Hamlet, El Príncipe de Denmark

[print edition page number: 309]

SETTING:  November 2nd in colonized Mexico.

Characters

HAMLET — Prince of Denmark and son of the late King Hamlet and Queen Gertrude. He is bilingual.
BERNARDO — A guard.
HORATIO — A close friend of Hamlet.
GHOST — The ghost of King Hamlet. He speaks only Spanish.
KING CLAUDIUS — The brother of the late King Hamlet.
QUEEN GERTRUDE — Queen of Denmark.
POLONIUS — A councilor to King Claudius and father of Laertes and Ophelia.
LAERTES — The brother of Ophelia.
OPHELIA — The girlfriend of Hamlet. She is bilingual.
GUILDENSTERN — A friend of Hamlet.
ROSENCRANTZ — A friend of Hamlet.
DANCER
PLAYERS — Playing several roles including King, Queen, Poisoner, Lucianus, and Prologue.
DOCTOR
GRAVEDIGGER
COMPANION — Companion to the Gravedigger.
LORD
FORTINBRAS — Prince of England.
MESSENGER
WOMEN — Women who engage in rituals throughout the play. [310]

A NOTE ON CASTING: All characters should be played by Indigenous, Mexican, and/or Latinx actors.

A NOTE ON LANGUAGE: Reflecting the double colonization of the Borderlands, Spanish is used in this play as a proxy for Indigenous Mexican languages. English represents the language of the colonizer. The language use of the characters varies depending on their relationship to colonial power.

A NOTE ON THE TEXT: The playtext is adapted from the Folger Shakespeare Library edition of Hamlet and Editorial Porrúa’s reprinting of Leandro Fernández de Moratín’s 1798 Spanish translation of Hamlet. [311]

ACT 1
Scene 1

The early hours of November 2nd, Día de Muertos. The play opens in a graveyard with three tombstones and three small altars. HAMLET and two WOMEN enter. The WOMEN’s faces are painted as calacas, and they are wearing hooded shawls. The three enter with ofrendas. Instrumental Mexican music is playing. In synchronized motion, they lay their offerings onto the tombstones, and they each light a candle. It’s a ritual. As soon as HAMLET’s candle is lit, the music abruptly goes out as howling wind and rolling thunder are heard. The WOMEN, frightened, exit. HAMLET, perplexed, stays behind for a few beats. He exits when he hears BERNARDO enter.

BERNARDO
Who’s there? Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold yourself.

Enter HORATIO.

I think I hear them. — Stand ho!

HORATIO
Long live the King!

BERNARDO
Say, what, is Horatio there?

HORATIO
A piece of him.

BERNARDO
Hola, Horatio. Why are you out so late at night?

HORATIO
Un paseo, mi amigo.

BERNARDO
A stroll at this hour? You jest. Speak the truth.

HORATIO
Curiosity plagues me. Has this thing appeared again tonight? [312]

BERNARDO
I have seen nothing. What drives your curiosity?

HORATIO
A belief takes hold of me
To watch the minutes of this night,
That, if again this apparition come,
We may speak to it
On this eve of All Souls Day tonight.
Cuéntame sobre el fantasma.

BERNARDO
Sit down awhile,
And let me once again assail your ears,
That are so fortified against my story,
What I have two nights seen.
Last night of all,
When yond same star that’s westward from the pole
O’er the sounds of celebrations
During Día de Todos los Santos
The bell then beating one —

Enter GHOST.

HORATIO
Calla, mírale por dónde viene otra vez.

BERNARDO
In the same figure like the King that’s dead!
Speak to it, Horatio!

HORATIO
It harrows me with fear and wonder.

BERNARDO
Háblale, Horatio.

HORATIO
What art thou that usurp’st this time of night,
Together with that fair and warlike form
In which the majesty of buried Denmark
Did sometimes march? By heaven, I charge thee, speak. [313]

BERNARDO
It is offended. See, it stalks away.

HORATIO
Stay! Speak! Speak! I charge thee, speak!

GHOST exits.

BERNARDO
How now, Horatio, you tremble and look pale.

HORATIO
Por Dios, que nunca lo hubiera creído sin la sensible y cierta demostración de mis propios ojos.

BERNARDO
Is it not like the King?

HORATIO
As thou art to thyself.

BERNARDO
Thus twice before, and jump at this dead hour,
With martial stalk hath he gone by my watch.

HORATIO
In what particular thought to work I know not,
But this bodes some strange eruption to our state.

Enter GHOST.

But soft, behold! Lo, where it comes again!
I’ll cross it though it blast me. — Stay, illusion!

GHOST spreads his arms.

If thou hast any sound or use of voice,
Speak to me.
If there be any good thing to be done
That may to thee do ease and grace to me,
Speak to me.
If thou art privy to thy country’s fate,
Which happily foreknowing may avoid,
O, speak! [314]

A rooster crows. Day break.

Stay and speak! — Stop it, Bernardo!

BERNARDO
Shall I strike it with my partisan?

HORATIO
’Tis here.

GHOST exits.

HORATIO
’Tis gone.
We do it wrong, being so majestical,
To offer it the show of violence,
For it is as the air, invulnerable,
And our vain blows malicious mockery.

BERNARDO
It was about to speak when the cock crew.

HORATIO
So have I heard and do in part believe it.
Let us impart what we have seen tonight
Unto young Hamlet; for, upon my life,
This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him.
Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it
As needful in our loves, fitting our duty?

BERNARDO
Let’s do ’t, I pray, and I this morning know
Where we shall find him most convenient.

They exit. [315]

Scene 2

Music plays as OPHELIA, GERTRUDE, and another WOMAN enter in bright dresses with their faces painted as calacas. They dance for the final day of celebrations. KING CLAUDIUS, POLONIUS, and HAMLET watch. As the dance and music end, applause erupts, and KING CLAUDIUS begins to address the crowd.

KING CLAUDIUS
How wonderful! Thank you, dancers!
Everyone, please sit.
Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother’s death
The memory be green, and that it us befitted
To bear our hearts in grief, and our whole kingdom
To be contracted in one brow of woe,
Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature
That we with wisest sorrow think on him
Together with remembrance of ourselves.
Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen,
Have we taken to wife. Nor have we herein barred
Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone
With this affair along. For all, our thanks.

He hands GERTRUDE a wipe to clean her face of the makeup.

Farewell to our past as we celebrate our future.

She wipes her face to HAMLET’s dismay as LAERTES enters.

And now, Laertes, what’s the news with you?

LAERTES
My dread lord,
Your leave and favor to return to France,
From whence though willingly I came to Denmark
To show my duty in your coronation,
Yet now I must confess, that duty done,
My thoughts and wishes bend again toward France
And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon. [316]

KING CLAUDIUS
Have you your father’s leave? What says Polonius?

POLONIUS
He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave
By laborsome petition, and at last
Upon his will I sealed my hard consent.
I do beseech you give him leave to go.

KING CLAUDIUS
Take thy fair hour, Laertes. Time be thine,
And thy best graces spend it at thy will. —
But now, my cousin Hamlet and my son —

HAMLET (aside)
Algo más que deudo y menos que amigo.

KING CLAUDIUS
How is it that the clouds still hang on you?
Today we celebrate!

HAMLET
Not so, my lord; I am too much in the sun.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted color off,
And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.
Do not forever with thy vailèd lids
Seek for thy noble father in the dust.
Thou know’st ’tis common; all that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.

HAMLET
Ay, madam, it is common.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
If it be,
Why seems it so particular with thee?

HAMLET
“Seems,” madam? Nay, it is. I know not “seems.”
’Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, [317]
Nor customary suits of solemn black,
Nor windy suspiration of forced breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected behavior of the visage,
Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief,
That can denote me truly. These indeed “seem,”
For they are actions that a man might play;
But I have that within which passes show,
These but the trappings and the suits of woe.

KING CLAUDIUS
’Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,
To give these mourning duties to your father.
But you must know your father lost a father,
That father lost, lost his, and the survivor bound
In filial obligation for some term
To do obsequious sorrow. But to persevere
In obstinate condolement is a course
Of impious stubbornness. ’Tis unmanly grief.
For your intent in going back to school in Wittenberg,
It is most retrograde to our desire,
And we beseech you, bend you to remain
Here in the cheer and comfort of our eye,
Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet.
I pray thee, stay with us. Go not to Wittenberg.

HAMLET
I shall in all my best obey you, madam.

KING CLAUDIUS
Why, ’tis a loving and a fair reply.
Be as ourself in Denmark. — Madam, come.
This gentle and unforced accord of Hamlet
Sits smiling to my heart. Come away.

All but HAMLET exit. [318]

HAMLET
O, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew,
Or that the Everlasting had not fixed
His canon ’gainst self-slaughter! O God, God,
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on ’t, ah fie! ’Tis an unweeded garden
That grows to seed. Things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely. That it should come to this:
But two months dead — nay, not so much, not two.
So excellent a king, so loving to my mother
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and Earth,
Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him
As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on. And yet, within a month
(Let me not think on ’t; frailty, thy name is woman!),
A little month, or ere those shoes were old
With which she followed my poor father’s body,
Like Niobe, all tears — why she, even she
(O God, a beast that wants discourse of reason
Would have mourned longer!) married with my uncle,
My father’s brother, but no more like my father
Than I to Hercules. Within a month,
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her gallèd eyes,
She married. O, most wicked speed, to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
It is not, nor it cannot come to good.
But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.

