The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of DenmarkeIV

There’s matters in these sighs.

These profound heaves

You must translate; tis fit we understand them.

2505 Where is your son?

Ah my good lord, what have I seen tonight?

What Gertrude? How does Hamlet?

Mad as the seas, and wind, when both contend

Which is the mightier in his lawless fit

2510 Behind the arras, hearing something stir,

He whips his rapier out, and cries a rat, a rat,

And in his brainish apprehension kills

The unseen good old man.

Oh heavy deed:

2515 It had been so with us had we been there:

His liberty is full of threats to all,

To you yourself, to us, to everyone.

Alas, how shall this bloody deed be answered?

It will be laid to us, whose providence

2520 Should have kept short, restrained, and out of haunt,

This mad young man. But so much was our love,

We would not understand what was most fit,

But like the owner of a foul disease,

To keep it from divulging, let’s it feed

2525 Even on the pith of life. Where is he gone?

To draw apart the body he hath killed,

O’er whom his very madness like some ore

Among a mineral of metals base

Shows itself pure. He weeps for what is done.

2530 Oh Gertrude, come away:

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.

2535 Ho Guildenstern:

Friends both go join you with some further aid:

Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain,

And from his mother’s closet hath he dragged him.

Go seek him out, speak fair, and bring the body

2540 Into the chapel. I pray you haste in this.

Come Gertrude, we'll call up our wisest friends,

To let them know both what we mean to do,

And what’s untimely done. Oh come away,

My soul is full of discord and dismay.

2545 Safely stowed.

Hamlet, Lord Hamlet.

What noise? Who calls on Hamlet?

Oh here they come.

What have you done my lord with the dead body?

2550 Compounded it with dust, whereto ’tis kin.

Tell us where ’tis, that we may take it thence,

And bear it to the chapel.

Do not believe it.

Believe what?

2555 That I can keep your counsel, and not mine own. Besides, to be demanded of a sponge, what replication should be made by the son of a king.

Take you me for a sponge, my lord?

I sir, that soaks up the King’s countenance, his rewards, his authorities (but such officers do the King best service in the end. He keeps them like an ape in the corner of his jaw, first mouthed to be last swallowed, when he needs what you have gleaned[…], it is but squeezing you, and sponge you shall be dry again.

2565 I understand you not my lord.

I am glad of it: a knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear.

My lord, you must tell us where the body is, and go with us to the King.

2570 The body is with the King, but the King is not with the body. The King, is a thing ⸺

A thing my lord?

Of nothing: bring me to him, hide fox, and all after.

2575 I have sent to seek him, and to find the body:

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:

2580 And where ’tis so, th’offender’s scourge is weighed

But never the offence: to bear all smooth, and even,

This sudden sending him away, must seem

Deliberate pause, diseases desperate grown,

By desperate appliance are relieved,

2585 Or not at all.

How now? What hath befallen?

Where the dead body is bestowed my lord,

We cannot get from him.

But where is he?

2590 Without my lord, guarded to know your pleasure.

Bring him before us.

Hoa, Guildenstern? Bring in my lord.

Now Hamlet, where’s Polonius?

At supper.

2595 At supper? Where?

Not where he eats, but where he is eaten, a certain convocation of 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 ourself for maggots. Your fat king, and your lean beggar is but variable service to dishes, but to one table that’s the end.

What dost thou mean by this?

Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar.

2605 Where is Polonius.

In heaven, send thither to see. If your messenger find him not there, seek him i’th other place yourself: but indeed, if you find him not this month, you shall nose him as you go up the stairs into the lobby.

2610 Go seek him there.

He will stay till ye come.

Hamlet, this deed of thine, for thine especial safety

Which we do tender, as we dearly grieve

For that which thou hast done, must send thee hence

2615 With fiery quickness. Therefore prepare thyself,

The bark is ready, and the wind at help,

Th’Associates tend, and everything at bent

For England.

For England?

2620 I Hamlet.

Good.

So is it, if thou knew’st our purposes.

I see a cherub that sees him: but come, for England. Farewell dear mother.

2625 Thy loving father Hamlet.

My mother: Father and mother is man and wife: man & wife is one flesh, and so my mother. Come, for England.

Follow him at foot,

2630 Tempt him with speed aboard:

Delay it not, I'll have him hence tonight.

Away, for everything is sealed and done

That else leans on th’Affair, pray you make haste.

And England, if my love thou hold’st at aught,

2635 As my great power thereof may give thee sense,

Since yet thy cicatrice looks raw and red

After the Danish sword, and thy free awe

Pays homage to us; thou mayst not coldly set

Our sovereign process, which imports at full

2640 By letters conjuring 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.

2645 Go captain, from me greet the Danish King,

Tell him that by his license, Fortinbras

Claims the conveyance of a promised march

Over his kingdom. You know the rendezvous:

If that his majesty would aught with us,

2650 We shall express our duty in his eye,

And let him know so.

