Hamlet
When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
But in battalions!
_Enter_ MARCELLUS (R. _centre._)
_King._ What is the matter?
_Mar._ Save yourself, my lord:
The young Laertes, in a riotous head,[16]
O'erbears your officers. The rabble call him lord;
They cry, _Choose we: Laertes shall be king!_
Caps, hands, and tongues, applaud it to the clouds,
_Laertes shall be king, Laertes king!_
[_Noise within_, R.C.]
_Enter_ LAERTES, _armed_; Danes _following_ (R. _centre._)
_Laer._ Where is this king?--Sirs, stand you all without.
_Dan._ No, let's come in.
_Laer._ I pray you, give me leave.
_Dan._ We will, we will.
[_They retire without_, R.H.]
_Laer._ O, thou vile king,
Give me my father.
_Queen_
(_Interposing._)
Calmly, good Laertes.
_Laer._ (R.) 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.[17]
_King._ (L.) 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,[18]
That treason can but peep to what it would,
Acts little of his will.
Let him go, Gertrude.
[QUEEN _obeys._]
_Laer._ Where is my father?
_King._ Dead.
_Queen._ But not by him.
_King._ Let him demand his fill.
_Laer._ How came he dead? I'll not be juggled with:
To hell, allegiance! To this point I stand,
That both the worlds I give to negligence,[19]
Let come what comes; only I'll be reveng'd
Most throughly for my father.
_King._ Who shall stay you!
_Laer._ My will, not all the world's:[20]
And, for my means, I'll husband them so well,
They shall go far with little.
_King._ Good Laertes,
That I am guiltless of your father's death,
And am most sensible in grief[21] for it,
It shall as level to your judgment 'pear
As day does to your eye.
_Hor._
(_Without._)
Oh, poor Ophelia!
_King._ Let her come in.
_Enter_ OPHELIA (R.C.), _fantastically dressed with Straws
and Flowers._
_Laer._
(_Goes up_ L.C.)
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?
_Oph._ (R.C.)
_They bore him barefac'd on the bier_;
_And on his grave rain many a tear,--_
Fare you well, my dove!
_Laer._
(_Coming down_ R.)
Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge,
It could not move thus.
_Oph._ You must sing, _Down-a-down,[22] an you call him a-down-a._ O,
how well the wheel becomes it![23] 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;[24] pray you, love,
remember: and there is pansies,[25] that's for thoughts.
_Laer._ A document in madness; thoughts and remembrance fitted.
_Oph._ There's fennel for you,
(_crosses to the_ KING _on_ L.H.)
and columbines:[26] there's rue for you;
(_turns to the_ QUEEN, _who is_ R.C.)
and here's some for me:--we may call it herb of grace
o'Sundays:[27]--you may wear your rue with a difference.[28]--There's
a daisy:[29]--I would give you some violets,[30] but they withered
all when my father died:--They say he made a good end,----
_For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy--_[31]
_Laer._ (R.) Thought and affliction,[32] passion, hell itself,
She turns to favour and to prettiness.
_Oph._
_And will he not come again?_
_And will he not come again?_
_No, no, he is dead_,
_Gone to his death-bed_,
_He never will come again._
_His beard was white as snow_,
_All flaxen was his poll:_
_He is gone, he is gone_,
_And we cast away moan:_
_Heaven 'a mercy on his soul!_
And of all christian souls, I pray Heaven. Heaven be wi' you.
[_Exit_ OPHELIA, R.C., QUEEN _following._]
_Laer._ Do you see this, O Heaven?
_King._ (L.C.) Laertes, I must commune with your grief,[33]
Or you deny me right.
Be you content to lend your patience to us,
And we shall jointly labour with your soul
To give it due content.
_Laer._ (R.C.) Let this be so;
His means of death, his obscure funeral,--
No trophy, sword, nor hatchment o'er his bones,[34]
No noble rite nor formal ostentation,--
Cry to be heard,[35] 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.[36]
How now! what news?
_Enter_ BERNARDO (R.H.C.)
_Ber._ (C.) Letters, my lord, from Hamlet:
This to your majesty; this to the Queen.
_King._ From Hamlet! who brought them?
_Ber._ Sailors, my lord, they say; I saw them not.
_King._ Laertes, you shall hear them.--
Leave us.
[_Exit_, L.H.C.]
[Reads.]
_High and mighty, You shall know I am set naked on your kingdom.[37]
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._ (R.) Know you the hand?
