ACT III. | |
Scene IV. Another room in the castle. | |
| [Enter Queen and Polonius.] |
Pol. | |
| He will come straight. Look you lay home to him: |
| Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear with, |
| And that your grace hath screen'd and stood between |
| Much heat and him. I'll silence me e'en here. |
| Pray you, be round with him. |
Ham. | |
| [Within.] Mother, mother, mother! |
Queen. | |
| I'll warrant you: |
| Fear me not:--withdraw; I hear him coming. |
| [Polonius goes behind the arras.] |
| [Enter Hamlet.] |
Ham. | |
| Now, mother, what's the matter? |
Queen. | |
| Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended. |
Ham. | |
| Mother, you have my father much offended. |
Queen. | |
| Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue. |
Ham. | |
| Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue. |
Queen. | |
| Why, how now, Hamlet! |
Ham. | |
| What's the matter now? |
Queen. | |
| Have you forgot me? |
Ham. | |
| No, by the rood, not so: |
| You are the Queen, your husband's brother's wife, |
| And,--would it were not so!--you are my mother. |
Queen. | |
| Nay, then, I'll set those to you that can speak. |
Ham. | |
| Come, come, and sit you down; you shall not budge; |
| You go not till I set you up a glass |
| Where you may see the inmost part of you. |
Queen. | |
| What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murder me?-- |
| Help, help, ho! |
Pol. | |
| [Behind.] What, ho! help, help, help! |
Ham. | |
| How now? a rat? [Draws.] |
| Dead for a ducat, dead! |
| [Makes a pass through the arras.] |
Pol. | |
| [Behind.] O, I am slain! |
| [Falls and dies.] |
Queen. | |
| O me, what hast thou done? |
Ham. | |
| Nay, I know not: is it the king? |
| [Draws forth Polonius.] |
Queen. | |
| O, what a rash and bloody deed is this! |
Ham. | |
| A bloody deed!--almost as bad, good mother, |
| As kill a king and marry with his brother. |
Queen. | |
| As kill a king! |
Ham. | |
| Ay, lady, 'twas my word.-- |
| Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell! |
| [To Polonius.] |
| I took thee for thy better: take thy fortune; |
| Thou find'st to be too busy is some danger.-- |
| Leave wringing of your hands: peace! sit you down, |
| And let me wring your heart: for so I shall, |
| If it be made of penetrable stuff; |
| If damned custom have not braz'd it so |
| That it is proof and bulwark against sense. |
Queen. | |
| What have I done, that thou dar'st wag thy tongue |
| In noise so rude against me? |
Ham. | |
| Such an act |
| That blurs the grace and blush of modesty; |
| Calls virtue hypocrite; takes off the rose |
| From the fair forehead of an innocent love, |
| And sets a blister there; makes marriage-vows |
| As false as dicers' oaths: O, such a deed |
| As from the body of contraction plucks |
| The very soul, and sweet religion makes |
| A rhapsody of words: heaven's face doth glow; |
| Yea, this solidity and compound mass, |
| With tristful visage, as against the doom, |
| Is thought-sick at the act. |
Queen. | |
| Ah me, what act, |
| That roars so loud, and thunders in the index? |
Ham. | |
| Look here upon this picture, and on this,-- |
| The counterfeit presentment of two brothers. |
| See what a grace was seated on this brow; |
| Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself; |
| An eye like Mars, to threaten and command; |
| A station like the herald Mercury |
| New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill: |
| A combination and a form, indeed, |
| Where every god did seem to set his seal, |
| To give the world assurance of a man; |
| This was your husband.--Look you now what follows: |
| Here is your husband, like a milldew'd ear |
| Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes? |
| Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed, |
| And batten on this moor? Ha! have you eyes? |
| You cannot call it love; for at your age |
| The hey-day in the blood is tame, it's humble, |
| And waits upon the judgment: and what judgment |
| Would step from this to this? Sense, sure, you have, |
| Else could you not have motion: but sure that sense |
| Is apoplex'd; for madness would not err; |
| Nor sense to ecstacy was ne'er so thrall'd |
| But it reserv'd some quantity of choice |
| To serve in such a difference. What devil was't |
| That thus hath cozen'd you at hoodman-blind? |
| Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight, |
| Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all, |
| Or but a sickly part of one true sense |
| Could not so mope. |
| O shame! where is thy blush? Rebellious hell, |
| If thou canst mutine in a matron's bones, |
| To flaming youth let virtue be as wax, |
| And melt in her own fire: proclaim no shame |
| When the compulsive ardour gives the charge, |
| Since frost itself as actively doth burn, |
| And reason panders will. |
Queen. | |
| O Hamlet, speak no more: |
| Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul; |
| And there I see such black and grained spots |
| As will not leave their tinct. |
Ham. | |
| Nay, but to live |
| In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed, |
| Stew'd in corruption, honeying and making love |
| Over the nasty sty,-- |
Queen. | |
| O, speak to me no more; |
| These words like daggers enter in mine ears; |
| No more, sweet Hamlet. |
Ham. | |
| A murderer and a villain; |
| A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe |
| Of your precedent lord; a vice of kings; |
| A cutpurse of the empire and the rule, |
| That from a shelf the precious diadem stole |
| And put it in his pocket! |
Queen. | |
| No more. |
Ham. | |
| A king of shreds and patches!-- |
| [Enter Ghost.] |
| Save me and hover o'er me with your wings, |
| You heavenly guards!--What would your gracious figure? |
