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Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2

Hamlet devises the play test · William Shakespeare
Every note, for your class

Previously, in Act 2, Scene 1

Polonius sends Reynaldo to Paris to investigate Laertes indirectly by spreading mild rumors and observing the responses. A frightened Ophelia reports that a disheveled Hamlet entered her chamber, seized her wrist, stared at her, and departed without speaking. Polonius concludes that rejected love has driven Hamlet mad and goes to inform the king.

SCENE II. A room in the Castle.

Enter King, Queen, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and Attendants.
KING
Welcome, dear Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.Moreover that we much did long to see you,The need we have to use you did provokeOur hasty sending. Something have you heardOf Hamlet’s transformation; so I call it,Since nor th’exterior nor the inward manResembles that it was. What it should be,More than his father’s death, that thus hath put himSo much from th’understanding of himself,I cannot dream of. I entreat you bothThat, being of so young days brought up with him,And since so neighbour’d to his youth and humour,That you vouchsafe your rest here in our courtSome little time, so by your companiesTo draw him on to pleasures and to gather,So much as from occasion you may glean,Whether aught to us unknown afflicts him thusThat, open’d, lies within our remedy.
QUEEN
Good gentlemen, he hath much talk’d of you,And sure I am, two men there are not livingTo whom he more adheres. If it will please youTo show us so much gentry and good willAs to expend your time with us awhile,For the supply and profit of our hope,Your visitation shall receive such thanksAs fits a king’s remembrance.
ROSENCRANTZ
Both your majestiesMight, by the sovereign power you have of us,Put your dread pleasures more into commandThan to entreaty.
GUILDENSTERN
We both obey,And here give up ourselves, in the full bent,To lay our service freely at your feetTo be commanded.
KING
Thanks, Rosencrantz and gentle Guildenstern.
QUEEN
Thanks, Guildenstern and gentle Rosencrantz.And I beseech you instantly to visitMy too much changed son. Go, some of you,And bring these gentlemen where Hamlet is.
GUILDENSTERN
Heavens make our presence and our practicesPleasant and helpful to him.
QUEEN
Ay, amen.
Exeunt Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and some Attendants.
Enter Polonius.
POLONIUS
Th’ambassadors from Norway, my good lord,Are joyfully return’d.
KING
Thou still hast been the father of good news.
POLONIUS
Have I, my lord? Assure you, my good liege,I hold my duty, as I hold my soul,Both to my God and to my gracious King:And I do think,—or else this brain of mineHunts not the trail of policy so sureAs it hath us’d to do—that I have foundThe very cause of Hamlet’s lunacy.
KING
O speak of that, that do I long to hear.
POLONIUS
Give first admittance to th’ambassadors;My news shall be the fruit to that great feast.
KING
Thyself do grace to them, and bring them in.
Exit Polonius.
KING
He tells me, my sweet queen, that he hath foundThe head and source of all your son’s distemper.
QUEEN
I doubt it is no other but the main,His father’s death and our o’erhasty marriage.
KING
Well, we shall sift him.
Enter Polonius with Voltemand and Cornelius.
KING
Welcome, my good friends!Say, Voltemand, what from our brother Norway?
VOLTEMAND
Most fair return of greetings and desires.Upon our first, he sent out to suppressHis nephew’s levies, which to him appear’dTo be a preparation ’gainst the Polack;But better look’d into, he truly foundIt was against your Highness; whereat griev’d,That so his sickness, age, and impotenceWas falsely borne in handto deceive or keep in expectation by false assurances., sends out arrestsOn Fortinbras; which he, in brief, obeys,Receives rebuke from Norway; and in fine,Makes vow before his uncle never moreTo give th’assay of arms against your Majesty.Whereon old Norway, overcome with joy,Gives him three thousand crowns in annual fee,And his commission to employ those soldiersSo levied as before, against the Polack:With an entreaty, herein further shown,Gives a paper.That it might please you to give quiet passa peaceful passage into death.Through your dominions for this enterprise,On such regards of safety and allowanceAs therein are set down.
KING
It likes us well;And at our more consider’d time we’ll read,Answer, and think upon this business.Meantime we thank you for your well-took labour.Go to your rest, at night we’ll feast together:.Most welcome home.
Exeunt Voltemand and Cornelius.
POLONIUS
This business is well ended.My liege and madam, to expostulateWhat majesty should be, what duty is,Why day is day, night night, and time is timeWere nothing but to waste night, day and time.Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,I will be brief. Your noble son is mad.Mad call I it; for to define true madness,What is’t but to be nothing else but mad?But let that go.
