Act IV.
Scene V.
Scene V.—Elsinore. A Room in the Castle.
Enter QUEEN, HORATIO, and a Gentleman.
Queen. I will not speak with her.
Gent. She is importunate, indeed distract:
Her mood will needs be pitied.
Queen. What would she have?
Gent. She speaks much of her father; says
she hears
There's tricks i' the world; and hems, and beats
her heart;
Spurns enviously at straws; speaks things in
doubt,
That carry but half sense: her speech is nothing,
Yet the unshap'd use of it doth move
The hearers to collection; they aim at it,
And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts;
Which, as her winks, and nods, and gestures
yield them,
Indeed would make one think there might be
thought,
Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.
Hor. 'Twere good she were spoken with, for
she may strew
Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.
Queen. Let her come in. [Exit Gentleman.
To my sick soul, as sin's true nature is,
Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss:
So full of artless jealousy is guilt,
It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.
Re-enter Gentleman, with OPHELIA.
Oph. Where is the beauteous majesty of
Denmark?
Queen. How now, Ophelia!
Oph. How should I your true love know
From another one?
By his cockle hat and staff,
And his sandal shoon.
Queen. Alas! sweet lady, what imports this
song?
Oph. Say you? nay, pray you, mark.
He is dead and gone, lady,
He is dead and gone;
At his head a grass-green turf,
At his heela a stone.
O, ho!
Queen. Nay, but Ophelia,—
Oph. Pray you, mark.
White his shroud as the mountain snow,—
Enter KING.
Queen. Alas! look here, my lord.
Oph. Larded with sweet flowers;
Which bewept to the grave did go
With true-love showers.
King. How do you, pretty lady?
Oph. Well, God 'ild you! They say the owl
was a baker's daughter. Lord! we know what
we are, but know not what we may be. God be
at your table!
King. Conceit upon her father.
Oph. Pray you, let's have no words of this; but
when they ask you what it means, say you this:
To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day,
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,
To be your Valentine:
Then up he rose, and donn'd his clothes,
And dupp'd the chamber door;
Let in the maid, that out a maid
Never departed more.
King. Pretty Ophelia!
Oph. Indeed, la! without an oath, I'll make
an end on't:
By Gis and by Saint Charity,
Alack, and fie for shame!
Young men will do't, if they come to't;
By Cock they are to blame.
Quoth she, before you tumbled me,
You promis'd me to wed:
So would I ha' done, by yonder sun,
An thou hadst not come to my bed.
King. How long hath she been thus?
Oph. I hope all will be well. We must be
patient: but I cannot choose but weep, to think
they should lay him i' the cold ground. My
brother shall know of It: and so I thank you
for your good counsel. Come, my coach! Good-
night, ladies; good-night, sweet ladies; good-
night, good-night. [Exit.
King. Follow her close; give her good watch,
I pray you. [Exit HORATIO.
O! this is the poison of deep grief; it springs
All from her father's death. O Gertrude, Ger-
trude!
When sorrows come, they come not single
spies,
But in battalions. First, her father slain;
Next, your son gone; but he most violent
author
Of his own just remove: the people muddied,
Thick and unwholesome in their thoughts and
whispers,
For good Polonius' death; and we have done
but greenly,
In hugger-mugger to inter him: poor Ophelia
Divided from herself and her fair judgment,
Without the which we are pictures, or mere
beasts:
Last, and as much containing as all these,
Her brother is in secret come from France,
Feeds on his wonder, keeps himself in clouds,
And wants not buzzers to infect his ear
With pestilent speeches of his father's death;
Wherein necessity, of matter beggar'd,
Will nothing stick our person to arraign
In ear and ear. O my dear Gertrude! this,
Like to a murdering-piece, in many places
Gives me superfluous death. [A noise within.
Queen. Alack! what noise is this?
Enter a Gentleman.
King. Where are my Switzers? Let them
guard the door.
What is the matter?
Gen. 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 ratiflers 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 the king? Sirs, stand you all
without.
Danes. No, let's come in.
Laer. I pray you, give me leave.
Danes. We will, we will.
[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 pro-
claims 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,
Why thou art thus incens'd Let him go,
Gertrude.
Speak, man.
Laer. Where is my father?
King. Dead.
Queen. But not by him.
King. Let him demand his fill.
Laer. How came he dead? I'll not be juggled
with.
To hell, 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:
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, swoopstake, 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.
King. Why, now you speak
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 pierce
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 turn 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 'tis fine
It sends some precious instance of itself
After the thing it loves.
Oph. They bore him barefac'd on the bier;
Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny;
And In his grave rain'd many a tear;—
Fare you well, my dove!
Laer. Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade
revenge,
It could not move thus.
Oph. You must sing, a-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.
Laer. This nothing's more than matter.
Oph. There's rosemary, that's for remem-
brance; pray, love, remember: and there is
pansies, that's for thoughts.
Laer. A document in madness, thoughts and
remembrance fitted.
Oph. 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
may wear your rue with a difference. There's a
daisy; I would give you some violets, but they
withered all when my father died. They say he
made a good end,—
For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.
Laer. Thought and affliction, passion, hell
itself,
She turns to favour and to prettiness.
Oph. 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 hia soul!
And of all Christian souls! I pray God. God be
wi' ye! [Exit.
Laer. 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.
Laer. 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 the offence is let the great axe fall.
I pray you go with me. [Exeunt.
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