[church bells toll]
[crow caws]
[door rattles]
[knocks on door]
[sighs]
[mutters]
[door creaks]
[door creaks]
[door slams]
[door creaks]
[door slams]
[indistinct overlapping voices]
[tinkling]
I adore you, my love.
[thunder rumbles]
[wind whistles]
[Claudius] Though yet
of our dear brother's death
the memory be green,
and that it us befitted
to bear our hearts in grief,
and our whole kingdom to be
contracted in one brow of woe,
yet so far hath discretion
fought with nature
that we with wisest sorrow
think on him
together with remembrance
of ourselves.
Therefore our sometime sister,
now our queen,
have we as 'twere
with a defeated joy,
taken to wife.
[applause and cheering]
Very good. Bravo, bravo.
[woman] Yay!
For all, our thanks.
[organ music]
Now my nephew Hamlet and my son,
how is it that the clouds
still hang on you?
Not so, my lord,
I am too much in the sun.
Good Hamlet,
cast your nighted colour off.
Do not for ever
with your vailed lids
seek for your noble father
in the dust.
You know 'tis common,
all that lives must die.
Ay, madam, it is common.
If it be, why seems it
so particular with you?
Seems, madam?
Nay, it is, I know not "seems".
It is not alone my inky cloak,
good mother,
nor customary suits
of solemn black
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 passes show.
These but the trappings
and the suits of woe.
It's sweet and commendable
in your nature, Hamlet,
to give these mourning duties
to your father.
But to persever
in obstinate condolement
is a course of impious
stubbornness.
'Tis unmanly grief.
Fie, it is a fault to heaven,
a fault to nature.
We pray you, throw to earth
this unprevailing woe
and think of us
as of a father.
For let the world take note,
you are the most immediate
to our throne,
and with no less
nobility of love
than that which dearest father
bears his son
do I impart toward you.
For your intent in going back
to school in Wittenberg,
it is most retrograde
to our desire.
Let not your mother
lose her prayers, Hamlet.
I pray you, stay with us,
go not to Wittenberg.
I shall in all my best obey you,
madam.
[Claudius] Why, 'tis a loving
and a fair reply.
Be as ourself in Denmark.
Madam, come.
This gentle and unforced accord
of Hamlet
sits smiling to my heart.
[Hamlet] O that this too too
solid flesh would melt,
thaw,
and resolve itself into a dew.
Or that the Everlasting
had not fixed his canon
against self-slaughter.
O God.
God.
How weary, stale, flat
and unprofitable
seem to me all
the uses of this world.
Fie on it, oh, fie!
It is an unweeded garden
that grows to seed.
That it should come to this!
But two months dead.
Nay, not so much, not two.
So excellent a king.
So loving to my mother.
Must I remember?
My father's brother,
but no more like my father
than I to Hercules,
within a month, she married.
O most wicked speed.
To post with such dexterity
to incestuous sheets...
[knocking at door]
Hail to your lordship!
I am glad to see you well,
Horatio.
The same, my lord,
and your poor servant ever.
Sir, my good friend.
And what make you
from Wittenberg, Horatio?
My lord.
-Marcellus.
-My good lord.
I'm very glad to see you.
But what, in faith,
make you from Wittenberg?
A truant disposition,
good my lord.
[they laugh]
I know you are no truant.
But what is your affair
in Elsinore? Hmm?
We'll teach you to drink deep
ere you depart.
My lord, I-I came to see
your father's funeral.
I prithee, do not mock me,
fellow student.
I think it was to see
my mother's wedding.
Indeed, my lord,
it followed hard upon.
Thrift, thrift, Horatio.
The funeral baked-meats
did coldly furnish forth
the marriage tables.
Oh, father, my father.
He was a goodly king.
He was a man,
take him for all in all.
I shall not look upon
his like again.
My lord, I think I saw him
yesternight.
Saw? Who?
My lord, the King, your father.
The King, my father?
Two nights together
has this gentleman
in the dead waste
and middle of the night,
been thus encountered,
a figure like your father.
Armed, appears before me
with solemn march,
goes slowly and stately by.
This to me in dreadful secrecy
impart he did
and I with him the third night
kept the watch.
The apparition comes.
I knew your father.
These hands are no more like.
But where was this?
My lord, upon the platform
where we watch.
Did you not speak to it?
My lord, I did,
but answer made it none.
It's very strange.
As I do live, my honoured lord,
it's true.
Hold you the watch tonight?
[Marcellus] I do, my lord.
Armed, say you?
Armed.
Then saw you not his face?
O yes, my lord,
he wore his visor up.
I would I had been there.
[Horatio] It would have
much amazed you.
Very like, very like.
I will watch tonight.
Perchance 'twill walk again.
I warrant it will.
I'll speak to it,
though hell itself should gape
and bid me hold my peace.
So fare you well.
Upon the platform between eleven
and twelve I'll visit you.
Your loves, as mine to you.
Farewell.
My father's spirit...
in arms!
All is not well.
I doubt some foul play.
Would the night were come!
[insects chirp]
[bird calls]
[knocks on door]
My necessaries are embarked.
Farewell.
As the winds give benefit
and convey is assistant,
do not sleep,
but let me hear from you.
Do you doubt that?
For Hamlet,
and the trifling of his favour,
hold it a fashion
and a toy in blood.
A violet in
the youth of primy nature.
Sweet, not lasting.
The perfume and suppliance
of a minute.
He may not, as unvalued persons
do, carve for himself
for on his choice depends
the health and safety
of this whole state.
Then if he says he loves you,
then weigh what loss your honour
may sustain
if with too credent ear you list
his songs or lose your heart.
[strums guitar]
Fear it, Ophelia...
I shall the effect
of this good lesson
keep as watchman to my heart.
Yet here, Laertes?
Aboard, aboard, for shame!
The winds sits in the shoulder
of your sail
and you are stay'd for.
My blessings with thee.
And these few precepts
in thy memory
look thou character.
Costly thy habit
as thy purse may buy
but not expressed in fancy.
Rich, not gaudy.
For the apparel
oft proclaims the man.
Neither a borrower
nor a lender be.
For loan oft loses
both itself and friend,
and borrowing
dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all:
to your own self be true.
And then it follows,
as the night the day,
you cannot then be false
to any man.
Go, my blessings with thee.
Farewell, Ophelia.
And remember well
what I have said to you.
'Tis in my memory locked,
and you yourself
shall keep the key of it.
Farewell.
[sighs]
[Polonius] What is't, Ophelia,
he hath said to you?
Something touching
the Lord Hamlet.
What is between you?
Give me up the truth.
He hath, my lord, of late
made many tenders
of his affection to me.
Affection!
You speak like a green girl!
[mutters]
Do you believe these tenders,
as you call them?
I do not know, my lord,
what I should think.
[Polonius] Marry, I shall teach
you. Think yourself a baby
that you have taken these
tenders for true pay
which are not sterling.
Tender yourself more dearly
or you'll tender me a fool.
He hath importuned me with love
in honourable fashion.
[Polonius laughs]
Fashion, you may call it.
Go to, go to.
And has given countenance
to his speech
with almost all
the holy vows of heaven.
These blazes, daughter,
you must not take for fire.
This is for all.
From this time forth,
I would not have spend
any moment leisure
as to give words or talk
with the Lord Hamlet.
Now, look to it, I charge you.
Come your ways.
I shall obey,
my lord.
[distant rock music]
[distant chatter]
[sighs]
The air bites shrewdly.
It is very cold.
What hour now?
Uh, I think it lacks of twelve.
-No, it is struck.
-I heard it not.
What does this mean, my lord?
The King doth wake tonight
and takes his rouse,
and, as he drains his draughts
of Rhenish down,
the kettle-drum and trumpet
thus bray out
the triumph of his pledge.
My lord!
Angels and ministers of grace
defend us!
Bring with you airs from
heaven, or blasts from hell,
be your intents
wicked or charitable...
I'll call you Hamlet,
King, father, royal Dane.
