This is the tragedy
of a man
who could not make up his mind.
- Who's there? - Nay, answer me.
Stand and unfold yourself.
Long live the King.
- Bernardo? - He.
You come most carefully upon your hour.
'Tis now struck 12. Get thee to bed, Francisco.
For this relief, much thanks.
'Tis bitter cold.
I'm sick at heart.
Have you had quiet guard?
- Not a mouse stirring. - Well, good night.
If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus, the rivals of my watch,
bid them make haste.
I think I hear them. Stand, ho! Who's there?
- Friends to this ground. - And liegemen to the Dane.
Give me your good night.
Farewell, honest soldier. Who has relieved you?
Bernardo hath my place. Give you good night.
- Holla! Bernardo! - Say, what, is Horatio there?
A piece of him.
Welcome, Horatio. Welcome, good Marcellus.
What... has this thing appeared again tonight?
I have seen nothing.
Horatio says 'tis but our fantasy and will not let belief take hold of him,
touching this dreaded sight, twice seen of us.
Therefore I've entreated him along with us to watch the minutes of this night,
that if again this apparition comes he may approve our eyes and speak to it.
Tush, tush, 'twill not appear.
Sit down a while.
Let us once again assail your ears that are so fortified against our story,
what we two nights have seen.
Well, sit we down and let us hear Bernardo speak of this.
Last night of all,
when yon same star that's westward from the pole
had made his course into that part of heaven where now it burns,
Marcellus and myself, the bell then beating one...
Peace! Break thee off.
Look where it comes again!
In the same figure like the dead king, Hamlet.
Thou art a scholar - speak to it, Horatio.
Looks it not like the King? Mark it, Horatio.
Most like.
It harrows me with fear and wonder.
- It would be spoke to. - Question it, Horatio.
If thou hast any sound or use of voice, speak to me.
If there be any good thing to be done,
that may to thee do ease and grace to me, oh, speak.
Stay and speak!
Stop it, Marcellus!
- To here! - Here!
'Tis gone and will not answer.
How now, Horatio. You tremble and look pale.
Is not this something more than fantasy? What think you on't?
Before my God I might not this believe
without the sensible and true avouch of mine own eyes.
- Is it not like the King? - As thou art to thyself.
'Tis strange.
It was about to speak when the cock crew.
And then it started like a guilty thing upon a fearful summons.
I have heard the cock, that is the herald to the morn,
doth, with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat,
awake the god of day.
And at its warning, the wandering and uneasy spirit hies to its confine.
It faded on the crowing of the cock.
Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes
wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
the bird of dawning singeth all night long.
And then, they say, no spirit can walk abroad.
The nights are wholesome then.
No planets strike. No fairy takes nor witch hath power to charm.
So hallowed and so gracious is the time.
So have I heard. And do, in part, believe it.
But look. The morn, in russet mantle clad,
walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill.
Break we our watch up and, by my advice,
let us impart what we have seen tonight unto young Hamlet.
For upon my life, this spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him.
- Let's do it, I pray. - Mm.
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
Though yet of Hamlet, our dear brother's death, the memory be green
and that it us befitted to bear our hearts in grief
and our whole kingdom to be contracted in one brow of woe,
yet, so far, hath discretion fought with nature
that we, with wisest sorrow, think on him
together with remembrance of ourselves.
Therefore our sometime sister,
now our Queen,
have we, as 'twere, with a defeated joy,
with mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage
in equal scale, weighing delight and dole,
taken to wife.
Nor have we herein barred your better wisdoms,
which have freely gone with this affair along.
For all, our thanks.
Ah. And now, Laertes, what's the news with you?
You told us of some suit. What is't, Laertes?
You cannot speak of reason to the Dane and lose your voice.
What wouldst thou beg, Laertes, that shall not be my offer, not thy asking?
The head is not more native to the heart, the hand more instrumental to the mouth
than is the throne of Denmark to thy father.
What wouldst thou have, Laertes?
Dread, my lord. Your leave and favour to return to France,
from whence, though willingly, I came to Denmark
to show my duty in your coronation.
Yet now, I must confess, that duty done,
my thoughts and wishes bend again towards France
and bow them to your gracious leave and pardon.
Hm. Have you your father's leave? What says Polonius?
He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave by laboursome petition.
And at last, upon his will, I sealed my hard consent.
I do beseech you, give him leave to go.
Take thy fair hour, Laertes. Time be thine and thy best graces spend it at thy will.
And now, our cousin, Hamlet, and our son.
How is it that the clouds still hang on you?
Good Hamlet... cast thy nighted colour off,
and let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.
Do not forever with thy lowered lids seek for thy noble father in the dust.
Thou know'st 'tis common.
All that lives must die, passing through nature to eternity.
Aye, madam, it is common.
If it be, why seems it so particular with thee?
Seems, madam? Nay, it is. I know not "seems".
'Tis not alone, my inky cloak, good mother,
nor customary suits of solemn black,
together with all forms, moulds, shows of grief that can denote me truly.
These indeed seem, for they are actions that a man might play.
But I have that within which passeth show -
these but the trappings and the suits of woe.
'Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,
to give these mourning duties to your father.
But you must know your father lost a father, that father lost, lost his
and the survivor, bound in filial obligation for some term
to do obsequious sorrow.
But to persist in obstinate condolement
is a course of impious stubbornness. 'Tis unmanly grief.
A fault to heaven, a fault against the dead.
A fault to nature, to reason most absurd,
whose common theme is death of fathers
and who still hath cried from the first corpse till he that died today,
"This must be so."
Why should we, in our peevish opposition, take it to heart?
We pray you, throw to earth this unprevailing woe
and think of us as of a father.
For let the world take note,
you are the most immediate to our throne,
and with no less nobility of love than that which dearest father bears his son
do I impart towards you.
For your intent in going back to school at Wittenberg,
it is most retrograde to our desire
and we beseech you, bend you, to remain here
in the cheer and comfort of our eye,
our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.
Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet.
I pray thee, stay with us.
Go not to Wittenberg.
I shall in all my best obey you, madam.
Why, 'tis a loving and a fair reply.
Be as ourself in Denmark.
Madam, come.
This gentle and unforced accord of Hamlet sits smiling to my heart.
In grace whereof, no jocund health that Denmark drinks today
but the great cannons to the clouds shall tell,
and the King's carouse the heavens shall roar again,
re-speaking earthly thunder.
Come, away.
O that this too too solid flesh would melt,
thaw, and resolve itself into a dew.
Or that the Everlasting had not fixed His canon 'gainst self-slaughter.
O God. God.
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable
seem to me all the uses of this world.
Fie on't, ah fie.
'Tis an unweeded garden that grows to seed.
Things rank and gross in nature possess it merely.
That it should come to this.
But two months dead.
Nay, not so much, not two.
So excellent a king
that was to this Hyperion to a satyr.
So loving to my mother
that he might not suffer the winds of heaven visit her face too roughly.
Heaven and earth, must I remember?
Why, she would hang on him as if increase of appetite
had grown by what it fed on.
And yet, within a month...
Let me not think on it.
Frailty, thy name is woman.
