HAMLET

DRAMATIS PERSONAE
(PAGINA 5)
ACT III





SCENE I A room in the castle.



[Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, POLONIUS,

OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN]

KING CLAUDIUS And can you, by no drift of circumstance,

Get from him why he puts on this confusion,

Grating so harshly all his days of quiet

With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?

ROSENCRANTZ He does confess he feels himself distracted;

But from what cause he will by no means speak.

GUILDENSTERN Nor do we find him forward to be sounded,

But, with a crafty madness, keeps aloof,

When we would bring him on to some confession

Of his true state.

QUEEN GERTRUDE Did he receive you well?

ROSENCRANTZ Most like a gentleman.

GUILDENSTERN But with much forcing of his disposition.

ROSENCRANTZ Niggard of question; but, of our demands,

Most free in his reply.

QUEEN GERTRUDE Did you assay him?

To any pastime?

ROSENCRANTZ Madam, it so fell out, that certain players

We o'er-raught on the way: of these we told him;

And there did seem in him a kind of joy

To hear of it: they are about the court,

And, as I think, they have already order

This night to play before him.

LORD POLONIUS 'Tis most true:

And he beseech'd me to entreat your majesties

To hear and see the matter.

KING CLAUDIUS With all my heart; and it doth much content me

To hear him so inclined.

Good gentlemen, give him a further edge,

And drive his purpose on to these delights.

ROSENCRANTZ We shall, my lord.

[Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN]

KING CLAUDIUS Sweet Gertrude, leave us too;

For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither,

That he, as 'twere by accident, may here

Affront Ophelia:

Her father and myself, lawful espials,

Will so bestow ourselves that, seeing, unseen,

We may of their encounter frankly judge,

And gather by him, as he is behaved,

If 't be the affliction of his love or no

That thus he suffers for.

QUEEN GERTRUDE I shall obey you.

And for your part, Ophelia, I do wish

That your good beauties be the happy cause

Of Hamlet's wildness: so shall I hope your virtues

Will bring him to his wonted way again,

To both your honours.

OPHELIA Madam, I wish it may.

[Exit QUEEN GERTRUDE]

LORD POLONIUS Ophelia, walk you here. Gracious, so please you,

We will bestow ourselves.

[To OPHELIA]

Read on this book;

That show of such an exercise may colour

Your loneliness. We are oft to blame in this,--

'Tis too much proved--that with devotion's visage

And pious action we do sugar o'er

The devil himself.

KING CLAUDIUS [Aside] O, 'tis too true!

How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!

The harlot's cheek, beautied with plastering art,

Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it

Than is my deed to my most painted word:

O heavy burthen!

LORD POLONIUS I hear him coming: let's withdraw, my lord.

[Exeunt KING CLAUDIUS and POLONIUS]

[Enter HAMLET]

HAMLET To be, or not to be: that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;

No more; and by a sleep to say we end

The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;

To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause: there's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life;

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,

The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,

The insolence of office and the spurns

That patient merit of the unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscover'd country from whose bourn

No traveller returns, puzzles the will

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprises of great pith and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry,

And lose the name of action.--Soft you now!

The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons

Be all my sins remember'd.

OPHELIA Good my lord,

How does your honour for this many a day?

HAMLET I humbly thank you; well, well, well.

OPHELIA My lord, I have remembrances of yours,

That I have longed long to re-deliver;

I pray you, now receive them.

HAMLET No, not I;

I never gave you aught.

OPHELIA My honour'd lord, you know right well you did;

And, with them, words of so sweet breath composed

As made the things more rich: their perfume lost,

Take these again; for to the noble mind

Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.

There, my lord.

HAMLET Ha, ha! are you honest?

OPHELIA My lord?

HAMLET Are you fair?

OPHELIA What means your lordship?

HAMLET That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should

admit no discourse to your beauty.

OPHELIA Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than

with honesty?

HAMLET Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner

transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than the

force of honesty can translate beauty into his

likeness: this was sometime a paradox, but now the

time gives it proof. I did love you once.

OPHELIA Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.

HAMLET You should not have believed me; for virtue cannot

so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of

it: I loved you not.

OPHELIA I was the more deceived.

HAMLET Get thee to a nunnery: why wouldst thou be a

breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest;

but yet I could accuse me of such things that it

were better my mother had not borne me: I am very

proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offences at

my beck than I have thoughts to put them in,

imagination to give them shape, or time to act them

in. What should such fellows as I do crawling

between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves,

all; believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery.

Where's your father?

OPHELIA At home, my lord.

HAMLET Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the

fool no where but in's own house. Farewell.

