- Stand, ho! - Who's there?
Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold yourself.
- Long live the King! - Bernardo?
He.
For this relief much thanks. 'Tis bitter cold, and I am sick at heart.
- Have you had quiet guard? - Not a mouse stirring.
If you meet the rivals of my watch, bid them make haste.
I think I hear them. Stand, ho! Who goes there?
- Friends to this ground. - And liegemen to the Dane.
Give you good night.
Welcome, Horatio.
- 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.
Tush, tush, 'twill not appear.
Last night of all, when yond same star that's westward from the pole...
Look where it comes again.
In the same figure, like the King that's dead.
Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio.
What art thou that usurp'st this time of night,
together with that fair and warlike form
in which the majesty of buried Denmark did sometimes march?
- By heaven I charge thee, speak! - It is offended.
Stay! Speak, speak! I charge thee, speak!
'Tis gone, and will not answer.
How now, Horatio? Is not this something more than fantasy?
- Is it not like the King? - As thou art to thyself. 'Tis strange.
Thus twice before, and jump at this dead hour,
with martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.
In what particular thought to work, I know not:
but in the gross and scope of mine opinion,
this bodes some strange eruption to our state.
But, soft, behold! Lo, where it comes again!
I'll cross it, though it blast me.
Stay, illusion.
If thou hast any sound or use of voice, speak to me.
If thou art privy to thy country's fate, which happily foreknowing may avoid,
O, speak! Speak of it. Stay, and speak.
- Stop it, Marcellus! - Shall I strike at it with my partisan?
'Tis gone.
We do it wrong, being so majestical, to offer it the show of violence;
for it is, as the air, invulnerable.
It was about to speak, when the cock crew.
And then it started like a guilty thing upon a fearful summons.
It faded on the crowing of the cock.
Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes
wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
the bird of dawning singeth all night long;
and then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad.
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,
Iet us impart what we have seen tonight unto young Hamlet;
for upon my life, this spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him.
Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death the memory be green,
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,
th' imperial jointress to this warlike state,
have we, as 'twere, with a defeated joy,
with mirth in funeral, and with dirge in marriage, taken to wife.
Now follows that you know: young Fortinbras,
holding a weak supposal of our worth,
he hath not failed to pester us with message
importing the surrender of those lands lost by his father with all bands of law,
to our most valiant brother.
We have here writ to Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras,
who, impotent and bed-rid...
...scarcely hears of this his nephew's purpose,
to suppress his further gait herein.
So much for him!
So, Laertes, what's the news with you?
My dread lord, your leave and favour to return to France;
from whence though willingly I came to Denmark
to show my duty in your coronation, yet now, I must confess, that duty done,
my thoughts and wishes bend again towards France.
Have you your father's leave? What says Polonius?
He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave by laboursome petition.
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, my cousin Hamlet, and my son,
how is it that the clouds still hang on you?
Not so, my lord; I am too much in the sun.
Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off,
and let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.
Do not for ever with they vailed lids seek for thy noble father in the dust.
Thou know'st 'tis common - all that lives must die,
passing through nature to eternity.
Aye, madam, it is common.
If it be, why seems it so particular with thee?
Seems? Nay, madam, it is; I know not seems.
'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
nor customary suits of solemn black,
nor the dejected haviour of the visage,
together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief, that can denote me truly.
These, indeed, seem;
for they are actions that a man might play.
But I have that within which passes show;
these but the trappings and the suits of woe.
It is sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,
to give these mourning duties to you father,
but you must know your father lost a father,
that father lost lost his.
But to persever in obstinate condolement is a course of impious stubbornness;
'tis unmanly grief.
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.
For your intent in going back to school in 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 fair and loving reply.
Be as ourself in Denmark. Madam, come;
this gentle and unforc'd accord of Hamlet sits smiling in my heart;
in grace whereof, no jocund health that Denmark drinks today,
but the great cannon to the clouds shall tell,
and the King's rouse the heavens shall bruit again,
re-speaking earthly thunder.
O, that this too too sullied flesh would melt,
thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd His canon 'gainst self-slaughter!
O God! O God!
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,
seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on't; Ah, fie!
'Tis an unweeded garden, that grows to seed;
things rank and gross in nature possess it merely.
That it should come to this!
But two months dead! Nay, not so much, not two.
So excellent a king that was to this Hyperion to a satyr;
so loving to my mother, that he might not beteem the winds of heaven
visit her face too roughly.
Heaven and earth! Must I remember?
Why, she should hang on him as if increase of appetite had grown
by what it fed on; and yet, within a month...
Let me not think on't.
Frailty, thy name is woman.
A little month, or ere those shoes were old
with which she followed my poor father's body,
Iike Niobe, all tears,
why she, even she
- O God! a beast that wants discourse of reason would have mourn'd longer -
married with my uncle, my father's brother;
but no more like my father than I to Hercules.
Within a month,
ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
had left the flushing in her galled eyes, she married.
O, most wicked speed to post with such dexterity to incestuous sheets.
It is not, nor it cannot come to good.
But break, my heart,
for I must hold my tongue.
Hail to your lordship.
I am glad to see you well.
Horatio, or I do forget myself.
The same, my lord, and your poor servant ever.
Sir, my good friend, I'll change that name with you.
And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio?
Marcellus. I am very glad to see you.
Good even, sir. But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg?
- A truant disposition, good my lord. - I would not hear your enemy say so.
But 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 prithee, 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 bak'd 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.
For God's love, let me hear.
Two nights together had these gentlemen, Marcellus and Bernardo, on their watch,
in the dead vast and middle of the night, been thus encountered.
A figure like your father, armed at point exactly, cap-à-pie,
appears before them, and with solemn march
goes slow and stately by them.
But where was this?
My lord, upon the platform where we watch.
- Did you not speak to it? - My lord, I did, but answer made it none.
'Tis very strange.
As I do live, my honour'd lord, 'tis true;
and we did think it writ down in our duty to let you know of it.
Indeed, sirs. But this troubles me. Hold you the watch tonight?
- We do, my lord. - Arm'd, say you?
From head to foot.
- Then saw you not his face? - O yes, my lord; he wore his beaver up.
- I would I had been there. - It would have much amaz'd you.
Very like, very like. Stay'd it long?
While one with moderate haste might tell a hundred.
- Longer. - Not when I saw't.
- His beard was grizzl'd, no? - It was as I have seen it in his life.
A sable silver'd.
I will watch tonight. Perchance 'twill walk again.
I warrant it will.
My necessaries are embark'd.
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. No more!
- No more but so? - Think it no more;
he may not, as unvalued persons do, carve for himself;
for on his choice depends the safety and health of this whole state.
Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain,
if with too credent ear you list his songs,
or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure open
to his unmast'red importunity.
Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister.
The chariest maid is prodigal enough if she unmask her beauty to the moon.
I shall the effect of this good lesson take as watchman to my heart.
But, good my brother, do not, as some ungracious pastors do,
show me the steep and thorny way to heaven,
whiles, like a puff'd and reckless libertine,
himself the primrose path of dalliance treads
and recks not his own rede.
O, fear me not.
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.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
but do not dull thy palm with entertainment
of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade.
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.
This above all - to thine own self be true,
and it shall follow, as the night the day,
thou canst not then be false to any man.
Most humbly do I take my leave my lord.
The time invites you; go, your servants tend.
Farewell, Ophelia; and remember well what I have said to you.
'Tis in my memory lock'd, and you yourself shall keep the key of it.
Farewell.
What is't, Ophelia, he hath said to you?
So please you, something touching the Lord Hamlet.
Marry, well bethought. What is between you? Give me up the truth.
He hath, my lord, importuned me with love in honourable fashion.
Ay, fashion you may call it.
And hath given countenance to his speech
with almost all the holy vows of heaven.
Ay, springes to catch woodcocks!
From this time be something scanter of your maiden presence.
I would not in plain terms have you so slander any moment's leisure
as to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet.
The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.
It is a nipping and an eager air.
- What hour now? - I think it lacks of twelve.
- No, it is struck. - lndeed? I heard it not.
It then draws near the season wherein the spirit held his wont to walk.
What does this mean, my lord?
The King doth wake tonight and takes his rouse,
keeps wassail, 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 manor born,
it is a custom more honoured in the breach than the observance.
Angels and ministers of grace defend us!
Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd,
thou com'st in such a questionable shape
that I will speak to thee.
I'll call thee Hamlet.
King,
Father,
royal Dane.
What may this mean, dead corse,
that thou again in complete steel revisits thus the glimpses of the moon,
making night hideous and we fools of nature
so horridly to shake our dispositions
with thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?
Say, why is this?
Wherefore?
What should we do?
It beckons you to go away with it,
as if it some impartment did desire to you alone.
- 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 still. I'll follow it.
- You shall not go, my lord. - Hold off your hands. My fate cries out.
I say, away! Go on; I'll follow thee.
He waxes desperate with imagination.
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
- Heaven will direct it. - Nay, let's follow him.
Whither wilt thou lead me? Speak. I'll go no further.
Mark me.
Speak; I am bound to hear.
So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear,
if thou didst ever thy dear father love.
O God!
Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.
'Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard, a serpent stung me,
but know, thou noble youth,
the serpent that did sting thy father's life now wears his crown.
O my prophetic soul! My uncle!
Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast,
with witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts
- O wicked wit and gifts that have the power so to seduce! -
won to his shameful lust the will of my most seeming virtuous queen.
Brief let me be.
Sleeping within my orchard, my custom always of the afternoon,
upon my secure hour thy uncle stole
with juice of cursed hebona in a vial,
and in the porches of my ears did pour the leperous distilment.
O, horrible! O, horrible! Most horrible!
Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother's hand
of life, of crown, of queen at once dispatched.
If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not;
Iet not the royal bed of Denmark be a couch for luxury and damned incest.
Adieu.
Remember me.
O all you host of heaven! O earth! What else?
And shall I couple hell?
O, fie!
Hold, hold, my heart;
and you, my sinews, grow not instant old,
but bear me stiffly up.
Remember thee!
Ay, thou poor ghost, whiles memory holds a seat In this distracted globe.
Remember thee! Yea, from the table of my memory
I'll wipe away all trivial fond records,
all saws of books, all forms, all pressures past,
that youth and observation copied there, and thy commandment all alone shall live
within the book and volume of my brain, unmixed with baser matter.
Yes, by heaven!
O most pernicious woman!
O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!
Meet it is that I set it down
that one may smile, and smile, and be a villain;
at least I am sure it may be so in Denmark.
So, uncle, there you are.
Now to my word:
it is "Adieu, adieu! Remember me."
My lord!
- My lord! - Lord Hamlet!
- Ho, ho! - My lord!
Ho, ho, boy! Come, bird, come.
- How is't my noble lord? - What news, my lord?
- O, wonderful! - Good my lord, tell it.
- No, you will reveal it. - Not l, my lord.
There's never a villain dwelling in all Denmark
but he's an arrant knave.
There needs no ghost come from the grave to tell us this.
Why, right; you are 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 desire shall point you,
for every man hath business and desire, such as it is;
and for my own poor part, I will go pray.
These are but wild and whirling words, my lord.
I am sorry they offend you, heartily; yes, faith, heartily.
There's no offence, my lord.
Yes, by Saint Patrick, but there is, Horatio.
And much offence too.
Touching this vision here, it is an honest ghost, that let me tell you.
For your desire to know what is between us,
o'ermaster't as you may.
But now, good friends,
as you are friends, soldiers, and scholars, give me one poor request.
What is't, my lord? We will.
Never make known what you have seen tonight.
- We will not. - Nay, but swear't.
- But this is wondrous strange. - Therefore as a stranger, give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Here, as before,
never, so help you mercy, how strange or odd some'er I bear myself
- as I hereafter shall think meet to put an antic disposition on -
that you, at such times seeing me, never shall,
with arms encumb'red thus, or with this headshake,
or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase,
as "Well, well, we know" or "We could, an if we would"
or "lf we list to speak" or "There be, an if they might"
or such ambiguous giving out, denote that you know aught of me:
this do swear.
So grace and mercy at your most 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 t'express his love and friending to you,
God willing, shall not lack.
Come, let us go together.
The time is out of joint.
O cursed spite.
That ever I was born to set it right!
Give him this money and these notes, Reynaldo.
I will, my lord.
You shall do marvellous wisely, good Reynaldo,
before you visit him, to inquire of his behaviour.
My lord, I did intend it.
Marry, well said; very well said.
Look you, sir, enquire me first what Danskers are in Paris;
that they do know my son, come you more nearer.
Take you, as 'twere, some distant knowledge of him;
as: "l know the gentleman; I saw him yesterday, or t'other day,
"or then, or then; with such and such;
"and, as you say, there was a gaming;
"there o'ertook in's rouse; there falling out at tennis;
"there perchance I saw him enter such a house of sale"
videlicet, a brothel, or so forth.
See you now.
- But my good lord... - Wherefore should you do this?
- Ay, my lord, I would know that. - By indirections find directions out.
- You have me, have you not? - My lord, I have.
God be wi' ye; fare ye well.
- Good my lord. - Observe his inclinations in yourself.
