Danish march. A Flourish. Enter KING, QUEEN, POLONIUS, OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, and others.

King. How fares our cousin Hamlet?

Ham. Excellent, i' faith; of the camelion's dish: I eat the air, promise-crammed: you cannot feed capons so.

King. I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet; these words are not mine.

Ham. No, nor mine now.-My lord, you played once in the university, you say? [To POLONIUS. Pol. That did I, my lord; and was accounted a good actor.

Ham. And what did you enact?

Pol. I did enact Julius Cæsar: I was killed i' the Capitol; Brutus killed me.

Ham. It was a brute part of him, to kill so capital a calf there.-Be the players ready?

Ros. Ay, my lord; they stay upon your patience.

Queen. Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me.

Ham. No, good mother, here's metal more attractive.

Pol. O, ho! do you mark that? [To the KING. Ham. Lady, shall I lie in your lap? [Lying down at OPHELIA's feet.

Oph. No, my lord.

Ham. I mean, my head upon your lap?
Oph. Ay, my lord.

Ham. Do you think I meant country matters?

Oph. I think nothing, my lord.

Ham. That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs.

Oph. What is, my lord?

Ham. Nothing.

Oph. You are merry, my lord.
Ham. Who, I?

Oph. Ay, my lord.

Ham. O! your only jig-maker. What should a man do, but be merry? for look you how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died within these two hours.

Oph. Nay, 't is twice two months, my lord.

Ham. So long! Nay, then let the devil wear black, for I'll have a suit of sables. O, heavens! die two months ago, and not forgotten yet? Then there's hope a great man's memory may outlive his life half-a-year: but, by 'r-lady, he must build churches then: or else shall he suffer not thinking on, with the hobby-horse; whose epitaph is, "For O, for O, the hobby-horse is forgot!"

Trumpets sound. The Dumb Show follows.

Enter a King and a Queen, very lovingly; the Queen embracing him, and he her. She kneels, and makes show of protestation unto him. He takes her up, and declines his head upon her neck: lays him down upon a bank of flowers; she, seeing him asleep, leaves him. Anon comes in a fellow, takes off his crown, kisses it, and pours poison in the King's ears, and exit. The Queen returns; finds the King dead, and makes passionate action. The poisoner, with some two or three mutes, comes in again, seeming to lament with her. The dead body is carried away. The poisoner woos the Queen with gifts; she seems loath and unwilling awhile, but in the end accepts his love.

[Exeunt.

Oph. What means this, my lord? Ham. Marry, this is miching mallecho; it means mischief.

Oph. Belike this show imports the argument of the play.

Enter PROLOGUE.

Ham. We shall know by this fellow: the players cannot keep counsel; they 'll tell all.

Oph. Will he tell us what this show meant? Ham. Ay, or any show that you'll shew him: be not you ashamed to shew, he'll not shame to tell you what it means.

Oph. You are naught, you are naught; I'll mark the play.

PROLOGUE.

For us, and for our tragedy,

Here stooping to your clemency, We beg your hearing patiently.

Ham. Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring? Oph. 'Tis brief, my lord.

Ham. As woman's love.

Enter a KING and QUEEN.
P. KING.

Full thirty times hath Phoebus' cart gone round
Neptune's salt wash and Tellus' orbed ground;
And thirty dozen moons, with borrowed sheen,
About the world have times twelve thirties been ;
Since love our hearts, and Hymen did our hands,
Unite commutual in most sacred bands.

P. QUEEN.

So many journeys may the sun and moon
Make us again count o'er, ere love be done!
But, woe is me, you are so sick of late,
So far from cheer, and from your former state,
That I distrust you. Yet, though I distrust,
Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must:
For women's fear and love hold quantity;
In neither aught, or in extremity.

Now, what my love is, proof hath made you know;
And as my love is sized, my fear is so.
Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear;
Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.

I do believe you think what now you speak;
But what we do determine oft we break.
Purpose is but the slave to memory;
Of violent birth, but poor validity:
Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree;
But fall unshaken when they mellow be.
Most necessary 'tis that we forget
To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt:
What to ourselves in passion we propose,
The passion ending, doth the purpose lose.
The violence of either grief or joy
Their own enactures with themselves destroy:
Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament;
Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident.
This world is not for aye; nor 'tis not strange
That even our loves should with our fortunes change;
For, 'tis a question left us yet to prove,
Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love.
The great man down, you mark, his favourite flies;
The poor advanced makes friends of enemies.
And hitherto doth love on fortune tend:
For who not needs, shall never lack a friend;
And who in want a hollow friend doth try,
Directly seasons him his enemy.
But, orderly to end where I begun,—
Our wills and fates do so contrary run,

That our devices still are overthrown;
Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own:
So think thou wilt no second husband wed;
But die thy thoughts, when thy first lord is dead.
P. QUEEN.

