Enter HORATIO
Enter GHOST
HORATIO
Look, there it comes!
(A SIDE) In the same figure, like the king
that's dead.
HORATIO
By heaven I charge you, speak!
Exit Ghost
HORATIO
It’s gone.
It is offended.
Re-enter Ghost
HORATIO
Stay, illusion!
Speak to me.
Exit Ghost
HORATIO
It faded.
Let’s part what I have seen
to young Hamlet.
Exit HORATIO
Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, HAMLET,
POLONIUS
KING
CLAUDIUS
How is it that the clouds still hang on you?
QUEEN
GERTRUDE
Good Hamlet, cast your dark colour off,
And let your eye look like a friend on
You know it’s common; that all lives
must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.
HAMLET
Yes, madam, it is common.
QUEEN
GERTRUDE
If it be,
Why seems it so particular with you?
KING
CLAUDIUS
It’s sweet in your nature, Hamlet,
To give these mourning duties to your father:
But, you must know, your father lost a father;
That father lost his.
This must be so.
We pray you. For your intent
In going back to school in
Remain here, in the cheer and comfort of our eyes.
QUEEN
GERTRUDE
I pray you, stay with us; don’t go to
HAMLET
I shall in all my best obey you, madam.
KING CLAUDIUS
This gentle accord of Hamlet
Sits smiling to my heart. Come away.
Exeunt all but
HAMLET
HAMLET
O..Heaven! Must I remember? within a month--
Let me not think on it--Frailty, your name is woman!--
A little month she followed my poor
father's body,
All tears: O, God! a beast, --married with my uncle,
My father's brother--within a month--She married.
Enter HORATIO
HORATIO
Hi, Hamlet!
HAMLET
I am glad to see you, Horatio
HORATIO
My lord, I came to see your father's funeral.
HAMLET
I think it was to see my mother's wedding.
HORATIO
Your father was a goodly king, and,
My lord, I think - I saw him - yesterday night.
HAMLET
Saw? Where?
HORATIO
My lord, upon the platform.
HAMLET
Did you
speak to it?
HORATIO
I did,
but it didn’t answer.
HAMLET
Upon the platform,
I'll visit you.
Exeunt
Enter
OPHELIA and her SISTER
Her
SISTER
About Hamlet perhaps he loves you now,
If he says he loves you,
It fits your wisdom so far to believe it
Fear it, Ophelia, and keep you
Out of the shot and danger of desire.
OPHELIA
Don’t worry, good my sister,
I shall keep the effect of this good lesson
Her
SISTER
O, here
our father comes.
Enter POLONIUS
LORD
POLONIUS
My blessing with you!
What have you said to Ophelia?
Her
SISTER
Something about Lord Hamlet.
LORD
POLONIUS
Well, they told me, he has very often
spent some time with you;
What is between you? Tell me the truth.
OPHELIA
He has, my lord, made many tenders
Of his affection to me.
LORD
POLONIUS
Lord Hamlet is young
Do not believe his vows!
OPHELIA
I shall obey, my lord. Exeunt
Enter HAMLET, HORATIO
HAMLET
What time is it?
HORATIO
It’s twelve.
Look, my lord, it comes!
Enter Ghost
and beckons HAMLET
HORATIO
It desires
you alone.
HAMLET
Go on, I will follow you.
HORATIO
( aside) Something is rotten in the state of
Exit
HORATIO
Ghost
I am your father's spirit,
HAMLET
O God!
my father spirit!
Ghost
Revenge his
murder.
HAMLET
Murder! You ask me to revenge him!
Ghost
The serpent that did sting him
Now wears his crown.
HAMLET
O my prophetic soul! My uncle!
Ghost
But remember
don’t act against your mother: leave her to heaven
Adieu, Hamlet, adieu!
Exit
Ghost
HAMLET
I promise:
I’ll revenge my father’s murder
but I’ll save my mother.
I promise.
Exit
Enter POLONIUS and
OPHELIA
How now, Ophelia! what's the matter?
OPHELIA
O, my lord, my father, I have been so
frightened!
LORD
POLONIUS
Why, in the name of God?
