Catchy Name Theatre Company

 

 

 

Evil Hamlet

Wm Shakespeare

 

edited by Jim Strope

 

 

 

6^th cut 106 minutes

Printed 10/21/2008 12:36:00 PM

 

Cast:

King Claudius

Queen Gertrude

Hamlet

Polonius

Laertes

Ophelia

Ghost (same actor as Claudius)

Horatio

Player King (played by Polonius)

Player Queen (played by Ophelia)

Lucianus (played by Horatio)

Gravedigger

 

Sets:

Bar: Neon sign. 

Alley: Garbage can. 

Graveyard: Tombstone. 

 

Props:

Shovel

Rubber knives

Skull

Bundle of letters

Flowers

 

SCENE 1. Horatio on Guard

 

Alley in back of the Elsinore Bar and Grill.

Horatio at his post.

Enter Ghost, dragging chains and armor

 

HORATIO

Peace, break thee off; look, where it comes again!

In the same figure, like the king that's dead.

Looks it not like the king?

It harrows me with fear and wonder.

It would be spoke to.

 

What art thou that usurp'st this time of night,

Together with that fair and warlike form

In which the majesty of buried Denmark

Did sometimes march? by heaven I charge thee, speak!

Stay! speak, speak! I charge thee, speak!

 

Before my God, I might not this believe

Without the sensible and true avouch

Of mine own eyes.

Is it not like the king?

Such was the very armour he had on

When he the ambitious Norway combated;

So frown'd he once, when, in an angry parle,

He smote the sledded Polish on the ice.

'Tis strange.

In the gross and scope of my opinion,

This bodes some strange eruption to our state.

I'll cross it, though it blast me. Stay, illusion!

If thou hast any sound, or use of voice,

Speak to me:

If there be any good thing to be done,

That may to thee do ease and grace to me,

Speak to me:

If thou art privy to thy country's fate,

Which, happily, foreknowing may avoid, O, speak!

Or if thou hast uphoarded in thy life

Extorted treasure in the womb of earth,

For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death,

Speak of it: stay, and speak!

 

Exit Ghost

 

I do it wrong, being so majestical,

To offer it the show of violence;

For it is, as the air, invulnerable,

And my vain blows malicious mockery.

It was about to speak, when the cock crew.

And then it started like a guilty thing

Upon a fearful summons.

I will impart what I have seen to-night

Unto young Hamlet; for, upon my life,

This spirit, dumb to me, will speak to him.

 

Exit. 

 

SCENE 2. King at Court

 

Bar interior.

Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, HAMLET, POLONIUS,

LAERTES

 

KING CLAUDIUS

Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death

The memory be green, and that it us befitted

To bear our hearts in grief and our whole kingdom

To be contracted in one brow of woe,

Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature

That we with wisest sorrow think on him,

Together with remembrance of ourselves.

 

Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen,

The imperial jointress to this warlike state,

Have we, as 'twere with a defeated joy,--

With an auspicious and a dropping eye,

With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage,

In equal scale weighing delight and dole,--

Taken to wife.

But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son,--

 

HAMLET

A little more than kin, and less than kind.

 

KING CLAUDIUS

How is it that the clouds still hang on you?

 

HAMLET

Not so, my lord; I am too much i' the sun.

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off,

And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.

Do not for ever with thy vailed lids

Seek for thy noble father in the dust:

Thou know'st 'tis common; all that lives must die,

Passing through nature to eternity.

 

Gertrude tries to kiss Hamlet but he turns away. 

 

HAMLET

Ay, madam, it is common.

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

If it be,

Why seems it so particular with thee?

 

HAMLET

Seems, madam! nay it is; I know not 'seems.'

'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,

Nor customary suits of solemn black,

Nor windy suspiration of forced breath,

No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,

Nor the dejected 'havior of the visage,

Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief,

That can denote me truly: these indeed seem,

For they are actions that a man might play:

But I have that within which passeth show;

These but the trappings and the suits of woe.

 

KING CLAUDIUS

'Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,

To give these mourning duties to your father:

But, you must know, your father lost a father;

That father lost, lost his, and the survivor bound

In filial obligation for some term

To do obsequious sorrow:

 

We pray you, throw to earth

This unprevailing woe, and think of us

As of a father: for let the world take note,

You are the most immediate to our throne;

And with no less nobility of love

Than that which dearest father bears his son,

Do I impart toward you.

 

For your intent

In going back to school in Wittenberg,

It is most retrograde to our desire:

And we beseech you, bend you to remain

Here, in the cheer and comfort of our eye,

Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet:

I pray thee, stay with us; go not to Wittenberg.

 

HAMLET

I shall in all my best obey you, madam.

 

KING CLAUDIUS

Why, 'tis a loving and a fair reply:

Be as ourself in Denmark. Madam, come;

This gentle and unforced accord of Hamlet

Sits smiling to my heart: in grace whereof,

No jocund health that Denmark drinks to-day,

But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell,

And the king's rouse the heavens all bruit again,

Re-speaking earthly thunder. Come away.

 

Exeunt all but HAMLET

 

HAMLET

O, that this too too solid flesh would melt

Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!

Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd

His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!

How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,

Seem to me all the uses of this world!

Fie on't! ah fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,

That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature

Possess it merely. That it should come to this!

But two months dead: nay, not so much, not two:

So excellent a king; that was, to this,

Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother

That he might forbid the winds of heaven

Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!

Must I remember? why, she would hang on him,

As if increase of appetite had grown

By what it fed on: and yet, within a month--

Let me not think on't--Frailty, thy name is woman!--

A little month, or ere those shoes were old

With which she follow'd my poor father's body,

Like Niobe, all tears:--why she, even she--

O, God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,

Would have mourn'd longer--married with my uncle,

My father's brother, but no more like my father

Than I to Hercules: within a month:

Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears

Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,

She married. O, most wicked speed, to post

With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!

It is not nor it cannot come to good:

But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue.

 

Horatio enters. 

 

HORATIO

Hail to your lordship!

 

HAMLET

I am glad to see you well:

And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio?

 

HORATIO

A truant disposition, good my lord.

 

HAMLET

I would not hear your enemy say so,

Nor shall you do mine ear that violence,

To make it truster of your own report

Against yourself: I know you are no truant.

But what is your affair in Elsinore?

We'll teach you to drink deep ere you depart.

 

HORATIO

My lord, I came to see your father's funeral.

 

HAMLET

I pray thee, do not mock me, fellow-student;

I think it was to see my mother's wedding.

 

HORATIO

Indeed, my lord, it follow'd hard upon.

 

HAMLET

Thrift, thrift, Horatio! the funeral baked meats

Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.

Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven

Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio!

My father!--methinks I see my father.

 

HORATIO

Where, my lord?

 

HAMLET

In my mind's eye, Horatio.

 

HORATIO

I saw him once; he was a goodly king.

 

HAMLET

He was a man, take him for all in all,

I shall not look upon his like again.

 

HORATIO

My lord, I think I saw him yesternight.

 

HAMLET

Saw? who?

 

HORATIO

My lord, the king your father.

 

HAMLET

The king my father!

 

HORATIO

Season your admiration for awhile

With an attent ear, till I may deliver

This marvel to you.

 

HAMLET

For God's love, let me hear.

 

HORATIO

Two nights together

In the dead vast and middle of the night,

Been thus encounter'd, a figure like your father,

Armed at point exactly, cap-a-pe,

Appeared before me, and with solemn march

Goes slow and stately by: thrice he walk'd

Within his truncheon's length; whilst I, distilled

Almost to jelly with the act of fear,

Stand dumb and speak not to him.

The apparition comes: I knew your father;

These hands are not more like.

 

HAMLET

But where was this?

 

HORATIO

My lord, upon the platform where I watch'd.

 

HAMLET

Did you not speak to it?

 

HORATIO

My lord, I did;

But answer made it none: yet once methought

It lifted up its head and did address

Itself to motion, like as it would speak;

But even then the morning cock crew loud,

And at the sound it shrunk in haste away,

And vanish'd from my sight.

 

HAMLET

'Tis very strange.

 

HORATIO

As I do live, my honour'd lord, 'tis true;

And I did think it writ down in my duty

To let you know of it.

 

HAMLET

Indeed, indeed, sir, but this troubles me.

Hold you the watch to-night?

 

HORATIO

I do, my lord.

 

HAMLET

Arm'd, say you?

 

HORATIO

Arm'd, my lord.

 

HAMLET

From top to toe?

 

HORATIO

My lord, from head to foot.

 

HAMLET

Then saw you not his face?

 

HORATIO

O, yes, my lord; he wore his visor up.

 

HAMLET

What, look'd he frowningly?

 

HORATIO

A countenance more in sorrow than in anger.

 

HAMLET

Pale or red?

 

HORATIO

Nay, very pale.

 

HAMLET

And fix'd his eyes upon you?

 

HORATIO

Most constantly.

 

HAMLET

I would I had been there.

 

HORATIO

It would have much amazed you.

 

HAMLET

Very like, very like. Stay'd it long?

 

HORATIO

While one with moderate haste might tell a hundred.

 

HAMLET

His beard was grizzled--no?

 

HORATIO

It was, as I have seen it in his life,

A sable silver'd.

 

HAMLET

I will watch to-night;

Perchance 'twill walk again.

 

HORATIO

I warrant it will.

 

HAMLET

If it assume my noble father's person,

I'll speak to it, though hell itself should gape

And bid me hold my peace. I pray you,

If you have hitherto conceal'd this sight,

Let it be tenable in your silence still;

And whatsoever else shall hap to-night,

Give it an understanding, but no tongue:

I will requite your love. So, fare you well:

Upon the platform, 'twixt eleven and twelve,

I'll visit you. 

 

HORATIO

My duty to your honour.

 

HAMLET

Your love, as mine to you: farewell.

 

Exit Horatio

 

My father's spirit in arms! all is not well;

I doubt some foul play: would the night were come!

Till then sit still, my soul: foul deeds will rise,

Though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes.

 

Exit

 

SCENE 3. Polonius at Home

 

Bar interior.

Enter LAERTES and OPHELIA

 

LAERTES

My necessaries are embark'd: farewell:

And, sister, as the winds give benefit

And convoy is assistant, do not sleep,

But let me hear from you.

 

OPHELIA

Do you doubt that?

 

LAERTES

For Hamlet and the trifling of his favour,

Hold it a fashion and a toy in blood,

A violet in the youth of primy nature,

Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting,

The perfume and suppliance of a minute; No more.

 

OPHELIA

 

Defiantly. 

 

No more but so?

 

LAERTES

Think it no more;

He may not, as unvalued persons do,

Carve for himself; for on his choice depends

The safety and health of this whole state;

And therefore must his choice be circumscribed

Unto the voice and yielding of that body

Whereof he is the head.

Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain,

If with too credent ear you list his songs,

Or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure open

To his unmaster'd importunity.

 

OPHELIA

I shall the effect of this good lesson keep,

As watchman to my heart. But, good my brother,

Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,

Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven;

Whiles, like a puff'd and reckless libertine,

Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,

And reckons not his own reading.

 

Throwing up his hands. 

 

LAERTES

O, fear me not.

I stay too long: but here my father comes.

