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 the 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 We will bestow ourselves :-Read on this book; [you, To Ophelia.

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.
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 burden!
[Aside.
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 nobler 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 heart-ache, 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 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,
The 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 the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin who would 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
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
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 remember'd."

Oph.
Good my lord,
How does your honour for this many a day?
Ham. I humbly thank you: well.

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

I pray you, now receive them.
Ham.

I never gave you aught.

No, not I;

[did;

Oph. My honour'd lord, you know right well, you
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.
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, you 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 trausform 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 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 them in: What should such fellows as I do crawling in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act 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 no where 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 "unnery; 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. 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 of'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. a nunnery, go.

Το [Exit.

Oph. O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown! The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's eye, tongue, sword: The expectancy and rose of the fair state, The glass of fashion, and the mould of form, The observ'd of all observers ! quite, quite down! And I, of ladies most deject and wretched, That suck'd the honey of his music vows, Now see that noble and most sovereign reason, Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh;

or else shall he suffer not thinking on, with the hobby-horse; whose epitaph is, For, O, for, O, the hobby-horse is forgot.

Trumpet sounds. The dumb Show follows. Enter a King and a Queen, very lovingly; the Queen embracing him, and he her. She kneels, and makes show of Protestation unto him. He takes her up, and declines his Head upon her Neck, lays him down upon a Bank of Flowers; she, seeing him asleep, leaves him. Anon, comes in a Fellow, takes off his Crown, kisses it, and pours Poison in the King's Ears, and exit. The Queen returns; finds the King dead, and makes passionate Action. The Poisoner, with some two or three Mutes, comes in again, seeming to lament with her. The dead Body is carried away. The Poisoner woos the Queen with Gifts; she seems loath and unwilling awhile, but, in the End, accepts his Love. [Exeunt. Oph. What means this, my lord?

Ham. Marry, this is miching mallecho; it seems

mischief.

Oph. Belike, this show imports the argument of the play.

Enter Prologue.

Ham. We shall know by this fellow: the players cannot keep counsel; they'll tell all.

Oph. Will he tell us what this show meant? Ham. Ay, or any show that you'll show him: Be not you ashamed to show, he'll not shame to tell you what it means.

Oph. You are naught, you are naught; I'll mark the play.

Pro. For us, and for our tragedy,

Here stooping to your clemency, We beg your hearing patiently. Ham. Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring? Oph. 'Tis brief, my lord.

Ham. As woman's love.

Enter a King and a Queen.

P. King. Full thirty times hath Phoebus' cart gone round

Neptune's salt wash, and Tellus' orbed ground;
And thirty dozen moons, with borrow'd sheen,

About the world have times twelve thirties been;
Since love our hearts, and Hymen did our hands,
Unite commutual in most sacred bands.

P. Queen. So many journeys may the sun and moon
Make us again count o'er, ere love be done!
But, woe is me, you are so sick of late,
So far from cheer, and from your former state,
That I distrust you. Yet, though I distrust,
Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must:
For women fear too much, even as they love;
And women's fear and love hold quantity;
In neither aught, or in extremity.
Now, what my love is, proof hath made you know:
And as my love is siz'd, my fear is so.
Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear;
Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.
P. King. 'Faith, I must leave thee, love, and short-
Ty too;

My operant powers their functions leave to do:
And thou shalt live in this fair world behind,
Honour'd, belov'd; and, haply, one as kind
For husband shalt thou-

P. Queen.

O, confound the rest!
Such love must needs be treason in my breast:
In second husband let me be accurst!

None wed the second, but who kill'd the first.
Ham. That's wormwood.

P.Queen. The instances, that second marriage move,
Are base respects of thrift, but none of love;
A second time I kill my husband dead,
When second husband kisses me in bed.

P. King. I do believe, you think what now you

speak:

But, what we do determine, oft we break.
Purpose is but the slave to memory;

Of violent birth, but poor validity:

Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree;
But fall, unshaken, when they mellow be.
Most necessary 'tis, that we forget

To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt:
What to ourselves in passion we propose,
The passion ending, doth the purpose lose.
The violence of either grief or joy

Their own enactures with themselves destroy:
Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament;
Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident.

This world is not for aye; nor 'tis not strange,
That even our loves should with our fortunes change:
For, 'tis a question left us yet to prove,
Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love.
The poor advanc'd makes friends of enemies.
The great man down, you mark his favourite flies;
And hitherto doth love on fortune tend:
For who not needs, shall never lack a friend;
And who in want a hollow friend doth try,
Directly seasons him his enemy.
But, orderly to end where I begun,-
Our wills, and fates, do so contrary run,
That our devices still are overthrown;
Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own:
So think thou wilt no second husband wed;
But die thy thoughts, when thy first lord is dead.
P. Queen. Nor earth to me give food, nor heaven
light!

