Complete Plays, The (85 page)

This, in obedience, hath my daughter shown me,
And more above, hath his solicitings,
As they fell out by time, by means and place,
All given to mine ear.

King Claudius

But how hath she
Received his love?

Lord Polonius

 
What do you think of me?

King Claudius

As of a man faithful and honourable.

Lord Polonius

I would fain prove so. But what might you think,
When I had seen this hot love on the wing —
As I perceived it, I must tell you that,
Before my daughter told me — what might you,
Or my dear majesty your queen here, think,
If I had play’d the desk or table-book,
Or given my heart a winking, mute and dumb,
Or look’d upon this love with idle sight;
What might you think? No, I went round to work,
And my young mistress thus I did bespeak:
‘Lord Hamlet is a prince, out of thy star;
This must not be:’ and then I precepts gave her,
That she should lock herself from his resort,
Admit no messengers, receive no tokens.
Which done, she took the fruits of my advice;
And he, repulsed — a short tale to make —
Fell into a sadness, then into a fast,
Thence to a watch, thence into a weakness,
Thence to a lightness, and, by this declension,
Into the madness wherein now he raves,
And all we mourn for.

King Claudius

Do you think ’tis this?

Queen Gertrude

It may be, very likely.

Lord Polonius

Hath there been such a time — I’d fain know that —
That I have positively said ’Tis so,’
When it proved otherwise?

King Claudius

Not that I know.

Lord Polonius

[Pointing to his head and shoulder]
Take this from this, if this be otherwise:
If circumstances lead me, I will find
Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed
Within the centre.

King Claudius

 
How may we try it further?

Lord Polonius

You know, sometimes he walks four hours together
Here in the lobby.

Queen Gertrude

 
So he does indeed.

Lord Polonius

At such a time I’ll loose my daughter to him:
Be you and I behind an arras then;
Mark the encounter: if he love her not
And be not from his reason fall’n thereon,
Let me be no assistant for a state,
But keep a farm and carters.

King Claudius

We will try it.

Queen Gertrude

But, look, where sadly the poor wretch comes reading.

Lord Polonius

Away, I do beseech you, both away:
I’ll board him presently.

Exeunt King Claudius, Queen Gertrude, and Attendants

Enter Hamlet, reading

O, give me leave:
How does my good Lord Hamlet?

Hamlet

Well, God-a-mercy.

Lord Polonius

Do you know me, my lord?

Hamlet

Excellent well; you are a fishmonger.

Lord Polonius

Not I, my lord.

Hamlet

Then I would you were so honest a man.

Lord Polonius

Honest, my lord!

Hamlet

Ay, sir; to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.

Lord Polonius

That’s very true, my lord.

Hamlet

For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a god kissing carrion,— Have you a daughter?

Lord Polonius

I have, my lord.

Hamlet

Let her not walk i’ the sun: conception is a blessing: but not as your daughter may conceive. Friend, look to ’t.

Lord Polonius

[Aside]
 
How say you by that? Still harping on my daughter: yet he knew me not at first; he said I was a fishmonger: he is far gone, far gone: and truly in my youth I suffered much extremity for love; very near this. I’ll speak to him again. What do you read, my lord?

Hamlet

Words, words, words.

Lord Polonius

What is the matter, my lord?

Hamlet

Between who?

Lord Polonius

I mean, the matter that you read, my lord.

Hamlet

Slanders, sir: for the satirical rogue says here that old men have grey beards, that their faces are wrinkled, their eyes purging thick amber and plum-tree gum and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams: all which, sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down, for yourself, sir, should be old as I am, if like a crab you could go backward.

Lord Polonius

[Aside]
 
Though this be madness, yet there is method in ’t. Will you walk out of the air, my lord?

Hamlet

Into my grave.

Lord Polonius

Indeed, that is out o’ the air.

Aside

How pregnant sometimes his replies are! a happiness that often madness hits on, which reason and sanity could not so prosperously be delivered of. I will leave him, and suddenly contrive the means of meeting between him and my daughter.— My honourable lord, I will most humbly take my leave of you.

Hamlet

You cannot, sir, take from me any thing that I will more willingly part withal: except my life, except my life, except my life.

Lord Polonius

Fare you well, my lord.

Hamlet

These tedious old fools!

Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

Lord Polonius

You go to seek the Lord Hamlet; there he is.

Rosencrantz

[To Polonius]
 
God save you, sir!

Exit Polonius

Guildenstern

My honoured lord!

Rosencrantz

My most dear lord!

Hamlet

My excellent good friends! How dost thou,
Guildenstern? Ah, Rosencrantz! Good lads, how do ye both?

Rosencrantz

As the indifferent children of the earth.

Guildenstern

Happy, in that we are not over-happy;
On fortune’s cap we are not the very button.

Hamlet

Nor the soles of her shoe?

Rosencrantz

Neither, my lord.

Hamlet

Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of her favours?

Guildenstern

’Faith, her privates we.

Hamlet

In the secret parts of fortune? O, most true; she is a strumpet. What’s the news?

