The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works
Page 125
A couch for luxury and damned incest.
But howsomever thou pursuest this act,
Taint not thy mind nor let thy soul contrive
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Against thy mother aught. Leave her to heaven,
And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge
To prick and sting her. Fare thee well at once:
The glow-worm shows the matin to be near
And gins to pale his uneffectual fire.
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Adieu, adieu, adieu. Remember me. Exit.
HAMLET O all you host of heaven! O earth! What else?
And shall I couple hell? O fie! Hold, hold, my heart,
And you, my sinews, grow not instant old,
But bear me stiffly up. Remember thee?
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Ay, thou poor ghost, whiles memory holds a seat
In this distracted globe. Remember thee?
Yea, from the table of my memory
I’ll wipe away all trivial fond records,
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past
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That youth and observation copied there,
And thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain,
Unmix’d with baser matter. Yes, by heaven!
O most pernicious woman!
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O villain, villain, smiling damned villain!
My tables. Meet it is I set it down
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain –
At least I am sure it may be so in Denmark. [Writes.]
So, uncle, there you are. Now to my word.
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It is ‘Adieu, adieu, remember me.’
I have sworn’t.
Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS calling.
HORATIO My lord, my lord.
MARCELLUS Lord Hamlet.
HORATIO Heavens secure him.
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HAMLET [aside] So be it.
MARCELLUS Hillo, ho, ho, my lord.
HAMLET Hillo, ho, ho, boy. Come, bird, come.
MARCELLUS How is’t, my noble lord?
HORATIO What news, my lord?
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HAMLET O, wonderful!
HORATIO Good my lord, tell it.
HAMLET No, you will reveal it.
HORATIO Not I, my lord, by heaven.
MARCELLUS Nor I, my lord.
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HAMLET
How say you then, would heart of man once think it –
But you’ll be secret?
HORATIO, MARCELLUS Ay, by heaven.
HAMLET
There’s never a villain dwelling in all Denmark
But he’s an arrant knave.
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HORATIO
There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave
To tell us this.
HAMLET Why, right, you are in the right.
And so without more circumstance at all
I hold it fit that we shake hands and part,
You as your business and desire shall point you –
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For every man hath business and desire,
Such as it is – and for my own poor part,
I will go pray.
HORATIO
These are but wild and whirling words, my lord.
HAMLET I am sorry they offend you, heartily –
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Yes faith, heartily.
HORATIO There’s no offence, my lord.
HAMLET Yes by Saint Patrick but there is, Horatio,
And much offence too. Touching this vision here,
It is an honest ghost, that let me tell you.
For your desire to know what is between us,
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O’ermaster’t as you may. And now, good friends,
As you are friends, scholars, and soldiers,
Give me one poor request.
HORATIO What is’t, my lord? We will.
HAMLET
Never make known what you have seen tonight.
HORATIO, MARCELLUS My lord, we will not.
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HAMLET Nay, but swear’t.
HORATIO In faith, my lord, not I.
MARCELLUS Nor I, my lord, in faith.
HAMLET Upon my sword.
MARCELLUS We have sworn, my lord, already.
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HAMLET Indeed, upon my sword, indeed.
GHOST [Cries under the stage.] Swear.
HAMLET
Ah ha, boy, say’st thou so? Art thou there, truepenny?
Come on, you hear this fellow in the cellarage.
Consent to swear.
HORATIO Propose the oath, my lord.
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HAMLET Never to speak of this that you have seen.
Swear by my sword.
GHOST Swear. [They swear.]
HAMLET Hic et ubique? Then we’ll shift our ground.
Come hither, gentlemen,
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And lay your hands again upon my sword.
Swear by my sword
Never to speak of this that you have heard.
GHOST Swear by his sword. [They swear.]
HAMLET
Well said, old mole. Canst work i’th’ earth so fast?
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A worthy pioner! Once more remove, good friends.
HORATIO
O day and night, but this is wondrous strange.
HAMLET
And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
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But come,
Here, as before, never, so help you mercy,
How strange or odd some’er I bear myself –
As I perchance hereafter shall think meet
To put an antic disposition on –
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That you, at such time seeing me, never shall,
With arms encumber’d thus, or this head-shake,
Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase,
As ‘Well, we know’, or ‘We could and if we would’,
Or ‘If we list to speak’, or ‘There be and if they might’,
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Or such ambiguous giving out, to note
That you know aught of me – this do swear,
So grace and mercy at your most need help you.
GHOST Swear. [They swear.]
