| ACT II SCENE II | A room in the castle. | |
| | Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, and Attendants. | |
| KING CLAUDIUS | 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 | 5 |
| | Of Hamlet's transformation; so call it, | |
| | Sith nor the 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 the understanding of himself, | 10 |
| | I cannot dream of: I entreat you both, | |
| | That, being of so young days brought up with him, | |
| | And sith so neighbour'd to his youth and havior, | |
| | That you vouchsafe your rest here in our court | |
| | Some little time: so by your companies | 15 |
| | 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 GERTRUDE | Good gentlemen, he hath much talk'd of you; | 20 |
| | 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, | 25 |
| | 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 | 30 |
| | Than to entreaty. | |
| GUILDENSTERN | But we both obey, | |
| | And here give up ourselves, in the full bent | |
| | To lay our service freely at your feet, | |
| | To be commanded. | 35 |
| KING CLAUDIUS | Thanks, Rosencrantz and gentle Guildenstern. | |
| QUEEN GERTRUDE | 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. | 40 |
| GUILDENSTERN | Heavens make our presence and our practises | |
| | Pleasant and helpful to him! | |
| QUEEN GERTRUDE | Ay, amen! | |
| | Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, and some Attendants. | |
| | Enter POLONIUS. | |
| LORD POLONIUS | The ambassadors from Norway, my good lord, | |
| | Are joyfully return'd. | 45 |
| KING CLAUDIUS | Thou still hast been the father of good news. | |
| LORD POLONIUS | Have I, my lord? I assure 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 | 50 |
| | Hunts not the trail of policy so sure | |
| | As it hath used to do, that I have found | |
| | The very cause of Hamlet's lunacy. | |
| KING CLAUDIUS | O, speak of that; that do I long to hear. | |
| LORD POLONIUS | Give first admittance to the ambassadors; | 55 |
| | My news shall be the fruit to that great feast. | |
| KING CLAUDIUS | Thyself do grace to them, and bring them in. | |
| | Exit POLONIUS. | |
| | He tells me, my dear Gertrude, he hath found | |
| | The head and source of all your son's distemper. | |
| QUEEN GERTRUDE | I doubt it is no other but the main; | 60 |
| | His father's death, and our o'erhasty marriage. | |
| KING CLAUDIUS | Well, we shall sift him. | |
| | Re-enter POLONIUS, with VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS. | |
| |
Welcome, my good friends! | |
| | Say, Voltimand, what from our brother Norway? | |
| VOLTIMAND | Most fair return of greetings and desires. | 65 |
| | 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 grieved, | 70 |
| | 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 | 75 |
| | To give the 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: | 80 |
| | With an entreaty, herein further shown, | |
| | Giving 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. | 85 |
| KING CLAUDIUS | It likes us well; | |
| | And at our more consider'd time well 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: | 90 |
| | Most welcome home! | |
| | Exeunt VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS. | |
| LORD 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, | 95 |
| | 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, | 100 |
| | What is't but to be nothing else but mad? | |
| | But let that go. | |
| QUEEN GERTRUDE | More matter, with less art. | |
| LORD POLONIUS | Madam, I swear I use no art at all. | |
| | That he is mad, 'tis true: 'tis true 'tis pity; | 105 |
| | 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, | 110 |
| | For this effect defective comes by cause: | |
| | Thus it remains, and the remainder thus. Perpend. | |
| | I have a daughter--have while she is mine-- | |
| | Who, in her duty and obedience, mark, | |
| | Hath given me this: now gather, and surmise. | 115 |
