{"id":206,"date":"2019-06-03T19:18:19","date_gmt":"2019-06-03T19:18:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/provincialenglish\/chapter\/hamlet-act-3\/"},"modified":"2019-08-28T19:22:30","modified_gmt":"2019-08-28T19:22:30","slug":"hamlet-act-3","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/provincialenglish\/chapter\/hamlet-act-3\/","title":{"raw":"Hamlet: Act 3","rendered":"Hamlet: Act 3"},"content":{"raw":"Hamlet<\/em> (Modern, Editor\u2019s Version). Internet Shakespeare Editions<\/a>. University of Victoria. Editor: David Bevington. Adapted by James Sexton.\n

Scene 1<\/h1>\nEnter<\/em>[footnote]Location: The castle.[\/footnote] King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and Lords.<\/em>\n\nKing<\/strong>\nAnd can you by no drift of circumstance[footnote]Can you not, by means of roundabout inquiry.[\/footnote]\nGet from him why he puts on this confusion,\n1650<\/sub>Grating so harshly all his days of quiet\nWith turbulent and dangerous lunacy?\n\nRosencrantz<\/strong>\nHe does confess he feels himself distracted,\nBut from what cause, 'a will by no means speak.\n\nGuildenstern<\/strong>\nNor do we find him forward[footnote]Willing.[\/footnote] to be sounded,[footnote]Probed, questioned.[\/footnote]\n1655<\/sub>But with a crafty madness keeps aloof\nWhen we would bring him on to some confession\nOf his true state.\n\nQueen<\/strong>\nDid he receive you well?\n\nRosencrantz<\/strong>\nMost like a gentleman.\n\n1660<\/sub>Guildenstern<\/strong>\nBut with much forcing of his disposition.[footnote]Inclination, mood.[\/footnote]\n\nRosencrantz<\/strong>\nNiggard of question,[footnote]Laconic, reluctant to initiate talk.[\/footnote] but of our demands[footnote]In response to our questions.[\/footnote]\nMost free in his reply.\n\nQueen<\/strong>\nDid you assay him to[footnote]Endeavor to persuade him to try.[\/footnote] any pastime?\n\nRosencrantz<\/strong>\nMadam, it so fell out[footnote]Happened.[\/footnote] that certain players\n1665<\/sub>We o'erraught[footnote]Overtook, passed[\/footnote] on the way. Of these we told him,\nAnd there did seem in him a kind of joy\nTo hear of it. They are about the court,[footnote]Have arrived and are present here in the court.[\/footnote]\nAnd, as I think, they have already order\nThis night to play before him.\n\n1670<\/sub>Polonius<\/strong>\n'Tis most true,\nAnd he beseeched me to entreat your majesties\nTo hear and see the matter.\n\nKing<\/strong>\nWith all my heart,and it doth much content me\nTo hear him so inclined. Good gentlemen,\n1675<\/sub>Give him a further edge,[footnote]Incitement.[\/footnote] and drive his purpose on\nTo these delights.\n\nRosencrantz<\/strong>\nWe shall, my lord.\nExeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern [and Lords].<\/em>\n\nKing<\/strong>\nSweet Gertrude, leave us too,\nFor we have closely[footnote]Privately.[\/footnote] sent for Hamlet hither,\n1680<\/sub>That he, as 'twere by accident, may here\nAffront[footnote]Confront, encounter.[\/footnote] Ophelia.\nHer father and myself, lawful espials,[footnote]Justifiable spies.[\/footnote]\nWill so bestow ourselves that, seeing unseen,\nWe may of their encounter frankly judge,\nAnd gather by him, as he is behaved,[footnote]By his behavior.[\/footnote]\n1685<\/sub>If't be th'affliction of his love or no\nThat thus he suffers for.\n\nQueen<\/strong>\nI shall obey you.\nAnd for your part, Ophelia, I do wish\nThat your good beauties be the happy cause\n1690<\/sub>Of Hamlet's wildness. So shall I hope your virtues\nWill bring him to his wonted[footnote]Customary.[\/footnote] way again,\nTo both your honors.\n\nOphelia<\/strong>\nMadam, I wish it may.\n[Exit Queen.]<\/em>\n\nPolonius<\/strong>\nOphelia, walk you here.--Gracious,[footnote]Your Grace (addressed to the King).[\/footnote] so please you,\n1695<\/sub>We will bestow ourselves. [To Ophelia, as he gives her a book]<\/em> Read on this book,[footnote]Presumably, a book of devotion.[\/footnote]\nThat show of such an exercise[footnote]Religious exercise.[\/footnote] may color[footnote]Give a plausible appearance to, justify.[\/footnote]\nYour loneliness. We are oft to blame in this,\n'Tis too much proved,[footnote]It is too often shown to be the case and too often practiced.[\/footnote] that with devotion's visage\nAnd pious action we do sugar o'er\n1700<\/sub>The devil himself.\n\nKing<\/strong>\n[Aside]<\/em> Oh, 'tis too true![footnote]These words need not be said aside; they could be the King's way of agreeing with what Polonius has just said, before the King pursues in tortured soliloquy the dark consequences of the idea. Conversely, the whole speech can be read as expressive of a guilty conscience.[\/footnote]\nHow smart[footnote]Stinging.[\/footnote] a lash that speech doth give my conscience!\nThe harlot's cheek, beautied with plast'ring art,[footnote]Beautified by means of cosmetics.[\/footnote]\nIs not more ugly to the thing that helps it[footnote]\/ In comparison with or in response to the cosmetic that gives the cheek its false beauty.[\/footnote]\n1705<\/sub>Than is my deed to my most painted word.\nOh, heavy burden!\nEnter Hamlet.<\/em>\n\nPolonius<\/strong>\nI hear him coming. Let's withdraw, my lord.\n[The King and Polonius conceal themselves.]<\/em>\n\n1710<\/sub>Hamlet<\/strong>\nTo be, or not to be, that is the question,\nWhether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer\nThe slings[footnote]Devices for propelling several kinds of missiles toward an enemy.[\/footnote] and arrows of outrageous fortune,\nOr to take arms against a sea of troubles,\nAnd by opposing end them. To die, to sleep--\n1715<\/sub>No more--and by a sleep to say we end\nThe heartache and the thousand natural shocks\nThat flesh is heir to; 'tis a consummation\nDevoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep;\nTo sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub,[footnote]Impediment, difficulty. (Literally, an obstacle in the path of the ball in the game of bowls.)[\/footnote]\n1720<\/sub>For in that sleep of death what dreams may come\nWhen we have shuffled off this mortal coil[footnote]Cast off our mortal flesh and the turmoil of existence.[\/footnote]\nMust give us pause. There's the respect[footnote]Consideration.[\/footnote]\nThat makes calamity of so long life.[footnote](1) That allows calamity to last so long; (2) that makes long life a calamity in itself.[\/footnote]\nFor who would bear the whips and scorns of time,\n1725<\/sub>Th'oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,[footnote]The insolent abuse meted out by those of superior social rank.[\/footnote]\nThe pangs of disprized[footnote]Scorned, undervalued.[\/footnote] love, the law's delay,\nThe insolence of office,[footnote]Officialdom.[\/footnote] and the spurns[footnote]Insults; literally, kicks.[\/footnote]\nThat patient merit of th'unworthy takes,[footnote]That patient, deserving people must endure at the hands of unworthy persons.[\/footnote]\nWhen he himself might his quietus make[footnote]Might settle his accounts (at the end of his life). A quietus was an affirmation that a bill had been paid, marked \"Quietus est,\" laid to rest.[\/footnote]\n1730<\/sub>With a bare bodkin?[footnote]With nothing more elaborate than an unsheathed dagger.[\/footnote] Who would these fardels[footnote]Such burdens.[\/footnote] bear,\nTo grunt and sweat under a weary life,\nBut that the dread of something after death,\nThe undiscovered country from whose bourn[footnote]Boundary, border.[\/footnote]\nNo traveler returns, puzzles the will,\n1735<\/sub>And makes us rather bear those ills we have\nThan fly to others that we know not of.\nThus conscience does make cowards of us all,\nAnd thus the native hue of resolution[footnote]The natural color of one's complexion (i.e., ruddiness) that signals manly courage.[\/footnote]\nIs sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,[footnote]The white-faced pallor that accompanies too much introspection.[\/footnote]\n1740<\/sub>And enterprises of great pith[footnote]High seriousness, profound importance.[\/footnote] and moment[footnote]Momentousness, significance.[\/footnote]\nWith this regard[footnote]Consideration.[\/footnote] their currents[footnote]Courses.[\/footnote] turn awry[footnote]Askew, off the expected course.[\/footnote]\nAnd lose the name of action. Soft you now,[footnote]i.e., Wait a minute. (Said as Hamlet sees Ophelia.)[\/footnote]\nThe fair Ophelia!--Nymph, in thy orisons\nBe all my sins remembered.[footnote]Remember me in your prayers, sinner that I am. Christian theology in medieval and Renaissance times dwelt on the innate sinfulness of all humans since the fall of Adam and Eve.[\/footnote]\n\n1745<\/sub>Ophelia<\/strong>\nGood my lord,\nHow does your honor for this many a day?\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nI humbly thank you, well, well, well.\n\nOphelia<\/strong>\nMy lord, I have remembrances of yours\nThat I have long\u00e8d long to redeliver.\n1750<\/sub>I pray you now receive them.\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nNo, not I. I never gave you aught.[footnote]Anything.[\/footnote]\n\nOphelia<\/strong>\nMy honored lord, you know right well you did,\nAnd with them words of so sweet breath composed\nAs made these things more rich. Their perfume lost,\n1755<\/sub>Take these again, for to the noble mind\nRich gifts wax[footnote]Grow.[\/footnote] poor when givers prove unkind,\nThere, my lord. [She offers Hamlet the remembrances.]<\/em>\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nHa, ha! Are you honest?[footnote](1) chaste; (2) truthful.[\/footnote]\n\nOphelia<\/strong>\nMy lord?\n\n1760<\/sub>Hamlet<\/strong>\nAre you fair?[footnote]Beautiful.[\/footnote]\n\nOphelia<\/strong>\nWhat means your lordship?\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nThat if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to\nyour beauty.[footnote]You should be chastely wary of any dealings with your beauty (since a beautiful woman is too often in danger of being seduced).[\/footnote]\n\nOphelia<\/strong>\n1765<\/sub>Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce[footnote]Dealings.[\/footnote] than with honesty?\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nAy, truly, for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it\nis to a bawd than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness.[footnote]Its (honesty's) likeness.[\/footnote]\n1770<\/sub>This was sometime a paradox,[footnote]Formerly a seeming absurdity, a conundrum.[\/footnote] but now the time gives it proof. I did love\nyou once.\n\nOphelia<\/strong>\nIndeed, my lord, you made me believe so.\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nYou should not have believed me, for virtue cannot so inoculate our old\nstock but we shall relish of it.[footnote]Virtue cannot be grafted onto our inherently sinful nature without our retaining some taste or trace of the old stock, i.e., Adam's Original Sin.[\/footnote] I loved you not.\n\n1775<\/sub>Ophelia<\/strong>\nI was the more deceived.\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nGet thee to a nunnery.[footnote]Convent (perhaps too with the suggestion of a brothel, since Hamlet is openly skeptical of the idea that beauty and chastity can coexist in women).[\/footnote] Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am\nmyself indifferent honest,[footnote]Reasonably virtuous.[\/footnote] but yet I could accuse me[footnote]Accuse myself.[\/footnote] of such things that it\n1780<\/sub>were better my mother had not borne me: I am very proud, revengeful,\nambitious, with more offenses at my beck[footnote]Command.[\/footnote] than I have thoughts to put them\nin, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in. What should such\nfellows as I do crawling between heaven and earth? We are arrant[footnote]Downright.[\/footnote] knaves,\n1785<\/sub>all; believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery. Where's your father?\n\nOphelia<\/strong>\nAt home, my lord.\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nLet the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool nowhere but in's\nown house. Farewell.\n\nOphelia<\/strong>\nOh, help him, you sweet heavens!\n\n1790<\/sub>Hamlet<\/strong>\nIf thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague for thy dowry: be thou as chaste\nas ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny.[footnote]Slander.[\/footnote] Get thee to a\nnunnery. Go, farewell. Or if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool, for wise\n1795<\/sub>men know well enough what monsters[footnote]Cuckolded men were popularly supposed to have monster-like horns on their foreheads as a sign of their being cheated on by their wives.[\/footnote] you make[footnote]You women make.[\/footnote] of them. To a nunnery go,\nand quickly too. Farewell.\n\nOphelia<\/strong>\nO heavenly powers, restore him!\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nI have heard of your paintings[footnote]Use of cosmetics.[\/footnote] too, well enough. God hath given you one face,\n1800<\/sub>and you make yourselves another. You jig, you amble, and you lisp,[footnote]You dance about, you swing your hips suggestively when you walk, you speak with an affected voice.[\/footnote] and\nnickname God's creatures,[footnote]i.e., and you impose new names and false appearances on the creatures of this world instead of accepting them as God made them. In the Book of Genesis God gives names to his first creations, as when he \"called the dry land earth, and the gathering together of the waters called the Seas,\" and then ordained the abundance of moving creatures (1.10-25), but when he had created Adam, he turned the naming of the beasts and fowl over to him: \"he brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them,\" and so \"Adam gave names to all the cattle, and to the fowl of the air\" (2.19-20).[\/footnote] and make your wantonness your ignorance.[footnote]And you excuse your bad behavior on the grounds that you didn't know any better.[\/footnote] Go\nto,[footnote]An expression of impatience.[\/footnote] I'll no more on't;[footnote]I won't have any more of this.[\/footnote] it hath made me mad. I say we will have no more\nmarriages. Those that are married already, all but one,[footnote]Presumably, all but the King. (Whether Hamlet says this in the knowledge that the King is listening is a matter of interpretation.)[\/footnote] shall live; the rest\n1805<\/sub>shall keep as they are. To a nunnery, go.\nExit.<\/em>\n\nOphelia<\/strong>\nOh, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!\nThe courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword,[footnote]The three attributes are not listed in the same order as that used for the three types of persons; the pattern is more rhetorical than strictly logical. \"Sword\" clearly goes with the soldier; \"eye\" and \"tongue\" could indicate scholar and courtier, or the reverse.[\/footnote]\nTh'expectancy and rose[footnote]The hope and ornament.[\/footnote] of the fair state,\nThe glass of fashion and the mold of form,[footnote]The mirror of true self-fashioning and the model of courtly behavior.[\/footnote]\n1810<\/sub>Th'observed of all observers,[footnote]The admired center of attention in the court.[\/footnote] quite, quite down,\nAnd I, of ladies most deject and wretched,\nThat sucked the honey of his music vows,\nNow see that noble and most sovereign reason[footnote]i.e., reason as properly the sovereign or ruler over the emotions and the senses.[\/footnote]\nLike sweet bells jangled out of tune and harsh,\n1815<\/sub>That unmatched form and feature of blown youth[footnote]Youth in its full blossoming.[\/footnote]\nBlasted with ecstasy.[footnote]Blighted with madness.[\/footnote] Oh, woe is me\nT'have seen what I have seen, see what I see!\nEnter King and Polonius [stepping forward from concealment].<\/em>\n\nKing<\/strong>\nLove? His affections[footnote]Emotions, feelings.[\/footnote] do not that way tend,\n1820<\/sub>Nor what he spake, though it lacked form a little,\nWas not like madness. There's something in his soul\nO'er which his melancholy sits on brood,[footnote]Sits like a bird on a nest, about to \"hatch\" mischief (in the next line).[\/footnote]\nAnd I do doubt the hatch and the disclose[footnote]And I do fear that the fulfillment and the discovery (like the hatching of a chick as it emerges from its shell).[\/footnote]\nWill be some danger; which to prevent,\n1825<\/sub>I have in quick determination\nThus set it down:[footnote]Determined, resolved the matter; put it in writing.[\/footnote] he shall with speed to England\nFor the demand of our neglected tribute.\nHaply[footnote]Perhaps.[\/footnote] the seas, and countries different,\nWith variable objects,[footnote]Various sights and surroundings to divert him.[\/footnote] shall expel\n1830<\/sub>This something-settled[footnote]Somewhat fixated.[\/footnote] matter in his heart,\nWhereon his brains still[footnote]Continually.[\/footnote] beating puts him thus\nFrom fashion of himself.[footnote]Out of his normal mode of behavior.[\/footnote] What think you on't?\n\nPolonius<\/strong>\nIt shall do well.But yet do I believe\nThe origin and commencement of his grief\n1835<\/sub>Sprung from neglected love.--How now, Ophelia?\nYou need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said,\nWe heard it all.--My lord, do as you please,\nBut if you hold it fit, after the play\nLet his queen-mother all alone entreat him\n1840<\/sub>To show his grief. Let her be round[footnote]Blunt.[\/footnote] with him,\nAnd I'll be placed (so please you) in the ear\nOf all their conference. If she find him not,[footnote]Is unable to discover what is troubling him.[\/footnote]\nTo England send him, or confine him where\nYour wisdom best shall think.\n\n1845<\/sub>King<\/strong>\nIt shall be so;\nMadness in great ones must not unwatched go.\nExeunt.<\/em>\n