QUEEN
More matter, with less art.
POLONIUS
Madam, I swear I use no art at all.That he is mad, ’tis true: ’tis true ’tis pity;And pity ’tis ’tis true. A foolish figure,But farewell it, for I will use no art.Mad let us grant him then. And now remainsThat we find out the cause of this effect,Or rather say, the cause of this defect,For this effect defective comes by cause.Thus it remains, and the remainder thus. Perpendconsider or reflect attentively.,I have a daughter—have whilst she is mine—Who in her duty and obedience, mark,Hath given me this. Now gather, and surmise.Reads.To the celestial, and my soul’s idol, the most beautified Ophelia—That’s an ill phrase, a vile phrase; ‘beautified’ is a vilephrase: but you shall hear.Reads.these; in her excellent white bosom, these, &c.
QUEEN
Came this from Hamlet to her?
POLONIUS
Good madam, stay awhile; I will be faithful.Reads.Doubt thou the stars are fire,Doubt that the sun doth move,Doubt truth to be a liar,But never doubt I love.O dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers. I have not art to reckon my groans. But that I love thee best, O most best, believe it. Adieu.Thine evermore, most dear lady, whilst this machine is to him,HAMLET.This in obedience hath my daughter show’d me;And more above, hath his solicitings,As they fell out by time, by means, and place,All given to mine ear.
KING
But how hath she receiv’d his love?
POLONIUS
What do you think of me?
KING
As of a man faithful and honourable.
POLONIUS
I would fain prove so. But what might you think,When I had seen this hot love on the wing,As I perceiv’d it, I must tell you that,Before my daughter told me, what might you,Or my dear Majesty your queen here, think,If I had play’d the desk or table-booka small notebook or set of tablets for recording memoranda.,Or given my heart a winking, mute and dumb,Or look’d upon this love with idle sight,What might you think? No, I went round to work,And my young mistress thus I did bespeak:‘Lord Hamlet is a prince, out of thy star.This must not be.’ And then I precepts gave her,That she should lock herself from his resort,Admit no messengers, receive no tokens.Which done, she took the fruits of my advice,And he, repulsed,—a short tale to make—Fell into a sadness, then into a fast,Thence to a watch, thence into a weakness,Thence to a lightness, and, by this declension,Into the madness wherein now he raves,And all we wail for.
KING
Do you think ’tis this?
QUEEN
It may be, very likely.
POLONIUS
Hath there been such a time, I’d fain know that,That I have positively said ‘’Tis so,’When it prov’d otherwise?
KING
Not that I know.
POLONIUS
Take this from this, if this be otherwise.Points to his head and shoulder.If circumstances lead me, I will findWhere truth is hid, though it were hid indeedWithin the centre.
KING
How may we try it further?
POLONIUS
You know sometimes he walks four hours togetherHere in the lobby.
QUEEN
So he does indeed.
POLONIUS
At such a time I’ll loose my daughter to him.Be you and I behind an arras then,Mark the encounter. If he love her not,And be not from his reason fall’n thereon,Let me be no assistant for a state,But keep a farm and carters.
KING
We will try it.
Enter Hamlet, reading.
QUEEN
But look where sadly the poor wretch comes reading.
POLONIUS
Away, I do beseech you, both awayI’ll board him presently. O, give me leave.
Exeunt King, Queen and Attendants.
POLONIUS
How does my good Lord Hamlet?
HAMLET
Well, God-a-mercy.
POLONIUS
Do you know me, my lord?
HAMLET
Excellent well. You are a fishmonger.
POLONIUS
Not I, my lord.
HAMLET
Then I would you were so honest a man.
POLONIUS
Honest, my lord?
HAMLET
Ay sir, to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.
POLONIUS
That’s very true, my lord.
HAMLET
For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a good kissing carrion,—Have you a daughter?
POLONIUS
I have, my lord.
HAMLET
Let her not walk i’ th’ sun. Conception is a blessing, but not as your daughter may conceive. Friend, look to’t.
POLONIUS
How say you by that? Still harping on my daughter. Yet he knew me not at first; he said I was a fishmonger. He is far gone, far gone. And truly in my youth I suffered much extremity for love; very near this. I’ll speak to him again.—What do you read, my lord?
HAMLET
Words, words, words.
POLONIUS
What is the matter, my lord?
HAMLET
Between who?
POLONIUS
I mean the matter that you read, my lord.
HAMLET
Slanders, sir. For the satirical slave says here that old men have grey beards; that their faces are wrinkled; their eyes purging thick amber and plum-tree gum; and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams. All which, sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down. For you yourself, sir, should be old as I am, if like a crab you could go backward.
POLONIUS
Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.—Will you walk out of the air, my lord?
HAMLET
Into my grave?
POLONIUS
Indeed, that is out o’ the air. How pregnant sometimes his replies are! A happiness that often madness hits on, which reason and sanity could not so prosperously be delivered of. I will leave him and suddenly contrive the means of meeting between him and my daughter.My honourable lord, I will most humbly take my leave of you.
HAMLET
You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I will more willingly part withal, except my life, except my life, except my life.
POLONIUS
Fare you well, my lord.
HAMLET
These tedious old fools.
Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
POLONIUS
You go to seek the Lord Hamlet; there he is.
ROSENCRANTZ
God save you, sir.
Exit Polonius.
GUILDENSTERN
My honoured lord!
ROSENCRANTZ
My most dear lord!
HAMLET
My excellent good friends! How dost thou, Guildenstern? Ah, Rosencrantz. Good lads, how do ye both?
ROSENCRANTZ
As the indifferent children of the earth.
GUILDENSTERN
Happy in that we are not over-happy;On Fortune’s cap we are not the very button.
HAMLET
Nor the soles of her shoe?
ROSENCRANTZ
Neither, my lord.
HAMLET
Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of her favours?
GUILDENSTERN
Faith, her privates we.
HAMLET
In the secret parts of Fortune? O, most true; she is a strumpet. What’s the news?
ROSENCRANTZ
None, my lord, but that the world’s grown honest.
HAMLET
Then is doomsday near. But your news is not true. Let me question more in particular. What have you, my good friends, deserved at the hands of Fortune, that she sends you to prison hither?
GUILDENSTERN
Prison, my lord?
HAMLET
Denmark’s a prison.
ROSENCRANTZ
Then is the world one.
HAMLET
A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons, Denmark being one o’ th’ worst.
ROSENCRANTZ
We think not so, my lord.
HAMLET
Why, then ’tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so. To me it is a prison.
ROSENCRANTZ
Why, then your ambition makes it one; ’tis too narrow for your mind.
HAMLET
O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.
GUILDENSTERN
Which dreams, indeed, are ambition; for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.
HAMLET
A dream itself is but a shadow.
ROSENCRANTZ
Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality that it is but a shadow’s shadow.
HAMLET
Then are our beggars bodies, and our monarchs and outstretch’d heroes the beggars’ shadows. Shall we to th’ court? For, by my fay, I cannot reason.
HAMLET
ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.We’ll wait upon you.
HAMLET
No such matter. I will not sort you with the rest of my servants; for, to speak to you like an honest man, I am most dreadfully attended. But, in the beaten way of friendship, what make you at Elsinore?
ROSENCRANTZ
To visit you, my lord, no other occasion.
HAMLET
Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks; but I thank you. And sure, dear friends, my thanks are too dear a halfpenny. Were you not sent for? Is it your own inclining? Is it a free visitation? Come, deal justly with me. Come, come; nay, speak.
GUILDENSTERN
What should we say, my lord?
HAMLET
Why, anything. But to the purpose. You were sent for; and there is a kind of confession in your looks, which your modesties have not craft enough to colour. I know the good King and Queen have sent for you.
ROSENCRANTZ
To what end, my lord?
HAMLET
That you must teach me. But let me conjure you, by the rights of our fellowship, by the consonancyagreement, harmony, or correspondence. of our youth, by the obligation of our ever-preserved love, and by what more dear a better proposer could charge you withal, be even and direct with me, whether you were sent for or no.
ROSENCRANTZ
What say you?
HAMLET
Nay, then I have an eye of you. If you love me, hold not off.
GUILDENSTERN
My lord, we were sent for.
HAMLET
I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation prevent your discovery, and your secrecy to the King and Queen moult no feather. I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving, how express and admirable; in action how like an angel, in apprehension, how like a god: the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals. And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me; no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.
ROSENCRANTZ
My lord, there was no such stuff in my thoughts.
HAMLET
Why did you laugh then, when I said ‘Man delights not me’?
ROSENCRANTZ
To think, my lord, if you delight not in man, what Lenten entertainment the players shall receive from you. We cotedto overtake and pass, especially in a race or pursuit. them on the way, and hither are they coming to offer you service.
