All language subtitles for Great British Theatre s01e03 Hamlet.eng

♪ 'Nature Boy' by Nat King Cole

♪ ..A little shy

♪ And sad of eye

♪ But very wise was he

♪ And then one day

♪ A magic day
He passed my way

♪ And while we spoke of many things
Fools and kings

♪ This he said to me

♪ The greatest thing

♪ You'll ever... ♪

(MUSIC DISTORTS AND STOPS)

Who's there?

Answer me.
Stand and unfold yourself.

Hail to your lordship!
Horatio, or I do forget myself.

The same, my lord,
and your poor servant ever.

My good friend,
I'll change that name with thee.

What make thee from Wittenberg?

Oh, I'm very glad to see you.
My good lord.

But what in faith
make you from Wittenberg?

A truant disposition, good my lord.

I would not hear your enemy say so,
nor shall you do my ear that violence

to make it truster of your own report
against yourself.

I know you are no truant.

But what is your affair in Elsinore?

We'll teach you to drink deep
ere you depart.

My lord, I came
to see your father's funeral.

I pray you do not mock me, fellow student.
I think it was to see my mother's wedding.

Indeed, my lord, it followed hard upon.

Thrift. Thrift, Horatio.

The funeral baked meats did coldly
furnish forth the marriage tables.

Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven
ere I had ever seen that day, Horatio.

How now, my lord, why look'st thou pale?
My father!

Methinks I see my father.
Where?

In my mind's eye, Horatio.
I saw him once, he was a goodly king.

He was a man, take him for all in all.
I shall not look upon his like again.

(KNOCK ON DOOR)

My lord, the queen, your mother,

sends me hence
to entreat you to make haste.

The hour has come.
The guests who now assemble wait upon you.

Bid her hold her patience a while,
I come by and by.

Good Horatio, you are welcome to Elsinore.

Since my dear soul
was mistress of her choice

and could of men distinguish

her election hath sealed thee for herself.

My gracious lord, I will leave you
for a while. Farewell.

(SNIFFS DEEPLY)

(SOBS)

♪ Intro to 'Nature Boy'

(KNOCK ON DOOR)

CORNELIUS: I am sent expressly
to your lordship!

Soft you now, I come.

(MUSIC FADES)

♪ Orchestra plays "Nature Boy"

(STRINGS SWIRL GRANDLY)

(MUSIC FADES)

Though yet of Hamlet
our dear brother's death

the memory be green,

and that it us befitted
to bear our hearts in grief

and our whole kingdom
to be contracted in one brow of woe.

Yet so far hath discretion
fought with nature

that we with wisest sorrow think on him,

together with remembrance of ourselves.

Therefore, our sometime sister,
now our queen,

the imperial jointress
to this warlike state,

have we, as 'twere with a defeated joy,

with mirth in funeral
and with dirge in marriage

in equal scale weighing delight and dole,
taken to wife.

Nor have we herein barred
your better wisdoms,

which have freely gone
with this affair along.

For all, our thanks.

Now follows that you know
young Fortinbras,

holding a weak supposal of our worth,

or thinking
by our late dear brother's death

the state to be disjoint and out of frame,

hath not failed to pester us with message
demanding the surrender of those lands

lost by his father, with all bonds of law,
to our most valiant brother.

So much for him.
(GUESTS CHUCKLE)

Now for ourself.

And at this time of meeting,
thus much the business is.

We have here writ to Norway,
uncle of young Fortinbras,

who weakening and bedrid,

scarcely hears of this
his nephew's purpose,

to suppress his further gait herein.

And we here dispatch you,
good Cornelius, and you Voltemand,

for bearing of
this greeting to old Norway.

Fare well,
and let your haste commend your duty.

In that, and in all things,
we will show our duty.

And now Laertes, what's the news with you?

You told us of some suit.
What is't, Laertes?

The head is not more native to the heart

than is the throne of Denmark
to thy father.

What wouldst thou have, Laertes?

My dear lord, your leave and favour
to return to France, from whence,

though willingly I came to Denmark
to show my duty in your coronation,

yet now I must confess that,
duty done,

my thoughts and wishes
bend again toward France,

and bow then to your
gracious leave and pardon.

Have you your father's leave?

What says Polonius?

He hath, my lord.
I do beseech you give him leave to go.

Take thy fair hour Laertes,
thy time be thine,

and thy best graces spend it at thy will.

But now, our cousin Hamlet, and our son.

A little more than kin and less than kind.

(CLEARS THROAT)

How is it that
the clouds still hang on you?

Not so, my lord,
I am too much in the sun.

Good Hamlet, cast thy nightly colour off

and let thine eye
look like a friend on Denmark.

Do not forever with thy veiled lids
seek for thy father in the dust.

Thou knowst 'tis common,

all that lives must die,
passing through nature to eternity.

Aye madam, it is common.

If it be, why seems it
so particular with thee?

"Seems" madam? Nay it is.
I know not "seems".

'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,

nor customary suits of solemn black,

nor the windy suspiration
of forced breath.

No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
nor the dejected haviour of the visage

together with all forms, moods,
shows of grief that can denote me truly.

These indeed "seem",

for they are actions
that a man might play,

but I have that within which passeth show,

these but the trappings
and the suits of woe.

'Tis sweet and commendable
in your nature, Hamlet,

to give these mourning duties
to your father,

but you must know
your father lost a father,

that father lost, lost his

and the survivor bound
in filial obligation

for some term to do obsequious sorrow.

But to persevere in obstinate condolence
is a course of ungodly stubbornness.

'Tis unmanly grief,
it shows a will most incorrect to heaven,

a heart unfortified, a mind impatient,
an understanding simple and unschooled.

Fie, 'tis a fault to heaven,
a fault against the dead,

a fault to nature, to reason most absurd,
whose common theme is death of fathers

and who still hath cried,
from the first corpse

to he that died today, "This must be so!"

We pray you

throw to earth this unprevailing woe
and think of us as of a father.

For let the world take note,
you are the most immediate to our throne

and with no less nobility of love

than that which dearest father
bears his son

do I impart towards you.

As for your intent in going back to school
in Wittenberg,

it is most retrograde to our desire

and we beseech you,

bend you to remain here
in the cheer and comfort of our eye,

our chiefest courtier,
kinsman and our son.

Let not your mother
lose her prayers, Hamlet.

I pray thee stay with us,
go not to Wittenberg.

I shall in all my best obey you, madam.
Why, 'tis a loving and a fair reply.

This gentle and unforced accord of Hamlet
sits smiling to my heart.

HAMLET: Oh, that this too too solid flesh
would melt...

..thaw and resolve itself into a dew.

Or that the Everlasting had not fixed
his canon 'gainst self-slaughter.

O, God!

God!

How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable

seem to me all the uses of this world.

Oh, fie upon it, fie!

'Tis an unweeded garden
that grows to seed.

Things rank and gross in nature
possess it merely.

That it should come to this!

But two months dead.

Nay, not so much, not two.

So excellent a king,
that was to this Hyperion to a satyr.

So loving of my mother that he might not
beteem the winds of heaven

visit her face too roughly.

Heaven and Earth, must I remember?

Why, she would hang on him as if increase
of appetite had grown by what it fed on

and yet, within a month?

Let me not think on it.

Frailty, thy name is woman!

A little month,
or ere those shoes were old

with which she followed my
poor father's body,

like Niobe, all tears.

Why she...

Oh God...

a beast that wants discourse of reason
would have mourned longer.

Married with mine uncle!

My father's brother,

yet no more like my father
than I to Hercules.

Within a month!

Oh, most wicked speed,

to post with such dexterity
to incestuous sheets!

It is not, nor cannot come to good.

But break my heart,
for I must hold my tongue.

(LAUGHTER AND CONVERSATION)

Soft you, a word, my lord.

Horatio?
Friends to this ground

and liegemen to the Dane.

Hail to your lordship.
My good lord.

I'm very glad to see you both.

Pray give them leave,
they would speak a word with you.

The matter then, speak.

By heaven, I charge thee, speak.

My lord, I think I saw him yesternight.
Saw who?

My lord, the king, your father.
The king, my father?

Season your admiration for a while
with an attent ear

till I may deliver this marvel to you.
For God's love, let me hear.

Two nights together have these gentlemen,
Marcellus and Barnardo,

on their watch in the dead waste

and middle of the night
been thus encountered:

A figure like your father
appears before them,

and with solemn march goes slow and steady

whilst they, distilled almost to jelly
with the act of fear,

stood dumb and spoke not to him.

This to me
in dreadful secrecy did they impart.

I knew your father,
these hands are not more like.

But where was this?
Upon the platform where we watch.

Did you not speak to it?
My lord I did, but answer made it none.

Yet once methought it lifted up its head

and did address itself to motion
like as it would speak,

but even then the morning cock crew loud
and at the sound it shrunk in haste away.

I have heard,
the cock that is the trumpet to the day

doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding
throat awake the god of day,

and at his warning,

whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,

the itinerant and erring spirit
hies to his confine.

And that the truth therein their witness
now doth make probation.

'Tis very strange.
As I do live, my honoured lord,

'tis true.

And we did think it writ down in our duty
to let you know of it.

Saw you his face?
Yes.

How looked he, frowningly?

A countenance more in sorrow
than in anger.

Pale or red?
Nay, very pale.

And his eyes fixed upon you?
Most constantly.

Would I had been there.
It would have much amazed you.

Very like, very like.
Hold you again the watch tonight?

We do, my lord.
Perchance it will walk again.

If it assume my noble father's person
I'll speak to it,

though all hell should gape
and bid me hold my peace.

I pray you both,

if you have hitherto concealed this sight,
let it be held within your silence still

and whatsoever else shall pass tonight,
give it an understanding but no tongue.

Upon the platform,
'twixt 11 and 12, I'll visit you.

Our duty to your honour.
Your love as mine to you. Farewell.

All is not well.

Would the night were come.

Till then, sit still my soul.

Foul deeds will rise, though all the earth
o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes.

LAERTES: My necessaries
are embarked, farewell.

And sister, as the winds give benefit
and convoy is assistant,

do not sleep, but let me hear from you.
Do you doubt that?

I see Prince Hamlet makes a show of love.

Beware, Ophelia, do not trust his vows.

Hold it a fashion and a toy in blood,
a violet in the spring of primy nature,

fleeting, not permanent;

sweet, not lasting;
the suppliance of the moment, no more.

No more but so?
Think it no more.

Perhaps he loves you now,

and now his tongue
speaks from his heart, but yet take heed.

His greatness weighed,
his will is not his own,

for he himself is subject to his birth.

He may not, as unvalued persons do,
choose for himself,

for on his choice depends the sanctity
and health of this whole state.

And therefore,
must his choice be circumscribed

unto the voice and yielding
of that body whereof he is the head.

Then if he says he loves you,
it fits your wisdom so far to believe it

as he, in his especial rank and force,
may give his saying deed.

And weigh what loss
your honour may sustain

if with too credent ear

you list his songs or lose your heart.
Ssh!

Fear it, Ophelia.
Fear it, my dear sister.

And keep within the rear
of your affection,

out of the shot and danger of desire.

I shall the effect
of this good lesson keep

as watchman to my heart.

But good my brother,

do not as some ungodly pastors do,
show me the steep and thorny way to heaven

whilst like a puffed
and reckless libertine himself

the primrose path of dalliance treads

and heeds not his own reed.

Oh, fear me not!