Queen. | |
| Alas, he's mad! |
Ham. | |
| Do you not come your tardy son to chide, |
| That, laps'd in time and passion, lets go by |
| The important acting of your dread command? |
| O, say! |
Ghost. | |
| Do not forget. This visitation |
| Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose. |
| But, look, amazement on thy mother sits: |
| O, step between her and her fighting soul,-- |
| Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works,-- |
| Speak to her, Hamlet. |
Ham. | |
| How is it with you, lady? |
Queen. | |
| Alas, how is't with you, |
| That you do bend your eye on vacancy, |
| And with the incorporal air do hold discourse? |
| Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep; |
| And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm, |
| Your bedded hairs, like life in excrements, |
| Start up and stand an end. O gentle son, |
| Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper |
| Sprinkle cool patience! Whereon do you look? |
Ham. | |
| On him, on him! Look you how pale he glares! |
| His form and cause conjoin'd, preaching to stones, |
| Would make them capable.--Do not look upon me; |
| Lest with this piteous action you convert |
| My stern effects: then what I have to do |
| Will want true colour; tears perchance for blood. |
Queen. | |
| To whom do you speak this? |
Ham. | |
| Do you see nothing there? |
Queen. | |
| Nothing at all; yet all that is I see. |
Ham. | |
| Nor did you nothing hear? |
Queen. | |
| No, nothing but ourselves. |
Ham. | |
| Why, look you there! look how it steals away! |
| My father, in his habit as he liv'd! |
| Look, where he goes, even now out at the portal! |
| [Exit Ghost.] |
Queen. | |
| This is the very coinage of your brain: |
| This bodiless creation ecstasy |
| Is very cunning in. |
Ham. | |
| Ecstasy! |
| My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time, |
| And makes as healthful music: it is not madness |
| That I have utter'd: bring me to the test, |
| And I the matter will re-word; which madness |
| Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace, |
| Lay not that flattering unction to your soul |
| That not your trespass, but my madness speaks: |
| It will but skin and film the ulcerous place, |
| Whilst rank corruption, mining all within, |
| Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven; |
| Repent what's past; avoid what is to come; |
| And do not spread the compost on the weeds, |
| To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue; |
| For in the fatness of these pursy times |
| Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg, |
| Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good. |
Queen. | |
| O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain. |
Ham. | |
| O, throw away the worser part of it, |
| And live the purer with the other half. |
| Good night: but go not to mine uncle's bed; |
| Assume a virtue, if you have it not. |
| That monster custom, who all sense doth eat, |
| Of habits evil, is angel yet in this,-- |
| That to the use of actions fair and good |
| He likewise gives a frock or livery |
| That aptly is put on. Refrain to-night; |
| And that shall lend a kind of easiness |
| To the next abstinence: the next more easy; |
| For use almost can change the stamp of nature, |
| And either curb the devil, or throw him out |
| With wondrous potency. Once more, good-night: |
| And when you are desirous to be bles'd, |
| I'll blessing beg of you.--For this same lord |
| [Pointing to Polonius.] |
| I do repent; but heaven hath pleas'd it so, |
| To punish me with this, and this with me, |
| That I must be their scourge and minister. |
| I will bestow him, and will answer well |
| The death I gave him. So again, good-night.-- |
| I must be cruel, only to be kind: |
| Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.-- |
| One word more, good lady. |
Queen. | |
| What shall I do? |
Ham. | |
| Not this, by no means, that I bid you do: |
| Let the bloat king tempt you again to bed; |
| Pinch wanton on your cheek; call you his mouse; |
| And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses, |
| Or paddling in your neck with his damn'd fingers, |
| Make you to ravel all this matter out, |
| That I essentially am not in madness, |
| But mad in craft. 'Twere good you let him know; |
| For who that's but a queen, fair, sober, wise, |
| Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib, |
| Such dear concernings hide? who would do so? |
| No, in despite of sense and secrecy, |
| Unpeg the basket on the house's top, |
| Let the birds fly, and, like the famous ape, |
| To try conclusions, in the basket creep |
| And break your own neck down. |
Queen. | |
| Be thou assur'd, if words be made of breath, |
| And breath of life, I have no life to breathe |
| What thou hast said to me. |
Ham. | |
| I must to England; you know that? |
Queen. | |
| Alack, |
| I had forgot: 'tis so concluded on. |
Ham. | |
| There's letters seal'd: and my two schoolfellows,-- |
| Whom I will trust as I will adders fang'd,-- |
| They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way |
| And marshal me to knavery. Let it work; |
| For 'tis the sport to have the enginer |
| Hoist with his own petard: and 't shall go hard |
| But I will delve one yard below their mines |
| And blow them at the moon: O, 'tis most sweet, |
| When in one line two crafts directly meet.-- |
| This man shall set me packing: |
| I'll lug the guts into the neighbour room.-- |
| Mother, good-night.--Indeed, this counsellor |
| Is now most still, most secret, and most grave, |
| Who was in life a foolish peating knave. |
| Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you:-- |
| Good night, mother. |
| [Exeunt severally; Hamlet, dragging out Polonius.] |