Is, the great love the general gender1 bear him: Laer. And so have I a noble father lost; That we are made of stuff so flat and dull, And that, I hope, will teach you to imagine,— Mess. Enter a Messenger. Letters, my lord, from Hamlet: As did that one; and that, in my regard, Laer. What part is that, my lord? Here was a gentleman of Normandy, I have seen myself, and serv'd against, the French, Laer. King. A Norman, was't? Upon my life, Lamord. The very same. Laer. I know him well: he is the brooch, indeed, King. He made confession of you; [Exit Messenger. [Reads.] High and mighty, you shall know, 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 and more strange return. Hamlet. What should this mean? Are all the rest come back? Laer. Know you the hand? tion, He swore, had neither motion, guard, nor eye, King. 'Tis Hamlet's character. Naked,-A Laer. I am lost in it, my lord. But let him come; If it be so, Laertes, King. Laer. Ay, my lord; As checking3 at his voyage, and that he means 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; changes, And hath abatements and delays as many, And for his death no wind of blame shall breathe;|| Hamlet comes back; What would you undertake, But even his mother shall uncharge the practice, The Frenchman gave you; bring you, in fine, to-|| I have a speech of fire, that fain would blaze, gether, And wager o'er your heads: he, being remiss, Laer. I will do't: 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 ance, 'Twere better not assay'd: therefore this project When in your motion you are hot and dry, 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; There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds And, mermaid-like, a while they bore her up: (1) Not blunted as foils are. (2) Exercise. (3) As fire-arms sometimes burst in proving their strength. (4) Skill. (5) Presented. (6) A cup for the purpose. (7) Thrust. But that this folly drowns it. [Exit. 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. [Exeunt. SCENE I-A churchyard. 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:12 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 13 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; come. 2 Clo. Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a carpenter? 1 Clo. Ay, tell me that, and unyoke.14 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 [Exit 2 Clown. a stoup of liquor. 1 Clown digs, and sings. In youth, when I did love, did love, Methought, it was very sweet, 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 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 jaw-bone, that did the first murder! This might be the pate of a politician, which this ass now o'er-reaches; one that would circumvent God, might it not? Hor. It might, my lord. 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,7 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? Ham. How long's that since? Ham. Or of a courtier; which would say, Good- 1 Clo. Of all the days i'the year, I came to't that morrow, sweet lord! How dost thou, good lord?day that our last king Hamlet overcame Fortinbras. 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 Worms; 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 loggats2 with them? mine ache to think on't. 1 Clo. A pick-axe, and a spade, a spade, [Sings. O, a pit of clay for to be made 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. 1 Clo. 'Faith, e'en with losing his wits. Ham. There's another: Why may not that be 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. 'Faith, if he be not rotten before he die (as we have many pocky corses 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 your water is a sore decayer of your whoreson dead body. Here's a scull now hath lain you i'the HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK. 1 Clo. A whoreson mad fellow's it was; Whose | Yet here she is allow'd her virgin crants, do you think it was? Ham. Nay, I know not. 1 Clo. A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! 1 Clo. E'en that. [Takes the scull. Ham. Alas! poor Yorick!--I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest; of most excellent fancy he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips, that I have kiss'd I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the tableI on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grin- I ning? quite chap-fallen? Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour! she must come; make her laugh at that. Pr'ythee, Horatio, tell me one thing. Hor. What's that, my lord? Act V. Her maiden strewments, and the bringing home Laer. Must there no more be done? Laer. And from her fair and unpolluted flesh, Ham. Ham. Dost thou think, Alexander looked o'this Till I have caught her once more in mine arms: fashion i'the earth? Hor. E'en so. Ham. And smelt so? pah! [Throws down the scull. Hor. E'en so, my lord. 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 bung-hole? 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? Imperious2 Cæsar, dead, and turn'd to clay, O, that the earth, which kept the world in awe, The queen, the courtiers: Who is this they follow? Laer. What ceremony else? A very noble youth: Mark. Laer. What ceremony else? That is Laertes, 1 Priest. Her obsequies have been as far enlarg'd As we have warranty: Her death was doubtful; And, but that great command o'ersways the order, She should in ground unsanctified have lodg'd, Till the last trumpet; for charitable prayers, Shards, flints, and pebbles, should be thrown on her: Now pile your dust upon the quick 10 and dead; Bears such an emphasis? whose phrase of sorrow Laer. [Leaps into the grave. I pr'ythee, take thy fingers from my throat; All. Gentlemen,- Hamlet, Hamlet! Good my lord, be quiet. [The Attendants part them, and they come Could not, with all their quantity of love, Queen. For love of God, forbear him. Woul't drink up Esil ? eat a crocodile? (9) A mass for the dead. This is mere madness: (10) Living. (11) Eisel is vinegar; but Mr. Steevens conjectures the word should be Weisel, a river which falls into the Baltic ocean. Hear you, sir; [Exit. King. I pray thee, good Horatio, wait upon [Exit Horatio. him.Strengthen your patience in our last night's speech; [To Laertes. We'll put the matter to the present push.—Good Gertrude, set some watch over your son.— shall have a living monument: This grave An hour of quiet shortly shall we see; Till then, in patience our proceeding be. [Exeunt. SCENE II-A hall in the castle. let and Horatio. Enter Ham As England was his faithful tributary; As love between them, like the palm, might flourish; Hor. How was this seal'd? Hor. So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to't. They are not near my conscience; their defeat Ham. So much for this, sir: now shall you see Does by their own insinuation grow: the other; You do remember all the circumstance? Hor. Remember it, my lord! Ham. Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting, That would not let me sleep: methought, I lay There's a divinity that shapes our ends, That is most certain. Ham. Up from my cabin, 'Tis dangerous, when the baser nature comes Hor. Why, what a king is this! upon? He that hath kill'd my king, and whor'd my mother; And with such cozenage; is't not perfect conscience, To let this canker of our nature come Hor. It must be shortly known to him from What is the issue of the business there. Ham. It will be short: the interim is mine; I see For by the image of my cause, Their grand commission; where I found, Horatio,That to Laertes I forgot myself; Ham. Thy state is the more gracious; for 'tis a vice to know him: He hath much land, and fertile : let a beast be lord of beasts, and his crib shall stand at the king's mess: 'Tis a chough;17 but, as I say, spacious in the possession of dirt. Osr. Sweet lord, if your lordship were at leisure, I should impart a thing to you from his majesty. Ham. I will receive it, sir, with all diligence of spirit: Your bonnet to his right use; 'tis for the head. Osr. I thank your lordship, 'tis very hot. Ham. No, believe me, tis very cold; the wind is northerly. (11) Confessing. (13) Following. (12) Copy. (14) Requite. (15) For count some editors read court. (16) Water-flies are gnats. (6) Bugbears. (8) Before. (17) A bird like a jackdaw. |