Enter HORATIO.

HORATIO
Buenos días, señor.

HAMLET
Horatio — or I do forget myself! [319]

HORATIO
The same, my lord, and your poor servant ever.

HAMLET
Sir, my good friend. I’ll change that name with you.
And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio?

HORATIO
A truant disposition, good my lord.

HAMLET
I know you are no truant.
But what is your affair in Elsinore?
We’ll teach you to drink deep ere you depart.

HORATIO
My lord, I came to see your father’s funeral.

HAMLET
I prithee, do not mock me, fellow student.
I think it was to see my mother’s wedding.

HORATIO
Indeed, my lord, it followed hard upon.

HAMLET
Thrift, thrift, Horatio. The funeral baked meats
Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.
Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven
Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio!
My father — methinks I see my father!

HORATIO
Where, my lord?

HAMLET
In my mind’s eye, Horatio.

HORATIO
My lord, I think I saw him yesternight.

HAMLET
Saw who? [320]

HORATIO
My lord, the King your father.

HAMLET
The King my father?

HORATIO
Two nights together had this gentleman,
Bernardo, on his watch,
In the dead waste and middle of the night,
Been thus encountered: a figure like your father
Appears before them and with solemn march
Goes slow and stately by them.

HAMLET
Two nights?

HORATIO
The first on Día de Todos los Santos.

HAMLET
That night you swear?

HORATIO
Yes, my lord, as Bernardo reported. ’Twas that night.

HAMLET
But where was this?

BERNARDO
My lord, upon the platform where they watch.

HAMLET
Did you not speak to it?

HORATIO
My lord, I did,
But answer made it none.
But even then the morning cock crew loud,
And at the sound it shrunk in haste away
And vanished from our sight. [321]

HAMLET
Indeed, sir, but this troubles me.
Hold you the watch tonight?

HORATIO
I can, my lord.

HAMLET
What, looked he frowningly?

HORATIO
A countenance more in sorrow than in anger.

HAMLET
Pale or red?

HORATIO
Nay, very pale.

HAMLET
And fixed his eyes upon you?

HORATIO
Most constantly.

HAMLET
I would I had been there.

HORATIO
It would have much amazed you.

HAMLET
I will watch tonight.
Perchance ’twill walk again.

HORATIO
I warrant it will.

HAMLET
If it assume my noble father’s person,
I’ll speak to it, though hell itself should gape
And bid me hold my peace. I pray you,
If you have hitherto concealed this sight, [322]
Let it be tenable in your silence still;
And whatsoever else shall hap tonight,
Give it an understanding but no tongue.
I will requite your love. So fare you well.
Upon the platform, ’twixt eleven and twelve,
I’ll visit you.

HORATIO
My duty to your Honor.

HAMLET
Your loves, as mine to you. Farewell.

HORATIO exits.

My father’s spirit — in arms! All is not well.
I doubt some foul play. Would the night were come!
Till then, sit still, my soul. Foul deeds will rise,
Though all the earth o’erwhelm them, to men’s eyes.

HAMLET exits.

Scene 3

OPHELIA is at a mirror removing her makeup and taking the flowers out of her hair. LAERTES enters.

LAERTES
My necessaries are embarked. Farewell.
And, sister, as the winds give benefit
And convey is assistant, do not sleep,
But let me hear from you.

OPHELIA
Do you doubt that?

LAERTES
For Hamlet, and the trifling of his favor,
Hold it a fashion and a toy in blood,
A violet in the youth of primy nature,
Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting, [323]
The perfume and suppliance of a minute,
No more.

OPHELIA
No more but so?

LAERTES
Think it no more.
If he says he loves you,
It fits your wisdom so far to believe it.
However, weigh what loss your honor may sustain
If with too credent ear you list his songs
Or lose your heart or your chaste treasure open
To his unmastered importunity.
Fear it, Ophelia; fear it, my dear sister,
And keep you in the rear of your affection,
Out of the shot and danger of desire.
The chariest maid is prodigal enough
If she unmask her beauty to the moon.

OPHELIA
I shall the effect of this good lesson keep
As watchman to my heart. But, good my brother,
Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven,
Whiles, like a puffed and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads
And recks not his own rede.

LAERTES
O, fear me not.

POLONIUS enters.

I stay too long. But here my father comes.
A double blessing is a double grace.
Occasion smiles upon a second leave.

POLONIUS
Yet here, Laertes? Aboard, aboard, for shame!
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
And you are stayed for. There, my blessing with thee. [324]

LAERTES
Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord.

POLONIUS
The time invests you. Go, your servants tend.

LAERTES
Farewell, Ophelia, y acuérdate bien de lo que te he dicho. Farewell.

He exits.

POLONIUS
What is ’t, Ophelia, he hath said to you?

OPHELIA
So please you, something touching the Lord Hamlet.

POLONIUS
Marry, well bethought. I must tell you
You do not understand yourself so clearly
As it behooves my daughter and your honor.
What is between you? Give me up the truth.

OPHELIA
He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders
Of his affection to me.

POLONIUS
Affection, puh! You speak like a green girl
Unsifted in such perilous circumstance.
Do you believe his “tenders,” as you call them?

OPHELIA
I do not know, my lord, what I should think.

POLONIUS
Marry, I will teach you. Think yourself a baby,
Tender yourself more dearly,
Or (not to crack the wind of the poor phrase,
Running it thus) you’ll tender me a fool.

OPHELIA
My lord, he hath importuned me with love [325]
In honorable fashion —

POLONIUS
Ay, “fashion” you may call it. Go to, go to!

OPHELIA
And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord,
With almost all the holy vows of heaven.

POLONIUS
Do not believe his vows, for they are brokers,
Not of that dye which their investments show,
But mere implorators of unholy suits.
I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth
Have you so slander any moment leisure
As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet.
This above all: to thine own self be true.

OPHELIA
I shall obey, my lord.

They exit.

Scene 4

In the transition to the graveyard, HAMLET enters in a hurry, passing OPHELIA as she exits.

HAMLET
¡Con prisa!

HORATIO enters.

HORATIO
¡Estoy corriendo! ¡O, hace tanto frío!

HAMLET
The air bites shrewdly.

HORATIO
It is a nipping and an eager air. [326]

HAMLET
What hour now?

HORATIO
I think it lacks of twelve.

A flourish of trumpets and two pieces goes off.

What does this mean, my lord?

HAMLET
The King doth wake tonight and takes his rouse.

HORATIO
Is it a custom?

HAMLET
Ay, marry, is ’t to this land,
But, to my mind, though I am native here
And to the manner born, it is a custom
More honored in the breach than the observance.
The dram of evil
Doth all the noble substance of a doubt to his own scandal.

Enter GHOST.

HORATIO
Look, my lord, it comes!

HAMLET
Angels and ministers of grace, defend us!
Be thy intents wicked or charitable,
Thou com’st in such a questionable shape
That I will speak to thee. I’ll call thee “Hamlet,”
“King,” “Father,” “Royal Dane.” O, answer me!

HORATIO
En su lengua.

HAMLET
Dime, ¿por qué dejaste tu tumba? ¿Cuál puede ser la causa de que tu difunto cuerpo, del todo armado, vuelva otra vez a ver los rayos pálidos de la luna, añadiendo a la noche horror? Di. ¿Por qué es esto? ¿Por qué? ¿O qué debemos hacer nosotros? [327]

GHOST beckons.

HORATIO
It waves you to a more removèd ground.
But do not go with it.

HAMLET
It will not speak. Then I will follow it.

HORATIO
Do not, my lord.

HAMLET
Why, what should be the fear?
I do not set my life at a pin’s fee.
And for my soul, what can it do to that,
Being a thing immortal as itself?
It waves me forth again. I’ll follow it.

HORATIO
What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord?
Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff
That beetles o’er his base into the sea,
And there assume some other horrible form
Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason
And draw you into madness? Think of it.

HAMLET
It waves me still. — Go on, I’ll follow thee.

HORATIO
You shall not go, my lord.

They restrain HAMLET.

HAMLET
Hold off your hands.

HORATIO
Be ruled. You shall not go.

HAMLET
My fate cries out as I am called. [328]
Unhand me, gentlemen!
By heaven, I’ll make a ghost of him that lets me!
I say, away! — Go on. I’ll follow thee.

GHOST and HAMLET exit.

HORATIO
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
I’ll follow him.

He exits.

Scene 5

HAMLET and GHOST enter.

HAMLET
Whither wilt thou lead me? Speak. I’ll go no further.

GHOST
Mírame.

HAMLET
I will.

GHOST
Casi es ya llegada la hora en que debo restituirme a las sulfúreas y atormentadoras llamas.