A little month, or ere those shoes were old
with which she followed my poor father's body, like Niobe, all tears.
Why she, even she...
O God, a beast that wants discourse of reason
would have mourned longer.
Married with my uncle, my father's brother,
but no more like my father than I to Hercules.
Within a month... she married.
O most wicked speed, to post with such dexterity
to incestuous sheets.
It is not, nor it cannot come, to good.
But break my heart, for I must hold my tongue.
My necessaries are embarked.
Farewell.
And, sister, as the winds give benefit and convoy is assistant,
- do not sleep but let me hear from you. - Do you doubt that?
For Hamlet and the trifling of his favour,
hold it a fashion and a toy in blood,
a violet in the youth of primy nature.
Forward, not permanent.
Sweet, not lasting.
The perfume and suppliance of a minute, no more.
No more but so?
Think it no more.
Perhaps he loves you now, but you must fear,
his greatness weighed, his will is not his own,
for he himself is subject to his birth.
He may not, as unvalued persons do, carve for himself,
for on his choice depends the safety and the health of this whole state.
Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain
if with too willing ear you list his songs.
Or lose your heart...
or your chaste treasure open to his unmastered importunity.
Be wary then.
Best safety lies in fear.
I shall the effect of this good lesson keep as watchman to my heart.
But, good my brother, do not, as some ungracious pastors do,
show me the steep and thorny way to heaven
whilst, like a puffed and reckless libertine
himself the primrose path of dalliance treads... and minds not his own creed.
O, fear me not.
But here my father comes - I stay too long.
Yet here, Laertes? Aboard, aboard, for shame.
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail and you are stayed for.
There, my blessing with thee.
And these few precepts in thy memory look thou character.
Give thy thoughts no tongue, nor any unproportioned thought his act.
Be thou familiar but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel.
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
of each new-hatched, unfledged comrade.
Beware of entrance to a quarrel
but, being in, bear't that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thine ear but few thy voice.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, but not expressed in fancy.
Rich, not gaudy, for the apparel oft proclaims the man.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be,
for loan oft loses both itself and friend
and borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all - to thine own self be true,
and it must follow, as the night the day,
thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell. My blessing season this in thee.
Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord.
The time invites you. Go.
Farewell, Ophelia.
And remember well what I said to you.
'Tis in my memory locked and you yourself shall keep the key of it.
Farewell.
What is't, Ophelia, he hath said to you?
So please you, something touching the Lord Hamlet.
Marry, well bethought.
Yes.
What is between you? Give me up the truth.
He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders of his affection to me.
Affection? Pooh!
You speak like a green girl unsifted in such perilous circumstance.
Do you believe his "tenders", as you call them?
I do not know, my lord, what I should think.
Marry, I will teach you. Think yourself a baby.
I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth,
have you give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet.
Look to't, I charge you.
Come your ways.
Hail to your lordship.
I'm glad to see you're well.
Horatio, or I do forget myself!
The same, my lord, and your poor servant ever.
Sir, my good friend, I'll change that name with you.
- Marcellus. - My good lord.
I'm very glad to see you. Good even, sir.
What is your affair in Elsinore? We'll teach you to drink deep ere you depart.
My lord, I came to see your father's funeral.
I pray you, do not mock me, fellow student.
I think it was to see my mother's wedding.
Indeed, my lord, it followed hard upon.
Thrift. Thrift, Horatio.
The funeral baked meats did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.
Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven
or ever I had seen that day, Horatio.
My father.
Methinks I see my father.
Where, my lord?
In my mind's eye, Horatio.
I saw him once.
He was a goodly king.
He was a man,
take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again.
My lord... I think I saw him yesternight.
Saw?
- Who? - My lord, the King. Your father.
The King. My father.
Two nights together have Marcellus and Bernardo, on their watch,
in the dead, vast, middle of the night been thus encountered.
A figure like your father, armed, appears before them
and with solemn march goes slow and stately by them.
This to me in dread and secrecy did they impart
and I with them the third night kept the watch,
where, as they had reported, both in time, form of the thing,
each word made true and good, the apparition comes.
I knew your father. These hands are not more like.
- But where was this? - Upon the platform, where we watched.
- Did you not speak to it? - My lord, I did, but answer made it none.
Yet once methought it lifted up its head as it would speak.
But even then the morning cock crew loud
and at the sound, it shrunk in haste away and vanished from our sight.
- 'Tis very strange. - As I do live, my honoured lord, 'tis true.
We did think it writ down in our duty to let you know of it.
Indeed. Indeed, sirs. But this troubles me.
- Hold you the watch tonight? - We do, my lord.
- Armed, say you? - Armed, my lord.
- From top to toe? - From head to foot.
- Then you saw not his face. - O yes, my lord. He wore his visor up.
What looked he? Frowningly?
A countenance more in sorrow than in anger.
- And fixed his eyes upon you? - Most constantly.
- I would I had been there. - It would have much amazed you.
Very like. Very like. Stayed it long?
While one with moderate haste might tell 100.
- Longer. - Not when I saw it.
- His beard was grizzled, no? - It was as I have seen it in his life,
a sable silvered.
I will watch tonight. Perchance 'twill walk again.
I warrant it will.
If you have hitherto concealed this sight, and whatsoever else shall hap tonight,
give it an understanding but no tongue. I will requite your love, so fare you well.
Upon the platform 'twixt 11 and 12 I'll visit you.
- Our duty to your honour. - Your loves, as mine to you. Farewell.
My father's spirit... in arms.
All is not well. I doubt some foul play.
Would the night were come.
Till then, sit still, my soul.
Foul deeds will rise...
though all the earth o'erwhelm them to men's eyes.
- The air bites shrewdly. It is very cold. - It is a nipping and an eager air.
What hour now?
- I think it lacks of 12. - No, it is struck.
Indeed? I heard it not.
Then draws near the season wherein the spirit has his wont to walk.
What does this mean, my lord?
The King doth wake tonight and makes carouse,
keeps wassail and the swaggering upspring reels.
And as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down
the kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out the triumph of his pledge.
- Is it a custom? - Ay, marry is't.
But to my mind, though I am native here and to the manner born,
it is a custom more honoured in the breach than the observance.
This heavy-headed revel east and west
makes us traduced and mocked by other nations.
They call us drunkards
and, with swinish phrase, soil our reputation.
And indeed, it takes from our achievements,
though performed at height.
So oft it chances in particular men
that for some vicious mole of nature in them,
by the o'ergrowth of some complexion,
oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason,
or by some habit grown too much
that these men, carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect,
their virtues else, be they as pure as grace,
shall in the general censure
take corruption from that particular fault.
Angels and ministers of grace defend us.
Look, my lord, it comes!
Be thou a spirit of health
or goblin damned,
thou comest in such a questionable shape...
that I will speak to thee.
I'll call thee Hamlet.
King.
Father.
Royal Dane, O answer me!
It beckons you to go away with it.
It waves you to a more removed ground.
- But do not go with it. - No, by no means.
It will not speak. Then I will follow it.
- Do not, my lord. - Why? What should be the fear?
I do not set my life at a pin's fee and for my soul, what can it do to that,
being a thing immortal as itself?
