Original subtitles

It means mischief.

Belike this show imports the argument of the play.

We shall know by this fellow. The players cannot keep counsel. They'll tell all!

For us, and for our tragedy, Here stooping to your clemency,

We beg your hearing patiently.

Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?

- 'Tis brief, my lord. - As woman's love.

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.

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.

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,

Honour'd, beloved; and haply one as kind

- For husband shalt thou... - O, confound the rest!

Such love must needs be treason in my breast.

In second husband let me be accurst! None wed the second but who kill'd the first.

Wormwood! Wormwoo...!

The instances that second marriage move Are base respects of thrift, but none of love.

A second time I kill my husband dead, When second husband kisses me in bed.

I do believe you think what now you speak, But what we do determine oft we break.

Purpose is but the slave to memory, Of violent birth, but poor validity.

So think thou wilt no second husband wed,

But die thy thoughts when thy first lord is dead.

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, lf, once a widow, ever I be wife.

- If she should break it now. - 'Tis deeply sworn.

Sweet, leave me here awhile.

My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile

The tedious day with sleep.

Sleep rock thy brain,

And never come mischance between us twain!

Madam, how like you this play?

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

O, but she'll keep her word.

Have you heard the argument?

- Is there no offence in 't? - No, they do but jest, poison in jest.

What do you call the play?

"The Mousetrap", marry, how tropically.

It is the image of a murder done in Vienna. Gonzago is the duke, 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.

This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king.

Begin, murderer.

Pox, leave your damnable faces and begin!

Come. The croaking raven doth bellow for revenge.

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 usurps immediately.

(WAILS)

He poisons him in the garden for his estate!

His name's Gonzago. The story is extant.

You shall see anon how the murderer gets the love of Gonzago's wife.

- The king rises. - What, frighted with false fire?

- How fares my lord? - Give o'er the play.

Give me some light.

- Away! - Lights, lights, lights!

(HAMLET LAUGHS HYSTERICALLY)

(HAMLET) # Why, let the stricken deer go weep

# The hart ungalled play

# For some must watch, while some must sleep

# Thus runs the world away #

O good Horatio, I'll take the ghost's word for a thousand pound.

- Didst perceive? - Very well, my lord.

- Upon the talk of the poisoning? - I did very well note him.

Ha! Come, some music! Come, the recorders!

# For if the king like not the comedy, Why then, belike, he likes it not, perdie #

- Come, some music! - My lord, vouchsafe me a word.

- Sir, a whole history. - The king...

- Ay, sir, what of him? - ..is in his retirement distempered.

- With drink, sir? - Rather with choler.

Signify this to his doctor.

For me to put him to his purgation would plunge him into far more choler.

Good my lord, put your discourse into some frame and start not so wildly from my affair.

I am tame, sir. Pronounce.

The queen, your mother, in most great affliction of spirit, hath sent me to you.

- You are welcome. - 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.

Sir, I cannot.

- What, my lord? - 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. No more, but to the matter.

Then thus she says - your behaviour hath struck her into amazement and admiration.

O wonderful son, that can so astonish a mother!

Is there no sequel at the heels of this mother's admiration? lmpart.

She desires to speak with you in her closet, ere you go to bed.

We shall obey were she ten times our mother.

Have you any further trade with us?

My lord, you once did love me.

And do still, by these pickers and stealers.

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.

Sir...l lack advancement.

How can that be? You have the voice of the king himself for your succession.

Ay, but while the grass grows... The proverb is something musty.

Ah, the recorders! Let me see one.

To withdraw with you, why do you go about as if you would drive me into a toil?

O, my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly.

I do not well understand that. Will you play upon this pipe?

- My lord, I cannot. - I do beseech you.

- I know no touch of it. - It is as easy as lying.

Govern these ventages, give it breath, and it will discourse most eloquent music.

- Look you, these are the stops. - But these cannot I command.

- (ANGRILY) I have not the skill! - How unworthy a thing you make of me.

You would play upon me, you would seem to know my stops,

you would sound me to the top of my compass.

There is much music 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!

- God bless you, sir. - My lord, the queen would speak with you.

Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel?

- By the mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed. - Methinks it's like a weasel.

- It is backed like a weasel. - Or a whale.

- Very like a whale. - They fool me to the top of my bent.

I will come by and by.

- I will say so. - "By and by" is easily said.

Leave me...friends.

'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 upon.

Soft...now to my mother.

O heart, lose not thy nature.

Let not 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!

I like him not!

Nor stands it safe with us to let his madness range.

Therefore I your commission will dispatch, and he to England shall along with you.

The terms of our estate may not endure hazard so near as doth hourly grow out of his brows.

We will ourselves provide.

Most holy and religious fear it is

to keep those many many bodies safe that live and feed upon Your Majesty.

The cease of majesty dies not alone, but like a gulf doth draw what's near it with it.

It is a massy wheel to whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things are adjoin'd,

which, when it falls, each small annexment,

petty consequence, attends the boist'rous ruin.

Never alone did the king sigh, but with a general groan.

Arm you, I pray you, to this speedy voyage,

for we will fetters put about this fear, which now goes too free-footed.

We will haste us.

My lord, he's going to his mother's closet.

Behind the arras, I'll convey myself to hear the process.

Fare you well, my liege.

I'll call upon you ere you go to bed and tell you what I know.

Thanks, good my lord. (SPLUTTERS)

O, my offence is rank.

It smells to heaven.

It hath the primal eldest curse upon't - a brother's murder.

Pray can I not, though inclination be as sharp as will,

my guilt defeats my intent, and, like to double business bound,

I stand in pause where I should first begin, and both neglect.

This cursed hand, thick with brother's blood,

is there not rain enough in heaven to wash it white as snow?

Whereto serves mercy but to confront the visage of offence?

What's in prayer but this two-fold force, to be forestalled ere we fall or pardon'd?

Then I'll look up. My fault is past.

But, O, what form of prayer can serve my turn?

"Forgive me my foul murder"? That cannot be,

since I am still possess'd of its effects - my crown, mine own ambition and...my queen.

May one be pardon'd and retain the offence?

In the corrupted currents of this world offence's gilded hand may shove by justice,

and oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself buys out the law.

But 'tis not so above.

There the action lies in his true nature, and we ourselves compell'd

even in the teeth and forehead of our faults to give in evidence.

What then?

What rests?

Try what repentance can. What can it not?

Yet what can it when one can not repent?

O wretched state!

O bosom black as death!

O limed soul, that, struggling to be free, art more engaged.

Help...angels!

Make assay! Bow, stubborn knees...

