King. Do you think, 'tis this? Queen. It may be, very likely.

know that,

That I have positively said, 'Tis so, When it prov'd otherwise?

King. Not that I know.

Pol. Take this from this, if this be otherwise : [Pointing to his Head and Shoulder. If circumstances lead me, I will find Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed Within the centre.

King. How may we try it further?

Pol. You know, sometimes he walks for hours

Pol. I bave, my lord.

:

Ham. Let her not walk i'the sun conception is a blessing; but as your daughter may conceive, § -friend, look to't.

Pol. How say you by that? [Aside.] Still harping on my daughter --yet he knew me not at first; he said, I was a fishmonger: He is far gone, far gone; and truly, in my youth, I suffered much extremity for love; very near this. I'll speak to him again.-What do you read, my lord?

Ham. Words, words, words!

Pol. What is the matter, my lord?
Ham. Between who?

Pol. I mean the matter that you read, my lord.

Ham. Slanders, Sir: for the satirical rogue says here, that old men have grey beards; that their faces are wrinkled; their eyes purging thick amber, and plum-tree gum; and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams: All of which, Sir, though most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down; for yourself, Sir, shall be as old as I am, if, like a crab, you could go backward.

Pol. Though this be madness, yet there's method in it. [Aside.] Will you walk out of, the air, my lord?

Ham. Into my grave?

Pol. Indeed, that is out o'the air.-How pregnant sometimes his replies are! a happiness that often madness hits on, which reason and sanity¶ could not so prosperously be delivered of.

my leave of you.

Ham. You cannot, Sir, take from me any thing, that I will more willingly part withal; except my life, except my life, except my life. Pol. Fare you well, my lord. Ham. These tedious old fools!

Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. Pol. You go to seek the lord Hamlet; there he is.

Ros. God save you, Sir!

Guil. My honour'd lord !— Ros. My most dear lord!

[TO POLONIUS. [Exit POLONIUS.

Ham. My excellent good friends! How dost thou, Guildenstern? Ah! Rosencrantz! Good lads, how do ye both?

Ros. As the indifferent children of the earth. Guil. Happy, in that we are not overhappy; On fortune's cap we are not the very button. Ham. Nor the soles of her shoe?

Ros. Neither, my lord.

Ham. Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of her favours?

Guil. 'Faith ber privates we.

Ham. In the secret parts of fortune? Oh ! most true; she is a strumpet. What news?

Ros. None, my lord; but that the world is grown honest.

Ham. Then is doomsday near: But your news is not true. Let me question more in particular: What have you, my good friends, deserved at the hands of fortune, that she sends you to prison hither?

Guil. Prison, my lord!

Ham. Denmark's a prison.

Ros. Then is the world one.

Ham. A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons; Denmark being one of the worst.

Ros. We think not so, my lord.

Ham. Why, then 'tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so to me it is a prison.

Ros. Why, then your ambition makes it one; 'tis too narrow for your mind.

Ham. O God! I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space; were it not that I have bad dreams.

Guil. Which dreams, indeed, are ambition; for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.

Ham. A dream itself is but a shadow.

Ros. Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality, that it is but a shadow's shadow.

Ham. Then are our beggars, bodies; and our monarchs and outstretch'd heroes the beggars' shadows: Shall we to the court? for, by my fay, I cannot reason.

Ros. Guil. We'll wait upon you.

Ham. No such matter: I will not sort you with the rest of my servants; for, to speak to you like an honest man, I am most dreadfully attended. But, in the beaten way of friendship, what make you at Elsinore?

Ros. To visit you, my lord; no other occasion.

Ham. Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks; but I thank you: and sure, dear friends, my thanks are too dear, a halfpenny. Were you not sent for? Is it your own inclining? Is it a free visitation? Come, come: deal justly with me: come, come; nay, speak.

Guil. What should we say, my lord?

Ham. Any thing-but to the purpose. You were sent for; and there is a kind of confession in your looks, which your modesties have not craft enough to colour: I know, the good king and queen have sent for you.

Ros. To what end, my lord?

