They cry, Choose we; Laertes shall be king! Nature is fine in love; and, where 'tis fine,
Caps, hands, and tongues, applaud it to the It sends some precious instance of itself
Laeries shall be king, Laertes king! [clouds, After the thing it loves.
Queen. How cheerfully on the false trail they
cry!

O, this is counter, you false Danish dogs.
King. The doors are broke. [Noise within.
Enter LAERTES, armed; Danes following.
Laer. Where is this king?-Sirs, stand you all
Dan. No, let's come in.
without.
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 Give me my father. [vile king, Queen. Calmly, good Laertes. Laer. That drop of blood, that's calm, proclaims me bastard;

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
It could not move thus.
[revenge,

Oph. You must sing, Down-a-down, an you call him-a-down-a. O, how the wheel becomes it! 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; 'pray you, love, remember: and there is pansies, that's for thoughts.

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

-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 wither'd all, when my father died:-They say, he made a good end,

Cries, cuckold, to my father; brands the harlot
Even here, between the chaste unsmirched brow-there's rue for you; and here's some for me:
Oph. There's fennel for you, and columbines:
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, Ger-
Speak, man.

Dead.

Later. Where is my father?
King.
Queen.

[trude;

But not by him.
King. Let him demand his fill. [with:
Laer. How came he dead? I'll not be juggled
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 thoroughly 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,
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,
[and foe,
That, sweepstake, you will draw both friend
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-rendering 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 pierce
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?

For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy,-

[Sings.

Laer. Thought and affliction, passion, hell
She turns to favour and to prettiness.
Oph. And will he not come again?
And will he not come again?

[itself, [Sings.

No, no, he is dead,

Go to thy death-bed,

He never will come again.

His beard was as white as snow,
All flacon 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! I pray God. God
be wi' you!
[Exit OPHELIA.
Laer. Do you see this? O God! [grief,
King, Laertes, 1 must commune with your
Or you deny me right. Go but apart,
Make choice of whom your wisest friends you
will,
[me;

And they shall hear and judge 'twixt you and
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,
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.

How now? what news?

Mess.

Enter a Messenger.

Letters, my lord, from Hamlet:
This to your majesty; this to the queen.
King. From Hamlet! who brought them?
Mess. Sailors, my lord, they say: I saw them
not;
[them
They were given me by Claudio, he received
Of him that brought them.
King.
Leave us.

Laertes, you shall hear them:--
[Exit Messenger.

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 chase: Finding ourselves too slow of sail, we | [Reads.] High and mighty, you shall know, I am put on a compelled valour; and in the grapple I set naked on your kingdom. To-morrow shall I b g boarded them on the instant, they got clear of our leave to see your kingly eyes: when I shall, first askship: so I alone became their prisoner. They have ing your pardon thereunto, recount the occasion of my dealt with me like thieves of mercy; but they knew sudden and more strange return. Hamlet. what they did; I am to do a good turn for them. Let What should this mean? Are all the rest come the king have the letters I have sent; and repair thou back? to me with as much haste as thou wouldst 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 Rosencrantz and Guildenstern hold their course for England: of them I have much to tell thee. Farewell.

am.

He that thou knowest thine, Hamlet, 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.

[Exeunt. SCENE VII. Another Room in the same. Enter King and LAFETES.

King. Now must your conscience my acquit-
tance 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.

Laver.
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
You mainly were stirr'd up.

King.

[else, O, for two special reasons;

Or is it some abuse, and no such thing?
Laer. Know you the hand?

King. 'Tis Hamlet's character. Naked,-
And, in a postscript here, he says, alone:
Can you advise me?

[come;
Luer. I am lost in it, my lord. But let him
It warms the very sickness in my heart,
That I shall live and tell him to his teeth,
Thus diddest thou.
If it be so, Laertes,
As how should it be so? how otherwise ?--
Will you be rul'd by me?

King.

As checking at his voyage, and that he means
No more to undertake it,-I will work him
To an exploit, now ripe in my device,
Under the which he shall not choose but fall:
And for his death no wind of blame shall breathe,
But even his mother shall uncharge the practice,
And call it, accident.
Laer.

My lord, I will be rul'd
The rather, if you could devise it so,
That I might be the organ.
King.

It falls right.

