Hamlet — Act 3, Scene 3

original text and modern English, side by side

A room in the Castle · King, Guildenstern, Rosencrantz, Polonius, Hamlet

Claudius orders Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to escort Hamlet to England, and Polonius leaves to hide behind the tapestry in Gertrude's room. Alone, Claudius admits to murdering his brother and tries to pray, but realizes he cannot repent while still keeping the crown and the queen he killed for. Hamlet finds him kneeling and draws his sword, then sheathes it — killing Claudius at prayer would send him to heaven — and leaves for his mother's room, not knowing Claudius never actually prayed.

Enter King, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

King

I like him not,

I don't like him,

nor stands it safe with us

To let his madness range.

and it isn't safe for us to let his madness run loose.

Therefore prepare you,

So get ready.

I your commission will forthwith dispatch,

And he to England shall along with you.

I'll have your travel papers drawn up immediately, and he'll go to England with you.

The terms of our estate may not endure

Hazard so near us as doth hourly grow

Out of his lunacies.

Our position as king can't tolerate a danger this close, and his fits of lunacy breed a new one every hour.

Guildenstern

We will ourselves provide.

We'll get ourselves ready.

Most holy and religious fear it is

To keep those many many bodies safe

That live and feed upon your Majesty.

It's a sacred duty to protect the countless people who live and depend on your Majesty.

Rosencrantz

The single and peculiar life is bound

With all the strength and armour of the mind,

To keep itself from ’noyance;

Any ordinary private man is bound to use every bit of his mental strength and armor to keep himself safe from harm —

but much more

That spirit upon whose weal depend and rest

The lives of many.

but far more so a man on whose well-being the lives of thousands rest.

The cease of majesty

Dies not alone; but like a gulf doth draw

What’s near it with it.

When a king dies, he doesn't die alone: he pulls everything near him down like a whirlpool.

It is a massy wheel

Fix’d on the summit of the highest mount,

To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things

Are mortis’d and adjoin’d;

He's a massive wheel mounted at the top of the highest mountain, with ten thousand smaller parts fitted and pinned to its enormous spokes;

which when it falls,

Each small annexment, petty consequence,

Attends the boist’rous ruin.

when it falls, every attachment and small fitting comes crashing down with it.

Never alone

Did the King sigh, but with a general groan.

A king has never sighed without the whole country groaning.

King

Arm you, I pray you, to this speedy voyage;

Please, get ready for this quick voyage.

For we will fetters put upon this fear,

Which now goes too free-footed.

We're going to put chains on this danger, which is running around far too freely.

ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.

We will haste us.

ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN: We'll hurry.

Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

Enter Polonius.

Polonius

My lord, he’s going to his mother’s closet.

My lord, he's on his way to his mother's room.

Behind the arras I’ll convey myself

To hear the process.

I'll hide myself behind the tapestry and listen to how it goes.

I’ll warrant she’ll tax him home,

I promise you she'll take him to task.

And as you said, and wisely was it said,

’Tis meet that some more audience than a mother,

Since nature makes them partial, should o’erhear

The speech of vantage.

And as you said — and it was wisely said — it makes sense that someone besides his mother should overhear the conversation from a good vantage point, since a mother is naturally biased.

Fare you well, my liege,

Goodbye, my king.

I’ll call upon you ere you go to bed,

And tell you what I know.

I'll come to you before you go to bed and tell you what I've learned.

King

Thanks, dear my lord.

Thank you, my lord.

Exit Polonius.

King

O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven;

My crime stinks; the smell of it reaches heaven.

It hath the primal eldest curse upon’t,—

A brother’s murder!

It carries the oldest curse of all — a brother's murder.

Pray can I not,

Though inclination be as sharp as will:

I can't pray, though I want to as badly as I intend to.

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.

My guilt is stronger than my resolve, and like a man with two tasks at once I stand there wondering which to start with, and do neither.

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?

