Go, seek him out; speak fair, and bring the body
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 air."] O come away!
My soul is full of discord, and dismay. [Exeunt.

SCENE II.-Another Room in the same.
Enter HAMLET.

Ham. Safely stowed,

[Ros. &c. within. Hamlet! lord Hamlet!] Ham. What noise? who calls on Hamlet? O, here they come.

Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.

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

Ham. Compounded it with dust, whereto 't is kin.

Ros. Tell us where 't is; that we may take it thence,

And bear it to the chapel.

Ham. Do not believe it.
Ros. Believe what?

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

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

Ham. Ay, sir; that soaks up the king's countenance, his rewards, his authorities. But such officers do the king best service in the end: He keeps them, like an ape, in the corner of his jaw; first mouthed, to be last swallowed: When he needs what you have gleaned, it is but squeezing you, and, sponge, you shall be dry again. Ros. I understand you not, my lord. Ham. I am glad of it: A knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear.

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

Ham. The body is with the king, but the king is not with the body. The king is a thinglord?

Guil. A thing, my

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

Hide [Exeunt.

a The lines in the brackets are not in the folio. In the quartos the sense is imperfect, and Theobald inserted; "80, haply, slander."

b Demanded of-demanded by.

The name of a boyish sport-" All hid."

SCENE III.-Another Room in the same.

Enter KING, attended.

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

Or not at all.-How now? what hath befallen?
Ros. Where the dead body is bestow'd, my lord,
We cannot get from him.

But where is he?
King.
Ros. Without, my lord; guarded, to know your
pleasure.

King. Bring him before us.

Ros. Ho, Guildenstern! bring in my lord.
Enter HAMLET and GUILDENSTERN.
King. Now, Hamlet, where 's Polonius?
Ham. At supper.

King. At supper? Where?

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

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

King. What dost thou mean by this?

Ham. Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar. King. Where is Polonius ?

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

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

Exeunt Attendants.

a The Corrector of the folio of 1632 substitutes palated for politic. Mr. Collier says the expression palated is peculiarly Shaksperian, and if the text had always stood palated worms,' and it had been proposed to change it to politic worms,' few readers would for an instant have consented." The argument is a two-edged one; it makes us hesitate about disturbing an established text. It palated be a Shaksperian word, politic is a Shaksperian thought, and is manifestly connected with the idea of "convocation."

b The lines in brackets are not in the folio.

148

King. So is it, if thou knew'st our purposes. Ham. I see a cherub, that sees him."-But, come; for England !-Fare well, dear mother.

King. Thy loving fatner, Hamlet.

Ham. My mother: Father and mother is man and wife; man and wife is one flesh; and so, my mother. Come, for England. [Exit.

King. Follow Lim at fool; tempt him with speed aboard;

Delay it not, I'll have him hence to-night:
Away; for everything is seal'd and done
That else leans on the affair: Pray you, make
haste.
[Exeunt Ros. and GUIL.
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 may'st not coldly set
Our sovereign process; which imports at full,
By latters 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 't is done,
Howe'er ny haps, my joys were ne'er begun b

[Exit.

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

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

Ham. Why, then the Polack never will de fend it.

Cap. Yes, 't is already garrison'd,

Ham. Two thousand souls, and twenty thou sand 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 fusta 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,

a The whole of this scene, in which a clue i3 so beauti fully furnished to the indecision of Hamlet, is wanting in the folio. It was perhaps omitted on account of the extremo length of the play, and as not helping on the action.

b Proposed-purposed. Steevens substituted the word purposed, and recent editors follow him.

See Note on discourse of reason," Act 1 Sc. 11.

d To fust-to become mouldy.

Led by a delicate and tender prince;
Whose spirit, with divine ambition puff'd,
Makes mouths at the invisible event;
Exposing what is mortal, and unsure,
To all that fortune, death, and danger, dare,
Even for an egg-shell. Rightly to be great,
Is, not to stir without great argument,
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw,
When honour's at the stake. How stand I then,
That have, a father kill'd, a mother stain'd,
Excitements of my reason, and my blood,
And let all sleep? while, to my shame, I see
The imminent death of twenty thousand men
That, for a fantasy and trick of fame,

Go to their graves like beds; fight for a plot
Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,
Which is not tomb enough, and continent,
To hide the slain ?-O, from this time forth,
My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!]

