|
. the Tragical History of . H A M L E T . Prince of Denmark .
(In the original language with modernized spelling)
- Scene 7 [~ R & G Arrive ~] (Act 2 Scene 2)
Setting: inside the Castle;- The Throne Room;
Late morning.
(a flourish of trumpets sounds;- Claudius and Gertrude enter, with their guards and attendants;
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern enter)
Claudius: Welcome, dear Rosencrantz and Guildenstern;- Moreover, that we much did long to see you,
The need we have to use you, did provoke
Our hasty sending; something have you heard
Of Hamlet's transformation, so call it,
Sith nor th'exterior, nor the inward man
Resembles that it was, what it should be;
More than his father's death, that thus hath put him
So much from th'understanding of himself,
I cannot dream of; I entreat you both,
That being of so young days brought up with him,
And sith so neighbored to his youth and 'havior,
That you vouchsafe your rest here in our court
Some little time, so, by your companies,
To draw him on to pleasures, and to gather
So much as from occasion you may glean
Whether aught to us unknown afflicts him thus,
That opened, lies within our remedy.
- Gertrude: Good gentlemen, he hath much talked of you,
- And sure I am, two men there is not living
To whom he more adheres; if it will please you
To show us so much gentry and good will
As to expend your time with us a while,
For the supply and profit of our hope,
Your visitation shall receive such thanks
As fits a king's remembrance.
- Rosencrantz: Both your Majesties
- Might, by the sovereign power you have of us,
Put your dread pleasures more into command
Than to entreaty.
- Guildenstern: But we both obey,
- And here give up ourselves in the full bent,
To lay our service freely at your feet
To be commanded.
- Clau: Thanks, Rosencrantz, and gentle Guildenstern.
- Gert: Thanks, Guildenstern, and gentle Rosencrantz,
- And I beseech you instantly to visit
My too-much-changed son; go, some of you,
And bring these gentlemen where Hamlet is.
- Guil: Heavens make our presence and our practices
- Pleasant and helpful to him.
- Gert: Aye, amen.
(Rosencrantz and Guildenstern exit, led by servants)
(Polonius enters)
Polonius: The ambassadors from Norway, my good Lord,- Are joyfully returned.
- Claudius: Thou still hast been the father of good news.
- Pol: Have I, my Lord? I assure my good Liege
- I hold my duty as I hold my soul,
Both to my God, and to my gracious King;
And I do think, or else this brain of mine
Hunts not the trail of policy so sure
As it hath used to do, that I have found
The very cause of Hamlet's lunacy.
- Clau: Oh, speak of that! That do I long to hear.
- Pol: Give first admittance to th'ambassadors;
- My news shall be the fruit to that great feast.
- Clau: Thyself do grace to them, and bring them in;
(Polonius exits)
(Claudius continues):- He tells me, my dear Gertrude, he hath found
The head and source of all your son's distemper.
- Gertrude: I doubt it is no other but the main:
- His father's death, and our o'er-hasty marriage.
- Claudius: Well, we shall sift him;
(the ambassadors Voltemand and Cornelius enter, - escorted by Polonius)
(Claudius continues): Welcome, my good friends;- Say, Voltemand, what from our brother, Norway?
- Voltemand: Most fair return of greetings and desires;
- Upon our first, he sent out to suppress
His nephew's levies, which to him appeared
To be a preparation 'gainst the Polack,
But better looked into, he truly found
It was against your highness; whereat grieved,
That so his sickness, age, and impotence
Was falsely born in hand; sends out arrests
On Fortinbrasse, which he, in brief, obeys;
Receives rebuke from Norway, and in fine,
Makes vow before his uncle never more
To give th'assay of arms against your Majesty;
Whereon old Norway, overcome with joy,
Gives him threescore thousand crowns in annual fee,
And his commission to employ those soldiers
So levied, (as before,) against the Polack,
With an entreaty herein further shown,
That it might please you to give quiet pass
Through your dominions for this enterprise,
On such regards of safety and allowance
As therein are set down.
(Voltemand hands the diplomatic agreement to Claudius)
Claudius: It likes us well,- And at our more considered time we'll read,
Answer, and think upon this business;
Meantime, we thank you for your well took labor;
Go to your rest, at night we'll feast together;
Most welcome home!
(the Ambassadors exit)
Polonius: This business is well ended;- My Liege and Madam, to expostulate
What majesty should be, what duty is,
Why day is day, night, night, and time is time,
Were nothing but to waste night, day, and time;
Therefore, brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limns and outward flourishes;
I will be brief; your noble son is mad;
Mad call I it, for to define true madness,
What is't but to be nothing else but mad?
But let that go.
- Gertrude: More matter with less art.
- Pol: Madam, I swear I use no art at all;
- That he's mad, 'tis true, 'tis pity
And pity 'tis, 'tis true, a foolish figure;
But farewell it, for I will use no art;
Mad let us grant him, then, and now remains
That we find out the cause of this effect,
Or rather say, the cause of this defect,
For this effect defective comes by cause;
Thus it remains, and the remainder thus:
Perpend,
I have a daughter, have while she is mine,
Who, in her duty and obedience, mark,
Hath given me this, now gather and surmise:
(Polonius reads from a letter)
To the celestial, and my soul's idol,- the most beautified Ophelia . . .
(Polonius interrupts his own reading):- That's an ill phrase, a vile phrase,
"Beautified" is a vile phrase, but you shall hear;
Thus, in her excellent white bosom, these, etc.
- Gertrude: Came this from Hamlet to her?
- Polonius: Good Madam, stay a while, I will be faithful;
(Polonius continues reading the letter)
Doubt that the stars are fire,
Doubt that the sun doth move,
Doubt truth to be a liar,
But never doubt I love.
Oh, dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers,- I have not art to reckon my groans,
But that I love thee best, oh, most best,
Believe it, adieu.
Thine evermore, most dear Lady,
Whilst this machine is to him,
Hamlet
(Polonius continues):- This, in obedience, hath my daughter shown me,
And more about, hath his solicitings,
As they fell out by time, by means, and place,
All given to mine ear.
- Claudius: But how hath she received his love?
- Polonius: What do you think of me?
- Clau: As of a man faithful and honorable.
- Pol: I would fain prove so, but what might you think
- When I had seen this hot love on the wing,
As I perceived it, (I must tell you that,)
Before my daughter told me; what might you,
Or my dear Majesty your Queen here think,
If I had played the desk, or table book,
Or given my heart a working mute and dumb,
Or looked upon this love with idle sight,
What might you think? No, I went round to work,
And my young Mistress thus I did bespeak:
Lord Hamlet is a Prince out of thy star;
This must not be; and then I prescripts gave her,
That she should lock herself from her resort,
Admit no messengers, receive no tokens;
Which done, she took the fruits of my advice;
And he, repulsed, a short tale to make,
Fell into a sadness, then into a fast,
Thence to a watch, thence into a weakness
Thence to lightness, and by this declension,
Into the madness wherein now he raves,
And all we mourn for.
