Hamlet :Act 4 (Scene 1-6) Quotes

“there is matter in these sights, these profound heaves you must translate; ’tis fit we understand them. Where is your son?” King Claudius
“[bestow this place on us a little while.] Ah, mine own lord, what have I seen tonight!” Queen Gertrude
“What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?” King Claudius
“Mad as the sea and the wind when both contend which 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 Queen Gertrude
“O heavy deed! It had been so with us, had we been there. His liberty is full of threats to us all- to you yourself, to us, to everyone. Alas, how shall this bloody deed be answered? It will be laid to us, whose providence should have kept short, restrained, 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?” King Claudius
“To draw apart the body he hath killed, o’er whom his very madness, like some ore among a mineral of metals base, shows itself pure: he weeps for what is done.” Queen Gertrude talking about Hamlet
“O Gertrude, come away! The sun no sooner shall the mountains touch but we will ship him hence; and this vile deed we mist with all our majesty and skill both countenance and excuse.- Ho, Guildenstern! Friends both, go join you with some further aid.Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain, and from his mother’s closet hath he (dragged) him. Go seek him out, speak fair, and bring the body into the chapel. I pray you, haste in this. Come, Gertrude, we’ll call up our wisest friends and let them know both what we mean to do and what’s untimely done. ⸢…⸣ [Whose whisper o’er the world’s diameter, as level as the cannon to his blank transports his poisoned shot, may miss our name and hit the woundless air.] O come away! My soul is filled with dismay” King Claudius talking to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
“Safely stowed” Hamlet
“Hamlet! Lord Hamlet!” Gentlemen
“But soft, what noise? Who calls on Hamlet? O here they come.” HamletThe “they” refers to Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and others
“What have you done my lord with the dead body?” Rozencrantz
“(Compounded) it with dust, whereto ’tis kin” Hamlet
“Tell us where ’tis, that we may take it thence and bear it to the chapel.” Rosencrantz
“Do not believe it.” Hamlet
“Believe what?” Rosencrantz
“That I can keep your counsel and not mine own. Besides, to be demanded of a sponge, what replication should be made by a son of a king?” Hamlet
“Take you me for a sponge, my lord?” Rosencrantz
“Ay sir, that soaks up the King’s countenance, his rewards, his authorities. But such officers do the King’s best service in the end. He keeps them (like an ape) an apple in the corner of his jaw, first mouthed, to be last swallowed. When he needs what you have gleaned, it is by squeezing you, and, sponge, you shall be dry again” Hamlet
“I understand you not, my lord” Rosencrantz
“I am glad of it. A knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear” Hamlet
“My lord, you must tell us where the body is and go with us to the King” Rosencrantz
“The body is with the King, but the king is not with the body. The King is a thing-“ Hamlet
A “thing,” my lord? Rosencrantz The “thing” is the King
“Of nothing. Bring me to him. (Hide fox, and all after!) Hamlet”Him” is the King”
“I have sent to seek him and find the body. How dangerous is it that this man goes loose! Yet must not we put the strong law on him. He’s loved of the distracted multitude, who like not in their judgement, but their eyes; and where ’tis so, th’ offender’s scourage is weighed, but never the offense. To bear all smooth and even, this sudden sending him away must seem deliberate pause. Diseases desperate grown by desperate appliance are relieved or not at all. How now what hath befallen?” King Hamlet”Him” is Hamlet
“Where the dead body is bestowed, my lord. We cannot get from him” Rosencrantz”Him” is Hamlet
“But where is he?” King Claudius “He” is Hamlet
“Without, my lord; guarded to know your pleasure.” Rosencrantz
“Bring him before us” King Claudius”Him” is Hamlet
“Ho! Bring in the lord.” Rosencrantz
“Now Hamlet, where’s Polonius?” King Claudius
“At supper” Hamlet
“At supper where?” King Claudius
“Not where he eats, but where he is eaten. A certain convocation of politic worms are e’en at him. Your worm is your only emperor for diet. We fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots. Your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service- two dishes but to one table. That’s the end.” Hamlet”He” is Polonius
“Alas, alas!” King Claudius
” A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king and eat of a king and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.” Hamlet
