Part 13

GHOST. Murder most foul, as in the best it is; But this most foul, strange, and unnatural.

HAMLET. Haste me to know’t, that I, with wings as swift As meditation or the thoughts of love May sweep to my revenge.

GHOST. I find thee apt; And duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed That rots itself in ease on Lethe wharf, Wouldst thou not stir in this. Now, Hamlet, hear. ’Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard, A serpent stung me; so the whole ear of Denmark Is by a forged process of my death Rankly abus’d; but know, thou noble youth, The serpent that did sting thy father’s life Now wears his crown.

HAMLET. O my prophetic soul! Mine uncle!

GHOST. 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. O Hamlet, what a falling off was there, From me, whose love was of that dignity That it went hand in hand even with the vow I made to her in marriage; and to decline Upon a wretch whose natural gifts were poor To those of mine. But virtue, as it never will be mov’d, Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven; So lust, though to a radiant angel link’d, Will sate itself in a celestial bed And prey on garbage. But soft! methinks I scent the morning air; 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 hebenon in a vial, And in the porches of my ears did pour The leperous distilment, whose effect Holds such an enmity with blood of man That swift as quicksilver it courses through The natural gates and alleys of the body; And with a sudden vigour it doth posset And curd, like eager droppings into milk, The thin and wholesome blood. So did it mine; And a most instant tetter bark’d about, Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust All my smooth body. Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother’s hand, Of life, of crown, of queen at once dispatch’d: Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin, Unhous’led, disappointed, unanel’d; No reckoning made, but sent to my account With all my imperfections on my head. O horrible! O horrible! most horrible! If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not; Let not the royal bed of Denmark be A couch for luxury and damned incest. But howsoever thou pursu’st this act, Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive Against thy mother aught; leave her to heaven, And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge, To prick and sting her. Fare thee well at once! The glow-worm shows the matin to be near, And ’gins to pale his uneffectual fire. Adieu, adieu, adieu. Remember me.

[_Exit._]

HAMLET. O all you host of heaven! O earth! What else? And shall I couple hell? O, fie! Hold, my heart; And you, my sinews, grow not instant old, But bear me stiffly up. Remember thee? Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat In this distracted globe. Remember thee? Yea, from the table of my memory I’ll wipe away all trivial fond records, 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, Unmix’d with baser matter. Yes, by heaven! O most pernicious woman! O villain, villain, smiling damned villain! My tables. Meet it is 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.

[_Writing._]

So, uncle, there you are. Now to my word; It is ‘Adieu, adieu, remember me.’ I have sworn’t.

HORATIO and MARCELLUS. [_Within._] My lord, my lord.

MARCELLUS. [_Within._] Lord Hamlet.

HORATIO. [_Within._] Heaven secure him.

HAMLET. So be it!

MARCELLUS. [_Within._] Illo, ho, ho, my lord!

HAMLET. Hillo, ho, ho, boy! Come, bird, come.

Enter Horatio and Marcellus.

MARCELLUS. How is’t, my noble lord?

HORATIO. What news, my lord?

HAMLET. O, wonderful!

HORATIO. Good my lord, tell it.

HAMLET. No, you’ll reveal it.

HORATIO. Not I, my lord, by heaven.

MARCELLUS. Nor I, my lord.

HAMLET. How say you then, would heart of man once think it?— But you’ll be secret?

HORATIO and MARCELLUS. Ay, by heaven, my lord.

HAMLET. There’s ne’er a villain dwelling in all Denmark But he’s an arrant knave.

HORATIO. There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave To tell us this.

HAMLET. Why, right; you are i’ 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, Look you, I’ll go pray.

HORATIO. These are but wild and whirling words, my lord.

HAMLET. I’m sorry they offend you, heartily; Yes faith, heartily.

HORATIO. There’s no offence, my lord.

HAMLET. 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. And now, good friends, As you are friends, scholars, and soldiers, Give me one poor request.

HORATIO. What is’t, my lord? We will.

HAMLET. Never make known what you have seen tonight.

HORATIO and MARCELLUS. My lord, we will not.

HAMLET. Nay, but swear’t.

HORATIO. In faith, my lord, not I.

MARCELLUS. Nor I, my lord, in faith.

HAMLET. Upon my sword.

MARCELLUS. We have sworn, my lord, already.

HAMLET. Indeed, upon my sword, indeed.

GHOST. [_Cries under the stage._] Swear.

HAMLET. Ha, ha boy, sayst thou so? Art thou there, truepenny? Come on, you hear this fellow in the cellarage. Consent to swear.

HORATIO. Propose the oath, my lord.

HAMLET. Never to speak of this that you have seen. Swear by my sword.

GHOST. [_Beneath._] Swear.

HAMLET. _Hic et ubique?_ Then we’ll shift our ground. Come hither, gentlemen, And lay your hands again upon my sword. Never to speak of this that you have heard. Swear by my sword.

GHOST. [_Beneath._] Swear.

HAMLET. Well said, old mole! Canst work i’ th’earth so fast? A worthy pioner! Once more remove, good friends.

HORATIO. O day and night, but this is wondrous strange.

HAMLET. And therefore as a stranger give it welcome. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. But come, Here, as before, never, so help you mercy, How strange or odd soe’er I bear myself,— As I perchance hereafter shall think meet To put an antic disposition on— That you, at such times seeing me, never shall, With arms encumber’d thus, or this head-shake, Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase, As ‘Well, we know’, or ‘We could and if we would’, Or ‘If we list to speak’; or ‘There be and if they might’, Or such ambiguous giving out, to note That you know aught of me:—this not to do. So grace and mercy at your most need help you, Swear.

GHOST. [_Beneath._] Swear.

HAMLET. 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. Let us go in together, And still your fingers on your lips, I pray. The time is out of joint. O cursed spite, That ever I was born to set it right. Nay, come, let’s go together.

[_Exeunt._]

ACT II

SCENE I. A room in Polonius’s house.

Enter Polonius and Reynaldo.

POLONIUS. Give him this money and these notes, Reynaldo.

REYNALDO. I will, my lord.

POLONIUS. You shall do marvellous wisely, good Reynaldo, Before you visit him, to make inquiry Of his behaviour.

REYNALDO. My lord, I did intend it.

POLONIUS. Marry, well said; very well said. Look you, sir, Enquire me first what Danskers are in Paris; And how, and who, what means, and where they keep, What company, at what expense; and finding By this encompassment and drift of question, That they do know my son, come you more nearer Than your particular demands will touch it. Take you as ’twere some distant knowledge of him, As thus, ‘I know his father and his friends, And in part him’—do you mark this, Reynaldo?

REYNALDO. Ay, very well, my lord.

POLONIUS. ‘And in part him, but,’ you may say, ‘not well; But if’t be he I mean, he’s very wild; Addicted so and so;’ and there put on him What forgeries you please; marry, none so rank As may dishonour him; take heed of that; But, sir, such wanton, wild, and usual slips As are companions noted and most known To youth and liberty.

REYNALDO. As gaming, my lord?

