Hamlet: Act 2, Scene 2
A room in the castle.
Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, and Attendants
KING CLAUDIUS
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 have you heard
Of Hamlet's transformation; so
call it,
Sith nor the exterior nor the inward man
Resembles that 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 sith so neighbour'd to his youth
and havior,
That you vouchsafe your rest here in our court
Some little time: so by your companies
To draw
him on to pleasures, and to gather,
So much as from occasion you may glean,
Whether aught, to us unknown,
afflicts him thus,
That, open'd, lies within our remedy.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Good gentlemen, he hath much talk'd of you;
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 gentry and good will
As to expend your
time with us awhile,
For the supply and profit of our hope,
Your visitation shall receive such thanks
As fits
a king's remembrance.
ROSENCRANTZ
Both your majesties
Might, by the sovereign power you have of us,
Put your dread pleasures
more into command
Than to entreaty.
GUILDENSTERN
But we both obey,
And here give up ourselves, in the full bent
To lay our service freely at your
feet,
To be commanded.
KING CLAUDIUS
Thanks, Rosencrantz and gentle Guildenstern.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Thanks, Guildenstern and gentle Rosencrantz:
And I beseech you instantly to visit
My too much
changed son. Go, some of you,
And bring these gentlemen where Hamlet is.
GUILDENSTERN
Heavens make our presence and our practises
Pleasant and helpful to him!
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Ay, amen!
Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, and some Attendants
Enter POLONIUS
LORD POLONIUS
The ambassadors from Norway, my good lord,
Are joyfully return'd.
KING CLAUDIUS
Thou still hast been the father of good news.
LORD POLONIUS
Have I, my lord? I assure my good liege,
I hold my duty, as I hold my soul,
Both to my God and
to my gracious king:
And I do think, or else this brain of mine
Hunts not the trail of policy so sure
As it
hath used to do, that I have found
The very cause of Hamlet's lunacy.
KING CLAUDIUS
O, speak of that; that do I long to hear.
LORD POLONIUS
Give first admittance to the ambassadors;
My news shall be the fruit to that great feast.
KING CLAUDIUS
Thyself do grace to them, and bring them in.
Exit POLONIUS
He tells me, my dear Gertrude, he hath found
The head and source of all your son's distemper.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
I doubt it is no other but the main;
His father's death, and our o'erhasty marriage.
KING CLAUDIUS
Well, we shall sift him.
Re-enter POLONIUS, with VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS
Welcome, my good friends!
Say, Voltimand, what from our brother Norway?
VOLTIMAND
Most fair return of greetings and desires.
Upon our first, he sent out to suppress
His nephew's
levies; which to him appear'd
To be a preparation 'gainst the Polack;
But, better look'd into, he truly found
It
was against your highness: whereat grieved,
That so his sickness, age and impotence
Was falsely borne
in hand, 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 three thousand crowns in annual fee,
And his commission to
employ those soldiers,
So levied as before, against the Polack:
With an entreaty, herein further shown,
Giving a paper
That it might please you to give quiet pass
Through your dominions for this enterprise,
On such
regards of safety and allowance
As therein are set down.
KING CLAUDIUS
It likes us well;
And at our more consider'd time well read,
Answer, and think upon this business.
Meantime
we thank you for your well-took labour:
Go to your rest; at night we'll feast together:
Most welcome home!
Exeunt VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS
LORD POLONIUS
This business is well ended.
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 but to be nothing else but mad?
But let that
go.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
More matter, with less art.
LORD POLONIUS
Madam, I swear I use no art at all.
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.
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,
For this effect defective comes by
cause:
Thus it remains, and the remainder thus. Perpend.
I have a daughterhave while she is mine
Who,
in her duty and obedience, mark,
Hath given me this: now gather, and surmise.
Reads
'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:
Reads
'In her excellent white bosom, these, &c.'
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Came this from Hamlet to her?
LORD POLONIUS
Good madam, stay awhile; I will be faithful.
Reads
'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, whilst
this machine 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.
KING CLAUDIUS
But how hath she
Received his love?
LORD POLONIUS
What do you think of me?
KING CLAUDIUS
As of a man faithful and honourable.
LORD POLONIUS
I would fain prove so. But what might you think,
When I had seen this hot love on the wing
As
I perceived it, I must tell you that,
Before my daughter told mewhat might you,
Or my dear majesty your
queen here, think,
If I had play'd the desk or table-book,
Or given my heart a winking, mute and dumb,
Or
look'd 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 resort,
Admit no messengers, receive no tokens.
