HAMLET


ACT III



SCENE I	A room in the castle.


	[Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, POLONIUS,
	OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN]

KING CLAUDIUS	And can you, by no drift of circumstance,
	Get from him why he puts on this confusion,
	Grating so harshly all his days of quiet
	With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?

ROSENCRANTZ	He does confess he feels himself distracted;
	But from what cause he will by no means speak.

GUILDENSTERN	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.

QUEEN GERTRUDE	                  Did he receive you well?

ROSENCRANTZ	Most like a gentleman.

GUILDENSTERN	But with much forcing of his disposition.

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

QUEEN GERTRUDE	Did you assay him?
	To any pastime?

ROSENCRANTZ	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: they are about the court,
	And, as I think, they have already order
	This night to play before him.

LORD POLONIUS	'Tis most true:
	And he beseech'd me to entreat your majesties
	To hear and see the matter.

KING CLAUDIUS	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.

ROSENCRANTZ	We shall, my lord.

	[Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN]

KING CLAUDIUS	                  Sweet Gertrude, leave us too;
	For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither,
	That he, as 'twere by accident, may here
	Affront Ophelia:
	Her father and myself, lawful espials,
	Will so bestow ourselves that, seeing, unseen,
	We may of their encounter frankly judge,
	And gather by him, as he is behaved,
	If 't be the affliction of his love or no
	That thus he suffers for.

QUEEN GERTRUDE	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.

OPHELIA	Madam, I wish it may.

	[Exit QUEEN GERTRUDE]

LORD POLONIUS	Ophelia, walk you here. Gracious, so please you,
	We will bestow ourselves.

	[To OPHELIA]

		    Read on this book;
	That show of such an exercise may colour
	Your loneliness. We are oft to blame in this,--
	'Tis too much proved--that with devotion's visage
	And pious action we do sugar o'er
	The devil himself.

KING CLAUDIUS	[Aside]          O, 'tis too true!
	How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!
	The harlot's cheek, beautied with plastering art,
	Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it
	Than is my deed to my most painted word:
	O heavy burthen!

LORD POLONIUS	I hear him coming: let's withdraw, my lord.

	[Exeunt KING CLAUDIUS and POLONIUS]

	[Enter HAMLET]

HAMLET	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,
	The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
	The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
	The insolence of office and the spurns
	That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
	When he himself might his quietus make
	With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
	To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
	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.

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

HAMLET	I humbly thank you; well, well, well.

OPHELIA	My lord, I have remembrances of yours,
	That I have longed long to re-deliver;
	I pray you, now receive them.

HAMLET	No, not I;
	I never gave you aught.

OPHELIA	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.

HAMLET	Ha, ha! are you honest?

OPHELIA	My lord?

HAMLET	Are you fair?

OPHELIA	What means your lordship?

HAMLET	That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should
	admit no discourse to your beauty.

OPHELIA	Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than
	with honesty?

HAMLET	Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner
	transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than the
	force of honesty can translate beauty into his
	likeness: this was sometime a paradox, but now the
	time gives it proof. I did love you once.

OPHELIA	Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.

HAMLET	You should not have believed me; for virtue cannot
	so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of
	it: I loved you not.

OPHELIA	I was the more deceived.

HAMLET	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 that it
	were better my mother had not borne me: I am very
	proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offences at
	my beck than I have thoughts to put them in,
	imagination to give them shape, or time to act them
	in. 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?

OPHELIA	At home, my lord.

HAMLET	Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the
	fool no where but in's own house. Farewell.

OPHELIA	O, help him, you sweet heavens!

HAMLET	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.

OPHELIA	O heavenly powers, restore him!

HAMLET	I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God
	has given you one face, and you make yourselves
	another: 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.

	[Exit]

OPHELIA	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!

	[Re-enter KING CLAUDIUS and POLONIUS]

KING CLAUDIUS	Love! his affections do not that way tend;
	Nor what he spake, though it lack'd form a little,
	Was not like madness. 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: which for to prevent,
	I have in quick determination
	Thus set it down: he shall with speed to England,
	For the demand of our neglected tribute
	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?

LORD POLONIUS	It shall do well: but yet do I believe
	The origin and commencement of his grief
	Sprung from neglected love. How now, Ophelia!
	You need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said;
	We heard it all. 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.

KING CLAUDIUS	It shall be so:
	Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go.

	[Exeunt]




	HAMLET


ACT III



SCENE II	A hall in the castle.


	[Enter HAMLET and Players]

HAMLET	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.

First Player	I warrant your honour.

HAMLET	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 not
	the modesty of nature: for any thing so overdone is
	from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the
	first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the
	mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature,
	scorn her own image, and 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. O, there be
	players that I have seen play, and heard others
	praise, and that highly, not to speak it profanely,
	that, neither having the accent of Christians nor
	the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so
	strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of
	nature's journeymen had made men and not made them
	well, they imitated humanity so abominably.

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

HAMLET	O, 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.

	[Exeunt Players]

	[Enter POLONIUS, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN]

	How now, my lord! I will the king hear this piece of work?

LORD POLONIUS	And the queen too, and that presently.

HAMLET	Bid the players make haste.

	[Exit POLONIUS]

	Will you two help to hasten them?


ROSENCRANTZ	|
	|  We will, my lord.
GUILDENSTERN	|


	[Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN]

HAMLET	What ho! Horatio!

	[Enter HORATIO]

HORATIO	Here, sweet lord, at your service.

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

HORATIO	O, my dear lord,--

HAMLET	                  Nay, do not think I flatter;
	For what advancement may I hope from thee
	That no revenue hast but thy good spirits,
	To feed and clothe thee? Why should the poor be flatter'd?
	No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp,
	And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee
	Where thrift may follow fawning. 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; for thou hast been
	As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing,
	A man that fortune's buffets and rewards
	Hast ta'en with equal thanks: and blest are those
	Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled,
	That they are not a pipe for fortune's finger
	To sound what stop she please. 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. Give him heedful note;
	For I mine eyes will rivet to his face,
	And after we will both our judgments join
	In censure of his seeming.

