Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
William Shakespeare
ACT IV. Page 2
Wherein necessity, of matter beggar'd,
Will nothing stick our person to arraign
In ear and ear.O my dear Gertrude, this,
Like to a murdering piece, in many places
(A noise within.)
Queen.
Alack, what noise is this?
King.
(Enter a Gentleman.)
Gent.
Save yourself, my lord:
The ocean, overpeering of his list,
Eats not the flats with more impetuous haste
O'erbears your offices.The rabble call him lord;
Antiquity forgot, custom not known,
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!
(A noise within.)
King.
The doors are broke.
(Enter Laertes, armed; Danes following.)
Laer.
Danes.
No, let's come in.
Laer.
I pray you, give me leave.
Danes.
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.
Cries cuckold to my father; brands the harlot
Even here, between the chaste unsmirched brow
Of my true mother.
King.
What is the cause, Laertes,
That thy rebellion looks so giant-like?--
There's such divinity doth hedge a king,
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.
To hell, allegiance! vows, to the blackest devil!
I dare damnation:--to this point I stand, --
Let come what comes; only I'll be reveng'd
Most throughly for my father.
Who shall stay you?
Laer.
My will, not all the world:
And for my means, I'll husband them so well,
They shall go far with little.
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-rendering pelican,
Repast them with my blood.
King.
Why, now you speak
That I am guiltless of your father's death,
It shall as level to your judgment pierce
Danes.
(Within) Let her come in.
Laer.
How now! What noise is that?
(Re-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 by 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.
(Sings.)
They bore him barefac'd on the bier
And on 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! 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, 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:--O, you must 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, --
(Sings.)
For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy, --
Laer.
Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself,
She turns to favour and to prettiness.
Oph.
(Sings.)
And will he not come again?
And will he not come again?
No, no, he is dead,
Go to thy death-bed,
He never will come again.
All flaxen was his poll:
He is gone, he is gone,
And we cast away moan:
God ha' mercy on his soul!
And of all Christian souls, I pray God.--God b' wi' ye.
(Exit.)
Do you see this, O God?
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.
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 burial, --
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 Castle.
(Enter Horatio and a Servant.)
Hor.
What are they that would speak with me?
Servant.
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.)
I Sailor.
God bless you, sir.
Hor.
Let him bless thee too.
Sailor.
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
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 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 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 am.Rosencrantz and Guildenstern hold their course
for England: of them I have much to tell thee.Farewell.
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 Castle.
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, 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 mot
Lives almost by his looks; and for myself, --
My virtue or my plague, be it either which, --
She's 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;
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 come.
King.
Break not your sleeps for that:--you must not think
we are made of stuff so flat and dull
we can let our beard be shook with danger,
And think it pastime.You shortly shall hear more:
I lov'd your father, and we love ourself;
(Enter a Messenger.)
How now! What news?
Mess.
Letters, my lord, from Hamlet:
This to your majesty; this to the queen.
From Hamlet! Who brought them?
Mess.
Sailors, my lord, they say; I saw them not:
They were given me by Claudio:--he receiv'd them
Of him that brought them.
King.
Laertes, you shall hear them.
Leave us.
(Exit Messenger.)
(Reads)'High and mighty, --You shall know I am set naked on your
kingdom.To-morrow shall I beg leave to see your kingly eyes:
when I shall, first asking your pardon thereunto, recount the
occasions of my sudden and more strange return.HAMLET.'
What should this mean? Are all the rest come back?
Or is it some abuse, and no such thing?
Laer.
King.
And in a postscript here, he says 'alone.'
Can you advise me?
Laer.
It warms the very sickness in my heart
That I shall live and tell him to his teeth,
'Thus didest thou.'
King.
If it be so, Laertes, --
As how should it be so? how otherwise?--
Will you be rul'd by me?
Laer.
Ay, my lord;
So you will not o'errule me to a peace.
King.
To thine own peace.If he be now return'd--
As checking at his voyage, and that he means
No more to undertake it, --I will work him
To exploit, now ripe in my device,
Under the which he shall not choose but fall:
And for his death no wind shall breathe;
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.
You have been talk'd of since your travel much,
Wherein they say you shine: your sum of parts
Did not together pluck such envy from him
Of the unworthiest siege.
Laer.
What part is that, my lord?
King.
A very riband in the cap of youth,
The light and careless livery that it wears
Than settled age his sables and his weeds,
Importing health and graveness.--Two months since,
I've 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 had he 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.
King.
A Norman.
Laer.
Upon my life, Lamond.
King.
The very same.
Laer.
I know him well: he is the brooch indeed
And gem of all the nation.
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 especially,
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 him.
Now, out of this, --
Laer.
What out of this, my lord?
King.
Laertes, was your fatdear to you?
Or are you like the painting of a sorrow,
A face without a heart?
Laer.
Why ask you this?
King.
Not 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 will abate it;
And is at a like goodness still;
For goodness, growing to a plurisy,
Dies in his own too much: that we would do,
And hath abatements and delays as many
As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents;
hurts by easing.But to the quick o' the ulcer:--
Hamlet comes back: what would you undertake
More than in words?
To cut his throat i' the church.
King.
No place, indeed, should murder sanctuarize;
Will you do this, keep close within your chamber.
Hamlet return'd shall know you are come home:
And set a double varnish on the fame
The Frenchman gave you; bring you in fine together
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.
Laer.
I will do't:
And for that purpose I'll anoint my sword.
I bought an unction of a mountebank,
So mortal that, but dip a knife in it,
Collected from all simples that have virtue
Under the moon, can save the thing from death
This 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 further 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
this did blast in proof.Soft! let me see:--
We'll make a solemn wager on your cunnings, --
I ha't:
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 prepar'd him
A chalice for the nonce; whereon but sipping,
If he by chance escape your venom'd stuck,
Our purpose may hold there.
(Enter Queen.)
How now, sweet queen!
Queen.
So fast they follow:--your sister's drown'd, Laertes.
Laer.
Drown'd! O, where?
Queen.
There is a willow grows aslant a brook,
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream;
Of crowflowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples,
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them.
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 chaunted 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 melodious lay
To muddy death.
Laer.
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, fain would blaze,
But that this folly douts 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.
(Exeunt.)