Hamlet, think of us as of a father...
for let the world take note: You are the most immediate to our throne.
And with no less nobility of love...
than that which dearest father bears his son...
do I impart toward you.
Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death...
the memory be green...
and that it us befitted to bear our hearts in grief...
and our whole kingdom to be contracted in one brow of woe...
yet so far hath discretion fought with nature...
that we with wisest sorrow think on him...
together with remembrance of ourselves.
Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen...
the imperial jointress to this warlike state...
have we, as 'twere with a defeated joy...
with one auspicious and one dropping eye...
with mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage...
taken to wife.
And now, Laertes, what's the news with you?
You told us of some suit. What wouldst thou beg, Laertes?
My dread lord, my thoughts and wishes bend again toward France...
and bow them to your gracious leave and pardon.
Have you your father's leave? What says Polonius?
He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave by laborsome petition...
and at last upon his will...
I sealed my hard consent. I do beseech you, give him leave to go.
Take thy fair hour, Laertes.
Time be thine, and thy best graces spend it at thy will.
Farewell.
Hamlet?
And now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son.
A little more than kin, and less than kind.
How is it that the clouds still hang on you?
Not so, my lord, I am too much in the sun.
'Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet...
to give these mourning duties to your father.
But, you must know, your father lost a father.
That father lost, lost his.
But to persever in obstinate condolement...
is a course of impious stubbornness.
'Tis unmanly grief. It shows a will most incorrect to heaven.
For your intent in going back to school in Wittenberg...
it is most retrograde to our desire.
Be as ourself in Denmark.
Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.
Good Hamlet...
cast thy nighted color off...
and let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.
Do not for ever with thy veiled lids...
seek for thy noble father in the dust.
Thou knowest 'tis common.
All that lives must die...
passing through nature to eternity.
Ay, madam, it is common.
If it be, why seems it so particular with thee?
Seems, madam! Nay, it is.
I know not "seems."
'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother...
together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief, that can denote me truly.
These indeed seem, for they are actions that a man might play...
but I have that within which passes show.
These but the trappings and the suits of woe.
Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet.
I pray thee, stay with us. Go not to Wittenberg.
I shall in all my best obey you, madam.
This gentle and unforced accord sits smiling to my heart.
That this too too solid flesh would melt...
thaw and resolve itself into a dew.
Or that the Everlasting had not fixed his canon against self-slaughter.
O God!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable...
seem to me all the uses of this world.
Fie on it!
'Tis an unweeded garden that grows to seed.
Things rank and gross in nature possess it merely.
That it should come to this.
But two months dead. Nay, not so much, not two.
So excellent a king...
that was, to this, Hyperion to a satyr.
So loving to my mother that he might not beteem the winds of heaven...
visit her face too roughly.
Heaven and earth, must I remember?
Why, she would hang on him...
as if increase of appetite had grown by what it fed on.
And yet, within a month... Let me not think on it.
Frailty, thy name is woman!
Dear Ophelia, my necessaries are embarked.
Farewell.
And, sister...
for Hamlet, and the trifling of his favor...
hold it a fashion and a toy in blood. No more.
- No more but so? - Think it no more.
Perhaps he loves you now, but you must fear...
his greatness weighed, his will is not his own...
for he himself is subject to his birth.
He may not, as unvalued persons do, carve for himself...
for on his choice depends the safety and health of this whole state.
Then weigh what loss your honor may sustain...
if with too credent ear you list his songs.
Yet here, Laertes? Aboard, aboard, for shame!
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail, and you are stayed for.
There, my blessing with thee.
These few precepts in thy memory look thou character.
Give thy thoughts no tongue, nor any unproportioned thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried...
grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel.
Beware of entrance to a quarrel...
but, being in, bear it that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy...
but not expressed in fancy. Rich, not gaudy.
For the apparel oft proclaims the man.
Neither a borrower, nor a lender be. For loan oft loses both itself and friend...
and borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: To thine own self be true...
and it must follow, as the night the day...
thou canst not then be false to any man.
The time invites you. Go, your servants tend.
Farewell, Ophelia, and remember well what I have said to you.
'Tis in my memory locked, and you yourself shall keep the key of it.
What is it, Ophelia, he hath said to you?
So please you, something touching the Lord Hamlet.
Marry, well bethought.
'Tis told me, he hath very oft of late given private time to you.
He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders of his affection to me.
Affection?
Do you believe his tenders, as you call them?
I do not know, my lord, what I should think.
I will teach you.
Tender yourself more dearly.
My lord, he hath importuned me with love in honorable fashion.
Ay, fashion you may call it. Go to!
And hath given countenance to his speech with almost all the holy vows of heaven.
Ay, springes to catch woodcocks.
I do know, when the blood burns, how prodigal the soul lends the tongue vows.
I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth...
have you give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet.
Look to it, I charge you! Come your ways.
I shall obey, my lord.
Hail to your lordship!
Horatio, or I do forget myself.
- How fare you, sirs? - My lord.
I am very glad to see you.
But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg?
- A truant's disposition, good my lord. - I would not hear your enemy say so.
I know you are no truant.
But what is your affair in Elsinore?
My lord, I came to see your father's funeral.
I pray thee, do not mock me, fellow student.
I think it was to see my mother's wedding.
Indeed, my lord, it followed hard upon.
Thrift, Horatio.
The funeral baked meats did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.
Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven ere ever I had seen that day, Horatio.
My father, methinks I see my father.
I saw him once. He was a goodly king.
He was a man, take him for all in all.
I shall not look upon his like again.
My lord...
I think I saw him yesternight.
Saw? Who?
My lord, the king your father.
The king, my father?
Season your admiration for a while with an attent ear...
till I may deliver, upon the witness of these gentlemen, this marvel to you.
For God's love, let me hear.
Two nights together had these gentlemen...
in the dead waste and middle of the night, been thus encountered:
A figure like your father appears before them.
Thrice he walked by their oppressed and fear-surprised eyes...
within their truncheon's length...
whilst they, distilled almost to jelly with the act of fear...
stand dumb and speak not to him.
This to me in dreadful secrecy impart they did...
and I with them the third night kept the watch...
where, as they had delivered, both in time, form of the thing...
each word made true and good, the apparition comes.
I knew your father. These hands are not more like.
- But where was this? - Upon the platform where we watch.
- Did you not speak to it? - My lord, I did, but answer made it none.
Yet once methought it lifted up its head...
and did address itself to motion, like as it would speak.
But even then the morning cock crew loud...
and at the sound it shrank in haste away and vanished from our sight.
'Tis very strange.
- As I do live, my honored lord, 'tis true. - Indeed, sirs, but this troubles me.
- Hold you the watch tonight? - We do, my lord.
What, looked he frowningly?
A countenance more in sorrow than in anger.
- And fixed his eyes upon you? - Most constantly.
- I would I had been there. - It would have much amazed you.
I will watch tonight. Perchance it will walk again.
I warrant it will.
If you have hitherto concealed this sight, let it be tenable in your silence still.
Our duty to your honor.
Your loves, as mine to you. Farewell.
My father's spirit.
All is not well.
I doubt some foul play.
Would the night were come. Till then sit still, my soul.
Foul deeds will rise...
though all the earth overwhelm them, to men's eyes.
No jocund health that Denmark drinks today...
but the great cannon to the clouds shall tell!
What does this mean, my lord? Is it a custom?
Ay, marry is it.
But to my mind a custom more honored in the breach than the observance.
This heavy-headed revel east and west...
makes us traduced and taxed of other nations.
They clepe us drunkards...
and indeed, it soils the pith and marrow of our attribute.
The air bites shrewdly. It is very cold.
What hour now?
It draws near the season wherein the spirit held his wont to walk.
So oft it chances in particular men...
that for some vicious mole of nature in them...
their virtues else, be they as pure as grace...
shall in the general censure take corruption...
from that particular fault.
Look, my lord, it comes!
Angels and ministers of grace defend us.
Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damned...
bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell...
be thy intents wicked or charitable...
I will speak to thee.
I'll call thee Hamlet...
King, father...
royal Dane.
Answer me.
- Do not, my lord. - Why, what should be the fear?
I do not set my life at a pin's fee.
And for my soul, what can it do to that, being a thing immortal as itself?
What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord...
or to the dreadful summit of the cliff that beetles over his base into the sea...
and there assume some other horrible form...
which might deprive your sovereignty of reason and draw you into madness?
Think of it.
I'll follow it.
- You shall not go, my lord! - Hold off your hands!
By heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that lets me!
I say, away!
Go on, I'll follow thee.
- My lord. - My lord Hamlet!
My lord!
I am thy father's spirit...
doomed for a certain term to walk the night...
and for the day confined to fast in fires.
But that I am forbid to tell the secrets of my prison-house...
I could a tale unfold...
whose lightest word would harrow up thy soul.
List.
If thou didst ever thy dear father love...
revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.
Murder?
Murder most foul, as in the best it is.
But this most foul, strange, and unnatural.
'Tis given out...
that sleeping in my orchard, a serpent stung me.
But know, thou noble youth...
the serpent that did sting thy father's life now wears his crown.
O my prophetic soul!
My uncle.
Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast...
with witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts...
won to his shameful lust...
the will of my most seeming-virtuous queen.
But, soft.
Methinks I scent the morning air.
Brief let me be.
Sleeping within my orchard...
my custom always of the afternoon...
upon my secure hour thy uncle stole...
with juice of cursed hebona in a vial...
and in the porches of mine ears did pour the leprous distilment.
Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother's hand...
of life, of crown, of queen, at once dispatched...
cut off even in the blossoms of my sin...
no reckoning made...
but sent to my account with all my imperfections on my head.
Oh, horrible!
Most horrible.
If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not.
Let not the royal bed of Denmark...
be a couch for luxury and damned incest.
But, howsoever thou pursuest this act...
taint not thy mind...
nor let thy soul contrive against thy mother aught.
Leave her to heaven...
and to those thorns that in her bosom lodge to prick and sting her.
Fare thee well at once.
The glow-worm shows the matin to be near...
and begins to pale his uneffectual fire.
Adieu.
Remember me.
Remember thee?
Ay, thou poor ghost...
whiles memory holds a seat in this distracted globe.
Remember thee?
Yea, from the table of my memory...
I'll wipe away all trivial fond records...
and thy commandment all alone shall live...
within the book and volume of my brain...
unmixed with baser matter.
Yes, by heaven!
O most pernicious woman!
O villain!
Villain, smiling, damned villain!
