HAMLET. William Shakespeare

bloat king tempt you again to bed;

       Pinch wanton on your cheek; call you his mouse;

       And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses,

       Or paddling in your neck with his damn’d 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 paddock, 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.

       Queen.

       Be thou assur’d, if words be made of breath,

       And breath of life, I have no life to breathe

       What thou hast said to me.

       Ham.

       I must to England; you know that?

       Queen.

       Alack,

       I had forgot: ‘tis so concluded on.

       Ham.

       There’s letters seal’d: and my two schoolfellows,—

       Whom I will trust as I will adders fang’d,—

       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 ‘t 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 neighbour room.—

       Mother, goodnight.—Indeed, this counsellor

       Is now most still, most secret, and most grave,

       Who was in life a foolish peating knave.

       Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you:—

       Good night, mother.

       [Exeunt severally; Hamlet, dragging out Polonius.]

ACT IV.

       Table of Contents

      SCENE I. A room in the Castle.

       [Enter King, Queen, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.]

       King.

       There’s matter in these sighs. These profound heaves

       You must translate: ‘tis fit we understand them.

       Where is your son?

       Queen.

       Bestow this place on us a little while.

       [To Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who go out.]

       Ah, my good lord, what have I seen tonight!

       King.

       What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?

       Queen.

       Mad as the sea and wind, when both contend

       Which is the mightier: in his lawless fit

       Behind the arras hearing something stir,

       Whips out his rapier, cries ‘A rat, a rat!’

       And in this brainish apprehension, kills

       The unseen good old man.

       King.

       O heavy deed!

       It had been so with us, had we been there:

       His liberty is full of threats to all;

       To you yourself, to us, to every one.

       Alas, how shall this bloody deed be answer’d?

       It will be laid to us, whose providence

       Should have kept short, restrain’d, and out of haunt

       This mad young man. But so much was our love

       We would not understand what was most fit;

       But, like the owner of a foul disease,

       To keep it from divulging, let it feed

       Even on the pith of life. Where is he gone?

       Queen.

       To draw apart the body he hath kill’d:

       O’er whom his very madness, like some ore

       Among a mineral of metals base,

       Shows itself pure: he weeps for what is done.

       King.

       O Gertrude, come away!

       The sun no sooner shall the mountains touch

       But we will ship him hence: and this vile deed

       We must with all our majesty and skill

       Both countenance and excuse.—Ho, Guildenstern!

       [Re-enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.]

       Friends both, go join you with some further aid:

       Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain,

       And from his mother’s closet hath he dragg’d him:

       Go seek him out; speak fair, and bring the body

       Into the chapel. I pray you, haste in this.

       [Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.]

       Come, Gertrude, we’ll call up our wisest friends;

       And let them know both what we mean to do

       And what’s untimely done: so haply slander,—

       Whose whisper o’er the world’s diameter,

       As level as the cannon to his blank,

       Transports his poison’d shot,—may miss our name,

       And hit the woundless air.—O, come away!

       My soul is full of discord and dismay.

       [Exeunt.]

       SCENE II. Another room in the Castle.

       [Enter Hamlet.]

       Ham.

       Safely stowed.

       Ros. and Guil.

       [Within.] Hamlet! Lord Hamlet!

       Ham.

       What noise? who calls on Hamlet? O, here they come.

       [Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.]

       Ros.

       What have you done, my lord, with the dead body?

       Ham.

       Compounded it with dust, whereto ‘tis kin.

       Ros.

       Tell us where ‘tis, that we may take it thence,

       And bear it to the chapel.

       Ham.