[quietly] What should we do?
[Horatio] It beckons you
to go away with it.
It will not speak,
then I will follow it.
What if it draw you
into madness?
It waves me still!
Go on, I'll follow you.
-You shall not go, my lord.
-Hold off your hands!
Be ruled, you shall not go.
My fate cries out.
Unhand me, gentlemen!
By heaven, I'll make a ghost
of him that stops me!
Something is rotten
in the state of Denmark.
Heaven will direct it.
Speak!
I'll go no further.
Mark me.
Speak, I am bound to hear.
So are you to revenge,
when thou dost hear.
I am your father's spirit.
If you did ever
your dear father love...
O God!
Revenge his foul
and most unnatural m*rder.
m*rder?
m*rder most foul,
strange and unnatural.
But haste me to know it,
that I with wings
as swift as meditation,
or the thoughts of love,
may sweep to my revenge.
'Tis given out that,
sleeping in my orchard,
a serpent stung me,
the serpent that did sting
thy father's life
now wears his crown.
O, my prophetic soul! My uncle?
Ay.
That incestuous beast
won to his shameful lust
this will of my most seeming
virtuous queen.
Sleeping in my orchard,
upon my secure hour
your uncle stole,
with juice of cursed hebona
in a vial,
and in the porches of my ear
did pour the leprous distilment
and with a sudden vigour
it doth posset and curd,
like eager droppings into milk,
the thin and wholesome blood.
So did it mine.
Thus was I, of life,
of crown, of queen,
at once dispatched,
cut off even in the blossom
of my sin.
No reckoning made,
but sent to my account
with all my imperfections
on my head.
Let not the royal bed of Denmark
be a couch for luxury
and damned incest.
But how so ever
you pursue this act,
taint not your mind,
nor let your soul contrive
against your mother aught.
Leave her to heaven,
and to those thorns
that in her bosom lodge
to prick and sting her.
Adieu.
Adieu.
[breathes shakily]
[ghost] Remember me.
All you host of heaven!
O earth! What else?
And shall I couple hell?
Remember you!
Yes, from the table of my memory
I'll wipe all trivial
fond records,
and your commandment
all alone
shall live within the book
and volume of my brain.
O, most pernicious woman!
O, villain, villain,
smiling, damned villain!
My tables, meet it is,
I set it down.
That one may smile,
and smile, and be a villain!
At least I am sure
it may be so in Denmark.
So, Uncle, there you are.
-O, heavens secure him!
-So be it.
-How is it, my noble lord?
-What news, my lord?
O, wonderful! Wonderful!
-Good my lord, tell it.
-No, you will reveal it.
-Not I, my lord, by heaven.
-Nor I, my lord.
There's never a villain dwelling
in all Denmark
but he's an arrant knave.
There needs no ghost, my lord,
come from the grave
to tell us this.
Touching this vision here,
It is an honest ghost
that let me tell you,
as you are friends,
scholar and soldier,
give me one poor request.
What is it, my lord? We will.
Never to speak of this
that you have seen. Swear.
Swear.
Never to speak of this
that you have heard.
[Horatio]
This is wondrous strange.
And as a stranger,
give it welcome.
There are more things
in heaven and earth, Horatio,
than are dreamt of
in your philosophy.
But come.
How strange or odd
soe'er I bear myself
as I perchance hereafter
shall think meet
to put an antic disposition on,
that you at such time
seeing me not say
that you know aught of me.
This do swear.
The time is out of joint.
O, cursed spite, that ever
I was born to set it right!
[Ophelia sobs]
[Polonius coughs]
[Ophelia sobs]
How now, Ophelia,
what's the matter?
My lord...
My lord, I have been
so affrighted!
With what, in the name of God?
My lord, as I was in my closet,
Lord Hamlet,
with his doublet all unbraced,
no hat upon his head,
his stockings fouled,
ungartered, and down-gyved
to his ankle,
pale as his shirt,
his knees knocking each other,
and with a look
so piteous in purport
as if he had been loosed
out of hell to speak of horrors,
he comes before me.
Mad for thy love?
My lord, I do not know,
but truly I do fear it.
O, what said he?
He took me by the wrist,
and held me hard,
and with his other hand
thus o'er his brow,
he falls to such perusal
of my face
as he would draw it.
Long stayed he so.
At last, a shaking of mine arm,
and thrice his head
thus waving up and down,
he raised a sigh
so piteous and profound
as it did seem to shatter
all his bulk and end his being.
That done, he lets me go,
and with his head
over his shoulder turned,
he seemed to find his way
without his eyes,
for out of doors he went
without their helps,
and, to the last,
bended their light on me.
This is the very ecstasy
of love!
[sighs]
What, have you given him
any hard words of late?
No, my lord,
but as you did command,
I did repel his letters,
and denied his access to me.
Ah, that hath made him mad.
I am sorry that with better
heed and judgement
I had not noticed him.
I feared he did but trifle
and mean to wrack you.
Beshrew my jealousy!
Come, go we to the King.
This must be known,
which, being kept close,
might move more grief to hide,
than hate to utter love.
Come!
My liege, and madam,
to expostulate what duty is,
why day is day, time, time,
and night, night
were nothing but to waste
night, day and time.
And since brevity
is the soul of wit,
and tediousness
the outward limbs
and flourishes, I will be brief.
Your noble son is mad.
Mad call I it,
for to define true madness,
what is it but to be nothing
else but mad?
[chuckles] Let that go.
More matter with less art.
Madam, I swear
I use no art at all.
I have a daughter,
have... [laughs]
while she is mine
who in her duty and obedience,
mark, hath given me this.
Now gather and surmise.
[breathes shakily] I...
"To the celestial
and my soul's idol,
the most beautified Ophelia."
[laughs]
That's a vile phrase.
Oh, beautified is a vile phrase.
But you shall hear. Thus.
[clears throat]
"In her excellent white bosom,
the..." [gulps, chuckles]
et cetera.
Came this from Hamlet to her?
Uh, madam, stay awhile.
"Doubt that the stars are fire,
doubt that the sun doth move,
doubt truth to be a liar,
but never doubt I love."
"O, dear Ophelia,
I am ill at these numbers."
"I have not art
to reckon my groans,
but that I love you best,
O most best, believe it."
"Adieu, thine evermore,
most dear lady, Hamlet."
This...
in obedience
has my daughter shown me.
But how has she received
his love?
[Polonius] My lord,
I went round to work,
and to my young mistress
thus I did bespeak,
"Lord Hamlet is a prince,
out of thy star."
"This cannot be."
And then I prescripts gave her,
that she should lock herself
from his resort.
This done, she took the fruits
of my advice.
And he, repelled,
a short tale to make,
fell into a fast,
and then to a weakness,
and then to a watch.
And then into a lightness,
and by this declension,
into the madness
from which he now raves
and all we mourn for.
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 heart-ache 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,
when he himself might his
quietus make with a bare bodkin?
Hm? [clicks tongue]
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 over
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.
[buzzes]
...this is a good line.
There's a little break here...
[Claudius] Sweet Gertrude,
leave us two,
for we have closely sent
for Hamlet hither,
that he, as it were by accident
may here affront Ophelia.
Her father and myself,
we'll so bestow ourselves
that, seeing unseen,
we may of their encounter
frankly judge
if it be the affliction
of his love or no
-that thus he suffers for.
-I shall obey you.
And for your part, Ophelia,
I do wish
that your good beauties
be the cause
of Hamlet's wildness.
O, so shall I hope
that your virtue
will bring him
to his wonted way again,
to both your honours.
Madam, I wish it may.
Ophelia, read upon this book,
that with devotion's visage
and pious action,
we sugar o'er the devil himself.
[Hamlet sings in the distance]
Withdraw, your grace.
We shall bestow ourselves.
[Hamlet sings in the distance]
Nymph.
In your orisons
be all my sins remembered.
Good my lord, how does
your honour for this many a day?
I humbly thank you.
Well, well, well.
