Page 308 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

QUEEN

Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.

HAMLET
Nor did you nothing hear?

QUEEN
No, nothing but ourselves. [135]

HAMLET
Why, look you there, look how it steals away.
My father, in his habit as he liv’d!

Look where he goes even now out at the portal.
Exit Ghost.

QUEEN
This is the very coinage of your brain.
This bodiless creation ecstasy [140]
Is very cunning in.

HAMLET

My pulse as yours doth temperately keep time,
And makes as healthful music. It is not madness
That I have utter’d. Bring me to the test,
And I the matter will re-word, which madness [145]

Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,
Lay not that flattering unction to your soul,
That not your trespass but my madness speaks.
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place,

Whiles rank corruption, mining all within, [150]
Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven,
Repent what’s past, avoid what is to come;
And do not spread the compost on the weeds

To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue;
For in the fatness of these pursy times [155]
Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg,
Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good.