Hamlet
_King._ Set me the stoups of wine[70] upon that table.--
[Pages _exeunt_ R. _and_ L.]
If Hamlet give the first or second hit,
Or quit[71] in answer to 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,[72]
Richer than that which four successive kings
In Denmark's crown have worn.
[Pages _return with wine._]
Give me the cup;
And let the kettle[73] to the trumpet speak,
The trumpet to the cannoneer without,
The cannons to the heavens, the heaven to earth,
_Now the king drinks to Hamlet._--Come, begin;
And you, the judges, bear a wary eye.
_Ham._ Come on, sir.
_Laer._ Come, my lord.
[_They play._]
_Ham._ One.
_Laer._ No.
_Ham._ Judgment.
_Osr._ A hit, a very palpable hit.
_Laer._ Well:--again.
_King._ Stay; give me drink. Hamlet, this pearl is thine;
[_Drops poison into the goblet._]
Here's to thy health.
[_Pretends to drink._]
[_Trumpets sound; and cannon shot off within._]
Give him the cup.
_Ham._ I'll play this bout first; set it by awhile.
[Page _places the goblet on table_, L.]
Come.
Another hit; What say you?
[_They play._]
_Laer._ A touch, a touch, I do confess.
_King._ Our son shall win.
_Queen._ The Queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet.[74]
_Ham._ Good madam!----
[_Trumpets sound._]
_King._ Gertrude, do not drink.
_Queen._ I have, my lord; I pray you, pardon me.
_King._ It is the poison'd cup; it is too late.
[_Aside._]
_Laer._ I'll hit him now
And yet it is almost against my conscience.
[_Aside._]
_Ham._ Come, for the third, Laertes: You do but dally;
I pray you, pass with your best violence;
I am afeard you make a wanton of me.[75]
_Laer._ Say you so? come on.
[_They play._]
[LAERTES _wounds_ HAMLET; _then, in scuffling they change
Rapiers, and_ HAMLET _wounds_ LAERTES.]
_King._ Part them; they are incensed.
_Ham._ Nay, come, again.
[_The_ QUEEN _falls back in her chair._]
_Osr._
(_Supporting_ LAERTES, R.)
Look to the queen there, ho!
_Hor._
(_Supporting_ HAMLET, L.)
How is it, my lord?
_Osr._ How is't, Laertes?
_Laer._ Why, as a woodcock to my own springe,[76] Osric;
I am justly killed with mine own treachery.
_Ham._ How does the queen?
_King._ She swoons to see them bleed.
_Queen._ No, no, the drink, the drink,--O, my dear Hamlet,--
The drink, the drink! I am poison'd.
[_The_ QUEEN _is conveyed off the stage by her attendant_
Ladies, _in a dying state_, L.H.U.E.]
_Ham._ O villainy! Ho! let the doors be lock'd:
Treachery! seek it out.
[LAERTES _falls._]
_Laer._ (R.) 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's life;
The treacherous instrument is in thy hand,
Unbated and envenom'd:[77] the foul practice[78]
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.
_Ham._ The point
Envenom'd too! Then, venom, to thy work.
Here, thou incestuous, murd'rous, damnèd Dane,
Follow my mother.
[_Stabs the_ KING, _who is borne away by his attendants,
mortally wounded_, R.H.U.E.]
_Laer._ He is justly serv'd;
Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet:
Mine and my father's death come not upon thee,
Nor thine on me!
[_Dies._]
_Ham._ (C.) Heaven make thee free of it! I follow thee.
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,[79]
Is strict in his arrest), O, I could tell you,--
But let it be. Horatio,
Report me and my cause aright
To the unsatisfied.
_Hor._ (L.) Never believe it:
I am more an antique Roman than a Dane:
Here's yet some liquor left.
[_Seizing the goblet on table_, L.]
_Ham._ As thou'rt a man,--
Give me the cup: let go; by heaven, I'll have it.
[_Dashes the goblet away._]
O good Horatio, what a wounded name,
Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me![80]
If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart,
Absènt thee from felicity awhile,
And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,
To tell my story.--
O, I die, Horatio;
The potent poison quite o'er-crows my spirit;[81]
The rest is silence.
[_Dies_, C., OSRIC _on his_ R., _and_ HORATIO _on his_ L.]
_Dead March afar off._
_Curtain slowly descends._
THE END.
Notes
Act V
[Footnote V.1: _Enter two Clowns_,] These characters are not in
the original story, but are introduced by Shakespeare.]
[Footnote V.2: _Make her grave straight:_] _i.e._, straightways,
forthwith.]
[Footnote V.3: _The crowner_] A corruption of coroner.]
[Footnote V.4: _It must be se offendendo_;] A confusion of things
as well as of terms: used for _se defendendo_, a finding of the
jury in justifiable homicide.]
[Footnote V.5: _To act, to do, and to perform:_] Warburton says,
this is ridicule on scholastic divisions without distinction, and
of distinctions without difference.]
[Footnote V.6: _Argal_,] A corruption of the Latin word, _ergo,
therefore_.]
[Footnote V.7: _Delver._] _i.e._, a digger, one that opens the
ground with a spade.]
[Footnote V.8: _If the man go to this water,--it is, will he,
nill he, he goes_,] Still floundering and confounding himself. He
means to represent it as a _wilful_ act, and of course without
any mixture of _nill_ or nolens in] it. Had he gone, as stated,
whether he _would or not_, it would not have been of his own
accord, or his act.]
