ACT III. SCENE I-A Room in the Cusile. Enter KING, QUEEN, POLONIUS, OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN. KING. And can you, by no drift of circumstance, Get from him, why he puts on this confusion; Grating so harshly all his days of quiet With turbulent and dangerous lunacy? Ros. He does confess he feels himself distracted; When we would bring him on to some confession QUEEN. Did he receive you well? Ros. Most like a gentleman. GUIL. But with much forcing of his disposition. Ros. Niggard of question; but, of our demands, Most free in his reply. QUEEN. Did you assay him to any pastime? Ros. Madam, it so fell out, that certain players POL. "T is most true: And he beseech'd me to entreat your majesties, To hear and see the matter. KING. With all my heart; and it doth much content me To hear him so inclin'd. Good gentlemen, give him a further edge, And drive his purpose on to these delights. KING. [Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. Sweet Gertrude, leave us too: For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither; That he, as 't were by accident, may here Her father, and myself (lawful espials), Will so bestow ourselves, that, seeing, unseen, If 't be the affliction of his love or no, 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 To both your honours. ОРН. Madam, I wish it may. [Exit QUEEN. POL. Ophelia, walk you here:-Gracious, so please you, We will bestow ourselves:-Read on this book; That show of such an exercise may colour [To OPHELIA. "T is too much prov'd, that, with devotion's visage, And pious action, we do sugar o'er How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience! Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it, POL. I hear him coming; let 's withdraw, my lord. [Aside. [Exeunt KING and POLONIUS. Enter HAMLET. HAM. To be, or not to be, that is the question: Whether 't is nobler in the mind, to suffer That flesh is heir to,-'t is a consummation Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep ;— To sleep! perchance to dream;—ay, there's the rub'; For who would bear the whips and scorns of time. And makes us rather bear those ills we have, Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought; Good my lord, ОРН. HAM. I humbly thank you; well, well, well. I pray you, now receive them. HAM. No, no. I never gave you aught. ОPH. My honour'd lord, I know right well you did; And, with them, words of so sweet breath compos'd 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. ОPH. My lord? HAM. Are you fair? OPH. What means your lordship? HAM. That if you be honest, and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty. OPH. Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty? HAM. 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 some time a paradox, but now the time gives it proof. I did love you once. OPH. Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so. HAM. You should not have believed me: for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock, but we shall relish of it: I loved you not. OPH. I was the more deceived. HAM. 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 heaven and earth! We are arrant knaves, all; believe none of us: Go thy ways to a nunnery. Where's your father? ОPH. At home, my lord. HAM. Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool no where but in 's own house. Farewell. ОPH. O, help him, you sweet heavens! HAM. 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. ОPH. O heavenly powers, restore him! HAM. I have heard of your paintings too, well enough. God hath 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 HAMLET, The observ'd of all observers! quite, quite, down! To have seen what I have seen, see what I see! Re-enter KING and POLONIUS. KING. Love! his affections do not that way tend; And, I do doubt, the hatch, and the disclose, Will be some danger: Which to prevent, I have, in quick determination, Thus set it down: He shall with speed to England, For the demand of our neglected tribute: Haply, the seas, and countries different, With variable objects, shall expel This something-settled matter in his heart; Whereon his brains still beating, puts him thus |