Complete Plays, The

by William Shakespeare

  Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature

  That we with wisest sorrow think on him,

  Together with remembrance of ourselves.

  Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen,

  The imperial jointress to this warlike state,

  Have we, as ’twere with a defeated joy,—

  With an auspicious and a dropping eye,

  With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage,

  In equal scale weighing delight and dole,—

  Taken to wife: nor have we herein barr’d

  Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone

  With this affair along. For all, our thanks.

  Now follows, that you know, young Fortinbras,

  Holding a weak supposal of our worth,

  Or thinking by our late dear brother’s death

  Our state to be disjoint and out of frame,

  Colleagued with the dream of his advantage,

  He hath not fail’d to pester us with message,

  Importing the surrender of those lands

  Lost by his father, with all bonds of law,

  To our most valiant brother. So much for him.

  Now for ourself and for this time of meeting:

  Thus much the business is: we have here writ

  To Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras,—

  Who, impotent and bed-rid, scarcely hears

  Of this his nephew’s purpose,— to suppress

  His further gait herein; in that the levies,

  The lists and full proportions, are all made

  Out of his subject: and we here dispatch

  You, good Cornelius, and you, Voltimand,

  For bearers of this greeting to old Norway;

  Giving to you no further personal power

  To business with the king, more than the scope

  Of these delated articles allow.

  Farewell, and let your haste commend your duty.

  Cornelius

  Voltimand

  In that and all things will we show our duty.

  King Claudius

  We doubt it nothing: heartily farewell.

  Exeunt Voltimand and Cornelius

  And now, Laertes, what’s the news with you?

  You told us of some suit; what is’t, Laertes?

  You cannot speak of reason to the Dane,

  And loose your voice: what wouldst thou beg, Laertes,

  That shall not be my offer, not thy asking?

  The head is not more native to the heart,

  The hand more instrumental to the mouth,

  Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father.

  What wouldst thou have, Laertes?

  Laertes

  My dread lord,

  Your leave and favour to return to France;

  From whence though willingly I came to Denmark,

  To show my duty in your coronation,

  Yet now, I must confess, that duty done,

  My thoughts and wishes bend again toward France

  And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon.

  King Claudius

  Have you your father’s leave? What says Polonius?

  Lord Polonius

  He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave

  By laboursome petition, and at last

  Upon his will I seal’d my hard consent:

  I do beseech you, give him leave to go.

  King Claudius

  Take thy fair hour, Laertes; time be thine,

  And thy best graces spend it at thy will!

  But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son,—

  Hamlet

  [Aside] A little more than kin, and less than kind.

  King Claudius

  How is it that the clouds still hang on you?

  Hamlet

  Not so, my lord; I am too much i’ the sun.

  Queen Gertrude

  Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off,

  And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.

  Do not for ever with thy vailed lids

  Seek for thy noble father in the dust:

  Thou know’st ’tis common; all that lives must die,

  Passing through nature to eternity.

  Hamlet

  Ay, madam, it is common.

  Queen Gertrude

  If it be,

  Why seems it so particular with thee?

  Hamlet

  Seems, madam! nay it is; I know not ’seems.’

  ’Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,

  Nor customary suits of solemn black,

  Nor windy suspiration of forced breath,

  No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,

  Nor the dejected ’havior of the visage,

  Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief,

  That can denote me truly: these indeed seem,

  For they are actions that a man might play:

  But I have that within which passeth show;

  These but the trappings and the suits of woe.

  King Claudius

  ’Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,

  To give these mourning duties to your father:

  But, you must know, your father lost a father;

  That father lost, lost his, and the survivor bound

  In filial obligation for some term

  To do obsequious sorrow: but to persever

  In obstinate condolement is a course

  Of impious stubbornness; ’tis unmanly grief;

  It shows a will most incorrect to heaven,

  A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,

  An understanding simple and unschool’d:

  For what we know must be and is as common

  As any the most vulgar thing to sense,

  Why should we in our peevish opposition

  Take it to heart? Fie! ’tis a fault to heaven,

  A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,

  To reason most absurd: whose common theme

  Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried,

  From the first corse till he that died to-day,

  ‘This must be so.’ We pray you, throw to earth

  This unprevailing woe, and think of us

  As of a father: for let the world take note,

  You are the most immediate to our throne;

  And with no less nobility of love

  Than that which dearest father bears his son,

  Do I impart toward you. For your intent

  In going back to school in Wittenberg,

  It is most retrograde to our desire:

  And we beseech you, bend you to remain

  Here, in the cheer and comfort of our eye,

  Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.

  Queen Gertrude

  Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet:

  I pray thee, stay with us; go not to Wittenberg.

  Hamlet

  I shall in all my best obey you, madam.

