HAMLET

DRAMATIS PERSONAE
(PAGINA 7)
ACT IV





SCENE II Another room in the castle.



[Enter HAMLET]

HAMLET Safely stowed.



ROSENCRANTZ: |

| [Within] Hamlet! Lord Hamlet!

GUILDENSTERN: |



HAMLET What noise? who calls on Hamlet?

O, here they come.

[Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN]

ROSENCRANTZ What have you done, my lord, with the dead body?

HAMLET Compounded it with dust, whereto 'tis kin.

ROSENCRANTZ Tell us where 'tis, that we may take it thence

And bear it to the chapel.

HAMLET Do not believe it.

ROSENCRANTZ Believe what?

HAMLET That I can keep your counsel and not mine own.

Besides, to be demanded of a sponge! what

replication should be made by the son of a king?

ROSENCRANTZ Take you me for a sponge, my lord?

HAMLET Ay, sir, that soaks up the king's countenance, his

rewards, his authorities. But such officers do the

king best service in the end: he keeps them, like

an ape, in the corner of his jaw; first mouthed, to

be last swallowed: when he needs what you have

gleaned, it is but squeezing you, and, sponge, you

shall be dry again.

ROSENCRANTZ I understand you not, my lord.

HAMLET I am glad of it: a knavish speech sleeps in a

foolish ear.

ROSENCRANTZ My lord, you must tell us where the body is, and go

with us to the king.

HAMLET The body is with the king, but the king is not with

the body. The king is a thing--

GUILDENSTERN A thing, my lord!

HAMLET Of nothing: bring me to him. Hide fox, and all after.

[Exeunt]


~~~


HAMLET


ACT IV


SCENE III Another room in the castle.



[Enter KING CLAUDIUS, attended]

KING CLAUDIUS I have sent to seek him, and to find the body.

How dangerous is it that this man goes loose!

Yet must not we put the strong law on him:

He's loved of the distracted multitude,

Who like not in their judgment, but their eyes;

And where tis so, the offender's scourge is weigh'd,

But never the offence. To bear all smooth and even,

This sudden sending him away must seem

Deliberate pause: diseases desperate grown

By desperate appliance are relieved,

Or not at all.

[Enter ROSENCRANTZ]

How now! what hath befall'n?

ROSENCRANTZ Where the dead body is bestow'd, my lord,

We cannot get from him.

KING CLAUDIUS But where is he?

ROSENCRANTZ Without, my lord; guarded, to know your pleasure.

KING CLAUDIUS Bring him before us.

ROSENCRANTZ Ho, Guildenstern! bring in my lord.

[Enter HAMLET and GUILDENSTERN]

KING CLAUDIUS Now, Hamlet, where's Polonius?

HAMLET At supper.

KING CLAUDIUS At supper! where?

HAMLET Not where he eats, but where he is eaten: a certain

convocation of politic worms are e'en at him. Your

worm is your only emperor for diet: we fat all

creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for

maggots: your fat king and your lean beggar is but

variable service, two dishes, but to one table:

that's the end.

KING CLAUDIUS Alas, alas!

HAMLET A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a

king, and cat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.

KING CLAUDIUS What dost you mean by this?

HAMLET Nothing but to show you how a king may go a

progress through the guts of a beggar.

KING CLAUDIUS Where is Polonius?

HAMLET In heaven; send hither to see: if your messenger

find him not there, seek him i' the other place

yourself. But indeed, if you find him not within

this month, you shall nose him as you go up the

stairs into the lobby.

KING CLAUDIUS Go seek him there.

[To some Attendants]

HAMLET He will stay till ye come.

[Exeunt Attendants]

KING CLAUDIUS Hamlet, this deed, for thine especial safety,--

Which we do tender, as we dearly grieve

For that which thou hast done,--must send thee hence

With fiery quickness: therefore prepare thyself;

The bark is ready, and the wind at help,

The associates tend, and every thing is bent

For England.

HAMLET For England!

KING CLAUDIUS Ay, Hamlet.

HAMLET Good.

KING CLAUDIUS So is it, if thou knew'st our purposes.

HAMLET I see a cherub that sees them. But, come; for

England! Farewell, dear mother.

KING CLAUDIUS Thy loving father, Hamlet.

HAMLET My mother: father and mother is man and wife; man

and wife is one flesh; and so, my mother. Come, for England!

[Exit]

KING CLAUDIUS Follow him at foot; tempt him with speed aboard;

Delay it not; I'll have him hence to-night:

Away! for every thing is seal'd and done

That else leans on the affair: pray you, make haste.

[Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN]

And, England, if my love thou hold'st at aught--

As my great power thereof may give thee sense,

Since yet thy cicatrice looks raw and red

After the Danish sword, and thy free awe

Pays homage to us--thou mayst not coldly set

Our sovereign process; which imports at full,

By letters congruing to that effect,

The present death of Hamlet. Do it, England;

For like the hectic in my blood he rages,

And thou must cure me: till I know 'tis done,

Howe'er my haps, my joys were ne'er begun.

[Exit]


