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Goodnight, mother.
Exit Hamlet tugging in Polonius
Enter King
KING There's matter209 in these sighs, these profound heaves, You must translate: 'tis fit we understand them.
Where is your son?
GERTRUDE Ah, my good lord, what have I seen tonight!
KING What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?
GERTRUDE Mad as the seas and wind when both contend
Which is the mightier: in his lawless fit,
Behind the arras hearing something stir,
He whips his rapier out and cries, 'A rat, a rat!'
And in his brainish apprehension218 kills The unseen good old man.
KING O, heavy220 deed!
It had been so with us, had we been there.
His liberty is full of threats to all:
To you yourself, to us, to everyone.
Alas, how shall this bloody deed be answered224?
It will be laid to us, whose providence225
Should have kept short, restrained and out of haunt226
This mad young man: but so much was our love,
We would not understand what was most fit,
But, like the owner of a foul disease,
To keep it from divulging230, lets it feed Even on the pith of life. Where is he gone?
GERTRUDE To draw apart232 the body he hath killed, O'er whom his very madness, like some ore233
Among a mineral234 of metals base, Shows itself pure: he weeps for what is done.
KING O Gertrude, come away!
The sun no sooner shall the mountains touch,
But we will ship him hence, and this vile deed
We must with all our majesty and skill,
Both countenance240 and excuse.--
