HAMLET

William Shakespeare

Originally written – 1599–1602

First Published – 1603
First recorded performance – 1609

Dramatis personae
HAMLET, Prince of Denmark
CLAUDIUS, King of Denmark, Hamlet’s uncle
Ghost of King Hamlet, Hamlet’s father
GERTRUDE, Queen of Denmark, and mother to Hamlet
POLONIUS, counsellor to the King
LAERTES, son to Polonius
OPHELIA, daughter to Polonius
HORATIO, friend to Hamlet
ROSENCRANTZ, courtier
GUILDENSTERN, courtier
MARCELLUS, officer of the watch
BERNARDO, officer of the watch
OSRIC, courtiers
Players
A gentleman
A priest
A grave-digger
Lords, ladies, officers, soldiers, sailors, messengers, and other attendants
ACT I, SCENE I. Elsinore. A platform by the castle.
BERNARDO at his post

BERNARDO
Not a mouse stirring.
(Startled) Stand, ho! Who’s there?

Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS

HORATIO
Friends to this ground.

MARCELLUS
And liegemen to the Dane.

HORATIO
Holla! Bernardo!

BERNARDO
Welcome, Horatio: welcome, good Marcellus.
For this relief much thanks, tis bitter cold
And I am sick at heart.

HORATIO
What, has this thing appear’d again to-night?

MARCELLUS
Horatio says ’tis but our fantasy
And will not let belief take hold of him
Touching this dreaded sight, twice seen of us.
Therefore I have entreated him along
With us to watch the minutes of this night;
That if again this apparition come,
He may approve our eyes and speak to it.

HORATIO
Tush, tush, ’twill not appear.

BERNARDO
Sit down awhile
And let us once again assail your ears,
That are so fortified against our story,
What we two night have seen

HORATIO
 Well, sit we down,
And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.

BERNARDO
Last night of all,
When yond same star that’s westward from the pole
Had made his course t’illume that part of heaven
Where not it burns, Marcellus and myself,
The bell then beating one-

Enter Ghost

MARCELLUS
Peace, break thee off; look, where it comes again!

BERNARDO
In the same figure, like the King that’s dead.
Mark it, Horatio.

MARCELLUS
Question it, Horatio.

HORATIO
What art thou that usurp’st this time of night,
Together with that fair and warlike form
In which the majesty of buried Denmark
Did sometimes march? By heaven I charge thee, speak!

MARCELLUS
It is offended.

BERNARDO
See, it stalks away!

Exit Ghost

HORATIO
Before my God, I might not this believe
Without the sensible and true avouch
Of mine own eyes

MARCELLUS
Is it not like the King?

HORATIO
As thou art to thyself:
This bodes some strange eruption to our state. 25
But soft, behold! lo, where it comes again!

Re-enter Ghost

If thou hast any sound, or use of voice,

Speak to me:
If there be any good thing to be done,
That may to thee do ease and grace to me, 30
Speak to me.

Cock crows
Exit Ghost

BERNARDO
It was about to speak, when the cock crew.

HORATIO
Break we our watch up; and by my advice,
Let us impart what we have seen to-night
Unto young Hamlet. 35

MARCELLUS
Let’s do’t, I pray.

Exeunt

ACT I, SCENE II.

Elsinore. A room of state in the Castle.
Flourish. [Enter Claudius, King of Denmark, Gertrude the Queen, Hamlet, Polonius,
Laertes

KING CLAUDIUS
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,
So we with wisest sorrow think on him. 5
Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen,
The imperial jointress to this warlike state,
Have we, as ’twere with a defeated joy, –
With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage,
Taken to wife:…For all, our thanks. 10
And now, Laertes, what’s the news with you?
What wouldst thou beg, Laertes?
LAERTES

My dread lord,
Your leave and favour to return to France;
From whence though willingly I came to Denmark,
To show my duty in your coronation – 15

KING CLAUDIUS
Have you your father’s leave? What says Polonius?

LORD POLONIUS
He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave.

KING CLAUDIUS
Take thy fair hour, Laertes; time be thine,
And thy best graces spend it at thy will!
But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son, – 20

HAMLET
(Aside) A little more than kin, and less than kind!

KING CLAUDIUS
How is it that the clouds still hang on you?

HAMLET
Not so, my lord; I am too much i’ the sun.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off,
And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark. 25
Do not for ever with thy vailed11 lids
Seek for thy noble father in the dust:
Thou know’st ’tis common; all that lives must die.

HAMLET
Ay, madam, it is common.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
If it be,
Why seems it so particular with thee?

HAMLET
Seems, madam! nay it is; I know not ‘seems’.

KING CLAUDIUS
Hamlet, we pray you, throw you to the earth
This unprevailing woe, and think of us
As of a father: for let the world take note,
You are the most immediate to our throne;
And we beseech you, bend you to remain
Here, in the cheer and comfort of our eye,
Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet.
I pray thee, stay with us; go not to Wittenberg.

HAMLET
I shall in all my best obey you, madam.

KING CLAUDIUS
Why, ’tis a loving and a fair reply.
Madam, come.

Exeunt all but HAMLET

HAMLET
O, that this too too solid flesh would melt
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!
Fie on’t, ah fie! ‘tis an unweeded garden
That grows to seed, things rank and gross in nature.
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!
Let me not think on’t – Frailty, thy name is woman! –
A little month, or ere those shoes were old
With which she follow’d my poor father’s body,
Why she! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,
Would have mourn’d longer – married with my uncle,
My father’s brother, but no more like my father
Than I to Hercules: within a month!
But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue. 60

Enter HORATIO, MARCELLUS, and BERNARDO

HORATIO
Hail to your lordship!

HAMLET
I am glad to see you well:
Horatio, – or I do forget myself.

HORATIO
The same, my lord, and your poor servant ever.

HAMLET
Sir, my good friend;
And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio?
I am very glad to see you. Marcellus – Bernardo.
But what is your affair in Elsinore?

HORATIO
My lord, I came to see your father’s funeral.

HAMLET
I pray thee, do not mock me, fellow-student;
I think it was to see my mother’s wedding.

HORATIO
Indeed, my lord, it follow’d hard upon.

HAMLET
Thrift, thrift, Horatio! the funeral baked meats
Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.
My father – methinks I see my father – 75

HORATIO
Where, my lord?

HAMLET
In my mind’s eye, Horatio.

HORATIO
I saw him once. He was a goodly king.

HAMLET
He was a man, take him for all in all.
I shall not look upon his like again.

HORATIO
My lord, I think I saw him yesternight.

HAMLET
Saw who?
HORATIO
My lord, the King your father.

HAMLET
The King my father?

HORATIO
Two nights together had these gentlemen,
In the dead waste and middle of the night,
Been thus encounter’d. A figure like your father,
Appears before them, and with solemn march
Goes slow and stately by them. This to me
In dreadful secrecy impart they did;
And I with them the third night kept the watch;
Where, as they had deliver’d, true in time,
The apparition comes.

HAMLET
Did you not speak to it?

HORATIO
My lord, I did;
But answer made it none.

HAMLET
’Tis very strange.

HORATIO
As I do live, my honour’d lord, ’tis true.

HAMLET
Hold you the watch to-night?

MARCELLUS/ BERNARDO
We do, my lord.

HAMLET
I’ll watch to-night; 95
Perchance ’twill walk again.

HORATIO
I warrant it will.

HAMLET
If it assume my noble father’s person,
I’ll speak to it, though hell itself should gape
And bid me hold my peace. I pray you all,
If you have hitherto conceal’d this sight, 100
Let it be tenable in your silence still.

All
Our duty to your honour.

HAMLET
Your loves, as mine to you: farewell.

Exeunt all but HAMLET

My father’s spirit, in arms! all is not well.