(PLAYS SIMPLE TUNE ON PIANO)

(BOTH LAUGH FONDLY)

(SHE PLAYS FULL MELODY)

Yet here, Laertes?

I stay too long. But here my father comes.

A double blessing is a double grace.
Occasion smiles upon a second leave.

Aboard, aboard for shame.

The wind sits in the shoulder
of your sail and you are stayed for.

There, my blessing with you!

And these few precepts in thy memory
see thou character.

"Give thy thoughts no tongue,
nor any unproportioned thought his act.

"Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.

"The friends thou hast
and their allegiance tried,

"grapple them
unto thy soul with hoops of steel,

"but do not dull thy palm

"with entertainment of each new-hatched,
unfledged comrades.

"Beware of entrance to a quarrel,

"but being in, bear it that the opposed
may beware of thee.

"Give every man thine ear,
but few thy voice.

"Take each man's censure,
but reserve thy judgement."

This above all:
To thine own self be true.

And it must follow, as the night the day,
thou canst not then be false to any man.

Farewell, my blessing season this in thee.

Farewell, Ophelia,
and remember well what I have said to you.

'Tis in my memory locked,
and you yourself shall keep the key of it.

Farewell!

What is it, Ophelia, he hath said to you?

Oh! So please you,
something touching the Lord Hamlet.

Marry, well bethought.

'Tis told me he hath
very oft of late given private time to you

and you yourself have of your audience
been most free and bounteous.

If it be so, as so 'tis put on me,

and that in way of caution,
I must tell you

you do not understand yourself so clearly,
as it becomes my daughter and your honour.

What is between you? Give me up the truth.

He hath, my lord, of late...

made many tenders
of his affection towards me.

Affection? You speak like a green girl,
unsifted in such perilous circumstance.

Do you believe his "tenders",
as you call them?

I do not know, my lord,
what I should think.

Marry, I will teach you.
Think yourself a baby

that you've taken his tenders
for true pay, which are not sterling.

My lord, he hath importuned me
with love in honourable fashion.

Aye, fashion you may call it.

And hath given countenance to his speech,
my lord, with all the vows of heaven.

I do know when the blood burns

how prodigally the soul
lends the tongue vows.

These blazes, daughter, giving more light
than heat, you must not take for fire.

For this time, daughter, be somewhat
scanter of your maiden presence.

Set your entreatments at a higher rate
than a command to parley.

For Lord Hamlet, believe so much in him
that he is royal,

and with a larger tether may he walk
than may be given you.

In brief, do not believe his vows.

And for my own part, I would not,
in plain terms, from this time forth

have you so slander any moment's leisure

as to give words
or talk with the Lord Hamlet.

Look to it, I charge you.

I shall obey, my lord.

BERNARDO: What hour now?
MARCELLUS: I think it lacks of twelve.

SOLDIER: No, it has struck.
Indeed I heard it not.

Well, then it draws near the season
wherein the spirit held his wont to walk.

Thus twice before,
and just at this dead hour,

with martial stalk
hath he gone by our watch.

In what particular thought
to work I know not,

but in the gross and scope of my opinion,

this bodes
some strange eruption to our state.

Good you now, canst tell me, if you know

why this same strict
and most observant watch

so nightly guards the subject of the land,

and why such daily cast of brazen cannon
and foreign trade for implements of war?

What might be toward,
that this sweaty haste

doth make the night
joint-labourer with the day?

To the wars, my boy, to the wars!
Or at least the whisper goes so.

Our last king was, as you know,
by Fortinbras of Norway,

thereto pricked on
by a most ambitious pride,

dared to the combat in which our
valiant Hamlet did slay this Fortinbras

who, by a sealed compact,

did forfeit with his life

all those his lands
which he stood seized of to the conqueror.

Now sir, young Fortinbras,
of unimproved mettle hot and full,

hath in the skirts of Norway
here and there

sharked up a troop of lawless resolutes

for to recover of us by strong hand

those foresaid lands
so by his father lost.

And this, I take it,
is the main motive of our preparations

and the chief head of this great haste
and turmoil in the land.

I think it be no other but even so.

I'm well studied for a liberal thanks,
which I do owe you.

HORATIO: Marcellus, Barnardo.
BARNARDO: My honoured lord.

The air bites shrewdly, it is very cold.

It is a nipping and an eager air.
Has this thing appeared again tonight?

I have seen nothing.
(DISTANT RUMBLE)

What does this mean, my lord?

The king doth wake tonight
and takes his rouse,

keeps wassail
and a swaggering upspring reels,

and as he drains
his draughts of rhenish down,

the kettledrum and trumpet
thus bray out the triumph of his pledge.

Is it a custom?
Aye, marry it is.

To my mind, though I am native here
and to the manner born,

it is a custom more honoured in the breach
than the observance.

(LOUD RUMBLING)
Peace, break thee off!

Look, my lord, it comes!
Looks it not like the king?

HAMLET: Angels and ministers
of grace defend us!

Be thou a spirit of health
or goblin damned,

bring with thee airs from heaven
or blasts from hell,

be thy intents wicked or charitable,

thou comest in such a questionable shape
that I will speak with thee.

I'll call thee Hamlet!

King!

Father?

Royal Dane! Oh, answer me!

MARCELLUS: It beckons you
to go away with it.

HORATIO: Do not go.

If it will not answer me,
then I will follow it.

Do not, my lord.

Why? What should be the fear?
I do not set my life at a pin's fee.

As for my soul, what can it do to that,
being a thing immortal as itself?

It waves me forth again, I will follow it.

What if it tempt
you towards the flood, my lord?

Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff
that o'ertops his base into the sea

and there assumes some other horrible form
which might deprive you of your reason

and draw you into madness?
Think of it!

HAMLET: It waves me still,
I will follow it.

You shall not go, my lord!

Hold off your hand.
Be ruled, you shall not go.

My fate cries out,

and makes each petty artery in this body
as hardy as the Nemean lion's nerve.

Unhand me, gentlemen, or by God
I'll make a ghost of him that stays me.

I said away.

Go on! I'll follow thee!

He waxes desperate with imagination.
'Tis not fit thus to obey him.

To what issue will this come?

Something is rotten
in the state of Denmark.

Heaven will direct it.
Nay, let's follow him.

(RUMBLING)

HAMLET: Where wilt thou lead me?

(RUMBLING)

Speak! I'll go no further.

Speak, I am bound to hear.

I am thy father's spirit.

Doomed for a certain term
to walk the night,

and for the day
confined to fast in fires...

(FLAMES CRACKLE)
..till the foul crimes

done in my days of nature
are burnt and purged away.

But that I am forbid to tell the secrets
of my prison house, I could a tale unfold

whose lightest word
would harrow up thy soul

and freeze thy noble veins.

But this eternal blazon must not be
to ears of flesh and blood.

List, Hamlet, oh list.

If thou didst ever thy dear father love...

Oh, God!

..revenge his foul
and most unnatural murder.

Murder?
Murder most foul, as in the best it is,

but this most foul, strange and unnatural.

Haste me to know it,

that I with wings as swift
as meditation may sweep to my revenge.

It is given out that,
sleeping in my orchard,

a serpent stung me.

So the whole ear of Denmark

is by a forged process
of my death rankly abused.

But know thou, noble youth,

the serpent that did sting
thy father's life

now wears his crown.
O, my prophetic soul, mine uncle!

Aye...that incestuous,
that adulterate beast

with witchcraft of his wits

won to his shameful lust the will
of my most seeming virtuous queen.

Oh, Hamlet, what a falling-off was there,
from me, whose love was of that dignity

that it went hand in hand even
with the vow I made to her in marriage,

and to decline upon a wretch

whose natural gifts
were poor to those of mine.

But soft...

..methinks I scent the morning air.

Brief let me be.

Sleeping within my orchard,
my custom always in the afternoon,

upon my restful hour thy uncle stole,
with juice of cursed hebenon in a vial.

And in the porches of mine ear
did pour the leperous distilment,

whose effect holds such an enmity
with blood of man that,

swift as quicksilver,

it courses through the natural gates
and alleys of the body,

and with a sudden vigour

it doth posset and curd,

like acid dropping into milk,
the thin and wholesome blood.

So did it mine. And soon a foul eruption
barked about, most leper-like,

with vile and loathsome crust,
all my smooth body!

Thus was I, sleeping,

by a brother's hand of life,

of crown and queen at once dispatched,

cut off even in the blossom of my sin.

No reckoning made, but sent to my account
with all my imperfections on my head!

Oh, horrible.

Oh, horrible.

Most horrible.

If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not.

Let not the royal bed of Denmark
be a couch for luxury and damned incest.

But howsoever thou pursuest this act...

..taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul
contrive against thy mother aught.

Leave her to heaven,

and to those thorns that in her bosom
lodge to prick and sting her.

Fare thee well at once.
The glow worm shows the matin to be near.

Adieu.

Adieu.

Hamlet, remember me!

(THUNDERCLAP)

Remember thee?

Aye, thou poor ghost, while memory
holds a seat in this distracted globe.

Remember thee?
Yea, from the tables of my memory

I'll wipe away all trivial fond records,

all saws of books, all forms,
all pressures past

that youth and observation copied there,

and thy commandment all alone shall live
within the book and volume of this brain,

unmixed with baser matter.

Oh, yes! Yes, by heaven!

Oh, most pernicious woman.

Oh, villain.

Villain!

Smiling damned villain!

My tables... Meet it is I set it down

that one may smile and smile
and be a villain.

So uncle, there you are!

And now to my word.
It is, "Adieu, adieu, remember me."

And I have sworn it!

My lord, my lord!
Lord Hamlet!

Heaven secure him!
So be it.

How is it, my noble lord?
Oh, wonderful!

Good my lord, tell it.
Nay, but you'll reveal it.

Not I, my lord.
How say you then, but you'll be secret?

Aye by heaven, my lord.

There's not a villain
dwelling in all Denmark

but he's an arrant knave.

There needs no ghost, my lord,
come from the grave to tell us that.

Why right, you are in the right.

It is an honest ghost,
that let me tell you.

As for your desire
to know what stands between us,

o'ermaster it as you may.
And now, good friends,

grant me one poor request.
What is't, my lord?

Never make known
what you have seen tonight.

My lord, we will not.
Nay, but swear it.

GHOSTLY VOICE: Swear.
Aha, oh boy, sayest thou so?

Come, you hear this fellow,
consent to swear.

Propose the oath, my lord.

Never to speak of this
that you have seen tonight.

My lord, we will not.
But swear it.

In faith, my lord, not I.
Nor I my lord, in faith.

GHOSTLY VOICE: Swear!

Then we'll move our ground, come here!

Upon my hand, never to speak of this
that you have heard.

GHOSTLY VOICE: Swear!

Well said, old mole,
canst work in the ground so fast?

Once more remove, good friends.

Oh, day and night,
but this is wondrous strange.

Well, as a stranger, give it welcome.

There are more things
in heaven and earth, Horatio,

than are dreamt of in our philosophy.

But come, here as before, and swear.

GHOSTLY VOICE: Swear!

ALL: I swear!

Rest, rest, perturbed spirit!

And swear besides,
howe'er so strange or odd I bear myself,

as I perchance hereafter
shall think it meet

to put an antic disposition on.

That you at such time seeing me,
never shall with arms encumbered thus,

or thus head shake, or by the pronouncing
of some doubtful phrase as,

"Ooh, well, we know."

"Oh, we could and if we would,"
that you know aught of me. Swear!

ALL: By heaven, I swear!

Gentlemen, with all my love
I do commend me to you,

and still your fingers on your lips.
I pray.

