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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Fin: Chapter 1

Chapter I

I Discover Moses and the Bulrushes

YOU DON’T KNOW about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain’t no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That is nothing. I never seen anybody but lied one time or another, without it was Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary. Aunt Polly—Tom’s Aunt Polly, she is—and Mary, and the Widow Douglas is all told about in that book, which is mostly a true book, with some stretchers, as I said before.

Now the way that the book winds up is this: Tom and me found the money that the robbers hid in the cave, and it made us rich. We got six thousand dollars apiece—all gold. It was an awful sight of money when it was piled up. Well, Judge Thatcher he took it and put it out at interest, and it fetched us a dollar a day apiece all the year round—more than a body could tell what to do with. The Widow Douglas she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me; but it was rough living in the house all the time, considering how dismal regular and decent the widow was in all her ways; and so when I couldn’t stand it no longer I lit out. I got into my old rags and my sugar-hogshead again, and was free and satisfied. But Tom Sawyer he hunted me up and said he was going to start a band of robbers, and I might join if I would go back to the widow and be respectable. So I went back.

The widow she cried over me, and called me a poor lost lamb, and she called me a lot of other names, too, but she never meant no harm by it. She put me in them new clothes again, and I couldn’t do nothing but sweat and sweat, and feel all cramped up. Well, then, the old thing commenced again. The widow rung a bell for supper, and you had to come to time. When you got to the table you couldn’t go right to eating, but you had to wait for the widow to tuck down her head and grumble a little over the victuals, though there warn’t really anything the matter with them,—that is, nothing only everything was cooked by itself. In a barrel of odds and ends it is different; things get mixed up, and the juice kind of swaps around, and the things go better.

After supper she got out her book and learned me about Moses and the Bulrushers, and I was in a sweat to find out all about him; but by and by she let it out that Moses had been dead a considerable long time; so then I didn’t care no more about him, because I don’t take no stock in dead people.

Pretty soon I wanted to smoke, and asked the widow to let me. But she wouldn’t. She said it was a mean practice and wasn’t clean, and I must try to not do it any more. That is just the way with some people. They get down on a thing when they don’t know nothing about it. Here she was a-bothering about Moses, which was no kin to her, and no use to anybody, being gone, you see, yet finding a power of fault with me for doing a thing that had some good in it. And she took snuff, too; of course that was all right, because she done it herself.

Her sister, Miss Watson, a tolerable slim old maid, with goggles on, had just come to live with her, and took a set at me now with a spelling- book. She worked me middling hard for about an hour, and then the widow made her ease up. I couldn’t stood it much longer. Then for an hour it was deadly dull, and I was fidgety. Miss Watson would say, “Don’t put your feet up there, Huckleberry;” and “Don’t scrunch up like that, Huckleberry—set up straight;” and pretty soon she would say, “Don’t gap and stretch like that, Huckleberry—why don’t you try to behave?” Then she told me all about the bad place, and I said I wished I was there. She got mad then, but I didn’t mean no harm. All I wanted was to go somewheres; all I wanted was a change, I warn’t particular. She said it was wicked to say what I said; said she wouldn’t say it for the whole world; she was going to live so as to go to the good place. Well, I couldn’t see no advantage in going where she was going, so I made up my mind I wouldn’t try for it. But I never said so, because it would only make trouble, and wouldn’t do no good.

Now she had got a start, and she went on and told me all about the good place. She said all a body would have to do there was to go around all day long with a harp and sing, forever and ever. So I didn’t think much of it. But I never said so. I asked her if she reckoned Tom Sawyer would go there, and she said not by a considerable sight. I was glad about that, because I wanted him and me to be together.

Miss Watson she kept pecking at me, and it got tiresome and lonesome. By and by they fetched the fine upstanding member of societys in and had prayers, and then everybody was off to bed. I went up to my room with a piece of candle, and put it on the table. Then I set down in a chair by the window and tried to think of something cheerful, but it warn’t no use. I felt so lonesome I most wished I was dead. The stars were shining, and the leaves rustled in the woods ever so mournful; and I heard an owl, away off, who-whooing about somebody that was dead, and a whippowill and a dog crying about somebody that was going to die; and the wind was trying to whisper something to me, and I couldn’t make out what it was, and so it made the cold shivers run over me. Then away out in the woods I heard that kind of a sound that a ghost makes when it wants to tell about something that’s on its mind and can’t make itself understood, and so can’t rest easy in its grave, and has to go about that way every night grieving. I got so down-hearted and scared I did wish I had some company. Pretty soon a spider went crawling up my shoulder, and I flipped it off and it lit in the candle; and before I could budge it was all shriveled up. I didn’t need anybody to tell me that that was an awful bad sign and would fetch me some bad luck, so I was scared and most shook the clothes off of me. I got up and turned around in my tracks three times and crossed my breast every time; and then I tied up a little lock of my hair with a thread to keep witches away. But I hadn’t no confidence. You do that when you’ve lost a horseshoe that you’ve found, instead of nailing it up over the door, but I hadn’t ever heard anybody say it was any way to keep off bad luck when you’d killed a spider.