I doubt some foul play. Would the night were come!

Exit

ACT I, SCENE III. A room in POLONIUS’ house.

Enter LAERTES and OPHELIA

LAERTES
My necessaries are embark’d. Farewell.
And, sister, as the winds give benefit
But let me hear from you.

OPHELIA
Do you doubt that?

LAERTES
For Hamlet and the trifling of his favour,
Hold it a fashion and a toy in blood.
No more.

OPHELIA
No more but so?

LAERTES
Think it no more;
Perhaps he loves you now: but you must fear,
His greatness weigh’d, his will is not his own;
(So) weigh what loss your honour may sustain,
If with too credent ear you list his songs,
Or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure open
To his unmaster’d importunity.
Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister,
And keep you in the rear of your affection,
Out of the shot and danger of desire.

OPHELIA
I shall the effect of this good lesson keep,
As watchman to my heart.

Enter POLONIUS

LORD POLONIUS
Yet here, Laertes! aboard, aboard, for shame!
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
And you are stay’d for. There; my blessing with thee!
And these few precepts in thy memory
See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportioned thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Beware of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,
Bear’t that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
This above all: to thine ownself be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell: my blessing season this in thee!

LAERTES
Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord.
Farewell, Ophelia; and remember well
What I have said.

OPHELIA
’Tis in my memory lock’d,
And you yourself shall keep the key of it.

LAERTES Exit

LORD POLONIUS
What is’t, Ophelia, he hath said to you?

OPHELIA
So please you, something touching the Lord Hamlet.

LORD POLONIUS
’Tis told me he hath very oft of late
Given private time to you; and you yourself
Have of your audience been most free and bounteous: 40
What is between you? Give me up the truth.

OPHELIA
He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders
Of his affection to me.

LORD POLONIUS
Affection! pooh! you speak like a green girl,
Do you believe his tenders, as you call them? 45

OPHELIA
My lord, he hath importuned me with love
In honourable fashion.

LORD POLONIUS
These blazes, daughter,
You must not take for fire. From this time
Be something scanter of your maiden presence,
Set your entreatments at a higher rate.
Do not believe his vows, for they are brokers.
The better to beguile. This is for all:
I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth,
Have you so slander any moment leisure,
As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet.
Look to’t, I charge you. Come your ways.

OPHELIA
I shall obey, my lord.

Exeunt

ACT I, SCENE IV. Elsinore. The platform before the castle.

Enter HAMLET, HORATIO, and MARCELLUS

HAMLET
The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.
What hour now?

HORATIO
I think it lacks of twelve.

HAMLET
No, it is struck.

HORATIO
It then draws near the season
Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk.
Look, my lord, it comes! 5

Enter Ghost

HAMLET
Angels and ministers of grace defend us!
Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn’d,
Thou comest in such a questionable shape
That I will speak to thee: I’ll call thee Hamlet,
King, father, royal Dane: O, answer me! 10
Let me not burst in ignorance; but tell
Why thy canonized bones, hearsed in death,
Have burst their cerements; why the sepulchre,
Hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws,
To cast thee up again. What may this mean? 15

Ghost beckons HAMLET

HORATIO
It beckons you to go away with it,
As if it some impartment did desire
To you alone.

MARCELLUS
But do not go with it.

HAMLET
It will not speak; then I will follow it.

HORATIO
Do not, my lord.

HAMLET
Why, what should be the fear?

HORATIO
What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord,
Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff
And draw you into madness? Think of it.

HAMLET
It waves me still. Go on; I’ll follow thee.
Hold off your hands.
I say, away! Go on; I’ll follow thee. 25
Exeunt Ghost and HAMLET

HORATIO
He waxes desperate with imagination.

MARCELLUS
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
Let’s follow him.

Exeunt

ACT I, SCENE V. Elsinore. The castle. Another part of the platform.

Enter Ghost and HAMLET

HAMLET
Where wilt thou lead me? speak; I’ll go no further.

GHOST
Mark me.

HAMLET
I will.

GHOST
My hour is almost come.

HAMLET
Speak; I am bound to hear.

GHOST
So art thou to revenge when thou shalt hear.

HAMLET
What?

GHOST
I am thy father’s spirit, 5
Doom’d for a certain term to walk the night,
Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
Are burnt and purged away. 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 sould, freeze thy young blood,
And each particular hair to stand an end.
List, list, O, list!
If thou didst ever thy dear father love –

HAMLET
O God! 10

GHOST
Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.

HAMLET
Murder!

GHOST
Murder most foul, as in the best it is,
But this most foul, strange and unnatural.

HAMLET
Haste me to know’t, that I, with wings as swift 15
As meditation or the thoughts of love,
May sweep to my revenge.

GHOST
Now, Hamlet, hear:
’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 20
Now wears his crown.

HAMLET
O my prophetic soul! My uncle!

GHOST
Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast,
With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts, –
So to seduce! – won to his shameful lust 25
The will of my most seeming-virtuous queen:
O Hamlet, what a falling-off was there!
But, soft! methinks I scent the morning air;
Brief let me be. Sleeping within my orchard,
Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole, 30
With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial,
And in the porches of my ears did pour
The leperous distilment;
Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother’s hand
Of life, of crown, of queen, at once dispatch’d. 35
O, horrible! O, horrible! most horrible!
But, howsoever thou pursuest this act,
Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive
Against thy mother aught: leave her to heaven.
The glow-worm shows the matin to be near,
Adieu, adieu, adieu. Remember me.

Exit

HAMLET
O all you host of heaven! O earth! what else?
And shall I couple hell? O, fie! Hold, hold, my heart.
And you my sinews, grow not instand old,
But bear me stiffly up. Remember thee!
Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory hold 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!
O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!
So, uncle, there you are. Now to my word;
It is ‘Adieu, adieu! remember me’.
I have sworn ’t.

Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS

HORATIO
What news, my lord?

HAMLET
O, wonderful!

HORATIO
Good my lord, tell it.

HAMLET
There’s ne’er a villain dwelling in all Denmark
But he’s an arrant knave.

HORATIO
There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave
To tell us this.

HAMLET
Why, right; you are i’ the right;
It is an honest ghost, that let me tell you:
For your desire to know what is between us,
O’ermaster ’t as you may. And now, good friends, 60
As you are friends, scholars and soldiers,
Give me one poor request.

HORATIO
What is’t, my lord? we will.

HAMLET
Never make known what you have seen to-night.

HORATIO/MARCELLUS
My lord, we will not.

HAMLET
Nay, but swear’t. 65
Upon my sword.

MARCELLUS
We have sworn, my lord, already.

Ghost
(Beneath) Swear.

HAMLET
Come on – you hear this fellow in the cellarage –
Consent to swear.

Ghost

(Beneath) Swear.

HAMLET
Come hither, gentlemen,
And lay your hands again upon my sword: 70
Never to speak of this that you have heard,
Swear by my sword.

Ghost
(Beneath) Swear.

HORATIO
O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!

HAMLET
And therefore as a stranger give it welcome. 75
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. But come;
How strange or odd some’er I bear myself,
As I perchance hereafter shall think meet
To put an antic disposition on, 80
That you, at such times seeing me never note
That you know aught of me: this do swear.

Ghost
(Beneath) Swear.

They swear

HAMLET
Rest, rest, perturbed spirit! So, gentlemen,
With all my love I do commend me to you: 85
The time is out of joint: O cursed spite,
That ever I was born to set it right!

Exeunt

ACT II, SCENE I. A room in POLONIUS’ house.

Enter OPHELIA to POLONIUS

OPHELIA
O, my lord, my lord, I have been so affrighted!

LORD POLONIUS
With what, i’ the name of God?