OPHELIA O, help him, you sweet heavens!

HAMLET If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague for

thy dowry: be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as

snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a

nunnery, go: farewell. Or, if thou wilt needs

marry, marry a fool; for wise men know well enough

what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go,

and quickly too. Farewell.

OPHELIA O heavenly powers, restore him!

HAMLET I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God

has given you one face, and you make yourselves

another: you jig, you amble, and you lisp, and

nick-name God's creatures, and make your wantonness

your ignorance. Go to, I'll no more on't; it hath

made me mad. I say, we will have no more marriages:

those that are married already, all but one, shall

live; the rest shall keep as they are. To a

nunnery, go.

[Exit]

OPHELIA O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!

The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword;

The expectancy and rose of the fair state,

The glass of fashion and the mould of form,

The observed of all observers, quite, quite down!

And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,

That suck'd the honey of his music vows,

Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,

Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh;

That unmatch'd form and feature of blown youth

Blasted with ecstasy: O, woe is me,

To have seen what I have seen, see what I see!

[Re-enter KING CLAUDIUS and POLONIUS]

KING CLAUDIUS Love! his affections do not that way tend;

Nor what he spake, though it lack'd form a little,

Was not like madness. There's something in his soul,

O'er which his melancholy sits on brood;

And I do doubt the hatch and the disclose

Will be some danger: which for to prevent,

I have in quick determination

Thus set it down: he shall with speed to England,

For the demand of our neglected tribute

Haply the seas and countries different

With variable objects shall expel

This something-settled matter in his heart,

Whereon his brains still beating puts him thus

From fashion of himself. What think you on't?

LORD POLONIUS It shall do well: but yet do I believe

The origin and commencement of his grief

Sprung from neglected love. How now, Ophelia!

You need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said;

We heard it all. My lord, do as you please;

But, if you hold it fit, after the play

Let his queen mother all alone entreat him

To show his grief: let her be round with him;

And I'll be placed, so please you, in the ear

Of all their conference. If she find him not,

To England send him, or confine him where

Your wisdom best shall think.

KING CLAUDIUS It shall be so:

Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go.

