Hamlet Page #4

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and sure I am two men there is not

living to whom he more adheres.

Both your Majesties might,

by the sovereign power you have of us,

put your dread pleasures

more into command than to entreaty.

But we both obey, and here

give up ourselves in the full bent

to lay our service freely at your feet,

to be commanded.

Thanks, Rosencrantz

and gentle Guildenstern.

Thanks, Guildenstern

and gentle Rosencrantz.

And I beseech you instantly to visit

my too much changed son.

Go, some of you, and bring these

gentlemen where Hamlet is.

Th' ambassadors from Norway,

my good lord, are joyfully returned.

Thou still hast been the father

of good news.

Have l, my lord?

I assure my good liege, and I do think,

or else this brain of mine

hunts not the trail of policy

so sure as it was wont to do, that I have

found the very cause of Hamlet's lunacy.

O, speak of that; that do I long to hear.

I doubt it is no other but the main;

his father's death

and our o'erhasty marriage.

My liege, and madam,

to expostulate what majesty should be,

what duty is,

why day is day, night is night,

and time is time,

were but to waste night, day and time.

Therefore, since brevity

is the soul of wit

and tediousness

the limbs and outward flourishes,

I will be brief.

Your noble son is mad.

Mad call I it, for to define true madness,

what is't but to be nothing else but mad?

- But let that go.

- More matter with less art.

Madam, I swear I use no art at all.

That he is mad, 'tis true: 'tis true 'tis pity;

and pity 'tis 'tis true.

A foolish figure!

Farewell it, for I will use no art.

I have a daughter,

have while she is mine,

who in her duty and obedience,

mark, hath given me this.

"Doubt that the stars are fire;

"Doubt that the sun doth move:

"Doubt truth to be a liar;

But never doubt I love.

"Thine evermore, most dear lady,

"whilst this machine is to him,

"Hamlet."

How hath she received his love?

- What do you think of me?

- As of a man faithful and honourable.

I would fain prove so.

No, I went round to work,

and my young mistress thus

I did bespeak:

"Lord Hamlet is a prince out of thy star;

this must not be";

and then I prescripts gave her that

she should lock herself from his resort,

admit no messengers, receive no tokens.

This done,

she took the fruits of my advice:

and he, repelled, a short tale to make,

fell into a sadness, then into a fast,

thence to a watch,

thence to a weakness,

then into a lightness,

and by this declension,

into the madness wherein now

he raves and all we mourn for.

- Do you think this?

- It may be very like.

Take this from this, if this be otherwise.

If circumstances lead me,

I will find where truth is hid,

though it be hid indeed within the centre.

How may we try it further?

You know sometimes he walks

for hours together here in the lobby.

So he does indeed.

At such a time,

I'll loose my daughter to him.

Read on this book.

That show of such an exercise

may colour your loneliness.

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 wish'd.

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 despis'd 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 undiscover'd country

from whose bourn no traveller returns,

puzzles the will and makes us

rather bear those ills we have

than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does

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.

Soft you now.

The fair Ophelia.

Nymph, in thy orisons

be all my sins remembered.

Good my lord,

how does your honour this many a day?

I humbly thank you; well, well, well.

My lord, I have remembrances of yours

that I have longed long to re-deliver.

I pray you now receive them.

No, not l; I never gave you aught.

My honour'd lord,

you know right well you did;

and with them words

of so sweet breath compos'd

as made these 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.

- Ha, 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, my lord, have better

commerce than with honesty?

Ay, truly; for the power of beauty

will sooner transform honesty

from what it is into a bawd

than the force of 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.

You should not have believ'd 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 myself indifferent honest,

but yet I could accuse me of such things

that it were better

my mother had not borne me:

I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious.

What should such fellows as I do

crawling between earth and heaven?

Believe none of us.

Go thy ways to a nunnery.

- 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.

If thou dost marry, I'll 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. 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.

Heavenly powers, restore him!

I have heard of your paintings

well enough.

God hath given you one face,

and you make yourselves another.

You jig and amble, and you lisp,

you nickname 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 marriage;

those that are married already

all but one shall live;

the rest shall keep as they are.

To a nunnery, go.

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