This is the tragedy...
of a man...
who could not
make up his mind.
- Whos there?
- Nay, answer me! Stand and unfold yourself.
- Long live the king.
- Bernardo?
-He.
-You come most carefully upon your hour.
Tis now struck 12:=.
Get thee to bed, Francisco.
For this relief
much thanks.
Tis bitter cold...
and Im
sick at heart.
Have you had
quiet guard?
- Not a mouse stirring.
- Well, good night.
If you do meet
Horatio and Marcellus,
the rivals of my watch,
bid them make haste.
I think I hear them.
- Stand ho! Whos there?
- Friends to this ground.
- And liegemen to the Dane.
- Give you good night.
Farewell, honest soldier.
Who hath relieved you?
Bernardo hath my place.
Give you good night.
- Hello, Bernardo.
- Say what? Is Horatio there?
A piece of him.
Welcome, Horatio.
Welcome, good Marcellus.
What, has this thing
appeared again tonight?
Ive seen nothing.
Horatio says tis
but our fantasy...
and will not let belief take hold of him
touching this dreaded sight...
twice seen of us.
Therefore, Ive entreated him along with
us to watch the minutes of this night.
That if again this apparition comes,
he may approve our eyes and speak to it.
Tush, tush,
twill not appear.
Sit down a while
and let us once again...
assail your ears that are
so fortified against our story...
what we two nights
have seen.
Well, sit we down,
and let us hear Bernardo
speak of this.
Last night of all,
when yon same star
thats westward from the pole...
had made his course into that part
of heaven where now it burns,
- Marcellus and myself, the bell then
beating 1.:00- -
Peace, break thee off.
Look where it comes again!
In the same figure
like the dead King Hamlet.
Thou art a scholar.
Speak to it, Horatio.
Looks it not
like the king?
- Mark it, Horatio.
- Most like.
It harrows me
with fear and wonder.
It would be
spoke to.
Question it,
Horatio.
If thou hast any sound
or use of voice,
speak to me.
If there be
any good thing to be done,
that may to thee do ease
and grace to me, O speak!
Stay and speak!
Stop it, Marcellus!
- Tis here!
- TTis here!
Tis gone,
and will not answer.
How now, Horatio?
You tremble and look pale.
Is not this something
more than fantasy?
- What think you ont?
- Before my God, I might not this believe...
without the sensible and true
avouch of mine own eyes.
- Is it not like the king?
- As thou art to thyself.
Tis strange.
It was about to speak
when the cock crew.
Then it started like a guilty thing
upon a fearful summons.
Ive heard the cock
that is the herald to the morn...
doth with his lofty
and shrill-sounding throat...
awake the god of day,
and at its warning the wandering
and uneasy spirit hies to its confine.
It faded on the crowing
of the cock.
Some say that ever gainst
that season comes...
wherein Our Saviors
birth is celebrated,
the bird of dawning
singeth all night long.
And then, they say,
no spirit can walk abroad.
The nights
are wholesome then.
No planets strike,
no fairy takes,
nor witch
hath power to charm,
so hallowed and so gracious
is the time.
So have I heard,
and do in part
believe it.
But look, the morn,
in russet mantle clad,
walks oer the dew
of yon high eastern hill.
Break we our watch up,
and by my advice let us impart
what weve seen tonight...
unto young Hamlet,
for upon my life, this spirit,
dumb to us,
will speak to him.
Lets do it,
I pray.
Something is rotten
in the state of Denmark.
Though yet of Hamlet our dear brothers
death the memory be green,
and that it us befitted
to bear our hearts in grief...
and our whole kingdom to be
contracted in one brow of woe,
yet so far hath discretion
fought with nature...
that we with wisest sorrow
think on him...
together with remembrance
of ourselves.
Therefore, our sometimes sister,
now our queen,
have we, as twere,
with a defeated joy,
with mirth in funeral
and with dirge in marriage,
in equal scale
weighing delight and dole,
taken to wife.
Nor have we herein barred
your better wisdoms,
which have freely gone
with this affair along.
For all, our thanks.
And now, Laertes.
Whats the news with you?
You told us of some suit.
What ist, Laertes?
You cannot speak of reason to the Dane
and lose your voice.
What must thou beg, Laertes, that shall
not be my offer, not thy asking?
The head is not more
native to the heart,
the head more instrumental
to the mouth...
than is the throne of Denmark
to thy father.
- What wouldst thou have, Laertes?
- Dread my lord,
your leave and favor
to return to France,
from whence, though willingly, I came to
Denmark to show my duty in your coronation.
Yet now, I must confess,
that duty done,
my thoughts and wishes
bend again towards France.
And bow them to your gracious
leave and pardon.
Have you your fathers leave?
What says Polonius?
He hath, my lord,
wrung from me my slow leave...
by laborsome petition,
and at last, upon his will
I sealed my hard consent.
I do beseech you
give him leave to go.
Take thy fair hour, Laertes.
Time be thine...
and thy best graces
spend it at thy will.
But now, our cousin Hamlet
and our son.
How is it that the clouds
still hang on you?
Good Hamlet,
cast thy nighted
color off...
and let thine eye
look like a friend on Denmark.
Do not forever
with thy lowered lids...
seek for thy noble father
in the dust.
Thou knowst
ttis common.
All that lives
must die,
passing through nature
to eternity.
Aye, madam.
It is common.
If it be,
why seems it
so particular with thee?
Seems, madam?
Nay, it is.
I know not sseems.
Tis not alone
my inky cloak, good Mother,
nor customary suits
of solemn black...
together with all forms, modes
shows of grief...
that can denote
me truly.
These indeed seem,
for they are actions
that a man might play.
But I have that within
which passeth show.
These but the trappings
and the suits of woe.
Tis sweet and commendable
in your nature, Hamlet,
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 bound in filial obligation...
for some term to do
obsequious sorrow,
but to persist
in obstinate condolement...
is a course
of impious stubbornness.
Tis unmanly grief,
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
corpse till he that died today,
TThis must be so.
Why should we
in our peevish opposition...
take it to heart?
We pray you throw to earth...
this unprevailing woe...
and think of us
as of a father.
For let the world
take note,
you are the most immediate
to our throne.
And with no less nobility of love...
than that which dearest father
bears his son...
do I impart
towards you.
For your intent in going back
to school at Wittenberg,
it is most retrograde
to our desire,
and we beseech you,
bend you to remain...
here in the cheer
and comfort of our eye,
our chiefest courtier,
cousin and our son.
Let not thy mother
lose her prayers, Hamlet.
I pray thee,
stay with us.
Go not to Wittenberg.
I shall in all my best
obey you, madam.
Why, tis a loving
and a fair reply.
Be as ourself
in Denmark.
Madam, come. This gentle and unforced
accord of Hamlet...
sits smiling
to my heart.
In grace whereof, no jocund health
that Denmark drinks today...
but the great cannon
to the clouds shall tell,
and the kings carouse
the heavens shall roar again,
respeaking earthly thunder.
Come, away.
Oh, that this too too
solid flesh would melt,
thaw and resolve itself
into a dew.
Or that the Everlasting had not fixed
His canon against self-slaughter.
Oh, God.
God!
How weary, stale
flat and unprofitable...
seem to me all the uses
of this world.
Fie ont, ah, fie!
Tis an unweeded garden
that grows to seed.
Things rank and gross
in nature possess it merely.
That it should
come to this.
But two months dead.
Nay, not so much.
Not two.
So excellent a king that was to this
Hyperion to a satyr,
so loving to my mother that he
might not suffer the winds of heaven...
visit her face
too roughly.
Heaven and earth.
Must I remember?
Why she would hang on him
as if increase of appetite...
had grown by what
it fed on.
And yet, within a month-
Let me not think on it.
Frailty, thy name
is woman.
A little month, or ere
those shoes were old,
with which she followed
my poor fathers body-
like Niobe, all tears.
Why, she-
Even she-
Oh, God, a beast that wants discourse
of reason would have mourned longer.
Marriage with my uncle.
My fathers brother, but no more
like my father than I to Hercules.
Within a month,
she married.
Oh, most wicked speed, to post with
such dexterity to incestuous sheets.
It is not, nor it
cannot come to good.
But break, my heart,
for I must hold my tongue.
My necessaries
are embarked.
Farewell.
And sister, as the winds give benefit
and convoy is assistant,
do not sleep, but let me
hear from you.
