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- HAMLET PRINCE OF DENMARK
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- Act 4 Scene 7
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- (Enter King Claudius and Laertes)
- l1l King Claudius Now must your conscience my acquittance seal,
- l2l And you must put me in your heart for friend,
- l3l Sith you have heard, and with a knowing ear,
- l4l That he which hath your noble father slain
- l5l Pursued my life.
- Laertes It well appears. But tell me
- l6l Why you proceeded not against these feats,
- l7l So crimeful and so capital in nature,
- l8l As by your safety, wisdom, all things else,
- l9l You mainly were stirred up.
- King Claudius O, for two special reasons,
- l10l Which may to you perhaps seem much unsinewed,
- l11l And yet to me theyÆre strong. The Queen his mother
- l12l Lives almost by his looks; and for myselfù
- l13l My virtue or my plague, be it either whichù
- l14l SheÆs so conjunctive to my life and soul
- l15l That, as the star moves not but in his sphere,
- l16l I could not but by her. The other motive
- l17l Why to a public count I might not go
- l18l Is the great love the general gender bear him,
- l19l Who, dipping all his faults in their affection,
- l20l Would, like the spring that turneth wood to stone,
- l21l Convert his guilts to graces; so that my arrows,
- l22l Too slightly timbered for so loud a wind,
- l23l Would have reverted to my bow again,
- l24l And not where I had aimed them.
- l25l Laertes And so have I a noble father lost,
- l26l A sister driven into despÆrate terms,
- l27l Who has, if praises may go back again,
- l28l Stood challenger, on mount, of all the age
- l29l For her perfections. But my revenge will come.
- l30l King Claudius Break not your sleeps for that. You must not think
- l31l That we are made of stuff so flat and dull
- l32l That we can let our beard be shook with danger,
- l33l And think it pastime. You shortly shall hear more.
- l34l I loved your father, and we love ourself.
- l35l And that, I hope, will teach you to imagineù
- (Enter a Messenger with letters)
- l36l How now? What news?
- Messenger Letters, my lord, from Hamlet.
- l37l This to your majesty; this to the Queen.
- l38l King Claudius From Hamlet? Who brought them?
- l39l Messenger Sailors, my lord, they say. I saw them not.
- l40l They were given me by Claudio. He received them.
- l41l King Claudius Laertes, you shall hear them.ùLeave us.
- (Exit Messenger)
- l42l (Reads) ôHigh and mighty, you shall know I am set
- l43l naked on your kingdom. Tomorrow shall I beg leave
- l44l to see your kingly eyes, when I shall, first asking your
- l45l pardon, thereunto recount thÆ occasions of my sudden
- l46l and more strange return.
- l47l Hamlet.ö
- l48l What should this mean? Are all the rest come back?
- l49l Or is it some abuse, and no such thing?
- l50l Laertes Know you the hand?
- King Claudius ÆTis HamletÆs character.
- l51l ôNakedöùand in a postscript here he says
- l52l ôAloneö. Can you advise me?
- l53l Laertes IÆm lost in it, my lord. But let him come.
- l54l It warms the very sickness in my heart
- l55l That I shall live and tell him to his teeth,
- l56l ôThus diddest thouö.
- King Claudius If it be so, Laertesù
- l57l As how should it be so, how otherwise?ù
- l58l Will you be ruled by me?
- l59l Laertes If so youÆll not oÆerrule me to a peace.
- l60l King Claudius To thine own peace. If he be now returned,
- l61l As checking at his voyage, and that he means
- l62l No more to undertake it, I will work him
- l63l To an exploit, now ripe in my device,
- l64l Under the which he shall not choose but fall;
- l65l And for his death no wind of blame shall breathe;
- l66l But even his mother shall uncharge the practice
- l67l And call it accident. Some two months since
- l68l Here was a gentleman of Normandy.
- l69l IÆve seen myself, and served against, the French,
- l70l And they can well on horseback; but this gallant
- l71l Had witchcraft in Æt. He grew into his seat,
- l72l And to such wondrous doing brought his horse
- l73l As had he been incorpsed and demi-natured
- l74l With the brave beast. So far he passed my thought
- l75l That I in forgery of shapes and tricks
- l76l Come short of what he did.
- Laertes A Norman was Æt?
- l77l King Claudius A Norman.
- l78l Laertes Upon my life, Lamord.
- King Claudius The very same.
- l79l Laertes I know him well. He is the brooch indeed,
- l80l And gem, of all the nation.