Scene 2<\/h1>\nEnter<\/em>[footnote]Location: A room of state in the castle.[\/footnote] Hamlet, and two or three of the Players.<\/em>\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\n1850<\/sub>Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the\ntongue; but if you mouth[footnote]Declaim, speak exaggeratedly.[\/footnote] it, as many of your players[footnote]Actors nowadays, the actors that people talk about.[\/footnote] do, I had as lief[footnote]I'd just as soon, be just as willing.[\/footnote] the\ntown crier[footnote]Person assigned the responsibility of loudly proclaiming public announcements in the streets.[\/footnote] had spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand,\nthus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say,\n1855<\/sub>whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget[footnote]Cultivate and nurture.[\/footnote] a temperance that may\ngive it smoothness. Oh, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious[footnote]Boisterous, bombastic.[\/footnote] periwig-\npated[footnote]Wig-wearing. The term \"groundlings,\" seemingly Shakespeare's invention, has condescending connotations of low taste and gullibility in the spectators.[\/footnote] fellowtear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the\n1860<\/sub>groundlings, who for the most part are capable of[footnote]Able to understand.[\/footnote] nothing but inexplicable\ndumb-shows and noise.[footnote]Noisy spectacles (as differentiated from complex and intellectually demanding drama).[\/footnote] I would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing\nTermagant.[footnote]A supposed Mohammedan deity who, though not actually found in extant English medieval drama, had become a byword for tyrannical bluster, like Herod (see next note).[\/footnote] It out-Herods Herod.[footnote]King of Judea who ordered the massacre of all male children in his kingdom as a means of destroying the child that, wise men told him, was \"born King of the Jews\" (Matthew 2:2)--namely, Christ.[\/footnote] Pray you avoid it.\n\nPlayer<\/strong>\nI warrant[footnote]Assure.[\/footnote] your honor.\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\n1865<\/sub>Be not too tame, neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor. Suit the\naction to the word, the word to the action, with this special observance, that\nyou o'erstep not the modesty of nature. For anything so o'erdone is from the\npurpose[footnote]Contrary to the purpose.[\/footnote] of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is to hold\n1870<\/sub>as 'twere the mirror up to nature, to show virtue her own feature, scorn her\nown image,[footnote]To show human nature an image of itself and scornful persons a picture of what they look like. [\/footnote] and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.[footnote]And the present state of affairs a likeness of itself as if impressed in wax. (\"His form\" means \"its form.\")[\/footnote]\nNow this overdone, or come tardy off,[footnote]Done lamely.[\/footnote] though it make the unskillful[footnote]Make those who lack critical discernment; the opposite of \"the judicious.\"[\/footnote] laugh,\n1875<\/sub>cannot but make the judicious grieve, the censure of the which one must in\nyour allowance o'erweigh a whole theater of others. Oh, there be players that\nI have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly, not to speak it\nprofanely,[footnote]i.e., I hope I will not be speaking profanely if I venture so far as to damn such bad actors as neither Christian, pagan, or any other part of the human race (as Hamlet says in the words that follow here).[\/footnote] that, neither having th'accent of Christians nor the gait of\n1880<\/sub>Christian, pagan, nor no man, have so strutted and bellowed that I have\nthought some of nature's journeymen[footnote]i.e., not Nature herself but merely one of her hired assistants.[\/footnote] had made men, and not made them\nwell, they imitated humanity so abominably.\n\nPlayer<\/strong>\n1885<\/sub>I hope we have reformed that indifferently[footnote]Tolerably, moderately well.[\/footnote] with us, sir.\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nOh, reform it altogether. And let those that play your clowns speak no more\nthan is set down for them; for there be of them that will themselves laugh, to\n1890<\/sub>set on[footnote]Incite.[\/footnote] some quantity of barren[footnote]Devoid of wit or judgment.[\/footnote] spectators to laugh too, though in the\nmeantime some necessary question of the play be then to be considered.\nThat's villainous, and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it.\nGo make you ready.\nExeunt Players.<\/em>\nEnter Polonius, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern.<\/em>\n1895<\/sub>[To Polonius]<\/em> How now, my lord,\nwill the King hear this piece of work?\n\nPolonius<\/strong>\nAnd the Queen too, and that presently.[footnote]At once.[\/footnote]\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nBid the players make haste.\nExit Polonius.<\/em>\nWill you two help to hasten them?\n\n1900<\/sub>Rosencrantz and Guildenstern<\/strong>\nWe will, my lord.\nExeunt [Rosencrantz and Guildenstern].<\/em>\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nWhat ho, Horatio!\nEnter Horatio.<\/em>\n\nHoratio<\/strong>\nHere, sweet lord, at your service.\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nHoratio, thou art e'en[footnote]Even, absolutely.[\/footnote] as just[footnote]Judicious, honorable, trustworthy.[\/footnote] a man\n1905<\/sub>As e'er my conversation coped withal.[footnote]As I have ever encountered in my experience with people.[\/footnote]\n\nHoratio<\/strong>\nOh, my dear lord--\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nNay, do not think I flatter,\nFor what advancement may I hope from thee\nThat no revenue hast but thy good spirits\n1910<\/sub>To feed and clothe thee? Why should the poor be flattered?\nNo, let the candied[footnote]Sugary, flattering.[\/footnote] tongue lick absurd pomp\nAnd crook the pregnant[footnote]Compliant.[\/footnote] hinges of the knee\nWhere thrift may follow fawning.[footnote]Wherever profit may accrue from abject flattery.[\/footnote] Dost thou hear?\nSince my dear soul was mistress of her choice\n1915<\/sub>And could of men distinguish her election,\nSh'hath sealed thee for herself,[footnote]And could make discriminating choices among men, she (my soul) has marked you as her own, as though putting a legal seal on you to ensure possession.[\/footnote] for thou hast been\nAs one in suff'ring all that suffers nothing,\nA man that Fortune's buffets and rewards\nHast ta'en with equal thanks; and blest are those\n1920<\/sub>Whose blood and judgment[footnote]Passion and reason. [\/footnote] are so well commingled\nThat they are not a pipe for Fortune's finger\nTo sound what stop[footnote]Hole in a recorder or similar wind instrument for controlling pitch. This observation about the \"stop\" on a recorder anticipates Hamlet's caustic exchange with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern later in this present scene (lines 227, TLN 2221, and following).[\/footnote] she please. Give me that man\nThat is not passion's slave, and I will wear him\nIn my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart,\n1925<\/sub>As I do thee.--Something too much of this.--[footnote]i.e., I've already said too much on this subject. (Hamlet obliquely apologizes to Horatio for having expressed so deeply and personally his affection and admiration.)[\/footnote]\nThere is a play tonight before the King.\nOne scene of it comes near the circumstance\nWhich I have told thee of my father's death.\nI prithee, when thou see'st that act afoot,\n1930<\/sub>Even with the very comment of thy soul[footnote]With your utmost powers of concentration.[\/footnote]\nObserve my uncle. If his occulted[footnote]Hidden.[\/footnote] guilt\nDo not itself unkennel[footnote]Reveal itself (as a fox might be flushed from its lair).[\/footnote] in one speech,[footnote]Presumably Hamlet here refers to the speech that he has asked the First Player to memorize and insert into the upcoming performance of \"The Murder of Gongazo.\" See 3.1.331, TLN 1581-2, above.[\/footnote]\nIt is a damn\u00e8d ghost that we have seen,\nAnd my imaginations are as foul\n1935<\/sub>As Vulcan's stithy.[footnote]The stithy or workshop of Vulcan, blacksmith-god of fire (and husband of Venus). Stiths are anvils.[\/footnote] Give him heedful note,\nFor I mine eyes will rivet to his face,\nAnd after we will both our judgments join\nIn censure of his seeming.\n\nHoratio<\/strong>\nWell, my lord,\n1940<\/sub>If 'a steal aught the whilst this play is playing\nAnd scape detecting, I will pay the theft.[footnote]Pay for what has been stolen, i.e., make amends for my inadequate observation of the King.[\/footnote]\nEnter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and<\/em>\n1945<\/sub>other lord attendant with his Guard carrying torches. Danish march.<\/em>\n Sound a flourish.<\/em>\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nThey are coming to the play. I must be idle.[footnote](1) be unoccupied; (2) resume my mad guise.[\/footnote] Get you a place.\n\nKing<\/strong>\nHow fares our cousin Hamlet?[footnote]How are things with you, my kinsman Hamlet? (But Hamlet, in his reply, plays on \"fares\" in the sense of \"dines.\")[\/footnote]\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\n1950<\/sub>Excellent, i'faith, of the chameleon's dish; I eat the air, promise-crammed.[footnote](1) I am feeding on air, like the chameleon (which was fabled to feed thus); (2) I am feeding myself with thoughts about succeeding to the Danish crown, having been given nothing but empty promises of succession. (Hamlet is \"heir\" apparent; the word sounds like \"air.\")[\/footnote]\nYou cannot feed capons[footnote](1) castrated roosters, often crammed with feed to make them succulent for the dinner table; (2) fools.[\/footnote] so.\n\nKing<\/strong>\nI have nothing with[footnote]I can make nothing of, can learn nothing from.[\/footnote] this answer, Hamlet. These words are not mine.[footnote]Do not respond to what I asked and thus are meaningless to me.[\/footnote]\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nNo, nor mine now.[footnote]These words are so longer mine, since I have uttered them and sent them forth into the air.[\/footnote] [To Polonius]<\/em> My lord, you played once i'th' university, you say?\n\n1955<\/sub>Polonius<\/strong>\nThat I did, my lord, and was accounted a good actor.\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nAnd what did you enact?\n\nPolonius<\/strong>\nI did enact Julius Caesar. I was killed i'th' Capitol. Brutus killed me.\n\n1960<\/sub>Hamlet<\/strong>\nIt was a brute[footnote]The word plays on \"Brutus,\" the name of one of the chief conspirators against Caesar and also a synonym in Latin for \"stupid.\" According to historical legend, Marcus Brutus's great ancestor in the founding of the Roman republic, Lucius Junius Brutus, pretended to be stupid (much as Hamlet assumes a guise of madness) to throw off his tyrannical enemies; hence, his name \"Brutus,\" stupid.[\/footnote] part[footnote](1) action; (2) role in a play.[\/footnote] of him to kill so capital a calf[footnote]i.e., so outstanding a fool. With satirical wordplay on \"capital\/Capitol\"; see the previous line.[\/footnote] there.--Be the players\nready?\n\nRosencrantz<\/strong>\nAy, my lord, they stay upon your patience.[footnote]Await instructions from you as to when to begin.[\/footnote]\n\nQueen<\/strong>\nCome hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me.\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nNo, good mother, here's mettle[footnote](1) mettle, disposition, temperament. (2) metal, an attractive quality (much as a magnet attracts iron).[\/footnote] more attractive.\n\n1965<\/sub>Polonius<\/strong>\n[To the King]<\/em> Oho, do you mark that?\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\n[To Ophelia, as he lies at her feet]<\/em> Lady, shall I lie in your lap?[footnote]On stage, Hamlet often reclines at Ophelia's feet.[\/footnote]\n\nOphelia<\/strong>\nNo, my lord.\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nI mean, my head upon your lap.\n\nOphelia<\/strong>\nAy, my lord.\n\n1970<\/sub>Hamlet<\/strong>\nDo you think I meant country matters?[footnote]Rustic goings-on. (The obscene punning here on \"cunt\" continues in \"nothing.\"[\/footnote]\n\nOphelia<\/strong>\nI think nothing, my lord.\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nThat's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs.\n\nOphelia<\/strong>\nWhat is, my lord?\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nNothing.[footnote](1) The oval figure of zero, suggesting a woman's vagina; (2) No \"thing,\" no penis. (\"Thing\" is a common euphemism in this sense.)[\/footnote]\n\n1975<\/sub>Ophelia<\/strong>\nYou are merry, my lord.\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nWho, I?\n\nOphelia<\/strong>\nAy, my lord.\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nOh, God, your only jig-maker.[footnote]i.e., if you talk of being merry, let me tell you that I'm very best singer and dancer of jigs (that is, of pointless vulgar merriment) you could hope to find. (Said sardonically.) Jigs were often tacked on gratuitously at the ends of dramatic performances, for the diversion of the audience.[\/footnote] What should a man do but be merry? For\n1980<\/sub>look you how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died within's[footnote]Within these.[\/footnote] two\nhours.\n\nOphelia<\/strong>\nNay, 'tis twice two months, my lord.\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nSo long? Nay, then, let the devil wear black, for I'll have a suit of sables.[footnote]i.e., if mourning for my dead father has ceased after only two months, then the devil can wear mourning black for all I care, while I shift to the dark fur of the sable, outwardly suitable for remembrance of the dead but in fact quite soft and luxurious.[\/footnote] Oh,\n1985<\/sub>heavens! Die two months ago, and not forgotten yet? Then there's hope a\ngreat man's memory may outlive his life half a year. But, by'r Lady, 'a must\nbuild churches then, or else shall 'a suffer not thinking on, with the hobby-\nhorse,[footnote]A costuming device used in Morris dances and May-game sports in which the dancer is made up to resemble a horse and its rider by strapping the shape of a horse's body around his waist. Hamlet quotes from a lost ballad, occurring in Love's Labor's Lost , 3.1.27-8, lamenting the disappearance of Morris dancing and such folk customs under pressure from zealous Puritan reformers.[\/footnote] whose epitaph is, \"For oh, for oh, the hobby-horse is forgot.\"\n1990<\/sub>Hautboys play. The dumb-show enters. <\/em>Enter [Players as] a King and\nQueen very lovingly; the Queen embracing him. She kneels and makes show\nof protestation unto him. He takes her up, and declines his head upon her\n1995<\/sub>neck. Lays him down upon a bank of flowers. She, seeing him <\/em>asleep, leaves\nhim. Anon comes in a fellow, takes off his crown, kisses it, pours poison in\nthe King's ears, and exits. The Queen returns, finds the King dead, and\nmakes passionate action. The Poisoner, with some two or three mutes, comes\n2000<\/sub>in again, seeming to lament with her. <\/em>The dead body is carried away. The\nPoisoner woos the Queen with gifts. She seems loath and unwilling awhile,\nbut in the end accepts his love.\nExeunt [Players].<\/em>\n\nOphelia<\/strong>\nWhat means this, my lord?\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\n2005<\/sub>Marry, this is miching mallico.[footnote]This is stealthy mischief.[\/footnote] It means mischief.\n\nOphelia<\/strong>\nBelike[footnote]Probably, perhaps.[\/footnote] this show imports the argument of the play.[footnote]Signifies the plot.[\/footnote]\nEnter [a Player as] Prologue.<\/em>\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nWe shall know by this fellow. The players cannot keep counsel;[footnote]Keep a secret.[\/footnote] they'll tell\nall.\n\n2010<\/sub>Ophelia<\/strong>\nWill 'a tell us what this show meant?\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nAy, or any show that you will show him. Be not you[footnote]Provided you are not.[\/footnote] ashamed to show, he'll not\nshame to tell you what it means.\n\nOphelia<\/strong>\n2015<\/sub>You are naught,[footnote]Naughty, indecent. (Ophelia sees all too clearly the offensive thrust of Hamlet's talk about her not being ashamed to show all.)[\/footnote] you are naught. I'll mark[footnote]Pay attention to.[\/footnote] the play.\n\nPrologue<\/strong>\nFor us and for our tragedy,\nHere stooping to your clemency,\nWe beg your hearing patiently.\n[Exit.]<\/em>\n\n2020<\/sub>Hamlet<\/strong>\nIs this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?[footnote]Brief verse motto inscribed inside a ring.[\/footnote]\n\nOphelia<\/strong>\n'Tis brief, my lord.\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nAs woman's love.\nEnter [two Players as] King and his Queen.<\/em>\n\nKing<\/strong>\nFull thirty times hath Phoebus' cart[footnote]The sun-god's chariot, i.e., the sun itself.[\/footnote] gone round\n2025<\/sub>Neptune's salt wash[footnote]The sea, the realm of the god Neptune.[\/footnote] and Tellus' orb\u00e8d ground,[footnote]The round earth, the realm of the goddess Tellus, Earth.[\/footnote]\nAnd thirty dozen moons with borrowed sheen[footnote]Light reflected from the sun.[\/footnote]\nAbout the world have times twelve thirties[footnote]The King reckons that he and his queen have been married thirty years, each year comprising a span of twelve lunar cycles.[\/footnote] been\nSince love our hearts and Hymen[footnote]God of marriage.[\/footnote] did our hands\nUnite commutual[footnote]Mutually, reciprocally.[\/footnote] in most sacred bands.[footnote]Bonds.[\/footnote]\n\n2030<\/sub>Queen<\/strong>\nSo many journeys may the sun and moon\nMake us again count o'er ere love be done!\nBut woe is me, you are so sick of late,\nSo far from cheer and from your former state,\nThat I distrust you.[footnote]Am anxious about you.[\/footnote] Yet though I distrust,\n2035<\/sub>Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must.[footnote]It must not distress you at all, my lord.[\/footnote]\n2035.1<\/sub>For women fear too much, even as they love,[footnote]Women are apt to be extreme in their loving and are fearful to the same excessive extent.[\/footnote]\nAnd women's fear and love holds quantity:\nIn neither aught, or in extremity.[footnote]Either women feel no anxiety if they do not love at all, or, if they love extremely, they are prone to extreme anxiety.[\/footnote]\nNow what my love is, proof[footnote]Experience.[\/footnote] hath made you know,\nAnd as my love is sized, my fear is so.[footnote]And just as my love is great in quantity, my fear of losing you is proportionately huge.[\/footnote]\n2039.1<\/sub>Where love is great, the littlest[footnote]Even the littlest.[\/footnote] doubts are fear;\nWhere little fears grow great, great love grows there.\n\n2040<\/sub>King<\/strong>\nFaith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly too;\nMy operant powers their functions leave to do.[footnote]My vital faculties are ceasing to perform their functions.[\/footnote]\nAnd thou shalt live in this fair world behind,[footnote]After I am gone.[\/footnote]\nHonored, beloved; and haply one as kind\nFor husband shalt thou--[footnote]i.e., shalt thou find (to complete the couplet by rhyming \"find\" with \"kind.\" (The Player King is interrupted by his consort.)[\/footnote]\n\n2045<\/sub>Queen<\/strong>\nOh, confound the rest!\nSuch love must needs be treason in my breast.\nIn second husband let me be accurst!\nNone[footnote](1) Let no wife; (2) No wife does.[\/footnote] wed the second but who[footnote]Except she who.[\/footnote] killed the first.\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nWormwood, wormwood.[footnote]i.e., How bitter! (Wormwood is a bitter-tasting plant.)[\/footnote]\n\n2050<\/sub>Queen<\/strong>\nThe instances[footnote]Motives, reasons.[\/footnote] that second marriage move[footnote]Prompt, motivate.[\/footnote]\nAre base respects of thrift,[footnote]Ignoble considerations of financial prudence.[\/footnote] but none of love.\nA second time I kill my husband dead\nWhen second husband kisses me in bed.\n\nKing<\/strong>\nI do believe you think what now you speak,\n2055<\/sub>But what we do determine, oft we break.\nPurpose is but the slave to memory,[footnote]Our good intentions are too often subject to forgetfulness.[\/footnote]\nOf violent birth, but poor validity,[footnote]Energetically conceived at first but lacking in staying power.[\/footnote]\nWhich now like fruit unripe[footnote]Which purposeful intent, being immature and poorly thought through.[\/footnote] sticks on the tree,\nBut fall unshaken when they mellow be.\n2060<\/sub>Most necessary 'tis that we forget\nTo pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt.[footnote]It's necessary and inevitable that in time we neglect to fulfill the obligations that we have imposed on ourselves.[\/footnote]\nWhat to ourselves in passion we propose,\nThe passion ending, doth the purpose lose.\nThe violence of either grief or joy\n2065<\/sub>Their own enactures[footnote]Fulfillments, enactments.[\/footnote] with themselves destroy.[footnote]Violent extremes of both grief and joy engender their own destruction in the very act of manifesting themselves.[\/footnote]\nWhere joy most revels, grief doth most lament;\nGrief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident.[footnote]Grief turns to joy and joy to grief on the slightest occasion.[\/footnote]\nThis world is not for aye,[footnote]For ever.[\/footnote] nor 'tis not strange\nThat even our loves should with our fortunes change;\n2070<\/sub>For 'tis a question left us yet to prove\nWhether love lead fortune, or else fortune love.[footnote]Whether Fortune or Love prevailed more mightily in the world's affairs was a favorite debating topic in the Renaissance.[\/footnote]\nThe great man down,[footnote]Fallen in fortune.[\/footnote] you mark his favorites flies;[footnote]His most favored supporter abandons him.[\/footnote]\nThe poor advanced makes friends of enemies;[footnote]When one of humble station is promoted, you'll see his former enemies now becoming his friends.[\/footnote]\nAnd hitherto[footnote]Up to this point in the argument, or, to this extent.[\/footnote] doth love on fortune tend,[footnote]Attend, play a subservient role.[\/footnote]\n2075<\/sub>For who not needs[footnote]Anyone who has no need (of wealth or a friend).[\/footnote] shall never lack a friend,\nAnd who in want a hollow friend doth try[footnote]And anyone who, being in need, tests the generosity of an insincere friend.[\/footnote]\nDirectly seasons him[footnote]Immediately turns him into.[\/footnote] his enemy.\nBut orderly to end where I begun,[footnote]Began.[\/footnote]\nOur wills and fates do so contrary run[footnote]What we wish for ourselves and what in fact happens to us are so opposite to each other.[\/footnote]\n2080<\/sub>That our devices still[footnote]Intentions continually.[\/footnote] are overthrown;\nOur thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.[footnote]No matter what we intend, the results go astray.[\/footnote]\nSo, think[footnote]i.e., (1) So, go ahead and think, or, (2) So, even if you think now that.[\/footnote] thou wilt no second husband wed,\nBut die thy thoughts[footnote]Either (1) your thoughts will die, or (2) let them die.[\/footnote] when thy first lord is dead.\n\nQueen<\/strong>\nNor earth to me give[footnote]Neither let earth give me.[\/footnote] food, nor heaven light,\n2085<\/sub>Sport and repose lock from me day and night,[footnote]May day bar me from recreation and night from repose.[\/footnote]\n2085.1<\/sub>To desperation turn my trust and hope,\nAn anchor's cheer in prison be my scope![footnote]May an anchorite's or hermit's fare be the extent of my portion of food and drink.[\/footnote]\nEach opposite that blanks the face of joy\nMeet what I would have well, and it destroy![footnote]May every adverse thing that causes the face of joy to turn blank or pale encounter and destroy everything that I wish to see prosper![\/footnote]\nBoth here and hence pursue me lasting strife,[footnote]May eternal punishment pursue me in this life and the next.[\/footnote]\nIf once a widow, ever I be wife!\n\n2090<\/sub>Hamlet<\/strong>\nIf she should break it now![footnote]i.e., after the vows that she has sworn.[\/footnote]\n\nKing<\/strong>\n'Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here awhile.\nMy spirits grow dull, and fain[footnote]Willingly.[\/footnote] I would beguile\nThe tedious day with sleep.\n\n2095<\/sub>Queen<\/strong>\nSleep rock thy brain,\nAnd never come mischance between us twain!\n[The Player King] sleeps. Exit [Player Queen].<\/em>\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nMadam, how like you this play?\n\nQueen<\/strong>\nThe lady doth protest too much,[footnote]Offers too many promises and protestations.[\/footnote] methinks.\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nOh, but she'll keep her word.\n\n2100<\/sub>King<\/strong>\nHave you heard the argument?[footnote]Plot.[\/footnote] Is there no offense in't?\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nNo, no, they do but jest,[footnote]Make believe.[\/footnote] poison in jest. No offense[footnote]Something that offends one's sensibilities . . . crime.[\/footnote] i'th' world.\n\nKing<\/strong>\nWhat do you call the play?\n\n2105<\/sub>Hamlet<\/strong>\nThe Mousetrap.<\/em>[footnote]Hamlet's nickname here for \"The Murder of Gonzago\" hints to the audience at his plan to use the play to \"catch the conscience of the King\" (2.2.391, TLN 1645).[\/footnote] Marry, how? Tropically.[footnote]\/ How, indeed? Figuratively, as a \"trope\" or figure of speech, playing on words.[\/footnote] This play is the image of a murder\ndone in Vienna. Gonzago is the Duke's[footnote]i.e., the King's.[\/footnote] name, his wife Baptista. You shall\nsee anon. 'Tis a knavish piece of work, but what of that? Your majesty and\n2110<\/sub>we that have free[footnote]Guiltless, unfettered.[\/footnote] souls, it touches[footnote]Concerns; injures.[\/footnote] us not. Let the galled jade wince, our\nwithers are unwrung.[footnote]Let the chafed horse wince and kick at being galled by its saddle or harness; our horse is not rubbed sore between its shoulder blades\/ (i.e., only the guilty will be made uncomfortable by this story of a duke who murders in order to win the wife of his victim).[\/footnote]\nEnter Lucianus.<\/em>\nThis is one Lucianus, nephew to the King.\n\nOphelia<\/strong>\nYou are as good as a chorus,[footnote]You serve as well as the actor whose function is to introduce forthcoming action on stage.[\/footnote] my lord.\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\n2115<\/sub>I could interpret between you and your love if I could see the puppets\ndallying.[footnote]Hamlet imagines for himself the role of interpreter or chorus for a puppet show, with the suggestion too of being a go-between in an affair. \"Dallying\" continues the sexual suggestion, as do Hamlet's quips in the following lines.[\/footnote]\n\nOphelia<\/strong>\nYou are keen,[footnote]Sharp, bitterly satirical (but see next note for Hamlet's wordplay).[\/footnote] my lord, you are keen.\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nIt would cost you a groaning to take off mine edge.[footnote]It would cost you a pregnancy to satiate the keenness of my sexual appetite.[\/footnote]\n\nOphelia<\/strong>\nStill better and worse.[footnote]i.e., Witty as always, albeit incorrigibly smutty. (These exchanges are said as playful banter, not as overt barbs.)[\/footnote]\n\n2120<\/sub>Hamlet<\/strong>\nSo you mis-take your husbands.[footnote]i.e., That's just the way you women take other men into your beds instead of your husbands. Hamlet plays on the language of the Form of Solemnization of Matrimony in the Book of Common Prayer bidding bride and groom to take their new partners \"for better, for worse.\"[\/footnote]--Begin, murderer. Pox, leave[footnote]\"Pox\" or \"Poxe\" is an exclamation of impatience, referring literally to the pock-marks caused by syphilis and other diseases.[\/footnote] thy damnable faces[footnote]Deplorable and devilish grimaces.[\/footnote]\nand begin. Come, the croaking raven doth bellow for revenge.\n\nLucianus<\/strong>\n2125<\/sub>Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing,\nConfederate season, else no creature seeing,[footnote]A complicit or conspiring time, providing darkness so that no one will discover the crime.[\/footnote]\nThou mixture rank,[footnote]Foul, offensive.[\/footnote] of midnight weeds collected,\nWith Hecate's ban[footnote]The curse invoked by Hecate, goddess of witchcraft.[\/footnote] thrice blasted,[footnote]Blighted.[\/footnote] thrice infected,\nThy natural magic and dire property[footnote]Baleful power or quality.[\/footnote]\n2130<\/sub>On wholesome life usurp immediately.\nPours the poison in his ears. Exit.<\/em>\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\n'A poisons him i'th' garden for his estate.[footnote]Property, i.e., the kingship.[\/footnote] His name's Gonzago. The story is\nextant, and written in very choice Italian. You shall see anon how the murderer gets\n2135<\/sub>the love of Gonzago's wife.\n\nOphelia<\/strong>\nThe King rises.\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nWhat, frighted with false fire?\n\nQueen<\/strong>\nHow fares my lord?\n\nPolonius<\/strong>\nGive o'er the play.\n\n2140<\/sub>King<\/strong>\nGive me some light. Away!\n\nThe Courtiers<\/strong>\nLights, lights, lights!\nExeunt all but Hamlet and Horatio.<\/em>\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\n\"Why, let the strucken deer go weep,\nThe heart ungall\u00e8d[footnote]Unafflicted.[\/footnote] play,\n2145<\/sub>For some must watch[footnote]Stay awake.[\/footnote] while some must sleep;\nThus runs the world away.\"[footnote]That is the way of the world. [\/footnote][footnote]Seemingly from an unknown ballad, alluding to the folk tradition of the wounded deer that retires from company to weep in solitude as it dies.[\/footnote]\nWould not this,[footnote]i.e., the play I have just presented and contributed some lines to.[\/footnote] sir, and a forest of feathers[footnote]i.e., extravagantly plumed headgear worn by the actors.[\/footnote]--if the rest of my fortunes turn\nTurk with me[footnote]Even if good fortune should desert me. (To \"turn Turk\" is to renounce Christianity in favor of the Muslim religion.) Hamlet jestingly asks if his newly proven skill in theatrical matters might offer him a mean of livelihood if his fortunes turn otherwise against him.[\/footnote]--with two provincial roses[footnote]Two large rosettes of ribbon, worn decoratively over shoelaces and named for the region of Provence in southern France.[\/footnote] on my razed[footnote]Decoratively slashed.[\/footnote] shoes, get me a\n2150<\/sub>fellowship in a cry of players, sir?\n\nHoratio<\/strong>\nHalf a share.\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nA whole one, I.\nFor thou dost know, O Damon[footnote]The steadfast friend of Pythias in the story as dramatized in Richard Edwards's Damon and Pythias, here appropriate to the friendship of Hamlet and Horatio.[\/footnote] dear,\nThis realm dismantled was of Jove himself,\n2155<\/sub>And now reigns here\nA very, very pajock.[footnote]This realm has been divested of its greatness by Jove himself, leaving the kingdom in the charge of a vain pretender to virtue and authority. (\"Pajock\", meaning \"peacock\" or \"patchcock,\" provides a ludicrous substitution for the word that would rhyme with \"was\" in line 198, presumably \"ass.\")[\/footnote][footnote]This stanza appears to be adapted from some unknown ballad.[\/footnote]\n\nHoratio<\/strong>\nYou might have rhymed.\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nO good Horatio, I'll take the Ghost's word for a thousand pound. Didst\nperceive?\n\n2160<\/sub>Horatio<\/strong>\nVery well, my lord.\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nUpon the talk of the poisoning?\n\nHoratio<\/strong>\nI did very well note him.\nEnter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.<\/em>\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nAha, come, some music! Come, the recorders.[footnote]Wind instruments characterized by a conical tube, a whistle mouthpiece, and eight finger holes; related to the flute.[\/footnote]\n2165<\/sub>For if the King like not the comedy,\nWhy, then belike[footnote]Perhaps.[\/footnote] he likes it not, pardie.[footnote]A version of the French \"par dieu.\u201d[\/footnote]\nCome, some music.\n\nGuildenstern<\/strong>\nGood my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you.\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nSir a whole history.\n\n2170<\/sub>Guildenstern<\/strong>\nThe King, sir--\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nAy, sir, what of him?\n\nGuildenstern<\/strong>\nIs in his retirement[footnote]His withdrawal to his private chambers.[\/footnote] marvelous distempered.[footnote]Out of temper.[\/footnote]\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nWith drink,[footnote]Hamlet deliberately takes Guildenstern's \"out of temper\" to mean \"drunk,\" supposing the four \"humors\" in the King's body to have been thrown out of balance by excessive drinking.[\/footnote] sir?\n\nGuildenstern<\/strong>\nNo, my lord, rather with choler.[footnote]Instead of that, with anger.[\/footnote]\n\n2175<\/sub>Hamlet<\/strong>\nYour wisdom should show itself more richer[footnote]More rich in wisdom. The double comparative is allowable in early modern usage.[\/footnote] to signify this to his doctor, for,\nfor me to put him to his purgation would perhaps plunge him into far more\ncholer.[footnote]Hamlet's sarcastic reply interprets \"choler\" in terms of humors theory, which saw \"choler\" as an excess of yellow bile producing indigestion as well as anger, and requiring purgation, usually bloodletting--with the ominous suggestion of Hamlet's letting out some of the King's blood. \"Purgation\" also suggests the spiritual cleaning through confession that the King is greatly in need of, with also the legal sense of clearing of guilt for a crime committed.[\/footnote]\n\nGuildenstern<\/strong>\n2180<\/sub>Good my lord, put your discourse into some frame,[footnote]Coherent order.[\/footnote] and start[footnote]Shy away like a nervous horse.[\/footnote] not so wildly\nfrom my affair.\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nI am tame sir. Pronounce.\n\nGuildenstern<\/strong>\nThe Queen your mother, in most great affliction of spirit, hath sent me to\nyou.\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nYou are welcome.\n\n2185<\/sub>Guildenstern<\/strong>\nNay, good my lord, this courtesy is not of the right breed.[footnote](1) kind; (2) breeding, manners. (Guildenstern's point is that Hamlet's \"You are welcome,\" while seemingly polite, sounds sarcastic and not addressed to the issue at hand.)[\/footnote] If it shall please\nyou to make me a wholesome[footnote]Healthy, sane.[\/footnote] answer, I will do your mother's\ncommandment. If not, your pardon[footnote]Permission for me to depart.[\/footnote] and my return shall be the end of my\nbusiness.\n\n2190<\/sub>Hamlet<\/strong>\nSir, I cannot.\n\nGuildenstern<\/strong>\nWhat, my lord?\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nMake you a wholesome answer; my wit's diseased. But, sir, such answer as\nI can make, you shall command, or rather, as you say, my mother.[footnote]Instead, it is my mother's command you are uttering, not your own.[\/footnote] Therefore no\n2195<\/sub> more, but to the matter. My mother, you say.\n\nRosencrantz<\/strong>\nThen thus she says: your behavior hath struck her into amazement and\nadmiration.\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nOh, wonderful son, that can so 'stonish a mother! But is there no sequel at\n2200<\/sub>the heels of this mother's admiration?[footnote]Bewilderment.[\/footnote] Impart.[footnote]Speak, say something.[\/footnote]\n\nRosencrantz<\/strong>\nShe desires to speak with you in her closet[footnote]Private chamber.[\/footnote] ere you go to bed.\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nWe shall obey, were she ten times our mother. Have you any further trade\nwith us?\n\n2205<\/sub>Rosencrantz<\/strong>\nMy lord, you once did love me.\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nSo I do still, by these pickers and stealers.[footnote]i.e., hands. In the Catechism in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, the person who is being prepared for Confirmation must vow \"to keep my hands from picking and stealing.\"[\/footnote]\n\nRosencrantz<\/strong>\nGood my lord, what is your cause of distemper?[footnote]The cause of your disorder.[\/footnote] You do surely bar the door\nupon your own liberty if you deny your griefs to[footnote]Refuse to share your unhappiness with.[\/footnote] your friend.\n\n2210<\/sub>Hamlet<\/strong>\nSir, I lack advancement.\n\nRosencrantz<\/strong>\nHow can that be, when you have the voice of the King himself for your\nsuccession in Denmark?\n2215<\/sub>Enter the Players, with recorders.<\/em>\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nAy, sir, but \"while the grass grows\"[footnote]The whole proverb reads \"While the grass grows, the horse (steed) starves.\" Hamlet implies that his hopes of succeeding to the throne are distant at best, despite the King's having named him \"most immediate to our throne\" at 1.2.109 (TLN 291).[\/footnote]--the proverb is something[footnote]Somewhat.[\/footnote] musty.\n--Oh, the recorders. Let me see one. [He takes a recorder.]<\/em> To withdraw with you,\nwhy do you go about to recover the wind of me,[footnote]Get to my windward side (just as a hunter would position himself in such a way that the hunted game, scenting danger, would then be driven in the opposite direction and thus into the \"toil\" or net).[\/footnote] as if you would drive me\ninto a toil?\n\nGuildenstern<\/strong>\n2220<\/sub>Oh, my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly.[footnote]If I am being bold in an unmannerly fashion, it is my affection for you that prompts me to be so.[\/footnote]\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nI do not well understand that.[footnote]Hamlet sounds skeptical of Guildenstern's protestations of love.[\/footnote] Will you play upon this pipe?\n\nGuildenstern<\/strong>\nMy lord, I cannot.\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nI pray you.\n\n2225<\/sub>Guildenstern<\/strong>\nBelieve me, I cannot.\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nI do beseech you.\n\nGuildenstern<\/strong>\nI know no touch of it, my lord.\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nIt is as easy as lying. Govern these ventages[footnote]Finger holes, the \"stops\" (TLN 2231) on the recorder.[\/footnote] with your fingers and thumb,\n2230<\/sub>give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music.\nLook you, these are the stops.\n\nGuildenstern<\/strong>\nBut these cannot I command to any utt'rance of harmony. I have not the\nskill.\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\n2235<\/sub>Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would\nplay upon me, you would seem to know my stops, you would pluck out the\nheart of my mystery,[footnote](1) secret; (2) skill in one of the craft guilds, as practiced for example by musicians.[\/footnote] you would sound me[footnote](1) fathom me to the depths of my mystery; (2) cause me to emit a sound.[\/footnote] from my lowest note to the top of\nmy compass, and there is much music, excellent voice in this little organ,[footnote](1) fathom me to the depths of my mystery; (2) cause me to emit a sound.[\/footnote]\n2240<\/sub>yet cannot you make it speak. 'Sblood,[footnote]By God's blood. (A strong oath.)[\/footnote] do you think I am easier to be played on\nthan a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you\ncannot play upon me.[footnote]i.e., get me to play or dance to your tune.[\/footnote]\nEnter Polonius.<\/em>\n[To Polonius, as he enters]<\/em> God bless you, sir.\n\n2245<\/sub>Polonius<\/strong>\nMy lord, the Queen would speak with you, and presently.[footnote]i.e., and she means right now.[\/footnote]\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nDo you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel?\n\nPolonius<\/strong>\nBy th' mass, and 'tis like[footnote]\"By th' mass\" is a familiar oath, invoking the Holy Sacrament.[\/footnote] a camel indeed.\n\n2250<\/sub>Hamlet<\/strong>\nMethinks it is like a weasel.\n\nPolonius<\/strong>\nIt is backed like a weasel.\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nOr like a whale.\n\nPolonius<\/strong>\nVery like a whale.\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\n2255<\/sub>Then I will come to my mother by and by.[footnote]At once.[\/footnote] [Aside]<\/em> They fool me to the top\nof my bent.[footnote]They humor my odd behavior to the limit of my endurance. Literally, \"to . . . bent\" means \"to the extent to which a bow may be bent.\"[\/footnote]\n[Aloud]<\/em> I will come by and by.\n\nPolonius<\/strong>\nI will say so.\nExit.<\/em>\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\n\"By and by\" is easily said.--Leave me, friends.[footnote]\"By and by\" is easily said\" is Hamlet's acerbic riposte to what Polonius has just said, uttered to him as he is leaving or to anyone who will listen, including the audience.[\/footnote]\nExeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.<\/em>\n'Tis now the very witching time[footnote]A time for witchcraft, when spells are cast and evil is abroad.[\/footnote] of night,\n2260<\/sub>When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out\nContagion[footnote]Spreads its poisonous contagion.[\/footnote] to this world. Now could I drink hot blood,\nAnd do such bitter business as the day\nWould quake to look on. Soft, now to my mother.\nO heart, lose not thy nature![footnote]Natural feeling.[\/footnote] Let not ever\n2265<\/sub>The soul of Nero[footnote]Despotic and emotionally unbalanced Roman emperor (37-68 AD) who had his mother Agrippina put to death.[\/footnote] enter this firm[footnote]Resolved.[\/footnote] bosom.\nLet me be cruel, not unnatural;\nI will speak daggers to her, but use none.\nMy tongue and soul in this be hypocrites:\nHow in my words somever she be shent,\n2270<\/sub>To give them seals never my soul consent![footnote]However much my words may rebuke her, let not my soul ever consent to ratify those words with violence.[\/footnote]\nExit.<\/em>\n