..and, heart with strings of steel

be soft as sinews of the newborn babe.

All may be well.

(MOUTHS SILENTLY)

Now might I do it...pat.

Now he is praying, and now I'll do't.

And so he goes to heaven,

and so am I revenged.

That would be scann'd - a villain kills my father,

and for that, I, his sole son, do this same villain send to heaven.

O, this is hire and salary, not revenge.

He took my father grossly, full of bread,

with all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May.

Am I then revenged to take him in the purging of his soul, when he is season'd for his passage?

No. Up, sword, and know thou a more horrid hent, when he is drunk asleep,

or in his rage, or in the incestuous pleasure of his bed,

at game a-swearing, or about some act that hath no relish of salvation in't,

then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven,

and his soul may be as damn'd and black as hell whereto it goes.

My mother stays.

This physic but prolongs thy sickly days.

My words fly up.

My thoughts remain below.

Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

A will come straight. Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear with,

and that Your Grace hath stood between much heat and him.

I'll silence me even here. Be round with him.

- (HAMLET) Mother! - I'll warrant you, fear me not.

- Withdraw, I hear him coming. - Mother?

Now...Mother,

what's the matter?

Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.

Mother, you have my father much offended.

You answer with an idle tongue.

- You question with a wicked tongue. - How now, Hamlet!

- What's the matter now? - Hast thou forgot me?

Not so. You are the queen, your husband's brother's wife.

And, would it were not so, you are my mother.

Nay, then, I'll set those to you that can speak.

Sit you down. You go not till I set you up a glass where you see the inmost part of you.

What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murder me? Help! Help, ho!

- (POLONIUS) Help! Help! - How now! A rat?

Dead for a ducat! Dead!

(POLONIUS) I am slain!

- What hast thou done? - I know not. Is it the king?

- What a rash and bloody deed is this! - A bloody deed?

Almost as bad as kill a king and marry with his brother.

- As kill a king? - Ay, lady, 'twas my word.

Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool!

Farewell.

I took thee for thy better.

Take thy fortune.

Thou find'st to be too busy is some danger.

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,

if damned custom have not brass'd it so that it is proof against sense.

What have I done that thou darest wag thy tongue so?

Such an act that blurs the grace of modesty,

calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose from the forehead of an innocent love

and sets a blister there, makes marriage-vows as false as dicers' oaths!

Ay me, what act that roars so loud and thunders in the index?

Look here upon this picture, and on this, the counterfeit presentment of two brothers.

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,

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.

Have you eyes? Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed and batten on this moor?

Have you eyes? You cannot call it love,

for at your age the blood is tame and waits upon the judgment,

and what judgment would step from this to this?

Sense you have, else could you not have motion,

but that sense is apoplex'd, for madness would not err

nor sense to ecstasy was ne'er so thrall'd

but it reserved some quantity of choice to serve in such a difference.

What devil was't that thus hath cozen'd you at hoodman-blind?

O shame, where is thy blush?

Rebellious hell, if thou canst mutine in a matron's bones,

to flaming youth let virtue be as wax and melt in its own fire.

Proclaim no shame when the compulsive ardour gives the charge,

since frost itself as actively doth burn and reason panders will.

O Hamlet, speak no more!

Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul,

and there I see such black spots as will not leave their tinct.

Nay, but to live in the rank sweat of an enseamed bed, stew'd in corruption,

honeying, making love over the nasty sty!

O, Hamlet, speak no more!

These words like daggers enter in mine ear! No more, sweet Hamlet!

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 stole, and put it in his pocket!

A king of shreds and patches!

Save me, and hover o'er me with your wings, you heavenly guards!

What would your gracious figure?

Alas...he's mad.

Do you not come your tardy son to chide,

that, lapsed in time and passion, lets go by the important acting of your dread command?

- O, say! - 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.

How is it with you, lady?

Alas, how is't with you,

that you do bend your eye on vacancy and with the incorporal air do hold discourse?

- Whereon do you look? - On him.

On him! Look you, how pale he glares!

His form and cause conjoin'd, preaching to stones, would make them capable.

Do not look upon me, lest with this piteous action you convert my stern effects.

Then what I have to do will want true colour - tears perchance for blood.

To whom do you speak this?

Do you see nothing there?

Nothing at all, yet all that is I see.

Nor did you nothing hear?

No, nothing but ourselves.

Why, look you there!

Look how it steals away!

My father, in his habit as he liv'd!

Look where he goes even now out at the portal!

This is the very coinage of your brain. This bodiless creation ecstasy is very cunning in.

Ecstasy? My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time,

and makes as healthful music.

It is not madness that I have utter'd.

Bring me to the test, and I the matter will re-word, which madness 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,

whilst rank corruption, mining all within, 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.

O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.

O, throw away the worser part of it, and live the purer with the other half.

Good night, but go not to mine uncle's bed.

Assume a virtue, if you have it not.

Refrain tonight, and that shall lend a kind of easiness to the next abstinence,

the next more easy.

Once more, good night,

and when you are desirous to be bless'd, I'll blessing beg of you.

For this same lord, I do repent, but heaven hath pleased it so

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.

Thus bad begins and worse remains behind.

One word more, good lady.

What shall I do?

Not this, by no means, that I bid you do -

let the bloat king tempt you again to bed, 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 damn'd fingers,

make you to ravel all this matter out,

that I...essentially...am not in madness,

but mad in craft.

'Twere good you let him know.

Be thou assured, if words be made of breath, and breath of life,

I have no life to breathe what thou hast said to me.

I must to England, you know that?

Alack, I had forgot. 'Tis so concluded on?

There's letters seal'd, and my two schoolfellows,

whom I will trust as I will adders fang'd, they bear the mandate.

They must sweep my way and marshal me to knavery.

Let it work. For 'tis the sport to have the engineer hoist with his own petard,

and it 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, I'll lug the guts into the neighbour room.

Mother, good night.

Indeed this counsellor is now most still, most secret and most grave,

who was in life a foolish...

..(SOBS) prating knave.

Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you.

Good night, Mother.

There's matter in these sighs, these profound heaves, you must translate.

'Tis fit we understand them.

Where is your son?

Bestow this place on us a little while.

O, my own lord, what have I seen tonight.

What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?

Mad...as the sea and wind when both contend which is the mightier.

In his lawless fit, behind the arras hearing something stir,

whips out his rapier, cries, "A rat! A rat!"

and in this brainish apprehension kills the unseen good old man.

O heavy deed!

It had been so with us, had we been there.

His liberty is full of threats to all - to you yourself, to us, to everyone.

Alas, how shall this bloody deed be answer'd?

