---

MARCELLUS
Holla! Bernardo!
BERNARDO
Welcome, Horatio: welcome, good Marcellus.
MARCELLUS
What, has this thing appear'd again to-night?
BERNARDO
I have seen nothing.
MARCELLUS
Horatio says 'tis but our fantasy,
And will not let belief take hold of him
Therefore I have entreated him along
That if again this apparition come,
He may approve our eyes and speak to it.
HORATIO
Tush, tush, 'twill not appear.
BERNARDO
Last night of all, Marcellus and myself,
The bell then beating one,--
MARCELLUS
Peace, break thee off; look, where it comes again!
BERNARDO
In the same figure, like the king that's dead.
MARCELLUS
Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio.
BERNARDO
Looks it not like the king? mark it, Horatio.
HORATIO
Most like: it harrows me with fear and wonder.
BERNARDO
It would be spoke to.
MARCELLUS
Question it, Horatio.
HORATIO
What art thou that usurp'st this time of night,
Together with that fair and warlike form
In which the majesty of buried Denmark
Did sometimes march? by heaven I charge thee, speak!
MARCELLUS
It is offended.
BERNARDO
See, it stalks away!
HORATIO
Stay! speak, speak! I charge thee, speak!
MARCELLUS
Tis gone, and will not answer.
BERNARDO
How now, Horatio! you tremble and look pale:
Is not this something more than fantasy?
What think you on't?
HORATIO
Before my God, I might not this believe
Without the sensible and true avouch
Of mine own eyes.
MARCELLUS
Is it not like the king?
HORATIO
As thou art to thyself:
Such was the very armour he had on
When he the ambitious Norway combated;
Tis strange.
MARCELLUS
Thus twice before, and jump at this dead hour,
With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.
HORATIO
In what particular thought to work I know not;
But in the gross and scope of my opinion,
This bodes some strange eruption to our state.
But soft, behold! lo, where it comes again!
I'll cross it, though it blast me. Stay, illusion!
If thou hast any sound, or use of voice,
Speak to me:
If there be any good thing to be done,
That may to thee do ease and grace to me,
Speak to me:
If thou art privy to thy country's fate,
Which, happily, foreknowing may avoid, O, speak!
Speak of it: stay, and speak! Stop it, Marcellus.
MARCELLUS
Shall I strike at it with my partisan?
HORATIO
Do, if it will not stand.
BERNARDO
Tis here!
HORATIO
Tis here!
MARCELLUS
Tis gone!
We do it wrong, being so majestical,
To offer it the show of violence;
For it is, as the air, invulnerable,
And our vain blows malicious mockery.
BERNARDO
It was about to speak, when the cock crew.
HORATIO
Let us impart what we have seen to-night
Unto young Hamlet; for, upon my life,
This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him.
Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it,
As needful in our loves, fitting our duty?
MARCELLUS
Let's do't, I pray; and I this morning know
Where we shall find him most conveniently.

---

KING CLAUDIUS
Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death
The memory be green, and that it us befitted
To bear our hearts in grief and our whole kingdom
To be contracted in one brow of woe,
Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature
That we with wisest sorrow think on him,
Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen,
Have we, as 'twere with a defeated joy,--
Taken to wife: nor have we herein barr'd
Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone
With this affair along. For all, our thanks.
And now, Laertes, what's the news with you?
LAERTES
My dread lord,
Your leave and favour to return to France;
From whence though willingly I came to Denmark,
To show my duty in your coronation,
Yet now, I must confess, that duty done,
My thoughts and wishes bend again toward France
And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon.
KING CLAUDIUS
Have you your father's leave? What says Polonius?
LORD POLONIUS
He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave
By laboursome petition, and at last
Upon his will I seal'd my hard consent:
I do beseech you, give him leave to go.
KING CLAUDIUS
Take thy fair hour, Laertes; time be thine,
And thy best graces spend it at thy will!
But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son,--
HAMLET
AsideA little more than kin, and less than kind.
KING CLAUDIUS
How is it that the clouds still hang on you?
HAMLET
Not so, my lord; I am too much i' the sun.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off,
Thou know'st 'tis common; all that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.
HAMLET
Ay, madam, it is common.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
If it be,
Why seems it so particular with thee?
HAMLET
Seems, madam! nay it is; I know not 'seems.'
Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
Nor customary suits of solemn black,
Nor windy suspiration of forced breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected 'havior of the visage,
Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief,
That can denote me truly: these indeed seem,
For they are actions that a man might play:
But I have that within which passeth show;
KING CLAUDIUS
Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,
To give these mourning duties to your father:
But, you must know, your father lost a father;
That father lost, lost his, and the survivor bound
In filial obligation for some term
To do obsequious sorrow: but to persever
In obstinate condolement is a course
Of impious stubbornness; 'tis unmanly grief;
It shows a will most incorrect to heaven,
Why should we in our peevish opposition
Take it to heart? Fie! 'tis a fault to heaven,
A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,
To reason most absurd: whose common theme
Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried,
From the first corse till he that died to-day,
This must be so.' We pray you, throw to earth
This unprevailing woe, and think of us
As of a father: for let the world take note,
You are the most immediate to our throne;
In going back to school in Wittenberg,
It is most retrograde to our desire:
And we beseech you, bend you to remain
Here, in the cheer and comfort of our eye,
Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet:
I pray thee, stay with us; go not to Wittenberg.
HAMLET
I shall in all my best obey you, madam.
KING CLAUDIUS
Why, 'tis a loving and a fair reply:
This gentle and unforced accord of Hamlet
Sits smiling to my heart. Come away.
HAMLET
Fie on't! ah fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
But two months dead: nay, not so much, not two:
So excellent a king; that was, to this,
Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother
Must I remember? why, she would hang on him,
As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on: and yet, within a month--
O, God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,
Would have mourn'd longer--married with my uncle,
My father's brother, but no more like my father
Than I to Hercules: within a month:
It is not nor it cannot come to good:
But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue.
HORATIO
Hail to your lordship!
HAMLET
I am glad to see you well:
And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio? Marcellus?
HORATIO
A truant disposition, good my lord.
HAMLET
I know you are no truant.
But what is your affair in Elsinore?
We'll teach you to drink deep ere you depart.
HORATIO
My lord, I came to see your father's funeral.
HAMLET
I pray thee, do not mock me, fellow-student;
I think it was to see my mother's wedding.
HORATIO
Indeed, my lord, it follow'd hard upon.
HAMLET
Thrift, thrift, Horatio! the funeral baked meats
Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.
My father!--methinks I see my father.
HORATIO
Where, my lord?
HAMLET
In my mind's eye, Horatio.
HORATIO
I saw him once; he was a goodly king.
HAMLET
He was a man, take him for all in all,
I shall not look upon his like again.
HORATIO
My lord, I think I saw him yesternight.
HAMLET
Saw? who?
HORATIO
My lord, the king your father.
HAMLET
The king my father!
HORATIO
Upon the witness of these gentlemen,
HAMLET
For God's love, let me hear.
HORATIO
Two nights together had these gentlemen,
Marcellus and Bernardo, on their watch,
In the dead vast and middle of the night,
Been thus encounter'd. A figure like your father,
Armed at point exactly, cap-a-pe,
Appears before them, and with solemn march
Goes slow and stately by them: whilst they, distilled
Almost to jelly with the act of fear,
Stand dumb and speak not to him. This to me
In dreadful secrecy impart they did;
And I with them the third night kept the watch;
Where, as they had deliver'd, both in time,
The apparition comes
HAMLET
Did you not speak to it?
HORATIO
My lord, I did;
But answer made it none
HAMLET
Tis very strange.
HORATIO
As I do live, my honour'd lord, 'tis true;
And we did think it writ down in our duty
To let you know of it.
HAMLET
Indeed, indeed, sirs, but this troubles me.
Arm'd, say you?
MARCELLUS
Arm'd, my lord.
HAMLET
From top to toe?
MARCELLUS
My lord, from head to foot.
HAMLET
Then saw you not his face?
HORATIO
O, yes, my lord; he wore his beaver up.
HAMLET
What, look'd he frowningly?
HORATIO
A countenance more in sorrow than in anger.
HAMLET
And fix'd his eyes upon you?
HORATIO
Most constantly.
HAMLET
I would I had been there.
HORATIO
It would have much amazed you.
HAMLET
I will watch to-night;
Upon the platform, 'twixt eleven and twelve,
I'll visit you.
My father's spirit in arms! all is not well;