[Exeunt]


~~~



HAMLET


ACT III


SCENE II A hall in the castle.



[Enter HAMLET and Players]

HAMLET Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to

you, trippingly on the tongue: but if you mouth it,

as many of your players do, I had as lief the

town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air

too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently;

for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say,

the whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget

a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it

offends me to the soul to hear a robustious

periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to

very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who

for the most part are capable of nothing but

inexplicable dumbshows and noise: I would have such

a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant; it

out-herods Herod: pray you, avoid it.

First Player I warrant your honour.

HAMLET Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion

be your tutor: suit the action to the word, the

word to the action; with this special o'erstep not

the modesty of nature: for any thing so overdone is

from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the

first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the

mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature,

scorn her own image, and the very age and body of

the time his form and pressure. Now this overdone,

or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful

laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the

censure of the which one must in your allowance

o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. O, there be

players that I have seen play, and heard others

praise, and that highly, not to speak it profanely,

that, neither having the accent of Christians nor

the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so

strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of

nature's journeymen had made men and not made them

well, they imitated humanity so abominably.

First Player I hope we have reformed that indifferently with us,

sir.

HAMLET O, reform it altogether. And let those that play

your clowns speak no more than is set down for them;

for there be of them that will themselves laugh, to

set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh

too; though, in the mean time, some necessary

question of the play be then to be considered:

that's villanous, and shows a most pitiful ambition

in the fool that uses it. Go, make you ready.

[Exeunt Players]

[Enter POLONIUS, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN]

How now, my lord! I will the king hear this piece of work?

LORD POLONIUS And the queen too, and that presently.

HAMLET Bid the players make haste.

[Exit POLONIUS]

Will you two help to hasten them?



ROSENCRANTZ |

| We will, my lord.

GUILDENSTERN |



[Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN]

HAMLET What ho! Horatio!

[Enter HORATIO]

HORATIO Here, sweet lord, at your service.

HAMLET Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man

As e'er my conversation coped withal.

HORATIO O, my dear lord,--

HAMLET Nay, do not think I flatter;

For what advancement may I hope from thee

That no revenue hast but thy good spirits,

To feed and clothe thee? Why should the poor be flatter'd?

No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp,

And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee

Where thrift may follow fawning. Dost thou hear?

Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice

And could of men distinguish, her election

Hath seal'd thee for herself; for thou hast been

As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing,

A man that fortune's buffets and rewards

Hast ta'en with equal thanks: and blest are those

Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled,

That they are not a pipe for fortune's finger

To sound what stop she please. Give me that man

That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him

In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart,

As I do thee.--Something too much of this.--

There is a play to-night before the king;

One scene of it comes near the circumstance

Which I have told thee of my father's death:

I prithee, when thou seest that act afoot,

Even with the very comment of thy soul

Observe mine uncle: if his occulted guilt

Do not itself unkennel in one speech,

It is a damned ghost that we have seen,

And my imaginations are as foul

As Vulcan's stithy. Give him heedful note;

For I mine eyes will rivet to his face,

And after we will both our judgments join

In censure of his seeming.

HORATIO Well, my lord:

If he steal aught the whilst this play is playing,

And 'scape detecting, I will pay the theft.

HAMLET They are coming to the play; I must be idle:

Get you a place.

[Danish march. A flourish. Enter KING CLAUDIUS,

QUEEN GERTRUDE, POLONIUS, OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ,

GUILDENSTERN, and others]

KING CLAUDIUS How fares our cousin Hamlet?

HAMLET Excellent, i' faith; of the chameleon's dish: I eat

the air, promise-crammed: you cannot feed capons so.

KING CLAUDIUS I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet; these words

are not mine.

HAMLET No, nor mine now.

[To POLONIUS]

My lord, you played once i' the university, you say?

LORD POLONIUS That did I, my lord; and was accounted a good actor.

HAMLET What did you enact?

LORD POLONIUS I did enact Julius Caesar: I was killed i' the

Capitol; Brutus killed me.

HAMLET It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf

there. Be the players ready?

ROSENCRANTZ Ay, my lord; they stay upon your patience.

QUEEN GERTRUDE Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me.

HAMLET No, good mother, here's metal more attractive.

LORD POLONIUS [To KING CLAUDIUS] O, ho! do you mark that?

HAMLET Lady, shall I lie in your lap?

[Lying down at OPHELIA's feet]

OPHELIA No, my lord.

HAMLET I mean, my head upon your lap?

OPHELIA Ay, my lord.

HAMLET Do you think I meant country matters?

OPHELIA I think nothing, my lord.

HAMLET That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs.

OPHELIA What is, my lord?

HAMLET Nothing.

OPHELIA You are merry, my lord.

HAMLET Who, I?

OPHELIA Ay, my lord.

HAMLET O God, your only jig-maker. What should a man do

but be merry? for, look you, how cheerfully my

mother looks, and my father died within these two hours.

OPHELIA Nay, 'tis twice two months, my lord.

HAMLET So long? Nay then, let the devil wear black, for

I'll have a suit of sables. O heavens! die two

months ago, and not forgotten yet? Then there's

hope a great man's memory may outlive his life half

a year: but, by'r lady, he must build churches,

then; or else shall he suffer not thinking on, with

the hobby-horse, whose epitaph is 'For, O, for, O,

the hobby-horse is forgot.'

[Hautboys play. The dumb-show enters]

[Enter a King and a Queen very lovingly; the Queen

embracing him, and he her. She kneels, and makes

show of protestation unto him. He takes her up,

and declines his head upon her neck: lays him down

upon a bank of flowers: she, seeing him asleep,

leaves him. Anon comes in a fellow, takes off his

crown, kisses it, and pours poison in the King's

ears, and exit. The Queen returns; finds the King

dead, and makes passionate action. The Poisoner,

with some two or three Mutes, comes in again,

seeming to lament with her. The dead body is