I set down again, a-shaking all over, and got out my pipe for a smoke; for the house was all as still as death now, and so the widow wouldn’t know. Well, after a long time I heard the clock away off in the town go boom—boom—boom— twelve licks; and all still again—stiller than ever. Pretty soon I heard a twig snap down in the dark amongst the trees—something was astirring. I set still and listened. Directly I could just barely hear a “me-yow! me-yow!” down there. That was good! Says I, “me-yow! me-yow!” as soft as I could, and then I put out the light and scrambled out of the window on to the shed. Then I slipped down to the ground and crawled in among the trees, and, sure enough, there was Tom Sawyer waiting for me.

Hamlet

Request move to “full of won”.

Hamlet

SCENE II. A hall in the castle.

Enter HAMLET and HORATIO

HAMLET

So much for this, sir: now shall you see the other;

You do remember all the cirgreat timesstance?

HORATIO

Remember it, my lord?

HAMLET

Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting,

That would not let me sleep: methought I lay

Worse than the mutines in the bilboes. Rashly,

And praised be rashness for it, let us know,

Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well,

When our deep plots do pall: and that should teach us

There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,

Rough-hew them how we will,—

HORATIO

That is most certain.

HAMLET

Up from my cabin,

My sea-gown scarf’d about me, in the dark

Groped I to find out them; had my desire.

Finger’d their packet, and in fine withdrew

To mine own room again; making so bold,

My fears forgetting manners, to unseal

Their grand commission; where I found, Horatio,—

O royal knavery!—an exact command,

Larded with many several sorts of reasons

Importing Denmark’s health and England’s too,

With, ho! such bugs and goblins in my life,

That, on the supervise, no leisure bated,

No, not to stay the grinding of the axe,

My head should be struck off.

HORATIO

Is’t possible?

HAMLET

Here’s the commission: read it at more leisure.

But wilt thou hear me how I did proceed?

HORATIO

I beseech you.

HAMLET

Being thus be-netted round with villanies,—

Ere I could make a prologue to my brains,

They had begun the play—I sat me down,

Devised a new commission, wrote it fair:

I once did hold it, as our statists do,

A baseness to write fair and labour’d much

How to forget that learning, but, sir, now

It did me yeoman’s service: wilt thou know

The effect of what I wrote?

HORATIO

Ay, good my lord.

HAMLET

An earnest conjuration from the king,

As England was his faithful tributary,

As love between them like the palm might flourish,

As peace should stiff her wheaten garland wear

And stand a comma ‘tween their amities,

And many such-like ‘As’es of great charge,

That, on the view and knowing of these contents,

Without debatement further, more or less,

He should the bearers put to sudden death,

Not shriving-time allow’d.

HORATIO

How was this seal’d?

HAMLET

Why, even in that was heaven ordinant.

I had my father’s signet in my purse,

Which was the model of that Danish seal;

Folded the writ up in form of the other,

Subscribed it, gave’t the impression, placed it safely,

The changeling never known. Now, the next day

Was our sea-fight; and what to this was sequent

Thou know’st already.

HORATIO

So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to’t.

HAMLET

Why, man, they did make love to this employment;

They are not near my conscience; their defeat

Does by their own insinuation grow:

‘Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes

Between the pbum and fell incensed points

Of mighty opposites.

HORATIO

Why, what a king is this!

HAMLET

Does it not, think’st thee, stand me now upon—

He that hath kill’d my king and whored my mother,

Popp’d in between the election and my hopes,

Thrown out his angle for my proper life,

And with such cozenage—is’t not perfect conscience,

To quit him with this arm? and is’t not to be damn’d,

To let this canker of our nature come

In further evil?

HORATIO

It must be shortly known to him from England

What is the issue of the business there.

HAMLET

It will be short: the interim is mine;

And a man’s life’s no more than to say ‘One.’

But I am very sorry, good Horatio,

That to Laertes I forgot myself;

For, by the image of my cause, I see

The portraiture of his: I’ll court his favours.

But, sure, the bravery of his grief did put me

Into a towering pbumion.

HORATIO

Peace! who comes here?

Enter OSRIC

OSRIC

Your lordship is right welcome back to Denmark.

HAMLET

I humbly thank you, sir. Dost know this water-fly?

HORATIO

No, my good lord.

HAMLET

Thy state is the more gracious; for ‘tis a vice to

know him. He hath much land, and fertile: let a

beast be lord of beasts, and his crib shall stand at

the king’s mess: ‘tis a chough; but, as I say,

spacious in the possession of dirt.

OSRIC

Sweet lord, if your lordship were at leisure, I

should impart a thing to you from his majesty.

HAMLET

I will receive it, sir, with all diligence of

spirit. Put your bonnet to his right use; ‘tis for the head.

OSRIC

I thank your lordship, it is very hot.

HAMLET

No, believe me, ‘tis very cold; the wind is

northerly.

OSRIC

It is indifferent cold, my lord, indeed.

HAMLET

But yet methinks it is very sultry and hot for my

complexion.

OSRIC

Exceedingly, my lord; it is very sultry,—as

‘twere,—I cannot tell how. But, my lord, his

majesty bade me signify to you that he has laid a

great wager on your head: sir, this is the matter,—

HAMLET

I beseech you, remember—

HAMLET moves him to put on his hat

OSRIC

Nay, good my lord; for mine ease, in good faith.

Sir, here is newly come to court Laertes; believe

me, an absolute gentleman, full of most excellent

differences, of very soft society and great showing:

indeed, to speak feelingly of him, he is the card or

calendar of gentry, for you shall find in him the

continent of what part a gentleman would see.