It waves me forth again. I'll follow it.
What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord?
Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff that beetles o'er his base into the sea
and there assume some other horrible form
which might deprive your sovereignty of reason and draw you into madness?
- You shall not go, my lord. - Hold off your hands.
Be ruled, you shall not go.
My fate cries out and makes each petty artery in this body
as hardy as the Nemean lion's nerve.
Still am I called. Unhand me, gentlemen.
By heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that hinders me. I say away!
Go on.
I'll follow thee.
Whither wilt thou lead me?
Speak. I'll go no further.
Mark me.
I will.
I am thy father's spirit,
doomed for a certain time to walk the night...
and for the day confined to fast in fires...
till the foul crimes done in my days of nature...
are burnt and purged away.
Alas, poor ghost.
List. List.
O list.
If thou didst ever thy dear father love...
O God!
...revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.
Murder?
Murder most foul, as in the best it is,
but this most foul, strange and unnatural.
Haste me to know it,
that I with wings as swift as meditation or the thoughts of love
may sweep to my revenge.
Now, Hamlet, hear.
'Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard, a serpent stung me.
So the whole ear of Denmark
is by a forged process of my death rankly abused.
But know, thou noble youth,
the serpent that did sting thy father's life
now wears his crown.
O, my prophetic soul. My uncle.
Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast,
with traitorous gifts won to his shameful lust
the will of my most seeming-virtuous Queen.
O Hamlet, what a falling off was there.
But soft, methinks I scent the morning air.
Brief let me be.
Sleeping within my orchard,
my custom always in the afternoon,
upon my quiet hour thy uncle stole
with juice of cursed hemlock in a vial
and in the porches of my ears did pour
the leperous distilment,
whose effect holds such an enmity with blood of man
that swift as quicksilver it courses through
the natural gates and alleys of the body.
Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother's hand
of life, of crown, of queen at once dispatched,
cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,
no reckoning made,
but sent to my account with all my imperfections on my head.
O horrible.
Horrible.
Most horrible.
If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not.
Let not the royal bed of Denmark
be a couch for luxury and damned incest.
But howsoever thou pursuest this act,
taint not thy mind,
nor let thy soul contrive against thy mother aught.
Leave her to heaven.
Fare thee well at once.
The glow-worm shows the matin to be near
and 'gins to pale his uneffectual fire.
Adieu.
Remember me.
O all you host of heaven.
O earth. What else?
And shall I couple hell?
Hold. Hold, my heart.
Remember thee.
Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat in this distracted globe.
Remember thee?
Yea, from the table of my memory I'll wipe away all trivial fond records
that youth and observation copied there.
And thy commandment all alone
shall live within the book and volume of my brain,
unmixed with baser matter!
Yes! By heaven!
Most pernicious woman.
O villain. Villain!
Smiling, damned villain.
So, uncle, there you are.
Now to my word.
It is, "Adieu, adieu, remember me."
I have sworn it.
- My lord! My lord! - Lord Hamlet!
So be it.
Hillo! My lord!
Hillo! Ho, ho, boy. Come, bird, come.
- How is't, my noble lord? - What news, my lord?
- O wonderful! - Please, my lord, tell it.
No. You will reveal it.
Not I, my lord.
How say you, then. Would heart of man once think it?
- But you'll be secret? - Ay, my lord.
There's ne'er a villain dwelling in all Denmark...
...but he's an arrant knave.
There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave to tell us this.
Why, right. You are in the right.
And so without more circumstance at all I hold it fit that we shake hands and part,
you as your business and desires shall point you,
for every man hath business and desire.
And for mine own poor part, look you, I'll go pray.
These are but wild and whirling words, my lord.
- I'm sorry they offend you, heartily. - There's no offence.
Yes, by St Patrick, but there is, Horatio! And much offence, too!
Touching this vision here, it is an honest ghost, that let me tell you.
For your desire to know what is between us, o'ermaster it as you may.
And now, good friends, as you are friends, scholars and soldiers,
- give me one poor request. - What is't, my lord?
Never make known what you have seen tonight.
- We will not. - Swear it.
- Nor I, my lord, in faith. - Upon my sword.
- We've sworn, my lord, already. - Indeed, upon my sword.
O day and night, but this is wondrous strange.
And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
But come, never, so help you mercy,
how strange or odd soe'er I bear myself -
as I perchance hereafter shall think fit to put an antic disposition on -
that you at such time, seeing me,
never shall, by the pronouncing of some doubtful phrase as, "Well, we know"
or "We could, an if we would" or such ambiguous giving out, do note
that you know aught of me.
This do swear, so grace and mercy at your best need help you.
Swear.
Rest.
Rest, perturbed spirit.
So, gentlemen, with all my love I do commend me to you.
And what so poor a man as Hamlet is
may do to express his love and friending to you,
God willing, shall not lack.
Go in and still your fingers on your lips, I pray.
The time is out of joint.
O cursed spite...
that ever I was born to set it right.
Come, let's go together.
As I was sewing in my closet...
Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unlaced,
pale as his shirt,
and with a look... so piteous in purport,
as if he had been loosed out of hell to speak of horrors,
he comes before me.
He took me by the wrist
and held me hard.
Then goes he to the length of all his arm
and with his other hand thus o'er his brow
he falls to such perusal of my face
as he would draw it.
Long stayed he so.
At last, a little shaking of mine arm.
And thrice his head thus waving up and down...
he raised a sigh so piteous and profound
as it did seem to shatter all his bulk
and end his being.
That done, he let me go.
And with his head over his shoulder turned,
he seemed to find his way without his eyes,
for out of doors he went without their help,
and to the last
bended their light...
on me.
My liege and madam.
To expostulate what majesty should be, what duty is,
why day is day, night night and time is time,
were nothing but to waste night, day and time.
Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
and tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief.
Your noble son is mad.
"Mad" call I it, for to define true madness,
what is't to be nothing else but mad?
More matter with less art.
Madam, I swear I use no art at all.
And that he is mad, 'tis true. 'Tis true 'tis pity.
And pity 'tis 'tis true. A foolish figure.
But farewell it, for I will use no art.
Thus it remains, and the remainder thus.
Perpend.
I have a daughter - have while she is mine -
who, in her duty and obedience, mark,
hath given me this.
Now gather and surmise.
"To the celestial and my soul's idol,
"the most beautified Ophelia."
That's an ill phrase, a vile phrase.
"Beautified" is a vile phrase.
But you shall hear, thus -
"In her excellent white bosom, these..." et cetera.
Came this from Hamlet to her?
Good madam, stay a while. I will be faithful.
"Doubt thou the stars are fire,
"Doubt that the sun doth move,
"Doubt truth to be a liar,
"But never doubt I love.
"O, dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers.
"I have not art to reckon my groans.
"But that I love thee best, O most best, believe it.
"Adieu. Thine evermore, most dear lady,
"while this frame is to him. Hamlet."
This in obedience hath my daughter shown me.
And more above hath his solicitings,
as they fell out by time, by means and place,
all given to mine ear.
But how hath she received his love?
What do you think of me?
- As of a man faithful and honourable. - I would fain prove so.