Which may to you, perhaps, seem much un-You have been talk'd of since your travel much,
And that in Hamlet's hearing, for a quality
Wherein, they say, you shine: your sum of parts
Did not together pluck such envy from him,
As did that one; and that, in my regard,
Of the unworthiest siege.
Laer.

sinew'd,
[mother,
But yet to me they are strong. The queen, his
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 publick count I might not go,
Is, the great love the general gender bear him:
Who, dipping all his faults in their affection,
Would, 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,
Stood challenger on mount of all the age
For her perfections:-But my revenge will
[must not think,
King. Break not your sleeps for that: you
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

come.

more:

I loved your father, and we love ourself;
And that, I hope, will teach you to imagine,-

What part is that, my lord?
King. A very riband in the cap of youth,
Yet needful too; for youth no less becomes
The light and careless livery that it wears,
Than settled age his sables and his weeds,
Importing health and graveness.-Two months
since,

Here was a gentleman of Normandy,

I have seen myself,-and serv'd against the
French,

And they can well on horseback: but this gallant
Had witchcraft in't; he grew unto his seat;
And to such wondrous doing brought his horse,
As he had been incorps'd and demi-natur d
With the brave beast; so far he topp'd my
thought,

That I, in forgery of shapes and tricks,
Come short of what he did.
Laer.
A Norman was't?

King. A Norman.

Laer. Upon my life, Lamord.
King.

The very same.
Laer. I know him well: he is the brooch in-
And gem of all the nation.

ideed

King. He made confession of you;
And gave you such a masterly report,
For art and exercise in your defence,
And for your rapier most especial,
That he cried out, 'twould be a sight indeed,
If one could match you: the scrimers of their
nation,

He swore, had neither motion, guard, nor eye,
If you oppos'd them: Sir, this report of his
Did Hamlet so envenom with his envy,
That he could nothing do, but wish and beg
Your sudden coming o'er, to play with you.
Now, out of this,-

Laer.
What out of this, my lord?
King. Laertes, was your father dear to you?
Or are you like the painting of a sorrow,
A face without a heart?
Laer.

Why ask you this?

King Not that I think you did not love your
father;

But that I know, love is begun by time;
And that I see, in passages of proof,
Time qualifies the spark and fire of it.
There lives within the very flame of love
A kind of wick, or snuff, that will abate it;
And nothing is at a like goodness still:
For goodness, growing to a plurisy,

Dies in his own too-much: That we would do
We should do when we would; for this would
changes,

And hath abatements and delays as many,
As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents;
And then this should is like a spendthrift's sigh,
That hurts by easing. But, to the quick o' the
ulcer:

Hamlet comes back; What would you undertake,
To show yourself in deed your father's son
More than in words?

Queen. There is a willow grows ascaunt the
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream:
Therewith fantastic garlands did she make
Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long pur-
ples,

That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call
them:

There on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds
Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke;
When down her weedy trophies, and herself,
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread
wide;

And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up:
Which time, she chanted snatches of old tunes;
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indu'd
Unto that element: but long it could not be,
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.

Laer.

Alas then, she is drown'd?
Queen. Drown'd, drown'd.
[Ophelia,
Laer. Too much of water hast thou, pour
And therefore I forbid my tears: But yet
It is our trick; nature her custom holds,
Let shame say what it will: when these are gone,
The woman will be out.-Adieu, my lord!
[home: I have a speech of fire, that fain would blaze,
But that this folly drowns it.

Laer.
To cut his throat i' the church.
King. No place, indeed, should murder sanc-
tuarize;
[Laertes,
Revenge should have no bounds. But, good
Will you do this, keep close within your cham-
ber:

Hamlet, return'd, shall know you are come
We'll put on those shall praise your excellence,
And set a double varnish on the fame
The Frenchman gave you; bring you, in fine,
together,

And wager o'er your heads: he, being remiss,
Most generous and free from all contriving,
Will not peruse the foils; so that, with ease,
Or with a little shuffling you may choose
A sword unbated, and, in a pass of practice,
Requite him for your father.

I will do't:

Laer,
And, for the purpose, I'll anoint my sword.
I bought an unction of a mountebank,
So mortal, that but dip a knife in it,
Where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare,
Collected from all simples that have virtue
Under the moon, can save the thing from death,
That is but scratch'd withal: I'll touch mypoint
With this contagion; that, if I gall him slightly,
It may be death.

King.
Let's further think of this;
Weigh, what convenience, both of time and
means,

King.

[Brit.
Let's follow, Gertrude:
How much I had to do to calm his rage!
Now fear I, this will give it start again:
Therefore, let's follow.

Art Fifth.

SCENE I. A Church Yard.

[Exeunt.

Enter Two Clowns, with Spades, &c.

1 Cio. Is she to be buried in christian burial, that wilfully seeks her own salvation?

2 Clo. I tell thee, she is; therefore make her grave straight: the crowner hath set on her, and finds it christian burial.

