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ment; 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 behavior 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.1 Ros. Good my lord, what is your cause of distemper? You do, surely, but bar the door upon 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.2-Why do you go about to recover the wind of me, as if you would drive me into a toil?

1 By these hands.

2 "To withdraw with you." Malone added here a stage direction. [Taking Guild. aside.] Steevens thinks it an answer to a motion Guildenstern had used, for Hamlet to withdraw with him. Perhaps it means no more than "to draw back with you," to leave that scent or trail. It is a hunting term, like that which follows.

3 This term is borrowed from hunting, and means, to take advantage of the animal pursued, by getting to the windward of it, that it may not scent its pursuers.

Guil. O my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly.1

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 2 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. 'Sblood, 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.

God bless you, sir!

Enter POLONIUS.

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 'tis like a camel, indeed.
Ham. Methinks it is like a weasel.

1 Hamlet may say, with propriety, "I do not well understand that." Perhaps Guildenstern means, "If my duty to the king makes me too bold, my love to you makes me importunate even to rudeness."

2 The ventages are the holes of the pipe. The stops means the mode of stopping those ventages to produce notes.

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 and by. -They fool me to the top of my bent.1-I will come by and by.

Pol. I will say so.
[Exit POLONIUS.
Ham. By and by is easily said.-Leave me, friends.
[Exeunt Ros., GUIL., HOR., &c.

'Tis now the very witching time of night;
When church-yards yawn, and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world. Now could I drink hot blood,
And do such bitter business as the day 2

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.

1 As far as the bow will admit of being bent without breaking. 2 The quarto reads:

"And do such business as the bitter day," &c.

3 To shend is to injure, whether by reproof, blows, or otherwise. Shakspeare generally uses shent for reproved, threatened with angry words. "To give his words seals" is therefore to carry his punishment beyond reproof. The allusion is to the sealing a deed to render it effective. The quarto of 1603:

"I will speak daggers; those sharp words being spent,
To do her wrong my soul shall ne'er consent"

[blocks in formation]

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 armor of the mind,
To keep itself from 'noyance; but much more
That spirit, upon whose weal1 depend and rest
The lives of many. The cease of majesty
Dies not alone; but, like a gulf, 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. Guil. We will haste us.

[Exeunt Ros. and GUIL.

Enter POLONIUS.

Pol. My lord, he's going to his mother's closet.
Behind the arras3 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 mother,
Since nature makes them partial, should o'erhear
The speech, of vantage. Fare you well, my liege;

1 Folio reads "spirits."

3 See King Henry IV. Part I. Act ii. Sc. 4.

2 Quarto "about."

4 Warburton explains of vantage, "by some opportunity of secret observation." Perhaps "of vantage." in Shakspeare's language, is for advantage, commodi causa.

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;1
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 forestalled, 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 murder!
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 'tis 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 limed soul; that, struggling to be free,

1 i. e. "though I am not only willing, but strongly inclined to pray my guilt prevents me."

2 i. e. caught as with birdlime.

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