Table of Contents
ACT III SCENE III� Setting: A room in the castle.
[Enter KING CLAUDIUS, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN]
[Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN][Enter POLONIUS]
| LORD POLONIUS | My lord, he's going to his mother's closet: | |
| Behind the arras I'll convey myself, | ||
| To hear the process; and warrant she'll tax him home: | ||
| And, as you said, and wisely was it said, | 30 | |
| 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 CLAUDIUS | 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; | 40 | |
| 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 two–fold force, | ||
| To be forestalled ere we come to fall, | ||
| Or pardon'd being down? Then I'll look up; | 50 | |
| 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 possess'd | ||
| Of those effects for which I did the murder, | ||
| My crown, mine own ambition and my queen. | ||
| May one be pardon'd 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; | 60 | |
| There is no shuffling, there the action lies | ||
| In his true nature; and we ourselves compell'd, | ||
| 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, | 70 | |
| 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 he is praying; | |
| And now I'll do't. And so he goes to heaven; | ||
| And so am I revenged. That would be scann'd: | ||
| A villain kills my father; and for that, | ||
| I, his sole son, do this same villain send | ||
| To heaven. | ||
| O, this is hire and salary, not revenge. | ||
| He took my father grossly, full of bread; | 80 | |
| 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 season'd 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; | 90 | |
| At gaming, 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 damn'd and black | ||
| As hell, whereto it goes. My mother stays: | ||
| This physic but prolongs thy sickly days. | ||
| [Exit] | ||
| KING CLAUDIUS | [Rising]�My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: | 100 |
| Words without thoughts never to heaven go. | ||
| [Exit] |