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King.
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?

And what's in prayer but this twofold force,
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.
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!

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60

Bow, stubborn knees; and, heart with strings of steel, 70 Be soft as sinews of the new-born 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 hent:
When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage,
Or in the incestuous pleasure of his bed;
At game, a-swearing, or about some act
That has no relish of salvation in 't;

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

[Exit.

SCENE IV. The Queen's closet.

Enter QUEEN and POLONIUS.

Pol. He will come straight. Look you lay home to him: Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear with, And that your grace hath screen'd and stood between Much heat and him. I'll sconce me even here. Pray you, be round with him.

Hamlet. [Within] Mother, mother, mother!

Queen. I'll warrant you, fear me not. Withdraw, I hear [Polonius hides behind the arras.

him coming.

Enter HAMLet.

Hamlet. Now, mother, what's the matter?

Queen. Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended. Hamlet. Mother, you have my father much offended. 10 Queen. Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue. Hamlet. Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue. Queen. Why, how now, Hamlet!

Hamlet.

Queen. Have you forgot me?

Hamlet.

What's the matter now?

No, by the rood, not so:

You are the queen, your husband's brother's wife;
And-would it were not so!-you are my mother.

Queen. Nay, then, I'll set those to you that can speak. 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.

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

Polonius. [Behind] What, ho! help, help, help!

Hamlet. [Drawing] How now! a rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead! [Makes a pass through the arras.

Polonius. [Behind] O, I am slain!

Queen.

[Falls and dies.

O me, what hast thou done?

Hamlet. Nay, I know not: is it the king?

Queen. O, what a rash and bloody deed is this! Hamlet. A bloody deed! almost as bad, good mother,

As kill a king, and marry with his brother.

Queen. As kill a king!

Hamlet.

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Ay, lady, 'twas my word. [Lifts up the arras and discovers 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.

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 be proof and bulwark against sense.

Queen. What have I done, that thou darest wag thy

tongue

In noise so rude against me?

Such an act

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Hamlet.
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.

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,

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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 judgement: and what judgement
Would step from this to this? Sense sure you have,
Else could you not have motion; but sure that sense
Is apoplex'd; for madness would not err,

Nor sense to ecstasy was ne'er so thrall'd
But it reserved some quantity of choice,

To serve in such a difference. What devil was 't
That thus hath cozen'd you at hoodman-blind?
Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight,
Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all,
Or but a sickly part of one true sense
Could not so mope.

O shame! where is thy blush? Rebellious hell,
If thou canst mutine in a matron's bones,
To flaming youth let virtue be as wax,

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 pandars will.

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O Hamlet, speak no more:

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Queen.
Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul;
And there I see such black and grained spots

As will not leave their tinct.

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!