Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled That they are not a pipe for fortune's finger man That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart As I do thee!" In the dumb show murder play, before the King and Queen Shakspere puts these phrases in the mouths of the players and Hamlet: "The great man down, you mark his favorite flies; "But what's that, your Majesty; And we that have free souls, it touches us not; Let the galled jade wince, our withers are unwrung!" King Claudius frightened at the mock play runs away, and Hamlet says to Horatio: "Why let the stricken deer go weep, The hart ungalled play; For some must watch, while some must sleep "'Tis now the very witching time of night, When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out Contagion to this world; now could I drink hot blood, And do such bitter business as the day Would quake to look on. Soft, now to my mother; I will speak daggers to her, but use none!" King Claudius the night before his death, after conspiring with Polonius for the exile of Hamlet utters this self-accusing, remorseful soliloquy: "O, my offense is rank, it smells to heaven; Or pardoned being down? Then I'll look up; Buys out the law; but 'tis not so above; In the midnight interview of Hamlet with his mother, Polonius hides behind a curtain to spy upon the words of the "melancholy Dane," and is killed by a sword thrust of Hamlet, who exclaims: "How now! a rat, dead for a ducat." Then Hamlet holds his mother to the talk and pours these lines of liquid gall into her trembling ear and frightened heart: "Look here, upon this picture, and on this, Here is your husband; like a mildewed ear, Your husband; a murderer and a villain; A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe A king of shreds and patches!" King Claudius, alarmed at the death of Polonius and his own guilty state, conspires with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to take Hamlet to England and get rid of him, saying: "Follow him at foot; tempt him with speed abroad, Delay it not; I'll have him hence to-night; Away! for everything is sealed and done That else leans on the affair; pray you, make haste!" Hamlet before retiring thus bemoans his slowness in wreaking a just vengeance upon his murderer uncle: "How all occasions do inform against me, Sure, he that made us with such large discourse To rot in us unused. Rightly to be great Is not to stir without great argument; But greatly to find quarrel in a straw When honor's at the stake. How stand I then, That have a father killed, a mother stained, Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot The beautiful Ophelia becomes insane after her father's death, and wanders about the castle singing disjointed love songs and uttering musings. Queen Margaret says: She sings: "How now, Ophelia?" "How should I your true love know From another one? By his cockle hat and staff And his sandal shoon." The king asks: "How do you do, pretty lady?" She replies: "They say the owl was a banker's daughter; Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be." |