| | 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. Thus: | |
| | Reads | |
| | "In her excellent white bosom, these," &c. | 120 |
| QUEEN GERTRUDE | Came this from Hamlet to her? | |
| LORD 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; | 125 |
| | 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 | 130 |
| | this machine is to him, HAMLET." | |
| | This, in obedience, hath my daughter shown me, | |
| | And more above, hath his solicitings, | |
| | As they fell out by time, by means and place, | |
| | All given to mine ear. | 135 |
| KING CLAUDIUS | But how hath she | |
| | Received his love? | |
| LORD POLONIUS | What do you think of me? | |
| KING CLAUDIUS | As of a man faithful and honourable. | |
| LORD POLONIUS | I would fain prove so. But what might you think, | 140 |
| | When I had seen this hot love on the wing-- | |
| | As I perceived 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, | 145 |
| | 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; | 150 |
| | 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-- | 155 |
| | 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 mourn for. | 160 |
| KING CLAUDIUS | Do you think 'tis this? | |
| QUEEN GERTRUDE | It may be, very likely. | |
| LORD POLONIUS | Hath there been such a time--I'd fain know that-- | |
| | That I have positively said 'Tis so,' | |
| | When it proved otherwise? | 165 |
| KING CLAUDIUS | Not that I know. | |
| LORD POLONIUS | Pointing to his head and shoulder. | |
| | Take this from this, if this be otherwise: | |
| | If circumstances lead me, I will find | |
| | Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed | |
| | Within the centre. | 170 |
| KING CLAUDIUS | How may we try it further? | |
| LORD POLONIUS | You know, sometimes he walks four hours together | |
| | Here in the lobby. | |
| QUEEN GERTRUDE | So he does indeed. | |
| LORD POLONIUS | At such a time I'll loose my daughter to him: | 175 |
| | 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. | 180 |
| KING CLAUDIUS | We will try it. | |
| QUEEN GERTRUDE | But, look, where sadly the poor wretch comes reading. | |
| LORD POLONIUS | Away, I do beseech you, both away: | |
| | I'll board him presently. | |
| | Exeunt KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, and Attendants. | |
| | Enter HAMLET, reading. | |
| | O, give me leave: | 185 |
| | How does my good Lord Hamlet? | |
| HAMLET | Well, God-a-mercy. | |
| LORD POLONIUS | Do you know me, my lord? | |
| HAMLET | Excellent well; you are a fishmonger. | |
| LORD POLONIUS | Not I, my lord. | 190 |
| HAMLET | Then I would you were so honest a man. | |
| LORD POLONIUS | Honest, my lord! | |
| HAMLET | Ay, sir; to be honest, as this world goes, is to be | |
| | one man picked out of ten thousand. | |
| LORD POLONIUS | That's very true, my lord. | 195 |
| HAMLET | For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a | |
| | god kissing carrion,--Have you a daughter? | |
| LORD POLONIUS | I have, my lord. | |
| HAMLET | Let her not walk i' the sun: conception is a | |
| | blessing: but not as your daughter may conceive. | 200 |
| | Friend, look to 't. | |
| LORD POLONIUS | Aside How say you by that? | |
| | 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. | 205 |
| | What do you read, my lord? | |
| HAMLET | Words, words, words. | |
| LORD POLONIUS | What is the matter, my lord? | |
| HAMLET | Between who? | |
| LORD POLONIUS | I mean, the matter that you read, my lord. | 210 |
| HAMLET | Slanders, sir: for the satirical rogue 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, | 215 |
| | though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet | |
| | I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down, for | |
| | yourself, sir, should be old as I am, if like a crab | |
| | you could go backward. | |
| LORD POLONIUS | Aside | |
| | Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't. Will you walk out of the air, my lord?