“What does thou mean by this?” King Claudius
“Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar.” Hamlet
“Where is Polonius?” King Claudius
“In heaven. Send thither to see. If your messenger find him not there, seek i’ th’ other place yourself. But if, indeed, you find him not within this month, you shall nose him as you go up the stairs into the lobby.” Hamlet”Him” is Polonius
“Go, seek him there.” King Claudius to attendants
“He will stay until you come.” Hamlet
“Hamlet, this deed for thine especial safety (which we do tender, as we dearly grieve for that which thou hast done) must send thee hence (with fiery quickness.) Therefore prepare thyself. The bark is ready, and the wind at help, th’ associates tend, and everything is bent for England.” King Claudius
“For England?” Hamlet
“Ay, Hamlet” King Claudius
“Good” Hamlet
“So is it, if thou knew’st our purposes” King Claudius
“I see a cherub that sees them. But come, for England. Farewell, dear mother.” Hamlet
“Thy loving father, Hamlet” King Claudius
“My mother. Father and mother is man and wife, man and wife is one flesh, (and) so, m ymother.- Come, for England” Hamlet
“Follow him at foot; tempt him with speed abroad. Delay it not. I’ll have him hence tonight. Away, for everything is sealed and done that else leans on th’ affair. Pray you, make haste. And England, if my love thou hold’st at aught (as my great power thereof may give thee sense, since yet thy cicatrice looks raw and red after the Danish sword, and thy free awe pays homage to us), thou mayst not coldly set our sovereign process, which imports at full, by letters congruing to that effect, the present death of Hamlet. Do it, England, for like the hectic in my blood he rages, and thou must cure me. Till I know ’tis done, howe’er my haps, my joys will ne’er begin. King Claudius
“Go, Captain, from me greet the Danish king. Tell him that by his license Fortinbras craves the conveyance of a promised march over his kingdom. You know the rendezvous. If that his Majesty would aught with us, we shall express our duty in his eye; and let him know so” Fortinbras
“I will do’t, my lord Captain
“Go softly on” Fortinbras
“Good sir, whose powers are these?” Hamlet
“They are of Norway, sir” Captain
“How purposed, sir, I pray you?” Hamlet
“Against some part of Poland” Captain
“Who commands them, sir” Hamlet
“The nephew to old Norway, Fortinbras” Captain
“Goes it against the main of Poland, sir, or for some frontier?” Hamlet
“Truly to speak, and with no addition, we go to gain a little patch of ground that hath in it no profit but the name. To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it; nor will it yield to Norway or the pole a ranker rate, should it be sold in fee” Captain
“Why, then, the Polack never will defend it” Hamlet
“”Yes, it is already garrisoned” Captain
“Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats will not debate the question of this straw. This is th’ impostume of much wealth and peace, that inward breaks and shows no cause without why the man dies.-I humbly thank you, sir” Hamlet
“God be wi’ you, sir” Captain
“”Will’t please you go, my lord?” Rosencrantz
“I will with you straight. Go a little before. How all occasions do inform against me and spur my dull revenge. What is a man if his chief good and market of his time be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more. Sure he that made us with such large discourse, looking before and after, gave us not that capability and godlike reason to fust in us unused. Now whether it be bestial oblivion or some craven scruple of thinking too precisely on th’ event (A thought which, quartered, hath but one part wisdom and ever three parts coward), I do not know why yet I live to say “this thing’s to do,” sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means to do’t. Examples gross as earth exhort me: Witness this army of such mass and charge, led by a delicate and tender prince, whose spirit with divine ambition puffed makes mouths at the invisible event, exposing what is mortal and unsure to all that fortune, death, and danger dare, even for an eggshell. Rightly to be great is not to stir without great argument, but greatly to find quarrel in a straw when honor’s at the stake. How stand I, then, that have father killed, a mother stained, excitements of my reason and my blood, and let all sleep, while to my shame I see the imminent death of twenty thousand men that for a fantasy and trick of fame go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot wheron the numbers cannot try the cause which is not tomb enough and continent to hide the slain? O, from this time forth my thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth!” Hamlet