1 Clo. How can that be, unless she drowned herself in her own defence?

2 Co. Why, 'tis found so.

1 Clo. It must be se offendendo; it cannot be else. For here lies the point: If I drown myself wittingly, it argues an act; and an act hath three branches; it is, to act, to do, and to perform; Argal, she drowned herself wittingly, 2 Clo. Nay, but hear yon, goodman delver. 1 Clo. Give me leave. Here lies the water: 'Twere better not assay'd: therefore this project good; here stands the man; good: If the man Should have a back, or second, that might hold,go to this water, and drown himself, it is, will If this should blast in proof. Soft;-let me see he, nill he, he goes; mark yon that: but if the We'll make a solemn wager on your cunnings, water come to him, and drown him, he drowns

May fit us to our shape: If this should fail, And that our drift look through our bad per formance,

not himself: Argal, he, that is not guilty of his my lord such-a-one's horse, when he meant to death, shortens not his own life. beg it; might it not? Hor. Ay, my lord.

2 Clo. But is this law?

1 Clo. Ay, marry is't; crowner's-quest law. 2 Clo. Will you ha' the truth on't? If this had not been a gentlewoman she should have been buried out of christian burial.

1 Clo. Why there thon say'st: And the more pity; that great folks shall have countenance in this world to drown or hang themselves more than their even-christian. Come, my spade. There is no ancient gentlemen but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers: they hold up Adam's profession.

2 Clo. Was he a gentleman?

1 Clo. He was the first that ever bore arms. 2 Clo. Why, he had none.

1 Clo. What, art a heathen? How dost thou understand the scripture? The scripture says, Adam digged: Could he dig without arms? I'll put another question to thee: if thou answerest me not to the purpose, confess thyself

2 Clo. Go to.

Ham. Why, e'en so: and now my lady Worm's; chapless, and knocked about the mazzard with a sexton's spade: Here's fine revolution, an we had the trick to see't. Did these bones cost no more the breeding, but to play at loggarts with them? mine ache to think on't.

1 Clo. A pickaxe and a spade, a spade, [Sings.
For-and a shrouding sheet:
O, a pit of clay for to be made
For such a guest is meet.

[Throws up a scall. Ham. There's another: Why may not that be the scull of a lawyer? Where be his quiddits now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks? why does he suffer this rude knave now to knock him about the sconce with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of his action of battery? Humph! This fellow might be in's time a great buyer of land, with his statutes, his recognizances,his fines, his double,vonchers,

1 Clo. What is he, that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright, or the car-his recoveries: Is this the fine of his fines, and penter?

2 Clo. The gallows-maker, for that frame outlives a thousand tenants.

1 Clo. I like thy wit well, in good faith; the gallows does well: But how does it well? it does well to those that do ill: now thou dost ill, to say, the gallows is built stronger than the church argal, the gallows inay do well to thee.j To't again: come.

2 Clo. Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a carpenter?

1 Clo. Ay, tell me that, and unyoke.

2 Clo. Marry, now I can tell.

1 Clo. To't.

2 Clo. Mass, I cannot tell.

Enter HAMLET and HORATIO, at a distance.

1 Co. Cudgel thy brains no more about it;
for your dull ass will not mend his pace with
beating and, when you are asked this question
next, say, a grave-maker; the houses that he
makes, last till doomsday. Go, get thee to
Yaughan, and fetch me a stoup of liquor.
[Exit 2 Clown.
1 Clown digs, and sings.

In youth, when I did love, did love,
Methought, it was very sweet,

To contract, 0, the time, for, ah, my behoe

O, methought, there was nothing mest. Ham. Has this fellow no feeling of his business? he sings at grave-making.

Hor. Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness.

Ham. 'Tis even so: the hand of little employment hath the daintier sense,

1 Clo. But age, with his stealing steps,
Hath claw'd me in his clutch,
And hath shipped me into the land,
As if I had never been such,

the recovery of his recoveries, to have his fine
pate full of fine dirt? will his vouchers vouch
him no more of his purchases, and double ones
too, than the length and breadth of a pair of
indentures? The very conveyances of his lands
will hardly lie in this box; and must the in-
heritor himself have no more? ha?
Hor. Not a jot more, my lord.

Ham. Is not parchment made of sheep-skins?
Hor. Ay, my lord, and of calves-skins too.
Ham. They are sheep, and calves, which
seek out assurance in that. I will speak to
this fellow: Whose grave's this, sirrah ?
1 Clo. Mine, sir.-

O, a pit of clay for to be made
For such a quest is meet.

[Sings.

Ham. I think it be thine, indeed, for thou liest in't.

| 1 Cio. You lie out on't, sir, and therefore it is not yours: for my part, I do not lie in't, yet it is mine.

Ham. Thou dost lie in't, to be in't, and say It is thine: 'tis for the dead, not for the quick; therefore thou liest.

1 Clo. 'Tis a quick lie, sir; 'twill away, again, from me to you.

Ham What man dost thou dig it for?
1 Co. For no man, sir

Ham. What woman then?

1 Co. For none neither.

Ham. Who is to be buried in't?