HORATIO	Well, my lord:
	If he steal aught the whilst this play is playing,
	And 'scape detecting, I will pay the theft.

HAMLET	They are coming to the play; I must be idle:
	Get you a place.

	[Danish march. A flourish. Enter KING CLAUDIUS,
	QUEEN GERTRUDE, POLONIUS, OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ,
	GUILDENSTERN, and others]

KING CLAUDIUS	How fares our cousin Hamlet?

HAMLET	Excellent, i' faith; of the chameleon's dish: I eat
	the air, promise-crammed: you cannot feed capons so.

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

HAMLET	No, nor mine now.

	[To POLONIUS]

	My lord, you played once i' the university, you say?

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

HAMLET	What did you enact?

LORD POLONIUS	I did enact Julius Caesar: I was killed i' the
	Capitol; Brutus killed me.

HAMLET	It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf
	there. Be the players ready?

ROSENCRANTZ	Ay, my lord; they stay upon your patience.

QUEEN GERTRUDE	Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me.

HAMLET	No, good mother, here's metal more attractive.

LORD POLONIUS	[To KING CLAUDIUS]  O, ho! do you mark that?

HAMLET	Lady, shall I lie in your lap?

	[Lying down at OPHELIA's feet]

OPHELIA	No, my lord.

HAMLET	I mean, my head upon your lap?

OPHELIA	Ay, my lord.

HAMLET	Do you think I meant country matters?

OPHELIA	I think nothing, my lord.

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

OPHELIA	What is, my lord?

HAMLET	Nothing.

OPHELIA	You are merry, my lord.

HAMLET	Who, I?

OPHELIA	Ay, my lord.

HAMLET	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.

OPHELIA	Nay, 'tis twice two months, my lord.

HAMLET	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? Then there's
	hope a great man's memory may outlive his life half
	a year: but, by'r lady, he must build churches,
	then; or else shall he suffer not thinking on, with
	the hobby-horse, whose epitaph is 'For, O, for, O,
	the hobby-horse is forgot.'

	[Hautboys play. The dumb-show enters]

	[Enter a King and a Queen very lovingly; the Queen
	embracing him, and he her. She kneels, and makes
	show of protestation unto him. He takes her up,
	and declines his head upon her neck: lays him down
	upon a bank of flowers: she, seeing him asleep,
	leaves him. Anon comes in a fellow, takes off his
	crown, kisses it, and pours poison in the King's
	ears, and exit. The Queen returns; finds the King
	dead, and makes passionate action. The Poisoner,
	with some two or three Mutes, comes in again,
	seeming to lament with her. The dead body is
	carried away. The Poisoner wooes the Queen with
	gifts: she seems loath and unwilling awhile, but
	in the end accepts his love]

	[Exeunt]

OPHELIA	What means this, my lord?

HAMLET	Marry, this is miching mallecho; it means mischief.

OPHELIA	Belike this show imports the argument of the play.

	[Enter Prologue]

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

OPHELIA	Will he tell us what this show meant?

HAMLET	Ay, or any show that you'll show him: be not you
	ashamed to show, he'll not shame to tell you what it means.

OPHELIA	You are naught, you are naught: I'll mark the play.

Prologue	     For us, and for our tragedy,
	Here stooping to your clemency,
	We beg your hearing patiently.

	[Exit]

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

OPHELIA	'Tis brief, my lord.

HAMLET	As woman's love.

	[Enter two Players, King and Queen]

Player King	   Full thirty times hath Phoebus' cart gone round
	Neptune's salt wash and Tellus' orbed ground,
	And thirty dozen moons with borrow'd sheen
	About the world have times twelve thirties been,
	Since love our hearts and Hymen did our hands
	Unite commutual in most sacred bands.

Player Queen	   So many journeys may the sun and moon
	Make us again count o'er ere love be done!
	But, woe is me, you are so sick of late,
	So far from cheer and from your former state,
	That I distrust you. Yet, though I distrust,
	Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must:
	For women's fear and love holds quantity;
	In neither aught, or in extremity.
	Now, what my love is, proof hath made you know;
	And as my love is sized, my fear is so:
	Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear;
	Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.

Player King	'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--

Player Queen	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.

HAMLET	[Aside]  Wormwood, wormwood.

Player Queen	   The instances that second marriage move
	Are base respects of thrift, but none of love:
	A second time I kill my husband dead,
	When second husband kisses me in bed.

Player King	   I do believe you think what now you speak;
	But what we do determine oft we break.
	Purpose is but the slave to memory,
	Of violent birth, but poor validity;
	Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree;
	But fall, unshaken, when they mellow be.
	Most necessary 'tis that we forget
	To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt:
	What to ourselves in passion we propose,
	The passion ending, doth the purpose lose.
	The violence of either grief or joy
	Their own enactures with themselves destroy:
	Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament;
	Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident.
	This world is not for aye, nor 'tis not strange
	That even our loves should with our fortunes change;
	For 'tis a question left us yet to prove,
	Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love.
	The great man down, you mark his favourite flies;
	The poor advanced makes friends of enemies.
	And hitherto doth love on fortune tend;
	For who not needs shall never lack a friend,
	And who in want a hollow friend doth try,
	Directly seasons him his enemy.
	But, orderly to end where I begun,
	Our wills and fates do so contrary run
	That our devices still are overthrown;
	Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own:
	So think thou wilt no second husband wed;
	But die thy thoughts when thy first lord is dead.

Player Queen	   Nor earth to me give food, nor heaven light!
	Sport and repose lock from me day and night!
	To desperation turn my trust and hope!
	An anchor's cheer in prison be my scope!
	Each opposite that blanks the face of joy
	Meet what I would have well and it destroy!
	Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife,
	If, once a widow, ever I be wife!

HAMLET	If she should break it now!

Player King	'Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here awhile;
	My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile
	The tedious day with sleep.

	[Sleeps]

Player Queen	Sleep rock thy brain,
	And never come mischance between us twain!

	[Exit]

HAMLET	Madam, how like you this play?

QUEEN GERTRUDE	The lady protests too much, methinks.

HAMLET	O, but she'll keep her word.

KING CLAUDIUS	Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in 't?

HAMLET	No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest; no offence
	i' the world.

