The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Part 118

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 silence me even here.

Pray you be round with him.

Ham. (within) Mother, mother, mother!

Queen. I'll warrant you; fear me not. Withdraw; I hear him coming.

[Polonius hides behind the arras.]

Enter Hamlet.

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

Queen. Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.

Ham. Mother, you have my father much offended.

Queen. Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.

Ham. Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.

Queen. Why, how now, Hamlet?

Ham. What's the matter now?

Queen. Have you forgot me?

Ham. 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.

Ham. Come, come, and sit you down. You shall not budge I You go not till I set you up a gla.s.s Where you may see the inmost part of you.

Queen. What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murther me?

Help, help, ho!

Pol. [behind] What, ho! help, help, help!

Ham. [draws] How now? a rat? Dead for a ducat, dead!

[Makes a pa.s.s through the arras and] kills Polonius.

Pol. [behind] O, I am slain!

Queen. O me, what hast thou done?

Ham. Nay, I know not. Is it the King?

Queen. O, what a rash and b.l.o.o.d.y deed is this!

Ham. A b.l.o.o.d.y deed- almost as bad, good mother, As kill a king, and marry with his brother.

Queen. As kill a king?

Ham. Ay, lady, it was my word.

[Lifts up the arras and sees 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 hinds. Peace! sit you down And let me wring your heart; for so I shall If it be made of penetrable stuff; If d.a.m.ned custom have not braz'd it so That it is proof and bulwark against sense.

Queen. What have I done that thou dar'st wag thy tongue In noise so rude against me?

Ham. Such an act 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 ma.s.s, With tristful visage, as against the doom, Is thought-sick at the act.

Queen. Ay me, what act, That roars so loud and thunders in the index?

Ham. Look here upon th's 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 G.o.d did seem to set his seal To give the world a.s.surance of a man.

This was your husband. Look you now what follows.

Here is your husband, like a mildew'd ear 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 heyday in the blood is tame, it's humble, And waits upon the judgment; and what judgment 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 ecstacy was ne'er so thrall'd But it reserv'd some quant.i.ty 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 h.e.l.l, 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 panders will.

Queen. O Hamlet, speak no more!

Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul, And there I see such black and grained spots As will not leave their tinct.

Ham. Nay, but to live In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed, Stew'd in corruption, honeying and making love Over the nasty sty!

Queen. O, speak to me no more!

These words like daggers enter in mine ears.

No more, sweet Hamlet!

Ham. A murtherer and a villain!

A slave that is not twentieth part the t.i.the 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!

Queen. No more!

Enter the Ghost in his nightgown.

Ham. A king of shreds and patches!- Save me and hover o'er me with your wings, You heavenly guards! What would your gracious figure?

Queen. Alas, he's mad!

Ham. Do you not come your tardy son to chide, That, laps'd in time and pa.s.sion, lets go by Th' important acting of your dread command?

O, say!

Ghost. Do not forget. This visitation Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.

But look, amazement on thy mother sits.

O, step between her and her fighting soul Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works.

Speak to her, Hamlet.

Ham. How is it with you, lady?

Queen. Alas, how is't with you, That you do bend your eye on vacancy, And with th' encorporal air do hold discourse?

Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep; And, as the sleeping soldiers in th' alarm, Your bedded hairs, like life in excrements, Start up and stand an end. O gentle son, Upon the beat and flame of thy distemper Sprinkle cool patience! Whereon do you look?

Ham. On him, on him! Look you how pale he glares!

His form and cause conjoin'd, preaching to stones, Would make them capable.- Do not look upon me, Lest with this piteous action you convert My stern effects. Then what I have to do Will want true colour- tears perchance for blood.

Queen. To whom do you speak this?

Ham. Do you see nothing there?

Queen. Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.

Ham. Nor did you nothing hear?

Queen. No, nothing but ourselves.

Ham. Why, look you there! Look how it steals away!

My father, in his habit as he liv'd!

Look where he goes even now out at the portal!

Exit Ghost.

Queen. This is the very coinage of your brain.

This bodiless creation ecstasy Is very cunning in.

Ham. Ecstasy?

My pulse as yours doth temperately keep time And makes as healthful music. It is not madness That I have utt'red. Bring me to the test, And I the matter will reword; which madness Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace, Lay not that flattering unction to your soul That not your trespa.s.s but my madness speaks.

It will but skin and film the ulcerous place, Whiles rank corruption, mining all within, Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven; Repent what's past; avoid what is to come; And do not spread the compost on the weeds To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue; For in the fatness of these pursy times Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg- Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good.

Queen. O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.

Ham. O, throw away the worser part of it, And live the purer with the other half, Good night- but go not to my uncle's bed.

a.s.sume a virtue, if you have it not.