Original subtitles

Who's there?

Answer me. Stand and unfold yourself

Hail to your lordship

- Horatio, or I do forget myself - The same, my lord, and your poor servant ever

My good friend, I'll change that name with thee. What make thee from Wittenberg, Horatio?

- Oh I am very glad to see you - My good lord

- But what in faith make you from Wittenberg? - A truant disposition, good my lord

I would not hear your enemy say so, nor shall you do my ear that violence...

...to make it truster of your own report against yourself. I know you are no truant

But 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 ere I had ever seen that day, Horatio

- How now, my lord, why look'st thou pale? - My father, methinks I see my father

- Where? - 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, the queen your mother sends me hence to entreat you to make haste

The hour has come, the guests who now assemble wait upon...

Bid her hold her patience a while, I come by and by

Good Horatio, you are welcome to Elsinore

Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice and could of men distinguish...

...her election hath sealed thee for herself

My gracious lord, I'll leave you for a while. Farewell

- I am sent expressly to your lordship... - Soft you now, I come

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, the imperial jointress to this warliike state...

...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

Now follows that you know young Fortinbras, holding a weak supposal of our worth...

Or thinking by our late dear brother's death our state to be disjoint and out of frame...

...hath not failed to pester us with message demanding the surrender of those lands...

...lost by his father, with all bonds of law, to our most valiant brother

So much for him, now for ourself

And for this time of meeting, thus much the business is

We have here writ to Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras, who, weakening and bedrid...

...scarcely hears of this his nephew's purpose, to supress his further gait herein

And we here dispatch you, good Cornelius, and you Voltemand...

...for bearing of this greeting to old Norway. Farewell, and let your haste commend your duty

In that, and in all things, we will show our duty

And now Laertes, what's the news with you? You told us of some suit. What is it, Laertes?

The head is not more native to the heart than is the throne of Denmark to your father

- What would'st thou have, Laertes? - My dear 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 then to your gracious leave and pardon

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

He has, my lord. I do beseech you give him leave to go

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

But now our cousin Hamlet, and our son

A little more than kin and less than kind

- How is it that the clouds still hang on you? - Not so my lord, I am too much in the sun

Good Hamlet, cast thy nightly colour off and let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark

Do not forever with thy veiled lids seek for thy father in the dust

Thou knowst '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, nor the windy suspiration of forced breath

No, nor the fruitful river in the eye nor the dejected haviour of the visage...

...together with all forms, moods, 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 persevere in obstinate condolement is a course of ungodly stubbornness

'Tis unmanly grief, it shows a will most incorrect to heaven

A heart unfortified, a mind impatient, an understanding simple and unschooled

Fie, 'tis 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 to he that died today, 'this must be so'

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

As for your intent in going back to school in 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, Kinsman and our son

Let not your 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

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

Oh 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, O God

How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world

Fie on't, oh 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 of my mother that he might not beteem 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't. 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...

Oh God, a beast that wants discourse of reason would have mourned longer

Married with my uncle, my fathers brother

But no more like my father than Ito Hercules... within a month!

Oh most wicked speed, to post with such dexterity to incestuous sheets

It is not, nor cannot come to good. But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue

- Soft you, a word, my lord - Horatio?

Friends to this ground and liegemen to the Dane

- Hail to your lordship - My good lord

I am very glad to see you both

Pray give them leave, they would speak a word with you

The matter then, speak

By heaven, I charge thee, speak

- My lord I think I saw him yesternight - Saw who?

- My lord, the king, your father - The king, my father?

Season your admiration for a while with an attent ear...

...till I may deliver this marvel to you - For God's love, let me hear

Two nights together have these gentlemen, Marcellus and Barnardo...

...on their watch in the dead waste and middle of the night been thus encountered

A figure like your father appears before them, and with solemn march goes slow and stately

Whilst they, distilled almost to jelly with the act of fear, stood dumb and spoke not to him

This to me in dreadful secrecy did they impart

I knew your father, these hands are not more like

- But where was this? - Upon the platform where we watch

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

Yet once methought it lifted up its head and did address itself to motion like as it would speak

But even then the morning cock crew loud, and at the sound it shrunk in haste away

I have heard, the cock, that is the trumpet to the day...

...doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat awake the god of day, and at his warning...

...whether in sea or fire, in earth or air, the itinerant and erring spirit hies to his confine

And of the truth therein their witness now doth make probation

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

And we did think it writ down in our duty to let you know of it

- Saw you his face? - Yes

- How looked he, frowningly? - A countenance more in sorrow than in anger

- Pale or red? - Nay very pale

- And his eyes fixed upon you? - Most constantly

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

Very like, very like. Hold you the watch again tonight?

- We do my lord - Perchance it will walk again

If it assume my noble father's person I will speak to it...

...though hell itself should gape and bid me hold my peace

I pray you both, if you have hitherto concealed this sight, let it be held within your silence still

And whatsoever else shall pass tonight, give it an understanding but no tongue

Upon the platform 'twixt eleven and twelve I'll visit you

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

All is not well. Would the night were come. 'fill then, sit still my soul

Foul deeds will rise, though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes

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?

I see Prince Hamlet makes a show of love. Beware, Ophelia, do not trust his vows

Hold it but a fashion and a toy in blood, a violet in the spring of primy nature

Fleeting, not permanent, sweet, not lasting, the suppliance of the moment, no more

- No more but so? - Think it no more

Perhaps he loves you new, and new his tongue speaks from his heart, but yet take heed

His greatness weighed, his will is not his own, for he himself is subject to his birth

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

For on his choice depends the sanctity and health of this whole state

And therefore must his choice be circumscribed...