My tables, meet it is I set it down.
That one may smile...
and smile...
and be a villain!
So, uncle...
there you are.
Now to my word.
It is, "Adieu, adieu.
"Remember me."
I have sworn it.
So be it.
Hillo, ho, ho, my lord!
Hillo, ho, ho, boy. Come, bird, come.
What news?
- No, you will reveal it. - Not I, my lord, by heaven.
There's never a villain dwelling in all Denmark...
but he's an arrant knave.
There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave, to tell us this.
Right, you are in the right. So I hold it fit we shake hands and part.
These are but wild and whirling words.
I am sorry they offend you, heartily. Yes, faith, heartily.
- There's no offense, my lord. - There is, Horatio, and much offense, too.
It is an honest ghost, that let me tell you.
And now, good friends, grant me one poor request.
Never make known what you have seen tonight.
- We will not. - Upon my sword.
Swear.
Swear by my sword never to speak of this that you have seen.
Never to speak of this that you have heard.
Swear by his sword.
Day and night, but this is wondrous strange.
And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio...
than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
But come!
Here, as before, never, so help you mercy...
how strange or odd so ever I bear myself...
as I perchance hereafter shall think meet to put an antic disposition on...
never to note that you know aught of me.
This do swear!
We swear.
Rest.
Rest, perturbed spirit!
The time is out of joint.
O cursed spite, that ever I was born to set it right.
Tomorrow is Saint Valentine's Day
All in the morning betime
And I a maid
At your window
To be your Valentine
- My lord! - How now?
I think it sure that I have found the very cause of Hamlet's lunacy.
Speak on that, that I do long to hear.
My liege, and madam...
to expostulate what majesty should be, what duty is...
why day is day, night night, and time is time...
were nothing but to waste night, day, and time.
Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit, I will be brief.
Your noble son is mad.
Mad call I it...
for, to define true madness, what is it but to be nothing else but mad?
- But let that go. - More matter, with less art.
Madam, I swear I use no art at all.
That he is mad, 'tis pity, 'tis true.
'Tis true 'tis pity, and pity 'tis 'tis true.
A foolish figure, but farewell it, for I will use no art.
Mad let us grant him, then.
And now remains...
that we find out the cause of this effect.
Or rather say, the cause of this defect...
for this effect defective comes by cause.
Thus it remains, and the remainder thus. Perpend.
I have a daughter, have while she is mine...
who, in her duty and obedience, mark, hath given me this.
Now, gather and surmise.
"To the celestial...
"and my soul's idol, the most beautified Ophelia."
That's an ill phrase, a vile phrase. "Beautified" is a vile phrase.
But you shall hear.
Came this from Hamlet to her?
Good madam, stay awhile. I will be faithful.
"Doubt thou the stars are fire.
"Doubt that the sun doth move.
"Doubt truth to be a liar.
"But never doubt I love.
"Thine evermore, most dear lady...
"whilst this machine is to him, Hamlet."
This in obedience hath my daughter shown me.
But how hath she received his love?
- What do you think of me? - As of a man faithful and honorable.
I would fain prove so. And my young mistress thus I did bespeak...
that she should lock herself from his resort.
Thus he repelled, a short tale to make...
fell into a sadness, then into a fast, thence to a lightness...
and by this declension into the madness wherein now he raves...
and all we mourn for.
Hath there been such a time, I would fain know that...
that I have positively said, "'Tis so," when it proved otherwise?
- Not that I know. - Take this from this, if this be otherwise.
How may we try it further?
You know, sometimes he walks four hours together here in the lobby.
So he does indeed.
At such a time, I'll loose my daughter to him.
Be you and I behind an arras then. Mark the encounter.
If he love her not, and be not from his reason fallen thereon...
let me be no assistant for a state.
But look where sadly the poor wretch comes reading.
I'll board him presently.
Do you think 'tis this?
I doubt it is no other but the main.
His father's death, and our overhasty marriage.
Do you know me, my lord?
Excellent well. You are a fishmonger.
- Not I, my lord. - Then I would you were so honest a man.
Honest, my lord?
To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of 10,000.
For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog...
being a good kissing carrion...
- Have you a daughter? - I have, my lord.
Let her not walk in the sun.
Conception is a blessing, but as your daughter may conceive...
Friend, look to it.
Still harping on my daughter.
What do you read, my lord?
Words.
What is the matter, my lord?
- Between who? - The matter that you read.
Slanders, sir.
For the satirical rogue says here that old men have gray beards...
their faces are wrinkled...
their eyes purging thick amber and plum-tree gum...
and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams.
How pregnant sometimes his replies are.
All of which, sir, I most powerfully and potently believe...
yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down.
For you yourself shall be old as I am, if, like a crab, you could go backward.
My lord!
My honorable lord, I will most humbly take my leave.
You cannot, sir, take from me anything...
that I will more willingly part withal.
Except my life.
Ophelia, I do wish that your good beauties...
be the happy cause of Hamlet's wildness.
So shall I hope your virtues will bring him to his wonted way again...
to both your honors.
Madam, I wish it may.
Ophelia, walk you here.
Gracious, so please you, we will bestow ourselves.
Read on this book.
He is coming. Let us withdraw, my lord.
Nymph, in thy orisons be all my sins remembered.
Good my lord...
how does your honor for this many a day?
