CLAUDIUS: When sorrows come, they come not single spies...
...but in battalions.
First, her father slain.
Next, your son gone...
...and he most violent author of his own just remove.
The people muddied, unwholesome in their thoughts...
...and whispers for good Polonius' death.
And we have done but greenly in huggermugger to inter him.
Poor Ophelia...
...divided from herself and her fair judgment...
...without the which we are pictures or mere beasts.
Last, and as much containing as all these, her brother is in secret come from France...
...feeds on this wonder, keeps himself in clouds.
Wants not buzzers to infect his ear with pestilent speeches of his father's death.
Wherein necessity, of matter beggared...
...will nothing stick our persons to arraign in ear and ear.
O my dear Gertrude, this, like to a murd'ring-piece...
...in many places gives me superfluous death.
[OPHELIA GRUNTING]
I will not speak with her.
She is importunate, indeed distract.
- Her mood will needs be pitied. - What would she have?
She speaks much of her father...
...says she hears there's tricks i' the world...
...and hems, and beats her heart.
Spurns enviously at straws...
...speaks things in doubt that carry but half sense.
Her speech is nothing...
...yet the unshaped use of it doth move the hearers to collection.
They aim at it...
...and botch the words up fit to their own thoughts...
...which, as her winks and nods and gestures yield them...
...indeed would make one think there might be thought...
...though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.
'Twere good she were spoken with...
...for she may strew dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.
Let her come in.
[GERTRUDE SIGHING]
To my sick soul, as sin's true nature is...
...each toy seems prologue to some great amiss.
So full of artless jealousy is guilt, it spills itself in fearing to be spilt.
OPHELIA: Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?
How now, Ophelia?
How should I your true love know from another one?
By his cockle hat and staff, and his sandal shoon.
Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?
Say you?
Nay...
[OPHELIA CRYING]
...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
GERTRUDE: Nay, but Ophelia...
OPHELIA: Pray you, mark.
White his shroud as the mountain snow
GERTRUDE: Alas, look here, my lord.
Larded with sweet flowers
Which bewept to the grave did not go With true-love showers
How do you, pretty lady?
Well, God 'ield 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.
[SCREAMING] Pray you!
Let's have no words of this!
But when they ask you what it means...
...say you this:
[SINGING] 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, la?
Without an oath, I'll make an end on 't.
By Gis and by Saint Charity Alack, and file for shame
Young men will do 't if they come to 't By cock, they are to blame
Quoth she:
"Before you tumbled me, you promised me to wed
So would I ha' done, by yonder sun, an thou hadst not come to bed"
[CRYING]
How long hath she been thus?
I hope all will be well.
OPHELIA: We must be patient.
But I cannot choose but weep...
...to think they should lay him i' th' cold ground.
My brother shall know of it.
[OPHELIA GASPING]
And so I thank you for your good counsel!
Come...
[OPHELIA SNIFFS]
...my coach!
Good night, ladies.
Good night, sweet ladies, good night. Good night, sweet ladies!
- Good night! - Follow her close.
OPHELIA: Good night! CLAUDIUS: Give her good watch, I pray you.
O, this is the poison of deep grief.
It springs all from her father's death.
And now, behold.
CLAUDIUS: O Gertrude, Gertrude.
[MEN SHOUTING]
GERTRUDE: What noise is this?
Where are my Switzers? Guard the door.
- What is the matter? - Save yourself, my lord.
The ocean, overpeering of his list, eats not flats with more impetuous haste...
...than young Laertes, in a riotous head, o'erbears your officers.
The rabble call him lord, and, as the world were now but to begin...
...antiquity forgot, custom not known...
...the ratifiers and props of every word...
...they cry, "Choose we! Laertes shall be king."
Caps, hands, and tongues applaud it to the clouds:
"Laertes shall be king. Laertes, king."
How cheerfully on the false trail they cry!
O, this is counter, you false Danish dogs!
CLAUDIUS: The doors are broke.
[GERTRUDE SHRIEKS]
Where is this king?
- Sirs, stand you all without. - No, let's come in.
- I pray you, give me leave. MAN: We will.
I thank you.
LAERTES: Keep the door!
O thou vile king, give me my father!
Calmly, good Laertes.
That drop of blood that's calm proclaims me bastard...
...cries cuckold to my father...
...brands the harlot even here...
...between the chaste unsmirched brow of my true mother.
What is the cause, Laertes, that thy rebellion looks so giant-like?
Let him go, Gertrude. Do not fear our person.
There's such divinity doth hedge a king...
...that treason can but peep to what it would, acts little of his will.
Tell me, Laertes, why thou art thus incensed.
Let him go, Gertrude.
- Speak, man. - Where is my father?
- Dead. GERTRUDE: But not by him.
Let him demand his fill.
How came he dead? I'll not be juggled with.
To hell, allegiance. Vows to the blackest devil.
Conscience and grace to the profoundest pit.
I dare damnation.
To this point I stand...
...that both the worlds I give to negligence, let come what comes.
Only I'll be revenged most thoroughly for my father.
- Who shall stay to you? - My will, not all the world.
And for my means...
...I'll husband them so well they shall go far with little.
Good Laertes...
...if you desire to know the certainty of your dear father's death...
...is 't writ in your revenge that, sweepstake...
...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 ope my arms...
...and like the kind life-rend'ring pelican, repast them with my blood.
Why, now you speak like a good child and a true gentleman.
[GERTRUDE PANTING]
That I am guiltless of your father's death...
...and am most sensibly in grief for it...
...it shall as level to your judgment pierce as day doth to your eye.