| 220 |
| HAMLET | Into my grave. | |
| LORD 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 | 225 |
| | 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 any thing that I will | |
| | more willingly part withal: except my life, except | 230 |
| | my life, except my life. | |
| LORD POLONIUS | Fare you well, my lord. | |
| HAMLET | These tedious old fools! | |
| | Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. | |
| LORD POLONIUS | You go to seek the Lord Hamlet; there he is. | |
| ROSENCRANTZ | To POLONIUS. God save you, sir! | |
| | Exit POLONIUS. | |
| GUILDENSTERN | My honoured lord! | 235 |
| 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; | 240 |
| | 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? | 245 |
| 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. | 250 |
| | 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. | 255 |
| ROSENCRANTZ | Then is the world one. | |
| HAMLET | A goodly one; in which there are many confines, | |
| | wards and dungeons, Denmark being one o' the worst. | |
| ROSENCRANTZ | We think not so, my lord. | |
| HAMLET | Why, then, 'tis none to you; for there is nothing | 260 |
| | 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 nut shell and count | 265 |
| | 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. | 270 |
| 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 | |
| | outstretched heroes the beggars' shadows. Shall we | |
| | to the court? for, by my fay, I cannot reason. | 275 |
| ROSENCRANTZ | | | |
| | | We'll wait upon you. | |
| GUILDENSTERN | | | |
| HAMLET | No such matter: I will not sort you with the rest | |
| | of my servants, for, to speak to you like an honest | 280 |
| | 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 | 285 |
| | 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, any thing, but to the purpose. You were sent | 290 |
| | 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 | 295 |
| | 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? | 300 |
| ROSENCRANTZ | Aside 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 | 305 |
| | 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 | 310 |
| | 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 a man! how noble in reason! | |
| | how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how | 315 |
| | 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 | 320 |
| | 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 | 325 |
| | 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 | 330 |
| | sigh gratis; the humourous man shall end his part | |
| | in peace; the clown shall make those laugh whose | |
| | lungs are tickled o' the sere; and the lady shall | |
| | say her mind freely, or the blank verse shall halt | |
| | for't. What players are they? | 335 |
| ROSENCRANTZ | Even those you were wont to take 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 | 340 |
| | late innovation. | |
| HAMLET | Do they hold the same estimation they did when I was | |
| | in the city? are they so followed? | |
| ROSENCRANTZ | No, indeed, are they not. | |
| HAMLET | How comes it? do they grow rusty? | 345 |
| ROSENCRANTZ | Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace: but | |
| | there is, sir, an aery 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 | 350 |
| | 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 | 355 |
| | 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 | 360 |
| | 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? | 365 |
| 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 mine uncle is king of | |
| | Denmark, and those that would make mows at him while | 370 |
| | my father lived, give twenty, forty, fifty, an | |
| | hundred ducats a-piece 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. | 375 |
| HAMLET | Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore. Your hands, | |
| | come then: 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 | 380 |
| | 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. | 385 |
| | Enter POLONIUS. | |
| LORD 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 | 390 |
| | 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: o' Monday morning; | |
| | 'twas so indeed. | |
| LORD POLONIUS | My lord, I have news to tell you. | 395 |
| HAMLET | My lord, I have news to tell you. | |
| | When Roscius was an actor in Rome,-- | |
| LORD POLONIUS | The actors are come hither, my lord. | |
| HAMLET | Buz, buz! | |
| LORD POLONIUS | Upon mine honour,-- | 400 |
| HAMLET | Then came each actor on his ass,-- | |
| LORD 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 | 405 |
| | 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! | |
| LORD POLONIUS | What a treasure had he, my lord? | 410 |
| HAMLET | Why, | |
| | 'One fair daughter and no more, | |
| | The which he loved passing well.' | |
| LORD POLONIUS | Aside. Still on my daughter. | |
| HAMLET | Am I not i' the right, old Jephthah? | |
| LORD POLONIUS | If you call me Jephthah, my lord, I have a daughter | 415 |
| | that I love passing well. | |
| HAMLET | Nay, that follows not. | |
| LORD POLONIUS | What follows, then, my lord? | |
| HAMLET | Why, | |
| | 'As by lot, God wot,' | 420 |
| | 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 | 425 |
| | to see thee well. Welcome, good friends. O, my old | |
| | friend! thy face is valenced since I saw thee last: | |
| | comest 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 | 430 |
| | altitude of a chopine. Pray God, your voice, like | |
| | apiece 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 any thing we see: | |
