Ghost. Do not forget: this visitation 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.

Ham.

120

How is it with you, lady? Queen. Alas! how is 't with you, That you do bend your eye on vacancy And with the incorporal air do hold discourse? Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep; And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm, Your bedded hair, like life in excrements, Starts up and stands an 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;

129

Lest with this piteous action you convert
My stern effects: then what I have to do
Will want true colour; tears perchance for blood.
Queen. To whom do you speak this?
Ham.
Do you see nothing there?
Queen. Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.
Ham. Nor did you nothing hear?
Queen.
No, nothing but ourselves.
Ham. Why, look you there! look! how it
steals away;

My father, in his habit as he liv'd;
Look! where he goes, even now, out at the portal.
Exit Ghost.
Queen. This is the very coinage of your brain:
This bodiless creation ecstacy
Is very cunning in.
Ham.

Ecstacy!

139

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; 150
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 mine 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 to-night;

And that shall lend a kind of easiness

To the next abstinence: the next more easy;

160

For use almost can change the stamp of nature, And master the devil, or throw him out

171

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.
One word more, good lady.
Queen.
What shall I do? 180

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 reechy kisses,
Or paddling in your neck with his damn'd 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;

190

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.

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!

106

I had forgot: 'tis so concluded on. Ham. There's letters seal'd; and my two schoolfellows,

Whom I will trust as I will adders fang'd,
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 petar: an '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;

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

Queen. Bestow this place on us a little while. Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.

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,

10

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, 20
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 mineral 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! Guilden-

stern!

31

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.

22

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. 40 King. To some Attendants. Go seek him there. Ham. He 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,
The associates tend, and every thing is bent
For England.
Ham.
King.
Ham.

For England!

Ay, Hamlet.

Good. King. So is it, if thou knew'st our purposes. 50 Ham. I see a cherub that sees them. But, come; for 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 mother. Come, for England! Exit. King, Follow him at foot; tempt him with speed aboard :

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: pray you, make haste. 60

Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. 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 letters conjuring to that effect,

The present death of Hamlet. Do it, England; For like the hectic in my blood he rages, 69 And thou must cure me. Till I know 'tis done, Howe'er my haps, my joys were ne'er begun.

Exit.

SCENE IV.-A Plain in Denmark. Enter FORTINBRAS, a Captain, and Soldiers, marching.

For. Go, captain, from me greet the Danish king;

Tell him that, by his license, Fortinbras
Claims the conveyance of a promis'd march
Over his kingdom. You know the rendezvous.
If that his majesty would aught with us,
We shall express our duty in his eye,
And let him know so.

Cap.
I will do 't, my lord.
Fr. Go softly on.
Exeunt FORTINBRAS and Soldiers.

Enter HAMLET, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, etc.

10

Ham. Good sir, whose powers are these? Cap. They are of Norway, sir. Ham. How purpos'd, sir, I pray you? Cap. Against some part of Poland. Ham. Who commands them, sir? 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. 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 Polack never will defend it. Cap. Yes, 'tis 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.
Erit.
Ros.
Will 't please you go, my lord!
Ham. I'll be with you straight. Go a little
before.

Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, etc. 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 god-like 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