13.2: Hamlet Act III

⌜ACT 3⌝

⌜Scene 1⌝

Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz,
Guildenstern, ⟨and⟩ Lords.

KING
And can you by no drift of conference
Get from him why he puts on this confusion,
Grating so harshly all his days of quiet
With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?
ROSENCRANTZ
5 He does confess he feels himself distracted,
But from what cause he will by no means speak.
GUILDENSTERN
Nor do we find him forward to be sounded,
But with a crafty madness keeps aloof
When we would bring him on to some confession
10 Of his true state.
QUEEN Did he receive you well?
ROSENCRANTZ Most like a gentleman.
GUILDENSTERN
But with much forcing of his disposition.
ROSENCRANTZ
Niggard of question, but of our demands
15 Most free in his reply.
QUEEN Did you assay him to any pastime?
ROSENCRANTZ
Madam, it so fell out that certain players

We o’erraught on the way. Of these we told him,
And there did seem in him a kind of joy
20 To hear of it. They are here about the court,
And, as I think, they have already order
This night to play before him.
POLONIUS ’Tis most true,
And he beseeched me to entreat your Majesties
25 To hear and see the matter.
KING
With all my heart, and it doth much content me
To hear him so inclined.
Good gentlemen, give him a further edge
And drive his purpose into these delights.
ROSENCRANTZ
30 We shall, my lord.Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
⌜and Lords⌝ exit.
KING Sweet Gertrude, leave us ⟨too,⟩
For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither,
That he, as ’twere by accident, may here
Affront Ophelia.
35 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 behaved,
If ’t be th’ affliction of his love or no
40 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 I hope your virtues
45 Will bring him to his wonted way again,
To both your honors.
OPHELIA Madam, I wish it may.
⌜Queen exits.⌝
POLONIUS
Ophelia, walk you here.—Gracious, so please you,

We will bestow ourselves. ⌜To Ophelia.⌝ Read on this
50 book,
That show of such an exercise may color
Your ⟨loneliness.⟩—We are oft to blame in this
(’Tis too much proved), that with devotion’s visage
And pious action we do sugar o’er
55 The devil himself.
KING, ⌜aside⌝ O, ’tis too true!
How smart a lash that speech doth give my
conscience.
The harlot’s cheek beautied with plast’ring art
60 Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it
Than is my deed to my most painted word.
O heavy burden!
POLONIUS
I hear him coming. ⟨Let’s⟩ withdraw, my lord.
⌜They withdraw.⌝

Enter Hamlet.

HAMLET
To be or not to be—that is the question:
65 Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And, by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep—
No more—and by a sleep to say we end
70 The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to—’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep—
To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there’s the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
75 When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th’ oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,

80 The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th’ unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
85 To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country from whose bourn
No traveler returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
90 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 pitch and moment
95 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 remembered.
OPHELIA Good my lord,
100 How does your Honor for this many a day?
HAMLET I humbly thank you, well.
OPHELIA
My lord, I have remembrances of yours
That I have longèd long to redeliver.
I pray you now receive them.
HAMLET
105 No, not I. I never gave you aught.
OPHELIA
My honored lord, you know right well you did,
And with them words of so sweet breath composed
As made ⟨the⟩ things more rich. Their perfume
lost,
110 Take these again, for to the noble mind
Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.
There, my lord.

HAMLET Ha, ha, are you honest?
OPHELIA My lord?
HAMLET 115Are you fair?
OPHELIA What means your Lordship?
HAMLET That if you be honest and fair, ⟨your honesty⟩
should admit no discourse to your beauty.
OPHELIA Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce
120 than with honesty?
HAMLET 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
125 the time gives it proof. I did love you once.
OPHELIA Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.
HAMLET You should not have believed me, for virtue
cannot so ⟨inoculate⟩ our old stock but we shall
relish of it. I loved you not.
OPHELIA 130I was the more deceived.
HAMLET Get thee ⟨to⟩ a nunnery. 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
135 very proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offenses
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
140 ⟨all;⟩ believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery.
Where’s your father?
OPHELIA At home, my lord.
HAMLET Let the doors be shut upon him that he may
play the fool nowhere but in ’s own house. Farewell.
OPHELIA 145O, help him, you sweet heavens!
HAMLET 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. Get thee to a

