Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

Contents2024 Feb 20 13:01:29


Act 1	Scene 1	Elsinore. A platform before the castle.
	Scene 2	A room of state in the castle.
	Scene 3	A room in Polonius' house.
	Scene 4	The platform.
	Scene 5	Another part of the platform.

Act 2	Scene 1	A room in Polonius' house.
	Scene 2	A room in the castle.

Act 3	Scene 1	A room in the castle.
	Scene 2	An hall in the castle.
	Scene 3	A room in the castle.
	Scene 4	The Queen's closet.

Act 4	Scene 1	A room in the castle.
	Scene 2	Another room in the castle.
	Scene 3	Another room in the castle.
	Scene 4	A plain in Denmark.
	Scene 5	Elsinore. A room in the castle.
	Scene 6	Another room in the castle.
	Scene 7	Another room in the castle.

Act 5	Scene 1	A churchyard.
	Scene 2	An hall in the castle.

	Finis

Contents

Act 1

Scene 1

London. The palace.

Flourish of trumpets: then hautboys. Enter KING HENRY VI, GLOUCESTER, SALISBURY, WARWICK, and CARDINAL, on the one side; QUEEN MARGARET, SUFFOLK, YORK, SOMERSET, and BUCKINGHAM, on the other

1.1.1 SUFFOLK

As by your high imperial majesty
I had in charge at my depart for France,
As procurator to your excellence,
To marry Princess Margaret for your grace,
So, in the famous ancient city, Tours,
In presence of the Kings of France and Sicil,
The Dukes of Orleans, Calaber, Bretagne and Alencon,
Seven earls, twelve barons and twenty reverend bishops,
I have perform'd my task and was espoused:
And humbly now upon my bended knee,
In sight of England and her lordly peers,
Deliver up my title in the queen
To your most gracious hands, that are the substance
Of that great shadow I did represent;
The happiest gift that ever marquess gave,
The fairest queen that ever king received.

1.1.17 KING HENRY VI

Suffolk, arise. Welcome, Queen Margaret:
I can express no kinder sign of love
Than this kind kiss. O Lord, that lends me life,
Lend me a heart replete with thankfulness!
For thou hast given me in this beauteous face
A world of earthly blessings to my soul,
If sympathy of love unite our thoughts.

1.1.24 QUEEN MARGARET

Great King of England and my gracious lord,
The mutual conference that my mind hath had,
By day, by night, waking and in my dreams,
In courtly company or at my beads,
With you, mine alder-liefest sovereign,
Makes me the bolder to salute my king
With ruder terms, such as my wit affords
And over-joy of heart doth minister.

1.1.32 KING HENRY VI

Her sight did ravish; but her grace in speech,
Her words y-clad with wisdom's majesty,
Makes me from wondering fall to weeping joys;
Such is the fulness of my heart's content.
Lords, with one cheerful voice welcome my love.

1.1.37 ALL

[Kneeling] Long live Queen Margaret, England's
happiness!

1.1.39 QUEEN MARGARET

We thank you all.

Flourish

1.1.40 SUFFOLK

My lord protector, so it please your grace,
Here are the articles of contracted peace
Between our sovereign and the French king Charles,
For eighteen months concluded by consent.

1.1.44 GLOUCESTER

[Reads] 'Imprimis, it is agreed between the French
king Charles, and William de la Pole, Marquess of
Suffolk, ambassador for Henry King of England, that
the said Henry shall espouse the Lady Margaret,
daughter unto Reignier King of Naples, Sicilia and
Jerusalem, and crown her Queen of England ere the
thirtieth of May next ensuing. Item, that the duchy
of Anjou and the county of Maine shall be released
and delivered to the king her father' –

Lets the paper fall

1.1.53 KING HENRY VI

Uncle, how now!

1.1.54 GLOUCESTER

Pardon me, gracious lord;
Some sudden qualm hath struck me at the heart
And dimm'd mine eyes, that I can read no further.

1.1.57 KING HENRY VI

Uncle of Winchester, I pray, read on.

1.1.58 CARDINAL

[Reads] 'Item, It is further agreed between them,
that the duchies of Anjou and Maine shall be
released and delivered over to the king her father,
and she sent over of the King of England's own
proper cost and charges, without having any dowry.'

1.1.63 KING HENRY VI

They please us well. Lord marquess, kneel down:
We here create thee the first duke of Suffolk,
And gird thee with the sword. Cousin of York,
We here discharge your grace from being regent
I' the parts of France, till term of eighteen months
Be full expired. Thanks, uncle Winchester,
Gloucester, York, Buckingham, Somerset,
Salisbury, and Warwick;
We thank you all for the great favour done,
In entertainment to my princely queen.
Come, let us in, and with all speed provide
To see her coronation be perform'd.

Exeunt KING HENRY VI, QUEEN MARGARET, and SUFFOLK

1.1.75 GLOUCESTER

Brave peers of England, pillars of the state,
To you Duke Humphrey must unload his grief,
Your grief, the common grief of all the land.
What! did my brother Henry spend his youth,
His valour, coin and people, in the wars?
Did he so often lodge in open field,
In winter's cold and summer's parching heat,
To conquer France, his true inheritance?
And did my brother Bedford toil his wits,
To keep by policy what Henry got?
Have you yourselves, Somerset, Buckingham,
Brave York, Salisbury, and victorious Warwick,
Received deep scars in France and Normandy?
Or hath mine uncle Beaufort and myself,
With all the learned council of the realm,
Studied so long, sat in the council-house
Early and late, debating to and fro
How France and Frenchmen might be kept in awe,
And had his highness in his infancy
Crowned in Paris in despite of foes?
And shall these labours and these honours die?
Shall Henry's conquest, Bedford's vigilance,
Your deeds of war and all our counsel die?
O peers of England, shameful is this league!
Fatal this marriage, cancelling your fame,
Blotting your names from books of memory,
Razing the characters of your renown,
Defacing monuments of conquer'd France,
Undoing all, as all had never been!

1.1.104 CARDINAL

Nephew, what means this passionate discourse,
This peroration with such circumstance?
For France, 'tis ours; and we will keep it still.

1.1.107 GLOUCESTER

Ay, uncle, we will keep it, if we can;
But now it is impossible we should:
Suffolk, the new-made duke that rules the roast,
Hath given the duchy of Anjou and Maine
Unto the poor King Reignier, whose large style
Agrees not with the leanness of his purse.

1.1.113 SALISBURY

Now, by the death of Him that died for all,
These counties were the keys of Normandy.
But wherefore weeps Warwick, my valiant son?

1.1.116 WARWICK

For grief that they are past recovery:
For, were there hope to conquer them again,
My sword should shed hot blood, mine eyes no tears.
Anjou and Maine! myself did win them both;
Those provinces these arms of mine did conquer:
And are the cities, that I got with wounds,
Delivered up again with peaceful words?
Mort Dieu!

1.1.124 YORK

For Suffolk's duke, may he be suffocate,
That dims the honour of this warlike isle!
France should have torn and rent my very heart,
Before I would have yielded to this league.
I never read but England's kings have had
Large sums of gold and dowries with their wives:
And our King Henry gives away his own,
To match with her that brings no vantages.

1.1.132 GLOUCESTER

A proper jest, and never heard before,
That Suffolk should demand a whole fifteenth
For costs and charges in transporting her!
She should have stayed in France and starved
in France, Before –

1.1.137 CARDINAL

My Lord of Gloucester, now ye grow too hot:
It was the pleasure of my lord the King.

1.1.139 GLOUCESTER

My Lord of Winchester, I know your mind;
'Tis not my speeches that you do mislike,
But 'tis my presence that doth trouble ye.
Rancour will out: proud prelate, in thy face
I see thy fury: if I longer stay,
We shall begin our ancient bickerings.
Lordings, farewell; and say, when I am gone,
I prophesied France will be lost ere long.

Exit

1.1.147 CARDINAL

So, there goes our protector in a rage.
'Tis known to you he is mine enemy,
Nay, more, an enemy unto you all,
And no great friend, I fear me, to the king.
Consider, lords, he is the next of blood,
And heir apparent to the English crown:
Had Henry got an empire by his marriage,
And all the wealthy kingdoms of the west,
There's reason he should be displeased at it.
Look to it, lords! let not his smoothing words
Bewitch your hearts; be wise and circumspect.
What though the common people favour him,
Calling him 'Humphrey, the good Duke of
Gloucester,'
Clapping their hands, and crying with loud voice,
'Jesu maintain your royal excellence!'
With 'God preserve the good Duke Humphrey!'
I fear me, lords, for all this flattering gloss,
He will be found a dangerous protector.

1.1.166 BUCKINGHAM

Why should he, then, protect our sovereign,
He being of age to govern of himself?
Cousin of Somerset, join you with me,
And all together, with the Duke of Suffolk,
We'll quickly hoist Duke Humphrey from his seat.

1.1.171 CARDINAL

This weighty business will not brook delay:
I'll to the Duke of Suffolk presently.

Exit

1.1.173 SOMERSET

Cousin of Buckingham, though Humphrey's pride
And greatness of his place be grief to us,
Yet let us watch the haughty cardinal:
His insolence is more intolerable
Than all the princes in the land beside:
If Gloucester be displaced, he'll be protector.

1.1.179 BUCKINGHAM

Or thou or I, Somerset, will be protector,
Despite Duke Humphrey or the cardinal.

Exeunt BUCKINGHAM and SOMERSET

1.1.181 SALISBURY

Pride went before, ambition follows him.
While these do labour for their own preferment,
Behoves it us to labour for the realm.
I never saw but Humphrey Duke of Gloucester
Did bear him like a noble gentleman.
Oft have I seen the haughty cardinal,
More like a soldier than a man o' the church,
As stout and proud as he were lord of all,
Swear like a ruffian and demean himself
Unlike the ruler of a commonweal.
Warwick, my son, the comfort of my age,
Thy deeds, thy plainness and thy housekeeping,
Hath won the greatest favour of the commons,
Excepting none but good Duke Humphrey:
And, brother York, thy acts in Ireland,
In bringing them to civil discipline,
Thy late exploits done in the heart of France,
When thou wert regent for our sovereign,
Have made thee fear'd and honour'd of the people:
Join we together, for the public good,
In what we can, to bridle and suppress
The pride of Suffolk and the cardinal,
With Somerset's and Buckingham's ambition;
And, as we may, cherish Duke Humphrey's deeds,
While they do tend the profit of the land.

1.1.206 WARWICK

So God help Warwick, as he loves the land,
And common profit of his country!

1.1.208 YORK

[Aside] And so says York, for he hath greatest cause.

1.1.209 SALISBURY

Then let's make haste away, and look unto the main.

1.1.210 WARWICK

Unto the main! O father, Maine is lost;
That Maine which by main force Warwick did win,
And would have kept so long as breath did last!
Main chance, father, you meant; but I meant Maine,
Which I will win from France, or else be slain,

Exeunt WARWICK and SALISBURY

1.1.215 YORK

Anjou and Maine are given to the French;
Paris is lost; the state of Normandy
Stands on a tickle point, now they are gone:
Suffolk concluded on the articles,
The peers agreed, and Henry was well pleased
To change two dukedoms for a duke's fair daughter.
I cannot blame them all: what is't to them?
'Tis thine they give away, and not their own.
Pirates may make cheap pennyworths of their pillage
And purchase friends and give to courtezans,
Still revelling like lords till all be gone;
While as the silly owner of the goods
Weeps over them and wrings his hapless hands
And shakes his head and trembling stands aloof,
While all is shared and all is borne away,
Ready to starve and dare not touch his own:
So York must sit and fret and bite his tongue,
While his own lands are bargain'd for and sold.
Methinks the realms of England, France and Ireland
Bear that proportion to my flesh and blood
As did the fatal brand Althaea burn'd
Unto the prince's heart of Calydon.
Anjou and Maine both given unto the French!
Cold news for me, for I had hope of France,
Even as I have of fertile England's soil.
A day will come when York shall claim his own;
And therefore I will take the Nevils' parts
And make a show of love to proud Duke Humphrey,
And, when I spy advantage, claim the crown,
For that's the golden mark I seek to hit:
Nor shall proud Lancaster usurp my right,
Nor hold the sceptre in his childish fist,
Nor wear the diadem upon his head,
Whose church-like humours fits not for a crown.
Then, York, be still awhile, till time do serve:
Watch thou and wake when others be asleep,
To pry into the secrets of the state;
Till Henry, surfeiting in joys of love,
With his new bride and England's dear-bought queen,
And Humphrey with the peers be fall'n at jars:
Then will I raise aloft the milk-white rose,
With whose sweet smell the air shall be perfumed;
And in my standard bear the arms of York
To grapple with the house of Lancaster;
And, force perforce, I'll make him yield the crown,
Whose bookish rule hath pull'd fair England down.

Exit

Contents

Act 1

Scene 2

GLOUCESTER'S house.

Enter GLOUCESTER and his DUCHESS

1.2.1 DUCHESS

Why droops my lord, like over-ripen'd corn,
Hanging the head at Ceres' plenteous load?
Why doth the great Duke Humphrey knit his brows,
As frowning at the favours of the world?
Why are thine eyes fixed to the sullen earth,
Gazing on that which seems to dim thy sight?
What seest thou there? King Henry's diadem,
Enchased with all the honours of the world?
If so, gaze on, and grovel on thy face,
Until thy head be circled with the same.
Put forth thy hand, reach at the glorious gold.
What, is't too short? I'll lengthen it with mine:
And, having both together heaved it up,
We'll both together lift our heads to heaven,
And never more abase our sight so low
As to vouchsafe one glance unto the ground.

1.2.17 GLOUCESTER

O Nell, sweet Nell, if thou dost love thy lord,
Banish the canker of ambitious thoughts.
And may that thought, when I imagine ill
Against my king and nephew, virtuous Henry,
Be my last breathing in this mortal world!
My troublous dream this night doth make me sad.

1.2.23 DUCHESS

What dream'd my lord? tell me, and I'll requite it
With sweet rehearsal of my morning's dream.

