But when they ask you what it means,
say you this:
To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day, all in the morning betime,
and I a maid at your window, to be your Valentine.
Then up he rose, and donn'd his clothes, and dupp'd the chamber-door
let in the maid, that out a maid never departed more.
- Pretty Ophelia! - Indeed, la,
without an oath, I'll make an end on't.
By Gis and by Saint Charity, alack, and fie for shame!
Young men will do't, if they come to't by cock, they are to blame.
Quoth she...
'before you tumbled me, you promised me to wed.'
'So would I ha' done, by yonder sun, an thou hadst not come to my bed.'
How long hath she been thus?
I hope all will be well. We must be patient,
but I cannot choose but weep,
to think they should lay him i' the cold ground.
My brother shall know of it,
and so I thank you for your good counsel.
Come, my coach!
Good night, ladies good night, sweet ladies good night, good night.
- Sweet ladies, good night! - Follow her close!
Give her good watch, I pray you!
O, this is the poison of deep grief
it springs all from her father's death.
And now behold! O Gertrude, Gertrude!
- Alack, what noise is this? - Where are my Switzers?
- Let them guard the door! - What is the matter?
Save yourself, my lord.
The ocean, overpeering of his list, eats not the flats with more impetuous haste
than young Laertes, in a riotous head, o'erbears your officers!
The rabble call him lord and, as the world were now but to begin,
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!'.
How cheerfully on the false trail they cry!
O, this is counter, you false Danish dogs!
The doors are broke.
Where is this king?
- Sirs, stand you all without. - No, let's come in.
- I pray you, give me leave. - We will.
I thank you. Keep the door.
- O thou vile king, give me my father! - Calmly, good Laertes.
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 of my true mother.
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 incensed.
Let him go, Gertrude.
- Speak, man. - Where is my father?
- Dead. - But not by him.
- Let him demand his fill. - 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 revenged most thoroughly for my father.
- Who shall stay you? - 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, swoopstake, you will draw both friend and foe,
- winner and loser? - None but his enemies.
Will you know them then?
To his good friends thus wide I'll ope my arms
and like the kind life-rendering pelican, repast them with my blood.
Why, now you speak like a good child and a true gentleman.
That I am guiltless of your father's death,
and am most sensible in grief for it,
it shall as level to your judgment pierce as day doth to your eye.
Let her come in.
How now! What noise is that?
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. - They bore him barefaced on the bier
hey nonny nonny, nonny, hey nonny, nonny, nonny, hey
and in his grave rain'd many a tear. Fare you well, my dove!
Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge,
- it could not move thus. - You must sing a-down a-down...
An you! Call him! A-down a-down a-down...
O, how the wheel becomes it!
It is the false steward, that stole his master's daughter.
- This nothing's more than matter. - There's rosemary,
that's for remembrance.
Pray, love, remember...
And there is pansies. That's for thoughts.
A document in madness, thoughts and remembrance fitted.
There's fennel for you,
and columbines...
There's rue for you and here's some for me.
We may call it herb-grace o' Sundays.
O you must 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,
For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.
Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself,
she turns to favour and to prettiness.
And will he not come again?
No, no, he is 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 ha' mercy on his soul!
And of all Christian souls...
I pray God.
God be wi' ye.
Do you see this, O God?
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.
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.
So you shall and where the offence is, let the great axe fall.
I pray you, go with me.
What are they that would speak with me?
Sailors, sir. They say they have letters for you.
I do not know from what part of the world I should be greeted, if not from Lord Hamlet.
- God bless you, sir. - Let him bless thee too.
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.
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.
Now must your conscience my acquaintance 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 pursued my life.
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.
O, for two special reasons which may to you 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'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
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, but not where I had aim'd them.
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. - 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.
I loved your father, and we love ourself
and that, I hope, will teach you to imagine...
How now! what news?
Letters, my lord, from Hamlet.
- This to your majesty this to the queen. - From Hamlet! Who brought them?
Sailors, my lord, they say. I saw them not.
They were given me by Claudio he received them of him that brought them.
Laertes, you shall hear them. Leave us.
'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 occasion
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?
- Know you the hand? - 'Tis Hamlets character.
