Nay, but to live Ham. In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed; Stew'd in corruption; honeying, and making love Over the nasty stye; Queen. O, speak to me no more! These words like daggers enter in mine ears: Ham. A murtherer, and a villain; A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe Queen. No more! Enter Ghost. Ham. A king of shreds and patches. Save me, and hover o'er me with your wings, You heavenly guards! What would your gracious figure? Queen. Alas! he's mad. Ham. Do you not come your tardy son to chide, That, laps'd in time and passion, lets go by Th' important acting of your dread command? O, say! This visitation Ghost. Do not forget. Ham. How is it with you, lady? Queen. Alas! how is't with you, That you do bend your eye on vacancy, And with th' incorporal air do hold discourse? Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep; His form and cause conjoin'd, preaching to stones, Would make them capable. -Do not look upon me; Lest with this piteous action you convert My stern effects: then, what I have to do Will want true colour; tears, perchance, for blood. Queen. To whom do you speak this? Ham. Do you see nothing there? Queen. Nothing at all; yet all that is I see. Ham. Nor did you nothing hear? Queen. No, nothing but ourselves. Ham. Why, look you there! look, how it steals away! My father, in his habit as he liv'd! Look, where he goes, even now, out at the portal? [Exit Ghost. Queen. This is the very coinage of your brain: This bodiless creation ecstasy My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time, Whilst rank corruption, mining all within, 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: To the next abstinence: [the next more easy; I'll blessing beg of you. For this same lord, [Pointing to POLONIUS. : I do repent but Heaven hath pleas'd it so, - Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind. Queen. Ham. Not this, by no means, What shall I do? that I bid you Let the bloat King tempt you again to bed; Pinch wanton on your cheek; call you his mouse; And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses, Or paddling in your neck with his damn'd fingers, Make you to ravel all this matter out, That I essentially am not in madness, do: But mad in craft. "Twere good you let him know; Unpeg the basket on the house's top, Let the birds fly, and, like the famous ape, To try conclusions in the basket creep, And break your own neck down. Queen. Be thou assur'd, if words be made of breath, And breath of life, I have no life to breathe What thou hast said to me. Ham. I must to England; you know that. I had forgot: 'tis so concluded on. Alack! Ham. [There's letters seal'd, and my two school Whom I will trust as I will adders fang'd, They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way, Hoist with his own petar: and it shall go hard I'll lug the guts into the neighbour room. T HERE'S matter in these sighs: these profound You must translate; 'tis fit we understand them. Queen. [Bestow this place on us a little while. -] [Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. Ah, my good lord, what have I seen to-night! King. What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet? Queen. Mad as the sea and wind when both contend Which is the mightier. In his lawless fit, Behind the arras hearing something stir, He whips his rapier out, and cries, "A rat! a rat!" And in his brainish apprehension kills The unseen good old man. |