All language subtitles for Hamlet.1948.

This is the tragedy

of a man

who could not make up his mind.

- Who's there?
- Nay, answer me.

Stand and unfold yourself.

Long live the King.

- Bernardo?
- He.

You come most carefully
upon your hour.

'Tis now struck 12.
Get thee to bed, Francisco.

For this relief, much thanks.

'Tis bitter cold.

I'm sick at heart.

Have you had quiet guard?

- Not a mouse stirring.
- Well, good night.

If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,
the rivals of my watch,

bid them make haste.

I think I hear them.
Stand, ho! Who's there?

- Friends to this ground.
- And liegemen to the Dane.

Give me your good night.

Farewell, honest soldier.
Who has relieved you?

Bernardo hath my place.
Give you good night.

- Holla! Bernardo!
- Say, what, is Horatio there?

A piece of him.

Welcome, Horatio.
Welcome, good Marcellus.

What... has this thing
appeared again tonight?

I have seen nothing.

Horatio says 'tis but our fantasy
and will not let belief take hold of him,

touching this dreaded sight,
twice seen of us.

Therefore I've entreated him along with us
to watch the minutes of this night,

that if again this apparition comes
he may approve our eyes and speak to it.

Tush, tush, 'twill not appear.

Sit down a while.

Let us once again assail your ears
that are so fortified against our story,

what we two nights have seen.

Well, sit we down
and let us hear Bernardo speak of this.

Last night of all,

when yon same star
that's westward from the pole

had made his course into
that part of heaven where now it burns,

Marcellus and myself,
the bell then beating one...

Peace! Break thee off.

Look where it comes again!

In the same figure
like the dead king, Hamlet.

Thou art a scholar - speak to it, Horatio.

Looks it not like the King?
Mark it, Horatio.

Most like.

It harrows me with fear and wonder.

- It would be spoke to.
- Question it, Horatio.

If thou hast any sound or use of voice,
speak to me.

If there be any good thing to be done,

that may to thee do ease
and grace to me, oh, speak.

Stay and speak!

Stop it, Marcellus!

- To here!
- Here!

'Tis gone and will not answer.

How now, Horatio.
You tremble and look pale.

Is not this something more than fantasy?
What think you on't?

Before my God I might not this believe

without the sensible and true avouch
of mine own eyes.

- Is it not like the King?
- As thou art to thyself.

'Tis strange.

It was about to speak
when the cock crew.

And then it started like a guilty thing
upon a fearful summons.

I have heard the cock,
that is the herald to the morn,

doth, with his lofty
and shrill-sounding throat,

awake the god of day.

And at its warning, the wandering
and uneasy spirit hies to its confine.

It faded on the crowing of the cock.

Some say that
ever 'gainst that season comes

wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,

the bird of dawning
singeth all night long.

And then, they say,
no spirit can walk abroad.

The nights are wholesome then.

No planets strike. No fairy takes
nor witch hath power to charm.

So hallowed and so gracious is the time.

So have I heard.
And do, in part, believe it.

But look. The morn,
in russet mantle clad,

walks o'er the dew
of yon high eastern hill.

Break we our watch up and,
by my advice,

let us impart what we have seen tonight
unto young Hamlet.

For upon my life, this spirit, dumb to us,
will speak to him.

- Let's do it, I pray.
- Mm.

Something is rotten
in the state of Denmark.

Though yet of Hamlet, our dear brother's
death, the memory be green

and that it us befitted
to bear our hearts in grief

and our whole kingdom to be contracted
in one brow of woe,

yet, so far,
hath discretion fought with nature

that we, with wisest sorrow, think on him

together with remembrance of ourselves.

Therefore our sometime sister,

now our Queen,

have we, as 'twere, with a defeated joy,

with mirth in funeral
and with dirge in marriage

in equal scale,
weighing delight and dole,

taken to wife.

Nor have we herein
barred your better wisdoms,

which have freely gone
with this affair along.

For all, our thanks.

Ah. And now, Laertes,
what's the news with you?

You told us of some suit.
What is't, Laertes?

You cannot speak of reason to the Dane
and lose your voice.

What wouldst thou beg, Laertes, that
shall not be my offer, not thy asking?

The head is not more native to the heart,
the hand more instrumental to the mouth

than is the throne of Denmark
to thy father.

What wouldst thou have, Laertes?

Dread, my lord. Your leave and favour
to return to France,

from whence, though willingly,
I came to Denmark

to show my duty in your coronation.

Yet now, I must confess, that duty done,

my thoughts and wishes bend again
towards France

and bow them
to your gracious leave and pardon.

Hm. Have you your father's leave?
What says Polonius?

He hath, my lord, wrung from me
my slow leave by laboursome petition.

And at last, upon his will,
I sealed my hard consent.

I do beseech you, give him leave to go.

Take thy fair hour, Laertes. Time be thine
and thy best graces spend it at thy will.

And now, our cousin, Hamlet,
and our son.

How is it that the clouds
still hang on you?

Good Hamlet...
cast thy nighted colour off,

and let thine eye
look like a friend on Denmark.

Do not forever with thy lowered lids
seek for thy noble father in the dust.

Thou know'st 'tis common.

All that lives must die,
passing through nature to eternity.

Aye, madam, it is common.

If it be,
why seems it so particular with thee?

Seems, madam?
Nay, it is. I know not "seems".

'Tis not alone, my inky cloak,
good mother,

nor customary suits of solemn black,

together with all forms, moulds,
shows of grief that can denote me truly.

These indeed seem, for they are actions
that a man might play.

But I have that within
which passeth show -

these but the trappings
and the suits of woe.

'Tis sweet and commendable
in your nature, Hamlet,

to give these mourning duties
to your father.

But you must know your father
lost a father, that father lost, lost his

and the survivor,
bound in filial obligation for some term

to do obsequious sorrow.

But to persist in obstinate condolement

is a course of impious stubbornness.
'Tis unmanly grief.

A fault to heaven,
a fault against the dead.

A fault to nature, to reason most absurd,

whose common theme
is death of fathers

and who still hath cried from
the first corpse till he that died today,

"This must be so."

Why should we, in our peevish opposition,
take it to heart?

We pray you, throw to earth
this unprevailing woe

and think of us as of a father.

For let the world take note,

you are the most immediate
to our throne,

and with no less nobility of love than
that which dearest father bears his son

do I impart towards you.

For your intent
in going back to school at Wittenberg,

it is most retrograde to our desire

and we beseech you, bend you,
to remain here

in the cheer and comfort of our eye,

our chiefest courtier, cousin,
and our son.

Let not thy mother
lose her prayers, Hamlet.

I pray thee, stay with us.

Go not to Wittenberg.

I shall in all my best obey you, madam.

Why, 'tis a loving and a fair reply.

Be as ourself in Denmark.

Madam, come.

This gentle and unforced accord
of Hamlet sits smiling to my heart.

In grace whereof, no jocund health
that Denmark drinks today

but the great cannons
to the clouds shall tell,

and the King's carouse
the heavens shall roar again,

re-speaking earthly thunder.