Which done,
she took the fruits of my advice;
And he, repulseda short tale to make
Fell into a sadness, then into a
fast,
Thence to a watch, thence into a weakness,
Thence to a lightness, and, by this declension,
Into the
madness wherein now he raves,
And all we mourn for.
KING CLAUDIUS
Do you think 'tis this?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
It may be, very likely.
LORD POLONIUS
Hath there been such a timeI'd fain know that
That I have positively said 'Tis so,'
When it proved
otherwise?
KING CLAUDIUS
Not that I know.
LORD POLONIUS
Pointing to his head and shoulder
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.
KING CLAUDIUS
How may we try it further?
LORD POLONIUS
You know, sometimes he walks four hours together
Here in the lobby.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
So he does indeed.
LORD POLONIUS
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 fall'n thereon,
Let me be no assistant for a state,
But keep a
farm and carters.
KING CLAUDIUS
We will try it.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
But, look, where sadly the poor wretch comes reading.
LORD POLONIUS
Away, I do beseech you, both away:
I'll board him presently.
Exeunt KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, and Attendants
Enter HAMLET, reading
O, give me leave:
How does my good Lord Hamlet?
HAMLET
Well, God-a-mercy.
LORD POLONIUS
Do you know me, my lord?
HAMLET
Excellent well; you are a fishmonger.
LORD POLONIUS
Not I, my lord.
HAMLET
Then I would you were so honest a man.
LORD POLONIUS
Honest, my lord!
HAMLET
Ay, sir; to be honest, as this world goes, is to be
one man picked out of ten thousand.
LORD POLONIUS
That's very true, my lord.
HAMLET
For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a
god kissing carrion, Have you a daughter?
LORD POLONIUS
I have, my lord.
HAMLET
Let her not walk i' the sun: conception is a
blessing: but not as your daughter may conceive.
Friend,
look to 't.
LORD POLONIUS
Aside How say you by that? Still harping on my
daughter: yet he knew me not at first; he said
I
was a fishmonger: he is far gone, far gone: and
truly in my youth I suffered much extremity for
love; very
near this. I'll speak to him again.
What do you read, my lord?
HAMLET
Words, words, words.
LORD POLONIUS
What is the matter, my lord?
HAMLET
Between who?
LORD POLONIUS
I mean, the matter that you read, my lord.
HAMLET
Slanders, sir: 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 and that they have a plentiful lack of
wit,
together with most weak hams: all which, sir,
though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet
I hold it
not honesty to have it thus set down, for
yourself, sir, should be old as I am, if like a crab
you could go
backward.
LORD POLONIUS
Aside Though this be madness, yet there is method
in 't. Will you walk out of the air, my lord?
HAMLET
Into my grave.
LORD POLONIUS
Indeed, that is out o' the air.
Aside
How pregnant sometimes his replies are! a happiness
that often madness hits on, which reason
and sanity
could not so prosperously be delivered of. I will
leave him, and suddenly contrive the means
of
meeting between him and my daughter.My honourable
lord, I will most humbly take my leave of you.
HAMLET
You cannot, sir, take from me any thing that I will
more willingly part withal: except my life, except
my
life, except my life.
LORD POLONIUS
Fare you well, my lord.
HAMLET
These tedious old fools!
Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN
LORD POLONIUS
You go to seek the Lord Hamlet; there he is.
ROSENCRANTZ
To God save you, sir!
Exit POLONIUS
GUILDENSTERN
My honoured lord!
ROSENCRANTZ
My most dear lord!
HAMLET
My excellent good friends! How dost thou,
Guildenstern? Ah, Rosencrantz! Good lads, how do
ye both?
ROSENCRANTZ
As the indifferent children of the earth.
GUILDENSTERN
Happy, in that we are not over-happy;
On fortune's cap we are not the very button.
HAMLET
Nor the soles of her shoe?
ROSENCRANTZ
Neither, my lord.
HAMLET
Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of
her favours?
GUILDENSTERN
'Faith, her privates we.
HAMLET
In the secret parts of fortune? O, most true; she
is a strumpet. What's the news?
ROSENCRANTZ
None, my lord, but that the world's grown honest.
HAMLET
Then is doomsday near: but your news is not true.