| | we'll have a speech straight: come, give us a taste | 435 |
| | 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 | 440 |
| | caviare to the general: but it was--as I received | |
| | it, and others, whose judgments 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 | 445 |
| | were no sallets in the lines to make the matter | |
| | savoury, nor no matter in the phrase that might | |
| | indict 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 | 450 |
| | 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 the Hyrcanian beast,'-- | 455 |
| | 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 | 460 |
| | With heraldry more dismal; head to foot | |
| | Now is he total gules; horridly trick'd | |
| | With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons, | |
| | Baked and impasted with the parching streets, | |
| | That lend a tyrannous and damned light | 465 |
| | To their lord's murder: roasted in wrath and fire, | |
| | And thus o'er-sized with coagulate gore, | |
| | With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus | |
| | Old grandsire Priam seeks.' | |
| | So, proceed you. | 470 |
| LORD 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, | 475 |
| | Repugnant to command: unequal match'd, | |
| | Pyrrhus at Priam drives; in rage strikes wide; | |
| | But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword | |
| | The unnerved father falls. Then senseless Ilium, | |
| | Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming top | 480 |
| | 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' the air to stick: | |
| | So, as a painted tyrant, Pyrrhus stood, | 485 |
| | 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 | 490 |
| | 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 forged for proof eterne | 495 |
| | 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, | 500 |
| | And bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven, | |
| | As low as to the fiends!' | |
| LORD 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 | 505 |
| | sleeps: say on: come to Hecuba. | |
| First Player | 'But who, O, who had seen the mobled queen--' | |
| HAMLET | 'The mobled queen?' | |
| LORD POLONIUS | That's good; 'mobled queen' is good. | |
| First Player | 'Run barefoot up and down, threatening the flames | 510 |
| | With bisson rheum; a clout upon that head | |
| | Where late the diadem stood, and for a robe, | |
| | About her lank and all o'er-teemed loins, | |
| | A blanket, in the alarm of fear caught up; | |
| | Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steep'd, | 515 |
| | 'Gainst Fortune's state would treason have | |
| | pronounced: | |
| | 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, | 520 |
| | 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.' | |
| LORD POLONIUS | Look, whether he has not turned his colour and has | 525 |
| | tears in's eyes. Pray you, no more. | |
| HAMLET | 'Tis well: I'll have thee speak out the rest soon. | |
| | Good my lord, will you see the players well | |
| | bestowed? Do you hear, let them be well used; for | |
| | they are the abstract and brief chronicles of the | 530 |
| | time: after your death you were better have a bad | |
| | epitaph than their ill report while you live. | |
| LORD POLONIUS | My lord, I will use them according to their desert. | |
| HAMLET | God's bodykins, man, much better: use every man | |
| | after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping? | 535 |
| | Use them after your own honour and dignity: the less | |
| | they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty. | |
| | Take them in. | |
| LORD POLONIUS | Come, sirs. | |
| HAMLET | Follow him, friends: we'll hear a play to-morrow. | 540 |
| | Exit 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 to-morrow night. You could, for a need, | |
| | study a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines, which | 545 |
| | 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. | |
| | My good friends, I'll leave you till night: you are | 550 |
| | welcome to Elsinore. | |
| ROSENCRANTZ | Good my lord! | |
| HAMLET | Ay, so, God be wi' ye; | |
| | Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. | |
| | Now I am alone. | |
| | O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I! | 555 |
| | 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 wann'd, | |
| | Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect, | 560 |
| | 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, | 565 |
| | 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 | 570 |
| | 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 | 575 |
| | 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' the throat, | |
| | As deep as to the lungs? who does me this? | 580 |
| | 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 | 585 |
| | With this slave's offal: bloody, bawdy villain! | |
| | Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain! | |
| | O, vengeance! | |
| | Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave, | |
| | That I, the son of a dear father murder'd, | 590 |
| | 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 | 595 |
| | 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 | 600 |
| | 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 | 605 |
| | May be the devil: and the devil hath power | |
| | To 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 | 610 |
| | More relative than this: the play 's the thing | |
| | Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king. | |
| | Exit | |