But what might you think, when I had seen this hot love on the wing,
if I had looked upon this love with idle sight, what might you think?
No, I went round to work
and my young mistress thus I did bespeak -
"Lord Hamlet is a prince, out of thy star.
"This must not be."
And then I prescripts gave her that she should lock herself from his resort,
admit no messengers, receive no tokens.
And he, repulsed, a short tale to make,
fell into a sadness, then into a fast,
thence to a watch, thence to a weakness, thence into a lightness,
and, by this declension, into that madness wherein now he raves
and all we mourn for.
Do you think 'tis this?
It may be.
Very likely.
Hath there been such a time - I'd fain know that -
that I have positively said "'Tis so" that it proved otherwise?
- Not that I know. - Take this from this if this be otherwise.
How may we try it further?
You know sometimes he walks four hours together here in the lobby.
So he does, indeed.
At such a time, I'll loose my daughter to him.
Be you and I behind an arras then, mark the encounter.
If he love her not, and be not from his reason fallen thereon,
let me be no assistant for a state, but keep a farm and carters.
We will try it.
But look where sadly the poor wretch comes reading.
Away. I do beseech you both, away.
I'll board him presently.
O, give me leave.
How does my good Lord Hamlet?
Well, God-a-mercy.
Do you know me, my lord?
Excellent well. You are a fishmonger.
Not I, my lord.
Then I would you were so honest a man.
Honest, my lord?
Ay, sir. To be honest, as this world goes,
is to be one man picked out of 10,000.
That's very true, my lord.
For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog...
Have you a daughter?
- I have, my lord. - Let her not walk i' the sun.
Conception is a blessing,
but as your daughter may conceive, friend, look to it.
How say you by that? Still harping on my daughter.
Yet he knew me not at first. He said I was a fishmonger.
He's far gone, far gone.
But I will speak to him again.
What do you read, my lord?
Words, words, words.
- What is the matter, my lord? - Between who?
I mean the matter that you read, my lord.
Slanders.
For the satirical rogue says here that old men have grey beards,
that their faces are wrinkled,
their eyes purging thick amber and plum-tree gum.
That they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams.
All or which, sir, though I most powerfully believe,
yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down.
For you yourself, sir, shall be old as I am -
if, like a crab, you could go backward.
Though this be madness, yet there's method in't.
- Will you walk out of the air, my lord? - Into my grave.
Indeed, that is out of the air.
How pregnant sometimes his replies are.
My honourable lord...
I will most humbly take my leave of you.
You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I will more willingly part withal.
Except my life.
Read on this book,
that show of such an exercise may colour your loneliness.
Gracious, so please you, we'll bestow ourselves.
Ophelia, walk you here.
Let's withdraw, my lord.
Soft you, now...
the fair Ophelia.
Nymph, in thy orisons be all my sins remembered.
Good my lord...
How does your honour for this many a day?
I humbly thank you.
Well.
Well. Well.
My lord, I have remembrances of yours that I have longed long to re-deliver.
I pray you now receive them.
No, not I. I never gave you aught.
My honoured lord, you know right well you did.
And with them words of so sweet breath composed
as made the things more rich.
Their perfume lost, take these again.
For, to the noble mind, rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.
There, my lord.
Are you honest?
My lord.
I did love you once.
Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.
You should not have believed me.
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 born 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 heaven and earth?
We are arrant knaves, all. Believe none of us.
Go thy ways to a nunnery.
Where's your father?
- At home, my lord. - Let the doors be shut upon him,
that he may play the fool nowhere but in his own house.
- Farewell! - O, help me, you sweet heavens!
I have heard of your paintings, too, well enough.
God hath given you one face and you make yourselves another.
You jig, you amble, you lisp. You nickname God's creatures
and make your wantonness your ignorance. Get thee to a nunnery!
Farewell!
Or if thou would needs marry, marry a fool, for wise men know well enough
what monsters you make of them. Go to, I'll no more of it!
It has made me mad.
I say we will have no more marriages.
Those that are married already -
all but one - shall live.
The rest shall stay as they are.
To a nunnery. Go.
Love? His affections do not that way tend.
Nor what he spake, though it lacked form a little,
was not like madness.
There's something in his soul o'er which his melancholy sits on brood,
and I do fear the unheeded consequence will be some danger,
for which to prevent I have in quick determination thus set it down -
he shall with speed to England.
Haply the seas and countries different, with variable objects,
shall expel this something-settled matter in his heart.
- What think you on't? - It shall do well.
But yet I do 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.
It shall be so. Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.
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 heartache and the thousand natural shocks
that flesh is heir to,
it is a consummation devoutly to be wished.
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 delays, 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 undiscovered 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 doth 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.
My lord?
I have news to tell you.
The actors are come hither, my lord.
He that plays the king shall be welcome.
"The best actors in the world,
"either for tragedy, comedy, history,
"pastoral, pastoral-comical,
"historical-pastoral, tragical-historical,
"tragical-comical-historical-pastoral.
"Seneca cannot be too heavy nor Plautus too light.
"For these are the only men."
You are welcome, masters, welcome all.
I am glad to see thee well.
Welcome, good friend!
O, my old friend! Why, thou face is valanced since I saw thee last.
Comest thou to beard me in Denmark?
What, my young lady and mistress.
Your ladyship is nearer to heaven than when I saw you last.
Pray God your voice, like a piece of uncurrent gold,
be not cracked in its ring.
Masters, you are all welcome!
Good my lord, will you see the players well bestowed? Do you hear?
Let them be well used, for they are the abstract and brief chronicles of the time.
After your death you were better have a bad epitaph
than their ill report while you live.
I will use them according to their desert.
God's bodykin, man, much better.
Use every man after his desert and who shall 'scape whipping?
Use them after your own honour and dignity.
The less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty.
- Come, sirs. - Follow him, friends.
We hear a play tomorrow.
Dost hear me, old friend?
- Can you play the murder of Gonzago? - Ay, my lord.
We'll have it tomorrow night.
You could for a need study a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines
that I would set down and insert in it, could you not?
Ay, my lord.
Very well. Follow that lord, and look you mock him not.
The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King!
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, whirlwind of your 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 split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part
are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise.
I would have such a fellow whipped.
It out-Herods Herod. Pray you avoid it.
I warrant your honour.
Be not too tame, neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor.
Suit the action to the word, the word to the action,
with this special observance - that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature.
For anything 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, though it make the unskillful laugh,
cannot but make the judicious grieve - the censure of which one
must in your allowance outweigh 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 having neither the accent of Christians
nor the gait of pagan, Christian nor man, have so strutted and bellowed
that I have thought that some of nature's journeymen had made men,
and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.
I hope we have reformed that indifferently with us, sir.
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 barren quantity of spectators to laugh too,
though some necessary question of the play be then to be considered.
That's villainous, and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it.
Go, make you ready.
How now, my lord, will the King hear this piece of work?
And the Queen, too, and that presently.
- Bid the players make haste. - Ay, my lord.
- Horatio. - Here, sweet lord, at your service.
Observe mine uncle. Give him heedful note.
- Well, my lord. - They are coming. I must be idle.
Get you a place.
How fares our cousin Hamlet?