Let me question more in particular: what have
you,
my good friends, deserved at the hands of fortune,
that she sends you to prison hither?
GUILDENSTERN
Prison, my lord!
HAMLET
Denmark's a prison.
ROSENCRANTZ
Then is the world one.
HAMLET
A goodly one; in which there are many confines,
wards and dungeons, Denmark being one o' the
worst.
ROSENCRANTZ
We think not so, my lord.
HAMLET
Why, then, 'tis none to you; for there is nothing
either good or bad, but thinking makes it so: to
me
it is a prison.
ROSENCRANTZ
Why then, your ambition makes it one; 'tis too
narrow for your mind.
HAMLET
O God, I could be bounded in a nut shell and count
myself a king of infinite space, were it not
that I
have bad dreams.
GUILDENSTERN
Which dreams indeed are ambition, for the very
substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow
of a dream.
HAMLET
A dream itself is but a shadow.
ROSENCRANTZ
Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a
quality that it is but a shadow's shadow.
HAMLET
Then are our beggars bodies, and our monarchs and
outstretched heroes the beggars' shadows.
Shall we
to the court? for, by my fay, I cannot reason.
ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN
We'll wait upon you.
HAMLET
No such matter: I will not sort you with the rest
of my servants, for, to speak to you like an honest
man,
I am most dreadfully attended. But, in the
beaten way of friendship, what make you at Elsinore?
ROSENCRANTZ
To visit you, my lord; no other occasion.
HAMLET
Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks; but I
thank you: and sure, dear friends, my thanks
are
too dear a halfpenny. Were you not sent for? Is it
your own inclining? Is it a free visitation? Come,
deal
justly with me: come, come; nay, speak.
GUILDENSTERN
What should we say, my lord?
HAMLET
Why, any thing, 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 colour:
I know the good king and queen have sent
for you.
ROSENCRANTZ
To what end, my lord?
HAMLET
That you must teach me. But let me conjure you, by
the rights of our fellowship, by the consonancy
of
our youth, by the obligation of our ever-preserved
love, and by what more dear a better proposer could
charge
you withal, be even and direct with me,
whether you were sent for, or no?
ROSENCRANTZ
Aside to What say you?
HAMLET
Aside Nay, then, I have an eye of you.If you
love me, hold not off.
GUILDENSTERN
My lord, we were sent for.
HAMLET
I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation
prevent your discovery, and your secrecy to the king
and
queen moult no feather. I have of latebut
wherefore I know notlost all my mirth, forgone all
custom of
exercises; 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
o'erhanging firmament,
this majestical roof fretted
with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to
me than 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.
ROSENCRANTZ
My lord, there was no such stuff in my thoughts.
HAMLET
Why did you laugh then, when I said 'man delights not me'?
ROSENCRANTZ
To think, my lord, if you delight not in man, what
lenten entertainment the players shall receive
from
you: we coted them on the way; and hither are they
coming, to offer you service.
HAMLET
He that plays the king shall be welcome; his majesty
shall have tribute of me; the adventurous
knight
shall use his foil and target; the lover shall not
sigh gratis; the humourous man shall end his part
in
peace; the clown shall make those laugh whose
lungs are tickled o' the sere; and the lady shall
say her
mind freely, or the blank verse shall halt
for't. What players are they?
ROSENCRANTZ
Even those you were wont to take delight in, the
tragedians of the city.
HAMLET
How chances it they travel? their residence, both
in reputation and profit, was better both ways.
ROSENCRANTZ
I think their inhibition comes by the means of the
late innovation.
HAMLET
Do they hold the same estimation they did when I was
in the city? are they so followed?
ROSENCRANTZ
No, indeed, are they not.
HAMLET
How comes it? do they grow rusty?
ROSENCRANTZ
Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace: but
there is, sir, an aery of children, little eyases,
that
cry out on the top of question, and are most
tyrannically clapped for't: these are now the
fashion, and so
berattle the common stagesso they
call themthat many wearing rapiers are afraid of
goose-quills and dare
scarce come thither.
HAMLET
What, are they children? who maintains 'em? how are
they escoted? Will they pursue the quality
no
longer than they can sing? will they not say
afterwards, if they should grow themselves to common
playersas
it is most like, if their means are no
bettertheir writers do them wrong, to make them
exclaim against their
own succession?
