10 Your majesty may more command in words
Than use persuasions to your liegemen, bound
By love, by duty and obedience.
Gilderstone. What we may do for both your majesties
To know the grief troubles the prince your son,
We will endeavour all the best we may,
So in all duty do we take our leave.
King. Thanks Gilderstone, and gentle Rossencraft.
Queen. Thanks Rossencraft, and gentle Gilderstone.
[Exeunt.] Enter Corambis and Ofelia.
Corambis. My lord, the ambassadors are joyfully
20 Returned from Norway.
King. Thou hast been the father of good news.
Corambis. Have I, my lord? I assure your grace,
I hold my duty as I hold my life,
Both to my God and to my sovereign king:
And I believe, or else this brain of mine
Hunts not the train of policy so well
As it had wont to do, but I have found
The very depth of Hamlet’s lunacy.
Queen. God grant he hath.
Enter the Ambassadors [Voltemar and Cornelia].
30 King. Now Voltemar, what from our brother Norway?
Voltemar. Most fair returns of greetings and desires.
Upon our first he sent forth to suppress
His nephew’s levies, which to him appeared
To be a preparation against the Polack,
But better looked into, he truly found
It was against your highness; whereat grieved,
That so his sickness, age, and impotence,
Was falsely born in hand, sends out arrests
On Fortenbrasse, which he in brief obeys;
40 Receives rebuke from Norway: and in fine,
Makes vow before his uncle, never more
To give the assay of arms against your majesty.
Whereon old Norway overcome with joy,
Gives him three thousand crowns in annual fee,
And his commission to employ those soldiers,
So levied as before, against the Polack,
With an entreaty herein further show,
That it would please you to give quiet pass
Through your dominions, for that enterprise
50 On such regards of safety and allowances
As therein are set down.
King. It likes us well, and at fit time and leisure
We’ll read and answer these his articles.
Meantime we thank you for your well-
Took labour: go to your rest, at night we’ll feast together.
Right welcome home.
Exeunt Ambassadors.
Corambis. This business is very well dispatched.
Now my lord, touching the young Prince Hamlet.
Certain it is that he is mad: mad let us grant him then.
60 Now to know the cause of this effect –
Or else to say the cause of this defect,
For this effect defective comes by cause –
Queen. Good my lord, be brief.
Corambis. Madam, I will: my lord, I have a daughter –
Have while she’s mine, for that we think
Is surest, we often lose – now to the prince.
My lord, but note this letter,
The which my daughter in obedience
Delivered to my hands.
70 King. Read it, my lord.
Corambis. Mark, my lord.
‘Doubt that in earth is fire,
Doubt that the stars do move,
Doubt truth to be a liar,
But do not doubt I love.
To the beautiful Ofelia:
Thine ever the most unhappy prince Hamlet.’
My lord, what do you think of me?
Ay, or what might you think when I saw this?
80 King. As of a true friend and a most loving subject.
Corambis. I would be glad to prove so.
Now when I saw this letter, thus I bespake my maiden:
Lord Hamlet is a prince out of your star,
And one that is unequal for your love.
Therefore I did command her refuse his letters,
Deny his tokens, and to absent herself;
She as my child obediently obeyed me.
Now since which time, seeing his love thus crossed –
Which I took to be idle, and but sport –
90 He straightway grew into a melancholy,
From that unto a fast, then unto distraction,
Then into a sadness, from that unto a madness,
And so by continuance, and weakness of the brain
Into this frenzy, which now possesseth him:
And if this be not true, take this from this.
King. Think you ’tis so?
Corambis. How? So my lord, I would very fain know
That thing that I have said is so, positively,
And it hath fallen out otherwise.
100 Nay, if circumstances lead me on,
I’ll find it out, if it were hid
As deep as the centre of the earth.
King. How should we try this same?
Corambis. Marry, my good lord, thus:
The prince’s walk is here in the gallery,
There let Ofelia walk until he comes.
Yourself and I will stand close in the study.
There shall you hear the effect of all his heart,
And if it prove any otherwise than love,
110 Then let my censure fail another time.
King. See where he comes, poring upon a book.
Enter Hamlet.
Corambis. Madam, will it please your grace
To leave us here?
Queen. With all my heart. Exit.
Corambis. And here Ofelia, read you on this book,
And walk aloof: the king shall be unseen.
Hamlet. To be, or not to be, aye, there’s the point.
To die, to sleep, is that all? Ay, all.
No, to sleep, to dream – ay marry, there it goes:
120 For in that dream of death, when we awake,
And borne before an everlasting judge,
From whence no passenger ever returned,
The undiscovered country, at whose sight
The happy smile, and the accursed damned –
But for this, the joyful hope of this,
Who’d bear the scorns and flattery of the world,
Scorned by the right rich, the rich cursed of the poor?