~~~

HAMLET


ACT IV


SCENE IV A plain in Denmark.



[Enter FORTINBRAS, a Captain, and Soldiers, marching]

PRINCE FORTINBRAS Go, captain, from me greet the Danish king;

Tell him that, by his licence, Fortinbras

Craves the conveyance of a promised march

Over his kingdom. You know the rendezvous.

If that his majesty would aught with us,

We shall express our duty in his eye;

And let him know so.

Captain I will do't, my lord.

PRINCE FORTINBRAS Go softly on.

[Exeunt FORTINBRAS and Soldiers]

[Enter HAMLET, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, and others]

HAMLET Good sir, whose powers are these?

Captain They are of Norway, sir.

HAMLET How purposed, sir, I pray you?

Captain Against some part of Poland.

HAMLET Who commands them, sir?

Captain The nephews to old Norway, Fortinbras.

HAMLET Goes it against the main of Poland, sir,

Or for some frontier?

Captain Truly to speak, and with no addition,

We go to gain a little patch of ground

That hath in it no profit but the name.

To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it;

Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole

A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee.

HAMLET Why, then the Polack never will defend it.

Captain Yes, it is already garrison'd.

HAMLET Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats

Will not debate the question of this straw:

This is the imposthume of much wealth and peace,

That inward breaks, and shows no cause without

Why the man dies. I humbly thank you, sir.

Captain God be wi' you, sir.

[Exit]

ROSENCRANTZ Wilt please you go, my lord?

HAMLET I'll be with you straight go a little before.

[Exeunt all except HAMLET]

How all occasions do inform against me,

And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,

If his chief good and market of his time

Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.

Sure, he that made us with such large discourse,

Looking before and after, gave us not

That capability and god-like reason

To fust in us unused. Now, whether it be

Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple

Of thinking too precisely on the event,

A thought which, quarter'd, hath but one part wisdom

And ever three parts coward, I do not know

Why yet I live to say 'This thing's to do;'

Sith I have cause and will and strength and means

To do't. Examples gross as earth exhort me:

Witness this army of such mass and charge

Led by a delicate and tender prince,

Whose spirit with divine ambition puff'd

Makes mouths at the invisible event,

Exposing what is mortal and unsure

To all that fortune, death and danger dare,

Even for an egg-shell. Rightly to be great

Is not to stir without great argument,

But greatly to find quarrel in a straw

When honour's at the stake. How stand I then,

That have a father kill'd, a mother stain'd,

Excitements of my reason and my blood,

And let all sleep? while, to my shame, I see

The imminent death of twenty thousand men,

That, for a fantasy and trick of fame,

Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot

Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,

Which is not tomb enough and continent

To hide the slain? O, from this time forth,

My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!

