ice,
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:

_"Follow him at foot; tempt him with speed abroad,
Delay it not; I'll have him hence to-night;
Away! for everything is sealed and done
That else leans on the affair; pray you, make haste!"_

Hamlet before retiring thus bemoans his slowness in wreaking a just
vengeance upon his murderer uncle:

_"How all occasions do inform against me,
And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.
Sure, he that made us with such large discourse
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and god-like reason
To rot in us unused