...unto the voice and yielding of that body whereof he is the head

Then if he says he loves you, it fits your wisdom so far to believe it...

...as he in his especial rank and force may give his saying deed. And weigh what loss...

...your honour may sustain if with too credent ear you list his songs or lose your heart

Fear it, Ophelia, fear it my dear sister

And keep within the rear of your affection, out of the shot and danger of desire

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

...do not as some ungodly 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 heeds not his own reed - Oh fear me not

- Yet here, Laertes? - I stay too long. But here my father comes

A double blessing is a double grace. Occasion smiles upon a second leave

Aboard, aboard for shame. The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail and you are stayed for

There, my blessing with you, and these few precepts in thy memory see thou character

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

Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar

The friends thou hast and their allegiance tried, grapple them unto 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 it that the opposed may beware of thee

Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment

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

Farewell, Ophelia, and remember well what I have said to you

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

Farewell

What is it, Ophelia, he hath said to you?

So please you, something touching the Lord Hamlet

Many, well bethought. 'Tis told me he hath very oft of late given private time to you

And you yourself have of your audience been most free and bounteous

If it be so, as so 'tis put on me, and that in way of caution, I must tell you...

...you do not understand yourself so clearly as it becomes my daughter and your honour

What is between you? Give me up the truth

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

Affection? 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

Many, I'll teach you. Think yourself a baby...

...that you have taken his tenders for true pay, which are not sterling

My lord, he hath importuned me with love in honourable fashion

Aye, fashion you may call it

And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord, with all the vows of heaven

I do know when the blood bums how prodigally the soul lends the tongue vows

These blazes, daughter, giving more light than heat, you must not take for fire

For this time be somewhat scanter of your maiden presence

Set your entreatments at a higher rate than a command to parley

For Lord Hamlet, believe so much in him that he is royal...

...and with a larger tether may he walk than may be given you

In brief, Ophelia, do not believe his vows

And for my own pan, I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth...

...have you so slander any moment's leisure as to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet

Look to it, I charge you

I shall obey, my lord

- What hour now? - I think it lacks of twelve

- No, it is struck - Indeed I heard it not

Then it draws near the season wherein the spirit held his wont to walk

Thus twice before, and just at this dead hour, with martial stalk hath he gone by our watch

In what particular thought to work I know not, but in the gross and scope of my opinion...

...this bodes some strange eruption to our state

Good you now, canst tell me, if you know...

...why this same strict and most observant watch so nightly guards the subject of the land

And why such daily cast of brazen cannon and foreign trade for implements of war

What might be toward, that this sweaty haste doth make the night joint-labourer with the day?

To the wars, my boy, to the wars! Or at least the whisper goes so

Our last king was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway...

...thereto pricked on by a most ambitious pride, dared to the combat

In which our valiant Hamlet did slay this Fortinbras

Who, by a sealed compact, did forfeit with his life all those his lands...

...which he stood seized of to the conqueror

Now sir, young Fortinbras, of unimproved mettle hot and full...

...hath in the skins of Norway here and there sharked up a troop of lawless resolutes

For to recover of us by strong hand those foresaid lands so by his father lost

And this, I take it, is the main motive of our preparations

And the chief head of this great haste and turmoil in the land

I think it be no other but even so

I am well studied for a liberal thanks, which I do owe you

- Marcellus, Barnado - My honoured lord

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

- Has this thing appeared again tonight? - I have seen nothing

- What does this mean, my lord? - The king doth wake tonight and takes his muse

Keeps wassail and a swaggering upspring reels, and as he drains his drafts of rhenish down...

...the kettledrum and trumpet thus bray out the triumph of his pledge

- Is it a custom? - Aye, many it is

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

- Peace, break thee off - Look, my lord, it comes

- Looks it not like the king? -Angels and ministers of grace defend us!

Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damned...

Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell...

Be thy intents wicked or charitable...

...thou com'st in such a questionable shape that I will speak to thee

I'll call thee Hamlet... King...

Father... Royal Dane... Oh answer me!

- It beckons you to go away with it - Do not go

- 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

As 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 towards the flood, my lord?

Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff that overlaps his base into the sea'?

And there assumes some other horrible form which might deprive you of your reason...

...and draw you into madness. Think of it

- It waves me still, I'll follow it - You shall not go, my lord

- Hold off your hand - 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

Unhand me gentlemen, or by God I'll make a ghost of him that stays me

I say away. Go on, I'll follow thee

- He waxes desperate with imagination - 'Tis not fit thus to obey him

- To what issue will this come? - Something is rotten in the state of Denmark

- Heaven will direct it - Nay, let's follow him

Where wilt thou lead me? Speak, I'll go no further

Speak, I am bound to hear

I am thy father's spirit

Doomed for a certain term 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

But that I am forbid to tell the secrets of my prison house, I could a tale unfold...

...whose lightest word would harrow up thy soul and freeze thy noble veins

But this eternal blazon must not be to ears of flesh and blood

List, Hamlet, oh list. If thou didst ever thy dear father love...

- Oh 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 may sweep to my revenge

It is 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, mine uncle

Aye, that incestuous, that adulterate beast with witchcraft of his wits...

...won to his shameful lust the will of my most seeming virtuous queen

Oh Hamlet, what a falling-off was there, from me whose love was of that dignity...

