| ACT III SCENE III | A room in the castle. | |
| | Enter KING CLAUDIUS, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN | |
| KING CLAUDIUS | I like him not, nor stands it safe with us | |
| | To let his madness range. Therefore prepare you; | |
| | I your commission will forthwith dispatch, | |
| | And he to England shall along with you: | 5 |
| | The terms of our estate may not endure | |
| | Hazard so dangerous as doth hourly grow | |
| | Out of his lunacies. | |
| GUILDENSTERN | We will ourselves provide: | |
| | Most holy and religious fear it is | 10 |
| | To keep those many many bodies safe | |
| | That live and feed upon your majesty. | |
| ROSENCRANTZ | The single and peculiar life is bound, | |
| | With all the strength and armour of the mind, | |
| | To keep itself from noyance; but much more | 15 |
| | That spirit upon whose weal depend and rest | |
| | The lives of many. The cease of majesty | |
| | Dies not alone; but, like a gulf, doth draw | |
| | What's near it with it: it is a massy wheel, | |
| | Fix'd on the summit of the highest mount, | 20 |
| | To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things | |
| | Are mortised and adjoin'd; which, when it falls, | |
| | Each small annexment, petty consequence, | |
| | Attends the boisterous ruin. Never alone | |
| | Did the king sigh, but with a general groan. | 25 |
| KING CLAUDIUS | Arm you, I pray you, to this speedy voyage; | |
| | For we will fetters put upon this fear, | |
| | Which now goes too free-footed. | |
| ROSENCRANTZ | | We will haste us. | |
| GUILDENSTERN |
| Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN | |
| | Enter POLONIUS | |
| LORD POLONIUS | My lord, he's going to his mother's closet: | 30 |
| | Behind the arras I'll convey myself, | |
| | To hear the process; and warrant she'll tax him home: | |
| | And, as you said, and wisely was it said, | |
| | 'Tis meet that some more audience than a mother, | |
| | Since nature makes them partial, should o'erhear | 35 |
| | The speech, of vantage. Fare you well, my liege: | |
| | I'll call upon you ere you go to bed, | |
| | And tell you what I know. | |
| KING CLAUDIUS | Thanks, dear my lord. | |
| | Exit POLONIUS | |
| | O, my offence is rank it smells to heaven; | 40 |
| | 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, | 45 |
| | 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 | 50 |
| | But to confront the visage of offence? | |
| | And what's in prayer but this two-fold force, | |
| | To be forestalled ere we come to fall, | |
| | Or pardon'd being down? Then I'll look up; | |
| | My fault is past. But, O, what form of prayer | 55 |
| | Can serve my turn? 'Forgive me my foul murder'? | |
| | That cannot be; since I am still possess'd | |
| | Of those effects for which I did the murder, | |
| | My crown, mine own ambition and my queen. | |
| | May one be pardon'd and retain the offence? | 60 |
| | In the corrupted currents of this world | |
| | Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice, | |
| | And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself | |
| | Buys out the law: but 'tis not so above; | |
| | There is no shuffling, there the action lies | 65 |
| | In his true nature; and we ourselves compell'd, | |
| | Even to the teeth and forehead 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 can not repent? | 70 |
| | O wretched state! O bosom black as death! | |
| | O limed soul, that, struggling to be free, | |
| | Art more engaged! Help, angels! Make assay! | |
| | Bow, stubborn knees; and, heart with strings of steel, | |
| | Be soft as sinews of the newborn babe! | 75 |
| | All may be well. | |
| | Retires and kneels | |
| | Enter HAMLET | |
| HAMLET | Now might I do it pat, now he is praying; | |
| | And now I'll do't. And so he goes to heaven; | |
| | And so am I revenged. That would be scann'd: | |
| | A villain kills my father; and for that, | 80 |
| | I, his sole son, do this same villain send | |
| | To heaven. | |
| | O, 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; | 85 |
| | 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 season'd for his passage? | 90 |
| | No! | |
| | Up, sword; and know thou a more horrid hent: | |
| | When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage, | |
| | Or in the incestuous pleasure of his bed; | |
| | At gaming, swearing, or about some act | 95 |
| | 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 damn'd and black | |
| | As hell, whereto it goes. My mother stays: | |
| | This physic but prolongs thy sickly days. | 100 |
| | Exit | |
| KING CLAUDIUS | Rising | |
| | Words without thoughts never to heaven go. | |
| | Exit | |