And what's in prayer but this twofold force-- To be forestalled ere we come to fall,
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!— 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 'tis seen, the wicked prize itself Buys out the law: but 'tis 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 limed 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!
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. 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 :12 When he is drunk, asleep, or in his rage; At gaming, swearing, or about some act That has no relish of salvation in 't- Then trip him!-But' my mother stays: This physic but prolongs thy sickly days.
The KING rises and advances.
King. My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Words, without thoughts never to heaven go.
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 Much heat and him. I'll sconce me even here.
Pray you, be round with him.
Ham. [Within.] Mother! mother! mother! Queen.
Fear me not withdraw, I hear him coming.
[POLONIUS goes behind the arras.
Ham. Now, mother, what's the matter?
Queen. Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended. Ham. Mother, you have my father much offended.
Queen. Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue. Ham. Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue. Queen. Why, how now, Hamlet!
Queen. Have you forgot me?
You are the queen, your husband's brother's wife; 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; 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. How now! a rat? [Draws.] Dead, for a ducat, dead!
Pol. [Behind.] O I am slain.
[Makes a pass through the arras.
Queen. O me, what hast thou done?
Queen. O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!
Ham. A bloody deed!—almost as bad, good mother,
As kill a king, and marry with his brother.
Queen. As kill a king!
Ay, lady, 'twas my [Lifts up the arras,
word.- and sees POLONIUS.
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 'monstrous' custom have not braz'd it so, That it is proof and bulwark against sense.
Queen. What have I done, that thou dar'st wag thy tongue In noise so rude against me?
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 13 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. Ah me, what act, That roars so loud, and thunders in the index ?14 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; 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,
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 heyday 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 reserv'd 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. 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.
O, speak to me no more;
These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears; No more, sweet Hamlet!
A murderer and a villain;
A slave, that is not twentieth part the tithe Of your precedent lord ;—a vice of kings :15 A cutpurse of the empire and the rule, That from a shelf the precious diadem stole, And put it in his pocket!
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