Excellent, i' faith, of the chameleon's dish.
I eat the air, promise-crammed. You cannot feed capons so.
I have nothing with this answer. These words are not mine.
No, nor mine now.
My lord, you played once at the university, you say.
That did I, my lord, and was accounted a good actor.
- What did you enact? - I did enact Julius Caesar.
I was killed in the Capitol. Brutus killed me.
It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf there.
- Be the players ready? - Ay, they stay upon your patience.
Come hither, my dear Hamlet. Sit by me.
No, good mother. Here's metal more attractive.
O ho, did you mark that?
Lady, shall I lie in your lap?
- No, my lord. - I mean my head upon your lap.
Ay, my lord.
- Do you think I meant country matters? - I think nothing, my lord.
That's a fair thought to lie between maid's legs.
- What is, my lord? - Nothing.
You are merry, my lord.
- Who, I? - Ay, my lord.
O God, your only jig-maker. Why, what should a man do but be merry?
Look you how merrily my mother looks and my father died within 's two hours!
Nay, 'tis twice two months, my lord.
So long? Nay then, let the devil wear black, for I'll have a suit of sables.
O heavens, died two months ago and not forgotten yet.
Why, then there's hope a great man's memory may outlive his life half a year.
For us and for our tragedy
Here stooping to your clemency,
We beg your hearing patiently.
Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?
'Tis brief, my lord.
As woman's love.
You are keen, my lord, you are keen.
It will cost you a groaning to take off mine edge.
Give me some light!
Away!
Lights! Lights!
Lights!
♪ Why, let the stricken deer go weep
♪ The hart, ungalled play
♪ For some must watch, while some must sleep
♪ Thus runs the world away?
O, good Horatio, I take the ghost's word for a thousand pounds.
- Didst perceive the act of the poisoning? - I did very well note.
- God bless you, sir. - Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word.
- Sir, a whole history. - The King, sir.
- Ay, so what of him? - He's marvellous distempered.
- With drink, sir? - No, my lord, rather with choler.
Your wisdom should show itself richer to signify this to the doctor,
for for me to put him to his purgation would perhaps plunge him into more choler.
Good my lord, put your discourse into some frame
- and start not so wildly from my affair. - I am tame. Pronounce.
The Queen, your mother, in most great affliction of spirit,
- hath sent me to you. - You are welcome.
Nay, this courtesy is not of the right breed.
If you 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.
- Sir, I cannot. - What, my lord?
Make you a wholesome answer. My wit's diseased.
But, sir, such answer as I can make, you shall command.
Or rather, my mother. No more, but to the matter. My mother, you say?
She desires to speak with you in her closet.
We shall obey, were she ten times our mother.
Have you any further trade with us?
My lord, the Queen would speak with you. And presently.
Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel?
By the mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed.
- Methinks it's like a weasel. - It is backed like a weasel.
- Or like a whale. - Very like a whale.
Then I will come to my mother by and by.
I will say so.
"By and by" is easily said.
Leave me, friend.
'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 lord?
He's going to his mother's closet.
Behind the arras I'll conceal myself to hear the process.
I'll 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.
Thanks, dear my lord.
O, my offence is rank.
It smells to heaven.
It hath the primal eldest curse upon it,
a brother's murder.
Pray can I not, though inclination be as sharp as will.
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?
O, what form of prayer can serve my turn?
"Forgive me my foul murder"?
That cannot be, since I am still possessed
of those effects for which I did the murder -
my crown, mine own ambition,
and my Queen.
O wretched state.
O bosom, black as death.
Help, angels.
All may yet be well.
Now might I do it pat,
now he is praying.
And now I'll do it.
And so he goes to heaven.
And so am I revenged.
That would be thought on.
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 all his crimes full 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 seasoned for his passage?
No.
Up, sword, and know thou a more dark intent,
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 it.
Then trip him that his heels may kick at heaven
and that his soul may be as damned and black as hell whereto it goes.
My mother stays.
This physic but prolongs thy sickly days.
My words fly up,
my thoughts remain below.
Words without thoughts
never to heaven go.
He will come straight. Look you lay home to him.
Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear with,
and that your grace hath screened and stood between much heat and him.
I'll silence me in here.
- Pray you be round with him. - Mother?
Mother?
Mother.
I'll warrant you, fear me not.
Withdraw. I hear him coming.
Now, Mother, what's the matter?
Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.
Mother, you have my father much offended.
Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.
Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.
- Why, how now, Hamlet? - What's the matter now?
- Have you forgot me? - No, by the rood, not so.
You are the Queen, your husband's brother's wife.
And would it were not so, you are my mother.
Nay, then, I'll set those to you that can speak.
Come and sit you down. You shall not budge!
You go not till I set you up a glass where you may see the inmost part of you.
What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murder me?
- Help! Help! - Help! Help!
- How now, a rat! - Help! Help!
Dead for a ducat!
Dead.
O me, what hast thou done?
Nay, I know not.
- Is it the King? - O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!
A bloody deed - almost as bad, good mother,
as kill a king and marry with his brother.
"As kill a king"?
Ay, lady.
'Twas my word.
Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool.
Farewell. I took thee for thy better.
Take thy fortune.
Thou find'st to be too busy is some danger.
Leave wringing of the hands. Peace, sit you down, and let me wring your heart,
for so I shall if it be made of penetrable stuff.
What have I done that thou wag thy tongue so rude against me?
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.
- Ay me, what act? - Look here upon this picture.
And on this, the counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
See what a grace was seated on this brow -
an eye like Mars, to threaten and command,
a stature 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 mildewed ear blasting his wholesome brother.
Have you eyes? You cannot call it love,
for at your age the heyday in the blood is tame, it's humble,
and waits upon the judgement. And what judgement would step from this to this?
What devil was't that thus has hoodwinked you?
O shame, where is thy blush?
If hell can rise up in a matron's bones, to flaming youth let virtue be as wax.
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 lose their stain.
Nay, but to live in the rank sweat of a lascivious bed,
stewed in corruption, honeying and making love over the nasty sty...
Speak to me no more! These words like daggers enter in mine ears!
- No more, sweet Hamlet. - A murderer and a villain.
A slave that is not twentieth part the worth of your true lord.
A cutpurse of the empire and the throne,
that from a shelf the precious diadem stole
- and put it in his pocket. - No more!
A king of shreds and patches!
Save me and hover over me with your wings, O heavenly guards.
What would your gracious figure?
Alas, he's mad.
Do you not come your tardy son to chide,
that, lapsed in time and passion,
lets go by the important acting of your dread command?
O, say.
Do not forget.
This visitation is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.
But look, amazement on thy mother sits.
O, step between her and her fighting soul.
Speak to her, Hamlet.
How is it with you, lady?
Alas, how is't with you, that you do bend your eye on vacancy,
and with the incorporal air do hold discourse?
O gentle son, upon the heat and flame of thy distemper sprinkle cool patience.
Whereon do you look?
On him, on him.
Look you how pale he glares.
His form and cause conjoined, preaching to stones, would make them sensitive.
Do not look upon me,
lest with this piteous action you convert my stern intents,
so I shed tears, not blood.
To whom do you speak this?
Do you see nothing there?
