The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Part 114

Ham. Follow him, friends. We'll hear a play to-morrow.

Exeunt Polonius and Players [except the First].

Dost thou hear me, old friend? Can you play 'The Murther of Gonzago'?

1. Play. Ay, my lord.

Ham. We'll ha't to-morrow night. You could, for a need, study a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines which I would set down and insert in't, could you not?

1. Play. Ay, my lord.

Ham. Very well. Follow that lord- and look you mock him not.

[Exit First Player.]

My good friends, I'll leave you till night. You are welcome to Elsinore.

Ros. Good my lord!

Ham. Ay, so, G.o.d b' wi' ye!

[Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern 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 pa.s.sion, 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, That he should weep for her? What would he do, Had he the motive and the cue for pa.s.sion That I have? He would drown the stage with tears And cleave the general ear with horrid speech; Make mad the guilty and appal the free, Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed The very faculties of eyes and ears.

Yet I, A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause, And can say nothing! No, not for a king, Upon whose property and most dear life A d.a.m.n'd defeat was made. Am I a coward?

Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across?

Plucks off my beard and blows it in my face?

Tweaks me by th' nose? gives me the lie i' th' throat As deep as to the lungs? Who does me this, ha?

'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. b.l.o.o.d.y bawdy villain!

Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!

O, vengeance!

Why, what an a.s.s am I! This is most brave, That I, the son of a dear father murther'd, Prompted to my revenge by heaven and h.e.l.l, Must (like a wh.o.r.e) unpack my heart with words And fall a-cursing like a very drab, A scullion!

Fie upon't! foh! About, my brain! Hum, I have heard That guilty creatures, sitting at a play, Have by the very cunning of the scene Been struck so to the soul that presently They have proclaim'd their malefactions; For murther, though it have no tongue, will speak With most miraculous organ, I'll have these Players Play something like the murther 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 a devil; and the devil hath power T' a.s.sume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps Out of my weakness and my melancholy, As he is very potent with such spirits, Abuses me to d.a.m.n me. I'll have grounds More relative than this. The play's the thing Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King. Exit.

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ACT III. Scene I.

Elsinore. A room in the Castle.

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

King. And can you by no drift of circ.u.mstance 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, But from what cause he will by no means speak.

Guil. Nor do we find him forward to be sounded, But with a crafty madness keeps aloof When we would bring him on to some confession Of his true state.

Queen. Did he receive you well?

Ros. Most like a gentleman.

Guil. But with much forcing of his disposition.

Ros. n.i.g.g.ard of question, but of our demands Most free in his reply.

Queen. Did you a.s.say him To any pastime?

Ros. Madam, it so fell out that certain players We o'erraught on the way. Of these we told him, And there did seem in him a kind of joy To hear of it. They are here about the court, And, as I think, they have already order This night to play before him.

Pol. 'Tis 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.

Ros. We shall, my lord.

Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

King. 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 behav'd, If't be th' affliction of his love, or no, That thus he suffers for.

Queen. I shall obey you; And for your part, Ophelia, I do wish That your good beauties be the happy cause Of Hamlet's wildness. So shall I hope your virtues Will bring him to his wonted way again, To both your honours.

Oph. Madam, I wish it may.

[Exit Queen.]

Pol. 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 prov'd, that with devotion's visage And pious action we do sugar o'er The Devil himself.

King. [aside] O, 'tis too true!

How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!

The harlot's cheek, beautied with plast'ring art, Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it Than is my deed to my most painted word.

O heavy burthen!

Pol. I hear him coming. Let's withdraw, my lord.

Exeunt King and Polonius].

Enter Hamlet.

Ham. To be, or not to be- that is the question: Whether 'tis n.o.bler 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 heartache, 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, Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay, The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of th' unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? Who would these fardels 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.- Soft you now!

The fair Ophelia!- Nymph, in thy orisons Be all my sins rememb'red.

Oph. Good my lord, How does your honour for this many a day?

Ham. I humbly thank you; well, well, well.

Oph. My lord, I have remembrances of yours That I have longed long to re-deliver.

I pray you, now receive them.

Ham. No, not I!

I never gave you aught.

Oph. My honour'd lord, you 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 n.o.ble mind Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.

There, my lord.

Ham. Ha, ha! Are you honest?

Oph. 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 sometime 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 believ'd 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 earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves all; believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery. Where's your father?

Oph. At home, my lord.

Ham. Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool nowhere but in's own house. Farewell.

Oph. 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.

Oph. O heavenly powers, restore him!

Ham. I have heard of your paintings too, well enough. G.o.d hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another. You jig, you amble, and you lisp; you nickname G.o.d'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 moe marriages. Those that are married already- all but one- shall live; the rest shall keep as they are. To a nunnery, go. Exit.