...that it went hand in hand even with the vow I made to her in marriage

And to decline upon a wretch whose natural gifts were poor to those of mine

But soft, methinks I scent the morning air. Brief let me be

Sleeping within my orchard, my custom always in the...

...upon my restful hour thy uncle stole with juice of cursed hebenon in a vial

And in the porches of mine ear 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, and with a sudden vigour...

...it doth posset and curd, like acid dropping into milk, the thin and wholesome blood

So did it mine. And soon a foul eruption barked about, most leper-like...

...with vile and loathsome crust, all my smooth body

Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother's hand of life, of crown and queen at once dispatched

Cutoff even in the blossom of my sin

No reckoning made, but sent to my account with all my imperfections on my head

Oh horrible, oh 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, and to those thorns that in her bosom lodge to prick and sting her

Fare thee well at once. The glow worm shows the matin to be near

Adieu, adieu

Hamlet, remember me

Remember thee?

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

Remember thee? Yea, from the tables of my memory I'll wipe away all trivial fond records

All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past, 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, yes, by heaven

Oh most pernicious woman. Oh villain, villain, smiling damned villain

My tables... Meet it is I set it down that one may smile and smile and be a 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!

- Heaven secure him - So be it

- How is it, my noble lord? - What news, my lord?

- Oh wonderful - Good my lord, tell it

- No, you'll reveal it - Not , my lord - Nor I

- How say you then but you'll be secret? - Aye by heaven, my lord

There's not a villain dwelling in all Denmark but he's an arrant have

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

Why right, you are in the right. It is an honest ghost, that let me tell you

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

And now, good friends, grant me one poor request

- What is't my lord? We will - Never make known what you have seen tonight

- My lord, we will not - Nay, but swear it

- Swear -Aha, oh boy, sayest thou so?

- Come on, you hear this fellow, consent to swear - Propose the oath, my lord

Never to speak of this that you have seen tonight

- My lord, we will not - Nay, but swear it

- In faith, my lord, not I - Nor I my lord, in faith

Swear

Then we'll shift our ground, come hither, gentlemen

Upon my hand, never to speak of this that you have heard

Swear

Well said, old mole, canst work in the ground so fast?

Once more remove, good friends

- Oh 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 our philosophy

- But come, here as before, swear - Swear

Rest, rest, perturbed spirit

And swear besides, howe'er so strange or odd I bear myself...

As I perchance hereafter shall think it meet to put an antic disposition on...

That you at such time seeing me, never shall with arms encumbered thus...

Or thus head shake, or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase as Well, we know'

Or We could and if we would', that you know aught of me. Swear

So gentlemen, with all my love I do commend me to you, and still your fingers on your lips. I pray

The time is out of joint. Oh cursed spite, that ever I was born to set it fight

How now, Ophelia, what's the matter?

- Alas, my lord, I have been so affrighted - With what, in the name of heaven'?

My lord, as I was sewing in my chamber Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbraced...

Pale as his shirt, his knees mocking each other, 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

- Mad for thy love? - My lord, I do not know

- What said he? - 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

When at last, his head thus waving up and down, he raised a sigh so piteous and profound...

...that it did seem to shatter all his bulk and end his being. That done, he lets 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

This is the very ecstasy of love, whose violent property fordoes itself and leads the will...

...to desperate undertakings as oft as any passion under heaven that does afflict our natures

What, have you given him any hard words of late?

No, my good lord. But as you did command, I did repel his letters and denied his access to me

That hath made him mad

I am sorry that with better speed and judgment I had not noted him

I feared he did but trifle and meant to wreck thee

Come, go we to the king. This must be known

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 I call it, for to define true madness, what is it but to be nothing else than mad? But let that go

- More matter with less art - Madam, I swear I use no art at all

Mad let us grant him then, and now remains that we find out the cause of this effect

Or rather say, the cause of this defect. I have a daughter, have whilst 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

- Came this from Hamlet to her? - Good madam stay awhile, 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

This in obedience hath my daughter showed me, and more above, hath his solicitings...

...as they fell out by time, by means and place, all given to mine ear

- But how has 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 if I had seen this hot love on the wing...

As I perceived it, I must tell you this, before my daughter told me

What might you, or my dear majesty the queen here, think...

...if I had played the bawd or go-between?

Or 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 precepts gave her

That she should lock herself from his society, admit no messengers, receive no tokens

Which done, she took the fruits of my advise and he, repulsed, a short tale to make...

...fell into a sadness, thence into a weakness, thence into the madness wherein now he raves

- Do you think 'tis this? - It may be very likely

Hath there been such a time, I would fain know that...

...that I have positively said 'tis so, when it proved otherwise?

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

If circumstances lead me, I will find where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed within the centre

How may we try it further?

You know sometimes he walks for hours 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 caners

Away, I do beseech you both, away

How does my good lord?

- Well, god-a-mercy - Do you know me, my lord?

Excellent, excellent well. You are a fishmonger

- Not I, my lord - Then I would you were so honest a man

- Honest, my lord? - Aye, sir

To be honest as this world goes is to be one man picked out of ten thousand

- That's very true, my lord - Have you a daughter?

- I have, my lord - Let her not walk in the sun. Look to it

How say you by that? Still harping on my daughter

- What do you read, my lord? - Words, words, words

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

- I mean the matter you read, my lord - Slanders, sir

For the satirical rogue says here that old men have grey beards, that their faces are wrinkled...

