HAMLET PRINCE OF DENMARK

Act 3 Scene 3

(Enter King Claudius, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern)
l1l	King Claudius	 I like him not, nor stands it safe with us
l2l		To let his madness range. Therefore prepare you.
l3l		I your commission will forthwith dispatch,
l4l		And he to England shall along with you.
l5l		The terms of our estate may not endure
l6l		Hazard so dangerous as doth hourly grow
l7l		Out of his lunacies.
	Guildenstern	We will ourselves provide.
l8l		Most holy and religious fear it is
l9l		To keep those many many bodies safe
l10l		That live and feed upon your majesty.
l11l	Rosencrantz	The single and peculiar life is bound
l12l		With all the strength and armour of the mind
l13l		To keep itself from noyance# but much more
l14l		That spirit upon whose weal depends and rests
l15l		The lives of many. The cease of majesty
l16l		Dies not alone, but like a gulf doth draw
l17l		What’s near it with it. It is a massy wheel
l18l		Fixed on the summit of the highest mount,
l19l		To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things
l20l		Are mortised and adjoined, which when it falls
l21l		Each small annexment, petty consequence,
l22l		Attends the boist’rous ruin. Never alone
l23l		Did the King sigh, but with a general groan.
l24l	King Claudius	Arm you, I pray you, to this speedy voyage,
l25l		For we will fetters put upon this fear
l26l		Which now goes too free-footed.
	Rosencrantz And Guildenstern	We will haste us.
		(Exeunt both)
l27l		(Enter Polonius)
		Polonius	 My lord, he’s going to his mother’s closet.
l28l		Behind the arras I’ll convey myself
l29l		To hear the process. I’ll warrant she’ll tax him home.
l30l		And, as you said—and wisely was it said—
l31l		’Tis meet that some more audience than a mother,
l32l		Since nature makes them partial, should o’erhear
l33l		The speech of vantage. Fare you well, my liege.
l34l		I’ll call upon you ere you go to bed,
l35l		And tell you what I know.
	King Claudius	Thanks, dear my lord.
		( 35B Exit Polonius)
l36l		O, my offence is rank! It smells to heaven.
l37l		It hath the primal eldest curse upon ’t,
l38l		A brother’s murder. Pray can I not.
l39l		Though inclination be as sharp as will,
l40l		My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent,
l41l		And like a man to double business bound
l42l		I stand in pause where I shall first begin,
l43l		And both neglect. What if this cursèd hand
l44l		Were thicker than itself with brother’s blood,
l45l		Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens
l46l		To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy
l47l		But to confront the visage of offence?
l48l		And what’s in prayer but this twofold force,
l49l		To be forestallèd ere we come to fall,
l50l		Or pardoned being down? Then I’ll look up.
l51l		My fault is past—but O, what form of prayer
l52l		Can serve my turn? “Forgive me my foul murder”?
l53l		That cannot be, since I am still possessed
l54l		Of those effects for which I did the murder—
l55l		My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.
l56l		May one be pardoned and retain th’ offence?
l57l		In the corrupted currents of this world
l58l		Offence’s gilded hand may shove by justice,
l59l		And oft ’tis seen the wicked prize itself
l60l		Buys out the law. But ’tis not so above.
l61l		There is no shuffling, there the action lies
l62l		In his true nature, and we ourselves compelled
l63l		Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults
l64l		To give in evidence. What then? What rests?
l65l		Try what repentance can. What can it not?
l66l		Yet what can it when one cannot repent?
l67l		O wretched state, O bosom black as death,
l68l		O limèd soul that, struggling to be free,
l69l		Art more engaged! Help, angels! Make assay.
l70l		Bow, stubborn knees# and heart with strings of steel,
l71l		Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe.
l72l		All may be well.
		(He kneels.)
l73l		Enter Prince Hamlet behind him
	Hamlet	 Now might I do it pat, now a is praying,
l74l		And now I’ll do ’t,
		(He draws his sword)
		 and so a goes to heaven,
l75l		And so am I revenged. That would be scanned.
l76l		A villain kills my father, and for that
l77l		I, his sole son, do this same villain send
l78l		To heaven.
l79l		O, this is hire and salary, not revenge!
l80l		A took my father grossly, full of bread,
l81l		With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May#
l82l		And how his audit stands, who knows save heaven?
l83l		But in our circumstance and course of thought
l84l		’Tis heavy with him. And am I then revenged
l85l		To take him in the purging of his soul,
l86l		When he is fit and seasoned for his passage?
l87l		No.
		(He sheathes his sword)
l88l		Up, sword, and know thou a more horrid hint.
l89l		When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage,
l90l		Or in th’ incestuous pleasure of his bed,
l91l		At gaming, swearing, or about some act
l92l		That has no relish of salvation in ’t,
l93l		Then trip him that his heels may kick at heaven,
l94l		And that his soul may be as damned and black
l95l		As hell whereto it goes. My mother stays.
l96l		This physic but prolongs thy sickly days.
		(Exit)
l97l	King Claudius	 My words fly up, my thoughts remain below.
l98l		Words without thoughts never to heaven go.
		(Exit)