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Queen. O, what a rash and bloody deed is this! Ham. A bloody deed;-almost as bad, good mother,

As kill a king, and marry with his brother.
Queen. As kill a king!
Ham.
Ay, lady, 'twas my word.
Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!
[To Polonius.

I took thee for thy better; take thy fortune:
Thou find'st, to be too busy, is some danger.-
Leave wringing of your hands: Peace; sit you
down,

And let me wring your heart: for so I shall,
If it be made of penetrable stuff;

If damned custom have not braz'd it so,

That it be proof and bulwark against sense.

And melt in her own fire: proclaim no shame,
When the compulsive ardour gives the charge;
Since frost itself as actively doth burn,
And reason panders well.

Queen.
O, Hamlet, speak no more:
Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul;
And there I see such black and grained spots,
As will not leave their tinct.12
Ham.

Nay, but to live In the rank sweat of an enseamed 13 bed; Stew'd in corruption; honeying and making love Over the nasty sty ;Queen. O, speak to me no more; These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears: No more, sweet Hamlet.

Ham.

A murderer, and a villain:

Queen. What have I done, that thou dar'st wag A slave, that is not twentieth part the tythe

thy tongue

In noise so rude against me?

Ham.
Such an act,
That blurs the grace and blush of modesty;
Calls virtue, hypocrite; takes off the rose
From the fair forehead of an innocent love,
And sets a blister there; makes marriage-vows
As false as dicers' oaths: O, such a deed
As from the body of contraction' plucks
The very soul; and sweet religion makes

A rhapsody of words: Heaven's face doth glow:
Yea, this solidity and compound mass,
With tristful-visage, as against the doom,
Is thought-sick at the act.

Queen.
Ah me, what act,
That roars so loud, and thunders in the index ??
Ham. Look here, upon this picture, and on this;
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
See, what a grace was seated on this brow:
Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself;
An eye like Mars, to threaten and command;
A station' like the herald Mercury,
New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill;
A combination, and a form, indeed,

Where every god did seem to set his seal,
To give the world assurance of a man:

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!
No more.

Queen.

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How is it with you, lady?

Queen. Alas, how is't with you,
That you do bend your eye on vacancy,

This was your husband.-Look you now, what fol- And with the incorporal air to hold discourse ?

lows:

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Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep;
And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm,
Your bedded hair, like life in excrements, 1
Starts up, and stands on end. O gentle son,
Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper
Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look ?
Ham. On him! on him!-Look you, how pale

he glares!

His form and cause conjoin'd, preaching to stones,
Would make them capable."-Do not look upon me
Lest, with this piteous action, you convert
My stern effects:18 then what I have to do
Will want true colour; tears, perchance, 19 for blood
Queen. To whom do you speak this?
Пam.
Do you see nothing there.
Queen. Nothing at all; yet all that is, I see.
Ham. Nor did you nothing hear?
No, nothing, but ourselves.
Ham. Why, look you there! look, how it steals
away!

Queen.

My father, in his habit as he liv'd?
Look, where he goes, even now, out at the portal!
[Erit Ghost.

Queen. This is the very coinage of your brain:

(11) Be so stupid. (12) Colour. (13) Greasy. (14) Minic. (15) Imagination. (16) The hair of animals is excrementitious, that is, without life or sensation.

(17) Intelligent. (18) Actions. (19) Perhaps

This bodiless creation ecstasy1 Is very cunning in.

Ham. Ecstacy!

My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time,
And makes as healthful music: It is not madness,
That I have utter'd: bring me to the test,
And I the matter will re-word; which madness
Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,
Lay not that flattering unction to your soul,
That not your trespass, but my madness, speaks :
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place;
Whiles rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven;
Repent what's past; avoid what is to come;
And do not spread the compost on the weeds,
To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue:
For in the fatness of these pursy times,
Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg;
Yea, curb' and woo, for leave to do him good.
Queen. O Hamlet! thou hast cleft my heart in
twain.

Ham. O, throw away the worser part of it,
And live the purer with the other half.
Good night but go not to my uncle's bed;
Assume a virtue, if you have it not.