---

LAERTES
My necessaries are embark'd: farewell:
For Hamlet and the trifling of his favour,
Hold it a fashion and a toy in blood,
Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting,
He may not, as unvalued persons do,
Carve for himself; for on his choice depends
The safety and health of this whole state;
LORD POLONIUS
Yet here, Laertes! aboard, aboard, for shame!
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
And you are stay'd for. There; my blessing with thee!
And these few precepts in thy memory
See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportioned thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledged comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,
Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine ownself be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell: my blessing season this in thee!
LAERTES
Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord.
Farewell, Ophelia; and remember well
What I have said to you.
LORD POLONIUS
What is't, Ophelia, be hath said to you?
OPHELIA
So please you, something touching the Lord Hamlet.
LORD POLONIUS
Marry, well bethought:
Tis told me, he hath very oft of late
Given private time to you; and you yourself
Have of your audience been most free and bounteous:
You do not understand yourself so clearly
As it behoves my daughter and your honour.
What is between you? give me up the truth.
OPHELIA
He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders
Of his affection to me.
LORD POLONIUS
Affection! pooh! you speak like a green girl,
Do you believe his tenders, as you call them?
OPHELIA
I do not know, my lord, what I should think.
LORD POLONIUS
Marry, I'll teach you: think yourself a baby;
OPHELIA
My lord, he hath importuned me with love
In honourable fashion.
LORD POLONIUS
Ay, fashion you may call it; go to, go to.
OPHELIA
And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord,
With almost all the holy vows of heaven.
LORD POLONIUS
Ay, springes to catch woodcocks. I do know,
When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul
Lends the tongue vows: these blazes, daughter,
You must not take for fire. From this time
Be somewhat scanter of your maiden presence;
Set your entreatments at a higher rate
Than a command to parley. For Lord Hamlet,
Believe so much in him, that he is young
And with a larger tether may he walk
Than may be given you: in few, Ophelia,
Do not believe his vows; for they are brokers,
Not of that dye which their investments show,
But mere implorators of unholy suits,
I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth,
Have you so slander any moment leisure,
As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet.
OPHELIA
I shall obey, my lord.

---

HAMLET
The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.
HORATIO
It is a nipping and an eager air.
HAMLET
What hour now?
HORATIO
I think it lacks of twelve.
HAMLET
No, it is struck.
HORATIO
Look, my lord, it comes!
HAMLET
Angels and ministers of grace defend us!
King, father, royal Dane: O, answer me!
Let me not burst in ignorance; but tell
Why thy canonized bones, hearsed in death,
Have burst their cerements; why the sepulchre,
Hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws,
To cast thee up again. What may this mean,
HORATIO
It beckons you to go away with it,
MARCELLUS
But do not go with it.
HORATIO
No, by no means.
HAMLET
It will not speak; then I will follow it.
HORATIO
Do not, my lord.
HAMLET
It waves me forth again: I'll follow it.
HORATIO
What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord,
Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff
And there assume some other horrible form,
Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason
HAMLET
It waves me still.
MARCELLUS
You shall not go, my lord.
HAMLET
Hold off your hands.
HORATIO
Be ruled; you shall not go.
HAMLET
My fate cries out,
Still am I call'd. Unhand me, gentlemen.
By heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that lets me!
MARCELLUS
Let's follow; 'tis not fit thus to obey him.
HORATIO
Have after. To what issue will this come?
MARCELLUS
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
HORATIO
Heaven will direct it.
MARCELLUS
Nay, let's follow him.

---

GHOST
My hour is almost come,
When I to sulphurous and tormenting flames
Must render up myself.
HAMLET
Alas, poor ghost!
GHOST
Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing
To what I shall unfold.
HAMLET
Speak; I am bound to hear.
GHOST
So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear.
HAMLET
What?
GHOST
I am thy father's spirit,
Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night,
And for the day confined to fast in fires,
Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
Are burnt and purged away. But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison-house,
I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres,
And each particular hair to stand on end,
But this eternal blazon must not be
To ears of flesh and blood. List, list, O, list!
If thou didst ever thy dear father love--
Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.
HAMLET
Murder!
GHOST
Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard,
A serpent stung me; but know, thou noble youth,
The serpent that did sting thy father's life
Now wears his crown.
HAMLET
O my prophetic soul! My uncle!
GHOST
Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast,
O wicked wit and gifts, that have the power
So to seduce!--won to his shameful lust
The will of my most seeming-virtuous queen:
But, soft! methinks I scent the morning air;
Brief let me be. Sleeping within my orchard,
Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole,
With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial,
And in the porches of my ears did pour
The leperous distilment; whose effect
Holds such an enmity with blood of man
That swift as quicksilver it courses through
The natural gates and alleys of the body,
And with a sudden vigour doth posset
The thin and wholesome blood: so did it mine;
Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother's hand
Of life, of crown, of queen, at once dispatch'd:
Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,
No reckoning made, but sent to my account
With all my imperfections on my head:
If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not;
Let not the royal bed of Denmark be
A couch for luxury and damned incest.
But, howsoever thou pursuest this act,
Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive
Against thy mother aught: leave her to heaven
And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge,
To prick and sting her. Fare thee well at once!
Adieu, adieu! Hamlet, remember me.
HAMLET
Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat
In this distracted globe. Remember thee!
Yea, from the table of my memory
I'll wipe away all trivial fond records,
And thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain,
O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!
My tables,--meet it is I set it down,
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain;
MARCELLUS
How is't, my noble lord?
HAMLET
O, wonderful!
HORATIO
Good my lord, tell it.
HAMLET
No; you'll reveal it.
HORATIO
Not I, my lord, by heaven.
MARCELLUS
Nor I, my lord.
HAMLET
How say you, then; would heart of man once think it?
But you'll be secret?
MARCELLUS
Ay, by heaven, my lord.
HAMLET
There's ne'er a villain dwelling in all Denmark
But he's an arrant knave.
HORATIO
There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave
To tell us this.
HAMLET
Why, right; you are i' the right;
And so, without more circumstance at all,
I hold it fit that we shake hands and part:
You, as your business and desire shall point you;
For every man has business and desire,
Such as it is; and for mine own poor part,
Look you, I'll go pray.
HORATIO
These are but wild and whirling words, my lord.
HAMLET
I'm sorry they offend you, heartily;
Yes, 'faith heartily.
HORATIO
There's no offence, my lord.
HAMLET
Yes, by Saint Patrick, but there is, Horatio,
And much offence too. Touching this vision here,
It is an honest ghost, that let me tell you:
For your desire to know what is between us,
O'ermaster 't as you may. And now, good friends,
As you are friends, scholars and soldiers,
Give me one poor request.
HORATIO
What is't, my lord? we will.
HAMLET
Never make known what you have seen to-night.
HORATIO
My lord, we will not.
HAMLET
Nay, but swear't.
HORATIO
In faith,
My lord, not I.
MARCELLUS
Nor I, my lord, in faith.
HAMLET
Nay, come, let's go together.

