Hamlet (22 page)

HAMLET
    What, the fair Ophelia!

GERTRUDE
    Sweets to the sweet. Farewell!

I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet’s wife:

I thought thy bride-bed to have decked, sweet maid,

And not t’have strewed thy grave.

LAERTES
    O, treble woe

Fall ten times treble on that cursèd head

Whose wicked deed thy most
ingenious sense
²³⁷

Deprived thee of!— Hold off the earth awhile,

Till I have caught her once more in mine arms:

Now pile your dust upon the
quick
²⁴⁰
and dead,

Till of this flat a mountain you have made,

To o’ertop old
Pelion
²⁴²
or the skyish head

Of blue Olympus.

HAMLET
    What is he whose grief

Bears such an
emphasis
²⁴⁵
? Whose phrase of sorrow

Conjures the wand’ring stars
²⁴⁶
, and makes them stand

Like wonder-wounded hearers? This is I,

Hamlet the Dane.

LAERTES
    The devil take thy soul!

HAMLET
    Thou pray’st not well.

I prithee take thy fingers from my throat,

Sir: though I am not
splenitive
²⁵²
and rash,

Yet have I something in me dangerous,

Which let thy wiseness fear: away thy hand!

KING
    Pluck them asunder.

GERTRUDE
    Hamlet, Hamlet!

HORATIO
    Good my lord, be
quiet
²⁵⁷
.

Attendants part them, and they come out
of the grave

HAMLET
    Why I will fight with him upon this theme

Until my eyelids will no longer
wag
²⁵⁹
.

GERTRUDE
    O my son, what theme?

HAMLET
    I loved Ophelia: forty thousand brothers

Could not — with all their quantity of love —

Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?

KING
    O, he is mad, Laertes.

GERTRUDE
    For love of God,
forbear him
²⁶⁵
.

HAMLET
    Come, show me what thou’lt do:

Woo’t
weep? Woo’t fight? Woo’t fast? Woo’t
tear
²⁶⁷
thyself?

Woo’t drink up
eisel?
Eat a
crocodile
²⁶⁸
?

I’ll do’t. Dost thou come here to whine?

To
outface
²⁷⁰
me with leaping in her grave?

Be buried quick with her, and so will I:

And if thou prate of mountains, let them throw

Millions of acres on us, till
our ground
²⁷³
,

Singeing his pate against the
burning zone
²⁷⁴
,

Make
Ossa
like a wart! Nay,
an
thou’lt
mouth
²⁷⁵
,

I’ll rant as well as thou.

KING
    This is
mere
²⁷⁷
madness,

And thus awhile the fit will work on him:

Anon, as patient as the female dove

When that her
golden couplets
are
disclosed
²⁸⁰
,

His silence will sit drooping.

HAMLET
    Hear you, sir:

What is the reason that you
use
²⁸³
me thus?

I loved you ever: but it is no matter.

Let Hercules himself do what he may
²⁸⁵
,

The cat will mew and dog will have his day.

KING
    I pray you, good Horatio, wait upon him.—

Strengthen your patience
in
²⁸⁸
our last night’s speech:

We’ll put the matter to the
present push
²⁸⁹
.—

Good Gertrude, set some watch over your son.—

This grave shall have a
living
²⁹¹
monument:

An hour of quiet shortly shall we see;

Till then, in patience our proceeding be.

HAMLET
    So much for
this
, sir; now let me
see the other
¹
:

You do remember all the
circumstance
²
?

HORATIO
    Remember it, my lord?

HAMLET
    Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting

That would not let me sleep: methought I lay

Worse than the
mutines in the bilboes.
Rashly
⁶
—

And praise be rashness for it — let us
know
⁷

Our
indiscretion
⁸
sometimes serves us well,

When our
dear
plots do
pall
⁹
, and that should teach us

There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,

Rough-hew
¹¹
them how we will—

HORATIO
    That is most certain.

HAMLET
    Up from my cabin,

My
sea-gown
scarfed
¹⁴
about me, in the dark

Groped I to find out
them
¹⁵
, had my desire,

Fingered
their packet, and
in fine
¹⁶
withdrew

To mine own room again, making so bold —

My fears forgetting manners — to unseal

Their grand commission, where I found, Horatio —

O, royal knavery! — an exact command,

Larded
with many
several
²¹
sorts of reason

Importing
²²
Denmark’s health and England’s too,

With, ho, such
bug
s
and goblins in my life
²³
,

That on the
supervise
, no
leisure bated
²⁴
,

No, not to
stay
²⁵
the grinding of the axe,

My head should be struck off.

HORATIO
    Is’t possible?

HAMLET
    Here’s the commission: read it at more leisure.

But wilt thou hear me how I did proceed?

HORATIO
    I beseech you.

HAMLET
    Being thus
benetted round
³¹
with villainies —

Ere I could make a prologue to my brains
³²
,

They had begun the play — I sat me down,

Devised a new commission, wrote it
fair
³⁴
:

I once did hold it, as our
statists
³⁵
do,

A baseness to write fair and laboured much

How to forget that learning, but, sir, now

It did me
yeoman’s
³⁸
service. Wilt thou know

The
effect
³⁹
of what I wrote?

HORATIO
    Ay, good my lord.

HAMLET
    An earnest
conjuration
⁴¹
from the king,

As England was his faithful
tributary
⁴²
,

As love between them as the palm should flourish,

As peace should
still
her
wheaten garland
⁴⁴
wear

And stand a
comma
’tween their
amities
⁴⁵
,

And many such-like ‘
As’es
of great
charge
⁴⁶
,

That on the view and know of these contents,

Without debatement further, more or less,

He should the bearers put to sudden death,

Not
shriving-time
⁵⁰
allowed.