“I will not speak with her” Queen Gertrude
“She is importunate, indeed distract; her mood will needs be pitied” Gentleman
“What would she have?” Queen Gertrude
“She speaks much of her father, says she hears there’s tricks i’ th’ world, and hems, and beats her heart, spurns enviously at straws, speaks things in doubt that carry but half sense. Her speech is nothing, yet the unshaped use of it doth move the hearers to collection. They (aim) at it and botch the words up to fit to their own thoughts; which, as her winks and nods and gestures yield them, indeed would make one think there might be thought, though nothing sure, yet much unhappily” Gentleman
“Twere good she were spoken with, for she may strew dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.” Horatio
“Let her come in. To my sick soul (as sin’s true nature is), each toy seems prologue to some great amiss So full of artless jealousy is guilt, it spills itself in fearing to be split” Queen Gertrude
“Where is the beauteous Majesty of Denmark?” Ophelia
“How now, Ophelia? Queen Gertrude
“How should I your true love know from another one? By his cockle hat and staff and his sandal shoon” Ophelia
“Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?” Queen Gertrude
“Say you? Nay, pray you, mark. He is dead and gone, lady , he is dead and gone lady, he is dead and gone; at his head a grass-green turf, at his heels a stone. Oh, ho!” Ophelia
“Nay, but Ophelia-“ Queen Gertrude
“Pray you, mark. White his shroud as the mountain snow-“ Ophelia
“alas look here my lord” Queen Gertrude
“Larded all with sweet flowers; which bewept to the ground did not go with true-love showers Ophelia
“How do you, pretty lady?” King Claudius
“Well, God dild you. They say the owl was a know not what we may be. God be at your table.” Ophelia
“Conceit upon her father” King Claudius
“Pray let’s have no words of this, but when they ask you what it means, say this: tomorrow is a Valentine’s Day, all in the morning betime, and I a maid at your Valentine. Then up he rose and donned his clothes and dupped the chamber door, let in the maid, that out a maid never departed more.” Ophelia
“Pretty Ophelia-“ King Claudius
“Indeed without an oath I’ll make an end on’t.Sings. “By Gis, and by Saint Charity, Alack, and fie for shame! Young men will do’t if they come to’t, By Cock, they are to blame. Quoth she, “Before you tumbled me, You promis’d me to wed.'”He answers. ‘So would I ‘a’ done, by yonder sun, And thou hadst not come to my bed.'” Ophelia
“How long hath she been thus?” King Claudius
“I hope all will be well. We must be patient, but I cannot choose but weep to think they would lay him i’ th’ cold ground. My brother shall know of it, and so I thank you for your good counsel. Come, my coach! Good night, ladies, good night. Sweet ladies, good night, good night.” Ophelia
“Follow her close, give her good watch, I pray you.O, this is the poison of deep grief, it springs. All from her father’s death—and now behold! O Gertrude, Gertrude, When sorrows come, they come not single spies, But in battalions: first, her father slain; Next, your son gone, and he most violent author Of his own just remove; the people muddied, Thick and unwholesome in their thoughts and whispers For good Polonius’ death; and we have done but greenly In hugger-mugger to inter him; poor Ophelia Divided from herself and her fair judgement, Without the which we are pictures, or mere beasts; Last, and as much containing as all these, Her brother is in secret come from France, Feeds on this wonder, keeps himself in clouds, And wants not buzzers to infect his ear With pestilent speeches of his father’s death, Wherein necessity, of matter beggar’d, Will nothing stick our person to arraign In ear and ear. O my dear Gertrude, this, Like to a murd’ring-piece, in many places Gives me superfluous death. noise within.” King Claudius
“Alack what noise is this?” Queen Gertrude
“Attend! Where is my Swissers? Let them guard the door. What is the matter?” King Claudius
“Save yourself, my lord! The ocean, overpeering of his list, Eats not the flats with more impetuous haste Than young Laertes, in a riotous head, O’erbears your officers. The rabble call him lord, And as the world were now but to begin, Antiquity forgot, custom not known, The ratifiers and props of every word, They cry, “Choose we, Laertes shall be king!” Caps, hands, and tongues applaud it to the clouds, “Laertes shall be king, Laertes king!” Messanger
“How cheerfully on the false trail they cry! O, this is counter, you false Danish dogs! Enter Laertes with others.” Queen Gertrude
