Act II
Scene I
A room in Polonius’ house.
Enter Polonius and Reynaldo. | |
Polonius | Give him this money and these notes, Reynaldo. |
Reynaldo | I will, my lord. |
Polonius |
You shall do marvellous wisely, good Reynaldo,
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Reynaldo | My lord, I did intend it. |
Polonius |
Marry, well said; very well said. Look you, sir,
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Reynaldo | Ay, very well, my lord. |
Polonius |
“And in part him; but” you may say “not well:
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Reynaldo | As gaming, my lord. |
Polonius |
Ay, or drinking, fencing, swearing, quarrelling,
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Reynaldo | My lord, that would dishonour him. |
Polonius |
’Faith, no; as you may season it in the charge.
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Reynaldo | But, my good lord— |
Polonius | Wherefore should you do this? |
Reynaldo |
Ay, my lord,
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Polonius |
Marry, sir, here’s my drift;
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Reynaldo | Very good, my lord. |
Polonius | And then, sir, does he this—he does—what was I about to say? By the mass, I was about to say something: where did I leave? |
Reynaldo | At “closes in the consequence,” at “friend or so,” and “gentleman.” |
Polonius |
At “closes in the consequence,” ay, marry;
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Reynaldo | My lord, I have. |
Polonius | God be wi’ you; fare you well. |
Reynaldo | Good my lord! |
Polonius | Observe his inclination in yourself. |
Reynaldo | I shall, my lord. |
Polonius | And let him ply his music. |
Reynaldo | Well, my lord. |
Polonius | Farewell! Exit Reynaldo. |
Enter Ophelia. | |
How now, Ophelia! what’s the matter? | |
Ophelia | O, my lord, my lord, I have been so affrighted! |
Polonius | With what, i’ the name of God? |
Ophelia |
My lord, as I was sewing in my closet,
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Polonius | Mad for thy love? |
Ophelia |
My lord, I do not know;
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Polonius | What said he? |
Ophelia |
He took me by the wrist and held me hard;
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Polonius |
Come, go with me: I will go seek the king.
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Ophelia |
No, my good lord, but, as you did command,
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Polonius |
That hath made him mad.
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Scene II
A room in the castle.
Enter King, Queen, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and Attendants. | |
King |
Welcome, dear Rosencrantz and Guildenstern!
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Queen |
Good gentlemen, he hath much talk’d of you;
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Rosencrantz |
Both your majesties
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Guildenstern |
But we both obey,
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King | Thanks, Rosencrantz and gentle Guildenstern. |
Queen |
Thanks, Guildenstern and gentle Rosencrantz:
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Guildenstern |
Heavens make our presence and our practices
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Queen | Ay, amen! Exeunt Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and some Attendants. |
Enter Polonius. | |
Polonius |
The ambassadors from Norway, my good lord,
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King | Thou still hast been the father of good news. |
Polonius |
Have I, my lord? I assure my good liege,
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King | O, speak of that; that do I long to hear. |
Polonius |
Give first admittance to the ambassadors;
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King |
Thyself do grace to them, and bring them in. Exit Polonius.
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Queen |
I doubt it is no other but the main;
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King | Well, we shall sift him. |
Reenter Polonius, with Voltimand and Cornelius. | |
Welcome, my good friends!
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Voltimand |
Most fair return of greetings and desires.
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King |
It likes us well;
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Polonius |
This business is well ended.
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Queen | More matter, with less art. |
Polonius |
Madam, I swear I use no art at all.
That’s an ill phrase, a vile phrase; “beautified” is a vile phrase: but you shall hear. Thus: Reads.
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Queen | Came this from Hamlet to her? |
Polonius |
Good madam, stay awhile; I will be faithful. Reads.