Come, away.

O that this too too solid flesh
would melt,

thaw, and resolve itself into a dew.

Or that the Everlasting had not fixed
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter.

O God. God.

How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable

seem to me all the uses of this world.

Fie on't, ah fie.

'Tis an unweeded garden
that grows to seed.

Things rank and gross in nature
possess it merely.

That it should come to this.

But two months dead.

Nay, not so much, not two.

So excellent a king

that was to this Hyperion to a satyr.

So loving to my mother

that he might not suffer the winds
of heaven visit her face too roughly.

Heaven and earth, must I remember?

Why, she would hang on him
as if increase of appetite

had grown by what it fed on.

And yet, within a month...

Let me not think on it.

Frailty, thy name is woman.

A little month,
or ere those shoes were old

with which she followed my poor
father's body, like Niobe, all tears.

Why she, even she...

O God, a beast
that wants discourse of reason

would have mourned longer.

Married with my uncle,
my father's brother,

but no more like my father
than I to Hercules.

Within a month... she married.

O most wicked speed,
to post with such dexterity

to incestuous sheets.

It is not, nor it cannot come, to good.

But break my heart,
for I must hold my tongue.

My necessaries are embarked.

Farewell.

And, sister, as the winds give benefit
and convoy is assistant,

- do not sleep but let me hear from you.
- Do you doubt that?

For Hamlet and the trifling of his favour,

hold it a fashion and a toy in blood,

a violet in the youth of primy nature.

Forward, not permanent.

Sweet, not lasting.

The perfume and suppliance of a minute,
no more.

No more but so?

Think it no more.

Perhaps he loves you now,
but you must fear,

his greatness weighed,
his will is not his own,

for he himself is subject to his birth.

He may not, as unvalued persons do,
carve for himself,

for on his choice depends the safety
and the health of this whole state.

Then weigh what loss
your honour may sustain

if with too willing ear you list his songs.

Or lose your heart...

or your chaste treasure
open to his unmastered importunity.

Be wary then.

Best safety lies in fear.

I shall the effect of this good lesson
keep as watchman to my heart.

But, good my brother,
do not, as some ungracious pastors do,

show me the steep and thorny
way to heaven

whilst, like a puffed
and reckless libertine

himself the primrose path of dalliance
treads... and minds not his own creed.

O, fear me not.

But here my father comes -
I stay too long.

Yet here, Laertes?
Aboard, aboard, for shame.

The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail
and you are stayed for.

There, my blessing with thee.

And these few precepts in thy memory
look thou character.

Give thy thoughts no tongue,
nor any unproportioned thought his act.

Be thou familiar but by no means vulgar.

Those friends thou hast,
and their adoption tried,

grapple them to thy soul
with hoops of steel.

But do not dull thy palm
with entertainment

of each new-hatched,
unfledged comrade.

Beware of entrance to a quarrel

but, being in, bear't that the opposed
may beware of thee.

Give every man thine ear
but few thy voice.

Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
but not expressed in fancy.

Rich, not gaudy,
for the apparel oft proclaims the man.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be,

for loan oft loses both itself and friend

and borrowing dulls
the edge of husbandry.

This above all - to thine own self be true,

and it must follow, as the night the day,

thou canst not then be false to any man.

Farewell. My blessing season
this in thee.

Most humbly do I take my leave,
my lord.

The time invites you. Go.

Farewell, Ophelia.

And remember well what I said to you.

'Tis in my memory locked
and you yourself shall keep the key of it.

Farewell.

What is't, Ophelia, he hath said to you?

So please you,
something touching the Lord Hamlet.

Marry, well bethought.

Yes.

What is between you?
Give me up the truth.

He hath, my lord, of late made
many tenders of his affection to me.

Affection? Pooh!

You speak like a green girl
unsifted in such perilous circumstance.

Do you believe his "tenders",
as you call them?

I do not know, my lord,
what I should think.

Marry, I will teach you.
Think yourself a baby.

I would not, in plain terms,
from this time forth,

have you give words or talk
with the Lord Hamlet.

Look to't, I charge you.

Come your ways.

Hail to your lordship.

I'm glad to see you're well.

Horatio, or I do forget myself!

The same, my lord,
and your poor servant ever.

Sir, my good friend,
I'll change that name with you.

- Marcellus.
- My good lord.

I'm very glad to see you. Good even, sir.

What is your affair in Elsinore? We'll
teach you to drink deep ere you depart.

My lord, I came to see
your father's funeral.

I pray you, do not mock me,
fellow student.

I think it was to see
my mother's wedding.

Indeed, my lord, it followed hard upon.

Thrift. Thrift, Horatio.

The funeral baked meats did coldly furnish
forth the marriage tables.

Would I had met my dearest foe
in heaven

or ever I had seen that day, Horatio.

My father.

Methinks I see my father.

Where, my lord?

In my mind's eye, Horatio.

I saw him once.

He was a goodly king.

He was a man,

take him for all in all,
I shall not look upon his like again.

My lord... I think I saw him yesternight.

Saw?

- Who?
- My lord, the King. Your father.

The King. My father.

Two nights together have Marcellus
and Bernardo, on their watch,

in the dead, vast, middle of the night
been thus encountered.

A figure like your father, armed,
appears before them

and with solemn march
goes slow and stately by them.

This to me in dread and secrecy
did they impart

and I with them
the third night kept the watch,

where, as they had reported,
both in time, form of the thing,

each word made true and good,
the apparition comes.

I knew your father.
These hands are not more like.

- But where was this?
- Upon the platform, where we watched.

- Did you not speak to it?
- My lord, I did, but answer made it none.

Yet once methought it lifted up its head
as it would speak.

But even then the morning cock
crew loud

and at the sound, it shrunk in haste away
and vanished from our sight.

- 'Tis very strange.
- As I do live, my honoured lord, 'tis true.

We did think it writ down in our duty
to let you know of it.

Indeed. Indeed, sirs.
But this troubles me.

- Hold you the watch tonight?
- We do, my lord.

- Armed, say you?
- Armed, my lord.

- From top to toe?
- From head to foot.

- Then you saw not his face.
- O yes, my lord. He wore his visor up.

What looked he? Frowningly?

A countenance
more in sorrow than in anger.

- And fixed his eyes upon you?
- Most constantly.

- I would I had been there.
- It would have much amazed you.

Very like. Very like. Stayed it long?

While one with moderate haste
might tell 100.

- Longer.
- Not when I saw it.

- His beard was grizzled, no?
- It was as I have seen it in his life,

a sable silvered.

I will watch tonight.
Perchance 'twill walk again.

I warrant it will.

If you have hitherto concealed this sight,
and whatsoever else shall hap tonight,

give it an understanding but no tongue.
I will requite your love, so fare you well.

Upon the platform 'twixt 11 and 12
I'll visit you.

- Our duty to your honour.
- Your loves, as mine to you. Farewell.

My father's spirit... in arms.

All is not well. I doubt some foul play.

