Hamlet
[_To the dead body of_ POLONIUS, _behind the arras_.]
I took thee for thy better.
Leave wringing of your hands: Peace; sit you down,
[_To the_ QUEEN.]
And let me wring your heart: for so I shall,
If it be made of penetrable stuff;
If damnèd custom have not brazed it so,[117]
That it be proof and bulwark against sense.[118]
_Queen._
(_Sits_ R.C.)
What have I done, that thou dar'st wag thy tongue
In noise so rude against me?
_Ham._
(_Seated_ L.C.)
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;[119] makes marriage vows
As false as dicer's oaths: O, such a deed
As from the body of contraction plucks
The very soul;[120] and sweet religion makes
A rhapsody of words.--
Ah, me, that act!
_Queen._ Ah me, what act?
_Ham._ Look here, upon this picture, and on this,
The counterfeit presentment[121] of two brothers.
See, what a grace was seated on this brow;
Hypérion's curls;[122] the front of Jove himself;
An eye like Mars, to threaten and command;
A station like the herald Mercury[123]
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 mildew'd ear,
Blasting his wholesome brother.[124] Have you eyes?
Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,
And batten on this moor?[125] Ha! have you eyes?
You cannot call it love; for, at your age
The hey-day in the blood[126] is tame, it's humble,
And waits upon the judgment: And what judgment
Would step from this to this?
O shame! where is thy blush? Rebellious hell,
If thou canst mutine,[127] in a matron's bones,
To flaming youth let virtue be as wax,
And melt in her own fire.
_Queen._ O, Hamlet, speak no more:
Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul;
And there I see such black and grainèd spots
As will not leave their tinct.[128]
_Ham._ Nay, but to live
In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed,----[129]
_Queen._ O, speak to me no more;
No more, sweet Hamlet!
_Ham._ A murderer and a villain:
A slave that is not twentieth part the tythe
Of your precedent lord;--a vice of kings;[130]
A cutpurse of the empire and the rule;
That from a shelf the precious diadem stole,
And put it in his pocket![131]
_Queen._ No more!
_Ham._ A king
Of shreds and patches.[132]
[_Enter_ Ghost, R.]
Save me
[_Starts from his chair_],
and hover o'er me with your wings,
You heavenly guards! What would your gracious figure?
_Queen._ Alas, he's mad!
[_Rising._]
_Ham._ (L.) Do you not come your tardy son to chide,
That, laps'd in time and passion,[133] lets go by
The important acting of your dread command?
O, say!
_Ghost._ (R.) 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.
Speak to her Hamlet.
_Ham._ How is it with you, lady?
_Queen._ Alas, how is't with you,
That you do bend your eye on vacancy,
And with the incorporal air do hold discourse?
Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep.
O gentle son,
[_Crosses to_ HAMLET.]
Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper
Sprinkle cool patience.[134] Whereon do you look?
_Ham._ On him, on him!--Look you, how pale he glares!
His form and cause conjoin'd, preaching to stones,
Would make them capable.[135] Do not look upon me;
Lest with this piteous action, you convert
My stern effects:[136] then what I have to do
Will want true colour; tears perchance, for blood.
_Queen._ To whom do you speak this?
_Ham._ Do you see nothing there?
_Queen._ Nothing at all; yet all that is, I see.[137]
_Ham._ Nor did you nothing hear?
_Queen._ No, nothing but ourselves.
_Ham._ Why, look you there! look, how it steals away!
[_Ghost crosses to_ L.]
My father in his habit as he lived![138]
Look, where he goes, even now, out at the portal!
[_Exit_ Ghost, L.H. HAMLET _sinks into chair_ C.
_The_ QUEEN _falls on her knees by his side._]
_Queen._ This is the very coinage of your brain:
This bodiless creation ecstasy
Is very cunning in.[139]
_Ham._ 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 re-word; which madness
Would gambol from.[140] Mother, for love of grace,
_Rising._]
Lay not that flattering unction to your soul,
That not your trespass, but my madness speaks:
It will but skin and film[141] the ulcerous place,
Whiles rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven;
Repent what's past; avoid what is to come.
_Queen._ O, Hamlet! thou hast cleft my heart in twain.
_Ham._ O, throw away the worser part of it,
And live the purer with the other half.
Good night: but go not to my uncle's bed;
[_Raising the_ QUEEN.]
Assume a virtue, if you have it not.
Once more, good night!
And when you are desirous to be bless'd,
I'll blessing beg of you.[142] For this same lord,
[_Pointing to_ POLONIUS.]
I do repent:
I will bestow him, and will answer well
The death I gave him. So, again, good night.
[_Exit_ QUEEN, R.H.]
I must be cruel, only to be kind:
Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.
[_Exit_ HAMLET _behind the arras_, L.H.U.E.
END OF ACT THIRD.
Notes
Act III
[Footnote III.1: _Forward_] Disposed, inclinable.]
[Footnote III.2: _Assay him to_] Try his disposition towards.]
[Footnote III.3: _O'er-raught on the way:_] Reached or overtook.]