Nor earth to me give food, nor heaven light!
Sport and repose lock from me, day and night!
To desperation turn my trust and hope!
An anchor's cheer in prison be my scope!
Each opposite that blanks the face of joy,
Meet what I would have well, and it destroy!
Both here and hence, pursue me lasting strife,
If, once a widow, ever I be wife.

Ham. If she should break it now,

Ham. No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest? no offence i' the world.

King. What do you call the play?

Ham. The mousetrap. Marry, how?-tropically. This play is the image of a murder done in Vienna: Gonzago is the duke's name; his wife, Baptista; you shall see anon; 't is a knavish piece of work but what of that? Your majesty, and we that have free souls, it touches us not: let the galled jade wince; our withers are unwrung.

Enter LUCIANUS.

This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king.
Oph. You are as good as a chorus, my lord.
Ham. I could interpret between you and your
love, if I could see the puppets dallying.

Oph. You are keen, my lord, you are keen. Ham. It would cost you a groaning to take off my edge.

Oph. Still better and worse.

Ham. So you mistake your husbands.-Begin, murderer; leave thy damnable faces, and begin. Come ;

The croaking raven

Doth bellow for revenge.

LUCIANUS.

Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time

agreeing;

Pol. Give o'er the play.

King. Give me some light: away!
Pol. Lights, lights, lights!

[Exeunt all but HAMLET and HORATIO. Ham. Why, let the strucken deer go weep,

The heart ungalléd play;

For some must watch, while some must sleep;

Thus runs the world away.

Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers (if the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me), with two Provencial roses on my rased shoes, get ine a followship in a cry of players, sir?

Hor. Half a share.

Ham. A whole one, I.

For thou dost know, O Damon dear,
This realm dismantled was

Of Jove himself; and now reigns here
A very very-peacock.

Hor. You might have rhymed.

Ham. O, good Horatio, I'll take the ghost's word for a thousand pound. Didst perceive? Hor. Very well, my lord.

Ham. Upon the talk of the poisoning,-
Hor. I did very well note him.

Ham. Ah, ha!-Come, some music; come, the recorders.

For if the king like not the comedy, Why then, belike, he likes it not, perdy. Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. Come, some music.

Guil. Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you.

Ham. Sir, a whole history.

Guil. The king, sir,—

Ham. Ay, sir, what of him?

Guil. Is, in his retirement, marvellous disempered.

Ham. With drink, sir?

Guil. No, my lord, with choler.

Ham. Your wisdom should shew itself more richer, to signify this to the doctor; for, for me to put him to his purgation, would perhaps plunge him into more choler.

Guil. Good my lord, put your discourse into some frame, and start not so wildly from my affair. Ham. I am tame, sir: pronounce.

Guil. The queen, your mother, in most great affliction of spirit, hath sent me to you.

Ham. You are welcome.

Guil. Nay, good my lord, this courtesy is not of the right breed. If it shall please you to make me a wholesome answer, I will do your mother's commandment: if not, your pardon, and my return, shall be the end of my business.

Ham. Sir, I cannot.

Guil. What, my lord?

Ham. Make you a wholesome answer; my wit's diseased: but, sir, such answer as I can make, you shall command; or rather, as you say, my mother: therefore, no more, but to the matter: My mother, you say.—

Ros. Then thus she says: your behaviour hath struck her into amazement and admiration.

Ham. O, wonderful son, that can so astonish a mother!—But is there no sequel at the heels of this mother's admiration ?—impart.

Ros. She desires to speak with you in her closet, ere you go to bed.

Ham. We shall obey, were she ten times our mother. Have you any further trade with us?

Ros. My lord, you once did love me. Ham. And do still, by these pickers and stealers. Ros. Good my lord, what is your cause of distemper?-you do freely bar the door of your own liberty, if you deny your griefs to your friend. Ham. Sir, I lack advancement.

Ros. How can that be, when you have the voice of the king himself for your succession in Denmark?

Ham. Ay, sir, but "While the grass grows," -the proverb is something musty.

Enter the Players, with recorders.