 

Enter POLONIUS

 

LORD POLONIUS

Yet here, Laertes! aboard, aboard, for shame! 

The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,

And you are stay'd for. There; my blessing with thee! 

 

LAERTES

Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord.

Farewell, Ophelia; and remember well

What I have said to you.

 

OPHELIA

'Tis in my memory lock'd,

And you yourself shall keep the key of it.

 

LAERTES

Farewell.

 

Exit

 

LORD POLONIUS

What is't, Ophelia, he hath said to you?

 

OPHELIA

So please you, something touching the Lord Hamlet.

 

LORD POLONIUS

Marry, well bethought:

'Tis told me, he hath very oft of late

Given private time to you; and you yourself

Have of your audience been most free and bounteous:

If it be so, as so 'tis put on me,

And that in way of caution, I must tell you,

You do not understand yourself so clearly

As it behooves my daughter and your honour.

What is between you? give me up the truth.

 

OPHELIA

 

Coyly.

 

He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders

Of his affection to me.

 

LORD POLONIUS

Affection! pooh! you speak like a green girl,

Unsifted in such perilous circumstance.

Do you believe his tenders, as you call them?

 

OPHELIA

I do not know, my lord, what I should think.

 

LORD POLONIUS

Marry, I'll teach you: think yourself a baby;

That you have ta'en these tenders for true pay,

Which are not sterling. Tender yourself more dearly;

Or--not to crack the wind of the poor phrase,

Running it thus--you'll tender me a fool.

 

OPHELIA

My lord, he hath importuned me with love

In honourable fashion.

 

LORD POLONIUS

Ay, fashion you may call it; go to, go to. 

 

OPHELIA

And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord,

With almost all the holy vows of heaven. 

 

Gladly! 

 

LORD POLONIUS

Ay, springes to catch woodcocks. I do know,

When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul

Lends the tongue vows: these blazes, daughter,

Giving more light than heat, extinct in both,

Even in their promise, as it is a-making,

You must not take for fire.

From this time

Be somewhat scanter of your maiden presence;

Set your entreatments at a higher rate

Than a command to parley. For Lord Hamlet,

Believe so much in him, that he is young

And with a larger tether may he walk

Than may be given you: in few, Ophelia,

Do not believe his vows; for they are brokers,

Not of that dye which their investments show,

But mere implorators of unholy suits,

Breathing like sanctified and pious bawds,

The better to beguile. This is for all:

I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth,

Have you so slander any moment leisure,

As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet.

Look to't, I charge you: come your ways.

 

            Gladly. 

 

OPHELIA

I shall obey, my lord. 

 

Exeunt

 

SCENE 4. Hamlet and the Ghost. 

 

Alley.

Enter HAMLET and HORATIO

 

HAMLET

The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.

 

HORATIO

It is a nipping and an eager air.

 

HAMLET

What hour now?

 

HORATIO

I think it lacks of twelve.

 

HAMLET

No, it is struck.

 

HORATIO

Indeed? I heard it not: then it draws near the season

Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk.

 

A peal of laughter from offstage. 

 

What does this mean, my lord?

 

HAMLET

The king doth wake to-night and takes his rouse,

Keeps wassail, and the swaggering up-spring reels;

And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down,

The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out

The triumph of his pledge.

 

HORATIO

Is it a custom?

 

HAMLET

Ay, marry, is't:

But to my mind, though I am native here

And to the manner born, it is a custom

More honour'd in the breach than the observance.

This heavy-headed revel east and west

Makes us traduced and tax'd of other nations:

They call us drunkards, and with swinish phrase

Soil our addition; and indeed it takes

From our achievements, though perform'd at height,

The pith and marrow of our attribute.

 

HORATIO

Look, my lord, it comes!

 

Enter Ghost

 

HAMLET

Angels and ministers of grace defend us!

Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd,

Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,

Be thy intents wicked or charitable,

Thou comest in such a questionable shape

That I will speak to thee: I'll call thee Hamlet,

King, father, royal Dane: O, answer me!

Let me not burst in ignorance; but tell

Why thy canonized bones, hearsed in death,

Have burst their cerements; why the sepulchre,

Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn'd,

Hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws,

To cast thee up again. What may this mean,

That thou, dead corpse, again in complete steel

Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon,

Making night hideous; and we fools of nature

So horridly to shake our disposition

With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?

Say, why is this? wherefore? what should we do?

 

Ghost beckons HAMLET

 

HORATIO

It beckons you to go away with it,

As if it some impartment did desire

To you alone.

Look, with what courteous action

It waves you to a more removed ground:

But do not go with it.  No, by no means.

 

HAMLET

It will not speak; then I will follow it.

 

HORATIO

Do not, my lord.

 

HAMLET

Why, what should be the fear?

I do not set my life in a pin's fee;

And for my soul, what can it do to that,

Being a thing immortal as itself?

It waves me forth again: I'll follow it.

 

HORATIO

What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord,

Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff

That beetles o'er his base into the sea,

And there assume some other horrible form,

Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason

And draw you into madness? 

 

HAMLET

It waves me still.

Go on; I'll follow thee.

 

HORATIO

You shall not go, my lord.

 

HAMLET

Hold off your hands.

 

HORATIO

Be ruled; you shall not go.

 

HAMLET

My fate cries out,

And makes each petty artery in this body

As hardy as the Nemean lion's nerve.

Still am I call'd. Unhand me, Horatio.

By heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that lets me!

I say, away!

 

Go on; I'll follow thee.

 

Exeunt Ghost and HAMLET

 

HORATIO

He waxes desperate with imagination.

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

 

Exit

Enter GHOST

 

HAMLET

Where wilt thou lead me? speak; I'll go no further.

 

Ghost

Mark me.

 

HAMLET

I will.

 

Ghost

My hour is almost come,

When I to sulphurous and tormenting flames

Must render up myself.

 

HAMLET

Alas, poor ghost!

 

Ghost

Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing

To what I shall unfold.

 

HAMLET

Speak; I am bound to hear.

 

Ghost

So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear.

 

HAMLET

What?

 

Ghost

I am thy father's spirit,

Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night,

And for the day confined to fast in fires,

Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature

Are burnt and purged away. But that I am forbid

To tell the secrets of my prison-house,

I could a tale unfold whose lightest word

Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,

Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres,

Thy knotted and combined locks to part

And each particular hair to stand on end,

Like quills upon the fretful porcupine:

But this eternal blazon must not be

To ears of flesh and blood. Listen, listen!

If thou didst ever thy dear father love--

 

HAMLET

O God!

 

Ghost

Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.

 

HAMLET

Murder!

 

Ghost

Murder most foul, as in the best it is;

But this most foul, strange and unnatural.

 

Now, Hamlet, hear:

'Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard,

A serpent stung me; so the whole ear of Denmark

Is by a forged process of my death

Rankly abused: but know, thou noble youth,

The serpent that did sting thy father's life

Now wears his crown.

 

HAMLET

O my prophetic soul! My uncle!

 

Ghost

Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast,

Won to his shameful lust

The will of my most seeming-virtuous queen:

O Hamlet, what a falling-off was there!

From me, whose love was of that dignity

That it went hand in hand even with the vow

I made to her in marriage, and to decline

Upon a wretch whose natural gifts were poor

To those of mine!

 

Sleeping within my orchard,

Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole,

With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial,

And in the porches of my ears did pour

The leperous distilment; whose effect

Holds such an enmity with blood of man

That swift as quicksilver it courses through

The natural gates and alleys of the body,

And with a sudden vigour doth curdle,

like eager droppings into milk,

The thin and wholesome blood.

 

Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother's hand

Of life, of crown, of queen, at once dispatch'd:

Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,

Unhousel'd, disappointed, unanneal’d,

No reckoning made, but sent to my account

With all my imperfections on my head:

 

O, horrible! O, horrible! most horrible!

If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not;

Let not the royal bed of Denmark be

A couch for luxury and damned incest.

 

But, howsoever thou pursuest this act,

Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive

Against thy mother aught: leave her to heaven

And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge,

To prick and sting her. Fare thee well at once!

The glow-worm shows the matin to be near,

And 'gins to pale his uneffectual fire:

Adieu, adieu! Hamlet, remember me.

 

Exit

 

HAMLET

O all you host of heaven! O earth! what else?

And shall I couple hell? O, fie! Hold, hold, my heart;

And you, my sinews, grow not instant old,

But bear me stiffly up. Remember thee!

Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat

In this distracted globe. Remember thee!

Yea, from the table of my memory

I'll wipe away all trivial fond records,

All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past,

That youth and observation copied there;

And thy commandment all alone shall live

Within the book and volume of my brain,

Unmix'd with baser matter: yes, by heaven!

O most pernicious woman!

O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!

 

HORATIO

My lord, my lord,--Lord Hamlet,--

Heaven secure you!

 

Enter HORATIO

 

How is't, my noble lord?

What news, my lord?

 

HAMLET

O, wonderful!

 

HORATIO

Good my lord, tell it.

 

HAMLET

No; you'll reveal it.

 

HORATIO

Not I, my lord, by heaven.

 

HAMLET

How say you, then; would heart of man once think it?

But you'll be secret?

 

HORATIO

Ay, by heaven, my lord.

 

HAMLET

There's ne'er a villain dwelling in all Denmark

But he's an arrant knave.

 

HORATIO

There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave

To tell me this.

 

HAMLET

Why, right; you are i' the right;

And so, without more circumstance at all,

I hold it fit that we shake hands and part:

You, as your business and desire shall point you;

For every man has business and desire,

Such as it is; and for mine own poor part,

Look you, I'll go pray.

 

HORATIO

These are but wild and whirling words, my lord.

 

HAMLET

I'm sorry they offend you, heartily;

Yes, 'faith heartily.

 

HORATIO

There's no offence, my lord.

 

HAMLET

Yes, by Saint Patrick, but there is, Horatio,

And much offence too. Touching this vision here,

It is an honest ghost, that let me tell you:

For your desire to know what is between us,

O'ermaster 't as you may. And now, good friend,

As you are friend, scholar and soldier,

Give me one poor request.

 

HORATIO

What is't, my lord? I will.

 

HAMLET

Never make known what you have seen to-night.

 

HORATIO

My lord, I will not.

 

HAMLET

Nay, but swear't.

 

HORATIO

In faith, my lord, not I.

 

HAMLET

Upon my sword.

 

HORATIO

I have sworn, my lord, already.

 

HAMLET

Indeed, upon my sword, indeed.

 

Ghost

 

Beneath

 

Swear.

 

HAMLET

Ah, ha, boy! say'st thou so? art thou there, truepenny?

Come on--you hear this fellow in the cellarage--

Consent to swear.

 

HORATIO

Propose the oath, my lord.

 

HAMLET

Never to speak of this that you have seen,

Swear by my sword.

 

Ghost

Swear.

 

HAMLET

Hic et ubique? then we'll shift our ground.

Come hither, gentleman,

And lay your hand again upon my sword:

Never to speak of this that you have heard,

Swear by my sword.

 

Ghost

Swear.

 

HAMLET

Well said, old mole! canst work i' the earth so fast?

A worthy pioner! Once more remove, good friend.