- Clau: Do you think this?
- Gertrude: It may be, very like.
- Pol: Hath there been such a time, I would fain know that,
- That I have positively said, 'tis so,
When it proved otherwise?
- Clau: Not that I know.
- Pol: Take this, from this, if this be otherwise;
- If circumstances lead me, I will find
Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed
Within the center.
- Clau: How may we try it further?
- Pol: You know sometimes he walks four hours together
- Here in the lobby.
- Gert: So he does, indeed.
- Pol: At such a time, I'll loose my daughter to him;
- Be you and I behind an arras then;
Mark the encounter; if he love her not,
And be not from his reason fallen thereon,
Let me be no assistant for a state,
But keep a farm and carters.
- Clau: We will try it.
(Hamlet enters)
Gertrude: But look where, sadly, the poor wretch comes reading.- Polonius: Away, I do beseech you both, away;
(Claudius and Gertrude exit)
(Polonius continues):- I'll board him presently . . . oh, give me leave . . .
How does my good Lord Hamlet?
- Hamlet: Well, God a mercy!
- Polonius: Do you know me, my Lord?
- Hamlet: Excellent well, you are a fishmonger.
- Pol: Not I, my Lord.
- Hamlet: Then I would you were so honest a man.
- Pol: Honest, my Lord?
- Hamlet: Aye, sir, to be honest, as this world goes,
- Is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.
- Pol: That's very true, my Lord.
- Hamlet: For, if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a
- good kissing carrion . . . Have you a daughter?
- Pol: I have, my Lord.
- Hamlet: Let her not walk i'th sun; conception is a blessing,
- But, as your daughter may conceive, friend, look to it.
- Pol (aside): How say you by that, still harping on my daughter; yet he
- knew me not at first, and said I was a fishmonger; he is far gone,
and truly, in my youth, I suffered much extremity for love, very
near this; I'll speak to him again.
(to Hamlet): What do you read, my Lord?
- Hamlet: Words, words, words.
- Pol: What is the matter, my Lord?
- Hamlet: Between who?
- Pol: I mean the matter that you read, my Lord.
- Hamlet: Slanders, sir; for the satirical rogue says here, that old
- men have gray beards, that their faces are wrinkled, their eyes
purging thick amber, and plumtree gum, and that they have a
plentiful lack of wit, together with most weake hams; all which, sir,
though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not
honesty to have it thus set down, for yourself, sir, shall grow old
as I am, if like a crab, you could go backward.
- Pol (aside): Though this be madness, yet there is method in't;
- (to Hamlet): will you walk out of the air, my Lord?
- Hamlet: Into my grave.
- Pol (aside): Indeed, that's out of the air; how pregnant sometimes
- his replies are, a happiness that often madness hits on, which reason
and sanctity could not so prosperously be delivered of; I will leave
him and my daughter.
(to Hamlet): My Lord, I will take my leave of you.
(Polonius starts to walk away)
Hamlet: You cannot take from me anything that I will not more- willingly part withal . . . except my life, except my life, except my
life.
(Guildenstern and Rosencrantz enter)
Polonius: Fare you well, my Lord.- Hamlet: These tedious old fools.
- Pol: You go to seek the Lord Hamlet, there he is.
- Rosencrantz: God save you, sir.
(Polonius exits)
Guildenstern: My honored Lord.- Rosencrantz: My most dear Lord.
- Hamlet: My extent good friends; how dost thou, Guildenstern?
- A' Rosencrantz, good lads, how do you both?
- Ros: As the indifferent children of the earth.
-
- Guil: Happy, in that we are not ever-happy on Fortune's lap,
- We are not the very button.
- Hamlet: Nor the soles of Her shoe?
- Ros: Neither, my Lord.
- Hamlet: Then you live about Her waist, or in the middle of Her favors.
- Guil: Faith, her privates, we.
- Hamlet: In the secret parts of Fortune; oh most true, she is a strumpet!
- What news?
- Ros: None, my Lord, but the world's grown honest.
- Hamlet: Then is doomsday near, but your news is not true;
-
- Let me question more in particular: what have
you, my good friends, deserved at the hands of Fortune,
that She sends you to prison hither?
- Guil: Prison, my Lord?
- Hamlet: Denmark's a prison.
- Ros: Then is the world one.
- Hamlet: A goodly one, in which there are many confines,
- wards, and dungeons, Denmark being one o'the worst.
- Ros: We think not so, my Lord.
- Hamlet: Why, then 'tis none to you, for there is nothing
- either good or bad, but thinking makes it so; to me, it is
a prison.
- Ros: Why, then your ambition makes it one; 'tis
- too narrow for your mind.
- Hamlet: Oh God, I could be bounded in a nutshell, and
- count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that
I have bad dreams.
- Guil: Which dreams indeed are ambition, for the
- very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow
of a dream.
- Hamlet: A dream, itself, is but a shadow.
- Ros: Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and
- light a quality, that it is but a shadow's shadow.
- Hamlet: Then are our beggars, bodies, and our monarchs
- and out-stretched heroes, the beggars' shadows;
shall we to the court, for by my fay, I cannot reason.
- (They both say): We'll wait upon you.
- Hamlet: No such matter; I will not sort you with the
-
- rest of my servants, for, to speak to you like an honest
man, I am most dreadfully attended;
But in the beaten way of friendship, what make you at Elsinore?
- Ros: To visit you, my Lord; no other occasion.
- Hamlet: Beggar that I am, I am ever poor in thanks, but I thank
- you, and sure dear friends, my thanks are too dear a halfpenny;
were you not sent for? Is it your own inclining? Is it a free visitation?
Come, come, deal justly with me; come, come, nay, speak.
- Guil: What should we say, my Lord?
- Hamlet: Anything but to the purpose; you were sent for, and there is
- a kind of confession in your looks, which your modesties have not
craft enough to color; I know the good King and Queen have
sent for you.
- Ros: To what end, my Lord?
- Hamlet: That you must teach me; but let me conjure you, by the
- rites of our fellowship, by the consonancy of our youth, by the
obligation of our ever-preserved love, and by what more dear a
better proposer can charge you withal; be even and direct with
me whether you were sent for or no.
- Ros (to Guildenstern): What say you?
- Hamlet: Nay, then I have an eye of you? If you love me, hold not off.
- Guil: My Lord, we were sent for.
