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Enter QUEEN GERTRUDE and POLONIUS

LORD POLONIUS

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 sconce me even here.
Pray you, be round with him.

HAMLET

[Within] Mother, mother, mother!

[Hamlet calls mockingly to his mother, like a child that doesn't fear an expected but ineffectual punishment]

QUEEN GERTRUDE

I'll warrant you,
Fear me not: withdraw, I hear him coming.

[Gertrude speaks assuredly to Polonius that she will lay down the law appropriately]

POLONIUS hides behind the arras

Enter HAMLET

HAMLET

Now, mother, what's the matter?

[Hamlet continues to mock his mother]

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.

HAMLET

Mother, you have my father much offended.

[Hamlet turns from mockery to indirect accusation and an accusatory manner]

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.

HAMLET

Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Why, how now, Hamlet!

HAMLET

What's the matter now?

[Virtually spewing sarcasm]

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Have you forgot me?

HAMLET

No, by the rood, not so:
You are the queen, your husband's brother's wife;
And--would it were not so!--you are my mother.

[Hamlet turns from sarcastic mockery to contempt as he finishes this sentence]

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Nay, then, I'll set those to you that can speak.

[Hamlet grabs hold of her and forces her into chair]


HAMLET

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.

[Holds up a mirror to her face]

QUEEN GERTRUDE

What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murder me?
Help, help, ho!

[Shudders and pushes herself back into the chair, scared]

LORD POLONIUS

[Behind] What, ho! help, help, help!

[Hamlet drops the mirror (it shatters) and lightly paces over to arras]

HAMLET

[Drawing] How now! a rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead!

Makes a pass through the arras

LORD POLONIUS

[Behind] O, I am slain!

[white arras begins to stain red with blood]

[Falls and dies]

QUEEN GERTRUDE

O me, what hast thou done?

[Queen is frantic]

HAMLET

Nay, I know not:
Is it the king?

[Snyly , hoping that it is the king]

QUEEN GERTRUDE

O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!

[appalled at her son's brutality]

HAMLET

A bloody deed! almost as bad, good mother,
As kill a king, and marry with his brother.

[turns back towards his mother with contempt in his eyes]

QUEEN GERTRUDE

As kill a king!

[She is confused and still scared of Hamlet]

HAMLET

Ay, lady, 'twas my word.

Lifts up the array and discovers 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,

[Looks at Polonius with contemptful pity. He is not sorry, but sees him as pathetic]

And let me wring your heart; for so I shall,
If it be made of penetrable stuff,
If damned custom have not brass'd it so
That it is proof and bulwark against sense.

[Hamlet turns back toward Gertrude]

QUEEN GERTRUDE

What have I done, that thou darest wag thy tongue
In noise so rude against me?

[Frustrated with Hamlet's disrespect. Raises her voice to counter Hamlet and rises out of the seat]

HAMLET

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: heaven's face doth glow:
Yea, this solidity and compound mass,
With tristful visage, as against the doom,
Is thought-sick at the act.

[Asserts himself and comes in close to her. He physically intimidates her and looks down upon her. She backs down into the seat]

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Ay me, what act,
That roars so loud, and thunders in the index?

[becomes less confrontational]

HAMLET

Look here, upon this picture, and on this,
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.

[Hamlet points at two portraits on the wall]

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:

[stares at portrait of his father as he speaks]

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?

[Speaks pathetically of Claudius and asks her questions in confused wonderment and misunderstanding]

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 judgment
Would step from this to this? Sense, sure, you have,
Else could you not have motion; but sure, that sense
Is apoplex'd; for madness would not err,
Nor sense to ecstasy was ne'er so thrall'd
But it reserved some quantity of choice,
To serve in such a difference. What devil was't
That thus hath cozen'd you at hoodman-blind?
Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight,
Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all,
Or but a sickly part of one true sense
Could not so mope.
O shame! where is thy blush? Rebellious hell,
If thou canst mutine in a matron's bones,
To flaming youth let virtue be as wax,
And melt in her own fire: proclaim no shame
When the compulsive ardour gives the charge,
Since frost itself as actively doth burn
And reason panders will.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

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.

[Wallows in pity and begins to sob into her hands]

HAMLET

Nay, but to live
In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed,
Stew'd in corruption, honeying and making love
Over the nasty sty,--

[Hamlet speaks as if to twist the metaphorically knife into his mother]

QUEEN GERTRUDE

O, speak to me no more;
These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears;
No more, sweet Hamlet!

[overcome by conscience]

HAMLET

A murderer and a villain;
A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe
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!

[livid with contempt for the lowly acts of Claudius. He speaks with utter disdain in his voice. Spit flies from his mouth as his anger boils over in his words]

QUEEN GERTRUDE

No more!

