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Read Ebook: The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by Shakespeare William
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Ebook has 1490 lines and 846980 words, and 30 pages
GUILDENSTERN. Is in his retirement, marvellous distempered.
HAMLET. With drink, sir?
GUILDENSTERN. No, my lord; rather with choler.
HAMLET. Your wisdom should show itself more richer to signify this to the doctor, for me to put him to his purgation would perhaps plunge him into far more choler.
GUILDENSTERN. Good my lord, put your discourse into some frame, and start not so wildly from my affair.
HAMLET. I am tame, sir, pronounce.
GUILDENSTERN. The Queen your mother, in most great affliction of spirit, hath sent me to you.
HAMLET. You are welcome.
GUILDENSTERN. Nay, good my lord, this courtesy is not of the right breed. If it shall please you to make me a wholesome answer, I will do your mother's commandment; if not, your pardon and my return shall be the end of my business.
HAMLET. Sir, I cannot.
GUILDENSTERN. What, my lord?
HAMLET. Make you a wholesome answer. My wit's diseased. But, sir, such answer as I can make, you shall command; or rather, as you say, my mother. Therefore no more, but to the matter. My mother, you say,--
ROSENCRANTZ. Then thus she says: your behaviour hath struck her into amazement and admiration.
HAMLET. O wonderful son, that can so stonish a mother! But is there no sequel at the heels of this mother's admiration?
ROSENCRANTZ. She desires to speak with you in her closet ere you go to bed.
HAMLET. We shall obey, were she ten times our mother. Have you any further trade with us?
ROSENCRANTZ. My lord, you once did love me.
HAMLET. And so I do still, by these pickers and stealers.
ROSENCRANTZ. Good my lord, what is your cause of distemper? You do surely bar the door upon your own liberty if you deny your griefs to your friend.
HAMLET. Sir, I lack advancement.
ROSENCRANTZ. How can that be, when you have the voice of the King himself for your succession in Denmark?
HAMLET. Ay, sir, but while the grass grows--the proverb is something musty.
Re-enter the Players with recorders.
O, the recorders. Let me see one.--To withdraw with you, why do you go about to recover the wind of me, as if you would drive me into a toil?
GUILDENSTERN. O my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly.
HAMLET. I do not well understand that. Will you play upon this pipe?
GUILDENSTERN. My lord, I cannot.
HAMLET. I pray you.
GUILDENSTERN. Believe me, I cannot.
HAMLET. I do beseech you.
GUILDENSTERN. I know no touch of it, my lord.
HAMLET. 'Tis as easy as lying: govern these ventages with your finger and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music. Look you, these are the stops.
GUILDENSTERN. But these cannot I command to any utterance of harmony. I have not the skill.
HAMLET. Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass; and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ, yet cannot you make it speak. 'Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me.
Enter Polonius.
God bless you, sir.
POLONIUS. My lord, the Queen would speak with you, and presently.
HAMLET. Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel?
HAMLET. Methinks it is like a weasel.
POLONIUS. It is backed like a weasel.
HAMLET. Or like a whale.
POLONIUS. Very like a whale.
HAMLET. Then will I come to my mother by and by.--They fool me to the top of my bent.--I will come by and by.
POLONIUS. I will say so.
'Tis now the very witching time of night, When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out Contagion to this world. Now could I drink hot blood, And do such bitter business as the day Would quake to look on. Soft now, to my mother. O heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom: Let me be cruel, not unnatural. I will speak daggers to her, but use none; My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites. How in my words somever she be shent, To give them seals never, my soul, consent.
Enter King, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
KING. I like him not, nor stands it safe with us To let his madness range. Therefore prepare you, I your commission will forthwith dispatch, And he to England shall along with you. The terms of our estate may not endure Hazard so near us as doth hourly grow Out of his lunacies.
GUILDENSTERN. We will ourselves provide. Most holy and religious fear it is To keep those many many bodies safe That live and feed upon your Majesty.
ROSENCRANTZ. The single and peculiar life is bound With all the strength and armour of the mind, To keep itself from 'noyance; but much more That spirit upon whose weal depend and rest The lives of many. The cease of majesty Dies not alone; but like a gulf doth draw What's near it with it. It is a massy wheel Fix'd on the summit of the highest mount, To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things Are mortis'd and adjoin'd; which when it falls, Each small annexment, petty consequence, Attends the boist'rous ruin. Never alone Did the King sigh, but with a general groan.
KING. Arm you, I pray you, to this speedy voyage; For we will fetters put upon this fear, Which now goes too free-footed.
ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. We will haste us.
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