Hamlet Page #12

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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

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