Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper

Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look? Ham. On him, on him! Look you how pale he glares!

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

My stern effects: then what I have to do

129

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.

Do you see nothing there?

No, nothing but ourselves.

Ham. 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!

[Exit Ghost.

Queen. This is the very coinage of your brain:

Ham.

༧༣ ༢

This bodiless creation ecstasy

Is very cunning in.

Ecstasy!

139

My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time,
And makes as healthful music: it is not madness
That I have utter'd: bring me to the test,
And I the matter will re-word, which madness

Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,
Lay not that flattering unction to your soul,
That not your trespass but my madness speaks:
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place,

Whiles rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen.
Confess yourself to heaven;
Repent what's past, avoid what is to come,

And do not spread the compost on the weeds,

150

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 my uncle's bed;
Assume a virtue, if you have it not.

That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat,
Of habits devil, is angel yet in this,
That to the use of actions fair and good
He likewise gives a frock or livery,
That aptly is put on. Refrain to-night,

And that shall lend a kind of easiness

To the next abstinence; the next more easy;
For use almost can change the stamp of nature,

160

And either... the devil, or throw him out
With wondrous potency. Once more, good night:
And when you are desirous to be blest,
I'll blessing beg of you. For this same lord,

171

[Pointing to Polonius.

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:

Queen.

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

What shall I do? 180

Ham. Not this, by no means, that I bid you do:
Let the bloat king tempt you again to bed;
Pinch wanton on your cheek, call you his mouse;
And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses,

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

That I essentially am not in madness,

But mad in craft. 'Twere good you let him know;
For who, that's but a queen, fair, sober, wise,
Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib,

Such dear concernings hide? who would do so?

190

No, in despite of sense and secrecy,

Unpeg the basket on the house's top,
Let the birds fly, and like the famous ape,
To try conclusions, in the basket creep
And break your own neck down.

Queen. Be thou assured, 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: 'tis so concluded on.

Alack,

200

Ham. There's letters seal'd: and my two schoolfellows,
Whom I will trust as I will adders fang'd,
They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way,
And marshal me to knavery. Let it work;
For 'tis the sport to have the enginer

Hoist with his own petar: and '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.

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Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you.
Good night, mother.

[Exeunt severally; Hamlet dragging in Polonius.

Act Fourth.

Scene 1,

A room in the castle.

Enter King, Queen, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern.

King. There's matter in these sighs, these profound heaves: You must translate: 'tis fit we understand them. Where is your son?

Queen. Bestow this place on us a little while.

[Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

Ah, mine own lord, what have I seen to-night!
King. What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?
Queen. Mad as the sea and wind, when both contend
Which is the mightier: in his lawless fit,
Behind the arras hearing something stir,
Whips out his rapier, cries A rat, a rat!'
And in this brainish apprehension kills

The unseen good old man.