And there I see such black and grained spots,
As will not leave their tinct.

Ham.

Nay, but to live

In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed;

Stew'd in corruption; honeying, and making love

Over the nasty stye;

Queen.

O, speak to me no more! |

151 These words, like daggers enter in mine ears: No more, sweet Hamlet.

Ham.

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!

152

Ham. A king of shreds and patches.

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

You heavenly guards! What would you, gracious figure?
Queen. Alas! he's mad.

Ham. Do you not come your tardy son to chide,

That, laps'd in fume and passion, lets go by

Th' important acting of your dread command?
O, say!

Ghost. Do not forget. This visitation
Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.
But, look! amazement on thy mother sits;
O! step between her and her fighting soul;
Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works,
Speak to her, Hamlet.

Ham.

How is it with you, lady?
Queen. Alas! how is 't with you,

That you do bend your eye on vacancy,
And with th' incorporal air do hold discourse?
Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep;
And, as the sleeping soldiers in th' alarm,
Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,
Starts up, and stands on end. O gentle son!
Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper
Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look? |

Ham. On him, on him!

Look you, how pale he glares! 153

His form and cause conjoin'd, preaching to stones,
Would make them capable. Do not look upon me;
Lest with this piteous action you convert

My stern effects: then, what I have to do

Do you see nothing there?

Will want true colour; tears, perchance, for blood.
Queen. To whom do you speak this?
Ham.
Queen. Nothing at all; yet all, that is, I see.
Ham. Nor did you nothing hear?

Queen.

No, nothing but ourselves.

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

My father, in his habit as he liv'd!

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

Queen. This is the very coinage of your brain: This bodily creation ecstasy

Is very cunning in. | ·

Ham. Ecstasy?

[Exit Ghost.

My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time,
And makes as healthful music. It is not madness,
That I have utter'd: bring me to the test,
And I the matter will re-word, which madness
Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,
Lay not that flattering unction to your soul,
That not your trespass, but my madness speaks;
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place,
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. Forgive me this my virtue;
For in the fatness of these pursy times,

Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg,

Yea, curb and woo, for leave to do him good. |

Queen. O Hamlet! thou hast cleft my heart in twain.
Ham. O throw away the worser part of it,

And live the purer with the other half.
Good night; but go not to mine uncle's bed:
Assume a virtue, if you have it not.

That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat
Of habits, devil, is angel yet in this;
That to the use of actions fair and good

154

155.

He likewise gives a frock, or livery,
That aptly is put on: refrain to-night;
And that shall lend a kind of easiness

To the next abstinence: the next more easy;
For use almost can change the stamp of nature,
And master the devil, or throw him out

With wondrous potency. Once more, good night:
And when you are desirous to be bless'd,
156 I'll blessing beg of you. For this same lord,

[Pointing to POLONIUS.

I do repent: but heaven hath pleas'd it so,
To punish me with this, and this with me,
That I must be their scourge and minister.
I will bestow him, and will answer well
The death I gave him. So, again, good night.
I must be cruel, only to be kind:

Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.
One word more, good lady.

Ham. Not this, by no means, that I bid you do:
Let the bloat king tempt you again to bed;

Pinch wanton on your cheek; call you his mouse;

And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses,

Or paddling in your neck with his damn'd fingers,
Make you to ravel all this matter out,

That I essentially am not in madness,

157 But mad in craft. | 'T were good, you let him know; For who, that's but a queen, fair, sober, wise, Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib,

158

Such dear concernings hide? who would do so?
No, in despite of sense, and secresy,

Unpeg the basket on the house's top,

Let the birds fly, and, like the famous ape,

To try conclusions in the basket creep,

And break your own neck down.

Queen. Be thou assur'd, if words be made of breath,

And breath of life, I have no life to breathe

What thou hast said to me.

Ham. I must to England; you know that.
Queen.

I had forgot: 't is so concluded on. |

Alack!

Ham. There's letters seal'd, and my two school-fellows, 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 't is the sport, to have the enginer

Hoist with his own petar, and it shall go hard,
But I will delve one yard below their mines,
And blow them at the moon.

O! 't is 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.
Indeed, this counsellor

Mother, good night.

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.

[Exit HAMLET tugging in POLONIUS. |

ACT IV.

SCENE I.

The Same.

Enter King, Queen, ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.

King. There's matter in these sighs: these profound heaves You must translate; 't is fit we understand them.

Where is your son?

Queen. Bestow this place on us a little while.

[Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.

Ah, my good lord, what have I seen to-night.
King. What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?

Queen. Mad as the sea, and wind, when both contend

Which is the mightier. In his lawless fit,

Behind the arras hearing something stir,

He whips his rapier out, and cries, "A rat! a rat!"
And in this brainish apprehension kills

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

159

160

161*

162

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?

Queen. To draw apart the body he hath kill'd;
O'er whom his very madness, like some ore
Among a mineral of metals base,

Shows itself pure: he weeps for what is done.
King. Gertrude, come away!

The sun no sooner shall the mountains touch,
But we will ship him hence; and this vile deed
We must, with all our majesty and skill,
Both countenance and excuse. Ho! Guildenstern! |
Enter ROSENCRANTZ and 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.

[Exeunt Ros. and GUIL.
Come, Gertrude, we'll call up our wisest friends;
And let them know, both what we mean to do,
And what's untimely done: so, haply, slander,
Whose whisper o'er the world's diameter,

As level as the cannon to his blank,

Transports his poison'd shot,

may miss our name,

And hit the woundless air. O, come away!

My soul is full of discord, and dismay.

SCENE II.

[Exeunt. |

Ros. and Guil. [Within.] Hamlet! Lord Hamlet!
Ham. But soft! what noise? who calls on Hamlet?

O! here they come.

Ros.

Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.

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