SCENE BETWEEN HAMLET AND THE QUEEN.
(Dialogue for elderly lady and young man. From Act III. of the tragedy of Hamlet. The part of Hamlet is a very difficult one to play, and should be thoroughly studied. The whole tragedy should be read from Shakespeare, any illustrated volume of which will suggest appropriate costume. The Ghost may be impersonated by a voice, unless a suitable costume and staging are available.)
(Curtain rises and reveals Hamlet approaching his Mother, who may be seated and apparently in much distress.)
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.
Queen. 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;
And—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
Where you may see the inmost part of you.
Queen. What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murther me?
Help, help, ho!
Polonius (behind). What, ho! help, help, help!
Hamlet (drawing.) How now! a rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead!
(Makes a pass through the arras.)
Polonius (behind). O, I am slain!
(Falls and dies.)
Queen. O me, what hast thou done?
Hamlet. Nay, I know not;
Is it the king?
Queen. O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!
Hamlet. A bloody deed! almost as bad, good mother,
As kill a king, and marry with his brother.
Queen. As kill a king!
Hamlet. Ay, lady, ’twas my word.—
(Lifts up the arras and discovers Polonius.)
Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!
I took thee for thy better:
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 damned custom have not braz’d it so
That it is proof and bulwark against sense.
Queen. What have I done, that thou darest wag thy tongue
In noise so rude against me?
Hamlet. Such an act
That blurs the grace and blush of modesty,
Calls 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; O, such a deed
As from the body of contraction plucks
The very soul, and sweet religion makes
A rhapsody of words: heaven’s face doth glow,
Yea, this sondity and compound mass,
With tristful visage, as against the doom,
Is thought-sick at the act.
Queen. Ay me, what act,
That roars so loud and thunders in the index?
Hamlet. Look here, upon this picture, and on this,
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
See what a grace was seated on this brow;
Hyperion’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,
Where 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 mildew’d ear.
Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes?
Could 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 hey-day in the blood is tame, it’s humble,
And waits upon the judgment; and what judgment
Would step from this to this?
O shame! where is thy blush?
Queen. O Hamlet, speak no more;
Thou turns’t mine eyes into my very soul,
And there I see such black and grained spots
As will not leave their tinct.
O, speak to me no more;
These words like daggers enter in mine ears;
No more, sweet Hamlet!
Hamlet. A murtherer 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,
And put it in his pocket!
Queen. No more!
Hamlet. A king of shreds and patches,—
(Enter Ghost.)
Save me, and hover o’er me with your wings,
You heavenly guards!—What would your gracious figure?
Queen. Alas! he’s mad!
Hamlet. Do you not come your tardy son to chide,
That, laps’d in time and passion, lets go by
The important acting of your dread command?
O, say!
Ghost. Do not forget. This visitation
Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.
But, look, amazement on thy mother sits
O, step between her and her fighting soul:
Speak 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 the incorporal air do hold discourse?
O gentle son,
Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper
Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look?
Hamlet. On him, on him! Look you, how pale he glares!
His form and cause conjoin’d, preaching to stones,
Would make them capable. Do not look upon me;
Lest with this piteous action you convert
My 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.
Hamlet. 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 liv’d!
Look, where he goes, even now, out at the portal.
(Exit Ghost.)
Queen. 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
That I have utter’d; bring me to the test,
And I the matter will re-word, 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;
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place,
Whilst rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven;
Repent what’s past, avoid what is to come.
Queen. O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.
Hamlet. O, throw away the worser part of it,
And live the purer with the other half.
For this same lord, (Pointing to Polonius.)
I do repent;
I will bestow him, and will answer well
The death I gave him,—So, again, good-night.
I must be cruel, only to be kind;
Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.
[CURTAIN.]
Shakespeare.