The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works

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The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 131

by William Shakespeare


  The violence of either grief or joy

  Their own enactures with themselves destroy.

  Where joy most revels grief doth most lament;

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  Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident.

  This world is not for aye, nor ’tis not strange

  That even our loves should with our fortunes change,

  For ’tis a question left us yet to prove,

  Whether love lead fortune or else fortune love.

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  The great man down, you mark his favourite flies;

  The poor advanc’d makes friends of enemies;

  And hitherto doth love on fortune tend:

  For who not needs shall never lack a friend,

  And who in want a hollow friend doth try

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  Directly seasons him his enemy.

  But orderly to end where I begun,

  Our wills and fates do so contrary run

  That our devices still are overthrown:

  Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.

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  So think thou wilt no second husband wed,

  But die thy thoughts when thy first lord is dead.

  PLAYER QUEEN

  Nor earth to me give food, nor heaven light,

  Sport and repose lock from me day and night,

  To desperation turn my trust and hope,

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  An anchor’s cheer in prison be my scope,

  Each opposite, that blanks the face of joy,

  Meet what I would have well and it destroy,

  Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife,

  If, once a widow, ever I be a wife.

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  HAMLET If she should break it now.

  PLAYER KING

  ’Tis deeply sworn. 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.

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  [He sleeps.] Exit.

  HAMLET Madam, how like you this play?

  QUEEN The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

  HAMLET O, but she’ll keep her word.

  KING Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in’t?

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  HAMLET No, no, they do but jest – poison in jest. No

  offence i’th’ world.

  KING What do you call the play?

  HAMLET The Mousetrap – marry, how tropically! This

  play is the image of a murder done in Vienna –

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  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.

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  Enter LUCIANUS.

  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.

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  HAMLET It would cost you a groaning to take off my edge.

  OPHELIA Still better, and worse.

  HAMLET So you mis-take your husbands. – Begin,

  murderer. Leave thy damnable faces and begin. Come,

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  the croaking raven doth bellow for revenge.

  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,

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  Thy natural magic and dire property

  On wholesome life usurps immediately.

  [Pours the poison in the sleeper’s ears.]

  HAMLET A poisons him i’th’ garden for his estate. His

  name’s Gonzago. The story is extant, and written in

  very choice Italian. You shall see anon how the

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  murderer gets the love of Gonzago’s wife.

  OPHELIA The King rises.

  HAMLET What, frighted with false fire?

  QUEEN How fares my lord?

  POLONIUS Give o’er the play.

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  KING Give me some light. Away.

  POLONIUS Lights, lights, lights.

  Exeunt all but Hamlet and Horatio.

  HAMLET

  Why, let the strucken deer go weep,

  The hart ungalled play;

  For some must watch while some must sleep,

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  Thus runs the world away.

  Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers, if the rest

  of my fortunes turn Turk with me, with Provincial

  roses on my razed shoes, get me a fellowship in a cry

  of players?

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  HORATIO Half a share.

  HAMLET A whole one, I.

  For thou dost know, O Damon dear,

  This realm dismantled was

  Of Jove himself, and now reigns here

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  A very, very – pajock.

  HORATIO You might have rhymed.

  HAMLET O good Horatio, I’ll take the ghost’s word for

  a thousand pound. Didst perceive?

  HORATIO Very well, my lord.

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  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, perdie.

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  Come, some music.

  Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.

  GUILDENSTERN Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word

  with you.

  HAMLET Sir, a whole history.

  GUILDENSTERN The King, sir –

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  HAMLET Ay, sir, what of him?

  GUILDENSTERN Is in his retirement marvellous

  distempered.

  HAMLET With drink, sir?

  GUILDENSTERN No, my lord, with choler.

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  HAMLET Your wisdom should show itself more richer

  to signify this to the doctor, for for me to put him to

  his purgation would perhaps plunge him into more

  choler.

  GUILDENSTERN Good my lord, put your discourse into

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  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.

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  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.

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  HAMLET Sir, I cannot.

  ROSENCRANTZ What, my lord?

  HAMLET Make you a wholesome answer. My wit’s

  diseased. But sir, such answer as I can make, you shall

  command – or rather, as you say, my mother.

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  Therefore no more, but to the matter. My mother, you

  say –

  ROSENCRANTZ Then thus she says: your behaviour hath

  struck her into amazement and admiration.

  HAMLET O wonderful son, that can so stonish a mother!

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  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, were she ten times our mother.

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  Have you any further trade with us?

  ROSENCRANTZ My lord, you once did love me.

  HAMLET And do still, by these pickers and stealers.

  ROSENCRANTZ Good my lord, what is your cause of

  distemper? You do surely bar the door upon your own

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  liberty if you deny your griefs to your friend.

  HAMLET Sir, I lack advancement.

  ROSENCRANTZ How can that be, when you have the

  voice of the King himself for your succession in

  Denmark?

  345

  HAMLET Ay, sir, but while the grass grows – the proverb

  is something musty.

  Enter the Players with recorders.

  O, the recorders. Let me see one. – To withdraw with

  you, why do you go about to recover the wind of me,

  as if you would drive me into a toil?

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  GUILDENSTERN O my lord, if my duty be too bold, my

  love is too unmannerly.

  HAMLET I do not well understand that. Will you play

  upon this pipe?

  GUILDENSTERN My lord, I cannot.

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  HAMLET I pray you.

  GUILDENSTERN Believe me, I cannot.

  HAMLET I do beseech you.

  GUILDENSTERN I know no touch of it, my lord.

  HAMLET It is as easy as lying. Govern these ventages

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  with your fingers and thumb, give it breath with your

  mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music.

  Look you, these are the stops.

  GUILDENSTERN But these cannot I command to any

  utterance of harmony. I have not the skill.

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  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, you would sound me from my lowest note

  to the top of my compass; and there is much music,

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  excellent voice, in this little organ, yet cannot you

  make it speak. ’Sblood, do you think I am easier to be

  played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you

  will, though you fret me, you cannot play upon me.

  Enter POLONIUS.

  God bless you, sir.

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  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?

  POLONIUS By th’ mass and ’tis – like a camel indeed.

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  HAMLET Methinks it is like a weasel.

  POLONIUS It is backed like a weasel.

  HAMLET Or like a whale.

  POLONIUS Very like a whale.

  HAMLET Then I will come to my mother by and by. –

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  [aside] They fool me to the top of my bent. – I will

  come by and by.

  POLONIUS I will say so. Exit.

  HAMLET ‘By and by’ is easily said. – Leave me, friends.

  Exeunt all but Hamlet.

  ’Tis now the very witching time of night,

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  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.

  O heart, lose not thy nature. Let not ever

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  The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom;

  Let me be cruel, not unnatural.

  I will speak daggers to her, but use none.

  My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites:

  How in my words somever she be shent,

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  To give them seals never my soul consent. Exit.

  3.3 Enter KING, ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.

  KING 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

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  Hazard so near us as doth hourly grow

  Out of his brows.

  GUILDENSTERN We will ourselves provide.

  Most holy and religious fear it is

  To keep those many many bodies safe

  That live and feed upon your Majesty.

  10

  ROSENCRANTZ The single and peculiar life is bound

 

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