SCENES TO BE VIEWED ON FILM CLIPS.
ACT 2, SCENE 1, LINES 75-115
THIS SCENE OCCURS AFTER A LAPSE OF 1-2 MONTHS AFTER ACT 1; OPHELIA TELLS HER FATHER
ABOUT A FRIGHTENING EXPERIENCE WITH HAMLET. WHAT DOES THIS TELL US ABOUT THEIR
RELATIONSHIP?
POLONIUS
Farewell.--How now, Ophelia, what's the matter?
OPHELIA
Alas, my lord, I have been so affrighted!
POLONIUS
With what, i'th' name of God?
OPHELIA
My lord, as I was sewing in my chamber,
Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbraced,
975No hat upon his head, his stockings fouled,
Ungartered, and down-gyvèd to his ankle,
Pale as his shirt, his knees knocking each other,
And with a look so piteous in purport
As if he had been loosèd out of hell
980To speak of horrors, he comes before me.
POLONIUS
Mad for thy love?
OPHELIA
My lord, I do not know,
But truly I do fear it.
POLONIUS
What said he?
OPHELIA
He took me by the wrist, and held me hard.
985Then 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 'a would draw it. Long stayed he so.
At last, a little shaking of mine arm,
990And thrice 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
995He seemed to find his way without his eyes,
For out o' doors he went without their help,
And to the last bended their light on me.
ACT 3, SCENE 1, LINES 55-150
THE FAMOUS SOLILOQUY, FOLLOWED (OR PRECEDED BY) THE CONFRONTATION OF HAMLET AND
OPHELIA KNOWN AS THE “NUNNERY SCENE”
HAMLET
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-1715No 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. Ay, there's the rub,
1720For 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,
1725Th'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 th'unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
1730With a bare bodkin? Who would these fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country from whose bourn
No traveler returns, puzzles the will,
1735And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of.
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
1740And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action. Soft you now,
The fair Ophelia!--Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remembered.
1745OPHELIA
Good my lord,
How does your honor for this many a day?
HAMLET
I humbly thank you, well, well, well.
OPHELIA
My lord, I have remembrances of yours
That I have longèd long to redeliver.
1750I pray you now receive them.
HAMLET
No, not I. I never gave you aught.
OPHELIA
My honored lord, you know right well you did,
And with them words of so sweet breath composed
As made these things more rich. Their perfume lost,
1755Take these again, for to the noble mind
Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind,
There, my lord.
[She offers Hamlet the remembrances.]
HAMLET
Ha, ha! Are you honest?
OPHELIA
My lord?
1760HAMLET
Are you fair?
OPHELIA
What means your lordship?
HAMLET
That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty.
OPHELIA
Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce 1765than with honesty?
HAMLET
Ay, truly, for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than
the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness. This was sometime a paradox, but now
the time gives it proof. I did love you once.
OPHELIA
Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.
HAMLET
You should not have believed me, for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish
of it. I loved you not.
OPHELIA
I was the more deceived.
HAMLET
Get thee to a nunnery. Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent
honest, but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me:
I am very proud, revengeful, 1780ambitious, with more offenses at my beck than I have thoughts to
put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in. What should such fellows as
I do crawling between heaven and earth? We are arrant knaves, all; believe none of us.Go thy
ways to a nunnery. Where's your father?
OPHELIA
At home, my lord.
HAMLET
Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool nowhere but in's own house. Farewell.
OPHELIA
Oh, help him, you sweet heavens!
1790HAMLET
If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague for thy dowry: be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as
snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery. Go, farewell. Or if thou wilt needs
marry, marry a fool, for wise men know well enough what monsters you 1795make of them. To a
nunnery go, and quickly too. Farewell.
OPHELIA
O heavenly powers, restore him!
HAMLET
I have heard of your paintings too, well enough. God hath given you one face, and you
make yourselves 1800another. You jig, you amble, and you lisp, and nickname God's creatures, and
make your wantonness your ignorance. Go to, I'll no more on't; it hath made me mad. I say we
will have no more marriages. Those that are married already, all but one, shall live; the rest shall
keep as they are. To a nunnery, go.
ACT 3, SCENE 4, LINES 8-170
HAMLET HAS BEEN ASKED TO SPEAK WITH HIS MOTHER (AND THE WHOLE INTERVIEW IS TO BE
OVERHEARD BY POLONIUS. HE CONFRONTS HIS MOTHER WITH HIS PICTURE OF HER SEXUAL
LICENTIOUSNESS; IN THE COURSE OF THIS SCENE HAMLET MURDERS POLONIUS.
HAMLET
Now mother, what's the matter?
QUEEN
Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.
HAMLET
Mother, you have my father much offended.
QUEEN
Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.
HAMLET
Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.
2390QUEEN
Why, how now, Hamlet?
HAMLET
What's the matter now?
QUEEN
Have you forgot me?
HAMLET
No, by the rood, not so.
You are the queen, your husband's brother's wife,
2395And--would it were not so!--you are my mother.
QUEEN
Nay, then, I'll set those to you that can speak.
HAMLET
Come, come, and sit you down. You shall not budge.
You go not till I set you up a glass
2400Where you may see the inmost part of you.
QUEEN
What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murder me?
Help, help, ho!
POLONIUS
[Behind the arras] What ho! Help, help, help!
HAMLET
How now, a rat? Dead for a ducat, dead!
[Hamlet thrusts through the arras with his sword.]
2405POLONIUS
[Behind the arras] Oh, I am slain!
[Polonius falls onto the stage floor, dead].
QUEEN
Oh, me, what hast thou done?
HAMLET
Nay I know not. Is it the King?
QUEEN
Oh, what a rash and bloody deed is this!
