Hamlet (2009) - full transcript
Shakespeare's Hamlet -- Dogma style.
O good Horatio, I'll take the
ghost's word for a thousand pound.
Didst perceive? Very well, my lord.
Upon the talk of the poisoning?
I did very well note him.
Come, some music!
Come, the recorder!
For if the king like not the comedy,
why then,
belike he like it not, perdy.
Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word
with you. Sir, a whole history.
The king, sir. Ay, sir, what of him?
Is in his retirement
marvellous distempered.
With drink, sir?
No, my lord, rather with choler.
Good my lord, put your discourse
into some frame
and start not so wildly
from my affair.
I am tame, sir. Pronounce.
The queen, your mother,
in most great affliction of spirit,
hath sent me to you.
You are welcome. Nay good my lord.
If it shall please you to make me
a wholesome answer, I will do
your mother's commandment.
Oh, oh, oh, sir, I cannot. What, my
lord? Make you a wholesome answer.
My wit's diseased.
My mother, you say?
Then thus she says,
your behavior hath struck her
into wonder and astonishment.
O, wonderful son,
that can so astonish a mother!
Impart.
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 I do still,
by these pickers and stealers.
Good my lord,
what is your cause of distemper?
You do, surely, bar the door
upon your own liberty,
if you deny your griefs
to your friend.
Sir, I lack advancement.
How can that be, when you have
the voice of the king himself
for your succession in Denmark?
Ay, but sir,
while the grass grows...
The proverb is something musty.
O, the recorder! Let me see one.
To withdraw with you.
Why do you go about to recover
the wind of me,
as if you would
drive me into a toil?
O, my lord, if my duty be too bold,
my love is too unmannerly.
I do not well understand that.
Will you play upon this pipe?
My lord, I cannot. I 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 ventages
with your fingers and thumb,
give it breath with your mouth,
and it will discourse
most eloquent 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 pluck out
the heart of my mystery.
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?
'Sblood, do you think I am
easier to be played on than a pipe?
Call me what instrument you will,
though you can fret me,
you cannot play upon me.
God bless you, sir!
My lord,
the queen would speak with you...
THEY PLAY RECORDERS
..and presently!
Do you see yonder cloud
that's almost in shape of a camel?
By the mass,
and 'tis like a camel, indeed.
Methinks it is like a weasel.
It is backed like a weasel.
Or like a whale? Very like a whale.
Then I will come to
my mother by and by.
They fool me to the top of my bent.
I will come by and by.
I will say so.
By and by is easily said!
Leave me, friends.
HAMLET PLAYS "THREE BLIND MICE"
'Tis now the very
witching time of night,
when churchyards yawn
and Hell itself breathes out
contagion to this world.
Now could I drink hot blood,
and do such bitter business
as the day
would quake to look on.
Soft! Now to my mother.
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 along with you.
The terms of our estate
may not endure
hazard so dangerous
as doth hourly grow
out of his lunacy.
We will ourselves provide.
Most holy and religious fear it is
to keep those many, many bodies safe
that live and feed
upon your majesty.
Never alone did the king sigh,
but with a general groan.
For majesty is like a massy wheel,
fix'd on the summit
of the highest mount
to whose huge spokes
10,000 lesser things
are morticed and adjoin'd.
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 haste us.
My lord,
he's going to his mother's closet.
Behind the arras
I'll convey myself
to hear the process -
I'll warrant she'll tax him home.
Fare you well, my liege.
I'll call upon you ere you go
to bed, and tell you what I know.
Thanks, dear my lord.
HE COUGHS
O, my offence is rank.
It smells to heaven.
It hath the primal eldest curse
upon't -
a brother's murder.
Pray can I not,
though inclination
be as sharp as will -
my 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 curs-ed 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 offence?
And what's in prayer
but this two-fold force
to be forestalled
ere we come to fall,
or pardon'd, being down?
Then I'll look up.
My fault is past.
But, O, what form of prayer
can serve my turn?
"Forgive me my foul murder?"
That cannot be,
since I am still possess'd
of those effects
for which I did the murder -
my crown, mine own ambition
and my queen.
May one be pardon'd
and retain the offence?
In the corrupted currents
of this world,
offence's gilded hand
may shove by justice,
and oft 'tis seen
the wicked prize itself
buys out the law,
but 'tis not so above.
There is no shuffling.
There the action lies
in his true nature,
and we ourselves compell'd,
even to the teeth
and forehead of our faults,
to give in evidence.
What then?
What rests?
Try what repentance can.
O...
what can it not?
But what can it,
when one cannot repent?
O wretched state!
O bosom black as death!
O lime-ed soul, that,
struggling to be free,
art more engaged!
Help, angels!
Make assay!
Bow, stubborn knees,
and heart with strings of steel,
be soft as sinews
of the newborn babe.
All may yet be well.
HE MOUTHS
Now might I do it pat,
now he is praying.
And now I'll do't!
And so he goes to heaven,
and so am I revenged.
That would be scann'd.
A villain kills my father,
and for that,
I, his sole son,
do this same villain send to Heaven?
O, this is hire and salary,
not revenge.
He took my father grossly,
full of bread,
with all his crimes broad blown,
as flush as May.
And how his audit stands,
who knows save Heaven?
Am I then revenged,
to take him
in the purging of his soul,
when he is fit and season'd
for his passage?
No!
Up, blade,
and know thou a more horrid hent,
when he is drunk asleep,
or in his rage,
or in the incestuous pleasure
of his bed,
at gaming, swearing,
or about some act
that has no relish
of salvation in't.
Then trip him, that his heels
may kick at Heaven,
and that his soul may be
as damn'd and black
as Hell, whereto it goes.
My mother stays.
This physic but prolongs
thy sickly days.
My words fly up,
my thoughts remain below.
Words without thoughts
never to Heaven go.
He will come straight.
Look you, lay home to him.
Tell him his pranks
have been too broad to bear with,
And that your grace hath screen'd
and stood between
Much heat and him.
I'll silence me even here.
Pray you, be round with him.
KNOCK AT DOOR
I'll warrant you, Fear me not.
Withdraw, I hear him coming.
Mother! Mother!
Mother!
Now, Mother, what's the matter?
Hamlet, thou hast thy father
much offended.
Mother, you have my father
much offended.
Come, come, you answer
with an idle tongue.
Go, go, you question with a wicked
tongue. Why, how now, Hamlet!
What's the matter now?
Have you forgot me?
No, by the rood, not so.
You are the queen,
your husband's brother's wife,
and - would it were not so! -
you are my mother.
Nay, then, I'll set those to you
that can speak.
Come, come, and sit you down,
you shall not budge.
You go not till I set you up a glass
where you may see
the inmost part of you.
What wilt thou do?
Thou wilt not murder me!
Help, help, ho!
What, ho! Help, help, help! How now!
A rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead!
GUNSHOT
What hast thou done?
Nay, I know not. Is it the king?
O, what a rash and bloody deed
is this!
A bloody deed!
Almost as bad, good mother,
as kill a king,
and marry with his brother.
As kill a king!
Ay, lady, 'twas my word.
Thou wretched, rash,
intruding fool, farewell!
I took thee for thy better.
Take thy fortune.
Leave wringing of your hands.
Peace! Sit you down,
and let me wring your heart,
for so I shall,
if it be made of penetrable stuff.
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 this brow.
Hyperion's curls,
the front of Jove himself.
An eye like Mars,
to threaten and command.
A station like the herald Mercury
new-lighted
on a Heaven-kissing hill,
a combination and a form indeed,
where every god
did seem to set his seal,
to give the world
assurance of a man.
This was your husband.
Look you now, what follows.
Here is your husband,
like a mildew'd ear,
blasting his wholesome brother.
Have you eyes?
Could you on this fair
mountain leave to feed,
and batten on this moor? Ha!
Have you eyes?
You cannot call it love,
for at your age
the hey-day in the blood is tame,
it's humble,
and waits upon the judgement
and what judgement
would step from this to this?
What devil was't
that thus hath cozen'd you
at hoodman-blind?
Eyes without feeling,
feeling without sight,
ears without hands or eyes,
smelling sans all,
or but a sickly part
of one true sense
Could not so mope.
O shame! Where is thy blush?
O Hamlet, speak no more.
Thou turn'st mine eyes
into my very soul.
and there I see such black
and grain-ed spots
as will not leave their tinct.
Nay, but to live
in the rank sweat
of an enseam-ed bed,
stew'd in corruption,
honeying and making love
over the nasty sty.
O, speak to me no more!
These words, like daggers,
enter in mine ears.
No more, sweet Hamlet!
A murderer and a villain.
A slave that is not
twentieth part the tithe
of your precedent lord.
A vice of kings,
a cutpurse of the empire
and the rule,
who from a shelf
the precious diadem stole,
and put it in his pocket! No more!
A king of shreds and patches.
CLOCK CHIMES
Save me, and hover o'er me
with your wings,
you heavenly guards!
What would your gracious figure?
Alas, he's mad!
Do you not come
your tardy son to chide,
that, lapsed in time and passion,
lets go by
the important acting
of your dread command?
O, say!
Do not forget this visitation
is but to whet
thy almost blunted purpose.
But, look, amazement
on thy mother sits.
O, step between her
and her fighting soul.
Conceit in weakest bodies
strongest works.
Speak to her, Hamlet.
How is it with you, lady?
Alas, how is't with you,
that you do bend your eye on vacancy
and with the incorporal air
do hold discourse?
Forth at your eyes
your spirits wildly peep.
O gentle son, upon the heat
and flame of thy distemper
sprinkle cool patience.
Whereon do you look?
On him, on him! Look you!
How pale he glares!
Do not look upon me,
lest with this piteous action
you convert
my stern effects.
Then what I have to do
will want true colour,
tears perchance for blood.
To whom do you speak this?
Do you see nothing there?
Nothing at all, yet all there is
I see. Nor did you nothing hear?
No, nothing but ourselves.
Why, look you now!
Look, how it steals away!
My father, in his habit as he lived!
Look, where he goes, even now,
out at the portal!
This is the very coinage
of your brain.
This bodiless creation ecstasy
is very cunning in.
Ecstasy! My pulse, as yours,
doth temperately keep time,
and makes as healthful music.
It is not madness
that I have utter'd.
Bring me to the test,
I the matter will re-word,
which madness would gambol from.
Mother, for love of grace,
lay not that flattering unction
to your soul,
that not your trespass,
but my madness speaks.
It will but skin and film
the ulcerous place,
whilst rank corruption,
mining all within,
infects unseen.
Confess yourself to Heaven,
repent what's past,
avoid what is to come,
and do not spread the compost
on the weeds
to make them ranker.
O Hamlet,
thou hast cleft my heart in twain.
O, throw away the worser
part of it,
and live the purer with
the other half.
Good night,
but go not to mine uncle's bed.
Assume a virtue, if you have it not.
Refrain tonight, and that
shall lend a kind of easiness
to the next abstinence.
Once more, good night.
And when you are desirous
to be bless'd,
I'll blessing beg of you.
