Complete Plays, The

by William Shakespeare

  Lord Polonius

  My lord, I have news to tell you.

  Hamlet

  My lord, I have news to tell you.

  When Roscius was an actor in Rome,—

  Lord Polonius

  The actors are come hither, my lord.

  Hamlet

  Buz, buz!

  Lord Polonius

  Upon mine honour,—

  Hamlet

  Then came each actor on his ass,—

  Lord Polonius

  The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical- comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem unlimited: Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light. For the law of writ and the liberty, these are the only men.

  Hamlet

  O Jephthah, judge of Israel, what a treasure hadst thou!

  Lord Polonius

  What a treasure had he, my lord?

  Hamlet

  Why,

  ‘One fair daughter and no more,

  The which he loved passing well.’

  Lord Polonius

  [Aside] Still on my daughter.

  Hamlet

  Am I not i’ the right, old Jephthah?

  Lord Polonius

  If you call me Jephthah, my lord, I have a daughter that I love passing well.

  Hamlet

  Nay, that follows not.

  Lord Polonius

  What follows, then, my lord?

  Hamlet

  Why, ‘As by lot, God wot,’ and then, you know, ‘It came to pass, as most like it was,’— the first row of the pious chanson will show you more; for look, where my abridgement comes.

  Enter four or five Players

  You are welcome, masters; welcome, all. I am glad to see thee well. Welcome, good friends. O, my old friend! thy face is valenced since I saw thee last: comest thou to beard me in Denmark? What, my young lady and mistress! By’r lady, your ladyship is nearer to heaven than when I saw you last, by the altitude of a chopine. Pray God, your voice, like apiece of uncurrent gold, be not cracked within the ring. Masters, you are all welcome. We’ll e’en to’t like French falconers, fly at any thing we see: we’ll have a speech straight: come, give us a taste of your quality; come, a passionate speech.

  First Player

  What speech, my lord?

  Hamlet

  I heard thee speak me a speech once, but it was never acted; or, if it was, not above once; for the play, I remember, pleased not the million; ’twas caviare to the general: but it was — as I received it, and others, whose judgments in such matters cried in the top of mine — an excellent play, well digested in the scenes, set down with as much modesty as cunning. I remember, one said there were no sallets in the lines to make the matter savoury, nor no matter in the phrase that might indict the author of affectation; but called it an honest method, as wholesome as sweet, and by very much more handsome than fine. One speech in it I chiefly loved: ’twas Aeneas’ tale to Dido; and thereabout of it especially, where he speaks of Priam’s slaughter: if it live in your memory, begin at this line: let me see, let me see — ‘The rugged Pyrrhus, like the Hyrcanian beast,’— it is not so:— it begins with Pyrrhus:—

  ‘The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable arms,

  Black as his purpose, did the night resemble

  When he lay couched in the ominous horse,

  Hath now this dread and black complexion smear’d

  With heraldry more dismal; head to foot

  Now is he total gules; horridly trick’d

  With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons,

  Baked and impasted with the parching streets,

  That lend a tyrannous and damned light

  To their lord’s murder: roasted in wrath and fire,

  And thus o’er-sized with coagulate gore,

  With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus

  Old grandsire Priam seeks.’

  So, proceed you.

  Lord Polonius

  ’Fore God, my lord, well spoken, with good accent and good discretion.

  First Player

  ‘Anon he finds him

  Striking too short at Greeks; his antique sword,

  Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls,

  Repugnant to command: unequal match’d,

  Pyrrhus at Priam drives; in rage strikes wide;

  But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword

  The unnerved father falls. Then senseless Ilium,

  Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming top

  Stoops to his base, and with a hideous crash

  Takes prisoner Pyrrhus’ ear: for, lo! his sword,

  Which was declining on the milky head

  Of reverend Priam, seem’d i’ the air to stick:

  So, as a painted tyrant, Pyrrhus stood,

  And like a neutral to his will and matter,

  Did nothing.

  But, as we often see, against some storm,

  A silence in the heavens, the rack stand still,

  The bold winds speechless and the orb below

  As hush as death, anon the dreadful thunder

  Doth rend the region, so, after Pyrrhus’ pause,

  Aroused vengeance sets him new a-work;

  And never did the Cyclops’ hammers fall

  On Mars’s armour forged for proof eterne

  With less remorse than Pyrrhus’ bleeding sword

  Now falls on Priam.