That monster, custoin, who all sense doth eat
Of habit's 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 to-night;
And that shall lend a kind of easiness

To the next abstinence; the next more easy:
For use almost can change the stamp of nature,
And either curb the devil, or throw him out

With wondrous potency. Once more, good night!
And when you are desirous to be bless'd,
I'll blessing beg of you.-For this same lord,
[Pointing to Polonius.
I do repent: But heaven hath pleas'd it so,-
To punish me with this, and this with me,
That I must be their scourge and minister.
I will bestow him, and will answer well

The death I gave him. So, again, good night!—
I must be cruel, only to be kind:

Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.-
But one word more, good lady.

Queen.
What shall I do?
Ham. Not this, by no means, that I bid you do:
Let the bloat king tempt you again to bed;
Pinch wanton on your cheek; call you, his mouse;
And let him, for a pair of recchy 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,

8

And break your own neck down.

Queen. Be thou assur'd, if words be made of breath,

And breath of life, I have no life to breathe
What thou hast said to me.

Ham. I must to England; you know that?
Queen.

Alack,

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I had forgot; 'tis so concluded on.

Ham. There's letters sealed: and my two schoolfellows,

Whom I will trust, as I will adders fang'd,3—
They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way,
And marshal me to knavery: Let it work;
For 'tis the sport, to have the engineer
Hoist with his own petar:10 and it shall go hard,
But I will delve one yard below their mines,
And blow them at the moon: 0, 'tis most sweet,
When in one line two crafts directly meet.-
This man shall set me packing.

I'll lug the guts into the neighbour room :-
Mother, good night.-Indeed, this counsellor
Is now most still, most secret, and most grave,
Who was in life a foolish prating knave.
Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you :—
Good night, mother.

[Exeunt severally; Hamlet dragging in
Polonius.

ACT IV.

SCENE 1.-The same. Enter King, Queen, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern.

King. There's matter in these sighs; these profound heaves;

You must trauslate: 'tis fit we understand them
Where is your son?

Queen. Bestow this place on us a little while.-
[To Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who go out.

Ah, my good lord, what have I seen to-night!
King. What, Gertrude? how does Hamlet?
Queen. Mad as the sea, and wind, when both
contend

Which is the mightier: In his lawless fit,
Behind the arras hearing something stir,
Whips out his rapier, cries, A rat! a rat!
And, in this brainish apprehension, kills
The unseen good old man.

King.

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

Queen. To draw apart the body he hath kill'd:
O'er whom his very madness, like some ore,
Among a mineral1 of metals base,
Shows itself pure; he weeps for what is done.
King. O, Gertrude, come away!

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

Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

Friends both, go join you with some further aid:
Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain,
And from his mother's closet hath he dragg'd him:
Go, seek him out; speak fair, and bring the body

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Into the chapel. I pray you, haste in this.
[Exeunt Ros. and Guil.
Come, Gertrude, we'll call up our wisest friends;
And let them know, both what we mean to do,
And what's untimely done: so, haply, slander,-
Whose whisper o'er the world's diameter,
As level as the cannon to his blank,'
Transports his poison'd shot,-may miss our name,
And hit the woundless ait.-O come away;
My soul is full of discord, and dismay.
SCENE II.-Another room in the same.
ter Hamlet.

[Exeunt.

King. Bring him before us.
Ros. Ho, Guildenstern! bring in my lord.
Enter Hamlet and Guildenstern.

King Now, Hamlet, where's Polonius ?
Ham. At supper.

King. At supper? Where?

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

Ham--Safely stowed,[Ros. &c. within.
Hamlet! lord
But soft!-what noise?
Who calls on Halaletto, here they come.

Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
Ros. What have you done, my lord, with the
dead body?

Ham. Compounded it with dust, whereto 'tis kin.
Ros. Tell us where 'tis; that we may take it!
thence,

And bear it to the chapel.
Ham. Do not believe it.
Ros. Believe what?

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

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

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

Ros. I understand you not, my lord. Ham. I am glad of it: A knavish speech sleeps in a fooolish ear.

