Edition: HamletHamlet, Quarto 1
The Tragical History of HAMLET Prince of Denmark.
Enter two Sentinels First Sentinel and Barnardo. Enter Horatio and Marcellus. Exit.1.Sp15Marcellus
Horatio says ’tis but our fantasy,
And will not let belief take hold of him,
Touching this dreaded sight twice seen by us.
Therefore I have entreated him along with us
To watch the minutes of this night,
That if again this apparition come,
He may approve our eyes, and speak to it.
1.Sp17Barnardo
Sit down, I pray, and let us once again
Assail your ears, that are so fortified,
What we have two nights seen.
1.Sp19Barnardo
Enter Ghost.
Last night of all, when yonder star that’s
westward from the pole had made his course to
1.Sp28Horatio
Exit Ghost.
What art thou that thus usurps the state in
Which the majesty of buried Denmark did sometimes
Walk? By heaven, I charge thee speak.
1.Sp33Barnardo
How now, Horatio, you tremble and look pale.
Is not this something more than fantasy?
What think you on’t?
1.Sp34Horatio
Afore my God, I might not this believe without the sensible and true avouch of my
own eyes.
1.Sp36Horatio
As thou art to thyself.
Such was the very armor he had on
When he the ambitious Norway combated.
So frowned he once, when in an angry parle
He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice.
’Tis strange.
1.Sp37Marcellus
Thus twice before, and jump at this dead hour,
With martial stalk he passèd through our watch.
1.Sp38Horatio
In what particular to work, I know not,
But in the thought and scope of my opinion
This bodes some strange eruption to the state.
1.Sp39Marcellus
Good, now sit down, and tell me, he that knows,
Why this same strict and most observant watch
So nightly toils the subject of the land,
And why such daily cost of brazen cannon
And foreign mart for implements of war,
Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task
Does not divide the Sunday from the week:
What might be toward, that this sweaty march
Doth make the night joint laborer with the day?
Who is’t that can inform me?
1.Sp40Horatio
Exit Ghost.
Marry, that can I, at least the whisper goes so:
Our late King, who as you know was by
Fortenbrasse of Norway,
Thereto pricked on by a most emulous cause, dared to
The combat, in which our valiant Hamlet,
For so this side of our known world esteemed him,
Did slay this Fortenbrasse,
Who by a sealed compact, well ratified by law
And heraldry, did forfeit with his life all those
His lands which he stood seized of by the conqueror,
Against the which a moiety competent
Was gagèd by our King.
Now, sir, young Fortenbrasse,
Of inapprovèd mettle hot and full,
Hath in the skirts of Norway here and there
Sharked up a sight of lawless resolutes
For food and diet to some enterprise,
That hath a stomach in’t. And this (I take it) is the
Chief head and ground of this our watch.
But lo, behold, see where it comes again!
I’ll cross it, though it blast me.—Stay, illusion!
If there be any good thing to be done,
That may do ease to thee and grace to me,
Speak to me!
If thou are privy to thy country’s fate,
Which happ’ly foreknowing may prevent, oh, speak to me!
Or if thou hast extorted in thy life,
Or hoarded treasure in the womb of earth,
For which they say you spirits oft walk in death,
Speak
To me! Stay and speak, speak!—Stop it, Marcellus.
1.Sp43Marcellus
’Tis gone. Oh, we do it wrong, being so majestical,
To offer it the show of violence,
For it is as the air invulnerable,
And our vain blows malicious mockery.
1.Sp45Horatio
And then it faded like a guilty thing
Upon a fearful summons. I have heard
The cock, that is the trumpet to the morning,
Doth with his early and shrill-crowing throat
Awake the god of day, and at his sound,
Whether in earth or air, in sea or fire,
The stravagant and erring spirit hies
To his confines; and of the truth hereof
This present object made probation.
1.Sp46Marcellus
It faded on the crowing of the cock.
Some say, that ever ’gainst that season comes
Wherein our Savior’s birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long,
And then, they say, no spirit dare walk abroad,
The nights are wholesome, then no planet strikes,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So gracious and so hallowed is that time.
1.Sp47Horatio
So have I heard, and do in part believe it.
But see, the sun, in russet mantle clad,
Walks o’er the dew of yon high mountain top.
Break we our watch up, and, by my advice,
Let us impart what we have seen tonight
Unto young Hamlet; for upon my life
This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him.
Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it,
As needful in our love, fitting our duty?
1.Sp48Marcellus
Exeunt.
Let’s do’t, I pray, and I this morning know
Where we shall find him most conveniently.
Enter King, Queen, Hamlet, Laertes, Corambis,
and the two Ambassadors, with Attendants.
2.Sp1King
Lords, we here have writ to Fortenbrasse,
Nephew to old Norway, who, impudent
And bed-rid, scarcely hears of this his
Nephew’s purpose; and we here dispatch
Young good Cornelia, and you, Voltemar,
For bearers of these greetings to old
Norway, giving to you no further personal power
To business with the King
Than those related articles do show.
Farewell, and let your haste commend your duty.
2.Sp3King
We doubt nothing. Heartily farewell.
And now, Laertes, what’s the news with you?
You said you had a suit. What is’t, Laertes?
2.Sp4Laertes
My gracious lord, your favorable license,
Now that the funeral rites are all performed,
I may have leave to go again to France;
For though the favor of your grace might stay me,
Yet something is there whispers in my heart
Which makes my mind and spirits bend all for France.
2.Sp6Corambis
Exit.
He hath, my lord, wrung from me a forced grant,
And I beseech you grant your highness’leave.
2.Sp9King
And now, princely son Hamlet,
What means these sad and melancholy moods?
For your intent going to Wittenberg,
We hold it most unmeet and unconvenient,
Being the joy and half heart of your mother.
Therefore let me entreat you stay in court,
All Denmark’s hope, our cousin and dearest son.
2.Sp10Hamlet
My lord, ’tis not the sable suit I wear,
No, nor the tears that still stand in my eyes,
Nor the distracted havior in the visage,
Nor all together mixed with outward semblance,
Is equal to the sorrow of my heart.
Him have I lost I must of force forgo;
These but the ornaments and suits of woe.
2.Sp11King
This shows a loving care in you, son Hamlet,
But you must think your father lost a father,
That father dead, lost his, and so shall be until the
General ending. Therefore cease laments.
It is a fault ’gainst heaven, fault ’gainst the dead,
A fault ’gainst nature, and in reason’s
Common course most certain,
None lives on earth but he is born to die.
2.Sp14King
Exeunt all but Hamlet.
Spoke like a kind and a most loving son;
And there’s no health the King shall drink today
But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell
The rouse the King shall drink unto Prince Hamlet.
2.Sp15Hamlet
Enter Horatio and Marcellus and Barnardo.
Oh, that this too much grieved and sallied flesh
Would melt to nothing, or that the universal
Globe of heaven would turn all to a chaos!
O God, within two months; no not two: married
Mine uncle! Oh, let me not think of it,
My father’s brother, but no more like
My father than I to Hercules.
Within two months, ere yet the salt of most
Unrighteous tears had left their flushing
In her gallèd eyes, she married. O God, a beast
Devoid of reason would not have made
Such speed! Frailty, thy name is Woman.
Why, she would hang on him as if increase
Of appetite had grown by what it looked on.
Oh, wicked, wicked speed, to make such
Dexterity to incestuous sheets,
Ere yet the shoes were old,
The which she followed my dead father’s corse
Like Niobe, all tears: married. Well, it is not,
Nor it cannot come to good;
But break my heart, for I must hold my tongue.
2.Sp19Hamlet
O my good friend, I change that name with you.
But what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio?
Marcellus.
2.Sp21Hamlet
I am very glad to see you. Good even, sirs.
But what is your affair in Elsinor?
We’ll teach you to drink deep ere you depart.
2.Sp23Hamlet
Nor shall you make me truster
Of your own report against yourself.
Sir, I know you are no truant.
But what is your affair in Elsinor?
2.Sp25Hamlet
Oh, I prithee do not mock me, fellow student,
I think it was to see my mother’s wedding.
2.Sp27Hamlet
Thrift, thrift, Horatio, the funeral baked meats
Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.
Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven
Ere ever I had seen that day, Horatio.
O my father, my father! Methinks I see my father.
2.Sp36Horatio
Ceasen your admiration for a while
With an attentive ear, till I may deliver,
Upon the witness of these gentlemen,
This wonder to you.
2.Sp38Horatio
Two nights together had these gentlemen,
Marcellus and Barnardo, on their watch,
In the dead vast and middle of the night.
Been thus encountered by a figure like your father,
Armed to point, exactly cap-à-pie,
Appears before them thrice, he walks
Before their weak and fear-oppressèd eyes
Within his truncheon’s length,
While they, distilled almost to jelly
With the act of fear, stands dumb
And speak not to him. This to me
In dreadful secrecy impart they did.
And I with them the third night kept the watch,
Where as they had delivered form of the thing.
Each part made true and good,
The apparition comes. I knew your father,
These hands are not more like.
2.Sp40Horatio
As I do live, my honored lord, ’tis true,
And we did think it right done
In our duty to let you know it.
2.Sp44Horatio
My lord, we did, but answer made it none.
Yet once methought it was about to speak,
And lifted up his head to motion,
Like as he would speak, but even then
The morning cock crew loud, and in all haste
It shrunk in haste away, and vanished
Our sight.
2.Sp68Hamlet
Exeunt all but Hamlet.
If it assume my noble father’s person,
I’ll speak to it, if hell itself should gape
And bid me hold my peace. Gentlemen,
If you have hither concealed this sight,
Let it be tenable in your silence still,
And whatsoever else shall chance tonight,
Give it an understanding but no tongue.
I will requite your loves. So fare you well.
Upon the platform ’twixt eleven and twelve
I’ll visit you.
2.Sp70Hamlet
Exit.
Oh, your loves, your loves, as mine to you.
Farewell.—My father’s spirit in arms!
Well, all’s not well. I doubt some foul play.
Would the night were come!
Till then, sit still, my soul. Foul deeds will rise,
Though all the world o’erwhelm them, to men’s eyes.
