Laer. Thought and affliction, passion, hell I should be greeted, if not from lord Hamlet. itself, She turns to favor and to prettiness! OPHELIA sings. And will he not come again? His beard was white as snow, He is gone, he is gone, And of all christian souls! I pray God. God be Laer. Do you see this, O God? Enter Sailors. 1st Sail. God bless you, sir. 1st 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. HORATIO 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 a compelled valor; 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 King. Laertes, I must commune with your they knew what they did; I am to do a good turn for grief, SCENE VI. Another Room in the same. Enter HORATIO and a Servant. am. them. Let the king have the letters I have sent; and SCENE VII. Another Room in the same. Enter KING and LAERTES. King. Now must your conscience my acquittance And you must put me in your heart for friend; Laer. It well appears. But tell me Why you proceeded not against these feats, So crimeful and so capital in nature, As by your safety, greatness, wisdom, all things else, Hor. What are they that would speak with me? You mainly were stirred up. King. O, for two special reasons; Which may to you, perhaps, seem much unsinewed, thereunto, recount the occasion of my sudden and more strange return. "HAMLET." But yet to me they are strong. The queen, his What should this mean? Are all the rest come mother, Lives almost by his looks; and for myself Is, the great love the general gender bear him: Who, dipping all his faults in their affection, Laer. And so have I a noble father lost; That we are made of stuff so flat and dull, Laer. My lord, I will be ruled; The rather, if you could devise it so That I might be the organ. It falls right. King. You have been talked of since your travel much, 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 served against, the French, ulcer: And they can well on horseback: but this gallant That hurts by easing. But to the quick o' the Hamlet comes back: what would you undertake, To shew yourself indeed your father's son With the brave beast: so far he topped my More than in words? Laer. I know him well: he is the brooch, in- Hamlet, returned, shall know you are come home: 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 especially, That he cried out, 't would be a sight indeed If one could match you: the scrimers of their He swore, had neither motion, guard, nor eye, But that I know love is begun by time; And hath abatements and delays as many As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents; 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, to gether, And wager on your heads: he, being remiss, I will do 't: Laer. King. ance, 'T were better not assayed; therefore, this project When in your motion you are hot and dry And then this "should" is like a spendthrift sigh, A chalice for the nonce; whereon but sipping, Queen. One woe doth tread upon another's heel, So fast they follow:- Your sister's drowned, Laertes. Laer. Drowned! O, where? Queen. There is a willow grows ascaunt the brook, And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up: Or like a creature native and indued Unto that element: but long it could not be, Laer. Alas, then, she is drowned? Laer. Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophe- That shews his hoar leaves in the glassy stream; And therefore I forbid my tears: but yet them : There, on the pendant boughs her coronet weeds It is our trick; nature her custom holds, gone, SCENE IA Churchyard. ACT V. Enter Two Clowns, with spades, &c. 1st Clo. Is she to be buried in christian burial, that wilfully seeks her own salvation? 2nd Clo. I tell thee she is; therefore make her grave straight the crowner hath set on her, and finds it christian burial. 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. 2nd Clo. But is this law? 1st Clo. Ay, marry is 't; crowner's quest law. 2nd Clo. Will you ha' the truth on 't? If this 1st Clo. How can that be, unless she drowned had not been a gentlewoman, she should have been herself in her own defence? 2nd Clo. Why, 't is found so. 1st 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. 2nd Clo. Nay, but hear you, goodman delver. 1st Clo. Give me leave. Here lies the water; good: here stands the man; good: if the man go buried out of christian burial. 1st 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. 2nd Clo. Was he a gentleman? 1st Clo. He was the first that ever bore arms. 2nd Clo. Why, he had none. 1st 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, — 2nd Clo. Go to. 1st Clo. What, is he that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter? 2nd Clo. The gallows-maker; for that frame outlives a thousand tenants. : 1st 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 stranger than the church: argal, the gallows may do well to thee. To't again; come. 2nd Clo. Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a carpenter? 1st Clo. Ay, tell me that, and unyoke. 2nd Clo. Marry, now I can tell. Ham. That skull 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, "Goodmorrow, 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 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. 1st Clown sings. A pick-axe, and a spade, a spade, [Throws up a skull. 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 Ham. Has this fellow no feeling of his busi- recoveries, to have his fine pate full of fine dirt? ness? he sings at grave-making. will his vouchers vouch him no more of his pur Hor. Custom hath made it in him a property chases, and double ones too, than the length and of easiness. breadth of a pair of indentures? The very conHam. 'Tis e'en so: the hand of little employ- veyances of his lands will hardly lie in this box; ment hath the daintier sense. 1st Clown sings. But age, with his stealing steps, and must the inheritor himself have no more? ha? Hor. Not a jot more, my lord. Ham. Is not parchment made of sheep-skins? Ham. They are sheep and calves which seek out assurance in that. I will speak to this fellow. [Throws up a skull. Whose grave's this, sirrah? |