[OPHELIA SHOUTING]
HORATIO: Let her come in.
LAERTES: How now, what noise is that?
[OPHELIA GASPING]
O heat, dry up my brains.
Tears seven times salt burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye.
[OPHELIA GIGGLING]
LAERTES: By heaven, thy madness shall be paid by weight...
...till our scale turns the beam.
LAERTES: O rose of May, dear maid...
...kind sister, sweet Ophelia.
O heavens...
...is 't possible a young maid's wits should be as mortal as an old man's life?
Nature is fine in love, and where 'tis fine...
...it sends some precious instance of itself...
...after the thing it loves.
They bore him barefaced on the bier
[SINGING AND LAUGHING] Hey, non nony, nony, hey, nony
And on his grave rained many a tear
Fare you well, my dove.
Hadst thou thy wits and didst persuade revenge...
...it could not move thus.
You must sing:
Down, a-down, a-down, a-down
And you, call him:
A-down, a-down, a-down
O, how the wheel becomes it.
It was the false steward that stole his master's daughter.
[OPHELIA SHUSHES]
This nothing's more than matter.
There's rosemary, that's for remembrance.
Pray, love, remember.
And there is pansies, that's for thoughts.
A document in madness...
...thoughts and remembrance fitted.
There's fennel for you...
...and columbines.
There's rue for you, and here's some for me.
We may call herb o' grace o' Sundays.
OPHELIA: O, you must wear your rue with a difference.
There's a daisy.
OPHELIA: I would give you some violets...
...but they withered all when my father died.
OPHELIA: They say a made a good end.
[SINGING] For bonny sweet robin is all my joy
Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself...
...she turns to favor and to prettiness.
And will a not come again?
No, no, he is dead
Go to thy deathbed
He never will come again
His beard as white as snow
All flaxen was his poll
He is gone, he is gone
And we cast away moan
God 'a' mercy on his soul
And of all Christian souls...
...I pray God.
God by you.
[SOBBING] Do you see this, O God?
Laertes, I must commune with your grief, or you deny me right.
Go but apart, make choice of whom your wisest friends you will...
...and they shall hear and judge 'twixt you and me.
If by direct or by collateral hand they find us touched...
...we will our kingdom give, our crown, our life, and all that we call ours...
...to you in satisfaction.
But if not, be you content to lend your patience to us...
...and we shall jointly labor with your soul to give it due content.
Let this be so.
His means of death...
...his obscure burial...
No trophy, sword, nor hatchment o'er his bones...
...no noble rite nor formal ostentation.
- Cry to be heard, as 'twere from heaven to earth...
...that I must call 't in question.
So you shall.
And where th' offense is, let the great ax fall.
I pray you, go with me.
HORATIO: What are they that would speak with me?
Sailors, sir. They say they have letters for you.
[WATER SPLASHING AND OPHELIA SCREAMING]
I do not know from what part of the world I should be greeted if not from Lord Hamlet.
MAN: God bless you. - Let him bless thee too.
He shall, sir, an 't please him. There's a letter for you, sir.
It comes from th' ambassador that was bound for England...
...if your name be Horatio, as I am led to know it is.
"Horatio, when thou shalt have overlooked this...
...give these fellows some means to the king. They have letters for him.
Ere we were two days old at sea...
...a pirate of very warlike appointment gave us chase.
Finding ourselves too slow of sail...
...we put on a compelled valor, 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.
Let the king have the letters I have sent...
...and repair thou to me with as much haste as thou wouldst fly death.
I have words to speak in thine ear will make thee dumb...
...yet they are much too light for the bore of the matter.
These good fellows will bring thee where I am.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern hold their course for England.
Of them I have much to tell thee. Farewell.
He that thou knowest thine, Hamlet."
Come, I will give you way for these your letters...
...and do 't the speedier that you may direct me...
...to him from whom you brought them.
Now must your conscience my acquittance seal...
...and you must put me in your heart for friend...
...since you have heard, and with a knowing ear...
...that he which hath your noble father slain pursued my life.
It well appears. But tell me...
...why you proceeded not against these feats...
...so crimeful and so capital in nature, as by your safety...
...wisdom, all things else, you mainly were stirred up.
O, for two special reasons which may to you seem much unsinewed...
...but yet to me they're strong.
The queen his mother lives almost by his looks.
And for myself...
My virtue or my plague, be it either which.
- She is so conjunctive to my life and soul...
...that, as the star moves not but in his sphere...
...I could not but by her.
The other motive why to a public count I might not go...
...is the great love the general gender bear him...
...who, dipping all his faults in their affection...
...would, like the spring that turneth wood to stone...
...convert his gyves to graces...
...so that my arrows, too slightly timbered for so loud a wind...
...would have reverted to my bow again, but not where I had aimed them.
And so have I a noble father lost.
A sister driven into desp'rate terms...
...whose worth, if praises may go back again...
...stood challenger, on mount...
...of all the age for her perfections.
- But my revenge will come. - Break not your sleeps for that.
You must not think that we are made of stuff so flat and dull...
...that we can let our beard be shook with danger, and think it pastime.
You shortly shall hear more.
I loved your father, and we love ourself.
And that, I hope, will teach you to imagine...
CLAUDIUS: How now? What news?
Letters, my lord, from Hamlet.
This is to Your Majesty, this to the queen.
From Hamlet? Who brought them?
Sailors, my lord, they say. I saw them not.
They were given me by Claudio.
He received them of him that brought them.
CLAUDIUS: Laertes, you shall hear them. Leave us.
"High and mighty, you shall know that I am set naked on your kingdom.
Tomorrow shall I beg leave to see your kingly eyes...