- Hamlet: I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation prevent your
- discovery, and your secrecy to the King and Queen molt no feather:
I have, of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth,
forgone all custom of exercises, and indeed, it goes so heavily with
my disposition, that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a
sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air - look
you - this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted
with golden fire, why, it appeareth nothing to me but a foul
and pestilent congregation of vapors. What piece of work is a
man? How noble in reason, how infinite in faculties; in form and
moving, how express and admirable in action; how like an angel
in apprehension, how like a god! The beauty of the world, the
paragon of animals . . . and yet to me, what is this quintessence of
dust? Man delights not me, nor women neither, though by your
smiling, you seem to say so.
- Ros: My Lord, there was no such stuff in my thoughts.
- Hamlet: Why did ye laugh then, when I said man delights not me?
- Ros: To think, my Lord, if you delight not in man, what Lenten
- entertainment the players shall receive from you; we coted them
on the way, and hither are they coming to offer you service.
- Hamlet: He that plays the King shall be welcome: his Majesty shall
- have tribute on me; the adventurous Knight shall use his foil and
target; the Lover shall not sigh gratis; the humorous Man shall end
his part in peace; the clown shall make those laugh whose lungs
are tickled a'th'sere, and the Lady shall say her mind freely, or the
black verse shall halt for it. What players are they?
- Ros: Even those you were wont to take such delight in, the
- tragedians of the city.
- Hamlet: How chances it they travel? Their residence, both in
- reputation and profit, was better, both ways.
- Ros: I think their inhibition, comes by the means of the late
- innovation.
- Hamlet: Do they hold the same estimation they did when I was in
- the city; are they so followed?
- Ros: No, indeed are they not.
- Hamlet: How comes it? Do they grow resty?
- Ros: Nay, their endeavor keeps in the wonted
- pace, but there is an aerie of children, little
eyases, that cry out on the top of question, and
are most tyrannically clapped for it; these are now the
fashion, and so berattle the common stages, (so they
call them,) that many wearing rapiers are afraid of
goose quills, and dare scarce come thither.
- Hamlet: What, are they children? Who maintains them?
- How are they escoted? Will they pursue the quality no
longer than they can sing? Will they not say afterwards,
if they should grow themselves to common players, (as
it is likemost if their means are no better,) their
writers do them wrong, to make them exclaim against their
own succession?
- Ros: Faith, there has been much to-do on both sides,
- and the nation holds it no sin to tar them to controversy;
there was, for a while, no money bid for argument,
unless the Poet and the Player went to cuffs in
the question.
- Hamlet: Is it possible?
- Guil: Oh, there has been much throwing about of
- brains.
- Hamlet: Do the boys carry it away?
- Ros: Aye, that they do, my Lord; Hercules and his load, too.
- Hamlet: It is not very strange, for my uncle is King of Denmark, and
- those that would make mouths at him while my father lived, give
twenty, forty, fifty, a hundred ducats apiece for his picture
in little; s'blood, there is something in this more than natural, if
philosophy could find it out.
(a flourish of trumpets sounds)
Guildenstern: There are the players.- Hamlet (to R & G): Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore;
- your hands, come then, the appurtenance of welcome is fashion
and ceremony; let me comply with you in this garb, lest my extent
to the players, which I tell you must show fairly outwards, should more
appear like entertainment then yours; you are welcome,
but my uncle-father, and aunt-mother, are deceived.
- Guil: In what, my dear Lord?
- Hamlet: I am but mad north-northwest; when the wind is southerly,
- I know a hawk from a handsaw.
(Polonius enters)
Polonius (to the players): Well be with you, Gentlemen.- Hamlet: Hark you, Guildenstern, and you too, at each ear a hearer:
- that great baby you see there is not yet out of his swadling clouts.
- Ros: Happily, he is the second time come to them, for they say an
- old man is twice a child.
- Hamlet: I will prophecy, he comes to tell me of the players; mark it . . .
- You say right, sir, a Monday morning, t'was then indeed.
- Pol: My Lord, I have news to tell you.
- Hamlet: My Lord, I have news to tell you: when Roscius was an actor
- in Rome . . .
- Pol: The actors are come hither, my Lord.
- Hamlet: Buzz, buzz.
- Pol: Upon my honor!
- Hamlet: Then came each actor on his ass.
- Pol: The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy,
- history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, scene
individable, or poem unlimited; Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor
Plautus too light; for the law of writ, and the liberty, these are the
only men.
- Hamlet: Oh, Jephthah, Judge of Israel, what a treasure had'st thou?
- Pol: What a treasure had he, my Lord?
- Hamlet: Why, one fair daughter and no more, the which he loved
- passing well.
- Pol (aside): Still on my daughter.
- Hamlet: Am I not in the right, old Jephthah?
- Pol: If you call me Jephthah, my Lord, I have a daughter that I love
- passing well.
- Hamlet: Nay, that follows not.
- Pol: What follows then, my Lord?
- Hamlet: Why, as by lot, God wot, and then you know, it came to
- pass, as most like it was; the first row of the pious chanson will
show you more, for look where my abridgment comes.
(the Players enter)
Hamlet: You are welcome, masters, welcome all; I am glad to see thee- well; welcome good friends; oh, old friend, why, thy face is valanced
since I saw thee last, comest thou to beard me in Denmark?
What, my young lady and mistress, by lady, Your Ladyship is
nearer to heaven, then when I saw you last by the altitude of a
chopine; pray God, your voice, like a piece of uncurrent gold,
be not cracked within the ring; masters, you are all welcome;
we'll into it like friendly falconers, fly at anything we see;
we'll have a speech straight, come, give us a taste of your quality,
come, a passionate speech.
- Player: What speech, my good Lord?
- Hamlet: I heard thee speak me a speech once, but it was never acted,
- or if it was, not above once, for the play, I remember, pleased not
the million; it was caviary to the general, but it was, as I received
it, and others, whose judgements in such matters cried in the top
of mine, an excellent play, well digested in the scenes, set down
with as much modesty as cunning; I remember one said there
were no salads in the lines, to make the matter savory, nor no
matter in the phrase that might indict the author of affection,
but called it an honest method, as wholesome as sweet, and by very
much, more handsome then fine; one speech in it I chiefly loved,
'twas Aeneas' talk to Dido, and there about of it especially, when he
speaks of Priam's slaughter; if it live in your memory, begin at
this line, let me see, let me see:
(Hamlet begins to recite):
The rugged Pyrrhus, like Th'ircanian beast . . .
'Tis not so . . . it begins with Pyrrhus:
The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable arms,
Black as his purpose, did the night resemble,
When he lay couched in th'ominous horse,
Hath now this dread and black complexion smeared,
With heraldy more dismal, head to foot;
Now is he total gules horridly tricked
With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons,
Baked and empasted; with the parching streets
That lend a tyrannous and a damned light
To their lord's murder, roasted in wrath and fire;
And thus o'er-sized with coagulate gore,
With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus,
Old grandsire Priam seeks;
So, proceed you.
