SCENE I A ROOM IN THE CASTLE.
Three chairs on L.H., one on R.
Enter KING and QUEEN, preceded by POLONIUS. OPHELIA,
ROSENCRANTZ, and GIULDENSTERN, following (R.H.)
King. (C.) And can you, by no drift of conference,
Get from him why he puts on this confusion?
Ros. (R.) He does confess he feels himself distracted;
But from what cause he will by no means speak.
Guild. (R.) Nor do we find him forward[1] to be sounded
But, with a crafty madness, keeps aloof,
When we would bring him on to some confession
Of his true state.
Queen. (R.C.) Did you assay him[2]
To any pastime?
Ros. Madam, it so fell out, that certain players
We o'er-raught on the way:[3] of these we told him;
And there did seem in him a kind of joy
To hear of it: They are about the court;
And, as I think, they have already order
This night to play before him.
Pol.
'Tis most true:
And he beseech'd me to entreat your majesties
To hear and see the matter.
King. With all my heart; and it doth much content me
To hear him so inclin'd.
Good gentlemen, give him a further edge,
And drive his purpose on to these delights.
Ros. We shall, my lord.
[Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN, R.H.]
King.
Sweet Gertrude, leave us too;
For we have closely sent[4] for Hamlet hither,
That he, as 'twere by accident, may here
Affront Ophelia:[5]
Her father and myself (lawful espials[6]),
Will so bestow ourselves, that, seeing, unseen,
We may of their encounter frankly judge;
And gather by him, as he is behaved,
If't be the affliction of his love or no
That thus he suffers for.
Queen. (R.)
I shall obey you:
And for your part, Ophelia,
[OPHELIA comes down L.H.]
I do wish
That your good beauties be the happy cause
Of Hamlet's wildness: so shall I hope your virtues
Will bring him to his wonted way again,
To both your honours.
Oph.
Madam, I wish it may.
[Exit QUEEN, R.H.]
Pol. Ophelia, walk you here. Gracious, so please you,
We will bestow ourselves. Read on this book;
[To OPHELIA.]
That show of such an exercise may colour
Your loneliness. We are oft to blame in this,—
'Tis too much prov'd,[7] that, with devotion's visage
And pious action, we do sugar o'er
The devil himself.
King.
O, 'tis too true! how smart
A lash that speech doth give my conscience!
[Aside.]
Pol. I hear him coming: let's withdraw, my lord.
[Exeunt KING and POLONIUS, R.H.2 E., and OPHELIA, R.H.U.E.]
Enter HAMLET (L.H.)
Ham. To be, or not to be, that is the question:[8]
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,[9]
And, by opposing end them?—To die,—to sleep,
No more;—and by a sleep, to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to: 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. 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,[10]
Must give us pause:[11] There's the respect[12]
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,[13]
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,[14]
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make[15]
With a bare bodkin?[16] Who would fardels bear,[17]
To groan and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn[18]
No traveller returns,[19] 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;[20]
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,[21]
With this regard, their currents turn away,
And lose the name of action.[22]—
[OPHELIA returns.]
—Soft you now![23]
The fair Ophelia:—Nymph, in thy orisons[24]
Be all my sins remember'd.
Oph. (R.C.)
Good my lord,
How does your honour for this many a day?
Ham. (L.C.) I humbly thank you; well.
Oph. My lord, I have remembrances of yours,
That I have longèd long to re-deliver;
I pray you, now receive them.
Ham.
No, not I;
I never gave you aught.
Oph. My honour'd lord, you know right well you did;
And, with them, words of so sweet breath compos'd
As made the 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.
Ham. Ha, ha! are you honest?
Oph. My lord?
Ham. Are you fair?
Oph. What means your lordship?
Ham. That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty.[25]
Oph. Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty?
Ham. Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd, than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness:[26] this was some time a paradox, but now the time gives it proof. I did love you once.
Oph. Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.
Ham. You should not have believed me; for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock, but we shall relish of it:[27] I loved you not.
Oph. I was the more deceived.
Ham. 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; with more offences at my beck[28] than I have thoughts to put them in,[29] imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in. 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?
Oph. At home, my lord.
Ham. Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool nowhere but in's own house. Farewell.
Oph. O, help him, you sweet heavens!
Ham. 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; go; go.
Oph. Heavenly powers, restore him!
Ham. I have heard of your paintings[30] too, well enough; Heaven hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another:[31] you jig, you amble, and you lisp,[32] and nickname Heaven's creatures, and make your wantonness your ignorance.[33] Go to, I'll no more of't; it hath made me mad.
[HAMLET crosses to R.H.]
I say, we will have no more marriages: those that are married already, all but one,[34] shall live; the rest shall keep as they are. To a nunnery, go.
[Exit HAMLET, R.H.[35]]
Oph. (L.) O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!
The expectancy and rose of the fair state,[36]
The glass of fashion[37] and the mould of form,[38]
The observ'd of all observers, quite, quite down!
And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
That suck'd the honey of his musick vows,[39]
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh:
O, woe is me,
To have seen what I have seen, see what I see!
[Exit OPHELIA, L.H.]
Re-enter KING and POLONIUS.
King. Love! his affections do not that way tend;
Nor what he spake, though it lack'd form a little,
Was not like madness. There's something in his soul,
O'er which his melancholy sits on brood;
He shall with speed to England,
For the demand of our neglected tribute:
Haply, the seas, and countries different,
With variable objects, shall expel
This something-settled matter in his heart;
Whereon his brains still beating puts him thus
From fashion of himself. What think you on't?
Pol. It shall do well: But yet I do believe
The origin and commencement of his grief
Sprung from neglected love. My lord, do as you please;
But, if you hold it fit, after the play,
Let his queen mother all alone entreat him
To show his grief: let her be round with him;[40]
And I'll be placed, so please you, in the ear
Of all their conference. If she find him not,[41]
To England send him; or confine him where
Your wisdom best shall think.
King.
It shall be so:
Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go.
[Exeunt, L.H.]