  King Claudius

  Why, ’tis a loving and a fair reply:

  Be as ourself in Denmark. Madam, come;

  This gentle and unforced accord of Hamlet

  Sits smiling to my heart: in grace whereof,

  No jocund health that Denmark drinks to-day,

  But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell,

  And the king’s rouse the heavens all bruit again,

  Re-speaking earthly thunder. Come away.

  Exeunt all but Hamlet

  Hamlet

  O, that this too too solid flesh would melt

  Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!

  Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d

  His canon ’gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!

  How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,

  Seem to me all the uses of this world!

  Fie on’t! ah fie! ’tis an unweeded garden,

  That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature

  Possess it merely. That it
should come to this!

  But two months dead: nay, not so much, not two:

  So excellent a king; that was, to this,

  Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother

  That he might not beteem the winds of heaven

  Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!

  Must I remember? why, she would hang on him,

  As if increase of appetite had grown

  By what it fed on: and yet, within a month —

  Let me not think on’t — Frailty, thy name is woman!—

  A little month, or ere those shoes were old

  With which she follow’d my poor father’s body,

  Like Niobe, all tears:— why she, even she —

  O, God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,

  Would have mourn’d longer — married with my uncle,

  My father’s brother, but no more like my father

  Than I to Hercules: within a month:

  Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears

  Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,

  She married. O, most wicked speed, to post

  With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!

  It is not nor it cannot come to good:

  But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue.

  Enter Horatio, Marcellus, and Bernardo

  Horatio

  Hail to your lordship!

  Hamlet

  I am glad to see you well:

  Horatio,— or I do forget myself.

  Horatio

  The same, my lord, and your poor servant ever.

  Hamlet

  Sir, my good friend; I’ll change that name with you:

  And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio? Marcellus?

  Marcellus

  My good lord —

  Hamlet

  I am very glad to see you. Good even, sir.

  But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg?

  Horatio

  A truant disposition, good my lord.

  Hamlet

  I would not hear your enemy say so,

  Nor shall you do mine ear that violence,

  To make it truster of your own report

  Against yourself: I know you are no truant.

  But what is your affair in Elsinore?

  We’ll teach you to drink deep ere you depart.

  Horatio

  My lord, I came to see your father’s funeral.

  Hamlet

  I pray thee, do not mock me, fellow-student;

  I think it was to see my mother’s wedding.

  Horatio

  Indeed, my lord, it follow’d hard upon.

  Hamlet

  Thrift, thrift, Horatio! the funeral baked meats

  Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.

  Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven

  Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio!

  My father!— methinks I see my father.

  Horatio

  Where, my lord?

  Hamlet

  In my mind’s eye, Horatio.

  Horatio

  I saw him once; he was a goodly king.

  Hamlet

  He was a man, take him for all in all,

  I shall not look upon his like again.

  Horatio

  My lord, I think I saw him yesternight.

  Hamlet

  Saw? who?

  Horatio

  My lord, the king your father.

  Hamlet

  The king my father!

  Horatio

  Season your admiration for awhile

  With an attent ear, till I may deliver,

  Upon the witness of these gentlemen,

  This marvel to you.

  Hamlet

  For God’s love, let me hear.

  Horatio

  Two nights together had these gentlemen,

  Marcellus and Bernardo, on their watch,

  In the dead vast and middle of the night,

  Been thus encounter’d. A figure like your father,

  Armed at point exactly, cap-a-pe,

  Appears before them, and with solemn march

  Goes slow and stately by them: thrice he walk’d

  By their oppress’d and fear-surprised eyes,

  Within his truncheon’s length; whilst they, distilled

  Almost to jelly with the act of fear,

  Stand dumb and speak not to him. This to me

  In dreadful secrecy impart they did;

  And I with them the third night kept the watch;

  Where, as they had deliver’d, both in time,

  Form of the thing, each word made true and good,

  The apparition comes: I knew your father;

  These hands are not more like.

  Hamlet

  But where was this?

  Marcellus

  My lord, upon the platform where we watch’d.

  Hamlet

  Did you not speak to it?

  Horatio

  My lord, I did;

  But answer made it none: yet once methought

  It lifted up its head and did address

  Itself to motion, like as it would speak;

  But even then the morning cock crew loud,

  And at the sound it shrunk in haste away,

  And vanish’d from our sight.

  Hamlet

  ’Tis very strange.

  Horatio

  As I do live, my honour’d lord, ’tis true;

  And we did think it writ down in our duty

  To let you know of it.

  Hamlet

  Indeed, indeed, sirs, but this troubles me.

  Hold you the watch to-night?

  Marcellus

  Bernardo

  We do, my lord.

  Hamlet

  Arm’d, say you?

  Marcellus

  Bernardo

  Arm’d, my lord.

  Hamlet

  From top to toe?

  Marcellus

  Bernardo

  My lord, from head to foot.

  Hamlet

  Then saw you not his face?

  Horatio

  O, yes, my lord; he wore his beaver up.

  Hamlet

  What, look’d he frowningly?

  Horatio

  A countenance more in sorrow than in anger.