- Polonius: 'Foregod, my Lord, well spoken, with good accent and
- good discretion!
- Player: Anon he finds him,
- Striking too short at Greeks, his antique sword
Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls,
Repugnant to command; unequal matched,
Pyrrhus at Priam drives, in rage strikes wide,
But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword,
Th'unnerved father falls; then senseless Ilium,
Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming top,
Stoops to his base; and with a hideous crash
Takes prisoner Pyrrhus' ear, for lo, his sword,
Which was declining on the milky head
Of reverent Priam, seemed i'th air to stick;
So, as a painted tyrant, Pyrrhus stood,
Like a neutral to his will and matter,
Did nothing;
But, as we often see against some storm,
A silence in the heavens, the rack stand still,
The bold winds speechless, and the orb below
As hush as death, anon the dreadful thunder
Doth rend the region; so after Pyrrhus' pause,
A roused vengeance sets him new a' work,
And never did the cyclops' hammers fall
On Mars's armor, forged for proof etern,
With less remorse than Pyrrhus' bleeding sword
Now falls on Priam.
Out, out, thou strumpet Fortune! All you gods,
In general synod take away Her power!
Break all the spokes, and fellies from Her wheel,
And bowl the round nave down the hill of Heaven
As low as to the fiends!
Polonius: This is too long.- Hamlet: It shall to the barber's with your beard.
- (to the Player): prithee say on, he's
for a jig, or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps; say on, come to Hecuba.
- Player: But who, ah woe, had seen the mobled Queen . . .
- Hamlet: The mob-led Queen.
- Pol: That's good.
- Player: . . . Run barefoot up and down, threatening the flames
- With bisson rheum, a clout upon that head
Where late the diadem stood, and for a robe,
About her lank and all o'er-teemed loins,
A blanket in the alarm of fear caught up;
Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steeped,
'Gainst Fortune's state, would treason have pronounced;
But if the gods, themselves, did see her then,
When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport
In mincing with his sword her husband's limbs,
The instant burst of clamor that she made,
Unless things mortal move them not at all,
Would have made milk the burning eyes of heauen
And passion in the gods.
Polonius: Look whe'r he has not turned his color, and has tears in his- eyes; prithee, no more.
- Hamlet (to the Player):
- 'Tis well; I'll have thee speak out the rest of this soon;
(to Polonius):
Good my Lord, will you see the players well bestowed? Do you
hear? Let them be well used, for they are the abstract and brief
chronicles of the time; after your death you were better have a
bad epitaph, than their ill report while you live.
- Pol: My Lord, I will use them according to their desert.
- Hamlet: God's bodkin, man, much better! Use every man after his desert,
- and who shall 'scape whipping? Use them after your own honor
and dignity; the less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty;
Take them in.
- Pol: Come, sirs.
- Hamlet: Follow him friends, we'll hear a play tomorrow.
- (to the lad who plays the ladies):
Dost thou hear me "old" friend, can you play the murder of Gonzago?
(Polonius and the other Players stop and wait)
Lad: Aye, my Lord.- Hamlet: We'll 'hate' tomorrow night; you could, for need, study
- a speech of some dozen lines, or sixteen lines, which I would set
down and insert in it, could you not?
- Lad: Aye, my Lord.
- Hamlet: Very well, follow that Lord, and, look you! - mock him not!
- (Hamlet winks at the lad)
My good friends, I'll leave you till night; You are welcome to Elsinore.
(Polonius and the players exit)
Rosencrantz: Good my Lord.
(Rosencrantz and Guildenstern exit)
Hamlet: Aye, so goodbye to you; now I am alone;- Oh what a rogue and peasant slave am I;
Is it not monstrous that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit
That from her working all the visage waned -
Tears in his eyes, distraction in his aspect,
A broken voice - and his whole function suiting
With forms to his conceit; and all for nothing,
For Hecuba.
What's Hecuba to him, or he to her,
That he should weep for her? What would he do,
Had he the motive and the cue for passion
That I have? He would drown the stage with tears,
And cleave the general ear with horrid speech,
Make mad the guilty, and appall the free,
Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed
The very faculties of eyes and eares;
Yet I, a dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak,
Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,
And can say nothing; no, not for a king,
Upon whose property and most dear life
A damned defeat was made; am I a coward?
Who calls me villain, breaks my pate across,
Plucks off my beard, and blows it in my face,
Tweaks me by the nose, gives me the lie i'th throat
As deep as to the lungs, who does me this?
Hah, zounds, I should take it! For it cannot be
But I am pigeon livered, and lack gall
To make oppression bitter, or ere this
I should ha' fatted all the region kites
With this slave's offal; bloody, bawdy villain,
Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!
Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,
That I, the son of he, dear murdered,
Prompted to my revenge by Heaven and Hell,
Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words,
And fall a-cursing like a very drab,
A stallion; fie upon it, foh!
About, my brains; hm, I have heard
That guilty creatures sitting at a play
Have, by the very cunning of the scene,
Been struck so to the soul, that presently
They have proclaimed their malefactions;
For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ; I'll have these players
Play something like the murder of my father
Before mine uncle; I'll observe his looks;
I'll tent him to the quick; If he do blench
I know my course; the spirit that I have seen
May be a devil, and the devil hath power
T'assume a pleasing shape; Yea, and perhaps,
Out of my weakness and my melancholy,
As he is very potent with such spirits,
Abuses me to damn me; I'll have grounds
More relative than this; the play's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King.
(Hamlet exits)
End of Scene 7
|
. The Tragedy of . H A M L E T . Prince of Denmark .
(In simplified modern English translation)
- Scene 7 [~ R & G Arrive ~] (Act 2 Scene 2)
Setting: inside the Castle;- The Throne Room;
Late morning.
(a flourish of trumpets sounds;- Claudius and Gertrude enter, with their guards and attendants;
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern enter)
Claudius: Welcome, dear Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.- In addition to wanting very much to see you,
I have a need to make use of you, and that caused
Me to quickly send for you. You've heard something
About Hamlet's transformation, as I call it,
Because neither his outer appearance, nor his attitude
Resembles what it used to be, or what it should be.
What it might be, other than his father's death, that has made him
So different from his normally-understood self,
I can't possibly imagine. I ask you both,
That since you were raised with him in childhood,
And because you're so familiar with his youthfulness and behavior,
That you agree to reside here at the court
For a while. Your company
May help him enjoy himself. Also, take the opportunity to gather
As much information as you can get when you have the chance,
About whether something I don't know may be bothering him, so
That when it's revealed, I can take care of it.
