Hamlet Act 3 Scene 4

He'll be here any moment. Make sure you tell him the hard truth.

Tell him his behaviour has been too outrageous to tolerate,

and that Your Grace has shielded him and stood between him

and the King's anger. I'll tuck myself in right here.

Please — be blunt with him.

(offstage) Mother! Mother! Mother!

I promise you, don't worry about me.

Get out of sight — I hear him coming.

Well, mother — what's the problem?

Hamlet, you have badly offended your father.

Mother, you have badly offended my father. (She means Claudius. He means the dead king. Neither concedes an inch.)

Come now — that's a foolish answer.

Go on — that's a wicked question.

What's got into you, Hamlet?

What's the matter now?

Have you forgotten who I am?

No, by the cross, I haven't.

You're the queen, your husband's brother's wife —

and, I wish it weren't true, you're my mother.

Right — then I'll fetch people who can make you listen.

Come here and sit down. You're not moving.

You don't leave until I hold up a mirror

where you can see the innermost part of yourself.

What are you going to do? You wouldn't murder me?

Help! Help!

(behind the tapestry) Hey! Help!

What's this — a rat? Dead, I'd bet money on it — dead!

(behind) I'm killed!

My God — what have you done?

I've no idea. Is it the King? (He hopes so. He has just killed a man without looking.)

What a reckless, bloody thing to do!

A bloody deed — almost as bad, good mother,

as killing a king and marrying his brother.

Killing a king!

Yes, madam — that's what I said.

You wretched, reckless, meddling fool — goodbye.

I mistook you for your superior. Take what you got.

You've discovered that being too nosy is somewhat dangerous.

Stop wringing your hands. Be quiet. Sit down,

and let me wring your heart instead — and I will,

if it's made of anything that can be pierced,

if wicked habit hasn't hardened it like brass

into armour against all feeling.

What have I done, that you dare speak

to me so brutally?

An act

that smears the grace and blush out of modesty,

calls virtue a hypocrite, strips the bloom

from the fair forehead of innocent love

and brands it instead — an act that makes marriage vows

as worthless as a gambler's promises. A deed

that tears the very soul

out of the marriage contract, and turns sacred vows

into a jumble of noise. Heaven's face is flushed with anger

looking down on this solid world,

with a sorrowful expression, as if Judgment Day were coming,

sick to its soul at what you've done.

But what act,

that roars so loudly and thunders even in the summary?

Look at this picture, and at this one —

the painted likenesses of two brothers.

See what grace sat on this forehead:

the sun god's curls, the brow of Jupiter himself,

an eye like the war god's, to threaten and command,

a bearing like the messenger god Mercury

just landed on a hilltop touching the sky —

a combination and a form

that every god seemed to have stamped his seal on,

to guarantee the world a real man.

That was your husband. Now look what came next.

Here's your husband — like a mildewed ear of corn,

infecting his healthy brother. Do you have eyes?

Could you stop grazing on this beautiful mountain

and gorge yourself on this barren swamp? Have you got eyes?

You can't call it love — at your age

the excitement in the blood is tame, it's modest,

and it waits on judgment. And what judgment

would step from this man to this one? You must have senses,

or you couldn't move at all — but those senses

must be paralysed. Even madness wouldn't make this mistake.

No mind was ever so enslaved by frenzy

that it didn't keep enough judgment

to tell a difference this obvious. What devil was it

that cheated you at blind man's bluff like this?

Eyes without touch, touch without sight,

ears with no hands or eyes, smell with nothing else —

even a diseased fragment of one working sense

couldn't blunder like this.

Shame — where's your blush? Rebellious hell,

if you can start a mutiny in a middle-aged woman's body,

then let virtue be wax to burning youth

and melt in its own fire. Don't call it shameful

when overwhelming desire leads the charge,

when frost itself burns just as hotly

and reason acts as a pimp for desire.

Hamlet, stop — say no more.

You've turned my eyes inward on my own soul,

and I see stains there so black and deep-dyed

that they'll never wash out.

But to live

in the foul sweat of a greasy bed,

stewing in corruption, cooing and making love

over that filthy pigsty—

Don't say any more to me.

These words enter my ears like daggers.

No more, sweet Hamlet!

A murderer and a villain —

a nobody who isn't a two-hundredth part

of your former husband. A clown pretending to be a king,

a pickpocket who stole an empire,

who took the precious crown off a shelf

and slipped it in his pocket!

No more!

A king made of rags and scraps—

Save me — spread your wings over me,

you heavenly guardians! — What do you want, gracious spirit?

