Hamlet

Hamlet

ACT IV SCENE V	Elsinore. A room in the castle.
	Enter QUEEN GERTRUDE, HORATIO, and a Gentleman
QUEEN GERTRUDE	I will not speak with her.
Gentleman	She is importunate, indeed distract:
	Her mood will needs be pitied.
QUEEN GERTRUDE	What would she have?	5
Gentleman	She speaks much of her father; says she hears
	There's tricks i' the world; and hems, and beats her heart;
	Spurns enviously at straws; speaks things in doubt,
	That carry but half sense: her speech is nothing,
	Yet the unshaped use of it doth move	10
	The hearers to collection; they aim at it,
	And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts;
	Which, as her winks, and nods, and gestures
	yield them,
	Indeed would make one think there might be thought,	15
	Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.
HORATIO	'Twere good she were spoken with; for she may strew
	Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.
QUEEN GERTRUDE	Let her come in.
	Exit HORATIO
	To my sick soul, as sin's true nature is,	20
	Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss:
	So full of artless jealousy is guilt,
	It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.
	Re-enter HORATIO, with OPHELIA
OPHELIA	Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?
QUEEN GERTRUDE	How now, Ophelia!	25
OPHELIA	Sings
	How should I your true love know
	From another one?
	By his cockle hat and staff,
	And his sandal shoon.
QUEEN GERTRUDE	Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?	30
OPHELIA	Say you? nay, pray you, mark.
	Sings
	He is dead and gone, lady,
	He is dead and gone;
	At his head a grass-green turf,
	At his heels a stone.	35
QUEEN GERTRUDE	Nay, but, Ophelia,--
OPHELIA	Pray you, mark.
	Sings
	White his shroud as the mountain snow,--
	Enter KING CLAUDIUS
QUEEN GERTRUDE	Alas, look here, my lord.
OPHELIA	Sings
	Larded with sweet flowers	40
	Which bewept to the grave did go
	With true-love showers.
KING CLAUDIUS	How do you, pretty lady?
OPHELIA	Well, God 'ild you! They say the owl was a baker's
	daughter. Lord, we know what we are, but know not	45
	what we may be. God be at your table!
KING CLAUDIUS	Conceit upon her father.
OPHELIA	Pray you, let's have no words of this; but when they
	ask you what it means, say you this:
	Sings
	To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day,	50
	All in the morning betime,
	And I a maid at your window,
	To be your Valentine.
	Then up he rose, and donn'd his clothes,
	And dupp'd the chamber-door;	55
	Let in the maid, that out a maid
	Never departed more.
KING CLAUDIUS	Pretty Ophelia!
OPHELIA	Indeed, la, without an oath, I'll make an end on't:
	Sings
	By Gis and by Saint Charity,	60
	Alack, and fie for shame!
	Young men will do't, if they come to't;
	By cock, they are to blame.
	Quoth she, before you tumbled me,
	You promised me to wed.	65
	So would I ha' done, by yonder sun,
	An thou hadst not come to my bed.
KING CLAUDIUS	How long hath she been thus?
OPHELIA	I hope all will be well. We must be patient: but I
	cannot choose but weep, to think they should lay him	70
	i' the cold ground. My brother shall know of it:
	and so I thank you for your good counsel. Come, my
	coach! Good night, ladies; good night, sweet ladies;
	good night, good night.
	Exit
KING CLAUDIUS	Follow her close; give her good watch,	75
	I pray you.
	Exit HORATIO
	O, this is the poison of deep grief; it springs
	All from her father's death. O Gertrude, Gertrude,
	When sorrows come, they come not single spies
	But in battalions. First, her father slain:	80
	Next, your son gone; and he most violent author
	Of his own just remove: the people muddied,
	Thick and unwholesome in their thoughts and whispers,
	For good Polonius' death; and we have done but greenly,
	In hugger-mugger to inter him: poor Ophelia	85
	Divided from herself and her fair judgment,
	Without the which we are pictures, or mere beasts:
	Last, and as much containing as all these,
	Her brother is in secret come from France;
	Feeds on his wonder, keeps himself in clouds,	90
	And wants not buzzers to infect his ear
	With pestilent speeches of his father's death;
	Wherein necessity, of matter beggar'd,
	Will nothing stick our person to arraign
	In ear and ear. O my dear Gertrude, this,	95
	Like to a murdering-piece, in many places
	Gives me superfluous death.
	A noise within
QUEEN GERTRUDE	Alack, what noise is this?
KING CLAUDIUS	Where are my Switzers? Let them guard the door.