It will be laid to us, whose providence should have kept short, restrain'd

and out of haunt this mad young man,

but so much was our love that like the owner of a foul disease,

to keep it from divulging, let it feed even on the pith of life.

- Where is he gone? - To draw apart the body he hath kill'd,

o'er whom his very madness, like some ore

among a mineral of metals base shows itself pure - he weeps for what is done.

O Gertrude, come away!

The sun no sooner shall the mountains touch, but we will ship him hence.

This vile deed we must with all our majesty and skill both countenance and excuse.

Ho, Guildenstern!

Friends both, go join you with some further aid.

Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain and from this closet dragg'd him.

Go seek him out - speak fair - and bring the body into the chapel.

Gertrude, come away.

My soul is full of discord and dismay.

Safely stowed.

(GUILDENSTERN) Hamlet! Lord Hamlet!

Soft, what noise? (CALLS OUT) Who calls on Hamlet?

O, here they come.

- What have you done with the dead body? - Compounded it with dust, whereto 'tis kin.

Tell us where 'tis that we may bear it to the chapel.

- Do not believe it. - Believe what?

That I can keep your counsel and not mine own. To be demanded of a sponge -

what replication should be made by the son of a king?

Take you me for a sponge, my lord?

Ay, sir, that soaks up the king's countenance, rewards, authorities.

But such officers do the king best service,

he keeps them, like an ape, in 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.

- I understand you not, my lord. - I am glad of it.

- A knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear. - My lord, tell us where the body is.

The body is with the king, but the king is not with the body.

- The king is a thing. - A thing, my lord?

Of nothing.

Bring me to him.

Hide fox, and all after!

I have sent to seek him and to find the body.

How dangerous is it that this man goes loose.

Yet he's loved of the distracted multitude,

who like not in their judgment but their eyes,

and where 'tis so, the 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.

How now?

Where the body's bestow'd we cannot get from him.

- But where is he? - Without, my lord. Guarded.

- Bring him before us. - Ho, Guildenstern! Bring in the lord.

Now, Hamlet, where's Polonius?

- At supper. - At supper? Where?

Not where he eats, but where he is eaten.

A certain convocation of politic worms are e'en at him.

Your worm is emperor for diet.

We fat all creatures to fat us, and ourselves for maggots.

Your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service -

two dishes, but to one table.

- That's the end. - Alas. Alas.

A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king,

and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.

What dost thou mean by this?

Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar.

- Where's Polonius? - In heaven. Send thither to see.

If your messenger find him not there, seek him in the other place yourself.

But if you find him not within this month, you shall nose him as you go into the lobby.

Go seek him there.

He will stay till you come.

Hamlet, this deed, for thine especial safety - which we do tender,

as we grieve for that which thou hast done - must send thee hence with fiery quickness.

Prepare thyself. The bark is ready, the wind at help, everything is bent for England.

- For England? - Ay, Hamlet.

- Good. - So is it, if thou knew'st our purposes.

I see a cherub that sees them.

But, come, for England.

Farewell, dear Mother.

- Thy loving father, Hamlet. - My mother.

Father and mother is man and wife, man and wife is one flesh...so my mother.

Come.

- For England! - Follow him at foot.

Tempt him with speed aboard. Delay it not. I'll have him hence tonight.

And, England,

if my love thou hold'st at aught, 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.

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 of us, we shall express our duty in his eye.

- Let him know so. - I will do't, my lord.

Go softly on.

- Good sir, whose powers are these? - They are of Norway, sir.

- How purposed, sir? - Against some part of Poland.

- Who commands them, sir? - The nephew of old Norway, Fortinbras.

Goes it against the main of Poland, sir?

Truly, we go to gain a patch of ground that hath in it no profit but the name.

- I would not farm it. - Then the Polack never will defend it.

Yes, it is already garrison'd.

I humbly thank you, sir.

Will't please you go, my lord?

I'll be with you straight go a little before.

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 godlike reason to fust in us unused.

Now, whether it be bestial oblivion,

or some craven scruple of thinking too precisely on the event,

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 it.

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.

I will not speak with her.

She is importunate, indeed distract. Her mood will needs be pitied.

- What would she have? - 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 that carry but half sense.

Her speech is nothing, yet the unshaped use of it doth move her hearers to collection.

They botch the words up fit to their own thoughts,

which, as her gestures yield them, make one think there might be thought,

though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.

It were good she were spoken with,

for she may strew dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.

Let her come in.

To my sick soul, as sin's true nature is,

each toy seems prologue to some great amiss.

So full of artless jealousy is guilt, it spills itself in fearing to be spilt.

Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?

How now...Ophelia?

# How should I your true love know

# From another one?

# By his cockle hat and staff

# And his sandal shoon #

Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?

Say you? Nay, pray you, mark.

# He is dead and gone, lady

# He is dead and gone

# At his head a grass-green turf

# At his heels a stone #

- Nay, but Ophelia... - Pray you, mark.

# White his shroud as the mountain snow

# Larded with sweet flowers

# Which bewept to the grave did not go

- # With true-love showers # - How do you, pretty lady?

Well, God dild you!

They say the owl was a baker's daughter.

Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be.

- God be at your table. - Conceit upon her father.

Pray, let's have no words of this,

but when they ask you what it means, say you this...

# Tomorrow is Saint Valentine's Day, all in the morning betime

# And I a maid at your window to be your Valentine

# Then up he rose, and donn'd his clothes, and dupp'd the chamber-door

# Let in a maid, that out a maid never departed more #

- Pretty Ophelia... - Without an oath, I'll make an end on't.

# By Gis and by Saint Charity, alack and fie for shame

# Young men will do't if they come to't - by Cock, they are to blame

# Quoth she, "Before you tumbled me, you promised me to wed"

He answers - # "So would I ha' done, by yonder sun

# And thou hadst not come to my bed #

- How long hath she been thus? - I hope all will be well.

We must be patient, but I cannot choose but weep

to think they would lay him in the cold ground.

My brother shall know of it!

And so I thank you for your good counsel.

Come, my coach.

Good night, ladies. Good night, sweet ladies.

Good night.

Good night.

Follow her close. Give her good watch, I pray you.

O, this is the poison of deep grief. It springs all from her father's death.

And now behold - O Gertrude, Gertrude! -

when sorrows come, they come not single spies but in battalions.

First, her father slain; next, your son gone,

and he most violent author of his own just remove;

the people muddied, thick and unwholesome in their whispers for good Polonius' death;

and we have done but greenly in hugger-mugger to inter him;

poor Ophelia divided from herself and her fair judgment,

without the which we are pictures or mere beasts;

last, and as much containing as all these, her brother is in secret come from France

and wants not buzzers to infect his ear with pestilent speeches of his father's death.