The time is out of joint.

Oh cursed spite,
that ever I was born to set it right.

(CLOCK TICKS LOUDLY)

(TICKING DISTORTS)

POLONIUS: How now, Ophelia,
what's the matter?

Alas, my lord, I have been so affrighted.

With what, in the name of heaven?

My lord, as I was sewing in my chamber

Lord Hamlet,
with his doublet all unbraced,

pale as his shirt,
his knees knocking each other,

and with a look so piteous in purport

as if he had been loosed out of hell
to speak of horrors, he comes before me.

Mad for thy love?
My lord, I do not know.

What said he?

He took me by the wrist and held me hard.

Then goes he to the length of all his arm,

and with his other hand
thus o'er his brow,

he falls to such perusal of my face
as he would draw it. Long stayed he so.

When at last,
his head thus waving up and down,

he raised a sigh so piteous and profound

that it did seem to shatter all his bulk
and end his being.

That done, he lets me go.

And with his head
over his shoulder turned

he seemed to find his way
without his eyes,

for out of doors he went
without their help,

and to the last bended their light on me.

This is the very ecstasy of love,

whose violent property
fordoes itself and leads the will

to desperate undertakings
as oft as any passion under heaven

that does afflict our natures.

What, have you given him
any hard words of late?

No, my good lord.

But as you did command,

I did...repel his letters
and denied his access to me.

That hath made him mad.

I am sorry that with better speed
and judgement I had not noted him.

I feared he did but trifle
and meant to wreck thee.

Come, go we to the king.
This must be known.

My liege and madam, to expostulate
what majesty should be, what duty is,

why day is day,
night's night and time is time,

were nothing but to waste night,
day and time.

Therefore, since brevity
is the soul of wit

and tediousness the limbs
and outward flourishes, I will be brief.

[AUDIENCE LAUGHS]

Your noble son is mad.

Mad I call it, for to define true madness,

what is it but to be nothing else
than mad? But let that go.

More matter with less art?

Madam, I swear I use no art at all.

Mad let us grant him then,

and now remains that we find out
the cause of this effect.

Or rather say, the cause of this defect.

I have a daughter,
have whilst she is mine,

who in her duty and obedience, mark,
hath given me this.

Now gather and surmise.

"To the celestial and my soul's idol,
the most beautified Ophelia."

Came this from Hamlet to her?

Good madam stay awhile,
I will be faithful.

"Doubt thou the stars are fire,
Doubt that the sun doth move,

"Doubt truth to be a liar,
But never doubt I love."

This in obedience
hath my daughter shown me,

and more above, hath his solicitings,

as they fell out by time,
by means and place, all given to mine ear.

But how has she received his love?

What do you think of me?

As of a man faithful and honourable.
I would fain prove so.

But what might you think
if I had seen this hot love on the wing,

as I perceived it, I must tell you that,
before my daughter told me?

What might you,
or my dear majesty your queen here, think

if I had played the bawd or go-between,

or looked upon this love with idle sight?
What might you think?

No, I went round to work
and my young mistress thus I did bespeak,

"Lord Hamlet is a prince out of thy star,
this must not be."

And then I precepts gave her,

that she should lock herself
from his society,

admit no messengers, receive no tokens.

Which done,
she took the fruits of my advice

and he, repulsed, a short tale to make,

fell into a sadness,
thence into a weakness,

thence into the madness
wherein now he raves.

Do you think 'tis this?

It may be very likely.

Hath there been such a time,
I would fain know,

that I have positively said 'tis so,
when it proved otherwise?

Not that I know.

Take this from this if this be otherwise.

If circumstances lead me,
I will find where truth is hid,

though it were hid indeed
within the centre.

How may we try it further?

You know sometimes he walks for hours
here in the lobby.

So he does indeed.

At such a time
I'll loose my daughter to him.

Be you and I behind an arras then,
mark the encounter.

If he love her not,

and be not from his reason
fallen thereon...

(MILITARY BAND APPROACHES)
..let me be no assistant for a state,

but keep a farm and carters.

(BRASS BAND PLAYS MILITARY MARCH)

Away, I do beseech you both, away!

How does my good lord?

Well, god-a-mercy.
Do you know me, my lord?

(SNIFFS) Excellent, excellent well.
In faith, you are a fishmonger.

Not I, my lord.
Then I would you were so honest a man.

Honest, my lord?
Aye, sir.

To be honest as this world goes

is to be one man
picked out of ten thousand.

That is very true, my lord.

Have you a daughter?
I have, my lord.

Let her not walk in the sun. Look to it!

How say you by that?
Still harping on my daughter.

What do you read, my lord?
Words.

[AUDIENCE LAUGHS]

Words.

Wo-o-ords!

What is the matter, my lord?
Between whom, sir?

I mean the matter that you read, my lord.

Oh, slanders, sir.

For the satirical rogue says here
that old men have grey beards,

that their faces are wrinkled

and that they have
a plentiful lack of wit,

together with most weak hams.

All of which, sir,
I most powerfully and potently do believe,

yet I do not hold it honesty
to have it thus set down.

You, sir, could grow as old as I am,
if like a crab you could go backwards.

Though this be madness,
yet there is method in it.

Will you walk out of the air, my lord?
Into my grave?

My honourable lord,
I will take my leave of you.

You cannot, sir, take from me anything
that I will more willingly part withal.

Except my life.

Except my life!

Fare you well, my lord.

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 wished.

To die...to sleep!

To sleep, perchance to dream.

Aye, 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 disprized 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 for the dread
of something after death?

The undiscovered country
from whose bourne no traveller returns.

It puzzles the will, and makes us
rather bear those ills we have

than fly to others we know not of.

Thus conscience
doth 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 pitch and moment...

..in this regard their currents turn awry
and lose the name of action.

The ambassadors from Norway
are joyfully returned.

KING: They're welcome both,
let them have kind admission.

How do I long to hear how they were found.

Welcome, good friends.

Say, Voltemand,

what from our brother Norway?

Most fair return of greetings and desires.

Sovereign lord,
the word of peace is rendered

between our nation
and its neighbour state.

Heavens thank thee for it.

Upon our first he sent out to supress
his nephew's levies,

which to him appeared
to be preparations against the Polish.

But better looked into,

he truly found
it was against your highness,

sends out arrests on Fortinbras,
which he, in brief, obeys,

receives rebuke from Norway
and in fine makes vow before his uncle

never more to give the assay of arms
against your majesty.

Whereon old Norway, overcome with joy,

gives him permission
to employ those soldiers

so levied as before against the Polish.

With an entreaty herein further shown
that it might please you

to give peaceful passage
through your dominions for his enterprise.

It likes us well,

and at a more considered time we'll read,
answer and think upon this business.

Meantime, we thank you
for your well-took labour.

Go to your rest,
tonight we'll dine together.

I hold my duty as I hold my soul,
both to my God and to my gracious king.

Most welcome home.

POLONIUS: This business is well ended.

Sweet Gertrude leave us too,
for we have closely sent for Hamlet hither

that he, as 'twere by accident,
may here confront Ophelia.

Her father and myself
will so bestow ourselves

that seeing, unseen,
we may of their encounter frankly judge

and gather by him, as he is behaved,

if it be the affliction of his love or no
that thus he suffers for.

I doubt it is no other but the main,

his father's death
and our o'erhasty marriage.

For your part, Ophelia,

I do wish your good beauties
be the happy cause of Hamlet's wildness.

So shall I hope your virtues
shall bring him to his wonted way again.

Madam, I wish it may.
Ophelia, walk you here.

Read on this book,

that show of such an exercise
may colour your loneliness.

Let's withdraw, my lord.

(PLAYS SIMPLE MELODY)

The fair Ophelia.

Nymph, in thy orisons
be all my sins remembered.

Good my lord,
how does your honour for this many a day?

I humbly thank you, well.

Well...

Well.

My lord, I have remembrances of yours
that I have longed long to redeliver.

I pray you now receive them.
No, not I. I never gave you aught.

My honoured lord,
you know right well you did.

And with them words of so sweet breath
composed as made the things more rich.

Their perfume left, take these again,

for to the noble mind rich gifts
wax poor when givers prove unkind.

There, my lord.

Are you honest?
Yes, my lord.

I did love you once.
Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.

You should not have believed it.
I loved you not.

I was the more deceived.

Get thee to a nunnery.

Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?
I am myself indifferent honest.

Yet I could accuse me of such things
it were better my mother had not borne me.

I'm very proud...revengeful, ambitious.

With more offences at my beck
than I have thoughts to put them in,

imagination to give them shape
or time to act them in.

What should fools as I do
crawling between heaven and Earth?

We're arrant knaves all,
believe none of us.

Where's your father?
At home, my lord.

Let the doors be shut on him,

that he may play the fool
nowhere but in his own house!

Oh help him, sweet heavens!

If thou dost marry
I'll give thee this plague for thy dowry:

Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow,
thou shall not escape calumny.

Now, get thee to a nunnery,
and quickly too,

or if thou wilt marry, marry a fool,

for wise men know well enough
what monsters you make of them.

Oh, heavenly powers, restore him!

God hath given you one face
and you make yourself another.

You amble, you lisp, you jig,
you nickname God's creatures.

You make your wantonness your ignorance!

Go to, I'll no more of it,
it hath made me mad.

I say we shall have no more marriages!

(SHOUTS) All those that are married,
all but one shall live.

The rest shall stay as they are.

To a nunnery, go.

Oh, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown.

The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's,
eye, tongue, sword,

the expectancy and rose
of the fair state,

the glass of fashion
and the mould of form,

the observed
of all observers quite, quite down.

And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
that sucked the honey of his music vows

now see that noble
and most sovereign reason like...

..like sweet bells
jangled out of tune and harsh.

That unmatched form and feature
of blown youth blasted with ecstasy!

Oh, woe is me...

..to have seen what I have seen...

..see what I see.

Love? His affections do not that way tend!

Nor what he spoke, though it lacked form
a little, was not like madness.

But yet do I believe
the origin and commencement of this grief

springs from neglected love.

There's something in his soul
o'er which his melancholy sits on brood

and I do fear the hatch and the disclose
will be some danger.

How now, my good lord?

You need not tell us
what Lord Hamlet said.

We heard it all.

Welcome, dear Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern.

Moreover that we much did long to see you,

the need we have to use you
did provoke our hasty sending.

Something you have heard
of Hamlet's transformation.

So I call it, since not the exterior
nor the inward man resembles what it was.

What it should be,
more than his father's death,

that thus hath put him so much
from the understanding of himself,

I cannot dream of.

I entreat you both,

that being of so young days
brought up with him,

and since so neighboured
to his youth and humours,

to draw him on to pleasures

and to glean whether aught to us unknown
afflicts him thus

that disclosed, lies within our purpose.

He hath of late
much talked of you, good sirs,

and sure I am,
two men there are not living

to whom he more adheres.

If it shall please you to show us
so much kindness and goodwill

as to expend your time with us a while
for the supply and profit of our hope,

your visitation shall receive from us
such thanks as fits a king's remembrance.

Both your majesties might,
by the sovereign power you have of us,

put your dread pleasures
more into command than to entreaty.

But we both obey, and here
give up ourselves in the full bent

to lay our service freely at your feet
to be commanded.

Heaven make our presence and our practices
pleasant...and helpful...to him.

Thanks, gentle
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

Thanks, Guildenstern
and gentle Rosencrantz.

And I beseech you instantly to visit
my too much changed son.

