SCENE IV. The Queen's closet. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark  Shakespeare homepage  |  Hamlet  | Act 3, Scene 4 

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 Enter QUEEN MARGARET and POLONIUS  LORD 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 screen'd and stood between 

 Much heat and him. I'll sconce me even here. 

 Pray you, be round with him. 

 HAMLET  [Within]  Mother, mother, mother! 

 QUEEN GERTRUDE  I'll warrant you, 

 Fear me not: withdraw, I hear him coming. 



 POLONIUS hides behind the arras 

 Enter HAMLET  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 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, help, ho! 

 LORD POLONIUS  [Behind]  What, ho! help, help, help! 

 HAMLET  [Drawing]  How now! a rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead! 



 Makes a pass through the arras  LORD POLONIUS  [Behind]  O, I am slain! 



 Falls and dies  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, 'twas my word. 



 Lifts up the array and discovers POLONIUS  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. 

 Leave wringing of your hands: peace! sit you down, 

 And let me wring your heart; for so I shall, 

 If it be made of penetrable stuff, 

 If damned custom have not brass'd it so 

 That it is proof and bulwark against sense. 

 QUEEN GERTRUDE  What have I done, that thou darest wag thy tongue 

 In noise so rude against me? 

 HAMLET  Such an act 

 That blurs the grace and blush of modesty, 

 Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose 

 From the fair forehead of an innocent love 

 And sets a blister there, makes marriage-vows 

 As false as dicers' oaths: O, such a deed 

 As from the body of contraction plucks 

 The very soul, and sweet religion makes 

 A rhapsody of words: heaven's face doth glow: 

 Yea, this solidity and compound mass, 

 With tristful 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 here, upon this picture, and on this, 

 The counterfeit presentment of two brothers. 

 See, what a grace was seated on this brow; 

 Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself; 

 An eye like Mars, to threaten and command; 

 A station like the herald Mercury 

 New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill; 

 A combination and a form indeed, 

 Where every god did seem to set his seal, 

 To give the world assurance of a man: 

 This was your husband. Look you now, what follows: 

 Here is your husband; like a mildew'd ear, 

 Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes? 

 Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed, 

 And batten on this moor? Ha! have you eyes? 

 You cannot call it love; for at your age 

 The hey-day in the blood is tame, it's humble, 

 And waits upon the judgment: and what judgment 

 Would step from this to this? 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 thrall'd 

 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 ardour gives the charge, 

 Since frost itself as actively doth burn 

 And reason panders will. 

 QUEEN GERTRUDE  O Hamlet, speak no more: 

 Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul; 

 And there I see such black and grained spots 

 As will not leave their tinct. 

 HAMLET  Nay, but to live 

 In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed, 

 Stew'd in corruption, honeying and making love 

 Over the nasty sty,-- 

 QUEEN GERTRUDE  O, speak to me no more; 

 These words, like daggers, enter in mine 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 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, and 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 

 The important acting of your dread command? O, say! 

 Ghost  Do not forget: this visitation 

 Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose. 

 But, look, amazement on thy mother sits: 

 O, step between her and her fighting soul: 

 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 the incorporal air do hold discourse? 

 Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep; 

 And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm, 

 Your bedded hair, like life in excrements, 

 Starts up, and stands on 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 conjoin'd, preaching to stones, 

 Would make them capable. Do not look upon me; 

 Lest with this piteous action you convert 

 My stern effects: then what I have to do 

 Will want true colour; tears perchance for blood. 

 QUEEN GERTRUDE  To whom do you speak this? 

 HAMLET  Do you see nothing there? 

 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! 



 Exit Ghost  QUEEN GERTRUDE  This the very coinage of your brain: 

 This bodiless creation ecstasy 

 Is very cunning in. 

 HAMLET  Ecstasy! 

 My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time, 

 And makes as healthful music: it is not madness 

 That I have utter'd: bring me to the test, 

 And I the matter will re-word; which madness 

 Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace, 

 Lay not that mattering unction to your soul, 

 That not your trespass, but my madness speaks: 

 It will but skin and film the ulcerous place, 

 Whilst rank corruption, mining all within, 

 Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven; 

 Repent what's past; avoid what is to come; 

 And do not spread the compost on the weeds, 

 To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue; 

 For in the fatness of these pursy times 

 Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg, 

 Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good. 

 QUEEN GERTRUDE  O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain. 

 HAMLET  O, throw away the worser part of it, 

 And live the purer with the other half. 

 Good night: but go not to mine uncle's bed; 

 Assume a virtue, if you have it not. 

 That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat, 

 Of habits devil, is angel yet in this, 

 That to the use of actions fair and good 

 He likewise gives a frock or livery, 

 That aptly is put on. Refrain to-night, 

 And that shall lend a kind of easiness 

 To the next abstinence: the next more easy; 

 For use almost can change the stamp of nature, 

 And either [         ] the devil, or throw him out 

 With wondrous potency. Once more, good night: 

 And when you are desirous to be bless'd, 

 I'll blessing beg of you. For this same lord, 



 Pointing to POLONIUS  I do repent: but heaven hath pleased it so, 

 To punish me with this and this with me, 

 That I must be their scourge and minister. 

 I will bestow him, and will answer well 

 The death I gave him. So, again, good night. 

 I must be cruel, only to be kind: 

 Thus bad begins and worse remains behind. 

 One word more, good lady. 

 QUEEN GERTRUDE  What shall I do? 

 HAMLET  Not this, by no means, that I bid you do: 

 Let the bloat king tempt you again to bed; 

 Pinch wanton on your cheek; call you his mouse; 

 And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses, 

 Or paddling in your neck with his damn'd fingers, 

 Make you to ravel all this matter out, 

 That I essentially am not in madness, 

 But mad in craft. 'Twere good you let him know; 

 For who, that's but a queen, fair, sober, wise, 

 Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib, 

 Such dear concernings hide? who would do so? 

 No, in despite of sense and secrecy, 

 Unpeg the basket on the house's top. 

 Let the birds fly, and, like the famous ape, 

 To try conclusions, in the basket creep, 

 And break your own neck down. 

 QUEEN GERTRUDE  Be thou assured, if words be made of breath, 

 And breath of life, I have no life to breathe 

 What thou hast said to me. 

 HAMLET  I must to England; you know that? 

 QUEEN GERTRUDE  Alack, 

 I had forgot: 'tis so concluded on. 

 HAMLET  There's letters seal'd: and my two schoolfellows, 

 Whom I will trust as I will adders fang'd, 

 They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way, 

 And marshal me to knavery. Let it work; 

 For 'tis the sport to have the engineer 

 Hoist with his own petard: and 't shall go hard 

 But I will delve one yard below their mines, 

 And blow them at the moon: O, 'tis most sweet, 

 When in one line two crafts directly meet. 

 This man shall set me packing: 

 I'll lug the guts into the neighbour room. 

 Mother, good night. Indeed this counsellor 

 Is now most still, most secret and most grave, 

 Who was in life a foolish prating knave. 

 Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you. 

 Good night, mother. 



 Exeunt severally; HAMLET dragging in POLONIUS  Shakespeare homepage  |  Hamlet  | Act 3, Scene 4 

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