My lord, I have
remembrances of yours
that I have longed long
to redeliver.
I pray you now receive them.
No.
Not I, I never gave you aught.
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.
Are you honest?
-[Ophelia] My lord...
-Are you... fair?
-What means your lordship?
-I loved you not.
I was the more deceived.
Get you to a nunnery.
Why would you
be a breeder of sinners?
I am myself indifferent honest,
but 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 earth
and heaven?
We are arrant knaves all,
believe none of us.
Go your ways to a nunnery.
[cough]
Where's your father?
At home, my lord.
Let the doors be shut upon him,
that he may play the fool
no where but in's own house.
Farewell.
O, help him, you sweet heavens!
I have heard of your paintings,
too, well enough.
God has given you one face and
you make yourselves another.
Go to, no more on it,
it has made me mad.
I say we will have
no more marriage.
Those that are married already,
all but one should live,
the rest shall keep as they are.
To a nunnery, go.
Love?
His affections
do not that way tend,
nor what he spake,
though it lacked form a little,
was not like madness.
I do believe the origin
and commencement of his grief
sprang from neglected love.
Let me alone to find
the source of this.
O, what a noble mind
is here overthrown.
The courtier's, soldier's,
scholar's, eye, tongue, sword,
the expectation
and rose of the fair state,
the glass of fashion
and the mould of form
the 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 sovereign
and most noble reason
like sweet bells jangled
out of time, and harsh.
That unmatched form
and stature of blown youth
blasted with ecstasy.
O, woe is me to have seen
what I have seen,
see what I see.
[Claudius] Welcome, dear
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
Moreover that we much
did long to see you.
The need we have to use you
did provoke our hasty sending.
Something have you heard
of Hamlet's transformation.
So call it, since nor the
exterior nor the inward man
resembles that it was.
What it should be,
more than his father's death,
that thus has put him so far
from the understanding
of himself, I cannot dream of.
I entreat you both
that, being of so young days
brought up with him
that you vouchsafe your rest
here in our court
some little time,
so by your companies
to draw him on to pleasures
and to gather so much
as from occasion you may glean
whether aught to us unknown
afflicts him thus
that, opened,
lies within our remedy.
Good gentlemen,
he has much talked of you,
and sure I am two men
there are not living
to whom he more adheres.
Your visit shall receive
such thanks
as fits a king's remembrance.
Both your majesties might,
by the sovereign power
you have of us,
put your dread pleasures more
into command than to entreaty.
We both obey.
Thanks, Rosencrantz
and gentle Guildenstern.
Thanks, Guildenstern
and gentle Rosencrantz.
[they laugh]
And I beseech you instantly to
visit my too much changed son.
Heavens, make our presence
and our practices
pleasant and helpful to him.
O, ay, amen.
[Polonius] How does
my good Lord Hamlet?
[Hamlet] Well, God-a-mercy.
Do you know me, my lord?
Excellent well.
-You're a fishmonger.
-[laughs]
Not I, my lord.
Then I would you were
so honest a man.
Honest, my lord?
Why, sir, to be honest,
as this world goes,
is to be one man
picked out of ten thousand.
That's very true, my lord.
Have you a daughter?
-I have, my lord.
-Let her not walk in the sun.
Conception is a blessing,
but as your daughter
may conceive... [whistles]
friend, look to it.
Still harping on my daughter.
And yet he knew me not at first,
he said I was a fishmonger.
He is far gone, far gone.
And truly in my youth I suffered
much extremity for love
very like this.
I'll question him again.
What is that that you read,
my lord?
Words, words, words.
Uh, what is the matter?
Between who?
[laughs] I mean, the matter
that you read, my lord.
Slanders, sir. For here
the satirical rogue writes
that old men have hollow eyes,
weak backs,
grey beards, pitiful weak hams,
and, uh, gouty legs,
all which I most
potently believe not.
For, sir, yourself shall be old,
as I am,
if like a crab,
you could go backward.
Though this is madness,
there is method in it.
Will you walk out of the air,
my lord?
-Into my grave?
-That is out of the air.
Fare you well, my lord.
I will take my leave of you.
You cannot take from me anything
that I will not more willingly
part withal.
Except my life.
Except my life.
Except my life!
Uh, f-fare you well, my lord!
These tedious old fools!
[Guildenstern] My honoured lord!
[Rosencrantz] My most dear lord!
My excellent good friends!
How do you, Guildenstern?
Oh, Rosencrantz!
Good lads.
How do you both? What news?
None, my lord,
but the world's grown honest.
Oh, then is doomsday near.
But your news is not true.
Now, what have you,
my good friends,
deserved at the hands
of fortune,
that she sends you
to prison hither?
Prison, my lord?
Denmark is a prison.
Why then, your ambition
makes it one.
It is too narrow for your mind.
I could be bounded
in a nutshell,
and count myself
a king of infinite space,
were it not that...
I have bad dreams.
Which dreams, indeed,
are ambition.
[bell tolls]
Shall we to the court?
For, by my faith,
I cannot reason.
[both] We'll wait upon you.
But in the beaten way
of friendship,
what make you here at court?
To visit you, my lord,
no other occasion.
Beggar that I am, I am even poor
in thanks, but I thank you.
Were you not sent for?
Is it a free visitation?
O, come, come,
speak justly with me.
-Nay, speak.
-What should we say, my lord?
Anything but to the purpose.
You were sent for;
there's a kind of confession
in your looks
which your modesties
have not craft enough to colour.
I know the good King and Queen
have sent for you.
My lord, we were sent for.
I will tell you why.
I have of late, but wherefore
I know not, lost all my mirth,
forgone all custom
of exercises.
And indeed it goes so heavily
with my disposition
that this goodly frame,
the earth,
seems to me
a sterile promontory.
What a piece of work is a man,
how noble in reason,
how infinite in faculties,
in form and moving,
how express and admirable,
in action, how like an angel,
in apprehension,
how like a god!
The beauty of the world,
the paragon of animals
and yet to me what is this
quintessence of dust?
Man delights not me.
No, nor woman neither, though by
your smiling you seem to say so.
My lord, there was no such stuff
in my thoughts.
Why did you laugh then, when
I said, "Man delights not me"?
To think, my lord,
if you delight not in man,
what lenten entertainment the
players shall receive from you.
We passed them on the way,
and hither are they coming
to offer you service.
He that plays the king shall be
welcome. What players are they?
Even those you were wont
to take such delight in,
the tragedians of the city.
Gentlemen, you are welcome
to Elsinore.
O, you are welcome
but my uncle-father
and aunt-mother are deceived.
[Guildenstern]
In what, my dear lord?
I am but mad north-north-west.
When the wind is southerly,
I know a hawk from a hand-saw.
The actors have come hither,
my lord!
The best actors in the world,
either for comedy, tragedy,
history, pastoral,
pastoral-comical,
pastoral-tragical,
pastoral-historical,
pastoral-historical-comical,
pastoral-comical,
comical-historical-pastoral,
pastoral-historical-
historical... Oof!
These are the only men.
You are welcome, masters,
welcome, all.
I am glad to see thee well.
O, old friend! Yes.
O, my young lady and mistress.
By our lady, your ladyship
is nearer to heaven
than when I saw you last.
O, masters, you are all welcome.
We'll even to it
like French falconers,
fly at any thing we see,
we'll have a speech straight.
Come, give us a taste
of your quality.
I heard you speak me
a speech once.
What speech, my good lord?
It was Aeneas's tale to Dido,
and thereabout of it
especially when he speaks
of Priam's slaughter.
If it live in your memory,
begin at this line.
Uh, let me see.
"The rugged Pyrrhus,
like the Hyrcanian beast..."
No, it's not so.
It begins with Pyrrhus.
"The rugged Pyrrhus,
he whose sable arm,
black as his purpose,
old grandsire Priam seeks."
So proceed you.
Well, 'fore God, well spoken,
my lord.
Unequal matched,
Pyrrhus at Priam drives,
in rage strikes wide,
but with the whiff and wind
of his fell sword,
the unnerved father falls.
