第21章

My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time, And makes as healthful music: it is not madness That I have utter'd: bring me to the test, And I the matter will re-word; which madness Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace, Lay not that mattering unction to your soul, That not your trespass, but my madness speaks:

It will but skin and film the ulcerous place, Whilst rank corruption, mining all within, Infects unseen. 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. Forgive me this my virtue;For in the fatness of these pursy times Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg, Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good. QUEEN GERTRUDE O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain. HAMLET O, throw away the worser part of it, And live the purer with the other half.

Good night: but go not to mine uncle's bed;Assume a virtue, if you have it not.

That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat, Of habits devil, is angel yet in this, That to the use of actions fair and good He likewise gives a frock or livery, That aptly is put on. Refrain to-night, And that shall lend a kind of easiness To the next abstinence: the next more easy;For use almost can change the stamp of nature, And either [ ] the devil, or throw him out With wondrous potency. Once more, good night:

And when you are desirous to be bless'd, I'll blessing beg of you. For this same lord, Pointing to POLONIUSI do repent: but heaven hath pleased it so, To punish me with this and this with me, That I must be their scourge and minister.

I will bestow him, and will answer well The death I gave him. So, again, good night.

I must be cruel, only to be kind:

Thus bad begins and worse remains behind.

One word more, good lady. QUEEN GERTRUDE What shall I do? HAMLET Not this, by no means, that I bid you do:

Let the bloat king tempt you again to bed;Pinch wanton on your cheek; call you his mouse;And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses, Or paddling in your neck with his damn'd fingers, Make you to ravel all this matter out, That I essentially am not in madness, But mad in craft. 'Twere good you let him know;For who, that's but a queen, fair, sober, wise, Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib, Such dear concernings hide? who would do so?

No, in despite of sense and secrecy, Unpeg the basket on the house's top.

Let the birds fly, and, like the famous ape, To try conclusions, in the basket creep, And break your own neck down. QUEEN GERTRUDE Be thou assured, if words be made of breath, And breath of life, I have no life to breathe What thou hast said to me. HAMLET I must to England; you know that? QUEEN GERTRUDE Alack, I had forgot: 'tis so concluded on. HAMLET There's letters seal'd: and my two schoolfellows, Whom I will trust as I will adders fang'd, They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way, And marshal me to knavery. Let it work;For 'tis the sport to have the engineer Hoist with his own petard: and 't shall go hard But I will delve one yard below their mines, And blow them at the moon: O, 'tis most sweet, When in one line two crafts directly meet.

This man shall set me packing:

I'll lug the guts into the neighbour room.

Mother, good night. Indeed this counsellor Is now most still, most secret and most grave, Who was in life a foolish prating knave.

Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you.

Good night, mother.

Exeunt severally; HAMLET dragging in POLONIUS