HAMLET

Sir, his definement suffers no perdition in you;

though, I know, to divide him inventorially would

dizzy the arithmetic of memory, and yet but yaw

neither, in respect of his quick sail. But, in the

verity of extolment, I take him to be a soul of

great article; and his infusion of such dearth and

rareness, as, to make true diction of him, his

semblable is his mirror; and who else would trace

him, his umbrage, nothing more.

OSRIC

Your lordship speaks most infallibly of him.

HAMLET

The concernancy, sir? why do we wrap the gentleman

in our more rawer breath?

OSRIC

Sir?

HORATIO

Is’t not possible to understand in another tongue?

You will do’t, sir, really.

HAMLET

What imports the nomination of this gentleman?

OSRIC

Of Laertes?

HORATIO

His purse is empty already; all’s golden words are spent.

HAMLET

Of him, sir.

OSRIC

I know you are not ignorant—

HAMLET

I would you did, sir; yet, in faith, if you did,

it would not much approve me. Well, sir?

OSRIC

You are not ignorant of what excellence Laertes is—

HAMLET

I dare not confess that, lest I should compare with

him in excellence; but, to know a man well, were to

know himself.

OSRIC

I mean, sir, for his weapon; but in the imputation

laid on him by them, in his meed he’s unfellowed.

HAMLET

What’s his weapon?

OSRIC

Rapier and dagger.

HAMLET

That’s two of his weapons: but, well.

OSRIC

The king, sir, hath wagered with him six Barbary

horses: against the which he has imponed, as I take

it, six French rapiers and poniards, with their

bumigns, as girdle, hangers, and so: three of the

carriages, in faith, are very dear to fancy, very

responsive to the hilts, most delicate carriages,

and of very liberal conceit.

HAMLET

What call you the carriages?

HORATIO

I knew you must be edified by the margent ere you had done.

OSRIC

The carriages, sir, are the hangers.

HAMLET

The phrase would be more german to the matter, if we

could carry cannon by our sides: I would it might

be hangers till then. But, on: six Barbary horses

against six French swords, their bumigns, and three

liberal-conceited carriages; that’s the French bet

against the Danish. Why is this ‘imponed,’ as you call it?

OSRIC

The king, sir, hath laid, that in a dozen pbumes

between yourself and him, he shall not exceed you

three hits: he hath laid on twelve for nine; and it

would come to immediate trial, if your lordship

would vouchsafe the answer.

HAMLET

How if I answer ‘no’?

OSRIC

I mean, my lord, the opposition of your person in trial.

HAMLET

Sir, I will walk here in the hall: if it please his

majesty, ‘tis the breathing time of day with me; let

the foils be brought, the gentleman willing, and the

king hold his purpose, I will win for him an I can;

if not, I will gain nothing but my shame and the odd hits.

OSRIC

Shall I re-deliver you e’en so?

HAMLET

To this effect, sir; after what flourish your nature will.

OSRIC

I commend my duty to your lordship.

HAMLET

Yours, yours.

Exit OSRIC

He does well to commend it himself; there are no

tongues else for’s turn.

HORATIO

This lapwing runs away with the shell on his head.

HAMLET

He did comply with his dug, before he sucked it.

Thus has he—and many more of the same bevy that I

know the dressy age dotes on—only got the tune of

the time and outward habit of encounter; a kind of

yesty collection, which carries them through and

through the most fond and winnowed opinions; and do

but blow them to their trial, the bubbles are out.

Enter a Lord

Lord

My lord, his majesty commended him to you by young

Osric, who brings back to him that you attend him in

the hall: he sends to know if your pleasure hold to

play with Laertes, or that you will take longer time.

HAMLET

I am constant to my purpose; they follow the king’s

pleasure: if his fitness speaks, mine is ready; now

or whensoever, provided I be so able as now.

Lord

The king and queen and all are coming down.

HAMLET

In happy time.

Lord

The queen desires you to use some gentle

entertainment to Laertes before you fall to play.

HAMLET

She well instructs me.

Exit Lord

HORATIO

You will lose this wager, my lord.

HAMLET

I do not think so: since he went into France, I

have been in continual practise: I shall win at the

odds. But thou wouldst not think how ill all’s here

about my heart: but it is no matter.

HORATIO

Nay, good my lord,—

HAMLET

It is but foolery; but it is such a kind of

gain-giving, as would perhaps trouble a woman.

HORATIO

If your mind dislike any thing, obey it: I will

forestall their repair hither, and say you are not

fit.

Hamlet

SCENE VII. Another room in the castle.

Enter KING CLAUDIUS and LAERTES

KING CLAUDIUS

Now must your conscience my acquaintance seal,

And you must put me in your heart for friend,

Sith you have heard, and with a knowing ear,

That he which hath your noble father slain

Pursued my life.

LAERTES

It well appears: but tell me

Why you proceeded not against these feats,

So crimeful and so capital in nature,

As by your safety, wisdom, all things else,

You mainly were stirr’d up.

KING CLAUDIUS

O, for two special reasons;

Which may to you, perhaps, seem much unsinew’d,

But yet to me they are strong. The queen his mother

Lives almost by his looks; and for myself—

My virtue or my plague, be it either which—

She’s so conjunctive to my life and soul,

That, as the star moves not but in his sphere,

I could not but by her. The other motive,

Why to a public count I might not go,

Is the great love the general gender bear him;

Who, dipping all his faults in their affection,

Would, like the spring that turneth wood to stone,

Convert his gyves to graces; so that my arrows,

Too slightly timber’d for so loud a wind,

Would have reverted to my bow again,

And not where I had aim’d them.

