Hamlet

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 be 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 can 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 funeral⁠—

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.



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, an’t please him. There’s a letter for you, sir; it comes from the 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 speed 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.



Come, I will make 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

Pursued 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 loved 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 received 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. 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.



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’m lost in it, my lord. But let him come;

It warms the very sickness in my heart,

That I shall