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. the Tragical History of . H A M L E T . Prince of Denmark .
(In the original language with modernized spelling)
- Scene 11 [~ Closet Scene ~] (Act 3 Scene 4)
Setting: Inside the Castle;
- The Queen's Room;
After midnight.
(Gertrude and Polonius enter)
Polonius: 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 even here;
Pray you, be round!
(Polonius hides behind an arras)
(Hamlet approaches)
Gertrude: I'll wait you, fear me not;- Withdraw, I hear him coming.
- Hamlet: Now, mother, what's the matter?
- Gert: Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.
- Hamlet: Mother, you have my father much offended.
- Gert: Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.
- Hamlet: Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.
(Hamlet draws his sword)
Gertrude: Why, how now, Hamlet?- Hamlet: What's the matter now?
- Gert: Have you forgot me?
- Hamlet: No, by the rood, not so.
- You are the Queen, your husband's brother's wife,
And would it were not so, you are my mother.
- Gert: 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
Where you may see the inmost part of you.
- Gert: What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murder me!
- Help ho!
- Polonius: What ho! Help!
- Hamlet: How now, a rat! Dead for a ducat, dead!
(Hamlet jabs his sword through the arras;- Polonius stumbles out, clutching his chest)
Polonius: Oh, I am slain!
(Polonius falls dead)
Gertrude: Oh, me, what hast thou done?- Hamlet: Nay, I know not. Is it the King?
- Gert: Oh, what a rash and bloody deed is this!
- Hamlet: A bloody deed, almost as bad, good mother,
- As kill a king, and marry with his brother.
- Gert: As kill a king?
- Hamlet: Aye, Lady, it was my word.
- (to Polonius's body):
Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell;
I took thee for thy better; take thy fortune;
Thou findest to be too busy is some danger;
(to Gertude):
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 damned custom have not braced it so,
That it be proof and bulwark against sense.
- Gert: What have I done, that thou darest wag thy tongue
- In noise so rude against me?
- Hamlet: 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 does glow
O'er this solidity and compound mass
With heated visage, as against the doom
Is thought-sick at the act . . .
- Gert: Aye me, what act . . .
- (Both, exactly together): . . . that roars so loud, and thunders in the Index!
(they both stop, and they stare at each other, astonished)
Hamlet: Look here upon this picture, and on this,- 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 and command,
A station like the herald Mercury,
New lighted on a heave, a 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 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 judgement, and what judgement
Would step from this to this? Sense, sure you have
Else could you not have motion, but sure that sense
Is apoplexed, for madness would not err,
Nor sense to ecstasy was ne'er so thralled,
But it reserved some quantity of choice
To serve in such a difference. What devil was it
That thus hath cozened 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 pardons will.
- Gertrude: Oh, Hamlet, speak no more;
- Thou turn'st my very eyes into my soul,
And there I see such black and grieved spots
As will leave there, their tinct.
- Hamlet: Nay, but to live
- In the rank sweat of an inseamed bed
Stewed in corruption, honeying, and making love
Over the nasty sty.
- Gert: Oh, speak to me no more!
- These words like daggers enter in my ears;
No more, sweet Hamlet.
- Hamlet: A murderer and a villain,
- A slave that is not twentieth part the kith
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.
- Gert: No more.
-
(the Ghost enters)
Hamlet: A King of shreds and patches! - Save me and hover o'er me with your wings,
You heavenly guards!
(to the Ghost):
What would your gracious figure?
- Gertrude: Alas, he's mad!
- Hamlet: Do you not come your tardy son to chide,
- That lapsed in time and passion lets go by
The important acting of your dread command? O say.
- Ghost: Do not forget! This visitation
- 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.
(Hamlet sheaths his sword)
Hamlet: How is it with you, Lady?- Gert: Alas, how is it with you?
- That you do bend your eye on vacancy,
And with the incorporeal air do hold discourse;
Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep,
And as the sleeping soldiers in the 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
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.
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.
(tears run down Hamlet's face)
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.
(the Ghost exits)
Gertrude: This is the very coinage of your brain,- This bodiless creation, ecstasy is very cunning in.
- Hamlet: My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time,
- And makes as healthful music; it is not madness
That I haue uttered; bring me to the test,
And the matter will reword, which madness
Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,
Lay not that flattering unction to your soul
That not your trespass, but my madness speaks;
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place
While 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 on 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.