nunnery, farewell. Or if thou wilt needs marry,
150 marry a fool, for wise men know well enough what
monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go, and
quickly too. Farewell.
OPHELIA Heavenly powers, restore him!
HAMLET I have heard of your paintings ⟨too,⟩ well
155 enough. God hath given you one face, and you
make yourselves another. You jig and amble, and
you ⟨lisp;⟩ you nickname God’s creatures and make
your wantonness ⟨your⟩ ignorance. Go to, I’ll no
more on ’t. It hath made me mad. I say we will have
160 no more marriage. Those that are married already,
all but one, shall live. The rest shall keep as they are.
To a nunnery, go.He exits.
OPHELIA
O, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown!
The courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s, eye, tongue,
165 sword,
⟨Th’ expectancy⟩ and rose of the fair state,
The glass of fashion and the mold of form,
Th’ observed of all observers, quite, quite down!
And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
170 That sucked the honey of his musicked vows,
Now see ⟨that⟩ noble and most sovereign reason,
Like sweet bells jangled, out of time and harsh;
That unmatched form and stature of blown youth
Blasted with ecstasy. O, woe is me
175 T’ have seen what I have seen, see what I see!
KING, ⌜advancing with⌝ Polonius
Love? His affections do not that way tend;
Nor what he spake, though it lacked form a little,
Was not like madness. There’s something in his soul
O’er which his melancholy sits on brood,
180 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.
185 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?
POLONIUS
190 It shall do well. But yet do I 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,
195 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 placed, so please you, in the ear
Of all their conference. If she find him not,
200 To England send him, or confine him where
Your wisdom best shall think.
KING It shall be so.
Madness in great ones must not ⟨unwatched⟩ go.
They exit.

⌜Scene 2⌝

Enter Hamlet and three of the Players.

HAMLET Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced
it to you, trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth
it, as many of our players do, I had as lief the
town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air
5 too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently;
for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say,
whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and
beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. O,

it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious,
10 periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very
rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the
most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable
dumb shows and noise. I would have such a fellow
whipped for o’erdoing Termagant. It out-Herods
15 Herod. Pray you, avoid it.
PLAYER I warrant your Honor.
HAMLET Be not too tame neither, but let your own
discretion be your tutor. Suit the action to the
word, the word to the action, with this special
20 observance, that you o’erstep not the modesty of
nature. For anything so o’erdone is from the purpose
of playing, whose end, both at the first and
now, was and is to hold, as ’twere, the mirror up to
nature, to show virtue her ⟨own⟩ feature, scorn her
25 own image, and the very age and body of the time
his form and pressure. Now this overdone or come
tardy off, though it makes the unskillful laugh,
cannot but make the judicious grieve, the censure
of ⟨the⟩ which one must in your allowance o’erweigh
30 a whole theater of others. O, there be players that I
have seen play and heard others ⟨praise⟩ (and that
highly), not to speak it profanely, that, neither
having th’ accent of Christians nor the gait of
Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted and
35 bellowed that I have thought some of nature’s
journeymen had made men, and not made them
well, they imitated humanity so abominably.
PLAYER I hope we have reformed that indifferently
with us, ⟨sir.⟩
HAMLET 40O, reform it altogether. And let those that play
your clowns speak no more than is set down for
them, for there be of them that will themselves
laugh, to set on some quantity of barren spectators
to laugh too, though in the meantime some necessary

45 question of the play be then to be considered.
That’s villainous and shows a most pitiful ambition
in the fool that uses it. Go make you ready.
⟨Players exit.⟩

Enter Polonius, Guildenstern, and Rosencrantz.

How now, my lord, will the King hear this piece of
work?
POLONIUS 50And the Queen too, and that presently.
HAMLET Bid the players make haste.⟨Polonius exits.⟩
Will you two help to hasten them?
ROSENCRANTZ Ay, my lord.They exit.
HAMLET What ho, Horatio!

Enter Horatio.

HORATIO 55Here, sweet lord, at your service.
HAMLET
Horatio, thou art e’en as just a man
As e’er my conversation coped withal.
HORATIO
O, my dear lord—
⟨HAMLET⟩ Nay, do not think I flatter,
60 For what advancement may I hope from thee
That no revenue hast but thy good spirits
To feed and clothe thee? Why should the poor be
flattered?
No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp
65 And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee
Where thrift may follow fawning. Dost thou hear?
Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice
And could of men distinguish, her election
Hath sealed thee for herself. For thou hast been
70 As one in suffering all that suffers nothing,
A man that Fortune’s buffets and rewards
Hast ta’en with equal thanks; and blessed are those
Whose blood and judgment are so well
commeddled