1.2.25 GLOUCESTER

Methought this staff, mine office-badge in court,
Was broke in twain; by whom I have forgot,
But, as I think, it was by the cardinal;
And on the pieces of the broken wand
Were placed the heads of Edmund Duke of Somerset,
And William de la Pole, first duke of Suffolk.
This was my dream: what it doth bode, God knows.

1.2.32 DUCHESS

Tut, this was nothing but an argument
That he that breaks a stick of Gloucester's grove
Shall lose his head for his presumption.
But list to me, my Humphrey, my sweet duke:
Methought I sat in seat of majesty
In the cathedral church of Westminster,
And in that chair where kings and queens are crown'd;
Where Henry and dame Margaret kneel'd to me
And on my head did set the diadem.

1.2.41 GLOUCESTER

Nay, Eleanor, then must I chide outright:
Presumptuous dame, ill-nurtured Eleanor,
Art thou not second woman in the realm,
And the protector's wife, beloved of him?
Hast thou not worldly pleasure at command,
Above the reach or compass of thy thought?
And wilt thou still be hammering treachery,
To tumble down thy husband and thyself
From top of honour to disgrace's feet?
Away from me, and let me hear no more!

1.2.51 DUCHESS

What, what, my lord! are you so choleric
With Eleanor, for telling but her dream?
Next time I'll keep my dreams unto myself,
And not be check'd.

1.2.55 GLOUCESTER

Nay, be not angry; I am pleased again.

Enter Messenger

1.2.56 Messenger

My lord protector, 'tis his highness' pleasure
You do prepare to ride unto Saint Alban's,
Where as the king and queen do mean to hawk.

1.2.59 GLOUCESTER

I go. Come, Nell, thou wilt ride with us?

1.2.60 DUCHESS

Yes, my good lord, I'll follow presently.

Exeunt GLOUCESTER and Messenger

Follow I must; I cannot go before,
While Gloucester bears this base and humble mind.
Were I a man, a duke, and next of blood,
I would remove these tedious stumbling-blocks
And smooth my way upon their headless necks;
And, being a woman, I will not be slack
To play my part in Fortune's pageant.
Where are you there? Sir John! nay, fear not, man,
We are alone; here's none but thee and I.

Enter HUME

1.2.70 HUME

Jesus preserve your royal majesty!

1.2.71 DUCHESS

What say'st thou? majesty! I am but grace.

1.2.72 HUME

But, by the grace of God, and Hume's advice,
Your grace's title shall be multiplied.

1.2.74 DUCHESS

What say'st thou, man? hast thou as yet conferr'd
With Margery Jourdain, the cunning witch,
With Roger Bolingbroke, the conjurer?
And will they undertake to do me good?

1.2.78 HUME

This they have promised, to show your highness
A spirit raised from depth of under-ground,
That shall make answer to such questions
As by your grace shall be propounded him.

1.2.82 DUCHESS

It is enough; I'll think upon the questions:
When from St. Alban's we do make return,
We'll see these things effected to the full.
Here, Hume, take this reward; make merry, man,
With thy confederates in this weighty cause.

Exit

1.2.87 HUME

Hume must make merry with the duchess' gold;
Marry, and shall. But how now, Sir John Hume!
Seal up your lips, and give no words but mum:
The business asketh silent secrecy.
Dame Eleanor gives gold to bring the witch:
Gold cannot come amiss, were she a devil.
Yet have I gold flies from another coast;
I dare not say, from the rich cardinal
And from the great and new-made Duke of Suffolk,
Yet I do find it so; for to be plain,
They, knowing Dame Eleanor's aspiring humour,
Have hired me to undermine the duchess
And buz these conjurations in her brain.
They say 'A crafty knave does need no broker;'
Yet am I Suffolk and the cardinal's broker.
Hume, if you take not heed, you shall go near
To call them both a pair of crafty knaves.
Well, so it stands; and thus, I fear, at last
Hume's knavery will be the duchess' wreck,
And her attainture will be Humphrey's fall:
Sort how it will, I shall have gold for all.

Exit

Contents

Act 1

Scene 3

The palace.

Enter three or four Petitioners, PETER, the Armourer's man, being one

1.3.1 First Petitioner

My masters, let's stand close: my lord protector
will come this way by and by, and then we may deliver
our supplications in the quill.

1.3.4 Second Petitioner

Marry, the Lord protect him, for he's a good man!
Jesu bless him!

Enter SUFFOLK and QUEEN MARGARET

1.3.6 PETER

Here a' comes, methinks, and the queen with him.
I'll be the first, sure.

1.3.8 Second Petitioner

Come back, fool; this is the Duke of Suffolk, and
not my lord protector.

1.3.10 SUFFOLK

How now, fellow! would'st anything with me?

1.3.11 First Petitioner

I pray, my lord, pardon me; I took ye for my lord
protector.

1.3.13 QUEEN MARGARET

[Reading] 'To my Lord Protector!' Are your
supplications to his lordship? Let me see them:
what is thine?

1.3.16 First Petitioner

Mine is, an't please your grace, against John
Goodman, my lord cardinal's man, for keeping my
house, and lands, and wife and all, from me.

1.3.19 SUFFOLK

Thy wife, too! that's some wrong, indeed. What's
yours? What's here!

Reads

'Against the Duke of Suffolk, for enclosing the
commons of Melford.' How now, sir knave!

1.3.23 Second Petitioner

Alas, sir, I am but a poor petitioner of our whole township.

1.3.24 PETER

[Giving his petition] Against my master, Thomas
Horner, for saying that the Duke of York was rightful
heir to the crown.

1.3.27 QUEEN MARGARET

What sayst thou? did the Duke of York say he was
rightful heir to the crown?

1.3.29 PETER

That my master was? no, forsooth: my master said
that he was, and that the king was an usurper.

1.3.31 SUFFOLK

Who is there?

Enter Servant

Take this fellow in, and send for
his master with a pursuivant presently: we'll hear
more of your matter before the King.

Exit Servant with PETER

1.3.35 QUEEN MARGARET

And as for you, that love to be protected
Under the wings of our protector's grace,
Begin your suits anew, and sue to him.

Tears the supplication

Away, base cullions! Suffolk, let them go.

1.3.39 ALL

Come, let's be gone.

Exeunt

1.3.40 QUEEN MARGARET

My Lord of Suffolk, say, is this the guise,
Is this the fashion in the court of England?
Is this the government of Britain's isle,
And this the royalty of Albion's king?
What shall King Henry be a pupil still
Under the surly Gloucester's governance?
Am I a queen in title and in style,
And must be made a subject to a duke?
I tell thee, Pole, when in the city Tours
Thou ran'st a tilt in honour of my love
And stolest away the ladies' hearts of France,
I thought King Henry had resembled thee
In courage, courtship and proportion:
But all his mind is bent to holiness,
To number Ave-Maries on his beads;
His champions are the prophets and apostles,
His weapons holy saws of sacred writ,
His study is his tilt-yard, and his loves
Are brazen images of canonized saints.
I would the college of the cardinals
Would choose him pope, and carry him to Rome,
And set the triple crown upon his head:
That were a state fit for his holiness.

1.3.63 SUFFOLK

Madam, be patient: as I was cause
Your highness came to England, so will I
In England work your grace's full content.

1.3.66 QUEEN MARGARET

Beside the haughty protector, have we Beaufort,
The imperious churchman, Somerset, Buckingham,
And grumbling York: and not the least of these
But can do more in England than the king.

1.3.70 SUFFOLK

And he of these that can do most of all
Cannot do more in England than the Nevils:
Salisbury and Warwick are no simple peers.

1.3.73 QUEEN MARGARET

Not all these lords do vex me half so much
As that proud dame, the lord protector's wife.
She sweeps it through the court with troops of ladies,
More like an empress than Duke Humphrey's wife:
Strangers in court do take her for the queen:
She bears a duke's revenues on her back,
And in her heart she scorns our poverty:
Shall I not live to be avenged on her?
Contemptuous base-born callet as she is,
She vaunted 'mongst her minions t'other day,
The very train of her worst wearing gown
Was better worth than all my father's lands,
Till Suffolk gave two dukedoms for his daughter.

1.3.86 SUFFOLK

Madam, myself have limed a bush for her,
And placed a quire of such enticing birds,
That she will light to listen to the lays,
And never mount to trouble you again.
So, let her rest: and, madam, list to me;
For I am bold to counsel you in this.
Although we fancy not the cardinal,
Yet must we join with him and with the lords,
Till we have brought Duke Humphrey in disgrace.
As for the Duke of York, this late complaint
Will make but little for his benefit.
So, one by one, we'll weed them all at last,
And you yourself shall steer the happy helm.

Sound a sennet. Enter KING HENRY VI, GLOUCESTER, CARDINAL, BUCKINGHAM, YORK, SOMERSET, SALISBURY, WARWICK, and the DUCHESS

1.3.99 KING HENRY VI

For my part, noble lords, I care not which;
Or Somerset or York, all's one to me.

1.3.101 YORK

If York have ill demean'd himself in France,
Then let him be denay'd the regentship.

1.3.103 SOMERSET

If Somerset be unworthy of the place,
Let York be regent; I will yield to him.

1.3.105 WARWICK

Whether your grace be worthy, yea or no,
Dispute not that: York is the worthier.

1.3.107 CARDINAL

Ambitious Warwick, let thy betters speak.

1.3.108 WARWICK

The cardinal's not my better in the field.

1.3.109 BUCKINGHAM

All in this presence are thy betters, Warwick.

1.3.110 WARWICK

Warwick may live to be the best of all.

1.3.111 SALISBURY

Peace, son! and show some reason, Buckingham,
Why Somerset should be preferred in this.

1.3.113 QUEEN MARGARET

Because the king, forsooth, will have it so.

1.3.114 GLOUCESTER

Madam, the king is old enough himself
To give his censure: these are no women's matters.

1.3.116 QUEEN MARGARET

If he be old enough, what needs your grace
To be protector of his excellence?

1.3.118 GLOUCESTER

Madam, I am protector of the realm;
And, at his pleasure, will resign my place.

1.3.120 SUFFOLK

Resign it then and leave thine insolence.
Since thou wert king – as who is king but thou? –
The commonwealth hath daily run to wreck;
The Dauphin hath prevail'd beyond the seas;
And all the peers and nobles of the realm
Have been as bondmen to thy sovereignty.

1.3.126 CARDINAL

The commons hast thou rack'd; the clergy's bags
Are lank and lean with thy extortions.

1.3.128 SOMERSET

Thy sumptuous buildings and thy wife's attire
Have cost a mass of public treasury.

1.3.130 BUCKINGHAM

Thy cruelty in execution
Upon offenders, hath exceeded law,
And left thee to the mercy of the law.

1.3.133 QUEEN MARGARET

They sale of offices and towns in France,
If they were known, as the suspect is great,
Would make thee quickly hop without thy head.

Exit GLOUCESTER. QUEEN MARGARET drops her fan

Give me my fan: what, minion! can ye not?

She gives the DUCHESS a box on the ear

I cry you mercy, madam; was it you?

1.3.138 DUCHESS

Was't I! yea, I it was, proud Frenchwoman:
Could I come near your beauty with my nails,
I'd set my ten commandments in your face.

1.3.141 KING HENRY VI

Sweet aunt, be quiet; 'twas against her will.

1.3.142 DUCHESS

Against her will! good king, look to't in time;
She'll hamper thee, and dandle thee like a baby:
Though in this place most master wear no breeches,
She shall not strike Dame Eleanor unrevenged.

Exit

1.3.146 BUCKINGHAM

Lord cardinal, I will follow Eleanor,
And listen after Humphrey, how he proceeds:
She's tickled now; her fume needs no spurs,
She'll gallop far enough to her destruction.

Exit

Re-enter GLOUCESTER

1.3.150 GLOUCESTER

Now, lords, my choler being over-blown
With walking once about the quadrangle,
I come to talk of commonwealth affairs.
As for your spiteful false objections,
Prove them, and I lie open to the law:
But God in mercy so deal with my soul,
As I in duty love my king and country!
But, to the matter that we have in hand:
I say, my sovereign, York is meetest man
To be your regent in the realm of France.

1.3.160 SUFFOLK

Before we make election, give me leave
To show some reason, of no little force,
That York is most unmeet of any man.

1.3.163 YORK

I'll tell thee, Suffolk, why I am unmeet:
First, for I cannot flatter thee in pride;
Next, if I be appointed for the place,
My Lord of Somerset will keep me here,
Without discharge, money, or furniture,
Till France be won into the Dauphin's hands:
Last time, I danced attendance on his will
Till Paris was besieged, famish'd, and lost.

1.3.171 WARWICK

That can I witness; and a fouler fact
Did never traitor in the land commit.

1.3.173 SUFFOLK

Peace, headstrong Warwick!

1.3.174 WARWICK

Image of pride, why should I hold my peace?

Enter HORNER, the Armourer, and his man PETER, guarded

1.3.175 SUFFOLK

Because here is a man accused of treason:
Pray God the Duke of York excuse himself!

1.3.177 YORK

Doth any one accuse York for a traitor?

1.3.178 KING HENRY VI

What mean'st thou, Suffolk; tell me, what are these?

1.3.179 SUFFOLK

Please it your majesty, this is the man
That doth accuse his master of high treason:
His words were these: that Richard, Duke of York,
Was rightful heir unto the English crown
And that your majesty was a usurper.

1.3.184 KING HENRY VI

Say, man, were these thy words?

1.3.185 HORNER

An't shall please your majesty, I never said nor
thought any such matter: God is my witness, I am
falsely accused by the villain.

1.3.188 PETER

By these ten bones, my lords, he did speak them to
me in the garret one night, as we were scouring my
Lord of York's armour.

1.3.191 YORK

Base dunghill villain and mechanical,
I'll have thy head for this thy traitor's speech.
I do beseech your royal majesty,
Let him have all the rigor of the law.

1.3.195 HORNER

Alas, my lord, hang me, if ever I spake the words.
My accuser is my 'prentice; and when I did correct
him for his fault the other day, he did vow upon his
knees he would be even with me: I have good
witness of this: therefore I beseech your majesty,
do not cast away an honest man for a villain's
accusation.

1.3.202 KING HENRY VI

Uncle, what shall we say to this in law?