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

All of which, sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe it...

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

For you yourself, sir, could grow as old as I am, if like a crab you could go backwards

Though this be madness, yet there is method in it

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

My honourable lord, I will take my leave of you

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

Except my life. Except my life...

Fare you well, my lord

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

'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished

To die, to sleep

To sleep, perchance to dream

Aye, 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 scams of time...

The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely...

The pangs of disprized love, the law's delay...

The insolence of office and the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes...

...when he himself might his quietus make with a bare bodkin

Who would these fardles bear, to grunt and sweat under a weary life...

...but for the dread of something after death

The undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returns

It puzzles the will, and makes us rather bear those ills we have...

...than fly to others 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 pitch and moment...

...with this regard their currents tum awry and lose the name of action

The ambassadors from Norway are joyfully returned

They're welcome both, let them have kind admission

How do I long to hear how they were found

- Welcome, good friends - Say, Voltemand, what from our brother Norway?

Most fair return of greetings and desires

Sovereign lord, the word of peace is rendered between our nation and its neighbour state

- Heavens thank you for it - Upon our first he sent out to supress...

...his nephew's levies, which to him appeared to be a preparation against the Polish

But better looked into, he truly found it was against your highness

Sends out arrests on Fortinbras, which he, in brief, obeys

Receives rebuke from Norway and, in fine makes vow before his uncle...

...never more to give the assay of arms against your majesty

Whereon old Norway, overcome with joy...

...gives him permission to employ those soldiers so levied as before against the Polish

With an entreaty herein further shown that it might please...

...to give peaceful passage through your dominions for his enterprise

It likes us well, and at our more considered time we'll read, answer and think upon this business

Meantime, we thank you for your well-took labour. Go to your rest, tonight we'll dine together

I hold my duty as I hold my soul, both to my God and to my gracious king

- Most welcome home - This business is well ended

Sweet Gertrude leave us too, for we have closely sent for Hamlet hither

That he, as 'twere by accident, may here confront Ophelia

Her father and myself will so bestow ourselves...

...that seeing, unseen, we may of their encounter frankly judge

And gather by him as he is behaved if it be the affliction of his love or no that thus he suffers for

I doubt it is no other but the main, his father's death and our o'erhasty marriage

For your pan, Ophelia, I do wish your good beauties be the happy cause of Hamlet's wildness

So shall I hope your virtues will bring him to his wonted way again

Madam, I wish it may

Ophelia, walk you here

Read on this book, that show of such an exercise may colour your loneliness

Let's withdraw, my lord

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 redeliver

- 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 left, take these again

For to the noble mind rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind

There my lord

- Are you honest? - Yes, my lord

- I did love you once - Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so

You should not have believed me. I loved you not

I was the more deceived

Get thee to a nunnery. Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?

I am myself indifferent honest

Yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me

I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious

With more offences at my beck than I have thoughts to put them in...

...imagination to give them shape or time to act them in

What should fools as I do crawling between heaven and earth?

We are arrant knaves all, believe none of us

- Where is 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

Oh help him, you sweet heavens

If thou dost many, I'll give thee this plague for thy dowry

Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shall not escape calumny

Get thee to a nunnery, and quickly too. Or if thou wilt many, many a fool

For wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them

Oh heavenly powers, restore him

God has given you one face and you make yourself another

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

...and make your wantonness your ignorance

Go to, I'll no more on it, it hath made me mad

I say we will have no more marriages

Those that are married already all but one shall live, the rest shall keep as they are

To a nunnery, go

Oh what a noble mind is here o'erthrown

The eourtiefs, soldier's, scholar's eye, tongue,

The expectancy and rose of the fair state...

The glass of fashion and the mould of form, the observed of all observers quite, quite down

And I, of ladies most deject and wretched, that sucked the honey of his music vows...

...now see that noble and most sovereign reason like sweet bells jangled out of tune and harsh

That unmatched form and feature of blown youth blasted with ecstasy

Oh woe is me, to have seen what I have seen, see what I see

Love? His affections do not that way tend

Nor what he spoke, though it lacked form a little, was not like madness

But yet do I believe the origin and commencement of this grief springs from neglected love

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

And I do fear the hatch and the disclose will be some danger

How now, my good lord?

You need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said, we heard it all

Welcome, dear Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Moreover that we much did long to see you...

...the need we have to use you did provoke our hasty sending

Something you have heard of Hamlet's transformation

So I call it, since not the exterior nor the inward man resembles what it was

What it should be, more than his father's death...

...that thus hath put him so much from the understanding of himself, I cannot dream of

I entreat you both, that being of so young days brought up with him...

And since so neighboured to his youth and humour...

To draw him on to pleasures and to glean whether aught to us unknown afflicts him thus...

...that disclosed, lies within our remedy - He hath of late much talked of you, good sirs

And sure I am, two men there are not living to whom he more adheres

If it will please you to show us so much kindness and goodwill...

...as to expend your time with us a while for the supply and profit of our hope...

...your visitation shall receive such thanks as fits a king's remembrance

Both your majesties might, by the sovereign power you have of us...

...put your dread pleasures more into command than to entreaty

But we both obey, and here give up ourselves in the full bent...

...to lay our service freely at your feet to be commanded

Heaven make our presence and our practices pleasant and helpful to him

- Thanks, gentle Rosencrantz and Guildenstern -Thanks, Guildenstern and gentle Rosencrantz

And I beseech you instantly to visit my too much changed son

Good Voltemand, I charge thee, bring the gentlemen where Hamlet is

- Go you to seek the Lord Hamlet? - God save you, sir

- Mine honoured lord? - My most dear lord?

