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SCENE IV

The Queen's Closet

Enter QUEEN and POLONIUS

Pol. He will come straight. Look you lay home to him.

Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear with,
And that your grace hath screened and stood between
Much heat and him. I'll 'sconce me even here.
Pray you, be round with him.

Ham. [Within] Mother, mother, mother!
Queen.

I'll warrant you;

Fear me not. Withdraw, I hear him coming.

[POLONIUS hides behind the arras

Enter HAMLET

Ham. Now, mother, what's the matter?

Queen. Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.
Ham. Mother, you have my father much offended.
Queen. Come, come, you answer with an idle

tongue.

Ham. Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.
Queen. Why, how now, Hamlet?

Ham.

What's the matter now?

Queen. Have you forgot me?

10

Ham.

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. Queen. Nay, then I'll set those to you that can speak.

Ham. Come, come, and sit you down; you shall not budge;

You go not till I set you up a glass

20 Where you may see the inmost part of you.

Queen. What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murder me?

Help, help, ho!

Pol. [Behind] What, ho help, help, help!

[blocks in formation]

[Lifts up the arras, and discovers POLONIUS

Queen. Oh, what a rash and bloody deed is this!

Ham. A bloody deed! almost as bad, good mother, 30 As kill a king, and marry with his brother.

Queen. As kill a king?

Ham.

Ay, lady, 'twas my word.. [TO POL.] Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, fare

well!

I took thee for thy better; take thy fortune;
Thou find'st 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;

If damned custom have not brazed it so

That it is proof and bulwark against sense.

Queen. What have I done, that thou dar'st wag

thy tongue

In noise so rude against me?

Нат.

Such an act

That blurs the grace and blush of modesty,
Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose
From the fair forehead of an innocent love
And sets a blister there; makes marriage vows
As false as dicers' oaths; oh, such a deed
As from the body of contraction plucks
The very soul, and sweet religion makes
A rhapsody of words; heaven's face doth glow;
Yea, this solidity and compound mass,

With tristful visage, as against the doom,

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Is thought-sick at the act.

Queen.
Ay me, what act,
That roars so loud, and thunders in the index?

Ham. Look here upon this picture and on this;
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
See what a grace was seated on this brow:
Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself;
An eye like Mars, to threaten or command;
A station like the herald Mercury,
60 New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill;
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? Ha! have you eyes?
You cannot call it love, for at your age

70 The hey-day in the blood is tame, it's humble,

And waits upon the judgment; and what judgment Would step from this to this? Sense sure you have, Else could you not have motion: but sure that sense Is apoplexed; for madness would not err,

Nor sense to ecstasy was ne'er so thralled
But it reserved some quantity of choice,

To serve in such a difference. What devil was't
That thus hath cozened you at hoodman-blind?
Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight,
Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all,
Or but a sickly part of one true sense
Could not so mope.

O shame! where is thy blush? Rebellious hell,
If thou canst mutine in a matron's bones,
To flaming youth let virtue be as wax,

And melt in her own fire; proclaim no shame
When the compulsive ardor gives the charge;
Since frost itself as actively doth burn,

And reason panders will.

Queen.

O Hamlet, speak no more;

Thou turnest mine eyes into my very soul;
And there I see such black and grainèd spots

As will not leave their tinct.

Ham.

Stewed in corruption —

Queen.

Nay, but to live

Oh, speak to me no more;

These words like daggers enter in mine ears;
No more, sweet Hamlet!

Ham.

A murderer and a villain;

80

90

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