HAMLET

    Look here, upon this picture, and on this,
    The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
    See, what a grace was seated on this brow;
    Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself;
    An eye like Mars, to threaten and command;
    A station like the herald Mercury
    New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill;
    A combination and a form indeed,
    Where every god did seem to set his seal,
    To give the world assurance of a man:
    This was your husband. Look you now, what follows:
    Here is your husband; like a mildew'd ear,
    Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes?
    Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,
    And batten on this moor? Ha! have you eyes?
    You cannot call it love; for at your age
    The hey-day in the blood is tame, it's humble,
    And waits upon the judgment: and what judgment
    Would step from this to this? Sense, sure, you have,
    Else could you not have motion; but sure, that sense
    Is apoplex'd; for madness would not err,
    Nor sense to ecstasy was ne'er so thrall'd
    But it reserved some quantity of choice,
    To serve in such a difference. What devil was't
    That thus hath cozen'd you at hoodman-blind?
    Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight,
    Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all,
    Or but a sickly part of one true sense
    Could not so mope.
    O shame! where is thy blush? Rebellious hell,
    If thou canst mutine in a matron's bones,
    To flaming youth let virtue be as wax,
    And melt in her own fire: proclaim no shame
    When the compulsive ardour gives the charge,
    Since frost itself as actively doth burn
    And reason panders will.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

    O Hamlet, speak no more:
    Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul;
    And there I see such black and grained spots
    As will not leave their tinct.

HAMLET

    Nay, but to live
    In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed,
    Stew'd in corruption, honeying and making love
    Over the nasty sty,--

QUEEN GERTRUDE

    O, speak to me no more;
    These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears;
    No more, sweet Hamlet!

HAMLET

    A murderer and a villain;
    A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe
    Of your precedent lord; a vice of kings;
    A cutpurse of the empire and the rule,
    That from a shelf the precious diadem stole,
    And put it in his pocket!

QUEEN GERTRUDE

    No more!

HAMLET

    A king of shreds and patches,--

    Enter Ghost
    Save me, and hover o'er me with your wings,
    You heavenly guards! What would your gracious figure?

QUEEN GERTRUDE

    Alas, he's mad!

HAMLET

    Do you not come your tardy son to chide,
    That, lapsed in time and passion, lets go by
    The important acting of your dread command? O, say!

Ghost

    Do not forget: this visitation
    Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.
    But, look, amazement on thy mother sits:
    O, step between her and her fighting soul:
    Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works:
    Speak to her, Hamlet.

HAMLET

    How is it with you, lady?

QUEEN GERTRUDE

    Alas, how is't with you,
    That you do bend your eye on vacancy
    And with the incorporal air do hold discourse?
    Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep;
    And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm,
    Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,
    Starts up, and stands on end. O gentle son,
    Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper
    Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look?

HAMLET

    On him, on him! Look you, how pale he glares!
    His form and cause conjoin'd, preaching to stones,
    Would make them capable. Do not look upon me;
    Lest with this piteous action you convert
    My stern effects: then what I have to do
    Will want true colour; tears perchance for blood.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

    To whom do you speak this?

HAMLET

    Do you see nothing there?

QUEEN GERTRUDE

    Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.

HAMLET


    Nor did you nothing hear?

QUEEN GERTRUDE

    No, nothing but ourselves.

HAMLET

    Why, look you there! look, how it steals away!
    My father, in his habit as he lived!
    Look, where he goes, even now, out at the portal!

    Exit Ghost

QUEEN GERTRUDE

    This the very coinage of your brain:
    This bodiless creation ecstasy
    Is very cunning in.

HAMLET

    Ecstasy!
    My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time,
    And makes as healthful music: it is not madness
    That I have utter'd: bring me to the test,
    And I the matter will re-word; which madness
    Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,
    Lay not that mattering unction to your soul,
    That not your trespass, but my madness speaks:
    It will but skin and film the ulcerous place,
    Whilst rank corruption, mining all within,
    Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven;
    Repent what's past; avoid what is to come;
    And do not spread the compost on the weeds,
    To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue;
    For in the fatness of these pursy times
    Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg,
    Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good.