HAMLET ACT 3 SCENE 4
Paraphrase each stanza
53Look here, upon this picture, and on this,
54The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
55See, what a grace was seated on this brow;
56Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself;
57An eye like Mars, to threaten and command;
58A station like the herald Mercury
59New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill;
60A combination and a form indeed,
61Where every god did seem to set his seal,
62To give the world assurance of a man:
63This was your husband. Look you now, what follows:
64Here is your husband; like a mildew'd ear,
65Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes?
66Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,
67And batten on this moor? Ha! have you eyes?
68You cannot call it love; for at your age
69The heyday in the blood is tame, it's humble,
70And waits upon the judgment: and what judgment
71Would step from this to this? Sense, sure, you have,
72Else could you not have motion; but sure, that sense
73Is apoplex'd; for madness would not err,
74Nor sense to ecstasy was ne'er so thrall'd
75But it reserved some quantity of choice,
76To serve in such a difference. What devil was't
77That thus hath cozen'd you at hoodman-blind?
78Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight,
79Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all,
80Or but a sickly part of one true sense
81Could not so mope.
82O shame! where is thy blush? Rebellious hell,
83If thou canst mutine in a matron's bones,
84To flaming youth let virtue be as wax,
85And melt in her own fire: proclaim no shame
86When the compulsive ardor gives the charge,
87Since frost itself as actively doth burn
88And reason panders will.
QUEEN
O Hamlet, speak no more:
89Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul;
90And there I see such black and grained spots
91As will not leave their tinct.
HAMLET
91Nay, but to live
92In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed,
93Stew'd in corruption, honeying and making love
94Over the nasty sty—
QUEEN
94O, speak to me no more;
95These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears;
96No more, sweet Hamlet!
HAMLET
96A murderer and a villain;
97A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe
98Of your precedent lord, a vice of kings,
99A cutpurse of the empire and the rule,
100That from a shelf the precious diadem stole,
101And put it in his pocket!
QUEEN
101No more!
HAMLET
102A king of shreds and patches—
Enter GHOST.
103Save me, and hover o'er me with your wings,
104You heavenly guards! What would your gracious figure?
QUEEN
105Alas, he's mad!
HAMLET
106Do you not come your tardy son to chide,
107That, lapsed in time and passion, lets go by
108The important acting of your dread command? 109O, say!
Ghost
110Do not forget: this visitation
111Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.
112But, look, amazement on thy mother sits:
113O, step between her and her fighting soul:
114Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works:
115Speak to her, Hamlet.
HAMLET
115How is it with you, lady?
QUEEN
116Alas, how is't with you,
117That you do bend your eye on vacancy
118And with the incorporal air do hold discourse?
119Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep;
120And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm,
121Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,
122Starts up, and stands on end. O gentle son,
123Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper
124Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look?