75 That they are not a pipe for Fortune’s finger
To sound what stop she please. Give me that man
That is not passion’s slave, and I will wear him
In my heart’s core, ay, in my heart of heart,
As I do thee.—Something too much of this.—
80 There is a play tonight before the King.
One scene of it comes near the circumstance
Which I have told thee of my father’s death.
I prithee, when thou seest that act afoot,
Even with the very comment of thy soul
85 Observe my uncle. If his occulted guilt
Do not itself unkennel in one speech,
It is a damnèd ghost that we have seen,
And my imaginations are as foul
As Vulcan’s stithy. Give him heedful note,
90 For I mine eyes will rivet to his face,
And, after, we will both our judgments join
In censure of his seeming.
HORATIO Well, my lord.
If he steal aught the whilst this play is playing
95 And ’scape ⟨detecting⟩, I will pay the theft.
⟨Sound a flourish.⟩
HAMLET They are coming to the play. I must be idle.
Get you a place.

Enter Trumpets and Kettle Drums. ⟨Enter⟩ King, Queen,
Polonius, Ophelia, ⟨Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and other
Lords attendant with ⌜the King’s⌝ guard carrying
torches.⟩

KING How fares our cousin Hamlet?
HAMLET Excellent, i’ faith, of the chameleon’s dish. I
100 eat the air, promise-crammed. You cannot feed
capons so.
KING I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet. These
words are not mine.
HAMLET No, nor mine now. ⌜To Polonius.⌝ My lord, you
105 played once i’ th’ university, you say?

POLONIUS That did I, my lord, and was accounted a
good actor.
HAMLET What did you enact?
POLONIUS I did enact Julius Caesar. I was killed i’ th’
110 Capitol. Brutus killed me.
HAMLET It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a
calf there.—Be the players ready?
ROSENCRANTZ Ay, my lord. They stay upon your
patience.
QUEEN 115Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me.
HAMLET No, good mother. Here’s metal more
attractive.⌜Hamlet takes a place near Ophelia.⌝
POLONIUS, ⌜to the King⌝ Oh, ho! Do you mark that?
HAMLET Lady, shall I lie in your lap?
OPHELIA 120No, my lord.
⟨HAMLET I mean, my head upon your lap?
OPHELIA Ay, my lord.⟩
HAMLET Do you think I meant country matters?
OPHELIA I think nothing, my lord.
HAMLET 125That’s a fair thought to lie between maids’
legs.
OPHELIA What is, my lord?
HAMLET Nothing.
OPHELIA You are merry, my lord.
HAMLET 130Who, I?
OPHELIA Ay, my lord.
HAMLET O God, your only jig-maker. What should a
man do but be merry? For look you how cheerfully
my mother looks, and my father died within ’s two
135 hours.
OPHELIA Nay, ’tis twice two months, my lord.
HAMLET So long? Nay, then, let the devil wear black,
for I’ll have a suit of sables. O heavens, die two
months ago, and not forgotten yet? Then there’s
140 hope a great man’s memory may outlive his life half
a year. But, by ’r Lady, he must build churches, then,

or else shall he suffer not thinking on, with the
hobby-horse, whose epitaph is “For oh, for oh, the
hobby-horse is forgot.”
The trumpets sounds. Dumb show follows.

145Enter a King and a Queen, ⟨very lovingly,⟩ the Queen
embracing him and he her. ⟨She kneels and makes show of
protestation unto him.⟩ He takes her up and declines his
head upon her neck. He lies him down upon a bank of
flowers. She, seeing him asleep, leaves him. Anon
150⟨comes⟩ in another man, takes off his crown, kisses it, pours
poison in the sleeper’s ears, and leaves him. The Queen
returns, finds the King dead, makes passionate action. The
poisoner with some three or four come in again, seem to
condole with her. The dead body is carried away. The
155poisoner woos the Queen with gifts. She seems harsh
awhile but in the end accepts ⟨his⟩ love.
⌜Players exit.⌝
OPHELIA What means this, my lord?
HAMLET Marry, this ⟨is miching⟩ mallecho. It means
mischief.
OPHELIA 160Belike this show imports the argument of the
play.

Enter Prologue.