- I will, my lord. - And let him ply his music.
Good, my lord.
O my lord, my lord, I have been so affrighted.
With what, i' th' name of God?
My lord, as I was sewing in my closet, Lord Hamlet with his doublet all unbrac'd,
no hat upon his head, as if he had been loosed out of hell
to speak of horrors, he comes before me.
- Mad for thy love? - My lord, I do not know.
But truly I do fear it. 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 a would draw it.
Long stay'd he so.
At last, a little shaking of mine arm,
and thrice his head thus waving up and down,
he raised a sigh so piteous and profound
as it did seem to shatter all his bulk and end his being.
I will go seek the King.
This is the very ecstasy of love.
What, have you given him any hard words of late?
No, my good lord; but, as you did command
I did repel his letters, and denied his access to me.
That hath made him mad. Come, go we to the King.
Welcome, dear Rosencrantz and Guildenstern!
Something have you heard of Hamlet's transformation.
I beseech you both that, being of so young days brought up with him,
and sith so neighboured to his youth and haviour,
that you vouchsafe your rest here in our court some little time;
so by your companies to draw him on to pleasures,
and to gather so much as from occasion you may glean,
whether aught to us unknown afflicts him thus
that, open'd, lies within our remedy.
Good gentlemen, he hath much talked of you;
and sure I am two men there is not living to whom he more adheres.
Both your Majesties might, by the sovereign power you have of us,
put your dread pleasures more into command than to entreaty.
But we both obey, and here give up ourselves in the full bent
to lay our service freely at your feet, to be commanded.
Thanks, Rosencrantz and gentle Guildenstern.
Thanks, Guildenstern and gentle Rosencrantz.
And I beseech you instantly to visit my too much changed son.
Go, some of you, and bring these gentlemen where Hamlet is.
Th' ambassadors from Norway, my good lord, are joyfully returned.
Thou still hast been the father of good news.
Have l, my lord?
I assure my good liege, and I do think,
or else this brain of mine hunts not the trail of policy
so sure as it was wont to do, that I have found the very cause of Hamlet's lunacy.
O, speak of that; that do I long to hear.
I doubt it is no other but the main; his father's death
and our o'erhasty marriage.
My liege, and madam,
to expostulate what majesty should be, what duty is,
why day is day, night is night, and time is time,
were but to waste night, day and time.
Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit
and tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief.
Your noble son is mad.
Mad call I it, for to define true madness, what is't but to be nothing else but mad?
- But let that go. - More matter with less art.
Madam, I swear I use no art at all.
That he is mad, 'tis true: 'tis true 'tis pity; and pity 'tis 'tis true.
A foolish figure! Farewell it, for I will use no art.
I have a daughter, have while she is mine,
who in her duty and obedience, mark, hath given me this.
"Doubt that the stars are fire;
"Doubt that the sun doth move:
"Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt I love.
"Thine evermore, most dear lady,
"whilst this machine is to him,
"Hamlet."
How hath she received his love?
- What do you think of me? - As of a man faithful and honourable.
I would fain prove so.
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.
This done, she took the fruits of my advice:
and he, repelled, a short tale to make,
fell into a sadness, then into a fast,
thence to a watch, thence to a weakness,
then into a lightness, and by this declension,
into the madness wherein now he raves and all we mourn for.
- Do you think this? - It may be very like.
Take this from this, if this be otherwise.
If circumstances lead me, I will find where truth is hid,
though it be hid indeed within the centre.
How may we try it further?
You know sometimes he walks for hours together here in the lobby.
So he does indeed.
At such a time, I'll loose my daughter to him.
Read on this book.
That show of such an exercise may colour your loneliness.
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.
'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,
th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
the pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay, the insolence of office,
and the spurns that patient merit of th' 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 remembered.
Good my lord, how does your honour 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 l; I never gave you aught.
My honour'd lord, you know right well you did;
and with them words of so sweet breath compos'd
as made these 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.
- Ha, are you honest? - My lord?
- Are you fair? - What means your lordship?
That if you be honest and fair,
your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty.
Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty?
Ay, truly; for the power of beauty
will sooner transform honesty from what it is into 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.
Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.
You should not have believ'd me;
for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it.
I loved you not.
I was the more deceived.
Get thee to a nunnery.
Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?
I am myself indifferent honest, but yet I could accuse me of such things
that it were better my mother had not borne me:
I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious.
What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven?
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's own house. Farewell.
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. 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.
Heavenly powers, restore him!
I have heard of your paintings well enough.
God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another.
You jig and amble, and you lisp,
you nickname 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 marriage;
those that are married already all but one shall live;
the rest shall keep as they are.
To a nunnery, go.
O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown.
The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword;
th' expectancy and rose of the fair state,
the glass of fashion and the mould of form,
th' observed of all observers, quite, quite down!
And l, of ladies most deject and wretched,
that sucked the honey of his music vows,
now see that noble and most sovereign reason,
Iike sweet bells jangled out of time and harsh.
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 doubt the hatch and disclose will be some danger;
the 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.
- What think you on't? - It shall do well.
And yet do I believe the origin and commencement of his grief
sprang 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.
I will myself go try him. Let me alone to sound the depth of him.
'Tis well.
Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go.
How does my good lord Hamlet?
Well, God-a-mercy.
- Do you know me, my lord? - Excellent well; you are a fishmonger.
- Not l, 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 pick'd out of ten thousand.
That's very true, my lord.
- Have you a daughter? - I have, my lord.
Let her not walk i' th' sun.
Conception is a blessing, and as your daughter may conceive, friend, look to't.
How say you by that? Still harping on my daughter.
A is far gone, far gone.
And yet in my youth I suffer'd much extremity for love. Very near this.
I'll speak to him again.
- What do you read, my lord? - Words, words, words.
- What is the matter, my lord? - Between who?
- The matter that you read, my lord. - Slanders, sir.
For the satirical rogue says here that old men have grey beards;
that their faces are wrinkled; their eyes purging thick amber and plum tree gum,
that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams;
all which, sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe,
yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down;
for you yourself, sir, shall grow old as I am,
if, like a crab, you could go backward.
Though this be madness, yet there's method in't.
My noble lord, I take my leave of you.
You cannot take from me anything that I will not more willingly part withal
- except my life, except my life, except my life.
- Fare you well, my lord. - These tedious old fools!
You go to seek the Lord Hamlet; there he is.
- My honour'd lord! - My most dear lord!
My excellent good friends! How dost thou, Guildenst...Rosencrantz?
- Good lads, how do you both? - As the indifferent children of the earth.
Happy in that we are not over happy.
On Fortune's cap we are not the very button.
