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.

SCENE VII.

[Exeunt.

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,
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, 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 :5
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

6

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 :

[5] The common race of the people.

JOHNSON.

[6] If I may praise what has been, but is now to be found no more. JOHNSON.

I loved your father, and we love ourself;
And that, I hope, will teach you to imagine,-
How now? what news?

Enter a Messenger.

Mess. Letters, my lord, from Hamlet:
This to your majesty; this to the queen.
King. 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 :Léave 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 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 postcript here, he says, alone:

Can you advise me?

Laer. I am 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 diddest 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'er-rule me to a peace.

King. To thine own peace. If he be now return

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.

King. It falls right.

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 ribband 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.9

Laer. A Norman, was't?

King. A Norman.

Laer. Upon my life, Lamord.

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 especial,

That he cried out, 'twould be a sight indeed,

He

If one could match you: the scrimers of their nation,'
swore, had neither motion, guard, nor eye,
you oppos'd them: Sir, this report of his

If

Did Hamlet so envenom with his envy,
That he could nothing do, but wish and beg
Your sudden coming o'er, to play with you.

66

[7] Of the lowest rank. Siege for seat, place. JOHNSON.
-I fetch my birth
"From men of royal siege."

So in Othello,

STEEVENS.

[8] Importing, here may be, not inferring by logical consequence, but producing by physical effect. A young man regards show in his dress, an old man health. JOHNSON.

[9] I could not contrive so many proofs of dexterity as he could perform. JOHNS. Scrimers---fencers. From escrimeur, Fr. a fencer. JOHNSON,

Now, out of this,

Laer. What out of this, my lord?

King. Laertes, was your father dear to you?

Or are you like the painting of a sorrow,

A face without a heart?

Laer. Why ask you this?

King. 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,3

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?

Laer. To cut his throat i'the church.

King. 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 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,

[2] This is obscure. The meaning may be, love is not innate in us, and coessential to our nature, but begins at a certain time from some external cause, and being always subject to the operations of time, suffers change and diminution. JOHNS. [3] In transactions of daily experience. JOHNSON.

[4] I would believe, for the honour of Shakespeare, that he wrote plethory. But I observe that the dramatic writers of that time frequently call a fulness of blood a plurisy. WARBURTON.

[5] A sigh that makes an unnecessary waste of the vital flame. It is a notion very prevalent, that sighs impair the strength, and wear out the animal powers. JOHNS. [6] Unbated, i. e. not blunted as foils are by a button fixed at the end. MALONE.

J

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 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 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 ascaunt the 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;

[7] It is a matter of surprise, that no one of Shakespeare's numerous and able commentators has remarked, with proper warmth and detestation, the villanous assassin-like treachery of Laertes in this horrid plot. There is the more occasion that he should be here pointed out an object of abhorrence, as he is a character we are, in some preceding parts of the play, led to respect and admire. RITSON.