For this same lord,
I do repent,
but Heaven hath pleased it so,
to punish me with this
and this with me,
that I must be their
scourge and minister.
I will bestow him,
and will answer well
the death I gave him.
So, again, good night.
I must be cruel, only to be kind.
Thus bad begins
and worse remains behind.
One more word, good lady.
What shall I do?
Not this, by no means,
that I bid you do.
Let the bloat king
tempt you again to bed,
pinch wanton on your cheeks,
call you his mouse.
And let him,
for a pair of reechy kisses,
or paddling in your neck
with his damn'd fingers,
make you to
ravel all this matter out,
that I essentially am not
in madness, but mad in craft.
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.
Sssh.
I must to England, you know that?
Alack, I had forgot.
'Tis so concluded on.
There's letters seal'd
and my two schoolfellows,
whom I will trust
as I will adders fang'd,
they bear the mandate,
they must sweep my way, and
marshal me to knavery. Let it work.
For 'tis the sport
to have the engineer
hoist with his own
petard and 't shall go hard.
But I will delve
one yard below their mines,
and blow them at the moon.
O, 'tis most sweet,
when in one line
two crafts directly meet.
This man shall set me packing.
I'll lug the guts into
the neighbour room.
Mother, good night.
Indeed this counsellor
is now most still,
most secret
and most grave,
who was in life a foolish
prating knave.
Come, sir,
to draw toward an end with you.
Good night, mother.
SHE LAUGHS THEN SOBS
There's matter in these sighs,
these profound heaves.
You must translate.
'Tis fit we understand them.
Where is your son?
Ah, my good lord, what have I seen
tonight! What, Gertrude?
How does Hamlet?
Mad
as the sea and wind, when both
contend which is the mightier.
In his lawless fit,
behind the mirror
hearing something stir,
whips out his weapon, cries,
"A rat, a rat!"
And, in this brainish apprehension,
kills the unseen good old man.
O, heavy deed!
It had been so with us,
had we been there.
His liberty is full
of threats to all.
To you yourself, to us,
to every one.
Alas, how will this
bloody deed be answer'd?
It will be laid to us,
whose providence
should have kept short,
restrain'd and out of haunt,
this mad young man.
But so much was our love, we could
not understand what was most fit.
But, like the owner
of a foul disease,
to keep it from divulging,
let it feed,
even on the pith of Life.
Where is he gone? To draw apart
the body he hath kill'd,
o'er whom his madness
weeps for what is done.
O Gertrude, come! 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.
Guildenstern!
Friends both, go
join you with some further aid.
Hamlet in madness
hath Polonius slain,
and from his mother's closet
hath he dragg'd him.
Go seek him out.
Speak fair,
and bring the body into the chapel.
I pray you, make haste.
Oh, Gertrude, come.
Let's call up our wisest friends,
and let them know
both what we mean to do
and what's untimely done.
Come away.
My soul is full of
discord and dismay.
SHOUTING
Safely stowed.
Hamlet! Lord Hamlet!
What noise?
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 and bear it to the chapel.
Do not believe it. Believe what?
That I can keep your
counsel and not mine own.
Besides, to be demanded of a sponge!
What replication should be
made by the son of a king?
Take you me for a sponge, my lord?
Ay, sir,
that soaks up
the king's countenance,
his rewards, his authorities.
But such officers do the
king best service in the end.
He keeps them,
like an ape, an apple
in the corner of his jaw.
First mouthed,
to be last swallowed
when he needs what you have gleaned,
it is but squeezing you,
and, sponge, you shall be dry again.
I understand you not, my lord.
I am glad of it.
A knavish speech
sleeps in a foolish ear.
My lord, you must tell us where the
body is, and go with us to the king.
The body is with the king,
but the king is not with the body.
The king is a thing.
A thing, my lord! Of nothing.
Bring me to him.
Hide fox, and all after.
I have sent to seek him,
and to find the body.
How dangerous is it
that this man goes loose!
Yet must not we put
the strong law on him.
He's loved
of the distracted multitude,
who like not in their judgment,
but their eyes.
And where tis so,
the offender's scourge is weigh'd,
but never the offence.
To bear all smooth and even,
this sudden sending him away
must seem deliberate cause.
Diseases desperate grown by
desperate measure are relieved,
or not at all.
How now! what hath befall'n?
Where the dead body is bestow'd,
my lord, We cannot get from him.
But where is he? Without, my lord,
guarded, to know your pleasure.
Bring him before us.
Guildenstern! Bring in my lord.
Now, Hamlet,
where is Polonius?
At supper.
At supper! Where?
Not where he eats,
but where he is eaten.
A certain convocation of
politic worms are e'en at him.
Your worm is your
only emperor for diet.
We fat all creatures else
to fat ourselves,
we fat ourselves for maggots.
Alas, alas!
A man may fish with the worm that
hath eat of a king, and eat of the
fish that hath fed of that worm.
What dost you mean by this?
Nothing but to show you how
a king may go a progress
through the guts of a beggar.
Where is Polonius?
In heaven!
Send hither to see.
If your messenger find him
not there, seek him i'
the other place yourself.
But indeed, if you find
him not within this...month,
you shall nose him
as you go upstairs into the lobby.
Seek him there.
He will stay till ye come.
Hamlet, this deed,
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 bark is ready, and the wind
at help, the associates tend,
and everything is bent for England.
For England!
Ay, Hamlet. Good. So is it,
if thou knew'st our purposes.
I see a cherub that sees them.
Come, for England!
Farewell, dear mother.
Thy loving father, Hamlet.
My mother,
father and mother is man and wife,
man and wife is one flesh,
and so, my mother.
Come, for England!
Whee!
Follow him at foot.
Tempt him with speed aboard.
Delay it not.
I'll have him hence tonight.
For every thing is seal'd and done
that else leans on this affair. Away.
And, England,
if my love thou hold'st at aught,
thou mayst not coldly set
our sovereign purpose.
The present death of Hamlet.
Do it, England,
for like the hectic in my blood
he rages, and thou must cure me.
Till I know 'tis done,
whate'er may hap,
my joys were ne'er begun.
I will not speak with her.
She is importunate, indeed distract.
Her mood will needs be pitied.
What would she have?
She speaks much of her father,
says she hears there's tricks i'
the world, speaks things in doubt,
that carry but half sense.
Her speech is nothing,
yet the unshaped use of it doth
move the hearers to collection.
'Twere good she was spoken with,
for she may strew dangerous
conjectures in ill-breeding minds.
Let her come in.
To my sick soul,
as sin's true nature is, each toy
seems prologue to some great amiss.
So full of artless jealousy
is guilt,
it spills itself
in fearing to be spilt.
Where is the beauteous
majesty of Denmark?
How now, Ophelia!
# How should your true love know
# From another one?
# By his cockle hat and staff
# And his sandal shoon... #
Alas, sweet lady,
what imports this song?
Say you? Nay, pray you, mark.
# He is dead and gone, lady
# He is dead and gone
# At his head a grass-green turf
# At his heels a stone... #
Nay, but, Ophelia... PRAY YOU, MARK!
# White his shroud
as the mountain snow
# Larded with sweet flowers
# Which bewept to the grave
did not go
# With true-love showers. #
How do you, pretty lady?
Well, God 'ild you!
They say the owl
was a baker's daughter.
O Lord, we know what we are,
but know not what we may be.
God be at your table!
Conceit upon her father. Pray you,
let's have no words of this.
But when they ask you what
it means, say you this -
# Tomorrow is Saint Valentine's day
# All in the morning betime
# And I a maid at your window
# To be your valentine
# Then up he rose
and donn'd his clothes
# And dupp'd the chamber-door
# Let in the maid
that out a maid never departed more
# I'll make an end on't
# By Gis and by Saint Charity
# Alack, and fie for shame!
# Young men will do't,
if they come to't
# By cock, they are to blame
# Quoth she, before you tumbled me,
# You promised me to wed
# So would I ha' done, by yonder sun
# An thou hadst not
come to my bed. #
How long hath she been thus?
I hope all will be well.
We must be patient,
but I cannot choose but weep,
to think they should lay him
i' the cold ground.
My brother shall know of it and so
I thank you for your good counsel.
Come, my coach!
Good night, ladies,
good night, sweet ladies,
good night, good night.
Follow her close.
Give her good watch, I pray you.
O, this is the poison of deep grief.
It springs all from her
father's death and now, behold.
O, Gertrude, Gertrude.
When sorrows come, they come not
single spies but in battalions.
First, her father slain.
Next, your son gone,
and he most violent author
of his own just remove.
The people muddied,
sick and unwholesome in their
thoughts and whispers
for good Polonius' death,
and we have done but greenly,
in hugger-mugger thus to inter him.
Poor Ophelia,
divided from herself and her
fair judgment, without the
which we are but pictures,
or mere beasts.
Last, and yet as much
containing all of these,
her brother is in secret
come from France,
and wants not buzzers
to infect his ear
with pestilent speeches
of his father's death.
THUMPING ON DOOR
Alas, what noise is this?
Where are my Switzers?
Bid them guard the door.
Save yourself, my lord.
Laertes, in a riotous head,
o'erbears your officers.
The rabble call him lord. They cry,
"Choose we, Laertes shall be king."
Caps, hands, and tongues
applaud it to the clouds.
"Laertes shall be king,
Laertes king!"
How cheerfully on
the false trail they cry!
O, this is counter,
you false Danish dogs!
BANGING
The doors are broken.
O, vile king, give me my father!
Calmly, good Laertes.
That drop of blood that's calm
proclaims me bastard.
What is the cause, Laertes, that
thy rebellion looks so giant-like?
Let him go, Gertrude.
Do not fear our person.
There is such divinity
doth hedge a king,
that treason can but
peep to what it would,
acts little of his will.
Tell me, Laertes, why art thou
thus incensed. Let him go, Gertrude.
Speak, man. Where is my father?
Dead. But not by him.
Let him demand his fill.
How came he dead?
I'll not be juggled with.
To hell, allegiance!
Vows, to the blackest devil!
Conscience and grace,
to the profoundest pit!
I dare damnation.
To this point I stand,
let come what comes,
only I'll be revenged
most thoroughly for my father.
Who shall stay you?
My will, not all the world's.
Good Laertes,
if you desire to know the certainty
of your dear father's death,
is't writ in your revenge
that, swoopstake, you will draw both
friend and foe, winner and loser?
None but his enemies.
Will you know them then?
To his good friends,
thus wide I'll ope my arms,
and like the kind life-rendering
pelican, repast them with my blood.
Why, now you speak like a
good child and a true gentleman.
That I am guiltless of your
dear father's death,
and am most sensibly in grief for it.
It shall as level to your judgment
pierce as day does to your eye.
Let her come in.
How now! What noise is that?
O heat, dry up my brains!
Tears seven times salt, burn out
the sense and virtue of mine eye!
O rose of May!
Dear maid, kind sister,
sweet Ophelia!
O heavens! Is't possible, a
young maid's wits should be as
mortal as an old man's life?