Enter Laertes and Ofelia.
3.Sp1Laertes
My necessaries are inbarked. I must aboard,
But, ere I part, mark what I say to thee:
I see Prince Hamlet makes a show of love.
Beware, Ofelia, do not trust his vows.
Perhaps he loves you now, and now his tongue
Speaks from his heart, but yet take heed, my sister.
The chariest maid is prodigal enough
If she unmask her beauty to the moon.
Virtue itself scapes not calumnious thoughts.
Believe’t, Ofelia. Therefore keep aloof
Lest that he trip thy honor and thy fame.
3.Sp2Ofelia
Brother, to this I have lent attentive ear,
And doubt not but to keep my honor firm.
But, my dear brother, do not you,
Like to a cunning sophister,
Teach me the path and ready way to heaven
While you, forgetting what is said to me,
Yourself like to a careless libertine
Doth give his heart his appetite at full,
And little recks how that his honor dies.
3.Sp3Laertes
Enter Corambis.
No, fear it not, my dear Ofelia.
Here comes my father. Occasion smiles upon a second leave.
3.Sp4Corambis
Exit.
Yet here, Laertes? Aboard, aboard, for shame!
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
And you are stayed for. There, my blessing with thee,
And these few precepts in thy memory.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar;
Those friends thou hast, and their adoptions tried,
Grapple them to thee with a hoop of steel,
But do not dull the palm with entertain
Of every new unfledged courage.
Beware of entrance into a quarrel, but, being in,
Bear it that the opposèd may beware of thee.
Costly thy apparel as thy purse can buy,
But not expressed in fashion,
For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
And they of France of the chief rank and station
Are of a most select and general chief in that.
This above all, to thy own self be true,
And it must follow as the night the day
Thou canst not then be false to any one.
Farewell. My blessing with thee!
3.Sp9Corambis
Marry, well thought on. ’Tis given me to understand
That you have been too prodigal of your maiden presence
Unto Prince Hamlet. If it be so—
As so ’tis given to me, and that in way of caution—
I must tell you, you do not understand yourself
So well as befits my honor and your credit.
3.Sp13Corambis
Springes to catch woodcocks.
What, do not I know when the blood doth burn
How prodigal the tongue lends the heart vows?
In brief, be more scanter of your maiden presence,
Or, tend’ring thus, you’ll tender me a fool.
3.Sp15Corambis
Exeunt.
Ofelia, receive none of his letters,
For lovers’ lines are snares to entrap the heart.
"Refuse his tokens. Both of them are keys
To unlock chastity unto desire.
Come in, Ofelia. Such men often prove
"Great in their words, but little in their love.
Enter Hamlet, Horatio, and Marcellus.
Sound Trumpets.
4.Sp5Hamlet
Oh, the King doth wake tonight, and takes his rouse,
Keeps wassail, and the swaggering up-spring reels,
And as he dreams, his draughts of Rhenish down,
The kettledrum and trumpet thus bray out
The triumphs of his pledge.
4.Sp7Hamlet
Enter the Ghost.
Ay, marry, is’t, and, though I am
Native here and to the manner borne,
It is a custom more honored in the breach
Than in the observance.
4.Sp9Hamlet
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 questionable shape
That I will speak to thee.
I’ll call thee Hamlet, king, father, royal Dane.
Oh, answer me! Let me not burst in ignorance,
But say why thy canonized bones, hearsèd in death,
Have burst their ceremonies, why thy sepulcher,
In which we saw thee quietly interred,
Hath burst his ponderous and marble jaws
To cast thee up again. What may this mean
That thou, dead corse, again in compleat steel,
Revisits thus the glimpses of the moon,
Making night hideous, and we fools of nature,
So horridly to shake our disposition
With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?
Say, speak, wherefore? What may this mean?
4.Sp11Marcellus
Look with what courteous action
It waves you to a more removèd ground.
But do not go with it.
4.Sp14Horatio
What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord,
That beckles o’er his base into the sea,
And there assume some other horrible shape
Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason
And drive you into madness? Think of it.
4.Sp17Hamlet
Why, what should be the fear?
I do not set my life at a pin’s fee,
And, for my soul, what can it do to that,
Being a thing immortal like itself?—
Go on, I’ll follow thee.
4.Sp19Hamlet
Exeunt Ghost and Hamlet.
Exit with Horatio.
My fate cries out, and makes each petty artery
As hardy as the Nemean lion’s nerve.
Still am I called. Unhand me, gentlemen!
By heaven, I’ll make a ghost of him that lets me.
Away, I say!—Go on, I’ll follow thee.
Enter Ghost and Hamlet.
5.Sp4Ghost
I am thy father’s spirit, doomed for a time
To walk the night, and all the day
Confined in flaming fire,
Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
Are purged and burnt away.
5.Sp6Ghost
Nay, pity me not, but to my unfolding
Lend thy lis’tning ear. But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison house,
I would a tale unfold whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes like stars start from their spheres,
Thy knotted and combinèd locks to part,
And each particular hair to stand on end
Like quills upon the fretful porpentine.
But this same blazon must not be, to ears of flesh and blood.
Hamlet, if ever thou didst thy dear father love—
5.Sp10Ghost
Yea, murder in the highest degree,
As in the least ’tis bad,
But mine most foul, beastly, and unnatural.
5.Sp11Hamlet
Haste me to know it, that with wings as swift as
Meditation, or the thought of it, may sweep to my revenge.
5.Sp12Ghost
Oh, I find thee apt, and duller shouldst thou be
Than the fat weed which roots itself in ease
On Lethe wharf. Brief let me be.
’Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard,
A serpent stung me; so the whole ear of Denmark
Is with a forgèd process of my death rankly abused.
But know, thou noble youth: he that did sting
Thy father’s heart now wears his crown.
5.Sp14Ghost
Yea, he, that incestuous wretch, won to his will with gifts—
Oh, wicked will and gifts that have the power
So to seduce!—my most seeming virtuous Queen.
But virtue, as it never will be moved,
Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven,
So lust, though to a radiant angel linked,
Would sate itself from a celestial bed
And prey on garbage. But soft, methinks
I scent the mornings air. Brief let me be.
Sleeping within my orchard, my custom always
In the afternoon, upon my secure hour
Thy uncle came, with juice of hebona
In a vial, and through the porches of my ears
Did pour the lep’rous distillment, whose effect
Hold such an enmity with blood of man
That swift as quicksilver it posteth through
The natural gates and alleys of the body,
And turns the thin and wholesome blood
Like eager droppings into milk,
And all my smooth body, barked and tettered over.
Thus was I sleeping by a brother’s hand
Of crown, of queen, of life, of dignity
At once deprived, no reckoning made of,
But sent unto my grave,
With all my accompts and sins upon my head.
Oh, horrible, most horrible!
5.Sp16Ghost
Exit
If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not.
But howsoever, let not thy heart
Conspire against thy mother aught;
Leave her to heaven,
And to the burden that her conscience bears.
I must be gone. The glow-worm shows the martin
To be near, and ’gins to pale his uneffectual fire.
Hamlet, adieu, adieu, adieu! Remember me.
5.Sp17Hamlet
Enter Horatio and Marcellus.
O all you host of heaven! O earth! What else?
And shall I couple hell? Remember thee?
Yes, thou poor ghost. From the tables
Of my memory I’ll wipe away all saws of books,
All trivial fond conceits
That ever youth or else observance noted,
And thy remembrance all alone shall sit.
Yes, yes, by heaven, a damned pernicious villain,
Murderous, bawdy, smiling, damnèd villain!
My tables—meet it is I set it down,
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain;
At least I am sure it may be so in Denmark.
So uncle, there you are, there you are.
Now to the words: it is "Adieu, adieu! Remember me."
So ’tis enough. I have sworn.
5.Sp34Hamlet
Right, you are in the right, and therefore
I hold it meet without more circumstance at all,
We shake hands and part; you as your business
And desires shall lead you—for look you,
Every man hath business and desires, such
As it is—and for my own poor part, I’ll go pray.
5.Sp38Hamlet
The Ghost under the stage.
Yes, by Saint Patrick, but there is, Horatio,
And much offense too. Touching this vision,
It is an honest ghost, that let me tell you.
For your desires to know what is between us,
O’ermaster it as you may.
And now, kind friends, as you are friends,
Scholars and gentlemen,
Grant me one poor request.
5.Sp51Hamlet
Hic et ubique? Nay then, we’ll shift our ground.
Come hither, gentlemen, and lay your hands
Again upon this sword, never to speak
Of that which you have seen, swear by my sword.
5.Sp53Hamlet
Well said, old mole. Canst work in the earth?
So fast, a worthy pioneer. Once more remove.
5.Sp55Hamlet
And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in the heaven and earth, Horatio,
Then are dreamt of in your philosophy.
But come here, as before, you never shall—
How strange or odd soe’er I bear myself,
As I perchance hereafter shall think meet
To put an antic disposition on—
That you at such times seeing me never shall
With arms encumb’red thus, or this headshake,
Or by pronouncing some undoubtful phrase,
As "Well, well, we know," or "We could an if we would,"
Or "There be, an if they might," or such ambiguous
Giving out, to note that you know aught of me:
This not to do, so grace and mercy
At your most need help you, swear.
5.Sp57Hamlet
Exeunt.
Rest, rest, perturbed spirit. So, gentlemen,
In all my love I do commend me to you,
And what so poor a man as Hamlet may
To pleasure you, God willing shall not want.
Nay, come, let’s go together.
But 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!
Nay, come, let’s go together.
Enter Corambis and Montano.
6.Sp1Corambis
Montano, here, these letters to my son,
And this same money with my blessing to him,
And bid him ply his learning, good Montano.
6.Sp3Corambis
You shall do very well, Montano, to say thus:
"I knew the gentleman," or "know his father,"
To inquire the manner of his life,
As thus; being amongst his acquaintance,
You may say, you saw him at such a time, mark you me,
At game, or drinking, swearing, or drabbing,
You may go so far.
6.Sp5Corambis
I’faith, not a whit, no, not a whit.