_King._ (L.) 'Tis Hamlet's character:[38] _Naked,--_
And in a postscript 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,
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.
Some two months since,
Here was a gentleman of Normandy,
He made confession of[39] you;
And gave you such a masterly report,
For art and exercise in your defence,[40]
And for your rapier most especially,
That he cried out, 'twould be a sight indeed,
If one could match you: 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 you.
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._ 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,[41]
Most generous, and free from all contriving,
Will not peruse the foils:[42] so that, with ease,
Or with a little shuffling, you may choose
A sword unbated,[43] and, in a pass of practice,[44]
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[45] so rare,
Collected from all simples[46] 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._ (L.) Let's further think of this;
We'll make a solemn wager on your cunnings,[47]
When in your motion[48] 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;[49] whereon but sipping,
If he by chance escape your venom'd stuck,[50]
Our purpose may hold there. But stay, what noise?
_Enter_ QUEEN (R.C.)
_Queen._ (C.) One woe doth tread upon another's heel,
So fast they follow: Your sister's drown'd, Laertes.
_Laer._ (R.) Drown'd! O, where?
_Queen._ There is a willow grows aslant a brook,
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream;
Therewith fantastick garlands did she make
Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples;[51]
There, on the pendent boughs her cornet weeds
Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke;
When down her weedy trophies, and herself,
Fell in the weeping brook.
_Laer._ I forbid my tears: But yet
It is our trick:[52] nature her custom holds,
Let shame say what it will: when these are gone,
The woman will be out.[53]
Adieu, my lord:
I have a speech of fire, that fain would blaze,
But that this folly drowns it.[54]
[_Exeunt._ C.]
END OF ACT FOURTH.
Notes
Act IV
[Footnote IV.1: _Translate:_] Interpret.]
[Footnote IV.2: _In this brainish apprehension_,] Distempered,
brainsick mood.]
[Footnote IV.3: _Where the offender's scourge is weigh'd, But
never the offence._] When an offender is popular, the people
never consider what his crime was, but they scrutinise his
punishment.]
[Footnote IV.4: _Politick worms_] _i.e._, artful, cunning worms.]
[Footnote IV.5: _The wind at help_,] _i.e._, ready.]
[Footnote IV.6: _May'st not coldly set_] Set is to value or
estimate. "Thou may'st not _set little by it_, or _estimate it
lightly_."]
[Footnote IV.7: _Our sovereign process:_] _i.e._, our royal
design.]
[Footnote IV.8: _By letters conjuring to that effect_,] The verb
to conjure, in the sense of to supplicate, was formerly accented
on the first syllable.]
[Footnote IV.9: _Howe'er my haps_,] Chances of fortune.]
[Footnote IV.10: _His sandal shoon._] Shoon is the old plural of
shoe. The verse is descriptive of a pilgrim. While this kind of
devotion was in favour, love intrigues were carried on under that
mask.]
[Footnote IV.11: _Larded with sweet flowers_;] _i.e._, Garnished
with sweet flowers.]
[Footnote IV.12: _Heaven 'ield you._] Requite; yield you
recompence.]
[Footnote IV.13: _The owl was a baker's daughter._] This is in
reference to a story that was once prevalent among the common
people of Gloucestershire.]
[Footnote IV.14: _Conceit upon her father._] Fancies respecting
her father.]
[Footnote IV.15: _Don'd and dupp'd_] _To don_, is to _do on_, or
_put on_, as _doff_ is to _do off_, or _put off_. To _dupp_ is to
_do up_, or _lift up_ the latch.]
[Footnote IV.16: _In a riotous head_,] The tide, strongly
flowing, is said to pour in with a great _head_.]
[Footnote IV.17: _The chaste unsmirched brow of my true mother._]
_Unsmirched_ is unstained, not defiled.]
[Footnote IV.18: _Doth hedge a king_,] The word _hedge_ is used
by the gravest writers upon the highest subjects.]
[Footnote IV.19: _Both the worlds I give to negligence_,] I am
careless of my present and future prospects, my views in this
life, as well as that which is to come.]
[Footnote IV.20: _My will, not all the world's:_] _i.e._, by my
will as far as my will is concerned, not all the world shall stop
me; and, as for my means, I'll husband them so well, they shall
go far, though really little.]
[Footnote IV.21: _Sensible in grief_] Poignantly affected with.]
[Footnote IV.22: _You must sing Down-a-down_,] This was the
burthen of an old song, well known in Shakespeare's time.]