The widow being oppressed, the orphan wronged,
The taste of hunger, or a tyrant’s reign,
130 And thousand more calamities besides,
To grunt and sweat under this weary life,
When that he may his full quietus make,
With a bare bodkin? Who would this endure,
But for a hope of something after death,
Which puzzles the brain, and doth confound the sense,
Which makes us rather bear those evils we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of.
Ay that, O that conscience makes cowards of us all.
Lady in thy orisons be all my sins remembered.
140 Ofelia. My lord, I have sought opportunity, which now I have,
to redeliver to your worthy hands, a small remembrance,
such tokens which I have received of you.
Hamlet. Are you fair?
Ofelia. My lord?
Hamlet. Are you honest?
Ofelia. What means my lord?
Hamlet. That if you be fair and honest,
Your beauty should admit no discourse to your honesty.
Ofelia. My lord, can beauty have better privilege than with honesty?
150 Hamlet. Yea marry, may it; for beauty may transform
Honesty from what she was into a bawd.
Then honesty can transform beauty:
This was sometimes a paradox,
But now the time giv
es it scope.
I never gave you nothing.
Ofelia. My lord, you know right well you did,
And with them such earnest vows of love,
As would have moved the stoniest breast alive.
But now too true I find:
160 Rich gifts wax poor, when givers grow unkind.
Hamlet. I never loved you.
Ofelia.You made me believe you did.
Hamlet. O, thou shouldst not ’a believed me!
Go to a nunnery, go: why shouldst thou
Be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest,
But I could accuse myself of such crimes
It had been better my mother had ne’er borne me.
O, I am very proud, ambitious, disdainful,
With more sins at my beck than I have thoughts
170 To put them in. What should such fellows as I
Do, crawling between heaven and earth?
To a nunnery go! We are arrant knaves all,
Believe none of us – to a nunnery go.
Ofelia. O heavens secure him.
Hamlet. Where’s thy father?
Ofelia. At home, my lord.
Hamlet. For God’s sake let the doors be shut on him,
He may play the fool nowhere but in his
Own house: to a nunnery go.
180 Ofelia. Help him, good God.
Hamlet. If thou dost marry, I’ll give thee
This plague to thy dowry:
Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow,
Thou shalt not ’scape calumny, to a nunnery go.
Ofelia. Alas, what change is this?
Hamlet. But if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool.
For wise men know well enough,
What monsters you make of them: to a nunnery go.
Ofelia. Pray God restore him.
190 Hamlet. Nay, I have heard of your paintings too,
God hath given you one face,
And you make yourselves another.
You fig and you amble and you nickname God’s creatures,
Making your wantonness your ignorance.
A pox, ’tis scurvy, I’ll no more of it,
It hath made me mad. I’ll no more marriages.
All that are married but one, shall live.
The rest shall keep as they are: to a nunnery go,
To a nunnery go. Exit.
200 Ofelia. Great God of heaven, what a quick change is this?
The courtier, scholar, soldier, all in him
All dashed and splintered thence, O woe is me,
To ’a seen what I have seen, see what I see. Exit.
Enter King and Corambis.
King. love? No, no, that’s not the cause,
Some deeper thing it is that troubles him.
Corambis. Well, something it is: my lord, content you a while,
I will myself go feel him. let me work.
I’ll try him every way: see, where he comes.
Send you those gentlemen, let me alone
210 To find the depth of this. Away, be gone. Exit King.
Now my good lord, do you know me? Enter Hamlet.
Hamlet. Yea, very well, y’are a fishmonger.
Corambis. Not I, my lord.
Hamlet. Then sir, I would you were so honest a man,
For to be honest, as this age goes,
Is one man to be picked out of ten thousand.
Corambis. What do you read, my lord?
Hamlet. Words, words.
Corambis. What’s the matter, my lord?
220 Hamlet. Between who?
Corambis. I mean, the matter that you read, my lord.
Hamlet. Marry, most vile heresy:
For here the satirical satyr writes,
That old men have hollow eyes, weak backs,
Grey beards, pitiful weak hams, gouty legs,
All which, sir, I most potently believe not:
For sir, yourself shall be old as I am,
If like a crab, you could go backward.
Corambis. How pregnant his replies are, and full of wit:
230 Yet first he took me for a fishmonger.
All this comes by love, the vehemency of love.
And when I was young, I was very idle,
And suffered much ecstasy in love, very near this.
Will you walk out of the air, my lord?
Hamlet. Into my grave.
Corambis. By the mass, that’s out of the air indeed.
Very shrewd answers.
My lord I will take my leave of you.
Enter Gilderstone and Rossencraft.
Hamlet. You can take nothing from me sir,
240 I will more willingly part withal.
Old doting fool.
Corambis. You seek Prince Hamlet: see, there he is. Exit.
Gilderstone. Health to your lordship.