1.3.203 GLOUCESTER

This doom, my lord, if I may judge:
Let Somerset be regent over the French,
Because in York this breeds suspicion:
And let these have a day appointed them
For single combat in convenient place,
For he hath witness of his servant's malice:
This is the law, and this Duke Humphrey's doom.

1.3.210 SOMERSET

I humbly thank your royal majesty.

1.3.211 HORNER

And I accept the combat willingly.

1.3.212 PETER

Alas, my lord, I cannot fight; for God's sake, pity
my case. The spite of man prevaileth against me. O
Lord, have mercy upon me! I shall never be able to
fight a blow. O Lord, my heart!

1.3.216 GLOUCESTER

Sirrah, or you must fight, or else be hang'd.

1.3.217 KING HENRY VI

Away with them to prison; and the day of combat
shall be the last of the next month. Come,
Somerset, we'll see thee sent away.

Flourish. Exeunt

Contents

Act 1

Scene 4

GLOUCESTER's garden.

Enter MARGARET JOURDAIN, HUME, SOUTHWELL, and BOLINGBROKE

1.4.1 HUME

Come, my masters; the duchess, I tell you, expects
performance of your promises.

1.4.3 BOLINGBROKE

Master Hume, we are therefore provided: will her
ladyship behold and hear our exorcisms?

1.4.5 HUME

Ay, what else? fear you not her courage.

1.4.6 BOLINGBROKE

I have heard her reported to be a woman of an
invincible spirit: but it shall be convenient,
Master Hume, that you be by her aloft, while we be
busy below; and so, I pray you, go, in God's name,
and leave us.

Exit HUME

Mother Jourdain, be you prostrate and grovel
on the earth; John Southwell, read you;
and let us to our work.

Enter the DUCHESS aloft, HUME following

1.4.14 DUCHESS

Well said, my masters; and welcome all. To this
gear the sooner the better.

1.4.16 BOLINGBROKE

Patience, good lady; wizards know their times:
Deep night, dark night, the silent of the night,
The time of night when Troy was set on fire;
The time when screech-owls cry and ban-dogs howl,
And spirits walk and ghosts break up their graves,
That time best fits the work we have in hand.
Madam, sit you and fear not: whom we raise,
We will make fast within a hallow'd verge.

Here they do the ceremonies belonging, and make the circle; BOLINGBROKE or SOUTHWELL reads, Conjuro te dea noctium, &c. It thunders and lightens terribly; then the Spirit riseth

1.4.24 Spirit

Adsum.

1.4.25 MARGARET JOURDAIN

Asmath,
By the eternal God, whose name and power
Thou tremblest at, answer that I shall ask;
For, till thou speak, thou shalt not pass from hence.

1.4.29 Spirit

Ask what thou wilt. That I had said and done!

1.4.30 BOLINGBROKE

'First of the king: what shall of him become?'

Reading out of a paper

1.4.31 Spirit

The duke yet lives that Henry shall depose;
But him outlive, and die a violent death.

As the Spirit speaks, SOUTHWELL writes the answer

1.4.33 BOLINGBROKE

'What fates await the Duke of Suffolk?'

1.4.34 Spirit

By water shall he die, and take his end.

1.4.35 BOLINGBROKE

'What shall befall the Duke of Somerset?'

1.4.36 Spirit

Let him shun castles;
Safer shall he be upon the sandy plains
Than where castles mounted stand.
Have done, for more I hardly can endure.

1.4.40 BOLINGBROKE

Descend to darkness and the burning lake!
False fiend, avoid!

Thunder and lightning. Exit Spirit

Enter YORK and BUCKINGHAM with their Guard and break in

1.4.42 YORK

Lay hands upon these traitors and their trash.
Beldam, I think we watch'd you at an inch.
What, madam, are you there? the king and commonweal
Are deeply indebted for this piece of pains:
My lord protector will, I doubt it not,
See you well guerdon'd for these good deserts.

1.4.48 DUCHESS

Not half so bad as thine to England's king,
Injurious duke, that threatest where's no cause.

1.4.50 BUCKINGHAM

True, madam, none at all: what call you this?
Away with them! let them be clapp'd up close.
And kept asunder. You, madam, shall with us.
Stafford, take her to thee.

Exeunt above DUCHESS and HUME, guarded

We'll see your trinkets here all forthcoming.
All, away!

Exeunt guard with MARGARET JOURDAIN, SOUTHWELL, &c.

1.4.56 YORK

Lord Buckingham, methinks, you watch'd her well:
A pretty plot, well chosen to build upon!
Now, pray, my lord, let's see the devil's writ.
What have we here?

Reads

'The duke yet lives, that Henry shall depose;
But him outlive, and die a violent death.'
Why, this is just
'Aio te, Æacida, Romanos vincere posse.'
Well, to the rest:
'Tell me what fate awaits the Duke of Suffolk?
By water shall he die, and take his end.
What shall betide the Duke of Somerset?
Let him shun castles;
Safer shall he be upon the sandy plains
Than where castles mounted stand.'
Come, come, my lords;
These oracles are hardly attain'd,
And hardly understood.
The king is now in progress towards Saint Alban's,
With him the husband of this lovely lady:
Thither go these news, as fast as horse can
carry them:
A sorry breakfast for my lord protector.

1.4.79 BUCKINGHAM

Your grace shall give me leave, my Lord of York,
To be the post, in hope of his reward.

1.4.81 YORK

At your pleasure, my good lord. Who's within
there, ho!

Enter a Servingman

Invite my Lords of Salisbury and Warwick
To sup with me tomorrow night. Away!

Exeunt

Contents

Act 2

Scene 1

Saint Alban's.

Enter KING HENRY VI, QUEEN MARGARET, GLOUCESTER, CARDINAL, and SUFFOLK, with Falconers halloing

2.1.1 QUEEN MARGARET

Believe me, lords, for flying at the brook,
I saw not better sport these seven years' day:
Yet, by your leave, the wind was very high;
And, ten to one, old Joan had not gone out.

2.1.5 KING HENRY VI

But what a point, my lord, your falcon made,
And what a pitch she flew above the rest!
To see how God in all his creatures works!
Yea, man and birds are fain of climbing high.

2.1.9 SUFFOLK

No marvel, an it like your majesty,
My lord protector's hawks do tower so well;
They know their master loves to be aloft,
And bears his thoughts above his falcon's pitch.

2.1.13 GLOUCESTER

My lord, 'tis but a base ignoble mind
That mounts no higher than a bird can soar.

2.1.15 CARDINAL

I thought as much; he would be above the clouds.

2.1.16 GLOUCESTER

Ay, my lord cardinal? how think you by that?
Were it not good your grace could fly to heaven?

2.1.18 KING HENRY VI

The treasury of everlasting joy.

2.1.19 CARDINAL

Thy heaven is on earth; thine eyes and thoughts
Beat on a crown, the treasure of thy heart;
Pernicious protector, dangerous peer,
That smooth'st it so with king and commonweal!

2.1.23 GLOUCESTER

What, cardinal, is your priesthood grown peremptory?
Tantaene animis coelestibus irae?
Churchmen so hot? good uncle, hide such malice;
With such holiness can you do it?

2.1.27 SUFFOLK

No malice, sir; no more than well becomes
So good a quarrel and so bad a peer.

2.1.29 GLOUCESTER

As who, my lord?

2.1.30 SUFFOLK

Why, as you, my lord,
An't like your lordly lord-protectorship.

2.1.32 GLOUCESTER

Why, Suffolk, England knows thine insolence.

2.1.33 QUEEN MARGARET

And thy ambition, Gloucester.

2.1.34 KING HENRY VI

I prithee, peace, good queen,
And whet not on these furious peers;
For blessed are the peacemakers on earth.

2.1.37 CARDINAL

Let me be blessed for the peace I make,
Against this proud protector, with my sword!

2.1.39 GLOUCESTER

[Aside to CARDINAL] Faith, holy uncle, would
'twere come to that!

2.1.41 CARDINAL

[Aside to GLOUCESTER] Marry, when thou darest.

2.1.42 GLOUCESTER

[Aside to CARDINAL] Make up no factious numbers for the matter;
In thine own person answer thy abuse.

2.1.44 CARDINAL

[Aside to GLOUCESTER] Ay, where thou darest
not peep: an if thou darest,
This evening, on the east side of the grove.

2.1.47 KING HENRY VI

How now, my lords!

2.1.48 CARDINAL

Believe me, cousin Gloucester,
Had not your man put up the fowl so suddenly,
We had had more sport.

Aside to GLOUCESTER

Come with thy two-hand sword.

2.1.52 GLOUCESTER

True, uncle.

2.1.53 CARDINAL

[Aside to GLOUCESTER] Are ye advised? the
east side of the grove?

2.1.55 GLOUCESTER

[Aside to CARDINAL] Cardinal, I am with you.

2.1.56 KING HENRY VI

Why, how now, uncle Gloucester!

2.1.57 GLOUCESTER

Talking of hawking; nothing else, my lord.

Aside to CARDINAL

Now, by God's mother, priest, I'll shave your crown for this,
Or all my fence shall fail.

2.1.60 CARDINAL

[Aside to GLOUCESTER] Medice, teipsum –
Protector, see to't well, protect yourself.

2.1.62 KING HENRY VI

The winds grow high; so do your stomachs, lords.
How irksome is this music to my heart!
When such strings jar, what hope of harmony?
I pray, my lords, let me compound this strife.

Enter a Townsman of Saint Alban's, crying 'A miracle!'

2.1.66 GLOUCESTER

What means this noise?
Fellow, what miracle dost thou proclaim?

2.1.68 Townsman

A miracle! a miracle!

2.1.69 SUFFOLK

Come to the king and tell him what miracle.

2.1.70 Townsman

Forsooth, a blind man at Saint Alban's shrine,
Within this half-hour, hath received his sight;
A man that ne'er saw in his life before.

2.1.73 KING HENRY VI

Now, God be praised, that to believing souls
Gives light in darkness, comfort in despair!

Enter the Mayor of Saint Alban's and his brethren, bearing SIMPCOX, between two in a chair, SIMPCOX's Wife following

2.1.75 CARDINAL

Here comes the townsmen on procession,
To present your highness with the man.

2.1.77 KING HENRY VI

Great is his comfort in this earthly vale,
Although by his sight his sin be multiplied.

2.1.79 GLOUCESTER

Stand by, my masters: bring him near the king;
His highness' pleasure is to talk with him.

2.1.81 KING HENRY VI

Good fellow, tell us here the circumstance,
That we for thee may glorify the Lord.
What, hast thou been long blind and now restored?

2.1.84 SIMPCOX

Born blind, an't please your grace.

2.1.85 Wife

Ay, indeed, was he.

2.1.86 SUFFOLK

What woman is this?

2.1.87 Wife

His wife, an't like your worship.

2.1.88 GLOUCESTER

Hadst thou been his mother, thou couldst have
better told.

2.1.90 KING HENRY VI

Where wert thou born?

2.1.91 SIMPCOX

At Berwick in the north, an't like your grace.

2.1.92 KING HENRY VI

Poor soul, God's goodness hath been great to thee:
Let never day nor night unhallow'd pass,
But still remember what the Lord hath done.

2.1.95 QUEEN MARGARET

Tell me, good fellow, camest thou here by chance,
Or of devotion, to this holy shrine?

2.1.97 SIMPCOX

God knows, of pure devotion; being call'd
A hundred times and oftener, in my sleep,
By good Saint Alban; who said, 'Simpcox, come,
Come, offer at my shrine, and I will help thee.'

2.1.101 Wife

Most true, forsooth; and many time and oft
Myself have heard a voice to call him so.

2.1.103 CARDINAL

What, art thou lame?

2.1.104 SIMPCOX

Ay, God Almighty help me!

2.1.105 SUFFOLK

How camest thou so?

2.1.106 SIMPCOX

A fall off of a tree.

2.1.107 Wife

A plum-tree, master.

2.1.108 GLOUCESTER

How long hast thou been blind?

2.1.109 SIMPCOX

Born so, master.

2.1.110 GLOUCESTER

What, and wouldst climb a tree?

2.1.111 SIMPCOX

But that in all my life, when I was a youth.

2.1.112 Wife

Too true; and bought his climbing very dear.

2.1.113 GLOUCESTER

Mass, thou lovedst plums well, that wouldst
venture so.

2.1.115 SIMPCOX

Alas, good master, my wife desired some damsons,
And made me climb, with danger of my life.

2.1.117 GLOUCESTER

A subtle knave! but yet it shall not serve.
Let me see thine eyes: wink now: now open them:
In my opinion yet thou seest not well.

2.1.120 SIMPCOX

Yes, master, clear as day, I thank God and
Saint Alban.

2.1.122 GLOUCESTER

Say'st thou me so? What colour is this cloak of?

2.1.123 SIMPCOX

Red, master; red as blood.

2.1.124 GLOUCESTER

Why, that's well said. What colour is my gown of?

2.1.125 SIMPCOX

Black, forsooth: coal-black as jet.

2.1.126 KING HENRY VI

Why, then, thou know'st what colour jet is of?

2.1.127 SUFFOLK

And yet, I think, jet did he never see.

2.1.128 GLOUCESTER

But cloaks and gowns, before this day, a many.

2.1.129 Wife

Never, before this day, in all his life.

2.1.130 GLOUCESTER

Tell me, sirrah, what's my name?

2.1.131 SIMPCOX

Alas, master, I know not.

2.1.132 GLOUCESTER

What's his name?

2.1.133 SIMPCOX

I know not.

2.1.134 GLOUCESTER

Nor his?

2.1.135 SIMPCOX

No, indeed, master.

2.1.136 GLOUCESTER

What's thine own name?

2.1.137 SIMPCOX

Saunder Simpcox, an if it please you, master.

2.1.138 GLOUCESTER

Then, Saunder, sit there, the lyingest knave in
Christendom. If thou hadst been born blind, thou
mightest as well have known all our names as thus to
name the several colours we do wear. Sight may
distinguish of colours, but suddenly to nominate them
all, it is impossible. My lords, Saint Alban here
hath done a miracle; and would ye not think his
cunning to be great, that could restore this cripple
to his legs again?

2.1.147 SIMPCOX

O master, that you could!