Now happily he closeth with you in the consequence,
As you may bridle it, not disparage him a jot.
What was I about to say?
6.Sp7Corambis
Exit.
Enter Ofelia.
Ay, you say right, he closeth with him thus,
This will he say—let me see what he will say—
Marry, this: "I saw him yesterday," or "t’other day,"
Or "then," or "at such time," "a-dicing,"
Or "at tennis," ay, or "drinking drunk," or "ent’ring
Of a house of lightness," viz. brothel.
Thus, sir, do we that know the world, being men of reach,
By indirections find directions forth,
And so shall you my son. You ha’ me, ha’ you not?
6.Sp14Ofelia
O my dear father, such a change in nature,
So great an alteration in a prince,
So pitiful to him, fearful to me,
A maiden’s eye ne’er lookèd on!
6.Sp16Ofelia
Oh, young Prince Hamlet, the only flower of Denmark,
He is bereft of all the wealth he had!
The jewel that adorned his feature most
Is filched and stol’n away: his wit’s bereft him.
He found me walking in the gallery all alone.
There comes he to me, with a distracted look,
His garters lagging down, his shoes untied,
And fixed his eyes so steadfast on my face
As if they had vowed this is their latest object.
Small while he stood, but grips me by the wrist,
And there he holds my pulse till, with a sigh,
He doth unclasp his hold and parts away
Silent as is the mid time of the night.
And as he went, his eye was still on me,
For thus his head over his shoulder looked.
He seemed to find the way without his eyes,
For out of doors he went without their help,
And so did leave me.
6.Sp19Corambis
Exeunt
Why, that hath made him mad.
By heav’n, ’tis as proper for our age to cast
Beyond ourselves as ’tis for the younger sort
To leave their wantonness. Well, I am sorry
That I was so rash. But what remedy?
Let’s to the King. This madness may prove,
Though wild awhile, yet more true to thy love.
Enter King and Queen, Rossencraft and Gilderstone.
7.Sp1King
Right noble friends, that our dear cousin Hamlet
Hath lost the very heart of all his sense,
It is most right, and we most sorry for him.
Therefore we do desire, even as you tender
Our care to him and our great love to you,
That you will labor but to wring from him
The cause and ground of his distemperancy.
Do this, the King of Denmark shall be thankful.
7.Sp2Rossencraft
My lord, whatsoever lies within our power
Your majesty may more command in words
Than use persuasions to your liege men, bound
By love, by duty, and obedience.
7.Sp3Gilderstone
Enter Corambis and Ofelia.
What we may do for both your majesties
To know the grief troubles the prince your son,
We will endeavor all the best we may;
So in all duty do we take our leave.
7.Sp8Corambis
Enter the Ambassadors Voltemar and Cornelia, with a diplomatic dispatch.
Have I, my lord? I assure your grace,
I hold my duty as I hold my life,
Both to my God and to my sovereign King;
And I believe, or else this brain of mine
Hunts not the train of policy so well
As it had wont to do, but I have found
The very depth of Hamlet’s lunacy.
7.Sp11Voltemar
The King is handed a document.
Most fair returns of greetings and desires.
Upon our first he sent forth to suppress
His nephew’s levies, which to him appeared
To be a preparation ’gainst the Polack;
But, better looked into, he truly found
It was against your highness, whereat grieved
That so his sickness, age, and impotence
Was falsely borne in hand, sends out arrests
On Fortenbrasse, 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 three thousand crowns in annual fee
And his commission to employ those soldiers,
So levied as before, against the Polack,
With an entreaty herein further shown
That it would please you to give quiet pass
Through your dominions for that enterprise
On such regards of safety and allowances
As therein are set down.
7.Sp12King
Exeunt Ambassadors.
It likes us well, and at fit time and leisure
We’ll read and answer these his articles.
Meantime, we thank you for your well
Took labor. Go to your rest. At night we’ll feast together.
Right welcome home.
7.Sp13Corambis
This business is very well dispatched.
Now, my lord, touching the young Prince Hamlet,
Certain it is that he is mad. Mad let us grant him, then.
Now to know the cause of this effect,
Or else to say the cause of this defect,
For this effect defective comes by cause—
7.Sp15Corambis
Madam I will. My lord, I have a daughter,
Have while she’s mine; for that we think
Is surest we often lose. Now to the prince.
My lord, but note this letter,
The which my daughter in obedience
Delivered to my hands.
7.Sp17Corambis
Mark, my lord.
"Doubt that in earth is fire,
Doubt that the stars do move,
Doubt truth to be a liar,
But do not doubt I love.
To the beautiful Ofelia.
Thine ever, the most unhappy Prince Hamlet."
My lord, what do you think of me?
Ay, or what might you think when I saw this?
7.Sp19Corambis
I would be glad to prove so.
Now when I saw this letter, thus I bespake my maiden:
"Lord Hamlet is a prince out of your star,
And one that is unequal for your love."
Therefore I did command her refuse his letters,
Deny his tokens, and to absent herself.
She as my child obediently obeyed me.
Now, since which time, seeing his love thus crossed,
Which I took to be idle and but sport,
He straightway grew into a melancholy,
From that unto a fast, then unto distraction,
Then into a sadness, from that unto a madness,
And so, by continuance and weakness of the brain,
Into this frenzy which now possesseth him.
And if this be not true, take this from this.
7.Sp21Corambis
How? So, my lord, I would very fain know
That thing that I have said ’tis so, positively,
And it hath fallen out otherwise.
Nay, if circumstances lead me on,
I’ll find it out if it were hid
As deep as the center of the earth.
7.Sp23Corambis
Enter Hamlet.
Exit.
The King and Corambis conceal themselves.
Marry, my good lord, thus:
The Prince’s walk is here in the gallery;
There let Ofelia walk until he comes.
Yourself and I will stand close in the study.
There shall you hear the effect of all his heart,
And if it prove any otherwise than love,
Then let my censure fail another time.
7.Sp28Hamlet
To be, or not to be, ay, there’s the point,
To die, to sleep, is that all? Ay, all.
No, to sleep, to dream, ay, marry, there it goes,
For in that dream of death, when we awake,
And borne before an everlasting judge,
From whence no passenger ever returned,
The undiscovered country, at whose sight
The happy smile, and the accursèd damned.
But for this, the joyful hope of this,
Who’d bear the scorns and flattery of the world,
Scorned by the right rich, the rich cursed of the poor,
The widow being oppressed, the orphan wronged,
The taste of hunger, or a tyrant’s reign,
And thousand more calamities besides,
To grunt and sweat under this weary life,
When that he may his full quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would this endure,
But for a hope of something after death?
Which puzzles the brain, and doth confound the sense,
Which makes us rather bear those evils we have
Than fly to others that we know not of.
Ay, that. Oh, this conscience makes cowards of us all.—
Lady, in thy orisons be all my sins remembered.
7.Sp29Ofelia
My lord, I have sought opportunity, which now
I have, to redeliver to your worthy hands a small
remembrance, such tokens which I have received of you.
7.Sp36Hamlet
Yea, marry, may it; for beauty may sooner transform
Honesty from what she was into a bawd
Than honesty can transform beauty.
This was sometimes a paradox,
But now the time gives it scope.
I never gave you nothing.
7.Sp37Ofelia
My lord, you know right will you did,
And with them such earnest vows of love
As would have moved the stoniest breast alive.
But now too true I find:
Rich gifts wax poor when givers grow unkind.
7.Sp40Hamlet
Oh, thou shouldst not ha’ believed me!
Go to a nunnery, go. Why shouldst thou
Be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest,
But I could accuse myself of such crimes
S
It had been better my mother had ne’er borne me.
Oh, I am very proud, ambitious, disdainful,
With more sins at my beck than I have thoughts
To put them in. What should such fellows as I
Do, crawling between heaven and earth?
To a nunnery, go. We are arrant knaves all.
Believe none of us. To a nunnery, go.
7.Sp44Hamlet
For God’s sake, let the doors be shut on him,
He may play the fool nowhere but in his
Own house. To a nunnery, go.
7.Sp46Hamlet
If thou dost marry, I’ll give thee
This plague to thy dowry:
Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow,
Thou shalt not scape calumny. To a nunnery, go.
7.Sp48Hamlet
But if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool,
For wise men know well enough
What monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go.
7.Sp50Hamlet
Exit.
Nay, I have heard of your paintings, too.
God hath given you one face
And you make yourselves another.
You fig, and you amble, and you nickname God’s creatures,
Making your wantonness your ignorance.
A pox, ’tis scurvy. I’ll no more of it.
It hath made me mad. I’ll no more marriages.
All that are married, but one, shall live;
The rest shall keep as they are. To a nunnery, go.
To a nunnery, go!
7.Sp51Ofelia
Exit.
Enter King and Corambis coming forward from concealment.
Great God of heaven, what a quick change is this?
The courtier, scholar, soldier, all in him,
All dashed and splintered thence. Oh, woe is me,
To ha’ seen what I have seen, see what I see!
7.Sp53Corambis
Exit King.
Enter Hamlet.
Well, something it is. My lord, content you awhile.
I will myself go feel him. Let me work.
I’ll try him every way. See where he comes.
Send you those gentlemen. Let me alone
To find the depth of this. Away, be gone!
7.Sp57Hamlet
Then, sir, I would you were so honest a man.
For to be honest, as this age goes,
Is one man to be picked out of ten thousand.
7.Sp63Hamlet
Marry, most vile heresy:
For here the satirical satyr writes
That old men have hollow eyes, weak backs,
Grey beards, pitiful weak hams, gouty legs,
All which, sir, I most potently believe not.
For, sir, yourself shall be old as I am,
If, like a crab, you could go backward.
7.Sp64Corambis
How pregnant his replies are, and full of wit!
Yet at first he took me for a fishmonger.
All this comes by love, the vehemency of love;
And when I was young, I was very idle,
And suffered much ecstasy in love, very near this.—
Will you walk out of the air, my lord?
7.Sp66Corambis
Enter Gilderstone and Rossencraft.
By the mass, that’s out of the air, indeed,
Very shrewd answers.—
My lord, I will take my leave of you.
7.Sp67Hamlet
Exit.
You can take nothing from me, sir,
I will more willingly part withal.—
Old doting fool!
7.Sp71Gilderstone
We thank your grace, and would be very glad
You were as when we were at Wittenberg.
7.Sp72Hamlet
I thank you, but is this vistitation free of
Yourselves, or were you not sent for?
Tell me true, come. I know the good King and Queen
Sent for you. There is a kind of confession in your eye.
Come, I know you were sent for.
7.Sp75Rossencraft
My lord, we were, and willingly, if we might,
Know the cause and ground of your discontent.
7.Sp78Hamlet
Yes, faith, this great world you see contents me not,
No, nor the spangled heavens, nor earth, nor sea;
No, nor man, that is so glorious a creature,
Contents not me—no, nor woman too, though you laugh.
7.Sp82Gilderstone
What entertainment the players shall have?
We boarded them o’the way. They are coming to you.
7.Sp88Gilderstone
I’faith, my lord, novelty carries it away.
For the principal public audience that
Came to them are turned to private plays,
And to the humor of children.
7.Sp89Hamlet
I do not greatly wonder of it,
For those that would make mops and mows
At my uncle when my father lived
Now give a hundred, two hundred pounds
For his picture. But they shall be welcome.
He that plays the King shall have tribute of me,
The vent’rous Knight shall use his foil and target,
The Lover shall sigh gratis,
The Clown shall make them laugh
That are tickled in the lungs, or the blank verse shall halt for’t,
And the Lady shall have leave to speak her mind freely.
Do you see yonder great baby?
He is not yet out of his swaddling-clouts.
7.Sp91Hamlet
I’ll prophesy to you he comes to tell me o’the players.—
You say true, o’Monday last, ’twas so indeed.
7.Sp96Corambis
The best actors in Christendom,
Either for comedy, tragedy, history, pastoral,
Pastoral-historical, historical-comical,
Comical-historical-pastoral, tragedy-historical:
Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plato too light;
For the law hath writ those are the only men.
7.Sp100Corambis
Ah, still harping o’my daughter!'—Well, my lord,
If you call me Iephthah, I have a daughter that
I love passing well.
7.Sp103Hamlet
Why, by lot, or God wot, or as it came to pass,
And so it was, the first verse of the godly ballad
Will tell you all. For look you where my abridgement comes.
Welcome masters! Welcome all.—
What, my old friend, thy face is valanced
Since I saw thee last. Com’st thou to beard me in Denmark?—
My young lady and mistress! By’r Lady, but your
Ladyship is grown by the altitude of a chopine higher than you were.
Pray God, sir, your voice, like a piece of uncurrent
Gold, be not cracked in the ring.— Come on, masters,
We’ll even to’t, like French falconers,
Fly at any thing we see. Come, a taste of your
Quality, a speech, a passionate speech.
7.Sp105Hamlet
I heard thee speak a speech once,
But it was never acted, or, if it were,
Never above twice, for, as I remember,
It pleased not the vulgar; it was caviary
To the million. But to me
And others that received it in the like kind,
Cried in the top of their judgments, an excellent play,
Set down with as great modesty as cunning.
One said there was no sallets in the lines to make them savory,
But called it an honest method, as wholesome as sweet.
Come, a speech in it I chiefly remember
was Aeneas’ tale to Dido,
And then especially where he talks of princes’ slaughter.
If it live in thy memory, begin at this line—
Let me see’—
The rugged Pyrrhus, like th’Hycarnian beast’—
No, ’tis not so. It begins with Pyrrhus:
Oh, I have it.
The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable arms,
Black as his purpose, did the night resemble
When he lay couchèd in the ominous horse,
Hath now his black and grim complexion smeared
With heraldry more dismal. Head to foot
Now is he total guise, horridly tricked
With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons.
Baked and imparchèd in calagulate gore,
Rifted in earth and fire, old grandsire Pram seeks.
So, go on.
7.Sp107Player
Anon he finds him striking too short at Greeks.
His antic sword, rebellious to his arm,
Lies where it falls, unable to resist.
Pyrrus at Priam drives, but, all in rage,
Strikes wide; but with the whiff and wind
Of his fell sword, th’unnervèd father falls.
7.Sp109Hamlet
It shall to the barber’s with your beard.
A pox! He’s for a jig or a tale of bawdry,
Or else he sleeps. Come on to Hecuba, come.
7.Sp112Player
All in the alarum and fear of death rose up,
And o’er her weak and all o’er-teeming loins a blanket
And a kercher on that head where late the diadem stood,
Who this had seen, with tongue-envenomed speech
Would treason have pronounced,
For if the gods themselves had seen her then,
When she saw Pyrrhus with malicious strokes
Mincing her husband’s limbs,
It would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven,
And passion in the gods.
7.Sp113Corambis
Look, my Lord, if he hath not changed his color,
and hath tears in his eyes.—No more, good heart, no more!
7.Sp114Hamlet
’Tis well, ’tis very well. I pray, my lord,
Will you see the players well bestowed?
I tell you, they are the chronicles
And brief abstracts of the time.
After your death, I can tell you,
You were better have a bad epitaph
Than their ill report while you live.
7.Sp116Hamlet
Exit.
Oh, far better, man. Use every man after his deserts,
Then who should scape whipping?
Use them after your own honor and dignity.
The less they deserve, the greater credit’s yours.
7.Sp118Hamlet
(
As the Players are about to follow Corambis
) Come hither, masters. Can you not play "The
Murder of Gonzago"?
7.Sp120Hamlet
And couldst not thou for a need study me
Some dozen or sixteen lines,
Which I would set down and insert?
7.Sp122Hamlet
Exeunt all but Hamlet.
’Tis well. I thank you. Follow that lord.
And, do you hear, sirs? Take heed you mock him not.
Gentlemen, for your kindness I thank you,
And for a time I would desire you leave me.
7.Sp124Hamlet
Exit.
Why, what a dunghill idiot slave am I!
Why, these players here draw water from eyes:
For Hecuba. Why, what is Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba?
What would he do an if he had my loss?
His father murdered, and a crown bereft him?
He would turn all his tears to drops of blood,
Amaze the standers-by with his laments,
Strike more than wonder in the judicial ears,
Confound the ignorant, and make mute the wise.
Indeed, his passion would be general.
Yet I, like to an ass and John-a-Dreams,
Having my father murdered by a villain,
Stand still, and let it pass. Why, sure I am a coward.
Who plucks me by the beard, or twits my nose,
Gives me the lie i’th’ throat down to the lungs?
Sure I should take it, or else I have no gall,
Or by this I should ha’ fatted all the region kites
With this slave’s offal, this damned villain,
Treacherous, bawdy, murderous villain!
Why, this is brave, that I, the son of my dear father,
Should like a scallion, like a very drab,
Thus rail in words. About, my brain!
I have heard that guilty creatures sitting at a play
Hath, by the very cunning of the scene, confessed a murder
Committed long before.
This spirit that I have seen may be the devil,
And out of my weakness and my melancholy,
As he is very potent with such men,
Doth seek to damn me. I will have sounder proofs.
The play’s the thing
Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.
Enter the King, Queen, and Lords Corambis, Rossencraft, and Gilderstone.
8.Sp1King
Lords, can you by no means find
The cause of our son Hamlet’s lunacy?
You being so near in love, even from his youth,
Methinks should gain more than a stranger should.
8.Sp2Gilderstone
My lord, we have done all the best we could
To wring from him the cause of all his grief,
But still he puts us off, and by no means
Would make an answer to that we exposed.
8.Sp3Rossencraft
Yet was he something more inclined to mirth
Before we left him, and, I take it,
He hath given order for a play tonight,
At which he craves your highness’ company.
8.Sp4King
With all our heart; it likes us very well.
Gentlemen, seek still to increase his mirth.
Spare for no cost, our coffers shall be open,
And we unto yourselves will still be thankful.
8.Sp6Queen
Exeunt Rossencraft and Gilderstone.
Thanks, gentlemen, and what the Queen of Denmark
May pleasure you, be sure you shall not want.
Gertred, you’ll see this play?
8.Sp10Corambis
Madam, I pray be ruled by me,
And, my good sovereign, give me leave to speak.
We cannot yet find out the very ground
Of his distemperance. Therefore
I hold it meet, if so it please you,
Else they shall not meet, and thus it is—
8.Sp12Corambis
Exeunt omnes.
Marry, my good lord, this: soon, when the sports are done,
Madam, send you in haste to speak with him,
And I myself will stand behind the arras.
There question you the cause of all his grief,
And then, in love and nature unto you, he’ll tell you all.
My lord, how think you on’t?
Enter Hamlet and the Players.
9.Sp1Hamlet
Pronounce me this speech trippingly o’the tongue
as I taught thee.
Marry, an you mouth it, as a many of your players do,
I’d rather hear a town bull bellow
Than such a fellow speak my lines.
Nor do not saw the air thus with your hands,
But give everything his action with temperance.
Oh, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig fellow
To tear a passion in totters, into very rags,
To split the ears of the ignorant, who for the
Most part are capable of nothing but dumb shows and noises.
I would have such a fellow whipped for o’erdoing Termagant.
It out-Herods Herod.
9.Sp3Hamlet
The better, the better. Mend it altogether.
There be fellows that I have seen play,
And heard others commend them, and that highly too,
That, having neither the gait of Christian, pagan,
Nor Turk, have so strutted and bellowed
That you would ha’ thought some of Nature’s journeymen
Had made men, and not made them well,
They imitated humanity so abhominable.
Take heed, avoid it.
9.Sp5Hamlet
Exeunt Players.
Enter Horatio.
And do you hear? Let not your Clown speak
More than is set down. There be of them, I can tell you,
That will laugh themselves, to set on some
Quantity of barren spectators to laugh with them,
Albeit there is some necessary point in the play
Then to be observed. Oh, ’tis vile, and shows
A pitiful ambition in the fool that useth it.