...when I shall, first asking your pardon, thereunto recount th' occasions...
...of my sudden and more strange return. Hamlet."
What should this mean?
Are all the rest come back? Or is this some abuse, and no such thing?
- Know you the hand? - 'Tis Hamlet's character.
"Naked," and in a postscript here he says "alone."
- Can you advise me? - I'm lost in it, my lord.
But let him come.
It warms the very sickness in my heart that I shall live and tell him to his teeth:
"Thus diest thou."
If it be so, Laertes... As how should it be so, how otherwise?
- Will you be ruled by me?
Ay, my lord, if so you'll not o'errule me to a peace.
To thine own peace.
If he be now returned, as checking at his voyage...
...and that he means no more to undertake it...
...I will work him to an exploit, now ripe in my device...
...under the which he shall not choose but fall.
And for his death...
...no wind of blame shall breathe.
Even his mother shall uncharge the practice and call it accident.
My lord, I will be ruled.
The rather if you could devise it so that I might be the organ.
It falls right.
You have been talked of since your travels much...
And that in Hamlet's hearing.
- For a quality wherein they say you shine.
Your sum of parts did not together pluck such envy from him...
...as did that one, and that, in my regard, of the unworthiest siege.
- What part is that, my lord? - A very ribbon in the cap of youth...
...yet needful too.
For youth no less becomes the light and careless livery that it wears...
...than settled age his sables and his weeds, importing health and graveness.
Two months since here was a gentleman of Normandy.
I have seen myself, and served against, the French...
...and they can well on horseback, but this gallant had witchcraft in 't.
He grew into his seat...
...and to such wondrous doing brought his horse...
...as he had he been incorpsed and deminatured with the brave beast.
So far he topped my thought that I in forgery of shapes and tricks...
...come short of what he did.
- A Norman was 't? - A Norman.
- Upon my life, Lamord. - The very same.
I know him well. He is the brooch indeed and gem of all our nation.
He made confession of you...
...and gave you such a masterly report for art and exercise in your defense...
...and for your rapier most especial...
...that he cried out 'twould be sight indeed if one could match you.
The scrimers of their nation, he swore, had neither motion, guard, nor eye...
...if you opposed them, sir.
This report of his did Hamlet so envenom with his envy...
...that he could nothing do but wish and beg...
...your sudden coming o'er to play with him.
- Now, out of this... - What out of this, my lord?
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?
Not that I think you did not love your father...
...but that I know love is begun by time...
...and that I see, in passages of proof...
...time qualifies the spark and fire of it.
There lives within the very flame of love...
...a kind of wick or snuff that will abate it.
And nothing is at a like goodness still.
For goodness, growing to a pleurisy, dies in his own too-much.
That we would do, we should do when we would.
For this "would" changes...
...and hath abatements and delays...
...as many as there are tongues, are hands, are accidents.
And then this "should" is like a spendthrift sigh...
...that hurts by easing.
But to the quick of the th' ulcer. Hamlet comes back.
What would you undertake to show yourself in deed your father's son...
...more than in words?
To cut his throat i' th' church.
No place indeed should murder sanctuarize.
Revenge should have no bounds.
But, good Laertes, will you do this?
Keep close within your chamber.
Hamlet returned shall know that you are come home.
We'll put on those shall praise your excellence...
...and set a double varnish on the fame the Frenchman gave you.
Bring you, in fine, together, and wager on 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 unbated...
...and in a pass of practice, requite him for your father.
I will do 't.
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...
...collected from all simples that have virtue under the moon...
...can save the thing from death that is but scratched withal.
I'll touch my point with this contagion, that if I gall him slightly...
...it may be death.
Let's further think of this.
Weigh what convenience both of time and means may fit us to our shape.
If this should fail...
...and that our drift look through our bad performance...
...'twere better not essayed.
Therefore this project should have a back or second that might hold...
...if this did blast in proof.
Soft, let me see.
We'll make a solemn wager on your cunnings...
I have it.
When in your motion you are hot and dry...
As make your bouts more violent to that end.
- And that he calls for drink...
...I'll have prepared him a chalice for the nonce, whereon but sipping...
...if he by chance escape your venomed stuck...
[RUSTLING]
...our purpose may hold there.
But stay, what noise?
How now, sweet queen?
One woe doth tread upon another's heel, so fast they follow.
Your sister's drowned...
...Laertes.
Drowned?
Oh.
Where?
There is a willow grows askant the brook...
...that shows his hoary leaves in the glassy stream.
Therewith fantastic garlands did she make...
...of Crowflowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples...
...that liberal shepherds give a grosser name...
...but our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them.
There on the pendent boughs...
...her crownet weeds clamb'ring 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 a while they bore her up.
Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes...
...as one incapable of her own distress...
...or like a creature native and endued unto that element.
But long it could not be...
...till that her garments, heavy with their drink...
...pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay to muddy death.
Alas, then she is drowned.
Drowned.
Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia...
...and therefore I forbid my tears.
But yet it is our trick.
Nature her custom holds.
Let shame say what it will.
[SOBBING]
When these are gone, the woman will be out.
Adieu, my lord.
I have a speech of fire that fain would blaze...
...but that this folly douts it.
Let's follow, Gertrude.
How much I had to do to calm his rage.
Now fear I this will give it start again.
Therefore...
...let's follow.
Is she to be buried in Christian burial that willfully seeks her own salvation?
I tell thee she is, therefore make her grave straight.
The coroner hath sat on her, and finds it Christian burial.
How can that be unless she drowned herself in her own defense?
Why, 'tis found so.