Voltemand, I charge you,
bring the gentlemen where Hamlet is.

Go you to seek the Lord Hamlet?

(BRASS BAND STRIKES UP)

There he is.
God save you!

[AUDIENCE LAUGHS]

Mine honoured lord?
My most dear lord!

(MUSIC STOPS)

My dear good friends!

Guildenstern, how dost thou?

Oh, Rosencrantz, good lads,
how do you both? Haha!

As the indifferent children of the earth.

Happy in that we're not over-happy.

On fortune's cap
we're not the very button.

Nor the soles of her shoe.
Neither, my lord.

Then you live somewhere about her waist
or in the middle of her favour?

Faith, her privates, we.

Oh, no...
[LAUGHTER]

What's the news?

None, my lord,
but that the world's grown honest.

Then is doomsday near.

But what have you deserved
at the hands of fortune

that she has sent you to prison hither?
Prison, my lord?

Denmark is a prison.
Then is the world one.

A goodly one,
in which there are many confines,

wards and dungeons,
Denmark being one of the worst.

I think not so, my lord.
Then 'tis none to you.

For there is nothing either good or bad
but thinking makes it so.

But to me, it is a prison.

Why then, your ambition makes it one.
'Tis too narrow for your mind.

Oh God, I could be bounded in a nutshell

and count myself a king
of infinite space...

..were it not that I have bad dreams.

But no such matter.
What make you from England?

To visit you, my lord, no other occasion.

Were you not sent for?

Is it a free visitation?

Come, deal justly with me.

Come, come. Nay, speak.

What should we say, my lord?
Why, anything but to the purpose.

You were sent for,
there's a kind of confession in your looks

which your modesties
have not craft enough to cover.

I know the good queen and...king
have sent for you.

To what end my lord?
That you must teach me.

But let me conjure you by the rights
of our fellowship,

be even and direct with me,

whether you were sent for or no.
My lord, we were sent for.

[LAUGHTER]

I shall tell you why, so shall
my anticipation prevent your discovery.

I have of late, but wherefore I know not,
lost all my mirth...

..forgone all custom of exercise.

Indeed it goes so heavily
with my disposition

that this...goodly frame, the Earth...

..seems to me a sterile promontory.

This most excellent canopy, the air...

..look you...

..this brave o'erhanging firmament...

..this majestical roof
fretted with golden fire,

why, it appeareth to me no other thing

but a foul and pestilent
congregation of vapours.

What a piece of work is a man!

How noble in reason!

How infinite in faculty!

Form and moving,
how express and admirable!

In action, how like an angel!
In apprehension, how like a god!

The beauty of the world,
the paragon of animals.

And yet to me,
what is this quintessence of dust?

Man delights not me.

No, nor woman neither,

though by your smiling
you would seem to say so.

My lord,
there was no such stuff in my thoughts.

Why did you laugh
when I said man delights not me?

(KNOCK ON DOOR)
POLONIUS: Well be with you, gentlemen!

MIMICS POLONIUS: My lord,
I have news to tell you!

POLONIUS: My lord,
I have news to tell you!

Buzz buzz!

POLONIUS: My lord,
I do entreat your patience

to hear me speak the message I am sent on.

Boom! Boom!
(HAMLET CHUCKLES)

POLONIUS: The actors are come hither,
my lord, upon my honour.

Gentlemen, give me your hands.
You are welcome to Elsinore,

but my uncle-father
and aunt-mother are deceived.

In what, my dear lord?
I am but mad north-north-west.

When the wind is southerly
I know a hawk from a handsaw.

What players are they?

Even those
you were wont to take delight in.

"The Tragedians of the City,
the best act..."

Ooh! "The best actors in the world,

"either for tragedy, comedy,

"history, pastoral,

"pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral,

"tragical-historical,
tragical-comical-historical-pastoral."

[LAUGHTER]

How chances it they travel?

Do they hold the same estimation
they did when I was in the city?

Are they so followed? How comes it?
Do they grow rusty? Come on man, about it!

They attendeth here hard by
to know your answer,

whether you'll admit them or no.

Let the doors be open to them.

Masters, you are welcome. Welcome all.

Oh! My good old friend,
I am glad to see thee well.

What, thy face is bearded
since I saw thee last.

Ah, my young lady and my mistress!

(KISS) Masters,
you are all welcome all. Come!

We'll e'en to it like French falconers,
fly at anything we see.

We'll have a speech straight.

Come, a passionate speech.

What speech, my lord?
I heard thee speak a speech once.

Though it was never acted,
or if it was, not above once,

for the play, I remember,
pleased not the million,

though it was, as I received it,

and others whose judgments in such matters
cries in the top of mine,

an excellent play.

One speech in it I chiefly loved.

'Twas Aeneas's tale to Dido,
where he speaks of Priam's slaughter.

If it live in your memory,
begin at this line.

Let me see, let me see...

The rugged Pyrrhus...

..like the Hyrcanian beast...?

No. 'Tis not so, it begins Pyrrhus.

The rugged Pyrrhus...

..he whose sable arms,

black as his purpose,
did the night resemble

when he lay couched in the ominous horse,

hath now his dread and black complexion
smeared with heraldry more dismal:

head to foot the blood of fathers,
mothers, daughters, sons.

Thus o'er-sized with coagulate gore,

the hellish Pyrrhus
old grandsire Priam seeks.

So proceed you.

Anon he finds him
striking too short at Greeks.

His antique sword, rebellious to his arm,
lies where it falls,

rejecting all command.

Unequal matched Pyrrhus at Priam drives,
in rage strikes wide,

but with the weight and wind
of his fell sword...

..the unnerved father falls.

Then did the senseless city
seem to feel this blow

and with a hideous crash
take prisoner Pyrrhus' ear.

For lo, his sword,

which was declining
upon the milky head of the reverend Priam,

seemed in the air to stick,

so as a painted tyrant,
Pyrrhus stood...

..and did nothing.

But as we often see before a storm
a silence in the heavens,

the clouds stand still,

the bold winds speechless
and the orb below as hush as death.

Anon the dreadful thunder
doth rend the region!

So after Pyrrhus' pause
a roused vengeance set him new a-work

and never did the Cyclops' hammer fall
on Mars his armours,

forged for proof eterne

with less remorse

than Pyrrhus' bleeding sword
then fell on Priam.

Say on.

Come to Hecuba.

But who, oh who had seen the mobled queen
run barefoot up and down,

threatening the flames
with blinding tears,

a cloth about her head
where late a crown had stood,

and for a robe
around her gaunt and blood soaked limbs,

a blanket in the alarm of fear caught up.

Who had this seen, with tongue
in venom steeped against fortune's state,

would treason have pronounced.

And if the Gods themselves
did see her then

when she saw Pyrrhus

make malicious sport in mincing
with his sword her husband's limbs,

the instant scream of horror
that she made,

unless things mortal move them not at all
would have made weep

the burning eyes of heaven

and passion in the gods.

Oh, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!

Is it not monstrous that this player here
but in a fiction, in a dream of passion,

could force his soul
so to his whole conceit?

That from her working
all his visage wanned,

tears in his eyes,
distraction in his aspect,

a broken voice, indeed, his whole form
suiting with functions to his conceit.

And all for nothing!

For Hecuba.

What's Hecuba to him, or he to her
that he should weep for her?

What would he do, had he the motive
and cue for passion that I have?

Then he would drown the stage with tears,
cleave the general ear with horrid speech,

make mad the guilty, appal the free,
confound the ignorant

and amaze indeed
the very faculties of eyes and ears.

Yet I...

..a dull and muddy-mettled rascal,

peak like John-a-dreams,
unpregnant of my cause

and can say nothing.

No, not for a king upon whose property
and most dear life

a damned defeat was made.

Am I a coward?

Who calls me villain?

Why, I should take it.

For it cannot be but I am pigeon-livered
and lack gall to make oppression bitter

or ere this I would have fatted
all the region kites

with this slave's offal.

Bloody, bawdy villain!

Remorseless, lecherous,
treacherous, kindless villain!

Oh, vengeance!

Why, what an ass am I.

This is most brave that I,
the son of the dear murdered,

prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,

must first, like a whore,
unpack my heart with words

and fall a-cursing
like a very drab, a scullion.

Fie upon it, foh! About, my brain!

I have heard is said that guilty creatures
sitting at a play have,

by the very cunning of the scene,

been struck so to the soul that presently
they have proclaimed their malefactions.

I'll have these players play something
like the murder of my father

before mine uncle.

I'll observe his looks,

I'll tent him to the quick.

And if he do but blench, I know my course.

Tis well, I'll have thee
speak out the rest soon.

Good my lord, will you see
these players are well bestowed?

And look they are well used,

for they are the abstract
and brief chronicles of the time.

My lord, I will use them
according to their desert.

For God's sake man, better.

Use every man after their desert
and who shall escape whipping?

Use them after your own honour
and dignity. Take them in.

Come, sirs.

Can you play The Murder of Gonzago ?
The Murder of Gonzago ? Aye, my lord.

We'll have it tonight.
You could, for my sake,

study a speech of some dozen or 16 lines
which I would set down

and have inserted in it, could you not?
Aye, my lord.

Very well! Follow that lord,
and look you mock him not.

My dear good friends
I'll leave you till tonight.

You are welcome to Elsinore.
Good my lord.

The play is the thing

wherein I'll catch
the conscience of the king.

(DRAMATICALLY) Oh villain, villain,
smiling damned villain!

That a brother should be so perfidious...

Speak the speech, I pray you,
as I pronounced it to you.

[LAUGHTER]

Trippingly on the tongue,

for if you mouth it
as many of your players do

I had as lief
the town crier had spoke my lines.

Nor do not saw the air too much
with your hands, thus, but use all gently,

for in the torrent, tempest and,
as I may say, whirlwind of passion,

you must acquire and beget a temperance
that may give it smoothness.

I warrant your honour.
Be not too tame neither.

Let your own discretion be your tutor.
[LAUGHTER]

Suit the action to the word,
the word to the action.

With this special observance, that you
o'erstep not the modesty of nature,

for anything so overdone
is from the purpose of playing

whose end, both now and at the first,

was and is
to hold the mirror up to nature...

..to show virtue her own feature,
scorn her own image.

The very age and body of the time,
his form and pressure.

Oh, there be players
that I have seen play,

and heard others praise, and that highly,

which not to speak it profanely,
that have so strutted and bellowed

that I have thought
that nature's apprentices had made men.

And not made them well,
they imitated humanity so abominably.

I hope we have reformed that
indifferently with us, sir.

Go, make you ready. How now good friends,
will the king hear this piece of work?

And the queen too, and that presently.
Bid the players make haste.

Will you two help to hasten them?
We will, my lord.

Say, what? Is Horatio here?
A piece of him.

How now, good friend! What news?
Is it not very strange?

Thine uncle is king of Denmark

and those that would make mouths at him
while your father lived

give 20, 40, 100 crowns apiece
for his picture in little.

There is something in this more than
natural, if philosophy could find it out.

Oh, Horatio, thou art as just a man
as ere my conversation coped withal.

Ah, my dear lord!
Do not think I flatter thee.

For what advancement may I hope from thee
that no revenue hast save thy good spirits

to feed and clothe thee?

Give me that man
that is not fortune's slave

and I will wear him in my heart's core.

Aye, my heart of hearts, as I do thee.

Something too much of this.

Something too much of this!
There is a play tonight before the king.

One scene of it
comes near the circumstance

which I have told thee
of my father's death.

