And, but that great command o'ersways the order,1
She should in ground unsanctified have lodged
Till the last trumpet; for charitable prayers,

Shards, flints, and pebbles, should be thrown on her
Yet here she is allowed her virgin crants,2

Her maiden strewments, and the bringing home
Of bell and burial.

Laer. Must there no more be done?
1 Priest.

No more be

We should profane the service of the dead,
To sing a requiem, and such rest to her
As to peace-parted souls.

Laer.

Lay her i' the earth;
And from her fair and unpolluted flesh

May violets spring!—I tell thee, churlish priest,
A minist'ring angel shall my sister be,

When thou liest howling.

Ham.

What, the fair Ophelia !

Queen. Sweets to the sweet: Farewell!

[Scattering f
I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet's wife ;
I thought thy bride-bed to have decked, sweet maid,
And not t' have strewed thy grave.

Laer.
O, treble woe
Fall ten times treble on that cursed head,
Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense

1 The order.] The ordained service; the ecclesiastical ord 2 Virgin crants, &c.] Crants are wreaths or garlands. Overbury says of the Fair and Happy Milkmaid, 'All her she may die in the springtime, to have store of flowers stuc her winding-sheet.' And Shirley, in the last speech of the Revenge, says, 'Strew, strew flowers enough upon them, fo were maids.'

H

Deprived thee of!-Hold off the earth a while,
Till I have caught her once more in mine arms :
[Leaps into the grave.

Now pile your
dust upon the quick and dead,
Till of this flat a mountain you have made,

To o'ertop old Pelion, or the skyish head

Of blue Olympus.

Ham. [advancing.] What is he whose grief

Bears such an emphasis? whose phrase of sorrow
Conjures the wandering stars, and makes them stand
Like wonder-wounded hearers? This is I,

Hamlet the Dane!

[Leaps into the grave.

Laer.

The devil take thy soul!

[Grappling with him.

Ham. Thou prayest not well.

I prithee, take thy fingers from my throat;
For, though I am not splenetive and rash,
Yet have I something in me dangerous,

Which let thy wiseness fear: Away thy hand!
King. Pluck them asunder.

Queen.

Hor.

Hamlet, Hamlet!

Good my lord, be quiet.

[The Attendants part them, and they come out of the grave.]

Ham. Why, I will fight with him upon this theme, Until my eyelids will no longer wag.

Queen. O my son! what theme?

Ham. I loved Ophelia; forty thousand brothers

Could not, with all their quantity of love,

Make up my sum.

-What wilt thou do for her?

King. O he is mad, Laertes.

Queen. For love of God, forbear him!

Ham Come, show me what thou 'lt do:

Woul't weep? woul't fight? woul't fast? woul't tear thyself?

1

Woul't drink up eisel? 1 eat a crocodile ?
I'll do 't.-Dost thou come here to whine?
To outface me with leaping in her grave?
Be buried quick with her, and so will I;
And, if thou prate of mountains, let them throw
Millions of acres on us, till our ground,

Singeing his pate against the burning zone,

Make Ossa like a wart! Nay, an thou 'lt mouth,
I'll rant as well as thou.

Queen.

This is mere madness:

And thus a while the fit will work on him;
Anon, as patient as the female dove,

When that her golden couplets 2 are disclosed,
His silence will sit drooping.

Ham.

Hear you, sir;
What is the reason that you use me thus?
I loved you ever: But it is no matter;
Let Hercules himself do what he may,
The cat will mew, and dog will have his day.
King. I pray you, good Horatio, wait upon him.

[Exit Ho

Strengthen your patience in our last night's speech;

[To LA

We'll put the matter to the present push.-
Good Gertrude, set some watch over your son.—
This grave shall have a living monument:
An hour of quiet shortly shall we see;
Till then, in patience our proceeding be.

[E

1 Eisel.] A sort of vinegar. Chaucer, Romaunt of the Ro speaks of bread kneaden with eisel strong and eager.'

2 Her golden couplets, &c.] Her two golden young or
brought out of the shell.
the eagle and the wren.'
Note 1, p. 80.

One aerie with proportion ne'er d
Massinger's Maid of Honour, i.

SCENE II.-A Hall in the Castle.

Enter HAMLET and HORATIO.

Ham. So much for this, sir;

now let me see the

other ;-1

You do remember all the circumstance ?2

Hor. Remember it, my lord?

Ham. Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting,
That would not let me sleep: methought I lay
Worse than the mutines3 in the bilboes. Rashly,*
And praised be rashness for it,-Let us know,
Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well,

When our dear plots do pall: and that should teach us,
There's a divinity that shapes our ends,

Rough-hew them how we will.—

Hor.

Ham. Up from my cabin,

That is most certain.

My sea-gown scarfed 5 about me, in the dark
Groped I to find out them: had my desire;
Fingered their packet; and, in fine, withdrew
To mine own room again: making so bold,

1 The other.] The other matter, of which he had said in the letter to Horatio, ‘Of them [Rosencrantz and Guildenstern] I have

much to tell thee.'

2 All the circumstance.] The general account I have already given you.

• Mutines in the bilboes.] Mutineers in fetters in a ship's prison. A mutin is French for a mutineer. Bilboes, perhaps so named from Bilboa in Spain, were iron bars with fetters, used for the punishment of insubordinate sailors.

• Rashly.] Venturously. The words 'Rashly, and praised be rashness for it,' have their proper continuation in Hamlet's next speech.

Scarfed.] Thrown loosely.

see the

Sng,

ch us,

rtain.

said in th Cern] Is

ave alrea

hip's pris named f punishme

praised

amlet's nex

My fears forgetting manners, to unseal
Their grand commission; where I found, Horatio,-
O royal knavery !-an exact command,
Larded with many several sorts of reason,
Importing Denmark's health, and England's too,
With, ho! such bugs and goblins in my life,
That, on the supervise,2 no leisure bated,

No, not to stay the grinding of the axe,
My head should be struck off.

Hor.

Is 't possible?

Ham. Here's the commission; read it at more leis But wilt thou hear me how I did proceed?

Hor. Ay, 'beseech you.

Ham. Being thus benetted round with villainies,-
Ere I could make a prologue to my brains,
They had begun the play,—I sat me down;
Devised a new commission; wrote it fair :—
I once did hold it, as our statists do,

A baseness to write fair, and laboured much
How to forget that learning; but, sir, now
It did me yeoman's service: 3-Wilt thou know
The effects of what I wrote ?

Hor.

Ay, good my lord.
Ham. An earnest conjuration from the king,-
As England was his faithful tributary;

As love between them as the palm should flourish;
As
peace should still her wheaten garland wear,
And stand a comma 4 'tween their amities;

1 Such bugs, &c.] Such bugbears and imaginary terrors by my being alive.

2 On the supervise.] After the looking over or perusal. Yeoman's service.] Alluding to the Yeomen of the Gua sovereign's bodyguard.

A comma.] This denoted properly the clause terminated