Hamlet Page #8

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- Why, how now, Hamlet?

- What's the matter now?

- Have you forgot me?

- No, by the rood, not so:

you are the Queen,

your husband's brother's wife.

And - would it were not so -

you are my mother.

Nay, then I'll set those to you

that can speak.

Come, come, you shall not budge.

You go not till I set you up a glass where

you may see the inmost part of you.

What wilt thou do?

Thou wilt not murder me? Help, ho!

What, ho! help, help, help!

How now! a rat? Dead, for a ducat!

O nay, what hast thou done?

Nay, I know not:

Is it the King?

O, what a rash and bloody deed is this?

A bloody deed.

Almost as bad, good mother, as kill

a king and marry with his brother.

- As kill a king!

- Ay, lady, it was my word.

Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool!

Farewell!

I took thee for thy better.

Leave wringing of your hands.

Peace; sit you down

and let me wring your heart;

for so I shall

if it be made of penetrable stuff;

if damned custom have not braz'd it so

that it be proof

and bulwark against sense.

What have I done that thou dar'st wag

thy tongue in noise so rude against me?

Such an act that blurs the grace

and blush of modesty;

calls virtue hypocrite;

takes off the rose from

the fair forehead of an innocent love,

and sets a blister there; makes marriage

vows as false as dicers' oaths.

Ay me, what act that roars so loud

and thunders in the index?

Look you upon this picture

and on this, the counterfeit presentment

of two brothers.

See what a grace was seated

on this brow?

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;

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?

Have you eyes?

You cannot call it love;

for at your age,

the heyday in the blood is tame,

it's humble and waits upon

the judgment;

and what judgment

would step from this to this?

O, shame!

Where is thy blush?

Rebellious hell, if thou can'st mutine

in a matron's bones

to flaming youth let virtue be as wax

and melt in her own fire.

O, Hamlet, speak no more!

Thou turns mine eyes into my very soul;

and there I see

such black and grained spots

as will leave there their tinct.

Nay, but to live in the rank sweat

of an enseamed bed,

stewed in corruption, honeying

and making love over the nasty sty!

O, speak to me no more!

A slave that is not twentieth part

the tithe of your precedent lord.

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, laps'd in time and passion,

Iets go by th' important acting

of your dread command?

O, say.

To whom do you speak this?

- Do you see nothing there?

- Nothing at all;

yet all that is, I see.

- Nor did you nothing hear?

- No, nothing but ourselves.

My father

in his habit, as he lived.

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.

Mother, for love of grace,

Iay not that flattering unction

to your soul

that not your trespass

but my madness speaks:

it will but skin and film

the ulcerous place

whiles 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 better with the purer half.

Good night, but go not to my uncle's bed.

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 blest,

I'll blessing beg of you.

For this same lord I do repent;

but Heaven hath pleas'd it so

to punish me with this and this with me,

that I must be their scourge and minister.

Again, good night.

I must be cruel only to be kind.

Mother, good night, indeed.

How dangerous is it

that this man goes loose!

Yet may we not put the strong law

on him:

he's loved of the distracted multitude.

To bear all smooth and even,

this sudden sending him away

must seem deliberate pause.

How now? What news?

Where the dead body is bestow'd,

my lord, we cannot get from him.

- Where is he?

- Without, my lord, guarded.

Bring him before us.

Now, Hamlet, where's Polonius?

- At supper.

- At supper where?

Not where he eats,

but where he is eaten.

A certain convocation

of politic worms are e'en at him.

Your worm is your only emperor for diet:

we fat all creatures else to fat us,

and we fat ourselves for maggots;

your fat king and your lean beggar

is but variable service,

two dishes but to one table.

That's the end.

- Where is Polonius?

- In heaven;

send thither to see; if your messenger

find him not there,

seek him i' th' other

place yourself.

But if, indeed,

you find him not within this month,

you shall nose him

as you go up the stairs into the lobby.

Go seek him there.

He will stay till you come.

Hamlet, this deed,

for thine especial safety

- which we do tender, as we dearly grieve

for that which thou hast done -

must send thee hence

with fiery quickness.

Therefore, prepare thyself;

the bark is ready, and the wind at help,

th' associates tend,

and everything is bent for England.

For England! Good!

- So is it, if thou knew'st our purposes.

- I see a cherub that sees them.

But come, for England.

- Farewell, dear mother.

- Thy loving father, Hamlet.

My mother:
father and mother is man

and wife; man and wife is one flesh;

and so, my mother.

But, come; for England!

Follow him at foot;

tempt him with speed aboard.

And, England,

if my love thou hold'st at aught,

as my great power thereof

may give thee sense,

pay homage to us, and contrive

at once the present death of Hamlet.

Do it, England:

for like the hectic in my blood he rages,

and thou must cure me.

O, my offence is rank;

it smells to heaven;

it hath the primal eldest curse upon't,

a brother's murder!

What if this cursed hand were thicker

than itself in brother's blood,

is there not rain enough in the sweet

heavens to wash it white as snow?

Then I'll look up; my fault is past.

But o, what form of prayer

can serve my turn?

"Forgive me my foul murder"!

That cannot be; since

I am still possess'd of those effects

for which I did the murder - my crown,

mine own ambition and my Queen.

May one be pardon'd

and retain th' offence?

In the corrupted currents of this world,

offence's guilded hand

may shove by justice;

and oft 'tis seen the wicked

prize itself buys out the law.

But 'tis not so above:

there is no shuffling;

there the action lies in his true nature.

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