act 3 scene i a room in the castle enter king claudius queen gertrude polonius ophelia rosencrantz and guildenstern king claudius and can you by no drift of circumstance get from him why he puts on this confusion grating so harshly all his days of quiet with turbulent and dangerous lunacy rosencrantz he does confess he feels himself distracted but from what cause he will by no means speak guildenstern nor do we find him forward to be sounded but with a crafty madness keeps aloof when we would bring him on to some confession of his true state queen gertrude did he receive you well rosencrantz most like a gentleman guildenstern but with much forcing of his disposition rosencrantz niggard of question but of our demands most free in his reply queen gertrude did you assay him to any pastime rosencrantz madam it so fell out that certain players we o er raught on the way of these we told him and there did seem in him a kind of joy to hear of it they are about the court and as i think they have already order this night to play before him lord polonius tis most true and he beseech d me to entreat your majesties to hear and see the matter king claudius with all my heart and it doth much content me to hear him so inclined good gentlemen give him a further edge and drive his purpose on to these delights rosencrantz we shall my lord exeunt rosencrantz and guildenstern king claudius sweet gertrude leave us too for we have closely sent for hamlet hither that he as twere by accident may here affront 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 no that thus he suffers for queen gertrude i shall obey you and for your part ophelia i do wish that your good beauties be the happy cause of hamlet s wildness so shall i hope your virtues will bring him to his wonted way again to both your honours ophelia madam i wish it may exit queen gertrude lord polonius ophelia walk you here gracious so please you we will bestow ourselves to ophelia read on this book that show of such an exercise may colour your loneliness we are oft to blame in this tis too much proved that with devotion s visage and pious action we do sugar o er the devil himself king claudius 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 it than is my deed to my most painted word o heavy burthen lord polonius i hear him coming let s withdraw my lord exeunt king claudius and polonius enter hamlet hamlet to be or not to be that is the question whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the 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 end the heart ache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to tis a consummation devoutly 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 come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil must give us pause there s the respect that 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 spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes when he himself might his quietus make with 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 bourn no traveller returns puzzles the will and makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of thus conscience does make cowards of us all and thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied o er with the pale cast of thought and enterprises of great pith and moment with this regard their currents turn awry and lose the name of action soft you now the fair ophelia nymph in thy orisons be all my sins remember d ophelia good my lord how does your honour for this many a day hamlet i humbly thank you well well well ophelia my lord i have remembrances of yours that i have longed long to re deliver i pray you now receive them hamlet no not i i never gave you aught ophelia my honour d lord you know right well you did and with them words of so sweet breath composed as made the things more rich their perfume lost take these again for to the noble mind rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind there my lord hamlet ha ha are you honest ophelia my lord hamlet are you fair ophelia what means your lordship hamlet that if you be honest and fair your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty ophelia could beauty my lord have better commerce than with honesty hamlet ay truly for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness this was sometime a paradox but now the time gives it proof i did love you once ophelia indeed my lord you made me believe so hamlet you should not have believed me for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it i loved you not ophelia i was the more deceived hamlet get thee to a nunnery why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners i am myself indifferent honest but yet i could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me i am very proud revengeful ambitious with more offences at my beck than i have thoughts to put them in imagination to give them shape or time to act them in what should such fellows as i do crawling between 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 hamlet let the doors be shut upon him that he may play the fool no where but in s own house farewell ophelia o help him you sweet heavens hamlet if thou dost marry i ll give thee this plague for thy dowry be thou as chaste as ice as pure as snow thou shalt not escape calumny get thee to a nunnery go farewell or if thou wilt needs marry marry a fool for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them to a nunnery go and quickly too farewell ophelia o heavenly powers restore him hamlet i have heard of your paintings too well enough god has given you one face and you make yourselves another you jig you amble and you lisp and nick name god s creatures and make your wantonness your ignorance go to i ll no more on t it hath made me mad i say we will have no more marriages those that are married already all but one shall live the rest shall keep as they are to a nunnery go exit ophelia o what a noble mind is here o erthrown the courtier s soldier s scholar s eye tongue sword the expectancy and rose of the fair state the glass of fashion and the mould of form the observed of all observers quite quite down and i of ladies most deject and wretched that suck d the honey of his music vows now see that noble and most sovereign reason like sweet bells jangled out of tune and harsh that unmatch d form and feature of blown youth blasted with ecstasy o woe is me to have seen what i have seen see what i see re enter king claudius and polonius king claudius love his affections do not that way tend nor what he spake though it lack d form a little was not like madness there s something in his soul o er which his melancholy sits on brood and i do doubt the hatch and the disclose will be some danger which for to prevent i have in quick determination thus set it down he shall with speed to england for the demand of our neglected tribute haply the seas and countries different with variable objects shall expel this something settled matter in his heart whereon his brains still beating puts him thus from fashion of himself what think you on t lord polonius it shall do well but yet do i believe the origin and commencement of his grief sprung from neglected love how now ophelia you need not tell us what lord hamlet said we heard it all my lord do as you please but if you hold it fit after the play let his queen mother all alone entreat him to show his grief let her be round with him and i ll be placed so please you in the ear of all their conference if she find him not to england send him or confine him where your wisdom best shall think king claudius it shall be so madness in great ones must not unwatch d go exeunt