ROSENCRANTZ
'Faith, there has been much to do on both sides; and
the nation holds it no sin to tarre them
to
controversy: there was, for a while, no money bid
for argument, unless the poet and the player went
to
cuffs in the question.
HAMLET
Is't possible?
GUILDENSTERN
O, there has been much throwing about of brains.
HAMLET
Do the boys carry it away?
ROSENCRANTZ
Ay, that they do, my lord; Hercules and his load too.
HAMLET
It is not very strange; for mine uncle is king of
Denmark, and those that would make mows at
him while
my father lived, give twenty, forty, fifty, an
hundred ducats a-piece for his picture in little.
'Sblood,
there is something in this more than
natural, if philosophy could find it out.
Flourish of trumpets within
GUILDENSTERN
There are the players.
HAMLET
Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore. Your hands,
come then: the appurtenance of welcome
is fashion
and ceremony: let me comply with you in this garb,
lest my extent to the players, which, I tell
you,
must show fairly outward, should more appear like
entertainment than yours. You are welcome: but
my
uncle-father and aunt-mother are deceived.
GUILDENSTERN
In what, my dear lord?
HAMLET
I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is
southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.
Enter POLONIUS
LORD POLONIUS
Well be with you, gentlemen!
HAMLET
Hark you, Guildenstern; and you too: at each ear a
hearer: that great baby you see there is not
yet
out of his swaddling-clouts.
ROSENCRANTZ
Happily he's the second time come to them; for they
say an old man is twice a child.
HAMLET
I will prophesy he comes to tell me of the players;
mark it. You say right, sir: o' Monday morning;
'twas
so indeed.
LORD POLONIUS
My lord, I have news to tell you.
HAMLET
My lord, I have news to tell you.
When Roscius was an actor in Rome,
LORD POLONIUS
The actors are come hither, my lord.
HAMLET
Buz, buz!
LORD POLONIUS
Upon mine honour,
HAMLET
Then came each actor on his ass,
LORD POLONIUS
The best actors in the world, either for tragedy,
comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical,
historical-
pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-
comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or
poem unlimited: Seneca
cannot be too heavy, nor
Plautus too light. For the law of writ and the
liberty, these are the only men.
HAMLET
O Jephthah, judge of Israel, what a treasure hadst thou!
LORD POLONIUS
What a treasure had he, my lord?
HAMLET
Why,
'One fair daughter and no more,
The which he loved passing well.'
LORD POLONIUS
Aside Still on my daughter.
HAMLET
Am I not i' the right, old Jephthah?
LORD POLONIUS
If you call me Jephthah, my lord, I have a daughter
that I love passing well.
HAMLET
Nay, that follows not.
LORD POLONIUS
What follows, then, my lord?
HAMLET
Why,
'As by lot, God wot,'
and then, you know,
'It came to pass, as most like it was,'
the first row
of the pious chanson will show you
more; for look, where my abridgement comes.
Enter four or five Players
You are welcome, masters; welcome, all. I am glad
to see thee well. Welcome, good friends. O,
my old
friend! thy face is valenced since I saw thee last:
comest thou to beard me in Denmark? What,
my young
lady and mistress! By'r lady, your ladyship is
nearer to heaven than when I saw you last, by
the
altitude of a chopine. Pray God, your voice, like
apiece of uncurrent gold, be not cracked within the
ring.
Masters, you are all welcome. We'll e'en
to't like French falconers, fly at any thing we see:
we'll have a
speech straight: come, give us a taste
of your quality; come, a passionate speech.
First Player
What speech, my lord?
HAMLET
I heard thee speak me a speech once, but it was
never acted; or, if it was, not above once; for
the
play, I remember, pleased not the million; 'twas
caviare to the general: but it wasas I received
it, and
others, whose judgments in such matters
cried in the top of minean excellent play, well
digested in the
scenes, set down with as much
modesty as cunning. I remember, one said there
were no sallets in the
lines to make the matter
savoury, nor no matter in the phrase that might
indict the author of affectation; but
called it an
honest method, as wholesome as sweet, and by very
much more handsome than fine. One
speech in it I
chiefly loved: 'twas Aeneas' tale to Dido; and
thereabout of it especially, 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 this dread
and black complexion smear'd
With heraldry more dismal; head to foot
Now is he total gules; horridly trick'd
With
blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons,
Baked and impasted with the parching streets,
That lend a
tyrannous and damned light
To their lord's murder: roasted in wrath and fire,
And thus o'er-sized with coagulate
gore,
With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus
Old grandsire Priam seeks.'
