Room in the castle scene one With all my heart; and it doth much content

Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN me

GERTRUDE, POLONIUS, OPHELIA, To hear him so inclined.
ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN Good gentlemen, give him a further edge,
And drive his purpose on to these delights.
KING CLAUDIUS ROSENCRANTZ
And can you, by no drift of circumstance, We shall, my lord.
Get from him why he puts on this confusion,
Grating so harshly all his days of quiet Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and
With turbulent and dangerous lunacy? GUILDENSTERN
ROSENCRANTZ
He does confess he feels himself distracted; KING CLAUDIUS
But from what cause he will by no means Sweet Gertrude, leave us too;
speak. For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither,
GUILDENSTERN That he, as 'twere by accident, may here
Nor do we find him forward to be sounded, Affront Ophelia:
But, with a crafty madness, keeps aloof, Her father and myself, lawful espials,
When we would bring him on to some Will so bestow ourselves that, seeing,
confession unseen,
Of his true state. We may of their encounter frankly judge,
QUEEN GERTRUDE And gather by him, as he is behaved,
Did he receive you well? If 't be the affliction of his love or no
ROSENCRANTZ That thus he suffers for.
Most like a gentleman. QUEEN GERTRUDE
GUILDENSTERN I shall obey you.
But with much forcing of his disposition. And for your part, Ophelia, I do wish
ROSENCRANTZ That your good beauties be the happy cause
Niggard of question; but, of our demands, Of Hamlet's wildness: so shall I hope your
Most free in his reply. virtues
QUEEN GERTRUDE Will bring him to his wonted way again,
Did you assay him? To both your honours.
To any pastime? OPHELIA
ROSENCRANTZ Madam, I wish it may.
Madam, it so fell out, that certain players
We o'er-raught on the way: of these we told Exit QUEEN GERTRUDE
him;
And there did seem in him a kind of joy LORD POLONIUS
To hear of it: they are about the court, Ophelia, walk you here. Gracious, so please
And, as I think, they have already order you,
This night to play before him. We will bestow ourselves.
LORD POLONIUS
'Tis most true: To OPHELIA
And he beseech'd me to entreat your
majesties Read on this book;
To hear and see the matter. That show of such an exercise may colour
KING CLAUDIUS Your loneliness. We are oft to blame in
this,-- When he himself might his quietus make
'Tis too much proved--that with devotion's With a bare bodkin? who would fardels
visage bear,
And pious action we do sugar o'er To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
The devil himself. But that the dread of something after death,
KING CLAUDIUS The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
[Aside] O, 'tis too true! No traveller returns, puzzles the will
How smart a lash that speech doth give my And makes us rather bear those ills we have
conscience! Than fly to others that we know not of?
The harlot's cheek, beautied with plastering Thus conscience does make cowards of us
art, all;
Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it And thus the native hue of resolution
Than is my deed to my most painted word: Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
O heavy burthen! And enterprises of great pith and moment
LORD POLONIUS With this regard their currents turn awry,
I hear him coming: let's withdraw, my lord. And lose the name of action.--Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Exeunt KING CLAUDIUS and POLONIUS Be all my sins remember'd.
OPHELIA
Enter HAMLET Good my lord,
How does your honour for this many a day?
HAMLET HAMLET
To be, or not to be: that is the question: I humbly thank you; well, well, well.
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer OPHELIA
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, My lord, I have remembrances of yours,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, That I have longed long to re-deliver;
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep; I pray you, now receive them.
No more; and by a sleep to say we end HAMLET
The heart-ache and the thousand natural No, not I;
shocks I never gave you aught.
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation OPHELIA
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep; My honour'd lord, you know right well you
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the did;
rub; And, with them, words of so sweet breath
For in that sleep of death what dreams may composed
come As made the things more rich: their perfume
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, lost,
Must give us pause: there's the respect Take these again; for to the noble mind
That makes calamity of so long life; Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove
For who would bear the whips and scorns of unkind.
time, There, my lord.
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's HAMLET
contumely, Ha, ha! are you honest?
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, OPHELIA
The insolence of office and the spurns My lord?
That patient merit of the unworthy takes, HAMLET
Are you fair? between earth and heaven? We are arrant
OPHELIA knaves,
What means your lordship? all; believe none of us. Go thy ways to a
HAMLET nunnery.
That if you be honest and fair, your honesty Where's your father?
should OPHELIA
admit no discourse to your beauty. At home, my lord.
OPHELIA HAMLET
Could beauty, my lord, have better Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may
commerce than play the
with honesty? fool no where but in's own house. Farewell.
HAMLET OPHELIA
Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will O, help him, you sweet heavens!
sooner HAMLET
transform honesty from what it is to a bawd If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague
than the for
force of honesty can translate beauty into his thy dowry: be thou as chaste as ice, as pure
likeness: this was sometime a paradox, but as
now the snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get
time gives it proof. I did love you once. thee to a
OPHELIA nunnery, go: farewell. Or, if thou wilt needs
Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so. marry, marry a fool; for wise men know
HAMLET well enough
You should not have believed me; for virtue what monsters you make of them. To a
cannot nunnery, go,
so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish and quickly too. Farewell.
of OPHELIA
it: I loved you not. O heavenly powers, restore him!
OPHELIA HAMLET
I was the more deceived. I have heard of your paintings too, well
HAMLET enough; God
Get thee to a nunnery: why wouldst thou be has given you one face, and you make
a yourselves
breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent another: you jig, you amble, and you lisp,
honest; and
but yet I could accuse me of such things that nick-name God's creatures, and make your
it wantonness
were better my mother had not borne me: I your ignorance. Go to, I'll no more on't; it
am very hath
proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more made me mad. I say, we will have no more
offences at marriages:
my beck than I have thoughts to put them in, those that are married already, all but one,
imagination to give them shape, or time to shall
act them live; the rest shall keep as they are. To a
in. What should such fellows as I do nunnery, go.
crawling
Exit It shall do well: but yet do I believe
The origin and commencement of his grief
OPHELIA Sprung from neglected love. How now,
O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown! Ophelia!
The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, You need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said;
tongue, sword; We heard it all. My lord, do as you please;
The expectancy and rose of the fair state, But, if you hold it fit, after the play
The glass of fashion and the mould of form, Let his queen mother all alone entreat him
The observed of all observers, quite, quite To show his grief: let her be round with him;
down! And I'll be placed, so please you, in the ear
And I, of ladies most deject and wretched, Of all their conference. If she find him not,
That suck'd the honey of his music vows, To England send him, or confine him where
Now see that noble and most sovereign Your wisdom best shall think.
reason, KING CLAUDIUS
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and It shall be so:
harsh; Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd
That unmatch'd form and feature of blown go.
youth
Blasted with ecstasy: O, woe is me,
To have seen what I have seen, see what I
see!

