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That, lapsed in time and passion, lets go by
The important acting of your dread command?
O, say!

Ghost. Do not forget: this visitation
Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.
But, look, amazement on thy mother sits:
O, step between her and her fighting soul:
Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works:
Speak to her, Hamlet.

Ham.

How is it with you, lady?

Queen. Alas, how is 't with you,

That you do bend your eye on vacancy
And with the incorporal air do hold discourse?
Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep;
And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm,
Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,
Start up, and stand an end. O gentle son,
Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper
Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look?
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

ΣΤΟ

120

Will want true colour; tears perchance for blood. 130 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.

114. Conceit, imagination. 121. bedded. The adjective is suggested by the image of the recumbent soldiers.

121. excrements, outgrowth, VOL. VIII

especially the hair and nails.

127. make capable, endow with sensibility.

129. My stern effects, the deed he had to accomplish.

225

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.

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My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time, 140
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,
Whiles 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. 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,

153. pursy, short-winded (as with excessive corpulence). 155. curb, bend.

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161. all sense, all sensibility to sin.

That to the use of actions fair and good
He likewise gives a frock or livery,
Refrain to-night,

That aptly is put on.

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 either. . . . the devil, or throw him out
With wondrous potency. Once more, good night: 170
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 heaven 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.
I 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. 'Twere good you let him know;
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,

169. either... the devil. Qq have either the devil.' A word has clearly dropped out;

180

199

probably 'lay,' 'quell,' or the like.

190. gib, tom-cat.

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 enginer

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

194. like the famous ape. The story alluded to is not otherwise known.

195. To try conclusions, to see what will happen.

in Polonius.

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203. fang'd, having fangs. 207. petar, petard, mortar. 211. packing, plotting (with a play upon the other sense, to be off quickly).

ACT IV.

SCENE I. A room in the castle.

Enter KING, QUEEN, ROSENCRANTZ, and
GUILDENSTERN.

King. There's matter in these sighs, these pro-
found heaves:

You must translate: 'tis fit we understand them.
Where is your son ?

Queen. Bestow this place on us a little while. [Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Ah, mine own lord, what have I seen to-night! King. What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet? Queen. 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.

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;

Sc. I.
In time this scene
closely follows iii. 4.

11. brainish, illusory.
18. out of haunt, apart.

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20

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