Would the night were come.

Till then, sit still, my soul.

Foul deeds will rise...

though all the earth o'erwhelm them
to men's eyes.

- The air bites shrewdly. It is very cold.
- It is a nipping and an eager air.

What hour now?

- I think it lacks of 12.
- No, it is struck.

Indeed? I heard it not.

Then draws near the season
wherein the spirit has his wont to walk.

What does this mean, my lord?

The King doth wake tonight
and makes carouse,

keeps wassail and
the swaggering upspring reels.

And as he drains
his draughts of Rhenish down

the kettle-drum and trumpet
thus bray out the triumph of his pledge.

- Is it a custom?
- Ay, marry is't.

But to my mind, though I am native here
and to the manner born,

it is a custom more honoured
in the breach than the observance.

This heavy-headed revel east and west

makes us traduced and mocked
by other nations.

They call us drunkards

and, with swinish phrase,
soil our reputation.

And indeed, it takes
from our achievements,

though performed at height.

So oft it chances in particular men

that for some vicious
mole of nature in them,

by the o'ergrowth of some complexion,

oft breaking down
the pales and forts of reason,

or by some habit grown too much

that these men,
carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect,

their virtues else,
be they as pure as grace,

shall in the general censure

take corruption from that particular fault.

Angels and ministers of grace defend us.

Look, my lord, it comes!

Be thou a spirit of health

or goblin damned,

thou comest
in such a questionable shape...

that I will speak to thee.

I'll call thee Hamlet.

King.

Father.

Royal Dane, O answer me!

It beckons you to go away with it.

It waves you to a more removed ground.

- But do not go with it.
- No, by no means.

It will not speak. Then I will follow it.

- Do not, my lord.
- Why? What should be the fear?

I do not set my life at a pin's fee
and for my soul, what can it do to that,

being a thing immortal as itself?

It waves me forth again. I'll follow it.

What if it tempt you toward the flood,
my lord?

Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff
that beetles o'er his base into the sea

and there assume
some other horrible form

which might deprive your sovereignty
of reason and draw you into madness?

- You shall not go, my lord.
- Hold off your hands.

Be ruled, you shall not go.

My fate cries out and
makes each petty artery in this body

as hardy as the Nemean lion's nerve.

Still am I called. Unhand me, gentlemen.

By heaven, I'll make a ghost of him
that hinders me. I say away!

Go on.

I'll follow thee.

Whither wilt thou lead me?

Speak. I'll go no further.

Mark me.

I will.

I am thy father's spirit,

doomed for a certain time
to walk the night...

and for the day confined to fast in fires...

till the foul crimes
done in my days of nature...

are burnt and purged away.

Alas, poor ghost.

List. List.

O list.

If thou didst ever thy dear father love...

O God!

...revenge his foul
and most unnatural murder.

Murder?

Murder most foul, as in the best it is,

but this most foul,
strange and unnatural.

Haste me to know it,

that I with wings as swift as meditation
or the thoughts of love

may sweep to my revenge.

Now, Hamlet, hear.

'Tis given out that, sleeping in
my orchard, a serpent stung me.

So the whole ear of Denmark

is by a forged process of my death
rankly abused.

But know, thou noble youth,

the serpent that did sting thy father's life

now wears his crown.

O, my prophetic soul. My uncle.

Ay, that incestuous,
that adulterate beast,

with traitorous gifts
won to his shameful lust

the will of
my most seeming-virtuous Queen.

O Hamlet, what a falling off was there.

But soft, methinks I scent
the morning air.

Brief let me be.

Sleeping within my orchard,

my custom always in the afternoon,

upon my quiet hour thy uncle stole

with juice of cursed hemlock in a vial

and in the porches of my ears did pour

the leperous distilment,

whose effect
holds such an enmity with blood of man

that swift as quicksilver it courses through

the natural gates and alleys of the body.

Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother's hand

of life, of crown, of queen
at once dispatched,

cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,

no reckoning made,

but sent to my account
with all my imperfections on my head.

O horrible.

Horrible.

Most horrible.

If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not.

Let not the royal bed of Denmark

be a couch for luxury
and damned incest.

But howsoever thou pursuest this act,

taint not thy mind,

nor let thy soul
contrive against thy mother aught.

Leave her to heaven.

Fare thee well at once.

The glow-worm
shows the matin to be near

and 'gins to pale his uneffectual fire.

Adieu.

Remember me.

O all you host of heaven.

O earth. What else?

And shall I couple hell?

Hold. Hold, my heart.

Remember thee.

Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory
holds a seat in this distracted globe.

Remember thee?

Yea, from the table of my memory
I'll wipe away all trivial fond records

that youth and observation copied there.

And thy commandment all alone

shall live within the book
and volume of my brain,

unmixed with baser matter!

Yes! By heaven!

Most pernicious woman.

O villain. Villain!

Smiling, damned villain.

So, uncle, there you are.

Now to my word.

It is, "Adieu, adieu, remember me."

I have sworn it.

- My lord! My lord!
- Lord Hamlet!

So be it.

Hillo! My lord!

Hillo!
Ho, ho, boy. Come, bird, come.

- How is't, my noble lord?
- What news, my lord?

- O wonderful!
- Please, my lord, tell it.

No. You will reveal it.

Not I, my lord.

How say you, then.
Would heart of man once think it?

- But you'll be secret?
- Ay, my lord.

There's ne'er a villain
dwelling in all Denmark...

...but he's an arrant knave.

There needs no ghost, my lord,
come from the grave to tell us this.

Why, right. You are in the right.

And so without more circumstance at all
I hold it fit that we shake hands and part,

you as your business and desires
shall point you,

for every man hath business and desire.

And for mine own poor part, look you,
I'll go pray.

These are but wild and whirling words,
my lord.

- I'm sorry they offend you, heartily.
- There's no offence.

Yes, by St Patrick, but there is, Horatio!
And much offence, too!

Touching this vision here,
it is an honest ghost, that let me tell you.

For your desire to know what is
between us, o'ermaster it as you may.

And now, good friends,
as you are friends, scholars and soldiers,

- give me one poor request.
- What is't, my lord?

Never make known
what you have seen tonight.

- We will not.
- Swear it.

- Nor I, my lord, in faith.
- Upon my sword.

- We've sworn, my lord, already.
- Indeed, upon my sword.

O day and night,
but this is wondrous strange.

And therefore as a stranger
give it welcome.

There are more things
in heaven and earth, Horatio,

than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

But come, never, so help you mercy,

how strange or odd soe'er I bear myself -

as I perchance hereafter shall think fit
to put an antic disposition on -

that you at such time, seeing me,

never shall, by the pronouncing of some
doubtful phrase as, "Well, we know"

or "We could, an if we would"
or such ambiguous giving out, do note

that you know aught of me.

This do swear, so grace and mercy
at your best need help you.

Swear.

Rest.

Rest, perturbed spirit.

So, gentlemen, with all my love
I do commend me to you.

