The Tragedy Of Hamlet, Prince Of Denmark

1 Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
2 KING.
3 And can you by no drift of circumstance
4 Get from him why he puts on this confusion,
5 Grating so harshly all his days of quiet
6 With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?
7 ROSENCRANTZ.
8 He does confess he feels himself distracted,
9 But from what cause he will by no means speak.
10 GUILDENSTERN.
11 Nor do we find him forward to be sounded,
12 But with a crafty madness keeps aloof
13 When we would bring him on to some confession
14 Of his true state.
15 QUEEN.
16 Did he receive you well?
17 ROSENCRANTZ.
18 Most like a gentleman.
19 GUILDENSTERN.
20 But with much forcing of his disposition.
21 ROSENCRANTZ.
22 Niggard of question, but of our demands,
23 Most free in his reply.
24 QUEEN.
25 Did you assay him to any pastime?
26 ROSENCRANTZ.
27 Madam, it so fell out that certain players
28 We o’er-raught on the way. Of these we told him,
29 And there did seem in him a kind of joy
30 To hear of it. They are about the court,
31 And, as I think, they have already order
32 This night to play before him.
33 POLONIUS.
34 ’Tis most true;
35 And he beseech’d me to entreat your Majesties
36 To hear and see the matter.
37 KING.
38 With all my heart; and it doth much content me
39 To hear him so inclin’d.
40 Good gentlemen, give him a further edge,
41 And drive his purpose on to these delights.
42 ROSENCRANTZ.
43 We shall, my lord.
44 [_Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern._]
45 KING.
46 Sweet Gertrude, leave us too,
47 For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither,
48 That he, as ’twere by accident, may here
49 Affront Ophelia.
50 Her father and myself, lawful espials,
51 Will so bestow ourselves that, seeing unseen,
52 We may of their encounter frankly judge,
53 And gather by him, as he is behav’d,
54 If’t be th’affliction of his love or no
55 That thus he suffers for.
56 QUEEN.
57 I shall obey you.
58 And for your part, Ophelia, I do wish
59 That your good beauties be the happy cause
60 Of Hamlet’s wildness: so shall I hope your virtues
61 Will bring him to his wonted way again,
62 To both your honours.
63 OPHELIA.
64 Madam, I wish it may.
65 [_Exit Queen._]
66 POLONIUS.
67 Ophelia, walk you here.—Gracious, so please you,
68 We will bestow ourselves.—[_To Ophelia._] Read on this book,
69 That show of such an exercise may colour
70 Your loneliness.—We are oft to blame in this,
71 ’Tis too much prov’d, that with devotion’s visage
72 And pious action we do sugar o’er
73 The devil himself.
74 KING.
75 [_Aside._] O ’tis too true!
76 How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!
77 The harlot’s cheek, beautied with plastering art,
78 Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it
79 Than is my deed to my most painted word.
80 O heavy burden!
81 POLONIUS.
82 I hear him coming. Let’s withdraw, my lord.
83 [_Exeunt King and Polonius._]
84 Enter Hamlet.
85 HAMLET.
86 To be, or not to be, that is the question:
87 Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
88 The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
89 Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
90 And by opposing end them? To die—to sleep,
91 No more; and by a sleep to say we end
92 The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
93 That flesh is heir to: ’tis a consummation
94 Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep.
95 To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there’s the rub,
96 For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
97 When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
98 Must give us pause. There’s the respect
99 That makes calamity of so long life.
100 For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
101 The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
102 The pangs of dispriz’d love, the law’s delay,
103 The insolence of office, and the spurns
104 That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
105 When he himself might his quietus make
106 With a bare bodkin? Who would these fardels bear,
107 To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
108 But that the dread of something after death,
109 The undiscover’d country, from whose bourn
110 No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
111 And makes us rather bear those ills we have
112 Than fly to others that we know not of?
113 Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
114 And thus the native hue of resolution
115 Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
116 And enterprises of great pith and moment,
117 With this regard their currents turn awry
118 And lose the name of action. Soft you now,
119 The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
120 Be all my sins remember’d.
121 OPHELIA.
122 Good my lord,
123 How does your honour for this many a day?
124 HAMLET.
125 I humbly thank you; well, well, well.
126 OPHELIA.
127 My lord, I have remembrances of yours
128 That I have longed long to re-deliver.
129 I pray you, now receive them.
130 HAMLET.
131 No, not I.
132 I never gave you aught.
133 OPHELIA.
134 My honour’d lord, you know right well you did,
135 And with them words of so sweet breath compos’d
136 As made the things more rich; their perfume lost,
137 Take these again; for to the noble mind
138 Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.
