The Complete Works of William Shakespeare In Plain and Simple English (Translated) (867 page)

Exit

A room in the castle

Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, POLONIUS, OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN

KING CLAUDIUS

Have you figured out why he is acting so crazy?

And can you, by no drift of circumstance,Get from him why he puts on this confusion,Grating so harshly all his days of quietWith turbulent and dangerous lunacy?

ROSENCRANTZ

He does say he feels distracted, but he did not explain the cause.

He does confess he feels himself distracted;But from what cause he will by no means speak.

GUILDENSTERN

He doesn’t seem to want to be questioned. He skirts around the issue of how he feels.

Nor do we find him forward to be sounded,But, with a crafty madness, keeps aloof,When we would bring him on to some confessionOf his true state.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Did he treat you well?

Did he receive you well?

ROSENCRANTZ

Yes, he was a gentleman.

Most like a gentleman.

GUILDENSTERN

But, it seemed forced, like he had to try to be nice.

But with much forcing of his disposition.

ROSENCRANTZ

He didn’t ask us any questions, but he answered all of ours.

Niggard of question; but, of our demands,Most free in his reply.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Did you ask him to hang out with you?

Did you assay him?To any pastime?

ROSENCRANTZ

Madam, it just so happened that a group of actors we knew came up, and when we told Hamlet about them, it seemed to cheer him up. They are supposed to play for him tonight.

Madam, it so fell out, that certain playersWe o'er-raught on the way: of these we told him;And there did seem in him a kind of joyTo hear of it: they are about the court,And, as I think, they have already orderThis night to play before him.

LORD POLONIUS

It’s true, and he asked me to ask you, your majesties, to come and join him.

'Tis most true:And he beseech'd me to entreat your majestiesTo hear and see the matter.

KING CLAUDIUS

This does my heart good to hear he is interested in something. Gentlemen, please encourage him to attend the play, and maybe it will make him happier.

With all my heart; and it doth much content meTo hear him so inclined.Good gentlemen, give him a further edge,And drive his purpose on to these delights.

ROSENCRANTZ

We will, my lord.

We shall, my lord.

Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN

KING CLAUDIUS

Sweet Gertrude, please leave us alone a minute. We have sent for Hamlet to come here so he may bump into Ophelia. Her father and I are acting as spies. We are trying to see if it is love that is making him act so strangely.

Sweet Gertrude, leave us too;For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither,That he, as 'twere by accident, may hereAffront Ophelia:Her father and myself, lawful espials,Will so bestow ourselves that, seeing, unseen,We may of their encounter frankly judge,And gather by him, as he is behaved,If 't be the affliction of his love or noThat thus he suffers for.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Yes, I’ll go. As for you, Ophelia, I do hope it is his infatuation with your beauty that makes him crazy. I also hope your virtue will help him return to his normal state, for both your sakes.

I shall obey you.And for your part, Ophelia, I do wishThat your good beauties be the happy causeOf Hamlet's wildness: so shall I hope your virtuesWill bring him to his wonted way again,To both your honours.

OPHELIA

Madam, I wish it, too.

Madam, I wish it may.

Exit QUEEN GERTRUDE

LORD POLONIUS

Ophelia, walk over here. We will hide over there.

Ophelia, walk you here. Gracious, so please you,We will bestow ourselves.

To OPHELIA

Read this book and act as if you are alone, like people who act righteous to cover up their evil ways.

Read on this book;That show of such an exercise may colourYour loneliness. We are oft to blame in this,--'Tis too much proved--that with devotion's visageAnd pious action we do sugar o'erThe devil himself.

KING CLAUDIUS

[Aside]

That’s true! His words are like daggers to my conscience! The harlot’s cheek, covered with makeup is as ugly as the actions I am trying to hide with pretty words. Oh, my heavy heart!

O, 'tis too true!How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!The harlot's cheek, beautied with plastering art,Is not more ugly to the thing that helps itThan is my deed to my most painted word:O heavy burthen!

LORD POLONIUS

I hear him coming: Let’s hide, my lord.

I hear him coming: let's withdraw, my lord.

