Hamlet: Act 3, Scene 2 Translation

A side-by-side translation of Act 3, Scene 2 of Hamlet from the original Shakespeare into modern English.

Original Text	Translated Text
Source: Folger Shakespeare Library
Enter Hamlet and three of the Players. HAMLET Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently; 5 for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious, periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very 10 rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise. I would have such a fellow whipped for o’erdoing Termagant. It out-Herods Herod. Pray you, avoid it. 15 PLAYER I warrant your Honor. HAMLET Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this special observance, that you o’erstep not the modesty of 20 nature. For anything so o’erdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is to hold, as ’twere, the mirror up to nature, to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time 25 his form and pressure. Now this overdone or come tardy off, though it makes the unskillful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve, the censure of the which one must in your allowance o’erweigh a whole theater of others. O, there be players that I 30 have seen play and heard others praise (and that highly), not to speak it profanely, that, neither having th’ accent of Christians nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of nature’s 35 journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably. PLAYER I hope we have reformed that indifferently with us, sir.	Hamlet, in director mode, tells the actors how he wants them to perform the play. He'd like it to come off naturally, which means they shouldn't be too loud, or gesticulate (make gestures) too much, as bad actors often do. Instead, they should use their discretion to build up suspense with their actions. Note that Hamlet gives directions as though he has some familiarity with acting himself... Hmm.
HAMLET O, reform it altogether. And let those that play 40 your clowns speak no more than is set down for them, for there be of them that will themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too, though in the meantime some necessary question of the play be then to be considered. 45 That’s villainous and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it. Go make you ready. Players exit. Enter Polonius, Guildenstern, and Rosencrantz. How now, my lord, will the King hear this piece of work? POLONIUS And the Queen too, and that presently. 50 HAMLET Bid the players make haste. Polonius exits. Will you two help to hasten them? ROSENCRANTZ Ay, my lord. They exit.	Hamlet gives the players one last piece of advice: don't be tempted to get a cheap laugh, since the audience's laughter might drown out the important parts. With that, he sends the players off to get ready, then tells Polonius, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern to keep them on schedule. It's showtime!
HAMLET What ho, Horatio! Enter Horatio. HORATIO Here, sweet lord, at your service. 55 HAMLET Horatio, thou art e’en as just a man As e’er my conversation coped withal. HORATIO O, my dear lord— HAMLET Nay, do not think I flatter, For what advancement may I hope from thee 60 That no revenue hast but thy good spirits To feed and clothe thee? Why should the poor be flattered? No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee 65 Where thrift may follow fawning. Dost thou hear? Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice And could of men distinguish, her election Hath sealed thee for herself. For thou hast been As one in suffering all that suffers nothing, 70 A man that Fortune’s buffets and rewards Hast ta’en with equal thanks; and blessed are those Whose blood and judgment are so well commeddled That they are not a pipe for Fortune’s finger 75 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, As I do thee.—Something too much of this.— There is a play tonight before the King. 80 One scene of it comes near the circumstance Which I have told thee of my father’s death. I prithee, when thou seest that act afoot, Even with the very comment of thy soul Observe my uncle. If his occulted guilt 85 Do not itself unkennel in one speech, It is a damnèd ghost that we have seen, And my imaginations are as foul As Vulcan’s stithy. Give him heedful note, For I mine eyes will rivet to his face, 90 And, after, we will both our judgments join In censure of his seeming. HORATIO Well, my lord. If he steal aught the whilst this play is playing And ’scape detecting, I will pay the theft. 95 Sound a flourish. HAMLET They are coming to the play. I must be idle. Get you a place.	As everyone gets settled, Hamlet pulls Horatio aside, and says he's among the best men that Hamlet has had the fortune of knowing, and BTW he needs a favor: he needs him to watch Claudius' reactions to the play, especially during the scene that reenacts the killing of the King in exactly the way Claudius would've killed King Hamlet. Together, they can figure out whether Claudius really did kill King Hamlet. Sure, says Horatio, and then it's time for Hamlet to run off and act like a crazy duck again.
