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I took thee for thy better; take thy fortune:
Thou find'st to be too busy, is some danger.-

Leave wringing of your hands: Peace; sit you down, And let me wring your heart: for so I shall,

If it be made of penetrable stuff;

If damned custom have not braz'd it so,

That it be proof and bulwark against sense.

Queen. What have I done, that thou dar'st wag thy

tongue

In noise so rude against me?

Such an act,

Ham.
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 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 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?

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 curls 4; the front of Jove himself;
An eye like Mars, to threaten and command;

A station like the herald Mercury $5,
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 follows:

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 86 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 judgement; And what judge

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 was ne'er so thrall'd,

But it reserv'd 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 all,
Or but a sickly part of one true sense
Could not so mope.

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 ardour gives the charge;
Since frost itself as actively doth burn,

And reason panders will.

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 87;

Stew'd in corruption; honeying, and making love

Over the nasty stye;

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 tythe
Of your precedent lord:-a vice of kings 88:
A cutpurse of the empire and the rule;
That from a shelf the precious diadem stole,
And put it in his pocket!

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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 son to chide,

That, laps'd 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;
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 spirits wildly peep;
And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm,
Your bedded hair, like life in excrements 89,
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.-Do not look upon me;
Lest, with this piteous action, you convert
My stern 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 see nothing there?
Queen. Nothing at all; yet all, that is, I see.

Hum. 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!

[Exit Ghost. Queen. This is the very coinage of your brain: This bodiless creation ecstasy

Is very cunning in.

Ham. Ecstasy!

90

My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time,
And makes as healthful musick: It is not madness,
That I have utter'd: bring me to the test,
And I the matter will re-word; which madness
Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,
Lay not that flattering unction to your soul,
That not your trespass, but my madness, speaks:
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place;
Whiles rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven;
Repent what's past; avoid what is to come;
And do not spread the compost on the weeds,
To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue:
For, in the fatness of these pursy times,

Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg;

Yea, curb 91 and woo, for leave to do him good.

Queen. O Hamlet! thou hast cleft my heart in twain.

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