William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition (318 page)
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Authors: William Shakespeare
Tags: #Drama, #Literary Criticism, #Shakespeare
BOOK: William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition
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POLONIUS This is too long.
HAMLET It shall to the barber’s, with your beard. (
To First Player
) Prithee, say on. He’s for a jig or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps. Say on, come to Hecuba.
To First Player
) Prithee, say on. He’s for a jig or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps. Say on, come to Hecuba.
FIRST PLAYER
‘But who, O who had seen the mobbled queen’—
HAMLET ‘The mobbled queen’?
POLONIUS That’s good; ‘mobbled queen’ is good.
FIRST PLAYER
‘Run barefoot up and down, threat’ning the flames
With bisson rheum; a clout upon that head
Where late the diadem stood, and for a robe,
About her lank and all o‘er-teemèd loins,
A blanket in th’alarm of fear caught up—
Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steeped,
‘Gainst Fortune’s state would treason have pronounced.
But if the gods themselves did see her then,
When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport
In mincing with his sword her husband’s limbs,
The instant burst of clamour that she made—
Unless things mortal move them not at all—
Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven,
And passion in the gods.’
With bisson rheum; a clout upon that head
Where late the diadem stood, and for a robe,
About her lank and all o‘er-teemèd loins,
A blanket in th’alarm of fear caught up—
Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steeped,
‘Gainst Fortune’s state would treason have pronounced.
But if the gods themselves did see her then,
When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport
In mincing with his sword her husband’s limbs,
The instant burst of clamour that she made—
Unless things mortal move them not at all—
Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven,
And passion in the gods.’
POLONIUS Look whe’er he has not turned his colour, and has tears in ’s eyes. (
To First Player
) Prithee, no more.
To First Player
) Prithee, no more.
HAMLET (
to First Player
) ’Tis well. I’ll have thee speak out the rest soon. (
To Polonius
) Good my lord, will you see the players well bestowed? Do ye hear?—let them be well used, for they are the abstracts and brief chronicles of the time. After your death you were better have a bad epitaph than their ill report while you live.
to First Player
) ’Tis well. I’ll have thee speak out the rest soon. (
To Polonius
) Good my lord, will you see the players well bestowed? Do ye hear?—let them be well used, for they are the abstracts and brief chronicles of the time. After your death you were better have a bad epitaph than their ill report while you live.
POLONIUS My lord, I will use them according to their desert.
HAMLET God’s bodykins, man, much better. Use every man after his desert, and who should scape whipping? Use them after your own honour and dignity—the less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty. Take them in.
POLONIUS (
to Players
) Come, sirs. Exit
to Players
) Come, sirs. Exit
HAMLET (
to Players
) Follow him, friends. We’ll hear a play tomorrow. Dost thou hear me, old friend? Can you play the murder of Gonzago?
to Players
) Follow him, friends. We’ll hear a play tomorrow. Dost thou hear me, old friend? Can you play the murder of Gonzago?
⌈PLAYERS⌉ Ay, my lord.
HAMLET We’ll ha’t tomorrow night. You could for a need study a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines which I would set down and insert in’t, could ye not?
⌈PLAYERS⌉ Ay, my lord.
HAMLET Very well. Follow that lord, and look you mock him not. ⌈
Exeunt Players
⌉ My good friends, I’ll leave you till night. You are welcome to Elsinore.
Exeunt Players
⌉ My good friends, I’ll leave you till night. You are welcome to Elsinore.
ROSENCRANTZ Good my lord.
HAMLET
Ay, so. God b‘wi’ ye.
Exeunt all but Hamlet
O, what a rogue and peasant slave am Il
Is it not monstrous that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his whole conceit
That from her working all his visage wanned,
Tears in his eyes, distraction in ’s aspect,
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
With forms to his conceit? And all for nothing.
For Hecuba!
What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her? What would he do
Had he the motive and the cue for passion
That I have? He would drown the stage with tears,
And cleave the general ear with horrid speech,
Make mad the guilty and appal the free,
Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed
The very faculty of eyes and ears. Yet I,
A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak
Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,
And can say nothing—no, not for a king
Upon whose property and most dear life
A damned defeat was made. Am I a coward?
Who calls me villain, breaks my pate across,
Plucks off my beard and blows it in my face,
Tweaks me by th’ nose, gives me the lie i’th’ throat
As deep as to the lungs? Who does me this?
Ha? ‘Swounds, I should take it; for it cannot be
But I am pigeon-livered and lack gall
To make oppression bitter, or ere this
I should ’a’ fatted all the region kites
With this slave’s offal. Bloody, bawdy villain!
Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!
O, vengeance!—
Why, what an ass am I? Ay, sure, this is most brave,
That I, the son of the dear murdered,
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,
Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words
And fall a-cursing like a very drab,
A scullion! Fie upon‘t, foh!—About, my brain.
I have heard that guilty creatures sitting at a play
Have by the very cunning of the scene
Been struck so to the soul that presently
They have proclaimed their malefactions;
For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ. I’ll have these players
Play something like the murder of my father
Before mine uncle. I’ll observe his looks,
I’ll tent him to the quick. If a but blench,
I know my course. The spirit that I have seen
May be the devil, and the devil hath power
T’assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps,
Out of my weakness and my melancholy—
As he is very potent with such spirits—
Abuses me to damn me. I’ll have grounds
More relative than this. The play’s the thing
Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.
Exeunt all but Hamlet
Now I am alone.
Is it not monstrous that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his whole conceit
That from her working all his visage wanned,
Tears in his eyes, distraction in ’s aspect,
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
With forms to his conceit? And all for nothing.
