Hamlet by William Shakespeare
Act 3 - Scene 1
Elsinore. A room in the Castle.
Claudius : And can you by no drift of circumstance
[p]Get from him why he puts on
this confusion,
[p]Grating so harshly all his days of quiet
[p]With
turbulent and dangerous lunacy?
Rosencrantz : He does confess he feels himself distracted,
[p]But from what cause he
will by no means speak.
Guildenstern : Nor do we find him forward to be sounded,
[p]But with a crafty madness
keeps aloof
[p]When we would bring him on to some confession
[p]Of his
true state.
Gertrude : Did he receive you well?
Rosencrantz : Most like a gentleman.
Guildenstern : But with much forcing of his disposition.
Rosencrantz : Niggard of question, but of our demands
[p]Most free in his reply.
Gertrude : Did you assay him
[p]To any pastime?
Rosencrantz : Madam, it so fell out that certain players
[p]We o'erraught on the
way. Of these we told him,
[p]And there did seem in him a kind of
joy
[p]To hear of it. They are here about the court,
[p]And, as I
think, they have already order
[p]This night to play before him.
Polonius : 'Tis most true;
[p]And he beseech'd me to entreat your Majesties
[p]To
hear and see the matter.
Claudius : With all my heart, and it doth much content me
[p]To hear him so
inclin'd.
[p]Good gentlemen, give him a further edge
[p]And drive his
purpose on to these delights.
Rosencrantz : We shall, my lord.
Claudius : Sweet Gertrude, leave us too;
[p]For we have closely sent for Hamlet
hither,
[p]That he, as 'twere by accident, may here
[p]Affront
Ophelia.
[p]Her father and myself (lawful espials)
[p]Will so bestow
ourselves that, seeing unseen,
[p]We may of their encounter frankly
judge
[p]And gather by him, as he is behav'd,
[p]If't be th'
affliction of his love, or no,
[p]That thus he suffers for.
Gertrude : I shall obey you;
[p]And for your part, Ophelia, I do wish
[p]That
your good beauties be the happy cause
[p]Of Hamlet's wildness. So
shall I hope your virtues
[p]Will bring him to his wonted way
again,
[p]To both your honours.
Ophelia : Madam, I wish it may.
Polonius : Ophelia, walk you here.- Gracious, so please you,
[p]We will bestow
ourselves.- [To Ophelia] Read on this book,
[p]That show of such an
exercise may colour
[p]Your loneliness.- We are oft to blame in
this,
[p]'Tis too much prov'd, that with devotion's visage
[p]And
pious action we do sugar o'er
[p]The Devil himself.
Claudius : [aside] O, 'tis too true!
[p]How smart a lash that speech doth give my
conscience!
[p]The harlot's cheek, beautied with plast'ring art,
[p]Is
not more ugly to the thing that helps it
[p]Than is my deed to my most
painted word.
[p]O heavy burthen!
Polonius : I hear him coming. Let's withdraw, my lord.
Hamlet : To be, or not to be- that is the question:
[p]Whether 'tis nobler in
the mind to suffer
[p]The slings and arrows of outrageous
fortune
[p]Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
[p]And by
opposing end them. To die- to sleep-
[p]No more; and by a sleep to say
we end
[p]The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
[p]That flesh
is heir to. 'Tis a consummation
[p]Devoutly to be wish'd. To die- to
sleep.
[p]To sleep- perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub!
[p]For in
that sleep of death what dreams may come
[p]When we have shuffled off
this mortal coil,
[p]Must give us pause. There's the respect
[p]That
makes calamity of so long life.
[p]For who would bear the whips and
scorns of time,
[p]Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's
contumely,
[p]The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay,
[p]The
insolence of office, and the spurns
[p]That patient merit of th'
unworthy takes,
[p]When he himself might his quietus make
[p]With a
bare bodkin? Who would these fardels bear,
[p]To grunt and sweat under
a weary life,
[p]But that the dread of something after death-
[p]The
undiscover'd country, from whose bourn
[p]No traveller returns-
puzzles the will,
[p]And makes us rather bear those ills we
have
[p]Than fly to others that we know not of?
[p]Thus conscience
does make cowards of us all,
[p]And thus the native hue of
resolution
[p]Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
[p]And
enterprises of great pith and moment
[p]With this regard their
currents turn awry
[p]And lose the name of action.- Soft you
now!
[p]The fair Ophelia!- Nymph, in thy orisons
[p]Be all my sins
rememb'red.
Ophelia : Good my lord,
[p]How does your honour for this many a day?
