| |
A Room of State in the Castle. | |
| |
Enter the KING, QUEEN, HAMLET, POLONIUS, LAERTES, VOLTIMAND, CORNELIUS, Lords, and Attendants. | |
| King. Thought yet of Hamlet our dear brother’s death | |
| The memory be green, and that it us befitted | |
| To bear our hearts in grief and our whole kingdom | 5 |
| 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, | 10 |
| The imperial jointress of this war-like state, | |
| Have we, as ’twere with a defeated joy, | |
| With one auspicious and one dropping eye, | |
| With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage, | |
| In equal scale weighing delight and dole, | 15 |
| Taken to wife: nor have we herein barr’d | |
| 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, | 20 |
| Or thinking by our late dear brother’s death | |
| Our state to be disjoint and out of frame, | |
| Colleagued with the dream of his advantage, | |
| He hath not fail’d to pester us with message, | |
| Importing the surrender of those lands | 25 |
| Lost by his father, with all bands 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, | 30 |
| Who, impotent and bed-rid, scarcely hears | |
| 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 | 35 |
| You, good Cornelius, and you, Voltimand, | |
| 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 delated articles allow. | 40 |
| Farewell and let your haste commend your duty. | |
| Cor. & Vol. In that and all things will we show our duty. | |
| King. We doubt it nothing: heartily farewell. [Exeunt VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS. | |
| And now, Laertes, what’s the news with you? | |
| You told us of some suit; what is ’t, Laertes? | 45 |
| 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, | 50 |
| Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father. | |
| What wouldst thou have, Laertes? | |
| Laer. Dread my lord, | |
| Your leave and favour to return to France; | |
| From whence though willingly I came to Denmark, | 55 |
| 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. | |
| King. Have you your father’s leave? What says Polonius? | 60 |
| Pol. He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave | |
| By laboursome petition, and at last | |
| Upon his will I seal’d my hard consent: | |
| I do beseech you, give him leave to go. | |
| King. Take thy fair hour, Laertes; time be thine, | 65 |
| And thy best graces spend it at thy will. | |
| But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son,— | |
| Ham. [Aside.] A little more than kin, and less than kind. | |
| King. How is it that the clouds still hang on you? | |
| Ham. Not so, my lord; I am too much i’ the sun. | 70 |
| Queen. Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off, | |
| And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark. | |
| Do not for ever with thy vailed lids | |
| Seek for thy noble father in the dust: | |
| Thou know’st ’tis common; all that live must die, | 75 |
| Passing through nature to eternity. | |
| Ham. Ay, madam, it is common. | |
| Queen. If it be, | |
| Why seems it so particular with thee? | |
| Ham. Seems, madam! Nay, it is; I know not ‘seems.’ | 80 |
| ’Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, | |
| Nor customary suits of solemn black, | |
| Nor windy suspiration of forc’d breath, | |
| No, nor the fruitful river in the eye, | |
| Nor the dejected haviour of the visage, | 85 |
| Together with all forms, modes, shows of grief, | |
| That can denote me truly; these indeed seem, | |
| For they are actions that a man might play: | |
| But I have that within which passeth show; | |
| These but the trappings and the suits of woe. | 90 |
| King. ’Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, 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 | 95 |
| To do obsequious sorrow; but to presever | |
| 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, | 100 |
| An understanding simple and unschool’d: | |
| 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, | 105 |
| 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 to-day, | |
| ‘This must be so.’ We pray you, throw to earth | 110 |
| 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 | 115 |
| 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, | 120 |
| Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son. | |
| Queen. Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet: | |
| I pray thee, stay with us; go not to Wittenberg. | |
| Ham. I shall in all my best obey you, madam. | |
| King. Why, ’tis a loving and a fair reply: | 125 |
| Be as ourself in Denmark. Madam, come; | |
| This gentle and unforc’d accord of Hamlet | |
| Sits smiling to my heart; in grace whereof, | |
| No jocund health that Denmark drinks to-day, | |
| But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell, | 130 |
| And the king’s rouse the heavens shall bruit again, | |
| Re-speaking earthly thunder. Come away. [Exeunt all except HAMLET. | |
| Ham. O! that this too too solid flesh would melt, | |
| Thaw and resolve itself into a dew; | |
| Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d | 135 |
| His canon ’gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God! | |
| How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable | |
| Seem to me all the uses of this world. | |
| Fie on ’t! O fie! ’tis an unweeded garden, | |
| That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature | 140 |