Oh God, he's insane.

Haven't you come to scold your slow son,

who, letting time and passion slip, has failed

to carry out your terrible command?

Tell me!

Don't forget. This visit

is only to sharpen your nearly blunted resolve.

But look — your mother is in shock.

Step between her and her struggling soul.

Imagination works hardest in the weakest bodies.

Speak to her, Hamlet.

How are you, madam?

How are YOU,

staring at empty space

and holding a conversation with thin air?

Your spirit is staring wildly out of your eyes.

And like sleeping soldiers when the alarm sounds,

your flat-lying hair, as if it were alive,

has jumped up and is standing on end. Gentle son,

on the heat and flame of your disorder

sprinkle cool self-control. — What are you looking at?

At him! At him! Look how palely he shines!

His shape and his grievance together, preaching to stones,

would make even them feel it.

(to the Ghost) Don't look at me like that —

in case that pitiful look changes

my hard purpose. Then what I have to do

will lose its proper colour — tears instead of blood.

Who are you saying this to?

Do you see nothing there?

Nothing at all — and yet I can see everything that's there.

And you heard nothing?

No — nothing but our own voices.

Look there! Look how it slips away!

My father, dressed as he was in life!

Look — there he goes, right now, out through the door!

This is entirely invented by your own mind.

Madness is very skilled at creating

bodiless things like that.

Madness!

My pulse keeps time as steadily as yours

and makes just as healthy a rhythm. It isn't madness

I've been speaking. Test me:

I'll repeat the whole argument, which madness

would skip away from. Mother, for the love of God,

don't rub that soothing ointment into your soul —

the idea that it's my madness talking, not your sin.

It will only put a thin skin over the ulcer

while foul infection tunnels away inside,

spreading unseen. Confess to heaven.

Repent the past. Avoid it in future.

And don't spread manure on the weeds

to make them grow ranker. Forgive me for being virtuous —

in these bloated, out-of-shape times

virtue has to beg pardon from vice,

bowing and pleading for permission to do it any good.

Hamlet, you've split my heart in two.

Then throw away the worse half

and live more purely with the other.

Good night — but don't go to my uncle's bed.

Pretend to a virtue you don't have.

That monster habit, which eats away all feeling

and is a devil in forming bad habits, is an angel in this:

when it comes to good and decent actions

it gives them a uniform too,

one that's easy to put on. Abstain tonight,

and that will make the next abstinence

a little easier — and the next easier still.

Habit can almost reshape nature itself,

and either master the devil or throw him out

with astonishing force. Once more, good night.

And when you want my blessing,

I'll be begging yours. — As for this gentleman,

I do regret it. But heaven arranged it this way,

to punish me with him and him with me,

making me heaven's whip and its servant.

I'll dispose of him, and I'll answer properly

for the death I gave him. So — good night again.

I have to be cruel only in order to be kind.

So the bad begins, and worse is still to come.

One more thing, madam.

What should I do?

Definitely not this, which I'm about to tell you to do:

let the bloated king coax you into bed again;

let him pinch your cheek lewdly and call you his mouse;

and let him, for a couple of stinking kisses

or a fumble at your neck with his damned fingers,

get you to unravel the whole business —

that I'm not actually mad at all,

only mad by design. Oh, do let him know. (Pure sarcasm.)

Because what queen — beautiful, sensible, wise —

would hide such vital secrets from a toad,

a bat, a tomcat? Who would do that?

No — in defiance of sense and secrecy,

open the cage on the roof.

Let the birds out, and then, like the ape in the story,

climb into the basket yourself to see what happens,

and break your neck falling off.

Be assured — if words are made of breath

and breath of life, then I have no life left to breathe

a word of what you've told me.

I have to go to England — you know that?

Oh —

I'd forgotten. Yes, it's been decided.

There are sealed letters. And my two old schoolfriends,

whom I trust about as far as I'd trust fanged snakes,

are carrying the orders. They're to clear my path

and escort me into a trap. Let it happen.

It's a fine sport to see the bomb-maker

blown up by his own bomb. And it'll go badly

if I don't dig a yard beneath their tunnel

and blast them at the moon. It's a sweet thing

when two plots collide head-on.

This man will get me moving.

I'll haul the guts into the next room.

Mother, good night. — This adviser is certainly

very quiet now, very discreet, and very grave —

who in life was a foolish, chattering fool. (A pun on 'grave.' Over the body.)

Come along, sir — let's bring things to a close with you.

Good night, mother.