Then, senseless Ilium,
seeming to feel this blow,
with flaming top
stoops to his base,
and with a hideous crash
takes prisoner Pyrrhus's ear,
for lo, his sword,
which was declining on the
milky head of reverent Priam
seemed in the air to stick.
So...
as a painted tyrant,
Pyrrhus stood
and like a neutral
to his will and matter,
did nothing.
So after Pyrrhus's pause,
aroused vengeance
sets him new a-work
and never did the Cyclops'
hammers fall with less remorse
than Pyrrhus's bleeding sword
now falls on Priam!
This is too long!
Yes, well, it shall go to
the barber's with your beard.
Pray you, say on.
He's for a jig or a tale
of bawdry, or he sleeps.
Say on, come to Hecuba.
But who, oh, woe,
had seen the mobled queen
run barefoot up and down,
a cloth upon that head
where late the diadem stood
and for a robe, about her lank
and o'er-teemed loins,
a blanket,
in the alarm of fear caught up.
And if the gods themselves
did see her then,
when she did see Pyrrhus
make malicious sport
in mincing with his sword
her husband's limbs,
the instant shout of clamour
that she made
would have made milch
the burning eyes of heaven,
and passion in the gods!
Look, where she has not turned
colour
and has tears in her eyes.
-Prithee, no more.
-[Hamlet] It's as well.
Now, good my lord, will you see
the players well bestowed?
And do you hear,
let them be well used,
for they are the abstract and
brief chronicles of the time.
I shall use every man
according to their desert.
O, God's bodkin, man,
much better.
"Use every man
after his desert?"
And who shall escape whipping?
[laughter]
Use them after your own honour
and dignity. Take them in.
-Come, sirs.
-Yes, follow him, friends.
[chuckles]
Follow that lord,
and look you, mock him not.
My good friends! [chuckles]
I'll leave you till night.
You are welcome to Elsinore.
Good my lord.
[bell tolls]
O, what a dunghill
idiot sl*ve am I!
Is it not monstrous
that this player here,
but in a fiction,
in a dream of passion,
could force her soul
so to her own conceit
that from her working
all her visage wanned,
tears in her eyes,
distraction in her aspect,
a broken voice,
and her whole function suiting
with forms to her conceit?
And all for nothing, for Hecuba!
What is Hecuba to her,
or she to Hecuba,
that she should weep for her?
What would she do
had she the motive
and the cue for passion
that I have?
She would drown the stage
with tears.
But I, a dull and muddy-mettled
rascal,
peak, like John-a-dreams,
unpregnant of my cause
and can say nothing.
No, not for a king, upon whose
property and most dear life
a damned defeat was made.
Am I a coward?
Who calls me villain,
breaks my pate across,
tweaks me by the nose.
'Swounds, I should take it,
for it cannot be,
but I am pigeon-livered.
Or ere this I should have fatted
all the region kites
with this sl*ve's offal.
Bloody, bawdy villain!
Remorseless, treacherous,
lecherous, kindless villain!
O vengeance!
[laughs] What an a*s am I.
Ah, this is most brave,
that I, the son of a dear father
m*rder*d,
prompted to my revenge
by heaven and hell
must like a wh*re
unpack my heart with words,
about my brains.
I have heard that guilty
creatures sitting at a play
by the very cunning of the scene
been struck so to the soul
that instantly they have
proclaimed their malefactions.
I'll have these players
play something like
the m*rder of my father
before my uncle.
I'll observe his looks,
I'll tent him to the quick.
If he do blench,
I know my course.
The spirit that I have seen
may be a devil,
and the devil hath power
to assume a pleasing shape, yea,
and perhaps, out of my weakness
and my melancholy,
as he is very potent
with such spirits,
abuses me to damn me.
I will have sounder proofs.
The play's the thing
wherein I'll catch
the conscience of the King.
[Hamlet] Can you play
The m*rder of Gonzago?
Ay, my lord.
And you could, for a need, study
a speech of some dozen lines,
which I would set down
and insert them in it?
Yes, very easily, my lord.
[Claudius] There's something
in his soul
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
o'er which his brain's
still beating
puts him thus
from fashion of himself.
"The croaking raven
doth bellow for revenge..."
[Polonius] My lord,
do as you please,
but if you think fit,
after the play, let his
queen-mother alone entreat him
to show his grief.
Let her be round with him,
and I'll be placed,
so please you,
within the ear
of their conference.
If she find him not,
to England send him.
No, speak the speech,
I pray you,
as I pronounced it to you,
trippingly on the tongue,
but if you mouth it,
as many of our players do,
I'd rather hear
the town bull bellow.
[they chuckle]
Nor do not saw the air too much
with your hand, thus...
I warrant your honour.
Be not too tame neither,
use all gently.
Suit the action to the word,
the word to the action,
with this special observance,
that you o'erstep
not the modesty of nature,
for any thing so over done
is from the purpose of playing,
whose end,
both at first and now,
was and is, to hold, as it were,
the mirror up to nature,
to show virtue her feature,
scorn her own image,
and the very age and body
of the time,
his own form and pressure.
Go, make you ready.
[Claudius] It shall be so.
Madness in great ones
must not unwatched go.
What h*, Horatio!
[Horatio] Here, sweet lord,
at your service.
Horatio, you are even
as just a man
as e'er my conversation
coped withal.
-My dear lord...
-No, don't think I flatter.
Since my dear soul
was mistress of her choice
and could of men distinguish,
her election has sealed you
for herself,
for you have been as one,
in suffering all,
that suffers nothing,
Give me that man
who is not passion's sl*ve,
and I will wear him
in my heart's core,
aye, in my heart of hearts,
as I do you.
There is a play tonight
before the King.
One scene of it
comes near the circumstance
which I have told you of,
my father's death.
I pray you, when you see that
act afoot, observe my uncle.
I will, my lord. And not
the smallest alteration
that shall appear in him
but I shall note it.
They are coming to the play.
I must be idle.
Go, get to place.
How now, son Hamlet,
how fare you?
O, excellent, father,
of the chameleon's dish.
I have nothing with this answer,
Hamlet,
these words are not mine.
Nor mine now.
Be the players ready?
[Rosencrantz] Ay, my lord,
they stay upon your patience.
Good Hamlet,
come hither, sit by me.
Good mother,
here's metal more attractive.
[Ophelia] Uh...
O h*, did you mark that?
-Lady, shall I lie in your lap?
-No, my lord.
-I mean, my head on your lap?
-Ay, my lord.
Do you think I meant
country matters?
You are merry, my lord.
-Who, I?
-Ay, my lord.
O God, your only jig-maker.
Go look you.
Look you.
How cheerfully my mother looks,
and my father died
within these two hours.
Nay, it is twice two months,
my lord.
So long? Jesus! But two months
dead and not forgotten yet?
Then there's hope
a great man's memory
may outlive his life
half a year.
[cymbal crashes]
-Ah.
-[chuckles]
[gentle music plays]
[music intensifies]
It's very, very, very curious.
[inhales deeply] Hmm.
[music fades]
-[Polonius laughs]
-[Gertrude] I like this one.
What means this, my lord?
Marry, this is miching mallecho,
it means mischief.
[chuckles] And this
is the prologue.
For us, and for our tragedy,
we beg your hearing patiently.
'Tis brief, my lord.
As woman's love.
[player king] Full forty years
are past, their date is gone,
since happy time
joined both our hearts as one.
And now the blood
that filled my youthful veins
runs weakly in their pipes.
To heaven must I
and leave the earth with you.
O, say not so,
lest that you k*ll my heart.
[player king] Content thyself,
when ended is my date,
thou mayst perchance
have a more noble mate...
O, speak no more,
for then I am accursed.
None weds the second,
but she kills the first.
A second time
I k*ll my lord that's dead,
when second husband
kisses me in bed.
Wormwood, wormwood!
From here and there
pursue me lasting strife,
if once a widow, ever I be wife.