HORATIO
    How was this sealed?

HAMLET
    Why, even in that was heaven
ordinant
⁵²
.

I had my father’s
signet
⁵³
in my purse,

Which was the
model of that Danish seal
⁵⁴
:

Folded the
writ
⁵⁵
up in form of the other,

Subscribed
it, gave’t
th’impression
⁵⁶
, placed it safely,

The
changeling
⁵⁷
never known. Now, the next day

Was our sea-fight, and what
to this was sequent
⁵⁸

Thou know’st already.

HORATIO
    So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to’t.

HAMLET
    Why, man, they did
make love to
⁶¹
this employment:

They are not near my conscience; their
defeat
⁶²

Doth by their own
insinuation
⁶³
grow.

’Tis dangerous when the
baser
⁶⁴
nature comes

Between the
pass
and
fell
incensèd
points
⁶⁵

Of mighty
opposites
⁶⁶
.

HORATIO
    Why, what a king is this!

HAMLET
    
Does it not, think’st thee, stand me now upon
⁶⁸
—

He that hath killed my king and whored my mother,

Popped in between
th’election
⁷⁰
and my hopes,

Thrown out his
angle
for my
proper
⁷¹
life,

And with such
cozenage
⁷²
— is’t not perfect conscience

To
quit
⁷³
him with this arm? And is’t not to be damned,

To let this
canker
of our nature
come
⁷⁴

In further evil?

HORATIO
    It must be shortly known to him from England

What is the
issue
⁷⁷
of the business there.

HAMLET
    It will be short: the interim is mine,

And a man’s life’s
no more than to say ‘one’
⁷⁹
.

But I am very sorry, good Horatio,

That to Laertes I forgot myself;

For
by the image of my cause I see
⁸²

The portraiture of his. I’ll count his favours.

But, sure, the
bravery
⁸⁴
of his grief did put me

Into a tow’ring passion.

HORATIO
    Peace, who comes here?

OSRIC
    Your lordship is right welcome back to Denmark.

HAMLET
    I humbly thank you, sir.— Dost know this
water-fly
⁸⁸
?

HORATIO
    No, my good lord.

HAMLET
    Thy state is the more
gracious
⁹⁰
, for ’tis a vice to know

him. He hath much land, and fertile:
let a beast be lord of
⁹¹

beasts, and his
crib
⁹²
shall stand at the king’s mess; ’tis a

chough
⁹³
, but, as I say, spacious in the possession of dirt.

OSRIC
    Sweet lord,
if your friendship were at leisure
⁹⁴
, I

should impart a thing to you from his majesty.

HAMLET
    I will receive it with all diligence of spirit. Put your

bonnet
⁹⁷
to his right use: ’tis for the head.

OSRIC
    I thank your lordship, ’tis very hot.

HAMLET
    No, believe me, ’tis very cold: the wind is northerly.

OSRIC
    It is
indifferent
¹⁰⁰
cold, my lord, indeed.

HAMLET
    Methinks it is very sultry and hot for my
complexion
¹⁰¹
.

OSRIC
    Exceedingly, my lord: it is very sultry, as ’twere, I

cannot tell how. But, my lord, his majesty bade me signify to

you that he has laid a great wager on your head: sir, this is

the matter—

HAMLET
    I beseech you
remember
¹⁰⁶
—

OSRIC
    Nay, in good faith,
for mine ease
¹⁰⁷
, in good faith. Sir,

you are not ignorant of what excellence Laertes is at his

weapon.

HAMLET
    What’s his weapon?

OSRIC
    
Rapier
¹¹¹
and dagger.

HAMLET
    That’s two of his weapons; but,
well
¹¹²
.

OSRIC
    The king, sir, has waged with him six
Barbary
¹¹³

horses, against the which he
imponed
¹¹⁴
, as I take it, six French

rapiers and
poniards
, with their
assigns
,
as
girdle
,
hangers
¹¹⁵

or so. Three of the
carriages
, in faith, are very
dear to fancy
¹¹⁶
,

very
responsive to the hilts
, most
delicate
¹¹⁷
carriages, and of

very
liberal conceit
¹¹⁸
.

HAMLET
    What
call you
¹¹⁹
the carriages?

OSRIC
    The carriages, sir, are the hangers.

HAMLET
    The phrase would be more
germane
¹²¹
to the matter, if

we could carry
cannon by our sides
¹²²
: I would it might be

hangers till then. But, on: six Barbary horses against six

French swords, their assigns, and three liberal-conceited

carriages: that’s the French bet against the Danish. Why is

this ‘imponed’ as you call it?

OSRIC
    The king, sir, hath
laid
, that
in a dozen
passes
¹²⁷

between you and
him
¹²⁸
, he shall not exceed you three hits: he

hath laid on twelve for nine, and that would come to

immediate trial, if your lordship would
vouchsafe the answer
¹³⁰
.

HAMLET
    How if I answer ‘no’?

OSRIC
    I mean, my lord, the
opposition of your person in
¹³²

trial.

HAMLET
    Sir, I will walk here in the hall: if it please his

majesty, ’tis the
breathing time
¹³⁵
of day with me; let the foils be

brought, the gentleman willing, and the king hold his

purpose, I will win for him if I can: if not, I’ll gain nothing

but my shame and the
odd
¹³⁸
hits.

OSRIC
    Shall I
redeliver you
¹³⁹
e’en so?

HAMLET
    To this effect, sir,
after what flourish
¹⁴⁰
your nature

will.

OSRIC
    I
commend
¹⁴²
my duty to your lordship.

HAMLET
    Yours, yours.—