This, in obedience, hath my daughter shown me,
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King |
But how hath she
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Polonius | What do you think of me? |
King | As of a man faithful and honourable. |
Polonius |
I would fain prove so. But what might you think,
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King | Do you think ’tis this? |
Queen | It may be, very likely. |
Polonius |
Hath there been such a time—I’d fain know that—
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King | Not that I know. |
Polonius |
Pointing to his head and shoulder. Take this from this, if this be otherwise:
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King | How may we try it further? |
Polonius |
You know, sometimes he walks four hours together
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Queen | So he does indeed. |
Polonius |
At such a time I’ll loose my daughter to him:
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King | We will try it. |
Queen | But, look, where sadly the poor wretch comes reading. |
Polonius |
Away, I do beseech you, both away:
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Enter Hamlet, reading. | |
O, give me leave:
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Hamlet | Well, God-a-mercy. |
Polonius | Do you know me, my lord? |
Hamlet | Excellent well; you are a fishmonger. |
Polonius | Not I, my lord. |
Hamlet | Then I would you were so honest a man. |
Polonius | Honest, my lord! |
Hamlet | Ay, sir; to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand. |
Polonius | That’s very true, my lord. |
Hamlet | For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a god kissing carrion—Have you a daughter? |
Polonius | I have, my lord. |
Hamlet | Let her not walk i’ the sun: conception is a blessing: but not as your daughter may conceive. Friend, look to’t. |
Polonius | Aside. How say you by that? Still harping on my daughter: yet he knew me not at first; he said I was a fishmonger: he is far gone, far gone: and truly in my youth I suffered much extremity for love; very near this. I’ll speak to him again. What do you read, my lord? |
Hamlet | Words, words, words. |
Polonius | What is the matter, my lord? |
Hamlet | Between who? |
Polonius | I mean, the matter that you read, my lord. |
Hamlet | Slanders, sir: for the satirical rogue says here that old men have grey beards, that their faces are wrinkled, their eyes purging thick amber and plum-tree gum and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams: all which, sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down, for yourself, sir, should be old as I am, if like a crab you could go backward. |
Polonius | Aside. Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t. Will you walk out of the air, my lord? |
Hamlet | Into my grave. |
Polonius | Indeed, that is out o’ the air. Aside. How pregnant sometimes his replies are! a happiness that often madness hits on, which reason and sanity could not so prosperously be delivered of. I will leave him, and suddenly contrive the means of meeting between him and my daughter.—My honourable lord, I will most humbly take my leave of you. |
Hamlet | You cannot, sir, take from me any thing that I will more willingly part withal: except my life, except my life, except my life. |
Polonius | Fare you well, my lord. |
Hamlet | These tedious old fools! |
Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. | |
Polonius | You go to seek the Lord Hamlet; there he is. |
Rosencrantz | To Polonius. God save you, sir! Exit Polonius. |
Guildenstern | My honoured lord! |
Rosencrantz | My most dear lord! |
Hamlet | My excellent good friends! How dost thou, Guildenstern? Ah, Rosencrantz! Good lads, how do ye both? |
Rosencrantz | As the indifferent children of the earth. |
Guildenstern |
Happy, in that we are not over-happy;
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Hamlet | Nor the soles of her shoe? |
Rosencrantz | Neither, my lord. |
Hamlet | Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of her favours? |
Guildenstern | ’Faith, her privates we. |
Hamlet | In the secret parts of fortune? O, most true; she is a strumpet. What’s the news? |
Rosencrantz | None, my lord, but that the world’s grown honest. |
Hamlet | Then is doomsday near: but your news is not true. Let me question more in particular: what have you, my good friends, deserved at the hands of fortune, that she sends you to prison hither? |
Guildenstern | Prison, my lord! |
Hamlet | Denmark’s a prison. |
Rosencrantz | Then is the world one. |
Hamlet | A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards and dungeons, Denmark being one o’ the worst. |
Rosencrantz | We think not so, my lord. |
Hamlet | Why, then, ’tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so: to me it is a prison. |
Rosencrantz | Why then, your ambition makes it one; ’tis too narrow for your mind. |
Hamlet | O God, I could be bounded in a nut-shell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams. |
Guildenstern | Which dreams indeed are ambition, for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream. |