And what so poor a man as Hamlet is

may do to express his love
and friending to you,

God willing, shall not lack.

Go in and still your fingers
on your lips, I pray.

The time is out of joint.

O cursed spite...

that ever I was born to set it right.

Come, let's go together.

As I was sewing in my closet...

Lord Hamlet,
with his doublet all unlaced,

pale as his shirt,

and with a look... so piteous in purport,

as if he had been loosed out of hell
to speak of horrors,

he comes before me.

He took me by the wrist

and held me hard.

Then goes he to the length of all his arm

and with his other hand thus
o'er his brow

he falls to such perusal of my face

as he would draw it.

Long stayed he so.

At last, a little shaking of mine arm.

And thrice his head
thus waving up and down...

he raised a sigh so piteous and profound

as it did seem to shatter all his bulk

and end his being.

That done, he let me go.

And with his head
over his shoulder turned,

he seemed to find his way
without his eyes,

for out of doors he went
without their help,

and to the last

bended their light...

on me.

My liege and madam.

To expostulate what majesty should be,
what duty is,

why day is day, night night
and time is time,

were nothing but to waste
night, day and time.

Therefore, since brevity
is the soul of wit,

and tediousness the limbs
and outward flourishes, I will be brief.

Your noble son is mad.

"Mad" call I it,
for to define true madness,

what is't to be nothing else but mad?

More matter with less art.

Madam, I swear I use no art at all.

And that he is mad, 'tis true.
'Tis true 'tis pity.

And pity 'tis 'tis true. A foolish figure.

But farewell it, for I will use no art.

Thus it remains, and the remainder thus.

Perpend.

I have a daughter -
have while she is mine -

who, in her duty and obedience, mark,

hath given me this.

Now gather and surmise.

"To the celestial and my soul's idol,

"the most beautified Ophelia."

That's an ill phrase, a vile phrase.

"Beautified" is a vile phrase.

But you shall hear, thus -

"In her excellent white bosom, these..."
et cetera.

Came this from Hamlet to her?

Good madam, stay a while.
I will be faithful.

"Doubt thou the stars are fire,

"Doubt that the sun doth move,

"Doubt truth to be a liar,

"But never doubt I love.

"O, dear Ophelia,
I am ill at these numbers.

"I have not art to reckon my groans.

"But that I love thee best,
O most best, believe it.

"Adieu. Thine evermore, most dear lady,

"while this frame is to him. Hamlet."

This in obedience
hath my daughter shown me.

And more above hath his solicitings,

as they fell out
by time, by means and place,

all given to mine ear.

But how hath she received his love?

What do you think of me?

- As of a man faithful and honourable.
- I would fain prove so.

But what might you think, when I had seen
this hot love on the wing,

if I had looked upon this love
with idle sight, what might you think?

No, I went round to work

and my young mistress
thus I did bespeak -

"Lord Hamlet is a prince, out of thy star.

"This must not be."

And then I prescripts gave her that
she should lock herself from his resort,

admit no messengers, receive no tokens.

And he, repulsed, a short tale to make,

fell into a sadness, then into a fast,

thence to a watch, thence to a weakness,
thence into a lightness,

and, by this declension,
into that madness wherein now he raves

and all we mourn for.

Do you think 'tis this?

It may be.

Very likely.

Hath there been such a time -
I'd fain know that -

that I have positively said "'Tis so"
that it proved otherwise?

- Not that I know.
- Take this from this if this be otherwise.

How may we try it further?

You know sometimes he walks
four hours together here in the lobby.

So he does, indeed.

At such a time,
I'll loose my daughter to him.

Be you and I behind an arras then,
mark the encounter.

If he love her not, and be not
from his reason fallen thereon,

let me be no assistant for a state,
but keep a farm and carters.

We will try it.

But look where sadly
the poor wretch comes reading.

Away. I do beseech you both, away.

I'll board him presently.

O, give me leave.

How does my good Lord Hamlet?

Well, God-a-mercy.

Do you know me, my lord?

Excellent well. You are a fishmonger.

Not I, my lord.

Then I would you were so honest a man.

Honest, my lord?

Ay, sir. To be honest, as this world goes,

is to be one man picked out of 10,000.

That's very true, my lord.

For if the sun breed maggots
in a dead dog...

Have you a daughter?

- I have, my lord.
- Let her not walk i' the sun.

Conception is a blessing,

but as your daughter may conceive,
friend, look to it.

How say you by that?
Still harping on my daughter.

Yet he knew me not at first.
He said I was a fishmonger.

He's far gone, far gone.

But I will speak to him again.

What do you read, my lord?

Words, words, words.

- What is the matter, my lord?
- Between who?

I mean the matter that you read, my lord.

Slanders.

For the satirical rogue says here
that old men have grey beards,

that their faces are wrinkled,

their eyes purging thick amber
and plum-tree gum.

That they have a plentiful lack of wit,
together with most weak hams.

All or which, sir,
though I most powerfully believe,

yet I hold it not honesty
to have it thus set down.

For you yourself, sir,
shall be old as I am -

if, like a crab, you could go backward.

Though this be madness,
yet there's method in't.

- Will you walk out of the air, my lord?
- Into my grave.

Indeed, that is out of the air.

How pregnant sometimes
his replies are.

My honourable lord...

I will most humbly take my leave of you.

You cannot, sir, take from me anything
that I will more willingly part withal.

Except my life.

Read on this book,

that show of such an exercise
may colour your loneliness.

Gracious, so please you,
we'll bestow ourselves.

Ophelia, walk you here.

Let's withdraw, my lord.

Soft you, now...

the fair Ophelia.

Nymph, in thy orisons
be all my sins remembered.

Good my lord...

How does your honour
for this many a day?

I humbly thank you.

Well.

Well. Well.

My lord, I have remembrances of yours
that I have longed long to re-deliver.

I pray you now receive them.

No, not I. I never gave you aught.

My honoured lord,
you know right well you did.

And with them
words of so sweet breath composed

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.

Are you honest?

My lord.

I did love you once.

Indeed, my lord,
you made me believe so.

You should not have believed me.

Get thee to a nunnery.

Why wouldst 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 born 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?

- At home, my lord.
- Let the doors be shut upon him,

that he may play the fool
nowhere but in his own house.

- Farewell!
- O, help me, you sweet heavens!

I have heard of your paintings, too,
well enough.

God hath given you one face
and you make yourselves another.

You jig, you amble, you lisp.
You nickname God's creatures

and make your wantonness
your ignorance. Get thee to a nunnery!

Farewell!

Or if thou would needs marry, marry
a fool, for wise men know well enough

what monsters you make of them.
Go to, I'll no more of it!

It has made me mad.

I say we will have no more marriages.

Those that are married already -

all but one - shall live.

The rest shall stay as they are.

To a nunnery. Go.

Love? His affections
do not that way tend.

Nor what he spake,
though it lacked form a little,

was not like madness.

There's something in his soul
o'er which his melancholy sits on brood,

and I do fear the unheeded consequence
will be some danger,

for which to prevent I have
in quick determination thus set it down -

he shall with speed to England.

