|
. the Tragical History of . H A M L E T . Prince of Denmark .
(In the original language with modernized spelling)
- Scene 8 [~ Nunnery Scene ~] (Act 3 Scene 1)
Setting: inside the Castle;- the Lobby;
afternoon.
(Claudius and Gertrude enter, with their attendants;- Polonius and Ophelia enter;
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern enter)
Claudius: And can you by no drift of conference- Get from him why he puts on this confusion,
Grating so harshly all his days of quiet
With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?
- Rosencrantz: He does confess he feels himself distracted,
- But from what cause, he will by no means speak.
- Guildenstern: Nor do we find him forward to be sounded,
- But with a crafty madness keeps aloof
When we would bring him on to some confession
Of his true state.
- Gertrude: Did he receive you well?
- Ros: Most like a gentleman.
- Guil: But with much forcing of his disposition.
- Ros: Niggard of question, but of our demands,
- Most free in his reply.
- Gert: Did you assay him to any pastime?
- Ros: Madam, it so fell out that certain players
- We o'er-raught on the way, of these we told him,
And there did seem in him a kind of joy
To hear of it: they are here about the Court,
And as I think, they have already order
This night to play before him.
- Polonius: 'Tis most true,
- And he beseeched me to entreat your Majesties
To hear and see the matter.
- Clau: With all my heart,
- And it doth much content me
To hear him so inclined.
Good gentlemen, give him a further edge,
And drive his purpose into these delights.
- Ros: We shall, my Lord.
(Rosencrantz and Guildenstern exit;- Claudius waves away the attendants, and they exit)
Claudius: Sweet Gertrude, leave us two,- For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither,
That he, as 'twere by accident, may here
Affront Ophelia; her father and myself,
We'll so bestow ourselves, that seeing unseen,
We may of their encounter frankly judge,
And gather by him as he is behaved,
If't be th'affliction of his love or no
That thus he suffers for.
- Gertrude: I shall obey you.
- And for your part, Ophelia, I do wish
That your good beauties be the happy cause
Of Hamlet's wildness, so shall I hope your virtues,
Will bring him to his wonted way again,
To both your honors.
- Ophelia: Madam, I wish it may.
(Gertrude hides)
Polonius: Ophelia, walk you here; gracious, so please you;- We will bestow ourselves; read on this book,
That show of such an exercise may color
Your lowliness; we are oft' to blame in this,
'Tis too much proved, that with devotion's visage
And pious action, we do sugar o'er
The Devil, himself.
- Claudius: Oh, 'tis too true!
- How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience.
The harlot's cheek beautied with plastering art,
Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it,
Then is my deed to my most-painted word;
Oh, heavy burden.
- Pol: I hear him coming! Withdraw, my Lord.
(Claudius and Polonius hide behind an arras)
(Hamlet enters)
Hamlet: To be, or not to be, that is the question,- Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing, end them; to die, to sleep
No more, and by a sleep, to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to; 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished: to die, to sleep;
To sleep, perchance to dream; Aye, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come,
When we haue shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause; there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he, himself, might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin; who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveler returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Then fly to others that we know not of.
Thus, conscience does make cowards,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. Soft you now;
The fair Ophelia; nymph, in thy orizons,
Be all my sins remembered.
(Hamlet approaches Ophelia)
Ophelia: Good my Lord,- How does Your Honor for this many a day?
- Hamlet: I humbly thank you, well.
- Ophelia: My Lord, I have remembrances of yours
- That I have longed long to redeliver;
I pray you now receive them.
- Hamlet: No, not I, I never gave you ought.
- Ophelia: My honored Lord, you know right well you did,
- And with them, words of so sweet breath composed,
As made these things more rich; their perfume lost,
Take these again, for to the noble mind
Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind;
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 & fair, you should admit
- no discourse to your beauty.
- Ophelia: Could beauty, my Lord, have better commerce
- Than with honesty?
