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 […]

Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. GUILDENSTERN        Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you. HAMLET         Sir, a whole history. GUILDENSTERN        The King, sir – HAMLET         Ay, sir, what of him? GUILDENSTERN        – is in his retirement marvellous distempered. HAMLET         With drink, sir? GUILDENSTERN        No, my lord, with choler. HAMLET         Your wisdom should show itself more […]

HAMLET         For thou dost know, O Damon dear, This realm dismantled was Of Jove himself, and now reigns here A very, very pajock. HORATIO        You might have rhymed. HAMLET         O good Horatio, I’ll take the Ghost’s word for a thousand pound. Didst perceive? HORATIO        Very well, my lord. HAMLET         Upon the talk of the poisoning. HORATIO        I did very well note him. […]

OPHELIA        The King rises. GERTUDE       How fares my lord? POLONIUS      Give o’er the play. CLAUDIUS      Give me some light, away. POLONIUS!     Lights! Lights! Exeunt all but HAMLET and HORATIO. HAMLET          Why let the stricken deer go weep,     The hart ungalled play,     For some must watch while some must sleep.     Thus runs the world away. Would not this, sir, and a forest […]

LUCIANUS      Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing, Considerate season else no creature seeing, Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected, With Hecate’s ban thrice blasted, thrice infected, Thy natural magic and dire property On wholesome life usurps immediately. [Pours the poison in his ears.] HAMLET         ’A poisons him i’th’ garden for his estate. His name’s Gonzago. The story is extant and written in very […]

Enter Lucianus. HAMLET         This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king. OPHELIA        You are as good as a chorus, my lord. HAMLET         I could interpret between you and your love if I could see the puppets dallying. OPHELIA        You are keen, my lord, you are keen. HAMLET         It would cost you a groaning to take […]

HAMLET         Madam, how like you this play? GERTUDE       The lady doth protest too much, methinks. HAMLET         O, but she’ll keep her word. CLAUDIUS      Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in’t? HAMLET         No, no, they do but jest. Poison in jest. No offence i’th’ world. CLAUDIUS      What do you call the play? HAMLET         […]

PLAYER QUEEN         Nor earth to me give food nor heaven light, Sport and repose lock from me day and night. To desperation turn my trust and hope And anchor’s cheer in prison be my scope. Each opposite that blanks the face of joy Meet what I would have well and it destroy. Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife If once I be a widow ever I be […]

PLAYER KING The great man down, you mark his favourite flies, The poor advanced makes friends of enemies, And hitherto doth Love on Fortune tend, For who not needs shall never lack a friend, And who in want a hollow friend doth try Directly seasons him his enemy. But orderly to end where I begun, Our wills and fates do so contrary run […]

PLAYER KING Most necessary ’tis that we forget To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt. What to ourselves in passion we propose, The passion ending doth the purpose lose. The violence of either grief or joy Their own enactures with themselves destroy. Where joy most revels grief doth most lament, Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident. This world is […]