HAMLET Rest, rest, perturbed spirit. So, gentlemen,
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With all my love I do commend me to you;
And what so poor a man as Hamlet is
May do t’express his love and friending to you,
God willing, shall not lack. Let us go in together.
And still your fingers on your lips, I pray.
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The time is out of joint. O cursed spite,
That ever I was born to set it right.
Nay, come, let’s go together. Exeunt.
2.1 Enter old POLONIUS, with his man REYNALDO.
POLONIUS
Give him this money and these notes, Reynaldo.
REYNALDO I will, my lord.
POLONIUS
You shall do marvellous wisely, good Reynaldo,
Before you visit him, to make inquire
Of his behaviour.
REYNALDO My lord, I did intend it.
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POLONIUS
Marry, well said, very well said. Look you, sir,
Inquire me first what Danskers are in Paris,
And how, and who, what means, and where they keep,
What company, at what expense; and finding
By this encompassment and drift of question
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That they do know my son, come you more nearer
Than your particular demands will touch it.
Take you as ’twere some distant knowledge of him,
As thus, ‘I know his father, and his friends,
&nb
sp; And in part him’ – do you mark this, Reynaldo?
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REYNALDO Ay, very well, my lord.
POLONIUS
‘And in part him. But’, you may say, ‘not well;
But if ’t be he I mean, he’s very wild,
Addicted so and so’ – and there put on him
What forgeries you please – marry, none so rank
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As may dishonour him – take heed of that –
But, sir, such wanton, wild, and usual slips
As are companions noted and most known
To youth and liberty.
REYNALDO As gaming, my lord?
POLONIUS Ay, or drinking, fencing, swearing,
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Quarrelling, drabbing – you may go so far.
REYNALDO My lord, that would dishonour him.
POLONIUS
’Faith no, as you may season it in the charge.
You must not put another scandal on him,
That he is open to incontinency –
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That’s not my meaning; but breathe his faults so quaintly
That they may seem the taints of liberty,
The flash and outbreak of a fiery mind,
A savageness in unreclaimed blood,
Of general assault.
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REYNALDO But my good lord –
POLONIUS Wherefore should you do this?
REYNALDO Ay, my lord, I would know that.
POLONIUS Marry, sir, here’s my drift,
And I believe it is a fetch of warrant.
You laying these slight sullies on my son,
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As ’twere a thing a little soil’d i’th’ working,
Mark you,
Your party in converse, him you would sound,
Having ever seen in the prenominate crimes
The youth you breathe of guilty, be assur’d
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He closes with you in this consequence:
‘Good sir’, or so, or ‘friend’, or ‘gentleman’,
According to the phrase or the addition
Of man and country.
REYNALDO Very good, my lord.
POLONIUS And then, sir, does a this – a does – what was
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I about to say? By the mass, I was about to say
something. Where did I leave?
REYNALDO At ‘closes in the consequence’.
POLONIUS At ‘closes in the consequence’, ay, marry.
He closes thus: ‘I know the gentleman,
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I saw him yesterday’, or ‘th’other day’,
Or then, or then, with such or such, ‘and as you say,
There was a gaming’, ‘there o’ertook in’s rouse’,
‘There falling out at tennis’, or perchance
‘I saw him enter such a house of sale’ –
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Videlicet a brothel, or so forth.
See you now,
Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth;
And thus do we of wisdom and of reach,
With windlasses and with assays of bias,
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By indirections find directions out.
So by my former lecture and advice
Shall you my son. You have me, have you not?
REYNALDO My lord, I have.
POLONIUS God buy ye, fare ye well.
REYNALDO Good my lord.
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POLONIUS Observe his inclination in yourself.
REYNALDO I shall, my lord.
POLONIUS And let him ply his music.
REYNALDO Well, my lord. Exit.
Enter OPHELIA.
POLONIUS
Farewell. How now, Ophelia, what’s the matter?
OPHELIA
O my lord, my lord, I have been so affrighted.
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POLONIUS With what, i’th’ name of God?
OPHELIA My lord, as I was sewing in my closet,
Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbrac’d,
No hat upon his head, his stockings foul’d,
Ungarter’d and down-gyved to his ankle,
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Pale as his shirt, his knees knocking each other,
And with a look so piteous in purport
As if he had been loosed out of hell
To speak of horrors, he comes before me.
POLONIUS Mad for thy love?
OPHELIA My lord, I do not know,
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But truly I do fear it.
POLONIUS What said he?
OPHELIA
He took me by the wrist and held me hard.