The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Part 117

Guil. The Queen, your mother, in most great affliction of spirit hath sent me to you.

Ham. You are welcome.

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 commandment; if not, your pardon and my return shall be the end of my business.

Ham. Sir, I cannot.

Guil. What, my lord?

Ham. Make you a wholesome answer; my wit's diseas'd. But, sir, such answer is I can make, you shall command; or rather, as you say, my mother. Therefore no more, but to the matter! My mother, you say- Ros. Then thus she says: your behaviour hath struck her into amazement and admiration.

Ham. O wonderful son, that can so stonish a mother! But is there no sequel at the heels of this mother's admiration? Impart.

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 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 gra.s.s grows'- the 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. It is as easy as lying. Govern these ventages with your fingers and thumbs, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music. Look you, these are the stops.

Guil. But these cannot I command to any utt'rance 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 would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compa.s.s; and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ, yet cannot you make it speak. 'Sblood, do you think I am easier to be play'd on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me.

Enter Polonius.

G.o.d bless you, sir!

Pol. My lord, the Queen would speak with you, and presently.

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

Pol. By th' ma.s.s, and 'tis like a camel indeed.

Ham. Methinks it is like a weasel.

Pol. It is back'd like a weasel.

Ham. Or like a whale.

Pol. Very like a whale.

Ham. Then will I come to my mother by-and-by.- They fool me to the top of my bent.- I will come by-and-by.

Pol. I will say so. Exit.

Ham. 'By-and-by' is easily said.- Leave me, friends.

[Exeunt all but Hamlet.]

'Tis now the very witching time of night, When churchyards yawn, and h.e.l.l 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 somever she be shent, To give them seals never, my soul, consent! Exit.

Scene III.

A room in the Castle.

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 dispatch, 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 lunacies.

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 depends and rests The lives of many. The cesse of majesty Dies not alone, but like a gulf doth draw What's near it with it. It is a ma.s.sy 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 th', speedy voyage; For we will fetters put upon this fear, Which now goes too free-footed.

Both. We will haste us.

Exeunt Gentlemen.

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, 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. 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 murther! 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 murther'?

That cannot be; since I am still possess'd Of those effects for which I did the murther- My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.

May one be pardon'd and retain th' 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 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 a.s.say.

Bow, stubborn knees; and heart with strings of steel, Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe!

All may be well. He kneels.

Enter Hamlet.

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 circ.u.mstance 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 seasoned for his pa.s.sage?

No.

Up, sword, and know thou a more horrid hent.

When he is drunk asleep; or in his rage; Or in th' 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 d.a.m.n'd and black As h.e.l.l, whereto it goes. My mother stays.

This physic but prolongs thy sickly days. Exit.

King. [rises] My words fly up, my thoughts remain below.