As from the body of contraction plucks
The very soul, and sweet religion makes

A rhapsody of words: heaven's face doth glow, 50

Yea, this solidity and compound mass,

With tristful visage, as against the doom,

Is thought-sick at the act.

Queen.

Ay 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 his brow :

Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself;
An eye like Mars, to threaten and command;
A station like the herald Mercury

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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.

Look you now, what

This was your husband.

follows

Here is your husband; like a mildew'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,

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And waits upon the judgment: and what judg

ment

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

have,

Else could you not have motion; but, sure, that

sense

Is apoplexed: for madness would not err,

Nor sense to ecstacy was ne'er so thralled
But it reserved some quantity of choice,

To serve in such

was 't,

a

difference. What devil

That thus hath cozened 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
When the compulsive ardour gives the charge;

Since frost itself as actively doth burn,

And reason panders will.
Queen.

80

O Hamlet, speak no more I

91

Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul;
And there I see such black and grainé spots.

As will not leave their tinct.

Ham.

Nay, but to live

In the rank sweat of an enseaméd bed;

Stewed 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.

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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, lapsed in time and passion, lets go by

The important acting of your dread command? 110 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:

And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm,

Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,

Starts up, and stands on 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 conjoined, 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

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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 lived !

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

[Exit Ghost.

Queen. This is the very coinage of your brain.

This bodiless creation, ecstacy

Is very cunning in.

My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time,

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And makes as healthful music. It is not mad

ness

That I have uttered: 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.

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