  Out, out, thou strumpet, Fortune! All you gods,

  In general synod ‘take away her power;

  Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel,

  And bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven,

  As low as to the fiends!’

  Lord Polonius

  This is too long.

  Hamlet

  It shall to the barber’s, with your beard. Prithee, say on: he’s for a jig or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps: say on: come to Hecuba.

  First Player

  ‘But who, O, who had seen the mobled queen —’

  Hamlet

  ‘The mobled queen?’

  Lord Polonius

  That’s good; ‘mobled queen’ is good.

  First Player

  ‘Run barefoot up and down, threatening the flames

  With bisson rheum; a clout upon that head

  Where late the diadem stood, and for a robe,

  About her lank and all o’er-teemed loins,

  A blanket, in the alarm of fear caught up;

  Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steep’d,

  ’Gainst Fortune’s state would treason have pronounced:

  But if the gods themselves did see her then

  When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport

  In mincing with his sword her husband’s limbs,

  The instant burst of clamour that she made,

  Unless things mortal move them not at all,

  Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven,

  And passion in the gods.’

  Lord Polonius

  Look, whether he has not turned his colour and has tears in’s eyes. Pray you, no more.

  Hamlet

  ’Tis well: I’ll have thee speak out the rest soon. Good my lord, will you see the players well bestowed? Do you hear, let them be well used; for they are the abstract and brief chronicles of the time: after your death you were better have a bad epitaph than their ill report while you live.

  Lord Polonius

  My lord, I will use them according to their desert.

  Hamlet

  God’s bodykins, man, much better: use every man after his desert, and who should ’scape whipping? Use them after your own honour and dignity: the less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty. Take them in.

  Lord Polonius

  Come, sirs.

  Hamlet

  Follow him, friends: we’ll hear a play to-morrow.

  Exit Polonius with all the
Players but the First

  Dost thou hear me, old friend; can you play the

  Murder of Gonzago?

  First Player

  Ay, my lord.

  Hamlet

  We’ll ha’t to-morrow night. You could, for a need, study a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines, which I would set down and insert in’t, could you not?

  First Player

  Ay, my lord.

  Hamlet

  Very well. Follow that lord; and look you mock him not.

  Exit First Player

  My good friends, I’ll leave you till night: you are welcome to Elsinore.

  Rosencrantz

  Good my lord!

  Hamlet

  Ay, so, God be wi’ ye;

  Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

  Now I am alone.

  O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!

  Is it not monstrous that this player here,

  But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,

  Could force his soul so to his own conceit

  That from her working all his visage wann’d,

  Tears in his eyes, distraction in’s aspect,

  A broken voice, and his whole function suiting

  With forms to his conceit? and all for nothing!

  For Hecuba!

  What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,

  That he should weep for her? What would he do,

  Had he the motive and the cue for passion

  That I have? He would drown the stage with tears

  And cleave the general ear with horrid speech,

  Make mad the guilty and appal the free,

  Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed

  The very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I,

  A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak,

  Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,

  And can say nothing; no, not for a king,

  Upon whose property and most dear life

  A damn’d defeat was made. Am I a coward?

  Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across?

  Plucks off my beard, and blows it in my face?

  Tweaks me by the nose? gives me the lie i’ the throat,

  As deep as to the lungs? who does me this?

  Ha!

  ’swounds, I should take it: for it cannot be

  But I am pigeon-liver’d and lack gall

  To make oppression bitter, or ere this

  I should have fatted all the region kites

  With this slave’s offal: bloody, bawdy villain!

  Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!

  O, vengeance!

  Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,

  That I, the son of a dear father murder’d,

  Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,

  Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words,

  And fall a-cursing, like a very drab,

  A scullion!

  Fie upon’t! foh! About, my brain! I have heard

  That guilty creatures sitting at a play

  Have by the very cunning of the scene

  Been struck so to the soul that presently

  They have proclaim’d their malefactions;

  For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak

  With most miraculous organ. I’ll have these players

  Play something like the murder of my father

  Before mine uncle: I’ll observe his looks;

  I’ll tent him to the quick: if he but blench,

  I know my course. The spirit that I have seen

  May be the devil: and the devil hath power

  To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps

  Out of my weakness and my melancholy,

  As he is very potent with such spirits,

  Abuses me to damn me: I’ll have grounds

  More relative than this: the play ’s the thing

  Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.