1 Clo. One, that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she's dead.

Ham. How absolute the knave is! we must speak by the card, or equivocation will undo us. By the lord, Horatio, these three years I have taken note of it; the age is grown so picked, that the toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier, he galls his kibe. scull.-How long hast thou been a grave-maker? Ham. That scull had a tongue in it, and could 1 Co. Of all the days i'the year, I came to't sing once: How the knave jowls it to the ground, that day that our last king Hamlet overcame as if it were Cain's jawbone, that did the first, murder! This might be the pate of a politician, | which this ass now o'erreaches; one that would circumvent God, might it not?

Hor. It might, my lord.

[Throws up a

Ham. Or of a courtier; which could say, Good-morrow, sweet lord! How dest thou, good lord? This might be my lord such-a-one, that praised

Fortinbras.

Ham. How long's that since?

1 Clo. Cannot you tell that? every fool can tell that: It was that very day that young Hamlet was born; he that is mad,and sent into England. Ham. Ay, marry, why was he sent into England?

1 Clo. Why, because he was mad: he shall

recover his wits there; or, if he do not, 'tis no Enter Priests, &c. in Procession; the Corpse of great matter there. Ophelia, LAERTES, and Mourners, following: King, Queen, their Trains, &c.

Ham. Why?

1 Clo. 'Twill not be seen in him there; there The queen, the courtiers! Who is this they the men are as mad as he.

Ham. How came he mad?

1 Clo. Very strangely, they say. Ham. How strangely?

1 Clo. 'Faith, e'en with losing his wits. Ham. Upon what ground?

1 Clo. Why, here in Denmark; I have been! sexton here, man, and boy, thirty years.

Ham. How long will a man lie i' the earth ere he rot?

1 Clo. 'Faith, if he be not rotten before he die (as we have many pocky corses nowadays, that! will scarce hold the laying in), he will last you some eight year, or nine year; a tanner will last you nine year.

Ham. Why he more than another?

1 Clo. Why, sir, his hide is so tanned with his trade, that he will keep out water a great while; and your water is a sore decayer of your whoreson dead body. Here's a scull now hath lain you i' the earth three-and-twenty

Ham, This?

1 Clo. E'en that.

[Takes the Scull.

follow?

And with such maimed rites! This doth betoken,
The corse, they follow, did with desperate hand
Foredo its own life. 'Twas of some estate.
Couch we awhile, and mark.

[Retiring with HORATIO.

Laer. What ceremony else?
Ham.

A very noble youth: Mark.
Laer. What ceremony else?

That is Laertes;

1 Priest. Her obsequies have been as far enlarg'd

As we have warranty: her death was doubtful;
And, but that great command o'ersways the
order,

She should in ground unsanctified have lodg'd
Till the last trumpet; for charitable prayers,
Shards, fiints, and pebbles, should be thrown
on her,

Yet here she is allowed her virgin crants,
Her maiden strewments, and the bringing home
Of bell and burial.

Laer. Must there no more be done?
1 Priest.
No more be done!
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 Flowers.

wife;

[maid,

Ham. Alas, poor Yorick !-I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagina- I hop'd, thou should'st have been my Hamlet's tion it is! my gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips, that I have kissed I know not how I thought, thy bride-bed to have deck'd, sweet oft. Where be your gives now? your gambols? And not have strew'd thy grave. your songs? your flashes of merriment, that Laer. O treble woe were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one Fall ten times treble on that cursed head, now, to mock your own grinning? quite chap- Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense fallen? Now get you to my lady's chamber, Depriv'd thee of! Hold off the earth awhile, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this Till I have caught her once more in mine arms. favour she must come; make her laugh at that. [Leaps into the Grave. --Prythee, Horatio, tell me one thing. Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead; Hor. What's that, my lord? Till of this flat and mountain you have made

Ham. Dost thou think, Alexander look'd o' To o'ertop old Pelion, or the skyish head this fashion i' the earth?

Hor. Een 80.

Ham. And smelt so? pah!

Throws down the Scull.

Hor. E'en so, my lord." Ham. To what base uses we may return, Horatio! Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander, till he find it stopping a bunghole?

Hor. 'Twere to consider too curiously, to consider so.

Ham, No, faith, not a jot; but to follow him thither with modesty enough, and likelihood to lead it: As thus; Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth to dust; the dust is earth; of earth we make loam: And why of that loam, where to he was converted, might they not stop a beer barrel?

Imperious Cæsar, dead, and turn'd to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away:
O, that the earth which kept the world in awe,
Should patch a wall to expel the winter's flaw!
But soft! but soft! aside:-Here comes the king.į

Of blue Olympus.

Ham. [Advancing.] What is he, whose grief Bears such an emphasis? whose phrase of sorrow Conjures the wand'ring stars, and makes them stand