Hamlet - The Royal Shakespeare Company - part. 1

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Hamlet, di William Shakespeare - adattamento televisivo della messinscena curata dalla Royal Shakespeare Company di Stratford-upon-Avon (2009)

Regia: Gregory Doran
Interpreti: David Tennant, Patrick Stewart, Penny Downie, Oliver Ford Davies, Mariah Gale

THE ROYAL SHAKESPEARE COMPANY
HAMLET

- Who's there?
- Nay, answer me:

stand, and unfold yourself.

Long live the king!

- Bernardo?
- He.

You come most carefully upon your hour.

'Tis now struck twelve;
get thee to bed, Francisco.

For this relief much thanks:

'tis bitter cold,
And I am sick at heart.

Have you had quiet guard?

Not a mouse stirring.

Well, good night.

Stand, ho! Who's there?

Friends to this ground.
And liegemen to the Dane.

- Give you good night.
- O, farewell, honest soldier:.

Who hath relieved you?

Bernardo has my place.

Give you good night.

Holla! Bernardo!

Say,
What, is Horatio there?

- A piece of him.
- Welcome, Horatio: welcome, good Marcellus.

What, has this thing
appear'd again to-night?

I have seen nothing.

Horatio says 'tis but our fantasy,

And will not let belief take hold of him

Touching this dreaded sight,
twice seen of us:

Therefore I have entreated him along
with us

To watch the minutes of this night;

That if again this apparition come,

He may approve our eyes and speak to it.

Tush, tush, 'twill not appear.

Than let us once again assail your ears,

That are so fortified against our story

What we have two nights seen.

Well, let us hear Bernardo
speak of this.

Last night of all,

When yond same star
that's westward from the pole

Had made his course to illume
that part of heaven

Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself,

The bell then beating one,--

Peace, break thee off;

look, where it comes again!

In the same figure,
like the king that's dead.

Thou art a scholar;
speak to it, Horatio.

Looks it not like the king? mark it, Horatio.

Most like: it harrows me
with fear and wonder.

It would be spoke to.
Question it, Horatio.

What art thou that usurp'st
this time of night,

Together with that fair and warlike form

In which the majesty of buried Denmark
Did sometimes march?

by heaven I charge thee, speak!

It is offended.
See, it stalks away!

Stay! speak, speak!
I charge thee, speak!

'Tis gone,

and will not answer.

Before my God, I might not this believe

Without the sensible and true avouch
Of mine own eyes.

Thus twice before,
and jump at this dead hour,

With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.

In what particular thought to work I know not;

But in the gross and scope of my opinion,

This bodes some strange eruption to our state.

Good now, stand close,
and tell me, he that knows,

Why this same strict and most observant watch

So nightly toils the subject of the land,

And why such daily cast of brazen cannon,

And foreign mart for implements of war;
What might be toward,

to this sweaty haste

Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day:

Who is't that can inform me?

That can I;

At least, the whisper goes so.

Our last king,

Whose image even but now appear'd to us,

Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,

Dared to the combat;
in which our valiant Hamlet--

Did slay this Fortinbras;

who does his forfeit, with his life,
all these his lands

Now, sir, young Fortinbras,

Of unimproved mettle hot and full,

Hath in the skirts of Norway here and there

Shark'd up a list of lawless resolutes,

to recover of us,
those foresaid lands

So by his father lost:
and this, I take it,

Is the main motive of our preparations,

The source of this our watch
and the chief head

Of this post-haste and romage in the land.

But soft, behold!
lo, where it comes again!

I'll cross it, though it blast me.
Stay, illusion!

If thou hast any sound, or use of voice,
Speak to me:

If thou art privy to thy country's fate,

Which, happily, foreknowing may avoid,
O, speak!

Stay, and speak!

Stop it, Marcellus.

Shall I strike at it?
Do, if it will not stand.

'Tis here!
'Tis here!

'Tis gone!

We do it wrong,
being so majestical,

To offer it the show of violence;

For it is, as the air, invulnerable,

And our vain blows malicious mockery.

It was about to speak,
when the cock crew.

And then it started like a guilty thing

Upon a fearful summons.

It faded on the crowing of the cock.

Some say that ever 'gainst
that season comes

Wherein our Saviour's birth
is celebrated,

The bird of dawning singeth all night long:

And then, they say,
no spirit dares stir abroad;

The nights are wholesome;
then no planets strike,

No fairy takes,
nor witch hath power to charm,

So hallow'd and so gracious
is the time.

So have I heard and do
in part believe it.

But, look...

the morn, in russet mantle clad,

Walks o'er the dew
of yon high eastward hill:

Break we our watch up;
and by my advice,

Let us impart
what we have seen to-night

Unto young Hamlet;
for, upon my life,

This spirit, dumb to us,

will speak to him.

Though 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

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,

The imperial jointress
to this warlike state,

Have we, as 'twere with a defeated joy,--

With an auspicious and a dropping eye,

With mirth in funeral
and with dirge in marriage,

In equal scale weighing delight and dole,--

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,

Or thinking by our late
dear brother's death

Our state to be disjoint
and out of frame,

He hath not fail'd to pester us with message,

Importing the surrender of those lands

Lost by his father,
with all bonds of law,

To our most valiant brother.

So much for him.

Thus much the business is.

We have here writ to Norway

uncle of young Fortinbras,--

that is suppress his nephiew further march

and threatening enterprise
against our state.

And we here dispatch
you, good Cornelia

and Voltimand, as our ambasadores
to old Norway.

In that and all things
will we show our duty.

We doubt it nothing:
heartily farewell.

And now, Laertes,
what's the news with you?

You told us of some suit;
what is't, Laertes?

You cannot speak of reason to the Dane,

And loose your voice.

My dread lord,

Your leave and favour to return to France;

From whence though willingly
I came to Denmark,

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.

Have you your father's leave?
What says Polonius?

He hath, my lord,
wrung from me my slow leave

I do beseech you,
give him leave to go.

Take thy fair hour, Laertes;
time be thine,

And thy best graces spend it at thy will!

But now,

our cousin Hamlet, and our son,--

A little more than kin, and less than kind.

How is it that the clouds
still hang on you?

Not so, my lord;
I am too much i' the sun.

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 lives must die,

Passing through nature to eternity.

Ay, madam, it is common.
If it be,

Why seems it so particular with thee?

Seems, madam! nay it is;
I know not 'seems.'

'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,

Nor customary suits of solemn black,

Together with all forms,
moods, shapes 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.

'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

To do obsequious sorrow.

but to persever
In obstinate condolement is

a course
Of impious stubbornness

'tis unmanly grief;

I pray you, throw to earth

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,

Do I impart toward you.

For your intent
In going back to school in...

- Wittenberg.
- 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,

Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.

Let not thy mother lose her prayers,

Hamlet.

I pray thee, stay with us;
go not to Wittenberg.

I shall in all my best obey you, madam.

Why, 'tis a loving and a fair reply!

Be as ourself in Denmark.

Madam, come;

This gentle and unforced
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,

Re-speaking earthly thunder.
Come away.

O, that this too

too solid flesh would melt...

Thaw

and resolve itself into a dew!

Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd

His canon 'gainst self-slaughter!

O God!

God!

How weary,

stale,

flat and unprofitable,

Seem to me all the uses
of this world!

Fie on't! ah fie!

'tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed;

things rank and gross in nature
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

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!--

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 my uncle,

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

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.

Hail to your lordship!
I am glad to see you well:

Horatio,

or I do forget myself.

The same, my lord,
and your poor servant ever.

Sir, my good friend;
I'll change that name with you:

And what make you from Wittenberg,
Horatio? Marcellus!

My good lord--
I am very glad to see you.

Good even, sir.

What, in faith, make you from Wittenberg?

We'll teach you to drink
deep ere you depart.

My lord, I came to see
your father's funeral.

I pray thee, do not mock me,
fellow-student;

I think it was to see
my mother's wedding.

Indeed, my lord, it follow'd hard upon.
Thrift, thrift, Horatio!

the funeral baked meats

Did coldly furnish forth
the marriage tables.

My father!--

methinks I see my father.

Where, my lord?

In my mind's eye, Horatio.

I saw him once;

he was a goodly king.

He was a man,
take him for all in all,

I shall not look upon his like again.

My lord,

I think I saw him yesternight.
Saw? who?

My lord, the king your father.

The king my father!

Season your admiration
With an attent ear, till I may deliver,

Upon the witness of these gentlemen,
This marvel to you.

For God's love, let me hear.

Two nights together
had these gentlemen,

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 point exactly, cap-a-pe,

Appears before them,
and with solemn march

Goes slow and stately by them.
This to me

In dreadful secrecy impart they did;

And I with them the third night
kept the watch;

Where, as they had deliver'd,
The apparition comes:

I knew your father;
These hands are not more like.

But where was this?

My lord, upon the platform
where we watch'd.

Did you not speak to it?

My lord, I did; But answer made it none:
'Tis very strange.

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.
Indeed.

indeed, sirs, but this troubles me.

Hold you the watch to-night?
We do, my lord.

Arm'd, say you?
Arm'd, my lord.

From top to toe?
My lord, from head to foot.

Then saw you not his face?

O, yes, my lord;
he wore his beaver up.

What, look'd he frowningly?

A countenance more in sorrow
than in anger.

Pale or red?
Nay, very pale.

And fix'd his eyes upon you?
Most constantly.

I would I had been there.
It would have much amazed you.

Very like, very like.

Stay'd it long?

While one with moderate
haste might tell a hundred.

Longer, longer.

Not when I saw't.

His beard was grizzled--no?

It was, as I have seen it in his life,

A sable silver'd.

I will watch to-night;
Perchance 'twill walk again.

I warrant it will.

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,

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:

Upon the platform, 'twixt eleven and twelve,
I'll visit you.

Our duty to your honour.

My father's spirit in arms!
all is not well;

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.

My necessaries are embark'd:

farewell:

And, sister,
as the winds give benefit

And convoy is assistant,
do not sleep,

But let me hear from you.

Do you doubt that?

For Hamlet and the trifling
of his favour,

Hold it a fashion and a toy in blood,

A violet in the youth of primy nature,

Forward, not permanent,
sweet, not lasting,

The perfume and suppliance of a minute;
No more.

No more but so?
Think it no more. Perhaps he loves you now,

And now no soil nor cautel doth besmirch

The virtue of his will:
but you must fear,

His greatness weigh'd,
his will is not his own;

For he himself is subject to his birth:

He may not, as unvalued persons do,

Carve for himself;
for on his choice depends

The safety and health
of this whole state;

And therefore must his choice be circumscribed

Unto the voice and yielding of that body
Whereof he is the head.

Then if he says he loves you,

It fits your wisdom so far to believe it

As he in his particular act and place...

May give his saying deed;

which is no further
Than the main voice of Denmark goes withal.

Then weigh what loss
your honour may sustain,

If with too credent ear you list his songs,

Or lose your heart,
or your chaste treasure open

To his unmaster'd importunity.

Fear it, Ophelia,

fear it, my dear sister,

And keep you in the rear
of your affection,

Out of the shot
and danger of desire.

Be wary then;
best safety lies in fear:

Youth to itself rebels,
though none else near.

I shall the effect
of this good lesson keep,

As watchman to my heart.
But, good my brother,

Do not, as some
ungracious pastors do,

Show me the steep
and thorny way to heaven;

Whiles, like a puff'd
and reckless libertine,

Himself the primrose path
of dalliance treads,

And recks not his own rede.
O, fear me not.

I stay too long:
but here my father comes.

A double blessing is a double grace,
Occasion smiles upon a second leave.

Yet here, Laertes!
aboard, aboard, for shame!

The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
And you are stay'd for.

There; my blessing with thee!

And these few precepts in thy memory

See thou character.
Give thy thoughts no tongue,

Nor any unproportioned thought his act.

Be thou familiar,
but by no means vulgar.