---

LORD POLONIUS
How now, Ophelia! what's the matter?
OPHELIA
O, my lord, my lord, I have been so affrighted!
LORD POLONIUS
With what, i' the name of God?
OPHELIA
My lord, as I was sewing in my closet,
Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbraced;
Pale as his shirt; his knees knocking each other;
And with a look so piteous in purport
As if he had been loosed out of hell
To speak of horrors,--he comes before me.
LORD POLONIUS
Mad for thy love?
OPHELIA
My lord, I do not know;
But truly, I do fear it.
LORD POLONIUS
What said he?
OPHELIA
He took me by the wrist and held me hard;
Then goes he to the length of all his arm;
And, with his other hand thus o'er his brow,
He falls to such perusal of my face
As he would draw it. Long stay'd he so;
At last, a little shaking of mine arm
And thrice his head thus waving up and down,
He raised a sigh so piteous and profound
As it did seem to shatter all his bulk
And end his being: that done, he lets me go:
And, with his head over his shoulder turn'd,
He seem'd to find his way without his eyes;
For out o' doors he went without their helps,
And, to the last, bended their light on me.
LORD POLONIUS
This is the very ecstasy of love,
What, have you given him any hard words of late?
OPHELIA
No, my good lord, but, as you did command,
I did repel his fetters and denied
His access to me.
LORD POLONIUS
That hath made him mad.
I am sorry that with better heed and judgment
I had not quoted him: I fear'd he did but trifle,
And meant to wreck thee; but, beshrew my jealousy!
Come, go we to the king:

---

KING CLAUDIUS
Welcome, dear Rosencrantz and Guildenstern!
Moreover that we much did long to see you,
The need we have to use you did provoke
Our hasty sending. Something have you heard
Of Hamlet's transformation; so call it,
More than his father's death, that thus hath put him
So much from the understanding of himself,
I cannot dream of: I entreat you both,
That, being of so young days brought up with him,
That you vouchsafe your rest here in our court
To draw him on to pleasures, and to gather,
So much as from occasion you may glean,
Whether aught, to us unknown, afflicts him thus,
That, open'd, lies within our remedy.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Good gentlemen, he hath much talk'd of you;
And sure I am two men there are not living
To whom he more adheres.
GUILDENSTERN
We both obey.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Thanks, Guildenstern and gentle Rosencrantz:
And I beseech you instantly to visit
My too much changed son.
GUILDENSTERN
Heavens make our presence and our practises
Pleasant and helpful to him!
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Ay, amen!
LORD POLONIUS
I have found
The very cause of Hamlet's lunacy.
Since brevity is the soul of wit,
I will be brief: your noble son is mad:
That he is mad, 'tis true: 'tis true 'tis pity;
Mad let us grant him, then: and now remains
That we find out the cause of this effect,
Or rather say, the cause of this defect,
For this effect defective comes by cause:
I have a daughter--have while she is mine--
Who, in her duty and obedience, mark,
Hath given me this: now gather, and surmise.
To the celestial and my soul's idol, the most
beautified Ophelia,'--
That's an ill phrase, a vile phrase; 'beautified' is
a vile phrase: but you shall hear. Thus:
In her excellent white bosom, these, ...and the rest!'
Doubt thou the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love.
O dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers;
I have not art to reckon my groans: but that
I love thee best, O most best, believe it. Adieu.
Thine evermore most dear lady, whilst
this machine is to him, Hamlet.'
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,
If I had play'd the desk or table-book,
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.
And he, repulsed--a short tale to make--
Fell into a sadness, then into a fast,
Thence to a lightness, and, by this declension,
Into the madness wherein now he raves,
KING CLAUDIUS
Do you think 'tis this?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
It may be, very likely.
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:
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
AsideStill harping on my
Asidedaughter: yet he knew me not at first; he said I
Asidewas a fishmonger: he is far gone, far gone: and
Asidetruly in my youth I suffered much extremity for
Asidelove; very near this.
What do you read, my lord?
HAMLET
Slanders, sir: for the satirical rogue says here
that old men have grey beards, that their faces are
wrinkled, 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.
LORD POLONIUS
AsideHow pregnant sometimes his replies are! I will
Asideleave him, and suddenly contrive the means of
Asidemeeting 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.
HAMLET
My excellent good friends! How dost thou,
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.
What make you at Elsinore?
ROSENCRANTZ
To visit you, my lord; no other occasion.
HAMLET
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. Be even and direct with me,
whether you were sent for, or no?
ROSENCRANTZ
Aside to GUILDENSTERNWhat say you?
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
Rosencrantz stifles a laughme: 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
What players are they?
ROSENCRANTZ
Even those you were wont to take delight in, the
tragedians of the city.
GUILDENSTERN
There are the players.
HAMLET
You are welcome, masters; welcome, all.
give us a taste
of your quality; come, a passionate speech.
FIRST PLAYER
What speech, my lord?
HAMLET
I heard thee speak me a speech once, but it was
never acted; or, if it was, not above once; for the
play pleased not the million
One speech in it I
chiefly loved: 'twas Aeneas' tale to Dido; and
Priam's slaughter: if it live in your memory, begin
at this line: let me see, let me see--
The rugged Pyrrhus, horridly trick'd
With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons,
And thus o'er-sized with coagulate gore,
With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus
Old grandsire Priam seeks.'
FIRST PLAYER
Anon he finds him
Pyrrhus at Priam drives; in rage strikes down
And never did the Cyclops' hammers fall
On Mars's armour forged for proof eterne
With less remorse than Pyrrhus' bleeding sword
Now falls on Priam.
HAMLET
Tis well: I'll have thee speak out the rest soon.
Good my lord, will you see the players well
bestowed?
LORD 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?
LORD POLONIUS
Come, sirs.
HAMLET
Can you play the
Murder of Gonzago?
FIRST PLAYER
Ay, my lord.
HAMLET
We'll ha't to-morrow 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 you not?
FIRST PLAYER
Ay, my lord.
HAMLET
Very well. Follow that lord; and look you mock him
not.
Is it not monstrous that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit
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!
Yet I say nothing; no, not for a king
Upon whose property and most dear life
A damn'd 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 the nose? who does me this?
Ha!
Swounds, I should take it: for it cannot be
But I am pigeon-liver'd and lack gall
That I, the son of a dear father murder'd,
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,
Must unpack my heart with words. 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 proclaim'd their malefactions;
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 he but blench,
I know my course. The spirit that I have seen
May be the devil: and the devil hath power
To assume a pleasing shape; I'll have grounds
More relative than this: the play's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.

---

LORD POLONIUS
Ophelia, walk you here.
Read on this book;
That show of such an exercise may colour
Your loneliness.
I hear him coming: let's withdraw, my lord.
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 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;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil?
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
When he himself might his quietus make
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
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;
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 re-deliver;
I pray you, now receive them.
HAMLET
No, not I;
I never gave you aught.
OPHELIA
My honour'd 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.
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; 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,
What should such fellows as I do crawling in-
between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves,
all; believe none of us. 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.
OPHELIA
O heavenly powers, restore him!
HAMLET
I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God
has given you one face, and you make yourselves
another: you jig, you amble, and you lisp, and
nick-name God's creatures, and make your wantonness
your ignorance. Go to, I'll no more on't; it hath
made me mad.
OPHELIA
O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!
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;
O, woe is me,
To have seen what I have seen, see what I see!
KING CLAUDIUS
Love! his affections do not that way tend;
Nor what he spake, though it lack'd form a little,
Was not like madness. There's something in his soul,
Will be some danger: which for to prevent,
I have in quick determination
Thus set it down: he shall with speed to England,
LORD POLONIUS
It shall do well.
But, if you hold it fit, after the play
Let his queen mother all alone entreat him
To show his grief: let her be round with him;
And I'll be placed, 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.
KING CLAUDIUS
It shall be so:
Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go.