And then you have some again that keeps one suit
Of jests, as a man is known by one suit of
Apparel, and gentlemen quotes his jests down
In their tables before they come to the play, as thus:
"Cannot you stay till I eat my porridge?" and "You owe me
A quarter’s wages," and "My coat wants a cullison,"
And "Your beer is sour," and blabbering with his lips
And thus keeping in his cinquepace of jests
When, God knows, the warm Clown cannot make a jest
Unless by chance, as the blind man catcheth a hare.
Masters, tell him of it.
9.Sp12Hamlet
Nay, why should I flatter thee?
Why should the poor be flattered?
What gain should I receive by flattering thee,
That nothing hath but thy good mind?
Let flattery sit on those time-pleasing tongues
To gloze with them that loves to hear their praise,
And not with such as thou, Horatio.
There is a play tonight, wherein one scene they have
Comes very near the murder of my father.
When thou shalt see that act afoot,
Mark thou the King; do but observe his looks,
For I mine eyes will rivet to his face.
And if he do not bleach and change at that,
It is a damnèd ghost that we have seen.
Horatio, have a care; observe him well.
9.Sp13Horatio
Enter King, Queen, Corambis, Ofelia, and other Lords Rossencraft and Gilderstone.
My lord, mine eyes shall still be on his face,
And not the smallest alteration
That shall appear in him but I shall note it.
9.Sp16Hamlet
I’faith, the chameleon’s dish, not capon-crammed—
feed o’the air.
Ay, father! (
To Corambis
) My lord, you played in the university.
9.Sp22Hamlet
No, by my faith, mother, here’s a mettle more attractive.
Lady, will you give me leave, and so forth,
To lay my head in your lap?
(Enter, in a dumb-show, the King and the Queen. He sits
down in an arbor. She leaves him. Then enters
Lucianus with poison in a vial, and pours it in his ears, and
goes away. Then the Queen cometh and finds him
dead, and goes away with the other. )
Exeunt Players.
Enter the Prologue.
9.Sp30Hamlet
Ay, or any show you’ll show him.
Be not afeard to show, he’ll not be afeard to tell.
Oh, these players cannot keep counsel. They’ll tell all.
9.Sp31Prologue
Exit.
Enter the Duke and Duchess.
For us, and for our tragedy,
Here stooping to your clemency,
We beg your hearing patiently.
9.Sp35Duke
Full forty years are past—their date is gone—
Since happy time joined both our hearts as one.
And now the blood that filled my youthful veins
Runs weakly in their pipes, and all the strains
Of music, which whilom pleased mine ear,
Is now a burden that age cannot bear.
And therefore sweet Nature must pay his due.
To heaven must I, and leave the earth with you.
9.Sp36Duchess
Oh, say not so, lest that you kill my heart!
When death takes you, let life from me depart!
9.Sp37Duke
Content thyself. When ended is my date,
Thou mayst perchance have a more noble mate,
More wise, more youthful, and one—
9.Sp38Duchess
Oh, speak no more, for then I am accurst!
None weds the second but she kills the first.
A second time I kill my lord that’s dead
When second husband kisses me in bed.
9.Sp40Duke
I do believe you, sweet, what now you speak,
But what we do determine oft we break,
For our demises still are overthrown;
Our thought are ours, their end’s none of our own.
So think you will no second husband wed,
But die thy thoughts when thy first lord is dead.
9.Sp43Duke
Exit Lady.
’Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here awhile.
My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile
The
Tedious time with sleep.
9.Sp51Hamlet
Mousetrap. Marry, how? Trapically. This play is
The image of a murder done in Guiana. Albertus
Was the duke’s name, his wife Baptista.
Father, it is a knavish piece o’work, but what
O’ that? It toucheth not us, you and I that have free
Souls. Let the galled jade wince. This is one
Lucianus, nephew to the King.
9.Sp55Hamlet
Who, I? Your only jig-maker. Why, what should
a man do but be merry? For look how cheerfully my
mother looks; my father died within these two hours.
9.Sp57Hamlet
Two months? Nay, then, let the devil wear black,
For I’ll have a suit of sables. Jesus, two months dead,
And not forgotten yet? Nay, then, there’s some
Likelihood a gentleman’s death may outlive memory.
But, by my faith, he must build churches, then,
Or else he must follow the old epitithe:
"With ho, with ho, the hobby-horse is forgot."
9.Sp61Hamlet
So you must take your husband, begin. Murdered!
Begin. A pox, leave thy damnable faces and begin.
Come, the croaking raven doth bellow for revenge.
9.Sp62Murderer
He pours the poison in the sleeper’s ears.
Exit.
Exeunt King and Lords.
Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing,
Confederate season, else no creature seeing,
Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected,
With Hecate’s bane thrice blasted, thrice infected,
Thy natural magic and dire property
One wholesome life usurps immediately.
9.Sp67Hamlet
Enter Rossencraft and Gilderstone.
Then let the stricken deer go weep,
The heart ungallèd play,
For some must laugh, while some must weep;
Thus runs the world away.
9.Sp72Rossencraft
We are very glad to see your grace so pleasant.
My good lord, let us again entreat
To know of you the ground and cause of your distemperature.
9.Sp80Hamlet
Why look, it is a thing of nothing.
’Tis but stopping of these holes,
And with a little breath from your lips
It will give most delicate music.
9.Sp84Hamlet
Why, how unworthy a thing would you make of me!
You would seem to know my stops, you would play upon me,
You would search the very inward part of my heart
And dive into the secret of my soul.
Zounds, do you think I am easier to be played
On than a pipe? Call me what instrument
You will, though you can fret me, yet you cannot
Play upon me. Besides, to be demanded by a sponge—
9.Sp86Hamlet
Exit Rossencraft and Gilderstone.
Enter Corambis
Exit Corambis.
Exit Horatio.
Ay, sir, a sponge, that soaks up the King’s
Countenance, favors, and rewards, that makes
His liberality your storehouse. But such as you
Do the King, in the end, best service;
For he doth keep you as an ape doth nuts,
In the corner of his jaw: first mouths you,
Then swallows you. So, when he hath need
Of you, ’tis but squeezing of you,
And, sponge, you shall be dry again, you shall.
9.Sp98Hamlet
Exit.
My mother! She hath sent to speak with me.
O God, let ne’er the heart of Nero enter
This soft bosom.
Let me be cruel, not unnatural.
I will speak daggers. Those sharp words being spent,
To do her wrong my soul shall ne’er consent.
Enter the King.
10.Sp1King
He kneels.
Enters Hamlet.
Oh, that this wet that falls upon my face
Would wash the crime clear from my conscience!
When I look up to heaven, I see my trespass;
The earth doth still cry out upon my fact.
Pay me the murder of a brother and a king,
And the adulterous fault I have committed:
Oh, these are sins that are unpardonable!
Why, say thy sins were blacker than is jet,
Yet may contrition make them as white as snow.
Ay, but still to persever in a sin,
It is an act ’gainst the universal power.
Most wretched man, stoop, bend thee to thy prayer,
Ask grace of heaven to keep thee from despair.
10.Sp2Hamlet
Exit Hamlet.
Exit King.
Ay so. Come forth and work thy last.
And thus he dies; and so am I revenged.
No, not so. He took my father sleeping, his sins brim full.
And how his soul stood to the state of heaven,
Who knows, save the immortal powers?
And shall I kill him now,
When he is purging of his soul,
Making his way for heaven? This is a benefit,
And not revenge. No, get thee up again.
When he’s at game, swearing, taking his carouse, drinking drunk,
Or in the incestuous pleasure of his bed,
Or at some act that hath no relish
Of salvation in’t, then trip him,
That his heels may kick at heaven
And fall as low as hell. My mother stays.
This physic but prolongs thy weary days.
Enter Queen and Corambis.
Exit Corambis.
11.Sp12Hamlet
Ay, a rat! Dead, for a ducat!
Rash intruding fool, farewell.
I took thee for thy better.
11.Sp16Hamlet
Ay, a king. Nay, sit you down, and, ere you part,
If you be made of penetrable stuff,
I’ll make your eyes look down into your heart
And see how horrid there and black it shows.
11.Sp18Hamlet
Why, this I mean.
See here, behold this picture.
It is the portraiture of your deceasèd husband.
See here a face to outface Mars himself,
An eye at which his foes did tremble at,
A front wherein all virtues are set down
For to adorn a king and guild his crown,
Whose heart went hand in hand even with that vow
He made to you in marriage; and he is dead.
Murd’red, damnably murd’red. This was your husband.
Look you now, here is your husband,
With a face like Vulcan.
A look fit for a murder and a rape,
A dull, dead, hanging look, and a hell-bred eye,
To affright children and amaze the world.
And this same have you left to change with this.
What devil thus hath cozened you at hob-man blind?
Ah! Have you eyes, and can you look on him
That slew my father and your dear husband,
To live in the incestuous pleasure of his bed?
11.Sp22Hamlet
Nay, but still to persist and dwell in sin,
To sweat under the yoke of infamy,
To make increase of shame, to seal damnation—
11.Sp24Hamlet
Why, appetite with you is in the wane;
Your blood runs backward now from whence it came.
Who’ll chide hot blood within a virgin’s heart
When lust shall dwell within a matron’s breast?
11.Sp26Hamlet
Oh, throw away the worser part of it,
And keep the
Better.
Save me, save me, you gracious
Powers above, and hover over me
With your celestial wings!—
Do you not come your tardy son to chide,
That I thus long have let revenge slip by?
Oh, do not glare with looks so pitiful,
Lest that my heart of stone yield to compassion,
And every part that should assist revenge
Forgo their proper powers and fall to pity!
11.Sp27Ghost
Hamlet, I once again appear to thee
To put thee in remembrance of my death.
Do not neglect, nor long time put it off.
But I perceive by thy distracted looks
Thy mother’s fearful, and she stands amazed.
Speak to her, Hamlet, for her sex is weak.
Comfort thy mother, Hamlet, think on me.
11.Sp29Queen
Nay, how is’t with you
That thus you bend your eyes on vacancy,
And hold discourse with nothing but with air?
11.Sp34Hamlet
Exit Ghost.
No? Why, see the King my father, my father, in the habit
As he lived. Look you how pale he looks!