Those friends thou hast,
and their adoption tried,

Grapple them to thy soul
with hoops of steel;

But do not dull thy palm
with entertainment

Of each new-hatch'd, unfledged comrade.

Beware Of entrance to a quarrel,
but being in,

Bear't that the opposed
may beware of thee.

Give every man thy ear,
but few thy voice;

Take each man's censure,
but reserve thy judgment.

Costly thy habit
as thy purse can buy,

But not express'd in fancy;
rich, not gaudy;

For the apparel oft proclaims the man,

Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan

oft loses both itself and friend,

- And borrowing
- dulls the edge of husbandry.

This above all:

to thine ownself be true,

And it must follow,
as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man.

Farewell

my blessing season this in thee!

Most humbly do I take my leave,
my lord.

The time invites you; go;
your servants tend.

Farewell, Ophelia;

and remember well
What I have said to you.

'Tis in my memory lock'd,

And you yourself shall keep
the key of it.

Farewell.

What is't, Ophelia,
be hath said to you?

So please you, something
touching the Lord Hamlet.

Marry, well bethought:

Tis told me,
he hath very oft of late

Given private time to you;
and you yourself

Have of your audience
been most free and bounteous:

If it be so, as so 'tis put on me,

And that in way of caution,
I must tell you,

You do not understand yourself
so clearly

As it behoves my daughter
and your honour.

What is between you?
give me up the truth.

He hath, my lord,
of late made many tenders

Of his affection to me.

Affection! pooh!

you speak like a green girl,

Unsifted in such perilous circumstance.

Do you believe his tenders,
as you call them?

I do not know, my lord,
what I should think.

Marry, I'll teach you:
think yourself a baby;

That you have ta'en
these tenders for true pay,

Which are not sterling.
Tender yourself more dearly;

Or--not to crack the wind
of the poor phrase,

Running it thus--
you'll tender me a fool.

My lord, he hath
importuned me with love

In honourable fashion.

Ay, fashion you may call it;
go to, go to.

And hath given countenance
to his speech, my lord,

With almost all the holy vows of heaven.

Ay, springes to catch woodcocks.
I do know,

When the blood burns,
how prodigal the soul,

Lends the tongue vows:
these blazes, daughter,

Giving more light than heat,
extinct in both,

You must not take for fire.
From this time

Be somewhat scanter
of your maiden presence;

For Lord Hamlet,
Believe so much in him, that he is young

And with a larger tether
may he walk

Than may be given you:

in few, Ophelia,
Do not believe his vows;.

This is for all:

I would not, in plain terms,
from this time forth,

Have you so slander any moment leisure,

As to give words or talk
with the Lord Hamlet.

Look to't, I charge you:

come your ways.

I shall obey, my lord.

The air bites shrewdly;
it is very cold.

It is a nipping and an eager air.

- What hour now?
- I think it lacks of twelve.

- No, it is struck.
- Indeed? I heard it not:

then it draws near the season

Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk.

What does this mean, my lord?

The king doth wake to-night
and takes his rouse,

Keeps wassail,
and the swaggering up-spring reels;

And, as he drains
his draughts of Rhenish down,

The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out

- The triumph of his pledge.
- Is it a custom?

Ay, marry, is't:

But to my mind,
though I am native here

And to the manner born,
it is a custom

More honour'd in the breach
than the observance.

Look, my lord, it comes!

Angels and ministers
of grace defend us!

Be thou a spirit of health
or goblin damn'd,

Bring with thee airs
from heaven or blasts from hell,

Be thy intents wicked or charitable,

Thou comest in such
a questionable shape

That I will speak to thee:

I'll call thee Hamlet,

King,

father,

royal Dane: O, answer me!

Let me not burst in ignorance;
but tell

Why thy canonized bones,
hearsed in death,

Have burst their cerements;
why the sepulchre,

Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn'd,

Hath oped his ponderous
and marble jaws,

To cast thee up again.
What may this mean,

That thou, dead corpse,
again in complete steel

Revisit'st thus
the glimpses of the moon,

Making night hideous;
and we fools of nature

So horridly to shake our disposition

With thoughts beyond
the reaches of our souls?

Say, why is this?

wherefore?

what should we do?

It beckons you to go away with it,

As if it some impartment did desire
To you alone.

It waves you to a more removed ground:
But do not go with it.

- No, by no means.
- It will not speak; then I will follow it.

- Do not, my lord.
- Why, what should be the fear?

I do not set my life in a pin's fee;

And for my soul, what can it do to that,
Being a thing immortal as itself?

It waves me forth again:
I'll follow it.

What if it tempt you
toward the flood, my lord,

Or to the dreadful
summit of the cliff

That beetles o'er
his base into the sea,

And there assume some
other horrible form,

Which might deprive
your sovereignty of reason

- And draw you into madness?
- It waves me still.

- Go on; I'll follow thee.
- You shall not go, my lord.

- Hold off your hands.
- Be ruled; you shall not go.

My fate cries out,

And makes each petty
artery in this body

As hardy as the Nemean
lion's nerve.

Still am I call'd.
Unhand me, gentlemen.

By heaven, I'll make a ghost
of him that lets me!

I say, away!

Go on; I'll follow thee.

He waxes desperate with imagination.

Let's follow;
'tis not fit thus to obey him.

- Have after.
- To what issue will this come?

Something is rotten
in the state of Denmark.

- Heaven will direct it.
- Nay, let's follow.

Where wilt thou lead me?
speak; I'll go no further.

- Mark me.
- I will.

My hour is almost come,
When I to sulphurous and tormenting flames
Must render up myself.

Alas, poor ghost!

Pity me not,

but lend thy serious hearing
To what I shall unfold.

Speak; I am bound to hear.

So art thou to revenge,
when thou shalt hear.

What?

I am thy father's spirit,

Doom'd for a certain term
to walk the night,

And for the day confined
to fast in fires,

Till the foul crimes done
in my days of nature

Are burnt and purged away.
But that I am forbid

To tell the secrets
of my prison-house,

I could a tale unfold
whose lightest word

Would harrow up thy soul,
freeze thy young blood,

Make thy two eyes, like stars,
start from their spheres,

But this eternal blazon must not be

To ears of flesh and blood.

List, list, O, list!

- If thou didst ever thy dear father love...
- O God!

... Revenge his foul
and most unnatural murder.

Murder!!

Murder most foul,

as in the best it is,

But this most foul,
strange and unnatural.

Haste me to know't,
that I, with wings as swift

As meditation or the thoughts of love,

May sweep to my revenge.

I find thee apt;

'Tis given out
that sleeping in my orchard,

A serpent stung me.

but know,

thou noble youth,

The serpent that did
sting thy father's life

Now wears his crown.

O my prophetic soul! My uncle!

Ay, that incestuous,
that adulterate beast,

With witchcraft of his wit,

with traitorous gifts,
won to his shameful lust

The will of my most
seeming-virtuous queen:

O Hamlet,
what a falling-off was there!

From me, whose love
was of that dignity

That it went hand in hand
even with the vow

I made to her in marriage,

and to decline
upon a wretch

whose natural gifts were poor

To those of mine!

But lust, though to a radiant angel link'd,

Will sate itself in a celestial bed,

And prey on garbage.

But, soft!

methinks I scent the morning air.

Brief let me be.

Sleeping within my orchard,

My custom always in the afternoon,

Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole,

With juice of cursed

hebenon in a vial,

And in the porches of my ears did pour

The leperous distilment; whose effect

Holds such an enmity with blood of man

That swift as quicksilver it courses through

The natural gates and alleys of the body,

And with a sudden vigour doth posset

And curd,
The thin and wholesome blood:

so did it mine;

And a most instant
tetter bark'd about,

Most lazar-like,
with vile and loathsome crust,

All my smooth body.

Thus was I,

sleeping, by a brother's hand
of life

of crown, and queen, at once

dispatch'd

O, horrible!

- Most horrible!
- O God!

If thou hast nature in thee,
bear it not;

Let not the royal bed of Denmark
be a couch

for luxury and damned incest.

But, howsoever
thou pursuest this act,

Taint not thy mind,

nor let thy soul contrive
Against thy mother aught.

leave her to heaven

And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge,
To prick and sting her.

Fare thee well at once!

The glow-worm shows
the matin to be near,

And 'gins to pale his uneffectual fire:

Adieu, adieu!

Hamlet...

remember me!

O all you host of heaven!

O earth! what else?

And shall I couple hell?
O, fie!!

Hold, hold, my heart;

And you, my sinews,
grow not instant old,

But bear me stiffly up.
Remember thee!

Ay, thou poor ghost,
while memory holds a seat

In this distracted globe.
Remember thee!

Yea, from the table of my memory

I'll wipe away
all trivial fond records,

All saws of books,
all forms, all pressures past,

That youth and observation
copied there;

And thy commandment
all alone shall live

Within the book
and volume of my brain,

Unmix'd with baser matter:
yes, by heaven!

O most pernicious woman!

O villain,

villain,

smiling, damned villain!

My tables,--
meet it is I set it down,

That one may smile, and smile,

and be a villain.

At least,

I'm sure it may be so in Denmark.

So,

uncle,

there you are.

Now to my word

It is 'Adieu, adieu! remember me.'

I have sworn 't.

- My lord, my lord,--,
- Heaven secure him! - So be it!

Hillo, ho, ho, my lord!

Hillo, ho, ho, boy!
come, bird, come.

How is't, my noble lord?

- What news, my lord?
- O, wonderful!

Good my lord, tell it.

- No; you'll reveal it.
- Not I, my lord, by heaven.

- Nor I, my lord.
- How say you, then;

would heart of man once think it?

- But you'll be secret?
- Ay, by heaven, my lord.

There's ne'er a villain
dwelling in all Denmark

But he's an arrant knave.

There needs no ghost come from the grave
To tell us this.

Why, right; you are i' the right;

And so, without more circumstance at all,
I hold it fit that we shake hands and part:

You, as your business
and desire shall point you;

For every man has business and desires,

Such as it is;
and for mine own poor part,

Look you, I'll go pray.

These are but wild
and whirling words, my lord.

I'm sorry they offend you, heartily;
Yes, 'faith heartily.

There's no offence, my lord.

Yes, by Saint Patrick,
but there is, Horatio,

And much offence too.

Touching this vision here,

It is an honest ghost,
that let me tell you:

For your desire to know
what is between us,

O'ermaster 't as you may.
And now, good friends,

As you are friends,
scholars and soldiers,

Give me one poor request.

What is't, my lord? we will.

Never make known
what you have seen to-night.

My lord, we will not.

Nay, but swear't.

In faith, My lord, not I.

- Nor I, my lord, in faith.
- Upon my sword.

- We have sworn, my lord, already.
- Indeed, upon my sword, indeed.

- Swear.
- Ah, ha, boy!

say'st thou so?
art thou there, truepenny?

Come on--you hear this fellow
in the cellarage--

- Consent to swear.
- Propose the oath, my lord.

Never to speak of this that you have seen,
Swear by my sword.

Swear.

Hic et ubique?
then we'll shift our ground.

Come hither, gentlemen,
And lay your hands again upon my sword:

Never to speak of this that you have heard,

- Swear by my sword.
- Swear.

Well said, old mole!

canst work i' the earth so fast?
A worthy pioner!

Once more remove, good friends.

O day and night,
but this is wondrous strange!

And therefore as a stranger
give it welcome.

There are more things
in heaven and earth, Horatio,

Than are dreamt of
in your philosophy. But come;

Here, as before, never,
so help you mercy,

How strange or odd
soe'er I bear myself,

As I perchance hereafter
shall think meet

To put an antic disposition on,

That you, at such times
seeing me, never shall,

With arms encumber'd thus,
or this headshake,

Or by pronouncing of some
doubtful phrase,

As 'Well, well, we know,'
or 'We could, an if we would,'

Or such ambiguous giving out, to note

That you know aught of me:
this not to do,

So grace and mercy at
your most need help you,

Swear!

- Swear!
- We swear! We swear!

Rest, rest, perturbed spirit!

