HAMLET PRINCE OF DENMARK

Act 3 Scene 4

(Enter Queen Gertrude and Polonius)
l1l	Polonius	 A will come straight. Look you lay home to him.
l2l		Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear with,
l3l		And that your grace hath screened and stood between
l4l		Much heat and him. I’ll silence me e’en here.
l5l		Pray you be round with him.
l6l	Hamlet	(within)
		 Mother, mother, mother!
l7l	Queen Gertrude	 I’ll warr’nt you. Fear me not. Withdraw# I hear him coming.
		(Polonius hides behind the arras.)
l8l		Enter Prince Hamlet
	Hamlet	 Now, mother, what’s the matter?
l9l	Queen Gertrude	Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.
l10l	Hamlet	Mother, you have my father much offended.
l11l	Queen Gertrude	Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.
l12l	Hamlet	Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.
l13l	Queen Gertrude	Why, how now, Hamlet?
	Hamlet	What’s the matter now?
l14l	Queen Gertrude	Have you forgot me?
	Hamlet	No, by the rood, not so.
l15l		You are the Queen, your husband’s brother’s wife.
l16l		But—would you were not so—you are my mother.
l17l	Queen Gertrude	Nay, then, I’ll set those to you that can speak.
l18l	Hamlet	Come, come, and sit you down. You shall not budge.
l19l		You go not till I set you up a glass
l20l		Where you may see the inmost part of you.
l21l	Queen Gertrude	What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murder me?
l22l		Help, help, ho!
	Polonius	
		(behind the arras)
		 What ho! Help, help, help!
l23l	Hamlet	How now, a rat? Dead for a ducat, dead.
		(He thrusts his sword through the arras)
l24l	Polonius	 O, I am slain!
	Queen Gertrude	
		(to Hamlet)
		 O me, what hast thou done?
l25l	Hamlet	Nay, I know not. Is it the King?
l26l	Queen Gertrude	O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!
l27l	Hamlet	A bloody deed—almost as bad, good-mother,
l28l		As kill a king and marry with his brother.
l29l	Queen Gertrude	As kill a king?
	Hamlet	Ay, lady, ’twas my word.
l30l		(To Polonius)
		 Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell.
l31l		I took thee for thy better. Take thy fortune.
l32l		Thou find’st to be too busy is some danger.—
l33l		Leave wringing of your hands. Peace, sit you down,
l34l		And let me wring your heart# for so I shall
l35l		If it be made of penetrable stuff,
l36l		If damnèd custom have not brassed it so
l37l		That it is proof and bulwark against sense.
l38l	Queen Gertrude	What have I done, that thou dar’st wag thy tongue
l39l		In noise so rude against me?
	Hamlet	Such an act
l40l		That blurs the grace and blush of modesty,
l41l		Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose
l42l		From the fair forehead of an innocent love
l43l		And sets a blister there, makes marriage vows
l44l		As false as dicers’ oaths—O, such a deed
l45l		As from the body of contraction plucks
l46l		The very soul, and sweet religion makes
l47l		A rhapsody of words. Heaven’s face doth glow,
l48l		Yea, this solidity and compound mass
l49l		With tristful visage, as against the doom,
l50l		Is thought-sick at the act.
	Queen Gertrude	Ay me, what act,
l51l		That roars so loud and thunders in the index?
l52l	Hamlet	Look here upon this picture, and on this,
l53l		The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
l54l		See what a grace was seated on this brow—
l55l		Hyperion’s curls, the front of Jove himself,
l56l		An eye like Mars, to threaten or command,
l57l		A station like the herald Mercury
l58l		New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill#
l59l		A combination and a form indeed
l60l		Where every god did seem to set his seal
l61l		To give the world assurance of a man.
l62l		This was your husband. Look you now what follows.
l63l		Here is your husband, like a mildewed ear
l64l		Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes?
l65l		Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,
l66l		And batten on this moor? Ha, have you eyes?
l67l		You cannot call it love, for at your age
l68l		The heyday in the blood is tame, it’s humble,
l69l		And waits upon the judgement# and what judgement
l70l		Would step from this to this? What devil was ’t
l71l		That thus hath cozened you at hood-man blind?
l72l		O shame, where is thy blush? Rebellious hell,
l73l		If thou canst mutine in a matron’s bones,
l74l		To flaming youth let virtue be as wax
l75l		And melt in her own fire. Proclaim no shame
l76l		When the compulsive ardour gives the charge,
l77l		Since frost itself as actively doth burn,
l78l		And reason panders will.
	Queen Gertrude	O Hamlet, speak no more!
l79l		Thou turn’st mine eyes into my very soul,
l80l		And there I see such black and grainèd spots
l81l		As will not leave their tinct.
	Hamlet	Nay, but to live
l82l		In the rank sweat of an enseamèd bed,
l83l		Stewed in corruption, honeying and making love
l84l		Over the nasty sty—
	Queen Gertrude	O, speak to me no more!
l85l		These words like daggers enter in mine ears.
l86l		No more, sweet Hamlet.