---

HAMLET
What ho! Horatio!
HORATIO
Here, sweet lord, at your service.
HAMLET
There is a play to-night before the king;
One scene of it comes near the circumstance
Which I have told thee of my father's death:
I prithee, when thou seest that act afoot,
Observe mine uncle: if his occulted guilt
Do not itself unkennel in one speech,
It is a damned ghost that we have seen,
For I mine eyes will rivet to his face,
And after we will both our judgments join
HORATIO
Well, my lord:
HAMLET
They are coming to the play; I must be idle:
Get you a place.
KING CLAUDIUS
How fares our cousin Hamlet?
HAMLET
Excellent, i' faith; of the chameleon's dish: I eat
the air, promise-crammed: you cannot feed capons so.
KING CLAUDIUS
I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet; these words
are not mine.
HAMLET
No, nor mine now.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me.
HAMLET
No, good mother, here's metal more attractive.
Lady, shall I lie in your lap?
OPHELIA
No, my lord.
HAMLET
I mean, my head upon your lap?
OPHELIA
Ay, my lord.
HAMLET
Do you think I meant country matters?
OPHELIA
I think nothing, my lord.
HAMLET
That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs.
OPHELIA
What is, my lord?
HAMLET
Nothing.
OPHELIA
You are merry, my lord.
HAMLET
Who, I?
OPHELIA
Ay, my lord.
HAMLET
O God, your only jig-maker. What should a man do
but be merry? For, look you, how cheerfully my
mother looks, and my father died within these two hours.
OPHELIA
Nay, 'tis twice two months, my lord.
HAMLET
So long? Nay then, let the devil wear black, for
I'll have a suit of sables. O heavens! die two
months ago, and not forgotten yet? Then there's
hope a great man's memory may outlive his life half
a year: but, by'r lady, he must build churches,
then; or else shall he suffer not thinking on.
PLAYER KING
Full thirty times hath Phoebus' cart gone round
Neptune's salt wash and Tellus' orbed ground,
And thirty dozen moons with borrow'd sheen
About the world have times twelve thirties been,
Since love our hearts and Hymen did our hands
Unite commutual in most sacred bands.
PLAYER QUEEN
So many journeys may the sun and moon
Make us again count o'er ere love be done!
PLAYER KING
Sweet, leave me here awhile;
My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile
The tedious day with sleep.
PLAYER QUEEN
Sleep rock thy brain,
And never come mischance between us twain!
KING CLAUDIUS
What do you call the play?
HAMLET
The Mouse-trap. Marry, how? Tropically. This play
is the image of a murder done in Vienna: Gonzago is
the duke's name; his wife, Baptista: you shall see
anon; 'tis a knavish piece of work: but what o'
that? your majesty and we that have free souls, it
touches us not: let the galled jade wince, our
withers are unwrung.
This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king.
OPHELIA
You are as good as a chorus, my lord.
HAMLET
I could interpret between you and your love, if I
could see the puppets dallying.
OPHELIA
You are keen, my lord, you are keen.
LUCIANUS
Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing;
Confederate season, else no creature seeing;
Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected,
With Hecate's ban thrice blasted, thrice infected,
Thy natural magic and dire property,
On wholesome life usurp immediately.
HAMLET
He poisons him i' the garden for's estate. His
name's Gonzago: the story is extant, and writ in
choice Italian: you shall see anon how the murderer
gets the love of Gonzago's wife.
OPHELIA
The king rises.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
How fares my lord?
KING CLAUDIUS
Give me some light: away!
ALL
Lights, lights, lights!
HAMLET
Why, let the stricken deer go weep,
O good Horatio, I'll take the ghost's word for a
thousand pound. Didst perceive?
HORATIO
Very well, my lord.
HAMLET
Upon the talk of the poisoning?
HORATIO
I did very well note him.
HAMLET
Ah, ha! Come, some music! come, the recorders!
For if the king like not the comedy,
Why then, belike, he likes it not, perdy.
Come, some music!
GUILDENSTERN
Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you.
HAMLET
Sir, a whole history.
GUILDENSTERN
The king, sir,--
HAMLET
Ay, sir, what of him?
GUILDENSTERN
Is in his retirement marvellous distempered.
HAMLET
With drink, sir?
GUILDENSTERN
No, my lord, rather with choler.
HAMLET
Your wisdom should show itself more richer to
signify this to his doctor.
GUILDENSTERN
Good my lord, put your discourse into some frame and
start not so wildly from my affair.
HAMLET
I am tame, sir: pronounce.
GUILDENSTERN
The queen, your mother, in most great affliction of
spirit, hath sent me to you.
HAMLET
You are welcome.
GUILDENSTERN
Nay, good my lord, this courtesy is not of the right
breed. If it shall please you to make me a
wholesome answer, I will do your mother's
commandment: if not, your pardon and my return
shall be the end of my business.
HAMLET
Sir, I cannot.
GUILDENSTERN
What, my lord?
HAMLET
Make you a wholesome answer; my wit's diseased.
But to the matter; my mother, you say.
ROSENCRANTZ
Then thus she says; your behavior hath struck her
into amazement and admiration.
HAMLET
O wonderful son, that can so astonish a mother! But
is there no sequel at the heels of this mother's
admiration? Impart.
ROSENCRANTZ
She desires to speak with you in her closet, ere you
go to bed.
HAMLET
We shall obey.
ROSENCRANTZ
My lord, you once did love me.
HAMLET
So I do still.
ROSENCRANTZ
Good my lord, what is your cause of distemper? you
do, surely, bar the door upon your own liberty, if
you deny your griefs to your friend.
HAMLET
Will you play upon
this pipe?
ROSENCRANTZ
My lord, I cannot.
HAMLET
Tis as easy as lying: govern these ventages with
your fingers and thumb, give it breath with your
mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music.
Look you, these are the stops.
ROSENCRANTZ
I have not the skill.
HAMLET
Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of
me! You would play upon me; you would seem to know
my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my
mystery.
Sblood, do you think I am
easier to be played on than a pipe?
LORD POLONIUS
My lord, the queen would speak with you, and
presently.
HAMLET
Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel?
LORD POLONIUS
By the mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed.
HAMLET
Methinks it is like a weasel.
LORD POLONIUS
It is backed like a weasel.
HAMLET
Or like a whale?
LORD POLONIUS
Very like a whale.
HAMLET
Then I will come to my mother by and by.
AsideThey fool me to the top of my bent.
Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world: now could I drink hot blood,
And do such bitter business as the day
Would quake to look on. Soft! now to my mother.
I will speak daggers to her, but use none;