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

Ham. The body is with the king, but the king is not with the body. The king is a thing-Guil. A thing, my lord? Ham. Of nothing bring me to him. and all after.2

King. Alas, alas!

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

King. What dost thou mean by this?
Ham. Nothing, but to show you how a king may
go a progress through the guts of a beggar.
King. Where is Polonius?

Ham. In heaven; send thither to see: if your messenger find him not there, seek him i'the other place yourself. But, indeed, if you find him not within this month, you shall nose him as you go up the stairs into the lobby.

King. Go seek him there. [To some Attendants.
Ham. Ile will stay till you come.

[Exeunt Attendants, King. Hamlet, this deed, for thine especial safety,

Which we do tender, as we dearly grieve
For that which thou hast done,-must send thee
hence

With fiery quickness: Therefore, prepare thyself;
The bark is ready, and the wind at help,3
The associates tend, and every thing is bent
For England.
For England?

Ham.
King.
Ham.

Good.

Ay, Hamlet.
King. So is it, if thou knew'st our purposes.
Ham. I see a cherub, that sees them.-But, come ;
England!-Farewell, dear mother.

King. Thy loving father, Hamlet.

Ham. My mother: Father and mother is man and wife; man and wife is one flesh; and so, my (Erit. mother. Come, for England. King. Follow him at foot; tempt him with speed aboard;

for

Hide fox,
[Exeunt.

En

the

SCENE III-Another room in the same.
ter King, attended.

King. I have sent to seek him, and to find
body.
How dangerous is it, that this man goes loose!
Yet must not we put the strong law on him:
He's lov'd of the distracted multitude,
Who like not in their judgment, but their eyes;
And, where 'tis so, the offender's scourge is weigh'd,
But never the offence. To bear all smooth and even,
This sudden sending him away must seem
Deliberate pause: Diseases, desperate grown,
By desperate appliance are reliev'd,

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Delay it not, I'll have him hence to-night:
Away; for every thing is seal'd and done
That else leans on the affair: Fray you, make haste.
[Exeunt Ros, and Guil.
And, England, if my love thou hold 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,) thon may 'st not coldly set
Our sovereign process; which imports at full,
By letters conjuring to that effect,

The present death of Hamlet. Do it, England;
For like the hectic in my blood he rages,
And thou must cure me: Till I know 'tis done,
Howe'er my haps, my joys will ne'er begin. [Ex.
SCENE IV-A plain in Denmark. Enter For-
tinbras, and Forces, marching.

For. Go, captain, from me greet the Danish king;
Tell him, that, by his license, Fortinbras

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Commands them, sir?

Who

Cap. The nephew to old Norway, Fortinbras. Ham. Goes it against the main of Poland, sir, Or for some frontier?

Cap. Truly to speak, sir, and with no addition, We go to gain a little patch of ground, That hath in it no profit but the name. To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it; Nor will it yield to Norway, or the Pole, A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee. Ham. Why, then the Polack3 never will defend it. Cap. Yes, 'tis already garrison'd.

Ham. Two thousand souls, and twenty thousand ducats,

Will not debate the question of this straw:
This is the imposthume of much wealth and peace:
That inward breaks, and shows no cause without
Why the man dies.-I humbly thank you, sir.
Cap. God be wi' you, sir. [Exit Captain.
Ros.
Will't please you go, my lord?
Ham. I will be with you straight. Go a little
before.
[Exeunt Ros. and Guil.
How all occasions do inform against me,
And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,
If his chief good, and market of his time,
Be but to sleep, and feed? a beast, no more.
Sure, he, that made us with such large discourse,"
Looking before, and after, gave us not
That capability and godlike reason,

To fust in us unus'd. Now, whether it be
Bestial oblivion, or some craven' scruple

Of thinking too precisely on the event,

A thought, which, quarter'd, hath but one part

wisdom,

And, ever, three parts coward,-I do not know
Why yet I live to say, This thing's to do;
Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and

means,

To do't. Examples, gross as earth, exhort me:
Witness, this army of such mass, and charge,
Led by a delicate and tender prince;