[Gertrude frantically sobs, screaming at Hamlet]

HAMLET

A king of shreds and patches,--

Enter Ghost

[turns toward ghost and speaks to the phantom with arms outstretched]

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

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Alas, he's mad!

[stops crying and looks up with awe at Hamlet]

HAMLET

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

[looks up, inquiring. Hesitates as he expects reprimand from the ghost]

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.

HAMLET

How is it with you, lady?

[surprised at her blank amazement and confused look]

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Alas, how is't with you,
That you do 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?

[Temporarily forgets her gulit. Her tortured conscience disappears from her face and she investigates the curious behavior of her son]

HAMLET

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
My stern effects: then what I have to do
Will want true colour; tears perchance for blood.

[He gestures toward the ghost , angry at her disbelief in the ghost of her husband]

QUEEN GERTRUDE

To whom do you speak this?

HAMLET

Do you see nothing there?

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.

HAMLET

Nor did you nothing hear?

[Asks her in wonderment, perhaps looking for justification for his listening to the ghost]

QUEEN GERTRUDE

No, nothing but ourselves.

HAMLET

Why, look you there! look, how it steals away!
My father, in his habit as he lived!
Look, where he goes, even now, out at the portal!

[points at the ghost again]

Exit Ghost

QUEEN GERTRUDE

This the very coinage of your brain:
This bodiless creation ecstasy
Is very cunning in.

[She speaks with a hint of triumphant understanding, sure that she has found proof of Hamlet's madness]

HAMLET

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 mattering unction to your soul,
That not your trespass, but my madness speaks:
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place,
Whilst rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven;

[Hamlet's temper flares and he totally goes all puritan-fire-and-brimstone on Gertrude]

Repent what's past; avoid what is to come;
And do not spread the compost on the weeds,
To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue;
For in the fatness of these pursy times
Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg,
Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good.

[Hamlet then becomes sarcastic and sardonic, forcing his mother to acknowledge his irony]

QUEEN GERTRUDE

O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.

HAMLET

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,
Of habits devil, is angel yet in this,
That to the use of actions fair and good
He likewise gives a frock or livery,
That aptly is put on. Refrain to-night,
And that shall lend a kind of easiness
To the next abstinence: the next more easy;
For use almost can change the stamp of nature,
And either [ ] the devil, or throw him out
With wondrous potency. Once more, good night:
And when you are desirous to be bless'd,
I'll blessing beg of you.

[Hamlet continues to relentlessy torment her with description of her sins. He assumes a voice of judgment as he gives her a last chance to repent and win back his love and trust]

For this same lord,

Pointing to POLONIUS
I do repent: but heaven hath pleased it so,
To punish me with this and this with me,
That I must be their scourge and minister.
I will bestow him, and will answer well
The death I gave him. So, again, good night.
I must be cruel, only to be kind:
Thus bad begins and worse remains behind.
One word more, good lady.

[Hamlet speaks with a fatalistic attitude as he has given up on proper life and accepted his eternal damnation]

QUEEN GERTRUDE

What shall I do?

[eager to regain his love]

HAMLET

Not this, by no means, that I bid you do:
Let the bloat king tempt you again to bed;
Pinch wanton on your cheek; call you his mouse;
And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses,
Or paddling in your neck with his damn'd fingers,
Make you to ravel all this matter out,
That I essentially am not in madness,
But mad in craft. 'Twere good you let him know;
For who, that's but a queen, fair, sober, wise,
Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib,
Such dear concernings hide? who would do so?
No, in despite of sense and secrecy,
Unpeg the basket on the house's top.
Let the birds fly, and, like the famous ape,
To try conclusions, in the basket creep,
And break your own neck down.

[Hamlet assumes his role as final judge of her trustworthiness. He again offers her her final resort]

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Be thou assured, if words be made of breath,
And breath of life, I have no life to breathe
What thou hast said to me.

HAMLET

I must to England; you know that?

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Alack,
I had forgot: 'tis so concluded on.

HAMLET

There's letters seal'd: and my two schoolfellows,
Whom I will trust as I will adders fang'd,
They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way,
And marshal me to knavery. Let it work;
For 'tis the sport to have the engineer
Hoist with his own petard: and 't shall go hard
But I will delve one yard below their mines,
And blow them at the moon: O, 'tis most sweet,
When in one line two crafts directly meet.
This man shall set me packing:
I'll lug the guts into the neighbour room.
Mother, good night. Indeed this counsellor
Is now most still, most secret and most grave,
Who was in life a foolish prating knave.
Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you.
Good night, mother.

Exeunt severally; HAMLET dragging in POLONIUS
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