I pray thee,
when thou see'st that act afoot,

even with the utmost shrewdness
of thine eyes,

observe mine uncle.

If his disguised guilt
do not itself unravel in one speech,

it is a damned ghost that we have seen,
then give him heedful note...

I will, my lord. If he steal aught whilst
this play is playing and scape detecting,

I will pay the theft.

They are coming to the play,
I must prepare.

KING: And can you
by no drift of circumstance

get from him
why he puts on this confusion,

grating so harshly all our days of quiet
with turbulent and dangerous lunacy?

He does confess
he feels himself distracted,

but from what cause
he will by no means speak.

Nor do we find him forward to be sounded.

Did he receive you well?
Oh, most like a gentleman.

Sparing of question,
but of our demands most free in his reply.

Then with a crafty madness

he keeps aloof when you would bring him on
to some confession of his true state.

Get you a place!
How fares our gracious Hamlet?

Excellent! Excellent well, in faith.

Of the chameleon's dish:
I eat the air, promise-crammed.

You cannot feed capons so.
I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet.

These words are not mine.
No, nor mine now neither.

Now, my good lord, you played once
at the university, you say?

That I did my lord,
and was accounted a good actor.

And what did you enact?

I did enact Julius Caesar.
I was killed in the Capitol, Brutus...

Be the players ready?

Aye my lord, they stay upon your patience.

Come hither,
my good Hamlet, come sit by me.

No, good mother,
here's metal more attractive.

Lady, shall I lie in your lap?

No, my lord.

I mean my head upon your lap?

Did you think I meant country matters?

(GASPS)

I think nothing, my lord.

There's a fair thought
to lie between a maid's legs.

What is, my lord?
Nothing.

You are merry, my lord.
What should a man do but be merry?

Look you how cheerfully my mother looks,
when my father died within two hours.

Nay, 'tis yet two months.

So long? Oh, heavens(!)

[LAUGHTER]
Died two months ago

and not forgotten yet?

Then there's hope a great man's memory
might outlive his life by half a year.

You are naught. I'll mark the play.

Full 30 times
hath Phoebus' cart gone round

Neptune's salt wash
and Tellus' orbed ground

since love our hearts
and Hymen did our hands

unite comutual in most sacred bands.

So many journeys may the sun and moon

make us again count over
e'er love be done.

But woe is me, you are so sick of late,

so far from cheer
and from your former state.

For women, fear and love hold quantity,
in neither aught or extremity.

And what my love is
proof have made you know,

thus as my love is sized, my fear is so.

Faith, I must leave thee, love,
and shortly too.

My operant powers
and functions leave to do.

And thou must live
in this fair world behind,

honoured, beloved and happily one as kind.

For husband shalt thou...

Oh confound the rest.

Such love must needs be
treason in my breast.

In second husband let me be accursed,

none wed the second
but who killed the first.

HAMLET: Wormwood! Wormwood!

The instances that second marriage move

are base respects of thrift,
but none of love.

The second time I kill my husband dead
when second husband kisses me in bed.

PLAYER KING: I do believe
you think now what you speak,

but what we do determine oft we break.

This world is not for aye,
nor 'tis not strange

that even our loves
should with our fortunes change.

For 'tis a question left us yet to prove

whether love leads fortune,
or else fortune love.

But orderly to end where I begun,
our wills and fates do so contrary run

that our devices still are overthrown.

Our thoughts are ours,
the ends none of our own.

So think thou wilt no second husband wed,

but die thy thoughts
when thy first lord is dead.

Not Earth to give me food,
or heaven light,

rest and repose lock me
from day and night.

Each instrument that fouls the face of joy

meet what I would have well
and it destroy.

Both here and hence
pursue me lasting strife

if once a widow ever I be wife.

Oh! If she should break it now(!)

[LAUGHTER]

'Tis deeply sworn.

Sweet, leave me here a while.

My spirits grow dull

and fain I would beguile
the tedious day with sleep.

Sleep rock thy brain

and never come mischance between us twain.

Madam, how like you this play?

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

Oh, but she'll keep her word.

Have you heard the argument?
Is there no offence in it?

No offence in the world.
It's the image of a murder done in Vienna.

Gonzago is the duke's name,
Baptista his wife.

You shall see anon,
'tis a knavish piece of work.

But what of that?

Your majesty and we that have free souls,
it touches us not.

What means this, my lord?
This is one Lucianus,

nephew to the king.

Will you tell us what this means?

This means mischief.

Thoughts black, hands apt,
drugs fit and time agreeing.

Confederate season,
else no creature seeing.

Thou mixture rank
of midnight weeds collected,

of witches' curse thrice blasted,
thrice infected,

thy natural magic and dire property,
on wholesome life usurp immediately.

PLAYER KING: Oh, villain, villain,
smiling damned villain. That a brother...

HAMLET: He poisons him in the garden
for his estate.

You shall see anon how the murderer
gets the love of the old man's wife.

The king rises.
What, frighted with false fire?

QUEEN: How fares my lord?
Give o'er the play!

Give me some light!

Away! Away!

Would not this, sir,
and a forest of feathers,

get me a cry in a fellowship of players?

Half a share.
Ah, music! Come some music!

(MUSIC BEGINS)
Oh, Horatio!

I'll take the ghost's word
for a thousand pounds. Dids't perceive?

Very well, my lord.
Upon the talk of poisoning?

I did very well note him.

Good my lord,
vouchsafe me a word with you.

A whole history, sir.
The king, sir...

Aye sir, what of him?

..is in his retirement
marvellous distempered.

With drink, sir?
No, my lord, rather with choler.

Your wisdom would show itself the richer
to signify this to his doctor.

Good my lord,
put your discourse into some frame

and start not so wildly from my affair.

I am tame sir, pronounce.
The queen, your mother,

in most great affliction of spirit,
hath sent us to you.

You're welcome.

GILDENSTERN: Nay, this courtesy
is not of the right breed!

If it shall please you
to make a wholesome answer,

we will do your mother's commandment.

If not, your pardon and our return
shall be the end of our business.

I cannot, sir.
What, my lord?

Make you a wholesome answer.
My wit's diseased.

But to the matter. You say my mother...?
Then thus she says your behaviour

hath struck her
into amazement and admiration.

Oh wonderful son,
that can so astonish a mother!

She desires to speak with you
in her closet ere you go to bed.

We shall obey her
were she ten times our mother.

Have you any further trade with us?

My lord, you once did love me.

And still do,
by these pickers and stealers.

Good my lord,
what is your cause of distemper?

Sir, I lack advancement.

How can that be when you have
the voice of the king himself in Denmark?

Can you play upon this pipe?
My lord, I cannot.

I pray you.
Believe me, I cannot.

I beseech you.
I know no touch of it, my lord.

'Tis as easy as lying.

Govern these ventages
with your fingers and thumbs,

give it breath with your mouth

and it will discourse most excellent
music. Look you, these are the stops.

But these cannot I command
to any utterance of harmony,

I have not the skill.

Look you now,
how unworthy a thing you would make of me.

You would play upon me,
you would seem to know my stops.

You would sound me from my lowest note
to the top of my compass.

Yet there is much music,
excellent voice in this little organ,

yet cannot you make it speak?

What, do you think I am easier
to be played on than a pipe?

Call me what instrument you will,

though you fret me,
you cannot play upon me.

God bye you, sir.

POLONIUS: My lord, the queen
would speak with you, and presently.

Oh! Do you see yonder cloud?
It's almost in the shape of a camel!

It is indeed like a camel.
Methinks it's like a weasel.

It is backed like a weasel.
Or like a whale.

It is very like a whale.

[LAUGHTER]

I come to my mother by and by.

By and by I come.
I will say so.

By and by is easily said!

They fool me to the top of my bent.

Leave me, friends.

'Tis now the witching time of night...

..when churchyards yawn and hell itself
breathes out contagion to the world.

Now might I drink hot blood

and do such bitter business
as the day would quake to look upon.

Soft, now to my mother.

Oh heart, lose not thy nature.

Let not ever the soul of Nero
enter this firm bosom.

Let me be cruel, but not unnatural.

I will speak daggers to her, but use none.

I like him not, nor stands it safe with us
to let his madness range.

Therefore, prepare you.

I your commission will forthwith dispatch
and he to England shall return with you.

The terms of our estate
may not endure hazard so dangerous

as doth hourly grow out of his lunacies.

What think you on it?

Most holy and religious fear it is

to keep those many, many bodies safe
that live and feed upon your majesty.

The cease of which,
my lord, dies not alone,

but like a gulf
doth draw what's near it with it.

Thus set it down,
he shall with speed to England.

Perhaps the seas and countries different
with variable aspect

shall expel this something settled matter
in his heart,

whereon his brain still beating
puts him thus from fashion of himself.

'Tis wisely spoke.

Arm you, I pray you,
to this speedy voyage.

For we will fetters put upon this fear

that now goes too free-footed.

We will ourselves provide.

POLONIUS: My lord,
he's going to his mother's closet.

Behind the arras I'll convey myself
to hear the process.

'Tis meet that some more audience
than a mother,

since nature makes them partial,

should o'erhear the speech of vantage.

Thanks...dear my lord.

Oh, my offence is rank.

It smells to heaven.

It hath the primal eldest curse upon it...

..a brother's murder.

Pray can I not,
though inclination be as sharp as will.

My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent

and, like a man to double business bound,

I stand in pause where
I should first begin,

and both neglect.

What 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?

Whereto serves mercy
but to confront the visage of offence?

Then I look up. My fault is past.

But oh, 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.

May one be pardoned
and retain the offence?

In the corrupted currents of this world,

offence's gilded hand
may shove by justice,

and oft 'tis seen, the wicked prize itself
buys off the law...

..but 'tis not so above.

There is no shuffling,

there the action lies in his true nature

and we ourselves compelled,

even to the teeth and forehead
of our faults

to give in evidence.

What then? What's left?

Try what repentance can.
What can it not?

Yet what can it,
when one cannot repent?

Oh, wretched state!

Oh, bosom black as death!

Oh, limed soul, that struggling to be free
art more engaged!

Help, angels...

..make assay.

Bow, stubborn knees,

and heart with strings of steel,

be soft as sinews of the new-born babe.

All may be well.

HAMLET: Now might I do it,
now he is praying.

And now I'll do it,

and so he goes to heaven
and so am I revenged.

That would be scanned.
A villain kills my father.

And for that I, his foul son,
do that same villain send to heaven?

Oh, this is hire and salary, not revenge.

He took my father grossly,

full of bread, with all his crimes
broad blown as fresh as May.

And how his audit stands,
who knows save heaven?

But in our circumstance
and course of thought 'tis heavy with him.

Am I then revenged
to take him in the purging of his soul,

when he is fit and seasoned
for his passage?

No.

When he is drunk asleep or in his rage,

or in the incestuous pleasure of his bed,

at gaming, swearing or about some act
that hath no relish of salvation in it,

then I'll trip him
that his heels may kick at heaven

and his soul may be as black and damned
as hell whereto it goes.

My mother stays.

This physic but prolongs thy sickly days.

My words fly up;

my thoughts remain below.

Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

POLONIUS: Look you lay home to him.

Tell him his pranks
have been too broad to bear

and that your grace hath screened
and stood between much heat and him.

Not for all the riches under heaven.
I pray you do not push me.

HAMLET: Mother!
I hear him coming.

I will silence me even here.
Mother!

Pray you be round with him.

Mother!

Now, Mother, what's the matter?

Hamlet, thou hast thy father
much offended.

