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

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

Ham. 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. 'Sdeath, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you may fret me, you cannot play upon [Crosses to R.

me.

Enter POLONIUS, R.

Pol. (R. c.) My lord, the queen would speak with you, and presently.

Ham. [Leaning on the shoulder of PoL.] Do you see yonder cloud, that's almost in shape of a camel? Pol. By the mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed. Ham. Methinks, it is like a weasel.

Pol. It is back'd like a weasel.

Ham. Or, like a whale?

Pol. Very like a whale.

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

Pol. I will say so.

Ham. (R.) By-and-bye is easily said. [Exit POLONIUS, R.] Leave me, friends.

[Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN, R. 'Tis now the very witching time of night;

When church-yards yawn, and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world. Now could I drink hot blood,
And do such business as the bitter 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-rot unnatural:

I will speak daggers to her, but use none.

LExit, R

SCENE 11.-A Room in the Palace.

Enter the KING, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN, L.

King. (c.) I like him not; nor stands it safe with us To let his madness range. Therefore, prepare you: I your commission will forthwith despatch, And he to England shall along with you: Arm you, I pray you, to this speedy voyage; For we will fetters put upon this fear,

Which now goes too free-footed.

[Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN, L Enter POLONIUS, R.

Pol. (R.) My lord, he's going to his mother's closet; Behind the arras I'll convey myself,

To hear the process; I'll warrant she'll tax him home;
And, as you said, and wisely was it said,

"Tis meet that some more audience, than a mother,
Since nature makes them partial, should o'erhear
The speech of vantage. Fare you well, my liege;
I'll call upon you ere you go to bed,

And tell you what I know.

King. Thanks, dear my lord.

[Exeunt KING, R. Polonius, L.

SCENE III.-The Queen's Closet.

Enter QUEEN and POLONIUS, L.

Pol. (L.) 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.

Queen. (c.) I'll warrant you

Fear me not. Withdraw, I hear him coming.

[POLONIUS Conccals himself behind the arras, L. S. E.

Enter HAMLEt, r. d.

Hum. (R.) Now, mother; what's the matter?
Queen. (L.) Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.

Ham. Mother, you have my father much offended.
Queen. Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.
Ham. (R. C.) Go, go, you question with a wicked
tongue.

Queen. (c.) Why, how now, Hamlet?

Ham. What's the matter now?
Queen. Have you forgot me ?

Ham. No, by the rood, not so:

You are the queen, your husband's brother s wife; And-'would it were not so !-you are my mother. Queen. Nay, then I'll set those to you that can speak.

Ham. Come, come, and sit you down; you shall not budge;

You go not, till I set you up a glass

Where you may see the inmost part of you.

Queen. What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murder me?

Help, help, ho!

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

Ham. How now! a rat?

Dead, for a ducat, dead.

[Draws.

[HAMLET draws, and makes a pass through the

arras.

Pol. [Behind.] Oh! Oh! Oh!

[POLONIUS falls and dies, L.

Queen. (R. C.) Oh, me! what hast thou done?
Ham. Nay, I know not-

Is it the king?

Queen. Oh, what a rash and bloody deed is this! Ham. A bloody deed; almost as bad, good mother, As kill a king, and marry with his brother.

Queen. As kill a king?

Ham. Ay, lady, 'twas my word.

[Takes a candle, lifts up the arras, and sees POLONIUS.

Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!

I took thee for thy better.

Leave wringing of your hands.
And let me wring your heart;

I shall,

If it be made of penetrable stuff;

[To the QUEEN.

Peace-sit you down, [He gets chairs] for so

If damned custom have not brazed it so,
That it be proof and bulwark against sense.

[Both sit, c.

Queen. (R. of HAM.) What have I done, that thou

dar'st wag thy tongue

In noise so rude against me?

Ham. 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. Oh! such a deed,
As from the body of contraction plucks
The very soul; and sweet religion makes
A rhapsody of words-

Ah me! that act!

Queen. Ah me! what act?

Ham. Look here, upon this picture, and on this;
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
See what a grace was seated on this brow-
Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself:
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?

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.

Queen. O Hamlet, speak no more :
Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul,
And there I see such black and grained spots,
As will not leave their tinct.

Ham. Nay, but to live

In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed

Queen. No more, sweet Hamlet.

· Ham. 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-

Enter GHOST, R.

A king of shreds and patches:

[They rise.

Save me, and hover o'er me with your wings,

You heavenly guards! what would your gracious [HAMLET looks at the GHOST-the

figure?

QUEEN looks a contrary way.

Queen. Alas! he's mad.

Ham. 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?
Oh, say!

Ghost. (R.) Do not forget-this visitation
Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.
But, look, amazement on thy mother sits:
Oh, step between her and her fighting soul.
Speak to her, Hamlet.

Ham. How is it with you, lady?

Queen. Alas! how is't with you,

That you do bend your eye on vacancy,

And with the incorporeal air do hold discourse?
Oh, 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. [To GHOST.] 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?
Ham. Do you see nothing there?

[Pointing R

Queen, Nothing at all; yet all, that is, I see.
Ham. Nor did you nothing hear?

Queen. No, nothing but ourselves,

[GHOST crosses to L.

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

away!