And he beseech'd me to entreat your majesties,
To hear and see the matter.
[tent ine,
King. With all my heart; and it doth much con-
To hear him so inclin'd.

Good gentlemen, give him a further edge,
And drive his purpose on to these delights.
Ros. We shall, my lord.

[exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildensteru.
King. Sweet Gertrude, leave us too:
For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither;
That he, as 'twere by accident, may here
Affront Ophelia :

His 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 behav'd,
If't be the affliction of his love, or no,
That thus he suffers for.

Queen. I shall obey you:

And, for your part, Ophelia, I do wish,
That your good beauties be the happy cause
Of Hamlet's wildness: so shall I hope, your vir-
Will bring him to his wonted way again,
To both your honours.

Oph. Madam, I wish it may.

[tues

[exit Queen. Pol. Ophelia, walk you here.-Gracious, so please you,

We will bestow ourselves.- -Read on this book;
[to Ophelia.

That show of such an exercise may colour
Your loneliness. We are oft to blame in this,-
'Tis too much prov'd-that, with devotion's visage
And pious action, we do sugar o'er
The devil himself.

11

King. O, 'tis too true! how smart A lash that speech doth give my conscience! 'T'he harlot's cheek, beautied with plast'ring art, Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it, Than is my deed to my most painted word: O heavy burden! [aside. Pol. I hear him coming; let's withdraw, my lord. [cxeunt King and Polonius. Enter Hamlet.

Ham. To be, or not to be, that is the question:Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

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?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us al!?
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprizes of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.-Soft you, now!
The fair Ophelia :-Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd.
Oph. Good, my lord,

How does your honour for this many a day?
Ham. I humbly thank you; well.

Oph. My lord, I have remembrances of yours,
That I have longed long to re-deliver;
I pray you, now receive them.
Ham. No, not I;

I never gave you aught.

[you did;

Oph. My honour'd lord, you know right well,
And, with them, words of so sweet breath compos'd
As made the things more rich: their perfume lost,
Take these again; for to the noble mind,
Rich gifts wax poor, when givers prove unkind,
There, my lord.

Ham. Ha, ha! are you honest?
Oph. My lord?

Ham. Are you fair.

Oph. What means your lordship?

Ham. That, if you be honest and fair, you should admit no discourse to your beauty.

Oph. Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty?

Ham. 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 some time a paradox, but now the time gives it proof. I did love you once.

Oph. Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so. Ham. You should not have believed me: for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock, but we shall relish of it: I loved you not.

Oph. I was the more deceived.

Ham. Get thee to a nunnery; why would'st thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indiffer

No more; and, by a sleep, to say we end

The heart-ach, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to,-'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die?-to sleep?—
To sleep! perchance to dream ;--aye, there's therub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
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,
Tke
pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay,
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;
But that the dread of something after death,—

things, that it were better, my mother had not borne me: I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious; with more offences at 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. Where's your father?

Oph. At home, my lord. Ham. Let the doors be shut upon him: that he may play the fool no where but in's own house. Farewell.

Oph. O, help him, you sweet heavens!

Ham. 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; farewell: or, if thou wilt needs marry, marry a focl; for wise men know well

enough, what monsters you make of them. uunnery, go; and quickly too. Farewell.

Oph. Heavenly powers, restore him!

Ham. I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves 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 of't; it hath made me mad. say, we will have no more marriages: those that are married already, all but one, shall live: the rest shall keep as they are. To a nunnery, go. [erit Hamlet. Oph. O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown! The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, The expectancy and rose of the fair state, [sword; The glass of fashion, and the mould of form, The observ'd 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, Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh; That unmatch'd form and feature of blown youth, Blasted with ecstacy: O, woe is me!

To have seen what I have seen, see what I see! Re-enter King and Polonius.

King. Love! his affections do not that way tend;
Nor what he spake, though it lack'd form a little,
Was not like madness. There's something in his
O'er which his melancholy sits on brood; [soul,
And I do doubt, the hatch, and the disclose,
Will be some danger: which for to prevent,
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 expeled
This something-settled matter in his heart;
Whereon his brains still beating, puts him thus
From fashion of himself. What think you on't?
Pol. It shall do well: but yet I do believe,
The origin and commencement of his grief
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 queer mother all aloue entreat him
To shew his grief; let her be round with him;
And I'll be plac'd, 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. Mow sat tug
King. It shall be so ::

Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go. pit Moon [exeunt.

SCENE II. A HALL IN THE SAME. SÅN

Enter Hamlet, and certain Players. Ham. Speak the speech, In pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue: but if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke any lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus; but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and (as I muy say) whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance, that may give it smoothness, so (), it offends me to the Boul, to hear a robustions periwig-pated-fellow

1 Play. I warrant your honour.

Now

Ham. Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor: suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature: for any thing so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first, and now, was, and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time, his form and pressure. this, overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of which one, must, in your allowance, o'er-weigh a whole theatre of others. O, there be players, that I have seen play,—and heard others praise, and that highly,-not to speak it profanely, that, neither having the accent of Christians, uor the gait of Christian, pagan, ner man, have so strutted, and bellowed, that I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.

