Hamlet Read online

  POLONIUS If you call me Jephthah, my lord, I have a daughter

  that I love passing well.

  HAMLET Nay, that follows not405.

  POLONIUS What follows, then, my lord?

  HAMLET Why,

  'As by lot, God wot408',

  and then, you know,

  'It came to pass, as most like410 it was' --

  the first row of the pious chanson411 will show you more,

  for look where my abridgements412 come.--

  Enter four or five Players

  You're welcome, masters, welcome all.-- I am glad to see

  thee well.-- Welcome, good friends.-- O, my old friend! Thy

  face is valanced since I saw thee last: com'st thou to beard415

  me in Denmark?-- What, my young lady and mistress! By'r416

  lady, your ladyship417 is nearer heaven than when I saw you

  last, by the altitude of a chopine418. Pray God your voice, like a

  piece of uncurrent gold, be not cracked within the ring419.

  Masters, you are all welcome. We'll e'en to't420 like French

  falconers, fly at anything we see. We'll have a speech

  straight: come, give us a taste of your quality422: come, a

  passionate speech.

  FIRST PLAYER What speech, my lord?

  HAMLET I heard thee speak me a speech once, but it was

  never acted, or if it was, not above once, for the play, I

  remember, pleased not the million: 'twas caviar to the427

  general. But it was -- as I received it, and others, whose

  judgement in such matters cried in the top of429 mine -- an

  excellent play, well digested430 in the scenes, set down with as

  much modesty as cunning431. I remember one said there was

  no sallets in the lines to make the matter savoury432, nor no

  matter in the phrase that might indict433 the author of

  affectation, but called it an honest method, as wholesome as434

  sweet, and by very much more handsome than fine435. One

  speech in it I chiefly loved: 'twas Aeneas' tale to Dido436, and

  thereabout of it especially where he speaks of Priam's437

  slaughter: if it live in your memory, begin at this line -- let

  me see, let me see --

  'The rugged Pyrrhus, like th'Hyrcanian beast440'--

  It is not so: it begins with Pyrrhus:

  'The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable442 arms,

  Black as his purpose, did the night resemble

  When he lay couched in the ominous horse444,

  Hath now this dread and black complexion smeared

  With heraldry more dismal446: head to foot

  Now is he total gules, horridly tricked447

  With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons,

  Baked and impasted with the parching449 streets

  That lend a tyrannous450 and damned light

  To their vile murders: roasted in wrath and fire,

  And thus o'er-sized with coagulate452 gore,

  With eyes like carbuncles453, the hellish Pyrrhus

  Old grandsire454 Priam seeks.'

  So, proceed you.

  POLONIUS Fore God, my lord, well spoken, with good accent

  and good discretion457.

  FIRST PLAYER 'Anon458 he finds him

  Striking too short at Greeks: his antique459 sword,

  Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls,

  Repugnant461 to command. Unequal matched,

  Pyrrhus at Priam drives, in rage strikes wide,

  But with the whiff and wind of his fell463 sword

  Th'unnerved father falls. Then senseless Ilium464,

  Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming top

  Stoops to his base, and with a hideous crash

  Takes prisoner Pyrrhus' ear467, for, lo, his sword,

  Which was declining on the milky468 head

  Of reverend Priam, seemed i'th'air to stick:

  So as a painted470 tyrant Pyrrhus stood,

  And, like a neutral to his will and matter471,

  Did nothing.

  But as we often see against473 some storm

  A silence in the heavens, the rack474 stand still,

  The bold winds speechless and the orb475 below

  As hush as death, anon the dreadful thunder

  Doth rend the region477, so, after Pyrrhus' pause,

  Aroused vengeance sets him new a-work,

  And never did the Cyclops'479 hammers fall

  On Mars his armours forged for proof eterne480

  With less remorse481 than Pyrrhus' bleeding sword

  Now falls on Priam.

  Out, out, thou strumpet Fortune! All you gods

  In general synod484 take away her power,

  Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel485,

  And bowl the round nave486 down the hill of heaven,

  As low as to the fiends!'

  POLONIUS This is too long.

  HAMLET It shall to th'barber's, with your beard.-- Prithee,

  say on: he's for a jig490 or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps: say on;

  come to Hecuba491.

  FIRST PLAYER 'But who, O, who had seen the mobled492 queen--'

  HAMLET 'The mobled queen.'

  POLONIUS That's good: 'mobled queen' is good.

  FIRST PLAYER 'Run barefoot up and down, threat'ning the flame

  With bisson rheum, a clout496 about that head

  Where late the diadem497 stood, and for a robe,

  About her lank and all o'er-teemed498 loins

  A blanket, in th'alarm of fear caught up.