- Nor the soles of her shoe? - Neither, my lord.
Then you live about her waist, or the middle of her favours?
Faith, her privates we.
In the secret parts of Fortune? O, most true, she is a strumpet. What news?
None, my lord, but the world's grown honest.
Then is doomsday near. But your news is not true.
Let me question more in particular.
What have you, my dear friends, deserved,
at the hands of Fortune that she sends you to prison hither?
- Prison, my lord? - Denmark's a prison.
Why, then your ambition makes it one; 'tis too narrow for your mind.
O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space,
were it not that I have bad dreams.
Which dreams indeed are ambition.
But in the beaten way of friendship, what make you at Elsinore?
To visit you, my lord; no other occasion.
Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks;
but I thank you; and sure, dear friends, my thanks are too dear a halfpenny.
Were you not sent for?
Now, come, come, be even and direct with me,
whether you were sent for or no?
My lord, we were sent for.
I will tell you why.
I have of late - but wherefore I know not - lost all my mirth,
foregone all custom of exercises,
and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition
that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory;
this most excellent canopy, the air, look you,
this brave, o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire,
why, it appeareth to me nothing but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.
What piece of work is a man!
How noble in reason! How infinite in faculties!
In form and moving, how express and admirable!
In action, how like an angel! In apprehension, how like a god!
The beauty of the world! The paragon of animals!
And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?
Man delights not me,
nor women neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.
My lord, there was no such stuff in my thoughts.
Why did ye laugh, then, when I said "Man delights not me"?
To think, my lord, if you delight not in man,
what lenten entertainment the players shall receive from you.
We coted them on the way; and hither they are coming to offer you service.
He that plays the king shall be welcome; his Majesty shall have tribute of me.
There are the players.
Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore. Come then, your hands, you are welcome.
But my uncle-father and my aunt-mother are deceived.
In what, my dear lord?
I am but mad north-north-west;
when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.
My lord, I have news to tell you.
When Roscius was an actor in Rome...
The actors are come hither, my lord.
- Upon my honour... - Then came each actor on his ass.
The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history,
pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral,
tragical-historical, tragical-comical, historical-pastoral.
Seneca cannot be too heavy nor Plautus too light.
O Jephthah, judge of lsrael, what a treasure hadst thou!
What a treasure had he, my lord?
Why, One fair daughter and no more
The which he loved passing well
Am I not i' th' right, old Jephthah?
If you call me Jephthah, my lord, I have a daughter that I love passing well.
Welcome, masters, welcome, all.
Welcome, good friends. O, old friend!
Why thy face is valanc'd since I saw thee last;
com'st thou to beard me in Denmark?
What, my young lady and mistress!
We'll e'en to't like French falconers, fly at anything we see.
We'll have a speech straight. Come, a passionate speech.
What speech, my lord?
I heard thee speak me a speech once; let me see:
"The rugged Pyrrhus, like th' Hyrcanian beast,"
"'Tis not so; it begins with Pyrrhus.
"The hellish Pyrrhus old grandsire Priam seeks."
"Anon he finds him..."
"Anon he finds him, striking too short at Greeks;
"his antique sword, rebellious to his arm,
"lies where it falls, repugnant to command.
"Unequal match'd, Pyrrhus at Priam drives, in rage strikes wide.
"But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword
"the unnerved father falls.
"Out, out, thou strumpet, Fortune!
"All you gods in general synod take aware her power;
"break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel,
"and bowl the round knave down the hill of heaven, as low as to the fiends."
This is too long.
Then it shall to the barbers with your beard.
Prithee say on. He's for a jig, or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps.
Say on; come to Hecuba.
"But who, ah, who had seen the mobled queen...?"
That's good; "mobled queen" is good.
"Run barefoot up and down, threat'ning the flames with bisson rheum;
"a clout upon that head where late the diadem stood.
"But if the gods themselves did see her then,
"the instant burst of clamour that she made
"would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven
"and passion in the gods."
Look, my lord, whether he has not turned his colour,
and has tears in's eyes.
Prithee no more.
'Tis well, 'tis well;
I'll have thee speak out the rest of this soon.
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.
My lord, I will use them according to their desert.
God's bodykins, man, much better.
Use every man after his desert and who shall scape whipping?
Use them after your own honour and dignity. Take them in.
- Come, sirs. - We'll hear a play tomorrow.
Dost thou hear me, old friend?
My friends, I'll leave you till night. You are welcome to Elsinore.
Good my lord.
- Can you play The Murder of Gonzago? - Ay, my lord.
We'll ha't tomorrow night.
You could, for a need, study a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines
that I would set down and insert in't, could you not?
Ay, my lord.
Very well. Follow that lord; and look you mock him not.
O, what a rogue and peasant slave am l!
Is it not monstrous that this player here,
but in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
could force his soul so to his own conceit
that from his working all his visaged wann'd;
tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect,
a broken voice, and his whole function suiting with forms to his conceit?
And all for nothing!
For Hecuba!
What's Hecuba to him or he to Hecuba, that he should weep for her?
What would he do, had he the motive and the cue for passion that I have?
He would drown the stage with tears, and cleave the general air with horrid speech;
make mad the guilty, and appal the free, confound the ignorant,
and amaze indeed the very faculties of eyes and ears.
Yet l, a dull and muddy-mettI'd rascal,
peak like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,
and can say nothing;
no, not for a king
upon whose property and most dear life a damn'd defeat was made.
Am I a coward?
Who calls me villain, plucks off my beard and blows it in my face,
tweaks me by the nose and gives me the lie i' th' throat as deep as to the lungs?
Who does me this? Ha!
'Swounds, I should take it;
for it cannot be that I am pigeon-livered and lack gall to make oppression bitter,
or ere this I should 'a fatted all the region kites with this slave's offal.
Bloody, bawdy villain!
Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!
O, vengeance!
Why, what an ass am l!
This is most brave,
that l, the son of a dear father murder'd,
prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,
must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words,
and fall a-cursing like a very drab, a scullion!
Fie upon't! foh!
About, my brains.
I have heard that guilty creatures sitting at a play,
have by the very cunning of the scene been struck so to the soul
that presently they have proclaimed their malefactions.
For murder, though it hath no tongue,
will speak with most miraculous organ.
I'll have these players play something like
the murder of my father before my uncle.
I'll observe his looks: I'll tent him to the quick.
If he but blench, I know my course.
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 our players do,
I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines.
Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, 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.
- 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 o'erdone is from the purpose of playing,
whose end, both at the first and now,
was and is to hold a mirror up to nature.
Now, this overdone or come tardy off, whiles it makes the unskilful laugh,
cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of which one must,
in your opinion, o'erweigh a whole theatre of others.