 

HORATIO

O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!

 

HAMLET

And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,

Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. But come;

Here, as before, never, so help you mercy,

How strange or odd soe'er I bear myself,

As I perchance hereafter shall think meet

To put an antic disposition on,

That you, at such times seeing me, never shall,

With arms encumber'd thus, or this headshake,

Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase,

As 'Well, well, I know,' or 'I could, an if I would,'

Or 'If I listen to speak,' or 'There be, an if they might,'

Or such ambiguous giving out, to note

That you know aught of me: this not to do,

So grace and mercy at your most need help you, Swear.

 

Ghost

Swear.

 

HAMLET

Rest, rest, perturbed spirit!

So, Horatio,

With all my love I do commend me to you:

And what so poor a man as Hamlet is

May do, to express his love and friending to you,

God willing, shall not lack. Let us go in together;

And still your fingers on your lips, I pray.

The time is out of joint: O cursed spite,

That ever I was born to set it right!

Nay, come, let's go together.

 

Exeunt

 

SCENE 5. Tender trap. 

 

Bar interior.

Enter OPHELIA

 

POLONIUS

How now, Ophelia! what's the matter?

 

OPHELIA

 

Triumphantly.

 

O, my lord, my lord, I have been so affrighted! 

 

LORD POLONIUS

With what, i' the name of God?

 

OPHELIA

My lord, as I was sewing in my closet,

Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbraced;

No hat upon his head; his stockings foul'd,

Ungarter'd, and down-gyved to his ancle;

Pale as his shirt; his knees knocking each other;

And with a look so piteous in purport

As if he had been loosed out of hell

To speak of horrors,--he comes before me.

 

Gleefully. 

 

LORD POLONIUS

Mad for thy love?

 

OPHELIA

My lord, I do not know;

But truly, I do fear it.

 

LORD POLONIUS

What said he?

 

OPHELIA

He took me by the wrist and held me hard;

Then goes he to the length of all his arm;

And, with his other hand thus o'er his brow,

He falls to such perusal of my face

As he would draw it. Long stay'd he so;

At last, a little shaking of mine arm

And thrice his head thus waving up and down,

He raised a sigh so piteous and profound

As it did seem to shatter all his bulk

And end his being: that done, he lets me go:

And, with his head over his shoulder turn'd,

He seem'd to find his way without his eyes;

For out o' doors he went without their helps,

And, to the last, bended their light on me.

 

LORD POLONIUS

Come, go with me: I will go seek the king.

This is the very ecstasy of love,

Whose violent property fordoes itself

And leads the will to desperate undertakings

As oft as any passion under heaven

That does afflict our natures. I am sorry.

What, have you given him any hard words of late?

 

OPHELIA

No, my good lord, but, as you did command,

I did repel his fetters and denied

His access to me.

 

LORD POLONIUS

That hath made him mad.

Come, go we to the king:

This must be known; which, being kept close, might move

More grief to hide than hate to utter love.

 

Exit Ophelia

 

SCENE 6. Hamlet’s Disease. 

 

Bar interior.

Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE

 

KING CLAUDIUS

Thou still hast been the father of good news.

 

LORD POLONIUS

Have I, my lord? I assure my good liege,

I hold my duty, as I hold my soul,

Both to my God and to my gracious king:

And I do think, or else this brain of mine

Hunts not the trail of policy so sure

As it hath used to do, that I have found

The very cause of Hamlet's lunacy.

 

KING CLAUDIUS

O, speak of that; that do I long to hear.

He tells me, my dear Gertrude, he hath found

The head and source of all your son's distemper.

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

I doubt it is no other but the main;

His father's death, and our o'erhasty marriage.

 

KING CLAUDIUS

Well, we shall sift him.

 

LORD POLONIUS

Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,

And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,

I will be brief: your noble son is mad.

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

More matter, with less art.

 

LORD POLONIUS

Madam, I swear I use no art at all.

I have a daughter--have while she is mine--

Who, in her duty and obedience, mark,

Hath given me this: now gather, and surmise.

 

Reads

 

'To the celestial and my soul's idol, the most

beautified Ophelia,'--

That's an ill phrase, a vile phrase; 'beautified' is

a vile phrase: but you shall hear. Thus:

 

'In her excellent white bosom, these, & c.'

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Came this from Hamlet to her?

 

LORD POLONIUS

Good madam, stay awhile; I will be faithful.

 

'Doubt thou the stars are fire;

Doubt that the sun doth move;

Doubt truth to be a liar;

But never doubt I love.

'O dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers;

I have not art to reckon my groans: but that

I love thee best, O most best, believe it. Adieu.

'Thine evermore most dear lady, whilst

this machine is to him, HAMLET.'

This, in obedience, hath my daughter shown me,

And more above, hath his solicitings,

As they fell out by time, by means and place,

All given to mine ear.

 

KING CLAUDIUS

But how hath she

Received his love?

 

LORD POLONIUS

What do you think of me?

 

KING CLAUDIUS

As of a man faithful and honourable.

 

LORD POLONIUS

I would fain prove so. But what might you think,

When I had seen this hot love on the wing--

what might you,

Or my dear majesty your queen here, think,

If I had given my heart a winking, mute and dumb,

Or look'd upon this love with idle sight;

What might you think? No, I went round to work,

And my young mistress thus I did bespeak:

'Lord Hamlet is a prince, out of thy star;

This must not be:' and then I precepts gave her,

That she should lock herself from his resort,

Admit no messengers, receive no tokens.

Which done, she took the fruits of my advice;

And he, repulsed--a short tale to make--

Fell into a sadness, then into a fast,

Thence to a watch, thence into a weakness,

Thence to a lightness, and, by this declension,

Into the madness wherein now he raves,

And all we mourn for.

 

KING CLAUDIUS

Do you think 'tis this?

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

It may be, very likely.

 

LORD POLONIUS

Hath there been such a time--I'd fain know that--

That I have positively said 'Tis so,'

When it proved otherwise?

 

KING CLAUDIUS

Not that I know.

 

LORD POLONIUS

 

Pointing to his head and shoulder. 

 

Take this from this, if this be otherwise:

If circumstances lead me, I will find

Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed

Within the centre.

 

KING CLAUDIUS

How may we try it further?

 

LORD POLONIUS

You know, sometimes he walks for hours together

Here in the lobby.

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

So he does indeed.

 

LORD POLONIUS

At such a time I'll loose my daughter to him:

Be you and I behind an arras then;

Mark the encounter: if he love her not

And be not from his reason fall'n thereon,

Let me be no assistant for a state,

But keep a farm and carters.

 

KING CLAUDIUS

We will try it.

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

But, look, where sadly the poor wretch comes reading.

 

LORD POLONIUS

Away, I do beseech you, both away:

I'll board him presently.

 

Exeunt KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE

Enter HAMLET, reading

 

O, give me leave:

How does my good Lord Hamlet?

 

HAMLET

Well, God-a-mercy.

 

LORD POLONIUS

Do you know me, my lord?

 

HAMLET

Excellent well; you are a fishmonger.

 

LORD POLONIUS

Not I, my lord.

 

HAMLET

Then I would you were so honest a man.

 

LORD POLONIUS

Honest, my lord!

 

HAMLET

Ay, sir; to be honest, as this world goes, is to be

one man picked out of ten thousand.

 

LORD POLONIUS

That's very true, my lord.

 

HAMLET

For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a

god kissing carrion,--Have you a daughter?

 

LORD POLONIUS

I have, my lord.

 

HAMLET

Let her not walk i' the sun: conception is a

blessing: but not as your daughter may conceive.

Friend, look to 't.

 

LORD POLONIUS

 

Aside

 

How say you by that? 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?

 

HAMLET

Words, words, words.

 

LORD POLONIUS

What is the matter, my lord?

 

HAMLET

Between who?

 

LORD POLONIUS

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

 

HAMLET

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 which, sir,

though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet

I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down, for

yourself, sir, should be old as I am, if like a crab

you could go backward.

 

LORD POLONIUS

 

Aside

 

Though this be madness, yet there is method

in 't. Will you walk out of the air, my lord?

 

HAMLET

Into my grave.

 

LORD POLONIUS

Indeed, that is out o' the air.

 

Aside

 

How pregnant sometimes his replies are! a happiness

that often madness hits on, which reason and sanity

could not so prosperously be delivered of. I will

leave him, and suddenly contrive the means of

meeting between him and my daughter.--My honourable

lord, I will most humbly take my leave of you.

 

HAMLET

You cannot, sir, take from me any thing that I will

more willingly part withal: except my life, except

my life, except my life.

 

LORD POLONIUS

Fare you well, my lord.

 

Exit

 

HAMLET

Now I am alone.

O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!

Is it not monstrous that this player here,

But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,

Could force his soul so to his own conceit

That from her working all his visage wann'd,

Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect,

A broken voice, and his whole function suiting

With forms to his conceit? and all for nothing!

For Hecuba!

What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,

'Swounds, 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 villain!

Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!

O, vengeance!

Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,

That I, the son of a dear father murder'd,

Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,

Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words,

And fall a-cursing, like a very drab,

A scullion! 

 

I'll have the players

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 but blench,

I know my course. The spirit that I have seen

May be the 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.

 

Exit

 

Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, POLONIUS, OPHELIA

 

KING CLAUDIUS

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 behaved,

If 't be the affliction of his love or no

That thus he suffers for.

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

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

Will bring him to his wonted way again,

To both your honours.

 

OPHELIA

Madam, I wish it may.

 

Exit QUEEN GERTRUDE

 

LORD POLONIUS

Ophelia, walk you here. Gracious, so please you,

We will bestow ourselves.

 

To OPHELIA

 

Read on this book;

That show of such an exercise may colour

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

The devil himself.

 

KING CLAUDIUS

 

Aside

 

O, 'tis too true!

How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!

The harlot's cheek, beautied with plastering art,

Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it

Than is my deed to my most painted word:

O heavy burthen!

 

LORD POLONIUS

I hear him coming: let's withdraw, my lord.

 

Exeunt KING CLAUDIUS and POLONIUS

Enter HAMLET

 

HAMLET

 

To the curtain.

 

To be, or not to be: that is the question:

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

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;

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

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,

The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,

The pangs of despised 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? who would burdens bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The 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.

 

Bows to the curtain. 

 

--Soft you now! The fair Ophelia!

Nymph, in thy orations be all my sins remember'd. 

 

OPHELIA

Good my lord,

How does your honour for this many a day?

 

HAMLET

I humbly thank you; well, well, well.

 

OPHELIA

My lord, I have remembrances of yours,

That I have longed long to re-deliver;

I pray you, now receive them.

 

HAMLET

No, not I;

I never gave you aught.

 

OPHELIA

My honour'd 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,

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

Are 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 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 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

I 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 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?

 

OPHELIA

At home, my lord.

 

HAMLET

Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the

fool no where but in's own house. Farewell.

 

OPHELIA

O, 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, go: 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.

 

OPHELIA

O heavenly powers, restore him!

 

HAMLET

I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God

has 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 on'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, go.

 

Exit

 

OPHELIA

O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!