It must be se offendendo, it cannot be else.
For here lies the point:
If I drown myself wittingly, it argues an act.
And an act hath three branches: It is to act, to do, and to perform.
Argal, she drowned herself wittingly.
- Nay, but hear you, Goodman Delver. - Give me leave.
Here lies the water. Good?
Here stands the man. Good.
If the man go to this water and drown himself...
...it is, will he, nill he, he goes.
Mark you that.
But if the water come to him and drown him, he drowns not himself.
Argal, he that is not guilty of his own death shortens not his own life.
- But is this law? - Ay, marry, is 't: Coroner's quest law.
Will you ha' the truth on 't? If this had not been a gentlewoman...
...she should have been buried out o' Christian burial.
Why, there thou sayst, and the more pity...
...that great folk should have count'nance in this world...
...to drown or hang themselves more than their even Christian.
Come, my spade.
There is no ancient gentlemen but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers.
- They hold up Adam's profession. - Was he a gentleman?
- He was the first that ever bore arms. - He had none.
What, art a heathen?
How dost thou understand the Scripture? The Scripture says Adam digged.
Could he dig without arms?
I'll put another question to thee.
If thou answerest me not to the purpose, confess thyself.
- Go to. - What is he that builds stronger...
...than either the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?
The gallows-maker.
For that frame outlives a thousand tenants.
[BOTH LAUGHING]
I like thy wit well, in good faith.
The gallows does well. But how does it well?
It does well to those that do ill.
Now, thou dost ill to say the gallows is built stronger than the church.
Argal, the gallows may do well to thee.
To 't again, come.
"Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a carpenter?"
- Tell me that, and unyoke. - Marry, I can tell.
To 't.
Mass, I cannot tell.
Cudgel thy brains no more about it...
...for your dull ass will not mend his pace with beating.
And when you are asked this question next, say "a grave-maker."
The houses that he makes last till doomsday.
Go, get thee to Yaughan.
Fetch me a stoup of liquor.
[GULPING]
[GRAVEDIGGER SIGHS]
[SINGING] In youth when I did love, did love
O methought it was very sweet
GRAVEDIGGER: To contract-O-the time for-a-my behoove
O methought there-a-was nothing-a-meet
Has this fellow no feeling of his business that he sings at grave-making?
Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness.
HAMLET: 'Tis e'en so.
The hand of little employment hath the daintier sense.
GRAVEDIGGER: But age, with his stealing steps
Hath caught me in his clutch
And hath shipped me until the land
As if I had never been such
That skull had a tongue in it and could sing once.
How the knave jowls it to th' ground as if 'twere Cain's jawbone...
...that did the first murder.
This might be the pate of a politician which this ass now o'er-reaches...
...one that would circumvent God, might it not?
- It might, my lord. - Or of a courtier, which could say:
"Good morrow, sweet lord. How dost thou, sweet lord?"
HAMLET: This might be my Lord Such-a-one, that praised my Lord Such-a-one's horse...
...when a meant to beg it, might it not?
Ay, my lord.
Why, even so, and now my Lady Worm's...
[GRAVEDIGGER WHISTLING AND HUMMING]
...chapless, and knocked about the mazard with a sexton's spade.
Here's fine revolution, and we had the trick to see 't.
Did these bones cost no more the breeding but to play at loggats with them?
Mine ache to think on 't.
HAMLET: Ha, there's another.
Why might not that be the skull of a lawyer?
Where be his quiddits now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks?
HAMLET: Why does he suffer this rude knave now...
...to knock him about the sconce with a dirty shovel...
...and will not tell him of his action of battery? Hmm?
This fellow might be in 's time a great buyer of land...
...with his statutes, his recognizances, his fines...
...his double vouchers, his recoveries.
Is this the fine of his fines and the recovery of his recoveries...
...to have his fine pate full of fine dirt?
Will his vouchers vouch him no more of his purchases...
...and double ones too, than the length and breadth of a pair of indentures?
The very conveyances of his land will scarcely lie in this box...
...and must th' inheritor himself have no more, huh?
Not a jot more, my lord.
Is not parchment made of sheepskins?
Ay, my lord, and of calfskins too.
They are sheep and calves which seek out assurance in that.
HAMLET: I will speak to this fellow.
- Whose grave's this, sir? - Mine, sir.
[SINGING] O, a pit of clay for to be made
For such a guest is meet
I think it be thine, for thou liest in 't.
You lie out on 't, sir, and therefore it is not yours.
For my part, I do not lie in 't, and yet it is mine.
Thou dost lie in 't, to be in 't and say 'tis thine.
'Tis for the dead, not for the quick, therefore thou liest.
'Tis a quick lie, sir, 'twill away again from me to you.
- What man dost thou dig it for? - For no man, sir.
- For what woman, then? - For none, neither.
Who is to be buried in 't?
One that was a woman, sir, but rest her soul, she's dead.
How absolute the knave is.
We must speak by the card, or equivocation will undo us.
By the Lord, Horatio, these three years I have taken note of it.
The age is grown so picked that the toe of the peasant...
...comes so near the heel of the courtier he galls his kibe.
How long hast thou been a grave-maker?
Of all the days i' th' year, I came to 't that day...
...that our last king, Hamlet, o'ercame Fortinbras.
- How long is that since? - Cannot you tell that?
Every fool can tell that.
It was the very day that young Hamlet was born.
He that was mad and sent into England.
Ay, marry, why was he sent into England?
Why, because he was mad.
He shall recover his wits there, or if he do not, 'tis no great matter there.
- Why? - 'Twill not be seen in him there.
There the men are as mad as he.
