Ros. Then thus she says: your behavior hath to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrustruck her into amazement and admiration. ment you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me.

Ham. O, wonderful son, that can so astonish a mother! But is there no sequel at the heels of this mother's admiration? - impart.

Enter POLONIUS.

Ros. She desires to speak with you in her God bless you, sir ! closet, ere you go to bed.

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

Ros. My lord, you once did love me. Ham. And do still, by these pickers and stealers. Ros. Good my lord, what is your cause of distemper? you do freely bar the door of your own liberty, if you deny your griefs to your friend.

Ham. Ay, sir, but "While the grass grows," -the proverb is something musty.

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

Pol. My lord, the queen would speak with you, and presently.

Ham. Do you see yonder cloud, that's almost in shape of a camel?

Pol. By the mass, and 't is like a camel, indeed.
Ham. Methinks it is like a weasel.
Pol. It is backed like a weasel.

Ham. Or like a whale?

Pol. Very like a whale.

Contagion to this world: now could I drink hot blood,

Ham. I do not well understand that. Will you And do such bitter business as the day

play upon this pipe?

Guil. My lord, I cannot.

Would quake to look on. Soft; now to my

mother.

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 despatch,
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.

Guil. 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.

Ros. The single and peculiar life is bound,
With all the strength and armor 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 gulph, doth draw
What's near it with it: it is a massy wheel,
Fixed on the summit of the highest mount,
To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things
Are mortised and adjoined; which, when it falls,
Each small annexment, petty consequence,
Attends the boisterous 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.

Ros.

}

We will haste us.

Guil.

[Exit POLONIUS.
O, my offense 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 offense?

That cannot be; since I am still possessed
Of those effects for which I did the murder?
My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.
May one be pardoned and retain the offense?
In the corrupted currents of this world,
Offense's gilded hand may shove by justice;
And oft 't is seen, the wicked purse itself
Buys out the law: but 't is not so above:
There is no shuffling, there the action lies
In his true nature; and we ourselves compelled,
Even to the teeth and forchead 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?

[Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. O wretched state! O bosom, black as death!

Enter POLONIUS.

O liméd soul, that, struggling to be free,
Art more engaged! Help, angels, make assay!

Pol. My lord, he's going to his mother's closet: Bow, stubborn knees! and heart, with strings of Behind the arras I'll convey myself,

steel,

And now I'll do 't;-and so he goes to heaven:
And so am I revenged? That would be scanned;
A villain kills my father; and for that,
I, his sole son, do this same villain send
To heaven.

Why, this is hire and salary, not revenge.
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 revenged,
To take him in the purging of his soul,
When he is fit and seasoned for his passage?
No.

Up, sword; and know thou a more horrid hent:
When he is drunk, asleep, or in his rage;
Or in the incestuous pleasures 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 damned 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.

Enter QUEEN and POLONIUS.

Pol. He will come straight. Look you lay

home to him:

[POLONIUS hides himself.

Enter HAMLET.

Ham. Now, mother; what's the matter?
Queen. Hamlet, thou hast thy father much of-
fended.

Ham. Mother, you have my father much of

[HAMLET makes a pass through the arras. Pol. [behind]. O, I am slain. [Falls and dies. Queen. O me, what hast thou done?

Ham.

Is it the king?

Nay, I know not:

[Lifts up the arras and draws forth POLONIUS. Queen. O, what a rash and bloody deed is this? Ham. A bloody deed; -almost as bad, good mother,

Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear As kill a king, and marry with his brother.

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 damnéd custom hath not brazed it so,

That it is proof and bulwark against sense.

Is apoplexed: for madness would not err;
Nor sense to ecstasy was ne'er so thralled,
But it reserved some quantity of choice

To serve in such a difference. What devil was 't
That thus hath cozened you at hoodman-blind?
Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight,
Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all,

Queen. What have I done, that thou darest wag Or but a sickly part of one true sense,

thy tongue

That roars so loud, and thunders in the index?
Ham. Look here, upon this picture, and on this;
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
See what a grace was seated on this brow:
Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself;
An eye like Mars, to threaten and command;
A station like the herald Mercury,
New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill;
A combination and a form, indeed,
Where every god did seem to set his seal,
To give the world assurance of a man:
This was your husband. - Look you now what
follows:

Here is your husband; like a mildewed ear,
Blasting his wholesome breath. Have you eyes?
Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,
And batten on this moor? Ha! have you eyes?
You cannot call it love: for at your age
The heyday in the blood is tame, it's humble,
And waits upon the judgment: and what judg-

ment

Could not so mope.

O, speak to me no more; These words like daggers enter in mine ears: No more, sweet Hamlet.

Would stoop from this to this? Sense sure you O, say! have,

Ghost. Do not forget: this visitation

Else could you not have motion: but sure that Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.

sense

But look amazement on thy mother sits:

O, step between her and her fighting soul;
Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works;
Speak to her, Hamlet.

Ham. How is it with you, lady?
Queen. Alas, how is 't with you?

That

you do bend your eye on vacancy,
And with th' incorporal air do hold discourse?
Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep;
And, as the sleeping soldiers in th' alarm,
Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,
Starts up, and stands on end. O, gentle son,
Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper
Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look?
Ham. On him! on him!-Look you, how pale
he glares!

His form and cause conjoined, 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 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.

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 habit's 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 curb the devil, or throw him out
With wondrous potency. Once more, good night;
And when you are desirous to be blessed,
I'll blessing beg of you.

For this same lord,
[Pointing to POLONIUS.
I do repent: but heaven hath pleased it so,
To punish me with this, and this with me,
That I must be their scourge and minister.

Ham. Why, look you there! look how it steals I will bestow him, and will answer well

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 uttered: 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;
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
virtue:

The death I gave him. So, again, good night!.

I must be cruel only to be kind:
Thus 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 damned fingers,
Make you to ravel all this matter out,
That I essentially am not in madness,
But mad in craft. 'T were 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,

my

To try conclusions, in the basket creep,

And break your own neck down.