Haply the seas and countries different,
with variable objects,

shall expel this something-settled matter
in his heart.

- What think you on't?
- It shall do well.

But yet I do 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.

It shall be so. Madness in great ones
must not unwatched go.

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 heartache and
the thousand natural shocks

that flesh is heir to,

it is a consummation
devoutly to be wished.

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 despised love,

the law's delays,
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 fardels bear,

to grunt and sweat under a weary life,

but that the dread
of something after death,

the undiscovered 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
doth 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.

My lord?

I have news to tell you.

The actors are come hither, my lord.

He that plays the king shall be welcome.

"The best actors in the world,

"either for tragedy, comedy, history,

"pastoral, pastoral-comical,

"historical-pastoral, tragical-historical,

"tragical-comical-historical-pastoral.

"Seneca cannot be too heavy
nor Plautus too light.

"For these are the only men."

You are welcome, masters, welcome all.

I am glad to see thee well.

Welcome, good friend!

O, my old friend! Why, thou face
is valanced since I saw thee last.

Comest thou to beard me in Denmark?

What, my young lady and mistress.

Your ladyship is nearer to heaven
than when I saw you last.

Pray God your voice,
like a piece of uncurrent gold,

be not cracked in its ring.

Masters, you are all welcome!

Good my lord, will you see the players
well bestowed? Do you hear?

Let them be well used, for they are the
abstract and brief chronicles of the time.

After your death
you were better have a bad epitaph

than their ill report while you live.

I will use them according to their desert.

God's bodykin, man, much better.

Use every man after his desert
and who shall 'scape whipping?

Use them after
your own honour and dignity.

The less they deserve,
the more merit is in your bounty.

- Come, sirs.
- Follow him, friends.

We hear a play tomorrow.

Dost hear me, old friend?

- Can you play the murder of Gonzago?
- Ay, my lord.

We'll have it tomorrow night.

You could for a need study a speech
of some dozen or sixteen lines

that I would set down
and insert in it, could you not?

Ay, my lord.

Very well. Follow that lord,
and look you mock him not.

The play's the thing wherein
I'll catch the conscience of the King!

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 your 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 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.

It out-Herods Herod. Pray you avoid it.

I warrant your honour.

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 anything 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,
though it make the unskillful laugh,

cannot but make the judicious grieve -
the censure of which one

must in your allowance
outweigh 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 having neither
the accent of Christians

nor the gait of pagan, Christian nor man,
have so strutted and bellowed

that I have thought that some of
nature's journeymen had made men,

and not made them well,
they imitated humanity so abominably.

I hope we have reformed that indifferently
with us, sir.

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 barren quantity
of spectators to laugh too,

though 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.

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

And the Queen, too, and that presently.

- Bid the players make haste.
- Ay, my lord.

- Horatio.
- Here, sweet lord, at your service.

Observe mine uncle.
Give him heedful note.

- Well, my lord.
- They are coming. I must be idle.

Get you a place.

How fares our cousin Hamlet?

Excellent, i' faith,
of the chameleon's dish.

I eat the air, promise-crammed.
You cannot feed capons so.

I have nothing with this answer.
These words are not mine.

No, nor mine now.

My lord, you played once
at the university, you say.

That did I, my lord,
and was accounted a good actor.

- What did you enact?
- I did enact Julius Caesar.

I was killed in the Capitol.
Brutus killed me.

It was a brute part of him
to kill so capital a calf there.

- Be the players ready?
- Ay, they stay upon your patience.

Come hither, my dear Hamlet. Sit by me.

No, good mother.
Here's metal more attractive.

O ho, did you mark that?

Lady, shall I lie in your lap?

- No, my lord.
- I mean my head upon your lap.

Ay, my lord.

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

That's a fair thought
to lie between maid's legs.

- What is, my lord?
- Nothing.

You are merry, my lord.

- Who, I?
- Ay, my lord.

O God, your only jig-maker. Why,
what should a man do but be merry?

Look you how merrily my mother looks and
my father died within 's two hours!

Nay, 'tis twice two months, my lord.

So long? Nay then, let the devil wear black,
for I'll have a suit of sables.

O heavens, died two months ago
and not forgotten yet.

Why, then there's hope a great man's
memory may outlive his life half a year.

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.

You are keen, my lord, you are keen.

It will cost you a groaning
to take off mine edge.

Give me some light!

Away!

Lights! Lights!

Lights!

♪ 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 take the ghost's word
for a thousand pounds.

- Didst perceive the act of the poisoning?
- I did very well note.

- God bless you, sir.
- Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word.

- Sir, a whole history.
- The King, sir.

- Ay, so what of him?
- He's marvellous distempered.

- With drink, sir?
- No, my lord, rather with choler.

Your wisdom should show itself richer
to signify this to the doctor,

for for me to put him to his purgation
would perhaps plunge him into more choler.

Good my lord, put your discourse
into some frame

- and start not so wildly from my affair.
- I am tame. Pronounce.

The Queen, your mother,
in most great affliction of spirit,

- hath sent me to you.
- You are welcome.

Nay, this courtesy
is not of the right breed.

If you make me a wholesome answer,
I will do your mother's commandment.

If not, your pardon and my return
shall be the end of my business.

- 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, my mother. No more,
but to the matter. My mother, you say?

She desires to speak with you
in her closet.

We shall obey,
were she ten times our mother.

Have you any further trade with us?

My lord, the Queen
would speak with you. And presently.

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 like a whale.
- Very like a whale.

Then I will come to my mother by and by.

I will say so.

"By and by" is easily said.

Leave me, friend.

'Tis now the very witching time of night,

when churchyards yawn, and hell itself
breathes out contagion to this world.

Now could I drink hot blood

and do such bitter business
as the day would quake to look on.

Soft... now to my mother.

O heart, lose not thy nature.

Let not ever the soul of Nero
enter this firm bosom.

Let me be cruel, not unnatural.

I will speak daggers to her,

but use none.

My lord?

He's going to his mother's closet.

Behind the arras I'll conceal myself
to hear the process.

I'll warrant she'll tax him home,
and, as you said -

and wisely was it said - 'tis meet that
some more audience than a mother,

since nature makes them partial,
should o'erhear the speech of vantage.

Fare you well, my liege.
I'll call upon you

ere you go to bed
and tell you what I know.

Thanks, dear my lord.

O, my offence is rank.

It smells to heaven.

It hath the primal eldest curse upon it,

a brother's murder.

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

What if this cursed hand were thicker
than itself with brother's blood,

is there not rain enough
in the sweet heavens

to wash it white as snow?

O, what form of prayer
can serve my turn?

"Forgive me my foul murder"?

That cannot be,
since I am still possessed

of those effects for which
I did the murder -

my crown, mine own ambition,

and my Queen.

O wretched state.

O bosom, black as death.

Help, angels.

All may yet be well.

Now might I do it pat,

now he is praying.

And now I'll do it.

And so he goes to heaven.

And so am I revenged.