Scene 3<\/h1>\nEnter<\/em>[footnote]Location: The castle.[\/footnote] King, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern.<\/em>\n\nKing<\/strong>\nI like him[footnote]i.e., his behavior.[\/footnote] not, nor stands it safe with us\nTo let his madness range.[footnote]Roam freely.[\/footnote] Therefore prepare you.\nI your commission will forthwith dispatch,[footnote]Prepare, cause to be drawn up.[\/footnote]\n2275<\/sub>And he to England shall along with you.\nThe terms of our estate may not endure\nHazard so dangerous as doth hourly grow\nOut of his lunacies.[footnote]A person in my exalted position should not have to put up with such hazardous threats as seem hourly to be erupting out of Hamlet's feverish brain.[\/footnote]\n\nGuildenstern<\/strong>\nWe will ourselves provide.[footnote]We will prepare ourselves.[\/footnote]\n2280<\/sub>Most holy and religious fear[footnote]Sacred concern and wise caution.[\/footnote] it is\nTo keep those many many bodies[footnote]i.e., subjects, the members of the \"body politic.\" The King's life must be protected because he is the embodiment of the body politic.[\/footnote] safe\nThat live and feed upon your majesty.\n\nRosencrantz<\/strong>\nThe single and peculiar[footnote]Individual and private.[\/footnote] life is bound\n2285<\/sub>With all the strength and armor of the mind\nTo keep itself from noyance,[footnote]Harm.[\/footnote] but much more\nThat spirit[footnote]The monarch.[\/footnote] upon whose weal[footnote]Well-being[\/footnote] depends and rests\nThe lives of many. The cease[footnote]Cessation.[\/footnote] of majesty\nDies not alone, but like a gulf[footnote]Whirlpool.[\/footnote] doth draw\n2290<\/sub>What's near it with it. It is a massy[footnote]Massive.[\/footnote] wheel\nFixed on the summit of the highest mount,\nTo whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things\nAre mortised and adjoined,[footnote]Fastened by inserting a tenon, or projecting member at the end of a timber, into a groove or slot in an adjoining timber called the mortise.[\/footnote] which, when it falls,[footnote]Descends, like the wheel of Fortune.[\/footnote]\nEach small annexment, petty consequence,[footnote]i.e., Each lesser person serving and dependent on the King.[\/footnote]\n2295<\/sub>Attends[footnote]Takes part in, accompanies.[\/footnote] the boist'rous[footnote]Tumultuous.[\/footnote] ruin. Never alone\nDid the king sigh, but with a general groan.\n\nKing<\/strong>\nArm you, I pray you, to[footnote]Prepare yourselves . . . for.[\/footnote] this speedy voyage,\nFor we will fetters put upon this fear\nWhich now goes too free-footed.\n\n2300<\/sub>Rosencrantz and Guildenstern<\/strong>\nWe will haste us.\nExeunt gentlemen [Rosencrantz and Guildenstern].<\/em>\nEnter Polonius.<\/em>\n\nPolonius<\/strong>\nMy lord, he's going to his mother's closet.[footnote]Private chamber.[\/footnote]\nBehind the arras[footnote]Tapestry hangings, as at 2.2.157, TLN 1197. On the Elizabethan stage, the arras was presumably hung over a door or aperture such as the \"discovery space\" in the fa\u00e7ade of the tiring-house.[\/footnote] I'll convey myself\nTo hear the process.[footnote]Proceedings.[\/footnote] I'll warrant[footnote]Promise, assure.[\/footnote] she'll tax him home.[footnote]Reprove him severely.[\/footnote]\n2305<\/sub>And, as you said--and wisely was it said--\n'Tis meet[footnote]Fitting.[\/footnote] that some more audience than a mother,\nSince nature makes them partial,[footnote]Since their nearness of blood might render them less likely to see the business objectively.[\/footnote] should o'erhear\nThe speech of vantage.[footnote](1) from an advantageous position, or, (2) in addition.[\/footnote] Fare you well, my liege.[footnote]Liege lord, feudal superior to whom allegiance is due.[\/footnote]\nI'll call upon you ere you go to bed,\n2310<\/sub>And tell you what I know.\n\nKing<\/strong>\nThanks, dear my lord.\nExit [Polonius].<\/em>\nOh, my offense is rank! It smells to heaven.\nIt hath the primal eldest curse[footnote]The curse of Cain, whose murder of his brother Abel was the first such crime after the Fall of Man from the Garden of Eden (Genesis 4).[\/footnote] upon't,\nA brother's murder. Pray can I not,\n2315<\/sub>Though inclination be as sharp as will;[footnote]Even though my desire (to seek forgiveness in prayer) is as strong as my determination to do so.[\/footnote]\nMy stronger guilt defeats my strong intent,\nAnd like a man to double business bound[footnote]Simultaneously obliged to undertake two tasks that are mutually incompatible. (The King wishes he could seek forgiveness while still holding on to the guilty rewards of his crime.)[\/footnote]\nI stand in pause where I shall first begin,\nAnd both neglect. What if this curs\u00e8d hand\n2320<\/sub>Were thicker than itself with brother's blood,[footnote]Were covered with a layer of a brother's blood thicker than the hand itself.[\/footnote]\nIs there not rain enough in the sweet heavens\nTo wash it white as snow?[footnote]The King alludes to three proverbial ideas, which contradict one another: (1) To wash one's hands of a thing, All the water in the sea cannot wash out this stain; and (3) As white as (the driven) snow. The Norton Shakespeare quotes Isaiah 1:15-18: \"I will not hear: your hands are full of blood. \/ Wash ye, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes . . . though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.\"[\/footnote] Whereto serves mercy\nBut to confront the visage of offense?[footnote]What function does mercy serve other than to confront sin face to face?[\/footnote]\nAnd what's in prayer but this twofold force,\n2325<\/sub>To be forestall\u00e8d[footnote]Prevented (from sinning).[\/footnote] ere we come to fall,\nOr pardoned being down? Then I'll look up.\nMy fault is past.[footnote]i.e., already committed, but susceptible to pardon.[\/footnote] But, oh, what form of prayer\nCan serve my turn? \"Forgive me my foul murder\"?\nThat cannot be, since I am still possessed\n2330<\/sub>Of those effects for which I did the murder:\nMy crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.\nMay one be pardoned and retain th'offense?[footnote]The thing for which one committed the crime.[\/footnote]\nIn the corrupted currents of this world,[footnote]Ways of the world.[\/footnote]\nOffense's gilded hand[footnote]The hand of the offender offering gold as a bribe.[\/footnote] may shove by justice,\n2335<\/sub>And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize[footnote]The prize wickedly desired and achieved.[\/footnote] itself\nBuys out the law. But 'tis not so above:\nThere is no shuffling,[footnote]Evasion, trickery.[\/footnote] there the action lies\nIn his[footnote]Its.[\/footnote] true nature,[footnote]There, in heaven, each deed is seen for what it truly is, in its true form, like a rigorously conducted case at law.[\/footnote] and we ourselves compelled,\nEven to the teeth and forehead of our faults,[footnote]Face to face with our crimes.[\/footnote]\n2340<\/sub>To give in evidence.[footnote]To testify against ourselves. (In heaven, an accused can be compelled to do this, not because heaven is tyrannical but because no guiltiness can be evaded at the heavenly bar of justice.)[\/footnote] What then? What rests?[footnote]Remains to be said or done.[\/footnote]\nTry what repentance can.[footnote]Repentance can do.[\/footnote] What can it not?\nYet what can it, when one cannot repent?\nO wretched state, O bosom black as death,\nO lim\u00e8d[footnote]Caught as if with birdlime, a sticky substance smeared on twigs to snare birds.[\/footnote] soul, that, struggling to be free,\n2345<\/sub>Art more engaged![footnote]Entangled.[\/footnote] Help, angels! Make assay.[footnote]Make some attempt. (Said by the King to himself, or possibly to the angels he hopes can hear him.)[\/footnote]\nBow, stubborn knees, and heart with strings of steel,\nBe soft as sinews of the newborn babe!\nAll may be well.\n[He kneels.]<\/em>\nEnter Hamlet.<\/em>\n\n2350<\/sub>Hamlet<\/strong>\nNow might I do it pat, now[footnote]Do it opportunely and neatly, now that.[\/footnote] 'a[footnote]He.[\/footnote] is a-praying,\nAnd now I'll do't. [He draws his sword.]<\/em> And so 'a goes to heaven,\nAnd so am I revenged. That would be scanned:[footnote]Needs to be looked into.[\/footnote]\nA villain kills my father, and for that,\nI, his sole son, do this same villain send\n2355<\/sub>To heaven.\nWhy, this is hire and salary, not revenge.\n'A took my father grossly, full of bread,[footnote]i.e., satiated with the pleasures of this world, rather than fasting and repenting. Hamlet seems to be talking about his father's spiritual unpreparedness for death when he was murdered; he died without being absolved of the normal but hazardous involvement in sinful appetite to which all mortals are prone.[\/footnote]\nWith all his crimes broad blown,[footnote]With all of Hamlet Senior's sins in full bloom. The male personal pronouns are not perfectly clear in lines 80-5, but presumably Hamlet refers to his father's ghost in lines 80-1, suffering the pangs of Purgatory for the sins not atoned for through Last Rites, so that (in lines 82-4) Hamlet cannot be sure about his father's present spiritual welfare.[\/footnote] as flush[footnote]Vigorously thriving.[\/footnote] as May,\nAnd how his audit[footnote]Hamlet Senior's spiritual reckoning.[\/footnote] stands, who knows save[footnote]Except for.[\/footnote] heaven?\nBut in our circumstance and course of thought[footnote]As seen from our mortal and necessarily limited perspective.[\/footnote]\n2360<\/sub>'Tis heavy with him. And am I then revenged\nTo take him[footnote]Claudius.[\/footnote] in the purging of his soul,\nWhen he is fit and seasoned[footnote]Prepared, made ready.[\/footnote] for his passage? No.\n[He sheathes his sword.]<\/em>\nUp, sword, and know thou a more horrid hent.[footnote]i.e., occasion to be grasped.[\/footnote]\nWhen he is drunk asleep,[footnote]i.e., dead drunk.[\/footnote] or in his rage,[footnote]Perhaps \"in a fit of sexual passion,\" though being in an uncontrollable rage would also put Claudius in danger of hellfire.[\/footnote]\n2365<\/sub>Or in th'incestuous pleasure of his bed,\nAt gaming, swearing,[footnote]Gambling, and swearing profusely.[\/footnote] or about some act\nThat has no relish[footnote]Trace, hint.[\/footnote] of salvation in't,\nThen trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven,[footnote]Kick upwards as the body falls downward, suggesting also a spurning of heavenly reward and ineffectual kicking at the gates of heaven.[\/footnote]\nAnd that his soul may be as damned and black\n2370<\/sub>As hell, whereto it goes. My mother stays.[footnote]Is waiting.[\/footnote]\nThis physic[footnote]Medicine (both the King's being at prayer, and Hamlet's consequent decision to postpone the killing).[\/footnote] but prolongs thy sickly days.\nExit.<\/em>\n\nKing<\/strong>\nMy words fly up, my thoughts remain below.\nWords without thoughts never to heaven go.\nExit.<\/em>\n