	Hamlet	A murderer and a villain,
l87l		A slave that is not twenti’th part the tithe
l88l		Of your precedent lord, a vice of kings,
l89l		A cutpurse of the empire and the rule,
l90l		That from a shelf the precious diadem stole
l91l		And put it in his pocket—
l92l	Queen Gertrude	No more.
l93l	Hamlet	A king of shreds and patches—
		(Enter the Ghost in his nightgown)
l94l		Save me and hover o’er me with your wings,
l95l		You heavenly guards!
		(To the Ghost)
		 What would you, gracious figure?
l96l	Queen Gertrude	Alas, he’s mad.
l97l	Hamlet	(to the Ghost)
		 Do you not come your tardy son to chide,
l98l		That, lapsed in time and passion, lets go by
l99l		Th’ important acting of your dread command?
l100l		O, say!
	Ghost	Do not forget. This visitation
l101l		Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.
l102l		But look, amazement on thy mother sits.
l103l		O, step between her and her fighting soul.
l104l		Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works.
l105l		Speak to her, Hamlet.
l106l	Hamlet	How is it with you, lady?
l107l	Queen Gertrude	Alas, how is ’t with you,
l108l		That you do bend your eye on vacancy,
l109l		And with th’ incorporal air do hold discourse?
l110l		Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep,
l111l		And, as the sleeping soldiers in th’ alarm,
l112l		Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,
l113l		Start up and stand on end. O gentle son,
l114l		Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper
l115l		Sprinkle cool patience! Whereon do you look?
l116l	Hamlet	On him, on him. Look you how pale he glares.
l117l		His form and cause conjoined, preaching to stones,
l118l		Would make them capable.
		(To the Ghost)
		 Do not look upon me,
l119l		Lest with this piteous action you convert
l120l		My stern effects. Then what I have to do
l121l		Will want true colour—tears perchance for blood.
l122l	Queen Gertrude	To whom do you speak this?
	Hamlet	Do you see nothing there?
l123l	Queen Gertrude	Nothing at all, yet all that is I see.
l124l	Hamlet	Nor did you nothing hear?
	Queen Gertrude	No, nothing but ourselves.
l125l	Hamlet	Why, look you there. Look how it steals away.
l126l		My father, in his habit as he lived.
l127l		Look where he goes even now out at the portal.
		(Exit the Ghost)
l128l	Queen Gertrude	 This is the very coinage of your brain.
l129l		This bodiless creation ecstasy
l130l		Is very cunning in.
	Hamlet	Ecstasy?
l131l		My pulse as yours doth temperately keep time,
l132l		And makes as healthful music. It is not madness
l133l		That I have uttered. Bring me to the test,
l134l		And I the matter will reword, which madness
l135l		Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace
l136l		Lay not a flattering unction to your soul
l137l		That not your trespass but my madness speaks.
l138l		It will but skin and film the ulcerous place
l139l		Whilst rank corruption, mining all within,
l140l		Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven#
l141l		Repent what’s past, avoid what is to come,
l142l		And do not spread the compost o’er the weeds
l143l		To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue,
l144l		For in the fatness of these pursy times
l145l		Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg,
l146l		Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good.
l147l	Queen Gertrude	O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain!
l148l	Hamlet	O, throw away the worser part of it,
l149l		And live the purer with the other half!
l150l		Good night—but go not to mine uncle’s bed.
l151l		Assume a virtue if you have it not.
l152l		Refrain tonight,
l153l		And that shall lend a kind of easiness
l154l		To the next abstinence. Once more, good night#
l155l		And when you are desirous to be blest,
l156l		I’ll blessing beg of you. For this same lord,
l157l		I do repent. But heaven hath pleased it so
l158l		To punish me with this, and this with me,
l159l		That I must be their scourge and minister.
l160l		I will bestow him, and will answer well
l161l		The death I gave him. So, again, good night.
l162l		I must be cruel only to be kind.
l163l		Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.
l164l	Queen Gertrude	What shall I do?
l165l	Hamlet	Not this, by no means, that I bid you do:
l166l		Let the bloat King tempt you again to bed,
l167l		Pinch wanton on your cheek, call you his mouse,
l168l		And let him for a pair of reechy kisses,
l169l		Or paddling in your neck with his damned fingers,
l170l		Make you to ravel all this matter out,
l171l		That I essentially am not in madness,
l172l		But mad in craft. ’Twere good you let him know,
l173l		For who that’s but a queen, fair, sober, wise,
l174l		Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib,
l175l		Such dear concernings hide? Who would do so?
l176l		No, in despite of sense and secrecy,
l177l		Unpeg the basket on the house’s top,
l178l		Let the birds fly, and, like the famous ape,
l179l		To try conclusions in the basket creep,
l180l		And break your own neck down.
l181l	Queen Gertrude	Be thou assured, if words be made of breath,
l182l		And breath of life, I have no life to breathe
l183l		What thou hast said to me.
	Hamlet	I must to England.
l184l		You know that?
	Queen Gertrude	Alack, I had forgot.
l185l		’Tis so concluded on.
	Hamlet	This man shall set me packing.
l186l		I’ll lug the guts into the neighbour room.
l187l		Mother, good night indeed. This counsellor
l188l		Is now most still, most secret, and most grave,
l189l		Who was in life a foolish prating knave.—
l190l		Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you.—
l191l		Good night, mother.
		(Exit, tugging in Polonius)