KING CLAUDIUS	What do you call the play?

HAMLET	The Mouse-trap. Marry, how? Tropically. 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.

	[Enter LUCIANUS]

	This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king.

OPHELIA	You are as good as a chorus, my lord.

HAMLET	I could interpret between you and your love, if I
	could see the puppets dallying.

OPHELIA	You are keen, my lord, you are keen.

HAMLET	It would cost you a groaning to take off my edge.

OPHELIA	Still better, and worse.

HAMLET	So you must take your husbands. Begin, murderer;
	pox, leave thy damnable faces, and begin. Come:
	'the croaking raven doth bellow for revenge.'

LUCIANUS	   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.

	[Pours the poison into the sleeper's ears]

HAMLET	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.

OPHELIA	The king rises.

HAMLET	What, frighted with false fire!

QUEEN GERTRUDE	How fares my lord?

LORD POLONIUS	Give o'er the play.

KING CLAUDIUS	Give me some light: away!

All	Lights, lights, lights!

	[Exeunt all but HAMLET and HORATIO]

HAMLET	     Why, let the stricken deer go weep,
	The hart ungalled play;
	For some must watch, while some must sleep:
	So runs the world away.
	Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers-- if
	the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me--with two
	Provincial roses on my razed shoes, get me a
	fellowship in a cry of players, sir?

HORATIO	Half a share.

HAMLET	A whole one, I.
	For thou dost know, O Damon dear,
	This realm dismantled was
	Of Jove himself; and now reigns here
	A very, very--pajock.

HORATIO	You might have rhymed.

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

HORATIO	Very well, my lord.

HAMLET	Upon the talk of the poisoning?

HORATIO	I did very well note him.

HAMLET	Ah, ha! Come, some music! come, the recorders!
	For if the king like not the comedy,
	Why then, belike, he likes it not, perdy.
	Come, some music!

	[Re-enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN]

GUILDENSTERN	Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you.

HAMLET	Sir, a whole history.

GUILDENSTERN	The king, sir,--

HAMLET	Ay, sir, what of him?

GUILDENSTERN	Is in his retirement marvellous distempered.

HAMLET	With drink, sir?

GUILDENSTERN	No, my lord, rather with choler.

HAMLET	Your wisdom should show itself more richer to
	signify this to his doctor; for, for me to put him
	to his purgation would perhaps plunge him into far
	more choler.

GUILDENSTERN	Good my lord, put your discourse into some frame and
	start not so wildly from my affair.

HAMLET	I am tame, sir: pronounce.

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

HAMLET	You are welcome.

GUILDENSTERN	Nay, good my lord, this courtesy is not of the right
	breed. If it shall please you to make me a
	wholesome answer, I will do your mother's
	commandment: if not, your pardon and my return
	shall be the end of my business.

HAMLET	Sir, I cannot.

GUILDENSTERN	What, my lord?

HAMLET	Make you a wholesome answer; my wit's diseased: but,
	sir, such answer as I can make, you shall command;
	or, rather, as you say, my mother: therefore no
	more, but to the matter: my mother, you say,--

ROSENCRANTZ	Then thus she says; your behavior hath struck her
	into amazement and admiration.

HAMLET	O wonderful son, that can so astonish a mother! But
	is there no sequel at the heels of this mother's
	admiration? Impart.

ROSENCRANTZ	She desires to speak with you in her closet, ere you
	go to bed.

HAMLET	We shall obey, were she ten times our mother. Have
	you any further trade with us?

ROSENCRANTZ	My lord, you once did love me.

HAMLET	So I do still, by these pickers and stealers.

ROSENCRANTZ	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.

HAMLET	Sir, I lack advancement.

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

HAMLET	Ay, but sir, 'While the grass grows,'--the proverb
	is something musty.

	[Re-enter Players with recorders]

	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?

GUILDENSTERN	O, my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too
	unmannerly.

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

GUILDENSTERN	My lord, I cannot.

HAMLET	I pray you.

GUILDENSTERN	Believe me, I cannot.

HAMLET	I do beseech you.

GUILDENSTERN	I know no touch of it, my lord.

HAMLET	'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.

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

HAMLET	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, yet you
	cannot play upon me.

	[Enter POLONIUS]

	God bless you, sir!

LORD POLONIUS	My lord, the queen would speak with you, and
	presently.

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

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

HAMLET	Methinks it is like a weasel.

LORD POLONIUS	It is backed like a weasel.

HAMLET	Or like a whale?

LORD POLONIUS	Very like a whale.

HAMLET	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.

LORD POLONIUS	I will say so.

HAMLET	By and by is easily said.

	[Exit POLONIUS]

	Leave me, friends.

	[Exeunt all but HAMLET]

	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.
	O heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever
	The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom:
	Let me be cruel, not unnatural:
	I will speak daggers to her, but use none;
	My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites;
	How in my words soever she be shent,
	To give them seals never, my soul, consent!

	[Exit]



	HAMLET


ACT III



SCENE III	A room in the castle.


	[Enter KING CLAUDIUS, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN]

KING CLAUDIUS	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 lunacies.

GUILDENSTERN	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.

ROSENCRANTZ	The single and peculiar life is bound,
	With all the strength and armour of the mind,
	To keep itself from noyance; but much more
	That spirit upon whose weal depend and rest
	The lives of many. The cease of majesty
	Dies not alone; but, like a gulf, doth draw
	What's near it with it: it 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; which, when it falls,
	Each small annexment, petty consequence,
	Attends the boisterous ruin. Never alone
	Did the king sigh, but with a general groan.

KING CLAUDIUS	Arm you, I pray you, to this speedy voyage;
	For we will fetters put upon this fear,
	Which now goes too free-footed.


ROSENCRANTZ	|
	|	We will haste us.
GUILDENSTERN	|


	[Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN]

	[Enter POLONIUS]

LORD POLONIUS	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:
	And, as you said, and wisely was it said,
	'Tis meet that some more audience than a mother,
	Since nature makes them partial, should o'erhear
	The speech, of vantage. Fare you well, my liege:
	I'll call upon you ere you go to bed,
	And tell you what I know.