# They bore him barefaced
on the bier
# Hey, nonny nonny, nonny, no
# And in his grave
rain'd many a tear
# Fare you well, my dove! #
Hadst thou thy wits,
and didst persuade revenge,
it could not move thus.
(You must sing a-down a-down,
an' you call him a down...) This
nothing's more than matter.
There's rosemary,
that's for remembrance.
Pray, love, remember.
And there is pansies.
That's for thoughts.
A document in madness,
thoughts and remembrance fitted.
There's fennel for you,
and columbines.
There's rue for you,
and here's some for me.
We may call it
herb-grace o' Sundays.
O, you must wear your rue
with a difference.
There's a daisy.
I would give you some violets,
but they withered
all
when my father died.
They say he made a good end.
# For bonny sweet Robin
is all my joy... #
Thought and affliction, passion,
hell itself, she turns to
favour and to prettiness.
# And will he not come again?
# And will he not come again?
# No, no, he is dead
# Go to thy death-bed
# He never will come again
# His beard was as white as snow
# All flaxen was his poll
# He is gone, he is gone... #
And we cast away moan
God ha' mercy on his soul!
And of all Christian souls,
I pray God.
God be wi' ye.
Do you see this, O God?
Laertes.
I must commune with your grief,
or you deny me right.
Go but apart, make choice
of whom your wisest friends you will.
And they shall hear and judge
'twixt you and me
if by direct or by collateral hand
they find us touch'd,
we will our kingdom give, our crown,
our life, yea all that we call ours,
to you in satisfaction.
But if not,
be you content
to lend your patience to us,
and we will jointly labour with
your soul to give it due content.
Let this be so.
And where the offence is,
let the great axe fall.
Go, captain,
from me greet the Danish king.
Tell him that, by his licence,
Fortinbras Craves the conveyance of
a promised march over his kingdom.
I will do so, my lord. Go safely on.
Sir, whose powers are these?
They are of Norway, sir.
How purposed, sir, I pray you?
Against some part of Poland.
Who commands them, sir?
The nephew to old Norway,
Fortinbras.
Goes it against the main of
Poland, sir, Or for some frontier?
Truly to speak, and with no addition,
We go to gain a little patch
of ground that hath in
it no profit but the name.
To pay five ducats, five,
I would not farm it.
Why, then the Polack
never will defend it.
Yes, it is already garrison'd.
Two thousand souls and
20,000 ducats will not debate
the question of this straw.
I humbly thank you, sir.
God be wi' you, sir.
How all occasions
do inform against me,
and spur my dull revenge.
I do not know why yet I live to say
"This thing's to do,"
Sith I have cause
and will
and strength and means to do't.
Examples gross as earth
exhort me.
Witness this army
of such mass and charge
led by a delicate
and tender prince,
whose spirit with
divine ambition puff'd
makes mouths at the invisible event,
exposing what is mortal and unsure
to all that fortune,
death and danger dare,
even for an egg-shell.
O, from this time forth,
My thoughts be bloody,
or be nothing worth!
Laertes, was your father dear to you?
Or are you but the painting of
a sorrow, a face without a heart?
Why ask you this?
Hamlet comes back.
What will you undertake,
to prove yourself your father's son
in deed more than in words?
To cut his throat i' the church.
No place, indeed,
should murder sanctuarize,
Revenge should know no bounds.
But, good Laertes, will you do this,
stay close within your chamber.
Hamlet return'd shall
know you are come home.
We'll set on those who'll
praise your excellence,
and for your rapier
most especially, bring you in fine
together and wager on your heads.
He, being remiss,
and free from all contriving,
will not peruse the foils, so that,
with ease, or a little shuffling,
you may choose a sword unblunted,
and in a pass of practise
requite him for your father.
I will do it.
And, for that purpose,
I'll anoint my sword.
I bought an unction of a mountebank
so mortal that,
but dip a knife in it,
where it draws blood
no cataplasm so rare
can save the thing from death
that's scratch'd withal.
I'll touch my point with this
contagion, that, if I but gall him
slightly, it may be his death.
Hm. Let's further think on this.
If this should fail
and that our drift look through
our bad performance,
'twere better not assay'd.
Therefore this plot should have a
back or second, that might hold,
if this did blast in proof.
Soft!
I ha't.
When in your motion you
are hot and dry - as make your
bout more violent to that end -
and that he calls for drink,
I'll have prepared him a chalice
for the nonce, whereon but sipping,
if, by chance, he escape your venom'd
stuck, our purpose will hold there.
How now, sweet queen?
One woe doth tread upon
another's heel, so fast they follow.
Your sister's drown'd, Laertes.
Drown'd? Where?
There is a willow
grows aslant a brook,
that shows his hoar leaves
in the glassy stream.
There with fantastic garlands
did she come
of crow-flowers, nettles,
daisies, and long purples - that
liberal shepherds
give a grosser name -
but our cold maids
do dead men's fingers call them.
There, on the pendent boughs her
coronet weeds clambering to hang,
an envious sliver broke,
when down her
weedy trophies and herself
fell in the weeping brook.
Her clothes
spread wide, and,
mermaid-like,
awhile they bore her up,
which time she chanted
snatches of old tunes,
as one incapable
of her own distress,
or like a creature native
and indued Unto that element,
but long it could not be
till that her garments,
heavy with their drink,
Pull'd the poor wretch from her
melodious lay
to muddy death.
Alas, then, she is drown'd?
Drown'd.
Drown'd.
Too much of water hast
thou, poor Ophelia,
and therefore,
I forbid my tears, but yet...
It is our trick,
nature her custom holds, let shame
say what it will. Adieu, my lord.
I have a speech of fire,
that fain would blaze,
but that this folly douses it.
Let's follow, Gertrude.
How much I had to do
to calm his rage.
Now fear I
this will give it start again.
Is she to be buried
in Christian burial
that wilfully
seeks her own salvation?
I tell thee, she is.
And, therefore,
make her grave straight.
Well, how can that be, unless she
drowned herself in her own defence?
Why, 'tis found so.
It must be se offendendo,
it cannot be else.
For here lies the point.
If I drown myself wittingly,
it argues an act.
And an act hath three branches.
It is, to act, to do, to perform.
Argal, she drowned herself wittingly.
Nay, but hear you, goodman delver.
Give me leave.
Here lies the water, good.
Here stands the man, good.
If the man go to this water, and
drown himself, it is, will he,
nill he, he goes, mark you that.
But if the water come to him and
drown him, he drowns not himself.
Argal, he that is not guilty of his
own death shortens not his own life.
Cudgel thy brains no more about it.
Go, get thee to Yaughan.
Fetch me a stoup of liquor.
# In youth, when I did love,
did love
# Methought it was very sweet... #
Has this fellow no
feeling of his business,
that he sings at grave-making?
Custom hath made it in him a
property of easiness. Tis e'en so.
That skull had a tongue in it,
and could sing once.
How the knave jowls it to the
ground, as if it were Cain's
jaw-bone, that did the first murder!
It might be the
pate of a politician,
one that would circumvent God,
might it not? It might, my lord.
And now my Lady Worm's,
chapless,
and knocked about the mazzard
with a sexton's spade.
Here's fine revolution,
an' we had the trick to see't.
There's another.
Why, may not that be
the skull of a lawyer?
Where be his quiddities now,
his quillets, his tricks?
Why does he suffer this rude knave
now to knock him about the sconce
with a dirty shovel,
and will not tell him
of his action of battery? Eh?
I'll speak to this fellow.
Whose grave's this, sirrah?
Mine, sir.
# O, a pit of clay for to be made
# For such a guest is meet... #
I think it be thine,
indeed, for thou liest in't.
Thou lie out of it, sir,
and therefore it is not yours.
For my part, I do not
lie in't, and yet it is mine.
Thou dost lie in't,
to be in't and say it is thine.
'Tis for the dead, not for the
quick, therefore thou liest.
Tis a quick lie, sir,
'twill away gain, from me to you.
What man dost thou dig it for?
For no man, sir.
What woman, then?
For none, neither.
Who is to be buried in't?
One that was a woman, sir,
but, rest her soul, she's dead.
How absolute the knave is!
How long hast thou
been a grave-maker?
Of all the days i' the year,
I came to't that day that our last
king Hamlet overcame Fortinbras.
How long is that since?
Cannot you tell that?
Every fool can tell that.
It was the very day that young
Hamlet was born, he that is mad,
and sent into England.
Ay, marry,
why was he sent into England?
Why, because he was mad.
He shall recover his wits there,
or, if he do not, it's
no great matter there. Why?
'Twill, a not be seen in him there.
There the men are as mad as he.
How came he mad?
Very strangely, they say.
How strangely?
Faith, e'en with losing his wits.
Upon what ground?
Why, here in Denmark.
I have been sexton here,
man and boy, 30 years.
How long will a man lie
i' the earth ere he rot?
I' faith,
if he be not rotten before he die -
as we have many pocky corpses
now a days,
that will scarce hold the laying in -
he will last you
some eight year or nine year.
A tanner will last you nine year.
Why he more than another?
Why, sir, his hide is so tanned
with his trade,
that he will
keep out water a great while,
and your water is a sore decayer
of your whoreson dead body.
Here's a skull, sir.
I've lain you in the earth
three and 20 years. Whose was it?
A whoreson mad fellow, he was.
Whose do you think it was?
Nay, I know not.
A pestilence on him for a mad rogue!
He poured a flagon of
Rhenish on my head once.
This same skull, sir, was
Yorick's skull, the king's jester.
This? E'en that. Let me see.
Alas, poor Yorick!
I knew him, Horatio.
A fellow of infinite jest,
of most excellent fancy.
He hath borne me on his back
a thousand times,
and now,
how abhorred in my
imagination it is!
My gorge rises at it.
Here hung those lips
that I have kissed
I know not how oft.
Where be your gibes now?
Your gambols? Your songs?
Your flashes of merriment, that were
wont to set the table on a roar?
Not one now, to mock
your own grinning.
Quite chap-fallen.
Now get you to my lady's chamber,
and tell her,
let her paint an inch thick,
to this favour she must come.
Make her laugh at that.
Prithee, Horatio, tell me one thing.
What's that, my lord?
Dost thou think Alexander looked o'
this fashion i' the earth? E'en so.
And smelt so? Whoo!
E'en so, my lord.
Imperious Caesar,
dead and turn'd to clay,
Might stop a hole to
keep the wind away.
'Twere to consider too
curiously to consider so.
Not a jot.
BELLS CHIME
Here comes the king.
The queen, the courtiers.
Who is this they follow?
And with such maimed
rites this doth betoken
the corse they follow did, with
desperate hand, foredo its own life.
'Twas of some estate.
Couch we awhile, and mark.
What ceremony else? That is Laertes.
What ceremony else?
Her obsequies have been as far
enlarged as we have warranty.
Her death was doubtful.
And, but that great command
o'ersways the order,
she should in ground unsanctified
have lodged till the last trumpet.
Must there no more be done?
No more be done.
We should profane
the service of the dead
to sing a requiem and such rest
to her as to peace-parted souls.
Lay her i' the earth.