- Gert: Oh, Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.
- Hamlet: Oh, throw away the worser part of it,
- And leave the purer with the other half,
Good night, but go not to my uncle's bed;
Assume a virtue if you have it not;
That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat
Of habit's devil, is angel yet in this
That to the use of actions fair and good,
He likewise gives a frock or livery
That aptly is put on to refrain night,
And that shall lend a kind of easiness
To the next abstinence, the next more easy.
For, use almost can change the stamp of nature,
And either {fetch} the devil, or throw him out
With wonderous potency: once more good night,
And when you are desirous to be blessed,
I'll blessing beg of you; for this same Lord
I do repent; but Heaven hath 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.
One word more good Lady.
- Ger. What shall I do?
- 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 reechie 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 paddack, 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.
- Gert: Be thou assured, if words be made of breath
- And breath of life, I have no life to breathe
What thou hast said to me.
- Hamlet: I must to England, you know that.
- Gert: Alack, I had forgot.
- 'Tis so concluded on.
- Hamlet: There's letters sealed, and my two schoolfellows,
- Whom I will trust as I will adders fanged,
They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way
And marshal me to knavery. Let it work,
For 'tis the sport to have the enginer
Hoist with his own petard, and it shall go hard
But I will delve one yard below their mines,
And blow them at the moon. O 'tis most sweet
When in one line, two crafts directly meet;
This man shall set me packing;
I'll lug the guts into the neighbor room;
Mother, good night indeed; this councilor
Is now most still, most secret, and most grave,
Who was in life a most foolish prating knave.
Come sir, to draw toward an end with you.
Good night mother.
(Hamlet exits)
(One or two minutes later, Gertrude exits)
End of Scene 11
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. The Tragedy of . H A M L E T . Prince of Denmark .
(In simplified modern English translation)
- Scene 11 [~ Closet Scene ~] (Act 3 Scene 4)
Setting: Inside the Castle;
- The Queen's Room;
After midnight.
(Gertrude and Polonius enter)
Polonius: He'll be here very soon. Be sure you speak firmly to him.- Tell him that his tricks have been too much to tolerate,
And that Your Majesty has protected him
From getting himself into deep trouble. I'll hide here.
Please be direct in talking to him!
(Polonius hides behind an arras)
(Hamlet approaches)
Gertrude: I'll attend to what you say, don't worry about me.- Withdraw, I hear him coming.
- Hamlet: Now, mother, what's the trouble?
- Gert: Hamlet, you have offended your father very much.
- Hamlet: Mother, you have offended my father very much.
- Gert: Come, come, you answer with a meaningless tongue.
- Hamlet: Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.
(Hamlet draws his sword)
Gertrude: Why, what does this mean, Hamlet?- Hamlet: What's the matter now?
- Gert: Have you forgotten who I am?
- Hamlet: No, I swear on the cross, I have not.
- You are the Queen, your husband's brother's wife.
And though I wish it weren't so, you are my mother.
- Gert: No, this won't do. I'll get somebody you'll listen to!
- Hamlet: Come, sit down. You won't budge from here!
- You won't go until I set up a mirror for you,
In which you can see the innermost part of yourself.
- Gert: You will do what? You will not murder me!
- Help, ho!
- Polonius: What ho! Help!
- Hamlet: How now, a rat! Dead for a ducat, dead!
(Hamlet jabs his sword through the arras;- Polonius stumbles out, clutching his chest)
Polonius: Oh, I am slain!
(Polonius falls dead)
Gertrude: Oh dear me, what have you done?- Hamlet: I don't know. Is it the King?
- Gert: Oh, what a reckless and bloody deed this is!
- Hamlet: Yes, a bloody deed almost as bad, good mother,
- As kill a king, and marry with his brother!
- Gert: As kill a king?
- Hamlet: Yes, Lady, that's what I said.
- (to Polonius's body):
You wretched, reckless, intruding fool, farewell.
I mistook you for a better creature, so there's your luck.
You find that being too snoopy is dangerous.
(to Gertrude):
Stop wringing your hands. Peace, sit down,
And let me wring your heart - for I shall do that
If your heart is not too hard, and
If damned habits haven't braced your heart so strongly
That it can withstand good sense.
- Gert: What have I done, that you dare to speak to me
- In words so rudely offensive to me?