KING CLAUDIUS	Thanks, dear my lord.

	[Exit POLONIUS]

	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.

	[Retires and kneels]

	[Enter HAMLET]

HAMLET	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?
	But in our circumstance and course of thought,
	'Tis heavy with him: 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, sword; 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.

	[Exit]

KING CLAUDIUS	[Rising]  My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:
	Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

	[Exit]




	HAMLET


ACT III



SCENE IV	The Queen's closet.


	[Enter QUEEN MARGARET and POLONIUS]

LORD POLONIUS	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.

HAMLET	[Within]  Mother, mother, mother!

QUEEN GERTRUDE	I'll warrant you,
	Fear me not: withdraw, I hear him coming.

	[POLONIUS hides behind the arras]

	[Enter HAMLET]

HAMLET	Now, mother, what's the matter?

QUEEN GERTRUDE	Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.

HAMLET	Mother, you have my father much offended.

QUEEN GERTRUDE	Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.

HAMLET	Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.

QUEEN GERTRUDE	Why, how now, Hamlet!

HAMLET	What's the matter now?

QUEEN GERTRUDE	Have you forgot me?

HAMLET	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.

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

HAMLET	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.

QUEEN GERTRUDE	What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murder me?
	Help, help, ho!

LORD POLONIUS	[Behind]  What, ho! help, help, help!

HAMLET	[Drawing]  How now! a rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead!

	[Makes a pass through the arras]

LORD POLONIUS	[Behind]  O, I am slain!

	[Falls and dies]

QUEEN GERTRUDE	O me, what hast thou done?

HAMLET	Nay, I know not:
	Is it the king?

QUEEN GERTRUDE	O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!

HAMLET	A bloody deed! almost as bad, good mother,
	As kill a king, and marry with his brother.

QUEEN GERTRUDE	As kill a king!

HAMLET	                  Ay, lady, 'twas my word.

	[Lifts up the array and discovers POLONIUS]

	Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!
	I took thee for thy better: take thy fortune;
	Thou find'st to be too busy is some danger.
	Leave wringing of your hands: peace! sit you down,
	And let me wring your heart; for so I shall,
	If it be made of penetrable stuff,
	If damned custom have not brass'd it so
	That it is proof and bulwark against sense.

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

HAMLET	Such an act
	That blurs the grace and blush of modesty,
	Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose
	From the fair forehead of an innocent love
	And sets a blister there, makes marriage-vows
	As false as dicers' oaths: O, such a deed
	As from the body of contraction plucks
	The very soul, and sweet religion makes
	A rhapsody of words: heaven's face doth glow:
	Yea, this solidity and compound mass,
	With tristful visage, as against the doom,
	Is thought-sick at the act.

QUEEN GERTRUDE	Ay me, what act,
	That roars so loud, and thunders in the index?

HAMLET	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? Sense, sure, you have,
	Else could you not have motion; but sure, that sense
	Is apoplex'd; for madness would not err,
	Nor sense to ecstasy was ne'er so thrall'd
	But it reserved some quantity of choice,
	To serve in such a difference. 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? Rebellious hell,
	If thou canst mutine in a matron's bones,
	To flaming youth let virtue be as wax,
	And melt in her own fire: proclaim no shame
	When the compulsive ardour gives the charge,
	Since frost itself as actively doth burn
	And reason panders will.

QUEEN GERTRUDE	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.

HAMLET	Nay, but to live
	In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed,
	Stew'd in corruption, honeying and making love
	Over the nasty sty,--

QUEEN GERTRUDE	O, speak to me no more;
	These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears;
	No more, sweet Hamlet!

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!

QUEEN GERTRUDE	No more!

HAMLET	A king of shreds and patches,--

	[Enter Ghost]

	Save me, and hover o'er me with your wings,
	You heavenly guards! What would your gracious figure?

QUEEN GERTRUDE	Alas, he's mad!

HAMLET	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!

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.

HAMLET	How is it with you, lady?

QUEEN GERTRUDE	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;
	And, as the sleeping soldiers in the 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?

HAMLET	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
	Will want true colour; tears perchance for blood.

QUEEN GERTRUDE	To whom do you speak this?

HAMLET	Do you see nothing there?

QUEEN GERTRUDE	Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.

HAMLET	Nor did you nothing hear?

QUEEN GERTRUDE	No, nothing but ourselves.

HAMLET	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 GERTRUDE	This the very coinage of your brain:
	This bodiless creation ecstasy
	Is very cunning in.

HAMLET	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. 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 GERTRUDE	O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.

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

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

QUEEN GERTRUDE	What shall I do?

HAMLET	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?
	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 GERTRUDE	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.

HAMLET	I must to England; you know that?

QUEEN GERTRUDE	Alack,
	I had forgot: 'tis so concluded on.

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

	[Exeunt severally; HAMLET dragging in POLONIUS]




	HAMLET


ACT IV



SCENE I	A room in the castle.


	[Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, ROSENCRANTZ,
	and GUILDENSTERN]

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

QUEEN GERTRUDE	Bestow this place on us a little while.

	[Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN]

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

KING CLAUDIUS	What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?

QUEEN GERTRUDE	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.

KING CLAUDIUS	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?

QUEEN GERTRUDE	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 CLAUDIUS	O 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!

	[Re-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 ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN]

	Come, Gertrude, we'll call up our wisest friends;
	And let them know, both what we mean to do,
	And what's untimely done [                ]
	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.

	[Exeunt]




	HAMLET


ACT IV



SCENE II	Another room in the castle.


	[Enter HAMLET]

HAMLET	Safely stowed.


ROSENCRANTZ:	|
	|   [Within]  Hamlet! Lord Hamlet!
GUILDENSTERN:	|


HAMLET	What noise? who calls on Hamlet?
	O, here they come.

	[Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN]

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

HAMLET	Compounded it with dust, whereto 'tis kin.

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

HAMLET	Do not believe it.

ROSENCRANTZ	Believe what?

HAMLET	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?

ROSENCRANTZ	Take you me for a sponge, my lord?

HAMLET	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.

ROSENCRANTZ	I understand you not, my lord.