Enter Trumpets and Kettle Drums. Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and other Lords attendant with the King’s guard carrying torches. KING How fares our cousin Hamlet? HAMLET Excellent, i’ faith, of the chameleon’s dish. I eat the air, promise-crammed. You cannot feed 100 capons so. KING I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet. These words are not mine.	As Claudius settles in, he asks Hamlet how he's doing. Hamlet says he eats as well as a chameleon (creatures that were thought to live on a diet of air). In saying this, Hamlet is punning on air/heir, since he was (and remains) heir to the throne. He then says you can't feed capons that way. Huh? Yeah, we know. There's a lot packed into this little exchange. Bear with us. A capon is a male chicken that is castrated when it's young and then fattened up to be eaten. Hamlet is suggesting that Claudius thinks he's "castrated" Hamlet, making him less than a man, which, well...he kind of did by killing his father and stealing his right to the throne by marrying his mother. But Hamlet is telling him he hasn't succeeded, sort of. He's so cryptic that Claudius doesn't get it, but then, that seems to be Hamlet's m.o.
HAMLET No, nor mine now. To Polonius. My lord, you played once i’ th’ university, you say? 105 POLONIUS That did I, my lord, and was accounted a good actor. HAMLET What did you enact? POLONIUS I did enact Julius Caesar. I was killed i’ th’ Capitol. Brutus killed me. 110 HAMLET It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf there.—Be the players ready? ROSENCRANTZ Ay, my lord. They stay upon your patience. QUEEN Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me. 115 HAMLET No, good mother. Here’s metal more attractive. Hamlet takes a place near Ophelia. POLONIUS, to the King Oh, ho! Do you mark that?	After brutalizing Claudius, Hamlet moves on to Polonius and Ophelia. This should be a fun afternoon. First he winds up Polonius when he says he wants to sit next Ophelia instead of his mom.
HAMLET Lady, shall I lie in your lap? OPHELIA No, my lord. 120 HAMLET I mean, my head upon your lap? OPHELIA Ay, my lord. HAMLET Do you think I meant country matters? OPHELIA I think nothing, my lord. HAMLET That’s a fair thought to lie between maids’ 125 legs. OPHELIA What is, my lord? HAMLET Nothing. OPHELIA You are merry, my lord. HAMLET Who, I? 130 OPHELIA Ay, my lord.	Hamlet starts flirting with—well, really harassing—Ophelia, asking if he can lie in her lap, and making dirty puns on the word "nothing," which is Elizabethan slang for "vagina." Anyway, Ophelia tactfully demurs, telling Hamlet he seems pretty upbeat.
HAMLET O God, your only jig-maker. What should a man do but be merry? For look you how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died within ’s two hours. 135 OPHELIA Nay, ’tis twice two months, my lord. HAMLET So long? Nay, then, let the devil wear black, for I’ll have a suit of sables. O heavens, die two months ago, and not forgotten yet? Then there’s hope a great man’s memory may outlive his life half 140 a year. But, by ’r Lady, he must build churches, then, or else shall he suffer not thinking on, with the hobby-horse, whose epitaph is “For oh, for oh, the hobby-horse is forgot.”	Hamlet quips that there's no way he could be unhappy. After all, his dad's only been dead two hours, and his mom seems quite happy. Ophelia points out that, actually, it's been four months. Hamlet says, "Wow, you mean someone can die and not be forgotten after two months? That's amazing." Of course, if a man really wants to be remembered for say, six months, Hamlet says he'd have to build churches or risk being forgotten like the hobby-horse. This is Shakespeare's own playful reference to the fact that regular Elizabethan village people were pretty bummed out by the puritanical suppression of sports at pagan festivals, which often had fun stuff like costumed horses and dancing.
The trumpets sounds. Dumb show follows. Enter a King and a Queen, very lovingly, the Queen 145 embracing him and he her. She kneels and makes show of protestation unto him. He takes her up and declines his head upon her neck. He lies him down upon a bank of flowers. She, seeing him asleep, leaves him. Anon comes in another man, takes off his crown, kisses it, pours 150 poison in the sleeper’s ears, and leaves him. The Queen returns, finds the King dead, makes passionate action. The poisoner with some three or four come in again, seem to condole with her. The dead body is carried away. The poisoner woos the Queen with gifts. She seems harsh 155 awhile but in the end accepts his love. Players exit. OPHELIA What means this, my lord? HAMLET Marry, this is miching mallecho. It means mischief. OPHELIA Belike this show imports the argument of the 160 play. Enter Prologue. HAMLET We shall know by this fellow. The players cannot keep counsel; they’ll tell all. OPHELIA Will he tell us what this show meant? HAMLET Ay, or any show that you will show him. Be 165 not you ashamed to show, he’ll not shame to tell you what it means. OPHELIA You are naught, you are naught. I’ll mark the play.	Okay, now it's really time for the show. The play the actors perform is a variant of "The Murder of Gonzago." It starts with a "dumb show," in which the players silently act out the major action of the play. Personally, we think this part should be proceeded by a major spoiler alert.
