A Room in the Castle. | |
| |
Enter KING, QUEEN, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN. | |
| King. There’s matter in these sighs, these profound heaves: | |
| You must translate; ’tis fit we understand them. | 4 |
| Where is your son? | |
| Queen. [To ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.] Bestow this place on us a little while. [Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. | |
| Ah! my good lord, what have I seen to-night. | |
| King. What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet? | 8 |
| Queen. Mad as the sea and wind, when both contend | |
| Which is the mightier. In his lawless fit, | |
| Behind the arras hearing something stir, | |
| Whips out his rapier, cries, ‘A rat! a rat!’ | 12 |
| And, in his brainish apprehension, kills | |
| The unseen good old man. | |
| King. O heavy deed! | |
| It had been so with us had we been there. | 16 |
| His liberty is full of threats to all; | |
| To you yourself, to us, to every one. | |
| Alas! how shall this bloody deed be answer’d? | |
| It will be laid to us, whose providence | 20 |
| Should have kept short, restrain’d, and out of haunt, | |
| This mad young man: but so much was our love, | |
| We would not understand what was most fit, | |
| But, like the owner of a foul disease, | 24 |
| To keep it from divulging, let it feed | |
| Even on the pith of life. Where is he gone? | |
| Queen. To draw apart the body he hath kill’d; | |
| O’er whom his very madness, like some ore | 28 |
| Among a mineral of metals base, | |
| Shows itself pure: he weeps for what is done. | |
| King. O Gertrude! come away. | |
| The sun no sooner shall the mountains touch | 32 |
| But we will ship him hence; and this vile deed | |
| We must, with all our majesty and skill, | |
| Both countenance and excuse. Ho! Guildenstern! | |
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Re-enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. | 36 |
| Friends both, go join you with some further aid: | |
| Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain, | |
| And from his mother’s closet hath he dragg’d him: | |
| Go seek him out; speak fair, and bring the body | 40 |
| Into the chapel. I pray you, haste in this. [Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. | |
| Come, Gertrude, we’ll call up our wisest friends; | |
| And let them know both what we mean to do, | |
| And what’s untimely done: so, haply, slander, | 44 |
| Whose whisper o’er the world’s diameter, | |
| As level as the cannon to his blank | |
| Transports his poison’d shot, may miss our name, | |
| And hit the woundless air. O! come away; | 48 |
| My soul is full of discord and dismay. [Exeunt. | |