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Enter HAMLET and three of the PLAYERS.
HAMLET
1 Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to
2 you, trippingly on the tongue: but if you mouth it,
3 as many of our players do, I had as lief the town-crier
4 spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with
5 your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very
6 torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, the whirlwind of
7 passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance
8 that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the
9 soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear
10 a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the
11 groundlings, who for the most part are capable of
12 nothing but inexplicable dumbshows and noise: I would
13 have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant;
14 it out-herods Herod: pray you, avoid it.
First Player
15 I warrant your honor.
HAMLET
16 Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion
17 be your tutor: suit the action to the word, the word
18 to the action; with this special observance, that you
19 o'erstep not the modesty of nature: for any thing so
20 overdone is
from the purpose of playing, whose end,
21 both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere,
22 the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature,
23 scorn her own image, and the very age and body of
24 the time his form and pressure. Now this overdone,
25 or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful
26 laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the
27 censure of the which one must in your allowance
28 o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. O, there be
29 players that I have seen play, and heard others
30 praise, and that highly, not to speak it profanely,
31 that, neither having the accent of Christians nor
32 the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so
33 strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of
34 nature's journeymen had made men and not made
35 them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.
First Player
36 I hope we have reformed that indifferently with us,
37 sir.
HAMLET
38 O, reform it altogether. And let those that play
39 your clowns speak no more than is set down for
40 them; for there be of them that will themselves
41 laugh, to set on some quantity of barren spectators
42 to laugh
too; though, in the mean time, some
43 necessary question of the play be then to be
44 considered: that's villanous, and shows a most pitiful
45 ambition in the fool that uses it. Go, make you ready.
[Exeunt Players.]
Enter POLONIUS, GUILDENSTERN
and ROSENCRANTZ.
46 How now, my lord! Will the king hear this piece
47 of work?
POLONIUS
48 And the queen too, and that presently.
HAMLET
49 Bid the players make haste.
[Exit Polonius.]
50 Will you two help to hasten them?
ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN
51 Ay, my lord.
Exeunt they two.
HAMLET
52 What ho! Horatio!
Enter HORATIO.
HORATIO
53 Here, sweet lord, at your service.
HAMLET
54 Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man
55 As e'er my conversation coped withal.
HORATIO
56 O, my dear lord—
HAMLET
56 Nay, do not think I flatter;
57 For what advancement may I hope from thee
58 That no revenue hast but thy good spirits,
59 To feed and clothe thee? Why should the poor be flatter'd?
60 No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp,
61 And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee
62 Where thrift may follow fawning. Dost thou hear?
63 Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice
64 And could of men distinguish, her election
65 Hath seal'd thee for herself; for thou hast been
66 As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing,
67 A man that Fortune's buffets and rewards
68 Hast ta'en with equal thanks: and blest are those
69 Whose blood and judgment are so well commeddled,
70 That they are not a pipe for Fortune's finger
71 To sound what stop she please. Give me that man
72 That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
73 In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart,
74 As I do thee.—Something too much of this.—
75 There is a play tonight before the king;
76 One scene of it comes near the circumstance
77 Which I have told thee of my father's death:
78 I prithee, when thou seest that act afoot,
79 Even with the very comment of thy soul
80 Observe mine uncle. If his occulted guilt
81 Do not itself unkennel in one speech,
82 It is a damned ghost that we have seen,
83 And my imaginations are as foul
84 As Vulcan's stithy. Give him heedful note;
85 For I mine eyes will rivet to his face,
86 And after we will both our judgments join
87 In censure of his seeming.
HORATIO
87 Well, my lord:
88 If a' steal aught the whilst this play is playing,
89 And scape detecting, I will pay the theft.
HAMLET
90 They are coming to the play; I must be idle.
91 Get you a place.
Enter trumpets and kettledrums,
KING, QUEEN, POLONIUS,
OPHELIA, [ROSENCRANTZ,
GUILDENSTERN, and attendants].
KING
92 How fares our cousin Hamlet?
HAMLET
93 Excellent, i' faith; of the chameleon's dish:
94 I eat the air, promise-crammed. You cannot
95 feed capons so.
KING
96 I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet; these
97 words are not mine.
HAMLET
98 No, nor mine now. [To Polonius.] My lord,
99 you played once i' the university, you say?
POLONIUS
100 That did I, my lord; and was accounted a
101 good actor.
HAMLET
102 What did you enact?
POLONIUS
103 I did enact Julius Caesar: I was killed i' the
104 Capitol; Brutus killed me.
HAMLET
105 It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a
106 calf there. Be the players ready?