I hope we have reform'd 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 quantity of barren spectators to laugh too,
though in the meantime 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?
Ay, my good lord. And the Queen too, and that presently.
Bid the players make haste.
- What, ho, Horatio! - Here, sweet lord.
At your service.
Will you two help hasten them?
- Ay, my lord. - We will, my lord.
Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man as e'er my conversation cop'd withal.
- O my dear lord! - Nay, do not think I flatter;
for what advancement may I hope from thee
that no revenue hath but thy good spirits to feed and clothe thee?
For thou hast been as one in suff'ring all that suffers nothing;
a man that Fortune's buffets and rewards hast ta'en with equal thanks;
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 tonight a play 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 my uncle.
Well, my lord: if a steal aught while this play is playing and scape detecting,
I will pay the theft.
How fares our cousin Hamlet?
Excellent, i'faith; of the chameleon's dish.
I eat the air, promise-cramm'd; you cannot feed capons so.
I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet; these words are not mine.
No, nor mine now.
My lord, you once played at the university, you say?
That did l, my lord, and was accounted a good actor.
- What did you enact? - I did enact Julius Caesar;
I was kill'd i' th' Capitol; Brutus kill'd me.
It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf there.
- Be the players ready? - My lord, they stay upon your patience.
Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me.
No, good mother; here's metal more attractive.
O, ho! do you mark that?
- Lady, shall I lie in your lap? - No, my lord.
It's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs.
You are keen, my lord.
It would cost you a groaning to take off mine edge.
- You are merry, my lord. - What should a man do but be merry?
For look you how cheerfully my mother looks,
and my father died within's two hours.
'Tis twice two months, my lord.
What means this, my lord?
Marry, this is miching mallecho; it means mischief.
Belike this show imports the argument of the play.
We shall know by this fellow.
For us and for our tragedy,
here stooping to your clemency, we beg your hearing patiently.
Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?
- 'Tis brief, my lord. - As woman's love.
Full forty years are past, their date is gone,
since happy times joined both our hearts as one.
And now the blood that filled my youthful veins runs weakly in their pipes,
and all the strains of music which erstwhile pleas'd mine ear,
are now a burthen that age cannot bear:
and therefore sweet nature must have her due,
to heaven must l and leave the earth with you.
O say not so, lest that you kill my heart,
when death takes you, let life from me depart.
Content thyself, when ended is my date,
thou may'st perchance find a more noble mate.
O speak no more, for then I am accurs'd,
none weds the second but who kills the first.
That's wormwood.
A second time I kill my lord that's dead when second husband kisses me in bed.
I do believe you, sweet, what now you speak;
but what we do determine oft we break,
so think thou wilt no second husband wed,
but die thy thoughts when thy first lord is dead.
Both here and hence, pursue me lasting strife,
if once a widow ever I be wife.
Madam, how like you this play?
The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
O, but she'll keep her word.
Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in it?
No, no; they do but jest, poison in jest; no offence i' th' world.
- What do you call the play? - The Mousetrap.
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 of that?
Your Majesty, and we that have free souls, it touches us not.
This is one Lucianus, brother...nephew to the King.
You are as good as a chorus, my lord.
Pox, murderer; leave they damnable faces and begin. Come;
the croaking raven doth bellow for revenge.
Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing;
confederate season, else no creature seeing;
thou mixture rank of midnight weeds collected,
with Hecate's ban thrice blasted, thrice infected,
thy natural magic and dire property
on wholesome life usurps immediately.
He poisons him i' th' garden for his estate.
His name's Gonzago.
The story is extant and written in very choice ltalian.
You shall see anon how the murderer gets the love of Gonzago's wife.
How fares my lord?
What, frighted with false fire?
Give o'er the play.
Give me some light. Away!
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, sir, would not this get me a fellowship in a cry of players?
- Half a share. - A whole one, l.
For thou dost know, O Damon dear
This realm dismantled was of Jove himself
And now reigns here a very very...paiock
You might have rhymed.
O good Horatio, I'll take the ghost's word for a thousand pounds. Didst perceive?
Very well, my lord. I did very well note him.
Good my lord.
Come, some music.
Come, the recorders.
For if the King like not the comedy, why, then belike he likes it not, perdy.
Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you.
Sir, a whole history.
The Queen, your mother, in most great affliction of spirit, hath sent me to you.
- You are welcome. - 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.
- Sir, I cannot. - What, my lord?
Make you a wholesome answer; my wit's diseased.
But such answer as I can make, you shall command.
Or rather, as you say, my mother.
She desires to speak with you in her closet ere you go to bed.
We shall obey were she ten times our mother.
Have you any further trade with us?
My lord, you once did love me.
And do still, by these pickers and stealers.
Good my lord, what is your cause of distemper?
You do surely bar the door on your own liberty
if you deny your griefs to your friend.
Sir, I lack advancement.
How can that be, when you have the voice of the King himself
for your succession in Denmark?
Ay, sir, but "While the grass grows";
the proverb is something musty.
O, the recorders. O, come, let me see one.
Will you play upon this pipe?
- My lord, I cannot. - I pray you.
- Believe me, I cannot. - I do beseech you.
- I know no touch of it, my lord. - It is as easy as lying.
Look you, these are the stops.
But these cannot I command to any utterance of harmony; I have not the skill.
Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me.
You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops;
you would pluck out the heart of my mystery;
you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass;
and there is much music, excellent voice in this little organ,
yet cannot you make it speak.
'Sblood, do you think I'm easier to be played upon than a pipe?
- My lord... - God bless you, sir.
The Queen would speak with you, and that presently.
Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in the shape of a camel?
O, yes, by th' mass, and 'tis like a camel indeed.
Methinks it is like a weasel.
'Tis 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, friends.
Let me be cruel, not unnatural:
I will speak daggers to her, but use none.
A 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 even here.
Pray you, be round with him.
I'll warrant you. Fear me not.
Now, Mother, what's the matter?
Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.
Mother, you have my father much offended.
Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.
Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.
- Why, how now, Hamlet? - What's the matter now?
- Have you forgot me? - No, by the rood, not so:
you are the Queen, your husband's brother's wife.
And - would it were not so - you are my mother.
Nay, then I'll set those to you that can speak.
Come, come, 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, ho!
What, ho! help, help, help!
How now! a rat? Dead, for a ducat!
O nay, 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, it was my word.
Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool!
Farewell!
I took thee for thy better.
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 braz'd it so
that it be proof and bulwark against sense.
What have I done that thou dar'st wag thy tongue in noise 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 that roars so loud and thunders in the index?
Look you 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;
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?
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 judgment;
and what judgment would step from this to this?
