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To keep it from divulging, let it feed
Even on the pith of life. Where is he gone!
Queen. 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; he weeps for what is done.

King. 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, 31 Both countenance and excuse. Ho, Guilden

Ham. That I can keep your counsel, and not mine own. Besides, to be demanded of a sponge! what replication should be made by the son of a king?

Ros. Take you me for a sponge, my lord? Ham. Ay, sir; that soaks up the king's countenance,1 his rewards, his authorities. But such officers do the king best service in the end: he keeps them, like an ape doth nuts, in the corner of his jaw; first mouthed, to be last swallowed: when he needs what you have gleaned, it is but squeezing you, and, sponge, you shall be dry again.

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Ros. I understand you not, my lord. Ham. I am glad of it: a knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear.

Ros. My lord, you must tell us where the body is, and go with us to the king.

Ham. The body is with the king, but the king is not with the body. The king is a thing

Guil. A thing, my lord?

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Ham. My mother: father and mother is man and wife; man and wife is one flesh; and so, my mother. Come, for England! [Erit. King. Follow him at foot; tempt him with speed aboard;

Delay it not; I'll have him hence to-night: Away! for everything is seal'd and done That else leans on the affair: pray you, make haste.

[Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. [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 't is done,
Howe'er my haps, my joys were ne'er begun.]

68

[Exit.

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That inward breaks, and shows no cause without
Why the man dies. I humbly thank you, sir.
Cap. God be wi' you, sir.
Ros. Will't please you go, my lord?
Ham. I'll be with you straight. Go a little
before. [Exeunt all except Hamlet.
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 unus'd. Now, whether it be
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
Of thinking too precisely on the event,—
A thought which, quarter'd, hath but one
part wisdom,

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