The Complete Works of Shakspeare, Revised from the Best Authorities : with a Memoir, and Essay on His Genius

Queen. Be thou assured, if words be made of Hoist with his own petar: and it shall go hard

breath,

And breath of life, I have no life to breathe

What thou hast said to me.

Ham. I must to England; you know that?
Queen.

Alack,

I had forgot; 't is so concluded on.

But I will delve one yard below their mines,
And blow them at the moon: O, 't is most sweet,

And in one line two crafts directly meet!—

This man shall set me packing.

I'll lug the guts into the neighbor room.
Mother, good night. Indeed, this counselor

Ham. There's letters sealed: and my two Is now most still, most secret, and most grave,

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SCENE I. Elsinore. A Room in the Castle.

Enter KING, QUEEN, ROSENCRANTZ, and
GUILDENSTERN.

King. There's matter in these sighs; these pro-
found heaves

We would not understand what was most fit;
But, like the owner of a foul disease,
To keep it from divulging, let it feed
Even on the pith of life. Where is he gone?

Queen. To draw apart the body he hath killed:
O'er whom his very madness, like some ore

You must translate; 't is fit we understand them: Among a mineral of metals base,
Where is your son?

Queen. Bestow this place on us a little while.-
[To ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN,
who go out.

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Shews itself pure; he weeps for what is done.
King. O, Gertrude, come away!
The sun no sooner shall the mountains touch,
But we will ship him hence: and this vile deed
We must, with all our majesty and skill,
Both countenance and excuse.
stern!

Ho, Guilden

Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.
Friends both, go join you with some further aid:
Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain,
And from his mother's closet hath he dragged

him:

Go, seek him out; speak fair, nd bring the body

Into the chapel. I pray you, haste in this.

[Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. Come, Gertrude, we 'll call up our wisest friends; And let them know, both what we mean to do,

Should have kept short, restrained, and out of And what's untimely done: so, haply, slander,—
haunt,
Whose whisper o'er the world's diameter,
This mad young man: but so much was our love, | As level as the cannon to his blank,

ROSENCRANTZ, &c., within.

Hamlet lord Hamlet!

But never the offense. To bear all smooth and even,

Ham. But soft; what noise? who calls on This sudden sending him away must seem Hamlet? Deliberate pause: diseases, desperate grown, By desperate appliance are relieved,

O, here they come.

Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.

Ros. What have you done, my lord, with the dead body?

Enter ROSENCRANTZ.

Ham. Compounded it with dust, whereto 't is Or not at all.. How now? what hath befallen?

kin.

Ros. Tell us where 't is; that we may take it

thence,

And bear it to the chapel.

Ham. Do not believe it.
Ros. Believe what?

Ham. That I can keep your counsel, and not mine own. Besides, to be demanded of a sponge! - what replication should be made by the son of a king?

Ros. Take you me for a sponge, my lord?

Ham. Ay, sir; that soaks up the king's countenance, his rewards, his authorities. But such officers do the king best service in the end: he keeps them like an ape, in the corner of his jaw; first mouthed, to be last swallowed: when he needs what you have gleaned, it is but squeezing you, and, sponge, you shall be dry again.

Ros. I understand you not, my lord.

Ham. I am glad of it: a knavish speech sleeps beggar, is but variable service; two dishes, but to in a foolish ear.

Ros. My lord, you must tell us where the body is, and go with us to the king.

Ham. The body is with the king, but the king is not with the body. The king is a thingGuil. A thing, my lord?

Ham. Of nothing: bring me to him. Hide fox, and all after. [Exeunt.

one table; that's the end.

King. Alas, alas!

Ham. A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king; and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.

King. What dost thou mean by this?

Ham. Nothing, but to shew you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar.

King. Where is Polonius? Ham. In heaven; send thither to see if your messenger find him not there, seek him i' the other place yourself. But, indeed, if you find him not within this month, you shall nose him as you go up the stairs into the lobby.

King. Go seek him there. [To some Attendants.
Ham. He will stay till you come.