OPHELIA
My lord, as I was sewing in my closet,
Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbraced;
Pale as his shirt; his knees knocking each other; 5
And with a look so piteous in purport
As if he had been loosed out of hell
To speak of horrors, – he comes before me.

LORD POLONIUS
Mad for thy love?

OPHELIA
My lord, I do not know.
But truly I do fear it.

LORD POLONIUS
What said he?
OPHELIA
He took me by the wrist and held me hard;
Then falls to such perusal of my face
As he would draw it. Long stay’d he so;
At last, a little shaking of mine arm –
He raised a sigh so piteous and profound 15
As it did seem to shatter all his bulk
And end his being: that done, he lets me go:
And seem’d to find his way without his eyes;
For out o’ doors he went without their helps,
And, to the last, bended their light on me. 20

LORD POLONIUS
This is the very ecstasy of love,
What, have you given him any hard words of late?

OPHELIA
No, my good lord, but, as you did command,
I did repel his letters and denied
His access to me.

LORD POLONIUS
That hath made him mad. 25
I am sorry that with better heed and judgement
I had not quoted him: I fear’d he did but trifle,
Come, go we to the King: This must be known.

Exeunt

ACT II, SCENE II. A room in the castle.

Enter CLAUDIUS, GERTRUDE, Rosencrantz and Guildentsterm

KING
Welcome, dear
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
Moreover that we much did long to see you,
The need we have to use you did provoke
Our hasty sending. Something have you heard
Of Hamlet's transformation. So I call it,
Since not the outer nor the inward man
Resembles what it was. What it should be,
More than his father's death, that thus hath put him
So much from th' understanding of himself,
I cannot dream of. I entreat you both
That, being of so young days brought up with him,
You draw him on to pleasures, and to gather
So much as from occasion you may glean,
Whether aught to us unknown afflicts him thus
That, open'd, lies within our remedy.

QUEEN
Good gentlemen, he hath much talk'd of you,
And sure I am two men there are not living
To whom he more adheres. If it will please you
Thus to expend your time with us awhile
For the supply and profit of our hope,
Your visitation shall receive such thanks
As fits a king's remembrance.

ROSENCRANTZ
Both your majesties
Might, by the sovereign power you have of us,
Put your dread pleasures more into command
Than to entreaty.

GUILDENSTERN
But we both obey,
And here give up ourselves, in the full bent,
To lay our service freely at your feet,
To be commanded.

KING
Thanks, Rosencrantz and gentle Guildenstern

QUEEN
Thanks, Guildenstern and gentle Rosencrantz.
And I beseech you instantly to visit
My too much changed son.

Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

Enter Polonius

LORD POLONIUS
Assure you, my good liege,
I hold my duty, as I hold my soul,
Both to my God and to my gracious King:
And I do think, my lord, that I have found
The very cause of Hamlet’s lunacy. 5

KING CLAUDIUS
O, speak of that; that do I long to hear.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
I doubt it is no other but the main;
His father’s death, and our o’erhasty marriage.

LORD POLONIUS
My liege, and madam, to expostulate
What majesty should be, what duty is, 10
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.
That he is mad, ’tis true: ’tis true ’tis pity; 15
And pity ’tis ’tis true: 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.
I have a daughter – have while she is mine – 20
Hath given me this: now gather, and surmise.

(Reads)

‘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. Thus: 25
‘In her excellent white bosom, these, & c’.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Came this from Hamlet to her?

LORD POLONIUS
Good madam, stay awhile; I will be faithful.

(Reads)

‘O dear Ophelia, I have not art to reckon my groans: but that I love
thee best, O most best, believe it. Adieu. 30
Thine evermore most dear lady, whilst this machine is to him, HAMLET’.
This, in obedience, hath my daughter shown me.

KING CLAUDIUS
But how hath she received his love?

LORD POLONIUS
Oh, my young mistress thus I did bespeak:
‘Lord Hamlet is a prince, out of thy star;
This must not be’. And then I precepts gave her,
That she should lock herself from his resort,
And he, repulsed – fell into a sadness,
Into the madness wherein now he raves, 40
And all we mourn for.

KING CLAUDIUS
Do you think ’tis this?

QUEEN GERTRUDE
It may be, very likely.

KING CLAUDIUS
How may we try it further?

LORD POLONIUS
You know, sometimes he walks four hours together
Here in the lobby.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
So he does indeed.

LORD POLONIUS
At such a time I’ll loose my daughter to him: 45
Be you and I behind an arras then;
Mark the encounter.

KING CLAUDIUS
We will try it.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
But, look, where sadly the poor wretch comes reading.

LORD POLONIUS
I’ll board him presently.

Exeunt CLAUDIUS and GERTRUDE

Enter HAMLET, reading

How does my good Lord Hamlet? 50

HAMLET
Well, God-a-mercy.
LORD POLONIUS
Do you know me, my lord?

HAMLET
Excellent well; you are a fishmonger.

LORD POLONIUS
Not I, my lord.

HAMLET
Have you a daughter? 55

LORD POLONIUS
I have, my lord.

HAMLET
Let her not walk i’ the sun. Conception is a blessing, but as
your daughter may conceive – Friend, look to ’t.

LORD POLONIUS
(Aside) How say you by that? Still harping on my daughter:
yet he knew me not at first; he said I was a fishmonger: he is far
gone, far gone: What do you read, my lord?

HAMLET
Words, words, words.

LORD POLONIUS
What is the matter that you read, my lord?

HAMLET
Slanders, sir: for the satirical rogue says here that old men have
grey beards, that their faces are wrinkled, and that they have a
plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams. For
yourself, sir, shall grow old as I am, if like a crab you could
go backward.

LORD POLONIUS
(Aside) Though this be madness, yet there is method in ’t – My
honourable lord, I will most humbly take my leave of you.

HAMLET
You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I will more willingly
part withal: except my life, except my life, except my life.
LORD POLONIUS
Fare you well, my lord.

Exit

HAMLET
These tedious old fools!

Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN

HAMLET
My excellent good friends! How dost thou, Guildenstern? Ah,
Rosencrantz! Good lads, how do ye both? 75

ROSENCRANTZ
As the indifferent children of the earth.

GUILDENSTERN
Happy, in that we are not over-happy.

HAMLET
What’s the news?

ROSENCRANTZ
None, my lord, but that the world’s grown honest.

HAMLET
Then is doomsday near: but what have you deserved at the hands 80
of fortune, that she sends you to prison hither?

GUILDENSTERN
Prison, my lord!

HAMLET
Denmark’s a prison.

ROSENCRANTZ
We think not so, my lord.

HAMLET
Why, then, ’tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad, 85
but thinking makes it so: to me it is a prison.

ROSENCRANTZ
Why, your ambition makes it one; ’tis too narrow for your mind.
HAMLET
O God, I could be bounded in a nut shell and count myself a
king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams. What
make you at Elsinore? 90

ROSENCRANTZ
To visit you, my lord; no other occasion.

HAMLET
Were you not sent for? Is it your own inclining?

GUILDENSTERN
What should we say, my lord?

HAMLET
I know the good King and Queen have sent for you.

ROSENCRANTZ
To what end, my lord? 95

HAMLET
That you must teach me. If you love me, hold not off.

GUILDENSTERN
My lord, we were sent for.

HAMLET
I will tell you why; I have of late – but wherefore I know not – lost
all my mirth, and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that
this goodly frame, the earth, why, it appears no other thing to me than 100
a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work
is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in action
how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god. 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. 105

ROSENCRANTZ
My lord, there was no such stuff in my thoughts.

HAMLET
Why did you laugh then, when I said ‘man delights not me’?

ROSENCRANTZ
To think, my lord, if you delight not in man, what lenten entertain-
ment the players shall receive from you: hither are they coming –
HAMLET
He that plays the King shall be welcome. You are welcome to 110
Elsinore: but my uncle-father and aunt-mother are deceived.