Do you doubt that?
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.
- No more, but so?
- Think it no more.
Perhaps he
loves you now,
but you must fear his greatness
weighed, his will is not his own.
For he himself
is subject to his birth.
He may not, as unvalued persons do,
carve for himself.
For on his choice
depends the safety...
and the health
of this whole state.
Then weigh what loss
your honor may sustain...
if with too willing ear
you list his songs...
or lose your heart...
or your chaste treasure open
to his unmastered importunity.
Be wary, then.
Best safety
lies in fear.
I shall the effect
of this good lesson keep...
as watchman
to my heart.
But, good my brother, do not
as some ungracious pastors do...
show me the steep
and thorny way to heaven...
whilst like a puffed
and reckless libertine...
himself the primrose path of dalliance
treads and minds not his own creed.
Oh, fear me not.
But here my father comes.
I stay too long.
Yet here, Laertes.
Aboard, aboard, for shame!
The wind sits in the shoulder
of your sail and you are stayed for.
There, my blessing
with thee.
And these few precepts
in thy memory look thou character.
Give thy thoughts no tongue nor any
unproportioned thought his act.
Be thou familiar,
but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast,
and their adoption tried,
grapple them to thy soul
with hoops of steel,
but do not dull thy palm
with entertainment...
of each new-hatched,
unfledged comrade.
Beware an entrance
to a quarrel, but being in,
bear that the opposed
may beware of thee.
Give every man thine ear,
but few thy voice.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
but not expressed 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.
Farewell. My blessing season
this in thee.
Most humbly do I take
my leave, my lord.
The time invites you.
Go.
Farewell, Ophelia.
And remember well
what I said to you.
Tis in my memory locked, and you
yourself shall keep the key of it.
Farewell.
What ist, Ophelia,
he hath said to you?
So please you, something
touching the Lord Hamlet.
Marry, well bethought.
What is between you?
Give me up the truth.
He hath, my lord, of late made
many tenders of his affection to me.
Affection? Pooh!
You speak like a green girl,
unsifted in such
perilous circumstance.
Do you believe his tenders,
as you call them?
I do not know, my lord,
what I should think.
Marry, Ill teach you.
Think yourself a baby.
I would not in plain terms
from this time forth...
have you give words or talk
with the Lord Hamlet.
Look to it,
I charge you.
Come your ways.
Hail to your lordship.
Im glad
to see you well.
Horatio, or I do
forget myself.
The same, my lord,
and your poor servant ever.
Sir, my good friend,
Ill change that name with you.
- Marcellus.
- My good lord.
Im very glad to see you.
Good evening, sir.
But what is your affair in Elsinore? Well
teach you to drink deep ere you depart.
My lord, I came to see
your fathers funeral.
I pray you do not mock me,
fellow student.
I think it was to see
my mothers wedding.
Indeed, my lord,
it followed hard upon.
Thrift.
Thrift, Horatio.
The funeral baked meats did coldly
furnish forth the marriage tables.
Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven
or ever I had seen that day, Horatio.
My father.
Methinks I see my father.
Where, my lord?
In my minds eye,
Horatio.
I saw him once.
He was
a goodly king.
He was a man.
Take him for all in all, I shall not
look upon his like again.
My lord, I think
I saw him yesternight.
Saw?
- Who?
- My lord, the king. Your father.
The king,
my father.
Two nights together had these gentlemen
Marcellus and Bernardo,
on their watch in the dead, vast middle
of the night, been thus encountered.
A figure like your father,
armed, appears before them,
and with solemn march goes
slow and stately by them.
This to me in dread
and secrecy did they impart,
and I with them the third night
kept the watch,
where, as theyd reported
both in time,
form of the thing, each word made
true and good, the apparition comes.
I knew your father.
These hands
are not more like.
- But where was this?
- My lord, upon the platform where we watched.
- Did you not speak to it?
- My lord, I did, but answer made it none.
Yet once methought it lifted up
its head as it would speak.
But even then the morning cock
crew loud,
and at the sound it shrunk in haste
away and vanished from our sight.
- Tis very strange.
- As I do live, my honored lord, ttis true,
and we did think it writ down
in our duty to let you know of it.
Indeed.
Indeed, sirs.
But this
troubles me.
- Hold you the watch tonight?
- We do, my lord.
- Armed, say you?
- Armed, my lord.
- From top to toe?
- My lord, from head to foot.
- Then you saw not his face.
- Oh, yes, my lord. He wore his visor up.
What looked he?
Frowningly?
A countenance more in sorrow
than in anger.
- And fixed his eyes upon you.
- Most constantly.
- I would I had been there.
- It would have much amazed you.
Very like, very like.
Stayed it long?
While one with moderate haste
might tell a hundred.
- Longer. - Longer.
- Not when I saw it.
His beard was
grizzled, no?
It was, as Ive seen it
in his life, a sable silver.
- I will watch tonight. Perchance twill walk again.
- I warrant it will.
I pray you all, if you have hitherto
concealed this sight...
and whatsoever else shall hap tonight,
give it an understanding but no tongue.
I will requite your loves.
So fare you well.
Upon the platform, twixt 11:=
and 12:=, Ill visit you.
- Our duty to your honor.
- Your loves, as mine to you. Farewell.
My fathers spirit... in arms.
All is not well.
I doubt some foul play.
Would the night
were come!
Till then,
sit still my soul.
Foul deeds will rise,
though all the earth
oerwhelm them, to menss eyes.
The air bites shrewdly.
It is very cold.
It is a nipping
and an eager air.
- What hour now?
- I think it lacks of 12:=.
- No, it is struck.
- Indeed?
I heard it not. It then draws
near the season...
wherein the spirit
has his wont to walk.
What does this mean,
my lord?
The king doth wake tonight
and makes carouse,
keeps wassail and the
swaggering upspring reels.
And as he drains his draughts
of Rhenish down,
the kettledrum and trumpet doth bray out
the triumph of his pledge.
- Is it a custom?
- Aye, marry, ist.
But to my mind, though I am
native here and to the manner born,
it is a custom more honored
in the breach than the observance.
This heavy-headed revel
east and west...
makes us traduced and mocked
by other nations.
They call us drunkards, and with
swinish phrase soil our reputation,
and indeed it takes from our
achievements, though performed at height.
So oft it chances
in particular men...
that for some vicious
mole of nature in them,
by the oergrowth
of some complexion...
oft breaking down the pales
and forts of reason...
or by some habit grown too much
that these men,
carrying, I say,
the stamp of one defect,
their virtues else-
be they as pure as grace-
shall in the general censure
take corruption...
from that particular fault.
Angels and ministers
of grace defend us!
Look, my lord,
it comes!
Be thou a spirit of health
or goblin damned,
thou comest in such
a questionable shape...
that I will
speak to thee.
Ill call thee Hamlet,
King, Father.
Royal Dane,
oh, answer me!
It beckons you
to go away with it.
- It waves you to a more removed ground.
- But do not go with it.
- No, by no means.
- It will not speak. Then I will follow it.
- Do not, my lord.
- Why? What should be the fear?
I do not set my life
at a pins fee, and for my soul,
what can it do to that, being a thing
immortal as itself?
It waves me forth again.
Ill follow it!
What if it tempt you
toward the flood, my lord,
or to the dreadful summit of the cliff
that beetles oer his base into the sea,
and there assume some other
horrible form, which might deprive...
your sovereignty of reason
and draw you into madness?
- Think of it!
- You shall not go, my lord!
- Hold off your hands!
- Be ruled! You shall not go!
My fate cries out and makes
each petty artery in this body...
as hardy as the Nemean
lions nerve!
Still am I called.
Unhand me, gentlemen!
By heaven, Ill make a ghost of him
that hinders me. I say, away!
Go on.
Ill follow thee.
Whither wilt
thou lead me?
Speak.
Ill go no further.
Mark me.
I will.
I am
thy fathers spirit,
doomed for a certain time
to walk the night...
and for the day confined
to fast in fires...
till the foul crimes
done in my days of nature...
are burned
and purged away.
Alas, poor ghost.
List, list,
oh, list.
If thou didst ever
thy dear father love-
Oh, God!
Revenge his foul
and most unnatural murder.
-Murder?
-Murder most foul, as in the best it is,
but this most foul,
strange and unnatural.