[Exeunt Attendants. King. Hamlet, this deed, for thine especial safety,

Which we do tender, as we dearly grieve

For that which thou hast done, - must send thee hence

With fiery quickness: therefore, prepare thyself;
The bark is ready, and the wind at help,
Th' associates tend, and everything is bent
For England.

Ham. For England?

King. Ay, Hamlet.

Ham. Good.

King. So is it, if thou knew'st our purposes. Ham. I see a cherub that sees them. But come; for England!- Farewell, dear mother. King. Thy loving father, Hamlet.

Ham. My mother. Father and mother is man and wife; man and wife is one flesh; and so, my mother. Come, for England. [Exit. King. Follow him at foot; tempt him with speed aboard;

Delay it not; I'll have him hence to-night:
Away; for everything is sealed and done.

That else leans on the affair: pray you, make haste.

[Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. And, England, if my love thou hold'st at aught (As my great power thereof may give thee sense; Since yet thy cicatrice looks raw and red After the Danish sword, and thy free awe Pays homage to us), thou mayst not coldly set Our sovereign process; which imports at full, By letters conjuring to that effect, The present death of Hamlet. Do it, England; For like the hectic in my blood he rages, And thou must cure me: till I know 't is done, Howe'er my haps, my joys will ne'er begin.

[Exit.

Ham. I pray you? Cap.

How purposed, sir,

Against some part of Poland. Ham. Who commands them, sir?

Cap. The nephew to old Norway, - Fortinbras. Ham. Goes it against the main of Poland, sir, Or for some frontier?

Cap. Truly to speak, sir, and with no addition, We go to gain a little patch of ground That hath in it no profit but the name. To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it; Nor will it yield to Norway, or the Pole,

A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee. Ham. Why, then the Polack never will defend it.

Cap. Yes, 't is already garrisoned.

Ham. Two thousand souls, and twenty thou

sand ducats,

Will not debate the question of this straw!
This is the imposthume of much wealth and

peace;

That inward breaks, and shews no cause without Why the man dies. — I humbly thank you, sir. Cap. God be wi' you, sir. [Exit. Ros. Will't please you go, my lord? Ham. I will be with you straight. Go a little before.

[Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. How all occasions do inform against me,

And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,
If his chief good, and market of his time,
Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.
Sure He that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and god-like reason

To fust in us unused. Now whether it be
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
Of thinking too precisely on the event,-

A thought which, quartered, hath but one part wisdom,

And ever three parts coward, I do not know Why yet I live to say, "This thing's to do;" Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and

means,

To do 't. Examples gross as earth exhort me:
Witness this army of such mass and charge,
Led by a delicate and tender prince;
Whose spirit, with divine ambition puffed,
Makes mouths at the invisible event;
Exposing what is mortal and unsure
To all that fortune, death, and danger, dare,
Even for an egg-shell. Rightly to be great,
Is, not to stir without great argument;
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw,
When honor's at the stake. How stand I then,
That have a father killed, a mother stained,
Excitements of my reason and my blood,
And let all sleep? while, to my shame, I see
The imminent death of twenty thousand men,
That, for a fantasy and trick of fame,

Go to their graves like beds; fight for a plot
Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,
Which is not tomb enough and continent
To hide the slain!-O, from this time forth,
My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!

[Exit.

There's tricks i' the world; and hems, and beats her heart;

Spurns enviously at straws; speaks things in doubt,

That carry but half sense: her speech is nothing,
Yet the unshapéd use of it doth move
The hearers to collection; they aim at it,
And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts;
Which, as her winks, and nods, and gestures yield
them,

Indeed would make one think, there might be thought,

Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.

Queen. 'T were good she were spoken with; for she may strew

Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds:
Let her come in.
[Exit HORATIO.
Το my sick soul, as sin's true nature is,
Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss:
So full of artless jealousy is guilt,

It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.

Re-enter HORATIO, with OPHELIA. Oph. Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?

Queen. How now, Ophelia?

OPHELIA sings.

How should I your true love know

From another one?

By his cockle-hat and staff,

And his sandal-shoon.

Queen. Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?

Oph. Say you? nay, pray you, mark: