Hamlet (Modern, based on Quarto 1)

1745Ophelia My lord, I have sought opportunity, which now ¶I have, to redeliver to your worthy hands a small remembrance, such tokens which I have received of you.

1760Hamlet Are you fair?

¶Ophelia My lord?

¶Hamlet Are you honest?

¶Ophelia What means my lord?

¶Hamlet That if you be fair and honest, your beauty should admit no discourse to your honesty.

¶Ophelia My lord, can beauty have better privilege than 1765with honesty?

¶Hamlet Yea, marry, may it; for beauty may [sooner] transform ¶honesty from what she was into a bawd than honesty can transform beauty. ¶This was sometimes a paradox, but now the time gives it scope. ¶I never gave you nothing.

¶Ophelia My lord, you know right will you did, ¶And with them such earnest vows of love ¶as would have moved the stoniest breast alive

¶Hamlet I never loved you.

¶Ophelia You made me believe you did.

¶Hamlet Oh, thou shouldst not ha' believed me! ¶Go to a nunnery, go. Why shouldst thou ¶be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest, ¶but I could accuse myself of such crimes it had been better my mother had ne'er borne me. ¶Oh, I am very proud, ambitious, disdainful, 1780with more sins at my beck than I have thoughts ¶to put them in. What should such fellows as I ¶do, crawling between heaven and earth? ¶To a nunnery, go. We are arrant knaves all.Believe none of us. To a nunnery, go.

¶Ophelia Oh, heavens secure him!

1785Hamlet Where's thy father?

¶Ophelia At home, my lord.

¶Hamlet For God's sake, let the doors be shut on him, he may play the fool nowhere but in his ¶own house. To a nunnery, go.

Ophelia Help him, good God!

1790Hamlet If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague to thy dowry: ¶be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, ¶Thou shalt not scape calumny. To a nunnery, go.

1792.1Ophelia Alas, what change is this?

¶Hamlet But if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool, ¶for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go.

¶Ophelia Pray God restore him!

¶Hamlet Nay, I have heard of your paintings, too. ¶God hath given you one face and you make yourselves another. 1800You fig, and you amble, and you nickname God's creatures, ¶making your wantonness your ignorance. ¶A pox, 'tis scurvy. I'll no more of it It hath made me mad. I'll no more marriages. ¶All that are married, but one, shall live, ¶The rest shall keep as they are. To a nunnery, go. 1805To a nunnery, go! Exit.

Now, my good lord, do you know me?

¶Hamlet Yea, very well, y'are a fishmonger.

¶Corambis Not I, my lord.

¶Hamlet Then, sir, I would you were so honest a man. 1215For to be honest, as this age goes, is one man to be picked out of ten thousand.

¶Corambis What doe you read, my lord?

1230Hamlet Words, words.

¶Corambis What's the matter, my lord?

¶Hamlet Between who?

¶Corambis I mean the matter you read, my lord.

1233.1Hamlet Marry, most vile heresy: ¶For here the satyrical satyre writes 1235that old men have hollow eyes, weak backs, grey beards, pitiful weak hams, gouty legs, ¶all which, sir, I most potently believe not. 1240For, sir, yourself shall be old as I am, ¶if, like a crab, you could go backward.

¶Corambis [Aside]: How pregnant his replies are, and full of wit! ¶Yet at first he took me for a fishmonger. 1226.1All this comes by love, the vehemency of love; ¶and when I was young, I was very idle, ¶and suffered much ecstasy in love, very near this.-- ¶Will you walk out of the air, my lord?

¶Hamlet Into my grave.

¶Corambis By the mass, that's out of the air, indeed. Very shrewd answers.-- ¶My lord I will take my leave of you.

¶Hamlet You can take nothing from me, sir, I will more willingly part withal.-- ¶Old doating fool!

¶Corambis [To Gilderstone and Rossencraft]: You seek Prince Hamlet. See, there he is. Exit.

1263.1Gilderstone Health to your lordship!

1270Hamlet What, Gilderstone, and Rossencraft! ¶Welcome, kind schoolfellows, to Elsinore.

1417.1Gilderstone

1320Hamlet I thank you, but is this vistitation free of ¶yourselves, or were you not sent for? ¶Tell me true, come, I know the good King and Queen ¶sent for you. There is a kind of confession in your eye. ¶Come, I know you were sent for.

¶Gilderstone [Aside to Rossencraft.]: What say you?

¶Hamlet [Aside] Nay, then, I see how the wind sits. [To them]Come, you were sent for.

¶Rossencraft My lord, we were, and willingly, if we might, know the cause and ground of your discontent.

2210Hamlet Why, I want preferment.

¶Rossencraft I think not so, my lord.

1345Hamlet Yes faith, this great world you see contents me not, ¶no, nor the spangled heavens, nor earth nor sea; 1355no, nor man, that is so glorious a creature, contents not me—no, nor woman too, though you laugh.