If she should break it now.
[player king] 'Tis deeply sworn.
Sweet, leave me here awhile,
my spirits grow dull,
and fain I would beguile
the tedious time with sleep.
Sleep, rock thy brain,
and never come mischance
between us twain.
[applause]
Madam, how you like this play?
The lady does protest too much,
methinks.
O, but she'll keep her word.
Have you heard the argument?
Is there no offence in it?
No offence in the world.
O, poison in jest.
What do you call
the name of the play?
Mousetrap.The play
is the image of a m*rder
done in Vienna.
Gonzago's the duke's name,
his wife's Baptista.
O, father, it is a knavish piece
of work, but what of that?
O, this is one Lucianus,
nephew to the king.
O, leave your damnable faces
and begin.
The croaking raven
doth bellow for revenge.
Thoughts black, hands apt,
drugs fit, and time agreeing,
thou mixture rank
of midnight weeds collected,
on wholesome life
usurps immediately.
He poisons him
in the garden for his estate.
His name's Gonzago.
You shall see anon
how the m*rder*r gets the love
of Gonzago's wife.
Lights! I will to bed.
-The King rises!
-What?
What, frighted with false fire?
-How fares my lord?
-Give o'er the play.
[Claudius] Give me some light!
Away!
Lights! Lights!
Lights!
[Hamlet] Good Horatio.
I'll take the ghost's word
for a thousand pounds.
-Did you perceive?
-Very well, my lord.
Upon the talk of the poisoning?
-I did very well note him.
-[laughs]
For if the King likes not
this tragedy,
why then belike he likes
it not, by God!
Good my lord, vouchsafe me
a word with you.
Sir, a whole history.
-The King, sir.
-Ay, sir, what of him?
Is in his retirement
marvellous distempered.
-With drink, sir?
-No, my lord, with anger.
The Queen, your mother,
in most great affliction
of spirit, has sent me to you.
-You are welcome.
-Nay, good my lord.
If it shall please you to make
me a wholesome answer,
I will do your mother's
commandment. If not,
your pardon and my return
shall be the end of my business.
-Sir, I cannot.
-What, my lord?
Make you a wholesome answer.
My wit's diseased.
But to the matter.
Um, my mother, you say...
She desires to speak with you in
her closet before you go to bed.
We shall obey,
were she ten times our mother.
Have you any further trade
with us?
My lord. You once did love me.
So I do still,
by these pickers and stealers.
Good my lord,
what is your cause of distemper?
You do freely bar the door
of your own liberty
if you deny your griefs
to your friend.
I lack advancement.
How can that be, when you have
the voice of the King himself
for your succession in Denmark?
[Hamlet] Ay,
but "while the grass grows."
[door opens]
My lord, the Queen would speak
with you and presently.
Do you see that cloud?
That's almost in shape
like a camel?
Oh, by the mass,
it is like a camel indeed.
And now, it's like a weasel.
It is backed like a weasel.
-Or like a whale?
-Yes, very like a whale.
Then I will come to my mother
by and by.
-I will come by and by.
-I-I will say so.
[Hamlet] "By and by"
is easily said.
Leave me.
It's now the very
witching time of night,
when churchyards yawn
and hell breathes out
contagion to this world.
Now could I drink hot blood.
Soft now.
My mother!
O heart, lose not your nature.
Let me be cruel, not unnatural.
I will speak daggers to her,
but use none.
[Claudius] I like him not,
nor stands it safe with us
to let his madness range.
Therefore prepare you and he
to England shall along with you.
We will ourselves provide.
Most holy and religious fear
it is
to keep those many,
many bodies safe
that live and feed
upon your majesty.
Never alone did the King sigh,
but with a general groan.
Arm you, I pray you,
to this speedy voyage.
We will haste us.
[Claudius sighs]
O, my offence is rank.
It smells to heaven.
It has the primal, eldest curse
upon it, a brother's m*rder.
Pray can I not, though
inclination be as sharp as will.
My stronger guilt
defeats my strong intent,
and, like a man
to double business bound,
I find myself in pause
where I shall first begin,
and both neglect.
What if this cursed hand
were thicker than itself
with brother's blood,
is there not rain enough
in the sweet heavens
to wash it white as snow?
And what's in prayer
but this twofold force,
to be forestalled
ere we come to fall
or pardoned being down?
Then look up. My fault is past.
O, what form of prayer
can serve my turn?
"Forgive me my foul m*rder"?
That cannot be,
since I am still possessed
of those effects
for which I did the m*rder,
my crown, mine own ambition,
and my queen.
Can one be pardoned
and retain the offence?
In the corrupted currents
of this world
offence's gilded hand
may shove by justice,
but it's not so above.
Try what repentance can.
What can it not?
Yet what can it,
when one cannot repent?
O limed soul, that struggling
to be free art more engaged!
Help, angels!
Make assay.
Bow, stubborn knees,
and heart, with strings of steel
be soft as sinews
of the new-born babe!
All may be well.
Now might I do it.
Pat, now he's a-praying.
And now I'll do it.
[sighs]
And shall I k*ll him now
when he is purging of his sins
making his way to heaven?
Am I then revenged?
No.
When he is drunk asleep,
or in his rage,
or in the incestuous pleasure
of his bed,
at game, a-swearing,
or about some act
that has no relish
of salvation in it,
then trip him, that his heels
may kick at heaven
and that his soul may be
as damned and black as hell,
whereto it goes.
My mother stays.
This physic but prolongs
your sickly days.
My words fly up,
my thoughts remain below.
Words without thoughts
never to heaven go.
Tell him his pranks have
been too broad to bear.
I'll warrant you, fear me not.
Withdraw.
I'll hide me even here.
Pray you, be round with him.
How is it with you, mother?
-How is it with you?
-I'll tell you.
But first, we'll make all safe.
[Gertrude] Hamlet?
You have your father
much offended.
Mother,youhave my father
much offended.
-[Gertrude] How now, boy?
-How now, mother?
Come, come, you answer
with an idle tongue.
O, go, go, you question
with a wicked tongue.
-Have you forgot me?
-No, by the rood, not so.
You are the Queen,
your husband's brother's wife,
and would it were not so,
you are my mother.
Nay, then I will set those
to you that can speak.
Now you come here
and sit you down.
You shall not budge.
You go not,
till I set you up a glass
where you may see
the inmost part of you.
What will you do?
You will not m*rder me?
[Polonius] Help!
How now!
A rat?
-[breathes shakily]
-Dead! For a ducat!
[Polonius groans]
O me, what have you done?
Nay, I know not.
Is it the King?
O, what a rash and bloody deed
is this!
A bloody deed,
almost as bad, good mother,
as k*ll a king,
and marry with his brother.
-As k*ll a king?
-Ay, lady, it was my word.
[Gertrude gasps]
You wretched, rash,
intruding fool.
[sighs]
Farewell!
I took you for your better.
You leave wringing
of your hands.
Peace!
Sit you down.
[anxious muttering]
[Hamlet] And let me
wring your heart.
What have I done
that you dare to wag your tongue
so loud in noise against me?
Such an act...
that blurs the grace
and blush of modesty,
calls virtue hypocrite,
takes off the rose from the fair
forehead of an innocent love
and sets a blister there.
Makes marriage vows
as false as dicers' oaths.
Ay me, what act?
Look here upon this picture.
And on this.
Do you see what a grace
was seated on this brow?
Whose heart went hand in hand,
even with the vow
he made to you in marriage,
and he's dead. m*rder*d.
Damnably m*rder*d.
This was your husband.
Look you now what follows.
Here is your husband,
like a mildewed ear
blasting his wholesome brother.
A look fit for a m*rder.
And a r*pe.
What, have you eyes
and can you look on him
who slew my father,
and your dear husband?
O shame, where is your blush?
O, Hamlet, speak no more!
You turn my eyes
into my very soul,
and there I see such
black and grained spots
as will not leave their tinct.
