Hamlet (20 page)

KING
    Now must your conscience
my acquittance seal
¹
,

And you must put me in your heart for friend,

Sith
you have heard, and with a
knowing
³
ear,

That he which hath your noble father slain

Pursued my life.

LAERTES
    It well appears. But tell me

Why you
proceeded not
against these
feats
⁷

So crimeful and so
capital
⁸
in nature,

As by your safety, wisdom, all things else
⁹
,

You mainly were stirred up.

KING
    O, for two special reasons,

Which may to you, perhaps, seem much
unsinewed
¹²
,

And 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’s so
conjunctive
¹⁶
to my life and soul,

That, as the star moves not but in his
sphere
¹⁷
,

I could not
but
¹⁸
by her. The other motive,

Why to a public
count
¹⁹
I might not go,

Is the great love the
general
gender
²⁰
bear him,

Who, dipping all his faults in their affection,

Would like the
spring that turneth wood to stone
²²
,

Convert his
gyves
²³
to graces, so that my arrows,

Too slightly timbered
²⁴
for so loud a wind,

Would have reverted to my bow again

And not where I had aimed them.

LAERTES
    And so have I a noble father lost,

A sister driven into desperate
terms
²⁸
,

Who has — if praises may
go back again
²⁹
—

Stood challenger
on mount
³⁰
of all the age

For her perfections: but my revenge will come.

KING
    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
³⁴
danger

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—

How now? What news?

MESSENGER
    Letters, my lord, from Hamlet:

This to your majesty, this to the queen.

KING
    From Hamlet? Who brought them?

MESSENGER
    Sailors, my lord, they say: I saw them not.

They were given me by
Claudio
⁴³
: he received them.

KING
    Laertes, you shall hear them.— Leave us.

‘High and mighty, you shall know I am set
naked
⁴⁵
on your

kingdom. Tomorrow shall I beg leave to see your kingly

eyes, when I shall, first asking your
pardon
⁴⁷
thereunto,

recount th’occasions of my sudden and more strange

return. Hamlet.’

What should this mean? Are all the rest come back?

Or is it some
abuse?
Or
no such thing
⁵¹
?

LAERTES
    Know you the hand?

KING
    ’Tis Hamlet’s
character
⁵³
. ‘Naked’ —

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,

‘Thus diest thou.’

KING
    If it be so, Laertes —

As how should it be so? How otherwise? —

Will you be ruled by me?

LAERTES
    
If so
⁶³
you’ll not o’errule me to a peace.

KING
    To thine own peace. If he be now returned,

As checking at
⁶⁵
his voyage, and that he means

No more to undertake it, I will work him

To an exploit, now ripe in my
device
⁶⁷
,

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
⁷⁰

And call it accident. Some two months since,

Here was a gentleman of Normandy.

I’ve seen myself, and served against, the French,

And they
can well
on horseback; but this
gallant
⁷⁴

Had witchcraft in’t; he grew into his seat,

And to such wondrous doing brought his horse

As
had he been
incorpsed
and
demi-natured
⁷⁷

With the
brave
beast: so far he
passed my thought
⁷⁸
,

That I in
forgery of shapes and tricks
⁷⁹

Come short of what he did.

LAERTES
    A Norman was’t?

KING
    A Norman.

LAERTES
    Upon my life,
Lamond
⁸³
.

KING
    The very same.

LAERTES
    I know him well: he is the
brooch
⁸⁵
indeed

And gem of all our nation.

KING
    He
made confession of you
⁸⁷
,

And gave you such a masterly report

For art and exercise in your defence
⁸⁹
,

And for your rapier most especially,

That he cried out, ’twould be a sight indeed

If one could match you. Sir, this report of his

Did Hamlet so
envenom
⁹³
with his envy

That he could nothing do but wish and beg

Your
sudden
coming o’er, to
play
⁹⁵
with him.

Now, out of this—

LAERTES
    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?

LAERTES
    Why ask you this?

KING
    Not that I think you did not love your father,

But that I know love is
begun by time
¹⁰³
,

And that I see, in
passages of proof
¹⁰⁴
,

Time
qualifies
¹⁰⁵
the spark and fire of it.

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’th’church.

KING
    No place, indeed, should murder
sanctuarize
¹¹⁰
;

Revenge should have no bounds. But, good Laertes,

Will you
do this, keep
close
¹¹²
within your chamber.

Hamlet returned shall know you are come home:

We’ll
put on
¹¹⁴
those shall praise your excellence

And set a double varnish on the fame

The Frenchman gave you, bring you
in fine
¹¹⁶
together

And wager on your heads: he, being
remiss
¹¹⁷
,

Most
generous
¹¹⁸
and free from all contriving,

Will not
peruse
the
foils
¹¹⁹
, so that with ease,

Or with a little shuffling, you may choose

A sword
unbated
, and in a
pass of practice
¹²¹

Requite
¹²²
him for your father.

