As level as the cannon to his blank,
Transports his poison’d shot, may miss our name,
And hit the woundless air. O, come away!
My soul is full of discord and dismay.
Exeunt
Scene 2
Another room in the castle.
Enter HAMLET
HAMLET Safely stowed.
ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN [Within]
Hamlet! Lord Hamlet!
HAMLET What noise? who calls on Hamlet?
O, here they come.
Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN
ROSENCRANTZ What have you done, my lord, with the dead body?
HAMLET Compounded it with dust, whereto ’tis kin.
ROSENCRANTZ Tell us where ’tis, that we may take it thence
And bear it to the chapel.
HAMLET Do not believe it.
ROSENCRANTZ Believe what?
HAMLET That I can keep your counsel and not mine own.
Besides, to be demanded of a sponge! what
replication should be made by the son of a king?
ROSENCRANTZ Take you me for a sponge, my lord?
HAMLET Ay, sir, that soaks up the king’s countenance, his
rewards, his authorities. But such officers do the
king best service in the end: he keeps them, like
an ape, in the corner of his jaw; first mouthed, to
be last swallowed: when he needs what you have
gleaned, it is but squeezing you, and, sponge, you
shall be dry again.
ROSENCRANTZ I understand you not, my lord.
HAMLET I am glad of it: a knavish speech sleeps in a
foolish ear.
ROSENCRANTZ My lord, you must tell us where the body is, and go
with us to the king.
HAMLET The body is with the king, but the king is not with
the body. The king is a thing–
GUILDENSTERN A thing, my lord!
HAMLET Of nothing: bring me to him. Hide fox, and all after.
Exeunt
Scene 3
Another room in the castle.
Enter KING CLAUDIUS, attended
KING CLAUDIUS I have sent to seek him, and to find the body.
How dangerous is it that this man goes loose!
Yet must not we put the strong law on him:
He’s loved of the distracted multitude,
Who like not in their judgment, but their eyes;
And where tis so, the offender’s scourge is weigh’d,
But never the offence. To bear all smooth and even,
This sudden sending him away must seem
Deliberate pause: diseases desperate grown
By desperate appliance are relieved,
Or not at all.
Enter ROSENCRANTZ
How now! what hath befall’n?
ROSENCRANTZ Where the dead body is bestow’d, my lord,
We cannot get from him.
KING CLAUDIUS But where is he?
ROSENCRANTZ Without, my lord; guarded, to know your pleasure.
KING CLAUDIUS Bring him before us.
ROSENCRANTZ Ho, Guildenstern! bring in my lord.
Enter HAMLET and GUILDENSTERN
KING CLAUDIUS Now, Hamlet, where’s Polonius?
HAMLET At supper.
KING CLAUDIUS At supper! where?
HAMLET Not where he eats, but where he is eaten: a certain
convocation of politic worms are e’en at him. Your
worm is your only emperor for diet: we fat all
creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for
maggots: your fat king and your lean beggar is but
variable service, two dishes, but to one table:
that’s the end.
KING CLAUDIUS Alas, alas!
HAMLET A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a
king, and cat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.
KING CLAUDIUS What dost you mean by this?
HAMLET Nothing but to show you how a king may go a
progress through the guts of a beggar.
KING CLAUDIUS Where is Polonius?
HAMLET In heaven; send hither to see: if your messenger
find him not there, seek him i’ the other place
yourself. But indeed, if you find him not within
this month, you shall nose him as you go up the
stairs into the lobby.
KING CLAUDIUS Go seek him there.
To some Attendants
HAMLET He will stay till ye come.
Exeunt Attendants
KING CLAUDIUS Hamlet, this deed, for thine especial safety,–
Which we do tender, as we dearly grieve
For that which thou hast done,–must send thee hence
With fiery quickness: therefore prepare thyself;
The bark is ready, and the wind at help,
The associates tend, and every thing is bent
For England.
HAMLET For England!
KING CLAUDIUS Ay, Hamlet.
HAMLET Good.