So, proceed you.
LORD POLONIUS
'Fore God, my lord, well spoken, with good accent and
good discretion.
First Player
'Anon he finds him
Striking too short at Greeks; his antique sword,
Rebellious to his arm, lies
where it falls,
Repugnant to command: unequal match'd,
Pyrrhus at Priam drives; in rage strikes wide;
But
with the whiff and wind of his fell sword
The unnerved father falls. Then senseless Ilium,
Seeming to feel
this blow, with flaming top
Stoops to his base, and with a hideous crash
Takes prisoner Pyrrhus' ear: for,
lo! his sword,
Which was declining on the milky head
Of reverend Priam, seem'd i' the air to stick:
So, as a
painted tyrant, Pyrrhus stood,
And like a neutral to his will and matter,
Did nothing.
But, as we often see,
against some storm,
A silence in the heavens, the rack 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,
Aroused
vengeance sets him new a-work;
And never did the Cyclops' hammers fall
On Mars's armour forged for
proof eterne
With less remorse than Pyrrhus' bleeding sword
Now falls on Priam.
Out, out, thou strumpet,
Fortune! All you gods,
In general synod 'take away her power;
Break all the spokes and fellies from her
wheel,
And bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven,
As low as to the fiends!'
LORD POLONIUS
This is too long.
HAMLET
It shall to the barber's, with your beard. Prithee,
say on: he's for a jig or a tale of bawdry, or he
sleeps: say
on: come to Hecuba.
First Player
'But who, O, who had seen the mobled queen'
HAMLET
'The mobled queen?'
LORD POLONIUS
That's good; 'mobled queen' is good.
First Player
'Run barefoot up and down, threatening the flames
With bisson rheum; a clout upon that head
Where
late the diadem stood, and for a robe,
About her lank and all o'er-teemed loins,
A blanket, in the alarm of
fear caught up;
Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steep'd,
'Gainst Fortune's state would treason
have
pronounced:
But if the gods themselves did see her then
When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious
sport
In mincing with his sword her husband's limbs,
The instant burst of clamour that she made,
Unless
things mortal move them not at all,
Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven,
And passion in
the gods.'
LORD POLONIUS
Look, whether he has not turned his colour and has
tears in's eyes. Pray you, no more.
HAMLET
'Tis well: I'll have thee speak out the rest soon.
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.
LORD POLONIUS
My lord, I will use them according to their desert.
HAMLET
God's bodykins, man, much better: use every man
after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping?
Use
them after your own honour and dignity: the less
they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty.
Take them
in.
LORD POLONIUS
Come, sirs.
HAMLET
Follow him, friends: we'll hear a play to-morrow.
Exit POLONIUS with all the Players but the First
Dost thou hear me, old friend; can you play the
Murder of Gonzago?
First Player
Ay, my lord.
HAMLET
We'll ha't to-morrow night. You could, for a need,
study a speech of some dozen or sixteen
lines, which
I would set down and insert in't, could you not?
First Player
Ay, my lord.
HAMLET
Very well. Follow that lord; and look you mock him
not.
Exit First Player
My good friends, I'll leave you till night: you are
welcome to Elsinore.
ROSENCRANTZ
Good my lord!
HAMLET
Ay, so, God be wi' ye;
Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN
Now I am alone.
O, 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 own conceit
That from her working
all his visage wann'd,
Tears in his eyes, distraction in's 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 the 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 faculties 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 damn'd defeat was made. Am I a coward?
Who
calls me villain? breaks my pate across?
Plucks off my beard, and blows it in my face?
Tweaks me by
the nose? gives me the lie i' the throat,
As deep as to the lungs? who does me this?
Ha!
'Swounds, I should
take it: for it cannot be
But I am pigeon-liver'd 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!
O, vengeance!
Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,
That I, the son of
a dear father murder'd,
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't! 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 proclaim'd their malefactions;
For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
With
most miraculous organ. I'll have these players
Play something like the murder of my father
Before mine
uncle: I'll observe his looks;
I'll tent him to the quick: if he but blench,
I know my course. The spirit that I
have seen
May be the devil: and the devil hath power
To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps
Out
of my weakness and my melancholy,
As he is very potent with such spirits,
Abuses me to damn me: I'll
have grounds
More relative than this: the play 's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.
Exit