| 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 | 145 |
| 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! | 150 |
| A little month; or ere those shoes were old | |
| With which she follow’d my poor father’s body, | |
| Like Niobe, all tears; why she, even she,— | |
| O God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason, | |
| Would have mourn’d longer,—married with mine uncle, | 155 |
| 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 galled eyes, | |
| She married. O! most wicked speed, to post | 160 |
| 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! | |
| |
Enter HORATIO, MARCELLUS, and BERNARDO. | |
| Hor. Hail to your lordship! | 165 |
| Ham. I am glad to see you well: | |
| Horatio, or I do forget myself. | |
| Hor. The same, my lord, and your poor servant ever. | |
| Ham. Sir, my good friend; I’ll change that name with you. | |
| And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio? | 170 |
| Marcellus? | |
| Mar. My good lord,— | |
| Ham. I am very glad to see you. [To BERNARDO.] Good even, sir. | |
| But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg? | |
| Hor. A truant disposition, good my lord. | 175 |
| Ham. I would not hear your enemy say so, | |
| Nor shall you do mine 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? | 180 |
| We’ll teach you to drink deep ere you depart. | |
| Hor. My lord, I came to see your father’s funeral. | |
| Ham. I pray thee, do not mock me, fellow-student; | |
| I think it was to see my mother’s wedding. | |
| Hor. Indeed, my lord, it follow’d hard upon. | 185 |
| Ham. Thrift, thrift, Horatio! the funeral bak’d meats | |
| Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables. | |
| Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven | |
| Ere I had ever seen that day, Horatio! | |
| My father, methinks I see my father. | 190 |
| Hor. O! where, my lord? | |
| Ham. In my mind’s eye, Horatio. | |
| Hor. I saw him once; he was a goodly king. | |
| Ham. He was a man, take him for all in all, | |
| I shall not look upon his like again. | 195 |
| Hor. My lord, I think I saw him yesternight. | |
| Ham. Saw who? | |
| Hor. My lord, the king your father. | |
| Ham. The king, my father! | |
| Hor. Season your admiration for a while | 200 |
| With an attent ear, till I may deliver, | |
| Upon the witness of these gentlemen, | |
| This marvel to you. | |
| Ham. For God’s love, let me hear. | |
| Hor. Two nights together had these gentlemen, | 205 |
| Marcellus and Bernardo, on their watch, | |
| In the dead vast and middle of the night, | |
| Been thus encounter’d: a figure like your father, | |
| Armed at points exactly, cap-a-pe, | |
| Appears before them, and with solemn march | 210 |
| Goes slow and stately by them: thrice he walk’d | |
| By their oppress’d and fear-surprised eyes, | |
| Within his truncheon’s length; whilst they, distill’d | |
| Almost to jelly with the act of fear, | |
| Stand dumb and speak not to him. This to me | 215 |
| In dreadful secrecy impart they did, | |
| And I with them the third night kept the watch; | |
| Where, as they had deliver’d, both in time, | |
| Form of the thing, each word made true and good, | |
| The apparition comes. I knew your father; | 220 |
| These hands are not more like. | |
| Ham. But where was this? | |
| Mar. My lord, upon the platform where we watch’d. | |
| Ham. Did you not speak to it? | |
| Hor. My lord, I did; | 225 |
| 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 | 230 |
| And vanish’d from our sight. | |
| Ham. ’Tis very strange. | |
| Hor. As I do live, my honour’d lord, ’tis true; | |
| And we did think it writ down in our duty | |
| To let you know of it. | 235 |
| Ham. Indeed, indeed, sirs, but this troubles me. | |
| Hold you the watch to-night? | |
| Mar. & Ber. We do, my lord. | |
| Ham. Arm’d, say you? | |
| Mar. & Ber. Arm’d, my lord. | 240 |
| Ham. From top to toe? | |
| Mar. & Ber. My lord, from head to foot. | |
| Ham. Then saw you not his face? | |
| Hor. O yes! my lord; he wore his beaver up. | |
| Ham. What! look’d he frowningly? | 245 |
| Hor. A countenance more in sorrow than in anger. | |
| Ham. Pale or red? | |
| Hor. Nay, very pale. | |
| Ham. And fix’d his eyes upon you? | |
| Hor. Most constantly. | 250 |
| Ham. I would I had been there. | |
| Hor. It would have much amaz’d you. | |
| Ham. Very like, very like. Stay’d it long? | |
| Hor. While one with moderate haste might tell a hundred. | |
| Mar. & Ber. Longer, longer. | 255 |
| Hor. Not when I saw it. | |
| Ham. His beard was grizzled, no? | |
| Hor. It was, as I have seen it in his life, | |
| A sable silver’d. | |
| Ham. I will watch to-night; | 260 |
| Perchance ’twill walk again. | |
| Hor. I warrant it will. | |
| Ham. If it assume my noble father’s person, | |
| I’ll speak to it, though hell itself should gape | |
| And bid me hold my peace. I pray you all, | 265 |
| If you have hitherto conceal’d this sight, | |
| Let it be tenable in your silence still; | |
| And whatsoever else shall hap to-night, | |
| Give it an understanding, but no tongue: | |
| I will requite your loves. So, fare you well. | 270 |
| Upon the platform, ’twixt eleven and twelve, | |
| I’ll visit you. | |
| All. Our duty to your honour. | |
| Ham. Your loves, as mine to you. Farewell. [Exeunt HORATIO, MARCELLUS, and BERNARDO. | |
| My father’s spirit in arms! all is not well; | 275 |
| 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. [Exit. | |
| |