- King Claudius He made confession of you,
- l81l And gave you such a masterly report
- l82l For art and exercise in your defence,
- l83l And for your rapier most especially,
- l84l That he cried out Ætwould be a sight indeed
- l85l If one could match you. Sir, this report of his
- l86l Did Hamlet so envenom with his envy
- l87l That he could nothing do but wish and beg
- l88l Your sudden coming oÆer to play with him.
- l89l Now, out of thisù
- Laertes What out of this, my lord?
- l90l King Claudius Laertes, was your father dear to you?
- l91l Or are you like the painting of a sorrow,
- l92l A face without a heart?
- Laertes Why ask you this?
- l93l King Claudius Not that I think you did not love your father,
- l94l But that I know love is begun by time,
- l95l And that I see, in passages of proof,
- l96l Time qualifies the spark and fire of it.
- l97l Hamlet comes back. What would you undertake
- l98l To show yourself your fatherÆs son in deed
- l99l More than in words?
- Laertes To cut his throat iÆ thÆ church.
- l100l King Claudius No place indeed should murder sanctuarize.
- l101l Revenge should have no bounds. But, good Laertes,
- l102l Will you do this?ùkeep close within your chamber.
- l103l Hamlet returned shall know you are come home.
- l104l WeÆll put on those shall praise your excellence,
- l105l And set a double varnish on the fame
- l106l The Frenchman gave you; bring you, in fine, together,
- l107l And wager on your heads. He, being remiss,
- l108l Most generous, and free from all contriving,
- l109l Will not peruse the foils; so that with ease,
- l110l Or with a little shuffling, you may choose
- l111l A sword unbated, and, in a pass of practice,
- l112l Requite him for your father.
- Laertes I will do Æt,
- l113l And for that purpose IÆll anoint my sword.
- l114l I bought an unction of a mountebank
- l115l So mortal that, but dip a knife in it,
- l116l Where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare,
- l117l Collected from all simples that have virtue
- l118l Under the moon, can save the thing from death
- l119l That is but scratched withal. IÆll touch my point
- l120l With this contagion, that if I gall him slightly,
- l121l It may be death.
- King Claudius LetÆs further think of this;
- l122l Weigh what convenience both of time and means
- l123l May fit us to our shape. If this should fail,
- l124l And that our drift look through our bad performance,
- l125l ÆTwere better not essayed. Therefore this project
- l126l Should have a back or second that might hold
- l127l If this should blast in proof. Soft, let me see.
- l128l WeÆll make a solemn wager on your cunnings . . .
- l129l I ha Æt! When in your motion you are hot and dryù
- l130l As make your bouts more violent to that endù
- l131l And that he calls for drink, IÆll have prepared him
- l132l A chalice for the nonce, whereon but sipping,
- l133l If he by chance escape your venomed stuck,
- l134l Our purpose may hold there.ù
- (Enter Queen Gertrude)
- How now, sweet Queen?
- l135l Queen Gertrude One woe doth tread upon anotherÆs heel,
- l136l So fast they follow. Your sisterÆs drowned, Laertes.
- l137l Laertes Drowned? O, where?
- l138l Queen Gertrude There is a willow grows aslant a brook
- l139l That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream.
- l140l Therewith fantastic garlands did she make
- l141l Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples,
- l142l That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
- l143l But our cold maids do dead menÆs fingers call them.
- l144l There on the pendent boughs her crownet weeds
- l145l ClambÆring to hang, an envious sliver broke,
- l146l When down the weedy trophies and herself
- l147l Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide,
- l148l And mermaid-like a while they bore her up;
- l149l Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes,
- l150l As one incapable of her own distress,
- l151l Or like a creature native and endued
- l152l Unto that element. But long it could not be
- l153l Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
- l154l Pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay
- l155l To muddy death.
- l156l Laertes Alas, then is she drowned.
- l157l Queen Gertrude Drowned, drowned.
- l158l Laertes Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia,
- l159l And therefore I forbid my tears. But yet
- l160l It is our trick; nature her custom holds,
- l161l Let shame say what it will.
- (He weeps) When these are gone,
- l162l The woman will be out. Adieu, my lord.
- l163l I have a speech of fire that fain would blaze,
- l164l But that this folly douts it.
- (Exit)
- King Claudius LetÆs follow, Gertrude.
- l165l How much I had to do to calm his rage!
- l166l Now fear I this will give it start again;
- l167l Therefore letÆs follow.
- (Exeunt)
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