HAMLET
Alas, poor ghost!

GHOST
No me compadezcas: presta solo atentos oídos a lo que voy a revelarte. Luego que me oigas, prometerás venganza.

HAMLET
Promise revenge?

GHOST
Soy el alma de tu padre, destinado a pasar un cierto tiempo de noche, y encarcelado en fuego durante el día, hasta que sus llamas purifiquen los pecados [329] que cometí en el mundo. ¡Asistir, asistir, ahora! ¡Asistir! Si tuvieras amor por tu tierno padre … venga su muerte; venga su homicidio cruel y atroz.

HAMLET
Murder?

GHOST
Sí. Homicidio cruel, como todos lo son; pero el más cruel y el más injusto y el más aleve.

HAMLET
Most foul, strange, and unnatural.
Haste me to know’t, that I, with wings as swift
As meditation or the thoughts of love,
May sweep to my revenge.

GHOST
Escúchame ahora, Hamlet. Tú debes saber que la serpiente que mordió a tu padre hoy ciñe su corona.

HAMLET
My uncle!

GHOST
Ay, aquel incestuoso, aquel monstruo adúltero, valiéndose de su talento diabólico, valiéndose de traidores dádivas … o! Talento y dádivas malditas, ¡que tal poder tiene para seducir! Supo inclinar a su deshonesto apetito la voluntad de la reina mi esposa que yo creía tan llena de virtud. O, Hamlet, ¡cuán grande fue su caída! Yo, cuyo amor para con ella fue tan puro. Yo siempre tan fiel a los solemnes juramentos que en nuestro desposorio la hice, yo fui aborrecido, y se rindió a aquel miserable, cuyas prendas eran en verdad harto inferiores a las mías. Pero ya me parece que percibo el ambiente de la mañana. Debo ser breve. Dormía yo una tarde en mi jardín según lo acostumbraba siempre. Tu tío me sorprendió en aquella hora de quietud, y trayendo consigo una ampolla de licor venenoso, derramó en mi oído su ponzoñosa destilación, la cual, de tal manera es contraria a la sangre del hombre, que semejante en la sutileza al mercurio, se dilata por todas las entradas y conductos del cuerpo, y con súbita fuerza le ocupa, cuajando la más pura y robusta sangre, como la leche con las gotas ácidas. Este efecto produjo inmediatamente en mí, y el cutis hinchado, comenzó a despegarse a trechos con una especie de lepra en ásperas y asquerosas costras. Así fue que estando durmiendo, perdí a manos de mi [330] hermano mismo, mi corona, mi esposa y mi vida a un tiempo. O, ¡maldad horrible, horrible! Si oyes la voz de la naturaleza, no sufras, no, que el tálamo real de Dinamarca sea el lecho de la lujuria y abominable incesto. Pero de cualquier modo que dirijas la acción, no manches con delito el alma, previniendo ofensas a tu madre. Adiós. Ya la luciérnaga, amortiguando su aparente fuego, nos anuncia la proximidad del día. Adiós, adiós. Acuérdate de mí.

He exits.

HAMLET
O most pernicious woman!
O villain, villain, smiling, damnèd villain!
My tables — meet it is I set it down
That one may smile and smile and be a villain.
At least I am sure it may be so in Denmark.
So, uncle, there you are. Now to my word.
It is “adieu, adieu, remember me.”
I have sworn ’t.

HORATIO enters.

HORATIO
My lord, my lord!

HAMLET
Hola, ho, ho, boy! Come, bird, come!

HORATIO
What news, my lord?

HAMLET
O, wonderful!

HORATIO
Good my lord, tell it.

HAMLET
No, you will reveal it.

HORATIO
Not I, my lord, by heaven. [331]

HAMLET
There’s never a villain dwelling in all Denmark
But he’s an arrant knave.

HORATIO
There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave
To tell us this.

HAMLET
Why, right, you are in the right.
And so, without more circumstance at all,
I hold it fit that we shake hands and part,
You, as your business and desire shall point you
(For every man hath business and desire,
Such as it is), and for my own poor part,
I will go pray.

HORATIO
These are but wild and whirling words, my lord.

HAMLET
Give me one poor request.

HORATIO
What is ’t, my lord? I will.

HAMLET
Never make known what you have seen tonight.

HORATIO
My lord, I will not.

HAMLET
Nay, but swear ’t.

HORATIO
In faith, my lord, not I.

HAMLET
Upon my sword.

GHOST (offstage)
Júrenlo. [332]

HAMLET
Consent to swear.

HORATIO
Propose the oath, my lord.

HAMLET
Never to speak of this that you have seen,
Swear by my sword.

GHOST (offstage)
Júrenlo.

HAMLET
Lay your hands again upon my sword. Swear by my sword
Never to speak of this that you have heard.

GHOST (offstage)
Júrenlo por su espada.

HORATIO
O day and night, but this is wondrous strange.

HAMLET
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

GHOST (offstage)
Júrenlo.

HAMLET
Rest, rest, perturbèd spirit
The time is out of joint. O, cursèd spite
That ever I was born to set it right!
So, gentleman, let’s go together.

They exit. [333]

ACT 2
Scene 1

HAMLET, still shaking from the anger of his discovery, comes across OPHELIA in the courtyard.

OPHELIA
My dearest —

He grabs her by her wrist. She winces in pain.

HAMLET (out of it)
How can you be so cheerful
When you know not?

OPHELIA
Hamlet! What is in thine eyes?
I beseech you! Let go of me!

He gets overwhelmed and shakes her. He pauses, sighs, and then lets her go.

HAMLET
I must go. Forgive me,
There is much to know.

OPHELIA (calling after him)
Hamlet!

He’s gone. POLONIUS enters walking while reviewing some materials. OPHELIA runs after him.

OPHELIA
¡Papá!

POLONIUS
How now, Ophelia, what’s the matter?

OPHELIA
¡Que he tenido un susto muy grande!

POLONIUS
With what, i’ th’ name of God? In English, child! [334]

OPHELIA
My lord, Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbraced,
And with a look so piteous in purport
As if he had been loosèd out of hell
To speak of horrors — se presentó delante de mí.

POLONIUS
Mad for thy love?

OPHELIA
My lord, I do not know,
But truly I do fear it.

POLONIUS
Come, go with me. I will go seek the King.
This is the very ecstasy of love,
Whose violent property fordoes itself
And leads the will to desperate undertakings
As oft as any passion under heaven
That does afflict our natures. I am sorry.
What, have you given him any hard words of late?

OPHELIA
No, my good lord, but as you did command,
I did repel his letters and denied
His access to me.

POLONIUS
That hath made him mad.
Come, go we to the King.
This must be known, which, being kept close, might move
More grief to hide than hate to utter love.
Come.

They exit. [335]

Scene 2

Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN.

KING CLAUDIUS
Welcome, dear Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
Something have you heard
Of Hamlet’s transformation, so call it,
Since not 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
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.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Good gentlemen, he hath much talked of you,
And sure I am two men there are not living
To whom he more adheres. If it will please you
To show us so much gentry and goodwill
As to expend your time with us awhile
For the supply and profit of our hope,
Your visitation shall receive such thanks
As fits a king’s remembrance.

ROSENCRANTZ
Both your Majesties
Might, by the sovereign power you have of us,
Put your dread pleasures more into command
Than to entreaty.

GUILDENSTERN
But we both obey,
And here give up ourselves in the full bent
To lay our service freely at your feet,
To be commanded. [336]

KING CLAUDIUS
Thanks, Rosencrantz and gentle Guildenstern.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Thanks, Guildenstern and gentle Rosencrantz.
And I beseech you instantly to visit
My too much changèd son. — Go, some of you,
And bring these gentlemen where Hamlet is.

GUILDENSTERN
Heavens make our presence and our practices
Pleasant and helpful to him!

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Ay, amen!

ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN exit as POLONIUS enters.

POLONIUS
Th’ambassadors from Norway, my good lord,
Are joyfully returned.

KING CLAUDIUS
Thou still hast been the father of good news.

POLONIUS
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.

KING CLAUDIUS
O, speak of that! That do I long to hear.
My dear Gertrude, he hath found
The head and source of all your son’s distemper.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
I doubt it is no other but the main —
His father’s death and our o’erhasty marriage. [337]

POLONIUS
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.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
More matter with less art.

POLONIUS
Madam, I swear I use no art at all.
That he’s mad, ’tis true; ’tis true ’tis pity,
And pity ’tis ’tis true — a foolish figure,
But farewell it, for I will use no art.
I have a daughter (have while she is mine)
Who, in her duty and obedience, mark,
Hath given me this. Now gather and surmise.

(reading) To the celestial, and my soul’s idol, the most beautified Ophelia —

(to QUEEN GERTRUDE) That’s an ill phrase, a vile phrase; “beautified” is a vile phrase. But you shall hear. Thus:

(reading) In her excellent white bosom, these, etc. —

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Came this from Hamlet to her?

POLONIUS
Good madam, stay awhile. I will be faithful.

