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 farther 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. It is as easy as lying: govern these ventages with your finger 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 't is like a camel, indeed.

Ham. Methinks, it is like a weasel.

Pol. It is backed like a weasel.

Ham. Then, will I come to my mother by and by.

fool me to the top of my bent.

Pol. I will say so.

I will come by and by.

[Exit POLONIUS.

Ham. By and by is easily said. - Leave me, friends.

[Exeunt Ros., GUIL., HOR., &.c.

'T is now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out

Contagion to this world: now could I drink hot blood,
And do such bitter business as the day

Would quake to look on. Soft! now to my mother.
0, 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!

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.

The terms of our estate may not endure
Hazard so dangerous, 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 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,
Each small annexment, petty consequence,

VI.

[Exit.

65

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. and 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
O those effects for which I did the murder,
My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.
May one be pardon'd, and retain th' offence?
In the corrupted currents of this world,
Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice,
And oft 't is seen, the wicked prize itself
Buys out the law; but 't is 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 limed soul, that struggling to be free,

Art more engaged! 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.

Enter HAMLet.

[Retires and kneels.

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:

A villain kills my father; and for that,

I, his sole son, do this same villain send
To heaven.

Why, this is hire and salary, not revenge.

He took my father grossly, full of bread;

With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May,

And how his audit stands, who knows, save heaven?
But, in our circumstance and course of thought,
'Tis heavy with him; and am I then reveng'd,
To take him in the purging of his soul,
When he is fit and season'd for his passage?
No.