Scene 4<\/h1>\nEnter<\/em>[footnote]Location: The castle.[\/footnote] Queen [Gertrude] and Polonius.<\/em>\n\n2375<\/sub>Polonius<\/strong>\n'A will come straight. Look you lay home to him.[footnote]He will be here any moment. Be sure to reprove him soundly.[\/footnote]\nTell him his pranks have been too broad[footnote]Unrestrained, outrageous.[\/footnote] to bear with,\nAnd that your grace hath screened and stood between\nMuch heat and him. I'll silence me e'en here.\n2380<\/sub>Pray you, be round with him.[footnote]Be blunt, forthright with him.[\/footnote]\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\n[Within.]<\/em>\nMother, mother, mother!\n\nQueen<\/strong>\nI'll warrant you. Fear me not.[footnote]I assure you on that score. Don't worry about me.[\/footnote]\nWithdraw; I hear him coming.\n[Polonius conceals himself behind the arras.]<\/em>\nEnter Hamlet.<\/em>\n\n2385<\/sub>Hamlet<\/strong>\nNow mother, what's the matter?\n\nQueen<\/strong>\nHamlet, thou hast thy father[footnote]Your stepfather, Claudius.[\/footnote] much offended.\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nMother, you[footnote]Throughout most of the scene, except for lines 11, 14, 17, 126, 133, and 141, the Queen uses the familiar \"thou\" in addressing her son, as was customary; he addresses her as \"you,\" the required respectful form.[\/footnote] have my father[footnote]The dead King Hamlet.[\/footnote] much offended.\n\nQueen<\/strong>\nCome, come, you answer with an idle[footnote]A foolish.[\/footnote] tongue.\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nGo, go, you question with a wicked tongue.\n\n2390<\/sub>Queen<\/strong>\nWhy, how now,[footnote]What's this?[\/footnote] Hamlet?\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nWhat's the matter now?\n\nQueen<\/strong>\nHave you forgot me?[footnote]Forgotten that I am your mother, whom you must respect. (But Hamlet answers in the sense of \"How could I forget that, in view of what you have done?\")[\/footnote]\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nNo, by the rood,[footnote]Cross of Christ.[\/footnote] not so.\nYou are the queen, your husband's brother's wife,\n2395<\/sub>And--would it were not so!--you are my mother.\n\nQueen<\/strong>\nNay, then, I'll set those to you that can speak.[footnote]i.e., talk sense into you.[\/footnote]\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nCome, come, and sit you down. You shall not budge.\nYou go not till I set you up a glass[footnote]Mirror.[\/footnote]\n2400<\/sub>Where you may see the inmost part of you.\n\nQueen<\/strong>\nWhat wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murder me?\nHelp, help, ho!\n\nPolonius<\/strong>\n[Behind the arras]<\/em> What ho! Help, help, help!\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nHow now, a rat? Dead for a ducat, dead![footnote]i.e., I bet a ducat he's dead; or, a ducat as the price for his life. (A ducat is a gold coin, as at 2.2.244, TLN 1410.)[\/footnote]\n[Hamlet thrusts through the arras with his sword.]<\/em>[footnote]Presumably, Hamlet stabs Polonius here as he says \"Dead for a ducat, dead!\" Polonius actually dies a line later, after crying out that he is mortally wounded.[\/footnote]\n\n2405<\/sub>Polonius<\/strong>\n[Behind the arras]<\/em> Oh, I am slain!\n[Polonius falls onto the stage floor, dead].<\/em>\n\nQueen<\/strong>\nOh, me, what hast thou done?\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nNay I know not. Is it the King?\n\nQueen<\/strong>\nOh, what a rash and bloody deed is this!\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nA bloody deed--almost as bad, good mother,\n2410<\/sub>As kill[footnote]As to kill. The Queen's response seems to register shock and surprise at Hamlet's suggestion of killing a king. Some commentators see the fact that Hamlet now drops this line of inquiry as evidence that he is satisfied on that score.[\/footnote] a king, and marry with his brother.\n\nQueen<\/strong>\nAs kill a king?\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nAy, lady, it was my word.\n[He parts the arras and discovers the dead Polonius.]<\/em>\nThou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!\nI took thee for thy better.[footnote]i.e., the King, your social and moral superior.[\/footnote] Take thy fortune.\n2415<\/sub>Thou find'st to be too busy[footnote]Nosy.[\/footnote] is some danger.\n[To the Queen]<\/em> Leave wringing of your hands. Peace, sit you down,\nAnd let me wring your heart, for so I shall\nIf it be made of penetrable stuff,[footnote]If your heart still has any sensitivity to feeling and emotion.[\/footnote]\nIf damn\u00e8d custom[footnote]Sinful habit.[\/footnote] have not brazed[footnote]Brazened, hardened.[\/footnote] it so\n2420<\/sub>That it is proof and bulwark against sense.[footnote]Armored and thus made impenetrable against natural feeling.[\/footnote]\n\nQueen<\/strong>\nWhat have I done, that thou dar'st wag thy tongue\nIn noise so rude against me?\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nSuch an act\nThat blurs the grace and blush of modesty,\n2425<\/sub>Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose\nFrom the fair forehead of an innocent love\nAnd sets a blister[footnote]i.e., affixes there the brand of a prostitute.[\/footnote] there, makes marriage vows\nAs false as dicers' oaths--oh, such a deed\nAs from the body of contraction[footnote]The marriage contract.[\/footnote] plucks\n2430<\/sub>The very soul, and sweet religion makes\nA rhapsody of words.[footnote]And turns sweet religion into a mere senseless jumble of words.[\/footnote] Heaven's face doth glow\nO'er this solidity and compound mass\nWith tristful visage, as against the doom,\nIs thought-sick at the act.[footnote]Heaven's face blushes with shame at this solid earth, compounded as it is of the four elements, with sorrowful face as though the day of doom were at hand, and is sick with thinking of this horrid deed--i.e., Gertrude's second marriage.[\/footnote]\n\n2435<\/sub>Queen<\/strong>\nAy me, what act,\nThat roars so loud and thunders in the index?[footnote]Table of contents; prologue or preface.[\/footnote]\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\n[Showing her two likenesses, of Hamlet senior and Claudius]<\/em>\nLook here upon this picture, and on this,\nThe counterfeit presentment[footnote]Painted representation.[\/footnote] of two brothers.\nSee what a grace was seated on this brow:\n2440<\/sub>Hyperion's[footnote]The sun-god's.[\/footnote] curls, the front[footnote]Forehead, brow.[\/footnote] of Jove himself,\nAn eye like Mars[footnote]The god of war.[\/footnote] to threaten and command,\nA station[footnote]Stance.[\/footnote] like the herald Mercury[footnote]Winged messenger of the gods.[\/footnote]\nNew lighted[footnote]Newly alighted.[\/footnote] on a heaven-kissing[footnote]Reaching to the sky where it is kissed by the light of the sun.[\/footnote] hill,\nA combination and a form indeed\n2445<\/sub>Where every god did seem to set his seal[footnote]Affix his seal of approval.[\/footnote]\nTo give the world assurance of a man.\nThis was your husband. Look you now what follows:\nHere is your husband, like a mildewed ear,[footnote]Ear of grain.[\/footnote]\nBlasting[footnote]Blighting.[\/footnote] his wholesome brother. Have you eyes?\n2450<\/sub>Could you on this fair mountain leave[footnote]Leave off, cease.[\/footnote] to feed\nAnd batten on this moor?[footnote]And gorge yourself on this barren, unfertile land. The images of mountain and moor offer contrasts of high and low, handsome and barren.[\/footnote] Ha, have you eyes?\nYou cannot call it love, for at your age\nThe heyday in the blood[footnote]Sexual arousal.[\/footnote] is tame, it's humble,\nAnd waits upon[footnote]Is subservient to.[\/footnote] the judgment, and what judgment\n2455<\/sub>Would step from this to this? Sense,[footnote]Sensation and perception and through the five senses.[\/footnote] sure, you have,\n2455.1<\/sub>Else could you not have motion, but sure that sense\nIs apoplexed,[footnote]Paralyzed.[\/footnote] for madness would not err,[footnote]Err in this fashion, as you have done.[\/footnote]\nNor sense to ecstasy was ne'er so thralled\nBut it reserved some quantity of choice\n2455.5<\/sub>To serve in such a difference.[footnote]Nor could your physical senses ever have been so enslaved to ecstasy (i.e., lunacy) as to have been unable to perceive the difference between Hamlet Senior and Claudius.[\/footnote] What devil was't\nThat thus hath cozened you at hoodman-blind?[footnote]Cheated you at blindman's bluff. (Hamlet imagines a diabolical trick in which the devil, having covered the eyes of Gertrude with a scarf in the children's game of blindman's bluff, has steered her in such a way that she gropingly encountered Claudius.)[\/footnote]\n2456.1<\/sub>Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight,\nEars without hands or eyes, smelling sans[footnote]Without. (French.)[\/footnote] all,\nOr but a sickly part of one true sense\nCould not so mope. O shame, where is thy blush?\nRebellious hell,\nIf thou canst mutine[footnote]Mutiny.[\/footnote] in a matron's bones,\nTo flaming youth let virtue be as wax\n2460<\/sub>And melt in her own fire.[footnote]Chastity among the young will melt like wax held over a candle flame. (We cannot hope for self-restraint in young people when older women set such a bad example.)[\/footnote] Proclaim no shame\nWhen the compulsive ardor gives the charge,\nSince frost itself as actively doth burn,\nAnd reason panders will.[footnote]And reason forgives or makes excuses for sexual passion.[\/footnote][footnote]Call it no shameful business when the compelling ardor of youth gives the signal for attack by committing lechery, since the frost of old age burns with as active a fire of lust and mature reason perverts its proper function by making excuses for lust rather than restraining it.[\/footnote]\n\nQueen<\/strong>\nOh, Hamlet speak no more!\n2465<\/sub>Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul,\nAnd there I see such black and grain\u00e8d[footnote]Ingrained, indelible.[\/footnote] spots\nAs will not leave their tinct.[footnote]Not leave off their dark indelible stain.[\/footnote]\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nNay, but to live\nIn the rank sweat of an enseam\u00e8d[footnote]Saturated with the greasy filth of lust.[\/footnote] bed\n2470<\/sub>Stewed[footnote]Steeped. (Suggesting also \"stew,\" brothel.)[\/footnote] in corruption, honeying[footnote]Indulging in lovey-dovey romantic behavior.[\/footnote] and making love\nOver the nasty sty![footnote]Pigsty.[\/footnote]\n\nQueen<\/strong>\nOh, speak to me no more!\nThese words like daggers enter in my ears.\nNo more, sweet Hamlet.\n\n2475<\/sub>Hamlet<\/strong>\nA murderer and a villain,\nA slave that is not twentieth part the tithe[footnote]Tenth part. (To be a twentieth part of a tenth part would be to embody a mere 0.5 percent of something, i.e., virtually none at all.)[\/footnote]\nOf your precedent lord,[footnote]Former husband.[\/footnote] a vice of kings,[footnote]A nonpareil of evil kings; with an allusion to the \"Vice,\" the gloating and insidious tempter to vice of many a late-medieval and sixteenth-century morality play.[\/footnote]\nA cutpurse[footnote]Pickpocket.[\/footnote] of the empire and the rule,[footnote]The kingdom.[\/footnote]\nThat from a shelf the precious diadem[footnote]Crown.[\/footnote] stole\n2480<\/sub>And put it in his pocket--\n\nQueen<\/strong>\nNo more!\nEnter Ghost [in his nightgown].<\/em>\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nA king of shreds and patches--[footnote]Of ragged patchwork, appropriate for a monarch (Claudius) who is a sham, in Hamlet's view; suitable also for a fool or jester attired in motley.[\/footnote]\n[Seeing the Ghost]<\/em> Save me and hover o'er me with your wings,\n2485<\/sub>You heavenly guards! What would you, gracious figure?\n\nQueen<\/strong>\nAlas, he's mad!\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nDo you not come your tardy son to chide,\nThat, lapsed in time and passion,[footnote]Having let time and passionate commitment (to revenge) slip away; with a suggestion too that Hamlet has allowed himself to be distracted from his duty by a passionate berating of his mother.[\/footnote] lets go by\nTh'important[footnote]Importunate, urgent.[\/footnote] acting of your dread command?\nOh, say!\n\n2490<\/sub>Ghost<\/strong>\nDo not forget. This visitation\nIs but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.\nBut look, amazement on thy mother sits.\nOh, step between her and her fighting soul!\nConceit[footnote]Imagination.[\/footnote] in weakest bodies strongest works.\n2495<\/sub>Speak to her, Hamlet.\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nHow is it with you, lady?\n\nQueen<\/strong>\nAlas, how is't with you,\nThat you do bend your eye on vacancy,\nAnd with th'incorporal[footnote]The immaterial, bodiless.[\/footnote] air do hold discourse?\n2500<\/sub>Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep,\nAnd, as the sleeping soldiers in th'alarm,[footnote]Like sleeping soldiers awakened by the call to arms.[\/footnote]\nYour bedded[footnote](previously) lying flat.[\/footnote] hair, like life in excrements,[footnote]As if the hair, an outgrowth of the body, could take on a life of its own. Because hair was assumed to be lifeless, its standing on end would suggest the presence of something ominous and unnatural. \"Excrement\" is derived from the Latin ex-crescere, to grow out of. Compare 1.5.16-21, where the Ghost tells Hamlet how even the \"lighest word\" describing the horror of Purgatory would cause Hamlet's hairs \"to stand on end \/ Like quills upon the fretful porpentine.\" The famous eighteenth-century actor David Garrick employed a trick wig that would enable him to make his hair stand on end.[\/footnote]\nStart up and stand on end. O gentle[footnote]Nobly born; chivalrous; honorable; kind.[\/footnote] son,\nUpon the heat and flame of thy distemper[footnote]Disorder, imbalance of mind.[\/footnote]\n2505<\/sub>Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look?\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nOn him, on him! Look you how pale he glares!\nHis form and cause conjoined,[footnote]His appearance joined to his cause for appearing and speaking.[\/footnote] preaching to stones,[footnote]Even to stones.[\/footnote]\nWould make them capable.[footnote]Would make the stones capable of feeling and responding.[\/footnote] [To the Ghost]<\/em> Do not look upon me,\nLest with this piteous action you convert\n2510<\/sub>My stern effects.[footnote]Lest your pitiful looks divert me from accomplishing what I have to do, prompting me to weep when I should be shedding blood.[\/footnote] Then what I have to do\nWill want true color, tears perchance for blood.\n\nQueen<\/strong>\nTo whom do you speak this?\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nDo you see nothing there?\n\nQueen<\/strong>\nNothing at all, yet all that is I see.\n\n2515<\/sub>Hamlet<\/strong>\nNor did you nothing hear?\n\nQueen<\/strong>\nNo, nothing but ourselves.\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nWhy, look you there, look how it steals away!\nMy father in his habit[footnote]Garments.[\/footnote] as he lived.\nLook where he goes, even now out at the portal![footnote]Doorway.[\/footnote]\nExit Ghost.<\/em>\n\n2520<\/sub>Queen<\/strong>\nThis is the very coinage of your brain.\nThis bodiless creation ecstasy is very cunning in.[footnote]Madness (ecstasy) is very skillful in creating this kind of hallucination.[\/footnote]\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nEcstasy?\nMy pulse as yours doth temperately keep time,\nAnd makes as healthful music. It is not madness\n2525<\/sub>That I have uttered. Bring me to the test,\nAnd I the matter will reword,[footnote]Repeat word for word.[\/footnote] which madness\nWould gambol from.[footnote]Skip away from.[\/footnote] Mother, for love of grace,\nLay not that flattering unction[footnote]An ointment that comforts without healing.[\/footnote] to your soul\nThat not your trespass but my madness speaks.\n2530<\/sub>It will but skin and film[footnote]Cover with a thin layer of skin.[\/footnote] the ulcerous place,\nWhiles rank corruption, mining[footnote]Undermining.[\/footnote] all within,\nInfects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven,\nRepent what's past, avoid what is to come,\nAnd do not spread the compost on the weeds\n2535<\/sub>To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue,[footnote]My urging you to a virtuous course.[\/footnote]\nFor in the fatness[footnote]Grossness.[\/footnote] of these pursy times[footnote]This corpulent, swollen, short-winded era. (\"Pursy\" is often said of a horse.)[\/footnote]\nVirtue itself of vice must pardon beg,\nYea, curb and woo for leave to do him good.[footnote]Bow obsequiously and beg for permission to serve vice.[\/footnote]\n\nQueen<\/strong>\n2540<\/sub>Oh, Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.[footnote]Cut in two.[\/footnote]\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nOh, throw away the worser part of it,\nAnd live the purer with the other half.\nGood night. But go not to my uncle's bed;\nAssume[footnote]Give outward conformity to.[\/footnote] a virtue if you have it not.\n2544.1<\/sub>That monster custom, who all sense doth eat,[footnote]Our monstrous proclivity for habit-forming behavior, which can so easily consume and overwhelm the physical senses.[\/footnote]\nOf habits devil,[footnote]Being all too inclined toward evil habits.[\/footnote] is angel yet in this,\nThat to the use of actions fair and good\nHe likewise gives a frock or livery[footnote]A garb, an outward appearance. (One can incline one's soul, Hamlet says, toward virtue by willing oneself to adopt a virtuous stance; the outward behavior can then begin to shape the inner self.)[\/footnote]\n2544.5<\/sub>That aptly[footnote]Readily.[\/footnote] is put on. Refrain tonight,\n2545<\/sub>And that shall lend a kind of easiness\nTo the next abstinence; the next more easy:\n2546.1<\/sub>For use almost can change the stamp of nature,[footnote]For by rigorously adopting a custom or habit we can come close to changing our very inborn nature.[\/footnote]\nAnd either [in] the devil,[footnote]i.e., And custom or habit can either admit the devil into our hearts or throw him out.[\/footnote] or throw him out\nWith wondrous potency. Once more good night,\nAnd when you are desirous to be blest,\nI'll blessing beg of you.[footnote]i.e., And when you are penitently ready to seek God's blessing, I will ask your blessing as a dutiful son should.[\/footnote] For[footnote]As for.[\/footnote] this same lord,\nI do repent; but heaven hath pleased it so\n2550<\/sub>To punish me with this, and this with me,[footnote]i.e., it is (evidently) heaven's pleasure that I am to be punished for having killed Polonius, just as he has been fatally punished at my hands for his snooping into other people's business.[\/footnote]\nThat I must be their scourge and minister.[footnote]i.e., the heavens' agent of just retribution.[\/footnote]\nI will bestow him,[footnote]Dispose of.[\/footnote] and will answer well[footnote]Offer a suitable account of, pay for, atone for.[\/footnote]\nThe death I gave him. So, again, good night.\nI must be cruel only to be kind.\n2555<\/sub>Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.[footnote]i.e., Thus we can begin to face difficulties, but at least the worst is over; or, worse calamities are still to come.[\/footnote]\n2555.1<\/sub>One word more, good lady.\n\nQueen<\/strong>\nWhat shall I do?\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nNot this, by no means, that I bid you do:\nLet the bloat[footnote]Bloated, puffy.[\/footnote] King tempt you again to bed,\nPinch wanton on your cheek,[footnote]Leave his sensual love pinches on your cheeks.[\/footnote] call you his mouse,[footnote]A term of endearment.[\/footnote]\n2560<\/sub>And let him, for a pair of reechy[footnote]Reeking of filth.[\/footnote] kisses,\nOr paddling[footnote]Fingering amorously.[\/footnote] in your neck[footnote]neck (including the breasts).[\/footnote] with his damned fingers,\nMake you to ravel all this matter out[footnote]Unravel, disclose.[\/footnote]\nThat I essentially am not in madness,\nBut mad in craft.[footnote]Only seemingly mad as a cunning device.[\/footnote] 'Twere good[footnote]Said with a sardonic irony that continues in the following eight lines.[\/footnote] you let him know,\n2565<\/sub>For who that's but a queen, fair, sober, wise,\nWould from a paddock, from a bat, a gib,\nSuch dear concernings hide?[footnote]For why would any attractive, temperate, and wise queen wish to hide such important matters from a toad, a bat, a tom-cat? (Said sardonically; of course, such a woman would choose not to divulge Hamlet's secret to a repulsive villain.)[\/footnote] Who would do so?\nNo, in dispite of sense and secrecy,[footnote]The secrecy that common sense would seem to require.[\/footnote]\nUnpeg the basket on the house's top,\n2570<\/sub>Let the birds fly, and like the famous ape,\nTo try conclusions, in the basket creep,\nAnd break your own neck down.[footnote]In the fall; or, utterly.[\/footnote][footnote]In this Aesop-like beast fable, for which no source has been found, an ape releases some birds from a basket-like birdcage on a roof and then, mindlessly wishing to imitate them as an experiment (\"To try conclusions\"), gets into the cage himself and, attempting to fly, falls to the ground and breaks his neck. Presumably Hamlet is warning the Queen against coming too quickly to conclusions and rashly telling her husband that Hamlet's madness is only pretense.[\/footnote]\n\nQueen<\/strong>\nBe thou assured, if words be made of breath\nAnd breath of life, I have no life to breathe[footnote]To utter.[\/footnote]\n2575<\/sub>What thou hast said to me.\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nI must to England. You know that?\n\nQueen<\/strong>\nAlack, I had forgot. 'Tis so concluded on.\n\n2577.1<\/sub>Hamlet<\/strong>\nThere's letters sealed, and my two schoolfellows,\nWhom I will trust as I will adders fanged,\nThey bear the mandate; they must sweep my way[footnote]Prepare a path before me.[\/footnote]\nAnd marshal me to knavery.[footnote]Conduct me to where some treachery lies in wait for me.[\/footnote] Let it work,[footnote]Proceed.[\/footnote]\n2577.5<\/sub>For 'tis the sport[footnote]It's a fine ironic joke.[\/footnote] to have the enginer[footnote]Deviser of \"engines\" of war, such as bombs.[\/footnote]\nHoised with his own petard,[footnote]Blown skyward by his own explosive devices, such as were used to make a breach in fortifications.[\/footnote] and't shall go hard\nBut I will delve one yard below their mines,[footnote]And it will be bad luck for me if I do not dig my tunnels underneath theirs. (Tunnels were used to attack enemy fortifications in siege warfare by undermining them and blowing them up from below.) Hamlet vows to outmaneuver Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.[\/footnote]\nAnd blow them at the moon.[footnote]Moon-high, way up into the air.[\/footnote] Oh 'tis most sweet\nWhen in one line two crafts directly meet.[footnote]When two cunning plots are on a collision course, as when mines and countermines confront each other.[\/footnote]\nThis man shall set me packing.[footnote]The dead Polonius will set me to cooking up schemes; set me to lugging off the corpse; pack me off to England.[\/footnote]\nI'll lug the guts into the neighbor room.\n2580<\/sub>Mother, good night indeed. This counselor\nIs now most still, most secret, and most grave,[footnote]Playing on the \"grave\" where Polonius will now be buried.[\/footnote]\nWho was in life a foolish prating knave.--[footnote]An egregiously chattering rascal.[\/footnote]\nCome, sir, to draw toward an end with you.--[footnote](1) finish up with you; (2) drag you to the place of burial, where you will continue to be \"most still, most secret, and most grave\" (line 220).[\/footnote]\nGood night, mother.\n2585<\/sub>Exit Hamlet, tugging in Polonius.<\/em>","rendered":"

Hamlet<\/em> (Modern, Editor\u2019s Version). Internet Shakespeare Editions<\/a>. University of Victoria. Editor: David Bevington. Adapted by James Sexton.<\/p>\n

Scene 1<\/h1>\n

Enter<\/em>[1]<\/sup><\/a> King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and Lords.<\/em><\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nAnd can you by no drift of circumstance[2]<\/sup><\/a>
\nGet from him why he puts on this confusion,
\n1650<\/sub>Grating so harshly all his days of quiet
\nWith turbulent and dangerous lunacy?<\/p>\n

Rosencrantz<\/strong>
\nHe does confess he feels himself distracted,
\nBut from what cause, ‘a will by no means speak.<\/p>\n

Guildenstern<\/strong>
\nNor do we find him forward[3]<\/sup><\/a> to be sounded,[4]<\/sup><\/a>
\n1655<\/sub>But with a crafty madness keeps aloof
\nWhen we would bring him on to some confession
\nOf his true state.<\/p>\n

Queen<\/strong>
\nDid he receive you well?<\/p>\n

Rosencrantz<\/strong>
\nMost like a gentleman.<\/p>\n

1660<\/sub>Guildenstern<\/strong>
\nBut with much forcing of his disposition.[5]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Rosencrantz<\/strong>
\nNiggard of question,[6]<\/sup><\/a> but of our demands[7]<\/sup><\/a>
\nMost free in his reply.<\/p>\n

Queen<\/strong>
\nDid you assay him to[8]<\/sup><\/a> any pastime?<\/p>\n

Rosencrantz<\/strong>
\nMadam, it so fell out[9]<\/sup><\/a> that certain players
\n1665<\/sub>We o’erraught[10]<\/sup><\/a> on the way. Of these we told him,
\nAnd there did seem in him a kind of joy
\nTo hear of it. They are about the court,[11]<\/sup><\/a>
\nAnd, as I think, they have already order
\nThis night to play before him.<\/p>\n

1670<\/sub>Polonius<\/strong>
\n‘Tis most true,
\nAnd he beseeched me to entreat your majesties
\nTo hear and see the matter.<\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nWith all my heart,and it doth much content me
\nTo hear him so inclined. Good gentlemen,
\n1675<\/sub>Give him a further edge,[12]<\/sup><\/a> and drive his purpose on
\nTo these delights.<\/p>\n

Rosencrantz<\/strong>
\nWe shall, my lord.
\nExeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern [and Lords].<\/em><\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nSweet Gertrude, leave us too,
\nFor we have closely[13]<\/sup><\/a> sent for Hamlet hither,
\n1680<\/sub>That he, as ’twere by accident, may here
\nAffront[14]<\/sup><\/a> Ophelia.
\nHer father and myself, lawful espials,[15]<\/sup><\/a>
\nWill so bestow ourselves that, seeing unseen,
\nWe may of their encounter frankly judge,
\nAnd gather by him, as he is behaved,[16]<\/sup><\/a>
\n1685<\/sub>If’t be th’affliction of his love or no
\nThat thus he suffers for.<\/p>\n

Queen<\/strong>
\nI shall obey you.
\nAnd for your part, Ophelia, I do wish
\nThat your good beauties be the happy cause
\n1690<\/sub>Of Hamlet’s wildness. So shall I hope your virtues
\nWill bring him to his wonted[17]<\/sup><\/a> way again,
\nTo both your honors.<\/p>\n

Ophelia<\/strong>
\nMadam, I wish it may.
\n[Exit Queen.]<\/em><\/p>\n

Polonius<\/strong>
\nOphelia, walk you here.–Gracious,[18]<\/sup><\/a> so please you,
\n1695<\/sub>We will bestow ourselves. [To Ophelia, as he gives her a book]<\/em> Read on this book,[19]<\/sup><\/a>
\nThat show of such an exercise[20]<\/sup><\/a> may color[21]<\/sup><\/a>
\nYour loneliness. We are oft to blame in this,
\n‘Tis too much proved,[22]<\/sup><\/a> that with devotion’s visage
\nAnd pious action we do sugar o’er
\n1700<\/sub>The devil himself.<\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\n[Aside]<\/em> Oh, ’tis too true![23]<\/sup><\/a>
\nHow smart[24]<\/sup><\/a> a lash that speech doth give my conscience!
\nThe harlot’s cheek, beautied with plast’ring art,[25]<\/sup><\/a>
\nIs not more ugly to the thing that helps it[26]<\/sup><\/a>
\n1705<\/sub>Than is my deed to my most painted word.
\nOh, heavy burden!
\nEnter Hamlet.<\/em><\/p>\n

Polonius<\/strong>
\nI hear him coming. Let’s withdraw, my lord.
\n[The King and Polonius conceal themselves.]<\/em><\/p>\n