GUILDENSTERN
In what, my dear lord?

HAMLET
I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is southerly I
know a hawk from a handsaw.

Enter POLONIUS

LORD POLONIUS
The actors are come hither, my lord. 115

Enter Players

HAMLET
You are welcome, masters; come, a passionate speech.

First Player
What speech, my lord?

HAMLET
I heard thee speak me a speech once, but it was never acted. But
it was an excellent play – let me see; It begins with Pyrrhus –

First Player
‘Anon he finds him 120
Striking too short at Greeks; his antique sword,
Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls,
Repugnant78 to command: unequal match’d,
Pyrrhus at Priam drives; in rage strikes wide;
But with the whiff 79 and wind of his fell80 sword 125
The unnerved father falls’.

HAMLET
Say on.

First Player
‘But who – ah, woe! – had seen the mobled queen –
Run barefoot up and down, threatening the flames
Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steep’d, 130
’Gainst Fortune’s state would treason have pronounced:
But if the gods themselves did see her then
When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport
In mincing with his sword her husband’s limbs,
The instant burst of clamour that she made, 135
Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven,
And passion in the gods’.

LORD POLONIUS
Look, whether he has not turned his colour and has tears
in’s eyes. Pray you, no more. Come, sirs.

HAMLET
Follow him, friends: we’ll hear a play to-morrow. 140

Exit POLONIUS with all the Players but the First

Dost thou hear me, old friend; can you play the Murder of Gonzago?

First Player
Ay, my lord.

HAMLET
You could, for a need, study a speech of some dozen or sixteen
lines, which I would set down and insert in’t, could you not?

First Player
Ay, my lord. 145

HAMLET
Very well. Follow that lord; and look you mock him not.

Exit First Player

My friends, I’ll leave you till night: you are welcome to Elsinore.

ROSENCRANTZ
Good my lord!

Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN

HAMLET
Now I am alone.
O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I! 150
Is it not monstrous that this player here,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit
Tears in his eyes, distraction in’s aspect,
A broken voice, and all for nothing! O!
Yet I, can say nothing; no, not for a king, 155
Upon whose property and most dear life
A damn’d defeat was made. Am I a coward?
‘Swounds, I should take it: for it cannot be
But I am pigeon-liver’d and lack gall
To make oppression bitter, O, vengeance! 160
Fie upon’t! foh!91 About, my brain! 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 proclaim’d their malefactions; 165
I’ll have these players
Play something like the murder of my father
Before mine uncle: I’ll observe his looks;
If he do blench, I know my course –
The play’s the thing 170
Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.

Exit

ACT III, SCENE I. A room in the castle.

Enter CLAUDIUS, GERTRUDE, POLONIUS, and OPHELIA

KING CLAUDIUS
Sweet Gertrude, leave us
For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither,
That he, may here, affront Ophelia:
We will bestow ourselves that, seeing, unseen,
We may of their encounter frankly judge, 5
If ’t be the affliction of his love or no
That thus he suffers for.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
I shall obey you.
And for your part, Ophelia, I do wish
That your good beauties be the happy cause
Of Hamlet’s wildness.

OPHELIA
Madam, I wish it may. 10

Exit QUEEN GERTRUDE

LORD POLONIUS
Ophelia, walk you here. Gracious, so please you,
We will bestow ourselves.
Exeunt KING CLAUDIUS and POLONIUS. Enter HAMLET

HAMLET
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 wish'd. 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,
When he can take himself to his own rest
With his own bodkin? Who would these burdens bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death-
The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn
No traveller 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 o'er with the pale cast of thought....
Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia!- Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins rememb'red.

OPHELIA
Good my lord, 25
How does your honour for this many a day?

HAMLET
I humbly thank you; well, well, well.

OPHELIA
My lord, I have remembrances of yours,
That I have longed long to re-deliver;
I pray you, now receive them. 30
HAMLET
No, not I; I never gave you aught.

OPHELIA
My honour’d lord, you know right well you did;
And, with them, words of so sweet breath composed
As made the things more rich: There, my lord.

HAMLET
Ha, ha! are you honest?

OPHELIA
My lord?

HAMLET
Are you fair? 35

OPHELIA
What means your lordship?

HAMLET
That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no
discourse to your beauty. I did love you once.

OPHELIA
Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.

HAMLET
You should not have believed me; I loved you not. 40

OPHELIA
I was the more deceived.

HAMLET
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 that it were better my mother had not borne me:
Go thy ways to a nunnery. Where’s your father? 45

OPHELIA
At home, my lord.

HAMLET
Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool no
where but in’s own house. Farewell. 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. Get thee to a 50
nunnery, go: farewell.

OPHELIA
O heavenly powers, restore him!

HAMLET
God has given you one face, and you make yourselves another.
Go to, I’ll no more on’t; it hath made me mad. I say, we will
have no more marriages: To a nunnery go. 55

Exit

OPHELIA
O, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown!
And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
That suck’d the honey of his music vows,
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh; 60
That unmatch’d form and feature of blown youth
Blasted with ecstasy: O, woe is me,
T’have seen what I have seen, see what I see!

Re-enter KING CLAUDIUS and POLONIUS

KING CLAUDIUS
Love! his affections do not that way tend;
There’s something in his soul, 65
Will be some danger; which for to prevent,
Thus set it down; he shall with speed to England,
Haply the seas and countries shall expel
This something-settled matter in his heart.

LORD POLONIUS
My lord, do as you please; 70
But, if you hold it fit, after the play
Let his queen mother all alone entreat him
To show his grief.

KING CLAUDIUS
It shall be so.
Madness in great ones must not unwatch’d go.

Exeunt
ACT III, SCENE II. A hall in the castle.
Enter HAMLET and Players

HAMLET
Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly
on the tongue: but if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I
had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the
air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently. Suit the action
to the word, the word to the action; with this special observance, 5
that you o’erstep not the modesty of nature. For anything so
o’erdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end was and is
to hold as ’twere the mirror up to nature. Go, make you ready.

What ho! Horatio!

Enter HORATIO

HORATIO
Here, sweet lord, at your service. 10

HAMLET
There is a play to-night before the King;
One scene of it comes near the circumstance
Which I have told thee of my father’s death:
I prithee, when thou seest that act afoot,
Observe mine uncle: if his occulted guilt 15
Do not itself unkennel in one speech,
It is a damned ghost that we have seen.

HORATIO
If he steal aught the whilst this play is playing,
And ’scape detecting, I will pay the theft.

HAMLET

They are coming to the play. 20

Enter CLAUDIUS, GERTRUDE, POLONIUS, OPHELIA, and others

KING CLAUDIUS
How fares our cousin Hamlet?

HAMLET
Excellent, i’ faith; of the chameleon’s dish: I eat the air, promise-
crammed.
KING CLAUDIUS
I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet; these words are not mine.

HAMLET
No, nor mine now. Be the players ready? 25

POLONIUS
Aye, my lord; they stay upon your patience.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me.

HAMLET
No, good mother, here’s metal more attractive.

HAMLET
Lady, shall I lie in your lap?

OPHELIA
No, my lord.

HAMLET
I mean, my head upon your lap?

OPHELIA
Ay, my lord.

HAMLET
Do you think I meant country matters?

OPHELIA
You are merry, my lord.

HAMLET
What should a man do but be merry? for, look you, how cheer-
fully my mother looks, and my father died within these two hours.

OPHELIA
Nay, ’tis twice two months, my lord.

HAMLET
So long? O heavens! die two months ago, and not forgotten yet?
Prologue
For us, and for our tragedy,
We beg your hearing patiently.

Exit

HAMLET
Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?

OPHELIA
’Tis brief, my lord. 45

HAMLET
As woman’s love.

The dumb-show enters.

Enter a King and a Queen very lovingly; the Queen kneels. He takes her up, and declines his
head upon her neck: she lies him down upon a bank of flowers: once asleep, she leaves him.

Anon comes in another Man, takes off his crown, kisses it, and pours poison in the King’s ears,
and exits. The Queen returns; finds the King dead, and makes passionate action. The Poisoner
comes in again, seeming to lament with her. The Poisoner woos the Queen with gifts: she seems
loath a while but in the end accepts his love.

OPHELIA
What means this, my lord?

HAMLET
Ooh, it means mischielf

Enter two Players, King and Queen

Player King
‘Faith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly too;
And thou shalt live in this fair world behind,
Honour’d, beloved; and haply one as kind
For husband shalt thou –

Player Queen
O, 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 kill’d the first.
A second time I kill my husband dead,
When second husband kisses me in bed.

Player King
’Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here awhile;
My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile
The tedious day with sleep. (Sleeps)

Player Queen
Sleep rock thy brain
And never come mischance between us twain! 65

Exit

HAMLET
Madam, how like you this play?

QUEEN GERTRUDE
The lady protests too much, methinks.

HAMLET
O, but she’ll keep her word.

KING CLAUDIUS
Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in ’t?

HAMLET
No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest. 70

KING CLAUDIUS
What do you call the play?

HAMLET
The Mouse-trap. This play is the image of a murder done in Vienna.

Enter LUCIANUS
This is one Lucianus, nephew to the King.

OPHELIA
You are as good as a chorus, my lord.

HAMLET
I could interpret between you and your love, if I could see 75
the puppets dallying. Begin, murderer.

LUCIANUS
Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected,
With Hecate’s ban thrice blasted, thrice infected,
Thy natural magic and dire property,
On wholesome life usurp immediately.

Pours the poison into the sleeper’s ears

HAMLET
He poisons him i’ the garden for’s estate. His name’s Gonzago:
you shall see how the murderer gets the love of Gonzago’s wife.

OPHELIA
The King rises.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
How fares my lord?

LORD POLONIUS
Give o’er the play. 85

KING CLAUDIUS
Give me some light: away!

All
Lights, lights, lights!

Exeunt all but HAMLET and HORATIO

HAMLET
O good Horatio, I’ll take the ghost’s word for a thousand
pound. Didst perceive?

HORATIO
Very well, my lord. 90

HAMLET
Upon the talk of the poisoning?

HORATIO
I did very well note him.

HAMLET
Ah, ha! Come, some music! come, the recorders!

Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN

Exit HORATIO
GUILDENSTERN
Good my lord, the King, sir, –

HAMLET
Ay, sir, what of him? 95

GUILDENSTERN
Is in his retirement marvellous distempered.

HAMLET
With drink, sir?

GUILDENSTERN
No, my lord, rather with choler.

HAMLET
Your wisdom should signify this to his doctor. 100

GUILDENSTERN

Good my lord, the queen, your mother, in most great affliction

of spirit, hath sent me to you.

HAMLET
You are welcome.

GUILDENSTERN
Nay, good my lord. If it shall please you to make me a whole-
some answer, I will do your mother’s commandment: if not,
your pardon and my return shall be the end of my business. 105

HAMLET
Sir, I cannot.

GUILDENSTERN
What, my lord?

HAMLET
Make you a wholesome answer; my wit’s diseased: but, sir, my
mother, you say, –

ROSENCRANTZ
She desires to speak with you in her closet, ere you go to bed. 110

HAMLET
We shall obey. Have you any further trade with us?
ROSENCRANTZ
Good 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.

HAMLET

(holding out a recorder)

Will you play upon this pipe? 115

GUILDENSTERN
My lord, I cannot.

HAMLET
I do beseech you.

GUILDENSTERN
I know no touch of it, my lord.

HAMLET
’Tis as easy as lying: govern these ventages with your
fingers and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and 120
it will discourse most eloquent music.

GUILDENSTERN
But these cannot I command to any harmony; I have not the skill.

HAMLET
Why, look how unworthy a thing you make of me! You
would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops;
’Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? 125
Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me,
yet you cannot play upon me.

Enter POLONIUS

LORD POLONIUS
My lord, the Queen would speak with you, and presently.

HAMLET
Do you see yonder cloud that’s almost in shape of a camel?

LORD POLONIUS
By the mass, and ’tis like a camel, indeed. 130
HAMLET
Methinks it is like a weasel.

LORD POLONIUS
It is backed like a weasel.

HAMLET
Or like a whale?

LORD POLONIUS
Very like a whale.

HAMLET
Then I will come to my mother by and by. 135
Leave me, friends.

Exit POLONIUS, ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN

Now to my mother. O heart, lose not thy nature;

I will speak daggers to her, but use none.

Exit

ACT III, SCENE III. A room in the castle.

Enter KING CLAUDIUS, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN

KING CLAUDIUS
I like him not, nor stands it safe with us
To let his madness range. Therefore prepare you;
I your commission will forthwith dispatch,
And he to England shall along with you.

ROSENCRANTZ/GUILDENSTERN

We will haste us. 5

Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN

Enter POLONIUS

LORD POLONIUS
My lord, he’s going to his mother’s closet:
Behind the arras I’ll convey myself,
To hear the process.

KING CLAUDIUS
 Thanks, dear my lord.

Exit POLONIUS

O, my offence is rank it smells to heaven;

It hath the primal eldest curse upon’t, 10
A brother’s murder. – What form of prayer
Can serve my turn? ‘Forgive me my foul murder’?
That cannot be; since I am still possess’d
Of those effects for which I did the murder,
My crown, mine own ambition and my queen. 15
May one be pardon’d and retain the offence?
Try what repentance can: what can it not?
Yet what can it when one cannot repent?
O wretched state! O bosom black as death!
Bow, stubborn knees; and, heart with strings of steel, 20
Be soft as sinews of the newborn babe!
All may be well. (He kneels)

Enter HAMLET

HAMLET
Now might I do it pat, now he is praying;
And now I’ll do’t. And so he goes to heaven;
A villain kills my father; and for that, 25
I, his sole son, do this same villain send
To heaven…No!
Up, sword; and know thou a more horrid hent:
When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage,
Or in the incestuous pleasure of his bed; 30
Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven,
And that his soul may be as damn’d and black
As hell, whereto it goes.

Exit

KING CLAUDIUS
(Rising)
My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:
Words without thoughts never to heaven go. 35

Exit

ACT III, SCENE IV. The QUEEN’s closet.

Enter QUEEN GERTRUDE and POLONIUS
LORD POLONIUS
Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear with,
I’ll silence me even here.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Fear me not: withdraw, I hear him coming.

POLONIUS hides behind the arras

Enter HAMLET

HAMLET
Now, mother, what’s the matter?

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended. 5

HAMLET
Mother, you have my father much offended.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.

HAMLET
Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Why, how now, Hamlet!
Have you forgot me?

HAMLET
No, by the rood, not so: 10
You are the queen, your husband’s brother’s wife;
And – would it were not so! – you are my mother.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Nay, then, I’ll set those to you that can speak.

HAMLET
Come, come, and sit you down; you shall not budge;
You go not till I set you up a glass 15
Where you may see the inmost part of you.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murder me?
Help, help, ho!
LORD POLONIUS
(Behind) What, ho! help, help, help!

HAMLET
How now! a rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead!

Makes a pass through the arras

LORD POLONIUS

(Behind) O, I am slain!

Falls and dies

QUEEN GERTRUDE

O me, what hast thou done? 20

HAMLET
Nay, I know not, is it the King?

QUEEN GERTRUDE
O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!

HAMLET
A bloody deed! almost as bad, good mother,
As kill a king, and marry with his brother.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
As kill a king!

