Which the brain makes of fumes: our very eyes [Good faith, Are sometimes like our judgements, blind. I tremble still with fear: but if there be Yet left in heaven as small a drop of pity As a wren's eye, fear'd gods, a part of it! The dream's here still: even when I awake, it is Without me, as within me; not imagin'd, felt. Routed Army.
No blame be to you, sir: for all was lost, But that the heavens fought: the king himself Of his wings destitute, the army broken, And but the backs of Britons seen, all flying, Through a strait lane; the enemy full-hearted Lolling the tongue with slaught'ring, having work
More plentiful than tools to do't, struck down Some mortally, some slightly touch'd, some falling
Merely through fear; that the strait pass was damm'd [living With dead men, hurt behind, and cowards To die with lengthen'd shame. Death.
I, in mine own woe charm'd, [groan; Could not find Death, where I did hear him Nor feel him, where he struck : being an ugly [beds, Tis strange, he hides him in fresh cups, soft Sweet words; or hath more ministers than we, That draw his knives i' the war.
§ 18. HAMLET. SHAKSPEARE. Prodigies.
In the most high and palmy state of Rome, A little ere the mightiest Julius fell, [ dead The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets; Stars shone with trains of fire, dews of blood fell;
Disasters veil'd the sun; and the moist star, Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands, Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse. Ghosts vanish at the Crowing of the Cock: and
the Reverence paid to Christmas-time. Ber. It was about to speak, when the cock crew. Hor. And then it started like a guilty thing, Upon a fearful summons. I have heard, The cock, that is the trumpet of the morn, Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat Awake the god of day; and, at his warning, Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air, Th' extravagant and erring spirit hies To his confine: and of the truth herein, This present object made probation.
Mar. It faded on the crowing of the cock. Some say, that ever 'gainst that season comes, Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, This bird of dawning singeth all night long: And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad, The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath pow'r to charm, So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.
But, look, the morn, in russet mantle clad, Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill.
Seems, madam! nay, it is: I know not seems. "Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, Nor customary suits of solemn black, Nor windy suspiration of forc'd breath, No nor the fruitful river in the eye, Nor the dejected 'haviour of the visage, Together with all forms, modes, shows of grief, That can denote me truly: these, indeed, seen, For they are actions that a man might play: But I have that within, which passeth show; These, but the trapping and the suits of woe.
Immoderate Grief discommended.
'Tis sweet and commendable in your nature,
To give these mourning duties to your father: But, you must know, your father lost a father; That father lost, lost his; and the survivor In filial obligation, for some term [bound, To do obsequious sorrow. But to persevere In obstinate condolement, is a course Of impious stubbornness; 'tis unmanly grief: It shows a will most incorrect to Heaven; A heart unfortified, or mind impatient; An understanding simple and unschool'd: For what we know, must be, and is as common any the most vulgar thing to sense, Why should we, in our peevish opposition, Take it to heart? Fie! 'tis a fault to Heaven, A fault against the dead, a fault to nature, To reason most absurd; whose common theme Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried From the first corse till he that died to-day, This must be so.
Hamlet's Soliloquy on his Mother's Marriage. O, that this too, too solid flesh would melt, | Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew ! Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd [God! His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! O How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable Seem to me all the uses of this world! Fie on't! O fie! 'tis an unweeded garden, That grows to seed; things rank and gross in
Than I to Hercules: within a month, Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears Had left the flushing in her galled eyes, She married: O most wicked speed, to post With such dexterity to incestuous sheets! It is not, nor it cannot come to good. A complete Man.
He was a man, take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again.
Cautions to young Ladies.
For Hamlet, and the trifling of his favor, Hold it a fashion, and a toy in blood; A violet in the youth of primy nature, Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting, The perfume and suppliance of a minute, No more.
Then weigh what loss your honor may sustain, If with too credent car you list his songs; Or lose your heart; or your chaste treasure open To his unmaster'd importunity. Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister; And keep you in the rear of your affection, Out of the shot and danger of desire. The chariest maid is prodigal enough, If she unmask her beauty to the moon: Virtue herself 'scapes not caluminious strokes: The canker galls the infants of the spring Too oft before their buttons be disclos'd: And in the morn and liquid dew of youth Contagious blastments are most imminent.
