The Tragedy Of Hamlet, Prince Of Denmark

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