ACT III.

       SCENE I. A room in the Castle.

       [Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, and

       Guildenstern.]

       King.

       And can you, by no drift of circumstance,

       Get from him why he puts on this confusion,

       Grating so harshly all his days of quiet

       With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?

       Ros.

       He does confess he feels himself distracted,

       But from what cause he will by no means speak.

       Guil.

       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?

       Ros.

       Most like a gentleman.

       Guil.

       But with much forcing of his disposition.

       Ros.

       Niggard of question; but, of our demands,

       Most free in his reply.

       Queen.

       Did you assay him

       To any pastime?

       Ros.

       Madam, it so fell out that certain players

       We o’er-raught on the way: of these we told him,

       And there did seem in him a kind of joy

       To hear of it: they are about the court,

       And, as I think, they have already order

       This night to play before him.

       Pol.

       ‘Tis most true;

       And he beseech’d 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 inclin’d.—

       Good gentlemen, give him a further edge,

       And drive his purpose on to these delights.

       Ros.

       We shall, my lord.

       [Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.]

       King.

       Sweet Gertrude, leave us too;

       For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither,

       That he, as ‘twere by accident, may here

       Affront Ophelia:

       Her father and myself,—lawful espials,—

       Will so bestow ourselves that, seeing, unseen,

       We may of their encounter frankly judge;

       And gather by him, as he is behav’d,

       If’t be the 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 honours.

       Oph.

       Madam, I wish it may.

       [Exit Queen.]

       Pol.

       Ophelia, walk you here.—Gracious, so please you,

       We will bestow ourselves.—[To Ophelia.] Read on this book;

       That show of such an exercise may colour

       Your loneliness.—We are oft to blame in this,—

       ‘Tis too much prov’d,—that with devotion’s visage

       And pious action we do sugar o’er

       The Devil himself.

       King.

       [Aside.] O, ‘tis too true!

       How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!

       The harlot’s cheek, beautied with plastering art,

       Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it

       Than is my deed to my most painted word:

       O heavy burden!

       Pol.

       I hear him coming: let’s withdraw, my lord.

       [Exeunt King and Polonius.]

       [Enter Hamlet.]

       Ham.

       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 wish’d. 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,

       The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,

       The pangs of despis’d love, the law’s delay,

       The insolence of office, and the spurns

       That patient merit of the unworthy takes,

       When he himself might his quietus make

       With a bare bodkin? who would these fardels bear,

       To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

       But that the dread of something after death,—

       The undiscover’d country, from whose bourn

       No traveller 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 of us all;

       And thus the native hue of resolution

       Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought;

       And enterprises of great pith and moment,

       With this regard, their currents turn awry,

       And lose the name of action.—Soft you now!

       The fair Ophelia!—Nymph,