I humbly thank you, well.
My lord, I have remembrances of yours...
that I have longed long to redeliver.
I pray you now, receive them.
No, not I. I never gave you aught.
My honored lord, you know right well you did.
And with them words of so sweet breath composed...
as made the things more rich.
Their perfume lost, take these again.
There, my lord.
- Are you honest? - My lord?
- Are you fair? - What means your lordship?
That if you be honest and fair...
your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty.
Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty?
I did love you once.
Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.
You should not have believed me. I loved you not!
Where's your father?
At home, my lord.
Let the doors be shut upon him...
that he may play the fool nowhere but in his own house!
If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague for thy dowry.
Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow...
thou shalt not escape calumny!
Or, if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool...
for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them.
I have heard of your paintings well enough.
God hath given you one face and you make yourselves another.
You jig and amble, and you lisp. You nickname God's creatures...
and make your wantonness your ignorance.
Go to! I'll no more on it. It hath made me mad!
I say we will have no more marriage.
Those that are married already, all but one, shall live.
The rest shall keep as they are.
We must watch him, and that most carefully.
I have in quick determination thus set it down:
He shall with speed to England, for the demand of our neglected tribute.
Haply the seas and countries different with variable objects...
shall expel this something-settled matter in his heart.
Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.
To be, or not to be. That is the question.
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows...
of outrageous fortune...
or to take arms against a sea of troubles...
and by opposing end them?
To die...
to sleep no more.
And, by a sleep to say we end the heartache...
and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to...
'tis a consummation...
devoutly to be wished.
To die...
to sleep.
To sleep, perchance to dream.
Ay, there's the rub.
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come...
when we have shuffled off this mortal coil...
must give us pause.
There's the respect...
that makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time...
the oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely...
the pangs of disprized love, the law's delay...
the insolence of office, and the spurns...
that patient merit of the unworthy takes...
when he himself might his quietus make...
with a bare bodkin?
Who would fardels bear...
to grunt and sweat under a weary life...
but that the dread of something after death...
the undiscovered country...
from whose bourn no traveler returns...
puzzles the will...
and makes us rather bear those ills we have...
than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all...
and thus the native hue of resolution...
is sicklied over with the pale cast of thought...
and enterprises of great pitch and moment...
with this regard their currents turn awry...
and lose the name of action.
- My honored lord. - My most dear lord.
My excellent good friends.
How dost thou, Guildenstern? Rosencrantz?
Good lads, how do you both?
What have you, my good friends, deserved at the hands of fortune...
that she sends you to prison hither?
- Prison, my lord? - Denmark's a prison.
We think not so, my lord.
Why, then, 'tis none to you...
for there is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so.
To me it is a prison.
Why, then your ambition makes it one. It is too narrow for your mind.
Oh, God.
I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space...
- were it not that I have had bad dreams. - Which dreams, indeed, are ambition...
for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.
Shall we away? For, by my fay, I cannot reason.
What make you at Elsinore?
To visit you, my lord. No other occasion.
Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks.
But, my dear friends, were you not sent for?
Is it your own inclining?
Is it a free visitation?
Come, come, deal justly with me. Come, come. Nay, speak.
- What should we say? - Why, anything, but to the purpose.
There is a kind of confession in your looks.
I know the good King and Queen have sent for you.
To what end?
That you must teach me.
Be even and direct with me, whether you were sent for or no!
My lord, we were sent for.
I will tell you why.
So shall my anticipation prevent your discovery...
and your secrecy to the king and queen molt 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 overhanging firmament...
this majestical roof fretted with golden fire...
Why, it appeareth nothing to me...
but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors.
What a piece of work is a man.
How noble in reason.
How infinite in faculties.
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.
- There was no such stuff in my thoughts. - Why laugh then...
- when I said, "Man delights not me"? - To think, if you delight not in man...
what Lenten entertainment the players shall receive.
Just the same as ever before. Come on.
Boys, take the horses.
Out of the way!
Masters, you are welcome to Elsinore.
Good my lord, will you see the players well bestowed?
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.
- I shall use them according to their desert. - God's bodkins, man, much better.
Use every man after his desert, and who shall escape whipping?
Take them in.
Follow him, friends.
We'll hear a play tomorrow.
My lord Hamlet!
Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore.
But my uncle-father and aunt-mother are deceived.
In what, my dear lord?
I am but mad north-north-west.
When the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.
Am I a coward?
'Swounds, it cannot be but I am pigeon-livered...
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 ass am I.
This is most brave...
that I, the son of a dear father murdered...
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! Foh!
About, my brains.
Give me that.
It's heavy!
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 proclaimed their malefactions.
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 do blench, I know my course.
The spirit that I have seen may be a devil...
and the devil hath power to assume 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.
'Tis almost the time, my friends.
Haste you!
Observe my uncle.
If his occulted guilt do not itself unkennel in one speech...
it is a damned ghost that we have seen, and my imaginations all are foul.
- I must be idle. Get you a place. - Well, my lord.
These are the best actors in the world...
either for tragedy, comedy, history...
pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral...
tragical-historical...
tragical-comical-historical-pastoral.
For the law of writ and the liberty...
these are the only men.
My lord, you played once for the university, you say?
That did I, my lord, and was accounted a good actor.
What did you enact?
I did enact Julius Caesar.