No, nothing at all, yet all there is I see.
- Nor do you nothing hear? - No, nothing but ourselves.
Why, look you there. Look where it steals away!
My father, in his habit as he lived.
Look where he goes even now out at the portal.
This is the very coinage of your brain.
This bodiless creation madness is very cunning in.
Madness?
My pulse as yours doth temperately keep time
and makes as healthful music.
Mother, for love of grace lay not that flattering unction to your soul
that not your trespass but my madness speaks.
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.
O Hamlet, thou has cleft my heart in twain!
O... throw away the worser part of it,
and live the purer with the other half.
Good night.
But go not to my uncle's bed.
Assume a virtue if you have it not.
Refrain tonight, and that shall lend a kind of easiness
to the next abstinence, the next more easy.
For use can almost change the stamp of nature.
Once more, good night.
And when you are desirous to be blessed,
I'll blessing beg of you.
I must be cruel... only to be kind.
I must to England. You know that?
Alack, I had forgot.
'Tis so concluded on.
There's letters sealed.
This man shall send me packing.
I'll lug the guts into the neighbour room.
Indeed, this counsellor is now most still,
most secret and most grave,
that was in life a foolish, prating knave.
Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you...
Good night, Mother.
- Now, Hamlet, where's Polonius? - At supper.
- At supper? - Mm.
Where?
Not where he eats, but where he is eaten.
A certain convocation of politic worms are even at him.
Your worm is your only emperor for diet.
We fat all creatures else to fat us,
and we fat ourselves for worms.
Your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service -
two dishes, but to one table. That's the end.
Alas, alas.
A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king,
and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.
What dost thou mean by this?
Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress
through the guts of a beggar.
- Where is Polonius? - In heaven. Send thither to see.
If your messenger find him not there, seek him i' the other place yourself.
But indeed, if you find him not within this month,
you shall nose him as you go up the stairs into the lobby.
Go seek him there.
He will stay till you come.
Hamlet, for thine especial safety -
which we do tender as we do deeply grieve for that which thou hast done -
this deed must send thee hence with fiery quickness.
Therefore prepare thyself. The barque is ready, the wind sets fair
and everything is bent for England.
- For England? - Ay, Hamlet.
- Good. - So is't if thou knew'st our purposes.
I see a cherub that sees them.
But come, for England.
Farewell, dear Mother.
Thy loving father, Hamlet.
My mother.
Father and mother is man and wife.
Man and wife is one flesh.
And so...
My mother.
Come.
For England.
Follow him close. Tempt him with speed aboard. Delay it not.
I'll have him hence tonight. Away.
For everything is sealed and done that else leans on the affair.
Pray you, make haste.
And, England, if my love thou hold'st at aught,
thou may'st not coldly treat our sovereign order,
which imports at full
the present death of Hamlet.
Do it, England, for like the fever 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.
Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?
Why, how now, Ophelia?
Say you?
Nay, pray you, mark.
♪ He is dead and gone, lady
♪ He is dead and gone
♪ At his head a grass-green turf
♪ At his heels a... stone?
Nay, but Ophelia...
Pray you, mark.
♪ White his shroud as the mountain snow
- Alas, look here, my lord. - ♪ Larded with sweet flowers
♪ Which bewept to the grave did go
♪ With true-love showers?
How do you, pretty lady?
Well, God'ield you.
They say the owl was a baker's daughter.
Oh...
Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be.
God be at your table.
Distraction for her father.
I hope all will be well.
We must be patient.
But I cannot choose but weep
to think they should lay him in the cold ground!
My brother shall know of it.
And so I thank you for your good counsel.
Come, my coach.
Good night, ladies.
Sweet ladies.
Good night.
Follow her close. Give her good watch, I pray you.
O, Gertrude, Gertrude,
when sorrows come they come not single spies, but in battalions.
First, her father slain.
Next, our son gone,
the people muddied, thick and unwholesome
in their thoughts and whispers.
Poor Ophelia,
divided from herself and her fair judgement.
And last, and more dangerous than all of these,
her brother is in secret come from France
and wants not buzzers to infect his ear
with pestilent speeches of his father's death,
and he, himself, not hesitates to threaten our own person.
O, my dear Gertrude,
this, like to a murdering-piece,
in many places gives me superfluous death.
- Ahem. - How now? What news?
Ahem.
- Letters, m'lord, from Hamlet. - From Hamlet?
This to Your Majesty.
This to the Queen.
- Who brought them? - The sailors, m'lord, they said.
Leave us.
- God bless you, sir. - Let him bless thee, too.
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, 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.
Repair thou to me with as much speed as thy wouldst fly death.
These good fellows will bring thee where I am. Farewell.
He that thou knowest thine, Hamlet.
? 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 'a' done by yonder sun...?
Come, that you may direct me to him from whom you brought this.
How came he dead? I'll not be juggled with!
To hell, allegiance! Vows to the blackest pit.
I dare damnation. Only I'll be revenged most throughly for my father.
Laertes, if you desire to know the certainty of your father's death,
is it writ in your revenge that, swoopstake, you will draw both friend and foe?
- None but his enemies. - Would you know them?
To his good friends thus wide I'll open my arms.
Why, now you speak like a good child and a true gentleman.
That I am guiltless of your father's death, and am most sensibly in grief for it,
it shall appear as clearly to your judgement as day doth to your eyes.
- You must sing. - How now, what noise is this?
♪ A-down, a-down and you call him a-down-a?
Kind sister.
Sweet Ophelia.
It is the false steward that stole his master's daughter.
Oh, heat, dry up my brains.
- ♪ They bore him barefaced on the bier - Oh, rose of May.
O heavens, is't possible a young maid's wits
should be as mortal as an old man's life?
♪ On his grave rained many a tear?
By heaven, thy madness shall be paid by weight
till our scale turn the beam.
Fare you well, my dove.
There's rosemary. That's for remembrance.
Pray you, love.
Remember.
There is pansies. That's for thoughts.
There's fennel for you, and columbines.
There's rue for you.
And here's some for me.
We may call it herbal-grace o' Sundays.
O, you must wear your rue with a difference.
There's a daisy.
I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died.
They say he made a good end.
- ♪ For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy? - Do you see this, O God?
♪ And will he not come again?
♪ No, no, he is dead
♪ Go to thy death bed
♪ He never will come again
♪ God 'a' mercy on his soul?
And of all Christian souls, I pray God.
God be with you.
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.
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 a while they bore her up.
♪ O shall I your true love know
♪ From another one?
♪ When his sandal shoon
♪ A-hand his...
♪ A-hand...?
But long it could not be
till that her garments,
heavy with their drink,
pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay
to muddy death.
Alas. Then she is drowned.
Drowned. Drowned.
♪ In youth when I did love, did love
♪ Methought it was very sweet
♪ To contract-O-the time
♪ For-O my behove, methought there was...
♪ ...nothing meet
♪ But age with his stealing steps
♪ Hath clawed me in his clutch?
Whose grave's this, sirrah?
Mine, sir.
I think it be thine indeed, for thou liest in it.
You lie out on't, sir, therefore 'tis not yours.
For my part, I do not lie in't, and yet it is mine.