What if this cursed hand of mine were caked in a layer of my brother's blood thicker than the hand itself — isn't there enough rain in the merciful heavens to wash it white as snow?

Whereto serves mercy

But to confront the visage of offence?

What is mercy for, if not to face down crime?

And what’s in prayer but this twofold force,

To be forestalled ere we come to fall,

Or pardon’d being down?

And what are the two powers of prayer, if not to stop us before we fall and to pardon us once we have?

Then I’ll look up.

Then I'll look up.

My fault is past.

My sin is behind me.

But O, what form of prayer

Can serve my turn?

But — what words could I possibly pray?

Forgive me my foul murder!

"Forgive me my filthy murder"?

That cannot be; since I am still possess’d

Of those effects for which I did the murder,—

My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.

That won't work, since I still have everything I committed the murder to get: my crown, my ambition satisfied, my queen.

May one be pardon’d and retain th’offence?

Can a man be forgiven and keep what he stole?

In the corrupted currents of this world

Offence’s gilded hand may shove by justice,

And oft ’tis seen the wicked prize itself

Buys out the law.

In this world's crooked dealings, a criminal's gold-filled hand can shove justice aside, and we've all seen the stolen money itself buy off the law.

But ’tis not so above;

But it isn't like that up above.

There is no shuffling,

There's no dodging there.

there the action lies

In his true nature, and we ourselves compell’d

Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,

To give in evidence.

There the deed is seen exactly as it is, and we're forced to testify against ourselves, face to face with our own crimes.

What then?

So what now?

What rests?

What's left?

Try what repentance can.

Try what repentance can do.

What can it not?

What can't it do?

Yet what can it, when one cannot repent?

And yet what good is it, when a man can't repent?

O wretched state!

What a miserable state I'm in.

O bosom black as death!

My heart is as black as death.

O limed soul, that struggling to be free,

Art more engag’d!

My soul is like a bird caught in glue, struggling and getting more stuck the harder it fights.

Help, angels!

Help me, angels —

Make assay:

let me try.

Bow, stubborn knees; and heart with strings of steel,

Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe.

Bend, you stubborn knees; and you, my heart, with your steel cords, go soft as a newborn baby's muscles.

All may be well.

It may all come right yet.

Retires and kneels.

Enter Hamlet.

Hamlet

Now might I do it pat, now he is praying.

I could do it easily right now, while he's praying.

And now I’ll do’t.

I'll do it now —

And so he goes to heaven;

and he goes straight to heaven.

And so am I reveng’d.

And that's my revenge?

That would be scann’d:

That needs a closer look.

A villain kills my father, and for that

I, his sole son, do this same villain send

To heaven.

A villain murders my father, and in return I, my father's only son, send that same villain to heaven.

O, this is hire and salary, not revenge.

That's doing him a favor and paying him for it. That isn't revenge.

He took my father grossly, full of bread,

With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May;

He caught my father coarse and unready, stuffed with dinner, with all his sins in full bloom, lush as May.

And how his audit stands, who knows save heaven?

But in our circumstance and course of thought,

’Tis heavy with him.

Nobody but heaven knows how his account stands, but by everything we can see and reason out, it's heavy against him.

And am I then reveng’d,

To take him in the purging of his soul,

When he is fit and season’d for his passage?

So am I really avenged if I take this man while he's cleansing his soul, when he's prepared and ready for the journey?

No.

Up, sword, and know thou a more horrid hent:

Back in the sheath, sword, and wait for a more terrible moment:

When he is drunk asleep; or in his rage,

Or in th’incestuous pleasure of his bed,

At gaming, swearing; or about some act

That has no relish of salvation in’t,

when he's passed out drunk, or in a rage, or in the incestuous pleasures of his bed, gambling, swearing, doing something with no trace of salvation in it.

Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven,

And that his soul may be as damn’d and black

As hell, whereto it goes.

Then knock his legs out from under him, so his heels kick at heaven and his soul is as damned and black as the hell it's falling into.

