him. Anon comes in a fellow, takes of his crown,
kisses it, and pours poison in the King's ears, and
erit. The Queen returns; finds the king dead,
and makes passionate action. The poisoner, with
some two or three Mutes, comes in again, seeming
to lament with her. The dead body is carried away.
The poisoner wooes the Queen with gifts; she seems
loath and unwilling awhile, but, in the end, accepts
his love.
[Exeunt.
Oph. What means this, my lord?
Ham. Marry, this is miching mallecho?; it
Oph. Belike, this show imports the argument of the play.
Ham. We shall know by this fellow: the players cannot keep counsel; they'll tell all.
Oph. Will he tell us what this show meant?
Ham. Ay.
Oph. I'll mark the play.
Pro. For us, and for our tragedy,
Here stooping to your clemency,
We beg your hearing patiently.
P. King. I do believe, you think what now you
speak;
But, what we do determine, oft we break.
Purpose is but the slave to memory:
Of violent birth, but poor validity:
Which now like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree:
But fall, unshaken, when they mellow be.
Most necessary 'tis, that we forget
To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt:
What to ourselves in passion we propose,
The passion ending, doth the purpose lose.
The violence of either grief or joy
Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament;
Their own enactures 8 with themselves destroy:
Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident.
This world is not for aye; nor 'tis not strange,
That even our loves should with our fortunes change;
For 'tis a question left us yet to prove,
Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love.
The great man down, you mark, his favourite flies;
The poor advanc'd makes friends of enemies.
And hitherto doth love on fortune tend:
For who not needs, shall never lack a friend;
And who in want a hollow friend doth try,
Directly seasons him his enemy.
Ham. Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring? But, orderly to end where I begun, —
Oph. 'Tis brief, my lord.
Ham. As woman's love.
Enter a King and a Queen.
P. King. Full thirty times hath Phoebus' cart
gone round
Neptune's salt wash, and Tellus' 3 orbed ground;
And thirty dozen moons, with borrow'd sheen 4,
About the world have times twelve thirties been;
Since love our hearts, and Hymen did our hands,
Unite commutual in most sacred bands.
P. Queen. So many journeys may the sun and
Make us again count o'er, ere love be done!
But, woe is me, you are so sick of late,
So far from cheer, and from your former state,
That I distrust you. Yet, though I distrust,
Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must:
For women fear too much, even as they love;
And women's fear and love hold quantity;
In neither aught, or in extremity.
Now, what my love is, proof hath made you know;
And as my love is siz'd3, my fear is so.
Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear;
Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.
P. 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, belov'd; and, haply one as kind
For husband shalt thou
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Our wills, and fates, do so contráry run,
That our devices still are overthrown;
Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own:
So think thou wilt no second husband wed;
But die thy thoughts, when thy first lord is dead.
P. Queen. Nor earth to give me food, nor heaven
Sport and repose lock from me, day and night!
To desperation turn my trust and hope!
An anchor's cheer in prison be my scope!
Each opposite, that blanks the face of joy,
Meet what I would have well, and it destroy!
Both here, and hence, pursue me, lasting strife,
If, once a widow, ever I be wife!
Ham. If she should break it now,
Ham. Madam, how like you this play?
Queen. The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
Ham. O, but she'll keep her word.
King. Have you heard the argument? Is there
no offence in't?
Ham. No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest; no offence i' the world.
King. What do you call the play?
Ham. 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 of that? your majesty, and we that have free souls, it touches us not: Let the galled jade wince, our withers are unwrung.
Guil. Nay, good my lord, this courtesy is not of the right breed. If it shall please you to make me a wholesome answer, I will do your mother's com
Luc. Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and mandment: if not, your pardon, and my return,
Confederate season, else no creature seeing;
Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected,
With Hecat's ban thrice blasted, thrice infected,
Thy natural magick and dire property,
On wholesome life usurp immediately.
[Pours the Poison into the Sleeper's Ears.
Ham. He poisons him i' the garden for his estate.
His name 's Gonzago: the story is extant, and writ-
ten in very choice Italian: You shall see anon, how
the murderer gets the love of Gonzago's wife.
Oph. The king rises.
Ham. What! frighted with false fire!
Queen. How fares my lord?
Hor. You might have rhymed.
Ham. O good Horatio, I'll take the ghost's word
for a thousand pound. Didst perceive?
Hor. Very well, my lord.
Ham. Upon the talk of the poisoning,
Hor. I did very well note him.
Ham. Ah, ah!
- Come, some musick; come,
For if the king like not the comedy,
Why then, belike, he likes it not, perdy.5—
Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.
Come, some musick.
shall be the end of my business.
Ham. Sir, I cannot.
Guil. What, my lord?
Ham. Make you a wholesome answer; my wit's diseased: But, sir, such answer as I can make, you shall command: or, rather, as you say, my mother: therefore no more, but to the matter: My mother,
Ros. She desires to speak with you in her closet, ere you go to bed.
