The very soul;4 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. Ah me, what act,

That roars so loud, and thunders in the index ?5
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, 6
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 judgment; And what judgment
Would step from this to this? Sense, sure, you have,
Else, could you not have motion: But, sure, that sense
Is apoplex'd for madness would not err;
Nor sense to 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 ?7
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,

[4] Contraction for marriage-contract.

WARBURTON.

[5] The meaning is, What is this act, of which the discovery or mention, cannot be made, but with this violence of clamour ? JOHNSON.

[6] Station, in this instance, does not mean the spot where any one is placed but the act of standing. STEEVENS.

[73 That is, I suppose, the same as Blindman's buff.

STEEVENS

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.

Ham. Nay, but to live

In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed ;

Stew'd in corruption; honeying, and making love
Over the nasty stye ;-

Queen O, speak to me no more;

These words, like daggers enter in mine ears;
No more, sweet Hamlet.

Ham. A murderer, and a villain :

A slave, that is not twentieth part the tythe
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 !2

Queen. No more.

Ham. A king

Enter Ghost.

Of shreds and patches: 3.

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

Queen. Alas, he's mad.

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

The important acting of your dread command ?4
0,
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 ;

[8] Grained-dyed in grain. [9] Enseamed-greasy. JOHNSON. [1] Vice of kings-a low mimic of kings. The vice is the fool of a farce; from whence the modern Punch is descended. JOHNSON.

[2]. The usurper came not to the crown by any glorious villainy that carried danger with it, but by the low cowardly theft of a common pilferer. WARBURTON. [3] This is said, pursuing the idea of the vice of kings. The vice was dressed as a fool, in a coat of party-coloured patches. JOHNSON.

[43 That, having suffered time to slip, and passion to cool, lets go, &c. JOHNSON.

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 the incorporal air do hold discourse?
Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep;
And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm,
Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,5
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 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?

Ham. Do you see nothing there?

Queen. Nothing at all; yet all, that is, I see.
Ham. Nor did you nothing hear?

Queen. No, nothing, but ourselves.

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

My father, in his habit as he 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 ecstacy 6

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,
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 ;

[5] The hair are excrementitious, that is, without life or sensation; yet those very hairs, as if they had life, start up, &c. POPE.

[6] Ecstacy in this place, and many others, means a temporary alienation of mind, a fit. STEEVENS.

And do not spread the compost on the weeds,

To make them ranker.7 Forgive me this my virtue: For in the fatness of these pursy times,

Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg;

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

Queen. O Hamlet! thou hast cleft my heart in twain.

Ham. O, throw away the worser part of it,

And live the purer with the other half.
Good night but go not to my uncle's bed;
Assume a virtue, if you have it not.

That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat
Of 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 bless'd,
I'll blessing beg of you. For this same lord,

[Pointing to POLONIUS.
I do repent: But heaven hath pleas'd it so,-
To punish me with this, and this with me,
That I must be their scourge and minister.
I will bsetow him, and will answer well

The death I gave him. So, again, good night !-
I must be cruel, only to be kind :

Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.-
But 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 padling in your neck with his damn'd fingers,
Make you to ravel all this matter out,

That I essentially am not in madness,

But mad in craft. 'Twere good, you let him know : For who, that's but a queen, fair, sober, wise, Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib,3

Such dear concernings hide? who would do so?

[7] Do not, by any new indulgence, heighten your former offences. JOHN. [8] Gib was a common name for a cat. STEEVENS.

No, in despite of sense, and secrecy,
Unpeg the basket on the house's top,
Let the birds fly; and, like the famous ape,
To try conclusions, in the basket creep,

And break your own neck down.

Queen. Be thou assur'd, if words be made of breath, And breath of life, I have no life to breathe

What thou hast said to me.

Ham. I must to England; you know that?
Queen. Alack,

I had forgot; 'tis so concluded on.

Ham. There's letters seal'd: and my two schoolfellows,

Whom I will trust, as I will adders fang'd,3-
They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way,
And marshal me to knavery: Let it work ;
For 'tis the sport, to have the engineer
Hoist with his own petar: and it shall go hard,
But I will delve one yard below their mines,
And blow them at the moon: O, 'tis most sweet,
When in one line two crafts directly meet.
This man shall set me packing.

I'll lug the guts into the neighbour room :-
Mother, good night.-Indeed, this counsellor
Is now most still, most secret, and most grave,
Who was in life à foolish prating knave.
Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you :-
Good night, mother.

[Exeunt severally; HAMLET dragging in POLONIUS.

ACT IV.

SCENE 1.5-The same. Enter King, Queen, ROZENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN.

King. There's matter in these sighs; these profound heaves;

You must translate: 'tis fit we understand them :

[3] That is, adders with their fangs, or poisonous teeth undrawn. It has been the practice of mountebanks to boast the efficacy of their antidotes by playing with vipers, but they first disabled their fangs. JOHNSON. [4] Still alluding to a countermine.

MALONE.

[5] This play is printed in the old editions without any separation of the acts. The division is modern and arbitrary; and is here not very happy, for the pause is made at a time when there is more continuity of action than in almost any other of the scenes. JOHNSON.