Whose spirit, with divine ambition puff'd,
Makes mouths at the invisible event;
Exposing what is mortal, and unsure,

To all that fortune, death, and danger, dare,
Even for an egg-shell. Rightly to be great,
Is, not to stir without great argument;
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw,
When honour's at the stake. How stand I then,
That have a father kill'd, a mother stain'd,
Excitements of my reason, and my blood,
And let all sleep? while, to my shame, I see
The imminent death of twenty thousand men,
That, for a fantasy, and trick of fame,
Go to their graves like beds; fight for a plot
(1) Presence. (2) Forces. (3) Polander.
(4) Profit. (5) Power of comprehension.
(6) Grow mouldy. (7) Cowardly ̊ (8) Since.

Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,
Which is not tomb enough, and continent,
To hide the slain ?-O, from this time forth,
My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth. [Ex.
SCENE V.-Elsinore. A room in the castle.
Enter Queen and Horatio.

Queen. -I will not speak with her.
Her mood will needs be pitied.
Hor. She is importunate; indeed, distract;
Queen.
What would she have?
Hor. She speaks much of her father; says, she
hears,

There's tricks i'the world; and hems, and beats her heart;

Spurns enviously at straws; speaks things in doubt,
That carry but half sense: her speech is nothing,
Yet the unshaped use of it doth move

The hearers to collection; they aim at it,
And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts;
Which, as her winks, and nods, and gestures, yield
them,

Indeed would make one think, there might be thought,

Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.
Queen. 'Twere good she were spoken with; for
Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds:
she may strew
Let her come in.
[Exit Horatio.
Each toy 10 seems prologue to some great amiss:
To my sick soul, as sin's true nature is,
So full of artless jealousy is guilt,
It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.

Re-enter Horatio, with Ophelia.

Oph. Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?

Queen. How now, Ophelia?

Oph. How should I your true-love know

From another one?

By his cockle hat and staff,

And his sandal shoon.

[Singing.

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Oph.

Larded12 all with sweet flowers;
Which bewept to the grave did go,
With true-love showers.

King. How do you, pretty lady?

Oph. Well, God 'ield" you! They say, the owl was a baker's daughter. Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be. God be at your table!

King. Conceit upon her father.

Oph. Pray, let us have no words of this; but when they ask you, what it means, say you this:

(9) Guess. (10) Trifle. (12) Garnished.

(11) Shoe. (13) Reward

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So would I ha' done, by yonder sun,
An thou hadst not come to my bed.

King. How long hath she been thus? Oph. I hope, all will be well. We must be patient: but I cannot choose but weep, to think, they should lay him i'the cold ground: My brother shall know of it, and so I thank you for your good counsel. Come, my couch! Good night, ladies; good night, sweet ladies: good night, good night. [Ex. King. Follow her close; give her good watch, I pray you. [Exit Horatio. 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,
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 beggar'd,
Will nothing stick our person to arraign
In ear and ear. O my dear Gertrude, this,
Like to a murdering piece, in many places
Gives me superfluous death!
Queen.

A noise within.
Alack! what noise is this?

Enter a Gentleman.

King. Attend. Where are my Switzers? Let them guard the door What is the matter?

Gent.

Save yourself, my lord;
The ocean, overpeering of his list,"
Eats not the flats with more impetuous 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,

(1) Do on, i. e. put on. (2) Do up.
(3) Saints in the Roman-catholic calendar.
(4) Without judgment. (5) Privately.
Guards. (7) Bounds. (8) Scent.

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?

Queen. How cheerfully on the false trail they cry!
O, this is counter, you false Danish dogs.
King. The doors are broke.

[Noise within. Enter Laertes, armed; Danes following. Laer. Where is this king?-Sirs, stand you all

without.

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And, like the kind life-rend'ring pelican,

: Repast them with my blood.

King.

Why, now you speak

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,"1
As day does to your eye.

Danes. [Within.]

Let her come in. Laer. How now! what noise is that?

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