My dear good friends!

How dost thou Guildenstern? Oh Rosencrantz, good lads, how do you both?

- As the indifferent children of the earth - Happy in that we are not over-happy

On fortune's cap we are not the very button

- Nor the soles of her shoe? - Neither, my lord

Then you live about her waist or in the middle of her favour?

Faith, her privates, we

- What's the news? - None, my lord, but that the world's grown honest

Then is doomsday near

But what have you deserved at the hands of fortune that she sends you to prison hither?

- Prison, my lord? - Denmark's a prison

- Then is the world one - A goodly one...

...in which there are many confines, wards and dungeons, Denmark being one of the worst

- I think not so, my lord - Why then, 'tis none to you

For there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so. But to me it is a prison

Why then, your ambition makes it one. 'Tis too narrow for your mind

Oh God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space...

...were it not that I have bad dreams

But no such matter. What make you from England?

- To visit you, my lord, no other occasion - Were you not sent for? Is it a free visitation?

Come, deal justly with me. Come, come. Nay, speak

- What should we say, my lord? - Why, anything but to the purpose

You were sent for, and there is a kind of confession in your looks...

...which your modesties have not craft enough to cover

I know the good queen and king have sent for you

- To what end my lord? -That you must teach me

But let me conjure you by the rights of our fellowship, be even and direct with me...

...whether you were sent for or no - My lord, we were sent for

I will tell you why, so shall my anticipation prevent your discovery

I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercise

And indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition...

...that this goodly frame the earth seems to me a sterile promontory

This most excellent canopy the air, look you, this brave overhanging firmament...

This majestical roof fretted with golden fire...

Why, it appears no other thing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours

What a piece of work is a man

How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, in form and moving how express and admirable

In action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god

The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals, and yet to me what is this quintessence of dust?

Man delights not me

No, nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so

My lord, there was no such stuff in my thoughts

Why did you laugh when I said man delights not me?

- Well be with you, gentlemen - My lord, I have news to tell you

- My lord, I have news to tell you - Buzz buzz

My lord I do entreat your patience to hear me speak the message I am sent on

The actors are come hither, my lord, upon my honour

You are welcome to Elsinore, but my uncle-father and aunt-mother are deceived

- In what, my dear lord? - I am but mad north-north-west

When the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw

- Who are the players? - Even those you were wont to take delight in

The Tragedians of the City, the best actors in the world

Either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral...

...tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral

How chances it they travel? Do they hold the same estimation they did when I was in the city?

Are they so followed? How comes it? Do they grow rusty? Come on man, about it, about it

They attendeth here hard by to know your answer, whether you'll admit them or no

Let the doors be open to them. Masters, you are welcome

Oh my old friend, I am glad to see thee well. What, thy face is bearded since I saw thee last

My young lady and my mistress, masters, you are all welcome

We'll e'en to it like French falconers, fly at anything we see

We'll have a speech straight. Come, a passionate speech

- What speech, my lord? - I heard thee speak a speech once

But it was never acted, or if it was, not above once, for the play, I remember...

...pleased not the million though it was, as I received it and others...

...whose judgments in such matters cry in the top of mine, an excellent play

One speech in it I chiefly loved

'Twas Aeneas's tale to Dido, where he speaks of Priam's slaughter

If it live in your memory, begin at this line. Let me see, let me see...

The rugged Pyrrhus, like the Hyrcanian beast... It is not so, it begins with Pyrrhus

The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable arms, black as his purpose, did the night resemble...

...when he lay couched in the ominous horse

Hath now his dread and black complexion smeared with heraldry more dismal

Head to foot the blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons

And thus o'er-sized with coagulate gore, the hellish Pyrrhus old grandsire Priam seeks

So proceed you

Anon he finds him striking too short at Greeks

His antique sword, rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls, rejecting all command

Unequal matched, Pyrrhus at Priam drives, in rage strikes wide

But with the weight and wind of his fell sword the unnerved father falls

Then did the senseless city seem to feel this blow

And with a hideous crash take prisoner Pyrrhus' ear

For lo, his sword, which was declining on the milky head of reverend Priam...

...seemed in the air to stick, so as a painted tyrant, Pyrrhus stood and did nothing

But as we often see before a storm a silence in the heavens...

The clouds stand still, the bold winds speechless and the orb below as hush as death...

Anon the dreadful thunder doth rend the region

So after Pyrrhus' pause a mused vengeance set him new a-work

And never did the Cyclops' hammer fall on Mars his armours, forged for proof eterne...

...with less remorse than Pyrrhus'bleeding sword then fell on Priam

Say on, come to Hecuba

But who, oh who had seen the mobled queen run barefoot up and down

Threatening the flames with blinding team...

A cloth about her head where late a crown had stood...

And for a robe around her gaunt and blood soaked limbs...

A blanket in the alarm of fear caught up, who had this seen...

...with tongue in venom steeped 'gainst fortunes state would treason have pronounced

And if the Gods themselves did see her then when she saw

...make malicious sport in mincing with his sword her husband's limbs

The instant scream of honer that she made, unless things mortal move them not at all...

...would have made weep the burning eyes of heaven and passion in the gods

Oh, what a rogue and peasant slave am I

Is it not monstrous that this player here but in a fiction, in a dream of passion...