Nay, but to live In the rank
sweat of an enseamed bed,
stewed in corruption,
honeying and making love
over the nasty sty!
O, speak to me no more!
These words like daggers
enter in my ears.
No more, sweet Hamlet!
He's a m*rder*r and a villain!
A cutpurse of the empire
and the rule,
who from a shelf
the precious diadem stole,
and put it in his pocket!
[she yelps]
No more!
A king of shreds and patches.
[ghost]Mark me!
Save me,
hover over me with your wings,
you heavenly guards.
What would you, gracious figure?
[Gertrude] Alas, he's mad!
Do you not come
your t*rd son to chide?
O, say.
O, step between your mother
and her fighting soul.
Speak to her, Hamlet.
How is it with you, lady?
Alas, how is it with you, that
you do bend your eye on vacancy,
and with the encorporal air
do hold discourse?
Gentle son, upon the heat
and flame of your distemper
sprinkle cool patience.
Whereon do you look?
On him.
On him, look you.
How pale he glares.
O, 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.
To whom do you speak this?
Do you see nothing there?
-Nothing at all.
-Nor did you nothing hear?
No, nothing but ourselves.
[Hamlet]
Well, look you... there!
My father!
Look where he goes!
[Gertrude] Alas, it is
the weakness of your brain
which makes your tongue
to blazon your heart's grief.
But as I have a soul,
I swear by heaven
I never knew
of this most horrid m*rder.
Hamlet, this is only fantasy.
And for my love,
forget these idle fits.
My pulse as yours
doth temperately keep time,
and makes as healthful music.
It is not madness
that possesses Hamlet.
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.
O Hamlet, you have cleft
my heart in twain.
Throw away the worser part
of it,
and live the purer
with the other half.
Goodnight.
Assume a virtue,
if you have it not.
Refrain tonight,
and that will lend
a kind of easiness
to the next abstinence,
the next more easy.
Hmm.
Once more, good night.
And when you are desirous
to be bless'd,
I'll blessing beg of you.
Be you assured,
if words be made of breath,
and breath of life,
I have no life to breathe
what you have said to me.
[Claudius]
There's matter in these sighs,
'tis fit we understand them.
Where is your son?
Bestow this place on us
a while.
[quietly] Take it carefully.
O, my own lord,
what have I seen tonight!
What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?
Mad as the sea and wind
when both contend
which is the mightier.
In his lawless fit, behind the
arras hearing something stir,
whips out a dagger,
cries, "A rat, a rat!"
and in this brainish
apprehension
kills the unseen good old man.
O, heavy deed.
It had been so with us
had we been there.
His liberty is full of threats
to all,
to you yourself, to us,
to everyone.
Alas, how shall this bloody deed
be answered?
It will be laid to us,
whose providence
should have kept short,
restrained, and out of haunt
this mad young man.
Where is he gone?
To draw apart the body
he has k*lled.
He weeps for what is done.
Guildenstern. Hamlet in madness
has Polonius slain.
Go seek him out, speak fair, and
bring the body Into the chapel.
I pray you, haste in this.
O Gertrude, this vile deed
we must with all
our majesty and skill
both countenance and excuse.
O, come away!
My soul is full of discord
and dismay.
How dangerous is it
that this man goes loose!
Yet must not we put
the strong law on him,
he's loved
of the distracted multitude.
How now, what hath befallen?
Where the dead body is bestowed,
my lord, we cannot get from him.
Now, Hamlet, where's Polonius?
-At supper.
-At supper? Where?
Not where he eats,
but where he is eaten.
A certain convocation of
politic worms are e'en at him.
Your worm is your only emperor
for diet.
We fatten all creatures else
to fat us,
and fatten ourselves
for maggots.
Your fat king and your lean
beggar are but variable service,
two dishes, but to one table.
That's the end.
Alas, alas!
[Hamlet] A man may fish with the
worm that has eaten of a king,
and eat of the fish
that has fed of that worm.
-What do you mean by this?
-Nothing.
Only to show you how a king
may go a progress
through the guts of a beggar.
Where is Polonius?
In heaven, send thither to see.
If your messenger find him
not there,
seek him in the other place
yourself.
But indeed,
if you find him not,
within this month,
you shall nose him
as you go up the stairs
into the lobby.
Go seek him there.
He will stay till you come,
Marcellus.
[Claudius] Hamlet, this deed,
for your especial safety,
which we do tender,
as we dearly grieve
for that which you have done,
must send you hence.
Therefore prepare yourself.
The ship is ready,
and the wind at help,
the associates tend, and
everything is bent for England.
-For England?
-Ay, Hamlet.
Good.
So is it, if you knew
our purposes.
I see a cherub that sees them.
But come, for England.
Farewell, dear mother.
-Thy loving father, Hamlet.
-My mother.
Father and mother
is man and wife,
man and wife is one flesh.
And so, my mother. Hmm.
Come, for England!
Follow him at foot,
tempt him with speed aboard.
Delay it not,
I'll have him hence tonight.
Away, for everything
is sealed and done
that else leans on the affair.
Pray you, make haste.
And, England, if my love
you hold at aught,
you may not coldly set
our sovereign process,
which imports at full
the present death of Hamlet.
Do it, England, for like the
hectic in my blood, he rages,
and you must cure me.
She speaks much of her father,
says she thinks there's tricks
in the world, and hums.
[sighs] It were good
she were spoken with,
for she may strew
dangerous conjectures
in ill-breeding minds.
[strummed chords on guitar]
Where is the beauteous
majesty of Denmark?
How now, Ophelia?
Ah-ha-aa
How should
I your true-love know
From another one?
By his c*ck hat and staff
And his sandal shoon...
Alas, what imports
this song, sweet lady?
Say you? Nay, pray you, mark.
He is dead and gone, lady
He is dead and gone
At his head
a grass-green turf
At his heels a stone
-Nay, but, Ophelia...
-Pray you, mark.
White his shroud
as the mountain snow
Alas, my good lord, look here.
Larded all with sweet flowers
Which bewept to the ground
did not go
With true-love showers
How do you, pretty lady?
Well, God 'ild you.
They say the owl
was a baker's daughter.
Lord, we know what we are,
but know not what we may be.
-God be at your table!
-Conceit upon her father.
Pray, let's have
no words of this!
But when they ask you
what it means, say you this.
Tomorrow
is Saint Valentine's Day
All in the morning betime
And I a maid at your window
To be your Valentine
Then up he rose
and donned his clothes
And dupped the chamber-door
Let in the maid
that out a maid
Never departed more
Pretty Ophelia!
Indeed, without an oath,
I'll make an end on't.
By Gis and by Saint Charity
Alack, and fie for shame!
Young men will do it
if they come to it
By c*ck, they are to blame
Quoth she
before you tumbled me
You promised me to wed
So would I have done
by yonder sun
And thou hast not come
to my bed
My bed
How long has she been thus?
I hope all will be well.
We must be patient.
But I cannot choose but weep
to think they would lay him
in the cold ground.
My brother shall know of it.
And so, I thank you
for your good counsel.
Good sir, whose powers
are these?
-They are of Norway, sir.
-How purposed, sir?
Against some part of Poland.
Who commands them, sir?
The nephew to old Norway,
Fortinbras.
Goes it against the main
of Poland?
We go to gain a little patch
of ground
that has in it
no profit but the name.
To pay five ducats, five,
I would not farm it.
Why then,
the Poles never will defend it.
Yes, it is already garrisoned.
I humbly thank you, sir.
God bye you, sir.
Will it please you go, my lord?
I'll be with you straight.
How all occasions
do inform against me
and spur my dull revenge!
Witness this army
of such mass and charge,
led by a delicate
and tender prince,
exposing what is mortal
and unsure
to all that fortune, death
and danger dare,
even for an egg-shell.
How stand I then, that have a
father k*lled, a mother stained,
and let all sleep,
whilst to my shame,
I see the imminent death
of 20,000 men,
who, for a fantasy
and trick of fame,
go to their graves like beds.