---

KING CLAUDIUS
I like him not, nor stands it safe with us
To let his madness range. Therefore prepare you;
I your commission will forthwith dispatch,
And he to England shall along with you:
The terms of our estate may not endure
Hazard so dangerous as doth hourly grow
Out of his lunacies.
ROSENCRANTZ
We will haste us.
LORD POLONIUS
My lord, he's going to his mother's closet:
Behind the arras I'll convey myself,
To hear the process; and warrant she'll tax him home:
I'll call upon you ere you go to bed,
And tell you what I know.
KING CLAUDIUS
Thanks, dear my lord.
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,
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?
Try what repentance can: what can it not?
Yet what can it when one can not repent?
HAMLET
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 revenged. That would be scann'd:
A villain kills my father; and for that,
I, his sole son, do this same villain send
To heaven.
O, 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 revenged,
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,
Or in the incestuous pleasure of his bed;
At gaming, swearing, or about some act
That has no relish of salvation in't;
Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven,
And that his soul may be as damn'd and black
As hell, whereto it goes. My mother stays:
This physic but prolongs thy sickly days.
KING CLAUDIUS
RisingMy words fly up, my thoughts remain below:
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

---

LORD POLONIUS
He will come straight. Look you lay home to him:
Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear with,
And that your grace hath screen'd and stood between
Much heat and him. I'll sconce me even here.
Pray you, be round with him.
HAMLET
WithinMother, mother, mother!
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Fear me not: withdraw, I hear him coming.
HAMLET
Now, mother, what's the matter?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.
HAMLET
Mother, you have my father much offended.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.
HAMLET
Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Why, how now, Hamlet!
HAMLET
What's the matter now?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Have you forgot me?
HAMLET
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 mother.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Nay, then, I'll set those to you that can speak.
HAMLET
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 GERTRUDE
What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murder me?
Help, help, ho!
LORD POLONIUS
BehindWhat, ho! help, help, help!
HAMLET
DrawingHow now! a rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead!
LORD POLONIUS
BehindO, I am slain!
QUEEN GERTRUDE
O me, what hast thou done?
HAMLET
Nay, I know not:
Is it the king?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!
HAMLET
A bloody deed! almost as bad, good mother,
As kill a king, and marry with his brother.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
As kill a king!
HAMLET
Ay, lady, 'twas my word.
Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!
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,
QUEEN GERTRUDE
What have I done, that thou darest wag thy tongue
In noise so rude against me?
HAMLET
Look here, upon this picture, and on this,
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
See, what a grace was seated on this brow;
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?
You cannot call it love; What devil was't
That thus hath cozen'd you at hoodman-blind?
O shame! where is thy blush?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
O Hamlet, speak no more:
HAMLET
Nay, but to live
In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed,
Stew'd in corruption, honeying and making love
Over the nasty sty,--
QUEEN GERTRUDE
No more, sweet Hamlet!
HAMLET
A murderer and a villain;
A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe
Of your precedent lord.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
No more!
HAMLET
Save me, and hover o'er me with your wings,
You heavenly guards! What would your gracious figure?
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.
HAMLET
How is it with you, lady?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Alas, how is't with you,
That you do bend your eye on vacancy
And with the incorporal air do hold discourse?
To whom do you speak this?
HAMLET
Do you see nothing there?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.
HAMLET
Nor did you nothing hear?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
No, nothing but ourselves.
HAMLET
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!
QUEEN GERTRUDE
This the very coinage of your brain:
HAMLET
Mother, for love of grace
Lay not that mattering unction to your soul,
That not your trespass, but my madness speaks:
Whilst rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven;
Repent what's past; avoid what is to come;
QUEEN GERTRUDE
O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.
HAMLET
O, throw away the worser part of it,
And live the purer with the other half.
Good night: but go not to mine uncle's bed;
For this same lord,
I do repent: but heaven hath pleased it so,
To punish me with this and this with me,
Good night, mother.

---

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Ah, my good lord, what have I seen to-night!
KING CLAUDIUS
What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
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 CLAUDIUS
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?
Where is he gone?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
To draw apart the body he hath kill'd:
he weeps for what is done.
KING CLAUDIUS
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.
How dangerous is it that this man goes loose!
Yet must not we put the strong law on him:
He's loved of the distracted multitude,
Who like not in their judgment, but their eyes;
Now, Hamlet, where's Polonius?
HAMLET
At supper.
KING CLAUDIUS
At supper! where?
HAMLET
Not where he eats, but where he is eaten: a certain
convocation of politic worms are e'en at him. Your
worm is your only emperor for diet: we fat all
creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for
maggots: your fat king and your lean beggar is but
variable service, two dishes, but to one table:
that's the end.
KING CLAUDIUS
Alas, alas!
HAMLET
A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a
king, and cat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.
KING CLAUDIUS
What dost you mean by this?
HAMLET
Nothing but to show you how a king may go a
progress through the guts of a beggar.
KING CLAUDIUS
Where is Polonius?
HAMLET
In heaven; send hither to see: if your messenger
find him not there, seek him i' the other place
yourself. But indeed, if you find him not within
this month, you shall nose him as you go up the
stairs into the lobby.
KING CLAUDIUS
To GertrudeGo seek him there.
HAMLET
He will stay till ye come.
KING CLAUDIUS
Hamlet, this deed, for thine especial safety,--
Which we do tender, as we dearly grieve
For that which thou hast done,--must send thee hence
With fiery quickness: therefore prepare thyself;
The bark is ready, and the wind at help,
The associates tend, and every thing is bent
For England.
HAMLET
For England! Farewell, dear mother.
KING CLAUDIUS
Thy loving father, Hamlet.
HAMLET
My mother: father and mother is man and wife; man
and wife is one flesh; and so, my mother. Come, for England!
KING CLAUDIUS
Follow him at foot; tempt him with speed aboard;
Delay it not; I'll have him hence to-night:
Away! for every thing is seal'd and done
That else leans on the affair: pray you, make haste.
And, England, if my love thou hold'st at aught--
Our sovereign process; doth import at full
By letters congruing to that effect,
The present death of Hamlet. Do it, England;
For like the hectic in my blood he rages,
And thou must cure me: till I know 'tis done,
Howe'er my haps, my joys were ne'er begun.