PROLOGUE For us and for our tragedy, 170 Here stooping to your clemency, We beg your hearing patiently. He exits. HAMLET Is this a prologue or the posy of a ring? OPHELIA ’Tis brief, my lord. HAMLET As woman’s love. 175 Enter the Player King and Queen. PLAYER KING Full thirty times hath Phoebus’ cart gone round Neptune’s salt wash and Tellus’ orbèd ground, And thirty dozen moons with borrowed sheen About the world have times twelve thirties been Since love our hearts and Hymen did our hands 180 Unite commutual in most sacred bands. PLAYER QUEEN So many journeys may the sun and moon Make us again count o’er ere love be done! But woe is me! You are so sick of late, So far from cheer and from your former state, 185 That I distrust you. Yet, though I distrust, Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must. For women fear too much, even as they love, And women’s fear and love hold quantity, In neither aught, or in extremity. 190 Now what my love is, proof hath made you know, And, as my love is sized, my fear is so: Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear; Where little fears grow great, great love grows there. PLAYER KING Faith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly too. 195 My operant powers their functions leave to do. And thou shall live in this fair world behind, Honored, beloved; and haply one as kind For husband shalt thou— PLAYER QUEEN O, confound the rest! 200 Such love must needs be treason in my breast. In second husband let me be accurst. None wed the second but who killed the first. HAMLET That’s wormwood! PLAYER QUEEN The instances that second marriage move 205 Are base respects of thrift, but none of love. A second time I kill my husband dead When second husband kisses me in bed.	The spoken part of the play starts with a very short prologue—as brief as a woman's love, according to Hamlet. Then two players enter as a King and Queen. The King is talking about how one day, when he's gone, his wife will remarry, but she insists she won't. She says that a woman only remarries when she's been involved in killing off her first husband. Then she adds that she would be killing her first husband a second time by kissing her second husband. (Um...we think we've located some of the lines Hamlet had added to the play.)
PLAYER KING I do believe you think what now you speak, But what we do determine oft we break. 210 Purpose is but the slave to memory, Of violent birth, but poor validity, Which now, the fruit unripe, sticks on the tree But fall unshaken when they mellow be. Most necessary ’tis that we forget 215 To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt. What to ourselves in passion we propose, The passion ending, doth the purpose lose. The violence of either grief or joy Their own enactures with themselves destroy. 220 Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament; Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident. This world is not for aye, nor ’tis not strange That even our loves should with our fortunes change; For ’tis a question left us yet to prove 225 Whether love lead fortune or else fortune love. The great man down, you mark his favorite flies; The poor, advanced, makes friends of enemies. And hitherto doth love on fortune tend, For who not needs shall never lack a friend, 230 And who in want a hollow friend doth try Directly seasons him his enemy. But, orderly to end where I begun: Our wills and fates do so contrary run That our devices still are overthrown; 235 Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own. So think thou wilt no second husband wed, But die thy thoughts when thy first lord is dead. PLAYER QUEEN Nor Earth to me give food, nor heaven light, Sport and repose lock from me day and night, 240 To desperation turn my trust and hope, An anchor’s cheer in prison be my scope. Each opposite that blanks the face of joy Meet what I would have well and it destroy. Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife, 245 If, once a widow, ever I be wife. HAMLET If she should break it now! PLAYER KING ’Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here awhile. My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile The tedious day with sleep. Sleeps. 250 PLAYER QUEEN Sleep rock thy brain, And never come mischance between us twain. Player Queen exits.	The King in the play says he's sure she believes that to be true now, but she might find that she feels differently once he's dead. The Queen tells him he's wrong. She'll never ever ever ever ever remarry. Ever. The King says okay, and tells her to leave him be. He's going to take a nap.
