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A Room in the Castle. | |
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Enter KING, QUEEN, POLONIUS, OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN. | |
| King. And can you, by no drift of circumstance, | |
| Get from him why he puts on this confusion, | |
| Grating so harshly all his days of quiet | 5 |
| With turbulent and dangerous lunacy? | |
| Ros. He does confess he feels himself distracted; | |
| But from what cause he will by no means speak. | |
| Guil. Nor do we find him forward to be sounded, | |
| But, with a crafty madness, keeps aloof, | 10 |
| When we would bring him on to some confession | |
| Of his true state. | |
| Queen. Did he receive you well? | |
| Ros. Most like a gentleman. | |
| Guil. But with much forcing of his disposition. | 15 |
| Ros. Niggard of question, but of our demands | |
| Most free in his reply. | |
| Queen. Did you assay him | |
| To any pastime? | |
| Ros. Madam, it so fell out that certain players | 20 |
| We o’er-raught on the way; of these we told him, | |
| And there did seem in him a kind of joy | |
| To hear of it: they are about the court, | |
| And, as I think, they have already order | |
| This night to play before him. | 25 |
| Pol. ’Tis most true; | |
| And he beseech’d me to entreat your majesties | |
| To hear and see the matter. | |
| King. With all my heart; and it doth much content me | |
| To hear him so inclin’d. | 30 |
| 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, | 35 |
| 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, | 40 |
| 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 | 45 |
| 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. | 50 |
| Pol. Ophelia, walk you here. Gracious, so please you, | |
| We will bestow ourselves. [To OPHELIA.] Read on this book; | |
| 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 | 55 |
| And pious action we do sugar o’er | |
| The devil himself. | |
| King. [Aside.] O! ’tis too true; | |
| How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience! | |
| The harlot’s cheek, beautied with plastering art, | 60 |
| Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it | |
| Than is my deed to my most painted word: | |
| O heavy burden! | |
| Pol. I hear him coming; let’s withdraw, my lord. [Exeunt KING and POLONIUS. | |
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Enter HAMLET. | 65 |
| 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; | 70 |
| 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 to dream: ay, there’s the rub; | 75 |
| 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, | 80 |
| The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely, | |
| The pangs of dispriz’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 | 85 |
| 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, | 90 |
| 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 | |
| Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought, | 95 |
| And enterprises of great pith and moment | |
| 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. | 100 |
| Oph. Good my lord, | |
| How does your honour for this many a day? | |
| Ham. I humbly thank you; well, well, well. | |
| Oph. My lord, I have remembrances of yours, | |
| That I have longed long to re-deliver; | 105 |
| I pray you, now receive them. | |
| Ham. No, not I; | |
| I never gave you aught. | |
| Oph. My honour’d lord, you know right well you did; | |
| And, with them, words of so sweet breath compos’d | 110 |
| 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? | 115 |
| Oph. My lord! | |
| Ham. Are you fair? | |
| Oph. What means your lordship? | |
| Ham. That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty. | |
| Oph. Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty? | 120 |
| Ham. Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner transform 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 thee 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 in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in. What should such fellows as I do crawling between heaven and earth? We are arrant knaves, all; believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery. Where’s your father? | 125 |
| Oph. At home, my lord. | |
| Ham. Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool nowhere 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 nunnery, go; 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. O heavenly powers, restore him! | 130 |
| 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 nickname God’s creatures, and make your wantonness your ignorance. Go to, I’ll no more on ’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. To a nunnery, go. [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, | 135 |
| 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; | 140 |
| That unmatch’d form and feature of blown youth | |
| Blasted with ecstasy: O! woe is me, | |
| To have seen what I have seen, see what I see! | |
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Re-enter KING and POLONIUS. | |
| King. Love! his affections do not that way tend; | 145 |
| Nor what he spake, though it lack’d form a little, | |
| Was not like madness. There’s something in his soul | |
| O’er which his melancholy sits on brood; | |
| And, I do doubt, the hatch and the disclose | |
| Will be some danger; which for to prevent, | 150 |
| I have in quick determination | |
| Thus set it down: he shall with speed to England, | |
| For the demand of our neglected tribute: | |
| Haply the seas and countries different | |
| With variable objects shall expel | 155 |
| This something-settled matter in his heart, | |
| Whereon his brains still beating puts him thus | |
| From fashion of himself. What think you on ’t? | |
| Pol. It shall do well: but yet do I believe | |
| The origin and commencement of his grief | 160 |
| Sprung from neglected love. How now, Ophelia! | |
| You need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said; | |
| We heard it all. My lord, do as you please; | |
| But, if you hold it fit, after the play, | |
| Let his queen mother all alone entreat him | 165 |
| To show his griefs: let her be round with him; | |
| And I’ll be plac’d, so please you, in the ear | |
| Of all their conference. If she find him not, | |
| To England send him, or confine him where | |
| Your wisdom best shall think. | 170 |
| King. It shall be so: | |
| Madness in great ones must not unwatch’d go. [Exeunt. | |
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