Part 7

OPHELIA. [_Sings._] They bore him barefac’d on the bier, Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny And on his grave rain’d many a tear.— Fare you well, my dove!

LAERTES. Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge, It could not move thus.

OPHELIA. You must sing ‘Down a-down, and you call him a-down-a.’ O, how the wheel becomes it! It is the false steward that stole his master’s daughter.

LAERTES. This nothing’s more than matter.

OPHELIA. There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; pray love, remember. And there is pansies, that’s for thoughts.

LAERTES. A document in madness, thoughts and remembrance fitted.

OPHELIA. There’s fennel for you, and columbines. There’s rue for you; and here’s some for me. We may call it herb of grace o’ Sundays. O you must wear your rue with a difference. There’s a daisy. I would give you some violets, but they wither’d all when my father died. They say he made a good end. [_Sings._] For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.

LAERTES. Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself She turns to favour and to prettiness.

OPHELIA. [_Sings._] And will he not come again? And will he not come again? No, no, he is dead, Go to thy death-bed, He never will come again.

His beard was as white as snow, All flaxen was his poll. He is gone, he is gone, And we cast away moan. God ha’ mercy on his soul.

And of all Christian souls, I pray God. God b’ wi’ ye.

[_Exit._]

LAERTES. Do you see this, O God?

KING. Laertes, I must commune with your grief, Or you deny me right. Go but apart, Make choice of whom your wisest friends you will, And they shall hear and judge ’twixt you and me. If by direct or by collateral hand They find us touch’d, we will our kingdom give, Our crown, our life, and all that we call ours To you in satisfaction; but if not, Be you content to lend your patience to us, And we shall jointly labour with your soul To give it due content.

LAERTES. Let this be so; His means of death, his obscure burial,— No trophy, sword, nor hatchment o’er his bones, No noble rite, nor formal ostentation,— Cry to be heard, as ’twere from heaven to earth, That I must call’t in question.

KING. So you shall. And where th’offence is let the great axe fall. I pray you go with me.

[_Exeunt._]

## SCENE VI. Another room in the Castle.

Enter Horatio and a Servant.

HORATIO. What are they that would speak with me?

SERVANT. Sailors, sir. They say they have letters for you.

HORATIO. Let them come in.

[_Exit Servant._]

I do not know from what part of the world I should be greeted, if not from Lord Hamlet.

Enter Sailors.

FIRST SAILOR. God bless you, sir.

HORATIO. Let him bless thee too.

FIRST SAILOR. He shall, sir, and’t please him. There’s a letter for you, sir. It comes from th’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 valour, 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 they knew what they did; I am to do a good turn for them. Let the King have the letters I have sent, and repair thou to me with as much haste as thou wouldst fly death. I have words to speak in thine ear will make thee dumb; yet are they much too light for the bore of the matter. These good fellows will bring thee where I am. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern hold their course for England: of them I have much to tell thee. Farewell. He that thou knowest thine, HAMLET.’

Come, I will give you way for these your letters, And do’t the speedier, that you may direct me To him from whom you brought them.

[_Exeunt._]

## SCENE VII. Another room in the Castle.

Enter King and Laertes.

KING. Now must your conscience my acquittance seal, And you must put me in your heart for friend, Sith you have heard, and with a knowing ear, That he which hath your noble father slain Pursu’d my life.

LAERTES. It well appears. But tell me Why you proceeded not against these feats, So crimeful and so capital in nature, As by your safety, wisdom, all things else, You mainly were stirr’d up.

KING. O, for two special reasons, Which may to you, perhaps, seem much unsinew’d, But 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 to my life and soul, That, as the star moves not but in his sphere, I could not but by her. The other motive, Why to a public count I might not go, Is the great love the general gender bear him, Who, dipping all his faults in their affection, Would like the spring that turneth wood to stone, Convert his gyves to graces; so that my arrows, Too slightly timber’d for so loud a wind, Would have reverted to my bow again, And not where I had aim’d them.

LAERTES. And so have I a noble father lost, A sister driven into desperate terms, Whose worth, if praises may go back again, Stood challenger on mount 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 danger, And think it pastime. You shortly shall hear more. I lov’d your father, and we love ourself, And that, I hope, will teach you to imagine—

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 me by Claudio. He receiv’d them Of him that brought them.

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

[_Exit Messenger._]

[_Reads._] ‘High and mighty, you shall know I am set naked on your kingdom. Tomorrow shall I beg leave to see your kingly eyes. When I shall, first asking your pardon thereunto, recount the occasions 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. ’Tis Hamlet’s character. ‘Naked!’ And in a postscript here he says ‘alone.’ Can you advise me?