HAMLET We shall know by this fellow. The players
cannot keep ⟨counsel;⟩ they’ll tell all.
OPHELIA Will he tell us what this show meant?
HAMLET 165Ay, or any show that you will show him. Be
not you ashamed to show, he’ll not shame to tell you
what it means.
OPHELIA You are naught, you are naught. I’ll mark the
play.
PROLOGUE
170 For us and for our tragedy,
Here stooping to your clemency,
We beg your hearing patiently.⌜He exits.⌝

HAMLET Is this a prologue or the posy of a ring?
OPHELIA ’Tis brief, my lord.
HAMLET 175As woman’s love.

Enter ⌜the Player⌝ King and Queen.

PLAYER KING
Full thirty times hath Phoebus’ cart gone round
Neptune’s salt wash and Tellus’ ⟨orbèd⟩ ground,
And thirty dozen moons with borrowed sheen
About the world have times twelve thirties been
180 Since love our hearts and Hymen did our hands
Unite commutual in most sacred bands.
PLAYER QUEEN
So many journeys may the sun and moon
Make us again count o’er ere love be done!
But woe is me! You are so sick of late,
185 So far from cheer and from ⟨your⟩ former state,
That I distrust you. Yet, though I distrust,
Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must.
[For women fear too much, even as they love,]
And women’s fear and love hold quantity,
190 In neither aught, or in extremity.
Now what my ⟨love⟩ is, proof hath made you know,
And, as my love is sized, my fear is so:
[Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear;
Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.]
PLAYER KING
195 Faith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly too.
My operant powers their functions leave to do.
And thou shalt live in this fair world behind,
Honored, beloved; and haply one as kind
For husband shalt thou—
PLAYER QUEEN 200 O, confound the rest!
Such love must needs be treason in my breast.
In second husband let me be accurst.
None wed the second but who killed the first.

HAMLET That’s wormwood!
PLAYER QUEEN
205 The instances that second marriage move
Are base respects of thrift, but none of love.
A second time I kill my husband dead
When second husband kisses me in bed.
PLAYER KING
I do believe you think what now you speak,
210 But what we do determine oft we break.
Purpose is but the slave to memory,
Of violent birth, but poor validity,
Which now, the fruit unripe, sticks on the tree
But fall unshaken when they mellow be.
215 Most necessary ’tis that we forget
To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt.
What to ourselves in passion we propose,
The passion ending, doth the purpose lose.
The violence of either grief or joy
220 Their own enactures with themselves destroy.
Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament;
Grief ⟨joys,⟩ joy grieves, on slender accident.
This world is not for aye, nor ’tis not strange
That even our loves should with our fortunes change;
225 For ’tis a question left us yet to prove
Whether love lead fortune or else fortune love.
The great man down, you mark his favorite flies;
The poor, advanced, makes friends of enemies.
And hitherto doth love on fortune tend,
230 For who not needs shall never lack a friend,
And who in want a hollow friend doth try
Directly seasons him his enemy.
But, orderly to end where I begun:
Our wills and fates do so contrary run
235 That our devices still are overthrown;
Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.
So think thou wilt no second husband wed,
But die thy thoughts when thy first lord is dead.

PLAYER QUEEN
Nor Earth to me give food, nor heaven light,
240 Sport and repose lock from me day and night,
[To desperation turn my trust and hope,
⌜An⌝ anchor’s cheer in prison be my scope.]
Each opposite that blanks the face of joy
Meet what I would have well and it destroy.
245 Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife,
If, once a widow, ever I be wife.
HAMLET If she should break it now!
PLAYER KING
’Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here awhile.
My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile
250 The tedious day with sleep.⟨Sleeps.⟩
PLAYER QUEEN Sleep rock thy brain,
And never come mischance between us twain.
⌜Player Queen exits.⌝
HAMLET Madam, how like you this play?
QUEEN The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
HAMLET 255O, but she’ll keep her word.
KING Have you heard the argument? Is there no
offense in ’t?
HAMLET No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest. No
offense i’ th’ world.
KING 260What do you call the play?
HAMLET “The Mousetrap.” Marry, how? Tropically.
This play is the image of a murder done in Vienna.
Gonzago is the duke’s name, his wife Baptista. You
shall see anon. ’Tis a knavish piece of work, but
265 what of that? Your Majesty and we that have free
souls, it touches us not. Let the galled jade wince;
our withers are unwrung.

Enter Lucianus.

This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king.
OPHELIA You are as good as a chorus, my lord.

