King.

O heavy deed!

It had been so with us, had we been there:

His liberty is full of threats to all;

To you yourself, to us, to every one.

Alas, how shall this bloody deed be answer'd?

It will be laid to us, whose providence

Should have kept short, restrain'd, and out of haunt1
This mad young man: but so much was our love,
We would not understand what was most fit;
But, like the owner of a foul disease,

To keep it from divulging, let it feed
Even on the pith of life.2 Where is he gone?
Queen. To draw apart the body he hath kill'd;
O'er whom his very madness, like some ore
Among a mineral of metals base,

Shows itself pure: he weeps for what is done.
King. O Gertrude, come away!

The Sun no sooner shall the mountains touch,
But we will ship him hence; and this vile deed
We must, with all our majesty and skill,

Both countenance and excuse. Ho, Guildenstern!

Re-enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.

Friends both, go join you with some further aid.
Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain,
And from his mother's closet hath he dragg'd him:
Go seek him out; speak fair, and bring the body
Into the chapel. I pray you, haste in this.

[Exeunt ROSE. and GUILD
Come, Gertrude, we'll call up our wisest friends,
And let them know both what we mean to do,
And what's untimely done: so, haply slander
Whose whisper o'er the world's diameter,

As level as the cannon to his blank,*

Transports his poison'd shot - may miss our name,
And hit the woundless air. O, come away!

My soul is full of discord and dismay.

1 Out of haunt means out of company.

[Exeunt.

2 Certain diseases appear to be attended with an instinct of concealment. I have heard of persons dying of external cancer; yet they had kept so secret about it that their nearest friends had not suspected it.

8 Shakespeare, with a license not unusual among his contemporaries, uses ore for gold, and mineral for mine. Bullokar and Blount both define" or or ore, gold; of a golden colour." And the Cambridge Dictionary, 1594, under the Latin word mineralia, shows how the English mineral came to be used for a mine.

4 The blank was the mark at which shots or arrows were aimed. The words, "so, haply, slander," are not in any old copy, but were supplied by Theobald as necessary to the sense.

SCENE II. The Same. Another Room in the Same.

Ham. Safely stowed.

Enter HAMLET.

Ros. and Guil. [Within.] Hamlet! Lord Hamlet!
Ham. What noise? who calls on Hamlet? O, here they

come.

Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.

Ros. What have you done, my lord, with the dead body? Ham. Compounded it with dust, whereto 'tis kin.

Ros. Tell us where 'tis; that we may take it thence, And bear it to the chapel.

Ham. Do not believe it.

Ros. Believe what?

Ham. That I can keep your counsel, and not mine own. Besides, to be demanded of a sponge, what replication should be made by the son of a king?

Ros. Take you me for a sponge, my lord?

Ham. Ay, sir; that soaks up the King's countenance, his rewards, his authorities. But such officers do the King best service in the end: he keeps them, as an ape doth nuts in the corner of his jaw;1 first mouth'd to be last swallowed: When he needs what you have glean'd, it is but squeezing you, and, sponge, you shall be dry again.

Ros. I understand you not, my lord.

Ham. I am glad of it: a knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear.2

Ros. My lord, you must tell us where the body is, and go with us to the King.

Ham. The body is with the King, but the King is not with the body. The King is a thing

Guil. A thing, my lord!

- of nothing: bring me to him. Hide fox, and all

[Exeunt

1 The words, 66 as an ape doth nuts," are from the quarto of 1603. The other quartos merely have, "like an apple; "the folio has "like an ape," only.

2 Perhaps this is best explained by a passage in Love's Labour's Lost, v. 2: "A jest's prosperity lies in the ear of him that hears it, never in the tongue of him that makes it."

3 Hamlet is purposely talking riddles, in order to tease and puzzle his questioners. The meaning of this riddle, to the best of my guessing, is, that the king's body is with the king, but not the king's soul: he's a king without kingliness.

4 "Hide fox, and all after," was a juvenile sport, most probably what in now called hide and seek.

SCENE III.

The Same. Another Room in the Same.

Enter the KING, attended.

King. I've sent to seek him, and to find the body.
How dangerous is it that this man goes loose!
Yet must not we put the strong law on him:
He's lov'd of the distracted multitude,

Who like not in their judgment, but their eyes;

And where 'tis so, th' offender's scourge is weigh'd,
But never the offence.1 To bear all smooth and even,
This sudden sending him away must seem
Deliberate pause: diseases desperate grown
By desperate appliance are reliev'd,

Or not at all.

Enter ROSENCRANTZ.

How now! what hath befall'n?

Ros. Where the dead body is bestow'd, my lord,

We cannot get from him.

King.

But where is he?

Ros. Without, my lord; guarded, to know your pleasure. King. Bring him before us.