[HORATIO CHUCKLES]
- How came he mad? - Very strangely, they say.
- How strangely? - Faith, e'en with losing his wits.
- Upon what ground? - Why, here in Denmark.
[HAMLET GRO ANS]
I have been sexton here, man and boy, for 30 years.
How long will a man lie i' th' earth ere he rot?
I' faith, if he be not rotten before he die...
As we have many pocky corpses nowadays that will scarce hold the laying in.
- He will last you some eight year or nine year.
- A tanner will last you nine year. - Why he more than another?
Why, sir, his hide is so tanned with his trade...
...that he will keep out water a great while...
...and water is a sore decayer of your whoreson dead body.
Here's a skull, sir, now.
This skull has lain in the earth three-and-twenty years.
- Whose was it? - A whoreson mad fellow's it was.
- Whose do you think it was? - Nay, I know not.
Ooh, a pestilence on him for a mad rogue.
He poured a flagon of Rhenish on my head once.
This same skull, sir, was Yorick's skull, the king's jester.
- This? - E'en that.
Let me see.
Alas...
...poor Yorick.
I knew him, Horatio.
A fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy.
He hath borne me on his back a thousand times.
HAMLET: 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?
Now, get you to my lady's chamber...
...tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favor she must come.
HAMLET: Make her laugh at that.
- Prithee, Horatio, tell me one thing. - What's that, my lord?
Dost thou think Alexander looked o' this fashion i' th' earth?
E'en so.
And smelt so? Pfft.
E'en so, my lord.
To what base uses we may return, Horatio.
Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander...
...till a find it stopping a bunghole?
'Twere to consider too curiously to consider so.
No, faith, not a jot, but to follow him thither with modesty enough...
...and likelihood to lead it, as thus.
HAMLET: Alexander died, Alexander was buried.
Alexander returneth to dust, the dust is earth...
...of earth we make loam, and why of that loam...
...whereto he was converted, might they not stop a beer-barrel?
HAMLET: Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay...
...might stop a hole to keep the wind away.
O, that that earth...
...which kept the world in awe...
...should patch a wall t' expel the winter's flaw.
[BIRD SCREECHING AND THEN RUSTLING]
HAMLET: But soft.
But soft, aside.
Here comes the king, the queen, the courtiers.
HAMLET: Who is this they follow, and with such maimed rites?
This doth betoken the corpse they follow did with desp'rate hand fordo its own life.
HAMLET: 'Twas of some estate.
Couch we a while, and mark.
What ceremony else?
That is Laertes, a very noble youth. Mark.
What ceremony else?
Her obsequies have been as far enlarged as we have warrantise.
Her death was doubtful...
...and but that great command o'ersways the order...
...she should in ground unsanctified have lodged till the last trumpet.
For charitable prayers, shards, flints, and pebbles should be thrown on her.
Yet here she has her virgin rites, her maiden strewments...
...and the bringing home of bell and burial.
Must there no more be done?
No more be done.
PRIEST: We should profane the service of the dead...
...to sing sage requiem and such rest to her as to peace-parted souls.
Lay her i' th' earth.
And from her fair and unpolluted flesh may violets spring.
I tell thee, churlish priest...
...a minist'ring angel shall my sister be when thou liest howling.
What?
Fair Ophelia.
GERTRUDE: Sweets to the sweet.
Farewell.
I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet's wife.
I thought thy bridebed to have decked, sweet maid...
...and not t' have strewed thy grave.
O, treble woe...
...fall 10 times treble on that cursed head...
...whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense...
...deprived thee of.
[SHOUTS] Hold off the earth awhile...
...till I have caught her once more in mine arms.
Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead...
...till of this flat a mountain you have made to o'ertop old Pelion...
...or the skyish head of blue Olympus!
HAMLET: What is he whose grief bears such an emphasis...
...whose phrase of sorrow conjures the wand'ring stars...
...and makes them stand like wonder-wounded hearers?
This is I, Hamlet the Dane!
The devil take thy soul.
[GRUNTING]
Thou pray'st not well. I prithee take thy fingers from my throat...
...for though I am not splenitive and rash...
...yet have I something in me which let thy wisdom fear.
- Hold off thy hand. - Pluck them asunder.
Hamlet, Hamlet!
Good my lord, be quiet.
I'll fight with him upon this theme until my eyelids no longer wag.
O my son, what theme?
I loved Ophelia.
Forty thousand brothers could not, with all their quantity of love...
...make up my sum.
- What wilt thou do for her? - O, he is mad, Laertes.
For love of God, forbear him.
'Swounds, show me what a thou'It do. Woo't weep, woo't fight, huh...
...woo't fast, woo't tear thyself, woo't drink up eisel, eat a crocodile?
I'll do 't.
Dost thou come here to whine, to outface me with leaping in her grave?
Be buried quick with her, and so will I.
And if thou prate of mountains...
...let them throw millions of acres on us, till our ground...
...singeing his pate against the burning zone...
...make Ossa like a wart.
Nay, an thou'It mouth, I'll rant as well as thou.
This is mere madness...
...and thus awhile the fit will work on him.
Anon, as patient as the female dove...
...when that her golden couplets are disclosed, his silence will sit drooping.
Hear you, sir.
HAMLET: What is the reason that you use me thus?
I loved you ever.
But it is no matter.
Let Hercules himself do what he may...
...the cat will mew...
...and dog will have his day.
I pray you, good Horatio, wait upon him.
[WHISPERING] Strengthen your patience in our last night's speech.
We'll put the matter to the present push.
CLAUDIUS: 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.