I will do't, my lord.

Go safely on.

I will not speak with her.

2655 She is importunate, indeed distract her mood will needs be pitied.

What would she have?

She speaks much of her father; says she hears

There’s tricks i’th world, and hems, and beats her heart,

2660 Spurns enviously at straws, speaks things in doubt,

That carry but half sense: Her speech is nothing,

Yet the unshapèd use of it doth move

The hearers to collection; they aim at it,

And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts,

2665 Which as her winks, and nods, and gestures yield them,

Indeed would make one think there would be thought,

Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.

’Twere good she were spoken with,

For she may strew dangerous conjectures

2670 In ill breeding minds. Let her come in.

To my sick soul (as sin’s true nature is)

Each toy seems prologue, to some great amiss,

So full of artless jealousy is guilt,

It spills itself, in fearing to be spilt.

2675 Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark.

How now Ophelia?

How should I your true love know from another one?

By his cockle hat and staff, and his sandal shoon.

Alas sweet lady: what imports this song?

2680 Say you? Nay pray you mark.

He is dead and gone lady, he is dead and gone,

At his head a grass-green turf, at his heels a stone.

Nay but Ophelia.

Pray you mark.

2685 White his shroud as the mountain snow.

Alas, look here my lord.

Larded with sweet flowers:

rend="italic">Which bewept to the grave did not go,

With true-love showers.

2690 How do ye, pretty lady?

Well, God dil’d 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.

Conceit upon her father.

2695 Pray you let’s have no words of this: but when they ask you what it means, say you this:

Tomorrow 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, & donned his clothes, & dupped the chamber door,

2700 Let in the maid, that out a maid, never departed more.

Pretty Ophelia.

Indeed la? Without an oath I'll make an end on’t.

By gis, and by Saint Charity,

Alack, and fie for shame:

2705 Young men will do't, if they come to't,

By Cock they are too blame.

Quoth she before you tumbled me,

You promised me to wed:

So would I ha done by yonder sun,

2710 And thou hadst not come to my bed.

How long hath she been this?

I hope all will be well. We must be patient, but I cannot choose but weep, to think they should lay him i’th 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, goodnight.

Follow her close,

Give her good watch I pray you:

2720 Oh this is the poison of deep grief, it springs

All from her father’s death. Oh Gertrude, Gertrude,

When sorrows comes, they come not single spies,

But in battalias. First, her father slain,

Next your son gone, and he most violent author

2725 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,

2730 Without the which we are pictures, or mere beasts.

Last, and as much containing as all these,

Her brother is in secret come from France,

Keeps on his wonder, keeps himself in clouds,

And wants not buzzers to infect his ear

2735 With pestilent speeches of his father’s death,

Wherein necessity of matter beggared,

Will nothing stick our persons to arraign

In ear and ear. O my dear Gertrude, this,

Like to a murdering piece in many places,

2740 Gives me superfluous death.

Alack, what noise is this?

Where are my Switzers?

Let them guard the door. What is the matter?

Save yourself, my lord.

2745 The ocean (overpeering of his list)

Eats not the flats with more impiteous haste

Than young Laertes, in a riotous head,

O’erbears your officers, the rabble call him lord,

And as the world were now but to begin,

2750 Antiquity forgot, custom not known,

The ratifiers and props of every word,

They cry choose we? Laertes shall be king,

Caps, hands, and tongues, applaud it to the clouds,

Laertes shall be king, Laertes king.

2755 How cheerfully on the false trail they cry.

Oh this is counter you false Danish dogs.

The doors are broke.

Where is the king, sirs? Stand you all without.

No, let’s come in.

2760 I pray you give me leave.

We will, we will.

I thank you: Keep the door.

Oh thou vile king, give me my father.

Calmly good Laertes.

2765 That drop of blood, that calms

Proclaims me bastard:

Cries Cuckold to my father, brands the harlot

Even here between the chaste unsmirchèd brow

Of my true mother.

2770 What is the cause Laertes,

That thy rebellion looks so giant-like?

Let him go Gertrude: Do not fear our person:

There’s such divinity doth hedge a king,

That treason can but peep to what it would,

2775 Acts little of his will. Tell me Laertes,

Why thou art thus incensed? Let him go Gertrude.

Speak man.

Where’s my father?

Dead.

2780 But not by him.

Let him demand his fill.

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.

2785 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 throughly for my father.

Who shall stay you?