O my dear Gertrude, this, like to a murdering-piece, gives me superfluous death.

(BANGING)

Alack, what noise is this?

Attend! Where are my Switzers? Let them guard the door.

- What's the matter? - Save yourself, my lord.

The ocean eats not the flats with more haste

than young Laertes, in a riotous head, o'erbears your officers.

The rabble call him lord, and, as the world were now but to begin, custom not known,

they cry, "Choose we! Laertes shall be king!"

Caps, hands, and tongues, applaud it to the clouds, "Laertes shall be king!"

How cheerfully on the false trail they cry! O, this is counter, you false Danish dogs!

- (CRASH) - The doors are broke.

(LAERTES) Where is this king?

O thou vile king! Give me my father!

Calmly, good Laertes.

That drop of blood that's calm proclaims me bastard,

cries cuckold to my father, brands the harlot even here,

between the chaste unsmirched brow of my true mother.

What is the cause, Laertes, that thy rebellion looks so giant-like?

Let him go, Gertrude. Do not fear our person.

There's such divinity doth hedge a king

that treason can but peep to what it would, acts little of his will.

Tell me, Laertes, why thou art thus incensed.

Let him go, Gertrude.

- Speak, man. - Where is my father?

- Dead. - Not by him.

- Let him demand his fill. - How came he dead?

I'll not be juggled with! To hell, allegiance!

Vows, to the blackest devil! Conscience and grace to the profoundest pit!

I dare damnation.

To this point I stand, that both the worlds I give to negligence, let come what comes,

only I'll be revenged most throughly for my father.

- Who shall stay you? - My will, not all the world's.

Laertes, if you desire to know the certainty of your dear father,

is't writ in your revenge that you will draw both friend and foe?

- None but his enemies. - Will you know them then?

To his good friends thus wide I'll ope my arms,

and like the kind pelican repast them with my blood.

Why, now you speak like a good child and a true gentleman!

That I am guiltless of your father's death, and am in grief for it,

it shall as level to your judgment 'pear as day does to your eye.

How now, what noise is that?

O heat, dry up my brains.

Tears seven times salt burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye.

By heavens, thy madness shall be paid with weight till our scale turn the beam.

O rose of May!

Dear maid,

kind sister,

sweet Ophelia!

O heavens!

Is't possible, a young maid's wits should be as mortal as an old man's life?

Nature is fine in love, and where 'tis fine,

it sends some precious instance of itself after the thing it loves.

# They bore him barefaced on the bier

# Hey non nonny nonny, hey nonny

# And in his grave rain'd many a tear #

Fare you well, my dove!

Hadst thou thy wits and didst persuade revenge, it could not move thus.

You must sing "a-down a-down", and you "call him a-down-a".

How the wheel becomes it!

It is the false steward that stole his master's daughter.

This nothing's more than matter.

There's rosemary. That's for remembrance.

Pray you, love, remember.

There's pansies. That's for thoughts.

A document in madness, thoughts and remembrance fitted.

There's fennel for you, and columbines.

Here's rue for you. And there's some for me. We may call it herb of grace a Sundays.

O you must wear your rue with a difference.

There's a daisy.

I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died.

They say he made a good end.

# For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy #

Thought and affliction, passion,

hell itself she turns to favour and to pretti...

# And will he not come again?

# And will he not come again?

# No, no, he is dead

# Go to thy death-bed

# He never will come again

# His beard was as white as snow

# All flaxen was his poll

# He is gone, he is gone

# And we cast away moan

# God ha' mercy on his soul #

And of all Christian souls, I pray God.

God buy you.

Do you see this, O God?

Laertes...

I must commune with your grief, or you deny me right.

Go make choice of your wisest friends, and they shall judge 'twixt you and me.

If by direct or by collateral hand they find us touch'd,

we will our kingdom give, our crown, our life, to you in satisfaction.

But if not, be you content to lend your patience to us,

and we shall jointly labour with your soul to give it due content.

Let this be so.

His means of death, his obscure funeral -

no trophy, sword, nor hatchment o'er his bones,

no noble rite nor formal ostentation - cry to be heard,

as 'twere from heaven to earth, that I must call't in question.

And so you shall.

And where the offence is let the great axe fall.

- God bless you, sir. - Let him bless thee, too.

He shall, sir, an't please him.

There's a letter for you, sir. It came from the ambassador that was bound for England...

if your name be Horatio, as I am let to know it is.

"Horatio, when thou shalt have overlooked this, give these fellows means to the king.

"They have letters for him. Ere we were two days old at sea,

"a pirate of warlike appointment gave us chase.

"Finding ourselves too slow of sail, we put on a compelled valour, and I boarded them.

"On the instant they got clear of our ship, so I alone became their prisoner.

"They have dealt with me like thieves of mercy. I am to do a good turn for them.

"Let the king have the letters I have sent

"and repair to me with as much speed as thou wouldst fly death.

"I have words to speak which will make thee dumb,

"yet are they too light for the matter.

"These fellows will bring thee where I am.

"Rosencrantz and Guildenstern hold their course for England -

"of them I have much to tell thee.

"Farewell. He that thou knowest thine, Hamlet."

Come, I will give you way for these letters, and do't the speedier

that you may direct me to him from whom you brought them.

Now must your conscience my acquittance seal, and you must put me in your heart for friend,

sith you have heard, and with a knowing ear,

that he which hath your noble father slain pursu'd my life.

It well appears, but tell me why you proceeded not against these feats,

so crimeful and so capital in nature, as by your safety and wisdom you were stirr'd up.

O, for two special reasons, which may to you seem much unsinew'd.

The queen his mother lives almost by his looks,

and for myself - my virtue or my plague, be it either which -

she is so conjunctive to my soul that,

as the star moves not but in his sphere, I could not but by her.

The other motive why to a public count I might not go

is the love the general gender bear him, who, dipping all his faults in their affection,

work like the spring that turneth wood to stone, convert his gyves to graces.

And so have I a noble father lost, a sister driven into desperate terms,

whose worth stood challenger on mount of all the age for her perfections.

- But my revenge will come. - Break not your sleeps for that.

You must not think that we can let our beard be shook with danger and think it pastime.

You shortly shall hear more.

I loved your father,

and we love ourself, and that, I hope, will teach you to imagine...

- What news? - Letters, my lord, from Hamlet.

- These to Your Majesty, this to the queen. - From Hamlet?

- Who brought them? - Sailors, my lord, they say.