HAMLET
Ay, lady, ’twas my word. 25

(Lifts up the arras and discovers POLONIUS)

Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!

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.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
What have I done, that thou dar’st wag thy tongue 30
In noise so rude against me?

HAMLET
 Such an act
That blurs the grace and blush of modesty,
Look here, upon this picture, and on this,
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
See, what a grace was seated on this brow; 35
This was your husband. Look you now, what follows:
Here is your husband; like a mildew’d ear,
Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes?
You cannot call it love; and what judgement
Would step from this to this? 40
O shame! where is thy blush?

QUEEN GERTRUDE
O Hamlet, speak no more:
Thou turn’st mine eyes into my very soul;
And there I see such black and grained spots
As will not leave their tinct.

HAMLET
Nay, but to live 45
In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed,
Stew’d in corruption, honeying and making love
Over the nasty sty, –

QUEEN GERTRUDE
O, speak to me no more;
These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears;
No more, sweet Hamlet! 50

Enter Ghost

HAMLET
Save me, and hover o’er me with your wings,
You heavenly guards! What would your gracious figure?

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Alas, he’s mad!

HAMLET
Do you not come your tardy son to chide? O, say!

Ghost
Do not forget: this visitation 55
Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.
But, look, amazement on thy mother sits:
Speak to her, Hamlet.
HAMLET
How is it with you, lady?

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Alas, how is’t with you,
That you do bend your eye on vacancy 60
And with th’incorporal air do hold discourse?
O gentle son, whereon do you look?

HAMLET
Do you see nothing there?

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.

HAMLET
Why, look you there! look, how it steals away!65
My father, in his habit as he lived!

Exit Ghost

QUEEN GERTRUDE
This is the very coinage of your brain.

HAMLET
My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time,
And makes as healthful music: it is not madness
That I have utter’d. Mother, for love of grace, 70
Confess yourself to heaven;
Repent what’s past; avoid what is to come.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.

HAMLET
O, throw away the worser part of it,
And live the purer with the other half. 75
Once more, good night. For this same lord
I will bestow him, and will answer well
The death I gave him.
One word more, good lady.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
What shall I do?
HAMLET
Let the bloat King tempt you again to bed; 80
And make you ravel all this matter out,
That I essentially am not in madness,
But mad in craft. ’Twere good you let him know.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Be thou assured, if words be made of breath,
And breath of life, I have no life to breathe 85
What thou hast said to me.

HAMLET
I must to England; you know that?

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Alack, I had forgot: ’tis so concluded on.

HAMLET
There’s letters seal’d: and my two schoolfellows,
Whom I will trust as I will adders fang’d, 90
They bear the mandate.
This man shall set me packing.
Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you.
Good night, mother.

Exeunt severally: HAMLET dragging in POLONIUS

ACT IV, SCENE I. A room in the castle.
Enter CLAUDIUS and GERTRUDE

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Ah, my good lord, what have I seen to-night!

KING CLAUDIUS
What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Mad as the sea and wind; in his lawless fit,
Behind the arras hearing something stir,
Whips out his rapier, cries, ‘A rat, a rat!’ 5
And, in this brainish apprehension, kills
The unseen good old man.

KING CLAUDIUS
O heavy deed!
Where is he gone?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
To draw apart the body he hath kill’d.

KING CLAUDIUS
The sun no sooner shall the mountains touch, 10
But we will ship him hence: and this vile deed
We must, with all our majesty and skill,
Both countenance and excuse. O, come away!

Exeunt

ACT IV, SCENE II – cut

ACT IV, SCENE III. Another room in the castle.

Enter KING CLAUDIUS, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN

KING CLAUDIUS
How dangerous is it that this man goes loose!

Enter HAMLET

KING CLAUDIUS
Now, Hamlet, where’s Polonius?

HAMLET
At supper.

KING CLAUDIUS
At supper! where?

HAMLET
Not where he eats, but where he is eaten: a certain convocation 5
of politic worms are e’en at him.

KING CLAUDIUS
Alas, alas! Where is Polonius?

HAMLET
In heaven; if your messenger find him not there, seek him i’ the
other place yourself. But indeed, if you find him not within this
month, you shall nose him as you go up the stairs into the lobby. 10

KING CLAUDIUS
Go seek him there.

HAMLET
He will stay till you come.

Exit ROSENCRANTZ

KING CLAUDIUS
Hamlet, this deed, must send thee hence.
Therefore prepare thyself. Everything is bent
For England.

HAMLET
For England!

KING CLAUDIUS
Ay, Hamlet.

HAMLET
Good. 15
For England! Farewell, dear mother.

KING CLAUDIUS
Thy loving father, Hamlet.

HAMLET
My mother: father and mother is man and wife;
Man and wife is one flesh; and so, my mother.
Come, for England!

Exit

KING CLAUDIUS
Follow him at foot. 20
Delay it not; I’ll have him hence to-night:
Away! pray you, make haste.

Exit GUILDENSTERN

And, England, thou mayst not coldly set

Our sovereign process; which imports at full,
By letters congruing to that effect, 25
The present death of Hamlet. Do it, England;

Exit

ACT IV, SCENE IV – cut

ACT IV, SCENE V. Elsinore. A room in the castle.

Enter QUEEN GERTRUDE and HORATIO

HORATIO
She is importunate, indeed distract:
Her mood will needs be pitied.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
What would she have?

HORATIO
She speaks much of her father; speaks things in doubt,
That carry but half sense.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Let her come in. 5

Exit HORATIO

To my sick soul, as sin’s true nature is,

Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss.

Re-enter HORATIO, with OPHELIA

OPHELIA
Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?

QUEEN GERTRUDE
How now, Ophelia!

OPHELIA

(Sings)

How should I your true love know 10

From another one?
By his cockle hat and staff,
And his sandal shoon.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?

OPHELIA
Say you? nay, pray you, mark. 15
(Sings) He is dead and gone, lady,
He is dead and gone;
At his head a grass-green turf,
At his heels a stone.

Enter KING CLAUDIUS

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Alas, look here, my lord. 20

OPHELIA
White his shrowd166 as the mountain snow –
Larded167 with sweet flowers
Which bewept to the grave did go
With true-love showers.

KING CLAUDIUS
How do you, pretty lady?25

OPHELIA
Well, good dild you! They say the owl was a baker’s daughter.
Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be.
God be at your table!

KING CLAUDIUS
Conceit upon her father.

OPHELIA
Pray you, let’s have no words of this 30

KING CLAUDIUS
Pretty Ophelia!

OPHELIA
Indeed, la, without an oath, I’ll make an end on’t:
By Gis169 and by Saint Charity,
Alack, and fie for shame!
Young men will do’t, if they come to’t; 35
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. 40

KING CLAUDIUS
How long hath she been thus?

OPHELIA
We must be patient: but I cannot choose but weep, to think they
should lay him i’ the cold ground. My brother shall know of it:
and so I thank you for your good counsel. Come, my coach!
Good night, ladies; good night, sweet ladies; good night. 45

Exit

KING CLAUDIUS
Follow her close; give her good watch,
I pray you.

Exit HORATIO
O, this is the poison of deep grief; it springs
All from her father’s death.
A noise within

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Alack, what noise is this? 50

Enter LAERTES, armed

LAERTES
O thou vile King,
Give me my father!

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Calmly, good Laertes.

KING CLAUDIUS
Why thou art thus incensed. Let him go, Gertrude.

LAERTES
Where is my father?

KING CLAUDIUS
Dead.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
But not by him.

LAERTES
How came he dead? I’ll not be juggled with: 55
To hell, allegiance! I’ll be revenged
Most thoroughly for my father.

KING CLAUDIUS
Good Laertes,
If you desire to know the certainty
Of your dear father’s death, is’t writ in your revenge,
That, swoop stake, you will draw both friend and foe, 60
Winner and loser?