Mother, you have my father
much offended.

Come come,
you answer with an idle tongue.

Go go, you question
with a wicked tongue.

Have you forgot me?
No, you are the queen,

your husband's brother's wife

and, would you were not so,
you are my mother.

Nay, then I'll set those to you
that can speak.

Come and sit you down. You go not.

You shall not budge
till I set you up a glass

wherein you may see
the inmost part of you.

What wilt thou do?
Thou wilt not murder me?

Help, help!
POLONIUS: What ho? Help!

How now, a rat?
(POLONIUS CRIES OUT)

Oh me, what hast thou done?
Nay I know not. Is it the king?

HAMLET: Oh, God!

What rash and bloody deed is this?

A bloody deed.

Almost as bad, good mother,
as kill a king and marry with his brother.

As kill a king?
Aye lady, 'twas my word.

Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool,
I took thee for thy better.

HAMLET: Farewell.

Leave wringing of your hands,
and let me wring your heart,

for so I shall,
if it be made of penetrable stuff;

if damned custom have not brazed it so

that it is proof
and bulwark against sense.

What have I done

that thou darest wag thy tongue
in noise so rude against me?

Such an act
as blurs the grace and blush of modesty,

calls virtue hypocrite,

makes marriage vows
as false as dicers' oaths.

Ay me, what act that roars so loud
and thunders in the index?

Look here upon this picture and on this,

the counterfeit presentment
of two brothers.

Now, see what a grace
was seated on his brow.

Hyperion's curls,
the front of Jove himself,

an eye like Mars to threaten or command,

a station like the herald Mercury
new lighted on a heaven-kissing hill.

A combination and a form indeed
where every god did seem to set its seal

to give the world assurance of a man.

This was your husband.
Look you now what follows.

Here is your husband, like a mildewed ear
blasting his wholesome brother.

Have you eyes?

Could you from this fair mountain leave
to feed and batten on this moor?

Have you eyes?

You cannot call it love, for at your age
the heyday in the blood it's tame

and humble and waits upon the judgement.

And what judgement
would step from this to this?

What devil was it that thus
hath cozened you at blind man's bluff?

Oh shame...where is thy blush?

Rebellious hell, if thou canst mutiny
in a matron's bones to flaming youth

let virtue be as wax
and melt in her own fire.

Oh, speak no more!

Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul

and there I see such black and grained
spots as will not leave their tinct.

Nay.

But to live in the rank sweat
of an enseamed bed,

stewed in corruption,

honeying and making love
over the nasty sty!

Please speak to me no more,

these words like daggers
enter in mine ears.

No more, sweet Hamlet.
A murderer! A villain!

A slave that is not the twentieth part
the worth of your preceding lord!

A king of vices, a cutpurse of the
empire and the rule.

Please, no more!

A king of shreds and patches...
(RUMBLING)

Hover o'er me with your wings,
you heavenly guards.

What would you? Oh, say.

Do you not come your tardy son to chide
that lapsed in time and passion

lets go by the important acting
of your dread command.

Speak!

Do not forget.

This visitation is but to whet
thy almost blunted purpose.

(HAMLET GASPS)

But look, amazement on thy mother sits.

Oh, step between her
and her fighting soul.

Speak to her, Hamlet.

H-How is't with you, lady?

Alas, how is't with you,

that you do bend your eye on vacancy

and with the incorporal air
do hold discourse?

Gentle son, upon the heat and flame
of thy distemper

sprinkle cool patience.

Whereon do you look?
On him, on him.

Look you how pale he glares.

Do not look upon me.
To whom do you speak this?

Do you see nothing there?

No, nothing at all, yet all that is I see.

Nor did you nothing hear?
No, nothing but ourselves.

Why, look you, my father,
in his habit as he lived!

Ssh!

This is the very coinage of your brain.

This bodiless creation
ecstasy is very cunning in.

Ecstasy? My pulse as yours
doth temperately keep time

and makes as healthful music.

'Tis not madness that I have uttered.

Put me to the test
and I some matter will repeat

which madness would fly from.

For love of grace...

..lay not a flattering unction
unto your soul

that not your trespass
but my madness speaks.

It will but film and skin
the ulcerous place,

whilst rank corruption, mining all within,
infects unseen.

Oh, Hamlet...

..thou hast cleft my heart in twain.

Then throw away the worser part of it
and live the purer with the other half.

Repent what is past, avoid what is to come

and do not spread the compost
on the weeds to make them ranker.

Pray you, go not to my uncle's bed.

Assume a virtue if you have it not.

Refrain tonight,
and that shall lend a kind of easiness

to the next abstinence,
the next more easy.

Oh me, what have I done?

(SHE SOBS)

I must be cruel only to be kind.

Thus bad begins and worse remains behind.

And when thou art desirous to be blessed,
I will blessings beg of you.

For this same lord I do repent me

but hell hath deemed it so
to punish me with this and this with me.

What shall I do?

Do not let the bloat king
tempt you again to bed,

pinch wanton on your cheek,
call you his mouse,

or for a pair of reechy kisses,

or by paddling in your neck
with his damned fingers

force you to ravel all this matter out.

That I, essentially, am not in madness,

but mad in craft.

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: Oh!

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.

Good night, mother.

KING: Where is your son?

What, Gertrude!

How does Hamlet?

Mad as the seas and winds
that do contend which is the mightier.

In his lawless fit,

behind the arras hearing something stir,

he whips his rapier out,
he cries, "A rat, a rat!"

And in his frantic apprehension
kills the unseen good old man.

Oh, heavy deed.

It had been so with us, had we been there.

His liberty is full of threats to all,
to you yourself, to us, to everyone.

And, pray,
how shall this deed be understood?

It will be laid to us,

whose providence
should have kept short, restrained

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,

to keep it from divulging,
lets it feed even on the pith of life.

Where is he gone?
To draw apart the body he hath killed.

(SHOUTS) I pray you now, attend me!
He weeps for what is done.

The sun no sooner
shall the mountains touch

but we will ship him hence,

and this vile deed we must,

with all our majesty and skill,
both countenance and excuse.

KING: Friends all.

Hamlet, in madness, hath Polonius slain.

Go seek him out, speak fair,
bring the body into the chapel.

I pray you haste in this.

Come, Gertrude,
we'll call up our wisest friends

to let them know both what we mean to do
and what's untimely done.

(GALLOPING DRUMBEAT)

ROSENCRANTZ: Hamlet, Lord Hamlet!

HAMLET: Oh, here they come. Ha!

What have you done, my lord,
with the dead body?

Compounded it with dust, whereto 'tis kin.

Tell us where 'tis,
that we may take it thence.

Ha-ha! Do not believe it.
Believe what?

That you could keep your secrets
and not my own.

Besides, to be commanded by a sponge!

What replication should be made
by the son of a king?

Take you me for a sponge, my lord?

Aye, sir, soaks up the king's countenance,
his rewards, his authorities,

but such officers
do the king best service in the end.

When he needs what you have gleaned,
he will but squeeze you

and sponge, you shall be dry again.
I understand you not, my lord.

I'm glad of it.
A knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear.

My lord, you must tell us
where the body is

and go with us to the king.

The king is a thing.
A thing, my lord?

Of nothing!

Bring me to him.

(GALLOPING DRUMBEAT)

How dangerous it is
that this man goes loose.

Yet we must not put the strong law on him.

He's loved of the distracted multitude,

who like not in their judgement
but their eyes.

This sudden sending him away
must seem deliberate pause.

Diseases desperate grown

by desperate appliance
are relieved, or not at all.

How now!

(ALL BREATHLESS)
KING: What hath befallen?

Where the dead body is bestowed, my lord,
we cannot get from him.

Now Hamlet, where's Polonius?
At supper.

At supper? Where?

Not where he eats,
but where he is eaten.

A certain convocation of worms
is at him even now.

Your worm is your only emperor for diet.

Your fat king and lean beggar
are but variable service,

two dishes but to one table,
that's the end.

Where's Polonius?
In heaven. Send thither to see.

If your messenger find him not there,
seek him in the other place yourself.

But if you find him not this month,

you shall nose him
as you go up the stairs.

Go seek him there.

(FOOTSTEPS RUN AWAY)
He will stay until you come.

[AUDIENCE LAUGHS]

Hamlet, this deed of thine,

for thine especial safety,

which we do tender as we dearly grieve
for that which thou hast done,

must send thee hence with fiery quickness.

Therefore prepare thyself.

The ship is ready and the wind at help,
your associates tend,

and everything is bent for England.

For England?
Aye, Hamlet.

Good.
So is it, if thou know our purposes.

Come, then, for England.
Farewell, dear mother.

Thy loving father, Hamlet.

Mother and father is man and wife,
man and wife is one flesh.

Therefore, my mother.

Come, then, for England.

Follow him at foot,

tempt him with speed aboard.

Delay it not, I'll have him hence tonight.

And England,

if my love thou holdst at aught,

pay homage to our order here inscribed

in letters conjuring to that effect

the present death of Hamlet.

Do it, England.

For like the hectic in my blood he rages,

and thou must cure me!

(DRUM BEATS)

[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]

(DRUM BEATS)

Go, Captain,
from me greet the Danish king.

Tell him that by his license Fortinbras
craves the conveyance

of a promised march over his kingdom.

You know the rendezvous.

If that his majesty would aught with us,
we shall express our duty eye to eye.

Let him know so.
I will do it, my lord.

Go softly on.

Whose powers are these, sir?

They are of Norway, sir.

And how purposed, sir, I pray you?

Against some part of Poland.

Who commands them?
Nephew to old Norway, Fortinbras.

And goes it against the main of Poland,
or for some frontier?

Truly to speak and with no addition,

we go to gain a little patch of ground
that hath no profit but the name.

To pay five ducats, five,
I would not farm it.

Why then, the Polack never will defend it.

It is already garrisoned.

2,000 souls and 20,000 ducats

will not debate
the question of this straw.

MARCELLUS: Will it please you go, my lord?

I humbly thank you, sir.
God buy you, sir.

Will it please your grace
to go along with us?

Go a little before.
I will be with you straight.

How all occasions do inform against me
and spur my dull revenge.

I do not know why yet I live to say
this thing's to do,

since I have cause and will
and strength and means to do it.

Examples gross as Earth exhort me.

Witness this army of such mass and charge
led by a delicate and tender prince,

whose spirit, with divine ambition puffed,

makes mouths at the invisible event,

exposing what is mortal and unsure

to all that fortune,
death and danger dare.

Even for an egg shell!

How stand I then...

..that have a father killed,
a mother stained,

incitements to my reason and my blood,
and let all sleep?

While to my shame,
I see the imminent death of 20,000 men

that for a fantasy and trick of fame
go to their graves like beds...

..fight for a plot that is not tomb enough
and continent to hide the slain.

My lord, we stay upon your leisure.

Oh, from this time forth
my thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth.

I will not speak with her.

What would she have?

She speaks much of her father.
She says she hears there's tricks abroad.

She speaks things in doubt
that carry but half sense.

Her speech is nothing,

but the unshaped use of it
doth move the hearers to collection.

They... They aim at it,

and stitch up the words
to fit their own thoughts.

'Twere better she were spoken with.

For she may strew dangerous conjectures
in ill-breeding minds.

Oh, let her come in.

To my sick soul...

..as sin's true nature is...

..each toy seems prologue
to some great amiss.

OPHELIA SCREAMS: 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 ♪

(GENTLY) Alas, sweet maid...

..what imports this song?