I saw them not. They were given me by Claudio. He received them of him that brought them.

Laertes, you shall hear them. Leave us.

"High and mighty, you shall know I am set naked on your kingdom.

"Tomorrow shall I beg leave to see your kingly eyes,

"when I shall thereunto recount the occasion of my sudden and strange return. Hamlet."

What should this mean?

Are all the rest come back or is this some abuse and no such thing?

- Know you the hand? - 'Tis Hamlet's character. "Naked"?

And in a postscript, he says "alone". Can you devise me?

I'm lost in it, my lord. But let him come. It warms the very sickness in my heart

that I shall live and tell him to his teeth, "Thus did'st thou."

If it be so, Laertes -

as how should it be so, how otherwise? - will you be ruled by me?

Ay, my lord, so you will not o'errule me to a peace.

To thine own peace.

If he be checking at his voyage, I will work him to an exploit

under the which he shall not choose but fall, and no wind of blame shall breathe,

but even his mother shall call it accident.

My lord, I will be ruled, the rather if you could devise it so that I might be the organ.

It falls right.

You have been talk'd of since your travel much,

and that in Hamlet's hearing, for a quality wherein they say you shine.

Two months since, here was a gentleman of Normandy.

He gave you such a masterly report for art and your defence, and your rapier most especial,

that he cried out 'twould be a sight indeed if one could match you.

This report of his did Hamlet so envenom with his envy

that he could nothing do but wish and beg your sudden coming o'er to play with you.

Now, out of this...

What out of this, my lord?

Laertes, was your father dear to you? Or are you like the painting of a sorrow?

- Why ask you this? - I know love is begun by time,

and I see, in passages of proof, time qualifies the fire and spark of it.

There lives within the very flame of love a kind of wick or snuff that will abate it,

and nothing is at a like goodness still, but goodness,

growing to a pleurisy, dies in his own too-much.

But to the quick o' the ulcer - Hamlet comes back.

What would you undertake to show yourself in deed your father's son more than in words?

To cut his throat i' the church.

No place, indeed, should murder sanctuarize; revenge should know no bounds.

But good Laertes, will you do this, keep close within your chamber?

Hamlet return'd shall know you are come back. We'll praise your excellence,

set a varnish on your fame, bring you in fine together and wager on your heads.

He, being remiss, most generous and free from all contrivings, will not peruse the foils,

so that with ease, or with a little shuffling, you may choose a sword unbated,

and in a pass of practise requite him for your father.

I will do't, and for that purpose, I'll anoint my sword.

I bought an unction so mortal that but dip a knife in it,

where it draws blood, no cataplasm so rare,

collected from all simples that have virtue under the moon,

can save the thing from death that is but scratch'd withal.

I'll touch my point with this contagion, that if I gall him slightly, it may be death.

Let's further think of this,

weigh what convenience both of time and means may fit us to our shape.

If this should fail,

and our drift look through our bad performance, 'twere better not assay'd.

Therefore this project should have a second that might hold if this did blast in proof.

Soft, let me see. We'll make a solemn wager on your cunnings...

Oh! I ha't.

When in your motion you are hot and dry and that he calls for drink,

I'll have preferred him a chalice for the nonce, whereon but sipping,

if he by chance escape your venom'd stuck, our purpose may hold there.

Stay, what noise?

One woe doth tread upon another's heels, so fast they follow.

Your sister's...drown'd, Laertes.

Drown'd?

O...where?

There is a willow grows aslant the brook that shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream.

There with fantastic garlands she would make of daisies, crow-flowers, nettles

and long purples which liberal shepherds give a grosser name,

but our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them.

There on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds clambering to hang,

an envious sliver broke,

when down her weedy trophies and herself fell in the weeping brook.

Her clothes spread wide, and mermaid-like awhile they bore her up,

which time she chanted snatches of old lauds, as one incapable of her own distress,

or like a creature native and indued unto that element,

but long it could not be till that her garments, heavy with their drink,

pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay to muddy death.

Alas...then she is drown'd?

Drown'd.

Drown'd.

Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia,

and therefore I forbid my tears,

but yet it is our trick;

nature her custom holds, let shame say what it will.

When these are gone, the woman will be out!

Adieu, my lord.

I have a speech of fire that fain would blaze...

but that this folly douts it.

Let's follow, Gertrude.

How much I had to do to calm his rage!

Now fear I this will give it start again.

Therefore let's follow.

Is she to be buried in Christian burial when she wilfully seeks her own salvation?

I tell thee she is, therefore make her grave straight.

The crowner finds it Christian burial.

How can that be, unless she drowned herself in her own defence?

- Why, 'tis found so. - It must be "se offendendo".

For if I drown myself wittingly, it argues an act,

and an act hath three branches - to act, to do, to perform.

- Argal, she drowned herself wittingly. - Nay, but hear you, Goodman Delver...

Give me leave. Here lies the water - good. Here stands the man - good.

If the man go to this water, and drown himself, it is, will he nill he, he goes.

But if the water come to him and drown him, he drowns not himself.

Argal, he that is not guilty of his own death shortens not his own life.

- But is this law? - Ay, marry is't, crowner's quest law.

If this had not been a gentlewoman,

she should have been buried out o' Christian burial.

There thou say'st. The more pity that great folk should have countenance in this world

to drown or hang themselves more than their even Christian.

Come, my spade.

There is no ancient gentleman but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers.

- They hold up Adam's profession. - Was he a gentleman?

- He was the first ever bore arms. - Why, he had none.

Art a heathen? How dost thou understand the Scripture?

The Scripture says "Adam digged".

Could he dig without arms? I'll put another question to thee.

If thou answerest me not to the purpose, confess thyself...

- Go to. - What is he that builds stronger

than either the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?

The gallows-maker, for that frame outlives a thousand tenants.

I like thy wit well. The gallows does well, but it does well to those that do ill.

Thou dost ill to say the gallows is stronger than the church.

Argal, the gallows may do well to thee. To't again, come.

Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a carpenter?

- Tell me that and unyoke. - Marry, I can tell.

To't.

- Mass, I cannot tell. - Cudgel thy brains no more about it.

When you are asked this question next, say "a grave-maker".

- The houses he makes... - ..last until doomsday.

Go, get thee to Yaughan. Fetch me a stoup of liquor.

# In youth, when I did love, did love

# Methought it were very sweet

# To contract the time a my behove

# Methought there was nothing meet #

Has this fellow no feeling of his business, that he sings at grave-making?

Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness.

'Tis e'en so, the hand of little employment hath the daintier sense.

# But age with his stealing step

# Hath claw'd me in his clutch

# And shipped me intil the land

# As if I had never been such #

That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once.