So, gentlemen,

Let us go in together;

And still your fingers on your lips, I pray.

The time is out of joint.

O cursed spite,

That ever I was born to set it right!

Give him this money
and these notes, Reynaldo.

I will, my lord.

You shall do marvellous wisely,
good Reynaldo,

Before you visit him, to make inquire
Of his behavior.

My lord, I did intend it.

Marry, well said; very well said.
Look you, sir,

Inquire me first
what Danskers are in Paris;

And how, and who, what means,
and where they keep,

What company, at what expense;
and finding

By this encompassment
and drift of question

That they do know my son,
come you more nearer

Take you, as 'twere, some distant
knowledge of him;

As thus, 'I know his father
and his friends,

And in part him:
' do you mark this, Reynaldo?

Ay, very well, my lord.

'And in part him;
but' you may say 'not well:

But, if't be he I mean,
he's very wild;

Addicted so and so:
' and there put on him

What forgeries you please;
marry, none so rank

As may dishonour him;
take heed of that;

But, sir, such wanton,
wild and usual slips

As are companions noted
and most known

To youth and liberty.

As gaming, my lord.

Ay, or drinking, fencing,
swearing, quarrelling,

Drabbing: you may go so far.

My lord, that would dishonour him.

'Faith, no; as you may
season it in the charge

- But, my good lord,--
- Wherefore should you do this?

- Ay, my lord, I would know that.
- Marry, sir, here's my drift;

And I believe, it is a fetch of wit:

You laying these slight
sullies on my son,

As 'twere a thing a little soil'd i'
the working, Mark you,

Your party in converse,
him you would sound,

Having ever seen
in the prenominate crimes

The youth you breathe of guilty,
be assured

He closes with you in this consequence;

'Good sir,' or so,

or 'friend,' or 'gentleman,'

According to the phrase or the addition

Of man and country.

Very good, my lord.

And then, sir, does he this--

he does--

what was I about to say?

By the mass, I was about to say
something:

where did I leave?

At 'closes in the consequence...

At 'closes in the consequence...?

' ay, marry;

He closes thus:
'I know the gentleman;

I saw him yesterday, or t' other day,

Or then, or then;
with such, or such;

and, as you say,
There was a' gaming;

There falling out at tennis:
' or perchance,

'I saw him enter
such a house of sale,'

Videlicet, a brothel, or so forth.
See you now;

Your bait of falsehood
takes this carp of truth:

And thus do we of wisdom and of reach,

By indirections find directions out:

- You have me, have you not?
- My lord, I have.

God be wi' you;

- fare you well.
- Good my lord!

Observe his inclination
in yourself.

- I shall, my lord.
- And let him ply his music.

Well, my lord.

Farewell!

How now, Ophelia!
what's the matter?

O, my lord, my lord,
I have been so affrighted!

With what, i' the name of God?

My lord, as I was sewing in my closet,

Lord Hamlet, with his doublet
all unbraced;

No hat upon his head;
his stockings foul'd,

Ungarter'd, and down-gyved
to his ancle;

Pale as his shirt;
his knees knocking each other;

And with a look so piteous in purport

As if he had been loosed out of hell

To speak of horrors,
--he comes before me.

- Mad for thy love?
- My lord, I do not know;

- But truly, I do fear it.
- What said he?

He took me by the wrist
and held me hard;

Then goes he to the length
of all his arm;

And, with his other hand
thus o'er his brow,

He falls to such perusal of my face
As he would draw it.

Long stay'd he so;

At last, a little shaking of mine arm

And thrice his head thus
waving up and down,

He raised a sigh so piteous
and profound

As it did seem to shatter all his bulk

And end his being

that done, he lets me go:

And, with his head over
his shoulder turn'd,

He seem'd to find his way
without his eyes;

For out o' doors he went
without their helps,

And, to the last,
bended their light on me.

Come,
This is the very ecstasy of love,

Whose violent property fordoes itself

And leads the will to desperate undertakings

I am sorry.

What, have you given him
any hard words of late?

No, my good lord, but,
as you did command,

I did repel his fetters and denied

- His access to me.
- That hath made him mad.

I am sorry that
with better heed and judgment

I had not quoted him:
I fear'd he did but trifle,

And meant to wreck thee;
but, beshrew my jealousy!

Come, go we to the king:

This must be known;

Welcome, dear Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern!

Moreover that we much
did long to see you,

The need we have to use you did provoke

Our hasty sending.
Something have you heard

Of Hamlet's transformation.
What it should be,

More than his father's death,
that thus hath put him

So much from the understanding of himself,

I cannot dream of:
I beseech you,

That, being of such

young days brought up with him,

That you vouchsafe
your rest here in our court

Some little time:
so by your companies

To lead him on to pleasures,
and to gather,

So much as from occasion you may glean,

Whether aught, unknown to us,
afflicts him thus,

That, open'd, lies within our remedy.

Good gentlemen, he hath
much talk'd of you;

And sure I am two men
there are not living

To whom he more adheres.
If it will please you

To show us so much gentry
and good will

As to expend your time
with us awhile,

For the supply
and profit of our hope,

Your visitation shall receive
such thanks

As fits a king's remembrance.

Both your majesties

Might, by the sovereign
power you have of us,

Put your dread pleasures
more into command

Than to entreaty.

But we both obey,

And here give up ourselves,
in the full bent

To lay our service freely at your feet,
To be commanded.

Thanks, Rosencrantz
and gentle Guildenstern.

Thanks, Guildenstern
and gentle Rosencrantz:

And I beseech you instantly to visit
My too much changed son.

Go, some of you,
And bring these gentlemen where Hamlet is.

Heavens make our presence
and our practises

Pleasant and helpful to him!
Ay, amen!

The ambassadors from Norway,
my good lord,

Are joyfully return'd.

Thou still hast been
the father of good news.

Have I, my lord?

I assure my good liege,
I hold my duty, as I hold my soul,

Both to my God
and to my gracious king:

And I do think that I have found

The very cause of Hamlet's lunacy.

O, speak of that;
that do I long to hear.

A first give admittance to the ambassadors;

My news shall be the fruit
to that great feast.

Thyself do grace to them,
and bring them in.

He tells me, my dear Gertrude,
that he hath found

The head and source
of all your son's distemper.

I doubt it is no other but the main;

His father's death,

and our o'erhasty marriage.

Well, we will sift him.

Welcome, good friends!

Say, what from our brother Norway?

Most fair return
of greetings and desires.

he sent out to suppress
His nephew's march.

the which is told a propose
'gainst the Poles

But, better look'd into, he truly found

It was against your highness
and our state.

So, Fortinbras
Receives rebuke from him

and vowes before his uncle never more

To give the assay of arms
against stand mark here.

It likes us well;

at night we'll feast together:

Most welcome home!

This business is well ended.

My liege, and madam, to expostulate

What majesty should be, what duty is,

Why day is day, night night,

and time is time,

Were nothing but to waste
night, day and time.

Therefore, since brevity
is the soul of wit,

And tediousness the limbs
and outward flourishes,

I will be brief:
your noble son is mad:

Mad call I it; for,
to define true madness,

What is't but to be nothing else but mad?

- But let that go.
- More matter, with less art.

Madam, I swear I use no art at all.

That he is mad, 'tis true:
'tis true 'tis pity;

And pity 'tis 'tis true:
a foolish figure;

But farewell it,'
for I will use no art.

Mad let us grant him, then:
and now remains

That we find out the cause
of this effect,

Or rather say, the cause
of this defect,

For this effect defective
comes by cause:

Thus it remains, and the remainder thus.

I have a daughter
--have while she is mine--

Who, in her duty and obedience, mark,

Hath given me this:

now gather, and surmise.

'To the celestial and my soul's idol,

the most beautified Ophelia,'--

Oh that's an ill phrase, a vile phrase

'beautified' is a vile phrase:
but you shall hear. Thus:

'In her excellent white bosom,
these, &c.'

Came this from Hamlet to her?

Good madam, stay awhile;
I will be faithful.

'Doubt thou the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;

Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love.

This, in obedience,
hath my daughter shown me, and more above

But how hath she
Received his love?

What do you think of me?

As of a friend faithful and honourable.

I would fain prove so.
But what might you think,

When I had seen this hot love
on the wing--

As I perceived it, I must tell you that,

Before my daughter told me--
what might you,

Or my dear majesty
your queen here, think,

If I had given my heart a winking,
mute and dumb,

Or look'd upon this love
with idle sight;

No, I went round to work,

And my young mistress
thus I did bespeak:

'Lord Hamlet is a prince,
out of thy star;

This must not be:'
and then I precepts gave her,

That she should lock herself
from his resort,

Admit no messengers,
receive no tokens.

Which done, she took
the fruits of my advice;

And he, repulsed--
a short tale to make--

Fell into a sadness,
then into a fast,

Thence to a watch,
thence into a weakness,

Thence to a lightness,
and, by this declension,

Into the madness wherein now he raves,

And all we mourn for.

Do you think 'tis this?

It may be, very likely.

Hath there been such a time--
I'd fain know that--

That I have positively said 'Tis so,'

When it proved otherwise?

Not that I know.

Take this from this,
if this be otherwise:

If circumstances lead me,
I will find

Where truth is hid,
though it were hid indeed

Within the centre.

How may we try this further?

You know, sometimes he walks
four hours together

Here in the lobby.

So he does indeed.

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.

- We will try it.
- But, look, where sadly the poor wretch comes.

Sweet Gertrude, leave us too;

Her father and myself, lawful espials,

us may of their encounter frankly judge,

If 't be the affliction of his love or no

That thus he suffers for.

I shall obey you.

And for your part, Ophelia,

I do wish

That your good beauties be the happy cause

Of Hamlet's wildness:
so shall I hope your virtues

Will bring him to his wonted way again,

To both your honours.

Madam, I wish it may.

Ophelia, walk you here.

Read on this book;

That show of such an exercise
may colour your loneliness.

- I hear him coming.
- Let's withdraw, my lord.

To be, or not to be...

that is the question.

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows
of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them?

To die,

to sleep,

No more.

and by a sleep to say we end

The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to

'tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wish'd.

To die,

to sleep;

To sleep: perchance to dream:

ay, there's the rub;

For in that sleep of death
what dreams may come

When we have shuffled off
this mortal coil,

Must give us pause:

there's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life;

For who would bear
the whips and scorns of time,

But that the dread
of something after death,

The undiscover'd country
from whose bourn

No traveller returns,
puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear
those ills we have

Than fly to others
that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make
cowards of us all;

And thus the native
hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with
the pale cast of thought,

And enterprises of
great pith and moment

With this regard their
currents turn awry,

And lose the name of action.
--Soft you now!

The fair Ophelia!

Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd.

Good my lord,
How does your honour for this many a day?

I humbly thank you; well, well, well.

My lord, I have remembrances of yours,

That I have longed long to re-deliver;

I pray you, now receive them.

Not I; I never gave you aught.

My honour'd lord, you know
right well you did;

And, with them, words of
so sweet breath composed

As made the things more rich:
their perfume lost,

Take these again;
for to the noble mind

Rich gifts wax poor
when givers prove unkind.

There, my lord.

- Are you honest?
- My lord?

- Are you fair?
- What means your lordship?

I did love you once.

Indeed, my lord,
you made me believe so.

You should not have believed me;
I loved you not.

I was the more deceived.

Get thee to a nunnery:
why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?

I am myself indifferent honest;

but yet I could accuse me of such things

it would be better my mother had not borne me:

What should such fellows as I do crawling
between earth and heaven?

We are arrant knaves,
all; believe none of us.

Go thy ways to a nunnery.

Where's your father?

At home, my lord.

Let the doors be shut upon him,

that he may play the
fool no where but in's own house.

Farewell.

O, help him, you sweet heavens!

If thou dost marry, I'll give thee
this plague for thy dowry:

be thou as chaste as ice,
as pure as snow,

thou shalt not escape calumny.

Get thee to a nunnery, go: farewell.

