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
T' 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.

SCENE I.-A Room in the Castle.

Enter King, Queen, POLONIUS, OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN.

King. And can you, by no drift of conference, Get from him, why he puts on this confusion, Grating so harshly all his days of quiet, With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?

Ros. He does confess, he feels himself distracted; But from what cause he will by no means speak. Guil. 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.

Did he receive you well?

Ros. Most like a gentleman.

Guil. But with much forcing of his disposition. Ros. Niggard of question; but, of our demands, Most free in his reply. Queen.

To any pastime ?

Did you assay

him

Ros. 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.

To hear him so inclin'd.

Good gentlemen, give him a further edge,

And drive his purpose on to these delights.
Ros. We shall, my lord.

[Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. King. 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 behav'd,

If't be th' affliction of his love, or no,
That thus he suffers for.

Queen.
I shall obey you.-
And, for your part, Ophelia, I do wish,
That your good beauties be the happy cause

:

Ham. 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 dispriz'd 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 these 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.
Oph.
Good my lord,
How does your honour for this many a day?
Ham. I humbly thank you; well, well, well.
Oph. My lord, I have remembrances of yours,
That I have longed long to re-deliver;

I pray you now receive them.

Ham.

I never gave you aught.

No, not I;

Oph. My honour'd lord, you know right well you did;

And with them, words of so sweet breath compos'd,
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.

Ham. Ha, ha! are you honest?
Oph. My lord!

Ham. Are you fair?

Oph. What means your lordship? Ham. That if you be honest, and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty.

Oph. Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty?

Ham. Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd, than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness: this was some time a paradox, but now the time gives it proof. I did love you once.

Oph. Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so. Ham. You should not have believed me; for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock, but we shall relish of it. I loved you not.

Oph. I was the more deceived.

Ham. Get thee to a nunnery: why would'st thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest: but yet I could accuse me of such things, that it were better, my mother had not borne me. I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious; with more offences at my beck, than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in. What should such fellows as I do crawling between heaven and earth? We are arrant knaves, all; believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery. Where's your father? Oph. At home, my lord.

Ham. Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool no where but in's own house. Farewell.

Oph. O! help him, you sweet heavens!

Ham. If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague for thy dowry: be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery; go, farewell. Or, if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool, for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go; and quickly too. Farewell.

Oph. Heavenly powers, restore him!

Ham. I have heard of your paintings too, well enough: God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another: you jig, you amble, and you lisp, and nickname God's creatures, and make your wantonness your ignorance. Go to; I'll no more on't it hath made me mad. I say, we will have no more marriages: those that are married already, all but one, shall live; the rest shall keep as they are. To a nunnery, go. [Exit HAMLET.

Oph. O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown! The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword:

Th' expectancy and rose of the fair state,
The glass of fashion, and the mould of form,
Th' observ'd of all observers, quite, quite down!
And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
That suck'd the honey of his music vows,
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh;
That unmatch'd form and feature of blown youth,
Blasted with ecstasy. O, woe is me!

To have seen what I have seen, see what I see!

Re-enter King and POLONIUS.

King. Love! his affections do not that way tend; Nor what he spake, though it lack'd form a little, Was not like madness. There's something in his soul,

O'er which his melancholy sits on brood;
And, I do doubt, the hatch, and the disclose,
Will be some danger: which for to prevent,

I have, in quick determination,

Thus set it down. He shall with speed to England,
For the demand of our neglected tribute:
Haply, the seas, and countries different,
With variable objects, shall expel

I

This something settled matter in his heart;
Whereon his brains still beating puts him thus
From fashion of himself. What think you on't?
Pol. It shall do well: but yet do I believe,
The origin and commencement of his grief
Sprung from neglected love.-How now, Ophelia !
You need not tell us what lord Hamlet said;
We heard it all.-My lord, do as you please;
But, if you hold it fit, after the play
Let his queen mother all alone entreat him
To show his griefs: let her be round with him:
And I'll be plac'd, so please you, in the ear
Of all their conference. If she find him not,
To England send him, or confine him where
Your wisdom best shall think.

King.
It shall be so:
Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go.
[Exeunt.

SCENE II.-A Hall in the Same. Enter HAMLET, and certain Players. Ham. Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue; but

if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus; but use all gently for in the very torrent, tempest, and (as I may say) whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance, that may give it smoothness. O! it offends me to the soul, to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings; who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows, and noise: I would have such a fellow whipped for o'er-doing Termagant; it out-herods Herod: pray you avoid it. 1 Play. I warrant your honour.

Ham. Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor: suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature; for any thing so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first, and now, was, and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time, his form and pressure. Now, this overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of which one must, in your allowance, o'er-weigh a whole theatre of others. O! there be players, that I have seen play,-and heard others praise, and that highly,-not to speak it profanely, that, neither having the accent of Christians, nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted, and bellowed, that I have thought some of Nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.

1 Play. I hope, we have reformed that indifferently with us.

Ham. O! reform it altogether. And let those, that play your clowns, speak no more than is set down for them: for there be of them, that will themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too; though in the mean time some necessary question of the play be then to be considered: that's villainous, and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it. Go, make you ready.[Exeunt Players.

Enter POLONIUS, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDEN

STERN..

How now, my lord! will the king hear this piece of work?

Pol. And the queen too, and that presently.
Ham. Bid the players make haste.-
[Exit POLONIus.

Will you two help to hasten them?
Both. We will, my lord.

Ereunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. Ham. What, ho! Horatio!

Enter HORATIO.

Hor. Here, sweet lord, at your service.
Ham. Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man
As e'er my conversation cop'd withal.
Hor. O! my dear lord,-

Ham.
Nay, do not think I flatter;
For what advancement may I hope from thee,
That no revenue hast, but thy good spirits,

To feed and clothe thee? Why should the poor be flatter'd?

No; let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp,

And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee,
Where thrift may follow fawning. Dost thou hear?
Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice,
And could of men distinguish, her election
Hath seal'd thee for herself: for thou hast been
As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing;
A man, that fortune's buffets and rewards
Hast ta'en with equal thanks: and bless'd are those,
Whose blood and judgment are so well co-mingled,
That they are not a pipe for fortune's finger
To sound what stop she please. Give me that man
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart,
As I do thee.-Something too much of this.-
There is a play to-night before the king;
One scene of it comes near the circumstance,
Which I have told thee, of my father's death:
I pr'ythee, when thou seest that act a-foot,
Even with the very comment of my soul
Observe mine uncle: if his occulted guilt
Do not itself unkennel in one speech,
It is a damned ghost that we have seen,
And my imaginations are as foul

As Vulcan's stithy. Give him heedful note;
For I mine eyes will rivet to his face,

And, after, we will both our judgments join
In censure of his seeming.

Hor. Well, my lord;

If he steal aught the whilst this play is playing, And 'scape detecting, I will pay the theft.

Ham. They are coming to the play; I must be idle;

Get you a place.

Danish March. A Flourish. Enter King, Queen, POLONIUS, OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, and others.

King. How fares our cousin Hamlet?

Ham. Excellent, i' faith; of the camelion's dish: I eat the air, promise-crammed. You cannot feed capons so.

King. I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet: these words are not mine.

Ham. No, nor mine now.-My lord, you played once in the university, you say? [To POLONIUS. Pol. That did I, my lord; and was accounted a good actor.

Ham. And what did you enact?

Pol. I did enact Julius Cæsar: I was killed i' the Capitol; Brutus killed me.

Ham. It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf there.-Be the players ready?

Ros. Ay, my lord; they stay upon your patience. Queen. Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me. Ham. No, good mother, here's metal more at

tractive.

Pol. O ho! do you mark that? [To the King.
Ham. Lady, shall I lie in your lap?
[Lying down at OPHELIA's Feet.

Oph. No, my lord.
Ham. I mean, my head upon your lap?
Oph. Ay, my lord.

Ham. Do you think, I meant country matters?
Oph. I think nothing, my lord.

Ham. That's a fair thought to lie between maids'

legs.

Oph. What is, my lord?

Ham. Nothing.

Oph. You are merry, my lord.

Ham. Who, I?

Oph. Ay, my lord.

Ham. O God! your only jig-maker. What should a man do, but be merry? for, fook you, how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died within these two hours.

Oph. Nay, 'tis twice two months, my lord.

Ham. So long? Nay then, let the devil wear black, for I'll have a suit of sables. O heavens! die two months ago, and not forgotten yet? Then there's hope, a great man's memory may outlive his life half a year; but, by'r-lady, he must build churches then, or else shall he suffer not thinking on, with the hobby-horse; whose epitaph is, "For, O! for, O! the hobby-horse is forgot."

Trumpets sound. The dumb Show enters. Enter a King and Queen, very lovingly; the Queen embracing him. She kneels, and makes show of protestation unto him. He takes her up, and declines his head upon her neck; lays him down upon a bunk of flowers: she, seeing him asleep, leaves him. Anon comes in a fellow, takes off his crown, kisses it, and pours poison in the King's ear, and exit. The Queen returns, finds the King dead, and makes passionate action. The poisoner, with some two or three Mutes, comes in again, seeming to lament with her. The dead body is carried away. The poisoner woos the Queen with gifts: she seems loath and unwilling awhile; but in the end accepts his love. [Exeunt. Oph. What means this, my lord?

Ham. Marry, this is miching mallecho; it means mischief.

Oph. Belike, this show imports the argument of the play. Enter Prologue.

Ham. We shall know by this fellow: the players cannot keep counsel; they'll tell all.

Oph. Will he tell us what this show meant? Ham. Ay, or any show that you will show him: be not you ashamed to show, he'll not shame to tell you what it means.

Oph. You are naught, you are naught. I'll mark the play.

Pro. "For us, and for our tragedy,

Here stooping to your clemency,

We beg your hearing patiently." Ham. Is this a prologue, or the poesy of a ring? Oph. 'Tis brief, my lord. Ham. As woman's love.

Enter a King and a Queen.

P. King. Full thirty times hath Phoebus' cart gone round

Neptune's salt wash, and Tellus' orbed ground;
And thirty dozen moons, with borrow'd sheen,
About the world have times twelve thirties been;
Since love our hearts, and Hymen did our hands,
Unite commutual in most sacred bands.

P. Queen. So many journeys may the sun and moon
Make us again count o'er, ere love be done.
But, woe is me! you are so sick of late,
So far from cheer, and from your former state,
That I distrust you. Yet, though I distrust,
Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must;
For women's fear and love hold quantity,
In neither aught, or in extremity.

Now, what my love is, proof hath made you know,
And as my love is siz'd, my fear is so.

Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear;
Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.
P. King. 'Faith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly

too;

My operant powers their functions leave to do: And thou shalt live in this fair world behind,