- Gertrude: Good gentlemen, he has often spoken of you,
- And I am sure there are not two men living
To whom he is more attached. If it will please you
To show us the courtesy and good will
To spend time with us a while
For the supply and profit of our hopes
Your visit will receive such a reward
As is fitting for a King's gratitude.
- Rosencrantz: Both of your Majesties
- Might, because of the sovereign power you have over us,
Have put your revered desires more into the form of a command
Rather than a request.
- Guildenstern: But we both obey,
- And we hereby offer ourselves, bending fully to your desires,
To place our services voluntarily at your feet,
To be commanded by you.
- Clau: Thanks, Rosencrantz, and gentle Guildenstern.
- Gert: Thanks, Guildenstern, and gentle Rosencrantz.
- And I ask you to go, right away, and visit with
My too-much-changed son. Lead them, some of you attendants,
And show these gentlemen where Hamlet is.
- Guil: May Heaven make our presence and our actions
- Pleasant and helpful to him.
- Gert: Yes, amen.
(Rosencrantz and Guildenstern exit, led by servants)
(Polonius enters)
Polonius: The ambassadors from Norway, my good Lord,- Have returned, happily.
- Claudius: You have always been the father of good news.
- Pol: Have I, my Lord? I assure my good Lord
- I hold my duty to you as highly as I hold my own soul,
Equally to my God and to my gracious King.
And I also think, or else this brain of mine
Doesn't follow the trail of wisdom as sure
As it used to do, that I have found
The exact cause of Hamlet's lunacy.
- Clau: Oh, tell me about that! I long to hear about that!
- Pol: First admit the ambassadors, and
- My news will be the dessert to that impressive feast.
- Clau: Do the courtesy yourself, and admit them.
(Polonius exits)
(Claudius continues):- He tells me, my dear Gertrude, that he has found
The origin and source of your son's disturbance.
- Gertrude: I suspect it is mainly
- His father's death and our overly-hasty marriage.
- Clau: Well, we'll question him, and sort it out.
(the ambassadors Voltemand and Cornelius enter,- escorted by Polonius)
(Claudius continues): Welcome, my good friends.- Say, Voltemand, what do you bring from my brother king, Norway?
- Voltemand: I bring the fairest return of greetings and wishes.
- Regarding our primary diplomatic issue, he has sent out to stop
His nephew's levies of resources, which he thought were
For war preparations against Poland,
But when looked into more closely, he found they were really
For action against Your Highness. He was so displeased by it,
That he overcame his sickness, old age, and weakness
As though they didn't even exist, and sent out an arrest summons
On Fortinbrasse, which - to keep it brief - he obeyed.
Fortinbrasse was rebuked by Norway, and in conclusion,
Vowed before his uncle never again
To try any test of armed force against your Majesty.
At hearing that, old Norway was so overcome with joy that he
Gave young Fortinbrasse 60,000 crowns out of land revenue,
And his official commission to employ the army
Fortinbrasse already had, against Poland.
With a request herein further shown,
That it might please you to give a quiet pass
Through your dominions for this enterprise
With full regard for safety and allowance,
As are written down therein.
(Voltemand hands the diplomatic agreement to Claudius)
Claudius: It pleases me well,- And when I have time to study it, I'll read it,
Answer, and think more about it.
In the meantime, I thank you for your well-employed efforts.
Go get some rest, and tonight we'll feast together.
Welcome home!
(the Ambassadors exit)
Polonius: This business has ended well.- My Liege, and Madam, to expound
What majesty should be, what duty is,
Why day is day, and night is night, and time is time,
Would be nothing but to waste night, day, and time.
Therefore, brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness is only the decorations and flourishes.
I will be brief: your noble son is mad.
Mad, I call it, for to define true madness,
What could it be, but to be nothing else but mad?
But never mind that.
- Gertrude: More matter with less art.
- Pol: Madam, I swear I use no art at all.
- That he's mad, it's true. It's a pity,
And a pity it is, it's true: a foolish figure.
But forget that, for I will use no art.
Let's grant he's mad, then. And now remains
That we find out the cause of this effect,
Or rather I should say, the cause of this defect
For this effect becomes defective by a cause.
So it remains, and the remainder is thus.
Consider,
I have a daughter, (have her while she's mine,)
Who in her duty and obedience, notice,
Has given me this. Now listen, and guess what:
(Polonius reads from a letter)
"To the celestial, and my soul's idol,- the most beautified Ophelia . . ."
(Polonius interrupts his own reading):- That's a sick phrase, an evil phrase!
"Beautified" is an evil phrase - but you shall hear.
Thusly, in her excellent white bosom, she had these, and etc.
- Gertrude: Did Hamlet send this letter to her?
- Pol: Good Madam, wait a while, I will be loyal to you.
(Polonius continues reading the letter):
Doubt that the stars are fire,
Doubt that the sun does move,
Suspect truth to be a liar,
But never doubt I love.
Oh, dear Ophelia, I am not good at such poems,- I have no skill to express my groans of love,
But that I love you best, oh, most of all,
Believe it, adieu.
Yours forever, most dear Lady,
While I live in this body.
Hamlet.
(Polonius continues):- This, in obedience to me, my daughter has shown me,
And I have more of his letters, revealing his sentiments,
As I have gotten them over time, by various means, in various places,
All read by me.
- Claudius: But how has she taken his sentiments of love?
- Polonius: What do you think of me?
- Clau: As a man faithful and honorable.
- Pol: I would like to prove so, but what would you think of me,
- When I saw this passionate love in progress -
As I did notice it, (I must tell you that,)
Before my daughter told me - what would you think,
Or my dear Majesty, your Queen, here think,
If I had acted as silent as a desk or a table book,
Or had kept my feelings to myself, speechless and silent,
Or looked upon this love with an uncaring view,
What would you think? No, I went right to work,
And I told my young mistress this:
Lord Hamlet is a Prince beyond your social status,
So such love must not be. And then I gave her instructions
That she should lock herself away from any resort to him
Allow no messages, receive no tokens of affection,
And when I had told her that, she profited by my advice.
And when he was repelled by her, to keep the story short,
He fell into a sadness, then into a fast,
Then to a watch, then into a weakness,
Then to lightheadedness, and by this descent,
Into the madness wherein he now raves,
And that we all grieve over.
- Clau: Do you think so, Gertrude?
- Gertrude: It may be . . . probably.
- Pol: Has there ever been a time, I would like to know,
- That I have positively said something is so, and
It has proven otherwise?
- Clau: Not that I know of.
- Pol: Take my head from my shoulders if I'm wrong here.
- If circumstances lead me, I will find
Where the truth is hidden, even though it's hidden deeply
Within the heart.
- Clau: How can we try and find out more?
- Pol: You know, sometimes he walks for hours at a stretch
- Here in the lobby.