[Footnote III.4 _Have closely sent_] _i.e._, privately sent.]
[Footnote III.5 _May here affront Ophelia:_] To affront is to
come face to face--to confront.]
[Footnote III.6 _Lawful espials_,] Spies justifiably inquisitive.
From the French, _espier_.]
[Footnote III.7 _Too much prov'd_,] Found by too frequent
experience.]
[Footnote III.8 _To be, or not to be, that is the question:_]
Hamlet is deliberating whether he should continue to live, or put
an end to his existence.]
[Footnote III.9: _Or to take arms against a sea of troubles_,] _A
sea of troubles_ among the Greeks grew into a proverbial usage;
so that the expression figuratively means, the troubles of human
life, which flow in upon us, and encompass us round like a sea.]
[Footnote III.10: _This mortal coil_,] Coil is here used in each
of its senses, that of turmoil or bustle, and that which entwines
or wraps round.]
[Footnote III.11: _Must give us pause:_] _i.e._, occasion for
reflection.]
[Footnote III.12: _There's the respect That makes calamity of so
long life_;] The _consideration_ that makes the evils of life so
long submitted to, lived under.]
[Footnote III.13: _The whips and scorns of time_,] Those
sufferings of body and mind, those stripes and mortifications to
which, in its _course_, the life of man is subjected.]
[Footnote III.14: _Contumely_,] Contemptuousness, rudeness.]
[Footnote III.15: _His quietus make_] Quietus means the official
discharge of an account: from the Latin. Particularly in the
Exchequer accounts, where it is still current. Chiefly used by
authors in metaphorical senses.]
[Footnote III.16: _A bare bodkin?_] Bodkin was an ancient term
for a small dagger. In the margin of Stowe's Chronicle it is said
that Cæsar was slain with _bodkins_.]
[Footnote III.17: _Who would fardels bear_,] Fardel is a burden.
Fardellus, low Latin.]
[Footnote III.18: _From whose bourn_] _i.e._, boundary.]
[Footnote III.19: _No traveller returns_,] The traveller whom
Hamlet had seen, though he appeared in the same habit which he
had worn in his life-time, was nothing but a shadow,
"invulnerable as the air," and, consequently, _incorporeal_. The
Ghost has given us no account of the region from whence he came,
being, as he himself informed us, "forbid to tell the secrets of
his prison-house."--MALONE.]
[Footnote III.20: _Thus conscience does make cowards of us all_;]
A state of doubt and uncertainty, a conscious feeling or
apprehension, a misgiving "How our audit stands."]
[Footnote III.21: _Of great pith and moment_,] _i.e._, of great
vigour and importance.]
[Footnote III.22:
_With this regard, their currents turn away_,
_And lose the name of action._]
From this sole consideration have their drifts diverted, and lose
the character and name of enterprise.]
[Footnote III.23: _Soft you now!_] A gentler pace! have done with
lofty march!]
[Footnote III.24: _Nymph, in thy orisons_] _i.e._, in thy
prayers. Orison is from _oraison_--French.]
[Footnote III.25: _If you be honest and fair, your honesty should
admit no discourse to your beauty._] _i.e._, if you really
possess these qualities, chastity and beauty, and mean to support
the character of both, your honesty should be so chary of your
beauty, as not to suffer a thing so fragile to entertain
discourse, or to be parleyed with.
The lady interprets the words otherwise, giving them the turn
best suited to her purpose.]
[Footnote III.26: _His likeness:_] Shakespeare and his
contemporaries frequently use the personal for the neutral
pronoun.]
[Footnote III.27: _Inoculate our old stock, but we shall relish
of it:_] So change the original constitution and properties, as
that no smack of them shall remain. "Inoculate our stock" are
terms in gardening.]
[Footnote III.28: _With more offences at my beck_] That is,
always ready to come about me--at my beck and call.]
[Footnote III.29: _Than I have thoughts to put them in, &c._] "To
put a thing into thought," Johnson says, is "to think on it."]
[Footnote III.30: _I have heard of your paintings_,] These
destructive aids of beauty seem, in the time of Shakespeare, to
have been general objects of satire.]
[Footnote III.31: _Heaven hath given you one face, and you make
yourselves another:_] _i.e._, Heaven hath given you one face, and
you disfigure his image by making yourself another.]
[Footnote III.32: _You jig, you amble, and you lisp_,] This is an
allusion to the manners of the age, which Shakespeare, in the
spirit of his contemporaries, means here to satirise.]
[Footnote III.33: _Make your wantonness your ignorance._] You
mistake by _wanton_ affectation, and pretend to mistake by
_ignorance_.]
[Footnote III.34: _All but one shall live_;] _One_ is the king.]
[Footnote III.35: _To a nunnery, go. Exit Hamlet._] There is no
doubt that Hamlet's attachment to Ophelia is ardent and sincere,
but he treats her with apparent severity because he is aware that
Ophelia has been purposely thrown in his way; that spies are
about them; and that it is necessary for the preservation of his
life, to assume a conduct which he thought would be attributed to
madness only.]