Hamlet, William Shakespeare [reading women TXT] 📗

I must leave thee, love, and shortly too;
My operant powers their functions leave to do:
And thou shalt live in this fair world behind,
Honour’d, beloved; and haply one as kind
For husband shalt thou⁠— Player Queen

O, confound the rest!
Such love must needs be treason in my breast:
In second husband let me be accurst!
None wed the second but who kill’d the first.

Hamlet Aside. Wormwood, wormwood. Player Queen

The instances that second marriage move
Are base respects of thrift, but none of love:
A second time I kill my husband dead,
When second husband kisses me in bed.

Player King

I do believe you think what now you speak;
But what we do determine oft we break.
Purpose is but the slave to memory,
Of violent birth, but poor validity:
Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree;
But fall, unshaken, when they mellow be.
Most necessary ’tis that we forget
To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt:
What to ourselves in passion we propose,
The passion ending, doth the purpose lose.
The violence of either grief or joy
Their own enactures with themselves destroy:
Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament;
Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident.
This world is not for aye, nor ’tis not strange
That even our loves should with our fortunes change;
For ’tis a question left us yet to prove,
Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love.
The great man down, you mark his favourite flies;
The poor advanced makes friends of enemies.
And hitherto doth love on fortune tend;
For who not needs shall never lack a friend,
And who in want a hollow friend doth try,
Directly seasons him his enemy.
But, orderly to end where I begun,
Our wills and fates do so contrary run
That our devices still are overthrown;
Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own:
So think thou wilt no second husband wed;
But die thy thoughts when thy first lord is dead.

Player Queen

Nor earth to me give food, nor heaven light!
Sport and repose lock from me day and night!
To desperation turn my trust and hope!
An anchor’s cheer in prison be my scope!
Each opposite that blanks the face of joy
Meet what I would have well and it destroy!
Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife,
If, once a widow, ever I be wife!

Hamlet If she should break it now! Player King

’Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here awhile;
My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile
The tedious day with sleep. Sleeps.

Player Queen

Sleep rock thy brain;
And never come mischance between us twain! Exit.

Hamlet Madam, how like you this play? Queen The lady doth protest too much, methinks. Hamlet O, but she’ll keep her word. King Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in’t? Hamlet No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest; no offence i’ the world. King What do you call the play? Hamlet The Mouse-trap. Marry, how? Tropically. This play is the image of a murder done in Vienna: Gonzago is the duke’s name; his wife, Baptista: you shall see anon; ’tis a knavish piece of work: but what o’ that? your majesty and we that have free souls, it touches us not: let the galled jade wince, our withers are unwrung. Enter Lucianus. This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king. Ophelia You are as good as a chorus, my lord. Hamlet I could interpret between you and your love, if I could see the puppets dallying. Ophelia You are keen, my lord, you are keen. Hamlet It would cost you a groaning to take off my edge. Ophelia Still better, and worse. Hamlet So you must take your husbands. Begin, murderer; pox, leave thy damnable faces, and begin. Come: “the croaking raven doth bellow for revenge.” Lucianus

Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing;
Confederate season, else no creature seeing;
Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected,
With Hecate’s ban thrice blasted, thrice infected,
Thy natural magic and dire property,
On wholesome life usurp immediately. Pours the poison into the sleeper’s ears.

Hamlet He poisons him i’ the garden for’s estate. His name’s Gonzago: the story is extant, and writ in choice Italian: you shall see anon how the murderer gets the love of Gonzago’s wife. Ophelia The king rises. Hamlet What, frighted with false fire! Queen How fares my lord? Polonius Give o’er the play. King Give me some light: away! All Lights, lights, lights! Exeunt all but Hamlet and Horatio. Hamlet

Why, let the stricken deer go weep,
The hart ungalled play;
For some must watch, while some must sleep:
So runs the world away.

Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers⁠—if the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me⁠—with two Provincial roses on my razed shoes, get me a fellowship in a cry of players, sir?

Horatio Half a share. Hamlet

A whole one, I.

For thou dost know, O Damon dear,
This realm dismantled was
Of Jove himself; and now reigns here
A very, very⁠—pajock.

Horatio You might have rhymed. Hamlet O good Horatio, I’ll take the ghost’s word for a thousand pound. Didst perceive? Horatio Very well, my lord. Hamlet Upon the talk of the poisoning? Horatio I did very well note him. Hamlet

Ah, ha! Come, some music! come, the recorders!
For if the king like not the comedy,
Why then, belike, he likes it not, perdy.
Come, some music!

Re-enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Guildenstern Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you. Hamlet Sir, a whole history. Guildenstern The king, sir⁠— Hamlet Ay, sir, what of him? Guildenstern Is in his retirement marvellous distempered. Hamlet With drink, sir? Guildenstern No, my lord, rather with choler. Hamlet Your wisdom should show itself more richer to signify this to his doctor; for, for me to put him to his purgation would perhaps plunge him into far more choler. Guildenstern Good my lord, put your discourse into some frame and start not so wildly from my affair. Hamlet I am tame, sir: pronounce. Guildenstern The queen, your mother, in most great affliction of spirit, hath sent me to you. Hamlet You are welcome. Guildenstern Nay, good 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 mother’s commandment: if not, your pardon and my return shall be the end of