OPHELIA
I was in my room, when
Lord Hamlet comes before me
Pale as his shirt;
To speak of horrors,--he.
LORD
POLONIUS
Mad for your love?
OPHELIA
My lord, I do not know;
But truly, I do fear it.
He took me by the wrist and held me hard;
Then goes he to the length of all his arm;
He long stayed so;
At last,
He raised a sigh so piteous and profound
And let me go.
LORD
POLONIUS
I am sorry.
Have you given him any hard words?
OPHELIA
As you commanded,
I denied his access to me.
LORD
POLONIUS
That has made him mad.
I am sorry. But now
This must be known by the king.
Exeunt
Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE
Enter POLONIUS
KING
CLAUDIUS
Have you got good news?
LORD
POLONIUS
Yes, I have, my lord.
I have found
The very cause of Hamlet's lunacy.
KING
CLAUDIUS
O, speak of that.
QUEEN
GERTRUDE
(aside) I doubt it is no other than
His father's death, and our marriage.
LORD
POLONIUS
My daughter has given me this.
KING CLAUDIUS (he reads)
”Doubt you the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun moves;
But never doubt I love you,
dear Ophelia,
I love you best, Yours evermore HAMLET.”
But how has she received his love?
LORD
POLONIUS
I gave her precepts,
That she should admit no messengers, receive no gifts.
And he, repulsed, fell into a sadness,
and, into the madness we all worry about.
QUEEN
GERTRUDE
It may be, very likely.
KING
CLAUDIUS
How may we find the truth?
QUEEN
GERTRUDE
You know, sometimes he walks in the lobby.
Be you and Polonius behind an arras
then;
Mark the encounter.
KING
CLAUDIUS
We will try it.
Exeunt KING
CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE and POLONIUS
Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, POLONIUS,
OPHELIA
KING
CLAUDIUS
We have
sent for Hamlet here,
That he may meet you, Ophelia:
your father and myself unseen,
may be judge of your encounter.
QUEEN
GERTRUDE
Ophelia, I
wish that your beauty is the
cause
Of Hamlet's madness: and I hope your virtue
Will bring him to his usual way again.
OPHELIA
Madam, I wish it may.
Exeunt KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE and
POLONIUS
Enter HAMLET
HAMLET
To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether it’s 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.
To die, to sleep; To sleep:
perchance to dream…
But the dread of something after death,
makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we don’t know of?
( to Ophelia) Oh! The fair Ophelia! In your prayers
Be all my sins remembered.
OPHELIA
Good my lord, How are you today?
HAMLET
I humbly thank you; well,
well, well.
OPHELIA
I have remembrances
of yours,
that I have longed to re-deliver.
HAMLET
I gave you nothing.
OPHELIA
You know right well
you did.
HAMLET
Once I did love you.
OPHELIA
Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.
HAMLET
You should not have believed me.
OPHELIA
I was the more deceived.
HAMLET
Get you to a nunnery: why would you be a
mother of sinners?
Yet I could accuse me of such things that it
were better my mother had not born me.
Go to a nunnery.
OPHELIA
O, help him, you sweet heavens!
HAMLET
Or, if you will need marry,
marry a fool; for wise men know well enough
what monsters you make of them.
To a nunnery, go, and quickly too. Farewell
Exit HAMLET
OPHELIA
I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
That heard the music of his vows,
Now see that noble reason,
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh…
Re-enter KING CLAUDIUS
and POLONIUS
KING
CLAUDIUS
Love! his affections do not tend that way
Nor what he spoke, was not like madness.
There's something in his soul,
And there will be some danger.
What do you think ?
LORD
POLONIUS
Well, yet I do believe the origin of his grief
Sprung from neglected love.
But let his queen mother entreat him
If she finds nothing...
KING CLAUDIUS
…He shall be sent with
speed to
the seas and different countries
With variable objects shall expel this matter in his heart.
Madness in great ones must not go unwatched.
Exeunt
Enter HAMLET and HORATIO
HORATIO
The queen, your mother, has sent me to you.
HAMLET
You are welcome.
HORATIO
She desires to speak with you in her room.