HAMLET	I am glad of it: a knavish speech sleeps in a
	foolish ear.

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

HAMLET	The body is with the king, but the king is not with
	the body. The king is a thing--

GUILDENSTERN	A thing, my lord!

HAMLET	Of nothing: bring me to him. Hide fox, and all after.

	[Exeunt]




	HAMLET


ACT IV



SCENE III	Another room in the castle.


	[Enter KING CLAUDIUS, attended]

KING CLAUDIUS	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 appliance are relieved,
	Or not at all.

	[Enter ROSENCRANTZ]

	How now! what hath befall'n?

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

KING CLAUDIUS	But where is he?

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

KING CLAUDIUS	Bring him before us.

ROSENCRANTZ	Ho, Guildenstern! bring in my lord.

	[Enter HAMLET and GUILDENSTERN]

KING CLAUDIUS	Now, Hamlet, where's Polonius?

HAMLET	At supper.

KING CLAUDIUS	At supper! where?

HAMLET	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 us, and we fat ourselves for
	maggots: your fat king and your lean beggar is but
	variable service, two dishes, but to one table:
	that's the end.

KING CLAUDIUS	Alas, alas!

HAMLET	A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a
	king, and cat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.

KING CLAUDIUS	What dost you mean by this?

HAMLET	Nothing but to show you how a king may go a
	progress through the guts of a beggar.

KING CLAUDIUS	Where is Polonius?

HAMLET	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.

KING CLAUDIUS	Go seek him there.

	[To some Attendants]

HAMLET	He will stay till ye come.

	[Exeunt Attendants]

KING CLAUDIUS	Hamlet, this deed, for thine especial safety,--
	Which we do tender, as we dearly grieve
	For that which thou hast done,--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.

HAMLET	                  For England!

KING CLAUDIUS	Ay, Hamlet.

HAMLET	Good.

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

HAMLET	I see a cherub that sees them. But, come; for
	England! Farewell, dear mother.

KING CLAUDIUS	Thy loving father, Hamlet.

HAMLET	My mother: father and mother is man and wife; man
	and wife is one flesh; and so, my mother. Come, for England!

	[Exit]

KING CLAUDIUS	Follow him at foot; tempt him with speed aboard;
	Delay it not; I'll have him hence to-night:
	Away! for every thing is seal'd and done
	That else leans on the affair: pray you, make haste.

	[Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN]

	And, England, if my love thou hold'st at aught--
	As my great power thereof may give thee sense,
	Since yet thy cicatrice looks raw and red
	After the Danish sword, and thy free awe
	Pays homage to us--thou mayst not coldly set
	Our sovereign process; which imports at full,
	By letters congruing to that effect,
	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.

	[Exit]




	HAMLET


ACT IV



SCENE IV	A plain in Denmark.


	[Enter FORTINBRAS, a Captain, and Soldiers, marching]

PRINCE FORTINBRAS	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. You know the rendezvous.
	If that his majesty would aught with us,
	We shall express our duty in his eye;
	And let him know so.

Captain	I will do't, my lord.

PRINCE FORTINBRAS	Go softly on.

	[Exeunt FORTINBRAS and Soldiers]

	[Enter HAMLET, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, and others]

HAMLET	Good sir, whose powers are these?

Captain	They are of Norway, sir.

HAMLET	How purposed, sir, I pray you?

Captain	Against some part of Poland.

HAMLET	Who commands them, sir?

Captain	The nephews to old Norway, Fortinbras.

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

Captain	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;
	Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole
	A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee.

HAMLET	Why, then the Polack never will defend it.

Captain	Yes, it is already garrison'd.

HAMLET	Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats
	Will not debate the question of this straw:
	This is the imposthume of much wealth and peace,
	That inward breaks, and shows no cause without
	Why the man dies. I humbly thank you, sir.

Captain	God be wi' you, sir.

	[Exit]

ROSENCRANTZ	Wilt please you go, my lord?

HAMLET	I'll be with you straight go a little before.

	[Exeunt all except HAMLET]

	How all occasions do inform against me,
	And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,
	If his chief good and market of his time
	Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.
	Sure, he that made us with such large discourse,
	Looking before and after, gave us not
	That capability and god-like reason
	To fust in us unused. Now, whether it be
	Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
	Of thinking too precisely on the event,
	A thought which, quarter'd, hath but one part wisdom
	And ever three parts coward, 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. Rightly to be great
	Is not to stir without great argument,
	But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
	When honour's at the stake. How stand I then,
	That have a father kill'd, a mother stain'd,
	Excitements of my reason and my blood,
	And let all sleep? while, to my shame, I see
	The imminent death of twenty thousand men,
	That, for a fantasy and trick of fame,
	Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot
	Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,
	Which is not tomb enough and continent
	To hide the slain? O, from this time forth,
	My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!

	[Exit]




	HAMLET


ACT IV


SCENE V	Elsinore. A room in the castle.


	[Enter QUEEN GERTRUDE, HORATIO, and a Gentleman]

QUEEN GERTRUDE	I will not speak with her.

Gentleman	She is importunate, indeed distract:
	Her mood will needs be pitied.

QUEEN GERTRUDE	What would she have?

Gentleman	She speaks much of her father; says she hears
	There's tricks i' the world; and hems, and beats her heart;
	Spurns enviously at straws; 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; they aim at it,
	And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts;
	Which, as her winks, and nods, and gestures
	yield them,
	Indeed would make one think there might be thought,
	Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.

HORATIO	'Twere good she were spoken with; for she may strew
	Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.

QUEEN GERTRUDE	Let her come in.

	[Exit HORATIO]

	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.

	[Re-enter HORATIO, with OPHELIA]

OPHELIA	Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?

QUEEN GERTRUDE	How now, Ophelia!

OPHELIA	[Sings]

	How should I your true love know
	From another one?
	By his cockle hat and staff,
	And his sandal shoon.

QUEEN GERTRUDE	Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?

OPHELIA	Say you? nay, pray you, mark.

	[Sings]

	He is dead and gone, lady,
	He is dead and gone;
	At his head a grass-green turf,
	At his heels a stone.

QUEEN GERTRUDE	Nay, but, Ophelia,--

OPHELIA	Pray you, mark.

