Thou find'st, to be too busy, is some danger.-
Leave wringing of your hands: Peace; fit you down,
And let me wring your heart: for fo I shall,
If it be made of penetrable stuff;
If damned custom have not braz'dit so,
That it be proof and bulwark against sense.
Queen. What have I done, that thou dar'st wag thy tongue In noife so rude against me ?
That blurs the grace and blush of modesty;
Calls virtue, hypocrite; takes off the rofe
From the fair forehead of an innocent love,
And fets a blister there; makes marriage vows
As false as dicers' oaths: O, fuch a deed,
As from the body of contraction plucks
The very foul; and sweet religion makes
A rhapsody of words: Heaven's face doth glow;
Yea, this folidity and compound mass,
With tristful visage, as against the doom;
Is thought-fick at the act.
Queen. Ah me, what act,
That roars so loud, and thunders in the index ?
Ham. Look here, upon this picture, and on this;
The counterpart presentment of two brothers.
See what a grace was feated 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 feem to fet his feal,
To give the world assurance of a man:
This was your husband.-Look you now, what follows:
Here is your husband; like a mildew'd ear,
Blafting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes?
Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,
And batten on this moor? Ha! have you eyes?
You cannot call it love: for, at your age,
The hey-day in the blood is tame, it's humble,
And waits upon the judgment: And what judgment
Would step from this to this? Sense, sure, you have,
Else, could you not have motion: But fure, that sense
Is apoplex'd: for madness would not err;
Nor sense to ecstasy was ne'er fo thrall'd,
But it referv'd fome quantity of choice,
To ferve in fuch a difference. What devil was't,
That thus hath cozen'd you at hoodman-blind?
Eyes without feeling, feeling without fight,
Ears without hands or eyes, smelling fans all,
Or but a fickly part of one true sense
O shame! where is thy blush? Rebellious hell,
If thou can'st 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 reafon panders will.
Queen. O Hamlet, speak no more:
Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very foul;
And there I fee such black and grained spots,
As will not leave their tinct.
In the rank sweat of an enfeamed bed;
Stew'd in corruption; honeying, and making love
Queen. O, fpeak to me no more;
These words like daggers enter in mine ears;
Ham. A murderer, and a villain':
A flave, that is not twentieth part the tythe
Of your precedent lord:-a vice of kings:
A cutpurse of the empire and the rule;
That from a fhelf the precious diadem stole,
And put it in his pocket !
Queen. No more.
Of shreds and patches :
Save me, and hover o'er me with your wings,
You heavenly guards!-What would your gracious figure? Queen. Alas, he's mad.
Ham. Do you not come your tardy fon to chide,
That, laps'd in time and passion, lets go by
The important acting of your dread command?
O, say!
Ghoft. Do not forget: This visitation
Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.
But, look! amazement on thy mother fits:
O, step between her and her fighting foul;
Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works;
Speak to her, Hamlet.
Ham. How is it with you, lady?
Queen. Alas, how is't with you?
That you do bend your eye on vacancy,
And with the incorporal air do hold discourse?
Forth at your eyes your spirits widely peep;
And, as the fleeping soldiers in the alarm,
Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,
Starts up, and stands on end. O gentle fon!
Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper
Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look?
Ham. On him! on him!-Look you, how pale he glares !
His form and cause conjoin'd, preaching to stones,
Would make them capable. --Do not look upon me;
Lest, with this piteous action, you convert
My stern effects: then what I have to do
Will want true colour; tears, perchance, for blood:
Queen. To whom do you speak this?
Ham. Do you fee nothing there?
Queen. Nothing at all; yet all that is, I fee.
Ham. Nor did you nothing hear?
Queen. No, nothing, but ourselves.
Ham. Why, look you there! look, how it steals away!
My father, in his habit as he liv'd!
Look, where he goes, even now, out at the portal!
Queen. This is the very coinage of your brain :
This bodiless creation ecstasy
Is very cunning in.
My pulse, as your's, doth temperately keep time,
And makes as healthful musick: It is not madness,
That I have utter'd: bring me to the test,
And I the matter will reword; which madness
Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,
Lay not that flattering unction to your foul,
That not your trespass, but my madness, speaks:
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place;
Whiles rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven;
Repent what's past; avoid what is to come;
And do not spread the compoft 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.
Queen. O Hamlet! thou hast cleft my heart in twain.
Ham. O, throw away the worser part of it,
And live the purer with the other half.
Good night: but go not to my uncle's bed;
Assume a virtue if you have it not.
That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat
Of habit's 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 ufe almost can change the stamp of nature,
And either curb the devil, or throw him out
With wondrous potency. Once more, good night!
And when you are defirous to be bless'd,
I'll blessing beg of you. For this fame lord,
I do repent; but heaven hath pleas'd it fo
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.-
But one word more, good lady.
Ham. 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 kiffes,
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,
|