[Exit]


~~~


HAMLET


ACT IV


SCENE V Elsinore. A room in the castle.



[Enter QUEEN GERTRUDE, HORATIO, and a Gentleman]

QUEEN GERTRUDE I will not speak with her.

Gentleman She is importunate, indeed distract:

Her mood will needs be pitied.

QUEEN GERTRUDE What would she have?

Gentleman She speaks much of her father; says she hears

There's tricks i' the world; and hems, and beats her heart;

Spurns enviously at straws; speaks things in doubt,

That carry but half sense: her speech is nothing,

Yet the unshaped use of it doth move

The hearers to collection; they aim at it,

And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts;

Which, as her winks, and nods, and gestures

yield them,

Indeed would make one think there might be thought,

Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.

HORATIO 'Twere good she were spoken with; for she may strew

Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.

QUEEN GERTRUDE Let her come in.

[Exit HORATIO]

To my sick soul, as sin's true nature is,

Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss:

So full of artless jealousy is guilt,

It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.

[Re-enter HORATIO, with OPHELIA]

OPHELIA Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?

QUEEN GERTRUDE How now, Ophelia!

OPHELIA [Sings]

How should I your true love know

From another one?

By his cockle hat and staff,

And his sandal shoon.

QUEEN GERTRUDE Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?

OPHELIA Say you? nay, pray you, mark.

[Sings]

He is dead and gone, lady,

He is dead and gone;

At his head a grass-green turf,

At his heels a stone.

QUEEN GERTRUDE Nay, but, Ophelia,--

OPHELIA Pray you, mark.

[Sings]

White his shroud as the mountain snow,--

[Enter KING CLAUDIUS]

QUEEN GERTRUDE Alas, look here, my lord.

OPHELIA [Sings]

Larded with sweet flowers

Which bewept to the grave did go

With true-love showers.

KING CLAUDIUS How do you, pretty lady?

OPHELIA Well, God 'ild you! They say the owl was a baker's

daughter. Lord, we know what we are, but know not

what we may be. God be at your table!

KING CLAUDIUS Conceit upon her father.

OPHELIA Pray you, let's have no words of this; but when they

ask you what it means, say you this:

[Sings]

To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day,

All in the morning betime,

And I a maid at your window,

To be your Valentine.

Then up he rose, and donn'd his clothes,

And dupp'd the chamber-door;

Let in the maid, that out a maid

Never departed more.

KING CLAUDIUS Pretty Ophelia!

OPHELIA Indeed, la, without an oath, I'll make an end on't:

[Sings]

By Gis and by Saint Charity,

Alack, and fie for shame!

Young men will do't, if they come to't;

By cock, they are to blame.

Quoth she, before you tumbled me,

You promised me to wed.

So would I ha' done, by yonder sun,

An thou hadst not come to my bed.

KING CLAUDIUS How long hath she been thus?

OPHELIA I hope all will be well. We must be patient: but I

cannot choose but weep, to think they should lay him

i' the cold ground. My brother shall know of it:

and so I thank you for your good counsel. Come, my

coach! Good night, ladies; good night, sweet ladies;

good night, good night.

[Exit]

KING CLAUDIUS Follow her close; give her good watch,

I pray you.

[Exit HORATIO]

O, this is the poison of deep grief; it springs

All from her father's death. O Gertrude, Gertrude,

When sorrows come, they come not single spies

But in battalions. First, her father slain:

Next, your son gone; and he most violent author

Of his own just remove: the people muddied,

Thick and unwholesome in their thoughts and whispers,

For good Polonius' death; and we have done but greenly,

In hugger-mugger to inter him: poor Ophelia

Divided from herself and her fair judgment,

Without the which we are pictures, or mere beasts:

Last, and as much containing as all these,

Her brother is in secret come from France;

Feeds on his wonder, keeps himself in clouds,

And wants not buzzers to infect his ear

With pestilent speeches of his father's death;

Wherein necessity, of matter beggar'd,

Will nothing stick our person to arraign

In ear and ear. O my dear Gertrude, this,

Like to a murdering-piece, in many places

Gives me superfluous death.

[A noise within]

QUEEN GERTRUDE Alack, what noise is this?

KING CLAUDIUS Where are my Switzers? Let them guard the door.

[Enter another Gentleman]

What is the matter?

Gentleman Save yourself, my lord:

The ocean, overpeering of his list,

Eats not the flats with more impetuous haste

Than young Laertes, in a riotous head,

O'erbears your officers. The rabble call him lord;

And, as the world were now but to begin,

Antiquity forgot, custom not known,

The ratifiers and props of every word,

They cry 'Choose we: Laertes shall be king:'

Caps, hands, and tongues, applaud it to the clouds:

'Laertes shall be king, Laertes king!'

QUEEN GERTRUDE How cheerfully on the false trail they cry!

O, this is counter, you false Danish dogs!