'Naked!' And in a postscript here, he says 'Alone.'
- Can you advise me? - I'm lost in it, my lord.
But let him come!
It warms the very sickness in my heart, that I shall live and tell him to his teeth,
- 'thus didest thou.' - If it be so, Laertes
as how should it be so? How otherwise? Will you be ruled by me?
Ay, my lord if you so not o'errule me to a peace.
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 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 practise and call it accident.
My lord, I will be ruled the rather, if you could devise it so that I might be the organ.
It falls right. You have been talk'd of since your travels 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.
What part is that, my lord?
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've seen myself, and served 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 incorpsed and demi-natured 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.
- A Norman was't? - A Norman.
- Upon my life, Lamond. - The very same.
I know him well, he is the brooch indeed and gem of all the nation.
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 had neither motion, guard, nor eye,
if you opposed 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, - What out of this, my lord?
Laertes, was your father dear to you? Or are you like the painting of a sorrow,
- a face without a heart? - Why ask you this?
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 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? - To cut his throat i' the church.
No place, indeed, should murder sanctuarize.
Revenge should have no bounds.
But, good Laertes, will you do this?
Keep close within your chamber. Hamlet return'd shall know you are come home.
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 on 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 practise requite him for your father.
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, 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 my point with this contagion,
that, if I gall him slightly,
- it may be death. - 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, if this should 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 prepared 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?
How now, sweet queen!
One woe doth tread upon another's heel, so fast they follow.
Your sister's drown'd,
Laertes.
Drown'd!
O...
Where?
There is a willow grows aslant a brook,
that shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream.
There with 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, 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 indued 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.
- Alas, then, she is drown'd? - Drown'd.
Drown'd.
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 douts it.
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!
Is she to be buried in Christian burial that wilfully seeks her own salvation?
I tell thee she is, and therefore make her grave straight.
The crowner hath sat on her, and finds it Christian burial.
How can that be, unless she drowned herself in her own defence?
- Why, 'tis found so. - 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, to perform: argal, she drowned herself wittingly.
- Nay, but hear you, goodman delver, - 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. - But is this law?
- Ay, marry, is't. Crowner's quest law. - Will you ha' the truth on't?
If this had not been a gentlewoman,
she should have been buried out o' Christian burial.
Why, there thou say'st, and the more pity that great folk
should have countenance in this world to drown or hang themselves, more
than their even Christian.
Come, my spade.
There is no ancient gentleman but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers:
- they hold up Adam's profession. - Was he a gentleman?
- He was the first that ever bore arms. - Why, he had none.
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.
- Go to. - What is he that builds stronger
than either the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?
The gallows-maker
for that frame outlives a thousand tenants.
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.
'Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a carpenter?'
- Ay, tell me that, and unyoke. - Marry, now I can tell.
To't.
- Mass, I cannot tell. - 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,
fetch me a stoup of liquor.
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.
Has this fellow no feeling of his business,
that he sings at grave-making?
Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness.
'Tis e'en so: the hand of little employment hath the daintier sense.
But age, with his stealing steps,
hath claw'd me in his clutch,
and hath shipped me intil the land,
as if I had never been such.
That skull 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! It might be the pate of a politician,
which this ass now o'er-reaches one that would circumvent God, might it not?
- It might, my lord. - Or of a courtier
which could say 'Good morrow, 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? - Ay, my lord.
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 'em?
Mine ache to think on't.
There's another: why may not that be the skull of a lawyer?
Where be his quiddities 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?
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 scarcely lie in this box
and must the inheritor himself have no more, ha?
- Not a jot more, my lord. - Is not parchment made of sheepskins?
Ay, my lord, and of calf-skins too.
They are sheep and calves which seek out assurance in that.
I will speak to this fellow.
- Whose grave's this, sirrah? - Mine, sir.
O, a pit of clay for to be made for such a guest is meet.
I think it be thine, indeed for thou liest in't.
You lie out on't, sir, and therefore it is not yours.
For my part, I do not lie in't, and yet it is mine.
'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.
'Tis a quick lie, sir 'twill away gain, from me to you.
- What man dost thou dig it for? - For no man, sir.
