Queen. What have I done, that thou darest wag

thy tongue

In noise so rude against me?

Ham.

Such an act,

That blurs the grace and blush of modesty;
Calls virtue, hypocrite; takes off the rose
From the fair forehead of an innocent love,
And sets a blister there; makes marriage vows
As false as dicers' oaths: O, such a deed,
As from the body of contraction 1 plucks
The very soul, and sweet religion makes
A rhapsody of words: heaven's face doth glow;
Yea, this solidity and compound mass,
With tristful 2 visage, as against the doom,

Is thought-sick at the act.

Queen. Ah me, what act, That roars so loud, and thunders in the index ? 3 Ham. Look here upon this picture and on this; The counterfeit presentment of two brothers. See, what a grace was seated on this brow : Hyperion's 4 curls; the front of Jove himself; An eye like Mars, to threaten and command; A station like the herald Mercury, New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill; A combination and a form indeed,

Where every god did seem to set his seal,

To give the world assurance of a man:
This was your husband.-Look you now, what fol-

lows:

Here is your husband, like a mildew'd ear,
Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes?
Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,
And batten 1 on this moor? Ha! have you eyes?
You cannot call it love; for, at your age,
The heyday in the blood is tame, it 's humble,
And waits upon the judgment; and what judg-

ment

Would step from this to this? Sense, sure, you

have,

Else could you not have motion: but, sure, that

sense

Is apoplex'd; for madness would not err;
Nor sense to ecstasy 3 was ne'er so thrall'd,
But it reserved some quantity of choice,

To serve in such a difference.

What devil was 't,

That thus hath cozen'd you at hoodman-blind ? +
Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight,

Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans 5 all,

Or but a sickly part of one true sense

Could not so mope.6

O shame, where is thy blush? Rebellious hell,

If thou canst mutine in a matron's bones,

To flaming youth let virtue be as wax,

And melt in her own fire: proclaim no shame,
When the compulsive ardor gives the charge;

Since frost itself as actively doth burn,

And reason panders well.

Queen.

O Hamlet, speak no more:

Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul;

And there I see such black and grained spots.

As will not leave their tinct.

Ham.

Nay, but to live

In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed;

Stew'd in corruption; honeying, and making love

Over the nasty sty;

Queen.

These words like daggers enter in mine ears:

No more, sweet Hamlet.

Ham.

O, speak to me no more :

A murderer, and a villain:

A slave, that is not twentieth part the tithe

Of your precedent lord :-a vice of kings: 1

A cutpurse of the empire and the rule;

That from a shelf the precious diadem stole,

And put it in his pocket!

Ham. A king of shreds and patches.

Save me, and hover o'er me with your wings,

You heavenly guards! - What would your gracious

figure?

ti. e. a low mimic of kings. The vice was the fool of the old moralities.

Queen. Alas, he's mad.

Ham. Do you not come your tardy son to

chide,

That, lapsed in time and passion, lets go by
The important acting of your dread command?
O, say!

Ghost. Do not forget, this visitation
Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.
But, look! amazement on thy mother sits:
O, step between her and her fighting soul;
Conceit1 in weakest bodies strongest works:

Speak to her, Hamlet.

Ham.

How is it with you, lady?

Queen. Alas, how is 't with you,

That you do bend your eye on vacancy,
And with the incorporal air do hold discourse ?
Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep;
And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm,
Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,
Starts up, and stands on end. O gentle son,
Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper
Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look ?

Ham. On him! on him!-Look you, how pale he glares!

His form and cause conjoin'd, preaching to stones, Would make them capable.2-Do not look upon

me;

Lest, with this piteous action, you convert