HAMLET. (Drawing.)

How now! a rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead! (Makes a pass through the arras.)

POLONIUS. (Behind.)

O, I am slain! (Falls and dies.)

QUEEN.

O me, what hast thou done?

HAMLET.

Nay, I know not: is it the king?

QUEEN.

O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!

HAMLET.

A bloody deed! almost as bad, good mother,
As kill a king, and marry with his brother.

Ay, lady, 'twas my word.

(Lifts up the arras and discovers POLONIUS.) Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell! I took thee for thy better.

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 brass'd it so,

That it be proof and bulwark against sense.

QUEEN.

What have I done, that thou darest wag thy

HAMLET.

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.

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 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,
And waits upon the judgment: and what judg-

ment

Would step from this to this?

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.

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.

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!

HAMLET.

A king of shreds and patches

Enter GHOST.

Save me, and hover o'er me with your wings, You heavenly guards! What would your gra

cious figure?

HAMLET.

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?
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:
Speak to her, Hamlet.

HAMLET.

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? O gentle son,

Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look?

HAMLET.

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?

HAMLET.

Do you see nothing there?

QUEEN.

Nothing at all; yet all that is I see

HAMLET.

Nor did you nothing hear?

QUEEN.

No, nothing but ourselves.

HAMLET.

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
This bodiless creation ecstasy

Is very cunning in.

HAMLET.

Ecstasy!

brain :

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,
Whiles rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven;
Repent what's past, avoid what is to come.

QUEEN.

O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.

HAMLET.

O, throw away the worser part of it,
And live the purer with the other half.