HAMLET
He that plays the king shall be welcome,—his Majesty shall have tribute of me; the adventurous knight shall use his foil and target; the lover shall not sigh gratis, the humorous man shall end his part in peace; the clown shall make those laugh whose lungs are tickle o’ th’ serehaving a trigger that releases easily; readily provoked to laughter.; and the lady shall say her mind freely, or the blank verse shall halt for’t. What players are they?
ROSENCRANTZ
Even those you were wont to take such delight in—the tragedians of the city.
HAMLET
How chances it they travel? Their residence, both in reputation and profit, was better both ways.
ROSENCRANTZ
I think their inhibition comes by the means of the late innovation.
HAMLET
Do they hold the same estimation they did when I was in the city? Are they so followed?
ROSENCRANTZ
No, indeed, they are not.
HAMLET
How comes it? Do they grow rusty?
ROSENCRANTZ
Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace; but there is, sir, an aerieAn eagle’s nest, figuratively a company or school of young actors. of children, little eyasesA young, unfledged hawk; figuratively, a young actor., that cry out on the top of questionthe highest point of debate or the utmost that can be questioned., and are most tyrannically clapped for’t. These are now the fashion, and so berattleTo assail noisily with scolding or abuse. the common stages—so they call them—that many wearing rapiers are afraid of goose-quills and dare scarce come thither.
HAMLET
What, are they children? Who maintains ’em? How are they escotedTo pay for, maintain, or support at another’s expense.? Will they pursue the quality no longer than they can sing? Will they not say afterwards, if they should grow themselves to common players—as it is most like, if their means are no better—their writers do them wrong to make them exclaim against their own succession?
ROSENCRANTZ
Faith, there has been much to do on both sides; and the nation holds it no sin to tarreto incite, provoke, or urge on. them to controversy. There was for a while, no money bid for argument unless the poet and the player went to cuffs in the question.
HAMLET
Is’t possible?
GUILDENSTERN
O, there has been much throwing about of brains.
HAMLET
Do the boys carry it away?
ROSENCRANTZ
Ay, that they do, my lord. Hercules and his loadan emblem of Hercules carrying the globe, used as the sign of the Globe Theatre. too.
HAMLET
It is not very strange; for my uncle is King of Denmark, and those that would make mouths at him while my father lived, give twenty, forty, fifty, a hundred ducats apiece for his picture in little. ’Sblood, there is something in this more than natural, if philosophy could find it out.
Flourish of trumpets within.
GUILDENSTERN
There are the players.
HAMLET
Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore. Your hands, come. The appurtenance of welcome is fashion and ceremony. Let me comply with you in this garb, lest my extentA legal writ authorising the seizure and valuation of property to satisfy a debt. to the players, which I tell you must show fairly outward, should more appear like entertainment than yours. You are welcome. But my uncle-father and aunt-mother are deceived.
GUILDENSTERN
In what, my dear lord?
HAMLET
I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsawa heron, from an altered form of 'heronshaw'..
Enter Polonius.
POLONIUS
Well be with you, gentlemen.
HAMLET
Hark you, Guildenstern, and you too, at each ear a hearer. That great baby you see there is not yet out of his swaddling clouts.
ROSENCRANTZ
Happily he’s the second time come to them; for they say an old man is twice a child.
HAMLET
I will prophesy he comes to tell me of the players. Mark it.—You say right, sir: for a Monday morning ’twas so indeed.
POLONIUS
My lord, I have news to tell you.
HAMLET
My lord, I have news to tell you. When RosciusQuintus Roscius Gallus, a celebrated Roman actor whose name became a byword for an excellent performer. was an actor in Rome—
POLONIUS
The actors are come hither, my lord.
HAMLET
Buzz, buzz.
POLONIUS
Upon my honour.
HAMLET
Then came each actor on his ass—
POLONIUS
The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individablea play presented as one continuous action without division into separate scenes., or poem unlimiteda drama unrestricted by the classical rules governing plot, time, and place.. SenecaSeneca, a Roman philosopher and tragedian whose plays were associated with elevated, violent tragedy. cannot be too heavy, nor PlautusPlautus, a Roman dramatist famous for his comedies. too light, for the law of writ and the libertyscripted drama and freedom to improvise in performance.. These are the only men.
HAMLET
O Jephthaha biblical judge of Israel who vowed to sacrifice the first creature that met him on his return home, and was met by his daughter., judge of Israel, what a treasure hadst thou!
POLONIUS
What treasure had he, my lord?
HAMLET
Why—’One fair daughter, and no more,The which he loved passing well.’
POLONIUS
Still on my daughter.