The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword;

The expectancy and rose of the fair state,

The glass of fashion and the mould of form,

The observed of all observers, quite, quite 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 ecstasy: O, woe is me,

To have seen what I have seen, see what I see!

 

Re-enter KING CLAUDIUS and POLONIUS

 

KING CLAUDIUS

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,

 

Polonius argues with the King. 

 

LORD POLONIUS

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;

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,

To England send him, or confine him where

Your wisdom best shall think.

 

KING CLAUDIUS

It shall be so:

Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go.

 

Exeunt

 

SCENE 7. Mousetrap

 

Bar interior.

Enter HAMLET, Polonius, Ophelia, Horatio. 

Polonius carries a costume crown. 

 

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 your players do, I had as lief the

town-crier spoke my lines.

 

Nor do not saw the air

too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently;

for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say,

the whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget

a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it

offends me to the soul to hear a robustious

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 dumbshows and noise: I would have such

a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant; it

out-herods Herod: pray you, avoid it.

 

POLONIUS

I warrant your honour.

 

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 o'erstep not

the modesty of nature: for any thing so overdone 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 own image, and the very age and body of

the time his form and pressure.

 

Now this overdone,

or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful

laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the

censure of the which one must in your allowance

o'erweigh a whole theatre 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 the accent of Christians nor

the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so

strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of

nature's journeymen had made men and not made them

well, they imitated humanity so abominably.

 

POLONIUS

I hope we have reformed that indifferently with us, sir.

 

HAMLET

O, reform it altogether. Go, make you ready.

I will the king hear this piece of work. 

 

LORD POLONIUS

And the queen too, and that presently.

 

HAMLET

Bid the players make haste.

 

            Polonius and Ophelia take the stage. 

 

HORATIO

Here, 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

The play to-night 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

Observe mine uncle: if his occulted guilt

Do not itself unkennel in one speech,

It is a damned ghost that we have seen,

And my imaginations are as foul

As Vulcan's smithy. Give him heedful note;

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,

And 'scape detecting, I will pay the theft.

 

HAMLET

They are coming to the play; I must be idle:

Get you a place.

 

Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE

 

KING CLAUDIUS

How fares our cousin Hamlet?

 

HAMLET

Excellent, i' faith; of the chameleon's dish: I eat

the air, promise-crammed: you cannot feed roosters so.

 

KING CLAUDIUS

I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet; these words

are not mine.

 

HAMLET

No, nor mine now.

 

To POLONIUS

 

My lord, you played once i' the university, you say?

 

LORD POLONIUS

That did I, my lord; and was accounted a good actor.

 

HAMLET

What did you enact?

 

LORD POLONIUS

I did enact Julius Caesar: I was killed i' the

Capitol; Brutus killed me.

 

HAMLET

It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf

there. Be the players ready?

 

POLONIUS

Ay, my lord; we stay upon your patience.

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me.

 

HAMLET

No, good mother, here's metal more attractive.

 

LORD POLONIUS

 

To KING CLAUDIUS

 

O, ho! do you mark that?

 

HAMLET

Lady, shall I lie in your lap?

 

Lying down at OPHELIA's feet

 

OPHELIA

No, 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

That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs.

 

OPHELIA

What is, my lord?

 

HAMLET

Nothing.

 

OPHELIA

You are merry, my lord.

 

HAMLET

Who, 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 these two 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

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, O, for, O,

the hobby-horse is forgot.'

 

OPHELIA

What means this, my lord?

 

HAMLET

Marry, this is miching mallecho; it means mischief.

We shall know by this fellow: the players cannot

keep counsel; they'll tell all, brief as woman's love.

 

The play begins. 

 

Polonius (as Player King )

'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,

Honour'd, beloved; and haply one as kind

For husband shalt thou—

 

Ophelia (as Player Queen)

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 kill'd the first.

 

HAMLET

 

Aside.

 

Wormwood, wormwood.

 

Ophelia (as Player Queen)

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.

Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife,

If, once a widow, ever I be wife!

 

Player King and Queen embrace. 

 

HAMLET

If she should break it now!

 

Polonius (as Player King)

'Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here awhile;

My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile

The tedious day with sleep.

 

Sleeps

 

Ophelia (as Player Queen)

Sleep rock thy brain,

And never come mischance between us twain!

 

Exits the stage

 

HORATIO touches Ophelia in passing, behind Hamlet’s back. 

 

HAMLET

Madam, how like you this play?

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

The lady protests too much, methinks.

 

HAMLET

O, but she'll keep her word.

 

KING CLAUDIUS

Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in 't?

 

HAMLET

No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest; no offence

i' the world.

 

KING CLAUDIUS

What do you call the play?

 

HAMLET

The Mouse-trap. 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 what o'

that? your majesty and we that have free souls, it

touches us not: let the galled jade wince, our

withers are unwrung.

 

Enter LUCIANUS (Horatio)

 

This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king.

 

GERTRUDE

You are as good as a chorus, my son.

 

HAMLET

I could interpret between you and your love, if I

could see the puppets dallying.

 

GERTRUDE

You are keen, my son, you are keen.

 

HAMLET

It would cost you a groaning to take off my edge.

 

GERTRUDE

Still better, and worse.

 

HAMLET

So you must take your husbands. Begin, murderer;

pox, leave thy damnable faces, and begin. Come:

'the croaking raven doth bellow for revenge.'

 

Horatio (as LUCIANUS)

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,

Thy natural magic and dire property,

On wholesome life usurp immediately.

 

Pours the poison into the sleeper's ears

 

GERTRUDE

The king rises.

 

HAMLET

What, frighted with false fire!

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

How fares my lord?

 

LORD POLONIUS

Give o'er the play.

 

KING CLAUDIUS

Give me some light: away!

 

All

Lights, lights, lights!

 

Exeunt all but HAMLET and HORATIO

 

HAMLET

Why, let the stricken deer go weep,

The hart ungalled play;

For some must watch, while some must sleep:

So runs the world away.

Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers with two

Provincial roses on my razed shoes, get me a

fellowship in a cry of players, sir?

 

HORATIO

Half 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

A very, very peacock.

 

Bows graciously to the audience. 

 

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

Upon the talk of the poisoning?

 

HORATIO

I did very well note him.

 

LORD POLONIUS

 

Wearing his costume crown. 

 

My lord, the queen would speak with you, and presently.

 

HAMLET

Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel?

 

LORD POLONIUS

By the mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed.

 

HAMLET

Methinks it is like a weasel.

 

LORD POLONIUS

It is backed like a weasel.

 

HAMLET

Or like a whale?

 

LORD POLONIUS

Very like a whale.

 

HAMLET

Then I will come to my mother by and by. They fool

me to the top of my bent. I will come by and by.

 

LORD POLONIUS

I will say so.

 

HAMLET

By and by is easily said.

 

Exit POLONIUS

 

Leave me, friend.

 

Exit Horatio

 

Tis now the very witching time of night,

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

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;

My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites;

How in my words soever she be stained,

To give them seals never, my soul, consent!

 

Exit

 

SCENE 8. Confession. 

 

Bar interior.

Enter KING CLAUDIUS, POLONIUS, wearing the costume crown. 

 

LORD POLONIUS

My lord, he's going to his mother's closet:

Behind the arras I'll convey myself,

To hear the process; and warrant she'll tax him home:

And, as you said, and wisely was it said,

'Tis meet that some more audience than a mother,

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 CLAUDIUS

Thanks, dear my lord.

 

Exit POLONIUS

 

O, my offence 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;

And, like a man to double business bound,

I stand in pause where I shall first begin,

And both neglect. What if this cursed hand

Were thicker than itself with brother's blood,

Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens

To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy

But to confront the visage of offence?

 

May one be pardon'd and retain the offence?

In the corrupted currents of this world

Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice,

And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself

Buys out the law: but 'tis not so above;

There is no shuffling, there the action lies

In his true nature; and we ourselves compell'd,

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?

Yet what can it when one can not repent?

O wretched state! O bosom black as death!

O limed soul, that, struggling to be free,

Art more engaged! Help, angels! Make assay!

Bow, stubborn knees; and, heart with strings of steel,

Be soft as sinews of the newborn babe!

All may be well.

 

Retires and kneels

Enter HAMLET

 

HAMLET

Now might I do it pat, now he is praying;

And now I'll do't.

 

And so he goes to heaven;

And so am I revenged. That would be scann'd:

A villain kills my father; and for that,

I, his sole son, do this same villain send

To heaven.

O, this is hire and salary, not revenge.

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,

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 hit:

When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage,

Or in the incestuous pleasure 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.

 

Exit

 

KING CLAUDIUS

 

Rising

 

My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:

Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

 

Exit

 

SCENE 9. Mother and Son

 

Bar interior.

Enter QUEEN Gertrude and POLONIUS , carrying the costume crown. 

 

LORD 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 screen'd and stood between

Much heat and him. I'll sconce me even here.

Pray you, be round with him.

 

HAMLET

 

Within

 

Mother, mother, mother!

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

I'll warrant you,

Fear me not: withdraw, I hear him coming.

 

POLONIUS hides behind the arras

Enter HAMLET

 

HAMLET

Now, mother, what's the matter?

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.

 

HAMLET

Mother, you have my father much offended.

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.

 

HAMLET

Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Have you forgot me?

 

HAMLET

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 GERTRUDE

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

Where you may see the inmost part of you.

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murder me?

Help, help, ho!

 

LORD POLONIUS

 

Behind

 

What, ho! help, help, help!

 

HAMLET

 

Drawing his sword.

 

How now! a rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead!

 

Makes a pass through the arras

 

LORD POLONIUS

 

Behind.

 

O, I am slain!

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

O me, what hast thou done?

 

HAMLET

Nay, I know not:

 

Polonius falls to floor, clutching his crown. 

 

Is it the king?

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!

 

HAMLET

A bloody deed! almost as bad, good mother,

As kill a king, and marry with his brother.

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

As kill a king!

 

HAMLET

Ay, lady, 'twas my word.

 

To Polonius

 

Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!

I took thee for thy better: take thy fortune;

Thou find'st to be too busy is some danger.

 

To Gertrude

 

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 brass'd it so

That it is proof and bulwark against sense.

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

What have I done, that thou darest wag thy tongue

In noise so rude against me?

 

HAMLET

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 GERTRUDE

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.

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?

 

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.

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

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.

 

HAMLET

Nay, but to live

In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed,

Stew'd in corruption, honeying and making love

Over the nasty sty,--

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

O, speak to me no more;

These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears;

No more, sweet Hamlet!

 

HAMLET

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!

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

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 figure?

 

Gertrude sees the ghost but turns her head. 

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Alas, he's mad!

 

HAMLET

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.

 

HAMLET

How is it with you, lady?

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

 

            Covering her eyes. 

 

Alas, how is't with you,

That you do bend your eye on vacancy

And with the incorporeal 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?

 

HAMLET

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 GERTRUDE

To whom do you speak this?

 

HAMLET

Do you see nothing there?

 

Pretending not to see the ghost. 

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Nothing at all; yet all that is I see. 

 

HAMLET

Nor did you nothing hear?

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

No, nothing but ourselves.

 

Looking to Hamlet. 

 

HAMLET

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 portal!