White his shroud as the mountain snow.
Enter KING.

Queen. Alas, look here, my lord.
Oph.

Larded with sweet flowers;

Which bewept to the grave did not 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 you, let us have no words of this; but when they ask you what it means, say you

this:

To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day

All in the morning betime,

And I a maid at your window,

To be your Valentine:

Then up he rose, and donn'd his clothes

And dupp'de the chamber-door;

Let in the maid, that out a maid
Never departed more.

King. Pretty Ophelia !

Oph. Indeed, la, without an oath, I'll make

an end on 't:

By Gis, and by Saint Charity,

Alack, and fye 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 promis'd me to wed:

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

King. How long as she been this?

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 bro ther shall know of it, and so I thank you tor your good counsel. Come, my coach! Good night, ladies; good night, sweet ladies; good night, good night. [Exit.

Did not go. So all the old copies- corrected by Mr. Pope," says Steevens. Ophelia's song had reference to her father. He was not a youth-he was not bewept with truelove showers

God 'ield you-God requite you.

• Dupp'd. To dap is to do up; as to don is to do on. 116

King. The doors are broke.

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: O Gertrude, Gertrude,

a

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,b

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 persons to arraign
In ear and ear. O my dear Gertrude, this,
Like to a murdering piece,d in many places
Gives me superfluous death. [A noise within.
Queen.
Alack! what noise is this?

Enter a Gentleman. King. 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 impitious 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!'

Queen. How cheerfully on the false trail they cry!

O, this is counter, you false Danish dogs.

In the quartos we find, after this, "And now behold." The words are rejected in the folio.

b Greenly-unwisely; like novices.

c Hugger-mugger. The etymology of this ancient word is very uncertain. The Scotch have huggrie-muggrie, which Jamieson interprets, "in a confused state, disorderly." In North's Plutarch, the word is applied to the burial of Cæsar: "Antonius thinking good his testament should be read openly, and also that his body should be honourably buried, and not in hugger-mugger."

d Murdering piece-a canon was so called.

• Impitious-unpitying; the folio of 1632 gives us impetuous.

[Noise within.

[They retire without the door.

Laer. I thank you :-keep the door.—O thou vile king, Give me my father. Queen. Calmly, good Laertes. Laer. That drop of blood that's calm, proclaims me bastard;

Cries, cuckold, to my father; brands the harlot Even here, between the chaste unsmirched brow Of my true mother.

King. What is the cause, Laertes, 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, Gertrude ;

Speak, man.

Laer. Where is my father?

King.

Queen.

Dead.

But not by him.

King. Let him demand his fill.
Laer. How came he dead? I'll not be juggled
with:

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.

King. Who shall stay you?

Laer. My will, not all the world: And, for my means, I'll husband them so well, They shall go far with little.

King.

Good Laertes, If you I desire to know the certainty Of your dear father's death, is 't writ in your

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 pierce,*

As day does to your eye.

Danes. [Within.]

Let her come in.

Laer. How now! what noise is that?

Enter OPHELIA, fantastically dressed with straws and flowers.

O heat, dry up my brains! tears, seven times salt,

Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye!—
By heaven, thy madness shall be paid by weight,
Till our scale turns 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 't is fine,
It sends some precious instance of itself
After the thing it loves.

Oph. They bore him barefac'd on the bier;

Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny;

And on his grave rains many a tear ;

Fare you well, my dove!

Laer. Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge,

It could not move thus.

Oph. You must sing, Down a-down, an you call him a-down-a. O, how the wheel becomes it! It is the false steward, that stole his master's daughter.

Laer. This nothing's more than matter. Oph. There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray, love, remember: and there is pansies, that's for thoughts.

Laer. A document in madness; thoughts and remembrance fitted.

Oph. There's fennel for you, and columbines : -there's rue for you; and here's some for me: -we may call it, herb-grace o' Sundays: -oh 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,

For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy,

Laer. Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself,

She turns to favour, and to prettiness.

Pierce, in the folio; in the quarto, pear.

b This is explained, "how well is this ditty adapted to the wheel,"-to be sung by the spinners at the wheel. The burthen of a song, such as down a-down, was, according to Steevens, called the wheel.

c Rosemary was considered to have the power of strengthening the memory.

d Rue was meant to express ruth-sorrow. For the same reason it was called herb-grace; for "he whom God loveth he chasteneth."