William Shakespeare - William Shakespeare - Complete Works

But never the offence. To bear all smooth and even,

This sudden sending him away must seem

Deliberate pause. Diseases desperate grown

By desperate appliance are reliev’d,

Or not at all.

Enter ROSENCRANTZ.

How now? What hath befall’n?

ROSENCRANTZ.

Where the dead body is bestow’d, my lord,

We cannot get from him.

KING.

But where is he?

ROSENCRANTZ.

Without, my lord, guarded, to know your pleasure.

KING.

Bring him before us.

ROSENCRANTZ.

Ho, Guildenstern! Bring in my lord.

Enter HAMLET and GUILDENSTERN.

KING.

Now, Hamlet, where’s Polonius?

HAMLET.

At supper.

KING.

At supper? Where?

HAMLET.

Not where he eats, but where he is eaten. A certain convocation of politic worms are e’en at him. Your worm is your only emperor for diet. We fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots. Your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service,—two dishes, but to one table. That’s the end.

KING.

Alas, alas!

HAMLET.

A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.

KING.

What dost thou mean by this?

HAMLET.

Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar.

KING.

Where is Polonius?

HAMLET.

In heaven. Send thither to see. If your messenger find him not there, seek him i’ th’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.

KING.

[ To some Attendants. ] Go seek him there.

HAMLET.

He will stay till you come.

[ Exeunt ATTENDANTS. ]

KING.

Hamlet, this deed, for thine especial safety,—

Which we do tender, as we dearly grieve

For that which thou hast done,—must send thee hence

With fiery quickness. Therefore prepare thyself;

The bark is ready, and the wind at help,

Th’associates tend, and everything is bent

For England.

HAMLET.

For England?

KING.

Ay, Hamlet.

HAMLET.

Good.

KING.

So is it, if thou knew’st our purposes.

HAMLET.

I see a cherub that sees them. But, come; for England! Farewell, dear mother.

KING.

Thy loving father, Hamlet.

HAMLET.

My mother. Father and mother is man and wife; man and wife is one flesh; and so, my mother. Come, for England.

[ Exit. ]

KING.

Follow him at foot. Tempt him with speed aboard;

Delay it not; I’ll have him hence tonight.

Away, for everything is seal’d and done

That else leans on th’affair. Pray you make haste.

[ Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. ]

And England, if my love thou hold’st at aught,—

As my great power thereof may give thee sense,

Since yet thy cicatrice looks raw and red

After the Danish sword, and thy free awe

Pays homage to us,—thou mayst not coldly set

Our sovereign process, which imports at full,

By letters conjuring to that effect,

The present death of Hamlet. Do it, England;

For like the hectic in my blood he rages,

And thou must cure me. Till I know ’tis done,

Howe’er my haps, my joys were ne’er begun.

[ Exit. ]

Enter FORTINBRAS and FORCES marching.

FORTINBRAS.

Go, Captain, from me greet the Danish king.

Tell him that by his license, Fortinbras

Craves the conveyance of a promis’d march

Over his kingdom. You know the rendezvous.

If that his Majesty would aught with us,

We shall express our duty in his eye;

And let him know so.

CAPTAIN.

I will do’t, my lord.

FORTINBRAS.

Go softly on.

[ Exeunt all but the CAPTAIN. ]

ENTER HAMLET, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN &C.

HAMLET.

Good sir, whose powers are these?

CAPTAIN.

They are of Norway, sir.

HAMLET.

How purpos’d, sir, I pray you?

CAPTAIN.

Against some part of Poland.

HAMLET.

Who commands them, sir?

CAPTAIN.

The nephew to old Norway, Fortinbras.

HAMLET.

Goes it against the main of Poland, sir,

Or for some frontier?

CAPTAIN.

Truly to speak, and with no addition,

We go to gain a little patch of ground

That hath in it no profit but the name.

To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it;

Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole

A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee.

HAMLET.

Why, then the Polack never will defend it.

CAPTAIN.

Yes, it is already garrison’d.

HAMLET.

Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats

Will not debate the question of this straw!

This is th’imposthume of much wealth and peace,

That inward breaks, and shows no cause without

Why the man dies. I humbly thank you, sir.

CAPTAIN.

God b’ wi’ you, sir.

[ Exit. ]

ROSENCRANTZ.

Will’t please you go, my lord?

HAMLET.

I’ll be with you straight. Go a little before.

[ Exeunt all but HAMLET. ]

How all occasions do inform against me,

And spur my dull revenge. What is a man

If his chief good and market of his time

Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more.

Sure he that made us with such large discourse,

Looking before and after, gave us not

That capability and godlike reason

To fust in us unus’d. Now whether it be

Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple

Of thinking too precisely on th’event,—

A thought which, quarter’d, hath but one part wisdom

And ever three parts coward,—I do not know

Why yet I live to say this thing’s to do,

Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means

To do’t. Examples gross as earth exhort me,

Witness this army of such mass and charge,

Led by a delicate and tender prince,

Whose spirit, with divine ambition puff’d,

Makes mouths at the invisible event,

Exposing what is mortal and unsure

To all that fortune, death, and danger dare,

Even for an eggshell. Rightly to be great

Is not to stir without great argument,

But greatly to find quarrel in a straw

When honour’s at the stake. How stand I then,

That have a father kill’d, a mother stain’d,

Excitements of my reason and my blood,

And let all sleep, while to my shame I see

The imminent death of twenty thousand men

That, for a fantasy and trick of fame,

Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot

Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,

Which is not tomb enough and continent

To hide the slain? O, from this time forth,

My thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth.

[ Exit. ]

ENTER QUEEN, HORATIO AND A GENTLEMAN.

QUEEN.

I will not speak with her.

GENTLEMAN.

She is importunate, indeed distract.

Her mood will needs be pitied.

QUEEN.

What would she have?

GENTLEMAN.

She speaks much of her father; says she hears

There’s tricks i’ th’ world, and hems, and beats her heart,

Spurns enviously at straws, speaks things in doubt,

That carry but half sense. Her speech is nothing,

Yet the unshaped use of it doth move

The hearers to collection; they aim at it,

And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts,

Which, as her winks, and nods, and gestures yield them,

Indeed would make one think there might be thought,