第20章

Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed, And batten on this moor? Ha! have you eyes?

You cannot call it love; for at your age The hey-day in the blood is tame, it's humble, And waits upon the judgment: and what judgment Would step from this to this? Sense, sure, you have, Else could you not have motion; but sure, that sense Is apoplex'd; for madness would not err, Nor sense to ecstasy was ne'er so thrall'd But it reserved some quantity of choice, To serve in such a difference. What devil was't That thus hath cozen'd you at hoodman-blind?

Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight, Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all, Or but a sickly part of one true sense Could not so mope.

O shame! where is thy blush? Rebellious hell, If thou canst mutine in a matron's bones, To flaming youth let virtue be as wax, And melt in her own fire: proclaim no shame When the compulsive ardour gives the charge, Since frost itself as actively doth burn And reason panders will. QUEEN GERTRUDE O Hamlet, speak no more:

Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul;And there I see such black and grained spots As will not leave their tinct. HAMLET Nay, but to live In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed, Stew'd in corruption, honeying and making love Over the nasty sty,-- QUEEN GERTRUDE O, speak to me no more;These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears;No more, sweet Hamlet! HAMLET A murderer and a villain;A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe Of your precedent lord; a vice of kings;A cutpurse of the empire and the rule, That from a shelf the precious diadem stole, And put it in his pocket! QUEEN GERTRUDE No more! HAMLET A king of shreds and patches,--Enter Ghost Save me, and hover o'er me with your wings, You heavenly guards! What would your gracious figure? QUEEN GERTRUDE Alas, he's mad! HAMLET Do you not come your tardy son to chide, That, lapsed in time and passion, lets go by The important acting of your dread command? O, say! Ghost Do not forget: this visitation Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.

But, look, amazement on thy mother sits:

O, step between her and her fighting soul:

Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works:

Speak to her, Hamlet. HAMLET How is it with you, lady? QUEEN GERTRUDE Alas, how is't with you, That you do bend your eye on vacancy And with the incorporal air do hold discourse?

Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep;And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm, Your bedded hair, like life in excrements, Starts up, and stands on end. O gentle son, Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look? HAMLET On him, on him! Look you, how pale he glares!

His form and cause conjoin'd, preaching to stones, Would make them capable. 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. QUEEN GERTRUDE To whom do you speak this? HAMLET Do you see nothing there? QUEEN GERTRUDE Nothing at all; yet all that is I see. HAMLET Nor did you nothing hear? QUEEN GERTRUDE No, nothing but ourselves. HAMLET Why, look you there! look, how it steals away!

My father, in his habit as he lived!

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

Exit Ghost QUEEN GERTRUDE This the very coinage of your brain:

This bodiless creation ecstasy Is very cunning in. HAMLET Ecstasy!