1710<\/sub>Hamlet<\/strong>
\nTo be, or not to be, that is the question,
\nWhether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
\nThe slings[27]<\/sup><\/a> and arrows of outrageous fortune,
\nOr to take arms against a sea of troubles,
\nAnd by opposing end them. To die, to sleep–
\n1715<\/sub>No more–and by a sleep to say we end
\nThe heartache and the thousand natural shocks
\nThat flesh is heir to; ’tis a consummation
\nDevoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep;
\nTo sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there’s the rub,[28]<\/sup><\/a>
\n1720<\/sub>For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
\nWhen we have shuffled off this mortal coil[29]<\/sup><\/a>
\nMust give us pause. There’s the respect[30]<\/sup><\/a>
\nThat makes calamity of so long life.[31]<\/sup><\/a>
\nFor who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
\n1725<\/sub>Th’oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,[32]<\/sup><\/a>
\nThe pangs of disprized[33]<\/sup><\/a> love, the law’s delay,
\nThe insolence of office,[34]<\/sup><\/a> and the spurns[35]<\/sup><\/a>
\nThat patient merit of th’unworthy takes,[36]<\/sup><\/a>
\nWhen he himself might his quietus make[37]<\/sup><\/a>
\n1730<\/sub>With a bare bodkin?[38]<\/sup><\/a> Who would these fardels[39]<\/sup><\/a> bear,
\nTo grunt and sweat under a weary life,
\nBut that the dread of something after death,
\nThe undiscovered country from whose bourn[40]<\/sup><\/a>
\nNo traveler returns, puzzles the will,
\n1735<\/sub>And makes us rather bear those ills we have
\nThan fly to others that we know not of.
\nThus conscience does make cowards of us all,
\nAnd thus the native hue of resolution[41]<\/sup><\/a>
\nIs sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,[42]<\/sup><\/a>
\n1740<\/sub>And enterprises of great pith[43]<\/sup><\/a> and moment[44]<\/sup><\/a>
\nWith this regard[45]<\/sup><\/a> their currents[46]<\/sup><\/a> turn awry[47]<\/sup><\/a>
\nAnd lose the name of action. Soft you now,[48]<\/sup><\/a>
\nThe fair Ophelia!–Nymph, in thy orisons
\nBe all my sins remembered.[49]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

1745<\/sub>Ophelia<\/strong>
\nGood my lord,
\nHow does your honor for this many a day?<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nI humbly thank you, well, well, well.<\/p>\n

Ophelia<\/strong>
\nMy lord, I have remembrances of yours
\nThat I have long\u00e8d long to redeliver.
\n1750<\/sub>I pray you now receive them.<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nNo, not I. I never gave you aught.[50]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Ophelia<\/strong>
\nMy honored lord, you know right well you did,
\nAnd with them words of so sweet breath composed
\nAs made these things more rich. Their perfume lost,
\n1755<\/sub>Take these again, for to the noble mind
\nRich gifts wax[51]<\/sup><\/a> poor when givers prove unkind,
\nThere, my lord. [She offers Hamlet the remembrances.]<\/em><\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nHa, ha! Are you honest?[52]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Ophelia<\/strong>
\nMy lord?<\/p>\n

1760<\/sub>Hamlet<\/strong>
\nAre you fair?[53]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Ophelia<\/strong>
\nWhat means your lordship?<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nThat if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to
\nyour beauty.[54]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Ophelia<\/strong>
\n1765<\/sub>Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce[55]<\/sup><\/a> than with honesty?<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nAy, truly, for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it
\nis to a bawd than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness.[56]<\/sup><\/a>
\n1770<\/sub>This was sometime a paradox,[57]<\/sup><\/a> but now the time gives it proof. I did love
\nyou once.<\/p>\n

Ophelia<\/strong>
\nIndeed, my lord, you made me believe so.<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nYou should not have believed me, for virtue cannot so inoculate our old
\nstock but we shall relish of it.[58]<\/sup><\/a> I loved you not.<\/p>\n

1775<\/sub>Ophelia<\/strong>
\nI was the more deceived.<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nGet thee to a nunnery.[59]<\/sup><\/a> Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am
\nmyself indifferent honest,[60]<\/sup><\/a> but yet I could accuse me[61]<\/sup><\/a> of such things that it
\n1780<\/sub>were better my mother had not borne me: I am very proud, revengeful,
\nambitious, with more offenses at my beck[62]<\/sup><\/a> than I have thoughts to put them
\nin, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in. What should such
\nfellows as I do crawling between heaven and earth? We are arrant[63]<\/sup><\/a> knaves,
\n1785<\/sub>all; believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery. Where’s your father?<\/p>\n

Ophelia<\/strong>
\nAt home, my lord.<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nLet the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool nowhere but in’s
\nown house. Farewell.<\/p>\n

Ophelia<\/strong>
\nOh, help him, you sweet heavens!<\/p>\n

1790<\/sub>Hamlet<\/strong>
\nIf thou dost marry, I’ll give thee this plague for thy dowry: be thou as chaste
\nas ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny.[64]<\/sup><\/a> Get thee to a
\nnunnery. Go, farewell. Or if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool, for wise
\n1795<\/sub>men know well enough what monsters[65]<\/sup><\/a> you make[66]<\/sup><\/a> of them. To a nunnery go,
\nand quickly too. Farewell.<\/p>\n

Ophelia<\/strong>
\nO heavenly powers, restore him!<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nI have heard of your paintings[67]<\/sup><\/a> too, well enough. God hath given you one face,
\n1800<\/sub>and you make yourselves another. You jig, you amble, and you lisp,[68]<\/sup><\/a> and
\nnickname God’s creatures,[69]<\/sup><\/a> and make your wantonness your ignorance.[70]<\/sup><\/a> Go
\nto,[71]<\/sup><\/a> I’ll no more on’t;[72]<\/sup><\/a> it hath made me mad. I say we will have no more
\nmarriages. Those that are married already, all but one,[73]<\/sup><\/a> shall live; the rest
\n1805<\/sub>shall keep as they are. To a nunnery, go.
\nExit.<\/em><\/p>\n

Ophelia<\/strong>
\nOh, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown!
\nThe courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s, eye, tongue, sword,[74]<\/sup><\/a>
\nTh’expectancy and rose[75]<\/sup><\/a> of the fair state,
\nThe glass of fashion and the mold of form,[76]<\/sup><\/a>
\n1810<\/sub>Th’observed of all observers,[77]<\/sup><\/a> quite, quite down,
\nAnd I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
\nThat sucked the honey of his music vows,
\nNow see that noble and most sovereign reason[78]<\/sup><\/a>
\nLike sweet bells jangled out of tune and harsh,
\n1815<\/sub>That unmatched form and feature of blown youth[79]<\/sup><\/a>
\nBlasted with ecstasy.[80]<\/sup><\/a> Oh, woe is me
\nT’have seen what I have seen, see what I see!
\nEnter King and Polonius [stepping forward from concealment].<\/em><\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nLove? His affections[81]<\/sup><\/a> do not that way tend,
\n1820<\/sub>Nor what he spake, though it lacked form a little,
\nWas not like madness. There’s something in his soul
\nO’er which his melancholy sits on brood,[82]<\/sup><\/a>
\nAnd I do doubt the hatch and the disclose[83]<\/sup><\/a>
\nWill be some danger; which to prevent,
\n1825<\/sub>I have in quick determination
\nThus set it down:[84]<\/sup><\/a> he shall with speed to England
\nFor the demand of our neglected tribute.
\nHaply[85]<\/sup><\/a> the seas, and countries different,
\nWith variable objects,[86]<\/sup><\/a> shall expel
\n1830<\/sub>This something-settled[87]<\/sup><\/a> matter in his heart,
\nWhereon his brains still[88]<\/sup><\/a> beating puts him thus
\nFrom fashion of himself.[89]<\/sup><\/a> What think you on’t?<\/p>\n

Polonius<\/strong>
\nIt shall do well.But yet do I believe
\nThe origin and commencement of his grief
\n1835<\/sub>Sprung from neglected love.–How now, Ophelia?
\nYou need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said,
\nWe heard it all.–My lord, do as you please,
\nBut if you hold it fit, after the play
\nLet his queen-mother all alone entreat him
\n1840<\/sub>To show his grief. Let her be round[90]<\/sup><\/a> with him,
\nAnd I’ll be placed (so please you) in the ear
\nOf all their conference. If she find him not,[91]<\/sup><\/a>
\nTo England send him, or confine him where
\nYour wisdom best shall think.<\/p>\n

1845<\/sub>King<\/strong>
\nIt shall be so;
\nMadness in great ones must not unwatched go.
\nExeunt.<\/em><\/p>\n

Scene 2<\/h1>\n

Enter<\/em>[92]<\/sup><\/a> Hamlet, and two or three of the Players.<\/em><\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\n1850<\/sub>Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the
\ntongue; but if you mouth[93]<\/sup><\/a> it, as many of your players[94]<\/sup><\/a> do, I had as lief[95]<\/sup><\/a> the
\ntown crier[96]<\/sup><\/a> had spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand,
\nthus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say,
\n1855<\/sub>whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget[97]<\/sup><\/a> a temperance that may
\ngive it smoothness. Oh, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious[98]<\/sup><\/a> periwig-
\npated[99]<\/sup><\/a> fellowtear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the
\n1860<\/sub>groundlings, who for the most part are capable of[100]<\/sup><\/a> nothing but inexplicable
\ndumb-shows and noise.[101]<\/sup><\/a> I would have such a fellow whipped for o’erdoing
\nTermagant.[102]<\/sup><\/a> It out-Herods Herod.[103]<\/sup><\/a> Pray you avoid it.<\/p>\n

Player<\/strong>
\nI warrant[104]<\/sup><\/a> your honor.<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\n1865<\/sub>Be not too tame, neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor. Suit the
\naction to the word, the word to the action, with this special observance, that
\nyou o’erstep not the modesty of nature. For anything so o’erdone is from the
\npurpose[105]<\/sup><\/a> of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is to hold
\n1870<\/sub>as ’twere the mirror up to nature, to show virtue her own feature, scorn her
\nown image,[106]<\/sup><\/a> and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.[107]<\/sup><\/a>
\nNow this overdone, or come tardy off,[108]<\/sup><\/a> though it make the unskillful[109]<\/sup><\/a> laugh,
\n1875<\/sub>cannot but make the judicious grieve, the censure of the which one must in
\nyour allowance o’erweigh a whole theater of others. Oh, there be players that
\nI have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly, not to speak it
\nprofanely,[110]<\/sup><\/a> that, neither having th’accent of Christians nor the gait of
\n1880<\/sub>Christian, pagan, nor no man, have so strutted and bellowed that I have
\nthought some of nature’s journeymen[111]<\/sup><\/a> had made men, and not made them
\nwell, they imitated humanity so abominably.<\/p>\n

Player<\/strong>
\n1885<\/sub>I hope we have reformed that indifferently[112]<\/sup><\/a> with us, sir.<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nOh, reform it altogether. And let those that play your clowns speak no more
\nthan is set down for them; for there be of them that will themselves laugh, to
\n1890<\/sub>set on[113]<\/sup><\/a> some quantity of barren[114]<\/sup><\/a> spectators to laugh too, though in the
\nmeantime some necessary question of the play be then to be considered.
\nThat’s villainous, and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it.
\nGo make you ready.
\nExeunt Players.<\/em>
\nEnter Polonius, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern.<\/em>
\n1895<\/sub>[To Polonius]<\/em> How now, my lord,
\nwill the King hear this piece of work?<\/p>\n

Polonius<\/strong>
\nAnd the Queen too, and that presently.[115]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nBid the players make haste.
\nExit Polonius.<\/em>
\nWill you two help to hasten them?<\/p>\n

1900<\/sub>Rosencrantz and Guildenstern<\/strong>
\nWe will, my lord.
\nExeunt [Rosencrantz and Guildenstern].<\/em><\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nWhat ho, Horatio!
\nEnter Horatio.<\/em><\/p>\n

Horatio<\/strong>
\nHere, sweet lord, at your service.<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nHoratio, thou art e’en[116]<\/sup><\/a> as just[117]<\/sup><\/a> a man
\n1905<\/sub>As e’er my conversation coped withal.[118]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Horatio<\/strong>
\nOh, my dear lord–<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nNay, do not think I flatter,
\nFor what advancement may I hope from thee
\nThat no revenue hast but thy good spirits
\n1910<\/sub>To feed and clothe thee? Why should the poor be flattered?
\nNo, let the candied[119]<\/sup><\/a> tongue lick absurd pomp
\nAnd crook the pregnant[120]<\/sup><\/a> hinges of the knee
\nWhere thrift may follow fawning.[121]<\/sup><\/a> Dost thou hear?
\nSince my dear soul was mistress of her choice
\n1915<\/sub>And could of men distinguish her election,
\nSh’hath sealed thee for herself,[122]<\/sup><\/a> for thou hast been
\nAs one in suff’ring all that suffers nothing,
\nA man that Fortune’s buffets and rewards
\nHast ta’en with equal thanks; and blest are those
\n1920<\/sub>Whose blood and judgment[123]<\/sup><\/a> are so well commingled
\nThat they are not a pipe for Fortune’s finger
\nTo sound what stop[124]<\/sup><\/a> she please. Give me that man
\nThat is not passion’s slave, and I will wear him
\nIn my heart’s core, ay, in my heart of heart,
\n1925<\/sub>As I do thee.–Something too much of this.–[125]<\/sup><\/a>
\nThere is a play tonight before the King.
\nOne scene of it comes near the circumstance
\nWhich I have told thee of my father’s death.
\nI prithee, when thou see’st that act afoot,
\n1930<\/sub>Even with the very comment of thy soul[126]<\/sup><\/a>
\nObserve my uncle. If his occulted[127]<\/sup><\/a> guilt
\nDo not itself unkennel[128]<\/sup><\/a> in one speech,[129]<\/sup><\/a>
\nIt is a damn\u00e8d ghost that we have seen,
\nAnd my imaginations are as foul
\n1935<\/sub>As Vulcan’s stithy.[130]<\/sup><\/a> Give him heedful note,
\nFor I mine eyes will rivet to his face,
\nAnd after we will both our judgments join
\nIn censure of his seeming.<\/p>\n

Horatio<\/strong>
\nWell, my lord,
\n1940<\/sub>If ‘a steal aught the whilst this play is playing
\nAnd scape detecting, I will pay the theft.[131]<\/sup><\/a>
\nEnter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and<\/em>
\n1945<\/sub>other lord attendant with his Guard carrying torches. Danish march.<\/em>
\n Sound a flourish.<\/em><\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nThey are coming to the play. I must be idle.[132]<\/sup><\/a> Get you a place.<\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nHow fares our cousin Hamlet?[133]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\n1950<\/sub>Excellent, i’faith, of the chameleon’s dish; I eat the air, promise-crammed.[134]<\/sup><\/a>
\nYou cannot feed capons[135]<\/sup><\/a> so.<\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nI have nothing with[136]<\/sup><\/a> this answer, Hamlet. These words are not mine.[137]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nNo, nor mine now.[138]<\/sup><\/a> [To Polonius]<\/em> My lord, you played once i’th’ university, you say?<\/p>\n

1955<\/sub>Polonius<\/strong>
\nThat I did, my lord, and was accounted a good actor.<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nAnd what did you enact?<\/p>\n

Polonius<\/strong>
\nI did enact Julius Caesar. I was killed i’th’ Capitol. Brutus killed me.<\/p>\n

1960<\/sub>Hamlet<\/strong>
\nIt was a brute[139]<\/sup><\/a> part[140]<\/sup><\/a> of him to kill so capital a calf[141]<\/sup><\/a> there.–Be the players
\nready?<\/p>\n

Rosencrantz<\/strong>
\nAy, my lord, they stay upon your patience.[142]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Queen<\/strong>
\nCome hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me.<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nNo, good mother, here’s mettle[143]<\/sup><\/a> more attractive.<\/p>\n

1965<\/sub>Polonius<\/strong>
\n[To the King]<\/em> Oho, do you mark that?<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\n[To Ophelia, as he lies at her feet]<\/em> Lady, shall I lie in your lap?[144]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Ophelia<\/strong>
\nNo, my lord.<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nI mean, my head upon your lap.<\/p>\n

Ophelia<\/strong>
\nAy, my lord.<\/p>\n

1970<\/sub>Hamlet<\/strong>
\nDo you think I meant country matters?[145]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Ophelia<\/strong>
\nI think nothing, my lord.<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nThat’s a fair thought to lie between maids’ legs.<\/p>\n

Ophelia<\/strong>
\nWhat is, my lord?<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nNothing.[146]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

1975<\/sub>Ophelia<\/strong>
\nYou are merry, my lord.<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nWho, I?<\/p>\n

Ophelia<\/strong>
\nAy, my lord.<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nOh, God, your only jig-maker.[147]<\/sup><\/a> What should a man do but be merry? For
\n1980<\/sub>look you how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died within’s[148]<\/sup><\/a> two
\nhours.<\/p>\n

Ophelia<\/strong>
\nNay, ’tis twice two months, my lord.<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nSo long? Nay, then, let the devil wear black, for I’ll have a suit of sables.[149]<\/sup><\/a> Oh,
\n1985<\/sub>heavens! Die two months ago, and not forgotten yet? Then there’s hope a
\ngreat man’s memory may outlive his life half a year. But, by’r Lady, ‘a must
\nbuild churches then, or else shall ‘a suffer not thinking on, with the hobby-
\nhorse,[150]<\/sup><\/a> whose epitaph is, “For oh, for oh, the hobby-horse is forgot.”
\n1990<\/sub>Hautboys play. The dumb-show enters. <\/em>Enter [Players as] a King and
\nQueen very lovingly; the Queen embracing him. She kneels and makes show
\nof protestation unto him. He takes her up, and declines his head upon her
\n1995<\/sub>neck. Lays him down upon a bank of flowers. She, seeing him <\/em>asleep, leaves
\nhim. Anon comes in a fellow, takes off his crown, kisses it, pours poison in
\nthe King’s ears, and exits. The Queen returns, finds the King dead, and
\nmakes passionate action. The Poisoner, with some two or three mutes, comes
\n2000<\/sub>in again, seeming to lament with her. <\/em>The dead body is carried away. The
\nPoisoner woos the Queen with gifts. She seems loath and unwilling awhile,
\nbut in the end accepts his love.
\nExeunt [Players].<\/em><\/p>\n

Ophelia<\/strong>
\nWhat means this, my lord?<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\n2005<\/sub>Marry, this is miching mallico.[151]<\/sup><\/a> It means mischief.<\/p>\n

Ophelia<\/strong>
\nBelike[152]<\/sup><\/a> this show imports the argument of the play.[153]<\/sup><\/a>
\nEnter [a Player as] Prologue.<\/em><\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nWe shall know by this fellow. The players cannot keep counsel;[154]<\/sup><\/a> they’ll tell
\nall.<\/p>\n

2010<\/sub>Ophelia<\/strong>
\nWill ‘a tell us what this show meant?<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nAy, or any show that you will show him. Be not you[155]<\/sup><\/a> ashamed to show, he’ll not
\nshame to tell you what it means.<\/p>\n

Ophelia<\/strong>
\n2015<\/sub>You are naught,[156]<\/sup><\/a> you are naught. I’ll mark[157]<\/sup><\/a> the play.<\/p>\n

Prologue<\/strong>
\nFor us and for our tragedy,
\nHere stooping to your clemency,
\nWe beg your hearing patiently.
\n[Exit.]<\/em><\/p>\n

2020<\/sub>Hamlet<\/strong>
\nIs this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?[158]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Ophelia<\/strong>
\n‘Tis brief, my lord.<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nAs woman’s love.
\nEnter [two Players as] King and his Queen.<\/em><\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nFull thirty times hath Phoebus’ cart[159]<\/sup><\/a> gone round
\n2025<\/sub>Neptune’s salt wash[160]<\/sup><\/a> and Tellus’ orb\u00e8d ground,[161]<\/sup><\/a>
\nAnd thirty dozen moons with borrowed sheen[162]<\/sup><\/a>
\nAbout the world have times twelve thirties[163]<\/sup><\/a> been
\nSince love our hearts and Hymen[164]<\/sup><\/a> did our hands
\nUnite commutual[165]<\/sup><\/a> in most sacred bands.[166]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

2030<\/sub>Queen<\/strong>
\nSo many journeys may the sun and moon
\nMake us again count o’er ere love be done!
\nBut woe is me, you are so sick of late,
\nSo far from cheer and from your former state,
\nThat I distrust you.[167]<\/sup><\/a> Yet though I distrust,
\n2035<\/sub>Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must.[168]<\/sup><\/a>
\n2035.1<\/sub>For women fear too much, even as they love,[169]<\/sup><\/a>
\nAnd women’s fear and love holds quantity:
\nIn neither aught, or in extremity.[170]<\/sup><\/a>
\nNow what my love is, proof[171]<\/sup><\/a> hath made you know,
\nAnd as my love is sized, my fear is so.[172]<\/sup><\/a>
\n2039.1<\/sub>Where love is great, the littlest[173]<\/sup><\/a> doubts are fear;
\nWhere little fears grow great, great love grows there.<\/p>\n

2040<\/sub>King<\/strong>
\nFaith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly too;
\nMy operant powers their functions leave to do.[174]<\/sup><\/a>
\nAnd thou shalt live in this fair world behind,[175]<\/sup><\/a>
\nHonored, beloved; and haply one as kind
\nFor husband shalt thou–[176]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

2045<\/sub>Queen<\/strong>
\nOh, confound the rest!
\nSuch love must needs be treason in my breast.
\nIn second husband let me be accurst!
\nNone[177]<\/sup><\/a> wed the second but who[178]<\/sup><\/a> killed the first.<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nWormwood, wormwood.[179]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

2050<\/sub>Queen<\/strong>
\nThe instances[180]<\/sup><\/a> that second marriage move[181]<\/sup><\/a>
\nAre base respects of thrift,[182]<\/sup><\/a> but none of love.
\nA second time I kill my husband dead
\nWhen second husband kisses me in bed.<\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nI do believe you think what now you speak,
\n2055<\/sub>But what we do determine, oft we break.
\nPurpose is but the slave to memory,[183]<\/sup><\/a>
\nOf violent birth, but poor validity,[184]<\/sup><\/a>
\nWhich now like fruit unripe[185]<\/sup><\/a> sticks on the tree,
\nBut fall unshaken when they mellow be.
\n2060<\/sub>Most necessary ’tis that we forget
\nTo pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt.[186]<\/sup><\/a>
\nWhat to ourselves in passion we propose,
\nThe passion ending, doth the purpose lose.
\nThe violence of either grief or joy
\n2065<\/sub>Their own enactures[187]<\/sup><\/a> with themselves destroy.[188]<\/sup><\/a>
\nWhere joy most revels, grief doth most lament;
\nGrief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident.[189]<\/sup><\/a>
\nThis world is not for aye,[190]<\/sup><\/a> nor ’tis not strange
\nThat even our loves should with our fortunes change;
\n2070<\/sub>For ’tis a question left us yet to prove
\nWhether love lead fortune, or else fortune love.[191]<\/sup><\/a>
\nThe great man down,[192]<\/sup><\/a> you mark his favorites flies;[193]<\/sup><\/a>
\nThe poor advanced makes friends of enemies;[194]<\/sup><\/a>
\nAnd hitherto[195]<\/sup><\/a> doth love on fortune tend,[196]<\/sup><\/a>
\n2075<\/sub>For who not needs[197]<\/sup><\/a> shall never lack a friend,
\nAnd who in want a hollow friend doth try[198]<\/sup><\/a>
\nDirectly seasons him[199]<\/sup><\/a> his enemy.
\nBut orderly to end where I begun,[200]<\/sup><\/a>
\nOur wills and fates do so contrary run[201]<\/sup><\/a>
\n2080<\/sub>That our devices still[202]<\/sup><\/a> are overthrown;
\nOur thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.[203]<\/sup><\/a>
\nSo, think[204]<\/sup><\/a> thou wilt no second husband wed,
\nBut die thy thoughts[205]<\/sup><\/a> when thy first lord is dead.<\/p>\n

Queen<\/strong>
\nNor earth to me give[206]<\/sup><\/a> food, nor heaven light,
\n2085<\/sub>Sport and repose lock from me day and night,[207]<\/sup><\/a>
\n2085.1<\/sub>To desperation turn my trust and hope,
\nAn anchor’s cheer in prison be my scope![208]<\/sup><\/a>
\nEach opposite that blanks the face of joy
\nMeet what I would have well, and it destroy![209]<\/sup><\/a>
\nBoth here and hence pursue me lasting strife,[210]<\/sup><\/a>
\nIf once a widow, ever I be wife!<\/p>\n

