ACT 3
[Enter QUEEN GERTRUDE and POLONIUS]
LORD POLONIUS
He will come straight. Look you lay home to him:
He’ll come here right away. Do reprimand him:
Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear with,
Tell him his pranks cannot be tolerated
And that your grace hath screened and stood between
And that your kindness has protected him
Much heat and him. I'll sconce me even here.
From much of the dissent. I’ll hide in here.
Pray you, be round with him.
I urge you to be blunt with him.
HAMLET
[Within]
Mother, mother, mother!
Mother, mother, mother!
QUEEN GERTRUDE
I'll warrant you,
I assure you that I will.
Fear me not: withdraw, I hear him coming.
So do not fear. But hide: I hear him coming.
[POLONIUS hides behind the arras]
[Enter HAMLET]
HAMLET
Now, mother, what's the matter?
Now, mother, what’s the matter?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.
Hamlet, you have upset your father badly.
HAMLET
Mother, you have my father much offended.
Mother, you have upset my father badly.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.
Come now, don’t give me such a foolish answer.
HAMLET
Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.
Come now, don’t ask me such an evil question.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Why, how now, Hamlet!
What’s up now, Hamlet?
HAMLET
What's the matter now?
What’s the matter now?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Have you forgot me?
Have you forgotten me?
HAMLET
No, by the rood, not so:
Not by Christ’s cross, no.
You are the queen, your husband's brother's wife;
You are the queen, your husband’s brother’s wife;
And--would it were not so!--you are my mother.
And—though I wish you weren’t—you are my mother.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Nay, then, I'll set those to you that can speak.
I’ll have some others talk sense into you!
HAMLET
Come, come, and sit you down; you shall not budge;
Come on, and sit down here: you will not move
You go not till I set you up a glass
Until I’ve held a mirror up to you
Where you may see the inmost part of you.
So you can see the workings of your soul.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murder me?
What will you do? Will you then murder me?
Help, help, ho!
Help! Help me!
LORD POLONIUS
[Behind]
What, ho! help, help, help!
You what?! Help! Help! Help!
HAMLET
[Drawing]
How now! A rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead!
What’s that? A rat? I bet you that he’s dead!
[Makes a pass through the arras]
LORD POLONIUS
[Behind]
O, I am slain!
Oh, I’ve been killed!
[Falls and dies]
QUEEN GERTRUDE
O me, what hast thou done?
Oh, no! What have you done?
HAMLET
Nay, I know not:
I am not sure:
Is it the king?
Is it the king?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!
Oh, what a hasty, awful thing to do!
HAMLET
A bloody deed! Almost as bad, good mother,
An awful thing? It is almost as bad
As kill a king, and marry with his brother.
As murdering a king, wedding his brother.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
As kill a king!
As murdering a king?!
HAMLET
Ay, lady, 'twas my word.
That’s what I said.
[Lifts up the array and discovers POLONIUS]
Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!
You stupid, interfering fool, goodbye!
I took thee for thy better: take thy fortune;
I thought you were the king: you got your due
Thou find'st to be too busy is some danger.
And found out that it’s dangerous being nosey.
Leave wringing of your hands: peace! Sit you down,
Stop wringing out your hands! Sit down, shut up,
And let me wring your heart; for so I shall,
And let me wring your heart out, if I can,
If it be made of penetrable stuff,
That is if your heart can be penetrated
If damned custom have not brassed it so
And it’s not turned to brass from wicked actions
That it is proof and bulwark against sense.
Preventing it interpreting some sense.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
What have I done, that thou darest wag thy tongue
What have I done that makes you dare to talk
In noise so rude against me?
To me in such a vulgar way?
HAMLET
Such an act
An act
That blurs the grace and blush of modesty,
Devoid of any hint of modesty,
Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose
Inverting virtue, taking pretty flowers
From the fair forehead of an innocent love
From a fair maiden’s hair and scarring her
And sets a blister there, makes marriage-vows
By branding iron, and making marriage vows
As false as dicers' oaths: O, such a deed
As worthless as a gambler’s oath; a deed
As from the body of contraction plucks
That tears the heart out of a marriage contract,
The very soul, and sweet religion makes
And makes religion, that we all hold dear,
A rhapsody of words: heaven's face doth glow:
A mixed-up bag of words. Heaven’s ashamed!