- Hamlet: Aye, truly! For, the power of beauty will sooner transform
- honesty, from what it is, to a bawd, than the force of honesty can
translate beauty into his likeness; this was sometime a paradox, 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 believed me, for virtue cannot so
- evocutate our old stock, but we shall relish of it; I loved you not.
- Ophelia: I was the more deceived.
- Hamlet: Get thee a nunnery, why would'st thou be a breeder of sinners?
- I am myself indifferent honest, but yet I could accuse me of
such things, that it were better my mother had not borne me: I am
very proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offenses at my beck,
than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape,
or time to act them in; what should such fellows as I do, crawling
between earth and heaven, we are arrant knaves, believe none of us;
go thy ways to a nunnery. Where's your father?
- Ophelia: At home, my Lord.
- Hamlet: Let the doors be shut upon him,
- That he may play the fool nowhere but in his own house;
Farewell.
- Ophelia: Oh help him, you sweet heavens.
- Hamlet: If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague for thy dowry:
- be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape
calumny; get thee to a nunnery, farewell. Or if thou wilt needs marry,
marry a fool, for wise men know well enough what monsters you
make of them; to a nunnery go, and quickly too; farewell.
- Ophelia: Heavenly powers restore him.
- Hamlet: I have heard of your paintings well enough; God hath given
- you one face, and you make yourselves another; you gig & amble,
and you lisp; you nickname God's creatures, and make your
wantonness, ignorance; go to... I'll no more on't, it hath made me mad;
I say we will have no mo' marriage, those that are married already, all
but one shall live, the rest shall keep as they are: to a nunnery go!
(Hamlet exits)
Ophelia: Oh what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!- The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword,
The expectation, and rose of the fair state,
The glass of fashion, and the mold of form,
The observed of all observers, quite quite down,
And I, of ladies, most deject and wretched,
That sucked the honey of his musiced vows,
Now see what noble and most sovereign reason,
Like sweet bells jangled out of time, and harsh,
That unmatched form, and stature of blown youth
Blasted with ecstacy; oh, woe is me,
To have seen what I have seen, see what I see.
(Gertrude exits)
(Claudius and Polonius emerge)
Claudius: Love? His affections do not that way tend,- Nor what he spoke, though it lacked form a little,
Was not like madness; there's something in his soul
O'er which his melancholy sits on brood,
And I do doubt, the hatch and the disclose
Will be some danger, which for to prevent,
I have in quick determination
Thus set it down: he shall with speed to England,
For the demand of our neglected tribute;
Hap'ly the seas, and countries different,
With variable objects, shall expel
This something, settled matter in his heart,
Whereon his brains still beating,
Puts him thus from fashion of himself.
What think you on it?
- Polonius: It shall do well;
- But yet do I believe the origin and commencement of his grief,
Sprung from neglected love. How now Ophelia?
You need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said,
We heard it all; my Lord, do as you please,
But if you hold it fit, after the play,
Let his Queen-mother, all alone, entreat him
To show his grief; let her be round with him,
And I'll be placed (so please you) in the ear
Of all their conference; if she find him not,
To England send him: or confine him where
Your wisdom best shall think.
- Clau: It shall be so;
- Madness in great ones must not unmatched go.
(everyone exits)
End of Scene 8
|
. The Tragedy of . H A M L E T . Prince of Denmark .
(In simplified modern English translation)
- Scene 8 [~ Nunnery Scene ~] (Act 3 Scene 1)
Setting: inside the Castle;- the Lobby;
early afternoon.
(Claudius and Gertrude enter, with their attendants;
- Polonius and Ophelia enter;
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern enter)
Claudius: And can't you by any drift of conversation- Learn from him why he adopts this confusion,
So discordant, and upsetting his quiet leisure time
With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?
- Rosencrantz: He does admit he feels distracted,
- But from what cause, he will not, by any means, speak of it.
- Guildenstern: Nor do we find him cooperative to be questioned,
- But with a crafty madness he keeps aloof
When we try to get him to admit
His true state of mind.
- Gertrude: Did he receive you well?
- Ros: Yes, very much like a gentleman.
