Under the moon, can save the thing from death,
That is but scratch'd withal: I'll touch my point
With this contagion, that if I gall him slightly,
It may be death.

King.
Let's farther think of this;
Weigh, what convenience, both of time and means,
May fit us to our shape. If this should fail,
And that our drift look through our bad performance,
'Twere better not assay'd: therefore, this project
Should have a back, or second, that might hold,
If this should blast in proof.. Soft!-let me see:
We'll make a solemn wager on your cunnings,-
I ha't:

b

When in your motion you are hot and dry,
(As make your bouts more violent to that end)
And that he calls for drink, I'll have preferr'd him
A chalice for the nonce, whereon but sipping,
If he by chance escape your venom'd stuck,
Our purpose may hold there. But stay! what noise?
Enter Queen.

How now, sweet queen!

Queen. One woe doth tread upon another's heel, So fast they follow.-Your sister's drown'd, Laertes.

Laer. Drown'd! O, where?

Queen. There is a willow grows aslant the brook, That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream; Therewith fantastic garlands did she make

Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples,
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, a while they bore her up;
Which time she chanted snatches of old lauds ;
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and 1 reduc'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, is she drown'd? Queen. Drown'd, drown'd.

Laer. Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia,
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:
I have a speech of fire, that fain would blaze,
But that this folly drowns it.
[Exit.
King.
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.

ACT V.

SCENE L-A Church Yard.

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

2 Clo. 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 you, goodman delver.

1 Clo. Give me leave. Here lies the water; good: here stands the man; good: if the man go to this water, and drown himself, it is, will he, nill he, he goes, mark you that; but if the water come to him, and drown him, he drowns not himself: argal, he that is not guilty of his own death shortens not his own life.

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 thou say'st; and the more Pity, that great folk shall have countenance in this world to drown or hang themselves, more than their ancient gentlemen but gardeners, ditchers, and graveleven Christian. Come, my spade. There is no 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 put another question to thee: if thou answerest me not to the purpose, confess thyself

2 Clo. Go to.

1 Clo. What is he, that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?

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 may do well to thee. 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.

[Exit 2 Clown.

1 Clown digs, and sings.
In youth, when I did love, did love,
Methought it was very sweet,

To contract, O! the time, for, ah! my behove,
O! methought, there was nothing meet.
Ham. Has this fellow no feeling of his business,
that he sings at grave-making?

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

“Argal,” i. e., therefore-Eren Christian for fello Christian.-m" Unyoke," i. e., give over; give it up- A stoop was a measure containing about half a gallon.

Ham. 'Tis e'en so: the hand of little employ. ment hath the daintier sense.

1 Clo. But age, with his stealing steps, Hath claw'd me in his clutch, And hath shipped me intill the land, As if I had never been such. [Throws up a scull. Ham. That scull had a tongue in it, and could sing once: how the knave jowls it to the ground, as if it were Cain's jaw-bone, that did the first murder! This might be the pate of a politician, which this ass now o'er-reaches, one that would circumvent God, might it not?

Hor. It might, my lord.

Ham. Or of a courtier, which could say, "Goodmorrow, sweet lord! How dost thou, good lord ?" This might be my lord such-a-one, that praised my lord such-a-one's horse, when he meant to beg it, might it not?

Hor. Ay, my lord.

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 "loggats with them? mine ache to think on't.

1 Clo. A pick-axe, and a spade, a spade, For-and a shrouding sheet:

【Sings.

O! a pit of clay for to be made For such a guest is meet. [Throws up another scull. 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 d 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 vouchers, his recoveries: is this the fine of his fines, and 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 inheritor 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 calf-skins too.
Ham. They are sheep, and calves, which seek
assurance in that. I will speak to this fellow.
-Whose grave's this, sir?

out

1 Clo. Mine, sir.

1 Clo. For no man, sir.

Ham. What woman, then?

1 Clo. 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.-How long hast thou been a grave-maker?

1 Clo. Of all the days i' the years, I came to't that day that our last king Hamlet overcame For

tinbras.

Ham. How long is that since?

that. It was the very day that young Hamlet was 1 Clo. Cannot you tell that? every fool can tell 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 great matter there.

Ham. Why?

1 Clo. "Twill not be seen in him there; there, 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 sex ton here, man, and boy, thirty years.

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

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

year.

you

pine

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; this scull hath lain you i'the earth three-and-twenty years.

Ham. Whose was it?

1 Clo. A whoreson mad fellow's it was: whose do you think it was?

Ham. Nay, I know not.

1 Clo. A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! a poured a flagon of Rhenish on my head once. This same scull, sir, this same scull, sir, was Yorick's scull, the king's jester.

Ham. This ? 1 Clo. E'en that.