2.1.148 GLOUCESTER

My masters of Saint Alban's, have you not beadles in
your town, and things called whips?

2.1.150 Mayor

Yes, my lord, if it please your grace.

2.1.151 GLOUCESTER

Then send for one presently.

2.1.152 Mayor

Sirrah, go fetch the beadle hither straight.

Exit an Attendant

2.1.153 GLOUCESTER

Now fetch me a stool hither by and by. Now, sirrah,
if you mean to save yourself from whipping, leap me
over this stool and run away.

2.1.156 SIMPCOX

Alas, master, I am not able to stand alone:
You go about to torture me in vain.

Enter a Beadle with whips

2.1.158 GLOUCESTER

Well, sir, we must have you find your legs. Sirrah
beadle, whip him till he leap over that same stool.

2.1.160 Beadle

I will, my lord. Come on, sirrah; off with your
doublet quickly.

2.1.162 SIMPCOX

Alas, master, what shall I do? I am not able to stand.

After the Beadle hath hit him once, he leaps over the stool and runs away; and they follow and cry, 'A miracle!'

2.1.163 KING HENRY VI

O God, seest Thou this, and bearest so long?

2.1.164 QUEEN MARGARET

It made me laugh to see the villain run.

2.1.165 GLOUCESTER

Follow the knave; and take this drab away.

2.1.166 Wife

Alas, sir, we did it for pure need.

2.1.167 GLOUCESTER

Let them be whipped through every market-town, till
they come to Berwick, from whence they came.

Exeunt Wife, Beadle, Mayor, &c.

2.1.169 CARDINAL

Duke Humphrey has done a miracle today.

2.1.170 SUFFOLK

True; made the lame to leap and fly away.

2.1.171 GLOUCESTER

But you have done more miracles than I;
You made in a day, my lord, whole towns to fly.

Enter BUCKINGHAM

2.1.173 KING HENRY VI

What tidings with our cousin Buckingham?

2.1.174 BUCKINGHAM

Such as my heart doth tremble to unfold.
A sort of naughty persons, lewdly bent,
Under the countenance and confederacy
Of Lady Eleanor, the protector's wife,
The ringleader and head of all this rout,
Have practised dangerously against your state,
Dealing with witches and with conjurers:
Whom we have apprehended in the fact;
Raising up wicked spirits from under ground,
Demanding of King Henry's life and death,
And other of your highness' privy-council;
As more at large your grace shall understand.

2.1.186 CARDINAL

[Aside to GLOUCESTER] And so, my lord protector,
by this means
Your lady is forthcoming yet at London.
This news, I think, hath turn'd your weapon's edge;
'Tis like, my lord, you will not keep your hour.

2.1.191 GLOUCESTER

Ambitious churchman, leave to afflict my heart:
Sorrow and grief have vanquish'd all my powers;
And, vanquish'd as I am, I yield to thee,
Or to the meanest groom.

2.1.195 KING HENRY VI

O God, what mischiefs work the wicked ones,
Heaping confusion on their own heads thereby!

2.1.197 QUEEN MARGARET

Gloucester, see here the tainture of thy nest.
And look thyself be faultless, thou wert best.

2.1.199 GLOUCESTER

Madam, for myself, to heaven I do appeal,
How I have loved my king and commonweal:
And, for my wife, I know not how it stands;
Sorry I am to hear what I have heard:
Noble she is, but if she have forgot
Honour and virtue and conversed with such
As, like to pitch, defile nobility,
I banish her my bed and company
And give her as a prey to law and shame,
That hath dishonour'd Gloucester's honest name.

2.1.209 KING HENRY VI

Well, for this night we will repose us here:
Tomorrow toward London back again,
To look into this business thoroughly
And call these foul offenders to their answers
And poise the cause in justice' equal scales,
Whose beam stands sure, whose rightful cause prevails.

Flourish. Exeunt

Contents

Act 2

Scene 2

London. YORK'S garden.

Enter YORK, SALISBURY, and WARWICK

2.2.1 YORK

Now, my good Lords of Salisbury and Warwick,
Our simple supper ended, give me leave
In this close walk to satisfy myself,
In craving your opinion of my title,
Which is infallible, to England's crown.

2.2.6 SALISBURY

My lord, I long to hear it at full.

2.2.7 WARWICK

Sweet York, begin: and if thy claim be good,
The Nevils are thy subjects to command.

2.2.9 YORK

Then thus:
Edward the Third, my lords, had seven sons:
The first, Edward the Black Prince, Prince of Wales;
The second, William of Hatfield, and the third,
Lionel Duke of Clarence: next to whom
Was John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster;
The fifth was Edmund Langley, Duke of York;
The sixth was Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester;
William of Windsor was the seventh and last.
Edward the Black Prince died before his father
And left behind him Richard, his only son,
Who after Edward the Third's death reign'd as king;
Till Henry Bolingbroke, Duke of Lancaster,
The eldest son and heir of John of Gaunt,
Crown'd by the name of Henry the Fourth,
Seized on the realm, deposed the rightful king,
Sent his poor queen to France, from whence she came,
And him to Pomfret; where, as all you know,
Harmless Richard was murder'd traitorously.

2.2.28 WARWICK

Father, the duke hath told the truth:
Thus got the house of Lancaster the crown.

2.2.30 YORK

Which now they hold by force and not by right;
For Richard, the first son's heir, being dead,
The issue of the next son should have reign'd.

2.2.33 SALISBURY

But William of Hatfield died without an heir.

2.2.34 YORK

The third son, Duke of Clarence, from whose line
I claimed the crown, had issue, Philippe, a daughter,
Who married Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March:
Edmund had issue, Roger Earl of March;
Roger had issue, Edmund, Anne and Eleanor.

2.2.39 SALISBURY

This Edmund, in the reign of Bolingbroke,
As I have read, laid claim unto the crown;
And, but for Owen Glendower, had been king,
Who kept him in captivity till he died.
But to the rest.

2.2.44 YORK

His eldest sister, Anne,
My mother, being heir unto the crown
Married Richard Earl of Cambridge; who was son
To Edmund Langley, Edward the Third's fifth son.
By her I claim the kingdom: she was heir
To Roger Earl of March, who was the son
Of Edmund Mortimer, who married Philippe,
Sole daughter unto Lionel Duke of Clarence:
So, if the issue of the elder son
Succeed before the younger, I am king.

2.2.54 WARWICK

What plain proceeding is more plain than this?
Henry doth claim the crown from John of Gaunt,
The fourth son; York claims it from the third.
Till Lionel's issue fails, his should not reign:
It fails not yet, but flourishes in thee
And in thy sons, fair slips of such a stock.
Then, father Salisbury, kneel we together;
And in this private plot be we the first
That shall salute our rightful sovereign
With honour of his birthright to the crown.

2.2.64 Both

Long live our sovereign Richard, England's king!

2.2.65 YORK

We thank you, lords. But I am not your king
Till I be crown'd and that my sword be stain'd
With heart-blood of the house of Lancaster;
And that's not suddenly to be perform'd,
But with advice and silent secrecy.
Do you as I do in these dangerous days:
Wink at the Duke of Suffolk's insolence,
At Beaufort's pride, at Somerset's ambition,
At Buckingham and all the crew of them,
Till they have snared the shepherd of the flock,
That virtuous prince, the good Duke Humphrey:
'Tis that they seek, and they in seeking that
Shall find their deaths, if York can prophesy.

2.2.78 SALISBURY

My lord, break we off; we know your mind at full.

2.2.79 WARWICK

My heart assures me that the Earl of Warwick
Shall one day make the Duke of York a king.

2.2.81 YORK

And, Nevil, this I do assure myself:
Richard shall live to make the Earl of Warwick
The greatest man in England but the king.

Exeunt

Contents

Act 2

Scene 3

An hall of justice.

Sound trumpets. Enter KING HENRY VI, QUEEN MARGARET, GLOUCESTER, YORK, SUFFOLK, and SALISBURY; the DUCHESS, MARGARET JOURDAIN, SOUTHWELL, HUME, and BOLINGBROKE, under guard

2.3.1 KING HENRY VI

Stand forth, Dame Eleanor Cobham, Gloucester's wife:
In sight of God and us, your guilt is great:
Receive the sentence of the law for sins
Such as by God's book are adjudged to death.
You four, from hence to prison back again;
From thence unto the place of execution:
The witch in Smithfield shall be burn'd to ashes,
And you three shall be strangled on the gallows.
You, madam, for you are more nobly born,
Despoiled of your honour in your life,
Shall, after three days' open penance done,
Live in your country here in banishment,
With Sir John Stanley, in the Isle of Man.

2.3.14 DUCHESS

Welcome is banishment; welcome were my death.

2.3.15 GLOUCESTER

Eleanor, the law, thou see'st, hath judged thee:
I cannot justify whom the law condemns.

Exeunt DUCHESS and other prisoners, guarded

Mine eyes are full of tears, my heart of grief.
Ah, Humphrey, this dishonour in thine age
Will bring thy head with sorrow to the ground!
I beseech your majesty, give me leave to go;
Sorrow would solace and mine age would ease.

2.3.22 KING HENRY VI

Stay, Humphrey Duke of Gloucester: ere thou go,
Give up thy staff: Henry will to himself
Protector be; and God shall be my hope,
My stay, my guide and lantern to my feet:
And go in peace, Humphrey, no less beloved
Than when thou wert protector to thy King.

2.3.28 QUEEN MARGARET

I see no reason why a king of years
Should be to be protected like a child.
God and King Henry govern England's realm.
Give up your staff, sir, and the king his realm.

2.3.32 GLOUCESTER

My staff? here, noble Henry, is my staff:
As willingly do I the same resign
As e'er thy father Henry made it mine;
And even as willingly at thy feet I leave it
As others would ambitiously receive it.
Farewell, good king: when I am dead and gone,
May honourable peace attend thy throne!

Exit

2.3.39 QUEEN MARGARET

Why, now is Henry king, and Margaret queen;
And Humphrey Duke of Gloucester scarce himself,
That bears so shrewd a maim; two pulls at once;
His lady banish'd, and a limb lopp'd off.
This staff of honour raught, there let it stand
Where it best fits to be, in Henry's hand.

2.3.45 SUFFOLK

Thus droops this lofty pine and hangs his sprays;
Thus Eleanor's pride dies in her youngest days.

2.3.47 YORK

Lords, let him go. Please it your majesty,
This is the day appointed for the combat;
And ready are the appellant and defendant,
The armourer and his man, to enter the lists,
So please your highness to behold the fight.

2.3.52 QUEEN MARGARET

Ay, good my lord; for purposely therefore
Left I the court, to see this quarrel tried.

2.3.54 KING HENRY VI

O God's name, see the lists and all things fit:
Here let them end it; and God defend the right!

2.3.56 YORK

I never saw a fellow worse bested,
Or more afraid to fight, than is the appellant,
The servant of this armourer, my lords.

Enter at one door, HORNER, the Armourer, and his Neighbours, drinking to him so much that he is drunk; and he enters with a drum before him and his staff with a sand-bag fastened to it; and at the other door PETER, his man, with a drum and sand-bag, and 'Prentices drinking to him

2.3.59 First Neighbour

Here, neighbour Horner, I drink to you in a cup of
sack: and fear not, neighbour, you shall do well enough.

2.3.61 Second Neighbour

And here, neighbour, here's a cup of charneco.

2.3.62 Third Neighbour

And here's a pot of good double beer, neighbour:
drink, and fear not your man.

2.3.64 HORNER

Let it come, i' faith, and I'll pledge you all; and
a fig for Peter!

2.3.66 First 'Prentice

Here, Peter, I drink to thee: and be not afraid.

2.3.67 Second 'Prentice

Be merry, Peter, and fear not thy master: fight
for credit of the 'prentices.

2.3.69 PETER

I thank you all: drink, and pray for me, I pray
you; for I think I have taken my last draught in
this world. Here, Robin, an if I die, I give thee
my apron: and, Will, thou shalt have my hammer:
and here, Tom, take all the money that I have. O
Lord bless me! I pray God! for I am never able to
deal with my master, he hath learnt me so much fence already.

2.3.76 SALISBURY

Come, leave your drinking, and fall to blows.
Sirrah, what's thy name?

2.3.78 PETER

Peter, forsooth.

2.3.79 SALISBURY

Peter! what more?

2.3.80 PETER

Thump.

2.3.81 SALISBURY

Thump! then see thou thump thy master well.

2.3.82 HORNER

Masters, I am come hither, as it were, upon my man's
instigation, to prove him a knave and myself an
honest man: and touching the Duke of York, I will
take my death, I never meant him any ill, nor the
king, nor the queen: and therefore, Peter, have at
thee with a downright blow!

2.3.88 YORK

Dispatch: this knave's tongue begins to double.
Sound, trumpets, alarum to the combatants!

Alarum. They fight, and PETER strikes him down

2.3.90 HORNER

Hold, Peter, hold! I confess, I confess treason.

Dies

2.3.91 YORK

Take away his weapon. Fellow, thank God, and the
good wine in thy master's way.

2.3.93 PETER

O God, have I overcome mine enemy in this presence?
O Peter, thou hast prevailed in right!

2.3.95 KING HENRY VI

Go, take hence that traitor from our sight;
For his death we do perceive his guilt:
And God in justice hath revealed to us
The truth and innocence of this poor fellow,
Which he had thought to have murder'd wrongfully.
Come, fellow, follow us for thy reward.

Sound a flourish. Exeunt

Contents

Act 2

Scene 4

A street.

Enter GLOUCESTER and his Servingmen, in mourning cloaks

2.4.1 GLOUCESTER

Thus sometimes hath the brightest day a cloud;
And after summer evermore succeeds
Barren winter, with his wrathful nipping cold:
So cares and joys abound, as seasons fleet.
Sirs, what's o'clock?

2.4.6 Servants

Ten, my lord.

2.4.7 GLOUCESTER

Ten is the hour that was appointed me
To watch the coming of my punish'd duchess:
Uneath may she endure the flinty streets,
To tread them with her tender-feeling feet.
Sweet Nell, ill can thy noble mind abrook
The abject people gazing on thy face,
With envious looks, laughing at thy shame,
That erst did follow thy proud chariot-wheels
When thou didst ride in triumph through the streets.
But, soft! I think she comes; and I'll prepare
My tear-stain'd eyes to see her miseries.