(reading)

Doubt thou the stars are fire,
Doubt that the sun doth move,
Doubt truth to be a liar,
But never doubt I love.

O dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers. I have not art to reckon my groans, but that I
love thee best, O most best, believe it. Adieu.

This, in obedience, hath my daughter shown me,
And more above, hath his solicitings, [338]
As they fell out by time, by means, and place,
All given to mine ear.

KING CLAUDIUS
But how hath she received his love?

POLONIUS
What do you think of me?

KING CLAUDIUS
As of a man faithful and honorable.

POLONIUS
I would fain prove so. But I prescripts gave her,
That she should lock herself from his resort,
Admit no messengers, receive no tokens;
Which done, she took the fruits of my advice,
And he, repelled (a short tale to make),
Fell into a sadness, then into a fast,
Thence to a watch, thence into a weakness,
Thence to a lightness, and, by this declension,
Into the madness wherein now he raves
And all we mourn for.

KING CLAUDIUS (to QUEEN GERTRUDE)
Do you think ’tis this?

QUEEN GERTRUDE
It may be, very like.

POLONIUS
Hath there been such a time (I would fain know that)
That I have positively said ’tis so,
When it proved otherwise?

KING CLAUDIUS
How may we try it further?

POLONIUS
You know sometimes he walks four hours together
Here in the lobby. [339]

QUEEN GERTRUDE
So he does indeed.

POLONIUS
At such a time I’ll loose my daughter to him.

(to KING CLAUDIUS) Be you and I behind an arras then.
Mark the encounter. If he love her not,
And be not from his reason fall’n thereon,
Let me be no assistant for a state,
But keep a farm and carters.

KING CLAUDIUS
We will try it.

Enter HAMLET reading a book.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
But look where sadly the poor wretch comes reading.

POLONIUS
Away, I do beseech you both, away.
I’ll board him presently. O, give me leave.

They exit.

How does my good Lord Hamlet?

HAMLET
Bien, a Dios gracias.

POLONIUS
Do you know me, my lord?

HAMLET
Perfectamente. You are a fishmonger.

POLONIUS
Not I, my lord.

HAMLET
Así fueras honrado.

POLONIUS
Honest, my lord? [340]

HAMLET
Ay, sir. El ser honrado, según va el mundo, es lo mismo que ser escogido uno entre diez mil.

POLONIUS
That’s very true, my lord.

HAMLET
For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a good kissing carrion — ¿No tienes una hija?

POLONIUS
I have, my lord.

HAMLET
Let her not walk i’th’ sun. La concepción es una bendición del cielo, pero no del modo en que tu hija podrá concebir. Cuida mucho de esto, amigo.

POLONIUS (aside)
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.

(to HAMLET) What do you read, my lord?

HAMLET
Palabras, palabras, todo palabras.

POLONIUS
What is the matter, my lord?

HAMLET
Between who?

POLONIUS
I mean the matter that you read, my lord.

HAMLET
De calumnias; for the satirical rogue says here that old men have gray beards, las caras con arrugas, que vierten de sus ojos ámbar abundante y goma de ciruela, 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 [341] it not honesty to have it thus set down; for yourself, sir, shall grow old as I am, si le fuera posible andar hacia atrás como el cangrejo.

POLONIUS (aside)
Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t. — Will you walk out of the air, my lord?

HAMLET
¿A la sepultura?

POLONIUS
Indeed, that’s out of the air.

(aside) How pregnant sometimes his replies are! I will leave him and suddenly contrive the means of meeting between him and my daughter.

(to HAMLET) My lord, I will take my leave of you.

HAMLET
No me puedes pedir cosa que con más gusto te conceda — except my life, except my life, except my life.

POLONIUS
Fare you well, my lord.

HAMLET (aside)
These tedious old fools.

ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN enter.

POLONIUS
You go to seek the Lord Hamlet. There he is.

ROSENCRANTZ (to POLONIUS)
God save you, sir.

POLONIUS exits.

GUILDENSTERN
My honored lord.

ROSENCRANTZ
My most dear lord. [342]

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

ROSENCRANTZ
As the indifferent children of the earth.

GUILDENSTERN
Happy in that we are not overhappy. On Fortune’s cap, we are not the very button.

HAMLET
Nor the soles of her shoe?

ROSENCRANTZ
Neither, my lord.

HAMLET
Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of her favors?

GUILDENSTERN
Faith, her privates we.

HAMLET
In the secret parts of Fortune? O, most true! She is a strumpet. What news?

ROSENCRANTZ
None, my lord, but that the world’s grown honest.

HAMLET
Then is doomsday near. What have you, my good friends, deserved at the hands of Fortune that she sends you to prison hither?

GUILDENSTERN
Prison, my lord?

HAMLET
Denmark’s a prison.

ROSENCRANTZ
Then is the world one. [343]

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

ROSENCRANTZ
We think not so, my lord.

HAMLET
Why, then, ’tis none to you, for there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so. To me, it is a prison.

ROSENCRANTZ
Why, then, your ambition makes it one. ’Tis too narrow for your mind.

HAMLET
No such matter. I will not sort you with the rest of my servants, for, to speak to you like an honest man, I am most dreadfully attended. But, in the beaten way of friendship, what make you at Elsinore?

ROSENCRANTZ
To visit you, my lord, no other occasion.

HAMLET
Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks; but I thank you, and sure, dear friends, my thanks are too dear a halfpenny. Were you not sent for? Is it your own inclining? Is it a free visitation? Come, come, deal justly with me. Come, come; nay, speak.

GUILDENSTERN
What should we say, my lord?

HAMLET
I know the good king and queen have sent for you.

ROSENCRANTZ
To what end, my lord?

HAMLET
That you must teach me. But let me conjure you by the rights of our fellowship, by the consonancy of our youth, by the obligation of our ever-preserved love, and by what more dear a better proposer can charge you withal: be even and direct with me whether you were sent for or no. [344]

ROSENCRANTZ (to GUILDENSTERN)
What say you?

HAMLET (aside)
Nay, then, I have an eye of you.

(to GUILDENSTERN) If you love me, hold not off.

GUILDENSTERN
My lord, we were sent for.

HAMLET
I will tell you why, so your secrecy to the King and Queen molt no feather. 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. Man delights not me, no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.

ROSENCRANTZ
My lord, there was no such stuff in my thoughts.

HAMLET
Why did you laugh, then, when I said, “man delights not me”?

ROSENCRANTZ
To think, my lord, if you delight not in man, what Lenten entertainment the players shall receive from you. We coted them on the way, and hither are they coming to offer you service.

HAMLET
What players are they?

ROSENCRANTZ
Even those you were wont to take such delight in, the tragedians of the city.

HAMLET
How chances it they travel? Their residence, both in reputation and profit, was better both ways.

ROSENCRANTZ
I think their inhibition comes by the means of the late innovation. [345]

HAMLET
Do they hold the same estimation they did when I was in the city? Are they so followed?

ROSENCRANTZ
No, indeed are they not.

The PLAYERS enter.

GUILDENSTERN
There are the players.

ROSENCRANTZ (to GUILDENSTERN)
Only three?

GUILDENSTERN (to ROSENCRANTZ)
We’re on a budget.

HAMLET
Players, you are welcome to Elsinore. But my uncle-father and aunt-mother are deceived.

GUILDENSTERN
In what, my dear lord?

HAMLET
I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw.

POLONIUS enters.

POLONIUS
Well be with you, gentlemen.

HAMLET
Oye, Guillermo, y tú también … un oyente a cada lado. ¿Ven aquel vejestorio que acaba de entrar? Pues aún no ha salido de mantillas.

GUILDENSTERN (aside)
Guillermo?

ROSENCRANTZ
Haply he is the second time come to them, for they say an old man is twice a child. [346]

HAMLET
I will prophesy he comes to tell me of the players; mark it. — You say right, sir, a Monday morning, ’twas then indeed.

POLONIUS
My lord, I have news to tell you.

HAMLET
Tengo que darle una noticia. Cuando Roscio era actor en Roma …

POLONIUS
The actors are come hither, my lord.

HAMLET
Buzz, buzz.

POLONIUS
Upon my honor —

HAMLET
¡Cada actor viene caballero en burro!

POLONIUS
The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem unlimited. Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light. For the law of writ and the liberty, these are the only men. A suggestion I leave you with.

HAMLET
Understood. Adiós, amigo.

POLONIUS (aside)
Mad he truly be!

HAMLET
We’ll hear a play tomorrow!

POLONIUS exits.

Dost thou hear me, old friend? Can you play “The Murder of Gonzago”?

FIRST PLAYER
Ay, my lord. [347]

HAMLET
We’ll ha ’t tomorrow night. You could, for a need, study a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines, which I would set down and insert in’t, could you not?

FIRST PLAYER
Ay, my lord.

HAMLET
Very well. Follow that lord — and look you mock him not. My good friends, I’ll leave you till night. You are welcome to Elsinore.

ROSENCRANTZ
Good my lord.

HAMLET
Ay, so, good-bye to you.

All but HAMLET exit.