Or, if thou wilt needs
marry, marry a fool;

for wise men know well enough
what monsters you make of them.

To a nunnery, go,
and quickly too. Farewell.

O heavenly powers, restore him!

You jig, you amble, and you lisp,

and nick-name God's creatures,

and make your wantonness
your ignorance.

Go to, I'll no more on't; it hath
made me mad.

I say, we will have no more marriages:

those that are married already,
all but one, shall live;

the rest shall keep as they are.

To a nunnery, go.

O, what a noble mind
is here o'erthrown!

The courtier's,

soldier's,

scholar's, eye,

tongue, sword;

The expectancy and rose
of the fair state,

The glass of fashion

and the mould of form,

The observed of all observers,

quite,

quite down!

And I,

of ladies most deject and wretched,

That suck'd the honey
of his music vows,

Now see that noble and most
sovereign reason,

Like sweet bells jangled,
out of tune and harsh;

That unmatch'd form
and feature of blown youth

Blasted with ecstasy:

O, woe is me,

To have seen what I have seen,

see what I see!

Love! his affections
do not that way tend;

There's something in his soul,

O'er which his melancholy
sits on brood;

And I do doubt the hatch
and the disclose

Will be some danger:

How now, Ophelia!

You need not tell us
what Lord Hamlet said;

We heard it all.

Away, I do beseech you,
here he comes!

I'll board him presently.

How does my good Lord Hamlet?

Well,

God-a-mercy.

Do you know me, my lord?

Excellent well; you are a fishmonger.

- Not I, my lord.
- Then I would you were so honest a man.

Honest, my lord!

Ay, sir; to be honest,
as this world goes, is to be

one man picked out of ten thousand.

That's very true, my lord.

For if the sun breed maggots
in a dead dog, being a

god kissing carrion,--
Have you a daughter?

I have, my lord.

Let her not walk i' the sun:

conception is a blessing:
but not as your daughter may conceive.

Friend, look to 't.

How say you by that?
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?

Words,

words, words?

What is the matter, my lord?

Between who?

I mean, the matter that
you read, my lord.

Slanders, sir:
for the satirical rogue 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 yourself, sir, should be old as I am,

if like a crab
you could go backward.

Though this be madness,
yet there is method in 't.

Will you walk out of the air, my lord?

Into my grave.

Indeed, that is out o' the air.

How pregnant sometimes
his replies are!

My honourable lord,
I will most humbly take my leave of you.

You cannot, sir,
take from me any thing

that I will
more willingly part withal:

except my life,

except my life,

except my life.

Fare you well, my lord.

These tedious old fools!

You go to seek the Lord Hamlet;
there he is.

God save you, sir!

- My honoured lord!
- My most dear lord!

My excellent good friends!
How dost thou, Guildenstern?

Rosencrantz!
Good lads, how do ye both?

As the indifferent children of the earth.

Happy, in that we are not over-happy;

On fortune's cap we are
not the very button.

- Nor the soles of her shoes?
- Neither, my lord.

Then you live about her waist,
or in the middle of her favours?

'Faith, her privates we.

In the secret parts of fortune?

Most true; she is a strumpet.

- What's the news?
- None, my lord,

but that the world's grown honest.

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?

- Prison, my lord!
- Denmark's a prison.

Then is the world one.

A goodly one; in which there are many confines,
wards and dungeons,

Denmark being one o' the worst.

We think not so, my lord.

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.

Why then, your ambition makes it one;

'tis too narrow for your mind.

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.

- Shall we to the court?
- We'll wait upon you.

No such matter:

I will not sort you with the rest
of my servants,

But, in the beaten way of friendship,
what make you at Elsinore?

To visit you, my lord;
no other occasion.

Were you not sent for?

Is it your own inclining?

A free visitation?

Come, deal justly with me:

- Come; nay, speak.
- What should we say, my lord?

Why, any thing, 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.

To what end, my lord?

That you must teach me.

But let me conjure you, by
the rights of our fellowship,

be even and direct with me,
whether you were sent for, or no?

What say you?

Nay, then, I have an eye of you.--
If you love me, hold not off.

My lord, we were sent for.

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,

forgone all custom of exercise;

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 a man!

how noble in reason!

how infinite in faculty!

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.

My lord, there was no such
stuff in my thoughts.

Why did you laugh then,
when I said 'man delights not me'?

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.
- What players are they?

Even those you were wont to take delight in,
the tragedians of the city.

He that plays the king shall be welcome;

his majesty
shall have tribute of me;

It is not very strange;
for mine uncle is king of Denmark,

and those that would make mows 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.

There are the players.

Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore.

Come then your hands.

My uncle-father and aunt-mother
are deceived.

In what, my dear lord?

I am but mad north-north-west:

when the wind is southerly
I know a hawk from a handsaw.

Well be with you, gentlemen!

Hark you, Guildenstern; and you too:
at each ear a hearer:

that great baby you see there is not yet
out of his swaddling-clouts.

Happily he's the second time come to them;
for they say an old man is twice a child.

I will prophesy he comes
to tell me of the players;

mark it.

You say right, sir:
o' Monday morning; 'twas so indeed.

My lord, I have news to tell you.

My lord, I have news to tell you.

- When Roscius was an actor in Rome,--
- The actors are come hither, my lord.

- Buz, buz! - Upon mine honour,--
- Then came each actor on his ass,--

The best actors in the world,
either for tragedy, comedy, history,

pastoral, pastoral-comical,
historical-pastoral,

tragical-historical, tragicalcomical-
historical-pastoral,

scene individable, or poem unlimited:

Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor
Plautus too light.

O Jephthah, judge of Israel,
what a treasure hadst thou!

What a treasure had he, my lord?

Why,
'One fair daughter and no more,
The which he loved passing well.'

- Still on my daughter.
- Am I not i' the right, old Jephthah?

If you call me Jephthah, my lord,
I have a daughter that I love passing well.

Nay, that follows not.

- What follows, then, my lord?
- You are welcome, masters; welcome, all.

I am glad to see thee well.
Welcome, good friends.

O, my old friend!

What, my young
lady and mistress!

By'r lady, your ladyship is nearer

to heaven than when I last saw you ,

Pray God, your voice,

be not cracked within the ring.

That we'll have a speech straight:

come, give us a taste of your quality;
come, a passionate speech.

What speech, my lord?

I heard thee speak me a speech once,
but it was never acted;

or, if it was, not above once; for the
play, I remember, pleased not the million;

'twas caviare to the general:

One speech in it I chiefly loved:
'twas Aeneas' tale to Dido;

and thereabout of it especially,
where he speaks of Priam's slaughter.

if it live in your memory,
begin at this line:

let me see, let me see--

'The rugged Pyrrhus, like the Hyrcanian beast'--
it is not so:--

it begins with Pyrrhus:--
'The rugged Pyrrhus,

- "he whose sable arms..."
- "whose sable arms"!

Ehm... Black as his purpose,
did the night resemble

Ehm... When he lay couched
in the ominous horse,

Hath now this dread and
black complexion smear'd

With heraldry more dismal;
head to foot

- Now is he...
- total...

total gules
roasted in wrath

And thus o'er-sized with coagulate gore,

With eyes like carbuncles,
the hellish Pyrrhus

the hellish Pyrrhus...

Old grandsire Priam seeks.'

So, proceed you.

'Fore God, my lord, well spoken,

with good accent and
good discretion.

'Anon he finds him

Striking too short at Greeks;
his antique sword,

Rebellious to his arm,
lies where it falls,

Repugnant to command:
unequal match'd,

Pyrrhus at Priam drives;
in rage strikes wide;

But with the whiff
and wind of his fell sword

The unnerved father falls.

Then senseless Ilium,

Seeming to feel this blow,
with flaming top

Stoops to his base,
and with a hideous crash

Takes prisoner Pyrrhus' ear:
for, lo! his sword,

Which was declining on the milky head

Of reverend Priam, seem'd
i' the air to stick:

So,

as a painted tyrant, Pyrrhus stood,

And like a neutral to his will and matter,

Did nothing.

But, as we often see,
against some storm,

A silence in the heavens,
the rack stand still,

The bold winds speechless
and the orb below

As hush as death,

anon the dreadful thunder

Doth rend the region, so,
after Pyrrhus' pause,

Aroused vengeance sets him
new a-work;

And never did the Cyclops'
hammers fall

On Mars's armour forged
for proof eterne

With less remorse than Pyrrhus'
bleeding sword

Now falls on Priam.

This is too long.

It shall to the barber's, with your beard.
Prithee, say on:

he's for a jig or a tale of bawdry,
or he sleeps:

say on: come to Hecuba.

'But who,

O, who had seen the mobled queen--'

- 'The mobled queen?
- That's good; 'mobled queen' is good.

'Run

barefoot up and down,

threatening the flames
With bisson rheum; a clout upon that head

Where late the diadem stood,

and for a robe,
About her lank and all o'er-teemed loins,

A blanket, in the alarm of fear caught up;

Who this had seen,
with tongue in venom steep'd,

'Gainst Fortune's state
would treason have pronounced:

But if the gods themselves
did see her then

When she saw Pyrrhus
make malicious sport

In mincing with his
sword her husband's limbs,

The instant burst
of clamour that she made,

Unless things mortal
move them not at all,

Would have made milch
the burning eyes of heaven,

And passion in the gods.'

Look, whether he has not turned his colour
and has tears in's eyes.

Pray you, no more.

'Tis well:

I'll have thee speak out the rest soon.

My lord, will you see
the players well bestowed?

Do you hear, let them be well used;

for they are the abstract
and brief chronicles of the time.

My lord, I will use them
according to their desert.

God's bodykins, man, much better!

Use every man after his desert,
and who should 'scape whipping?

Come, sirs.

Follow him, friends:
we'll hear a play to-morrow..

Dost thou hear me, old friend;

can you play the
Murder of Gonzago?

- Ay, my lord.
- We'll ha't to-morrow night.

You could, for a need, study a speech
of some dozen or sixteen lines,

which I would set down
and insert in't, could you not?

- Ay, my lord.
- Very well.

Follow that lord;
and pray you mock him not.

Ehm... no.

My good friends,
I'll leave you till night:

you are welcome to Elsinore.

Good my lord!

God be wi' ye;

Now I am alone.

O, what a rogue and peasant
slave am I!

Is it not monstrous that
this player here,

But in a fiction,

in a dream of passion,

Could force his soul so
to his own conceit

That from her working
all his visage wann'd,

Tears in his eyes,
distraction in's aspect,

A broken voice,
and his whole function suiting

With forms to his conceit?

and all for nothing!

For Hecuba!

What's Hecuba to him,
or he to Hecuba,

That he should weep for her?

What would he do,

Had he the motive
and the cue for passion

That I have? He would drown
the stage with tears

And cleave the general ear
with horrid speech,

Make mad the guilty and appal the free,

Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed

The very faculties of eyes and ears.
Yet I,

A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak,

Like John-a-dreams,

unpregnant of my cause,
And can say nothing;

no, not for a king,

Upon whose property and most dear life

A damn'd defeat was made.

Am I a coward?

Who calls me villain?

breaks my pate across?

Plucks off my beard,
and blows it in my face?

Tweaks me by the nose?

gives me the lie i' the throat,
As deep as to the lungs? who does me this?
Ha!

'Swounds, I should take it:
for it cannot be

But I am pigeon-liver'd and lack gall

To make oppression bitter, or ere this

I should have fatted
all the region kites

With this slave's offal:

bloody, bawdy villain!

Remorseless, treacherous,
lecherous, kindless villain!

O, vengeance!

Why, what an ass am I!

This is most brave,

That I, the son of a dear father

murder'd,

Prompted to my revenge
by heaven and hell,

Must, like a whore,
unpack my heart with words,

And fall a-cursing, like a very drab,

A scullion! Fie upon't! foh!

About, my brain!

