[Hamlet draws forth the dead body of Polonius.]

QUEEN: O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!

HAMLET: A bloody deed!—almost as bad, good mother,

As kill a king and marry with his brother.

QUEEN: As kill a king!

HAMLET: Ay, lady, 'twas my word.—

Leave wringing of your hands: peace! sit you down,

And let me wring your heart: for so I shall,

If it be made of penetrable stuff.

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 milldew'd ear

Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes?

Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,

And batten on this moor?

QUEEN: O Hamlet, speak no more:

These words like daggers enter in mine ears;

No more, sweet Hamlet.

HAMLET: A murderer and a villain;

QUEEN: 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: Alas, how is't with you,

That you do bend your eye on vacancy,

And with the incorporal air do hold discourse?

Whereon do you look?

HAMLET: On him, on him! Look you how pale he glares!

Do you see nothing there?

QUEEN: Nothing at all.

HAMLET: Nor did you nothing hear?

QUEEN: No, nothing but ourselves.

HAMLET: Why, look you there! look how it steals away!

My father, in his habit as he liv'd!

Look, where he goes, even now out at the portal!

[Exit Ghost.]

QUEEN: This is 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 flattering 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.

QUEEN: O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.

HAMLET: O, throw away the worser part of it,

And live the purer with the other half.

Go not to mine uncle's bed;

Assume a virtue, if you have it not.

Refrain to-night;

And that shall lend a kind of easiness

To the next abstinence: the next more easy;

For use almost can change the stamp of nature,

And either curb the devil, or throw him out

With wondrous potency.—For this same lord

[Pointing to Polonius.]

I do repent; but heaven hath pleas'd it so,

To punish me with this, and this with me,

That I must be their scourge and minister.

[He pauses.]

One word more, good lady.

Let not the bloat king tempt you again to bed;

Pinch wanton on your cheek; call you his mouse;

And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses,

Or paddling in your neck with his damn'd fingers,

Make you to ravel all this matter out,

That I essentially am not in madness,

But mad in craft. 'Twere good you let him know;

For who that's but a queen, fair, sober, wise,

Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib,

Such dear concernings hide? who would do so?

No, in despite of sense and secrecy,

Unpeg the basket on the house's top,

Let the birds fly, and, like the famous ape,

To try conclusions, in the basket creep

And break your own neck down.

[Exit Hamlet, dragging out Polonius.]