Cap. Ham.

Against some part of Poland.

Commands them, sir?

Who Cap. The nephew to old Norway, Fortinbras. Ham. Goes it against the main of Poland, sir, Or for some frontier?

Cap. Truly to speak, sir, and with no addition, We go to gain a little patch of ground, That hath in it no profit but the name. To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it; Nor will it yield to Norway, or the Pole, A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee.

Ham. Why, then the Polack never will defend it. Cap. Yes, 'tis already garrison'd.

Ham. Two thousand souls, and twenty thousand ducats,

Will not debate the question of this straw:
This is the imposthume of much wealth and peace;
That inward breaks, and shows no cause without
Why the man dies.-I humbly thank you, sir.
Cap. God be wi' you, sir. [Exit Captain.
Ros.
Will't please you go, my lord?
Ham. I will be with you straight. Go a little
[Exeunt Ros. and GUIL.

before.

How all occasions do inform against me,
And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,
If his chief good, and market of his time,
Be but to sleep, and feed? a beast, no more.
Sure, He, that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before, and after, gave us not
That capability and godlike reason

Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple

Spurns enviously at straws: speaks things in doubt,
That carry but half sense: her speech is nothing,
Yet the unshaped use of it doth move
The hearers to collection: they aim at it,
And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts;
Which, as her winks, and nods, and gestures yield
them,

Indeed would make one think, there might be thought,

Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.

Queen. "Twere good she were spoken with; for she may strew

Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds:
Let her come in.
[Exit HORATIO.

To my sick soul, as sin's true nature is,
Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss:
So full of artless jealousy is guilt,
It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.

Re-enter HORATIO, with OPHELIA. Oph. Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?

Queen. How now, Ophelia ?

Oph. How should I your true love know
From another one?

By his cockle hat and staff,

And his sandle shoon.'

[Singing.

To fust in us unused. Now, whether it be

Of thinking too precisely on the event,

A thought, which quarter'd, hath but one part wisdom,

O, ho!

Queen. Nay, but Ophelia,

Oph.

[Sings.

And, ever, three parts coward,-I do not know
Why yet I live to say, This thing's to do;
Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means,
To do't. Examples, gross as earth, exhort me:
Witness, this army of such mass, and charge,
Led by a delicate and tender prince:
Whose spirit, with divine ambition puff'd,
Makes mouths at the invisible event;
Exposing what is mortal, and unsure,

To all that fortune, death, and danger, dare,
Even for an egg-shell. Rightly to be great,
Is not to stir without great argument;
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw,
When honor's at the stake. How stand I then,
That have a father kill'd, a mother stain'd,
Excitements of my reason, and my blood,
And let all sleep? while, to my shame, I see
The imminent death of twenty thousand men,
That, for a fantasy, and trick of fame,

Go to their graves like beds; fight for a plot
Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,
Which is not tomb enough, and continent
To hide the slain ?-O, from this time forth
My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth! [Exit.
SCENE V.-Elsinore. A Room in the Castle.
Enter QUEEN and HORATIO.

Queen. I will not speak with her.
Hor. She is importunate; indeed, distract;
Her mood will needs be pitied.

Queen.

What would she have?

Pray you, mark.

[Sings.

White his shroud as the mountain snow,

Enter KING.

Queen. Alas, look here, my lord.

Oph.

Larded all with sweet flowers;
Which bewept to the grave did go,
With true-love showers.

King. How do you, pretty lady?

Oph. Well, God 'ield' you! They say the owl was a baker's daughter. Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be. God be at your table!

King. Conceit upon her father.

Oph. Pray, let us have no words of this; but when they ask you, what it means, say you this: Good morrow, 'tis 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 don'd his clothes,

And dupp'd the chamber door;

Let in the maid, that out a maid
Never departed more.

King. Pretty Ophelia!

So would I ha' done, by yonder sun, An thou hadst not come to my bed.. King. How long hath she been thus? Oph. 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. [Exit. King. Follow her close; give her good watch, I pray you. [Exit HORATIO. O, this is the poison of deep grief; it springs All from her father's death: And now behold, O Gertrude, Gertrude,

When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
But in battalions! First, her father slain;
Next, your son gone; and he most violent author
Of his own just remove: The people muddied,
Thick and unwholesome in their thoughts and
whispers,

For good Polonius' death; and we have done but greenly,

In hugger-mugger to inter him: Poor Ophelia
Divided from herself, and her fair judgment;
Without the which we are pictures, or mere beasts.
Last, and as much containing as all these,
Her brother is in secret come from France:
Feeds on his wonder, keeps himself in clouds,
And wants not buzzers to infect his ear
With pestilent speeches of his father's death;
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
Gives me superfluous death! [A Noise within.
Queen.
Alack! what noise is this?
Enter a Gentleman.

King. Attend.

Where are my Switzers? Let them guard the door: What is the matter?

Gent.

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!

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

without.

Calmly, good Laertes.

Laer. 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.

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-
trude ;-
Speak, man.

Laer. Where is my father?

King. Queen.

Dead.

But not by him.

arms;

And, like the kind life-rend'ring pelican,
Repast them with my blood.

King.
Why, now you speak
That I am guiltless of your father's death,
Like a good child and a true gentleman.
And am most sensibly in grief for it,
It shall as level to your judgment 'pear,
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?
Nature is fine' in love: and, where 'tis fine,
It sends some precious instance of itself
After the thing it loves.

Oph. They bore him barefaced 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

revenge,

It could not move thus.

Oph. You must sing, Down-a-down, an you call Clean, undefiled.

• Artful.

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.

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-you may 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,—
[Sings.
Laer. Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself,
She turns to favor, and to prettiness.
Oph. 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 as white as snow,

All flaxen was his poll:

He is gone, he is gone,
And we cast away moan;
God 'a mercy on his soul!

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 valor; 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 fel lows 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.

And of all Christian souls! I pray God. God be
wi' you!
[Exit OPHELIA.
Laer. 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:
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 labor 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,

Hor. What are they, that would speak with me?
Serv.
Sailors, sir;
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.

They say, they have letters for you.
Hor.

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.

1 The burthen.

i. e. By its Sunday name, "herb of grace," mine is merely rue, i. e. sorrow.

SCENE VII.-Another Room in the same.

Enter KING and LAERTES.

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, Pursued 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, greatness, 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

mother,

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 public count I might not go
Is, the great love the general gender bear him;
Who, dipping all his faults in their affection,
Work 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,

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?

King. Leave us.

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 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?
Laer. Know you the hand?

King.

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

So you will not o'er-rule me to a peace.
King. To thine own peace. If he be now re-
turn'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 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.

It falls right.

King. 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. 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 wond'rous 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.

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 pleurisy,

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?

Laer.
To cut his throat i' the church.
King. No place, indeed, should murder sanctu
arize;
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 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.

Laer.
I will do't:
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 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 perform-