POLONIUS. Ay, or drinking, fencing, swearing, Quarrelling, drabbing. You may go so far.

REYNALDO. My lord, that would dishonour him.

POLONIUS. Faith no, as you may season it in the charge. You must not put another scandal on him, That he is open to incontinency; That’s not my meaning: but breathe his faults so quaintly That they may seem the taints of liberty; The flash and outbreak of a fiery mind, A savageness in unreclaimed blood, Of general assault.

REYNALDO. But my good lord—

POLONIUS. Wherefore should you do this?

REYNALDO. Ay, my lord, I would know that.

POLONIUS. Marry, sir, here’s my drift, And I believe it is a fetch of warrant. You laying these slight sullies on my son, As ’twere a thing a little soil’d i’ th’ working, Mark you, Your party in converse, him you would sound, Having ever seen in the prenominate crimes The youth you breathe of guilty, be assur’d He closes with you in this consequence; ‘Good sir,’ or so; or ‘friend,’ or ‘gentleman’— According to the phrase or the addition Of man and country.

REYNALDO. Very good, my lord.

POLONIUS. And then, sir, does he this,— He does—What was I about to say? By the mass, I was about to say something. Where did I leave?

REYNALDO. At ‘closes in the consequence.’ At ‘friend or so,’ and ‘gentleman.’

POLONIUS. At ‘closes in the consequence’ ay, marry! He closes with you thus: ‘I 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 he gaming, there o’ertook in’s rouse, There falling out at tennis’: or perchance, ‘I saw him enter such a house of sale’— _Videlicet_, a brothel, or so forth. See you now; Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth; And thus do we of wisdom and of reach, With windlasses, and with assays of bias, By indirections find directions out. So by my former lecture and advice Shall you my son. You have me, have you not?

REYNALDO. My lord, I have.

POLONIUS. God b’ wi’ you, fare you well.

REYNALDO. Good my lord.

POLONIUS. Observe his inclination in yourself.

REYNALDO. I shall, my lord.

POLONIUS. And let him ply his music.

REYNALDO. Well, my lord.

POLONIUS. Farewell.

[_Exit Reynaldo._]

Enter Ophelia.

How now, Ophelia, what’s the matter?

OPHELIA. Alas, my lord, I have been so affrighted.

POLONIUS. With what, in the name of God?

OPHELIA. My lord, as I was sewing in my chamber, Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbrac’d, No hat upon his head, his stockings foul’d, Ungart’red, and down-gyved to his ankle, Pale as his shirt, his knees knocking each other, And with a look so piteous in purport As if he had been loosed out of hell To speak of horrors, he comes before me.

POLONIUS. Mad for thy love?

OPHELIA. My lord, I do not know, but truly I do fear it.

POLONIUS. What said he?

OPHELIA. He took me by the wrist and held me hard; Then goes he to the length of all his arm; And with his other hand thus o’er his brow, He falls to such perusal of my face As he would draw it. Long stay’d he so, At last,—a little shaking of mine arm, And thrice his head thus waving up and down, He rais’d a sigh so piteous and profound As it did seem to shatter all his bulk And end his being. That done, he lets me go, And with his head over his shoulder turn’d He seem’d to find his way without his eyes, For out o’ doors he went without their help, And to the last bended their light on me.

POLONIUS. Come, go with me. I will go seek the King. This is the very ecstasy of love, Whose violent property fordoes itself, And leads the will to desperate undertakings, As oft as any passion under heaven That does afflict our natures. I am sorry,— What, have you given him any hard words of late?

OPHELIA. No, my good lord; but as you did command, I did repel his letters and denied His access to me.

POLONIUS. That hath made him mad. I am sorry that with better heed and judgement I had not quoted him. I fear’d he did but trifle, And meant to wreck thee. But beshrew my jealousy! It seems it is as proper to our age To cast beyond ourselves in our opinions As it is common for the younger sort To lack discretion. Come, go we to the King. This must be known, which, being kept close, might move More grief to hide than hate to utter love.

[_Exeunt._]

SCENE II. A room in the Castle.

Enter King, Queen, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and Attendants.

KING. Welcome, dear Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Moreover that we much did long to see you, The need we have to use you did provoke Our hasty sending. Something have you heard Of Hamlet’s transformation; so I call it, Since nor th’exterior nor the inward man Resembles that it was. What it should be, More than his father’s death, that thus hath put him So much from th’understanding of himself, I cannot dream of. I entreat you both That, being of so young days brought up with him, And since so neighbour’d to his youth and humour, 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.

QUEEN. Good gentlemen, he hath much talk’d of you, And sure I am, two men there are not living To whom he more adheres. If it will please you To show us so much gentry and good will As to expend your time with us awhile, For the supply and profit of our hope, Your visitation shall receive such thanks As fits a king’s remembrance.

ROSENCRANTZ. Both your majesties Might, by the sovereign power you have of us, Put your dread pleasures more into command Than to entreaty.

GUILDENSTERN. We both obey, And here give up ourselves, in the full bent, To lay our service freely at your feet To be commanded.

KING. Thanks, Rosencrantz and gentle Guildenstern.

QUEEN. 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.

GUILDENSTERN. Heavens make our presence and our practices Pleasant and helpful to him.

QUEEN. Ay, amen.

[_Exeunt Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and some Attendants._]

Enter Polonius.

POLONIUS. Th’ambassadors from Norway, my good lord, Are joyfully return’d.

KING. Thou still hast been the father of good news.

POLONIUS. Have I, my lord? Assure you, my good liege, I hold my duty, as I hold my soul, Both to my God and to my gracious King: And I do think,—or else this brain of mine Hunts not the trail of policy so sure As it hath us’d to do—that I have found The very cause of Hamlet’s lunacy.

KING. O speak of that, that do I long to hear.

POLONIUS. Give first admittance to th’ambassadors; My news shall be the fruit to that great feast.

KING. Thyself do grace to them, and bring them in.

[_Exit Polonius._]

He tells me, my sweet queen, that he hath found The head and source of all your son’s distemper.

QUEEN. I doubt it is no other but the main, His father’s death and our o’erhasty marriage.

KING. Well, we shall sift him.

Enter Polonius with Voltemand and Cornelius.

Welcome, my good friends! Say, Voltemand, what from our brother Norway?

VOLTEMAND. Most fair return of greetings and desires. Upon our first, he sent out to suppress His nephew’s levies, which to him appear’d To be a preparation ’gainst the Polack; But better look’d into, he truly found It was against your Highness; whereat griev’d, That so his sickness, age, and impotence Was falsely borne in hand, sends out arrests On Fortinbras; which he, in brief, obeys, Receives rebuke from Norway; and in fine, Makes vow before his uncle never more To give th’assay of arms against your Majesty. Whereon old Norway, overcome with joy, Gives him three thousand crowns in annual fee, And his commission to employ those soldiers So levied as before, against the Polack: With an entreaty, herein further shown, [_Gives a paper._] That it might please you to give quiet pass Through your dominions for this enterprise, On such regards of safety and allowance As therein are set down.

