HAMLET script

(important parts)

ACT 1, SCENE 2

CLAUDIUS:
Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother’s death
The memory be green, and that it us befitted
To bear our hearts in grief, and our whole kingdom
To be contracted in one brow of woe.
To our most valiant brother—so much for him.
But now, my cousin Hamlet and my son—

HAMLET: (aside)
A little more than kin and less than kind.

CLAUDIUS:
How is it that the clouds still hang on you?

HAMLET
Not so, my lord; I am too much in the sun.

GERTRUDE (QUEEN):
Do not forever with thy vailèd lids
Seek for thy noble father in the dust.
Thou know’st ’tis common; all that lives must die.

HAMLET
Ay, madam, it is common.

GERTRUDE
Why seems it so particular with thee?

HAMLET
“Seems,” madam? Nay, it is. I know not “seems.”

CLAUDIUS
Tis sweet and commendable in your nature,
Hamlet,
To give these mourning duties to your father.
But you must know your father lost a father,
And that father lost, and lost his.
But to persever
In obstinate condolement is a course
Of impious stubbornness. ’Tis unmanly grief.
It shows a will most incorrect to heaven.
For what we know must be and is as common
As any the most vulgar thing to sense,
Why should we in our peevish opposition
Take it to heart?
You are the most immediate to our throne,
And with no less nobility of love.
For your intent
In going back to school in Wittenberg,
It is most retrograde to our desire,
And we beseech you, bend you to remain
Here in the cheer and comfort of our eye,
Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.

GERTRUDE
I pray thee, stay with us. Go not to Wittenberg.

HAMLET
I shall in all my best obey you, madam.

CLAUDIUS
Why, ’tis a loving and a fair reply.
Be as ourselves in Denmark.—Madam, come away.

HAMLET
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seems to me all the uses of this world!
Two months dead—nay, not so much, not two.
So excellent a king, that was to this
Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother,
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly.
And yet, within a month, A little month—
(O God, a beast that wants discourse of reason
Would have mourned longer!), married with my
uncle,
My father’s brother, but no more like my father
Than I to Hercules.
It is not, nor it cannot come to good.
But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.
[ENTER HORATIO, MARCELLUS, AND BERNARDO]

HORATIO
Hail to your Lordship.

HAMLET
I am glad to see you well.
Horatio—or I do forget myself!

HORATIO
He was a good king, I saw him once.

HAMLET
He was a man. Take him for all in all,
I shall not look upon his like again.

HORATIO
My lord, I think I saw him yesternight.

HAMLET
Saw who?

HORATIO
My lord, the King, your father.

HAMLET
The King, my father?

HORATIO
With an attent ear, I may deliver
Upon the witness of these gentlemen
This marvel to you.

HAMLET
For God’s love, let me hear!

HORATIO
Two nights together, Marcellus and Barnardo, on their watch,
In the middle of the night,
Been thus encountered: a figure like your father.
Appears before them and with solemn march
Goes slow and stately by them. Thrice he walked
By their eyes.
Almost to jelly with the act of fear,
Stand dumb and speak not to him.
And I with them the third night kept the watch,
The apparition comes. I knew your father.

HAMLET
Did you not speak to it?

HORATIO
My lord, I did,
But answer made it none. Yet once methought
It lifted up its head and did address
Itself to motion, like as it would speak.
Yet, it shrunk in haste away
And vanished from our sight.

HAMLET
Indeed, sirs, but this troubles me.
Hold you the watch tonight?

ALL
We do, my lord.

HAMLET
I will watch tonight.
Perchance ’twill walk again.

ACT 1, SCENE 3

Laertes says goodbye and talks to ophelia to not accept hamlet’s promises of
love. Polonius, their father, reiterates what Laertes said, and orders her to not
see Hamlet again.

POLONIUS
As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet.
Look to ’t, I charge you. Come your ways.

OPHELIA
I shall obey, my lord.
ACT 1, SCENE 4
(the ghost enters)
HORATIO
Look, my lord, it comes.

HAMLET
Angels and ministers of grace, defend us!
What may this mean
That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel revisits?
Say, why is this? Wherefore? What should we do?

HORATIO
It beckons you to go away with it
As if it some impartment did desire
To you alone.

HAMLET
It will not speak. Then I will follow it.

HORATIO
Do not, my lord.

HAMLET
Why, what should be the fear?
It waves me forth again. I’ll follow it.

HORATIO
Be ruled. You shall not go.

HAMLET
Still am I called. Unhand me, gentlemen.
By heaven, I’ll make a ghost of him that lets me!
I say, away!—Go on. I’ll follow thee.
(exits)
MARCELLUS
Nay, let’s follow him.
ACT 1, SCENE 5
Hamlet encounters the ghost of his father. the ghost recounts his poisoned
death, and commands Hamlet to avenge him, though of course, with
caution.

GHOST
Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing
To what I shall unfold.

HAMLET
Speak. I am bound to hear.

GHOST
So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear.

HAMLET
What?

GHOST
I am thy father’s spirit,
Doomed to walk the night,
Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
Are burnt and purged away.