Say you? Nay, pray you mark.

♪ He...

♪ He is dead and gone, lady,
he is dead and gone

♪ At his head a grass green turf,
at his heels a stone ♪

Nay, but Ophelia...
Pray you mark!

♪ White his shroud
as the mountain snow ba-ba-ba-ba ♪

Alas, look here my lord.
♪ Larded with sweet flowers

♪ Which bewept to the grave did not go
with true love showers ♪

How do you, gentle lady?

Well, God yield you.

Lord, we know what we are,
but not what we may be.

If you find him not this month,

you shall nose him
as you go up the stairs.

Conceit upon her father.
Pray you, let's have no words of that.

Ssh. Ssh.

♪ To the celestial and my soul's idol,
the most beautified Ophelia ♪

KING: Pretty Ophelia...
♪ Doubt that the stars are fire

♪ Doubt that the sun doth move

♪ Doubt truth to be a liar ♪

But never doubt I love.

Be wary then, best safety lies in fear!

Indeed? 'Tis in my memory locked.

How say'st thou? Think yourself a baby.
I shall obey, my lord.

How long has she been thus?

I hope all will be well.

We must be patient.

But I cannot choose to weep

to think that
they should lay him in the cold ground.

My brother shall know of it.

And so I thank you for your good counsel.

Come, my coach!

Good night ladies,

good night sweet ladies,

good night, good night.

Follow her close,
give her good watch, I pray you.

Oh, Gertrude, 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, thick and unwholesome

in their thoughts and whispers
of good Polonius's death.

And we have done but greenly
to inter him without due ceremony.

Poor Ophelia, divided from herself
and her fair judgement,

without the which we are pictures

or mere...beasts.
(CROWD CHEERING)

What noise is that?
Save yourself, my lord.

Young Laertes, in a riotous head,
overbears your officers.

The rabble call him lord and cry,
"Choose we, Laertes shall be king."

Caps, hands and tongues
applaud it to the clouds!

(RABBLE APPROACHES)
"Laertes shall be king!"

Oh thou, vile king, give me my father!
Calmly, good Laertes.

That drop of blood that's calm
proclaims me bastard.

What is the cause, Laertes,
that thy rebellion looks so giant-like?

Tell me, Laertes,
why thou art thus incensed?

Where is my father?

Dead.
But not by me!

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.
(COCKS GUN)

Let come what will come, only I'll be
revenged most thoroughly for my father.

KING: Who shall stay thee?

My will, not all the world.

And for my men, I'll marshal them so well
we shall go far with little.

Good Laertes, if you desire to know
the certainty of your dear father's death,

is it writ in your revenge

that wildly 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 life-rendering pelican
repast them with my blood.

Why, now you speak like a good child
and a true gentle man.

That I am guiltless of your father's death

it shall as level to your judgement pierce
as day does to your eye.

If you desire to know this...

(SCREAMING)

LAERTES: How now, what noise is this?

(CASE THUDS DOWN STAIRS)

LAERTES: Oh, heat dry up my brains.

Oh, rose of May, dear maid,

kind sister, sweet Ophelia.

Oh heavens,

is it possible a young maid's wits
should be as mortal as an old man's life?

Hadst thou thy wits
and didst persuade revenge,

it could not move thus.

♪ They bore him bare faced on the bier

♪ And on his grave rains many a tear ♪

OPHELIA: Fare you well, my dove.

Oh.

You must sing down-a-down, a down-a-down.

♪ Dum-dum-dum dum-dum-dum... ♪

(PLAYS SIMPLE MELODY)

Oh!

How the wheel becomes it.

There's rosemary, that's for remembrance.

Pray love, remember.

There's pansies, that's for thoughts.

There's fennel for you, and columbine.

There's rue for you...
that's for repentance.

Oh, you must wear your rue
with a difference.

I would have given you some violets,
but they withered all when my father died.

They say he made a good end.
(PLAYS SINGLE NOTE)

Thought and affliction, passion,

hell itself she turns to favour
and to prettiness.

♪ Will he not come?

♪ Will he not come again?

♪ No, no

♪ No, he is dead

♪ Go to thy death bed

♪ He never will come again

♪ Beard white as snow

♪ Flaxen was his poll

♪ He is gone

♪ He is gone

♪ We cast away

♪ Moan. ♪

Do you see this, O God?

Laertes, I must commune with your grief

or you deny me right.

Come. Go with me.

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.

If not, be you content
to lend your patience to us

and we shall jointly labour with your soul
to give it due content.

Let this be so.
(MELANCHOLY CHORDS ON PIANO)

His means of death, his obscure burial?

No noble rite nor formal ostentation,
crying to be heard from heaven to Earth.

And where the offence is...

..let the great axe fall.

I pray you, come with me.

(MELANCHOLY TUNE CONTINUES)

(MUSIC SWELLS)

What are they that would speak with me?
They say they have letters for you.

I do not know from what part of the world
I should be greeted,

if not from Lord Hamlet.

How now, what news?
God bless you, sir.

Let him bless thee, too.
He shall, sir, if it please him.

There's a letter for you, sir,

if your name be Horatio,
as I am let to know it is.

Stay yet.
You shall have the hearing of it.

"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 valour.

"In the grapple I boarded them
on the instant they got clear our ship,

"so I alone became their prisoner.

"But they have dealt with me
like thieves of mercy,

"and these good fellows
will bring thee where I am.

"Repair thou to me with as much haste
as thou wouldst fly death.

"I have words to speak in your ear
will make thee dumb.

"He that thou knowest thine,
Hamlet."

Come, I will give you way
for these your letters,

and do it the speedier

that you may direct me to him
from whom you brought them.

Now must your conscience my acquittal seal

and you must
put me in your heart for friend

since you have heard,
and with a knowing ear,

that he who 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.

For two special reasons,

which may to you
perhaps seem much unsinewed,

and yet to me they're strong.

The queen his mother
lives almost by his looks

and for myself, my virtue or my plague,
whiche'er it be,

she's so conducive to my life and soul

that as a 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 common crowd do bear him

who, dipping all his faults
in their affections,

convert his sins to graces.

So that my arrows,
too slightly timbered for so loud a wind

would have reverted to my bow again
and not where I had aimed them.

And so have I a noble father lost,

a sister driven into desperate terms
who had, 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 sleep for that.

You must not think that we are made
of stuff so flat and dull

that we will let our state
be shook with danger and call it pastime.

How now, what news?
Letters, my lord.

From Hamlet.

Who brought them?

I saw them not, they were given to me
by Matthius, he received them.

Laertes, you shall hear them.
Leave us.

"High and mighty, you should know
I am set naked on your kingdom.

"Tomorrow shall I beg
to see your kingly eyes

"when I shall recount the occasion

"of my sudden
and most strange return. Hamlet."

How should this be?

Are all the rest come back?
Or is this some abuse and no such thing?

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! Yet how should it be so?

How otherwise?

Will you be ruled by me?

If you'll not o'errule me to a peace.
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?
Hamlet returns.

What would you undertake to make yourself
your father's son

in deed more than in word?

To cut his throat in a church.

No place indeed should murder sanctuarize.

Revenge should know no bounds.

So let me work him.

An exploit is there ripe in my device,

under the which
he shall not choose but fall,

and for his death
no wind of blame shall breathe.

But even his mother shall uncharge
the practice and call it accident.

How now, sweet queen.

One woe doth tread upon another's heels,

so fast they follow.

Your sister's drowned, Laertes.

Drowned, how?

There is a willow grows aslant a brook...

..that shows his pale leaves
in the glassy stream.

There with fantastic garlands

did she come...

..of crow-flowers, nettles,

daisies and long purples.

There on the pendant boughs,

her coronet weeds clambering to hang...

..an envious sliver broke...

..and down her weedy trophies and herself
fell in the weeping brook.

But her clothes spread wide...

..and mermaid-like
a while they bore her up.

Which time she...

..chanted snatches of old tunes.

As one insensible of her own distress,

or like a creature native...

..and inured 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.

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.

Adieu, my lord.

I have a speech of fire
that fain would blaze,

but that this folly damps it.

(FOOTSTEPS RUN AWAY)

How much I had to do to calm his rage!

Now fear I this will give it start again,

therefore let's follow.

But they knew what they did,
I was to do a good turn for them.

And Rosencrantz and Guildenstern?
Hold their course for England.

Of them I have much to tell thee.
Wilt hear the circumstance?

Aye, my lord.
Upon that first night,

before my capture, I lay my weary spirit
down abed, but in my heart

there was a kind of fighting
that would not let me sleep.

Rashly, and praised be rashness for it,

let us know our indiscretions
sometimes serve us well.

There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
rough-hew them how we will.

That is most certain.
Up from my cabin,

a blanket scarfed about me in the dark,
groped I to find them out, had my desire,

fingered their warrant and, in fine,
withdrew to mine own cabin again

making so bold,
my fears forgetting manners,

to unseal their grand commission.

Where I found, Horatio...

..oh royal knavery!

An exact command,
larded with many several sorts of reasons,

importing Denmark's health
and England's too,

to hasten now the grinding of the axe.

My head should be struck off.

Is it possible?
Here is the commission.

Read it at thy leisure.

But wilt thou hear me how I did proceed?
I beseech you.

I sat me down, devised a new commission,
wrote it fair.

I once did hold it a baseness
to write fair

and laboured much
how to forget that learning.

Oh, but now it did me faithful service.

Wilt thou know the effects
of what I wrote?

Aye, my good lord.
An earnest conjuration from the king.

That on the know and view of the contents
he should the bearers put to sudden death.

No shriving time allowed.
How was this sealed?

Why, even that was heavenly ordained.
I had my father's signet in my purse.

I folded up the writ in form of the other,
placed it safely back,

the changeling never known.

The next day was our sea fight.

What was to this sequent
thou knowest already.

Who comes here?
Repair my lord, withdraw us a while.

Is she to be buried in Christian burial
that wilfully seeks her own salvation?

I tell thee she is.

The coroner hath sat on it
and finds it Christian burial.

How can that be,

unless she drowned herself
in her own defence?

[AUDIENCE LAUGHS]

Why, 'tis found so.
Give me leave.

Here lies the water.
Here stands the man.

If the water come to him and drown him,
he drowns not himself.

But if the man go to the water

and drown himself, he goes.

Mark you that.
Will you have the truth of it?

If this were not a gentlewoman,

she should have been buried
out of Christian burial.

Why, there thou sayest.

And the more pity that great folk
should have countenance in this world

to drown or hang themselves
more than their fellow Christian.

There is no proper 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.
Why, he had none.

What, art thou a heathen?
How doth thou understand the scripture?

The scripture says, "Adam digged."

Could he dig without arms?

[LAUGHTER]

I'll put another question to thee.

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.

I like thy wit well, in good faith.

(HE CHUCKLES)
The gallows does well.

But to it again, come.

Who builds stronger than the mason,
the shipwright or the carpenter?

Aye, tell me that.
Marry now, I can tell.

To it, then!

Mass, I cannot tell.
Cudgel thy brains no more about it.

And when you're asked this question next,

say a grave-maker.

The houses he makes last till doomsday.

♪ 'All Of Me' by Frank Sinatra

(SINGING ALONG)
♪ Take my lips

♪ I want to lose them

♪ Take my arms, I'll never use them... ♪

Has this fellow no feeling of his business
that he sings at grave-making?

HORATIO: Custom hath made it in him
a property of easiness.

♪ ..do cry, how can I...? ♪

That skull had a tongue in it
and could sing once.