LAERTES
To his good friends thus wide I’ll ope my arms;
And like the kind life-rendering pelican,
Repast them with my blood.

KING CLAUDIUS
Why, now you speak
Like a good child and a true gentleman. 65
That I am guiltless of your father’s death,
It shall as level to your judgement pierce
As day does to your eye.

Re-enter OPHELIA

LAERTES
O heat, dry up my brains! O rose of May!
Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!70
O heavens! is’t possible, a young maid’s wits
Should be as mortal as an old man’s life?

OPHELIA
(Sings)

They bore him barefaced on the bier;

Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny;
And in his grave rain’d many a tear: – 75

Fare you well, my dove!

There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; pray, love, remember:
and there is pansies, that’s for thoughts.

LAERTES
A document in madness, thoughts and remembrance fitted.

OPHELIA
There’s a daisy: I would give you some violets, but they withered 80
all when my father died: they say he made a good end, –

(Sings)
And will he not come again?
And will he not come again?
No, no, he is dead:
Go to thy death-bed: 85
He never will come again.
God a mercy on his soul!
And of all Christian souls, I pray God. God buy you.

Exit

LAERTES
Do you see this, O God?

KING CLAUDIUS
Laertes, I must commune with your grief. 90

LAERTES
His means of death, his obscure funeral –
No noble rite nor formal ostentation –
That I must call’t in question.

KING CLAUDIUS
So you shall;
And where the offence is let the great axe fall.
I pray you, go with me.

Exeunt

ACT IV, SCENE VI. Another room in the castle.

Enter HORATIO reading

HORATIO
(Reads) ‘Horatio, when thou shalt have overlooked this – Let the King
have the letters I have sent; and repair thou to me with as much sped
as thou wouldst fly death. I have words to speak in thine ear will make
thee dumb; yet are they much too light for the bore of the matter.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern hold their course for England: of them 5
I have much to tell thee. Farewell.
He that thou knowest thine,
HAMLET’

Exit

ACT IV, SCENE VII. Another room in the castle.

Enter KING CLAUDIUS and LAERTES

KING CLAUDIUS
Now you must put me in your heart for friend,
Sith you have heard, and with a knowing ear,
That he which hath your noble father slain
Pursued my life.

LAERTES
It well appears: but tell me
Why you proceeded not against these feats, 5
So crimeful and so capital in nature.

KING CLAUDIUS
The queen his mother lives almost by his looks;
She’s so conjunctive to my life and soul,
I could not but by her. The other motive,
Is the great love the general gender bear him. 10

LAERTES
And so have I a noble father lost;
A sister driven into desperate terms,
But my revenge will come.

Enter a Messenger

Messenger
Letters, my lord, from Hamlet:

KING CLAUDIUS
From Hamlet? 15
Laertes, you shall hear them. Leave us.

Exit Messenger

(Reads) ‘High and mighty, you shall know I am set naked on your king-
dom. Tomorrow shall I beg leave to see your kingly eyes: when I shall
recount the occasion of my sudden and more strange return.
HAMLET’ 20

What should this mean? Are all the rest come back?

LAERTES
I’m lost in it, my lord. But let him come;
It warms the very sickness in my heart,
That I shall live and tell him to his teeth,
‘Thus diest thou’ .25

KING CLAUDIUS
Hamlet comes back: what would you undertake,
To show yourself your father’s son in deed
More than in words?

LAERTES
To cut his throat i’ the church.

KING CLAUDIUS
No place, indeed, should murder sanctuarize; 30
Revenge should have no bounds.
We’ll put on those shall praise your swordsmanship
And wager on your heads: he, being remiss,
Will not peruse the foils; so you may choose
A sword unbated, and in a pass of practice 35
Requite him for your father.

LAERTES
I will do’t:
And, for that purpose, I’ll anoint my sword.
I bought an unction of a mountebank,
So mortal that, but dip a knife in it,
Where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare, 40
Can save the thing from death.

KING CLAUDIUS
Soft! let me see:
When in your motion you are hot and dry –
And that he calls for drink, I’ll have prepared him
A chalice for the nonce, whereon but sipping,
If he by chance escape your venom’d stuck, 45
Our purpose may hold there.

Enter QUEEN GERTRUDE

How now, sweet queen!

QUEEN GERTRUDE
One woe doth tread upon another’s heel,
So fast they follow; your sister’s drown’d, Laertes.

LAERTES
Drown’d! O, where? 50

QUEEN GERTRUDE
There is a willow grows aslant a 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 55
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 lauds; 60
As one incapable of her own distress,
– but long it could not be
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pull’d the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.

LAERTES
Alas, then, she is drown’d? 65

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Drown’d, drown’d.

LAERTES
Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia,
And therefore I forbid my tears: Adieu, my lord:
I have a speech of fire, that fain would blaze,
But that this folly douts it. 70

Exit followed by CLAUDIUS and GERTRUDE

ACT V, SCENE I. A churchyard.

Enter Grave-digger – HAMLET and HORATIO, at a distance

Grave-digger
(He digs and sings)

In youth, when I did love, did love,

Methought it was very sweet,
To contract, O, the time, for, ah, my behove,
O, methought, there was nothing meet.

(Throws up a skull)

HAMLET
That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once: 5
Whose grave’s this, sirrah?

Grave-digger
Mine, sir.
HAMLET
What man dost thou dig it for?

Grave-digger
For no man, sir.

HAMLET
What woman, then? 10

Grave-digger
For none, neither.

HAMLET
Who is to be buried in’t?

Grave-digger
One that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she’s dead.

HAMLET
How long hast thou been a grave-maker?

Grave-digger
Of all the days i’ the year, I came to’t that day that our last 15
King Hamlet overcame Fortinbras. It was the very day that
young Hamlet was born; he that is mad, and sent into England.

HAMLET
Ay, marry, why was he sent into England?

Grave-digger
Why, because he was mad.

HAMLET
How came he mad? 20

Grave-digger
Very strangely, they say.

HAMLET
Upon what ground?

Grave-digger
Why, here in Denmark.

HAMLET
How long will a man lie i’ the earth ere he rot?
Grave-digger
I’ faith, if he be not rotten before he die – he will last you some 25
eight year or nine year. Here’s a skull now; this skull has lain
in the earth three and twenty years.

HAMLET
Whose was it?

Grave-digger
This same skull, sir, was Yorick’s skull, the King’s jester.

HAMLET
Let me see. 30

Takes the skull

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest:

he hath borne me on his back a thousand times. Here hung those
lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes
now? your songs? To what base uses we may return, Horatio!
But soft! but soft! aside: here comes the King. 35

Procession. The corpse of OPHELIA followed by Priest, LAERTES, CLAUDIUS and

GERTRUDE

The Queen, the courtiers: who is this they follow?

And with such maimed rites? This doth betoken
The corse they follow did with desperate hand
Fordo its own life: Couch we awhile, and mark.

Retiring with HORATIO

LAERTES
What ceremony else? 40

Priest
Her obsequies have been as far enlarged
As we have warranty. Her death was doubtful.

LAERTES
Must there no more be done?

First Priest
No more be done.
LAERTES
Lay her i’ the earth: 45
And from her fair and unpolluted flesh
May violets spring!

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Sweets to the sweet: farewell!
I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet’s wife.
I thought thy bride-bed to have deck’d, sweet maid, 50
And not have strew’d thy grave.

HAMLET
What, the fair Ophelia!

LAERTES
Hold off the earth awhile,
Till I have caught her once more in mine arms.
Leaps into the grave

HAMLET
(Advancing) What is he whose grief 55
Bears such an emphasis? This is I,
Hamlet the Dane.
Leaps into the grave

LAERTES
The devil take thy soul!