- Guil: But he had to force himself to be pleasant.
- Ros: He was stingy in giving a pertinent answer to the basic question,
- But to our inquiries, he was very free with his replies.
- Gert: Did you find out if he's interested in any amusements?
- Ros: Madam, it so happened that there's a company of actors
- We passed on our way here, and we told him about them.
And he did seem happy
To hear about it. They are here at the court somewhere
And I think they have already been instructed
To put on a play tonight for him.
- Polonius: It's very true,
- And he requested me to ask your Majesties
To hear and see the play.
- Clau: With all my heart, I want to.
- And it makes me very content
To hear that he's so inclined.
Good gentlemen, give him a further nudge
And encourage him more toward such harmless delights.
- Ros: We shall, my Lord.
(Rosencrantz and Guildenstern exit;- Claudius waves away the attendants, and they exit)
Claudius: Sweet Gertrude, leave us two, me and Polonius.- For I have sent for Hamlet to come here soon, for a private meeting,
So that, as if it were by accident, he may
Meet Ophelia. Her father and myself
Will hide and watch without being seen,
So we may honestly judge the nature of their meeting
And determine from his behavior
If it is because of his love for her, or not,
That he suffers the way he does.
- Gert: I shall obey you.
- And for your part, Ophelia, I do hope
That your good beauty is the happy cause
Of Hamlet's wildness. And so I shall hope that your virtues
Will bring him to his normal ways again,
To the honor of you both.
- Ophelia: Madam, I hope it will be so.
(Gertrude hides!)
Polonius: Ophelia, walk here. Graciously, if you please!- The King and I will hide ourselves. Read this book
So that the appearance of such an activity may show
Your humility. We are often to blame in this way,
And it is too often proven, that with the face of devotion
And pious action, we can lure, or hide,
The Devil, himself.
- Clau: (aside) Oh, it's too true.
- How stinging a lash that remark gives my conscience.
The harlot's real cheek, beautified by her painted makeup,
Is no uglier compared to her made-over face
Than my deed of murder is, compared to my made-up words.
Oh, heavy burden.
- Polonius: I hear him coming! Withdraw, my Lord.
(Claudius and Polonius hide behind an arras)
(Hamlet enters)
Hamlet: To be, or not to be, that is the question.- Is it more noble, to my mind, to suffer
The twists and turns of outrageous fortune,
Or to take up arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing them, end them, one way or the other? To die, to sleep,
(No more than that,) and by a sleep, to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That human flesh is heir to. It is a consummation
Devoutly to be wished: to die, to sleep . . .
To sleep - perchance to dream! Aye, there's the rub.
For in that sleep of death, the dreams that may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal shell,
Must give us pause. There's the way
That makes for the misery of a longer life.
For who could bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrongs, the arrogant man's contempt,
The pain of rejected love, the law's delays,
The insolence of office holders, and the kicks
That those who don't deserve them patiently suffer,
When he, himself, might make his death
With a bared dagger? Who would bear burdens
To grunt and sweat through a weary life
Except for the fear of something after death,
The undiscovered country, from whose entry
No traveler returns. It baffles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than rush to others that we know not.
Thus conscience makes cowards . . .
And the healthy natural color of resolution
Is made sickly with the pallor of second thoughts,
And enterprises of great energy and importance,
Taking all this into account, their progress goes awry
And they lose the name of action. Quiet, now.
It is the fair Ophelia. Lovely maiden, in your prayers,
Please forgive all my sins against you.
(Hamlet approaches Ophelia)
Ophelia: Good my Lord,- How has Your Honor been doing for these many days?
- Hamlet: I humbly thank you . . . well.
- Ophe: My Lord, I have remembrances from you
- That I have wanted to return.
I ask you now to receive them.
- Hamlet: No, not me, I never gave you anything.
- Ophe: My honored Lord, you know very well you did.
- And with these gifts, you spoke words of such sweet breath
It made these things more rich. But now, their perfume lost,
Take them back again. For, to the noble mind
Rich gifts become poor when the giver proves unkind.
There, my Lord.
