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Oph. You must sing, Down-a-down, an you call him a-down-a. O, how the wheel 9 becomes it! It is the false steward, that stole his master's daughter. Laer. This nothing's more than matter. Oph. There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray you, love, remember; and there is pansies,

What is the cause, Laertes, that's for thoughts.

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,
Acts little of his will. Tell me, Laertes,

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If you desire to know the certainty

Of your dear father's death, is't writ in your revenge,

Laer. A document in madness; thoughts and remembrance fitted.

Oph. There's fennel for you, and columbines :there's rue for you; and here's some for me: — we may call it, herb of grace o' Sundays: - you There's a may wear your rue with a difference.' daisy I would give you some violets; but they withered all, when my father died: - They say, he made a good end,

For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy, —

[Sings. She turns to favour, and to prettiness. Laer. Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself,

Oph. And will he not come again?
And will he not come again?

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:

He is gone, he is gone,
And we cast away moan;
Gramercy on his soul !

That, sweepstake, you will draw both friend and foe, And of all Christian souls! Adieu.
Winner and loser?

Laer. None but his enemies.
King.

Will you know them then? Laer. To his good friends thus wide I'll ope my

arms;

And, like the kind life-rend'ring pelican, Repast them with my blood.

King.

[Sings.

[Erit OPHELIA.
Laer. Do you see this, O God?
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

Why, now you speak 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,

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 'pear,
As day does to your eye.

Danes. [Within.] Let her come in.
Laer. How now! what noise is that?

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,

Enter OPHELIA, fantastically dressed with Straws No trophy, sword, nor hatchment, o'er his bones,

and Flowers.

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 with weight,
Till our scale turn the beam. O rose of May!
Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia !

O heavens! is't possible, a young maid's wits
Should be as mortal as an old man's life?
Nature is fine 8 in love: and, where 'tis fine,
It sends some precious instance of itself
After the thing it loves.

Oph. They bore him barefac'd on the bier;
Hey no nonny, nonny hey nonny :
And in his grave rain'd many a tear ; —

Fare you well, my dove!

Laer. Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade

revenge,

It could not move thus.

8 Artful.

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Enter Sailors.

1 Sail. God bless you, sir. Hor. Let him bless thee too.

There's a

1 Sail. He shall, sir, an't please him. 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.

Hor. [Reads.] Horatio, when thou shalt have overlooked this, give these fellows some means to the king; they have letters for him.

Ere we were two days old at sea, a pirate of very warlike appointment gave us chase: finding ourselves too slow of sail, we put on compelled valour; and in the grapple, I boarded them on the instant they got clear of our ship; so I alone became their prisoner. They have dealt 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 wouldst 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 Guildenstern hold their course for England; of them I have much to tell thee. FareHe that thou knowest thine, Hamlet. Come, I will give you way for these your letters; And do't the speedier, that you may direct me To him from whom you brought them. [Exeunt.

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It well appears: —
- But tell me,
Why you proceeded not against these feats,
So crimeful and so capital in nature,

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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
not;

They were given me by Claudio, he receiv'd them
Of him that brought them.

King.
Leave us.

Laertes, you shall hear them : —
[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 ask-
ing your pardon 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

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As checking at his voyage, and that he means
I will work him
No more to undertake it,

As by your safety, greatness, wisdom, all things else, To an exploit, now ripe in my device,
You mainly were stirr'd up.

King.
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,
(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 public count I might not go

Is, the great love the general gender bear him;
Who, dipping all his faults in their affection,
Work like the spring that turneth wood to stone,
Convert his gyves 3 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.

Laer. And so have Ianoble 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 perfections: - But my revenge will come.
King. Break not your sleeps for that: you must
not think,
Common people.

3 Chains.

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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;

It falls right.

The rather, if you could advise it so,
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.

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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 7 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,

Lear.

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

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I will do't:

Laer. And, for the purpose, I'll anoint my sword. 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, 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. Let's further think of this; Weigh, what convenience, both of time and means, May fit us to our shape: if this should fail, And that our drift look through our bad perform

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King. Not that I think, you did not love your How now, sweet queen?

father;

But that I know, love is begun by time;
And that I see, in passages of proof 8,
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 sigh,
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
More than in words?

Laer.

To cut his throat i' the church. King. 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, And set a double varnish on the fame

Queen. One woe 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;
There with fantastick garlands did she make
Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples,
And 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 5 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, 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, · Adieu, my lord!