How the knave jowls it to the ground, as if it were Cain's, that did the first murder.

This might be the pate of a politician, which this ass now o'erreaches,

one that would circumvent God, might it not?

- It might, my lord. - Or of a courtier,

which could say "Good morrow, sweet lord. How dost thou, sweet lord?"

This might be my lord Such-a-one,

who praised my lord Such-a-one's horse, when a meant to beg it.

- Ay, my lord. - Why, e'en so.

And now my lady Worm's, chapless, and knocked about the mazzard with a sexton's spade:

Here's fine revolution and we had the trick to see't.

# For and a shrouding sheet

# O, a pit of clay for to be made

# For such a guest is meet #

There's another. Why may not that be the skull of a lawyer?

Why does he suffer this rude knave now to knock him with a shovel,

and will not tell him of his action of battery?

Hmm?

I'll speak to this fellow.

- Whose grave's this, sirrah? - Mine, sir.

# O, a pit of clay for to be made

# For such a guest is meet #

Indeed, I think it be thine. Thou liest in't.

You lie out on't, so therefore it's not yours. I do not lie in it, yet it is mine.

Thou dost lie in it to say it is thine. 'Tis for the dead, therefore thou liest.

'Tis a quick lie. 'Twill away gain from me to you.

- What man dost thou dig it for? - No man.

- What woman, then? - None, neither.

- Who is to be buried in't? - One that was a woman, sir, but she's dead.

How absolute the knave is!

We must speak by the card or equivocation will undo us.

How long hast thou been a grave-maker?

Of all the days in the year, I came to't that day our last king, Hamlet, overcame Fortinbras.

- How long is that since? - Cannot you tell that?

Every fool can tell that. It was the very day that young Hamlet was born,

he that is mad and sent into England.

Ay, marry, why was he sent into England?

Why, because he was mad.

He shall recover his wits there, or if he do not, 'tis no matter there.

- Why? - 'Twill not be seen in him there.

There the men are as mad as he.

- How came he mad? - Very strangely, they say.

- How strangely? - Faith, e'en with losing his wits.

- Upon what ground? - Why, here in Denmark.

I have been sexton here, man and boy, thirty years.

How long will a man lie in the earth ere he rot?

If he be not rotten before he die - as we have many pocky corses nowadays

that will scarce hold the laying in - he will last some eight year, nine year.

- A tanner will last you nine year. - Why he more than another?

His hide is so tanned with his trade, that he will keep out water a great while,

and your water is a sore decayer of your whoreson dead body.

Here's a skull now hath lain in the earth three and twenty years.

- Whose was it? - A whoreson mad fellow's it was.

- Whose do you think it was? - Nay, I know not.

A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! Poured a flagon of Rhenish on my head once.

This same skull, sir, was, sir...

..Yorick's skull, the king's jester.

- This? - E'en that.

Let me see.

Alas.

Poor Yorick.

I knew him, Horatio.

A fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy.

He hath borne me on his back a thousand times,

and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is.

My gorge rises at it.

Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft.

Where be your gibes now,

your gambols, your songs, your flashes of merriment

that were wont to set the table on a roar?

Not one now to mock your own grinning.

Quite chap-fallen.

Now get you to my lady's chamber

and tell her, let her paint an inch thick,

to this favour she must come.

Make her laugh at that.

Prithee, Horatio, tell me one thing.

What's that, my lord?

Dost thou think Alexander looked o' this fashion in the earth?

- E'en so, my lord. - And smelt so? Pooh!

E'en so.

To what base uses we may return, Horatio!

Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander

till he find it stopping a bung-hole?

'Twere to consider too curiously to consider so.

No, faith, not a jot, as thus -

Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth into dust.

The dust is earth, of earth we make loam,

and why of that loam, whereto he was converted, might they not stop a beer-barrel?

Imperious Caesar, dead and turn'd to clay,

might stop a hole to keep the wind away.

O, that that earth, which kept the world in awe,

should patch a wall to expel the winter's flaw.

Soft! Soft a while!

Here comes the king, the queen, the courtiers.

Who do they follow, with such maimed rites?

This doth betoken the corse did with desperate hand fordo it own life.

Couch we awhile and mark.

- What ceremony else? - That is Laertes, a very noble youth. Mark.

What ceremony else?

Her obsequies have been as far enlarged as we have warrantise.

Her death was doubtful, and but that great command o'ersways the order,

she should in ground unsanctified have lodged till the last trumpet -

for charitable prayers, shards, flints and pebbles should be thrown on her,

yet here she is allow'd her virgin crants, her maiden strewments

and the bringing home of bell and burial.

- Must there no more be done? - No more be done.

We should profane the service of the dead

to sing sage requiem and such rest to her as to peace-parted souls.

Lay her i' the earth.

And from her fair and unpolluted flesh may violets spring.

I tell thee, churlish priest, an angel shall my sister be when thou liest howling.

What, the fair Ophelia?

Sweets to the sweet.

Farewell.

I hoped thou wouldst have been my Hamlet's wife.

I thought thy bride-bed to have deck'd, sweet maid, and not have strew'd thy grave.

O, treble woe fall ten times treble on that cursed head

whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense deprived thee of.

Hold off the earth awhile, till I have caught her once more in mine arms.

Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead, till of this flat a mountain you have made

to o'ertop old Pelion or the skyish head of blue Olympus!

What is he whose grief bears such an emphasis,

whose phrase of sorrow conjures the wandering stars

and makes them stand like wonder-wounded hearers?

This is I, Hamlet the Dane!

The devil take thy soul!

Thou pray'st not well! Take thy fingers from my throat!

(KING) Pluck them asunder. (HORATIO ) My lord, be quiet.

Why, I will fight with him upon this theme until my eyelids will no longer wag.

- O my son, what theme? - I loved Ophelia!

Forty thousand brothers could not with all their quantity of love make up my sum.

- What wilt thou do for her? - He is mad!

- For love of God, forbear him. - Woo't weep? Woo't fight? Woo't fast?

Woo't tear thyself? Woo't drink up eisel? Eat a crocodile? I'll do it!

Dost thou come here to whine? To outface me with leaping in her grave?

Be buried quick with her, and so will l!

And if thou prate of mountains, let them throw millions of acres on us,

till our ground, singeing his pate against the burning zone, make Ossa like a wart!

Nay, an thou'lt mouth, I'll rant as well as thou!

This is mere madness. Awhile the fit will work on him.

Anon, as patient as the female dove when that her couplets are disclosed,

his silence will sit drooping.

Hear you, sir. What is the reason that you use me thus?