My mother stays.

My mother's waiting.

This physic but prolongs thy sickly days.

This medicine only stretches out your sick days a little longer.

Exit.

Hamlet

The King rises and advances.

The King gets up from his knees and comes forward.

King

My words fly up, my thoughts remain below.

My words go flying upward; my thoughts stay down here.

Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

Words without thoughts behind them never reach heaven.

Exit.

Hamlet Act 3, Scene 3 summary

Who appears in this scene

King, Guildenstern, Rosencrantz, Polonius, Hamlet — A room in the Castle.

Famous lines in Hamlet Act 3, Scene 3, explained

“O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven; / It hath the primal eldest curse upon’t,— / A brother’s murder!” (line 40): This is the moment the audience gets proof that the Ghost told the truth: Claudius confesses the murder to himself, with nobody listening. "Rank" means rotten and overpoweringly foul, so he pictures his crime as a corpse whose stench rises all the way to God. The "primal eldest curse" is the curse God laid on Cain for killing Abel in Genesis — the first murder in the Bible was also a brother's murder, which is exactly Claudius's crime.
“Pray can I not, / Though inclination be as sharp as will” (line 42): Claudius genuinely wants to pray and genuinely intends to, and still the words will not come. His problem is not disbelief but arithmetic: he is a Christian who fully accepts that hell is real and is nonetheless unwilling to give up what damns him. This is what makes him a serious character rather than a stock villain — he sees his own ruin clearly and chooses it anyway.
“May one be pardon’d and retain th’offence?” (line 60): Claudius reaches the point that defeats him: real repentance requires giving back what you stole, and he will not surrender the crown, the throne, or Gertrude. He notes that in the corrupt human courts money can buy an acquittal, but that heaven has no such loophole — there "the action lies in his true nature," the deed is judged for what it actually is. Since he cannot want forgiveness more than he wants his winnings, his prayer is dead before he starts.
“Now might I do it pat, now he is praying. / And now I’ll do’t. And so he goes to heaven; / And so am I reveng’d.” (line 77): Hamlet has the perfect chance — Claudius is kneeling, unarmed, back turned — and he stops to reason about it, which is the play's whole tragedy in miniature. The theology he is working with is standard for the period: a soul that dies right after confessing its sins is cleansed and goes to heaven, while a soul that dies mid-sin goes to hell. So killing a man at prayer would be a reward, not a punishment. Critics have argued for centuries about whether this is genuine belief or an elaborate excuse for a delay Hamlet cannot otherwise explain.
“He took my father grossly, full of bread, / With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May” (line 83): Hamlet's grievance is not only that his father was killed but how: murdered in his sleep after a full meal, with no chance to confess, so his sins were still in full flower like May blossoms. The Ghost said as much in Act 1 — he is stuck in purgatory burning off those unconfessed sins. Hamlet therefore wants more than a death for a death; he wants Claudius's soul in the same or worse condition, which is why he decides to wait for a moment when Claudius is drunk, raging, or in bed with Gertrude.
“My words fly up, my thoughts remain below. / Words without thoughts never to heaven go.” (line 100): Claudius stands up and admits the prayer failed: he said the sentences, but his mind never went along with them, and an empty prayer does not reach God. The dramatic irony is savage — Hamlet has just spared him precisely because he assumed the prayer was working. Claudius was in fact as unrepentant and hell-bound at that moment as Hamlet could have wished, and the one chance to kill him without further bloodshed is gone; four more people die because of the two minutes Hamlet spent thinking.

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About this translation: the original text follows the public-domain Project Gutenberg Globe edition; the modern English translation was written in-house for Polytranslator and is reviewed on an ongoing basis (last revised August 2026). Free to print and photocopy for classroom use. Cite as: “Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 3. Polytranslator side-by-side translation, polytranslator.com/shakespeare/hamlet/act-3-scene-3.”

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