Hamlet

Refrain tonight,

And that shall lend a kind of easiness

To the next abstinence. Once more, goodnight:

And when you are desirous to be blessed,

I'll blessing beg of you. For this same lord,

Points to the body

I do repent, but heaven hath pleased it so

To punish me with this, and this with me,

That I must be their scourge and minister174.

I will bestow him, and will answer well175

The death I gave him. So, again, goodnight.

I must be cruel, only to be kind:

Thus bad begins and worse remains behind178.

GERTRUDE What shall I do?

HAMLET Not this by no means that I bid you do:

Let the bloat181 king tempt you again to bed, Pinch wanton on your cheek, call you his mouse182, And let him, for a pair of reechy183 kisses, Or paddling in your neck with his damned fingers,

Make you to ravel all this matter out185, That I essentially am not in madness,

But mad in craft187. 'Twere good you let him know, For who that's but a queen, fair, sober, wise,

Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib189, Such dear concernings190 hide? Who would do so?

No, in despite of sense and secrecy,

Unpeg192 the basket on the house's top, Let the birds fly, and like the famous ape193, To try conclusions194, in the basket creep, And break your own neck down.

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 I must to England: you know that?

GERTRUDE Alack,

I had forgot: 'tis so concluded on.

HAMLET This man shall set me packing202: I'll lug the guts into the neighbour room.

Mother, goodnight. Indeed this counsellor

Is now most still, most secret and most grave205, Who was in life a foolish prating206 knave.--

Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you207.--