[Takes the Scal

Ham. Let me see. Alas, poor Yorick !-I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his back a the sand times: and now, how abhorred in my imagina tion it is! my gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips, that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen? Now, get you to y lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch

"By the card," i, e., by the seamen's card, or compa "The age has grown so picked:" an allusion to the shoes with long pointed or picked toes, formerly so much wor England: picked is also curious, over nice; hence the qui>

ble. A kibe is a chilblain.

Worse than the mutines in the bilboes. Rashly,-
And prais'd be rashness for it,-let us 1own,
Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well, [us,
When our deep plots do fail; and that should teach
There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will.

Hor.

Ham. Up from my cabin,

C

That is most certain.

My sea-gown scarf'd about me, in the dark
Grop'd I to find out them; had my desire;
Finger'd their packet; and, in fine, withdrew
To mine own room again: making so bold,
My fears forgetting manners, to 3 unfold
Their grand commission; where I found, Horatio,
O royal knavery! an exact command,—
Larded with many several sorts of reasons,
Importing Denmark's health, and England's too,
With, ho! such bugs and goblins in my life,-
That on the 'supervise, 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 [ Giving it.

leisure.

But wilt thou hear me how I did proceed?
Hor. I beseech you.

Ham. Being thus benetted round with villains,-
Ere I could make a prologue to my brains,
They had begun the play,-I sat me down,
Devis'd a new commission; wrote it fair.

I once did hold it, as our h statists do,

A baseness to write fair, and labor'd much
How to forget that learning; but, sir, now
It did me yeoman's service. Wilt thou know
The effect 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 like the palm might flourish, As peace should still her wheaten garland wear, And stand a comma 'tween their amities, And many such like as's of great charge,That on the view and know of these contents, Without debatement farther, more or less, He should the bearers put to sudden death, Not shriving time allow'd.

Hor.

How was this seal'd? Ham. Why, even in that was heaven 'ordinate. I had my father's signet in my purse, Which was the model of that Danish seal; Folded the writ up in form of the other; Subscrib'd it; gave't th' impression; plac'd it safely, The changeling never known. Now, the next day Was our sea-fight, and what to this was "sequent Thou know'st already.

Hor. So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to't. Ham. Why, man, they did make love to this employment:

They are not near my conscience; their defeat
Does by their own insinuation grow.

'Tis dangerous, when a baser nature comes
Between the pass and fell incensed points
Of mighty opposites.

Hor.

Why, what a king is this!

Mutines for mutineers.-b Bilboes are fetters for the hands and feet brought from Bilboa, in Spain.-"Scarf'd," i. e., thrown loosely on.-d Bugs for bugbears." In my life," i. e., in my character and designs." On the supervise," i e., on the looking over.-8 "No leisure bated," i. e., without loss of time.-- Statists are statesmen.—"Stand a comma," i, e., stand as a note of connection.- Shriving-time is time for confession."Ordinate," i. e., regular; methodi cal.-"Changeling," 1. e. substitute."Was sequent," i. e., followed after.

Ham. Does it not, think thee, stand me now

° upon

He that hath kill'd my king, and whor'd my mother;
Popp'd in between th' election and my hopes;
His angle for my proper life thrown out,
And with such cozenage-is't not perfect conscience,
To quit him with his own? and is't not to be
To let this canker of our nature come [damn'd,
In farther evil?
[land,

Hor. It must be shortly known to him from EngWhat is the issue of the business there.

Ham. It will be short: the interim is mine;
And a man's life no more than to say, one.
But I am very sorry, good Horatio,
That to Laertes I forgot myself,
For by the image of my cause I see
The portraiture of his: I'll court his favors:
But, sure, the bravery of his grief did put me
Into a towering passion.
Hor.

Peace! who comes here!

Enter OSRICK.

Osr. Your lordship is right welcome back to Dej mark.

Ham. I humbly thank you, sir.-Dost know this water-fly?

Hor. No, my good lord.

Ham. Thy state is the more gracious, for 'tis a vice to know him. He hath much land, and fertile: let a beast be lord of beasts, and his crib shall stand at the king's mess: 'tis a Pchough; but, as I say, spacious in the possession of dirt.

Osr. Sweet lord, if your lordship were at leisure, I should impart a thing to you from his majesty. Ham. I will receive it, sir, with all diligence of spirit. Your bonnet to his right use; 'tis for the head.

Osr. I thank your lordship, 'tis very hot. Ham. No, believe me, 'tis very cold: the wind is northerly.

Osr. It is indifferent cold, my lord, indeed. Ham. But yet, methinks, it is very sultry, and t for my complexion.

