ont When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes | To be forestalled, ere we come to fall, [blood, Or pardon'd, being down? Then I'll look up; Contagion to this world: Now could I driuk hot My fault is past. But oh! what form of prayer And do such business as the bitter day Can serve my turn? Forgive me my foul muWould quake to look on. Soft; now to my der!mother:- us, STERN. King. I like him not; nor stands it safe with Guil. We will ourselves provide: Ros. The single and peculiar life is bound Are mortis'd and adjoin'd; which, when it falls, For we will fetters put upon this fear, [Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. Enter POLONIUS. That cannot be; since I am still possess'd Be soft as sinews of the new-born habe; [Retires and kneels. A villain kills my father; and, for that, May; be Why, this his hire and salary, ý not revenge. Up, sword; and know thou a more horrid hent : Pol. My lord, he's going to his mother's As hell, whereto it goes. My mother stays: closet: Behind the arras I'll convey myself, To hear the process; I'll warrant, she'll tax him home: Oh! my offence is rank, it smells to heaven; [ven, [Exit. The KING rises and advances. King. My words fly up, ny thoughts remain below: Words, without thoughts, never to heaven go. [Exit. SCENE IV.-Another Room in the same. Enter QUEEN and POLONIUS. Pol. He will come straight. Look you lay home to him: Tell him his pranks have been too bread to bear with; And that your grace hath screen'd and stood Much heat and him. I'll silence me e'en here. Queen. I'll warrant you; Fear me not :-withdraw, I hear him coming. Ham. Now, mother; what's the matter? Queen. Hamlet, thou hast thy father much | This was your husband.-Look you now, what 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. not so: Queen. Why, how now, Hamlet? Ham. What's the matter now? Queen. Have you forgot me ? Ham. No, by the rood, 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 budge; You go not, till I set you up a glass POLONIUS. 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. Ham. Ay, lady, 'twas my word.Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell! [To POLONIUS. 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, f it be made of penetrable stuff; 'f damned custom have not braz'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 ; Queen. Ah! 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. | follows: was't, What devil That thus hath cozen'd you at hoodman-blind? § O shame! where is thy blush? Rebellions hell, Queen. O Hamlet, speak no more: Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul; In the rank sweat of an enseamed ++ bed; Queen. O speak to me no more; Ham. A murderer, and a villain : A slave, that is not twentieth part the tythe Queen. No more. ous 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 Ghost. Do not forget: This visitation Ham. How is it with you, lady? + Sensation. I Without. Greasy. The hair of animals is excrementitious, that without life or sensation. Ham. On him! on him!- Look you, how pale he glares! His form and cause conjoin'd, preaching to stones, Woul made 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, blood. But mad in craft. 'Twere good you let him know: For who, that's but a queen, fair, sober, wise, Queen. To whom do you speak this? Queen. No, nothing, but ourselves. Ham. 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. Ham. 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, in twain. Ham. O throw away the worser part of it, That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat To the next abstinence: the next more easy: And when you are desirous to be bless'd, Queen. Be thou assur'd, if words be made of breath, And breath of life, I have no life to breathe Ham. I must to England; you know that? I had forgot; 'tis so concluded on. Ham. There's letters seal'd: and my two school-fellows, 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; But I will delve one yard below their mines, And blow them at the moon: Oh! 'tis mos sweet, When in one line two crafts directly meet.- I'll lug the guts into the neighbour room :-- [Exeunt severally; HAMLET dragging i POLONIUS. ACT IV. The death I gave him. So, again, good night :-It Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.- 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, ** mouse; had been so with us, had we been there: His liberty is full of threats to all; haunt, ¶ To you yourself, to us, to every one. And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses, Make you to ravel all this matter out, O'er whom his very madness, like some ore, Among a mineral of metals base, The sun no sooner shall the mountains touch, 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 Whose whisper o'er the world's diameter, Ros. Tell us where 'tis; that we may take it thence, And bear it to the chapel. Ros. Believe what? Ham. That I can keep your counsel, and not mine own. Besides, to be demanded of a sponge !-what replication should be made by the son of a king? Ros. Take you me for a sponge, my lord? Ham. Ay, Sir; that soaks up the king's countenance, his rewards, his authorities. But such officers do the king best service in the end: He keeps them, like an ape, in the corner of his jaw; first mouthed, to be last swallowed : When he needs what you have gleaned, it is but squeezing you, and, sponge, you shall be dry again. Ros. I understand you not, my lord. Ham. I am glad of it: A knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear. Ros. My lord, you must tell us where the body is, and go with us to the king. Ham. The body is with the king, but the king is not with the body. The king is a thingGuil. A thing, my lord? Ham. Of nothing: bring me to him. Hide fox, and all after. [Exeunt. SCENE III.