O, shame!
Where is thy blush?
Rebellious hell, if thou can'st mutine in a matron's bones
to flaming youth let virtue be as wax and melt in her own fire.
O, Hamlet, speak no more!
Thou turns mine eyes into my very soul;
and there I see such black and grained spots
as will leave there their tinct.
Nay, but to live in the rank sweat of an enseamed bed,
stewed in corruption, honeying and making love over the nasty sty!
O, speak to me no more!
A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe of your precedent lord.
A king of shreds and patches...
Save me, and hover o'er me with your wings, you heavenly guards!
- What would your gracious figure? - Alas, he's mad!
Do you not come your tardy son to chide, that, laps'd in time and passion,
Iets go by th' important acting of your dread command?
O, say.
To whom do you speak this?
- Do you see nothing there? - Nothing at all;
yet all that is, I see.
- Nor did you nothing hear? - No, nothing but ourselves.
My father
in his habit, as he lived.
This is the very coinage of your brain.
This bodiless creation ecstasy is very cunning in.
Ecstasy!
My pulse as yours doth temperately keep time,
and makes as healthful music.
Mother, for love of grace,
Iay not that flattering unction to your soul
that not your trespass but my madness speaks:
it will but skin and film the ulcerous place
whiles rank corruption mining all within infects unseen.
Confess yourself to heaven;
repent what's past; avoid what is to come;
and do not spread the compost on the weeds to make them ranker.
O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.
O, throw away the worser part of it,
and live the better with the purer half.
Good night, but go not to my uncle's bed.
Refrain tonight.
And that shall lend a kind of easiness to the next abstinence.
Once more, good night;
and when you are desirous to be blest, I'll blessing beg of you.
For this same lord I do repent;
but Heaven hath pleas'd it so to punish me with this and this with me,
that I must be their scourge and minister.
Again, good night.
I must be cruel only to be kind.
Mother, good night, indeed.
How dangerous is it that this man goes loose!
Yet may we not put the strong law on him:
he's loved of the distracted multitude.
To bear all smooth and even, this sudden sending him away
must seem deliberate pause.
How now? What news?
Where the dead body is bestow'd, my lord, we cannot get from him.
- Where is he? - Without, my lord, guarded.
Bring him before us.
Now, Hamlet, where's Polonius?
- At supper. - At supper where?
Not where he eats, but where he is eaten.
A certain convocation of politic worms are e'en at him.
Your worm is your only emperor for diet:
we fat all creatures else to fat 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.
- Where is Polonius? - In heaven;
send thither to see; if your messenger find him not there,
seek him i' th' other place yourself.
But if, indeed, 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, 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,
th' associates tend, and everything is bent for England.
For England! Good!
- So is it, 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.
But, come; for England!
Follow him at foot; tempt him with speed aboard.
And, England, if my love thou hold'st at aught,
as my great power thereof may give thee sense,
pay homage to us, and contrive at once the present death of Hamlet.
Do it, England:
for like the hectic in my blood he rages,
and thou must cure me.
O, my offence is rank; it smells to heaven;
it hath the primal eldest curse upon't, a brother's murder!
What if this cursed hand were thicker than itself in brother's blood,
is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens to wash it white as snow?
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 th' offence?
In the corrupted currents of this world,
offence's guilded 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.
Help, angels. Make assay.
Bow, stubborn knees,
and, heart, with strings of steel, be soft as sinews of the new-born babe.
All may be well.
My words fly up, my thoughts remain below.
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.
Good sir, whose powers are these?
- They are of Norway, sir. - How purpos'd, sir, I pray you?
- Against some part of Poland. - Who commands them, sir?
The nephew to old Norway, Fortinbras.
Goes it against the main of Poland or some frontier?
Truly to speak, and with no additions,
we go to gain a patch of land that hath no more profit in it but the name.
To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it.
- God be with you, sir. - I humbly thank you, sir.
Will't please you go, my lord?
I'll be with you straight. Go a little before.
How all occasions do inform against me, and spur my dull revenge!
What is a man,
if the 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,
Iooking before and after,
gave us not that capability and godlike reason to fust in us unus'd.
Now, whether it be bestial oblivion,
or some craven scruple of thinking too precisely on th' event,
a thought which, quarter'd, hath but one part wisdom and ever three parts coward,
I do not yet know why I live to say "This thing's to do",
sith I have cause, and will, and strength,
and means to do it.
Examples gross as earth exhort me;
witness this army of such mass and charge,
Ied 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 l, then,
that have a father killed, 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!
No, I will not speak with her.
She is importunate, indeed distract. Her mood will needs be pitied.
'Twere good she were spoken with; for she may strew dangerous conjectures
in ill-breeding minds.
Let her come in.
Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?
How now, Ophelia!
How should I your true love know
From the other one?
By his cockle hat and staff
And his sandal shoon
Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?
Say you? Nay, pray you mark.
White his shroud as the mountain snow
Larded o'er with sweet flowers
Which bewept to the grave did not go
With true love showers
Alas, look here, my lord.
How do you, pretty lady?
Well, God 'ild you!
They say the owl was a baker's daughter.
Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be.
God be at your table!
Conceit upon her father.
Pray let's have no words of this;
but when they ask you what it means, say this:
Tomorrow 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
Pretty Ophelia!
Indeed, without an oath I'll make an end on't.
Quoth she, "Before you tumbled me You promised me to wed"
He answers: "So would I 'a done by yonder sun,
"An hadst thou not come to my bed"
How long hath she been thus?
I hope all will be well.
We must be patient;
but I cannot choose but weep to think they will lay him i' th' 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, good night.
Her brother is in secret come from France;
and wants not buzzers to infect his ear with pestilent speeches
wherein necessity, of matter beggar'd,
will nothing stick our person to arraign in ear and ear.
O my dear Gertrude, when sorrows come, they come not single spies,
but in battalions!
Where are my Switzers? Let them guard the door.
Young Laertes, in a riotous head, o'erbears your officers.
The rabble call him lord, they cry, "Choose we, Laertes shall be king".
How cheerfully on the false trail they cry!
The doors are broke.
Thou vile king, give me my father!
Calmly, good 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 brows of my true mother.
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 at what it would, acts little of his will.
- Where is my father? - Dead.
- But not by him. - Let him demand his fill.
How came he dead? I'll not be juggled with.
To hell, allegiance! Vows to the blackest devil!
I dare damnation.
Good Laertes, if you desire to know the certainty of your dear father's death,
is't writ in your revenge that, swoopstake,
you will draw both friend and foe, winner and loser?
None but his enemies.
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 'pear as day does to your eye.
How now! What noise is that?
O, heat dry up my brains!
Rose of May!
Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!
They bore him barefac'd on the bier
Sing hey nonny, nonny, hey nonny
And in his grave rain'd many a tear
Fare you well, my dove!
O, how the wheel becomes it!
It is the false steward that stole his master's daughter.
This nothing's more than matter.
Here's rosemary, that's for remembrance;
pray you, love, remember.
Here's pansies, that's for thoughts.
A document in madness - thoughts and remembrance fitted.
Here's fennel for you, and columbines.
Here's some rue for you;
and here's some for me.
We may call it herb of grace a Sundays.
But you must wear your rue with a difference.
Here is a daisy.
I would give you some violets, but they wither'd all when my father died.
They say a made a good end.
God have mercy on his soul.
And on all you Christian souls, I pray God.
God be wi' ye.
Is't possible a young maid's wits should be as mortal as an old man's life?
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.
- God bless you, sir. - Let him bless thee too.
He shall sir, an't please Him.
I've got a letter here for you, sir.
It comes from th' ambassador as was bound for England,
if your name be Horatio, as I'm 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.
"Rosencrantz and Guildenstern hold their course for England;
"of them I have much to tell thee.
"Give these fellows some means for the King: they have letters for him.
"Farewell. He that thou knowest thine, Hamlet."
I loved your father as we love ourself.
And that, I hope, will teach you to imagine...
- How, now, what news? - Letters, my lord, from Hamlet.
This to your Majesty; this to the Queen.
Laertes, you shall hear them. Leave us.
"High and Mighty. You shall know I am set naked in your kingdom.
"Tomorrow 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?
I am 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 didst thou".
If it be so, Laertes, will you be ruled by me?
Ay, my lord; so you will not o'errule me to a peace.
Two months since here was a gentleman from Normandy.
Upon my life, Lamond. I know him well.
He is the brooch indeed and gem of all the nation.
He made confession of you; and gave you such a masterly report,
for art and exercise in your defence, and for your rapier most especial,
that he cried out 'twould be a sight indeed if one could match you.
- Now, out of this... - What out of this, my lord?
Hamlet comes back; what would you undertake
to show yourself in deed your father's son more than in words?
To cut his throat i' th' church.
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 practice, requite him for your father.
I will do't; and for that purpose I'll anoint my sword.
I bought an unction off a mountebank that's mortal.
I will touch my point with this contagion, that, if I gall him slightly,
it may be death.
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 escape your venom'd stuck,
our purpose may hold there.
How now, sweet Queen?
One woe doth tread upon another's heel, so fast do they follow.
There is a willow grows aslant the brook
that shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream.
There with fantastic garlands did Ophelia come,
of crowflowers, nettles, daisies and long purples.
There, on the pendent boughs her crowned weeds clambering to hang...
...an envious sliver broke.
Then 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 lauds;
but long it could not be...
...till that her garments, heavy with their drink...
...pulI'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay...
...to muddy death.
Alack, then, she is drown'd!
Drown'd, drown'd.
Has this fellow no feeling of his business? He sings in grave-making!
Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness.
But age, with his stealing steps Hath clawed me in his clutch
And hath shipped me into the land As if I had never been such
- Whose grave's this, sirrah? - Mine, sir.
I think it be thine indeed, for thou liest in in't.
You lie out on't, sir, and 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 it is thine;
'tis for the dead, not for 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.
- What woman, then? - For none neither.
- Who is to be buried in't? - One that was a woman, sir;
but rest her soul, she's dead.
How absolute the knave is! We must speak by the card,
or equivocation will undo us.
How long hast thou been grave-maker?
Of all the days i' th' year,
I came to't that day our last King Hamlet overcame Fortinbras.
How long is that since?
Cannot you tell that? Every fool can tell that.
It was that 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 a was mad:
a shall recover his wits there; or, if a do not, 'tis no great matter there.
- Why? - 'Twill not be seen in him there.
There the men are as mad as he.
Here's a skull now hath lien here i' th' earth three and twenty years.
Whose was it?
A whoreson mad fellow's it was. Whose do you think it was?
Nay, I know not.
A pestilence on him for a mad rogue!
A poured a flagon of Rhenish on my head once.
This same skull, sir,
was, sir, Yorick's skull, the King's jester.
- This? - E'en that.
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 kiss'd I know not how oft.
Where be your jibes now,
your gambols, your songs,
your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar?
Now get you to my lady's table,
and tell her let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come.
Make her laugh at that.
Prithee, Horatio, tell me one thing.
What's that, my lord?
Dost thou think Alexander look'd a this fashion i' th' earth?
- E'en so. - And smelt so?
E'en so, my lord.
To what base uses we may return, Horatio.
Imperious Caesar dead, and turn'd to clay,
might stop a hole to keep the wind away.
But soft.
But soft. But soft awhile.
Here comes the King. The Queen, the courtiers. Who is this they follow?
And with such maimed rights? Couch we awhile and mark.
What ceremony else?
Her obsequies have been as far enlarged as we have warranties.
Her death was doubtful;
and, but that great command o'ersways the order,
she should in ground unsanctified have log'd till the last trumpet.
- Must there no more be done? - No more be done.
Lay her i' th' earth;
and from her fair and unpolluted flesh may violets spring!
I tell thee, churlish priest,
a minist'ring angel shall my sister be when thou liest howling.
What, the fair Ophelia!
Sweets to the sweet; farewell!
I hop'd thou shouldst have been my Hamlet's wife;
I thought thy bride-bed to have decked, sweet maid,
and not have strew'd thy grave.
O, treble woe fall ten times double on that cursed head
whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense depriv'd thee of!
Hold off the earth awhile, till I have caught her once more in mine arms.
Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead.
What is he whose grief bears such an emphasis?
This is l, Hamlet the Dane.
- The devil take thy soul! - Thou prayest not well.
- I prithee take thy fingers from my throat. - Pluck them asunder!
- Hold off your hand. - Good my lord, be quiet.
I will fight with him upon this theme until my eyelids will no longer wag.
O my son, what theme?
I lov'd Ophelia; forty thousand brothers could not,
with all their quantity of love, make up my sum.
- What wilt thou do for her? - O, he is mad, Laertes.
Woo't fast, woo't fight, woo't drink up eisel? I'll do't.
Dost come here to whine? To outface me with leaping in her grave?
Be buried quick with her, and so will l.
Nay, an thou'lt mouth, I'll rant as well as thou.
Hear you, sir: what is the reason that you use me thus?
I lov'd you ever. But it is no matter.
Let Hercules himself do what he may,
the cat will mew and dog will have his day.
Good Gertrude, set some watch over your son.
Strengthen your patience in our last night's speech;
this grave shall have a living monument.