That would be thought on.

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 all his crimes
full blown, as flush as May.

And how his audit stands,
who knows save heaven?

But in our circumstance and
course of thought 'tis heavy with him.

And am I then revenged
to take him in the purging of his soul,

when he is fit
and seasoned for his passage?

No.

Up, sword,
and know thou a more dark intent,

when he is drunk asleep, or in his rage,

or in the incestuous pleasure of his bed,

at gaming, swearing, or about some act
that has no relish of salvation in it.

Then trip him
that his heels may kick at heaven

and that his soul may be as damned
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.

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 stood between much heat and him.

I'll silence me in here.

- Pray you be round with him.
- Mother?

Mother?

Mother.

I'll warrant you, fear me not.

Withdraw. I hear him coming.

Now, Mother, what's the matter?

Hamlet, thou hast
thy father much offended.

Mother, you have
my father much offended.

Come, come, you answer
with an idle tongue.

Go, go, you question
with a wicked tongue.

- Why, how now, Hamlet?
- What's the matter now?

- Have you forgot me?
- No, by the rood, 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.

Come and sit you down.
You shall not budge!

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

What wilt thou do?
Thou wilt not murder me?

- Help! Help!
- Help! Help!

- How now, a rat!
- Help! Help!

Dead for a ducat!

Dead.

O me, what hast thou done?

Nay, I know not.

- Is it the King?
- O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!

A bloody deed - almost as bad,
good mother,

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 the hands. Peace, sit you
down, and let me wring your heart,

for so I shall
if it be made of penetrable stuff.

What have I done that thou wag
thy tongue so rude against me?

Such an act 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.

- Ay me, what act?
- Look here upon this picture.

And on this, the counterfeit presentment
of two brothers.

See what a grace
was seated on this brow -

an eye like Mars,
to threaten and command,

a stature 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 mildewed ear
blasting his wholesome brother.

Have you eyes? You cannot call it love,

for at your age the heyday in the blood
is tame, it's humble,

and waits upon the judgement. And what
judgement would step from this to this?

What devil was't
that thus has hoodwinked you?

O shame, where is thy blush?

If hell can rise up in a matron's bones,
to flaming youth let virtue be as wax.

O Hamlet, speak no more.
Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul

and there I see such black and grained
spots as will not lose their stain.

Nay, but to live in the rank sweat
of a lascivious bed,

stewed in corruption, honeying
and making love over the nasty sty...

Speak to me no more! These words
like daggers enter in mine ears!

- No more, sweet Hamlet.
- A murderer and a villain.

A slave that is not twentieth part
the worth of your true lord.

A cutpurse of the empire and the throne,

that from a shelf the precious
diadem stole

- and put it in his pocket.
- No more!

A king of shreds and patches!

Save me and hover over me
with your wings, O 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?

O gentle son, upon the heat and flame
of thy distemper sprinkle cool patience.

Whereon do you look?

On him, on him.

Look you how pale he glares.

His form and cause conjoined, preaching
to stones, would make them sensitive.

Do not look upon me,

lest with this piteous action
you convert my stern intents,

so I shed tears, not blood.

To whom do you speak this?

Do you see nothing there?

No, nothing at all, yet all there is I see.

- Nor do you nothing hear?
- No, nothing but ourselves.

Why, look you there.
Look where it steals away!

My father, in his habit as he lived.

Look where he goes even now
out at the portal.

This is the very coinage of your brain.

This bodiless creation madness
is very cunning in.

Madness?

My pulse as yours
doth temperately keep time

and makes as healthful music.

Mother, for love of grace lay not
that flattering unction to your soul

that not your trespass
but my madness speaks.

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.

O Hamlet, thou has 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 my 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.

For use can almost change
the stamp of nature.

Once more, good night.

And when you are desirous
to be blessed,

I'll blessing beg of you.

I must be cruel... only to be kind.

I must to England. You know that?

Alack, I had forgot.

'Tis so concluded on.

There's letters sealed.

This man shall send me packing.

I'll lug the guts into the neighbour room.

Indeed, this counsellor is now most still,

most secret and most grave,

that was in life a foolish, prating knave.

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

Good night, Mother.

- Now, Hamlet, where's Polonius?
- At supper.

- At supper?
- Mm.

Where?

Not where he eats, but where he is eaten.

A certain convocation of politic worms
are even at him.

Your worm is your only emperor for diet.

We fat all creatures else to fat us,

and we fat ourselves for worms.

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 is Polonius?
- In heaven. Send thither to see.

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

But indeed, if you find him not
within this month,

you shall nose him
as you go up the stairs into the lobby.

Go seek him there.

He will stay till you come.

Hamlet, for thine especial safety -

which we do tender as we do deeply grieve
for that which thou hast done -

this deed must send thee hence
with fiery quickness.

Therefore prepare thyself.
The barque is ready, the wind sets fair

and everything is bent for England.

- For England?
- Ay, Hamlet.

- Good.
- So is't 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.

And so...

My mother.

Come.

For England.

Follow him close. Tempt him
with speed aboard. Delay it not.

I'll have him hence tonight. Away.

For everything is sealed and done
that else leans on the affair.

Pray you, make haste.

And, England,
if my love thou hold'st at aught,

thou may'st not coldly treat
our sovereign order,

which imports at full

the present death of Hamlet.

Do it, England,
for like the fever 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.

Where is the beauteous majesty
of Denmark?

Why, how now, Ophelia?

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

- Alas, look here, my lord.
- ♪ Larded with sweet flowers

♪ Which bewept to the grave did go

♪ With true-love showers?

How do you, pretty lady?

Well, God'ield you.

They say the owl was a baker's daughter.

Oh...

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

God be at your table.

Distraction for her father.

I hope all will be well.

We must be patient.

But I cannot choose but weep

to think they should 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.

Sweet ladies.

Good night.

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

O, Gertrude, Gertrude,

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

First, her father slain.

Next, our son gone,

the people muddied,
thick and unwholesome

in their thoughts and whispers.

Poor Ophelia,

divided from herself
and her fair judgement.

And last,
and more dangerous than all of 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,

and he, himself, not hesitates
to threaten our own person.

O, my dear Gertrude,

this, like to a murdering-piece,

in many places
gives me superfluous death.

- Ahem.
- How now? What news?

Ahem.

- Letters, m'lord, from Hamlet.
- From Hamlet?

This to Your Majesty.

This to the Queen.

- Who brought them?
- The sailors, m'lord, they said.

Leave us.

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

He shall, sir, an't please him.
There's a letter for you, sir.

It comes from the ambassador
that was bound for England -

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

Horatio,
ere we were two days old at sea,

a pirate of very warlike appointment
gave us chase.

Finding ourselves too slow of sail,

we put on a compelled valour,

and in the grapple 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, but they knew what they did.

I am to do a good turn for them.

Repair thou to me with as much speed
as thy wouldst fly death.

These good fellows
will bring thee where I am. Farewell.

He that thou knowest thine, Hamlet.

