speak:

But, what we do determine, oft we break.
Purpose is but the slave to memory;

Of violent birth, but poor validity:

Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree;
But fall, unshaken, when they mellow be.
Most necessary 'tis, that we forget
To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt:
What to ourselves in passion we propose,
The passion ending, doth the purpose lose.
The violence of either grief or joy
Their own enactures3 with themselves destroy:
Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament;
Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident.
This world is not for aye 4 nor 'tis not strange,
That even our loves should with our fortunes change;
For 'tis a question left us yet to prove,
Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love.
The great man down, you mark his favourite flies;
The poor advanc'd makes friends of enemies.
And hitherto doth love on fortune tend:

For who not needs, shall never lack a friend;
And who in want a hollow friend doth try,
Directly seasons him his enemy.

But, orderly to end where I begun,—
Our wills, and fates, do so contráry run,
That our devices still are overthrown;

Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own:
So think thou wilt no second husband wed;
But die thy thoughts, when thy first lord is dead.

P. Queen. Nor earth to give me food, nor heaven light!

Sport and repose lock from me, day and night!
To desperation turn my trust and hope!
An anchor's cheer in prison be my scope!
Each opposite, that blanks the face of joy,
Meet what I would have well, and it destroy!
Both here, and hence, pursue me lasting strife,
If, once a widow, ever I be wife!
Ham. If she should break it now,

[To Oph.

P. King. 'Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave ine here a while;

My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile
The tedious day with sleep.
[Sleeps.
P. Queen.
Sleep rock thy brain;
And never come mischance between us twain!

Ham. O, but she'll keep her word. King. Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in't?

Ham. No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest; no offence i'the world.

King. What do you call the play?

Ham. The Mouse-trap.6 Marry, how? Tropically. This play is the image of a murder done in Vienna: Gonzago is the duke's name; his wife, Baptista: you shall see anon; 'tis a knavish piece of work: But what of that? your majesty, and we that have free souls, it touches us not: Let the galled jade wince, our withers are unwrung.—

Enter Lucianus.

This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king.
Oph. You are as good as a chorus, my lord.
Ham. I could interpret between you and your
love, if I could see the puppets dallying.

Oph. You are keen, my lord, you are keen. Ham. It would cost you a groaning, to take of my edge.

Oph. Still better, and worse.

Ham. So you mistake your husbands.—Begin, murderer;-leave thy damnable faces, and begin. Come ;-The croaking raven

Doth bellow for revenge.

Luc. Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing;

Confederate season, else no creature seeing;
Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected,
With Hecate's bans thrice blasted, thrice infected,
Thy natural magic and dire property,
On wholesome life usurp immediately.

[Pours the poison into the sleeper's ears. Ham. He poisons him i'the garden for his estate. His name's Gonzago: the story is extant, and written in very choice Italian: You shall see anon, how the murderer gets the love of Gonzago's wife. Oph. The king rises.

Ham. What! frighted with false fire?
Queen. How fares my lord?

Pol. Give o'er the play.

King. Give me some light:-away!
Pol. Lights, lights, lights!

[Exeunt all but Hamlet and Horatio. Ham. Why, let the strucken deer go weep, The hart ungalled play:

For some must watch, while some must sleep;

Thus runs the world away.

Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers (if the
rest of my fortunes turn Turk10 with me,) with two
Provencial roses on my razed shoes, get me a fel-
lowship in a cry12 of players, sir?
Hor. Half a share.
Ham. A whole one, I.

For thou dost know, O Damon dear,
This realm dismantled was

Of Jove himself; and now reigns here
A very, very-peacock.

Hor. You might have rhymed.

Ham. O good Horatio, I'll take the ghost's word for a thousand pound. Didst perceive?

Hor. Very well, my lord.

Ham. Upon the talk of poisoning,

Hor. I did very well note him.

Ham. Ah, ha!-Come, some music; come, the

recorders. 13

For if the king like not the comedy,

Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

Come, some music.

Guil. Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with

you.

Ham. Sir, a whole history.

Guil. The king, sir,

Ham. Ay, sir, what of him?

pered.

Ham. With drink, sir?

Guil. No, my lord, with choler.

