The Director's Cuts:
Act 2, Scene 2
A room in the castle.
Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, and Attendants
KING CLAUDIUS Welcome, dear Rosencrantz and Guildenstern!
Moreover that we much did long to see you,
The need we have to use you did provoke Our hasty sending. Something have you heard Of Hamlet's transformation;
so call it,
Sith nor the exterior nor the inward man Resembles that it was. What it should be, More than his father's death, that thus hath put him So much from the understanding of himself, I cannot dream of: I entreat you both, So much as from occasion you may glean,
Whether aught, to us unknown, afflicts him thus,
|
---|
That, open'd, lies within our remedy. QUEEN GERTRUDE To whom he more adheres.
If it will please you
To show us so much gentry and good will As to expend your time with us awhile, For the supply and profit of our hope, Your visitation shall receive such thanks As fits a king's remembrance.
|
ROSENCRANTZ Ay, amen!
Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, and some AttLORD POLONIUS
Enter POLONIUS LORD POLONIUS my lord? I assure my good liege, O, speak of that; that do I long to hear.
LORD POLONIUS
Give first admittance to the ambassadors; My news shall be the fruit to that great feast. KING CLAUDIUS Thyself do grace to them, and bring them in. Exit POLONIUS KING CLAUDIUS He tells me, my dear Gertrude, he hath found
|
KING CLAUDIUS Well, we shall sift him.
Re-enter POLONIUS, with VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS Welcome, my good friends! That it might please you to give quiet pass LORD POLONIUS
|
LORD POLONIUS This business is well ended. But farewell it, for I will use no art.
Mad let us grant him, then: and now remains
That we find out the cause of this effect, Or rather say, the cause of this defect, For this effect defective comes by cause: Thus it remains, and the remainder thus. Perpend. I have a daughter--have while she is mine-- Hath given me this: now gather, and surmise.
Reads 'To the celestial and my soul's idol, the most 'In her excellent white bosom, these, & c.' Reads 'Doubt thou the stars are fire; this machine is to him, HAMLET.'
This, in obedience, hath my daughter shown me,
And more above, hath his solicitings, As they fell out by time, by means and place, All given to mine ear.
|
KING CLAUDIUS I would fain prove so.
But what might you think,
When I had seen this hot love on the wing-- As I perceived it, I must tell you that, Before my daughter told me--what might you, Or my dear majesty your queen here, think, If I had play'd the desk or table-book, Or given my heart a winking, mute and dumb, Or look'd upon this love with idle sight; What might you think? No, I went round to work, |
KING CLAUDIUS It may be, very likely.
LORD POLONIUS
Hath there been such a time--I'd fain know that-- That I have positively said 'Tis so,' When it proved otherwise? KING CLAUDIUS Not that I know. LORD POLONIUS Enter HAMLET, reading O, give me leave: That's very true, my lord.
HAMLET
For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a god kissing carrion, HAMLET Have you a daughter? LORD POLONIUS |
LORD POLONIUS Still harping on my
daughter: yet he knew me not at first; he said I
was a fishmonger: he is far gone, far gone: and truly in my youth I suffered much extremity for love; very near this. I'll speak to him again. What do you read, my lord? HAMLET [Aside] Though this be madness, yet there is method
in 't.
Will you walk out of the air, my lord? How pregnant sometimes his replies are! a happiness My honourable Fare you well, my lord.
HAMLET
These tedious old fools!
|
Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN LORD POLONIUS GUILDENSTERN HAMLET Denmark's a prison.
ROSENCRANTZ
Then is the world one. HAMLET A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards and dungeons, Denmark being one o' the worst. ROSENCRANTZ We think not so, my lord. HAMLET Why, then, 'tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so: to me it is a prison.
|
ROSENCRANTZ Which dreams indeed are ambition,
for the very
substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream. HAMLET A dream itself is but a shadow. ROSENCRANTZ Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality that it is but a shadow's shadow. HAMLET Then are our beggars bodies, and our monarchs and outstretched heroes the beggars' shadows. Shall we to the court? for, by my fay, I cannot reason. ROSENCRANTZ GUILDENSTERN We'll wait upon you. HAMLET No such matter: I will not sort you with the rest of my servants, for, to speak to you like an honest man, I am most dreadfully attended. HAMLET But, in the Were you not sent for?
Is it
your own inclining? Is it a free visitation?
Come, deal justly with me: come, come; nay, speak.
GUILDENSTERN
What should we say, my lord? HAMLET Why, any thing, but to the purpose. You were sent for; and there is a kind of confession in your looks which your modesties have not craft enough to colour: I know the good king and queen have sent for you. ROSENCRANTZ To what end, my lord? HAMLET That you must teach me. But let me conjure you, by the rights of our fellowship, by the consonancy of our youth, by the obligation of our ever-preserved love, and by what more dear a better proposer could charge you withal, be even and direct with me, whether you were sent for, or no? ROSENCRANTZ [Aside to GUILDENSTERN] What say you? HAMLET [Aside] Nay, then, I have an eye of you.--If you love me, hold not off.
|
GUILDENSTERN He that plays the king shall be welcome; his majesty
shall have tribute of me;
he adventurous knight
shall use his foil and target; the lover shall not sigh gratis; the humourous man shall end his part in peace; the clown shall make those laugh whose lungs are tickled o' the sere; and the lady shall say her mind freely, or the blank verse shall halt for't. What players are they? |
ROSENCRANTZ the
tragedians of the city.
HAMLET
How chances it they travel? their residence, both in reputation and profit, was better both ways. ROSENCRANTZ I think their inhibition comes by the means of the late innovation. HAMLET Do they hold the same estimation they did when I was in the city? are they so followed? ROSENCRANTZ No, indeed, are they not. HAMLET How comes it? do they grow rusty? ROSENCRANTZ Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace: but there is, sir, an aery of children, little eyases, that cry out on the top of question, and are most tyrannically clapped for't: these are now the fashion, and so berattle the common stages--so they call them--that many wearing rapiers are afraid of goose-quills and dare scarce come thither. HAMLET What, are they children? who maintains 'em? how are they escoted? Will they pursue the quality no longer than they can sing? will they not say afterwards, if they should grow themselves to common players--as it is most like, if their means are no better--their writers do them wrong, to make them exclaim against their own succession? ROSENCRANTZ 'Faith, there has been much to do on both sides; and the nation holds it no sin to tarre them to controversy: there was, for a while, no money bid for argument, unless the poet and the player went to cuffs in the question. HAMLET Is't possible? GUILDENSTERN O, there has been much throwing about of brains. HAMLET Do the boys carry it away? ROSENCRANTZ Ay, that they do, my lord; Hercules and his load too. HAMLET It is not very strange; for mine uncle is king of Denmark, and those that would make mows at him while my father lived, give twenty, forty, fifty, an hundred ducats a-piece for his picture in little. 'Sblood, there is something in this more than natural, if philosophy could find it out.
|
Flourish of trumpets within GUILDENSTERN Your hands,
come then:
the appurtenance of welcome is fashion
and ceremony: let me comply with you in this garb, lest my extent to the players, which, I tell you, must show fairly outward, should more appear like entertainment than yours. You are welcome: but my |
GUILDENSTERN southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.
LORD POLONIUS
Well be with you, gentlemen! HAMLET Hark you, Guildenstern; and you too: at each ear a hearer: that great baby you see there is not yet out of his swaddling-clouts. ROSENCRANTZ Happily he's the second time come to them; for they say an old man is twice a child. HAMLET I will prophesy he comes to tell me of the players; mark it. You say right, sir: o' Monday morning; 'twas so indeed. Enter POLONIUS LORD POLONIUS The actors are come hither, my lord.
HAMLET
Buz, buz! LORD POLONIUS Upon mine honour,-- HAMLET Then came each actor on his ass,--
|
LORD POLONIUS Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor
Plautus too light.
For the law of writ and the
liberty, these are the only men. HAMLET O Jephthah, judge of Israel, what a treasure hadst thou! LORD POLONIUS What a treasure had he, my lord? HAMLET Why, 'One fair daughter and no more, The which he loved passing well.' LORD POLONIUS [Aside] Still on my daughter. HAMLET Am I not i' the right, old Jephthah? LORD POLONIUS If you call me Jephthah, my lord, I have a daughter that I love passing well. HAMLET Nay, that follows not. LORD POLONIUS What follows, then, my lord? HAMLET Why, 'As by lot, God wot,' and then, you know, 'It came to pass, as most like it was,'-- the first row of the pious chanson will show you more; for look, where my abridgement comes. Enter four or five Players HAMLET You are welcome, masters; welcome, all. I am glad thy face is valenced since I saw thee last:
comest thou to beard me in Denmark? What, my young
lady and mistress! By'r lady, your ladyship is nearer to heaven than when I saw you last, by the altitude of a chopine. Pray God, your voice, like apiece of uncurrent gold, be not cracked within the ring. Masters, you are all welcome.
We'll e'en
to't like French falconers, fly at any thing we see: we'll have a speech straight: come, give us a taste |
First Player HAMLET I heard thee speak me a speech once, but it was
never acted; or, if it was, not above once; for the
play, I remember, pleased not the million; 'twas caviare to the general: but it was--as I received it, and others, whose judgments in such matters cried in the top of mine--an excellent play, well digested in the scenes, set down with as much modesty as cunning. I remember, one said there were no sallets in the lines to make the matter savoury, nor no matter in the phrase that might indict the author of affectation; but called it an honest method, as wholesome as sweet, and by very much more handsome than fine. One speech in it I The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable arms,
Black as his purpose, did the night resemble
When he lay couched in the ominous horse, Hath now this dread and black complexion smear'd With heraldry more dismal; head to foot Now is he total gules; horridly trick'd With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons, Baked and impasted with the parching streets, That lend a tyrannous and damned light To their lord's murder: roasted in wrath and fire, And thus o'er-sized with coagulate gore, With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus Old grandsire Priam seeks.' So, proceed you.
LORD POLONIUS
'Fore God, my lord, well spoken, with good accent and good discretion.
|
First Player Use them after your own honour and dignity:
the less
they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty.
Take them in. |
LORD POLONIUS Dost thou hear me, old friend; can you play the My good friends, I'll leave you till night: you are Now I am alone. |
Back to top
Back to Director's Cuts Index