- Hamlet: You have done such an act
- That it stains the beauty and complexion of modesty,
That slanders true morality as a hypocrite, removes the rosy
Glow from the beautiful forehead of a blameless love,
And sets a blister on the forehead, instead, and that makes the marriage vows
As false as gamblers' cursing. Oh, such a deed
That it plucks, from the body of the true marriage contract,
The very soul out, and that turns sweet religion into
A meaningless jumble of words. Heaven's face glows
Over this hard and compounded mass of sins,
With a heated visage, and against the day of doom
Is sick with thoughts of your act . . .
- Gert: Oh, unhappy me, what act . . .
- Both, exactly together): . . . that roars so loud, and thunders in the Index L.P.!
(they both stop, and they stare at each other, astonished)
Hamlet: Look here, at this picture, and this one,- The painted likenesses of two brothers.
See what grace was enthroned on this forehead:
These golden curls of hair, the face of Jove, himself,
An eye like the god of war, to threaten and command.
A posture like Mercury, the messenger of the gods,
Just landed on a ridge, a Heaven-kissing hill.
It was a combination of features, and a form, indeed,
Where every god seemed to set his seal of approval,
To assure the world that here was a real man.
This was your husband. Then, look at what follows.
Here is your current husband, like a diseased ear of corn,
Spreading poison to his healthy brother. Do you have eyes?
Could you leave grazing on this beautiful mountain
And settle for scavenging on this wasteland? Ha, don't you have eyes?
You cannot call it love, because at your age,
The greatest strength of passion is tame, it's humble,
And is subservient to good judgment. And what kind of judgment
Would go from this, to this? You must have some sense
Or you couldn't even move, but surely that sense
Has been struck down somehow. For, even madness would not err so badly,
And sense was never so much enthralled by madness,
But that it still allowed for some ability to choose,
That would work when there's such a big difference. What devil was it
That cheated you, at playing blind man's bluff?
Eyes without a sense of touch, touch without seeing,
Ears but no hands or eyes, or only a sense of smell -
Or, with only a weak part of one true sense left,
You couldn't be so unaware. Oh, shame, where is your blush?
Rebellious Hell!
If you can have such rebellion against good sense as a matron,
Then, for passionate youth, virtue is only like wax
And melts in its own fire. So, let's proclaim no shame for anybody
When compulsive passion leads the attack on morality,
Because older judgment, itself, melts away all ideas of virtue,
And rationalization makes excuses for whatever desire does.
- Gertrude: Oh, Hamlet, speak no more.
- You have caused my eyes truly to look into my soul,
And there I see such black and grievous spots
That they will leave a stain forever.
- Hamlet: No - but to live
- In the stinking sweat of an adjoined bed,
Simmering in corruption, sweet talking, and making love
In the nasty pig sty!
- Gert: Oh, speak to me no more!
- These words enter my ears like daggers.
No more, sweet Hamlet.
- Hamlet: A murderer and a villain!
- A lowly creature who isn't even one twentieth the kind of person
Your earlier Lord was. A Vice of Kings!
A pickpocket of the empire and the throne,
Who stole the precious crown from the shelf,
And put it in his pocket!
- Gert: No more.
(the Ghost enters)
Hamlet: A King of shreds and patches!- Save me, and hover over me with your angel's wings,
You heavenly guards!
(to the Ghost):
What would your charming figure have of me?
- Gertrude: Alas! He's mad!
- Hamlet: Aren't you here to chide your son who is slow to act,
- Who lets time lapse, and anger cool, and has let go by the opportunity for
The urgent carrying out of your fearful command? Oh, tell me.
- Ghost: Do not forget! This visit
- Is only to sharpen your purpose, which has grown dull.
But look, your mother is bewildered.
Go to her and bring peace to her upset soul.
Imagination is strongest in the weakest bodies.
Speak to her, Hamlet.
(Hamlet sheaths his sword)
Hamlet: How are things with you, Lady?- Gert: Alas, how are things with you?
- That you stare into nothingness,
And have a conversation with the empty air,
While your inner spirits look out wildly from your eyes,
And, like sleeping soldiers who suddenly hear the alarm,
Your hair, like living things that have suddenly grown on your head,
Rises up and stands on end. Oh, my gentle son,
Upon the heat and flame of your disturbance
Sprinkle some cool water of patience. What are you looking at?
- Hamlet: At him, at him! Look for yourself how pale he glares.
- His form and his purpose combined, would command stones
To make them capable of seeing him.
