| ACT III. | |
| Scene I. A room in the Castle. | |
| [Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, and |
| Guildenstern.] |
| King. | |
| 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? |
| Ros. | |
| He does confess he feels himself distracted, |
| But from what cause he will by no means speak. |
| Guil. | |
| 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 |
| Of his true state. |
| Queen. | |
| Did he receive you well? |
| Ros. | |
| Most like a gentleman. |
| Guil. | |
| But with much forcing of his disposition. |
| Ros. | |
| Niggard of question; but, of our demands, |
| Most free in his reply. |
| Queen. | |
| Did you assay him |
| To any pastime? |
| Ros. | |
| Madam, it so fell out that certain players |
| We o'er-raught on the way: of these we told him, |
| 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. |
| Pol. | |
| 'Tis most true; |
| And he beseech'd me to entreat your majesties |
| To hear and see the matter. |
| King. | |
| With all my heart; and it doth much content me |
| 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 Guildenstern.] |
| King. | |
| Sweet Gertrude, leave us too; |
| For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither, |
| That he, as 'twere by accident, may here |
| 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 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 virtues |
| Will bring him to his wonted way again, |
| To both your honours. |
| Oph. | |
| Madam, I wish it may. |
| [Exit Queen.] |
| Pol. | |
| Ophelia, walk you here.--Gracious, so please you, |
| 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 prov'd,--that with devotion's visage |
| And pious action we do sugar o'er |
| The Devil himself. |
| King. | |
| [Aside.] O, 'tis too true! |
| 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 |
| Than is my deed to my most painted word: |
| O heavy burden! |
| Pol. | |
| I hear him coming: let's withdraw, my lord. |
| [Exeunt 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, |
| And by opposing end them?--To die,--to sleep,-- |
| No more; and by a sleep to say we end |
| The heartache, 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:--ay, there's the rub; |
| 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, |
| The 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 these fardels bear, |
| To grunt and sweat under a weary life, |
| 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? |
| 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, |
| 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, well, 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. |
| Oph. | |
| My honour'd lord, you know right well you did; |
| 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, your honesty 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 sometime 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 believ'd 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 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 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 |
| nowhere 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, go: farewell. Or, if thou wilt |
| needs marry, marry a fool; for wise men know well enough what |
| monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go; and quickly too. |
| Farewell. |
| Oph. | |
| O 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 nickname 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 moe marriages: those that are |
| married already, all but one, shall live; the rest shall keep as |
| they are. To a nunnery, go. |
| [Exit.] |
| Oph. | |
| O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown! |
| The courtier's, scholar's, soldier's, eye, tongue, sword, |
| The expectancy and rose of the fair state, |
| 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 ecstasy: 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 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, |
| 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 |
| 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 do I 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 queen mother all alone entreat him |
| To show 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. |
| King. | |
| It shall be so: |
| Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go. |
| [Exeunt.] |