Cap.
Ham.

Against some part of Poland.
Who

Commands them, sir?

Cap. The nephew to old Norway, Fortinbras.
Ham. Goes it against the main of Poland, sir,
Or for some frontier?

Cap. Truly to speak, sir, and with no addition,
We go to gain a little patch of ground,
That hath in it no profit but the name.

To pay five durcats, five, I would not farm it;
Nor will it yield to Norway, or the Pole,
A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee.

Which, as her winks and nods, and gestures yield them,

Indeed would make one think, there might be thought,

Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.
Queen. "Twere good, she were spoken with;
for she may strew

Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds:
Let her come in.
[Erit Horatio.
To my sick soul, as sin's true nature is,
Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss;
So full of artless jealousy is guilt,

Ham. Why then the Polack never will de- It spills itself in fearing to be split.

fend it.

! Ros.

peace;

That inward breaks, and shows no cause without
Why the man dies.-I humbly thank you, sir.
Cap. God be wi' you, sir. Erit Captain.
Will't please you go, my lord?
Ham. I will be with you straight. Go a little
before.
[Exeunt Ros. and Guil.
How all occasions do inform against me,
And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,
If his chief good, and market of his time,
Be but to sleep, and feed? a beast, no more.
Sure, he that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before, and after, gave us not
That capability and godlike reason

To fust in us unus'd. Now, whether it be
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
Of thinking too precisely on the event,-

A thought, which, quarter'd, hath but one part
wisdom,

And, ever, three parts coward,-I do not know
Why yet I live to say, This thing's to do:
Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and

means,

To do't. Examples, gross as earth, exhort me:
Witness, this army of such mass, and charge,
Led by a delicate and tender prince;
Whose spirit, with divine ambition puff'd,
Makes mouths at the invisible event;
Exposing what is mortal, and unsure,
To all that fortune, death and danger, dare,
Even for an egg-shell. Rightly to be great,
Is, not to stir without great argument;
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw,
When honour's at the stake. How stand I then,
That have a father kill'd, a mother stain'd,
Excitements of my reason, and my blood,
And let all sleep? while, to my shame, I see
The imminent death of twenty thousand men,
That, for a fantasy, and trick of fame,
Go to their graves like beds: fight for a plot
Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause.
Which is not tomb enough, and continent,
To hide the slain !-O, from this time forth,
My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!

[Exit.

'Pray you, mark.

[Sings.

White his shroud as the mountain snow.
Queen. Alas, look here, my lord.
Enter King.
Oph. Larded all with sweet flowers;
Which bewept to the grave did go,
With true love showers.

King. How do you, pretty lady?

Oph. Well, God'ield you! They say, the owl was a baker's daughter. Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be. God be at your table!

King. Conceit upon her father.

Oph. 'Pray, let us have no words of this; but when they ask you, what it means, say you this: Good morrow, 'tis Saint Valentine's day, All in the morning betime,

And I a maid at your window,

To be your Valentine:

Then up he rose, and don'd his clothes,
And dupp'd the chamber door;

Let in the maid, that out a maid
Never departed more.

King. Pretty Ophelia !

Oph. Indeed, without an oath, I'll make an end on't:

By Gis, and by Saint Charity.

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.

[He answers.]

So would I ha' done, by yonder sun,
An thou hadst not come to my bed.
King. How long hath she been thus?
Oph. I hope, all will be well. We must be
patient: but I cannot choose but weep, to think,
they should lay him i' the cold ground: My bro-
ther 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. Follow her close! give her good watch,
I pray you.
[Exit Horatio

And like the kind life-rendering pelican,
Repast them with my blood.

King.
Why, now you speak
Like a good child, and a true gentleman.
That I am guiltless of your father's death,
And am most sensibly in grief for it,
It shall as level to your judgment pierce
As day does to your eye.
Danes. Within.].
Let her come in.

Where are my Switzers? Let them guard the Laer. How now! What noise is that?

And of all christian souls! I pray God. God be As by your safety, greatness, wisdom, all things wi' you!

Laer. Do you see this ? O God Exit Ophelia.

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 the 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;
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.

They say, they have letters for you.
Hor.

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.

else,

You mainly were stirr'd up.
King.

O, for two special reasons; Which may to you, perhaps, seem much un sinew'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 is 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 publick count I might not go,
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,
Would have reverted to my bow again,
And not where I had aim'd them.

