Act 3, Scene 4

Another room in the castle.

[Enter Queen and Polonius.]
Polonius
2293 He will come straight. Look you lay home to him:
2294 Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear with,
2295 And that your grace hath screen'd and stood between
2296 Much heat and him. I'll silence me e'en here.
2297 Pray you, be round with him.
[Within.]
Hamlet
2298 Mother, mother, mother!
Queen Gertrude
2299 I'll warrant you:
2300 Fear me not:—withdraw; I hear him coming.
[Polonius goes behind the arras.]
[Enter Hamlet.]
Hamlet
2301 Now, mother, what's the matter?
Queen Gertrude
2302 Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.
Hamlet
2303 Mother, you have my father much offended.
Queen Gertrude
2304 Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.
Hamlet
2305 Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.
Queen Gertrude
2306 Why, how now, Hamlet!
Hamlet
2307 What's the matter now?
Queen Gertrude
2308 Have you forgot me?
Hamlet
2309 No, by the rood, not so:
2310 You are the Queen, your husband's brother's wife,
2311 And,—would it were not so!—you are my mother.
Queen Gertrude
2312 Nay, then, I'll set those to you that can speak.
Hamlet
2313 Come, come, and sit you down; you shall not budge;
2314 You go not till I set you up a glass
2315 Where you may see the inmost part of you.
Queen Gertrude
2316 What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murder me?—
2317 Help, help, ho!
[Behind.]
Polonius
2318 What, ho! help, help, help!
Hamlet
2319 How now? a rat?
[Draws.]
Hamlet
2320 Dead for a ducat, dead!
[Makes a pass through the arras.]
[Behind.]
Polonius
2321 O, I am slain!
[Falls and dies.]
Queen Gertrude
2322 O me, what hast thou done?
Hamlet
2323 Nay, I know not: is it the king?
[Draws forth Polonius.]
Queen Gertrude
2324 O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!
Hamlet
2325 A bloody deed!—almost as bad, good mother,
2326 As kill a king and marry with his brother.
Queen Gertrude
2327 As kill a king!
Hamlet
2328 Ay, lady, 'twas my word.—
2329 Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!
[To Polonius.]
Hamlet
2330 I took thee for thy better: take thy fortune;
2331 Thou find'st to be too busy is some danger.—
2332 Leave wringing of your hands: peace! sit you down,
2333 And let me wring your heart: for so I shall,
2334 If it be made of penetrable stuff;
2335 If damned custom have not braz'd it so
2336 That it is proof and bulwark against sense.
Queen Gertrude
2337 What have I done, that thou dar'st wag thy tongue
2338 In noise so rude against me?
Hamlet
2339 Such an act
2340 That blurs the grace and blush of modesty;
2341 Calls virtue hypocrite; takes off the rose
2342 From the fair forehead of an innocent love,
2343 And sets a blister there; makes marriage-vows
2344 As false as dicers' oaths: O, such a deed
2345 As from the body of contraction plucks
2346 The very soul, and sweet religion makes
2347 A rhapsody of words: heaven's face doth glow;
2348 Yea, this solidity and compound mass,
2349 With tristful visage, as against the doom,
2350 Is thought-sick at the act.
Queen Gertrude
2351 Ah me, what act,
2352 That roars so loud, and thunders in the index?
Hamlet
2353 Look here upon this picture, and on this,—
2354 The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
2355 See what a grace was seated on this brow;
2356 Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself;
2357 An eye like Mars, to threaten and command;
2358 A station like the herald Mercury
2359 New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill:
2360 A combination and a form, indeed,
2361 Where every god did seem to set his seal,
2362 To give the world assurance of a man;
2363 This was your husband.—Look you now what follows:
2364 Here is your husband, like a milldew'd ear
2365 Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes?