LAERTES. I am 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 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, As checking at his voyage, and that he means No more to undertake it, I will work him To an exploit, now ripe in my device, Under the which he shall not choose but fall; And for his death no wind shall breathe, But even his mother shall uncharge the practice And call it accident.

LAERTES. My lord, I will be rul’d; The rather if you could devise it so That I might be the organ.

KING. It falls right. You have been talk’d of since your travel much, And that in Hamlet’s hearing, for a quality Wherein they say you shine. Your sum of parts Did not together pluck such envy from him As did that one, and that, in my regard, Of the unworthiest siege.

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 they can well on horseback, but this gallant Had witchcraft in’t. He grew unto his seat, And to such wondrous doing brought his horse, As had he been incorps’d and demi-natur’d With the brave beast. So far he topp’d my thought That I in forgery of shapes and tricks, Come short of what he did.

LAERTES. A Norman was’t?

KING. A Norman.

LAERTES. Upon my life, Lamord.

KING. The very same.

LAERTES. I know him well. He is the brooch indeed And gem of all the nation.

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 ’twould be a sight indeed If one could match you. The scrimers of their nation He swore had neither motion, guard, nor eye, If you oppos’d them. Sir, this report of his Did Hamlet so envenom with his envy That he could nothing do but wish and beg Your sudden coming o’er to play 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, And that I see, in passages of proof, Time qualifies the spark and fire of it. There lives within the very flame of love A kind of wick or snuff that will abate it; And nothing is at a like goodness still, For goodness, growing to a pleurisy, Dies in his own too much. That we would do, We should do when we would; for this ‘would’ changes, And hath abatements and delays as many As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents; And then this ‘should’ is like a spendthrift sigh That hurts by easing. But to the quick o’ th’ulcer: 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; Revenge should have no bounds. But good Laertes, Will you do this, keep close within your chamber. Hamlet return’d shall know you are come home: 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 together And wager on your heads. He, being remiss, Most generous, and free from all contriving, Will not peruse the foils; so that with ease, Or with a little shuffling, you may choose A sword unbated, and in a pass of practice, Requite 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 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 This 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 performance. ’Twere better not assay’d. Therefore this project Should have a back or second, that might hold If this did blast in proof. Soft, let me see. We’ll make a solemn wager on your cunnings,— I ha’t! When in your motion you are hot and dry, As make your bouts more violent to that end, And that he calls for drink, I’ll have prepar’d him A chalice for the nonce; whereon but sipping, If he by chance escape your venom’d stuck, Our purpose may hold there.

Enter Queen.

How now, sweet Queen?

QUEEN. One woe doth tread upon another’s heel, So fast they follow. Your sister’s drown’d, Laertes.

LAERTES. Drown’d! O, where?

QUEEN. There is a willow grows aslant a brook, That shows his hoary leaves in the glassy stream. There with fantastic garlands did she make Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples, That liberal shepherds give a grosser name, But our cold maids do dead men’s fingers call them. There on the pendant boughs her coronet weeds Clamb’ring to hang, an envious sliver broke, When down her weedy trophies and herself Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide, And mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up, Which time she chaunted snatches of old tunes, As one incapable of her own distress, Or like a creature native and indued Unto that element. But long it could not be Till that her garments, heavy with their drink, Pull’d the poor wretch from her melodious lay To muddy death.

LAERTES. Alas, then she is drown’d?

QUEEN. Drown’d, drown’d.

LAERTES. Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia, And therefore I forbid my tears. But yet It is our trick; nature her custom holds, Let shame say what it will. When these are gone, The woman will be out. Adieu, my lord, I have a speech of fire, that fain would blaze, But that this folly douts 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.

[_Exeunt._]

## ACT V

## SCENE I. A churchyard.

Enter two Clowns with spades, &c.

FIRST CLOWN. Is she to be buried in Christian burial, when she wilfully seeks her own salvation?

SECOND CLOWN. I tell thee she is, and therefore make her grave straight. The crowner hath sat 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_, 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.

SECOND CLOWN. Nay, but hear you, goodman 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 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 law.

SECOND CLOWN. Will you ha’ the truth on’t? If this had not been a gentlewoman, she should have been buried out o’ Christian burial.

FIRST CLOWN. Why, there thou say’st. And the more pity that great folk should 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.

SECOND CLOWN. Was he a gentleman?

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

SECOND CLOWN. Why, he had none.

FIRST CLOWN. What, art a heathen? How dost thou understand the Scripture? The Scripture says Adam digg’d. Could he dig without arms? I’ll put another question to thee. If thou answerest me not to the purpose, confess thyself—

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 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.

SECOND CLOWN. Marry, now I can tell.

FIRST CLOWN. To’t.

SECOND CLOWN. Mass, I cannot tell.

Enter Hamlet and Horatio, at a distance.