Ham. We shall obey, were she ten times our mother. Have you any further trade with us? Ros. My lord, you once did love me.
Ham. And do still, by these pickers and stealers. Ros. Good my lord, what is your cause of distemper? you do, surely, but bar the door upon your own liberty, if you deny your griefs to your friend.
Ham. Sir, I lack advancement.
Ros. How can that be, when you have the voice of the king himself for your succession in Denmark? Ham. Ay, sir, but While the grass grows,· proverb is something musty.
Enter the Players, with Recorders.
O, the recorders:
:- let me see one. - - To withdraw
with you: -
Why do you go about to recover the
wind of me, as if you would drive me into a toil?
Guil. O, my lord, if my duty be too bold, my
love is too unmannerly.
Ham. I do not well understand that. Will you play upon this pipe?
Guil. My lord, I cannot.
Ham. I pray you.
Guil. Believe me, I cannot.
Ham. I do beseech you.
Guil. I know no touch of it, my lord.
Ham. 'Tis as easy as lying: govern these ventages 6 with your fingers and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent
Guil. Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with musick. Look you, these are the stops.
Ham. Sir, a whole history.
Guil. The king, sir,
Ham. Ay, sir, what of him?
Guil. But these cannot I command to any utterance of harmony; I have not the skill.
Ham. Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me? You would play upon me; you
Guil. Is, in his retirement, marvellous distem- would seem to know my stops; you would pluck
Ham. With drink, sir?
Guil. No, my lord, with choler.
Ham. Your wisdom should show itself more richer, to signify this to the doctor; for, for me to put him to his purgation, would, perhaps, plunge him into more choler.
Guil. Good my lord, put your discourse into some frame, and start not so wildly from my affair. Ham. I am tame, sir: -pronounce. Guil. The queen, your mother, in most great affliction of spirit, hath sent me to you.
3 Pack, company.
5 Par Dieu.
out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me
from my lowest note to the top of my compass: and
there is much musick, excellent voice, in this little
organ; yet cannot you make it speak.
think, I am easier to be played on than a pipe?
Call me what instrument you will, though you can
fret me, you cannot play upon me.
Ham. Do you see yonder cloud, that's almost in | Since nature makes them partial, should o'erhear shape of a camel?
Pol. By the mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed.
Ham. Methinks, it is like a weasel.
Pol. It is backed like a weasel.
Ham. Or, like a whale?
Ham. Then will I come to my mother by and by. They fool me to the top of my bent.7. I will come by and by.
Pol. I will say so. [Exit POLONIUS. Ham. By and by is easily said. — Leave me, friends. [Exeunt Ros. GUIL. HOR. &c. '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
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.
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?
Would quake to look on. Soft; now to my And what's in prayer, but this two-fold force, —
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 shent,
To be forestalled, ere we come to fall,
Or pardon'd, being down? Then I'll look up;
My fault is past. But, O, what form of prayer
Can serve my turn? Forgive me my foul murder!-
That cannot be; since I am still possess'd
Of those effects for which I did the murder,
My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.
To give them seals 9 never, my soul, consent! [Exit. May one be pardon'd, and retain the offence?
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Enter KING, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTern.
King. I like him not; nor stands it safe with us,
To let his madness range. Therefore, prepare you;
I your commission will forthwith despatch,
And he to England shall along with you:
The terms of our estate may not endure
Hazard so near us, as doth hourly grow
Out of his lunes, 1
Guil.
We will ourselves provide :
Most holy and religious fear it is,
To keep those many many bodies safe,
That live, and feed, upon your majesty.
Ros. The single and peculiar life is bound,
With all the strength and armour of the mind,
To keep itself from 'noyance; but much more
That spirit, upon whose weal depend and rest
The lives of many. The cease of majesty
Dies not alone; but, like a gulf, doth draw
What's near it, with it: it is a massy wheel,
Fix'd on the summit of the highest mount.
To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things
Are mortis'd and adjoin'd; which, when it falls,
Each small annexment, petty consequence,
Attends the boist'rous ruin. Never alone
Did the king sigh, but with a general groan.
King. Arm you, I pray you, to this speedy voyage;
For we will fetters put upon this fear,
Which now goes too free-footed.
Ros. Guil.
We will haste us. [Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. Enter POLONIUS.
Pol. My lord, he's going to his mother's closet: Behind the arras I'll convey myself, To hear the process; I'll warrant, she'll tax him home: And, as you said, and wisely was it said, "Tis meet that some more audience, than a mother,
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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 cannot repent?
O wretched state! O bosom, black as death!
O limed soul; that struggling to be free,
Art more engag'd! Help, angels, make assay?
Bow, stubborn knees! and, heart, with strings of
steel;
Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe;
All may be well!
Ham. 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 reveng'd? That would be scann'd':
A villain kills my father; and, for that,
I, his sole son, do this same villain send
To heaven.
Why, this is hire and salary, not revenge.
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 reveng'd,
To take him in the purging of his soul,
When he is fit and season'd for his passage?
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