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And of all Christian souls! I pray God. God be [Exit OPHELIA.

wi' you.

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 labour 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;
And, where th' offence is, let the great axe fall.
I pray you, go with me.
[Exeunt.

SCENE VI.-Another Room in the Same.

Enter HORATIO, and a Servant.

Hor. What are they, that would speak with me? Serv. Sailors, sir: they say, they have letters for you.

Hor. 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.

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.

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 valour; 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 would'st 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 fellows 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."

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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's so conjunctive to my life and soul,
That, as the star moves not but in his sphere,
1 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?

7

Mess.

Enter a Messenger.

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. Leave us.

Laertes, you shall hear them.[Exit Messenger. [Reads.] "High and mighty, you shall know, 1 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 occasions of my sudden and more strange return. HAMLET."

What should this mean? Are all the rest come back?

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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 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 wondrous 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.

Laer.

King. A Norman.

A Norman, was't?

The very same.

Laer. Upon my life, Lamord.
King.

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 especially

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

If one could match you; the scrimers of their nation,

He swore, had neither motion, guard, nor eye,
If you oppos'd them. Sir, 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. 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,
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's

sigh,

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King. No place, indeed, should murder sanc

tuarize;

Revenge should have no bounds. But, good Laertes,
Will you do this, keep close within your chamber.
Hamlet, returned, 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 to-
gether,

And wager on 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 that 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

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Laer. Drown'd! O, where?

Queen. There is a willow grows aslant a brook,
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream;
There, with fantastic garlands did she come
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,

And, mermaid-like, a while they bore her up;
Which time, she chanted snatches of old lauds ;
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indu'd
Unto that element: but long it could not be,
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.

Laer.

Alas! then, is she drown'd?

Queen. Drown'd, drown'd.

I have a speech of fire, that fain would blaze,

Laer. Too much of water hast thou, poor But that this folly drowns it.
Ophelia,

And therefore I forbid my tears; but yet
It is our trick; nature her custom holds,

Let shame say what it will: when these are gone,
The woman will be out.-Adieu, my lord!

King.

[Exit.

Let's follow, Gertrude.
How much I had to do to calm his rage!
Now fear I, this will give it start again;
Therefore, let's follow.

[Exeunt.

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1 Clo. What is he, that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?

2 Clo. The gallows-maker; for that frame outlives a thousand tenants.

1 Clo. I like thy wit well, in good faith: the gallows does well: but how does it well? it does well to those that do ill: now, thou dost ill to say the gallows is built stronger than the church: argal,

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