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• 1 media/Hamlet Print Public Domain.jpg media/Hamlet Print Public Domain.jpg 2019-11-28T09:16:52-08:00 Hamlet 50 Act III Scene I image_header 2019-12-13T14:47:11-08:00

  Textual Introduction • The So What? Question • Works Cited

  Act III Scene I

  Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, 
  Guildenstern, Lords.
   
  King
  And can you by no drift of conference
  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 [and Lords].
   
  King
   Sweet Gurtrude, leave us two,
  For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither,
  That he, as 'twere 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,
  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 honors.
   
  Ophelia
   Madam, I wish it may.
   
  [Exit Queen.]
   
  Polonius
  Ophelia, walk you here.--Gracious, so please you,
  We will bestow ourselves. [To Ophelia, as he gives her a book] Read on this book,
  That show of such an exercise may color
  Your lowliness. We are oft too 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] Oh, '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.
  Oh, heavy burden!
   
  Enter Hamlet.
   
  Polonius
  I hear him coming. Withdraw, my lord.
  
  [The King and Polonius conceal themselves.]
   
  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 despised 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 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 traveler 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,
  And thus the native hue of resolution
  Is sickl[i]ed o'er with the pale cast of thought,
  And enterprises of great pitch 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 honor for this many a day?
   
  Hamlet
  I humbly thank you well.
   
  Ophelia
  I pray you now receive My lord, I have remembrances of yours
  That I have longèd long to redeliver.
  I pray you now receive them.
   
  Hamlet
  No, not I. I never gave you aught.
   
  Ophelia
  My honored 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.
  
  [She offers Hamlet the remembrances.]
   
  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, you 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 evocutate 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 offenses 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; 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
  Oh, 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, 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
  Heavenly powers restore him!
   
  Hamlet
  I have heard of your paintings well enough. God hath 
  given you one face, and you make yourselves another. You jig and 
  amble, and you lisp, you nickname God's creatures, and make your 
  wantonness ignorance. Go to, I'll no more on't; it hath made me mad. 
  I say we will have no mo marriage. Those that are married already, all 
  but one, shall live; the rest shall keep as they are. To a nunnery, go.
  
  Exit.
   
  Ophelia
  Oh, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!
  The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword,
  Th'expectation and rose of the fair state,
  The glass of fashion and the mold of form,
  Th'observed of all observers, quite, quite down,
  And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
  That sucked the honey of his musicked vows,
  Now see what noble and most sovereign reason
  Like sweet bells jangled out of time, and harsh,
  That unmatched form and stature of blown youth
  Blasted with ecstasy. Oh, woe is me
  T'have seen what I have seen, see what I see!
   
  Enter King and Polonius [stepping forward from concealment].
   
  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 unmatched go.
  
  Exeunt.