Hamlet
[Hamlet picks up two paintings]
Look here upon this picture, and on this,
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
[Pointing to the picture of King Hamlet]
See what a grace was seated on his brow:
Hyperion's curls, the front of Jove himself,
An eye like Mars to threaten or command,
A station like the herald Mercury
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.
[Pointing to a picture of Claudius]
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
The heyday in the blood is tame. It's humble
And waits upon the judgment, and what judgment
Would step from this to this? What devil was't
That thus has cozened you at hoodman-blind?
Oh 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 does burn,
Gertrude
Oh, Hamlet speak no more!
Thou turn'st mine very eyes into my soul,
And there I see such black and grainèd spots
As will not leave their tinct.
Hamlet
In the rank sweat of an enseamèd bed,
Stewed in corruption, honeying and making love
Gertrude
These words, like daggers, enter in my ears.
Hamlet
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 ...
Gertrude
[Enter Ghost.]
Hamlet
A king of shreds and patches ...
[Seeing the Ghost]
Save me and hover o'er me with your wings,
You heavenly guards! What would you, gracious figure?
Gertrude
Hamlet
Do you not come your tardy son to chide,
That, lapsed in time and passion, lets go by
Th' important acting of your dread command? Oh, say!
Ghost
Do not forget! This visitation
Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.
[The ghost gestures toward Gertrude]
But look, amazement on thy mother sits;
Oh, step between her and her fighting soul!
Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works.
Hamlet
How is it with you, lady?
Gertrude
That you do bend your eye on vacancy,
And with th' incorporal air do hold discourse?
Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep;
And, as the sleeping soldiers in th' alarm,
Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,
Start up and stand an end. Oh gentle son,
Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper
Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look?
Hamlet
On him, on him! Look you how pale he glares!
His form and cause conjoined, preaching to stones,
Would make them capable. [To Ghost] Do not look upon me,
Lest with this piteous action you convert
My stern effects. Then what I have to do
Will want true color — tears perchance for blood.
Gertrude
To whom do you speak this?
Hamlet
Do you see nothing there?
Gertrude
Nothing at all; yet all that is, I see.
Hamlet
Nor did you nothing hear?
Gertrude
No, nothing but ourselves.
Hamlet
Why, look you there, look how it steals away!
My father in his habit as he lived.
Look where he goes, even now out at the portal!
[Exit Ghost.]
Gertrude
This is the very coinage of your brain;
This bodiless creation ecstasy,
Hamlet
My pulse, as yours, does temperately keep time,
And makes as healthful music. It is not madness
That I have uttered. Bring me to the test,
And I the matter will reword, which madness
Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,
Lay not a flattering unction to your soul —
That not your trespass, but my madness speaks.
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place,
Whilst rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven,
Repent what's past, avoid what is to come,
And do not spread the compost o'er the weeds
To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue;
For in the fatness of these pursy times,
Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg –
Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good.
Gertrude
Oh, Hamlet, thou have cleft my heart in twain.
Hamlet
Oh, throw away the worser part of it,
And live the purer with the other half.
Good night. But go not to mine uncle's bed.
Assume a virtue if you have it not.
And that shall lend a kind of easiness
To the next abstinence. Once more good night,
And when you are desirous to be blest,
I'll blessing beg of you.
[Pointing to Polonius' body]
[Pointing to dead Polonius]
I do repent. But heaven has pleased it so
To punish me with this, and this with me —
That I must be their scourge and minister.
I will bestow him and will answer well
The death I gave him. So, again, good night.
I must be cruel only to be kind.
This bad begins, and worse remains behind.
Gertrude
Hamlet
Not this by no means that I bid you do:
Let the bloat king tempt you again to bed,
Pinch wanton on your cheek, call you his mouse,
And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses
Or paddling in your neck with his damned fingers,
Make you to ravel all this matter out —
That I essentially am not in madness,
But mad in craft. 'Twere good you let him know,
For who that's but a queen, fair, sober, wise,
Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib,
Such dear concernings hide? Who would do so?
No, in despite of sense and secrecy,
Unpeg the basket on the house's top,
Let the birds fly, and like the famous ape,
To try conclusions in the basket creep
And break your own neck down.
Gertrude
Be thou assured, if words be made of breath,
And breath of life, I have no life to breathe
What thou have said to me.
Hamlet
I must to England, you know that?
Gertrude
I had forgot. 'Tis so concluded on.
Hamlet
[Pointing to Polonius' body]
This man shall set me packing.
I'll lug the guts into the neighbor room.
Mother, good night. Indeed, this counselor
Is now most still, most secret, and most grave,
Who was in life a foolish prating knave.
[To Polonius’s body] Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you.
[Exit Hamlet, dragging Polonius.]