HAMLET
A bloody deed--almost as bad, good mother,
2410As kill a king, and marry with his brother.
QUEEN
As kill a king?
HAMLET
Ay, lady, it was my word.
[He parts the arras and discovers the dead Polonius.]
Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!
I took thee for thy better. Take thy fortune.
2415Thou find'st to be too busy is some danger.
[To the Queen] Leave wringing of your hands. Peace, sit you down,
And let me wring your heart, for so I shall
If it be made of penetrable stuff,
If damnèd custom have not brazed it so
2420That it is proof and bulwark against sense.
QUEEN
What have I done, that thou dar'st wag thy tongue
In noise so rude against me?
HAMLET
Such an act
That blurs the grace and blush of modesty,
2425Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose
From the fair forehead of an innocent love
And sets a blister there, makes marriage vows
As false as dicers' oaths--oh, such a deed
As from the body of contraction plucks
2430The very soul, and sweet religion makes
A rhapsody of words. Heaven's face doth glow
O'er this solidity and compound mass
With tristful visage, as against the doom,
Is thought-sick at the act.
2435QUEEN
Ay me, what act,
That roars so loud and thunders in the index?
HAMLET [Showing her two likenesses, of Hamlet senior and Claudius]
Look here upon this picture, and on this,
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
See what a grace was seated on this brow:
2440Hyperion's curls, the front of Jove himself,
An eye like Mars to threaten and command,
A station like the herald Mercury
New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill,
A combination and a form indeed
2445Where every god did seem to set his 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?
2450Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed
And batten on this moor? Ha, have you eyes?
You cannot call it love, for at your age
The heyday in the blood is tame, it's humble,
And waits upon the judgment, and what judgment
2455Would step from this to this? Sense, sure, you have,
2455.1Else could you not have motion, but sure that sense
Is apoplexed, for madness would not err,
Nor sense to ecstasy was ne'er so thralled
But it reserved some quantity of choice
2455.5To serve in such a difference. What devil was't
That thus hath cozened you at hoodman-blind?
2456.1Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight,
Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all,
Or but a sickly part of one true sense
Could not so mope. O shame, where is thy blush?
Rebellious hell,
If thou canst mutine in a matron's bones,
To flaming youth let virtue be as wax
2460And melt in her own fire. Proclaim no shame
When the compulsive ardor gives the charge,
Since frost itself as actively doth burn,
And reason panders will.
QUEEN
Oh, Hamlet speak no more!
2465Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul,
And there I see such black and grainèd spots
As will not leave their tinct.
HAMLET
Nay, but to live
In the rank sweat of an enseamèd bed
2470Stewed in corruption, honeying and making love
Over the nasty sty!
QUEEN
Oh, speak to me no more!
These words like daggers enter in my ears.
No more, sweet Hamlet.
2475HAMLET
A murderer and a villain,
A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe
Of your precedent lord, a vice of kings,
A cutpurse of the empire and the rule,
That from a shelf the precious diadem stole
2480And put it in his pocket-QUEEN
No more!
Enter Ghost [in his nightgown].
HAMLET
A king of shreds and patches-[Seeing the Ghost]Save me and hover o'er me with your wings,
2485You heavenly guards! What would you, gracious figure?
QUEEN
Alas, he's mad!
HAMLET
Do you not come your tardy son to chide,
That, lapsed in time and passion, lets go by
Th'important acting of your dread command?
Oh, say!
2490GHOST
Do not forget. This visitation
Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.
But look, amazement on thy mother sits.
Oh, step between her and her fighting soul!
Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works.
2495Speak to her, Hamlet.
HAMLET
How is it with you, lady?
QUEEN
Alas, how is't with you,
That you do bend your eye on vacancy,
And with th'incorporal air do hold discourse?
2500Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep,
And, as the sleeping soldiers in th'alarm,
Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,
Start up and stand on end. O gentle son,
Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper
2505Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look?
HAMLET
On him, on him! Look you how pale he glares!
His form and cause conjoined, preaching to stones,
Would make them capable. [To the Ghost] Do not look upon me,
Lest with this piteous action you convert
2510My stern effects. Then what I have to do
Will want true color, tears perchance for blood.
QUEEN
To whom do you speak this?
HAMLET
Do you see nothing there?
QUEEN
Nothing at all, yet all that is I see.
2515HAMLET
Nor did you nothing hear?
QUEEN
No, nothing but ourselves.
HAMLET
Why, look you there, look how it steals away!
My father in his habit as he lived.
Look where he goes, even now out at the portal!
Exit Ghost.
2520QUEEN
This is the very coinage of your brain.
This bodiless creation ecstasy
Is very cunning in.
HAMLET
Ecstasy?
My pulse as yours doth temperately keep time,
And makes as healthful music. It is not madness
2525That I have uttered. Bring me to the test,
And I the matter will reword, which madness
Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,
Lay not that flattering unction to your soul
That not your trespass but my madness speaks.
2530It will but skin and film the ulcerous place,
Whiles rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven,
Repent what's past, avoid what is to come,
And do not spread the compost on the weeds
2535To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue,
For in the fatness of these pursy times
Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg,
Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good.
QUEEN
Oh, Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.
HAMLET
Oh, throw away the worser part of it,
And live the purer with the other half.
Good night. But go not to my uncle's bed;
Assume a virtue if you have it not.
2544.1That monster custom, who all sense doth eat,
Of habits devil, is angel yet in this,
That to the use of actions fair and good
He likewise gives a frock or livery
That aptly is put on. Refrain tonight,
2545And that shall lend a kind of easiness
To the next abstinence; the next more easy:
2546.1For use almost can change the stamp of nature,
And either [in] the devil, or throw him out
With wondrous potency. Once more good night,
And when you are desirous to be blest,
I'll blessing beg of you…
2544.5