Re-enter KING CLAUDIUS and

POLONIUS

KING CLAUDIUS
Love! his affections do not that way tend;
Nor what he spake, though it lack'd form a SCENE IV. A plain in Denmark.
little,
Was not like madness. There's something in Enter FORTINBRAS, a Captain, and
his soul, Soldiers, marching
O'er which his melancholy sits on brood; PRINCE FORTINBRAS
And I do doubt the hatch and the disclose Go, captain, from me greet the Danish king;
Will be some danger: which for to prevent, Tell him that, by his licence, Fortinbras
I have in quick determination Craves the conveyance of a promised march
Thus set it down: he shall with speed to Over his kingdom. You know the
England, rendezvous.
For the demand of our neglected tribute If that his majesty would aught with us,
Haply the seas and countries different We shall express our duty in his eye;
With variable objects shall expel And let him know so.
This something-settled matter in his heart, Captain
Whereon his brains still beating puts him I will do't, my lord.
thus PRINCE FORTINBRAS
From fashion of himself. What think you Go softly on.
on't?
LORD POLONIUS Exeunt FORTINBRAS and Soldiers
Enter HAMLET, ROSENCRANTZ, I'll be with you straight go a little before.
GUILDENSTERN, and others
Exeunt all except HAMLET
HAMLET
Good sir, whose powers are these? How all occasions do inform against me,
Captain And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,
They are of Norway, sir. If his chief good and market of his time
HAMLET Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.
How purposed, sir, I pray you? Sure, he that made us with such large
Captain discourse,
Against some part of Poland. Looking before and after, gave us not
HAMLET That capability and god-like reason
Who commands them, sir? To fust in us unused. Now, whether it be
Captain Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
The nephews to old Norway, Fortinbras. Of thinking too precisely on the event,
HAMLET A thought which, quarter'd, hath but one part
Goes it against the main of Poland, sir, wisdom
Or for some frontier? And ever three parts coward, I do not know
Captain Why yet I live to say 'This thing's to do;'
Truly to speak, and with no addition, Sith I have cause and will and strength and
We go to gain a little patch of ground means
That hath in it no profit but the name. To do't. Examples gross as earth exhort me:
To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it; Witness this army of such mass and charge
Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole Led by a delicate and tender prince,
A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee. Whose spirit with divine ambition puff'd
HAMLET Makes mouths at the invisible event,
Why, then the Polack never will defend it. Exposing what is mortal and unsure
Captain To all that fortune, death and danger dare,
Yes, it is already garrison'd. Even for an egg-shell. Rightly to be great
HAMLET Is not to stir without great argument,
Two thousand souls and twenty thousand But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
ducats When honour's at the stake. How stand I
Will not debate the question of this straw: then,
This is the imposthume of much wealth and That have a father kill'd, a mother stain'd,
peace, Excitements of my reason and my blood,
That inward breaks, and shows no cause And let all sleep? while, to my shame, I see
without The imminent death of twenty thousand
Why the man dies. I humbly thank you, sir. men,
Captain That, for a fantasy and trick of fame,
God be wi' you, sir. Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot
Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,
Exit Which is not tomb enough and continent
To hide the slain? O, from this time forth,
ROSENCRANTZ My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing
Wilt please you go, my lord? worth!
HAMLET