- Hamlet: Ha-ha, are you honorable?
- Ophe: My Lord?
- Hamlet: Are you fair?
- Ophe: What do you mean, your Lordship?
- Hamlet: That if you're both honorable & beautiful, you shouldn't allow
- recognition of your beauty.
- Ophe: Could beauty, my Lord, be better discussed
- Than with truthfulness?
- Hamlet: Yes, truly! For, the power of beauty will more easily
- prostitute honor, than the power of truth can
make beauty a true virtue. This was once a paradox
but now time has proven it. I did love you once.
- Ophelia: Indeed, my Lord, you made me think so.
- Hamlet: You should not have believed me, since the virtue of truthfulness
- can't be had from men, but men will suggest it can. I didn't love you.
- Ophelia: I was that much more deceived.
- Hamlet: Go to a nunnery! Why would you be a breeder of sinners?
- Myself, I'm as honorable as most men, but still I could accuse me of
such things that it would be better I had never been born. I am
very proud, revengeful, ambitious, and with more sins I could commit
than I can think about, or shape in my imagination,
or find time to act upon. What should men like me do, crawling
between earth and Heaven? Men are outright knaves, believe no man.
Go to a nunnery! Where's your father?
- Ophelia: At home, my Lord.
- Hamlet: Keep the door shut on him there
- So he'll play the fool nowhere but in his own house.
Farewell.
- Ophelia: Oh, help him, sweet heavens!
- Hamlet: If you do marry, I'll give you this plague for your dowry:
- You could be chaste as ice, and pure as snow, but you won't escape
slander. Get to a nunnery, farewell. Or, if you must marry,
marry a fool, since a wise man would well know what a lying monster you'd
make of him. Go to a nunnery, and quickly, too, farewell.
- Ophelia: Heavenly powers, restore him!
- Hamlet: I know about your kind using makeup, too; God gives you
- one face, and you make yourselves another. You sway your hips as you
stroll, and you lisp, and nickname God's creatures, and you pretend
ignorance of your wantonness. Go to a... I'll say no more, it's made me mad.
I say we'll have no more marriage. Of those already married, all
but one shall live, and the rest will stay as they are. To a nunnery, go!
(Hamlet exits)
Ophelia: Oh, what a noble mind is overthrown there!- The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, and sword!
The expectation and rose of this fair country!
The mirror of fashion, and the pattern of proper form!
The most observed among all observers: quite, quite, down!
And I, of all ladies, am now the most dejected and wretched,
Who sucked the honey of his musical vows, and
Now hear that noble and most sovereign mind
Sounding like sweet bells all jangled out of time and discordant.
That unmatched form, and height of full-blown youth -
Diseased with madness! Oh, woe is me,
To have seen what I have seen, and see what I see.
(Gertrude exits from her hiding place)
(Claudius and Polonius emerge from behind the arras)
Claudius: Love? His feelings don't sound that way.- And what he spoke, though it lacked form, a little,
Was not like insanity. There's something in his soul
That he's brooding on, in sadness.
And I do suspect, the hatching and disclosure of the cause
Will be some danger. To prevent that danger,
I have quickly determined
To order this: He shall speedily go to England,
To demand the tribute that country has neglected to pay us.
With any luck, the ocean, and the different country,
With their changes of scenery, will get
Whatever is bothering him off his chest,
The subject his mind is working on so hard that
It puts him beside himself.
What do you think about it?
- Pol: The trip should do well.
- But I still think the origin and beginning of his sadness
Sprang from neglected love. How now, Ophelia?
You don't need to tell us what Lord Hamlet said,
We heard it all. My Lord, do as you please
But if you think it proper, after the play,
Let his mother the Queen privately ask him
To explain his grievance. Let her be direct with him
And I'll hide nearby (if it please you) to overhear
Their conversation. If she can't restore his normal self,
Send him to England, or confine him where,
In your wisdom, you think best.
- Clau: It shall be so.
- Madness in great ones must not go unmatched.
(everyone exits)
End of Scene 8
|
(Regained)