HAMLET 270I could interpret between you and your love,
if I could see the puppets dallying.
OPHELIA You are keen, my lord, you are keen.
HAMLET It would cost you a groaning to take off mine
edge.
OPHELIA 275Still better and worse.
HAMLET So you mis-take your husbands.—Begin,
murderer. ⟨Pox,⟩ leave thy damnable faces and
begin. Come, the croaking raven doth bellow for
revenge.
LUCIANUS
280 Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time
agreeing,
⟨Confederate⟩ season, else no creature seeing,
Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected,
With Hecate’s ban thrice blasted, thrice ⟨infected,⟩
285 Thy natural magic and dire property
On wholesome life ⟨usurp⟩ immediately.
⟨Pours the poison in his ears.⟩
HAMLET He poisons him i’ th’ garden for his estate. His
name’s Gonzago. The story is extant and written in
very choice Italian. You shall see anon how the
290 murderer gets the love of Gonzago’s wife.
⌜Claudius rises.⌝
OPHELIA The King rises.
⟨HAMLET What, frighted with false fire?⟩
QUEEN How fares my lord?
POLONIUS Give o’er the play.
KING 295Give me some light. Away!
POLONIUS Lights, lights, lights!
All but Hamlet and Horatio exit.
HAMLET
Why, let the strucken deer go weep,
The hart ungallèd play.
For some must watch, while some must sleep:
300 Thus runs the world away.

Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers (if the
rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me) with ⟨two⟩
Provincial roses on my razed shoes, get me a
fellowship in a cry of players?
HORATIO 305Half a share.
HAMLET A whole one, I.
For thou dost know, O Damon dear,
This realm dismantled was
Of Jove himself, and now reigns here
310 A very very—pajock.
HORATIO You might have rhymed.
HAMLET O good Horatio, I’ll take the ghost’s word for
a thousand pound. Didst perceive?
HORATIO Very well, my lord.
HAMLET 315Upon the talk of the poisoning?
HORATIO I did very well note him.
HAMLET Ah ha! Come, some music! Come, the
recorders!
For if the King like not the comedy,
320 Why, then, belike he likes it not, perdy.
Come, some music!

Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

GUILDENSTERN Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word
with you.
HAMLET Sir, a whole history.
GUILDENSTERN 325The King, sir—
HAMLET Ay, sir, what of him?
GUILDENSTERN Is in his retirement marvelous
distempered.
HAMLET With drink, sir?
GUILDENSTERN 330No, my lord, with choler.
HAMLET Your wisdom should show itself more richer
to signify this to the doctor, for for me to put him to
his purgation would perhaps plunge him into more
choler.

GUILDENSTERN 335Good my lord, put your discourse into
some frame and ⟨start⟩ not so wildly from my
affair.
HAMLET I am tame, sir. Pronounce.
GUILDENSTERN The Queen your mother, in most great
340 affliction of spirit, hath sent me to you.
HAMLET You are welcome.
GUILDENSTERN Nay, good my lord, this courtesy is not
of the right breed. If it shall please you to make me
a wholesome answer, I will do your mother’s
345 commandment. If not, your pardon and my return
shall be the end of ⟨my⟩ business.
HAMLET Sir, I cannot.
ROSENCRANTZ What, my lord?
HAMLET Make you a wholesome answer. My wit’s
350 diseased. But, sir, such answer as I can make, you
shall command—or, rather, as you say, my mother.
Therefore no more but to the matter. My mother,
you say—
ROSENCRANTZ Then thus she says: your behavior hath
355 struck her into amazement and admiration.
HAMLET O wonderful son that can so ’stonish a mother!
But is there no sequel at the heels of this
mother’s admiration? Impart.
ROSENCRANTZ She desires to speak with you in her
360 closet ere you go to bed.
HAMLET We shall obey, were she ten times our mother.
Have you any further trade with us?
ROSENCRANTZ My lord, you once did love me.
HAMLET And do still, by these pickers and stealers.
ROSENCRANTZ 365Good my lord, what is your cause of
distemper? You do surely bar the door upon your
own liberty if you deny your griefs to your friend.
HAMLET Sir, I lack advancement.
ROSENCRANTZ How can that be, when you have the
370 voice of the King himself for your succession in
Denmark?

HAMLET Ay, sir, but “While the grass grows”—the
proverb is something musty.

Enter the Players with recorders.