---

OPHELIA
Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?
KING CLAUDIUS
How do you, pretty lady?
OPHELIA
Well, God 'ild you! They say the owl was a baker's
daughter. Lord, we know what we are, but know not
what we may be. God be at your table!
KING CLAUDIUS
Conceit upon her father.
OPHELIA
Pray you, let's have no words of this; but when they
ask you what it means, say you this:
To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day,
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,
To be your Valentine.
Then up he rose, and donn'd his clothes,
And dupp'd the chamber-door;
Let in the maid, that out a maid
Never departed more.
KING CLAUDIUS
Pretty Ophelia!
OPHELIA
By Gis and by Saint Charity,
Alack, and fie for shame!
Young men will do't, if they come to't;
By cock, they are to blame.
Quoth she, before you tumbled me,
You promised me to wed.
So would I ha' done, by yonder sun,
An thou hadst not come to my bed.
KING CLAUDIUS
How long hath she been thus?
OPHELIA
I hope all will be well. We must be patient: but I
cannot choose but weep, to think they should lay him
i' the cold ground. My brother shall know of it:
and so I thank you for your good counsel. Come, my
coach! Good night, ladies; good night, sweet ladies;
good night, good night.
KING CLAUDIUS
O, this is the poison of deep grief; it springs
All from her father's death. O Gertrude, Gertrude,
When sorrows come, they come not single spies
But in battalions. First, her father slain:
Next, your son gone; and he most violent author
Of his own just remove: the people muddied,
Thick and unwholesome in their thoughts and whispers,
For good Polonius' death; and we have done but greenly,
In hugger-mugger to inter him: poor Ophelia
Divided from herself and her fair judgment,
Her brother is in secret come from France;
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Alack, what noise is this?
LAERTES
Where is this king? O thou vile king,
Give me my father!
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Calmly, good Laertes.
KING CLAUDIUS
What is the cause, Laertes,
That thy rebellion looks so giant-like?
Let him go, Gertrude. Tell me, Laertes,
Why thou art thus incensed.
LAERTES
Where is my father?
KING CLAUDIUS
Dead.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
But not by him.
KING CLAUDIUS
Let him demand his fill.
LAERTES
How came he dead? I'll not be juggled with:
To hell, allegiance! vows, to the blackest devil!
Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit!
I dare damnation. To this point I stand,
That both the worlds I give to negligence,
Let come what comes; only I'll be revenged
Most thoroughly for my father.
KING CLAUDIUS
That I am guiltless of your father's death,
And am most sensible in grief for it,
It shall as level to your judgment pierce
As day does to your eye.
LAERTES
How now! what noise is that?
Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!
OPHELIA
They bore him barefaced on the bier;
Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny;
And in his grave rain'd many a tear:--
Fare you well, my dove!
LAERTES
Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge,
It could not move thus.
OPHELIA
There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray,
love, remember: and there is pansies. that's for thoughts.
LAERTES
A document in madness, thoughts and remembrance fitted.
OPHELIA
There's fennel for you, and columbines: there's rue
for you; and here's some for me: we may call it
herb-grace o' Sundays: O you must wear your rue with
a difference. There's a daisy: I would give you
some violets, but they withered all when my father
died: they say he made a good end,--
For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.
And will he not come again?
And will he not come again?
No, no, he is dead:
Go to thy death-bed:
He never will come again.
God ha' mercy on his soul!
And of all Christian souls, I pray God. God be wi' ye.
LAERTES
Do you see this, O God?
KING CLAUDIUS
Laertes, I must commune with your grief,
Or you deny me right. Go but apart,
Make choice of whom your wisest friends you will.
And they shall hear and judge 'twixt you and me:
LAERTES
His means of death, his obscure funeral--
No trophy, sword, nor hatchment o'er his bones,
No noble rite nor formal ostentation--
That I must call't in question.
KING CLAUDIUS
So you shall;
And where the offence is let the great axe fall.
I pray you, go with me.

---

MESSENGER
There's a letter for
you, sir; it comes from the ambassador that was
bound for England;
HORATIO
ReadsHoratio, when thou shalt have overlooked
this, give these fellows some means to the king:
they have letters for him. Ere we were two days old
at sea, a pirate of very warlike appointment gave us
chase. Finding ourselves too slow of sail, we put on
a compelled valour, and in the grapple I boarded
them: on the instant they got clear of our ship; so
I alone became their prisoner. They have dealt with
me like thieves of mercy: but they knew what they
did; I am to do a good turn for them. Let the king
have the letters I have sent; and repair thou to me
with as much speed as thou wouldst fly death. I
have words to speak in thine ear will make thee
dumb; yet are they much too light for the bore of
the matter. These good fellows will bring thee
where I am. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern hold their
course for England: of them I have much to tell
thee. Farewell.
He that thou knowest thine, HAMLET.'

---

KING CLAUDIUS
Now must your conscience my acquaintance seal,
And you must put me in your heart for friend,
Sith you have heard, and with a knowing ear,
That he which hath your noble father slain
Pursued my life.
LAERTES
It well appears: but tell me
Why you proceeded not against these feats,
So crimeful and so capital in nature,
KING CLAUDIUS
O, for two special reasons; The queen his mother
Lives almost by his looks; and for myself--
I could not but by her. The other motive,
Why to a public count I might not go,
Is the great love the general gender bear him;
KING CLAUDIUS
Break not your sleeps for that: you must not think
That we are made of stuff so flat and dull
That we can let our beard be shook with danger
And think it pastime. You shortly shall hear more:
I loved your father, and we love ourself;
And that, I hope, will teach you to imagine--
How now! what news?
MESSENGER
Letters, my lord, from Hamlet:
This to your majesty; this to the queen.
KING CLAUDIUS
From Hamlet! who brought them?
MESSENGER
Sailors, my lord, they say; I saw them not:
They were given me by Claudio; he received them
Of him that brought them.
KING CLAUDIUS
Laertes, you shall hear them. Leave us.
High and mighty, You shall know I am set naked on
your kingdom. To-morrow shall I beg leave to see
your kingly eyes: when I shall, first asking your
pardon thereunto, recount the occasion of my sudden
and more strange return. 'HAMLET.'
What should this mean? Are all the rest come back?
Or is it some abuse, and no such thing?
LAERTES
I'm lost in it, my lord. But let him come;
KING CLAUDIUS
Will you be ruled by me?
LAERTES
Ay, my lord;
KING CLAUDIUS
If he be now return'd, I will work him
To an exploit, now ripe in my device,
Under the which he shall not choose but fall:
And for his death no wind of blame shall breathe,
But even his mother shall uncharge the practise
And call it accident.
LAERTES
My lord, I will be ruled;
The rather, if you could devise it so
That I might be the organ.
KING CLAUDIUS
It falls right.
You have been talk'd of since your travel much,
And that in Hamlet's hearing, for a quality
Wherein, they say, you shine
For art and exercise in your defence
And for your rapier most especially,
Sir, this report did Hamlet so envenom
That he could nothing do but wish and beg
Your sudden coming o'er, to play with him.
Now, out of this,--
LAERTES
What out of this, my lord?
KING CLAUDIUS
Hamlet comes back: what would you undertake,
To show yourself your father's son in deed
More than in words?
LAERTES
To cut his throat i' the church.
KING CLAUDIUS
Revenge should have no bounds. But, good Laertes,
Will you do this, keep close within your chamber.
Hamlet return'd shall know you are come home:
We'll put on those shall praise your excellence
And wager on your heads: he, being remiss,
Most generous and free from all contriving,
Will not peruse the foils; so that, with ease,
Or with a little shuffling, you may choose
A sword unbated, and in a pass of practise
Requite him for your father.
LAERTES
I will do't:
And, for that purpose, I'll anoint my sword.
I bought an unction of a mountebank,
So mortal that, but dip a knife in it,
Where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare,
Collected from all simples that have virtue
Under the moon, can save the thing from death
That is but scratch'd withal: I'll touch my point
With this contagion, that, if I gall him slightly,
It may be death.
KING CLAUDIUS
Let's further think of this; if this should fail,
And that our drift look through our bad performance,
Twere better not assay'd: therefore this project
Should have a back or second, that might hold,
When in your motion you are hot and dry--
And that he calls for drink, I'll have prepared him
A chalice for the nonce, whereon but sipping,
If he by chance escape your venom'd stuck,
Our purpose may hold there.
How now, sweet queen!
QUEEN GERTRUDE
One woe doth tread upon another's heel,
So fast they follow; your sister's drown'd, Laertes.
LAERTES
Drown'd! O, where?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
There is a willow grows aslant a brook,
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream;
There with fantastic garlands did she come
Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples
There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds
Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke;
When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide;
And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up:
Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes;
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indued
Unto that element: but long it could not be
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.
LAERTES
Alas, then, she is drown'd?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Drown'd.
LAERTES
Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia,
And therefore I forbid my tears.
KING CLAUDIUS
Let's follow, Gertrude:
How much I had to do to calm his rage!
Now fear I this will give it start again;