The Frenchman gave you; bring you, in fine, to- The woman will be out. gether,

And wager o'er your heads he, being remiss,
Most generous, and free from all contriving,
Will not peruse the foils; so that, with ease,
Or with a little shuffling, you may choose
A sword unbated 9, and, in a pass of practice,
Requite him for your father.

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I have a speech of fire, that fain would blaze, But that this folly drowns it.

King.

[Exit. 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.

[Exeunt

1 As fire-arms sometimes burst in proving their strength. * Skill. 3 A cup for the purpose. 5 Insensible.

4 Thrust.

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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 6: 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 I drown 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 own 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 7 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?

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 thyself

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;

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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 9,
Methought, it was very sweet,

To contract, 0, 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.

Ham. 'Tis e'en so: the hand of little employment hath the daintier sense.

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 Skull.

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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 revolution, an we had the trick to see't. Did these bones cost no more the breeding, but to play at loggats with them? mine ache to think on't.

1 Clo. A pick-axe, 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 Skull.

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Ham. There's another: Why may not that be the skull of a lawyer? Where be his quiddits now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures, and his 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

9 The song entire is printed in Percy's Reliques of ancient English Poetry, vol. i. it was written by Lord Vaux. An arcient game played as quoits are at present. 2 Subtilties 3 Frivolous distinctions.

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 lie 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.

-

O, a pit of clay for to be made

For such a guest is meet.

Here's a skull now hath lain you i' the earth threeand-twenty years. Ham. Whose was it?

1 Clo. A mad fellow's it was; Whose do you think it was?

Ham. Nay, I know not.

1 Clo. A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! he poured a flagon of Rhenish on my head once. This same skull, sir, was Yorick's skull, the king's jester. Ham. This? [Takes the skull.

1 Clo. E'en that.

Ham. Alas! poor Yorick!-I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he [Sings. hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now how abhorred in my imagination it is! my

Ham. I think it be thine, indeed; for thou liest gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips, that I have

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; there

fore 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.

Ham. What woman then?

1 Clo. For none neither.

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 must speak by the card, or equivocation will undo us. By the lord, Horatio, these three years I have taken note of it; the age is grown so picked 5, 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 day that our last king Hamlet overcame Fortinbras. Ham. How long's that since?

1 Clo. Cannot you tell that? every fool can tell that: It was that very day that young Hamlet was born: he that is mad, and sent into England.

Ham. Ay, marry, why was he sent into England? 1 Clo. Why, because he was mad: he shall recover his wits there; or, if he do not, 'tis no great matter there.

Ham. Why?

1 Clo. 'Twill not be seen in him there; there the men are as mad as he.

Ham. How came he mad?

1 Clo. Very strangely, they say.

Ham. How strangely?

1 Clo. 'Faith, e'en with losing his wits.

Ham. Upon what ground?

1 Clo. Why, here in Denmark; I have been sexton here, man, and boy, thirty years.

Ham. How long will a man lie i' the earth ere he rot?

1 Clo. If he be not rotten before he die, (as we have many now-a-days, that will scarce hold the laying in,) he will last you some eight year or nine year a tanner will last you nine year.

Ham. Why he more than another?

1 Clo. Why, sir, his hide is so tanned with his trade, that he will keep out water a great while; and water is a sore decayer of your dead body. 4 By the compass. Spruce, affected.

kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of not one now, to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen? Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour 6 she must come: make her laugh at that. Pr'ythee, Horatio, tell me one thing.

Hor. What's that, my lord?

Ham. Dost thou think, Alexander looked o' this fashion i' the earth?

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Ham. To what base uses we may return, Horatio! Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander, till he find it stopping a bunghole?

Hor. 'Twere to consider too curiously, to consider so.

Ham. No, faith, not a jot: but to follow him thither with modesty enough, and likelihood to lead it: As thus; Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth to dust; the dust is earth; of earth we make loam : And why of that loam, whereto he was converted, might they not stop a beer-barrel? Imperious 7 Cæsar, dead, and turn'd to clay, Might stop a hole to keep the wind away: O, that the earth, which kept the world in awe, Should patch a wall to expel the winter's flaw! 8 But soft! but soft! aside:- Here comes the king.

Enter Priests, &c. in Procession; the Corpse of
OPHELIA, LAERTES, and Mourners following;
KING, QUEEN, their Trains, &c.

The queen, the courtiers: Who is this they follow?
And with such maimed rites! This doth betoken,
The corse, they follow, did with desperate hand
Fordo 9 its own life. 'Twas of some estate :
Couch we a while, and mark.

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