Hamlet : I humbly thank you; well, well, well.
Ophelia : My lord, I have remembrances of yours
[p]That I have longed long to
re-deliver.
[p]I pray you, now receive them.
Hamlet : No, not I!
[p]I never gave you aught.
Ophelia : My honour'd lord, you know right well you did,
[p]And with them words
of so sweet breath compos'd
[p]As made the things more rich. Their
perfume lost,
[p]Take these again; for to the noble mind
[p]Rich gifts
wax poor when givers prove unkind.
[p]There, my lord.
Hamlet : Ha, ha! Are you honest?
Ophelia : My lord?
Hamlet : Are you fair?
Ophelia : What means your lordship?
Hamlet : That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit
no
[p]discourse to your beauty.
Ophelia : Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty?
Hamlet : Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner transform
[p]honesty
from what it is to a bawd than the force of honesty can
[p]translate
beauty into his likeness. This was sometime a paradox,
[p]but now the
time gives it proof. I did love you once.
Ophelia : Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.
Hamlet : You should not have believ'd me; for virtue cannot so
[p]inoculate our
old stock but we shall relish of it. I loved you
[p]not.
Ophelia : I was the more deceived.
Hamlet : Get thee to a nunnery! Why wouldst thou be a breeder of
[p]sinners? I
am myself indifferent honest, but yet I could accuse
[p]me of such
things that it were better my mother had not borne me.
[p]I am very
proud, revengeful, ambitious; with more offences at my
[p]beck than I
have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give
[p]them shape, or
time to act them in. What should such fellows as I
[p]do, crawling
between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves all;
[p]believe none of
us. Go thy ways to a nunnery. Where's your
[p]father?
Ophelia : At home, my lord.
Hamlet : Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool
[p]nowhere
but in's own house. Farewell.
Ophelia : O, help him, you sweet heavens!
Hamlet : If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague for thy dowry:
[p]be
thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not
escape
[p]calumny. Get thee to a nunnery. Go, farewell. Or if thou
wilt
[p]needs marry, marry a fool; for wise men know well enough
what
[p]monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go; and quickly
too.
[p]Farewell.
Ophelia : O heavenly powers, restore him!
Hamlet : I have heard of your paintings too, well enough. God hath
[p]given you
one face, and you make yourselves another. You jig, you
[p]amble, and
you lisp; you nickname God's creatures and make your
[p]wantonness
your ignorance. Go to, I'll no more on't! it hath made
[p]me mad. I
say, we will have no moe marriages. Those that are
[p]married already-
all but one- shall live; the rest shall keep as
[p]they are. To a
nunnery, go. Exit.
Ophelia : O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!
[p]The courtier's, scholar's,
soldier's, eye, tongue, sword,
[p]Th' expectancy and rose of the fair
state,
[p]The glass of fashion and the mould of form,
[p]Th' observ'd
of all observers- quite, quite down!
[p]And I, of ladies most deject
and wretched,
[p]That suck'd the honey of his music vows,
[p]Now see
that noble and most sovereign reason,
[p]Like sweet bells jangled, out
of tune and harsh;
[p]That unmatch'd form and feature of blown
youth
[p]Blasted with ecstasy. O, woe is me
[p]T' have seen what I
have seen, see what I see!
Claudius : Love? his affections do not that way tend;
[p]Nor what he spake,
though it lack'd form a little,
[p]Was not like madness. There's
something in his soul
[p]O'er which his melancholy sits on
brood;
[p]And I do doubt the hatch and the disclose
[p]Will be some
danger; which for to prevent,
[p]I have in quick determination
[p]Thus
set it down: he shall with speed to England
[p]For the demand of our
neglected tribute.
[p]Haply the seas, and countries different,
[p]With
variable objects, shall expel
[p]This something-settled matter in his
heart,
[p]Whereon his brains still beating puts him thus
[p]From
fashion of himself. What think you on't?
Polonius : It shall do well. But yet do I believe
[p]The origin and commencement
of his grief
[p]Sprung from neglected love.- How now, Ophelia?
[p]You
need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said.
[p]We heard it all.- My lord,
do as you please;
[p]But if you hold it fit, after the play
[p]Let his
queen mother all alone entreat him
[p]To show his grief. Let her be
round with him;
[p]And I'll be plac'd so please you, in the ear
[p]Of
all their conference. If she find him not,
[p]To England send him; or
confine him where
[p]Your wisdom best shall think.
Claudius : It shall be so.
[p]Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go.
Exeunt.
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