That laps'd in time and paffion, lets go by
Th' important acting of your dread command? O fay.-
Ghost. Do not forget: this vifitation
Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.
But look! amazement on thy mother fits;
Ostep between her and her fighting foul:
Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works.
Speak to her Hamlet.
Ham. How is it with you, lady?
Queen. Alas, how is't with you?
That thus you bend your eye on vacancy,
And with th' incorporal air do hold discourse?
Forth at your eyes your fpirits wildly peep,
And as the sleeping soldiers in th' alarm,
Your bedded hairs, like life in excrements,
Start up, and stand an end. O gentle fon,
Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper
Whereon do
Whereon do you look?
Ham. On him! on him!---- look you how pale he glares! His form and cause conjoin'd, preaching to stones,
Left with this pitious action you convert
My ftern effects; then what I have to do,
Will want true colour; tears perchance for blood.
Queen. To whom do you speak this?
Queen. Nothing at all, yet all that is I fee.
Ham. Do you fee nothing there?
Ham. Nor did you nothing hear?
Queen. No, nothing but our felves.
Ham. Why look you there? look how it steals away!
My father in his habit as he lived!
Look where he goes ev'n now out at the portal.
Queen. This is the very coinage of your brain,
This bodilefs creation Ecftafie
Is very cunning in.
Ham. What ecftafie?
My pulfe, as yours, doth temp'rately keep time,
And makes as healthful mufick. "Tis not madness
That I have utter'd; bring me to the test
And I the matter will re-word; which madness
Would gamboll from.. Mother, for love of grace,
Lay not that flattering unction to your foul,
That not your trespass, but my madness speaks:
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place,
Whilft rank corruption 'running all within,
Infects unseen. Confefs your felf to heav'n,
Repent what's past, avoid what is to come,
And do not spread the compoft on the weeds
To make them ranker. Forgive this my virtue,
For in the fatness of these purfie times,
Virtue it self of vice muft pardon beg,
Yea, curb, and wooe, for leave to do it good.
Queen. Oh Hamlet! thou haft cleft my heart in twain.
Ham. O throw away the worfer part of it,
And live the purer with the other half.
Good night; but go not to mine uncle's bed.
Affume a virtue, if you have it not.
That monfter cuftom, who all fenfe doth eat,
Of habit's devil, is angel yet in this;
That to the use of actions fair and good,
He likewife gives a frock or livery
That aptly is put on: Refrain to-night,
And that shall lend a kind of easiness
To the next abftinence; the next more eafie;
For use can almost change the stamp of nature,
And master ev'n the devil, or throw him out
VOL. VI.
Hhh
With wondrous potency. Once more, good night!
And when you are defirous to be blest,
I'll bleffing beg of you.
I do repent: but heav'n
To punish me with this,
For this same lord, [Pointing to Pol. hath pleas'd it fo, and this with me, That I must be their scourge and minister. I will bestow him, and will answer well: The death I gave him; so again, good night. I must be cruel, only to be kind;
Thus bad begins, and worfe remains behind.
Queen. What fhall I do?
Ham. Not this by no means that I bid you do.
Let the fond King tempt you again to bed,
Pinch wanton on your cheek, call you his mouse,
And let him for a pair of reechy kiffes,
Or padling in your neck with his damn'd fingers,
Make you to ravel all this matter out,
That I effentially am not in madness,
But mad in craft. 'Twere good you let him know.
For who that's but a Queen, fair, fober, wife,
Would from a paddock, from a bar, a gibbe,
Such dear concernings hide? who would do fo?
No, in defpight of fenfe and fecrecy,
Unpeg the basket on the houfe's top,
Let the birds fly, and like the famous ape
To try conclufions; in the basket creep,
And break your own neck down.
Queen. Be thou affur'd, if words be made of breath, And breath of life: I have no life to breathe
What thou haft faid to me.
Ham. I must to England, you know that?
Queen. Alack, I had forgot; 'tis fo concluded on.
In the old edition it is, Let the blote King--the word fignifies fond, er puff3d.
up, or full-blooded, rubore fuffufus, Skinner.
+ Ham. There's letters feal'd, and my two fchool-fellows,
(Whom I will truft as I will adders fang'd,)
They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way
And marshal me to knavery: let it work---
For 'tis the sport to have the engineer
Hoist with his own petar: an't fhall go hard
But I will delve one yard below their mines,
And blow them at the moon. O'tis most sweet
When in one line two crafts directly meet!
This man fhall fet me packing;
I'll lug the guts into the neighbour room;
Mother, good night. Indeed this counsellor
Is now most still, moft fecret, and moft grave,
Who was in life a foolish prating knave.
Come, Sir, to draw toward an end with you.
Good night, mother.
[Exit Hamlet, tugging in Polonius.
A Royal Apartment.
Enter King and Queen.
Here's matter in thefe fighs; these profound heaves
You must tranflate, 'tis fit we understand them.
Where is your fon?
[night?
Queen. Ah, my good lord, what have I seen to
King. What, Gertrude? how does Hamlet?
Queen. Mad as the feas, and wind, when both contend
Which is the mightier; in his lawless fit,
†The ten following verfes are added out of the old edition.
Behind the arras hearing fomething stir,
He whips his rapier out, and cries, a rat!
And in his brainish apprehenfion, kills
The unfeen good old man.
King. Oh heavy deed!
It had been fo with us, had we been there:
His liberty is full of threats to all,
To you your self, to us, to every one.
Alas, how fhall this bloody deed be answer'd?
It will be laid to us, whofe providence
Should have kept short, restrain'd, and out of haunt
But fo much was our love,
We would not understand what was most fit;
But like the owner of a foul disease,
To keep it from divulging, lets it feed
Ev'n on the pith of life. Where is he gone?
Queen. To draw apart the body he hath kill❜d,
O'er whom his very madness, like fome ore
Among a mineral of metals base,
Shews it felf pure. He weeps for what is done.
King. Oh Gertrude, come away:
The fun no fooner fhall the mountains touch,
But we will ship him hence; and this vile deed
We must, with all our majesty and skill,
Both countenance, and excufe. Ho! Guildenstern!
Enter Rofincroffe and Guildenstern.
Friends both, go join you with some further aid:
Hamlet in madness hath Polonius flain,
And from his mother's clofet hath he drag'd him.
Go feek him out, fpeak fair, and bring the body
Into the chappel. Pray you hafte in this. [Ex. Rof. and Guil.
Come, Gertrude, we'll call up our wisest friends,
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