- What woman, then? - For none, neither.
Who is to be buried in't?
One that was a woman, sir but, rest her soul, she's dead.
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 a note of it the age is grown so picked
that the toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier,
he gaffs his kibe.
- How long hast thou been a grave-maker? - Of all the days i' the year,
I came to't that day that our last king Hamlet overcame Fortinbras.
- How long is that since? - Cannot you tell that?
Every fool can tell that:
it was the very day that young Hamlet was born,
he that is mad, and sent into England.
- Ay, marry, why was he sent into England? - Why, because he was mad.
He shall recover his wits there or, if he do not, it's no great matter there.
- Why? - 'Twill not be seen in him there
there the men are as mad as he.
- How came he mad? - Very strangely, they say.
- How strangely? - Faith, e'en with losing his wits.
- Upon what ground? - Why, here in Denmark?
I have been sexton here, man and boy, thirty years.
How long will a man lie i' the earth ere he rot?
I' 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 you nine year. - Why he more than another?
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 skull now.
This skull has lain in the earth three and twenty years.
- Whose was it? - A whoreson mad fellow's it was.
- Whose do you think it was? - Nay, I know not.
A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! He poured a flagon of Rhenish on my head once.
This same skull, sir, was Yorick's skull, the king's jester.
- This? - E'en that.
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 thousand times
and now, how abhorred in my imagination 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 my lady's chamber,
and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come.
Make her laugh at that.
- Prithee, Horatio, tell me one thing. - What's that, my lord?
Dost thou think Alexander looked o' this fashion i' the earth?
E'en so.
- And smelt so? pah! - E'en so, my lord.
To what base uses we may return, Horatio!
Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander,
till he find it stopping a bung-hole?
'Twere to consider too curiously, to consider so.
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, whereto he was converted,
might they not stop a beer-barrel?
Imperious Caesar, dead and turn'd to clay,
might stop a hole to keep the wind away.
O, that that 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, the queen, the courtiers.
Who is this they follow? And with such maimed rites?
This doth betoken the corse they follow did with desperate hand fordo its own life,
'twas of some estate.
Couch we awhile, and mark.
- What ceremony else? - That is Laertes,
- a very noble youth. Mark. - What ceremony else?
Her obsequies have been as far enlarged as we have warrantise.
Her death was doubtful
and, but that great command o'ersways the order,
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 has her virgin rights,
her maiden strewments and the bringing home of bell and burial.
- Must there no more be done? - 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.
Lay her i' the earth
and from her fair and unpolluted flesh may violets spring!
I tell thee, churlish priest!
A ministering angel shall my sister be, when thou liest howling.
What,
the fair Ophelia!
Sweets to the sweet: farewell!
I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet's wife
I thought thy bride-bed to have deck'd, sweet maid,
- and not have strew'd thy grave. - O, treble woe
fall ten times treble on that cursed head,
whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense deprived thee of!
Hold off the earth awhile, till I have caught her once more in mine arms!
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.
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. - The devil take thy soul!
Thou pray'st not well. I prithee, take thy fingers from my throat
for, though I am not splenitive and rash, yet have I in me something
which let thy wiseness fear. Hold off thy hand!
- Pluck them asunder. - Hamlet, Hamlet!
- Good my lord, be quiet. - Why I will fight with him upon this theme
until my eyelids will no longer wag.
- O my son, what theme? - I loved Ophelia!
Forty thousand brothers could not, with all their quantity of love,
make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?
- O, he is mad, Laertes. - For love of God, forbear him.
'Swounds, show me what thou'lt do: woo't weep? Woo't fight? Woo't fast?
woo't tear thyself? Woo't drink up eisel? 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.
This is mere madness, and thus awhile the fit will work on him
anon, as patient as the female dove, when that her golden couplets are disclosed,
- his silence will sit drooping. - 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.
I pray you, good Horatio, wait upon him.
Strengthen your patience in our last night's speech
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.
So much for this, sir: now shall you see the other. You do remember all the circumstance?
Remember it, my lord?
Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting, that would not let me sleep.
Methought I lay worse than the mutines in the bilboes.