I have heard

That guilty creatures
sitting at a play

Have by the very cunning
of the scene

Been struck so to the soul
that presently

They have proclaim'd
their malefactions;

For murder, though it have no tongue,
will speak

With most miraculous organ.

I'll have these players

Play something like
the murder of my father

Before mine uncle.

I'll observe his looks;
I'll tent him to the quick:

if he but blench,

I know my course.

The spirit that I have seen
May be the devil: and the devil hath power

To assume a pleasing shape; yea,
and perhaps

Out of my weakness
and my melancholy,

As he is very potent with such spirits,
Abuses me to damn me:

I'll have grounds
More relative than this:

the play 's the thing

Wherein I'll catch
the conscience of the king.

And can you, by no drift
of circumstance,

Get from him why he puts
on this confusion,

He does confess he feels himself
distracted;

But from what cause
he will by no means speak.

Nor do we find him
forward to be sounded,

But, with a crafty madness,
keeps aloof,

When we would bring him on to some
confession Of his true state.

Did he receive you well?

- Most like a gentleman.
- But with much forcing of his disposition.

Niggard of question; but, of our demands,
Most free in his reply.

Did you assay him?
To any pastime?

Madam, it so fell out,
that certain players

We o'er-raught on the way:
of these we told him;

And there did seem in him
a kind of joy to hear of it.

'Tis most true.

And he beseech'd me to entreat your majesties
To hear and see the matter.

With all my heart;
and it doth much content me

To hear him so inclined.

Good gentlemen,
give him a further edge,

And drive his purpose
on to these delights.

We shall, my lord.

I have in quick determination
Thus set it down:

he shall with speed to England,

Haply the seas and countries different

With variable objects shall expel

This something-settled
matter in his heart,

Whereon his brains still beating
puts him thus

From fashion of himself.
What think you on't?

It shall do well:
but yet do I believe

The origin and commencement
of his grief

Sprung from neglected love.

My lord, do as you please;

But, if you hold it fit,
after the play

Let his queen mother
all alone entreat him

To show his grief:
let her be round with him;

And I'll be placed,
so please you, in the ear

Of all their conference.
If she find him not,

To England send him,
or confine him

where your wisdom best shall think.

It shall be so:

Madness in great ones
must not unwatch'd go.

Speak the speech, I pray you,
as I pronounced it to you,

trippingly on the tongue:
but if you mouth it,

as many of your players do, I had as lief the
town-crier spoke my lines.

Nor do not saw the air
too much with your hand,

thus, but use all gently;
for in the very torrent, tempest,

and, as I may say,
the whirlwind of passion,

you must acquire and beget a temperance

that may give it smoothness.

O, it offends me to the soul
to hear a robustious

periwig-pated fellow tear
a passion to tatters,

to very rags, to split
the ears of the groundlings,

who for the most part
are capable of nothing but

inexplicable dumbshows and noise:

I would have such a fellow
whipped for o'erdoing Termagant;

it out-herods Herod:
pray you, avoid it.

I warrant your honour.

Be not too tame neither,

but let your own discretion
be your tutor:

suit the action to the word,
the word to the action;

with this special o'erstep

you o'erstep not
the modesty of nature:

for any thing so overdone is

from the purpose of playing,
whose end,

both at the first and last, was and is,
to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature;

to show virtue her own feature,

scorn her own image

the very age and body of the time

his form and pressure.

Now this overdone,
or come tardy off,

though it make the unskilful laugh

cannot but make the judicious grieve;

the censure of the which one
must in your allowance

o'erweigh a whole theatre of others.

I hope we have reformed
that indifferently with us, sir.

Reform it altogether.

And let those that play your clowns

speak no more than is set down for them;

for there be of them
that will themselves laugh,

to set on some quantity of
barren spectators to laugh too

though, in the mean time,
some necessary question

of the play be then to be considered:

that's villanous,

and shows a most pitiful ambition
in the fool that uses it.

Go, make you ready.
Good, my lord!

Will the king hear this piece of work?

And the queen too, and that presently.

Bid the players make haste.

Will you two help to hasten them?

We will, my lord.

- What ho! Horatio!
- Here, sweet lord, at your service.

Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man
As e'er my conversation coped withal.

O, my dear lord,--

Nay, do not think I flatter;
Dost thou hear?

Since my dear soul was
mistress of her choice

And could of men distinguish, her election
Hath seal'd thee for herself;

Give me that man

That is not passion's slave,
and I will wear him

In my heart's core,
ay, in my heart of heart,

As I do thee.--
Something too much of this.--

There is a play to-night
before the king;

One scene of it comes near the circumstance
Which I have told thee of my father's death:

I prithee, when thou seest that act afoot,

Even with the very comment of thy soul
Observe mine uncle:

if his occulted guilt

Do not itself unkennel in one speech,

It is a damned ghost that we have seen,

And my imaginations are as foul
As Vulcan's stithy.

Well, my lord:

If he steal aught the whilst
this play is playing,

And 'scape detecting,
I will pay the theft.

They are coming to the play.

I must be idle:
Get you a place.

How fares our cousin Hamlet?

Excellent, i' faith; of the chameleon's dish:
I eat the air, promise-crammed:

I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet;
these words are not mine.

No, nor mine now.
My lord,

you played once
i' the university, you say?

That did I, my lord;
and was accounted a good actor.

What did you enact?

I did enact Julius Caesar.

I was killed i' the Capitol;

Brutus killed me.

It was a brute part of him to kill
so capital a calf there.

Be the players ready?

Ay, my lord; they stay
upon your patience.

Come hither, my dear Hamlet,
sit by me.

No, good mother,

here's metal more attractive.

O, ho! do you mark that?

Lady, shall I lie in your lap?

- No, my lord.
- I mean, my head upon your lap?

- Ay, my lord.
- Do you think I meant country matters?

I think nothing, my lord.

That's a fair thought
to lie between maids' legs.

- What is, my lord?
- Nothing.

You are merry, my lord.

- Who, I?
- Ay, my lord.

O God, your only jig-maker.
What should a man do but be merry?

For, look you, how cheerfully my
mother looks,

and my father died within these two hours.

Nay, 'tis twice two months, my lord.

So long? Nay then, let the devil wear black,

for I'll have a suit of sables.

O heavens!

Die two months ago,
and not forgotten yet?

Dead!

What means this, my lord?

Marry, this is miching mallecho;
it means mischief.

Belike this show imports
the argument of the play.

We shall know by this fellow: the players cannot
keep counsel; they'll tell all.

For us, and for our tragedy,

Here stooping to your clemency,

We beg your hearing patiently.

Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?

'Tis brief, my lord.

As woman's love.

Full thirty years of past
in sacred bands

Since love our hearts

and Hymen joined our hands.

So many journeys may the sun and moon

Make us again count o'er

ere love be done!

'Faith, I must leave thee,
love, and shortly too;

My operant powers their functions
leave to do:

And thou shalt live
in this fair world behind,

Honour'd, beloved;
and haply one as kind

For husband shalt thou--

O, confound the rest!

Such love must needs
be treason in my breast:

In second husband let me be accurst!

None wed the second
but who kill'd the first.

A second time I kill my husband dead,

When second husband kisses me in bed.

I do believe you think
what now you speak;

But what we do
determine oft we break.

So think thou wilt
no second husband wed;

But die thy thoughts when
thy first lord is dead.

Nor earth to me give food,
nor heaven light!

Sport and repose lock
from me day and night!

Both here and hence
pursue me lasting strife,

If, once a widow, ever I be wife!

If she should break it now!

'Tis deeply sworn.

Sweet, leave me here awhile;

My spirits grow dull,
and fain I would beguile

The tedious day with sleep.

Sleep rock thy brain,

And never come mischance
between us twain!

Madam, how like you this play?

The lady does protest too much, methinks.

- O, but she'll keep her word.
- Have you heard the argument?

- Is there no offence in 't?
- No, no, they do but jest,

poison in jest; no offence
i' the world.

What do you call the play?

The Mouse-trap.

This play is the image of
a murder done in Vienna.

Gonzago is the duke's name;
his wife, Baptista:

You shall see anon; 'tis a knavish
piece of work: but what o' that?

your majesty and we that have free souls,
it touches us not:

let the galled jade wince,
our withers are unwrung.

This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king.

You are as good as a chorus, my lord.

I could interpret between
you and your love,

if I could see the puppets dallying.

You are keen, my lord, you are keen.

Begin, murderer;

pox, leave thy damnable faces,
and begin.

Come: 'the croaking raven
doth bellow for revenge.'

Thoughts black,

hands apt, drugs fit,
and time agreeing;

Confederate season,
else no creature seeing;

Thou mixture rank,
of midnight weeds collected,

With Hecate's ban thrice blasted,
thrice infected,

Thy natural magic and dire property,

On wholesome life usurp immediately.

He poisons him i' the garden for's estate.

His name's Gonzago: the story is extant,
and writ in choice Italian:

you shall see anon how the murderer
gets the love of Gonzago's wife.

- The king rises.
- What, frighted with false fire!

- How fares my lord?
- Give o'er the play.

Give me some light.

- Away!
- Lights, lights, lights!

O good Horatio, I'll take the ghost's
word for a thousand pound.

- Didst perceive?
- Very well, my lord.

Upon the talk of the poisoning?

- I did very well note him.
- Come, some music!

Come, the recorders!

For if the king like not the comedy,

Why then, belike, he likes it not, perdy.

Good my lord, vouchsafe
me a word with you.

Sir, a whole history.

- The king, sir,--
- Ay, sir, what of him?

Is in his retirement marvellous distempered.

With drink, sir?

No, my lord, rather with choler.

Good my lord, put your discourse
into some frame

and start not so
wildly from my affair.

I am tame, sir: pronounce.

The queen, your mother, in most great
affliction of spirit, hath sent me to you.

- You are welcome.
- Nay, good my lord,

If it shall please you to make me
a wholesome answer,

I will do your mother's
commands.

- Oh, oh, oh, sir...
sir... I cannot.

What, my lord?

Make you a wholesome answer;
my wit's diseased.

- My mother, you say?
- Then thus she says,

your behavior hath struck her
into wonder and astonishment.

O wonderful son,

that can so astonish a mother!

Impart.

She desires to speak with you
in her closet,

ere you go to bed.

We shall obey, were she
ten times our mother.

Have you any further trade with us?

My lord,

you once did love me.

So I do still,

by these pickers and stealers.

Good my lord, what is your
cause of distemper?

You do, surely, bar the door
upon your own liberty,

if you deny your griefs to your friend.

Sir, I lack advancement.

How can that be, when you have the voice of the king
himself for your succession in Denmark?

Ay, but sir,

'While the grass grows,'

the proverb is something musty.

O, the recorders! let me see one.

To withdraw with you:

why do you go about
to recover the wind of me,

as if you would drive me into a toil?

O, my lord, if my duty be too bold,

my love is too unmannerly.

I do not well understand that.
Will you play upon this pipe?

- My lord, I cannot.
- I pray you.

Believe me, I cannot.

- I do beseech you.
- I know no touch of it, my lord.

'Tis as easy as lying.

govern these ventages with
your lingers and thumb,

give it breath with your mouth,

and it will discourse most eloquent music.

Look you, these are the stops.

But these cannot I command to any utterance of
harmony; I have not the skill.

Why, look you now,

how unworthy a thing you make of me!

You would play upon me;

you would seem to know my stops;

you would pluck out the heart of my mystery;

you would sound me from my lowest note

to the top of my compass:

and there is much music,
excellent voice, in this little organ;

yet cannot you make it speak?

'Sblood, do you think I am
easier to be played on than a pipe?

Call me what instrument you will,
though you can fret me,

you cannot play upon me.

God bless you, sir!

My lord, the queen would speak with you...

and presently.

Do you see yonder cloud that's
almost in shape of a camel?

By the mass, and 'tis
like a camel, indeed.

Methinks it is like a weasel.

It is backed like a weasel.

- Or like a whale?
- Very like a whale.

Then I will come to my mother by and by.

They fool me to the top of my bent.