So much for this, sir. Now shall you see the other.
- You do remember all the circumstance? - Remember it, my lord.
Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting that would not let me sleep.
Methought I lay worse than the mutines in the bilboes.
Rashly, and praised be rashness for it...
...let us know our indiscretion sometimes serve us well...
...when our deep plots do pall...
...and that should learn us there's a divinity that shapes our ends.
- Rough-hew them how we will. - That is most certain.
Up from my cabin, my sea-gown scarfed about me in the dark...
...groped I to find out them, had my desire, fingered their packet...
...and in fine withdrew 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, larded with many several sorts of reasons...
...importing Denmark's health and England's too, with ho!
Such bugs and goblins in my life, that on the supervise, no leisure bated...
...no, not to stay the grinding of the ax...
...my head should be struck off. - Is 't possible?
Here's the commission, read it at more leisure.
- But wilt thou hear how I did proceed? - I beseech you.
Being thus benetted round with villainies...
Ere I could make a prologue to my brains...
...they had begun the play.
- I sat me down, devised a new commission, wrote it fair.
Ha, I once did hold it, as our statists do...
...a baseness to write fair and labored much how to forget that learning.
But, sir, now, it did me yeoman's service.
- Wilt thou know th' effect of what I wrote? - Ah, good.
An earnest conjuration from the king...
...as England was his faithful tributary...
...as love between them like the palm might flourish...
...as peace should still her wheaten garland wear...
...and stand a comma 'tween their amities...
...and many such like as-es of great charge...
...that on the view and know of these contents...
...without debatement further more or less...
...he should those bearers put to sudden death.
- Not shriving-time allowed. - How was this sealed?
Why, even in that was heaven ordinant.
I had my father's signet in my purse...
...which was the model of that Danish seal.
Folded the writ up in the form of th' other...
...subscribed it, gave 't th' impression, placed it safely...
...the changeling never known, ha.
Now, the next day was our sea-fight.
What to this was sequent though know'st already.
So...
...Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to 't.
Why, man, they did make love to this employment.
They are not near my conscience.
Their defeat does by their own insinuation grow.
'Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes...
...between the pass and fell incensed points of mighty opposites.
Why, what a king is this.
Does it not, think'st thee, stand me now upon...
He that hath killed my king and whored my mother...
...popped in between th' election and my hopes...
...thrown out his angle for my proper life, and with such coz'nage.
- Is 't not perfect conscience to quit him with this arm?
And is 't 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's mine...
...and a man's life...
...no more than to say "one."
But I am very sorry, good Horatio, that to Laertes I forgot myself.
For by the image of my cause, I see the portraiture of his.
I'll court his favors.
[SIGHS]
But sure, the bravery of his grief did put me into a tow'ring passion.
Peace, who comes here?
Your lordship is right welcome back to Denmark.
I humbly thank you, sir.
HAMLET: Dost know this water-fly? HORATIO: No, my lord.
Thy state is the more gracious, for 'tis a vice to know him.
He hath much land, and fertile.
Let a beast be lord of beasts, and his crib shall stand at the king's mess.
'Tis a chuff, but, as I say, spacious in the possession of dirt.
OSRIC: Sweet lord...
...if your friendship were at leisure, I should impart a thing to you from His Majesty.
I will receive it, sir, with all diligence of spirit.
Uh, put your bonnet to its right use. 'Tis for the head.
I thank your lordship, but 'tis very hot.
No, 'tis very cold. The wind is northerly.
It is indifferent cold, my lord, indeed.
But yet methinks it is very sultry and hot for my complexion.
Ha, exceedingly, my lord.
It is very sultry, as 'twere... I cannot tell how, ha-ha.
But, my lord, His Majesty bade me signify to you...
...that he hath laid a great wager on your head.
OSRIC: Sir, this is the matter. - I beseech you, remember.
Nay, good my lord, for mine ease, in good faith.
Sir, here is newly come to court Laertes.
Believe me, an absolute gentleman...
...full of most excellent differences, of very soft society and great showing.
Indeed, to speak feelingly of him, he is the card or calendar of gentry.
For you shall find in him the continent of what part a gentleman would see.
Sir, his definement suffers no perdition in you.
HAMLET: Though I know to divide him inventorially...
...would dizzy th' arithmetic of memory and yaw neither in respect of his quick sail.
In the verity of extolment, I take him to be a soul of great article...
...and his infusion of dearth and rareness, as to make true diction of him...
...his semblable is his mirror...
...and who else would trace him, his umbrage, nothing more.
Your lordship speaks most infallibly of him.
The concernancy, sir?
Why do we wrap the gentleman...
...in our more rawer breath? - Sir?
Is 't not possible to understand in another tongue?
You will to 't sire, really.
What imports the nomination of this gentleman?
- Of Laertes? - His purse is empty already.
All's golden words are spent.
- Of him, sir. - I know you're not ignorant...
I would you did. Yet in faith if you did, it would not much approve me. Well?
You are not ignorant of what excellence Laertes is.
I dare not confess that, lest I compare with him in excellence.
But to know a man well were to know himself.
I mean, sir, for his weapon.
But in the imputation laid on him by them, in his meed, he's unfellowed.
- What's his weapon? - Rapier and dagger.
- That's two of his weapons. But well. - Ha.
The king, sir, hath wagered with him six Barbary horses...
...against the which he has imponed... - Imponed?
- As I take it, six French rapiers and poniards...
...with their assigns, as girdle, hanger, or so.
Three of the carriages, in faith, are very dear to fancy...
...very responsive to the hilts...
...most delicate carriages, and of very liberal conceit.
What call you the carriages?