 

Exit Ghost

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

This the very coinage of your brain:

This bodiless creation ecstasy

Is very cunning in.

 

HAMLET

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

Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg,

Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good.

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

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.

Good night: but go not to mine uncle's bed;

Assume a virtue, if you have it not.

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 either the devil, or throw him out

With wondrous potency. Once more, good night:

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 heaven 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.

I must be cruel, only to be kind:

Thus bad begins and worse remains behind.

One word more, good lady.

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

What shall I do?

 

HAMLET

Not this, by no means, that I bid you do:

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 reeky 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,

But mad in craft.

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Be thou assured, if words be made of breath,

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 GERTRUDE

Alack,

I had forgot: 'tis so concluded on.

 

HAMLET

This man shall set me packing:

I'll lug the guts into the neighbour room.

Mother, good night. Indeed this counsellor

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.

Good night, mother.

 

Exeunt severally

 

SCENE 10. At Supper.

 

Bar interior

Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE

 

KING CLAUDIUS

There's matter in these sighs, these profound heaves:

You must translate: 'tis fit we understand them.

Where is your son?

 

Claudius tries to embrace Gertrude. 

Gertrude pushes Claudius away. 

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Ah, my good lord, what have I seen to-night!

 

KING CLAUDIUS

What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Mad as the sea and wind, when both contend

Which is the mightier: in his lawless fit,

Behind the arras hearing something stir,

Whips out his rapier, cries, 'A rat, a rat!'

And, in this brainish apprehension, kills

The unseen good old man.

 

KING CLAUDIUS

His liberty is full of threats to all.

Where is he gone?

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

To draw apart the body he hath kill'd:

O'er whom his very madness, like some ore

Among a mineral of metals base,

Shows itself pure; he weeps for what is done.

 

KING CLAUDIUS

The sun no sooner shall the mountains touch,

But we will ship him hence. 

 

Exit Gertrude. 

Enter  Hamlet. 

 

KING CLAUDIUS

How now! what hath befall'n?

Now, Hamlet, where's Polonius?

 

HAMLET

At supper.

 

KING CLAUDIUS

At supper! where?

 

HAMLET

Not where he eats, but where he is eaten: a certain

convocation of politic worms are e'en at him. Your

worm is your only emperor for diet: we fat all

creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for

maggots: your fat king and your lean beggar is but

variable service, two dishes, but to one table:

that's the end.

 

KING CLAUDIUS

Alas, alas!

 

HAMLET

A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king

and cat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.

 

KING CLAUDIUS

What dost you mean by this?

 

HAMLET

Nothing but to show you how a king may go a

progress through the guts of a beggar.

 

KING CLAUDIUS

Where is Polonius?

 

HAMLET

In heaven; send hither to see: if your messenger

find him not there, seek him i' the other place

yourself. But indeed, if you find him not within

this month, you shall nose him as you go up the

stairs into the lobby.

 

KING CLAUDIUS

I will seek him there.

 

HAMLET

He will stay till ye come.

 

KING CLAUDIUS

Hamlet, this deed, for thine especial safety,--

Which we do tender, as we dearly grieve

For that which thou hast done,--must send thee hence

With fiery quickness: therefore prepare thyself;

The bark is ready, and the wind at help,

The associates tend, and every thing is bent

For England.

 

HAMLET

For England!

 

KING CLAUDIUS

Ay, Hamlet.

 

HAMLET

Good.

 

KING CLAUDIUS

So is it, if thou knew'st our purposes.

 

HAMLET

I see a cherub that sees them. But, come; for

England! Farewell, dear mother.

 

KING CLAUDIUS

Thy loving father, Hamlet.

 

HAMLET

My mother: father and mother is man and wife; man

and wife is one flesh; and so, my mother. Come, for England!

 

Hamlet kisses Claudius. 

Hamlet exits. 

 

KING CLAUDIUS

And, England, if my love thou hold'st at aught--

As my great power thereof may give thee sense,

Since yet thy scar looks raw and red

After the Danish sword, and thy free awe

Pays homage to us--thou mayst not coldly set

Our sovereign process; which imports at full,

By letters congruing to that effect,

The present death of Hamlet. Do it, England;

For like the hectic in my blood he rages,

And thou must cure me: till I know 'tis done,

Howe'er my haps, my joys were ne'er begun.

 

Exeunt

 

SCENE 11. Rue for You. 

 

Bar interior.

Enter QUEEN GERTRUDE, HORATIO

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

I will not speak with her.

 

HORATIO

She is importunate, indeed distract:

Her mood will needs be pitied.

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

What would she have?

 

HORATIO

She speaks much of her father; says she hears

There's tricks i' the world; and hems, and beats her heart;

Spurns enviously at straws; speaks things in doubt,

That carry but half sense: her speech is nothing,

Yet the unshaped use of it doth move

The hearers to collection; they aim at it,

And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts;

Which, as her winks, and nods, and gestures

yield them,

Indeed would make one think there might be thought,

Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.

'Twere good she were spoken with; for she may strew

Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Let her come in.

 

Horatio exits

 

To my sick soul, as sin's true nature is,

Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss:

So full of artless jealousy is guilt,

It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.

 

Re-enter HORATIO, with OPHELIA

Horatio tries to touch Ophelia but she scorns him. 

 

OPHELIA

Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

How now, Ophelia!

 

OPHELIA

 

Singing

 

How should I your true love know

From another one?

By his cockle hat and staff,

And his sandal shoon.

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?

 

OPHELIA

Say you? nay, pray you, mark.

 

He is dead and gone, lady,

He is dead and gone;

At his head a grass-green turf,

At his heels a stone.

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Nay, but, Ophelia,--

 

OPHELIA

Pray you, mark.

 

White his shroud as the mountain snow,--

 

Enter KING CLAUDIUS

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Alas, look here, my lord.

 

OPHELIA

 

Singing

 

Larded with sweet flowers

Which bewept to the grave did go

With true-love showers.

 

KING CLAUDIUS

How do you, pretty lady?

 

OPHELIA

Well, God 'ild you! They say the owl was a baker's

daughter. Lord, we know what we are, but know not

what we may be. God be at your table!

 

KING CLAUDIUS

Conceit upon her father.

 

OPHELIA

Pray you, let's have no words of this; but when they

ask you what it means, say you this:

 

To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day,

All in the morning betime,

And I a maid at your window,

To be your Valentine.

Then up he rose, and donn'd his clothes,

And dupp'd the chamber-door;

Let in the maid, that out a maid

Never departed more.

 

KING CLAUDIUS

Pretty Ophelia!

 

OPHELIA

Indeed, la, without an oath, I'll make an end on't:

 

By Gis and by Saint Charity,

Alack, and fie for shame!

Young men will do't, if they come to't;

By cock, they are to blame.

Quoth she, before you tumbled me,

You promised me to wed.

So would I ha' done, by yonder sun,

An thou hadst not come to my bed.

 

KING CLAUDIUS

How long hath she been thus?

 

OPHELIA

I hope all will be well. We must be patient: but I

cannot choose but weep, to think they should lay him

i' the cold ground.

 

My brother shall know of it:

and so I thank you for your good counsel. Come, my

coach! Good night, ladies; good night, sweet ladies;

good night, good night.

 

Exit

 

KING CLAUDIUS

Follow her close; give her good watch,

I pray you.

 

Exit Horatio

 

O, this is the poison of deep grief; it springs

All from her father's death. O Gertrude, Gertrude,

When sorrows come, they come not single spies

But in battalions. First, her father slain:

Next, your son gone; and he most violent author

Of his own just remove: the people muddied,

Thick and unwholesome in their thoughts and whispers,

For good Polonius' death; and we have done but greenly,

In hugger-mugger to inter him: poor Ophelia

Divided from herself and her fair judgment,

Without the which we are pictures, or mere beasts:

Last, and as much containing as all these,

Her brother is in secret come from France;

Feeds on his wonder, keeps himself in clouds,

And wants not buzzers to infect his ear

With pestilent speeches of his father's death;

Wherein necessity, of matter beggar'd,

Will nothing stick our person to arraign

In ear and ear. O my dear Gertrude, this,

Like to a murdering-piece, in many places

Gives me superfluous death.

 

A noise within

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Alack, what noise is this?

 

KING CLAUDIUS

 

            Drawing his sword. 

 

Where are my Switzers? Let them guard the door.

 

Enter HORATIO

 

What is the matter?

 

HORATIO

Save yourself, my lord:

The ocean, overpeering of his list,

Eats not the flats with more impetuous haste

Than young Laertes, in a riotous head,

O'erbears your officers. The rabble call him lord;

And, as the world were now but to begin,

Antiquity forgot, custom not known,

The ratifiers and props of every word,

They cry 'Choose we: Laertes shall be king:'

Caps, hands, and tongues, applaud it to the clouds:

'Laertes shall be king, Laertes king!'

 

            Gertrude announces to the door. 

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

How cheerfully on the false trail they cry!

O, this is counter, you false Danish dogs!

 

KING CLAUDIUS

The doors are broke.

 

Draws his sword. 

Noise within

Enter LAERTES, armed

 

LAERTES

Where is this king? O thou vile king,

Give me my father!

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Calmly, good Laertes.

 

LAERTES

That drop of blood that's calm proclaims me bastard,

Cries cuckold to my father, brands the harlot

Even here, between the chaste unsmirched brow

Of my true mother.

 

KING CLAUDIUS

What is the cause, Laertes,

That thy rebellion looks so giant-like?

Let him go, Gertrude; do not fear our person:

There's such divinity doth hedge a king,

That treason can but peep to what it would,

Acts little of his will. Tell me, Laertes,

Why thou art thus incensed. Let him go, Gertrude.

Speak, man.

 

LAERTES

Where is my father?

 

KING CLAUDIUS

Dead.

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

But not by him.

 

KING CLAUDIUS

Let him demand his fill.

 

LAERTES

How came he dead? I'll not be juggled with:

To hell, allegiance! vows, to the blackest devil!

Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit!

I dare damnation. To this point I stand,

That both the worlds I give to negligence,

Let come what comes; only I'll be revenged

Most thoroughly for my father.

 

KING CLAUDIUS

Who shall stay you?

 

LAERTES

My will, not all the world:

And for my means, I'll husband them so well,

They shall go far with little.

 

KING CLAUDIUS

Good Laertes,

If you desire to know the certainty

Of your dear father's death, is't writ in your revenge,

That, sweepstake, you will draw both friend and foe,

Winner and loser?

 

LAERTES

None but his enemies.

 

KING CLAUDIUS

Will you know them then?

 

LAERTES

To his good friends thus wide I'll ope my arms;

And like the kind life-rendering pelican,

Repast them with my blood.

 

KING CLAUDIUS

Why, now you speak

Like a good child and a true gentleman.

That I am guiltless of your father's death,

And am most sensible in grief for it,

It shall as level to your judgment pierce

As day does to your eye.

 

LAERTES

How now! what noise is that?

 

Re-enter OPHELIA

Her dress is bloody. 

 

O heat, dry up my brains! tears seven times salt,

Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye!

By heaven, thy madness shall be paid by weight,

Till our scale turn the beam. O rose of May!

Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!