Ham. Your wisdom should show itself more richer, to signify this to the doctor; for, for me to put him to his purgation, would, perhaps, plunge him into more choler.

Guil. Good my lord, put your discourse into some frame, and start not so wildly from my affair. Ham. I am tame, sir :-pronounce, ' Guil. The queen, your mother, in most great affliction of spirit, hath sent me to you. Ham. You are welcome.

Guil. Nay, good my lord, this courtesy is not of the right breed. If it shall please you to make me a wholesome answer, I will do your mother's commandment 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 behaviour 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. 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:-Why do you go about to recover the wind of me, as if you would drive me into a toil? Guil. O, my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly.

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 ven-

(1) Par Dieu. (2) Business. (3) Hands.
(4) Holes. (5) Utmost stretch. (6) Reproved.

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. Enter Polonius.

Contagion to this world: Now could I drink hot blood,

And do such business as the bitter day
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,6
To give them seals? never, my soul, consent! [Ex.
SCENE III.—A room in the same. Enter King,
Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern.

I

King. I like him not; nor stands it safe with us,
To let his madness range. Therefore, prepare you;
your commission will forthwith despatch,
And he to England shall along with you:
The terms of our estate may not endure
Hazard so near us, as doth hourly grow
Out of his lunes.8
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 armour of the mind,
To keep itself from 'noyance: but much more
That spirit, upon whose weal 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,
Fix'd on the summit of the highest mount,
To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things
Are mortis'd and adjoin'd; which when it falls,

(7) Authority to put them in execution.
(8) Lunacies.

Each small annexment, petty consequence,
Attends the boist'rous ruin. Never alone
Did the king sigh, but with a general groan.
King. Arm you, I pray you, to this speedy
age;

For we will fetters put upon this fear,
Which now goes too free-footed.
Ros. Guil.
We will haste us.
[Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
Enter Polonius.

Pol. My lord, he's going to his mother's closet: Behind the arras! 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;
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;
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 two-fold force,-
To be forestalled, ere we come to fall,

Or pardon'd, 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 possess'd
Of those effects for which I did the murder,
My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.
May one be pardon'd, 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 compell'd,
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 can not repent?
O wretched state! O bosom, black as death!
O limed2 soul; that struggling to be free,
Art more engag'd! Help, angels, make assay!
Bow, stubborn knees! and, heart with strings of
steel,

Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe;
All may be well.

No.

Up, sword; and know thou a more horrid heat :*
When he is drunk, asleep, or in his rage;
Or in the incestuous pleasures of his bed;
At gaming, swearing; or about some act
That has no relish of salvation in't:

Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven;
And that his soul may be as damn'd, and black,
As hell, whereto it goes. My mother stays:
This physic but prolongs thy sickly days. [Exit.
The King rises and advances.

King. My words fly up, my thoughts remain be

low:

tongue.

Ham. Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.
Queen. Why, how now, Hamlet?
Ham.

What's the matter now?
Queen. Have you forgot me?
Ham.
No, by the rood, not so:
You are the queen, your husband's brother's wife;
And,-'would it were not so!-you are my mother.
Queen. Nay, then I'll set those to you that can
speak.

Ham. Come, come, and sit you down; you shall not budge;

You go not, till I set you up a glass

Where you may see the inmost part of you. Queen. What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murder me?

Enter Hamlet.

Ham. Now might I do it, pat, now he is praying;
And now I'll do't; and so he goes to heaven:
And so am I reveng'd? That would be scann'd :3
A villain kills my father; and, for that,
I, his sole4 son, do this same villain send
To heaven.

Why, this is hire and salary, not revenge.
He took my father grossly, full of bread;

(1) Tapestry. (2) Caught as with bird-lime. (3) Should be considered. (4) Only.

Pol. [Behind.] What, ho! help! Ham. How now! a rat? [Draws. Dead, for a ducat, dead.

[Hamlet makes a pass through the arras.

Pol. [Behind.]

O, I am slain.

[Falls, and dies.

Nay, I know not

Queen. O me, what hast thou done?

Ham.

Is it the king?

[Lifts up the arras, and draws forth Polonius.