HAMLET Madam, how like you this play? QUEEN The lady doth protest too much, methinks. HAMLET O, but she’ll keep her word. 255 KING Have you heard the argument? Is there no offense in ’t? HAMLET No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest. No offense i’ th’ world. KING What do you call the play? 260 HAMLET “The Mousetrap.” Marry, how? Tropically. This play is the image of a murder done in Vienna. Gonzago is the duke’s name, his wife Baptista. You shall see anon. ’Tis a knavish piece of work, but what of that? Your Majesty and we that have free 265 souls, it touches us not. Let the galled jade wince; our withers are unwrung. Enter Lucianus. This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king. OPHELIA You are as good as a chorus, my lord. HAMLET I could interpret between you and your love, 270 if I could see the puppets dallying. OPHELIA You are keen, my lord, you are keen. HAMLET It would cost you a groaning to take off mine edge. OPHELIA Still better and worse. 275 HAMLET So you mis-take your husbands.—Begin, murderer. Pox, leave thy damnable faces and begin. Come, the croaking raven doth bellow for revenge.	All of this insistence by the Player Queen about how wrong it would be to remarry if her husband died is is obviously offensive to Gertrude, but she still keeps her cool. When Hamlet asks how she likes the play, she says, "The lady doth protest too much, methinks." Hamlet says the play, called "The Mouse-Trap," is a wicked piece of work, but wouldn't bother anybody with a clean conscience. He then engages in some more sexual innuendo with Ophelia as the next scene begins.
LUCIANUS Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time 280 agreeing, Confederate season, else no creature seeing, Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected, With Hecate’s ban thrice blasted, thrice infected, Thy natural magic and dire property 285 On wholesome life usurp immediately. Pours the poison in his ears. HAMLET He poisons him i’ th’ garden for his estate. His name’s Gonzago. The story is extant and written in very choice Italian. You shall see anon how the murderer gets the love of Gonzago’s wife. 290 Claudius rises. OPHELIA The King rises. HAMLET What, frighted with false fire? QUEEN How fares my lord? POLONIUS Give o’er the play. KING Give me some light. Away! 295 POLONIUS Lights, lights, lights! All but Hamlet and Horatio exit.	Here come the fireworks. The husband/King is taking a nap when his nephew sneaks in and pours poison in his ear—exactly what Claudius did to Hamlet's father. Seeing this, King Claudius gets out of his seat and rushes out of the room. Sold! Hamlet has proved Claudius' guilt—to himself.
HAMLET Why, let the strucken deer go weep, The hart ungallèd play. For some must watch, while some must sleep: Thus runs the world away. 300 Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers (if the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me) with two Provincial roses on my razed shoes, get me a fellowship in a cry of players? HORATIO Half a share. 305 HAMLET A whole one, I. For thou dost know, O Damon dear, This realm dismantled was Of Jove himself, and now reigns here A very very—pajock. 310 HORATIO You might have rhymed. 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? 315 HORATIO I did very well note him. HAMLET Ah ha! Come, some music! Come, the recorders! For if the King like not the comedy, Why, then, belike he likes it not, perdy. 320 Come, some music!	Left alone with Horatio, Hamlet gloats about his brilliant performance. Yes, his brilliant performance. He thinks he did a great job shepherding this whole play through—so great, he deserves a place in the theater. And the ghost must have been telling the truth! Clearly, the King freaked when they got to the part about the poison, which means he's guilty. Right? Hamlet's ready to celebrate with some music.
Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. GUILDENSTERN Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you. HAMLET Sir, a whole history. GUILDENSTERN The King, sir— 325 HAMLET Ay, sir, what of him? GUILDENSTERN Is in his retirement marvelous distempered. HAMLET With drink, sir? GUILDENSTERN No, my lord, with choler. 330 HAMLET Your wisdom should show itself more richer to signify this to the doctor, for for me to put him to his purgation would perhaps plunge him into more choler. GUILDENSTERN Good my lord, put your discourse into 335 some frame and start not so wildly from my affair. HAMLET I am tame, sir. Pronounce. GUILDENSTERN The Queen your mother, in most great affliction of spirit, hath sent me to you. 340 HAMLET You are welcome. GUILDENSTERN Nay, good my lord, this courtesy is not of the right breed. If it shall please you to make me a wholesome answer, I will do your mother’s commandment. If not, your pardon and my return 345 shall be the end of my business. HAMLET Sir, I cannot. ROSENCRANTZ What, my lord? HAMLET Make you a wholesome answer. My wit’s diseased. But, sir, such answer as I can make, you 350 shall command—or, rather, as you say, my mother. Therefore no more but to the matter. My mother, you say— ROSENCRANTZ Then thus she says: your behavior hath struck her into amazement and admiration. 355	But in come Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to kill his mood. Guildenstern starts off by letting Hamlet know the King is very angry. Then Guildenstern and Rosencrantz relay the message that Gertrude has been greatly upset by Hamlet's behavior.