  Who this had seen500, with tongue in venom steeped,

  Gainst Fortune's state would treason have pronounced501:

  But if the gods themselves did see her then

  When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport

  In mincing with his sword her husband's limbs,

  The instant burst of clamour that she made --

  Unless things mortal move them not at all --

  Would have made milch507 the burning eyes of heaven,

  And passion508 in the gods.'

  POLONIUS Look, whe'er509 he has not turned his colour and has

  tears in's eyes. Pray you no more.

  HAMLET 'Tis well: I'll have thee speak out the rest soon.--

  Good my lord, will you see the players well bestowed512? Do ye

  hear, let them be well used, for they are the abstracts513 and

  brief chronicles of the time: after your death you were better

  have a bad epitaph than their ill report while you lived.

  POLONIUS My lord, I will use them according to their desert516.

  HAMLET God's bodikins, man, better: use every man after517 his

  desert, and who should scape whipping? Use them after your

  own honour and dignity: the less they deserve, the more

  merit is in your bounty520. Take them in.

  POLONIUS Come, sirs.

  Exit Polonius

  HAMLET Follow him, friends: we'll hear a play tomorrow.--

  To a Player

  Dost thou hear me, old friend? Can you play

  The Murder of Gonzago?

  A PLAYER Ay, my lord.

  HAMLET We'll ha't tomorrow night. You could, for a need525,

  study526 a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines which I would

  set down and insert in't, could ye not?

  A PLAYER Ay, my lord.

  HAMLET Very well. Follow that lord, and look you mock him

  not.--

  [Exeunt Players]

  My good friends, I'll leave you till night. You are welcome to

  Elsinore.

  ROSENCRANTZ Good my lord.

  Exeunt [Rosencrantz and Guildenstern]. Hamlet remains

  HAMLET Ay, so, God buy ye.-- Now I am alone.

  O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!

  Is it not
monstrous that this player here,

  But537 in a fiction, in a dream of passion,

  Could force his soul so to his whole conceit538

  That from her working all his visage wanned539,

  Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect540,

  A broken voice, and his whole function suiting541

  With forms to his conceit? And all for nothing!

  For Hecuba!

  What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,

  That he should weep for her? What would he do

  Had he the motive546 and the cue for passion

  That I have? He would drown the stage with tears

  And cleave the general ear with horrid548 speech,

  Make mad the guilty and appal the free549,

  Confound the ignorant and amaze550 indeed

  The very faculty of eyes and ears. Yet I,

  A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak552

  Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of553 my cause,

  And can say nothing: no, not for a king

  Upon whose property555 and most dear life

  A damned defeat556 was made. Am I a coward?

  Who calls me villain? Breaks my pate557 across?

  Plucks off558 my beard and blows it in my face?

  Tweaks me by th'nose? Gives me the lie i'th'throat559,

  As deep as to the lungs? Who does me this560?

  Ha!

  Why, I should take it, for it cannot be

  But I am pigeon-livered563 and lack gall

  To make oppression bitter, or ere this

  I should have fatted all the region kites565

  With this slave's offal566: bloody, bawdy villain!

  Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless567 villain!

  O, vengeance!

  Why, what an ass am I! Ay, sure, this is most brave569,

  That I, the son of the dear murdered,

  Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,

  Must like a whore unpack my heart with words

  And fall a-cursing, like a very drab, a scullion573!

  Fie upon't, foh! About574, my brain! I have heard

  That guilty creatures sitting at a play

  Have by the very cunning576 of the scene

  Been struck so to the soul that presently577

  They have proclaimed their malefactions578:

  For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak

  With most miraculous organ. I'll have these players

  Play something like the murder of my father

  Before mine uncle: I'll observe his looks,

  I'll tent him to the quick: if he but blench583,

  I know my course. The spirit that I have seen

  May be the devil, and the devil hath power

  T'assume a pleasing shape, yea, and perhaps,

  Out of my weakness and my melancholy,

  As he is very potent with such spirits588,

  Abuses me to damn me. I'll have grounds

  More relative590 than this: the play's the thing

  Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.

  Exit

  [Act 3 Scene 1]

  running scene 7

  Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and Lords

  KING And can you by no drift of circumstance1

  Get from him why he puts on this confusion,

  Grating3 so harshly all his days of quiet

  With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?

  ROSENCRANTZ He does confess he feels himself distracted,

  But from what cause he will by no means speak.

  GUILDENSTERN Nor do we find him forward to be sounded7,

  But with a crafty madness keeps aloof

  When we would bring him on to some confession

  Of his true state.