- Gert: So he does, indeed.
- Pol: At such a time, I'll unleash my daughter to him, and
- You and I can hide behind an arras then,
To watch the encounter. If he doesn't love her,
And that isn't the cause for why he's lost his reason,
Let me be no assistant to the nation,
But become a farmer and drive vegetable carts.
- Clau: We'll try it later.
(Hamlet enters)
Gertrude: But look, where so sadly the poor wretch comes reading.- Polonius: Away, I do beg you both, go away.
(Claudius and Gertrude exit, with their guards and attendants)
(Polonius continues):- I'll approach him now . . . oh, with Your Majesties' permission . . .
How do you do, my good Lord, Hamlet?
- Hamlet: Well, God have mercy!
- Polonius: Do you know me, my Lord?
- Hamlet: Excellent well, you are a fish dealer.
- Pol: Not I, my Lord.
- Hamlet: Then I wish you were that honorable a man.
- Pol: Honorable, my Lord?
- Hamlet: Yes, sir, to be honorable, the way this world goes
- Is to be one man chosen out of ten thousand.
- Pol: That's very true, my Lord.
- Hamlet: Because, if the sun breeds maggots in a dead dog . . . being a
- good kissing dead body . . . Have you a daughter?
- Pol: Yes, I have a daughter, my Lord.
- Hamlet: Let her not walk in the sun. Conception is a blessing,
- But, as your daughter may conceive, friend, look to it.
- Pol (aside): What do you say to that, still harping on my daughter. Yet, he
- didn't know me at first, and said I was a fish dealer. He is far gone,
and truly, in my youth, I suffered much distress for love, very much
like this. I'll speak to him again.
(to Hamlet): What are you reading, my Lord?
- Hamlet: Words, words, words.
- Pol: What is the matter, my Lord?
- Hamlet: Between whom?
- Pol: I mean the subject that you read, my Lord.
- Hamlet: Slanders, sir. Because, the satirical rogue says here, that old
- men have gray beards, that their faces are wrinkled, their eyes
secrete thick amber like tree sap, and that they have a
great lack of intelligence, and very weak hams, all of which, sir,
though I very firmly and strongly believe it, yet I don't think it's
honorable to have it written down, because you, sir, would be as old
as I am, if you could go backward like a crab.
- Pol (aside): Though this is madness, yet, there is order in it.
- (to Hamlet): Will you walk in, out of the open air, my Lord?
- Hamlet: Into my grave.
- Pol (aside): Indeed, that would be out of the air. How occasionally apt
- his replies are, a happy result madness often achieves, that reason
and righteousness could not so richly produce. I will leave
him to his thoughts about my daughter.
(to Hamlet): My Lord, I will take my leave of you.
(Polonius starts to walk away)
Hamlet: You couldn't take from me anything I'd more- willingly part with . . . except my life, except my life, except my
life.
(Guildenstern and Rosencrantz enter)
Polonius: Farewell, my Lord.- Hamlet: These tedious old fools.
- Pol: If you're looking for Lord Hamlet, there he is.
- Rosencrantz: God save you, sir.
(Polonious exits)
Guildenstern: My honored Lord.- Rosencrantz: My most dear Lord.
- Hamlet: My valued, good friends. How are you, Guildenstern?
- And Rosencrantz, good lads, how are you both doing?
- Ros: Like the ordinary children on the earth.
- Guil: Happy, that although we aren't coddled on Fortune's lap,
- On the other hand, we aren't the very least thing to her.
- Hamlet: Nor are you the soles of her shoes, being tread under foot?
- Ros: Nor that either, my Lord.
- Hamlet: Then you live about Her waist, amid Her feminine favors.
- Guil: Indeed, we are Her privates.
- Hamlet: In the secret parts of Fortune, oh it's true, Fortune is a strumpet!
- What news do you have?
- Ros: None, my Lord, except that the world's become honorable.
- Hamlet: Then doomsday must be near, but that news is not true.
- Let me ask you more specifically: what have
you, my good friends, deserved at the hands of Fortune,
that She sends you to prison here?
- Guil: Prison, my Lord?
- Hamlet: Denmark's a prison.
- Ros: Then the whole world is one.
- Hamlet: A grand one, in which there are many cells,
- wards, and dungeons, Denmark being one of the worst.
- Ros: We don't think so, my Lord.
- Hamlet: Why, then it's no prison to you, for there's nothing
- either good or bad, but point of view makes it so. To me, it is
a prison.
- Ros: Why then, your ambition makes it one. It's
- too small for your mind.
- Hamlet: Oh God, I could be bounded in a nutshell, and
- call myself the King of all I survey, except that
I have bad dreams.
- Guil: Such dreams are, indeed, ambition, since the
- very substance of the ambitious is only the shadow
of a dream.
- Hamlet: A dream, itself, is only a shadow.
- Ros: Truly, and I believe ambition is so intangible and
- frivolous an attribute, that it is only a shadow's shadow.
- Hamlet: Then real bodies are beggars, and monarchs
- and out-stretched heroes are the real body's shadows.
Shall we go to the tennis court? For, by my faith, I cannot think.
- (Both R & G): We'll serve you.
- Hamlet: No such thing. I won't mix you with the
- rest of my servants, because, to speak to you like an honorable
man, I am most dreadfully attended.
But along the beaten path of friendship, what brings you to Elsinore?
- Ros: To visit you, my Lord, that's all.
- Hamlet: I'm such a beggar that I'm even poor in thanks, but I thank
- you, and for sure, friends, my thanks are too much by a halfpenny.
Were you not sent for? Is it your own desire? Is it a voluntary visit?
Come, come, deal fairly with me. Come, come, not silence. Speak.
- Guil: What should we say, my Lord?
- Hamlet: Anything but what I asked you, I guess. You were summoned, and
- there is a kind of confession in your faces, that your manners are not
clever enough to conceal. I know the King and Queen have
sent for you.
- Ros: For what purpose, my Lord?
- Hamlet: You'll have to tell me that. But let me appeal to you, by the
- rites of our fraternity, by the harmony of our youth, by the
obligation of our abiding friendship, and by anything more desirable, that a
better questioner could induce you with: be straight and direct with
me about whether you were sent for or not.
- Ros (to Guil): What do we say?
- Hamlet: No, will you look me in the eye? If you love me, be frank.
- Guil: My Lord, yes, we were sent for.
- Hamlet: I'll tell you why, and by anticipating you, I'll prevent your
- admission, so your secret with the King and Queen won't be lost.
