Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed, And batten on this moor ?(88) Ha! have you eyes? You cannot call it, love: for, at your age,

The hey-day in the blood (9) 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: (90) But, sure, that sense

Is apoplexed: for madness would not err;
Nor sense to ecstasy was ne'er so thrall'd,
But it reserv'd some quantity of choice,(9)
To serve in such a difference.] What devil was't
That thus hath cozen'd you at hoodman-blind? (92)
[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 (93) 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.(94)

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.c

• so mope] Be so blind and stupid. See Temp. last sc.

Boatsw.

gives the charge] Gives the signal for attack. SEYMOUR. • As will not leave their tinct] So died in grain, that they will not relinquish or lose their tinct-are not to be discharged. In a sense not very dissimilar he presently says,

"Then what I have to do

Will want true colour."

HAM.

Nay, but to live

(95)

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; (96)
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 Ghost.

A king

HAM.

Of shreds and patches: (97)

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 passion, (98) 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 (99) in weakest bodies strongest works;
Speak to her, Hamlet.

НАМ.

How is it with you, lady? QUEEN. Alas, how is't with you;

do bend, That you bend your eye on vacancy,

4tos.

thus you bend, 1632.

And with the incorporal air do hold discourse?

Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep;
And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm,
Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,(100)
Start up, and stand 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!

His form and cause conjoin'd, preaching to stones,
Would make them capable.-(o)Do not look upon

me;

Lest, with this piteous action, you convert
My stern effects: (10) then what I have to do
Will want true colour; tears, perchance, for

blood.

QUEEN. To whom do you speak this?

НАМ.

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 lived!"

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.(103)

HAM. Ecstasy!

My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time, And makes as healthful musick: It is not madness, That I have uttered: bring me to the test,

And I the matter will re-word; which madness

a

My father, in his habit as he lived] In the habit he was accustomed to wear when living.

*or, 1623, 32. • ranker,

4tos.

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; (10)
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 rank*. Forgive me this my
virtue:

For in the fatness of these pursy times,
Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg;

Yea, curb (105) 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 habits devil, is angel yet in this; (106)
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

b

To the next abstinence: [the next more easy:
For use almost can change the stamp of nature,
And maister (107) the devil, or throw him out
With wondrous potency.] Once more, good night!
And when you are desirous to be bless'd,
I'll blessing beg of you. For this same lord,
[Pointing to POLONIUS.

gambol from] Start away from.

the next more easy] i. e. will become more, &c.

And when you are desirous to be bless'd,

I'll blessing beg of you] When you are desirous to receive a blessing from heaven (which you cannot, seriously, till you reform) I will beg to receive a blessing from you.

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. (108)
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.
[One word more, good lady.]

QUEEN.

What shall I do?

HAM. Not this, by no means, that I bid you do: Let the bloat* king(109) tempt you again to bed; Pinch wanton on your cheek; call you, his

mouse;

(110)

And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses, (1)
Or padling 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. (2) Twere good, you let him know:

с

For who, that's but a queen, fair, sober, wise,
Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib,d
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 ;(113) and, like the famous ape,
To try conclusions, (4) in the basket creep,
And break your own neck down.

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

▪ heaven hath pleas'd it so] Ordained, hath been pleased that it should be so.

For who, that's but a queen] Strictly speaking, " no more than :" but, in the familiar language of banter, importing, "who being as much as, having some pretence at least, or title, to the rank and state of," &c.

с

d

a paddock] Toad. See Macb. I. 1. Witches.

a gib] Gilbert, a he cat. See I. H. IV. Falst. I. 2.

* blunt, 1623, 32.