ROSENCRANTZ
107 Ay, my lord; they stay upon your patience.
QUEEN
108 Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me.
HAMLET
109 No, good mother, here's metal more
110 attractive.
POLONIUS [To the King.]
111 O, ho! do you mark that?
HAMLET
112 Lady, shall I lie in your lap?
OPHELIA
113 No, my lord.
HAMLET
114 I mean, my head upon your lap?
OPHELIA
115 Ay, my lord.
HAMLET
116 Do you think I meant country matters?
OPHELIA
117 I think nothing, my lord.
HAMLET
118 That's a fair thought to lie between
119 maids' legs.
OPHELIA
120 What is, my lord?
HAMLET
121 Nothing.
OPHELIA
122 You are merry, my lord.
HAMLET
123 Who, I?
OPHELIA
124 Ay, my lord.
HAMLET
125 O God, your only jig-maker. What should a man do
126 but be merry? for, look you, how cheerfully my mother
127 looks, and my father died within's two hours.
OPHELIA
128 Nay, 'tis twice two months, my lord.
HAMLET
129 So long? Nay then, let the devil wear black, for I'll
130 have a suit of sables. O heavens! die two months ago,
131 and not forgotten yet? Then there's hope a great man's
132 memory may outlive his life half a year: but, by'r lady,
133 he must build churches, then; or else shall he suffer
134 not thinking on, with the hobby-horse, whose epitaph
135 is "For, O, for, O, the hobby-horse is forgot."
The trumpets sounds. 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.
He lies him down upon a bank of flowers. She,
seeing him asleep, leaves him. Anon comes in
another man, takes off his crown, kisses it, pours
poison in the sleeper's ears, and leaves him.
*** The Queen returns; finds the King dead, makes
passionate action. The Poisoner, with some three
or four, comes in again, seem to condole
with her.
The dead body is carried away. The Poisoner
woos the Queen with gifts; she seems harsh awhile,
but in the end accepts his love.
Exeunt.
OPHELIA
136 What means this, my lord?
HAMLET
137 Marry, this' miching mallecho; it means
138 mischief.
OPHELIA
139 Belike this show imports the argument of
140 the play.
Enter PROLOGUE.
HAMLET
141 We shall know by this fellow: the players
142 cannot keep counsel; they'll tell all.
OPHELIA
143 Will he tell us what this show meant?
HAMLET
144 Ay, or any show that you'll show him: be
145 not you ashamed to show, he'll not shame
146 to tell you what it means.
OPHELIA
147 You are naught, you are naught: I'll mark
148 the play.
Prologue
149 For us, and for our tragedy,
150 Here stooping to your clemency,
151 We beg your hearing patiently.
[Exit.]
HAMLET
152 Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?
OPHELIA
153 'Tis brief, my lord.
HAMLET
154 As woman's love.
Enter [two Players,] KING and QUEEN.
Player King
155 Full thirty times hath Phoebus' cart gone round
156 Neptune's salt wash and Tellus' orbed ground,
157 And thirty dozen moons with borrow'd sheen
158 About the world have times twelve thirties been,
159 Since love our hearts and Hymen did our hands
160 Unite comutual in most sacred bands.
Player Queen
161 So many journeys may the sun and moon
162 Make us again count o'er ere love be done!
163 But, woe is me, you are so sick of late,
164 So far from cheer and from your former state,
165 That I distrust you. Yet, though I distrust,
166 Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must,
167 For women's fear and love holds quantity;
168 In neither aught, or in extremity.
169 Now, what my love is, proof hath made you know;
170 And as my love is sized, my fear is so:
171 Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear;
172 Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.
Player King
173 'Faith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly too;
174 My operant powers their functions leave to do:
175 And thou shalt live in this fair world behind,
176 Honor'd, beloved; and haply one as kind
177 For husband shalt thou—
Player Queen
177 O, confound the rest!
178 Such love must needs be treason in my breast:
179 In second husband let me be accurst!
180 None wed the second but who kill'd the first.
HAMLET [Aside.]
181 Wormwood, wormwood.
Player Queen
182 The instances that second marriage move
183 Are base respects of thrift, but none of love:
184 A second time I kill my husband dead,
185 When second husband kisses me in bed.
Player King
186 I do believe you think what now you speak;
187 But what we do determine oft we break.
188 Purpose is but the slave to memory,
189 Of violent birth, but poor validity;
190 Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree;
191 But fall, unshaken, when they mellow be.
192 Most necessary 'tis that we forget
193 To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt:
194 What to ourselves in passion we propose,
195 The passion ending, doth the purpose lose.
196 The violence of either grief or joy
197 Their own enactures with themselves destroy:
198 Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament;
199 Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident.