Thou dost lie in't, to be in't and say 'tis thine.
'Tis for the dead, not the quick, therefore thou liest.
'Tis a quick lie, sir, 'twill away again from me to you.
- What man dost thou dig it for? - For no man, sir.
- For what woman, then? - For none, neither.
Who is to be buried in it?
One that was a woman, sir, but, rest her soul, she's dead.
How absolute the knave is.
We must speak by the card, or equivocation will undo us.
How long hast thou been grave-maker?
Of all the days in the year I came to it
that day that our last King Hamlet o'ercame Fortinbras.
- How long is that since? - Cannot you tell that?
Every fool can tell that.
It was the very day that young Hamlet was born -
he that is mad and sent into England.
Ay, marry, why was he sent into England?
Why? Because he was mad.
He shall recover his wits there,
or, if he do not, 'tis no great matter there.
- Why? - 'Twill not be seen in him there.
There, the men are as mad as he.
- How came he mad? - Very strangely, they say.
How strangely?
Faith, e'en by losing his wits.
- Upon what ground? - Why, here in Denmark.
How long will a man lie i' the earth ere he rot?
I'faith, if he be not rotten before he die, he will last some eight year, nine year.
- A tanner will last you nine year. - Why he more than another?
Why, sir, his hide is so tanned with his trade,
it will keep out water a great while.
And your water's a sore decayer of your whoreson dead body.
Here. Here's a skull now.
This skull hath lain in the earth three and twenty year.
- Whose was it? - A whoreson mad fellow's it was.
- Who do you think it was? - Nay, I know not.
A pestilence on him for a mad rogue.
He poured a flagon of Rhenish on my head once.
This same skull, sir, was Yorick's skull. The King's jester.
This?
E'en that.
Let me see.
Alas, poor Yorick.
I knew him, Horatio.
A fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy.
He hath borne me on his back a thousand times.
And now, how abhorred in my imagination it is.
My gorge rises at it.
Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft.
Where be your jibes now,
your songs, your gambols,
your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar?
Not one now to mock your own grinning?
Quite chop-fallen.
Now get you to my lady's chamber.
Tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come.
Make her laugh at that.
But soft.
- The King. - The Queen.
The courtiers.
Who is this they follow, and with such meagre rites?
This doth betoken the corpse they follow did with desperate hand take its own life.
Mark.
What ceremony else?
That is Laertes, a very noble youth. Mark.
What ceremony else?
Her obsequies have been as far enlarged as we have warranty.
Her death was doubtful,
and but that great command o'ersways the order
she should in ground unsanctified have lodge till the last trumpet.
Must there no more be done?
No more be done?
We should profane the service of the dead
to sing a requiem and such rest to her
as to peace-parted souls.
Lay her in the earth.
And from her fair and unpolluted flesh may violets spring.
I tell thee, churlish priest,
a ministering angel shall my sister be when thou liest howling.
What?
The fair Ophelia!
Sweets to the sweet. Farewell.
I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet's wife.
I thought thy bride-bed to have decked, sweet maid,
and not t'have strewed thy grave.
O, treble woe fall ten times treble on that cursed head
whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense deprived thee of.
Hold off the earth a while, till I have caught her once more in my arms.
Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead
till of this flat a mountain you have made.
What is he whose grief bears such an emphasis?
This is I, Hamlet the Dane!
- The devil take thy soul! - Thou pray'st not well.
I prithee take thy fingers from my throat! Hold off thy hand!
- Pluck them asunder! - Good my lord, be quiet.
Why I will fight with him upon this theme
- until my eyelids will no longer wag. - O, my son, what theme?
I loved Ophelia.
Forty thousand brothers could not, with all their quantity of love,
make up my sum.
- What wilt thou do for her? - He is mad, Laertes.
'Swounds, show me what thou wilt do.
Woot weep, woot fight, woot fast, woot tear thyself,
woot drink up poison, eat a crocodile? I'll do it!
Dost thou come here to whine, to outface me with leaping in her grave?
Be buried quick with her, and so will I.
If thou prate of mountains, let them throw millions of acres on us.
Nay, an thou'lt mouth, I'll rant as well as thou.
This is mere madness, and thus awhile the fit will work on him.
Anon, as patient as the female dove his silence will sit drooping.
Hear you, sir. What is the reason that you use me thus?
I loved you ever.
But it is no matter.
Let Hercules himself do what he may,
the cat will mew,
and dog will have his day.
I pray you, good Horatio, wait upon him.
Good Gertrude, set some watch o'er your son.
Laertes, I must commune with your grief,
or you deny me right.
And you must put me in your heart for friend.
Where the offence is, let the great axe fall. Hm?
It shall be so.
But tell me why you have proceeded not against him.
O, for two special reasons, which may to you seem much unsinewed,
yet to me they're strong.
The Queen, his mother, lives almost by his looks.
And for myself - my virtue or my plague, be it either way -
is she 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 is the great love the general people bear him,
who, dipping all his faults in their affections,
convert his sins to graces.
And so have I a noble father lost,
a sister driven to a desperate end,
whose worth, if praises may go back again,
stood challenger, on mount, of all the age for her perfections.
But my revenge will come.
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.
As he be now returned, 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,
and even his mother shall uncharge the practice and call it accident.
My lord, I will be ruled more willingly
if you devise it so that I might be the instrument.
It falls right.
You have been talked of since your travel much,
and that in Hamlet's hearing,
for a quality wherein, they say, you shine.
Two months since, here was a gentleman of Normandy.
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.
Sir, this report of his did Hamlet so envenom with his envy
that he could nothing do
but beg and wish your sudden coming o'er to fence with him.
Now, out of this...
What out of this, my lord?
Laertes, was your father dear to you?
Or are you like the painting of a sorrow, a face without a heart?
Why ask you this?
That we would do, we should do when we would,
for this "would" changes and hath abatements and delays
as many as there are words, are thoughts, are accidents.
And then this "should" is like a spendthrift sigh.
But to the quick o' the ulcer.
We'll put on those shall praise your excellence,
bring you, in short, together,
and wager on your heads.
Hamlet, being guileless, will not peruse the sword,
so that with ease, or with a little shuffling,
you may choose a sword unbated,
and, in a pass of practice, requite him for your father.
I will do it. 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 medicine so rare can save the thing from death
that is but scratched withal.
If this should fail...
Soft, let me see.
We'll make a solemn wager on your cunning...
I have it.
When in the action you are hot and dry and that he calls for drink,
I'll have prepared him a chalice for the nonce,
whereon but sipping, if he perchance escape your venomed point,
our purpose may hold there.
Horatio...
thou art e'en as just a man as ere my conversation coped withal.
- O, my dear lord... - Nay, do not think I flatter.
For thou hast been as one in suffering all that suffers nothing,
a man that fortune's buffets and rewards has ta'en with equal thanks.
And blessed are those whose blood and judgement 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.
But I'm very sorry, good Horatio, that to Laertes I forgot myself.
For by the image of my cause I see the portraiture of his.
I'll court his favours.
But sure, the bravery of his grief did put me into a towering passion.
Peace, who comes here?
Ah. Your lordship is right welcome back to Denmark.