Don't look at me,
Lest with your piteous gaze you undo
My stern resolve, and then what I have to do
Will lack its true color, and I'll shed tears instead of blood.
(tears run down Hamlet's face)
Gert: To whom do you speak those words?- Hamlet: Do you see nothing there?
- Gert: No, nothing at all, and yet, I see all that is there.
- Hamlet: And didn't you hear anything?
- Gert: No, nothing but us.
- Hamlet: Why, look there, at how it quietly moves away.
- It's my father, wearing his usual clothing, just as when he lived.
Look where he goes, just now, out the door.
(the Ghost exits)
Gertrude: This is something created by your mind,- The kind of hallucination that mental excitement is good at making.
- Hamlet: My pulse beats as moderately as yours,
- And keeps as healthful a tempo. It is not madness
That I have uttered. Put me to the test,
And I'll restate the same subject in other words. A mad person couldn't do it,
Because he'd lose track. Mother, for the love of grace,
Don't try to soothe your soul by thinking it
Is not your offense, but instead my madness that is the issue.
Doing that will only skin over the ulcer in your soul
While rank corruption eats away, within,
And the infection spreads, unseen. Make your confession to Heaven,
Repent the past, and avoid evil that is to come.
Do not spread compost on the weeds
To make them grow more offensively. Forgive me for my lecture on virtue
Because, in the self indulgence of these pampered times,
Virtue, itself, must beg pardon of Vice,
Yes, Virtue must bow and beg for permission to do Vice any good.
- Gert: Oh, Hamlet, you have broken my heart right in two.
- Hamlet: Then throw away the worse part of it,
- And leave yourself more pure with just the better half.
Good night, but do not go to my uncle's bed.
Pretend virtue if you don't have it.
That inhuman thing, personal custom, that destroys our awareness
Of the devil of bad habits, can be an angel in this way,
That when habit is used for actions that are fair and good,
It provides a kind of holy robe or uniform
That is easily put on to repel the powers of darkness.
And as a good habit is developed, it makes it easier
For the next abstinence, and easier still for the one after that.
For, habits can almost change a person's natural inclinations
And either summon the devil in, or throw him out,
With wonderous power. Once more, good night,
And when you wish to be blessed by me
I'll beg a blessing from you, too. For this same Lord,
I do repent, but Heaven has so ordered it,
To punish me with this killing, and to punish him through me,
That I must be Heaven's scourge and minister.
I will take him elsewhere, and answer well
For the death I gave him. So again, good night.
I must be cruel, only to be kind.
The badness is only beginning, and worse remains to be done.
One more word, good Lady.
- Gert: What shall I do?
- Hamlet: You must not by any means do this, I order you:
- Not let the puffed up King tempt you again to bed, or
Pinch playfully on your cheek, call you his mouse,
And allow him with a couple of reeking kisses,
Or by massaging your neck with his damned fingers,
Make you to unravel all this subject out, revealing
That I am not really mad,
But only acting mad, for a reason. Is it good you let him know?
For who, although a queen - fair, sober and wise -
Would conceal this from a toad, a bat, a tomcat, and
Hide such important matters? Who would do so?
No, don't ignore sense and secrecy, and
Open up the basket on the roof of the house,
And let the birds fly. And then, like the famous ape,
Just to see what happens, crawl into the basket
And break your own neck, falling down.
- Gert: I assure you, if words are made of breath,
- And breath is made of life, I have no life to breathe
What you have said to me.
- Hamlet: I must go to England, you know.
- Gert: Oh dear, I had forgotten.
- It has been decided on.
- Hamlet: There are some sealed letters to go, too, and my two schoolfellows,
- Whom I'll trust as much as I would poisonous snakes.
They follow the King's orders, and they must lead the way
And escort me into their treachery. Let them try,
For it is good sport to have the engineer
Hoist with his own petard, and it won't be easy,
But I will dig one yard below their mines
And blow them at the moon. Oh, it is most sweet
When, on the same course, two schemes collide.
This man shall start me packing.
I'll lug the guts into the neighboring room.
Mother, finally, good night indeed. This councilor
Is now very still, very secret and very grave,
Who was in life a most foolish blabbering knave.
Come, sir, let's draw toward an ending with you.
Good night, mother.
(Hamlet exits)
(One or two minutes later, Gertrude exits)
End of Scene 11
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(Regained)