I will come by and by.

- I will say so.
- By and by is easily said.

Leave me, friends.

Tis now the very witching time of night,

When churchyards yawn and hell
itself breathes out

Contagion to this world:
now could I drink hot blood,

And do such bitter business as the day

Would quake to look on.

Soft! now to my mother.

I will speak daggers to her,
but use none.

I like him not,
nor stands it safe with us

To let his madness range.
Therefore prepare you;

I your commission
will forthwith dispatch,

And he to England shall along with you:

The terms of our estate may not endure

Hazard so dangerous as doth hourly grow

Out of his lunacy.

We will ourselves provide:

Most holy and religious fear it is

To keep those many many bodies safe

That live and feed upon your majesty.

Never alone did the king sigh,
but with a general groan.

The majesty is a massy wheel,

Fix'd on the summit of the highest mount,

To whose huge spokes
ten thousand lesser things

Are mortised and adjoin'd.

Arm you, I pray you,
to this speedy voyage;

For we will fetters put upon this fear,

ich now goes too free-footed.

We will haste us.

My lord, he's going
to his mother's closet:

Behind the arras I'll convey myself,

To hear the process.

and warrant she'll tax him home:

Fare you well, my liege:

I'll call upon you ere you go to bed,
And tell you what I know.

Thanks, dear my lord.

O, my offence is rank

it smells to heaven;

It hath the primal eldest curse upon't,

A brother's murder.

Pray can I not,

Though inclination be
as sharp as will:

My stronger guilt
defeats my strong intent;

And, like a man
to double business bound,

I stand in pause where
I shall first begin,

And both neglect.

What if this cursed hand

Were thicker than itself
with brother's blood,

Is there not rain enough
in the sweet heavens

To wash it white as snow?

Whereto serves mercy

But to confront the visage
of offence?

And what's in prayer
but this two-fold force,

To be forestalled ere we come to fall,

Or pardon'd being down?

Then I'll look up;

My fault is past.

But, O, what form of prayer

Can serve my turn?
'Forgive me my foul murder'?

That cannot be; since
I am still possess'd

Of those effects for which
I did the murder,

My crown, mine own ambition
and my queen.

May one be pardon'd
and retain the offence?

In the corrupted currents of this world

Offence's gilded hand
may shove by justice,

And oft 'tis seen
the wicked prize itself

Buys out the law:
but 'tis not so above;

There is no shuffling,

there the action lies

In his true nature;
and we ourselves compell'd,

Even to the teeth
and forehead of our faults,

To give in evidence.

What then?

what rests?

Try what repentance can.

what can it not?

Yet what can it
when one can not repent?

O wretched state!

O bosom black as death!

O limed soul, that,
struggling to be free,

Art more engaged!

Help, angels!

Make assay!

Bow, stubborn knees;

and, heart with strings of steel,

Be soft as sinews of the newborn babe!

All may be well.

Now might I do it pat,

now he is praying;

And now I'll do't.

And so he goes to heaven;

And so am I revenged.
That would be scann'd:

A villain kills my father;
and for that,

I, his sole son, do this same
villain send to heaven?

O, this is hire and salary,
not revenge.

He took my father grossly,
full of bread;

With all his crimes broad blown,
as flush as May;

And how his audit stands
who knows save heaven?

and am I then revenged,

To take him in the purging of his soul,

When he is fit and season'd for his passage?

No!

Up, blade,

and know thou a more horrid hent:

When he is drunk asleep,
or in his rage,

Or in the incestuous
pleasure of his bed;

At gaming, swearing,
or about some act

That has no relish of salvation in't;

Then trip him, that his heels
may kick at heaven,

And that his soul may be
as damn'd and black

As hell, whereto it goes.

My mother stays:

This physic but prolongs
thy sickly days.

My words fly up,

my thoughts remain below:

Words without thoughts
never to heaven go.

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 screen'd
and stood between much heat and him.

I'll sconce me even here.

Pray you, be round with him.

I'll warrant you, fear me not:
withdraw, I hear him coming.

Mother, mother!

Mother!

Now, mother, what's the matter?

Hamlet, thou hast thy father
much offended.

Mother, you have my father
much offended.

Come, come, you answer with
an idle tongue.

- Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.
- Why, how now, Hamlet!

What's the matter now?

Have you forgot me?

No, by the rood, not so:

You are the queen, your husband's
brother's wife;

And--would it were not so!--

you are my mother.

Nay, then, I'll set those
to you that can speak.

Come, come, and sit you down;

you shall not budge;
You go not till I set you up a glass

Where you may see
the inmost part of you.

What wilt thou do?
thou wilt not murder me?

Help, help, ho!

What, ho! help, help, help!

How now! a rat?
Dead, for a ducat, dead!

What hast thou done?

Nay, I know not: Is it the king?

O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!

A bloody deed! almost as bad,
good mother,

As kill a king, and marry
with his brother.

As kill a king!

Ay, lady, 'twas my word.

Thou wretched, rash,
intruding fool, farewell!

I took thee for thy better:
take thy fortune;

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,

What have I done, that thou darest wag thy tongue
In noise so rude against me?

Such an act

That blurs the grace
and blush of modesty,

Calls virtue hypocrite,
makes marriage-vows

- As false as dicers' oaths!
- Ay me, what act,

That roars so loud,
and thunders in the index?

Look here, upon this picture,

and... on this,

The counterfeit presentment
of two brothers.

See, what a grace
was seated on this brow;

Hyperion's 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,

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 mildew'd ear,

Blasting his wholesome brother.

Have you eyes?

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, it's humble,

And waits upon the judgment:
and what judgment

Would step from this to this?
What devil was't

That thus hath cozen'd 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

Could not so mope.

O shame! where is thy blush?

O Hamlet, speak no more:

Thou turn'st mine eyes
into my very soul;

And there I see such black
and grained spots

As will not leave their tinct.

Nay, but to live

In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed,

Stew'd in corruption,
honeying and making love

- Over the nasty sty,--
- O, speak to me no more;

These words, like daggers,
enter in mine ears;

No more, sweet Hamlet!

A murderer and a villain;

A slave that is not
twentieth part the tithe

Of your precedent lord;
a vice of kings;

A cutpurse of the empire and the rule,

That from a shelf
the precious diadem stole,

- And put it in his pocket!
- No more!

A king of shreds and patches,--

Save me, and hover o'er me
with your wings,

You heavenly guards!

- What would your gracious figure?
- Alas, he's mad!

Do you not come your
tardy son to chide,

That, lapsed in time
and passion, lets go by

The important acting
of your dread command?

O, say!

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.

How is it with you, lady?

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;

O gentle son, upon the heat
and flame of thy distemper

Sprinkle cool patience.
Whereon do you look?

On him, on him! Look you,
how pale he glares!

Do not look upon me,

Lest with this piteous action
you convert my stern effects:

then what I have to do

Will want true colour;
tears perchance for blood.

To whom do you speak this?

Do you see nothing there?

- Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.
- Nor did you nothing hear?

No, nothing but ourselves.

Why, look you there!
look, how it steals away!

My father, in his habit as he lived!

Look, where he goes, even now,
out at the portal!

This the very coinage of your brain:

This bodiless creation ecstasy

Is very cunning in.

Ecstasy! 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 mattering
unction to your soul,

That not your trespass,
but my madness speaks:

It will but skin and film
the ulcerous place,

Whilst rank corruption,
mining all within,

Infects unseen.
Confess yourself to heaven;

Repent what's past;
avoid what is to come;

And do not spread the compost
on the weeds,

To make them ranker.

O Hamlet, thou hast cleft
my heart in twain.

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.

Refrain to-night, and that shall lend
a kind of easiness

To the next abstinence.

Once more, good night.

When you are desirous to be bless'd,

I'll blessing beg of you.

For this same lord,

I do repent

but heaven hath pleased 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.
- What shall I do?

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.

Be thou assured,
if words be made of breath,

And breath of life,
I have no life to breathe

What thou hast said to me.

I must to England; you know that?

Alack, I had forgot.

'Tis so concluded on.

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 engineer

Hoist with his own petard:
'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.

There's matter in these sighs,
these profound heaves:

You must translate.

'tis fit we understand them.

Where is your son?

- Ah, my good lord, what have I seen to-night!
- What, Gertrude?

How does Hamlet?

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 weapon,
cries, 'A rat, a rat!'

And, in this brainish
apprehension, kills

The unseen good old man.

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;

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?
- To draw apart the body he hath kill'd:

O'er his madness
weeps for what is done.

O Gertrude, come!
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.

Guildenstern!

Friends both, go join you
with some further aid:

Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain,

And from his mother's closet
hath he dragg'd him:

Go seek him out;

speak fair, and bring the body
Into the chapel.

I pray you, haste in this.

O, Gertrude, come

it's call up our wisest friends;

And let them know,
both what we mean to do,

And what's untimely done...

Come away!

My soul is full
of discord and dismay.

Safely stowed.

Hamlet! Lord Hamlet!

What noise?

Here they come.

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

Compounded it with dust,
whereto 'tis kin.

Tell us where 'tis, that we may take it thence
And bear it to the chapel.

- Do not believe it.
- Believe what?

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?

Take you me for a sponge, my lord?

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.

I understand you not, my lord.

I am glad of it:

a knavish speech sleeps in a
foolish ear.

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

The body is with the king,
but the king is not with the body.

The king is a thing...

- A thing, my lord!
- Of nothing.

Bring me to him.

Hide fox, and all after.

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 loved of the distracted multitude,

Who like not in their judgment,
but their eyes;

And where tis 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 measure are relieved,

- Or not at all.
- How now! what hath befall'n?

Where the dead body is bestow'd, my lord,
We cannot get from him.

But where is he?

Without, my lord; guarded,
to know your pleasure.

- Bring him before us.
- Guildenstern! bring in my lord.

Now, Hamlet,

where's Polonius?

At supper.

At supper! where?

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 ourselves,

- and we fat ourselves for maggots.
- Alas, alas!

A man may fish with the worm
that hath eat of a king,

and eat of the fish
that hath fed of that worm.

What dost you mean by this?

Nothing but to show you

how a king may go a progress
through the guts of a beggar.

Where is Polonius?

In heaven!

Send hither 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.

Go seek him there.

He will stay till ye come.

Hamlet, this deed,
for thine especial safety,--

Which we do tender, as we dearly grieve,--

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.
- For England!

- Ay, Hamlet.
- Good.

So is it, if thou knew'st our purposes.

I see a cherub that sees them.

Come; for England!
Farewell, dear mother.

Thy loving father, Hamlet.

My mother,

father and mother is man and wife,

man and wife is one flesh;
and so, my mother.

Come, for England!

Follow him at foot;
tempt him with speed aboard;

Delay it not;
I'll have him hence to-night:

For every thing is seal'd and done
That else leans on the affair. Away!

And, England,

if my love thou hold'st at aught--

thou mayst not coldly set
Our sovereign purpose;

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 'tis done,

Howe'er my haps,
my joys were ne'er begun.

- I will not speak with her.
- She is importunate, indeed distract:

Her mood will needs be pitied.

- What would she have?
- She speaks much of her father;

says she hears there's tricks i' the world;
speaks things in doubt,

That carry but half sense:
her speech is nothing,

Yet the unshaped use of it doth move
The hearers to collection;

'Twere good she were spoken with;

for she may strew dangerous conjectures
in ill-breeding minds.

Let her come in.

To my sick soul,

as sin's true nature is,

Each toy seems prologue
to some great amiss:

So full of artless jealousy is guilt,

It spills itself
in fearing to be spilt.

Where is the beauteous
majesty of Denmark?

How now, Ophelia!

How should I your true love know

From another one?

By his cockle hat and staff,

And his sandal shoon.

Alas, sweet lady,
what imports this song?

Say you? nay, pray you, mark.

He is dead and gone, lady,

He is dead and gone;

At his head a grass-green turf,

At his heels a stone.

- Nay, but, Ophelia...
- Pray you, mark.

