Ham. They are coming to the play; I must be Behind the arras I'll convey myself idle: Ham. No, good mother, here's metal more attractive. To hear the process; I'll warrant she'll tax him And, as you said, and wisely was it said, Thanks, dear my lord. [Exit POL. [Lying down at OPHELIA'S feet., my offence is rank, it smells to heaven; Pol. O, ho! do you mark that? [To the KING. It hath the primal eldest curse upon't, A brother's murther!-Pray can I not, Hautboys play. Enter a King and Queen very lovingly; the Though inclination be as sharp as will; Queen embracing him. She kneels, and makes show My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent; of the protestation unto him. He takes her up, and And, like a man to double business bound, declines his head upon her neck; lays him down I stand in pause where I shall first begin, upon a bank of flowers; she, seeing him asleep, And both neglect. What if this cursed hand leaves him. Anon comes in a fellow, takes off his Were thicker than itself with brother's blood? crown, kisses it, and pours poison in the King's To wash it white as snow? Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens, Whereto serves mercy, ears, and exit. The Queen returns; finds the King dead, and makes passionate action. The But to confront the visage of offence? poisoner, with some two or three mutes, comes in And what's in prayer, but this two-fold force,— again, seeming to lament with her. The dead To be forestalled, ere we come to fall, body is carried away. The poisoner woos the Queen with gifts: she seems louth and unwilling awhile, but, in the end, accepts his love. Oph. Belike this show imports the argument of the play. 'Tis brief, my lord. Ham. As woman's love. King. Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in't? Ham. No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest no offence i' the world, King. What do you call the play? ; Or pardon'd, being down? Then I'll look up; That cannot be; since I am still possess'd Ham. The mouse-trap. Marry, how? Tropi-Buys out the law but 'tis not so above: cally. This play is the image of a murther done There is no shuffling, there the action lies in Vienna: Gonzago is the duke's name; his wife, In his true nature; and we ourselves compell'd, Baptista; you shall see anon; 'tis a knavish piece of work: But what of that? your majesty, and we that have free souls, it toucheth us not: Let the galled jade wince, our withers are unwrung. Enter LUCIANUS. This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king. He poisons him ' the garden for his estate. His name's Gonzago; the story is extant, and writ in choice Italian: You shall see anon, how the murtherer gets the love of Gonzaga's wife. Oph. The king rises. Ham. What! frighted with false fire! King. Give me some light: away! [Exeunt all but HAM. I will speak daggers to her, but use none, SCENE.-A Room in the same. Enter KING and POLONIUS. [Exit. Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults, Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe : ! [Retires and kncels. Enter HAMLET. Ham. Now might I do it, pat, now he is praying, O, this is hire and salary, not revenge. But, in our circumstance and course of thought, Pol, My lord, he's going to his mother's closet; No. down, Up, sword; and know thou a more horrid hent :* Leave wringing of your hands: Peace, sit you Pol. He will come straight. Look, you lay home to him: Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear with; And that your grace hath screen'd and stood between Much heat and him. I'll silence me e'en here. Ham. [Within.] Mother! mother! mother! Queen. Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended. Ham. Mother, you have my father much offended. You are the queen, your husband's brother's wife; But would you 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. And let me wring your heart: for so I shall, If it be made of penetrable stuff. Queen. What have I done that thou dar'st wag thy tongue In noise so rude against me? Such an act, Ham. 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 dicer's oaths. Queen. Ah me, what act, Here is your husband; like a mildew'd ear, O, speak to me no more; Ham. A murtherer, and a villain, A slave, that is not twentieth part the tythe Of your precedent lord :-a vice of kings: A cutpurse of the empire and the rule; That from a shelf the precious diadem stole, And put it in his pocket! Queen. No more. Enter Ghost. Нат. Of shreds and patches: A king Save me, and hover o'er me with your wings, Queen. What wilt thou do? thou wilt not You heavenly guards!