See how he steals away out of the portal!
Look, there he goes!
11.Sp35Queen
Alas, it is the weakness of thy brain,
Which makes thy tongue to blazon thy heart’s grief.
But, as I have a soul, I swear by heaven
I never knew of this most horrid murder.
But Hamlet, this is only fantasy,
And, for my love forget these idle fits.
11.Sp36Hamlet
Idle? No, mother, my pulse doth beat like yours.
It is not madness that possesseth Hamlet.
O mother, if ever you did my dear father love,
Forbear the adulterous bed tonight,
And win yourself by little as you may.
In time it may be you will loathe him quite.
And, mother, but assist me in revenge,
And in his death your infamy shall die.
11.Sp37Queen
Hamlet, I vow, by that Majesty
That knows our thoughts and looks into our hearts,
I will conceal, consent, and do my best,
What stratagem soe’er thou shalt devise.
11.Sp38Hamlet
Exit Hamlet with the dead body.
Enter the King and Lords Rossencraft and Gilderstone.
It is enough. Mother, good night.—
Come, sir, I’ll provide for you a grave,
Who was in life a foolish, prating knave.
11.Sp40Queen
Exeunt Lords.
Alas, my lord, as raging as the sea.
Whenas he came, I first bespake him fair,
But then he throws and tosses me about,
As one forgetting that I was his mother.
At last I called for help, and, as I cried, Corambis
Called. Which Hamlet no sooner heard but whips me
Out his rapier, and cries, "A rat, a rat!" and in his rage
The good old man he kills.
11.Sp43King
Enter Hamlet and the Lords Rossencraft, Gilderstone, and perhaps another.
Gertred, your son shall presently to England.
His shipping is already furnishèd,
And we have sent by Rossencraft and Gilderstone
Our letters to our dear brother of England
For Hamlet’s welfare and his happiness.
Haply the air and climate of the country
May please him better than his native home.
See where he comes.
11.Sp46Hamlet
At supper, not where he is eating, but
Where he is eaten; a certain company of politic worms
Are even now at him.
Father, your fat king and your lean beggar
Are but variable services: two dishes to one mess.
Look you, a man may fish with that worm
That hath eaten of a king,
And a beggar eat that fish
Which that worm hath caught.
11.Sp48Hamlet
Nothing, father, but to tell you, how a king
May go a progress through the guts of a beggar.
11.Sp50Hamlet
Exit a Lord.
In heav’n. If you chance to miss him there,
Father, you had best look in the other parts below
For him, and if you cannot find him there
You may chance to nose him as you go up the lobby.
11.Sp52Hamlet
Nay, do you hear? Do not make too much haste.
I’ll warrant you he’ll stay till you come.
11.Sp53King
Well, son Hamlet, we, in care of you, but specially
In tender preservation of your health,
The which we price even as our proper self,
It is our mind you forthwith go for England.
The wind sits fair. You shall aboard tonight.
Lord Rossencraft and Gilderstone shall go along with you.
11.Sp56Hamlet
Exeunt all but the King and Queen.
My mother, I say. You married my mother,
My mother is your wife; man and wife is one flesh;
And so, my mother, farewell. For England, ho!
11.Sp57King
Exit.
Gertred, leave me,
And take your leave of Hamlet.
To England is he gone, ne’er to return.
Our letters are unto the King of England,
That, on the sight of them, on his allegiance,
He presently, without demanding why,
That Hamlet lose his head, for he must die.
There’s more in him than shallow eyes can see.
He once being dead, why then our state is free.
Enter Fortenbrasse, Drum, and Soldiers.
12.Sp1Fortenbrasse
Exeunt all.
Captain, from us go greet
The King of Denmark.
Tell him that Fortenbrasse, nephew to old Norway,
Craves a free pass and conduct over his land,
According to the articles agreed on.
You know our rendezvous. Go, march away!
Enter King and Queen.
13.Sp1King
Hamlet is shipped for England. Fare him well.
I hope to hear good news from thence ere long,
If everything fall out to our content,
As I do make no doubt but so it shall.
13.Sp2Queen
God grant it may. Heav’ns keep my Hamlet safe!
But this mischance of old Corambis’ death
Hath piercèd so the young Ofelia’s heart
That she, poor maid, is quite bereft her wits.
13.Sp3King
Enter Ofelia playing on a lute, and her hair
down, singing.
Alas, dear heart! And on the other side
We understand her brother’s come from France,
And he hath half the heart of all our land;
And hardly he’ll forget his father’s death
Unless by some means he be pacified.
13.Sp5Ofelia
“How should I your true love know
From another man?
By his cockle hat and his staff,
And his sandal shoon.
White his shroud as mountain snow,
Larded with sweet flowers,
That bewept to the grave did not go
With true lovers’ showers.
He is dead and gone, lady,
he is dead and gone.
At his head a grass green turf,
At his heels a stone.”
13.Sp7Ofelia
She sings.
Well, God yield you.
It grieves me to see how they laid him in the cold ground.
I could not choose but weep.
13.Sp8Ofelia
Exit Ofelia.
And will he not come again?
And will he not come again?
No, no, he’s gone, and we cast away moan,
And he never will come again.
His beard as white as snow;
All flaxen was his poll.
He is dead, he is gone,
And we cast away moan.
God ha’ mercy on his soul!
13.Sp10King
A noise within.
Enter Laertes.
A pretty wretch! This is a change indeed.
O Time, how swiftly runs our joys away!
Content on earth was never certain bred.
Today we laugh and live, tomorrow dead.
How now, what noise is that?
13.Sp11Laertes
The Queen attempts to restrain him.
Stay there until I come.—
O thou vile king, give me my father!
Speak, say, where’s my father?
13.Sp16King
Let him go, Gertred. Away! I fear him not.
There’s such divinity doth wall a king
That treason dares not look on.
Let him go, Gertred.—That your father is murdered,
’Tis true, and we most sorry for it,
Being the chiefest pillar of our state.
Therefore will you, like a most desperate gamester,
Swoopstake-like, draw at friend and foe and all?
13.Sp17Laertes
To his good friends thus wide I’ll ope mine arms
And lock them in my heart, but to his foes
I will no reconcilement but by blood.
13.Sp18King
Enter Ofelia as before.
Why, now you speak like a most loving son.
And that in soul we sorrow for his death,
Yourself ere long shall be a witness.
Meanwhile, be patient and content yourself.
13.Sp19Laertes
Who’s this, Ofelia? O my dear sister!
Is’t possible a young maid’s life
Should be as mortal as an old man’s saw?
O heav’ns themselves!—How now, Ofelia?
13.Sp20Ofelia
Well, God-a-mercy. I ha’ been gathering of flowers.
Here, here is rue for you.
You may call it herb-a-grace o’Sundays.
Here’s some for me, too. You must wear your rue
With a difference. There’s a daisy.
Here, love, there’s rosemary for you
for remembrance. I pray, love, remember.
And there’s pansy for thoughts.
13.Sp22Ofelia
There is fennel for you. I would ha’ giv’n you
Some violets, but they all withered when
My father died. Alas, they say the owl was
A baker’s daughter. We see what we are,
But cannot tell what we shall be.
For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.
13.Sp24Ofelia
Exit Ofelia.
Nay, love, I pray you make no words of this now.
I pray now, you shall sing "a-down,"
And you "a- down-a." ’Tis o’the King’s daughter
And the false steward, and if anybody
Ask you of anything, say you this:
“
Tomorrow is Saint Valentine’s day,
All in the morning betime,
And a maid at your window
To be your Valentine.
The young man rose,
And donned his clothes,
And dupped the chamber door,
Let in the maid, that out a maid
Never departed more.”
Nay, I pray, mark now:
“
By Gis and by Saint Charity
Away, and fie for shame!
Young men will do’t when they come to’t;
By Cock, they are to blame.
Quoth she, ‘Before you tumbled me,
You promised me to wed.ʼ
‘So would I ha’ done, by yonder sun,
If thou hadst not come to my bed.ʼ”
So, God be with you all. God b’w'y’, ladies.
God b’w'y’ you, love.
13.Sp25Laertes
Grief upon grief! My father murdered,
My sister thus distracted:
Cursed be his soul that wrought this wicked act!
13.Sp26King
Content you, good Laertes, for a time,
Although I know your grief is as a flood,
Brimful of sorrow; but forbear awhile,
And think already the revenge is done
On him that makes you such a hapless son.
13.Sp27Laertes
Exeunt omnes.
You have prevailed, my lord. Awhile I’ll strive
To bury grief within a tomb of wrath,
Which once unhearsed, then the world shall hear
Laertes had a father he held dear.
Enter Horatio with a letter and the Queen.
14.Sp1Horatio
Madam, your son is safe arrived in Denmark.
This letter I even now received of him,
Whereas he writes how he escaped the danger
And subtle treason that the King had plotted.
Being crossed by the contention of the winds,
He found the packet sent to the King of England,
Wherein he saw himself betrayed to death,
As, at his next convers’ion with your grace,
He will relate the circumstance at full.
14.Sp2Queen
Then I perceive there’s treason in his looks
That seemed to sugar o’er his villainy.
But I will soothe and please him for a time,
For murderous minds are always jealous.
But know not you, Horatio, where he is?
14.Sp3Horatio
Yes, madam, and he hath appointed me
To meet him on the east side of the city
Tomorrow morning.
14.Sp4Queen
Oh, fail not, good Horatio, and withal commend me
A mother’s care to him. Bid him awhile
Be wary of his presence, lest that he
Fail in that he goes about.
14.Sp5Horatio
Madam, never make doubt of that.
I think by this the news be come to court:
He is arrived. Observe the King, and you shall
Quickly find, Hamlet being here,
Things fell not to his mind.
14.Sp7Horatio
He being set ashore, they went for England,
And in the packet there writ down that doom
To be performed on them ’pointed for him.
And by great chance he had his father’s seal,
So all was done without discovery.
14.Sp8Queen
Exeunt.
Thanks be to heaven for blessing of the Prince!
Horatio, once again I take my leave,
With thousand mother’s blessings to my son.