GHOST
If thou didst ever thy dear father love—

HAMLET
O God!

GHOST
Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.

HAMLET
Murder?

GHOST
Murder most foul, as in the best it is,
But this most foul, strange, and unnatural.
Now, Hamlet, hear.
’Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard,
A serpent stung me.
So the whole ear of Denmark
Is by a forgèd process of my death
Rankly abused. But know, thou noble youth,
The serpent that did sting thy father’s life
Now wears his crown.

HAMLET
O, my prophetic soul! My uncle!

Ay, that adulterate beast,

With witchcraft of his wits, with traitorous gifts—
won to his shameful lust
The will of my most seeming-virtuous queen.
O Hamlet, what a falling off was there!
Sleeping within my orchard,
My custom always of the afternoon,
Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole
With juice of cursèd poison in a vial
The leprous distilment, courses through
The natural gates and alleys of my body.
Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother’s hand
Of life, of crown, of queen at once dispatched,
Cut off, even in the blossoms of my sin,
Unhouseled, disappointed, unaneled.
O horrible, O horrible, most horrible!
But, howsomever thou pursues this act,
Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive
Against thy mother aught.
Fare thee well at once.
Adieu, adieu, adieu. Remember me.

[Ghost exits.]

HAMLET
O villain, villain, smiling, damnèd villain!
That one may smile and smile and be a villain.
At least I am sure it may be so in Denmark.
So, uncle, there you are. Now to my word.
It is “adieu, adieu, remember me.”
I have sworn ’t.
 HAMLET
There’s never a villain dwelling in all Denmark
But he’s an arrant knave. (utter scoundrel)

HAMLET
Never make known what you have seen tonight.

HORATIO/MARCELLUS
My lord, we will not.

HAMLET
Nay, but swear ’t.

HORATIO
In faith, my lord, not I.

HAMLET
Upon my sword.

MARCELLUS
We have sworn, my lord, already.

HAMLET
Indeed, upon my sword, indeed.

GHOST
(cries under the stage)
Swear.

HAMLET
Rest, rest, perturbèd spirit.
Let us go in together,
And still your fingers on your lips, I pray.
The time is out of joint. O cursèd spite
That ever I was born to set it right!
Nay, come, let’s go together.

ACT 2, SCENE 2
Claudius employs Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to spy on Hamlet to figure out
his odd behavior.
 CLAUDIUS
Welcome, dear Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
Something have you heard
Of Hamlet’s transformation, so call it.
I entreat you both
That you vouchsafe your rest here in our court
Some little time, so by your companies
To draw him on to pleasures, and to gather
So much as from occasion you may glean.

GUILDENSTERN
But we both obey,
And here give up ourselves in the full bent
To lay our service freely at your feet,
To be commanded.

CLAUDIUS
Thanks, Rosencrantz and gentle Guildenstern.

GERTRUDE
Thanks, Guildenstern and gentle Rosencrantz.
And I beseech you instantly to visit
My too much changèd son.—Go, some of you,
And bring these gentlemen where Hamlet is.

POLONIUS,
(aside)
Though this be madness, yet there is
method in ’t.—Will you walk out of the air, my lord?

HAMLET
Into my grave?

POLONIUS
My lord,
I will take my leave of you.

POLONIUS
You go to seek the Lord Hamlet. There he is.
ROSENCRANTZ,
to Polonius God save you, sir.

Polonius exits.
 GUILDENSTERN
My honored lord.

ROSENCRANTZ
My most dear lord.

HAMLET
My excellent good friends!
Good lads, how do you both?

HAMLET
Let me question more in particular. What
have you, my good friends, deserved at the hands of
Fortune that she sends you to prison hither?

GUILDENSTERN
Prison, my lord?

HAMLET
Denmark’s a prison.

ROSENCRANTZ
Then is the world one.

HAMLET
Shall we to th’ court? For, by my fay, I cannot
Reason.

ROSENCRANTZ/GUILDENSTERN
We’ll wait upon you.

HAMLET
No such matter. to speak to you like an
honest man, I am most dreadfully attended. But,
in the beaten way of friendship, what make you at
Elsinore?

ROSENCRANTZ
To visit you, my lord, no other occasion.

A flourish for the actors.

GUILDENSTERN
There are the actors.
 HAMLET
Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore.
Your hands, come then. Let me comply
with you in this garb, lest my extent to the players,
which, I tell you, must show fairly outwards, should
more appear like entertainment than yours. You are
welcome. But my uncle-father and aunt-mother are
Deceived.

POLONIUS
The actors are come hither, my lord.

HAMLET
I’ll have these players
Play something like the murder of my father
Before mine uncle. I’ll observe his looks;
and perhaps,
Out of my weakness and my melancholy,
As he is very potent with such spirits,
Abuses me to damn me. I’ll have grounds
More relative than this. The play’s the thing
Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.

ACT 3, SCENE 1

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 heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to—’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. 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,
Th’ 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 th’ 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 undiscovered country from whose bourn
No traveler 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 pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.

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.

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 offenses
at my beck than I have thoughts to put them
in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act
them in.
CLAUDIUS
Love? His affections do not that way tend;
Nor what he spake, though it lacked form a little,
Was not like madness. There’s something in his soul.

