Hamlet Page #7

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and yet I could accuse me of such

things it were better my mother

had not borne me.

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.

Where's your father?

At home, my lord.

Let the door be shut upon him,

that he may play the fool nowhere

but in his own house.

Farewell.

O, help him, you sweet Heavens!

If thou dost marry, I'll give

you 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 needs marry,

marry a fool,

for wise men know well enough

what monsters you make of them.

To a nunnery, go, and quickly too.

Farewell.

O Heavenly powers, restore him!

You jig, you amble, and you lisp,

and nick-name God's creatures, and

make your wantonness your ignorance.

Go to, I'll no more on't,

it hath made me mad.

I say,

we will have no more marriages.

Those that are married already,

all but one, shall live,

the rest shall keep as they are.

To a nunnery, go.

O, what a noble mind

is here o'erthrown!

The courtier's,

soldier's,

scholar's, eye,

tongue, sword.

The expectancy and rose

of the fair state,

the glass of fashion

and the mould of form,

the observed of all observers,

quite,

quite down!

And I,

of ladies most deject and wretched,

that suck'd the honey

of his music vows,

now see that noble

and most sovereign reason,

like sweet bells jangled,

out of tune and harsh.

That unmatch'd form

and feature of blown youth

blasted with ecstasy.

O, woe is me,

to have seen what I have seen,

see what I see!

'Love! His affections

do not that way tend.'

There's something in his soul,

o'er which his melancholy

sits on brood,

and I do think the hatch

and the disclose

will be some danger.

How now, Ophelia!

You need not tell us what

Lord Hamlet said, we heard it all.

Away, I do beseech you,

here he comes.

I'll bore him presently.

How does my good Lord Hamlet?

Well...

God a mercy.

Do you know me, my lord?

Excellent well -

you are a fishmonger.

Not I, my lord. Then I would

you were so honest a man.

Honest, my lord! Ay, sir -

to be honest, as this world goes,

is to be one man

picked out of ten thousand.

That's very true, my lord.

For if the sun breed maggots

in a dead dog,

being a god kissing carrion...

Have you a daughter?

I have, my lord.

Let her not walk in the sun.

Conception is a blessing, but

not as your daughter may conceive.

Friend, look to 't.

How say you by that?

Still harping on my daughter,

yet he knew me not at first -

he said I was a fishmonger.

He is far gone, far gone,

and truly in my youth

I suffered much extremity for love -

very near this.

I'll speak to him again.

What do you read, my lord?

Words!

Words, words?

What is the matter, my lord?

Between who?

I mean,

the matter that you read, my lord.

Slanders, sir,

for the satirical rogue says here

that old men have grey beards...

That their faces are wrinkled...

Their eyes purging thick amber

and plum-tree gum...

and that they have a most plentiful

lack of wit...well...

together with most weak hams.

All which, sir, though I most

powerfully and potently believe,

yet I hold it not honesty

to have it thus set down.

For you yourself, sir,

should be as old as I am,

if like a crab

you could go backward.

Though this be madness,

yet there is method in 't.

Will you walk out of the air,

my lord? Into my grave?

Indeed, that is out o' the air.

How pregnant sometimes

his replies are!

My honourable lord, I will

most humbly take my leave of you.

You cannot, sir,

take from me anything

that I would more

willingly part withal

except my life,

except my life,

except my life.

Fare you well, my lord.

These tedious old fools!

You go to seek the Lord Hamlet -

there he is.

God save you, sir!

My honoured lord!

My most dear lord!

My excellent good friends!

How dost thou, Guildenstern?

Ah, Rosencrantz!

Good lads, how do ye both?

As the indifferent children

of the earth.

Happy, in that we are not over-happy.

On fortune's cap

we are not the very button.

Nor the soles of her shoe?

Neither, my lord.

Then you live about her waist,

or in the middle of her favours?

Faith, her privates we.

In the secret parts of fortune?

Most true, she is a strumpet.

What's the news? None, my lord,

but that the world's grown honest.

Then is doomsday near!

But your news is not true.

Let me question more in particular.

What have you, my good friends,

deserved at the hands of fortune,

that she sends you to prison hither?

Prison, my lord? Denmark's a prison.

Then is the world one.

A goodly one, in which there are

many confines, wards and dungeons,

Denmark being one o' the worst.

We think not so, my lord.

Why, then, 'tis none to you,

for there is nothing either good

or bad, but thinking makes it so.

To me it's a prison.

Why then,

your ambition makes it one -

'tis too narrow for your mind.

O God,

I could be bounded in a nut shell

and count myself

a king of infinite space,

were it not that I have bad dreams.

Shall we to the court?

We'll wait upon you.

No such matter.

I will not sort you with

the rest of my servants.

But, in the beaten way

of friendship,

what make you at Elsinore?

To visit you, my lord, no other

occasion. Were you not sent for?

Is it your own inclining?

A free visitation?

Come, deal justly with me.

Come, nay, speak!

What should we say, my lord?

Why, anything, but to the purpose.

You were sent for, and there is

a kind of confession in your looks,

which your modesties

have not craft enough to colour.

I know the good king and queen

have sent for you.

To what end, my lord?

That you must teach me.

But let me conjure you,

by the rights of our fellowship,

be even and direct with me,

whether you were sent for, or no?

What say you?

Nay, then, I have an eye of you.

If you love me, hold not off.

My lord, we were sent for.

I will tell you why.

So shall my anticipation

prevent your discovery,

and your secrecy to the king

and queen moult no feather.

I have,

of late,

but wherefore I know not,

lost all my mirth,

forgone all custom of exercise.

And indeed it goes

so heavily with my disposition

that this goodly frame, the Earth,

seems to me a sterile promontory,

this most excellent canopy, the air,

look you,

this brave o'erhanging firmament,

this majestical roof

fretted with golden fire,

why, it appears no other thing

to me

than a foul and pestilent

congregation of vapours.

What a piece of work is a man!

How noble in reason!

How infinite in faculty!

In form and moving,

how express and admirable!

In action, how like an angel!

In apprehension, how like a god!

The beauty of the world!

The paragon of animals!

And yet, to me, what is this...

..quintessence of dust?

Man delights not me.

Uh-huh.

No, nor woman neither, though by

your smiling you seem to say so.

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