I knew you must be edified by the margin ere you had done.
The carriages, sir, are the hangers.
The phrase would be more germane if we could carry cannon by our sides.
- I would it might be hangers till then. - Ah, ha!
But on: Six Barbary horses against six French swords...
...their assigns, and three liberal-conceited...
- Carriages. ...carriages.
That's the French bet against the Danish. Why is this "imponed," as you call it?
The king, sir, hath laid, sir, that in a dozen passes between you and him...
...he shall not exceed you three hits.
He hath laid on 12 for nine.
And it would come to immediate trial...
...if your lordship would vouchsafe the answer.
How if I answer no?
I mean, my lord, the opposition of your person in trial.
Sir, I will walk here in the hall.
If it please His Majesty, 'tis the breathing time of day with me.
Let the foils be brought.
The gentleman willing, and the king hold his purpose...
...I will win for him and I can.
If not, I shall gain nothing but my shame and the odd hits.
- Shall I redeliver you e'en so? - To this effect, sir.
After what flourish your nature will.
I commend my duty to your lordship.
Yours, yours.
HAMLET: Um...
He does well to commend it himself, there are no tongues else for 's turn.
This lapwing runs away with the shell on his head.
He did comply with his dug before he sucked it.
Thus has he... And many more of the same bevy that I know the drossy age dotes on.
- Only got the tune of the time and outward habit of encounter...
...a kind of yeasty collection...
...which carries them through and through the most fanned and winnowed opinions...
...and do but blow them to their trial, the bubbles are out.
My lord.
His Majesty commended him to you by young Osric...
...who brings back to him, that you attend him in the hall.
He sends to know if your pleasure hold to play with Laertes...
...or that you will take longer time. - I am constant to my purposes.
They follow the king's pleasure: If his fitness speaks, mine is ready.
Now or whensoever, provided I be so able as now.
The king and queen and all are coming down.
In happy time.
The queen desires you to some gentle entertainment to Laertes...
...before you fall to play.
She well instructs me.
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.
But thou wouldst not think how ill all's here about my heart.
[SIGHS]
But it is no matter.
Nay, good my lord.
HAMLET: It is but foolery.
But it is such a kind of gain-giving as would perhaps trouble a woman.
If your mind dislike anything, obey it.
I will forestall their repair hither, and 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 knows aught of what he leaves...
...what is 't to leave betimes?
Let be.
Come, Hamlet, come, and take this hand from me.
Give me your pardon, sir.
I have done you wrong.
But pardon 't as you're a gentleman.
HAMLET: This presence knows, and you must needs have heard...
...how I am punished with a sore distraction.
What I have done that might your nature, honor, and exception roughly awake...
...I here proclaim was madness.
Was 't Hamlet wronged Laertes? Never Hamlet.
If Hamlet from himself be ta'en away, and when he's not himself does wrong Laertes...
...then Hamlet does it not, Hamlet denies it.
Who does it, then?
His madness.
If 't be so, Hamlet is of the faction that is wronged.
His madness is poor Hamlet's enemy.
HAMLET: Sir, in this audience, let my disclaiming from a purposed evil...
...free me so far in your most generous thoughts...
...that I have shot mine arrow o'er the house...
...and hurt my brother.
I am satisfied in nature...
...whose motive in this case should stir me most to my revenge.
But in my terms of honor...
...I stand aloof, and will no reconcilement...
...until by some elder masters of known honor...
...I have a voice and precedent of peace to keep my name ungored.
But till that time, I do receive your offered love like love...
...and will not wrong it.
I do embrace it freely...
...and will this brothers' wager frankly play.
HAMLET: Give us the foils. Come on.
- Come, one for me. - I'll be your foil, Laertes.
In mine ignorance your skill shall, like a star i' th' darkest night...
...stick fiery off indeed.
- You mock me, sir. - No, by this hand.
Give me them the foils, young Osric.
CLAUDIUS: Cousin Hamlet, you know the wager?
Very well, my lord. Your grace has laid the odds o' th' weaker side.
CLAUDIUS: I do not fear it. I have seen you both.
But since he is bettered, we have therefore odds.
This one's too heavy. Let me see another.
This likes me well. These foils have all a length?
Ay, my good lord.
Set me the stoups of wine upon that table.
If Hamlet give the first or second hit, or quit in answer of the third exchange...
...let all the battlements their ordnance fire.
The king shall drink to Hamlet's better breath...
...and in the cup an union shall he throw...
...richer than that which four successive kings...
...in Denmark's crown have worn.
CLAUDIUS: Give me the cup...
...and let the kettle to the trumpet speak, the trumpet to the cannoneer without...
...the cannons to the heavens, the heaven to earth:
"Now the king drinks to Hamlet."
Come, begin. And you, the judges...
...bear a wary eye.
- Come on, sir. - Come, my lord.
[GRUNTING]
[GERTRUDE GASPS]
HAMELT: One! - No!
Judgment!
A hit, a very palpable hit.
LAERTES: Well, again. - Stay. Give me drink.
Hamlet, this pearl is thine.
Here's to thy health.
- Give him the cup. - I'll play this bout first.
Set it by a while.
[GRUNTING]
HAMLET: Come.
[GRUNTING]
Yes.
[LAERTES RO ARS]
[LAERTES YELLS]
[CROWD MUMBLING]
[LAERTES SHOUTING]
Another hit. What say you?
A touch, a touch, I do confess.
[CROWD CHEERS]
Our son shall win.
He's fat and scant of breath.
Here, Hamlet, take my napkin. Rub thy brows.
The queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet.
Good madam.
