Complete Plays, The (88 page)

Do you think I meant country matters?

Ophelia

I think nothing, my lord.

Hamlet

That’s a fair thought to lie between maids’ legs.

Ophelia

What is, my lord?

Hamlet

Nothing.

Ophelia

You are merry, my lord.

Hamlet

Who, I?

Ophelia

Ay, my lord.

Hamlet

O God, your only jig-maker. What should a man do but be merry? for, look you, how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died within these two hours.

Ophelia

Nay, ’tis twice two months, my lord.

Hamlet

So long? Nay then, let the devil wear black, for I’ll have a suit of sables. O heavens! die two months ago, and not forgotten yet? Then there’s hope a great man’s memory may outlive his life half a year: but, by’r lady, he must build churches, then; or else shall he suffer not thinking on, with the hobby-horse, whose epitaph is ‘For, O, for, O, the hobby-horse is forgot.’

Hautboys play. The dumb-show enters

Enter a King and a Queen very lovingly; the Queen embracing him, and he her. She kneels, and makes show of protestation unto him. He takes her up, and declines his head upon her neck: lays him down upon a bank of flowers: she, seeing him asleep, leaves him. Anon comes in a fellow, takes off his crown, kisses it, and pours poison in the King’s ears, and exit. The Queen returns; finds the King dead, and makes passionate action. The Poisoner, with some two or three Mutes, comes in again, seeming to lament with her. The dead body is carried away. The Poisoner wooes the Queen with gifts: she seems loath and unwilling awhile, but in the end accepts his love

Exeunt

Ophelia

What means this, my lord?

Hamlet

Marry, this is miching mallecho; it means mischief.

Ophelia

Belike this show imports the argument of the play.

Enter Prologue

Hamlet

We shall know by this fellow: the players cannot keep counsel; they’ll tell all.

Ophelia

Will he tell us what this show meant?

Hamlet

Ay, or any show that you’ll show him: be not you ashamed to show, he’ll not shame to tell you what it means.

Ophelia

You are naught, you are naught: I’ll mark the play.

Prologue

 
For us, and for our tragedy,
Here stooping to your clemency,
We beg your hearing patiently.

Exit

Hamlet

Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?

Ophelia

’Tis brief, my lord.

Hamlet

As woman’s love.

Enter two Players, King and Queen

Player King

 
Full thirty times hath Phoebus’ cart gone round
Neptune’s salt wash and Tellus’ orbed ground,
And thirty dozen moons with borrow’d sheen
About the world have times twelve thirties been,
Since love our hearts and Hymen did our hands
Unite commutual in most sacred bands.

Player Queen

 
So many journeys may the sun and moon
Make us again count o’er ere love be done!
But, woe is me, you are so sick of late,
So far from cheer and from your former state,
That I distrust you. Yet, though I distrust,
Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must:
For women’s fear and love holds quantity;
In neither aught, or in extremity.
Now, what my love is, proof hath made you know;
And as my love is sized, my fear is so:
Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear;
Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.

Player King

’Faith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly too;
My operant powers their functions leave to do:
And thou shalt live in this fair world behind,
Honour’d, beloved; and haply one as kind
For husband shalt thou —

Player Queen

O, confound the rest!
Such love must needs be treason in my breast:
In second husband let me be accurst!
None wed the second but who kill’d the first.

Hamlet

[Aside]
 
Wormwood, wormwood.

Player Queen

 
The instances that second marriage move
Are base respects of thrift, but none of love:
A second time I kill my husband dead,
When second husband kisses me in bed.

Player King

 
I do believe you think what now you speak;
But what we do determine oft we break.
Purpose is but the slave to memory,
Of violent birth, but poor validity;
Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree;
But fall, unshaken, when they mellow be.
Most necessary ’tis that we forget
To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt:
What to ourselves in passion we propose,
The passion ending, doth the purpose lose.
The violence of either grief or joy
Their own enactures with themselves destroy:
Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament;
Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident.
This world is not for aye, nor ’tis not strange
That even our loves should with our fortunes change;
For ’tis a question left us yet to prove,
Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love.
The great man down, you mark his favourite flies;
The poor advanced makes friends of enemies.
And hitherto doth love on fortune tend;
For who not needs shall never lack a friend,
And who in want a hollow friend doth try,
Directly seasons him his enemy.
But, orderly to end where I begun,
Our wills and fates do so contrary run
That our devices still are overthrown;
Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own:
So think thou wilt no second husband wed;
But die thy thoughts when thy first lord is dead.

Player Queen

 
Nor earth to me give food, nor heaven light!
Sport and repose lock from me day and night!
To desperation turn my trust and hope!
An anchor’s cheer in prison be my scope!
Each opposite that blanks the face of joy
Meet what I would have well and it destroy!
Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife,
If, once a widow, ever I be wife!

Hamlet

If she should break it now!

Player King

’Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here awhile;
My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile
The tedious day with sleep.

Sleeps

Player Queen

Sleep rock thy brain,
And never come mischance between us twain!

Exit

Hamlet

Madam, how like you this play?

Queen Gertrude

The lady protests too much, methinks.

Hamlet

O, but she’ll keep her word.

King Claudius

Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in ’t?

Hamlet

No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest; no offence i’ the world.

King Claudius

What do you call the play?

Hamlet

The Mouse-trap. Marry, how? Tropically. This play is the image of a murder done in Vienna: Gonzago is the duke’s name; his wife, Baptista: you shall see anon; ’tis a knavish piece of work: but what o’ that? your majesty and we that have free souls, it touches us not: let the galled jade wince, our withers are unwrung.

Enter Lucianus

This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king.

Ophelia

You are as good as a chorus, my lord.

Hamlet

I could interpret between you and your love, if I could see the puppets dallying.

Ophelia

You are keen, my lord, you are keen.

Hamlet

It would cost you a groaning to take off my edge.

Ophelia

Still better, and worse.

Hamlet

So you must take your husbands. Begin, murderer; pox, leave thy damnable faces, and begin. Come: ’the croaking raven doth bellow for revenge.’

Lucianus

 
Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing;
Confederate season, else no creature seeing;
Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected,
With Hecate’s ban thrice blasted, thrice infected,
Thy natural magic and dire property,
On wholesome life usurp immediately.

Pours the poison into the sleeper’s ears

Hamlet

He poisons him i’ the garden for’s estate. His name’s Gonzago: the story is extant, and writ in choice Italian: you shall see anon how the murderer gets the love of Gonzago’s wife.

Ophelia

The king rises.

Hamlet

What, frighted with false fire!

Queen Gertrude

How fares my lord?

Lord Polonius

Give o’er the play.

King Claudius

Give me some light: away!

All

Lights, lights, lights!

Exeunt all but Hamlet and Horatio

Hamlet

 
Why, let the stricken deer go weep,
The hart ungalled play;
For some must watch, while some must sleep:
So runs the world away.
Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers — if the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me — with two Provincial roses on my razed shoes, get me a fellowship in a cry of players, sir?

Horatio

Half a share.

Hamlet

A whole one, I.
For thou dost know, O Damon dear,
This realm dismantled was
Of Jove himself; and now reigns here
A very, very — pajock.

Horatio

You might have rhymed.

Hamlet

O good Horatio, I’ll take the ghost’s word for a thousand pound. Didst perceive?

Horatio

Very well, my lord.

Hamlet

Upon the talk of the poisoning?

Horatio

I did very well note him.

Hamlet

Ah, ha! Come, some music! come, the recorders!
For if the king like not the comedy,
Why then, belike, he likes it not, perdy.
Come, some music!

Re-enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

Guildenstern

Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you.

Hamlet

Sir, a whole history.

Guildenstern

The king, sir,—

Hamlet

Ay, sir, what of him?

Guildenstern

Is in his retirement marvellous distempered.

Hamlet

With drink, sir?

Guildenstern

No, my lord, rather with choler.

Hamlet

Your wisdom should show itself more richer to signify this to his doctor; for, for me to put him to his purgation would perhaps plunge him into far more choler.

Guildenstern

Good my lord, put your discourse into some frame and start not so wildly from my affair.

Hamlet

I am tame, sir: pronounce.

Guildenstern

The queen, your mother, in most great affliction of spirit, hath sent me to you.

Hamlet

You are welcome.

Guildenstern

Nay, good my lord, this courtesy is not of the right breed. If it shall please you to make me a wholesome answer, I will do your mother’s commandment: if not, your pardon and my return shall be the end of my business.

Hamlet

Sir, I cannot.

Guildenstern

What, my lord?

Hamlet

Make you a wholesome answer; my wit’s diseased: but, sir, such answer as I can make, you shall command; or, rather, as you say, my mother: therefore no more, but to the matter: my mother, you say,—

Rosencrantz

Then thus she says; your behavior hath struck her into amazement and admiration.

Hamlet

O wonderful son, that can so astonish a mother! But is there no sequel at the heels of this mother’s admiration? Impart.

Rosencrantz

She desires to speak with you in her closet, ere you go to bed.

Hamlet

We shall obey, were she ten times our mother. Have you any further trade with us?

Rosencrantz

My lord, you once did love me.

Hamlet

So I do still, by these pickers and stealers.

Rosencrantz

Good my lord, what is your cause of distemper? you do, surely, bar the door upon your own liberty, if you deny your griefs to your friend.

Hamlet

Sir, I lack advancement.

Rosencrantz

How can that be, when you have the voice of the king himself for your succession in Denmark?

Hamlet

Ay, but sir, ‘While the grass grows,’— the proverb is something musty.

Re-enter Players with recorders

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

Guildenstern

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

Hamlet

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

Guildenstern

My lord, I cannot.

Hamlet

I pray you.

Guildenstern

Believe me, I cannot.

Hamlet

I do beseech you.

Guildenstern

I know no touch of it, my lord.

Hamlet

’Tis as easy as lying: govern these ventages with your lingers and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music. Look you, these are the stops.

Guildenstern

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

Hamlet

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. ’sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, yet you cannot play upon me.