Enter the DUCHESS in a white sheet, and a taper burning in her hand; with STANLEY, the Sheriff, and Officers

2.4.18 Servant

So please your grace, we'll take her from the sheriff.

2.4.19 GLOUCESTER

No, stir not, for your lives; let her pass by.

2.4.20 DUCHESS

Come you, my lord, to see my open shame?
Now thou dost penance too. Look how they gaze!
See how the giddy multitude do point,
And nod their heads, and throw their eyes on thee!
Ah, Gloucester, hide thee from their hateful looks,
And, in thy closet pent up, rue my shame,
And ban thine enemies, both mine and thine!

2.4.27 GLOUCESTER

Be patient, gentle Nell; forget this grief.

2.4.28 DUCHESS

Ah, Gloucester, teach me to forget myself!
For whilst I think I am thy married wife
And thou a prince, protector of this land,
Methinks I should not thus be led along,
Mail'd up in shame, with papers on my back,
And followed with a rabble that rejoice
To see my tears and hear my deep-fet groans.
The ruthless flint doth cut my tender feet,
And when I start, the envious people laugh
And bid me be advised how I tread.
Ah, Humphrey, can I bear this shameful yoke?
Trow'st thou that e'er I'll look upon the world,
Or count them happy that enjoy the sun?
No; dark shall be my light and night my day;
To think upon my pomp shall be my hell.
Sometime I'll say, I am Duke Humphrey's wife,
And he a prince and ruler of the land:
Yet so he ruled and such a prince he was
As he stood by whilst I, his forlorn duchess,
Was made a wonder and a pointing-stock
To every idle rascal follower.
But be thou mild and blush not at my shame,
Nor stir at nothing till the axe of death
Hang over thee, as, sure, it shortly will;
For Suffolk, he that can do all in all
With her that hateth thee and hates us all,
And York and impious Beaufort, that false priest,
Have all limed bushes to betray thy wings,
And, fly thou how thou canst, they'll tangle thee:
But fear not thou, until thy foot be snared,
Nor never seek prevention of thy foes.

2.4.59 GLOUCESTER

Ah, Nell, forbear! thou aimest all awry;
I must offend before I be attainted;
And had I twenty times so many foes,
And each of them had twenty times their power,
All these could not procure me any scathe,
So long as I am loyal, true and crimeless.
Wouldst have me rescue thee from this reproach?
Why, yet thy scandal were not wiped away
But I in danger for the breach of law.
Thy greatest help is quiet, gentle Nell:
I pray thee, sort thy heart to patience;
These few days' wonder will be quickly worn.

Enter a Herald

2.4.71 Herald

I summon your grace to his majesty's parliament,
Holden at Bury the first of this next month.

2.4.73 GLOUCESTER

And my consent ne'er ask'd herein before!
This is close dealing. Well, I will be there.

Exit Herald

My Nell, I take my leave: and, master sheriff,
Let not her penance exceed the king's commission.

2.4.77 Sheriff

An't please your grace, here my commission stays,
And Sir John Stanley is appointed now
To take her with him to the Isle of Man.

2.4.80 GLOUCESTER

Must you, Sir John, protect my lady here?

2.4.81 STANLEY

So am I given in charge, may't please your grace.

2.4.82 GLOUCESTER

Entreat her not the worse in that I pray
You use her well: the world may laugh again;
And I may live to do you kindness if
You do it her: and so, Sir John, farewell!

2.4.86 DUCHESS

What, gone, my lord, and bid me not farewell!

2.4.87 GLOUCESTER

Witness my tears, I cannot stay to speak.

Exeunt GLOUCESTER and Servingmen

2.4.88 DUCHESS

Art thou gone too? all comfort go with thee!
For none abides with me: my joy is death;
Death, at whose name I oft have been afear'd,
Because I wish'd this world's eternity.
Stanley, I prithee, go, and take me hence;
I care not whither, for I beg no favour,
Only convey me where thou art commanded.

2.4.95 STANLEY

Why, madam, that is to the Isle of Man;
There to be used according to your state.

2.4.97 DUCHESS

That's bad enough, for I am but reproach:
And shall I then be used reproachfully?

2.4.99 STANLEY

Like to a duchess, and Duke Humphrey's lady;
According to that state you shall be used.

2.4.101 DUCHESS

Sheriff, farewell, and better than I fare,
Although thou hast been conduct of my shame.

2.4.103 Sheriff

It is my office; and, madam, pardon me.

2.4.104 DUCHESS

Ay, ay, farewell; thy office is discharged.
Come, Stanley, shall we go?

2.4.106 STANLEY

Madam, your penance done, throw off this sheet,
And go we to attire you for our journey.

2.4.108 DUCHESS

My shame will not be shifted with my sheet:
No, it will hang upon my richest robes
And show itself, attire me how I can.
Go, lead the way; I long to see my prison.

Exeunt

aces are
wrinkled, their eyes purging thick amber and
plum-tree gum and that they have a plentiful lack of
wit, together with most weak hams: all which, sir,
though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet
I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down, for
yourself, sir, should be old as I am, if like a crab
you could go backward.

Contents

Act 3

Scene 2

An hall in the castle.

Enter HAMLET and Players

3.2.1 HAMLET

Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue: but if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines.

Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, the whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness.

O, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumbshows and noise: I would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant; it out-herods Herod: pray you, avoid it.

3.2.18 First Player

I warrant your honour.

3.2.19 HAMLET

Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor: suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special observance that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature: for any thing so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.

Now this overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of the which one must in your allowance o'erweigh a whole theatre of others.

O, there be players that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly, not to speak it profanely, that, neither having the accent of Christians nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made men and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.

3.2.41 First Player

I hope we have reformed that indifferently with us, sir.

3.2.42 HAMLET

O, reform it altogether. And let those that play your clowns speak no more than is set down for them; for there be of them that will themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too; though, in the mean time, some necessary question of the play be then to be considered: that's villanous, and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it.

[And then you have some again that keep one suit of jests, as a man is known by one suit of apparel; and gentlemen quote his jests down in their tables before they come to the play; as thus:

Cannot you stay till I eat my porridge?
and You owe me a quarter's wages;
and My coat wants a cullison;
and Your beer is sour;

and blabbering with his lips; and thus keeping in his cinquepace of jests, when, God knows, the warm clown cannot make jest unless by chance as the blind man catcheth a hare. Masters, tell him of it.

3.2.63 First Player

We will, my lord.

3.2.64 HAMLET

Well,] Go make you ready.

Exeunt Players

Enter POLONIUS, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN

How now, my lord! I will the king hear this piece of work?

3.2.66 LORD POLONIUS

And the queen too, and that presently.

3.2.67 HAMLET

Bid the players make haste.

Exit POLONIUS

Will you two help to hasten them?

3.2.69 ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN

We will, my lord.

Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN

3.2.70 HAMLET

What ho! Horatio!

Enter HORATIO

3.2.71 HORATIO

Here, sweet lord, at your service.

3.2.72 HAMLET

Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man
As e'er my conversation coped withal.

3.2.74 HORATIO

O, my dear lord, –

3.2.75 HAMLET

Nay, do not think I flatter;
For what advancement may I hope from thee
That no revenue hast but thy good spirits,
To feed and clothe thee? Why should the poor be flatter'd?
No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp,
And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee
Where thrift may follow fawning. Dost thou hear?
Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice
And could of men distinguish, her election
Hath seal'd thee for herself; for thou hast been
As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing,
A man that fortune's buffets and rewards
Hast ta'en with equal thanks: and blest are those
Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled,
That they are not a pipe for fortune's finger
To sound what stop she please. Give me that man
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart,
As I do thee. – Something too much of this. –
There is a play tonight before the king;
One scene of it comes near the circumstance
Which I have told thee of my father's death:
I prithee, when thou seest that act afoot,
Even with the very comment of thy soul
Observe mine uncle: if his occulted guilt
Do not itself unkennel in one speech,
It is a damned ghost that we have seen,
And my imaginations are as foul
As Vulcan's stithy. Give him heedful note;
For I mine eyes will rivet to his face,
And after we will both our judgments join
In censure of his seeming.

3.2.107 HORATIO

Well, my lord:
If he steal aught the whilst this play is playing,
And 'scape detecting, I will pay the theft.

3.2.110 HAMLET

They are coming to the play; I must be idle:
Get you a place.

Danish march. A flourish. Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, POLONIUS, OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, and others

3.2.112 KING CLAUDIUS

How fares our cousin Hamlet?

3.2.113 HAMLET

Excellent, i' faith; of the chameleon's dish: I eat
the air, promise-crammed: you cannot feed capons so.

3.2.115 KING CLAUDIUS

I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet; these words
are not mine.

3.2.117 HAMLET

No, nor mine now.

To POLONIUS

My lord, you played once i' the university, you say?

3.2.119 LORD POLONIUS

That did I, my lord; and was accounted a good actor.

3.2.120 HAMLET

What did you enact?

3.2.121 LORD POLONIUS

I did enact Julius Caesar: I was killed i' the
Capitol; Brutus killed me.

3.2.123 HAMLET

It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf
there. Be the players ready?

3.2.125 ROSENCRANTZ

Ay, my lord; they stay upon your patience.

3.2.126 QUEEN GERTRUDE

Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me.

3.2.127 HAMLET

No, good mother, here's metal more attractive.

3.2.128 LORD POLONIUS

[To KING CLAUDIUS] O, ho! do you mark that?

3.2.129 HAMLET

Lady, shall I lie in your lap?

Lying down at OPHELIA's feet

3.2.130 OPHELIA

No, my lord.

3.2.131 HAMLET

I mean, my head upon your lap?

3.2.132 OPHELIA

Ay, my lord.

3.2.133 HAMLET

Do you think I meant country matters?

3.2.134 OPHELIA

I think nothing, my lord.

3.2.135 HAMLET

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

3.2.136 OPHELIA

What is, my lord?

3.2.137 HAMLET

Nothing.

3.2.138 OPHELIA

You are merry, my lord.

3.2.139 HAMLET

Who, I?

3.2.140 OPHELIA

Ay, my lord.

3.2.141 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.

3.2.144 OPHELIA

Nay, 'tis twice two months, my lord.

3.2.145 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

3.2.153 OPHELIA

What means this, my lord?

3.2.154 HAMLET

Marry, this is miching mallecho; it means mischief.

3.2.155 OPHELIA

Belike this show imports the argument of the play.

Enter Prologue

3.2.156 HAMLET

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

3.2.158 OPHELIA

Will he tell us what this show meant?

3.2.159 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.

3.2.161 OPHELIA

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

3.2.162 Prologue

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

Exit

3.2.165 HAMLET

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

3.2.166 OPHELIA

'Tis brief, my lord.

3.2.167 HAMLET

As woman's love.

Enter two Players, King and Queen

3.2.168 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.

3.2.174 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.

3.2.186 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 –

3.2.191 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.

3.2.195 HAMLET

[Aside] Wormwood, wormwood.

3.2.196 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.

3.2.200 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.

3.2.230 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!

3.2.238 HAMLET

If she should break it now!

3.2.239 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

3.2.242 Player Queen

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

Exit

3.2.244 HAMLET

Madam, how like you this play?

3.2.245 QUEEN GERTRUDE

The lady protests too much, methinks.

3.2.246 HAMLET

O, but she'll keep her word.

3.2.247 KING CLAUDIUS

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

3.2.248 HAMLET

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

3.2.250 KING CLAUDIUS

What do you call the play?

3.2.251 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.

3.2.259 OPHELIA

You are as good as a chorus, my lord.

3.2.260 HAMLET

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

3.2.262 OPHELIA

You are keen, my lord, you are keen.

3.2.263 HAMLET

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

3.2.264 OPHELIA

Still better, and worse.

3.2.265 HAMLET

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

3.2.268 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

3.2.274 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.

3.2.278 OPHELIA

The king rises.

3.2.279 HAMLET

What, frighted with false fire!

3.2.280 QUEEN GERTRUDE

How fares my lord?

3.2.281 LORD POLONIUS

Give o'er the play.

3.2.282 KING CLAUDIUS

Give me some light: away!

3.2.283 All

Lights, lights, lights!

Exeunt all but HAMLET and HORATIO

3.2.284 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?

3.2.292 HORATIO

Half a share.

3.2.293 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.

3.2.298 HORATIO

You might have rhymed.

3.2.299 HAMLET

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

3.2.301 HORATIO

Very well, my lord.

3.2.302 HAMLET

Upon the talk of the poisoning?

3.2.303 HORATIO

I did very well note him.

3.2.304 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

3.2.308 GUILDENSTERN

Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you.

3.2.309 HAMLET

Sir, a whole history.

3.2.310 GUILDENSTERN

The king, sir, –

3.2.311 HAMLET

Ay, sir, what of him?

3.2.312 GUILDENSTERN

Is in his retirement marvellous distempered.

3.2.313 HAMLET

With drink, sir?

3.2.314 GUILDENSTERN

No, my lord, rather with choler.

3.2.315 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.

3.2.319 GUILDENSTERN

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

3.2.321 HAMLET

I am tame, sir: pronounce.

3.2.322 GUILDENSTERN

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

3.2.324 HAMLET

You are welcome.

3.2.325 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.

3.2.330 HAMLET

Sir, I cannot.

3.2.331 GUILDENSTERN

What, my lord?

3.2.332 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, –

3.2.336 ROSENCRANTZ

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

3.2.338 HAMLET

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

3.2.341 ROSENCRANTZ

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

3.2.343 HAMLET

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

3.2.345 ROSENCRANTZ

My lord, you once did love me.

3.2.346 HAMLET

So I do still, by these pickers and stealers.

3.2.347 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.

3.2.350 HAMLET

Sir, I lack advancement.

3.2.351 ROSENCRANTZ

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

3.2.353 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?

3.2.358 GUILDENSTERN

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

3.2.360 HAMLET

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

3.2.362 GUILDENSTERN

My lord, I cannot.

3.2.363 HAMLET

I pray you.

3.2.364 GUILDENSTERN

Believe me, I cannot.

3.2.365 HAMLET

I do beseech you.