? 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"

♪ So would I 'a' done by yonder sun...?

Come, that you may direct me to him
from whom you brought this.

How came he dead?
I'll not be juggled with!

To hell, allegiance!
Vows to the blackest pit.

I dare damnation. Only I'll be revenged
most throughly for my father.

Laertes, if you desire to
know the certainty of your father's death,

is it writ in your revenge that, swoopstake,
you will draw both friend and foe?

- None but his enemies.
- Would you know them?

To his good friends
thus wide I'll open my arms.

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

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

it shall appear as clearly to your judgement
as day doth to your eyes.

- You must sing.
- How now, what noise is this?

♪ A-down, a-down
and you call him a-down-a?

Kind sister.

Sweet Ophelia.

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

Oh, heat, dry up my brains.

- ♪ They bore him barefaced on the bier
- Oh, rose of May.

O heavens,
is't possible a young maid's wits

should be as mortal as an old man's life?

♪ On his grave rained many a tear?

By heaven, thy madness
shall be paid by weight

till our scale turn the beam.

Fare you well, my dove.

There's rosemary.
That's for remembrance.

Pray you, love.

Remember.

There is pansies. That's for thoughts.

There's fennel for you, and columbines.

There's rue for you.

And here's some for me.

We may call it herbal-grace o' 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?
- Do you see this, O God?

♪ And will he not come again?

♪ No, no, he is dead

♪ Go to thy death bed

♪ He never will come again

♪ God 'a' mercy on his soul?

And of all Christian souls, I pray God.

God be with you.

There is a willow
grows aslant a brook

that shows his hoar leaves
in the glassy stream.

There with fantastic garlands
did she come,

of crow-flowers, nettles,
daisies and long purples.

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
a while they bore her up.

♪ O shall I your true love know

♪ From another one?

♪ When his sandal shoon

♪ A-hand his...

♪ A-hand...?

But long it could not be

till that her garments,

heavy with their drink,

pulled the poor wretch
from her melodious lay

to muddy death.

Alas. Then she is drowned.

Drowned. Drowned.

♪ In youth when I did love, did love

♪ Methought it was very sweet

♪ To contract-O-the time

♪ For-O my behove,
methought there was...

♪ ...nothing meet

♪ But age with his stealing steps

♪ Hath clawed me in his clutch?

Whose grave's this, sirrah?

Mine, sir.

I think it be thine indeed,
for thou liest in it.

You lie out on't, sir,
therefore 'tis not yours.

For my part, I do not lie in't,
and yet it is mine.

Thou dost lie in't, to be in't
and say 'tis thine.

'Tis for the dead, not the quick,
therefore thou liest.

'Tis a quick lie, sir,
'twill away again from me to you.

- What man dost thou dig it for?
- For no man, sir.

- For what woman, then?
- For none, neither.

Who is to be buried in it?

One that was a woman, sir,
but, rest her soul, she's dead.

How absolute the knave is.

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

How long hast thou been grave-maker?

Of all the days in the year I came to it

that day that our last King Hamlet
o'ercame 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 great 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 by losing his wits.

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

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

I'faith, if he be not rotten before he die,
he will last some eight year, nine year.

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

Why, sir, his hide is so tanned
with his trade,

it will keep out water a great while.

And your water's a sore decayer
of your whoreson dead body.

Here. Here's a skull now.

This skull hath lain in the earth
three and twenty year.

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

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

A pestilence on him for a mad rogue.

He poured a flagon of Rhenish
on my head once.

This same skull, sir, was 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 jibes now,

your songs, your gambols,

your flashes of merriment
that were wont to set the table on a roar?

Not one now to mock
your own grinning?

Quite chop-fallen.

Now get you to my lady's chamber.

Tell her, let her paint an inch thick,
to this favour she must come.

Make her laugh at that.

But soft.

- The King.
- The Queen.

The courtiers.

Who is this they follow,
and with such meagre rites?

This doth betoken the corpse they follow
did with desperate hand take its own life.

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 warranty.

Her death was doubtful,

and but that great command
o'ersways the order

she should in ground unsanctified
have lodge till the last trumpet.

Must there no more be done?

No more be done?

We should profane
the service of the dead

to sing a requiem and such rest to her

as to peace-parted souls.

Lay her in the earth.

And from her fair and unpolluted flesh
may violets spring.

I tell thee, churlish priest,

a ministering angel shall my sister be
when thou liest howling.

What?

The fair Ophelia!

Sweets to the sweet. Farewell.

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

I thought thy bride-bed to have decked,
sweet maid,

and not t'have strewed 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 a while, till
I have caught her once more in my arms.

Now pile your dust
upon the quick and dead

till of this flat a mountain
you have made.

What is he
whose grief bears such an emphasis?

This is I, Hamlet the Dane!

- The devil take thy soul!
- Thou pray'st not well.

I prithee take thy fingers from my throat!
Hold off thy hand!

- Pluck them asunder!
- Good 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, Laertes.

'Swounds, show me what thou wilt do.

Woot weep, woot fight,
woot fast, woot tear thyself,

woot drink up poison,
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 I.

If thou prate of mountains,
let them throw millions of acres on us.

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

This is mere madness,
and thus awhile the fit will work on him.

Anon, as patient as the female dove
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 upon him.

Good Gertrude,
set some watch o'er your son.

Laertes, I must commune with your grief,

or you deny me right.

And you must put me in your heart
for friend.

Where the offence is,
let the great axe fall. Hm?

It shall be so.

But tell me why
you have proceeded not against him.

O, for two special reasons, which may
to you seem much unsinewed,

yet to me they're strong.

The Queen, his mother,
lives almost by his looks.

And for myself - my virtue or my plague,
be it either way -

is she she's so conjunctive
to my life and soul

that, as the star
moves not but in his sphere,

I could not but by her.

The other motive is the great love
the general people bear him,

who, dipping all his faults
in their affections,

convert his sins to graces.

And so have I a noble father lost,

a sister driven to a desperate end,

whose worth,
if praises may go back again,

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 are made of stuff so flat and dull

that we can let our beard be shook
with danger, and think it pastime.

As he be now returned, I will work him
to an exploit, now ripe in my device,

under the which
he shall not choose but fall.

And for his death
no wind of blame shall breathe,

and even his mother shall uncharge
the practice and call it accident.

My lord, I will be ruled more willingly

if you devise it so
that I might be the instrument.

It falls right.

You have been talked 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 made confession of you
and gave you such a masterly report

for art and exercise in your defence,

and for your rapier, most especially,

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

Sir, this report of his
did Hamlet so envenom with his envy

that he could nothing do

but beg and wish your sudden coming o'er
to fence with him.

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,
a face without a heart?

Why ask you this?

That we would do,
we should do when we would,

for this "would" changes
and hath abatements and delays

as many as there are words,
are thoughts, are accidents.

And then this "should"
is like a spendthrift sigh.

But to the quick o' the ulcer.

We'll put on those
shall praise your excellence,

bring you, in short, together,

and wager on your heads.

