Thou find'st, to be too busy, is fome danger.
Leave wringing of your hands: Peace; fit you down,
And let me wring your heart: for so I shall,
If it be made of penetrable stuff;
If damned cuftom have not braz'd it fo,
That it be proof and bulwark against sense.
Queen. What have I done, that thou dar'ft wag thy tongue
In noife fo rude against me?
Ham. Such an act,
That blurs the grace and blufh of modefty;
Calls virtue, hypocrite; takes off the rofe
From the fair forehead of an innocent love,
And fets a blifter there; makes marriage vows
As falfe as dicers' oaths: O, fuch a deed,
As from the body of contraction plucks
The very foul; and fweet religion makes
A rhapsody of words: Heaven's face doth glow;
Yea, this folidity and compound mass,
With triftful visage, as against the doom;
Is thought-fick at the act.
Queen. Ah me, what act,
That roars fo loud, and thunders in the index ?
Ham. Look here, upon this picture, and on this;
The counterpart prefentment of two brothers.
See what a grace was feated on this brow:
Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself;
An eye like Mars, to threaten and command ;
A ftation like the herald Mercury,
New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill;
A combination, and a form, indeed,
Where every god did seem to fet his feal,
To give the world affurance of a man:
This was your husband.-Look you now, what follows:
Here is your husband; like a mildew'd ear,
Blafting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes?
Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,
And batten on this moor? Ha! have you eyes?
You cannot call it love: for, at your age,
The hey-day in the blood is tame, it's humble,
And waits upon the judgment: And what judgment
Would step from this to this? Senfe, fure, you have,
Elfe, could you not have motion: But fure, that fenfe
Is apoplex'd: for madness would not err;
Nor fenfe to ecstasy was ne'er fo thrall'd,
But it referv'd fome quantity of choice,
To ferve in fuch 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, fmelling fans all,
Or but a fickly part of one true sense
Could not fo mope.
O fhame! where is thy blufh? Rebellious hell,
If thou can'ft 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 compulfive ardour gives the charge;
Since froft itself as actively doth burn,
And reafon panders will.
Queen. O Hamlet, speak no more:
Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very foul;
And there I see such black and grained spots,
As will not leave their tinct.
Ham. Nay, but to live,
In the rank fweat of an enfeamed bed;
Stew'd in corruption; honeying, and making love
Over the nafty stye!
Queen. O, fpeak to me no more;
Thefe words like daggers enter in mine ears;
No more, fweet Hamlet!
Ham. A murderer, and a villain:
A flave, that is not twentieth part the tythe
Of your precedent lord :-a vice of kings:
A cutpurfe of the empire and the rule;
That from a fhelf the precious diadem stole,
And put it in his pocket!
Of fhreds and patches:
Save me, and hover o'er me with your wings,
You heavenly guards!-What would your gracious figure Queen. Alas, he's mad.
Ham. Do you not come your tardy fon to chide,
That, laps'd in time and paffion, lets go by
The important acting of your dread command?
O, fay!
Ghoft. Do not forget: This vifitation
Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.
But, look! amazement on thy mother fits:
O, step 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 you do bend your eye on vacancy,
And with the incorporal air do hold discourse ?
Forth at your eyes your fpirits widely peep;
And, as the fleeping foldiers in the alarm,
Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,
Starts up, and stands on end. O gentle fon!
Upon the heat and flame of thy diftemper
Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look?
Ham. On him! on him!-Look you, how pale he glares!
His form and caufe conjoin'd, preaching to stones,
Would make them capable.-Do not look upon me;
Left, with this piteous 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?
Ham. Do you fee nothing there?
Queen. Nothing at all; yet all that is, I fee.
Ham. Nor did you nothing hear?
Queen. No, nothing, but ourselves.
Ham. Why, look you there! look, how it steals away!
My father, in his habit as he liv'd!
Look, where he goes, even now, out at the portal!
Queen. This is the very coinage of your brain: This bodilefs creation ecstasy
Is very cunning in.
Ham. Ecftafy!
My pulfe, as your's, doth temperately keep time,
And makes as healthful mufick: It is not madness,
That I have utter'd: bring me to the test,
And I the matter will
Would gambol from.
reword; which madness
Mother, for love of grace,
Lay not that flattering unction to your foul,
That not your trefpafs, but my madness, speaks:
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place;
Whiles rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unfeen. Confefs yourself to heaven;
Repent what's paft; avoid what is to come;
And do not spread the compoft on the weeds,
To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue:
For, in the fatnefs of these purfy times,
Virtue itself of vice muft pardon beg;
Yea, curb and woo, for leave to do him good.
Queen. O 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 my uncle's bed;
Affume a virtue if you have it not.
That monster, cuftom, who all fense 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 fhall lend a kind of eafiness
To the next abstinence: the next more easy :
For use almost can change the stamp of nature,
And either curb the devil, or throw him out
With wondrous potency. Once more, good night!
And when you are defirous to be bless'd,
I'll bleffing beg of you.-For this fame lord,
[Pointing to POLONIUS.
I do repent; but heaven hath pleas'd it fo-
To punish me with this, and this with me,
That I must be their scourge and minister.
I will beftow 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 worse remains behind.-
But one word more, good lady.
Queen. What shall I do?
Ham. Not this, by no means, that I bid you do:
Let the bloat king tempt you again to bed;
Pinch wanton on your cheek; call you his mouse;
And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses,
Or paddling in your neck with his damn'd fingers,
Make you to ravel all this matter out,
That I effentially am not in madness,
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