White his shroud as the mountain snow,

Larded with sweet flowers

Which bewept to the grave did go

With true-love showers.

- How do you, pretty lady?
- Well, God 'ild 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!

- Conceit upon her father.
- Pray you, let's 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'd the chamber-door;

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

Indeed, la, without an oath,
I'll make an end on't:

By Gis and by Saint Charity,

Alack, and fie 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 promised me to wed.

So would I ha' done, by yonder sun,

An thou hadst not come to my bed.

- How long hath she been thus?
- 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 brother shall know of it:
and so I thank you for your good counsel.

Come, my coach!

Good night, ladies; good night, sweet ladies;
good night, good night.

Follow her close.

Give her good watch, I pray you.

O, this is the poison of deep grief;

it springs all from her father's death.

O Gertrude, Gertrude,

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,
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;

And wants not buzzers
to infect his ear

With pestilent speeches
of his father's death;

Alack, what noise is this?

Where are my Switzers?
Let them guard the door.

Save yourself, my lord:

Laertes, in a riotous head,
O'erbears your officers.

The rabble call him lord;
They cry 'Choose we: Laertes shall be king:'

Caps, hands, and tongues,
applaud it to the clouds:

'Laertes shall be king,
Laertes king!'

How cheerfully on
the false trail they cry!

O, this is counter,
you false Danish dogs!

The doors are broke.

Thou vile king,
Give me my father!

Calmly, good Laertes.

That drop of blood that's
calm proclaims me bastard,

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 go, Gertrude.

- Speak, man.
- Where is my father?

- Dead.
- But not by him.

- Let him demand his fill.
- 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,
Let come what comes.

Only I'll be revenged
Most thoroughly for my father.

- Who shall stay you?
- My will, not all the world:

Good Laertes, if you desire to know
the certainty of your dear father's death,

is't writ in your revenge,
That, swoopstake,

you will draw both friend and foe,
Winner and loser?

- None but his enemies.
- Will you know them then?

To his good friends
thus wide I'll ope my arms;

And like the kind life-rendering pelican,
Repast them with my blood.

Why, now you speak
Like a good child and a true gentleman.

That I am guiltless of your father's death,
And am most sensible in grief for it,

It shall as level to your judgment pierce

As day does to your eye.

- Let her come in.
- How now! what noise is that?

O heat, dry up my brains!

tears seven times salt,

Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye!

O rose of May!

Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!

O heavens! is't possible,
a young maid's wits

Should be as moral as an old man's life?

They bore him barefaced on the bier;

Hey nony nonny, nonny, no;

And in his grave rain'd many a tear:--

Fare you well, my dove!

Hadst thou thy wits,
and didst persuade revenge,

- It could not move thus.
- You must sing a-down a-down,
An you call him a-down-a.

This nothing's more than matter.

There's rosemary,

that's for remembrance;

pray, love, remember:

and there is pansies.

that's for thoughts.

A document in madness,

thoughts and remembrance fitted.

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:

O 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.

Thought and affliction, passion,

hell itself,
She turns to favour and to prettiness.

And will he not come again?

And will he not come again?

No, no, he is dead:

Go to thy death-bed:

He never will come again.

His beard was as white as snow,

All flaxen was his poll:

He is gone, he is gone,

And we cast away moan:

God ha' mercy on his soul!

And of all Christian souls, I pray God.

God be wi' ye.

Do you see this, O God?

Laertes.

I must commune with your grief,

Or you deny me right.

Go but apart, make choice of whom
your wisest friends you will.

And they shall hear
and judge 'twixt you and me:

If by direct or by collateral hand

They find us touch'd, we will our kingdom give,
Our crown,

our life, and all that we can ours,

To you in satisfaction;

but if not,

Be you content to lend
your patience to us,

And we shall jointly labour with your soul
To give it due content.

Let this be so;

And where the offence is

let the great axe fall.

Go, captain, from me
greet the Danish king;

Tell him that,
by his licence, Fortinbras

Craves the conveyance of a promised
march over his kingdom.

- I will do't, my lord.
- Go softly on.

Sir, whose powers are these?

They are of Norway, sir.

How purposed, sir, I pray you?

Against some part of Poland.

Who commands them, sir?

The nephews to old Norway, Fortinbras.

Goes it against the main of Poland, sir,
Or for some frontier?

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;

Why, then the Pole never will defend it.

Yes, it is already garrison'd.

Two thousand souls
and twenty thousand ducats

Will not debate
the question of this straw.

I humbly thank you, sir.

God be wi' you, sir.

How all occasions do inform against me,

And spur my dull revenge!

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,

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.

O, from this time forth,

My thoughts be bloody,

or be nothing worth!

Laertes, was your
father dear to you?

Or are you like the painting of a sorrow,
A face without a heart?

Why ask you this?

Hamlet comes back.

what would you undertake,
to show yourself your father's son

in deed more than in words?

To cut his throat i' the church.

No place, indeed,
should murder sanctuarize;

Revenge should have no bounds.

But, good Laertes, will you do this,
keep close within your chamber.

Hamlet return'd shall know
you are come home:

We'll set on those shall
praise your excellence

and for your rapier most especially.

Bring you in fine together
And wager on your heads:

he, being remiss, most generous
and free from all contriving,

Will not peruse the foils;
so that, with ease,

Or with a little shuffling,

you may choose a sword unbated,

and in a pass of practise
requite him for your father.

I will do't:

And, for that purpose,
I'll anoint my sword.

I bought an unction of a mountebank,

So mortal that,
but dip a knife in it,

Where it draws blood
no cataplasm so rare,

can save the thing from death
That is but scratch'd withal:

I'll touch my point
with this contagion, that,

if I gall him slightly,
it may be his death.

Let's further think of this;

if this should fail, and that our drift
look through our bad performance,

'Twere better not assay'd:

therefore this project
Should have a back or second,

that might hold,
If this should blast in proof.

Soft!

I ha't.

When in your motion you a
re hot and dry--

As make your bouts
more violent to that end--

And that he calls for drink,

I'll have prepared him
A chalice for the nonce,

whereon but sipping,
If he by chance escape your venom'd stuck,

Our purpose may hold there.

How now, sweet queen!

One woe doth tread upon another's heel,
So fast they follow;

your sister's drown'd, Laertes.

Drown'd! O, where?

There is a willow

grows aslant a brook,

That shows his hoar
leaves in the glassy stream;

There with fantastic
garlands did she come

Of crow-flowers, nettles,

daisies, and long purples

That liberal shepherds
give a grosser name,

But our cold maids do
dead men's fingers call them:

There, on the pendent boughs

her coronet weeds clambering to hang,

an envious sliver broke;

When down her weedy
trophies and herself

Fell in the weeping brook.

Her clothes

spread wide and

mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up:

Which time she chanted
snatches of old tunes;

As one incapable of her own distress,

Or like a creature native and indued
Unto that element:

but long it could not be

Till that her garments,
heavy with their drink,

Pull'd the poor wretch from her

melodious lay

- To muddy death.
- Alas, then, she is drown'd?

Drown'd.

Drown'd.

Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia,

And therefore

I forbid my tears: but yet

It is our trick.

nature her custom holds,

Let shame say what it will.
Adieu, my lord.

I have a speech of fire,
that fain would blaze,

But that this folly douts it.

Let's follow, Gertrude.

How much I had to do
to calm his rage!

Now fear I this will
give it start again;

Is she to be buried in Christian burial

that wilfully seeks her own salvation?

I tell thee she is:

and therefore make her grave straight:

How can that be, unless she drowned
herself in her own defence?

Why, 'tis found so.

It must be 'se offendendo;'

it cannot be else.
For here lies the point:

if I drown myself wittingly,
it argues an act:

and an act hath three branches:

it is, to act, to do, to perform:

argal, she drowned herself wittingly.

- Nay, but hear you, goodman delver...
- Give me leave. Here lies the water; good:

here stands the man; good;

if the man go to this water,
and drown himself,

it is, will he, nill he, he goes,--
mark you that;

but if the water come to him
and drown him, he drowns not himself:

Argal, he that is not guilty of his own
death shortens not his own life.

Cudgel thy brains no more about it.

Go, get thee to Yaughan

fetch me a stoup of liquor.

In youth, when I did love, did love,

Methought it was very sweet...

Has this fellow no feeling of his business,
that he sings at grave-making?

- Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness.
- 'Tis e'en so

That skull had a tongue in it,
and could sing once:

how the knave jowls it
to the ground, as if it were

Cain's jaw-bone,
that did the first murder!

It might be the pate of a politician,

one that would circumvent God,
might it not?

It might, my lord.

and now my Lady Worm's,

chapless,

and knocked about the mazzard
with a sexton's spade:

here's fine revolution,
an we had the trick to see't.

There's another.

Why may not that be
the skull of a lawyer?

Where be his quiddities now,

his quillets, his tricks?

why does he suffer
this rude knave now

to knock him about the
sconce with a dirty shovel

and will not tell him of
his action of battery? Ha?

I will speak to this fellow.

Whose grave's this, sirrah?

Mine, sir.

O, a pit of clay for to be made

For such a guest is meet.

I think it be thine, indeed;
for thou liest in't.

You lie out on't, sir,
and therefore it is not yours

for my part, I do not lie in't,
and yet it is mine.

'Thou dost lie in't,
to be in't and say it is thine:

'tis for the dead, not for the quick;
therefore thou liest.

'Tis a quick lie, sir;
'twill away gain, from me to you.

What man dost thou dig it for?

For no man, sir.

What woman, then?

For none, neither.

Who is to be buried in't?

One that was a woman, sir; but,

rest her soul, she's dead.

How absolute the knave is!

How long hast thou been a grave-maker?

Of all the days i' the year,
I came to't that day

that our last king Hamlet
overcame Fortinbras.

How long is that since?

Cannot you tell that?

Every fool can tell that.

it was the very day
that young Hamlet was born;

he that is mad,
and sent into England.

Ay, marry, why was he
sent into England?

Why, because he was mad:

he shall recover his wits there;

- or, if he do not, it's no great matter there.
- Why?

'Twill, a not be seen in him there;
there the men are as mad as he.

- How came he mad?
- Very strangely, they say.

- How strangely?
- Faith, e'en with losing his wits.

- Upon what ground?
- Why, here in Denmark:

I have been sexton here, man
and boy, thirty years.

How long will a man lie i'
the earth ere he rot?

I' faith, if he be
not rotten before he die--

have many pocky corses now-a-days,

that will scarce hold the laying in--

he will last you some eight year
or nine year:

a tanner will last you nine year.

Why he more than another?

Why, sir, his hide is so tanned

with his trade,

that he will keep out water a great while;

and your water is a sore decayer
of your whoreson dead body.

Here's a skull, sir.

has lain in the earth

- three and twenty years.
- Whose was it?

A whoreson mad fellow's it was:
whose do you think it was?

Nay, I know not.

A pestilence on him for a mad rogue!

a' poured a flagon of Rhenish
on my head once.

This skull, sir, was Yorick's skull,
the king's jester.

- This?
- E'en that.

- Let me see.

Alas, poor Yorick!!

I knew him, Horatio:

a fellow of infinite jest,

of most excellent fancy:

he hath borne me on his back
a thousand times;

and now,

how abhorred in my imagination it is!

my gorge rims at it.

Here hung those lips
that I have kissed

I know not how oft.

Where be your gibes now?

Your gambols? your songs?

your flashes of merriment,
that were wont to set

the table on a roar?

Not one now,
to mock your own grinning?

quite chap-fallen.

Now get you to my
lady's chamber, and tell her,

let her paint an inch thick,

to this favour she must come.

make her laugh at that.

Prithee, Horatio, tell
me one thing.

What's that, my lord?

Dost thou think Alexander
looked o' this fashion i' the earth?

E'en so.

- And smelt so? pah!
- E'en so, my lord.

Imperious Caesar,

dead and turn'd to clay,

Might stop a hole to keep the wind away.