Up from my cabin, my sea-gown scarf'd about me, in the dark
grop'd I to find out them; had my desire;
finger'd their packet, where I found, Horatio, a royal knavery!
An exact command, that, on the supervise, no leisure bated,
no, not to stay the grinding of the axe, my head should be struck off.
- ls't possible? - Here's the commission; read it
at more leisure.
But wilt thou hear now how I did proceed?
I sat me down; devis'd a new commission; wrote it fair.
An earnest conjuration from the King,
as England was his faithful tributary,
he should these bearers put to sudden death, not shriving time allow'd.
So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to't.
Why, man, they did make love to this employment;
they are not near my conscience.
But I am very sorry, good Horatio, that to Laertes I forgot myself;
for by the image of my cause I see the portraiture of his.
Peace; who comes here?
Your lordship is right welcome back to Denmark.
- 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.
I will receive it, sir, with all diligence of spirit.
Put your bonnet to his right use; 'tis for the head.
I thank your lordship; it is very hot.
No, believe me, 'tis very cold; the wind is northerly.
It is indifferent cold, my lord, indeed.
But yet methinks it is very sultry and hot for my complexion.
Exceedingly, my lord; it is very sultry, as 'twere - I cannot tell how.
But, my lord, his Majesty bade me signify to you
that he has laid a great wager on your head. Sir, this is the matter.
I beseech you, remember.
Nay, my good lord; for mine ease, in good faith.
Sir, here is newly come to court Laertes;
believe me, an absolute gentleman, full of most excellent differences.
What imports the nomination of this gentleman?
- Of Laertes? - His purse is empty already;
all's golden words are spent.
- I know you are not ignorant... - I would you did, sir;
yet, indeed, if you did it would not much approve me. Well, sir.
...are not ignorant of what excellence Laertes is.
- I mean, sir, for his weapon. - What's his weapon?
- Rapier and dagger. - That's two of his weapons, but well.
The King, sir, hath wager'd with him six Barbary horses;
against the which he has impon'd, as I take it,
six French swords and poniards;
three of the carriages, in faith, are very dear to fancy,
very responsive to the hilts, most delicate carriages,
and of very liberal conceit.
Six Barbary horses against six French swords
and three liberal conceited carriages; that's the French bet against the Danish.
Why is this impon'd, as you call it?
The King, sir, hath laid, sir, that in a dozen passes between yourself and him
he shall not exceed you three hits;
he has laid on twelve for nine, and it should come to immediate trial
if your lordship would vouchsafe an answer.
How if I answer no?
I mean, my lord, the opposition of your person in trial.
Sir, if it please his Majesty, it is the breathing time of day with me;
I will win for him and I can;
if not, I shall receive nothing but my shame and the odd hits.
Shall I redeliver you e'en so?
To this effect, sir, after what flourish your nature will.
I commend my duty to your lordship.
Yours, yours.
- You will lose, 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 would'st not think how ill all's here about my heart; but it is no matter.
Nay, good my lord. If your mind dislike anything, obey it.
I will forestall their repair hither and say you are not fit.
Not a whit;
we defy augury:
there is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow.
If it be now, 'tis not to come;
if it be not to come, it will be now;
if it be not now, yet it will come;
the readiness is all.
Since no man has aught of what he leaves,
what is't to leave betimes? Let be.
Come, Hamlet, come, and take this hand from me.
Give me your pardon, sir. I have done you wrong;
but pardon't as you are a gentleman.
This presence knows, and you must needs have heard
how I am punished with a sore affliction.
What I have done that might your nature, honour and exception roughly awake,
I here proclaim was madness.
I am satisfied in nature,
whose motive in this case should stir me most to my revenge;
but in my terms of honour, I stand aloof,
and will no reconcilement till by some elder masters of known honour
I have a voice and precedent of peace to keep my name ungor'd.
I embrace it freely; and will this brother's wager frankly play.
Cousin Hamlet, you know the wager?
Very well, my lord; your Grace has laid the odds a' th' weaker side.
I do not fear it: I have seen you both;
since he is better, we have therefore odds.
This is too heavy; let me see another.
This likes me well.
- These foils have all a length? - Ay, my good lord.
Stay.
If Hamlet give the first or second hit,
the King shall drink to Hamlet's better breath,
and in the cup an union shall he throw,
richer than that which four successive Kings in Denmark's crown have worn.
Come, begin.
And you, the judges, bear a wary eye.
- Come on, sir. - Come, my lord.
- One. Judgment? - A hit, a very palpable hit.
Well, again.
Hamlet, this pearl is thine.
Here's to thy health.
I'll play this bout first; set it by awhile.
Another hit; what say you?
A touch, a touch, I do confess't.
- Our son shall win. - He's fat and scant of breath.
Here, Hamlet, take my napkin, wipe thy brow.
The Queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet.
- Gertrude, do not drink. - I will, my lord; I pray you, pardon me.
I dare not drink yet, madam; by and by.
- My lord, I'll hit him now. - I do not think't.
Come, for the third. Laertes, you do but dally;
pass with your best violence; I fear you make a wanton of me.
Say you so? Come on.
- Hit! Hit! - No.
Nothing, neither way.
Have at you now!
Part them; they are incens'd.
Nay, come again.
Look to the Queen there, ho!
They bleed on both sides.
- How is it, my lord? - How is't, Laertes?
Why, as a woodcock, to mine own springe, Osric;
I am justly killed with mine own treachery.
- How does the Queen? - She swoons to see them bleed.
No, no...
...the drink, the drink!
O, my dear Hamlet! The drink, the drink!
I am poison'd.
O, treachery! Seek it out.
It is here, Hamlet. Hamlet, thou art slain.
The treacherous instrument is in thy hand, unbated and envenom'd.
The King, the King's to blame.
The point envenom'd too!
Then, venom, to thy work.
O, yet defend me, friends!
Here, thou incestuous, murd'rous, damned Dane, drink off this potion.
Is thy union here?
Follow my mother.
He is justly serv'd: it is a poison tempered by himself.
Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet.
Mine and my father's death come not upon thee,
nor thine on me!
Heaven make thee free of it! I follow thee.
I am dead, Horatio.
Thou livest;
report me and my cause aright to the unsatisfied.
Never believe it.
I am more an antique Roman than a Dane; here's yet some liquor left.
Give me the cup. Let go. By heaven, I'll ha't.
O God! Horatio, what a wounded name, things standing thus unknown,
shall I leave behind me.
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.
O, I die, Horatio!
The potent poison quite o'er-crows my spirit.
The rest is...
...silence.
Now cracks a noble heart.
Good night, sweet prince,
and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!