200 This world is not for aye, nor 'tis not strange
201 That even our loves should with our fortunes change;
202 For 'tis a question left us yet to prove,
203 Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love.
204 The great man down, you mark his favorite flies;
205 The poor advanced makes friends of enemies.
206 And hitherto doth love on fortune tend;
207 For who not needs shall never lack a friend,
208 And who in want a hollow friend doth try,
209 Directly seasons him his enemy.
210 But, orderly to end where I begun,
211 Our wills and fates do so contrary run
212 That our devices still are overthrown;
213 Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own:
214 So think thou wilt no second husband wed;
215 But die thy thoughts when thy first lord is dead.
Player Queen
216 Nor earth to me give food, nor heaven light!
217 Sport and repose lock from me day and night!
218 To desperation turn my trust and hope!
219 An anchor's cheer in prison be my scope!
220 Each opposite that blanks the face of joy
221 Meet what I would have well and it destroy!
222 Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife,
223 If, once a widow, ever I be wife!
HAMLET
224 If she should break it now!
Player King
225 'Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here awhile;
226 My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile
227 The tedious day with sleep.
[Sleeps.]
Player Queen
227 Sleep rock thy brain,
228 And never come mischance between us twain!
Exit.
HAMLET
229 Madam, how like you this play?
QUEEN
230 The lady protests too much, methinks.
HAMLET
231 O, but she'll keep her word.
KING
232 Have you heard the argument? Is there no
233 offense in't?
HAMLET
234 No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest—
235 no offense i' the world.
KING
236 What do you call the play?
HAMLET
237 The Mouse-trap. Marry, how? Tropically. This play
238 is the image of a murder done in Vienna: Gonzago is
239 the duke's name; his wife, Baptista. You shall see
240 anon. 'Tis a knavish piece of work, but what of
241 that? Your Majesty and we that have free souls, it
242 touches us not. Let the galled jade winch, our
243 withers are unwrung.
Enter LUCIANUS.
244 This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king.
OPHELIA
245 You are as good as a chorus, my lord.
HAMLET
246 I could interpret between you and your
247 love, if I could see the puppets dallying.
OPHELIA
248 You are keen, my lord, you are keen.
HAMLET
249 It would cost you a groaning to take off my
250 edge.
OPHELIA
251 Still better, and worse.
HAMLET
252 So you mistake your husbands. Begin, murderer;
253 leave thy damnable faces, and begin. Come,
254 the croaking raven doth bellow for revenge.
LUCIANUS
255 Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing,
256 Confederate season, else no creature seeing;
257 Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected,
258 With Hecate's ban thrice blasted, thrice infected,
259 Thy natural magic and dire property,
260 On wholesome life usurp immediately.
[Pours the poison into the sleeper's ears.]
HAMLET
261 He poisons him i' the garden for's estate. His
262 name's Gonzago: the story is extant, and writ in
263 choice Italian: you shall see anon how the murderer
264 gets the love of Gonzago's wife.
[King rises.]
OPHELIA
265 The king rises.
HAMLET
266 What, frighted with false fire!
QUEEN
267 How fares my lord?
POLONIUS
268 Give o'er the play.
KING
269 Give me some light: away!
All
270 Lights, lights, lights!
Exeunt all but Hamlet and Horatio.
HAMLET
271 "Why, let the strucken deer go weep,
272 The hart ungalled play;
273 For some must watch, while some must sleep:
274 So runs the world away."
275 Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers— if
276 the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me—with two
277 Provincial roses on my razed shoes, get me a
278 fellowship in a cry of players, sir?
HORATIO
279 Half a share.
HAMLET
280 A whole one, I.
281 "For thou dost know, O Damon dear,
282 This realm dismantled was
283 Of Jove himself; and now reigns here
284 A very, very—pajock.
HORATIO
285 You might have rhymed.
HAMLET
286 O good Horatio, I'll take the ghost's word for
287 a thousand pound. Didst perceive?
HORATIO
288 Very well, my lord.
HAMLET
289 Upon the talk of the poisoning?
HORATIO
290 I did very well note him.
HAMLET
291 Ah, ha! Come, some music! come, the
292 recorders!
293 For if the king like not the comedy,
294 Why then, belike, he likes it not, perdy.
295 Come, some music!
Enter ROSENCRANTZ
and GUILDENSTERN.
GUILDENSTERN
296 Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with
297 you.