139 There, my lord.
140 HAMLET.
141 Ha, ha! Are you honest?
142 OPHELIA.
143 My lord?
144 HAMLET.
145 Are you fair?
146 OPHELIA.
147 What means your lordship?
148 HAMLET.
149 That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse
150 to your beauty.
151 OPHELIA.
152 Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty?
153 HAMLET.
154 Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from
155 what it is to a bawd than the force of honesty can translate beauty
156 into his likeness. This was sometime a paradox, but now the time gives
157 it proof. I did love you once.
158 OPHELIA.
159 Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.
160 HAMLET.
161 You should not have believed me; for virtue cannot so inoculate our old
162 stock but we shall relish of it. I loved you not.
163 OPHELIA.
164 I was the more deceived.
165 HAMLET.
166 Get thee to a nunnery. Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am
167 myself indifferent honest; but yet I could accuse me of such things
168 that it were better my mother had not borne me. I am very proud,
169 revengeful, ambitious, with more offences at my beck than I have
170 thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act
171 them in. What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and
172 heaven? We are arrant knaves all, believe none of us. Go thy ways to a
173 nunnery. Where’s your father?
174 OPHELIA.
175 At home, my lord.
176 HAMLET.
177 Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool nowhere but
178 in’s own house. Farewell.
179 OPHELIA.
180 O help him, you sweet heavens!
181 HAMLET.
182 If thou dost marry, I’ll give thee this plague for thy dowry. Be thou
183 as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get
184 thee to a nunnery, go: farewell. Or if thou wilt needs marry, marry a
185 fool; for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them. To
186 a nunnery, go; and quickly too. Farewell.
187 OPHELIA.
188 O heavenly powers, restore him!
189 HAMLET.
190 I have heard of your paintings too, well enough. God hath given you one
191 face, and you make yourselves another. You jig, you amble, and you
192 lisp, and nickname God’s creatures, and make your wantonness your
193 ignorance. Go to, I’ll no more on’t, it hath made me mad. I say, we
194 will have no more marriages. Those that are married already, all but
195 one, shall live; the rest shall keep as they are. To a nunnery, go.
196 [_Exit._]
197 OPHELIA.
198 O, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown!
199 The courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s, eye, tongue, sword,
200 Th’expectancy and rose of the fair state,
201 The glass of fashion and the mould of form,
202 Th’observ’d of all observers, quite, quite down!
203 And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
204 That suck’d the honey of his music vows,
205 Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,
206 Like sweet bells jangled out of tune and harsh,
207 That unmatch’d form and feature of blown youth
208 Blasted with ecstasy. O woe is me,
209 T’have seen what I have seen, see what I see.
210 Enter King and Polonius.
211 KING.
212 Love? His affections do not that way tend,
213 Nor what he spake, though it lack’d form a little,
214 Was not like madness. There’s something in his soul
215 O’er which his melancholy sits on brood,
216 And I do doubt the hatch and the disclose
217 Will be some danger, which for to prevent,
218 I have in quick determination
219 Thus set it down: he shall with speed to England
220 For the demand of our neglected tribute:
221 Haply the seas and countries different,
222 With variable objects, shall expel
223 This something settled matter in his heart,
224 Whereon his brains still beating puts him thus
225 From fashion of himself. What think you on’t?
226 POLONIUS.
227 It shall do well. But yet do I believe
228 The origin and commencement of his grief
229 Sprung from neglected love. How now, Ophelia?
230 You need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said,
231 We heard it all. My lord, do as you please,
232 But if you hold it fit, after the play,
233 Let his queen mother all alone entreat him
234 To show his grief, let her be round with him,
235 And I’ll be plac’d, so please you, in the ear
236 Of all their conference. If she find him not,
237 To England send him; or confine him where
238 Your wisdom best shall think.
239 KING.
240 It shall be so.
241 Madness in great ones must not unwatch’d go.
242 [_Exeunt._]