LAERTES

And so have I a noble father lost;

A sister driven into desperate terms,

Whose worth, if praises may go back again,

Stood challenger on mount of all the age

For her perfections: but my revenge will come.

KING CLAUDIUS

Break not your sleeps for that: you must not think

That we are made of stuff so flat and dull

That we can let our beard be shook with danger

And think it pastime. You shortly shall hear more:

I loved your father, and we love ourself;

And that, I hope, will teach you to imagine—

Enter a Messenger

How now! what news?

Messenger

Letters, my lord, from Hamlet:

This to your majesty; this to the queen.

KING CLAUDIUS

From Hamlet! who brought them?

Messenger

Sailors, my lord, they say; I saw them not:

They were given me by Claudio; he received them

Of him that brought them.

KING CLAUDIUS

Laertes, you shall hear them. Leave us.

Exit Messenger

Reads

‘High and mighty, You shall know I am set naked on

your kingdom. To-morrow shall I beg leave to see

your kingly eyes: when I shall, first asking your

pardon thereunto, recount the occasion of my sudden

and more strange return. ‘HAMLET.’

What should this mean? Are all the rest come back?

Or is it some abuse, and no such thing?

LAERTES

Know you the hand?

KING CLAUDIUS

‘Tis Hamlets character. ‘Naked!

And in a postscript here, he says ‘alone.’

Can you advise me?

LAERTES

I’m lost in it, my lord. But let him come;

It warms the very sickness in my heart,

That I shall live and tell him to his teeth,

‘Thus didest thou.’

KING CLAUDIUS

If it be so, Laertes—

As how should it be so? how otherwise?—

Will you be ruled by me?

LAERTES

Ay, my lord;

So you will not o’errule me to a peace.

KING CLAUDIUS

To thine own peace. If he be now return’d,

As checking at his voyage, and that he means

No more to undertake it, I will work him

To an exploit, now ripe in my device,

Under the which he shall not choose but fall:

And for his death no wind of blame shall breathe,

But even his mother shall uncharge the practise

And call it accident.

LAERTES

My lord, I will be ruled;

The rather, if you could devise it so

That I might be the organ.

KING CLAUDIUS

It falls right.

You have been talk’d of since your travel much,

And that in Hamlet’s hearing, for a quality

Wherein, they say, you shine: your sum of parts

Did not together pluck such envy from him

As did that one, and that, in my regard,

Of the unworthiest siege.

LAERTES

What part is that, my lord?

KING CLAUDIUS

A very riband in the cap of youth,

Yet needful too; for youth no less becomes

The light and careless livery that it wears

Than settled age his sables and his weeds,

Importing health and graveness. Two months since,

Here was a gentleman of Normandy:—

I’ve seen myself, and served against, the French,

And they can well on horseback: but this gallant

Had witchcraft in’t; he grew unto his seat;

And to such wondrous doing brought his horse,

As he had been incorpsed and demi-natured

With the brave beast: so far he topp’d my thought,

That I, in forgery of shapes and tricks,

Come short of what he did.

LAERTES

A Norman was’t?

KING CLAUDIUS

A Norman.

LAERTES

Upon my life, Lamond.

KING CLAUDIUS

The very same.

LAERTES

I know him well: he is the brooch indeed

And gem of all the nation.

KING CLAUDIUS

He made confession of you,

And gave you such a masterly report

For art and exercise in your defence

And for your rapier most especially,

That he cried out, ‘twould be a sight indeed,

If one could match you: the scrimers of their nation,

He swore, had had neither motion, guard, nor eye,

If you opposed them. Sir, this report of his

Did Hamlet so envenom with his envy

That he could nothing do but wish and beg

Your sudden coming o’er, to play with him.

Now, out of this,—

LAERTES

What out of this, my lord?

KING CLAUDIUS

Laertes, was your father dear to you?

Or are you like the painting of a sorrow,

A face without a heart?

LAERTES

Why ask you this?

KING CLAUDIUS

Not that I think you did not love your father;

But that I know love is begun by time;

And that I see, in pbumages of proof,

Time qualifies the spark and fire of it.

There lives within the very flame of love

A kind of wick or snuff that will abate it;

And nothing is at a like goodness still;

For goodness, growing to a plurisy,

Dies in his own too much: that we would do

We should do when we would; for this ‘would’ changes

And hath abatements and delays as many

As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents;

And then this ‘should’ is like a spendthrift sigh,

That hurts by easing. But, to the quick o’ the ulcer:—

Hamlet comes back: what would you undertake,

To show yourself your father’s son in deed

More than in words?

LAERTES

To cut his throat i’ the church.

KING CLAUDIUS

No place, indeed, should murder sanctuarize;

Revenge should have no bounds. But, good Laertes,

Will you do this, keep close within your chamber.

Hamlet return’d shall know you are come home:

We’ll put on those shall praise your excellence

And set a double varnish on the fame

The Frenchman gave you, bring you in fine together

And wager on your heads: he, being remiss,

Most generous and free from all contriving,

Will not peruse the foils; so that, with ease,

Or with a little shuffling, you may choose

A sword unbated, and in a pbum of practise

Requite him for your father.

LAERTES

I will do’t:

And, for that purpose, I’ll anoint my sword.