I was killed in the Capitol. Brutus killed me.
It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf there.
How fares our cousin Hamlet?
Excellent, in faith, of the chameleon's dish.
I eat the air, promise-crammed.
Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me.
No, good mother, here's metal more attractive.
- Lady, shall I lie in your lap? - No, my lord.
I mean, my head upon your lap?
- Ay, my lord. - Do you think I meant country matters?
I think nothing, my lord.
That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs.
- What is, my lord? - Nothing.
- You are merry, my lord. - Who, I?
- Ay, my lord. - Oh, God.
What should a man do but be merry?
For, look you, how cheerfully my mother looks...
and my father died within's two hours.
Nay, it is twice two months, my lord.
So long?
O heavens, die two months ago, and not forgotten yet?
There's hope a great man's memory may outlive his life half a year.
Get thee to a nunnery. Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?
I am myself indifferent honest, but yet I could accuse me of such things...
it were better my mother had not borne me.
I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offenses at my beck...
than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape...
or time to act them in.
What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven?
Believe none of us.
For us, for our tragedy...
here stooping to your clemency...
we beg your hearing patiently.
- Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring? - Indeed, 'tis brief, my son.
As woman's love.
'Tis 30 years since Hymen did our hands unite commutual...
in most sacred bands.
So many journeys may the sun and moon...
make us again count over ere love be done.
But should I die before a new sun shine...
you might another husband soon entwine.
Nay, should you die...
I should 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 killed the first.
Wormwood.
I do believe you think what now you speak.
But what we do determine, oft we break.
This world is not for aye, nor is it strange...
that even our loves should with our fortunes change.
If she should break it now.
Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife...
if, once a widow, ever I be wife.
Madam, how like you this play?
The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
- But she'll keep her word. - Have you heard the argument?
- Is there no offense in it? - No, they do but jest...
poison in jest. No offense in the world.
- What do you call the play? - The Mousetrap.
'Tis a knavish piece of work, but what of that?
Your majesty and I have free souls, it touches us not.
This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king.
- You are as good as a chorus, Cousin. - His name is Gonzago.
Wait, you shall see anon...
how the murderer gets the love of Gonzago's wife.
How fares my lord?
Give me some...
Give me some light!
Lights! Give over the play!
What, frighted with false fire?
Why, let the stricken deer go weep!
Why, let the stricken deer go weep
The hart ungalled play
For some must watch while some must sleep
Thus runs the world away
O good Horatio...
I'll take the ghost's word for a thousand pound. Didst perceive?
- Very well. - Upon the talk of the poisoning?
I did very well...
Believe none of us. We are arrant knaves, all.
To a nunnery, go. And quickly, too.
Farewell.
Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you.
- Sir, a whole history. - The King, sir.
Ay, sir, what of him?
Is in his retirement marvelous distempered.
- With drink, sir? - No, my lord, rather with choler.
Your wisdom should show itself more richer to signify this to the doctor.
Put your discourse into some frame, and make me a wholesome answer.
- Sir, I cannot. - What, my lord?
Make you a wholesome answer. My wit's diseased.
- The Queen, your mother, sent us to you. - You are welcome.
Your behavior hath struck her into amazement.
O wonderful son, that can so astonish a mother!
My lord, what is your cause of distemper?
You do surely bar the door upon your own liberty...
if you deny your griefs to your friend.
Will you play upon this pipe?
I cannot, my lord.
I do beseech you. Come, it is as easy as lying.
I have not the skill.
Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me!
You would play upon me.
You would pluck out the heart of my mystery...
sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass.
God's blood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe?
I will come to my mother by and by.
- We will say so. - "By and by" is easily said.
'Tis now the very witching time of night...
when churchyards yawn...
and hell itself breathes out contagion to this world.
Now could I drink hot blood...
and do such bitter business as the day would quake to look on.
Soft, now to my mother.
My offense is rank, it smells to heaven.
It hath the primal eldest curse upon it.
A brother's murder.
Now might I do it pat, now he is praying. And now I'll do it.
And so he goes to heaven, and so am I revenged.
That would be scanned.
A villain kills my father.
And for that I, his sole son, do this same villain send to heaven...
when he is fit and seasoned for his passage.
Why, this is hire and salary, not revenge.
O wretched state!
O bosom black as death!
No. When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage...
or in the incestuous pleasure of his bed...
then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven...
and that his soul may be as damned and black as hell, whereto it goes.
Now to my mother.
'Tis meet that some more audience than a mother should overhear.
- Mother! - Withdraw, I hear him coming.
Mother.
- Pray you, be round with him. - Fear me not.
Now, Mother, what's the matter?
Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.
Mother, you have my father much offended.
Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.
Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.
Why, how now, Hamlet?
- What's the matter now? - Have you forgot me?
No, by the rood, not so.
You are the Queen, your husband's brother's wife.
And, would it were not so, you are my mother.
Nay then, I'll set those to you that can speak.
Come.
Come and sit you down. You shall not budge.
You go not till I set you up a glass...
where you may see the inmost part of you.
What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murder me?
- Help! - Help!
How now! A rat? Dead, for a ducat!
Dead!
- O me, what hast thou done? - Nay, I know not. Is it the king?
What a rash and bloody deed is this!
A bloody deed. Almost as bad, good mother...
as kill a king and marry with his brother.
