178

179

Wherein necessity, of matter beggar'd,
Will nothing stick our persons to arraign
In ear and ear. O, my dear Gertrude! this,
Like to a murdering piece, in many places
Gives me superfluous death.

Queen.

King. Attend!

[A noise within. Alack! what noise is this? |

Enter a Gentleman.

Where are my Switzers? Let them guard the door.
What is the matter?

Gent.

Save yourself, my lord;

The ocean, overpeering of his list,.

Eats not the flats with more impetuous haste,

Than young Laertes, in a riotous head,

O'erbears your officers! The rabble call him, lord;
And, as the world were now but to begin,

Antiquity forgot, custom not known,

The ratifiers and props of every word,

They cry, "Choose we; Laertes shall be king!"
Caps, hands, and tongues, applaud it to the clouds,
"Laertes shall be king, Laertes king!"

Queen. How cheerfully on the false trail they cry!
O! this is counter, you false Danish dogs.
King. The doors are broke.

[Noise within. |

Enter LAERTES, armed; Danes following.

Laer. Where is this king?
Dan. No, let's come in.
Laer.

Dan. We will, we will.

Sirs, stand you all without.

I pray you, give me leave.

[They retire without the Door.

Laer. I thank you: keep the door. O thou vile king, Give me my father.

Queen.

Calmly, good Laertes.

Laer. That drop of blood that's calm proclaims me bastard; Cries, cuckold, to my father; brands the harlot

Even here, between the chaste unsmirched brow

Of my true mother.

King.
What is the cause, Laertes,
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,

Laer. How came he dead? I'll not be juggled with.

To bell, allegiance! vows, to the blackest devil!
Conscience, and grace to the profoundest pit!
I dare damnation. To this point I stand,
That both the worlds I give to negligence,
Let come what comes, only I'll be reveng'd
Most throughly for my father.

King.

Who shall stay you?
Laer. My will, not all the world's:
And, for my means, I'll husband them so well,
They shall go far with little. |

King.

Good Laertes,

If you desire to know the certainty

Of your dear father's death, is't writ in your revenge,
That, sweepstake, you will draw both friend and foe,
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-rendering pelican,

Repast them with my blood.

Why, now you speak

King.
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? |

Re-enter OPHELIA.

-

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 by weight,
Till our scale turns 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 in love; and, where 't is fine,

180

181

182

159

Is now most still, most secret, and most grave,
Who was in life a foolish prating_knave.
Come, Sir, to draw toward an end with you.
Good night, mother.

[Exeunt severally; HAMLET dragging in POLONIUS. |

ACT IV. SCENE I.

The Same.

Enter King, Queen, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN. King. There 's matter in these sighs: these profound heaves You must translate; 't is fit we understand them.

Where is your son?

Queen. Bestow this place on us a little while.

[Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.

Ah, my good lord, what have I seen to-night!
King. What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?

Queen. Mad as the sea, and wind, when both contend Which is the mightier. In his lawless fit,

Behind the arras hearing something stir,

He whips his rapier out, and cries, "A rat! a rat!"
And in his brainish apprehension kills

The unseen good old man.

King.

O heavy deed!

It had been so with us, had we been there.
His liberty is full of threats to all;

To you yourself, to us, to every one.

Alas! how shall this bloody deed be answer'd?

160 It will be laid to us, whose providence

Should have kept short, restrain'd, and out of haunt,
This mad young man; but so much was our love,
We would not understand what was most fit,

But, like the owner of a foul disease,

To keep it from divulging, let it feed
Even on the pith of life. Where is he gone?

Queen. To draw apart the body he hath kill'd;
O'er whom his very madness, like some ore
Among a mineral of metals base,

Shows itself pure: he weeps for what is done.
King. O, Gertrude! come away.

The sun no sooner shall the mountains touch,
But we will ship him hence; and this vile deed

We must, with all our majesty and skill,

Both countenance and excuse. Ho! Guildenstern! |

-

Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.
Friends both, go join you with some farther aid.
Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain,
And from his mother's closet bath he dragg'd him:
Go, seek him out; speak fair, and bring the body
Into the chapel. I pray you, haste in this.

[Exeunt Ros. and GUIL.
Come, Gertrude, we 'll call up our wisest friends;
And let them know, both what me mean to do,
And what 's untimely done: so, haply, slander, -
Whose whisper o'er the world's diameter,
As level as the cannon to his blank,
Transports his poison'd shot,
And hit the woundless air.
My soul is full of discord, and

-

may miss our name,
O, come away!
dismay. I

SCENE II.

Another Room in the Same.

Enter HAMLET.

Ham. Safely stowed. -

[Exeunt.

[Ros. &c. within. Hamlet! lord Hamlet!] But soft! what noise? who calls on Hamlet? O! here they come.

Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.

Ros. What have you done, my lord, with the dead body? Ham. Compounded it with dust, whereto 't is kin.

Ros. Tell us where 't is that we may take it thence, And bear it to the chapel.

Ham. Do not believe it.

Ros. Believe what?

Ham, That I can keep your counsel, and not mine own. Besides, to be demanded of a sponge, what replication should be made by the son of a king?

Ros. Take you me for a sponge, my lord?

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162

Ham. Ay, Sir; that soaks up the king's countenance, his163 rewards, his authorities. But such officers do the king best service in the end: he keeps them, like an ape doth nuts, in the corner of his jaw, first mouthed, to be last swallowed: when he needs what you have gleaned, it is but squeezing you, and, sponge, you shall be dry again.

Ros. I understand you not, my lord.

Ham. I am glad of it: a knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear.

164

165

Ros. My lord, you must tell us where the body is, and go with us to the king.

Ham. The body is with the king, but the king is not with the body. The king is a thing

Guil. A thing, my lord!

Ham. Of nothing: bring me to him. Hide fox, and all [Exeunt.

after.

SCENE III.

Another Room in the Same.

Enter King, attended.

King. I have sent to seek him, and to find the body. How dangerous is it, that this man goes loose!

Yet must not we put the strong law on him:

He's lov'd of the distracted multitude,

Who like not in their judgment, but their eyes;

And where 't is so, th' offender's scourge is weigh'd,
But never the offence. To bear all smooth and even,
This sudden sending him away must seem
Deliberate pause: diseases, desperate grown,
By desperate appliance are reliev'd,

Enter ROSENCRANTZ.

Or not at all. How now! what hath befallen?
Ros. Where the dead body is bestow'd, my lord,
We cannot get from him.

King.

But where is he?

Ros. Without, my lord; guarded, to know your pleasure.
King. Bring him before us.

Ros. Ho, Guildenstern! bring in my lord. |

Enter HAMLET and GUILDENSTERN.

King. Now, Hamlet, where 's Polonius?

Ham. At supper.

King. At supper! Where?

Ham. Not where he eats, but where he is eaten: a certain convocation of politic worms are e'en at him. Your worm is your only emperor for diet: we fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots: your fat king, and your lean beggar, is but variable service; two dishes, but to one table: that 's the end.

King. Alas, alas!

Ham. A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king; and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.