Hamlet Page #16

stole and put it in his pocket.

-No more.

-A king of shreds and patches.

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.

[WHISPERS]

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 th' incorporal air

do hold discourse?

Forth at your eyes

your spirits wildly peep.

And as the sleeping soldiers

in th' alarm...

...your bedded hair, like life in excrements,

start up and stand on end.

O gentle son...

...upon the heat and flame of thy distemper

sprinkle cool patience.

Whereon do you look?

On him.

Look you how pale he glares.

His form and cause conjoined,

preaching to stones...

...would make them capable.

Do not look upon me...

...lest with this piteous action you convert

my stern effects.

Then what I have to do

will want true color.

Tears perchance for blood.

-To whom do you speak this?

-Do you see nothing there?

Nothing at all, yet all that is I see.

-Did you nothing hear?

-Nothing but ourselves.

Look you there! 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 uttered.

Bring me to the test,

and I the matter will reword...

...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.

Forgive me this my virtue...

...for in the fatness of these pursy times

virtue itself of vice must pardon beg...

...yea, curb and woo

for leave to do him good.

O Hamlet.

Thou hast cleft my heart in twain.

O, throw away the worser part of it,

and live the purer with the other haIf.

Good night.

But go not to my uncle's bed.

Assume a virtue if you have it not.

That monster custom,

who all sense doth eat...

...of habits devil, is angel yet in this...

...that to the use of actions fair and good

he likewise gives a frock or livery...

...that aptly is put on.

Refrain tonight,

and that shall lend a kind of easiness...

...to the next abstinence.

The next more easy.

For use almost can change

the stamp of nature...

...and either shame the devil...

...or throw him out

with wondrous potency.

Once more, good night.

And when you are desirous to be blest...

... Ill blessing beg of you.

For this same lord, I do repent.

But heaven hath pleased is 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 word more, 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 cheek...

...call you his mouse, and let him,

for a pair of reechy kisses...

...or paddling in your neck

with his damned fingers...

...make you to ravel all this matter out,

that I essentially am not in madness...

...but mad in craft.

'Twere good you let him know.

For who that's but a queen,

fair, sober, wise...

...would from a paddock,

from a bat, a gib...

...such dear concernings hide?

Who would do so? No...

...in despite of sense and secrecy...

...unpeg the basket on the house's top...

...let the birds fly,

and like the famous ape...

...to try conclusions

in the basket creep...

...and break your own neck down.

Be thou assured...

...if words be made of breath...

...and breath of life...

... I have no life to breathe

what thou hast said to me.

I must to England, you know that?

Alack, I had forgot.

'Tis so concluded on.

There's letters sealed.

And my two schoolfellows...

...whom I will trust

as I will adders fanged...

...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 it 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.

Ill lug the guts into the neighbor room.

Mother, good night indeed.

This counselor 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.

[CRYING]

CLAUDIUS:
There's matter in

these sighs, these profound heaves...

...you must translate.

'Tis fit we understand them.

-Where is your son?

-Bestow this place on us a little while.

Ah, my own 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 arras

hearing something stir...

...whips out his rapier...

...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 everyone.

Alas, how shall this bloody deed

be answered?

It will be laid to us, whose providence

should have kept short, restrained...

...and out of haunt this mad young man.

But so much was our love...

...we would not understand

what was most fit...

...but like the owner of a foul disease...

...to keep it from divulging, let it feed

even on the pith of life.

Where is he gone?

To draw apart the body he hath killed...

...o'er whom his very madness...

...like some ore

amongst a mineral of metals base...

...shows itself pure.

-He weeps for what is done.

-O Gertrude, come away.

The sun 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,

go join you with some further aid.

Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain...

...and from his mother's closet

dragged him.

Go seek him out, speak fair,

and bring the body into the chapel.

I pray you haste in this.

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