TEXT:
POLONIUS
This business is well ended.
My liege, and madam, to expostulate
What majesty should be, what duty is,
Why day is day, night night, and time is time,
Were nothing but to waste night, day and time.
Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief: your noble son is mad.
Mad call I it; for, to define true madness,
What is't but to be nothing else but mad?
But let that go.
GERTRUDE
More matter, with less art.
POLONIUS
Madam, I swear I use no art at all.
That he is mad, 'tis true: 'tis true 'tis pity;
And pity 'tis 'tis true: a foolish figure;
But farewell it, for I will use no art.
Mad let us grant him, then: and now remains
That we find out the cause of this effect,
Or rather say, the cause of this defect,
For this effect defective comes by cause:
Thus it remains, and the remainder thus. Perpend.
I have a daughter - have while she is mine -
Who, in her duty and obedience, mark,
Hath given me this: now gather, and surmise.
Reads
'To the celestial and my soul's idol, the most
beautified Ophelia...'
That's an ill phrase, a vile phrase - 'beautified' is
a vile phrase: but you shall hear. Thus:
Reads
'In her excellent white bosom, these, etc.'
GERTRUDE
Came this from Hamlet to her?
POLONIUS
Good madam, stay awhile; I will be faithful.
NOTES:
UPSTART CROW
Greenes, Groats-worth of Witte, bought with a million of Repentance (1592) is a tract published as the work of the deceased playwright Robert Greene. It is studded with references to other playwrights and writers who were contemporaries of Greene, and is most famous for its reference to Shakespeare as an "upstart crow, beautified with our feathers." There's currently a BBC sitcom called after the slander - Upstart Crow will have a new season in late 2018.