The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works

Home > Fiction > The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works > Page 230
The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works Page 230

by William Shakespeare


  We will haste us.

  Exeunt both

  Enter Polonius

  POLONIUS

  My lord, he’s going to his mother’s closet.

  Behind the arras I’ll convey myself

  To hear the process. I’ll warrant she’ll tax him home.

  And, as you said—and wisely was it said—

  ‘Tis meet that some more audience than a mother,

  Since nature makes them partial, should o’erhear

  The speech of vantage. Fare you well, my liege.

  I’ll call upon you ere you go to bed,

  And tell you what I know.

  KING CLAUDIUS

  Thanks, dear my lord.

  Exit Polonius

  O, my offence is rank! It smells to heaven.

  It hath the primal eldest curse upon‘t,

  A brother’s murder. Pray can I not.

  Though inclination be as sharp as will,

  My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent,

  And like a man to double business bound

  I stand in pause where I shall first begin,

  And both neglect. What if this cursed hand

  Were thicker than itself with brother’s blood,

  Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens

  To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy

  But to confront the visage of offence?

  And what’s in prayer but this twofold force,

  To be forestalled ere we come to fall,

  Or pardoned being down? Then I’ll look up.

  My fault is past-but O, what form of prayer

  Can serve my turn? ‘Forgive me my foul murder’?

  That cannot be, since I am still possessed

  Of those effects for which I did the murder—

  My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.

  May one be pardoned and retain th’offence?

  In the corrupted currents of this world

  Offence’s gilded hand may shove by justice,

  And oft ‘tis seen the wicked prize itself

  Buys out the law. But ’tis not so above.

  There is no shuffling, there the action lies

  In his true nature, and we ourselves compelled

  Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults

  To give in evidence. What then? What rests?

  Try what repentance can. What can it not?

  Yet what can it when one cannot repent?

  O wretched state, O bosom black as death,

  O limed soul that, struggling to be free,

  Art more engaged! Help, angels! Make assay.

  Bow, stubborn knees; and heart with strings of steel,

  Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe.

  All may be well.

  He kneels.

  Enter Prince Hamlet behind him

  HAMLET

  Now might I do it pat, now a is praying,

  And now I’ll do‘t,⌈He draws his sword⌉

  and so a goes to heaven,

  And so am I revenged. That would be scanned.

  A villain kills my father, and for that

  I, his sole son, do this same villain send

  To heaven.

  O, this is hire and salary, not revenge!

  A took my father grossly, full of bread,

  With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May;

  And how his audit stands, who knows save heaven?

  But in our circumstance and course of thought

  ’Tis heavy with him. And am I then revenged

  To take him in the purging of his soul,

  When he is fit and seasoned for his passage?

  No.He sheathes his sword

  Up, sword, and know thou a more horrid hint.

  When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage,

  Or in th‘incestuous pleasure of his bed,

  At gaming, swearing, or about some act

  That has no relish of salvation in’t,

  Then trip him that his heels may kick at heaven,

  And that his soul may be as damned and black

  As hell whereto it goes. My mother stays.

  This physic but prolongs thy sickly days.

  Exit

  KING CLAUDIUS

  My words fly up, my thoughts remain below.

  Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

  Exit

  3.4 Enter Queen Gertrude and Polonius

  POLONIUS

  A will come straight. Look you lay home to him.

  Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear with,

  And that your grace hath screened and stood between

  Much heat and him. I’ll silence me e’en here.

  Pray you be round with him.

  HAMLET (within) Mother, mother, mother!

  QUEEN GERTRUDE

  I’ll warr’nt you. Fear me not. Withdraw; I hear himcoming.

  Polonius hides behind the arras.

  Enter Prince Hamlet

  HAMLET Now, mother, what’s the matter?

  QUEEN GERTRUDE

  Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended,.

  HAMLET

  Mother, you have my father much offended.

  QUEEN GERTRUDE

  Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.

  HAMLET

  Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.

  QUEEN GERTRUDE

  Why, how now, Hamlet?

  HAMLET

  What’s the matter now?

  QUEEN GERTRUDE

  Have you forgot me?

  HAMLET

  No, by the rood, not so.

  You are the Queen, your husband’s brother’s wife. But—would you were not so—you are my mother.

  QUEEN GERTRUDE

  Nay, then, I’ll set those to you that can speak.

  HAMLET

  Come, come, and sit you down. You shall not budge.

  You go not till I set you up a glass

  Where you may see the inmost part of you.