...could force his soul so to his whole conceit?

That from her working all his visage manned, tears in his eyes, distraction in his aspect...

A broken voice, and his whole function suiting with forms to his conceit

And all for nothing. For Hecuba

What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, that he should weep for her?

What would he do had he the motive and cue for passion that I have?

He would drown the stage with tears and cleave the general ear with horrid speech

Make mad the guilty and appal the free

Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed the very faculty of eyes and ears

Yet I, a dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause

And can say nothing. No, not for a king...

...upon whose property and most dear life a damned defeat was made

Am I a coward? Who calls me villain?

Why, I should take it. For it cannot be...

...but I am pigeon-livered and lack gall to make oppression bitter

Or ere this I should have fatted all the region kites with this slave's offal

Bloody, bawdy villain

Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain

Oh vengeance!

Why, what an ass am I. Sure this is most brave that I, the son of the dear murdered...

...prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell, must like a whore unpack my heart with words

And fall a-cursing like a very drab, a scullion. Fie upon it, foh! About, my brain

I have heard that guilty creatures sitting at a play have, by the very cunning of the scene...

...been struck so to the soul that presently they have proclaimed their malefactions

I'll have these players play something like the murder of my father before my uncle

I'll observe his looks, I'll tent him to the quick. If he but blench, I know my course

Tis well, I'll have thee speak out the rest soon

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

And let them be well used, for they are the abstract and brief chronicles of the time

- My lord, I will use them according to their desert - For God's sake man, better

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

Use them after your own honour and dignity. Take them in

Come, sirs

- Can you play The Murder of Gonzago? - The Murder of Gonzago?

- The same - Aye, my lord

We'll have it tonight. You could, for my sake, study a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines...

...which I would set down and have inserted in it, could you not?

- Aye my lord - Very well

Follow that lord, and look you mock him not. My good friends I'll leave you till tonight

- You are welcome to Elsinore - Good my lord

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

Oh villain, villain, smiling damned villain! That a brother should be so perfidious...

Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue

For if you mouth it as many of your players do I had as lief the town crier had 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, the whirlwind of passion...

...you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness

- I warrant your honour - Be not too tame neither

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 the mirror up to nature

To show virtue her earn feature, seem her own image

And the very age and body of the time his form and pressure

Oh, there be players that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly...

...which not to speak it profanely, that have so strutted and bellowed...

...that I have thought that some of nature's prentices had made men

And not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably

I hope we have reformed that indifferently with us, sir

Go, make you ready

How now good friends, will the king hear this piece of work?

- And the queen too, and that presently - Bid the players make haste

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

- Say, what is Horatio there? - A piece of him

- How now, good friend - Is it not very strange

Thine uncle is king of Denmark

And those that would make mouths at him while your father lived...

...give twenty, forty, a hundred crowns a piece for his picture in little

There is something in this more than natural, if philosophy could find it out

Oh Horatio, thou an as just a man as ere my conversation coped withal

- My dear lord - Nay, do not think I flatter

For what advancement may I hope from thee that no revenue hast...

...but thy good spirits to feed and clothe thee?

Give me that man that is not fortunes slave and I will wear him in my heart's core

Aye, in my heart of hearts, as I do thee

- Something too much of this - Something too much of this

There is a play tonight before the king

One scene of it comes near the circumstance which I have told thee of my father's death

I pray thee, when thou see'st that act afoot, even with the utmost shrewdness of thine eye...

...observe mine uncle. If his disguised guilt do not itself unravel in one speech...

...it is a damned ghost that we have seen

- Then give him heedful note - I will, my lord

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

They are coming to the play, I must prepare

And can you by no drift of circumstance get from him why he puts on this confusion

Grating so harshly all our days of quiet with turbulent and dangerous lunacy?

He does confess he feels himself distracted, but from what cause he will by no means speak

Nor do we find him forward to be sounded

- Did he receive you well? - Most like a gentleman

Sparing of question, but of our demands most free in his reply

Then with a crafty madness he keeps aloof...

...when you would bring him on to some confession of his true state

- Get you a place - How fares our gracious Hamlet?

Excellent in faith, of the chameleon's dish. I eat the air, promise crammed

- You cannot feed capons so - I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet

- These words are not mine - No, nor mine now

Now, my lord, you played once at the university you say?

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

- And what did you enact? - I did enact Julius Caesar

I was killed in the Capitol, Brutus killed...

- Be the players ready? - Aye my lord, they stay upon your patience

- Come hither, my good Hamlet, sit by me - No, good mother, here's metal more attractive

- Lady, shall I lie in your lap? - No, my lord

I mean my head upon your lap?

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

There's a fair thought to lie between a maid's legs

- What is, my lord? - Nothing

- You are merry, my lord -What should a man do but be merry

For look you, how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died within two hours

- Nay, 'tis yet two months - So long?

Oh heavens, die two months ago and not forgotten yet?

Then there's hope a great man's memory might outlive his life half a year

You are naught, I'll mark the play

Full thirty times hath Phoebus' cart gone round Neptune's salt wash and Tellus' orbed ground

Since love our hearts and Hymen did our hands unite comutual in most sacred bands

So many journeys may the sun and moon make us again count over e'er love be done

But woe is me, you are so sick of late, so far from cheer and from your former state

For women, fear and love hold quantity, in neither aught, or in extremity

And what my love is proof have made you know, thus as my love is sized, my fear is so

Faith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly too. My operant powers their functions leave to do

And thou must live in this fair world behind, honoured, beloved and happily one as kind

For husband shalt thou...