HAMLET
I will
come to my mother later.
Exit HORATIO
To my mother.
O heart, let never the soul of Nero
enter:
Let me be cruel, not unnatural:
I will speak daggers to her, but use none.
But first I look for my uncle…
Exit HAMLET
Enter KING CLAUDIUS
KING
CLAUDIUS
A brother's murder…
I cannot pray,
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?
My fault is past. But, O, what form of prayer
Can serve my turn? 'Forgive me my foul murder'?
That cannot be; since I am still possessed
Of those effects for which I did the murder,
My crown, my own ambition and my queen.
Help, angels! Help!
He kneels and prays
Enter HAMLET
HAMLET
Now he is praying;
And now I'll do it. And so he goes to heaven;
No! Up, sword;
When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage,
And that his soul may be as damned and black as hell,
where it goes.
Now to my mother.
Exit
Enter QUEEN GERTRUDE and POLONIUS
LORD
POLONIUS
I pray
you, be round with him.
QUEEN
GERTRUDE
Do not fear and hide yourself, hear him coming.
POLONIUS hides behind the arras
Enter HAMLET
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Come here, my dear Hamlet, sit by me.
HAMLET
Now, mother, what's the matter?
QUEEN
GERTRUDE
Hamlet, you have much offended your father.
HAMLET
Mother, YOU have much offended MY father.
QUEEN
GERTRUDE
Come, come. Have you forgot
me?
HAMLET
No, You are the queen, your husband's brother's
wife;
And -unfortunately- you are my mother.
QUEEN
GERTRUDE
What will you do? You will not murder me, will
you?
Help, help, ho!
LORD POLONIUS
[Behind] What, ho! help, help, help!
HAMLET
[Drawing] How now! a rat? Dead, now it’s dead!
Makes a pass
through the arras
LORD
POLONIUS
[Behind] O, I am slain!
Falls and dies
QUEEN
GERTRUDE
O, what have you done?
HAMLET
I don’t know: Is it the king?
QUEEN
GERTRUDE
O, what a bloody deed is this!
HAMLET
A bloody deed! almost as bad, good mother,
As killing a king, and marrying his brother.
QUEEN
GERTRUDE
As killing a king?
O Hamlet, speak no more:
These words, like daggers, enter in my ears;
No more, sweet Hamlet!
Enter Ghost
HAMLET
(to
the ghost) Save me, You heavenly guards!
QUEEN
GERTRUDE
Alas, he's mad!
Ghost
Look at
your mother’s face:
Speak to her, Hamlet.
HAMLET
How is it with you, lady?
QUEEN
GERTRUDE
O gentle son, What do you look at?
HAMLET
On him, on him! Look you, how pale he glares!
QUEEN
GERTRUDE
To whom do you speak?
HAMLET
Do you see anything there?
QUEEN
GERTRUDE
No, nothing but ourselves.
HAMLET
My father, in his habit as he lived!
Look, he goes out at the door!
Exit Ghost
QUEEN
GERTRUDE
This is in your brain only.
HAMLET
Confess yourself to heaven;
Repent what is past; avoid what is to come;
QUEEN
GERTRUDE
O Hamlet, you have divided my heart in two.
HAMLET
O, throw away the worse part of it.
Good night: but don’t go to my uncle's bed.
For this same lord, (Pointing to POLONIUS) I do repent.
Good night, mother. Exit HAMLET dragging in POLONIUS
Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, HORATIO
KING
CLAUDIUS
What's the matter in these sighs?
Where’s your son?
QUEEN
GERTRUDE
Gone a little while.
Ah, my good lord, what have I seen to-night!
HORATIO
How does Hamlet?
QUEEN
GERTRUDE
Mad as the sea and wind, when both contend
Which is the mightier.
HORATIO
Where is he gone?
QUEEN
GERTRUDE
To draw apart the body of Polonius he has just
killed:
he weeps for what is done.
KING
CLAUDIUS
Oh, heaven, Hamlet in madness has slain
Polonius
( To HORATIO) I pray you, seek him and
bring the body into the chapel.
Exit HORATIO
SCENE II. Same room in the castle.