A Satire on ungracious Pastors. I shall th' effects of this good lesson keep As watchmen to my heart: but, good my bro- Do not, as some ungracious pastors do, [ther, Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven; Whilst, like a puft and reckless libertine, Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
And recks not his own read.
A Father's Advice to his Son going to travel. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Be thy intents wicked, or charitable, Thou com'st in such a questionable shape, That I will speak to thee; I'll call thee Hamlet, King, father, royal Dane: (), answer me: Let me not burst in ignorance! but tell, Why thy canoniz'd bones, hearsed in death, flave burst their cerements? why the sepulchre Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn'd, Hath op'd his ponderous and marble jaws, To cast thee up again? What may this mean, That thou, dead corse, again, in complete steel, Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon, Making night hideous; and we fools of nature, So horribly to shake our disposition With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?
The Mischief it might tempt him to. What if it tempt you towards the flood, my Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff, [lord, That beetles o'er his base into the sea; Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason, And there assume some other horrible form, And draw you into madness? Think of it: The very place puts toys of desperation, Without more motive, into ev'ry brain, That looks so many fathoms to the sea, And hears it roar beneath.
Enter Ghost and Hamlet. Ham. Whither wilt thou lead me? speak, I'll go no further.
Ghost. Mark me.
Ham. I will.
Ghost. My hour is almost come,
When I to sulphurous and tormenting flames Must render up myself.
Ham. Alas, poor ghost!
Ghost. Pity me not, but lend thy serious To what I shall unfold.
Ham. Speak, I am bound to hear. Ghost. So art thou to revenge, when thou Ham. What? [shalt hear.
Ghost I am thy father's spirit; Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night, And, for the day, confin'd to fast in fires, Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature Are burnt and purg'd away. But that I am for- To tell the secrets of my prison-house, [bid Would harrow up thy soul; freeze thy young I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word blood;
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres ;
knotted and combined locks to part, And each particular hair to stand on end Like quills upon the fretful porcupine: But this eternal blazon must not be
Nor any unproportion'd thought his act. Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar. The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, Grapple them to thy soul with hook's of steel; But do not dull thy palm with entertainment Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade. Be- Of entrance to a quarrel; but, being in, [ware Bear it that the opposer may beware of thee. Give ev'ry man thine ear, but few thy voice: Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judg-Thy Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, [ment. But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy; For the apparel oft proclaims the man. Neither a borrower, nor a lender be: For loan oft loses both itself and friend; And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. This above all, to thine own self be true; And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man. Hamlet on the Appearance of his Father's Ghost. Angels and ministers of grace defend us! Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damn'd, Bring with thee airs from heaven, or blasts from hell,
To ears of flesh and blood: list, list, O list! If thou didst ever thy dear father love- Ham. O Heaven! Ghost.. Revenge his foul and most unnatural Ham. Murder?
Ghost. Murder most foul, as in the best it is; But this most foul, strange, and unnatural. Ham. Haste me to know it; that I, with wings as swift
As meditation, or the thoughts of love, May sweep to my revenge.
Aud duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed That roots itself in ease on Lethe's wharf, Wouldst thou not stir in this? Now, Hamlet, hear:
Tis given out, that, sleeping in my orchard, A serpent stung me; so the whole ear of Deninark
Is by a forged process of my death
Rankly abus'd; but know, thou noble youth, The serpent that did sting thy father's life, Now wears his crown.
Ham. O my prophetic soul! my uncle? Ghost Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast,
With witchcraft of his wit, with trait'rous gifts, (O wicked wits and gifts, that have the pow'r So to seduce!) won to his shameful lust
The will of my most seeming-virtuous queen. O Hamlet, what a falling off was there! From me, whose love was of that dignity, That it went hand in hand even with the vow I made to her in marriage; and to decline Upon a wretch, whose natural gifts were poor
But virtue, as it never will be mov'd, Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven: So lust, though to a radiant angel link'd, Will sate itself in a celestial bed,
But, soft! methinks, I scent the morning air; Brief let me be: Sleeping within mine orchard,
My custom always of the afternoon, Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole, With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial, And in the porches of mine ears did pour The leperous distilment; whose effect Holds such an enmity with blood of man, That, swift as quicksilver, it courses through The natural gates and alleys of the body; And, with a sudden vigor, it doth posset And curd, like eager droppings into milk, The thin and wholesome blood: so did it mine; And a most instant tetter bark'd about, Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust, All my smooth body.
Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother's hand, Of life, of crown, of queen, at once dispatch'd: Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin, Unhousel'd, disappointed, unanel'd; No reckoning made, but sent to my account With all my imperfections on my head: O horrible! O horrible! most horrible! If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not; Let not the roval bed of Denmark be A couch for luxury and damned incest. But howsoever thou pursuest this act, Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive Against thy mother aught; leave her to Heaven, And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge, To prick and sting her. Fare thee well at once! The glow-worm shows the matin to be near, And gins to pale his ineffectual fire: Adieu, adieu, adieu! remember me.
Ham. O, all you host of heaven! O earth! what else?
And shall I couple hell? O fie! hold, hold, my heart!
And you, my sinews, grow not instant old, But bear me stiffly up! Remember thee? Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a
In this distracted globe. Remember thee? Yea, from the table of my memory I'll wipe away all trivial fond records, All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past, That youth and observation copied there; And thy commandment all alone shall live Within the book and volume of my brain, Unmix'd with baser matter: yes, by Heaven. O most pernicious woman!
O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain ! My tables,-meet it is I set it down, That one may sumile, and smile, and be a vil- lain;
At least I am sure it may be so in Denmark. [Writing. So, uncle, there you are. Now to my word; It is, " Adieu, adieu! Remember me." Ophelia's Description of Hamlet's mad Address
My lord, as I was sewing in my closet, Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbrac'd; No hat upon his head; his stockings foul'd, Ungarter'd, and down-gyved to his ancle; Pale as his shirt; his knees knocking each other; And with a look so piteous in purport,
As if he had been loosed out of hell To speak of horrors-he comes before me. Pol. Mad for thy love?
Oph. My lord, I do not know;
But, truly, I do fear it.
Pol. What said he?
Oph. He took me by the wrist, and held me
Then goes he to the length of all his arm; And with his other hand thus o'er his brow He falls to such perusal of my face, As he would draw it.
At last a little shaking of mine arm, Long staid he so ;— And thrice his head thus waving up and down, He rais'd a sigh so piteous and profound, As it did seem to shatter all his bulk, And end his being. That done, he let me go; And, with his head over his shoulder turn'd, He seem'd to find his way without his eyes; For out of doors he went without their helps, And, to the last, bended their light on me. Old Age.
'Beshrew my jealousy!
It seems, it is as proper to our age To cast beyond ourselves in our opinions, As it is common for the younger sort To lack discretion.
Happiness consists in Opinion. Why, then, 'tis none to you; For there is nothing either good or bad, But thinking makes it so ; To ne it is a prison.
Hamlet's Reflections on the Player and himself. O what a rogue and peasant slave am 1! Is it not monstrous, that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion, Could force his soul so to his own conceit, That, from her working, all his visage wann'd? Tears in his eyes, distraction in 's aspéct, A broken voice, and his whole function suiting With forms to his conceit; and all for nothing! For Hecuba!
What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, That he should weep for her? what would he do, Had he the motive and the cue for passion That I have? he would drown the stage with
And cleave the gen'ral ear with horrid speech; Make mad the guilty and appal the free, Confound the ignorant; and amaze, indeed, The very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I-
A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, speak, Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause, And can say nothing; no, not for a king, Upon whose property and most dear life A damn'd defeat was made. Am I a coward? Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across? Plucks off my beard, and blows it in my face? Tweaks me by the nose, gives me the lie i' the throat,
As deep as to the lungs? Who does me this? Ha! why, I should take it :-for it cannot be But I am pigeon-liver'd, and lack gall To make oppression bitter; or, ere this, I should have fatted all the region kites With this slave's offal: bloody, bawdy villain! Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless
That guilty creatures, sitting at a play, Have by the very cunning of the scene Been struck so to the soul, that presently They have proclaim'd their malefactions: For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak With most miraculous organ. I'll have these players
Play something like the murder of my father, Before mine uncle: I'll observe his looks; I'll tent him to the quick; if he do blench, I know my course. The spirit, that I have seen, May be a devil: and the devil hath pow'r To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and, perhaps, Out of my weakness and my melancholy, (As he is very potent with such spirits) Abuses me to damn me: I'll have grounds More relative than this; the play's the thing Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king. Hypocrisy.
We are to blame in this'Tis too much prov'd-that, with devotion's visage And pious action, we do sugar o'er The devil himself.