- As kill a king? - Aye, lady, it was my word.
Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell.
I took thee for thy better.
Take thy fortune.
Thou findest to be too busy is some danger.
Leave wringing of your hands.
Peace, sit you down, and let me wring your heart.
For so I shall, if it be made of penetrable stuff.
What have I done, that thou darest wag thy tongue in noise so rude against me?
Such an act that blurs the grace and blush of modesty...
calls virtue hypocrite...
makes marriage vows as false as dicers' oaths.
Ay me, what act?
Look here, upon this picture, and on this.
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
See, what a grace was seated on this brow.
A combination and a form indeed...
where every god did seem to set his seal...
to give the world assurance of a man.
This was your husband.
Look you now, what follows. Here is your husband...
like a mildewed ear, blasting his wholesome brother.
Have you eyes?
Could you, on this fair mountain, leave to feed...
and batten on this moor?
Have you eyes? You cannot call it love...
for at your age, the heyday in the blood is tame...
it's humble, and waits upon the judgment.
And what judgment would step from this to this?
Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight.
O shame, where is thy blush?
Speak no more.
Thou turnest my eyes into my very soul...
and there I see such black and grained spots as will not leave their tinct.
Nay, but to live in the rank sweat...
of an enseamed bed...
stewed in corruption...
honeying and making love over the nasty sty.
Speak to me no more.
These words like daggers enter in mine ears! No more, sweet Hamlet.
- A murderer and a villain. - No!
A cutpurse of the empire and the rule.
A king of shreds and patches...
Save me, and hover over me with your wings, you heavenly guards.
- What would your gracious figure? - Alas, he's mad.
Do you not come your tardy son to chide?
Oh, say.
Do not forget.
This visitation is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.
But, look.
Amazement on thy mother sits.
Step between her and her fighting soul.
Speak to her, Hamlet.
How is it with you, lady?
Alas, how is it with you, that you do bend your eye on vacancy...
and with the incorporal air do hold discourse?
- O gentle son, say whereon do you look. - On him. Look you, how pale he glares.
To whom do you speak this?
- Do you see nothing there? - Nothing at all. Yet all that is, I see.
- Nor did you nothing hear? - No, nothing but ourselves.
Why, look you there! Look how it steals away.
- My father, in his habit as he lived. - This is the very coinage of your brain!
It is not madness that I have uttered.
Mother, for love of grace...
lay not that flattering unction to your soul...
that not your trespass but my madness speaks.
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.
O Hamlet...
thou hast cleft my heart in twain.
Throw away the worser part of it...
and live the purer with the other half.
Good night.
And when you are desirous to be blessed...
I'll blessing beg of you.
For this same lord, I do repent.
But heaven hath pleased it so to punish me with this, and this with me.
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.
What shall I do?
Let not 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 damned fingers...
make you to ravel all this matter out...
that I essentially am not in madness...
but mad in craft.
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.
Mother, good night, indeed.
This counselor 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.
Gertrude!
Where is your son?
Mine own lord, what have I seen tonight!
What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?
Mad...
as the sea and wind, when both contend which is the mightier.
In his lawless fit...
he hath killed the unseen good old man.
O heavy deed!
It had been so with us, had we been there.
Guards!
Friends, go join you with some further aid.
Hamlet, in madness, hath Polonius slain.
- My lord Hamlet! - Search over there!
- My lord Hamlet! - Hamlet!
- Look in there! - Over there!
I have sent to seek him and to find the body.
Yet, sirs, we must not put the strong law on him.
He's loved of the distracted multitude.
How now! What hath befallen?
Where the dead body is bestowed, my lord, we could not get from him.
But where is he?
Now, Hamlet...
where's Polonius?
At supper.
At supper?
- Where? - Not where he eats, but where he is eaten.
A certain convocation of politic worms are e'en at him.
Alas.
A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king...
and eat of the fish that fed of that worm.
- What dost thou mean by this? - Nothing...
but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar.
Where is Polonius?
In heaven. Send thither to see.
If your messenger find him not there, seek him in the other place yourself.
But if, indeed, you find him not within this month...
you shall nose him as you go up the stairs into the lobby.
- Go seek him there. - He will stay till you come.
Hamlet, this deed, for thine especial safety, must send thee hence.
Therefore prepare thyself for England.
- For England? - Ay, Hamlet.
- Good. - So is it, if thou knewest our purposes.
I see a cherub that sees them.
But, come. For England! Farewell, dear mother.
- Thy loving father, Hamlet. - My mother.
Father and mother is man and wife, man and wife is one flesh...
and so, my mother.
Come, for England.
I'll have him hence tonight. Therefore, prepare you.
I your commission will forthwith dispatch, and he to England shall along with you.
Arm you, I pray you, to this speedy voyage.
And, England, if my love thou holdest at aught...
thou mayest not stop our process...
which imports by letters that these worthy men must bear...
the present death of Hamlet. Do it, England.
My lord!
- I must to England. You know that? - Alas.
There's letters sealed.
And my two schoolfellows, whom I will trust as I will adders fanged...
they bear the mandate.
They must sweep my way and marshal me to knavery.
Let it work...
for I will delve one yard below their mines...
and blow them at the moon.
How should I your true love know from another one?
By his cockle hat and staff and his sandal shoon
Young men will do it, if they come to it. By cock 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"
Come, my lady.