I loved you ever.

But it is no matter. Let Hercules himself do what he may,

the cat will mew and dog will have his day.

I pray you, good Horatio, wait on him.

Strengthen your patience in our last night's speech.

We'll put the matter to the present push.

Good Gertrude, set some watch over your son.

This grave shall have a living monument.

An hour of quiet shortly shall we see. Till then in patience our proceedings be.

So much for this, sir. Now shall you see the other.

- You do remember all the circumstance? - Remember it, my lord?

Sir, in my heart there was fighting that would not let me sleep.

Methought I lay worse than the mutines in the bilboes.

Rashly - and prais'd be rashness for it.

Let us know, our indiscretion sometimes serves us well when our deep plots do pall.

And that should learn us there's a divinity that shapes our ends.

That is most certain.

Up from my cabin, in the dark groped I to find out them,

finger'd their packet, and withdrew to mine own room again;

making so bold, my fears forgetting manners, to unseal their grand commission,

where I found, Horatio - O royal knavery! -

an exact command, larded with many several sorts of reasons

importing Denmark's health and England's too,

with, ho! such bugs and goblins in my life, that on the supervise, no leisure bated,

no, not to stay the grinding of the axe, my head should be struck off.

- Is't possible? - Here's the commission. Read it at leisure.

- Wilt thou hear how I did proceed? - I beseech you.

Being thus benetted round with villanies, I sat me down, devised a new commission,

wrote it fair - I once did hold it, as our statists do, a baseness to write fair,

but, sir, now it did me yeoman's service.

- Wilt thou know what I wrote? - Ay, my lord.

An earnest conjuration from the king, as England was his faithful tributary,

as love between them like the palm might flourish,

as peace should still her wheaten garland wear and stand a comma 'tween their amities,

and many such-like "as"es of great charge,

that on the view of those contents, without debatement further, more or less,

he should those bearers put to sudden death,

not shriving-time allow'd.

- How was this seal'd? - Why, even in that was heaven ordinant.

I had my father's signet in my purse, which was the model of that Danish seal.

So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to't.

Why, man, they did make love to this employment.

They are not near my conscience.

Their defeat does by their own insinuation grow.

'Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes between the pass

and fell incensed points of mighty opposites.

- Why, what a king is this! - Does it not stand me upon -

he that hath kill'd my king, whored my mother,

popp'd in between the election and my hopes, thrown out his angle for my proper life -

is't not perfect conscience to quit him with this arm?

And is't not to be damn'd to let this canker of our nature come in further evil?

It must be shortly known to him from England what is the issue of the business there.

It will be short. The interim is mine. And a man's life's no more than to say "one".

But I am very sorry that to Laertes I forgot myself.

For by the image of my cause I see the portraiture of his.

I'll court his favours. But the bravery of his grief did put me into a towering passion.

Peace, who comes here?

- Your lordship is welcome back to Denmark. - I humbly thank you, sir.

Dost know this water-fly?

- No, good my lord. - 'Tis a vice to know him.

He hath much land, and fertile.

'Tis a chuff, but spacious in the possession of dirt.

Sweet lord, if your lordship were at leisure, I should impart a thing from His Majesty.

I shall receive it with all diligence of spirit.

Put your bonnet to his right use. 'Tis for the head.

- I thank your lordship, it is very hot. - No, believe me, it's very cold.

- The wind is northerly. - It is indifferent cold, my lord, indeed.

But yet methinks it is very sultry and hot for my complexion.

Exceedingly, my lord. It is very sultry, as 'twere...I cannot tell how.

But, my lord, His Majesty bade me signify to you that he has laid a great wager on your head.

- This is the matter... - I beseech you, remember.

Nay, good my lord, for my ease...in good faith.

Sir, here is newly come to court Laertes -

believe me, an absolute gentleman, full of most excellent differences,

of very soft society and great showing.

Indeed, to speak feelingly of him, he is the card or calendar of gentry,

the continent of what part a gentleman would see.

Sir, his definement suffers no perdition in you,

though I know, to divide him inventorially would dizzy the arithmetic of memory,

and but yaw in respect of his quick sail.

But I take him to be a soul of great article, and his infusion of such dearth and rareness

as to make true diction of him, his semblable is his mirror

and who else would trace him, his umbrage, nothing more.

- Your lordship speaks most infallibly of him. - The concernancy, sir?

Why do we wrap the gentleman in our more rawer breath?

Sir?

Is't not possible to understand in another tongue? You will do't, sir, really.

- What imports the nomination of this gentleman? - Of...of..of Laertes?

His purse is empty already. All his golden words are spent.

- Of him, sir. - I know you are not ignorant...

I would you did. And yet, in faith, if you did, it would not much approve me.

You are not ignorant of what excellence Laertes is...

I dare not confess that, lest I should compare with him in excellence.

But to know a man well were to know himself.

I mean for his weapon. But in the imputation laid on him by them in his meed, he's unfellowed.

- What's his weapon? - Rapier and dagger.

That's two of his weapons. But well.

The king, sir, hath laid, sir,

that in a dozen passes between yourself and him, he shall not exceed you three hits.

It would come to immediate trial if your lordship would vouchsafe the answer.

How if I answer no?

I mean, my lord, the opposition of your person in trial.

Sir, I will walk here in the hall: if it please His Majesty, 'tis the breathing time of day with me.

Let the foils be brought, the gentleman willing, and the king hold his purpose.

I will win for him and I can. If not, I will gain nothing but my shame and the odd hits.

- Shall I re-deliver you even so? - To this effect.

After what flourish your nature will.

I commend my duty to your lordship.

Yours, yours.

He does well to commend it himself.

There are no tongues else for's turn.

This lapwing runs away with his shell on his head.

A did comply with his dug before he sucked it.

- You will lose this wager, my lord. - I do not think so.

Since he went into France, I have been in continual practice. I shall win at the odds.

But thou wouldst not think how ill all's here about my heart: but it is no matter.

- Nay, good my lord... - It is but foolery,

but yet it is such a kind of gaingiving as would perhaps trouble a woman.

If your mind dislike anything, obey it. I will say you are not fit.

Not a whit, we defy augury. There's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow.

If it be now, 'tis not to come.

If it be not to come, it will be now.

If it be not now, yet it will come.

The readiness is all. Let be.

Come, Hamlet, come, and take this hand from me.

Give me your pardon, sir. I have done you wrong.

But pardon't, as you are a gentleman.

This presence knows, and you must needs have heard,

how I am punish'd with a sore distraction.

What I have done that might your nature, honour and exception roughly awake,

I here proclaim was madness.