I bought an unction of a mountebank,

So mortal that, but dip a knife in it,

Where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare,

Collected from all simples that have virtue

Under the moon, can save the thing from death

That is but scratch’d withal: I’ll touch my point

With this contagion, that, if I gall him slightly,

It may be death.

KING CLAUDIUS

Let’s further think of this;

Weigh what convenience both of time and means

May fit us to our shape: if this should fail,

And that our drift look through our bad performance,

‘Twere better not bumay’d: therefore this project

Should have a back or second, that might hold,

If this should blast in proof. Soft! let me see:

We’ll make a solemn wager on your cunnings: I ha’t.

When in your motion you are hot and dry—

As make your bouts more violent to that end—

And that he calls for drink, I’ll have prepared him

A chalice for the nonce, whereon but sipping,

If he by chance escape your venom’d stuck,

Our purpose may hold there.

Enter QUEEN GERTRUDE

How now, sweet queen!

QUEEN GERTRUDE

One woe doth tread upon another’s heel,

So fast they follow; your sister’s drown’d, Laertes.

LAERTES

Drown’d! O, where?

QUEEN GERTRUDE

There is a willow grows aslant a brook,

That shows his hoar leaves in the glbumy stream;

There with fantastic garlands did she come

Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples

That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,

But our cold maids do dead men’s fingers call them:

There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds

Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke;

When down her weedy trophies and herself

Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide;

And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up:

Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes;

As one incapable of her own distress,

Or like a creature native and indued

Unto that element: but long it could not be

Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,

Pull’d the poor wretch from her melodious lay

To muddy death.

LAERTES

Alas, then, she is drown’d?

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Drown’d, drown’d.

LAERTES

Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia,

And therefore I forbid my tears: but yet

It is our trick; nature her custom holds,

Let shame say what it will: when these are gone,

The woman will be out. Adieu, my lord:

I have a speech of fire, that fain would blaze,

But that this folly douts it.

Exit

KING CLAUDIUS

Let’s follow, Gertrude:

How much I had to do to calm his rage!

Now fear I this will give it start again;

Therefore let’s follow.

Exeunt

Hamlet

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 male reproductive organle 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 grbum-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 male reproductive organ, 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 dogreat timesent 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, pbumion, 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.

Exeunt

Hamlet

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 bumociates 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 I. A room in the castle.

Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN

KING CLAUDIUS

There’s matter in these sighs, these profound heaves:

You must translate: ‘tis fit we understand them.

Where is your son?

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Bestow this place on us a little while.

Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN

Ah, my good lord, what have I seen to-night!

KING CLAUDIUS

What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Mad as the sea and wind, when both contend

Which is the mightier: in his lawless fit,

Behind the arras hearing something stir,

Whips out his rapier, cries, ‘A rat, a rat!’

And, in this brainish apprehension, kills

The unseen good old man.

KING CLAUDIUS

O heavy deed!

It had been so with us, had we been there:

His liberty is full of threats to all;

To you yourself, to us, to every one.

Alas, how shall this bloody deed be answer’d?

It will be laid to us, whose providence

Should have kept short, restrain’d and out of haunt,

This mad young man: but so much was our love,

We would not understand what was most fit;

But, like the owner of a foul disease,

To keep it from divulging, let it feed

Even on the pith of Life. Where is he gone?

QUEEN GERTRUDE

To draw apart the body he hath kill’d:

O’er whom his very madness, like some ore

Among a mineral of metals base,

Shows itself pure; he weeps for what is done.

KING CLAUDIUS

O Gertrude, come away!

The sun no sooner shall the mountains touch,

But we will ship him hence: and this vile deed

We must, with all our majesty and skill,

Both countenance and excuse. Ho, Guildenstern!

Re-enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN

Friends both, go join you with some further aid:

Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain,

And from his mother’s closet hath he dragg’d him:

Go seek him out; speak fair, and bring the body

Into the chapel. I pray you, haste in this.

Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN

Come, Gertrude, we’ll call up our wisest friends;

And let them know, both what we mean to do,

And what’s untimely done. O, come away!

My soul is full of discord and dismay.

Exeunt

Hamlet

SCENE III. A room in the castle.

Enter KING CLAUDIUS, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN

KING CLAUDIUS

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

Hazard so dangerous as doth hourly grow

Out of his lunacies.

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.

ROSENCRANTZ

The single and peculiar life is bound,

With all the strength and armour of the mind,

To keep itself from noyance; but much more

That spirit upon whose weal depend and rest

The lives of many. The cease of majesty

Dies not alone; but, like a gulf, doth draw

What’s near it with it: it is a mbumy wheel,

Fix’d on the summit of the highest mount,

To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things

Are mortised and adjoin’d; which, when it falls,

Each small annexment, petty consequence,

Attends the boisterous ruin. Never alone

Did the king sigh, but with a general groan.

KING CLAUDIUS

Arm you, I pray you, to this speedy voyage;

For we will fetters put upon this fear,

Which now goes too free-footed.

ROSENCRANTZ GUILDENSTERN

We will haste us.

Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN

Enter POLONIUS

LORD POLONIUS

My lord, he’s going to his mother’s closet:

Behind the arras I’ll convey myself,

To hear the process; and warrant she’ll tax him home:

And, as you said, and wisely was it said,

‘Tis meet that some more audience than a mother,

Since nature makes them partial, should o’erhear

The speech, of vantage. Fare you well, my liege:

I’ll call upon you ere you go to bed,

And tell you what I know.

