Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

GUIL.

We will ourselves provide: Most holy and religious fear it is To keep those many-many bodies safe, That live and feed upon your majesty.

Ros. The single and peculiar life is bound, With all the strength and armour of the mind, To keep itself from 'noyance; but much more That spirit upon whose weal* depend and rest The lives of many. The cease of majesty Dies not alone; but, like a gulf, doth draw What's near it with it: it is a massy wheel, Fix'd on the summit of the highest mount, To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things Are mortis'd and adjoin'd; which, when it falls, Each small annexment, petty consequence, Attends the boist'rous ruin. Never alone Did the king sigh, but with a general groan. KING. Arm you, I pray you, to this speedy

[blocks in formation]

O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven;
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
mercy,

(*) First folio, spirit.

many-many-] This expression, signifying numberless, has hitherto been always printed "many many: it should certainly be hyphened like too-too, few-few, most-most, and the like.

bthe wicked prize itself-] Mr. Collier's annotator, with abominable taste, suggests purse for "prize," and Mr. Collier

But to confront the visage of offence?
And what's in prayer but this two-fold 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 the offence?
In the corrupted currents of this world,
Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice;
And oft 't is seen the wicked prize itself
Buys out the law: but 't is not so above;
There is no shuffling,-there the action lies
In his 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 can not 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!
Bow, stubborn knees; and, heart with strings of
steel,

Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe!
All may be well!

[Retires and kneels.

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]
[graphic][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

B B

[blocks in formation]

POL. Behind. What, ho! help, help, help! HAM. How now! a rat? [Draws.] Dead! for a ducat, dead! [Makes a pass through the arras. POL. [Behind. O, I am slain.

[Falls and dies. QUEEN. O, me, what hast thou done? HAM. Nay, I know not: is it the king? QUEEN. Ó, 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!

НАМ.

Ay, lady, 't was my word.— [Lifts up the arras and sees 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 braz'd it so,
That it is proof and bulwark against sense.
QUEEN. What have I done, that thou dar'st
wag thy tongue

In noise so rude against me?

Such an act

HAM. That bars the grace and blush of modesty; Calls vince 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' caths: 0, 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.

QUEEN.

Av me, what act,
That roars so lond, and thunders in the index?
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 judg-

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]
[graphic][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

a Could not so mope.] This and the three foregoing lines are wanting in the folio.

[blocks in formation]

Save me, and hover o'er me with your wings, You heavenly guards!—What would your* gracious figure?

QUEEN. Alas, he's mad!

HAM. Do you not come your tardy son to chide,
That, laps'd in time and passion, lets go by
The important acting of your dread command?
O, say!

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.
HAM.

How is it with you, lady? QUEEN. Alas, how is 't with you,

That

you dot 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? 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;

[merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors]
[blocks in formation]

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* 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,
To make them ranker. [Aside.] Forgive me.
this, my virtue ;'

f

For in the fatness of these § pursy times,
Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg;
Yea, curbs 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,
Oft habits' devil, is angel yet in this,—"

[blocks in formation]

editors uniformly print this as if Hamlet addressed it to the Queen, nothing can be more evident than that it is an imploration to his own virtue.

h

gcurb-] Bow, or truckle; from the French courber. That monster, Custom, who all sense doth eat, Oft habits' devil, &c.]

The reading of the old text is,

"That monster custome, who all sense doth eate Of habits devill," &c.;

Which has been variously modified to,

64 Alas, it is the weaknesse of thy braine, Which makes thy tongue to blazon thy hearts griefe: But as I have a soule, I sweare by heaven,

I never knew of this most horride murder:

and

But Hamlet, this is onely fantasie,
And for my love forget these idle fits."

-do not spread the compost on the weeds,-] The folio has,or the weeds;" the poet's manuscript probably read, "o'er the weeds," &c.

f

Forgive me this, my virtue; &c.] Although the modern

[merged small][ocr errors]

who all sense doth eat, If habit's devil," &c.;

"who all sense doth eat, Or habit's devil," &c.

The trifling change we have taken the liberty to make, while doing little violence to the original, may be thought, it is hoped, to give at least as good a meaning as any other which has been proposed.

« AnteriorContinuar »