_"O, my offense is rank, it smells to heaven; It hath the primal, eldest curse upon it-- A brother's murder. Pray can I not, Though inclination be as sharp as will; My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent, And like a man to double business bound, I stand in pause where I shall first begin, And both neglect. What if this cursed hand Were thicker than itself with brother's blood? Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy But to confront the visage of offense? And what's in prayer but this twofold force, To be forestalled ere we come to fall, Or pardoned being down? Then I'll look up; My fault is past. But O, what form of prayer Can serve my turn? Forgive me my foul murder? That cannot be, since I am still possessed Of those effects for which I did the murder, My crown, mine own ambition and my queen, May one be pardoned and retain the offense? In the corrupted currents of this world Offense's gilded hand may shove by justice, And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself Buys out the law; but 'tis not so above; There, is no shuffling, there, the action lies In his true nature, and we ourselves compelled Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults To give in evidence!"_ In the midnight interview of Hamlet with his mother, Polonius hides behind a curtain to spy upon the words of the "melancholy Dane," and is killed by a sword thrust of Hamlet, who exclaims: _"How now! a rat, dead for a ducat."_ Then Hamlet holds his mother to the talk and pours these lines of liquid gall into her trembling ear and frightened heart: _"Look here, upon this picture, and on this, The counterfeit presentment of two brothers. See what a grace was seated on this brow; Hyperion's curls, the front of Jove himself, An eye like Mars, to threaten and command; A station like the herald Mercury New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill; A combination and a form indeed, Where every god did seem to set his seal To give the world assurance of a man; This was your husband. Look you now, What follows: Here is your husband: like a mildewed ear, Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes? Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed, And batten on this foul moor? Your husband; a murderer and a villain; A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe Of your precedent lord; a vice of kings; A cutpurse of the empire and the rule, That from a shelf the precious diadem stole And put it in his pocket! A king of shreds and patches!"_ King Claudius, alarmed at the death of Polonius and his own guilty state, conspires with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to take Hamlet to England and get rid of him, saying: