– Do not look upon me,

Lest with this piteous action you convert

My stern effects, then what I have to do

Will want true color – tears perchance for blood.

QUEEN.

To whom do you speak this?

HAM.

Do you see nothing there?

QUEEN.

Nothing at all, yet all that is I see.

HAM.

Nor did you nothing hear?

QUEEN.

No, nothing but ourselves.

HAM.

Why, look you there, look how it steals away!

My father, in his habit as he lived!

Look where he goes, even now, out at the portal!

 

Exit Ghost.

 

QUEEN.

This is the very coinage of your brain,

This bodiless creation ecstasy

Is very cunning in.

HAM.

[Ecstasy?]

My pulse as yours doth temperately keep time,

And makes as healthful music. It is not madness

That I have utt'red. Bring me to the test,

And [I] the matter will reword, which madness

Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,

Lay 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. Forgive me this my virtue,

For in the fatness of these pursy times

Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg,

Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good.

QUEEN.

O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.

HAM.

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.

That monster custom, who all sense doth eat,

Of habits devil, is angel yet in this,

That to the use of actions fair and good

He likewise gives a frock or livery

That aptly is put on. Refrain [to-]night,

And that shall lend a kind of easiness

To the next abstinence, the next more easy;

For use almost can change the stamp of nature,

And either [....] the devil or throw him out

With wondrous potency. Once more good night,

And when you are desirous to be blest,

I'll blessing beg of you. For this same lord,

 

[Pointing to Polonius.]

 

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.

I will bestow him, and will answer well

The death I gave him. So again good night.

I must be cruel only to be kind.

This bad begins and worse remains behind.

One word more, good lady.

QUEEN.

What shall I do?

HAM.

Not this, by no means, that I bid you do:

Let the bloat king tempt you again to bed,

Pinch wanton on your cheek, call you his mouse,

And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses,

Or paddling in your neck with his damn'd fingers,

Make you to ravel all this matter out,

That I essentially am not in madness,

But mad in craft. 'Twere good you let him know,

For who that's but a queen, fair, sober, wise,

Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib,

Such dear concernings hide? Who would do so?

No, in despite of sense and secrecy,

Unpeg the basket on the house's top,

Let the birds fly, and like the famous ape,

To try conclusions in the basket creep,

And break your own neck down.

QUEEN.

Be thou assur'd, if words be made of breath,

And breath of life, I have no life to breathe

What thou hast said to me.

HAM.

I must to England, you know that?

QUEEN.

Alack,

I had forgot. 'Tis so concluded on.

HAM.

There's letters seal'd, and my two schoolfellows,

Whom I will trust as I will adders fang'd,

They bear the mandate, they must sweep my way

And marshal me to knavery. Let it work,

For 'tis the sport to have the enginer

Hoist with his own petar, an't shall go hard

But I will delve one yard below their mines,

And blow them at the moon. O, 'tis most sweet

When in one line two crafts directly meet.

This man shall set me packing;

I'll lug the guts into the neighbor room.

Mother, good night indeed. This counsellor

Is now most still, most secret, and most grave,

Who was in life a foolish prating knave.

Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you.

Good night, mother.

 

Exeunt [severally, Hamlet tugging in Polonius].

 

 

Act IV,

[Scene I]

Enter King and Queen with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

 

KING.

There's matter in these sighs, these profound heaves –

You must translate, 'tis fit we understand them.

Where is your son?

QUEEN.

Bestow this place on us a little while.

 

[Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.]

 

Ah, mine own lord, what have I seen to-night!

KING.

What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?

QUEEN.

Mad as the sea and wind when both contend

Which is the mightier. In his lawless fit,

Behind the arras hearing something stir,

Whips out his rapier, cries, »A rat, a rat!«

And in this brainish apprehension kills

The unseen good old man.

KING.

O heavy deed!

It had been so with us had we been there.

His liberty is full of threats to all,

To you yourself, to us, to every one.

Alas, how shall this bloody deed be answer'd?

It will be laid to us, whose providence

Should have kept short, restrain'd, and out of haunt

This mad young man; but so much was our love,

We would not understand what was most fit,

But like the owner of a foul disease,

To keep it from divulging, let it feed

Even on the pith of life. Where is he gone?

QUEEN.

To draw apart the body he hath kill'd,

O'er whom his very madness, like some ore

Among a mineral of metals base,

Shows itself pure: 'a weeps for what is done.

KING.

O Gertrude, come away!

The sun no sooner shall the mountains touch,

But we will ship him hence, and this vile deed

We must with all our majesty and skill

Both countenance and excuse. Ho, Guildenstern!

 

Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

 

Friends both, go join you with some further aid:

Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain,

And from his mother's closet hath he dragg'd him.

Go seek him out, speak fair, and bring the body

Into the chapel. I pray you haste in this.

 

[Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.]

 

Come, Gertrude, we'll call up our wisest friends

And let them know both what we mean to do

And what's untimely done, [....]

Whose whisper o'er the world's diameter,

As level as the cannon to his blank,

Transports his pois'ned shot, may miss our name,

And hit the woundless air. O, come away!

My soul is full of discord and dismay.

 

Exeunt.

 

 

[Scene II]

Enter Hamlet.

 

HAM. Safely stow'd.

[GENTLEMEN (Within.) Hamlet! Lord Hamlet!]

[HAM.] But soft, what noise? Who calls on Hamlet? O, here they come.

 

Enter Rosencrantz and [Guildenstern].

 

ROS.

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

HAM.

[Compounded] it with dust, whereto 'tis kin.

ROS.

Tell us where 'tis, that we may take it thence,

And bear it to the chapel.

HAM. Do not believe it.

ROS. Believe what?

HAM. That I can keep your counsel and not mine own. Besides, to be demanded of a spunge, what replication should be made by the son of a king?

ROS. Take you me for a spunge, my lord?

HAM. Ay, sir, that soaks up the King's countenance, his rewards, his authorities.