O, the recorders! Let me see one. ⌜He takes a
recorder and turns to Guildenstern.⌝ 375To withdraw
with you: why do you go about to recover the wind
of me, as if you would drive me into a toil?
GUILDENSTERN O, my lord, if my duty be too bold, my
love is too unmannerly.
HAMLET 380I do not well understand that. Will you play
upon this pipe?
GUILDENSTERN My lord, I cannot.
HAMLET I pray you.
GUILDENSTERN Believe me, I cannot.
HAMLET 385I do beseech you.
GUILDENSTERN I know no touch of it, my lord.
HAMLET It is as easy as lying. Govern these ventages
with your fingers and ⟨thumb,⟩ give it breath with
your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent
390 music. Look you, these are the stops.
GUILDENSTERN But these cannot I command to any
utt’rance of harmony. I have not the skill.
HAMLET Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing
you make of me! You would play upon me, you
395 would seem to know my stops, you would pluck
out the heart of my mystery, you would sound me
from my lowest note to ⟨the top of⟩ my compass;
and there is much music, excellent voice, in this
little organ, yet cannot you make it speak. ’Sblood,
400 do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe?
Call me what instrument you will, though you ⟨can⟩
fret me, you cannot play upon me.

Enter Polonius.

God bless you, sir.

POLONIUS My lord, the Queen would speak with you,
405 and presently.
HAMLET Do you see yonder cloud that’s almost in
shape of a camel?
POLONIUS By th’ Mass, and ’tis like a camel indeed.
HAMLET Methinks it is like a weasel.
POLONIUS 410It is backed like a weasel.
HAMLET Or like a whale.
POLONIUS Very like a whale.
⟨HAMLET⟩ Then I will come to my mother by and by.
⌜Aside.⌝ They fool me to the top of my bent.—I will
415 come by and by.
⟨POLONIUS⟩ I will say so.
⟨HAMLET⟩ “By and by” is easily said. Leave me,
friends.
⌜All but Hamlet exit.⌝
’Tis now the very witching time of night,
420 When churchyards yawn and hell itself ⟨breathes⟩
out
Contagion to this world. Now could I drink hot
blood
And do such ⟨bitter⟩ business as the day
425 Would quake to look on. Soft, now to my mother.
O heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever
The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom.
Let me be cruel, not unnatural.
I will speak ⟨daggers⟩ to her, but use none.
430 My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites:
How in my words somever she be shent,
To give them seals never, my soul, consent.
He exits.

⌜Scene 3⌝

Enter King, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern.

KING
I like him not, nor stands it safe with us
To let his madness range. Therefore prepare you.
I your commission will forthwith dispatch,
And he to England shall along with you.
5 The terms of our estate may not endure
Hazard so near ’s as doth hourly grow
Out of his brows.
GUILDENSTERN We will ourselves provide.
Most holy and religious fear it is
10 To keep those many many bodies safe
That live and feed upon your Majesty.
ROSENCRANTZ
The single and peculiar life is bound
With all the strength and armor of the mind
To keep itself from noyance, but much more
15 That spirit upon whose weal depends and rests
The lives of many. The cess of majesty
Dies not alone, but like a gulf doth draw
What’s near it with it; or it is a massy wheel
Fixed on the summit of the highest mount,
20 To whose ⟨huge⟩ spokes ten thousand lesser things
Are mortised and adjoined, which, when it falls,
Each small annexment, petty consequence,
Attends the boist’rous ⟨ruin.⟩ Never alone
Did the king sigh, but ⟨with⟩ a general groan.
KING
25 Arm you, I pray you, to this speedy voyage,
For we will fetters put about this fear,
Which now goes too free-footed.
ROSENCRANTZ We will haste us.
⌜Rosencrantz and Guildenstern⌝ exit.

Enter Polonius.

POLONIUS
My lord, he’s going to his mother’s closet.
30 Behind the arras I’ll convey myself
To hear the process. I’ll warrant she’ll tax him
home;
And, as you said (and wisely was it said),
’Tis meet that some more audience than a mother,
35 Since nature makes them partial, should o’erhear
The speech of vantage. Fare you well, my liege.
I’ll call upon you ere you go to bed
And tell you what I know.
KING Thanks, dear my lord.
⌜Polonius⌝ exits.
40 O, my offense is rank, it smells to heaven;
It hath the primal eldest curse upon ’t,
A brother’s murder. Pray can I not,
Though inclination be as sharp as will.
My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent,
45 And, like a man to double business bound,
I stand in pause where I shall first begin
And both neglect. What if this cursèd hand
Were thicker than itself with brother’s blood?
Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens
50 To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy
But to confront the visage of offense?
And what’s in prayer but this twofold force,
To be forestallèd ere we come to fall,
Or ⟨pardoned⟩ being down? Then I’ll look up.
55 My fault is past. But, O, what form of prayer
Can serve my turn? “Forgive me my foul murder”?
That cannot be, since I am still possessed
Of those effects for which I did the murder:
My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.
60 May one be pardoned and retain th’ offense?
In the corrupted currents of this world,
Offense’s gilded hand may ⟨shove⟩ by justice,