Yea, this solidity and compound mass,
And yes, this solid and compounded earth
With tristful visage, as against the doom,
Looks saddened, like we’ve reached the judgement day,
Is thought-sick at the act.
Disgusted at your actions.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Ay me, what act,
But, what actions
That roars so loud, and thunders in the index?
That you are shouting of, which I don’t know?
HAMLET
Look here, upon this picture, and on this,
Look at this picture first, then look at this one:
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
A copy imitation of two brothers.
See, what a grace was seated on this brow;
Look at the dignity on this man’s face;
Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself;
The sun god’s hair; the godly face of Jove;
An eye like Mars, to threaten and command;
Eyes of the god of war, formidable;
A station like the herald Mercury
The posture of God’s holy messenger
New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill;
Arriving on the hill approaching heaven;
A combination and a form indeed,
The mighty combination and the stature
Where every god did seem to set his seal,
Where every god provides a part of them
To give the world assurance of a man:
To show the world the embodiment of man.
This was your husband. Look you now, what follows:
That was your husband. Look at what then followed:
Here is your husband; like a mildewed ear,
Here’s your new man, a mouldy ear of corn,
Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes?
That blights his wholesome brother. Can’t you see?
Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,
Could you stop feeding from this lovely mountain
And batten on this moor? Ha! Have you eyes?
To scavenge on this moor? Ha! Can’t you see?
You cannot call it love; for at your age
You cannot call it love, for at your age
The hey-day in the blood is tame, it's humble,
Your sexual drive’s diminished and lacklustre
And waits upon the judgment: and what judgment
And acts on common sense; but where’s the sense
Would step from this to this? Sense, sure, you have,
To move from this to this? You’ve faculties
Else could you not have motion; but sure, that sense
Or else you couldn’t move, but your own judgement
Is apoplexed; for madness would not err,
Is paralysed; not even madness chooses,
Nor sense to ecstasy was ne'er so thralled
Nor lust and longing ever so enthralled,
But it reserved some quantity of choice,
That they could not retain an ounce of choice
To serve in such a difference. What devil was't
To differentiate between these two.
That thus hath cozened you at hoodman-blind?
It seems the devil won at blind-man’s bluff!
Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight,
For senseless eyes, or sightless, vacant heart,
Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all,
Or isolated ears or smell-less nose,
Or but a sickly part of one true sense
Or any of the senses not quite working
Could not so mope.
Would not make such a choice.
O shame! Where is thy blush? Rebellious hell,
For pity’s sake, why aren’t you even blushing?
If thou canst mutine in a matron's bones,
If evil makes old women mutinous,
To flaming youth let virtue be as wax,
Then virile youths will quickly melt like wax
And melt in her own fire: proclaim no shame
When tempted by a passionate fire. No shame
When the compulsive ardour gives the charge,
Exists when passion leads the way because
Since frost itself as actively doth burn
The elderly burn with desire as well,
And reason panders will.
And through this, try to justify their lust.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
O Hamlet, speak no more:
Oh Hamlet, speak no more!
Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul;
You’re making me examine my own soul
And there I see such black and grained spots
And I’m observing grainy, blackened spots
As will not leave their tinct.
That cannot be removed.
HAMLET
Nay, but to live
Yes, but you live
In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed,
Within a horrid, semen covered bed,
Stewed in corruption, honeying and making love
Dripping with corrupting, sordid sex
Over the nasty sty,--
Like a pigsty…
QUEEN GERTRUDE
O, speak to me no more;
Oh, speak to me no more!
These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears;
Your words are daggers entering my ears.
No more, sweet Hamlet!
Please stop, dear Hamlet!
HAMLET
A murderer and a villain;
A murderer and a villain;
A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe
A slave not worth the tiniest of fractions
Of your precedent lord; a vice of kings;
Of your preceding lord; an evil king
A cutpurse of the empire and the rule,
Who stole the empire and the right to rule
That from a shelf the precious diadem stole,
By simply picking up the royal crown,
And put it in his pocket!
And putting it in his pocket!
QUEEN GERTRUDE
No more!
Stop there!
HAMLET
A king of shreds and patches,--
A tatty, patchwork king…
[Enter Ghost]
Save me, and hover o'er me with your wings,
Oh angels, save me! Hover with your wings,
You heavenly guards! What would your gracious figure?