-What would you, gracious murther me? Is it the king? As kill a king, and marry with his brother. * Seize him at a more horrid time. figure? Queen. Alas! he's mad! 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 Ham. My father, in his habit as he lived! Look, where he goes, even now, out at the portal! [Exit Ghost. Queen. This is the very coinage of your brain, † Station means the act of standing, the bearing. Macb. I have almost forgot the taste of fears: The time has been, my senses would have cool'd To hear a night shriek; and my fell of hair Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir, As life were in't: I have supp'd full with horrors: Direness, familiar to my slaught'rous thoughts, Cannot once start me.-Wherefore was that cry? Sey. The queen, my lord is dead. Macb. She would have died hereafter; There should have been a time for such a word.To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle : Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. Enter a Messenger. Thou com'st to use thy tongue; thy story quickly. Mess. Gracious my lord, I should report that which I say I saw, But know not how to do it. Mess. As I did stand my watch upon the hill, I look'd toward Birnam, and, anon, methought, The wood began to move. Macb. Liar, and slave! [Striking him. If thou speak'st false, To doubt the equivocation of the fiend," Andwish the estate o' the world were now undone. SCENE.-The same. A Plain before the Castle. Enter, with drums and colours, MALCOLM, old SIWARD, MACDUFF, &c., and their Army, with boughs. Mal. Now, near enough; your leavy screens throw down, And show like those you are:-You, worthy uncle, Siw. Macd. Make all our trumpets speak; give them all breath, Those clamorous harbingers of blood and death.. [Exeunt. Alarums continued. SCENE VII.-The same. Another part of the Plain. Enter MACBETH. Siw. Siw. Why, then, God's soldier be he. Had I as many sons as I have hairs, Macb. They have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly, I would not wish them to a fairer death: But, bear-like, I must fight the course. Enter MACDUFF. Macd. Turn, hell-bound, turn. Macb. Of all men else I have avoided thee: But get thee back, my soul is too much charg'd With blood of thine already. Macd. I have no words, My voice is in my sword; thou bloodier villain Than terms can give thee out. Macb. I will not yield, To kiss the ground before young Malcolm's feet, Mal. I would the friends we miss were safe arriv'd. Siw. Some must go off; and yet, by these I see, So great a day as this is cheaply bought. Mal. Macduff is missing, and your noble son. Rosse. Your son, my lord, has paid a soldier's debt: He only liv'd but till he was a man ; The which no sooner had his prowess confirm'd, In the unshrinking station where he fought, But like a man he died. And so his knell is toll'd. Mal. He's worth more sorrow, And that I'll spend for him. He's worth no more; Siw. They say, he parted well, and paid his score: And so, God be with him!-Here comes newer comfort. Re-enter MACDUFF, with MACBETH's head. Macd. Hail, king! for so thou art: Behold, where stands The usurper's cursed head: the time is free; All. King of Scotland, hail! [Flourish. Mal. We shall not spend a large expense of time, Before we reckon with your several loves, Henceforth be earls, the first that ever Scotland Of this dead butcher, and his fiend-like queen, Enter the KING, QUEEN, HAMLET, POLONIUS, LAERTES, VOLTIMAND, CORNELIUS, and Lords Attendant. King. Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death The memory be green; and that it us befitted Your leave and favour to return to France; And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon. King. Have you your father's leave? What says Polonius ? Pol. He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave, By laboursome petition; and, at last, King. Take thy fair hour, Laertes; time be thine, And thy best graces spend it at thy will! [Aside. King. How is it that the clouds still hang on you ? Ham. Not so, my lord, I am too much i' the sun. Queen. Good Hamlet, cast thy nightly colour off, And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark. Do not, for ever, with thy vailed lids Seek for thy noble father in the dust: Ham. Ay, madam, it is common. If it be, Why seems it so particular with thee? Ham. Seems, madam! nay, it is; I know not seems. 'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, To give these mourning duties to your father; To do obsequious sorrow: But to persevere Of impious stubbornness; 'tis unmanly grief; |