And oft ’tis seen the wicked prize itself
Buys out the law. But ’tis not so above:
65 There is no shuffling; there the action lies
In his true nature, and we ourselves compelled,
Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,
To give in evidence. What then? What rests?
Try what repentance can. What can it not?
70 Yet what can it, when one cannot repent?
O wretched state! O bosom black as death!
O limèd soul, that, struggling to be free,
Art more engaged! Help, angels! Make assay.
Bow, stubborn knees, and heart with strings of steel
75 Be soft as sinews of the newborn babe.
All may be well.⌜He kneels.⌝

Enter Hamlet.

HAMLET
Now might I do it ⟨pat,⟩ now he is a-praying,
And now I’ll do ’t.⌜He draws his sword.⌝
And so he goes to heaven,
80 And so am I ⟨revenged.⟩ That would be scanned:
A villain kills my father, and for that,
I, his sole son, do this same villain send
To heaven.
Why, this is ⟨hire⟩ and ⟨salary,⟩ not revenge.
85 He took my father grossly, full of bread,
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 revenged
90 To take him in the purging of his soul,
When he is fit and seasoned for his passage?
No.
Up sword, and know thou a more horrid hent.
⌜He sheathes his sword.⌝
When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage,

95 Or in th’ incestuous pleasure of his bed,
At game, a-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 damned and black
100 As hell, whereto it goes. My mother stays.
This physic but prolongs thy sickly days.
⌜Hamlet⌝ exits.
KING, ⌜rising⌝
My words fly up, my thoughts remain below;
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.
He exits.

⌜Scene 4⌝

Enter ⟨Queen⟩ and Polonius.

POLONIUS
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 screened and stood
5 between
Much heat and him. I’ll silence me even here.
Pray you, be round ⟨with him.
HAMLET, within Mother, mother, mother!⟩
QUEEN I’ll ⟨warrant⟩ you. Fear me not. Withdraw,
10 I hear him coming.
⌜Polonius hides behind the arras.⌝

Enter Hamlet.

HAMLET Now, mother, what’s the matter?
QUEEN
Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.
HAMLET
Mother, you have my father much offended.

QUEEN
Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.
HAMLET
15 Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.
QUEEN
Why, how now, Hamlet?
HAMLET What’s the matter now?
QUEEN
Have you forgot me?
HAMLET No, by the rood, not so.
20 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.
HAMLET
Come, come, and sit you down; you shall not budge.
You go not till I set you up a glass
25 Where you may see the ⟨inmost⟩ part of you.
QUEEN
What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murder me?
Help, ho!
POLONIUS, ⌜behind the arras⌝ What ho! Help!
HAMLET
How now, a rat? Dead for a ducat, dead.
⌜He ⟨kills Polonius⟩ by thrusting a rapier
through the arras.⌝
POLONIUS, ⌜behind the arras⌝
30 O, I am slain!
QUEEN O me, what hast thou done?
HAMLET Nay, I know not. Is it the King?
QUEEN
O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!
HAMLET
A bloody deed—almost as bad, good mother,
35 As kill a king and marry with his brother.
QUEEN
As kill a king?

HAMLET Ay, lady, it was my word.
⌜He pulls Polonius’ body from behind the arras.⌝
Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell.
I took thee for thy better. Take thy fortune.
40 Thou find’st to be too busy is some danger.
⌜To Queen.⌝ 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,
45 If damnèd custom have not brazed 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?
HAMLET Such an act
50 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
55 As from the body of contraction plucks
The very soul, and sweet religion makes
A rhapsody of words! Heaven’s face does glow
O’er this solidity and compound mass
With heated visage, as against the doom,
60 Is thought-sick at the act.
QUEEN Ay me, what act
That roars so loud and thunders in the index?
HAMLET
Look here upon this picture and on this,
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
65 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,

70 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 mildewed ear
75 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 heyday in the blood is tame, it’s humble
80 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 apoplexed; for madness would not err,
Nor sense to ecstasy was ne’er so thralled,
85 But it reserved some quantity of choice
To serve in such a difference.] What devil was ’t
That thus hath cozened you at hoodman-blind?
[Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight,
Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all,
90 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
95 And melt in her own fire. Proclaim no shame
When the compulsive ardor gives the charge,
Since frost itself as actively doth burn,
And reason ⟨panders⟩ will.
QUEEN O Hamlet, speak no more!
100 Thou turn’st my eyes into my ⟨very⟩ soul,
And there I see such black and ⟨grainèd⟩ spots
As will ⟨not⟩ leave their tinct.
HAMLET Nay, but to live
In the rank sweat of an enseamèd bed,
105 Stewed in corruption, honeying and making love
Over the nasty sty!

