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The ratifiers and props of every word,

They cry, Choose we: Laertes shall be king!
Caps, hands, and tongues, applaud it to the clouds,
Laertes shall be king, Laertes king!

Queen. How cheerfully on the false trail they cry!
O, this is counter, you false Danish dogs.7
King. The doors are broke.

Enter LAERTES, armed:

[Noise within

Danes following.

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Laer. Where is this king?-Sirs, stand you all without.
Dan. No, let's come in.

Laer. I pray you, give me leave.

Dan. We will, we will. [They retire without the door. Laer. I thank you :-keep the door.-O thou vile king, Give me my father.

Queen. Calmly, good Laertes.

Laer. That drop of blood, that's calm, proclaims me
bastard;

Cries, cuckold, to my father; brands the harlot
Even here, between the chaste unsmirched brow 8
Of my true mother.

King. What is the cause, Laertes,

That thy rebellion looks so giant-like ?

Let him go, Gertrude ; do not fear our person;
There's such divinity doth hedge a king,

That treason can but peep to what it would,

Acts little of his will.-Tell me, Laertes,

Why thou art thus incens'd;-Let him go, Gertrude ;-
Speak, man.

Laer. Where is my father?

King. Dead.

Queen. But not by him.

King. Let him demand his fill.

Laer. How came he dead? I'll not be juggled with : To hell, allegiance! vows, to the blackest devil!

Conscience, and grace, to the profoundest pit!

I dare damnation: To this point I stand,-
That both the worlds I give to negligence,
Let come what comes; only I'll be reveng'd
Most throughly for my father.

King. Who shall stay you?

Laer. My will, not all the world's :

And, for my means, I'll husband them so well,

[7] Hounds run counter when they trace the trail backwards. JOHNSON. [8] Unsmirched brow, i, e. clean, not defiled.

STEEVENS.

They shall go far with little.

King Good Laertes,

If you desire to know the certainty

Of your dear father's death, is't writ in your revenge, That, sweepstake, you will draw both friend and foe, Winner and loser?

Laer. None but his enemies.

King. Will you know them then?

Laer. To his good friends thus wide I'll ope my arms; And, like the kind life-rend'ring pelican, Repast them with my blood.

King. Why, now you speak

Like a good child, and a true gentleman.
That I am guiltless of your father's death,
And am most sensibly in grief for it,
It shall as level to your judgment 'pear,
As day does to your eye.

Danes. [within.] Let her come in.
Laer. How now! what noise is that?

Enter OPHELIA, fantastically dressed with straws and flowers.

O heat, dry up my brains! tears seven times salt,
Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye !—

By heaven, thy madness shall be paid with weight,
Till our scale turn the beam. O rose of May!
Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia !—
O heavens is't possible, a young maid's wits
Should be as mortal as an old man's life?
Nature is fine in love: and, where 'tis fine,
It sends some precious instance of itself
After the thing it loves.

Oph. They bore him barefac'd on the bier ;
Hey no nonny, nonny hey nonny :

And in his grave rain'd many a tear ;

Fare you well, my dove!

Laer. Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge, It could not move thus.

Oph. You must sing, Down a-down, an you call him a-down-a. O how the wheel becomes it !9 it is the false steward, that stole his master's daughter. Laer. This nothing's more than matter.

Oph. There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; 1

[9] By the wheel, she means the burden of the song. STEEVENS. [1] See Illustrations, Vol. IX.

1

Pray you, love, remember: And there is pansies, that's for thoughts.

Laer. A document in madness; thoughts and remembrance fitted.

Oph. There's fennel for you, and columbines ::-there's rue for you; and here's some for me :-we may call it, herb of grace o'Sundays :-you may wear your rue with a difference.-There's a daisy :-I would give you some violets; but they withered all, when my father died :— They say, he made a good end,—

Laer. Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself,

For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy,

She turns to favour, and to prettiness.

Oph. And will he not come again?

[Sings.

[Sings.

And will he not come again?
No, no, he's dead,

Go to thy death-bed,

He never will come again.

His beard was as white as snow,

All flaxen was his poll:

He is gone, he is gone,
And we cast away moan;
God'a mercy on his soul!

And of all christian souls !2 I pray God. God be wi'you!

Laer. Do you see this, O God?

[Exit OPHELIA.