Later. 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 perfection:-But my revenge will come.
King. Break not your sleeps for that: you must

not think,

That we can let our beard he shook with danger,
That we are made of stuff so flat and dull,
And think it pastime. You shortly shall hear

I

more:

loved your father, and we love ourself; And that, I hope, will teach you to imagine,-How now? what news?

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
They were given me by Claudio, he received
them
Of him that brought them.

not;

Leave us.
King

HAMLET.

What should this mean? are all the rest come

Hor. Reads] Horatio, when thou shalt have overlooked this, give these fellows some means to the king; they have letters for him. Ere we Laertes, you shall hear them :were two days old at sea, a pirate of very war[Exit Messenger. like appointment gave us chase: Finding our am set naked on your kingdom. To-morrow [Reads.] High and mighty, you shall know, I selves too slow of sail, we put on a compelled shall I beg leave to see your kingly eyes: when valour; and in the grapple I boarded them: I shall, first asking your pardon thereunto, on the instant, they got clear of our ship: so I recount the occasion of my sudden and more alone became their prisoner. They have dealt strange return. 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 Guilderstern hold their course for England: of them I have much to tell thee. Farewell.

back?

Or is it some abuse, and no such thing?
Laer. Know you the hand?
King.

And, in a postscript here, he says, alone:
"Tis Hamlet's character. Naked,-
Can you advise me?

Laer. I am lost in it, my lord. But let him

King. Now must your conscience my acquit-As
tance 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,

turn'd,-

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.
My lord, I will be rul'd;
The rather, if you could devise it so,

Laer.

It falls right.

That I might be the organ.
King.
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 gal-
lant

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.

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,
together,

And wager o'er your heads: he, being remiss,
Most generous and free from all contriving,
Will not perase 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.

I

Laer.

I will do 't:
And, for the purpose, I'll anoint my sword.
bought an unction of a mountebank,
So mortal, that but dip a knife in it,
Where it draws blood no cataplasin 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 slighty
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, Aud that our drift look through our bad per formance,

Twere better not assay'd: therefore this project A Norman was 't? Should have a back, or second, that might hold, If this should blast in proof. Soft;-let me see→→→ We'll make a solemn wager on your cunnings, I ha't:

Ler. Upon my like, Lamord.
King.

The very same. 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 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,
That hurts by easing. But, to the quick o' the
ulcer:

Hamlet comes back; What would you under-
take,

To show yourself in deed your father's son
More than in words?

Laer.
To cut his throat i' the church.
King. No place, indeed, should murder sanc-
tuarize;

Revenge should have no bounds. But, good
Laertes,

Will you do this, keep close within your cham-
ber:

Hamlet, return'd, shall know you are come home :

Enter Queen.

How now, sweet queen ?

Queen. One wo doth tread upon another's
heel,

So fast they follow:-Your sister's drown'd,
Laertes.

Laer. Drown'd! O where?

Queen. There is a willow grows ascaunt the
brook,

That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream:
Therewith fantastick garlands did she make
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, 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 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, she is drown'd]
Queen Drown'd, drown'd.
Laer. Too much of water hast thou, poet
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 women will be out.-Adieu, my lord!
I have a speech of fire, that fain would blaze,
But that this folly drowns it.
Erit
King.
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.

ACT V.

SCENE 1. A Church Yard.
Enter Two Clowns, with Spades, &c.

1 Clo. Is she to be buried in christian burial]
that wilfully seeks her own salvation?
2 Clo. I tell thee, she is; therefore make her
grave straight: the crowner hath set on her, and
finds it christian burial.

1 Clo. How can that be, unless she drowned herself in her own defence? 2 Clo. Why, 'tis found so.

1 Clo. It must be se offendendo; it cannot be else. For here lies the point: If fdrown myself wittingly, it argues an act; and an act hath three branches; it is, to act, to do, and to perform; Argal, she drowned herself wittingly." 2 Clo. Nay, but hear you, goodman delver. 1 Clo. Give me leave. Here lies the water; good: here stands the man; good: If the man go to this water, and drown himself, it is, will he, nill he, he goes; mark you that: but if the water come to him, and drown him, he drowns not himself: Argal, he, that is not guilty of his death, shortens not his own life.

2 Clo. But is this law?

1 Clo. Ay, marry is't; crowner's-quest law. 2 Clo. Will you ha' the truth on't? If this had not been a gentlewoman, she should have been buried out of christian burial.