Now I am alone.
O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
¿Soy cobarde yo?
¿Quién se atreve a llamarse villano, o a insultarme en mi presencia,
Arrancarme la barba, soplármela al rostro,
Asirme de la nariz, o hacerme tragar lejía
Que me llegue al pulmón?
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;
I’ll have these players
Play something like the murder of my father [348]
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.

He exits. [349]

ACT 3
Scene 1

KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, POLONIUS, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN enter.

KING CLAUDIUS
And can you by no drift of conference
Get from him why he puts on this confusion,
Grating so harshly all his days of quiet
With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?

ROSENCRANTZ
He does confess he feels himself distracted,
But from what cause he will by no means speak.

GUILDENSTERN
Nor do we find him forward to be sounded,
But with a crafty madness keeps aloof
When we would bring him on to some confession
Of his true state.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Did he receive you well?

ROSENCRANTZ
Most like a gentleman.

GUILDENSTERN
But with much forcing of his disposition.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Did you assay him to any pastime?

ROSENCRANTZ
Madam, it so fell out that certain players
We o’erraught on the way. Of these we told him,
And there did seem in him a kind of joy
To hear of it. They are here about the court,
And, as I think, they have already order
This night to play before him. [350]

POLONIUS
’Tis most true,
And he beseeched me to entreat your Majesties
To hear and see the matter.

KING CLAUDIUS
With all my heart, and it doth much content me
To hear him so inclined.
Good gentlemen, give him a further edge
And drive his purpose into these delights.

ROSENCRANTZ
We shall, my lord.

They exit as OPHELIA enters.

KING CLAUDIUS
Sweet Gertrude, leave us too,
For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither,
That he, as ’twere by accident, may here affront Ophelia.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
I shall obey you.
And for your part, Ophelia, I do wish
That your good beauties be the happy cause
Of Hamlet’s wildness.

OPHELIA
Madam, I wish it may.

QUEEN GERTRUDE exits.

POLONIUS
Ophelia, walk you here.

KING CLAUDIUS (aside)
O, ’tis too true!
How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience.
The harlot’s cheek beautied with plast’ring art
Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it
Than is my deed to my most painted word.
O heavy burden! [351]

POLONIUS
I hear him coming. Let’s withdraw, my lord.

They withdraw as HAMLET enters.

HAMLET
Ser o no ser, esa es la cuestión.
¿Cuál más digna acción del ánimo:
Sufrir los tiros penetrantes de la fortuna injusta,
U oponer las armas a este torrente de calamidades,
Y darles fin con atrevida resistencia? To die, to sleep —
No more — and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to — ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep —
To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there’s the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
Esta previsión nos hace a todos cobardes:
Así la natural tintura del valor
Se debilita con los barnices pálidos de la prudencia;
Las empresas de mayor importancia
Por esta sola consideración mudan camino,
No se ejecutan, y se reducen a designios vanos.
Pero — soft you now,
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remembered.

OPHELIA
Good my lord,
How does your Honor for this many a day?

HAMLET
I humbly thank you, well.

OPHELIA
My lord, I have remembrances of yours
That I have longèd long to redeliver.
I pray you now receive them. [352]

HAMLET
Ha, ha, are you honest?

OPHELIA
My lord?

HAMLET
Are you fair?

OPHELIA
What means your Lordship?

HAMLET
That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty.

OPHELIA
Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty?

HAMLET
Ay, truly, for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness. This was sometime a paradox, but now the time gives it proof. I did love you once.

OPHELIA
Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.

HAMLET
You should not have believed me, for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it. I loved you not.

OPHELIA
I was the more deceived.

HAMLET
Get thee to a nunnery. Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest, but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me: I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offenses at my beck than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in. What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves all; believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery. Where’s your father? [353]

OPHELIA
At home, my lord.

HAMLET
Let the doors be shut upon him that he may play the fool nowhere but in ’s own house. Farewell.

OPHELIA
O, help him, you sweet heavens!

HAMLET
If thou dost marry, I’ll give thee this plague for thy dowry: be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery, farewell. Or if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool, for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them.

HAMLET exits.

OPHELIA
¡O! ¡Qué trastorno ha padecido esa alma generosa! Y yo, la más desconsolada e infeliz de las mujeres porque él es el hombre más infeliz. ¡O! ¡Cuánta, cuánta es mi desdicha de haber visto lo que vi para ver lo que veo!

KING CLAUDIUS
Love? His affections do not that way tend;
Nor what he spake, though it lacked form a little,
Was not like madness. There’s something in his soul
O’er which his melancholy sits on brood.
He shall with speed to England
For the demand of our neglected tribute.
What think you on ’t?

POLONIUS
It shall do well. But yet do I believe
The origin and commencement of his grief
Sprung from neglected love. — How now, Ophelia?
You need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said;
We heard it all. — My lord, do as you please,
But, if you hold it fit, after the play
Let his queen-mother all alone entreat him
To show his grief. If she find him not, [354]
To England send him, or confine him where
Your wisdom best shall think.

KING CLAUDIUS
It shall be so.
Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.

They exit.

Scene 2

Enter HAMLET, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, and the three PLAYERS.

HAMLET
Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness.

FIRST PLAYER
I warrant your Honor.

HAMLET
Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor.

SECOND PLAYER
I hope we have reformed that indifferently with us, sir.

HAMLET
O, reform it altogether. Go make you ready.

The PLAYERS exit.

HAMLET
Will you two help to hasten them?

ROSENCRANTZ
Ay, my lord. [355]

A trumpet flourish sounds.

HAMLET
Ya viene a la función; vuelvo a hacerme el loco.

KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, POLONIUS, and OPHELIA enter.

KING CLAUDIUS
How fares our cousin Hamlet?

HAMLET
Muy bien. Me mantengo del aire como el camaleón engorda con esperanzas. No podrás así a tus capones.

KING CLAUDIUS
I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet. These words are not mine.

HAMLET
Be the players ready?

ROSENCRANTZ
Ay, my lord. They stay upon your patience.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me.

HAMLET
No. Aquí hay un imán de más atracción para mí.

HAMLET sits by OPHELIA.

POLONIUS (to KING CLAUDIUS)
O, ho! Do you mark that?

HAMLET
Lady, shall I lie in your lap?

OPHELIA
No.

HAMLET
I mean, my head upon your lap? [356]

OPHELIA
Ay, my lord.

HAMLET
Do you think I meant country matters?

OPHELIA
I think nothing, my lord.

HAMLET
That’s a fair thought to lie between maids’ legs.

OPHELIA
¿Qué dice, señor?

HAMLET
Nada.

OPHELIA
You are merry, my lord.

HAMLET
Who, I?

OPHELIA
Ay, you.

HAMLET
What should a man do but be merry? For look you how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died within ’s two hours.

OPHELIA
Nay, ’tis twice two months, my lord.

HAMLET
So long? O heavens, die two months ago, and not forgotten yet? Then there’s hope a great man’s memory may outlive his life half a year.

Music plays. The PLAYERS enter in folk masks. They move around the stage in a traditional, physical manner. A PLAYER as the King and a PLAYER as the Queen embrace very lovingly. She kneels and makes a show of protestation unto him. He takes her up and declines his head upon her neck. He lies him down upon a bank of flowers. [357] She, seeing him asleep, leaves him. Anon comes in a PLAYER as Poisoner, and he takes off the King’s crown, kisses it, pours poison in the sleeper’s ears, and leaves him. The Queen returns, finds the King dead, makes passionate action. The Poisoner comes in again and seems to condole with her. The dead body is carried away. The Poisoner woos the Queen with gifts. She seems harsh awhile but in the end accepts his love. They exit.

OPHELIA
What means this, my lord?

HAMLET
Anuncia grandes maldades.

Enter a PLAYER as the Prologue.

OPHELIA
Will he tell us what this show meant?

PROLOGUE
For us and for our tragedy,
Here stooping to your clemency,
We beg your hearing patiently.

He exits.

HAMLET
Is this a prologue or the posy of a ring?

OPHELIA
’Tis brief, my lord.

HAMLET
As woman’s love.

Enter PLAYER KING and PLAYER QUEEN.

PLAYER KING
Full thirty times hath Phoebus’ cart gone round
Neptune’s salt wash and Tellus’ orbèd ground,
And thirty dozen moons with borrowed sheen
About the world have times twelve thirties been
Since love our hearts and Hymen did our hands
Unite commutual in most sacred bands. [358]

PLAYER QUEEN
So many journeys may the sun and moon
Make us again count o’er ere love be done!
But woe is me! You are so sick of late,
So far from cheer and from your former state,
That I distrust you. Yet, though I distrust,
Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must.
For women fear too much, even as they love,
Now what my love is, proof hath made you know,
And, as my love is sized, my fear is so:
Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear;
Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.

PLAYER KING
Faith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly too.
My operant powers their functions leave to do.
And thou shall live in this fair world behind,
Honored, beloved; and haply one as kind
For husband shalt thou —

PLAYER QUEEN
O, confound the rest!
Such love must needs be treason in my breast.
In second husband let me be accurst.
None wed the second but who killed the first.

