King

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 along with you:

The terms of our estate may not endure

Hazard so near's as doth hourly grow

Out of his brows.

Guildenstern

We will ourselves provide:

Most holy and religious fear it is

To keep those many many bodies safe

That live and feed upon your majesty.

Rosencrantz

The single and peculiar life is bound,

With all the strength and armour of the mind,

To keep itself from noyance; but much more

That spirit upon whose weal depends and rests

The lives of many. The cess of majesty

Dies not alone; but, like a gulf, doth draw

What's near it with it; or it is a massy wheel,

Fixed on the summit of the highest mount,

To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things

Are mortised and adjoined; which, when it falls,

Each small annexment, petty consequence,

Attends the boisterous ruin. Never alone

Did the king sigh, but with a general groan.

King

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

For we will fetters put about this fear,

Which now goes too free-footed.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

We will haste us. Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.Enter POLONIUS.

Polonius

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

Behind the arras I'll convey myself,

To hear the process; I'll warrant she'll tax him home:

And, as you said, and wisely was it said,

'Tis meet that some more audience than a mother,

Since nature makes them partial, should o'erhear

The speech, of vantage. Fare you well, my liege:

I'll call upon you ere you go to bed,

And tell you what I know.

King

Thanks, dear my lord. Exit Polonius.

O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven;

It hath the primal eldest curse upon't,

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 shall 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?

And what's in prayer but this twofold force,

To be forestalled ere we come to fall,

Or pardoned being down? Then I'll look up;

My fault is past. But, O, what form of prayer

Can serve my turn? “Forgive me my foul murder”?

That cannot be; since I am still possessed

Of those effects for which I did the murder,

My crown, mine 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 out 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 rests?

Try what repentance can: what can it not?

Yet what can it when one can not repent?

O wretched state! O bosom black as death!

O 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 newborn babe!

All may be well. Retires and kneels.Enter HAMLET.

Hamlet

Now might I do it pat, now 'a is a-praying;

And now I'll do't. And so 'a goes to heaven;

And so am I revenged. That would be scanned:

A villain kills my father; and for that,

I, his sole son, do this same villain send

To heaven.

Why, this is hire and salary, not revenge.

'A took my father grossly, full of bread;

With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May;

And how his audit stands who knows save heaven?

But in our circumstance and course of thought.

'Tis heavy with him: and am I then revenged,

To take him in the purging of his soul,

When he is fit and seasoned for his passage?

No!

Up, sword; and know thou a more horrid hent:

When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage,

Or in the incestuous pleasure of his bed;

At game, a-swearing, or about some act

That has no relish of salvation in't;

Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven,

And that his soul may be as damned and black

As hell, whereto it goes. My mother stays:

This physic but prolongs thy sickly days. Exit.

King

Rising

My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:

Words without thoughts never to heaven go. Exit.