2366 Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,
2367 And batten on this moor? Ha! have you eyes?
2368 You cannot call it love; for at your age
2369 The hey-day in the blood is tame, it's humble,
2370 And waits upon the judgment: and what judgment
2371 Would step from this to this? Sense, sure, you have,
2372 Else could you not have motion: but sure that sense
2373 Is apoplex'd; for madness would not err;
2374 Nor sense to ecstacy was ne'er so thrall'd
2375 But it reserv'd some quantity of choice
2376 To serve in such a difference. What devil was't
2377 That thus hath cozen'd you at hoodman-blind?
2378 Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight,
2379 Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all,
2380 Or but a sickly part of one true sense
2381 Could not so mope.
2382 O shame! where is thy blush? Rebellious hell,
2383 If thou canst mutine in a matron's bones,
2384 To flaming youth let virtue be as wax,
2385 And melt in her own fire: proclaim no shame
2386 When the compulsive ardour gives the charge,
2387 Since frost itself as actively doth burn,
2388 And reason panders will.
Queen Gertrude
2389 O Hamlet, speak no more:
2390 Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul;
2391 And there I see such black and grained spots
2392 As will not leave their tinct.
Hamlet
2393 Nay, but to live
2394 In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed,
2395 Stew'd in corruption, honeying and making love
2396 Over the nasty sty,—
Queen Gertrude
2397 O, speak to me no more;
2398 These words like daggers enter in mine ears;
2399 No more, sweet Hamlet.
Hamlet
2400 A murderer and a villain;
2401 A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe
2402 Of your precedent lord; a vice of kings;
2403 A cutpurse of the empire and the rule,
2404 That from a shelf the precious diadem stole
2405 And put it in his pocket!
Queen Gertrude
2406 No more.
Hamlet
2407 A king of shreds and patches!—
[Enter Ghost.]
Hamlet
2408 Save me and hover o'er me with your wings,
2409 You heavenly guards!—What would your gracious figure?
Queen Gertrude
2410 Alas, he's mad!
Hamlet
2411 Do you not come your tardy son to chide,
2412 That, laps'd in time and passion, lets go by
2413 The important acting of your dread command?
2414 O, say!
Ghost of Hamlet's Father
2415 Do not forget. This visitation
2416 Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.
2417 But, look, amazement on thy mother sits:
2418 O, step between her and her fighting soul,—
2419 Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works,—
2420 Speak to her, Hamlet.
Hamlet
2421 How is it with you, lady?
Queen Gertrude
2422 Alas, how is't with you,
2423 That you do bend your eye on vacancy,
2424 And with the incorporal air do hold discourse?
2425 Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep;
2426 And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm,
2427 Your bedded hairs, like life in excrements,
2428 Start up and stand an end. O gentle son,
2429 Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper
2430 Sprinkle cool patience! Whereon do you look?
Hamlet
2431 On him, on him! Look you how pale he glares!
2432 His form and cause conjoin'd, preaching to stones,
2433 Would make them capable.—Do not look upon me;
2434 Lest with this piteous action you convert
2435 My stern effects: then what I have to do
2436 Will want true colour; tears perchance for blood.
Queen Gertrude
2437 To whom do you speak this?
Hamlet
2438 Do you see nothing there?
Queen Gertrude
2439 Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.
Hamlet
2440 Nor did you nothing hear?
Queen Gertrude
2441 No, nothing but ourselves.
Hamlet
2442 Why, look you there! look how it steals away!
2443 My father, in his habit as he liv'd!
2444 Look, where he goes, even now out at the portal!
[Exit Ghost.]
Queen Gertrude
2445 This is the very coinage of your brain:
2446 This bodiless creation ecstasy
2447 Is very cunning in.
Hamlet
2448 Ecstasy!
2449 My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time,
2450 And makes as healthful music: it is not madness
2451 That I have utter'd: bring me to the test,
2452 And I the matter will re-word; which madness
2453 Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,
2454 Lay not that flattering unction to your soul
2455 That not your trespass, but my madness speaks:
2456 It will but skin and film the ulcerous place,
2457 Whilst rank corruption, mining all within,
2458 Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven;
2459 Repent what's past; avoid what is to come;
2460 And do not spread the compost on the weeds,
2461 To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue;
2462 For in the fatness of these pursy times
2463 Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg,
2464 Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good.
Queen Gertrude
2465 O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.
Hamlet
2466 O, throw away the worser part of it,
2467 And live the purer with the other half.
2468 Good night: but go not to mine uncle's bed;
2469 Assume a virtue, if you have it not.
2470 That monster custom, who all sense doth eat,
2471 Of habits evil, is angel yet in this,—
2472 That to the use of actions fair and good
2473 He likewise gives a frock or livery
2474 That aptly is put on. Refrain to-night;
2475 And that shall lend a kind of easiness
2476 To the next abstinence: the next more easy;
2477 For use almost can change the stamp of nature,
2478 And either curb the devil, or throw him out
2479 With wondrous potency. Once more, good-night:
2480 And when you are desirous to be bles'd,
2481 I'll blessing beg of you.—For this same lord
[Pointing to Polonius.]