Was't Hamlet wrong'd Laertes? Never Hamlet.

If Hamlet from himself be ta'en away, and when he's not himself does wrong Laertes,

Hamlet does it not, Hamlet denies it.

Who does it, then? His madness.

If't be so, Hamlet is of the faction that is wrong'd. His madness is poor Hamlet's enemy.

Sir, let my disclaiming from a purposed evil free me so far in your most generous thoughts

that I have shot mine arrow o'er the house and hurt my brother.

I am satisfied in nature, whose motive should stir me most to my revenge,

but in my terms of honour I stand aloof and will no reconcilement

till by some elder masters of known honour

I have a voice and precedent of peace to keep my name ungored.

Till that time, I do receive your offer'd love like love, and will not wrong it.

I embrace it freely, and will this brother's wager frankly play.

- Give us the foils. - Come, one for me.

I'll be your foil. In mine ignorance your skill shall like a star in the night stick fiery off indeed.

- You mock me, sir. - No, by this hand.

Give them the foils, young Osric.

- Hamlet, you know the wager? - Very well.

You hath laid the odds on the weaker side.

I do not fear it. Since he is better'd, we have therefore odds.

- This is too heavy. Let me see another. - This likes me well.

- These foils have all a length? - Ay, my good lord.

Set me the stoups of wine upon that table. If Hamlet make the first or second hit,

or quit in answer of the third exchanges, let all ordnance fire -

the king shall drink to Hamlet's better breath.

In the cup an union shall he throw

richer than that which four successive kings in Denmark's crown have worn.

Give me the cup.

Let the kettle to the trumpet speak, the trumpet to the cannoneer without,

the cannons to the heavens, the heaven to earth, "Now the king drinks to Hamlet."

(FANFARE)

Come, begin. You, the judges, bear a wary eye.

- Come on, sir. - Come...my lord.

- One! - No!

- Judgment. - A hit. A very palpable hit.

- Well, again. - Stay. Give me drink.

Hamlet, this pearl is thine. Here's to thy health.

- Give him the cup. - I'll play this bout first. Set it by awhile.

Come.

- Another hit. What say you? - A touch, a touch, I do confess.

- Our son shall win. - He's fat and scant of breath.

Here, Hamlet, take my napkin, rub thy brows.

The queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet.

- Good madam. - Gertrude, do not drink.

I will, my lord. I pray you, pardon me.

(SOFTLY) 'Tis the poison'd cup. It is too late.

- I dare not drink yet, madam. By and by. - Come, let me wipe thy face.

- My lord, I'll hit him now. - I do not think't.

And yet it is almost against my conscience.

Come, for the third, Laertes. You but dally. I pray you, pass with your best violence.

I am afeard you make a wanton of me.

Say you so?

Come on.

(APPLAUSE)

Nothing neither way.

Have at you now.

- Part them! They are incensed! - Nay, come again!

- Look to the queen there, ho! - They bleed on both sides. My lord?

As a woodcock to mine own springe, I am justly kill'd with mine own treachery.

- How does the queen? - She swounds to see them bleed.

The drink! The drink! O my dear Hamlet...the drink, the drink...

I am...poison'd.

O villainy! Ho! Let the doors be lock'd! Treachery! Seek it out!

It is here, Hamlet! Hamlet, thou art slain.

No medicine in the world can do thee good. In thee there is not half an hour's life.

The treacherous instrument is in thy hand, unbated and envenom'd.

The foul practise hath turn'd itself on me...

Lo, here I lie, never to rise again.

Thy mother's poison'd. I can no more.

The king...

The king's to blame!

The point envenom'd too!

Then, venom, to thy work.

(WHISPERS) Treason.

Treason!

O, yet defend me, friends! I am but hurt!

Here, thou incestuous, murderous, damned Dane, drink off this potion!

Is thy union here? Follow my mother!

He is justly served. It is a poison temper'd by himself.

Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet.

Mine and my father's death come not on thee, nor thine...on me.

Heaven make thee free of it.

I follow thee.

I am dead, Horatio.

Wretched queen, adieu!

You that look pale and tremble at this chance,

that are but mutes or audience to this act, had I but time -

as this fell sergeant, death, is strict in his arrest - (WAILS) I could tell you...

But let it be.

Horatio, I am dead.

Thou livest. Report me and my cause aright to the unsatisfied.

Never believe it. I am more an antique Roman than a Dane. Here's still some liquor left.

As thou'rt a man, give me the cup. Let go!

Horatio, if thou didst ever hold me in thy heart, absent thee from felicity awhile,

and in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain to tell my story.

(DISTANT CANNONFIRE)

- What warlike noise is this? - Young Fortinbras, come from Poland,

to the ambassadors of England gives this warlike volley.

O, I die, Horatio. The potent poison quite o'ercrows my spirit.

I cannot live to hear the news from England,

but I do prophesy the election lights on Fortinbras.

He has my dying voice.

So tell him...

with the occurrents more and less which have solicited...

The rest is silence.

Now cracks a noble heart.

Good night sweet prince,

and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

(FANFARE AND DRUMS BEATING)

Why does the drum come hither?

Where is this sight?

What is it you would see?

If aught of woe or wonder, cease your search.

This quarry cries on havoc.

O proud death, what feast is toward in thine eternal cell

that thou so many princes at a shot so bloodily hast struck?

The sight is dismal, and our affairs from England come too late.

The ears are senseless that should give us hearing

to tell him his commandment is fulfill'd,

that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead.

Where should we have our thanks?

Not from his mouth, had it the ability of life to thank you.

He never gave commandment for their deaths.

But since, so jump upon this bloody question, you from the Polack wars

and you from England are here arrived,

give orders that these bodies high on a stage be placed to the view,

and let me speak to the yet unknowing world how these things came about,

so shall you hear of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts,

of accidental judgments, casual slaughters,

of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause

and, in this upshot, purposes mistook fall'n on the inventors' heads.

All this can I truly deliver.

Let us haste to hear it. Call the noblest to the audience.

For me, with sorrow I embrace my fortune.

I have some rights of memory in this kingdom, which now to claim my vantage doth invite me.

Of that I shall have also cause to speak, and from his mouth whose voice will draw on more.

But let this same be presently perform'd, even while men's minds are wild,

lest more mischance on plots and errors happen.

Let four captains bear Hamlet like a soldier to the stage,

for he was likely, had he been put on, to have proved most royal.

And for his passage, the soldiers' music and the rites of war speak loudly for him.

Take up the bodies.

Such a sight as this becomes the field, but here shows much amiss.

Go, bid the soldiers shoot.