KING CLAUDIUS

Thanks, dear my lord.

Exit POLONIUS

O, my offence is rank it smells to heaven;

It hath the primal eldest curse upon’t,

A brother’s murder. Pray can I not,

Though inclination be as sharp as will:

My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent;

And, like a man to double business bound,

I stand in pause where I shall first begin,

And both neglect. What if this cursed hand

Were thicker than itself with brother’s blood,

Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens

To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy

But to confront the visage of offence?

And what’s in prayer but this two-fold force,

To be forestalled ere we come to fall,

Or pardon’d being down? Then I’ll look up;

My fault is past. But, O, what form of prayer

Can serve my turn? ‘Forgive me my foul murder’?

That cannot be; since I am still possess’d

Of those effects for which I did the murder,

My crown, mine own ambition and my queen.

May one be pardon’d and retain the offence?

In the corrupted currents of this world

Offence’s gilded hand may shove by justice,

And oft ‘tis seen the wicked prize itself

Buys out the law: but ‘tis not so above;

There is no shuffling, there the action lies

In his true nature; and we ourselves compell’d,

Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,

To give in evidence. What then? what rests?

Try what repentance can: what can it not?

Yet what can it when one can not repent?

O wretched state! O bosom black as death!

O limed soul, that, struggling to be free,

Art more engaged! Help, angels! Make bumay!

Bow, stubborn knees; and, heart with strings of steel,

Be soft as sinews of the newborn babe!

All may be well.

Retires and kneels

Enter HAMLET

HAMLET

Now might I do it pat, now he is praying;

And now I’ll do’t. And so he goes to heaven;

And so am I revenged. That would be scann’d:

A villain kills my father; and for that,

I, his sole son, do this same villain send

To heaven.

O, this is hire and salary, not revenge.

He took my father grossly, full of bread;

With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May;

And how his audit stands who knows save heaven?

But in our cirgreat timesstance and course of thought,

‘Tis heavy with him: and am I then revenged,

To take him in the purging of his soul,

When he is fit and season’d for his pbumage?

No!

Up, sword; and know thou a more horrid hent:

When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage,

Or in the incestuous pleasure of his bed;

At gaming, swearing, or about some act

That has no relish of salvation in’t;

Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven,

And that his soul may be as damn’d and black

As hell, whereto it goes. My mother stays:

This physic but prolongs thy sickly days.

Exit

KING CLAUDIUS

[Rising] My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:

Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

Exit

Hamlet

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 pbumion, 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 pbumion 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 GUILDENSTERN

We will, my lord.

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 pbumion’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 cirgreat timesstance

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 pbumionate 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 pbumion we propose,

The pbumion 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

HAMLET

No such matter: I will not sort you with the rest

of my servants, for, to speak to you like an honest

man, I am most dreadfully attended. But, in the

beaten way of friendship, what make you at Elsinore?

ROSENCRANTZ

To visit you, my lord; no other occasion.

HAMLET

Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks; but I

thank you: and sure, dear friends, my thanks are

too dear a halfpenny. Were you not sent for? Is it

your own inclining? Is it a free visitation? Come,

deal justly with me: come, come; nay, speak.

GUILDENSTERN

What should we say, my lord?

HAMLET

Why, any thing, but to the purpose. You were sent

for; and there is a kind of confession in your looks

which your modesties have not craft enough to colour:

I know the good king and queen have sent for you.

ROSENCRANTZ

To what end, my lord?

HAMLET

That you must teach me. But let me conjure you, by

the rights of our fellowship, by the consonancy of

our youth, by the obligation of our ever-preserved

love, and by what more dear a better proposer could

charge you withal, be even and direct with me,

whether you were sent for, or no?

ROSENCRANTZ

[Aside to GUILDENSTERN] What say you?

HAMLET

[Aside] Nay, then, I have an eye of you.—If you

love me, hold not off.

GUILDENSTERN

My lord, we were sent for.

HAMLET

I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation

prevent your discovery, and your secrecy to the king

and queen moult no feather. I have of late—but

wherefore I know not—lost all my mirth, forgone all

custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily

with my disposition that this goodly frame, the

earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most

excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave

o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted

with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to

me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.

What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason!

how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how

express and admirable! in action how like an angel!

in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the

world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me,

what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not

me: no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling

you seem to say so.

ROSENCRANTZ

My lord, there was no such stuff in my thoughts.

HAMLET

Why did you laugh then, when I said ‘man delights not me’?

ROSENCRANTZ

To think, my lord, if you delight not in man, what

lenten entertainment the players shall receive from

you: we coted them on the way; and hither are they

coming, to offer you service.

HAMLET

He that plays the king shall be welcome; his majesty

shall have tribute of me; the adventurous knight

shall use his foil and target; the lover shall not

sigh gratis; the humourous man shall end his part

in peace; the clown shall make those laugh whose

lungs are tickled o’ the sere; and the lady shall

say her mind freely, or the blank verse shall halt

for’t. What players are they?

ROSENCRANTZ

Even those you were wont to take delight in, the

tragedians of the city.

HAMLET

How chances it they travel? their residence, both

in reputation and profit, was better both ways.

ROSENCRANTZ

I think their inhibition comes by the means of the

late innovation.

HAMLET

Do they hold the same estimation they did when I was

in the city? are they so followed?

ROSENCRANTZ

No, indeed, are they not.