Enter OPHELIA
OPHELIA
Where is my father?
KING
CLAUDIUS
Now, Ophelia, he’s dead…
QUEEN
GERTRUDE
…killed by Hamlet…
OPHELIA (mad)
He is dead and gone, lady,
He is dead and gone; (repeat)
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Alack, look here, my lord.
KING CLAUDIUS
How do you pretty lady?
OPHELIA
Lord, we know what we are, but we
don’t know
what we may be.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
What noise is this?
Enter OPHELIA’S
SISTER armed
OPHELIA’S
SISTER
Where is this king? You vile king,
Give me my father!
QUEEN
GERTRUDE
Calmly, good lady.
OPHELIA’S
SISTER
Where is my father?
KING
CLAUDIUS
Dead.
QUEEN
GERTRUDE
But not by him. By Hamlet…
OPHELIA’S
SISTER
Did you proceed against these feats?
KING
CLAUDIUS
Not yet, for two special reasons;
The queen is his mother and
Lives almost by his looks. The other motive,
Is the great love the people bear him.
OPHELIA
I’ll make an end on it…
Exit OPHELIA and THE QUEEN follows her
OPHELIA’S
SISTER
And so have I a noble father lost;
A sister driven into desperate terms!
But my revenge will come.
KING
CLAUDIUS (to
Ophelia’s sister)
Challenge him and poison your sword
and if this should fail I’ll prepare a venom drink
Exeunt
Enter KING
CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, HORATIO and HAMLET
KING
CLAUDIUS
Now, Hamlet, where's Polonius?
HAMLET
At supper.
KING
CLAUDIUS
At supper! where?
HAMLET
Not where he eats, but where he is eaten.
KING
CLAUDIUS
Where is Polonius?
HAMLET
In heaven; send there to see: if your messenger
doesn’t find him there, seek him in the other place yourself.
Enter OPHELIA’S SISTER
OPHELIA’S
SISTER
My poor sister Ophelia has drowned, my king.
HAMLET
What, the fair Ophelia!
QUEEN
GERTRUDE
Sweets to the sweet: farewell!
I hoped she should have been my Hamlet's wife.
OPHELIA’S
SISTER (to HAMLET)
The devil take your soul!
Grappling with him
KING
CLAUDIUS
Be quiet!
QUEEN
GERTRUDE
Hamlet, Hamlet!
HAMLET
I will fight with you upon this theme.
QUEEN
GERTRUDE
O my son, what theme?
HAMLET
I loved Ophelia: forty thousand
sisters
Could not, with all their
quantity of love, Make up my sum.
They fight
KING
CLAUDIUS
O, he is mad.
QUEEN
GERTRUDE
This is mere madness.
QUEEN
GERTRUDE takes the cup from KING CLAUDIUS’S hand
KING
CLAUDIUS
Gertrude, do not drink.
[Aside]
It is the poisoned cup: (she drinks)
it is too late.
OPHELIA’S
SISTER
Have at you now!
SHE wounds HAMLET;
then in scuffling, they change rapiers, and HAMLET wounds HER
KING
CLAUDIUS
Part them.
HAMLET
No, come, again.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
falls
HORATIO
Look at the queen, the drink, the drink,-- O
It’s poisoned.
QUEEN GERTRUDE dies
HAMLET
O Treachery! Seek it out.
OPHELIA’S
SISTER
It is here, Hamlet: You are slain;
No medicine in the world can do you good;
nor me: we never rise again.
For your mother's poison:
the king is to blame.
HAMLET
The point!--envenomed too!
Then, venom do your work. Stabs
KING CLAUDIUS
KING
CLAUDIUS
O, yet defend me, friends; I am hurt.
HAMLET
Here, you, damned Dane, drink off this potion.
Is your union here?
Follow my mother.
KING CLAUDIUS dies
OPHELIA’S
SISTER
Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet:
Mine and my father's death come not upon you,
Nor yours on me. Dies
HAMLET
O, good Horatio;
if you did ever hold me in your heart
draw your breath in pain to tell my story.
I die, my friend. The rest is silence.
Dies
HORATIO stands starring the public, no words
CURTAIN