Hamlet

Boynton/Cook Publishers

Chapter One

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SCENE I

The castle

enter Claudius, Gertrude, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern

Claudius And can you, by no drift of conference, Get from him why he puts on this confusion, Grating so harshly all his days of quiet With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?

5 Rosencrantz He does confess he feels himself distracted, But from what cause he will by no means speak.

Guildenstern Nor do we find him forward to be sounded, But with a crafty madness keeps aloof When we would bring him on to some confession Of his true state.

10 Gertrude Did he receive you well?

Rosencrantz Most like a gentleman.

Guildenstern But with much forcing of his disposition.

Rosencrantz Niggard of question, but of our demands Most free in his reply.

Gertrude Did you assay him 15 To any pastime?

Rosencrantz Madam, it so fell out that certain players We o'er-raught on the way. Of these we told him, And there did seem in him a kind of joy To hear of it. They are about the court 20 And, as I think, they have already order This night to play before him.

Polonius 'Tis most true, And he beseeched me to entreat your majesties To hear and see the matter.

Claudius With all my heart, and it doth much content me 25 To hear him so inclined. Good gentlemen, give him a further edge And drive his purpose into these delights.

Rosencrantz We shall, my lord.

exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

Claudius Sweet Gertrude, leave us too, For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither,30 That he, as 'twere by accident, may here Affront Ophelia. Her father and myself, lawful espials, Will so bestow ourselves that, seeing, unseen, We may of their encounter frankly judge35 And gather by him, as he is behaved, If 't be th' affliction of his love or no That thus he suffers for.

Gertrude I shall obey you. And for your part, Ophelia, I do wish That your good beauties be the happy cause40 Of Hamlet's wildness. So shall I hope your virtues Will bring him to his wonted way again, To both your honors.

Ophelia Madam, I wish it may.

exit Gertrude

Polonius Ophelia, walk you here. - Gracious so please you, We will bestow ourselves. (to Ophelia) Read on this book,45 That show of such an exercise may color Your loneliness. We are oft to blame in this: 'Tis too much proved that with devotion's visage And pious action we do sugar o'er The devil himself.

Claudius (aside) O, 'tis too true!50 How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience! The harlot's cheek, beautied with plastering art, Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it Than is my deed to my most painted word. O heavy burden!

55 Polonius I hear him coming. Let's withdraw, my lord.

exeunt Claudius and Polonius

enter Hamlet (thinking himself alone)

Hamlet 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,60 And by opposing end them? To die, to sleep No more, and by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep -65 To sleep, perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub, For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil Must give us pause. There's the respect That makes calamity of so long life -70 For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of despishd love, the law's delay, The insolence of office and the spurns That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,75 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 undiscovered country from whose bourn80 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 resolution85 Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprises of great pitch and moment With this regard their currents turn awry And lose the name of action. - Soft you now, The fair Ophelia! - Nymph, in thy orisons Be all my sins remembered.

90 Ophelia Good my lord, How does your honor for this many a day?

Hamlet I humbly thank you. Well, well, well.

Ophelia My lord, I have remembrances of yours, That I have longhd long to re-deliver. I pray you now receive them.

95 Hamlet No, not I I never gave you aught.

Ophelia My honored lord, you know right well you did, And with them words of so sweet breath composed As made the things more rich. Their perfume lost,100 Take these again, for to the noble mind Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind. There, my lord.

SHE GIVES HIM BACK HIS GIFTS

Hamlet Ha, ha! Are you honest?

Ophelia My lord?

105 Hamlet Are you fair?

Ophelia What means your lordship?

Hamlet That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty.

110 Ophelia Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty?

Hamlet Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness. This was sometime a paradox, but now the time gives it proof. I did love you 115 once.

Ophelia Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.

Hamlet You should not have believed me, for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it. I loved you not.

120 Ophelia I was the more deceived.

Hamlet Get thee to a nunnery Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest, but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me. I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious, with 125 more offences at my beck than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in. What should such fellows as I do, crawling between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves, all: believe none of us. Go thy ways...