HAMLET
¡Esto es zumo de ajenjos!

PLAYER QUEEN
The instances that second marriage move
Are base respects of thrift, but none of love.
A second time I kill my husband dead
When second husband kisses me in bed.

PLAYER KING
The violence of either grief or joy
Their own enactures with themselves destroy.
So think thou wilt no second husband wed,
But die thy thoughts when thy first lord is dead. [359]

PLAYER QUEEN
Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife,
If, once a widow, ever I be wife.

HAMLET
Si ella no cumpliese lo que promete …

PLAYER KING
’Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here awhile.
My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile
The tedious day with sleep.

He sleeps.

PLAYER QUEEN
Sleep rock thy brain,
And never come mischance between us twain.

She exits.

HAMLET
Y bien, señora, ¿qué tal le va pareciendo la pieza?

QUEEN GERTRUDE
The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

HAMLET
O, pero lo cumplirá.

KING CLAUDIUS
Have you heard the argument? Is there no offense in ’t?

HAMLET
No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest. No offense i’ th’ world.

KING CLAUDIUS
What do you call the play?

HAMLET
“The Mousetrap.” Marry, how? Tropically. This play is the image of a murder done in Vienna. Gonzago is the duke’s name, his wife Baptista. You shall see anon. ’Tis a knavish piece of work, but what of that? Your Majesty and we that have free souls, it touches us not. Let the galled jade wince; our withers are unwrung. [360]

Enter another PLAYER as Lucianus.

This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king.

OPHELIA
You are as good as a chorus, my lord.

HAMLET
So you mis-take your husbands. — Begin, murderer. Pox, leave thy damnable faces and begin. Come, the croaking raven doth bellow for revenge.

LUCIANUS
Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing,
Confederate season, else no creature seeing,
Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected,
With Hecate’s ban thrice blasted, thrice infected,
Thy natural magic and dire property
On wholesome life usurp immediately.

LUCIANUS pours the poison in the PLAYER KING’s ears.

HAMLET
He poisons him i’ th’ garden for his estate. His name’s Gonzago. The story is extant and written in very choice Italian. You shall see anon how the murderer gets the love of Gonzago’s wife.

KING CLAUDIUS rises.

OPHELIA
The King rises.

HAMLET
What, frighted with false fire?

QUEEN GERTRUDE
How fares my lord?

POLONIUS
Give o’er the play.

KING CLAUDIUS
Give me some light. Away! [361]

POLONIUS
Lights, lights, lights!

All but HAMLET exit.

HAMLET
For if the King like not the comedy,
Why, then, belike he likes it not, perdy.
¡Un cobarde, él es!

ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN enter.

GUILDENSTERN
Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you.

ROSENCRANTZ
The King, sir —

HAMLET
Ay, sir, what of him?

GUILDENSTERN
Is in his retirement marvelous distempered.

ROSENCRANTZ
The Queen your mother, in most great affliction of spirit, hath sent me to you.

GUILDENSTERN
Thus she says: your behavior hath struck her into amazement and admiration.

ROSENCRANTZ
She desires to speak with you in her closet ere you go to bed.

HAMLET
We shall obey, were she ten times our mother.

POLONIUS enters.

POLONIUS
My lord, the Queen would speak with you, and presently.

HAMLET
¿No ves allí aquella nube que parece un camello? [362]

POLONIUS
By th’ Mass, and ’tis like a camel indeed.

HAMLET
Pues ahora me parece una comadreja.

POLONIUS
It is backed like a weasel.

HAMLET
O como una ballena.

POLONIUS
Very like a whale.

HAMLET
Pues al instante iré a ver a mi madre.

(aside) They fool me to the top of my bent.
Déjenme solo, amigos.

All but HAMLET exit.

Este es el espacio de la noche, apto a los maleficios.
Esta es la hora en que los cementerios se abren,
Y el infierno respira contagios al mundo.
Ahora podría yo beber caliente sangre,
Ahora podría ejecutar tales acciones,
Que el día se estremeciese al verlas.
Now to my mother.
Let me be cruel, not unnatural.
I will speak daggers to her, but use none.
My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites:
How in my words somever she be shent,
To give them seals never, my soul, consent.

He exits. [363]

Scene 3

Enter KING CLAUDIUS and POLONIUS.

POLONIUS
My lord, he’s going to his mother’s closet.
Behind the arras I’ll convey myself
To hear the process. I’ll warrant she’ll tax him home.
And, as you said (and wisely was it said),
’Tis meet that some more audience than a mother,
Since nature makes them partial, should o’erhear
The speech of vantage. Fare you well, my liege.
I’ll call upon you ere you go to bed
And tell you what I know.

KING CLAUDIUS
Thanks, dear my lord.

POLONIUS exits.

O, my offense is rank, it smells to heaven;
It hath the primal eldest curse upon ’t,
A brother’s murder. Pray can I not.
My fault is past. But, O, what form of prayer
Can serve my turn? “Forgive me my foul murder?”
That cannot be, since I am still possessed
Of those effects for which I did the murder:
My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.
May one be pardoned and retain th’ offense?
In the corrupted currents of this world,
Shown to me by ways of Spain and England,
And oft ’tis seen the wicked prize itself
Buys out the law. O wretched state!
Help, angels! Make assay.
Bow, stubborn knees, and heart with strings of steel
Be soft as sinews of the newborn babe.
All may be well.

As KING CLAUDIUS kneels, HAMLET enters. [364]

HAMLET
Esta es la ocasión propicia. Ahora está rezando, ahora lo mato …

He draws his sword.

Y asi se irá al cielo … ¿Y es ésta mi venganza? No, reflexionemos. Un malvado asesina a mi padre, y yo, su hijo único, aseguro al malhechor la Gloria: ¿No es esto, en vez de castigo, premio y recompensa? ¿Quién sabe, sino Dios, la estrecha cuenta que hubo de dar? Pero, según nuestra razón concibe, terrible ha sido su sentencia. Cuando esté ocupado en el juego, cuando blaspheme colérico, o duerma con la embriaguez, o se adónde a los placeres incestuosos del lecho, o cometa acciones contrarias a su salvación, hiérele entonces, caiga precipitado al profundo, y su alma quede negra y maldita, como el infierno que ha de recibirle.

He sheathes his sword.

Mi madre me espera. Malvada esta medicina, que te dilate la dolencia, pero no evitará tu muerte.

He exits.

KING CLAUDIUS (rising)
My words fly up, my thoughts remain below;
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

He exits.

Scene 4

QUEEN GERTRUDE and POLONIUS enter.

POLONIUS
He will come straight. Look you lay home to him.
Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear with,
And that your Grace hath screened and stood between
Much heat and him. I’ll silence me even here.
Pray you, be round with him.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
I’ll warrant you. Fear me not.
Withdraw, I hear him coming. [365]

POLONIUS hides as HAMLET enters.

Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.

HAMLET
Madre, muy ofendido tienes al mío.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.

HAMLET
Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Have you forgot me?

HAMLET
No, by the rood, not so.
You are the Queen, your husband’s brother’s wife,
And (would it were not so) you are my mother.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Nay, then I’ll set those to you that can speak.

HAMLET
Come, come, and sit you down; you shall not budge.
You go not till I set you up a glass
Where you may see the inmost part of you.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murder me?
Help, ho!

POLONIUS (behind the arras)
What ho! Help!

HAMLET
¿Qué es esto? ¿Un ratón? Murió … un ducado a que ya está muerto.

He kills him by thrusting a rapier through the arras.

POLONIUS (behind the arras)
O, I am slain! [366]

QUEEN GERTRUDE
O me, what hast thou done?

HAMLET
Is it the King?

QUEEN GERTRUDE
O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!

HAMLET
A bloody deed — almost as bad, good mother,
As kill a king and marry with his brother.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
As kill a king?

HAMLET
Ay, lady, it was my word.
Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell.
I took thee for thy better. Take thy fortune.
Thou find’st to be too busy is some danger.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
What have I done, that thou dar’st wag thy tongue
In noise so rude against me?

HAMLET
Such an act
That blurs the grace and blush of modesty,
Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose
From the fair forehead of an innocent love
And sets a blister there, makes marriage vows
As false as dicers’ oaths — Heaven’s face does glow
O’er this solidity and compound mass
With heated visage, as against the doom,
Is thought-sick at the act.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
O, speak to me no more!
These words like daggers enter in my ears.
No more, sweet Hamlet! [367]

HAMLET
A murderer and a villain!

QUEEN GERTRUDE
No more!

HAMLET
A king of shreds and patches —

GHOST enters.

Sálvame y vuela sobre mí con tus alas, ¡guardias celestiales! ¿Cuál sería su gracia?

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Alas, he’s mad.

HAMLET
On him, on him! Look you how pale he glares.
His form and cause conjoined, preaching to stones,
Would make them capable.

(to GHOST) No me mires así, no sea que ese lastimoso semblante destruya mis designios crueles, no sea que al ejecutarlos equivoque los medios y en vez de sangre se derramen lágrimas.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
To whom do you speak this?