Rashly, and praised be rashness for it,
let us know, our indiscretion sometimes serves us well,
when our deep plots do pall, and that should learn us: there's a
divinity that shapes our ends,
- rough-hew them how we will. - That is most certain.
Up from my cabin, my sea-gown scarf'd about me, in the dark groped 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 unseal 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.
- Is't possible? - Here's the commission: read it
at more leisure. But wilt thou hear me how I did proceed?
I beseech you.
Being thus be-netted round with villanies,
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 labour'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? - Ay, good my lord.
An earnest conjuration from the king,
as England was his faithful tributary,
as love between them like the palm might flourish,
as peace should stiff her wheaten garland wear and stand a comma 'tween their amities,
and many such-like 'As'es of great charge,
that, on the view and knowing of these contents,
without debatement further, more or less,
he should those bearers put to sudden death,
- not shriving-time allow'd. - How was this seal'd?
Why, even in that was heaven ordinant. 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,
subscribed it, gave't the impression, placed it safely,
the changeling never known. Now, the next day was our sea-fight
and what to this was sequent thou know'st already.
So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to't.
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 the baser nature comes
between the pass and fell incensed points of mighty opposites.
Why, what a king is this!
Does it not, think'st thee, stand me now upon he
he that hath kill'd my king and whored my mother,
popp'd in between the election and my hopes, thrown out his angle for my proper life,
and with such cozenage is't not perfect conscience,
to quit him with this arm? And is't not to be damn'd,
to let this canker of our nature come in further evil?
It must be shortly known to him from England what is the issue of the business there.
It will be short:
the interim is mine
and a man's life's
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 favours.
But, sure, the bravery of his grief did put me into a towering passion.
Peace!
Who comes here?
Your lordship is right welcome back to Denmark!
I humbly thank you, sir.
- Dost know this water-fly? - No, my good lord.
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 chough but, as I say, spacious in the possession of dirt.
Sweet lord, if your friendship were at leisure,
I should impart a thing to you from his majesty.
I will receive it, sir, with all diligence of spirit.
Put your bonnet to his right use 'tis for the head.
I thank your lordship, but 'tis very hot.
No, believe me, 'tis very cold the wind is northerly.
It is indifferent cold, my lord, indeed.
But yet methinks it is very sultry and hot for my complexion.
Exceedingly, my lord it is very sultry, as 'twere,
I cannot tell how. But, my lord, his majesty bade me signify to you
that he has laid a great wager on your head. Sir, this is the matter,
I beseech you, remember.
Nay, good my lord for mine ease, in good faith.
Sir, here is newly come to court Laertes
believe me, an absolute gentleman, full of most excellent differences,
of very soft society and great showing.
Indeed, to speak feelingly of him, he is the card or calendar of gentry,
for you shall find in him the continent of what part a gentleman would see.
Sir, his definement suffers no perdition in you
though, I know, to divide him inventorially would dizzy the arithmetic of memory,
and yet but yaw 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.
Your lordship speaks most infallibly of him.
The concernancy, sir?
Why do we wrap the gentleman in our more rawer breath?
Sir?
Is't not possible to understand in another tongue?
You will do't, sir, really.
What imports the nomination of this gentleman?
- Of Laertes? - His purse is empty already
- all's golden words are spent. - Of him, sir.
I know you are not ignorant.
I would you did, sir yet, in faith, if you did, it would not much approve me. Well, sir?
You are not ignorant of what excellence Laertes is
I dare not confess that, lest I should compare with him in excellence
but, to know a man well, were to know himself.
I mean, sir, for his weapon
but in the imputation laid on him by them, in his meed he's unfellowed.
- What's his weapon? - Rapier and dagger.
- That's two of his weapons, but, well. - The king, sir,
hath wagered with him six Barbary horses
- against the which he has imponed, - 'Imponed'?
as I take it, six French rapiers and poniards,
with their assigns, as girdle, hangers, and so
three of the carriages, in faith, are very dear to fancy,
very responsive to the hilts, most delicate carriages,
- and of very liberal conceit. - What call you the carriages?
I knew you must be edified by the margent ere you had done.
The carriages, sir, are the hangers.