[SHOUTS] Gertrude!
Do not drink.
[GERTRUDE LAUGHS]
I will, my lord. I pray you, pardon me.
CLAUDIUS: It is the poisoned cup.
It is too late.
I dare not drink yet, madam. By and by.
Come, let me wipe thy face.
My lord, I'll hit him now.
I do not think 't.
And yet 'tis almost against my conscience.
Attack...!
[GUARD GRUNTS]
Come for the third, Laertes, you but dally.
I pray you, pass with your best violence.
I am afeard you make a wanton of me.
[LAUGHTER]
Say you so?
Come on.
LAERTES: Have at you now.
[HAMLET GRUNTS]
[HAMLET RO ARING AND THEN CROWD MURMURING]
[GRUNTING]
- Nothing neither way. - Part them, they are incensed.
Nay, come again!
Look to the queen there, ho!
HORATIO: They bleed on both sides.
[LAERTES SHOUTS AND THEN SCREAMS]
[LAERTES GASPING]
How is 't, Laertes?
Why, as a woodcock to mine own springe, Osric.
I am justly killed with mine own treachery.
[HAMLET PANTING]
How does the queen?
She swoons to see them bleed.
GERTRUDE: No, no...
...the drink.
GERTRUDE: The drink.
O my dear Hamlet.
The drink, the drink.
I am poisoned.
Villainy.
Let the doors be locked!
- Treachery! Seek it out! - It is here, Hamlet.
LAERTES: Hamlet, thou art slain.
No med'cine in the world can do thee good.
In thee there is no half an hour of life.
The treacherous instrument is in thy hand...
...unbated and envenomed.
The foul practice hath turned itself on me.
LAERTES: Lo, here I lie, never to rise again.
Thy mother's poisoned.
I can no more.
[CHOKING] The king...
...the king's to blame.
Treason!
[THUD AND THEN OSRIC GRO ANS]
The point envenomed too?
Then, venom, to thy work.
Unh! O yet defend me, friends. I am but hurt.
[CLAUDIUS SCREAMING]
[CLAUDIUS GRUNTING AND THEN GAGGING]
Here, thou incestuous, murd'rous, damned Dane...
...drink off this potion.
Is thy union here? Follow my mother.
He is justly serv'd.
It is a poison tempered by himself.
Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet.
Mine and my father's death come not upon thee...
...nor thine on me.
Heaven make thee free of it.
I follow thee.
I am dead, Horatio.
[HAMLET GRO ANING]
Wretched queen, adieu.
You that look pale and tremble at this chance...
...that are but mutes or audience to this act...
...had I but time...
As this fell sergeant, Death, is strict in his arrest.
- O, I could tell you.
But let it be. Horatio, I am dead, thou liv'st.
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 thou'rt a man, give me the cup. Let go!
By heaven!
I'll ha 't.
HAMLET: O God, Horatio...
[CUP CLATTERS]
...what a wounded name...
...things standing thus unknown shall live behind me.
If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart...
...absent thee from felicity awhile.
HAMLET: And in this harsh world...
...draw thy breath in pain to tell my story.
[CANNONS FIRING]
What warlike noise is this?
Young Fortinbras, with conquest come from Poland...
...to th' ambassadors of England gives this warlike volley.
I die, Horatio.
The potent poison quite o'ercrows my spirit.
I cannot live to hear the news from England...
...but I do prophesy...
...th' election lights on Fortinbras.
[GRUNTING] He hath my dying voice.
So tell him...
...with th' occurents, more and less...
...which have solicited.
The rest...
...is...
...silence.
Now cracks a noble heart.
Good night...
...sweet prince...
...and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.
[DRUMS BEATING]
HORATIO: Why does the drum come hither?
FORTIMBRAS: Where is this sight?
HORATIO: What is it you would see?
If aught of woe or wonder...
...cease your search.
This quarry cries on havoc.
FORTINBRAS: O proud death...
...what feast is toward in thine eternal cell...
...that thou so many princes at a shot so bloodily hast struck?
[DOOR OPENS]
AMBASSADOR: The sight is dismal...
...and our affairs from England come too late.
The ears are senseless that should give us hearing...
...to tell him his commandment is fulfilled...
...that Rozencrantz and Guildenstern...
...are dead.
Where should we have our thanks?
Not from his mouth...
...had it th' ability of life to thank you.
He never gave commandment for their death.
But since...
...so jump upon this bloody question...
...you from the Polack wars...
...and you from England, are here arrived...
...give order that these bodies...
...high on a stage be placed to the view.
HORATIO: And let me speak...
...to th' yet unknowing world how these things came about.
HORATIO: So shall you hear...
...of carnal...
...bloody...
...and unnatural acts...
...of accidental judgments...
...casual slaughters...
...of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause.
And in this upshot...
...purposes mistook fall'n on th' inventors' heads.
All this...
...can I truly deliver.
Let us haste to hear it...
...and call the noblest to the audience.
FORTINBRAS: For me...
...with sorrow I embrace my fortune.
I have some rights of memory in this kingdom...
...which now to claim my vantage doth invite me.
Of that...
...I shall have also cause to speak...
...and from his mouth whose voice will draw on more.
But let this same be presently performed...
...even while men's minds are wild...
...lest more mischance on plots and errors happen.
Let four captains bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to the stage...
...for he was likely, had he been put on, to have proved most royally.
FORTINBRAS: And for his passage, the soldiers' music and the rites of war...
...speak loudly for him.
Take up the body.
Such a sight as this becomes the field...
...but here shows much amiss.
Go.
Bid the soldiers shoot.
Done by (c) dCd / September 2007