Haste me to knowt,
that I, with wings as swift
as meditation or the thoughts of love,
may sweep
to my revenge.
Now, Hamlet, hear.
Tis given out that
sleeping in my orchard,
a serpent stung me,
so the whole
ear of Denmark...
is by a forged process
of my death...
rankly abused.
But know,
thou noble youth,
the serpent that did sting
thy fathers life...
now wears his crown.
Oh, my prophetic soul!
My uncle.
Aye, that incestuous,
that adulterate beast...
with traitorous gifts
won to his shameful lust...
the will of my most
seeming virtuous queen.
Oh, Hamlet, what a falling off
was there.
But soft. Methinks I scent
the morning air.
Brief let me be.
Sleeping within my orchard,
my custom always
in the afternoon,
upon my quiet hour
thy uncle stole...
with juice of cursed hemlock
in a vial,
and in the porches of mine ears
did pour the leprous distillment,
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.
Thus was I, sleeping,
by a brothers hand...
of life, of crown,
of queen, at once dispatched-
cut off even in the blossoms
of my sin,
no reckoning made,
but sent to my account...
with all my imperfections
on my head.
Oh, horrible.
Horrible!
Most horrible!
If thou hast nature in thee,
bear it not.
Let not the royal 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.
Fare thee well at once.
The glowworm shows the matin
to be near...
and gins to pale
his uneffectual fire.
Adieu, adieu,
adieu.
Remember me.
O all you
host of heaven!
O earth!
What else?
And shall I couple hell?
Hold, hold my heart!
Remember thee.
Aye, thou poor ghost,
while memory holds a seat...
in this
distracted glow.
Remember thee?
Yea, from the table
of my memory I wipe away...
all trivial fond records that youth
and observation copied there.
And thy commandment all alone shall live
within the book and volume of my brain,
unmixed with baser matter!
Yes, by heaven!
Most pernicious woman.
O villain, villain,
smiling, damned villain.
So, uncle,
there you are.
Now to my word.
It is AAdieu, adieu.
Remember me.
I have sworn it.
- My lord, my lord!
- Lord Hamlet!
So be it.
Illo, my lord!
Illo, ho, ho, boy.
Come, bird, come.
- How ist, my noble lord?
- What news, my lord?
- Oh, wonderful.
- My lord, tell it.
No. You will
reveal it.
Not I, my lord.
How say you then, would
heart of man once think it?
- But youll be secret.
- Aye, my lord.
Theres neeer a villain
dwelling in all Denmark...
but hes an arrant knave.
There needs no ghost, my lord,
come from the grave to tell us this.
Why, right.
You are in the right.
So, without more circumstance at all, I
hold it fit that we shake hands and part.
You as your business and desire shall
point you, for every man hath business...
and desire such as it is, and from mine
own poor part, look you, Ill go pray.
These are but wild
and whirling words, my lord.
- Im sorry they offend you heartily. Yes,
faith, heartily. - Theress no offense-
Yes, by Saint Patrick, but there is,
Horatio. And much offense too!
Touching this vision here, it is
an honest ghost, that let me tell you.
For your desire to know what is
between us, oermaster it as you may.
And now, good friends, as you
are friends, scholars and soldiers,
give me
one poor request.
- What ist, my lord? We will.
- Never make known what you have seen tonight.
- My lord, we will not.
- Nay, but swear it.
- In faith, my lord, not I.
- Not I, my lord.
- Upon my sword.
- We have sworn, my lord, already.
- Indeed, upon my sword, indeed.
- Oh, day and night, but this is wondrous strange.
And therefore, as a stranger,
give it welcome.
There are more things
in heaven and earth, Horatio,
than are dreamt of
in your philosophy.
But come.
Never, so help you mercy,
how strange or odd
so eer I bear myself,
as I perchance hereafter
shall think fit...
to put an antic
disposition on,
that you, at such times
seeing me,
never shall, by the pronouncing of some
doubtful phrase as, WWell, well, we know,
or WWe could, and if we would,
or such ambiguous giving out,
denote that you
know aught of me.
This do swear, so grace and mercy
at your best need help you.
Swear.
Rest.
Rest, perturbed spirit.
So, gentlemen,
with all my love,
I do commend me to you.
And what so poor a man as Hamlet is may do
to express his love and friending to you,
God willing,
shall not lack.
Go in, and still your fingers
on your lips I pray.
The time
is out of joint.
Oh, cursed spite,
that ever I was born
to set it right.
Come.
Lets go together.
As I was
sewing in my closet,
Lord Hamlet,
with his doublet
all unlaced,
pale as his shirt...
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.
He took me by the wrist...
and held me hard.
Then goes he to the length
of all his arm,
and with his other hand
thus oer his brow,
he falls to such perusal
of my face...
as he would draw it.
Long stayed he so.
At last, a little shaking
of mine arm...
and thrice his head
thus waving up and down.
He raised 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 turned,
he seemed to find his way
without his eyes,
for out of doors he went
without their help...
and, to the last,
bended their light...
on me.
My liege and madam,
to expostulate what majesty should be,
what duty is,
why day is day, night night
and time is time...
were nothing but to waste
night, day and time.
Therefore, since brevity
is the soul of wit...
and tediousness the limbs and outward
flourishes, I will be brief.
Your noble son is mad.
Mad call I it,
for to define true madness,
what ist but to be
nothing else but mad?
More matter
with less art.
Madam, I swear I use
no art at all.
That he is mad, tis true.
TTis true, tttis pity,
and pity tis,
ttis true.
A foolish figure, but farewell it,
for I will use no art.
Thus it remains,
and the remainder thus.
Perpend:
I have a daughter-
have, while she is mine-
who in her duty and obedience,
mark, hath given me this.
Now gather and surmise.
TTo the celestial
and my soulsss idol,
the most
beautified Ophelia.
Thats an ill phrase,
a vile phrase.
BBeautified
is a vile phrase.
But you shall hear.
Thus:
lln her excellent
white bosom, these-
Et cetera.
- Came this from Hamlet to her?
- Good madam, stay a while.
I will be faithful.
DDoubt thou
the stars are fire.
Doubt that the sun
doth move.
Doubt truth
to be a liar,
but never doubt I love.
Oh, dear Ophelia,
I am ill at these numbers.
I have not art
to reckon my groans.
But that I love thee best,
oh, most best, believe it.
Adieu.
Thine evermore, most dear lady,
while this frame
is to him, Hamlet.
This in obedience
hath my daughter shown me,
and more above,
hath his solicitings,
as they fell out by time,
by means and place,
all given
to mine ear.
But how hath she
received his love?
What do you
think of me?
As of a man
faithful and honorable.
I would fain
prove so.
But what might you think, when I had
seen this hot love on the wing,
if I had looked upon this love
with idle sight?
What might you think?
No, I went round to work,
and my young mistress thus
I did bespeak:
LLord Hamlet is a prince, out of
thy star. This must not be.
And then I prescripts
gave her that she should...
lock herself from his resort, admit
no messengers, receive no tokens.
And he, repulsed, a short tale
to make, fell into a sadness,
then into a fast, thence to a watch,
thence to a weakness,
thence into a lightness,
and by this declension...
into that madness
wherein now he raves...
and all we mourn for.
Do you think
tis this?
It may be,
very likely.
Hath there been such a time,
I d fain know that,
that I have positively said
TTTis so that it proved otherwise?
Not that I know.
Take this from this
if this be otherwise.
How may we
try it further?
You know, sometimes he walks
four hours together here in the lobby.
- So he does, indeed.
- At such a time...
Ill loose
my daughter to him.
Be you and I behind
an arras then.
Mark the encounter.
If he loves her not,
and be not from his reason
fallen thereon,
let me be no assistant
for a state...
but keep a farm
and carters.
We will try it.
But look where sadly
the poor wretch comes reading.
Away. I do
beseech you both, away,
Ill board him
presently.
Oh, give me leave.
How does
my good Lord Hamlet?
- Well, God-a-mercy.
- Do you know me, my lord?
- Excellent well. You are a fishmonger.
- Not I, my lord.
- Then I would you were so honest a man.
- Honest, my lord?
Aye, sir. To be honest
as this world goes...
is to be one man picked
out of ten thousand.
Thats very true,
my lord.
For if the sun breed maggots
in a dead dog-
Have you
a daughter?
- I have, my lord.