3.2.366 GUILDENSTERN

I know no touch of it, my lord.

3.2.367 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.

3.2.371 GUILDENSTERN

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

3.2.373 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.

Enter POLONIUS

God bless you, sir!

3.2.384 LORD POLONIUS

My lord, the queen would speak with you, and
presently.

3.2.386 HAMLET

Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel?

3.2.387 LORD POLONIUS

By the mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed.

3.2.388 HAMLET

Methinks it is like a weasel.

3.2.389 LORD POLONIUS

It is backed like a weasel.

3.2.390 HAMLET

Or like a whale?

3.2.391 LORD POLONIUS

Very like a whale.

3.2.392 HAMLET

Then I will come to my mother by and by. They fool
me to the top of my bent. I will come by and by.

3.2.394 LORD POLONIUS

I will say so.

3.2.395 HAMLET

By and by is easily said.

Exit POLONIUS

Leave me, friends.

Exeunt all but HAMLET

Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world: now could I drink hot blood,
And do such bitter business as the day
Would quake to look on. Soft! now to my mother.
O heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever
The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom:
Let me be cruel, not unnatural:
I will speak daggers to her, but use none;
My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites;
How in my words soever she be shent,
To give them seals never, my soul, consent!

Exit

Contents

Act 3

Scene 4

The Queen's closet.

Enter QUEEN MARGARET and POLONIUS

3.4.1 LORD POLONIUS

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.

3.4.6 HAMLET

[Within] Mother, mother, mother!

3.4.7 QUEEN GERTRUDE

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

POLONIUS hides behind the arras

Enter HAMLET

3.4.9 HAMLET

Now, mother, what's the matter?

3.4.10 QUEEN GERTRUDE

Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.

3.4.11 HAMLET

Mother, you have my father much offended.

3.4.12 QUEEN GERTRUDE

Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.

3.4.13 HAMLET

Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.

3.4.14 QUEEN GERTRUDE

Why, how now, Hamlet!

3.4.15 HAMLET

What's the matter now?

3.4.16 QUEEN GERTRUDE

Have you forgot me?

3.4.17 HAMLET

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.

3.4.20 QUEEN GERTRUDE

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

3.4.21 HAMLET

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.

3.4.24 QUEEN GERTRUDE

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

3.4.26 LORD POLONIUS

[Behind] What, ho! help, help, help!

3.4.27 HAMLET

[Drawing] How now! a rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead!

Makes a pass through the arras

3.4.28 LORD POLONIUS

[Behind] O, I am slain!

Falls and dies

3.4.29 QUEEN GERTRUDE

O me, what hast thou done?

3.4.30 HAMLET

Nay, I know not:
Is it the king?

3.4.32 QUEEN GERTRUDE

O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!

3.4.33 HAMLET

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

3.4.35 QUEEN GERTRUDE

As kill a king!

3.4.36 HAMLET

Ay, lady, 'twas my word.

Lifts up the arras and discovers 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 damned custom have not brass'd it so
That it is proof and bulwark against sense.

3.4.45 QUEEN GERTRUDE

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

3.4.47 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.

3.4.59 QUEEN GERTRUDE

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

3.4.61 HAMLET

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.

3.4.97 QUEEN GERTRUDE

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.

3.4.101 HAMLET

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

3.4.105 QUEEN GERTRUDE

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

3.4.108 HAMLET

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!

3.4.114 QUEEN GERTRUDE

No more!

3.4.115 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 gracious figure?

3.4.118 QUEEN GERTRUDE

Alas, he's mad!

3.4.119 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!

3.4.122 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:
Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works:
Speak to her, Hamlet.

3.4.128 HAMLET

How is it with you, lady?

3.4.129 QUEEN GERTRUDE

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?

3.4.138 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.

3.4.144 QUEEN GERTRUDE

To whom do you speak this?

3.4.145 HAMLET

Do you see nothing there?

3.4.146 QUEEN GERTRUDE

Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.

3.4.147 HAMLET

Nor did you nothing hear?

3.4.148 QUEEN GERTRUDE

No, nothing but ourselves.

3.4.149 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

3.4.152 QUEEN GERTRUDE

This the very coinage of your brain:
This bodiless creation ecstasy
Is very cunning in.

3.4.155 HAMLET

Ecstasy!
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 mattering unction to your soul,
That not your trespass, but my madness speaks:
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place,
Whilst rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven;
Repent what's past; avoid what is to come;
And do not spread the compost on the weeds,
To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue;
For in the fatness of these pursy times
Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg,
Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good.

3.4.172 QUEEN GERTRUDE

O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.

3.4.173 HAMLET

O, throw away the worser part of it,
And live the purer with the other half.
Good night: but go not to mine uncle's bed;
Assume a virtue, if you have it not.
That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat,
Of habits devil, is angel yet in this,
That to the use of actions fair and good
He likewise gives a frock or livery,
That aptly is put on. Refrain tonight,
And that shall lend a kind of easiness
To the next abstinence: the next more easy;
For use almost can change the stamp of nature,
And either [master] the devil, or throw him out
With wondrous potency. Once more, good night:
And when you are desirous to be bless'd,
I'll blessing beg of you. For this same lord,

Pointing to POLONIUS

I do repent: but heaven hath pleased it so,
To punish me with this and this with me,
That I must be their scourge and minister.
I will bestow him, and will answer well
The death I gave him. So, again, good night.
I must be cruel, only to be kind:
Thus bad begins and worse remains behind.
One word more, good lady.

3.4.197 QUEEN GERTRUDE

What shall I do?

3.4.198 HAMLET

Not this, by no means, that I bid you do:
Let the bloat king tempt you again to bed;
Pinch wanton on your cheek; call you his mouse;
And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses,
Or paddling in your neck with his damn'd fingers,
Make you to ravel all this matter out,
That I essentially am not in madness,
But mad in craft. 'Twere good you let him know;
For who, that's but a queen, fair, sober, wise,
Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib,
Such dear concernings hide? who would do so?
No, in despite of sense and secrecy,
Unpeg the basket on the house's top.
Let the birds fly, and, like the famous ape,
To try conclusions, in the basket creep,
And break your own neck down.

3.4.214 QUEEN GERTRUDE

Be thou assured, if words be made of breath,
And breath of life, I have no life to breathe
What thou hast said to me.

3.4.217 HAMLET

I must to England; you know that?

3.4.218 QUEEN GERTRUDE

Alack,
I had forgot: 'tis so concluded on.

3.4.220 HAMLET

There's letters seal'd: and my two schoolfellows,
Whom I will trust as I will adders fang'd,
They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way,
And marshal me to knavery. Let it work;
For 'tis the sport to have the engineer
Hoist with his own petard: and 't shall go hard
But I will delve one yard below their mines,
And blow them at the moon: O, 'tis most sweet,
When in one line two crafts directly meet.
This man shall set me packing:
I'll lug the guts into the neighbour room.
Mother, good night. Indeed this counsellor
Is now most still, most secret and most grave,
Who was in life a foolish prating knave.
Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you.
Good night, mother.

Exeunt severally; HAMLET dragging in POLONIUS

Contents

Act 5

Scene 1

A churchyard.

Enter two Clowns, with spades, &c.

5.1.1 First Clown

Is she to be buried in Christian burial that
wilfully seeks her own salvation?

5.1.3 Second Clown

I tell thee she is: and therefore make her grave
straight: the crowner hath sat on her, and finds it
Christian burial.

5.1.6 First Clown

How can that be, unless she drowned herself in her
own defence?

5.1.8 Second Clown

Why, 'tis found so.

5.1.9 First Clown

It must be 'se offendendo;' it cannot be else. For
here lies the point: if I drown myself wittingly,
it argues an act: and an act hath three branches: it
is, to act, to do, to perform: argal, she drowned
herself wittingly.

5.1.14 Second Clown

Nay, but hear you, goodman delver, –

5.1.15 First Clown

Give me leave. Here lies the water; good: here
stands the man; good; if the man go to this water,
and drown himself, it is, will he, nill he, he
goes, – mark you that; but if the water come to him
and drown him, he drowns not himself: argal, he
that is not guilty of his own death shortens not his own life.

5.1.21 Second Clown

But is this law?

5.1.22 First Clown

Ay, marry, is't; crowner's quest law.

5.1.23 Second Clown

Will you ha' the truth on't? If this had not been
a gentlewoman, she should have been buried out o'
Christian burial.

5.1.26 First Clown

Why, there thou say'st: and the more pity that
great folk should have countenance in this world to
drown or hang themselves, more than their even
Christian. Come, my spade. There is no ancient
gentleman but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers:
they hold up Adam's profession.

5.1.32 Second Clown

Was he a gentleman?

5.1.33 First Clown

He was the first that ever bore arms.

5.1.34 Second Clown

Why, he had none.

5.1.35 First Clown

What, art a heathen? How dost thou understand the
Scripture? The Scripture says 'Adam digged:'
could he dig without arms? I'll put another
question to thee: if thou answerest me not to the
purpose, confess thyself –

5.1.40 Second Clown

Go to.

5.1.41 First Clown

What is he that builds stronger than either the
mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?

5.1.43 Second Clown

The gallows-maker; for that frame outlives a
thousand tenants.

5.1.45 First Clown

I like thy wit well, in good faith: the gallows
does well; but how does it well? it does well to
those that do ill: now thou dost ill to say the
gallows is built stronger than the church: argal,
the gallows may do well to thee. To't again, come.

5.1.50 Second Clown

'Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or
a carpenter?'

5.1.52 First Clown

Ay, tell me that, and unyoke.

5.1.53 Second Clown

Marry, now I can tell.

5.1.54 First Clown

To't.

5.1.55 Second Clown

Mass, I cannot tell.

Enter HAMLET and HORATIO, at a distance

5.1.56 First Clown

Cudgel thy brains no more about it, for your dull
ass will not mend his pace with beating; and, when
you are asked this question next, say 'a
grave-maker: 'the houses that he makes last till
doomsday. Go, get thee to Yaughan: fetch me a
stoup of liquor.

Exit Second Clown

He digs and sings

In youth, when I did love, did love,
Methought it was very sweet,
To contract, O, the time, for, ah, my behove,
O, methought, there was nothing meet.

5.1.66 HAMLET

Has this fellow no feeling of his business, that he
sings at grave-making?

5.1.68 HORATIO

Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness.

5.1.69 HAMLET

'Tis e'en so: the hand of little employment hath
the daintier sense.

5.1.71 First Clown

[Sings] But age, with his stealing steps,
Hath claw'd me in his clutch,
And hath shipped me intil the land,
As if I had never been such.

Throws up a skull

5.1.75 HAMLET

That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once:
how the knave jowls it to the ground, as if it were
Cain's jaw-bone, that did the first murder! It
might be the pate of a politician, which this ass
now o'er-reaches; one that would circumvent God,
might it not?

5.1.81 HORATIO

It might, my lord.

5.1.82 HAMLET

Or of a courtier; which could say 'Good morrow,
sweet lord! How dost thou, good lord?' This might
be my lord such-a-one, that praised my lord
such-a-one's horse, when he meant to beg it; might it not?

5.1.86 HORATIO

Ay, my lord.

5.1.87 HAMLET

Why, e'en so: and now my Lady Worm's; chapless, and
knocked about the mazzard with a sexton's spade:
here's fine revolution, an we had the trick to
see't. Did these bones cost no more the breeding,
but to play at loggats with 'em? mine ache to think on't.

5.1.92 First Clown

[Sings] A pick-axe, and a spade, a spade,
For and a shrouding sheet:
O, a pit of clay for to be made
For such a guest is meet.

Throws up another skull

5.1.96 HAMLET

There's another: why may not that be the skull of a
lawyer? Where be his quiddities now, his quillets,
his cases, his tenures, and his tricks? why does he
suffer this rude knave now to knock him about the
sconce with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of
his action of battery? Hum! This fellow might be
in's time a great buyer of land, with his statutes,
his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers,
his recoveries: is this the fine of his fines, and
the recovery of his recoveries, to have his fine
pate full of fine dirt? will his vouchers vouch him
no more of his purchases, and double ones too, than
the length and breadth of a pair of indentures? The
very conveyances of his lands will hardly lie in
this box; and must the inheritor himself have no more, ha?

5.1.111 HORATIO

Not a jot more, my lord.

5.1.112 HAMLET

Is not parchment made of sheepskins?

5.1.113 HORATIO

Ay, my lord, and of calf-skins too.

5.1.114 HAMLET

They are sheep and calves which seek out assurance
in that. I will speak to this fellow. Whose
grave's this, sirrah?

5.1.117 First Clown

Mine, sir.

[Sings] O, a pit of clay for to be made
For such a guest is meet.

5.1.120 HAMLET

I think it be thine, indeed; for thou liest in't.

5.1.121 First Clown

You lie out on't, sir, and therefore it is not
yours: for my part, I do not lie in't, and yet it is mine.

5.1.123 HAMLET

'Thou dost lie in't, to be in't and say it is thine:
'tis for the dead, not for the quick; therefore thou liest.

5.1.125 First Clown

'Tis a quick lie, sir; 'twill away gain, from me to
you.

5.1.127 HAMLET

What man dost thou dig it for?

5.1.128 First Clown

For no man, sir.

5.1.129 HAMLET

What woman, then?

5.1.130 First Clown

For none, neither.

5.1.131 HAMLET

Who is to be buried in't?

5.1.132 First Clown

One that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she's dead.

5.1.133 HAMLET

How absolute the knave is! we must speak by the
card, or equivocation will undo us. By the Lord,
Horatio, these three years I have taken a note of
it; the age is grown so picked that the toe of the
peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier, he
gaffs his kibe. How long hast thou been a
grave-maker?

5.1.140 First Clown

Of all the days i' the year, I came to't that day
that our last king Hamlet overcame Fortinbras.

5.1.142 HAMLET

How long is that since?

5.1.143 First Clown

Cannot you tell that? every fool can tell that: it
was the very day that young Hamlet was born; he that
is mad, and sent into England.

5.1.146 HAMLET

Ay, marry, why was he sent into England?

5.1.147 First Clown

Why, because he was mad: he shall recover his wits
there; or, if he do not, it's no great matter there.