How the knave jowls it to the ground.

Might not that be the pate of a politician
that this ass o'eroffices,

one that could circumvent God,
might it not?

It might, my lord.

Did these bones cost no more
in the breeding

than to play at loggets with them?

Mine ache to think on it.

There's another.
Might not that be the skull of a lawyer?

So he suffers this rude knave

to knock him about the sconce
with his dirty shovel

and cannot tell him
of his action of battery.

I will speak with this fellow.

Whose grave is this, sir?
Mine, sir.

No, what man dost thou dig it for?
For no man, sir.

What woman, then?
For none neither.

Who is to be buried in it?
One that was a woman, sir.

But, God rest her soul, she's dead.

Absolute the knave is!
How long hast thou been a grave-maker?

Of all the days in the year,

I came to it that day that our last
King Hamlet o'ercame Fortinbras.

How long is that since?
Cannot you tell that?

Every fool can tell that.

That was the very day
that young Hamlet was born,

he that was mad and sent into England.

Marry, why was he sent to England?
Because he was mad.

He'll recover his wits there,
or if he do not, 'tis no great matter.

Why?
Twill not be seen in him.

There the men are as mad as he.

[LAUGHTER]

How came he mad?
Very strangely, they say.

How strangely? Upon what ground?
Why, here in Denmark.

(HE CHUCKLES)

How long will a man lie in the earth
ere he rot?

I' faith...

(MUSIC STOPS)
..if he be not rotten before he die,

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 deal.

And your water is a sore decayer
of your whoreson dead body.

Now...

..here's a skull has lain in the earth

three and twenty years.

Whose was it?
A whoreson mad fellow's it was.

He poured
a flagon of rhenish on me head once.

This same skull, sir, was Yorick's skull,

the king's jester.

This? Let me see.
Even that.

Alas!

Poor Yorick!

I knew him, Horatio.

He was a fellow of infinite jest...

..of most excellent fancy.

He hath borne me on his back
a thousand times

and here hung those lips
I've kissed I know not how oft.

How abhorred my imagination is,
my gorge rises at it.

Where be your gibes now...

..your gambols, your songs?

Your flashes of merriment
that were wont to set the table on a roar?

No one now to mock your own grinning?
(SOLEMN DRUMBEAT)

But soft, but soft, aside.
Here comes the king, the queen and court.

Who is it that they follow?
And with such maimed rites?

This doth betoken the corpse they follow

did with a desperate hand
foredo its own life.

'Twas some estate.
Couch we a while and mark.

LAERTES: What ceremony else?

HAMLET: That is Laertes.
What makes him from France?

LAERTES: What ceremony else?

Her obsequies have been as far enlarged
as we have warrants.

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 prayer, shards, flints
and pebbles should be thrown on her,

yet here she is allowed her virgin rites,
her maiden strewments,

and the bringing home of bell and burial.

Must there no more be done?
No more be done.

We should profane the service of the dead
to sing sage requiem

and such peace as to peace-parted souls.

Lay her in the earth.

LAERTES: And from your fair
and unpolluted flesh

may violets spring.

I tell thee, churlish priest,

a ministering angel shall my sister be
when thou liest howling!

HAMLET: What, the fair Ophelia?

Sweets to the sweet.

Farewell.

I hoped thou wouldst have been
my Hamlet's wife.

I thought thy bride-bed to have decked,
sweet maid,

and not to have strewn thy grave.

Hold off the earth a while till I have
caught her once more in mine arms.

(QUEEN GASPS)

Now pile your dust
upon the quick and the dead

till of this flat a mountain
you have made to o'ertop Olympus.

Oh, woe is he whose grief
bears such an emphasis,

whose phrase of sorrow
conjures the wandering stars

and makes them stand
like wonder-wounded hearers.

This is I, Hamlet the Dane.

The devil take thy soul.

Pluck them asunder!
Good my lord!

Why, I will fight with him
upon this ground

until my eyelids will no longer wag.

I loved Ophelia!

40,000 brothers could not with all
their quantity of love make up my sum.

Oh, he is mad, Laertes.
What would thou do for her?

For love of God, forebear him!
Woo't weep? Woo't fight?

Woo't tear thyself?

Drink of poison, eat a crocodile?

I'll do it.

What? Be buried quick with her,
then so will I!

If thou talk of mountains,

let them throw
millions of acres of earth on us

till the ground, singeing his head
against the burning sun,

make Ossa like a wart!

Nay if thou'lt mouth
I'll rant as well as thou.

This is mere madness, and thus awhile
the fit will work upon him.

Hear you, sir, what is the reason
that you use me thus?

I loved you ever.

No such matter.

Let Hercules himself do what he may,

the cat will mew

and dog will have his day.

KING: Now Gertrude,
set some watch over your son.

Away.

Strengthen your patience
in our last night's speech.

We put the matter to the present push.

O, speak of that,
that do I long to hear.

You have been talked of
since your travel much,

and that in Hamlet's hearing,

for a quality wherein they say you shine,
for art and exercise in your defence,

and for your rapier most especially.

Will you do this,
keep close within your chamber?

We'll put on those
shall praise your excellence,

bring you in trial together
and wager on your heads.

He, being remiss 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 sister.

I will do it,
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 application on Earth
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.

Look you, if this should fail,
'twere better not assayed.

Therefore, this project
should have a back or second

that might hold
if this should blast in proof.

Soft, let me see.

When in his motion he is hot and dry
and that he calls for drink,

I'll have prepared him
a chalice of the like.

Whereon but sipping, if he by chance
escape your venomed point,

our purpose may hold there.

'Twill do, my lord.
This grave shall have a living monument.

An hour of quiet shortly shall we see.
Till then, in patience our proceedings be.

Does it not, think thee,
stand me now upon?

He that hath killed my king,
whored my mother,

stepped between the succession
and my hopes,

thrown out his warrant for my proper life,
and with such treachery.

Is it not perfect conscience
to quit him with this arm?

And is it not to be damned

to let this canker
of our nature come in further evil?

It will 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!"

So Rosencrantz and Guildenstern go to it?

Why man, they did make love
to this employment!

Their defeat
doth by their own insinuation grow.

They are not near my conscience!
Why, what a king is this?

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 beg his pardon.

But sure, the bravery of his grief
did put me into a towering passion.

Peace, who comes here?

Your lordship
is most welcome back to Denmark.

I humbly thank you, madam.
Dost know this lady?

No, my good lord.

Sweet lord,
if your lordship were at leisure,

I should impart a thing to you
from his majesty.

I will attend it
with all diligence of spirit.

My lord, his majesty bade me
signify this to you,

that he has laid a great wager
on your head.

This is the matter.

You are not ignorant of what excellence
Laertes is at his weapon,

rapier and dagger.
That's two of his weapons, but well...

The king has wagered that in a dozen
passes between you and him,

he shall not exceed you three hits,

and that it would come to immediate trial

if your lordship
will vouchsafe the answer.

How if I answer no?

If it please his majesty,
let the foils be brought.

I'll win for him if I can.

If not, I'll gain nothing
but my shame and the odd hit.

I commend my duty to your lordship.

You will lose this wager, my lord.
I do not think so.

Since he went into France
I've been in continual practice.

Nay, good my lord,
if your mind dislike any thing, obey.

I will forestall their coming 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.

KING: Come Hamlet!

Come and take this hand from me.

Give me your pardon, sir,
for I have done you wrong...

..but pardon it as you are a gentleman.

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 honour, I stand aloof

and seek some reconcilement
to keep my name ungorged.

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 brother's wager freely play.

Bring us the foils, come on.
Come, one for me.

Hamlet, you know the wager.
Very well, my lord.

Your grace hath laid the odds
on the weaker side.

This is too heavy, let me see another.

This likes me well.

These foils have all a length?
Aye, my lord.

Set me a cup of wine upon the table.

If Hamlet give the first or second hit

the king shall drink
to Hamlet's better health.

And in the cup a jewel shall he throw,

richer than that
which four successive kings

in Denmark's crown hath worn.

Come now, begin.
And you the judges, bear a wary eye.

HAMLET: Come, sir.

One.
Judgement?

A hit, a very palpable hit.

Well, again.
Stay, give me drink.

Hamlet, this pearl is thine.

I'll play this bout first,
set by a while.

Laertes?
We'll play on.

Another hit, what say you?
A touch, a touch, I do confess.

Here's to thy health. Give him the cup.

I dare not drink yet. By and by.

You are hot and scant of breath.
Here's a napkin, rub thy brow.

Good madam!
Come, let me wipe thy face.

My lord, I'll hit him now,
and yet 'tis almost 'gainst my conscience.

Come, Laertes, for the third.

You but dally.
I pray you pass with your best violence.

I'm afeard you make a wanton of me.
Say you so? Come on!

OSRIC: Nothing neither way.
LAERTES: Have at you now!

(ONLOOKERS GASP)

(UPROAR)

OSRIC: Gentlemen, but dally!

♪ Orchestra plays 'Nature Boy'

(VOICES CLAMOUR)

(ONLOOKERS GASP)

Gertrude, do not drink!

I will, my lord.

I pray you pardon me.

How is't, Laertes?
Why, as a woodcock to mine own snare,

I am justly killed by mine own treachery.

Oh! Look to the queen there!

HAMLET: How does the queen?
KING: She swoons to see them bleed.

No, no, the drink, the drink!
It's poisoned.

Oh how! Villainy! Treachery!
Let the doors be locked. Seek it out!

It is here, Hamlet.
Hamlet, thou art slain.

In thee there is not half an hour of life.
No medicine in the world can do thee good.

The treacherous instrument is in thy hand,
unbated and envenomed.

The foul practice
hath turned itself on me.

The king's to blame.

The point envenomed?

Then venom, to thy work!

(KING GROANS)

Here thou incestuous,
murderous, damned Dane!

Drink of this potion and follow my mother!

Oh, wretched queen, adieu.

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.

Had I but time, as this fell sergeant
death is strict in his arrest,

oh, I could tell thee.

But let it be. Horatio, I am dead.

But thou livest.

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.

No, give me the cup, as thou art a man.

By heavens, I'll have it.

Think what a wounded name,

things standing thus unknown,
shall live behind me.

If ever thou didst hold me in thy heart,

absent thee from felicity a while

and in this harsh world,
draw thy breath in pain to tell my story.

Oh, I die, Horatio.

The rest is silence.

Now cracks a noble heart.

Good night, sweet prince...

..and flights of angels
sing thee to thy rest.

FORTINBRAS: What is this sight?

HORATIO: What is it you would see?

If aught of woe or wonder,
cease your search.

FORTINBRAS: This quarry cries on havoc.

Oh proud death,

what feast is toward in thine eternal cell

that thou so many princes at a shot

so bloodily hast struck?

The sight is dismal.

Give order that these bodies
high on a stage be placed to the view.

And let me speak
to the yet unknowing world

how these things came about.

So shall you hear of carnal,
bloody and unnatural acts,

of accidental judgements,

casual slaughters,

of deaths put on
by cunning and forced cause

and in this upshot, purposes mistook
fallen on the inventors' heads.

All this can I truly deliver.

Let us haste to hear it,
and call the noblest to the audience.

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.

Then let this same be presently performed
even while men's minds are wild...

..lest more mischance
on plots and errors happen.

Take up the body.

Such a sight as this
becomes the field,

but here shows much amiss.

Go, bid the soldiers shoot.

[APPLAUSE]

[CHEERING AND WHISTLING]

[CHEERING]

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