O, the recorders: let me see one.-To withdraw with you-why do you go about to recover the wind of me, as if you would drive me into a toil? Guil. O, my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly.

Ham. I do not well understand that. Will you play upon this pipe?

Guil. My lord, I cannot.

Ham. I pray you.

Guil. Believe me, I cannot.
Ham. I do beseech you.

Guil. I know no touch of it, my lord.

Ham. 'Tis as easy as lying: govern these ventages with your fingers and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music. Look you, these are the stops.

Guil. But these cannot I command to any utterance of harmony; I have not the skill.

Ham. Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me. You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ; yet cannot you make it speak. S'blood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play

upon me.

Enter POLONIUS.

God bless you, sir!

Pol. My lord, the queen would speak with you, and presently.

Ham. Do you see yonder cloud, that 's almost in shape of a camel?

Pol. By the mass, and 't is like a camel, indeed. Ham. Methinks it is like a weasel.

Pol. It is backed like a weasel.

Ham. Or like a whale?

Pol. Very like a whale.

Ham. Then will I come to my mother by-andby. They fool me to the top of my bent.—I will | come by-and-by.

out

Contagion to this world: now could I drink hot blood,

And do such bitter business as the day

Would quake to look on. Soft; now to my mother.

O heart, lose not thy nature: let not ever
The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom :
Let me be cruel, not unnatural:

I will speak daggers to her, but use none;
My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites:
How in my words soever she be shent,
To give them seals, never, my soul, consent!
[Exit.

SCENE III-A Room in the same.

Enter KING, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTErn.
King. I like him not; nor stands it safe with us
To let his madness range. Therefore, prepare you;
I your commission will forthwith despatch,
And he to England shall along with you:
The terms of our estate may not endure
Hazard so near us, as doth hourly grow
Out of his lunacies.

Guil. We will ourselves provide:
Most holy and religious fear it is,
To keep those many many bodies safe
That live and feed upon your majesty.

Ros. The single and peculiar life is bound,
With all the strength and armour of the mind,
To keep itself from 'noyance; but much more
That spirit upon whose weal depend and rest
The lives of many. The cease of majesty
Dies not alone; but, like a gulph, doth draw
What's near it with it: it is a massy wheel,
Fixed on the summit of the highest mount,
To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things
Are mortised and adjoined; which, when it falls,
Each small annexment, petty consequence,
Attends the boisterous ruin. Never alone
Did the king sigh, but with a general groan.
King. Arm you, I pray you, to this speedy
voyage;

For we will fetters put upon this fear,

Which now goes too free-footed.

Ros. We will haste us.

Guil.}

[Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.

Enter POLONIUS.

Pol. My lord, he's going to his mother's closet: Behind the arras I'll convey myself,

To hear the process; I'll warrant she'll tax him home:

And, as you said, and wisely was it said, "Tis meet that some more audience than a mo

ther,

Since nature makes them partial, should o'erhear
The speech of vantage. Fare you well, my liege:
I'll call upon you ere you go to bed,
And tell you what I know.

King.

Thanks, dear my lord.

[Exit POLONIUS. O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven, It hath the primal eldest curse upon 't, A brother's murder!-Pray can I not, Though inclination be as sharp as will; My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent; And, like a man to double business bound, I stand in pause where I shall first begin; And both neglect. What if this cursed hand Were thicker than itself with brother's blood? Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy But to confront the visage of offence? And what's in prayer but this twofold force,To be forestalléd ere we come to fall, Or pardoned, being down? Then I'll look up; My fault is past. But O, what form of prayer Can serve my turn? Forgive me my foul mur

der!

That cannot be; since I am still possessed
Of those effects for which I did the murder?
My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen
May one be pardoned and retain the offence?
In the corrupted currents of this world,
Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice;
And oft 'tis seen, the wicked prize itself
Buys out the law: but 't is not so above:
There is no shuffling, there the action lies
In his true nature; and we ourselves compelled,
Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,
To give in evidence. What then? what rests?
Try what repentance can: what can it not?
Yet what can it, when one cannot repent?
O wretched state! O bosom, black as death!
O liméd soul, that, struggling to be free,
Art more engaged! Help, angels, make assay!
Bow, stubborn knees! and heart, with strings of
steel,

Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe !-
All may be well!

[Retires, and kneels.

Enter HAMLEt.

Ham. Now might I do it, pat, now he is praying; And now I'll do 't;—and so he goes to heaven: