Enter ⟨Queen⟩ and Polonius.POLONIUS He 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 stood5 between Much heat and him. I’ll silence me even here. Pray you, be round ⟨with him.HAMLET, within Mother, mother, mother!⟩QUEEN I’ll ⟨warrant⟩ you. Fear me not. Withdraw,10 I hear him coming.⌜Polonius hides behind the arras.⌝Enter Hamlet.HAMLET Now, mother, what’s the matter?QUEEN Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.HAMLET Mother, you have my father much offended.
QUEEN Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.HAMLET 15 Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.QUEEN Why, how now, Hamlet?HAMLET What’s the matter now?QUEEN Have you forgot me?HAMLET No, by the rood, not so.20 You are the Queen, your husband’s brother’s wife, And (would it were not so) you are my mother.QUEEN 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 glass25 Where you may see the ⟨inmost⟩ part of you.QUEEN What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murder me? Help, ho!POLONIUS, ⌜behind the arras⌝ What ho! Help!HAMLET How now, a rat? Dead for a ducat, dead.⌜He ⟨kills Polonius⟩ by thrusting a rapier
through the arras.⌝POLONIUS, ⌜behind the arras⌝ 30 O, I am slain!QUEEN O me, what hast thou done?HAMLET Nay, I know not. Is it the King?QUEEN O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!HAMLET A bloody deed—almost as bad, good mother,35 As kill a king and marry with his brother.QUEEN As kill a king?
HAMLET Ay, lady, it was my word.⌜He pulls Polonius’ body from behind the arras.⌝ Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell. I took thee for thy better. Take thy fortune.40 Thou find’st to be too busy is some danger. ⌜To Queen.⌝ 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,45 If damnèd custom have not brazed it so That it be proof and bulwark against sense.QUEEN What have I done, that thou dar’st wag thy tongue In noise so rude against me?HAMLET Such an act50 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 deed55 As from the body of contraction plucks The very soul, and sweet religion makes A rhapsody of words! Heaven’s face does glow O’er this solidity and compound mass With heated visage, as against the doom,60 Is thought-sick at the act.QUEEN 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.65 See what a grace was seated on this brow, Hyperion’s curls, the front of Jove himself, An eye like Mars’ to threaten and command, A station like the herald Mercury New-lighted on a ⟨heaven⟩-kissing hill,
70 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 ear75 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 humble80 And waits upon the judgment; and what judgment Would step from this to this? [Sense sure you have, Else could you not have motion; but sure that sense Is apoplexed; for madness would not err, Nor sense to ecstasy was ne’er so thralled,85 But it reserved some quantity of choice To serve in such a difference.] What devil was ’t That thus hath cozened you at hoodman-blind? [Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight, Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all,90 Or but a sickly part of one true sense Could not so mope.] O shame, where is thy blush? Rebellious hell, If thou canst mutine in a matron’s bones, To flaming youth let virtue be as wax95 And melt in her own fire. Proclaim no shame When the compulsive ardor gives the charge, Since frost itself as actively doth burn, And reason ⟨panders⟩ will.QUEEN O Hamlet, speak no more!100 Thou turn’st my eyes into my ⟨very⟩ soul, And there I see such black and ⟨grainèd⟩ spots As will ⟨not⟩ leave their tinct.HAMLET Nay, but to live In the rank sweat of an enseamèd bed,105 Stewed in corruption, honeying and making love Over the nasty sty!
QUEEN O, speak to me no more! These words like daggers enter in my ears. No more, sweet Hamlet!HAMLET 110 A murderer and a villain, A slave that is not twentieth 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 stole115 And put it in his pocket—QUEEN No more!HAMLET A king of shreds and patches—Enter Ghost. Save me and hover o’er me with your wings, You heavenly guards!—What would your gracious120 figure?QUEEN Alas, he’s mad.HAMLET 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?125 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.130 Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works. Speak to her, Hamlet.HAMLET How is it with you, lady?QUEEN Alas, how is ’t with you, That you do bend your eye on vacancy135 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 an end. O gentle son,
140 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 not145 look upon me, Lest with this piteous action you convert My stern effects. Then what I have to do Will want true color—tears perchance for blood.QUEEN To whom do you speak this?HAMLET 150Do you see nothing there?QUEEN Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.HAMLET Nor did you nothing hear?QUEEN No, nothing but ourselves.HAMLET Why, look you there, look how it steals away!155 My father, in his habit as he lived! Look where he goes even now out at the portal!Ghost exits.QUEEN This is the very coinage of your brain. This bodiless creation ecstasy Is very cunning in.HAMLET 160 ⟨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 madness165 Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace, Lay not that flattering unction to your soul That not your trespass but my madness speaks. It will but skin and film the ulcerous place, Whiles rank corruption, mining all within,170 Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven,
Repent what’s past, avoid what is to come, And do not spread the compost on the weeds To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue, For, in the fatness of these pursy times,175 Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg, Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good.QUEEN 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!180 Good night. But go not to my uncle’s bed. Assume a virtue if you have it not. [That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat, Of habits devil, is angel yet in this, That to the use of actions fair and good185 He likewise gives a frock or livery That aptly is put on.] Refrain ⟨tonight,⟩ And that shall lend a kind of easiness To the next abstinence, [the next more easy; For use almost can change the stamp of nature190 And either ⌜…⌝ the devil or throw him out With wondrous potency.] Once more, good night, And, when you are desirous to be blest, I’ll blessing beg of you. For this same lord⌜Pointing to Polonius.⌝ I do repent; but heaven hath pleased it so195 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.200 This bad begins, and worse remains behind. [One word more, good lady.]QUEEN What shall I do?
HAMLET Not this by no means that I bid you do: Let the bloat king tempt you again to bed,205 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,210 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,215 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 Be thou assured, if words be made of breath220 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 Alack, I had forgot! ’Tis so concluded on.HAMLET 225 [There’s letters sealed; and my two schoolfellows, Whom I will trust as I will adders fanged, They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way And marshal me to knavery. Let it work, For ’tis the sport to have the enginer230 Hoist with his own petard; and ’t shall go hard But I will delve one yard below their mines And blow them at the moon. O, ’tis most sweet When in one line two crafts directly meet.] This man shall set me packing.
235 I’ll lug the guts into the neighbor room. Mother, good night indeed. This counselor 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.—240 Good night, mother.⌜They⌝ exit, ⟨Hamlet tugging in Polonius.⟩