I have lately, but I don't know why, lost all my joy,
given up my customary activities, and indeed, things are so heavy on
my mind, that this grand place, the earth, seems to me to be a
barren promontory, and this wonderful canopy, the sky - look
at it - this splendid firmament above us, this majestical roof inset
with golden sunlight, why, it only looks to me like a foul
and diseased condensation of vapors. What piece of work is a
man? How noble his reason, how infinite his faculties. In form and
motion, how expressive and admirable in action! How like an angel,
in his apprehension, how like a god! The beauty of the world, the
paragon of animals. Yet to me, what is this quintessence of
dust? Man does not delight me, nor woman either - but by your
smiles, you seem to think so.
- Ros: My Lord, there was no such thing in my thoughts.
- Hamlet: Then why did you laugh when I said man does not delight me?
- Ros: I was thinking, my Lord, if you don't delight in man, what a cheerless
- greeting the actors will receive from you. We passed them
along the way, and they're coming here to offer you their services.
- Hamlet: The actor who plays the King will be welcome, his Majesty shall
- receive my tribute. The adventurous Knight shall use his foil and
target. The lover won't sigh for nothing. The sad man shall end
his part in peace. The clown shall tickle those who are ready to laugh
at "dry" humor, and the Lady shall speak her mind freely, or the
mournful verse will stop, if not. Which actors are they?
- Ros: They're the same ones that you took such delight in, the
- tragedians from the city.
- Hamlet: Why do they travel? Their place in the city was better, both for
- their reputation and their profit.
- Ros: I think their inhibition, from playing in the city, is due to the recent
- political change.
- Hamlet: Do they have the same reputation they did when I was in
- the city? Are they so closely followed?
- Ros: No, indeed, they are not.
- Hamlet: How did it happen? Do the actors grow lazy?
- Ros: No, they still perform at their usual energetic
- pace. But there is a company of children, little
birds, who sing out, over and above any questions about them, and
are very royally applauded for it. These children are now the
fashion, and they have shaken up the common stage (so-called)
so much, that many who wear rapiers are afraid of
goose quills, and will scarcely go there.
- Hamlet: So, they're children? Who supports them?
- How are their bills paid? Will they keep acting any
longer than they can sing? Won't they say later,
if they grow up to be regular actors, (as
is most likely if they can't do better,) that their
writers are doing them wrong, to have them compete against their
own future career?
- Ros: Goodness, there has been much to-do on both sides of the issue,
- and the nation sees nothing wrong in inciting the sides into conflict.
For a while, there was no money wagered
unless the poet and the player battled over
the issue.
- Hamlet: Is that possible?
- Ros: Oh, there has been much tossing around of
- ideas.
- Hamlet: Do the boys prevail?
- Ros: Yes, indeed they do, my Lord, like Hercules and the world, too.
- Hamlet: It doesn't surprise me, since my uncle is King of Denmark, and
- people who sneered at him, while my father was alive, now give
twenty, forty, fifty, or a hundred ducats each for his miniature
portraits. Zounds, there is something unnatural in such changes, if only
philosophy could find the answer.
(a flourish of trumpets sounds)
Guildenstern: There are the players.- Hamlet (to R & G): Gentlemen, I welcome you to Elsinore. Let me shake
- your hands, come. The display of welcome is shown by style
and ceremony. Let me greet you in this way, so that my welcome
to the actors, where I can't help looking happy, doesn't
appear to be a better welcome than I've given you. You are welcome,
but my uncle-father and my aunt-mother are mistaken.
- Guil: In what way, my dear Lord?
- Hamlet: I'm only mad north-northwest. When the wind is southerly,
- I can tell the difference between a hawk and a handsaw.
(Polonius enters)
Polonius (to the players): I hope all is well with you, gentlemen.- Hamlet: Listen, Guildenstern, and you also, at each side of me, listen:
- that big baby you see there has not yet outgrown his baby clothes.
- Ros: Happily, he's wearing them for the second time, since they say an
- old man is a child for the second time.
- Hamlet: I predict, he's going to tell me about the actors. Take notice . . .
- I think you're right, sir, it was a Monday morning, yes, indeed.
- Pol: My Lord, I have news to tell you.
- Hamlet: My Lord, I have something brand new to tell you: when
-
- Roscius was an actor in ancient Rome hundreds of years ago . . .
- Pol: The actors have arrived, my Lord.
- Hamlet: Buzz, buzz.
- Pol: Upon my honor!
- Hamlet: Then the actors arrived on a jackass.
- Pol: They're the best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy,
- history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, plays
that can't be classified, or any poetry. Seneca isn't too heavy, nor
Plautus too light, and either in the city or outside it, these are the
finest men.
- Hamlet: Oh, Jephthah, judge of Israel, what treasure did he have?
- Pol: What treasure did he have, my Lord?
- Hamlet: Why, one fair daughter, and no more, whom he loved
- very well.
- Pol (aside): Always thinking about my daughter!
- Hamlet: Am I not right, old Jephthah?
- Pol: If you call me Jephthah, my Lord, I have a daughter that I love
- very well.
- Hamlet: No, that isn't what follows.
- Pol: What does follow, then, my Lord?
- Hamlet: Why, as by chance, God knew, and then you know, it
- happened, as very like it was - the first line of the religious song will
show you more, just look where my abridgment comes.
(the Players enter)
Hamlet: You are welcome, masters, welcome all. I'm glad to see you're- well. Welcome good friends. Oh, old friend, why, your face is bearded
since I last saw you - do you come to beard me in Denmark?
What, my young actor who plays the ladies, by laddy, your ladyship is
taller than when I last saw you, by the height of a thick-soled
shoe. I hope your voice doesn't sound harsh, like a bad coin
that doesn't ring true. Masters, you're all welcome.
We'll do this acting like indiscriminate falconers, and fly at anything.
Let's have a speech right away, come, let's have a taste of your ability.
Come, let's hear an emotional speech.
- Player: What speech, my good Lord?
- Hamlet: I heard you recite for me a speech once, but it was never acted.
- Or, if it was, not more than once, for I remember the play did not
please the public. It was like caviar to them. But it was, as I heard
it with others, whose judgments about it harmonized with
mine, an excellent play, well blended in the scenes, and presented
with as much style as cleverness. I remember one fellow said there
were no salads in the lines, to make the feast more tasty, and no
content in the writing that might accuse the author of pretense,
but he called it an honorable approach, as wholesome as sweet, and
much more handsome than only showy. I really liked one speech in it.
It was Aeneas speaking to Dido, and especially the part where he
describes the killing of Priam. If you remember it, begin at
this line - let me see . . . let me see . . .
(Hamlet begins to recite):
The rugged Pyrrhus, like the Caspian tiger . . .
No, not so, but it does begin with Pyrrhus:
The rugged Pyrrhus, he, whose sable armor,
Black as his purpose, did the black of night resemble,
When he lay hidden in the Trojan Horse,
Has now smeared his dreadful and black appearance
With color even more dismal, from head to foot.