O heavens! is't possible, a young maid's wits

Should be as mortal as an old man's life?

Nature is fine in love, and where 'tis fine,

It sends some precious instance of itself

After the thing it loves.

 

OPHELIA

 

Singing

 

They bore him barefaced on the bier;

Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny;

And in his grave rain'd many a tear:--

Fare you well, my dove!

 

LAERTES

Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge,

It could not move thus.

 

OPHELIA

 

Singing

 

You must sing a-down a-down,

An you call him a-down-a.

O, how the wheel becomes it! It is the false

steward, that stole his master's daughter.

 

LAERTES

This nothing's more than matter.

 

OPHELIA

 

To Gertrude.

 

There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray,

love, remember:

 

To Horatio, hatefully. 

 

and there is pansies. that's for thoughts.

 

LAERTES

A document in madness, thoughts and remembrance fitted.

 

OPHELIA

 

To Laertes. 

 

There's fennel for you, and columbines:

 

To Claudius, spitefully. 

 

there's rue for you;

and here's some for me: we may call it

herb-grace o' Sundays: O you must wear your rue with

a difference. There's a daisy: I would give you

some violets, but they withered all when my father

died: they say he made a good end,--

 

Singing

 

For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.

 

LAERTES

Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself,

She turns to favour and to prettiness.

 

OPHELIA

 

Singing

 

And will he not come again?

And will he not come again?

No, no, he is dead:

Go to thy death-bed:

He never will come again.

His beard was as white as snow,

All flaxen was his poll:

He is gone, he is gone,

And we cast away moan:

God ha' mercy on his soul!

And of all Christian souls, I pray God. God be wi' ye.

 

Exit

 

LAERTES

Do you see this, O God?

 

KING CLAUDIUS

Laertes, I must commune with your grief,

Or you deny me right. Go but apart,

Make choice of whom your wisest friends you will.

And they shall hear and judge 'twixt you and me:

If by direct or by collateral hand

They find us touch'd, we will our kingdom give,

Our crown, our life, and all that we can ours,

To you in satisfaction; but if not,

Be you content to lend your patience to us,

And we shall jointly labour with your soul

To give it due content.

 

LAERTES

Let this be so;

His means of death, his obscure funeral--

No trophy, sword, nor hatchment o'er his bones,

No noble rite nor formal ostentation--

Cry to be heard, as 'twere from heaven to earth,

That I must call't in question.

 

KING CLAUDIUS

So you shall;

And where the offence is let the great axe fall.

I pray you, go with me.

 

Exit Gertrude

 

Now must your conscience my acquaintance seal,

And you must put me in your heart for friend,

Since you have heard, and with a knowing ear,

That he which hath your noble father slain

Pursued my life.

 

LAERTES

It well appears: but tell me

Why you proceeded not against these feats,

So crimeful and so capital in nature,

As by your safety, wisdom, all things else,

You mainly were stirr'd up.

 

KING CLAUDIUS

O, for two special reasons;

Which may to you, perhaps, seem much unsinew'd,

But yet to me they are strong. The queen his mother

Lives almost by his looks; and for myself--

My virtue or my plague, be it either which--

She's so conjunctive to my life and soul,

That, as the star moves not but in his sphere,

I could not but by her. The other motive,

Why to a public count I might not go,

Is the great love the general gender bear him;

Who, dipping all his faults in their affection,

Would, like the spring that turneth wood to stone,

Convert his gyves to graces; so that my arrows,

Too slightly timber'd for so loud a wind,

Would have reverted to my bow again,

And not where I had aim'd them.

 

LAERTES

And so have I a noble father lost;

A sister driven into desperate terms,

Whose worth, if praises may go back again,

Stood challenger on mount of all the age

For her perfections: but my revenge will come.

 

KING CLAUDIUS

Break not your sleeps for that: you must not think

That we are made of stuff so flat and dull

That we can let our beard be shook with danger

And think it pastime. You shortly shall hear more:

I loved your father, and we love ourself;

And that, I hope, will teach you to imagine—

 

Enter Horatio

 

How now! what news?

 

HORATIO

Letters, my lord, from Hamlet:

This to your majesty; this to the queen.

 

KING CLAUDIUS

Laertes, you shall hear them. Leave us.

 

Exit HORATIO

Claudius reads

 

'High and mighty, You shall know I am set naked on

your kingdom. To-morrow shall I beg leave to see

your kingly eyes: when I shall, first asking your

pardon thereunto, recount the occasion of my sudden

and more strange return. 'HAMLET.'

 

Suspiciously.

 

LAERTES

Know you the hand?

 

KING CLAUDIUS

'Tis Hamlets character. 'Naked!’

And in a postscript here, he says 'alone.'

Can you advise me?

 

LAERTES

I'm lost in it, my lord. But let him come;

It warms the very sickness in my heart,

That I shall live and tell him to his teeth,

'Thus didest thou.'

 

KING CLAUDIUS

If it be so, Laertes--

As how should it be so? how otherwise?--

Will you be ruled by me?

 

LAERTES

Ay, my lord;

So you will not o'errule me to a peace.

 

KING CLAUDIUS

I will work him

To an exploit, now ripe in my device,

Under the which he shall not choose but fall:

And for his death no wind of blame shall breathe,

But even his mother shall uncharge the practice

And call it accident.

 

LAERTES

My lord, I will be ruled;

The rather, if you could devise it so

That I might be the organ.

 

KING CLAUDIUS

Laertes, was your father dear to you?

Or are you like the painting of a sorrow,

A face without a heart?

 

LAERTES

Why ask you this?

 

KING CLAUDIUS

Not that I think you did not love your father;

But that I know love is begun by time;

And that I see, in passages of proof,

Time qualifies the spark and fire of it.

But, to the quick o' the ulcer:--

Hamlet comes back: what would you undertake,

To show yourself your father's son in deed

More than in words?

 

LAERTES

To cut his throat i' the church.

 

KING CLAUDIUS

Revenge should have no bounds. But, good Laertes,

Will you do this, keep close within your chamber.

 

Hamlet return'd shall know you are come home:

He, being remiss,

Most generous and free from all contriving,

Will not peruse the foils; so that, with ease,

Or with a little shuffling, you may choose

A sword unguarded, and in a pass of practice

Requite him for your father.

 

LAERTES

I will do't:

And, for that purpose, I'll anoint my sword.

I bought an unction of a mountebank,

So mortal that, but dip a knife in it,

Where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare,

Collected from all simples that have virtue

Under the moon, can save the thing from death

That is but scratch'd withal: I'll touch my point

With this contagion, that, if I gall him slightly,

It may be death.

 

KING CLAUDIUS

Let's further think of this; I ha't.

When in your motion you are hot and dry--

As make your bouts more violent to that end--

And that he calls for drink, I'll have prepared him

A chalice for the nonce, whereon but sipping,

If he by chance escape your venom'd stuck,

Our purpose may hold there.

 

Enter QUEEN GERTRUDE

 

How now, sweet queen!

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

One woe doth tread upon another's heel,

So fast they follow; your sister's drown'd, Laertes.

 

LAERTES

Drown'd! O, where?

 

Lying…

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

There is a willow grows aslant a brook,

That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream;

There with fantastic garlands did she come

Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples

That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,

But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them:

There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds

Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke;

When down her weedy trophies and herself

Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide;

And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up:

Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes;

As one incapable of her own distress,

Or like a creature native and indued

Unto that element: but long it could not be

Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,

Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay

To muddy death.

 

LAERTES

Alas, then, she is drown'd?

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Drown'd, drown'd.

 

LAERTES

Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia,

And therefore I forbid my tears: but yet

It is our trick; nature her custom holds,

Let shame say what it will: when these are gone,

The woman will be out. Adieu, my lord:

I have a speech of fire, that fain would blaze,

But that this folly doubts it.

 

Exit

 

KING CLAUDIUS

Let's follow, Gertrude:

How much I had to do to calm his rage!

Now fear I this will give it start again;

Therefore let's follow.

 

Exeunt

 

SCENE 12. Gravedigger.

 

Graveyard

Shrouded corpse. 

 

GRAVEDIGGER

In youth, when I did love, did love,

Methought it was very sweet,

To contract, O, the time, for, ah, my behoove,

O, methought, there was nothing meet.

 

HAMLET

Has this fellow no feeling of his business, that he

sings at grave-making?

 

HORATIO

Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness.

 

HAMLET

'Tis e'en so: the hand of little employment hath

the daintier sense.

 

GRAVEDIGGER

But age, with his stealing steps,

Hath claw'd me in his clutch,

And hath shipped me intil the land,

As if I had never been such.

 

Hamlet retrieves the skull. 

 

HAMLET

That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once:

how the knave jowls it to the ground, as if it were

Cain's jaw-bone, that did the first murder! It

might be the pate of a politician, which this ass

now o'er-reaches; one that would circumvent God,

might it not?

 

HORATIO

It might, my lord.

 

HAMLET

Or of a courtier; which could say 'Good morrow,

sweet lord! How dost thou, good lord?' This might

be my lord such-a-one, that praised my lord

such-a-one's horse, when he meant to beg it; might it not?

 

HORATIO

Ay, my lord.

 

HAMLET

Why, e'en so: and now my Lady Worm's; chapless, and

knocked about the mazzard with a sexton's spade:

here's fine revolution, an we had the trick to

see't. Did these bones cost no more the breeding,

but to play at loggats with 'em? mine ache to think on't.

 

GRAVEDIGGER

A pick-axe, and a spade, a spade,

For and a shrouding sheet:

O, a pit of clay for to be made

For such a guest is meet.

 

HAMLET

Why may not that be the skull of a lawyer?

Where be his quiddities now, his quillets,

his cases, his tenures, and his tricks? why does he

suffer this rude knave now to knock him about the

sconce with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of

his action of battery? Whose grave's this, sirrah?

 

GRAVEDIGGER

Mine, sir.

O, a pit of clay for to be made

For such a guest is meet.

 

HAMLET

I think it be thine, indeed; for thou liest in't.

 

GRAVEDIGGER

You lie out on't, sir, and therefore it is not

yours: for my part, I do not lie in't, and yet it is mine.

 

HAMLET

'Thou dost lie in't, to be in't and say it is thine:

'tis for the dead, not for the quick; therefore thou liest.

 

GRAVEDIGGER

'Tis a quick lie, sir; 'twill away gain, from me to

you.

 

HAMLET

What man dost thou dig it for?

 

GRAVEDIGGER

For no man, sir.

 

HAMLET

What woman, then?

 

GRAVEDIGGER

For none, neither.

 

HAMLET

Who is to be buried in't?

 

GRAVEDIGGER

One that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she's dead.

 

HAMLET

How absolute the knave is! we must speak by the

card, or equivocation will undo us.

How long hast thou been a grave-maker?

 

GRAVEDIGGER

Of all the days i' the year, I came to't that day

that our last king Hamlet overcame Fortinbras.

 

HAMLET

How long is that since?

 

GRAVEDIGGER

Cannot you tell that? every fool can tell that: it

was the very day that young Hamlet was born; he that

is mad, and sent into England.

 

HAMLET

Ay, marry, why was he sent into England?

