Scene Firet.

Act Third.

THE KING AND QUEEN SEATED AT TABLE C., AND POLONIUS, OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ, AND GUILDENSTERN, STANDING NEAR, ARE

THE SAME AS IN ACT SECOND.

DISCOVERED.

King.

And can you, by no drift of circumstance,
Get from him why he puts on this confusion,
Grating so harshly all his days of quiet
With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?

Ros.

He does confess he feels himself distracted;
But from what cause he will by no means speak.

Guil.

Nor do we find him forward to be sounded;
But, with a crafty madness, keeps aloof,

When we would bring him on to some confession
Of his true state.

Did

Queen.

him

you assay To any pastime?

Ros.

Madam, it so fell out, that certain players

We o'er-raught on the way: of these we told him;
And there did seem in him a kind of joy
To hear of it: they are about the court;
And, as I think, they have already order
This night to play before him.

Pol.

'T is most true:

And he beseeched me to entreat your majesties
To hear and see the matter.

King.

With all my heart; and it doth much content me
To hear him so inclined.-

Good gentlemen, give him a further edge,
And drive his purpose on to these delights.

We shall, my lord.

Ros.

[Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Ŕ.

King.

Sweet Gertrude, leave us too;

For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither,
That he, as 't were by accident, may here
Affront Ophelia :

Her father and myself,-lawful espials,-
Will so bestow ourselves, that, seeing, unseen,
We may of their encounter frankly judge;
And gather by him, as he is behaved,
If 't be the affliction of his love or no
That thus he suffers for.

Queen.

[King retires

I shall obey you:·

And for your part, Ophelia, I do wish

That your good beauties be the happy cause

Of Hamlet's wildness: so shall I hope your virtues

Will bring him to his wonted way again,

To both your honours.

Madam, I wish it may.

Oph.

[Exit Queen L

Ophelia, walk

you here.

Gracious, so please you,

Pol.

We will bestow ourselves.} To the King.

Read on this book; [To Ophelia,-giving prayer-book,
That show of such an exercise may colour

Your loneliness.—We are oft to blame in this,~

'Tis too much proved,—that, with devotion's visage And pious action, we do sugar o'er

The devil himself.

O, 't is too true!

King.

[Aside.

How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!
The harlot's cheek, beautied with plastering art,

Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it,
Than is my deed to my most painted word:
O, heavy burden!

Pol.

I hear him coming: let's withdraw, my lord.

[Exeunt King and Polonius C., and Ophelia, slowly, R.

Hamlet.

[Enter Hamlet.

To be, or not to be, that is the question :-
Whether 't is nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them ?-to die,—to sleep,—
No more; and by a sleep to say we end

The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to 't is a consummation

Devoutly to be wished. To die,-to sleep.—

To sleep! perchance to dream:-ay, there's the rub, For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause: there's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life;

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

HAMLET.

The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,-
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns,- puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.—Soft you now!

[Re-enter Ophelia, reading.

The fair Ophelia.— Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remembered.

Good my lord,

Oph.

How does your honour for this many a day?

Hamlet.

I humbly thank you; well, well, well.

Oph.

My lord, I have remembrances of yours,

That I have longèd long to re-deliver;

I pray you, now receive them.

[Coldly.

[Going.

[Hamlet here catches a glimpse of the King and Polonius, in their hiding-place at back of the

No, not I;

scene.

I never gave you aught.

Hamlet.

Oph.

My honoured lord, you know right well you did;
And, with them, words of so sweet breath composed
As made the things more rich: their perfume lost,
Take these again; for to the noble mind

Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind
There, my lord.

That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty.

Oph.

Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty?

Hamlet.

Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness: this was sometime a paradox, but now the time gives it proof. I did love you once.

Oph.

Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.

Hamlet.

You should not have believed me; for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock, but we shall relish of it: I loved you not.