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.
Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?
Where is the...
How now, Ophelia?
He is dead and gone, lady
He is dead and gone
At his head a grass-green turf
At his heels a stone
How long has she been thus?
How do you, pretty lady?
Well, God 'ild you!
They say the owl was a baker's daughter.
Lord, we know what we are, but not what we may be.
I hope all will be well.
We must be patient.
But I cannot choose but weep...
to think they would lay him in the cold ground.
My brother shall know of it.
And so I thank you for your good counsel.
Come, my coach.
Poor Ophelia...
divided from herself and her fair judgment.
Good night, ladies.
Sweet ladies, good night.
Follow her close.
Give her good watch, I pray you.
Quoth she, "Before you tumbled me you promised me to wed"
He answers
"So would I ha ' done, by yonder sun
"An thou hadst not come to my bed"
O Gertrude...
when sorrows come, they come not single spies...
but in battalions.
No!
My lady.
"By letters that these worthy men must bear...
"the present death of Hamlet.
"Do it, England."
No!
Where is this king?
Let him stand before me!
Where is the King?
- Stay, my lord Laertes. - Hold him back!
O thou vile king, give me my father!
Calmly, good Laertes!
Let him go...
and do not fear our person.
Where is my father?
- Dead. - Let come what comes...
only I'll be revenged most throughly for my father.
Good Laertes...
if you desire to know the certainty of your dear father...
is it writ in your revenge...
that you will draw against both friend and foe?
None but his enemies.
Why, now you speak...
like a good child and a true gentleman.
That I am guiltless of your father's death...
and am most sensibly in grief for it...
it shall as level to your judgment appear as day does to your eye.
There's rosemary, that's for remembrance.
Pray you, love, remember.
And there is pansies, that's for thoughts.
There's fennel for you, and columbines.
There's rue for you, and here's some for me.
You must wear your rue with a difference.
There's a daisy.
I'd give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died.
They say he made a good end.
O heavens, is it possible a young maid's wits...
should be as mortal as an old man's life?
There is a willow grows aslant the brook...
that shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream.
There with fantastic garlands did she make...
of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples.
There, on the pendent boughs...
her crownet 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...
but that her garments, heavy with their drink...
pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay...
to muddy death.
Alas! Then she is drowned?
Drowned.
Methought it was very sweet
To contract the time for my behove
Methought there was nothing a-meet
But age, with his stealing steps
Hath clawed me in his clutch
Whose grave's this, sirrah?
Mine, sir.
I think it be thine indeed, for thou liest in it.
- What man dost thou dig it for? - For no man, sir.
- What woman, then? - For none, neither.
Who is to be buried in it?
One that was a woman, sir. But, rest her soul, she's dead.
How absolute the knave is.
How long hast thou been grave-maker?
Since that very day that young Hamlet was born.
He that is mad and sent into England.
Ay, marry, why was he sent into England?
Why, because he was mad. He shall recover his wits there.
Or, if he do not, 'tis no great matter there.
- Why? - 'Twill not be seen in him there.
There the men are as mad as he.
How long will a man lie in the earth ere he rot?
Faith, if he be not rotten before he die, some eight year, nine year.
Here's a skull now...
hath lain you in the earth some three-and-twenty years.
Whose was it?
A whoreson mad fellow's it was.
He poured a flagon of Rhenish on my head once.
- Whose do you think it was? - Nay, I know not.
This same skull, sir, was Yorick's skull...
the King's jester.
- This? - E'en that.
Let me see.
Alas, poor Yorick.
I knew him, Horatio...
a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy.
He hath borne me on his back a thousand times.
And now, how abhorred in my imagination it is.
My gorge rises at it.
Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft.
Where be your gibes now?
Your gambols, your songs, your flashes of merriment...
that were wont to set the table on a roar?
Not one now, to mock your own grinning?
Quite chopfallen?
Now get you to my lady's chamber...
and tell her...
let her paint an inch thick...
to this favor she must come.
Make her laugh at that.
The King, the courtiers.
Who is this they follow?
Lay her in the earth.
And from her fair and unpolluted flesh may violets spring.
Sweets to the sweet.
Farewell.
I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet's wife.
I thought thy bride-bed to have decked, sweet maid...
and not to have strewed thy grave.
Hold off the earth awhile, till I have caught her once more in mine arms.
O rose of May...
dear maid...
kind sister.
The devil take thy soul!
I prithee, take thy fingers from my throat...
for I have in me something dangerous...
which let thy wiseness fear. Hold off thy hand!
Pluck them asunder!
Good my lord, be quiet.
I loved Ophelia.
Forty thousand brothers could not...
with all their quantity of love...
make up my sum.
What wilt thou do for her?
'Swounds, show me what thou wilt do!
Hear you, sir, I loved you ever.
But it is no matter.
Let Hercules himself do what he may...
the cat will mew and dog will have his day.
I pray thee, good Horatio, wait upon him.
Will you be ruled by me?
I will, my lord, so you will not overrule me to a peace.
To thine own peace.
But tell me, sir...
why you proceeded not against these crimes so capital in nature?
For two especial reasons:
The Queen his mother lives almost by his looks.
And for myself.
My virtue or my plague, be it either which...
she is 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 is the great love the general gender bear him.
Laertes, was your father dear to you?