5.1.149 HAMLET

Why?

5.1.150 First Clown

'Twill, a not be seen in him there; there the men
are as mad as he.

5.1.152 HAMLET

How came he mad?

5.1.153 First Clown

Very strangely, they say.

5.1.154 HAMLET

How strangely?

5.1.155 First Clown

Faith, e'en with losing his wits.

5.1.156 HAMLET

Upon what ground?

5.1.157 First Clown

Why, here in Denmark: I have been sexton here, man
and boy, thirty years.

5.1.159 HAMLET

How long will a man lie i' the earth ere he rot?

5.1.160 First Clown

I' faith, if he be not rotten before he die – as we
have many pocky corses now-a-days, that will scarce
hold the laying in – he will last you some eight year
or nine year: a tanner will last you nine year.

5.1.164 HAMLET

Why he more than another?

5.1.165 First Clown

Why, sir, his hide is so tanned with his trade, that
he will keep out water a great while; and your water
is a sore decayer of your whoreson dead body.
Here's a skull now; this skull has lain in the earth
three and twenty years.

5.1.170 HAMLET

Whose was it?

5.1.171 First Clown

A whoreson mad fellow's it was: whose do you think it was?

5.1.172 HAMLET

Nay, I know not.

5.1.173 First Clown

A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! a' poured a
flagon of Rhenish on my head once. This same skull,
sir, was Yorick's skull, the king's jester.

5.1.176 HAMLET

This?

5.1.177 First Clown

E'en that.

5.1.178 HAMLET

Let me see.

Takes the skull

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen? Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come; make her laugh at that. Prithee, Horatio, tell me one thing.

5.1.192 HORATIO

What's that, my lord?

5.1.193 HAMLET

Dost thou think Alexander looked o' this fashion i'
the earth?

5.1.195 HORATIO

E'en so.

5.1.196 HAMLET

And smelt so? pah!

Puts down the skull

5.1.197 HORATIO

E'en so, my lord.

5.1.198 HAMLET

To what base uses we may return, Horatio! Why may
not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander,
till he find it stopping a bung-hole?

5.1.201 HORATIO

'Twere to consider too curiously, to consider so.

5.1.202 HAMLET

No, faith, not a jot; but to follow him thither with
modesty enough, and likelihood to lead it: as
thus: Alexander died, Alexander was buried,
Alexander returneth into dust; the dust is earth; of
earth we make loam; and why of that loam, whereto he
was converted, might they not stop a beer-barrel?
Imperious Caesar, dead and turn'd to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away:
O, that that earth, which kept the world in awe,
Should patch a wall to expel the winter flaw!
But soft! but soft! aside: here comes the king.

Enter Priest, &c. in procession; the Corpse of OPHELIA, LAERTES and Mourners following; KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, their trains, &c.

The queen, the courtiers: who is this they follow?
And with such maimed rites? This doth betoken
The corse they follow did with desperate hand
Fordo its own life: 'twas of some estate.
Couch we awhile, and mark.

Retiring with HORATIO

5.1.218 LAERTES

What ceremony else?

5.1.219 HAMLET

That is Laertes,
A very noble youth: mark.

5.1.221 LAERTES

What ceremony else?

5.1.222 First Priest

Her obsequies have been as far enlarged
As we have warranties: her death was doubtful;
And, but that great command o'ersways the order,
She should in ground unsanctified have lodged
Till the last trumpet: for charitable prayers,
Shards, flints and pebbles should be thrown on her;
Yet here she is allow'd her virgin crants,
Her maiden strewments and the bringing home
Of bell and burial.

5.1.231 LAERTES

Must there no more be done?

5.1.232 First Priest

No more be done:
We should profane the service of the dead
To sing a requiem and such rest to her
As to peace-parted souls.

5.1.236 LAERTES

Lay her i' the earth:
And from her fair and unpolluted flesh
May violets spring! I tell thee, churlish priest,
A ministering angel shall my sister be,
When thou liest howling.

5.1.241 HAMLET

What, the fair Ophelia!

5.1.242 QUEEN GERTRUDE

Sweets to the sweet: farewell!

Scattering flowers

I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet's wife;
I thought thy bride-bed to have deck'd, sweet maid,
And not have strew'd thy grave.

5.1.246 LAERTES

O, treble woe
Fall ten times treble on that cursed head,
Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense
Deprived thee of! Hold off the earth awhile,
Till I have caught her once more in mine arms:

Leaps into the grave

Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead,
Till of this flat a mountain you have made,
To o'ertop old Pelion, or the skyish head
Of blue Olympus.

5.1.255 HAMLET

[Advancing] What is he whose grief
Bears such an emphasis? whose phrase of sorrow
Conjures the wandering stars, and makes them stand
Like wonder-wounded hearers? This is I,
Hamlet the Dane.

Leaps into the grave

5.1.260 LAERTES

The devil take thy soul!

Grappling with him

5.1.261 HAMLET

Thou pray'st not well.
I prithee, take thy fingers from my throat;
For, though I am not splenitive and rash,
Yet have I something in me dangerous,
Which let thy wiseness fear: hold off thy hand.

5.1.266 KING CLAUDIUS

Pluck them asunder.

5.1.267 QUEEN GERTRUDE

Hamlet, Hamlet!

5.1.268 All

Gentlemen, –

5.1.269 HORATIO

Good my lord, be quiet.

The Attendants part them, and they come out of the grave

5.1.270 HAMLET

Why I will fight with him upon this theme
Until my eyelids will no longer wag.

5.1.272 QUEEN GERTRUDE

O my son, what theme?

5.1.273 HAMLET

I loved Ophelia: forty thousand brothers
Could not, with all their quantity of love,
Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?

5.1.276 KING CLAUDIUS

O, he is mad, Laertes.

5.1.277 QUEEN GERTRUDE

For love of God, forbear him.

5.1.278 HAMLET

'Swounds, show me what thou'lt do:
Woo't weep? woo't fight? woo't fast? woo't tear thyself?
Woo't drink up eisel? eat a crocodile?
I'll do't. Dost thou come here to whine?
To outface me with leaping in her grave?
Be buried quick with her, and so will I:
And, if thou prate of mountains, let them throw
Millions of acres on us, till our ground,
Singeing his pate against the burning zone,
Make Ossa like a wart! Nay, an thou'lt mouth,
I'll rant as well as thou.

5.1.289 QUEEN GERTRUDE

This is mere madness:
And thus awhile the fit will work on him;
Anon, as patient as the female dove,
When that her golden couplets are disclosed,
His silence will sit drooping.

5.1.294 HAMLET

Hear you, sir;
What is the reason that you use me thus?
I loved you ever: but it is no matter;
Let Hercules himself do what he may,
The cat will mew and dog will have his day.

Exit

5.1.299 KING CLAUDIUS

I pray you, good Horatio, wait upon him.

Exit HORATIO

To LAERTES

Strengthen your patience in our last night's speech;
We'll put the matter to the present push.
Good Gertrude, set some watch over your son.
This grave shall have a living monument:
An hour of quiet shortly shall we see;
Till then, in patience our proceeding be.

Exeunt

Contents

Act 5

Scene 2

An hall in the castle.

Enter HAMLET and HORATIO

5.2.1 HAMLET

So much for this, sir: now shall you see the other;
You do remember all the circumstance?

5.2.3 HORATIO

Remember it, my lord?

5.2.4 HAMLET

Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting,
That would not let me sleep: methought I lay
Worse than the mutines in the bilboes. Rashly,
And praised be rashness for it, let us know,
Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well,
When our deep plots do pall: and that should teach us
There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will, –

5.2.12 HORATIO

That is most certain.

5.2.13 HAMLET

Up from my cabin,
My sea-gown scarf'd about me, in the dark
Groped I to find out them; had my desire.
Finger'd their packet, and in fine withdrew
To mine own room again; making so bold,
My fears forgetting manners, to unseal
Their grand commission; where I found, Horatio, –
O royal knavery! – an exact command,
Larded with many several sorts of reasons
Importing Denmark's health and England's too,
With, ho! such bugs and goblins in my life,
That, on the supervise, no leisure bated,
No, not to stay the grinding of the axe,
My head should be struck off.

5.2.27 HORATIO

Is't possible?

5.2.28 HAMLET

Here's the commission: read it at more leisure.
But wilt thou hear me how I did proceed?

5.2.30 HORATIO

I beseech you.

5.2.31 HAMLET

Being thus be-netted round with villanies, –
Ere I could make a prologue to my brains,
They had begun the play – I sat me down,
Devised a new commission, wrote it fair:
I once did hold it, as our statists do,
A baseness to write fair and labour'd much
How to forget that learning, but, sir, now
It did me yeoman's service: wilt thou know
The effect of what I wrote?

5.2.40 HORATIO

Ay, good my lord.

5.2.41 HAMLET

An earnest conjuration from the king,
As England was his faithful tributary,
As love between them like the palm might flourish,
As peace should still her wheaten garland wear
And stand a comma 'tween their amities,
And many such-like as's of great charge,
That, on the view and knowing of these contents,
Without debatement further, more or less,
He should the bearers put to sudden death,
Not shriving-time allow'd.

5.2.51 HORATIO

How was this seal'd?

5.2.52 HAMLET

Why, even in that was heaven ordinant.
I had my father's signet in my purse,
Which was the model of that Danish seal;
Folded the writ up in form of the other,
Subscribed it, gave't the impression, placed it safely,
The changeling never known. Now, the next day
Was our sea-fight; and what to this was sequent
Thou know'st already.

5.2.60 HORATIO

So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to't.

5.2.61 HAMLET

Why, man, they did make love to this employment;
They are not near my conscience; their defeat
Does by their own insinuation grow:
'Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes
Between the pass and fell incensed points
Of mighty opposites.

5.2.67 HORATIO

Why, what a king is this!

5.2.68 HAMLET

Does it not, think'st thee, stand me now upon –
He that hath kill'd my king and whored my mother,
Popp'd in between the election and my hopes,
Thrown out his angle for my proper life,
And with such cozenage – is't not perfect conscience,
To quit him with this arm? and is't not to be damn'd,
To let this canker of our nature come
In further evil?

5.2.76 HORATIO

It must be shortly known to him from England
What is the issue of the business there.

5.2.78 HAMLET

It will be short: the interim is mine;
And a man's life's no more than to say 'One.'
But I am very sorry, good Horatio,
That to Laertes I forgot myself;
For, by the image of my cause, I see
The portraiture of his: I'll court his favours.
But, sure, the bravery of his grief did put me
Into a towering passion.

5.2.86 HORATIO

Peace! who comes here?

Enter OSRIC

5.2.87 OSRIC

Your lordship is right welcome back to Denmark.

5.2.88 HAMLET

I humbly thank you, sir. Dost know this water-fly?

5.2.89 HORATIO

No, my good lord.

5.2.90 HAMLET

Thy state is the more gracious; for 'tis a vice to
know him. He hath much land, and fertile: let a
beast be lord of beasts, and his crib shall stand at
the king's mess: 'tis a chough; but, as I say,
spacious in the possession of dirt.

5.2.95 OSRIC

Sweet lord, if your lordship were at leisure, I
should impart a thing to you from his majesty.

5.2.97 HAMLET

I will receive it, sir, with all diligence of
spirit. Put your bonnet to his right use; 'tis for the head.

5.2.99 OSRIC

I thank your lordship, it is very hot.

5.2.100 HAMLET

No, believe me, 'tis very cold; the wind is
northerly.

5.2.102 OSRIC

It is indifferent cold, my lord, indeed.

5.2.103 HAMLET

But yet methinks it is very sultry and hot for my
complexion.

5.2.105 OSRIC

Exceedingly, my lord; it is very sultry, – as
'twere, – I cannot tell how. But, my lord, his
majesty bade me signify to you that he has laid a
great wager on your head: sir, this is the matter, –

5.2.109 HAMLET

I beseech you, remember –

HAMLET moves him to put on his hat

5.2.110 OSRIC

Nay, good my lord; for mine ease, in good faith.
Sir, here is newly come to court Laertes; believe
me, an absolute gentleman, full of most excellent
differences, of very soft society and great showing:
indeed, to speak feelingly of him, he is the card or
calendar of gentry, for you shall find in him the
continent of what part a gentleman would see.

5.2.117 HAMLET

Sir, his definement suffers no perdition in you;
though, I know, to divide him inventorially would
dizzy the arithmetic of memory, and yet but yaw
neither, in respect of his quick sail. But, in the
verity of extolment, I take him to be a soul of
great article; and his infusion of such dearth and
rareness, as, to make true diction of him, his
semblable is his mirror; and who else would trace
him, his umbrage, nothing more.

5.2.126 OSRIC

Your lordship speaks most infallibly of him.

5.2.127 HAMLET

The concernancy, sir? why do we wrap the gentleman
in our more rawer breath?

5.2.129 OSRIC

Sir?

5.2.130 HORATIO

Is't not possible to understand in another tongue?
You will do't, sir, really.

5.2.132 HAMLET

What imports the nomination of this gentleman?

5.2.133 OSRIC

Of Laertes?

5.2.134 HORATIO

His purse is empty already; all's golden words are spent.

5.2.135 HAMLET

Of him, sir.

5.2.136 OSRIC

I know you are not ignorant –

5.2.137 HAMLET

I would you did, sir; yet, in faith, if you did,
it would not much approve me. Well, sir?

5.2.139 OSRIC

You are not ignorant of what excellence Laertes is –

5.2.140 HAMLET

I dare not confess that, lest I should compare with
him in excellence; but, to know a man well, were to
know himself.

5.2.143 OSRIC

I mean, sir, for his weapon; but in the imputation
laid on him by them, in his meed he's unfellowed.

5.2.145 HAMLET

What's his weapon?

5.2.146 OSRIC

Rapier and dagger.

5.2.147 HAMLET

That's two of his weapons: but, well.

5.2.148 OSRIC

The king, sir, hath wagered with him six Barbary
horses: against the which he has imponed, as I take
it, six French rapiers and poniards, with their
assigns, as girdle, hangers, and so: three of the
carriages, in faith, are very dear to fancy, very
responsive to the hilts, most delicate carriages,
and of very liberal conceit.

5.2.155 HAMLET

What call you the carriages?

