Hamlet Page #11

will speak with most miraculous organ.

Ill have these players play something

like the murder of my father...

...before mine uncle. Ill observe his looks,

Ill tent him to the quick.

If he but blench, I know my course.

The spirit that I have seen

may be of the devil...

...and the devil hath power

t'assume a pleasing shape.

Yea, and perhaps,

out of my weakness and my melancholy--

As he is very potent with such spirits.

--abuses me...

...to damn me.

Ill have grounds more relative than this.

The play's the thing...

...wherein Ill catch the conscience

of the king.

And can you by no drift of conference...

...get from him

why he puts on this confusion...

...grating so harshly all his days of quiet

with turbulent and dangerous lunacy?

He does confess

he feels himself distracted...

...but from what cause

he will by no means speak.

Nor do we find him forward

to be sounded...

...but with a crafty madness

keeps aloof...

...when we would bring him on

to some confession...

...of his true state.

-Did he receive you well?

ROSENCRANTZ:
Most like a gentleman.

But with much forcing of his disposition.

Niggard of question, but of our demands

most free in his reply.

Did you assay him to any pastime?

Madam, it so fell out that certain players

we o'er-raught on the way.

Of these we told him,

there did seem in him a joy to hear of it.

They are about the court, and they have

already order to play before him.

POLONIUS:
'Tis most true, and he

beseeched me to entreat your majesties...

-...to hear and see the matter.

-With all my heart.

And it doth much content me

to hear him so inclined.

Good gentlemen,

give him a further edge...

-...and drive his purpose into these delights.

-We shall, my lord.

Sweet Gertrude, leave us too...

...for we have closely sent

for Hamlet hither...

..that he, as 'twere by accident, may here

affront Ophelia.

Her father and myself, lawful espials,

will so bestow ourselves...

...that, seeing unseen,

we may of their encounter frankly judge...

...and gather by him, as he is behaved,

If't be th' affliction of his love or no...

...that thus he suffers for.

I shall obey you.

And for your part, Ophelia, I do wish...

...that your good beauties

be the happy cause of Hamlet's wildness.

So shall I hope your virtues

will bring him to his wonted way again...

...to both your honors.

Madam, I wish it may.

POLONIUS:

Ophelia, walk you here--

Gracious, so please you

we will bestow ourselves.

--read on this book...

...that show of such an exercise

may color your loneliness.

We are oft to blame in this.

'Tis too much proved that with

devotion's visage and pious action...

...we do sugar o'er the devil himself.

O 'tis too true.

How smart a lash that speech

doth give my conscience.

The harlot's cheek,

beautied with plast'ring art...

...is not more ugly

to the thing that helps it...

...than is my deed

to my most painted word.

O heavy burden.

POLONIUS:
I hear him coming.

Let's withdraw, my lord.

To be, or not to be...

...that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind

to suffer...

...the slings and arrows

of outrageous fortune...

...or to take arms

against a sea of troubles...

...and by opposing, end them.

To die, to sleep.

No more...

...and by a sleep to say we end...

...the heartache

and the thousand natural shocks...

...that flesh is heir to.

'Tis a consummation

devoutly to be wished.

To die...

...to sleep.

To sleep...

...perchance to dream.

Ay, there's the rub.

For in that sleep of death...

...what dreams may come...

...when we have shuffled off

this mortal coil...

...must give us pause.

There's the respect

that makes calamity of so long life.

For who would bear

the whips and scorns of time...

...th' oppressor's wrong,

the proud man's contumely...

...the pangs of disprized love,

the law's delay...

...the insolence of office, and the spurns

that patient merit of th' unworthy takes...

...when he himself might his quietus make

with a bare bodkin?

Who would fardels bear...

...to grunt and sweat

under a weary life...

...but that the dread...

...of something after death...

...the undiscovered country...

...from whose bourn no traveler returns...

...puzzles the will...

...and makes us rather bear

those ills we have...

...than fly to others

that we know not of?

Thus conscience...

...doth make cowards of us all...

...and thus the native hue of resolution...

...is sicklied o'er

with the pale cast of thought...

...and enterprises

of great pith and moment...

...with this regard

their currents turn awry...

...and lose the name...

...of action.

[FOOTSTEPS APPROACHING]

Soft you now, the fair Ophelia.

Nymph...

...in thy orisons?

-Be all my sins remembered?

OPHELIA:
Good, my lord.

How does your honor

for this many a day?

I humbly thank you.

Well.

My lord...

... I have remembrances of yours...

...that I have longed long to redeliver.

I pray you now receive them.

No.

Not I, I never gave you aught.

My honored lord...

...you know right well you did...

...and with them...

...words of so sweet breath compos'd

as made the things more rich.

Their perfume lost...

...take these again.

For to the noble mind rich gifts

wax poor when givers prove unkind.

There, my lord.

Huh?

-Are you honest?

-My lord?

-Are you fair?

-What means your lordship?

That if you be honest and fair, your honesty

should admit no discourse to your beauty.

Could beauty better commerce

than honesty?

Truly, for the power of beauty

will transform honesty...

...from what it is to a bawd than honesty

can translate beauty into his likeness.

This was sometime a paradox,

but now the time gives it proof.

I did love you once.

Indeed, my lord,

you made me believe so.

Well, you should not have believed me...

...for virtue cannot so inoculate

our old stock but we shall relish of it.

I loved you not.

-I was the more deceived.

-Get thee to a nunnery.

Why wouldst thou be

a breeder of sinners?

I am indifferent honest...

...yet I could accuse me that it were better

my mother had not borne me.

I am proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more

offenses than I have thoughts to put them...

...imagination to give them shape,

or time to act them in.

What should such fellows as I do

crawling between earth and heaven?

We are arrant knaves, all. Believe none of us.

Go thy ways to a nunnery.

[THUD]

Where's your father?

At home, my lord.

Let the doors be shut upon him...

...that he may play the fool...

...nowhere but in's own house.

Farewell.

[CRYING]

O help him, you sweet heavens.

If thou dost marry,

Ill give thee this plague for thy dowry:

Be thou as chaste as ice,

as pure as snow...

...thou shalt not escape calumny.

Get thee to a nunnery, go, farewell.

Or if thou wilt need marry, marry a fool.

For wise men know well enough

what monsters you make of them.

To a nunnery, go, and quickly too.

Farewell.

Heavenly powers, restore him.

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