Hamlet | A dream itself is but a shadow. |
Rosencrantz | Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality that it is but a shadow’s shadow. |
Hamlet | Then are our beggars bodies, and our monarchs and outstretched heroes the beggars’ shadows. Shall we to the court? for, by my fay, I cannot reason. |
Rosencrantz Guildenstern |
We’ll wait upon you. |
Hamlet | No such matter: I will not sort you with the rest of my servants, for, to speak to you like an honest man, I am most dreadfully attended. But, in the beaten way of friendship, what make you at Elsinore? |
Rosencrantz | To visit you, my lord; no other occasion. |
Hamlet | Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks; but I thank you: and sure, dear friends, my thanks are too dear a halfpenny. Were you not sent for? Is it your own inclining? Is it a free visitation? Come, deal justly with me: come, come; nay, speak. |
Guildenstern | What should we say, my lord? |
Hamlet | Why, any thing, but to the purpose. You were sent for; and there is a kind of confession in your looks which your modesties have not craft enough to colour: I know the good king and queen have sent for you. |
Rosencrantz | To what end, my lord? |
Hamlet | That you must teach me. But let me conjure you, by the rights of our fellowship, by the consonancy of our youth, by the obligation of our ever-preserved love, and by what more dear a better proposer could charge you withal, be even and direct with me, whether you were sent for, or no? |
Rosencrantz | Aside to Guildenstern. What say you? |
Hamlet | Aside. Nay, then, I have an eye of you.—If you love me, hold not off. |
Guildenstern | My lord, we were sent for. |
Hamlet | I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation prevent your discovery, and your secrecy to the king and queen moult no feather. I have of late—but wherefore I know not—lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not me: no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so. |
Rosencrantz | My lord, there was no such stuff in my thoughts. |
Hamlet | Why did you laugh then, when I said “man delights not me”? |
Rosencrantz | To think, my lord, if you delight not in man, what lenten entertainment the players shall receive from you: we coted them on the way; and hither are they coming, to offer you service. |
Hamlet | He that plays the king shall be welcome; his majesty shall have tribute of me; the adventurous knight shall use his foil and target; the lover shall not sigh gratis; the humourous man shall end his part in peace; the clown shall make those laugh whose lungs are tickled o’ the sere; and the lady shall say her mind freely, or the blank verse shall halt for’t. What players are they? |
Rosencrantz | Even those you were wont to take delight in, the tragedians of the city. |
Hamlet | How chances it they travel? their residence, both in reputation and profit, was better both ways. |
Rosencrantz | I think their inhibition comes by the means of the late innovation. |
Hamlet | Do they hold the same estimation they did when I was in the city? are they so followed? |
Rosencrantz | No, indeed, are they not. |
Hamlet | How comes it? do they grow rusty? |
Rosencrantz | Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace: but there is, sir, an aery of children, little eyases, that cry out on the top of question, and are most tyrannically clapped for’t: these are now the fashion, and so berattle the common stages—so they call them—that many wearing rapiers are afraid of goose-quills and dare scarce come thither. |
Hamlet | What, are they children? who maintains ’em? how are they escoted? Will they pursue the quality no longer than they can sing? will they not say afterwards, if they should grow themselves to common players—as it is most like, if their means are no better—their writers do them wrong, to make them exclaim against their own succession? |
Rosencrantz | ’Faith, there has been much to do on both sides; and the nation holds it no sin to tarre them to controversy: there was, for a while, no money bid for argument, unless the poet and the player went to cuffs in the question. |
Hamlet | Is’t possible? |
Guildenstern | O, there has been much throwing about of brains. |
Hamlet | Do the boys carry it away? |
Rosencrantz | Ay, that they do, my lord; Hercules and his load too. |
Hamlet | It is not very strange; for mine uncle is king of Denmark, and those that would make mows at him while my father lived, give twenty, forty, fifty, an hundred ducats a-piece for his picture in little. ’Sblood, there is something in this more than natural, if philosophy could find it out. Flourish of trumpets within. |
Guildenstern | There are the players. |
Hamlet | Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore. Your hands, come then: the appurtenance of welcome is fashion and ceremony: let me comply with you in this garb, lest my extent to the players, which, I tell you, must show fairly outward, should more appear like entertainment than yours. You are welcome: but my uncle-father and aunt-mother are deceived. |