	[Sings]

	White his shroud as the mountain snow,--

	[Enter KING CLAUDIUS]

QUEEN GERTRUDE	Alas, look here, my lord.

OPHELIA	[Sings]

	Larded with sweet flowers
	Which bewept to the grave did go
	With true-love showers.

KING CLAUDIUS	How do you, pretty lady?

OPHELIA	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!

KING CLAUDIUS	Conceit upon her father.

OPHELIA	Pray you, let's have no words of this; but when they
	ask you what it means, say you this:

	[Sings]

	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.

KING CLAUDIUS	Pretty Ophelia!

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

	[Sings]

	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.

KING CLAUDIUS	How long hath she been thus?

OPHELIA	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.

	[Exit]

KING CLAUDIUS	Follow her close; give her good watch,
	I pray you.

	[Exit HORATIO]

	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;
	Feeds on his wonder, keeps himself in clouds,
	And wants not buzzers to infect his ear
	With pestilent speeches of his father's death;
	Wherein necessity, of matter beggar'd,
	Will nothing stick our person to arraign
	In ear and ear. O my dear Gertrude, this,
	Like to a murdering-piece, in many places
	Gives me superfluous death.

	[A noise within]

QUEEN GERTRUDE	Alack, what noise is this?

KING CLAUDIUS	Where are my Switzers? Let them guard the door.

	[Enter another Gentleman]

	What is the matter?

Gentleman	Save yourself, my lord:
	The ocean, overpeering of his list,
	Eats not the flats with more impetuous haste
	Than young Laertes, in a riotous head,
	O'erbears your officers. The rabble call him lord;
	And, as the world were now but to begin,
	Antiquity forgot, custom not known,
	The ratifiers and props of every word,
	They cry 'Choose we: Laertes shall be king:'
	Caps, hands, and tongues, applaud it to the clouds:
	'Laertes shall be king, Laertes king!'

QUEEN GERTRUDE	How cheerfully on the false trail they cry!
	O, this is counter, you false Danish dogs!

KING CLAUDIUS	The doors are broke.

	[Noise within]

	[Enter LAERTES, armed; Danes following]

LAERTES	Where is this king? Sirs, stand you all without.

Danes	No, let's come in.

LAERTES	                  I pray you, give me leave.

Danes	We will, we will.

	[They retire without the door]

LAERTES	I thank you: keep the door. O thou vile king,
	Give me my father!

QUEEN GERTRUDE	                  Calmly, good Laertes.

LAERTES	That drop of blood that's calm proclaims me bastard,
	Cries cuckold to my father, brands the harlot
	Even here, between the chaste unsmirched brow
	Of my true mother.

KING CLAUDIUS	                  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.

LAERTES	Where is my father?

KING CLAUDIUS	Dead.

QUEEN GERTRUDE	But not by him.

KING CLAUDIUS	Let him demand his fill.

LAERTES	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,
	That both the worlds I give to negligence,
	Let come what comes; only I'll be revenged
	Most thoroughly for my father.

KING CLAUDIUS	Who shall stay you?

LAERTES	My will, not all the world:
	And for my means, I'll husband them so well,
	They shall go far with little.

KING CLAUDIUS	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?

LAERTES	None but his enemies.

KING CLAUDIUS	Will you know them then?

LAERTES	To his good friends thus wide I'll ope my arms;
	And like the kind life-rendering pelican,
	Repast them with my blood.

KING CLAUDIUS	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.

Danes	[Within]                Let her come in.

LAERTES	How now! what noise is that?

	[Re-enter OPHELIA]

	O heat, dry up my brains! tears seven times salt,
	Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye!
	By heaven, thy madness shall be paid by weight,
	Till our scale turn the beam. 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?
	Nature is fine in love, and where 'tis fine,
	It sends some precious instance of itself
	After the thing it loves.

OPHELIA	[Sings]

	They bore him barefaced on the bier;
	Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny;
	And in his grave rain'd many a tear:--
	Fare you well, my dove!

LAERTES	Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge,
	It could not move thus.

OPHELIA	[Sings]

	You must sing a-down a-down,
	An you call him a-down-a.
	O, how the wheel becomes it! It is the false
	steward, that stole his master's daughter.

LAERTES	This nothing's more than matter.

OPHELIA	There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray,
	love, remember: and there is pansies. that's for thoughts.

LAERTES	A document in madness, thoughts and remembrance fitted.

OPHELIA	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,--

	[Sings]

	For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.

LAERTES	Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself,
	She turns to favour and to prettiness.

OPHELIA	[Sings]

	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.

	[Exit]

LAERTES	Do you see this, O God?

KING CLAUDIUS	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.

LAERTES	Let this be so;
	His means of death, his obscure funeral--
	No trophy, sword, nor hatchment o'er his bones,
	No noble rite nor formal ostentation--
	Cry to be heard, as 'twere from heaven to earth,
	That I must call't in question.

KING CLAUDIUS	So you shall;
	And where the offence is let the great axe fall.
	I pray you, go with me.

	[Exeunt]




	HAMLET


ACT IV



SCENE VI	Another room in the castle.


	[Enter HORATIO and a Servant]

HORATIO	What are they that would speak with me?

Servant	Sailors, sir: they say they have letters for you.

HORATIO	Let them come in.

	[Exit Servant]

	I do not know from what part of the world
	I should be greeted, if not from Lord Hamlet.

	[Enter Sailors]

First Sailor	God bless you, sir.

HORATIO	Let him bless thee too.

First Sailor	He shall, sir, an't please him. There's a letter for
	you, sir; it comes from the ambassador that was
	bound for England; if your name be Horatio, as I am
	let to know it is.