From this time forth,
my thoughts be bloody,
or be nothing worth!
Where is this king?
Alack, what noise is this?
O, you vile king!
Give me my father!
Calmly, good Laertes.
What is the cause, Laertes,
that your rebellion
looks so giant-like?
Let him go, Gertrude,
do not fear our person.
There's such divinity
does hedge a king
that treason can but peep
to what it would,
acts little of his will.
Tell me, Laertes, why you are
thus incensed? Speak, man.
Where is my father?
-Dead.
-But not by him.
Let him demand his fill.
How came he dead?
I'll not be juggled with!
I'll be revenged
most thoroughly for my father.
-Who shall stay you?
-My will, not all the world's.
Good Laertes, you will draw
both friend and foe,
winner and loser?
-None but his enemies.
-Will you know them then?
To his good friends
thus wide I'll open my arms.
Why, now you speak like a good
child and a true gentleman.
I am guiltless
of your father's death,
and am most sensibly
in grief for it.
[Ophelia, tearfully]
Fare you well, my dove!
You must sing a-down, a-down.
And you call him a-down-a.
There's rosemary,
that's for remembrance.
Pray you, love, remember.
And there's pansies.
That's for thoughts.
There's fennel for you,
and columbines.
There's rue for you
and here's some for me.
There's a daisy.
I would give you some violets,
but they withered all
when my father died.
[sniffles] They say
he made a good end.
For bonny sweet Robin
is all my joy
Thought and afflictions,
passion, hell itself,
she turns to favour.
And will he not come again?
And will he not come again?
No, no, he is dead
Go to thy death bed
He never will come again
His beard
was as white as snow
All flaxen was his pole
He is gone
He is gone
And we cast away moan
God have mercy on his soul
And of all Christian souls,
I pray God.
God bye you.
[Ophelia sobs]
Laertes, be you content
to lend your patience to us,
and we will jointly labour
with your soul
to give it due content.
And where the offence is,
let the great axe fall.
-God bless you, sir.
-Let him bless you too.
There's a letter for you, sir.
It came from the ambassador
that was bound for England.
[Horatio] "Ere we were two days
old at sea,
a pirate ship of very warlike
appointment gave us chase..."
[Hamlet]"Finding ourselves
too slow of sail,
we put on a compelled valour,
and in the grapple,
I boarded them."
"On the instant
they got clear of our ship,
so I alone
became their prisoner."
"They have dealt with me
like thieves of mercy,
but they knew what they did."
"I am to do
a good turn for them."
"I have words to speak in your
ear will make you dumb."
"Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
hold their course for England:
of them I have much
to tell you."
[screaming]
One woe does tread
upon another's heel,
so fast they follow.
Your sister's drowned, Laertes.
Drowned?
Oh? Where?
[Gertrude] There is a willow
grows aslant a brook,
that shows his hoar leaves
in the glassy stream,
there with fantastic garlands
did she come
of crow-flowers,
nettles, daisies.
There on the pendent boughs,
her coronet weeds
clambering to hang,
an envious sliver broke,
when down her weedy trophies
and herself
fell in the weeping brook.
Her clothes spread wide,
and mermaid-like awhile
they bore her up,
which time she chanted snatches
of old songs.
But long it could not be,
till that her garments,
heavy with their drink,
pulled the poor wretch
from her melodious lay,
muddy death.
[cries]
Alas, then, she is drowned?
Drowned.
Drowned.
Too much of water hast you,
poor Ophelia,
and therefore,
I forbid my tears.
[Gertrude sobs]
When these are gone,
the woman will be out.
Up from my cabin, in the dark
groped I to find out them,
had my desire,
to mine own room again,
making so bold,
my fears forgetting manners,
to unseal their grand commission
where I found, Horatio,
O, royal knavery,
an exact command
my head should be struck off.
-Is it possible?
-Here is the commission.
Will you hear now
how I did proceed?
-[bell chimes]
-I do beseech you.
Being thus be-netted round
with villanies, I sat me down,
devised a new commission,
wrote it fair.
An earnest conjuration
to the King of England,
he should those bearers
put to sudden death.
I had my father's signet
in my purse,
folded the writ up
in the form of the other,
subscribed it, gave it the
impression, placed it safely.
The changeling never known.
[voice in the distance]
So Guildenstern
and Rosencrantz go to it.
Why, man, they did make love
to this employment.
They are not
near my conscience.
For and a shrouding sheet
O, a pit of clay
for to be made...
Has she no feeling
for her business?
She sings at grave-making.
Custom has made it in her
a property of easiness.
'Tis even so.
The hand of little employment
has the daintier sense.
That skull had a tongue in it,
and could sing once.
How she jowls it to the ground,
as if it were Cain's jaw-bone,
that did the first m*rder!
[Horatio chuckles]
-Whose grave is this?
-Mine, sir.
No, what man do you dig it for?
For no man, sir.
[Hamlet] O, for what woman then?
For none neither.
Who is to be buried in it?
One that was a woman, sir,
but, rest her soul, she's dead.
How long have you been
a grave-maker?
Of all the days in the year,
I came to it that day
that our last king, Hamlet,
overcame Fortinbras.
How long ago is that?
Cannot you tell that?
Every fool can tell that.
It was that very day
that young Hamlet was born,
he that is mad,
and sent into England.
Ah, now, why was he sent
into England?
Why, because he was mad.
He shall recover his wits there,
or if he do not,
it's no great matter there.
[Hamlet] Why?
'Twill not be seen in him there,
there the men are as mad as he.
[they laugh]
How long will a man lie
in the earth ere he rot?
Here's a skull now
hath lain you in the earth
three and twenty years.
Whose skull was it?
A whoreson mad fellow's it was.
Whose do you think it was?
Nay, I know not.
A pestilence on him
for a mad rogue!
He poured a flagon of Rhenish
on my head once.
This same skull, sir, was, sir,
Yorick's skull,
the King's jester.
That?
Let me see.
Even that.
O, alas, poor Yorick!
I knew him, Horatio.
A fellow of infinite jest,
of most excellent fancy.
He has bore me on his back
a thousand times,
and now, how abhorred
in my imagination it is!
My gorge rises at it.
Here hung those lips that I have
kissed I know not how oft.
Where be your gibes now,
your gambols, your songs,
your flashes of merriment,
that were wont to set the table
on a roar?
Not one now
to mock your own grinning,
quite chop-fallen.
Go you to my lady's chamber,
tell her, let her paint
an inch thick,
to this favour she must come.
-Make her laugh at that.
-[bell tolls]
-Soft.
-[distant clang]
Soft awhile.
[bell tolls]
-What ceremony else?
-Laertes?
What ceremony else?
Her obsequies have been
as far enlarged
as we have warranty.
Her death was... doubtful.
She should in ground
unsanctified be lodged
till the last trumpet.
-Must there no more be done?
-No more be done!
We should profane
the service of the dead
to sing a requiem and such rest
to her as to peace-parted souls.
I tell you, churlish priest,
a ministering angel will my
sister be when you lie howling.
What? The fair Ophelia!
Sweets to the sweet, farewell.
I hoped you should have been
my Hamlet's wife.
I thought your bridal bed
to have decked, sweet maid,
and not have strewed your grave.
Treble woe fall ten times treble
on that cursed head
whose wicked deed
your most ingenious sense
deprived you of!
Hold off the earth awhile,
till I have caught her once more
in my arms.
Now, pile your dust
upon the quick and dead.
What is he whose grief
bears such an emphasis?
This is I, Hamlet the Dane!
[Laertes] The devil
take your soul!
You pray not well.
[Laertes yells]
-Hold off your hand!
-Pluck them asunder!
Hamlet, Hamlet!
By heavens, I'll fight
with him upon this theme.
O my son, which theme?
I loved Ophelia!
Forty thousand brothers
could not with all
their quantity of love
make up my sum.
What would you do for her?
-O, he is mad, Laertes.
-For love of God, forbear him.
[Hamlet] 'Swounds,
show me what you'd do.