HAMLET
298 Sir, a whole history.
GUILDENSTERN
299 The king, sir—
HAMLET
300 Ay, sir, what of him?
GUILDENSTERN
301 Is in his retirement marvellous distempered.
HAMLET
302 With drink, sir?
GUILDENSTERN
303 No, my lord, rather with choler.
HAMLET
304 Your wisdom should show itself more richer to
305 signify this to his doctor; for, for me to put him
306 to his purgation would perhaps plunge him into
307 far more choler.
GUILDENSTERN
308 Good my lord, put your discourse into some frame
309 and start not so wildly from my affair.
HAMLET
310 I am tame, sir: pronounce.
GUILDENSTERN
311 The queen, your mother, in most great affliction
312 of spirit, hath sent me to you.
HAMLET
313 You are welcome.
GUILDENSTERN
314 Nay, good my lord, this courtesy is not of the
315 right breed. If it shall please you to make me
316 a wholesome answer, I will do your mother's
317 commandment: if not, your pardon and my
318 return shall be the end of my business.
HAMLET
319 Sir, I cannot.
GUILDENSTERN
320 What, my lord?
HAMLET
321 Make you a wholesome answer; my wit's diseased:
322 but, sir, such answer as I can make, you shall
323 command; or, rather, as you say, my mother:
324 therefore
no more, but to the matter: my mother,
325 you say—
ROSENCRANTZ
326 Then thus she says; your behavior hath struck her
327 into amazement and admiration.
HAMLET
328 O wonderful son, that can so stonish a mother! But
329 is there no sequel at the heels of this mother's
330 admiration? Impart.
ROSENCRANTZ
331 She desires to speak with you in her closet, ere you
332 go to bed.
HAMLET
333 We shall obey, were she ten times our mother. Have
334 you any further trade with us?
ROSENCRANTZ
335 My lord, you once did love me.
HAMLET
336 So I do still, by these pickers and stealers.
ROSENCRANTZ
337 Good my lord, what is your cause of distemper? you
338 do, surely, bar the door upon your own liberty, if
339 you deny your griefs to your friend.
HAMLET
340 Sir, I lack advancement.
ROSENCRANTZ
341 How can that be, when you have the voice of the king
342 himself for your succession in Denmark?
HAMLET
343 Ay, but sir, "While the grass grows,"—the proverb
344 is something musty.
Enter PLAYERS with recorders.
345 O, the recorders! let me see one. To withdraw with
346 you:—why do you go about to recover the wind of me,
347 as if you would drive me into a toil?
GUILDENSTERN
348 O, my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too
349 unmannerly.
HAMLET
350 I do not well understand that. Will you play upon
351 this pipe?
GUILDENSTERN
352 My lord, I cannot.
HAMLET
353 I pray you.
GUILDENSTERN
354 Believe me, I cannot.
HAMLET
355 I do beseech you.
GUILDENSTERN
356 I know no touch of it, my lord.
HAMLET
357 'Tis as easy as lying: govern these ventages with
358 your fingers and thumb, give it breath with your
359 mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music.
360 Look you, these are the stops.
GUILDENSTERN
361 But these cannot I command to any utterance of
362 harmony; I have not the skill.
HAMLET
363 Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of
364 me! You would play upon me; you would seem to know
365 my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my
366 mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to
367 the top of my compass: and there is much music,
368 excellent voice, in this little organ; yet cannot
369 you make it speak. 'Sblood, do you think I am
370 easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what
371 instrument you will, though you can fret me, yet you
372 cannot play upon me.
Enter POLONIUS.
373 God bless you, sir!
POLONIUS
374 My lord, the queen would speak with you, and
375 presently.
HAMLET
376 Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape
377 of a camel?
POLONIUS
378 By the mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed.
HAMLET
379 Methinks it is like a weasel.
POLONIUS
380 It is backed like a weasel.
HAMLET
381 Or like a whale?
POLONIUS
382 Very like a whale.
HAMLET
383 Then I will come to my mother by and by.
384 [Aside.] They fool me to the top of my bent.
385 I will come by and by.
POLONIUS
386 I will say so.
[Exit POLONIUS.]
HAMLET
387 "By and by" is easily said. Leave me, friends.
[Exeunt all but Hamlet.]
388 'Tis now the very witching time of night,
389 When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out
390 Contagion to this world: now could I drink hot blood,
391 And do such bitter business as the day
392 Would quake to look on. Soft! now to my mother.
393 O heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever
394 The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom:
395 Let me be cruel, not unnatural:
396 I will speak daggers to her, but use none;
397 My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites;
398 How in my words soever she be shent,
399 To give them seals never, my soul, consent!
Exit.
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