“The doors are broke.” King Claudius
” Where is this king? Sirs, stand you all without” Laertes
“No, let ‘s come in.” All
“I pray you, give me leave” Laertes
“We will, we will’ All
“I thank you, keep the door. O, thou vile king, Give me my father! Laertes
“Calmly, good Laertes” Queen Gertrude
“That drop of blood that’s calm proclaims mebastard, Cries “cuckold” to my father, brands the harlotEven here between the chaste unsmirchèd browOf my true mother.” Laertes
“What is the cause, Laertes,That thy rebellion looks so giant-like?—Let him go, Gertrude. Do not fear our person.There’s such divinity doth hedge a kingThat treason can but peep to what it would,Acts little of his will.—Tell me, Laertes,Why thou art thus incensed.—Let him go,Gertrude.—Speak, man” King Claudius
“Where is my father?” Laertes
“Dead” King Claudius
“But not by him” Queen Gertrude
“Let him demand his fill” King Claudius
“How came he dead? I’ll not be juggled with.To hell, allegiance! Vows, to the blackest devil!Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit!I dare damnation. To this point I stand,That both the worlds I give to negligence,Let come what comes, only I’ll be revengedMost throughly for my father.” Laertes
Who shall stay you? King Claudius
My will, not all the world.And for my means, I’ll husband them so wellThey shall go far with little. Laertes
Good Laertes,If you desire to know the certaintyOf your dear father, is ‘t writ in your revengeThat, swoopstake, you will draw both friend andfoe, Winner and loser? King Claudius
None but his enemies. Laertes
Will you know them, then? King Claudius
“To his good friends thus wide I’ll ope my armsAnd, like the kind life-rend’ring pelican,Repast them with my blood.” Laertes
“Why, now you speakLike a good child and a true gentleman.That I am guiltless of your father’s deathAnd am most sensibly in grief for it,It shall as level to your judgment ‘pearAs day does to your eye” King Claudius
How now, what noise is that?O heat, dry up my brains! Tears seven times salt Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye!By heaven, thy madness shall be paid with weightTill our scale turn the beam! O rose of May,Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!O heavens, is ‘t possible a young maid’s witsShould be as mortal as an old man’s life?Nature is fine in love, and, where ’tis fine,It sends some precious instance of itselfAfter the thing it loves. Laertes
“They bore him barefaced on the bier,Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny,And in his grave rained many a tear” Ophelia
Hadst thou thy wits and didst persuade revenge,It could not move thus. Laertes
You must sing “A-down a-down”—and you”Call him a-down-a.”—O, how the wheel becomesit! It is the false steward that stole his master’sdaughter Ophelia
This nothing’s more than matter. Laertes
“There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance.Pray you, love, remember. And there is pansies,that’s for thoughts” Ophelia
A document in madness: thoughts and remembrancefitted. Laertes
“There’s fennel for you, and columbines.There’s rue for you, and here’s some for me; wemay call it herb of grace o’ Sundays. You must wearyour rue with a difference. There’s a daisy. I wouldgive you some violets, but they withered all whenmy father died. They say he made a good end.Sings. For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.” Ophelia
Thought and afflictions, passion, hell itselfShe turns to favor and to prettiness. Laertes
And will he not come again?And will he not come again?No, no, he is dead.Go to thy deathbed.He never will come again.His beard was as white as snow,All flaxen was his poll.He is gone, he is gone,And we cast away moan.God ‘a mercy on his soul.And of all Christians’ souls, I pray God. God be wi’you. Ophelia
“Do you see this, O God?” Laertes
“Laertes, I must commune with your grief,Or you deny me right. Go but apart,Make choice of whom your wisest friends you will,And they shall hear and judge ‘twixt you and me.If by direct or by collateral handThey find us touched, we will our kingdom give,Our crown, our life, and all that we call ours,To you in satisfaction; but if not,Be you content to lend your patience to us,And we shall jointly labor with your soulTo give it due content.” King Claudius
“Let this be so.His means of death, his obscure funeral(No trophy, sword, nor hatchment o’er his bones,No noble rite nor formal ostentation)Cry to be heard, as ’twere from heaven to earth,That I must call ‘t in question.” Laertes
So you shall,And where th’ offense is, let the great ax fall.I pray you, go with me. King Claudius