Sport and repose lock from me, day and night!
To desperation turn my trust and hope!
An anchor's cheer in prison be my scope!
Each opposite, that blanks the face of joy,
Meet what I would have well, and it destroy!
Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife,
If, once a widow, ever I be wife!
Ham. If she should break it now,
P. King. 'Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here
awhile;

[To Oph.

My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile
The tedious day with sleep.
Sleep rock thy brain;
And never come mischance between us twain! [Exit.
Ham. Madam, how like you this play?

P. Queen.

Queen. The lady doth protest too much, methinks. Ham. O, but she'll keep her word.

King. Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in't?

Ham. No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest; no offence i'the world.

King. What do you call the play?

Ham. The Mouse-trap. Marry, how? Tropically. This play is the image of a murder done in Vienna: Gonzago is the duke's name; his wife, Baptista: you shall see anon; 'tis a knavish piece of work: But what of that? your majesty, and we that have free souls, it touches us not: Let the galled jade wince, our withers are unwrung.

Enter Lucianus.

This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king.
Oph. You are as good as a chorus, my lord.
Ham. I could interpret between you and your love,
if I could see the puppets dallying.

Oph. You are keen, my lord, you are keen. Ham. It would cost you a groaning to take off my edge.

Oph. Still better, and worse.

Ham. So you mistake your husbands.-Begin. murderer; leave thy damnable faces, and begin. Come ;-The croaking raven Doth bellow for revenge.

Luc. Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing;

Confederate season, else no creature seeing;
Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected,
With Hecate's ban thrice blasted, thrice infected,
Thy natural magic and dire property,
On wholesome life usurp immediately.

[Pours the Poison into the Sleeper's Ears. Ham. He poisons him i'the garden for his estate. His name's Gonzago; the story is extant, and written in very choice Italian: You shall see anon, how the murderer gets the love of Gonzago's wife.

Oph. The king rises.

Ham. What! frighted with false fire!
Queen. How fares my lord?
Pol. Give o'er the play.

King. Give me some light:-away!
Pol. Lights, lights, lights!

[Exeunt all but Hamlet and Horatio. Ham. Why, let the strucken deer go weep, The hart ungalled play:

For some must watch, while some must sleep;
Thus runs the world away.

Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers (if the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me), with two Provencial roses on my razed shoes, get me a fellowship in a cry of players, sir?

Hor. Half a share. Ham. A whole one, I.

To be forestalled, ere we come to fall,

Or pardon'd, being down? Then I'll look up:
My fault is past. But, 0, what form of prayer,
Can serve my turn? Forgive me my foal 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 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 assay !
Bow, stubborn knees! and, heart, with strings of steel,
Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe;
All may be well.
[Retires and 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 circumstance 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 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 pleasures 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 dama'd, and black,
As hell, whereto it goes. My mother stays:
This physic but prolongs thy sickly days."

[Exit.

The King rises and advances. King. My words fly up, my thoughts remain below; Words, without thoughts, never to heaven go. [Exit. SCENE IV. Another Room in the same. 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 e'en here.
Pray you, be round with him.
Queen.
I'll warrant you;
Fear me not-withdraw, I hear him coming.
[Polonius hides himself.

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 You go not, till I set you up a glass [not budge; Where you may see the inmost part of you. Queen. What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murder Help, help, ho! [me? How now a rat? [Draws. [Hamlet makes a Pass through the Arras. O, I am slain. [Falls, and dies.

Pol. [Behind] What, ho! help!
Ham.

Dead, for a ducat, dead.

Pol. [Behind]

Queen. O me, what hast thou done? Ham.

Is it the king?

Nay, I know not:

[Lifts up the Arras and draws forth Polonius.
Queen. O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!
Ham. A bloody deed;-almost as bad, good mother,
As kill a king, and marry with his brother.
Queen. As kill a king!
Ham.
Ay, lady, 'twas my word.
Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!
[To Polonius.

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 braz'd it so,
That it be proof and bulwark against sense.

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

Queen.

Ah me, what act,
That roars so loud, and thunders in the index?

The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
Ham. Look here, upon this picture, and on this;
See, what a grace was seated on this brow:
the front of Jove himself;
Hyperion's curls;
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,
Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes?
Could you this fair mountain leave to feed,
And batten on this moor? Ha! have yon eyes?
You cannot call it, love: for, at your age,
The hey-day in the blood is tame, it's humble,
Aud 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 ecstasy was ne'er so thrall'd,
But it reserv'd 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 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.

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. A murderer, and a villain': A slave, that is not twentieth part the tithe Of your precedent lorda vice of kings: A cutpurse of the empire and the rule;" That from the shelf the precious diadem stole, And put it in his pocket! Queen. No more. Enter Ghost.