  QUEEN GERTRUDE

  What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murder me?

  Help, help, ho!

  POLONIUS (behind the arras) What ho! Help, help, help!

  HAMLET

  How now, a rat? Dead for a ducat, dead.

  He thrusts his sword through the arras

  POLONIUS

  O, I am slain!

  QUEEN GERTRUDE (to Hamlet) O me, what hast thou done?

  HAMLET

  Nay, I know not. Is it the King?

  QUEEN GERTRUDE

  O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!

  HAMLET

  A bloody deed—almost as bad, good-mother,

  As kill a king and marry with his brother.

  QUEEN GERTRUDE

  As kill a king?

  HAMLET Ay, lady, ’twas my word.

  (To Polonius) Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool,

  farewell.

  I took thee for thy better. Take thy fortune.

  Thou find’st to be too busy is some danger.—

  Leave wringing of your hands. Peace, sit you down,

  And let me wring your heart; for so I shall

  If it be made of penetrable stuff,

  If damned custom have not brassed it so

  That it is proof and bulwark against sense.

  QUEEN GERTRUDE

  What have I done, that thou dar’st wag thy tongue

  In noise so rude against me?

  HAMLET Such an act

  That blurs the grace and blush of modesty,

  Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose

  From the fair forehead of an innocent love

  And sets a blister there, makes marriage vows

  As false as dicers’ oaths—O, such a deed

  As from the body of contraction plucks

  The very soul, and sweet religion makes

  A rhapsody of words. Heaven’s face doth glow,

  Yea, this solidity and compound mass

  With trist
ful visage, as against the doom,

  Is thought-sick at the act.

  QUEEN GERTRUDE

  Ay me, what act,

  That roars so loud and thunders in the index?

  HAMLET

  Look here upon this picture, and on this,

  The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.

  See what a grace was seated on this brow—

  Hyperion’s curls, the front of Jove himself,

  An eye like Mars, to threaten or command,

  A station like the herald Mercury

  New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill;

  A combination and a form indeed

  Where every god did seem to set his seal

  To give the world assurance of a man.

  This was your husband. Look you now what follows.

  Here is your husband, like a mildewed ear

  Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes?

  Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,

  And batten on this moor? Ha, have you eyes?

  You cannot call it love, for at your age

  The heyday in the blood is tame, it’s humble,

  And waits upon the judgement; and what judgement

  Would step from this to this? What devil was’t

  That thus hath cozened you at hood-man blind?

  O shame, where is thy blush? Rebellious hell,

  If thou canst mutine in a matron’s bones,

  To flaming youth let virtue be as wax

  And melt in her own fire. Proclaim no shame

  When the compulsive ardour gives the charge,

  Since frost itself as actively doth burn,

  And reason panders will.

  QUEEN GERTRUDE

  O Hamlet, speak no more!

  Thou turn’st mine eyes into my very soul,

  And there I see such black and grained spots

  As will not leave their tinct.

  HAMLET Nay, but to live

  In the rank sweat of an enseamèd bed,

  Stewed in corruption, honeying and making love

  Over the nasty sty—

  QUEEN GERTRUDE

  O, speak to me no more!

  These words like daggers enter in mine ears.

  No more, sweet Hamlet.

  HAMLET A murderer and a villain,

  A slave that is not twenti’th part the tithe

  Of your precedent lord, a vice of kings,

  A cutpurse of the empire and the rule,

  That from a shelf the precious diadem stole

  And put it in his pocket—

  QUEEN GERTRUDE No more.

  HAMLET A king of shreds and patches—

  Enter the Ghost in his nightgown

  Save me and hover o’er me with your wings,

  You heavenly guards! (To the Ghost) What would

  you, gracious figure? 95

  QUEEN GERTRUDE Alas, he’s mad.

  HAMLET (to the Ghost)

  Do you not come your tardy son to chide,

  That, lapsed in time and passion, lets go by

  Th’important acting of your dread command?

  O, say!

  GHOST Do not forget. This visitation

  Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.

  But look, amazement on thy mother sits.

  O, step between her and her fighting soul.

  Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works.

  Speak to her, Hamlet.

  HAMLET How is it with you, lady?

  QUEEN GERTRUDE Alas, how is’t with you,

  That you do bend your eye on vacancy,

  And with th‘incorporal air do hold discourse?

  Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep,

  And, as the sleeping soldiers in th’alarm,

  Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,

  Start up and stand on end. O gentle son,

  Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper

  Sprinkle cool patience! Whereon do you look?

  HAMLET

  On him, on him. Look you how pale he glares.

  His form and cause conjoined, preaching to stones,

  Would make them capable. (To the Ghost) Do not look

  upon me,

  Lest with this piteous action you convert

  My stern effects. Then what I have to do

  Will want true colour—tears perchance for blood.

  QUEEN GERTRUDE

  To whom do you speak this?

  HAMLET Do you see nothing there?

  QUEEN GERTRUDE

  Nothing at all, yet all that is I see.

  HAMLET

  Nor did you nothing hear?

  QUEEN GERTRUDE No, nothing but ourselves.

  HAMLET

  Why, look you there. Look how it steals away.

  My father, in his habit as he lived.

  Look where he goes even now out at the portal.

  Exit the Ghost

  QUEEN GERTRUDE

  This is the very coinage of your brain.

  This bodiless creation ecstasy

  Is very cunning in.

  HAMLET Ecstasy?

  My pulse as yours doth temperately keep time,

  And makes as healthful music. It is not madness

  That I have uttered. Bring me to the test,

  And I the matter will reword, which madness

  Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace

  Lay not a flattering unction to your soul

  That not your trespass but my madness speaks.

  It will but skin and film the ulcerous place

  Whilst rank corruption, mining all within,

  Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven;

  Repent what’s past, avoid what is to come,

  And do not spread the compost o’er the weeds

  To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue,

  For in the fatness of these pursy times

  Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg,

  Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good.

  QUEEN GERTRUDE

  O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain!

  HAMLET

  O, throw away the worser part of it,

  And live the purer with the other half!

  Good night—but go not to mine uncle’s bed.

  Assume a virtue if you have it not.

  Refrain tonight,

  And that shall lend a kind of easiness

  To the next abstinence. Once more, good night;

  And when you are desirous to be blest,

  I’ll blessing beg of you. For this same lord,

  I do repent. But heaven hath pleased it so

  To punish me with this, and this with me,

  That I must be their scourge and minister.

  I will bestow him, and will answer well

  The death I gave him. So, again, good night.

  I must be cruel only to be kind.

  Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.

  QUEEN GERTRUDE What shall I do?

  HAMLET

  Not this, by no means, that I bid you do:

  Let the bloat King tempt you again to bed,

  Pinch wanton on your cheek, call you his mouse,

  And let him for a pair of reechy kisses,

  Or paddling in your neck with his damned fingers,

  Make you to ravel all this matter out,

  That I essentially am not in madness,

  But mad in craft. ’Twere good you let him know,

  For who that’s but a queen, fair, sober, wise,

  Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib,

  Such dear concernings hide? Who would do so?

  No, in despite of sense and secrecy,

  Unpeg the basket on the house’s top,

  Let the birds fly, and, like the famous ape,

  To try conclusions in the basket creep,

  And break your own neck down.

  QUEEN GERTRUDE

  Be thou assured, if words be made of breath,

>   And breath of life, I have no life to breathe

  What thou hast said to me.

  HAMLET

  I must to England.

  You know that?

  QUEEN GERTRUDE

  Alack, I had forgot.

  ’Tis so concluded on.

  HAMLET

  This man shall set me packing.

  I’ll lug the guts into the neighbour room.

  Mother, good night indeed. This counsellor

  Is now most still, most secret, and most grave,

  Who was in life a foolish prating knave.—

  Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you.—

  Good night, mother. Exit, tugging in Polonius

  4.1 Enter King Claudius to Queen Gertrude

  KING CLAUDIUS

  There’s matter in these sighs, these profound heaves;

  You must translate. ’Tis fit we understand them.

  Where is your son?

  QUEEN GERTRUDE

  Ah, my good lord, what have I seen tonight!

  KING CLAUDIUS What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?

  QUEEN GERTRUDE

  Mad as the sea and wind when both contend

  Which is the mightier. In his lawless fit,

  Behind the arras hearing something stir,

  He whips his rapier out and cries ‘A rat, a ratl’,

  And in his brainish apprehension kills

  The unseen good old man.

  KING CLAUDIUS

  O heavy deed!

  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

  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 it feed

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

  QUEEN GERTRUDE

  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—a weeps for what is done.

  KING CLAUDIUS

  O 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.—Ho, GuildensternlEnter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

  Friends both, go join you with some further aid.

  Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain,

 

‹ Prev