And from her fair and unpolluted
flesh may violets spring!
I tell thee, churlish priest,
a ministering angel shall my sister
be, when thou liest howling.
What, the fair Ophelia!
Sweets to the sweet.
Farewell!
I hoped thou shouldst have
been my Hamlet's wife.
I thought thy bride-bed
to have deck'd, sweet maid,
not have strew'd thy grave.
O, treble woe, fall ten times
treble on that cursed head,
whose wicked deed thy most
ingenious sense deprived thee of.
Hold off the earth awhile.
Till I have caught her
once more in mine arms.
Now pile your dust
upon the quick and dead,
till of this flat
a mountain you have made,
to o'ertop old Pelion,
or the skyish head Of blue Olympus.
What is he whose grief
bears such an emphasis?
Whose phrase of sorrow
conjures the wandering stars,
and makes them stand
like wonder-wounded hearers?
This is I,
Hamlet the Dane.
The devil take thy soul!
Thou pray'st not well. I prithee,
take thy fingers from my throat.
For, though I am not splenitive
and rash, yet have I
something in me dangerous,
which let thy wiseness fear.
Hold off thy hand!
Pluck them asunder. Hamlet, Hamlet!
Gentlemen. Good my lord, be quiet.
Why I will fight with him
upon this theme until my
eyelids will no longer wag.
O my son, what theme?
I loved Ophelia.
Forty thousand brothers could not,
with all their quantity of love,
make up my sum.
What wilt thou do for her?
O, he is mad, Laertes.
For love of God, forbear him.
Swounds,
show me what thou'lt do. Woo't weep?
Woo't fight? Woo't fast?
Woo't tear thyself?
Woo't drink up eisel?
Eat a crocodile? I'll do't.
Dost thou come here to whine?
To outface me with
leaping in her grave?
Be buried quick with
her, and so will I.
And, if thou prate of mountains, let
them throw millions of acres on us,
till our ground, singeing his pate
against the burning zone,
make Ossa like a wart!
Nay, an thou'lt mouth,
I'll rant as well as thou.
This is mere madness. And thus
awhile the fit will work on him.
Anon, his silence will sit drooping.
Hear you, sir.
What is the reason
that you use me thus?
I loved you ever.
But it is no matter.
Let Hercules himself do what he may,
the cat will mew
and dog will have his day.
Good Horatio, wait upon him.
Strengthen your patience
in our last night's speech.
We'll put the matter
to the present push.
Good Gertrude,
set some watch over your son.
There's a divinity
that shapes our ends,
rough-hew them how we will.
That is most certain.
Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern are dead.
Why, man, they did make love
to this employment, they
are not near my conscience.
Why, what a king is this!
Does it not, think'st thee,
stand me now upon?
He that hath kill'd my
king and whored my mother,
popp'd in between the
election and my hopes,
thrown out his angle
for my proper life,
and with such cozenage is't not
perfect conscience,
to quit him with this arm?
But I am very sorry, good Horatio,
that to Laertes I forgot myself.
For, by the image of my cause,
I see the portraiture of his.
I'll court his favours.
But, sure, the bravery of his grief
did put me into a towering passion.
Peace! who comes here? Your lordship
is right welcome back to Denmark.
I humbly thank you, sir.
Dost know this water-fly?
No, my lord.
Thy state is the more gracious,
for 'tis a vice to know him.
'Tis a chough.
Sweet lord, if your lordship were
at leisure, I should impart a
thing to you from his majesty.
I will receive it, sir,
with all diligence of spirit.
Put your bonnet to his right
use, 'tis for the head.
I thank your lordship,
it is very hot.
No, believe me, 'tis very cold.
The wind is northerly.
It is indifferent cold,
my lord, indeed.
But yet methinks it is very
sultry and hot for my complexion.
Exceedingly, my lord,
it is very sultry, as 'twere,
I cannot tell how.
But, my lord, his majesty bade
me signify to you that he has
laid a great wager on your head.
Sir, this is the matter.
I beseech you, remember.
Nay, good my lord,
for mine ease, in good faith.
Sir, here is newly come to court
Laertes,
believe me, an absolute gentleman,
full of most excellent differences,
of very soft society
and great showing.
Indeed, to speak feelingly of him,
he is the card
or calendar of gentry,
for you shall find in him
the continent of what
part a gentleman would see.
The concernancy, sir?
Why do we wrap the gentleman
in our more rawer breath?
Sir? What imports the
nomination of this gentleman?
Of Laertes? Of him, sir.
I know you are not ignorant.
I would you did, sir.
Yet, in faith, if you did, it would
not much approve me. Well, sir?
You are not ignorant of
what excellence Laertes is.
I dare not confess that,
lest I should compare with him in
excellence, but, to know a man well,
were to know himself.
I mean, sir, for his weapon.
But in the imputation laid on him by
them, in his meed he's unfellowed.
What's his weapon?
Rapier and dagger.
That's two of his weapons but, well.
The king, sir, hath wagered
with him six Barbary horses
against the which he has imponed,
as I take it, six French rapiers
and poniards, with their assigns,
as girdle, hangers, and so.
Three of the carriages, in faith,
are very dear to fancy,
very responsive to the hilts,
most delicate carriages,
and of very liberal conceit.
What call you the carriages?
The carriages, sir, are the hangers.
But, on. Why is this
"imponed", as you call it?
The king, sir, hath laid,
that in a dozen passes between
yourself and him,
he shall not exceed you three hits.
It would come to immediate
trial, if your lordship
would vouchsafe the answer.
How if I answer no?
I mean, sir, the opposition
of your person in trial.
Sir, I will walk here in the hall
if it please his majesty.
'Tis the breathing time of day with
me, I will win for him an I can,
if not, I will gain nothing
but my shame and the odd hits.
Shall I re-deliver you e'en so?
To this effect, sir, after
what flourish your nature will.
I commend my duty to your lordship.
Yours, yours.
This lapwing runs away
with the shell on his head.
He did comply with his mother's dug,
before he sucked it.
You will lose this wager, my lord.
I do not think so.
Since he went into France,
I have been in continual practise.
I shall win at the odds.
But thou wouldst not think how
ill all's here about my heart.
But it is no matter.
Nay, good my lord.
It is but foolery. If your
mind dislike any thing, obey it.
I will forestall their repair
hither, and say you are not fit.
Not a whit.
We defy augury.
There's a special providence
in the fall of a sparrow.
If it be now, 'tis not to come.
If it be not to come,
it will be now.
If it be not now,
yet it will come.
The readiness is all.
Come, Hamlet, come,
and take this hand from me.
Give me your pardon, sir.
I've done you wrong.
But pardon't,
as you are a gentleman.
This presence knows,
and you must needs have heard,
how I am punish'd
with sore distraction.
What I have done, that might your
nature, honour and exception roughly
awake, I here proclaim was madness.
Sir, in this audience, let
my disclaiming from a purposed evil
free me so far
in your most generous thoughts,
that I have shot mine arrow o'er
the house, and hurt my brother.
I am satisfied.
I do receive your offer'd love
like love, and will not wrong it.
I do embrace it freely.
And will this brother's wager
frankly play. Give us the foils.
Come on. Come, one for me.
I'll be your foil, Laertes,
in mine ignorance.
Your skill shall, like a
star i' the darkest night,
stick fiery off indeed.
You mock me, sir.
No, by this hand.
Give them the foils, young Osric.
Cousin Hamlet, you know the wager?
Very well, my lord. Your grace hath
laid the odds o' the weaker side.
I do not think it.
I have seen you both.
But since he is better'd,
we have therefore odds.
This is too heavy,
let me see another.
This likes me well enough.
These foils have all a length?
Ay, my good lord.
If Hamlet give
the first or second hit,
or quit in answer
of the third exchange,
let all the battlements
their ordnance fire.
The king shall drink to
Hamlet's better breath.
And in the cup
an union shall he throw,
richer than that which four
successive kings
in Denmark's crown have worn.
APPLAUSE
Let the kettle to the trumpet speak,
the trumpet to the cannoneer without,
the cannon to the heavens,
the heavens to earth, now the king
drinks to Hamlet. Come, begin.
And you, the judge, bear a wary eye.
Come on, sir. Come, my lord.
No, judgment!
A hit, a very palpable hit.
Well, again.
Stay. Give me the drink.
Hamlet, this pearl is thine.
Here's to thy health.
Give him the cup.
I'll play this bout first,
set it by awhile.
Another hit - what say you?
A touch, a touch, I do confess.
Our son shall win.
He's hot, and scant of breath.
Here, Hamlet, take my napkin,
rub thy brows. The queen
carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet.
Good madam! Gertrude,
do not drink.
I will, my lord.
I pray you, pardon me.
It is the poison'd cup.
It is too late. I dare not
drink yet, madam, by and by.
Come, let me wipe thy face.
My lord, I'll hit him now.
I do not think't.
And yet
'tis almost 'gainst my conscience.
Come, for the third,
Laertes, you but dally.
I pray you, pass with
your best violence.
I am afeard you make a wanton of me.
Say you so? Come on.
Nothing, neither way.
Have at you now!
Nay, come, again.
My lord! My lord!
My lord! My lord, my lord!
They bleed on both sides. How is
it, my lord? How is't, Laertes?
Why, as a woodcock to mine own
springe, Osric, I am justly
kill'd with mine own treachery.
How does the queen?
She swounds to see them bleed.
No, no, the drink, the drink.
O, my dear Hamlet.
The drink, the drink!
I am poison'd.
O villany!
How?
Let the door be lock'd.
Treachery! Seek it out.
It is here, Hamlet.
Hamlet, thou art slain.
No medicine in the world can
do thee good, in thee there
is not half an hour of life.
The treacherous instrument is in
thy hand, unblunted and envenom'd.
The foul practise
hath turn'd itself on me.
Lo, here I lie,
never to rise again.
Thy mother's poison'd.
I can no more.
The king, the king's to blame.
O, yet defend me, friends.
I am but hurt.
Here,
thou incestuous,
murderous, damned Dane.
Drink off this potion.
Is thy union here?
Follow my mother.
He is justly served,
it is a poison temper'd by himself.
Exchange forgiveness with me,
noble Hamlet.
Mine and my father's
death come not upon thee,
Nor thine on me.
Heaven make thee free of it!
I follow thee.
I am dead, Horatio.
Wretched queen, adieu!
You that look pale
and tremble at this chance,
that are but mutes
or audience to this act,
had I but time
as this fell sergeant, death,
is strict in his arrest,
O, I could tell you.
But let it be.
Horatio, I am dead.
Thou livest.
Report me and my cause aright
to the unsatisfied.
Never believe it. I am more
an antique Roman than a Dane.
Here's yet some liquor left.
As thou'rt a man,
give me the cuplet! Let go.
By heaven, I'll have't.
O, good Horatio,
what a wounded name.
Things standing thus unknown,
shall live behind me!
If thou didst ever
hold me in thy heart,
absent thee from felicity awhile,
and in this harsh world
draw thy breath in pain,
to tell my story.
The rest...
is silence.
Now cracks a noble heart.