  GERTRUDE Did he receive you well?

  ROSENCRANTZ Most like a gentleman.

  GUILDENSTERN But with much forcing of his disposition13.

  ROSENCRANTZ Niggard of question, but of our demands14

  Most free in his reply.

  GERTRUDE Did you assay16 him to any pastime?

  ROSENCRANTZ Madam, it so fell out that certain players

  We o'erraught18 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.

  POLONIUS 'Tis most true:

  And he beseeched 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 inclined.

  Good gentlemen, give him a further edge28

  And drive his purpose on to these delights.

  ROSENCRANTZ We shall, my lord.

  Exeunt [Rosencrantz and Guildenstern]

  KING Sweet Gertrude, leave us too.

  Exit Lords

  For we have closely32 sent for Hamlet hither,

  That he, as 'twere by accident, may here

  Affront34 Ophelia:

  Her father and myself, lawful espials35,

  Will so bestow ourselves that, seeing unseen,

  We may of their encounter frankly judge,

  And gather by him, as he is behaved,

  If't be th'affliction of his love or no

  That thus he suffers for.

  GERTRUDE 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.

  OPHELIA Madam, I wish it may.

  [Exit Gertrude]

  To Ophelia

  POLONIUS Ophelia, walk you here.-- Gracious48, so please you,

  We will bestow ourselves.-- Read on this book,

  Gives a book

  That show of such an exercise may colour50

  Your loneliness. We are oft to blame in this --

  'Tis too much proved -- that with devotion's visage52

  And pious action we do sugar o'er

  The devil himself.

  Aside

  KING O, 'tis true!

  How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!

  The harlot's cheek, beautied with plast'ring art57,

  Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it58

  Than is my deed to my most painted word.

  O, heavy burden!

  POLONIUS I hear him coming: let's withdraw, my lord.

  Exeunt [King and Polonius]

  To a place from where they eavesdrop, while Ophelia pretends to read

  Enter Hamlet

  HAMLET To be, or not to be, that is the question:

  Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

  The slings and arrows of outrageous64 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 shocks68

  That flesh is heir to: 'tis a consummation69

  Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep:

  To sleep, perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub71,

  For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

  When we have shuffled off this mortal coil73,

  Must give us pause: there's the respect74

  That makes calamity of so long life75,

  For who would bear the whips and scorns76 of time,

  The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely77,

  The pangs of disprized78 love, the law's delay,

  The insolence of office and the spurns79

  That patient merit of the unworthy takes80,

  When he himself might his quietus81 make

  With a bare bodkin? Who would these fardels82 bea
r,

  To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

  But that the dread of something after death,

  The undiscovered country from whose bourn85

  No traveller returns, puzzles86 the will,

  And makes us rather bear those ills we have

  Than fly to others that we know not of?

  Thus conscience89 does make cowards of us all:

  And thus the native hue90 of resolution

  Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast91 of thought,

  And enterprises of great pith and moment92

  With this regard their currents turn away,

  And lose the name of action. Soft you94 now,

  The fair Ophelia.-- Nymph, in thy orisons95

  Be all my sins remembered.

  OPHELIA Good my lord,

  How does your honour for this many a day?

  HAMLET I humbly thank you: well, well, well.

  OPHELIA My lord, I have remembrances100 of yours,

  That I have longed long to re-deliver:

  Offers love tokens

  I pray you now receive them.

  HAMLET No, no: I never gave you aught.

  OPHELIA My honoured lord, I know right well you did,

  And with them words of so sweet breath composed

  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.

  Tries to hand over tokens

  There, my lord.

  HAMLET Ha, ha! Are you honest110?

  OPHELIA My lord?

  HAMLET Are you fair112?

  OPHELIA What means your lordship?

  HAMLET That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should114

  admit no discourse to your beauty.

  OPHELIA Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce116 than

  with honesty?

  HAMLET 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 his120 likeness: this was

  sometime a paradox121, but now the time gives it proof. I did

  love you once.

  OPHELIA Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.

  HAMLET You should not have believed me, for virtue cannot so124

  inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it: I loved you not.

  OPHELIA I was the more deceived.

  HAMLET Get thee to a nunnery127. Why wouldst thou be a

  breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest128, 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 beck131 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

  heaven and earth? We are arrant knaves all: believe none of

  us. Go thy ways to a nunnery. Where's your father?

  OPHELIA At home, my lord.

  HAMLET Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play

  the fool nowhere but in's own house. Farewell.

  OPHELIA O, help him, you sweet heavens!

  HAMLET 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