  Exit

  ACT III

  SCENE I. A ROOM IN THE CASTLE.

  Enter King Claudius, Queen Gertrude, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern

  King Claudius

  And can you, by no drift of circumstance,

  Get from him why he puts on this confusion,

  Grating so harshly all his days of quiet

  With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?

  Rosencrantz

  He does confess he feels himself distracted;

  But from what cause he will by no means speak.

  Guildenstern

  Nor do we find him forward to be sounded,

  But, with a crafty madness, keeps aloof,

  When we would bring him on to some confession

  Of his true state.

  Queen Gertrude

  Did he receive you well?

  Rosencrantz

  Most like a gentleman.

  Guildenstern

  But with much forcing of his disposition.

  Rosencrantz

  Niggard of question; but, of our demands,

  Most free in his reply.

  Queen Gertrude

  Did you assay him?

  To any pastime?

  Rosencrantz

  Madam, it so fell out, that certain players

  We o’er-raught on the way: of these we told him;

  And there did seem in him a kind of joy

  To hear of it: they are about the court,

  And, as I think, they have already order

  This night to play before him.

  Lord Polonius

  ’Tis most true:

  And he beseech’d me to entreat your majesties

  To hear and see the matter.

  King Claudius

  With all my heart; and it doth much content me

  To hear him so inclined.

  Good gentlemen, give him a further edge,

  And drive his purpose on to these delights.

  Rosencrantz

  We shall, my lord.

  Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

  King Claudius

  Sweet Gertrude, leave us too;

  For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither,

  That he, as ’twere by accident, may here

  Affront Ophelia:

  Her father and myself, lawful espials,

  Will so bestow ourselves that, seeing, unseen,

  We may of their encounter frankly judge,

  And gather by him, as he is behaved,

  If ’t be the affliction of his love or no

  That thus he suffers for.

  Queen Gertrude

  I shall obey you.

  And for your part, Ophelia, I do wish

  That your good beauties be the happy cause

  Of Hamlet’s wildness: so shall I hope your virtues

  Will bring him to his wonted way again,

  To both your honours.

  Ophelia

  Madam, I wish it may.

  Exit Queen Gertrude

  Lord Polonius

  Ophelia, walk you here. Gracious, so please you,

  We will bestow ourselves.

  To Ophelia

  Read on this book;

  That show of such an exercise may colour

  Your loneliness. We are oft to blame in this,—

  ’Tis too much proved — that with devotion’s visage

  And pious action we do sugar o’er

  The devil himself.

  King Claudius

  [Aside] O, ’tis too true!

  How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!

  The harlot’s cheek, beautied with plastering art,

  Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it

  Than is my deed to my most painted word:

  O heavy burthen!

  Lord Polonius

  I hear him coming: let’s withdraw, my lord.

  Exeunt King Claudius and Polonius

  Enter Hamlet

  Hamlet

  To be, or not
to be: that is the question:

  Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer

  The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

  Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

  And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;

  No more; and by a sleep to say we end

  The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks

  That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation

  Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;

  To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;

  For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

  When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

  Must give us pause: there’s the respect

  That makes calamity of so long life;

  For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

  The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,

  The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,

  The insolence of office and the spurns

  That patient merit of the unworthy takes,

  When he himself might his quietus make

  With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,

  To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

  But that the dread of something after death,

  The undiscover’d country from whose bourn

  No traveller returns, puzzles the will

  And makes us rather bear those ills we have

  Than fly to others that we know not of?

  Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;

  And thus the native hue of resolution

  Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,

  And enterprises of great pith and moment

  With this regard their currents turn awry,

  And lose the name of action.— Soft you now!

  The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons

  Be all my sins remember’d.

  Ophelia

  Good my lord,

  How does your honour for this many a day?

  Hamlet

  I humbly thank you; well, well, well.

  Ophelia

  My lord, I have remembrances of yours,

  That I have longed long to re-deliver;

  I pray you, now receive them.

  Hamlet

  No, not I;

  I never gave you aught.

  Ophelia

  My honour’d lord, you know right well you did;

  And, with them, words of so sweet breath composed

  As made the things more rich: their perfume lost,

  Take these again; for to the noble mind

  Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.

  There, my lord.

  Hamlet

  Ha, ha! are you honest?

  Ophelia

  My lord?

  Hamlet

  Are you fair?

  Ophelia

  What means your lordship?