KING. It likes us well; And at our more consider’d time we’ll read, Answer, and think upon this business. Meantime we thank you for your well-took labour. Go to your rest, at night we’ll feast together:. Most welcome home.

[_Exeunt Voltemand and Cornelius._]

POLONIUS. This business is well ended. My liege and madam, to expostulate What majesty should be, what duty is, Why day is day, night night, and time is time Were nothing but to waste night, day and time. Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit, And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief. Your noble son is mad. Mad call I it; for to define true madness, What is’t but to be nothing else but mad? But let that go.

QUEEN. More matter, with less art.

POLONIUS. 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, But farewell it, for I will use no art. Mad let us grant him then. And now remains That we find out the cause of this effect, Or rather say, the cause of this defect, For this effect defective comes by cause. Thus it remains, and the remainder thus. Perpend, I have a daughter—have whilst she is mine— Who in her duty and obedience, mark, Hath given me this. Now gather, and surmise. [_Reads._] _To the celestial, and my soul’s idol, the most beautified Ophelia_— That’s an ill phrase, a vile phrase; ‘beautified’ is a vile phrase: but you shall hear. [_Reads._] _these; in her excellent white bosom, these, &c._

QUEEN. Came this from Hamlet to her?

POLONIUS. Good madam, stay awhile; I will be faithful. [_Reads._] _Doubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt that the sun doth move, Doubt truth to be a liar, But never doubt I love. O dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers. I have not art to reckon my groans. But that I love thee best, O most best, believe it. Adieu. Thine evermore, most dear lady, whilst this machine is to him, HAMLET._ This in obedience hath my daughter show’d me; And more above, hath his solicitings, As they fell out by time, by means, and place, All given to mine ear.

KING. But how hath she receiv’d his love?

POLONIUS. What do you think of me?

KING. As of a man faithful and honourable.

POLONIUS. I would fain prove so. But what might you think, When I had seen this hot love on the wing, As I perceiv’d it, I must tell you that, Before my daughter told me, what might you, Or my dear Majesty your queen here, think, If I had play’d the desk or table-book, Or given my heart a winking, mute and dumb, Or look’d upon this love with idle sight, What might you think? No, I went round to work, And my young mistress thus I did bespeak: ‘Lord Hamlet is a prince, out of thy star. This must not be.’ And then I precepts gave her, That she should lock herself from his resort, Admit no messengers, receive no tokens. Which done, she took the fruits of my advice, And he, repulsed,—a short tale to make— Fell into a sadness, then into a fast, Thence to a watch, thence into a weakness, Thence to a lightness, and, by this declension, Into the madness wherein now he raves, And all we wail for.

KING. Do you think ’tis this?

QUEEN. It may be, very likely.

POLONIUS. Hath there been such a time, I’d fain know that, That I have positively said ‘’Tis so,’ When it prov’d otherwise?

KING. Not that I know.

POLONIUS. Take this from this, if this be otherwise. [_Points to his head and shoulder._] If circumstances lead me, I will find Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed Within the centre.

KING. How may we try it further?

POLONIUS. You know sometimes he walks four hours together Here in the lobby.

QUEEN. So he does indeed.

POLONIUS. At such a time I’ll loose my daughter to him. Be you and I behind an arras then, Mark the encounter. If he love her not, And be not from his reason fall’n thereon, Let me be no assistant for a state, But keep a farm and carters.

KING. We will try it.

Enter Hamlet, reading.

QUEEN. But look where sadly the poor wretch comes reading.

POLONIUS. Away, I do beseech you, both away I’ll board him presently. O, give me leave.

[_Exeunt King, Queen and Attendants._]

How does my good Lord Hamlet?

HAMLET. Well, God-a-mercy.

POLONIUS. Do you know me, my lord?

HAMLET. Excellent well. You are a fishmonger.

POLONIUS. Not I, my lord.

HAMLET. Then I would you were so honest a man.

POLONIUS. Honest, my lord?

HAMLET. Ay sir, to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.

POLONIUS. That’s very true, my lord.

HAMLET. For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a good kissing carrion,— Have you a daughter?

POLONIUS. I have, my lord.

HAMLET. Let her not walk i’ th’ sun. Conception is a blessing, but not as your daughter may conceive. Friend, look to’t.

POLONIUS. How say you by that? [_Aside._] Still harping on my daughter. Yet he knew me not at first; he said I was a fishmonger. He is far gone, far gone. And truly in my youth I suffered much extremity for love; very near this. I’ll speak to him again.—What do you read, my lord?

HAMLET. Words, words, words.

POLONIUS. What is the matter, my lord?

HAMLET. Between who?

POLONIUS. I mean the matter that you read, my lord.

HAMLET. Slanders, sir. For the satirical slave says here that old men have grey beards; that their faces are wrinkled; their eyes purging thick amber and plum-tree gum; and 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, should be old as I am, if like a crab you could go backward.

POLONIUS. [_Aside._] Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.— Will you walk out of the air, my lord?

HAMLET. Into my grave?

POLONIUS. Indeed, that is out o’ the air. [_Aside._] How pregnant sometimes his replies are! A happiness that often madness hits on, which reason and sanity could not so prosperously be delivered of. I will leave him and suddenly contrive the means of meeting between him and my daughter. My honourable lord, I will most humbly take my leave of you.

HAMLET. You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I will more willingly part withal, except my life, except my life, except my life.

POLONIUS. Fare you well, my lord.

HAMLET. These tedious old fools.

Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

POLONIUS. You go to seek the Lord Hamlet; there he is.

ROSENCRANTZ. [_To Polonius._] God save you, sir.

[_Exit Polonius._]

GUILDENSTERN. My honoured lord!

ROSENCRANTZ. My most dear lord!

HAMLET. My excellent good friends! How dost thou, Guildenstern? Ah, Rosencrantz. Good lads, how do ye both?

ROSENCRANTZ. As the indifferent children of the earth.

GUILDENSTERN. Happy in that we are not over-happy; On Fortune’s cap we are not the very button.

HAMLET. Nor the soles of her shoe?

ROSENCRANTZ. Neither, my lord.

HAMLET. Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of her favours?

GUILDENSTERN. Faith, her privates we.

HAMLET. In the secret parts of Fortune? O, most true; she is a strumpet. What’s the news?

ROSENCRANTZ. None, my lord, but that the world’s grown honest.

HAMLET. Then is doomsday near. But your news is not true. Let me question more in particular. What have you, my good friends, deserved at the hands of Fortune, that she sends you to prison hither?

GUILDENSTERN. Prison, my lord?

HAMLET. Denmark’s a prison.

ROSENCRANTZ. Then is the world one.

HAMLET. A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons, Denmark being one o’ th’ worst.

ROSENCRANTZ. We think not so, my lord.

HAMLET. Why, then ’tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so. To me it is a prison.

ROSENCRANTZ. Why, then your ambition makes it one; ’tis too narrow for your mind.

HAMLET. 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.

GUILDENSTERN. Which dreams, indeed, are ambition; for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.

HAMLET. A dream itself is but a shadow.

ROSENCRANTZ. Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality that it is but a shadow’s shadow.