2090<\/sub>Hamlet<\/strong>
\nIf she should break it now![211]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\n‘Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here awhile.
\nMy spirits grow dull, and fain[212]<\/sup><\/a> I would beguile
\nThe tedious day with sleep.<\/p>\n

2095<\/sub>Queen<\/strong>
\nSleep rock thy brain,
\nAnd never come mischance between us twain!
\n[The Player King] sleeps. Exit [Player Queen].<\/em><\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nMadam, how like you this play?<\/p>\n

Queen<\/strong>
\nThe lady doth protest too much,[213]<\/sup><\/a> methinks.<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nOh, but she’ll keep her word.<\/p>\n

2100<\/sub>King<\/strong>
\nHave you heard the argument?[214]<\/sup><\/a> Is there no offense in’t?<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nNo, no, they do but jest,[215]<\/sup><\/a> poison in jest. No offense[216]<\/sup><\/a> i’th’ world.<\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nWhat do you call the play?<\/p>\n

2105<\/sub>Hamlet<\/strong>
\nThe Mousetrap.<\/em>[217]<\/sup><\/a> Marry, how? Tropically.[218]<\/sup><\/a> This play is the image of a murder
\ndone in Vienna. Gonzago is the Duke’s[219]<\/sup><\/a> name, his wife Baptista. You shall
\nsee anon. ‘Tis a knavish piece of work, but what of that? Your majesty and
\n2110<\/sub>we that have free[220]<\/sup><\/a> souls, it touches[221]<\/sup><\/a> us not. Let the galled jade wince, our
\nwithers are unwrung.[222]<\/sup><\/a>
\nEnter Lucianus.<\/em>
\nThis is one Lucianus, nephew to the King.<\/p>\n

Ophelia<\/strong>
\nYou are as good as a chorus,[223]<\/sup><\/a> my lord.<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\n2115<\/sub>I could interpret between you and your love if I could see the puppets
\ndallying.[224]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Ophelia<\/strong>
\nYou are keen,[225]<\/sup><\/a> my lord, you are keen.<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nIt would cost you a groaning to take off mine edge.[226]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Ophelia<\/strong>
\nStill better and worse.[227]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

2120<\/sub>Hamlet<\/strong>
\nSo you mis-take your husbands.[228]<\/sup><\/a>–Begin, murderer. Pox, leave[229]<\/sup><\/a> thy damnable faces[230]<\/sup><\/a>
\nand begin. Come, the croaking raven doth bellow for revenge.<\/p>\n

Lucianus<\/strong>
\n2125<\/sub>Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing,
\nConfederate season, else no creature seeing,[231]<\/sup><\/a>
\nThou mixture rank,[232]<\/sup><\/a> of midnight weeds collected,
\nWith Hecate’s ban[233]<\/sup><\/a> thrice blasted,[234]<\/sup><\/a> thrice infected,
\nThy natural magic and dire property[235]<\/sup><\/a>
\n2130<\/sub>On wholesome life usurp immediately.
\nPours the poison in his ears. Exit.<\/em><\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\n‘A poisons him i’th’ garden for his estate.[236]<\/sup><\/a> His name’s Gonzago. The story is
\nextant, and written in very choice Italian. You shall see anon how the murderer gets
\n2135<\/sub>the love of Gonzago’s wife.<\/p>\n

Ophelia<\/strong>
\nThe King rises.<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nWhat, frighted with false fire?<\/p>\n

Queen<\/strong>
\nHow fares my lord?<\/p>\n

Polonius<\/strong>
\nGive o’er the play.<\/p>\n

2140<\/sub>King<\/strong>
\nGive me some light. Away!<\/p>\n

The Courtiers<\/strong>
\nLights, lights, lights!
\nExeunt all but Hamlet and Horatio.<\/em><\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\n“Why, let the strucken deer go weep,
\nThe heart ungall\u00e8d[237]<\/sup><\/a> play,
\n2145<\/sub>For some must watch[238]<\/sup><\/a> while some must sleep;
\nThus runs the world away.”[239]<\/sup><\/a>[240]<\/sup><\/a>
\nWould not this,[241]<\/sup><\/a> sir, and a forest of feathers[242]<\/sup><\/a>–if the rest of my fortunes turn
\nTurk with me[243]<\/sup><\/a>–with two provincial roses[244]<\/sup><\/a> on my razed[245]<\/sup><\/a> shoes, get me a
\n2150<\/sub>fellowship in a cry of players, sir?<\/p>\n

Horatio<\/strong>
\nHalf a share.<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nA whole one, I.
\nFor thou dost know, O Damon[246]<\/sup><\/a> dear,
\nThis realm dismantled was of Jove himself,
\n2155<\/sub>And now reigns here
\nA very, very pajock.[247]<\/sup><\/a>[248]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Horatio<\/strong>
\nYou might have rhymed.<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nO good Horatio, I’ll take the Ghost’s word for a thousand pound. Didst
\nperceive?<\/p>\n

2160<\/sub>Horatio<\/strong>
\nVery well, my lord.<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nUpon the talk of the poisoning?<\/p>\n

Horatio<\/strong>
\nI did very well note him.
\nEnter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.<\/em><\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nAha, come, some music! Come, the recorders.[249]<\/sup><\/a>
\n2165<\/sub>For if the King like not the comedy,
\nWhy, then belike[250]<\/sup><\/a> he likes it not, pardie.[251]<\/sup><\/a>
\nCome, some music.<\/p>\n

Guildenstern<\/strong>
\nGood my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you.<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nSir a whole history.<\/p>\n

2170<\/sub>Guildenstern<\/strong>
\nThe King, sir–<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nAy, sir, what of him?<\/p>\n

Guildenstern<\/strong>
\nIs in his retirement[252]<\/sup><\/a> marvelous distempered.[253]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nWith drink,[254]<\/sup><\/a> sir?<\/p>\n

Guildenstern<\/strong>
\nNo, my lord, rather with choler.[255]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

2175<\/sub>Hamlet<\/strong>
\nYour wisdom should show itself more richer[256]<\/sup><\/a> to signify this to his doctor, for,
\nfor me to put him to his purgation would perhaps plunge him into far more
\ncholer.[257]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Guildenstern<\/strong>
\n2180<\/sub>Good my lord, put your discourse into some frame,[258]<\/sup><\/a> and start[259]<\/sup><\/a> not so wildly
\nfrom my affair.<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nI am tame sir. Pronounce.<\/p>\n

Guildenstern<\/strong>
\nThe Queen your mother, in most great affliction of spirit, hath sent me to
\nyou.<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nYou are welcome.<\/p>\n

2185<\/sub>Guildenstern<\/strong>
\nNay, good my lord, this courtesy is not of the right breed.[260]<\/sup><\/a> If it shall please
\nyou to make me a wholesome[261]<\/sup><\/a> answer, I will do your mother’s
\ncommandment. If not, your pardon[262]<\/sup><\/a> and my return shall be the end of my
\nbusiness.<\/p>\n

2190<\/sub>Hamlet<\/strong>
\nSir, I cannot.<\/p>\n

Guildenstern<\/strong>
\nWhat, my lord?<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nMake you a wholesome answer; my wit’s diseased. But, sir, such answer as
\nI can make, you shall command, or rather, as you say, my mother.[263]<\/sup><\/a> Therefore no
\n2195<\/sub> more, but to the matter. My mother, you say.<\/p>\n

Rosencrantz<\/strong>
\nThen thus she says: your behavior hath struck her into amazement and
\nadmiration.<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nOh, wonderful son, that can so ‘stonish a mother! But is there no sequel at
\n2200<\/sub>the heels of this mother’s admiration?[264]<\/sup><\/a> Impart.[265]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Rosencrantz<\/strong>
\nShe desires to speak with you in her closet[266]<\/sup><\/a> ere you go to bed.<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nWe shall obey, were she ten times our mother. Have you any further trade
\nwith us?<\/p>\n

2205<\/sub>Rosencrantz<\/strong>
\nMy lord, you once did love me.<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nSo I do still, by these pickers and stealers.[267]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Rosencrantz<\/strong>
\nGood my lord, what is your cause of distemper?[268]<\/sup><\/a> You do surely bar the door
\nupon your own liberty if you deny your griefs to[269]<\/sup><\/a> your friend.<\/p>\n

2210<\/sub>Hamlet<\/strong>
\nSir, I lack advancement.<\/p>\n

Rosencrantz<\/strong>
\nHow can that be, when you have the voice of the King himself for your
\nsuccession in Denmark?
\n2215<\/sub>Enter the Players, with recorders.<\/em><\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nAy, sir, but “while the grass grows”[270]<\/sup><\/a>–the proverb is something[271]<\/sup><\/a> musty.
\n–Oh, the recorders. Let me see one. [He takes a recorder.]<\/em> To withdraw with you,
\nwhy do you go about to recover the wind of me,[272]<\/sup><\/a> as if you would drive me
\ninto a toil?<\/p>\n

Guildenstern<\/strong>
\n2220<\/sub>Oh, my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly.[273]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nI do not well understand that.[274]<\/sup><\/a> Will you play upon this pipe?<\/p>\n

Guildenstern<\/strong>
\nMy lord, I cannot.<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nI pray you.<\/p>\n

2225<\/sub>Guildenstern<\/strong>
\nBelieve me, I cannot.<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nI do beseech you.<\/p>\n

Guildenstern<\/strong>
\nI know no touch of it, my lord.<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nIt is as easy as lying. Govern these ventages[275]<\/sup><\/a> with your fingers and thumb,
\n2230<\/sub>give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music.
\nLook you, these are the stops.<\/p>\n

Guildenstern<\/strong>
\nBut these cannot I command to any utt’rance of harmony. I have not the
\nskill.<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\n2235<\/sub>Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would
\nplay upon me, you would seem to know my stops, you would pluck out the
\nheart of my mystery,[276]<\/sup><\/a> you would sound me[277]<\/sup><\/a> from my lowest note to the top of
\nmy compass, and there is much music, excellent voice in this little organ,[278]<\/sup><\/a>
\n2240<\/sub>yet cannot you make it speak. ‘Sblood,[279]<\/sup><\/a> do you think I am easier to be played on
\nthan a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you
\ncannot play upon me.[280]<\/sup><\/a>
\nEnter Polonius.<\/em>
\n[To Polonius, as he enters]<\/em> God bless you, sir.<\/p>\n

2245<\/sub>Polonius<\/strong>
\nMy lord, the Queen would speak with you, and presently.[281]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nDo you see yonder cloud that’s almost in shape of a camel?<\/p>\n

Polonius<\/strong>
\nBy th’ mass, and ’tis like[282]<\/sup><\/a> a camel indeed.<\/p>\n

2250<\/sub>Hamlet<\/strong>
\nMethinks it is like a weasel.<\/p>\n

Polonius<\/strong>
\nIt is backed like a weasel.<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nOr like a whale.<\/p>\n

Polonius<\/strong>
\nVery like a whale.<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\n2255<\/sub>Then I will come to my mother by and by.[283]<\/sup><\/a> [Aside]<\/em> They fool me to the top
\nof my bent.[284]<\/sup><\/a>
\n[Aloud]<\/em> I will come by and by.<\/p>\n

Polonius<\/strong>
\nI will say so.
\nExit.<\/em><\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\n“By and by” is easily said.–Leave me, friends.[285]<\/sup><\/a>
\nExeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.<\/em>
\n‘Tis now the very witching time[286]<\/sup><\/a> of night,
\n2260<\/sub>When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out
\nContagion[287]<\/sup><\/a> to this world. Now could I drink hot blood,
\nAnd do such bitter business as the day
\nWould quake to look on. Soft, now to my mother.
\nO heart, lose not thy nature![288]<\/sup><\/a> Let not ever
\n2265<\/sub>The soul of Nero[289]<\/sup><\/a> enter this firm[290]<\/sup><\/a> bosom.
\nLet me be cruel, not unnatural;
\nI will speak daggers to her, but use none.
\nMy tongue and soul in this be hypocrites:
\nHow in my words somever she be shent,
\n2270<\/sub>To give them seals never my soul consent![291]<\/sup><\/a>
\nExit.<\/em><\/p>\n

Scene 3<\/h1>\n

Enter<\/em>[292]<\/sup><\/a> King, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern.<\/em><\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nI like him[293]<\/sup><\/a> not, nor stands it safe with us
\nTo let his madness range.[294]<\/sup><\/a> Therefore prepare you.
\nI your commission will forthwith dispatch,[295]<\/sup><\/a>
\n2275<\/sub>And he to England shall along with you.
\nThe terms of our estate may not endure
\nHazard so dangerous as doth hourly grow
\nOut of his lunacies.[296]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Guildenstern<\/strong>
\nWe will ourselves provide.[297]<\/sup><\/a>
\n2280<\/sub>Most holy and religious fear[298]<\/sup><\/a> it is
\nTo keep those many many bodies[299]<\/sup><\/a> safe
\nThat live and feed upon your majesty.<\/p>\n

Rosencrantz<\/strong>
\nThe single and peculiar[300]<\/sup><\/a> life is bound
\n2285<\/sub>With all the strength and armor of the mind
\nTo keep itself from noyance,[301]<\/sup><\/a> but much more
\nThat spirit[302]<\/sup><\/a> upon whose weal[303]<\/sup><\/a> depends and rests
\nThe lives of many. The cease[304]<\/sup><\/a> of majesty
\nDies not alone, but like a gulf[305]<\/sup><\/a> doth draw
\n2290<\/sub>What’s near it with it. It is a massy[306]<\/sup><\/a> wheel
\nFixed on the summit of the highest mount,
\nTo whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things
\nAre mortised and adjoined,[307]<\/sup><\/a> which, when it falls,[308]<\/sup><\/a>
\nEach small annexment, petty consequence,[309]<\/sup><\/a>
\n2295<\/sub>Attends[310]<\/sup><\/a> the boist’rous[311]<\/sup><\/a> ruin. Never alone
\nDid the king sigh, but with a general groan.<\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nArm you, I pray you, to[312]<\/sup><\/a> this speedy voyage,
\nFor we will fetters put upon this fear
\nWhich now goes too free-footed.<\/p>\n

2300<\/sub>Rosencrantz and Guildenstern<\/strong>
\nWe will haste us.
\nExeunt gentlemen [Rosencrantz and Guildenstern].<\/em>
\nEnter Polonius.<\/em><\/p>\n

Polonius<\/strong>
\nMy lord, he’s going to his mother’s closet.[313]<\/sup><\/a>
\nBehind the arras[314]<\/sup><\/a> I’ll convey myself
\nTo hear the process.[315]<\/sup><\/a> I’ll warrant[316]<\/sup><\/a> she’ll tax him home.[317]<\/sup><\/a>
\n2305<\/sub>And, as you said–and wisely was it said–
\n‘Tis meet[318]<\/sup><\/a> that some more audience than a mother,
\nSince nature makes them partial,[319]<\/sup><\/a> should o’erhear
\nThe speech of vantage.[320]<\/sup><\/a> Fare you well, my liege.[321]<\/sup><\/a>
\nI’ll call upon you ere you go to bed,
\n2310<\/sub>And tell you what I know.<\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nThanks, dear my lord.
\nExit [Polonius].<\/em>
\nOh, my offense is rank! It smells to heaven.
\nIt hath the primal eldest curse[322]<\/sup><\/a> upon’t,
\nA brother’s murder. Pray can I not,
\n2315<\/sub>Though inclination be as sharp as will;[323]<\/sup><\/a>
\nMy stronger guilt defeats my strong intent,
\nAnd like a man to double business bound[324]<\/sup><\/a>
\nI stand in pause where I shall first begin,
\nAnd both neglect. What if this curs\u00e8d hand
\n2320<\/sub>Were thicker than itself with brother’s blood,[325]<\/sup><\/a>
\nIs there not rain enough in the sweet heavens
\nTo wash it white as snow?[326]<\/sup><\/a> Whereto serves mercy
\nBut to confront the visage of offense?[327]<\/sup><\/a>
\nAnd what’s in prayer but this twofold force,
\n2325<\/sub>To be forestall\u00e8d[328]<\/sup><\/a> ere we come to fall,
\nOr pardoned being down? Then I’ll look up.
\nMy fault is past.[329]<\/sup><\/a> But, oh, what form of prayer
\nCan serve my turn? “Forgive me my foul murder”?
\nThat cannot be, since I am still possessed
\n2330<\/sub>Of those effects for which I did the murder:
\nMy crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.
\nMay one be pardoned and retain th’offense?[330]<\/sup><\/a>
\nIn the corrupted currents of this world,[331]<\/sup><\/a>
\nOffense’s gilded hand[332]<\/sup><\/a> may shove by justice,
\n2335<\/sub>And oft ’tis seen the wicked prize[333]<\/sup><\/a> itself
\nBuys out the law. But ’tis not so above:
\nThere is no shuffling,[334]<\/sup><\/a> there the action lies
\nIn his[335]<\/sup><\/a> true nature,[336]<\/sup><\/a> and we ourselves compelled,
\nEven to the teeth and forehead of our faults,[337]<\/sup><\/a>
\n2340<\/sub>To give in evidence.[338]<\/sup><\/a> What then? What rests?[339]<\/sup><\/a>
\nTry what repentance can.[340]<\/sup><\/a> What can it not?
\nYet what can it, when one cannot repent?
\nO wretched state, O bosom black as death,
\nO lim\u00e8d[341]<\/sup><\/a> soul, that, struggling to be free,
\n2345<\/sub>Art more engaged![342]<\/sup><\/a> Help, angels! Make assay.[343]<\/sup><\/a>
\nBow, stubborn knees, and heart with strings of steel,
\nBe soft as sinews of the newborn babe!
\nAll may be well.
\n[He kneels.]<\/em>
\nEnter Hamlet.<\/em><\/p>\n

2350<\/sub>Hamlet<\/strong>
\nNow might I do it pat, now[344]<\/sup><\/a> ‘a[345]<\/sup><\/a> is a-praying,
\nAnd now I’ll do’t. [He draws his sword.]<\/em> And so ‘a goes to heaven,
\nAnd so am I revenged. That would be scanned:[346]<\/sup><\/a>
\nA villain kills my father, and for that,
\nI, his sole son, do this same villain send
\n2355<\/sub>To heaven.
\nWhy, this is hire and salary, not revenge.
\n‘A took my father grossly, full of bread,[347]<\/sup><\/a>
\nWith all his crimes broad blown,[348]<\/sup><\/a> as flush[349]<\/sup><\/a> as May,
\nAnd how his audit[350]<\/sup><\/a> stands, who knows save[351]<\/sup><\/a> heaven?
\nBut in our circumstance and course of thought[352]<\/sup><\/a>
\n2360<\/sub>‘Tis heavy with him. And am I then revenged
\nTo take him[353]<\/sup><\/a> in the purging of his soul,
\nWhen he is fit and seasoned[354]<\/sup><\/a> for his passage? No.
\n[He sheathes his sword.]<\/em>
\nUp, sword, and know thou a more horrid hent.[355]<\/sup><\/a>
\nWhen he is drunk asleep,[356]<\/sup><\/a> or in his rage,[357]<\/sup><\/a>
\n2365<\/sub>Or in th’incestuous pleasure of his bed,
\nAt gaming, swearing,[358]<\/sup><\/a> or about some act
\nThat has no relish[359]<\/sup><\/a> of salvation in’t,
\nThen trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven,[360]<\/sup><\/a>
\nAnd that his soul may be as damned and black
\n2370<\/sub>As hell, whereto it goes. My mother stays.[361]<\/sup><\/a>
\nThis physic[362]<\/sup><\/a> but prolongs thy sickly days.
\nExit.<\/em><\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nMy words fly up, my thoughts remain below.
\nWords without thoughts never to heaven go.
\nExit.<\/em><\/p>\n

Scene 4<\/h1>\n

Enter<\/em>[363]<\/sup><\/a> Queen [Gertrude] and Polonius.<\/em><\/p>\n

2375<\/sub>Polonius<\/strong>
\n‘A will come straight. Look you lay home to him.[364]<\/sup><\/a>
\nTell him his pranks have been too broad[365]<\/sup><\/a> to bear with,
\nAnd that your grace hath screened and stood between
\nMuch heat and him. I’ll silence me e’en here.
\n2380<\/sub>Pray you, be round with him.[366]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\n[Within.]<\/em>
\nMother, mother, mother!<\/p>\n

Queen<\/strong>
\nI’ll warrant you. Fear me not.[367]<\/sup><\/a>
\nWithdraw; I hear him coming.
\n[Polonius conceals himself behind the arras.]<\/em>
\nEnter Hamlet.<\/em><\/p>\n

2385<\/sub>Hamlet<\/strong>
\nNow mother, what’s the matter?<\/p>\n

Queen<\/strong>
\nHamlet, thou hast thy father[368]<\/sup><\/a> much offended.<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nMother, you[369]<\/sup><\/a> have my father[370]<\/sup><\/a> much offended.<\/p>\n

Queen<\/strong>
\nCome, come, you answer with an idle[371]<\/sup><\/a> tongue.<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nGo, go, you question with a wicked tongue.<\/p>\n

2390<\/sub>Queen<\/strong>
\nWhy, how now,[372]<\/sup><\/a> Hamlet?<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nWhat’s the matter now?<\/p>\n

Queen<\/strong>
\nHave you forgot me?[373]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nNo, by the rood,[374]<\/sup><\/a> not so.
\nYou are the queen, your husband’s brother’s wife,
\n2395<\/sub>And–would it were not so!–you are my mother.<\/p>\n

Queen<\/strong>
\nNay, then, I’ll set those to you that can speak.[375]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nCome, come, and sit you down. You shall not budge.
\nYou go not till I set you up a glass[376]<\/sup><\/a>
\n2400<\/sub>Where you may see the inmost part of you.<\/p>\n

Queen<\/strong>
\nWhat wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murder me?
\nHelp, help, ho!<\/p>\n

Polonius<\/strong>
\n[Behind the arras]<\/em> What ho! Help, help, help!<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nHow now, a rat? Dead for a ducat, dead![377]<\/sup><\/a>
\n[Hamlet thrusts through the arras with his sword.]<\/em>[378]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

2405<\/sub>Polonius<\/strong>
\n[Behind the arras]<\/em> Oh, I am slain!
\n[Polonius falls onto the stage floor, dead].<\/em><\/p>\n

Queen<\/strong>
\nOh, me, what hast thou done?<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nNay I know not. Is it the King?<\/p>\n

Queen<\/strong>
\nOh, what a rash and bloody deed is this!<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nA bloody deed–almost as bad, good mother,
\n2410<\/sub>As kill[379]<\/sup><\/a> a king, and marry with his brother.<\/p>\n

Queen<\/strong>
\nAs kill a king?<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nAy, lady, it was my word.
\n[He parts the arras and discovers the dead Polonius.]<\/em>
\nThou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!
\nI took thee for thy better.[380]<\/sup><\/a> Take thy fortune.
\n2415<\/sub>Thou find’st to be too busy[381]<\/sup><\/a> is some danger.
\n[To the Queen]<\/em> Leave wringing of your hands. Peace, sit you down,
\nAnd let me wring your heart, for so I shall
\nIf it be made of penetrable stuff,[382]<\/sup><\/a>
\nIf damn\u00e8d custom[383]<\/sup><\/a> have not brazed[384]<\/sup><\/a> it so
\n2420<\/sub>That it is proof and bulwark against sense.[385]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Queen<\/strong>
\nWhat have I done, that thou dar’st wag thy tongue
\nIn noise so rude against me?<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nSuch an act
\nThat blurs the grace and blush of modesty,
\n2425<\/sub>Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose
\nFrom the fair forehead of an innocent love
\nAnd sets a blister[386]<\/sup><\/a> there, makes marriage vows
\nAs false as dicers’ oaths–oh, such a deed
\nAs from the body of contraction[387]<\/sup><\/a> plucks
\n2430<\/sub>The very soul, and sweet religion makes
\nA rhapsody of words.[388]<\/sup><\/a> Heaven’s face doth glow
\nO’er this solidity and compound mass
\nWith tristful visage, as against the doom,
\nIs thought-sick at the act.[389]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