[Footnote V.9: _Crowner's-quest law._] Crowner's-quest is a
vulgar corruption of coroner's inquest.]
[Footnote V.10: _Why, there thou say'st_] Say'st something,
speak'st to the purpose.]
[Footnote V.11: _More than their even christian._] An old English
expression for fellow-christian.]
[Footnote V.12: _Was he a gentleman?_] Mr. Douce says this is
intended as a ridicule upon heraldry.]
[Footnote V.13: _Confess thyself----_] Admit, or by
acknowledgment pass sentence upon thyself, as a simpleton?
"Confess, and be hanged," was a proverbial sentence.]
[Footnote V.14: _Tell me that, and unyoke._] Unravel this, and
your day's work is done, your team may then unharness.]
[Footnote V.15: _Cudgel thy brains no more about it_;] _i.e._,
beat about thy brains no more.]
[Footnote V.16: _A stoup of liquor._] A stoup is a jug.]
[Footnote V.17: _In youth, when I did love, did love._] The three
stanzas sung here by the Grave-Digger, are extracted, with a
slight variation, from a little poem called _The Aged Lover
renounceth Love_, written by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, who
was beheaded in 1547. The song is to be found in Dr. Percy's
_Reliques of Ancient English Poetry_.]
[Footnote V.18: _The hand of little employment hath the daintier
sense._] _i.e._, its "palm less dulled or staled."]
[Footnote V.19: _But to play at loggats with them?_] A _loggat_
is a small _log_, or piece of wood; a diminutive from _log_.
Hence _loggats_, as the name of an old game among the common
people, and one of those forbidden by a statute of the 33rd of
Henry VIII. A stake was fixed into the ground, and those who
played threw _loggats_ at it.]
[Footnote V.20: _For and a shrouding sheet:_] For and is an
ancient expression, answering to _and eke, and likewise_.]
[Footnote V.21: _Where be his quiddits now, his quillets_,]
Quiddits are subtilties; quillets are nice and frivolous
distinctions.]
[Footnote V.22: _Knock him about the sconce_] _i.e._, head.]
[Footnote V.23: _How absolute the knave is!_] Peremptory,
strictly and tyrannously precise.]
[Footnote V.24: _We must speak by the card_,] The _card_ is the
mariner's compass. Properly the paper on which the points of the
wind are marked. Hence, _to speak by the card_, meant to speak
with great exactness; true to a point.]
[Footnote V.25: _The very day that young Hamlet was born_,] It
would appear by this that Hamlet was thirty years old, and knew
Yorick well, who had been dead twenty-two years.]
[Footnote V.26: _Favour_] Feature, countenance, or complexion.]
[Footnote V.27: _'Twere to consider too curiously_,] Be pressing
the argument with too much critical nicety, to dwell upon mere
possibilities.]
[Footnote V.28: _Imperial Cæsar_,] In some edition it is
_imperious_ Cæsar. Imperious was a more ancient term, signifying
the same as imperial.]
[Footnote V.29: _The winter's flaw!_] _i.e._, winter's blast.]
[Footnote V.30: _Maimèd rites?_] Curtailed, imperfect.]
[Footnote V.31: _Fordo its own life:_] Destroy.]
[Footnote V.32: _'Twas of some estate._] _i.e._, of rank or
station.]
[Footnote V.33: _Command o'ersways the order_,] The course which
ecclesiastical rules prescribe.]
[Footnote V.34: _Shards_,] _i.e._, broken pots or tiles.]
[Footnote V.35: _Virgin crants_,] _i.e._, virgin garlands. Nares,
in his Glossary, says that _crants_ is a German word, and
probably Icelandic.]
[Footnote V.36: _Bringing home of bell and burial_,] Conveying to
her last home with these accustomed forms of the church, and this
sepulture in consecrated ground.]
[Footnote V.37: _A requiem_,] A mass performed in Popish churches
for the rest of the soul of a person deceased.]
[Footnote V.38: _Churlish priest_,] Churlish is, figuratively,
ill-humoured, ill-bred, uncourtly, "rustic and rude."]
[Footnote V.39: _Ingenious sense_] Life and sense.]
[Footnote V.40: _To o'ertop old Pelion_,] Pelion is one of a
lofty range of mountains in Thessaly. The giants, in their war
with the gods, are said to have attempted to heap Ossa and
Olympus on Pelion, in order to scale Heaven.]
[Footnote V.41: _Outface me_] _i.e._, brave me.]
[Footnote V.42: _Our ground_,] The earth about us.]
[Footnote V.43: _Ossa_] A celebrated mountain in Thessaly,
connected with Pelion, and in the neighbourhood of Mount
Olympus.]
[Footnote V.44: _Her golden couplets are disclos'd_,] To
disclose, was anciently used for to _hatch_. A pigeon never lays
more than two eggs.]
[Footnote V.45: _The cat will mew, and dog, &c._] "Things have
their appointed course; nor have we power to divert it," may be
the sense here conveyed.]
[Footnote V.46: _Strengthen your patience in our last night's
speech_;] Let the consideration of the topics then urged, confirm
your resolution taken of quietly waiting events a little longer.]
[Footnote V.47: _This grave shall have a living monument:_] There
is an ambiguity in this phrase. It either means an _endurable_
monument such as will outlive time, or it darkly hints at the
impending fate of Hamlet.]
[Footnote V.48: _Image of my cause_,] Representation or
character.]
[Footnote V.49: _Dost know this water-fly?_] Dr. Johnson remarks
that a _water-fly_ skips up and down upon the surface of the