FIRST CLOWN. 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 he makes last till doomsday. Go, get thee to Yaughan; fetch me a stoup of liquor.

[_Exit Second Clown._]

[_Digs and sings._]

In youth when I did love, did love, Methought it was very sweet; To contract, O, the time for, a, my behove, O methought there was nothing meet.

HAMLET. Has this fellow no feeling of his business, that he sings at grave-making?

HORATIO. Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness.

HAMLET. ’Tis e’en so; the hand of little employment hath the daintier sense.

FIRST CLOWN. [_Sings._] But age with his stealing steps Hath claw’d me in his clutch, And hath shipp’d me into the land, As if I had never been such.

[_Throws up a skull._]

HAMLET. That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once. How the knave jowls it to th’ ground, as if ’twere Cain’s jawbone, that did the first murder! This might be the pate of a politician which this ass now o’er-offices, one that would circumvent God, might it not?

HORATIO. It might, my lord.

HAMLET. Or of a courtier, which could say ‘Good morrow, 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?

HORATIO. Ay, my lord.

HAMLET. Why, e’en so: and now my Lady Worm’s; chapless, and knocked about the mazard 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 loggets with ’em? Mine ache to think on’t.

FIRST CLOWN. [_Sings._] A pickaxe and a spade, a spade, For and a shrouding-sheet; O, a pit of clay for to be made For such a guest is meet.

[_Throws up another skull._]

HAMLET. 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? Hum. 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 recoveries, to have his fine pate full of fine dirt? Will his vouchers vouch him no more of his purchases, and double ones too, than the length and breadth of a pair of indentures? The very conveyances of his lands will scarcely lie in this box; and must the inheritor himself have no more, ha?

HORATIO. Not a jot more, my lord.

HAMLET. Is not parchment made of sheep-skins?

HORATIO. Ay, my lord, and of calf-skins too.

HAMLET. They are sheep and calves which seek out assurance in that. I will speak to this fellow.—Whose grave’s this, sir?

FIRST CLOWN. Mine, sir. [_Sings._] O, a pit of clay for to be made For such a guest is meet.

HAMLET. I think it be thine indeed, for thou liest in’t.

FIRST CLOWN. You lie out on’t, sir, and therefore ’tis not yours. For my part, I do not lie in’t, yet it is mine.

HAMLET. Thou dost lie in’t, to be in’t and say it is thine. ’Tis for the dead, not for the quick; therefore thou liest.

FIRST CLOWN. ’Tis a quick lie, sir; ’t will away again from me to you.

HAMLET. What man dost thou dig it for?

FIRST CLOWN. For no man, sir.

HAMLET. What woman then?

FIRST CLOWN. For none neither.

HAMLET. Who is to be buried in’t?

FIRST CLOWN. One that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she’s dead.

HAMLET. 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 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?

FIRST CLOWN. Of all the days i’ th’ year, I came to’t that day that our last King Hamlet o’ercame Fortinbras.

HAMLET. How long is that since?

FIRST CLOWN. Cannot you tell that? Every fool can tell that. It was the very day that young Hamlet was born,—he that is mad, and sent into England.

HAMLET. Ay, marry, why was he sent into England?

FIRST CLOWN. Why, because he was mad; he shall recover his wits there; or if he do not, it’s no great matter there.

HAMLET. Why?

FIRST CLOWN. ’Twill not be seen in him there; there the men are as mad as he.

HAMLET. How came he mad?

FIRST CLOWN. Very strangely, they say.

HAMLET. How strangely?

FIRST CLOWN. Faith, e’en with losing his wits.

HAMLET. Upon what ground?

FIRST CLOWN. Why, here in Denmark. I have been sexton here, man and boy, thirty years.

HAMLET. How long will a man lie i’ th’earth ere he rot?

FIRST CLOWN. Faith, if he be not rotten before he die,—as we have many pocky corses nowadays that will scarce hold the laying in,—he will last you some eight year or nine year. A tanner will last you nine year.

HAMLET. Why he more than another?

FIRST CLOWN. Why, sir, his hide is so tann’d 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 skull now; this skull hath lain in the earth three-and-twenty years.

HAMLET. Whose was it?

FIRST CLOWN. A whoreson, mad fellow’s it was. Whose do you think it was?

HAMLET. Nay, I know not.

FIRST CLOWN. A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! A pour’d a flagon of Rhenish on my head once. This same skull, sir, was Yorick’s skull, the King’s jester.

HAMLET. This?

FIRST CLOWN. E’en that.

HAMLET. Let me see. [_Takes the skull._] 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 table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning? Quite chop-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.—Prithee, Horatio, tell me one thing.

HORATIO. What’s that, my lord?

HAMLET. Dost thou think Alexander looked o’ this fashion i’ th’earth?