And let me wring your heart: for so I shall,
If it be made of penetrable stuff;
If damned custom have not brazed it so,
That it is proof and bulwark against sense.
Queen. What have I done, that thou dar'st
wag thy tongue
In noise so rude against me?
Ham.
Such an act,
That blurs the grace and blush of modesty
Calls virtue, hypocrite; takes off the rose
From the fair forehead of an innocent love,
And sets a blister there; makes marriage vows
As false as dicers' oaths: O, such a deed
As from the body of contraction plucks
The very soul; and sweet religion makes
A rhapsody of words: heaven's face doth glow;
Yea, this solidity and compound mass,
With tristful visage, as against the doom,
Is thought-sick at the act.
Ah me, what act, That roars so loud, and thunders in the index? Ham. Look here, upon this picture, and on
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
See what a grace was seated on this brow:
Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself;
An eye like Mars, to threaten or command
A station like the herald Mercury,
New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill;
A combination, and a form, indeed,
Where every god did seem to set his seal,
To give the world assurance of a man:
This was your husband.-Look you now, what
follows:
Here is your husband; like a mildew'd ear,
Blasting his wholesome brother.-Have you eyes?
Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,
And batten on this moor? Ha! have you eyes?
You cannot call it love: for, at your age,
The hey-day in the blood is tame, it's humble,
And waits upon the judgment: and what judg-
Would step from this to this?
Else, could you not have motion: but sure, that
Is apoplex'd: for madness would not err;
Nor sense to ecstasy was ne'er so thrall'd
But it reserved some quantity of choice,
To serve in such a difference. What devil was't,
That thus hath cozen'd you at hoodman-blind?
Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight,
Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all,
Or but a sickly part of one true sense
Could not so mope.
O shame! where is thy blush? Rebellious hell,
If thou canst mutine in a matron's bones,
To flaming youth let virtue be as wax,
And melt in her own fire: proclaim no shame,
When the compulsive ardour gives the charge;
Since frost itself as actively doth burn,
And reason panders will.
O Hamlet, speak no more: Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul; And there I see such black and grained spots, As will not leave their tinct.
Nay, but to live In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed;
Stew'd in corruption; honeying, and making
These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears; No more, sweet Hamlet !
Ham. A murderer, and a villain : A slave, that is not twentieth part the tithe Of your precedent lord :-a vice of kings: A cutpurse of the empire and the rule; That from a shelf the precious diadem stole, And put it in his pocket! No more!
Ham. A king of shreds and patches :
Save me, and hover o'er me with your wings, You heavenly guards! What would you, gracious figure?
Queen. Alas! he's mad.
Ham. Do you not come your tardy son to chide, That, lapsed in time and passion, lets go by The important acting of your dread command? O, say!
Ghost. Do not forget: this visitation
Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.
But, look! amazement on thy mother sits:
O, step between her and her fighting soul;
Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works:
Speak to her, Hamlet.
How is it with you, lady? Queen. Alas, how is't with you?
That you do bend your eye on vacancy,
And with the incorporal air do hold discourse?
Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep;
And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm,
Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,
Starts up, and stands on end. O gentle son,
Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper
Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look?
Ham. On him! on him!-Look you, how
His form and cause conjoin'd, preaching to stones,
Would make them capable.-Do not look upon
Lest, with this piteous action, you convert
My stern effects: then what I have to do
Will want true colour; tears, perchance, for
Queen. To whom do you speak this?
Do you see nothing there? Queen. Nothing at all; yet all that is I see. Ham. Nor did you nothing hear?
No, nothing, but ourselves. Ham. Why, look you there! look how it steals away!
My father, in his habit as he lived!
Look, where he goes, even now, out at the
[Exit Ghost. Queen. This is the very coinage of your brain : This bodiless creation ecstasy
Is very cunning in.
Ham. Ecstasy!
My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time,
And makes as healthful music: it is not madness
That I have utter'd: bring me to the test,
And I the matter will re-word; which madness
Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,
Lay not that flattering unction to your soul,
That not your trespass, but my madness speaks :
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place;
Whilst rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven;
Repent what's past; avoid what is to come;
And do not spread the compost on the weeds,
To make them ranker.-[Aside.] Forgive me this, my virtue :
For in the fatness of these pursy times,
Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg;
Yea, curb and woo, for leave to do him good. Queen. O Hamlet! thou hast cleft my heart in twain.
Ham. O throw away the worser part of it,
And live the purer with the other half.
Good night but go not to mine uncle's bed;
Assume a virtue, if you have it not.
That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat-
Of habits devil,-is angel yet in this,-
That to the use of actions fair and good
He likewise gives a frock, or livery,
That aptly is put on. Refrain to-night:
And that shall lend a kind of easiness
To the next abstinence: the next more easy;
For use almost can change the stamp of nature,
And master thus the devil, or throw him out
With wondrous potency. Once more, good
And when you are desirous to be bless'd,
I'll blessing beg of you.-For this same lord,
[Pointing to POLONIUS.
I do repent: but heavens hath pleased it so,-
To punish me with this, and this with me,
That I must be their scourge and minister.
I will bestow him, and will answer well
The death I gave him. So again, good night !-
[Aside.] I must be cruel, only to be kind:
Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.-
One word more, good lady.
Ham. Not this, by no means, that I bid you
|