HAMLET. Then are our beggars bodies, and our monarchs and outstretch’d heroes the beggars’ shadows. Shall we to th’ court? For, by my fay, I cannot reason.

ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. We’ll wait upon you.

HAMLET. No such matter. I will not sort you with the rest of my servants; for, to speak to you like an honest man, I am most dreadfully attended. But, in the beaten way of friendship, what make you at Elsinore?

ROSENCRANTZ. To visit you, my lord, no other occasion.

HAMLET. 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? Is it your own inclining? Is it a free visitation? Come, deal justly with me. Come, come; nay, speak.

GUILDENSTERN. What should we say, my lord?

HAMLET. Why, anything. But to the purpose. You were sent for; and there is a kind of confession in your looks, which your modesties have not craft enough to colour. I know the good King and Queen have sent for you.

ROSENCRANTZ. To what end, my lord?

HAMLET. That you must teach me. But let me conjure you, by the rights of our fellowship, by the consonancy of our youth, by the obligation of our ever-preserved love, and by what more dear a better proposer could charge you withal, be even and direct with me, whether you were sent for or no.

ROSENCRANTZ. [_To Guildenstern._] What say you?

HAMLET. [_Aside._] Nay, then I have an eye of you. If you love me, hold not off.

GUILDENSTERN. My lord, we were sent for.

HAMLET. I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation prevent your discovery, and your secrecy to the King and Queen moult no feather. I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth, forgone 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 appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is 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; no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.

ROSENCRANTZ. My lord, there was no such stuff in my thoughts.

HAMLET. Why did you laugh then, when I said ‘Man delights not me’?

ROSENCRANTZ. 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 are they coming to offer you service.

HAMLET. He that plays the king shall be welcome,—his Majesty shall have tribute of me; the adventurous knight shall use his foil and target; the lover shall not sigh gratis, the humorous man shall end his part in peace; the clown shall make those laugh whose lungs are tickle o’ th’ sere; and the lady shall say her mind freely, or the blank verse shall halt for’t. What players are they?

ROSENCRANTZ. Even those you were wont to take such delight in—the tragedians of the city.

HAMLET. How chances it they travel? Their residence, both in reputation and profit, was better both ways.

ROSENCRANTZ. I think their inhibition comes by the means of the late innovation.

HAMLET. Do they hold the same estimation they did when I was in the city? Are they so followed?

ROSENCRANTZ. No, indeed, they are not.

HAMLET. How comes it? Do they grow rusty?

ROSENCRANTZ. Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace; but there is, sir, an aerie of children, little eyases, that cry out on the top of question, and are most tyrannically clapped for’t. These are now the fashion, and so berattle the common stages—so they call them—that many wearing rapiers are afraid of goose-quills and dare scarce come thither.

HAMLET. What, are they children? Who maintains ’em? How are they escoted? Will they pursue the quality no longer than they can sing? Will they not say afterwards, if they should grow themselves to common players—as it is most like, if their means are no better—their writers do them wrong to make them exclaim against their own succession?

ROSENCRANTZ. Faith, there has been much to do on both sides; and the nation holds it no sin to tarre them to controversy. There was for a while, no money bid for argument unless the poet and the player went to cuffs in the question.

HAMLET. Is’t possible?

GUILDENSTERN. O, there has been much throwing about of brains.

HAMLET. Do the boys carry it away?

ROSENCRANTZ. Ay, that they do, my lord. Hercules and his load too.

HAMLET. It is not very strange; for my uncle is King of Denmark, and those that would make mouths at him while my father lived, give twenty, forty, fifty, a hundred ducats apiece for his picture in little. ’Sblood, there is something in this more than natural, if philosophy could find it out.

[_Flourish of trumpets within._]

GUILDENSTERN. There are the players.

HAMLET. Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore. Your hands, come. The appurtenance of welcome is fashion and ceremony. Let me comply with you in this garb, lest my extent to the players, which I tell you must show fairly outward, should more appear like entertainment than yours. You are welcome. But my uncle-father and aunt-mother are deceived.

GUILDENSTERN. In what, my dear lord?

HAMLET. I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw.

Enter Polonius.

POLONIUS. Well be with you, gentlemen.

HAMLET. Hark you, Guildenstern, and you too, at each ear a hearer. That great baby you see there is not yet out of his swaddling clouts.

ROSENCRANTZ. Happily he’s the second time come to them; for they say an old man is twice a child.

HAMLET. I will prophesy he comes to tell me of the players. Mark it.—You say right, sir: for a Monday morning ’twas so indeed.

POLONIUS. My lord, I have news to tell you.

HAMLET. My lord, I have news to tell you. When Roscius was an actor in Rome—

POLONIUS. The actors are come hither, my lord.

HAMLET. Buzz, buzz.

POLONIUS. Upon my honour.

HAMLET. Then came each actor on his ass—

POLONIUS. The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem unlimited. Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light, for the law of writ and the liberty. These are the only men.

HAMLET. O Jephthah, judge of Israel, what a treasure hadst thou!

POLONIUS. What treasure had he, my lord?

HAMLET. Why— ’One fair daughter, and no more, The which he loved passing well.’

POLONIUS. [_Aside._] Still on my daughter.

HAMLET. Am I not i’ th’ right, old Jephthah?

POLONIUS. If you call me Jephthah, my lord, I have a daughter that I love passing well.

HAMLET. Nay, that follows not.

POLONIUS. What follows then, my lord?

HAMLET. Why, As by lot, God wot, and then, you know, It came to pass, as most like it was. The first row of the pious chanson will show you more. For look where my abridgement comes.

Enter four or five Players.

You are welcome, masters, welcome all. I am glad to see thee well. Welcome, good friends. O, my old friend! Thy face is valanc’d since I saw thee last. Com’st thou to beard me in Denmark? What, my young lady and mistress! By’r lady, your ladyship is nearer to heaven than when I saw you last, by the altitude of a chopine. Pray God your voice, like a piece of uncurrent gold, be not cracked within the ring. Masters, you are all welcome. We’ll e’en to’t like French falconers, fly at anything we see. We’ll have a speech straight. Come, give us a taste of your quality. Come, a passionate speech.

FIRST PLAYER. What speech, my lord?

HAMLET. I heard thee speak me a speech once, but it was never acted, or if it was, not above once, for the play, I remember, pleased not the million, ’twas caviare to the general. But it was—as I received it, and others, whose judgements in such matters cried in the top of mine—an excellent play, well digested in the scenes, set down with as much modesty as cunning. I remember one said there were no sallets in the lines to make the matter savoury, nor no matter in the phrase that might indite the author of affectation, but called it an honest method, as wholesome as sweet, and by very much more handsome than fine. One speech in it, I chiefly loved. ’Twas Aeneas’ tale to Dido, and thereabout of it especially where he speaks of Priam’s slaughter. If it live in your memory, begin at this line, let me see, let me see: _The rugged Pyrrhus, like th’ Hyrcanian beast,—_ It is not so: it begins with Pyrrhus— _The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable arms, Black as his purpose, did the night resemble When he lay couched in the ominous horse, Hath now this dread and black complexion smear’d With heraldry more dismal. Head to foot Now is he total gules, horridly trick’d With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons, Bak’d and impasted with the parching streets, That lend a tyrannous and a damned light To their vile murders. Roasted in wrath and fire, And thus o’ersized with coagulate gore, With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus Old grandsire Priam seeks._ So, proceed you.

POLONIUS. ’Fore God, my lord, well spoken, with good accent and good discretion.

FIRST PLAYER. _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 Th’unnerved father falls. Then senseless Ilium, Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming top Stoops to his base, and with a hideous crash Takes prisoner Pyrrhus’ ear. For lo, his sword, Which was declining on the milky head Of reverend Priam, seem’d i’ th’air to stick. So, as a painted tyrant, Pyrrhus stood, And like a neutral to his will and matter, Did nothing. But as we often see against some storm, A silence in the heavens, the rack stand still, The bold winds speechless, and the orb below As hush as death, anon the dreadful thunder Doth rend the region; so after Pyrrhus’ pause, Aroused vengeance sets him new a-work, And never did the Cyclops’ hammers fall On Mars’s armour, forg’d for proof eterne, With less remorse than Pyrrhus’ bleeding sword Now falls on Priam. Out, out, thou strumpet Fortune! All you gods, In general synod, take away her power; Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel, And bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven, As low as to the fiends._

POLONIUS. This is too long.

HAMLET. It shall to the barber’s, with your beard.—Prithee say on. He’s for a jig or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps. Say on; come to Hecuba.

FIRST PLAYER. _But who, O who, had seen the mobled queen,—_

HAMLET. ‘The mobled queen’?

POLONIUS. That’s good! ‘Mobled queen’ is good.

FIRST PLAYER. _Run barefoot up and down, threat’ning the flames With bisson rheum. A clout upon that head Where late the diadem stood, and for a robe, About her lank and all o’erteemed loins, A blanket, in th’alarm of fear caught up— Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steep’d, ’Gainst Fortune’s state would treason have pronounc’d. But if the gods themselves did see her then, When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport In mincing with his sword her husband’s limbs, The instant burst of clamour that she made,— Unless things mortal move them not at all,— Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven, And passion in the gods._

POLONIUS. Look, where he has not turn’d his colour, and has tears in’s eyes. Pray you, no more.

HAMLET. ’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 abstracts and brief chronicles of the time. After your death you were better have a bad epitaph than their ill report while you live.

POLONIUS. My lord, I will use them according to their desert.

HAMLET. God’s bodikin, man, much better. Use every man after his desert, and who should ’scape whipping? Use them after your own honour and dignity. The less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty. Take them in.

POLONIUS. Come, sirs.

HAMLET. Follow him, friends. We’ll hear a play tomorrow.

[_Exeunt Polonius with all the Players but the First._]

Dost thou hear me, old friend? Can you play _The Murder of Gonzago_?

FIRST PLAYER. Ay, my lord.

HAMLET. We’ll ha’t tomorrow night. You could for a need study a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines, which I would set down and insert in’t, could you not?

FIRST PLAYER. Ay, my lord.

HAMLET. Very well. Follow that lord, and look you mock him not.

[_Exit First Player._]

[_To Rosencrantz and Guildenstern_] My good friends, I’ll leave you till night. You are welcome to Elsinore.

ROSENCRANTZ. Good my lord.

[_Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern._]

HAMLET. Ay, so, God b’ wi’ ye. Now I am alone. O what a rogue and peasant slave am I! 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 her working all his visage wan’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 ear 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 I, A dull and muddy-mettled 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, breaks my pate across? Plucks off my beard and blows it in my face? Tweaks me by the nose, 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 But I am pigeon-liver’d, and lack gall To make oppression bitter, or ere this I should have fatted all the region kites With this slave’s offal. Bloody, bawdy villain! Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain! Oh vengeance! Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave, That I, 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 brain! 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 proclaim’d their malefactions. For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak With most miraculous organ. I’ll have these players Play something like the murder of my father Before mine uncle. I’ll observe his looks; I’ll tent him to the quick. If he but blench, I know my course. The spirit that I have seen May be the devil, and the devil hath power T’assume a pleasing shape, yea, and perhaps Out of my weakness and my melancholy, As he is very potent with such spirits, Abuses me to damn me. I’ll have grounds More relative than this. The play’s the thing Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.

[_Exit._]

ACT III

SCENE I. A room in the Castle.

Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

KING. And can you by no drift of circumstance Get from him why he puts on this confusion, Grating so harshly all his days of quiet With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?

ROSENCRANTZ. He does confess he feels himself distracted, But from what cause he will by no means speak.

GUILDENSTERN. Nor do we find him forward to be sounded, But with a crafty madness keeps aloof When we would bring him on to some confession Of his true state.

QUEEN. Did he receive you well?

ROSENCRANTZ. Most like a gentleman.

GUILDENSTERN. But with much forcing of his disposition.

ROSENCRANTZ. Niggard of question, but of our demands, Most free in his reply.

QUEEN. Did you assay him to any pastime?

ROSENCRANTZ. Madam, it so fell out that certain players We o’er-raught on the way. Of these we told him, And there did seem in him a kind of joy To hear of it. They are about the court, And, as I think, they have already order This night to play before him.

POLONIUS. ’Tis most true; And he beseech’d me to entreat your Majesties To hear and see the matter.

KING. With all my heart; and it doth much content me To hear him so inclin’d. Good gentlemen, give him a further edge, And drive his purpose on to these delights.

ROSENCRANTZ. We shall, my lord.

[_Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern._]

KING. Sweet Gertrude, leave us too, For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither, That he, as ’twere by accident, may here Affront Ophelia. Her father and myself, lawful espials, Will so bestow ourselves that, seeing unseen, We may of their encounter frankly judge, And gather by him, as he is behav’d, If’t be th’affliction of his love or no That thus he suffers for.

QUEEN. I shall obey you. And for your part, Ophelia, I do wish That your good beauties be the happy cause Of Hamlet’s wildness: so shall I hope your virtues Will bring him to his wonted way again, To both your honours.

OPHELIA. Madam, I wish it may.

[_Exit Queen._]

POLONIUS. Ophelia, walk you here.—Gracious, so please you, We will bestow ourselves.—[_To Ophelia._] Read on this book, That show of such an exercise may colour Your loneliness.—We are oft to blame in this, ’Tis too much prov’d, that with devotion’s visage And pious action we do sugar o’er The devil himself.

KING. [_Aside._] O ’tis too true! How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience! The harlot’s cheek, beautied with plastering art, Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it Than is my deed to my most painted word. O heavy burden!

POLONIUS. I hear him coming. Let’s withdraw, my lord.

[_Exeunt King and Polonius._]

Enter Hamlet.

HAMLET. 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 heart-ache, 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, The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely, The pangs of dispriz’d love, the law’s delay, The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? Who would these 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 remember’d.

OPHELIA. Good my lord, How does your honour for this many a day?

HAMLET. I humbly thank you; well, well, well.

