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The QUEENS Apartment. | |
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Enter QUEEN and POLONIUS. | |
Pol. He will come straight. Look you lay home to him; | |
Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear with, | |
And that your Grace hath screend and stood between | 5 |
Much heat and him. Ill silence me een here. | |
Pray you, be round with him. | |
Ham. [Within.] Mother, mother, mother! | |
Queen. Ill warrant you; | |
Fear me not. Withdraw, I hear him coming. [POLONIUS hides behind the arras. | 10 |
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Enter HAMLET. | |
Ham. Now, mother, whats the matter? | |
Queen Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended. | |
Ham. Mother, you have my father much offended. | |
Queen. Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue. | 15 |
Ham. Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue. | |
Queen. Why, how now, Hamlet! | |
Ham. Whats the matter now? | |
Queen. Have you forgot me? | |
Ham. No, by the rood, not so: | 20 |
You are the queen, your husbands brothers wife; | |
And,would it were not so!you are my mother. | |
Queen. Nay then, Ill set those to you that can speak. | |
Ham. Come, come, and sit you down; you shall not budge; | |
You go not, till I set you up a glass | 25 |
Where you may see the inmost part of you. | |
Queen. What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murder me? | |
Help, help, ho! | |
Pol. [Behind.] What, ho! help! help! help! | |
Ham. [Draws.] How now! a rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead! [Makes a pass through the arras. | 30 |
Pol. [Behind.] O! I am slain. | |
Queen O me! what hast thou done? | |
Ham. Nay, I know not: is it the king? | |
Queen. O! what a rash and bloody deed is this! | |
Ham. A bloody deed! almost as bad, good mother, | 35 |
As kill a king, and marry with his brother. | |
Queen. As kill a king! | |
Ham. Ay, lady, twas my word. [Lifts up the arras and discovers POLONIUS. | |
[To POLONIUS.] Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell! | |
I took thee for thy better; take thy fortune; | 40 |
Thou findst 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 brassd it so | 45 |
That it is proof and bulwark against sense | |
Queen. What have I done that thou darst wag thy tongue | |
In noise so rude against me? | |
Ham. Such an act | |
That blurs the grace and blush of modesty, | 50 |
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 | 55 |
The very soul, and sweet religion makes | |
A rhapsody of words; heavens face doth glow, | |
Yea, this solidity and compound mass, | |
With tristful visage, as against the doom, | |
Is thought-sick at the act. | 60 |
Queen. Ay 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; | 65 |
Hyperions 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, | 70 |
Where every god did seem to set his seal, | |
To give the world assurance of a man. | |
This was your husband: look you now, what follows. | |
Here is your husband; like a mildewd ear, | |
Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes? | 75 |
Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed, | |
And batten on this moor? Ha! have you eyes? | |
You cannot call it love, for at your age | |
The hey-day in the blood is tame, its humble, | |
And waits upon the judgment; and what judgment | 80 |
Would step from this to this? Sense, sure, you have, | |
Else could you not have motion; but sure, that sense | |
Is apoplexd; for madness would not err, | |
Nor sense to ecstasy was neer so thralld | |
But it reservd some quantity of choice, | 85 |
To serve in such a difference. What devil was t | |
That thus hath cozend you at hoodman-blind? | |
Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight, | |
Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all, | |
Or but a sickly part of one true sense | 90 |
Could not so mope. | |
O shame! where is thy blush? Rebellious hell, | |
If thou canst mutine in a matrons bones, | |
To flaming youth let virtue be as wax, | |
And melt in her own fire: proclaim no shame | 95 |
When the compulsive ardour gives the charge, | |
Since frost itself as actively doth burn, | |
And reason panders will. | |
Queen. O Hamlet! speak no more; | |
Thou turnst mine eyes into my very soul; | 100 |
And there I see such black and grained spots | |
As will not leave their tinct. | |
Ham. Nay, but to live | |
In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed, | |
Stewd in corruption, honeying and making love | 105 |
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; | 110 |
A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe | |
Of your precedent lord; a vice of kings; | |
A cut-purse of the empire and the rule, | |
That from a shelf the precious diadem stole, | |
And put it in his pocket! | 115 |
Queen. No more! | |
Ham. A king of shreds and patches, | |
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Enter Ghost. | |
Save me, and hover oer me with your wings, | |
You heavenly guards! What would your gracious figure? | 120 |
Queen. Alas! hes mad! | |
Ham. Do you not come your tardy son to chide, | |
That, lapsd in time and passion, lets go by | |
The important acting of your dread command? | |
O! say. | 125 |
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: | 130 |
Speak to her, Hamlet. | |
Ham. 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? | 135 |
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 | 140 |
Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look? | |
Ham. On him, on him! Look you, how pale he glares! | |
His form and cause conjoind, preaching to stones, | |
Would make them capable. Do not look upon me; | |
Lest with this piteous action you convert | 145 |
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. | 150 |
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 livd; | |
Look! where he goes, even now, out at the portal. [Exit Ghost. | 155 |
Queen. This is the very coinage of your brain: | |
This bodiless creation ecstasy | |
Is very cunning in. | |
Ham. Ecstasy! | |
My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time, | 160 |
And makes as healthful music. It is not madness | |
That I have utterd: 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, | 165 |
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 whats past; avoid what is to come; | 170 |
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. | 175 |
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 uncles bed; | |
Assume a virtue, if you have it not. | 180 |
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; | 185 |
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 master evn the devil or throw him out | |
With wondrous potency. Once more, goodnight: | 190 |
And when you are desirous to be blessd, | |
Ill blessing beg of you. For this same lord, [Pointing to POLONIUS. | |
I do repent: but heaven hath pleasd it so, | |
To punish me with this, and this with me, | |
That I must be their scourge and minister. | 195 |
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. | 200 |
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 reechy kisses, | 205 |
Or paddling in your neck with his damnd 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 thats but a queen, fair, sober, wise, | 210 |
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 houses top, | |
Let the birds fly, and, like the famous ape, | 215 |
To try conclusions, in the basket creep, | |
And break your own neck down. | |
Queen. Be thou assurd, if words be made of breath, | |
And breath of life, I have no life to breathe | |
What thou hast said to me. | 220 |
Ham. I must to England; you know that? | |
Queen. Alack! | |
I had forgot: tis so concluded on. | |
Ham. Theres letters seald; and my two schoolfellows, | |
Whom I will trust as I will adders fangd, | 225 |
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: and it shall go hard | |
But I will delve one yard below their mines, | 230 |
And blow them at the moon. O! tis most sweet, | |
When in one line two crafts directly meet. | |
This man shall set me packing; | |
Ill lug the guts into the neighbour room. | |
Mother, good-night. Indeed this counsellor | 235 |
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 the body of POLONIUS. | |
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