| ACT III SCENE I | A room in the castle. | |
| | Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, POLONIUS,OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN | |
| KING CLAUDIUS | And can you, by no drift of circumstance, | |
| | Get from him why he puts on this confusion, | |
| | Grating so harshly all his days of quiet | |
| | With turbulent and dangerous lunacy? | 5 |
| ROSENCRANTZ | He does confess he feels himself distracted; | |
| | But from what cause he will by no means speak. | |
| GUILDENSTERN | Nor do we find him forward to be sounded, | |
| | But, with a crafty madness, keeps aloof, | |
| | When we would bring him on to some confession | 10 |
| | Of his true state. | |
| QUEEN GERTRUDE | Did he receive you well? | |
| ROSENCRANTZ | Most like a gentleman. | |
| GUILDENSTERN | But with much forcing of his disposition. | |
| ROSENCRANTZ | Niggard of question; but, of our demands, | 15 |
| | Most free in his reply. | |
| QUEEN GERTRUDE | Did you assay him? | |
| | To any pastime? | |
| ROSENCRANTZ | Madam, it so fell out, that certain players | |
| | We o'er-raught on the way: of these we told him; | 20 |
| | And there did seem in him a kind of joy | |
| | To hear of it: they are about the court, | |
| | And, as I think, they have already order | |
| | This night to play before him. | |
| LORD POLONIUS | 'Tis most true: | 25 |
| | And he beseech'd me to entreat your majesties | |
| | To hear and see the matter. | |
| KING CLAUDIUS | With all my heart; and it doth much content me | |
| | To hear him so inclined. | |
| | Good gentlemen, give him a further edge, | 30 |
| | And drive his purpose on to these delights. | |
| ROSENCRANTZ | We shall, my lord. | |
| | Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN | |
| KING CLAUDIUS | Sweet Gertrude, leave us too; | |
| | For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither, | |
| | That he, as 'twere by accident, may here | 35 |
| | Affront Ophelia: | |
| | Her father and myself, lawful espials, | |
| | Will so bestow ourselves that, seeing, unseen, | |
| | We may of their encounter frankly judge, | |
| | And gather by him, as he is behaved, | 40 |
| | If 't be the affliction of his love or no | |
| | That thus he suffers for. | |
| QUEEN GERTRUDE | I shall obey you. | |
| | And for your part, Ophelia, I do wish | |
| | That your good beauties be the happy cause | 45 |
| | Of Hamlet's wildness: so shall I hope your virtues | |
| | Will bring him to his wonted way again, | |
| | To both your honours. | |
| OPHELIA | Madam, I wish it may. | |
| | Exit QUEEN GERTRUDE | |
| LORD POLONIUS | Ophelia, walk you here. Gracious, so please you, | 50 |
| | We will bestow ourselves. | |
| | To OPHELIA | |
| | Read on this book; | |
| | That show of such an exercise may colour | |
| | Your loneliness. We are oft to blame in this,-- | |
| | 'Tis too much proved--that with devotion's visage | 55 |
| | And pious action we do sugar o'er | |
| | The devil himself. | |
| KING CLAUDIUS | Aside | |
| | How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience! | |
| | The harlot's cheek, beautied with plastering art, | |
| | Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it | 60 |
| | Than is my deed to my most painted word: | |
| | O heavy burthen! | |
| LORD POLONIUS | I hear him coming: let's withdraw, my lord. | |
| | Exeunt KING CLAUDIUS and POLONIUS | |
| | Enter HAMLET | |
| HAMLET | To be, or not to be: that is the question: | |
| | Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer | 65 |
| | The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, | |
| | Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, | |
| | And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep; | |
| | No more; and by a sleep to say we end | |
| | The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks | 70 |
| | That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation | |
| | Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep; | |
| | To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub; | |
| | For in that sleep of death what dreams may come | |
| | When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, | 75 |
| | Must give us pause: there's the respect | |
| | That makes calamity of so long life; | |
| | For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, | |
| | The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, | |
| | The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, | 80 |
| | The insolence of office and the spurns | |
| | That patient merit of the unworthy takes, | |
| | When he himself might his quietus make | |
| | With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear, | |
| | To grunt and sweat under a weary life, | 85 |
| | But that the dread of something after death, | |
| | The undiscover'd country from whose bourn | |
| | No traveller returns, puzzles the will | |
| | And makes us rather bear those ills we have | |
| | Than fly to others that we know not of? | 90 |
| | Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; | |
| | And thus the native hue of resolution | |
| | Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, | |
| | And enterprises of great pith and moment | |
| | With this regard their currents turn awry, | 95 |
| | And lose the name of action.--Soft you now! | |
| | The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons | |
| | Be all my sins remember'd. | |
| OPHELIA | Good my lord, | |
| | How does your honour for this many a day? | 100 |
| HAMLET | I humbly thank you; well, well, well. | |