-Another Room in the same. Enter KING, attended. King. I have sent to seek him, and to find the body. How dangerous is it, that this man goes loose? Yet must not we put the strong law on him : He's lov'd of the distracted multitude, Who like not in their judgment, but their eyes; And where 'tis so, the offender's scourge is weigh'd, But never the offence. To bear all smooth and even, This sudden sending him away must seem Enter ROSENCRANTZ. Or not at all.-How now? what hath befallen? Ros. Where the dead body is bestow'd, my lord, We cannot get from him. King. But where is he? Ros. Without, my lord; guarded to know your pleasure. King. Bring him before us, Ros. Ho, Guildenstern? bring in my lord Enter HAMLET and GUILDENSTERN. King. Now, Hamlet, where's Polonius? Ham. At supper. King. At supper? Where? Ham. Not where he eats, but where he is eaten a certain convocation of politic worms are e'en at him. Your worm is your only emperor for dict: we fat all creatures else, to fat us; and we fat ourselves for maggots: fat king, and your lean beggar, is but variable service; two dishes, but to one table; that's the end. King. Alas, alas ! Your Ham. A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king; and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm. King. What dost thou mean by this? Ham. Nothing, but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar. King. Where is Polonius? Ham. In heaven; send thither to see: if your messenger find him not there, seek him i'the other place yourself. But, indeed, if you find him not within this month, you shall nose him as you go up the stairs into the lobby. King. Go seek him there. [To some Attendants. Ham. He will stay till you come. [Exeunt Attendants. King. Hamlet, this deed, for thine especial safety, Which we do tender, as we dearly grieve Ham. For England? King. Ay, Hamlet. Ham. Good. Ham. So is it, if thou knew'st our purposes. Ham. I see a cherub, that sees them.-But, come; for England!-Farewell, dear mother. King. Thy loving father, Hamlet. Ham. My mother: Father and mother is man and wife; man and wife is one flesh; and so, my mother. Come, for England. [Exit. King. Follow him at foot; tempt him with speed aboard; Delay it not, I'll have him hence to-night: Away; for every thing is seal'd and done That else leans on the affair: Pray you, make haste, [Exeunt Ros, and GUIL. And, England, if my love thou hold'st at aught, (As my great power thereof may give thee [Exeunt FORTINBRAS and Forces. Enter HAMLET, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDEN- Ham. Good Sir, whose powers are these? I pray you? Cap. Against some part of Poland. Commands them, Sir? Cap. The nephew to old Norway, Fortinbras. Ham. Goes it against the main of Poland, Sir, Or for some frontier ? Cap. Truly to speak, Sir, and with no addi- We go to gain a little patch of ground, When honour's at the stake. How stand I then, SCENE V.-Elsinore.-A Room in the Enter QUEEN and HORATIO. Queen. I will not speak with her. Queen. What would she have? Hor. She speaks much of her father; says, she hears, There's tricks i'the world; and hems, and beats her heart; Spurns enviously at straws; speaks things in [thing, doubt, That carry but half sense: her speech is no Yet the unshaped use of it doth move The hearers to collection; they aim at it, And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts; Which, as her winks, and nods, and gestures yield them, Indeed would make one think, there might be thought, Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily. Queen. 'Twere good, she were spoken with; for she may strew Ham. Why, then the Polack 5 never will de- Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds : fend it. Cap. Yes, 'tis already garrison'd. Ham. Two thousand souls, and twenty thou- Will not debate the question of this straw: That inward breaks, and shows no cause with out Why the man dies.-I humbly thank you, Sir. course, ¶ Looking before and after, gave us not To fust in us unus'd. Now, whether it be A thought, which, quarter'd, hath but one part wisdom, And, ever, three parts coward,-I do not know Let her come in. [Exit HORATIO. It spills itself in fearing to be spilt. Re-enter HORATIO, with OPHELIA. Oph. Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark ? Queen. How now, Ophelia ? Oph. How should I your true love know By his cockle hat and staff, [Singing. Queen. Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song? Oph. Say you? nay, pray you, mark. Oh! ho! He is dead and gone, lady, He is dead and gone; At his head a grass-green turf, At his heels a stone. Queen. Nay, but Ophelia,--- Oph. Pray you, mark. [Sings. White his shroud as the mountain snow, [Sings Enter KING. Queen. Alas! look here, my lord. Oph. Larded all with sweet flowers; Which bewept to the grave did go, With Irue-love showers. King. How do you, pretty lady? Oph. Well, God'ield you! They say, the owl was a baker's daughter. Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be. God be at your table! King. Conceit upon her father. 1: Since. § Garnished. t Shoes. Reward. 2 C |