Act III, Scene 4
[Enter QUEEN GERTRUDE and POLONIUS.]
POLONIUS
He will come straight. Look you lay home to him.
Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear with.
And that your grace hath screened and stood between
Much heat and him. I’ll sconce me even here.
Pray you, be round with him.
HAMLET [outside the Queen’s chambers]
Mother, mother, mother!
QUEEN GERTRUDE [to POLONIUS]
I’ll warrant you. Fear me not. Withdraw!
I hear him coming.
[POLONIUS hides behind the arras within the Queen’s chamber. HAMLET enters the Queen’s chamber]
HAMLET Now, mother, what’s the matter?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.
HAMLET
Mother, you have my father much offended.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue!
HAMLET
Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.
QUEEN GERTRUDE Why, how now, Hamlet?
HAMLET What’s the matter now?
QUEEN GERTRUDE 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 GERTRUDE
Nay, then I’ll set those to you that you 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 GERTRUDE
What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murder me?!
Help, ho!!
POLONIUS [from behind the arras]
What ho! Help!!
HAMLET How now, a rat? Dead for a ducat, dead!
[HAMLET thrusts his rapier through the arras, killing POLONIUS.]
POLONIUS [from behind the arras] O, I am slain!
QUEEN GERTRUDE O me, what hast thou done?!
HAMLET Nay, I know not. Is it the King??
QUEEN GERTRUDE
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 GERTRUDE As kill a king?
HAMLET Ay, lady, it was my word.
[HAMLET pulls POLONIUS’ body from behind the arras.]
Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell.
I took thee for thy better. Take thy fortune.
Thou find’st to be too busy is some danger.
[To QUEEN GERTRUDE] Leave wringing of your hands. Peace, sit you down
And let me wring your heart; for so shall
If it be made of penetrable stuff
If damnéd custom have not brazed it so
That it be proof and bulwark against sense.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
What have I done, that thou dar’st 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 religiuon makes
A rhapsody of words! Heaven’s face does glow
O’er this solidity and compound mass
With heated visage, as against the doom,
Is thought-sick at the act.
QUEEN GERTRUDE Ay me, what act
That roars so loud and thunders in the index?
HAMLET
Look upon this picture and on this,
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