HAMLET. William Shakespeare

the compulsive ardour gives the charge,

       Since frost itself as actively doth burn,

       And reason panders will.

       Queen.

       O Hamlet, speak no more:

       Thou turn’st mine eyes into my very soul;

       And there I see such black and grained spots

       As will not leave their tinct.

       Ham.

       Nay, but to live

       In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed,

       Stew’d in corruption, honeying and making love

       Over the nasty sty,—

       Queen.

       O, speak to me no more;

       These words like daggers enter in mine ears;

       No more, sweet Hamlet.

       Ham.

       A murderer and a villain;

       A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe

       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!

       Queen.

       No more.

       Ham.

       A king of shreds and patches!—

       [Enter Ghost.]

       Save me and hover o’er me with your wings,

       You heavenly guards!—What would your gracious figure?

       Queen.

       Alas, he’s mad!

       Ham.

       Do you not come your tardy son to chide,

       That, laps’d 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.

       Ham.

       How is it with you, lady?

       Queen.

       Alas, how is’t with you,

       That you do bend your eye on vacancy,

       And with the incorporal air do hold discourse?

       Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep;

       And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm,

       Your bedded hairs, like life in excrements,

       Start up and stand an end. O gentle son,

       Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper

       Sprinkle cool patience! Whereon do you look?

       Ham.

       On him, on him! Look you how pale he glares!

       His form and cause conjoin’d, 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 colour; tears perchance for blood.

       Queen.

       To whom do you speak this?

       Ham.

       Do you see nothing there?

       Queen.

       Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.

       Ham.

       Nor did you nothing hear?

       Queen.

       No, nothing but ourselves.

       Ham.

       Why, look you there! look how it steals away!

       My father, in his habit as he liv’d!

       Look, where he goes, even now out at the portal!

       [Exit Ghost.]

       Queen.

       This is the very coinage of your brain:

       This bodiless creation ecstasy

       Is very cunning in.

       Ham.

       Ecstasy!

       My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time,

       And makes as healthful music: it is not madness

       That I have utter’d: bring me to the test,

       And I the matter will re-word; 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,

       Whilst 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.

       Queen.

       O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.

       Ham.

       O, throw away the worser part of it,

       And live the purer with the other half.

       Good night: but go not to mine uncle’s bed;

       Assume a virtue, if you have it not.

       That monster custom, who all sense doth eat,

       Of habits evil, 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. Refrain tonight;

       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 curb the devil, or throw him out

       With wondrous potency. Once more, goodnight:

       And when you are desirous to be bles’d,

       I’ll blessing beg of you.—For this same lord

       [Pointing to Polonius.]

       I do repent; but heaven hath pleas’d 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, goodnight.—

       I must be cruel, only to be kind:

       Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.—

       One word more, good lady.

       Queen.

       What shall I do?

       Ham.

       Not this, by