A Room in the Castle.
 Enter KING, QUEEN, POLONIUS, OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN.

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?

Rosencrantz	He does confess he feels himself distracted,
	But from what cause a' will by no means speak.

Guildenstern	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.

Queen						Did he receive you well?

Rosencrantz	Most like a gentleman.

Guildenstern	But with much forcing of his disposition.

Rosencrantz	Niggard of question, but of our demands
	Most free in his reply.

Queen									Did you assay him
	To any pastime?

Rosencrantz	Madam, it so fell out that certain players
	We o'erraught on the way; of these we told him,
	And there did seem in him a kind of joy
	To hear of it. They are here about the court,
	And, as I think, they have already order
	This night to play before him.

Polonius										'Tis 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 into these delights.

Rosencrantz	We shall, my lord.
						   [Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.

King							Sweet Gertrude, leave us too,
	For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither,
	That he, as 'twere 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 th' affliction of his love or no
	That thus he suffers for.

Queen										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.

Ophelia								Madam, I wish it may.
												[Exit QUEEN.
Polonius	Ophelia, walk you here. - Gracious, so please you,
	We will bestow ourselves. - Read on this 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.

King	[Aside.]				O, 'tis too true!
	How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience.
	The harlot's cheek, beautied with plast'ring art,
	Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it
	Than is my deed to my most painted word.
	O heavy burden!

Polonius	I hear him coming. Let's withdraw, my lord.
												[Exeunt KING and POLONIUS.

                              Enter HAMLET.

Hamlet	To be, or not to be, that is the question:
	Whether 'tis 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 heartache and the thousand natural shocks
	That flesh is heir to. 'Tis 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,
	Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
	The pangs of disprized love, the law's delay,
	The insolence of office, and the spurns
	That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,
	When he himself might his quietus make
	With a bare bodkin? Who would these 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,
	The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
	Be all my sins remembered.

Ophelia										Good my lord,
	How does your honour for this many a day?

Hamlet	I humbly thank you, well, well, well.

Ophelia	My lord, I have remembrances of yours
	That I have longd long to re-deliver;
	I pray you now receive them.

Hamlet										No, not I;
	I never gave you aught.

Ophelia	My honoured lord, you know right well you did,
	And with them words of so sweet breath composed
	As made these 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.

Hamlet	Ha, ha! Are you honest?

Ophelia	My lord?

Hamlet	Are you fair?

Ophelia	What means your lordship?

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

Ophelia	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.

Ophelia	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.

Ophelia	I was the more deceived.

Hamlet	Get thee to a nunnery. Why wouldst thou be a breeder of 
	sinners? I am myself indifferent honest, but yet I could 
	accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had 
	not borne me: I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious, with 
	more offences at my beck than I have thoughts to put them 
	in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in. 
	What should such fellows as I do crawling between heaven 
	and earth? We are arrant knaves, all. Believe none of us. 
	Go thy ways to a nunnery. Where's your father?

Ophelia	At home, my lord.

Hamlet	Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool 
	nowhere but in's own house. Farewell.

Ophelia	O, help him, you sweet heavens!

Hamlet	If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague for thy 
	dowry: be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou 
	shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery, go, 
	farewell. Or, if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool; for 
	wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them. 
	To a nunnery, go, and quickly too. Farewell.

Ophelia	O heavenly powers, restore him!

Hamlet	I have heard of your paintings, too, well enough. God hath 
	given you one face and you make yourselves another. You 
	jig, you amble, and you lisp, and nickname God's creatures, 
	and make your wantonness your ignorance. Go to, I'll no 
	more on't; it hath made me mad. I say we will have no more 
	marriage. Those that are married already - all but one - 
	shall live, the rest shall keep as they are. To a nunnery, 
	go.
												[Exit.
Ophelia	O what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!
	The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword,
	Th' expectancy and rose of the fair state,
	The glass of fashion and the mould of form,
	Th' observed of all observers, quite, quite down!
	And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
	That sucked the honey of his music vows,
	Now see that noble and most sovereign reason
	Like sweet bells jangled out of time, and harsh,
	That unmatched form and feature of blown youth
	Blasted with ecstasy. O, woe is me,
	T' have seen what I have seen, see what I see!

                       Re-enter KING and POLONIUS.

King	Love! His affections do not that way tend,
	Nor what he spake, though it lacked form a little,
	Was not like madness. There's something in his soul
	O'er which his melancholy sits on brood,
	And I do doubt the hatch and the disclose
	Will be some danger; which for to prevent
	I have in quick determination
	Thus set it down: - he shall with speed to England
	For the demand of our neglected tribute.
	Haply the seas and countries different,
	With variable objects, shall expel
	This something-settled matter in his heart,
	Whereon his brains still beating puts him thus
	From fashion of himself. What think you on't?

Polonius	It shall do well. But yet do I believe
	The origin and commencement of his grief
	Sprung from neglected love. How now, Ophelia?
	You need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said,
	We heard it all. My lord, do as you please;
	But if you hold it fit, after the play
	Let his queen mother all alone entreat him
	To show his grief. Let her be round with him,
	And I'll be placed, so please you, in the ear
	Of all their conference. If she find him not,
	To England send him, or confine him where
	Your wisdom best shall think.

King										It shall be so:
	Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.
												[Exeunt.
