O, the recorders! let me see one. To withdraw with you:-why do you go about to recover the wind of me,2 as if you would drive me into a toil?

Guil. O, my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly.

Ham. I do not well understand that. Will you play upon this pipe?

Guil. My lord, I cannot.

Ham. I pray you.

Guil. Believe me, I cannot.
Ham. I do beseech you.

370

Guil. I know no touch of it, my lord. Ham. It is as easy as lying: govern these ventages3 with your fingers and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music. Look you, these are the stops.

Guil. But these cannot I command to any utterance of harmony; I have not the skill.

378

Ham. Why look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass: and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ; yet cannot you make it speak. 'S blood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret1 me, you cannot play upon me.

1 "While the grass grows the steed starves."

2 To recover the wind of me, i.e., in hunting, to get to windward of the game, that it may be driven into the toil without scenting it.

3 These ventages, the stops.

* Fret, a quibble; the frets are the stops of an instrument.

39

O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven;
It hath the primal eldest curse upon 't,
A brother's murder! Pray can I not,
Though inclination be as sharp as will:
My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent,
And, like a man to double business bound,
I stand in pause where I shall first begin,
And both neglect. What if this cursed hand
Were thicker than itself with brother's blood,
Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens
To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves
mercy

But to confront the visage of offence?
And what's in prayer but this twofold force,
To be forestalled ere we come to fall,

49

Or pardon'd being down? Then I'll look up; My fault is past. But, O, what form of prayer Can serve my turn? "Forgive me my foul murder?"

60

That cannot be, since I am still possess'd
Of those effects for which I did the murder,
My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.
May one be pardon'd, and retain the offence?
In the corrupted currents of this world
Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice;
And oft 't is seen the wicked prize itself
Buys out the law: but 't is not so above;
There is no shuffling, there the action lies
In his true nature; and we ourselves compell'd,
Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,
To give in evidence. What then? what rests??
Try what repentance can: what can it not?
Yet what can it when one can not repent?
O wretched state! O bosom black as death!
O limed3 soul, that struggling to be free
Art more engag'd. Help, angels! Make
assay!

Bow, stubborn knees; and, heart with strings of steel,

Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe!

All may be well.

70

[Retires and kneels.

1 Of vantage, i.e. from a point of vantage.

2 Rests, remains. 3 Limed, caught with bird-lime.

4 Engag'd, entangled.

Enter HAMLET.

Ham. Now might I do it pat, now he is praying;

And now I'll do 't: and so he goes to heaven;
And so am I reveng'd. That would be scann'd:
A villain kills my father; and, for that,

I, his sole son, do this same villain send
To heaven.

80

O, this is hire and salary, not revenge.
He took my father grossly, full of bread,
With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as
May;

And how his audit stands who knows save heaven?

But, in our circumstance and course of thought,
"Tis heavy with him: and am I, then, reveng'd,
To take him in the purging of his soul,
When he is fit and season'd for his passage?
No.

Up, sword, and know thou a more horrid hent:

When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage,
[Or in the incestuous pleasure of his bed;] 90
At gaming, swearing, or about some act
That has no relish of salvation in 't;

Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven,

And that his soul may be as damn'd and black As hell, whereto it goes. My mother stays: This physic but prolongs thy sickly days.

[Exit.

[The King rises and advances. King. My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:

Words without thoughts never to heaven go. [Exit.

SCENE IV. Another room in the same.

Enter QUEEN and POLONIUS.

Pol. He will come straight. Look you lay home to him:

Tell him his pranks have been too broad' to bear with,

And that your grace hath screen'd and stood between

5 Would, ie. requires to.

• Flush, full of vigour.

7 Broad, unrestrained.

And would it were not so!-you are my mother.

Queen. Nay, then, I'll set those to you that can speak.

Ham. Come, come, and sit you down; you shall not budge;

19

You go not till I set you up a glass
Where you may see the inmost part of you.
Queen. What wilt thou do? thou wilt not
murder me? Help, help, ho!

Pol. [Behind] What, ho! help, help, help! Ham. [Drawing] How now! a rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead!

[Makes a pass through the arras. Pol. [Behind] O, I am slain!

[Falls and dies. Queen. O me, what hast thou done? Ham. Nay, I know not:

Is it the king?

Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell! I took thee for thy better: take thy fortune; Thou find'st to be too busy in some danger. 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 braz'd it so,
That it is proof and bulwark against sense.1
Queen. What have I done, that thou dar'st
wag thy tongue

40

In noise so rude against me?
Ham.
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-sick3 at the act.

50

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 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:

60

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?

1 Sense, feeling.

2 Contraction, i.e. marriage contract.

3 Thought-sick, sick with anxiety.

4 Station, attitude in standing.

5 Batten, grow fat.