Ros. Ho, Guildenstern! bring in my lord.

Enter HAMLET and GUILDENstern.

King. Now, Hamlet, where's Polonius?
Ham. At supper.

King. At supper! where?

Ham. Not where he eats, but where he is eaten: a certain convocation of politic worms are e'en at him.2 Your worm is your only emperor for diet: we fat all creatures else, to fat and we fat ourselves for maggots: Your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service; two dishes, but to one table: that's the end..

us;

King. Alas, alas!

Ham. A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm. King. What dost thou mean by this?

Ham. Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through a beggar.

1 Who like not what their judgment approves, for they have none, but what pleases their eyes; and in this case the criminal's punishment is considered, but not his crime.

2 Alluding, no doubt, to the Diet of Worms, which Protestants regarded as a convocation of politicians.

Alluding to the royal journeys of state, styled progresses.

King. Where is Polonius?

Ham. In Heaven; send thither to see: if your messenger find him not there, seek him i̇' the other place yourself. But, indeed, if you find him not within this month, you shall nose him as you go up the stairs into the lobby.

King. [To Attendants.] Go seek him there.
Ham. He will stay till ye come.

[Exeunt Attendants.

King. Hamlet, this deed, for thine especial safety,Which we do tender, as we dearly grieve

For that which thou hast done, must send thee hence
With fiery quickness: therefore prepare thyself;

The bark is ready, and the wind at help,

Th' associates tend, and every thing is bent

For England.

Ham. For England!

King. Ay, Hamlet.
Ham. Good.

King. So it is, if thou knew'st our purposes.
Ham. I see a cherub that sees them.5.

England! - Farewell, dear mother.

King. Thy loving father,. Hamlet.

But, come; for

Ham. My mother: father and mother is man and wife; man and wife is one flesh; and so, my mother. Come, for England!

[Exit.

King. Follow him at foot; tempt him with speed aboard; Delay it not; I'll have him hence to-night:

Away! for every thing is seal'd and done

That else leans on th' affair: pray you, make haste.

[Exeunt ROSE. and GUILD.

And, England, if my love thou hold'st at aught,
(As my great power thereof may give thee sense;
Since yet thy cicatrice looks raw and red
After the Danish sword, and thy free awe
Pays homage to us,) thou may'st not coldly set
Our sovereign process; which imports at full,
By letters conjuring to that effect,7

6

The present death of Hamlet. Do it, England;
For like the hectic in my blood he rages,
And thou must cure me: till I know 'tis done,
Howe'er my haps, my joys were ne'er begun.

[Exit.

4 The associates of your voyage are waiting."The wind at help"

means the wind serves, or is right, to forward you.

5 Hamlet means that he divines them, or has an inkling of them.

6 To set formerly meant to estimate. To set much or little by a thing, is to estimate it much or little.

7 In Shakespeare's time the two senses of conjure had not acquired each its peculiar way of pronouncing the word. Here conjuring has the first syllable long, with the sense of earnestly entreating.

SCENE IV. A Plain in Denmark.

Enter FORTINBRAS, a Captain, and Forces, marching.

For. Go, Captain, from me greet the Danish King;
Tell him that by his license Fortinbras

Claims the conveyance of a promis'd march
Over his kingdom. You know the rendezvous.
If that his Majesty would aught with us,

We shall express our duty in his eye;1

And let him know so.

Cap.

For. Go softly on.

I will do't, my lord.

[Exeunt FORTINBRAS and Forces.

Enter HAMLET, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, &c.

Ham. Good sir, whose powers are these?

Cap. They are of Norway, sir.

Ham. How purpos'd, sir, I pray you?
Cap. Against some part of Poland.
Ham. Who commands them, sir?

Cap. The nephew to old Norway, Fortinbras.
Ham. Goes it against the main of Poland, sir,
Or for some frontier?

Cap. Truly to speak, sir, and with no addition, We go to gain a little patch of ground

That hath in it no profit but the name.

Το pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it;

Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole

A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee.

Ham. Why, then the Polack never will defend it.
Cap. Yes, 'tis already garrison'd.

Ham. Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats

Will not debate the question of this straw:

This is th' imposthume of much wealth and peace,2
That inward breaks, and shows no cause without
Why the man dies. — I humbly thank you, sir.
Cap. God b' wi' you, sir.

Ros.

[Exit Captain. Will't please you go, my lord? Go a little before. [Exeunt all but HAMLET.

Ham. I'll be with you straight.

How all occasions do inform against me,

And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,

1 In the Regulations for the Establishment of the Queen's Household, 1627: "All such as doe service in the queen's eye. 99 And in The Establishment of Prince Henry's Household, 1610: "All such as doe service in the prince's

eye."

2 Imposthume was in common use for abscess in the Poet's time