 

GRAVEDIGGER

Why, because he was mad: he shall recover his wits

there; or, if he do not, it's no great matter there.

 

HAMLET

Why?

 

GRAVEDIGGER

'Twill, a not be seen in him there; there the men

are as mad as he.

 

HAMLET

How came he mad?

 

GRAVEDIGGER

Very strangely, they say.

 

HAMLET

How strangely?

 

GRAVEDIGGER

Faith, e'en with losing his wits.

 

HAMLET

Upon what ground?

 

GRAVEDIGGER

Why, here in Denmark: I have been sexton here, man

and boy, thirty years.

 

HAMLET

How long will a man lie i' the earth ere he rot?

 

GRAVEDIGGER

I' faith, if he be not rotten before he die,

he will last you some eight year

or nine year: a tanner will last you nine year.

 

HAMLET

Why he more than another?

 

GRAVEDIGGER

Why, sir, his hide is so tanned with his trade, that

he will keep out water a great while; and your water

is a sore decayer of your whoreson dead body.

There's a skull now; that skull has lain in the earth

three and twenty years.

 

HAMLET

Whose was it?

 

GRAVEDIGGER

A whoreson mad fellow's it was: whose do you think it was?

 

HAMLET

Nay, I know not.

 

GRAVEDIGGER

A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! a' poured a

flagon of Rhenish on my head once. This same skull,

sir, was Yorick's skull, the king's jester.

 

HAMLET

This?

 

GRAVEDIGGER

E'en that.

 

HAMLET

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow

of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath

borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how

abhorred in my imagination it is!

Where be your gibes now?

Your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment,

that were wont to set the table on a roar?

Prithee, Horatio, tell me one thing.

 

HORATIO

What's that, my lord?

 

HAMLET

Dost thou think Alexander looked o' this fashion i'

the earth?

 

HORATIO

E'en so.

 

HAMLET

And smelt so? pah!

 

Gives skull to Gravedigger

 

HORATIO

E'en so, my lord.

 

HAMLET

To what base uses we may return, Horatio! Why may

not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander,

till he find it stopping a bung-hole?

 

HORATIO

'Twere to consider too curiously, to consider so.

 

HAMLET

Imperious Caesar, dead and turn'd to clay,

Might stop a hole to keep the wind away:

O, that that earth, which kept the world in awe,

Should patch a wall to expel the winter flaw!

But soft! but soft! aside: here comes the king.

 

Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, LAERTES

 

The queen, the courtiers: who is this they follow?

And with such maimed rites? This doth betoken

The corpse they follow did with desperate hand

Fordo its own life: 'twas of some estate.

Couch we awhile, and mark.

 

Retiring with HORATIO and Gravedigger

 

LAERTES

What ceremony else?

 

HAMLET

That is Laertes,

A very noble youth: mark.

 

LAERTES

What ceremony else?

 

CLAUDIUS

Her obsequies have been as far enlarged

As we have warranty: her death was doubtful;

And, but that great command o'ersways the order,

She should in ground unsanctified have lodged

Till the last trumpet: for charitable prayers,

Shards, flints and pebbles should be thrown on her;

Yet here she is allow'd her virgin wreaths,

Her maiden strewments and the bringing home

Of bell and burial.

 

LAERTES

Must there no more be done?

 

CLAUDIUS

No more be done:

We should profane the service of the dead

To sing a requiem and such rest to her

As to peace-parted souls.

 

LAERTES

Lay her i' the earth:

And from her fair and unpolluted flesh

May violets spring! And tell the churlish priest,

A ministering angel shall my sister be,

When he liest howling.

 

HAMLET

What, the fair Ophelia!

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Sweets to the sweet: farewell!

 

Scattering flowers

 

I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet's wife;

I thought thy bride-bed to have deck'd, sweet maid,

And not have strew'd thy grave.

 

LAERTES

O, treble woe

Fall ten times treble on that cursed head,

Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense

Deprived thee of! Hold off the earth awhile,

Till I have caught her once more in mine arms:

 

Takes up Ophelia’s corpse. 

 

Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead,

Till of this flat a mountain you have made,

To o'ertop old Pelion, or the skyish head

Of blue Olympus.

 

Hamlet advances

 

HAMLET

What is he whose grief

Bears such an emphasis? whose phrase of sorrow

Conjures the wandering stars, and makes them stand

Like wonder-wounded hearers? This is I,

Hamlet the Dane.

 

LAERTES

The devil take thy soul!

 

Grappling with him

 

HAMLET

Thou pray'st not well.

I prithee, take thy fingers from my throat;

For, though I am not splenitive and rash,

Yet have I something in me dangerous,

Which let thy wiseness fear: hold off thy hand.

 

KING CLAUDIUS

Pluck them asunder.

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Hamlet, Hamlet!

 

HORATIO

Good my lord, be quiet.

 

HAMLET

Why I will fight with him upon this theme

Until my eyelids will no longer wag.

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

O my son, what theme?

 

HAMLET

I loved Ophelia: forty thousand brothers

Could not, with all their quantity of love,

Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?

 

KING CLAUDIUS

O, he is mad, Laertes.

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

For love of God, forbear him.

 

HAMLET

'Swounds, show me what thou'lt do:

Woo't weep? woo't fight? woo't fast? woo't tear thyself?

Woo't drink up eisel? eat a crocodile?

I'll do't. Dost thou come here to whine?

To outface me with leaping in her grave?

Be buried quick with her, and so will I:

And, if thou prate of mountains, let them throw

Millions of acres on us, till our ground,

Singeing his pate against the burning zone,

Make Ossa like a wart! Nay, an thou'lt mouth,

I'll rant as well as thou.

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

This is mere madness:

And thus awhile the fit will work on him;

Anon, as patient as the female dove,

When that her golden couplets are disclosed,

His silence will sit drooping.

 

HAMLET

Hear you, sir;

What is the reason that you use me thus?

I loved you ever: but it is no matter;

Let Hercules himself do what he may,

The cat will mew and dog will have his day.

 

Exit

 

KING CLAUDIUS

I pray you, good Horatio, wait upon him.

 

Exit Horatio and Hamlet

To Laertes. 

 

Strengthen your patience in our last night's speech;

We'll put the matter to the present push.

Good Gertrude, set some watch over your son.

This grave shall have a living monument:

An hour of quiet shortly shall we see;

Till then, in patience our proceeding be.

 

Exeunt

 

SCENE 13. Resolution. 

 

Alley

Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, LAERTES, HAMLET

 

KING CLAUDIUS

Come, Hamlet, come, and take this hand from me.

 

KING CLAUDIUS puts LAERTES' hand into HAMLET's

 

HAMLET

Give me your pardon, sir: I've done you wrong;

But pardon't, as you are a gentleman.

This presence knows,

And you must needs have heard, how I am punish'd

With sore distraction. Sir, in this audience,

Let my disclaiming from a purposed evil

Free me so far in your most generous thoughts,

That I have shot mine arrow o'er the house,

And hurt my brother.

 

LAERTES

I am satisfied in nature,

Whose motive, in this case, should stir me most

To my revenge: but in my terms of honour

I stand aloof; and will no reconcilement,

Till by some elder masters, of known honour,

I have a voice and precedent of peace,

To keep my name ungored. But till that time,

I do receive your offer'd love like love,

And will not wrong it.

 

HAMLET

I embrace it freely;

And will this brother's wager frankly play.

Give us the foils. Come on.

 

LAERTES

Come, one for me.

 

HAMLET

I'll be your foil, Laertes: in mine ignorance

Your skill shall, like a star i' the darkest night,

Stick fiery off indeed.

 

LAERTES

You mock me, sir.

 

HAMLET

No, by this hand.

 

KING CLAUDIUS

Give them the foils, Horatio. Cousin Hamlet,

You know the wager?

 

HAMLET

Very well, my lord

Your grace hath laid the odds o' the weaker side.

 

KING CLAUDIUS

I do not fear it; I have seen you both:

But since he is better'd, we have therefore odds.

 

LAERTES

This is too heavy, let me see another.

 

HAMLET

This likes me well. These foils have all a length?

 

They prepare to play

 

HORATIO

Ay, my good lord.

 

KING CLAUDIUS

Set me the stoops of wine upon that table.

If Hamlet give the first or second hit,

Or quit in answer of the third exchange,

Let all the battlements their ordnance fire:

The king shall drink to Hamlet's better breath;

And in the cup a jewel shall he throw,

Richer than that which four successive kings

In Denmark's crown have worn. Give me the cups;

And let the kettle to the trumpet speak,

The trumpet to the cannoneer without,

The cannons to the heavens, the heavens to earth,

'Now the king dunks to Hamlet.' Come, begin:

And you, the judge, bear a wary eye.

 

HAMLET

Come on, sir.

 

LAERTES

Come, my lord.

 

They play

 

HAMLET

One.

 

LAERTES

No.

 

HAMLET

Judgment.

 

HORATIO

A hit, a very palpable hit.

 

LAERTES

Well; again.

 

KING CLAUDIUS

Stay; give me drink. Hamlet, this pearl is thine;

Here's to thy health.

Give him the cup.

 

HAMLET

I'll play this bout first; set it by awhile. Come.

 

They play

 

Another hit; what say you?

 

LAERTES

A touch, a touch, I do confess.

 

KING CLAUDIUS

Our son shall win.

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

He's fat, and scant of breath.

Here, Hamlet, take my napkin, rub thy brows;

The queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet.

 

HAMLET

Good madam!

 

KING CLAUDIUS

Gertrude, do not drink.

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

I will, my lord; I pray you, pardon me.

 

KING CLAUDIUS

 

Aside

 

It is the poison'd cup: it is too late.

 

HAMLET

I dare not drink yet, madam; by and by.

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Come, let me wipe thy face.

 

LAERTES

My lord, I'll hit him now.

 

KING CLAUDIUS

I do not think't.

 

LAERTES

 

Aside

 

And yet 'tis almost 'gainst my conscience.

 

HAMLET

Come, for the third, Laertes: you but dally;

I pray you, pass with your best violence;

I am afeard you make a wanton of me.

 

LAERTES

Say you so? come on.

 

They play

 

HORATIO

Nothing, neither way.

 

LAERTES

Have at you now!

 

LAERTES wounds HAMLET

In scuffling, they change rapiers, and HAMLET wounds LAERTES

 

KING CLAUDIUS

Part them; they are incensed.

 

HAMLET

Nay, come, again.

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE falls

 

HORATIO

Look to the queen there, ho!

They bleed on both sides. How is it, my lord?

How is't, Laertes?

 

LAERTES

Why, as a woodcock to mine own springe, Horatio;

I am justly kill'd with mine own treachery.

 

HAMLET

How does the queen?

 

KING CLAUDIUS

She swoons to see them bleed.

 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

No, no, the drink, the drink,--O my dear Hamlet,--

The drink, the drink! I am poison'd.

 

Dies

 

HAMLET

O villany! Ho! let the door be lock'd:

Treachery! Seek it out.

 

LAERTES

It is here, Hamlet: Hamlet, thou art slain;

No medicine in the world can do thee good;

In thee there is not half an hour of life;

The treacherous instrument is in thy hand,

Unguarded and envenom'd: the foul practice

Hath turn'd itself on me lo, here I lie,

Never to rise again: thy mother's poison'd:

I can no more: the king, the king's to blame.