The phrase would be more german to the matter,
if we could carry 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.
...carriages that's the French bet against the Danish.
Why is this 'imponed,' as you call it?
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 it would come to immediate trial,
if your lordship would vouchsafe the answer.
How if I answer 'no'?
I mean, my lord, the opposition of your person in trial.
Sir, I will walk here in the hall if it please his majesty,
'tis 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 an I can. If not, I shall gain nothing
but my shame and the odd hits.
- Shall I re-deliver you e'en so? - To this effect, sir,
after what flourish your nature will.
- I commend my duty to your lordship. - Yours, yours.
He does well to commend it himself there are no tongues else for's turn.
This lapwing runs away with the shell on his head.
He did comply with his dug, before he sucked it.
Thus has he, and many more of the same bevy
that I know the drossy age dotes on,
only got the tune of the time and outward habit of encounter
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.
My lord, his majesty commended him to you by young Osric,
who brings back to him that you attend him in the hall.
He sends to know if your pleasure hold to play with Laertes,
- or that you will take longer time. - 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. - The king and queen and all are coming down.
- In happy time. - The queen desires you
to use some gentle entertainment to Laertes before you fall to play.
She well instructs me.
You will lose this wager, my lord.
I do not think so.
Since he went into France, I have been in continual practise,
I shall win at the odds.
But thou wouldst not think how ill all's here about my heart.
- But it is no matter. - Nay, good my lord.
It is but foolery
but it is such a kind of gain-giving, as would perhaps trouble a woman.
If your mind dislike any thing, obey it.
I will forestall their repair hither, and say you are not fit.
Not a whit,
we defy augury.
There's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow.
If it 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 knows aught of what he leaves,
what is't to leave betimes?
Let be.
Come, Hamlet, come, and take this hand from me.
Give me your pardon, sir,
I've done you wrong
but pardon't, as you are a gentleman. 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, honour 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 purposed evil
free me so far in your most generous thoughts,
that I have shot mine arrow o'er the house,
and hurt my brother.
I am satisfied in nature, whose motive, in this case, should stir me most to my revenge,
but in my terms of honour I stand aloof
and will no reconcilement, until by some elder masters, of known honour,
I have a voice and precedent of peace, to keep my name ungored.
But till that time, I do receive your offer'd love like love,
- and will not wrong it. - I do embrace it freely
and will this brother's wager frankly play.
- Give us the foils. Come on. - Come, one for me.
I'll be your foil, Laertes. In mine ignorance
your skill shall, like a star i' the darkest night,
- stick fiery off indeed. - You mock me, sir.
- No, by this hand. - Give them the foils, young Osric.
- Cousin Hamlet, you know the wager? - Very well, my lord.
Your grace hath laid the odds o' the weaker side.
I do not fear it I have seen you both,
but since he is better'd, we have therefore odds.
This one's too heavy, let me see another.
This likes me well. These foils have all a length?
Ay, my good lord.
Set me the stoops of wine upon that table.
If Hamlet give the first or second hit,
or quit in answer of the third exchange,
let all the battlements their ordnance fire.
The king shall drink to Hamlet's better breath
and in the cup an union shall he throw,
richer than that which four successive kings in Denmark's crown have worn.
Give me the cup and let the kettle to the trumpet speak,
the trumpet to the cannoneer without, the cannons to the heavens,
the heavens to earth, 'now the king drinks to Hamlet.'
Come, begin. And you, the judges,
- bear a wary eye. - Come on, sir.
Come, my lord.
- One. - No.
- Judgment. - A hit,
a very palpable hit.
- Well again. - Stay give me drink.
Hamlet, this pearl is thine
here's to thy health.
Give him the cup.
I'll play this bout first set it by awhile.
Come.
- Another hit what say you? - A touch, a touch, I do confess.
- Our son shall win. - He's fat, and scant of breath.
Here, Hamlet, take my napkin, rub thy brows.
The queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet.
- Good madam! - Gertrude!
Do not drink.
I will, my lord. I pray you, pardon me.
It is the poison'd cup: it is too late.
I dare not drink yet, madam by and by.
Come, let me wipe thy face.