Rosencrantz

None, my lord, but that the world’s grown honest.

Hamlet

Then is doomsday near: but your news is not true. Let me question more in particular: what have you, my good friends, deserved at the hands of fortune, that she sends you to prison hither?

Guildenstern

Prison, my lord!

Hamlet

Denmark’s a prison.

Rosencrantz

Then is the world one.

Hamlet

A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards and dungeons, Denmark being one o’ the worst.

Rosencrantz

We think not so, my lord.

Hamlet

Why, then, ’tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so: to me it is a prison.

Rosencrantz

Why then, your ambition makes it one; ’tis too narrow for your mind.

Hamlet

O God, I could be bounded in a nut shell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.

Guildenstern

Which dreams indeed are ambition, for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.

Hamlet

A dream itself is but a shadow.

Rosencrantz

Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality that it is but a shadow’s shadow.

Hamlet

Then are our beggars bodies, and our monarchs and outstretched heroes the beggars’ shadows. Shall we to the court? for, by my fay, I cannot reason.

Rosencrantz

Guildenstern

We’ll wait upon you.

Hamlet

No such matter: I will not sort you with the rest of my servants, for, to speak to you like an honest man, I am most dreadfully attended. But, in the beaten way of friendship, what make you at Elsinore?

Rosencrantz

To visit you, my lord; no other occasion.

Hamlet

Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks; but I thank you: and sure, dear friends, my thanks are too dear a halfpenny. Were you not sent for? Is it your own inclining? Is it a free visitation? Come, deal justly with me: come, come; nay, speak.

Guildenstern

What should we say, my lord?

Hamlet

Why, any thing, but to the purpose. You were sent for; and there is a kind of confession in your looks which your modesties have not craft enough to colour: I know the good king and queen have sent for you.

Rosencrantz

To what end, my lord?

Hamlet

That you must teach me. But let me conjure you, by the rights of our fellowship, by the consonancy of our youth, by the obligation of our ever-preserved love, and by what more dear a better proposer could charge you withal, be even and direct with me, whether you were sent for, or no?

Rosencrantz

[Aside to Guildenstern]
 
What say you?

Hamlet

[Aside]
 
Nay, then, I have an eye of you.— If you love me, hold not off.

Guildenstern

My lord, we were sent for.

Hamlet

I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation prevent your discovery, and your secrecy to the king and queen moult no feather. I have of late — but wherefore I know not — lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not me: no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.

Rosencrantz

My lord, there was no such stuff in my thoughts.

Hamlet

Why did you laugh then, when I said ‘man delights not me’?

Rosencrantz

To think, my lord, if you delight not in man, what lenten entertainment the players shall receive from you: we coted them on the way; and hither are they coming, to offer you service.

Hamlet

He that plays the king shall be welcome; his majesty shall have tribute of me; the adventurous knight shall use his foil and target; the lover shall not sigh gratis; the humourous man shall end his part in peace; the clown shall make those laugh whose lungs are tickled o’ the sere; and the lady shall say her mind freely, or the blank verse shall halt for’t. What players are they?

Rosencrantz

Even those you were wont to take delight in, the tragedians of the city.

Hamlet

How chances it they travel? their residence, both in reputation and profit, was better both ways.

Rosencrantz

I think their inhibition comes by the means of the late innovation.

Hamlet

Do they hold the same estimation they did when I was in the city? are they so followed?

Rosencrantz

No, indeed, are they not.

Hamlet

How comes it? do they grow rusty?

Rosencrantz

Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace: but there is, sir, an aery of children, little eyases, that cry out on the top of question, and are most tyrannically clapped for’t: these are now the fashion, and so berattle the common stages — so they call them — that many wearing rapiers are afraid of goose-quills and dare scarce come thither.

Hamlet

What, are they children? who maintains ’em? how are they escoted? Will they pursue the quality no longer than they can sing? will they not say afterwards, if they should grow themselves to common players — as it is most like, if their means are no better — their writers do them wrong, to make them exclaim against their own succession?

Rosencrantz

’Faith, there has been much to do on both sides; and the nation holds it no sin to tarre them to controversy: there was, for a while, no money bid for argument, unless the poet and the player went to cuffs in the question.

Hamlet

Is’t possible?

Guildenstern

O, there has been much throwing about of brains.

Hamlet

Do the boys carry it away?

Rosencrantz

Ay, that they do, my lord; Hercules and his load too.

Hamlet

It is not very strange; for mine uncle is king of Denmark, and those that would make mows at him while my father lived, give twenty, forty, fifty, an hundred ducats a-piece for his picture in little. ’sblood, there is something in this more than natural, if philosophy could find it out.

Flourish of trumpets within

Guildenstern

There are the players.

Hamlet

Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore. Your hands, come then: the appurtenance of welcome is fashion and ceremony: let me comply with you in this garb, lest my extent to the players, which, I tell you, must show fairly outward, should more appear like entertainment than yours. You are welcome: but my uncle-father and aunt-mother are deceived.