Act II, Scene 2 — The Fishmonger

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 th' 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 th' understanding of himself, I cannot dream of. I entreat you both that, being of so young days brought up with him, and sith so neighboured to his youth and haviour, 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, whether aught to us unknown afflicts him thus that, opened, lies within our remedy.

Both your Majesties might, by the sovereign power you have of us, put your dread pleasures more into command than to entreaty.

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

Thanks, Rosencrantz, and gentle Guildenstern.

The ambassadors from Norway, my good lord, are joyfully returned.

Thou still hast been the father of good news.

Have I, my lord? I assure my good liege I hold my duty as I hold my soul, both to my God and to my gracious king. And I do think—or else this brain of mine hunts not the trail of policy so sure as it hath used to do—that I have found the very cause of Hamlet's lunacy.

O, speak of that! That do I long to hear.

My liege, and madam, to expostulate what majesty should be, what duty is, why day is day, night night, and time is time, were nothing but to waste night, day, and time. Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit, and tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief. Your noble son is mad. Mad call I it, for, to define true madness, what is't but to be nothing else but mad? But let that go.

More matter, with less art.

Madam, I swear I use no art at all. That he is mad, 'tis true; 'tis true, 'tis pity, and pity 'tis 'tis true—a foolish figure, 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, whilst she is mine—who in her duty and obedience, mark, hath given me this. Now gather and surmise.

Do you know me, my lord?

Excellent well. You are a fishmonger.

Not I, my lord.

Then I would you were so honest a man.

Honest, my lord?

Ay, sir. To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.

That's very true, my lord.

For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a good kissing carrion— Have you a daughter?

I have, my lord.

Let her not walk i' th' sun. Conception is a blessing, but as your daughter may conceive—friend, look to't.

How say you by that? Still harping on my daughter. Yet he knew me not at first; he said I was a fishmonger. He is 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?

Words, words, words.

What is the matter, my lord?

Between who?

I mean the matter that you read, my lord.

Slanders, sir; for the satirical rogue says here that old men have grey beards, that their faces are wrinkled, their eyes purging thick amber and plum-tree gum, and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams. All which, sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down; for yourself, sir, shall grow old as I am—if, like a crab, you could go backward.

Though this be madness, yet there is method in't. Will you walk out of the air, my lord?

Into my grave.

My excellent good friends! How dost thou, Guildenstern? Ah, Rosencrantz! Good lads, how do you both?

As the indifferent children of the earth.

What have you, my good friends, deserved at the hands of Fortune that she sends you to prison hither?

Prison, my lord?

Denmark's a prison.

Then is the world one.

A goodly one, in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons, Denmark being one o' th' worst.

I have of late—but wherefore I know not—lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises, and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory. This most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire—why, it appeareth nothing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals—and yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me—no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.

You are welcome, masters, welcome all.—I am glad to see thee well.—Welcome, good friends.—O, old friend! Why, thy face is valanced since I saw thee last. Com'st 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 a piece 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 anything we see. We'll have a speech straight. Come, give us a taste of your quality. Come, a passionate speech.

What speech, my good lord?

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 judgements 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. One speech in't I chiefly loved: 'twas Aeneas' tale to Dido, and thereabout of it especially where he speaks of Priam's slaughter. If it live in your memory, begin at this line—let me see, let me see: "The rugged Pyrrhus, like th' Hyrcanian beast"— 'tis not so; it begins with Pyrrhus— "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 smeared with heraldry more dismal."

Anon he finds him striking too short at Greeks. His antique sword, rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls, repugnant to command. Unequal matched, Pyrrhus at Priam drives, in rage strikes wide, but with the whiff and wind of his fell sword th' unnerved father falls. Then senseless Ilium, seeming to feel this blow, with flaming top stoops to his base, and with a hideous crash takes prisoner Pyrrhus' ear. For lo, his sword, which was declining on the milky head of reverend Priam, seemed i' th' air to stick. So, as a painted tyrant, Pyrrhus stood, and, like a neutral to his will and matter, did nothing.

'Tis well. I'll have thee speak out the rest of this soon.—Good my lord, will you see the players well bestowed? Do you hear, let them be well used, for they are the abstract and brief chronicles of the time. After your death you were better have a bad epitaph than their ill report while you live.

O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I! Is it not monstrous that this player here, but in a fiction, in a dream of passion, could force his soul so to his own conceit that from her working all his visage wanned, tears in his eyes, distraction in his aspect, a broken voice, and his whole function suiting with forms to his conceit—and all for nothing! For Hecuba! What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, that he should weep for her? What would he do had he the motive and the cue for passion that I have? He would drown the stage with tears and cleave the general ear with horrid speech, make mad the guilty and appal the free, confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed the very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I, a dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause, and can say nothing—no, not for a king upon whose property and most dear life a damned defeat was made. Am I a coward? Who calls me villain, breaks my pate across, plucks off my beard and blows it in my face, tweaks me by the nose, gives me the lie i' th' throat as deep as to the lungs—who does me this? Ha! 'Swounds, I should take it; for it cannot be but I am pigeon-livered and lack gall to make oppression bitter, or ere this I should have fatted all the region kites with this slave's offal. Bloody, bawdy villain! Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain! O, vengeance! Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave, that I, the son of a dear father murdered, prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell, must like a whore unpack my heart with words and fall a-cursing like a very drab, a stallion! Fie upon't, foh! About, my brains! Hum, I have heard that guilty creatures sitting at a play have, by the very cunning of the scene, been struck so to the soul that presently they have proclaimed their malefactions; for murder, though it have no tongue, will speak with most miraculous organ. I'll have these players play something like the murder of my father before mine uncle. I'll observe his looks; I'll tent him to the quick. If he do blench, I know my course. The spirit that I have seen may be a devil, and the devil hath power t' assume a pleasing shape; yea, 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.