LAERTES
    I will do’t,

And for that purpose I’ll anoint my sword.

I bought an
unction
of a
mountebank
¹²⁵

So mortal
I but dipped a knife in it
¹²⁶
,

Where it draws blood no
cataplasm
so
rare
¹²⁷
,

Collected from all
simples
¹²⁸
that have virtue

Under the moon
¹²⁹
, can save the thing from death

That is but scratched
withal
¹³⁰
: I’ll touch my point

With this
contagion
, that if I
gall
¹³¹
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
¹³⁵
: if this should fail,

And that our
drift
look
¹³⁶
through our bad performance,

’Twere better not assayed: therefore this project

Should have a back or second, that might hold,

If this should
blast in proof
¹³⁹
. Soft, let me see:

We’ll make a solemn wager on your
cunnings
¹⁴⁰
.

I
ha’t
¹⁴¹
:

When in your motion you are hot and dry —

As
make your
bouts
¹⁴³
more violent to the end —

And that he calls for drink, I’ll have prepared him

A chalice for the
nonce
¹⁴⁵
, whereon but sipping,

If he by chance escape your venomed
stuck
¹⁴⁶
,

Our purpose may hold there.—

                      How now, sweet queen?

GERTRUDE
    One woe doth tread upon another’s heel,

So fast they’ll follow: your sister’s drowned, Laertes.

LAERTES
    Drowned? O, where?

GERTRUDE
    There is a
willow
¹⁵¹
grows aslant a brook,

That shows his
hoar
¹⁵²
leaves in the glassy stream:

There with
fantastic
¹⁵³
garlands did she come

Of
crow-flowers
, nettles, daisies and
long purples
¹⁵⁴

That
liberal
shepherds give a
grosser
¹⁵⁵
name,

But our
cold
¹⁵⁶
maids do dead men’s fingers call them:

There on the
pendent
¹⁵⁷
boughs her coronet weeds

Clamb’ring to hang, an
envious sliver
¹⁵⁸
broke,

When down the
weedy
¹⁵⁹
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
¹⁶³
,

Or like a creature native and
indued
¹⁶⁴

Unto that element: but long it could not be

Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,

Pulled the poor wretch from her melodious
lay
¹⁶⁷

To muddy death.

LAERTES
    Alas, then, is she drowned?

GERTRUDE
    Drowned, drowned.

LAERTES
    Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia,

And therefore I forbid my tears. But yet

It is our
trick
¹⁷³
: nature her custom holds,

Let shame say what it will: when
these
¹⁷⁴
are gone,

The
woman will be out
¹⁷⁵
.— Adieu, my lord:

I have a speech of fire that fain would blaze,

But that this
folly
douts
¹⁷⁷
it.

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.

FIRST CLOWN
    Is she to be buried in
Christian burial
¹
that wilfully

seeks her own
salvation
²
?

SECOND CLOWN
    I tell thee she is: and therefore make her

grave
straight
: the
crowner
⁴

hath
sat
⁵
on her, and finds it Christian burial.

FIRST CLOWN
    How can that be, unless she drowned herself in her

own defence?

SECOND CLOWN
    Why, ’tis found so.

FIRST CLOWN
    It must be
se offendendo
⁹
, 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
¹²
, she drowned herself wittingly.

SECOND CLOWN
    Nay, but hear you,
goodman
¹³
delver—

FIRST CLOWN
    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
¹⁶
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.

SECOND CLOWN
    But is this law?

FIRST CLOWN
    Ay, marry, is’t: crowner’s
quest
²¹
law.

SECOND CLOWN
    Will you ha’ the truth on’t? If this had not been

a gentlewoman, she should have been buried out of

Christian burial.

FIRST CLOWN
    Why,
there thou say’st
²⁵
: and the more pity that great

folk should have
countenance
²⁶
in this world to drown or

hang themselves, more than their
even Christian
²⁷
. Come, my

spade. There is no ancient gentlemen but gardeners,
ditchers
²⁸

and grave-makers: they hold up
Adam’s profession
²⁹
.

SECOND CLOWN
    Was he a gentleman?

FIRST CLOWN
    He was the first that ever
bore arms
³¹
.

SECOND CLOWN
    Why, he had none.

FIRST CLOWN
    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
³⁶
—

SECOND CLOWN
    Go to.

FIRST CLOWN
    What is he that builds stronger than either the

mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?

SECOND CLOWN
    The gallows-maker, for that frame outlives a

thousand tenants.

FIRST CLOWN
    I like thy wit well, in good faith: the gallows
does
⁴²

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.

SECOND CLOWN
    Who builds stronger than a mason, a

shipwright, or a carpenter?

FIRST CLOWN
    Ay, tell me that, and
unyoke
⁴⁹
.

SECOND CLOWN
    Marry, now I can tell.

FIRST CLOWN
    To’t.

SECOND CLOWN
    Mass, I cannot tell.