I humbly thank you, sir. Dost know this water-fly?
- No, my good lord. - Thy state is the more gracious.
Sweet lord, if your lordship were at leisure,
I should impart a thing to you from his majesty.
We shall receive it with all diligence of spirit.
- Put your bonnet to its right use. - 'Tis very hot.
- No, 'tis very cold. The wind is northerly. - It is indifferent cold, indeed.
Yet methinks 'tis very sultry and hot for my complexion.
Exceedingly, my lord, 'tis very sultry, as 'twere - I cannot tell how.
But, my lord, his majesty bade me signify to you
that he has laid a great wager on your head.
- And this is the matter. - I beseech you, remember.
O, nay, good my lord, for mine ease, in good faith.
Sir, here is newly come to court Laertes, who I believe be an absolute gentleman,
full of the most excellent differences, of very soft society and great showing.
Indeed, to speak feelingly of him, he is the card or calendar of gentry.
Concernancy, sir? Why do we wrap the gentleman
- in our more rarer breath? - Sir?
Is it not possible to understand in another tongue? You'll do better, sir.
What import's the nomination of this gentleman?
- Of... Laertes? - Of him, sir.
I know you are not ignorant of what excellence Laertes is -
I mean, sir, for his weapon.
- What is his weapon? - Rapier and dagger.
That's two of his weapons. But well.
The King, sir, hath wagered with him six Barbary horses,
against the which he has imponed, as I take it,
six French rapiers and poniards, with their assigns as girdle, hanger and so.
Three of the carriages, i' faith, are very dear to fancy,
very responsive to the hilts, most delicate carriages,
and of very liberal design.
- What call you the carriages? - The carriages, sir, are the...
hangers.
The phrase would be more germane to the matter
if we could carry a cannon by our sides. I would it might be hangers till then.
The King, sir, hath laid, sir, that in a dozen passes between yourself and him
he shall not exceed you three hits. He hath laid down twelve for nine.
It would come to immediate trial if your lordship would vouchsafe the answer.
How if I answer no?
I mean, my lord, the opposition of your person in trial.
Sir, I will walk here in the hall.
If it please his majesty, it is the breathing time of day with me.
Let the swords be brought. The King hold his purpose,
I will win for him if I can.
If not, I shall gain nothing but my shame and the odd hits.
- Shall I re-deliver you, even so? - To this effect, sir,
after what flourish your nature will.
- I commend my duty to your lordship. - Yours.
Yours. Yours.
You will lose this wager, my lord.
I do not think so.
Since he went into France I have been in continual practice.
I shall win at the odds.
But thou wouldst not think how ill all's here, about my heart.
- But it is no matter. - Nay, good my lord...
It is but foolery,
but it is just such a kind of misgiving as would perhaps trouble a woman.
If your mind dislike anything, obey it. I'll forestall their coming
- and say you are not fit. - Not a whit. We defy augury.
There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow.
If it be now, 'tis not to come. If it be not to come, it will be now.
If it be not now, yet it will come.
The readiness is all.
There's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will.
Let be.
Come, Hamlet, come,
and take this hand from me.
Give me your pardon, sir, I've done you wrong.
But pardon it as you are a gentleman.
This presence knows, and you must needs have heard,
how I am punished with a sore distraction.
What I have done that might your nature, honour and exception roughly awake,
I here proclaim was madness.
Was't Hamlet wronged Laertes? Never Hamlet.
If Hamlet from himself be ta'en away,
and when he's not himself does wrong Laertes,
then Hamlet does it not, Hamlet denies it.
Who does it then? His madness.
If't be so, Hamlet is of the faction that is wronged.
His madness is poor Hamlet's enemy.
Sir, in this audience let my disclaiming from a purposed evil
free me so far in your most generous thoughts
that I have shot my arrow o'er the house and hurt my brother.
- Give us the foils, come on. - I'll be your foil, Laertes.
In my ignorance your skills shall,
like a star i' the darkest night, shine fiery indeed.
- You mock me, sir. - No, by this hand.
Give them the foils, Osric. Cousin Hamlet, you know the wager?
Your grace has laid the odds o' the weaker side.
I do not fear it. I have seen you both.
But since he is bettered, we have therefore odds.
This is too heavy. Let me see another.
This likes me well. These swords have all a length?
Ay, my good lord.
Set me the stoups of wine upon that table.
If Hamlet give the first or second hit,
let all the battlements their ordnance fire.
The King shall drink to Hamlet's better breath,
and in the cup a jewel shall he throw,
richer than that which four successive kings
in Denmark's crown have worn.
Give me the cup.
And let the kettle to the trumpet speak...
...the trumpet to the canoneer without...
...the cannons to the heavens, the heavens to earth!
Now the King drinks to Hamlet.
Come, begin. And you, the judges, bear a wary eye.
- Come on, sir. - Come, my lord.
- One! - No!
- Judgement. - A hit, a very palpable hit.
- Well, again. - Stay.
Give me a drink.
Hamlet, this pearl is thine.
Here's to thy health.
Give him the cup.
I'll play this bout first. Set it by a while.
Come.
- Another hit. What say you? - A touch, a touch, I do confess.
Our son shall win.
He is hot and scant of breath. Here, Hamlet, take my napkin, rub thy brows.
Good Gertrude, do not drink!
I will, my lord, I pray you pardon me.
The Queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet.
Good madam!
- It's too late. - My lord, I'll hit him now.
I do not think it.
It is almost 'gainst my conscience.
Let me wipe thy face.
Come for the third, Laertes, you do but dally.
I pray you pass with your best violence.
- I am afeard you make a wanton of me. - Say you so? Come on.
Nothing. Neither way.
Have at you now!
- Part them, they are incensed! - Nay, come again.
How is't, Laertes?
I'm justly killed with mine own treachery.
- How is it, my lord? - How does the Queen?
- She swoons to see them bleed. - No. No.
The drink.
O, my... dear Hamlet.
O villainy.
O, let the door be locked!
- Treachery... seek it out! - It is here, Hamlet.
Hamlet, thou art slain. In thee there is not half an hour of life.
The treacherous instrument is in thy hand,
unbated and envenomed.
The foul practice hath turned itself on me.
Lo, here I lie, never to rise again.
Thy mother's poisoned.
I can no more.
The King.
The King's to blame.
The point envenomed, too.
Then, venom, to thy work!
Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet.
Mine and my father's death come not upon thee,
nor thine on me.
Heaven make thee free of it.
I follow thee.
I am dead, Horatio.
Wretched Queen...
adieu.
You that look pale and tremble at this chance,
that are but mutes or audience to this act,
had I but time -
as this fell sergeant Death is strict in his arrest -
O, I could tell you...
But let it be.
I die, Horatio.
The potent poison quite o'ercrows my spirit.
If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart,
absent thee from felicity awhile,
and in this harsh world...
draw thy breath in pain
to tell my story.
The rest... is silence.
Let four captains bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to the stage,
for he was likely, had he been put on, to have proved most royal.
And for his passage,
the soldiers' music and the rites of war
speak loudly for him.
Go.
Bid the soldiers shoot.
Good night, sweet prince,
and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.