Into the madness wherein now he raves 150 Do you think 'tis this? And all we wail for. King. Queen. It may be, very likely. Pol. Hath there been such a time, I'd fain know that, That I have positively said, 'Tis so, When it prov'd otherwise? King. Pol. Take this from this, if this be otherwise: Not that I know. 155 [Pointing to his head and shoulder. If circumstances lead me, I will find Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed Within the centre. King. How may we try it further? Pol. You know, sometimes he walks for hours together 160 Here in the lobby. Queen. So he does, indeed. Pol. At such a time I'll loose my daughter to him: Be you and I behind an arras then; 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. King. reading. We will try it. 165 Queen. But, look, where sadly the poor wretch comes Pol. Away, I do beseech you, both away: I'll board him presently :-O, give me leave. Ham. Excellent, excellent well; you're a fishmonger. Pol. Not I, my lord. 175 Ham. Then I would you were so honest a man. Pol. Honest, my lord ! Ham. Ay, sir; to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand. Pol. That's very true, my lord. 180 Ham. For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a god kissing carrion,---Have you a daughter? Pol. I have, my lord. Ham. Let her not walk i' the sun conception is a blessing; but not as your daughter may conceive :-- friend, look to't. 186 Pol. How say you by that?-[Aside.] Still harping on my daughter:-yet he knew me not at first: he said I was a fishmonger: he is far gone, 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? Ham. Words, words, words. Pol. What is the matter, my lord? Pol. I mean, the matter that you read, my lord. 195 Ham. Slanders, sir: for the satirical slave says here that 'old men have grey 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 you yourself, sir, should be old as I am, if, like a crab, you could go backward. Pol. [aside.] Though this be madness, yet there is method in't. Will you walk out of the air, my lord? Ham. Into my grave? 205 Pol. Indeed, that is out o' the air. - [Aside.] How pregnant sometimes his replies are! a happiness that often madness hits on, which reason and sanity could not so prosperously be delivered of. I will leave him, and suddenly contrive the means of meeting between him and my daughter.- My honourable lord, I will most humbly take my leave of you. Ham. You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I will more willingly part withal,--except my life, except my life, except my life. Pol. Fare you well, my lord. 215 Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. Pol. You go to seek the Lord Hamlet; there he is. Ros. [to POLONIUS.] God save you, sir! [Exit POLONIUS. Guil. Mine honoured lord ! Ros. My most dear lord ! Ham. My excellent good friends! How dost thou, Guil- On fortune's cap we are not the very button. 225 Ros. Neither, my lord. Ham. Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of her favours? - What's the news? Ros. None, my lord, but that the world's grown honest. Ham. Then is doomsday near: but your news is not true. Let me question more in particular: what have you, my good friends, deserved at the hands of fortune, that she sends you to prison hither? Guil. Prison, my lord ! Ham. Denmark's a prison. 235 Ham. A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons, Denmark being one o' the worst. Ros. We think not so, my lord. Ham. Why, then, 'tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so: to me it is a prison. Ros. Why, then, your ambition makes it one; 'tis too narrow for your mind. 245 Ham. O God, I could be bounded in a nut-shell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams. Guil. Which dreams, indeed, are ambition: for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream. Ham. A dream itself is but a shadow. Ros. Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality that it is but a shadow's shadow. 253 Shall we to Ham. Then are our beggars bodies, and our monarchs and outstretched heroes the beggars' shadows. the court? for, by my fay, I cannot reason. Ros. and Guil. We'll wait upon you. Ham. No such matter: I will not sort you with the rest of my servants; for, to speak to you like an honest man, I am most dreadfully attended. But, in the beaten way of friendship, what make you at Elsinore? 262 Ros. To visit you, my lord; no other occasion. Ham. Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks; but I thank you: and sure, dear friends, my thanks are too dear a halfpenny. Were you not sent for? Is it your own inclining? Is it a free visitation? Come, deal justly with me: come, come; nay, speak. Guil. What should we say, my lord? Ham. Why, anything but to the purpose. You were sent for; and there is a kind of confession in your looks, which your modesties have not craft enough to colour: I know the good king and queen have sent for you. 272 Ros. To what end, my lord? Ham. That you must teach me. But let me conjure you, by the rights of our fellowship, by the consonancy of our youth, by the obligation of our ever-preserved love, and by what more dear a better proposer could charge you withal, be even and direct with me, whether you were sent for or no? Ros. What say you? [To GUILDENstern. Ham. [aside.] Nay, then, I have an eye of you. If you love me, hold not off. Guil. My lord, we were sent for. 282 Ham. I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation prevent your discovery, and your secrecy to the king and queen moult no feather. I have of late, but wherefore I know not,-lost all my mirth, foregone 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 appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. / What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in action, how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not me; no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so. 299 Ros. My lord, there was no such stuff in my thoughts. Ham. Why did you laugh, then, when I said, Man delights not me? Ros. To think, my lord, if you delight not in man, what lenten entertainment the players shall receive from you: we coted them on the way; and hither are they coming, to offer you service. Ham. He that plays the king shall be welcome,-his majesty shall have tribute of 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 tickled o' the sere ; and the lady shall say her mind freely, or the blank verse shall halt for't. - What players are they? 313 Ros. Even those you were wont to take delight in, the tragedians of the city. Ham. How chances it they travel? their residence, both in reputation and profit, was better both ways. Ros. I think their inhibition comes by the means of the late innovation. 319 Ham. Do they hold the same estimation they did when I was in the city? Are they so followed? Ros. No, indeed, they are not. Ham. How comes it? do they grow rusty? Ros. Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace: but there is, sir, an aery of children, little eyases, that cry out on the top of question, and are most tyrannically clapped for't: these are now the fashion; and so berattle the common stages, so they call them, that many wearing rapiers are afraid of goose-quills, and dare scarce come thither. 329 Ham. What, are they children? who maintains 'em? how are they escoted? Will they pursue the quality no longer than they can sing? will they not say afterwards, if they should grow themselves to common players, as it is most like, if their means are no better, their writers do them wrong, to make them exclaim against their own succession? Ros. Faith, there has been much to do on both sides; and the nation holds it no sin to tarre them to controversy: there was for awhile no money bid for argument, unless the poet and the player went to cuffs in the question. Ham. Is't possible? 339 Guil. O, there has been much throwing about of brains. Ham. Do the boys carry it away? Ros. Ay, that they do, my lord; Hercules and his load too. Ham. It is not strange; for mine uncle is king of Denmark, and those that would make mouths at him while my father lived, give twenty, forty, fifty, an hundred ducats a-piece for his picture in little. 'Sblood, there is something in this more than natural, if philosophy could find it out. 349 [Flourish of trumpets within. Guil. There are the players. Ham. Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore. Your hands, come: the appurtenance of welcome is fashion and ceremony: let me comply with you in this garb; lest my ostent to the players, which, I tell you, must show fairly outward, should more appear like entertainment than yours. You are welcome: but my uncle-father and aunt-mother are deceived. Guil. In what, my dear lord? southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw. 360 |