Hamlet
Act IV, Scene 1
Elsinore. A room in Elsinore castle.
- Enter King and Queen with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
Claudius
1 - 3- There’s matter in these sighs, these profound heaves—
- You must translate, ’tis fit we understand them.
- Where is your son?
Gertrude
4 - 5- Bestow this place on us a little while.
- Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
- Ah, mine own lord, what have I seen tonight!
Claudius
6- What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?
Gertrude
7 - 12- Mad as the sea and wind when both contend
- Which is the mightier. In his lawless fit,
- Behind the arras hearing something stir,
- Whips out his rapier, cries, “A rat, a rat!”
- And in this brainish apprehension kills
- The unseen good old man.
Claudius
13 - 24- O heavy deed!
- It had been so with us had we been there.
- His liberty is full of threats to all,
- To you yourself, to us, to every one.
- Alas, how shall this bloody deed be answer’d?
- It will be laid to us, whose providence
- Should have kept short, restrain’d, and out of haunt
- This mad young man; but so much was our love,
- We would not understand what was most fit,
- But like the owner of a foul disease,
- To keep it from divulging, let it feed
- Even on the pith of life. Where is he gone?
Gertrude
25 - 28- To draw apart the body he hath kill’d,
- O’er whom his very madness, like some ore
- Among a mineral of metals base,
- Shows itself pure: ’a weeps for what is done.
John Austen, circa 1922
Claudius
29 - 46- O Gertrude, come away!
- The sun no sooner shall the mountains touch,
- But we will ship him hence, and this vile deed
- We must with all our majesty and skill
- Both countenance and excuse. Ho, Guildenstern!
- Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
- Friends both, go join you with some further aid:
- Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain,
- And from his mother’s closet hath he dragg’d him.
- Go seek him out, speak fair, and bring the body
- Into the chapel. I pray you haste in this.
- Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
- Come, Gertrude, we’ll call up our wisest friends
- And let them know both what we mean to do
- And what’s untimely done. So envious slander,
- Whose whisper o’er the world’s diameter,
- As level as the cannon to his blank,
- Transports his pois’ned shot, may miss our name,
- And hit the woundless air. O, come away!
- My soul is full of discord and dismay.
- Exeunt.
Decorative pieces for Selwyn & Blount edition of Hamlet
John Austen, 1922