carried away. The Poisoner wooes the Queen with

gifts: she seems loath and unwilling awhile, but

in the end accepts his love]

[Exeunt]

OPHELIA What means this, my lord?

HAMLET Marry, this is miching mallecho; it means mischief.

OPHELIA Belike this show imports the argument of the play.

[Enter Prologue]

HAMLET We shall know by this fellow: the players cannot

keep counsel; they'll tell all.

OPHELIA Will he tell us what this show meant?

HAMLET Ay, or any show that you'll show him: be not you

ashamed to show, he'll not shame to tell you what it means.

OPHELIA You are naught, you are naught: I'll mark the play.

Prologue For us, and for our tragedy,

Here stooping to your clemency,

We beg your hearing patiently.

[Exit]

HAMLET Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?

OPHELIA 'Tis brief, my lord.

HAMLET As woman's love.

[Enter two Players, King and Queen]

Player King Full thirty times hath Phoebus' cart gone round

Neptune's salt wash and Tellus' orbed ground,

And thirty dozen moons with borrow'd sheen

About the world have times twelve thirties been,

Since love our hearts and Hymen did our hands

Unite commutual in most sacred bands.

Player Queen So many journeys may the sun and moon

Make us again count o'er ere love be done!

But, woe is me, you are so sick of late,

So far from cheer and from your former state,

That I distrust you. Yet, though I distrust,

Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must:

For women's fear and love holds quantity;

In neither aught, or in extremity.

Now, what my love is, proof hath made you know;

And as my love is sized, my fear is so:

Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear;

Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.

Player King 'Faith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly too;

My operant powers their functions leave to do:

And thou shalt live in this fair world behind,

Honour'd, beloved; and haply one as kind

For husband shalt thou--

Player Queen O, confound the rest!

Such love must needs be treason in my breast:

In second husband let me be accurst!

None wed the second but who kill'd the first.

HAMLET [Aside] Wormwood, wormwood.

Player Queen The instances that second marriage move

Are base respects of thrift, but none of love:

A second time I kill my husband dead,

When second husband kisses me in bed.

Player King I do believe you think what now you 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 enactures with themselves destroy:

Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament;

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.

The great man down, you mark his favourite flies;

The poor advanced 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 contrary 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.

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!

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!

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.

[Sleeps]

Player Queen Sleep rock thy brain,

And never come mischance between us twain!

[Exit]

HAMLET Madam, how like you this play?

QUEEN GERTRUDE The lady protests too much, methinks.

HAMLET O, but she'll keep her word.

KING CLAUDIUS Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in 't?

HAMLET No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest; no offence

i' the world.

KING CLAUDIUS What do you call the play?

HAMLET The Mouse-trap. 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 o'

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.

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.

HAMLET It would cost you a groaning to take off my edge.

OPHELIA Still better, and worse.

HAMLET So you must take your husbands. Begin, murderer;

pox, leave thy damnable faces, and begin. Come:

'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,

Thy natural magic and dire property,

On wholesome life usurp immediately.

[Pours the poison into the sleeper's ears]

HAMLET He poisons him i' the garden for's estate. His

name's Gonzago: the story is extant, and writ in

choice Italian: you shall see anon how the murderer

gets the love of Gonzago's wife.

OPHELIA The king rises.

HAMLET What, frighted with false fire!

QUEEN GERTRUDE How fares my lord?

LORD POLONIUS Give o'er the play.

KING CLAUDIUS Give me some light: away!

All Lights, lights, lights!

[Exeunt all but HAMLET and HORATIO]

HAMLET Why, let the stricken deer go weep,

The hart ungalled play;

For some must watch, while some must sleep:

So runs the world away.

Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers-- if

the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me--with two

Provincial roses on my razed shoes, get me a

fellowship in a cry of players, sir?

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

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.

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, perdy.

Come, some music!

[Re-enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN]

GUILDENSTERN Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you.

HAMLET Sir, a whole history.

GUILDENSTERN The king, sir,--

HAMLET Ay, sir, what of him?

GUILDENSTERN Is in his retirement marvellous distempered.

HAMLET With drink, sir?

GUILDENSTERN No, my lord, rather with choler.

HAMLET Your wisdom should show itself more richer to

signify this to his doctor; for, for me to put him

to his purgation would perhaps plunge him into far

more choler.

GUILDENSTERN Good my lord, put your discourse into 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.

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.

HAMLET Sir, I cannot.

GUILDENSTERN 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: therefore no

more, but to the matter: my mother, you say,--

ROSENCRANTZ Then thus she says; your behavior hath struck her

into amazement and admiration.

HAMLET O wonderful son, that can so astonish a mother! 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. Have

you any further trade with us?

ROSENCRANTZ My lord, you once did love me.

HAMLET So I 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 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?

HAMLET Ay, but sir, 'While the grass grows,'--the proverb

is something musty.

[Re-enter 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?

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.

HAMLET I pray you.

GUILDENSTERN Believe me, I cannot.

HAMLET I do beseech you.

GUILDENSTERN I know no touch of it, my lord.

HAMLET 'Tis as easy as lying: govern these ventages with

your lingers 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.

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,

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, yet you

cannot play upon me.

[Enter POLONIUS]

God bless you, sir!

LORD 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?

LORD POLONIUS By the mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed.

HAMLET Methinks it is like a weasel.

LORD POLONIUS It is backed like a weasel.

HAMLET Or like a whale?

LORD POLONIUS Very like a whale.

HAMLET Then I will come to my mother by and by. They fool

me to the top of my bent. I will come by and by.

LORD POLONIUS I will say so.

HAMLET By and by is easily said.

[Exit POLONIUS]

Leave me, friends.

[Exeunt all but HAMLET]

Tis 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.

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,

To give them seals never, my soul, consent!