OPHELIA. My lord, I have remembrances of yours That I have longed long to re-deliver. I pray you, now receive them.

HAMLET. No, not I. I never gave you aught.

OPHELIA. My honour’d lord, you know right well you did, And with them words of so sweet breath compos’d As made the things more rich; their perfume lost, Take these again; for to the noble mind Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind. There, my lord.

HAMLET. Ha, ha! Are you honest?

OPHELIA. My lord?

HAMLET. Are you fair?

OPHELIA. What means your lordship?

HAMLET. That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty.

OPHELIA. Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty?

HAMLET. Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to 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.

OPHELIA. Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.

HAMLET. You should not have believed me; for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it. I loved you not.

OPHELIA. I was the more deceived.

HAMLET. 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, with more offences at my beck than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in. What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves all, believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery. Where’s your father?

OPHELIA. At home, my lord.

HAMLET. Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool nowhere but in’s own house. Farewell.

OPHELIA. O help him, you sweet heavens!

HAMLET. 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, go: 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.

OPHELIA. O heavenly powers, restore him!

HAMLET. I have heard of your paintings too, well enough. God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another. You jig, you amble, and you lisp, and 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 marriages. Those that are married already, all but one, shall live; the rest shall keep as they are. To a nunnery, go.

[_Exit._]

OPHELIA. 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’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 tune and harsh, That unmatch’d form and feature of blown youth Blasted with ecstasy. O woe is me, T’have seen what I have seen, see what I see.

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?

POLONIUS. It shall do well. But yet do I believe The origin and commencement of his grief Sprung from neglected love. How now, Ophelia? You need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said, We heard it all. My lord, do as you please, 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. A hall in the Castle.

Enter Hamlet and certain Players.

HAMLET. Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue. But if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise. I would have such a fellow whipped for o’erdoing Termagant. It out-Herods Herod. Pray you avoid it.

FIRST PLAYER. I warrant your honour.

HAMLET. Be not too tame neither; but let your own discretion be your tutor. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this special observance, that you o’erstep not the modesty of nature; for anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold as ’twere the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure. Now, this overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of the which one must in your allowance o’erweigh a whole theatre of others. O, there be players that I have seen play—and heard others praise, and that highly—not to speak it profanely, that, neither having the accent of Christians, nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of Nature’s journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.

FIRST PLAYER. I hope we have reform’d that indifferently with us, sir.

HAMLET. 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.

[_Exeunt Players._]

Enter Polonius, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

How now, my lord? Will the King hear this piece of work?

POLONIUS. And the Queen too, and that presently.

HAMLET. Bid the players make haste.

[_Exit Polonius._]

Will you two help to hasten them?

ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. We will, my lord.

[_Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern._]

HAMLET. What ho, Horatio!

Enter Horatio.

HORATIO. Here, sweet lord, at your service.

HAMLET. Horatio, thou art e’en as just a man As e’er my conversation cop’d withal.

HORATIO. O my dear lord.

HAMLET. Nay, do not think I flatter; For what advancement may I hope from thee, That no revenue hast, but thy good spirits To feed and clothe thee? Why should the poor be flatter’d? No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp, And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee Where thrift may follow fawning. Dost thou hear? Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice, And could of men distinguish, her election Hath seal’d thee for herself. For thou hast been As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing, A man that Fortune’s buffets and rewards Hast ta’en with equal thanks. And blessed are those Whose blood and judgement are so well co-mingled That they are not a pipe for Fortune’s finger To sound what stop she please. Give me that man That is not passion’s slave, and I will wear him In my heart’s core, ay, in my heart of heart, As I do thee. Something too much of this. There is a play tonight 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 see’st that act a-foot, Even with the very comment of thy soul Observe mine uncle. If his occulted guilt Do not itself unkennel in one speech, It is a damned ghost that we have seen; And my imaginations are as foul As Vulcan’s stithy. Give him heedful note; For I mine eyes will rivet to his face; And after we will both our judgements join In censure of his seeming.

HORATIO. Well, my lord. If he steal aught the whilst this play is playing, And ’scape detecting, I will pay the theft.

HAMLET. They are coming to the play. I must be idle. Get you a place.

Danish march. A flourish. Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and others.

KING. How fares our cousin Hamlet?

HAMLET. Excellent, i’ faith; of the chameleon’s dish: I eat the air, promise-crammed: you cannot feed capons so.

KING. I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet; these words are not mine.

HAMLET. No, nor mine now. [_To Polonius._] My lord, you play’d once i’ th’university, you say?

POLONIUS. That did I, my lord, and was accounted a good actor.

HAMLET. What did you enact?

POLONIUS. I did enact Julius Caesar. I was kill’d i’ th’ Capitol. Brutus killed me.

HAMLET. It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf there. Be the players ready?

ROSENCRANTZ. Ay, my lord; they stay upon your patience.

QUEEN. Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me.

HAMLET. No, good mother, here’s metal more attractive.

POLONIUS. [_To the King._] O ho! do you mark that?

HAMLET. Lady, shall I lie in your lap?

[_Lying down at Ophelia’s feet._]

OPHELIA. No, my lord.

HAMLET. I mean, my head upon your lap?

OPHELIA. Ay, my lord.

HAMLET. Do you think I meant country matters?

OPHELIA. I think nothing, my lord.

HAMLET. That’s a fair thought to lie between maids’ legs.

OPHELIA. What is, my lord?

HAMLET. Nothing.

OPHELIA. You are merry, my lord.

HAMLET. Who, I?

OPHELIA. Ay, my lord.

HAMLET. O God, your only jig-maker! What should a man do but be merry? For look you how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died within’s two hours.

OPHELIA. Nay, ’tis twice two months, my lord.

HAMLET. So long? Nay then, let the devil wear black, for I’ll have a suit of sables. O heavens! die two months ago, and not forgotten yet? Then there’s hope a great man’s memory may outlive his life half a year. But by’r lady, he must build churches then; or else shall he suffer not thinking on, with the hobby-horse, whose epitaph is ‘For, O, for O, the hobby-horse is forgot!’

Trumpets sound. The dumb show enters.

_Enter a King and a Queen very lovingly; the Queen embracing him and he her. She kneels, and makes show of protestation unto him. He takes her up, and declines his head upon her neck. Lays him down upon a bank of flowers. She, seeing him asleep, leaves him. Anon comes in a fellow, takes off his crown, kisses it, pours poison in the King’s ears, and exits. The Queen returns, finds the King dead, and makes passionate action. The Poisoner with some three or four Mutes, comes in again, seeming to lament with her. The dead body is carried away. The Poisoner woos the Queen with gifts. She seems loth and unwilling awhile, but in the end accepts his love._

[_Exeunt._]

OPHELIA. What means this, my lord?

HAMLET. Marry, this is miching mallecho; it means mischief.

OPHELIA. Belike this show imports the argument of the play.

Enter Prologue.

HAMLET. We shall know by this fellow: the players cannot keep counsel; they’ll tell all.

OPHELIA. Will they tell us what this show meant?

HAMLET. Ay, or any show that you’ll show him. Be not you ashamed to show, he’ll not shame to tell you what it means.