2790 My will, not all the world,

And for, my means, I'll husband them so well,

They shall go far with little.

Good Laertes:

If you desire to know the certainty

2795 Of your dear father’s death, if writ in your revenge,

That swoopstake you will draw both friend and foe,

Winner and loser.

None but his enemies.

Will you know them then.

2800 To his good friends, thus wide I'll ope[…]my arms:

And like the kind life-rend’ring politician,

Repast them with my blood.

Why now you speak

Like a good child, and a true gentleman.

2805 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.

Let her come in.

2810 How now? what noise is that?

Oh heat dry up my brains, tears seven times salt,

Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye.

By heaven, thy madness shall be paid by weight,

Till our scale turns the beam. Oh rose of May,

2815 Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia:

Oh heavens, is’t possible, a young maid’s wits,

Should be as mortal as an old man’s life?

Nature is fine in love, and where ’tis fine,

It sends some precious instance of itself

2820 After the thing it loves.

They bore him bare faced on the bier,

Hey non nonny nonny, hey nonny:

And on his grave rains many a tear,

Fare you well my dove.

2825 Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge, it could not move thus.

You must sing down a-down, and you call him a-down-a. Oh, how the wheel becomes it? It is the false steward that stole his master’s daughter.

2830 This nothing’s more than matter.

There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance. Pray love remember: and there is pansies, that’s for thoughts.

A document in madness, thoughts & remembrance fitted.

There’s fennel for you, and columbines: there's rue for you, and here's some for me. We may call it herb grace a Sundays: Oh 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.

Thought, and affliction, passion, hell itself:

She turns to favour, and to prettiness.

2845 And will he not come again,

And will he not come again:

No, no, he is dead, go to thy deathbed,

He never will come again.

His beard as white as snow,

2850 All flaxen was his poll:

He is gone, he is gone, and we cast away moan,

Gramercy on his soul.

And of all Christian souls, I pray God.

God buy ye.

2855 Do you see this, you gods?

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;

2860 If by direct or by collateral hand

They find us touched, we will our kingdom give,

Our crown, our life, and all that we call ours

To you in satisfaction. But if not,

Be you content to lend your patience to us,

2865 And we shall jointly labour with your soul

To give it due content.

Let this be so:

His means of death, his obscure burial;

No trophy, sword, nor hatchment o’er his bones,

2870 No noble rite, nor formal ostentation,

Cry to be heard, as ’twere from heaven to earth,

That I must call in question.

So you shall:

And where th’offence is, let the great axe fall.

2875 I pray you go with me.

What are they that would speak with me?

Sailors sir, they say they have letters for you.

Let them come in,

I do not know from what part of the world

2880 I should be greeted, if not from Lord Hamlet.

God bless you sir.

Let him bless thee too.

He shall sir, and’t please him. There’s a letter for you sir: It comes from th’ambassadors that was bound for England, if your name be Horatio, as I am let to know it is.

Horatio, 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. 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 haste as thou wouldest fly death. I have words to speak in your 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.

Come, I will give you way for these your letters,

2905 And do’t the speedier, that you may direct me

To him from whom you brought them.

Now must your conscience my acquittance seal,

And you must put me in your heart for friend,

Sith you have heard, and with a knowing ear,

2910 That he which hath your noble father slain,

Pursued my life.

It well appears. But tell me,

Why you proceeded not against these feats,

So crimeful, and so capital in nature,

2915 As by your safety, wisdom, all things else,

You mainly were stirred up?

O for two special reasons,

Which may to you (perhaps) seem much unsinewed,

And yet to me they are strong. The Queen his mother,

2920 Lives almost by his looks: and for myself,

My virtue or my plague, be it either which,

She’s so conjunctive to my life and soul;

That as the star moves not but in his sphere,

I could not but by her. The other motive,

2925 Why to a public count I might not go,

Is the great love the general gender bear him,

Who dipping all his faults in their affection,

Would like the spring that turneth wood to stone,

Convert his gyves to graces. So that my arrows

2930 Too slightly timbered for so loud a wind,

Would have reverted to my bow again,

And not where I had armed them.

And so have I a noble father lost,

A sister driven into desperate terms,

2935 Who was (if praises may go back again)

Stood challenger on mount of all the age

For her perfections. But my revenge will come.

Break not your sleeps for that,

You must not think

2940 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⸺

2945 How now? What news?

Letters my lord from Hamlet. This to your majesty: this to the Queen.

From Hamlet? Who brought them?

Sailors my lord they say, I saw them not:

2950 They were given me by Claudio, he received them.

Laertes you shall hear them:

Leave us.

