Hamlet

live and tell him to his teeth,

“Thus didest thou.”

King

If it be so, Laertes⁠—

As how should it be so? how otherwise?⁠—

Will you be ruled 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 of blame shall breathe,

But even his mother shall uncharge the practice

And call it accident.



Laertes

My lord, I will be ruled;

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 served 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 he had been incorpsed and demi-natured

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, Lamond.


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 especial,

That he cried out, ’twould be a sight indeed,

If one could match you: the scrimers of their nation,

He swore, had had neither motion, guard, nor eye,

If you opposed 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 plurisy,

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’ the 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’ the 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

That 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 should 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 prepared 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 hoar leaves in the glassy stream;

There with fantastic garlands did she come

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 pendent boughs her coronet weeds

Clambering 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 chanted 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.