OPHELIA. You are naught, you are naught: I’ll mark the play.

PROLOGUE. _For us, and for our tragedy, Here stooping to your clemency, We beg your hearing patiently._

HAMLET. Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?

OPHELIA. ’Tis brief, my lord.

HAMLET. As woman’s love.

Enter a King and a Queen.

PLAYER KING. Full thirty times hath Phoebus’ cart gone round Neptune’s salt wash and Tellus’ orbed ground, And thirty dozen moons with borrow’d sheen About the world have times twelve thirties been, Since love our hearts, and Hymen did our hands Unite commutual in most sacred bands.

PLAYER QUEEN. So many journeys may the sun and moon Make us again count o’er ere love be done. But, woe is me, you are so sick of late, So far from cheer and from your former state, That I distrust you. Yet, though I distrust, Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must: For women’s fear and love holds quantity, In neither aught, or in extremity. Now what my love is, proof hath made you know, And as my love is siz’d, my fear is so. Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear; Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.

PLAYER KING. Faith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly too: My operant powers their functions leave to do: And thou shalt live in this fair world behind, Honour’d, belov’d, and haply one as kind For husband shalt thou—

PLAYER QUEEN. O confound the rest. Such love must needs be treason in my breast. In second husband let me be accurst! None wed the second but who kill’d the first.

HAMLET. [_Aside._] Wormwood, wormwood.

PLAYER QUEEN. The instances that second marriage move Are base respects of thrift, but none of love. A second time I kill my husband dead, When second husband kisses me in bed.

PLAYER KING. I do believe you think what now you speak; But what we do determine, oft we break. Purpose is but the slave to memory, Of violent birth, but poor validity: Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree, But fall unshaken when they mellow be. Most necessary ’tis that we forget To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt. What to ourselves in passion we propose, The passion ending, doth the purpose lose. The violence of either grief or joy Their own enactures with themselves destroy. Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament; Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident. This world is not for aye; nor ’tis not strange That even our loves should with our fortunes change, For ’tis a question left us yet to prove, Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love. The great man down, you mark his favourite flies, The poor advanc’d makes friends of enemies; And hitherto doth love on fortune tend: For who not needs shall never lack a friend, And who in want a hollow friend doth try, Directly seasons him his enemy. But orderly to end where I begun, Our wills and fates do so contrary run That our devices still are overthrown. Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own. So think thou wilt no second husband wed, But die thy thoughts when thy first lord is dead.

PLAYER QUEEN. Nor earth to me give food, nor heaven light, Sport and repose lock from me day and night, To desperation turn my trust and hope, An anchor’s cheer in prison be my scope, Each opposite that blanks the face of joy, Meet what I would have well, and it destroy! Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife, If, once a widow, ever I be wife.

HAMLET. [_To Ophelia._] If she should break it now.

PLAYER KING. ’Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here awhile. My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile The tedious day with sleep. [_Sleeps._]

PLAYER QUEEN. Sleep rock thy brain, And never come mischance between us twain.

[_Exit._]

HAMLET. Madam, how like you this play?

QUEEN. The lady protests too much, methinks.

HAMLET. O, but she’ll keep her word.

KING. Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in’t?

HAMLET. No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest; no offence i’ th’ world.

KING. What do you call the play?

HAMLET. _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 o’ that? Your majesty, and we that have free souls, it touches us not. Let the gall’d jade wince; our withers are unwrung.

Enter Lucianus.

This is one Lucianus, nephew to the King.

OPHELIA. You are a good chorus, my lord.

HAMLET. I could interpret between you and your love, if I could see the puppets dallying.

OPHELIA. You are keen, my lord, you are keen.

HAMLET. It would cost you a groaning to take off my edge.

OPHELIA. Still better, and worse.

HAMLET. So you mistake your husbands.—Begin, murderer. Pox, leave thy damnable faces, and begin. Come, the croaking raven doth bellow for revenge.

LUCIANUS. 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 usurp immediately.

[_Pours the poison into the sleeper’s ears._]

HAMLET. He poisons him i’ th’garden for’s estate. His name’s Gonzago. The story is extant, and written in very choice Italian. You shall see anon how the murderer gets the love of Gonzago’s wife.

OPHELIA. The King rises.

HAMLET. What, frighted with false fire?

QUEEN. How fares my lord?

POLONIUS. Give o’er the play.

KING. Give me some light. Away.

All. Lights, lights, lights.

[_Exeunt all but Hamlet and Horatio._]

HAMLET. Why, let the strucken deer go weep, The hart ungalled play; For some must watch, while some must sleep, So runs the world away. Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers, if the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me; with two Provincial roses on my razed shoes, get me a fellowship in a cry of players, sir?

HORATIO. Half a share.

HAMLET. A whole one, I. For thou dost know, O Damon dear, This realm dismantled was Of Jove himself, and now reigns here A very, very—pajock.

HORATIO. You might have rhymed.

HAMLET. O good Horatio, I’ll take the ghost’s word for a thousand pound. Didst perceive?

HORATIO. Very well, my lord.

HAMLET. Upon the talk of the poisoning?

HORATIO. I did very well note him.

HAMLET. Ah, ha! Come, some music. Come, the recorders. For if the king like not the comedy, Why then, belike he likes it not, perdie. Come, some music.

Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

GUILDENSTERN. Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you.

HAMLET. Sir, a whole history.

GUILDENSTERN. The King, sir—

HAMLET. Ay, sir, what of him?

GUILDENSTERN. Is in his retirement, marvellous distempered.

HAMLET. With drink, sir?

GUILDENSTERN. No, my lord; rather with choler.

HAMLET. Your wisdom should show itself more richer to signify this to the doctor, for me to put him to his purgation would perhaps plunge him into far more choler.

GUILDENSTERN. Good my lord, put your discourse into some frame, and start not so wildly from my affair.

HAMLET. I am tame, sir, pronounce.

GUILDENSTERN. The Queen your mother, in most great affliction of spirit, hath sent me to you.

HAMLET. You are welcome.

GUILDENSTERN. 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; if not, your pardon and my return shall be the end of my business.

HAMLET. Sir, I cannot.

GUILDENSTERN. What, my lord?

HAMLET. Make you a wholesome answer. My wit’s diseased. But, sir, such answer as I can make, you shall command; or rather, as you say, my mother. Therefore no more, but to the matter. My mother, you say,—

ROSENCRANTZ. Then thus she says: your behaviour hath struck her into amazement and admiration.

HAMLET. O wonderful son, that can so stonish a mother! But is there no sequel at the heels of this mother’s admiration?

ROSENCRANTZ. She desires to speak with you in her closet ere you go to bed.

HAMLET. We shall obey, were she ten times our mother. Have you any further trade with us?

ROSENCRANTZ. My lord, you once did love me.

HAMLET. And so I do still, by these pickers and stealers.

ROSENCRANTZ. Good my lord, what is your cause of distemper? You do surely bar the door upon your own liberty if you deny your griefs to your friend.

HAMLET. Sir, I lack advancement.