Good night, sweet prince,
and flights of angels
sing thee to thy rest.
ghost's word for a thousand pound.
Didst perceive? Very well, my lord.
Upon the talk of the poisoning?
I did very well note him.
Come, some music!
Come, the recorder!
For if the king like not the comedy,
why then,
belike he like it not, perdy.
Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word
with you. Sir, a whole history.
The king, sir. Ay, sir, what of him?
Is in his retirement
marvellous distempered.
With drink, sir?
No, my lord, rather with choler.
Good my lord, put your discourse
into some frame
and start not so wildly
from my affair.
I am tame, sir. Pronounce.
The queen, your mother,
in most great affliction of spirit,
hath sent me to you.
You are welcome. Nay good my lord.
If it shall please you to make me
a wholesome answer, I will do
your mother's commandment.
Oh, oh, oh, sir, I cannot. What, my
lord? Make you a wholesome answer.
My wit's diseased.
My mother, you say?
Then thus she says,
your behavior hath struck her
into wonder and astonishment.
O, wonderful son,
that can so astonish a mother!
Impart.
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 I do still,
by these pickers and stealers.
Good my lord,
what is your cause of distemper?
You do, surely, bar the door
upon your own liberty,
if you deny your griefs
to your friend.
Sir, I lack advancement.
How can that be, when you have
the voice of the king himself
for your succession in Denmark?
Ay, but sir,
while the grass grows...
The proverb is something musty.
O, the recorder! Let me see one.
To withdraw with you.
Why do you go about to recover
the wind of me,
as if you would
drive me into a toil?
O, my lord, if my duty be too bold,
my love is too unmannerly.
I do not well understand that.
Will you play upon this pipe?
My lord, I cannot. I 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 ventages
with your fingers and thumb,
give it breath with your mouth,
and it will discourse
most eloquent 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 pluck out
the heart of my mystery.
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?
'Sblood, do you think I am
easier to be played on than a pipe?
Call me what instrument you will,
though you can fret me,
you cannot play upon me.
God bless you, sir!
My lord,
the queen would speak with you...
THEY PLAY RECORDERS
..and presently!
Do you see yonder cloud
that's almost in shape of a camel?
By the mass,
and 'tis like a camel, indeed.
Methinks it is like a weasel.
It is backed like a weasel.
Or like a whale? Very like a whale.
Then I will come to
my mother by and by.
They fool me to the top of my bent.
I will come by and by.
I will say so.
By and by is easily said!
Leave me, friends.
HAMLET PLAYS "THREE BLIND MICE"
'Tis now the very
witching time of night,
when churchyards yawn
and Hell itself breathes out
contagion to this world.
Now could I drink hot blood,
and do such bitter business
as the day
would quake to look on.
Soft! Now to my mother.
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 along with you.
The terms of our estate
may not endure
hazard so dangerous
as doth hourly grow
out of his lunacy.
We will ourselves provide.
Most holy and religious fear it is
to keep those many, many bodies safe
that live and feed
upon your majesty.
Never alone did the king sigh,
but with a general groan.
For majesty is like a massy wheel,
fix'd on the summit
of the highest mount
to whose huge spokes
10,000 lesser things
are morticed and adjoin'd.
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 haste us.
My lord,
he's going to his mother's closet.
Behind the arras
I'll convey myself
to hear the process -
I'll warrant she'll tax him home.
Fare you well, my liege.
I'll call upon you ere you go
to bed, and tell you what I know.
Thanks, dear my lord.
HE COUGHS
O, my offence is rank.
It smells to heaven.
It hath the primal eldest curse
upon't -
a brother's murder.
Pray can I not,
though inclination
be as sharp as will -
my 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 curs-ed 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 offence?
And what's in prayer
but this two-fold force
to be forestalled
ere we come to fall,
or pardon'd, being down?
Then I'll look up.
My fault is past.
But, O, what form of prayer
can serve my turn?
"Forgive me my foul murder?"
That cannot be,
since I am still possess'd
of those effects
for which I did the murder -
my crown, mine own ambition
and my queen.
May one be pardon'd
and retain the offence?
In the corrupted currents
of this world,
offence's gilded hand
may shove by justice,
and oft 'tis seen
the wicked prize itself
buys out the law,
but 'tis not so above.
There is no shuffling.
There the action lies
in his true nature,
and we ourselves compell'd,
even to the teeth
and forehead of our faults,
to give in evidence.
What then?
What rests?
Try what repentance can.
O...
what can it not?
But what can it,
when one cannot repent?
O wretched state!
O bosom black as death!
O lime-ed soul, that,
struggling to be free,
art more engaged!
Help, angels!
Make assay!
Bow, stubborn knees,
and heart with strings of steel,
be soft as sinews
of the newborn babe.
All may yet be well.
HE MOUTHS
Now might I do it pat,
now he is praying.
And now I'll do't!
And so he goes to heaven,
and so am I revenged.
That would be scann'd.
A villain kills my father,
and for that,
I, his sole son,
do this same villain send to Heaven?
O, this is hire and salary,
not revenge.
He took my father grossly,
full of bread,
with all his crimes broad blown,
as flush as May.
And how his audit stands,
who knows save Heaven?
Am I then revenged,
to take him
in the purging of his soul,
when he is fit and season'd
for his passage?
No!
Up, blade,
and know thou a more horrid hent,
when he is drunk asleep,
or in his rage,
or in the incestuous pleasure
of his bed,
at gaming, swearing,
or about some act
that has no relish
of salvation in't.
Then trip him, that his heels
may kick at Heaven,
and that his soul may be
as damn'd and black
as Hell, whereto it goes.
My mother stays.
This physic but prolongs
thy sickly days.
My words fly up,
my thoughts remain below.
Words without thoughts
never to Heaven go.
He will come straight.
Look you, lay home to him.
Tell him his pranks
have been too broad to bear with,
And that your grace hath screen'd
and stood between
Much heat and him.
I'll silence me even here.
Pray you, be round with him.
KNOCK AT DOOR
I'll warrant you, Fear me not.
Withdraw, I hear him coming.
Mother! Mother!
Mother!
Now, Mother, what's the matter?
Hamlet, thou hast thy father
much offended.
Mother, you have my father
much offended.
Come, come, you answer
with an idle tongue.
Go, go, you question with a wicked
tongue. Why, how now, Hamlet!
What's the matter now?
Have you forgot me?
No, by the rood, not so.
You are the queen,
your husband's brother's wife,
and - would it were not so! -
you are my mother.
Nay, then, I'll set those to you
that can speak.
Come, come, and sit you down,
you shall not budge.
You go not till I set you up a glass
where you may see
the inmost part of you.
What wilt thou do?
Thou wilt not murder me!
Help, help, ho!
What, ho! Help, help, help! How now!
A rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead!
GUNSHOT
What hast thou done?
Nay, I know not. Is it the king?
O, what a rash and bloody deed
is this!
A bloody deed!
Almost as bad, good mother,
as kill a king,
and marry with his brother.
As kill a king!
Ay, lady, 'twas my word.
Thou wretched, rash,
intruding fool, farewell!
I took thee for thy better.
Take thy fortune.
Leave wringing of your hands.
Peace! Sit you down,
and let me wring your heart,
for so I shall,
if it be made of penetrable stuff.
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 this brow.
Hyperion's curls,
the front of Jove himself.
An eye like Mars,
to threaten and command.
A station like the herald Mercury
new-lighted
on a Heaven-kissing hill,
a combination and a form indeed,
where every god
did seem to set his seal,
to give the world
assurance of a man.
This was your husband.
Look you now, what follows.
Here is your husband,
like a mildew'd ear,
blasting his wholesome brother.
Have you eyes?
Could you on this fair
mountain leave to feed,
and batten on this moor? Ha!
Have you eyes?
You cannot call it love,
for at your age
the hey-day in the blood is tame,
it's humble,
and waits upon the judgement
and what judgement
would step from this to this?
What devil was't
that thus hath cozen'd you
at hoodman-blind?
Eyes without feeling,
feeling without sight,
ears without hands or eyes,
smelling sans all,
or but a sickly part
of one true sense
Could not so mope.
O shame! Where is thy blush?
O Hamlet, speak no more.
Thou turn'st mine eyes
into my very soul.
and there I see such black
and grain-ed spots
as will not leave their tinct.
Nay, but to live
in the rank sweat
of an enseam-ed bed,
stew'd in corruption,
honeying and making love
over the nasty sty.
O, speak to me no more!
These words, like daggers,
enter in mine ears.
No more, sweet Hamlet!
A murderer and a villain.
A slave that is not
twentieth part the tithe
of your precedent lord.
A vice of kings,
a cutpurse of the empire
and the rule,
who from a shelf
the precious diadem stole,
and put it in his pocket! No more!
A king of shreds and patches.
CLOCK CHIMES
Save me, and hover o'er me
with your wings,
you heavenly guards!
What would your gracious figure?
Alas, he's mad!
Do you not come
your tardy son to chide,
that, lapsed in time and passion,
lets go by
the important acting
of your dread command?
O, say!
Do not forget this visitation
is but to whet
thy almost blunted purpose.
But, look, amazement
on thy mother sits.
O, step between her
and her fighting soul.
Conceit in weakest bodies
strongest works.
Speak to her, Hamlet.
How is it with you, lady?
Alas, how is't with you,
that you do bend your eye on vacancy
and with the incorporal air
do hold discourse?
Forth at your eyes
your spirits wildly peep.
O gentle son, upon the heat
and flame of thy distemper
sprinkle cool patience.
Whereon do you look?
On him, on him! Look you!
How pale he glares!
Do not look upon me,
lest with this piteous action
you convert
my stern effects.
Then what I have to do
will want true colour,
tears perchance for blood.
To whom do you speak this?
Do you see nothing there?
Nothing at all, yet all there is
I see. Nor did you nothing hear?
No, nothing but ourselves.
Why, look you now!
Look, how it steals away!
My father, in his habit as he lived!
Look, where he goes, even now,
out at the portal!
This is the very coinage
of your brain.
This bodiless creation ecstasy
is very cunning in.
Ecstasy! My pulse, as yours,
doth temperately keep time,
and makes as healthful music.
It is not madness
that I have utter'd.
Bring me to the test,
I the matter will re-word,
which madness would gambol from.
Mother, for love of grace,
lay not that flattering unction
to your soul,
that not your trespass,
but my madness speaks.
It will but skin and film
the ulcerous place,
whilst rank corruption,
mining all within,
infects unseen.
Confess yourself to Heaven,
repent what's past,
avoid what is to come,
and do not spread the compost
on the weeds
to make them ranker.
O Hamlet,
thou hast cleft my heart in twain.
O, throw away the worser
part of it,
and live the purer with
the other half.
Good night,
but go not to mine uncle's bed.
Assume a virtue, if you have it not.
Refrain tonight, and that
shall lend a kind of easiness
to the next abstinence.
Once more, good night.
And when you are desirous
to be bless'd,
I'll blessing beg of you.
For this same lord,
I do repent,
but Heaven hath pleased it so,
to punish me with this
and this with me,
that I must be their
scourge and minister.