HAMLET
Do you see nothing there?

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.

HAMLET
Why, look you there, look how it steals away!
My father, in his habit as he lived!
Look where he goes even now out at the portal!

GHOST exits.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
This is the very coinage of your brain. [368]
This bodiless creation ecstasy
Is very cunning in.

HAMLET
Ecstasy?
My pulse as yours doth temperately keep time
And makes as healthful music. It is not madness
That I have uttered. Bring me to the test,
And I the matter will reword, which madness
Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,
Lay not that flattering unction to your soul
That not your trespass but my madness speaks.
Good night. But go not to my uncle’s bed.
Assume a virtue if you have it not.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
What shall I do?

HAMLET
Not this by no means that I bid you do:
Let the bloat king tempt you again to bed.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Be thou assured, if words be made of breath
And breath of life, I have no life to breathe
What thou hast said to me.

HAMLET
Buenas noches, madre.

They exit, HAMLET tugging on POLONIUS. [369]

ACT 4
Scene 1

KING CLAUDIUS enters, still troubled and tormented by the revelation of his act. Powerful Indigenous music begins to play, startling him. The lights dim as we hear GHOST enter.

GHOST
Él sabe. Todo el mundo sabe. Obtendrá lo que merece porque olvidó quiénes somos y lo que creemos. La venganza es ahora.

KING CLAUDIUS (overlapping with GHOST’s line)
Hamlet? No. No. You’re dead! Stop! Enough! ENOUGH!

On his last “enough,” the music abruptly stops, and the lights change back to normal. QUEEN GERTRUDE enters.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Ah, mine own lord, what have I seen tonight!

KING CLAUDIUS
What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?

QUEEN GERTRUDE
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.

KING CLAUDIUS
O heavy deed! Where is he gone?

QUEEN GERTRUDE
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.

KING CLAUDIUS
O Gertrude, come away! [370]
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!

HAMLET enters with ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.

GUILDENSTERN
He’s here, my lord.

KING CLAUDIUS
Now, Hamlet, where’s Polonius?

HAMLET
Ha ido a cenar.

KING CLAUDIUS
At supper where?

HAMLET
No adonde coma, sino adonde es comido, entre una numerosa congregación de gusanos. El gusano es el monarca supremo de todos los comedores. Nosotros engordamos a los demás animales para engordarnos, y engordamos para el gusanillo que nos come después. El rey gordo y el mendigo flaco son dos platos diferentes, pero se sirven a una misma mesa. En esto para todo.

KING CLAUDIUS
What dost thou mean by this?

HAMLET
Nada más que manifestar cómo un rey puede pasar progresivamente a las tripas de un mendigo.

KING CLAUDIUS
Where is Polonius?

HAMLET
En el cielo. Le olerán sin duda al subir los escalones de la galería.

KING CLAUDIUS
Rosencrantz, seek him there.

ROSENCRANTZ exits. [371]

KING CLAUDIUS
Hamlet, this deed, for thine especial safety
Must send thee hence with fiery quickness.
Therefore prepare thyself for England.

HAMLET
For England?

KING CLAUDIUS
Ay, Hamlet.

HAMLET
Bien.

He exits.

KING CLAUDIUS (to GUILDENSTERN)
Follow him at foot; tempt him with speed aboard.
Delay it not. I’ll have him hence tonight.

All but KING CLAUDIUS exit.

And England, if my love thou hold’st at aught,
You will bring 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.

Scene 2

LAERTES enters with a distraught OPHELIA.

LAERTES
Where is my father?

KING CLAUDIUS
Dead.

OPHELIA
No! [372]

LAERTES
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 revenged
Most throughly for my father.

OPHELIA
¡No haga! ¡O, miseria! ¡Cielos! ¡Torpeza villana! ¿Qué tipo de empresas de alta suerte? Bueno, todos los regalos falsos, dice indignada: antes de que mirara en tus brazos apretados, para convertirme en tu esposa, me di una palabra. Y al abrir las puertas entró la niña que vino virgen y regresó desflorada.

KING CLAUDIUS
How now, what noise is that?

LAERTES
A document in madness: thoughts and remembrance fitted.

KING CLAUDIUS
Good Laertes,
If you desire to know the certainty
Of your dear father, is ’t writ in your revenge
That, swoopstake, you will draw both friend and foe,
Winner and loser?

LAERTES
None but his enemies.

KING CLAUDIUS
Laertes, I must commune with your grief,
So seek Hamlet and unleash your revenge
As your father’s death be it unnatural
Deserves justice.

OPHELIA
¡No! ¡No hagas esto!

KING CLAUDIUS
Silly, girl. You know not. [373]

OPHELIA
Una vida no traerá otra. No tendré a nadie y estaré sola en tristeza por el resto de mi vida. ¿No soy importante para ti?

KING CLAUDIUS
Enough of this! Your words matter not!
Laertes, what say you?

LAERTES
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.

KING CLAUDIUS
So you shall
And where th’ offense is, let the great ax fall.
I pray you, go with me.

They exit.

Scene 3

It starts to rain and thunder. Lightning strikes as OPHELIA walks up to the river. We can hear the rushing of the waters as soft, solemn music plays. She is sobbing. As she walks up to the bank, she pulls out her makeup. In a ritualistic motion, she attempts to paint her face like a calaca one last time. She finishes, throws her remaining makeup into the river, and stands.

OPHELIA
Si no me quieren en la vida, tal vez me amarán en la muerte.

Enter GHOST.

GHOST
Es hora, mi niña.

He takes OPHELIA’s hand. [374]

ACT 5
Scene 1

The GRAVEDIGGER and his COMPANION enter. During the exchange GHOST leads OPHELIA in. OPHELIA lingers as  GHOST exits.

GRAVEDIGGER
Is she to be buried in Christian burial, when she willfully seeks her own salvation?

COMPANION
I tell thee she is. Therefore make her grave straight. The crowner hath sat on her and finds it Christian burial.

GRAVEDIGGER
How can that be, unless she drowned herself in her own defense?

COMPANION
Why, ’tis found so.

GRAVEDIGGER
It must be se offendendo; it cannot be else. For here lies the point: if I drown myself wittingly, it argues an act, and an act hath three branches — it is to act, to do, to perform. Argal, she drowned herself wittingly. Go thee then and fetch me some drink if you will.

His COMPANION exits. The GRAVEDIGGER digs and sings “Historia de un Amor”^[1] as HAMLET and HORATIO enter.

Ya no estás a mi lado, corazón,
En el alma sólo tengo soledad
Y si ya no puedo verte,
Porque Dios me hizo quererte
Para hacerme sufrir más …

HAMLET
¡Qué poco siente ese hombre lo que hace, que abre una sepultura y canta! [375]

HORATIO
Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness.

GRAVEDIGGER (singing)

Siempre fuiste la razón de mi existir,
Adorarte para mí fue religión.
Y en tus besos yo encontraba
El calor que me brindaba,
El amor y la pasión.

He digs up a skull.

HAMLET
Aquella calavera tendría lengua en otro tiempo, y con ella podría también cantar.

HORATIO
Bien puede ser.

GRAVEDIGGER (singing)

Que me hizo comprender,
Todo el bien, todo el mal,
Que le dio luz a mi vida,
Apagándola después.
¡Ay, qué vida tan oscura, corazón,
Sin tu amor no viviré!

He digs up more skulls. HAMLET is intrigued by them. OPHELIA hands him a skull.

HAMLET
Y esa otra, ¿por qué no podría ser la calavera de un letrado? ¿Adónde se fueron sus equívocos y sutilezas, sus litigios, sus interpretaciones, sus embrollos? ¿Por qué sufre ahora que ese bribón grosero le golpee contra la pared con el azadón lleno de barro? ¡Y no dirá palabra acera de un hecho tan criminal! Este sería, quizás, mientras vivió un gran comprador de tierras, con sus obligaciones y reconocimientos, transacciones, seguridades mutuas, pagos, recibos … ¡O! Ya su opulento sucesor tampoco le quedará más. Voy a hablar con este compañero —
Whose grave’s this, sirrah? What man dost thou dig it for? [376]

GRAVEDIGGER
For no man, sir.

HAMLET
What woman then?

GRAVEDIGGER
For none, neither.

HAMLET
Who is to be buried in ’t?

GRAVEDIGGER
One that was a woman, sir, but, rest her soul, she’s dead.

HAMLET
¡Qué absoluto es el bribón! Debemos hablar por la tarjeta, o la equivocación nos deshará — How long hast thou been grave-maker?

GRAVEDIGGER
Of all the days i’ th’ year, I came to ’t that day that our last King Hamlet overcame Fortinbras.

HAMLET
How long is that since?

GRAVEDIGGER
Cannot you tell that? Every fool can tell that. It was that very day that young Hamlet was born — he that is mad and sent into England.

HAMLET
How came he mad?

GRAVEDIGGER
Very strangely, they say.

HAMLET
How “strangely”?

GRAVEDIGGER
Faith, e’en with losing his wits. [377]

HAMLET
Upon what ground?