HAMLET
Am I not i’ th’ right, old Jephthah?
POLONIUS
If you call me Jephthah, my lord, I have a daughter that I love passing well.
HAMLET
Nay, that follows not.
POLONIUS
What follows then, my lord?
HAMLET
Why,As by lot, God wot,and then, you know,It came to pass, as most like it was.The first row of the pious chanson will show you more. For look where my abridgement comes.
Enter four or five Players.
HAMLET
You are welcome, masters, welcome all. I am glad to see thee well. Welcome, good friends. O, my old friend! Thy face is valanc’dto furnish or surround with hanging drapery like a bed valance. since I saw thee last. Com’st thou to beard me in Denmark? What, my young lady and mistress! By’r lady, your ladyship is nearer to heaven than when I saw you last, by the altitude of a chopineA woman’s shoe raised on a very high cork or wooden sole.. Pray God your voice, like a piece of uncurrentInvalid or unacceptable as currency. gold, be not cracked within the ringflawed or broken before reaching full maturity, like a coin cracked inside its stamped border.. Masters, you are all welcome. We’ll e’en to’t like French falconers, fly at anything we see. We’ll have a speech straight. Come, give us a taste of your quality. Come, a passionate speech.
FIRST PLAYER
What speech, my lord?
HAMLET
I heard thee speak me a speech once, but it was never acted, or if it was, not above once, for the play, I remember, pleased not the million, ’twas caviare to the generalSomething too refined or unfamiliar to be appreciated by the general public.. But it was—as I received it, and others, whose judgements in such matters cried in the top ofto outshout or speak more loudly than. mine—an excellent play, well digested in the scenes, set down with as much modesty as cunning. I remember one said there were no salletsa salad or savoury ingredient, figuratively a piquant or entertaining passage. in the lines to make the matter savoury, nor no matter in the phrase that might indite the author of affectation, but called it an honest method, as wholesome as sweet, and by very much more handsome than fine. One speech in it, I chiefly loved. ’Twas Aeneas’ tale to Dido, and thereabout of it especially where he speaks of Priam’sPriam, the aged king of Troy and father of Hector, killed when the Greeks captured the city. slaughter. If it live in your memory, begin at this line, let me see, let me see:The rugged Pyrrhusthe son of Achilles, a Greek warrior who killed the aged King Priam during the sack of Troy., like th’ Hyrcanianof Hyrcania, an ancient region south of the Caspian Sea associated with fierce wild beasts. beast,—It is not so: it begins with Pyrrhus—The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable arms,Black as his purpose, did the night resembleWhen he lay couched in the ominous horse,Hath now this dread and black complexion smear’dWith heraldry more dismal. Head to footNow is he total gulesred, in heraldic terminology., horridly trick’dWith blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons,Bak’d and impastedTo coat thickly, as with paste or paint. with the parching streets,That lend a tyrannous and a damned lightTo their vile murders. Roasted in wrath and fire,And thus o’ersizedto coat or cover with a thick, glue-like layer. with coagulate gore,With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish PyrrhusOld grandsire Priam seeks.So, proceed you.
POLONIUS
’Fore God, my lord, well spoken, with good accent and good discretion.
FIRST PLAYER
Anon he finds him,Striking too short at Greeks. His antique sword,Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls,Repugnant to command. Unequal match’d,Pyrrhus at Priam drives, in rage strikes wide;But with the whiff and wind of his fell swordTh’unnerved father falls. Then senseless IliumIlium, another name for ancient Troy, the city besieged and destroyed by the Greeks.,Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming topStoops to his base, and with a hideous crashTakes prisoner Pyrrhus’ ear. For lo, his sword,Which was declining on the milky headOf reverend Priam, seem’d i’ th’air to stick.So, as a painted tyrant, Pyrrhus stood,And like a neutral to his will and matter,Did nothing.But as we often see against some storm,A silence in the heavens, the rack stand still,The bold winds speechless, and the orb belowAs hush as death, anon the dreadful thunderDoth rend the region; so after Pyrrhus’ pause,Aroused vengeance sets him new a-work,And never did the Cyclops’ hammers fallOn Mars’s armour, forg’d for proof eterne,With less remorse than Pyrrhus’ bleeding swordNow falls on Priam.Out, out, thou strumpet Fortune! All you gods,In general synod, take away her power;Break all the spokes and felliesOne of the curved sections forming the rim of a wheel. from her wheel,And bowl the round naveThe navel or central part of the abdomen. down the hill of heaven,As low as to the fiends.