I will bestow him,
and will answer well
the death I gave him.
So, again, good night.
I must be cruel, only to be kind.
Thus bad begins
and worse remains behind.
One more word, good lady.
What shall I do?
Not this, by no means,
that I bid you do.
Let the bloat king
tempt you again to bed,
pinch wanton on your cheeks,
call you his mouse.
And let him,
for a pair of reechy kisses,
or paddling in your neck
with his damn'd fingers,
make you to
ravel all this matter out,
that I essentially am not
in madness, but mad in craft.
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.
Sssh.
I must to England, you know that?
Alack, I had forgot.
'Tis so concluded on.
There's letters seal'd
and my two schoolfellows,
whom I will trust
as I will adders fang'd,
they bear the mandate,
they must sweep my way, and
marshal me to knavery. Let it work.
For 'tis the sport
to have the engineer
hoist with his own
petard and 't shall go hard.
But I will delve
one yard below their mines,
and blow them at the moon.
O, 'tis most sweet,
when in one line
two crafts directly meet.
This man shall set me packing.
I'll lug the guts into
the neighbour room.
Mother, good night.
Indeed this counsellor
is now most still,
most secret
and most grave,
who was in life a foolish
prating knave.
Come, sir,
to draw toward an end with you.
Good night, mother.
SHE LAUGHS THEN SOBS
There's matter in these sighs,
these profound heaves.
You must translate.
'Tis fit we understand them.
Where is your son?
Ah, my good lord, what have I seen
tonight! What, Gertrude?
How does Hamlet?
Mad
as the sea and wind, when both
contend which is the mightier.
In his lawless fit,
behind the mirror
hearing something stir,
whips out his weapon, cries,
"A rat, a rat!"
And, in this brainish apprehension,
kills the unseen good old man.
O, heavy deed!
It had been so with us,
had we been there.
His liberty is full
of threats to all.
To you yourself, to us,
to every one.
Alas, how will this
bloody deed be answer'd?
It will be laid to us,
whose providence
should have kept short,
restrain'd and out of haunt,
this mad young man.
But so much was our love, we could
not understand what was most fit.
But, like the owner
of a foul disease,
to keep it from divulging,
let it feed,
even on the pith of Life.
Where is he gone? To draw apart
the body he hath kill'd,
o'er whom his madness
weeps for what is done.
O Gertrude, come! 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.
Guildenstern!
Friends both, go
join you with some further aid.
Hamlet in madness
hath Polonius slain,
and from his mother's closet
hath he dragg'd him.
Go seek him out.
Speak fair,
and bring the body into the chapel.
I pray you, make haste.
Oh, Gertrude, come.
Let's call up our wisest friends,
and let them know
both what we mean to do
and what's untimely done.
Come away.
My soul is full of
discord and dismay.
SHOUTING
Safely stowed.
Hamlet! Lord Hamlet!
What noise?
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 and bear it to the chapel.
Do not believe it. Believe what?
That I can keep your
counsel and not mine own.
Besides, to be demanded of a sponge!
What replication should be
made by the son of a king?
Take you me for a sponge, my lord?
Ay, sir,
that soaks up
the king's countenance,
his rewards, his authorities.
But such officers do the
king best service in the end.
He keeps them,
like an ape, an apple
in the corner of his jaw.
First mouthed,
to be last swallowed
when he needs what you have gleaned,
it is but squeezing you,
and, sponge, you shall be dry again.
I understand you not, my lord.
I am glad of it.
A knavish speech
sleeps in a foolish ear.
My lord, you must tell us where the
body is, and go with us to the king.
The body is with the king,
but the king is not with the body.
The king is a thing.
A thing, my lord! Of nothing.
Bring me to him.
Hide fox, and all after.
I have sent to seek him,
and to find the body.
How dangerous is it
that this man goes loose!
Yet must not we put
the strong law on him.
He's loved
of the distracted multitude,
who like not in their judgment,
but their eyes.
And where tis so,
the offender's scourge is weigh'd,
but never the offence.
To bear all smooth and even,
this sudden sending him away
must seem deliberate cause.
Diseases desperate grown by
desperate measure are relieved,
or not at all.
How now! what hath befall'n?
Where the dead body is bestow'd,
my lord, We cannot get from him.
But where is he? Without, my lord,
guarded, to know your pleasure.
Bring him before us.
Guildenstern! Bring in my lord.
Now, Hamlet,
where is Polonius?
At supper.
At supper! Where?
Not where he eats,
but where he is eaten.
A certain convocation of
politic worms are e'en at him.
Your worm is your
only emperor for diet.
We fat all creatures else
to fat ourselves,
we fat ourselves for maggots.
Alas, alas!
A man may fish with the worm that
hath eat of a king, and eat of the
fish that hath fed of that worm.
What dost you mean by this?
Nothing but to show you how
a king may go a progress
through the guts of a beggar.
Where is Polonius?
In heaven!
Send hither to see.
If your messenger find him
not there, seek him i'
the other place yourself.
But indeed, if you find
him not within this...month,
you shall nose him
as you go upstairs into the lobby.
Seek him there.
He will stay till ye come.
Hamlet, this deed,
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 bark is ready, and the wind
at help, the associates tend,
and everything is bent for England.
For England!
Ay, Hamlet. Good. So is it,
if thou knew'st our purposes.
I see a cherub that sees them.
Come, for England!
Farewell, dear mother.
Thy loving father, Hamlet.
My mother,
father and mother is man and wife,
man and wife is one flesh,
and so, my mother.
Come, for England!
Whee!
Follow him at foot.
Tempt him with speed aboard.
Delay it not.
I'll have him hence tonight.
For every thing is seal'd and done
that else leans on this affair. Away.
And, England,
if my love thou hold'st at aught,
thou mayst not coldly set
our sovereign purpose.
The present death of Hamlet.
Do it, England,
for like the hectic in my blood
he rages, and thou must cure me.
Till I know 'tis done,
whate'er may hap,
my joys were ne'er begun.
I will not speak with her.
She is importunate, indeed distract.
Her mood will needs be pitied.
What would she have?
She speaks much of her father,
says she hears there's tricks i'
the world, speaks things in doubt,
that carry but half sense.
Her speech is nothing,
yet the unshaped use of it doth
move the hearers to collection.
'Twere good she was spoken with,
for she may strew dangerous
conjectures in ill-breeding minds.
Let her come in.
To my sick soul,
as sin's true nature is, each toy
seems prologue to some great amiss.
So full of artless jealousy
is guilt,
it spills itself
in fearing to be spilt.
Where is the beauteous
majesty of Denmark?
How now, Ophelia!
# How should your true love know
# From another one?
# By his cockle hat and staff
# And his sandal shoon... #
Alas, sweet lady,
what imports this song?
Say you? Nay, pray you, mark.
# He is dead and gone, lady
# He is dead and gone
# At his head a grass-green turf
# At his heels a stone... #
Nay, but, Ophelia... PRAY YOU, MARK!
# White his shroud
as the mountain snow
# Larded with sweet flowers
# Which bewept to the grave
did not go
# With true-love showers. #
How do you, pretty lady?
Well, God 'ild you!
They say the owl
was a baker's daughter.
O Lord, we know what we are,
but know not what we may be.
God be at your table!
Conceit upon her father. Pray you,
let's have no words of this.
But when they ask you what
it means, say you this -
# Tomorrow is Saint Valentine's day
# All in the morning betime
# And I a maid at your window
# To be your valentine
# Then up he rose
and donn'd his clothes
# And dupp'd the chamber-door
# Let in the maid
that out a maid never departed more
# I'll make an end on't
# By Gis and by Saint Charity
# Alack, and fie for shame!
# Young men will do't,
if they come to't
# By cock, they are to blame
# Quoth she, before you tumbled me,
# You promised me to wed
# So would I ha' done, by yonder sun
# An thou hadst not
come to my bed. #
How long hath she been thus?
I hope all will be well.
We must be patient,
but I cannot choose but weep,
to think they should lay him
i' the cold ground.
My brother shall know of it and so
I thank you for your good counsel.
Come, my coach!
Good night, ladies,
good night, sweet ladies,
good night, good night.
Follow her close.
Give her good watch, I pray you.
O, this is the poison of deep grief.
It springs all from her
father's death and now, behold.
O, Gertrude, Gertrude.
When sorrows come, they come not
single spies but in battalions.
First, her father slain.
Next, your son gone,
and he most violent author
of his own just remove.
The people muddied,
sick and unwholesome in their
thoughts and whispers
for good Polonius' death,
and we have done but greenly,
in hugger-mugger thus to inter him.
Poor Ophelia,
divided from herself and her
fair judgment, without the
which we are but pictures,
or mere beasts.
Last, and yet as much
containing all of these,
her brother is in secret
come from France,
and wants not buzzers
to infect his ear
with pestilent speeches
of his father's death.
THUMPING ON DOOR
Alas, what noise is this?
Where are my Switzers?
Bid them guard the door.
Save yourself, my lord.
Laertes, in a riotous head,
o'erbears your officers.
The rabble call him lord. They cry,
"Choose we, Laertes shall be king."
Caps, hands, and tongues
applaud it to the clouds.
"Laertes shall be king,
Laertes king!"
How cheerfully on
the false trail they cry!
O, this is counter,
you false Danish dogs!
BANGING
The doors are broken.
O, vile king, give me my father!
Calmly, good Laertes.
That drop of blood that's calm
proclaims me bastard.
What is the cause, Laertes, that
thy rebellion looks so giant-like?
Let him go, Gertrude.
Do not fear our person.
There is such divinity
doth hedge a king,
that treason can but
peep to what it would,
acts little of his will.
Tell me, Laertes, why art thou
thus incensed. Let him go, Gertrude.
Speak, man. Where is my father?
Dead. But not by him.
Let him demand his fill.
How came he dead?
I'll not be juggled with.
To hell, allegiance!
Vows, to the blackest devil!
Conscience and grace,
to the profoundest pit!
I dare damnation.
To this point I stand,
let come what comes,
only I'll be revenged
most thoroughly for my father.
Who shall stay you?
My will, not all the world's.
Good Laertes,
if you desire to know the certainty
of your dear father's death,
is't writ in your revenge
that, swoopstake, you will draw both
friend and foe, winner and loser?
None but his enemies.
Will you know them then?
To his good friends,
thus wide I'll ope my arms,
and like the kind life-rendering
pelican, repast them with my blood.
Why, now you speak like a
good child and a true gentleman.
That I am guiltless of your
dear father's death,
and am most sensibly in grief for it.
It shall as level to your judgment
pierce as day does to your eye.
Let her come in.
How now! What noise is that?
O heat, dry up my brains!
Tears seven times salt, burn out
the sense and virtue of mine eye!
O rose of May!
Dear maid, kind sister,
sweet Ophelia!
O heavens! Is't possible, a
young maid's wits should be as
mortal as an old man's life?
# They bore him barefaced
on the bier
# Hey, nonny nonny, nonny, no
# And in his grave
rain'd many a tear
# Fare you well, my dove! #
Hadst thou thy wits,
and didst persuade revenge,
it could not move thus.