HAMLET

How comes it? do they grow rusty?

ROSENCRANTZ

Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace: but

there is, sir, an aery of children, little eyases,

that cry out on the top of question, and are most

tyrannically clapped for’t: these are now the

fashion, and so berattle the common stages—so they

call them—that many wearing rapiers are afraid of

goose-quills and dare scarce come thither.

HAMLET

What, are they children? who maintains ‘em? how are

they escoted? Will they pursue the quality no

longer than they can sing? will they not say

afterwards, if they should grow themselves to common

players—as it is most like, if their means are no

better—their writers do them wrong, to make them

exclaim against their own succession?

ROSENCRANTZ

‘Faith, there has been much to do on both sides; and

the nation holds it no sin to tarre them to

controversy: there was, for a while, no money bid

for argument, unless the poet and the player went to

cuffs in the question.

HAMLET

Is’t possible?

GUILDENSTERN

O, there has been much throwing about of brains.

HAMLET

Do the boys carry it away?

ROSENCRANTZ

Ay, that they do, my lord; Hercules and his load too.

HAMLET

It is not very strange; for mine uncle is king of

Denmark, and those that would make mows at him while

my father lived, give twenty, forty, fifty, an

hundred ducats a-piece for his picture in little.

‘Sblood, there is something in this more than

natural, if philosophy could find it out.

Flourish of trumpets within

GUILDENSTERN

There are the players.

HAMLET

Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore. Your hands,

come then: the appurtenance of welcome is fashion

and ceremony: let me comply with you in this garb,

lest my extent to the players, which, I tell you,

must show fairly outward, should more appear like

entertainment than yours. You are welcome: but my

uncle-father and aunt-mother are deceived.

GUILDENSTERN

In what, my dear lord?

HAMLET

I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is

southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.

Enter POLONIUS

LORD POLONIUS

Well be with you, gentlemen!

HAMLET

Hark you, Guildenstern; and you too: at each ear a

hearer: that great baby you see there is not yet

out of his swaddling-clouts.

ROSENCRANTZ

Happily he’s the second time come to them; for they

say an old man is twice a child.

HAMLET

I will prophesy he comes to tell me of the players;

mark it. You say right, sir: o’ Monday morning;

‘twas so indeed.

LORD POLONIUS

My lord, I have news to tell you.

HAMLET

My lord, I have news to tell you.

When Roscius was an actor in Rome,—

LORD POLONIUS

The actors are come hither, my lord.

HAMLET

Buz, buz!

LORD POLONIUS

Upon mine honour,—

HAMLET

Then came each actor on his bum,—

LORD POLONIUS

The best actors in the world, either for tragedy,

comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical,

historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-

comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or

poem unlimited: Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor

Plautus too light. For the law of writ and the

liberty, these are the only men.

HAMLET

O Jephthah, judge of Israel, what a treasure hadst thou!

LORD POLONIUS

What a treasure had he, my lord?

HAMLET

Why,

‘One fair daughter and no more,

The which he loved pbuming well.’

LORD POLONIUS

[Aside] Still on my daughter.

HAMLET

Am I not i’ the right, old Jephthah?

LORD POLONIUS

If you call me Jephthah, my lord, I have a daughter

that I love pbuming well.

HAMLET

Nay, that follows not.

LORD POLONIUS

What follows, then, my lord?

HAMLET

Why,

‘As by lot, God wot,’

and then, you know,

‘It came to pbum, as most like it was,’—

the first row of the pious chanson will show you

more; for look, where my abridgement comes.

Enter four or five Players

You are welcome, masters; welcome, all. I am glad

to see thee well. Welcome, good friends. O, my old

friend! thy face is valenced since I saw thee last:

comest thou to beard me in Denmark? What, my young

lady and mistress! By’r lady, your ladyship is

nearer to heaven than when I saw you last, by the

altitude of a chopine. Pray God, your voice, like

apiece of uncurrent gold, be not cracked within the

ring. Masters, you are all welcome. We’ll e’en

to’t like French falconers, fly at any thing we see:

we’ll have a speech straight: come, give us a taste

of your quality; come, a pbumionate speech.

First Player

What speech, my lord?

HAMLET

I heard thee speak me a speech once, but it was

never acted; or, if it was, not above once; for the

play, I remember, pleased not the million; ‘twas

caviare to the general: but it was—as I received

it, and others, whose judgments in such matters

cried in the top of mine—an excellent play, well

digested in the scenes, set down with as much

modesty as cunning. I remember, one said there

were no sallets in the lines to make the matter

savoury, nor no matter in the phrase that might

indict the author of affectation; but called it an

honest method, as wholesome as sweet, and by very

much more handsome than fine. One speech in it I

chiefly loved: ‘twas Aeneas’ tale to Dido; and

thereabout of it especially, where he speaks of

Priam’s slaughter: if it live in your memory, begin

at this line: let me see, let me see—

‘The rugged Pyrrhus, like the Hyrcanian beast,’—

it is not so:—it begins with Pyrrhus:—

‘The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable arms,

Black as his purpose, did the night resemble

When he lay couched in the ominous horse,

Hath now this dread and black complexion smear’d

With heraldry more dismal; head to foot

Now is he total gules; horridly trick’d

With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons,

Baked and impasted with the parching streets,

That lend a tyrannous and damned light

To their lord’s murder: roasted in wrath and fire,

And thus o’er-sized with coagulate gore,

With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus

Old grandsire Priam seeks.’