'Twere to consider too curiously,
to consider so.

Not a jot.

Here comes the king.

The queen, the courtiers:
who is this they follow?

And with such maimed rites?
This doth betoken

The corse they follow
did with desperate hand

fordo its own life.

'Twas of some estate.

Couch we awhile, and mark.

- What ceremony else?
- That is Laertes, mark.

What ceremony else?

Her obsequies have been as far
enlarged as we have warrantise:

her death was doubtful.

And, but that great command
o'ersways the order,

She should in ground
unsanctified have lodged

Till the last trumpet.

- Must there no more be done?
- No more be done.

We should profane
the service of the dead

To sing a requiem and such rest to her

As to peace-parted souls.

Lay her i' the earth.

And from her fair and unpolluted
flesh may violets spring!

I tell thee, churlish priest,

A ministering angel
shall my sister be,

When thou liest howling.

What, the fair Ophelia!

Sweets to the sweet.

Farewell!

I hoped thou shouldst
have been my Hamlet's wife;

I thought thy bride-bed
to have deck'd, sweet maid,

And not have strew'd thy grave.

O, treble woe fall ten

ten times treble on that cursed head,

Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense
Deprived thee of!,

Hold off the earth awhile,

Till I have caught her
once more in mine arms.

Now pile your dust
upon the quick and dead,

Till of this flat
a mountain you have made,

To o'ertop old Pelion, or the skyish head
Of blue Olympus.

What is he whose grief
Bears such an emphasis?

whose phrase of sorrow
Conjures the wandering stars,

and makes them stand
Like wonder-wounded hearers?

This is I,

- Hamlet the Dane.
- The devil take thy soul!

Thou pray'st not well.
I prithee, take thy fingers from my throat;

For, though I am not
splenitive and rash,

Yet have I something
in me dangerous,

Which let thy wiseness fear:
hold off thy hand.

- Pluck them asunder.
- Hamlet, Hamlet!

- Gentlemen!
- Good my lord, be quiet.

Why I will fight
with him upon this theme

Until my eyelids
will no longer wag.

O my son, what theme?

I loved Ophelia.

forty thousand brothers
Could not, with all their quantity of love,

Make up my sum.
What wilt thou do for her?

O, he is mad, Laertes.

For love of God, forbear him.

'Swounds, show me what thou'lt do:
Woo't weep?

woo't fight? woo't fast?

woo't tear thyself?

Woo't drink up eisel?

eat a crocodile?
I'll do't.

Dost thou come here to whine?

To outface me with
leaping in her grave?

Be buried quick with her,
and so will I:

And, if thou prate of mountains,
let them throw millions of acres on us,

till our ground,
Singeing his pate

against the burning zone,

Make Ossa like a wart!

Nay, an thou'lt mouth,
I'll rant as well as thou.

This is mere madness:
And thus awhile the fit will work on him;

Anon, his silence will sit drooping.

Hear you, sir;

What is the reason that you use me thus?

I loved you ever

but it is no matter.

Let Hercules himself do what he may,

The cat will mew

and dog will have his day.

Good Horatio, wait on him.

Strengthen your patience
in our last night's speech.

We'll put the matter to the present push.

Good Gertrude,

set some watch over your son.

There's a divinity that shapes our ends,

Rough-hew them how we will.

That is most certain.

So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz are dead.

Why, man, they did make
love to this employment

They are not near my conscience.

- Why, what a king is this!
- Does it not, think'st thee, stand me now upon?

He that hath kill'd my king
and whored my mother,

Popp'd in between the election and my hopes,

Thrown out his angle for my proper life,
And with such cozenage...

is't not perfect conscience,
To quit him with this arm?

But I am very sorry, good Horatio,
That to Laertes I forgot myself.

For, by the image of my cause, I see
The portraiture of his.

I'll court his favours.

But, sure, the bravery of his
grief did put me

Into a towering passion.

- Peace!
- Who comes here?

Your lordship is right
welcome back to Denmark.

I humbly thank you, sir.

- Dost know this water-fly?
- No, my lord.

Thy state is the more gracious;
for 'tis a vice to know him.

'Tis a chough.

Sweet lord, if your lordship
were at leisure, I

should impart a thing
to you from his majesty.

I will receive it, sir,
with all diligence of spirit.

Put your bonnet to his right use;
'tis for the head.

I thank your lordship, it is very hot.

Oh no, believe me, 'tis very cold;
the wind is northerly.

It is indifferent cold, my lord, indeed.

But yet methinks it is very sultry
and hot for my complexion.

Exceedingly, my lord; it is very sultry,
as 'twere,...

I cannot tell how.

But, my lord, his majesty bade me

signify to you that he has laid a
great wager on your head.

- Sir, this is the matter...
- I beseech you, remember.

Nay, good my lord; for mine ease,
in good faith.

Sir, here is newly come to court Laertes,

believe me, an absolute gentleman,
full of most excellent

differences, of very soft society
and great showing.

Indeed, to speak feelingly of him,
he is the card or

calendar of gentry,

for you shall find in him the
continent of what

part a gentleman would see.

The concernancy, sir?

Why do we wrap the gentleman
in our more rawer breath?

Sir?

What imports the nomination
of this gentleman?

- Of Laertes?
- Of him, sir.

I know you are not ignorant.

I would you did, sir;
yet, in faith, if you did,

it would not much approve me.
Well, sir?

You are not ignorant
of what excellence Laertes is.

I dare not confess that, lest I should
compare with him in excellence;

but, to know a man well,

were to know himself.

I mean, sir, for his weapon;
but in the imputation

laid on him by them,
in his meed he's unfellowed.

- What's his weapon?
- Rapier and dagger.

That's two of his weapons: but, well.

The king, sir, hath wagered
with him six Barbary

horses: against the which he has imponed,

as I take it, six French rapiers

and poniards, with their
assigns, as girdle, hangers, and so.

three of the carriages, in faith,
are very dear to fancy, very responsive to the hilts,

most delicate carriages,
and of very liberal conceit.

What call you the carriages?

The carriages, sir, are the hangers.

But, on. Why is this 'imponed,' as you call it?

The king, sir, hath laid,

that in a dozen passes between yourself

and him, he shall not exceed you three hits:

it would come to immediate trial, if your lordship

would vouchsafe the answer.

How if I answer 'no'?

I mean, my lord, the opposition
of your person in trial.

Well.

I shall walk here in the hall:
if it please his majesty,

'tis the breathing time of day with me.
I shall win for him an I can,

if not, I will gain nothing
but my shame and the odd hits.

Shall I re-deliver you e'en so?

To this effect, sir;
after what flourish your nature will.

I commend my duty to your lordship.

Yours, yours.

This lapwing runs away
with the shell on his head.

He did comply with his mother's dug,
before he sucked it.

You will lose this wager, my lord.

I do not think so: since he went into France,
I have been in continual practise.

I shall win at the odds.

But thou wouldst not think how ill
all's here about my heart.

- But it is no matter.
- Nay, good my lord.

It is but foolery.

If your mind dislike any thing, obey it.

I will forestall their repair hither,
and say you are not fit.

Not a whit.

We defy augury.

There's a special
providence in the fall of a sparrow.

If it be now, 'tis not to come.

If it be not to come, it will be now.

If it be not now,

Yet it will come.

The readiness is all.

Come, Hamlet, come,
and take this hand from me.

Give me your pardon, sir:
I've done you wrong.

But pardon't, as you are a gentleman.

This presence knows,
And you must needs have heard,

how I am punish'd
With sore distraction.

What I have done,
That might your nature, honour and exception

Roughly awake, I here proclaim was madness.

Sir, in this audience,
Let my disclaiming from a purposed evil

Free me so far in your most generous thoughts,

That I have shot mine arrow o'er the house,
And hurt my brother.

I am satisfied.

I do receive your offer'd love like love,
And will not wrong it.

I embrace it freely.

And will this brother's wager frankly play.
Give us the foils. Come on.

Come, one for me.

I'll be your foil, Laertes: in mine ignorance

Your skill shall, like a star

i' the darkest night,
stick fiery off indeed.

You mock me, sir.

No, by this hand.

Give them the foils, young Osric.

Cousin Hamlet, you know the wager?

Very well, my lord
Your grace hath laid the odds o' the weaker side.

I do not fear it; I have seen you both:

But since he is better'd, we have therefore odds.

This is too heavy, let me see another.

This likes me well.

- These foils have all a length?
- Ay, my good lord.

If Hamlet give the first or second hit,

Or quit in answer of the third exchange,

Let all the battlements their
ordnance fire:

The king shall drink to Hamlet's
better breath;

And in the cup an union
shall he throw,

Richer than that which four
successive kings

In Denmark's crown have worn.

And let the kettle to the trumpet speak,
The trumpet to the cannoneer without,

The cannons to the heavens,
the heavens to earth,

'Now the king dunks to Hamlet.' Come, begin:

And you, the judges, bear a wary eye.

- Come on, sir.
- Come, my lord.

- No.
- Judgment.

A hit, a very palpable hit.

- Well; again.
- Stay; give me drink.

Hamlet, this pearl is thine;

Here's to thy health.

Give him the cup.

I'll play this bout first;
set it by awhile.

- Another hit; what say you?
- A touch, a touch, I do confess.

Our son shall win.

He's hot, and scant of breath.

Here, Hamlet, take my napkin,
rub thy brows;

The queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet.

- Good madam!
- Gertrude,

do not drink.

I will, my lord.

I pray you, pardon me.

It is the poison'd cup.

- It is too late.
- I dare not drink yet, madam; by and by.

Come, let me wipe thy face.

- My lord, I'll hit him now.
- I do not think't.

And yet 'tis almost 'gainst my conscience.

Come, for the third, Laertes:
you but dally;

I pray you, pass with
your best violence;

I am afeard you make a wanton of me.

Say you so? come on.

Nothing, neither way.

Have at you now!

Nay, come, again.

Mio signore! Mio signore!

My lord! My lord, my lord!

Look to the queen there, ho!

They bleed on both sides.
How is it, my lord?

How is't, Laertes?

Why, as a woodcock to mine
own springe, Osric;

I am justly kill'd with
mine own treachery.

- How does the queen?
- She swounds to see them bleed.

No, no, the drink, the drink.

O my dear Hamlet.

The drink, the drink!

I am poison'd.

O villany!

How!

- Let the door be lock'd.
- Treachery! Seek it out.

It is here, Hamlet.

Hamlet, thou art slain.

No medicine in the world can do thee good;
In thee there is not

half an hour of life;

The treacherous instrument is in thy hand,
unblunted and envenom'd.

The foul practise hath turn'd itself on me.

Lo, here I lie,

Never to rise again.
Thy mother's poison'd.

I can no more.

The king, the king's to blame!

O, yet defend me, friends;
I am but hurt.

Here,

thou incestuous, murderous, damned Dane,

Drink off this potion.

Is thy union here?

Follow my mother.

He is justly served;
It is a poison temper'd by himself.

Exchange forgiveness with me,
noble Hamlet:

Mine and my father's death
come not upon thee,

Nor thine on me.

Heaven make thee free of it!

I follow thee.

I am dead, Horatio.

Wretched queen, adieu!

You that look pale
and tremble at this chance,

That are but mutes
or audience to this act,

Had I but time...as this fell sergeant, death,
Is strict in his arrest...

O, I could tell you...

But let it be.

Horatio, I am dead.

Thou livest.

Report me and my cause aright
to the unsatisfied.

Never believe it:
I am more an antique Roman than a Dane:

Here's yet some liquor left.

As thou'rt a man, give me the cup:
let go; by heaven, I'll have't.

O good Horatio,

what a wounded name,

Things standing thus unknown,
shall live behind me!

If thou didst ever

hold me in thy heart,

Absent thee from felicity awhile,

And in this harsh world

world draw thy breath in pain,

To tell my story.

The rest...

is silence.

Now cracks a noble heart.

Good night sweet prince:

And flights of angels
sing thee to thy rest!