Guildenstern | In what, my dear lord? |
Hamlet | I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw. |
Reenter Polonius. | |
Polonius | Well be with you, gentlemen! |
Hamlet | Hark you, Guildenstern; and you too: at each ear a hearer: that great baby you see there is not yet out of his swaddling-clouts. |
Rosencrantz | Happily he’s the second time come to them; for they say an old man is twice a child. |
Hamlet | I will prophesy he comes to tell me of the players; mark it. You say right, sir: o’ Monday morning; ’twas so indeed. |
Polonius | My lord, I have news to tell you. |
Hamlet | My lord, I have news to tell you. When Roscius was an actor in Rome— |
Polonius | The actors are come hither, my lord. |
Hamlet | Buz, buz! |
Polonius | Upon mine honour— |
Hamlet | Then came each actor on his ass— |
Polonius | The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem unlimited: Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light. For the law of writ and the liberty, these are the only men. |
Hamlet | O Jephthah, judge of Israel, what a treasure hadst thou! |
Polonius | What a treasure had he, my lord? |
Hamlet |
Why,
“One fair daughter and no more,
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Polonius | Aside. Still on my daughter. |
Hamlet | Am I not i’ the right, old Jephthah? |
Polonius | If you call me Jephthah, my lord, I have a daughter that I love passing well. |
Hamlet | Nay, that follows not. |
Polonius | What follows, then, my lord? |
Hamlet |
Why, “As by lot, God wot,” and then, you know, “It came to pass, as most like it was,”— the first row of the pious chanson will show you more; for look, where my abridgement comes. |
Enter four or five Players. | |
You are welcome, masters; welcome, all. I am glad to see thee well. Welcome, good friends. O, my old friend! thy face is valanced since I saw thee last: comest thou to beard me in Denmark? What, my young lady and mistress! By’r lady, your ladyship is nearer to heaven than when I saw you last, by the altitude of a chopine. Pray God, your voice, like apiece of uncurrent gold, be not cracked within the ring. Masters, you are all welcome. We’ll e’en to’t like French falconers, fly at any thing we see: we’ll have a speech straight: come, give us a taste of your quality; come, a passionate speech. | |
First Player | What speech, my lord? |
Hamlet |
I heard thee speak me a speech once, but it was never acted; or, if it was, not above once; for the play, I remember, pleased not the million; ’twas caviare to the general: but it was—as I received it, and others, whose judgments in such matters cried in the top of mine—an excellent play, well digested in the scenes, set down with as much modesty as cunning. I remember, one said there were no sallets in the lines to make the matter savoury, nor no matter in the phrase that might indict the author of affectation; but called it an honest method, as wholesome as sweet, and by very much more handsome than fine. One speech in it I chiefly loved: ’twas Aeneas’ tale to Dido; and thereabout of it especially, where he speaks of Priam’s slaughter: if it live in your memory, begin at this line: let me see, let me see— “The rugged Pyrrhus, like the Hyrcanian beast,” —it is not so:—it begins with Pyrrhus:—
So, proceed you. |
Polonius | ’Fore God, my lord, well spoken, with good accent and good discretion. |
First Player |
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Polonius | This is too long. |
Hamlet | It shall to the barber’s, with your beard. Prithee, say on: he’s for a jig or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps: say on: come to Hecuba. |
First Player | “But who, O, who had seen the mobled queen—” |
Hamlet | “The mobled queen?” |
Polonius | That’s good; “mobled queen” is good. |
First Player |
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Polonius | Look, whether he has not turned his colour and has tears in’s eyes. Pray you, no more. |
Hamlet | ’Tis well; I’ll have thee speak out the rest soon. 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. |
Polonius | My lord, I will use them according to their desert. |
Hamlet | God’s bodykins, man, much better: use every man after his desert, and who should ’scape whipping? Use them after your own honour and dignity: the less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty. Take them in. |
Polonius | Come, sirs. |
Hamlet | Follow him, friends: we’ll hear a play to-morrow. Exit Polonius with all the Players but the First. Dost thou hear me, old friend; can you play the Murder of Gonzago? |
First Player | Ay, my lord. |
Hamlet | We’ll ha’t to-morrow night. You could, for a need, study a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines, which I would set down and insert in’t, could you not? |
First Player | Ay, my lord. |
Hamlet | Very well. Follow that lord; and look you mock him not. Exit First Player. My good friends, I’ll leave you till night: you are welcome to Elsinore. |
Rosencrantz | Good my lord! |
Hamlet |
Ay, so, God be wi’ ye; Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Now I am alone.
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