High and mighty, you shall know I am set naked on your kingdom. Tomorrow shall I beg leave to see your kingly eyes. When I shall (first asking your pardon thereunto) recount th’Occasions of my sudden, and more strange return.

Hamlet.

What should this mean? Are all the rest come back?

Or is it some abuse? Or no such thing?

2960 Know you the hand?

’Tis[…] Hamlet’s character, naked and in a postscript here he says alone: Can you advise me?

I’m lost in it my lord; but let him come,

It warms the very sickness in my heart,

2965 That I shall live and tell him to his teeth;

Thus diddest thou.

If it be so Laertes, as how should it be so:

How otherwise will you be ruled by me?

If so you'll not o’errule me to a peace.

2970 To thine own peace: if he be now returned,

As checking at his voyage, and that he means

No more to undertake it; I will work him

To an exploit now ripe in my device,

Under the which he shall not choose but fall;

2975 And for his death no wind of blame shall breathe,

But even his mother shall uncharge the practice,

And call it accident: Some two months hence

Here was a gentleman of Normandy,

I've seen myself, and served against the French,

2980 And they ran well on horseback; but this gallant

Had witchcraft in’t; he grew into his seat,

And to such wondrous doing brought his horse,

As had he been incorpsed and demi-natured

With the brave beast, so far he passed my thought,

2985 That I in forgery of shapes and tricks,

Come short of what he did.

A Norman was’t?

A Norman.

Upon my life Lamound.

2990 The very same.

I know him well, he is the brooch indeed,

And gem of all our nation.

He mad confession of you,

And gave you such a masterly report,

2995 For art and exercise in your defence;

And for your rapier most especiallyͤ,

That he cried out, ’twould be a sight indeed,

If one could match you sir. This report of his

Did Hamlet so envenom with his envy,

3000 That he could nothing do but wish and beg,

Your sudden coming o’er to play with him;

Now out of this.

Why out of this, my lord?

Laertes was your father dear to you?

3005 Or are you like the painting of a sorrow,

A face without a heart?

Why ask you this?

Not that I think you did not love your father,

But that I know love is begun by time:

3010 And that I see in passages of proof,

Time qualifies the spark and fire of it:

Hamlet comes back: what would you undertake,

To show yourself your father’s son indeed,

More than in words?

3015 To cut his throat i’th’Church.

No place indeed should murder sanctuarize;

Revenge should have no bounds: but good Laertes

Will you do this, keep close within your chamber,

Hamlet returned, shall know you are come home:

3020 We'll put on those shall praise your excellence,

And set a double varnish on the fame

The Frenchman gave you, bring you in fine together,

And wager on your heads, he being remiss,

Most generous, and free from all contriving,

3025 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 practice,

Requite him for your father.

I will do't,

3030 And for that purpose I'll anoint my sword:

I bought an unction of a mountebank

So mortal, I but dipped a knife in it,

Where it draws blood, no cataplasm so rare,

Collected from all simples that have virtue

3035 Under the moon, can save the thing from death,

That is but scratched withal: I'll touch my point,

With this contagion that if I gall him slightly,

It may be death.

Let’s further think of this,

3040 Weigh what convenience both of time and means

May fit us to our shape, if this should fail;

And that our drift look through our bad performance,

’Twere better not assayed; therefore this project

Should have a back or second, that might hold,

3045 If this should blast in proof: Soft, let me see

We'll make a solemn wager on your comings,

I ha’t: when in your motion you are hot and dry,

As make your bouts more violent to the end,

And that he calls for drink; I'll have prepared him

3050 A chalice for the nonce; whereon but sipping,

If he by chance escape your venomed stuck,

Our purpose may hold there; how sweet Queen.

One woe doth tread upon another’s heel,

So fast they'll follow: your sister’s drowned Laertes.

3055 Drowned! O where?

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 crowflowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples,

3060 That liberal shepherds give a grosser name;

But our cold maids do dead men’s fingers call them:

There on the pendent boughs, her coronet weeds

Clamb’ring to hang; an envious sliver broke,

When down the weedy trophies, and herself,

3065 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 endued

3070 Unto that element: but long it could not be,

Till that her garments, heavy with her drink,

Pulled the poor wretch from her melodious buy,

To muddy death.

Alas then, is she drowned?

3075 Drowned, drowned.

Too much of water hast thou poor Ophelia,

And therefore I forbid my tears: but yet

It is our trick, nature her custom holds,

Let shame say what it will; when these are gone

3080 The woman will be out: Adieu my lord.

I have a speech of fire, that fain would blaze,

But that this folly douts it.

Let’s follow, Gertrude:

How much I had to do to calm his rage?

3085 Now fear I this will give it start again;

Therefore let’s follow.