2435<\/sub>Queen<\/strong>
\nAy me, what act,
\nThat roars so loud and thunders in the index?[390]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\n[Showing her two likenesses, of Hamlet senior and Claudius]<\/em>
\nLook here upon this picture, and on this,
\nThe counterfeit presentment[391]<\/sup><\/a> of two brothers.
\nSee what a grace was seated on this brow:
\n2440<\/sub>Hyperion’s[392]<\/sup><\/a> curls, the front[393]<\/sup><\/a> of Jove himself,
\nAn eye like Mars[394]<\/sup><\/a> to threaten and command,
\nA station[395]<\/sup><\/a> like the herald Mercury[396]<\/sup><\/a>
\nNew lighted[397]<\/sup><\/a> on a heaven-kissing[398]<\/sup><\/a> hill,
\nA combination and a form indeed
\n2445<\/sub>Where every god did seem to set his seal[399]<\/sup><\/a>
\nTo give the world assurance of a man.
\nThis was your husband. Look you now what follows:
\nHere is your husband, like a mildewed ear,[400]<\/sup><\/a>
\nBlasting[401]<\/sup><\/a> his wholesome brother. Have you eyes?
\n2450<\/sub>Could you on this fair mountain leave[402]<\/sup><\/a> to feed
\nAnd batten on this moor?[403]<\/sup><\/a> Ha, have you eyes?
\nYou cannot call it love, for at your age
\nThe heyday in the blood[404]<\/sup><\/a> is tame, it’s humble,
\nAnd waits upon[405]<\/sup><\/a> the judgment, and what judgment
\n2455<\/sub>Would step from this to this? Sense,[406]<\/sup><\/a> sure, you have,
\n2455.1<\/sub>Else could you not have motion, but sure that sense
\nIs apoplexed,[407]<\/sup><\/a> for madness would not err,[408]<\/sup><\/a>
\nNor sense to ecstasy was ne’er so thralled
\nBut it reserved some quantity of choice
\n2455.5<\/sub>To serve in such a difference.[409]<\/sup><\/a> What devil was’t
\nThat thus hath cozened you at hoodman-blind?[410]<\/sup><\/a>
\n2456.1<\/sub>Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight,
\nEars without hands or eyes, smelling sans[411]<\/sup><\/a> all,
\nOr but a sickly part of one true sense
\nCould not so mope. O shame, where is thy blush?
\nRebellious hell,
\nIf thou canst mutine[412]<\/sup><\/a> in a matron’s bones,
\nTo flaming youth let virtue be as wax
\n2460<\/sub>And melt in her own fire.[413]<\/sup><\/a> Proclaim no shame
\nWhen the compulsive ardor gives the charge,
\nSince frost itself as actively doth burn,
\nAnd reason panders will.[414]<\/sup><\/a>[415]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Queen<\/strong>
\nOh, Hamlet speak no more!
\n2465<\/sub>Thou turn’st mine eyes into my very soul,
\nAnd there I see such black and grain\u00e8d[416]<\/sup><\/a> spots
\nAs will not leave their tinct.[417]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nNay, but to live
\nIn the rank sweat of an enseam\u00e8d[418]<\/sup><\/a> bed
\n2470<\/sub>Stewed[419]<\/sup><\/a> in corruption, honeying[420]<\/sup><\/a> and making love
\nOver the nasty sty![421]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Queen<\/strong>
\nOh, speak to me no more!
\nThese words like daggers enter in my ears.
\nNo more, sweet Hamlet.<\/p>\n

2475<\/sub>Hamlet<\/strong>
\nA murderer and a villain,
\nA slave that is not twentieth part the tithe[422]<\/sup><\/a>
\nOf your precedent lord,[423]<\/sup><\/a> a vice of kings,[424]<\/sup><\/a>
\nA cutpurse[425]<\/sup><\/a> of the empire and the rule,[426]<\/sup><\/a>
\nThat from a shelf the precious diadem[427]<\/sup><\/a> stole
\n2480<\/sub>And put it in his pocket–<\/p>\n

Queen<\/strong>
\nNo more!
\nEnter Ghost [in his nightgown].<\/em><\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nA king of shreds and patches–[428]<\/sup><\/a>
\n[Seeing the Ghost]<\/em> Save me and hover o’er me with your wings,
\n2485<\/sub>You heavenly guards! What would you, gracious figure?<\/p>\n

Queen<\/strong>
\nAlas, he’s mad!<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nDo you not come your tardy son to chide,
\nThat, lapsed in time and passion,[429]<\/sup><\/a> lets go by
\nTh’important[430]<\/sup><\/a> acting of your dread command?
\nOh, say!<\/p>\n

2490<\/sub>Ghost<\/strong>
\nDo not forget. This visitation
\nIs but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.
\nBut look, amazement on thy mother sits.
\nOh, step between her and her fighting soul!
\nConceit[431]<\/sup><\/a> in weakest bodies strongest works.
\n2495<\/sub>Speak to her, Hamlet.<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nHow is it with you, lady?<\/p>\n

Queen<\/strong>
\nAlas, how is’t with you,
\nThat you do bend your eye on vacancy,
\nAnd with th’incorporal[432]<\/sup><\/a> air do hold discourse?
\n2500<\/sub>Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep,
\nAnd, as the sleeping soldiers in th’alarm,[433]<\/sup><\/a>
\nYour bedded[434]<\/sup><\/a> hair, like life in excrements,[435]<\/sup><\/a>
\nStart up and stand on end. O gentle[436]<\/sup><\/a> son,
\nUpon the heat and flame of thy distemper[437]<\/sup><\/a>
\n2505<\/sub>Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look?<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nOn him, on him! Look you how pale he glares!
\nHis form and cause conjoined,[438]<\/sup><\/a> preaching to stones,[439]<\/sup><\/a>
\nWould make them capable.[440]<\/sup><\/a> [To the Ghost]<\/em> Do not look upon me,
\nLest with this piteous action you convert
\n2510<\/sub>My stern effects.[441]<\/sup><\/a> Then what I have to do
\nWill want true color, tears perchance for blood.<\/p>\n

Queen<\/strong>
\nTo whom do you speak this?<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nDo you see nothing there?<\/p>\n

Queen<\/strong>
\nNothing at all, yet all that is I see.<\/p>\n

2515<\/sub>Hamlet<\/strong>
\nNor did you nothing hear?<\/p>\n

Queen<\/strong>
\nNo, nothing but ourselves.<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nWhy, look you there, look how it steals away!
\nMy father in his habit[442]<\/sup><\/a> as he lived.
\nLook where he goes, even now out at the portal![443]<\/sup><\/a>
\nExit Ghost.<\/em><\/p>\n

2520<\/sub>Queen<\/strong>
\nThis is the very coinage of your brain.
\nThis bodiless creation ecstasy is very cunning in.[444]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nEcstasy?
\nMy pulse as yours doth temperately keep time,
\nAnd makes as healthful music. It is not madness
\n2525<\/sub>That I have uttered. Bring me to the test,
\nAnd I the matter will reword,[445]<\/sup><\/a> which madness
\nWould gambol from.[446]<\/sup><\/a> Mother, for love of grace,
\nLay not that flattering unction[447]<\/sup><\/a> to your soul
\nThat not your trespass but my madness speaks.
\n2530<\/sub>It will but skin and film[448]<\/sup><\/a> the ulcerous place,
\nWhiles rank corruption, mining[449]<\/sup><\/a> all within,
\nInfects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven,
\nRepent what’s past, avoid what is to come,
\nAnd do not spread the compost on the weeds
\n2535<\/sub>To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue,[450]<\/sup><\/a>
\nFor in the fatness[451]<\/sup><\/a> of these pursy times[452]<\/sup><\/a>
\nVirtue itself of vice must pardon beg,
\nYea, curb and woo for leave to do him good.[453]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Queen<\/strong>
\n2540<\/sub>Oh, Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.[454]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nOh, throw away the worser part of it,
\nAnd live the purer with the other half.
\nGood night. But go not to my uncle’s bed;
\nAssume[455]<\/sup><\/a> a virtue if you have it not.
\n2544.1<\/sub>That monster custom, who all sense doth eat,[456]<\/sup><\/a>
\nOf habits devil,[457]<\/sup><\/a> is angel yet in this,
\nThat to the use of actions fair and good
\nHe likewise gives a frock or livery[458]<\/sup><\/a>
\n2544.5<\/sub>That aptly[459]<\/sup><\/a> is put on. Refrain tonight,
\n2545<\/sub>And that shall lend a kind of easiness
\nTo the next abstinence; the next more easy:
\n2546.1<\/sub>For use almost can change the stamp of nature,[460]<\/sup><\/a>
\nAnd either [in] the devil,[461]<\/sup><\/a> or throw him out
\nWith wondrous potency. Once more good night,
\nAnd when you are desirous to be blest,
\nI’ll blessing beg of you.[462]<\/sup><\/a> For[463]<\/sup><\/a> this same lord,
\nI do repent; but heaven hath pleased it so
\n2550<\/sub>To punish me with this, and this with me,[464]<\/sup><\/a>
\nThat I must be their scourge and minister.[465]<\/sup><\/a>
\nI will bestow him,[466]<\/sup><\/a> and will answer well[467]<\/sup><\/a>
\nThe death I gave him. So, again, good night.
\nI must be cruel only to be kind.
\n2555<\/sub>Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.[468]<\/sup><\/a>
\n2555.1<\/sub>One word more, good lady.<\/p>\n

Queen<\/strong>
\nWhat shall I do?<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nNot this, by no means, that I bid you do:
\nLet the bloat[469]<\/sup><\/a> King tempt you again to bed,
\nPinch wanton on your cheek,[470]<\/sup><\/a> call you his mouse,[471]<\/sup><\/a>
\n2560<\/sub>And let him, for a pair of reechy[472]<\/sup><\/a> kisses,
\nOr paddling[473]<\/sup><\/a> in your neck[474]<\/sup><\/a> with his damned fingers,
\nMake you to ravel all this matter out[475]<\/sup><\/a>
\nThat I essentially am not in madness,
\nBut mad in craft.[476]<\/sup><\/a> ‘Twere good[477]<\/sup><\/a> you let him know,
\n2565<\/sub>For who that’s but a queen, fair, sober, wise,
\nWould from a paddock, from a bat, a gib,
\nSuch dear concernings hide?[478]<\/sup><\/a> Who would do so?
\nNo, in dispite of sense and secrecy,[479]<\/sup><\/a>
\nUnpeg the basket on the house’s top,
\n2570<\/sub>Let the birds fly, and like the famous ape,
\nTo try conclusions, in the basket creep,
\nAnd break your own neck down.[480]<\/sup><\/a>[481]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Queen<\/strong>
\nBe thou assured, if words be made of breath
\nAnd breath of life, I have no life to breathe[482]<\/sup><\/a>
\n2575<\/sub>What thou hast said to me.<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nI must to England. You know that?<\/p>\n

Queen<\/strong>
\nAlack, I had forgot. ‘Tis so concluded on.<\/p>\n

2577.1<\/sub>Hamlet<\/strong>
\nThere’s letters sealed, and my two schoolfellows,
\nWhom I will trust as I will adders fanged,
\nThey bear the mandate; they must sweep my way[483]<\/sup><\/a>
\nAnd marshal me to knavery.[484]<\/sup><\/a> Let it work,[485]<\/sup><\/a>
\n2577.5<\/sub>For ’tis the sport[486]<\/sup><\/a> to have the enginer[487]<\/sup><\/a>
\nHoised with his own petard,[488]<\/sup><\/a> and’t shall go hard
\nBut I will delve one yard below their mines,[489]<\/sup><\/a>
\nAnd blow them at the moon.[490]<\/sup><\/a> Oh ’tis most sweet
\nWhen in one line two crafts directly meet.[491]<\/sup><\/a>
\nThis man shall set me packing.[492]<\/sup><\/a>
\nI’ll lug the guts into the neighbor room.
\n2580<\/sub>Mother, good night indeed. This counselor
\nIs now most still, most secret, and most grave,[493]<\/sup><\/a>
\nWho was in life a foolish prating knave.–[494]<\/sup><\/a>
\nCome, sir, to draw toward an end with you.–[495]<\/sup><\/a>
\nGood night, mother.
\n2585<\/sub>Exit Hamlet, tugging in Polonius.<\/em><\/p>\n