---

GRAVEDIGGER 1
Is she to be buried in Christian burial that
wilfully seeks her own salvation?
GRAVEDIGGER 2
I tell thee she is: and therefore make her grave
straight: the crowner hath sat on her, and finds it
Christian burial.
GRAVEDIGGER 1
How can that be, unless she drowned herself in her
own defence?
GRAVEDIGGER 2
Why, 'tis found so.
GRAVEDIGGER 1
It must be 'se offendendo;' it cannot be else. For
here lies the point: if I drown myself wittingly,
it argues an act: and an act hath three branches: it
is, to act, to do, to perform: argal, she drowned
herself wittingly.
GRAVEDIGGER 2
Nay, but hear you, goodman delver,--
GRAVEDIGGER 1
Give me leave. Here lies the water; good: here
stands the man; good; if the man go to this water,
and drown himself, it is, will he, nill he, he
goes,--mark you that; but if the water come to him
and drown him, he drowns not himself: argal, he
that is not guilty of his own death shortens not his own life.
GRAVEDIGGER 2
But is this law?
GRAVEDIGGER 1
Ay, marry, is't; crowner's quest law.
GRAVEDIGGER 2
Will you ha' the truth on't? If this had not been
a gentlewoman, she should have been buried out o'
Christian burial.
GRAVEDIGGER 1
Why, there thou say'st: and the more pity that
great folk should have countenance in this world to
drown or hang themselves, more than their even
Christian. Come, my spade.
What is he that builds stronger than either the
mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?
GRAVEDIGGER 2
The gallows-maker; for that frame outlives a
thousand tenants.
GRAVEDIGGER 1
I like thy wit well, in good faith. To't again.
GRAVEDIGGER 2
Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or
a carpenter?'
GRAVEDIGGER 1
Ay, tell me that, and unyoke.
GRAVEDIGGER 2
Marry, now I can tell.
GRAVEDIGGER 1
To't.
GRAVEDIGGER 2
Mass, I cannot tell.
GRAVEDIGGER 1
Cudgel thy brains no more about it, and, when
you are asked this question next, say 'a
grave-maker: 'the houses that he makes last till
doomsday.
HAMLET
Whose grave's this, sirrah?
GRAVEDIGGER 1
Mine, sir.
HAMLET
What man dost thou dig it for?
GRAVEDIGGER 1
For no man, sir.
HAMLET
What woman, then?
GRAVEDIGGER 1
For none, neither.
HAMLET
Who is to be buried in't?
GRAVEDIGGER 1
One that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she's dead.
HAMLET
How absolute the knave is! we must speak by the
card. How long hast thou been a grave-maker?
GRAVEDIGGER 1
Of all the days i' the year, I came to't that day
that our last king Hamlet overcame Fortinbras.
HAMLET
How long is that since?
GRAVEDIGGER 1
Cannot you tell that? every fool can tell that: it
was the very day that young Hamlet was born; he that
is mad, and sent into England.
HAMLET
Ay, marry, why was he sent into England?
GRAVEDIGGER 1
Why, because he was mad: he shall recover his wits
there; or, if he do not, it's no great matter there.
HAMLET
Why?
GRAVEDIGGER 1
Twill not be seen in him there; there the men
are as mad as he.
HAMLET
How came he mad?
GRAVEDIGGER 1
Very strangely, they say.
HAMLET
How strangely?
GRAVEDIGGER 1
Faith, e'en with losing his wits.
HAMLET
Upon what ground?
GRAVEDIGGER 1
Why, here in Denmark: I have been sexton here, man
and boy, thirty years.
HAMLET
How long will a man lie i' the earth ere he rot?
GRAVEDIGGER 1
I' faith, if he be not rotten before he die--as we
have many pocky corses now-a-days, that will scarce
hold the laying in--he will last you some eight year
or nine year: a tanner will last you nine year.
HAMLET
Why he more than another?
GRAVEDIGGER 1
Why, sir, his hide is so tanned with his trade, that
he will keep out water a great while; and your water
is a sore decayer of your whoreson dead body.
Here's a skull. Now this skill has lain in the earth
three and twenty years.
HAMLET
Whose was it?
GRAVEDIGGER 1
A whoreson mad fellow's it was: whose do you think it was?
HAMLET
Nay, I know not.
GRAVEDIGGER 1
A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! a' poured a
flagon of Rhenish on my head once. This same skull,
sir, was Yorick's skull, the king's jester.
HAMLET
This?
GRAVEDIGGER 1
E'en that.
HAMLET
Let me see.
Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow
of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath
borne me on his back a thousand times;
Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know
not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your
gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment,
that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one
now, to mock your own grinning? Horatio, tell
me one thing.
HORATIO
What's that, my lord?
HAMLET
Dost thou think Alexander looked o' this fashion i'
the earth?
HORATIO
E'en so.
HAMLET
And smelt so? pah!
Puts down the skull
HORATIO
E'en so, my lord.
HAMLET
But soft! but soft! aside: here comes the king.
The queen: who is this they follow?
LAERTES
What ceremony else?
HAMLET
That is Laertes,
A very noble youth: mark.
LAERTES
What ceremony else?
PRIEST
Her obsequies have been as far enlarged
As we have warrantise: her death was doubtful;
And, but that great command o'ersways the order,
She should in ground unsanctified have lodged
Till the last trumpet: for charitable prayers,
Shards, flints and pebbles should be thrown on her;
Yet here she is allow'd her virgin crants,
Her maiden strewments and the bringing home
Of bell and burial.
LAERTES
Must there no more be done?
PRIEST
No more be done:
We should profane the service of the dead
To sing a requiem and such rest to her
As to peace-parted souls.
LAERTES
Lay her i' the earth:
And from her fair and unpolluted flesh
May violets spring! I tell thee, churlish priest,
A ministering angel shall my sister be,
When thou liest howling.
HAMLET
What, the fair Ophelia!
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Sweets to the sweet: farewell!
I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet's wife;
I thought thy bride-bed to have deck'd, sweet maid,
And not have strew'd thy grave.
LAERTES
O, treble woe
Fall ten times treble on that cursed head,
Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense
Deprived thee of! Hold off the earth awhile,
Till I have caught her once more in mine arms:
Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead,
HAMLET
AdvancingWhat is he whose grief
Bears such an emphasis?
LAERTES
The devil take thy soul!
HAMLET
I prithee, take thy fingers from my throat;
KING CLAUDIUS
SimultaneouslyPluck them asunder.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
SimultaneouslyHamlet, Hamlet!
ALL
SimultaneouslyGentlemen,--
HORATIO
SimultaneouslyGood my lord,
HAMLET
Why I will fight with him upon this theme
Until my eyelids will no longer wag.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
O my son, what theme?
HAMLET
I loved Ophelia: forty thousand brothers
Could not, with all their quantity of love,
Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?
KING CLAUDIUS
O, he is mad, Laertes.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
For love of God, forbear him.
HAMLET
Swounds, show me what thou'lt do:
Woo't weep? woo't fight? woo't fast? woo't tear thyself?
Woo't drink up eisel? eat a crocodile?
I'll do't. Dost thou come here to whine?
To outface me with leaping in her grave?
Be buried quick with her, and so will I:
I'll rant as well as thou.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
This is mere madness:
KING CLAUDIUS
I pray you, good Horatio, wait upon him.
Strengthen your patience in our last night's speech;
Good Gertrude, set some watch over your son.