King. Laertes, I must commune with your grief,

Or you deny me right. Go but apart,

Make choice of whom your wisest friends you will,
And they shall hear and judge 'twixt you and me :
If by direct or by collateral hand

They find us touch'd, we will our kingdom give,
Our crown, our life, and all that we call ours,
To you in satisfaction; but, if not,

Be you content to lend your patience to us,
And we shall jointly labour with your soul
To give it due content.

Laer. Let this be so;

His means of death, his obscure funeral,

No trophy, sword, nor hatchment, o'er his bones, 3

[2] God 'a mercy on his soul!

And of all christian souls! This is the common conclusion to many of the ancient monumental inscriptions. STEEVENS.

[3] The practice is uniformly kept up to this day of hanging the sword, helmet, gauntlet, spurs and tabard (i. e. coat whereon the armorial ensigns were anciently depicted, from whence the term coat of armour) over the grave of every knight. HAWKINS.

24

VOL. VIII.

No noble rite, nor formal ostentation,

Cry to be heard, as 'twere from heaven to earth,
That I must call❜t in question.

King. So you shall;

And, where the offence is, let the great axe fall.
I pray you, go with me.

[Exeunt.

SCENE VI.

Another Room in the same.

Enter HORATIO, and a Servant.

Hor. What are they, that would speak with me?

Serv. Sailors, sir ;

They say, they have letters for you.

Hor. Let them come in.-----

[Exit Servant.

I do not know from what part of the world

I should be greeted, if not from lord Hamlet.

Enter Sailors.

1 Sail. God bless you, sir.

Hor. Let him bless thee too.

1 Sail. He shall sir, an't please him. There's a letter for you, sir; it comes from the ambassador that was bound for England; if your name be Horatio, as I am let to know it is.

Hor. [reads.] Horatio, when thou shalt have overlooked this, give these fellows some means to the king ; they have letters for him. Ere we were two days old at sea, a pirate of very warlike appointment gave us chace: Finding ourselves too slow of sail, we put on a compelled valour; and in the grapple I boarded them: on the instant, they got clear of our ship; so I alone became their prisoner. They have dealt with me, like thieves of mercy; but they knew what they did; I am to do a good turn for them. Let the king have the letters I have sent ; and repair thou to me with as much haste as thou would'st fly death. I have words to speak in thine ear will make thee dumb; yet are they much too light for the bore of the matter. These good fellows will bring thee where I am. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern hold their course for England: Of them I have much to tell thee. Farewell.

He that thou knowest thine,

HAMLET.

[4] The bore is the caliber of a gun, or the capacity of the barrel. matter, says Hamlet, would carry heavier words. JOHNSON.

The

Come, I will give you way for these your letters ;
And do't the speedier, that you may direct me
To him from whom you brought them.

SCENE VII.

[Exeunt.

Another Room in the same. Enter King and LAERTES.

King. Now must your conscience my acquittance seal, And you must put me in your heart for friend; Sith you have heard, and with a knowing ear, That he, which hath your noble father slain, Pursu'd my life.

Laer It well appears.-But tell me,

Why you proceeded not against these feats,
So crimeful and so capital in nature,

As by your safety, greatness, wisdom, all things else,
You mainly were stirr'd up?

King. O, for two special reasons;

Which may to you, perhaps, seem much unsinew'd,
But yet to me they are strong. The queen his mother,
Lives almost by his looks; and for myself,

(My virtue, or my plague, be it either which,)
She is so conjunctive to my life and soul,
That, as the star moves not but in his sphere,
I could not but by her. The other motive,
Why to a public count I might not go,

Is, the great love the general gender bear him :5
Who, dipping all his faults in their affection,
Work like the spring that turneth wood to stone,
Convert his gyves to graces; so that my arrows,
Too slightly timber'd for so loud a wind,
Would have reverted to my bow again,
And not where I had aim'd them.

Laer. And so have I a noble father lost;
A sister driven into desperate terms;

Whose worth, if praises may go back again,6

Stood challenger on mount of all the age

For her perfections :-But my revenge will come.

King. Break not your sleeps for that: You must not

think,

That we are made of stuff so flat and dull,

That we can let our beard be shook with danger,

And think it pastime. You shortly shall hear more:

[5] The common race of the people.

JOHNSON.

[6] If I may praise what has been, but is now to be found no more. JOHN.

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