Where's your father?

OPH. At home, my lord.

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

OPH. O, help him, you sweet heavens!

HAM. 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 nunn'ry, farewell. Or if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool, for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them. To a nunn'ry, go, and quickly too. Farewell.

OPH. Heavenly powers, restore him!

HAM. 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 moe marriage. Those that are married already (all but one) shall live, the rest shall keep as they are. To a nunn'ry, go.

 

Exit.

 

OPH.

O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!

The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword,

Th' expectation and rose of the fair state,

The glass of fashion and the mould of form,

Th' observ'd of all observers, quite, quite down!

And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,

That suck'd the honey of his [music] vows,

Now see [that] noble and most sovereign reason

Like sweet bells jangled out of time, and harsh;

That unmatch'd form and stature of blown youth

Blasted with ecstasy. O, woe is me

T' have seen what I have seen, see what I see!

 

[Ophelia withdraws.]

 

Enter King and Polonius.

 

KING.

Love? his affections do not that way tend,

Nor what he spake, though it lack'd form a little,

Was not like madness. There's something in his soul

O'er which his melancholy sits on brood,

And I do doubt the hatch and the disclose

Will be some danger; which for to prevent,

I have in quick determination

Thus set it down: he shall with speed to England

For the demand of our neglected tribute.

Haply the seas, and countries different,

With variable objects, shall expel

This something-settled matter in his heart,

Whereon his brains still beating puts him thus

From fashion of himself. What think you on't?

POL.

It shall do well; but yet do I believe

The origin and commencement of his grief

Sprung from neglected love.

[Ophelia comes forward.]

 

How now, Ophelia?

You need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said,

We heard it all. My lord, do as you please,

But if you hold it fit, after the play

Let his queen-mother all alone entreat him

To show his grief. Let her be round with him,

And I'll be plac'd (so please you) in the ear

Of all their conference. If she find him not,

To England send him, or confine him where

Your wisdom best shall think.

KING.

It shall be so.

Madness in great ones must not [unwatch'd] go.

 

Exeunt.

 

 

[Scene II]

Enter Hamlet and three of the Players.

 

HAM. Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounc'd it to you, trippingly on the tongue, but if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as live 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 totters, to very rags, to spleet 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 whipt for o'erdoing Termagant, it out-Herods Herod, pray you avoid it.

[1.] PLAY.