(You must sing a-down a-down,
an' you call him a down...) This
nothing's more than matter.
There's rosemary,
that's for remembrance.
Pray, love, remember.
And there is pansies.
That's for thoughts.
A document in madness,
thoughts and remembrance fitted.
There's fennel for you,
and columbines.
There's rue for you,
and here's some for me.
We may call it
herb-grace o' Sundays.
O, you must wear your rue
with a difference.
There's a daisy.
I would give you some violets,
but they withered
all
when my father died.
They say he made a good end.
# For bonny sweet Robin
is all my joy... #
Thought and affliction, passion,
hell itself, she turns to
favour and to prettiness.
# And will he not come again?
# And will he not come again?
# No, no, he is dead
# Go to thy death-bed
# He never will come again
# His beard was as white as snow
# All flaxen was his poll
# He is gone, he is gone... #
And we cast away moan
God ha' mercy on his soul!
And of all Christian souls,
I pray God.
God be wi' ye.
Do you see this, O God?
Laertes.
I must commune with your grief,
or you deny me right.
Go but apart, make choice
of whom your wisest friends you will.
And they shall hear and judge
'twixt you and me
if by direct or by collateral hand
they find us touch'd,
we will our kingdom give, our crown,
our life, yea all that we call ours,
to you in satisfaction.
But if not,
be you content
to lend your patience to us,
and we will jointly labour with
your soul to give it due content.
Let this be so.
And where the offence is,
let the great axe fall.
Go, captain,
from me greet the Danish king.
Tell him that, by his licence,
Fortinbras Craves the conveyance of
a promised march over his kingdom.
I will do so, my lord. Go safely on.
Sir, whose powers are these?
They are of Norway, sir.
How purposed, sir, I pray you?
Against some part of Poland.
Who commands them, sir?
The nephew to old Norway,
Fortinbras.
Goes it against the main of
Poland, sir, Or for some frontier?
Truly to speak, and with no addition,
We go to gain a little patch
of ground that hath in
it no profit but the name.
To pay five ducats, five,
I would not farm it.
Why, then the Polack
never will defend it.
Yes, it is already garrison'd.
Two thousand souls and
20,000 ducats will not debate
the question of this straw.
I humbly thank you, sir.
God be wi' you, sir.
How all occasions
do inform against me,
and spur my dull revenge.
I do not know why yet I live to say
"This thing's to do,"
Sith I have cause
and will
and strength and means to do't.
Examples gross as earth
exhort me.
Witness this army
of such mass and charge
led by a delicate
and tender prince,
whose spirit with
divine ambition puff'd
makes mouths at the invisible event,
exposing what is mortal and unsure
to all that fortune,
death and danger dare,
even for an egg-shell.
O, from this time forth,
My thoughts be bloody,
or be nothing worth!
Laertes, was your father dear to you?
Or are you but the painting of
a sorrow, a face without a heart?
Why ask you this?
Hamlet comes back.
What will you undertake,
to prove yourself your father's son
in deed more than in words?
To cut his throat i' the church.
No place, indeed,
should murder sanctuarize,
Revenge should know no bounds.
But, good Laertes, will you do this,
stay close within your chamber.
Hamlet return'd shall
know you are come home.
We'll set on those who'll
praise your excellence,
and for your rapier
most especially, bring you in fine
together and wager on your heads.
He, being remiss,
and free from all contriving,
will not peruse the foils, so that,
with ease, or a little shuffling,
you may choose a sword unblunted,
and in a pass of practise
requite him for your father.
I will do it.
And, for that purpose,
I'll anoint my sword.
I bought an unction of a mountebank
so mortal that,
but dip a knife in it,
where it draws blood
no cataplasm so rare
can save the thing from death
that's scratch'd withal.
I'll touch my point with this
contagion, that, if I but gall him
slightly, it may be his death.
Hm. Let's further think on this.
If this should fail
and that our drift look through
our bad performance,
'twere better not assay'd.
Therefore this plot should have a
back or second, that might hold,
if this did blast in proof.
Soft!
I ha't.
When in your motion you
are hot and dry - as make your
bout more violent to that end -
and that he calls for drink,
I'll have prepared him a chalice
for the nonce, whereon but sipping,
if, by chance, he escape your venom'd
stuck, our purpose will hold there.
How now, sweet queen?
One woe doth tread upon
another's heel, so fast they follow.
Your sister's drown'd, Laertes.
Drown'd? Where?
There is a willow
grows aslant a brook,
that shows his hoar leaves
in the glassy stream.
There with fantastic garlands
did she come
of crow-flowers, nettles,
daisies, and long purples - that
liberal shepherds
give a grosser name -
but our cold maids
do dead men's fingers call them.
There, on the pendent boughs her
coronet weeds clambering to hang,
an envious sliver broke,
when down her
weedy trophies and herself
fell in the weeping brook.
Her clothes
spread wide, and,
mermaid-like,
awhile they bore her up,
which time she chanted
snatches of old tunes,
as one incapable
of her own distress,
or like a creature native
and indued Unto that element,
but long it could not be
till that her garments,
heavy with their drink,
Pull'd the poor wretch from her
melodious lay
to muddy death.
Alas, then, she is drown'd?
Drown'd.
Drown'd.
Too much of water hast
thou, poor Ophelia,
and therefore,
I forbid my tears, but yet...
It is our trick,
nature her custom holds, let shame
say what it will. Adieu, my lord.
I have a speech of fire,
that fain would blaze,
but that this folly douses it.
Let's follow, Gertrude.
How much I had to do
to calm his rage.
Now fear I
this will give it start again.
Is she to be buried
in Christian burial
that wilfully
seeks her own salvation?
I tell thee, she is.
And, therefore,
make her grave straight.
Well, how can that be, unless she
drowned herself in her own defence?
Why, 'tis found so.
It must be se offendendo,
it cannot be else.
For here lies the point.
If I drown myself wittingly,
it argues an act.
And an act hath three branches.
It is, to act, to do, to perform.
Argal, she drowned herself wittingly.
Nay, but hear you, goodman delver.
Give me leave.
Here lies the water, good.
Here stands the man, good.
If the man go to this water, and
drown himself, it is, will he,
nill he, he goes, mark you that.
But if the water come to him and
drown him, he drowns not himself.
Argal, he that is not guilty of his
own death shortens not his own life.
Cudgel thy brains no more about it.
Go, get thee to Yaughan.
Fetch me a stoup of liquor.
# In youth, when I did love,
did love
# Methought it was very sweet... #
Has this fellow no
feeling of his business,
that he sings at grave-making?
Custom hath made it in him a
property of easiness. Tis e'en so.
That skull had a tongue in it,
and could sing once.
How the knave jowls it to the
ground, as if it were Cain's
jaw-bone, that did the first murder!
It might be the
pate of a politician,
one that would circumvent God,
might it not? It might, my lord.
And now my Lady Worm's,
chapless,
and knocked about the mazzard
with a sexton's spade.
Here's fine revolution,
an' we had the trick to see't.
There's another.
Why, may not that be
the skull of a lawyer?
Where be his quiddities now,
his quillets, his tricks?
Why does he suffer this rude knave
now to knock him about the sconce
with a dirty shovel,
and will not tell him
of his action of battery? Eh?
I'll speak to this fellow.
Whose grave's this, sirrah?
Mine, sir.
# O, a pit of clay for to be made
# For such a guest is meet... #
I think it be thine,
indeed, for thou liest in't.
Thou lie out of it, sir,
and therefore it is not yours.
For my part, I do not
lie in't, and yet it is mine.
Thou dost lie in't,
to be in't and say it is thine.
'Tis for the dead, not for the
quick, therefore thou liest.
Tis a quick lie, sir,
'twill away gain, from me to you.
What man dost thou dig it for?
For no man, sir.
What woman, then?
For none, neither.
Who is to be buried in't?
One that was a woman, sir,
but, rest her soul, she's dead.
How absolute the knave is!
How long hast thou
been a grave-maker?
Of all the days i' the year,
I came to't that day that our last
king Hamlet overcame Fortinbras.
How long is that since?
Cannot you tell that?
Every fool can tell that.
It was the very day that young
Hamlet was born, he that is mad,
and sent into England.
Ay, marry,
why was he sent into England?
Why, because he was mad.
He shall recover his wits there,
or, if he do not, it's
no great matter there. Why?
'Twill, a not be seen in him there.
There the men are as mad as he.
How came he mad?
Very strangely, they say.
How strangely?
Faith, e'en with losing his wits.
Upon what ground?
Why, here in Denmark.
I have been sexton here,
man and boy, 30 years.
How long will a man lie
i' the earth ere he rot?
I' faith,
if he be not rotten before he die -
as we have many pocky corpses
now a days,
that will scarce hold the laying in -
he will last you
some eight year or nine year.
A tanner will last you nine year.
Why he more than another?
Why, sir, his hide is so tanned
with his trade,
that he will
keep out water a great while,
and your water is a sore decayer
of your whoreson dead body.
Here's a skull, sir.
I've lain you in the earth
three and 20 years. Whose was it?
A whoreson mad fellow, he was.
Whose do you think it was?
Nay, I know not.
A pestilence on him for a mad rogue!
He poured a flagon of
Rhenish on my head once.
This same skull, sir, was
Yorick's skull, the king's jester.
This? E'en that. Let me see.
Alas, poor Yorick!
I knew him, Horatio.
A fellow of infinite jest,
of most excellent fancy.
He hath borne me on his back
a thousand times,
and now,
how abhorred in my
imagination it is!
My gorge rises at it.
Here hung those lips
that I have kissed
I know not how oft.
Where be your gibes now?
Your gambols? Your songs?
Your flashes of merriment, that were
wont to set the table on a roar?
Not one now, to mock
your own grinning.
Quite chap-fallen.
Now get you to my lady's chamber,
and tell her,
let her paint an inch thick,
to this favour she must come.
Make her laugh at that.
Prithee, Horatio, tell me one thing.
What's that, my lord?
Dost thou think Alexander looked o'
this fashion i' the earth? E'en so.
And smelt so? Whoo!
E'en so, my lord.
Imperious Caesar,
dead and turn'd to clay,
Might stop a hole to
keep the wind away.
'Twere to consider too
curiously to consider so.
Not a jot.
BELLS CHIME
Here comes the king.
The queen, the courtiers.
Who is this they follow?
And with such maimed
rites this doth betoken
the corse they follow did, with
desperate hand, foredo its own life.
'Twas of some estate.
Couch we awhile, and mark.
What ceremony else? That is Laertes.
What ceremony else?
Her obsequies have been as far
enlarged as we have warranty.
Her death was doubtful.
And, but that great command
o'ersways the order,
she should in ground unsanctified
have lodged till the last trumpet.
Must there no more be done?
No more be done.
We should profane
the service of the dead
to sing a requiem and such rest
to her as to peace-parted souls.
Lay her i' the earth.
And from her fair and unpolluted
flesh may violets spring!