¶Gilderstone My lord, we laugh not at that.

1360Hamlet Why did you laugh, then, when I said, man did not content me?

¶Gilderstone My lord, we laughed, when you said man did not content you. ¶what entertainment the players shall have? ¶We boarded them o'the way. They are coming to you.

¶Hamlet Players? What players be they?

1375Rossencraft My lord, the tragedians of the city, ¶those that you took delight to see so often.

¶Hamlet How comes it that they travel? Do they grow resty?

1385Gilderstone No, my lord, their reputation holds as it was wont.

1385.1Hamlet How then?

¶Gilderstone I'faith, my lord, novelty carries it away. For the principal public audience that came to them are turned to private plays, and to the humor of children.

¶Hamlet I do not greatly wonder of it, 1410for those that would make mops and mows at my uncle when my father lived ¶now give a hundred, two hundred pounds ¶for his picture. But they shall be welcome. He that plays the King shall have tribute of me, ¶the venturous Knight shall use his foil and target, ¶the Lover shall sigh gratis, 1370the Clown shall make them laugh that are tickled in the lungs or the blank verse shall halt for't, ¶and the Lady shall have leave to speak her mind freely. 1415 The Trumpets sound. Enter Corambis. 1430Do you see yonder great baby? He is not yet out of his swaddling-clouts.

¶Gilderstone That may be, for they say an old man ¶is twice a child.

¶Hamlet I'll prophesy to you he comes to tell me o'the players.-- 1435You say true, o'Monday last, 'twas so indeed.

¶Corambis My lord, I have news to tell you.

¶Hamlet My lord, I have news to tell you: ¶when Roscius was an Actor in Rome--

1440Corambis The actors are come hither, my lord.

¶Hamlet Buzz, buzz.

¶Corambis The best actors in Christendom, either for comedy, tragedy, history, pastoral, 1445pastoral-historical, historical-comical, ¶comical-historical-pastoral, tragedy-historical: ¶Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plato too light; ¶for the law hath writ those are the only men.

¶Hamlet O Jephthah, judge of Israel! What a treasure hadst thou?

¶Corambis Why, what a treasure had he, my lord?

¶Corambis [Aside]: Ah, still harping o'my daughter!—Well, my lord, If you call me Iephthah, I have a daughter that ¶I love passing well.

1460Hamlet Nay that follows not.

¶Corambis What follows, then, my lord?

¶Players What speech, my good lord?

¶Hamlet I heard thee speak a speech once, but it was never acted, or, if it were, 1480never above twice, for, as I remember, ¶it pleased not the vulgar; it was caviary to the million. But to me ¶and others that received it in the like kind, ¶cried in the top of their judgments, an excellent play, ¶set down with as great modesty as cunning. 1485One said there was no sallets in the lines to make them savory, ¶but called it an honest method, as wholesome as sweet. ¶Come, a speech in it I chiefly remember was Aeneas' tale to Dido, 1490and then especially where he talks of princes' slaughter. ¶If it live in thy memory, begin at this line-- ¶let me see—

1503.1So, go on.

¶Corambis Afore God, my lord, well spoke, and with good accent.

¶Corambis Enough, my friend. 'Tis too long.

¶Hamlet It shall to the barber's with your beard. 1540 [To the First Player]A pox! He's for a jig or a tale of bawdry, Or else he sleep. Come on to Hecuba, come.

¶Corambis Moblèd queen is good, faith, very good.

1560Corambis Look, my lord, if he hath not changed his color, and hath tears in his eyes.--No more, good heart, no more!

¶Hamlet 'Tis well, 'tis very well. [To Polonius I pray, my lord, ¶will you see the players will bestowed? ¶I tell you,, they are the chronicles 1565and brief abstracts of the time. After your death, I can tell you, ¶you were better have a bad epitaph than their ill report while you live.

¶Corambis My lord, I will use them according to their deserts.

1570Hamlet Oh. far better, man. Use every man after his deserts, ¶then who should scape whipping? Use them after your own honor and dignity. ¶The less they deserve, the greater credit's yours.

1575Corambis [To the Players]: Welcome, my good fellows. Exit.

¶Hamlet [As the Players are about to follow Corambis]: Come hither, masters. Can you not play the ¶murder of Gonzago?

¶Players Yes, my lord.

1580Hamlet And couldst not thou for a need study me ¶Some dozen or sixteen lines, Which I would set down and insert?

¶Players Yes, very easily my good lord.

¶Hamlet 'Tis well. I thank you. Follow that lord. And, do you hear, sirs? Take heed you mock him not. 1584.1 [To Gilderstone and Rossencraft]Gentlemen, for your kindness I thank you, 1585and for a time I would desire you leave me.

1585.1Gilderstone Our love and duty is at your command.