ROSENCRANTZ. How can that be, when you have the voice of the King himself for your succession in Denmark?

HAMLET. Ay, sir, but while the grass grows—the proverb is something musty.

Re-enter the Players with recorders.

O, the recorders. Let me see one.—To withdraw with you, why do you go about to recover the wind of me, as if you would drive me into a toil?

GUILDENSTERN. O my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly.

HAMLET. I do not well understand that. Will you play upon this pipe?

GUILDENSTERN. My lord, I cannot.

HAMLET. I pray you.

GUILDENSTERN. Believe me, I cannot.

HAMLET. I do beseech you.

GUILDENSTERN. I know no touch of it, my lord.

HAMLET. ’Tis as easy as lying: govern these ventages with your finger and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music. Look you, these are the stops.

GUILDENSTERN. But these cannot I command to any utterance of harmony. I have not the skill.

HAMLET. 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 am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me.

Enter Polonius.

God bless you, sir.

POLONIUS. My lord, the Queen would speak with you, and presently.

HAMLET. Do you see yonder cloud that’s almost in shape of a camel?

POLONIUS. By the mass, and ’tis like a camel indeed.

HAMLET. Methinks it is like a weasel.

POLONIUS. It is backed like a weasel.

HAMLET. Or like a whale.

POLONIUS. Very like a whale.

HAMLET. Then will I come to my mother by and by.—They fool me to the top of my bent.—I will come by and by.

POLONIUS. I will say so.

[_Exit._]

HAMLET. By and by is easily said. Leave me, friends.

[_Exeunt all but Hamlet._]

’Tis now the very witching time of night, When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out Contagion to this world. Now could I drink hot blood, And do such bitter business as the day Would quake to look on. Soft now, to my mother. O heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom: Let me be cruel, not unnatural. I will speak daggers to her, but use none; My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites. How in my words somever she be shent, To give them seals never, my soul, consent.

[_Exit._]

SCENE III. A room in the Castle.

Enter King, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

KING. I like him not, nor stands it safe with us To let his madness range. Therefore prepare you, I your commission will forthwith dispatch, And he to England shall along with you. The terms of our estate may not endure Hazard so near us as doth hourly grow Out of his lunacies.

GUILDENSTERN. We will ourselves provide. Most holy and religious fear it is To keep those many many bodies safe That live and feed upon your Majesty.

ROSENCRANTZ. The single and peculiar life is bound With all the strength and armour of the mind, To keep itself from ’noyance; but much more That spirit upon whose weal depend and rest The lives of many. The cease of majesty Dies not alone; but like a gulf doth draw What’s near it with it. It is a massy wheel Fix’d on the summit of the highest mount, To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things Are mortis’d and adjoin’d; which when it falls, Each small annexment, petty consequence, Attends the boist’rous ruin. Never alone Did the King sigh, but with a general groan.

KING. Arm you, I pray you, to this speedy voyage; For we will fetters put upon this fear, Which now goes too free-footed.

ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. We will haste us.

[_Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern._]

Enter Polonius.

POLONIUS. 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 offence is rank, it smells to heaven; It hath the primal eldest curse upon’t,— A brother’s murder! 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 offence? 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 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 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 cannot 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.

[_Retires and kneels._]

Enter Hamlet.

HAMLET. Now might I do it pat, now he is praying. And now I’ll do’t. And so he 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. O, this is hire and salary, not revenge. He 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 reveng’d, 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’incestuous pleasure of his bed, At gaming, 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._]

The King rises and advances.

KING. My words fly up, my thoughts remain below. Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

[_Exit._]

SCENE IV. Another room in the Castle.

Enter Queen and Polonius.

POLONIUS. He will come straight. Look you lay home to him, Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear with, And that your Grace hath screen’d and stood between Much heat and him. I’ll silence me e’en here. Pray you be round with him.

HAMLET. [_Within._] Mother, mother, mother.

QUEEN. I’ll warrant you, Fear me not. Withdraw, I hear him coming.

[_Polonius goes behind the arras._]

Enter Hamlet.

HAMLET. Now, mother, what’s the matter?

QUEEN. Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.

HAMLET. Mother, you have my father much offended.

QUEEN. Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.

HAMLET. Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.

QUEEN. Why, how now, Hamlet?

HAMLET. What’s the matter now?

QUEEN. Have you forgot me?

HAMLET. 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.

HAMLET. Come, come, and sit you down, you shall not budge. You go not till I set you up a glass Where you may see the inmost part of you.

QUEEN. What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murder me? Help, help, ho!

POLONIUS. [_Behind._] What, ho! help, help, help!

HAMLET. How now? A rat? [_Draws._] Dead for a ducat, dead!

[_Makes a pass through the arras._]

POLONIUS. [_Behind._] O, I am slain!

[_Falls and dies._]

QUEEN. O me, what hast thou done?

HAMLET. Nay, I know not. Is it the King?

[_Draws forth Polonius._]

QUEEN. O what a rash and bloody deed is this!

HAMLET. A bloody deed. Almost as bad, good mother, As kill a king and marry with his brother.

QUEEN. As kill a king?

HAMLET. Ay, lady, ’twas my word.— [_To 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 braz’d it so, That it is proof and bulwark against sense.

QUEEN. What have I done, that thou dar’st wag thy tongue In noise so rude against me?

HAMLET. 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 doth glow, Yea this solidity and compound mass, With tristful 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?

HAMLET. 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 mildew’d 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 hey-day in the blood is tame, it’s humble, And waits upon the judgement: and what judgement 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 ecstacy 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 ardour gives the charge, Since frost itself as actively doth burn, And reason panders will.

QUEEN. O Hamlet, speak no more. Thou turn’st mine eyes into my very soul, And there I see such black and grained spots As will not leave their tinct.

HAMLET. 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 mine ears; No more, sweet Hamlet.

HAMLET. A murderer and a villain; A slave that is not twentieth 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.

HAMLET. A king of shreds and patches!—

Enter Ghost.

Save me and hover o’er me with your wings, You heavenly guards! What would your gracious figure?

QUEEN. Alas, he’s mad.

HAMLET. Do you not come your tardy son to chide, That, laps’d in time and passion, lets go by The 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.

HAMLET. How is it with you, lady?

QUEEN. Alas, how is’t with you, That you do bend your eye on vacancy, And with the incorporal air do hold discourse? Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep, And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm, Your bedded hairs, 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?

HAMLET. On him, on him! Look you how pale he glares, His form and cause conjoin’d, preaching to stones, Would make them capable.—Do not look upon me, Lest with this piteous action you convert My stern effects. Then what I have to do Will want true colour; tears perchance for blood.

QUEEN. To whom do you speak this?

HAMLET. Do you see nothing there?

QUEEN. Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.

HAMLET. Nor did you nothing hear?

QUEEN. No, nothing but ourselves.

HAMLET. Why, look you there! look how it steals away! My father, in his habit as he liv’d! 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.

HAMLET. Ecstasy! My pulse as yours doth temperately keep time, And makes as healthful music. It is not madness That I have utter’d. Bring me to the test, And I the matter will re-word; 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, Whilst 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.