Or are you like the painting of a sorrow, a face without a heart?
Why ask you this?
Not that I think you did not love your father. But, Laertes...
what would you undertake to show yourself your father's son...
in deed more than in words?
To cut his throat in the church.
Revenge should have no bounds.
That we would do...
we should do when we would.
I'll work the prince...
to an exploit now ripe in my device, under the which he cannot choose but fall.
And for his death...
no wind of blame shall breathe...
but even his mother shall uncharge the practice...
and call it accident.
Lord Hamlet!
Your lordship is right welcome back to Denmark.
I humbly thank you, sir.
Sweet lord, if your lordship were at leisure...
I should impart a thing to you from His Majesty.
I will receive it, sir, will all diligence of spirit.
Put your bonnet to his right use. 'Tis for the head.
I thank your lordship, it is very hot.
No, believe me, it is very cold. The wind is northerly.
My lord, His Majesty bade me tell you...
that he has laid a great wager on your head.
Laertes, believe me, is an absolute gentleman.
I well know you are not ignorant of his skills.
To know a man well were to know himself.
The king hath wagered six Barbary horses...
that in a dozen passes between you...
he shall not exceed you three hits.
It would come to immediate trial tomorrow...
if your lordship would vouchsafe a timely answer.
I will win for him, if I can.
If not, I gain nothing but my shame and the odd hits.
Shall I deliver you even so?
If his fitness speaks, mine is ready...
now or whensoever, provided I be so able as now.
- You will lose this wager, my lord. - I do not think so.
I have been in continual practice. I shall win at the odds.
Thou wouldst not think how ill all's here about my heart.
But it is no matter.
If your mind dislike anything, obey it.
Not a whit. We defy augury.
I have it.
When in your motion you are hot and dry...
I'll have a chalice, which if he but sip...
our purpose may hold there.
For that purpose, I'll anoint my sword.
I bought an unction of a mountebank...
so mortal that, if I but scratch him, it will mean death.
It warms the very sickness in my heart that I shall tell him to his teeth:
"Thus diest thou."
There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow.
If it be now, it is not to come.
If it be not to come, it will be now.
If it be not now, yet it will come.
The readiness is all.
All salute!
Come, Hamlet, come, and take this hand from me.
Give me your pardon, sir. I have done you wrong...
but pardon it, as you are a gentleman.
Sir, in this audience...
free me so far in your most generous thoughts...
that I have shot my arrow over the house and hurt my brother.
I am satisfied in nature...
but in terms of honor, I stand aloof...
and will no reconcilement.
Yet I receive your offered love like love...
and will not wrong it.
I embrace it freely...
and will this brother's wager frankly play.
Give us the sword!
Come, one for me.
- Cousin Hamlet, you know the wager? - Very well, my lord.
Your Grace has laid the odds on the weaker side.
I do not fear it. I have seen you both.
Set me the stoup of wine upon that table.
If Hamlet give the first or second hit...
the King shall drink to Hamlet's better breath.
And let the kettle to the trumpet speak, the trumpet to the cannoneer without...
the cannons to the heavens, the heaven to earth:
"Now the King drinks to Hamlet!"
What's wrong, Laertes?
Higher, Laertes!
Go to it, Laertes!
- One! - No!
- A hit, a very palpable hit. - Well, again!
Stay.
Give me drink.
Hamlet...
this pearl is thine.
Here's to thy health!
I'll play this bout first. Set it by a while.
Stay!
- Another hit! What say you? - A touch, I do confess.
- Our son shall win. - He's scant of breath.
The queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet.
Gertrude, do not drink.
I will, my lord, I pray you pardon me.
I dare not drink yet, madam. By and by.
Come, let me wipe thy face.
This is too heavy.
Come for the third, Laertes. You do but dally.
Say you so? Come on!
Laertes, you have practiced much.
Parry again, lord.
Come, my lord!
My lord Hamlet!
Break it!
Nothing, neither way. Part, sirs!
'Tis unfair!
Nay, come again!
Fight, Laertes!
Look to the Queen there! Ho!
They bleed on both sides.
- How does my lord? - How does the Queen?
She swoons to see them bleed!
No!
The drink.
O my dear Hamlet...
O villainy!
Ho! Let the doors be locked!
Treachery! Seek it out.
It is here, Hamlet.
Hamlet, thou art slain.
No medicine in the world can do thee good.
The treacherous instrument is in thy hand...
unbated and envenomed.
The foul practice hath turned itself on me.
I am justly killed with mine own treachery.
Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet.
Mine and my father's death come not upon thee.
Nor mine on thee.
I can no more!
The King...
The King's to blame.
The point envenomed.
Then, venom, to thy work!
Yet defend me, friends.
Here, thou incestuous, murderous, damned Dane...
drink of this potion.
Is thy union here? Follow my mother!
I am dead, Horatio.
Wretched queen...
adieu.
You that look pale and tremble at this chance:
Had I but time...
as this fell sergeant, death, is strict in his arrest...
I could tell you...
But let it be.
Horatio, I am dead.
Thou livest. Report me and my cause aright.
God, Horatio, what a wounded name...
things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me.
If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart...
absent thee from felicity awhile...
and then in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain...
to tell my story.
I die, Horatio.
The potent poison quite o'er-crows my spirit.
The rest is silence.
Good night, sweet prince...
and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.
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