Osr. Exceedingly, my lord; it is very sultry, as ļ 'twere,-I cannot tell how.-But my lord, his maj esty bade me signify to you, that he has laid a great wager on your head. Sir, this is the matter,Ham. I beseech you, remember

[HAMLET moves him to put on his Hat. Osr. Nay, in good faith; for mine ease, in god faith. Sir, here is newly come to court, Laertes; believe me, an absolute gentleman, full of most excellent 4 differences, of very soft society, and great showing: indeed, to speak feelingly of him, be i the card or calendar of gentry, for you shal. ind in him the continent of what part a gentleman would

see.

Ham. Sir, his definement suffers no perdition in you; though, I know, to divide him inventorials would dizzy the arithmetic of memory; and yet b raw neither, in respect of his quick sail. But, in the verity of extolment, I take him to be a soul of great article; and his infusion of such dearth and rareness as, to make true diction of him, his semblable is his mirror; and who else would trace him, his umbrage, nothing more.

Osr. Your lordship speaks most infallibly of him. Ham. The concernancy, sir? why do we wrap the gentleman in our more rawer breath?

d

Ham. What call you the carriages? Hor. I knew, you most be edified by the margin, ere you had done.

Osr. The carriages, sir, are the hangers. Ham. The phrase would be more germane to the matter, if we could carry a cannon by our sides: I would, it might be hangers till then. But, on: six Barbary horses against six French swords, their assigns, and three liberal-conceited carriages; that's the French bet against the Danish. Why is this imponed, as you call it?

Osr. The king, sir, hath laid, sir, that in a dozen passes between yourself and him, he shall not exceed you three hits: he hath laid on twelve, for nine; and that would come to immediate trial, if your lordship would vouchsafe the answer.

Ham. How, if I answer, no?

Osr. I mean, my lord, the opposition of your person in trial.

Ham. Sir, I will walk here in the hall if it please his majesty, it is the breathing time of day with me, let the foils be brought, the gentleman willing, and the king hold his purpose, I will win for him, if I can; if not, I will gain nothing but my shame, and the odd hits.

Osr. Shall I deliver you so?

Ham. To this effect, sir; after what flourish your

got the tune of the time, and outward habit of hencounter, a kind of yesty collection, which carries them through and through the most fond and winnowed opinions; and do but blow them to their trial, the bubbles are out.

Enter a Lord.

Lord. My lord, his majesty commended him to you by young Osrick, who brings back to him, that you attend him in the hall: he sends to know, if will take longer time. your pleasure hold to play with Laertes, or that you

Ham. I am constant to my purposes; they follow the king's pleasure: if his fitness speaks, mine is ready; now, or whensoever, provided I be so able

as now.

Lord. The king, and queen, and all are coming down. Ham. In happy time.

Lord. The queen desires you to use some gentle entertainment to Laertes, before you fall to play. Ham. She well instructs me. [Exit Lord. Hor. You will lose this wager, my lord. Ham. I do not think so: since he went into win at the odds. Thou wouldst not think, how ill France, I have been in continual practice; I shall all is here about my heart; but it is no matter. Hor. Nay, good my lord,

Ham. It is but foolery; but it is such a kind of gain-giving, as would, perhaps, trouble a woman. Hor. If your mind dislike anything, obey it: I will forestall their repair hither, and say you are not fit.

special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it Ham. Not a whit, we defy augury: there is a

be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all. Since no man, of aught he leaves, knows, what is't to leave betimes? Let be.

Enter King, Queen, LAERTES, Lords, OSRICK, and Attendants with Foils, &c.

King. Come, Hamlet; come, and take this hand from me.

[The King puts the hand of LAERTES into that of HAMLET.

Ham. Give me your pardon, sir: I've done you But pardon't, as you are a gentleman. [wrong; This presence knows,

And you must needs have heard, how I am punish'd
With sore distraction. What I have done,
That might your nature, honor, and exception,
Roughly awake, I here proclaim was madness.
Was't Hamlet wrong'd Laertes? Never, Hamlet:
If Hamlet from himself be ta'en away,
And when he's not himself does wrong Laertes,
Then Hamlet does it not; Hamlet denies it.
Who does it then? His madness. If't be so,
Hamlet is of the faction that is wrong'd;
His madness is poor Hamlet's enemy.
Sir, in this audience,

Let my disclaiming from a purpos'd evil
Free me so far in your most generous thoughts,
That I have shot mine arrow o'er the house,
And hurt my brother.

Laer.
I am satisfied in nature,
Whose motive, in this case, should stir me most
To my revenge: but in my terms of honor,
I stand aloof, and will no reconcilement,
Till by some elder masters, of known honor,
I have a voice and precedent of peace.
To keep my name 'ungor'd. But till that time,