POLONIUS
This is too long.
HAMLET
It shall to the barber’s, with your beard.—Prithee say on.He’s for a jig or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps.Say on; come to Hecuba.
FIRST PLAYER
But who, O who, had seen the mobledmuffled or wrapped about the head and face. queen,—
HAMLET
‘The mobled queen’?
POLONIUS
That’s good! ‘Mobled queen’ is good.
FIRST PLAYER
Run barefoot up and down, threat’ning the flamesWith bissonBlind or dim-sighted. rheum. A clout upon that headWhere late the diadem stood, and for a robe,About her lank and all o’erteemedto produce or bring forth in excessive abundance. loins,A blanket, in th’alarm of fear caught up—Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steep’d,’Gainst Fortune’s state would treason have pronounc’d.But if the gods themselves did see her then,When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sportIn mincing with his sword her husband’s limbs,The instant burst of clamour that she made,—Unless things mortal move them not at all,—Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven,And passion in the gods.
POLONIUS
Look, where he has not turn’d his colour, and has tears in’s eyes. Pray you, no more.
HAMLET
’Tis well. I’ll have thee speak out the rest of this soon.—Good my lord, will you see the players well bestowed? Do you hear, let them be well used; for they are the abstracts and brief chronicles of the time. After your death you were better have a bad epitaph than their ill report while you live.
POLONIUS
My lord, I will use them according to their desert.
HAMLET
God’s bodikina mild oath invoking God's body., man, much better. Use every man after his desert, and who should ’scape whipping? Use them after your own honour and dignity. The less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty. Take them in.
POLONIUS
Come, sirs.
HAMLET
Follow him, friends. We’ll hear a play tomorrow.
Exeunt Polonius with all the Players but the First.
HAMLET
Dost thou hear me, old friend? Can you play The Murder of Gonzagothe Duke of Vienna murdered in the play performed before Claudius.?
FIRST PLAYER
Ay, my lord.
HAMLET
We’ll ha’t tomorrow night. You could for a need study a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines, which I would set down and insert in’t, could you not?
FIRST PLAYER
Ay, my lord.
HAMLET
Very well. Follow that lord, and look you mock him not.
Exit First Player.
HAMLET
My good friends, I’ll leave you till night. You are welcome to Elsinore.
ROSENCRANTZ
Good my lord.
Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
HAMLET
Ay, so, God b’ wi’ ye. Now I am alone.O what a rogue and peasant slave am I!Is it not monstrous that this player here,But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,Could force his soul so to his own conceitThat from her working all his visage wan’d;Tears in his eyes, distraction in’s aspect,A broken voice, and his whole function suitingWith forms to his conceit? And all for nothing!For Hecuba?What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,That he should weep for her? What would he do,Had he the motive and the cue for passionThat I have? He would drown the stage with tearsAnd cleave the general ear with horrid speech;Make mad the guilty, and appal the free,Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed,The very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I,A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peakTo waste away or become sickly and emaciated.Like John-a-dreamsa proverbial name for an idle, absent-minded dreamer., unpregnant of my cause,And can say nothing. No, not for a kingUpon whose property and most dear lifeA damn’d defeat was made. Am I a coward?Who calls me villain, breaks my pate across?Plucks off my beard and blows it in my face?Tweaks me by the nose, gives me the lie i’ th’ throatAs deep as to the lungs? Who does me this?Ha! ’Swounds, I should take it: for it cannot beBut I am pigeon-liver’d, and lack gallTo make oppression bitter, or ere thisI should have fatted all the region kitesWith this slave’s offal. Bloody, bawdy villain!Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!Oh vengeance!Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,That I, the son of a dear father murder’d,Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with wordsAnd fall a-cursing like a very drabA prostitute; ‘drabbing’ is consorting with prostitutes.,A scullion! Fie upon’t! Foh!About, my brain! I have heardThat guilty creatures sitting at a play,Have by the very cunning of the scene,Been struck so to the soul that presentlyThey have proclaim’d their malefactions.For murder, though it have no tongue, will speakWith most miraculous organ. I’ll have these playersPlay something like the murder of my fatherBefore mine uncle. I’ll observe his looks;I’ll tentto probe or examine a wound with a surgical instrument. him to the quick. If he but blench,I know my course. The spirit that I have seenMay be the devil, and the devil hath powerT’assume a pleasing shape, yea, and perhapsOut of my weakness and my melancholy,As he is very potent with such spirits,Abuses me to damn me. I’ll have groundsMore relative than this. The play’s the thingWherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.
Exit.