Enter King and Laertes.
15.Sp1King
Hamlet from England! Is it possible?
What chance is this? They are gone, and he come home!
15.Sp2Laertes
Oh, he is welcome, by my soul he is!
At it my jocund heart doth leap for joy,
That I shall live to tell him: thus he dies.
15.Sp5King
Nay, but Laertes, mark the plot I have laid:
I have heard him often, with a greedy wish,
Upon some praise that he hath heard of you
Touching your weapon, wish with all his heart
He might be once tasked for to try your cunning.
15.Sp7King
Marry, Laertes, thus: I’ll lay a wager,
Shall be on Hamlet’s side, and you shall give the odds,
The which will draw him with a more desire
To try the maistry, that in twelve venies
You gain not three of him. Now, this being granted,
When you are hot in midst of all your play,
Among the foils shall a keen rapier lie,
Steeped in a mixture of deadly poison
That, if it draws but the least dram of blood
In any part of him, he cannot live.
This being done will free you from suspicion,
And not the dearest friend that Hamlet loved
Will ever have Laertes in suspect.
15.Sp9King
Enter the Queen.
I’ll warrant you, we’ll put on you
Such a report of singularity
Will bring him on, although against his will.
And, lest that all should miss,
I’ll have a potion that shall ready stand,
In all his heat when that he calls for drink,
Shall be his period and our happiness.
15.Sp12Queen
O my lord, the young Ofelia,
Having made a garland of sundry sorts of flowers,
Sitting upon a willow by a brook,
The envious sprig broke. Into the brook she fell,
And for a while her clothes, spread wide abroad,
Bore the young lady up; and there she sat smiling,
Even mermaid-like, ’twixt heaven and earth,
Chanting old sundry tunes, uncapable,
As it were, of her distress. But long it could not be
Till that her clothes, being heavy with their drink,
Dragged the sweet wretch to death.
15.Sp13Laertes
Exeunt.
So, she is drowned.
Too much of water hast thou, Ofelia;
Therefore I will not drown thee in my tears.
Revenge it is must yield this heart relief,
For woe begets woe, and grief hangs on grief.
Enter Clown Gravedigger and another.
16.Sp71 Clown
No, I deny that, for look you, sir, I stand here.
If the water come to me, I drown not myself.
But if I go to the water, and am there drowned,
Ergo I am guilty of my own death.
Y’are gone, go, y’are gone, sir.
16.Sp91 Clown
Marry, more’s the pity that great folk
Should have more authority to hang or drown
Themselves more than other people.
Go fetch me a stoup of drink. But before thou
Goest, tell me one thing: who builds strongest
Of a mason, a shipwright, or a carpenter?
16.Sp122 Clown
Why, then, a carpenter, for he builds the gallows,
And that brings many a one to his long home.
16.Sp131 Clown
Pretty again. The gallows doth well. Marry, how
does it well? The gallows does well to them that do ill.
Go get thee gone.
16.Sp141 Clown
Exit Second Clown.
Enter Hamlet and Horatio.
And if anyone ask thee hereafter, say,
A grave-maker, for the houses he builds
Last till Doomsday. Fetch me a stoup of beer, go.
16.Sp151 Clown
“A pick-ax and a spade,
A spade, for and a winding sheet,
Most fit it is, for ’twill be made
(He throws up a shovel.)
For such a guest most meet.”
16.Sp16Hamlet
Hath this fellow any feeling of himself,
That is thus merry in making of a grave?
See how the slave jowls their heads against the earth!
16.Sp181 Clown
He throws up skull.
“A pick-ax and a spade, a spade,
For and a winding sheet,
Most fit it is for to be made
For such a guest most meet.”
16.Sp19Hamlet
Look you, there’s another, Horatio.
Why may’t not be the skull of some lawyer?
Methinks he should indict that fellow
Of an action of battery, for knocking
Him about the pate with’s shovel. Now where is your
Quirks and quillets now, your vouchers and
Double vouchers, your leases and freehold
And tenements? Why, that same box there will scarce
Hold the conveyance of his land, and must
The honor lie there? Oh, pitiful transformance!
I prithee tell me, Horatio,
Is parchment made of sheepskins?
16.Sp21Hamlet
I’faith, they prove themselves sheep and calves
That deal with them, or put their trust in them.
There’s another. Why may not that be Such-a-one’s
Skull, that praised my Lord Such-a-one’s horse
When he meant to beg him? Horatio, I prithee
Let’s question yonder fellow. —
Now, my friend, whose grave is this?
16.Sp29Hamlet
An excellent fellow, by the Lord, Horatio.
This seven years have I noted it: the toe of the peasant
Comes so near the heel of the courtier
That he galls his kibe. I prithee tell me one thing:
How long will a man lie in the ground before he rots?
16.Sp301 Clown
I’faith, sir, if he be not rotten before
He be laid in, as we have many pocky corses,
He will last you eight years. A tanner
Will last you eight years full out, or nine.
16.Sp321 Clown
Why, his hide is so tanned with his trade
That it will hold out water, that’s a parlous
Devourer of your dead body, a great soaker.
Look you, here’s a skull hath been here this dozen year—
Let me see, ay, ever since our last king Hamlet
Slew Fortenbrasse in combat, young Hamlet’s father,
He that’s mad.
16.Sp401 Clown
Why, they say he shall have his wits there.
Or if he have not, ’tis no great matter there.
It will not be seen there.
16.Sp441 Clown
This? A plague on him, a mad rogue’s it was.
He poured once a whole flagon of Rhenish of my head.
Why, do not you know him? This was one Yorick’s skull.
16.Sp46Hamlet
A fellow of infinite mirth. He hath carried me twenty times
upon his back. Here hung those lips that I have kissed a
hundred times, and to see, now they abhor me.—Where’s
your jests now, Yorick? Your flashes of merriment? Now go
to my lady’s chamber and bid her paint herself an inch
thick, to this she must come, Yorick.—Horatio, I prithee
tell me one thing. Dost thou think that Alexander looked
thus?
16.Sp50Hamlet
Enter King and Queen, Laertes, and other Lords,
with a Priest after the coffin.
No? Why might not imagination work as thus of
Alexander: Alexander died. Alexander was buried. Alexander
became earth. Of earth we make clay. And Alexander being
but clay, why might not time bring to pass that he might
stop the bunghole of a beer-barrel?
16.Sp52Hamlet
Hamlet and Horatio conceal themselves.
What funeral’s this that all the court laments?
It shows to be some noble parentage.
Stand by awhile.
16.Sp54Priest
My lord, we have done all that lies in us,
And more than well the church can tolerate.
She hath had a dirge sung for her maiden soul;
And, but for favor of the King and you,
She had been buried in the open fields,
Where now she is allowed Christian burial.
16.Sp55Laertes
So? I tell thee, churlish priest, a ministr’ing angel
shall my sister be when thou liest howling.
16.Sp57Queen
Sweets to the sweet, farewell!
I had thought to adorn thy bridal bed, fair maid,
And not to follow thee unto thy grave.
16.Sp58Laertes
Hamlet leaps in after Laertes.
Forbear the earth awhile. Sister, farewell.
Now pour your earth on, Olympus-high,
And make a hill to o’ertop old Pelion!
16.Sp61Hamlet
Oh, thou prayest not well.
I prithee take thy hand from off my throat,
For there is something in me dangerous,
Which let thy wisdom fear. Hold off thy hand!
I loved Ofelia as dear as twenty brothers could.
Show me what thou wilt do for her.
Wilt fight? Wilt fast? Wilt pray?
Wilt drink up vessels? Eat a crocodile? I’ll do’t.
Com’st thou here to whine?
And where thou talk’st of burying thee alive,
Here let us stand, and let them throw on us
Whole hills of earth, till with the height thereof
Make Oosell as a wart!
16.Sp62King
Forbear, Laertes. Now is he mad as is the sea,
Anon as mild and gentle as a dove.
Therefore awhile give his wild humor scope.
16.Sp63Hamlet
Exit Hamlet and Horatio.
What is the reason, sir, that you wrong me thus?
I never gave you cause. But stand away.
A cat will mew, a dog will have a day.
16.Sp65King
My lord, ’tis so. But we’ll no longer trifle.
This very day shall Hamlet drink his last,
For presently we mean to send to him.
Therefore, Laertes, be in readiness.
16.Sp67King
Exeunt omnes.
Come Gertred, we’ll have Laertes and our son
Made friends and lovers, as befits them both,
Even as they tender us and love their country.
Enter Hamlet and Horatio.
17.Sp1Hamlet
Believe me, it grieves me much, Horatio,
That to Laertes I forgot myself;
For by myself methinks I feel his grief,
Though there’s a difference in each other’s wrong.
Horatio, but mark yon water-fly.
The Court knows him, but he knows not the Court.
17.Sp8Gentleman
Very swoltery hot.
The King, sweet Prince, hath laid a wager on your side:
Six Barbary horse against six French rapiers,
With all their accoutrements too, o’the carriages.
In good faith, they are very curiously wrought.
17.Sp11Hamlet
The word had been more cousin-german to the
phrase if he could have carried the cannon by his side.
17.Sp13Gentleman
Marry, sir, that young Laertes in twelve venies
At rapier and dagger do not get three odds of you;
And on your side the King hath laid,
And desires you to be in readiness.
17.Sp14Hamlet
Very well. If the King dare venture his wager,
I dare venture my skull. When must this be?
17.Sp15Gentleman
Exit.
My lord, presently. The King and her majesty,
With the rest of the best judgment in the Court,
Are coming down into the outward palace.
17.Sp18Hamlet
You may, sir, none better, for y’are spiced!
Else he had a bad nose could not smell a fool.
17.Sp23Hamlet
Enter King, Queen, Laertes, Lords.
Why then it is not to come. There’s a predestinate providence
in the fall of a sparrow. Here comes the King.
17.Sp24King
Now, son Hamlet, we have laid upon your head,
And make no question but to have the best.
17.Sp27Hamlet
First, Laertes, here’s my hand and love,
Protesting that I never wronged Laertes.