Hamlet
2482 I do repent; but heaven hath pleas'd it so,
2483 To punish me with this, and this with me,
2484 That I must be their scourge and minister.
2485 I will bestow him, and will answer well
2486 The death I gave him. So again, good-night.—
2487 I must be cruel, only to be kind:
2488 Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.—
2489 One word more, good lady.
Queen Gertrude
2490 What shall I do?
Hamlet
2491 Not this, by no means, that I bid you do:
2492 Let the bloat king tempt you again to bed;
2493 Pinch wanton on your cheek; call you his mouse;
2494 And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses,
2495 Or paddling in your neck with his damn'd fingers,
2496 Make you to ravel all this matter out,
2497 That I essentially am not in madness,
2498 But mad in craft. 'Twere good you let him know;
2499 For who that's but a queen, fair, sober, wise,
2500 Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib,
2501 Such dear concernings hide? who would do so?
2502 No, in despite of sense and secrecy,
2503 Unpeg the basket on the house's top,
2504 Let the birds fly, and, like the famous ape,
2505 To try conclusions, in the basket creep
2506 And break your own neck down.
Queen Gertrude
2507 Be thou assur'd, if words be made of breath,
2508 And breath of life, I have no life to breathe
2509 What thou hast said to me.
Hamlet
2510 I must to England; you know that?
Queen Gertrude
2511 Alack,
2512 I had forgot: 'tis so concluded on.
Hamlet
2513 There's letters seal'd: and my two schoolfellows,—
2514 Whom I will trust as I will adders fang'd,—
2515 They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way
2516 And marshal me to knavery. Let it work;
2517 For 'tis the sport to have the enginer
2518 Hoist with his own petard: and 't shall go hard
2519 But I will delve one yard below their mines
2520 And blow them at the moon: O, 'tis most sweet,
2521 When in one line two crafts directly meet.—
2522 This man shall set me packing:
2523 I'll lug the guts into the neighbour room.—
2524 Mother, good-night.—Indeed, this counsellor
2525 Is now most still, most secret, and most grave,
2526 Who was in life a foolish peating knave.
2527 Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you:—
2528 Good night, mother.
[Exeunt severally; Hamlet, dragging out Polonius.]

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Notes

TLN 2309cultural context
“by the rood”
The rood is the cross (Old English 'rod'). 'By the rood' is a common Elizabethan mild oath, swearing by Christ's crucifix. It marks Hamlet's oath as genuine but also edged with irony — he is about to define his mother in the most brutal terms.
TLN 2320cultural context
“Dead for a ducat, dead!”
A ducat was a gold coin used across Europe; the phrase means 'I'll bet a ducat he's dead' — a gambler's wager shouted at the moment of the thrust. Hamlet is so certain the hidden man is mortally struck that he bets on it. The casual, sporting tone makes the killing more chilling.
TLN 2335archaic vocab
“braz'd it so”
Braz'd (brazed) = hardened like brass; made impervious. Hamlet accuses Gertrude of having let habitual sin coat her heart in metal so thick that feeling cannot penetrate. 'Damned custom' (sinful habit) is the forge.
TLN 2354archaic vocab
“The counterfeit presentment of two brothers”
Counterfeit here means a likeness or portrait (from Old French 'contrefait'), not a forgery. Presentment = representation, image. Hamlet is pointing to two portraits — the late king and Claudius — and asking Gertrude to compare them. The word carries no deceptive connotation: it simply means 'painted representation.'
TLN 2356classical allusion
“Hyperion's curls”
Hyperion is the Titan of radiant light in Greek myth, father of the sun, famously beautiful. His curls stood for divine solar splendor. Hamlet borrows the image from earlier in the play (1.2: 'Hyperion to a satyr') to insist his father's beauty was godlike — sunlight compared to Claudius's shadow.
TLN 2356classical allusion
“the front of Jove himself”
Front = brow or forehead (archaic). Jove (Jupiter/Zeus) was the king of the gods, proverbially depicted with a commanding, massive brow. The phrase pictures the dead king's forehead as bearing the authority and majesty of the ruler of Olympus — kingly by divine nature.
TLN 2357classical allusion
“An eye like Mars, to threaten and command”
Mars was the Roman god of war — fierce-eyed, armored, commanding in battle. The simile gives the dead king's gaze a martial authority: not merely kingly but warrior-divine. The three gods (Hyperion, Jove, Mars) make up a composite portrait of ideal kingship — beauty, authority, power.
