Hamlet

Hamlet

ACT IV SCENE VII	Another room in the castle.
	Enter KING CLAUDIUS and LAERTES
KING CLAUDIUS	Now must your conscience my acquaintance 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	5
	Pursued my life.
LAERTES	It well appears: but tell me
	Why you proceeded not against these feats,
	So crimeful and so capital in nature,
	As by your safety, wisdom, all things else,	10
	You mainly were stirr'd up.
KING CLAUDIUS	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--	15
	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,
	I could not but by her. The other motive,
	Why to a public count I might not go,	20
	Is the great love the general gender bear him;
	Who, dipping all his faults in their affection,
	Would, 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,	25
	Would have reverted to my bow again,
	And not where I had aim'd them.
LAERTES	And so have I a noble father lost;
	A sister driven into desperate terms,
	Whose worth, if praises may go back again,	30
	Stood challenger on mount of all the age
	For her perfections: but my revenge will come.
KING CLAUDIUS	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	35
	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--
	Enter a Messenger
	How now! what news?
Messenger	Letters, my lord, from Hamlet:	40
	This to your majesty; this to the queen.
KING CLAUDIUS	From Hamlet! who brought them?
Messenger	Sailors, my lord, they say; I saw them not:
	They were given me by Claudio; he received them
	Of him that brought them.	45
KING CLAUDIUS	Laertes, you shall hear them. Leave us.
	Exit Messenger
	Reads
	'High and mighty, You shall know I 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 occasion of my sudden	50
	and more strange return. 'HAMLET.'
	What should this mean? Are all the rest come back?
	Or is it some abuse, and no such thing?
LAERTES	Know you the hand?
KING CLAUDIUS	'Tis Hamlets character. 'Naked!	55
	And in a postscript here, he says 'alone.'
	Can you advise me?
LAERTES	I'm 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,	60
	'Thus didest thou.'
KING CLAUDIUS	If it be so, Laertes--
	As how should it be so? how otherwise?--
	Will you be ruled by me?
LAERTES	Ay, my lord;	65
	So you will not o'errule me to a peace.
KING CLAUDIUS	To thine own peace. If he be now return'd,
	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,	70
	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 practise
	And call it accident.
LAERTES	My lord, I will be ruled;	75
	The rather, if you could devise it so
	That I might be the organ.
KING CLAUDIUS	It falls right.
	You have been talk'd of since your travel much,
	And that in Hamlet's hearing, for a quality	80
	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.
LAERTES	What part is that, my lord?	85
KING CLAUDIUS	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,	90
	Here was a gentleman of Normandy:--
	I've seen myself, and served 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,	95
	As he had been incorpsed and demi-natured
	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.
LAERTES	A Norman was't?	100
KING CLAUDIUS	A Norman.
LAERTES	Upon my life, Lamond.
KING CLAUDIUS	The very same.
LAERTES	I know him well: he is the brooch indeed
	And gem of all the nation.	105
KING CLAUDIUS	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,	110
	If one could match you: the scrimers of their nation,
	He swore, had had neither motion, guard, nor eye,
	If you opposed them. Sir, this report of his
	Did Hamlet so envenom with his envy
	That he could nothing do but wish and beg	115
	Your sudden coming o'er, to play with him.
	Now, out of this,--
LAERTES	What out of this, my lord?
KING CLAUDIUS	Laertes, was your father dear to you?
	Or are you like the painting of a sorrow,	120
	A face without a heart?
LAERTES	Why ask you this?
KING CLAUDIUS	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,	125
	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,	130
	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 sigh,	135
	That hurts by easing. But, to the quick o' the ulcer:--
	Hamlet comes back: what would you undertake,
	To show yourself your father's son in deed
	More than in words?
LAERTES	To cut his throat i' the church.	140
KING CLAUDIUS	No place, indeed, should murder sanctuarize;
	Revenge should have no bounds. But, good Laertes,
	Will you do this, keep close within your chamber.
	Hamlet return'd shall know you are come home:
	We'll put on those shall praise your excellence	145
	And set a double varnish on the fame
	The Frenchman gave you, bring you in fine together
	And wager on your heads: he, being remiss,
	Most generous and free from all contriving,
	Will not peruse the foils; so that, with ease,	150
	Or with a little shuffling, you may choose
	A sword unbated, and in a pass of practise
	Requite him for your father.
LAERTES	I will do't:
	And, for that purpose, I'll anoint my sword.	155
	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	160
	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 CLAUDIUS	Let's further think of this;
	Weigh what convenience both of time and means	165
	May fit us to our shape: if this should fail,
	And that our drift look through our bad performance,
	'Twere better not assay'd: therefore this project
	Should have a back or second, that might hold,
	If this should blast in proof. Soft! let me see:	170
	We'll make a solemn wager on your cunnings: I ha't.
	When in your motion 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, whereon but sipping,	175
	If he by chance escape your venom'd stuck,
	Our purpose may hold there.
	Enter QUEEN GERTRUDE
	How now, sweet queen!
QUEEN GERTRUDE	One woe doth tread upon another's heel,
	So fast they follow; your sister's drown'd, Laertes.	180
LAERTES	Drown'd! O, where?
QUEEN GERTRUDE	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	185
	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	190
	Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide;
	And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up:
	Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes;
	As one incapable of her own distress,
	Or like a creature native and indued	195
	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.
LAERTES	Alas, then, she is drown'd?	200
QUEEN GERTRUDE	Drown'd, drown'd.
LAERTES	Too much of water hast thou, poor 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,	205
	The woman will be out. Adieu, my lord:
	I have a speech of fire, that fain would blaze,
	But that this folly douts it.
	Exit
KING CLAUDIUS	Let's follow, Gertrude:
	How much I had to do to calm his rage!	210
	Now fear I this will give it start again;
	Therefore let's follow.
	Exeunt