 

HAMLET

The point!--envenom'd too!

Then, venom, to thy work.

 

Stabs KING CLAUDIUS

 

All

Treason! treason!

 

KING CLAUDIUS

O, yet defend me, friends; I am but hurt.

 

HAMLET

Here, thou incestuous, murderous, damned Dane,

Drink off this potion. Is thy jewel here?

Follow my mother.

 

Hamlets forces Claudius to drink. 

KING CLAUDIUS dies

 

LAERTES

He is justly served;

It is a poison temper'd by himself.

Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet:

Mine and my father's death come not upon thee,

Nor thine on me.

 

Dies

 

HAMLET

Heaven make thee free of it! I follow thee.

I am dead, Horatio. Wretched queen, adieu!

You that look pale and tremble at this chance,

That are but mutes or audience to this act,

Had I but time--as this fell sergeant, death,

Is strict in his arrest--O, I could tell you--

But let it be. Horatio, I am dead;

Thou livest; report me and my cause aright

To the unsatisfied.

 

Horatio takes the cup. 

 

HORATIO

Never believe it:

I am more an antique Roman than a Dane:

Here's yet some liquor left.

 

HAMLET

As thou'rt a man,

Give me the cup: let go; by heaven, I'll have't.

O good Horatio, what a wounded name,

Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me!

If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart

Absent thee from felicity awhile,

And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,

To tell my story.  O, I die, Horatio;

The potent poison quite o'er-crows my spirit:

I cannot live to hear the news from England;

But I do prophesy the election lights

On Fortinbras: he has my dying voice;

So tell him, with the occurrents, more and less,

Which have solicited. The rest is silence.

 

Dies. 

 

Horatio picks up the crown of Claudius. 

 

HORATIO

Now cracks a noble heart. Good night sweet prince:

And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!

Let four captains

Bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to the stage;

For he was likely, had he been put on,

To have proved most royally: and, for his passage,

The soldiers' music and the rites of war

Speak loudly for him.

Take up the bodies: such a sight as this

Becomes the field, but here shows much amiss.

Go, bid the soldiers shoot.

 

End

________________________________________

 

Editorial Notes

Generally, each man wants to be king and each woman wants to be queen. 

Each character lives in her or his own self-centered world. 

If an actor must strike a noble pose, it should be in a quick, doomed aside before slipping back into the abyss of hedonism. 

The characters have the following objectives. 

King Claudius

Claudius has killed King Hamlet and usurped the throne from Hamlet, the dead king’s son and rightful heir, and thus achieving Claudius’ objective. 

Claudius is trying to make a baby with Gertrude.  Having a son and heir will strengthen his hold on the throne.  Being husband to Queen Gertrude strengthens Claudius’ claim to the throne.

Claudius wants Hamlet dead from the start. Hamlet is a rival for the throne.  The only sure way to eliminate him is to eliminate him.  Claudius has already sent for Hamlet’s murderers. 

Claudius does not want Hamlet to marry Ophelia, which could result in a child that would strengthen Hamlet’s claim to the throne.  Claudius is glad that Ophelia miscarried and that Hamlet’s heir is dead.  Claudius is glad that Ophelia kills herself, precluding her marriage to Hamlet. 

Claudius despises Polonius and his machinations designed to marry Ophelia and Hamlet.  Claudius is glad that Hamlet kills Polonius, thus getting the meddlesome man out of the picture.  The murder also poisons the hated relationship between Hamlet and Ophelia. 

Claudius would like to see Laertes dead as the young man is popular with the people and is a rival for the throne. 

Queen Gertrude

Gertrude has what she wants and is the happiest person in the play.  She loves entertaining at court, hobnobbing with the Danish upper class and foreign dignitaries.  She has achieved her objective and is secure in it.  She might be jealous of Ophelia. 

She thinks that Hamlet is next in line for the throne.  If Hamlet were to become king, she would be the queen mother, an honored position. 

Claudius, her new husband, is a party animal and a great improvement over the tyrannical and boring first husband, King Hamlet, who was always off to war anyway. 

Gertrude would like to see Ophelia marry Hamlet.  Having some influence in the marriage gives her power. 

Gertrude does not like Laertes, who is popular with the people and Hamlet’s rival for the throne.  She would have Laertes killed if he got in the way of her ambitions.

Gertrude fears and loathes the people and the mobs of men who loiter around the gates. 

Hamlet

Hamlet is enraged at Claudius and wants to see him dead.  The tale of the Ghost of King Hamlet merely provides an excuse.  Hamlet’s machinations of proof are designed to remove envy from the equation of justice, and thus secure the favorable judgement of the people. 

Hamlet despises Gertrude for allowing Claudius to disinherit Hamlet.   Hamlet despises Gertrude for having sex with Claudius, not so much because of incestuous jealousy, but because Claudius and Gertrude might make a baby, an heir for Claudius, thus strengthening Claudius’ claim on the throne. 

Hamlet despises Polonius for his attempt to make Ophelia queen.

Hamlet has a consummated sexual relationship with Ophelia but despises her for using her charms to ensnare him.  He knows she has ambitions to be queen.  But Hamlet has the pick of marriage partners and would prefer a woman from a wealthy, landed family, such as a princess of another kingdom, thus adding to his domain and the domain of his heirs.  Suggestions that Ophelia might be pregnant confirms his his contempt.  The child is not his.  He advises her to a nunnery because that is where wealthy unwed mothers might discretely retire. 

Hamlet despises Laertes, who is popular with the people.  Laertes is the son of the conniving Polonius and brother to the untrustworthy Ophelia.  No one in that family can be trusted. 

Polonius

Polonius is pleased to be in direct service to King Claudius, not because he wishes to serve the king but because he wishes to serve himself. 

He would be pleased to be father in law to a king and grandfather to another.  He would like to see his daughter queen, her son a king, and Laertes uncle to a king.  If something were to happen to Claudius and Hamlet, Laertes might be king.  Thus Polonius has two possibilities for getting his genes into the Danish royal line. 

Polonius is not pleased that Hamlet, in the MouseTrap, has offended King Claudius and driven Claudius even further from approving the marriage of Hamlet and Ophelia.  The offence endangers Polonius’ plans.  

Polonius is not the old, doddering fuddy-duddy found in most productions.  Polonius is a shrewd, self-serving man very much at home in the court of powerful, like-minded people. 

Ophelia

Ophelia wants to marry Hamlet so that she can be queen, entertaining the aristocracies of Denmark and northern Europe.  She must work with her father in his intrigues designed to arrange her marriage with Hamlet. 

She must keep Hamlet interested in her, offering her affections to him, yet limiting herself to teasing and tempting while giving all to Horatio. She is pregnant with Horatio’s child. 

Ophelia hates Claudius for taking Hamlet’s rightful inheritance.  She would like to see him dead so that Hamlet could assume the throne. 

If something should happen to Claudius and Hamlet, Laertes might be king and she could still live at court.  She would rather be queen but being the sister of a king would be acceptable. 

When she loses Polonius and Hamlet, she loses everything.  Her marriage prospect with Hamlet ended and her father dead and no longer in service at court, she must leave court and entertain marriage prospects from the lesser aristocracy. 

Her pregnancy complicates this possibility.  Horatio is faithless.  He sees no advantage in marrying Ophelia. 

Laertes will inherit the wealth of Polonius, leaving Ophelia’s dowry under his control of Laertes.  He would not want to see his limited wealth spent on Ophelia’s hopeless aspirations. 

When Claudius and Laertes form an alliance, Ophelia’s prospects plummet.  Laertes will not kill Claudius and will not become king.  In fact, Laertes is now in service to Claudius.  His ambitions will be subducted beneath the royal powers. 

At this point, Ophelia has nothing left and can at last speak the truth.  She can tell everyone exactly what she thinks, which she does in her final scene. 

She is somewhat unburdened to have lost the child. 

Ophelia is not the weepy, wailing, falling-apart, and finally-killing-herself Ophelia found in most productions.  She defies Hamlet, Laertes, Claudius, and Gertrude.  She kicks ass.

Laertes

Laertes is popular with the rabble that hangs out around the castle gate.  If enough trouble could be stirred up, and if something were to happen to Claudius and Hamlet, he might become king. 

However, with Claudius in power, Laertes’ best chance at court is to be the brother to the Queen Ophelia and uncle to her son, the future king. Laertes cannot be brother to Queen Ophelia because Claudius has stolen the crown.  Something must happen to Claudius. Perhaps something might happen to Hamlet later. 

Having only the slimmest of changes at court, Laertes goes back to school. 

Laertes returns to court on hearing of the death of his father, arriving among cheers of the people and thinking that he might get away with killing Claudius.  However, Claudius convinces Laertes that Hamlet has killed Polonius and that Hamlet must die. 

Hamlet’s death would remove one of Laertes’ rivals.  And so he forms an alliance with Claudius. 

Laertes is relieved that Ophelia has miscarried and relieved that she has died.  It is one or two fewer people between him and the throne.  He then claims the limited wealth of Polonius. 

Horatio

Horatio is the outsider, the furthest from his objective of kingship.  As Hamlet’s closest friend, Horatio is at court frequently and always at his side but has little chance of becoming king. 

Horatio is having a secret affair with Ophelia.  She is pregnant with his child.  Hamlet might know of this.  If the play is about political power, women are respected only when they are useful. 

As the outsider, the character most distant from his objective of kingship, it is ironic that Horatio survives and becomes King.  Horatio ignores Hamlet’s dying words to bestow the crown on Fortinbras, and takes the crown for himself. 

Editorial Process

Reassigned and deleted lines in such a way as to reinforce the objectives listed above. 

 

As Gertrude and Ophelia have small parts, I preserved all their lines so that, proportionally, they have larger parts than in the original. 

 

Reduced the characters to the 6 who die, Horatio, the Ghost, and the Gravedigger. 

Polonius, Ophelia, and Horatio act as actors in the play-within-the-play

The actor playing Polonius also plays the Gravedigger

The actor playing Claudius also plays the Ghost of his brother

 

Reduced the playing time (estimated rate of 166 words per minute) from 193 to 106 minutes. 

 

Added stage directions to enhance the objectives of the characters. 

 

Replaced these words. 

Beaver/Visor

Capon/Rooster

Cicatrice/Scar

Clepe/Call

Crants/Wreaths

Fardels/Burdens

Fust/Fussed

Hent/Hit

List/Listen

Not Beteem/Forbid

Orisons/Orations

Pajock/Peacock

Polack/Polish

Perdy/Truly

Porpentine/Porcupine

Posset/Curdle

Rechy/Reeky

Rede/Reading

Shent/Stained

Sith/Since

Stithy/Smithy

Swoopstake/Sweepstake

Swounds/Swoons (not ‘Swounds)

Unbated/Unguarded

Union/Jewel

 

Based on http://shakespeare.mit.edu/hamlet/full.html.  

The above site asserts that the HTML version is in the public domain and that the HTML is based on the Complete Moby Shakespeare, also asserts to be in the public domain.