HORATIO	[Reads]  'Horatio, when thou shalt have overlooked
	this, give these fellows some means to the king:
	they have letters for him. Ere we were two days old
	at sea, a pirate of very warlike appointment gave us
	chase. Finding ourselves too slow of sail, we put on
	a compelled valour, and in the grapple I boarded
	them: on the instant they got clear of our ship; so
	I alone became their prisoner. They have dealt with
	me like thieves of mercy: but they knew what they
	did; I am to do a good turn for them. Let the king
	have the letters I have sent; and repair thou to me
	with as much speed as thou wouldst fly death. I
	have words to speak in thine ear will make thee
	dumb; yet are they much too light for the bore of
	the matter. These good fellows will bring thee
	where I am. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern hold their
	course for England: of them I have much to tell
	thee. Farewell.
	'He that thou knowest thine, HAMLET.'
	Come, I will make you way for these your letters;
	And do't the speedier, that you may direct me
	To him from whom you brought them.

	[Exeunt]




	HAMLET


ACT IV


SCENE VII	Another room in the castle.


	[Enter KING CLAUDIUS and LAERTES]

KING CLAUDIUS	Now must your conscience my acquaintance seal,
	And you must put me in your heart for friend,
	Sith you have heard, and with a knowing ear,
	That he which hath your noble father slain
	Pursued my life.

LAERTES	                  It well appears: but tell me
	Why you proceeded not against these feats,
	So crimeful and so capital in nature,
	As by your safety, wisdom, all things else,
	You mainly were stirr'd up.

KING CLAUDIUS	O, for two special reasons;
	Which may to you, perhaps, seem much unsinew'd,
	But yet to me they are strong. The queen his mother
	Lives almost by his looks; and for myself--
	My virtue or my plague, be it either which--
	She's so conjunctive to my life and soul,
	That, as the star moves not but in his sphere,
	I could not but by her. The other motive,
	Why to a public count I might not go,
	Is the great love the general gender bear him;
	Who, dipping all his faults in their affection,
	Would, like the spring that turneth wood to stone,
	Convert his gyves to graces; so that my arrows,
	Too slightly timber'd for so loud a wind,
	Would have reverted to my bow again,
	And not where I had aim'd them.

LAERTES	And so have I a noble father lost;
	A sister driven into desperate terms,
	Whose worth, if praises may go back again,
	Stood challenger on mount of all the age
	For her perfections: but my revenge will come.

KING CLAUDIUS	Break not your sleeps for that: you must not think
	That we are made of stuff so flat and dull
	That we can let our beard be shook with danger
	And think it pastime. You shortly shall hear more:
	I loved your father, and we love ourself;
	And that, I hope, will teach you to imagine--

	[Enter a Messenger]

	How now! what news?

Messenger	Letters, my lord, from Hamlet:
	This to your majesty; this to the queen.

KING CLAUDIUS	From Hamlet! who brought them?

Messenger	Sailors, my lord, they say; I saw them not:
	They were given me by Claudio; he received them
	Of him that brought them.

KING CLAUDIUS	Laertes, you shall hear them. Leave us.

	[Exit Messenger]

	[Reads]

	'High and mighty, You shall know I am set naked on
	your kingdom. To-morrow shall I beg leave to see
	your kingly eyes: when I shall, first asking your
	pardon thereunto, recount the occasion of my sudden
	and more strange return.                  'HAMLET.'
	What should this mean? Are all the rest come back?
	Or is it some abuse, and no such thing?

LAERTES	Know you the hand?

KING CLAUDIUS	'Tis Hamlets character. 'Naked!
	And in a postscript here, he says 'alone.'
	Can you advise me?

LAERTES	I'm lost in it, my lord. But let him come;
	It warms the very sickness in my heart,
	That I shall live and tell him to his teeth,
	'Thus didest thou.'

KING CLAUDIUS	If it be so, Laertes--
	As how should it be so? how otherwise?--
	Will you be ruled by me?

LAERTES	Ay, my lord;
	So you will not o'errule me to a peace.

KING CLAUDIUS	To thine own peace. If he be now return'd,
	As checking at his voyage, and that he means
	No more to undertake it, I will work him
	To an exploit, now ripe in my device,
	Under the which he shall not choose but fall:
	And for his death no wind of blame shall breathe,
	But even his mother shall uncharge the practise
	And call it accident.

LAERTES	My lord, I will be ruled;
	The rather, if you could devise it so
	That I might be the organ.

KING CLAUDIUS	It falls right.
	You have been talk'd of since your travel much,
	And that in Hamlet's hearing, for a quality
	Wherein, they say, you shine: your sum of parts
	Did not together pluck such envy from him
	As did that one, and that, in my regard,
	Of the unworthiest siege.

LAERTES	What part is that, my lord?

KING CLAUDIUS	A very riband in the cap of youth,
	Yet needful too; for youth no less becomes
	The light and careless livery that it wears
	Than settled age his sables and his weeds,
	Importing health and graveness. Two months since,
	Here was a gentleman of Normandy:--
	I've seen myself, and served against, the French,
	And they can well on horseback: but this gallant
	Had witchcraft in't; he grew unto his seat;
	And to such wondrous doing brought his horse,
	As he had been incorpsed and demi-natured
	With the brave beast: so far he topp'd my thought,
	That I, in forgery of shapes and tricks,
	Come short of what he did.

LAERTES	A Norman was't?

KING CLAUDIUS	A Norman.

LAERTES	Upon my life, Lamond.

KING CLAUDIUS	The very same.

LAERTES	I know him well: he is the brooch indeed
	And gem of all the nation.

KING CLAUDIUS	He made confession of you,
	And gave you such a masterly report
	For art and exercise in your defence
	And for your rapier most especially,
	That he cried out, 'twould be a sight indeed,
	If one could match you: the scrimers of their nation,
	He swore, had had neither motion, guard, nor eye,
	If you opposed them. Sir, this report of his
	Did Hamlet so envenom with his envy
	That he could nothing do but wish and beg
	Your sudden coming o'er, to play with him.
	Now, out of this,--

LAERTES	What out of this, my lord?

KING CLAUDIUS	Laertes, was your father dear to you?
	Or are you like the painting of a sorrow,
	A face without a heart?

LAERTES	Why ask you this?

