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 two-fold 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 mur-
der!-

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 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;

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 mo ther.

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

Ham. 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.
Queen. What wilt thou do? thou wilt not
murder me?

Queen. O me, what hast thou done? Ham. Nay, I know not:

Is it the king?

[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 hath not braz'd it so,
That it be 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 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? Ham. 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,
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 judgment; and what judg-

ment

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. Nay, but to live

In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed;
Stew'd in corruption; honeying, and making love
Over the nasty stye ;—

Queen. O, speak to me no more;
These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears;
No more, sweet Hamlet.

Ham. A murderer, and a villain :

A slave, that is not twentieth part the tythe
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. Alas, he's mad.

Ham. Do you not come your tardy son to chide, That, laps'd in time and passion, lets go by The 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' incorporal air do hold discourse?
Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep;
And, as the sleeping soldiers in th' alarm,
Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,
Starts up, and stands on end. O gentle son,
Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper
Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look?
Ham. On him! on him!-Look you, how
pale he glares!

Queen. Nothing at all; yet all, that is, I see.
Ham. Nor did you nothing hear?
Queen. No, nothing, but ourselves.

I'll blessing beg of you. For this same lord,
[Pointing to Polonius.

I do repent: But heaven hath pleas'd it so,-
To punish me with this, and this with me,
That I must be their scourge and minister.
I will bestow him, and will answer well
The death I gave him. So, again, good night!—
I must be cruel, only to be kind:

Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.-
But one word more, good lady.

Queen. What shall I do?

Ham. Not this, by no means, that I bid you do:

Ham. Ecstasy!

My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time,
And makes as healthful music: It is not madness,
That I have utter'd: bring me to the test,
And I the matter will re-word; which madness
Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,
Lay not that flattering unction to your soul,
That not your trespass, 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;
Assume a virtue, if you have it not.
That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat
Of habit's devil, is angel yet in this;
That to the use of actions fair and good
He likewise gives a frock, or livery,
That aptly is put on: Refrain to-night;
And that shall lend a kind of easiness

To the next abstinence: the next more easy: For use almost can change the stamp of nature, And either curb the devil, or throw him out With wondrous potency. Once more, good night; And when you are desirous to be bless'd,

Pinch wanton on your cheek; call you his mouse;
And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses,
Or paddling in your neck with his damn'd fingers,
Make you to ravel all this matter out,
That I essentially am not in madness,
But mad in craft. 'Twere good, you let him

know :

For who, that's but a queen, fair, sober, wise,
Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib,
Such dear concernings hide? who would do so?
No, in despite of sense, and secrecy,
Unpeg the basket on the house's top,
Let the birds fly; and, like the famous ape,
To try conclusions, in the basket creep,
And break your own neck down.

Queen. Be thou assur'd, if words be made of
breath,

And breath of life, I have no life to breathe
What thou hast said to me.

Ham. I must to England; you know that?
Queen. Alack,

I had forgot; 'tis so concluded on.

Ham. There's letters seal'd: and my two
school-fellows,-

Whom I will trust, as I will adders fang'd,-
They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way,
And marshal me to knavery: Let it work;
For 'tis the sport, to have the engineer

Hoist with his own petar: and it shall go hard,
But I will delve one yard below their mines,
And blow them at the moon: O'tis most sweet,
When in one line two crafts directly meet.-
This man shall set me packing.

I'll lug the guts into the neighbour room :-
Mother, good night.-Indeed, this counsellor
Is now most still, most secret, and most grave,
Who was in life a foolish prating knave.
Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you:
Good night, mother.

Exeunt severally; Hamlet dragging in
Polonius.

Ah, my good lord, what have I seen to-night!
King. What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?
Queen. Mad as the sea, and wind, when both
contend

Which is the mightier: In his lawless fit,
Behind the arras hearing something stir,
Whips out his rapier, cries, A rat! a rat!
And, in this brainish apprehension, kills
The unseen good old man.

King. O heavy deed!

It had been so with us, had we been there:
His liberty is full of threats to all;
To you yourself, to us, to every one.
Alas! how shall this bloody deed be answer'd?
It will be laid to us, whose providence

Should have kept short, restrain'd, and out of haunt,

This mad young man: but, so much was our love,
We would not understand what was most fit;
But, like the owner of a foul disease,
To keep it from divulging, let it feed
Even on the pith of life. Where is he gone?
Queen. To draw apart the body he hath kill'd:
O'er whom his very madness, like some ore,
Among a mineral of metals base,

Shows itself pure; he weeps for what is done.
King. O, Gertrude, come away!

The sun no sooner shall the mountains touch,
But we will ship him hence: and this vile deed
We must, with all our majesty and skill,
Both countenance and excuse.-Ho! Guilden-
stern!

Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.
Friends both, go join you with some further aid:
Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain,
And from his mother's closet hath he dragg'd him:
Go, seek him out; speak fair, and bring the body
Into the chapel. I pray you, haste in this.

[Exeunt Ros. and Guil. Come, Gertrude, we'll call up our wisest friends; And let them know, both what we mean to do, And what's untimely done: so, haply, slander, Whose whisper o'er the world's diameter, As level as the cannon to his blank,

Transports his poison'd shot,-may miss our

name,

And hit the woundless air.—O come away! My soul is full of discord, and dismay!

[Exeunt.

SCENE II.-Another room in the house.

Enter HAMLET.

Ham. Safely stow'd,-[Ros. &c. within. Hamlet! lord Hamlet! But soft,-what noise? who calls on Hamlet? O, here they come.

Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. Ros. What have you done, my lord, with the dead body?

Ham. Compounded it with dust, whereto 'tis

kin.

Ros. Tell us where 'tis; that we may take it thence, And bear it to the chapel.

Ham. Do not believe it.
Ros. Believe what?

Ham. That I can keep your counsel, and not mine own. Besides, to be demanded of a sponge! -what replication should be made by the son of a king?

Ros. Take you me for a sponge, my lord?

Ham. Ay, sir; that soaks up the king's countenance, his rewards, his authorities. But such officers do the king best service in the end: He keeps them, like an ape, in the corner of his jaw; first mouthed, to be last swallowed: When he needs what you have gleaned, it is but squeezing you, and, sponge, you shall be dry again. Ros. I understand you not, my lord.

Ham. I am glad of it: A knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear.

Ros. My lord, you must tell us where the body is, and go with us to the king.

Ham. The body is with the king, but the king is not with the body. The king is a thingGuil. A thing, my lord?

Ham. Of nothing: bring me to him. Hide fox, and all after.

[Exeunt.

SCENE III.-Another room in the same.

Enter King, attended.

King. I have sent to seek him, and to find the body.

How dangerous is it, that this man goes loose?
Yet must not we put the strong law on him:
He's lov'd of the distracted multitude,
Who like not in their judgment, but their eyes;