Protecting me! What do you want, fine figure?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Alas, he's mad!
Oh no, he’s mad!
HAMLET
Do you not come your tardy son to chide,
Have you returned to scold your tardy son,
That, lapsed in time and passion, lets go by
Who, taking too much time and lacking passion,
The important acting of your dread command? O, say!
Has failed to carry out your dire command? Tell me!
GHOST
Do not forget: this visitation
Do not forget! My visit here
Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.
Is just to reinforce your fading purpose.
But, look, amazement on thy mother sits:
But, look, your mother’s sitting all bewildered.
O, step between her and her fighting soul:
Oh, intervene and help her fighting soul!
Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works:
Imagination’s strongest in the weak;
Speak to her, Hamlet.
Speak to her, Hamlet.
HAMLET
How is it with you, lady?
How are you, mother?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Alas, how is't with you,
Oh no! But how are you,
That you do bend your eye on vacancy
For you’re transfixed upon a vacant space,
And with the incorporal air do hold discourse?
Discussing formally with empty air?
Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep;
I see delirious thoughts within your eyes;
And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm,
And, like a siren call wakes sleeping soldiers,
Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,
Your hair, that’s lying flat upon your head,
Starts up, and stands on end. O gentle son,
Starts up and stands on end. Oh, gentle son,
Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper
Upon your fiery, effervescent anger
Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look?
Pour patience on. What are you looking at?
HAMLET
On him, on him! Look you, how pale he glares!
At him! At him! Look at his ashen glare!
His form and cause conjoined, preaching to stones,
The way he looks, combined with his intentions,
Would make them capable. Do not look upon me;
Means stones would listen! Do not look at me,
Lest with this piteous action you convert
In case your sympathy would make me change
My stern effects: then what I have to do
My firm intentions, then the plans I have
Will want true colour; tears perchance for blood.
Will fade away, with tears replacing blood.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
To whom do you speak this?
Who are you speaking to?
HAMLET
Do you see nothing there?
Do you see nothing there?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.
Nothing at all, except for all that’s there.
HAMLET
Nor did you nothing hear?
And don’t you hear something?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
No, nothing but ourselves.
No, nothing but ourselves.
HAMLET
Why, look you there! Look, how it steals away!
Look over there! See how it creeps away!
My father, in his habit as he lived!
My father in the gown he used to wear!
Look, where he goes, even now, out at the portal!
Look where he’s going now, right out the door!
[Exit Ghost]
QUEEN GERTRUDE
This the very coinage of your brain:
This is a mere invention of your brain,
This bodiless creation ecstasy
For madness can create hallucinations,
Is very cunning in.
And does so very well.
HAMLET
Ecstasy!
Madness?
My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time,
My pulse is just like yours, and beats in time
And makes as healthful music: it is not madness
To make a lovely tune; it’s not insane
That I have uttered: bring me to the test,
What I have said; for put me to the test
And I the matter will re-word; which madness
And I’ll repeat it word-for-word, which madness
Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,
Could never do. Mother, for love of God,
Lay not that mattering unction to your soul,
Don’t flatter your own soul with soothing balm,
That not your trespass, but my madness speaks:
Denying your own faults, chiding my madness:
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place,
For that will only hide the real infection,
Whilst rank corruption, mining all within,
Which, left unchecked, will spread throughout your soul,
Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven;
Corrupting from within. Confess your sins;
Repent what's past; avoid what is to come;
Repent your past; adjust your future plans;
And do not spread the compost on the weeds,
And do not spread the compost on the weeds
To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue;
To make them worse. Forgive my moral urging,
For in the fatness of these pursy times
For in the excess of these gluttonous days,
Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg,
The good must ask the bad for its permission,
Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good.
By bowing and seducing to do good.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.
Oh Hamlet, you have broke my heart in two.
HAMLET
O, throw away the worser part of it,
Then throw away the evil half of it,
And live the purer with the other half.
And live a decent life with what is left.
Good night: but go not to mine uncle's bed;
Goodnight, but don’t go to my uncle’s bedroom;
Assume a virtue, if you have it not.
Be virtuous, although you may not be.
