HAMLET   ACT 3 SCENE 4

HAMLET   ACT 3 SCENE 4
Paraphrase each stanza

53   Look here, upon this picture, and on this,  
54   The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.  
55   See, what a grace was seated on this brow;  
56   Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself;  
57   An eye like Mars, to threaten and command;  
58   A station like the herald Mercury  
59   New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill;  
60   A combination and a form indeed,  
61   Where every god did seem to set his seal,  
62   To give the world assurance of a man:  
63   This was your husband. Look you now, what follows:  
64   Here is your husband; like a mildew'd ear,  
65   Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes?  
66   Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,  
67   And batten on this moor? Ha! have you eyes?  
68   You cannot call it love; for at your age  
69   The heyday in the blood is tame, it's humble,  
70   And waits upon the judgment: and what judgment  
71   Would step from this to this? Sense, sure, you have,  
72   Else could you not have motion; but sure, that sense  
73   Is apoplex'd; for madness would not err,  
74   Nor sense to ecstasy was ne'er so thrall'd  
75   But it reserved some quantity of choice,  
76   To serve in such a difference. What devil was't  
77   That thus hath cozen'd you at hoodman-blind?  
78   Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight,  
79   Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all,  
80   Or but a sickly part of one true sense  
81   Could not so mope.  
82   O shame! where is thy blush? Rebellious hell,  
83   If thou canst mutine in a matron's bones,  
84   To flaming youth let virtue be as wax,  
85   And melt in her own fire: proclaim no shame  
86   When the compulsive ardor gives the charge,  
87   Since frost itself as actively doth burn  
88   And reason panders will.

QUEEN  

                                   O Hamlet, speak no more:  
89   Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul;  
90   And there I see such black and grained spots  
91   As will not leave their tinct.

      HAMLET  
91                                            Nay, but to live  
92   In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed,  
93   Stew'd in corruption, honeying and making love  
94   Over the nasty sty—

      QUEEN  
94                               O, speak to me no more;  
95   These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears;  
96   No more, sweet Hamlet!

      HAMLET  
96                                   A murderer and a villain;  
97   A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe  
98   Of your precedent lord, a vice of kings,  
99   A cutpurse of the empire and the rule,  
100   That from a shelf the precious diadem stole,  
101   And put it in his pocket!

QUEEN  
101 No more!

HAMLET  
102 A king of shreds and patches—

           Enter GHOST.
103   Save me, and hover o'er me with your wings,  
104   You heavenly guards! What would your gracious figure?

QUEEN  
105 Alas, he's mad!

      HAMLET  
106   Do you not come your tardy son to chide,  
107   That, lapsed in time and passion, lets go by  
108   The important acting of your dread command?  109   O, say!

      Ghost  
110   Do not forget: this visitation  
111   Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.  
112   But, look, amazement on thy mother sits:  
113   O, step between her and her fighting soul:  
114   Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works:  
115   Speak to her, Hamlet.

HAMLET  
115 How is it with you, lady?

      QUEEN  
116   Alas, how is't with you,  
117   That you do bend your eye on vacancy  
118   And with the incorporal air do hold discourse?  
119   Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep;  
120   And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm,  
121   Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,  
122   Starts up, and stands on end. O gentle son,  
123   Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper  
124   Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look?