1 Play. I hope, we have reformed that indiffer ently with us.

Ham. O, reform it altogether. And let those, that play your clowns, speak no more than is set down for them: for there be of them, that will themselves laugh to set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too; though, in the mean time, some necessary question of the play be then to be considered: that's villainous; and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it. Go, make you ready.[excunt Players. Enter Polonius, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern. How now, my lord? will the king hear this piece of diwork?

Pol. And the queen too, and that presently. Hum. Bid the players make haste.

Will you two help to hasten them?

[exit Polonius.

Both. Ay, my lord. [exeunt Ros. and Guil Ham. What, ho; Horatio!,

Enter Horatio.

Hor. Here, sweet lord, at your

service.

A

Ham. Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man
As e'er my conversation cop'd withal.
Hor. O, my dear lord.—of wat
Ham. Nay, do not think flatter:
For what advancement may I hope from thee,
That no revenue hast, but thy good spirits,
To feed and clothe thee? Why should the poor
be flattered?

No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp;
And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee,
Where thrift may follow fawning. Dost thou beur?
Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice;
And could of men distinguish her election,
She bath seal'd thee for herself: for thou hast been
As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing:

A man, that fortune's buffets and rewards
Hast ta'en with equal thanks: and blest are those,
Whose blood and judgment are so well co-mingled,
That they are not a pipe for fortune's finger
To sound what stop she please: give me that man
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core, ay in my heart of heart,
As I do thee. Something too much of this.—
There is a play to-night before the king;
One scene of it comes near the circumstance,
Which I have told thee, of my father's death.
I pr'ythee, when thou seest that act a-foot,
Even with the very comment of thy soul
Observe my uncle: if his occulted guilt
Do not itself unkennel in one speech,
It is a damned ghost that we have seen;
And my imaginations are as foul

As Vulcan's stithy. Give him heedful note:
For I mine eyes will rivet to his face;

And after we will both our judgments join
In censure of his seeming.

Hor. Well, my lord:

If he steal aught, the whilst this play is playing, Aud 'scape detecting, I will pay the theft.

Ham. They are coming to the play; I must be Get you a place.

[idle; Danish march. A flourish. Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and others.

King. How fares our cousin Hamlet? Ham. Excellent, i'faith; of the camelion's dish: I eat the air, promise-crammed: you cannot feed capons so.

King. I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet; these words are not mine.

Ham. No, nor mine now. My lord,-you played once in the university, you say? [to Polonius. Pol. That did I, my lord; and was accounted a good actor.

Ham. And what did you enact?

Pol. I did enact Julius Cæsar: I was killed ithe Capitol; Brutus killed me.

Ham. It was a brute part of him, to kill so capital a calf there.-Be the players ready?

Ros. Ay, my lord; they stay upon your patience. Queen. Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me. Ham. No, good mother, here's metal more attractive.

Pol. O ho! do you mark that?[to the King. Ham. Lady, shall I lie in your lap? [lying down at Ophelia's feet.

Oph. No, my lord.
Ham. I mean, my head upon your lap?
Oph. Ay, my lord.

Ham. Do you think, I meant country matters?
Oph. I think nothing, my lord.
Ham. That's a fair thought, to lie between
Oph. What is, my lord? [maids' legs.

Ham. Nothing.

Oph. You are merry, my lord. Ham. Who, I?

Oph. Ay, my lord.

Ham. O! your only jig-maker.

What should

a man do, but be merry? for, look you, how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died within these two hours.

Oph. Nay, 'tis twice two months, my lord. Ham. So long? Nay, then let the devil wear black, for I'll have a suit of sables. O heavens! die two months ago, and not forgotten yet? Then there's hope a great man's memory may outlive his life half a year: but, by'r-lady, he must build churches then: or else shall he suffer not thinking

on,

with the hobby-horse; whose epitaph is, For, O, for, O, the hobby-horse is forgot.'

[trumpet sounds: the dumb show follows. Enter a King and a Queen, very lovingly: the Queen embracing him, and he her. She kneels and makes show of protestation unto him. He takes her up, and declines his head upon her neck. lays him down upon a bank of flowers; she, seeing him asleep, leaves him. Anon comes in a fellow, takes off his crown, kisses it, and pours poison in the King's ear, and exit. The Queen returns; finds the King dead, and makes passionate action. The poisoner, with some two or three Mutes, comes in again, seeming to lament with ker. The dead body is carried away. The poisoner wooes the Queen with gifts; she seems lothe and unwilling awhile, but, in the end, accepts his love. [exeunt.

Oph. What means this, my lord? Ham. Marry, this is miching mallecho; it means mischief.

Oph. Belike, this show imports the argument of the play.

Enter Prologue.

Ham. We shall know by this fellow: the players cannot keep counsel; they'll tell all.