If Hamlet in his madness did amiss,
That was not Hamlet, but his madness did it,
And all the wrong I e’er did to Laertes
I here proclaim was madness. Therefore let’s be at peace,
And think I have shot mine arrow o’er the house
And hurt my brother.
17.Sp28Laertes
They play again.
She drinks.
Sir I am satisfied in nature,
But in terms of honor I’ll stand aloof,
And will no reconcilement,
Till by some elder masters of our time
I may be satisfied.
17.Sp44Laertes
They catch one another’s rapiers, and both are wounded.
Laertes falls down. The Queen falls down and dies.
She dies.
Ay? Say you so? Have at you.
I’ll hit you now, my lord.
And yet it goes almost against my conscience.
17.Sp50Laertes
Even as a coxcomb should,
Foolishly slain with my own weapon.
Hamlet, thou hast not in thee half an hour of life;
The fatal instrument is in thy hand,
Unbated and envenomed. Thy mother’s poisoned.
That drink was made for thee.
17.Sp51Hamlet
The King dies.
The poisoned instrument within my hand?
Then, venom, to thy venom. Die, damnèd villain!
Come, drink. Here lies thy union, here!
17.Sp52Laertes
Laertes dies.
Oh, he is justly served.
Hamlet, before I die, here take my hand,
And, withal, my love. I do forgive thee.
17.Sp55Hamlet
Hamlet dies.
Enter Voltemar and the Ambassadors from England.
Enter Fortenbrasse with his train.
Upon my love, I charge thee let it go.
Oh, fie, Horatio, an if thou shouldest die,
What a scandal wouldst thou leave behind?
What tongue should tell the story of our deaths,
If not from thee? Oh, my heart sinks, Horatio.
Mine eyes have lost their sight, my tongue his use.
Farewell, Horatio. Heaven receive my soul!
17.Sp58Fortenbrasse
O imperious Death! How many princes
Hast thou at one draught bloodily shot to death!
17.Sp59Ambassador
Our embassy that we have brought from England,
Where be these princes that should hear us speak?
Oh, most most unlooked-for time! Unhappy country!
17.Sp60Horatio
Content yourselves. I’ll show to all the ground,
The first beginning of this tragedy.
Let there a scaffold be reared up in the marketplace,
And let the state of the world be there,
Where you shall hear such a sad story told
That never mortal man could more unfold.
17.Sp61Fortenbrasse
Exeunt.
I have some rights of memory to this kingdom,
Which now to claim my leisure doth invite me.
Let four of our chiefest captains
Bear Hamlet like a soldier to his grave;
For he was likely, had he lived,
To ha’ proved most royal.
Take up the body. Such a sight as this
Becomes the fields, but here doth much amiss.
Prosopography
David Bevington
David Bevington was the Phyllis Fay Horton Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus
in the Humanities at the University of Chicago. His books include From
Mankindto Marlowe (1962), Tudor Drama and Politics (1968), Action Is Eloquence (1985), Shakespeare: The Seven Ages of Human Experience (2005), This Wide and Universal Theater: Shakespeare in Performance, Then and Now (2007), Shakespeare’s Ideas (2008), Shakespeare and Biography (2010), and Murder Most Foul: Hamlet Through the Ages (2011). He was the editor of Medieval Drama (1975), The Bantam Shakespeare, and The Complete Works of Shakespeare. The latter was published in a seventh edition in 2014. He was a senior editor of the Revels Student Editions, the Revels Plays, The Norton Anthology of Renaissance Drama, and The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson (2012). Professor Bevington passed away on August 2, 2019.
Donald Bailey
Eric Rasmussen
Eric Rasmussen is Regents Teaching Professor and Foundation Professor of English at
the University of Nevada. He is co-editor with Sir Jonathan Bate of the RSC William Shakespeare Complete Works and general editor, with Paul Werstine, of the New Variorum Shakespeare. He has received the Falstaff Award from PlayShakespeare.com for Best Shakespearean Book of the Year in 2007, 2012, and 2013.
James D. Mardock
James Mardock is Associate Professor of English at the University of Nevada, Associate
General Editor for the Internet Shakespeare Editions, and a dramaturge for the Lake
Tahoe Shakespeare Festival and Reno Little Theater. In addition to editing quarto
and folio Henry V for the ISE, he has published essays on Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and other Renaissance
literature in The Seventeenth Century, Ben Jonson Journal, Borrowers and Lenders, and contributed to the collections Representing the Plague in Early Modern England (Routledge 2010) and Shakespeare Beyond Doubt (Cambridge 2013). His book Our Scene is London (Routledge 2008) examines Jonson’s representation of urban space as an element in
his strategy of self-definition. With Kathryn McPherson, he edited Stages of Engagement (Duquesne 2013), a collection of essays on drama in post-Reformation England, and
he is currently at work on a monograph on Calvinism and metatheatrical awareness in
early modern English drama.
Janelle Jenstad
Janelle Jenstad is a Professor of English at the University of Victoria, Director
of The Map of Early Modern London, and Director of Linked Early Modern Drama Online. With Jennifer Roberts-Smith and Mark Beatrice Kaethler, she co-edited Shakespeare’s Language in Digital Media: Old Words, New Tools (Routledge). She has edited John Stow’s A Survey of London (1598 text) for MoEML and is currently editing The Merchant of Venice (with Stephen Wittek) and Heywood’s 2 If You Know Not Me You Know Nobody for DRE. Her articles have appeared in Digital Humanities Quarterly, Elizabethan Theatre, Early Modern Literary Studies, Shakespeare Bulletin, Renaissance and Reformation, and The Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies. She contributed chapters to Approaches to Teaching Othello (MLA); Teaching Early Modern Literature from the Archives (MLA); Institutional Culture in Early Modern England (Brill); Shakespeare, Language, and the Stage (Arden); Performing Maternity in Early Modern England (Ashgate); New Directions in the Geohumanities (Routledge); Early Modern Studies and the Digital Turn (Iter); Placing Names: Enriching and Integrating Gazetteers (Indiana); Making Things and Drawing Boundaries (Minnesota); Rethinking Shakespeare Source Study: Audiences, Authors, and Digital Technologies (Routledge); and Civic Performance: Pageantry and Entertainments in Early Modern London (Routledge). For more details, see janellejenstad.com.
Joey Takeda
Joey Takeda is LEMDO’s Consulting Programmer and Designer, a role he assumed in 2020
after three years as the Lead Developer on LEMDO.
Kate LeBere
Project Manager, 2020–2021. Assistant Project Manager, 2019–2020. Textual Remediator
and Encoder, 2019–2021. Kate LeBere completed her BA (Hons.) in History and English
at the University of Victoria in 2020. During her degree she published papers in The Corvette (2018), The Albatross (2019), and PLVS VLTRA (2020) and presented at the English Undergraduate Conference (2019), Qualicum History
Conference (2020), and the Digital Humanities Summer Institute’s Project Management
in the Humanities Conference (2021). While her primary research focus was sixteenth
and seventeenth century England, she completed her honours thesis on Soviet ballet
during the Russian Cultural Revolution. She is currently a student at the University
of British Columbia’s iSchool, working on her masters in library and information science.
Martin Holmes
Martin Holmes has worked as a developer in the UVic’s Humanities Computing and Media
Centre for over two decades, and has been involved with dozens of Digital Humanities
projects. He has served on the TEI Technical Council and as Managing Editor of the
Journal of the TEI. He took over from Joey Takeda as lead developer on LEMDO in 2020.
He is a collaborator on the SSHRC Partnership Grant led by Janelle Jenstad.
Michael Best
Michael Best is Professor Emeritus at the University of Victoria, BC. He founded the
Internet Shakespeare Editions in 1996, and was Coordinating Editor until 2017, contributing two editions to the
ISE: King John and King Lear (the latter also available in print from Broadview Press). In print, he has published editions of works of Elizabethan magic and huswifery,
a collection of letters from the Australian goldfields, and Shakespeare on the Art of Love (2008). He contributed regular columns for the Shakespeare Newsletter on
Electronic Shakespeares,and has written many articles and chapters for both print and online books and journals, principally on questions raised by the new medium in the editing and publication of texts. He has delivered papers and plenary lectures on electronic media and the Internet Shakespeare Editions at conferences in Canada, the USA, the UK, Spain, Australia, and Japan.
Navarra Houldin
Training and Documentation Lead 2025–present. LEMDO project manager 2022–2025. Textual
remediator 2021–present. Navarra Houldin (they/them) completed their BA with a major
in history and minor in Spanish at the University of Victoria in 2022. Their primary
research was on gender and sexuality in early modern Europe and Latin America. They
are continuing their education through an MA program in Gender and Social Justice
Studies at the University of Alberta where they will specialize in Digital Humanities.
Rae S. Rostron
Rae is studying a BA in English Literature at Durham University. She is particularly
interested in representations of grief and trauma in literature and is currently researching
femicide in the novel. Rae has interned for Creative Media Agency (NYC) and is an
acting student researcher for King College London’s Psychology Department exploring
loneliness in students.
William Shakespeare
Orgography
LEMDO Team (LEMD1)
The LEMDO Team is based at the University of Victoria and normally comprises the project
director, the lead developer, project manager, junior developers(s), remediators,
encoders, and remediating editors.
University of Victoria (UVIC1)
https://www.uvic.ca/Metadata
| Authority title | Hamlet, Quarto 1 |
| Type of text | Primary Source Text |
| Publisher | University of Victoria on the Linked Early Modern Drama Online Platform |
| Series | |
| Source |
This file has been converted from IML, the SGML markup language of the Internet Shakespeare
Editions platform. IML files do not indicate the copy or copytext transcribed. LEMDO
acknowledges that we are not the main source of transcription, and that we do not
know the witness transcribed in this transcription. As time permits, we will compare
this transcription to an open-access digital surrogate and align the transcription
that surrogate. If you have worked on ISE and/or may have an idea as to the source
of this file, please contact lemdo@uvic.ca.
|
| Editorial declaration | No editorial declaration available at this time. |
| Edition | |
| Encoding description | |
| Document status | IML-TEI |
| License/availability |