Hamlet, being guileless,
will not peruse the sword,

so that with ease,
or with a little shuffling,

you may choose a sword unbated,

and, in a pass of practice,
requite him for your father.

I will do it. And for that purpose
I'll anoint my sword.

I bought an unction of a mountebank

so mortal that, but dip a knife in it,

where it draws blood no medicine so rare
can save the thing from death

that is but scratched withal.

If this should fail...

Soft, let me see.

We'll make a solemn wager
on your cunning...

I have it.

When in the action you are hot and dry
and that he calls for drink,

I'll have prepared him
a chalice for the nonce,

whereon but sipping, if he perchance
escape your venomed point,

our purpose may hold there.

Horatio...

thou art e'en as just a man
as ere my conversation coped withal.

- O, my dear lord...
- Nay, do not think I flatter.

For thou hast been as one in suffering
all that suffers nothing,

a man that fortune's buffets and rewards
has ta'en with equal thanks.

And blessed are those whose blood and
judgement are so well commingled

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.

But I'm very sorry, good Horatio,
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 sure, the bravery of his grief
did put me into a towering passion.

Peace, who comes here?

Ah. Your lordship
is right welcome back to Denmark.

I humbly thank you, sir.
Dost know this water-fly?

- No, my good lord.
- Thy state is the more gracious.

Sweet lord, if your lordship
were at leisure,

I should impart a thing to you
from his majesty.

We shall receive it
with all diligence of spirit.

- Put your bonnet to its right use.
- 'Tis very hot.

- No, 'tis very cold. The wind is northerly.
- It is indifferent cold, indeed.

Yet methinks 'tis very sultry
and hot for my complexion.

Exceedingly, my lord, 'tis 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.

- And this is the matter.
- I beseech you, remember.

O, nay, good my lord,
for mine ease, in good faith.

Sir, here is newly come to court Laertes,
who I believe be an absolute gentleman,

full of the most excellent differences,
of very soft society and great showing.

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

Concernancy, sir?
Why do we wrap the gentleman

- in our more rarer breath?
- Sir?

Is it not possible to understand
in another tongue? You'll do better, sir.

What import's
the nomination of this gentleman?

- Of... Laertes?
- Of him, sir.

I know you are not ignorant of
what excellence Laertes is -

I mean, sir, for his weapon.

- What is his weapon?
- Rapier and dagger.

That's two of his weapons. But well.

The King, sir, hath wagered with him
six Barbary horses,

against the which he has imponed,
as I take it,

six French rapiers and poniards,
with their assigns as girdle, hanger and so.

Three of the carriages, i' faith,
are very dear to fancy,

very responsive to the hilts,
most delicate carriages,

and of very liberal design.

- What call you the carriages?
- The carriages, sir, are the...

hangers.

The phrase would be
more germane to the matter

if we could carry a cannon by our sides.
I would it might be hangers till then.

The King, sir, hath laid, sir, that in a dozen
passes between yourself and him

he shall not exceed you three hits.
He hath laid down twelve for nine.

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,
it is the breathing time of day with me.

Let the swords be brought.
The King hold his purpose,

I will win for him if I can.

If not, I shall gain nothing
but my shame and the odd hits.

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

after what flourish your nature will.

- I commend my duty to your lordship.
- Yours.

Yours. Yours.

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 it is just such a kind of misgiving
as would perhaps trouble a woman.

If your mind dislike anything, obey it.
I'll forestall their coming

- and say you are not fit.
- Not a whit. We defy augury.

There is 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.

There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
rough-hew them how we will.

Let be.

Come, Hamlet, come,

and take this hand from me.

Give me your pardon, sir,
I've done you wrong.

But pardon it as you are a gentleman.

This presence knows,
and you must needs have heard,

how I am punished
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 wronged Laertes?
Never Hamlet.

If Hamlet from himself be ta'en away,

and when he's not himself
does wrong Laertes,

then Hamlet does it not, Hamlet denies it.

Who does it then? His madness.

If't be so, Hamlet is of the faction
that is wronged.

His madness is poor Hamlet's enemy.

Sir, in this audience
let my disclaiming from a purposed evil

free me so far
in your most generous thoughts

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

- Give us the foils, come on.
- I'll be your foil, Laertes.

In my ignorance your skills shall,

like a star i' the darkest night,
shine fiery indeed.

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

Give them the foils, Osric.
Cousin Hamlet, you know the wager?

Your grace has laid
the odds o' the weaker side.

I do not fear it. I have seen you both.

But since he is bettered,
we have therefore odds.

This is too heavy. Let me see another.

This likes me well.
These swords have all a length?

Ay, my good lord.

Set me the stoups of wine
upon that table.

If Hamlet give the first or second hit,

let all the battlements their ordnance fire.

The King shall drink
to Hamlet's better breath,

and in the cup a jewel shall he throw,

richer than that
which four successive kings

in Denmark's crown have worn.

Give me the cup.

And let the kettle to the trumpet speak...

...the trumpet to the canoneer without...

...the cannons to the heavens,
the heavens to earth!

Now the King drinks to Hamlet.

Now the King drinks to Hamlet.

Come, begin. And you, the judges,
bear a wary eye.

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

- One!
- No!

- Judgement.
- A hit, a very palpable hit.

- Well, again.
- Stay.

Give me a drink.

Hamlet, this pearl is thine.

Here's to thy health.

Give him the cup.

I'll play this bout first. Set it by a while.

Come.

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

Our son shall win.

He is hot and scant of breath. Here, Hamlet,
take my napkin, rub thy brows.

Good Gertrude, do not drink!

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

The Queen carouses to thy fortune,
Hamlet.

Good madam!

- It's too late.
- My lord, I'll hit him now.

I do not think it.

It is almost 'gainst my conscience.

Let me wipe thy face.

Come for the third, Laertes,
you do but dally.

I pray you pass with your best violence.

- I am afeard you make a wanton of me.
- Say you so? Come on.

Nothing. Neither way.

Have at you now!

- Part them, they are incensed!
- Nay, come again.

How is't, Laertes?

I'm justly killed
with mine own treachery.

- How is it, my lord?
- How does the Queen?

- She swoons to see them bleed.
- No. No.

The drink.

O, my... dear Hamlet.

O villainy.

O, let the door be locked!

- Treachery... seek it out!
- It is here, Hamlet.

Hamlet, thou art slain.
In thee there is not half an hour of life.

The treacherous instrument
is in thy hand,

unbated and envenomed.

The foul practice
hath turned itself on me.

Lo, here I lie, never to rise again.

Thy mother's poisoned.

I can no more.

The King.

The King's to blame.

The point envenomed, too.

Then, venom, to thy work!

Exchange forgiveness with me,
noble Hamlet.

Mine and my father's death
come not upon 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 -

O, I could tell you...

But let it be.

I die, Horatio.

The potent poison
quite o'ercrows my spirit.

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.

The rest... is silence.

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.

Go.

Bid the soldiers shoot.

Good night, sweet prince,

and flights of angels sing thee
to thy rest.