---

HAMLET
So much for this, sir: now shall you see the other;
You do remember all the circumstance?
HORATIO
Remember it, my lord?
HAMLET
Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting,
That would not let me sleep.
There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will,--
Up from my cabin,
My sea-gown scarf'd about me, in the dark
Groped I to find out them; had my desire.
Finger'd their packet, and in fine withdrew
To mine own room again; making so bold,
My fears forgetting manners, to unseal
Their grand commission; where I found, Horatio,--
O royal knavery!--an exact command,
Larded with many several sorts of reasons
Importing Denmark's health and England's too,
With, ho! such bugs and goblins in my life,
That, on the supervise, no leisure bated,
No, not to stay the grinding of the axe,
My head should be struck off.
HORATIO
Is't possible?
HAMLET
Here's the commission: read it at more leisure.
But wilt thou hear me how I did proceed?
HORATIO
I beseech you.
HAMLET
Being thus be-netted round with villanies,--
Ere I could make a prologue to my brains,
They had begun the play--I sat me down,
Devised a new commission, wilt thou know
The effect of what I wrote?
HORATIO
Ay, good my lord.
HAMLET
An earnest conjuration from the king,
As England was his faithful tributary,
As love between them like the palm might flourish,
As peace should stiff her wheaten garland wear
And stand a comma 'tween their amities,
And many such-like 'As'es of great charge,
That, on the view and knowing of these contents,
Without debatement further, more or less,
He should the bearers put to sudden death,
Not shriving-time allow'd.
HORATIO
How was this seal'd?
HAMLET
Why, even in that was heaven ordinant.
I had my father's signet in my purse,
Which was the model of that Danish seal;
Folded the writ up in form of the other,
Subscribed it, gave't the impression, placed it safely,
The changeling never known. Now, the next day
Was our sea-fight; and what to this was sequent
Thou know'st already.
HORATIO
So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to't.
HAMLET
Why, man, they did make love to this employment;
They are not near my conscience; their defeat
Does by their own insinuation grow:
HORATIO
Why, what a king is this!
HAMLET
Does it not, think'st thee, stand me now upon--
He that hath kill'd my king and whored my mother,
Popp'd in between the election and my hopes,
And with such cozenage--is't not perfect conscience,
To quit him with this arm?
HORATIO
It must be shortly known to him from England
What is the issue of the business there.
HAMLET
It will be short: the interim is mine;
But I am very sorry, good Horatio,
That to Laertes I forgot myself;
HORATIO
Peace! who comes here?
OSRIC
Your lordship is right welcome back to Denmark.
HAMLET
I humbly thank you, sir.
OSRIC
My lord, his
majesty bade me signify to you that he has laid a
great wager on your head.
Sir, here is newly come to court Laertes; believe
me, an absolute gentleman, full of most excellent
differences, of very soft society and great showing:
indeed, to speak feelingly of him, he is the card or
calendar of gentry, for you shall find in him the
continent of what part a gentleman would see.
HAMLET
What imports the nomination of this gentleman?
OSRIC
Of Laertes?
HORATIO
His purse is empty already; all's golden words are spent.
HAMLET
Of him, sir.
OSRIC
You are not ignorant of what excellence Laertes is--
HAMLET
What's his weapon?
OSRIC
Rapier and dagger.
The king, sir, hath laid, that in a dozen passes
between yourself and him, he shall not exceed you
three hits: he hath laid on twelve for nine; and it
would come to immediate trial, if your lordship
would vouchsafe the answer.
HAMLET
Sir, I will walk here in the hall: if it please his
majesty, let
the foils be brought, the gentleman willing, and the
king hold his purpose, I will win for him an I can;
if not, I will gain nothing but my shame and the odd hits.
OSRIC
I commend my duty to your lordship.
HORATIO
You will lose this wager, my lord.
HAMLET
I do not think so: since he went into France, I
have been in continual practise: I shall win at the
odds. But thou wouldst not think how ill all's here
about my heart: but it is no matter.
HORATIO
If your mind dislike any thing, obey it: I will
forestall their repair hither, and say you are not
fit.
HAMLET
Not a whit, we defy augury: there's a special
providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now,
tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be
now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the
readiness is all: since no man has aught of what he
leaves, what is't to leave betimes?
KING CLAUDIUS
Come, Hamlet, come, and take this hand from me.
HAMLET
Give us the foils. Come on.
LAERTES
Come, one for me.
KING CLAUDIUS
Give them the foils, young Osric. Cousin Hamlet,
You know the wager?
HAMLET
Very well, my lord
Your grace hath laid the odds o' the weaker side.
KING CLAUDIUS
I do not fear it; I have seen you both:
But since he is better'd, we have therefore odds.
LAERTES
This is too heavy, let me see another.
HAMLET
This likes me well. These foils have all a length?
OSRIC
Ay, my good lord.
KING CLAUDIUS
Set me the stoops of wine upon that table.
If Hamlet give the first or second hit,
Or quit in answer of the third exchange,
The king shall drink to Hamlet's better breath;
And in the cup an union shall he throw,
Richer than that which four successive kings
In Denmark's crown have worn. Give me the cups;
HAMLET
Come on, sir.
LAERTES
Come, my lord.
HAMLET
One.
LAERTES
No.
HAMLET
Judgment.
OSRIC
A hit, a very palpable hit.
LAERTES
Well; again.
KING CLAUDIUS
Stay; give me drink. Hamlet, this pearl is thine;
Here's to thy health.
Give him the cup.
HAMLET
I'll play this bout first; set it by awhile. Come.
Another hit; what say you?
LAERTES
A touch, a touch, I do confess.
KING CLAUDIUS
Our son shall win.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Here, Hamlet, take my napkin, rub thy brows;
The queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet.
HAMLET
Good madam!
KING CLAUDIUS
Gertrude, do not drink.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
I will, my lord; I pray you, pardon me.
KING CLAUDIUS
AsideIt is the poison'd cup: it is too late.
HAMLET
I dare not drink yet, madam; by and by.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Come, let me wipe thy face.
LAERTES
My lord, I'll hit him now.
KING CLAUDIUS
I do not think't.
LAERTES
AsideAnd yet 'tis almost 'gainst my conscience.
HAMLET
Come, for the third, Laertes: you but dally;
I pray you, pass with your best violence;
I am afeard you make a wanton of me.
LAERTES
Say you so? come on.
OSRIC
Nothing, neither way.
LAERTES
Have at you now!
KING CLAUDIUS
Part them; they are incensed.
HAMLET
Nay, come, again.
OSRIC
Look to the queen there, ho!
HORATIO
They bleed on both sides. How is it, my lord?
OSRIC
How is't, Laertes?
LAERTES
Why, as a woodcock to mine own springe, Osric;
I am justly kill'd with mine own treachery.
HAMLET
How does the queen?
KING CLAUDIUS
She swounds to see them bleed.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
No, no, the drink, the drink,--O my dear Hamlet,--
The drink, the drink! I am poison'd.
HAMLET
O villany! Ho! let the door be lock'd:
Treachery! Seek it out.
LAERTES
It is here, Hamlet: Hamlet, thou art slain;
No medicine in the world can do thee good;
In thee there is not half an hour of life;
The treacherous instrument is in thy hand,
Unbated and envenom'd: the foul practise
Hath turn'd itself on me lo, here I lie,
Never to rise again: thy mother's poison'd:
I can no more: the king, the king's to blame.
HAMLET
The point!--envenom'd too!
Then, venom, to thy work.
ALL
Treason! treason!
KING CLAUDIUS
O, yet defend me, friends; I am but hurt.
HAMLET
Here, thou incestuous, murderous, damned Dane,
Drink off this potion. Is thy union here?
Follow my mother.
LAERTES
He is justly served;
It is a poison temper'd by himself.
Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet:
Mine and my father's death come not upon thee,
Nor thine on me.
HAMLET
Heaven make thee free of it! I follow thee.
I am dead, Horatio. Wretched queen, adieu!
HORATIO
Here's yet some liquor left.
HAMLET
As thou'rt a man,
Give me the cup: let go; by heaven, I'll have't.
O, I die, Horatio;
The rest is silence.