HAMLET. William Shakespeare

fly up, my thoughts remain below:

       Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

       [Exit.]

       SCENE IV. Another room in the castle.

       [Enter Queen and Polonius.]

       Pol.

       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 screen’d and stood between

       Much heat and him. I’ll silence me e’en here.

       Pray you, be round with him.

       Ham.

       [Within.] Mother, mother, mother!

       Queen.

       I’ll warrant you:

       Fear me not:—withdraw; I hear him coming.

       [Polonius goes behind the arras.]

       [Enter Hamlet.]

       Ham.

       Now, mother, what’s the matter?

       Queen.

       Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.

       Ham.

       Mother, you have my father much offended.

       Queen.

       Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.

       Ham.

       Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.

       Queen.

       Why, how now, Hamlet!

       Ham.

       What’s the matter now?

       Queen.

       Have you forgot me?

       Ham.

       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.

       Queen.

       Nay, then, I’ll set those to you that can speak.

       Ham.

       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.

       Queen.

       What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murder me?—

       Help, help, ho!

       Pol.

       [Behind.] What, ho! help, help, help!

       Ham.

       How now? a rat? [Draws.]

       Dead for a ducat, dead!

       [Makes a pass through the arras.]

       Pol.

       [Behind.] O, I am slain!

       [Falls and dies.]

       Queen.

       O me, what hast thou done?

       Ham.

       Nay, I know not: is it the king?

       [Draws forth Polonius.]

       Queen.

       O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!

       Ham.

       A bloody deed!—almost as bad, good mother,

       As kill a king and marry with his brother.

       Queen.

       As kill a king!

       Ham.

       Ay, lady, ‘twas my word.—

       Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!

       [To Polonius.]

       I took thee for thy better: take thy fortune;

       Thou find’st to be too busy is some danger.—

       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 braz’d it so

       That it is proof and bulwark against sense.

       Queen.

       What have I done, that thou dar’st wag thy tongue

       In noise so rude against me?

       Ham.

       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 doth glow;

       Yea, this solidity and compound mass,

       With tristful visage, as against the doom,

       Is thought-sick at the act.

       Queen.

       Ah me, what act,

       That roars so loud, and thunders in the index?

       Ham.

       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 heaven-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 milldew’d 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 hey-day in the blood is tame, it’s humble,

       And waits upon the judgment: and what judgment

       Would step from this to this? Sense, sure, you have,

       Else could you not have motion: but sure that sense

       Is apoplex’d; for madness would not err;

       Nor sense to ecstacy was ne’er so thrall’d

       But it reserv’d some quantity of choice

       To serve in such a difference. What devil was’t

       That thus hath cozen’d 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