Ham. That you must teach me. Bu let me

For Hecuba!

What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, [do,
That he should weep for her? What would be
Had he the motive and the cue for passion,
That I have? He would drown the stage with

tears,

And cleave the general ear with horrid speech;
Make mad the guilty, and appal the free,
Confound the ignorant, and amaze, indeed,
The very faculties of eyes and ears.
Yet I,

A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak,
Like John a-dreains, unpregnant of my cause,
And can say nothing; no, not for a king,
Upon whose property, and most dear life,
A damn'd defeat was made. Am I a coward?
Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across?
Plucks off my beard, and blows it in my face?
Tweaks me by the nose? gives me the lie i'the
throat,

As deep as to the lungs? Who does me this?
Ha!

Why, I should take it for it cannot be,
But I am pigeon-liver'd, and lack gall
To make oppression bitter; or, ere this,
I should have fatted all the region kites
With this slave's offal: Bloody, bawdy vil-
lain !

Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless,

villain!

Fie upon't! foh! About my brains! Humph!
I have heard,

That guilty creatures, sitting at a play,
Have by the very cunning of the scene
Been struck so to the soul, that presently
They have proclaim'd their malefactions;
For murder, though it have no tongue, will
speak
[players
With most miraculous organ. I'll have these
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 do blench, $
I know my course. The spirit that I have seen,
May be a devil: and the devil hath power
To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and, perhaps,
Out of my weakness, and my melancholy,
(As he is very potent with such spirits,)
Abuses me to damn me: I'll have grounds
More relative than this: The play's the thing,
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.

ACT III.

SCENE I-A Room in the Castle.

[Exit.

Enter KING, QUEEN, POLONIUS, OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN.

Guil. But with much forcing of his dispos!. tion.

Ros. Niggard of question; but, of our demands Most free in his reply.

Queen. Did you assay him To any pastime ?

Ros. Madam, it so fell out, that certain players We o'er-raught on the way: of these we tofu 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.

Pol. 'Tis most true:

And he beseech'd me to entreat your majesties, To hear and see the matter.

King. With all my heart; and it dth muck

content me

To hear him so inclin❜d.

Good gentlemen, give him a further edge,
And drive his purpose on to these delights.
Ros. We shall, my lord.

[Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN
King. Sweet Gertrude, leave us too:
For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither;
That he, as 'twere by accident, may here
Affront Ophelia :

Her father, and myself (lawful espials, †)
Will so bestow ourselves, that, seeing, unseen,
We may of their encounter frankly judge;
And gather by him, as he is behav'd,
If't be the affliction of his love, or no,
That thus he suffers for.

Queen. 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 Th pe, your
virtnes

Will bring him to his wonted way again,
To both your honours.

Oph. Madam, I wish it may.

[Exit QUEEN. Pol. Ophelia, walk you here :-Gracious, so please you, We will bestow ourselves :-Read on this book: [To OPHELIA.

That show of such an exercise may colour
Your loneliness.-We are oft to blaine in this,-
'Tis too much prov'd, ¶ that, with devotion's
visage,

And pious action, we do sugar o'er
The devil himself.

King. Oh! 'tis too true: how smart

A lash that speech doth give my conscience! The harlot's cheek, beautified with plastering art,

Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it, Than is my deed to my most painted word: O heavy burden! [Aside. Pol. I hear him coming; let's withdraw, my lord. [Exeunt KiNG and POLONIUS.

Enter HAMLET.

ence,

Get from him, why he puts on this confusion;
Grating so harshly all his days of quiet
With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?

Ros. He does confess, he feels himself distracted;

But from what cause he will by no means speak. Guil. Nor do we find him forward to be sounded;

But, with a crafty madness, keeps aloof.
When we would bring him on to some confes-
Of his true state.

Queen. Did he receive you well?
Ros. Most like a gentleman.

Destruction.

Search his wounds.