TLN 2358classical allusion
“A station like the herald Mercury”
Station = posture, stance (archaic). Mercury (Hermes in Greek myth) was the gods' swift messenger, always depicted poised mid-step on a hilltop — the ideal of graceful readiness. The image captures the dead king's bearing as nimble and divine. 'New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill' means just alighted, like a winged god landing.
TLN 2369archaic vocab
“The hey-day in the blood is tame”
Hey-day = height, peak, period of greatest excitement (archaic). Blood in Elizabethan physiology was the humor governing passion and desire. Hamlet argues that at Gertrude's age the peak of passionate desire should have cooled, leaving reason to guide choice — making her remarriage inexplicable.
TLN 2377cultural context
“hoodman-blind”
Hoodman-blind is the Elizabethan name for what we call blind man's buff — a party game in which the blindfolded player ('hoodman') tries to catch others by touch. Hamlet asks what devil tricked Gertrude into choosing Claudius as if she were blindfolded, with her senses disabled.
TLN 2402historical topical
“a vice of kings”
The Vice was the central comic villain of medieval English morality plays — a boisterous, dagger-waving clown who represented evil while making the audience laugh. By calling Claudius 'a Vice of kings,' Hamlet reduces him from a tragic usurper to a buffoon in a cheap entertainment, a cardboard devil. The insult strips him of tragic dignity.
historical The Vice of the morality plays
TLN 2407historical topical
“A king of shreds and patches!”
This continues the Vice image: the stage Vice wore a patchwork motley costume of scraps and rags, unlike the gorgeous robes of a real king. Hamlet sneers that Claudius is a jester-king, a patchwork fraud stitched together from borrowed power. The line also resonates with the Elizabethan tailor's trade (shreds = fabric scraps).
historical The Vice of the morality plays
TLN 2416archaic vocab
“whet thy almost blunted purpose”
Whet = sharpen (as a blade on a whetstone). The Ghost's single line diagnoses the problem of the whole play: Hamlet's resolve to kill Claudius has gone dull — metaphorically, the sword of revenge has blunted. The Ghost returns not to give new orders but to resharpen an old one.
TLN 2427archaic vocab
“like life in excrements”
Excrements here means outgrowths from the body — nails and hair — not waste matter. Gertrude describes Hamlet's hair standing on end as if alive. The word derives from Latin 'excrescere' (to grow out), and Shakespeare uses it in this anatomical sense elsewhere (e.g., The Tempest 2.1). A student reading it as 'feces' will miss the image entirely.
TLN 2454archaic vocab
“flattering unction to your soul”
Unction = ointment applied for healing or last rites (Latin 'unctio'). Hamlet warns Gertrude not to apply self-soothing balm to her soul — don't treat your sin with a comforting excuse. The image extends: flattery is a false medicine that only covers an infected wound without curing it.
TLN 2469rhetorical device
“Assume a virtue, if you have it not”
A paradox that inverts the usual moral advice: instead of 'be what you seem,' Hamlet says 'seem what you want to become.' He draws on a classical and Reformation-era idea (habit shapes character) — pretend to be chaste, and the habit of pretending will eventually create actual chastity. Aristotle argued in the Nicomachean Ethics that virtuous action produces virtuous character.
TLN 2484cultural context
“their scourge and minister”
A theologically precise pair: a scourge is God's instrument of punishment on the wicked (who may himself be destroyed in the process, like Attila the Hun — 'the scourge of God'); a minister is a righteous agent of divine will who survives the act. Hamlet sees himself as both and is uncertain which — the distinction matters because the scourge is damned, the minister is not.
TLN 2487rhetorical device
“I must be cruel, only to be kind”
An oxymoron (cruel / kind) that is also a paradox: the kindest act toward Gertrude is the harsh confrontation Hamlet has just performed. The line has passed into proverbial use and is a compressed version of the advice to be cruel to be kind — a genuine Renaissance moral argument that tough love serves better than flattery.
TLN 2517archaic vocab
“the enginer”
Enginer (also 'engineer') = a military engineer who digs mines and sets explosive charges beneath enemy fortifications. The spelling reflects Elizabethan practice. Hamlet is speaking literally about mine-warfare before the metaphor clicks: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are engineers who have tunneled toward him, and he will counter-mine.
TLN 2518cultural context
“Hoist with his own petard”
A petard was a small iron bomb packed with gunpowder and clamped to a gate or wall to blow it open. Hoist = lifted, blown up. If the fuse was too short, the engineer who set it was himself hurled into the air by the blast. Hamlet means: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are carrying orders for his death; he will turn those same orders against them. The phrase has survived into modern English ('hoist by one's own petard').