  Hamlet

  Pale or red?

  Horatio

  Nay, very pale.

  Hamlet

  And fix’d his eyes upon you?

  Horatio

  Most constantly.

  Hamlet

  I would I had been there.

  Horatio

  It would have much amazed you.

  Hamlet

  Very like, very like. Stay’d it long?

  Horatio

  While one with moderate haste might tell a hundred.

  Marcellus

  Bernardo

  Longer, longer.

  Horatio

  Not when I saw’t.

  Hamlet

  His beard was grizzled — no?

  Horatio

  It was, as I have seen it in his life,

  A sable silver’d.

  Hamlet

  I will watch to-night;

  Perchance ’twill walk again.

  Horatio

  I warrant it will.

  Hamlet

  If it assume my noble father’s person,

  I’ll speak to it, though hell itself should gape

  And bid me hold my peace. I pray you all,

  If you have hitherto conceal’d this sight,

  Let it be tenable in your silence still;

  And whatsoever else shall hap to-night,

  Give it an understanding, but no tongue:

  I will requite your loves. So, fare you well:

  Upon the platform, ’twixt eleven and twelve,

  I’ll visit you.

  All

  Our duty to your honour.

  Hamlet

/>   Your loves, as mine to you: farewell.

  Exeunt all but Hamlet

  My father’s spirit in arms! all is not well;

  I doubt some foul play: would the night were come!

  Till then sit still, my soul: foul deeds will rise,

  Though all the earth o’erwhelm them, to men’s eyes.

  Exit

  A CRITICAL INTRODUCTION TO SHAKESPEARE

  BY

  H. N. MacCRACKEN, F. E. PIERCE, AND

  W. H. DURHAM

  DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

  YALE UNIVERSITY

  AN INTRODUCTION TO SHAKESPEARE: TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER I: AN OUTLINE OF SHAKESPEARE'S LIFE

  CHAPTER II: ENGLISH DRAMA BEFORE SHAKESPEARE

  CHAPTER III: THE ELIZABETHAN THEATER

  CHAPTER IV: ELIZABETHAN LONDON

  CHAPTER V: SHAKESPEARE'S NONDRAMATIC WORKS

  CHAPTER VI: THE SEQUENCE OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS

  CHAPTER VII: SHAKESPEARE'S DEVELOPMENT AS A DRAMATIST

  CHAPTER VIII: THE CHIEF SOURCES OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS

  CHAPTER IX: HOW SHAKESPEARE GOT INTO PRINT

  CHAPTER X: THE PLAYS OF THE FIRST PERIOD—IMITATION AND EXPERIMENT

  1587 (?)-1594

  CHAPTER XI: THE PLAYS OF THE SECOND PERIOD—COMEDY AND HISTORY

  CHAPTER XII: THE PLAYS OF THE THIRD PERIOD—TRAGEDY

  CHAPTER XIII: THE PLAYS OF THE FOURTH PERIOD—ROMANTIC TRAGI-COMEDY

  CHAPTER XIV: FAMOUS MISTAKES AND DELUSIONS ABOUT SHAKESPEARE

  CHAPTER I

  AN OUTLINE OF SHAKESPEARE'S LIFE

  Our Knowledge of Shakespeare.—No one in Shakespeare's day seems to have been interested in learning about the private lives of the dramatists. The profession of play writing had scarcely begun to be distinguished from that of play acting, and the times were not wholly gone by when all actors had been classed in public estimation as vagabonds. While the London citizens were constant theatergoers, and immensely proud of their fine plays, they were content to learn of the writers of plays merely from town gossip, which passed from lip to lip and found no resting place in memoirs. There were other lives which made far more exciting reading. English sea-men were penetrating every ocean, and bringing back wonderful tales. English soldiers were aiding the Dutch nation towards freedom, and coming back full of stories of heroic deeds. At home great political, religious, and scientific movements engaged the attention of the more serious readers and thinkers. It is not strange, therefore, that the writers of plays, whose most exciting incidents were tavern brawls or imprisonment for rash satire of the government, found no biographer. After Shakespeare's death, moreover, the theater rapidly fell into disrepute, and many a good story of the playhouse fell under the ban of polite conversation, and was lost.

  Under such conditions we cannot wonder that we know so little of Shakespeare, and that we must go to town records, cases at law, and book registers for our knowledge. Thanks to the diligence of modern scholars, however, we know much more of Shakespeare than of most of his fellow-actors and playwrights. The life of Christopher Marlowe, Shakespeare's great predecessor, is almost unknown; and of John Fletcher, Shakespeare's great contemporary and successor, it is not even known whether he was married, or when he began to write plays. Yet his father was Bishop of London, and in high favor with Queen Elizabeth. We ought rather to wonder at the good fortune which has preserved for us, however scanty in details or lacking in the authority of its traditions, a continuous record of the life of William Shakespeare from birth to death.