  1. Location: The castle. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  2. Can you not, by means of roundabout inquiry. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  3. Willing. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  4. Probed, questioned. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  5. Inclination, mood. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  6. Laconic, reluctant to initiate talk. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  7. In response to our questions. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  8. Endeavor to persuade him to try. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  9. Happened. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  10. Overtook, passed ↵<\/a><\/li>
  11. Have arrived and are present here in the court. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  12. Incitement. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  13. Privately. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  14. Confront, encounter. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  15. Justifiable spies. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  16. By his behavior. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  17. Customary. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  18. Your Grace (addressed to the King). ↵<\/a><\/li>
  19. Presumably, a book of devotion. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  20. Religious exercise. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  21. Give a plausible appearance to, justify. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  22. It is too often shown to be the case and too often practiced. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  23. These words need not be said aside; they could be the King's way of agreeing with what Polonius has just said, before the King pursues in tortured soliloquy the dark consequences of the idea. Conversely, the whole speech can be read as expressive of a guilty conscience. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  24. Stinging. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  25. Beautified by means of cosmetics. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  26. \/ In comparison with or in response to the cosmetic that gives the cheek its false beauty. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  27. Devices for propelling several kinds of missiles toward an enemy. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  28. Impediment, difficulty. (Literally, an obstacle in the path of the ball in the game of bowls.) ↵<\/a><\/li>
  29. Cast off our mortal flesh and the turmoil of existence. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  30. Consideration. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  31. (1) That allows calamity to last so long; (2) that makes long life a calamity in itself. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  32. The insolent abuse meted out by those of superior social rank. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  33. Scorned, undervalued. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  34. Officialdom. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  35. Insults; literally, kicks. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  36. That patient, deserving people must endure at the hands of unworthy persons. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  37. Might settle his accounts (at the end of his life). A quietus was an affirmation that a bill had been paid, marked \"Quietus est,\" laid to rest. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  38. With nothing more elaborate than an unsheathed dagger. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  39. Such burdens. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  40. Boundary, border. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  41. The natural color of one's complexion (i.e., ruddiness) that signals manly courage. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  42. The white-faced pallor that accompanies too much introspection. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  43. High seriousness, profound importance. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  44. Momentousness, significance. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  45. Consideration. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  46. Courses. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  47. Askew, off the expected course. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  48. i.e., Wait a minute. (Said as Hamlet sees Ophelia.) ↵<\/a><\/li>
  49. Remember me in your prayers, sinner that I am. Christian theology in medieval and Renaissance times dwelt on the innate sinfulness of all humans since the fall of Adam and Eve. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  50. Anything. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  51. Grow. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  52. (1) chaste; (2) truthful. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  53. Beautiful. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  54. You should be chastely wary of any dealings with your beauty (since a beautiful woman is too often in danger of being seduced). ↵<\/a><\/li>
  55. Dealings. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  56. Its (honesty's) likeness. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  57. Formerly a seeming absurdity, a conundrum. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  58. Virtue cannot be grafted onto our inherently sinful nature without our retaining some taste or trace of the old stock, i.e., Adam's Original Sin. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  59. Convent (perhaps too with the suggestion of a brothel, since Hamlet is openly skeptical of the idea that beauty and chastity can coexist in women). ↵<\/a><\/li>
  60. Reasonably virtuous. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  61. Accuse myself. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  62. Command. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  63. Downright. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  64. Slander. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  65. Cuckolded men were popularly supposed to have monster-like horns on their foreheads as a sign of their being cheated on by their wives. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  66. You women make. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  67. Use of cosmetics. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  68. You dance about, you swing your hips suggestively when you walk, you speak with an affected voice. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  69. i.e., and you impose new names and false appearances on the creatures of this world instead of accepting them as God made them. In the Book of Genesis God gives names to his first creations, as when he \"called the dry land earth, and the gathering together of the waters called the Seas,\" and then ordained the abundance of moving creatures (1.10-25), but when he had created Adam, he turned the naming of the beasts and fowl over to him: \"he brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them,\" and so \"Adam gave names to all the cattle, and to the fowl of the air\" (2.19-20). ↵<\/a><\/li>
  70. And you excuse your bad behavior on the grounds that you didn't know any better. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  71. An expression of impatience. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  72. I won't have any more of this. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  73. Presumably, all but the King. (Whether Hamlet says this in the knowledge that the King is listening is a matter of interpretation.) ↵<\/a><\/li>
  74. The three attributes are not listed in the same order as that used for the three types of persons; the pattern is more rhetorical than strictly logical. \"Sword\" clearly goes with the soldier; \"eye\" and \"tongue\" could indicate scholar and courtier, or the reverse. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  75. The hope and ornament. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  76. The mirror of true self-fashioning and the model of courtly behavior. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  77. The admired center of attention in the court. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  78. i.e., reason as properly the sovereign or ruler over the emotions and the senses. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  79. Youth in its full blossoming. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  80. Blighted with madness. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  81. Emotions, feelings. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  82. Sits like a bird on a nest, about to \"hatch\" mischief (in the next line). ↵<\/a><\/li>
  83. And I do fear that the fulfillment and the discovery (like the hatching of a chick as it emerges from its shell). ↵<\/a><\/li>
  84. Determined, resolved the matter; put it in writing. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  85. Perhaps. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  86. Various sights and surroundings to divert him. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  87. Somewhat fixated. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  88. Continually. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  89. Out of his normal mode of behavior. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  90. Blunt. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  91. Is unable to discover what is troubling him. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  92. Location: A room of state in the castle. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  93. Declaim, speak exaggeratedly. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  94. Actors nowadays, the actors that people talk about. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  95. I'd just as soon, be just as willing. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  96. Person assigned the responsibility of loudly proclaiming public announcements in the streets. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  97. Cultivate and nurture. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  98. Boisterous, bombastic. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  99. Wig-wearing. The term \"groundlings,\" seemingly Shakespeare's invention, has condescending connotations of low taste and gullibility in the spectators. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  100. Able to understand. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  101. Noisy spectacles (as differentiated from complex and intellectually demanding drama). ↵<\/a><\/li>
  102. A supposed Mohammedan deity who, though not actually found in extant English medieval drama, had become a byword for tyrannical bluster, like Herod (see next note). ↵<\/a><\/li>
  103. King of Judea who ordered the massacre of all male children in his kingdom as a means of destroying the child that, wise men told him, was \"born King of the Jews\" (Matthew 2:2)--namely, Christ. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  104. Assure. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  105. Contrary to the purpose. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  106. To show human nature an image of itself and scornful persons a picture of what they look like. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  107. And the present state of affairs a likeness of itself as if impressed in wax. (\"His form\" means \"its form.\") ↵<\/a><\/li>
  108. Done lamely. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  109. Make those who lack critical discernment; the opposite of \"the judicious.\" ↵<\/a><\/li>
  110. i.e., I hope I will not be speaking profanely if I venture so far as to damn such bad actors as neither Christian, pagan, or any other part of the human race (as Hamlet says in the words that follow here). ↵<\/a><\/li>
  111. i.e., not Nature herself but merely one of her hired assistants. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  112. Tolerably, moderately well. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  113. Incite. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  114. Devoid of wit or judgment. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  115. At once. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  116. Even, absolutely. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  117. Judicious, honorable, trustworthy. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  118. As I have ever encountered in my experience with people. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  119. Sugary, flattering. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  120. Compliant. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  121. Wherever profit may accrue from abject flattery. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  122. And could make discriminating choices among men, she (my soul) has marked you as her own, as though putting a legal seal on you to ensure possession. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  123. Passion and reason. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  124. Hole in a recorder or similar wind instrument for controlling pitch. This observation about the \"stop\" on a recorder anticipates Hamlet's caustic exchange with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern later in this present scene (lines 227, TLN 2221, and following). ↵<\/a><\/li>
  125. i.e., I've already said too much on this subject. (Hamlet obliquely apologizes to Horatio for having expressed so deeply and personally his affection and admiration.) ↵<\/a><\/li>
  126. With your utmost powers of concentration. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  127. Hidden. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  128. Reveal itself (as a fox might be flushed from its lair). ↵<\/a><\/li>
  129. Presumably Hamlet here refers to the speech that he has asked the First Player to memorize and insert into the upcoming performance of \"The Murder of Gongazo.\" See 3.1.331, TLN 1581-2, above. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  130. The stithy or workshop of Vulcan, blacksmith-god of fire (and husband of Venus). Stiths are anvils. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  131. Pay for what has been stolen, i.e., make amends for my inadequate observation of the King. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  132. (1) be unoccupied; (2) resume my mad guise. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  133. How are things with you, my kinsman Hamlet? (But Hamlet, in his reply, plays on \"fares\" in the sense of \"dines.\") ↵<\/a><\/li>
  134. (1) I am feeding on air, like the chameleon (which was fabled to feed thus); (2) I am feeding myself with thoughts about succeeding to the Danish crown, having been given nothing but empty promises of succession. (Hamlet is \"heir\" apparent; the word sounds like \"air.\") ↵<\/a><\/li>
  135. (1) castrated roosters, often crammed with feed to make them succulent for the dinner table; (2) fools. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  136. I can make nothing of, can learn nothing from. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  137. Do not respond to what I asked and thus are meaningless to me. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  138. These words are so longer mine, since I have uttered them and sent them forth into the air. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  139. The word plays on \"Brutus,\" the name of one of the chief conspirators against Caesar and also a synonym in Latin for \"stupid.\" According to historical legend, Marcus Brutus's great ancestor in the founding of the Roman republic, Lucius Junius Brutus, pretended to be stupid (much as Hamlet assumes a guise of madness) to throw off his tyrannical enemies; hence, his name \"Brutus,\" stupid. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  140. (1) action; (2) role in a play. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  141. i.e., so outstanding a fool. With satirical wordplay on \"capital\/Capitol\"; see the previous line. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  142. Await instructions from you as to when to begin. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  143. (1) mettle, disposition, temperament. (2) metal, an attractive quality (much as a magnet attracts iron). ↵<\/a><\/li>
  144. On stage, Hamlet often reclines at Ophelia's feet. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  145. Rustic goings-on. (The obscene punning here on \"cunt\" continues in \"nothing.\" ↵<\/a><\/li>
  146. (1) The oval figure of zero, suggesting a woman's vagina; (2) No \"thing,\" no penis. (\"Thing\" is a common euphemism in this sense.) ↵<\/a><\/li>
  147. i.e., if you talk of being merry, let me tell you that I'm very best singer and dancer of jigs (that is, of pointless vulgar merriment) you could hope to find. (Said sardonically.) Jigs were often tacked on gratuitously at the ends of dramatic performances, for the diversion of the audience. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  148. Within these. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  149. i.e., if mourning for my dead father has ceased after only two months, then the devil can wear mourning black for all I care, while I shift to the dark fur of the sable, outwardly suitable for remembrance of the dead but in fact quite soft and luxurious. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  150. A costuming device used in Morris dances and May-game sports in which the dancer is made up to resemble a horse and its rider by strapping the shape of a horse's body around his waist. Hamlet quotes from a lost ballad, occurring in Love's Labor's Lost , 3.1.27-8, lamenting the disappearance of Morris dancing and such folk customs under pressure from zealous Puritan reformers. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  151. This is stealthy mischief. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  152. Probably, perhaps. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  153. Signifies the plot. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  154. Keep a secret. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  155. Provided you are not. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  156. Naughty, indecent. (Ophelia sees all too clearly the offensive thrust of Hamlet's talk about her not being ashamed to show all.) ↵<\/a><\/li>
  157. Pay attention to. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  158. Brief verse motto inscribed inside a ring. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  159. The sun-god's chariot, i.e., the sun itself. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  160. The sea, the realm of the god Neptune. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  161. The round earth, the realm of the goddess Tellus, Earth. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  162. Light reflected from the sun. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  163. The King reckons that he and his queen have been married thirty years, each year comprising a span of twelve lunar cycles. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  164. God of marriage. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  165. Mutually, reciprocally. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  166. Bonds. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  167. Am anxious about you. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  168. It must not distress you at all, my lord. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  169. Women are apt to be extreme in their loving and are fearful to the same excessive extent. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  170. Either women feel no anxiety if they do not love at all, or, if they love extremely, they are prone to extreme anxiety. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  171. Experience. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  172. And just as my love is great in quantity, my fear of losing you is proportionately huge. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  173. Even the littlest. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  174. My vital faculties are ceasing to perform their functions. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  175. After I am gone. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  176. i.e., shalt thou find (to complete the couplet by rhyming \"find\" with \"kind.\" (The Player King is interrupted by his consort.) ↵<\/a><\/li>
  177. (1) Let no wife; (2) No wife does. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  178. Except she who. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  179. i.e., How bitter! (Wormwood is a bitter-tasting plant.) ↵<\/a><\/li>
  180. Motives, reasons. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  181. Prompt, motivate. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  182. Ignoble considerations of financial prudence. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  183. Our good intentions are too often subject to forgetfulness. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  184. Energetically conceived at first but lacking in staying power. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  185. Which purposeful intent, being immature and poorly thought through. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  186. It's necessary and inevitable that in time we neglect to fulfill the obligations that we have imposed on ourselves. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  187. Fulfillments, enactments. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  188. Violent extremes of both grief and joy engender their own destruction in the very act of manifesting themselves. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  189. Grief turns to joy and joy to grief on the slightest occasion. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  190. For ever. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  191. Whether Fortune or Love prevailed more mightily in the world's affairs was a favorite debating topic in the Renaissance. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  192. Fallen in fortune. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  193. His most favored supporter abandons him. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  194. When one of humble station is promoted, you'll see his former enemies now becoming his friends. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  195. Up to this point in the argument, or, to this extent. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  196. Attend, play a subservient role. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  197. Anyone who has no need (of wealth or a friend). ↵<\/a><\/li>
  198. And anyone who, being in need, tests the generosity of an insincere friend. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  199. Immediately turns him into. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  200. Began. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  201. What we wish for ourselves and what in fact happens to us are so opposite to each other. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  202. Intentions continually. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  203. No matter what we intend, the results go astray. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  204. i.e., (1) So, go ahead and think, or, (2) So, even if you think now that. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  205. Either (1) your thoughts will die, or (2) let them die. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  206. Neither let earth give me. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  207. May day bar me from recreation and night from repose. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  208. May an anchorite's or hermit's fare be the extent of my portion of food and drink. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  209. May every adverse thing that causes the face of joy to turn blank or pale encounter and destroy everything that I wish to see prosper! ↵<\/a><\/li>
  210. May eternal punishment pursue me in this life and the next. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  211. i.e., after the vows that she has sworn. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  212. Willingly. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  213. Offers too many promises and protestations. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  214. Plot. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  215. Make believe. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  216. Something that offends one's sensibilities . . . crime. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  217. Hamlet's nickname here for \"The Murder of Gonzago\" hints to the audience at his plan to use the play to \"catch the conscience of the King\" (2.2.391, TLN 1645). ↵<\/a><\/li>
  218. \/ How, indeed? Figuratively, as a \"trope\" or figure of speech, playing on words. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  219. i.e., the King's. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  220. Guiltless, unfettered. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  221. Concerns; injures. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  222. Let the chafed horse wince and kick at being galled by its saddle or harness; our horse is not rubbed sore between its shoulder blades\/ (i.e., only the guilty will be made uncomfortable by this story of a duke who murders in order to win the wife of his victim). ↵<\/a><\/li>
  223. You serve as well as the actor whose function is to introduce forthcoming action on stage. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  224. Hamlet imagines for himself the role of interpreter or chorus for a puppet show, with the suggestion too of being a go-between in an affair. \"Dallying\" continues the sexual suggestion, as do Hamlet's quips in the following lines. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  225. Sharp, bitterly satirical (but see next note for Hamlet's wordplay). ↵<\/a><\/li>
  226. It would cost you a pregnancy to satiate the keenness of my sexual appetite. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  227. i.e., Witty as always, albeit incorrigibly smutty. (These exchanges are said as playful banter, not as overt barbs.) ↵<\/a><\/li>
  228. i.e., That's just the way you women take other men into your beds instead of your husbands. Hamlet plays on the language of the Form of Solemnization of Matrimony in the Book of Common Prayer bidding bride and groom to take their new partners \"for better, for worse.\" ↵<\/a><\/li>
  229. \"Pox\" or \"Poxe\" is an exclamation of impatience, referring literally to the pock-marks caused by syphilis and other diseases. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  230. Deplorable and devilish grimaces. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  231. A complicit or conspiring time, providing darkness so that no one will discover the crime. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  232. Foul, offensive. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  233. The curse invoked by Hecate, goddess of witchcraft. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  234. Blighted. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  235. Baleful power or quality. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  236. Property, i.e., the kingship. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  237. Unafflicted. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  238. Stay awake. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  239. That is the way of the world. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  240. Seemingly from an unknown ballad, alluding to the folk tradition of the wounded deer that retires from company to weep in solitude as it dies. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  241. i.e., the play I have just presented and contributed some lines to. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  242. i.e., extravagantly plumed headgear worn by the actors. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  243. Even if good fortune should desert me. (To \"turn Turk\" is to renounce Christianity in favor of the Muslim religion.) Hamlet jestingly asks if his newly proven skill in theatrical matters might offer him a mean of livelihood if his fortunes turn otherwise against him. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  244. Two large rosettes of ribbon, worn decoratively over shoelaces and named for the region of Provence in southern France. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  245. Decoratively slashed. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  246. The steadfast friend of Pythias in the story as dramatized in Richard Edwards's Damon and Pythias, here appropriate to the friendship of Hamlet and Horatio. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  247. This realm has been divested of its greatness by Jove himself, leaving the kingdom in the charge of a vain pretender to virtue and authority. (\"Pajock\", meaning \"peacock\" or \"patchcock,\" provides a ludicrous substitution for the word that would rhyme with \"was\" in line 198, presumably \"ass.\") ↵<\/a><\/li>
  248. This stanza appears to be adapted from some unknown ballad. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  249. Wind instruments characterized by a conical tube, a whistle mouthpiece, and eight finger holes; related to the flute. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  250. Perhaps. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  251. A version of the French \"par dieu.\u201d ↵<\/a><\/li>
  252. His withdrawal to his private chambers. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  253. Out of temper. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  254. Hamlet deliberately takes Guildenstern's \"out of temper\" to mean \"drunk,\" supposing the four \"humors\" in the King's body to have been thrown out of balance by excessive drinking. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  255. Instead of that, with anger. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  256. More rich in wisdom. The double comparative is allowable in early modern usage. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  257. Hamlet's sarcastic reply interprets \"choler\" in terms of humors theory, which saw \"choler\" as an excess of yellow bile producing indigestion as well as anger, and requiring purgation, usually bloodletting--with the ominous suggestion of Hamlet's letting out some of the King's blood. \"Purgation\" also suggests the spiritual cleaning through confession that the King is greatly in need of, with also the legal sense of clearing of guilt for a crime committed. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  258. Coherent order. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  259. Shy away like a nervous horse. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  260. (1) kind; (2) breeding, manners. (Guildenstern's point is that Hamlet's \"You are welcome,\" while seemingly polite, sounds sarcastic and not addressed to the issue at hand.) ↵<\/a><\/li>
  261. Healthy, sane. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  262. Permission for me to depart. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  263. Instead, it is my mother's command you are uttering, not your own. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  264. Bewilderment. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  265. Speak, say something. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  266. Private chamber. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  267. i.e., hands. In the Catechism in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, the person who is being prepared for Confirmation must vow \"to keep my hands from picking and stealing.\" ↵<\/a><\/li>
  268. The cause of your disorder. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  269. Refuse to share your unhappiness with. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  270. The whole proverb reads \"While the grass grows, the horse (steed) starves.\" Hamlet implies that his hopes of succeeding to the throne are distant at best, despite the King's having named him \"most immediate to our throne\" at 1.2.109 (TLN 291). ↵<\/a><\/li>
  271. Somewhat. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  272. Get to my windward side (just as a hunter would position himself in such a way that the hunted game, scenting danger, would then be driven in the opposite direction and thus into the \"toil\" or net). ↵<\/a><\/li>
  273. If I am being bold in an unmannerly fashion, it is my affection for you that prompts me to be so. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  274. Hamlet sounds skeptical of Guildenstern's protestations of love. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  275. Finger holes, the \"stops\" (TLN 2231) on the recorder. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  276. (1) secret; (2) skill in one of the craft guilds, as practiced for example by musicians. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  277. (1) fathom me to the depths of my mystery; (2) cause me to emit a sound. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  278. (1) fathom me to the depths of my mystery; (2) cause me to emit a sound. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  279. By God's blood. (A strong oath.) ↵<\/a><\/li>
  280. i.e., get me to play or dance to your tune. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  281. i.e., and she means right now. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  282. \"By th' mass\" is a familiar oath, invoking the Holy Sacrament. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  283. At once. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  284. They humor my odd behavior to the limit of my endurance. Literally, \"to . . . bent\" means \"to the extent to which a bow may be bent.\" ↵<\/a><\/li>
  285. \"By and by\" is easily said\" is Hamlet's acerbic riposte to what Polonius has just said, uttered to him as he is leaving or to anyone who will listen, including the audience. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  286. A time for witchcraft, when spells are cast and evil is abroad. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  287. Spreads its poisonous contagion. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  288. Natural feeling. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  289. Despotic and emotionally unbalanced Roman emperor (37-68 AD) who had his mother Agrippina put to death. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  290. Resolved. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  291. However much my words may rebuke her, let not my soul ever consent to ratify those words with violence. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  292. Location: The castle. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  293. i.e., his behavior. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  294. Roam freely. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  295. Prepare, cause to be drawn up. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  296. A person in my exalted position should not have to put up with such hazardous threats as seem hourly to be erupting out of Hamlet's feverish brain. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  297. We will prepare ourselves. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  298. Sacred concern and wise caution. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  299. i.e., subjects, the members of the \"body politic.\" The King's life must be protected because he is the embodiment of the body politic. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  300. Individual and private. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  301. Harm. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  302. The monarch. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  303. Well-being ↵<\/a><\/li>
  304. Cessation. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  305. Whirlpool. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  306. Massive. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  307. Fastened by inserting a tenon, or projecting member at the end of a timber, into a groove or slot in an adjoining timber called the mortise. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  308. Descends, like the wheel of Fortune. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  309. i.e., Each lesser person serving and dependent on the King. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  310. Takes part in, accompanies. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  311. Tumultuous. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  312. Prepare yourselves . . . for. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  313. Private chamber. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  314. Tapestry hangings, as at 2.2.157, TLN 1197. On the Elizabethan stage, the arras was presumably hung over a door or aperture such as the \"discovery space\" in the fa\u00e7ade of the tiring-house. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  315. Proceedings. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  316. Promise, assure. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  317. Reprove him severely. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  318. Fitting. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  319. Since their nearness of blood might render them less likely to see the business objectively. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  320. (1) from an advantageous position, or, (2) in addition. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  321. Liege lord, feudal superior to whom allegiance is due. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  322. The curse of Cain, whose murder of his brother Abel was the first such crime after the Fall of Man from the Garden of Eden (Genesis 4). ↵<\/a><\/li>
  323. Even though my desire (to seek forgiveness in prayer) is as strong as my determination to do so. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  324. Simultaneously obliged to undertake two tasks that are mutually incompatible. (The King wishes he could seek forgiveness while still holding on to the guilty rewards of his crime.) ↵<\/a><\/li>
  325. Were covered with a layer of a brother's blood thicker than the hand itself. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  326. The King alludes to three proverbial ideas, which contradict one another: (1) To wash one's hands of a thing, All the water in the sea cannot wash out this stain; and (3) As white as (the driven) snow. The Norton Shakespeare quotes Isaiah 1:15-18: \"I will not hear: your hands are full of blood. \/ Wash ye, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes . . . though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.\" ↵<\/a><\/li>
  327. What function does mercy serve other than to confront sin face to face? ↵<\/a><\/li>
  328. Prevented (from sinning). ↵<\/a><\/li>
  329. i.e., already committed, but susceptible to pardon. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  330. The thing for which one committed the crime. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  331. Ways of the world. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  332. The hand of the offender offering gold as a bribe. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  333. The prize wickedly desired and achieved. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  334. Evasion, trickery. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  335. Its. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  336. There, in heaven, each deed is seen for what it truly is, in its true form, like a rigorously conducted case at law. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  337. Face to face with our crimes. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  338. To testify against ourselves. (In heaven, an accused can be compelled to do this, not because heaven is tyrannical but because no guiltiness can be evaded at the heavenly bar of justice.) ↵<\/a><\/li>
  339. Remains to be said or done. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  340. Repentance can do. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  341. Caught as if with birdlime, a sticky substance smeared on twigs to snare birds. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  342. Entangled. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  343. Make some attempt. (Said by the King to himself, or possibly to the angels he hopes can hear him.) ↵<\/a><\/li>
  344. Do it opportunely and neatly, now that. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  345. He. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  346. Needs to be looked into. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  347. i.e., satiated with the pleasures of this world, rather than fasting and repenting. Hamlet seems to be talking about his father's spiritual unpreparedness for death when he was murdered; he died without being absolved of the normal but hazardous involvement in sinful appetite to which all mortals are prone. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  348. With all of Hamlet Senior's sins in full bloom. The male personal pronouns are not perfectly clear in lines 80-5, but presumably Hamlet refers to his father's ghost in lines 80-1, suffering the pangs of Purgatory for the sins not atoned for through Last Rites, so that (in lines 82-4) Hamlet cannot be sure about his father's present spiritual welfare. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  349. Vigorously thriving. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  350. Hamlet Senior's spiritual reckoning. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  351. Except for. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  352. As seen from our mortal and necessarily limited perspective. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  353. Claudius. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  354. Prepared, made ready. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  355. i.e., occasion to be grasped. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  356. i.e., dead drunk. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  357. Perhaps \"in a fit of sexual passion,\" though being in an uncontrollable rage would also put Claudius in danger of hellfire. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  358. Gambling, and swearing profusely. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  359. Trace, hint. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  360. Kick upwards as the body falls downward, suggesting also a spurning of heavenly reward and ineffectual kicking at the gates of heaven. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  361. Is waiting. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  362. Medicine (both the King's being at prayer, and Hamlet's consequent decision to postpone the killing). ↵<\/a><\/li>
  363. Location: The castle. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  364. He will be here any moment. Be sure to reprove him soundly. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  365. Unrestrained, outrageous. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  366. Be blunt, forthright with him. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  367. I assure you on that score. Don't worry about me. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  368. Your stepfather, Claudius. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  369. Throughout most of the scene, except for lines 11, 14, 17, 126, 133, and 141, the Queen uses the familiar \"thou\" in addressing her son, as was customary; he addresses her as \"you,\" the required respectful form. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  370. The dead King Hamlet. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  371. A foolish. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  372. What's this? ↵<\/a><\/li>
  373. Forgotten that I am your mother, whom you must respect. (But Hamlet answers in the sense of \"How could I forget that, in view of what you have done?\") ↵<\/a><\/li>
  374. Cross of Christ. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  375. i.e., talk sense into you. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  376. Mirror. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  377. i.e., I bet a ducat he's dead; or, a ducat as the price for his life. (A ducat is a gold coin, as at 2.2.244, TLN 1410.) ↵<\/a><\/li>
  378. Presumably, Hamlet stabs Polonius here as he says \"Dead for a ducat, dead!\" Polonius actually dies a line later, after crying out that he is mortally wounded. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  379. As to kill. The Queen's response seems to register shock and surprise at Hamlet's suggestion of killing a king. Some commentators see the fact that Hamlet now drops this line of inquiry as evidence that he is satisfied on that score. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  380. i.e., the King, your social and moral superior. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  381. Nosy. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  382. If your heart still has any sensitivity to feeling and emotion. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  383. Sinful habit. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  384. Brazened, hardened. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  385. Armored and thus made impenetrable against natural feeling. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  386. i.e., affixes there the brand of a prostitute. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  387. The marriage contract. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  388. And turns sweet religion into a mere senseless jumble of words. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  389. Heaven's face blushes with shame at this solid earth, compounded as it is of the four elements, with sorrowful face as though the day of doom were at hand, and is sick with thinking of this horrid deed--i.e., Gertrude's second marriage. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  390. Table of contents; prologue or preface. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  391. Painted representation. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  392. The sun-god's. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  393. Forehead, brow. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  394. The god of war. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  395. Stance. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  396. Winged messenger of the gods. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  397. Newly alighted. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  398. Reaching to the sky where it is kissed by the light of the sun. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  399. Affix his seal of approval. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  400. Ear of grain. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  401. Blighting. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  402. Leave off, cease. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  403. And gorge yourself on this barren, unfertile land. The images of mountain and moor offer contrasts of high and low, handsome and barren. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  404. Sexual arousal. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  405. Is subservient to. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  406. Sensation and perception and through the five senses. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  407. Paralyzed. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  408. Err in this fashion, as you have done. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  409. Nor could your physical senses ever have been so enslaved to ecstasy (i.e., lunacy) as to have been unable to perceive the difference between Hamlet Senior and Claudius. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  410. Cheated you at blindman's bluff. (Hamlet imagines a diabolical trick in which the devil, having covered the eyes of Gertrude with a scarf in the children's game of blindman's bluff, has steered her in such a way that she gropingly encountered Claudius.) ↵<\/a><\/li>
  411. Without. (French.) ↵<\/a><\/li>
  412. Mutiny. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  413. Chastity among the young will melt like wax held over a candle flame. (We cannot hope for self-restraint in young people when older women set such a bad example.) ↵<\/a><\/li>
  414. And reason forgives or makes excuses for sexual passion. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  415. Call it no shameful business when the compelling ardor of youth gives the signal for attack by committing lechery, since the frost of old age burns with as active a fire of lust and mature reason perverts its proper function by making excuses for lust rather than restraining it. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  416. Ingrained, indelible. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  417. Not leave off their dark indelible stain. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  418. Saturated with the greasy filth of lust. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  419. Steeped. (Suggesting also \"stew,\" brothel.) ↵<\/a><\/li>
  420. Indulging in lovey-dovey romantic behavior. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  421. Pigsty. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  422. Tenth part. (To be a twentieth part of a tenth part would be to embody a mere 0.5 percent of something, i.e., virtually none at all.) ↵<\/a><\/li>
  423. Former husband. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  424. A nonpareil of evil kings; with an allusion to the \"Vice,\" the gloating and insidious tempter to vice of many a late-medieval and sixteenth-century morality play. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  425. Pickpocket. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  426. The kingdom. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  427. Crown. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  428. Of ragged patchwork, appropriate for a monarch (Claudius) who is a sham, in Hamlet's view; suitable also for a fool or jester attired in motley. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  429. Having let time and passionate commitment (to revenge) slip away; with a suggestion too that Hamlet has allowed himself to be distracted from his duty by a passionate berating of his mother. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  430. Importunate, urgent. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  431. Imagination. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  432. The immaterial, bodiless. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  433. Like sleeping soldiers awakened by the call to arms. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  434. (previously) lying flat. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  435. As if the hair, an outgrowth of the body, could take on a life of its own. Because hair was assumed to be lifeless, its standing on end would suggest the presence of something ominous and unnatural. \"Excrement\" is derived from the Latin ex-crescere, to grow out of. Compare 1.5.16-21, where the Ghost tells Hamlet how even the \"lighest word\" describing the horror of Purgatory would cause Hamlet's hairs \"to stand on end \/ Like quills upon the fretful porpentine.\" The famous eighteenth-century actor David Garrick employed a trick wig that would enable him to make his hair stand on end. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  436. Nobly born; chivalrous; honorable; kind. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  437. Disorder, imbalance of mind. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  438. His appearance joined to his cause for appearing and speaking. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  439. Even to stones. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  440. Would make the stones capable of feeling and responding. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  441. Lest your pitiful looks divert me from accomplishing what I have to do, prompting me to weep when I should be shedding blood. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  442. Garments. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  443. Doorway. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  444. Madness (ecstasy) is very skillful in creating this kind of hallucination. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  445. Repeat word for word. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  446. Skip away from. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  447. An ointment that comforts without healing. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  448. Cover with a thin layer of skin. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  449. Undermining. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  450. My urging you to a virtuous course. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  451. Grossness. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  452. This corpulent, swollen, short-winded era. (\"Pursy\" is often said of a horse.) ↵<\/a><\/li>
  453. Bow obsequiously and beg for permission to serve vice. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  454. Cut in two. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  455. Give outward conformity to. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  456. Our monstrous proclivity for habit-forming behavior, which can so easily consume and overwhelm the physical senses. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  457. Being all too inclined toward evil habits. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  458. A garb, an outward appearance. (One can incline one's soul, Hamlet says, toward virtue by willing oneself to adopt a virtuous stance; the outward behavior can then begin to shape the inner self.) ↵<\/a><\/li>
  459. Readily. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  460. For by rigorously adopting a custom or habit we can come close to changing our very inborn nature. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  461. i.e., And custom or habit can either admit the devil into our hearts or throw him out. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  462. i.e., And when you are penitently ready to seek God's blessing, I will ask your blessing as a dutiful son should. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  463. As for. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  464. i.e., it is (evidently) heaven's pleasure that I am to be punished for having killed Polonius, just as he has been fatally punished at my hands for his snooping into other people's business. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  465. i.e., the heavens' agent of just retribution. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  466. Dispose of. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  467. Offer a suitable account of, pay for, atone for. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  468. i.e., Thus we can begin to face difficulties, but at least the worst is over; or, worse calamities are still to come. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  469. Bloated, puffy. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  470. Leave his sensual love pinches on your cheeks. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  471. A term of endearment. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  472. Reeking of filth. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  473. Fingering amorously. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  474. neck (including the breasts). ↵<\/a><\/li>
  475. Unravel, disclose. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  476. Only seemingly mad as a cunning device. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  477. Said with a sardonic irony that continues in the following eight lines. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  478. For why would any attractive, temperate, and wise queen wish to hide such important matters from a toad, a bat, a tom-cat? (Said sardonically; of course, such a woman would choose not to divulge Hamlet's secret to a repulsive villain.) ↵<\/a><\/li>
  479. The secrecy that common sense would seem to require. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  480. In the fall; or, utterly. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  481. In this Aesop-like beast fable, for which no source has been found, an ape releases some birds from a basket-like birdcage on a roof and then, mindlessly wishing to imitate them as an experiment (\"To try conclusions\"), gets into the cage himself and, attempting to fly, falls to the ground and breaks his neck. Presumably Hamlet is warning the Queen against coming too quickly to conclusions and rashly telling her husband that Hamlet's madness is only pretense. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  482. To utter. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  483. Prepare a path before me. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  484. Conduct me to where some treachery lies in wait for me. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  485. Proceed. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  486. It's a fine ironic joke. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  487. Deviser of \"engines\" of war, such as bombs. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  488. Blown skyward by his own explosive devices, such as were used to make a breach in fortifications. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  489. And it will be bad luck for me if I do not dig my tunnels underneath theirs. (Tunnels were used to attack enemy fortifications in siege warfare by undermining them and blowing them up from below.) Hamlet vows to outmaneuver Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  490. Moon-high, way up into the air. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  491. When two cunning plots are on a collision course, as when mines and countermines confront each other. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  492. The dead Polonius will set me to cooking up schemes; set me to lugging off the corpse; pack me off to England. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  493. Playing on the \"grave\" where Polonius will now be buried. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  494. An egregiously chattering rascal. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  495. (1) finish up with you; (2) drag you to the place of burial, where you will continue to be \"most still, most secret, and most grave\" (line 220). ↵<\/a><\/li><\/ol><\/div>","protected":false},"author":90,"menu_order":9,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":["william-shakespeare"],"pb_section_license":"cc-by"},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[60],"license":[52],"class_list":["post-206","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry","contributor-william-shakespeare","license-cc-by"],"part":188,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/provincialenglish\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/provincialenglish\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/provincialenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/provincialenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/90"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/provincialenglish\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":207,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/provincialenglish\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/206\/revisions\/207"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/provincialenglish\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/188"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/provincialenglish\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/206\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/provincialenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/provincialenglish\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=206"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/provincialenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=206"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/provincialenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}