Hamlet, Severely Abridged

Act I Scene 1

BERNARDO
Have you had quiet guard?
FRANCISCO
Not a mouse stirring.
MARCELLUS
Peace, break thee off; look, where it comes again!
BERNARDO
In the same figure, like the king that’s dead.

Act I Scene 2

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
O, that this too too solid flesh would melt
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d
His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!

HORATIO
My lord, the king your father.
HAMLET
The king my father!

Act I Scene 3

LAERTES
For Hamlet and the trifling of his favour,
Hold it a fashion and a toy in blood,
A violet in the youth of primy nature,
Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting,
The perfume and suppliance of a minute; No more.
OPHELIA
No more but so?
LORD POLONIUS

Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine ownself be true,

Act I Scene 4

HAMLET
My fate cries out,
And makes each petty artery in this body
As hardy as the Nemean lion’s nerve.
Still am I call’d. Unhand me, gentlemen.
By heaven, I’ll make a ghost of him that lets me!
I say, away! Go on; I’ll follow thee.
HORATIO
Have after. To what issue will this come?
MARCELLUS
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
Act I Scene 5

Ghost
Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.
HAMLET
Murder!
Ghost
Murder most foul, as in the best it is;
But this most foul, strange and unnatural.
HAMLET
Rest, rest, perturbed spirit!
The time is out of joint: O cursed spite,
That ever I was born to set it right!

Act II Scene 1
OPHELIA
My lord, as I was sewing in my closet,
Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbraced;
No hat upon his head; his stockings foul’d,
Ungarter’d, and down-gyved to his ancle;
LORD POLONIUS
Mad for thy love?
OPHELIA
My lord, I do not know;
But truly, I do fear it.
Act II Scene 2

LORD POLONIUS
Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
Madam, I swear I use no art at all.
That he is mad, ’tis true: ’tis true ’tis pity;
Though this be madness, yet there is method

HAMLET
O God, I could be bounded in a nut shell and count
myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I
have bad dreams.
LORD POLONIUS
This is too long.
HAMLET
It shall to the barber’s, with your beard. Prithee,
say on: he’s for a jig or a tale of bawdry, or he
sleeps: say on: come to Hecuba. The play’s the thing
Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king!
Act III Scene 1

HAMLET
To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. 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,
LORD POLONIUS
It shall do well: but yet do I believe
The origin and commencement of his grief
Sprung from neglected love. How now, Ophelia! 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 unwatch’d go.
Act III Scene 2

HAMLET

To sound what stop she please. Give me that man
That is not passion’s slave, and I will wear him
In my heart’s core, ay, in my heart of heart,

QUEEN GERTRUDE
The lady protests too much, methinks.
HAMLET
O, but she’ll keep her word.
HAMLET
O good Horatio, I’ll take the ghost’s word for a
thousand pound. Didst perceive?
HORATIO
Very well, my lord.
HAMLET
Upon the talk of the poisoning?
HORATIO
I did very well note him.
Act III Scene 3

KING CLAUDIUS

O, my offence is rank it smells to heaven;
It hath the primal eldest curse upon’t,
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 possess’d
Of those effects for which I did the murder,

HAMLET
Now might I do it pat, now he is praying;
And now I’ll do’t. And so he goes to heaven;
And so am I revenged. That would be scann’d:
A villain kills my father; and for that,
I, his sole son, do this same villain send
To heaven.
O, this is hire and salary, not revenge.
Act III Scene 4

HAMLET
[Within] Mother, mother, mother!
QUEEN GERTRUDE
What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murder me?
Help, help, ho!
LORD POLONIUS
[Behind] What, ho! help, help, help!
HAMLET
[Drawing] How now! a rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead!
Makes a pass through the arras
LORD POLONIUS
[Behind] O, I am slain!
Falls and dies
Act IV Scene 1

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

Friends both, go join you with some further aid:
Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain,
And from his mother’s closet hath he dragg’d him:
Go seek him out; speak fair, and bring the body
Into the chapel. I pray you, haste in this.

Act IV Scene 2

ROSENCRANTZ
What have you done, my lord, with the dead body?
HAMLET
The body is with the king, but the king is not with
the body. The king is a thing–
Act IV Scene 3

KING CLAUDIUS
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,
The associates tend, and every thing is bent
For England.
HAMLET
For England!
KING CLAUDIUS
Ay, Hamlet.
HAMLET
Good.
KING CLAUDIUS
So is it, if thou knew’st our purposes.
HAMLET
I see a cherub that sees them. But, come; for
England! Farewell, dear mother.
KING CLAUDIUS

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 were ne’er begun.

Act IV Scene 4

HAMLET
Goes it against the main of Poland, sir,
Or for some frontier?
Captain
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.
Act IV Scene 5

LAERTES
I thank you: keep the door. O thou vile king,
Give me my father!
KING CLAUDIUS
Why, now you speak
Like a good child and a true gentleman.
That I am guiltless of your father’s death,

OPHELIA
[Sings]
They bore him barefaced on the bier;
Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny;
And in his grave rain’d many a tear:–
Fare you well, my dove!
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.
Act IV Scene 6

HORATIO
[Reads] ‘Horatio, when thou shalt have overlooked
this, give these fellows some means to the king:They have dealt with
me like thieves of mercy: but they knew what they
did; I am to do a good turn for them ‘He that thou knowest thine, HAMLET.’
Come, I will make you way for these your letters;
And do’t the speedier, that you may direct me
To him from whom you brought them.
Act IV Scene 7

KING CLAUDIUS
To thine own peace. If he be now return’d,
As checking at his voyage, and that he means
No more to undertake it, I will work him
To an exploit, now ripe in my device,
Under the which he shall not choose but fall:
And for his death no wind of blame shall breathe,
But even his mother shall uncharge the practise
And call it accident.
LAERTES
I will do’t:
And, for that purpose, I’ll anoint my sword.
I bought an unction of a mountebank,
So mortal that, but dip a knife in it,
Act V Scene 1
HAMLET
Let me see.
Takes the skull
Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow
of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy:
HORATIO
What’s that, my lord?
HAMLET
What, the fair Ophelia!
LAERTES
O, treble woe
Fall ten times treble on that cursed head,
Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense
HAMLET
Why I will fight with him upon this theme
Until my eyelids will no longer wag.
Act V Scene 2
LAERTES
Come, my lord.
They play
KING CLAUDIUS
Gertrude, do not drink.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
I will, my lord; I pray you, pardon me.
KING CLAUDIUS
[Aside] It is the poison’d cup: it is too late.
LAERTES
Have at you now!
LAERTES wounds HAMLET; then in scuffling, they change rapiers, and HAMLET wounds LAERTES
QUEEN GERTRUDE
No, no, the drink, the drink,–O my dear Hamlet,–
The drink, the drink! I am poison’d.
Dies
HAMLET
Here, thou incestuous, murderous, damned Dane,
Drink off this potion. Is thy union here?
Follow my mother.
KING CLAUDIUS dies
LAERTES
He is justly served;
It is a poison temper’d by himself.
Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet:
Mine and my father’s death come not upon thee,
Nor thine on me.
Dies
HAMLET
O, I die, Horatio;
The potent poison quite o’er-crows my spirit:
I cannot live to hear the news from England;
But I do prophesy the election lights
On Fortinbras: he has my dying voice;
So tell him, with the occurrents, more and less,
Which have solicited. The rest is silence.
Dies
HORATIO
Now cracks a noble heart. Good night sweet prince:
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!
Why does the drum come hither?
March within
Enter FORTINBRAS, the English Ambassadors, and others