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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.
[Drops the arras.

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 brazed it so

That it be proof and bulwark against sense. 40 Queen. What have I done, that thou darest wag thy tongue

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55

Ham.

In noise so rude against me?

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 does
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? 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:

60

Here is your husband, like a mildewed ear, 65
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 can not call it love, for at your age
The hey-day in the blood is tame, it's humble, 70
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 apoplexed; for madness would not err,
Nor sense to ecstasy was ne'er so thralled 75
But it reserved some quantity of choice,
To serve in such a difference. What devil
was 't

That thus hath cozened you at hoodmanblind?

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85

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100

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.

shame

Proclaim no

When the compulsive ardour gives the charge,
Since frost itself as actively doth burn

And reason panders will.

Queen.

Ham.

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.

Queen.

Ham.

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These words like daggers enter in my ears.
No more, sweet 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!

No more!

Queen.
Ham. 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!

Ham. Do you not come your tardy son to chide, 105
That, lapsed in time and passion, lets go by
The important acting of your dread command?
O, say!

Ghost. Do not forget! This visitation

Ham.

Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose. 110
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.

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 the alarm, Your bedded hairs, like life in excrements, Start up and stand 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!

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120

His form and cause conjoined, preaching to 125 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.

180 Queen. To whom do you speak this?

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

Queen.

Do you see nothing there?

No, nothing but ourselves.

Ham. Why, look you there! Look, how it

steals away!

My father, in his habit as he lived!

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

portal!

[Exit Ghost. Queen. This is the very coinage of your brain. This bodiless creation ecstasy

Ham.

Is very cunning in.

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,

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