The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark Read Online

ROS.

We will haste us.

Exeunt Gentlemen [Rosencrantz and Guildenstern].

Enter Polonius.

POL.

My lord, he's going to his mother's closet.

Behind the arras I'll convey 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.

KING.

Thanks, dear my lord.

Exit [Polonius].

O, my offense is rank, it smells to heaven,

It hath the primal eldest curse upon't,

A brother's murther. Pray can I not,

Though inclination be as sharp as will.

My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent,

And, like a man to double business bound,

I stand in pause where I shall first begin,

And both neglect. What if this cursed hand

Were thicker than itself with brother's blood,

Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens

To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy

But to confront the visage of offense?

And what's in prayer but this twofold force,

To be forestalled ere we come to fall,

Or [pardon'd] being down? then I'll look up.

My fault is past, but, O, what form of prayer

Can serve my turn? »Forgive me my foul murther«?

That cannot be, since I am still possess'd

Of those effects for which I did the murther:

My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.

May one be pardon'd and retain th' offense?

In the corrupted currents of this world

Offense's gilded hand may [shove] by justice,

And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself

Buys out the law, but 'tis not so above:

There is no shuffling, there the action lies

In his true nature, and we ourselves compell'd,

Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,

To give in evidence. What then? What rests?

Try what repentance can. What can it not?

Yet what can it, when one can not repent?

O wretched state! O bosom black as death!

O limed soul, that struggling to be free

Art more engag'd! 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.

[He kneels.]

Enter Hamlet.

HAM.

Now might I do it [pat], now 'a is a-praying;

And now I'll do't – and so 'a goes to heaven,

And so am I [reveng'd]. That would be scann'd:

A villain kills my father, and for that

I, his sole son, do this same villain send

To heaven.

Why, this is [hire and salary], not revenge.

'A took my father grossly, full of bread,

With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May,

And how his audit stands who knows save heaven?

But in our circumstance and course of thought

'Tis heavy with him. And am I then revenged,

To take him in the purging of his soul,

When he is fit and season'd for his passage?

No!

Up, sword, and know thou a more horrid hent:

When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage,

Or in th' incestious pleasure of his bed,

At game a-swearing, or about some act

That has no relish of salvation in't –

Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven,

And that his soul may be as damn'd and black

As hell, whereto it goes. My mother stays,

This physic but prolongs thy sickly days.

Exit.

KING [Rising.]

My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:

Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

Exit.

[Scene IV]

Enter [Queen] Gertrude and Polonius.

POL.

'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 screen'd and stood between

Much heat and him. I'll silence me even here;

Pray you be round [with him].

QUEEN.

I'll [warr'nt] you, fear me not. Withdraw,

I hear him coming.

[Polonius hides behind the arras.]

Enter Hamlet.

HAM.

Now, mother, what's the matter?

QUEEN.

Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.

HAM.

Mother, you have my father much offended.

QUEEN.

Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.

HAM.

Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.

QUEEN.

Why, how now, Hamlet?

HAM.

What's the matter now?

QUEEN.

Have you forgot me?

HAM.

No, by the rood, not so:

You are the Queen, your husband's brother's wife,

And would it were not so, you are my mother.

QUEEN.

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

HAM.

Come, come, and sit you down, you shall not boudge;

You go not till I set you up a glass

Where you may see the [inmost] part of you.

QUEEN.

What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murther me?

Help ho!

POL [Behind.]

What ho, help!

HAM [Drawing.]

How now? A rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead!

[Kills Polonius through the arras.]

POL [Behind.]

O, I am slain.

QUEEN.

O me, what hast thou done?

HAM.

Nay, I know not, is it the King?

QUEEN.

O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!

HAM.

A bloody deed! almost as bad, good mother,

As kill a king, and marry with his brother.

QUEEN.

As kill a king!

HAM.

Ay, lady, it was my word.

[Parts the arras and discovers Polonius.]

Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!

I took thee for thy better. Take thy fortune;

Thou find'st to be too busy is some danger. –

Leave wringing of your hands. Peace, sit you down,

And let me wring your heart, for so I shall

If it be made of penetrable stuff,

If damned custom have not brass'd it so

That it be proof and bulwark against sense.

QUEEN.

What have I done, that thou dar'st wag thy tongue

In noise so rude against me?

HAM.

Such an act

That blurs the grace and blush of modesty,

Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose

From the fair forehead of an innocent love

And sets a blister there, makes marriage vows

As false as dicers' oaths, O, such a deed

As from the body of contraction plucks

The very soul, and sweet religion makes

A rhapsody of words. Heaven's face does glow

O'er this solidity and compound mass

With heated visage, as against the doom;

Is thought-sick at the act.

QUEEN.

Ay me, what act,

That roars so loud and thunders in the index?

HAM.

Look here upon this picture, and on this,

The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.

See what a grace was seated on this brow:

Hyperion's curls, the front of Jove himself,

An eye like Mars, to threaten and command,

A station like the herald Mercury

New lighted on a [heaven-]kissing hill,

A combination and a form indeed,

Where every god did seem to set his seal

To give the world assurance of a man.

This was your husband. Look you now what follows:

Here is your husband, like a mildewed ear,

Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes?

Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,

And batten on this moor? ha, have you eyes?

You cannot call it love, for at your age

The heyday in the blood is tame, it's humble,

And waits upon the judgment, and what judgment

Would step from this to this? Sense sure you have,

Else could you not have motion, but sure that sense

Is apoplex'd, for madness would not err,

Nor sense to ecstasy was ne'er so thrall'd

But it reserv'd some quantity of choice

To serve in such a difference. What devil was't

That thus hath cozen'd you at hoodman-blind?

Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight,

Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all,

Or but a sickly part of one true sense

Could not so mope. O shame, where is thy blush?

Rebellious hell,

If thou canst mutine in a matron's bones,

To flaming youth let virtue be as wax

And melt in her own fire. Proclaim no shame

When the compulsive ardure gives the charge,

Since frost itself as actively doth burn,

And reason [panders] will.

QUEEN.

O Hamlet, speak no more!

Thou turn'st my [eyes into my very] soul,

And there I see such black and [grained] spots

As will [not] leave their tinct.

HAM.

Nay, but to live

In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed,

Stew'd in corruption, honeying and making love

Over the nasty sty!

QUEEN.

O, speak to me no more!

These words like daggers enter in my ears.

No more, sweet Hamlet!

HAM.

A murtherer and a villain!

A slave that is not twentith part the [tithe]

Of your precedent lord, a Vice of kings,

A cutpurse of the empire and the rule,

That from a shelf the precious diadem stole,

And put it in his pocket –

QUEEN.

No more!

Enter Ghost [in his night-gown].

HAM.

A king of shreds and patches –

Save me, and hover o'er me with your wings,

You heavenly guards! What would your gracious figure?

QUEEN.

Alas, he's mad!

HAM.

Do you not come your tardy son to chide,

That, laps'd in time and passion, lets go by

Th' important acting of your dread command?

O, say!

GHOST.

Do not forget! This visitation

Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.

But look, amazement on thy mother sits,

O, step between her and her fighting soul.

Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works,

Speak to her, Hamlet.

HAM.

How is it with you, lady?

QUEEN.

Alas, how is't with you,

That you do bend your eye on vacancy,

And with th' incorporal air do hold discourse?

Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep,

And as the sleeping soldiers in th' alarm,

Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,

Start up and stand an end. O gentle son,

Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper

Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look?

HAM.

On him, on him! look you how pale he glares!

His form and cause conjoin'd, preaching to stones,

Would make them capable.