	Enter another Gentleman
	What is the matter?	100
Gentleman	Save yourself, my lord:
	The ocean, overpeering of his list,
	Eats not the flats with more impetuous haste
	Than young Laertes, in a riotous head,
	O'erbears your officers. The rabble call him lord;	105
	And, as the world were now but to begin,
	Antiquity forgot, custom not known,
	The ratifiers and props of every word,
	They cry 'Choose we: Laertes shall be king:'
	Caps, hands, and tongues, applaud it to the clouds:	110
	'Laertes shall be king, Laertes king!'
QUEEN GERTRUDE	How cheerfully on the false trail they cry!
	O, this is counter, you false Danish dogs!
KING CLAUDIUS	The doors are broke.
	Noise within
	Enter LAERTES, armed; Danes following
LAERTES	Where is this king? Sirs, stand you all without.	115
Danes	No, let's come in.
LAERTES	I pray you, give me leave.
Danes	We will, we will.
	They retire without the door
LAERTES	I thank you: keep the door. O thou vile king,
	Give me my father!	120
QUEEN GERTRUDE	Calmly, good Laertes.
LAERTES	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.	125
KING CLAUDIUS	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,
	That treason can but peep to what it would,	130
	Acts little of his will. Tell me, Laertes,
	Why thou art thus incensed. Let him go, Gertrude.
	Speak, man.
LAERTES	Where is my father?
KING CLAUDIUS	Dead.	135
QUEEN GERTRUDE	But not by him.
KING CLAUDIUS	Let him demand his fill.
LAERTES	How came he dead? I'll not be juggled with:
	To hell, allegiance! vows, to the blackest devil!
	Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit!	140
	I dare damnation. To this point I stand,
	That both the worlds I give to negligence,
	Let come what comes; only I'll be revenged
	Most thoroughly for my father.
KING CLAUDIUS	Who shall stay you?	145
LAERTES	My will, not all the world:
	And for my means, I'll husband them so well,
	They shall go far with little.
KING CLAUDIUS	Good Laertes,
	If you desire to know the certainty	150
	Of your dear father's death, is't writ in your revenge,
	That, swoopstake, you will draw both friend and foe,
	Winner and loser?
LAERTES	None but his enemies.
KING CLAUDIUS	Will you know them then?	155
LAERTES	To his good friends thus wide I'll ope my arms;
	And like the kind life-rendering pelican,
	Repast them with my blood.
KING CLAUDIUS	Why, now you speak
	Like a good child and a true gentleman.	160
	That I am guiltless of your father's death,
	And am most sensible in grief for it,
	It shall as level to your judgment pierce
	As day does to your eye.
Danes	Within
LAERTES	How now! what noise is that?	165
	Re-enter OPHELIA
	O heat, dry up my brains! tears seven times salt,
	Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye!
	By heaven, thy madness shall be paid by weight,
	Till our scale turn the beam. O rose of May!
	Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!	170
	O heavens! is't possible, a young maid's wits
	Should be as moral as an old man's life?
	Nature is fine in love, and where 'tis fine,
	It sends some precious instance of itself
	After the thing it loves.	175
OPHELIA	Sings
	They bore him barefaced on the bier;
	Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny;
	And in his grave rain'd many a tear:--
	Fare you well, my dove!
LAERTES	Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge,	180
	It could not move thus.
OPHELIA	Sings
	You must sing a-down a-down,
	An you call him a-down-a.
	O, how the wheel becomes it! It is the false
	steward, that stole his master's daughter.	185
LAERTES	This nothing's more than matter.
OPHELIA	There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray,
	love, remember: and there is pansies. that's for thoughts.
LAERTES	A document in madness, thoughts and remembrance fitted.
OPHELIA	There's fennel for you, and columbines: there's rue	190
	for you; and here's some for me: we may call it
	herb-grace o' Sundays: O you must wear your rue with
	a difference. There's a daisy: I would give you
	some violets, but they withered all when my father
	died: they say he made a good end,--	195
	Sings
	For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.
LAERTES	Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself,
	She turns to favour and to prettiness.
OPHELIA	Sings
	And will he not come again?
	And will he not come again?	200
	No, no, he is dead:
	Go to thy death-bed:
	He never will come again.
	His beard was as white as snow,
	All flaxen was his poll:	205
	He is gone, he is gone,
	And we cast away moan:
	God ha' mercy on his soul!
	And of all Christian souls, I pray God. God be wi' ye.
	Exit
LAERTES	Do you see this, O God?	210
KING CLAUDIUS	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	215
	They find us touch'd, we will our kingdom give,
	Our crown, our life, and all that we can 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	220
	To give it due content.
LAERTES	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--	225
	Cry to be heard, as 'twere from heaven to earth,
	That I must call't in question.
KING CLAUDIUS	So you shall;
	And where the offence is let the great axe fall.
	I pray you, go with me.	230
	Exeunt