don 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? 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. turn'd, If he be now re 109 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, Laer. What part is that, my lord? I have seen myself, and serv'd against, the French, Come short of what he did. 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, If one could match you: the scrimers 110 of their na tion, He swore, had neither motion, guard, nor eye, If you oppos'd them: Sir, this report of his 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 fa ther; 111 But that I know, I 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 plurisy, Dies in his own too-much: That we would do, And hath abatements and delays as many, As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents; 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 Laer. To cut his throat i'the church. King. No place, indeed, should murder sanctua rize; Revenge should have no bounds. But, good Laertes, The Frenchman gave you; bring you, in fine, together, And wager o'er your heads: he, being remiss, Laer. So mortal, that, but dip a knife in it, King. Let's further think of this; |