Act III, Scene 4, continued
HAMLET
Look 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-kissed 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? Sense sure, you have,
Else could you not have motion; but sure, that sense
Is apoplex’d; for madness would not err,
Nor sense to ecstasy was ne’er so thralled
But it reserved some quantity of choice,
To serve in such a difference. What devil was’t
That thus hath cozen’d you at hoodman-blind?
Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight,
Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all,
Or but a sickly part of one true sense
Could not so mope. O shame! where is thy blush?
Rebellious hell,
If thou canst mutine in a matron’s bones,
To flaming youth let virtue be as wax
And melt in her own fire. Proclaim no shame
When the compulsive ardor gives the charge,
Since frost itself as actively doth burn,
And reason panders will.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
O Hamlet, speak no more!
Thou turn’st my eyes into my very soul,
And there I see such black and grainéd spots
As will not leave their tinct.
HAMLET Nay, but to live
In the rank sweat of an enseaméd bed,
Stewed in corruption, honeying and making love
Over the nasty sty!
QUEEN GERTRUDE
O, speak to me no more!
These words like daggers enter in my ears.
No more, sweet Hamlet!
HAMLET A murderer and a villain,
A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe
Of your precedent lord. A vice of kings,
A cutpurse of the empire and the rule,
That from a shelf of the precious diadem stole
And put it in his pocket—
QUEEN GERTRUDE No more!
HAMLET A king of shreds and patches—
[Enter GHOST.]
Save me an hover o’er me with your wings,
You heavenly guards!—What would your gracious figure?
QUEEN GERTRUDE Alas, he’s mad.
HAMLET
Do you not come your tardy son to chide,
That, lapsed in time and passion, lets go by
Th’ important acting of your dread command?
O, say!
GHOST
Do not forget. This visitation
Is but to whet thy almost bluntéd purpose.
But look, amazement on thy mother sits.
O, step between her and her fighting soul.
Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works.
Speak to her, Hamlet.
HAMLET
How is it with you, lady?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Alas, how is’t with you,
That you do bend your eye on vacancy
And with th’ incorporal air do hold discourse?
Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep,
And, as the sleeping soldiers in th’ alarm,
Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,
Start up and stand an end. 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 conjoined, preaching to stones,
Would make them capable.
[To the GHOST] 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 GERTRUDE
To whom do you speak this?
HAMLET
Do you see nothing here?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.
HAMLET
Nor did you nothing hear?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
No, nothing but ourselves.
HAMLET
Why, look you there, look how it steals away!
My father, in his habit as he lived!
Look where he goes even now out at the portal!
[Ghost exits.]
[Line 157]