Oph. Will he tell us what this show meant! Ham. Ay, or any show that you'll show him: be not you ashamed to show, he'll not shame to tell you what it means.

Oph. You are naught, you are naught; I'll mark the play.

Pro. For us, and for our tragedy,

Here stooping to your clemency, We beg your hearing patiently.' Ham. Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring? Oph. 'Tis brief, my lord. Ham. As woman's love.

Enter a King and Queen.

P. King. Full thirty times hath Phoebus' cart gone round

Neptune's salt wash, and Tellus' orbed ground; And thirty dozen moons, with borrow'd sheen, About the world have times twelve thirties been; Since love our hearts, and Hymen did our hands, Unite commutual in most sacred bands.

J

P. Queen. So many journeys may the sun and Make us again count o'er, ere love be done! [moon But, woe is me, you are so sick of late, So far from cheer, and from your former state, That I distrust you. Yet, though I distrust, Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must: For women fear too much, even as they love; And women's fear and love hold quantity; In neither aught, or in extremity. Now, what my love is, proof hath made you know; And as my love is siz'd, my fear is so. Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear Where little fear grows great,great love grows there

1

Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

Come, some music.

Guil. Good, my lord, vouchsafe me a word with Ham. Sir, a whole history.

Guil. The king, sir,

Ham. Ay, sir, what of him?

[you.

pered.

Ham. With drink, sir?

Guil. No, my lord, with choler.

Ham. Your wisdom would show itself more richer, to signify this to the doctor; for, for ine to put him to his purgation, would, perhaps, plunge him into more choler.

Guil. Good, my lord, put your discourse into some frame, and start not so wildly from my affair. Ham. I am tame, sir:-pronounce.

Guil. The queen, your mother, in most great affliction of spirit, hath sent me to you.

Ham. You are welcome.

Ham. Make you a wholesome answer; my wit's diseased: but, sir, such answer as I can make, you shall command; or rather, as you say, my mother: therefore no more, but to the matter: my mother, you say,

Ros. Then thus she says: your behaviour hath struck her into amazement and admiration.

Ham. O wonderful son, that can so astonish a mother! But is there no sequel at the heels of this mother's admiration? impart.

2

Ros. She desires to speak with you in her closet, ere you go to bed.

Ham We shall obey, were she ten times our mother. Have you any further trade with us? Ros. My lord, you once did love me.

Ham. And do still, by these pickers and stealers. Ros. Good, my lord, what is your cause of distemper? you do, surely, but bar the door upon your own liberty, if you deny your griefs to your friend. Ham. Sir, I lack advancement.

*

Ros. How can that be, when you have the voice of the king himself for your succession in Denmark? Ham. Ay, sir, but, while the grass grows,'the proverb is something musty.

Enter the Players, with recorders. O, the recorders: let me see one.— -To withdraw with you: why do you go about to recover the wind of me, as if you would drive me into a toil? Guil. O, my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly.

Ham. I do not well understand that. Will you play upon this pipe?

Guil. My lord, I cannot.

Ham. I pray you.

Guil. Believe me, I cannot.
Ham. I do beseech you.

Guil. I know no touch of it, my lord. Ham. 'Tis as easy as lying: govern these ventages with your fingers and thumb, give it breath,

pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass: and there is much music, excellent voice in this little organ; yet cannot you make it speak. 'Sblood, do you think, I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me. Enter Polonius.

God bless you, sir!

Pol. My lord, the queen would speak with you, and presently.

Ham. Do you see yonder cloud, that's almost in shape of a camel?

Pol. By the mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed.
Ham. Methinks, it is like a weasel.
Pol. It is backed like a weasel.
Ham. Or, like a whale.

Pol. Very like a whale.

Ham. Then will I come to my mother by-andby. They fool me to the top of my bent.—I will come by-and-by.

Pol. I will say so. [exit Polonius. Ham. By-and-by is easily said.-Leave me friends. [exeunt Ros. Guil. Hor. &c. 'Tis now the very witching time of night; [out When church-yards yawn, and hell itself breathe Contagion to this world: now could I drink hot And do such business as the bitter day Would quake to look on. Soft; now to my mother.→ O, heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom : Let me be cruel, not unnatural:

[blood

I will speak daggers to her, but use none;
My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites:
How in my words soever she be shent,
To give them seals never, my soul, consent! [exit

SCENE 11. A ROOM IN THE SAME.

Enter King, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern.
King. I like him not; nor stands it safe with us.
To let his madness range. Therefore, prepare you;
I your commission will forthwith despatch,
And he to England shall along with you:
The terms of our estate may not endure
Hazard so near us, as doth hourly grow
Out of his lunes.

Guil. We will ourselves provide:
Most holy and religious fear it is,
To keep those many bodies safe,
That live, and feed, upon your majesty.

Ros. The single and peculiar life is bound,
With all the strength and arinour of the mind,
To keep itself from 'noyance; but much more
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,
To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things
Are mortis'd and adjoin'd; which, when it falls,