ACT 3, SCENE 2

How now, my lord, will the King hear this piece of

Work?

(during the play)

HAMLET
Madam, how do you like this play?

QUEEN
The lady does protest too much, i think.

KING
Have you heard the argument? Is there no
offense in it?

HAMLET
No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest. No
offense in’ the world.

KING
What do you call the play?

HAMLET
“The Mousetrap.”
This play is the image of a murder done in Vienna.
Gonzago is the duke’s name, his wife Baptista. You
shall see shortly.
This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king.

(play resumes)

HAMLET
He poisons him in the garden for his estate. His
name’s Gonzago. You shall see shortly how the
murderer gets the love of Gonzago’s wife.
 OPHELIA
The King rises.

HAMLET
What, frighted with false fire?

QUEEN
How fares my lord?

POLONIUS
Give o’er the play.

KING
(rising up to leave)
Give me some light. Away!

[enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern]

HAMLET
Will you play
upon this pipe?

GUILDENSTERN
I cannot.

HAMLET
I do beseech you.

GUILDENSTERN
I know no touch of it, my lord.

HAMLET
Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing
you make of me!
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.

ACT 3 SCENE 3
Claudius orders rosencrantz and guildenstern to take hamlet to england.

CLAUDIUS
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.
Arm you, I pray you, to this speedy voyage.

ROSENCRANTZ
We will haste us.

ACT 3, SCENE 4
Hamlet confronts his mother, and kills Polonius, mistaken for Claudius.

QUEEN
What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murder me?
Help, ho!

POLONIUS
(behind the arras)
What ho! Help!

HAMLET
How now, a rat? Dead for a ducat, dead.

(He kills Polonius)

POLONIUS
(behind the arras)
O, I am slain!

QUEEN
O me, what hast thou done?

HAMLET
Nay, I know not. Is it the King?

QUEEN
O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!

HAMLET
A bloody deed—almost as bad, good mother,
As kill a king and marry with his brother.
This counselor
Is now most still, most secret, and most grave,
Who was in life a foolish prating knave.—
Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you.—
 Good night, mother.

ACT 4, SCENE 3
Claudius informs Hamlet that he is going to England.

CLAUDIUS
Hamlet, this deed, for thine especial safety
must send thee quickly. Therefore prepare thyself.
The bark is ready, and everything is bent
For England.

HAMLET
For England?

CLAUDIUS
Ay, Hamlet.

HAMLET
Good.

CLAUDIUS
So is it, if thou knew’st our purposes.
Follow him at foot; Away, for everything is sealed and done.
Pray you, make haste.

ACt 4, SCENE 6
Hamlet sends a letter to horatio announcing his return to denmark.

HORATIO
(reading the letter)
…I have words to speak in
thine ear will make thee dumb.
These good fellows
will bring thee where I am. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
hold their course for England; of them I have
much to tell thee. Farewell.
He that thou knowest thine,
Hamlet.

ACT 5, SCENE 2
 CLAUDIUS
Give them the swords, young Osric. Cousin Hamlet,
You know the wager?

KING
Stay, give me drink.—Hamlet, this pearl is thine.

HAMLET
I’ll play this bout first. Set it by a while.

(Gertrude lifts the cup.)

HAMLET
Good madam.

CLAUDIUS
Gertrude, do not drink it.

GERTRUDE
(drinking the cup)
I will, my lord; I pray you pardon me.

CLAUDIUS
(aside)
It is the poisoned cup. It is too late.

LAERTES,
( to Claudius )
My lord, I’ll hit him now.

CLAUDIUS
I do not think ’t.

LAERTES
(aside)
And yet it is almost against my conscience.

HAMLET
Come, for the third, Laertes. You do but dally.

LAERTES
Have at you now!
(Laertes injures Hamlet. They exchange swords, then Hamlet injures Laertes)

OSRIC
Look to the Queen there, ho!

HAMLET
How does the Queen?

GERTRUDE
(dying)
No, no, the drink, the drink! O, my dear Hamlet!
The drink, the drink! I am poisoned.

HAMLET
O villainy! Ho! Let the door be locked.
Treachery! Seek it out.

LAERTES
It is here, Hamlet. Hamlet, thou art slain.
In thee there is not half an hour’s life.
The treacherous instrument is in your hand,
Unbated and envenomed. The foul practice
has turned itself on me.
Lo, here I lie,
Never to rise again. Thy mother’s poisoned.
I can no more. The King, the King’s to blame.

HAMLET
(stabbing Claudius)
The point is envenomed too! Then, venom, to thy
Work.

CLAUDIUS
O, yet defend me, friends! I am but hurt.

HAMLET
(forcing Claudius to drink)
Drink off this potion. (Claudies
dies)
LAERTES
He is justly served.
It is a poison tempered by himself.
Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet.
 HAMLET
(dying)
Heaven make thee free of it. I follow thee.—
I am dead, Horatio. O, I die, Horatio!
The potent poison quite o’ercrows my spirit.
(hamlet dies)
HORATIO
Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince,
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

END