- Let her not walk in the sun.
Conception
is a blessing,
but as your daughter
may conceive,
friend, look to it.
How say you by that?
Still harping on my daughter.
Yet he knew me not at first.
He said I was a fishmonger.
Hes far gone,
far gone.
But Ill
speak to him again.
What do you read,
my lord?
Words, words, words.
- What is the matter, my lord?
- Between who?
- I mean, the letter that you read, my lord.
- Slander, sir.
For the satirical rogue says here
that old men have gray beards,
that their faces are wrinkled,
their eyes purging thick amber...
and plum tree gum,
that they have
a plentiful lack of wit,
together with
most weak hams.
All of which, sir, though I
most powerfully believe,
yet I hold it not honesty
to have it thus set down,
for you yourself, sir,
shall be old as I am...
if like a crab
you could go backward.
Though this be madness,
yet theres method intt.
-Will you walk out of the air, my lord?
-Into my grave?
Indeed, that is
out of the air.
How pregnant sometimes
his replies are.
My honorable lord,
I will most humbly
take my leave of you.
You cannot, sir, take from me anything
that I will more willingly part withal.
Except my life.
Read on this book.
That show of such an exercise
may color your loneliness.
Gracious, so please you,
well bestow ourselves.
Ophelia, walk you here.
Lets withdraw,
my lord.
Soft you now.
The fair Ophelia.
Nymph, in thy orisons
be all my sins remembered.
Good, my lord!
How does Your Honor
for this many a day?
I humbly thank you.
Well, well, well.
My lord, I have
remembrances of yours...
that I have
longed long to redeliver.
I pray you now,
receive them.
No, not I.
I never gave you aught.
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,
take these again,
for to the noble mind,
rich gifts wax poor...
when givers
prove unkind.
There, my lord.
Are you honest?
My lord?
I did love you once.
Indeed, my lord,
you made me believe so.
You should not
have believed me.
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 more offenses 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 heaven and earth?
We are arrant knaves all.
Believe none of us.
Go thy ways
to a nunnery.
Wheres your father?
At home, my lord.
Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may
play the fool nowhere but in his own house.
- Farewell!
- Oh, help me, you sweet heavens.
I have heard your paintings too,
well enough!
God hath given you one face,
and you make yourselves another.
You jig, you amble,
you lisp.
You nickname Gods creatures and make
your wantonness your ignorance.
Get thee to a nunnery,
and quickly, too. Farewell!
Or if thou wilt needs marry,
marry a fool,
for wise men know well enough
what monsters you make of them.
Go to! Ill no more of it!
It hath made me mad.
I say we will have
no more marriages!
Those that are
married already,
all but one
shall live!
The rest shall stay
as they are.
To a nunnery...
go.
Love! His affections
do not that way tend.
Nor what he spake, though it
lacked form a little,
was not
like madness.
Theres something
in his soul...
oer which his melancholy
sits on brood.
And I do fear the unheeded consequence
will be some danger,
the which to prevent I have in quick
determination thus set it down.
He shall with speed
to England.
Haply the seas and countries
different with variable objects...
shall expel this something
settled matter in his heart.
- What think you ont?
- It shall do well,
but yet I do believe the origin
and commencement of his grief...
sprung from
neglected love.
How now, Ophelia?
You need not tell us
what Lord Hamlet said.
We heard it all.
My lord,
do as you please.
It shall be so. Madness in great ones
must not unwatched go.
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.
To die.
To sleep no more.
And by a sleep to say we end
the heartache...
and the thousand natural shocks
that flesh is heir to,
tis a consummation
devoutly to be wished.
To die, to sleep.
To sleep.
Perchance to dream!
Aye, theres the rub.
For in that sleep of death,
what dreams may come...
when we have shuffled off
this mortal coil...
must give us pause.
Theres the respect that makes
calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips
and scorns of time,
the oppressors wrong,
the proud mans contumely,
the pangs of despised love,
the laws delays,
the insolence of office...
and the spurns that patient
merit of the 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 undiscovered 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
doth make cowards of us all.
And thus the native hue of
resolution is sicklied oer...
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.
My lord, I have news
to tell you.
The actors are come hither,
my lord.
He that plays the king
shall be welcome.
TThe best actors in the world,
either for tragedy, comedy,
history, pastoral,
pastoral-comical,
historical-pastoral,
tragical-historical,
tragical-comical-historical-pastoral.
Seneca cannot be too heavy
nor Plautus too light.
For these are the only men.
You are welcome, masters.
Welcome, all.
I am glad to see thee well.
Welcome, good friends!
Oh, my old friend. Why, thy face
is valanced since I saw thee last.
Comest thou to beard me
in Denmark?
What, my young lady and mistress!
By our lady, your ladyship is nearer
to heaven than when I saw you last.
Pray God, your voice, like a piece of
uncurrent gold, be not cracked in its ring.
Masters, you are all welcome!
Good my lord, will you
see the players well bestowed?
Do you hear,
let them be well used,
for they are the abstract and
brief chronicles of the time.
After your death you were better have a bad
epitaph than their ill report while you live.
My lord, I will use them
according to their desert.
Gods bodykins, much better. Use every man
after his desert and who shall escape whipping?
Use them after your own honor
and dignity.
The less they deserve, the more merit
is in your bounty. Take them in.
- Come, sirs.
- Follow him, friends.
We hear a play tomorrow.
Dost hear me, old friend.
Can you play
The Murder of Gonzago?
- Aye, my lord.
- Well have it tomorrow night.
You could, for a need, study a speech
of some dozen or sixteen lines...
that I would set down
and insert in it, could you not?
Aye, my lord.
Very well. Follow that lord,
and look you mock him not.
The plays the thing wherein Illl
catch the conscience of the king!
Speak the speech,
I pray you, as I pronounced it to you,
trippingly on the tongue.
But if you mouth it,
as many of your players do,
I had as lief the town crier
spoke my lines.
Nor do not saw the air
too much with you hand, thus,
but use all gently.
For in the very torrent, tempest and, as
I may say, whirlwind, of your passion,
you must acquire and beget a temperance
that may give it smoothness.
Oh, it offends me to the soul to hear
a robustious, periwig-pated fellow...
tear a passion to tatters to split
the ears of the groundlings,
who, for the most part,
are capable of nothing...
but inexplicable dumb shows
and noise.
I would have
such a fellow whipped.
It out-Herods Herod.
Pray you, avoid it.
- I warrant, Your Honor.
- Hmm.
Be not too tame, neither, but let
your own discretion be your tutor.
Suit the action to the word,
the word to the action.
With this special observance, that you
oerstep not the modesty of nature.
For anything so overdone
is from the purpose of playing,
whose end, both of the first
and now,
was and is to hold as twere...
the mirror up to Nature,
to show Virtue
her own feature,
Scorn her own image...
and the very age and body
of the time...
his form and pressure.
Now this, overdone,
though it make the unskillful laugh,
cannot but make the judicious grieve.
The censure of which one must in your
allowance outweigh a whole theatre of others.
Oh, there be players
that I have seen play...
and heard others praise- and that
highly, not to speak of profanely-
that having neither the accent of Christians
nor the gait of pagan, Christian nor man,
have so strutted and bellowed that I
have thought some of Natures journeymen...
have made men and not made them well,
they imitated humanity so abominably.
I hope we have reformed
that indifferently with us, sir.
Oh, reform it altogether.
And let those that play your clowns
speak no more than is set down for them.
For there be of them
that will themselves laugh...
to set on some barren quantity
of spectators to laugh too,
though in the meantime some necessary
question of the play be then to be considered.
Thats villainous! And shows a most
pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it.
Go, make you ready.
How now, my lord. Will the king
hear this piece of work?
And the queen too,
and that presently.
- Bid the players make haste.
- Aye, my lord.
- Horatio.
- Here, sweet lord, at your service.
- Observe mine uncle. Give him heedful note.
- Well, my lord.
They are coming to the play.
I must be idle. Get you a place.
How fares
our cousin Hamlet?
Excellent, i faith.
Of the chameleonss dish.
I eat the air, promise-crammed.
You cannot feed capons so.
I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet.
These words are not mine.
No, nor mine now. My lord, you played
once in the university, you say?
That did I, my lord,
and was accounted a good actor.
- What did you enact?
- I did enact Julius Caesar.
I was killed in the Capitol.
Brutus killed me.
It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf there.
- Be the players ready?
- Aye, my lord. They stay upon your patience.
Come hither, my dear Hamlet.
Sit by me.
No, good Mother. Heres metal more attractive.
Oh, ho.
Did you mark that?
Lady, shall I lie
in your lap?
- No, my lord.
- I mean my head upon your lap.
- Aye, my lord.
- Do you think I meant country matters?
- I think nothing, my lord.
- Thats a fair thought to lie between maidss legs.
- What is, my lord?
- Nothing.
- You are merry, my lord.
- Who? I?
- Aye, my lord.
- Oh, God, your only jig maker.
Why, what should a man do
but be merry?
For look you how merrily my mother looks,
and my father died within two hours!
Nay, tis twice two months,
my lord.
So long? Nay, then. Let the devil wear
black, for Ill have a suit of sables.
O heavens. Died two months ago,
and not forgotten yet?
Why then theres hope a great manss
memory may outlive his life half a year.
For us and for our tragedy,
here stooping
to your clemency,
we beg
your hearing patiently.
- Is this a prologue or the posy of a ring?
- Tis brief, my lord.
As womans love.
You are keen, my lord.
You are keen.
It would cost you a groaning
to take off mine edge.
Give me some light!
Away!
Lights! Lights!
Lights! Lights!
Why, let the stricken deer
go weep
The hart ungalled play
For some must watch
whilst some must sleep
Thus runs the world away
Oh, good Horatio! Ill take the ghostss
word for a thousand pounds. Didst perceive?
- Very well, my lord.
- Upon the act of poisoning. God bless you, sir!
- Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you.
- Sir, a whole history.
- The king, sir-
- Aye, sir, what of him?
- He is in his retirement marvelous distempered.
- With drink, sir?
No, my lord.
Rather with choler.
Your wisdom should show itself more
richer to signify this to the doctor.
For, for me to put him to his purgation
would perhaps plunge him into far more choler.
Good my lord, put your discourse into some
frame, and start not so wildly from my affair.
- I am tame, sir. Pronounce.
- The queen, your mother, in most great affliction of spirit...
- hath sent me to you.
- You are welcome.
Nay, my lord, this courtesy
is not of the right breed.
If it shall please you to make me a wholesome
answer, I will do your mothers commandment.
If not, your pardon, and my return
shall be the end of my business.
- Sir, I cannot.
- What, my lord?
Make you a wholesome answer.
My wits diseased.
But sir, such answer as I can make,
you shall command.
Or rather, as you say, my mother.
Therefore no more, but to the matter.
- My mother, you say.
- She desires to speak with you in her closet ere you go to bed.
We shall obey, were she ten times our
mother. Have you any further trade with us?
My lord, the queen would speak
with you, and presently!
Do you see yonder cloud thats almost
in shape of a camel?
By the mass, and tis
like a camel indeed.
Methinks it is
like a weasel.
- It is backed like a weasel.
- Or like a whale?
Very like a whale.
Then I will come to my mother
by and by.
I will say so.
BBy and by
is easily said.
Leave me, friend.
Tis now the very witching time
of night,
when churchyards yawn and hell
itself breathes out contagion...
to this world.
Now could I drink hot blood...
and do such bitter business as the 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 me be cruel,
not unnatural.
I will speak daggers to her,
but use none.
My lord?
Hes going to his motherss
closet.
Behind the arras Ill conceal
myself to hear the process.
I warrant shell tax him home,
and as you said-
and wisely was it said- tis meet
that some more audience than a mother-
since nature makes them partial-
should oer hear the speech of vantage.
Fare you well, my liege. Ill call
upon you ere you go to bed...
and tell you what I know.
Thanks, dear my lord.
Oh, my offense is rank.
It smells to heaven.
It hath the primal eldest curse
upon it:
a brothers murder.
Pray, can I not, though inclination
be as sharp as will.
What if this cursed hand were thicker
than itself with brothers blood?
Is there not rain enough
in the sweet heavens...
to wash it white as snow?
Oh, what form of prayer
can serve my turn?
Forgive me my foul murder??
That cannot be, since I am still
possessed of those effects...
for which I did the murder:
my crown,
mine own ambition...
and my queen.
Oh, wretched state.
Oh, bosom black as death!
Help, angels.
All may yet be well.
Now might I do it pat.
Now hes praying.
And now Ill do it.
And so he goes
to heaven.
And so am I revenged.
That would be thought on.
A villain kills my father,
and for that, I, his sole son
do the same villain send to heaven.
Oh, this is hire and salary,
not revenge.
He took my father with all his
crimes full-blown,
as flush as May.
And how his audit stands,
who knows save Heaven?
But in our circumstance and course
of thought tis heavy with him.
And am I then revenged 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 dark intent.
When he is drunk, asleep
or in his rage,
or in the incestuous pleasure
of his bed,
at gaming, swearing or about some act
that has no relish of salvation in it.
Then trip him, that his heels
may kick at heaven,
and that his soul may be as damned
and black as hell whereto it goes.
My mother stays.
This physic but prolongs
thy sickly days.
My words fly up.
My thoughts remain below.
Words without thoughts
never to heaven go.
He will come straight.
Look you lay hold to him. Tell him his
pranks have been too broad to bear with...
and that Your Grace hath screened
and stood between much heat and him.
Ill silence me eeen here.
- Pray you, be round with him!
- Mother?
Mother?
Mother.
Ill warrant you,
fear me not.
Withdraw.
I hear him coming.
- Now, Mother, whats the matter?
- Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.
Mother, you have my father
much offended.
Come, come. You answer
with an idle tongue.
Go, go. You question
with a wicked tongue.
- Why, how now, Hamlet?
- Whats the matter now?
- Have you forgot me?
- No, by the rood! Not so.
You are the queen.
Your husbands brotherss wife.
And would it were not so.
You are my mother.
- Nay, then Ill set those to you that can speak.
- 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.
What wilt thou do?
Thou wilt not murder me? Help!
- Help! Help!
- Help! Help!
How now?
A rat!
Dead for a ducat!
Dead.
Oh, me.
What hast thou done?
Nay, I know not.
Is it the king?
Oh, what a wretched,
bloody deed is this.
A bloody deed. Almost as bad,
good mother, as kill a king...
and marry with his brother.
As kill a king?
Aye, lady.
Twas my word.
Thou wretched, rash,
intruding fool, farewell.
I took thee for thy better.
Take thy fortune.
Thou findst to be too busy
is some danger.
Leave wringing of the hands!
Peace, sit you down!
And let me wring your heart, for so I
shall, if it be made of penetrable stuff.
What have I done that thou darest wag
thy tongue in noise so rude against me?
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.
- Aye me, what act?
- Look here upon this picture, and on this!
The counterfeit presentment
of two brothers.
See what a grace was seated
on this brow.
An eye like Mars,
to threaten and command,
a stature 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 mildewed
ear, blasting his wholesome brother!
Have you eyes?
You cannot call it love,
for at your age the heyday
in the blood is tame.
Its humble and waits upon the judgement.
What judgement would step from this to this?
What devil wast that thus
hath hoodwinked you?
Oh, shame. Where is thy blush? If
hell can rise up in a matrons bones...
to flaming youth,
let virtue be as wax!
Oh, Hamlet!
Speak no more.
Thou turnst mine eyes
into my very soul,
and there I see such black and grained
spots as will not lose their stain.
Nay! But to live in the rank
sweat of a lascivious bed,
stewed in corruption, honeying
and making love over the nasty sty-
Speak to me no more. These words
like daggers enter into mine ears!
- No more, sweet Hamlet!
- A murderer and a villain!
A slave that is not twentieth part
the worth of your true lord.
A cutpurse of the empire and the throne,
that from a shelf the precious diadem stole!
- No more!
- A king of shreds and patches!
Save me, and hover over me
with your wings, you heavenly guards.
What would
your gracious figure?
Alas, hes mad.
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?
Oh, say.
Do not forget.
This visitation is but to whet
thy almost blunted purpose.
But look.
Amazement on thy mother sits.
Oh, step between her
and her fighting soul.
Speak to her, Hamlet.
How is it with you,
lady?
Alas, how ist with you, that you
do bend your eye on vacancy...
and with the incorporal air
do hold discourse?
O gentle son. Upon the heat
and flame of thy distemper...
sprinkle cool patience.
Whereon do you look?
On him. On him.
Look you how pale
he glares.
His form and cause conjoined,
preaching to stones,
would make them sensitive.
Do not look upon me,
lest with this piteous action
you convert my stern intents.
So I shed tears, not blood.
To whom do you speak this?
Do you see nothing there?
No, nothing at all.
- Yet all there is, I see.
- Do you nothing hear?
No, nothing but ourselves.
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!
This is the very coinage
of your brain.
This bodiless creation,
madness is very cunning in.
Madness?
My pulse, as yours, doth
temperately keep time,
and makes
as healthful music.
Mother, for love of grace, lay not
that flattering unction to your soul...
that not your trespass
but my madness speaks.
Confess yourself
to heaven.
Repent whats past.
Avoid what is to come.
And do not spread the compost
on the weeds to make them ranker.
Forgive me this my virtue.
O Hamlet. Thou hast
cleft my heart in twain.
Oh.
Throw away the worser part
of it,
and live the purer
with the other half.
Good night.
But go not to my uncles bed.
Assume a virtue,
if you have it not.
Refrain tonight,
and that shall lend a kind
of easiness to the next abstinence.
The next more easy.
For use can almost change
the stamp of nature.
Once more, good night.
And when you are
desirous to be blessed,
Ill blessing beg of you.
I must be cruel
only to be kind.
I must to England.
You know that?
Alack, I had forgot.
Tis so concluded on?
Theres letters sealed.
This man shall send me packing.
Ill lug the guts
into the neighbor room.
Indeed, this counselor
is now most still,
most secret
and most grave,
that was in life a foolish,
prating knave.
Come, sir, to draw
toward an end with you.
Good night, Mother.
Now Hamlet,
wheres Polonius?
- At supper.
- At supper?
- Mmm.
- Where?
Not where he eats,
but where he is eaten.
A certain complication
of politic worms are even at him.
Your worm is your
only emperor for diet.
We fat all creatures
else to fat us,
and we fat ourselves
for worms.
Your fat king and your lean beggar is but
variable service, two dishes, but to one table.
- Thats the end.
- Alas, alas.
A man may fish with the worm
that hath eat of a king,
and eat of a fish that
hath fed of that worm.
- What dost thou mean by this?
- Nothing.
But to show you how a king may go
a progress through the guts of a beggar.
- Where is Polonius?
- In heaven.
Send thither to see. If your messenger
find him not there,
seek him in the
other place yourself.
But indeed, if you find him
not within this month,
you shall nose him as you go
up the stairs into the lobby.
Go, seek him there.
He will stay
till you come.
Hamlet, for thine especial
safety, which we do tender,
as we do deeply grieve
for that which thou hast done,
this deed must send thee hence
with fiery quickness.
Therefore prepare thyself.
The bark is ready,
the wind sets fair and everything
is bent for England.
- For England.
- Aye, Hamlet.
-Good.
-So is it, if thou knewst our purposes.
I see a cherub
that sees them.
But come, for England.
Farewell, dear Mother.
Thy loving father,
Hamlet.
My mother.
Father and mother
is man and wife.
Man and wife is one flesh.
And so...
my mother.
Come.
- For England.
- Follow him close. Tempt him with speed aboard.
Delay it not. Ill have him
hence tonight. Away!
Everything is sealed and done
that else leans on the affair.
Pray you make haste.
And England, if my love
thou holdst at aught,
thou mayst not coldly treat
our sovereign order...
which imports at full...
the present death of Hamlet.
Do it, England,
for like the fever
in my blood he rages,
and thou must cure me.
Till I know tis done, howeeer
my haps, my joys, were neeeer begun.
Where is the beauteous majesty
of Denmark?
Why, how now, Ophelia?
Say you?
Nay, pray you, mark.
He is dead and gone, lady
He is dead and gone
At his head
a grass green turf
At his heels
a stone
Nay, but Ophelia.
Pray you, mark!
White his shroud
as the mountain snow
- Larded with sweet flowers
- Alas, look here, my lord.
Which bewept
to the grave did go
With true love showers
How do you, pretty lady?
Well, God ild you.
They say the owl
was a bakers daughter.
Lord, we know what we are,
but not what we may be.
God be at your table.
Distraction
for her father.
I hope all will be well.
We must be patient.
But I cannot choose
but weep...
to think they should lay him
in the cold ground.
My brother shall know of it.
And so I thank you
for your good counsel.
Come, my coach.
Good night, ladies.
Sweet ladies, good night.
Good night.
Follow her close.
Give her good watch, I pray you.
O Gertrude, Gertrude.
When sorrows come,
they come not single spies,
but in battalions.
First, her father slain.
Next, our son gone.
The people muddied, thick and unwholesome
in their thoughts and whispers.
Poor Ophelia,
divided from herself
and her fair judgment.
Last, and more dangerous
than all of these,
her brother is in secret
come from France...
and wants not buzzers to infect his ear
with pestilent speeches of his fathers death,
while he himself
not hesitates to threaten...
our own person.
O my dear Gertrude.
This like to
a murdering-piece...
in many places gives me
superfluous death.
How now? What news?
- Letters, my lord, from Hamlet.
- From Hamlet?
This to Your Majesty.
This to the queen.
- Who brought them?
- Sailors, my lord, they say.
Leave us.
God bless you, sir.
- Let Him bless thee too.
- He shall, sir, and it please Him.
Theres a letter for you, sir. It comes from
the ambassador that was bound for England.
If your name be Horatio,
as I am let to know it is.
Horatio.
Ere we were two days old
at sea,
a pirate, a very warlike
appointment, gave us chase.
Finding ourselves
too slow of sail,
we put on a compelled valor.
And in the grapple
I boarded them.
On the instant,
they got clear of our ship.
So I alone
became their prisoner.
They have dealt with me
like thieves of mercy,
but they knew what they did.
I am to do a good turn
for them.
Repair thou to me with as much speed
as thou wouldst fly death.
These good fellows
will bring thee where I am.
Farewell. He that thou
knowest thine. Hamlet.
Quote she
Before you tumbled me
You promised me to wed
So would I ha done
by yonder sun
Come, that you may direct me to him from whom you brought this.
How came he dead?
Ill not bejuggled with!
To hell, allegiance!
Vows, to the blackest pit!
I dare damnation, only Ill be revenged
most throughly for my father.
Good Laertes,
if you desire to know the certainty...
of your dear fathers death,
istt writ in your revenge...
that swoopstake you will draw
both friend and foe, winner and loser?
- None but his enemies!
- Will you know them, then?
To his good friends thus
wide Ill ope my arms.
Why, now you speak like a good
child and a true gentleman.
That I am guiltless of your fathers death
and am most sensibly in grief for it...
shall appear as clearly to your judgment
as day doth to your eyes.
- You must sing.
- What noise is this?
A-down, a-down
Kind sister.
Sweet Ophelia.
It is the false steward
that stole his masters daughter.
O heat, dry up my brains.
O rose of May.
Oh, heavens, ist possible a young maidss
wits should be as mortal as an old mansss life?
By heaven, thy madness
shall be paid by weight...
till our scale turn the beam.
Fare you well, my dove.
Theres rosemary.
Thatss for remembrance.
Pray you, love,
remember.
There is pansies.
Thats for thoughts.
Theres fennel for you,
and columbines.
Theres rue for you,
and heres some for me.
We may call it herb of grace
o Sundays.
Oh, you must wear your rue
with a difference.
Theres a daisy.
I would give you some violets, but they
withered all when my father died.
They say he made
a good end.
For bonny sweet Robin
is all my joy
Do you see this, O God?
And will he not
come again
No, no
He is dead
Go to thy death bed
He never will come again
God have mercy
On his soul
And of all Christian souls,
I pray God.
God be with you.
There is a willow
grows aslant a brook...
that shows his hoar leaves
in the glassy stream.
There with fantastic garlands
did she come,
of crow-flowers, nettles,
daisies and long purples.
There on the pendent boughs...
her coronet weeds
clambering to hang,
an envious sliver broke...
when down her weedy trophies and herself
fell in the weeping brook.
Her clothes spread wide...
and, mermaid like,
a while they bore her up.
But long
it could not be...
till that her garments,
heavy with their drink,
pulled the poor wretch
from her melodious lay...
to muddy death.
Alas,
then she has drowned.
Drowned.
In youth when I did love,
did love
Methought it was very sweet
To contract
Oh
The time for
Ah, my behove
Methought there was
nothing meet
But age
with his stealing steps
That clawed me
in his clutch
Whose grave is this,
sirrah?
Mine, sir.
I think it be thine, indeed,
for thou liest in it.
You lie out ont, sir,
therefore it is not yours.
For my part I do not lie int,
and yet it is mine.
Thou dost lie int, to be intt
and say it is thine.
Tis for the dead, not the quick.
Therefore thou liest.
Tis a quick lie, sir.
TTwill go away again from me to you.
- What man dost thou dig it for?
- No man, sir.
- For what woman, then?
- For none neither.
Who is to be buried
in it?
One that was a woman, sir, but,
rest her soul, shes dead.
How absolute the knave is.
We must speak by the card
or equivocation will undo us.
How long hast thou been
grave maker?
Of all the days in the year,
I came to it that day...
that our last King Hamlet
oercame Fortinbras.
- How long is that since?
- Cannot you tell that? Every fool can tell that.
It was the very day that
young Hamlet was born.
- He that is mad and sent into England.
- Aye, marry.
- Why was he sent into England?
- Why? Because he was mad.
He shall recover
his wits there.
- Or if he do not, tis no great matter there.
- Why?
It will not be seen in him there.
There the men are as mad as he.
- How came he mad?
- Very strangely, they say.
How, strangely?
- Faith, een by losing his wits.
- Upon what ground?
Why, here in Denmark.
How long will a man lie
in the earth ere he rot?
I faith, if he be not rotten before he die,
he will last some eight year, nine year.
- A tanner will last you nine year.
- Why he, more than another?
Why, sir, his hide
is so tanned with his trade,
it will keep out water
a great while,
and your waters a sore decayer
of your whoreson dead body.
Here. Heres
a skull, now.
This skull has lain in the earth
three and twenty year.
- Whose was it?
- Whoreson mad fellows, it was.
Whose do you think it was?
- Nay, I know not.
- A pestilence on him for a mad rogue.
He poured a flagon
of Rhenish on my head once.
This same skull, sir,
was Yoricks skull. The kingss jester.
This?
Een that.
Let me see.
Alas, poor Yorick.
I knew him, Horatio.
A fellow of infinite jest,
of most excellent fancy.
He hath borne me on his back
a thousand times.
But now how abhorred in my imagination
it is. My gorge rises it.
Here hung those lips that I have
kissed I know not how oft.
Where be your jibes now?
Your songs? Your gambols?
Your flashes of merriment that were
wont to set the table on a roar?
Not one now to mock
your own grinning?
Quite chop fallen.
Now get you
to my ladys chamber.
Tell her. Let her paint
an inch thick.
To this favor she must come.
Make her laugh at that.
But soft!
The king!
The queen, the courtiers.
Who is this
they follow?
And with such meager rites.
This doth betoken the corpse they follow
did with desperate hand take its own life.
Mark.
- What ceremony else?
- That is Laertes, a very noble youth. Mark!
What ceremony else?
Her obsequies have been as far
enlarged as we have warranty.
Her death was doubtful.
And but that great command
oer sways the order,
she should in ground unsanctified
have lodged till the last trumpet.
Must there no more be done?
No more be done?
We should profane the service of the dead
to sing a requiem and such rest to her...
as to peace-parted souls.
Lay her in the earth.
And from her fair
and unpolluted flesh...
may violets spring.
I tell thee,
churlish priest,
a ministering angel shall my sister
be when thou liest howling.
What!
The fair Ophelia!
Sweets to the sweet.
Farewell.
I hoped thou shouldst
have been my Hamlets wife.
I thought thy bride bed
to have decked, sweet maid.
And not have strewed
thy grave.
Oh, treble woe, fall ten times treble
on that cursed head...
whose wicked deed thy most ingenious
sense deprived thee of.
Hold off the earth a while till I have
caught her once more in my arms.
Now pile your dust
on the quick and dead...
till of this flat
a mountain you have made!
What is he whose grief
bears such an emphasis?
- This is I, Hamlet the Dane!
- The devil take thy soul!
Thou prayest not well. I prithee take thy
fingers from my throat! Hold off thy hands.
Pluck them asunder.
Why, I will fight with him upon this
theme until my eyelids will no longer wag!
O my son,
what theme?
I loved Ophelia.
their quantity of love, make up my sum!
- What wilt thou do for her?
- He is mad, Laertes!
Swounds, show me
what thoullt do.
Would weep, would fight, would fast,
would tear thyself, would drink up poison?
Eat a crocodile?
Ill do it!
Dost thou come here to whine, to outface
me with leaping in her grave?
Be buried quick with her
and so will I!
Or if thou prate of mountains, let them
throw millions of acres on us!
Nay, an thoult mouth,
Illl rant as well as thou.
This is mere madness. And thus
a while the fit will work in him.
Anon as patient as the female dove,
his silence will sit drooping.
Hear you, sir. What is the
reason that you use me thus?
I loved you ever.
But it is no matter.
Let Hercules himself
do what he may,
the cat will mew
and dog will have his day.
I pray you,
good Horatio, wait upon him.
Good Gertrude, set some watch
oer your son.
Laertes, I must commune
with your grief.
Or you deny me right.
And you must put me
in your heart for friend.
Where the offense is,
let the great axe fall.
It shall be so.
But tell me why you have
proceeded not against him.
Oh, for two special reasons,
which may to you seem
much unsinewed.
Yet to me, theyre strong.
The queen, his mother,
lives almost by his looks.
For myself- my virtue
or my plague, be it either way-
shes so conjunctive
to my life and soul,
that as the star moves not
but in his sphere,
I could not but by her.
The other motive is the great love
the general people bear him,
who, dipping all his faults
in their affections,
convert his sins to graces.
And so have I
a noble father lost.
A sister driven
to a desperate end.
Whose worth, if praises
may go back again,
stood challenger on mount
of all the age for her perfections.
But my revenge will come.
Break not
your sleeps for that.
You must not think that we
are made of stuff so flat and dull...
that we can let our beard be shook
with danger and think it pastime.
As he be now returned, Ill work him
to an exploit now ripe in my device,
under the which he shall
not choose but fall.
And for his death no wind
of blame shall breathe,
and even his mother shall uncharge
the practice and call it accident.
My lord, I will be ruled more willingly if you
devise it so that I might be the instrument.
It falls right.
You have been talked of
since your travel much,
and that in Hamlets hearing, for
a quality wherein they say you shine.
Two months since, here was
a gentleman of Normandy.
He made confession of you,
and gave you such a masterly report...
for art and exercise in your defense,
and for your rapier most especially,
that he cried out twould be a sight
indeed if one could match you.
Sir, this report of his did Hamlet
so envenom with his envy...
that he could nothing do but beg and wish
your sudden coming oer to fence with him.
Now, out of this-
What out of this,
my lord?
Laertes, was your father
dear to you?
Or are you like the painting of
a sorrow: a face without a heart?
Why ask you this?
That we would do we should do
when we would.
For this wwould changes
and hath abatements and delays,
as many as there are words,
are thoughts, are accidents.
And then this sshould
is like a spendthrift sigh.
But to the quick
of the ulcer.
Well put on those shall
praise your excellence,
bring you in short together
and wager on your heads.
Hamlet, being guileless,
will not peruse the sword,
so that with ease
or with a little shuffling,
you may choose a sword unbated,
and in a pass of practice
requite him for your father.
I will do it.
And for that purpose
Ill anoint my sword.
I bought an unction
of a mountebank,
so mortal that but dip a knife
in it where it draws blood,
no medicine so rare can save
the thing from death...
that is
but scratched withal.
If this should fail,
soft, let me see.
Well make a solemn wager
on your cunning.
I have it.
When in the action you are hot
and dry, and that he calls for drink,
Ill have prepared him
a chalice for the nonce,
whereon but sipping if he
by chance escape your venomed point,
our purpose may hold there.
Horatio, thou art
een as just a man...
as eer my conversation
coped withal.
- Oh, my dear lord.
- Nay. Do not think I flatter.
For thou hast been as one, in suffering
all, that suffers nothing.
A man that fortunes buffets and rewards
has taken with equal thanks...
and blessed are those whose blood
and judgment are so well commingled...
that they are not a pipe for fortunes
finger to sound what stop she please.
Give me that man
that is not passions slave,
and I will wear him
in my hearts core.
Aye, in my heart of hearts.
As I do thee.
Something too much of this.
But I am very sorry, good Horatio,
that to Laertes I forgot myself,
for by the image of my cause
I see the portraiture of his.
Ill court his favors.
But sure the bravery of his grief
did put me into a towering passion.
Peace, who comes here?
Your lordship is right welcome
back to Denmark.
- I humbly thank you, sir. Dost know this water fly?
- No, my good lord.
- Thy state is the more gracious.
- Sweet lord!
If your lordship were at leisure, I should
impart a thing to you from His Majesty.
We shall receive it, sir,
with all diligence of spirit.
Put your bonnet to its right use.
Tis for the head.
- I thank your lordship. It is very hot.
- No, it is very cold.
- The wind is northerly.
- It is indifferent cold, my lord, indeed.
- Yet methinks it is very sultry for my complexion.
- Exceedingly, my lord.
Its very sultry, as ttwere.
I cannot tell how.
But my lord, His Majesty
bade me signify to you...
that he has laid a great wager
on your head.
- Sir, this is the matter.
- I beseech you, remember.
Oh! Nay, good my lord.
For mine ease in good faith.
Sir, here is newly come
to court Laertes.
Who believe me
an excellent gentleman...
from the differences of very soft
society and great showing.
Indeed, to speak feelingly of him,
he is the card or calendar of gentry.
The concernancy, sir? Why do we wrap
the gentleman in our more rarer breath?
- Sir?
- Is it not possible to understand in another tongue?
- Youll do better, sir, really.
- What imports the nomination of this gentleman?
- Of Laertes?
- Of him, sir.
I know you are not ignorant
of what excellence Laertes is.
I mean, sir,
for his weapon.
- What is his weapon?
- Rapier and dagger.
- Thats two of his weapons, but, well.
- The king, sir,
hath wagered with him six Barbary
horses, against the which he has impawned,
six French rapiers and poniards
with their assigns, as girdle hanger.
Three of the carriages,
in faith, are very dear to fancy,
very responsive to the hilts,
most delicate carriages...
and of very liberal design.
- What call you the carriages?
- The carriages, sir, are the...
hangers.
The praise would be more germane to the
matter if we could carry a cannon by our sides.
I would it might be hangers
till then. But on.
The king, sir, hath laid, sir, that in
a dozen passes between yourself and him,
he shall not exceed you
three hits.
He hath laid on twelve for nine,
and it would come to immediate trial...
if your lordship would
vouchsafe the answer.
- How if I answer no?
- I mean, my lord, the opposition of your person in trial.
Sir, I will walk here
in the hall.
If it please His Majesty, it is
the breathing time of day with me.
Let the swords be brought,
the gentleman willing...
and the king hold his purpose,
I will win for him if I can.
If not, I shall gain nothing
but my shame and the odd hits.
Shall I redeliver you
even so?
To this effect, sir, after
what flourish your nature will.
I commend my duty
to your lordship.
Yours. Yours.
You will lose this wager,
my lord.
I do not think so.
Since he went into France I have
been in continual practice.
I shall win at the odds.
But thou wouldst not think
how ill allss here about my heart.
- But it is no matter.
- Nay, good my lord.
It is but foolery. But it is
just such a kind of misgiving...
as would perhaps
trouble a woman.
If your mind dislike anything,
obey it.
- Ill forestall their coming hither, and say you are not fit.
- Not a whit!
We defy augury.
There is special providence
in the fall of a sparrow.
If it be now,
tis not to come.
If it be not to come,
it will be now.
If it be not now,
yet it will come.
The readiness is all.
Theres a divinity
that shapes our ends,
rough hew them
how we will.
Let be.
Come, Hamlet, come.
And take this hand from me.
Give me your pardon, sir.
Ive done you wrong.
But pardon it,
as you are a gentleman.
This presence knows,
and you must needs have heard,
how I am punished
with a sore distraction.
What I have done, that might your
nature, honor and exception roughly awake,
I here proclaim was madness.
Wast Hamlet wronged, Laertes?
Never Hamlet. If Hamlet
from himself be taken away...
and when hes not himself
does wrong Laertes,
then Hamlet does it not,
Hamlet denies it.
Who does it then?
His madness?
If it be so, Hamlet is
of the faction that is wronged.
His madness
is poor Hamlets enemy.
Sir, in this audience let my disclaiming
from a purposed evil...
free me so far in your
most generous thoughts...
that I have shot my arrow
oer the house...
and hurt my brother.
- Give us the foils. Come on.
- Ill be your foil, Laertes.
In my ignorance your skills shall,
like a star in the darkest night,
- shine fiery indeed.
- You mock me, sir.
- No, by this hand.
- Give them the foils, young Osric.
- Cousin Hamlet, you know the wager?
- Very well, my lord.
- Your Grace has laid the odds on the weaker side.
- I do not fear it.
I have seen you both. But since he
is bettered, we have therefore odds.
This is too heavy.
Let me see another.
This likes me well.
These swords have all a length.
Aye, my good lord.
Set me the stoups of wine
upon that table.
If Hamlet give the first
or second hit,
let all the battlements
their ordnance fire.
The king shall drink
to Hamlets better breath,
and in the cup a jewel
shall he throw,
richer than that
which four successive kings...
in Denmarks crown
have worn.
Give me the cup.
And let the kettle
to the trumpet speak,
the trumpet to the cannoneer
without,
the cannons to the heavens,
the heavens to earth.
Now the king drinks
to Hamlet!
Now the king
drinks to Hamlet!
Come, begin.
And you the judges, bear a wary eye.
- Come on, sir.
- Come, my lord.
- One! Judgment.
- No!
A hit.
A very palpable hit.
Well, again.
Stay.
Give me drink.
Hamlet,
this pearl is thine.
Heres to thy health.
Give him the cup.
Ill play this bout first.
Set it by a while.
Come.
Another hit, what say you?
A touch, a touch.
I do confess.
Our son shall win.
Hes hot and scant
of breath.
Here, Hamlet, take my napkin.
Rub thy brows.
Good Gertrude,
do not drink!
I will, my lord.
I pray you pardon me.
The queen carouses
to thy fortune, Hamlet.
Good, madam.
- Its too late.
- My lord, Illl hit him now.
I do not think it.
It is almost gainst
my conscience.
Let me wipe thy face.
Come, for the third, Laertes.
You do but dally!
I pray you, pass with your best violence.
I am afeared you make a wanton of me.
Say you so?
Come on.
Nothing.
Neither way.
Have at you now!
Part them.
They are incensed!
- Stay!
- Nay, come again!
- How is it, Laertes?
- Im justly killed,
with mine own treachery.
- How is it, my lord?
- How does the queen?
- She swoons to see them bleed.
-No.
No. The drink.
The drink.
O my dear Hamlet.
Oh, villainy.
Oh, let the door
be locked!
Treachery!
Seek it out!
It is here, Hamlet.
Hamlet, thou art slain.
In thee there is not
half an hour of life.
The treacherous instrument
is in thy hand,
unbated and envenomed.
The foul practice
hath turned itself on me.
Lo, here I lie,
never to rise again.
Thy mothers poisoned.
I can no more.
The king.
The kings to blame.
The point envenomed too.
Then, venom, to thy end!
Exchange forgiveness
with me, noble Hamlet.
Mine and my fathers death
come not upon thee.
Nor thine on me.
Heaven make thee free of it.
I follow thee.
I am dead, Horatio.
Wretched queen.
Adieu.
You that look pale and tremble
at this chance,
that are but mutes
or audience to this act,
had I but time-
As this fell sergeant, Death,
is strict in his arrest-
Oh, I could tell you.
But let it be.
I die, Horatio.
The potent poison
quite oer grows my spirit.
If thou didst ever hold me
in thy heart,
absent thee from felicity
a while.
And in this harsh world,
draw thy breath in pain,
to tell my story.
The rest...
is silence.
Let four captains bear Hamlet
like a soldier to the stage.
For he was likely,
had he been put on,
to have proved most royal.
And for his passage,
the soldiers music
and the rites of war...
speak loudly for him.
Go.
Bid the soldiers shoot.
Good night, sweet prince.
And flights of angels
sing thee to thy rest.