most generous thoughts
That I have shot my arrow o’er the house
And hurt my brother .
Whose motive in this case should stir me most
To my revenge ; but in my terms of honor
I stand aloof and will no reconcilement
Till by some elder masters of known honor
I have a voice and precedent of peace
To keep my name ungored . But till that time
[275] ACT 5. SC. 2 I do receive your offered love like love
And will not wrong it .
And will this brothers’ wager frankly play . —
Give us the foils . Come on .
Your skill shall , like a star i’ th’ darkest night ,
Stick fiery off indeed .
You know the wager ?
Your Grace has laid the odds o’ th’ weaker side .
But , since he is better , we have therefore odds .
If Hamlet give the first or second hit
Or quit in answer of the third exchange ,
Let all the battlements their ordnance fire .
The King shall drink to Hamlet’s better breath ,
And in the cup an union shall he throw ,
Richer than that which four successive kings
In Denmark’s crown have worn . Give me the cups ,
[277] ACT 5. SC. 2 And let the kettle to the trumpet speak ,
The trumpet to the cannoneer without ,
The cannons to the heavens , the heaven to earth ,
‘Now the King drinks to Hamlet .’ Come , begin .
And you , the judges , bear a wary eye .
Here’s to thy health .
Give him the cup .
Come . They play . Another hit . What say you ?
Here , Hamlet , take my napkin ; rub thy brows .
The Queen carouses to thy fortune , Hamlet .
[279]ACT 5. SC. 2
I pray you pass with your best violence .
I am afeard you make a wanton of me .
rapiers , and Hamlet wounds Laertes .
I am justly killed with mine own treachery .
The drink , the drink ! I am poisoned .
Treachery ! Seek it out .
[281]ACT 5. SC. 2
No med’cine in the world can do thee good .
In thee there is not half an hour’s life .
The treacherous instrument is in thy hand ,
Unbated and envenomed . The foul practice
Hath turned itself on me . Lo , here I lie ,
Never to rise again . Thy mother’s poisoned .
I can no more . The King , the King’s to blame .
work .
Drink off this potion . Is thy union here ?
Follow my mother .
It is a poison tempered by himself .
Exchange forgiveness with me , noble Hamlet .
Mine and my father’s death come not upon thee ,
Nor thine on me .
I am dead , Horatio . — Wretched queen , adieu . —
You that look pale and tremble at this chance ,
That are but mutes or audience to this act ,
Had I but time ( as this fell sergeant , Death ,
Is strict in his arrest ) , O , I could tell you —
But let it be . — Horatio , I am dead .
Thou livest ; report me and my cause aright
To the unsatisfied .
[283] ACT 5. SC. 2 I am more an antique Roman than a Dane .
Here’s yet some liquor left .
Give me the cup . Let go ! By heaven , I’ll ha ’t .
O God , Horatio , what a wounded name ,
Things standing thus unknown , shall I leave behind
me !
If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart ,
Absent thee from felicity awhile
And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain
To tell my story .
What warlike noise is this ?
To th’ ambassadors of England gives
This warlike volley .
The potent poison quite o’ercrows my spirit .
I cannot live to hear the news from England .
But I do prophesy th’ election lights
On Fortinbras ; he has my dying voice .
So tell him , with th’ occurrents , more and less ,
Which have solicited — the rest is silence .
O , O , O , O !
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest .
Why does the drum come hither ?
Drum , Colors , and Attendants .
[285]ACT 5. SC. 2
If aught of woe or wonder , cease your search .
What feast is toward in thine eternal cell
That thou so many princes at a shot
So bloodily hast struck ?
And our affairs from England come too late .
The ears are senseless that should give us hearing
To tell him his commandment is fulfilled ,
That Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead .
Where should we have our thanks ?
mouth ,
Had it th’ ability of life to thank you .
He never gave commandment for their death .
But since , so jump upon this bloody question ,
You from the Polack wars , and you from England ,
Are here arrived , give order that these bodies
High on a stage be placed to the view ,
And let me speak to th’ yet unknowing world
How these things came about . So shall you hear
Of carnal , bloody , and unnatural acts ,
Of accidental judgments , casual slaughters ,
Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause ,
And , in this upshot , purposes mistook
Fall’n on th’ inventors’ heads . All this can I
Truly deliver .
And call the noblest to the audience .
For me , with sorrow I embrace my fortune .
I have some rights of memory in this kingdom ,
Which now to claim my vantage doth invite me .
[287] ACT 5. SC. 2 And from his mouth whose voice will draw on
more .
But let this same be presently performed
Even while men’s minds are wild , lest more
mischance
On plots and errors happen .
Bear Hamlet like a soldier to the stage ,
For he was likely , had he been put on ,
To have proved most royal ; and for his passage ,
The soldier’s music and the rite of war
Speak loudly for him .
Take up the bodies . Such a sight as this
Becomes the field but here shows much amiss .
Go , bid the soldiers shoot .
ordnance are shot off .
Appendix A
- License
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CC BY 4.0
Link to license
- Citation Suggestion for this Edition
- TextGrid Repository (2025). Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. The Folger Digital Texts in TextGrid. https://hdl.handle.net/21.11113/0000-0016-8480-1