GRAVEDIGGER
Why, here in Denmark. I have been sexton here, man and boy, thirty years.

HAMLET
How long will a man lie i’ th’ earth ere he rot?

KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, LAERTES, and a DOCTOR enter. They are holding Ophelia’s “corpse.” OPHELIA looks on and follows them.

¡Aquí viene el rey, la reina, los grandes … ¿A quién acompañan? Ocultémonos un poco y observa.

They hide as the GRAVEDIGGER exits.

LAERTES
What ceremony else?

HAMLET
Laertes?

LAERTES
What ceremony else?

DOCTOR
Her obsequies have been as far enlarged
As we have warranty. Her death was doubtful,
And, but that great command o’ersways the order,
She should in ground unsanctified been lodged
Till the last trumpet.

LAERTES
Must there no more be done?

DOCTOR
No more be done.
We should profane the service of the dead
To sing a requiem and such rest to her
As to peace-parted souls. [378]

LAERTES
Lay her i’ th’ earth,
And from her fair and unpolluted flesh
May violets spring! I tell thee, churlish priest,
A minist’ring angel shall my sister be
When thou liest howling.

HAMLET (to HORATIO)
¿Qué? ¿La hermosa Ophelia?

QUEEN GERTRUDE (scattering flowers)
I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet’s wife;
I thought thy bride-bed to have decked, sweet maid,
And not have strewed thy grave.

LAERTES
O, treble woe
Fall ten times treble on that cursèd head
Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense
Deprived thee of! — Hold off the earth awhile,
Till I have caught her once more in mine arms.

HAMLET (advancing)
¿Quién es el que da a sus penas idioma tan enfático? Yo soy Hamlet.

LAERTES
The devil take thy soul!

They fight as OPHELIA watches, speaking over one another.

HAMLET
¡Quita esos dedos de mi cuello! ¡Quita de ahí esa mano!

KING CLAUDIUS
Pluck them asunder.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Hamlet! Hamlet!

ALL
Gentlemen! [379]

HORATIO
Good my lord, be quiet!

HAMLET and LAERTES are pulled apart. GHOST returns for OPHELIA.

HAMLET
¡No! ¡Por causa tan justa lidiaré con él, hasta que cierre mis párpados la muerte!

OPHELIA
Ellos no entienden, ¿verdad?

GHOST
No entienden.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
O my son, what theme?

HAMLET
Yo he querido a Ophelia, y cuatro mil hermanos juntos no podrán con su amor exceder al mío. What wilt thou do for her?

OPHELIA
No hiciste nada.

GHOST
Vamos, mi hija.

They exit.

KING CLAUDIUS
O, he is mad, Laertes!

QUEEN GERTRUDE
For love of God, forbear him.

HAMLET
El gato maullará y el perro quedará vencedor.

HAMLET breaks free from HORATIO and exits.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
This is mere madness! [380]

KING CLAUDIUS
I pray thee, good Horatio, wait upon him.

HORATIO exits.

(to LAERTES) Strengthen your patience in our last night’s speech.
We’ll put the matter to the present push. —
Good Gertrude, set some watch over your son. —
This grave shall have a living monument.
An hour of quiet thereby shall we see.
Till then in patience our proceeding be.

They exit.

Scene 2

HAMLET and HORATIO enter.

HAMLET
So much for this, sir. Now shall you see the other.
You do remember all the circumstance?

HORATIO
Remember it, my lord!

HAMLET
For he that hath killed my king and whored my mother,
England was his faithful tributary,
As love between them like the palm might flourish.

HORATIO
What be the issue of the business there in England?

HAMLET
Por la posibilidad de una vida perfecta.
Uno enraizado en el mal y el cancro …
Sólo me disgusta, amigo Horatio,
El lance ocurrido con Laertes,
En que olvidado de mí mismo,
No vi en mi sentimiento la imagen
Y semejanza del suyo al igual que el mal del rey. [381]

HORATIO
Peace, who comes here?

A LORD enters.

LORD
My lord, his Majesty sends to know if your pleasure hold to play with Laertes, or that you will take longer time.

HAMLET
In happy time.

They exit.

HORATIO
You will lose, my lord.

HAMLET
Si el hombre al terminar su vida ignora siempre lo que podría ocurrir después, ¿qué importa que la pierda tarde o presto? Sepa morir.

Music plays. KING CLAUDIUS enters with drinks, followed by QUEEN GERTRUDE, LAERTES with a sword, GHOST, and OPHELIA. GHOST hands HAMLET a sword. As they are distracted, KING CLAUDIUS poisons one cup. The spirits perch on either side of the stage awaiting what is to come.

KING CLAUDIUS
Come, Hamlet, come and take this hand from me.
You know the wager?

HAMLET
Muy bien, mi señor.

They prepare to fight.

KING CLAUDIUS
Set me the stoups of wine upon that table.
If Hamlet give the first or second hit
Or quit in answer of the third exchange,
Let all the battlements their ordnance fire.
The King shall drink to Hamlet’s better breath,
And in the cup an union shall he throw,
Richer than that which four successive kings [382]
In Denmark’s crown have worn. Give me the cups,
And let the kettle to the trumpet speak,
The trumpet to the cannoneer without,
The cannons to the heavens, the heaven to earth,
“Now the King drinks to Hamlet.” Come, begin.
And you, the judges, bear a wary eye.

HAMLET
Vamos, señor.

LAERTES
Come, my lord.

They fight.

HAMLET
Uno.

LAERTES
No.

HORATIO
A hit, a very palpable hit!

LAERTES
Well, again.

KING CLAUDIUS
Stay, give me drink. — Hamlet, this pearl is thine.
Here’s to thy health.

KING CLAUDIUS drinks and attempts to hand HAMLET the poisoned cup.

Drink.

HAMLET
Quiero dar este bote primero. Vamos … otra estocada.

LAERTES
A touch, a touch. I do confess ’t.

KING CLAUDIUS
Our son shall win? [383]

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Here, Hamlet, take my napkin; rub thy brows.
The Queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet.

She lifts the cup.

KING CLAUDIUS
Gertrude, do not drink.

QUEEN GERTRUDE (drinking)
I will, my lord; I pray you pardon me.

KING CLAUDIUS (aside)
It is the poisoned cup. It is too late.

LAERTES wounds HAMLET. HAMLET then wounds LAERTES.

Part them. They are incensed.

HAMLET
¡No, ven de nuevo!

QUEEN GERTRUDE falls.

HORATIO
Look to the Queen there, ho!

LAERTES
How does the Queen?

HAMLET fatally wounds him.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
No, no, the drink, the drink! O, my dear Hamlet!
The drink, the drink! I am poisoned.

She dies.

HAMLET
¡O villanía! Cierren las puertas. ¡Traición! Busquen por todas partes.

He hurts KING CLAUDIUS.

ALL
Treason, treason! [384]

KING CLAUDIUS
O, yet defend me, friends! I am but hurt.

HAMLET
¡Malvado, incestuoso asesino! Bebe esta ponzoña, acompaña a mi madre.

He forces KING CLAUDIUS to drink the poison and he dies.

LAERTES
He is justly served.
It is a poison tempered by himself.
Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet.
Mine and my father’s death come not upon thee, nor thine on me.

He dies. HORATIO rushes to him.

HAMLET
El cielo te hace libre de eso. Yo te sigo.
Estoy muerto, Horatio. Reina miserable, adiós.
Dame la copa envenenada.

OPHELIA brings him the cup. He drinks, then hears a march far off and a shot within.

HORATIO
What warlike noise is this?

A MESSENGER enters.

MESSENGER
Young Fortinbras, with conquest come from Poland,
To th’ ambassadors of England gives
This warlike volley.

HAMLET
Yo expiro, Horatio —
La activa ponzoña sofoca mi aliento.
No puedo vivir para saber nuevas de Inglaterra.
Para mí solo queda ya — silencio eterno.

He dies.

HORATIO
Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince,
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest. [385]

March within.

Why does the drum come hither?

FORTINBRAS enters. He speaks with an English accent.

FORTINBRAS
Where is this sight? The sight is dismal,
And our affairs from England come too late.

HORATIO
He never gave commandment for their death.
But since, so jump upon this bloody question,
You from the Polack wars, and you from England,
Are here arrived, give order that these bodies
High on a stage be placed to the view,
In your Christian ways unlike ours
And let me speak to th’ yet unknowing world
How these things came about. So shall you hear
Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts,
Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters,
Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause,
And, in this upshot, purposes mistook
Fall’n on th’ inventors’ heads. All this can I
Truly deliver.

They bend over to examine the bodies. Lights change, and they freeze in a tableau. Soft Indigenous music plays. The spirits make their way downstage.

OPHELIA
Pero ahora que los ánimos están en peligroso movimiento, no se dilate la ejecución un instante solo, para evitar los males que pudieran causar la malignidad o el terror. This above all: to thine own self be true.

GHOST helps HAMLET up.

GHOST
¿Entiendes ahora?

The three exit into the light. Blackout.

END OF PLAY