The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works

by William Shakespeare

  And scape detecting, I will pay the theft.

  ⌈Sound a flourish⌉

  HAMLET

  They are coming to the play. I must be idle.

  Get you a place.

  ⌈Danish march. Enter King Claudius, Queen

  Gertrude, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz,

  Guildenstern, and other lords attendant, with the

  King’s guard carrying torches⌉

  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. (To Polonius) My lord, you played once i’th’ university, you say.

  POLONIUS That I did, my lord, and was accounted a good actor.

  HAMLET And what did you enact?

  POLONIUS I did enact Julius Caesar. I was killed i’th’ Capitol. Brutus killed me.

  HAMLET It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf there.—Be the players ready?

  ROSENCRANTZ Ay, my lord, they stay upon your patience.

  QUEEN GERTRUDE

  Come hither, my good Hamlet. Sit by me.

  HAMLET No, good-mother, here’s mettle more attractive.

  He sits by Ophelia

  POLONTUS (aside) O ho, do you mark that?

  HAMLET (to Ophelia) 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 No thing.

  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 ’s two hours.

  OPHELIA Nay, ’tis twice two mqnths, my lord. 122

  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, a must build churches then, or else shall a suffer not thinking on, with the hobby-horse, whose epitaph is ‘For O, for O, the hobby-horse is forgot.’

  Hautboys play. The dumb show enters. Enter a King and a Queen very lovingly, the Queen embracing him. She kneels and makes show of protestation unto him. He takes her up and declines his head upon her neck. He lays him down upon a bank of flowers. She, seeing him asleep, leaves him. Anon comes in a fellow, takes off his crown, kisses it, and pours poison in the King’s ears, and exits. The Queen returns, finds the King dead, and makes passionate action. The poisoner, with some two or three mutes, comes in again, seeming to lament with her. The dead body is carried away. The poisoner woos the Queen with gifts. She seems loath and unwilling a while, but in the end accepts his love. Exeunt the Players

  OPHELIA What means this, my lord?

  HAMLET Marry, this is miching malhecho. That means mischief.

  OPHELIA Belike this show imports the argument of the play. Enter Prologue

  HAMLET We shall know by this fellow. The players cannot keep counsel, they’ll tell all.

  OPHELIA Will a tell us what this show meant?

  HAMLET Ay, or any show that you’ll show him. Be not you ashamed to show, he’ll not shame to tell you what it means.

  OPHELIA You are naught, you are naught. I’ll mark the play.

  PROLOGUE

  For us and for our tragedy

  Here stooping to your clemency,

  We beg your hearing patiently. Exit

  HAMLET Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?

  OPHELIA ’Tis brief, my lord.

  HAMLET As woman’s love.

  Enter the Player King and his Queen

  PLAYER KING

  Full thirty times hath Phoebus’ cart gone round

  Neptune’s salt wash and Tellus’ orbèd ground,

  And thirty dozen moons with borrowed 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.

  But woe is me, you are so sick of late,

  So far from cheer and from your former state,

  That I distrust you. Yet, though I distrust,

  Discomfort you my lord it nothing must.

  For women’s fear and love holds quantity,

  In neither aught, or in extremity.

  Now what my love is, proof hath made you know,

  And as my love is sized, my fear is so.

  PLAYER KING

  Faith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly too.

  My operant powers their functions leave to do,

  And thou shalt live in this fair world behind,

  Honoured, beloved; and haply one as kind

  For husband shalt thou—

  PLAYER QUEEN O, confound the rest!

  Such love must needs be treason in my breast.

  In second husband let me be accurst;

  None wed the second but who killed the first.

  HAMLET Wormwood, wormwood.

  PLAYER QUEEN

  The instances that second marriage move

  Are base respects of thrift, but none of love.

  A second time I kill my husband dead

  When second husband kisses me in bed.

  PLAYER KING

  I do believe you think what now you speak;

  But what we do determine oft we break.

  Purpose is but the slave to memory,

  Of violent birth but poor validity,

  Which now like fruit unripe sticks on the tree,

  But fall unshaken when they mellow be.

  Most necessary ‘tis that we forget

  To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt.

  What to ourselves in passion we propose,

  The passion ending, doth the purpose lose.

  The violence of either grief or joy

  Their own enactures with themselves destroy.

  Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament;

  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.

  The great man down, you mark his favourite flies;

  The poor advanced 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

  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.

  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,

  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 wife.

  HAMLET If she should break it now!

  PLAYER KING (to Player Queen)

  ’Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me h
ere a while.

  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.

  Player King sleeps. Player Queen exits

  HAMLET (to Gertrude) Madam, how like you this play?

  QUEEN GERTRUDE The lady protests too much, methinks.

  HAMLET O, but she’ll keep her word.

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

  HAMLET No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest. No offence i’th’ world.

  KING CLAUDIUS What do you call the play?

  HAMLET The Mousetrap. 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.

  Enter Player 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.

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

  OPHELIA Still better, and worse.

  HAMLET So you mis-take your husbands. (To Lucianus) Begin, murderer. Pox, leave thy damnable faces and begin. Come: ‘the croaking raven doth bellow for revenge’.

  PLAYER 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.

  He pours the poison in the Player King’s ear

  HAMLET A poisons him i’th’ 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.

  HAMLET What, frighted with false fire?

  QUEEN GERTRUDE (to Claudius) How fares my lord?

  POLONIUSGive o’er the play.

  KING CLAUDIUS Give me some light. Away. ⌈COURTIERS⌉ Lights, lights, lights!

  Exeunt all but Hamlet and Horatio

  HAMLET

  Why, let the stricken deer go weep,

  The hart ungallèd play,

  For some must watch, while some must sleep,

  So runs the world away.

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

  of my fortunes turn Turk with me, with two Provençal

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

  of players, sir?

  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

  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.

  HAMLET Upon the talk of the pois’ning?

  HORATIO I did very well note him.

  Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

  HAMLET Ah ha! Come, some music, come, the recorders,

  For if the King like not the comedy,

  Why then, belike he likes it not, pardie.

  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, for for me to put him to his purgation would perhaps plunge him into far more choler.

  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, sir, such answers as I can make, you shall command; or rather, as you say, my mother. 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 astonish a mother! But is there no sequel at the heels of this mother’s admiration?

  ROSENCRANTZ She desires to speak with you in her closet ere you go to bed. 319

  HAMLET We shall obey, were she ten times our mother. Have you any further trade with us?

  ROSENCRANTZ My lord, you once did love me.

  HAMLET So I do still, by these pickers and stealers.

  ROSENCRANTZ Good my lord, what is your cause of distemper? You do freely bar the door of your own 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?

  HAMLET Ay, but ‘while the grass grows ...’—the proverb is something musty.

  Enter one with a recorder

  O, the recorder. Let me see. (To Rosencrantz and

  Guildenstern, taking them aside) To withdraw with you,

  why do you go about to recover the wind of me as if

  you would drive me into a toil?

  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.

  HAMLET I pray you.

  GUILDENSTERN Believe me, I cannot.

  HAMLET I do beseech you.

  GUILDENSTERN I know no touch of it, my lord.

  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 excellent music. Look you, these are the stops.

  GUILDENSTERN But these cannot I command to any utterance of harmony. 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, you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass; and there is much music, 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 can fret me, you cannot play upon me.

  Enter Polonius

  God bless you, sir.

  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.

  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 will I come to my mother by and by. (Aside) They fool me to the top of my bent. (To Polonius) I will come by and by.

  POLONIUS I will say so.r />
  HAMLET ’By and by’ is easily said. Exit Polonius

  Leave me, friends.

  Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

  ’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.

  O heart, lose not thy nature! Let not ever

  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,

  To give them seals never my soul consent. Exit

  3.3 Enter King Claudius, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern

  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.

  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.

  ROSENCRANTZ

  The single and peculiar life is bound

  With all the strength and armour of the mind

  To keep itself from noyance; but much more

  That spirit upon whose weal depends and rests

  The lives of many. The cease of majesty

  Dies not alone, but like a gulf doth draw

  What’s near it with it. It is a massy wheel

  Fixed on the summit of the highest mount,

  To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things

  Are mortised and adjoined, which when it falls

  Each small annexment, petty consequence,

  Attends the boist’rous ruin. Never alone

  Did the King sigh, but with a general groan.

  KING CLAUDIUS

  Arm you, I pray you, to this speedy voyage,

  For we will fetters put upon this fear

  Which now goes too free-footed.

  ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN