The Complete Works of William Shakespeare In Plain and Simple English (Translated) (872 page)

The Queen's closet

Enter QUEEN GERTRUDE and POLONIUS

LORD POLONIUS

He is coming soon. Make sure you give him a good talking to about his pranks. Tell him how you have protected him. I’ll be here, but he won’t know it. Be firm with him!

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
Much heat and him. I'll sconce me even here.
Pray you, be round with him.

HAMLET

[Within]

Mother, mother, mother!

 Mother, mother, mother!

QUEEN GERTRUDE

I will, don’t worry. Hide, I hear him coming.

I'll warrant you,
Fear me not: withdraw, I hear him coming.

POLONIUS hides behind the arras

Enter HAMLET

HAMLET

Now, mother, what’s the matter?

Now, mother, what's the matter?

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Hamlet, you have offended your father.

Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.

HAMLET

Mother, you are the one who has offended my father

Mother, you have my father much offended.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Come now. Talk sensibly.

Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.

HAMLET

Go on. You are questioning me angrily.

Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

What are you talking about, Hamlet?

Why, how now, Hamlet!

HAMLET

What’s the matter now!

What's the matter now?

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Have you forgotten who I am?

Have you forgot me?

HAMLET

Of course not. You are the queen; your husband’s brother’s wife. And although I wish it were not true, you are my mother.

No, by the rood, not so:
You are the queen, your husband's brother's wife;
And--would it were not so!--you are my mother.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Alright then, I’ll bring in someone who can speak some sense into you.

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

HAMLET

No. Sit down. You will not leave until I give you a mirror and show you your true self.

Come, come, and sit you down; you shall not budge;
You go not till I set you up a glass
Where you may see the inmost part of you.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

What are you going to do? Murder me? Help, help!

What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murder me?
Help, help, ho!

LORD POLONIUS

[Behind]

What is going on? Help! Help!

What, ho! help, help, help!

HAMLET

[Drawing]

What now? A rat? He’ll be a dead rat, I bet!

How now! a rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead!

Makes a pass through the arras

LORD POLONIUS

[Behind]

Oh, I am killed!

O, I am slain!

Falls and dies

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Oh no! What have you done?

O me, what hast thou done?

HAMLET

I do not know. Is it the king?

Nay, I know not:
Is it the king?

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Oh what a horrible, bloody deed this is!

O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!

HAMLET

It is a bloody deed; almost as bad, good mother, as killing a king and marrying his brother.

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

QUEEN GERTRUDE

As killing a king!

As kill a king!

HAMLET

Yes, lady, that’s what I said.

Ay, lady, 'twas my word.

Lifts up the array and discovers POLONIUS

You stupid fool! Goodbye! I thought you were better. Take what you deserve. Now mother. Stop wringing your hands. Be still and sit down. Let me lay something on your heart, if it is not made of brass.

Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!
I took thee for thy better: take thy fortune;
Thou find'st to be too busy is 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 brass'd it so
That it is proof and bulwark against sense.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

What have I done so terribly that you dare talk to me this way?

What have I done, that thou darest wag thy tongue
In noise so rude against me?

HAMLET

You have done such an awful act that is unforgiveable.

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.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

What have I done that is so awful?

Ay me, what act,
That roars so loud, and thunders in the index?

HAMLET

Imagine this…Two brothers sitting side-by-side where one is blessed by God and in the eyes of man. This man was your husband. Now the other man is horrid and capable of evil. He is your current husband. Don’t you see? Why are with this man? Don’t say it is love, because love fades with age and is replaced with wisdom. What persuaded you to marry this man? Don’t you have any sense? You aren’t even ashamed. Perhaps, I will not be ashamed either.

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 judgment
Would step from this to this? Sense, sure, you have,
Else could you not have motion; but sure, that sense
Is apoplex'd; for madness would not err,
Nor sense to ecstasy was ne'er so thrall'd
But it reserved some quantity of choice,
To serve in such a difference. What devil was't
That thus hath cozen'd 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 GERTRUDE

Oh, Hamlet, stop saying those things. I am looking into my own wretched soul, black with sin.

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.

HAMLET

Yes, and you live in a bed of sin, corrupt with love making.

Nay, but to live
In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed,
Stew'd in corruption, honeying and making love
Over the nasty sty,--

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Say no more. You’re killing me! No more, please, Hamlet!

O, speak to me no more;
These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears;
No more, sweet Hamlet!

HAMLET

You are married to a murderer and a villain, a shadow of your first husband, who stole the crown.

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 GERTRUDE

No more!

No more!

HAMLET

He is a pathetic king…

A king of shreds and patches,--

Enter Ghost

Oh, God, sending your angel to save me. What do you want?

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

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Finally, he’s gone crazy!

Alas, he's mad!

HAMLET

Please don’t be upset that it has taken me so long to obey you. Tell me?

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

Don’t forget your purpose. Your mother is close to breaking. Keep talking to her.

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:
Speak to her, Hamlet.

HAMLET

How are you doing, mother?

How is it with you, lady?

QUEEN GERTRUDE

How are you? Who are you talking to? Your hair is standing on end. Calm down and tell me what are you looking at?

Alas, how is't with you,
That you do bend your eye on vacancy
And with the incorporal air do hold discourse?
Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep;
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?

HAMLET

At him, at him! Look how pale he is. He could make the stones move. Don’t look at me or else I will cry and be unable to kill.