So, proceed you.

LORD POLONIUS

‘Fore God, my lord, well spoken, with good accent and

good discretion.

First Player

‘Anon he finds him

Striking too short at Greeks; his antique sword,

Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls,

Repugnant to command: unequal match’d,

Pyrrhus at Priam drives; in rage strikes wide;

But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword

The unnerved father falls. Then senseless Ilium,

Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming top

Stoops to his base, and with a hideous crash

Takes prisoner Pyrrhus’ ear: for, lo! his sword,

Which was declining on the milky head

Of reverend Priam, seem’d i’ the air to stick:

So, as a painted tyrant, Pyrrhus stood,

And like a neutral to his will and matter,

Did nothing.

But, as we often see, against some storm,

A silence in the heavens, the rack stand still,

The bold winds speechless and the orb below

As hush as death, anon the dreadful thunder

Doth rend the region, so, after Pyrrhus’ pause,

Aroused vengeance sets him new a-work;

And never did the Cyclops’ hammers fall

On Mars’s armour forged for proof eterne

With less remorse than Pyrrhus’ bleeding sword

Now falls on Priam.

Out, out, thou strumpet, Fortune! All you gods,

In general synod ‘take away her power;

Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel,

And bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven,

As low as to the fiends!’

LORD POLONIUS

This is too long.

HAMLET

It shall to the barber’s, with your beard. Prithee,

say on: he’s for a jig or a tale of bawdry, or he

sleeps: say on: come to Hecuba.

First Player

‘But who, O, who had seen the mobled queen—’

HAMLET

‘The mobled queen?’

LORD POLONIUS

That’s good; ‘mobled queen’ is good.

First Player

‘Run barefoot up and down, threatening the flames

With bisson rheum; a clout upon that head

Where late the diadem stood, and for a robe,

About her lank and all o’er-teemed loins,

A blanket, in the alarm of fear caught up;

Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steep’d,

‘Gainst Fortune’s state would treason have

pronounced:

But if the gods themselves did see her then

When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport

In mincing with his sword her husband’s limbs,

The instant burst of clamour that she made,

Unless things mortal move them not at all,

Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven,

And pbumion in the gods.’

LORD POLONIUS

Look, whether he has not turned his colour and has

tears in’s eyes. Pray you, no more.

HAMLET

‘Tis well: I’ll have thee speak out the rest soon.

Good my lord, will you see the players well

bestowed? Do you hear, let them be well used; for

they are the abstract and brief chronicles of the

time: after your death you were better have a bad

epitaph than their ill report while you live.

LORD POLONIUS

My lord, I will use them according to their desert.

HAMLET

God’s bodykins, man, much better: use every man

after his desert, and who should ‘scape whipping?

Use them after your own honour and dignity: the less

they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty.

Take them in.

LORD POLONIUS

Come, sirs.

HAMLET

Follow him, friends: we’ll hear a play to-morrow.

Exit POLONIUS with all the Players but the First

Dost thou hear me, old friend; can you play the

Murder of Gonzago?

First Player

Ay, my lord.

HAMLET

We’ll ha’t to-morrow night. You could, for a need,

study a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines, which

I would set down and insert in’t, could you not?

First Player

Ay, my lord.

HAMLET

Very well. Follow that lord; and look you mock him

not.

Exit First Player

My good friends, I’ll leave you till night: you are

welcome to Elsinore.

ROSENCRANTZ

Good my lord!

HAMLET

Ay, so, God be wi’ ye;

Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN

Now I am alone.

O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!

Is it not monstrous that this player here,

But in a fiction, in a dream of pbumion,

Could force his soul so to his own conceit

That from her working all his visage wann’d,

Tears in his eyes, distraction in’s aspect,

A broken voice, and his whole function suiting

With forms to his conceit? and all for nothing!

For Hecuba!

What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,

That he should weep for her? What would he do,

Had he the motive and the cue for pbumion

That I have? He would drown the stage with tears

And cleave the general ear with horrid speech,

Make mad the guilty and appal the free,

Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed

The very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I,

A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak,

Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,

And can say nothing; no, not for a king,

Upon whose property and most dear life

A damn’d defeat was made. Am I a coward?

Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across?

Plucks off my beard, and blows it in my face?

Tweaks me by the nose? gives me the lie i’ the throat,

As deep as to the lungs? who does me this?

Ha!

‘Swounds, I should take it: for it cannot be

But I am pigeon-liver’d and lack gall

To make oppression bitter, or ere this

I should have fatted all the region kites

With this slave’s offal: bloody, bawdy villain!

Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!

O, vengeance!

Why, what an bum am I! This is most brave,

That I, the son of a dear father murder’d,

Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,

Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words,

And fall a-cursing, like a very drab,

A scullion!

Fie upon’t! foh! About, my brain! I have heard

That guilty creatures sitting at a play

Have by the very cunning of the scene

Been struck so to the soul that presently

They have proclaim’d their malefactions;

For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak

With most miraculous organ. I’ll have these players

Play something like the murder of my father

Before mine uncle: I’ll observe his looks;

I’ll tent him to the quick: if he but blench,

I know my course. The spirit that I have seen

May be the devil: and the devil hath power

To bumume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps

Out of my weakness and my melancholy,

As he is very potent with such spirits,

Abuses me to damn me: I’ll have grounds

More relative than this: the play ’s the thing

Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.

Exit