HAMLET O wonderful son that can so ’stonish a mother! But is there no sequel at the heels of this mother’s admiration? Impart.	Ha! That's rich, Hamlet says. My behavior has astonished her? What else did she say?
ROSENCRANTZ She desires to speak with you in her closet ere you go to bed. 360 HAMLET We shall obey, were she ten times our mother. Have you any further trade with us? ROSENCRANTZ My lord, you once did love me. HAMLET And do still, by these pickers and stealers. ROSENCRANTZ Good my lord, what is your cause of 365 distemper? You do surely bar the door upon your own liberty if you deny your griefs to your friend. HAMLET Sir, I lack advancement. ROSENCRANTZ How can that be, when you have the voice of the King himself for your succession in 370 Denmark? HAMLET Ay, sir, but “While the grass grows”—the proverb is something musty. Enter the Players with recorders. O, the recorders! Let me see one. He takes a recorder and turns to Guildenstern. To withdraw 375 with you: why do you go about to recover the wind of me, as if you would drive me into a toil? GUILDENSTERN O, my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly. HAMLET I do not well understand that. Will you play 380 upon this pipe? GUILDENSTERN My lord, I cannot. HAMLET I pray you. GUILDENSTERN Believe me, I cannot. HAMLET I do beseech you. 385 GUILDENSTERN I know no touch of it, my lord. HAMLET It is as easy as lying. Govern these ventages with your fingers and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music. Look you, these are the stops. 390 GUILDENSTERN But these cannot I command to any utt’rance of harmony. I have not the skill. HAMLET Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would play upon me, you would seem to know my stops, you would pluck 395 out the heart of my mystery, you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass; and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ, yet cannot you make it speak. ’Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? 400 Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me. Enter Polonius. God bless you, sir.	Rosencrantz and Guildenstern tell Hamlet his mom wants to talk to him, and Hamlet says fine. Is that all? He's dismissing them, and they act offended. Aren't they friends? Why is he treating them this way. Hamlet accuses them of trying to manipulate him, and then acts insulted when they say they can't play the musicians's recorders because they don't know how. Well then, he says, why have you been trying to play me? Do you think I'm simpler than a recorder? (He's pretty clever the way he backs them into that corner.)
POLONIUS My lord, the Queen would speak with you, and presently. 405 HAMLET Do you see yonder cloud that’s almost in shape of a camel? POLONIUS By th’ Mass, and ’tis like a camel indeed. HAMLET Methinks it is like a weasel. POLONIUS It is backed like a weasel. 410 HAMLET Or like a whale. POLONIUS Very like a whale. HAMLET Then I will come to my mother by and by. Aside. They fool me to the top of my bent.—I will come by and by. 415 POLONIUS I will say so.	Next, Polonius comes in and tells him to go see his mother. Hamlet takes Polonius through a little exercise in which Hamlet pretends to see a cloud that looks like a camel—oh, wait, actually it looks like a weasel. Make that a whale. Polonius agrees with him at every turn, clearly just trying to placate Hamlet, who's doing a good job of acting crazy. Hamlet says he'll go see his mother...eventually.
HAMLET “By and by” is easily said. Leave me, friends. All but Hamlet exit. ’Tis now the very witching time of night, When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes 420 out Contagion to this world. Now could I drink hot blood And do such bitter business as the day Would quake to look on. Soft, now to my mother. 425 O heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom. Let me be cruel, not unnatural. I will speak daggers to her, but use none. My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites: 430 How in my words somever she be shent, To give them seals never, my soul, consent. He exits.	Finally, Hamlet dismisses everyone to have a little soliloquy about what's going on in the dark corners of his mind. It's nighttime, and Hamlet's feeling so good and cruel he could drink blood, but he's a little worried: he hopes that his firm bosom won't ever give way to the soul of Nero, a Roman emperor who killed his own mother. (Remember, the ghost told him not to carry out any physical punishment against his mother.) Hamlet says he'll speak daggers to her, but not use any on her.