For Hecuba!
What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her? What would he do
Had he the motive and the cue for passion
That I have? He would drown the stage with tears,
And cleave the general ear with horrid speech,
Make mad the guilty and appal the free,
Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed
The very faculty of eyes and ears. Yet I,
A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak
Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,
And can say nothing—no, not for a king
Upon whose property and most dear life
A damned defeat was made. Am I a coward?
Who calls me villain, breaks my pate across,
Plucks off my beard and blows it in my face,
Tweaks me by th’ nose, gives me the lie i’th’ throat
As deep as to the lungs? Who does me this?
Ha? ‘Swounds, I should take it; for it cannot be
But I am pigeon-livered and lack gall
To make oppression bitter, or ere this
I should ’a’ fatted all the region kites
With this slave’s offal. Bloody, bawdy villain!
Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!
O, vengeance!—
Why, what an ass am I? Ay, sure, this is most brave,
That I, the son of the dear murdered,
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,
Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words
And fall a-cursing like a very drab,
A scullion! Fie upon‘t, foh!—About, my brain.
I have heard that guilty creatures sitting at a play
Have by the very cunning of the scene
Been struck so to the soul that presently
They have proclaimed their malefactions;
For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ. I’ll have these players
Play something like the murder of my father
Before mine uncle. I’ll observe his looks,
I’ll tent him to the quick. If a but blench,
I know my course. The spirit that I have seen
May be the devil, and the devil hath power
T’assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps,
Out of my weakness and my melancholy—
As he is very potent with such spirits—
Abuses me to damn me. I’ll have grounds
More relative than this. The play’s the thing
Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.
Exit
3.1Enter King Claudius, Queen Gertrude, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and lords
KING CLAUDIUS (
to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
)
to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
)
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
With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?
Get from him why he puts on this confusion,
Grating so harshly all his days of quiet
With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?
ROSENCRANTZ
He does confess he feels himself distracted,
But from what cause a will by no means speak.
But from what cause a will by no means speak.
GUILDENSTERN
Nor do we find him forward to be sounded,
But with a crafty madness keeps aloof
When we would bring him on to some confession
Of his true state.
But with a crafty madness keeps aloof
When we would bring him on to some confession
Of his true state.
QUEEN GERTRUDE Did he receive you well?
ROSENCRANTZ Most like a gentleman.
GUILDENSTERN
But with much forcing of his disposition.
ROSENCRANTZ
Niggard of question, but of our demands
Most free in his reply.
Most free in his reply.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Did you assay him
To any pastime?
To any pastime?
ROSENCRANTZ
Madam, it so fell out that certain players
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.
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.
POLONIUS
’Tis most true, And he beseeched me to entreat your majesties
To hear and see the matter.
To hear and see the matter.
KING CLAUDIUS
With all my heart; and it doth much content me
To hear him so inclined.—Good gentlemen,
Give him a further edge, and drive his purpose on
To these delights.
To hear him so inclined.—Good gentlemen,
Give him a further edge, and drive his purpose on
To these delights.
ROSENCRANTZ We shall, my lord.
Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
KING CLAUDIUS 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 behaved,
If’t be th’affliction of his love or no
That thus he suffers for.
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 behaved,
If’t be th’affliction of his love or no
That thus he suffers for.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
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.
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.
OPHELIA
Madam, I wish it may.
Exit Gertrude
POLONIUS
Ophelia, walk you here.—Gracious, so please you,
We will bestow ourselves.—Read on this book,
That show of such an exercise may colour
Your loneliness. We are oft to blame in this:
‘Tis too much proved that with devotion’s visage
And pious action we do sugar o’er
The devil himself.
We will bestow ourselves.—Read on this book,
That show of such an exercise may colour
Your loneliness. We are oft to blame in this:
‘Tis too much proved that with devotion’s visage
And pious action we do sugar o’er
The devil himself.
KING CLAUDIUS
O, ’tis too true.
(Aside) 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!
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!
POLONIUS
I hear him coming. Let’s withdraw, my lord.
Exeunt Claudius and Polonius
Enter Prince Hamlet
HAMLET
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 heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to—’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep.
To sleep, perchance to 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,
Th‘oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of disprized love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th’unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would these fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered 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
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
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 remembered.
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 heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to—’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep.
To sleep, perchance to 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,
Th‘oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of disprized love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th’unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would these fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered 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
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
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 remembered.
OPHELIA
Good my lord,
How does your honour for this many a day?
HAMLET
I humbly thank you, well, well, well.
OPHELIA
My lord, I have remembrances of yours
That I have longed long to redeliver.
I pray you now receive them.
That I have longed long to redeliver.
I pray you now receive them.
HAMLET
No, no, I never gave you aught.
OPHELIA
My honoured lord, you know right well you did,
And with them words of so sweet breath composed
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.
And with them words of so sweet breath composed
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.
HAMLET Ha, ha? Are you honest?
OPHELIA My lord.
HAMLET Are you fair?
OPHELIA What means your lordship?
HAMLET That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty.
OPHELIA Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty?
HAMLET 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 you once.
OPHELIA Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.
HAMLET You should not have believed me, for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it. I loved you not.
OPHELIA I was the more deceived.
HAMLET 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?
OPHELIA At home, my lord.
HAMLET Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool nowhere but in ’s own house. Farewell.
OPHELIA O help him, you sweet heavens!
HAMLET 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.
OPHELIA O heavenly powers, restore him!
HAMLET 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
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