The violence of either grief or joy
Their own enactures with themselves destroy.
Where joy most revels grief doth most lament;
200
Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident.
This world is not for aye, 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.
205
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
210
Directly seasons him his enemy.
But orderly to end where I begun,
Our wills and fates do so contrary run
That our devices still are overthrown:
Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.
215
So think thou wilt no second husband wed,
But die thy thoughts when thy first lord is dead.
PLAYER QUEEN
Nor earth to me give food, nor heaven light,
Sport and repose lock from me day and night,
To desperation turn my trust and hope,
220
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 a wife.
225
HAMLET If she should break it now.
PLAYER KING
’Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here awhile.
My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile
The tedious day with sleep.
PLAYER QUEEN Sleep rock thy brain,
And never come mischance between us twain.
230
[He sleeps.] Exit.
HAMLET Madam, how like you this play?
QUEEN The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
HAMLET O, but she’ll keep her word.
KING Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in’t?
235
HAMLET No, no, they do but jest – poison in jest. No
offence i’th’ world.
KING What do you call the play?
HAMLET The Mousetrap – marry, how tropically! This
play is the image of a murder done in Vienna –
240
Gonzago is the Duke’s name, his wife Baptista – you
shall see anon. ’Tis a knavish piece of work, but what
o’ that? Your Majesty, and we that have free souls, it
touches us not. Let the galled jade wince, our withers
are unwrung.
245
Enter LUCIANUS.
This is one Lucianus, nephew to the King.
OPHELIA You are as good as a chorus, my lord.
HAMLET I could interpret between you and your love if
I could see the puppets dallying.
OPHELIA You are keen, my lord, you are keen.
250
HAMLET It would cost you a groaning to take off my edge.
OPHELIA Still better, and worse.
HAMLET So you mis-take your husbands. – Begin,
murderer. Leave thy damnable faces and begin. Come,
255
the croaking raven doth bellow for revenge.
LUCIANUS
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 ban thrice blasted, thrice infected,
260
Thy natural magic and dire property
On wholesome life usurps immediately.
[Pours the poison in the sleeper’s ears.]
HAMLET A poisons him i’th’ garden for his estate. His
name’s Gonzago. The story is extant, and written in
very choice Italian. You shall see anon how the
265
murderer gets the love of Gonzago’s wife.
OPHELIA The King rises.
HAMLET What, frighted with false fire?
QUEEN How fares my lord?
POLONIUS Give o’er the play.
270
KING Give me some light. Away.
POLONIUS Lights, lights, lights.
Exeunt all but Hamlet and Horatio.
HAMLET
Why, let the strucken deer go weep,
The hart ungalled play;
For some must watch while some must sleep,
275
Thus runs the world away.
Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers, if the rest
of my fortunes turn Turk with me, with Provincial
roses on my razed shoes, get me a fellowship in a cry
of players?
280
HORATIO Half a share.
HAMLET A whole one, I.
For thou dost know, O Damon dear,
This realm dismantled was
Of Jove himself, and now reigns here
285
A very, very – pajock.
HORATIO You might have rhymed.
HAMLET O good Horatio, I’ll take the ghost’s word for
a thousand pound. Didst perceive?
HORATIO Very well, my lord.
290
HAMLET Upon the talk of the poisoning?
HORATIO I did very well note him.
HAMLET Ah ha! Come, some music; come, the recorders.
For if the King like not the comedy,
Why then, belike he likes it not, perdie.
295
Come, some music.
Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.
GUILDENSTERN Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word
with you.
HAMLET Sir, a whole history.
GUILDENSTERN The King, sir –
300
HAMLET Ay, sir, what of him?
GUILDENSTERN Is in his retirement marvellous
distempered.
HAMLET With drink, sir?
GUILDENSTERN No, my lord, with choler.
305
HAMLET 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.
GUILDENSTERN Good my lord, put your discourse into
310
some frame, and start not so wildly from my affair.
HAMLET I am tame, sir. Pronounce.
GUILDENSTERN The Queen your mother, in most great
affliction of spirit, hath sent me to you.
HAMLET You are welcome.
315
GUILDENSTERN 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.
320
HAMLET Sir, I cannot.
ROSENCRANTZ What, my lord?
HAMLET 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.
325
Therefore no more, but to the matter. My mother, you
say –
ROSENCRANTZ Then thus she says: your behaviour hath
struck her into amazement and admiration.
HAMLET O wonderful son, that can so stonish a mother!
330
But is there no sequel at the heels of this mother’s
admiration? Impart.
ROSENCRANTZ She desires to speak with you in her
closet ere you go to bed.
HAMLET We shall obey, were she ten times our mother.
335
Have you any further trade with us?
ROSENCRANTZ My lord, you once did love me.
HAMLET And do still, by these pickers and stealers.
ROSENCRANTZ Good my lord, what is your cause of
distemper? You do surely bar the door upon your own
340
liberty if you deny your griefs to your friend.
HAMLET Sir, I lack advancement.
ROSENCRANTZ How can that be, when you have the
voice of the King himself for your succession in
Denmark?
345
HAMLET 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?
350
GUILDENSTERN O my lord, if my duty be too bold, my
love is too unmannerly.
HAMLET I do not well understand that. Will you play
upon this pipe?
GUILDENSTERN My lord, I cannot.
355
HAMLET I pray you.
GUILDENSTERN Believe me, I cannot.
HAMLET I do beseech you.
GUILDENSTERN I know no touch of it, my lord.
HAMLET It is as easy as lying. Govern these ventages
360
with your fingers and thumb, give it breath with your
mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music.
Look you, these are the stops.
GUILDENSTERN But these cannot I command to any
utterance of harmony. I have not the skill.
365
HAMLET 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,
370
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 fret me, you cannot play upon me.
Enter POLONIUS.
God bless you, sir.
375
POLONIUS My lord, the Queen would speak with you,
and presently.
HAMLET Do you see yonder cloud that’s almost in
shape of a camel?
POLONIUS By th’ mass and ’tis – like a camel indeed.
380
HAMLET Methinks it is like a weasel.
POLONIUS It is backed like a weasel.
HAMLET Or like a whale.
POLONIUS Very like a whale.
HAMLET Then I will come to my mother by and by. –
385
[aside] They fool me to the top of my bent. – I will
come by and by.
POLONIUS I will say so. Exit.
HAMLET ‘By and by’ is easily said. – Leave me, friends.
Exeunt all but Hamlet.
’Tis now the very witching time of night,
390
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.
O heart, lose not thy nature. Let not ever
395
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 somever she be shent,
400
To give them seals never my soul consent. Exit.
3.3 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 dispatch,
And he to England shall along with you.
The terms of our estate may not endure
5
Hazard so near us as doth hourly grow
Out of his brows.
GUILDENSTERN 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.
10
ROSENCRANTZ The single and peculiar life is bound
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 131