KING CLAUDIUS So is it, if thou knew’st our purposes.
HAMLET I see a cherub that sees them. But, come; for
England! Farewell, dear mother.
KING CLAUDIUS Thy loving father, Hamlet.
HAMLET My mother: father and mother is man and wife; man
and wife is one flesh; and so, my mother. Come, for England!
Exit
KING CLAUDIUS Follow him at foot; tempt him with speed aboard;
Delay it not; I’ll have him hence to-night:
Away! for every thing is seal’d and done
That else leans on the affair: pray you, make haste.
Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN
And, England, if my love thou hold’st at aught–
As my great power thereof may give thee sense,
Since yet thy cicatrice looks raw and red
After the Danish sword, and thy free awe
Pays homage to us–thou mayst not coldly set
Our sovereign process; which imports at full,
By letters congruing to that effect,
The present death of Hamlet. Do it, England;
For like the hectic in my blood he rages,
And thou must cure me: till I know ’tis done,
Howe’er my haps, my joys were ne’er begun.
Exit
Scene 4
A plain in Denmark.
Enter FORTINBRAS, a Captain, and Soldiers, marching
PRINCE FORTINBRAS Go, captain, from me greet the Danish king;
Tell him that, by his licence, Fortinbras
Craves the conveyance of a promised march
Over his kingdom. You know the rendezvous.
If that his majesty would aught with us,
We shall express our duty in his eye;
And let him know so.
Captain I will do’t, my lord.
PRINCE FORTINBRAS Go softly on.
Exeunt FORTINBRAS and Soldiers
Enter HAMLET, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, and others
HAMLET Good sir, whose powers are these?
Captain They are of Norway, sir.
HAMLET How purposed, sir, I pray you?
Captain Against some part of Poland.
HAMLET Who commands them, sir?
Captain The nephews to old Norway, Fortinbras.
HAMLET Goes it against the main of Poland, sir,
Or for some frontier?
Captain Truly to speak, and with no addition,
We go to gain a little patch of ground
That hath in it no profit but the name.
To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it;
Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole
A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee.
HAMLET Why, then the Polack never will defend it.
Captain Yes, it is already garrison’d.
HAMLET Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats
Will not debate the question of this straw:
This is the imposthume of much wealth and peace,
That inward breaks, and shows no cause without
Why the man dies. I humbly thank you, sir.
Captain God be wi’ you, sir.
Exit
ROSENCRANTZ Wilt please you go, my lord?
HAMLET I’ll be with you straight go a little before.
Exeunt all except HAMLET
How all occasions do inform against me,
And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.
Sure, he that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and god-like reason
To fust in us unused. Now, whether it be
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
Of thinking too precisely on the event,
A thought which, quarter’d, hath but one part wisdom
And ever three parts coward, I do not know
Why yet I live to say ‘This thing’s to do;’
Sith I have cause and will and strength and means
To do’t. Examples gross as earth exhort me:
Witness this army of such mass and charge
Led by a delicate and tender prince,
Whose spirit with divine ambition puff’d
Makes mouths at the invisible event,
Exposing what is mortal and unsure
To all that fortune, death and danger dare,
Even for an egg-shell. Rightly to be great
Is not to stir without great argument,
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
When honour’s at the stake. How stand I then,
That have a father kill’d, a mother stain’d,
Excitements of my reason and my blood,
And let all sleep? while, to my shame, I see
The imminent death of twenty thousand men,
That, for a fantasy and trick of fame,
Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot
Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,
Which is not tomb enough and continent
To hide the slain? O, from this time forth,
My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!
Exit
Scene 5
Elsinore. A room in the castle.
Enter QUEEN GERTRUDE, HORATIO, and a Gentleman
QUEEN GERTRUDE I will not speak with her.
Gentleman She is importunate, indeed distract:
Her mood will needs be pitied.
QUEEN GERTRUDE What would she have?
Gentleman She speaks much of her father; says she hears
There’s tricks i’ the world; and hems, and beats her heart;
Spurns enviously at straws; speaks things in doubt,