King Claudius We doubt it notching: heartily farewell.
Exeunt Voltimand and Cornelius
And now, Laertes, what’s the news with you?
You told us of some suit; what is’t, Laertes?
You cannot speak of reason to the Dane,
And loose your voice: what wouldst thou beg, Laertes,
That shall not be my offer, not thy asking?
The head is not more native to the heart,
The hand more instrumental to the mouth,
Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father.
What wouldst thou have, Laertes?
Laertes
My dread lord,
Your leave and favour to return to France;
From whence though willingly I came to Denmark,
To show my duty in your coronation,
Yet now, I must confess, that duty done,
My thoughts and wishes bend again toward France
And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon.
King Claudius
Have you your father’s leave? What says Polonius?
Lord Polonius
He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave
By laboursome petition, and at lastUpon his will I seal’d my hard consent:I do beseech you, give him leave to go.
King Claudius
Take thy fair hour, Laertes; time be thine,And thy best graces spend it at thy will!But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son —
Hamlet
[Aside] A little more than kin, and less than kind.
King Claudius
How is it that the clouds still hang on you?
Hamlet
Not so, my lord; I am too much i’ the sun.
Queen Gertrude
Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off,And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.Do not for ever with thy vailed lidsSeek for thy noble father in the dust:Thou know’st ’tis common; all that lives must die,Passing through nature to eternity.
Hamlet
Ay, madam, it is common.
Queen Gertrude
If it be,Why seems it so particular with thee?
Hamlet
Seems, madam! nay it is; I know not ’seems.’’Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,Nor customary suits of solemn black,Nor windy suspiration of forced breath,No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,Nor the dejected ’havior of the visage,Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief,That can denote me truly: these indeed seem,For they are actions that a man might play:But I have that within which passeth show;These but the trappings and the suits of woe.
King Claudius
’Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,To give these mourning duties to your father:But, you must know, your father lost a father;That father lost, lost his, and the survivor boundIn filial obligation for some termTo do obsequious sorrow: but to perseverIn obstinate condolement is a courseOf impious stubbornness; ’tis unmanly grief;It shows a will most incorrect to heaven,A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,
An understanding simple and unschool’d:For what we know must be and is as commonAs any the most vulgar thing to sense,Why should we in our peevish oppositionTake it to heart? Fie! ’tis a fault to heaven,A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,To reason most absurd: whose common themeIs death of fathers, and who still hath cried,From the first corse till he that died to-day,‘This must be so.’ We pray you, throw to earthThis unprevailing woe, and think of usAs of a father: for let the world take note,You are the most immediate to our throne;And with no less nobility of loveThan that which dearest father bears his son,Do I impart toward you. For your intentIn going back to school in Wittenberg,It is most retrograde to our desire:And we beseech you, bend you to remainHere, in the cheer and comfort of our eye,Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.
Queen Gertrude
Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet:I pray thee, stay with us; go not to Wittenberg.
Hamlet
I shall in all my best obey you, madam.
King Claudius
Why, ’tis a loving and a fair reply:Be as ourself in Denmark. Madam, come;This gentle and unforced accord of HamletSits smiling to my heart: in grace whereof,No jocund health that Denmark drinks to-day,But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell,And the king’s rouse the heavens all bruit again,Re-speaking earthly thunder. Come away.
Exeunt all but Hamlet
Hamlet
O, that this too too solid flesh would meltThaw and resolve itself into a dew!Or that the Everlasting had not fix’dHis canon ’gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,Seem to me all the uses of this world!Fie on’t! ah fie! ’tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in naturePossess it merely. That it should come to this!But two months dead: nay, not so much, not two:So excellent a king; that was, to this,Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my motherThat he might not beteem the winds of heavenVisit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!Must I remember? why, she would hang on him,As if increase of appetite had grownBy what it fed on: and yet, within a month —Let me not think on’t — Frailty, thy name is woman! —A little month, or ere those shoes were oldWith which she follow’d my poor father’s body,Like Niobe, all tears:— why she, even she —O, God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,Would have mourn’d longer — married with my uncle,My father’s brother, but no more like my fatherThan I to Hercules: within a month:Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tearsHad left the flushing in her galled eyes,She married. O, most wicked speed, to postWith such dexterity to incestuous sheets!It is not nor it cannot come to good:But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue.
Enter Horatio, Marcellus, and Bernardo
Horatio
Hail to your lordship!
Hamlet
I am glad to see you well:Horatio — or I do forget myself.
Horatio
The same, my lord, and your poor servant ever.
Hamlet
Sir, my good friend; I’ll change that name with you:And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio? Marcellus?
Marcellus
My good lord——
Hamlet
I am very glad to see you. Good even, sir.But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg?
Horatio
A truant disposition, good my lord.
Hamlet
I would not hear your enemy say so,Nor shall you do mine ear that violence,To make it truster of your own reportAgainst yourself: I know you are no truant.But what is your affair in Elsinore?
We’ll teach you to drink deep ere you depart.
Horatio
My lord, I came to see your father’s funeral.
Hamlet
I pray thee, do not mock me, fellow-student;I think it was to see my mother’s wedding.
Horatio
Indeed, my lord, it follow’d hard upon.
Hamlet
Thrift, thrift, Horatio! the funeral baked meatsDid coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.Would I had met my dearest foe in heavenOr ever I had seen that day, Horatio!My father! — methinks I see my father.
Horatio
Where, my lord?
Hamlet
In my mind’s eye, Horatio.
Horatio
I saw him once; he was a goodly king.
Hamlet
He was a man, take him for all in all,I shall not look upon his like again.
Horatio
My lord, I think I saw him yesternight.
Hamlet
Saw? who?
Horatio
My lord, the king your father.
Hamlet
The king my father!
Horatio
Season your admiration for awhileWith an attent ear, till I may deliver,Upon the witness of these gentlemen,This marvel to you.
Hamlet
For God’s love, let me hear.
Horatio
Two nights together had these gentlemen,Marcellus and Bernardo, on their watch,In the dead vast and middle of the night,Been thus encounter’d. A figure like your father,Armed at point exactly, cap-a-pe,Appears before them, and with solemn marchGoes slow and stately by them: thrice he walk’dBy their oppress’d and fear-surprised eyes,Within his truncheon’s length; whilst they, distilledAlmost to jelly with the act of fear,Stand dumb and speak not to him. This to meIn dreadful secrecy impart they did;And I with them the third night kept the watch;Where, as they had deliver’d, both in time,
Hamlet
Form of the thing, each word made true and good,The apparition comes: I knew your father;These hands are not more like.But where was this?