Now in red he is totally covered
With the blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons.
The blood is baked on and crusted in the hot dry streets.
The burning buildings give a tyrannous and a damned light
To their Lord's murders, roasted in wrath and fire.
Thus decorated with coagulated blood and gore,
With eyes that glitter like red jewels, the hellish Pyrrhus
Seeks his prey, old grandfather Priam.
- So, you take it from there.
- Polonius: I'll say before God, my Lord, well spoken, with good accent and
- good expression!
- Player: Soon Pyrrhus finds Priam,
- Trying to strike at Greeks and missing. His old sword
Too heavy for his arm, falls and lies on the ground
Beyond his command. Unequally matched,
Pyrrhus lunges at Priam, and swings wide in his rage.
But with the whoosh of wind from his deadly sword
The weak old man falls. Then the citadel of Ilium,
Seeming to feel the blow, with flaming top
Collapses to its foundation, and with a hideous crash
The sound stops Pyrrhus, for look! - his sword
That was descending on the white head
Of kneeling Priam, seems to stick in the air.
Thus, like a painting of a tyrant, Pyrrhus stands,
As if he were a neutral observer to his own mind and body,
And does nothing.
But as we often see in the midst of a storm
A sudden silence in the heavens, the clouds stand still,
The bold winds grow quiet, and the earth below
As silent as death, then soon the dreadful thunder
Shakes the region. So, after Pyrrhus pauses,
An aroused vengeance sets him to work again.
And never did the great Cyclops' hammers fall -
When they forged the eternal armor for the god Mars -
Any harder than Pyrrhus's bloody sword
Now falls on Priam.
Be gone, be gone, you strumpet Fortune! All you gods,
In general council take away Her power!
Break all the spokes and rims from Her wheel!
And roll the round hub of Her wheel down the hill of Heaven
All the way down to the fiends of Hell!
- Polonius: This is too long.
- Hamlet: We'll take it to the barber along with your beard.
- (to the player): Please, continue, he likes
a jig or bawdy story, or he falls asleep. Continue, get to Hecuba.
- Player: But who, oh woe, had seen the mobled Queen . . .
- Hamlet: The mob-led Queen.
- Pol: That's good!
- Player: . . . Run barefoot up and down, threatening to put out the fires
- With the great flow of her tears, a nightcap on her head
Where her crown once stood, and for a royal robe
Wrapped about her skinny and over-populated loins,
She has only a blanket, grabbed up in panic.
Anybody who saw this, would have spoken venomous words
Against the situation Fortune had made, and called it treason.
And if the gods, themselves, did see Hecuba then,
As she watched Pyrrhus making malicious sport
Of chopping up her husband's arms and legs with his sword,
The desperate screams she made
(unless mortal things do not move the gods at all)
Would have made the stars of heaven cry
And caused agony to the gods.
Polonius: Look, hasn't his face changed color, and are tears in his- eyes? Please, no more.
- Hamlet (to the Player):
- That's enough, I'll have you recite the rest later.
(To Polonius):
My good Lord, will you see the players are well housed? Do you
hear? Treat them well, because they perform essential and brief
histories of our times. After your death, you'd be better off with a
bad epitaph, than with their unflattering portrayal of you during your life.
- Pol: My Lord, I will treat them as they deserve.
- Hamlet: Goodness, man, much better than that! Give every man what he deserves,
- and who would avoid a whipping? Instead, treat them according to your own
honor and dignity. The less you think they deserve, the more worth there
is in your generosity. Take them in.
- Pol: Come, sirs.
- Hamlet: Follow him, friends. We'll have a play tomorrow.
- (to the lad who plays the ladies):
Listen, "old" friend, can you perform The Murder of Gonzago?
(Polonius and the other Players stop and wait)
Lad: Yes, my Lord.- Hamlet: We'll have it tomorrow night. Could you, if needed, learn
- a speech of some dozen, or sixteen, lines, which I would write
and insert in it, could you do that?
- Lad: Yes, my Lord.
- Hamlet: Very well. Follow that Lord, and, see here! - Don't mock him!
- (Hamlet winks at the lad)
My good friends, I'll let you go until tonight. Welcome to Elsinore!
(Polonius and the Players exit)
Rosencrantz: Goodbye, my Lord.
(Rosencrantz and Guildenstern exit)
Hamlet: Yes, goodbye to you. Now I am alone.- Oh, what a rogue and a peasant slave I am.
Isn't it unnatural that this actor, here,
Acting only in fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could put so much of his heart into his role
That he made his face grow pale
Had tears in his eyes, pain in his facial expression,
Spoke with a broken voice, and shaped his whole appearance
In the form his role required - and all for nothing,
For Hecuba.
What's Hecuba to him, really, and what's he to her,
That he should weep for her? What would the actor do
If he had the motive and the prompting for passion
That I have? He would drown the stage with tears
And cleave the public ear with a speech that would cause horror,
Make the guilty go mad, and appall the innocent,
Baffle the ignorant, and indeed, amaze
The very senses of sight and hearing.
Yet I, a dull and weak-spirited rascal, only mope,
Like an idle dreamer, unproductive in my cause,
And I can find nothing to say. No, not even for a King
Upon whose kingdom and most dear life
A damned defeat was made. Am I a coward?
Who calls me a villain, hits me on the head,
Pulls out my beard and blows it in my face,
Tweaks me on the nose, calls me liar in my throat
As deep as my lungs? Who does this to me?
Hah, by God, I would probably tolerate it! It must be
That I am pigeon-livered and lack gall
To feel the bitterness of oppression, or before this
I would have fattened all the scavenger birds in the area
With them feeding on this scoundrel's guts, that bloody, crude villain.
Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!
Why, what an ass I am. This is very brave,
That I, the son of a dear murdered one,
Prompted to take revenge by both Heaven and Hell,
Must, like a whore, pour out my emotion in words,
And start cursing like a drab, like
A male whore, shame on it! Shame!
I must use my wits. Hm, I have heard
That guilty persons sitting at a play
Have, by the very cleverness of the scene,
Been struck so much to their consciences, that right away
They have confessed their evil deeds.
For although murder has no tongue, it will speak out
In a miraculous way. I'll have these actors
Perform something like the murder of my father
In front of my uncle. I'll observe his expressions,
And probe him down to his nerve. If he reacts,
I'll know my future course. The spirit that I saw
May be a devil, since the Devil has power
To take on a pleasant shape. Yes, and perhaps,
Working on my weakness, and my sadness,
As the Devil is very powerful using such spirits,
He uses me wrong to damn me. I'll have a reason for action
More relevant than what the Ghost said: the play's the thing
In which I'll catch the conscience of the King.
(Hamlet exits)
End of Scene 7
|
(Regained)