Grappling with him

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Hamlet, Hamlet!

HORATIO
Good my lord, be quiet.

HORATIO parts them, and they come out of the grave

HAMLET
I loved Ophelia: forty thousand brothers
Could not, with all their quantity of love, 60
Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?

KING CLAUDIUS
O, he is mad, Laertes.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
For love of God, forbear him.

HAMLET
Woo’t weep? woo’t fight? woo’t fast? woo’t tear thyself?
I’ll do’t. Dost thou come here to whine? 65
Be buried quick with her, and so will I.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
This is mere madness.

HAMLET
What is the reason that you use me thus?
I loved you ever: but it is no matter. 70

Exit

KING CLAUDIUS
I pray you, good Horatio, wait upon him.

Exit HORATIO

(To LAERTES) Strengthen your patience in our last night’s speech. Good Gertrude, set some
watch over your son.

Exeunt

ACT V, SCENE II. A hall in the castle.

Enter HAMLET and HORATIO

HAMLET
I found, Horatio, – O royal knavery! – an exact command,
My head should be struck off.

HORATIO
Is’t possible?

HAMLET
Here’s the commission: read it at more leisure.

HORATIO
So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to’t?

HAMLET
Why, man, they did make love to this employment; 5
They are not near my conscience; their defeat
Does by their own insinuation grow.

HORATIO
Why, what a king is this!

HAMLET
He that hath kill’d my king and whored my mother,
Thrown out his angle for my proper life, 10
And with such cozenage – is’t not perfect conscience,
To quit him with this arm? But I am sorry
That to Laertes I forgot myself.

HORATIO
Peace! who comes here?

Enter OSRIC

OSRIC
My lord, his majesty bade me signify that he has laid a great wager 15
on your head. Sir, here is newly come to court Laertes; an absolute
gentleman. You are not ignorant of what excellence Laertes is.

HAMLET
What’s his weapon?

OSRIC
Rapier and dagger.

HAMLET
That’s two of his weapons: but, well. 20

OSRIC
The King, sir, hath laid, that in a dozen passes between yourself
and him, he shall not exceed you three hits: if your lordship
would vouchsafe the answer.

HAMLET
Let the foils be brought, I will win for him an I can.

OSRIC
I commend my duty to your lordship. 25

Exit OSRIC

HORATIO
You will lose this wager, my lord.
HAMLET
I do not think so: since he went into France, I have been in
continual practice: I shall win at the odds.

HORATIO
Nay, good my lord, – I will forestall their repair hither, and say
you are not fit. 30

HAMLET
Not a whit: there’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow.
If it be now, ’tis 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.

Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, LAERTES and OSRIC

KING CLAUDIUS
Come, Hamlet, come, and take this hand from me.

KING CLAUDIUS puts LAERTES’ hand into HAMLET’s

HAMLET
Give me your pardon, sir: I’ve done you wrong; 35
But pardon’t, as you are a gentleman.
And you must needs have heard, how I am punish’d
With sore distraction. What I have done,
That might your nature, honour and exception
Roughly awake, I here proclaim was madness. 40
Was’t Hamlet wrong’d Laertes? Never Hamlet.
Who does it, then? His madness: if’t be so,
His madness is poor Hamlet’s enemy.
And I have shot mine arrow o’er the house,
And hurt my brother.

LAERTES
I am satisfied in nature, 45
Whose motive, in this case, should stir me most
To my revenge: but in my terms of honour
I stand aloof; and will no reconcilement,
Till by some elder masters, of known honour,
I have a voice and precedent of peace, 50
To keep my name ungored. But till that time,
I do receive your offer’d love like love,
And will not wrong it.

HAMLET
 I embrace it freely;
Give us the foils. Come on.

LAERTES
Come, one for me.

KING CLAUDIUS
Give them the foils, young Osric. 55

LAERTES
This is too heavy, let me see another.

HAMLET
This likes me well.

They prepare to play

KING CLAUDIUS
Set me the stoops of wine upon that table.
‘Now the King drinks to Hamlet’. Come, begin.

HAMLET
Come on, sir. 60

LAERTES
Come, my lord.
They play

HAMLET
One.

LAERTES
No.

HAMLET
Judgement.

OSRIC
A hit, a very palpable hit. 65

LAERTES
Well; again.

KING CLAUDIUS
Stay, give me drink. Hamlet, this pearl is thine.
Here’s to thy health. Give him the cup.
HAMLET
I’ll play this bout first; set it by awhile. Come.

They play

Another hit; what say you? 70

LAERTES
A touch, a touch, I do confess.

KING CLAUDIUS
Our son shall win.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
He’s fat, and scant of breath.
Here, Hamlet, take my napkin, rub thy brows;
The Queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet.

HAMLET
Good madam!

KING CLAUDIUS
Gertrude, do not drink. 75

QUEEN GERTRUDE
I will, my lord; I pray you, pardon me.

KING CLAUDIUS
(Aside) It is the poison’d cup: it is too late.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Come, let me wipe thy face.

LAERTES
My lord, I’ll hit him now.

KING CLAUDIUS
I do not think’t.

LAERTES
(Aside) And yet ’tis almost ’gainst my conscience. 80

HAMLET
Come, for the third, Laertes: you but dally;
I am afeard you make a wanton of me.
LAERTES
Say you so? come on.
They play

LAERTES
Have at you now!

LAERTES wounds HAMLET; then in scuffling, they change rapiers, and HAMLET wounds
LAERTES

KING CLAUDIUS
Part them; they are incensed.

HAMLET
Nay, come, again. 85

QUEEN GERTRUDE falls

OSRIC
Look to the Queen there, ho!

HORATIO
They bleed on both sides. How is it, my lord?

OSRIC
How is’t, Laertes?

LAERTES
Osric; I am justly kill’d with mine own treachery.

HAMLET
How does the Queen?

KING CLAUDIUS
She swoons to see them bleed. 90

QUEEN GERTRUDE
No, no, the drink, the drink, – O my dear Hamlet, –
The drink, the drink! I am poison’d.

Dies

HAMLET
O villany! Ho! let the door be lock’d:
Treachery! Seek it out.
LAERTES
It is here, Hamlet: Hamlet, thou art slain; 95
The treacherous instrument is in thy hand,
Unbated and envenom’d: the foul practise
Hath turn’d itself on me lo, here I lie,
Never to rise again: thy mother’s poison’d:
I can no more: the King, the King’s to blame. 100

HAMLET

The point envenom’d too! Then, venom, to thy work.

Stabs KING CLAUDIUS

KING CLAUDIUS
O, yet defend me, friends; I am but hurt.

HAMLET
Here, thou incestuous, murderous, damned Dane,
Drink off this potion. Is thy union here?
Follow my mother.

KING CLAUDIUS dies

LAERTES
He is justly served; 105
It is a poison temper’d by himself.
Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet:
Mine and my father’s death come not upon thee,
Nor thine on me.

Dies

HAMLET
Heaven make thee free of it! I follow thee. 110
I am dead, Horatio. Wretched queen, adieu!
Had I but time – But let it be – Horatio,
Thou livest; report me and my cause aright
To the unsatisfied.

HORATIO
Never believe it:
Here’s yet some liquor left.

HAMLET
 As thou’rt a man, 115
Give me the cup: let go; by heaven, I’ll have’t.
If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart
Absent thee from felicity awhile,
To tell my story. O, I die, Horatio;
The potent poison quite o’ercrows my spirit: 120
The rest is silence.

Dies

HORATIO
Now cracks a noble heart. Good night sweet prince:
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!
Bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to the stage;
For he was likely, had he been put on, 125
To have proved most royal: and for his passage,
The soldiers’ music and the rites of war
Speak loudly for him. Go, bid the soldiers shoot.

Exeunt marching, after which a peal of ordnance is shot off