[sion

And, by opposing, end them? To die-to

sleep,

No more ;-and, by a sleep, to say we end The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to,-'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die--to sleep ;-
To sleep! perchance to dream;-ay, there's the
rub;
[come,

For in that sleep of death what dreams may
When we have shuffled of this mortal coil, **
Must give us panse: There's the respect t
That makes calamity of so long life:

+ Meet. 1 Spies. f Place. Too frequent. **Stir, bustle. tt Consideration.

↑ Unnatural.

• Overtook Freely.

Shrink or start.

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's con-
·
tumely,

The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus + make
With a bare bodkin?t who would fardels
bear,

To groan and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,-
That undiscover'd country, from whose bourn ||
No traveller returns,-puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.-Soft you, now!
The fair Ophelia :-Nymph, in thy orisons ¶
Be all my sins remember'd.

Oph. Good my lord,

How does your honour for this many a day? Ham. I humbly thank you; well.

Oph. My lord, I have remembrances your's

That I have longed long to re-deliver;
I pray you, now receive them.

Ham. No, not I;

I never gave you aught.

of

Oph. My honour'd lord, you know right well you did;

And, with them, words of so sweet breath compos'd

[lost,
As made the things more rich their perfume
Take these again for to the noble mind,
Rich gifts wax poor, when givers prove unkind.
There, my lord.

Ham. Ha, ha! are you honest?
Oph. My lord ?

Ham. Are you fair?

Oph. What means your lordship?

Ham. That if you be honest, and fair, you should admit no discourse to your beauty. Oph. Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty?

Bam. 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 his likeness: this was sometime a paradox, but now the time gives it proof. I did love you once.

Oph. Indeed, my lord, you made me believe

Ham. You should not have believed me; for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock, but we shall relish of it: I loved you not.

I was more deceived. Ham. Get thee to a numery; Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest; 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 beck, ** 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 earth and heaven! We are arrant knaves, all; believe none of us: Go thy ways to a nunnery. Where's your father?

Oph. At home, my lord. Ham. Let the doors be shut upon him; that he may play the fool no where but in's own

house. Farewell.

Oph. O help him, you sweet heavens ! Ham. 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 not escape calumny.

Rudeness.
† Acquittance.
The ancient term for a small dagger.
6 Packs, burdens.
Boundary, limits.
Prayers.
Call.

Get thee to a nunnery; farewell: Or, if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool; for wise men know well enough, what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go; and quickly too. Farewell.

Oph. Heavenly powers, restore him!

Ham. I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another: you jig, you amble, and you lisp, and nick-name God's creatures, and make your wantonness your ignorance: Go to: I'll no more of't; it hath made me mad. I say, we will have no more marriages: those that are married already, all but one, shall live; the rest shall keep as they are. To a nunnery, [Erit HAMLET. Oph. Oh! what a noble mind is here o'erthrown! [sword: The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, The expectancy and rose of the fair state, The glass of fashion, and the mould of form, The observ'd of all observers! quite, quite

go.

down!

And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
That suck'd the honey of his music vows,
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh;
That unmatch'd form and feature of blown

youth,

Blasted with ecstacy: O woe is me!

To have seen what I have seen, see what I see. Re-enter KING and POLONIUS.

King. Love! his affections do not that way tend;

Nor what he spake, though it lack'd form a little, Was not like madness. There's something in his soul,

O'er which his melancholy sits on brood;
And, I do doubt, the hatch, and the disclose,
Will be some danger: Which for to prevent,
I have, in quick determination,

Thus set it down; He shall with speed to
England,

For the demand of our neglected tribute:
Haply, the seas, and countries different,
With variable objects, shall expel

This something-settled matter in his heart;
Whereon his brains still beating, puts him thus
From fashion of himself.
What think you

on't?

Pol. It shall do well; But yet I do believe The origin, and commencement of his grief Sprung from neglected love.-How now, Ophelia?

You need not tell us what lord Hamlet said;
We heard it all.-My lord, do as you please;
But, if you hold it fit, after the play,
Let his queen mother all alone entreat him
To show his grief; let her be round with him;
And I'll be plac'd, so please you, in the ear
of all their conference, as she find him not,
To England send him; or confine him, where
Your wisdom best shall think.