I tell thee, churlish priest,
a ministering angel shall my sister
be, when thou liest howling.
What, the fair Ophelia!
Sweets to the sweet.
Farewell!
I hoped thou shouldst have
been my Hamlet's wife.
I thought thy bride-bed
to have deck'd, sweet maid,
not have strew'd thy grave.
O, treble woe, fall ten times
treble on that cursed head,
whose wicked deed thy most
ingenious sense deprived thee of.
Hold off the earth awhile.
Till I have caught her
once more in mine arms.
Now pile your dust
upon the quick and dead,
till of this flat
a mountain you have made,
to o'ertop old Pelion,
or the skyish head Of blue Olympus.
What is he whose grief
bears such an emphasis?
Whose phrase of sorrow
conjures the wandering stars,
and makes them stand
like wonder-wounded hearers?
This is I,
Hamlet the Dane.
The devil take thy soul!
Thou pray'st not well. I prithee,
take thy fingers from my throat.
For, though I am not splenitive
and rash, yet have I
something in me dangerous,
which let thy wiseness fear.
Hold off thy hand!
Pluck them asunder. Hamlet, Hamlet!
Gentlemen. Good my lord, be quiet.
Why I will fight with him
upon this theme until my
eyelids will no longer wag.
O my son, what theme?
I loved Ophelia.
Forty thousand brothers could not,
with all their quantity of love,
make up my sum.
What wilt thou do for her?
O, he is mad, Laertes.
For love of God, forbear him.
Swounds,
show me what thou'lt do. Woo't weep?
Woo't fight? Woo't fast?
Woo't tear thyself?
Woo't drink up eisel?
Eat a crocodile? I'll do't.
Dost thou come here to whine?
To outface me with
leaping in her grave?
Be buried quick with
her, and so will I.
And, if thou prate of mountains, let
them throw millions of acres on us,
till our ground, singeing his pate
against the burning zone,
make Ossa like a wart!
Nay, an thou'lt mouth,
I'll rant as well as thou.
This is mere madness. And thus
awhile the fit will work on him.
Anon, his silence will sit drooping.
Hear you, sir.
What is the reason
that you use me thus?
I loved you ever.
But it is no matter.
Let Hercules himself do what he may,
the cat will mew
and dog will have his day.
Good Horatio, wait upon him.
Strengthen your patience
in our last night's speech.
We'll put the matter
to the present push.
Good Gertrude,
set some watch over your son.
There's a divinity
that shapes our ends,
rough-hew them how we will.
That is most certain.
Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern are dead.
Why, man, they did make love
to this employment, they
are not near my conscience.
Why, what a king is this!
Does it not, think'st thee,
stand me now upon?
He that hath kill'd my
king and whored my mother,
popp'd in between the
election and my hopes,
thrown out his angle
for my proper life,
and with such cozenage is't not
perfect conscience,
to quit him with this arm?
But I am very sorry, good Horatio,
that to Laertes I forgot myself.
For, by the image of my cause,
I see the portraiture of his.
I'll court his favours.
But, sure, the bravery of his grief
did put me into a towering passion.
Peace! who comes here? Your lordship
is right welcome back to Denmark.
I humbly thank you, sir.
Dost know this water-fly?
No, my lord.
Thy state is the more gracious,
for 'tis a vice to know him.
'Tis a chough.
Sweet lord, if your lordship were
at leisure, I should impart a
thing to you from his majesty.
I will receive it, sir,
with all diligence of spirit.
Put your bonnet to his right
use, 'tis for the head.
I thank your lordship,
it is very hot.
No, believe me, 'tis very cold.
The wind is northerly.
It is indifferent cold,
my lord, indeed.
But yet methinks it is very
sultry and hot for my complexion.
Exceedingly, my lord,
it is very sultry, as 'twere,
I cannot tell how.
But, my lord, his majesty bade
me signify to you that he has
laid a great wager on your head.
Sir, this is the matter.
I beseech you, remember.
Nay, good my lord,
for mine ease, in good faith.
Sir, here is newly come to court
Laertes,
believe me, an absolute gentleman,
full of most excellent differences,
of very soft society
and great showing.
Indeed, to speak feelingly of him,
he is the card
or calendar of gentry,
for you shall find in him
the continent of what
part a gentleman would see.
The concernancy, sir?
Why do we wrap the gentleman
in our more rawer breath?
Sir? What imports the
nomination of this gentleman?
Of Laertes? Of him, sir.
I know you are not ignorant.
I would you did, sir.
Yet, in faith, if you did, it would
not much approve me. Well, sir?
You are not ignorant of
what excellence Laertes is.
I dare not confess that,
lest I should compare with him in
excellence, but, to know a man well,
were to know himself.
I mean, sir, for his weapon.
But in the imputation laid on him by
them, in his meed he's unfellowed.
What's his weapon?
Rapier and dagger.
That's two of his weapons but, well.
The king, sir, hath wagered
with him six Barbary horses
against the which he has imponed,
as I take it, six French rapiers
and poniards, with their assigns,
as girdle, hangers, and so.
Three of the carriages, in faith,
are very dear to fancy,
very responsive to the hilts,
most delicate carriages,
and of very liberal conceit.
What call you the carriages?
The carriages, sir, are the hangers.
But, on. Why is this
"imponed", as you call it?
The king, sir, hath laid,
that in a dozen passes between
yourself and him,
he shall not exceed you three hits.
It would come to immediate
trial, if your lordship
would vouchsafe the answer.
How if I answer no?
I mean, sir, the opposition
of your person in trial.
Sir, I will walk here in the hall
if it please his majesty.
'Tis the breathing time of day with
me, I will win for him an I can,
if not, I will gain nothing
but my shame and the odd hits.
Shall I re-deliver you e'en so?
To this effect, sir, after
what flourish your nature will.
I commend my duty to your lordship.
Yours, yours.
This lapwing runs away
with the shell on his head.
He did comply with his mother's dug,
before he sucked it.
You will lose this wager, my lord.
I do not think so.
Since he went into France,
I have been in continual practise.
I shall win at the odds.
But thou wouldst not think how
ill all's here about my heart.
But it is no matter.
Nay, good my lord.
It is but foolery. If your
mind dislike any thing, obey it.
I will forestall their repair
hither, and say you are not fit.
Not a whit.
We defy augury.
There's a special providence
in the fall of a sparrow.
If it be now, 'tis not to come.
If it be not to come,
it will be now.
If it be not now,
yet it will come.
The readiness is all.
Come, Hamlet, come,
and take this hand from me.
Give me your pardon, sir.
I've done you wrong.
But pardon't,
as you are a gentleman.
This presence knows,
and you must needs have heard,
how I am punish'd
with sore distraction.
What I have done, that might your
nature, honour and exception roughly
awake, I here proclaim was madness.
Sir, in this audience, let
my disclaiming from a purposed evil
free me so far
in your most generous thoughts,
that I have shot mine arrow o'er
the house, and hurt my brother.
I am satisfied.
I do receive your offer'd love
like love, and will not wrong it.
I do embrace it freely.
And will this brother's wager
frankly play. Give us the foils.
Come on. Come, one for me.
I'll be your foil, Laertes,
in mine ignorance.
Your skill shall, like a
star i' the darkest night,
stick fiery off indeed.
You mock me, sir.
No, by this hand.
Give them the foils, young Osric.
Cousin Hamlet, you know the wager?
Very well, my lord. Your grace hath
laid the odds o' the weaker side.
I do not think it.
I have seen you both.
But since he is better'd,
we have therefore odds.
This is too heavy,
let me see another.
This likes me well enough.
These foils have all a length?
Ay, my good lord.
If Hamlet give
the first or second hit,
or quit in answer
of the third exchange,
let all the battlements
their ordnance fire.
The king shall drink to
Hamlet's better breath.
And in the cup
an union shall he throw,
richer than that which four
successive kings
in Denmark's crown have worn.
APPLAUSE
Let the kettle to the trumpet speak,
the trumpet to the cannoneer without,
the cannon to the heavens,
the heavens to earth, now the king
drinks to Hamlet. Come, begin.
And you, the judge, bear a wary eye.
Come on, sir. Come, my lord.
No, judgment!
A hit, a very palpable hit.
Well, again.
Stay. Give me the drink.
Hamlet, this pearl is thine.
Here's to thy health.
Give him the cup.
I'll play this bout first,
set it by awhile.
Another hit - what say you?
A touch, a touch, I do confess.
Our son shall win.
He's hot, and scant of breath.
Here, Hamlet, take my napkin,
rub thy brows. The queen
carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet.
Good madam! Gertrude,
do not drink.
I will, my lord.
I pray you, pardon me.
It is the poison'd cup.
It is too late. I dare not
drink yet, madam, by and by.
Come, let me wipe thy face.
My lord, I'll hit him now.
I do not think't.
And yet
'tis almost 'gainst my conscience.
Come, for the third,
Laertes, you but dally.
I pray you, pass with
your best violence.
I am afeard you make a wanton of me.
Say you so? Come on.
Nothing, neither way.
Have at you now!
Nay, come, again.
My lord! My lord!
My lord! My lord, my lord!
They bleed on both sides. How is
it, my lord? How is't, Laertes?
Why, as a woodcock to mine own
springe, Osric, I am justly
kill'd with mine own treachery.
How does the queen?
She swounds to see them bleed.
No, no, the drink, the drink.
O, my dear Hamlet.
The drink, the drink!
I am poison'd.
O villany!
How?
Let the door be lock'd.
Treachery! Seek it out.
It is here, Hamlet.
Hamlet, thou art slain.
No medicine in the world can
do thee good, in thee there
is not half an hour of life.
The treacherous instrument is in
thy hand, unblunted and envenom'd.
The foul practise
hath turn'd itself on me.
Lo, here I lie,
never to rise again.
Thy mother's poison'd.
I can no more.
The king, the king's to blame.
O, yet defend me, friends.
I am but hurt.
Here,
thou incestuous,
murderous, damned Dane.
Drink off this potion.
Is thy union here?
Follow my mother.
He is justly served,
it is a poison temper'd by himself.
Exchange forgiveness with me,
noble Hamlet.
Mine and my father's
death come not upon thee,
Nor thine on me.
Heaven make thee free of it!
I follow thee.
I am dead, Horatio.
Wretched queen, adieu!
You that look pale
and tremble at this chance,
that are but mutes
or audience to this act,
had I but time
as this fell sergeant, death,
is strict in his arrest,
O, I could tell you.
But let it be.
Horatio, I am dead.
Thou livest.
Report me and my cause aright
to the unsatisfied.
Never believe it. I am more
an antique Roman than a Dane.
Here's yet some liquor left.
As thou'rt a man,
give me the cuplet! Let go.
By heaven, I'll have't.
O, good Horatio,
what a wounded name.
Things standing thus unknown,
shall live behind me!
If thou didst ever
hold me in thy heart,
absent thee from felicity awhile,
and in this harsh world
draw thy breath in pain,
to tell my story.
The rest...
is silence.
Now cracks a noble heart.
Good night, sweet prince,
and flights of angels
sing thee to thy rest.