Which may to you perhaps seem much unsinew'd, Is the great love the general gender bear him; Laertes. And so have I a noble father lost; Whose worth, if praises may go back again, 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 danger, Enter a Messenger. 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 to me by Claudio; he receiv'd them Of him that brought them. King. 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 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? Or is it some abuse, and no such thing? Laertes. Know you the hand? King. "T is Hamlet's character. 'Naked!' And in a postscript here, he says 'alone.' 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 didest thou.' King. If it be so, Laertes As how should it be so? how otherwise? Will you be rul'd by me? Laertes. Ay, my lord; So you will not o'errule me to a peace. King. To thine own peace. If he be now return'd, To an exploit now ripe in my device, Under the which he shall not choose but fall; Laertes. My lord, I will be rul'd; The rather, if you could devise it so King. It falls right. You have been talk'd of since your travel much, Laertes. 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've seen myself, and serv'd against, the French, And to such wondrous doing brought his horse, With the brave beast. So far he topp'd my thought Come short of what he did. Laertes. I know him well; he is the brooch indeed King. He made confession of you, And gave you such a masterly report 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 nation, If you oppos'd them. Sir, this report of his Laertes. What out of this, my lord? King. Laertes, was your father dear to you? Or are you like the painting of a sorrow, Laertes. Why ask you this? King. Not that I think you did not love your father; Dies in his own too-much. That we would do, As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents; Laertes. The Frenchman gave you; bring you, in fine, together |