134

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, ga

Winner and loser?

Laertes. None but his enemies.

King.

Will you know them then?

Laertes. 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 straight

As day does to your eye.

Danes. [Within]

Let her come in.

Laertes. How now! what noise is that?—

Re-enter OPHELIA.

O heat, dry up my brains! tears seven times salt,

Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye! fower.
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?

140

Nature is fine in love, and where 't is fine veraly delicate
It sends some precious instance of itself ff, specimen,

After the thing it loves.

Ophelia. [Sings] They bore him barefac'd on the bier:

Fare you well, my

Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny; And on his grave rains many a tear.dove!

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

Ophelia. You must sing, Down a-down, and you call him
a-down-a. O, how the wheel becomes it!

steward, that stole his master's daughter.
Laertes. This nothing's more than matter.

It is the false of g how well this goes with the spinning is compargment.

Ophelia. There's rosemary, that 's for remembrance; Shegive pray you, love, remember: and there is pansies, that's the flowers for thoughts.

manny.

Laertes. A document in madness, thoughts and remem-
brance fitted.
Tessou
is that thought follows 160 m
Ophelia. 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 dif-
ference. 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,-

[Sings] For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy. Auxilias Laertes. Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself, She turns to favour and to prettiness.

attractiveness, charm..

Ophelia. [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.

His beard was white as snow,
All flaxen was his poll;

He is gne, 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.

Laertes. 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.

170

179

[Exit.

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.

Laertes.

Let this be so;

His means of death, his obscure burial- the meaus
No trophy, sword, nor hatchment o'er his bones,

Customary No noble rite nor formal ostentation—

190

his death.

an Armorial escutchere

used at

exhibition Cry to be heard, as 't were from heaven to earth, funerals. That I must call 't in question. enquire into it.

King.

So you shall;

And where the offence is let the great axe fall.

I pray you, go with me.

[Exeuni.

SCENE VI. Another Room in the Castle.

Enter HORATIO and a Servant.

Horatio. What are they that would speak with me?

Servant. Sailors, sir; they say they have letters for you.
Horatio. Let them come in.—

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.

Horatio. Let him bless thee too.

[Exit Servani.

1 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 your name be Horatio, as I am let to know it is. loused. Horatio. [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; in the grapple I board-
ed 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 speed 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 fel-
lows will bring thee where I am. Rosencrantz and Guilden-
stern hold their course for England; of them I have much to tell
thee. Farewell. He that thou knowest thine, HAMLET.'
Come, I will make you way for these your letters;
And do 't the speedier, that you may direct me
To him from whom you brought them.

SCENE VII. Another Room in the Castle.

Enter KING and LAERTES.

27

[Exeunt.

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 slair
Pursued my life.

Laertes.

It well appears; but tell me

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

As by your safety, wisdom, all things else,

You mainly were stirr'd up. powerfully,

King.

O, for two special reasons,

Which may to you perhaps seem much unsinew'd, strengthless (chs)

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,

chisely joined

That, as the star moves not but in his sphere, "native in our

account, trial

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,
And not where I had aim'd them.

state

reverge

спишки гале

20

Laertes. And so have I a noble father lost;
A sister driven into desperate terms,
Whose worth, if praises may go back again,
If the Stood challenger on mount of all the age
place ofe
For her perfections: but my revenge will come.
above (ch]
King. Break not your sleeps for that; you must not think
That we are made of stuff so flat and dull

stood chaws in for hee perfecting above me of the age.

That 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;

And that, I hope, will teach you to imagine

Enter a Messenger.

31

any

How now! what news?

Messenger.

Letters, my lord, from Hamlet:

This to your majesty; this to the queen.

King. From Hamlet! who brought them?

Messenger. Sailors, my lord, they say; I saw them not:
They were given to me by Claudio; he receiv'd them
Of him that brought them.

King.
Leave us.

4C

Laertes, you shall hear them.-
[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