| OPHELIA | My lord, I have remembrances of yours, | |
| | That I have longed long to re-deliver; | |
| | I pray you, now receive them. | |
| HAMLET | No, not I; | 105 |
| | I never gave you aught. | |
| OPHELIA | My honour'd lord, you know right well you did; | |
| | And, with them, words of so sweet breath composed | |
| | As made the things more rich: their perfume lost, | |
| | Take these again; for to the noble mind | 110 |
| | Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind. | |
| | There, my lord. | |
| HAMLET | Ha, ha! are you honest? | |
| OPHELIA | My lord? | |
| HAMLET | Are you fair? | 115 |
| OPHELIA | What means your lordship? | |
| HAMLET | That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should | |
| | admit no discourse to your beauty. | |
| OPHELIA | Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than | |
| | with honesty? | 120 |
| HAMLET | Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner | |
| | transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than the | |
| | force of honesty can translate beauty into his | |
| | likeness: this was sometime a paradox, but now the | |
| | time gives it proof. I did love you once. | 125 |
| OPHELIA | Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so. | |
| HAMLET | You should not have believed me; for virtue cannot | |
| | so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of | |
| | it: I loved you not. | |
| OPHELIA | I was the more deceived. | 130 |
| HAMLET | Get thee to a nunnery: why wouldst thou be a | |
| | breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest; | |
| | but yet I could accuse me of such things that it | |
| | were better my mother had not borne me: I am very | |
| | proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offences at | 135 |
| | my beck than I have thoughts to put them in, | |
| | imagination to give them shape, or time to act them | |
| | in. What should such fellows as I do crawling | |
| | between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves, | |
| | all; believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery. | 140 |
| | Where's your father? | |
| OPHELIA | At home, my lord. | |
| HAMLET | Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the | |
| | fool no where but in's own house. Farewell. | |
| OPHELIA | O, help him, you sweet heavens! | 145 |
| HAMLET | If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague for | |
| | thy dowry: be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as | |
| | snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a | |
| | nunnery, go: farewell. Or, if thou wilt needs | |
| | marry, marry a fool; for wise men know well enough | 150 |
| | what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go, | |
| | and quickly too. Farewell. | |
| OPHELIA | O heavenly powers, restore him! | |
| HAMLET | I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God | |
| | has given you one face, and you make yourselves | 155 |
| | another: you jig, you amble, and you lisp, and | |
| | nick-name God's creatures, and make your wantonness | |
| | your ignorance. Go to, I'll no more on't; it hath | |
| | made me mad. I say, we will have no more marriages: | |
| | those that are married already, all but one, shall | 160 |
| | live; the rest shall keep as they are. To a | |
| | nunnery, go. | |
| | Exit | |
| OPHELIA | O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown! | |
| | The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword; | |
| | The expectancy and rose of the fair state, | 165 |
| | The glass of fashion and the mould of form, | |
| | The observed of all observers, quite, quite down! | |
| | And I, of ladies most deject and wretched, | |
| | That suck'd the honey of his music vows, | |
| | Now see that noble and most sovereign reason, | 170 |
| | Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh; | |
| | That unmatch'd form and feature of blown youth | |
| | Blasted with ecstasy: O, woe is me, | |
| | To have seen what I have seen, see what I see! | |
| | Re-enter KING CLAUDIUS and POLONIUS | |
| KING CLAUDIUS | Love! his affections do not that way tend; | 175 |
| | Nor what he spake, though it lack'd form a little, | |
| | Was not like madness. There's something in his soul, | |
| | O'er which his melancholy sits on brood; | |
| | And I do doubt the hatch and the disclose | |
| | Will be some danger: which for to prevent, | 180 |
| | I have in quick determination | |
| | Thus set it down: he shall with speed to England, | |
| | For the demand of our neglected tribute | |
| | Haply the seas and countries different | |
| | With variable objects shall expel | 185 |
| | This something-settled matter in his heart, | |
| | Whereon his brains still beating puts him thus | |
| | From fashion of himself. What think you on't? | |
| LORD POLONIUS | It shall do well: but yet do I believe | |
| | The origin and commencement of his grief | 190 |
| | Sprung from neglected love. How now, Ophelia! | |
| | You need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said; | |
| | We heard it all. My lord, do as you please; | |
| | But, if you hold it fit, after the play | |
| | Let his queen mother all alone entreat him | 195 |
| | To show his grief: let her be round with him; | |
| | And I'll be placed, so please you, in the ear | |
| | Of all their conference. If she find him not, | |
| | To England send him, or confine him where | |
| | Your wisdom best shall think. | 200 |
| KING CLAUDIUS | It shall be so: | |
| | Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go. | |
| | Exeunt | |