I'll call upon you ere you go to bed, And tell you what I know.
[_Exeunt_ POLONIUS, L.H., _and_ KING, R.H.]
_Pol._ He will come straight. Look, you lay home to him:[112] Tell him his pranks have been too broad[113] to bear with, And that your grace hath screen'd and stood between Much heat and him. I'll sconce me even here.[114] Pray you, be round with him.
_Queen._ I'll warrant you; Fear me not:--withdraw, I hear him coming.
_Ham._ (R.C.) Now, mother, what's the matter?
_Queen._ (L.C.) Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.
_Ham._ Mother, you have my father much offended.
_Queen._ Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.
_Ham._ Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.
_Ham._ No, by the rood,[115] 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.
_Ham._ 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 murder me? Help, help, ho!
_Queen._ O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!
_Ham._ A bloody deed!--almost as bad, good mother, As kill a king, and marry with his brother.
[_Goes off behind the arras, and returns._]
Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!
[_To the dead body of_ POLONIUS, _behind the arras_.]
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 damnèd custom have not brazed it so,[117] That it be proof and bulwark against sense.[118]
What have I done, that thou dar'st wag thy tongue In noise so rude against me?
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;[119] makes marriage vows As false as dicer's oaths: O, such a deed As from the body of contraction plucks The very soul;[120] and sweet religion makes A rhapsody of words.-- Ah, me, that act!
_Ham._ Look here, upon this picture, and on this, The counterfeit presentment[121] of two brothers. See, what a grace was seated on this brow; Hypérion's curls;[122] the front of Jove himself; An eye like Mars, to threaten and command; A station like the herald Mercury[123] 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.[124] Have you eyes? Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed, And batten on this moor?[125] Ha! have you eyes? You cannot call it love; for, at your age The hey-day in the blood[126] 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? Rebellious hell, If thou canst mutine,[127] in a matron's bones, To flaming youth let virtue be as wax, And melt in her own fire.