That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat,
That monstrous tendency destroys our judgement
Of habits devil, is angel yet in this,
As we do wicked acts, but it seems normal
That to the use of actions fair and good
As when we act in kindness all the time,
He likewise gives a frock or livery,
And much the same, it dresses up bad habits
That aptly is put on. Refrain to-night,
So we forget they’re wrong. Refrain tonight,
And that shall lend a kind of easiness
And that will make it easier to abstain
To the next abstinence: the next more easy;
The next time, even easier after that;
For use almost can change the stamp of nature,
For repetition quickly turns to habit,
And either [ ] the devil, or throw him out
So you can still be evil or be kind
With wondrous potency. Once more, good night:
With great effectiveness. Once more, goodnight:
And when you are desirous to be blessed,
So when you’re set to ask for your forgiveness,
I'll blessing beg of you. For this same lord,
I’ll ask for mine as well. For this here lord,
[Pointing to POLONIUS]
I do repent: but heaven hath pleased it so,
I’m sorry, but our heaven made me do it
To punish me with this and this with me,
To punish me by sending me this man,
That I must be their scourge and minister.
Administering murder and its justice.
I will bestow him, and will answer well
I will dispose of him and face the jury
The death I gave him. So, again, good night.
For killing him. So, once again, goodnight.
I must be cruel, only to be kind:
Removing him is cruel yet must be done;
Thus bad begins and worse remains behind.
Bad times have started, but there’s worse to come.
One word more, good lady.
One more thing, good lady.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
What shall I do?
What shall I do?
HAMLET
Not this, by no means, that I bid you do:
By any means, there’s one thing not to do:
Let the bloat king tempt you again to bed;
Don’t let the bloated king tempt you to bed,
Pinch wanton on your cheek; call you his mouse;
So he can pinch your cheek and call you mousey,
And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses,
And let him—for a pair of stinking kisses
Or paddling in your neck with his damned fingers,
Or tickling of your neck with goddamned fingers--
Make you to ravel all this matter out,
Make you reveal all that I’ve spoken of,
That I essentially am not in madness,
Namely that I’m not really mad, but acting
But mad in craft. 'Twere good you let him know;
At being mad. It’s good (I jest) you tell him,
For who, that's but a queen, fair, sober, wise,
For who, who’s only queen, gorgeous and smart,
Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib,
Would hide a thing from such a rotten toad
Such dear concernings hide? Who would do so?
When it is so important? Who’d do that?
No, in despite of sense and secrecy,
No, common sense says you must keep it secret,
Unpeg the basket on the house's top.
Else, as the story goes, you’ll flip the birdcage
Let the birds fly, and, like the famous ape,
So birds escape, then you, just like the monkey
To try conclusions, in the basket creep,
Who tried to fly by creeping to the perch,
And break your own neck down.
Will break your neck as you fall to the floor.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Be thou assured, if words be made of breath,
Oh, rest assured, if words are made of breath
And breath of life, I have no life to breathe
And breath is made of life, I’m not alive
What thou hast said to me.
Enough to breathe the words that you have told me.
HAMLET
I must to England; you know that?
You know I’m off to England?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Alack,
Tragically,
I had forgot: 'tis so concluded on.
I had forgotten. It has been decided.
HAMLET
There's letters sealed: and my two schoolfellows,
The documents are done and my two schoolmates,
Whom I will trust as I will adders fanged,
Of whom I trust as much as rattlesnakes,
They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way,
Are in command; they have to lead me on
And marshal me to knavery. Let it work;
And drag me into shame. I’ll let it happen,
For 'tis the sport to have the engineer
It’s fun to watch the one who makes the bombs
Hoist with his own petard: and't shall go hard
Blow himself up; and it will be bad luck
But I will delve one yard below their mines,
If I can’t dig a tunnel under them
And blow them at the moon: O, 'tis most sweet,
And blow them to the moon. How sweet it is
When in one line two crafts directly meet.
When one can kill two birds with just one stone.
This man shall set me packing:
I have to leave because of this dead man.
I'll lug the guts into the neighbour room.
I’ll lug his body to the room next door.
Mother, good night. Indeed this counsellor
Mother, goodnight. And now this counsellor
Is now most still, most secret and most grave,
Lies still, his secrets silent now he’s dead,
Who was in life a foolish prating knave.
And who in life was such a foolish prat.
Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you.
Come, sir, I’m done with you, your life is over.
Good night, mother.
Goodnight, mother.
[Exeunt severally; HAMLET dragging in POLONIUS]