QUEEN O, speak to me no more!
These words like daggers enter in my ears.
No more, sweet Hamlet!
HAMLET 110 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
115 And put it in his pocket—
QUEEN No more!
HAMLET A king of shreds and patches—

Enter Ghost.

Save me and hover o’er me with your wings,
You heavenly guards!—What would your gracious
120 figure?
QUEEN Alas, he’s mad.
HAMLET
Do you not come your tardy son to chide,
That, lapsed in time and passion, lets go by
Th’ important acting of your dread command?
125 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.
130 Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works.
Speak to her, Hamlet.
HAMLET How is it with you, lady?
QUEEN Alas, how is ’t with you,
That you do bend your eye on vacancy
135 And with th’ incorporal air do hold discourse?
Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep,
And, as the sleeping soldiers in th’ alarm,
Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,
Start up and stand an end. O gentle son,

140 Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper
Sprinkle cool patience! Whereon do you look?
HAMLET
On him, on him! Look you how pale he glares.
His form and cause conjoined, preaching to stones,
Would make them capable. ⌜To the Ghost.⌝ Do not
145 look upon me,
Lest with this piteous action you convert
My stern effects. Then what I have to do
Will want true color—tears perchance for blood.
QUEEN To whom do you speak this?
HAMLET 150Do you see nothing there?
QUEEN
Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.
HAMLET Nor did you nothing hear?
QUEEN No, nothing but ourselves.
HAMLET
Why, look you there, look how it steals away!
155 My father, in his habit as he lived!
Look where he goes even now out at the portal!
Ghost exits.
QUEEN
This is the very coinage of your brain.
This bodiless creation ecstasy
Is very cunning in.
HAMLET 160 ⟨Ecstasy?⟩
My pulse as yours doth temperately keep time
And makes as healthful music. It is not madness
That I have uttered. Bring me to the test,
And ⟨I⟩ the matter will reword, which madness
165 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,
170 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. Forgive me this my virtue,
For, in the fatness of these pursy times,
175 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!
HAMLET
O, throw away the worser part of it,
And ⟨live⟩ the purer with the other half!
180 Good night. But go not to my 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
185 He likewise gives a frock or livery
That aptly is put on.] Refrain ⟨tonight,⟩
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
190 And either ⌜…⌝ the devil or throw him out
With wondrous potency.] Once more, good night,
And, when you are desirous to be blest,
I’ll blessing beg of you. For this same lord
⌜Pointing to Polonius.⌝
I do repent; but heaven hath pleased it so
195 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.
I must be cruel only to be kind.
200 This bad begins, and worse remains behind.
[One word more, good lady.]
QUEEN What shall I do?

HAMLET
Not this by no means that I bid you do:
Let the bloat king tempt you again to bed,
205 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 damned fingers,
Make you to ravel all this matter out
That I essentially am not in madness,
210 But mad in craft. ’Twere good you let him know,
For who that’s but a queen, fair, sober, wise,
Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib,
Such dear concernings hide? Who would do so?
No, in despite of sense and secrecy,
215 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 assured, if words be made of breath
220 And breath of life, I have no life to breathe
What thou hast said to me.
HAMLET
I must to England, you know that.
QUEEN Alack,
I had forgot! ’Tis so concluded on.
HAMLET
225 [There’s letters sealed; and my two schoolfellows,
Whom I will trust as I will adders fanged,
They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way
And marshal me to knavery. Let it work,
For ’tis the sport to have the enginer
230 Hoist with his own petard; and ’t shall go hard
But I will delve one yard below their mines
And blow them at the moon. O, ’tis most sweet
When in one line two crafts directly meet.]
This man shall set me packing.

235 I’ll lug the guts into the neighbor room.
Mother, good night indeed. This counselor
Is now most still, most secret, and most grave,
Who was in life a foolish prating knave.—
Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you.—
240 Good night, mother.
⌜They⌝ exit, ⟨Hamlet tugging in Polonius.⟩