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 me 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?

Ham. No, by the rood, not so:

You are the queen, your husband's brother's

wife;

[mother. And-would it were not so! you are my 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!

Ham.

How now; a rat?

[Draws.

Dead, for a ducat, dead.

[HAMLET makes a pass through the arras.

Pol. [behind.] O, I am slain.

[Falls and dies.

Nay, I know not:

Queen. O me, what hast thou done?

Ham.

Is it the king?

[Lifts up the arras, and draws forth POLONIUS. Queen. O, what a rash and bloody deed is

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, farewell!

ger.

I took thee for thy better; take thy fortune:
Thou find'st to be too busy is some dan
[down,
Leave wringing of your hands: peace, sit you
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?

Ham.
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: O, 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;

50 Yea, this solidity and compound mass,
With tristful visage, as against the doom,
Is thought-sick at the act.

Queen.
Ah me, what act,
That roars so loud, and thunders in the in

dex?
[this ;-
Ham. Look here upon this picture and on
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 mildew'd 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 apoplex'd: for madness would not err;
Nor sense to ecstasy was ne'er so thrall'd
But it reserved some quantity of choice,
To serve in such a difference. What devil
was't

That thus hath cozen'd 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.

Stew'd in corruption—

Nay, but to live

80

90

100

Queen.

O, speak to me no more;

These words, like daggers, enter in mine

ears;

No more, sweet Hamlet!

Ham.
A murderer and a villain :
A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe
Of your precedent lord :--a vice of kings;
A cutpurse of the empire and the rule,
That from a shelf the precious diadem stole
And put it in his pocket!

Queen.

No more! Ham. A king of shreds and patches:

Enter Ghost.

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

Queen. Alas! he's mad.

Ham. Do you not come your tardy son to chide,

That, laps'd in time and passion, lets go by The important acting of your dread command?

O, say!

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

Ham.

How is it with you, lady?
Queen. Alas, how is't with you,
That you do bend your eye on vacancy,