King. O, 'tis too true! how smart A lash that speech does give my conscience! The harlot's cheek, beautied with plast'ring art, Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it, Than is my deed to my most painted word. Life and Death weighed.
To be, or not to be, that is the question Whether 'tis nobler in the mind, to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune; Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And, by opposing, end them: Todie-to sleepThe heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks No more; and by a sleep to say we end That flesh is heir to;-'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish'd. To die ;-to sleep; To sleep! perchance to dream;-ay, there's the rub; [come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, For in that sleep of death what dreams may Must give us pause :-there's the respect, That makes calamity of so long life; [time, For who would bear the whips and scorns of Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's con
The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay, The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of th' unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life; But that the dread of something after death- The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn No traveller returns-puzzles the will, And makes us rather bear those ills we have, Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought; And enterprises of great pith and moment, With this regard, their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action.
Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, Thou shalt not escape calumny.
A noble Mind disordered.
O what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!
The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's eye, tongue,
Th' expectancy and rose of the fair state, The glass of fashion, and the mould of form, Th observ'd of all observers! quite, quite And I, of ladies most deject and wretched, down! Now see that noble and most sovereign reason, That suck'd the honey of his music-vows, Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh; That unmatch'd form and feature of blown youth, Blasted with ecstasy.
On Flattery, and an even-minded Man. 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; | Bow, stubborn knees! and, heart, with strings And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee, Where thrift may follow fawning. Dost thou
Tis now the very witching time of night; When church-yards yawn, and hell itself breathes out [hot blood, Contagion to this world: Now could I drink And do such business as the better 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 nie be cruel, not unnatural :
I will speak daggers to her, but use none.
The King's despairing Soliloquy, and Hamlet's Reflections on him.
O, my offence is rank, it smells to heav'n; It hath the primal, eldest curse upon 't, A brother's murder! Pray can I not, Though inclination be as sharp as will'; My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent; And, like a man to double business bound, I stand in pause where I shall first begin, And both neglect. What if this cursed hand Were thicker than itself with brother's blood? Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves But to confront the visage of offence? [mercy, And what's in prayer, but this twofold force;
To be forestalled, ere we come to fall, Or pardon'd, being down? Then I'll look up; My fault is past. But O, what form of prayer Can serve my turn? Forgive me my foul murder! That cannot be; since I am still possess'd Of those effects for which I did the murder, My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen. May one be pardon'd, and retain th' offence? In the corrupted currents of this world, Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice: And oft 'tis seen, the wicked prize itself Buys out the law: but 'tis not so above: There is no shuffling, there the action lies In its true nature; and we ourselves compell'd Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults To give in evidence. What then? what rests? Try what repentance can: what can it not? Yet what can it, when one cannot repent? O wretched state! O bosom, black as death! O limed soul! that, struggling to be free, Art more engag'd! Help, angels, make assay!
Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe ; All may be well! [The king kneels.
Enter Hamlet. [ing; And now I'll do't; and so he goes to heav'n. Ham. Now might I do it, pat, now he is pray- And so am I reveng'd? that would be scann'd: A villain kills my father; and, for that, I, his sole son, do this same villain send To heaven!
Why this is hire and salary, not revenge. He took my father grossly, full of bread; With all his crimes broad-blown, as flush as May; [Heaven? And, how his audit stands, who knows, save But, in our circumstance and course of thought, 'Tis heavy with him: and am I then reveng'd To take him in the purging of his soul, When he is fit and seasoned for his passage? No.
Up, sword; and know thou a more horrid hent: When he is drunk, asleep, or in his rage; Or in the incestuous pleasures of his bed; At gaming, swearing; or about some act
That has no relish of salvation in 't: Then trip him, that his heels may kick at hea And that his soul may be as damn'd and black, As hell whereto it goes.
Hamlet and his Mother.
Queen. What have I done, that thou dar'st In noise so rude against me? [wag thy tongue 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: O, such a deed, As from the body of contraction plucks The very soul! and sweet religion makes A rhapsody of words.
Queen. Ah me, what act?
Ham. Look here, upon this picture, and on The counterfeit presentment of two brothers. Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself; See what a grace was seated on this brow: 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; [follows; This was your husband.-Look you now, what 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?
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.
IIam. Save me, and hover o'er me with your wings,
You heavenly guards!~What would your gracious figure?
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