KING CLAUDIUS	Not that I think you did not love your father;
	But that I know love is begun by time;
	And that I see, in passages of proof,
	Time qualifies the spark and fire of it.
	There lives within the very flame of love
	A kind of wick or snuff that will abate it;
	And nothing is at a like goodness still;
	For goodness, growing to a plurisy,
	Dies in his own too much: that we would do
	We should do when we would; for this 'would' changes
	And hath abatements and delays as many
	As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents;
	And then this 'should' is like a spendthrift sigh,
	That hurts by easing. But, to the quick o' the ulcer:--
	Hamlet comes back: what would you undertake,
	To show yourself your father's son in deed
	More than in words?

LAERTES	To cut his throat i' the church.

KING CLAUDIUS	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 put on those shall praise your excellence
	And set a double varnish on the fame
	The Frenchman gave you, 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.

LAERTES	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,
	Collected from all simples that have virtue
	Under the moon, 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 death.

KING CLAUDIUS	                  Let's further think of this;
	Weigh what convenience both of time and means
	May fit us to our shape: 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! let me see:
	We'll make a solemn wager on your cunnings: I ha't.
	When in your motion you are 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.

	[Enter QUEEN GERTRUDE]

		      How now, sweet queen!

QUEEN GERTRUDE	One woe doth tread upon another's heel,
	So fast they follow; your sister's drown'd, Laertes.

LAERTES	Drown'd! O, where?

QUEEN GERTRUDE	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.

LAERTES	                  Alas, then, she is drown'd?

QUEEN GERTRUDE	Drown'd, drown'd.

LAERTES	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: when these are gone,
	The woman will be out. Adieu, my lord:
	I have a speech of fire, that fain would blaze,
	But that this folly douts it.

	[Exit]

KING CLAUDIUS	Let's follow, Gertrude:
	How much I had to do to calm his rage!
	Now fear I this will give it start again;
	Therefore let's follow.

	[Exeunt]




	HAMLET


ACT V



SCENE I	A churchyard.


	[Enter two Clowns, with spades, &c]

First Clown	Is she to be buried in Christian burial that
	wilfully seeks her own salvation?

Second Clown	I tell thee she is: and therefore make her grave
	straight: the crowner hath sat on her, and finds it
	Christian burial.

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

Second Clown	Why, 'tis found so.

First Clown	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.

Second Clown	Nay, but hear you, goodman delver,--

First Clown	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.

Second Clown	But is this law?

First Clown	Ay, marry, is't; crowner's quest law.

Second Clown	Will you ha' the truth on't? If this had not been
	a gentlewoman, she should have been buried out o'
	Christian burial.

First Clown	Why, there thou say'st: and the more pity that
	great folk should have countenance in this world to
	drown or hang themselves, more than their even
	Christian. Come, my spade. There is no ancient
	gentleman but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers:
	they hold up Adam's profession.

Second Clown	Was he a gentleman?

First Clown	He was the first that ever bore arms.

Second Clown	Why, he had none.

First Clown	What, art a heathen? How dost thou understand the
	Scripture? The Scripture says 'Adam digged:'
	could he dig without arms? I'll put another
	question to thee: if thou answerest me not to the
	purpose, confess thyself--

Second Clown	Go to.

First Clown	What is he that builds stronger than either the
	mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?

Second Clown	The gallows-maker; for that frame outlives a
	thousand tenants.

First Clown	I like thy wit well, in good faith: the gallows
	does well; but how does it well? it does well to
	those that do in: now thou dost ill to say the
	gallows is built stronger than the church: argal,
	the gallows may do well to thee. To't again, come.

Second Clown	'Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or
	a carpenter?'

First Clown	Ay, tell me that, and unyoke.

Second Clown	Marry, now I can tell.

First Clown	To't.

Second Clown	Mass, I cannot tell.

	[Enter HAMLET and HORATIO, at a distance]

First Clown	Cudgel thy brains no more about it, for your dull
	ass will not mend his pace with beating; and, when
	you are asked this question next, say 'a
	grave-maker: 'the houses that he makes last till
	doomsday. Go, get thee to Yaughan: fetch me a
	stoup of liquor.

	[Exit Second Clown]

	[He digs and sings]

	In youth, when I did love, did love,
	Methought it was very sweet,
	To contract, O, the time, for, ah, my behove,
	O, methought, there was nothing meet.

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

HORATIO	Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness.

HAMLET	'Tis e'en so: the hand of little employment hath
	the daintier sense.

First Clown	[Sings]

	But age, with his stealing steps,
	Hath claw'd me in his clutch,
	And hath shipped me intil the land,
	As if I had never been such.

	[Throws up a skull]

HAMLET	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, which this ass
	now o'er-reaches; one that would circumvent God,
	might it not?

HORATIO	It might, my lord.

HAMLET	Or of a courtier; which could say 'Good morrow,
	sweet lord! How dost thou, good lord?' This might
	be my lord such-a-one, that praised my lord
	such-a-one's horse, when he meant to beg it; might it not?

HORATIO	Ay, my lord.

HAMLET	Why, e'en so: 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. Did these bones cost no more the breeding,
	but to play at loggats with 'em? mine ache to think on't.

First Clown: [Sings]

	A pick-axe, and a spade, a spade,
	For and a shrouding sheet:
	O, a pit of clay for to be made
	For such a guest is meet.

	[Throws up another skull]

HAMLET	There's another: why may not that be the skull of a
	lawyer? Where be his quiddities now, his quillets,
	his cases, his tenures, and 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? Hum! This fellow might be
	in's time a great buyer of land, with his statutes,
	his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers,
	his recoveries: is this the fine of his fines, and
	the recovery of his recoveries, to have his fine
	pate full of fine dirt? will his vouchers vouch him
	no more of his purchases, and double ones too, than
	the length and breadth of a pair of indentures? The
	very conveyances of his lands will hardly lie in
	this box; and must the inheritor himself have no more, ha?

HORATIO	Not a jot more, my lord.

HAMLET	Is not parchment made of sheepskins?

HORATIO	Ay, my lord, and of calf-skins too.

HAMLET	They are sheep and calves which seek out assurance
	in that. I will speak to this fellow. Whose
	grave's this, sirrah?

First Clown	Mine, sir.

	[Sings]

	O, a pit of clay for to be made
	For such a guest is meet.

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

First Clown	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.

HAMLET	'Thou dost lie in't, to b