Oh confound the rest. Such love must needs be treason in my breast

In second husband let me be accursed, none wed the second but who killed the first

Wormwood

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

This world is not for aye, nor 'tis not strange...

...that even our loves should with our fortunes change

For 'tis a question left us yet to prove whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love

But orderly to end where I begun, our wills and fates do so contrary run...

...that our devices still are overthrown. Our thoughts are ours, the ends none of our own

So think thou wilt no second husband wed, but die thy thoughts when thy first lord is dead

Not earth to give me food, nor heaven light, rest and repose lock me from day and night

Each instrument that fouls the face of joy meet what I would have welt and it destroy

Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife if once a widow ever I be wife

If she should break it now

Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here a while

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 - Oh but she'll keep her word

Have you heard the argument? ls there no offence in it?

No offence in the world. This play is the image of a murder done in Vienna

Gonzago is the duke's name, his wife Baptista

You shall see anon, 'tis a knavish piece of work. But what of that?

Your majesty and we that have free souls, it touches us not

- What means this, my lord? - This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king

- Will you tell us what this means? - This means mischief

Thoughts black, hands apt, dmgs fit and time agreeing

Confederate season, else no creature seeing

Thou mixture rank of midnight weeds collected, with witches' curse thrice blasted, thrice infected

Thy natural magic and dire property, on wholesome life usurp immediately

Oh villain, villain, smiling damned villain. That a brother should be so perfidious

He poisons him in the garden for his estate

You shall see anon how the murderer gets the love of the old man's wife

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

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

- Give me some light - Away!

Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers, get me a cry in a fellowship of players?

- Half a share - Come, music. Some music, come

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

- Dids't perceive? - Very well, my lord

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

- Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you - A whole history, sir

- The king, sir... - Aye sir, what of him?

...is in his retirement marvellous distempered

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

Your wisdom should show itself more richer to signify this to his doctor

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 us to you

- You are welcome - Nay, this courtesy is not of the fight breed

If it shall please you to make a wholesome answer...

...we will do your mother's commandment

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

- Sir, I cannot - What, my lord?

Make you a wholesome answer. My wit's diseased

- But to the matter. My mother, you say - Then thus she says

Your behaviour hath struck her into amazement and admiration

Oh wonderful son, that can so astonish a mother!

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 - So do I still, by these pickers and stealers

- Good my lord, what is your cause of distemper? - Sir, I lack advancement

How can that be when you have the voice of the king himself in Denmark?

- Good sir, will you play upon this pipe? - My lord, I cannot

- I pray you - Believe me, I cannot

- I do beseech you - I know no touch of it, my lord

'Tis as easy as lying

Govern these vantages with your fingers and thumbs, give it breath with your mouth...

...and it will discourse most excellent music. Look you, these are the stops

But these cannot I command to any utterance of harmony, I have not the skill

Why look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me

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

You would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass

And there is much music, excellent voice in this little organ, yet cannot you make it speak

What, do you think that I am easier to be played on than a pipe?

Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me

God bye you, sir

My lord, the queen would speak with you, and presently

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

- It is like a camel indeed - Methinks it is like a weasel

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

- Very like a whale - Then will I come to my mother by and by

- I will come by and by - I will say so

By and by is easily said

They fool me to the top of my bent

Leave me, friends

'Tis now the 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

Oh 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

I like him not, nor stands it safe with us to let his madness range. Therefore prepare you

I your commission will forthwith dispatch and he to England shall return with you

The terms of our estate may not endure hazard so dangerous...

...as doth hourly grow out of his lunacies

- What think you on it? - Most holy and religious fear it is...

...to keep those many many bodies safe that live and feed upon your majesty

The cease of which, my lord, dies not alone, but like a gulf doth draw what's near it with it

Thus set it down, he shall with speed to England

Perhaps the seas and countries differerent with variable aspect...

...shall expel this something settled matter in his heart...

...whereon his brains still beating puts him thus from fashion of himself

- 'Tis wisely spoke - Arm you, I pray you, to this speedy voyage

For we will fetters put upon this fear which now goes too free-footed

We will our selves provide

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

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

'Tis meet that some more audience than a mother, since nature makes them partial...

...should o'erhear the speech of vantage - Thanks, dear my lord

Oh 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

My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent, and like a man to double business bound...

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

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?

Whereto serves mercy but to confront the visage of offense'?

Then I'll look up. My fault is past

But oh, what form of prayer can serve my tum?

'Forgive me my foul murder'?

That cannot be, since I am still possessed of those effects for which I did the murder

My crown, my own ambition and my queen. May one be pardoned 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 off the law, but 'tis not so above

There is no shuffling, there the action lies in his true nature and we ourselves compelled...

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

What then? What's left

To try what repentance can. What can it not?

Yet what can it, when one cannot repent?

Oh wretched state, oh bosom black as death

Oh limed soul, that struggling to be free an more engaged

Help, angels, make assay. Bow, stubborn knees

And heart with strings of steel, be soft as sinews of the new-born babe

All may be well

Now might I do it, now he is praying

And now I'll do it, and so he goes to heaven

And so am I revenged. That would be scanned. A villain kills my father

And for that I, his foul son, do this same villain send to heaven

Oh this is hire and salary, not revenge

He took my father grossly, full of bread, with all his crimes broad blown as fresh 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

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

Look you lay home to him

Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear

And that your grace hath screened and stood between much heat and him

Not for all the riches under heaven, I pray you do not push me

- Mother! - I hear him coming

I will silence me even here. Pray you be round with him

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

- Have you forgot me? - No, you are the queen

Your husband's brother's wife, and, would you were not so, you are my mother

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

Come, 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 pan of you

What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murder me?