Would you weep, would you fight,
would fast, would tear yourself?
I'll do it.
Do you come here to whine?
To outface me
with leaping in her grave?
Be buried quick with her,
and so will I.
This is mere madness!
Hear you, sir, what is the
reason that you use me thus?
I loved you ever.
But it is no matter.
I pray you, good Horatio,
wait upon him.
Strengthen your patience,
Laertes.
We'll put the matter
to the present push.
Good Gertrude, set some watch
over your son.
This grave shall have
a living monument.
An hour of quiet
shortly shall we see.
Till then, in patience
our proceeding be.
Now must your conscience
my acquaintance seal,
and you must put me
in your heart for friend,
since you have heard,
and with a knowing ear,
that he who has your noble
father slain pursued my life.
It well appears.
But tell me why you proceeded
not against these feats,
so criminal and so capital
in nature.
O, for two special reasons.
The Queen, his mother,
lives almost by his looks.
And for myself, she's so
conjunctive to my life and soul,
I could not but by her.
The other motive,
is the great love
the general gender bear him.
And so have I
a noble father lost,
a sister driven
into desperate terms.
But my revenge will come.
Laertes...
was your father dear to you?
Or are you like
the painting of a sorrow,
-a face without a heart?
-Why ask you this?
What would you undertake
to show yourself indeed
your father's son
more than in words?
To cut his throat in the church.
No place indeed
should m*rder sanctuarise.
Revenge should have no bounds.
I have heard him
often with a greedy wish,
upon some praise
that he has heard of you
touching your weapon,
which with all his heart
he might be once tasked for,
to try your cunning.
We'll make a wager
o'er your heads.
He, being remiss, most generous,
and free from all contriving,
will not peruse the foils,
so that with ease,
or with a little shuffling
you may choose
a sword unblunted,
and in a pass of practice
requite him for your father.
I will do it.
And, for that purpose,
I'll anoint my sword.
I bought an unction
of a mountebank,
so mortal that,
but dip a knife in it,
where it draws blood,
no cataplasm so rare,
can save the thing from death.
I'll touch my point
with this contagion,
that if I gall him slightly,
it may be death.
Our purpose may hold there.
[bell tolls]
[Horatio]
Why, what a king is this!
Does it not, think you,
stand me now
upon he that has k*lled my king,
whored my mother,
popped in between the election
and my hopes,
is it not perfect conscience
to quit him with this arm?
Is it not to be damned
to let this canker of our nature
come in further evil?
It must be shortly known
to him from England
what is the issue
of the business there.
It will be short.
The interim is mine
and a man's life
no more than to say "one."
But I'm very sorry,
good Horatio,
that to Laertes,
I forgot myself,
for in image of my cause
I see the portraiture of his.
[knocking at door]
Do you know this water-fly?
[Horatio] No, my good lord.
Your lordship is right welcome
back to Denmark.
Sweet lord, if your lordship
were at leisure,
I should impart a thing to you
from his majesty.
I shall receive it, sir,
with all diligence of spirit.
My lord, his majesty bade me
signify to you
that he has laid
a great wager on your head.
Sir, you are not ignorant
at what excellence Laertes is
with his weapon.
-What is his weapon, sir?
-Rapier and dagger.
That's two of his weapons,
but well.
The King, sir, hath laid, sir,
that in a dozen passes
between yourself and him,
he shall not exceed you
three hits.
If the King will venture his
wager, I will venture my skill.
Let the foils be brought,
the gentleman willing,
the King hold his purposes,
I will win for him if I can.
[sighs]
You will lose this wager,
my lord.
I do not think so.
Since he went into France,
I have been
in continual practice.
I shall win at the odds.
You would not think how ill
all's here about my heart,
but it's no matter.
-Nay, good my lord...
-It is but foolery.
I will forestall them,
say you are not fit.
Not a whit!
We defy augury.
There is a special providence
in the fall of a sparrow.
If it be now, 'tis not to come.
If it be not to come,
it will be now.
If it be not now,
yet it will come.
The readiness is all.
Since no man has aught
of what he leaves,
what is it to leave betimes?
Let be.
[Claudius] Hamlet, come.
And take this hand from me.
Give me your pardon, sir.
I have done you wrong.
I do receive
your offered love like love,
-and will not wrong it.
-I embrace it freely;
and shall this brothers' wager
frankly play.
Give us the foils. Come on.
[Laertes] Come, one for me.
Cousin Hamlet,
you know the wager?
O, very well, my lord.
Your grace has laid the odds
on the weaker side.
I do not fear it,
I have seen you both.
This one is too heavy.
Let me see another.
Yes, this likes me well.
These foils have all a length?
-[Osric] Ay, my good lord.
-[laughs]
If Hamlet give the first
or second hit,
the King shall drink
to Hamlet's better breath,
and in the cup
a pearl shall he throw,
richer than that which
four successive kings
in Denmark's crown have worn.
Come, begin.
And you, the judge,
bear a wary eye.
-Come, sir.
-Come, my lord.
-One!
-No!
-Judgement?
-No!
[Osric] A hit,
a very palpable hit.
-[laughs]
-Well, again.
Stay. The King drinks to Hamlet.
Hamlet, this pearl is yours.
Here's to your health!
Give him the cup.
I'll play this bout first,
set it by awhile.
Come! Come!
Come.
Another hit, what say you?
A touch, a touch.
I do confess it.
-[laughs]
-[applause]
Our son shall win.
Here, Hamlet, take this,
rub your brow.
The Queen carouses
to your fortune, Hamlet.
Gertrude, do not drink.
I will, my lord,
I pray you, pardon me.
No, I dare not drink yet, madam,
by and by.
Come, let me wipe your face.
-My lord, I'll hit him now.
-I do not think it.
[Hamlet] Come, for the third.
Laertes, you do but dally.
I pray you, pass with
your best violence.
-You make a wanton of me.
-Say you so?
[laughs]
Come on! [grunts]
Nothing either way!
[exhales]
Have at you now!
[spectators gasp]
Hmm!
[Hamlet yells]
[they grunt]
-Part them, they are incensed!
-[swords clang]
-[yelps]
-Nay, come again!
[Laertes yells]
[Osric] Look to the Queen there!
Oh!
They bleed on both sides.
How is it, my lord?
[Osric] How is it, Laertes?
Why, I am justly k*lled
with my own treachery.
How does the Queen?
[splutters]
Drink.
The drink.
O, my dear Hamlet.
I am poisoned.
[Gertrude gasps]
O, villainy!
Let the doors be locked!
[man] Doors!
Treachery!
Seek it out!
It is here, Hamlet.
Hamlet, you are slain.
No medicine in the world
can do you good.
In you there is not
half an hour's life.
The treacherous instrument
is in your hand,
unblunted and envenomed.
The foul practice
hath turned itself on me.
[wails]
Here I lie, never to rise again.
Your mother's poisoned.
I can no more.
The King.
The King's to blame.
The point envenomed too!
Then, venom, do your work!
[Claudius grunts]
[all] Treason!
Here, thou incestuous,
murderous,
damned Dane,
drink of this potion.
O, is your pearl there?
[splutters]
Follow my mother!
Exchange forgiveness with me,
noble Hamlet.
Mine and my father's death
come not upon you,
nor yours on me.
I am dead, Horatio.
Wretched queen, adieu!
Horatio, I am dead, you live.
Report me and my cause aright
to the unsatisfied.
Never believe it.
I am more an antique Roman
than a Dane.
Here's yet some liquor left.
As you are a man,
give me the cup.
Now, let go.
By heavens, I'll have it!
O good Horatio,
what a wounded name,
things standing thus unknown,
shall I leave behind me.
And if you did ever hold me
in your heart
absent you from felicity awhile,
and in this harsh world
draw your breath in pain
to tell my story.
I die, Horatio.
The rest is silence.
Now cracks a noble heart.
Good night, sweet prince,
and flights of angels
sing you to your rest.
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Hamlet (2024)
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