1 Clo. Why there thou say 'st: And the more pity; that great folks shall have countenance in this world to drown or hang themselves more than their even-christian. Come, my spade. There is no ancient gentlemen but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers: they hold up Adam's profession.

2 Clo. Was he a gentleman 7

1 Clo. He was the first that ever bore arms. 2 Clo. Why, he had none.

1 Clo. What, art a heathen? How dost thou understand the scripture? The scripture says, Adam digged: Could he dig without arms? I'll put another question to thee: if thou answerest me not to the purpose, confess thy self

2 Clo. Go to.

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, the gallows may do well to thee. To't again: come.

2 Clo. Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a carpenter?

1 Clo. Ay, tell me that, and unyoke. 2 Clo. Marry, now I can tell.

1 Clo. To't.'

2 Clo. Mass, I cannot tell.

Enter Hamlet and Horatio, at a distance. 1 Clo. Cudgel thy brains no more about it; for your dull ass will not mend his pace with beating; and, when you are asked this question next, say, a grave-maker; the houses that he makes, last till doomsday. Go, get thee to Yaughan, and fetch me a stoup of liquor. [Exit 2 Clown 1 Clown digs, and sings. In youth, when I did love, did love, Methought, it was very sweet,

To contract, O, the time, for, ah, my behove O, methought, there was nothing meet. Ham. Has this fellow no feeling of his business? he sings at grave-making.

Hor. Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness.

1 Clo. But age, with his stealing steps,
Hath claw'd me in his clutch,
And hath shipped me into the land,
As if I had never been such.

[Throws up a scull. Ham. That scull had a tongue in it, and could sing once: How the knave jowls it to the ground, as if it were Cain's jawbone, that did the first murder! This might be the pate of a politician, which this ass now o'erreaches; one that would circumvent God, might it not? Hor. It might, my lord.

Ham. Or of a courtier; which could say,
Good-morrow, sweet lord! How dost thou,
good lord? This might be my lord such-a-one,
that praised my lord such-a-one's horse, when
he meant to beg it; might it not?
Hor. Ay, my lord.
Ham. Why, e'en so and now my lady
Worm's; chapless, and knocked about the
mazzard with a sexton's spade: Here's fine re-
volution, an we had the trick to see't. Did these
bones cost no more the breeding, but to play at
loggarts with them? mine ache to think on't.
1 Clo. A pickaxe and a spade, a spade, [Sings.
For-and a shrouding sheet:

O, a pit of clay for to be made
For such a guest is meet.

Throws up a scull. Ham. There's another: Why may not that be the scull of a lawyer? Where be his quiddi now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures, and tricks? why does he suffer this rude knave now to knock him about the sconce with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of his action of battery? Humph! This fellow might be in's time a great buyer of land, with his statutes, his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers, his recoveries: Is this the fine of his fines, and the recovery of his recoveries, to have his fine pate full of fine dirt? will his vouchers vouch him no more of his purchases, and double ones too, than the length and breadth of a pair of indentures? The very conveyances of his lands will hardly Jie in this box; and must the inheritor himself have no more? ha ?

Hor. Not a jot more, my lord.

Ham. Is not parchment made of sheep-skins? Hor. Ay, my lord, and of calves-skins too. Ham. They are sheep, and calves, which seek out assurance in that. I will speak to this fellow:-Whose grave's this, sirrah ? 1 Clo. Mine, sir

[Sings.

O, a pit of clay for to be made
For such a guest is meet.
Ham. I think it be thine, indeed, for thou
liest in't.

1 Clo. You lie out on't, sir, and therefore it is not yours: for my part, I do not lie in't, yet it is

mine.

Ham. Thou dost lie in't, to be in't, and say it is thine: 'tis for the dead, not for the quick; therefore thou liest.

1 Clo. 'Tis a quick lie, sir; 'twill away, again, from me to you.

Ham. What man dost thou dig it for?
1 Clo. For no man, sir.

1 Clo. For none neither.

Ham. What woman then?

Ham. Who is to be buried in't?

1 Clo. One, that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she's dead.

Ham. How absolute the knave is! we mus speak by the card, or equivocation will undo us. By the lord, Horatio, these three years I have taken note of it; the age has grown so picked, that the toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier, he galls his kibe.-How long hast thou been a grave maker?

1 Clo. Of all the days i' the year, I came to't that Ham. 'Tis e'en so: the hand of little employ-day that our last king Hamlet overcame For ment hath the daintier sense. tinbras.