With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May;
And, how his audit stands, who knows, save heaven?
But, in our circumstance and course of thought,
'Tis heavy with him': And am I then reveng❜d,
To take him in the purging of his soul,
When he is fit and season'd for his passage?

No.

Up, sword; and know thou a more horrid hent :*
When he is drunk, asleep, or in his rage;
Or in the incestuous pleasures of his bed;
At gaming, swearing; or about some act
That has no relish of salvation in't :

Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven :
And that his soul may be as damn'd, and black,
As hell, whereto it goes. My mother stays:
This physic but prolongs thy sickly days.

The King rises, and advances.

[Exit.

King. My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Words, without thoughts, never to heaven go.

SCENE IV.

[Exit.

Another Room in the same. Enter Queen and POLONIUS,

Pol. He will come straight. Look, you lay home to

him :

Tell him, his pranks have been too broad to bear with
And that your grace hath screen'd and stood between
Much heat and him. I'll silence me e'en here;
Pray you, be round with him,

Queen. I'll warrant you;

Fear me not withdraw, I hear him coming.

[POLONIUS hides himself.

Enter HAMLET,

Ham. Now, mother; what's the matter?

Queen. Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended. Ham. Mother, you have my father much offended. Queen. Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue. Ham. Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.

[2] To hent is used by Shakespeare for to seize, to catch, to lay hold on. Hent is, therefore, hold, seizure. Lay hold on him, sword, at a more horrid time. JOHNSON. [3] This speech, in which Hamlet, represented as a virtuous character, is not content with taking blood for blood, but contrives damnation for the man that he would punish, is too horrible to be read or to be uttered. JOHNSON.

This speech of Hamlet, as Dr. Johnson observes, is horrible indeed; yet some moral may be extracted from it, as all his subsequent calamities were owing to this savage refinement of revenge. M. MASON.

Queen. Why, how now, Hamlet?
Ham. What's the matter now?
Queen. Have you forgot me?
Ham. No, by the rood, not so:

;

You are the queen, your husband's brother's wife
And,-would it were not so !-you are my mother.
Queen. Nay, then I'll set those to you that can speak.
Ham. Come, come, and sit you down; you shall not
You go not, till I set you up a glass
[budge;

Where you may see the inmost part of you.

Queen. What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murder me ? Help, help, ho!

Pol. [behind.] What, ho! help!
Ham. How now! a rat? [Draws.]

dead. [HAMLET makes a pass
Pol. [behind.] O, I am slain.
Queen. O me, what hast thou done?
Ham. Nay, I know not :

Is it the king?

Dead, for a ducat,

through the arras. [Falls and dies.

[Lifts up the arras, and draws forth POLONIUS. Queen. O, what a rash and bloody deed is this! Ham, A bloody deed;-almost as bad, good mother, As kill a king, and marry with his brother.

Queen. As kill a king!

Ham. Ay, lady, 'twas my word.—

Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!

[TO POLONIUS,

I took thee for thy better; take thy fortune:
Thou find'st, to be too busy, is some danger.-
Leave wringing of your hands: Peace; sit you down,
And let me wring your heart: for so I shall,

If it be made of penetrable stuff;

If damned custom have not braz'd it so,

That it be 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.

Queen. Ah me, what act,

That roars so loud, and thunders in the index ?"
Ham. Look here, upon this picture, and on this;
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 and 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 judgment
Would step from this to this? Sense, sure, you have,
Else, could you not have motion: But, sure, that sense
Is apoplex'd: for madness would not err;

Nor sense to ecstacy was ne'er so thrall'd,
But it reserv'd 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,

Contraction for marriage-contract.

WARBURTON.

The meaning is, What is this act, of which the discovery or mention, cannot be

made, but with this violence of clamour?

JOHNSON.

[6] Station, in this instance, does not mean the spot where any one is placed, but

the act of standing. STEEVENS.

[7] That is, I suppose, the same as Blindman's buff.

VOL. X.

STEEVENS.

Ꭰ

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.

Queen. 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.

Ham. Nay, but to live

In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed ;9
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;
No more, sweet Hamlet.

Ham. A murderer, and a villain :

A slave, that is not twentieth part the tythe.
Of your precedent lord :—a vice of kings :1
A cutpurse of the empire and the rule;
That from a shelf the precious diadem stole,
And put it in his pocket!

Queen. No more,

Ham. A king

Enter Ghost.

Of shreds and patches:3

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
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;
[9] Enseamed-greasy.

JOHNSON.

[8] Grained---dyed in grain. [1] Vice of kings---a low mimic of kings, The vice is the fool of a farce; from whence the modern Punch is descended. JOHNSON.

[2] The usurper came not to the crown by any glorious villany that carried danger with it, but by the low cowardly theft of a common pilferer.

WARBURTON.

[3] This is said, pursuing the idea of the vice of kings. The vice was dressed as a fool, in a coat of party-coloured patches. JOHNSON. [4] That, having suffered time to slip, and passion to cool, let's go, &c.

JOHNSON

Speak to her, Hamlet.

Ham. 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 pale he glares! 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 ecstacy

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;
Whiles rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven;
Repent what's past; avoid what is to come;

[5] The hairs are excrementitious, that is, without life or sensation ; yet those very hairs, as if they had life, start up, &c.

POPE.

[6] Ecstacy, in this place, and many others, means a temporary alienation of mind,

a fit.

STEEVENS.