Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

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.

Ham. How is it with you, lady?

Queen. Alas, how is't with you?

840

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 exerements,
Starts up, and stands on end. O gentle son,
Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper
Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look?
Ham. 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.
Queen. To whom do you speak this?

[ocr errors]

Ham. Do you see nothing there?

Queen. Nothing at all; yet all, that is, I see.

Ham. Nor did you nothing hear?

Queen. No, nothing, but ourselves.

851

Ham. Why, look you there! look, how it steals

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

Look, where he goes, even now, out at the portal!

[Exit Ghost.

Queen. This is the very coinage of your brain

This bodiless creation ecstasy

Is very cunning in.

Ham. Ecstasy!

:

860

My pulse as yours, doth temperately keep time,
And makes as healthful musick: 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 flattering unction to your soul,
That not your trespass, but my madness, speaks:
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place;
Whiles 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,

870

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.
Queen. O, Hamlet! thou hast cleft my heart in
twain.

Ham. 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 ;

880

That

That to the use of actions fair and good
He likewise gives a frock, or livery,
That aptly is put on: Refrain to-night;
And that shall lend a kind of easiness

To the next abstinence: the next, more easy:
For use can almost 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 blest,
I'll blessing beg of you. For this same lord,

890

[Pointing to POLONIUS.

I do repent; But heaven hath pleas'd it so,—
To punish him with me, and me with this,-
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! goo
I must be cruel, only to be kind :

Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.→

One word more, good lady.

Queen. What shall I do?

Ham. 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,

910

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

Such dear concernings hide? who would do so?
No, in despight 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 neck down.

920

Queen. Be thou assur'd, if words be made of

breath,

And breath of life, I have no life to breathe

What thou hast said to me.

Ham. I must to England; you know that?

Queen. Alack, I had forgot; 'tis so concluded on.

Ham. 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 petar: and it 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.

930

[ocr errors]

Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you :- 940 Good night, mother.

[Exit the Queen, and HAMLET dragging in POLONIUS.

ACT

ACT IV. SCENE I.

A royal Apartment. Enter King, Queen, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN.

King.

T

HERE'S matter in these sighs, these profound
heaves;

You must translate; 'tis fit we understand them:
Where is your son ?

Queen. Bestow this place on us a little while.

[To Ros. and GUIL. who go out.

Ah, my good lord, what have I seen to night?
King. What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet ?
Queen. Mad as the sea, and wind, when both con-
tend

Which is the mightier: In his lawless fit,

Behind the arras hearing something stir,

He whips his rapier out, and cries, A rat! a rat! 10 And, in this brainish apprehension, kills

The unseen good old man.

King. O heavy deed!

It had been so with us, had we been there :

His liberty is full of threats to all;

To you yourself, to us, to every one.

Alas! how shall this bloody deed be answer'd ?

It will be laid to us; whose providence

Should have kept short, restrain'd, and out of

haunt,

This mad young man: but, so much was our love,

We

« ZurückWeiter »