5.2.156 HORATIO

I knew you must be edified by the margent ere you had done.

5.2.157 OSRIC

The carriages, sir, are the hangers.

5.2.158 HAMLET

The phrase would be more germane to the matter, if we could carry cannon by our sides: I would it might be hangers till then. But, on: six Barbary horses against six French swords, their assigns, and three liberal-conceited carriages; that's the French bet against the Danish. Why is this 'imponed,' as you call it?

5.2.164 OSRIC

The king, sir, hath laid, that in a dozen passes
between yourself and him, he shall not exceed you
three hits: he hath laid on twelve for nine; and it
would come to immediate trial, if your lordship
would vouchsafe the answer.

5.2.169 HAMLET

How if I answer 'no'?

5.2.170 OSRIC

I mean, my lord, the opposition of your person in trial.

5.2.171 HAMLET

Sir, I will walk here in the hall: if it please his
majesty, 'tis the breathing time of day with me; let
the foils be brought, the gentleman willing, and the
king hold his purpose, I will win for him an I can;
if not, I will gain nothing but my shame and the odd hits.

5.2.176 OSRIC

Shall I re-deliver you e'en so?

5.2.177 HAMLET

To this effect, sir; after what flourish your nature will.

5.2.178 OSRIC

I commend my duty to your lordship.

5.2.179 HAMLET

Yours, yours.

Exit OSRIC

He does well to commend it himself; there are no
tongues else for's turn.

5.2.182 HORATIO

This lapwing runs away with the shell on his head.

5.2.183 HAMLET

He did comply with his dug, before he sucked it.
Thus has he – and many more of the same bevy that I
know the dressy age dotes on – only got the tune of
the time and outward habit of encounter; a kind of
yesty collection, which carries them through and
through the most fond and winnowed opinions; and do
but blow them to their trial, the bubbles are out.

Enter a Lord

5.2.190 Lord

My lord, his majesty commended him to you by young
Osric, who brings back to him that you attend him in
the hall: he sends to know if your pleasure hold to
play with Laertes, or that you will take longer time.

5.2.194 HAMLET

I am constant to my purpose; they follow the king's
pleasure: if his fitness speaks, mine is ready; now
or whensoever, provided I be so able as now.

5.2.197 Lord

The king and queen and all are coming down.

5.2.198 HAMLET

In happy time.

5.2.199 Lord

The queen desires you to use some gentle
entertainment to Laertes before you fall to play.

5.2.201 HAMLET

She well instructs me.

Exit Lord

5.2.202 HORATIO

You will lose this wager, my lord.

5.2.203 HAMLET

I do not think so: since he went into France, I
have been in continual practise: I shall win at the
odds. But thou wouldst not think how ill all's here
about my heart: but it is no matter.

5.2.207 HORATIO

Nay, good my lord, –

5.2.208 HAMLET

It is but foolery; but it is such a kind of
gain-giving, as would perhaps trouble a woman.

5.2.210 HORATIO

If your mind dislike any thing, obey it: I will
forestall their repair hither, and say you are not
fit.

5.2.213 HAMLET

Not a whit, we defy augury: there's a special
providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now,
'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be
now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the
readiness is all: since no man has aught of what he
leaves, what is't to leave betimes?

Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, LAERTES, Lords, OSRIC, and Attendants with foils, &c.

5.2.219 KING CLAUDIUS

Come, Hamlet, come, and take this hand from me.

KING CLAUDIUS puts LAERTES' hand into HAMLET's

5.2.220 HAMLET

Give me your pardon, sir: I've done you wrong;
But pardon't, as you are a gentleman.
This presence knows,
And you must needs have heard, how I am punish'd
With sore distraction. What I have done,
That might your nature, honour and exception
Roughly awake, I here proclaim was madness.
Was't Hamlet wrong'd Laertes? Never Hamlet:
If Hamlet from himself be ta'en away,
And when he's not himself does wrong Laertes,
Then Hamlet does it not, Hamlet denies it.
Who does it, then? His madness: if't be so,
Hamlet is of the faction that is wrong'd;
His madness is poor Hamlet's enemy.
Sir, in this audience,
Let my disclaiming from a purposed evil
Free me so far in your most generous thoughts,
That I have shot mine arrow o'er the house,
And hurt my brother.

5.2.239 LAERTES

I am satisfied in nature,
Whose motive, in this case, should stir me most
To my revenge: but in my terms of honour
I stand aloof; and will no reconcilement,
Till by some elder masters, of known honour,
I have a voice and precedent of peace,
To keep my name ungored. But till that time,
I do receive your offer'd love like love,
And will not wrong it.

5.2.248 HAMLET

I embrace it freely;
And will this brother's wager frankly play.
Give us the foils. Come on.

5.2.251 LAERTES

Come, one for me.

5.2.252 HAMLET

I'll be your foil, Laertes: in mine ignorance
Your skill shall, like a star i' the darkest night,
Stick fiery off indeed.

5.2.255 LAERTES

You mock me, sir.

5.2.256 HAMLET

No, by this hand.

5.2.257 KING CLAUDIUS

Give them the foils, young Osric. Cousin Hamlet,
You know the wager?

5.2.259 HAMLET

Very well, my lord
Your grace hath laid the odds o' the weaker side.

5.2.261 KING CLAUDIUS

I do not fear it; I have seen you both:
But since he is better'd, we have therefore odds.

5.2.263 LAERTES

This is too heavy, let me see another.

5.2.264 HAMLET

This likes me well. These foils have all a length?

They prepare to play

5.2.265 OSRIC

Ay, my good lord.

5.2.266 KING CLAUDIUS

Set me the stoops of wine upon that table.
If Hamlet give the first or second hit,
Or quit in answer of the third exchange,
Let all the battlements their ordnance fire:
The king shall drink to Hamlet's better breath;
And in the cup an union shall he throw,
Richer than that which four successive kings
In Denmark's crown have worn. Give me the cups;
And let the kettle to the trumpet speak,
The trumpet to the cannoneer without,
The cannons to the heavens, the heavens to earth,
'Now the king drinks to Hamlet.' Come, begin:
And you, the judges, bear a wary eye.

5.2.279 HAMLET

Come on, sir.

5.2.280 LAERTES

Come, my lord.

They play

5.2.281 HAMLET

One.

5.2.282 LAERTES

No.

5.2.283 HAMLET

Judgment.

5.2.284 OSRIC

A hit, a very palpable hit.

5.2.285 LAERTES

Well; again.

5.2.286 KING CLAUDIUS

Stay; give me drink. Hamlet, this pearl is thine;
Here's to thy health.

Trumpets sound, and cannon shot off within

Give him the cup.

5.2.289 HAMLET

I'll play this bout first; set it by awhile. Come.

They play

Another hit; what say you?

5.2.291 LAERTES

A touch, a touch, I do confess.

5.2.292 KING CLAUDIUS

Our son shall win.

5.2.293 QUEEN GERTRUDE

He's fat, and scant of breath.
Here, Hamlet, take my napkin, rub thy brows;
The queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet.

5.2.296 HAMLET

Good madam!

5.2.297 KING CLAUDIUS

Gertrude, do not drink.

5.2.298 QUEEN GERTRUDE

I will, my lord; I pray you, pardon me.

5.2.299 KING CLAUDIUS

[Aside] It is the poison'd cup: it is too late.

5.2.300 HAMLET

I dare not drink yet, madam; by and by.

5.2.301 QUEEN GERTRUDE

Come, let me wipe thy face.

5.2.302 LAERTES

My lord, I'll hit him now.

5.2.303 KING CLAUDIUS

I do not think't.

5.2.304 LAERTES

[Aside] And yet 'tis almost 'gainst my conscience.

5.2.305 HAMLET

Come, for the third, Laertes: you but dally;
I pray you, pass with your best violence;
I am afeard you make a wanton of me.

5.2.308 LAERTES

Say you so? come on.

They play

5.2.309 OSRIC

Nothing, neither way.

5.2.310 LAERTES

Have at you now!

LAERTES wounds HAMLET; then in scuffling, they change rapiers, and HAMLET wounds LAERTES

5.2.311 KING CLAUDIUS

Part them; they are incensed.

5.2.312 HAMLET

Nay, come, again.

QUEEN GERTRUDE falls

5.2.313 OSRIC

Look to the queen there, ho!

5.2.314 HORATIO

They bleed on both sides. How is it, my lord?

5.2.315 OSRIC

How is't, Laertes?

5.2.316 LAERTES

Why, as a woodcock to mine own springe, Osric;
I am justly kill'd with mine own treachery.

5.2.318 HAMLET

How does the queen?

5.2.319 KING CLAUDIUS

She swounds to see them bleed.

5.2.320 QUEEN GERTRUDE

No, no, the drink, the drink, – O my dear Hamlet, –
The drink, the drink! I am poison'd.

Dies

5.2.322 HAMLET

O villany! Ho! let the door be lock'd:
Treachery! Seek it out.

5.2.324 LAERTES

It is here, Hamlet: Hamlet, thou art slain;
No medicine in the world can do thee good;
In thee there is not half an hour of life;
The treacherous instrument is in thy hand,
Unbated and envenom'd: the foul practise
Hath turn'd itself on me lo, here I lie,
Never to rise again: thy mother's poison'd:
I can no more: the king, the king's to blame.

5.2.332 HAMLET

The point! – envenom'd too!
Then, venom, to thy work.

Stabs KING CLAUDIUS

5.2.334 All

Treason! treason!

5.2.335 KING CLAUDIUS

O, yet defend me, friends; I am but hurt.

5.2.336 HAMLET

Here, thou incestuous, murderous, damned Dane,
Drink off this potion. Is thy union here?
Follow my mother.

KING CLAUDIUS dies

5.2.339 LAERTES

He is justly served;
It is a poison temper'd by himself.
Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet:
Mine and my father's death come not upon thee,
Nor thine on me.

Dies

5.2.344 HAMLET

Heaven make thee free of it! I follow thee.
I am dead, Horatio. Wretched queen, adieu!
You that look pale and tremble at this chance,
That are but mutes or audience to this act,
Had I but time – as this fell sergeant, death,
Is strict in his arrest – O, I could tell you –
But let it be. Horatio, I am dead;
Thou livest; report me and my cause aright
To the unsatisfied.

5.2.353 HORATIO

Never believe it:
I am more an antique Roman than a Dane:
Here's yet some liquor left.

5.2.356 HAMLET

As thou'rt a man,
Give me the cup: let go; by heaven, I'll have't.
O good Horatio, what a wounded name,
Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me!
If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart
Absent thee from felicity awhile,
And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,
To tell my story.

March afar off, and shot within

What warlike noise is this?

5.2.365 OSRIC

Young Fortinbras, with conquest come from Poland,
To the ambassadors of England gives
This warlike volley.

5.2.368 HAMLET

O, I die, Horatio;
The potent poison quite o'er-crows my spirit:
I cannot live to hear the news from England;
But I do prophesy the election lights
On Fortinbras: he has my dying voice;
So tell him, with the occurrents, more and less,
Which have solicited. The rest is silence.

Dies

5.2.375 HORATIO

Now cracks a noble heart. Good night sweet prince:
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!
Why does the drum come hither?

March within

Enter FORTINBRAS, the English Ambassadors, and others

5.2.378 PRINCE FORTINBRAS

Where is this sight?

5.2.379 HORATIO

What is it ye would see?
If aught of woe or wonder, cease your search.

5.2.381 PRINCE FORTINBRAS

This quarry cries on havoc. O proud death,
What feast is toward in thine eternal cell,
That thou so many princes at a shot
So bloodily hast struck?

5.2.385 First Ambassador

The sight is dismal;
And our affairs from England come too late:
The ears are senseless that should give us hearing,
To tell him his commandment is fulfill'd,
That Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead:
Where should we have our thanks?

5.2.391 HORATIO

Not from his mouth,
Had it the ability of life to thank you:
He never gave commandment for their death.
But since, so jump upon this bloody question,
You from the Polack wars, and you from England,
Are here arrived give order that these bodies
High on a stage be placed to the view;
And let me speak to the yet unknowing world
How these things came about: so shall you hear
Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts,
Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters,
Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause,
And, in this upshot, purposes mistook
Fall'n on the inventors' heads: all this can I
Truly deliver.

5.2.406 PRINCE FORTINBRAS

Let us haste to hear it,
And call the noblest to the audience.
For me, with sorrow I embrace my fortune:
I have some rights of memory in this kingdom,
Which now to claim my vantage doth invite me.

5.2.411 HORATIO

Of that I shall have also cause to speak,
And from his mouth whose voice will draw on more;
But let this same be presently perform'd,
Even while men's minds are wild; lest more mischance
On plots and errors, happen.

5.2.416 PRINCE FORTINBRAS

Let four captains
Bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to the stage;
For he was likely, had he been put on,
To have proved most royally: and, for his passage,
The soldiers' music and the rites of war
Speak loudly for him.
Take up the bodies: such a sight as this
Becomes the field, but here shows much amiss.
Go, bid the soldiers shoot.

A dead march. Exeunt, bearing off the dead bodies; after which a peal of ordnance is shot off

Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

Contents2024 Feb 20 13:01:29

Act 1

Scene 1

London. The palace.

Act 1

Scene 2

GLOUCESTER'S house.

Act 1

Scene 3

The palace.

Act 1

Scene 4

GLOUCESTER's garden.

Act 2

Scene 1

Saint Alban's.

Act 2

Scene 2

London. YORK'S garden.

Act 2

Scene 3

An hall of justice.

Act 2

Scene 4

A street.

Act 3

Scene 1

A room in the castle.

Act 3

Scene 2

An hall in the castle.

Act 3

Scene 3

A room in the castle.

Act 3

Scene 4

The Queen's closet.

Act 4

Scene 1

A room in the castle.

Act 4

Scene 2

Another room in the castle.

Act 4

Scene 3

Another room in the castle.

Act 4

Scene 4

A plain in Denmark.

Act 4

Scene 5

Elsinore. A room in the castle.

Act 4

Scene 6

Another room in the castle.

Act 4

Scene 7

Another room in the castle.

Act 5

Scene 1

A churchyard.

Act 5

Scene 2

An hall in the castle.

Finis