- My lord, I'll hit him now. - I do not think't.
And yet 'tis almost 'gainst my conscience.
Attack!
Come, for the third, Laertes. You but dally
I pray you, pass with your best violence
I am afeard you make a wanton of me.
Say you so?
Come on.
Have at you now!
- Nothing, neither way. - Part them they are incensed.
Nay, come, again.
Look to the queen there, ho!
They bleed on both sides.
How is't, Laertes?
Why, as a woodcock to mine own springe, Osric.
I am justly kill'd with mine own treachery.
- How does the queen? - She swounds to see them bleed.
No, no, the drink, the drink!
O my dear Hamlet, the drink, the drink!
I am poison'd.
O villany!
Ho! Let the door be lock'd! Treachery! Seek it out.
It is here, Hamlet! Hamlet,
thou art slain no medicine in the world can do thee good
in thee there is not half an hour of life
the treacherous instrument is in thy hand,
unbated and envenom'd,
the foul practise hath turn'd itself on me.
Lo, here I lie, never to rise again: thy mother's poison'd.
I can no more:
the king, the king's to blame.
Treason!
The point! Envenom'd too!
Then, venom,
to thy work.
O, yet defend me, friends I am but hurt.
Here, thou incestuous, murderous, damned Dane,
drink off this potion. Is thy union here? Follow my mother.
He is justly served
it is a poison temper'd by himself.
Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet.
Mine and my father's death come not upon thee,
- nor thine on me. - Heaven make thee free of it!
I follow thee.
I am dead, Horatio.
Wretched queen, adieu!
You that look pale and tremble at this chance,
that are but mutes or audience to this act, had I but time
as this fell sergeant, death, is strict in his arrest
O, I could tell you... but let it be.
Horatio, I am dead thou livest
report me and my cause aright to the unsatisfied.
Never believe it,
I am more an antique Roman than a Dane.
- Here's yet some liquor left. - As thou'rt a man, give me the cup, let go!
By heaven!
I'll ha't.
O God, Horatio, what a wounded name,
things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me!
If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart
absent thee from felicity awhile, and in this harsh world
draw thy breath in pain, to tell my story.
What warlike noise is this?
Young Fortinbras, with conquest come from Poland,
to the ambassadors of England gives this warlike volley.
I die, Horatio.
The potent poison quite o'er-crows my spirit.
I cannot live to hear the news from England
but I do prophesy the election
lights on Fortinbras.
He hath my dying voice
so tell him, with the occurrents, more and less,
which have solicited.
The rest...
is...
silence.
Now cracks a noble heart.
Good night sweet prince...
and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!
Why does the drum come hither?
Where is this sight?
What is it ye would see?
If aught of woe or wonder, cease your search.
This quarry cries on havoc.
O proud death!
What feast is toward in thine eternal cell,
that thou so many princes at a shot so bloodily hast struck?
The sight is dismal
and our affairs from England come too late.
The ears are senseless that should give us hearing,
to tell him his commandment is fulfill'd,
that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead.
- Where should we have our thanks? - Not from his mouth,
had it the ability of life to thank you:
he never gave commandment for their death.
But since, so jump upon this...
bloody question,
you from the Polack wars, and you from England, are here arrived.
Give order that these bodies high on a stage be placed to the view
and let me speak to the yet unknowing world
how these things came about, so shall you hear
of carnal, bloody,
and unnatural acts,
of accidental judgments, casual slaughters,
of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause,
and, in this upshot, purposes mistook fall'n on the inventors' heads.
All this can I truly deliver.
Let us haste to hear it, and call the noblest to the audience.
For me, with sorrow I embrace my fortune.
I have some rights of memory in this kingdom,
which now to claim my vantage doth invite me.
Of that I shall have also cause to speak,
and from his mouth whose voice will draw on more
but let this same be presently perform'd,
even while men's minds are wild lest more mischance
on plots and errors, happen.
Let four captains bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to the stage
for he was likely, had he been put on, to have proved most royally,
and, for his passage, the soldiers' music and the rites of war speak loudly for him.
Take up the body!
Such a sight as this becomes the field, but here shows much amiss.
Go.
Bid the soldiers shoot.