KING CLAUDIUS The doors are broke.

[Noise within]

[Enter LAERTES, armed; Danes following]

LAERTES Where is this king? Sirs, stand you all without.

Danes No, let's come in.

LAERTES I pray you, give me leave.

Danes We will, we will.

[They retire without the door]

LAERTES I thank you: keep the door. O thou vile king,

Give me my father!

QUEEN GERTRUDE Calmly, good Laertes.

LAERTES That drop of blood that's calm proclaims me bastard,

Cries cuckold to my father, brands the harlot

Even here, between the chaste unsmirched brow

Of my true mother.

KING CLAUDIUS What is the cause, Laertes,

That thy rebellion looks so giant-like?

Let him go, Gertrude; do not fear our person:

There's such divinity doth hedge a king,

That treason can but peep to what it would,

Acts little of his will. Tell me, Laertes,

Why thou art thus incensed. Let him go, Gertrude.

Speak, man.

LAERTES Where is my father?

KING CLAUDIUS Dead.

QUEEN GERTRUDE But not by him.

KING CLAUDIUS Let him demand his fill.

LAERTES How came he dead? I'll not be juggled with:

To hell, allegiance! vows, to the blackest devil!

Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit!

I dare damnation. To this point I stand,

That both the worlds I give to negligence,

Let come what comes; only I'll be revenged

Most thoroughly for my father.

KING CLAUDIUS Who shall stay you?

LAERTES My will, not all the world:

And for my means, I'll husband them so well,

They shall go far with little.

KING CLAUDIUS Good Laertes,

If you desire to know the certainty

Of your dear father's death, is't writ in your revenge,

That, swoopstake, you will draw both friend and foe,

Winner and loser?

LAERTES None but his enemies.

KING CLAUDIUS Will you know them then?

LAERTES To his good friends thus wide I'll ope my arms;

And like the kind life-rendering pelican,

Repast them with my blood.

KING CLAUDIUS Why, now you speak

Like a good child and a true gentleman.

That I am guiltless of your father's death,

And am most sensible in grief for it,

It shall as level to your judgment pierce

As day does to your eye.

Danes [Within] Let her come in.

LAERTES How now! what noise is that?

[Re-enter OPHELIA]

O heat, dry up my brains! tears seven times salt,

Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye!

By heaven, thy madness shall be paid by weight,

Till our scale turn the beam. O rose of May!

Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!

O heavens! is't possible, a young maid's wits

Should be as moral as an old man's life?

Nature is fine in love, and where 'tis fine,

It sends some precious instance of itself

After the thing it loves.

OPHELIA [Sings]

They bore him barefaced on the bier;

Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny;

And in his grave rain'd many a tear:--

Fare you well, my dove!

LAERTES Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge,

It could not move thus.

OPHELIA [Sings]

You must sing a-down a-down,

An you call him a-down-a.

O, how the wheel becomes it! It is the false

steward, that stole his master's daughter.

LAERTES This nothing's more than matter.

OPHELIA There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray,

love, remember: and there is pansies. that's for thoughts.

LAERTES A document in madness, thoughts and remembrance fitted.

OPHELIA There's fennel for you, and columbines: there's rue

for you; and here's some for me: we may call it

herb-grace o' Sundays: O you must wear your rue with

a difference. There's a daisy: I would give you

some violets, but they withered all when my father

died: they say he made a good end,--

[Sings]

For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.

LAERTES Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself,

She turns to favour and to prettiness.

OPHELIA [Sings]

And will he not come again?

And will he not come again?

No, no, he is dead:

Go to thy death-bed:

He never will come again.

His beard was as white as snow,

All flaxen was his poll:

He is gone, he is gone,

And we cast away moan:

God ha' mercy on his soul!

And of all Christian souls, I pray God. God be wi' ye.

[Exit]

LAERTES Do you see this, O God?

KING CLAUDIUS Laertes, I must commune with your grief,

Or you deny me right. Go but apart,

Make choice of whom your wisest friends you will.

And they shall hear and judge 'twixt you and me:

If by direct or by collateral hand

They find us touch'd, we will our kingdom give,

Our crown, our life, and all that we can ours,

To you in satisfaction; but if not,

Be you content to lend your patience to us,

And we shall jointly labour with your soul

To give it due content.

LAERTES Let this be so;

His means of death, his obscure funeral--

No trophy, sword, nor hatchment o'er his bones,

No noble rite nor formal ostentation--

Cry to be heard, as 'twere from heaven to earth,

That I must call't in question.

KING CLAUDIUS So you shall;

And where the offence is let the great axe fall.

I pray you, go with me.