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!
To desperation turn my trust and hope!
An anchor’s cheer in prison be my scope!
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 ‘Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here awhile;
My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile
The tedious day with sleep.
Sleeps
Player Queen Sleep rock thy brain,
And never come mischance between us twain!
Exit
HAMLET 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’ the world.
KING CLAUDIUS What do you call the play?
HAMLET The Mouse-trap. 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 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 my edge.
OPHELIA Still better, and worse.
HAMLET So you must take your husbands. Begin, murderer;
pox, leave thy damnable faces, and begin. Come:
‘the croaking raven doth bellow for revenge.’
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.
Pours the poison into the sleeper’s ears
HAMLET He poisons him i’ the 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 How fares my lord?
LORD POLONIUS Give o’er the play.
KING CLAUDIUS Give me some light: away!
All Lights, lights, lights!
Exeunt all but HAMLET and HORATIO
HAMLET Why, let the stricken deer go weep,
The hart ungalled 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
Provincial 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 poisoning?
HORATIO I did very well note him.
HAMLET Ah, ha! Come, some music! come, the recorders!
For if the king like not the comedy,
Why then, belike, he likes it not, perdy.
Come, some music!
Re-enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN
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 answer 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 behavior 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? Impart.
ROSENCRANTZ She desires to speak with you in her closet, ere you
go to bed.
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, surely, bar the door upon 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 sir, ‘While the grass grows,’–the proverb
is something musty.
Re-enter Players with recorders
O, the recorders! let me see one. 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 lingers and thumb, give it breath with your
mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent 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, yet you
cannot play upon me.
Enter POLONIUS
God bless you, sir!
LORD 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?
LORD POLONIUS By the mass, and ’tis like a camel, indeed.
HAMLET Methinks it is like a weasel.
LORD POLONIUS It is backed like a weasel.
HAMLET Or like a whale?
LORD POLONIUS Very like a whale.
HAMLET Then I will come to my mother by and by. They fool
me to the top of my bent. I will come by and by.
LORD POLONIUS I will say so.
HAMLET By and by is easily said.
Exit POLONIUS
Leave me, friends.
Exeunt all but HAMLET
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 soever she be shent,
To give them seals never, my soul, consent!
Exit
Scene 3
A room in the castle.
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: