Which now goes too free-footed.

ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN

We will haste us.

Exeunt both

Enter Polonius

POLONIUS

My lord, he’s going to his mother’s closet.

Behind the arras I’ll convey myself

To hear the process. I’ll warrant she’ll 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 o’erhear

The speech of vantage. Fare you well, my liege.

I’ll call upon you ere you go to bed,

And tell you what I know.

KING CLAUDIUS

Thanks, dear my lord.

Exit Polonius

O, my offence is rank! It smells to heaven.

It hath the primal eldest curse upon‘t,

A brother’s murder. Pray can I not.

Though inclination be as sharp as will,

My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent,

And like a man to double business bound

I stand in pause where I shall first begin,

And both neglect. What if this cursed hand

Were thicker than itself with brother’s blood,

Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens

To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy

But to confront the visage of offence?

And what’s in prayer but this twofold force,

To be forestalled ere we come to fall,

Or pardoned being down? Then I’ll look up.

My fault is past-but O, 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.

May one be pardoned and retain th’offence?

In the corrupted currents of this world

Offence’s gilded hand may shove by justice,

And oft ‘tis seen the wicked prize itself

Buys out the law. But ’tis not so above.

There is no shuffling, there the action lies

In his true nature, and we ourselves compelled

Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults

To give in evidence. What then? What rests?

Try what repentance can. What can it not?

Yet what can it when one cannot repent?

O wretched state, O bosom black as death,

O limed soul that, struggling to be free,

Art more engaged! Help, angels! Make assay.

Bow, stubborn knees; and heart with strings of steel,

Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe.

All may be well.

He kneels.

Enter Prince Hamlet behind him

HAMLET

Now might I do it pat, now a is praying,

And now I’ll do‘t,

⌈He draws his sword⌉

and so a goes to heaven,

And so am I revenged. That would be scanned.

A villain kills my father, and for that

I, his sole son, do this same villain send

To heaven.

O, this is hire and salary, not revenge!

A took my father grossly, full of bread,

With all his crimes broad 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.

He sheathes his sword

Up, sword, and know thou a more horrid hint.

When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage,

Or in th‘incestuous pleasure of his bed,

At gaming, swearing, or about some act

That has no relish of salvation in’t,

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.

Exit

KING CLAUDIUS

My words fly up, my thoughts remain below.

Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

Exit

3.4 Enter Queen Gertrude and Polonius

POLONIUS

A 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 screened and stood between

Much heat and him. I’ll silence me e’en here.

Pray you be round with him.

HAMLET (within) Mother, mother, mother!

QUEEN GERTRUDE

I’ll warr’nt you. Fear me not. Withdraw; I hear him

coming.

Polonius hides behind the arras.

Enter Prince Hamlet

HAMLET Now, mother, what’s the matter?

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended,.

HAMLET

Mother, you have my father much offended.

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?

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Have you forgot me?

HAMLET

No, by the rood, not so.

You are the Queen, your husband’s brother’s wife. But—would you were not so—you are my mother.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

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

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.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murder me?