Exeunt KING CLAUDIUS and POLONIUS

Enter HAMLET

HAMLET

To live or to die…That is the question. Is it more courageous to suffer through life’s horrors or to fight them and perhaps end them? Should I die or like death, sleep, and perhaps dream? Now there’s the problem. By sleeping, I would put an end to the torment life offers. Why should anyone choose to live when you must suffer the hands of time, the evil of men, the pain of unreturned love, or the unjust government? Who would endure such struggles in life, but those that dread the unknown of death, the undiscovered country from where travelers never return. Our fear of death makes us all cowards, and we consider our choices too much, keeping us from acting at all. But, wait! The beautiful Ophelia!—Angel, do pray for me.

To be, or not to be: that is the question:Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to sufferThe slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;No more; and by a sleep to say we endThe heart-ache and the thousand natural shocksThat flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummationDevoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;For in that sleep of death what dreams may comeWhen we have shuffled off this mortal coil,Must give us pause: there's the respectThat makes calamity of so long life;For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,The insolence of office and the spurnsThat patient merit of the unworthy takes,When he himself might his quietus makeWith a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,To grunt and sweat under a weary life,But that the dread of something after death,The undiscover'd country from whose bournNo traveller returns, puzzles the willAnd makes us rather bear those ills we haveThan fly to others that we know not of?Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;And thus the native hue of resolutionIs sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,And enterprises of great pith and momentWith this regard their currents turn awry,And lose the name of action.--Soft you now!The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisonsBe all my sins remember'd.

OPHELIA

Oh, hello, my lord. How have you been doing?

Good my lord,How does your honour for this many a day?

HAMLET

Very well, thank you.

I humbly thank you; well, well, well.

OPHELIA

My lord, I have some things that belong to you that I have been wanting to return. Please take them.

My lord, I have remembrances of yours,That I have longed long to re-deliver;I pray you, now receive them.

HAMLET

No, it’s not mine. I never gave you anything.

No, not I;I never gave you aught.

OPHELIA

My lord, you know very well you did. You gave me the sweetest letters, but they mean nothing to me now. Here they are.

My honour'd lord, you know right well you did;And, with them, words of so sweet breath composedAs made the things more rich: their perfume lost,Take these again; for to the noble mindRich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.There, my lord.

HAMLET

Ha, ha! Are you telling the truth?

Ha, ha! are you honest?

OPHELIA

What?

My lord?

HAMLET

Are you beautiful?

Are you fair?

OPHELIA

What are you talking about?

What means your lordship?

HAMLET

I am saying, if you are honest and beautiful, then your honesty should not affect your beauty.

That if you be honest and fair, your honesty shouldadmit no discourse to your beauty.

OPHELIA

Is beauty, my lord, more important than honesty?

Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce thanwith honesty?

HAMLET

Yes, because beauty can change a person, but honesty cannot change anything. I used to be confused by this, but I understand now. I used to love you.

Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will soonertransform honesty from what it is to a bawd than theforce of honesty can translate beauty into hislikeness: this was sometime a paradox, but now thetime gives it proof. I did love you once.

OPHELIA

You made me think you did.

Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.

HAMLET

You should not have believed me, because we are all evil beings. I did not love you.
You should not have believed me; for virtue cannotso inoculate our old stock but we shall relish ofit: I loved you not.

OPHELIA

I was fooled.

I was the more deceived.

HAMLET

Get to a convent or would you rather be a mother to more sinners? I am an honest person, but even I am guilty of sin and it would have been better if I had never been born. I am proud, vengeful, and ambitious, with more sin in my heart than I have time to put into thoughts or actions. What should a man, like me, do? We are all sinners; don’t believe any of us. Go find a convent. Where’s your father?

Get thee to a nunnery: why wouldst thou be abreeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest;but yet I could accuse me of such things that itwere better my mother had not borne me: I am veryproud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offences atmy beck than I have thoughts to put them in,imagination to give them shape, or time to act themin. What should such fellows as I do crawlingbetween earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves,all; believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery.Where's your father?

OPHELIA

At home, my lord.

At home, my lord.

HAMLET

May he stay there and pretend to be a fool. Goodbye.