[Exit.]

Scene IV.  Another room in the castle.

[Enter Queen and Polonius.]

Pol. 
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 screen’d and stood between
Much heat and him.  I’ll silence me e’en here. 
Pray you, be round with him.

Ham.
[Within.] Mother, mother, mother!

Queen. 
I’ll warrant you: 
Fear me not:—­withdraw; I hear him coming.

[Polonius goes behind the arras.]

[Enter Hamlet.]

Ham. 
Now, mother, what’s the matter?

Queen. 
Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.

Ham. 
Mother, you have my father much offended.

Queen. 
Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.

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

Queen. 
Why, how now, Hamlet!

Ham. 
What’s the matter now?

Queen. 
Have you forgot me?

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

Ham. 
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. 
What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murder me?—­
Help, help, ho!

Pol.
[Behind.] What, ho! help, help, help!

Ham. 
How now? a rat? [Draws.]
Dead for a ducat, dead!

[Makes a pass through the arras.]

Pol.
[Behind.] O, I am slain!

[Falls and dies.]

Queen. 
O me, what hast thou done?

Ham. 
Nay, I know not:  is it the king?

[Draws forth Polonius.]

Queen. 
O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!

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

Queen. 
As kill a king!

Ham. 
Ay, lady, ’twas my word.—­
Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!
[To Polonius.]
I took thee for thy better:  take thy fortune;
Thou find’st to be too busy is some danger.—­
Leave wringing of your hands:  peace! sit you down,
And let me wring your heart:  for so I shall,
If it be made of penetrable stuff;
If damned custom have not braz’d it so
That it is proof and bulwark against sense.

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

Ham. 
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:  O, such a deed
As from the body of contraction plucks
The very soul, and sweet religion makes
A rhapsody of words:  heaven’s face doth glow;
Yea, this solidity and compound mass,
With tristful visage, as against the doom,
Is thought-sick at the act.