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Ham. On him! on him!-Look you, how

pale he glares!

His form and cause conjoin'd, preaching to stones,

Would make them capable.-Do not look upon

me;

Lest, with this piteous action, you convert
My stern effects: then what I have to do

Will want true colour; tears, perchance, for blood.

Queen. To whom do you speak this?

Ham.

Do you see nothing there? Queen. Nothing at all; yet all that is I see. Ham. Nor did you nothing hear?

Queen.

No, nothing, but ourselves. Ham. Why, look you there! look how it steals away!

My father, in his habit as he lived!

Look, where he goes, even now, out at the

portal!

[Exit Ghost. Queen. This is the very coinage of your brain : This bodiless creation ecstasy

Is very cunning in.

Ham. Ecstasy!

My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time,
And makes as healthful music: it is not madness
That I have utter'd: bring me to the test,
And I the matter will re-word; which madness
Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,
Lay not that flattering unction to your soul,
That not your trespass, but my madness speaks :
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place;
Whilst rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven;
Repent what's past; avoid what is to come;
And do not spread the compost on the weeds,

To make them ranker.-[Aside.] Forgive me this my virtue :

For in the fatness of these pursy times,
Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg;

Yea, curb and woo, for leave to do him good. Queen. O Hamlet! thou hast cleft my heart in twain.

Ham. O throw away the worser part of it,
And live the purer with the other half.
Good night but go not to mine uncle's bed;
Assume a virtue, if you have it not.

That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat-
Of habits devil,-is angel yet in this,-
That to the use of actions fair and good
He likewise gives a frock, or livery,
That aptly is put on. Refrain to-night:

And that shall lend a kind of easiness

To the next abstinence: the next more easy; For use almost can change the stamp of nature, And master thus the devil, or throw him out

With wondrous potency. Once more, good night:

And when you are desirous to be bless'd,
I'll blessing beg of you. For this same lord,
[Pointing to POLONIUS.
I do repent: but heavens hath pleased it so,-
To punish me with this, and this with me,
That I must be their scourge and minister.
I will bestow him, and will answer well
The death I gave him. So again, good night !—
[Aside.] 1 must be cruel, only to be kind:

Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.-
One word more, good lady.

Queen.

What shall I do?

Ham. Not this, by no means, that I bid you

do:

Let the bloat king tempt you again to bed;
Pinch wanton on your cheek; call you his mouse;
And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses,

Or paddling in your neck with his damn'd fingers,

Make you to ravel all this matter out,
That I essentially am not in madness,
But mad in craft.

know:

'Twere good you let him

For who, that's but a queen, fair, sober, wise,
Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib,
Such dear concernings hide? who would do so?
No, in despite of sense, and secrecy,

Unpeg the basket on the house's top,
Let the birds fly; and, like the famous ape,
To try conclusions, in the basket creep,
And break your own neck down.

Queen. Be thou assured, if words be made of breath,

And breath of life, I have no life to breathe
What thou hast said to me.

Ham. I must to England; you know that?
Queen.

I had forgot; 'tis so concluded on.

Alack,

Ham. There's letters seal'd: and my two

schoolfellows,

Whom I will trust, as I will adders fang'd,— They bear the mandate; they must sweep my

way,

And marshal me to knavery.

Let it work,

For 'tis the sport, to have the engineer

Hoist with his own petar: and 't shall go hard,
But I will delve one yard below their mines,
And blow them at the moon. O, 'tis most sweet,
When in one line two crafts directly meet.
This man shall set me packing:

I'll lug the guts into the neighbour room :—
Mother, good night.-Indeed, this counsellor
Is now most still, most secret, and most grave,
Who was in life a foolish prating knave.
Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you :-
Good night, mother.

[Exeunt severally; HAMLET dragging the body of POLONIUS,

ACT IV.

SCENE I.-A Room in the Castle.

Enter KING and QUEEN.

King.

HERE'S matter in these sighs, these pro

T found heaves;

You must translate: 'tis fit we understand them :

Where is your son?

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

King. What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?
Queen. Mad as the seas, and wind, when both
contend

Which is the mightier: in his lawless fit,
Behind the arras hearing something stir,
He whips his rapier out, and cries, A rat! a rat!
And, in his brainish apprehension, kills

The unseen good old man.

King.

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. 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. 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!

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 Ros. and GUIL
Come, Gertrude, we'll call up our wisest friends;
And let them know, both what we mean to do,
And what's untimely done: so, haply, slander-
Whose whisper o'er the world's diameter,
As level as the cannon to his blank,

Transports his poison'd shot,-may miss our

name,

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