- Help, help! - What ho? Help!

How now, a rat?

- Oh me, what hast thou done? - Nay I know not. Is it the king?

Oh 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? - Aye lady, 'twas my word

Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, I took thee for thy better. Farewell

Leave wringing of your hands, and let me wring your heart

For so I shall, if it be made of penetrable stuff

If damned custom have not brazed it so that it is proof and bulwark against sense

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

Such an act that blurs the grace and blush of modesty

Calls virtue hypocrite, 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 his brow

Hyperion's curls, the front of Jove himself, an eye like Mars, to threaten or 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 its 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?

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 heyday in the blood is tame

It's humble and waits upon the judgment

And what judgment would step from this to this?

What devil was it that thus hath cozened you at blind man's buff?

Oh shame, where is thy blush?

Rebellious hell, if thou canst mutiny in a matron's bones to flaming youth...

...let virtue be as wax and melt in her own fire

Oh speak no more. Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul

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

Nay, but to live in the rank sweat of an enseamed bed

Stewed in corruption, honeying and making love over the nasty sly

Oh 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 the twentieth part the worth of your preceding lord

A king of vices, a cutpurse of the empire and the rule...

- No more - A king of shreds and patches

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

What would you? Oh say

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. Speak

Do not forget. This visitation is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose

But look, amazement on thy mother sits

Oh, step between her and her fighting soul. Speak to her, Hamlet

- How is it with you, lady? - Alas, how is it with you...

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

Oh 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

- Do not look upon me - 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. My father, in his habit as he lived

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 uttered

Put me to the test and I some matter will repeat which madness would fly from

Mother, for love of grace...

...lay not a 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

Oh Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain

Then throw away the worser part of it and live the purer with the other half

Repent what's past, avoid what is to come

And do not spread the compost on the weeds to make them ranker

Pray, 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 - Oh me, what have I done?

I must be cruel only to be kind. Thus bad begins and worse remains behind

And when you are desirous to be blessed, I'll blessing beg of you

For this same lord I do repent

But hell hath pleased it so to punish me with this and this with me

What shall I do?

Do not let the bloat king tempt you again to bed...

Pinch wanton on your cheek, call you his mouse...

Or let him for a pair of reechy kisses, or paddling in your neck with his damned fingers...

...force you to ravel all this matter out

That I essentially am not in madness, but mad in craft

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'll lug the guts into the neighbour room. Mother, goodnight

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

...who was in life a foolish prating knave

Come, sir. Goodnight, mother

Where is your son?

What, Gertrude, how does Hamlet?

Mad as the seas and wind, when both contend which is the mightier

In his lawless fit, behind the arras healing something stir...

...he whips his rapier out and cries 'a rat, a rat'

And in his frantic apprehension kills the unseen good old man

Oh 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

And pray, how shall this deed be understood? It will be laid to us, whose providence...

...should have kept short, restrained and out of haunt this mad young man

But so much was our love, we would not understand what was most fit

But like the owner of a foul disease, to keep it from divulging, lets it feed even on the pith of life

- Where is he gone? - To draw apart the body he hath killed

- I pray you now, attend me - He weeps for what is done

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

And this vile deed we must, with all our majesty and skill, both countenance and excuse

Friends all, Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain

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

I pray you haste in this

Come, Gertrude, we'll call up our wisest friends...

...to let them know both what we mean to do and what's untimely done

- Hamlet, Lord Hamlet! - Oh here they come

What have you done, my lord, with the dead body?

- Compounded it with dust, whereto 'tis kin - Tell us where 'tis, that we may take it thence

- Do not believe it - Believe what?

That I can keep your secrets and not my own. Besides, to be commanded by a sponge...

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

- Take you me for a sponge, my lord? - Aye sir

That soaks up the king's countenance, his rewards, his authorities

But such officers do the king best service in the end

When he needs what you have gleaned he will but squeeze 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, you must tell us where the body is and go with us to the king

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

...of nothing. Bring me to him

How dangerous it is that this man goes loose. Yet we must not put the strong law on him

He's loved of the distracted multitude, who like not in their judgement but their eye

This sudden sending him away must seem deliberate pause

Diseases desperate grown by desperate appliance are relieved, or not at all

How now, what hath befallen?

Where the dead body is bestowed, my lord, we cannot get from him

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

- At supper? Where? - Not where he eats, but where he is eaten

A certain convocation of worms are at him even now

Your worm is your only emperor for diet. Your fat king and your lean beggar...

...is but variable service, two dishes but to one table. That's the end

- Where is 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 this month, you shall nose him as you go up the stairs

- Go seek him there - He will stay till you come

Hamlet, this deed of thine, for thine especial safety...

Which we do tender as we dearly grieve for that which thou hast done

...must send thee hence with fiery quickness. Therefore prepare thyself

The ship is ready and the wind at help, your associates tend

- And everything is bent for England - For England?

- Aye, Hamlet - Good

- So is it, if thou know our purposes - Then come, for England

- Farewell, dear mother - Thy loving father, Hamlet

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

...therefore 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 holdst at aught, pay homage to our order here inscribed...

...in letters conjuring 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