Hamlet. What, Gilderstone and Rossencraft,
Welcome, kind school-fellows, to Elsenour.
Gilderstone. We thank your grace, and would be very glad
You were as when we were at Wittenberg.
Hamlet. I thank you, but is this visitation free of
Yourselves, or were you not sent for?
250 Tell me true. Come, I know the good king and queen
Sent for you: there is a kind of confession in your eye.
Come, I know you were sent for.
Gilderstone. What say you?
Hamlet. Nay, then I see how the wind sits.
Come, you were sent for.
Rossencraft. My lord, we were, and willingly if we might
Know the cause and ground of your discontent.
Hamlet. Why, I want preferment.
Rossencraft. I think not so, my lord.
260 Hamlet. Yes, faith, this great world you see, contents me not,
No, nor the spangled heavens, nor earth nor sea,
No, nor man that is so glorious a creature,
Contents me not, no nor woman too, though you laugh.
Gilderstone. My lord, we laugh not at that.
Hamlet. Why did you laugh then
When I said, man did not content me?
Gilderstone. My lord, we laughed when you said man did not content you:
What entertainment the players shall have,
We boarded them a’ the way: they are coming to you.
270 Hamlet. Players? What players be they?
Rossencraft. My lord, the tragedians of the city,
Those that you took delight to see so often.
Hamlet. How comes it that they travel? Do they grow resty?
Gilderstone. No my lord, their reputation holds as it was wont.
Hamlet. How then?
Gilderstone. I’faith my lord, novelty carries it away,
For the principal public audience that
Came to them, are turned to private plays,
And to the humour of children.
280 Hamlet. I do not greatly wonder of it.
For those that would make mops and mows
At my uncle, when my father lived,
Now give a hundred, two hundred pounds
For his picture: but they shall be welcome.
He that plays the king shall have tribute of me,
The venturous knight shall use his foil and target,
The lover shall sigh gratis,
The clown shall make them laugh
That are tickled in the lungs, or the blank verse shall halt for’t,
290 And the lady shall have leave to speak her mind freely.
The trumpets sound. Enter Corambis.
Do you see yonder great baby?
He is not yet out of his swaddling clouts.
Gilderstone. That may be, for they say an old man
Is twice a child.
Hamlet. I’ll prophesy to you, he comes to tell me a’ the players,
You say true, o’Monday last, ’twas so indeed.
Corambis. My lord, I have news to tell you.
Ha
mlet. My lord, I have news to tell you:
When Roscius was an actor in Rome –
300 Corambis. The actors are come hither, my lord.
Hamlet. Buzz, buzz.
Corambis. The best actors in Christendom,
Either for comedy, tragedy, history, pastoral,
Pastoral historical, historical comical,
Comical historical, pastoral tragedy historical.
Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plato too light,
For the law hath writ those are the only men.
Hamlet. O Jephtha judge of Israel! What a treasure hadst thou?
Corambis. Why, what a treasure had he, my lord?
310 Hamlet.Why, one fair daughter, and no more,
The which he loved passing well.
Corambis. Ah, still harping a’ my daughter! Well, my lord,
If you call me Jephtha, I have a daughter that
I love passing well.
Hamlet. Nay, that follows not.
Corambis.What follows then, my lord?
Hamlet. Why, ‘by lot, or God wot’, ‘as it came to pass,
And so it was’, the first verse of the godly ballad
Will tell you all: for look you where my abridgement comes:
Enter Players.
320 Welcome masters, welcome all.
What, my old friend, thy face is vallanced
Since I saw thee last: com’st thou to beard me in Denmark?
My young lady and mistress, by’r lady but your
Ladyship is grown by the altitude of a chopine higher than you were:
Pray God sir, your voice, like a piece of uncurrent
Gold, be not cracked in the ring: come on, masters,
We’ll even to’t, like French falconers,
Fly at anything we see: come, a taste of your
Quality, a speech, a passionate speech.
330 Players. What speech, my good lord?
Hamlet. I heard thee speak a speech once,
But it was never acted: or if it were,
Never above twice, for as I remember,
It pleased not the vulgar: it was caviar
To the million: but to me
And others that received it in the like kind,
Cried in the top of their judgements an excellent play,
Set down with as great modesty as cunning.
One said there was no sallets in the lines to make them savoury,
340 But called it an honest method, as wholesome as sweet.
Come, a speech in it I chiefly remember
Was Aeneas’ tale to Dido,
And then especially where he talks of princes’ slaughter.
If it live in the memory begin at this line –
Let me see:
‘The rugged Pyrrhus, like th’Hyrcanian beast –’
No, ’tis not so, it begins with Pyrrhus.
O I have it:
‘The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable arms,
Five Revenge Tragedies: The Spanish Tragedy, Hamlet, Antonio's Revenge, The Tragedy of Hoffman, The Revenger's Tragedy (Penguin Classics) Page 14