Internet Shakespeare Editions

Toolbox




Jump to line
Help on texts

About this text

  • Title: Hamlet (Modern, Folio)
  • Editor: David Bevington
  • ISBN: 978-1-55058-434-9

    Copyright David Bevington. This text may be freely used for educational, non-profit purposes; for all other uses contact the Editor.
    Author: William Shakespeare
    Editor: David Bevington
    Not Peer Reviewed

    Hamlet (Modern, Folio)

    Enter Queen and Polonius.
    2375Polonius
    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 silence me e'en here.
    2380Pray you, be round with him.
    Hamletwithin Mother, mother, mother!
    Queen
    I'll warrant you, fear me not.
    Withdraw; I hear him coming.
    [Polonius conceals himself behind the arras.]
    Enter Hamlet.
    2385Hamlet
    Now mother, what's the matter?
    Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.
    Hamlet
    Mother, you have my father much offended.
    Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.
    Hamlet
    Go, go, you question with an idle tongue.
    Why, how now, Hamlet?
    Hamlet
    What's the matter now?
    Have you forgot me?
    Hamlet
    No, by the rood, not so.
    You are the queen, your husband's brother's wife,
    2395But--would you were not so!--you are my mother.
    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
    2400Where you may see the inmost part of you.
    What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murder me?
    Help, help, ho!
    Polonius[Behind the arras]
    What ho! Help, help, help!
    Hamlet
    How now, a rat? Dead for a ducat, dead!
    [He stabs through the arras with his rapier.]
    2405Polonius
    [Behind the arras] Oh, I am slain!
    [Hamlet] kills Polonius.
    Queen
    Oh, me, what hast thou done?
    Hamlet
    Nay I know not. Is it the King?
    Oh, what a rash and bloody deed is this!
    Hamlet
    A bloody deed--almost as bad, good mother,
    2410As kill a king, and marry with his brother.
    As kill a king?
    Hamlet
    Ay, lady, 'twas my word.
    [He parts the arras and discovers the dead Polonius.]
    Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!
    I took thee for thy betters. Take thy fortune.
    2415Thou find'st to be too busy is some danger.
    [To the Queen]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 damnèd custom have not brazed it so
    2420That it is proof and bulwark against sense.
    What have I done, that thou dar'st wag thy tongue
    In noise so rude against me?
    Hamlet
    Such an act
    That blurs the grace and blush of modesty,
    2425Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose
    From the fair forehead of an innocent love
    And makes a blister there, makes marriage vows
    As false as dicers' oaths--oh, such a deed
    As from the body of contraction plucks
    2430The 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,
    Is thought-sick at the act.
    2435Queen
    Ay me, what act,
    That roars so loud and thunders in the index?
    Hamlet[Showing her two likenesses]:
    Look here upon this picture, and on this,
    The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
    See what a grace was seated on his brow:
    2440Hyperion'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
    2445Where 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 breath. Have you eyes?
    2450Could 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
    2455Would step from this to this? What devil was't
    That thus hath cozened you at hoodman-blind?
    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
    2460And melt in her own fire. Proclaim no shame
    When the compulsive ardor gives the charge,
    Since frost itself as actively doth burn
    As reason panders will.
    Oh, Hamlet speak no more!
    2465Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul,
    And there I see such black and grainèd spots
    As will not leave their tinct.
    Hamlet
    Nay, but to live
    In the rank sweat of an enseamèd bed,
    2470Stewed in corruption, honeying and making love
    Over the nasty sty!
    Oh, speak to me no more!
    These words like daggers enter in mine ears.
    No more, sweet Hamlet.
    2475Hamlet
    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
    2480And put it in his pocket--
    No more!
    Enter Ghost.
    Hamlet
    A king of shreds and patches--
    [Seeing the Ghost]Save me and hover o'er me with your wings,
    2485You heavenly guards! What would you, gracious figure?
    Alas, he's mad!
    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!
    2490Ghost
    Do not forget. This visitation
    Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.
    But look, amazement on thy mother sits.
    Oh, step between her and her fighting soul!
    Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works.
    2495Speak to her, Hamlet.
    Hamlet
    How is it with you, lady?
    Alas, how is't with you,
    That you bend your eye on vacancy,
    And with th'incorporal air do hold discourse?
    2500Forth 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 on end. O gentle son,
    Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper
    2505Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look?
    On him, on him! Look you how pale he glares!
    His form and cause conjoined, preaching to stones,
    Would make them capable. [To the Ghost] Do not look upon me,
    Lest with this piteous action you convert
    2510My stern effects. Then what I have to do
    Will want true color, tears perchance for blood.
    To who do you speak this?
    Do you see nothing there?
    Nothing at all, yet all that is I see.
    Nor did you nothing hear?
    No, nothing but ourselves.
    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].
    This is the very coinage of your brain.
    This bodiless creation ecstasy is very cunning in.
    Ecstasy?
    My pulse as yours doth temperately keep time,
    And makes as healthful music. It is not madness
    2525That 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.
    2530It 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
    2535To make them rank. Forgive me this my virtue,
    For in the fatness of this pursy times
    Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg,
    Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good.
    Oh, Hamlet, 2540thou hast cleft my heart in twain.
    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. Refrain tonight,
    2545And 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. For this same lord,
    I do repent; but heaven hath pleased it so
    2550To 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.
    2555Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.
    What shall I do?
    Not this by no means that I bid you do:
    Let the blunt King tempt you again to bed,
    Pinch wanton on your cheek, call you his mouse,
    2560And 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,
    2565For 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 dispite of sense and secrecy,
    Unpeg the basket on the house's top,
    2570Let the birds fly, and like the famous ape,
    To try conclusions, in the basket creep
    And break your own neck down.
    Be thou assured, if words be made of breath
    And breath of life, I have no life to breathe
    2575What thou hast said to me.
    I must to England. You know that?
    Alack, I had forgot. 'Tis so concluded on.
    This man shall set me packing.
    I'll lug the guts into the neighbor room.
    2580Mother, good night. Indeed, this counselor
    Is now most still, most secret, and most grave,
    Who was in life a foolish prating knave.--
    Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you.--
    Good night, mother.
    2585Exit Hamlet, tugging in Polonius.